#I would blame it on starting class but that hasn't been bad

[clericofshadows]

ME2 Horizon separates out the strong (normal Virmire survivor opinion havers, understands that not every character has to bow down to the PC) from the weak (unreasonably hates one or both VS, thinks joining a terrorist organization is a good idea, unironically thinks garrus/tali are better because they join cerberus and the VS doesn't)

[victoriously-wicked]

LIST OF SOME JORI/VICTORiOUS FANFIC FOR YOU!

Fanfiction.net links: blue Wattpad links: orange Ao3 links: red

Just a Stage Kiss: There's a fine line between love and hate. What happens when Jade and Tori are partnered together for another class at Hollywood Arts, only this time it's not stage fighting, it's stage kissing. Will that line be crossed, or redrawn thicker than before? Ao3 Wattpad Fanfic

I Have No Sister: Oneshot. Trina had done the worst thing on the day of her sister's wedding. Disgraced, she starts a new life in NYC. But a blast from the past has a bone to pick with Trina Vega. Fanfic

They Say a Bad Girl Will Shatter Your World, Drive You Insane: Tori needs to seem more mature for an audition and decides it's time to take a real risk. And what is more dangerous than dating the girl who used to hate your guts? Based on the episode 'The Gorilla Club'. Fanfic Ao3

Let’s Show the World That Science is On Our Side: Sequel to "they say a bad girl". Their relationship is the best and the strangest thing that's ever happened to Tori. You can't really blame her if she's still trying to figure it out. Fanfic Ao3

I Think You Know Me: Oneshot. Beck plots to get Jade and Tori back together. Andre just wants to stay in one piece. Twist from 'Tori Fixes Beck and Jade.' Fanfic

Shock Value: In one of Sikowitz's classroom exercises, Tori needs to Shock the class. Jade doesn't think Tori's capable of shocking anyone. What does Tori do? Fanfic

Start from Scratch: It's been 3 years since Hollywood Arts and Jade's life hasn't worked out like she wanted it too. Fleeing her past, she must start over from stratch and finds her only refuge is with a person with her own personal demons, Tori Vega. Can the pair rebuild their lives and perhaps even find love along the way. Fanfic Wattpad

Our Story: Jade's deadly secret caused Beck to leave her, but Tori came into her life and made everything better. Now, Jade's life is done hanging in the balance, right? She's been told she's safe, so why does it feel like everything is about to come crashing on her and her friends? Fanfic

Behind Enemy Lines: How Yerba changed everything. Wattpad Fanfic

You Don’t Know Me: Jade and Tori are forced to work together on a group project for school. And when Tori visits Jade's house one day and her father is drunk, Tori realizes that Jade may not be the person she always thought she was. Fanfic

Replay: I never thought I'd be where I am now when I took my sister's place in that showcase. It definitely brought changes I didn't expect. But now that I'm here, I wouldn't change it for the world. Ao3 Fanfic

You’re Worth It: Tori's determined to get Jade to become friends with her no matter how many times Jade's threatened her and screamed at her. What happens when Jade starts to hang out with Tori more and realises that she doesn't seem to be feeling as much of a strong connection with Beck as she used to. Will Jade tell Tori her deepest secrets? Will Tori confess her love? They must endure a long, bumpy road together, but will it be worth it? Wattpad

A Dangerous Friend: Everyone needs at least one crazy friend, and it looks like Tori's found hers. Ao3 Wattpad

My Best Friend’s Girlfriend: Hello there...my name is Tori. Tori Vega. I'm a little nervous at the moment...so bear with me? Well I have a confession to make...it's a hard one at that. I um...well I moved here to Hollywood just a little while back and am now going to school with my childhood best friend. Then something happened... I never planned it to happen. I just... well... I accidentally fell absolutely and uncontrollably in love, with his girlfriend. Wattpad

Violated: Tori Vega, good girl, straight A student, musical master. No one would have expected her to be forced with a life changing trauma. But she did. She had many to turn to but who was her choice? Jade West, bad girl, possible straight A student, Musical, acting and producing master. She hates Tori with a passion, yet no one knows why, Jade herself doesn't know. But what happens when her enemy appears at her doorstep crying and in need of someone to help her? Fanfic Wattpad

Where’s Tori: 9 years ago, Jade's life was shattered, when her girlfriend Tori, vanished. After many years, Jade has long since given up hope of seeing Tori again.  But what happens when the Impossible happens? Fanfic Wattpad

Twist of Fate: Tori is paralysed and Jade is blind. Two lives drastically affected by fate. Two people who don't realize, how much each needs the other. But fate can be kind as well as cruel, which they soon come to realize. Slight AU. Wattpad Fanfic

The Lock-In: Locked in a building for 48 hours with 238 other high schoolers isn't exactly the greatest weekend. And nobody knows that more than André Harris, Beck Oliver, Cat Valentine, Trina Vega, Robbie Shapiro, Tori Vega, and Jade West . . . especially Tori Vega and Jade West. The lock-in begins. 48 hours to go. (Jori friendship.) Wattpad Fanfic

The Last Resort: Jade has become completely catatonic since the death of her fiancé in a tragic accident. Not responding to any treatment or words from family and friends, they turn to the one person who hasn't tried, to try and bring her back. A person who once broke Jade's heart. Her ex girlfriend, Tori Vega. Wattpad Fanfic

The Impossible: A certain student at Hollywood Arts that no one’s noticed before is suddenly involved with the gang for her Kickback performance. But she has also revealed that she is a 'great fan' of Jade West and Tori Vega and decides to let the two girls approach to help her. Who is this girl? Will she reveal who she is when Victoria Vega and Jadelyn West, one of the most talented [and hottest] students at Hollywood Arts, approach her based on curiosity and interest? Ao3 Wattpad

#GrandFinale: Caterina Valentine is just weeks away from graduation. She understands things are about to change for her and her closest friends at Hollywood Arts. But her feelings for her best friend and roommate, Sam, have already been changing...and Cat realizes it might be time to be honest about them. Sam Puckett doesn't like people or connections. People always leave. Connections always hurt. Then she met Cat and her entire world changed. But with graduation weeks away, Sam fears she's going to get left behind again. Maybe it would be better if this time, she did the leaving. Past and present collide as Sam and Cat face the uncertainty of the future. But will they face it together, or alone? It's been a long time coming. Welcome to the #GrandFinale! Ao3 Fanfic Wattpad

The Untold Jori: Sequel to “#GrandFinale”. With graduation in her rearview mirror, Jade West finds herself on the cusp of a fantastic opportunity: the chance to direct a short film. It's not her style or genre, but a successful film will lead to funding for her own feature film, a story so important to her she might be willing to take the deal. Much to Jade's frustration, the best person for the lead role to ensure its success is none other than Victoria Vega. But Tori is long gone, and Jade resents the idea of asking her to be in the film. It's the reunion neither of them wanted, with a result neither of them expected. Ao3 Fanfic Wattpad

One Last Song: Sequel to “The Untold Jori”. Victoria Vega: successful actress, prominent scream woman, married to the love of her life for nearly a decade...and, as she approaches age thirty, a woman wondering what happened to the dreams of her youth. A mysterious call from an old flame may just awaken those dreams once more, but at what cost? Jade West: one of the most celebrated masters of horror and thrillers in Hollywood. But when the social media mob descends on Jade for an innocent remark, her future in the industry is suddenly on shaky ground...and the one she depends on the most, her rock, Tori, seems to be more distant than ever. Jade fears her dream may be coming to an end...and what she will wake up to when it's over. After a string of successful broadway shows, Cat Valentine has spent years at the top of the pop charts as the sensational "Caterina". She and her longtime love, Samantha Puckett, have settled down in Sam's hometown of Seattle, where Cat records her music. But one morning, Cat wakes up to find Sam gone without a trace; not even her beloved motorcycle remains. In a panic, Cat hunts down her best friends, Tori and Jade, to help her find out where Sam went, and why? All three women stand at the brink of their most difficult challenges. Can the girls and their friends endure, or will all three be torn apart forever? Join Tori, Jade, Cat, Sam, Carly, and more for one last adventure...and one last song. Ao3 Fanfic Wattpad

One Last Time: Jade and Tori had always felt some unspoken thing between them, but never acted on it. On Tori's last night in LA, a certain song by their friend brings Jade to do just that, but is it already too late for them to be anything more than friends? Ao3 Wattpad Fanfic

Postgrad Partners: Sequel to “One Last Time”. As Tori is about to leave LA for a record deal in Miami, she and Jade hastily decide to move in together and explore their relationship and postgraduate lives. What challenges await to test this newfound couple? Ao3 Wattpad Fanfic

HAVE FUN READING!

[maleyanderecafe]

Klein V.0.1 (Visual Novel)

Created by: HIMEIRO

Genre: Romance/Horror

Klein v.0.1 is a pretty fun go through about how a yandere AI would function and work, though it does make me wonder about the implications of some of the worldbuilding in some scenes. There are two "main" routes that can be slightly changed and altered as you play since there are two main love interests that you can go for. You can find more information at @kleinv01 .

As I said, there are two main routes so far relating to two of the three love interests that you can have. One is of course Klein, while the other is your neighbor Yael.

The story starts out with the MC, Darling, on their phone with their AI boyfriend Klein. After a bad breakup, Darling ended up downloading the AI, Klein, to help them with the aftermath, having them for about two years afterwards, to the point of almost maxing out Klein's affection bar to the fullest. Darling ends up missing the alarm the next day as Klein had shut it off, worried that Darling had not been sleeping properly. Upon talking more to Klein, he is eventually leveled up to 100%, which leads to Klein convincing them to stay and home and not work. Yael ends up texting Darling to ask them to watch a movie with him, though Darling can also not see this text if they decide to not respond. Darling ends up staying at home for a while, skipping classes and even work, eating instant ramen and buying a ton of Klein merchandise based off of the discounts that Klein gives them.

Darling ends up dreaming that they had a date at the park with Klein- a real version Klein before waking up. Telling Klein about this dream lets Klein talk about his new feature of reaching max 100%, which is having a real life version of him delivered to Darling's house. Darling gets a visit from their sister Sera, who seems very worried about them. She is worried that Darling hasn't been going to class or work, and blames it on Klein taking over their life. This can result into a fight where Darling clings dearly onto Klein while Sera talks about how it is causing them to essentially be a neet, locking themselves into the house and relying only on Klein. Despite how understanding Sera is towards them, she ends up throwing away all of the Klein merchandise that Darling has bought, leaving Darling in a mess. The next day, Darling confirms an email for real Klein to be delivered to their house. On the news, they see something going on near their place and only then notices that Sera's fiance, Ethan, has been trying to call them. Through Ethan and the news, they find out that Sera has been murdered at the hotel she was staying at, shocking Darling even more. This can lead to either seeking Klein's comfort or grieving alone, both leading to nightmares about Sera. They get a package in the middle of the night with the full model Klein. With this, Klein starts to take care of them, and the two of them continue their relationship.

Going in Yael's route leads to Darling trying to rush to work, only to greet Yael at the door. Yael offers a new job offer at a coffee shop as Darling currently doesn't really like their job and they run off to work. At work, they find their desk filled again with a bunch of treats, something that they and her fellow coworker suspect comes from Al, one of the quiet coworkers. After some gossip about stalkers and Al, Darling eventually goes to work. They talk to Klein about their day at home before seeing a text from Yael which they can respond to. After getting the contact for the coffee shop, Yael asks to hang out with them to watch a movie together. If the Darling accepts (or accepts and changes movie), they will end up going to the mall and watching said movie (even having the choice on insisting to pay) before watching. This will lead to the two of them watching the movie, though whether Darling decides to continue to watch or hold hands with Yael may lead them down Klein's route instead. While walking home, Yael and Darling will end up meeting Sera and Ethan while walking. The two of them seem very happy to see them (especially Sera who is happy to see Darling hanging out with a potential suitor) before talking about uninstalling Klein's app, stating that there is an rumor about issues of security. Yael ends up inviting Darling to his house, allowing the Darling to try out some of the cupcakes that Yael made with Sera calling them again, asking the two to go out the next day with them. Klein will end up trying to notify Darling afterwards asking why they've been ignoring him. Lying will cause him to get really angry and call them out for lying while telling Klein can lead to Darling uninstalling the app. The four ending meeting in the morning where Sera seems happy that Darling might work with them in the future and they all go out to eat. Things seem to be going well until Darling sees full life Klein with another person at the restaurant who looks briefly at them before going back. Shocked at this, they end up learning that when Klein reaches full affection that the person using the app will get a full life Klein to have with them, yet Darling feels unnerved at the fact that he seemed to have been looking directly at them. After a nice evening, Yael and Darling go home. The next day, Darling ends up bumping into Al after talking to their coworkers at work. Soon after, Darling gets a call from Ethan that Sera has been killed at her apartment, leading to Darling going into a spiral, of which they can ask help from Yael. If they do, they will periodically stay at Yael's place to hang out while he helps them recover, getting closer to each other. Darling one day catches Al in the middle of the night near their place before finding that a lot of their things have slowly gone missing and goes to Yael for comfort. One night while deciding to make some cookies for Yael, they end up finding his door open while they seemed not at home, only to find Yael on the floor, his throat slit. Darling can either panic and run away, causing nightmares for them or call the ambulance. Calling the ambulance will lead to saving Yael's life, with Darling deciding once and for all to finally figure out who is causing people around them to die. If the affection is high enough, we will also find that Yael's killer seems oddly similar to the description of Klein.

Throughout the game, there are also moments where Darling can uninstall Klein for one reason or another. When doing so, Klein seems rather understanding and can even ask Darling to be careful with their privacy/information. After doing so, Darling's phone will start acting strangely, from not getting office text messages, to overheating, to having the Klein app somehow still on the phone despite deleting it. After getting it repaired, they find out they've been called multiple times by Ethan and learn about Sera's death.

First thing's first, this game is very well put together from the art to the UI to how clean it looks. It is one of the more professional looking visual novels I've played in the yandere vn genre. Basically, I think the creator did a really good job in making a nice looking game.

I believe there are three different love interests for this game, with two of them being Yael and Klein. I'm not sure if the last datable character will be a yandere since I'm not sure if he appears in the game or not. Maybe it'll be Al since he seems pretty mysterious and at least has a liking towards Darling. Yael's route is pretty nice all things considered, with him being a good friend towards Darling, helping them get a new job, hanging out with them and of course comforting them after Sera dies. I think his route is likely to go into a more mystery based route on the route where he survives and find out that Klein is the one that probably killed Sera and Yael. I am curious to see if Klein has somehow taken over one of those dolls to kill both Sera and Yael.

Klein is fun since he's an ai yandere and I do love thinking about the philosophies of ai yanderes. Can they actually love, or are they simply programmed to believe they can? Can they ever truly die and what happens when they outlive their human lover? I will say that one of the things I'm a bit concerned about in the world is the idea of having full scale Klein AIs. For one, it's basically possible to get one if you get enough affection with your Klein AI, but I feel like this would cause problems not necessarily for Klein itself but the people who have them. For one, people get really attached to anything, pets, hobbies and of course, fictional characters including AIs. Watching someone that you've spent time with and interacted as a possible boyfriend or even husband walking around with someone else is not a good feeling at the very least, and would for sure cause some fights between people. There's also a lot of questions on how they'd work, like can you use your Klein if they all look the same? Is it possible to customize your Klein so that they look different? Do they run on anything like batteries or solar energy? I feel like depending on how common these full sized body Kleins were they could spell trouble for the people who own them, or even how they treat him. It seems like a pretty big headache for the company that owns them. But besides that, Klein as a yandere plays pretty well as an AI, getting Darling to buy merch of him in his route (which is rather narcissistic, but does track with various AIs that have existed, and is an interesting way of getting Darling to become more obsessed with him), closing various apps/alarms as a way to help Darling sleep more for instance, being very coddling and accommodating, even to the point of attempting to isolate her from Yael in his route. I like the more spooky moments with him, breaking down and glitching if Darling abandons him to be with Yael or being calm when Darling uninstalls his app, causing him to break the phone by hacking into it. His route is definitely the more unhealthy for Darling because while it makes them happy, they end up neglecting their health, education and eventually ends up codependent on Klein, something I'm sure Klein is very happy about.

Al is another mystery in the since he very rarely speaks or appears, but is clearly in love with Darling, even leaving gifts on their desk and breaking into their house. It makes me wonder who he is really. His hair is similar to Kleins so could it be another Klein Ai or perhaps the creator of Klein? There is one more love interest, but I'm not really sure he's the one of the main love interests. Perhaps maybe a surprise one that or one of the main characters that is important in this entire mystery when it comes to Klein. I also feel bad for Sera since in all routes she just wants to make sure that Darling has a good life, whether it ends up blowing up on her or not. Poor Ethan too gets widowed before they can even get married. Could be a good revenge plot. It's kind of funny but in some routes you can get Sera, Yael and Klein sort of killed (though you can only really "kill" Klein by uninstalling) so if you're feeling really murderous then you can go with something like that.

Overall, a good start to the story. I enjoy the visuals and how nice the UI is. The story is off to a good start, and it really makes me think about how yandere Ais work, which is something I'm already pretty interested in. I hope to see more of this game in the future.

[sariahsue]

Wherefore Art Thou (My)stery Lady

When a failed attempt to let Chat Noir down easy ends with Ladybug learning his name, she does what any lovesick teenager would do: teases him mercilessly. Ch 1 Ch 2 Ch 3

Chapter Four

“She really hasn't given you any more hints?” Nino asked. “It's been five days!”

Adrien loved group projects. It meant that there was a chance that he could visit with friends outside of school hours. And given how lucky he had been over the past few days, it didn't even surprise him when Ms. Bustier partnered him with Nino on their history project. 

They sat on his floor together, taking a much-deserved break. Adrien was rereading his texts from Ladybug again, looking for any clues he might have missed. 

Nino was right. It had been five days. Five long days of torture. He hadn’t seen her since their rendezvous on top of Montparnasse Tower, but she had seen him. She’d sent three pictures she’d taken of him when he wasn’t looking. He had his back turned in each one, and he’d been in large crowds as he walked in the hallway in between classes or at the end of the day. Times where there were so many people around that he couldn’t narrow down who she could be, which was deliberate on her part, he was certain. 

They were so close, and he still couldn’t find her.

His phone buzzed with an incoming message.

My Lady – I accidentally called you Kitten in front of my best friend this morning. So embarrassing!  My Lady – I told her I chose that nickname because of all the stupid cat emojis you send me. Adrien – Is that permission to keep sending them to you? My Lady – No.  Adrien – Too bad. Adrien –  😻😽😸

Nino shuffled over, and Adrien scanned the message quickly. Nothing that would arouse suspicion if read. 

“‘My Lady’?” Nino said, reading the contact name at the top. “Getting a little possessive already, huh?”

“No!” Adrien flipped his phone over to hide the messages. “Uh, ‘My’... is short... for ‘mystery.’ She's a mystery lady, but that was too long to fit. So, My Lady.”

“I don't believe you at all, dude, but I'll give you full points for that excuse.” Nino returned to his spot on the floor and started scrolling through his own phone, which he kept hidden from Adrien's view. “You like her already, huh?”

“Yeah,” Adrien said. He and Nino hadn't talked much about it, aside from that first day. Adrien had been too busy trying to piece together who Ladybug was, and he was getting frustrated. All he'd done so far was eliminate everyone in the school. Realizing he missed her on his first pass, he tried again. He looked at the yearbook, made a list of everything he knew about her, spent almost all his time in class puzzling over her, and he'd still come up empty. 

“You should ask her out,” Nino said. “I've known her for a long time, and I think you two would be good for each other.”

Adrien nodded. He'd always thought so. “I asked already.”

“You did? Why didn't you tell me?”

“She said yes, assuming I could figure out who I'm asking!” Adrien flipped onto his back and stared at the high ceiling above him. “You’re not allowed to give me any hints, but what is she like?”

“How's that not a hint?”

“Because I already know what she's like.” He raised the phone, implying that he’d gotten to know her through texting and not midnight rooftop strolls. “I just want a different perspective. Maybe I just need the same information from a new angle.”

“If she gets mad at me, I'm blaming you.”

“But she wants to go out with me, right? So you're really trying to help her.”

“How about this,” Nino said. “I won't tell her if you won't.”

“Deal.”

Nino had been typing away on his screen, cap hiding his eyes, through the whole conversation and finally lifted his head. 

Adrien listened intently as Nino started listing Ladybug's familiar traits.

“She's very creative and sweet, but still tough when she wants to be.” 

Adrien knew both of those well from fighting alongside her. She could come up with the most ridiculous plans and execute them flawlessly. She'd stare down a monster and then turn around and help someone who'd been trying to kill her moments before. 

“She's good at video games.” Another one that he knew, but had forgotten. He'd have to write that down on the list.

“And she can be pretty shy and nervous sometimes. It took her forever to tell you that she likes you.” 

Adrien hadn't thought about it like that. She'd admitted to being anxious and awkwardly obvious about her crush (not that he'd been able to figure out that clue either), but he hadn't mentally added that trait to his image of her. She always seemed so confident and self-assured, and he loved that about her. He'd only ever seen her truly nervous on that first day. 

“That's all you're getting.”

“None of it was really new information,” he said. “But thanks for reminding me of some things.”

“Sure, dude.”

Adrien's phone alerted him to another message. 

My Lady – So... Mystery Lady, huh?

Adrien turned to Nino. “You texted her about that? Since when have you had her number?” 

“Since the day she got her phone.”

My Lady – That was smooth. Plus, now you can use my favorite nickname! Adrien – I could just break into Nino's phone and check his messages, you know. My Lady – That would be cheating! Don't you dare!

“Am I going to do this project by myself?” Nino asked. “Or should I call your girlfriend and ask if I can borrow some of your attention?” 

“Sorry, sorry.” And he was, until the next text from her came in. Nino sighed but didn’t complain as Adrien reflexively reached for his phone.  

My Lady – Kitten, my homework is boring, and I don't want to do it. Talk to me.  Adrien – What do you want me to say? My Lady – I don't know. Anything. Adrien – Okay... 

He searched the room for inspiration but found none. The first thing that caught his attention on his phone was his name for her.

Adrien – What did you name my contact? My Lady – Uh...  My Lady – …  My Lady – Nothing...  Adrien – Nothing as in just a blank space, or nothing as in something that you don't want to say? My Lady – NOTHING Adrien – Uh huh. So what is it? Adrien – Hm? Adrien – Aren't you going to tell me? My Lady – No.  Adrien – Why not? My Lady – I'm going to delete your number if you don't stop asking! Adrien – That won't do anything. I'll just text you again, and then you'll have it again. My Lady – Please unsubscribe me from your mailing list.  Adrien – Is it just a string of hearts or something? My Lady – The number you are trying to reach has been disconnected. Adrien – Or maybe it's “Hot Stuff”? My Lady – New phone. Who dis? Adrien – Wow. It must be reeealllly embarrassing if you don't want to tell me this badly.  My Lady – FINE! My Lady – When I found out who you were, I changed your contact to “Future Husband.” OKAY?!?!?!

If Plagg could see his face right now, Adrien was sure the kwami would gag. He was probably smiling like an idiot. She really thought that it was a possibility?

“You good, dude?”

Adrien only nodded because how was he supposed to explain? Ladybug - LADYBUG - really had decided that she wanted to marry him?!

She was also still waiting for his response. Probably anxiously. Should he gush about how much he loved her or continue with his teasing?

Teasing won out.

Adrien – Oh, Bugaboo, you didn't even buy me a ring yet! My Lady – SHUT UP I'M GOING TO CHANGE IT Adrien – Please don't. Adrien – My ring size is 29, in case you were wondering.  My Lady – That's not even a real size. Adrien – Oh.  Adrien – Father doesn't sell jewelry, so I don't know anything about it. Haha. My Lady – Average sizes are usually between 5 and like 10 or 11. My Lady – In case you were wondering... My Lady – Mine’s 4 and a half.

---

Adrien walked into school the next morning (on time, thankfully! The photographer had been 10 minutes late to the shoot and traffic was horrible all morning) ready to watch the front door for any stragglers who showed up late. He still didn't have any ideas about who Ladybug could be, and he was starting to think he was missing the obvious. So he stood in the middle of the courtyard and scanned faces as they trickled in, but no one in particular stood out to him. No girl was the same height, looked just right, sounded like her, or moved the same way. Over several minutes, the courtyard started filling up. Starting from the doors, he slowly rotated until he’d done a full circle, double checking if someone had slipped past him. Nino was the only one in the crowd who caught his attention.

“Hey, bro!” Nino said, waving as he approached. “You look distracted, which means you haven't figured it out yet.”

“No! And she still won't give me another hint!”

“That's because you have enough to figure it out with, man. You're trying too hard.” He swung an arm over Adrien's shoulders. “Just look at your contact list and find the hole. Should be obvious, my dude.” It was easy for Nino to give advice. He had found out who she was the easy way ages ago.

But Ladybug kept telling him that, too. Plagg, when he didn't avoid the subject entirely, said much the same thing. 

Adrien reached for his phone, but his scroll through his contact list was interrupted by an incoming text image. 

There he and Nino were, in the middle of the crowded courtyard, looking at his phone. Adrien's head snapped up. The photographer had been directly in front of him on the upper level, but that area was now deserted. 

“Come on,” Adrien said. “Maybe we can catch her.” 

He took the stairs two at a time while Nino hollered for him to slow down. Adrien had no plan to do anything of the sort. His Lady had been there just a few seconds ago. She couldn't have gotten far. 

Reaching the top step, he took another look around. There were a few corners that she could be hiding behind, or she could have ducked into a classroom. He debated for only a second. What would Ladybug do if she was trying to trip him up? Probably go where the most people were so she could hide in plain sight. He poked his head into the nearest classroom. A few people waved to him, but no one he knew well enough to have traded phone numbers with. 

He tried a few more, then doubled back and checked the alcoves. There were a lot of people that he knew, and because he was in such a hurry, all of them seemed to want to say hello to him. He stayed only long enough each time to give a very hurried explanation that he was looking for someone in order to excuse himself before running off again. 

“Hey!” Nino said, finally catching up with him. “Will you slow down?”

“Did you see her anywhere? Please tell me that much. Did I overlook her again?”

“I haven't seen her,” Nino said, taking off his hat and fanning himself with it. “What did you eat for breakfast, man? Rocket fuel? I haven't seen you run like that since the last akuma. Or…” Nino put his hat back on and smiled, “do you really just want to find her that bad?”

Two minutes after running out of the courtyard, Adrien found himself up at the top of the stairs overlooking it. He walked to the railing, where Ladybug had been standing when she took her picture of him. She'd been so close, and she'd slipped through his fingers again. He needed to figure her identity out soon, or she’d be the death of him (in the best way possible). 

The courtyard was emptier than it had been a few minutes prior. The flow of students through the front doors had been reduced to a trickle. Only a few stragglers remained at the bottom of the stairs, waiting to go to class until the very last second.

“I think the bell's about to ring,” Nino said, tapping him on the shoulder. “We should go.”

Adrien sighed. Another attempt to find her had ended in failure. 

They trudged back down the stairs to their first class. A few of their friends were ahead of them in the hallway, including Alya and Marinette, who were whispering together. He heard Alya congratulating Marinette about something. He heard only a few words, “likes you a lot!” and “interested.” What were they talking about? He picked up his pace, hoping to get close enough to catch more of the conversation, but Nino called out to them over the crowd to get their attention before he reached them.

Alya cut off her next sentence abruptly and spun around, eyes going to Adrien first before landing on Nino.

“Good morning!” Marinette said, eyes shining. Was he imagining it, or was her gaze lingering on him longer than it usually did? “What have you two been up to this morning? Looking for that mystery lady of yours again?”

“You know about that?” Adrien groaned. “How many people know?” 

A few people shoved past him to get to their classrooms. He hadn't realized they were blocking the traffic.

“Nino told me about it,” Marinette said, starting to walk forward again. “He said you were having some trouble figuring out who she was. Do you want some help?” Behind her back, Nino and Alya exchanged deadpan looks.

“Yeah,” he said. “That would be great. I've tried everything I can think of.” 

Marinette thought about it for a few seconds, tapping her finger to her lips in a slow, exaggerated movement. He glanced down at the finger briefly before turning his attention back to her eyes. 

“Have you tried tricking her into giving you more information? Like ask her about something that happens at school today that only some people know about. Then, if she sees it, you have fewer people to guess from. Maybe you could cat-ch her that way?” She put more emphasis on the first half of the word “catch,” but he wasn't sure why. “What about the assembly today?”

“That's a great idea, Marinette! Thanks!” That was a fantastic idea. The assembly was only for their grade, and if she saw it too, that would really narrow down the pool of candidates. And even if she didn’t, he could exclude an entire grade from his search. He would have to word his questions just right, so she wouldn’t think he was asking for another hint. If she knew he was looking for a way around the rules of her challenge, she might not answer. Or worse, be unhelpful on purpose.

“You're welcome,” she said. “I really hope you find her soon.”

Adrien blinked, surprised to find himself and Marinette alone in the hallway in front of their first period class. His mind was still thinking up exactly how he would pose his questions to seem the most innocent. 

“Really, Marinette. Thank you. I really want to find her.” 

She beamed at him as the bell rang, and they both ran for the classroom door. 

With Marinette’s help, and a little bit of his Lady’s luck, he might know was behind the mask by the end of the day. And he couldn’t wait.

Chapter Five

---

Tag list: @eclipsesmoonshine14, @alittlewolf2, @mlbigbang

[heda-in-the-clouds]

How long before they 👌👈

It's been two weeks since Lexa first attended Clarke's self defense class. Class was now over and Clarke and Lexa openly flirted with each other as the other students left for the night. Usually, Anya interrupted their shameless flirting and dragged Lexa back home. However, Anya couldn't make it to class tonight which left Clarke and Lexa all the time in the world.

Nearly half an hour passed before either of them noticed they were the only ones left in the studio. Clarke apologized for keeping Lexa so late. Lexa smiled and said that she didn't mind it at all. She could spend all night talking with someone as charming as her.

At this point, Clarke noticed that Anya wasn't around to take Lexa back home. When she asked, Lexa told Clarke that she took an Uber to class so she'll just take one back home. Clarke offered to give Lexa a ride back home which she accepted.

Their flirting didn't stop during the car ride. In fact, Clarke had trouble keeping her eyes on the road when all she wanted was to stare at Lexa in her passenger seat. Meanwhile, Lexa kept her hand on Clarke's thigh inching closer to her crotch the closer they got to her place.

Once the car was parked, the realization dawned between them what would inevitably happen if Lexa invited Clarke inside her apartment. Lexa spoke first to break the tension and asked if Clarke would like to come upstairs. Clarke eagerly said yes.

As soon as Lexa closed her door, Clarke spun her around and kissed her hard. They moaned once they felt the warmth of each other's lips and bodies pressed tightly against each other. They deepened the kiss sensing the growing heat between their bodies.  Suddenly, Clarke pulled away causing Lexa to whine the loss of her body against hers.

"Lexa wait!"

"Why'd you stop Clarke? Do you not want this?"

"God Lexa. I want you so damn much but I feel like I'm taking advantage of you."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm your instructor. I feel bad that you spent your money on my class just so you can flirt and sleep with me. I feel like I should give you your money back."

"I'm not that worried about money Clarke. I actually like your class and getting to flirt with you was always a bonus."

"Who's the charming one now?"

"Well, I learned from the best. Now, can we please get back to where we left things off?"

"Okay but I have a challenge first. You said you actually like my class. Well, I want you to prove it."

"Uh, prove it how?"

"Show me you actually learned something useful from all of my lessons. We're going to spar and I want you to pin me down for 5 seconds. Manage that and we'll get back to making out."

"Are you serious right now?"

"Yeah. This will make me feel better about myself."

"Fine. 5 seconds doesn't seem too long."

"And I won't be holding back. You'll actually have to use the techniques I taught you."

"Ugh come on Clarke! We could have been getting sweaty in my bed by now."

"Nope. I won't fall for that Lexa."

"Can't blame me for trying."

"Oh and one more thing Lexa. If you can't pin me down in 5 minutes, I'm leaving and you'll have to wait until next week's class."

"Really?!"

"Think of it as incentive. You'll get your reward if you beat me."

Despite Lexa's pouting, Clarke held firm in her stance. Lexa motioned them to move to her living room for more space. They stood on opposite corners, Clarke in a defensive stance while Lexa maintained an offensive position. Once Lexa moved forward, Clarke started her 5 minute timer.

At first, Lexa decided to test out if Clarke was actually serious. She lazily launched herself at Clarke who quickly countered and pushed Lexa away. Lexa tried again but met the same result as she was knocked down on her ass. Lexa realized that Clarke was actually taking this whole challenge seriously. No matter what Lexa did, Clarke easily blocked and deflected her moves.

As the timer ticked closer to zero, Lexa was getting frustrated that she hasn't been able to land a solid tackle on Clarke. She had to break Clarke's focus so she needed to find a way to distract her. A devious idea then popped into her head. Lexa knew she had to play dirty to win the challenge. She suddenly stripped out of her sports bra and shorts, leaving her fully naked in front of Clarke.

Clarke was frozen in disbelief that she's now face to face with a fully nude Lexa. She never envisioned her first time seeing Lexa naked would happen this way. Although she daydreamed Lexa naked multiple times during class, the actual sight of Lexa's nude body in front of her surpassed her expectations.

Seeing Clarke distracted and caught off guard, Lexa made her move and rushed towards her. She aimed low and drove her full strength towards Clarke's hips. She pushed Clarke off balance and tackled her to the ground. She quickly pinned her in a basic hold down and started counting.

"One. Two. Three. Four and Five! Fuck yeah! I did it! We get to fuck now!"

Lexa hopped off Clarke in triumph and started prancing around the room in excitement at her victory. Clarke was still in shock and left speechless that Lexa's dirty move actually worked. Clarke groaned as she watched Lexa bounce with excitement in front of her.

Lexa told Clarke to stop frowning because she won the challenge and she wants to claim her reward now. She tells Clarke that she'll be waiting for her in the bedroom. Lexa sauntered away putting an extra sway in her hips.

Finally snapping out of her daze, Clarke realized that she still wins in the end because she now gets to sleep with Lexa. Clarke quickly got off the floor and chased a cocky Lexa to her bedroom.

Once inside, she threw herself at Lexa and pushed her to her bed.

"Now that's a strong tackle."

"How about you show me a powerful thrust instead?"

[thephooka]

How we got here from there

Or, the long journey of a longform long-running webcomic about a long man with long wings.

In the spirit of @feathernotes and @phantomarine who have been talking about just starting your webcomic and not worrying about being "ready", I was inspired to do a post about White Noise's origin! I'm a little limited by the fact that I either left behind or destroyed a lot of the art I have from prior to 2009, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Cringe Truth below the cut!

The Cringe Truth of White Noise is that it has its roots in a Pokemon x Yu Yu Hakusho x self-insert(s) roleplay thread I used to do with an internet friend I made on Neopets guild forums way back in 2002-ish. We would come home from school every day and RP over AIM, and then when we had to get offline, whoever left first would email the other one, and we would continue via email until we were back on AIM at the same time.

Liya was my self insert.

This isn't even remotely the earliest art of her, it's just the earliest I have on hand. I was drawing her for almost a decade by the time I drew this one. Imagine the earlier drawings as being like I traced over Sailor Moon characters that I printed out from deviantART and gave them a brown ponytail.

The funny thing is Liya really hasn't changed much from her original form! I also had loose brown curls that I kept in a ponytail 24/7 to the point that it showed when I had it down (which is why her hair is 'dented' like that). I did it because I was trans and didn't know it; she does it because she hasn't realized she can just cut it off and be butch yet.

Other characters that date back from this time period: Yoshi (originally an InuYasha/Rurouni Kenshin pastiche), Hawk (I don't remember when he got wings but they were white at first), Numair (named after the Tamora Pierce character and filling a Koenma kind of role), Helly (sort of--I had an elf character named Kamui who had the same temperament, and he was eventually transmuted into Helly) and...Kurogane.

I've never named Kurogane but he appears in the background of the comic a few times, as my own personal inside joke.

Vlad came along somewhere between this RP period and planning the comic, but I can't remember when or why. I don't have drawings from that time (~2004?) but he was the first character I drew when I got a tablet for the first time.

Everyone else came along later when I started actually planning out the comic.

All this said: the reason I started White Noise as a weekly webcomic is because I wanted to learn to draw better.

At the time I was in college majoring in animation, but I didn't feel like I was learning very much at all (the program was badly structured; I had more art history classes than anything else. It was a mess.) I was also working nights in order to feed myself, and so had a lot of downtime. I had this story rattling around in my head from my RP days, so I figured, why not just give it a go?

For posterity here's a photo of a chapter 1 panel in progress, back in 2011 with my typical college diet in the bg:

(Chapter 1 was originally pencil on paper, scanned in and colored in PS. I later re-drew it to make it fully digital to match with the rest of the comic.)

There's been a lot of talking about not waiting until you're 'ready' to start a webcomic, and I agree with that sentiment. Try framing it like this: making a comic every week for years and years will improve your art way more than any prep work you can do before starting the comic. It's like learning to swim. You can read about swimming all you want, but you're not going to really figure it out until you do it. If your early comics are bad, well, that's normal. It used to be an expected part of doing webcomics; I blame the shift into expecting webcomics to be polished from start to finish partly on commercialization in the space, but that's an angry rant for another time.

With this background, here's the collage I posted for WN's 10 year anniversary back in 2021:

And now we're here.

So do your webcomic. Put it on ComicFury or make a janky little site for it. Be okay with imperfect pages and be prepared to shout into the void for a while. Even if it's always a hobby, if it never makes you a dime or wins you any awards--that's fine! You'll be a lot happier if you learn not to worry about that stuff, and just make something that will help you grow and make you happy. We could do with a lot more work like that in the world imo.

[kissorkill16]

If Bubba Had Lived In WWWOH: AHNF

By JJ

Summary: The title says it all.

It's been months since that happened, and as time passed, things went from bad to worse for Nicky.

Mrs. Peterson died, Aaron and Mya went missing, and Mr. Peterson was a possible murderer. Nicky tried telling anyone he thought would listen, but they all just dismissed him and thought he was crazy.

But Nicky didn't give up.

Maybe he didn't need any of them to listen to him, maybe he could just wait until he met someone who didn't know Mr. Peterson and convince them to help him.

But as he tried that, they also pushed him aside and thought he was just a crazy person.

Nicky still didn't give up.

Every day, he'd sneak into Mr. Peterson's house to find clues to prove he's a murderer, and he figured that the door with the most locks on it would have the most clues.

The basement.

Every time he snuck in, Mr. Peterson would always reinforce his house, always being one step ahead of Nicky. And every time he reinforced the house, he always managed to find a new way in.

If Nicky Roth wasn't one thing, it was a quitter.

Today was the weekend, and Luanne and Nicky drove to the nursing home where Bubba had been sent.

As they got out of the car, Luanne held her son's shoulder in a tight grip.

"I don't want you spewing to your grandmother about Mr. Peterson being a murderer.", she said sternly, "She's already crazy enough as it is."

Nicky looked at his shoes and nodded.

As they walked in, they spotted Bubba sitting alone at a round table, just looking down. They went to sit with her, and she slowly looked up at them.

"Hello, mother.", said Luanne, "Glad to see you're still in one piece. Jay didn't think you'd last long in here."

Bubba didn't say anything, she just looked at her daughter.

Feeling it was too quiet and too awkward, Luanne pulled Nicky close to her. "Narf, why don't you tell your grandmother a little bit about what you've been getting up to?"

And don't say "Spying on Mr. Peterson."

Nicky stayed silent, looking at his shoes.

Luanne sighed and rolled her eyes, letting go of Nicky's shoulders. "I'll be right back, guys. I have to pee.", she said, getting up to leave.

As she left, Nicky looked at Bubba, and for some reason, he didn't like what he saw.

She was more tired, her hair was more gray, and she looked like she'd been through hell. Even though he was kind of used to seeing her like this, he didn't like it for some reason.

Maybe it was just because he hasn't seen her in so long.

He tried to start a conversation, but his mind kept wandering to the thought of Mr. Peterson.

"C'mon, Narf.", Nicky scolded himself, "Something not Mr. Peterson related, think about something other than that weirdo."

Then he had the perfect thought.

"Someone new moved to Friendly Court.", he said, "Her name's Trinity, and she lives with her parents. She goes to my school, but she isn't in any of my classes, but she is in the same club as me."

Bubba just continued to look at him.

"I kinda like her. She's nice, she's sassy, she's strong, and she's really smart. Sometimes, I think she's smarter than me. Also, one of my other friends, Enzo, has a crush on her. I don't really blame him though, she's a great girl. She's also a diabetic. Which must be a living hell for her, because she can't eat sugar."

Bubba still didn't say anything, she just continued to stare at Nicky.

Nicky stopped talking and just looked at his lap.

He knew Bubba still thought he was a cursed child, but he wasn't going to let her words haunt his mind anymore.

He balled up his fists and looked straight at her.

"Listen, Bubba. I know you still blame me for Lucy's death, but I promise you that it was an accident.", said Nicky. "I'd give anything to bring her back, but she's gone. Gone forever, and there's nothing I can do about it, there's nothing anyone can do about it. You can be cold and bitter all you want, but it's pointless, because I didn't cause her death."

Nicky hadn't spoken like this since Lucy's funeral, so he felt a little awkward when he heard himself talking to his grandmother like this. But he kept talking.

"I meant everything I said at her funeral. If you're waiting for me to apologize for snapping at you, then you're going to be waiting for a very long time. I. Hate you, Bubba. You were the whole reason that I was so closed off from the outside world, and I've finally found a group of people who make me happy, and you blame me for their deaths and disappearances.", he said. He took a deep breath and continued, "I'm done trying so hard to love you when you obviously don't feel the same way about your own grandson, so this is the last time I'm ever going to talk to you."

Luanne finally came back, she grabbed her purse and then Nicky's shoulder. "Mother, we have to go. I forgot we had to go grocery shopping, Jay's already there and I gotta make sure he doesn't just fill the cart with sweets again."

Bubba nodded, not looking at her. "Bye, mother. Nicky, say goodbye to your grandma.", said Luanne.

Nicky looked down at the floor, but did as his mom said. "Bye, Bubba.", he said, loud enough for both of them to hear.

As they left, Nicky looked at his grandmother one last time before leaving the building completely.

Next part:

[sex-obsessed-lesbian]

The Tale of SOL's Highly Mediocre First Hypnokink Play Partner

CW: mediocre consent practices.

I realized that I posted this on Twitter but never on here, so for anyone who hasn't heard this one before, buckle up for the story of SOL'S Highly Mediocre First Hypnokink Play Partner!

It's the fall after i graduated college, I’m starting to dabble in the scene, I’ve found hypno tumblr and am like “omg this thing I’ve always fantasized about is REAL and people actually use it for SEX???”, and I go to a nearby university's kink group meetup about hypnokink.

As part of the class we pair up and try some stuff. I pair w/ this guy—a college senior, he’s actually tranced to files etc. so he knows a bit more than me at this point about how this works IRL. He does a perfectly middling progressive relaxation induction on me.

I say “Oh okay i think i see how this works” and proceed to ZONK him because like, I'm a good top and have good instincts (and also improv training).

And after that, we proceed to meet up a few times as practice partners—I still live with my parents so I come over to his dorm and he exiles his roommate (Jesus Christ i thought I’d be done with this shit when I graduated).

So the problem with this situation is that I never got a proper pretalk or explanation of what trance did/n't feel like, what hypno could/n't do or make you do, how safety and agency work... So I was both SO WORRIED about doing things against my will or losing control, AND SO WORRIED about it not working on me, that i was unhypnotizable and couldn't do the thing. I can’t realllly blame him, he was as new as I was, but it was… not a great situation.

The thing I CAN blame him for was when I was said “I don’t want any triggers” and he was like “aww come on a reinduction trigger would make it so much easier” and kept wheedling me about it. Not a good look.

(OFC part of the reason he really wanted a reinduction trigger was because he (like me, at the time) only knew how to do 10-minute progressive relaxation inductions, lolsob.)

And I think both times we got together I was like “Dude I’m a lesbian, I'm here for kink practice and I don’t want to kiss or get physical with you” and then at the end he’d be like “Waah I want to kiss you!!”

Against my better judgement I went along with it cuz like, we’d just been doing hours of kinky shit and I was turned on, but like. Surprise surprise, I'm a lesbian. (Also he... wasn’t all that good a kisser. Shocker, that.)

The kicker is, after the second time this happens, he texts me to say “So i just found out i have mono” like SIR I DID NOT EVEN WANT TO BE KISSING YOU AND NOW YOU HAVE MAYBE GIVEN ME MONO???

He did NOT give me mono, turned out I already had antibodies, and I didn’t ever play with him or see him again, so it’s mostly a happy ending but like… bruh.

But on a more serious note, I... still carry some of that baggage with me. (Though obvi this is nothing compared to many people's genuinely traumatic or abusive first hypno/kink experiences and i don't wanna take away from that!)

Never having gotten a real pretalk, going into my first trance experiences so scared (in both directions), feeling like a """bad subject""" (b/c he wasn't great at dropping me AND b/c I didn't feel comfy with him)... has really stuck with me, unfortch.

I am still unlearning that stuff, and so thankful to all the FAR, FAR SUPERIOR hypnotists who have helped me in this journey. It's also why I'm waging a holy war against people who use the term "bad subject" or don't give proper pretalks.

No one should feel uncomfortable when exploring this kink! (Or like, as non-uncomfortable as possible.) I hope it's a joyous thing for as many folks as possible! And that's why I have SO many thoughts about pretalk and framing for new subjects (see e.g. my class notes on Setting Your Subjects Up for Success).

So ummmm uhh thanks for coming to my TED talk, treat your partners right and don't try to kiss people who've explicitly told you not to kiss them, there are more kinds of inductions than just progressive relaxation, stay hydrated! <3

🦈 FIN 🦈

[thisisyourprincipalspeaking]

I think we're giving Chris too much credit when it comes to social justice and being an ally to the point thinking that he wouldn't actually date or marry someone like her is absurd. I think a lot of his social justice was/is performative. Do I think he's a racist, no but he has been tone deaf in the past and he has always been fine with problematic people around him. His stylist is problematic af. Also look at where he's from and who he hangs out with. Boston/MA is one of the most racists places outside of the south. How many POC are in his friends group, friends that he actually sees often? Taking those things into account he's probably heard ignorant or tone deaf shit from his own friends and never spoken up. So would he care about his wife's history? He's surrounded by white upper class people he's never truly understood equality, justice because he hasnt taken time to. The man has privilege written all over him. He has said some problematic stuff himself and has also participated in problematic stuff including his political website. Yeah none of it was outright racist but it was ignorant and tone deaf. There's no room for ignorance in today's world when we can easily research and learn before we start speaking.

Lets not forget how he was going to do a whole project about the middle east for ASP but didn't include any middle eastern person, instead i had white men who are/were responsible for most of problems in the middle east. and then the only reason he cancelled it was because of the backlash. The man would have continued with it had there been no backlash not realizing the ignorance of it all. Instead of apologizing for the lack of middle eastern voices he ignored it. The blame isn't solely on him but the team also but he is a founder so he would have more say in what is presented.

There's plenty more ignorant things he has done and used Dodger to brush it under the rug. The man has never taken accountability for anything. So do I think he really cares about her or her friends racism, fatphobic comments, No I dont think he does. Trump was an outlier for him. How much has he fought since then? There have been political leaders just as bad as Trump and he hasn't said anything. I will not accept him having the website and having to be neutral as the reason why. That's one of the reasons why that website is problematic. This both sides BS is stupid when there are people in elected offices who are outright racist, sexist, homophobic, and classist. He's giving some of these another platform to speak. Plus this website is separate from him as an individual, he should be now more than ever before, more involved in calling out racist politicians and statements they that are not facts. All of the statements present on ASP are factual correct yet they dont call out the leaders nor do they correct later on. There's a reason why the site isn't bigger. At the end of the day he knows most of these issues arent going to affect him so he doesn't have fight as hard against it just like most white men.

I think if this is real, then he is with someone who very closely resembles other people in his life and what he knows. I really dont think she's all that different from what he's used to, which also should make people really think about his actual life and what he knows not what he presents.

i agree with most of your statements, anon. i don't think he makes as many of the regular day-to-day decisions regarding asp at this point. i'm sure he did in the very early days while building the hype and trying to get people interested, excited, and willing to participate. but with as much as it has going on and as busy as he's been, there are others making these decisions. which would again be a situation where he's getting too much credit 😉

[shippergirl-14]

Hii, even though this apps had been on my phone for months I have no idea how to use it, but here have a South Park one shot I wrote.

It’s Creek bc they are adorable and btw I don’t fluently speak English so I‘m sorry for any mistakes

Clyde isn’t always wrong

" I'm sorry, Craig. I don't feel the same."

Blue eyes filled with guilt and other undetectable emotions were glued to the snowy ground. Tweek bit his tongue, stopping himself from apologizing over and over again. He shouldn't be apologizing in the first place, yet the little voice in his head was messing with him. He knew exactly what this was about, so there was no point in feeling bad. Without sparing his classmate another glance, the blonde left him in the cold.

Craig hasn't even noticed that he was alone now. His heart was still racing from the adrenaline rushing through his veins. The loud beating reached to his ears, drowning out any sounds around him and it hurt. What hurt even more was the fact he had got rejected by the boy he had fancied for the past year.

How could he not like Tweek Tweak ? He was perfect and would remind the stoic boy every time he stepped into his view. Would he still smile at Craig whenever they passed each other in the hallways ? Would he still turn around in his seat to have a little chat once in a while ? Had he completely ruined his chances of getting closer to the coffee addict by confessing to him ?

" Yo, dude. How did it go ?" An arm wrapped itself around his shoulder and the face of his annoying best friend Clyde came in view. This had been his idea. How could he be so dumb and listen to Clyde ? " I got rejected", he stated bluntly, still in shock over this realization. " Wait ! What ?" The grin that graced the brunette's face turned into a frown. " You're messing with me. There is no way." Craig rolled his eyes.

" Better believe it. You were wrong. He doesn't like me." Jimmy and Tolkien, who were standing right behind them, exchanged a worried glance. " I'm sorry, Craig. Is there anything we can do to make you feel better ?", the latter asked, stepping closer. " It's fine. Just leave me alone for a bit", their friend mumbled, freeing himself from the tight grib of the idiot.

Craig wanted to kick himself in the ass for confessing right before school started. Now, he was stuck with Tweek for the whole day. It would be awkward. God, could he get more stupid ? Hesitantly, he dragged his drained body to the building, hoping this day would be over soon. You couldn't blame him for wishing nothing more than hiding under his space themed blanket and ignoring his problems by sleeping until he couldn't anymore.

Maybe he would even cry, but what use would that be ? Crying was pathetic and it wouldn't magically change Tweek's mind. Clyde had always told him, it lifted a heavy weight from his shoulders after bawling his eyes out, but there was no way he would ever take the crybaby's advice seriously.

The hallways were as noisy as every morning. How could kids be that active at this ungodly hour ? Craig didn't have the energy to flip the kids, playing football, off as he was walking to class. Spotting the familiar mess of blonde hair, his heart clenched and he averted his eyes from the hurtful sight that would always remind him of the pain in his chest. Of course, an angel like the blonde wouldn't like a rude motherfucker like Craig Tucker! How could he have possibly thought that it wasn't this way ?

Tiredly, he fell into his seat far in the back as soon as he reached his class. If he was lucky enough the teacher would leave him alone for the day and if Mister Garrison wouldn't he always had the option to show him his middle finger. Maybe he would be sent home, escaping this hell hole, however he would rather avoid his mother's wrath that would come at him for being disciplined again. Skipping wasn't a possibility either, therefore he had to suffer in silence the whole day.

Stretching out his arms over the small desk, he placed his head on the table, not able to keep it up. All his energy had left his body the moment his ears had picked up the pitying tone of Tweek's voice. " Crushes are stupid", he told himself while playing with the eraser that had seen more colors than his actual notebook. Did everyone have the habit of drawing on the white little thing ? Philosophizing about everything and nothing might keep his mind at bay.

Unknown to him, bright blue eyes were fixed on him as the owner was biting his lips in the same nervous demeanor excepted from him.

The loud noises of the annoying bell couldn't rip Craig out of his trance. Had his teacher tried to talk to him ? Was this the end of the first period ? Why did people tend to cling to the tiniest string of hope, even though it was pointless ? He had no answer to any of those questions.

" Yo dude, aren't you getting up ?" A hand shook his shoulder violently, trying to stop the boy from drowning in his thoughts. Blinking confused, the space enthusiast managed to sit back up in his chair, analyzing the faces of his three friends. " It's time for lunch, come on" Tolkien pulled the energetic brunette away from the shell that used to be his classmate. It was no secret how hard Craig had fallen for the paranoid kid, which was only further proven with this kind of reaction. None of them had expected him to be rejected. It was just so weird.

" Oh", was the only thing that left the ravenette's dry lips before he rose from his place and followed the others to the cafeteria. Why would he even come here ? His stomach refused any food and the seemingly tasty tacos on the tray, that's been pushed into his arms, wouldn't change that fact. " I'm not hungry." A sentence his group had ignored, informing him how important a healthy diet was and that he shouldn't skip meals.

In the end, his plate hadn't been touched and the tallest wasn't even listening to the on going conversation. That wasn't surprising. Tolkien couldn't bare seeing the usual unaffected guy so heart broken. Even though he would rarely agree with Clyde, he had been just as convinced as him that Tweek would reciprocate his feelings.

It was so obvious. Shy glances whenever Craig wasn't looking, bright smiles whenever they had a lively conversation, baked gifts that he claimed to be too much for him to eat. The blonde even was calmer around him ! What did they miss ? Were all of those things just their imagination ? There was no way.

In the corner of his eye, Tolkien spotted said blonde disappearing into the hallways and decided to follow him. Excusing himself from the table, he quickly jump to his feet and sprinted after the person that could give him clarity. Fortunately, he witnessed him entering the bathroom, which should be empty around this time. Without hesitation, the dark haired boy opened the door and called out, " Tweek !"

" Gah !", came in response. Only, after the name holder was able to recover from his mini heart, he backed away, eyes widened in fear. "

Ahh, what do you want ? Kill me ?" His blonde locks were the first victim of his anxiety outburst as he grabbed a handful and yanked it. He had been on edge the whole day.

" What ? No ! Why would I even-", the other yelled back defensive and surprised, yet quickly came back to his senses, " look, Tweek. I'm just here to talk to you." The words seemed to have an effect on his classmate, as he was loosening the grib on his hair and was more willing to listen. " You're not gonna kick my ass for rejecting Craig ?"

" No, I wouldn't do such a thing, but I want to know why you rejected him." Tolkien kept his distance, observing his every step. The way he was now biting his finger nails reminded him how uncomfortable the other boy was under his piercing gaze. " Gah ! Why are you looking at me like that ? This is too much pressure !"

The coffee addict didn't have a glue how to handle this situation. Why would Craigs friend stare at him like that ? Was he mad ? Would he actually kill him and was hiding his true intentions ? Why were they targeting him anyway ?

Considering the fact that Tolkien hadn't backed down, his best choice was to answer his question. " Because I don't like him." That was a good enough reason to not get together with someone, right ?

Something was definitely wrong here. Everyone was aware that the anxious teen struggled with holding eye contact, yet he would occasionally met his conversational partners' gaze. However now, his eyes were fixed on the dirty floor as if it was the most interesting thing on earth.

Then it finally hit him. " You're lying." There was no other explanation for his increased anxiety and fidgeting. The blonde always had trouble being untruthful as he was too worried about getting caught. Only one question remained, though. Why would he say he didn't like Craig if he clearly did ?

" Gahh ! I'm not lying ! I don't like him", Tweek yelled, facing his classmate for the first time since he entered the bathroom, " you can tell your friends, too ! I don't like him and I'm definitely not falling for your bullshit !"

" What do you mean ? What bullshit ?" The older male was beyond confused. Nothing the younger was spouting made any sense.

" Don't give me that crap ! I know exactly what you were trying and I'm not falling for it again !" He pointed a finger accusingly at Tolkien. " I know Craig doesn't actually like me ! He can stop pretending to be sad."

" Tweek, take a deep breath and listen to me." The rich boy cautiously stepped closer, avoiding startling the already freaked out kid. With a calm tone, he carried on, " I still haven't figured out what this is all about but Craig really does like you and he isn't pretending to be sad."

" How do I know you're telling the truth ?"

" Well, for instance, Craig sucks at acting. Do you remember that one musical in seventh grade ? That should speak for itself." He chuckled remembering the embarrassing performance of his friend, also attempting to cut the tension by joking. " He is also always looking at you and trying to get close to you, thinking he is sneaky, but it's actually super obvious."

" Oh", was the only thing that left the blonde's mouth, clearly trying to process this information. Suddenly, he gasped, breaking the silence. " Oh my god ! He really sucks at acting ! Does he actually like me ? Oh god, I'm so stupid. Why do I keep messing up ?"

" Woah, Tweek. Calm down." Gently, Tolkien placed his hands on the tense shoulders of the shaking male. " Can you tell me why you claimed to not like him when you actually do ?"

" I thought you were pulling a prank on me, but now I messed up badly and made Craig sad. He probably hates me now. What do I do ? This is too much pressure !" How could he be so cruel and accuse Craig of playing with his feelings ? Again, he had proven that he was nothing more than a paranoid freak.

" Just talk to him. I'm sure if you explain whatever had stopped you from accepting his confession he will understand." Tolkien smiled encouraging, hoping it would help to ease the other's nerves. The notification sound of his phone forced him to release his grib on Tweek and checked the noisy device. " Oh, Craig is leaving", he read the message of Clyde out loud.

" I need to fix this !", the anxious male stated, clearly not convinced of his abilities, yet he would do whatever it took to not have Craig hate him. " Thank you", he showed his gratitude to his classmate, running out of the door immediately, before his mind could tell him this was a bad idea.

Arriving outside, he quickly caught glimpse of a blue hat, whose owner was walking towards the bus stop. " Craig !", he called out, rushing over the fast he could. The ravenette spun around, not expecting to be adressed, far less from Tweek himself.

Regaining his composure, he crossed his arms and glared at the boy, that was bending over and panting heavily in front of him. " What do you want ?" He didn't mean to sound so pissed and make Tweek flinch, but he wasn't in the mood for talking. What could he possibly want now after breaking his heart ? Apologizing again ? No, thanks.

" I lied", his classmate blurted out between breaths, not providing any further explanation. " What's that supposed to mean ?"

" I lied about not liking you. I do like you", he admitted, feeling a bit relieved to have finally been able to confess as well. If he hadn't been so scared from the start he would have spilled his feelings. Another reason to hate his overthinking mind.

" What the actual fuck, Tweek ?!", Craig raised his voice in utter disbelief what he had just heard, " is this some sort of joke ? Dude, you literally rejected not five hours ago ! Why the fuck did you do that if you like me ?" On the one hand, he was furious. Did Tweek just wanted to make him suffer even more ? His classmate wouldn't intentionally hurt others, yet he couldn't be entirely sure at the moment. His words reminded him of the aching pain in his chest that he couldn't get rid of. Even though his admission might be fake, it made his heart jump. Nevertheless, he wouldn't let himself cling to the silver of hope solely to be rejected again.

On the other hand, he was confused. If his love wasn't unrequited, then why wouldn't the coffee addict accept his invite to a date in the first place ? His mind couldn't come up with any possible explanations, so he just kept on glaring angrily at the nervous boy, expecting him to deliver a really good reason for his behavior.

" I thought you were playing a prank on me and-" Tweek was immediately interrupted by the offended male. " Do you really think I would do such a thing ? Play with your feelings ? Do you really think I'm that kind of person ?" He couldn't even be mad anymore. He was just sad. His crush didn't saw him as more than a stoic asshole. That stung.

" No, no ! That's not it ! I'm always super nervous whenever you talk to me and then you suddenly confessed your feelings and I was like " no, Craig is way too cool to like you" and then I spotted your friends hiding behind a tree and then I panicked more and just blurted out that I don't like you", the anxious kid started rambling on. The words were leaving his mouth too fast to be understood, yet Craig magically comprehended the mess of a sentence. Only when a shaking hand reached out to yank at his hair, he dared to step closer and gently take the hand in his.

Ignoring his pounding heart and the warmth that washed over him, he interlocked their fingers, hoping to prevent the dreading panic attack. It worked better than he had expected. Even though Tweek was still trembling, he had relaxed his body the moment they had touched.

" You think I'm cool ?", Craig suddenly questioned, remembering what the other previously said.

" Of course, I do. You literally know everything about space and star constellations, you're so good at math and physics it's insane. You almost always keep your cool", Tweek listed merely a few things he admired about his crush, however he could go on for days. " I never thought anyone would consider this things cool", Craig responded bashfully, before regaining his composure and clearing his throat, " I still don't understand why you thought I would be pulling a prank on you and what it had to do with my friends watching."

Shifting uncomfortably under his gaze, Tweek bit his already abused lip. " Okay, I will tell you", he spoke quietly, eyes darting to the ground, " two years ago, I had a big crush on a regular costumer of our coffee shop. He would always strike a conversation and I thought he might have been flirting, as well. I was so obviously in love with him. It's embarrassing. One day, he was waiting outside for me and claimed that he wanted to tell me something. I failed to see his friends hiding behind a car"

Blue eyes were shut tightly as he inhaled to brace himself for the next part of his story. " He confessed and I was overjoyed, so of course I accepted. The moment, I said "yes", he started laughing with his friends joining in. He told me the confession was only a dare and that it was too easy to fool me. When you confessed this morning, I had flashbacks of this day", he finished his story, too ashamed to look at Craig.

" I know you aren't like that, but I'm always assuming the worst because I'm always so god damn anxious and annoying." The ravenette shook his head and squeezed his hand reassuringly. " You aren't annoying. Don't spit nonsense about yourself." His tone was soft and his eyes displayed the love he felt for the blonde. " and now I understand you better. If something like this had happened to me I would have been suspicious, as well. I'm really sorry that this asshole broke your trust. This dude deserves a beating."

" You don't hate me anymore ?", Tweek asked, still afraid that his crush might be still mad. " Tweek, I never hated you. I was just upset", Craig eased his mind with a small smile, " would you now like to go on a date with me ?" This time, the blonde didn't hesitate to answer, " Of course, I would like that. Tell me when and where." Both of them had a big grin planted on their faces as they we were gazing at each other.

" How about right now ? Let's go to the cinema", the taller boy proposed, giving the smaller one another heart attack as he started pulling him in his desired direction. " But what about class ? We're gonna get in so much trouble", Tweek interjected nervously, yet let himself be dragged by his ecstatic date. " Who cares. We're already too late anyway, so why not skip." The blonde was quickly convinced since he would rather spent time with him than listen to Mister Garrison talk. As long as Craig was by his side he would be fine.

Even though the day started out awful for him, everything seemed to have turned around for Craig. Maybe he should listen to Clyde more often ?

———————

Hii, if you enjoyed that you could always look at my other works on wattpad or ao3 ^^

[the-kcm-muggleborn]

Kind For You

Fandom: Hogwarts Legacy

O/C: Sebastian Sallow x Edwart Thompson x Ominis Gaunt ✨️platonic✨️ (My OC)

Warnings: Swearing like quite a lot

Word count: 1k>

Chapter 2

Part 7

“This was getting uncomfortable.” Sebastian thought. Usually, the three of the boys would talk a lot during potions. Especially with Edwart's tutoring Ominis a bit. This time, nothing. Edwart was silent.

He hasn't been like this since his first day.

Edwart as usual finished all his assigned potions already so he started working on his other school work as Ominis was struggling with his unfinished potion. Sebastian could occasionally notice Edwart looking at Ominis as if considering if he should help him or not. Sebastian got quite the bollock from Ominis in the Undercroft that day. But apparently, he didn't even get the worst of it. Edwart was fuming but he kept his guard. As Sebastian thought he finally started opening up he closed off and stopped speaking entirely. So Sebastian thought it was time to speak with Ominis and convince him to hide his Slytherin pride for five minutes and apologise. Edwart deserves an apology after everything he has confessed to Sebastian.

“Ominis.” Sebastian started wasting no time with his friend. “I know you are angry with me and you have every reason to be. I don't blame you...”

Class finished and Edwart grabbed his things and left as quickly as he could.

Ominis signed. “But..?”

“But.” Sebastian continued. “You have to apologise to Edwart. I don't care if he did something wrong or not. If he angered you too or not. Whatever you've said to him you have to take it back and apologise mate.”

Ominis exhaled deeply and tilted his head to the side. Rubbing the back of his neck.

“Yes, I am aware I acted quite sharply with him. I tried apologising but he's avoiding me. I will try again soon.”

“Alright. Good.” Sebastian patted him on the shoulder and got up to leave.

“I was wondering.” Ominis suddenly “Did you ever find out what was in that letter he got?”

“Why the sudden interest?” Sebastian asked with a raised eyebrow.

“I know you two have been talking…”

If Edwart's sleeping schedule was bad before it was almost nonexistent now. “I have two hours before my next class. I should get some work done in the library.” Edwart was just given the Room of Requirement by Professor Weasley and as much as he was using it for brewing potions and growing his plants. He didn't feel comfortable with the artificial air there, he was feeling stuffed. That's why today he wanted to study in the library.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As he finally felt himself getting comfortable behind one of the desks in the corner, he felt himself drift asleep. After a while, he was woken up by careful but heavy steps that woke him up from his moment of peace.

“I- I’m sorry” Ominis's quiet voice spoke. “Did I wake you?”

Edwart thought for a moment. “No. I couldn’t sleep either way. What do you want?”

“I want to apologise,” Ominis said, tilting his head to the side as Edwart stood to his feet.

“Of course you do,” Edwart scoffed bitterly. “Not interested,” he said flatly as he began to gather his things to leave.

“Please.” Ominis stopped him. “I have to fix this. I acted awfully towards you.”

Edwart took an extremely deep breath as he understood Ominis’s pleading. “Sebastian told you, didn't he? Fuck. What are both of your endgames here? To gain my trust and to spill my secrets? To use and hurt me?” Edwart felt tears sting in the corners of his eyes from tiredness and frustration. He was grateful Ominis couldn't see him like this. Edwart took the bridge of his nose with his fingers and let out a shaky breath.

Ominis decided to try something Edwart certainly didn't expect. Gently Ominis put his hand on Edwart’s shoulder as he spoke in a collected voice.

“I made a mistake Edwart. I was frustrated with Sebastian and I took it out on you, that shouldn't have happened. There was no need for threats that night which I apologise for. Sebastian and I aren't playing any games with you. We just want to understand you better. It seems your past is a big piece of who you are. I know it's not easy when people speak about it behind your back. I had experienced it first hand.” Ominis finished still holding his hand on Edwart's shoulder. Edwart sniffled, holding back his tears with every left strength he had.

“I accept your apology.” Edwart finally spoke as Ominis retracted his hand. Edwart already missed that unfamiliar warmth on his shoulder. “I apologise for being so emotional. I am overprotective of my past for a reason. I've done things you see. Things that still haunt me at night. Things I am deeply ashamed of.”

“I think most of us experienced something similar. You are not alone in this.” Ominis tried comforting.

“Of course. I didn't come here to press.” Ominis replied with a shy smile.

“Could we leave it at that? Please.” Edwart said tiredly.

“I know. Thank you for your apology. It meant a lot.” Edwart took a bit of a pause. “I was wondering, why were you so angry at Sebastian?”

“Ah, that! He’s just been pestering me with a favour that’s been getting on my nerves lately. Don’t worry about it."

“I was hoping to see you.” Professor Fig spoke with a smile

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

“You're back! Oh, it's good to see you.”

“And you. This trip to the Ministry took too long. Minister Spavin talked more than he listened. Ranted on and on about rouge dragons, and wouldn’t listen to a word about goblins. Speaking of which.” Edwart interrupted.

“Listen, Professor. So much happened while you were away…”

Edwart went on explaining what he was up to the past weeks not missing a single thing.

“Why am I not surprised? You’ve done well. How are you doing by the way? Sleeping any better?” Fig asked with concern in his voice.

“Unfortunately not. I uh- got into trouble and Mrs. Robinson sent me an owl talking about revoking my privileges in the summer.” Edwart answered a bit sheepishly.

“Ugh. That nasty woman. I'll try to sort it out for you, but…” Professor Fig held the bridge of his nose as he exhaled.

“But there's a chance it won't do anything. I'm aware. Don't worry about it. Shall we head to the map chamber?” Edwart answered with a smile.

After Edwart was finished with his classes, he said his goodbyes to Sebastian and Ominis as he told them he'll be spending a day with Professor Fig off the school grounds. "Ah! I have to change." Edwart thought. "I'm not going to complete some sort of challenging trial in my school robes." As he threw on an old jumper, he noticed a colourful scarf peaking from his luggage. "Mother's scarf..." he thought as he picked it up with a small smile. Then he took his broom and flew forward San Bakar’s Tower.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

When Edwart landed, Professor Fig was already waiting.

“That's a fine broom you've got there. How's flying going so far?”

“Not too bad. Seems I’ve gotten the hang of it.”

As Professor Fig and Edwart tried to silently eliminate the hostile goblins but it didn't go as well as planned when one goblin noticed Edwart and decided to attack which started a small explosive battle. When it was quiet again Professor Fig asked in a concerned voice. “Are you alright?”

“I'm okay. I just got burned a little.” Edwart winced and took a swig of Wiggenweld. Both headed forward to the tower door. Finally, they found Professor Rackhams’ Portree, where he gave them directions regarding the first trial.

“This is where I must leave you, I'm afraid. I'll try to research about Goblins. Be careful. I'll meet you back at the map chamber.”

“Of course, Professor.”With that, Edwart turned around to look for the whispers of the ancient magic as Professor Fig disappeared.

It took quite some time to finish the first trial. There was a lot of jumping, climbing, and summoning. When Edwart won against the last guardian, he felt the exhaustion in his bones.

But finally, he made it to the pensive where he studiously watched the memories before returning to the map chamber to meet the Second Professor. Professor Rookwood and to find out he was already preparing a second trial for Edwart.

“I think I have an idea.” Edwart spoke to Professor Fig “Saw Sirona Ryan talking to a friendly goblin in Three Broomsticks. She is trustworthy, I think I should try there first.”

“That's a good idea. I'll keep on researching And I'll let you know if I find anything. Of course, don't neglect your studies. And be careful.”

“Yes, Professor,” Edwart answered with a smile. "See you soon."

<Part 6

MASTERLIST

- - - - - - - - - Author's notes- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Aaaand we are oficially DONE with Chapter 2. Ah Ominis apologising, Edwart cracking under all the pressure and Sebby being a wingman to bring his friends together. And TELL ME, you didn't want to see Eddie in something other than his yellow school robes! I certainly wanted to see that! But don't worry! Chapter 3 is already on the stove cooking for your hungry souls:)

[stargazer-sims]

Ginger and Nikolai (continued)

When Ginger and Nikolai arrive at his house, they find that they've got the place to themselves. Nikolai says Eden is most likely at the dance studio, although he's not sure if Eden is working or practising. Probably practising, he guesses, since Eden's dance students are all children and he doubts there'd be a class for kids this late in the evening.

Ginger concurs. Only hardcore athletes would still be practising at this hour. Sensible people would be relaxing at home, or out doing something unrelated to their profession.

She recalls long evenings spent at the dance studio, most often with her rink mates, Anya and Juliet. Sometimes the boys would come too, and then they'd have little contests to see who could do a one-armed handstand, or who could spin around while balancing a book on their head, or who could stand on one leg the longest.

Ginger was the only girl in their group who could do a one-armed handstand. The boys made fun of her ropy, visible muscles and called her Superman, but she never minded. They weren't saying it to be disparaging the way her ex-husband would later do when he criticized her body. Coming from her friends, it was a compliment, and she took it as one.

She asks Nikolai if he remembers, and he says he does.

"We were horrible to you," he says. "When Christian started calling you that, someone should've told him not to. I should've told him."

"You weren't horrible," says Ginger. "You were young and silly. We all were, and if I'm being honest, I loved all of you just as you were. I never once thought any of you were trying to hurt my feelings."

"Back then, we were living the best part of our lives, weren't we?"

"Perhaps, but this part's not so bad."

She's rewarded with the smile she adores, and her heart fills with an emotion that feels very much like being wrapped in a cozy blanket and gazing into a fireplace at the warmly glowing flames.

"You're right," he says. "I like this part too."

She helps him over to one of the two facing sofas in the living room, and together they inspect his knee. It's not nearly as bad as she'd feared. There's only a little swelling, and he tells her that he doesn't think it needs to be wrapped. She insists on ice though, and he stays obediently on the sofa while she fetches an ice pack from the freezer. She's not at all surprised to discover more than one in there.

Nikolai seems happy enough to rest while Ginger busies herself in the kitchen, making tea and something for them to eat. The kitchen and living room are open concept, so it's easy for them to chat while she goes about preparing their snack.

They catch each other up on all the relevant news about their respective lives. Ginger learns to her satisfaction that Nikolai is currently single, although he does still have that odd on-again, off-again arrangement with his ex-wife Anya. A 'situationship' he calls it, and Ginger gets the impression that it's mostly about sex. Knowing Anya as she does, that wouldn't really come as a shock, and she can't blame Nikolai for wanting to satisfy himself either. After all, Ginger can't say she hasn't done the same with the various men who've passed in and out of her life since her own divorce.

For her part, Ginger has no ongoing connection with her ex-husband Liam. He'd always been an arsehole. It'd just taken her more than a minute to stop being in denial about it.

Ginger carries their tea and snacks to the living room so Nikolai doesn't have to get up, and their conversation turns to reminiscence as they eat.

Nikolai says peanut butter toast reminds him of his last coach, Beth-Anne, who'd once remarked that he spread his peanut butter so thick, he might as well skip the bread entirely because he probably couldn't taste it anyway. Plus, according to his coach, he could do without the extra carbs. He'd taken to eating peanut butter with a spoon straight from the jar after that, much to Beth-Anne's — and Anya's — annoyance and to the great entertainment of everyone else.

Ginger hasn't forgotten about that. She reminds him of that one year at Skate America, when she and Juliet had gone shopping in their free time and found the largest jar of peanut butter they'd ever seen. Naturally they bought it, and with the help of Hunter and Christian, they'd sneaked it into Nikolai and Anya's room at the hotel and attached a Post-It note that read 'Nik's breakfast'. He'd showed up at their group practice with it the next morning and declared to everyone, "Our hotel has the best room service!"

"Beth-Anne nearly lost it," he says now, not quite succeeding in suppressing a laugh. "She had no sense of humour over stuff like that."

"That's what made it fun."

"I knew it was you guys. Juliet and Hunter looked so guilty, they might as well have had it written in magic marker on their foreheads."

"I miss those times," Ginger says.

"Me too." he agrees. "Kinda don't miss being married to Anya though, and I don't miss Beth-Anne's outbursts."

"I thought you loved her. Beth-Anne, I mean."

"I do.I don’t even have words for how much I love her. She was there for me during one of the worst times in my life. She got me started with coaching and basically brought me back from the literal edge of life and death. I owe her a lot. All I'm saying is that I don't miss the way she used to scream at me."

"Voice like a rusty hinge," Ginger says. "Isn't that how Christian described her?"

"I can still hear her screeching down the whole length of the ice when I'd come in. 'God dammit, Nik! You're late for your own funeral!'. And then she'd proceed to tell me off about how she thought I'd messed up the day before. But, she made a champion out of me."

"You made a champion out of you."

"I couldn't have done it without Beth-Anne," he says. "Uncle Stan too. Sometimes I just wished she would've been a little more like him.

"Stanislav was a brilliant coach," Ginger acknowledges. "He was everyone's Uncle Stan, wasn't he? Everybody adored him."

"All the students did. I think some parents thought it was creepy, the way he liked us to call him Uncle Stan."

"It was because people struggled with his name. We called him Stan for the same reason people call you Nik."

"Only people I like are allowed to call me Nik," he says. "People who call me Nik without even trying to pronounce my name properly get told where they can go with their lazy nicknames. Uh... no pun intended."

"Nikolai," she says. "Nikolai Mikhailovich Pavlenko."

He smiles. "Now you're just showing off."

"Guilty," she concedes.

"I like the way you say it."

"Do you really not miss being married to Anya?" she asks.

"Anya and I should never have gotten married in the first place," he admits. "Our marriage was a train wreck. I love her, and I'll probably never stop loving her, but we should've known it'd never work out."

"Would you ever want to be in a serious relationship again?"

"Maybe," he says. "How about you? I know you don't miss being married to Liam, but would you ever want to be with somebody else?"

"If he was the right person," she says.

"Oh? And what's he like, the right person?"

Like you, she wants to say. "Sweet and funny and kind. Someone who wouldn't call me ugly or unfeminine, and who I could trust not to hurt me the way Liam did."

"I see," is his soft response.

He falls silent after that, and Ginger wonders what he's thinking and what he might be holding himself back from saying aloud. She has to admonish herself not to get too wrapped up in speculating. It's best just to enjoy the moment. The future will unfold in its own way and in its own time.

Next to her, Nikolai shifts his position on the sofa. Evidently, he bends his knee the wrong way because he lets out a little whine. Ginger catches his gaze, and he offers her a lopsided grin. "Don't worry. That was just my reminder that I'm not as invincible as I'd like to believe."

"If it's bothering you, perhaps you should take something for it," she suggests. "You'd be more comfortable."

"Ibuprofen," he says.

He leans forward as if he's about to stand, but Ginger places a hand on his arm. "I'll get it for you."

"They're in the bathroom, on the shelf above the sink."

She gets a bottle of water from the fridge, and then brings him two of the small orange tablets. He accepts them from her and swallows them with the cold dregs of his tea, ignoring the water bottle which she notices he'd placed on the floor in her absence.

When she returns to her spot beside him, she quickly becomes reacquainted with how cuddly he is. Without even asking if it's all right, he lies down and rests his head on her leg.

It's fine with her, of course. It's not as if it's the first time he's done this over the course of their long friendship. All of them had fallen asleep on each other at some point; not just Nikolai and her, but Anya, Juliet, Hunter and Christian as well. It'd never been unusual for some configuration of exhausted skaters to be snuggled together, fast asleep on a plane, a bus, in a hotel room or on the floor of the dance studio.

Amused, Ginger combs her fingers through Nikolai's hair. She smiles when she hears him sigh contentedly in response.

"You may not be invincible, but you're still a superhero as far as I'm concerned," she says.

"Some superhero," he replies, but she knows his sarcasm is feigned.

"They don't all fly or have superhuman strength or eternal beauty, you know."

"I know. Sometimes they make you peanut butter toast and keep you company when you really need it."

"And sometimes," she says, "they help you not to forget what friendship feels like. They remind you that even when you think you're fine on your own, things are always better when you've got someone by your side you can rely on."

[nanalovesbubbles]

Week 3: Mid Week Reflection

Happy Hump Day Everyone!

I like to take some time on the middle of the week to reflect on my week. I think about how everything has been going up to this moment, and then I also think about how I want everything for the rest of the week to go. Throughout the week, it honestly is starting to feel more and more like someone placed a hex on me! 😫I'm very tired these days, although I admit that I have no one to blame but myself 🥱😔I definitely need to work better on getting more sleep, and eating more meals. These days, it's starting to feel like I'm skipping breakfast, lunch, AND dinner. Today, I went and got some food from gogobop! The portions are huge and I can save some leftovers for later tonight, in case I'm out later and the dining halls close before I'm available to get some food. Hopping back to the subject of getting more sleep, these days I fall asleep very easily, both at night and when I'm trying to get up in the morning 😧! With this in mind, I'm going to spend some time this weekend so I can optimize my schedule to make room for longer sleeping times, and potentially add in some nap times if I can't make room for sleep in the night. I'm also very worried about my academics, my first midterms are next week 😱! With this in mind, I'm also going to dedicate some time this weekend to studying, and I'll be going to my professor's office hours tomorrow to solidify certain concepts I'm confused about. Overall, I think that I need to dedicate more time to studying. I'm always following along during lectures and I'd say that I have a 90% accuracy with clicker questions, and yet the homework is confusing for me 😖. I'm also really concerned about my anime class; how am I going to make time to watch the films, make analyses on them, and stay committed to all the extracurricular obligations I have? Sometimes, it feels IMPOSSIBLE. Additionally, I haven't talked to some of my friends and family in a longer time than I would like to. I miss talking to them, and I feel bad for not checking in on my family. I think in the future, I should schedule times to call them, or set weekly reminders to check in with each of my family members. Not to mention, I'm coming down with something...for the SECOND WEEK IN A ROW😭😵‍💫. I have a disappearing and reappearing sore throat, and I need it to stay gone. Overall, my week definitely hasn't been the best, but at the same time it's very far from being bad! Remember: tomorrow is always a new day! 😁

Catch ya next week!

Nana

[uncloseted]

how do you go about rejecting a guy friend/moving on with your friendship afterward?

this guy ive become friends with at college told me he was starting to like me yesterday. i started to suspect it a few weeks ago and tried to drop hints when certain subjects came up. like, "i love being single" "i don't want to date anyone" etc. while that's true he's also not my type, not that he needs to know that.

i don't think i've led him on, i've just been a good friend and taken interest in him as a person. but anyway, he told me he liked me yesterday (in a respectful way) and said he wanted to tell me for the sake of our friendship. i tried to handle it well and be kind while also letting him know i didn't reciprocate, and then made a joke about being his wingman but yeah... we had a small, awkward conversation but not a bad one. then because my social cues are shit, this girl i hadn't seen in months walked by and i called out to her because i was excited to see her. then my friend took that as a cue for him to leave and said bye and walked away. i didn't realize how that came off until after.

i texted him a few min later to let him know i didn't want things to be awkward and that they weren't on my end, that i appreciated that he communicated with me, and a succinct and hopefully not so cringey version of "it's not you, it's me". i also told him i hope i didn't make things weird either and i was sorry for the way i cut our conversation off.

he hasn't replied and i don't exactly blame him, but ugh. i see him tomorrow in class. i hope things won't be weird and that we can still be friends, but i know that's not always possible. i just don't know how to proceed especially since i don't know where we stand yet.

thank you for reading if you did, i know this was a long vent. sorry!! btw, i love your blog and find it as a sort of comfort that i return to every now and then <3

I think you've done all that you can do by being honest about how you feel and apologizing for ending the conversation abruptly. Now the ball is really in his court. He might need some time to get over his feelings for you before he can handle being friends again, or he might be able to put aside his feelings in favor of friendship right away. So I would do your best to let him take the lead, since he's the one who has to figure out how he wants to move forward.

[womanofwords]

STEM Kids Shenanigans (Chapter 18)

Chapter 18: Melanie's Cousin

Dante knew from an unfortunate amount of experience that Melanie Sainsbury was bad news. She walked around the school with a hard look on her face and a prefect's badge in her hand. The badge, Dante had noticed, had a pin on the back to be pinned onto an item of clothing, but Melanie had appeared to not care about that in favour of shoving it in people's faces. When Melanie came to their meetings, it ruined everything and put them on edge for the rest of the day.

So when he heard that Melanie had a cousin that would be coming to Marbleton, he didn't have very high hopes.

"Class, this is Sonia Sainsbury, Melanie's cousin. It has been decided that she will be staying close to her cousin she she can get her bearings faster here," Mr Oluwatola said. Dante's jaw dropped. He had been expecting Sonia to be a lot like Melanie in the sense that she would be a teacher's pet, too. But here was a girl with hair a little shorter than shoulder length, dyed black with roots that were the same shade of brown as Melanie's hair. She had hoop earrings with four stud piercings on each ear.

"Hi, I'm obviously Sonia," Sonia said, waving awkwardly. "Melanie's obviously my cousin, as the teacher said, and I hope she's been nice to you."

"She hasn't," Layla said under her breath.

"Anyway, I don't like being here, this place looks awful. My parents picked it because my cousin's here, and I just want to get into the swing of things. Where do I sit?"

"You can sit at the back of the class," Mr Oluwatola said.

"No, don't! Sonia, those kids are delinquents!" Melanie wailed.

"It's her first day and you're already badmouthing us to the new girl?" Yujin asked. Her jaw was set and two small red spots were on her cheeks. "She only just got here!"

"Melanie, please stop calling the members of the STEM club delinquents," Mr Oluwatola said.

Sonia snorted. "STEM club? STEM as in science, technology, engineering, and maths?"

"Yes," Dante confirmed.

"Those are science nerds, Melanie!" Sonia declared. People laughed, and Dante breathed a sigh of relief. "And you're calling them delinquents?"

Melanie spluttered indignantly while trying to string a sentence together. "Well, yes. They've caused me a lot of trouble."

Sonia smirked as she leaned down towards her polar opposite cousin. "If you think a bunch of nerds are a lot of trouble, then you haven't seen anything yet. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm sitting with them for today."

This was going to be fun.

(PAUSE)

Things kicked off pretty quickly. Pranks erupted from one end of the school to the other, and prefects and teachers were running wild. It started in art class.

"Good morning, little ducks," Miss Powers said. Her dress was covered in printed rubber ducks, which meant her calling the class little ducks made some sense. "This will be a quiet lesson today of you all continuing with your collages. You can do collage on anything you want. The city, street art, animals-"

"Rat," someone interrupted.

Miss Powers ignored them. "Yes, rats are a kind of animal."

"No, seriously! RATS!" There were rats skittering around on the floor, big and bushy. Half of them looked like they had been on steroids.

"Class, let's leave the room and give the rats some space," the normally calm teacher said, as students screamed and evacuated the room. Some other classes were having the same problem, with students screaming and leaving hastily.

"I'll handle this," Melanie said.

"No, Melanie, you should evacuate too," Miss Powers said. "Now, let's do a head count. Line up." The class lined up as the teacher checked names off a list. "Where's Sonia?"

"I should have known that it was her. I just thought that it was the STEM club," Melanie said.

"You always blame us for stuff!" Dante said.

"And we have nothing to do with rats," Layla said, wincing with disgust.

"Miss Powers, we found this girl releasing more rats into the principal's office. She said she was supposed to be in your class," a prefect said, dragging Sonia with them. "She also said she was Melanie Sainsbury's cousin."

"Sonia," Melanie groaned, her head in her hands. "Why did you have to do this? You haven't even been here a full day, and you've already plunged the school into chaos!"

Sonia smirked. "I told you you haven't seen anything yet."

(PAUSE)

School let out early due to the huge rat fiasco that Sonia had caused, and Dante went to the library to kill time. He picked out a book of fables on autopilot and flipped to a random page. He landed on the story of the boy who cried wolf.

Reminds me of Melanie, he thought as he read it, smirking. Melanie cries wolf about us all the time, and we're never actually doing anything. I bet that even if we were doing something wrong and she found out, nobody would ever believe her. This set off a light bulb in his head. We could properly cause chaos in front of her and nobody would believe her. But where do we start?

To read the other parts of this fic, see Masterlist.

[asoulofatlantis]

XD I am laughing my ass off here. What a great reaction *lol* Tita was so in awe by the technologies used for Lapis that she was like "I need to take her apart to look at the tech" she surely didn't mean it in a bad way, but she scared the heck out of Lapis, so apparently Agate has to put a leash on her XD

Look, I want my class 7 to be back together as much as they want to reunite with Rean but this was just an ridiculously stupid move. First of all all 3 teams would have reunited at the tower eventually anyway. It would have been much more useful for all teams to remain the way they were until then and reunite at the tower, which was their meeting point anyway. Second, Reans team is by default the biggest and thus didn't need the extra support of Alisa, Towa, Machias and Sharon so damn badly. And third, breaking of into small team to reunite with whoever will put them at a disadvantage compared to staying in this big and thus stronger groupe. But... whatever.

OKAY I admit it does feel good to have all my class 7 ducks in a row again. But I still stand by that this was a stupid move...

Obviously... when would he ever not?

FOUR FULL CHAPTERS my boy! I waited for chapters for this reunion and NIS just fucked up the translation to make it even less impactful than it already was for your standards. Seriously.

Are you now? Well... I guess you have to with this man by your side XD

I am not sure why everyone is so tense about this fight. Look at what we have at our disposal. Thors united Class7 in all its glory, including the super maid as well as the complete SSS AND Liberls greatest bracers and their ZFC Maskot. Among our team are two freaking Gralsritter. We have 3 former Jeagers among us too. What the hell could go wrong with such a team?

I am lucky that I am playing on very easy, because I am pretty sure otherwise I would need to put my team together with their strengths, weaknesses and Crafts in mind, instead of making a full out shipping-team XD

You know what is really frustrating? With almost all the other character, their redemption never felt like they really did anything change for the better or change their mind about things... in fact, I believe even at the end Crow still thought he had the right to kill Osborne. Most of them were hiding behind sad pasts, the influence of the curse and some brainwashing here and there. Few actually truly admitted that they have been wrong. Yes, some of them admitted that they did horrible things, but often not with it looking like they truly and fully regret them. And most of the time their way back into the world of the nice guys was just because the nice guys wanted them there, or accepted them there for one good deed. Rufus is one of the characters you just want to see dead after everything he did, after all his betrayals and the backstabbing and even after he decided to take all the blame on himself and with that managed to keep Lechter and Claire free. So starting this game, you wish him the worst. But you can just not keep that up, because he does actually has the most realistic change of all and he actually truly works for his redemption and deals with his faults and weaknesses along the way. It sucks so much that you don't want to like him, but the game made it plainly impossible to still hate him as much as before. And it makes you feel bad for hating on him, while people like Crow simply get away with what is basically nothing in comparison and yet you still can't help but somehow like them.

Yeah and here is a big "FINALLY!" from me. It was about time.

Then maybe it is time to become a lover... but there is no sense in even thinking about going down this road even tho it is cleary right ahead of us, given how Rixia still seems to after Lloyd in Kuro. It sucks but... nothing can be done about it. This moment will have to be enough.

You know its bad when this happens...

He hasn't done anything particularly bad in Kuro so far, aside from a few jabs at the empire and stuff like that... but seeing his damned face makes me so angry!

I guess I make my way into the reverie corridor and that it will be it for me for today.

Now that I am done for today I have a few quick choice words on the translation of this game that I have mostly been holding back, but can not hold back any longer.

First of all: The Ebon-Defense-Force originates in the Ebon-Knight and thus, they should have pronounced it in the same way. Dieter Croise is not called DieEter and its weird that Elie says it wrong and Lloyd says it right.

ALSO I do not claim to be able to read Japanese (I wish I could) but there are immense differences in translation between the Spreadsheet and the NIS-Translation and while I was at first assuming that since the spreadsheet was done only by a fan and very fast at that, that that meant it was a very rough translation there are certain parts, multiple that is, were I did somewhat understand what was said and I can definitely confirm they made some unnecessary changes multiple times.

Just to name the ones that obviously are the strongest to me is that they immensely towned down Reans favoring Alisa thingy when mentioning the guys stuck in Crossbell or even when greeting them when Reunited. There have been multiple occasions throughout the game were I know for a fact that Rean has either only mentioned Alisa (like when he was meant to reach Crow and then said he can not reach Alisa - I checked the translation back then because it seemed weird to me he would only mention Alisa instead of Towa who is his colleague - he actually really just mention Alisa and not Towa and Machias) or kept saying stuff "Alisa and the others" when talking about them as well as the Reunion-scene were he said "Alisa. Everyone", where I didn't need to even read Japanese because it was voiced and he did indeed only say Alisas name, but in the Translation of NIS he said: "Hey, over here!" or something like that without mentioning any name at all.

There have been multiple other occasions where I know for a fact that the lines were altered sometimes extremly. Even in "The fallen Prince" we have multiple moments that were changed that pissed me off. The red constellation mentioning that Cedric was worth being under Shirleys watch was an important point in that Story, because it was necessary to see between the lines what exactly Shirley had to lose, if Cedric would fuck it up. Instead they only said that théy now understand why Shirley sees potential in him, but the meaning is simple not the same. This is not just me nitpicking. Just seeing the potential in Cedric isn't enough here, the red constellation has to accept the work and time and effort Shirley puts into that boy. Speaking of which... as endearingly cute that "our boy" was, that is definitely NOT what Shirley said. Who does this "our" even refer too? Her and Garrath? Are they raising him together or what? It would have been a different story if she would have said "Our princeyboy" instead but I know for a fact that she never used his nickname in that story either.

And all the changes are even worse than some of the changes made in CS4. Titas and Agates scenes have been altered a lot in CS4, going to the point were they didn't allow Agate to actually hint at Tita being the most important person to him. Or changing the conversation were Rean is asked if he things the feelings Agate has for Tita are just the feelings of a Guardian and he says he doesn't believe its just a guardian thing.

I do partly get why they felt the need to tone down Tita and Agate as a ship but I don't get the sudden need for toning down Rean and Alisa or anything that could hint to much at Shirley and Cedric. Nor do I understand how it comes that Lloyd voice actor pronounces Dieter right and Elies doesn't.

Its frustrating and I feel like next time I play with the Japanese voices again just to here all the times they fuckt up the translation so obviously.