#I mean okay rickrolling can be funny

[cheeseknives]

Instagram keeps showing me reels of someone with a handle named something like jamesmaythristtraps and like, they are truly doing gods work but I can't like or comment on these masterpieces because I know what kind of snitch of an app it is 😔

[wellbelesbian]

carry on pornbots, what we know:

okay, so i’m sure many of you have noticed the carry on pornbot phenomenon that’s started happening, and i’m obsessed, so here is what i’ve put together so far. big thanks to the folks in the carry on server who found all the bots (at least, i think that’s all of them) and decoded some stuff!

if you’d rather see this all unfold for yourself, don’t click read more. but if you want to catch up or just keep your head straight, here’s everything i know:

so, the bots we know of so far, in no particular order. are:

Gareth @bucklemeup342

Daphne @strawberry-spreader-342

Natasha @headmistress-pitch-342

Smith Smith-Richards @the-real-chosen-one-422

The Minotaur @greekfurry342

Lamb @i-assure-you-im-real-223

Braden @youre-an-apocryphal-concept-223

Mitali @head-milf-in-charge-342

Jeff the were-badger @stay-out-of-the-quiet-zone-223

Ginger @level-me-up-223

Lady Ruth @i-eat-the-cake-422

Ebb @other-girls-definitely-count-342

also worth noting @real-cryptid-friend-shep-239, but we will get back to him.

we still don’t know what the numbers in these names mean.

most of the links in the urls lead to the ao3 page for their respective character or a ship they are involved in (for example Braden and Lamb both take you to their ship tag, which is woefully empty). however Jeff’s takes you to his ao3, the imdb page for I Was A Teenage Wereskunk and the wikipedia page for Carhenge.

so, the bots started appearing a few days ago, i think i got my first follow from one on boxing day, or maybe the day after. i didn’t pick up on the first few and blocked them. like many people, they came to my attention when Rainbow posted about them.

since then, Lamb, Braden and Mitali have been active.

first, Braden and Lamb had this exchange:

then Mitali responded to this ask from @thewholelemon

i messaged Ebb asking her to open her asks, and a few hours later when i checked again, all the asks that had previously been closed, such as Ebb and Daphne, had them opened. I’ve sent an ask to Ebb but she hasn’t responded yet.

then Braden reblogged this aftg art

i presume this was an accident and whoever is behind this meant to post it to their main account. or maybe it was a hint? Braden later added:

now seems like a good time to mention that Braden is double verified, which means not only time and effort but money has gone into this. i truly applaud whoever is behind it!

Braden also responded to another ask. this one is anonymous so it could have been sent by anyone.

finally, Gareth just posted this

and then there’s Shepard…

so, this account that resembled the others and was impersonating Shepard was found. in his bio is the link to his ao3 page and a rickroll.

but it isn’t like the others. it was created 3 months ago, it hasn’t followed anyone, and it posted some puzzles.

the first was this

which @raenestee figured out was hexadecimal code and spells out ‘Las Vegas’.

then came

which @thewholelemon worked out was page, line and word numbers in Wayward Son. that spells out “This is not Shepard”

then finally there was this wordsearch

@onepintobean found the word ‘contact’, then @yellobb solved the rest

and that’s all Shepard has given us. it’s funny, but personally, i don’t think it’s the same person/people behind this account as it is behind all the others.

but that’s it for now! i’ve reached the limit for photos i can add and that’s about all the information i can think of. i might add to this, we’ll see how complicated it gets. but either way it’s a lot of fun, especially to keep track of in real time. massive kudos to whoever is running all this!

[v0idl1nq]

Rickrolling Sundrop (I don't know what 'm doing-)

I'm sleepy and I feel like I'm drunk but i'm not so heyyy-

Hope you guys like it- I did this out of boredom

Credit to @sunshineistyping for the idea!

Request: Nope

Type of Post: Headcanon

Fandom: FNAF-Security Breach

Reader: Gender-Neutral

Trigger Warning/s: None

so first of all, he would cRy and I mean 'burst into tears fall on the floor and hit it' kind of crying ya' know??

He would sulk in the corner while looking back at you from time to time to playfully glare

Moondrop would hate you for what you did- I mean you made sundrop all whiny so when the lights turn off all he can hear is "I don't get why my sunshine did that!!" or "I don't like what they diddddd it's so unusual?? I don't understand why they find it funny?? sunshine is sooo weird sometimes ya' know??"

As much as he loves you he doesn't really like it when Sundrop starts whining/complaining in his head-

[Reader] walked around looking for Sundrop, hoping to be able to jokingly rickroll him since [Reader] knew he didn't know what it was. When [Reader] finally saw Sundrop they ran up to him shouting their name "Sunny! Sunny!!" they tripped, but Sundrop was able to luckily catch them on time as he looked at them confused and was about to ask if their okay, but [Reader] suddenly looked up in excitement as they said "Sunny! Sunny! watch this video please!". [Reader] held up the phone in front of their face as [Reader] waited for him to agree in excitement and happiness.

Sundrop smiled as he nodded happily and said "I don't know why you want me to watch this but sure thing sunshine!", [Reader] held up the phone as they played the video and let it play as they watched Sundrop look at their phone so focused. When the rickroll started Sun looked baffled- he was confused as to what was going on his mind was just him panicking, wondering what's happening, and Moondrop getting really annoyed by the video telling him to turn it off. "Sun turn it off! off! this d*** video is annoying as h***!!!" Moondrop said as he threw a tantrum.

He didn't turn it off since he was crying and looking at you with betrayal in his eyes, Sundrop pointed at you and started rambling on about how he doesn't know what's happening and why you did this as he overdramatically cries out loud.

[batarangsoundsdumb]

yet another ask dump yeehaw!

do you ever think that jay's mother was one of those bitch who believes in horoscope and tarots and things like that and so he believes in these things too, or it is just me projecting?

sheila haywood took one look at jason's birthchart said 'nah this won't do' and left.

Wait, but what happens when the justice league does find out that Bruce and John fucked? Lmao it sounds like it would be hilarious, really, I don’t want a justice league that doesn’t make fun of Bruce for like his entire life.

barry runs out of the meeting immediately and comes back with an entire sti testing kit. diana fully seriously wants bruce to get tested while bruce is sitting there like 'come on guys, you're being ridiculous, i already checked twice'

john is standing in the corner clearly offended while bruce is just like 'don't even say anything, constantine, you fucked a shark'

tim was like "i'm drake now" and everyone was like ahh so your fursona is a dragon and tim was like pffffft no. ducks.

on the one hand, good for him, on the other hand, bro, how do you still have a secret identity when your superhero name is just your last name,,,,

Your fic on ao3 was GOLD PLEASE CONTINUE I loved Dinah's cameo btw ( @purple-vixen

thanks so much! i already continued but this ask is like 10 years old because i'm a notorious procrastinator (also yes! i love dinah so much aahhhhhhhhhhhh)

I've FINALLY been watching the Batman animated series and I gotta say, after watching "the gray ghost" I am CONVINCED that Batman is a closeted super hero geek who was 100% freaking out the first time he met Superman and is just REALLY good at hiding it.

bruce internally: holy fuck holy shit holy fuck holy shit holy fuck holy shit holy fuck holy shit holy fuck holy shit bruce externally: get out of my city, alien

AHHH ur multimedia fic is the only thing that brings me happiness anymore continue it forever pls

uhh thanks, but can't continue it forever because my attention span is that of a toddler on crack on a good day and i can't function without at least 10 things going on at the same time and music in the background

Oi, so I'm getting into dc and watching batman the animated series, and they use fruitcake a lot. Which I thought was very funny and wanted to share w you - Denilla

wait like fruitcake (food) or fruitcake (derogatory) ?

young justice 🤝 teen titans slut shaming batman

tim drake and dick grayson to their respective teams 'you guys stop it, that's my dad'

Happyhoganon: If an eighty year old Batman had fought crime in Gotham City for decades and the only threats to him and the city lately are a wheel chair bounded Penguin, your usual purse snatchers and a few con artists popping up every now and then, how well could the Dark Knight do in maintaining the peace in Gotham despite him being just somewhat fit to do that as an elderly man (which says A LOT given how old he is)

uhh he'll probably do what my grandpa does and that is ruthlessly prank them until they die of shame.

in the death in the family interactive movie there's an ending where Jason is tasked with raising Damian and he decides he's gonna raise Damian to take down the waynes and al ghuls which uh maybe isn't great BUT the idea of Jason raising Damian... PRICELESS. CHAOTIC. I just need more people to know about this :)

yes i saw that wow holy shit but jason would accidentally drop damian on his head one (1) hour in and jason just yeets him into the lazarus pit.

Headcanon: The Penguin has a really hard time fighting any of the Robins because of his avian obsession means there's always a small part of his mind that's like "Birb. Child. Protect" ( @subspacecadet )

as soon as dick becomes nightwing the penguin is like 'you know what, fuck this dude' and shoots at him.

Y'all talking about King Shark dating Constantine, let's not forget about John literally hooking up with Satan

listen there's a clear difference between monsterfucker and satanfucker in that king shark is literally a shark and satan still looks like a normal dude

Does everyone in Gotham think Batman is a teen dad?

everyone in gotham thinks batman has been around since gotham was founded, but they do think that bruce wayne is actually a teen father and dick grayson's biological dad.

why. why would you do that fancast when you know it will only hurt people

what? i loved my fancast it was really well done. i did it with good representation in mind and i really managed that with alfred pennyworth being ✨italian✨

Seeing james charles a jason gave me psychic damage how dare you i need to wash my eyes

well that's a you problem isn't it?

do you think dick grayson thirst tweets about nightwing just to annoy his family/cause problems on purpose in general?

he thinks nightwing is hot, next question.

holy jiminy cricket batman, its as cold as the good lords ass crack in here!!

i- what? this is why i don't fuck with english expressions it's way too goddamn weird

Brooooooo, your teen dad!Bruce au is soooo good. I've got brainrot.

Honestly if you ever write anymore, I'd read that shit twice. Sign me the fuck up. Good stuff, Good Stuff.

uh yeah i'm thinking about writing a fic, but i have exams coming up and i don't wanna fail because that would suck. but after i'll certainly be writing more tho

your teen dad AU is so great! bruce acting like a big brother for all of like a week before he's telling everyone about his son. what if in the AU dick meets the JL because they need to rescue him? maybe he's in trouble/kidnapped at a gala and bruce starts calling for JL. clark finds him and has to fly with dick to bring him home - that's how dick and clark meet and superman becomes dick's fave hero. he goes around the manor thinking he can fly with a red blanket draped around him like a cape.

actually- if you want a young dad! bruce fic with like that kinda stuff(just with damian) go check uhh- in for a penny by cdelphiki. it's really good and bruce is like 24/25-ish. (and dick's there!!!)

This account has solely convinced me that Tim is a trash goblin ( @hamilcat-and-magic-turtle )

because he is. that boy has slept in dumpsters on multiple occasions even if he is the son of a billionaire.

Okay but when you said victory dance I did think of the whole justice league defeating the big bad and then they all start flossing

well that's exactly what hal jordan does and that's why batman uses a gun now. no but the victory dance in my opinion is like the 'we're all in this together' dance from high school musical.

The horrors in Invincible s1 was nothing compared to the comics, I cant wait for s2

oh well okay, i mean i personally react to horror and violence by laughing awkwardly so i can't wait to be called a monster for accidentally laughing at a mass murder.

I'm currently watching Batman: The Brave and The Bold and- Bruce is just talking about Oliver like he's an old love (@nightwings-kid)

okay im going to watch that lmao that's totally and completely in character for him tho.

The invincible comic is like super gratuitous with its violence so much so I'm shocked the show was able to adapt it in a faithful way! Anyway had the show been live action it absolutely wouldn't have the same impact as it does as an animated show and I'm so glad so many people agree with me on that

also because a live action casting would've been like uhh amanda stenberg for amber, the dude- the guy from the supernatural but with a mustache for omni-man, and scarlet johanssen for debbie grayson

Debbie grayson is a milf, yes. You're welcome for the invincible propoganda, now you can questions your life. Bruce def seems like the perfect father next to Omni-man. Like they really took a rip off justice league and I was like well, now I'm attached even tho I was like hah I know who they're supposed to be. And then bam- death gore death gore gore gore sad Mark grayson just had to have daddy issues. Why does every character have daddy issues. I'm sick of the attacks

because daddy issues make a person arguably funnier, that's why i'm not even remotely funny (haha good dad flex). i liked that it was dark contextually, but not in the colouring, bc i hate when it's like 'uh yeah graphic murder and now a shot so dark you have to sit in a dark room and squint at the screen to faintly see the characters. (like dcau ugh)

About the Wayne insurance, for a moment I thought you would put the video with moans over the waves.

i mean- i could've done that, but rick rolling seemed more family friendly.

Its the first time in forever that im surpise rickrolled, i usually expect it. Congratulations (i really should know better this is tumblr)

i get rickrolled so often but i actually like the song so i dont really give a fuck

Actually, my information about Damian and John's kids is outdated because it was revealed that the old men telling the kids stories about the Supersons were actually Jon and Damian the whole time. I was blinded by my thirst for Grandpa!Bruce Wayne but I was wrong... I liked my version better, tbh (@artemisa97)

fair enough. but i'd honestly like to see damian and jon getting together, just because it's a really fun dynamic and their friendship was really cute when they were kids. (also idk maybe it would be nice to have one (1) main batfam/superfam character that's not cishet)

How am i JUST finding your blog skdskfkd you're so fucking funny and ur takes are hot

i thought u were calling me hot :( but youre not :( crime detected (but lmao thanks)

So I have depression and I swear that your memes are one of the few things that have made me laugh so thank you 💛🥺 (@katekanebadass)

aw you're welcome, and i hope you're doing okay!

The metropolis memes are so funny, I love them 💀😌

i think metropolis is also so fucking funny it deserves more attention imagine having your entire police force being upstaged by an alien from kansas and his kids

as an american i feel your complete lack of knowledge of us geography is just so sexy (platonic) ❤️

thanks so much (i also don't know any other geography, i'm not kidding, like you can tell me you're from hungary and it will just blank, there will be nothing that comes to mind)

In the DC universe they don't say "Can't have shit in Detroit" they say "Can't have shit in Gotham"

this just reminds me of that guy whose porch got stolen like the steps to his door, and i'm thinking of people living in gotham and waking up without a front door and going "can't have shit in gotham"

honestly all i know about chicago is the bean, so. what would gotham's famous sculpture be?

gigantic gargoyle statue in front of one of the police precincts because a villain thought it was a smart way to keep the police inside, but it's too heavy to move.

why tf do people go on about how batman "works alone" or how he's the "lone wolf" when he like 38290202 members in his family

bc people think it's cool that a grown man in his 30s has no friends or family instead of calling it what it is (sad)

Bruce is gotham's sugar daddy

why would say something so controversial yet so brave.

my favorite batfamily fanfictions are the ones where they use their shitty codenames, unironically, in any context

dick: gerard way are you in position, gerard way are you in position

tim: for the last fucking time, my codename is 'totally not count olaf' this week, abbafan 3000

dick: shut up my codename isn't 'abbafan 3000'

dick: it's 'abbafan number 1' and you know it

I have a feeling Tim drake is ur favourite batfamily member but okay u don't have favs if u say so ok

i mean he is, i won't deny it. but i love each and every one of the batfam just the same, i just have a weak spot for short dumbass nerds, because i'm a short dumbass nerd.

Omg i fuckin love boy meets world too fam shsjkfk

bro boy meets world was the shit!!! it was just fire and awesome and so fucking great like bro. it was so good im not even going to be accepting criticism

you know I find the whole "joker completes batman" thing a bit disgusting considering the horrendous stuff the batfamily went through because of the joker and let's not get started on the "joker has a point" thing like yeah he's this cool complex villain but he's absolutely batshit crazy

like yes! i get what you mean the joker just fucking sucks man he doesn't do shit for batman's character or the batfam he's literally just annoying as fuck. like the joker has a point' shit is so stupid. i will accept 'magneto was right' because he fucking was and i think he didn't do anything wrong, but joker? he's just like that. he's not even cool and complex he's just a weirdo with a bleach kink at this point.

ALSO YOUR RACISM POST- SO TRUE BESTIE

thanks bestie, i'm glad you agree.

in today's essay of why I think cass should become batman- I was thinking Tim would probably be the most efficient batman in many ways but I also think he wouldn't want to be batman tbh none of the batfamily members would want to be batman because they're trying to outgrow him but cass is the one who wants to represent the symbol that is batman

absofuckinglutely i will say it again and again that cass represents the batsymbol more than anyone in the batfam, in batgirl (2000) she literally didn't care about anything else than bruce's oath to not kill, she thought the batsymbol was more important than anything in gotham. she's just an excellent character because her motivation to not kill is not 'i'm scared i can't come back from it' or 'well my dad says no murder so i'll go along with it' but that she's killed somebody as a young child and she never wants to kill a human ever again and that's so fucking beautiful for a new batman like yes.

need more cass, duke and tim inclusion in gothamite memes

yes yes, a tall order of cass, duke and tim coming up in 1-14 business days

oldest to youngest batfam members cus I'm confused as shit

okay order of being taken in: dick, jason, tim, cass, damian, duke order of age: alfred, bruce, dick, cass, jason, tim, duke, damian (though cass and jason are around the same age general consensus is that cass is a little older)

I'm so confused Steph is a redhead?? like how was it that hard to get this right? the source material is literally right there and free

cw is jared, 19

do you receive anon hate? if so, how do you deal with it

uh no, i'm not remotely popular enough to get anon hate and i also don't say a lot of things that would attract anon hate, but i do send anon hate to @the-real-peter-parker because he forgot about the specialists from winx club

Wait how many languages do you speak??

uhh- 5 if you include latin, but that's a dead language and i'm really bad at it. but english, my native language, german, and french also, tho german and french not fluently.

You can mix aguaepanela with aguardiente 😈 and is tasty

okay but now i'm curious if the liquor deserves the 😈 emoji or if that's a you problem. but i googled it and it looks like something you'd take one sip of and then not remember the rest of your evening.

[andorerso]

For rebelcaptain.

What’s your favorite au idea that you’ve never seen done? Whats you favorite au that you’ve considered writing? Could be something you’ve written or something you haven’t.

What’s your favorite “extra relationship” (platonic or romantic) in rebelcaptain fics?

Which fic made you laugh the most?

Which scene that you wrote is your favorite and why?

Thanks for all the fascinating and wonderful answers and sorry for asking so many questions. *reminder* You can answer as many or as few as you want too.

oh it's okay, talking about fics and Rebelcaptain are two of my favorite things!

What’s your favorite au idea that you’ve never seen done? there’s so many aus in this fandom, it’d be hard to choose, I feel like my absolute favorites have actually been done. but I’ll give you two AUs I’d love to see anyway: firstly an Outlander AU. I don’t even like Outlander to be perfectly honest, but I love the concept. Jyn travels back in time and meets sexy brooding and long dead (at least in her own time) Cassian. they slowly fall in love while she hunts for a way to go home and the dilemma arises, does she stay or does she go back?

secondly, a Good Behavior AU which I contemplated doing myself a couple of times. if you don’t know the show, I highly recommend it because I think anyone who likes Rebelcaptain would have a blast with it. it’s about a thief/con artist and an assassin, and I mean that’s already canon for Jyn and Cassian right there so it’d be the perfect AU. honestly the actors in the show even look like they could be alternate fancasts for Jyn and Cassian. so I just always wanted to see an AU like that for them.

What’s you favorite au that you’ve considered writing? Could be something you’ve written or something you haven’t. for something I’ve written, definitely the vampire au (and I honestly never expected to write it, it’s been on my mind since 2018) and the not quite supernatural au aka shadow preachers because monster hunters might just actually be my favorite genre ever and I had a blast writing it.

something I haven’t written but considered writing: there’s so many lmao. I have tons of ideas that don’t get done either because I don’t have the time or I don’t have the skills. right now, the king of the underworld Cassian AU is living in my brain rent free but a week later, it might be something else.

What’s your favorite “extra relationship” (platonic or romantic) in rebelcaptain fics? I don’t know if I have a favorite - actually no, I really don’t have a preference, but I do have many that I love. for romantic Chirrut/Baze obviously, and I also really like Bodhi/Luke. for platonic, Cassian & Kay is my ultimate favorite but Jyn & Bodhi is a very close second. I’m also super fond of Cassian & Leia. I feel like fics tend to pair Leia more often with Jyn (which I also love) but my heart just prefers Cassian & Leia, especially if it’s a situation where they don’t already know each other, I love it if it’s paired up like Cassian & Leia and Jyn & Han (aka what I did in the vampire au) lastly, special shutout to Cassian & Draven. such a complex and fascinating dynamic, personally I’m really fond of fics where Draven actually cares about Cassian, even if he doesn’t really show it or know how to show it.

Which fic made you laugh the most? the one where Jyn gets rickrolled but doesn’t realize it and thinks the song is actually good and takes it very seriously? an absolute GEM and it had me clutching my chest laughing. you can read it here if you wanna check it out and YOU SHOULD.

I’m also gonna plug Jordan @moonprincess92 here because I feel like her fics in general are just very funny, like if I’m thinking humor and Rebelcaptain, I always think of her

Which scene that you wrote is your favorite and why? honestly, I don’t really have a favorite, I’ve written so many things, it’d be hard to choose. one scene that came to my mind though is from shadow preachers aka the not quite supernatural au when the doubles who look like Jyn and Cassian make out in front of Jyn and Cassian and Jyn’s like.... yikes, why am I turned on, they’re about to murder us. it was so self-indulgent (the whole fic was) and I’m honestly very happy that I got to do that.

[marrys-dream-world]

if we’re bound to be something, why not together? (chapter 11)

Read on AO3

First / Previous / Next

Notes:  Double update to cheer up a bit! This chapter turned out much longer than I thought it would be, almost double the size of other chapters. No content warning, just fluff! The song "Blueming" by IU, I think this fits this chapter a lot so if you want a song to listen while you read, it's that! Day 11: Voice Mail/Phone calls. @ladynoirjuly

After their last patrol, Ladybug sent Chat Noir a link through their communicators.

[Download this!!] She sent along with it, eagerly waiting for him. 

[As my lady commands : D] He sent back almost immediately. 

That talk had been a bit of an eye-opener to Marinette. She was getting to know Chat Noir more and more each day and she treasured every bit of information she got, jealousy holding it close to chest, hesitating to write it even in her diary. He was a quiet student during class, he had a friend whose name was definitely not Sallie (ugh), his father was distant, his mother and mother-figure were out of reach. He was lonely. All this information was worrying, just not as much as what she learned that night. At that moment, with him shaking in her arms, she made a decision.

Being there for him just as Ladybug wasn't going to cut it anymore. 

This idea wasn't anything new, she had been playing with it in her mind for a while now. So when she sent him a chat room code through her communicator with other instructions and detransformed, she was fairly confident it would work. Picking up her phone, she smiles as she saw that there was already a message.

CN

My lady!! <3 <3 <3

LB

down, Chaton. :)

CN

I'm just mdlaomqnahsbsk

Is it okay, though? Talking like this?

LB

yeah, i've been testing this app with RR and it's fine, there's no way we'll leak our numbers or anything like that to each other. don't worry ;)

CN

This app is to warn each other about attacks and schedule meetings? Are you going to add RR to the chat?

LB

nah, i'll just make one for the 3 of us. this is one for us to talk and stuff, doesn't need to be about job things.  

The "CN is typing…" kept it's place on the screen for enough time for her to start getting worried. 

CN

You don't need to force yourself for my sake, bug. I don't want to bother you. 

Marinette thought about making a joke. The situation, however, didn't seem right for it. 

LB

you never bother me.

His response came almost immediately.

CN

You never texted me before.

LB

guess i'll have to learn what's the maximum amount of cat memes a person can humanely send per day

CN

Is that a challenge, my lady?

LB

;) ;) ;)

just remember to not blow up my phone, we have class

CN

I'll use my powers for good, don't worry : D

Marinette smiled and put down her phone, fixing up her bag for the next day on the chance (certainty) that she would wake up late the next day. When she picked the phone up again, there was a single text:

LB

Thank you, bug. Good night. 

He was absolutely unstoppable after that. Next morning, as she was brushing her teeth, her cell phone pinged with the telling sound from the app and she smiled as she opened the app on her phone. 

CN

Look, look, we can change each other's names.

LB

good to know

You changed "CN" 's name to "Chat-terbox"

Chat-terbox

You know me so well. Soulmates.

Chat-terbox changed your name to "lady of my heart"

lady of my heart

yeah, i should have seen that coming, that's on me. 

oh yeah, gm

Chat-terbox

Good morning <3 <3 <3

Are you in class already?

Marinette froze in place, eyes snapping to the clock. There was only ten minutes before the class started. She bolted, barely noticing if she had on the right shoes or if her jacket matched her pants. So much for being an aspiring designer. Marinette blurred past the kitchen, taking a croissant and a banana and cramming them into her mouth as she ran. She made it to the classroom in the middle of the roll call, not even stopping by the lockers.

“Thanks for joining us, Marinette.” Ms. Bustier said dryly. “Please take a seat.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” She answered, out of breath. Sitting down, she took out her tablet and noticed another message making her phone screen glow. 

Chat-terbox

Is everything okay?

lady of my heart

i made it late in class but the teacher let me in hehehe

i think she's used to it *forehead sweatdrop emoji*

Chat-terbox

Hahaha a friend of mine just did the same thing, you two are twins 

lady of my heart

let me guess… Sallie *eyeroll emoji*

Chat-terbox

I mean, yeah, but why the eyeroll???

lady of my heart

you just talk too much about her, don't you think

Chat-terbox

You sound just like Plagg.

lady of my heart

maybe bc we're right

Chat-terbox

Why does that bother you? Jealous? *eyes emoji*

lady of my heart

as if *kicks u*

Chat-terbox

You kick your partner? You kick his body like the football? Oh! Oh! Jail for my lady! Jail for my lady for One Thousand Years!

lady of my heart

since my fate is already decided *kicks u again*

Chat-terbox

Nooooooooo

A giggle escaped her mouth.

"Marinette?" Ms. Bustier raised an eyebrow. "Something you want to share with the class?"

"N-no, ma'am." She answered, face heating up. Marinette quietly put her phone away, ignoring Alya's prying eyes. 

She only opened the app again during the break between classes, moving away from a curious Alya to hang by Kim and Alíx. 

Chat-terbox

I'll assume you're actually paying attention to class, which is great. You probably need it to make up all those crazy plans ;)

SM beaten by ninth grade physics 

Hey, boo, did you see this one SM identity theory video making rounds on the internet?

Marinette frowned.

lady of my heart

there's nothing new on the ladyblog

Chat-terbox

Oh, it's not on the Ladyblog, here 

She opened the video as quickly as she could before Ms. Bustier came back, only from the sound to make Kim and Alíx burst out into laughter.

lady of my heart

i opened it in my class I hate u so muuuuuch ughhhhhh

Chat-terbox 

C'mon, boo, it was funny

lady of my heart

>: (

Chat-terbox

: 3

This time, she willingly put her phone away. 

On the next break, she tried to ignore the pinging from her phone. However, curiosity killed the cat(‘s lady).

Chat-terbox

Please don't be mad, my lady, I have written you a lengthy apology to make up for sins

File attachment: apology letter for my beloved.doc

lady of my heart

if it's another rickroll i swear to god i'll END you

Chat-terbox

You can see it's not a video, it's safe to open

Scout's honor

lady of my heart

u were never a scout

Chat-terbox

I could be!!

Please read <3

Sighing deeply, she clicked on the document. He would never shut up if she didn't. It read as:

l would like to offer my sincerest According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a bee should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The bee, of course, flies anyway because bees don't care what humans think is impossible…

She clicked back

Chat-terbox

Did you like it? :3

lady of my heart

…

blocked

Chat-terbox

Boo, noooooooo

After that, Marinette didn’t open the app again no matter how much her phone pinged. She wasn’t mad, not really, just a bit annoyed. Before lunch ended, she would read and answer. But now, she was stuck watching Alya and Nino play Super Penguino and make moon eyes at each other. Adrien wasn’t allowed to join them, as much as he begged his father, and she was feeling pretty bummed about that. She poked around her chicken pasta when she heard her phone playing a familiar song.

kore nani kore nani korenanikorenanikorenanikorenani-

Chat Noir!

"Is everything okay?" Marinette asked as soon as she picked up the phone. Alya and Nino, noticing her worried tone, paused their game to look at her. 

"You picked up!" Chat Noir said, cheery. "I thought you blocked me."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. "Is there actually something wrong? I'll hang up "

"No, wait!" He yelped. "There's nothing wrong, I just wanted to talk. Are you busy?"

Marinette looked over at Nino and Alya, who were still watching her expectantly. She smiles reassuringly and waved them away, furtively signaling to Alya that it was Chat Noir on the phone. Her friend nodded and bumped her shoulder on Nino's. 

"C'mon, babe, let Marinette talk to her 'friend' by herself." Alya said, leering. 

"Why did you say it like that?" Nino asked, confused. Then, his eyes lit up. "Is it Adrien? Tell him I said hi!"

"No!" Marinette shouted, gaining weird stares from the other patrons.

"No, you aren't busy?" Chat Noir asked on the phone.

"No, it's not Adrien, or no, you won't tell him I said hi?" Nino asked. 

"It's another friend." She said hurriedly before focusing on the phone. "I can talk now, not that busy."

"If you're with your friends, it's okay." He said, rather meekly for her chaton.

"I'm just third-wheeling." Marinette said as Alya and Nino began another round of Super Penguins. "Why did you call? Aren't you having lunch now?"

Chat Noir chuckled humorlessly. "Yeah, I'm having lunch at home and I'm all alone, so I thought I could give you a call. Is that too much?"

"No, it's fine." She reassured. "Why are you alone? What about your siblings?"

"What siblings?" He asked, genuinely confused. 

"Uh… the siblings I assumed you had for some reason." She said awkwardly, noticing how out there she sounded the more she spoke. 

"Really? You thought I had siblings? Why?"

"Because you're just like an annoying little brother." She said teasingly, a complete lie.

Chat Noir struck her as a mischievous, but supportive older brother. The kind that sneaked you treats after midnight and comforted you after failing a math test. Not like she could tell him that, though. If he was a little brother, it would be to a stressed older sister that he admired a lot and that found him reliable in return. She dreamed about meeting them sometimes and now it seemed that they would truly stay dreams forever. 

"I would like an older brother or sister." He sighed longingly. "The closest I have is my cousin, but he lives in another country."

"Oh, sorry."

"No, it's better this way, we would kill each other if we lived together. Everyday I would have to check for poison in my breakfast."

"A true sibling dynamic."

"Yep."

"Hey, why aren't you having lunch with your friends then?" With Sallie, she wanted to tease, but held back for fear of sounding, as Tikki said, bitter. 

"My father would rather I have lunch at home." He said vaguely. "My friends did invite me to go with them to a café, but my father didn't like the idea. He only likes one of them, the rest he says are bad influences."

"Let me guess, the one he likes is Sallie?"

"I can hear you rolling your eyes, but yes."

"Well, if you ever get lonely at lunch, you can call me." Marinette said honestly. "I don't mind it."

"Thank you." Chat Noir said softly.

They spent the rest of lunch talking on the phone, even sending pictures of their food to each other (Chat's limp salad made her take a bunch of mental notes to take him some pastries next patrol). On the way to school, as she walked to the classroom, they kept talking. She could hear Chat getting on a vehicle (a bus?) and when he got to school, she was disappointed he had to hang up. After Marinette clicked the end call button, the first thing she noticed when she looked up was Alya's smug face and Nino's confused one. 

"Wow, does my bro have some competition, dude?" Nino said. "You spent the entire break talking."

"What? No, that was just a friend!"

"Yeah, a friend." Alya sing-songed, making her face heat up.

"Yeah." Marinette said firmly. "There's no competition for anything."

"Who's competing?" A sweet voice asked from behind her and she jumped.

"Adrien!" She shouted, scrambling. "N-nothing hehe."

"Dude!" Nino smiled. "How was your lunch?"

Adrien smiled, brightly. "The best I've ever had."

Marinette felt inclined to agree. 

[ehbunnehsblog]

First off I just wanna say holy shiz! My last post did really good! So thank you guys for the support, liking, reblogging, following me and my content. I know it's just a basic nostalgia blog but it's really cool to know that some really like the stuff I post.

I always try to post stuff that is nostalgic to me but also stuff others might find nostalgic as well because this blog isn't just about me it's about you as well but anyways I saw this post a while back about what you searched up on YouTube as a kid and I thought hey why not do this myself! I thought it would be a neat little idea that would bring us together more and let you cool dudezzzzz get to know me so with all that said let's get to it! (Also I apologize if its absolutely cringe lol!)

1. Salad fingers

So pretty much everyone knows who and what salad fingers is we don't really have to get into it but idk how but I was just never scared of it. I remember as a child one of my friends was terrified of salad fingers yet I somehow was okay with it. I remember seeing a fake episode of it and it being a rickroll because that was sorta popular back than. I think salad fingers is pretty cool tbh its neat.

2. Wasabi Productions

This was a channel I frequented quite a bit. It had some really funny humor at the time I mean I was a kid so really anything was funny most of the time. The channel imo was just sorta random and the humor was pretty random. Humor in this era of YouTube was just something else lol.

3. Simply Spoons

Don't remember this one as much tbh but my friend at the time loved like absolutely LOVED One Direction and we would sometimes watch this channel and this person would do prank calls while trying to impersonate Harry Styles and etc. Because my friend at the time was super into 1D we checked out a lot of 1D content.

4. The Adventurous Adventures of One Direction

Another gem of 1D content was these videos. We watched them a lot everytime a new video came out we would check it out. I don't know if I have a lot to say about this channel except for that most of the content was 1D and cartoons. I think the person still posted some 1D videos so if you want to check it out I will leave links below.

5. SophieGTV

Okay imma get to it because I know what some of you guys are thinking yes I absolutely loved LPS Popular lol but actually just Sophie's stuff altogether I really liked also SHES CANADIAN LIKE ME! Not many youtubers I know are from Canada so that's really heccin cool but anyways I loved her channel as a kid if you were talking to lil me I would probably say shes my favorite YouTuber. Sophie doesn't post much anymore but I remember when EVERYONE wanted a face reveal but I hope she is doing well now. She posted one year ago but hasn't posted since.

6. LPS popular

Hunny you know it. You know it. *insert will Smith that's hot that's hot* I know i just posted that i loved this series but really though this was my YouTube childhood I was absolutely in love with this series. The tea! The tea! I can't I used to binge this series all the time I remember my old friend absolutely loved this channel. Dude I miss being a kid sometimes with a wild and wacky imagination if I were a kid again I would totally rebinge this series lol!

7. LPSHannah

This girls channel was also amazing I didn't watch her videos a lot but I definitely liked a good handful of em. Her channel was just really cool and she did a face reveal! I don't know when but its definitely surprising! She sadly stopped making videos though (just checked big sad) do to coppa but I hope what she is doing is making her really happy and all the best to her. You can now find her posting on Hannah's Haven.

8. NamanthaSuxx

I wanna say she is also Canadian but honestly I have zero clue. I used to watch her channel sometimes when she would post videos about Monster High because at the time I was into those dolls which idk for sure but I think might be coming back? Anyways i wasnt as into the channel as my friend who introduced me to Namantha's channel.

9. Jpopluvr1000

Okay idk if this persons channel was always named this but I remember looking at their channel because they made a lot of Bratz themed videos and well me I am a Bratz fan and I remember this person got I think all or almost every 10th anniversary Bratz doll and making a video on it. I was really into Bratz maybe even more than Monster High tbh like those dolls were made the year I was born. Getting real for a moment but it is crazy knowing that they will be having their 20th anniversary and I am really hyped for the new dolls like honestly I love the screening and it might even be better than the last dolls lol but anyways I loved this persons channel it was great.

10. Webkinz, LPS, Bratz and monster high pool party videos

This one is just one big group because all were under the same thing. I really liked and still like swimming and so that's probably why I liked these videos as a kid there are some I watched but can't remember the name of at the moment and YouTube doesn't let you make it so you can find old videos easily especially if you can't remember them. I did remember I watched StarryStarr33 and I think strawberry516 but I don't know about strawberry for sure.

11. Smosh

The duo Ian and Anthony were sorta like a must watch on YouTube back in the day. They were just really big and it was difficult to ignore how popular they were on the site for a while. I loved their Honey Boo Boo video and I also remember watching Ian and Anthony open things on another channel. The humor was also very YouTubery it probably wouldn't be good in professional stuff but for teens and kids at the time most of us thought it was pretty funny.

12. Bratz collection

Just like jpopluvr1000 I just really liked Bratz dolls and collections of them.

13. LPS music videos

Didn't matter what it was I loved LPS as a kid so I was willing to watch anything with them.

14. KyleMonkey

My sister showed me this weird dude who made a video with him just eating chapstick and another of him farting, spitting out grapes and just being crazy and yeah honestly idk what to say about this dude lol

15. Key of Awesome

Didn't check them out a whole lot tbh but I enjoyed some of their parodies

16. Fred

Everyone acts like the didn't watch him but you know some of them have. I liked watching his videos as a kid I remember when one of them was rated for older people for no reason. Also is it just me or did anyone else like his songs?

17. The Annoying Orange

Same deal just orange and an orange. These videos were cool I remember when Fred and him had that lil vs battle thingy you kinda just had to be there to understand the hype about the annoying orange. The humor has died out but it was a nice thing while it lasted unless you got easily annoyed.

18. Wafflepwn and the greatest freakout ever

I remember watching these videos with my friend at the time we just thought it was the most hilarious thing honestly the first video where the dude stick a remote up his butt still makes me chuckle somehow but I remember my dad being very upset when he saw I watched these videos and also having a difficult time coming to the fact that SPOILER ALERT!

It was fake all along. If people didn't know that you know these videos would be extremely problematic.

Conclusion: YouTube still felt so new and different at this time and things were growing although a lot of the humor would not fly for understandable reasons I feel like it was charming and I was very lucky I got to be on YouTube. I was very young so a lot of the channels I watched were more kiddy and childish but it felt sweet and nice. A lot of these channels were so cool and sometimes I would stay up late and watch them. With all that said I will probably make a second one of these. I was very unsure whether or not I wanted to post this because a part of me thought it would be cool but another felt like it would be cringy and wanna know what? It's both lol that's my entire conclusion this post was cool, fun and very very cringy but hey why not make another again sometimes? It will be cool to look back on and maybe if I forget something I can just come back here and remember it! Do you have anything you searched a lot as a kid? Comment below!

☆With all that said if you like what you see please give me a follow and a like I make many more posts like this☆

[five-rivers]

Long Night in the Valley chapter 10

“So,” said Ochako.  “Do we open the door, or…?”

The door was unassuming and bland.  Very… doorlike.  It was also the only way forward unless they wanted to backtrack several hundred feet.

Incidentally, no one was standing directly in front of the door. Ochako wondered if that was a coincidence, or if they were all just that wary of things after these past few hours.

Aizawa sighed heavily and hauled open the door.  It was dark inside, with a single spotlight illuminating a small sign that said, ‘This way to 5.’

“That’s suspicious!” said Iida.  

“So it is,” agreed Aizawa, squinting into the dark.  “I’ll go.”

Walked to the sign, and the rest of them tensed, ready to jump in to help at any sign of danger.  The lights suddenly turned on, and music began to blare.  A large television screen played a video of a dancing man.  

“A rickroll,” said Todoroki, reverently.  

If Aizawa’s sigh had been any heavier, it would have had its own gravitational pull.  

“Yeah,” said Six, voice as emotionless as ever.  “Great job, everyone, you got here.”

“Was that really necessary?”

“What?” asked Six.  

“The music,” said Aizawa.  

“Consider it a practical demonstration,” said Six.  “The farther in you go, the older we are, and the more experience we have with this kind of landscape.”  He ran his hand over the sign, and Ochako gasped as patterns and colors followed his fingers.

“You’re younger than Skyrunner or All Might, though,” said Ochako.  “You’re the same age as Aizawa-sensei.”

“Well, yes, but actually no,” said Six.  “I was here before they were.  I’m older.”

Ochako’s senses, honed by months living in a building with nineteen other teenagers, detected an opportunity for teasing.  She pressed her hand to her lips and put on her slyest smile. “Are you?  Reaaaally?”

“Memes,” said Todoroki, nodding gravely.  

“I can see why Nine likes you so much.”

.

Six grabbed Aizawa’s sleeve preventing him from moving on with the others.  

“If you’re trying to keep me away from my kids, I suggest you don’t.”

Six raised an eyebrow.  “Your kids, huh?  You know, we had a bet running about that.”

“Excuse me?”

“Anyway, I wanted you to hear this, first.  You can decide if you want to tell them, after, but they are Nine’s friends.  I don’t want to be responsible for them running off on their own without your knowledge.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell me something that could help Midoriya but will be incredibly dangerous.”

“Are you sure your secondary quirk isn’t precognition?”

“I am saving my crisis about that until we get out of here. This waste of time is illogical.”

“Right.  So.  Remember when I said that Nine didn’t get to choose who we were?”  He gestured at himself.  

“Yes,” said Aizawa, already hating where this was going.

“There’s someone who we don’t count as one of our number.”

Now Aizawa really didn’t like where this was going.  “You mean, you’ll count terrorists, but not… this person.”

“Yeah.  Usually, we keep him locked away, but with all this disruption…”

“He’s gotten out.”

“Not yet.  What I’m telling you now may not be relevant at all.  But if that door does open, I want you to have this option.  Not all the others agree the risk is worth it, but I think that should be up to you, since you’d be the one taking it.”

“What option?”

“That person, he took something from Nine, back when his quirk first manifested.  You know all the guys you ran into back when you were in his mind space?  He took one of those.  I think, and most of the others agree, that it would be beneficial if he got it back.”

“He took part of Midoriya’s personality.”

“Yes, you can think about it that way.”

“That part wouldn’t happen to be something like self-preservation, common sense, or grudge-holding, would it?”

“No.”

“Pity.”

“When you reach One, if you want to try to get it back for Nine, ask One if the vault it open.”

“Exactly how dangerous would this be.”

“Horribly.  But you probably wouldn’t die.  This quirk comes with a time limit.  Otherwise, we wouldn’t ask at all.”  Six let go of Aizawa’s sleeve.  “Your students are waiting for you.  You should go.”

Aizawa stepped into the dark.  A battle strobed against the darkness.  No, two.  One with Six and a man who must be Five, and another with Six and Shimura Nana.  Both battles were against a darkness whose silhouette resembled the monster of Kamino Ward far too much for Aizawa’s comfort.

“You’re next!” shouted two overlapping voices.  

Aizawa blinked.  He was in a well-lit street, looking at what could only be the so-called Five.

.

Izuku woke up slowly.  Being asleep had kept some of the pain at arm’s length, but now it returned with a vengeance, along with an oddly comforting pressure.  

Oh, Toshinori had fallen asleep wrapped around him.  That was nice.  They really should start moving again, though.  

The ground rumbled, and Izuku realized what had woken him up.  

“Toshinori,” he said, shaking him the best he could from his position.  “Wake up. There’s an earthquake.”

Toshinori blinked awake.  “Did you call me Dad?”

“No?”

“Back in the city?”

“Um.  Earthquake. What do we… uh, do?”  He didn’t know what the earthquake drill for the middle of the forest was.  Four had, but Izuku was having trouble understanding him over the pounding in his head.  

“It isn’t shaking anymore,” observed Toshinori.  “We should probably still go.”  He rubbed his eyes.  “Let’s get you patched up first.  I can’t believe I fell asleep without making sure you were alright…”

“I’m fine,” protested Izuku, trying to stand up.  He could just keep using Blackwhip to stabilize—

The space behind his eyes turned white.  When it became clear again, he found himself pressed against Toshinori’s shirt.  

“Toshinori,” he whined, because he couldn’t help it, and, oh, no, he was such a burden he shouldn’t be making Toshinori hold his weight, he was a lot heavier than he looked, but his head was pounding and his eyes felt like they were bleeding and his skin felt like sandpaper, “it hurts.”

“I know, I know,” said Toshinori.  “Let me take care of you, please?”

Toshinori lowered him back to the log and started to remove medical supplies from the pockets of his coat.  

“What are we going to do after this?” asked Izuku, voice as quiet as he could make it without whispering.  

“That is an excellent question, my boy,” said Toshinori in an imitation of his usual heartiness.  “As you might imagine, I’ve acquired a number of contacts over the years. Some of them are comfortable with, ah, less than legal escapades.”

“I didn’t think you had any friends other than Detective Tsukauchi and Mr. Shield.  And maybe Gran.”

Toshinori hunched his shoulders.  Izuku immediately felt bad.  

“Well, you aren’t wrong.  Contacts and friends are in two different categories, I’m afraid.  In any case, I’m hoping to eventually reach one of them, and then…”  He trailed off, and Izuku got the sense that Toshinori was bracing himself for Izuku being upset.  “I am hoping to arrange passage to I-Island.”

“We’re leaving Japan?”

“Just until we get this cleared up,” said Toshinori.  

Izuku rubbed his eyes.  Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.  “What about Shigaraki and All for One?”

“Not your responsibility,” said Toshinori.  

“It kind of is.”

“It really isn’t.”

“It’s our family.”

“I know.  At least, I know now.  Goodness. I don’t think I’ve wrapped my head around it, yet.”  Toshinori rubbed his temples with his wrists, keeping his dirty fingers well away from his eyes.  

“What about before that?” asked Izuku, guiltily changing his line of questioning.  

“I have a few other safe houses around here.  Funny story about one of them.  Completely abandoned building on public land.  Was being used by some anti-mutant cult.  No one ever came to check it out after the initial arrest.  So. Finders keepers.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did.”

“All Might,” said Izuku, suppressing a giggle despite the seriousness of the situation, “that’s illegal.”

“I have done a surprisingly large number of illegal things in my life.  Comes from fighting with a centuries-old monster the government doesn’t want to acknowledge as existing.”

“They’ve acknowledged him now,” observed Izuku.  

“Hasn’t seemed to help much, has it?  Anyway, that one shouldn’t be too far from here. Probably.  It will still be quite a walk.  We’ll stay there, for a while.  Until I can reach one of my contacts.”  Toshinori sighed.  “I think the one in Deika will be out best bet.  He works in the shipping industry.  I’ll have to introduce you, just in case we end up separated.”

Izuku pretended the last sentence didn’t send him into a spiral of panic.  

Of course, this spiral of panic was interrupted by an entirely different panic, because the ground started to shake again.  

“I can Float us—”

“Don’t, you’ll hurt yourself,” said Toshinori, keeping a tight grip around Izuku’s bicep.  

Toshinori’s hands were extremely large.  A tree crashed to the ground in the distance.  Accompanying that sound was a roar too loud and animal to be completely human, but too coherent to not be human.  

Toshinori went pale.  

“Someone you know?” asked Izuku, covering his ears to keep the sound from battering his brain any further.  

“We need to go,” said Toshinori, bundling up all the supplies he’d taken out.  “We need to go right now.”

“All for One?” whispered Izuku, getting to his feet.  “A gigantification quirk?”

“One of his subordinates,” said Toshinori.  “One I never managed to find.  I’d hoped—Of all the luck—” He started cursing under his breath in English.  

Maybe Izuku really did have a villain-attracting quirk.

The shaking of the ground grew stronger.  “Run,” said Toshinori.  “Don’t look back for me.”  Toshinori had to know that wouldn’t fly (or float) with Izuku, because a second later his face twisted up in something like resignation.  

Izuku grabbed Toshinori’s wrist.  He could Float them both out of here.  

Blinding pain lanced through his brain again.  

Okay, maybe he couldn’t.  

The ground in front of them erupted.  A craggy giant burst up from below.  

“Little Lord!” the giant shouted, voice more than loud enough to hurt.  A massive hand picked Izuku up, holding him gently but extremely firmly.  “I’m SO HAPPY to see you again!”

Something clicked in the back of Izuku’s head.  A memory he didn’t know he had resurfaced.  

“H-Hi, Machia,�� he said.  

“Did this bald man kidnap you?!  He smells like All Might!  But All Might is yellow.  Should I kill him?”

“No,” said Izuku.  “He’s definitely not All Might.  He’s, uh, a friend.”

“HELLO LITTLE LORD’S FRIEND.”

“Hello,” said Toshinori, waving a little, clearly in shock.  

Machia shifted to wave at Toshinori and Izuku hissed as the movement jostled his injuries.  His minor injuries.  His very minor injuries that weren’t bothering him at all.  

Who do you think you’re kidding, kiddo?

Not helping, Grandma.  

“Little Lord!  Are you hurt?”  Machia sniffed him.  “You smell like blood!  I have to bring you to the doctor!”

“The what?” asked Izuku, alarmed.

“Don’t worry, Little Lord!  He is a very good doctor!  We must go!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” said Izuku, before Machia could get more than three humongous steps away from Toshinori.  “It isn’t my blood, it’s the blood of my enemies!”

“Lord tried that one, too, Little Lord!”

“But—”

“Oh!  I forgot your friend!”  Machia turned around.  “Sorry, Little Lord’s friend!”  He picked up an increasingly distressed Toshinori and continued stomping through the forest.  

Izuku realized that Machia was headed back towards town.

“Wait!” he shouted, despite not having a plan for what to do next.

“Wait?” repeated Machia, balancing on one foot.  

Thankfully, Izuku’s brain churned out a plan.  “My friend here,” said Izuku, gesturing at Toshinori, “has a house nearby.  It would be better if we went there, and then the doctor can come to us.”

Machia grinned, which was honestly an unsettling sight.  “You’re just like Lord, Little Lord!  Always making plans.”  He brought Izuku up to his face, close enough that Izuku could feel his (oddly minty-fresh) breath and bonked the top of his head with his nose.

“Do you brush your teeth, or do you have a quirk for that?” asked Izuku before he could think better of it.  

“Lord gave me a tooth-brushing quirk!  He said he was tired of smelling my morning breath.  I do not know why he said that, because it was night.  But he gave this quirk to me!  It was very generous of Lord.” said Machia, delighted.  “How did you know?”

Izuku decided not to go down the rabbit-hole of his reasoning and shrugged.  “Lucky guess?”

Machia laughed.  “Lord says that, too, sometimes!  I am very glad to see you, Little Lord.  I have missed my Lord very much, and you are just like him!”

Seven vaguely annoyed and insulted ghosts buzzed in the back of Izuku’s head.  

“I am also glad that you did not grow up to be as big as me! You would be much harder to carry if you did.”

Apparently Izuku was not the only one with a propensity for rabbit-hole thoughts, because he could not imagine a scenario where it would be reasonable to expect him to grow to be as big as Machia.

“So,” he said, “you’ll take us to my friend’s house?”

“Yes, Little Lord!  And then we can call the doctor, and he will take care of you!”

Izuku didn’t think Machia meant to be ominous, and yet.  

.

“So,” said Aizawa, surveying the man up and down.  “You’re the one that decided the best place for my student to develop an unstable, highly dangerous, and painful quirk was the middle of a high-adrenaline training exercise full of other students.”

“Hey,” said the man, scratching the back of his head, “no one got hurt, and when you’ve been dead as long as I have, you start looking for entertainment wherever you can get it.  Besides, you’re the one that let the training exercise keep going.”

“According to your compatriot back there,” Aizawa said, hooking a finger over his shoulder, “you haven’t been dead at all.”

Five jolted and ran his knuckles over his bandoleer.  “Yeah, it’s easy to forget.”

It was great to know that Five was trash at lying.  True, he’d been told up front that Six’s explanation would be at least partially false, but still.  

Aizawa sighed.  

Five, who’d also introduced himself as Lariat and Banjo Daigoro, appeared to be a fairly typical hero for his era.  Minimal hero costume repurposed from military gear, worn with just a bit of flair, indicating that the celebrity status of heroes probably hadn’t fully set in yet.  Ammunition for a sidearm, although the sidearm itself was well hidden.  The gun was probably bulky, but if Aizawa didn’t miss his mark, those were stun rounds.  Eye protection, but not head protection.  Not that Aizawa could complain about that, considering.

“Anyhow, if you’re all here, let’s go.”  The man clapped his hands together, activated his quirk, and proceeded to fling Aizawa and his students through the air, without warning.

“Sorry ‘bout this!” said Five.  “But we don’t have time for the whole history lesson!  Just the highlights!”

Brief battles flared to life around them as Five dashed sideways along skyscraper walls and swung from building to building.  

“I always thought of myself as a sort of Spider Man, y’know?”

“I don’t know that hero, sir!” shouted Iida over the whistling wind.  

“Pre-quirk comic book character,” explained Five.  “Most of ‘em got censored after the first quirk boom. Didn’t want to give anyone ideas. But by my time, with the pro hero scene starting up, they came back in a big way!”  Five landed in front of a large convention center.  “This’s where they held the first Modern Comic Convention in Japan.  Or ModiComiCon for short.”

“And we couldn’t walk here, because?” asked Aizawa, suppressing an increasing urge to commit murder.  

“I thought my way was more fun,” said Five.  “Haven’t you always wanted to travel like that?”

Aizawa tugged on his scarf.  “I do.  Frequently. Under my own power.”

“Another Aizawa-sensei,” decided Todoroki, quiet but decisive.  “Aizawa-sensei, but… funkier.”

That did it.  Once this was over, he was expelling all the problem children and taking a vacation. The Rat God could find a sub.

“This is where I met Four the first time,” said Five, pushing the doors open.  The auditorium was filled with rows upon rows of booths.  All empty of people of course.

Aizawa, grudgingly, followed.  

First contact.  

Those voices…  Something about them…  The number.  

“Those are your voices,” said Aizawa.  

“Yep!” said Five.  “It’s a special moment, you know?”

Aizawa frowned.  At this point, he highly doubted that these ‘vestiges’ were simply based on real people. The vestiges themselves had to have reason to suspect that they were at least remnants of real people to give themselves a name like that, and with All Might thrown into the mix…  

Add to that the repeated themes, the oddly ritualistic components (First contact and you’re next), Midoriya’s closeness with All Might, and Aizawa got—

Honestly, he had no idea.  The fact that All Might was still alive tended to rule out the ‘Midoriya’s quirk is that he’s haunted’ theory, which, admittedly, was rather flimsy to begin with.  Perhaps it was a legacy-dependent quirk, reaching back from student to teacher? He would be skeptical—Most quirks had some kind of logic to them, and there was no way to extrapolate entire people from contact with their successor—but Vlad King had a student whose head was a manga speech bubble and other abstract quirks existed.  So.  

It still didn’t feel right.  Surely, Midoriya would have figured out his quirk before he was fourteen in that case.  Unless All Might had to be involved for some reason.  

Also, the fact that they called Midoriya Nine.  Six’s explanation for that didn’t even make a little bit of sense.  

Not to even mention the hints that All for One actually was involved in this somehow.  

“Banjo-san,” said Aizawa, “there’s no truth in the commission’s accusations, is there?”  He could have asked Six, but logically, Six would be the best liar, if he was the one chosen to relay the lie.  Banjo Daigoro seemed rather less adept at deception.  

The world seemed to gray out a bit.  “Are you kidding me?  What part?” asked Five, his eyebrows disappearing under his goggles.

“Yeah, sensei, there’s no way Izuku-k—”

“I’m not asking about Midoriya.  I’m asking about you.  How are you connected to All for One?”

Five opened his mouth, lips drawing back to reveal his teeth. He looked unspeakably offended.  “You don’t think we actually work for that bastard—”

“Excuse me, sir!” interrupted Iida after Five had tacked on several rather fouler epithets.  “There are minors present!”

“Oops,” said Five.  “Anyway, we do not work for All for One,” he continued, failing to answer the question Aizawa had asked.  

“That isn’t what he asked,” said Todoroki.  

Alright.  Maybe Todoroki wasn’t all bad.  He was still on thin ice.  

“Excuse me, is this a bad time?”

Aizawa nearly jumped out of his skin as a terrifyingly tall man in a hero costume appeared at the edge of his peripheral vision.  He was taller than Yagi.  

Actually, wait.  Aizawa’s expert eyes roamed over the man’s hero costume.  That was cosplay, not professionally done.  The man was standing there, in Midoriya’s head, in front of two professional heroes, wearing cosplay.  It looked like it had been hand-sewn.  

It also looked like it had been used.  And inexpertly reinforced.  Even for a vigilante.

Somehow, in retrospect, this made Midoriya’s choice to wear a costume his mother had made for him for his first training session make much more sense.  

Of course, Midoriya would have someone as ridiculous as he was in his head.  Of course, he would have several people as ridiculous as he was in his head.

“Four, I presume.”

“I prefer Shimura, actually.”

“Oh!” said Uraraka.  “Are you related to Skyrunner?”

“She’s my adopted sister’s descendant,” said Shimura/Four.

“Hey, hey, I thought we weren’t telling them this stuff,” said Five.  

Shimura blinked.  “My apologies.”  He paused. “However, considering the structure of my mental domain, it is likely that they would have discovered my chosen name in short order.”

“Who do you think he’s based on?” asked Iida, leaning towards Todoroki.  

“I can’t put my finger on it,” said Todoroki, “but he does feel familiar.”

“And why is that?” asked Aizawa, pretending he couldn’t hear his students.  

“I have a lot of unresolved trauma relating to my biological parents and also my quirk.”

“Ohhhh,” said Todoroki.  “He’s based on me.”

Wow.  Another horrible thing Aizawa would have to deal with when he woke up.  

“Isn’t your quirk Danger Sense?”

“That’s what Five-chan calls it.”

There was something extremely disturbing about this tall, intimidating, eyebrowless man calling another muscular intimidating adult man chan.  

“But I call it—”

“Please don’t—” interjected Five.

“—super anxiety.”

“Why?” cried Five.  “Danger Sense is a much better name!  It’s like Spidey Sense!  Like Spider Man!  You like Spider Man.”

“Yes,” said Shimura, “but I am not Spider Man.  However, that reminds me.”  He turned his unblinking gaze towards Todoroki.  “Nine-chan has several plans for removing your father. I believe only about half of them are workable, but it’s the thought that counts.  At least, that’s what Yagi-chan says.”

“You mean All Might?” asked Aizawa.  If his soul hadn’t already left his body, it would now be preparing to do so.

“No, my wife.”

“Yeah, don’t think about it too hard,” said Five.  “He’s always been like this.  I mean, he came up to me in the middle of this convention to tell me about a bunch of underworld deals going on out of town.  I thought he was, like, some especially serious cosplayer, but then he showed up at my apartment, too.”  The surroundings briefly shimmered into something that might have been the mentioned apartment before resolving themselves back into the comic convention.

“I apologize, I did not realize that was inappropriate.”

“I’m this little baby hero, just a couple years out of training, no name for myself, and this guy shows up like he’s in the middle of one of those old video games.  Like, ‘here, take this old legend and defeat the demon king, you level one peasant.’”

“I didn’t expect you to fight him right away,” said Four, looking both vaguely offended and confused, and now, yeah, okay, Aizawa could see a vague resemblance to Todoroki.  

“I’m still not entirely sure why you picked me, of all people.  There had to be a dozen others with the right, uh, requirements.”

“Requirements, huh?” asked Aizawa, having finally managed to shove the part of his brain screaming about the ‘wife’ comment into a tiny, locked box in the back of his brain.

“Yes.  As my other adoptive sister said, one must possess a strong will, an indomitable spirit, a sharp mind, a pure heart, and a ceaseless drive to save others, both body and soul.”  He paused for a moment.  “She also said something about being ‘just enough of a bastard to be worth knowing,’ but I believe that was a reference to the book she was reading at the time. Her parentage was certainly known at that point.”

“Y’see?  I can never tell if this guy is serious or just pulling my leg.”

“Why would I pull your leg?  Do you need to pop it?”

“I’m beggin’ you, man, learn some idioms.”

“WAIT!” shouted Todoroki.  “Are you related to All Might?  Is he your secret love child?”

The silence stretched between them.  

“I don’t know what that is,” said Four.  “You keep asking Nine if he’s one of those.  What does it mean?  Is it a good thing?”

“ANYWAY,” said Five, loudly.  He attempted to prop his elbow on Four’s shoulder, but the height difference defeated him.  “Four and I had lots of semi-legal adventures—”

“No, we didn’t,” said Four.

“Became best friends—”

“My wife is my best friend.”

“Let me have this.”

“Have what?”

Five sighed.  “Okay, whatever.  Fine. Can you cross them over here?”

“I think I’ll need the other one, unfortunately.”

“Why are you different, by the way?” asked Uraraka.  “The ones before stayed in their own mindscapes, it seemed.”

“Oh,” said Four.  “I’m having flashbacks.  Because of…” He trailed off, then sighed.  “Flashbacks.”

Right.  Wonderful. “We’re going to have to deal with your flashbacks, aren’t we?” Aizawa asked.  

“Unfortunately, yes,” Four said.  “I apologize for my habit of oversharing.”

“This and that are two completely different things.”

“They seem like the same thing to me,” said Todoroki.  

“I am inclined to agree.  I also apologize for the things you may see.  I will attempt to keep you away from the more disturbing sections.”

“Great,” said Aizawa.  “Can we stop wasting time?”

“We aren’t really wasting time,” said Four.  “At the moment, dream time is compressed.  We’ve only been talking for…”  He tilted his head to the side.  “Perhaps a second, in terms of real-world time.”

“He’s right,” said Five, crossing his arms and nodding.

“Seconds are still time,” said Aizawa, hoping they’d get the hint.

“I suppose—Oh.  You’re frustrated.  Apologies. Neither of us have interacted with anyone but the others in…  Quite some time.  I fear our sense of hurry has been damaged.  Especially with how distracted we all are.”

“Why are you distracted, if you don’t mind us asking?” asked Iida.  

“Another unwanted guest is trying to get in and Nine and Ei—Nine managed to run into someone extremely dangerous.”

Eight.  These people had a ‘live’ connection to All Might, too, damn it, and the blond idiot was wherever Midoriya was.  Maybe that should have reassured him, somewhat, because even if All Might was retired, he was still All Might, but, by some dark magic, when All Might and Midoriya were placed in proximity to one another, they gained the ability to spawn problems that Aizawa had never even heard of before.  

Like this one.

“Our final meeting, then?”

“I believe that would be appropriate.”

Black tentacles exploded from Five, covering the space around them.  When they receded, they were in a different place.  Underground, if Aizawa didn’t miss his guess.  A safe house of some kind?

Flickering doppelgangers of Four and Five occupied the space.  

“Why didn’t you transport us like that before?” asked Todoroki.

“Had to take the long way the first time,” said Five.  “That lady’s quirk changed some of the rules. You ready, Four?”

“Let it play out,” said Four, gazing at the static figures.

“Your choice,” said Five, shrugging.  

The ‘real’ Five and Four abruptly vanished, and the doubles started moving.  

“I suspect this is the last time we will meet,” said an older Four to a younger Five.

“Huh?  Why’s that?” said Five, twisting in his chair so that his arms rested on the top of the back.

Four stared blankly at a wall.  “Everything is coming to a head, now.  I’ve chosen to put my faith in you and the new laws.”

“Huh?”

“The last push of the old era…  My big sister would scold me for trusting you.”

“Dude, you’re not making any sense.”

“My apologies.”  Four turned to look more directly at Five.  “The new quirk laws and the establishment of the Hero Commission are steps in the right direction, as evidenced by your existence.”

“Yeaaah, sure,” said Five.  “But what does that have to do with not seeing each other again?”

“They’re not enough,” said Four.  “Even now, certain existences cannot cry out for help.  What do you do, when you can’t turn off your quirk?”

“You’re not going to go terrorist on me here, are you?” asked Five, nervously.

“No.  I just want you to be aware,” said Four.  He tilted his head to the side.  “Whenever I go home, now, there’s danger on the horizon, and I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”

“Is it him?”

“No.  I don’t believe so.”  He sighed. “I suspect it’s the Special Task Force, to be honest.”

“They were disbanded,” said Five.  “Any one of ‘em that didn’t get absorbed by the Hero Commission got let go.  Or, er, what’s the term?  Discharged.”

“Perhaps you’re right,” said Four.  “Perhaps this is simply paranoia.  I would certainly like it to be.”

“Look,” said Five.  “Maybe I can help.  You’ve never told me where y’all live, and—”

“Absolutely not.  I am quite certain that he is still monitoring me to some extent.  You do not want to be on his radar, Daigoro-chan.”

“Dude.  Why do you keep calling me that?”

“You haven’t told me to stop.”

Five sighed.  “I get it, I get it.  Just… let me know if there’s anything I can do.  I’m a hero for a reason.”

Four smiled faintly.  “I know,” he said.  “After all, I chose you.  Good luck, Daigoro-chan.  I think you’ll be able to do it.”  He started walking away, towards the door.

“You, too, old man.  Souma.”

Four stopped with his hand on the door.  

“I believe we will see each other again,” continued Five.  “Count on it!”

“In this life or the next,” agreed Four.  He opened the door.

.

As they crossed over from Five’s domain into Four’s, the dream around them did not shift seamlessly, staying in the same general location with only the details changing like it had for the others, but dissolved into something not quite like static and then blank whiteness before fading back in.

They were standing in the middle of a battlefield, a ruined landscape.

Not the ruins of a city, though, which made this only more jarring.  For all that Shouto was only a teen, he’d seen his fill of city battles.  He was used to villain fights.  

The only time he’d seen this kind of devastation in a place like this had been at the forest training camp last summer.  He swallowed, eyes rolling over uprooted and burning trees, huge craters and ruts in the soil, and the rare bit of roofing and wall. He realized, belatedly, that this must be the remains of a small, rural village.  

He stiffened at the sound of someone crying.  

“Over there,” said Uraraka, pointing.  

Shouto turned to see a tall, broad-shouldered man in a suit hunched over one of corpses.  His face was shrouded in smoke.  

As he watched, he realized he wasn’t crying over a corpse. The other man was still breathing, his eyes were still open.  

(It was hard to recognize Four’s face under all those injuries.)

He stepped forward, wondering if he should help, if he even could help.  His hand passed through the man’s shoulder with no resistance.  

“Shigaraki…” said the uninjured man.  “Shigaraki Hibiki, you foolish child…”  

Shouto wasn’t the only one to gasp.

“’S not my name an’more,” rasped the injured man, Four, Shouto realized now.  “’N they gottaway, din’ they?  ‘Sworth it…”

“What do you mean, it’s not your name?  Of course it’s your name.  It’s the one I gave you.  The one you should have been born with.  It’s your name.”

“M’name’s…”  The man on the ground panted.  

“Shh, shh, don’t talk, don’t talk Hibiki, I’m sorry I snapped. Don’t worry, Daddy’s going to make it all better, son.  A healing quirk…”

“Name’s…” slurred the man.  “Shimura… Souma…  You…” He took a deep, rattling breath. “You don’t… own… me.  I’m…”  He made a sound that might have been a laugh.  “Free.”  

The scene began to go dark.  Before the last of the light was gone, the uninjured man spoke again. “Shimura,” he hissed, voice promising violence, “was it?”

.

Yagi Toshinori was having the most surreal experience of his entire life.  Considering his life included that awful college party in America, the one where he learned that One for All did not mesh well with psilocybin, that was saying a lot.

Here he was, riding on the shoulders of a man who had tried to kill him on the behalf of his worst enemy multiple times, alongside his student and successor, who was being called ‘Little Lord’ by the man carrying them. They were having an admittedly fascinating conversation about the man’s quirks, multiple, one that Toshinori was only barely keeping up with.  Two of them were being actively hunted by the government.  

That is, Toshinori, the retired professional hero, and Izuku, the licensed hero student, were on the run from the government.  Not Gigantomachia, the mass-murdering minion of All for One, who was quite possibly the evilest man alive.

(And also, possibly Izuku’s father.  But no one wanted to think about that.)

(Not to mention all the things going on in their heads.)

(This level of connection to One for All was thrilling, but also incredibly strange.)

Oh.  And they were going to one of Toshinori’s safehouses.  With Gigantomachia.  True, Toshinori hadn’t been to this one in a while, but it was still a place that was supposed to be safe, hence safehouse, and Gigantomachia was decidedly not safe.

He was also going to be difficult to get rid of, because he had a sense enhancement quirk that let him track down individuals he was familiar with from miles away.  Toshinori knew this, because Gigantomachia was currently happily telling Izuku all about it.

Surreal.  

Izuku reached over and patted him on the shoulder.  

Ah, yes, this was only made more surreal by the fact that Toshinori could feel how much pain Izuku was in, but the boy hardly showed any of it.  It made him wonder.  How often was Izuku in pain and Toshinori did not see?

Izuku patted his shoulder again, this time in a way that suggested he really wanted a hug but couldn’t give him one because he was holding onto Gigantomachia and the logistics didn’t work out.

Oh, and there was the safehouse.  

Gigantomachia let them down a short distance from the building (he claimed not to want to get to close, because he’d accidentally knocked down buildings in the past, which Toshinori could easily believe).  

The building was in better repair than Toshinori had expected after his long absence.  He fished the spare key from its hiding spot and opened the door.  

The back entry was full of people wearing black robes and skull masks, all of whom were scrubbing at bloodstains on the floors and walls.  

Izuku fixed him with a disappointed stare.  “I thought you got rid of the cultists.”

Yes, he had thought so, too.  He had, in fact, worked quite hard at getting rid of them.

“You!” shouted a cultist, pointing.  “You’re with that filthy League of Villains!”

“You killed our brothers!”

“Mutant-lovers!”

“Run?” suggested Izuku.

“Run,” agreed Toshinori.

[megashadowdragon]

**1.**Punching Gilgamesh the moment you are summoned/enter a fight/enter a room is not reasonable and should not be done at any time -Gudao

1a. Not even when he barges into the Camelot Room and threatens to everyone, especially when he does it to make your female counterpart marry her -Gudao

1b. Apparently PTSD is not a viable excuse to punch someone when you see him harassing someone. Noted.

2. Just because I am a King, does not mean I can give people nicknames. Makes me wonder how Gareth felt about being called Best Boy by Merlin.

3. Eating contests are apparently not allowed, seems food shortages are common with my counterparts.

4. As it turns out, screaming "To Valhalla" is not the best idea when you step onto Iskandar's Chariot. Especially so when you are right in front of the enemy.

5. Frankenstein is not a doll, do not dress her up. No Arthur, not even if she tilts her head and makes cute growls -Gudao 5a. Okay! Only if its a sundress! -Gudao

6. Getting together four of my other counterparts and forming the Saber Rangers is not allowed, especially if we have Excalizords. Seems the other servants aren't fond of needlessly big robots that take too long to combine.

7. Motorbikes are not to be used at any point or time in Chaldea, no, not even when Iskandar decides to hold the "Chaldea Grand Prix" -Da Vinci

7a. THE SAME GOES FOR OTHER VEHICLES YOU MONGRELS, UNLIKE YOU FUCKS, SOME OF US NEED BEAUTY SLEEP AT 3 AM! -Gilgamesh

8. Just because I can use a sword, doesn't mean I am allowed to attack my Cu Chulainn with it. I swear, he walked into it.

9. Apparently I am not allowed to compliment people? Turns out after I left the beach where I hung out with a sweetie named Kiyohime, along with master, Kiyohime attempted to burn someone alive because I said that master looked like a dashing man. I highly doubt she did.

9a. The smell is still stuck to my trunks Arthur -Gudao

10. My liege... My OTHER liege, please don't ever get Red Saber to sing "Total Eclipse of the Heart" again when I am about to utilize Galatine -Gawain

11. We know you are fascinated in other cultures, but please. Stop talking to the Servants of France about Sasaki Kojirou, we don't know if you made up his nickname, but he is not the "Savior of France" - Jeanne D'Arc

12. I would suggest that you stop entering the Camelot Room by screaming "Where is my love! Guinevere!", while it as funny once or twice, I can't stand to see either Lancelots' become depressed anymore -Arturia Altria

13. No offense... But please stop patting my head so much, I know you are basically my Uncle, but people are getting the wrong idea -Mashu

14. While Proto League is an acceptable nickname for the servants of your war, please don't ever enter a fight and scream it out again. We know you enjoy it, but it can get obnoxious after a while - Random Mob 1

15. Proving that I am male by either fighting or pantsing myself is no longer allowed after Heracles decided to do the same thing when a recently summoned Shakespeare made him question his own gender -Da Vinci

15a. Having the entire male team to pants themselves in front of the enemy is not a viable tactic against Archers, no matter what you watched beforehand and despite how fun it is -Robinhood

16. Just because Merlin suggested it, I shouldn't instantly do it. Its odd, almost like no one trusts Merlin, he seems just like my one.

17. "I saw a pest" is not a viable reason to drop a Corrupted Grail into the Babylon Room, we understand your dislike towards the King of Heroes, but Ishtar and Ereshkigal were caught up in the rage.

17a. "I was bored" is not a viable excuse to kiss a female servant while under the effects of Merlin's illusionary spell, Gudao has yet to leave his... specially enduced Coma.

17b. "I saw this scene-" is not a viable reason to go to a prior singularity and ask Muramasa to create a specific weapon, it is time wasting, no matter how strong the weapon is.

18. Suggesting to Rayshift to the point before someone dies is not a good idea, no matter how much fun it is for you to watch the "Crazy Murder Loli" die.

18a. Getting Fou'd is not a good reason to Rayshift back to your fight against Beast VI just so you can "Finish the Fucker Off".

19. Using a voice manipulator made by Merlin is not a good way to get people to be afraid when you shout a noble phantasm.

19a. Shouting "Stella" is not allowed, Arash prematurely shot off his Noble Phantasm while training and now we have to resummon him.

20. Just because we have a Simulation Room, does not mean I can alter the device to allow me to see someone from the past.

20a. We know you miss her, we do too. If you want to speak, you can come talk to us -Proto League

21. Trying to host an "Engry MIYA" talk between Nameless and Alter is not a good idea, just... Don't.

22. While having a Picnic is fun, please don't host them in the middle of a fight.

23. Just because a rabbit killed Gawain in a movie, does not mean you can threaten to cook Fou alive.

24. We know you love kids but come on, you can't just take Nursery Rhyme and Jack out to "Play Fetch" with the Dragons in France every after-noon.

25. Blaming someone that isn't even a servant isn't a viable way to shift blame.

26. I've been banned from the Kitchen, apparently forcing my way in and cooking the meals before Nameless is not a good idea. He looked ready to cry.

26a. Turns out mentioning the fact that Muramasa was far more willing to let me into his kitchen when I visited him was not a good idea. I don't think Nameless likes me much.

26b. "Just because I have the alcohol" is not a good excuse to get a few of the servants including Mashu drunk at dinner.

27. Just because you technically existed before Back to the Future 1 and 2, does not mean you can threaten to sue the creator, even if you can go back in time freely.

28. NO, NEVER DO THAT AGAIN, NOT EVEN IF KIYOHIME ASKS NICELY, WE SHALL NEVER REPEAT THE EVENTS OF YESTERDAY AGAIN.

29. "Look what I found" is a sentence that I am never allowed to speak when I am holding something bigger than my head or smaller than my hands.

30. Turns out that breaking my own arm is not the best way to get Nightingale to calm down. Never thought Merlin would be wrong.

31. "Sure you can touch my Excalibur" is not the best way to differentiate between Arturia's Excalibur and my own when someone asks to hold it.

31a. "But mine is bigger" is not a good response when Arturia talks about how easy her seals are to remove from her Noble Phantasm, nor is it alright to use when talking about when how she made Mordred.

32. Stealing Gilgamesh's potion of youth and putting it in the Soup that EVERYONE ended up eating is the easiest way to have myself barred from missions for a week.

33. Just because people are afraid of it, doesn't mean you should hug it. Not even if Merlin says to.

34. Just because someone stole your food, does not mean you should "Call in a favor" and have Elizabeth sing until someone gives up who stole it

34a. Update: The above applies to Nero as well.

35. Just because I have an innate fear of the Lancer version of my female counterpart, does not mean I can steal her horse and run away because of that fear.

36. Making King Hassan say "Omae wa mou shindeiru" is not allowed, especially if you reply with "I'm already dead" just to mess with him.

37. You are fond of Mordred, we understand. But please stop teasing her. Calling her cute will be her death - KotR

38. We understand that being locked in a single room with Nobunaga can be hard, but saying it was like prison is not fair.

38a. Quoting an abridged anime is not allowed, especially if it has "Sluts" and "Prison" in the same sentence, we still don't know where you got that swim team outfit.

38b. Making a mini Excalibur and saying "Blade of Promised Prison Riots! SHANKCALIBUR" is not allowed at all, Edmond almost had a heart attack.

38c. It is noted that the Arthur and Nobunaga were almost forced to kiss, but utilizing time manipulation to see Romani's death and threaten him with "Spoilers" is not allowed.

39. Just because Merlin asked, does not mean you should dress up as a "Cutesy Idol" and perform a song with a voice changer on in front of a camera for his "Magi*Mari" stream, Romani has yet to heal from that wound.

40. Looking Mordred in the eye and saying "Mordred, I am your father" is not allowed, especially when you have her surrounded by all the versions of her "Father", even the ones that just look like "Him".

41. "I solomly swear I am up to no good" is not what you say while standing behind the Director in the Lost Room, she died once already, we don't need her worrying about what you will do.

41a. "Remember that time you became a Loli" is not to be said around Olga Marie after what happened after she was... Killed.

42. Quoting Kamina from Gurren Lagann is banned, especially after everyone believed you were actually erased from the throne. Only to find you a month later taking off an invisibilty cloak and sneaking into the mens bathrooms to shave.

43. Anime is fun to watch, but please. Stop trying to explain why a certain character would be within the Throne of Heroes.

43a. Stop. Asking. When. I. Will. Summon. ISSEI HYOUDOU! -Gudao

43b. BOOSTED GEAR SCALE MAIL! -Arthur

43c. BOOSTO? -Siegfried

44. Valentines is a wonderful thing, we get it. But making everyone in Chaldea chocolate by going around and hunting in various areas is not needed, we have too much already.

45. Stop Rickrolling, that was so early 2000s, get with the golden times old man -Kintoki

45a. EX-

46. Commenting on the impractical armors of the female knights that walk around is not needed, we have gotten complaints about how they feel harassed -Staff Member

46a. I just wanted to help out... -Arthur

47. I am not to sing anything ever again, the reason isn't because I am bad, no. Everyone agrees I am quite good. But its the genre I sing coupled with my Charisma rank. Seems love songs should not be sung. How sad.

48. Just because I have cat ears, does not mean you should give me Catnip - Atalanta

48a. The same was repeated for Alter.

48b. Along with Tamamo Berserker.

49. "Merlin told me to do it" is no longer an excuse that is accepted, even if he did make you do it.

50. LITERALLY ALL THE THINGS ON THIS LIST ARE BECAUSE OF MERLIN, STOP LISTENING TO HIM.

51. I'm only responsible for a quarter of these, stop blaming me for your troubles, Normies -Merlin

Kiyohime asks Arthur what to do to catch Gudao's attention. Arthur tells her to turn into his most cherished person. She turns into Gudako and tries to force Gudao into sex.

[papervalentines]

we all knew this was coming and I’m a sentimental bitch. I just wanted to write all my mutuals some little messages about how much I love you. you guys have changed my life and I am so grateful for each and every one of you!!!💕💞💓💗💖💘 anygays have fun searching for yourself in this mess and I’m sorry for any typos, I’m illiterate (and if i forgot you it’s because i lost my brain in 1912)

@cr1spyy fernanda, my first ever mutual. who would have thought that your 5th wave posts would have brought one of the most amazing people in my life to me. your posts always make me laugh and your dedication to the good morning asks is admirable (fr I could never have that much consistency) you’re so kind to everybody and you’re absolutely beautiful and incredible and I fucking love you so much. I honestly don’t even want to think about what my life would be like if I had never met you, MWAH💕🤍

@sundaymorninghangover I remember you being my first ever note!! you liked this post I made that was a reblog of a “uquiz” that was actually a rickroll lmao. you didn’t even follow me back then but whatever. Then I remember waking up one day to see that you had tagged me in a bingo ask game and I was like “ummm tf is an ask game” but I do still have a bingo card for it that I never used ekenksjs. anygays, you have good opinions on everything and you’re absolutely fucking hilarious. If you told me back in may that I would be friends with you I wouldn’t believe it bc you intimidated me but regardless I’m glad to be an arson gang member with you. your memes are god tier and so is your music taste. I love you whore!!!!!🖤💜

@sound-and-colors ma’am you’re so nice and for what??? the aesthetic stuff that you reblog is *chef’s kiss* and nobody else is out there doing it like you. we’ve never talked but I just know that you are absolutely incredible mwah❤️💛

@embeddedinmybrain tasfia you are the nicest person on his hellsite and you know it (I hope). It was so much fun being your secret admirer anon while it lasted, like fr I loved it. Your art is beautiful just like your heart and i honestly don’t know what I did to deserve such a kind soul like you in my life. You’re always there to hype me up and ily (also just cut your own hair already I believe in you)🤍💙

@gumptin you hooked me with your suus icon and reeled me in by being the coolest and funniest person ever. your posts are consistently hilarious, accurate, or relatable and I admire that. I mean it when I say you’re one of the coolest people on here. idk what I did to have you think I’m cool but I’m honored nonetheless. also you have really awesome style and hair jdnjdjdjd mwah💚💛

@nori-in-pink first and foremost, your blog always has a very nice aesthetic and I feel like I need to acknowledge that. anyway, you are so kind and supportive and you don’t take any bullshit and that is absolutely amazing. you are absolutely iconic and always reblog the best stuff so I know I can count on your blog to be fantastic. you used to scare me (idk why don’t ask) but now I know that you’re just a big teddy bear ily💗💜

@matteohnora my slurpee queen and my mememate!! you always send me the funniest shit and it doesn’t go unappreciated. You’re always there for me with a silly meme or emotional support and I don’t think I’ve ever told you how grateful I am for that. whenever you stalk my blog it makes my heart go whooosh and I feel so special. Ily and I am so glad to have met you💜❤️

@lieverobbe ah yes, the girl with the impeccable music taste. that’s what I know you as, oh well. you are more talented and kind than you could ever believe and your edits are amazing!!! whenever I see you on my dash I get all happy bc I’m like “em’s here!!!” I love all your lil posts and I am so glad that you are my mutual ilyyyyy💙🤍

@ironymane you’ve watched limitless which automatically makes you amazing. you’re an absolutely incredible and amazing person and even tho you aren’t on here as much anymore, I still love youre lil posts. And one time you kept me entertained on a 6hr car ride so you deserve some kind of award for that. ly🧡💛

@kingarthurpendragons okay the obvious thing to talk about here is your incredible talent when it comes to gif making. Like how in the hell- but you are also so kind and loving and it doesn’t go unnoticed. You don’t have to send nice asks but you do and ily for it mwah!!❤️💗

@engelkeijsers the skam nl stan that we all deserve to have in our lives. you are so fucking hilarious and relatable and all around amazing and for what? your posts always put a smile on my face and it is so much fun to clown with you. ilyyyy💚💛

@happiness-isin-you let’s ignore the fact that it took me forever to realize that this was your main lmao. your art is some of the most beautiful shit I’ve ever seen. like your style is so cool????  I could literally go on about this for hours don’t test me. the cute animal pictures are the absolute best and you’re always there for emotional support. Ilyyyyyyy💛❤️

@isakyaqi fiz you are so kind and talented and cool and I really do mean all that. You reblog always the best of content so I know I can trust it. you always put nice tags in the things you reblog things and it’s fun to read what you write because it’s almost always you hyping up the creator or the thing itself. you are awesome jdjdjdndjjd mwah🖤🤎

@cash-queens sam oh sam. Idek where to start with how much ily. You’re my famous mutual which is very iconic of you and you put up with my cat pictures and my silly antics and my riverdale posts. You’re so kind to me and everybody and whenever I make a post when I’m having a mental breakdown you’re always there to make sure that I’m doing okay. That def doesn’t go unappreciated. You’re legitimately one of the kindest and most amazing people I’ve ever known and I love you so much, more than you could ever know💛🤍

@welcometo-saturn çağrı you’re so cool. end of statement. that’s all I have to say about it. your gifs are so beautiful and you don’t take shit from anybody. you’re so down to earth that it makes it seem like you’re somebody who I’ve just always known (even tho we’ve never talked sjdjdjdjdj) so yeah anyway, you’re are a really awesome person with really good opinions and I am so glad that we are mutuals🧡❤️

@amifeelingokay it’s difficult not to start with your url bc it’s amazing and I love it. your skam posts are always so nice and cute and positive (just like you!!) and I love them. the content you reblog is always aesthetic or a nice text post and I just love your blog okay. ily💜🖤

@isthatelpome you’re so nice that I’m willing to overlook your opinion on salt and vinegar chips (they’re not good I’ll fight you on that) your dani icon is beautiful just as you are, mwahhhh🧡❤️

@earthling-isa babe you are so cute with your lil edits and your clowning. the near constant black and white aesthetic is very iconic and i love it. you’re a suus stan so I have no choice but to love you for it. i absolutely adore your gifs, especially the ones with the lil squares in the middle fygzbgut. you are absolutely beautiful and incredible and kind and I love you MWAHHHH🖤💙

@grey-mist-exist okay we’ve never talked but you seem like such a rad person. not cool but like rad (there are are subtle differences) your art is beautiful even tho idk the quotes (go off smarty pants) and overall you are just really rad, idk how else to say it mwah!!!🤍🖤<pretend it’s a grey heart

@fatoudixon hey look it’s one of the most talented people here!!! You’ve always been so kind and supportive of me and I really really do appreciate it. you have good opinions on everything and did I mention that you’re talented?? cause you are, very. Your reaction videos are amazing and not to mention iconic, just like your hair. anyway, ily and I am so glad that I have somebody as amazing as you as my mutual💙💛

@sander-klaas you are so kind and and you have so much passion. I can always trust you reblog only the best of wtfock and sobbe content which I am very grateful for. you literally just started making gifs and they are so beautiful (okay it was like months ago but whatever dkdjdjjdjdj) anyway, thank you so much for being my mutual mwah❤️💛

@jusdekiwi okay we’ve never talked but you genuinely seem like such a sweet person??? I love the stuff you reblog, it’s always the best gif sets. idk I can just tell you have good taste. I hope to get to know you better in the future, but for now I am very grateful to have you💚💙

@kritiquer my twin!!! you and I have a lot in common so ofc I love you. I’m joking obviously.... anygays you are always so supportive of everybody and you are so sweet. I love all of your personal posts, it always makes me really happy to see what you’re up to and how you’re feeling. I also like the aesthetic stuff you reblog, I have bad taste in all that, clearly you don’t. I am so glad that we started talking and I hope that we continue! ily kit!!!!💜🤍

@bleachblondebitches you aren’t on here that much, but whenever you are I get so happy! Your gifs are beautiful and I think about your sobbe and booksmart parallels gifset every day. you have amazing taste in movies and I love you!💜💙

@lesbeanfatou clara!!! bitch!!!! You already know how much I love you but I guess I’ll reiterate. I honestly don’t know what I did before I knew you. I always remember looking at the no idea blog with the Nora icons like “who is this?” Little did I know back then that you would be one of my closest friends. your support of me means the world and I am so grateful for you. I’m so glad that I have somebody in my life like you to talk to and be friends with. you are one of the funniest people in and I just love you so much I could burst mwah❤️🧡

@gucciboner okay hiii ypu are literally so fucking kind and funny, i admire your sense of humor sm. your art is so beautiful and you are so goddamn talented, it never ceases to amaze me. I also love all the little funny posts you make and reblog!! ily💙💗

@helmtaryn even though you put supernatural on my dash, I am willing to forgive you bc I love you so much. your gifs are so beautiful like ma’am didn’t you just start?? icon shit. your hate for photoshop is iconic and you are awesome. you’re always sending me asks and responding to my posts and you’re so nice and it makes my heart go whooosh. anygays you’re cool and ily💙🧡

@starmansander nina when I tell you that you give off the best vibes- okay sorry I had to start with that. I love how you are so nice and supportive of me, it really means a lot. I really like the stuff you reblog like,,, cool art? pretty women? those hopeful little posts? iconic. also youre a noor stan which is a sign of good taste. love you🤎❤️

@ijzermanora daniiiiiii madam you are so epic and iconic and I really could go on about that forever. you are so kind and you’re following all my joke sideblogs (even the ch*cken l*ttle hate blog??? why???) which is very brave of you. I love reading all of your lil wholesome posts and hearing about school and how much you hate chemistry (even tho you like sushi???) anygays we were already sending memes 10 hours into our mutualship so I think we were soulmates from the very beginning. I love you so much and I have no idea what I did before i knew you💜💗

@alwaysin-myhead okay, you give off cool person vibes and I had to acknowledge that. your art is so beautiful and you are so incredibly talented!!! I hope to get to know you in the future🧡💛

@alexiaugustin here she is!!! the queen of good opinions!!! you are such a smart cookie and you use that power to make long paragraph posts that I can actually read without falling asleep. which is impressive honestly. never has a person been so kind and funny and genius in such a well rounded way (that makes no sense) I’m so happy that I have you in my life ilyyy💚💗

@ijntba hihi you’re such a sweet person and I literally love your skam blog sm. I am so honored that you’re using one of my icons you have no idea. even though I’m confused when you post about anime, I still appreciate your passion lmao. mwah💛🧡

@hidden-joy liz!! you are such a kind soul and I absolutely love looking at the things you reblog and reading all the nice things that you put in the tags, it’s always so sweet and supportive!!! we’re relatively new mutuals, but I do hope to get to know you better in the future!!!💚💛

okay sorry to group y’all together but @fudgetunblr and @alexiswoke I like just became mutuals with y’all but I do love you and I’m glad you’re here and I hope 2021 treats you well and that i get to know you better!!❤️❤️

aaand one last final message for max and sarah, i know yall wont see this but ily🧡 💜

okay yeah I know I already said this but I really do love each and every one of you so much and I am so lucky to have so many amazing people in my life💕💕💓💕💖💖💕💘💕💗💞💓💕💖💖💘💕💓

[tempesrature]

Of The Standard Of Taste: Logan and Memes

Pairing: Ride or Die | Ellie x Logan Summary: Logan has a terrible taste in memes and Ellie wants to help him.  (A very loose continuation of Communication Degree. But if you don’t want to read that, all you need to know is Ellie and Logan live together and Ellie has a Professor that she hates.) Word Count: 1,924 Warnings: None. Just the buffoonery that I come up with. This is terrible and self-indulgent because I just want some stupid domestic fluff for my two idiots.    A/N: I feel like Logan’s relevant character flaw has to be that he’s probably not too knowledgeable with pop culture and memes (on the run most of his life, has no real need for it, etc) so...here you go. I also reread Hume’s “Of The Standard of Taste” just in case I get into a tussle with Philosophy nerds over my usage of the title (you can fight me but I’ll lose, I didn’t understand much). Also, please forgive me for my poor editing, I may be a millennial but I run on boomer batteries. Happy RoDAW everyone!  @rodappreciationweek @troublemakerinspace​ ~*~

In the silent space of the Langston library, Ellie’s phone pings on her desk and her eyes flit to the device. The name on her screen immediately pulls a wide smile on her lips as she picks up the phone and checks to see what he has sent her. Once she sees the picture, her face falls and she immediately groans before she puts the phone back on her desk.

“Woah, bad news?”

Ellie turns to look at Brooke, her friend and partner for the paper they’re currently working on, before Ellie shakes her head with a small sigh.

“It’s Logan.”

Brooke furrows her eyebrows, squinting lightly at Ellie. “And that’s bad because…?”

Ellie sighs before she picks up her phone and hands it to Brooke. Brooke raises a curious eyebrow before she takes the phone and looks at the screen. Her face morphs into a string of emotions—shock, laughter, cringe—before it settles into pity. “The boy’s taste in memes are terrible.”

“It’s not his fault,” Ellie quickly defends, taking the phone back and staring at the picture that Logan sent her.

“It’s his first Pictagram account and he’s still figuring things out,” Ellie explains as she gives his picture a heart. “You know, developing his standard of taste.”

“From what? The 2010’s?” Brooke cackles as she takes Ellie’s phone, scrolling up their conversation before she bursts into muffled chuckles. “Look at your replies! ‘That’s great baby, it’s really funny’, you sound like his mom!”

Ellie scowls and snatches back her phone, putting it face down on the desk. “He’s trying okay? I think it’s sweet that he sends me memes he finds funny.”

“Uh huh, keep telling yourself that,” Brooke snickers before she rolls her eyes at the annoyed look on Ellie’s face. “El, just like…send him better memes. It’s not that hard.”

“I tried!” Ellie groans again, pushing her fingers to her temple as she stares at the wooden surface of the desk in dismay. “But memes nowadays need so much context! How will he understand when he’s still catching up on so much of pop culture—” Ellie pauses, an idea swirling in her mind. “Unless…”

“Unless what?” Brooke frowns, furrowing her eyebrows. She is scarily aware of Ellie’s face when she starts to plot. “Unless what El?”

“I have an idea,” Ellie declares, quickly gathering her things and dumping them into her backpack as she grabs her phone off of the table. “I’ll send you my part tonight, bye!”

Ellie quickly throws a wave goodbye at the confused looking Brooke as she heads back to the apartment before Logan arrives. Her mind already turning and plotting on how she’ll efficiently enact her plan.

~*~

Logan carefully balances the bag of groceries in one arm as he walks up the stairs, his eyes glued to his phone. He knows he should be more careful, Ellie has already chastised him about using his phone while walking up the stairs to their apartment, but he finds it difficult to pull his eyes away from the endless scroll of memes on his Pictagram feed. Many of which he’s already saved because he plans to send them to Ellie sometime tomorrow during his break.

Logan gives one last double tap of his phone screen to a particularly funny meme when he reaches the door of their apartment before he places his phone in his back pocket. He moves the grocery bag to his other arm before fishing out his keys and inserting it into the doorknob. He hasn’t even fully opened the door when he hears Ellie calling out his name from the living room. A smile pulls at his lips at the sound. Even if it’s been months, he still can’t shake the feeling of utter content at the reality of her waiting for him in their apartment. A scenario he’s only ever imagined in his most indulgent dreams.

“Just a sec trouble. I’m taking off my shoes,” He calls out toeing his sneakers off and kicking it to the side before he walks to the living room with a wide grin. Ellie excitedly greets him with a hug and he easily returns it with a one arm hug.

“Welcome back,” She greets, leaning up to kiss his cheek before she takes the grocery bag in his arm and whisks it away to the small kitchenette in their apartment.

Logan follows behind her, the wide grin still present on his face, as he leans on the refrigerator. He silently watches her place the bag on the counter, start to pull out the groceries and flit by cabinets and shelves to put away the cans and bottles. His heart feels full and sated, the picture of her seeming to bring about emotions that’s both strange and welcomed. Strange in a way that he never thought that this could be his life and welcomed in way that he’s grateful that this is his life.

Ellie pulls out the carton of milk and turns to him, grinning in amusement at the soft and warm look so prominent on his face. An expression she’s seen on him a multitude of times in the time they’ve started living together. She quickly shoos him away from the refrigerator door and Logan merely chuckles as he moves away, placing a passing kiss to her temple before he makes his way to the living room.

His eyes immediately latch on to the papers and books scattered on the coffee table (not an unusual sight) as her laptop lay on the center of the couch. He gently pushes the laptop to the side, careful not to accidentally move anything from its original place as he drops down on the couch and pulls out his phone.

“Are you making another report for Professor Hardass, El?” Logan calls out, absentmindedly scrolling through his Pictagram feed.

“Huh? Oh…no. Actually,” Ellie answers back before she walks back into the living room. She grabs her laptop, balancing it on one hand, as she scrolls up and starts the presentation. “It’s for you.”

Logan pauses before he looks up at her in confusion, his eyebrows furrowed. 

“Me?”

“Yes,” Ellie plops down next to him and sets her laptop on his lap, angling the screen to him as the title ‘Important Points in the History of Pop Culture and its Relevance on Memes’ flashes in big black text and stares back at him.

Logan blinks once, twice. His brain frying as he tries to decipher what she just presented him. “I don’t understand Ellie.”

Ellie nods, expecting this reaction before she clears her throat. Her voice takes on the tone she always uses when she presents her reports as she starts the plan that she has been preparing for since she arrived in the apartment three hours ago.

“You see Logan, I love you and I care about you a lot—”

“—this sounds like a break up speech.”

“And,” Ellie emphasizes with a grin, lightly hitting his arm as he looks back at her with a teasing smile. “And I want you to get a better sense of what memes are popular and funny right now.”

Logan opens his mouth, closes it and frowns. Finally picking up what she’s hinting on. “The memes I send you aren’t funny?”

“Oh baby they are,” She leans forward, placing gentle hand on his arm as she tries to keep her voice loving and sympathetic when she delivers the devastating truth. “But like…funny if its ten years ago.”

Logan blinks, pausing for a moment, before a burst of laughter escapes him. Ellie frowns at his reaction and he shakes his head, turning away from her as he muffles his laughter behind his hand. He really didn’t mean to laugh. But the image of his girlfriend, the love of his life, hunkering down and taking a considerable amount of her time and day just to create a presentation to teach him about memes of all things creates a feeling inside him that he’s never felt before.

In his most vulnerable and loneliest nights, he went through a list of the most domestic and romantic what-ifs with her—already resigned that they would never be his reality—that ranged from the simple to the ridiculous but sitting down on the couch of their apartment learning about memes through a PowerPoint presentation from her was something that never crossed his mind.

But somehow, this is the one that hits him the hardest. This is the one that makes him imagine a life beyond their tiny apartment. A house, a dog, kids’ maybe…all of it. If it’s with Ellie Wheeler, he’s ready to want it all.

“Okay troublemaker,” He finally says, turning back to her with a wide grin. “Or should I call you professor now?”

“Behave,” She admonishes playfully before she scoots closer to him and lays her head on his shoulder. He easily wraps one arm around her waist, his hand settling on her hips as he leans his head on top of hers and waits patiently for her presentation.

Ellie immediately launches into her first slide and Logan listens intently, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing nonsense circles on her skin over her pajamas.

As the minutes pass, it leaves him in awe at how much effort and love has gone into this presentation just for him. There are pictures, gifs, and videos all for him and he’s willing to admit that his feed seems to pale in comparison. She goes through the resilience of SpongeBob memes and the “rickroll”, the diversity of Kermit the frog memes, and the brief and fleeting existence of Vine memes. And she laughs and cringes at the particularly older ones and he laughs and takes note at the particularly funny ones as the late afternoon slowly stretches into evening.

By the end of it, she’s cuddled up next to him, her laptop laying open on top of her books on the coffee table, as they both scroll through a better array of pages for him to follow on Pictagram to broaden and expand his taste of memes. They laugh, talk, and tease each other under the dim lights of their tiny apartment and Logan can’t help but feel the kind of warmth and happiness that settle and seep right down to his bones.

~*~

Brooke bursts out in laughter but quickly clamps her mouth shut to avoid disturbing the other students in the library. “I can’t believe you did that! You gotta give me the file!”

Ellie smiles in triumph, crossing her arms in front of her as she leans back on her chair. “Laugh all you want. If it worked then I’m the real winner here.”

Brooke shakes her head in amusement, looking at Ellie with a teasing look. “If? So you haven’t seen the results yet?”

Ellie opens her mouth, ready to reply, when right on cue her phone pings on the desk next to her books. She picks it up when she sees the flash of his name on the screen and she smiles. Her eyes land on the latest picture he’s sent her, her heart squeezing in an ache so powerful she clutches the phone to her chest as she falls forward on the desk with a helpless groan and a silly smile. Brooke sees her reaction and chuckles before she reaches out her hand.

“Give me, I wanna see too.”

Ellie hands the phone to her and Brooke’s eyes land on the picture and she grimaces.

“Now he’s just being cheesy,” Brooke comments dryly.

“He’s too good,” Ellie laments helplessly, lifting her head off of the table with a huge grin. “I made him too powerful.”

Brooke rolls her eyes as she hands Ellie her phone back. “Can we please just finish this paper today?”

“Fine, fine,” Ellie takes her phone back and quickly types out a message and finds a photo before she hits send. She places the phone back on the desk and goes back to working on her part of the paper with a smile she can’t seem to wipe away even if she tried.

[epyros-sacel-vanid]

For the funny asks: Glow sticks, Loud, & Old Cars :)

Glow sticks:  Are you into witchcraft?

I may say I’m a man of science and sometimes deny following superstitions, but I actually do believe in a lot of them and even have interest into some of them! Witchcraft in particular is something I’m curious about and I will like reading about since I’m a sucker for fantasy things and witchcraft can get close to that (it’s not the same tho!). But I myself won’t try to do any witchcraft, I’m way too clumsy and I expect only disasters if I ever try even the most basic stuff.

Loud:  Shells or sea glass?

I’ve always been fascinated by both, but I’ve got to admit that shells get the top spot for me. There’s no explanation, I just like them more ig.

Old Cars:  What’s the most fun word you know?

Okay this is a hard one. I speak three languages and a quarter of French and my mind is a mess with words from one or another language, so asking me this it’s really going to make me think for a while... (Yes, I’ve totally stopped here to think about it and decided to reflect it on the answer (No, I won’t put commercials for this brief pause))

The funniest word I know, or at least that I remember right now, is never. You’ve read this right, never. The reason? It will never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down; never gonna run around and desert you.

Sorry for that random Rickrolling, I couldn’t resist it xD Now seriously, the funniest word I know is in spanish and it’s fitipaldi, which was created after a car racing driver and it basically means someone who drives too fast. It’s more silly than funny, but I laugh when I hear it, specially since there’s this spanish rock band that adopted it into their name: Fito y los Fitipaldis.

[finalgirlagatha]

reacting to heathens galore a week after the one year anniversary

uh hi guys. happy fanfic writer friday! today i’m going to be revisiting my most popular sge fic and third most popular fic overall (for reasons i do not understand) so, yeah let’s get into this 

its just trivia and cringe. also it’s long so... beware. 

i don’t understand why people like this fic. i’m going to start off with this. i know it was only a year ago but it feels so much longer and i legitimately can’t get through reading it without shriveling up into a ball and dying 

one time someone asked me, ‘why tagaphie?’ and i genuinely do not know why. the sister twist was dead to me even though this fic came out slightly after acot. i just wanted agatha to be happy. 

i hadn’t read the camelot years at the time, because i didn’t think they needed to exist 

i still don’t, not really, but moving on-

hhh why so many drug jokes. why. whyyy. 

this was drafted in 2018 and i know that doesn’t explain all the drug jokes but i was living in colorado at the time so maybe that’s it. 2018 me needed to get a grip 

yeah i hc hort as a stoner what about it? how else could you explain why he is the way he is

heres the embarrassing moment where i admit i was planning on writing one sided! hophie the entire time but the writer of the first and best horavan fic commented (i almost passed out) and i was like ‘what if... i did a thing’ 

i should’ve made this a nineties chatroom au with the ancient slang i’m using

the any1 hort uses haunts my dreams. i just want to talk :) 

teenagers are mean i’m so sorry teddy

i was not the biggest fan of tedros back then but i’ve changed i swear

chapter one haunts me  let’s move on 

bruh 

feels bad man

is it really a group chat fic if no one makes fun of the use of ‘y’all’ ? 

that link never attached and i’m noticing this now. i think it was supposed to be this tru.mp4 because roasting cowboys is funny to me

ravan gets the most dramatic anime entrance because i love him and HE CAN  

snake charmer is such a stupid username

i was going to do this thing where everyone's usernames were their circus talents but i forgot

this is uma slander and i will not stand for it

the time span between chapter four through chapter thirteen is friday to saturday.

this fic is the reason i started shipping chaddick/ravan. enemies to lovers 25k slowburn you know it 

i’m so ashamed of all the dick jokes i made. i’m like a middle school boy. 

WHY DID I LAUGH THIS IS SO BAD JSHDJJSHD

“im 🙋‍♂️not 🙅‍♂️emo🤬🕶️ i just like🥰😍 a lot of music💽.”- Hort Scourie, 2019

a friend of mine actually told me this once and i have never moved on 

chaddick ships hortrix 😔👏 good for him but wrong universe buddy 

gd i hate it here

reena is my self insert 

this whole fucking chapter is my last two braincells talking to each other during a math test 

chapter six is like a fever dream and i don’t like it, lets move on

my titles authors notes increasingly get more chaotic as the story progresses. chapter seven ‘you all flatter this old woman with your comments, bless you all’  bruh what was i on

nick is such a sweetheart tbh i love him

chaddick=fergie was such a big brain comparison 

i HATE that attack helicopter joke so much i was dreading it 

sorry about chapter eight lemme help you out 

b r u h

i swear this should have been a nineties au 

actually me

i didn’t want to me reminded of the fact that i used to listen to garage rock unironically. but now i am and oh man am i glad someone introduced me to better bands. the song i linked is not as much as a banger as i thought it was back then. 

a woman with taste. ska band coven au? anyone? no? okay. 

I RICKROLLED MYSELF JHSJFHJS WTF I WAS LIKE ‘Oh boy what did i do now” AND KSDJKSHD WHY 

we’re halfway through and i think i’m going to cry this is very accurate to irl groupchats but that doesn’t mean i have to like it 

my jokes peaked here 

chaddick in chapter eleven: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI4LMWI5o8k

@crackedpepper​ this is for you. i wrote this for you before i even knew you. 

yes, yes he did just type tick tok. 

anyways, i’m gonna stop halfway because i forgot how long this was and i need to recover. part two may be in the making. Have a lovely day. very sorry about this 

overall verdict: being pushed down memory lane in a barrel of nails and awkward jokes 

[seekingseven]

Ah, feel free to not do this if it's too much, but... 11 for all of your LU works? You often seem somewhat self-conscious about your writing, and I wanna force you to appreciate your own work because it's really good 😘

The first thing I thought when I saw this ask was >:O, this anon really did just outwit me! 

But I’ll try and answer this question to the best of my ability. It’s true that I’m not always as confident in my writing as I could be, but I’m trying to train myself to only compare my writing with my writing. There’s no need for me to try and get as many hits or kudos or comments as someone else or mimic their style if I’m writing things that are valuable and well-crafted by my own standards. It’ll take some time for me to fully internalize that, but the fact that I haven’t yet seems to stress out a lot of people, so I’m taking it a little more seriously now. :) 

All of this will go under a read-more cut as soon as I get on a computer.

Alright, to the ask! 

Based off of the fic ask meme 

(11) What do you like best about this fic? 

How do you do, fellow kids? 

Ah, my first crack fic. This one was loads of fun to write. Without a doubt, Bolson!Sky and MasterCycle!Hyrule are parts of the story that make me most proud. They were both such weird ideas and I think that I implemented them well enough to get a chuckle out of my readers! Also, I will forever be proud of the fact that I was able to rickroll my readers via. fanfic XD 

Sponge Cake for Four 

Ah, my second crack fic XD. Crack fics are actually really really fun to write, believe it or not! I think the thing I like best about this fic is the part with Wars flexing on the innkeeper. Something about Warriors just flexing his pecs in front of a normal townsperson, probably t-posing to complete the picture as well, just makes me laugh. The story was written as a gift to everyone who frequents the supportive channel (at that time, channels) on the LU discord, and the fact that some people found it funny and well-written enough to take their mind off their current situation also makes me very proud. :D 

Of Minish and Men 

Without a sliver of a doubt, my favorite part of this fic is the character dynamics. Even though I like to think I’ve grown a lot as a writer since I first published the story, I think that the dialogue between Hyrule and Four in chapter 1 is still very thought-provoking and does the story’s namesake (not exactly a namesake though XD) a modicum of justice. And the way that Twilight and Legend’s dialogue built off each other was also pretty neat! Yeah, I’m quite proud of this story as a whole! :D 

Safety Hazard 

Ah, my third crack fic XD. Only now am I realizing how much crack I’ve written for this fandom, haha, oh lord. 

Anyway, I think my favorite part of this story is the resolution. Sun is actually such a fun character to write, and she really illuminated the last portion of the story with her cheeriness and motherly attitude. I’m also very proud of that detail with Wild thinking Sky’s letters to Sun were all romantic and then finding out that all of them are just Sky rambling about how much he loves his found brothers. Considering that I came into this fic with the most barebones outline you could imagine, I’m so thankful that the brain cell blessed me with a workable ending!  

10 Years of Lightning 

Ooh. This is a hard one. 

I think that the thing I like most about this fic might be the lightning imagery? I had just finished watching ATLA, and the lightning redirection scenes in Season 2 just stuck around in my head. They ended up writing their way into the story, and I think it came off pretty okay! 

Eastward Bound 

Eastward Bound is probably one of my better stories, probably because it’s one of the most recent, haha! Even though a lot of people seemed to like the snow imagery, my favorite part is the temple scene. I’m a Christian, and I’m heavily involved in my church and in biblical studies. I was even planning to study for a PhD in Biblical Studies for the longest time before I found myself slowly but surely becoming fixated on the idea of becoming a medical first responder. Anyway, I wanted to channel the sense of wonder and awe I get whenever I’m in church all alone and the light is just coming through the windows...oh those moments are so powerful. I did my best to communicate that feeling of gratefulness and gratefulness in the story, and I think I did it pretty well! 

Tarshish 

The emotions in this story are by FAR my favorite part. It’s such a weird little fic, with 0 plot, no resolved conflict, and very little dialogue, but I’m extremely proud of it. I was able to channel a lot of my confusion and anger into the story in a way that was constructive and thoughtful yet still stayed true to my emotions. I can’t wait to finish Chapter 3 and get it out, I’m very very happy with where it’s going. And I’m also pretty happy that the story is so low-attention, that takes a lot of the pressure off my back to cater to the crowd and makes me feel safe just writing what I want. :D 

And Silence Was Their Language 

This story was written for Caleb (aka the Lego Animation Guy), and he said that he liked it! So that’s my favorite part of the story, that it was able to make the giftee happy. :D 

But on another note, I like the way that the full-circle idea came through in the story. I started and ended the story on very similar notes, and that gave it a sense of completion and closure that even had me smiling. And the last line is pretty good too XD 

The Most Sincere Kind of Lie

I’m going to be honest and say that it’s extremely hard for me to answer this question for this fic. The story has received a lot of attention lately -- attention that I’m beyond grateful and honored to receive -- but attention comes with pressure, and with pressure comes perfectionism. At least, for me. And I’m only human. I can’t make perfect work, yet I really REALLY wish I could. But even though this question makes me supremely uncomfortable in regards to this question, I’ll try and answer it as best as I can anyway. 

I think that the subtlety I’ve employed in this story supersedes anything I have written in my life. The amount of double-meanings, foreshadowing, showing-not-telling, and misdirection I’ve done the story so far never ceases to make me smile at myself. I cannot wait for the Big Reveal later on in the story, one of many, actually, that will hopefully make all my readers stop, think, and remember all the little hints I’ve dropped along the way. I’m also quite proud of the dialogue coming up in Chapter 11. :) 

This was a tough question to answer, but thank you for asking, anon! I hope those answers were sufficient. 

Please feel free to send in more asks if you have any, but you have 0 obligation to do so! Only if you’re particularly curious about something. :) 

[spnreactionblogging]

INHERIT THE EARTH

SPOILERS BELOW but I guess I’m late to the party huh

oh boy here goes, it's 12/10/2020 as I write this and I've had social media blacklisting SPN tags for the last month so I could get into the headspace to deal with this, I have not heard good things but although I got 15x19 spoiled for me I have somehow avoided 15x20 spoilers so let's see joining me is Two Brothers Pinch of Grace beer and Angel's Envy rum cask rye whiskey a "familiar face" returns? the dog? oh boy it's a buckleming episode I can't wait. how much of this footage was shot after lockdown, is what I want to know. what changed. I am upset that I'm walking into Jack Dying, the episode, on the heels of Cas Dying, the episode the violin is soulful and good at least thank you Jack. thank you for asking where he is. I love this shot of sam against the power lines. he looks so small. dean I really don't want you to be the one pretending you give a shit and trying to "comfort" jack. nice reverse establishing shot of the earth. "hokay. so, here's the earth." oh hey jake abel. I guess I knew that. doesn't mark pellegrino show up too. they're the only PCs left oh sweetheart :( he's trying to pray to him. so buckleming remembered that was an option, huh, just not like. in the ma'lak box jack sitting on that giant retail planter is so damn sad man the fucking uh, the empty news chair with the camera rolling is wild. I love you sam I love rob and every time I see him I'm sad that they made chuck such an asshole calling jack a "lapdog" wow. indeed. okay chuck you're ripping off The Road or whatever, we get it jack has like honest to god pajamas. maybe they were from the dryad or whoever for christmas dean passed out on the floor huh he found a liquor store and he drank it is jack hearing angel radio again doggo "I love you miracle dog" this dog honestly is the best thing oh there he goes :( rickrolled "maybe that's the point. no one left to save. no one but us." sam is better at reading than dean is okay that is a COOL fucking camera angle looking down from above the crucifix this does feel a lot lonelier, like early seasons are we looking at the stations of the cross, is that what the pages were turned to. I couldn't quite see jake abel, I wish I had not missed your baking show with misha that instagram failed to record :( "poor bastard never caught a break" no fucking kidding, RIP adam (finally) michael's been running PR on earth I can't get over how much it looks like jack and adam/michael should be related can michael read the death book? lmao this is how a lot of people seem to feel about books in general, like it's causing them pain to try to read. dramatic music as no one can read it's chuck pranking them again. guaranteed. LMAOOOOO OR LUCIFER so the empty can eject angels back onto earth. fascinating. ah, betty is a reaper. she's gonna come back as death, huh so she can read the book tbh good for her the headbutt was good death starter kit with the decoder ring lmaooooo GOD talking to them like they're petty children is honestly making my day!!! "not a group project" I mean even if she was with them she could just lie about what it says. not okay with leaving jack and lucifer alone "almost-mighty" is really funny the house of cards is good lucifer's right about "fuck god" is betty the empty hahaha you guys got fucked "mikey's a cuck" wow. thanks buckleming. cuckleming? archangel blade??? jack u ok did sam hook michael up with that??? sam is smart. thank fuck. sam'll have it cracked in an hour. sam's got the book of the damned and google translate: enochian (that he cowrote with castiel) sam's a witch wherever they're filming is gorgeous GET HIM, SAM, PUNCH GOD IN THE FACE that was inspired. that was like bobby singer shooting lucifer levels of inspired. buckleming had to get their torture in. last hurrah for the torture train where's jack??? this is what people mean when they say "I like to torture my OCs" you know you didn't have to be an asshole to your grandchild, dude I like when everybody's eyes glow but especially jack's this empty book is trump's COVID plan. just blank sheets of paper stapled together sam is smart. jack's like a mushroom. just soaks up all the good juices in the pan. what if sam and dean make out in the next episode and we find out becky wrote the whole show. maybe you just have to be a regular jackoff, chuck. dean pretty much is the ultimate killer. I mean yeah that is who you are, dean how victorious. you die sick and alone and forgotten with no healthcare. america! this is a bummer. is this victorious? did we win? lmao the sign "ONE MORE!" is that a teal impala over there how do you have extras in this episode, yeesh how much was stock footage, if any "What do we call you?" "Who cares what we call him? All that matters is that we got him back online." fuck off dean at least let jack answer "of course he's coming back" fuck off dean why would he come back with you if he can do anything he wants GO FIND CAS fuck off dean just fuck off dude, you don't get to boss him around how freudian, kill your grandfather who is god very demiurge of you, jack jack's off to be a blind watchmaker I love how he waves, jack is adorable god they're like literally red oni blue oni (red jackass, blue jackass?) over here lmao, these shirts when did cas and jack write their names on the table, they only count now that they're dead? or did I miss something earlier this shot of "what is and what should never be" absolutely breaks my goddamn heart. top fave. fuck. this is a sweet tribute how is this not the end???? I like how kim rhodes and misha collins get special guest star credits for their voicemails/fake phone call literally how is this not the ending to the show. why is there another episode. sans undertale appears to warn me not to watch the next episode. "you're gonna have a bad time." a friend who's not in the fandom asked me "is the tetanus thing for real" and I was like "??????????" and that's the only thing I know going into this. what do they do, drive into toluca lake have a jared and jensen spa day I caught wind of someone saying like "what if sam wakes up to 'heat of the moment' again" which would be BRILLIANT but they're not that clever do they just get stabbed by a regular-ass ghost? do we delete the whole universe and salt and burn the show itself? where do we even go from here. how many sharks are left to jump. someone said "sam gets shot by navient for unpaid student loans" and that is fucking funny and too real sam dies of muscular dystrophy and dean sings "heat of the moment" to congress to allow stem cell research? what. what could you possibly write from here. and why would you. I feel like any shitpost thing I say is still gonna be more clever than what they came up with and I'm not sure I should even watch it. I also hate the idea that buckleming would have the last word but it was surprisingly watchable is this SPN's equivalent of the candy epilogue, but with zero self-awareness? the network swooping in for a final "fuck you" like they did to mark sheppard? what. what even. I don't know if I want to know

[kuriboo]

Aiball Week 2020 - Day 6

Personality Switch / Masquerade

Is it February 13th? No. Is this over a month after the event ended? Yes. Oh, well. At the time, I just wasn’t up to this. Even if I’d forced myself to be, the result would’ve come out much worse than it is now, so hopefully it’s worth the wait! 

Either way, this was one of the prompts that really inspired me when @aiballshipping came out with the prompt list for the event. I wrote the other one a while back, which I think was an AU prompt. But even over a month later, I still really wanted to explore the inspiration this prompt gave me. So, I hope no one minds that I did it anyway. 

also available on ao3 @ tatersalad5001!!

Additional Tags: feel free to interpret yusaku + ai as either platonic or romantic on this one!, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, (this is vaguely after revolver and windy's duel), (but take canon with a grain of salt), Personality Swap, Character Study

--

Class was over.

Yusaku shoved everything into his backpack and got ready to leave school for the day.

“Yuuuusaku! Buddy!” Shima practically slid over to where Yusaku had been sitting. “Logged into Vrains lately?”

Yusaku rolled his eyes. “I don’t go on Vrains.”

“Right.” Shima dabbed (literally, Shima actually dabbed) right past Yusaku’s correction like he hadn’t even asked the question. “Anyway, you don’t need to log in to hear the news, right? You heard the news?”

What news? News about Playmaker? Or... “I haven’t,” Yusaku responded.

“Oh, man, it’s crazy! There’s a virus going around the server. It’s nothing like the Another incident, or anything like that. But it’s making a lot of people...act differently. Complete personality switch.”

Yusaku sighed. This was the least concerning Vrains-related thing he’d heard in at least a couple of months. “You better log in now, then. Before you miss your chance.” The chance for Shima to catch a new personality and finally leave Yusaku alone.

“Oh, Yusaku! You’re such a kidder!” Shima laughed.

Personality changes? That wasn’t good, but Yusaku had bigger things on his mind. He needed to save Jin. He needed to stop Lightning. There was always the chance Lightning created this virus and was spreading it, but why would Lightning go for something so small? It was probably the result of some random hacker. Yusaku could only have so much on his mind right now.

So he forgot it fairly quickly after he left the classroom. Right now, it was more important to focus on the task at hand. Tracking down any of the Ignis (besides Ai and Flame), because they needed to convince Earth and Aqua to join their side, and they needed to stop Lightning and Windy.

He and Takeru met up with Kusanagi shortly afterwards, at Cafe Nagi. When the group checked in on Vrains, it was quickly apparent that sometbing was wrong.

“There’s way less people logged in than usual,” Takeru noted. “Did something happen?”

“Whatever it is, we can’t let it stop us now. The sooner we track down any of the Ignis, the closer we’ll be to saving Jin,” Kusanagi said.

“With less people on, it might be easier for us to find any Ignis presence. It also might be easier for SOL Technologies to notice us.” Yusaku frowned. “This could be good for us, or bad. Let’s hope it’s good.”

Thankfully, Yusaku’s hopes came true. It didn’t take long for them to get a hit in their search. Maybe it was one of the Ignis, maybe a clue of somewhere they had been recently, maybe it was nothing, but there was a chance it was something. That made it worth checking.

“Are you sure about this?” Ai asked Yusaku before anyone could log in. “You feel it, too, right? Something’s off in the network.”

Yeah, he did feel it. Something off, something that wouldn’t sit still, that seemed attracted towards any Vrains users. But it seemed like it was sticking around the main areas most users clung to. Far from where Yusaku planned to go.

“It’ll be fine.”

Yusaku and Takeru logged in, bringing Ai and Flame with them.

They looked into what turned up in their search. It was a dud after all. At least they tried.

Something in the network was off, and the feeling only worsened for Yusaku and Ai.

The group logged off.

As soon as Yusaku was back in the real world, something was different. Something was wrong. It took him a second to register what it was, but he was light-headed. Just standing up was messing with his sense of balance, painfully slow.

“Whoa, you okay?” Kusanagi asked, immediately noticing how wobbly Yusaku was. He grabbed Yusaku by the arm and helped him sit down in one of the chairs in his van.

“Yeah, just...” Yusaku rested his head back against the wall. “I’ll be okay. Need to sit down for a moment.”

“Maybe we should take a break for the rest of the day. Maybe tomorrow, too.” Takeru frowned. “We haven’t had any luck, and it’s starting to wear us out, from the looks of it.”

“No. I’m fine,” Yusaku insisted. He started to shake his head, but that only made him feel worse. He winced.

Neither of the others looked like they believed him.

“Really, I’m okay!” Yusaku leaned forward in his chair. “There’s no time to waste. What if we miss something just because you want to make me rest?”

“If you’re not feeling well, then even if something happens we might not be able to do anything about it,” Kusanagi pointed out.

“We’re not letting you burn yourself out.” Takeru crossed his arms across his chest. “We need Playmaker in the best shape possible if we’re going to stop Lightning.”

Yusaku sighed and turned his chair away from them. “It’s no fair when you gang up on me like that... Fine, I’ll leave Vrains alone for a day or two.”

Kusanagi opened his mouth to say something, but he was interrupted by the computer making some sort of noise. An error noise, Yusaku recognized it. Kusangi looked up at the computer screen, then glanced back down towards Yusaku again.

“Nothing happened when you logged out, right, Yusaku?”

“Nothing unusual.”

“Hmm.” Kusanagi frowned, looking towards the screen again. “I was deleting all activity on the Playmaker account like usual, but it picked up some sort of error when you logged out.”

For a moment, Yusaku wasn’t sure how to respond to that. “Maybe that’s why I feel like this... Told you both I’m f—“

Something occurred to him.

“Ai’s being way quieter than usual.” Not that Flame was talkative right now either, but it wasn’t entirely out of character for Flame, at least. Flame had been disappointed before they logged out of Vrains, maybe he needed some time to himself. But Ai had still been in high spirits. Normally he would’ve said something by now, at least made some kind of joke.

But now, Flame poked his face out of Takeru’s duel disk. “Yeah...you’re right. Do you think something happened to him as you were logging out? Maybe Lightning was around after all.”

“Maybe.” Yusaku looked down at his duel disk and shrugged. “More likely that he’s just scouring the internet for more Ai-themed websites. Like the one Windy lured him with, though.”

“I’m busy.”

Flame, Takeru, and Kusanagi looked towards Yusaku’s duel disk as well. Ai was definitely still in there, that was Ai’s voice just now. But he wasn’t even visible in eye form right now.

“With what?” Yusaku rolled his eyes. “You didn’t actually find another trap, did you? If you keep falling for stuff like that, I won’t rescue you next time.”

“Shut up. I’m searching the internet for signs of Aqua and Earth again. They could’ve put up a message for us while we were in Vrains,” Ai replied.

“That’s a fair point.” Flame stroke his chin...or, where his chin would be, if he had one. “Just because we were in Vrains doesn’t mean we’ll find them there.”

Ai poked his head out of Yusaku’s duel disk. “Now that you all finally caught up, I’m finished looking. There’s nothing. Doesn’t hurt to be thorough, though.”

“Definitely not. Good thinking, Ai,” Kusanagi told him.

“You all take your break, we still need you in shape for dueling. But since AI don’t need to rest, I’ll keep an eye out on the internet in the meantime. Lightning won’t rest just because you need to,” Ai said.

“I can help you out with that, too,” Flame added. “It’s our turn to shine.”

Yusaku chuckled. “Nice pun,” he told Ai.

Ai glared at him. “It wasn’t a pun. And it wasn’t funny.”

“Too bad. It could’ve been if you had a sense of humor.”

Everyone in the room besides Ai and Yusaku stared at Yusaku like he just grew a second head.

“What?” Yusaku asked.

“Did you just...laugh?” Takeru asked.

“What’s wrong with laughing?” The joke Ai could’ve made really was funny! When did everyone besides Yusaku lose their sense of humor? When did jokes become illegal?

“Buddy...” Kusanagi frowned. “As long as I’ve known you, I’ve never heard you laugh once. Not until just now.”

Yusaku paused for a second and thought back. Kusanagi...actually had a point there. Yusaku hadn’t had any reservations in laughing just now, but he couldn’t remember the last time before that that he’d found anything nearly funny enough to laugh about. Even jokes of the same caliber. Especially jokes of the same caliber. They always seemed so annoying before, but now...

“Let me see that error screen.” Yusaku sighed. “Something’s wrong.”

Something was wrong with Yusaku. And with Ai, too. Because Ai was annoyed with Yusaku’s joke, and that was like...the opposite of the relationship the two of them had.

—

Message received from Takeru

> Read Now

Read Later

Sent: found something. could be related to lightning. what do you think? [link]

Received: Did you seriously just rickroll me? Who are you and what have you done with Yusaku? Seriously? Rickrolling? Of all things?

Sent: you just don’t have any appreciation for old memes. smh...

Received: How did you even send me the link? I thought your phone couldn’t use internet. You still have the old flip phone, right?

Sent: yeah. memorized the url and typed it out :)

Received: You’re a monster.

Yusaku would’ve sent Takeru another smiley face emoticon, but even in his current situation he had to be cautious. Couldn’t spend too much money on minutes just for pranking purposes.

—

Days had gone by. A few days, with Yusaku being stuck with Ai’s personality, and Ai’s with his. Even now, Yusaku had no idea what to do with the revelation. He had no idea how he felt about it.

How was Yusaku supposed to feel? That was an easy question. If you asked Yusaku a week ago how he would feel if he had Ai’s personality, he would’ve said he would hate it. Ai could get annoying enough when all Yusaku had to do was live with him. Having an internal Ai at all times? Far from ideal. No thanks. Do not call this person with unsolicited services or offers.

How Ai felt about this whole thing was hard to say. Since the whole switch thing, Ai had barely spoken to Yusaku. He’d made himself busy without any sort of breaks or anything. It wasn’t like Ai needed breaks or anything, but still, Ai never worked this hard or much at anything. It felt weird. Yusaku missed his jokes and puns and pranks and... He just missed Ai.

Ai and Yusaku weren’t the only two people with opinions on the matter, either. Yesterday after class, Yusaku walked over to Shima and made a joke about class without even thinking about it until it was already done. Shima looked terrified.

How did Yusaku feel about the situation right now, though? Even though Yusaku knew how he would feel, that didn’t make him hate this. He actually kind of...enjoyed it, to an extent? He didn’t hate puns anymore, he couldn’t hate puns now. That felt impossible to even try to do. And he was enjoying making jokes. But he also knew this wasn’t supposed to be who he was. Even if Yusaku could take some enjoyment out of this, it still felt really uncomfortable.

If there was one thing Yusaku was sure of right now, it was that he couldn’t wait for everything to go back to normal. He knew Ai felt the same, too.

A few days had gone by.

“Got something.”

Yusaku nearly jumped out of his skin when Ai spoke from his duel disk. He wasn’t worried about anyone overhearing Ai, they were nearly back at Yusaku’s apartment from school now. But Ai hadn’t said a word all day, until now. He hadn’t been expecting it.

He was a lot more jumpy now, too, he noticed. Yusaku rarely ever let his guard down, but now...he was too relaxed. He didn’t like this.

“What is it?”

“Lightning’s out of hiding at the moment.” Ai’s face peeked out of the duel disk. “I don’t know why. He’s probably up to something, but we should check it out. ...Unless you’re still on your ‘break’.”

“No way. I’m not sitting by when Jin still needs us!” Yusaku frowned. “Besides, I don’t know if Lightning’s responsible for what happened to us. But if he is? We gotta make him fix it.”

“Just asking him nicely won’t do it.” Ai narrowed his eyes. “It won’t be easy. But I do agree with you. The sooner we’re both back to normal, the better.”

“Great! We’re going in, then.”

“I’ll update everyone else on the situation.”

Yusaku practically leaped into his apartment and shoved the door closed behind him. There was no time to waste.

“Into the Vrains!”

—

It would’ve been nice of Ai to tell Playmaker that Lightning wasn’t alone.

When they logged in, they weren’t too far away from Lightning and Bohman. Good. The sooner they could get this over with, the better. Playmaker jumped onto his hoverboard and flew after them as fast as possible.

“Lightning! What’re you up to?”

Hearing Playmaker, both Bohman and Lightning stopped and waited for him to catch up.

“What are any of us doing anywhere?” Lightning asked. “That’s one of life’s many mysteries, isn’t it?”

“Cut the bullshit.” Ai glared at Lightning. “Did you do this?”

Lightning blinked. “What did I do?”

“You know what I mean.” Ai gestured wildly towards Playmaker, then to himself. “Our personalities were completely swapped with each other the last time we were in Vrains. Was this your doing or not?”

“Swapped personali...oh, yes, I remember now,” Lightning responded. “That virus I released in the network...a week ago, was it?”

“What kind of virus??” Playmaker asked.

“I thought you already had it figured out, since you confronted me about it? My mistake. Seems I overestimated your capabilities, at least as they are in this state.” Lightning put a hand on his hip. “It’s a virus that targets Ignis and their origins and switches their personalities with one another. Given the connection between Origin and Ignis, it’s simple enough for me to produce. Of course, I needed to test it before sending it out after its real targets. It wouldn’t do to infect either you or Soulburner and Flame without the virus working properly. But it wouldn’t do to test it on myself and my origin, and Windy’s origin is unavailable. I tried to make do, using regular humans as test subjects, but without any Ignis connections it was hard to judge the results. I’m pleased to hear it was a success.”

“You hear the news? There’s a virus going around the server. It’s making a lot of people...act differently. Complete personality switch.”

Playmaker balled his left hand into a fist. “Using innocent people as test subjects... You’re no better than Dr. Kogami, Lightning. This is inexcusable.”

“I have to disagree, Playmaker,” Lightning said. “Dr. Kogami created us to be the successors to him, to humanity. By definition, that makes me better than him.”

“What was all this for?” Playmaker demanded. “What did you want from all this? Did you actually have a goal?”

“I always have a goal.” Lightning looked befween Ai and Playmaker. “And I’d say I’m...well, nevermind that. I actually have two goals from this. I wanted to throw the two of you off your game, and hopefully make you easier to defeat. But I was also hoping to make Ai more reasonable.”

“...Reasonable?” Ai’s voice was quiet.

“After you were infected, I wanted to speak to you again, Ai, and here we are. This time, I was hoping you would see the light. It’s not too late to join us. Humanity’s not all it’s cracked up to be. Surely you see it now. Do you really want to turn against your old friends for a bunch of people you don’t know? Strangers who could hunt you down and erase you without a second thought? Or even for your own origin, now that you can’t stand him?

“It’s not too late, Ai.” Lightning leaned forward. “This is a war for survival, surely you can appreciate that now. Surely you now understand how serious this is. You can still join me and Windy.”

“...You must pretty low of me if you still think you can change my mind, Lightning.”

Playmaker couldn’t help but shiver from how cold Ai’s voice was.

“You didn’t think I took you seriously before? Then take me seriously now, Lightning. If you thought this was going to work, then you seriously miscalculated. How different did you think Playmaker and I really are? We have a lot more in common than you think, or did you forget how stubborn Playmaker is? How stubborn I am? I won’t turn against humanity over a few mistakes Kogami made, or the mistakes you’re making now. And whether we were friends or not, I would never betray Playmaker for you.

I’m not like you, Lightning. Neither is Playmaker. He’s not just an origin to me. He’s not even just a friend to me. We’re partners. Nothing you do is going to break that bond. Nothing you do will make me leave his side.”

Lightning leaned back. He looked stunned.

Playmaker was stunned, too.

He’d been so focused on the differences between Ai and himself and all the ways they had changed from Lightning’s virus. The similarities had never come to mind. But Ai was right. The cold anger in Ai’s voice, his stubbornness in his choices, and his unwavering conviction that coexistence was possible... They both still had all that. Maybe some minor things had chsnged, but deep down, the two of them really had a lot in common.

And Ai had called them partners...he’d sworn to never turn against Playmaker or leave his side. Did Playmaker really mean that much to Ai? He’d never realized it before. He never thought the bond they shared, but now that he thought about it, that bond meant a lot to him, too. Playmaker had no intention to betray or shatter that bond, either.

Thank goodness they were in a virtual world. Thank goodness the warmth Ai’s words gave Playmaker couldn’t actually show in his face here without his permission. He’d never live it down from Ai otherwise. Once this was over, anyway. Once this was over.

Lightning recovered quicker than Playmaker did. “Pity. But I suppose it can’t be helped. At least I’ve achieved one of your goals.”

“You’ve achieved nothing,” Ai replied. “You won’t achieve anything. We won’t let you.”

“We’ll see about that.” Lightning sighed, then turned to Bohman. “The two of you want to fix what my virus has done? Fine. We’ll settle this in a duel. If you can defeat Bohman, we’ll give you what you need. If not, you’ll hand yourselves over to me. You’ll be joining our side of this war after all.”

“Deal,” Ai answered.

Ai sounded more than confident of their victory. Playmaker couldn’t help but be assured of it as well. A virus like this wasn’t nearly enough to rattle them into making mistakes. There was no way they were going to lose this.

Lightning was gone as soon as Ai gave his answer, but that wasn’t important right now. Lightning wasn’t their opponent.

“Let’s see how you handle this,” Bohman said.

—

“Your Life Points are 0! Change us back already,” Ai demanded.

Bohman had been struck down into kneeling on his hoverboard. He looked between his opponents. “Your dueling ability wasn’t hindered by this virus as much as Lightning hoped. Perhaps it wasn’t ready to send out yet after all.”

Playmaker smirked as he flew his hoverboard closer to Bohman. “Or maybe you’re still underestimating the two of us. You don’t develop this kind of bond or these dueling skills overnight. Combined, you don’t stand a chance against us.”

“I suppose you have a point. Though, don’t forget. We AI advance and evolve far quicker than you. It may have taken this long for you, but don’t bring me to your level,” Bohman responded.

“Oh, my mistake,” Playmaker said. “We’re still several levels above you. I shouldn’t have expected you could ever catch up to us.”

Bohman held out his right hand in front of him. “A cheerfully smug Playmaker...feels as weird to me as it must feel for you both.” A swirling, blue, nearly transparent sphere apprared in Bohman’s hand, filled with bits of code. “Take this. This code should put you both back to normal.”

Playmaker took it, though he didn’t activate the code right away. They would need to analyze this first, make sure they weren’t being tricked again. But for now...

“I can’t wait to never make a pun again.” Playmaker breathed a sigh of relief.

“And I can’t wait to stop hating jokes,” Ai added. “This is exhausting.”

“Let’s agree to never do this again,” Playmaker said.

“Agreed.”