#I’ve never played video games with others before which is so mind blowing to realize so I want to prioritize that too

[awildofnothing]

All the same week: early access to Hades 2 opens, I get access to a library copy of Those Beyond the Wall, Hacks new season drops, and my brother finally picks up BG3 after months of badgering and gets instantly obsessed and we start a multiplayer run.

And literally all of my coworkers are out and I’m handling 6 employees’ tasks this whole week.

At least my sleep schedule was already broken man 😂

[incendiobrock]

Pranked You ;) {Colby Brock}

Request: Hello sweetie! I was wondering if you could do a story where the reader and Colby aren't dating YET but there is yah know, chemistry and tension. But one day sam decided to pull a prank on Colby and it involved EVERYONE. So basically he makes it seem like he woke up in a different world or something where stuff is different. For example: him and reader are dating (you can choose whatever other stuff happens, lol) but once Colby figures out the prank, he pulls reader aside. They have a small argument before reader blows off on him, in which he says "I've never wanted to kiss you as badly as I do know" and that's how they admit their feelings! Thank you! And can't wait to see what you write love

A/N: Hi! Thank you so much for your request, sorry for the wait, I have been very busy with school and work. I hope the wait is worth it though! Get ready for a long imagine, I’m pretty sure this is about 3,000 words. I hope you love it! I just realized that I tried to keep this imagine gender neutral but I forgot that I accidentally put some she/her pronouns in it, I’m so sorry!

Warnings: Angsty, Cussing, Mentions of alcohol, implied smut

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It was just like any other day for you. You woke up around noon because you were exhausted from the day before. Between working, going to college, and trying to keep somewhat of a social life, everyone could see just how worn out you would get day to day. So today you decided to treat yourself with a few extra hours of this beautiful thing called sleep.

Your phone rest on the bedside table and of course checking it and replying to the unread messages was the first step of your morning routine. The first messages you saw were from the group chat that consisted of you, Kat, and Tara. Apparently, while you were sleeping, Tara and Kat had a whole conversation about a girl’s day that they wanted to plan for you three. The last text sent was from Kat and it read, “I can’t wait for y/n to see all these messages in the morning. We planned the best girl’s day while she was probably passed the fuck out in her bed lmao”.

You smiled sending them a text back alerting them that you are indeed alive and down for all the plans they had created. In fact, you would be seeing them later at Sam and Colby’s place for a couple’s dinner/pool/movie date night. Jake would be there as well, and although you were tragically single, you loved all of them to death and hanging out over there was like the most elite sleepovers you would have with your best friends as a child.

A new text appeared on your screen just as you began to emerge from the comfort of your bed sheets, “God finally you’re awake. I’ve been waiting for Kat to tell me you answered her message all morning. I need your help tonight with a prank. Colby is never going to see it coming”

“A prank? I thought you guys didn’t do that anymore...? But I’m in ;)” You sent back. Out of all the trap girls and all the boys, Colby and you got along the best. Ever since you first met, which was years ago at this point, Colby and you have been inseparable. You tried so hard to avoid your feelings for him, in hopes to not develop a crush that ended up ruining your friendship, but Kat picked up on it right away. She told you constantly that she could easily set you up with the beautiful blue-eyed boy, but you insisted that things would happen naturally if there was truly something there between the two of you. And so, you went on, day by day, falling helplessly in love with the sweetest boy you have ever come to know.

Sam sent a message telling you to head over to their place as soon as possible. You swore that you basically lived there already. You were at their house way more than you were at your own. You couldn’t imagine living further than 15 minutes from them. After what felt like a century to Sam, you arrived at the house. Your hand loudly knocking on the big wooden door.

“Hey y/n! How are you?” Kat asked, pulling you into a big hug as she opened the door. You smiled and hugged back at her kind gesture, “I’m good! How are you? Do you know anything about this prank on you know who?” You questioned her. She glared at you, silently telling you to lower your volume. “Y/n! Colby is right upstairs be quiet!” She whispers, laughing at you almost blowing their cover immediately upon arrival.

Kat was quick to take you by the arm and drag you to the theater room where Sam was already sitting on one of the opulent red couches. He greeted you, telling you that he wanted to film your reaction to him telling you what prank you were going to pull. You agreed and sat down on the sofa facing the blonde. “Colby’s taking a nap right now upstairs because he was up super late last night editing one of our Sam and Colby videos. I figured we could use his exhaustion to our advantage and try and prank him that he woke up in some sort of alternate universe. I figured you could go into his room and set up a couple cameras, and I’ll keep two hidden in the living room where me, Kat, Jake, and Tara will be, so we hopefully get his full reaction. I want you to sneak into his bed and like cuddle him or something and when he wakes up, I want you to pretend that you’ve been dating him for a long time now. He is going to be super confused but just try and convince him that it’s true. If he ends up downstairs, we will go along with it too. I really want to see if he will think that it’s real after a while.” Sam explained.

You felt your face burning as your cheeks became a deep shade of red. He couldn’t be serious right? He wanted you to pretend that you were dating Colby? “I- Uh… I don’t know Sam won’t that be a really mean prank?” You tried to play it off, hoping that you didn’t just annihilate all your efforts to keep your feelings hidden. “You guys are like best friends, I don’t think he could be mad at you for such an innocent prank.” Sam replied. You began to feel incredibly flustered at the thought of having to be so affectionate with Colby. The room started to feel like a sauna as the sweat began accumulating all over your body.

Sure, you and Colby had cuddled before, but it was extremely platonic… Plus, it only happened in very specific moments, like last Wednesday after you had a couple of drinks, and everyone was sat watching a movie where he wrapped his arm around you so you could rest your head since it could barely hold itself up. You snapped out of your thoughts quickly realizing that Sam had been waiting on a response from you. You knew Sam was stubborn, he wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. Your eyes met back with his and the only thing you could get yourself to do was slightly nod your head ‘yes’.

“Perfect.” Sam smirked, getting up to turn off the camera and hand it to you so you could set it up in Colby’s room. You already knew that he was thinking about how many points this would score him for a Sam and Colby prank war if it turns out the way he is wanting.

Before you knew it you had made it all the way up into Colby’s room where you had strategically hidden the camera, facing it towards the sleeping boy in his bed. You let out a deep sigh, trying to prepare yourself for what was about to go down. “If this ruins everything for me, I am going to kill you Golbach.” You whispered, knowing the deep sleeper wouldn’t hear a single thing. And so, the prank began.

You took a gentle hold of the silky black sheets and quietly slipped into bed right next to Colby. There was no game plan in your mind, you didn’t even think up a storyline about your fake relationship for once he woke up. You squeezed your eyes shut in fear as you quickly wrapped your body around his, resting your head under his chin as he slept on his back. He twitched slightly, bringing his arm up, lazily holding you back. The breath caught in your throat, this was already hard enough for you and now he is cuddling you back? You glanced up to see his face, his eyelashes were slightly fluttering, and his soft lips had a slight part in them. He was still fast asleep. You decided to try and wake him up by moving around in his arm slightly, hoping the movement would pull him out of his dreams.

“Y/n?” His voice rung through the room, deep and raspy. He sat up slightly, glancing around the dark lair that he called a bedroom, but his arm still remained around your frame. “W-what are you doing here?” He stuttered, visibly confused by the sight of you in his arms.

“What? I can’t cuddle my boyfriend?” You answered, shocked that you could even get those words to come out of your mouth. His eyes widened at your response, pure shock etched into his face. “Boyfriend?” You felt his heart start to race as he replied.

His arm dropped from your body as he delicately pushed himself out of bed. He was now hovering over you as he stood by the bedside table. There was a clear glass with some water sitting on a coaster on the table. His strong hand wrapped around it as he brought it up to his mouth, downing the rest of the water that was in it. You could tell by his body language that he was beyond confused. The glass clinked as he practically dropped it back onto the nightstand.

“Am I dreaming or something? Since when was I your boyfriend?” His eyebrows furrowed as he continued to look at you for some answers. Your heart sunk thinking about how mean of a prank this truly was, at least from your point of view. “Baby… Are you serious? We’ve been together for years now, are you feeling okay?” You said as you threw your legs over the side of the bed, pulling his hand into your own.

Your thumb gently rubbed circles onto the back of his hand, but only for a couple seconds before he pulled it away. “Is this a fucking prank or something?” He asked, irritation evident from his tone. You shook your head ‘no’, it was becoming hard to process words. You knew this was upsetting him, but Sam had you promise to make the prank last for as long as you could.

“I’m sorry- I have to get out of here really quick.” Colby said, making his way out the bedroom door. You said nothing back, hoping that Sam would end the prank for you as Colby made his way down the stairs.

“Hey brother! You’re finally up. Where’s y/n? I thought we were all doing a couples movie night?” Jake interrogated as Colby glanced to see Sam, Kat, and Tara standing over in the kitchen. Colby brought his hand up to his face rubbing his eyes, there’s no way that Jake is saying this too. Colby began to think that he was seriously going crazy. And then everyone else joined in on the conversation. You could hear them loudly as you stayed glued to Colby’s bed.

Sam began to ask if Colby was feeling alright, and you heard Kat say that maybe we should take Colby to the hospital in case he was losing his memory. You felt the panic in Colby rise as he was deflecting everyone’s concern insisting that he wasn’t losing his memory, and that he definitely wasn’t going crazy. He knew for a fact that you two weren’t dating, and none of them could convince him otherwise. “Dude, she’s gonna hear you up there. You’re going to break her heart. You really don’t remember?” Sam pushed.

You finally had enough. You raced out of Colby’s room and rushed down the stairs. You stopped immediately upon entering the kitchen, seeing everybody else still standing there surrounding Colby. The energy switched as they all looked to you, Sam pleading with his eyes for you to keep going. “I’m so sorry Colby, it was just a prank, please don’t be upset.” You couldn’t handle it any longer, the pain on his face was too much for you to bear. You watched as he scoffed back, “I knew it. Fuck you, guys. I’m going back upstairs.”

You felt horrible as you watched him stomp back up to his room, slamming the door shut behind him. Tears stung the back of your eyes, this was all your fault. You excused yourself from the group and somberly made it to Colby’s door. You preceded to place a faint knock on the wood, “Colby? I’m so sorry, can you please open up?” Your voice was so soft, it would’ve been hard for him to hear if he hadn’t already anticipated your arrival. The door swung open as Colby quickly made his way back over to where he previously sat on the couch.

You stayed frozen at the door for a couple seconds, hoping to brace yourself for the angry boy inside. You took hold of the cold metal doorknob, pulling the door shut behind you. You tip-toed your way over to the sofa and took a seat far from Colby. Your mind was running a hundred miles an hour as you tried to concoct a coherent sentence. “What the hell were you thinking? Did you seriously think that I would find this funny?” He spat in your direction.

“It wasn’t my prank, Sam just wanted me to help him out.” You said back, desperately trying to reason with him. He sarcastically laughed, running a hand through his dark hair. “I didn’t ask who’s prank it was y/n.”

You gulped, it felt suffocating in his room. The dark ambiance that normally felt inviting suddenly seemed like your own personal hell. “Colby, I didn’t want to hurt you I swear. I was trying my best to keep everything lighthearted. I could never hurt you.” Your voice was so delicate, it was so hard to speak. The tears were still threating to make an appearance, and that was the last thing you wanted.

“But you did, y/n. That’s the thing. Whether or not you ‘meant’ to hurt me, you did. And everyone else was in on it to. Did you even try and tell Sam that this prank wasn’t a good idea? Did you even think, for a split second, that this was incredibly immature? You were all treating me like I was losing my damn mind, trying to convince me that we were dating when we clearly never were.”

His words hurt, but they were all true. You had never been together, what were you thinking pretending like you were? All to satisfy Sam? To help him get a head start on the prank wars by completely crushing Colby’s heart? He is your best friend for crying out loud. “Look Colby. I never wanted to do this, okay? Did you ever stop and think that maybe I didn’t want to be doing this either? You mean everything to me. Why would I ever purposely hurt you? Especially after everything we have been through. All the ups and downs, the messy breakups, all the fights. I love you so god damn much and I hope you know that I would never, ever, hurt you like that.” By this point the tears were streaming down your face. Your previous spot on the couch was long discarded as you now stood right in front of Colby, praying that he knew you were being serious about not hurting him.

Your eyes searched his for any glimpse of a sign showing that he believed you. His bright blue eyes looked a lot more intimidating than usual. You couldn’t tell what he was thinking, his expression not giving you any clues. Finally, he responded, “Is it wrong that I’ve never wanted to kiss you as badly as I do right now?”

And finally, there was your sign. His eyes no longer looked intimidating. In fact, they had completely changed into something much different, lust. You quickly took a step closer to him as he took a stand right in front of you, placing his strong hands on either side of your face. He roughly pulled you in, causing your lips to crash together with loads of passion. They fit perfectly together, better than you ever imagined them. They worked in sync as the feeling inside of you was igniting a fire. He was so rough, but surprisingly still gentle. Acting as if one wrong move would completely break you. Your lips remained locked as he pushed you backwards, surprising you as your back made contact with his plush bed. He was on top of you, hungrily continuing the kiss.

You both pulled apart abruptly, gasping for air after your heavy make out session. “I guess now’s a good time to let you know that I am absolutely, one hundred percent, in love with you.” You stated, starring deep into his eyes. “Then I guess now’s a good time to tell you that I feel the same.” He responded, bringing you back in for another passionate kiss. You pulled back again, “So, does this mean I can finally see those handcuffs I keep hearing about in action?” You asked him, slightly laughing. “Only if you promise to keep quiet.” He winked back. And that was the start of your amazing, long awaited relationship.

[marvelslut16]

The one with two Pietro’s

Pairing: Pietro x reader, Wandavision!Pietro (Peter Maximoff) x reader FORCED 

Synopsis: you find yourself in Westview living with Wanda, Vision, the boys, and your boyfriend Pietro. But happens when you start to remember your Pietro and figure out what Wanda’s doing to you and everyone else? 

Word count: 1.4k+

Warnings: Swearing I think. Angst. Fluff if you squint. Mind control. Forced relationship. Briefly mentions the idea of a forced magical pregnancy. Bullet wounds. Death. Grief I suppose. Mentions pmsing. The over use of italics. Kinda feel like I make Wanda a psychotic asshole. SPOILERS FOR WANDAVISION!

A/N: This was so much fun to write! Probably the darkest thing I’ve ever written, if you can really call it dark. Writing for Wandavision was a fun little challenge. Takes place in the 90′s so my title is a reference to friends, and so is a tv show character I use in the one shot. Pretend Evan Peters’ hair isn’t that blonde cause I will always see him with the silver he has in xmen and wrote him as such. 

"Vision, that's not my Pietro," you mutter in horror to your friend as the two of you stand in the kitchen. 

You’re not quite sure what makes you say it, but you’re glad you do when you glance at the new Pietro in the living room, he's been playing video games with Tommy and Billy for close to an hour now. He's sweet and funny, but he's just not your Pietro.

"I'm afraid not, (Y/N)," Vision's voice is sullen, but he's glad you're not in on Wanda's mind games. Unless you are, and this is just another way for Wanda to mess with him. He’s not quite sure what’s happening, but he knows from what you’ve reminisced in passing to him about Pietro on nights when Wanda isn’t in the room, that that’s not the Pietro you know and love. 

"Oh my god," you murmur, hand coming to your mouth as little bits and pieces of memories race through your head. The genuine pain, horror, and sadness that cross your face make it obvious to Vision you're being manipulated like everyone else, even if you are Wanda's oldest friend. "My Pietro, he had an accent."

Your knees buckle when you hear his native accent saying his catchphrase in your head, 'you didn't see that coming.' Vision rushes to your side to help you stand more firmly.

"His face was longer, hair a white blonde not silver, his body more toned, and he had gorgeous blue eyes- bluest eyes I've ever seen," you grip onto Vision's arms as you imagine moments with your Pietro.

You grew up in the cell beside his and Wanda's, immediately forming a sisterly connection with her at a young age while Pietro hated you. He would tease you, pull on your pigtails, and steal some of your food on the off chance you three were eating outside of your cells. Over the years the teasing turned to flirting, and your dislike for him turned into a huge crush.

One night-a night you can normally remember with full clarity- after Hydra fell and before Ultron, the two of you were out on a walk, much to Pietro's chagrin. You were telling him about this new book that you were reading and how the characters annoyed you so because they were obviously in love but wouldn't admit it. Pietro zoomed in front of you, causing you to smack into his chest and almost fall to the ground, you would have if not for Pietro's arms wrapping around your waist and bringing you close to his toned chest.

The wind was blowing his hair into his eyes ever so slightly, so without thinking you reached up to move it out of his face and away from his eye. The small act of tenderness that you had displayed caused Pietro to give into his desires, he leaned in and his wind chapped lips descended onto yours. You melted into the kiss, clinging tightly to his biceps to ground you. One of his hands slipped down from your waist to squeeze your ass, the other wrapped more tightly around your waist and kept you anchored to him.

"I love you, Printesa, I have since we were kids," he admits when you pull apart for air, leaning his forehead on yours.

"I love you too, Quicksilver," you use the superhero nickname he gave himself when you were twelve. He grins before attaching his lips to yours once more, it was an unforgettable kiss that filled you with warmth and hope for your future.

"(Y/N), are you okay?" Vision's voice brings you back to reality, or whatever this is.

"No," your voice cracks as you remember the last kiss Pietro planted on your lips, right before he protected Clint. The memory that still haunts your dreams, seeing him with all those bullet holes and knowing there was nothing you could do to save him. "What kind of person forgets the love of their life? I'm a terrible person Vis!"

"No you aren't (Y/N)," the sincerity in Vision's voice makes you really believe him. "Wanda's doing this, she didn't want you to remember."

You gasp as another memory floods your mind. You had agreed to go on a road trip with Wanda after being resurrected from Bruce's snap and defeating Thanos. You both wanted a break, or so you thought.

Wanda had stopped right when you had passed the entrance into Westview, she claimed to be checking her directions when you asked why she had stopped in the middle of nowhere. And no matter how weird it was that she chose to stop at the border to the town and not at a gas station, you believed your best friend and sister in law because she had no reason to lie to you.

A moment later her eyes and hands were glowing red as she touched your temple. She pushed all your memories behind a wall in your brain, then filled your head with memories of a happy life with her and Vision in Westview.

She did it again when 'Pietro' showed up on your guy’s doorstep, this time filling your head with memories of him. Memories of a different first kiss, but an eerily similar first date to the one you and your Pietro had. It makes sense to you now, you and Pietro had never told Wanda the real story of your first kiss, instead telling her you had it weeks later on your first date. You had tried to keep your relationship a secret for a little because you didn't want to make it awkward for Wanda if it didn't work out.

Another thing she didn't add was your engagement and subsequent marriage to her brother. In this reality you and 'Pietro' are just dating. You have to assume that it's because it happened weeks before the battle against Ultron and she doesn't want to remember anything that close to her brother's death.

The thing about the new Pietro is that he seems to rub Wanda the wrong way, something your Pietro never did. He makes comments that you know yours would never, and Wanda always tenses up near him. This Pietro likes to show you off more than yours did, which is saying a lot because your’s used to cling to your side, praise you, and show you off in town when girls would flirt with him. Every time this Pietro kisses you it doesn’t feel right, it’s nowhere near the earth shattering kisses that you had somehow managed to remember from the deep parts of your brain. 

"My ring," you shudder in horror when you realize the diamond ring that your Pietro stole from the jeweler in Sokovia is no longer sitting delicately on your left ring finger like it was before entering Westview. You hastily search your body for your most prized possession, sighing in relief when you find it hanging from a simple silver chain around your neck.

"(Y/N)," Vision says gently, resting a hand on your shoulder, it’s one of the few times he doesn’t know what to say. 

"He's dead," you cry, knees buckling under your weight again. This time you catch yourself on the kitchen table, before sinking in the seat to your right.

"Who's dead?" Wanda appears in the doorway out of nowhere. She has an innocent, concerned expression on her face, but the tilt of her head tells you she'll come take your memories away again if you slip up in the slightest.

"Dr. Drake Ramoray on Days Of Our Lives, the soap opera I was watching this afternoon when you and the boys were out. He fell down the elevator shaft, and I'm apparently taking it harder than I thought I would. I must be pmsing or something."

"Or maybe you're pregnant," there's a red glint in her eyes that scares you to no end.

"Oh," you swallow the lump in your throat, and hold back the bile rising up your throat from anxiety. "I don't think so, I'm not ready to be a mother yet."

"It would be so fun though," 'Pietro' zooms behind your seat, leaning down to place a kiss on your cheek. "Little mini me's and you's running around the house with Billy and Tommy."

"I think two super human children are enough for the house right now," you let out an uncomfortable giggle. You and Vision side eye each other, both very aware that you'll probably be as pregnant as Wanda was a few days ago within the week.

[bratz-kitten]

Hello there love, a fellow 11th house mercury here! just saw a post where you talked a little about that placement and it was the most accurate thing I’ve ever read hahaha so my question is if you could elaborate a little bc i find it a little hard to understand that placement. my mercury is sadly also in retrograde in my chart so that doesn’t make things easier…

thank you so much!! much love xxx

okay so, for reference, i touched a bit on mercury in the 11th house here and here (which was mostly about mercury in the 12th house anyway), but the biggest point i made there was that this mercury makes you someone who needs constant intellectual stimulation, we have very restless thoughts and it can be maddening sometimes because our brains just don't shut up... ever. which is why we need to be engaging in conversation so much or at least letting our thoughts out some other way, in a blog, for example (take it from me lmfao). it's interesting that the 11th house rules technology as well as social circles, because it sure feels like we have a non-stop podcast in our minds. like, the only time where i feel like my brain is experiencing a moment of peace is afterward a really intense conversation, when i get to debate my ideas with someone who's just as passionate (and slightly insane) as me.

that being said, we prefer to keep conversation light-hearted and fun. this house for mercury shows an ease when it comes to talking with whoever, so you might have a lot of acquaintances. you might even feel like wherever you go, everyone knows your name and it can be a very unsettling feeling at times. as in, you get introduced to a group of people you've never met before but somehow they all know who you are, so you might experience people gossiping a lot about you, making up rumors that get widely spread; people make all kinds of assumptions about you. that's because even though you know a lot of people, you keep the conversation purposely superficial and only open up to like three people, if that much.

now, keep in mind that this is a double-edged sword: not only do people gossip a lot about people, but you tend to gossip as well. even if you tell yourself it's light-hearted and you only do it with your closest friends, it can be too much at times, and it's very easy to cross the line of "i'm just curious" to being downright shitty, and you need to watch out for what comes out of your mouth because you do stress a lot about having good morals.

you possess a lot of social intelligence and you might be very aware of that, using it in everyday matters – when you enter a group, you start observing the dynamics that play between everyone: who talks the most with who, who feels the most or less comfortable with who, who's still only acquaintances and who's falling in love but doesn't know it yet; you observe all of that and start taking mental notes about people's behaviors: the way they talk, their humor (especially if they laugh at the expense of others or not), if they overshare, what they leave unsaid; you take in all of that and that's your way of getting to know people so that you can start predicting their behavior. like i said, you find it very hard to trust others enough to open up so you make others prove themselves before you do so. in friendships, this is less biting, as in you don't just walk up to someone and go like hey prove me of your worth lmfao, you simply start observing their actions and if they pass the vibe check, they're in.

the problem starts in your romantic relationships – this is where you make someone prove themselves again and again that they're deserving of your trust and loyalty as you continuously doubt them. and suddenly, this isn't the dating stage; it's like your potential partner is harry potter going through the triwizard tournament just to get the prize of 10% of your trust. and it's, like, no. stop it. you can't expect people to drop everything to offer you the world while you're hesitant about even holding their hand in public. that's self-sabotaging and it's just a way for you to ensure that you don't get too intimate with people, that you don't reveal too much of yourself. relationships are about the equality between giving and taking, and you can sometimes be caught up in wanting to receive before even considering giving.

the best way i can put this is through an example: kim kardashian has her mercury in the 11th house. so, it's no wonder that this mercury makes someone really fucking ambitious, sometimes even without you realizing. the 11th house rules dreams and humanity as a whole, so you might be constantly in tune with your dreams and finding a way to get yourself further to them. like i said, this can be unconscious at times; perhaps you take on a small project that's meant to be fun and insignificant but suddenly it blows up out of proportion, suddenly your whole life revolves around it and you're getting recognized for it. you can be very calculating and borderline manipulative at times since you're so focused on trying to control the circumstances around you. not even just in real life, perhaps when you're playing video games you find yourself focusing a lot of your attention on understanding the characters and their motivations; and then, when you meet someone who feels shady as fuck and who looks like they could betray you, your thinking process isn't how can i stop this person from betraying me, it's how can i use this person's betrayal to my advantage. it's like, jesus christ on steroids lmfao. you have a talent for turning difficult situations into the diamond in the rough, for thriving when facing obstacles.

you're very cynical about your friendships, you understand that most people don't have good intentions and you're likely to make a clear distinction between party friends and actual friends. the first group are the people who you have casual fun with, who you do stupid shit with and who perhaps you engage with to keep up appearances or further your connections, while the second group are the actual people who you'd ride or die for, and those are scarce.

here, there's a yearning for actual friendships present even through your fear of doing so, and you might find yourself getting occupied with issues of the 11th house: philosophy, metaphysics, individuality vs. humanity as a whole, freedom, moral issues – for you, nothing is taboo enough, just like nothing is progressive or out-of-the-box enough. my advice for people with this placement is to read the greeks. seriously, hearing plato spend a whole book discussing what is morality is like our wet dream. you love debating especially with your friends, and if you can't talk with someone for hours and hours on end with the conversation never once stalling, then they're not fit to be your friends at all. besides this, you might be very drawn to politics, power, any knowledge that helps you achieve your dreams.

you have big dreams and you might feel a strong calling to help as many people as possible, to save the world, to have your voice be heard. your goals might be downright inconceivable to some people, so you can feel ostracized by the members of the community where you live: perhaps your parents and other family members don't believe in you and would rather you just stick to the plan they forged for you; perhaps you were forced into choosing between their path or yours; no matter what, the choice lies in your hands and so does the power to achieve whatever you desire.

[gyllenhaalstories]

YOU WON’T PLAY, YOU’RE NO FUN — PROF!CHRIS

summary: chris evans is your professor with whom you’ve had an affair with since the beginning of the semester. you meet with him over zoom with your fellow teammates to discuss your project, but you can’t seem to get into the right mindset. instead of providing the group with clever comments and ideas, all you do is test the limits of chris’ patience and self control.

warnings: don’t have sex with your prof please, mentions of online classes, smut including: established dom/sub relationship & teacher/student relationship (abuse of power used strictly as a joke, they are both 18+ and consensual), degradation, masturbation & mutual masturbation, edging. MINORS DON’T READ NOR INTERACT.

word count: 1500

notes: rail me daddy :) i’m a hoe for teacher/student if you can’t tell already. i do keep it vague by not mentioning any majors, don’t worry! it’s my first time writing for chris, so please, be kind!!! i hope you enjoy reading this mess!!!! ily <3

gif credits: capsgrantrogers blessing us with this low quality webcam goodness.

“Miss /Y/L/N, would you mind staying a little longer? I need to talk to you.” Chris’ voice resonated as your classmates went quiet before they waved their cameras goodbye and left the two of you alone.

Uh oh.

“Sure, what do you want to talk about?” By the time you were done with your question, you noticed that his face was frozen. “Mister Evans! Chris?! I think there’s an issue I can’t — hear you.” You sighed and rolled your eyes. You seriously needed to get that Internet connection checked. You had your hand on your laptop, ready to close it up when you heard the familiar noise of a video call, but this time it was a private conversation.

“Don’t want anybody to walk in on us, right?” Chris winked and smirked at you. You had a flashback of that one time you hooked up in his office and realized his door was left ajar when you could hear the secretary of the department arguing with the printer. You thanked your guardian angel (who must had been very disappointed) that you were just on your knees blowing him off, and that nothing too serious was going on.

You laughed, for a second you thought you were in trouble.

“What was that all about?” Chris questioned, his smirk disappeared and was replaced by a dark expression.

“I have no clue what you’re referring too.” You shrugged lightly and looked at the screen, wishing he had chosen another shirt that showcased his tattoos. You were lucky enough to see his arms from the short sleeves, you felt as aroused as royal men back in the day when they saw a woman’s ankles.

Chris clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Oh, really? There is no explanation to the attitude you’ve been giving your teammates and me all morning?”

You sighed again, loud enough for him to hear you. “They’re idiots and I’m sick of their shit. They’re not doing anything on the project yet they show off in front of you just to   —“

“Got it, they’re dumb and you’re smart.” He put the emphasis on the last few words. “Tell me, Miss, if you’re that smart, how come you’ve made the very stupid decision to be rude to me as well?”

You swallowed thickly. You were just so pissed off, exhausted from the all nighter you had to do in order to complete the requirements for today’s class. “Chris, look, you know it wasn’t about you...” You heard him cough. “I’m sorry, Sir.”

“I’d call you a good girl, but good girls don’t talk back and they certainly don’t act so bratty. What a potty mouth, you swore in front of everybody. Do I have to teach you manners too? I’m afraid that’s not listed on my tasks as your professor, too bad.”

“I said I was sorry! You know how much I hate them!”

“Do I have to give you a bad grade for not cooperating? Not everybody is as understanding as me, you need to learn that.”

He sounded so arrogant, so condescending. As much as you hated it, it turned you on. You were all squirmy on your chair, and he caught up on that.

“Tell me, what’s on your mind, princess? Why are you on the edge?”

You looked up through your lashes, letting out a complaint. That fucker. The last time you met, which was over a week ago, he had an emergency and had to leave his apartment to go on campus. How convenient, you had not finished and you were left breathless and worked up on his bed. He made you promise not to touch yourself without permission on his way out. He knew just how impatient you could get. All the needy texts you sent him while he was looking over his other classes during an exam; all the begging you did over the phone while he insisted on doing small talk.

“You won’t play with me,” you pouted at the screen. “You’re no fun.”

He chuckled, his voice sounded lower than usual while he sat up on his chair. He loved this game with you, probably as much as you did if not more.

You noticed his arm disappeared out of the frame. You’d do ten other team works with your stupid colleagues if it meant you’d be the one to take care of his hard on at that very moment.

“Oh, baby wanna have fun? Is that it? You should have told me sooner!” He cleared his throat when he heard you sigh again, giving you a warning. “Get those fingers nice and wet for me.”

You obeyed, sucking on two fingers of your dominant hand. You picked up on the back and forth movements of his arm, he was palming at his crotch. You caught a glimpse of him standing up   — he was in tight Calvin Klein boxers   —  and sitting back down, his cock freed from his clothes. “I’ve been good, Sir. So good.”

He nodded slowly, after spitting in his hand and starting to fist his cock. “Oh, really?”

You nodded frantically. “I haven’t touched myself since you left,” you pulled your hand away from your mouth, a string of saliva fell down your chin. “I’ve been so wet for you, Sir. You’re all I’ve been thinking about.”

“Then think about my fingers rubbing your clit.” He groaned, the speed of his arm motions increased.

You jerked on your chair at the contact of your fingers, your panties were soaked from your arousal. “Sir!” You moaned out when you circled faster against the bundle of nerves.

“You’re so fucked up for me, you’d rather cum on your fingers than on my face, huh?” You felt tears pooling in your eyes. “Stop touching yourself and answer me.”

You pulled your hand away, showing it to the camera so he believed you. “I want to cum so bad, Sir! Please, just once! And I’ll wait until we meet again. I need it!”

“And I need to fuck that tight little cunt of yours and you don’t hear me complainin’.” His bicep flexed in his tight shirt, his breathing got heavier. “I waited for you the entire week. I didn’t text you in the middle of the night begging like a desperate slut.” He nodded, indicating you could start rubbing again.

You moaned loudly, throwing your head back. He was edging you, again.

“Eyes on me, Baby. Need to see you.”

It took so much energy just to keep your eyes open.

“Faster.” He growled, he was so close too. You could feel it, even if he was far away.

“Sir, please!”

“Stop, stop right fucking now.” He pulled away from his swollen cock at the same time as you did. “I won’t tolerate attitude like this again, you heard me?” You nodded, mouthed a ‘yes’. “I don’t want to repeat myself. You’re such a dumb little baby sometimes, I’ll probably have to.” The more he mocked you, the more you needed to touch yourself again. “Next time you act like a bitch in my class, you’ll regret it.” You never took his threats lightly. The first, and last, time that you did, you ended up bent over his knee with the belt of his dress pants spanking your ass red like the ink from the pen he used to grade papers

“I’ll count to ten. At ten, you’ll...”

“I’ll cum!” You spoke excitedly.

“Yes, Babygirl. You’ll get to cum.” He licked his lips and stroked his beard, his hand holding his sensitive cock. “Ready?”

You replied with even more enthusiasm and he started to count up.

“Slowly, 1, 2, 3...” He swallowed thickly. “Add more pressure now, 4, 5, 6,” he tightened his grip around his cock. “Faster, 7, 8, 9...” he jerked himself up at the same speed as you. “Now, cum for me. Make a mess like you’d do on my cock. That’s right, cum for me, Princess.”

The knot in your stomach finally snapped and you released yourself on your hand. You were panting and clenching around nothing, wishing you were with Chris right now.

He growled loudly as he released himself on his hand and shirt. “Look what you did to me, Baby.” He sat up just enough to show you, causing you to laugh at the sight of his messed up top.

In exchange, you showed him your slick coated fingers before you licked them clean. Blood rushed to his cock again, but he took a deep breath to calm down. “All good now?”

“Yes! Thank you, Sir.” You smiled, content and satisfied.

He wiped his hand clean with his shirt, after he removed it and let you admire his broad chest and inked drawings. “I’m giving you extra homework.”

Your smile disappeared and you squinted, mentally preparing for more readings or an extra essay on how good he fucked you. It would be your third or fourth, you ran out of synonyms to explain that he made you feel like you were on cloud nine.

“Take a shower and a nap, I’ll get to this meeting and meet you back home, okay?”

Your face lit up again, and you clapped happily.

“See? I can be fun when I want to.”

[thefanficmonster]

Falling Faceless

@itsminniekat

Corpse Husband x Reader (female) 

Warnings: None

Genre: Fluff

Summary: Some crushes don’t need anything visual to exist. Appearance is irrelevant when you know the true beauty of a soul and mind. Or basically, Reader and Corpse could not care less what the other looks like.

Requested: No

Y/N and Corpse have been friends ever since they began playing Among Us together. They were the ultimate power duo when imposters together, and each other’s angel guardians when both were crewmates. They had a silent pact to not kill the other if they were imposter and the other wasn’t. They promised not to snitch on each other. They had built a pretty steady system of a friendship.

But, as the whole lobby assumed, that friendship would only last a ‘just friendship’ for so long. The sarcastic comments progressively grew more flirtatious. Corpse got a lot more comfortable playing with people in the meantime, but it was obvious that he was a bit more tense whenever Y/N wasn’t there, which rarely happened. On Y/N’s part, the change was also apparent. She used to have to be begged to play Among Us. She didn’t understand the hype of the game, seeing as how the concept was old and just remade and redesigned. Now, after meeting Corpse, she began being the first in the lobby, often initiating the game herself, almost forgetting to invite anyone but Corpse in the process.

The Peanut Gallery, aka the rest of the players just stood aside and listened to the romantic comedy unfold in front of them. They had a title for it too: “Falling Faceless”. The term was formed after a lot of discussion in a discord call which Y/N and Corpse were not invited to.

Explanation: Falling Faceless - Falling in love with someone whose face you’ve never seen, therefore they’re faceless to you.

That’s one of the things her and Corpse had in common. They were both faceless to their audience. Y/N was a gamer and also helped out Jaiden, James and Adam with their animations every now and then. She covered songs and made remixes of existing tunes - all things she never had to reveal her face for.

Corpse was attracted almost immediately - like a moth to light. The faceless rep, the cool song remixes, sweet and kind personality, intelligence, positivity...he could go on. He never denied his feelings in front of himself but he was prepared to deny it to his grave in front of anyone else.

Y/N was different. Her attraction grew gradually. From the tiny details he remembered about her and brought up, to the jokes that never failed to make her laugh, she was just so whipped by him without even noticing. When the realization began to creep in, she was low-key terrified. She actually avoided playing Among Us for two full days just because she thought it would make her emotions cool down.

While he was ready to embrace his feelings, she was doing everything she could to push them away.

She threw herself into work, surprising her animators by finishing her animation parts far before the deadlines. Dropping a few covers a week and playing Among Us as little as she could without drawing any suspicion.

One day, in the middle of editing the footage of her playthrough of the game Neversong, her phone started blowing up with notifications. She had a strict ‘no texting while working’ rule, so she ignored it, turning the device on its screen and pushing it further than an arm’s reach away in case she got tempted.

She was doing a fairly good job blocking out the hurricane of notifications when her ringtone sliced through the bubble of focus she had built around herself. She straightened and reached for her phone, promising herself she wouldn’t take longer than necessary. 

That promise was thrown out the window the second she read the called ID. Corpse, written down as Lil Corpsy in her contacts, was calling.

“Have you watched the video yet?” he asked without even greeting her

Baffled, it took her about three seconds to reply, “What video?”

“So you haven’t.” He sighed, “My face reveal. Go watch it.”

The line went dead before she could even completely comprehend what he had said. Work all but forgotten, her finger tips hovered above the screen, hesitant about tapping the YouTube icon.

This isn’t right, Y/N. She told herself.

“Hey?” He picked up her call-back before the first ring was even over.   

“I still haven’t watched the video. But that can wait.“ She fussed, now up from her chair, pacing around her office. “I’m calling to tell you the most terrifying thing that has happened to me. I made a friend. He’s great. The most amazing human being ever. We make a great team. I love him. It took me a while to realize that I love love him. And it’s scary, cause it feels like I’m walking on thin ice of losing him if he finds out. Well, now he’s letting me on to what he looks like, I might as well let him on what my mess of a brain looks like. And now that I’ve done that, I also wanna mention that I’ve changed my mind. I’m not gonna watch the video. It will change nothing but his view count. I will still like him the same. So why bother watching him talk to a camera when I can listen to him talking to me, right?“ She breathed heavily and shakily, sinking to the floor despite having her chair to sit in. She was distressed and felt like the equivalent of a deflated balloon. But compared to the feeling of a balloon ready to explode, she was feeling great. “That was probably too fast to understand, but I’m not repeating it.”

The chuckle that reached her made her even more flustered, “There is no video, Y/N. I just needed you to go to my channel. But, I too have changed my mind.”

He hung up a second time, leaving her with mixed emotions. The uncertainty of weather she was just rejected or her feelings were being humored was killing her, bringing her to a brink of tearing up. Just as the first tear slid down her cheek, her phone rang. However, this time, the ringtone was different. It was a Facetime. From him.

Without realizing that this wasn’t going to be only his face reveal, but hers too, she picked up.

Suddenly, they were no longer falling faceless. They were just falling. Falling in each other’s eyes. Falling in love. Not all over again, but deeper. Deeper into the emotions that left them with no sleep. The emotions they both dealt so differently with.

“You were wrong, this will change something.” He spoke, “The girl in my dreams, the one I’ve been in love with since day one, is now not only a voice in my head. She’s real.”

“You’re real, too.” She chuckled, looking at the face she never thought she’d see. “This is real, isn’t it?”

“It’s always been real, Y/N. We just now have faces.” He laughed.

For the first time she not only heard, but saw the laugh, finding it as adorable as day one. 

[princessofprocrastination]

You Live In Sweatpants And Hoodies (GeorgeNotFound)

MASTERLIST

pairing : georgenotfound / george x influencer!reader. 

summary : george and your fans realize that under all the sweaters, you have a body. 

a/n : if you are wondering what dress i was talking about, search up jennie short black dress :)

before social media, you studied law and got a degree in it but ended up not using it due to your social media career sky rocketing. 

but you never thought studying was a waste, that could be your backup, after all. social media doesn’t last forever. and you were ready to accept any difficulties since you knew you had plan b. 

you, till this day, could not describe what you do on social media. it started with tiktok. everything nowadays started with tiktok. but you were one of the first people who was on it. 

and then tiktokers would make their way onto youtube to sustain their “career” and grow. so that’s what you did. you never abandoned that app, though. especially not now, everyone on that app is seriously hilarious. 

your content on youtube was all over the place. once, for a video, you talked to weird men on omegle and tinder. another time, you would try different aesthetics on yourself. 

but here’s the catch, you’ve never really worn revealing clothes. your mum had always told you to never deprive yourself from what she says “fun young girl things” which is dressing up, or down, in her say and go have fun with your friends. 

but since the pandemic hit, you have had no where to go anyways, and you never really liked to show off your body. it’s not that you felt uncomfortable doing it, it’s just that you’ve never had the reason to. 

you also didn’t grow up girly. you hated dresses, especially short and tight dresses. and you weren’t a fan of wearing shorts either. you always opted to go comfy. 

whenever you post a tiktok, you always wore your signature hoodie and sweatpants that were clearly sizes too big for you. but you liked it, it’s comfortable to sleep in. 

and whenever you had to pan down to show your outfits on youtube, you were always caught wearing jeans and a baggy shirt, just styled differently, according to the aesthetic of the video you were filming for. 

you heard your phone ring from the couch. you picked it up, knowing who it was anyways. “morning, cutie.” you stared. 

“morning b.” george greets you, hair everywhere, clearly just woken up. 

you and george met on tiktok, just like all good friends do. he had duetted a tiktok of yours and you found him hilarious. you quickly followed him on every single social media platform he was in. you even set an alarm in case he ever streams and you’re asleep. 

you two are close. some would say you two are dating, but you two haven’t figured it out yet. you two didn’t really want to disclose it anyways, you two knew your not so secret feelings for each other, anyways. 

remember when he called you ‘b’? yeah that stands for ‘bub’. he thought it would be cute for him to have a different nickname than the usual “baby” or “babe”. 

you two actually live very near each other, making it way easier as a couple, but since england was put into a quarantine order, you two didn’t meet often. 

some would probably ask why you’d have to set an alarm when he streams when you two clearly are in the same timezone? well, that boy had no sense of time and a terrible sleeping schedule. it amazed you at how early he got up today. 

that facetime call lasted about half an hour before you told him you needed to stream on twitch today, to which he responded to you that he’s watch it later. 

today, you had a surprise. for the world. you can’t believe you even thought about this but it was about time you showed off to the world what assets you’ve been blessed with. 

speaking of showing off. no, you weren’t a particularly insecure person, you were just comfortable in the clothes you’re in. but celebrating the long time you’ve been on social media, and it being your birthday, you thought it might be fitting. 

george and you agreed to not make anything special about your birthday. you hated parties and large gatherings, and since you were still in the middle of a pandemic, you used that as an excuse to not go out. 

you spent the longest time searching for a good enough outfit for this day. and you found it. you decided to pick a pretty simple dress, a black short dress that went to your mid thigh, that showed off your waist, spaghetti strapped and a little backless. 

you walked out the shower, your robe on as you walked to your bathroom counters to dry your hair. you didn’t really bother to style it, just leaving you straight long hair down. 

you put on the most basic white sneakers you could find to still make it casual, and you thought it went well together, anyways.

you finished you makeup and took a good look at yourself. you had been aware that you only wore baggy clothes, so this was a huge change. you twirled yourself, feeling confident. 

you couldn’t wait for people to have heart attacks. 

you sat on your gaming chair, getting ready to start your stream. 

before you started your stream, you made sure you left your facecam turned off first. 

you went live. chat was confused since this was the first time that you’re not on facecam. all they could see at the moment was the caption “IT’S MY BIRTHDAY!” that you typed on your notes app on your computer.

“hi, chat.” you said, to calm them down a little. 

you heard your phone go off, a text notification. which you knew was george since he had a special notification ping on your phone. 

it said “did you forget to turn on your cam?” 

you laughed at that. “no, chat, i haven’t forgotten to turn on my facecam, just wait for a sec, please.” 

you felt giddy, excited for the reactions. 

instead of wearing your cute cat headphones, you wore your airpods instead to get the whole look going. 

you let out a sigh before moving your mouse cursor to linger on the ‘start recording camera’ button. you clicked on it, before moving your chair back to fully say hi to your chat. 

you brought your hands up to wave to the camera. you tilted your head slightly. “soooo, it’s my birthday.” you said. 

chat was going crazy so you stopped reading them so you wouldn’t get a headache. the donations went crazy too, but you tried your best to read them all. 

you thanked the people who subscribed to you or gifted you subs. 

“360 of this dress? sure, i’ll give you a twirl.” you replied a dono. 

you stood up, and rolled your gaming chair away so that they can see your whole outfit. you spun around once, quickly telling them where you got the dress from. 

you tried to hold your foot on one hand, balancing yourself to show them that you could go casual in this dress too. 

what you noticed was that, your phone hadn’t stopped beeping from a text notification, which belonged to the one and only georgenotfound. 

and since maybe he noticed that you won’t check your phone, he sent a donation instead. 

“WHAT THE FUCK.” the monotoned voice read out the donation, which was from george. 

you facepalmed, knowing exactly what his reaction is like at home. 

“I’M COMING OVER.” the voice said again. you laughed at his antics. 

“see you then.” you replied, laughing, knowing he was joking around anyways. 

-

GEORGE’S POV 

she thinks i’m joking, isn’t she? 

well, she gave me her spare key for a reason, and this would be the best reason. 

i knew i wanted to come around anyways. just after her stream. i promised her no going out, but not no gifts and ordering in. 

sneaky, i know. 

i had a plan brewing in my mind. to walk in her house as quietly as possible, to surprise her. 

after seeing her in that dress, i don’t think i can stand our fans not knowing we aren’t dating. 

i know, i haven’t really asked her out, but we kinda both agreed that there was no use, knowing each other’s feeling was good enough and that we didn’t need to do anything extravagant. 

i don’t know what she’s tell her fans but i’m sure i hadn’t disclose our relationship. the fans shipped us, sure, but i don’t think i’ve ever said it out loud. 

we knew we’d have to say it someday. so i thought, why not today? as i surprised her at her own house. 

her fans watching her stream are tweeting at me like crazy. no one had seen her like that. she practically lives in sweats and hoodies, constantly. 

the most fitting thing i’ve seen her wear is skinny jeans, but she would always wear a baggy top with it. people always say she drowns in her clothes, but i never complained, she looked good either ways. 

but seeing her in that dress, damn. i needed to be there and hug her, kiss her. i couldn’t wait to see her in that dress, right in front of my eyes. 

our observant fans or close friends have asked if she dresses the same at home, and my answer always stayed the same. that she lives in baggy clothes. 

there are some creepy people out there who would ask that question in a sexual way. thinking i’ve seen her in less. but truthfully, i haven’t. we’re not pass that stage, and we prefer it this way. 

what the fans see is what i see on the daily, too. 

and no, me going to her house to see her more clearly in that dress doesn’t mean we’re doing anything. i just want to observe her beauty. see what she’s hid from me. 

-

YOUR POV

chat was going crazy over george’s donation. but you still laughed it off. it’s all a joke anyways, him coming over. 

he was coming over later, after noon, so he wouldn’t just drop everything to see you right now. 

“geez. chill out, chat, george was joking.” you told them. 

you sat on your gaming chair more comfortably as you started playing a couple rounds of among us with your fans. you told them not to cheat and watch your stream as they’re playing ad lucky you, they listened. 

for some reason, your chat still kept blowing up with george comments. maybe they were still caught up on that comment he said earlier. 

but you hadn’t thought that he’d be behind you the entire time, telling the chat to not make it obvious. 

“happy birthday, b” you heard a very familiar voice from behind you. 

you almost had a whiplash from how quick you turned your head to see who was behind you. 

you stood up to hug him, almost falling to the floor, stumbling on your own feet.

with the way you ran to him, he almost fell to the floor. “you’re here, you’re here.” you kept repeating it to him, not believing that he actually came. you knew he’d come later, but not this early. 

george moved you back gently to see your full outfit. you two were aware that the facecam is still on, and pointing to you two, seeing every move. 

“come here.” he whispered to you before grabbing your waist, to kiss you. 

you two took a little while enjoying each other’s company, still in front of everyone on twitch. 

he moved you back a little, turning you to face your gaming monitors. “MY GIRLFRIEND, EVERYBODY. isn’t she so hot, oh my god.” he said to the stream. 

you laughed at his stupid antics, covering your face with your hands as you blushed. 

your chat didn’t stop talking about the interaction, not believing that their ship was finally sailing. 

you played a couple more rounds of among us with them, george taking over sometime or making funny comments to entertain your chat while you played. 

after the stream, george and you took time to enjoy the time alone, ordering in your favourite food and opening gifts that he bought you. 

you forgot to mention that both of your twitter was blowing up too much that you had to mute it for a while. you knew that a lot had screenshot the cute moment. 

you took note to screenshot some of the photos on twitter later. 

[ithehellisbucky]

forget me not

spencer reid x reader

Request: No

Word Count: 3.5k

Warnings: Kidnapping, torture, drowning, murder, drug mention, etc

Summary: You and Spencer don't realize you love each other until it's almost too late

Author's Note: First thing in like fucking forever, so yeah. This was originally a request and then I was at school and I couldn't look at my request so it was way off script, so I just did my own shit, this also takes place in the 5th season, in the middle just after hayley dies.

~

"The unsub is a white male between the ages of 35-45. His modus operandi is drowning in the great lakes, he's already struck Superior, Michigan, Ontario, and Huron, so we expect Lake Erie to be next." Hotch says, glancing at his phone every minute or so. It's his third case back since Hayley died, and he's picked up a habit of waiting to hear bad news.

"This unsub has recently developed a hallucinative disorder where every face he sees has an emotional connection. There were no discernable connections between his victims which leads us to believe that his mind is filling in the gaps at random." Reid says, gesturing abstractly at nothing at all in particular.

"This disorder was likely triggered by a recent brain injury connected to the Great Lakes so keep a lookout for any recent accident victims. He was very social until the accident, and after it he immediately became anti-social. He was probably in a relationship recently, but then broke it off, he is not married, but possibly has children, which he will not shy away from using in a hostage situation." Morgan exclaims as he leans against a desk.

"His victims are all over the place, so we advise everyone to be on high alert. There is no pattern to the murders, from a 51-year-old single mother of two to a 14-year-old on vacation." You pause and take a breath, looking back down at your notes. "Someone out there knows this man, so we implore you to tell as many people as possible, our Media Liaison Jennifer Jareau will be setting up a press conference, and it is very important to get this out to as many people as possible."

"Won't that just spook him more?" One of the sheriff's deputy says, with a concerned look on his face.

"Yes, but at this point, he will kill again no matter what, it's better to have the public be informed because he will take another victim, whether we find him during or after is up to us."

He nods, and looks down at his notepad, badly masking his disturbed grimace.

"Thank you and let us know if you have any leads," Hotch exclaims, closing the meeting.

You walk up to Spencer "I bet we're their favorite people right about now." You say, sipping on your coffee.

Reid avoids your eyes and continues to fidget with the chess piece that he probably stole from one of the officer's desks. "What's wrong Reid?"

"I dunno, I just have a really bad feeling about this one," He picks up his cane and walks away. When Spencer has enough he needs to walk away, and as long as he wasn't hurt that was fine with you.

"Reid, y/l/n, Garcia's got something." Morgan raps his knuckles on the doorway and calls you into a conference room. "Hey babygirl, what do ya got for us?" He exclaims, shifting the call to speakerphone.

"A luscious blonde mane and an intense yearning to hold you." Emily giggles a little bit and Garcia can probably feel Hotch's glare "oh come on Derek."

"Sorry baby, keep goin'."

"I have a name. One Larry Todd. 3 weeks ago he was in a boat accident in which he had a severe concussion and was unconscious for 3 days. He immediately broke up with his girlfriend Shelby, which she was very angry about, adieu to her Facebook page. His ex-wife reported that he missed his last two visitations with his daughter Amelia." She takes a pause "he owned a bait shop that's been closed since his boat was destroyed in the accident, and it's listed as his last residency.

"Fits our profile to a tee," Emily exclaims.

"Thanks, Garcia," Hotch says, hanging up the phone call. "Emily, JJ is in the conference so run out and let her know. Morgan and Rossi, go to the bait shop with SWAT, and Reid and y/l/n go to the ex-wife's house; Emily and I will stay here and see what else we can dig up."

Everyone goes their separate ways. The sheriff takes the driver's seat, with you in the shotgun seat and Spencer in the back. You can hear the clang his leg makes against his cane and his foot bouncing.

"I'll take the daughter, and you can have the ex-wife."

"Okay," responds Spencer.

The ex-wife Miranda opens the door sobbing when you knock on it. "Excuse me, ma'am, my name is Agent y/n y/l/n and this is my partner Dr. Spencer Reid, do you mind if we ask you and your daughter a few questions about your ex-husband?"

She continues to sob but lets you in. You look back to see the sheriff playing video games on his phone and you scoff.

Spencer sits down with the crying woman and you politely ask if you can speak to her daughter. She tells you yes and that Amelia is around back.

"Bye, Reid." You blow a kiss to Spencer and walk out the door, shaking a sinister nagging feeling itching at the back of your neck.

You walk across the pavement and open the gate to enter your unsub's former backyard. "Hi Amelia, my name is y/n, I'm a friend of your mommies."

Beginning to grow more suspicious, you pull out your gun and triple-check to make sure it's on safety. If Todd is there you know that he would be fine with sacrificing his daughter for his own goals and you wouldn't let that happen "Amelia? Is your daddy here."

"Boo!" A little girl with pigtails holding a stuffed rabbit jumps from behind the recycling bin and you chuckle, putting your gun away in your holster. "Did I scare you?"

"You sure did!" You laugh. "Wow, that's such a pretty bunny, where did you get it?"

"My daddy got it for me." She said, showing off her gap tooth.

"That's so cool! Do you remember what it was like when he gave it to you?" You kneel to be at eye level with the child.

"Yeah, he was super cuddly, now he's a little more pokey, but that's okay." She says, playing with the bunny ears.

"When did he get pokey, Amelia?" You hesitated, something was off "I just want your daddy to be cuddly again."

"A little bit ago. He used to tell me stories till I fell asleep eeeeeverynight, but then he stopped for a week and when he came back he was like a big lion."

You had a growing sense of paranoia budding in your spine, why was she telling you all this so fast? "What type of stories?"

"He used to tell me princess stories, but after he stopped for a week he talked all about ones about the scary lady who tried to take me away, but then he stopped her! And the boy who was being dangerous so he had to make sure that she didn't hurt me." She exclaimed absentmindedly.

You start to pull your phone out of your pocket until Amelia starts talking again "and just now, he was talking about the bad knight who tried to take me away."

Your jaw dropped and you tried to find the best course of action, but by the time your brain started working it was too late. He walked up behind you and whispered into your ear "Nighty-night."

And then everything was black

~~~

"Hey, mommy."

"Yes, sweetheart?" She quickly wiped the tears off of her face to turn to her daughter.

"Can I have ice cream?"

"Of course sweetheart" she gives me a small smile and gets up towards the kitchen. "Where's that nice agent that came here with Dr. Reid?"

"They weren't a nice agent, they were a bad, bad, bad knight, and they were trying to take me away, so daddy took them instead."

No.

Oh no.

No no no no no no no no.

Where were they? Where was y/n?

I pulled out my gun without a second thought and left my cane behind, I ran as fast as I could without it, and by the time I was in the backyard my knee was burning and they were gone.

~~~

You woke up halfway through the drive. The road switched from smooth the bumpy a million times over, and it smelled like bees. Not like honey, not like pollen, like bees. Just bees. It smelled nice, but you don't want to die smelling bees.

You wanted to move. Move your body, move your head, move your eyes, move anything, but you couldn't move. Nothing could move. There was a sweaty tv shirt shoved between your teeth. Your hands were bound with bristled rope and there was metal all around you and you were certain that this was the back of a van. At first, you thought there must be a blindfold over your eyes, and then you realized that they were just too tired to open.

There was an old country song playing over the radio, a love song about a family in a house. The truck stopped shaking and he pulled the ignition. A growing sense of dread filled your stomach as he walked around towards the back of the truck. He opened the door and you saw his face.

That could only mean one thing- you weren't leaving here alive.

~~~

Within minutes crime scene techs were on the scene, but I knew they wouldn't find anything useful. The only thing that was there was the absence of y/n and our distraught profile.

"They were right here, right here, they were- they were right here, right here." Hotch looked at me somberly, and Morgan rubbed my shoulder with sympathy.

"We need to update our profile," Emily said, there was no time to waste, "we know what this guy does to people, and if he would risk abducting an armed federal agent in front of his daughter there's no doubt they in danger."

"We know Emily," Everyone looks at me kind of funny like I've said something wrong, but at this point, I don't care what anyone thinks of me, "His reason for doing this was for his daughter, he took out anyone he saw as a threat, a motherly figure, someone who could be her older brother, anyone who was a threat and wanted to take Amelia away from him.

"His disorder is fairly undocumented, being exactly the opposite of prosopagnosia, where patients disassociate faces from their loved ones, causes him to feel emotions about people he's never seen before, and his subconscious is assigning meaning to them at random, picking up anyone shows the slightest twinge of distaste.

"y/n picked up more than a twinge, they were there to take his daughter away, so he likely believes they're the mastermind." Everyone looks at me and waits for me to say the thing we all know is coming "he's not going to kill them before they suffer."

As we hitched a ride back to the station my leg was bouncing like crazy and my fingers were tapping the numbers of pi into the leather of the car door. Emily put her hand on my shoulder but I couldn't feel her, y/n missing was the only thing I could feel.

"Garcia I need you to check if Larry Todd owns any vehicles large enough to hold a person, trunks, vans, trucks anything," Morgan says into his speakerphone once we get back to the station.

"Oh god it's true, he really has them?" I can hear the distraught coated thick on her voice "do you think they're in pain, do you think he-"

"Garcia we don't have time for this, does he or does he not have any vehicles in his name." I snapped, I could apologize later when y/n was in a hospital bed.

"No, but you know I'm never one to go to bed early, and it turns out his great uncle died a year and a half ago, but his van was pulled over and given a speeding ticket a few months ago, how much do you wanna bet that's our guy and not a psychopath's uncle."

"Thanks, Garcia," Rossi hangs up the phone and turns to one of the sheriff's deputies in the room, "put out an ATB on that van."

"Okay, I'm gonna go through the medical files again, see if there's anything I missed," Hotch catches my arm.

"There isn't, right now all we can do is wait and look." He pauses "we've sent out patrol cars to look for the van, go out with Morgan, and circle around Lake Erie."

"Hotch, what if- what if we don't find them, or we find them and it's too late, or we find-"

"Right now she's alive, you said it yourself, he's not gonna let her die so easy."

As disturbing as it is hearing that someone you love more than anything is being tortured, I found it strangely comforting. They're alive. They are alive. They are prepared. After Tobias took me they brought me to a CIA torture seminar, just on the off chance that anything happened, I wouldn't break again.

I stared out the window of the passenger side of the SUV. Morgan wasn't talking, he knew what I was feeling, because he felt it before, when it happened to me.

"We've got a report of the vehicle going down sunmist lane" the scanner jumps to life.

I had memorized the map the second we landed; "we're five minutes away" and then, quietly under my breath, I whispered, "I'm coming y/n."

~~~

He held your head underwater for the 7th or the fiftieth time. You can't remember. You can't remember. You can't remember anything other than the water under the dock filling my lungs.

"What do you want with my daughter?!" He screamed at you as he pulled you out again, You vomited up all the water that my body could muster. You didn't know he had a daughter.

You forgot everything you learned to do. You forgot to pretend it was affecting me, You forgot how to hold my breath, You forgot. You forgot everything.

Except for Spencer, Spencer's smile, Spencer holding you, Spencer missing you until that was gone too.

Everything went away but the water.

He kicked you back off the dock again, and for a second you gasped for air, and then you sank, nothing even mattered anyways.

The man pulled you out again and kicked you in the ribs; you felt something rip inside of you and you screamed as loud as you could, which was more like a whimper.

"Larry Todd put your hands up!" Two men came behind the man who drowned you, you couldn't remember them, but you could remember the rip in your ribs filling with water.

He shoved you back into the water and you didn't even try to fight this time, you just sank, feet after feet after feet of water. You didn't hold your breath, you didn't care.

A figure appeared above you, and you saw the angel. He had a shimmering brown halo and a beautiful bright face that looked terrified, just like an angel.

And then he pulled you up.

~~~

This might be heaven, but it might be hell. You can tell the room is white without opening your eyes. There's a steady beeping sound to your left and it smells like chlorine.

When you finally manage to open your eyes you wished you hadn't. All you see is lethargy around you.

JJ is drooling in her sleep while Emily is asleep on her shoulder, Garcia is snoring in the corner with her knitting in a pile next to her. Morgan and Rossi are nowhere to be seen, but you can't blame them, seeing people they love getting beat up over and over again never gets easier. You can hear the faint sounds of Hotch arguing with someone over the phone in the hallway.

But worst of all is Spencer. He's wide awake and his foot is tapping like crazy on the ground. There are deep and dark eye bags surrounding his eyes and hints at a beard forming on his face. His cane is tossed uncharacteristically on the ground, and he pays it no attention whatever.

You open your mouth to speak, but when you do a stabbing pain shoots through your diaphragm and you gasp. The second Spencer hears you he shoots up and kneels next to the bed, which must be no easy feat.

"Hey, how are you?" He strokes your hair as gently as he can.

You try to speak but no words come out.

"Do you want some water?" You nod, trying to not feel pathetic. The second the glass of water comes into your eye line you knock it out of his hand and it goes shattering onto the floor, waking everyone else in the room up.

You start to cry, feeling guilty and scared about why a glass of water could've terrified you so much. "Hey, hey, it's okay, it's okay, it's just a bunch of sand made into something you can drink out of, it's not a big deal, don't worry." That calms you down a little bit.

You look around to see the rest of the team cradled around you. "How are you feeling honey?" Garcia whispers as if speaking too loudly would mortally wound you.

You reach up and touch your throat, and it burns. There's more confusion, and then JJ is getting her hand cut on the glass she was cleaning, Garcia was whispering too loudly and Emily was touching your arm, and Hotch and Morgan and Rossi were walking in the room and Spencer was pushing a button on your bed and the monitor was beeping and then you were screaming.

Screaming so loudly, screaming in pain, screaming in fear, screaming in confusion, screaming because you were overwhelmed and sad and scared. "Everyone gets out," Spencer says, and everyone quickly does, he knows you best, and right now, everything was too much.

"Wh-what happened" you whisper, throat and lungs still hurting but since you had screamed the worst part was over.

"The unsub kidnapped you, and tried to drown you, your heart stopped in the ambulance, but they brought you back." You remembered "You had been dunked in the water and brought back up at least 15 times, not including when I brought you out.

"You needed 53 stitches and had a punctured lung when we found you." He pauses "You're safe now, we have him in custody and he can never hurt anyone ever again." You let out a breath that you didn't know you had been holding.

"I'm so sorry," You were crying "I forgot you, I'm so sorry. He made everything go away but the water I'm sorry that I forgot you."

"It's okay, it's okay, you didn't do anything wrong, you were trying to stay alive." He stroked your hair and held your hands gently "He tortured you, when Hankel tortured me all I could think about were the drugs and the pain, you didn't do anything wrong, you survived."

"I survived?"

"Yes."

"Can I tell you something?" You chuckled, your tears had stopped but it was still wet on your face.

"Anything."

"I thought you were an angel when you saved, and now I realize that you weren't my angel, it wasn't magic, and it wasn't godly." Spencer looks puzzled, and you paused to take a deep and painful breath "It was the fact that I am so deeply in love with you, that seeing you love me back felt like heaven.

Spencer stares at you, his mouth closed and his mouth on the floor "You don't have to say anything, just know that-"

His lips are on yours before you can finish your sentence. For a moment you forget about the pain in your throat, the burn in your lungs, and the agony all over your body; it was just Spencer.

You pulled away for breath, your breaths dancing with each other.

"I was so scared" he whimpered in fear.

You stroked his hair gently "I was more terrified than I had ever been. I was so horrified that I would wake up tomorrow and my reason for living would be dead. I was more scared than I had been when I thought my dad killed a kid, I was more scared than when Hankel tortured me, I was more scared when I realized that I loved drugs more than my own life.

"You were the person that held my hand when I was hurting so bad I would forget to breathe, and then you weren't here because you were the person in pain and I realized that I loved you because nothing hurt me more than the fear that I could lose the one thing in the world that made me feel okay."

He takes a deep breath and looks at you as deeply in your eyes as you thought could ever be possible. "I love you too, and I promise you I'll never let you go."

His lips meet yours, and through a kiss, you whisper "I'll never forget you again"

And you knew that you had Spencer and everything is going to be okay.

~~

My Masterlist

Requests are open!

~Taglists are open~

Permanent Tags: @natasha-danvers​

Marvel:

Criminal Minds:

[myundeadgayson]

“My Wonderful Experience in Discovering More of the MCYT World”

As Told By: An Utter Dumbass that Never Had a Minecraft Phase and Didn’t Get Into it Until a Year Ago

I’d like it known that only a month ago I’d never watched anything of Hermitcraft, or any of the Hermits involved. This isn’t a brag, just a fact from an oblivious dumbass that never paid attention to what was happening on that side of Gaming YouTube.

Just over a month ago, the most I’d ever watched of the non-Hermit, but hella well-known Minecrafter and Builder, Scott SMajor’s solo content were a few escape room videos, but I’d already deemed him a god in my mind from him in MCC.

Considering this fact, I want to delve into JUST how minimal my knowledge of Minecraft Builders, the Hermitcraft Crew, OG Minecrafters, etc. was:

My only knowledge of Grian was “Wilbur Soot’s skin was a recolored Grian skin” which told me that Grian must be a huge Minecrafter.

I never heard the name Mumbo Jumbo until a month ago from a random Tumblr post, then repeated when TommyInnit mentioned him on a stream and said he was “the Philza Minecraft of Men”, or something along those lines (regardless, he was saying that Mumbo was the first person he’d met that was nicer that Philza).

Immediately associated after seeing a photo of Mumbo’s skin that “oh, that’s that dude riding a donkey in that weird cinematic cutscene everyone was hyped about? …why the fuck was he on a donkey?”

The only name I knew aside from Scott SMajor and Grian on the 3rd Life SMP was LDShadowLady because while my little sister had a Minecraft phase, I did not (the Homestuck phase hit REALLY strong from ages 13-17, there was no time for Minecraft).

The only other people beside Scott and Lizzie that I knew on EmpireSMP was Joey because I grew up watching Joey’s old videos. (I actually didn’t find out Joey played Minecraft until noticing his name was in an MCC a while back!! It caught me WAYYY off guard because I think the last video I watched of his before this year was like… 4 years ago? If not more?)

When I originally got inspired to watch 3rd Life, it was due to a fanart here on Tumblr of a huge spoiler of the ending. It was Scott SMajor holding Jimmy’s body and screaming with a caption about Flower Husbands. And because I’m always for angsty gays… I went to watch it.

However,,, I did no research and didn’t even look at the tags long enough to see it tagged as “3rd Life Smp”… So I just starting watching the only MC series I’d vaguely heard of that was still currently going on involving Scott… Which was EmpireSMP.

So… I binged all of Scott’s EmpireSMP episodes from 1-17 and got really confused on why Scott and Jimmy had barely interacted???

Needless to say, I was a dumbass.

So after researching to find that same fanart and realizing my mistake… I binged all of 3rd Life in about a day’s span.

Even better was knowing NOTHING about anybody when hopping in, so when I made my liveblog reaction posts, I actually had no knowledge about who the fuck Jimmy, Scar, or anyone was prior to watching:)

Fhajkdfkf I hope that’s a fun realization for you. I genuinely had only ever seen the username SolidarityGaming in MCC’s and knew “oh, another Captain America cosplayer. he must be a huge dork /pos!”

Which I mean… I was right adhajfkf

So my attachments to Jimmy, Scar, and Grian happened all through the course pf watching that series, then watching their POVs and just adoring every bit of their personalities.

My first time watching a full Hermitcraft episode was actually Scar’s Magical Menagerie episode! (I saw a clip of him mispronouncing it and accidentally blowing it up, so I just had to watch that chaos for myself! Instantly hooked!)

And well… Then Last Life SMP started up right on time, and in my impatience for more episodes, I ended up watching everyone’s POV and getting more attached to everybody…

And now I actually do know everyone by name… And I’ve become attached to everybody’s characters in Last Life and I’d easily murder for any of them.

And now I’m officially watching Hermitcraft 8 from Mumbo’s POV and I’ll likely watch the others videos from the season later once I get further caught up!

The best part is that I genuinely know I’m at the very TIP of the iceberg of Hermit Lore and it’s been really fun just finding out more and more as I go! (Like Scar’s patronus is a firefly, which aww!! The pets they own IRL! Mumbo’s neat love of cars! Mumbo and Grian’s roadtrip! HOW REDSTONE WORKS???)

Before I started watching any of these series, the most impressive redstone contraption I’d seen was in Pandora’s Vault on DSMP (which is cool! I’m not knocking it, but just explaining!) And the only time I’d seen a hopper was from Tommy’s therapy machine.

Now I have a sudden knowledge of how redstone kind of working??? And building tips??? (I don’t know what to do with those. I don’t really play Minecraft.)

Anyway, all this is to say that it’s been a really fun journey!

It’s always so much fun falling headfirst into new fandoms blind, but it was especially fun considering that that most these builders and creators have been around for AGES! All of this content was honestly right there in front of my eyes, but I was completely blind to it???

I mean, could be due to the fact I’d never watched a Minecraft video until finding Wilbur over a year ago. (Fun Fact: My first ever Minecraft video was Wilbur’s Skyblock Randomizer Video!

(Even Funner Fact: I didn’t realize I could just watch Wilbur on Twitch for free until the L’Manburg Elections. Despite him constantly advertising it. Because I’m a dumbass.)

This concludes my ramble though!!

I just really wanted to express the fantastic experience I’ve had so far getting to delve into the wondrous world of 3rd Life, Empires, Hermitcraft, and all the creators involved!

Thanks for reading!

[animatedminds]

Star Wars: Visions - Episode 2: Tatooine Rhapsody

Continuing with my set on Star Wars: Visions (all the episodes had to come out in one day, didn’t they?), we’ll move on to the next one. My feelings about this one are difficult to convey without spoilers, so SPOILERS. Anywho: Episode 2: Tatooine Rhapsody Developed By: Studio Colorido Directed By: Taku Kimura This is an interesting one, because it’s about music. Music in the Star Wars universe has always been something that we know existed, kind of, but which never got much specific focus. Characters lay low in seedy bars with jazz or ska music playing in the background. Mob bosses hire musicians to play for their lavish castles and spaceships. That sort of thing. It’s always just been for setting. Not this one. This one is about the musicians. A ragtag band of hopefuls who want to be the best band in the galaxy, but run into trouble with Boba Fett and Jabba the Hutt, who are after one of their members for unknown reasons. They can’t win, but maybe they can play their way out... It also brings a new music type to the Star Wars video output: we’ve gotten jazz, funk, ska, etc before, but the focus of this one is a pop/rock mix that’s pretty reminiscent if one has heard more than a few anime theme songs in their day. But back to the plot: if you’ve ever watched a slice of life anime about teenagers in a specific subculture facing fantastical odds - skateboarding, tabletop gaming, art, etc and so on, there’s ones for lots of concepts - the general tone and characterization of this one should feel familiar. There’s a brash but goodhearted kid who is very attached to his found family of musicians, and who goes all out to save one of them from mortal peril on their path to being the best. Besides the one in trouble, the other members of the band aren’t too distinctive: there’s a droid, and then an odd alien design unlike any I’ve seen in the franchise before, consisting of three oni-like aliens conjoined into a single body. They each have a close attachment to one another, but beyond the oni-trio alien having head with a different emotion, they do kind of blend together. Things get somber when we get the backstory: that brash kid is an ex-padawan, found when he was very young by a runaway gangster after Order 66. That gangster wanted to leave behind his criminal life to be what he always wanted to be: free, and a musician. The young Padawan joined him, was practically raised by him, and years later the two are inseparable... except now  But here’s where it gets interesting, and the reason I felt the need to reveal that in the review: if this were a main Star Wars series production, it would almost certainly end with the kid realizing his destiny and becoming a hero through the galaxy, the others part of his team. But that doesn’t happen. Instead, the short commits to its chosen genre and runs with it all the way: the kid finds a way out of the situation without fighting, and instead saves his friend by pushing forward on their quest to be the best: seeing as Jabba could do worse than profit off of an up and coming popular band...

It’s different, and throws off a few Star Wars conventions in favor of certain genre ones, but that commitment is exactly what makes it a fun and almost innocent, in a way that gives it a lot of charm. Sometimes, your destiny is to be what you want to be. It’s a bit customary in anthologies like this one to start with your big, hype first foray, and then go into lighter slice of lifes for a while before whammying the audience with the hammer blows, and this one definitely does its job with its lighter leanings.

As a musical short, there’s a song in this one - and it rocks. It’s excellent in both Japanese and English, though it’s - for obvious reasons - clearly written with more Japanese vocals in mind, the dub sometimes having to throw in “yeahs” and extra syllables to keep up. Lastly, as with the first review, and all of the subsequent ones, I’m also going to be looking at canon potential. These shorts are explicitly non-canon, but there’s always a chance that with enough support certain characters or ideas might catch the studio’s attention, leading to them pursuing them later on. It’s not entirely likely, but it’s enough of a possibility that I’m also looking at each episode on terms of how well they fit into the Star Wars universe... just in case. And in the case of Tatooine Rhapsody... I actually have no idea. As I mention above, this short explores an area of the universe that’s almost completely unplumbed. I do think it does fit into the universe fairly well continuity-wise - it does strain credulity a bit that Boba would encounter an ex-Jedi, even a kid, and do nothing about it, plus the one bizarre alien design above - but it’s a generally decent fit. But with both the studio and the fanbase being as highly fixated as they are on only wanting BIG, WORLDSHAKING EVENTS for major Star Wars media, I’m not sure how much Disney would want a series about a bunch of musicians making their way in the universe with their song while throwing off their old obligations, nor how fair the fanbase would be to it. In the end, with that in mind I’d tentatively give this one only Okay Chances of canonization, but only if people really pulled for seeing these protagonists again. Otherwise, probably not. But personally, I would love it.

[ghostgothgeek]

Chaos.

Another for the Phic Phight! This one kinda combines two prompts and I had so much fun writing it! In this, Danny and Tucker don’t know Sam plays video games yet. 5,063 words.

"What do you mean you don’t feel the same way? We´ve had a mutual crush on each other for years." Sam says angrily after finally confessing her love to him. But Danny´s heart was beating hard for someone else entirely. Prompt by phantomfana. 

Danny wants to ask his crush to the upcoming school dance. Prompt by Rikaleeta.

-----

It was another long night of ghost hunting for Danny. Technus took up the first part of the night, trying to take over the park’s new security system. Tucker was fortunately still awake to help him out with that. Then Johnny and Kitty rolled in, but they weren’t looking for trouble, they just wanted a date night and swore they wouldn’t be a problem. Apparently Fridays were their days off for “everything but each other”. Danny was a romantic, but he didn’t know if this was sweet or nauseating. Ember had put up a good fight, though. He was proud he only had one injury to tend to. He had dodged most of her attacks, but she was still a pretty advanced ghost. And, of course, Danny had caught the Box Ghost six, count them, SIX times. How did he always manage to get out?! He wasn’t difficult to take down, he was just a pest. 

Danny sighed as he sat down at his computer chair. It was only 12:30 am, and it was a Friday. He could sleep in tomorrow and he deserved at least a couple hours of fun. He logged into his online gaming account and saw Tucker was online. Figures. He pulled up the chat anyway. 

Astrohaunt: Hey Tuck. Still up?

Technopedia: You know it. Chaos signed on about a half hour ago and I’m not passing up the opportunity.

Astrohaunt: Dude is so good it’s unreal!

Technopedia: He goes to our school, I tracked one of his IP addresses and he logged in at school a few times.

Astrohaunt: Tucker wtf. That’s creepy!

Technopedia: I just want to make sure Chaos is actually a kid and not Lancer again!

Astrohaunt: I still can’t wrap my mind around Lancer playing Doomed…

Technopedia: Same. But Chaos IP is different from Lancer, so we good. Unless more teachers play Doomed.

Astrohaunt: I hate you for putting that image into my brain.

Technopedia: Sorry dude. But quick come join before someone else gets Chaos.

Danny, Tucker, and Chaos had made a great team. Whenever Chaos was around, they were actually able to progress through the game. They played several rounds until Tucker was caught by his mom and was forced to sign off, but Danny and Chaos kept playing. 

TeamChaos: Hey, what’s up?

Astrohaunt: Omg dude you’re so awesome. 

TeamChaos: Ha, thanks. Gotta blow off steam somehow. 

Astrohaunt: Tell me about it! Between Lancer’s three projects and midterms and...other stuff...this is my only time to actually chill. I’ve been so stressed!

TeamChaos: Same. I did finish one of the projects though. I’m always here if you need to talk, you know. 

Astrohaunt: Wow, I may just take you up on that offer. I’ve had a rough night.

TeamChaos: Lay it on me.

And so Danny, sparing the ghost hunting details, stayed up chatting with Chaos until 5 am. He got along really well with the guy, they had a lot of similar interests. This was just the first of many up-all-night conversations they shared. After a few months, Danny felt a special connection with Chaos, and yet, he didn’t even know his name! 

Astrohaunt: We’ve been talking all these months and I still don’t know your name. I’m Danny. 

TeamChaos: Oh, thought you knew. It’s Sam!

Astrohaunt: Hey! One of my best friends is named Sam! 

TeamChaos: You don’t say!!!

The next day at school, Danny pulled Tucker over to him, whispering, “Dude, help. I think I might be gay....” 

“What?!” Tucker shouted.

“Quiet, Tuck!” 

“Okay, well uh...why?” Tucker sent him a weird look and took a step back. 

“No, not you. Chaos. I think I have a crush on Chaos.” Danny ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do! I never thought I’d be...you know. Chaos and I just have good conversations and he’s always there to listen to me when I need to vent. I thought maybe I found another best friend but...this is different. Chaos is so cool and I’m crushing and I don’t even know who he is or what he looks like! Or if he feels the same way! Maybe I’m just stupid and-”

“Dude, chill. You’re jumping too far ahead of yourself. Whichever way you, you know, swing...I’m still your best friend.” Tucker pulled out his PDA. “Let me see what I can find out. I know Chaos goes to our school.”

“Thanks, Tuck. As if being half ghost wasn’t hard enough! Oh, and he’s in our class, because he’s talked me through assignments and knows what they are and stuff. He’s almost as good as explaining things as Sam. Crap...Sam. Don’t tell her about this!” Danny started fidgeting. 

“Well,” Tucker raised his eyebrows in surprise, “I can tell you with absolute certainty that Chaos is definitely a girl.” 

“You found out who Chaos is?!” 

“What, like it’s hard?” Tucker chuckled. “I traced the IP addresses she uses. I know who she is. So do you,” Tucker smirked, “It shocked me at first, but it makes total sense! And I can totally see why you like her.” 

“Really?” Danny let out a breath in relief. “Okay that makes me feel a lot better...hey, maybe I can ask Chaos to the dance next Saturday!” 

Tucker rested a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Go for it. Ask Sam. I’m almost positive she’ll say yes.”

“Okay, I will...wait, not Sam! Chaos!” Danny clarified. “Well, actually, I think Chaos told me her name was Sam. Ha, small world. I can’t wait to introduce Sam to Sam. I think they would really get along.” 

Tucker busted out laughing, “Oh, dude. You go ahead and do that.” He left Danny standing there in the hallway, still laughing all the way to his next class.

Danny, a bit confused by Tucker’s laughter, shook his head and smiled to himself. Okay, good. He’d had enough identity crises to fill a lifetime. Chaos was definitely a girl. Now if he just knew Chaos returned his feelings, things might actually work out for him this time and he could actually have a girlfriend.

Meanwhile, Sam was having an internal debate of her own. Sitting in a class where the teacher couldn’t give two shits about what the students were doing, she had always used this class as her thinking time. Usually her thinking-about-Danny time. She nervously clicked her pen as she thought about recent events. 

She and Danny spent so much time chatting online when they weren’t hanging out in person. Danny was a little bit more bold online, probably because he didn’t have to interact face-to-face or risk his pants falling down in public again. Online, they talked about everything. No topic was off limits. Plus, Sam felt like their friendship had only grown even stronger when they could chat online and not have to worry about blushing or getting teased by Tucker. Chatting online took away all the pressure and made it much easier to connect with Danny. 

Danny hadn’t said anything yet, of course. He was probably scared. Hell, she was scared. She was already so in love with him, and getting closer online only further solidified that fact. She had never been in love before, and even though she hunts ghosts, this was more terrifying! She was fairly certain he returned her feelings, but both were too chicken to actually make that final step. They’ve been best friends forever. She didn’t want to mess up their already great dynamic or force Tucker to be the third wheel, though he did insist he was more than okay with that and encouraged them to finally get together. 

Sam stopped clicking her pen as she suddenly remembered it was senior year. They hadn’t picked colleges yet, but whether they ended up going to the same school or not, things were going to change. Danny was very attractive, and going off to college meant girls may actually approach him when they didn’t know his parents were ghost fighters. The fact had never bothered Sam, but she did kind of like how it kept most girls at school from asking him out or giving him attention. Valerie had been a challenge, especially because she was a ghost hunter herself and probably wanted to get tips from his parents. Sam was glad that relationship ended relatively early. It was too hard on her. Joyous or not, though, she was still mad at Valerie for how she broke his heart. 

But that was 2 years ago. They had all moved on and friendships were more or less mended across the board. This made Sam glance at her favorite picture of her and Danny. Tucker had taken the candid picture and it was now her phone’s background. In it, Danny was giving Sam a piggyback ride. Her arms were lightly strung around his neck, legs looped around his waist. Danny had kept going in the opposite direction Sam told him to go, which frustrated her but also made her laugh. She had rested her chin on his shoulder, her face pressed right up against his. Danny was looking at her and Tucker had captured that rare moment when Sam had a huge grin on her face, still laughing. She smiled at the picture. They would be okay no matter what. Their friendship would survive.

Anyway, Sam also realized she had already come close to losing Danny, in more ways than one. Whether it was to other girls or a ghost, there was always that anxiety stirring in her head that she could lose him entirely some day. Life was too short. She needed to take the plunge for both of them and just get them both over this hurdle, and they could finally, finally, actually get together. 

Sam made her decision. It was now or never. She was going to tell him. Today. The trio was meeting up at Danny’s house later anyway, and if she got there early enough, she could talk to him before Tucker showed up and teased them about it. Sam firmly nodded her head to herself, a confirmation of her decision. It was finally time.

After school, Danny was pacing in his room, trying to figure out how he wanted to do this. Asking a girl to the dance wasn’t a huge deal, and yet at the same time, it was. He would rather ask in person, but he still didn’t know what Chaos looked like, so asking in person seemed to be off the table. He could look in the yearbook for all the girls named Sam at their school. He could already omit one Sam Manson from that list. How many Sams could possibly attend their school? It would be easier to ask Tucker, though. Tucker already knew who she was. Sam and Tucker were on their way over right now. When Sam wasn’t paying attention, he could ask Tucker for Sam’s full name. 

Chaos Sam, not best friend Sam. God, this was so confusing. Why were girls so hard for him? Freshman year, Paulina only liked his ghost half and wouldn’t give his human half the time of day. Sophomore year, Valerie hated his ghost half and that hatred was more important to her than her feelings for his human half. Junior year, he had been denying that he was in love with his best friend. And now that he had finally accepted that he did like his best friend as much more than a friend, a new girl entered the picture and he now found himself trying to choose between two Sams. Because it apparently wasn’t hard enough for him already to make the biggest and most important change he could possibly make in a friendship, let’s add another crush to the mix and give them the same name.

Sam. Best friend Sam - that’s who he was planning on asking originally, even if he chickened out and had to ask her as a friend instead. Plus, he and Sam had somehow gotten closer recently, and he was pretty sure she liked him. Sure, it was only because Tucker told him so, but it was a possibility. The thing was, he didn’t want to ruin things. Especially because he truly didn’t know how Sam, best friend Sam, felt about him. She was a tough and courageous girl, surely she would have said something by now if it were true. So Tucker must be pulling his leg.

But he did have another option - Chaos Sam, who may actually return his feelings. Sure, the feelings weren’t nearly as strong as what he felt for his best friend, but the feelings were still there. Plus, if he got rejected by Chaos, it would be less heartbreaking than being rejected by Sam, someone he had known for years rather than months. He could deal with losing a newer friend, but not one of his best friends. Sam was too important and he knew he needed her in his life.

Danny sighed. This was really hard, but he made a decision. It was easier to go with Chaos than risk ruining things with Sam. Danny had enough drama going on in his life already, he needed an easy win. 

He broke from his thoughts when the doorbell rang. He ran downstairs and opened it, only slightly surprised to see Sam there. She was usually early for things. He and Tuck were more prone to being late. 

“Hey, Sam. Come on in!” Danny moved so Sam could enter his house. He shut the door and followed her upstairs and back to his room as she returned his greeting. She was pacing the same path he just had, muttering quietly to herself. She looked nervous. “Something on your mind?” 

Sam was startled out of her thoughts. “Huh? Oh yeah.” She noticed his disheveled appearance, also noting he was fidgety. Was he going to do what she was about to do? “What about you, you look like you’ve been thinking a little too hard about something.” She smiled softly. 

Danny chuckled, “Yeah, but it’ll resolve itself soon. I’ll worry about it after the movies. Tuck should be here any second. Oh, but I’m glad you’re early. Can you help me with something quick?” 

“Of course.” Sam followed him to his desk, smiling and rolling her eyes when he pointed to a homework problem. “I should have known.” 

Danny gave her a lopsided smile and watched as she showed him how to do the problem in her perfect handwriting. It took no more than a couple of minutes. Now, they were just waiting for Tucker to arrive. 

Sam looked at the time. He would be here soon. She needed to do this now. She needed to tell Danny. She couldn’t wait until after the movies for him to tell her. She had already waited long enough and couldn’t bear another second.

“Danny, can I talk to you for a second?” She sat down on his bed and gestured for him to do the same. 

Danny could sense the seriousness in her voice, and nodded anxiously. He was scared when Sam was serious about things. It was usually something bad.

“Danny…” She decided to get straight to the point. “I like you. As in like-like you. More than like, and more than a friend. And we’ve been doing this dancing around for at least 4 years now and I’m sick of it. I just want to be with you already. What do you say?” Sam held her breath as she waited for Danny to answer. 

He stared at her with wide eyes before nervously rubbing the back of his neck and turning his attention to his shoes, avoiding eye contact with the goth. God, why him?! He had stupidly thought, for once, things would be easier for him this time. He had already sent an offline message to Chaos that he wanted to ask her something, and then Sam had to come along and tell him what he had wanted to hear for some time now. But he couldn’t blow Chaos off when he had already somewhat asked. Of course, his life just had to be complicated every step of the way. He really liked both girls and didn’t want to hurt his best friend. Regardless, he had to be honest. He owed Sam that much. “Well, I mean, yeah, but…” 

“But what?” Sam whispered, clearly already upset. Fuck. Fuck fuck FUCK. This was exactly what he didn’t want to happen. He decided to try going with Chaos so he could avoid heartbreak from his best friend. The very thing he had been so afraid of, he was doing to her right now. 

Danny sighed again. “But I can’t. I’m so sorry, Sam.” It was hard to choke out, but he said it, and he felt terrible. He pressed his lips together and kept staring at his shoes until Sam lifted his chin up, forcing him to look at her. 

“What do you mean you don’t feel the same way? We’ve had mutual crushes on each other for years!” Sam said angrily, feeling her heart break as her best friend and love of her life rejected her confession of love. She was so sure he returned her feelings! Especially after all the great conversations they had shared online these last few months. “Or, at least, I thought we did.” Tears swelled in her eyes. Did he lead her on? “I-I need an explanation, Danny,” she quietly stated after he didn’t continue. 

Danny frowned and his heart ached. He didn’t want to hurt his best friend like this. Hell, he really liked her! Of course their crushes were mutual! And if this had happened 6 months ago instead of now, he would have jumped at the chance. But now...now he had Chaos and already forced himself to stick with his decision. It was easy with Chaos; there was no friendship to risk, no denying of being lovebirds or brushing off kisses as fakeout makeouts. Plus, he couldn’t lie to his best friend. She would know if he was lying. And he already told himself she deserved the truth. “There’s...someone else…” 

“What?” Sam whispered before turning angry again, “Paulina? Valerie? Star?” she spat out. 

Danny shook his head, “Ew, no...it’s someone I met online...I’m so sorry, Sam. I like you a lot, I really do, but I think I’ve already come to the conclusion that I like this girl I met online, Chaos, and I have to try to see that through.” 

Many emotions crossed Sam’s face as she pieced together what he just said. At first she was upset, but as he explained himself, she felt disbelief, confusion, anger, and finally, hope. He couldn’t really be that clueless, right? “Show me.” 

“Huh? I mean, I don’t actually know what she looks like, but we message every night and she really understands me! I know it sounds ridiculous, but-” 

“Show me,” Sam repeated. “Show me her profile.” 

“You’re not going to hurt her, are you?” Danny questioned cautiously.

“No, of course not. Just shut up and show me the profile.” Sam was more calm now, and that was kind of scary. Even though Sam said she wouldn’t hurt Chaos, he didn’t want to give her the chance. But he knew how stubborn his friend was, and eventually in whatever way, she would force the information out of him. 

Danny sighed and pulled up the profile to show Sam. “I’m sorry, Sam. I’m still your best frien-” 

“Shut up.” Sam scrolled through what Danny pulled up for her and pinched the bridge of her nose in frustration. Closing her eyes slowly, she took a deep breath. “Didn’t Chaos tell you her name?” 

“Uh,” Danny thought, “oh yeah! She said her name was Sam, because I thought she was a boy at first and I had an existential crisis, but then Tucker told me-” 

“Danny. I’m Sam.” 

“No I know, and sure it’ll be a little weird cause you’re Sam and she’s Sam, it’s confusing, but I-” 

Sam interrupted him once again. She could hear Tucker’s footsteps approaching. She was running out of time to not make this a spectacle. “No, Danny. Chaos. Sam. Me. I’m Sam. I am Sam,” 

Tucker only heard the tail end of the conversation as he entered the room. Never able to pass up a comedic opportunity, he smirked and added “I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like green eggs and ham!” 

It was suddenly silent in the room as his friends seized conversation and glared at him. Oops. 

“Oh, am I interrupting something?” Tucker could see the fire in Sam’s eyes. “Uh, oh wait I forgot my...sock. I’ll be downstairs!” He raced out of the room.

Sam turned her attention back to Danny. “No, you stupid fucking MORON. I am Chaos. You’ve been talking to me the whole time. I thought you knew that!” Danny stared at her blankly until she pulled out her phone and he watched her log into her account, proving it to him. Sure enough, it was Chaos’s profile. He could see all the direct messages between them, including his offline message about wanting to ask her something.

“Wait, you? You’re Sam? I mean, Chaos? I mean Sam?” Danny looked back and forth between the profile and his best friend. 

“UGH!” Sam shouted as she threw her hands in the air. “Yes, Danny. That’s me! Did you really not notice that Chaos was the same age as me and a girl who goes to our school? We have the same name and interests! Didn’t you wonder why it was so easy to talk right off the bat? I thought you put that all together and us just pretending to not know each other was a little bit you were trying to do or something!” 

Danny stared at her as he continued to piece it all together. He was definitely embarrassed. He felt so stupid. How could he not tell that Chaos was Sam, his best friend since 7th grade? Talk about being totally clueless. 

Wait. Clueless? Well, fuck! He got the nickname now! 

His eyes flickered back and forth as he thought everything through. Eventually, he started to crack a smile. “Wait, so I’ve had a crush on you and also you? You’re the same person! This is great! Do you know what this means?!” 

Sam slapped her forehead and began walking downstairs. “I don’t even know if this is worth it anymore…” 

“Wait, how come Tuck and I never knew you played video games! We can enter team tournaments! You’re so good!” Danny chased after her. 

Tucker watched as Sam grumbled about Danny caring more about video games than her. An excited Danny was right on her tail. 

“Tucker! Sam is Chaos! I’ve been in love with Sam this whole time!” Danny explained. 

“Tucker, I need you to refrain me from slapping his stupid clueless face,” Sam started. 

“Wait, you didn’t know Sam was Chaos? Dude! I thought I was obvious about that!” Tucker began laughing at Danny. 

“I know, so did I.” Sam crossed her arms over her chest. 

“Danny, you can calculate levels of rocket fuel and figure out how to get us to Mercury or something,” Tucker started. 

“Mars, actually,” Danny corrected. 

“But you can’t figure out that your best friend and your crush are the same person? You’re more than Captain Clueless, you’re like….Lieutenant Clueless? That’s like, bigger right?” Tucker continued. 

“I don’t think that’s how it works, Tuck,” Sam chimed in. 

“Shut up Sam, this isn’t about you,” Tucker immediately stopped his train of thought when he felt Sam glaring daggers at him. “Heh, uh. Except it does. It actually has nothing to do with me. I’m sorry I told you to shut up, please don’t hurt me!” He threw his hands up in front of himself in defense. 

“Relax, Tucker. I’m more angry with this fucking dingus,” she pointed her thumb in Danny’s direction. 

The halfa was about to protest, then closed his mouth. “That’s fair, I deserve that.” 

“I can’t even look at you right now. You scared me! I poured out my emotions to you. I thought you were rejecting me and that I would have to change my name and move to a different country! Wait, are you still rejecting me?” Sam stopped her pacing to look at him. 

“Of course not, Sammy!” 

“Oh don’t you ‘Sammy’ me! I told you I love you, you stupid fucking idiot!” Sam began throwing pillows at Danny, who expertly dodged them (though as a result, Tucker got hit in the face by one). 

“Technically, you didn’t say ‘love’ you said ‘like’”, Danny offered as Tucker shook his head and slashed finger across his neck, signaling Danny to stop talking. 

“Oh, I’m sorry! This is all my fault! I’m going to go jump off a cliff now!” Sam growled and Danny let out a small “oomph” as one of the pillows finally got him. 

“I’m out. Good luck, bro!” Tucker quickly slipped out the door, leaving Danny and Sam alone. 

Sam was about to follow Tucker out when Danny stopped her, “please don’t leave!” She still had angry tears in her eyes. He frowned. This was not how he expected things to go. She watched him for a few seconds before sitting down on the couch, refusing to look at him. “Sam I’m so sorry, this is just a huge misunderstanding.”

“No, Danny. It’s not. You were going to turn me down to go out with someone else.”

“But that someone was still you!”

“Yeah, but you didn’t know that! We’ve been friends for years, and you were more interested in someone you just met a few months ago! I don’t want to be anyone’s second choice, Danny! I’ve been standing by for years as you continuously chose other girls over me. I thought we were done with that, and that you were finally choosing me first, but you won’t and you never will and I’m so stupid.” Sam put her head in her hands as she tried her hardest not to let tears fall. 

And that was when he finally figured it out. It wasn’t just the moment of rejection, it was years of rejection, and at her biggest confession, she still thought he was choosing someone over her. Not to mention, Tucker witnessed most of the conversation. Sam rarely showed her emotions. She always had her heart guarded, and he knew this. Tucker knew this. Hell, she didn’t even tell them she was rich until after a few years of friendship. It took them a while to get her to open up to them. She was a pretty private person. She was probably already hurt like this before. And now, she was probably embarrassed.

“You’re definitely not stupid. I’m stupid. I should have known it was you. That was actually what I really liked about Chaos, she reminded me of you.” 

Sam forced a small sarcastic laugh, “Yeah, right.” 

“No really,” Danny sat on the couch next to her and grabbed her hand, placing it in both of his. “Sam, you’re absolutely incredible. How dumb would I have to be to not notice?” Sam gave him a pointed look. “Okay yeah but it’s not the way you think it is. I liked Chaos because she was a lot like you. She reminded me of you. And it just seemed easier to go with her because she was basically you, but she and I didn’t have a really great friendship that could have gotten ruined if we broke up or something. I could live without her, but I can’t live without you. You’re always my number one. Always have been, always will be. Even if I did just fuck everything up. I’m so sorry, Sam. I’m ready to be with you, if you’ll still have me.” 

Sam stayed silent and stared at her lap, processing this new information. Of course she would forgive him; she always did. She just needed a little time. 

Danny was getting nervous that he really did fuck this up for good. This was so fucking important! He couldn’t risk fucking this up! Sensing her hesitation, Danny tried one more thing to get her back. One thing he hasn’t done before. One thing he just learned how to perfect.  

“Sammy, I’m sorry,” a duplicate popped up next to her on the other side of the couch, startling her. 

“Please forgive me?” Another duplicate was floating in front of her, hanging upside down, hair flopping all over the place. 

“I know I’m a dummy but,” Sam snapped her head towards a third duplicate. 

“I’m only a dummy because I’m in love. With you,” the real Danny finished. Sam looked back and forth between all the Dannys.  

“We’re sorry, Sammy,” all the duplicates said at once. 

Sam was trying really hard to hold back a smile. “You learned how to duplicate,” she stated simply. 

Original Danny grabbed her hands. “Sam. I will make this up to you. I promise.” 

She could hear the determination in his voice and sighed. “You better.” 

Danny smiled and hugged her. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!! I love you so much!”

Sam pushed him off of her. “I love you too, you fucking idiot.” 

“But I get to be your idiot!” Sam couldn’t hold her laughter back anymore. “Oh!” Danny shouted, “Will you go to the dance with me? Please?” 

Sam pretended to ponder the answer before saying “alright”. 

“Yay!” All 4 Dannys cheered. The duplicates on either side of her kissed her cheeks as the real Danny kissed her forehead tenderly. The final duplicate, feeling left out, squeezed his way in to give her a hug. 

Sam was now roaring with laughter before kissing the real Danny sweetly. “You know, duplicates won’t always get you out of trouble,” she warned. 

“Yeah, but they could come in handy for other things,” he wagged his eyebrows up and down suggestively before passionately kissing her, the duplicates kissing her neck and touching her in near-dangerous places. 

Sam bit back a moan, eyes lustful before smirking, “I think you just found a way to make it up to me.” She began dragging the real Danny and one of his duplicates back to his room. Fuck the movies.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 19: Yugi and the Only Neck Accessory He Didn’t Really Want to Wear

Been busy! Hopefully stuff will open up soon as I’m taking a hiatus on a different quarantine project and will be finishing painting the entire roof of my car this week? One can hope. Sanding the rust off the whole top of a car takes a long time it turns out?

Also, fun Yugioh fact, I recently painted a book cover for an author who is older so she’s never seen the show, and she looked at my tumblr, saw my Duke Devlin fanart and was like “That’s him. That’s my main character. OMG. You captured him perfectly!” and I was like “Ma’am that is Duke Devlin, hence the single dice earring on his lobes there, but we can work with this.” and now a spiritual Duke Devlin is on the cover of a Wuxia-style fantasy trilogy on the Vella. Had to give him a top knot and delete the eyeliner for Wuxia reasons but uh, that’s just Duke.

So long story short, fanart can get you work, don’t even worry about posting that stuff online because most people don’t even know it’s fanart anyway and older ladies freakin love it.

Back in Yugioh, the team was doing their best to navigate a map through the woods and they do about as well as they normally do.

And inside Tristan lifted up the floorboards and was like “I found the only way out, this is it, this is the only way.”

And they ended up in something that has a color scheme I would actually associate with a jungle. Finally. We have finally left California (in order to go to another Hell.)

Youknow, when we went to California, we visited Hell, and when we went to India, we also took a stop at the nearest death destination. There’s just so much death on this show and sometimes I forget because there’s been a ghost in our party for so freakin long it’s been normalized.

(read more death imagery under the cut)

Joey freaks out at a flock of crows and reveals in this episode something I never realized about him before.

Like I’m not always the perfect observer as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I love that this is canon for probably only this episode, but I will never forget it for the entirety of this series.

You go on hating birds, Joey.

Bro was like “Maybe it’s a deep cut about Mai Valentine because she’s a harpy lady” but eh...pretty sure we spent like an entire season of Joey telling us that Mai was a good experience? Would be incredibly funny if immediately after all of S4, Joey was like “You know what? Screw Mai, guys.”

So my thoughts...it’s probably just a literal bird experience. Like I had a friend who hated deer because once she went to a petting zoo, got some pellets to feed the deer, but her finger was sticking up, so when the deer came over to nibble on some pellets her finger went up it’s nose by accident. She was so disgusted by this event that was entirely her fault, that she brought up how much she hated deer basically whenever we saw one.

So like...maybe Joey fed a bird wrong at a petting zoo. I can see him getting bit by a parrot because he was too Joey Wheeler.

But now that we’re in a graveyard neighborhood, Pharaoh decides to hop out because there’s a lot of ghosts here and he needs to practice socializing with his peers.

So that’s just a Yugioh monster doing the ostrich dance, right? Like this is a meme from like 2010 but on Yugioh in 2003(4?)

Good to see the Ostrich dance here in the land before Vine.

So they pull out their Pokemon to do some antics, Tea looked like she was about to do something useful, and Yami does a yump across time and space to get her as far away from playing (not)cards as quickly as possible and y’all...sure was a position these animators animated.

Holy crap.

And I was going off about that scene last season where they woke up in the same bed like...

...have these two been together this entire time? Like together together?

They’re like...way more comfortable than you’d figure they’d be considering Yugi nearly passes out every time he gets a hug. But Yami just like....How long has this been going on? As long as Joey’s fear of birds?

Like obviously this show would never cover what the hell Yugi may be thinking about this overreaching move here, because we’re gonna gloss right over that, and just run away up a flight of stairs. No one mentions this ever again. Which is mind blowing for an anime to do. I think in most anime I watch, the kids would be like “ahh ahhhh I bumped into a booooob!” like it does for I want to say every other episode of My Hero Academia. But in Yugioh, they saw that low hanging fruit and they were like “we expect a higher level of maturity out of our audience. Now here’s a fleet of ostrich dancing tree monsters with faces for crotches.”

They decided to sprint up this flight of stairs, and it enough of a slope to deter the monsters who are only unbalanced weird legs.

I want us to take a moment and admire this background painting. I can’t unsee the rocks that are all the same size, just piled on top of eachother. Did Alexander the Great just plop rocks here--or was the mountain made up of tons of similarly shaped boulders?

Like there’s a lot of nice bg’s in this arc, don’t get me wrong, but this one...I’m just trying to wrap my head around the logic of it.

At the top, they meet a pantheon, that is immediately blocked by this wall, because if this arc had a tagline, it’s “Yugi gets inconvenienced every 4 seconds.”

Bro was like “Clearly they would have pushed it over if Tea wasn’t slacking off” and like...she is actually. Look at her. Only used one hand? Slacker.

Joey was disappointed he couldn’t push over a massive wall, and the team decided not to analyze how much Joey Wheeler thinks of his own strength and instead fixate on these statues.

Usually in anthro characters they kinda look birdlike but act human. But what about an anthro that’s just a bird? Like human torso, but can turn his head 180 degrees? Yugioh made me ask this question.

And then Joey was like “wait, there may be a solution that isn’t just to use brute strength!”

Youknow it is a bummer that Kaiba couldn’t witness Joey own a dragon while he himself only has a robot jet dragon. Although, the jet is probably faster, stronger and overall...better than this baby dragon. It would have been great for Kaiba to witness Joey under-utilize this dragon and forget he has it for like huge swatches of the episode.

And then Grandpa pulled some body horror out of nowhere.

Wow.

I mean that is really gross.

I guess Grandpa can’t use Blue eyes, because Kaiba ripped it up, Grandpa can’t use Exodia because Weevil tossed it off a boat, and grandpa can’t use the card that’s just a building because...it’s a building.

So instead Grandpa has a bunch of meat and bones that look like something out of Doom. It’s probably from a more obscure Konami property, but I forget which.

I’ve seen Tristan hold back Joey in this hold, first time it’s been Tea.

So much shipping in this episode, it’s wild.

It’s also wild how low my standards are for what could possibly be shipping when it comes to Yugioh because of how freakin tepid all of these characters are, which as I’ve brought up before, I really don’t mind.

So Yugi decides that because Grandpa was folding his arms like one monster and it made a gem light up or something, to just do the video game thing and use the giant ass statues as clues.

Why was this arc not a video game? Like parts of it really feel like it was meant to be.

So Yugi falls down a hole, where the walls cave in like it’s that dumpster in Star Wars but like...it barely phases him.

Also...Yugi might be able to see in the dark. It’s never been brought up but like...the more I think about it...has Yugi ever struggled to see without the lights on?

After Joey disappoints everyone, he confronts death.

And Pharaoh and Yugi decide to solve the puzzle of “how do I get out of this trap dungeon room” which, honestly, is probably what they’re doing every time they hang out in the brain pyramid.

So they summon their mascot monster, and surprisingly the show decided its ability to fly cannot help them out here.

Kuriboh manages to become enough of a doormat to push Yami up to the stone and they end up in a set of weird cuts that ended in this?

Like seriously it was like flashes of light and then they were just...up here like this.

Hey like...

Alexander the Great, my man...

Were you planning to put that stone in the middle of a exhaust vent hoping someone would touch it? Because there’s no way anyone would rationally have done that. You would need to fly to do it. This is the world’s worst DM.

Like Yugioh pulls a lot of fantasy nonsense but this arc is a lot more like a “it’s a kid’s show, just go with it.” arc than most of them. It’s not a bad vibe, necessarily, it’s just not the vibe I’m used to.

So once I witnessed maybe the most boring conversation I’ve ever witnessed about corn (this was on a twitch stream, by the way, a guy was playing an interesting game, and then a guest came on and started talking about corn and plants for 2 hours) and they would not shut up about how all taxonomy is wrong because there are no such thing as trees and how all animals are labelled incorrectly, and then they started comparing it to like all sorts of mushrooms and phytoplankton as you would if you clearly got a little bit high before dumping your corn knowledge on a twitch stream.

Anyway, after that bizarre experience I suffered so I could learn how to play an obscure video game, I think I can safely say, that while I know everyone here thinks a bird can’t be a dog. If you’re a high biologist: a bird is absolutely a dog. Apparently you can just do that if you’re the most boring biologist alive and no one will argue with you because to do that would involve talking to you. We’ll just say a bird is a dog and no one can fight me or I will talk about the corn book that this guest on this twitch chat was thinking about renting from the library about the different types of corn mutations inherent in freakin Indiana. Therefore, Joey’s fear of birds and dogs is same.

So they use Dark Magician to save them from the statues, and Yugi busts into the pantheon again because they got to open this casket before a time limit that I kind of forgot about, tbh.

And inside the casket, is...this thing!

(enjoy this line on the bottom of the image I don’t feel like fixing it)

And you may say to yourself...it looks like it’s just floating in mid-air, that’s silly, and so I want to introduce you to the next panel where you can see that it is...quite literally...just floating in the air like a video game.

and it just slurps itself onto Yugi before he can be like “nonono.”

Wasn’t there some horror movie where you were stuck in some sort of body brace that slowly tortures you (was that Saw?) This has that vibes. Like man that looks uncomfortable to wear over a jacket and two belts and a collar that is another belt.

That and I...I gotta appreciate that Yugi popped his collar while wearing body armor and chunky necklace. What 00′s fashion appreciation right there.

Bit like...this isn’t breathable, right? Like Yugi’s gonna finally take this thing off and his jacket will just be completely soaked in sweat?

Anyway, that’s it for this post, next week we’ll see if Yugi can walk through a doorway in that thing.

Also, I can’t bring up the ostrich dance without sharing the vines of my generation

[storiesforallfandoms]

he’ll never see this ~ noen eubanks

word count: 1994

request?: yes!

“Hi can you do one imagine of Noen Eubanks, like, the reader is a tik toker or influencer something like that and they have a crush on each other,and they Fans are Shipping them.

Thanksss💖🖤💖🖤💖”

description: in which she admits her feelings for a fellow creator during a stream thinking he’ll never see it

pairing: noen eubanks x female!reader

warnings: swearing

masterlist (one, two)

The sound of a new donation message coming in pulled you away from your game for a split second. The automated voice read the message out to you: “are there any influencers that you are totally crushing on right now?”

You chuckle to yourself as you turn back to your game. “You guys really wanna start something, huh? You realize this will be trending within an hour if I say anything.”

You glanced over at your chat to see they were begging you to tell them who your influencer crush was. You had mentioned a few times that there was a fellow influencer that you had a crush on, but you refused to admit who it was (for obvious reasons). Your viewers, however, were determined to find out who this mystery man you liked was.

“We promise we’ll keep it a secret,” you read, managing to catch one message before it disappeared into the void of never ending messages. “I don’t believe you guys at all.”

You laughed as you watched the chat blow up again. You finally paused your game and made your face cam bigger for the audience. “Okay, you know what? Fuck it, there’s no way he’ll ever see this and I’m not big enough of a content creator to have articles written about me. My influencer crush is Noen Eubanks. If you don’t know who he is, look him up on TikTok and you’ll totally understand why I have such a crush on him.”

Your chat went absolutely wild at this. You went back to playing your game, smiling to yourself as you did so. It felt nice to get that off of your chest, and you knew you were about to get a kick out of your fan’s reactions to this.

Like you said, you had no fear of Noen actually finding out what you said. You had a bit of a following, but it was nothing too big. Just enough that you could be classified as “Internet famous”, but not enough that admitting you had a crush on someone else who had a much bigger following than you would be a big deal.

Or so you thought.

After your stream, you decided to go right to bed. You were feeling tired and had to get up early to edit the video you were planning on uploading. You weren’t awake to witness the internet absolutely explode over your comment, but lucky for you it was still happening when you woke up the next morning.

When you checked your phone for the first time that day, you noticed that your notifications had blown up over night. You figured it was just your fans teasing you over your crush on Noen, which it partly was, but you noticed that it was also YouTube news Twitter accounts and internet tabloid accounts tagging you in their articles about your crush on Noen.

“Oh no,” you said, your eyes widening as you read through article after article, tweet after tweet.

Before you knew it, you had spent nearly two hours sat on the floor, reading through everything that mentioned both you and Noen. All the articles were the same: an brief introduction to you and your small Twitch/YouTube following, talking about you admitting to having a crush on Noen the night before, and asking whether the reading audience believed that you and Noen would make a good couple or not.

The reactions from fans were as entertaining as you figured - with many of your fans trying to come up with ship names for you and Noen and tagging him in clips from your stream - but then there were the less than entertaining reactions. Many people, whether they were Noen’s fans or just people who wanted to hate on you you weren’t sure, were saying you had mentioned Noen’s name just for clout, or that your “crush” was nothing more than an infatuation over his looks.

It wasn’t until your phone rang that you were finally pulled out of your trance and back to the real world. Your friend’s name lit up on your screen, and it took you a moment to collect yourself before you answered.

“(Y/N), have you been online yet today?” she asked.

You sighed and nodded, then remembered she couldn’t actually see you. “Yeah, I’ve been scrolling for the past two hours on Twitter.”

“You haven’t checked your Twitch page, or YouTube account yet?”

Your eyebrows furrowed together in confusion. “No? Should I?”

“You definitely should.”

You put her on speaker and switched to your Twitch app. You were shocked to see that you had skyrocketed in subs overnight, same with your YouTube page. You had gained a solid ten thousand subscribers on both platforms, and it was still rising by the second.

“So this situation has gained me more subscribers, who cares? That’s not why I talked about Noen on stream,” you said.

“Oh no, honey. It isn’t just the situation that has given you new subscribers. Go check Noen’s Twitter.”

You knew what she was implying, but you had to see it for your own eyes. You immediately opened the Twitter app again and typed in Noen’s name. You were brought to his Twitter page, where his most recent tweet was a link to the clip from your stream along with a caption that read, “When your internet crush calls you *their* internet crush”.

You covered your mouth in shock. You were sure you were about to start screaming, but you were so speechless that you couldn’t force any sounds from your mouth.

“I’m assuming by the silence that you’ve seen it,” your friend said after a prolonged moment of silence.

“D-Did he just c-call me his...?” you trailed off, unable to finish your sentence.

“He did,” your friend confirmed. “And both of your fans are going wild. They’ve already come up with a ship name for you, which isn’t the most clever name but I admire their spirit.”

You could barley hear what your friend was saying. You were still staring at the tweet in disbelief. Your mind could barley comprehend anything else besides the fact that your online crush thought the same as you. You were trying to tell yourself not to get too worked up, as it was most likely that nothing was going to come from this besides some gossip for a week or more, but your heart was still racing with excitement.

You gasped as a notification popped up on the top of your screen: “@/eubanks_noen is requesting to message you”.

“He’s trying to DM me,” you whisper, so silently that you could barley hear yourself.”

“What?”

“He’s trying to DM me! On Twitter!”

“What are you doing talking to me?! Go answer his DM!”

You were too focused to laugh as you hung up the phone and went into your DMs. The familiar profile picture that you saw almost every day on your timeline was the first thing you saw in your message requests. Your whole body was shaking so much that you could barley see the screen as you pressed to open it.

“hi :)”

It was a very simple message, but it was enough to make your heart race even more.

You were debating on messaging back, wondering if maybe this was a fake account or something. But you knew there was only one way to find out for sure, so you took a deep breath and responded.

“hi! :)”

His response came near seconds later: “so...we’re the internet’s hottest power couple, huh?”

You chuckled to yourself. “i guess we are. sorry if i ruined your mentions last night. i didn’t think it would blow up the way it has. i’m not all that famous online.”

“are you kidding me? you’re like one of the best twitch streamers. i’ve watched every single one of your streams, including last night’s”

You felt your face heating up, but a slight groan of embarrassment came from your lips. You were thinking of all the embarrassing things you had said and done on stream, and now wished you could just melt into the floor or erase the entire internet.

“oh that’s embarrassing. i’d say i’m not that awkward and dumb in real life, but i’m actually more so”

“i wouldn’t say you’re awkward or dumb at all. i think you’re adorable”

“Oh my God!” you exclaimed to no one in particular. If your face got any hotter, it would be on fire.

“you really know how to talk to a girl”

“i really don’t, but i’m glad you’re enjoying my attempts to flirt”

“so you’re flirting? never would’ve known”

“i know, it’s hard to tell. i’m trying to be subtle”

You continued to message Noen for a while. It felt so natural, as if you weren’t talking to someone you had been crushing on for about a year now. You were extremely glad you weren’t coming off as awkward as you normally felt.

Finally, after having been sat on the floor for a good three hours, your back began to ache and your stomach was growling so loudly in attempts to get your attention. You realized then that you had put getting breakfast on hold in order to fall deep into the hole of internet gossip that had surrounded you overnight.

“love talking to you and all, but i’m gonna have to go for a little bit. i’ve been sat on the floor basically since i woke up and i haven’t eaten yet today so my stomach is very upset with me”

“why are you on the floor? 😂”

“when i’m stressed i tend to sit down no matter where i am, and i was very stressed to see my name plastered all over social media this morning”

“why were you stressed over that?”

“it’s not something i’m exactly used to. like i said, i’m not overly famous online. i just have a small following. i’m not someone who has an article written about every little thing she says. also like i said, i didn’t expect you to see me admit that i have a crush on you last night, so i was so worried about what your reaction was going to be”

“i guess i can understand that. i haven’t had a lot written about me. i’m not a big tiktoker like some of my friends are, but i guess that’s a blessing”

You started to type another message, but paused when you saw the three dots from Noen indicating that he was typing something else.

“for what it’s worth, i’ve had a internet crush on you since you first started streaming”

Your jaw dropped at this. You had started streaming months before you even knew about Noen, which meant he had known about you before you knew about him. Just when you thought this day couldn’t get any better.

“wow! that’s quite a while. you must be one of my first subscribers then”

“i’m up there i think. i’ll wear that badge with pride”

The three dots again. You waited anxiously to see what he was about to say.

“i liked getting to talk to you today, though. maybe we could talk offline sometime, like through text or phone call. maybe meet in person eventually”

Your smile was so wide that it hurt your cheeks. “yeah, i’d really like that”

You exchanged phone numbers and added his to your contacts. You finally pulled yourself off the floor and started making a super late breakfast while also starting to edit your next video since you had also gotten such a late start on that.

You were putting your food on a plate when your phone chimed, indicating a new text message.

“btw, it’s nice to finally get to meet you internet crush :)”

“it’s nice to get to meet you, too, internet crush”

You sat at the table, your heart feeling warm. And to think, it all came true thanks to one nosy donation.

Not sure how much I like this imagine, but I hope you enjoyed anyways!

[earth-ambassador-jim]

Lost Souls: Story 11

Something New

Lost Souls Summary: Merlin awakens early from his sleep. He decides  that he doesn’t want to leaving anything to chance and kidnaps the young  James Lake Jr. to began training his Trollhunter as early as possible.

Barbara  is determined to hunt down the man who kidnapped her son. In her  efforts to get her son back she finds a strange old radio that speaks to  her in a woman’s voice. The radio leads her to an underground society  of shapeshifters.

Mother and son meet again years later as strangers on opposing sides.

AO3 - Fanfiction

~~~~

~~~~

“Head up! Don’t block the blow: redirect it.”

Eli tries to comply but it’s hard when his arms feel like they’re made out of jelly. Instead of being redirected Jim’s staff pushes Eli’s down causing him to bop himself in the forehead with his own weapon.

Eli topples over like a load of bricks and lays there. A low whine seeps through his lips as his tailbone pulses with pain from hitting the ground too hard. That will be another bruise for his collection.

He’s actually managed to get more bruises training with Jim than he has from Steve. Which is really saying something.

“Are you okay?”

He opens his eyes to see Jim hovering awkwardly over him, staff still in hand. He’s shifting back and forth on his feet in a way that tells Eli he’s debating whether to keep pushing him or end the session here.

Eli doesn’t really want to disappoint him, so he tries to sit up. All his muscles protest. He lays back down. Yeah, he isn’t going anywhere. The training montages in movies really fail to capture just how much pushing oneself to the limits hurts.

“We’ll stop for the day,” Jim decides.

He sets his staff against the house before retrieving Eli’s and setting it there too.

“Can you get up?” Jim asks.

Now that he’s not in training mode he stands a little less straight and his expression softens from his previously sharp focused gaze.

“Yeah… maybe,” Eli says, his voice squeaking a little. “Just a second.”

Eli lays on the ground just breathing and trying to summon the energy to make another attempt at standing up. He knows he’s going to be sore in the morning again.

He honestly wants to give up. Clearly he isn’t cut out for this.

There’s movement to his right and Eli looks over to see Jim laying down beside him. The blue skinned troll blends in almost perfectly with the night; except for his eyes which glow a faint, ethereal blue. He settles on his back, head propped just slightly up by his horns.

“So…” The troll says slowly. “You were telling me that human constellations are different than troll ones?”

Eli nods slightly, unable to look away. His glasses slide down his nose. He quickly pushes them back up.

“Do you want to compare?”

“Really?!” Eli squeaks, surprised.

Next to exploring the strange and unusual, stars and space has always been one of his greatest interests. Something about the vastness and boundlessness draws him. He studies every book he can get his hands on.

This is a chance to learn what a being that isn’t human sees. That’s… that’s something beyond his wildest dreams.

But more importantly, it’s a chance to talk about something that he loves with a friend.

“Eli?”

Jim is looking at him rather nervously. Eli realizes that he’s teared up.

“I’d like that,” He says. He pushes his glasses up to swipe at his eyes before giving Jim a smile.

~~~~

As predicted, Eli is very very sore.

He spends the day limping through his classes. He wonders if this is what old people feels like. He’s so glad when it’s time to go home.

His arm positively aches as he transfers the textbooks he doesn’t need to his locker. As much as he enjoys spending time with Jim he’s glad that the Trollhunter won’t be over tonight. He doesn’t think he can take another round of training.

He plans to take it easy when he gets home. He can get his homework done and then he’ll see if he can snag enough of his friends from the forums to play a round of Among Us.

Eli flinches as a hand lands on his shoulder. Without turning around he already knows who it is. Automatically his shoulders draw up toward his ears as he pulls his arms in close to his chest.

“What do you want Steve?”

“Why, I was just worried about my favorite nerd,” The blond bully says with mock sincerity. “I haven’t heard any of your wild conspiracies and was starting to be concerned about your health.”

Eli hasn’t been sharing his theories and discoveries since meeting Jim because he promised Jim to keep trolls and the other creepers… creatures running around Arcadia secret. He still discusses aliens but he’s been sticking with his friends online and Jim now, since they don’t laugh at him.

He figured since he had been keeping to himself Steve would ignore him, but now he’s seeking him out because of that.

There really is no winning, he realizes.

“Can’t you just leave me alone?” Eli asks quietly.

Steve doesn’t appreciate that.

The blond bully shoves him and he hits the locker hard sending a violent jolt of pain through his back. His books fall out of his arms and scatter on the ground.

“Don’t talk back to me butsnack.”

Eli glances around but there’s nowhere to escape in the crowded hallway and, as usual, no one seems inclined to help.

“I think you need to spend some time in your locker until you remember your manners,” Steve continues with a glint in his eyes.

A whimper escapes Eli at that. He doesn’t want to spend another hour stuck in the locker again. His eyes dart around frantically.

Steve reaches for him and takes a step forward, his foot landing just in front of Eli’s spilled textbooks.

“Use your surroundings as a weapon.” Jim’s voice whispers in the back of his mind.

With no other options presenting themselves, Eli kicks Steve in the shin as hard as he can. The bully lets out a yelp and grabs at his injured leg. Eli doesn’t wait for him to recover. Ignoring the protests of his aching muscles he shoves him hard in the chest. Normally it would have done nothing but Steve, already off balance, stumbles and his foot lands on Lord of the Flies. He topples over backward and slams hard into the ground.

The hallway goes completely silent.

Eli stares, his heart still racing. He can’t believe it. He actually managed to take down Steve.

Steve Palchuck! The boy who’s been tormenting him since kindergarten.

Around him all the other kids start murmuring.

Then someone cheers and then the whole crowd is whooping and hollering.

Steve seems to have recovered from his shock and is getting up. He’s turning a violent red and it’s pretty clear that he’s going to get revenge. Eli has the feeling he won’t get lucky a second time.

“Hey! What’s going on here?”

Eli is about ready to collapse from relief when Coach Lawrance’s voice breaks through the noise. The crowd of students disperses like cockroaches. Steve backs off, shooting him glares.

Eli gathers his books and slinks off to get his bike with the distinct feeling that this incident will come back to haunt him.

~~~~

“Can you believe it?” Mary squeals.

Her fingers are darting rapidly over her phone. No doubt she’s already uploading a video to one of her many social media accounts. Steve is going to be livid.

“Girl, I saw it but I still don’t believe it,” Darci says.

Eli Pepperjack getting one up on Steve was the last thing she had been expecting out of school today.

“What do you think Toby?” She says nudging him in the ribs.

Since they’ve made it to high school and have Claire and Mary to hang out with, she’s determined to get him to come out of his shell.

Toby blinks and looks up from his phone.

“Yeah it was pretty cool,” He says, eying the other two girls hesitantly.

Claire give him a friendly smile and he awkwardly smiles back before quickly returning his attention to his phone.

Darci sighs and shoots Claire an apologetic look. Claire shrugs in response and then she, Mary and Darci continue to discuss the strange happenings of the day sans Toby’s input.

~~~~

“Would it hurt you to try to be a little friendlier?”

Toby winces. Yeah he deserved that one.

“Sorry,” He says, a slight flush crawling up the back of his neck.

Darci lets out a little huff.

“You should be, Mary and Claire are the best. Come on TP you’ve got to give them a chance.”

Toby doesn’t reply. Instead opting to instead focus all his attention on the game. His fingers fly over the controls. He understands what she’s getting at. He really does but well…

“I guess I’m just not ready for new people.”

There’s a ping as they reach the end of the round. Toby hazards a brief glance up and sees Darci looking at him with a puzzled frown.

“But you know Mary and Claire,” She says. “I’ve been friends with them for as long as I’ve known you. You’ve hung out before and never had a problem with them.”

“I know,” He mutters. “It’s just…”

He doesn’t want to admit it. It’s pathetic.

“It’s Jim, isn’t it?”

Toby gives her a weak grin.

“Have you been taking lessons from your Dad? Cause that was some real detective work there.”

Darci snorts.

“It doesn’t take a detective to figure that one out.” She gives him a little poke on the shoulder to emphasize her point.

Toby sighs and drops his controller.

“It’s not just Jim,” He admits in a subdued tone. This is something he’s thought about a lot. “It’s Mom and Dad, too… Heck even Dr. L just up and left. It was fine hanging out with them once in a while as your friends but what’s the point in me becoming friends with them? Once we get done with high school everyone is just going to move on. I just don’t want to deal with that.”

It would be bad enough when Darci moved on.

He can feel her staring at him.

“You know I’m not going to abandon you, right?” She asks.

Toby winces. It sounds bad out loud. She puts her hand on his shoulder and he glances up hesitantly. She’s smiling at him in a very gentle and sad way that makes his chest ache.

“Even if we end up on opposite sides of the world I’ll keep in touch. You won’t lose me okay?”

“You don’t know that.” It slips out before he can stop it.

Darci sighs.

“Look I… I guess there really is no way to know for sure but do you really just want to give up? Just like that? To spend your whole life alone?”

“Not really…” Toby says slowly.

“Then can you give them a try? For me?”

He can’t resist those big brown eyes.

“Okay,” Toby says. “I’ll give them a chance, but no promises on results.”

Darci’s smile and quick hug makes it worth it. Toby just hopes he won’t regret this. He clears his throat roughly and focuses his attention back on the screen. He starts another round hoping he can drown out the uneasy feeling in his gut.

“You know I really could use a larger audience to practice my magic for. You know all of my tricks anyway.”

Darci claps her hands together

“Oh! That reminds me. Mare told me there’s a new bookstore in town. She was going on and on about how cute the guy who was working the counter was, but, more importantly, she mentioned there’s a huge selection of magic type books. Want to go check it out?”

“Sure,” Toby says. “That sounds like fun.”

He doubts there will be anything real there but maybe he can find some cool props to use for the next talent show.

~~~~

~~~~

Author Notes:

Steve has really come a long way. He was a major bully back in the beginning of the series. Hopefully we'll get to see more character development for him in Rise of the Titans. (Also more CreepslayerZ! I miss the CreepslayerZ.)

Jim grew up with Kanjigar and Merlin's training so his version of "going easy" is still really pushing it for an inexperienced human. It's going to be a while yet before Eli is not sore again.

Jim learned the Trollish constellations from Kanjigar. While he never took him to Trollmarket, Kanjigar did start taking him outside within Merlin's barrier. Stargazing was Jim's absolute favorite thing to do with him.

Next chapter we get to see Jim's visit to his old home before he became a troll!

If you like this be sure to tell me what you think :)

[edendaphne]

“Discordant Sonata” Chapter 16

New chapter of "Discordant Sonata"! (Feat. adorable art by @corgi-likes-chat​!) Here’s a cropped preview:

>>Read it here on Ao3<< >>Read it here on Wattpad<<

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

CHAPTER 16: LEGATO

Legato: “tied together”; indicates that musical notes are to be connected, so they are played (or sung) smoothly

(Mood Music: Mamma Mia (Swing version) - Opa Tsupa)

[One month later]

“Alright, I’m gonna take the side door and rush upstairs to steal the elven artifact. You got these guys?”

Chat rubbed his hands together, then picked up his controller, adjusting his grip. “Oh baby, I'm itching to try out this new greatsword.”

Marinette nudged him with her elbow. “Don’t aggro too many mobs. Space ‘em out.”

“Did you forget I can stun?" he poked her back.

"No, but you often do,” she quipped. “One sec, buff refresh."

"Ouch, my masculinity! Too bad your regen got nerfed with the last patch.”

"I’ll manage; I bought some extra potions.” She shrugged. “Remember not to blow your rage too early this time. We don't want to pull out prematurely!"

Chat gave her an incredulous look, as if she’d grown a second head.

Marinette winked at him. "I've just seen how you handle that greatsword of yours."

Chat howled with laughter. “Double dagger spec? More like double entendre spec!” He squeezed her shoulder. "You've come so far.”

“Oh, I’ve still got a few tricks up my sleeve,” she replied.

He sniffled and dramatically wiped away a fake tear. “I'm so proud of you."

Marinette giggled and settled herself into a comfortable position, crossing her legs on the floor. Her fingers gripped her controller tightly in anticipation. “Alright, Minou. It’s go time.”

---

Several tense minutes of yelling and frantic button-mashing later, Chat wailed in agony as he plopped backwards, “NOOOO!!! We were so close!!”

Marinette turned around, frowning. “Dude! Why’d you have to go off on your own into that side corridor?! You should’ve known it would be full of stealth enemies!”

Chat’s arms flapped around as he sputtered incredulously. “Y’know what?? We shouldn’t even be here! You’re the one who wanted to two-man a four-person dungeon!”

“We would’ve succeeded if only you’d stuck to the plan, Mr. Curious Cat!”

Chat paused to shoot her a petulant glare. “Well, I guess that means you won’t be needing this epic leather armor you’ve totally been looking for all week, that I just happened to loot from said forbidden corridor! I bet it’ll fetch a high price at the auction house!”

Marinette let out an offended gasp. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Wouldn’t I?”

“Give it!!” she yelped as she reached across for his controller.

“Nuh-uh! Nope, too late! You should’ve been nicer to me when you had the chance!” He clambered away, but she chased after him.

“Get back here!” she cried, catching him by the waist.

Chat continued to taunt her, holding the controller up high. “Gee, I wonder what kind of trinket I could buy with all the gold I get for this,” he remarked, tapping his finger against his chin.

Marinette grabbed one of the throw pillows from the chaise and thwacked it against him.

“I’m gonna tell Ladybug about your evil deeds!” she threatened.

Chat grabbed another pillow with his free arm and swatted her back with a laugh. “She won’t believe you! I’m her beloved partner, after all!”

“Wanna bet?”

Before he could reply, Marinette tackled him to the ground, grabbing at his belt to hold him in place. She reached for the controller, but his arm was still too long. She adjusted her grip at his side to reposition herself.

Chat squirmed at her touch and yelped, “ACK!! That tickles!”

Marinette’s eyes widened and she looked up at him, a devilish smirk slowly slithering across her face. She crawled on top of him, securing her legs on either side of his hips. And with that, her fingers went to work, mercilessly tickling his ribs and obliques.

Chat screeched and wiggled, desperately trying to scoot away from but failing every time.

“Surrender!” she commanded, continuing her onslaught.

He answered rebelliously between cackles, “Never! But I may scream.”

He thrashed and tried to squirm away, but she had him right where she wanted him. Chat laughed so hard that his eyes began to water, and he begged for mercy in between belly laughs.

Finally sensing her opening, Marinette got ahold of the controller, yanking it away from his lowered arm.

“AHA!” she cried, lifting her arm triumphantly.

Chat’s eyes grew wide and his mouth twisted into an indignant pout, then he used his enhanced strength to lift his hips off the ground, reversing their position so she was the one being pinned.

Marinette gasped in horror and outrage. “CHEATER!! You’re using your super strength!”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, I’m always this strong,” he quipped back, flexing his arm dramatically. He adjusted his position on top and tried plucking the controller away from her.

Despite being a bit disoriented now that she was on the bottom, Marinette maintained a death grip on the controller.

Chat grabbed her wrists and pinned them over her head and she grunted as she struggled. “Oh, how the tables have turned,” he purred as he trapped them both under a single hand. His other hand trailed down to her waist, poking experimentally, then extending his claws from his fingertips to amplify the sensation.

Marinette writhed and wriggled under his touch, shrieking and giggling uncontrollably.

“Do you yield?” he demanded impishly as he stared down at her flushed face a mere few inches away.

“NEVER!!” she replied tenaciously, defiantly puffing out her chest, as if straightening out her posture would somehow intimidate him, or grant her extra resilience.

“You are soooooo stubborn, Ma Minette,” he chided playfully, squeezing her sides hard and making her squeal some more. Marinette twisted and kicked vigorously, trying to escape, but to no avail.

Their antics were interrupted by a descending musical chime and agonized screams erupting from the laptop screen, which was propped on top of Marinette’s antique chest for easier viewing. The pair stopped, their heads whipping towards the source of the sound.

Their respawned characters had died while they were occupied with their tickle fight.

The pair looked back at each other, then busted into hysterical guffaws.

As they laughed and panted, Chat couldn’t help but notice the way Marinette looked with her long dark hair fanned out on the ground, her tiny freckles more prominent against her reddened cheeks. She really had become quite a stunning young woman after all these years. Despite spending their teenage years together, his attention had always been elsewhere, and he’d never really paid attention to how different she looked now, versus when they first met.

She seemed to notice him staring and smiled, and the rosiness of her cheeks seemed to intensify. Probably from the exertion, he figured. And yet, he couldn’t help but feel his own face beginning to feel hot under her gaze.

She looked like she was about to say something, but as she opened her mouth, a new sound blasted across the room; it was Marinette’s mobile phone.

He felt her twitch underneath him, and for the first time, they both realized the position they’d put themselves in. Anyone who walked in on them at this moment would surely have... questions.

Face feeling red hot at this point, Chat released Marinette’s wrists and got off of her so she could get up and check her phone. Giving him one last cheeky smirk, she stood up to see what the commotion was all about.

She gasped as she checked the screen. “Oh my goodness! I’d totally forgotten, I have a study group in fifteen minutes! I have to get ready!” She turned off the alarm and pocketed her phone, then scrambled to her desk to get her school materials prepped.

Chat’s ears twitched in response. “Oh! It totally slipped my mind as well. Good thing you set a calendar alarm. Otherwise, your classmates would’ve walked in to Chat Noir just casually playing video games at your house.”

Marinette darted to her full-length mirror to look herself over, then dashed over to her vanity to grab her hairbrush.

“Do I look alright?” she asked as she fixed her hair.

“My darling, you look positively radiant,” Chat replied theatrically, taking a seat on the chaise.

“Is my outfit okay?” she continued harriedly. “Should I change? Is my shirt wrinkled? Do these shorts make me look short? Is my hair sticking up in the back?”

Chat grinned at how flustered she was. “Helen of Troy would pale next to your indescribable magnificence, Mademoiselle.”

“Chat,” she jokingly reprimanded, but failed at containing an upwards twitch of her lips.

He shrugged feebly. “You look totally fine. But why? It’s just your classmates.”

Marinette hesitated. “Well… Just… no reason!”

She received a skeptical eyebrow in reply. He knew her better than that (not that she was very good at hiding her feelings in the first place). Giving up any further pretense, her posture drooped in response.

“Alright, alright, the truth,” she conceded with a resigned sigh.

Chat leaned forward imperceptibly, raising his eyebrows in silent query.

“My old crush is gonna be there–”

Chat gasped loudly despite himself.

“–And I wanna look nice!” she continued. “But not like, sizzling ‘I’m tryin’ to steal you from your girlfriend’ kinda hot, ya know? I’m just trying to get past him. I wanna move on. I wanna prove to myself that I’m doing okay. He's still one of my best friends. I need to show that I'm happy for him.” Then she added with a weak smile, “Plus, Alya knows what my wrestle-hair looks like, so I'd have to answer some awkward questions if I don’t look at least somewhat put together.”

Chat closed his mouth, which he hadn’t realized was in “fish gape” mode until just then. He looked down towards the floor, now understanding why she would feel so apprehensive.

Marinette was doing her best. He felt his heart swell with affection and sympathy. He had to help somehow; he always tried to be a source of extra confidence whenever she needed to face challenges. It was the least he could do for her.

Chat stood up, cleared his throat and approached her desk, swishing his tail back and forth as he pondered her words.

“I know exactly what you need,” he offered with an air of authority.

Marinette quirked an eyebrow. “You do?”

He retrieved something from her vanity and, with a flourish, he presented a tube of shiny pink lip gloss. “Ta-da! For the ‘I still look cuter than everyone in the room without even trying’ look.”

Marinette accepted the tube of lip gloss, and she couldn’t help but giggle at his sweetness and sincerity. “Sounds good to me! Thanks!” As she looked into the mirror and applied the lip gloss, she continued, “Sorry to kick you out of the house. Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

Chat waved it off. “Of course, don’t worry! I have somewhere I need to be this afternoon anyway, so take your time.”

“Alright. I’ll text you when we’re done, but it shouldn’t take longer than a couple of hours.”

“Okey dokey!” He stood behind her and gave her a quick parting squeeze, then walked over to the floor hatch to exit her room, giving her one last wave. “Later, Maribug!”

Marinette smiled after him as he descended the stairs, amused as always at his unintentionally accurate nickname. If only she could tell him.

Someday, she told herself. Someday there will be no more secrets.

She dearly hoped that that day could come soon.

-----

(Mood Music: You Don't See Me - Safetysuit)

A short while later, Nino and Alya arrived together at the Dupain-Cheng residence. At the door, Marinette greeted them with a smile and invited them inside.

From across the street, a certain tall, blonde, bespectacled figure peeked from behind a tree, deciding to wait a few minutes before making his own entrance.

“It looks like your girlfriend was able to tame her Wrestlemania hair after all,” Plagg whispered from inside Adrien’s pocket.

Adrien poked him gently with his finger. “Hush, she’s not my girlfriend,” he admonished.

“Oh that’s right, I forgot,” Plagg replied. “You already have a secret girlfriend, according to everyone’s favorite international celebrity, Lila Rossi.”

He rolled his eyes. “Ladybug’s not my girlfriend either,” he corrected him again.

Plagg poked him back. “And how did you know I meant Ladybug?”

“W-well, I-I just…” Adrien stammered, his body growing hot in spite of the crisp autumn weather. “It was implied. Anyway, we’re not in a relationship.”

“Not yet, you mean?” Plagg inquired with a quirked brow.

“Plagg! That’s not– I mean… not that I’d mind –AUGH, wait! That’s not what I meant to say!!” he whisper-shrieked as an even more intense wave of heat traveled down his torso. “Let’s just go. I can’t spend a bunch of time trying to figure out what kind of relationship we have, or we’ll be late.”

“You could always ask her tonight during patrol,” Plagg suggested with an eyebrow waggle. “Unless your mouths find something more ‘fun’ to do instead.”

Adrien let out a choked whine, covering his face with his hands. Instead of answering, he scurried down the sidewalk, trying his hardest to ignore the muffled cackles emerging from his clothes.

He rang the doorbell and waited. A few moments passed and the door opened to reveal Alya, who greeted him with a smile.

“Hey, buddy! Glad you could make it! Come on in!”

She led him upstairs to the family room, where everyone’s study materials and textbooks were already spread out onto the dining table.

“Hi, Adrien!” Marinette called from the kitchen area as they walked past. “Make yourself comfortable, I’m just getting us some refreshments.”

Adrien greeted her back, making sure to compliment how pretty she looked today (to which she replied with a small “EEP!!” and a flustered, stuttered, “Thank you”) then he walked over to join Nino.

“Dude! Long time no see!” he said excitedly, standing up to welcome him and give him a tight hug.

Adrien chuckled as he squeezed back. “I know, right? It’s been almost twenty-four hours! I was starting to go through best bro withdrawals!” He set his backpack down and began laying out his own notes and textbooks.

A few minutes passed as they chatted and got situated, but Adrien couldn’t quite focus on the conversation. He was too busy casting (apparently not so furtive) glances towards the door, curiously awaiting whoever else would be attending their study group.

Sensing his restlessness, Nino asked, “Hey bro, you looking for something?”

Adrien shrugged. “Oh, I was just wondering–”

A loud clatter of pots and pans interrupted their conversation, punctuated by a loud “EEEEEK!!”, and the group’s heads whipped towards the kitchen in alarm.

“Marinette?” Alya asked, a worried crinkle appearing between her eyebrows.

“I’m okay!!” Marinette cried from within. “Just bumped into something and uhhh, knocked over some other stuff, no biggie!” she explained sheepishly.

Adrien turned back towards Nino and Alya. “I’ll go help,” he reassured them with a smile.

He walked towards the kitchen, watching Marinette as she put away the kitchenware she’d accidentally knocked out of a cabinet.

He rounded the corner of the bar countertop and called out cheerfully, “Heya!”

Marinette whirled around in surprise with a sharp yelp, accidentally stepping backwards onto a stray metal platter. Adrien watched as if in slow motion as Marinette fell backwards towards the hard tile floor.

“Mari!!”

Adrien reflexively darted forward and managed to catch her just in the nick of time, her body nearly parallel to the floor. He pulled her up gingerly, his arms firmly wrapped around her waist and back, their chests barely touching. They stared at each other as they panted, their breaths mingling together.

Marinette blinked, her cheeks a deep crimson, and she let out a small, nervous laugh. “Nice catch,” she said, almost as a whisper.

Adrien let out a deep, relieved sigh. “I got lucky. Sorry I startled you.”

“No, it’s okay,” she said as he pulled her closer and helped her stand up. “I really should pay better attention to my surroundings,” she continued, rubbing her arm with a rueful expression on her face.

“You’re just trying to do too much all at once, that’s all. Let me help,” he replied. “I can reach all the high shelves!” he offered, flexing his arms theatrically, trying to add some silliness into the awkwardness.

She blinked, then let out a small giggle, cheeks still red. “A-alright,” she replied. “Uh… Why don’t you pour some water into these glasses while I finish cleaning this up?”

“Sure!” he chirped happily.

Marinette smiled and resumed her task of cleaning up the fallen pots and pans. Adrien opened the refrigerator to fetch the water pitcher, then began to fill the glasses.

As he did so, he noticed there were only four glasses on the countertop. Odd. They’d need an extra one for Marinette’s (former) love, wouldn’t they? Were they coming alone or would there be extra people? His chest tingled with curiosity as he wondered who it could be.

Turning back towards him, Marinette said, “By the way, the water pitcher’s inside the refri— oh nevermind, you already found it.”

Adrien chuckled nervously, continuing to pour. He cleared his throat and changed the subject. “So how many glasses do we need?”

Marinette looked back at him with a perplexed look. “It’s just the four of us today, as usual. Unless you invited someone else?”

“Uhh, no, I didn’t. I just thought…”

He trailed off and froze.

Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Marinette had said–

...but if no one else was coming, then that meant...

No.

No way.

Was Marinette in love with Nino?? He’d had a small crush on her ages ago, but he and Alya had been together for years now. Marinette would never try to wedge herself between them, not in a million years!

Her crush couldn't be Alya either, right? Marinette had mentioned that her crush was male.

But… But that meant–

“Adrien, the water!” Marinette cried, her voice jolting him back from his thoughts.

Horrified, he realized he was still pouring water into the already-filled glass, spilling it all over the countertop.

He gasped as he realized his mistake, and set the pitcher down. “Shoot! I’m sorry, Marinette! I'll clean it up!”

He turned around to open a drawer across the way, bringing out a couple of kitchen towels to soak up the liquid.

“I kinda zoned out,” he continued, wiping up the mess. “I’m really sorry, it looks like I’m only doing more harm than good in here.”

“It’s fine, don’t worry about it. But, um...” Her face scrunched up in confusion, “How did you know that’s where we kept the towels?”

Adrien’s eyes grew large. Oops. Why was he so full of blunders today??

“Uhh, I’ve just… I’ve seen you open that drawer before. O-on a different day,” he deflected with a shrug, obviously unable to divulge the true reason he knew his way around the Dupin-Cheng kitchen.

Marinette let out a short hmm . “Yeah, that makes sense. You must have a great memory!” She smiled with a blush and added, “Although that shouldn’t surprise me; I’ve always known you're really smart.”

Adrien forced himself to smile at the compliment, yet a cold chill ran down his spine.

“Not as smart as I should’ve been,” he muttered, speaking about more than just spilled water.

He should have noticed. He should have known. He should have realized sooner that the sadness in her eyes was because of him.

Marinette patted his arm, which tingled under her touch. “No worries, it’s just water. No harm done!” she said sweetly, her kind smile growing even wider.

But I hurt you , he thought to himself. Their conversation from that day rushed back to the forefront of his mind. An indirect and cruel rejection before she ever even got the chance to confess.

He thought back to all the times they’d hung out together as civilians since that fateful day when she came home in tears after school. She’d never treated Adrien any differently after he unknowingly broke her heart. Was she that amazing an actress, or was she just that strong?

Marinette finished putting the drinks and snacks onto a serving tray and bid him to follow her to the living area, where Nino and Alya were eagerly waiting. But how would he be able to concentrate on studying after knowing he’d been the focus of Marinette’s unrequited affections?

No, not affections. She’d used the word “love”. She was actively trying to fall out of love with him.

He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Nevertheless, that nagging feeling stayed with him for the remainder of the study session. -------

(Mood Music: Que reste-t-il de nos amours? - Avalon Jazz Band)

[Later that day]

Marinette squinted suspiciously.

Chat had been acting weird. Or rather, weird for him, which was saying something. He’d been in a somber mood ever since he came back that afternoon after her study session. What had happened during that brief time while they’d been separated?

Speaking of which, she recalled that poor Adrien had been acting out of sorts as well. She’d asked him if everything was alright, but his face went red and he waved it off, saying it was nothing, claiming that he was just a little tired. She hasn’t pressed the issue, especially knowing that he had a difficult home life and busy schedule. She dearly hoped he’d come to her if he ever needed someone to talk to.

In any case, she’d been surprised to find Chat just as morose and out of sorts. She’d asked him what was wrong and he instantly dismissed it. Then he promptly excused himself to his bedroom, which was unusual. Normally he was chatty as can be during dinnertime, then he would hang out with the rest of the family during the evenings, playing videogames or board games, or engaging in conversation over some tea.

But tonight, he’d hardly spoken a word. He had only answered briefly when spoken to, and it was like he could barely look her in the eye. And whenever he did, she could’ve sworn she saw something like… guilt?

She wasn’t sure. But she knew she didn’t like it.

Something was wrong. She was sure of it. Perhaps he wasn’t able to share what it was exactly due to his secret identity, but she was determined to help him fix it. She wanted to know the truth.

Tikki had lightly chastised her, saying that maybe Chat Noir had a good reason why he couldn’t share his problems, and that she shouldn’t pry or be too nosy. But this wasn’t nosiness! They were friends! And not only that; it was her duty as Ladybug to look out for his well-being, right??

Speaking of Ladybug...

They had patrol scheduled for later that night. Should she ask him again, as Ladybug? She pondered it... but no; he’d probably act tough and pretend it was nothing again. They were still working on being more open with each other, but progress was slow. Though not for lack of trying. Chat just… didn’t always know how to relax around Ladybug. He didn’t verbalize it, but it was as if deep down, he was always bracing for imminent rejection. Almost like he expected everything to be a dream, and any day now he’d wake up back at his father’s house, all alone.

Despite being allies, there were still many obstacles that stood in their way, as they both navigated through their partnership trying to find their unique dynamic, still somewhat guarded in their words and actions, to avoid hurting the other. There were invisible walls between them, and every time they’d succeeded in tearing one down, it was only to find that there was another wall behind it.

He’d mentioned before that he would never want to do anything to jeopardize their partnership. So he had a tendency to keep quiet about a lot of things, and not rock the boat, so to speak. He’d mentioned before that he trusted her implicitly. But it was like he didn’t trust himself. Or trust his luck.

He tended to be more open with Marinette, most likely because he didn’t feel that he had to watch what he said as closely for fear of rejection. Thankfully, he’d always been able to confide in her.

That is... until today.

She sighed.

Maybe he just needed an evening where he could be himself and be a normal person, as the guy behind the costume. But how to do that without revealing his identity?

Her eyebrows scrunched deeply as a tiny idea planted itself in her brain, slowly blooming into a full-blown scheme.

“I know that look,” Tikki remarked warily. “You’re up to something, aren’t you, Marinette?”

“Maybe,” Marinette replied with a sly grin. “I think Chat needs to get out of the house and spend a night on the town.” With that, she hopped off her desk chair and walked to the large, antique storage chest in the corner of her room where she kept all her current sewing projects. She rummaged around, searching for something.

“How are you going to do that?” Tikki asked with a concerned furrow of her brow.

“I’ll explain in a minute,” she replied as she found the item she was looking for, then set it down on her chaise.

She then opened her phone’s contacts and dialed Mylene’s father's number.

Tikki peeked over her shoulder. “I’m not sure where you’re going with this, but I hope it helps Chat Noir cheer up,” she remarked.

A few seconds later, there was an answer on the other side of the phone.

“Monsieur Haprèle? It’s Marinette Dupain-Cheng. I have a quick favor to ask, if that’s alright.”

A few moments later, the phone call ended, successfully putting the next part of her plan into motion. Monsieur Haprèle had graciously offered to stop by and drop off the items Marinette had asked for, since he needed to be in that part of town anyway for an errand.

“I think we have everything we need.” She winked at her kwami. “And now, Ladybug needs to make a phone call. Tikki, spots on!”

----

Chat closed his communicator and plopped onto his bed with a groan. Ladybug had cancelled patrol at the last minute, postponing it to the next day. He ran his hands down his face dejectedly. He supposed that was just as well. As excited as he’d been to meet with her tonight, he probably wouldn’t be very good company, since he’d been in such a crummy mood all evening.

Still… he’d really wanted to see her. Her presence always managed to do wonders for his morale.

He settled for pulling up a candid photo he’d taken of her with his staff’s camera on a different day. She was breathtaking; smiling softly while looking into the distance, the sunset a golden halo behind her, making her look like the angel she was. He smiled at the memory, and he felt his stomach fill with butterflies as they always did when he truly looked at her.

He swiped to the photo he’d taken right afterwards, when she realized he was taking a picture, her eyebrows raised in mild surprise. Then the photo after that, where she’d let out a bashful giggle, bringing her hand to her mouth, looking adorably shy. And the last photo from those few precious moments: Ladybug striking a dramatic pose, with an exaggerated pout that would put any supermodel to shame; a reminder of her sense of humor and willingness to be vulnerable and silly around him.

His smile broadened, his heart now thumping loudly in his chest. She really was so extraordinary.

A sudden rap on his bedroom door jolted him out of his daydreaming. He sat up and put his staff away as he answered, “Come in.”

The door opened, revealing a sharply dressed Marinette. He almost didn’t recognize her at first, since she’d changed out of her clothes from earlier and her hair was up in high twin buns.

“Hey Minou! You busy tonight?”

“Uhh, actually, no. Patrol got moved to tomorrow.”

“Then I have a proposition for you,” she said, her voice high and chipper. Without waiting for a reply, she took his hand and practically dragged him up to her bedroom. “But first, I need to give you something.”

They arrived at her room and she let go of his hand, then knelt by a large cardboard box he’d never seen before that was labeled “Backstage”. She unfolded the top, then started bringing out a myriad of fabrics and materials so hastily, that her movements were practically blurred. She took out a large pair of sunglasses that resembled vintage aviator-style goggles, an almost ninja-esque facemask, and set them aside.

She stood, holding something else behind her back, and walked up to him with a shy grin, her legs doing her trademark nervous shuffle.

“First of all, I- uh… I made you something. I started it a little while back and finally finished it today.” She tucked some hair behind her ear as she averted her eyes timidly, her cheeks dusted with a lovely shade of pink. “I hope you like it.”

She revealed the item behind her back, holding it up with both hands. It was a black zip-up hoodie, with muted, subtle detailing as an homage to his Chat Noir suit, but the main feature was the cat ears sewn onto the hood itself.

Chat’s jaw dropped, and his eyes practically bugged out of his head. This was the cutest, most considerate thing he’d ever been gifted.

He was at a loss for words, but thankfully Marinette interrupted, “I made it for you so you could hang out at home without having to be transformed all the time. ‘Cause I know that can be exhausting for Plagg, and it’d probably be more comfortable for you to be dressed in casual, loose-fitting clothes. Also–” she gestured towards the box behind her, “–my friend’s dad, he’s an actor, and he gave me a box full of masks and other costumes. You can mix and match, so you can have fun with it while still protecting your identity.” She extended the hoodie towards him hesitantly. “Uhh… anyway, obviously I didn’t take your measurements because it would’ve ruined the surprise, but it should fit you just fine. Cotton-polyester blend fleece is pretty forgiving like that.”

Chat gingerly accepted the garment, slowly and carefully running his fingers across the soft fabric as he admired the attention to detail his friend had lovingly crafted into a piece of clothing that would hardly ever be seen by anyone else.

He gaped at her, throat feeling quite dry. “Marinette… I don’t know what to say. Just… Thank you. This is such a thoughtful gift. I… wow.” He brought his hand up to his face, still in total disbelief. “I wish there was something I could do to show you how much I appreciate that you’re always looking out for me. There’s gotta be a way for me to thank you. Y-you’re always so… you’re just… I’m...”

Marinette stepped closer to him, their toes almost touching. The sudden proximity got his attention instantly, and she booped his nose with her index finger. “Well then, this is your lucky day. I know just the thing you can do for me.”

“Uhh, sure! A-anything you need, just ask,” he stammered, slightly confused.

She began, “Sooo, here’s what I was thinking…”

She continued to speak as she paced around the room, sort of beating around the bush, the speed of her words steadily increasing until she was talking a million miles a minute, so rapidly that he could barely understand what in the world she was talking about. Although he distinctly heard the words “movie theater”, “chaperone”, and a pleading, “You wouldn’t want me to go all by myself, would you?”

“Uhhh–” he tried to interject, still deep in his confusion.

“And before you turn me down and say, ‘But I, the dark and mysterious Chat Noir, cannot be seen in public with a civilian!’ don’t worry: I got you,” she interrupted.

She handed him the sunglasses and face mask, and said, “Detransform and put these on, along with your hoodie. You can wear these to the movies and be totally incognito!”

Chat let out a high-pitched “WHAT?!” his voice cracking once it couldn’t go any higher.

“No one will recognize you with the costume! It’s really not that conspicuous! Lots of people wear special blue-light blocking glasses when they watch movies or use their computers. And face masks have become a pretty common way to keep germs from spreading, so nobody will spare you a second glance. You’ll totally blend in with the crowd. And it’ll be my treat! Please??”

Chat rubbed the back of his neck, eyes darting around nervously. This was all so sudden and he was unsure how to respond. He’d never done anything like this before.

“I-I dunno…”

Marinette continued, wringing her hands anxiously as she spoke, “I know this is totally out of the blue, but there’s this one movie I really wanna watch that’s only gonna be in theaters for this one weekend. I’d ask Alya and Nino, but it’s pretty last minute. And even if they’re available, they’d probably just make out during the entire movie anyway, and God knows being the awkward third wheel gets tiresome after a while,” she added with an eyeroll. “Adrien always has to be booked months in advance, all my other girlfriends are busy, and I really don’t wanna go alone; it’s not safe to walk around a big city all by yourself at night, y’know. So, what do you say??”

Chat looked back at her, her big blue eyes silently begging him to come along.

He suppressed a sigh, biting his lip instead. She wouldn’t want to hang out with him if she knew who he really was and what he’d done to her. She’d always been absolutely wonderful to him– to both sides of him– and he’d repaid her by being a crappy friend who’d been totally oblivious to her feelings. He truly didn’t deserve her.

He was about to decline and try to make up some excuse, but just then, her words from earlier in the day popped back into his head: “I’m just trying to get past him. I wanna move on.”

He paused. All day, he’d only been thinking about his own feelings and feeling sorry about himself, wallowing in guilt. But right now, this was about Marinette, and her needs. And at this moment, it sounded like what she needed was someone to just be with her. He could set aside his own apprehensiveness and insecurities to help her out, instead of pushing her away. After all, she always went out of her way for her friends constantly, at the cost of herself. She’d always been so selfless… to the point where she tended to neglect her own needs. He couldn’t let her keep doing that.

Determined to make things right and treat her the way she deserved for once, he nodded and smiled. “Alright, Mari. I’d love to go with you.”

Marinette let out a delighted squeal and resumed doing her excited wiggle-dance, but Chat interrupted, “On one condition! It’ll be my treat instead. After all, what good is a paycheck from the best bakery in Paris if I can’t use it to spoil my absolute favorite roommate?” He squeezed her shoulder with a wink.

Her mouth popped open in shock, then twisted into a pout. It looked like she was about to argue, but in the end, decided not to press her luck and accept his terms.

“Deal.”

[thorne93]

History Repeats (Part 4)

Prompt: Life’s hard, right? Well throw in a not so great job, a broken heart, and chasing a pipe dream in LA. But could someone come along to make all the bad shit disappear? Or is he just another heartbreak waiting around the bend?

Warnings: language, drug addiction, alcohol addiction, angst/heartbreak, adult themes (??)

Word Count: 2386

Note: Aesthetic made by @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​ because she’s absolutely amazing Beta’d by @like-a-bag-of-potatoes​ and @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​ . Brainstorming from @carryonmyswansong​​

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Before you knew it, you’d fallen into a routine with Hayden, somewhat. It wasn’t like clockwork, but there was definitely something that had become part of your pattern.

It seemed that Hayden would drop by a few nights a week and ask if you wanted to hang in his room after you got off. You always said yes because for the first several nights, it was a good way to vent and relieve some stress. You two swapped stories of hard working days, then it always seemed to work into the heartbreak you were both still going through. Realizing that not being with your exes was best, and accepting that fate were two very different things, especially for Hayden, having a daughter made it all the worse. 

But after a while, the visits went from bonding, being each other’s support, to being fun filled and like normal friendly hang outs. The two of you talked about Rachel and Jason less, and talked more about yourselves. At one point, he even hooked up his video game console and for several visits, they turned into video game tournaments between you two. It was a fun, easy way to blow off steam after work. 

Of course, sometimes you couldn't meet because he had an early day or you were exhausted from your shift, and that was okay. This was just two friends hanging out and there was no pressure for either of you to constantly want to hang out. In fact, for both of yours’ sakes, and for the sake of the anxiety that you both had, you didn’t over do it, knowing that being sociable for a long time wore on you both.

He listened to you about wanting to be a singer and you shared some of your lyrics with him and he told you stories of his aspirations as an actor and things he was proud and not proud of. Every time he talked about his acting, you felt awful because you were pretty sure you’d only seen two or three of his movies, so you couldn’t tell him your thoughts on any of his work. But he never seemed to mind, he was just happy to have someone that even wanted to talk with him about it. 

Tonight, nearly a month after the first time you’d hung out, you’d gotten onto the topic of how you got into singing, and feeling that it was the only thing you were above average at.

“You can’t be serious,” Hayden admonished.

“No, I am. Come on, name one quality about me that’s better than average,” you challenged, knowing he wouldn’t come up with anything.

“You’re an excellent manager,” he noted.

You laughed, throwing your head back. “Oh, thanks. I’m so good at my job. I’m good at organizing people and running a shift. Big whoop.”

“Okay, fine. How were you in school?”

“Average. I made B’s most of the time.”

“Well you kick my ass on Overwatch all the time, so there’s that,” he said and you wrinkled your nose at him. 

“Har, Har. No. I’m talking real, true talent. Like you! With acting!” you said, pushing on his leg slightly.

“I’m not so sure,” he remarked with an eyebrow twitch and half smile. “But I will say I was fairly good at tennis. Almost got a full scholarship and almost competed on a professional level.”

“See? Like that. That’s amazing. I can’t swing at a damn ball to save my life,” you said, falling back on the couch and throwing your arm over your face, tired from your work day. 

“I bet that’s not true,” Hayden tried in an overly sweet voice.

“You’d lose that bet,” you said, your arm still covering your eyes.

“Good thing I’m not a gambler,” he joked with a laugh and you returned it. 

“I’ll just stick to what I know best,” you said, sighing. 

“Or...I could show you,” he quietly said. So quiet, you weren’t sure that’s what he said.

“What?” you asked as you sat up and removed your arm, looking at him.

Clearing his throat, he repeated himself, speaking up as he did so. “I could show you. How to swing at a ball. Then maybe, in your eyes, you’ll be good at something.”

You eyed him for a moment suspiciously, then you began to laugh as if it were absurd. 

“No...Why?”

He shrugged, his eyes darting forwards, his elbows on his knees as he was leaned forward. “Like I said, to help you.” 

“That’s it?”

“Jesus, Y/N, why are you so skeptical of someone wanting to help you?” he asked, and it meant to come out as a tease, as a joke, but his tone was harsher than he intended. 

He went to apologize, opening his mouth to do so, but you stopped him. Hanging your head, and toying with your fingers, you softly answered, “Because I’ve never had it happen and it be innocent. People don’t just...help people for the hell of it.”

“Well I do and I’m going to help you be a good tennis player,” he vowed.

“Oh, really, Hayden, you don’t want a racket in my hand. I’ll kill you,” you said, shaking your head. “It’ll fly out of my hand and crack your skull. Or I’ll launch a ball right into your chest.”

He laughed, not taking you seriously. “I doubt any of that will happen.”

“I’m serious! This is a terrible idea!” you said, raising your voice, despite the fact that you were about to laugh too. “You really don’t want me handling sports equipment!”

“I’m sure I’ll survive,” he assured. “We’re going.”

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

Now, it was three days later, it was your day off and his, and Hayden was taking you two a recreation center to teach you tennis.

You dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, something comfortable because you had a feeling you’d be moving a lot more than usual. Hayden was looking rather adorable in shorts, a polo, and a baseball cap. He really did look like a tennis player.

The two of you grabbed the equipment and made your way to an indoor court, setting up. All the while you were so worried you wouldn’t be able to hit a single ball. He got everything in place, handed you a racket, then took his place on the other side of the court.

“Have you ever played?” he called across the court.

“A few times in high school.”

“So you remember the rules?”

You shook your head. “No, not really.”

“Okay, no problem,” he said before diving into the rules and logistics of the game. If the ball landed here, this happened, if you hit it here, this happened. If the ball comes at you like this, swing the racket like so...so on and so on. He was a really good teacher. He kept things simple and concise, perfect for you since you never played sports.

Then, the batting began and you were a disaster on the court. You couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn, you were flailing wildly everywhere, and you were slow. Hayden laughed once or twice, but you couldn’t blame him, in fact, it was kind of cute when he laughed at you, because to be honest, you were laughing at your efforts too. 

“Time out,” Hayden suddenly said as he walked over to you. “I think I see the problem,” he noted as he approached you, getting so close you could feel the heat off his body. 

“What?” you wondered as you looked down at your hands, feet, and racket, curious as to what he saw.

“Your footing,” he explained. “Half of tennis is making sure you’re setting your body up to accept the ball, no matter which direction it comes from,” he said as he moved behind you and put his hands on your hips and pivoted them and you followed the motion, trying to suppress the shiver  that wanted to escape due to his nimble hands on your sides. Hayden was your friend, and the last thing you needed was to develop feelings for him. 

“Now set your left foot a little more towards the net,” he instructed softly and you did as you were told. “Now bend slightly at the hips, a little more forward. Great!” he said, stepping back and eyeing you. “You’re holding the racket all wrong. It’s not a baseball bat, you don’t need to grip it like this,” he said, showing you how you were doing it. “If we were playing baseball, that would be perfect. A nice, strong, hold. But in tennis, you need a looser wrist, some range of movement, so that if the ball goes a little farther than you expected or comes back to the left, rather than the right, as you anticipated, you can pivot and shift quickly.” 

You nodded, understanding. 

“Okay, so take your racket,” he said and you took it in both hands, and he slid behind you once more, his chest pressed flush against your back as his body molded around yours in order to show you better. “Now put your hand here,” he said quietly, his voice practically right beside your ear as he took his hand and held yours and placed it on the racket correctly. “And the other, here,” he instructed, physically moving your hand again, adjusting your fingers as need be. “There we are,” he said, a smile in his voice and you turned to smile at him proud that you were finally in a good stance.

Yet, when you turned your head, he was gazing at you already, his eyes were smoldering. Your mouth went dry as your eyes went between his stare and his lips, his hold still firm around you. There was a charge in the air that was nearly strangling you two. Neither of you dared move, your eyes just holding the gaze that you shared, afraid to do what you wanted to do so badly. 

Eventually you both of you moved at the same time, clearing your throats.

“Thanks for showing me that,” you quickly said, trying to erase the tension still hanging in the air.

“Yeah, yeah, any time. I’ll just...go over here and we’ll try again, now that you know how to hold it.”

You nodded, as he took his spot on the other side of the net. He served the ball, and you didn’t hit it the first time, but on the third try, you did, and it felt great. You cheered and jumped, excited that you were finally getting the hang of this, while he congratulated you and ran up to give you a high five which you happily returned.

The two of you continued to play, and it was actually fun now that you could somewhat play. You still were no where near his level of expertise, but you were much better than you had been when you started this afternoon. 

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

After tennis, the two of you had worked up an appetite so Hayden offered to take you to dinner.

“Are you sure you want to?” you asked, knowing he sort of hated being out due to potential media coverage.

“Yeah, it’ll be fine,” he assured with a shrug and a smile as you two got back to his car. 

“I don’t want to make you do anything you don’t wanna do…” you said uneasily. Of course, you’d love to hang out outside of his hotel room, but if it would put him in a situation he didn’t want to be in, then you didn’t want to do that.

“No, I’m more than happy to go,” he said with a smile. 

“Well if you’re up to it, I’d love to,” you agreed with a grin.

With that, you two found a nice restaurant that was tucked away from everything else, off of main streets and areas, a perfect place for a man not wanting to be seen. The two of you had a great meal, chatting about tennis and he said maybe one day he’d teach you hockey and with an instructor like him, you actually jumped at the chance. Laughter about your performance today went between you two as you shared old stories about your little experience with athleticism and he told you all about his experience and how he almost went pro. 

All in all, it was a wonderful day, and it didn’t stop there. The two of you went on a stroll in the park that was just a couple blocks over. Walking side by side, taking in the beautiful, simple sights of nature, it was so serene. Being around Hayden was so easy and effortless.

You hadn’t really talked to your old friends in a while and Jason and you hadn’t spoken since the breakup. But you didn’t really miss them. You didn’t miss constantly pretending to enjoy being out and about all night. You didn’t miss that when you and Jason broke up, no one really checked on you or cared too much. The first day or two, you got a couple of texts from friends, but after that, it was radio silence. No one asked again how you were doing after that, and for you, it sent a pretty big signal that they weren’t the type of friends you could count on in a bad situation. That made it evident they didn’t need to be in your life. 

Same for Jason. He didn’t talk to you about your issues, he just decided for the both of you that he didn’t want to be in a relationship any more so he just ended it. No talk. No discussion. Just a “this isn’t working out” speech and he was out of your life. He didn’t even respect you enough to talk about it or give you much closure.

Hayden didn’t seem like a man who would do that. A man who would abandon friends in their time of need, or just up and leave without much of an explanation. That’s what you liked about him. He was sweet and reliable and it was refreshing. 

After the walk, he drove you back to your place, where you hugged him tight and thanked him for a wonderful day out. Thank your lucky stars you had a friend like him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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