#Maybe my friends just have a very specific kind of humour i gotta deal with

[apologydanceenthusiast]

Someone tell me just how I am supposed to tell anyone I got balls to stim and play around with.

I literally cannot enter a conversation with "Hey, i got these really nice balls to play with!"

PLEASE HOW DO I ANNOUNCE THAT I AM FINALLY STARTING TO GET MYSELF STUFF TO HELP WITH MY ADHD IN THIS SOCIETY

[italkaboutbooks]

An in depth review of Aurora Rising//Part 2

If you haven’t already, read part one here.

So welcome to the second part of my ramblings about this novel. Last time, I talked about how chapters 18-24 were some of the most confusing and infuriating chapters I have ever read, and how I hated that.

I’m actually going to complain about it a little bit more in...

Pacing!

Aurora Rising’s pacing is...questionable at best. Bad at worst.

So the novel is split into three parts. You know how some novels have specific parts like part 1 and part 2? That’s used in Aurora Rising. Immediately, the three act structure comes to mind. I understand that it may be used for movies more but hear me out.

The basics of structure and pacing is that, by the end of the second act, you’re nearing the climax. Basically, the story should be increasing in tension, because the antagonist is usually at its most powerful at this point.

Aurora Rising doesn’t do that. Or maybe it just failed me and not you for some reason. But if you remember the end of part 2 aka chapters 18-24, you would know that the characters succeed. And what that success does, is lower the tension. Because the heroes won the battle and they’re feeling pretty confident. That doesn’t raise the stakes in my opinion. I feel like if Auri actually was taken, then there would be stronger stakes, but the pacing failed in that regard. So it’s another big complaint from me.

There’s nothing really remarkable about plot of pacing for me to comment on. So let’s go to the next part.

Characters

For this section, I am simply going to rank the main cast aka the squad, and tell you my thoughts about them. 7 being my least favourite character and 1 being my favourite. I’ll talk about their relationships which each other in a separate section.

7. Zila

Zila doesn’t have a personality. She is the stereotypical “smart” person in the group that doesn’t express emotion. Or in this case, has none. She’s a robot. She has no interests, no motivations, and we’re not given a backstory. She has nothing. I personally believe that the authors didn’t even care about her. They just added her there to be smart. That is all. She shows a smidgen of an arc near the end, but it’s not even the bare minimum. I wished the authors actually put effort into Zila because it’s obvious that they didn’t.

6. Tyler Jones

Tyler Jones is the definition of the bland white boy. He is one of the worst protagonists I have ever seen in a book. Why does he suck so much in my eyes? Because he’s perfect. He’s handsome, he’s good at everything, everyone likes him, and even if they don’t like him, they at least respect him. He never makes any mistakes, doesn’t have any flaws, and has dimples. He is infuriating.

Personally, I like flawed characters. That’s what makes characters and stories interesting. If you give me a character who essentially wins every battle, I will think that they are the most bland and boring person in existence. Your characters need flaws, especially your protagonist! Remember chapters 18-24? Yeah, another complaint about that part is making them succeed just makes Tyler more of a Mary Sue.

Also there’s a scene in chapter 12 where Tyler says he doesn’t want to kill a Terran because he’s a Terran and acts like killing his own kind is unheard of. ....Aurora has a lot of explaining to do for you buddy.

Tyler gets the second worst ranking because at least he is allowed to experience emotions, and the authors tried to give him an arc. (But does Tyler really have an arc? Because I didn’t see it.)

5. Cat

I have mixed feelings about Cat. I talked before about the arc that I thought she was going to have. And the arc she gets...well it’s kind of disappointing.

Cat’s character seems to be that she’s in love with Tyler (for some reason) but he rejected her and now she’s just trying to cope with it but doesn’t do it well. She dies, but dies knowing that Tyler actually loved her all along and I don’t really like it. But at the same time, I do?

See, when I read the ending of the book, I was sad. Cat died and I was sad because of that. I’ll give the book merit for that, (especially since I’ve been slandering it.) It made me care about a character’s death. But at the same time, I don’t like that Cat’s arc was essentially her getting over a man. It feels cheap to me. My idea for her arc was her learning to listen to others opinions more and make her more loyal, which is not dependent on a man. So I don’t straight up hate Cat, but I would make a lot of changes to her character and arc.

And also she’s kind of annoying. She’s says bloody way too often and I thought the authors did that so she could be “unique.” Apparently Cat’s Aussie...somehow. I’m so sorry to Australians everywhere, I’m sure you all don’t talk like Cat.

4. Scarlet Jones

I don’t really like Scarlet all that much, but I like her more than Cat. Here’s the thing: she’s immediately better than Tyler because she actually has flaws. Which I like. She cares about her friends and the squad members. She’s a sweetheart, and I like that. Her motivations are understandable in a way, but I also relate to them which kind of makes me hate her.

Also she does some questionable things that don’t make me hate her, they just confuse me, and creep me out. For starters, she has a list of all her exes. I don’t wanna judge her because I really don’t hate her, but that’s creepy. Also there’s a scene where she drugs two guys for their uniforms, and she takes them to a hotel room, and leaves her bra there, along with some kiss marks, to give to illusion that she had sex with them. She said something along the lines of “Gotta leave some evidence.”

First of all, that’s not how you commit a crime. (For legal reasons, this is a joke.) When you commit a crime, you make sure that there’s no evidence so that you don’t get caught. Second, leaving signs that these guys had sex with you tells them that they had sex with you under the influence. They didn’t give their consent, meaning you’re making them think that you raped them. And when you think about how males usually are the ones to drug and rape females, it just becomes even more questionable.

I also need to point out the fact that her name is Scarlet, and she has red hair. Wow. Amazing. So original. Aside from that though, she’s okay.

3. Kallis 🥉

Kal is a good character. He got the number three spot and I think he deserves it. I liked reading his POV chapters the most. It shows how he’s trying to hold back from his instincts to kill because that’s how he was raised. He’s a tsundere in ways. Cold and harsh on the outside, but deep down, he does care about the greater good. We don’t really get a warm side to him in the first book, but it’s there, I promise.

2. Aurora 🥈

Auri is baby, okay? She’s had to deal with loosing her family and life in one day. Even less than that. She had to deal with visions and hallucinations and new powers of telekinesis in a very short time. Home girl was going through some crap. But through all of that, she still manages to be a sweet girl. She’s never mean to the others, except for irritation at Kal. She tries her best to stay optimistic, and I think she went through the best arc in the group. (Although it’s kind of on the nose.) I love Auri and I think she deserves all the love.

1. Finian 🥇

Finian De Steel? Did you mean, the best character is Aurora Rising?

I love Fin with my entire heart. He is literally the best. He is so funny and snarky and easily has the best lines. But he’s also the most sympathetic in my opinion, along with Auri. You learn about his past and how people tend to treat him differently because he’s disabled, and how he has a hard time connecting with others despite wanting a connection with others so badly.

He’s a great character. I also think they represented his disability pretty well. He has an exosuit which makes him move, but it’s not treated as a cure. The suit gets damaged which affects Fin’s mobility, and he experiences pain because of it. So I think they did a good job with that. And he’s just awesome in general.

I understand that the humour in this book is pretty juvenile. However, some of Fin’s lines actually made me laugh and smile, and I usually don’t laugh or smile much. Humour is subjective and I’m not going to stand here and act like mine is the best. My sense of humour is bad puns and inside jokes between my family so...it was fine for me. Granted, Fin was the only character who actually was good at humour, so there.

Character Relationships

Yes, I think that this needs a section of its own.

Let’s start simple. Tyler and Scarlet. They’re both twins, with Scarlet being the older by like a minute. I think they were written pretty well as siblings, except for the fact that Scarlet calls Tyler her “baby brother” in her internal dialogue/narration including spoken dialogue. Siblings don’t call each other that, I promise you. As someone who has a sibling, reading fictional characters call each other that makes me cringe so much.

Then there’s Kal and Auri, who are essentially “soulmates” in a way by the end of the book. They aren’t canon or anything, it’s just extremely obvious that they’re endgame. Kal told Auri that she was essentially her mate and that they were fated to be together. Some people saw it as some Wolf alpha shiz, I saw it more as soulmates personally. I don’t think that they’re a bad pairing, it’s kind of cute sometimes. But to me, they don’t feel like two people who have feelings for each other. It just feels like a pairing that is usually a popular ship in fandoms.

The best way for me to describe it to you is this. When I see Kal and Auri together, I don’t think, “Oh these two characters have great chemistry. They could be romantic partners.” No, I think, “I feel like fans of this book ship them really hard.”

So in a way, their relationship may be cute, but it doesn’t feel real, because I’ll always see it as something the fans created and not the actual authors, which doesn’t even make sense to me. I’m not even trying to hate on shippers, this pairing just confuses me.

By bigger pet peeve is that the authors seem to want to pair up every other character, because by the end of the book, Fin and Scarlet seem to crush on each other. It’s really annoying when people think that romance is the end game.

I’ve also read reviews where the readers were upset at how heteronormative the couple pairings were. And I agree with them. While reading the book, I always thought Fin was gay. To me, he was coded as gay or bi. Also, there’s a scene where Tyler kisses Kal because a guard was about to catch them. Seeing how the book was released in 2019, I can see how LGBTQ+ readers were disappointed that their identities were used as a really cheap way for the characters to get out of a situation, and not give them actual representation.

(Personally, I wouldn’t mind if Tyler got caught, maybe then he could actually have consequences for his actions.)

But you see, these relationships are okay to me. Not perfect. Definitely room for improvement, but they don’t upset me. But the found family, aka the whole squad, disappointed me. Not enough to make me not want to get the sequel, but enough to make me write about it.

You see, what I was expecting was enemies to friends. Nobody wants to be in this squad, so they constantly argue and mess up their mission because of it. After some near death experiences and real stakes, they start to become friends until they actually see each other as family in a way.

But we don’t get that. At least, I didn’t feel like we got that. Because this found family feels forced to me.

Despite them not liking each other, they don’t argue. They give each other insulting banter, but that doesn’t count as actual differences of opinions. We’re not even shown them disagreeing with each other. We’re told in one of Auri’s chapters, but that’s not enough for me. And it doesn’t correlate with the fact that they didn’t fail a mission. Technically yes, they failed the first one, but because the GIA came to stop it, it didn’t feel like a failure to me. And that was their only failure. They did everything else right, despite them being so different, and hating each other and etc.

The one time we actually got a real disagreement was in chapter 18, and we already know how I feel about chapter 18.

So yeah, their found family is cute and all, but I feel like it could’ve flowed more naturally, so that it would make sense. I remember Kristoff comparing this book to Guardians of the Galaxy on goodreads, which I feel like is insulting to GotG. Because in GotG the characters actually hate each other and go to jail because the first thing they did when they met was fight. So yeah, GotG did it better in my opinion.

And that’s enough for part 2. I can’t believe I have to make a third part, but hopefully it will be the last. If you read this far, thank you. You should consider following me because I might want to do more in-depth reviews like this.

Part 3

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

The Misadventures of Prince Kim - chapter 47

I wrote this one like two weeks ago omg, anyway I know I said I was updating on Sundays but I bet I’m gonna forget tomorrow, considering the new episode, so I’ll change it to “updating at some point on the weekends”. Anyway, have a chapter that’s somehow angsty and cracky at the same time

Also on AO3 as always, where you can read this sprawling 170k+ word count monster of a fic from the beginning

Alix had never before been so grateful that Max was one of the calmest, most logical people she had ever met. She was sure that he must be freaking out too – an assassination attempt was not something to be taken lightly – but at least he was a lot better at outwardly hiding it than she was. But then again, he didn’t have to deal with his brain constantly reminding him of the image of his own best friend dying horribly right in his arms, so of course it was easier for him.

Anyway, she had to get her mind off that somehow. Time to solve this mystery.

First they went back to her room to get the snake, just to keep a close eye on it as always, and then they took the chocolates over to the school authorities in the office near Duke Damocles’s tower. It was late at night by now and students were really not supposed to be wandering around the corridors, but luckily they did not run into anyone.

The school authorities did not seem to take the matter very seriously. They took the chocolates and smiled rather unconvincingly, telling Alix and Max to just go back to sleep and they would sort it all out in the morning. Then they shut the door and locked it.

“I’m not waiting till morning,” Alix said immediately, thinking about how much of a difference even a few minutes could make when it came to life or death situations. “And I don’t trust these authorities, they don’t really seem to care. What should we do now? Do we tell Kim?”

Max was silent for a few seconds, thinking. “I suggest we go talk to Alya. She’ll know what to do.”

That was a good idea. Alya’s spy ring was not much of a secret among the royals, despite the fact that ordinarily spy rings were meant to be kept hidden. The simple fact was that Alya’s reputation as spymaster was usually enough to strike fear into the hearts of anyone up to mischief, and so there was hardly any need for secrecy. And plus, no one actually knew the identities of most of her agents, so the main bulk of the spy network was left intact. She really knew what she was doing.

They went back to the dorms and knocked on Alya’s door. When she opened it she had her pyjamas on and her hair in a silk scarf, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

“I’m guessing if you’re waking me up this late there’s an emergency, and it better not be anything to do with Adrien being in danger yet again,” she muttered.

“Not Adrien who’s in danger,” Max said. “Someone else.”

“Alright, well come in and tell me about it. I’ll see what I can do.”

They entered her room and she shut the door behind them, and Max immediately launched into an explanation of everything that was much more coherent than Alix probably would have managed. Seriously, how was he so logical? Even when his own best friend was in such imminent danger? Wait – not just best friend. Sweetheart, too.

“Poisoned chocolates,” Alya mused, tapping her chin in thought. “Sent to Kim anonymously. I do indeed have some suspicions, but nothing definite. I’ll go start up an investigation and do everything I can – meanwhile you just sit tight and wait. I’ll let you know as soon as I’ve discovered anything. If it’s safe to do so, that is. I don’t know how long things will take so you can try going to sleep if you want.”

She pulled on a cloak and left through the door, picking up a little notebook from the table as she did so.

“I’m not going to sleep, no way,” Alix said. She knew perfectly well what would happen if she went to sleep right now, when the other timeline – the Poisoned Chocolates Timeline – was in such turmoil. It was hard enough to get the image of Max dying out of her head even while awake. Sleep would be nothing but nightmare after nightmare, for sure.

“I would prefer not to sleep for now either,” Max said. He sat down on the floor against the side of the bed, his knees curled up to his chest, finally starting to look as stressed as he must feel.

“I need some distraction,” she said, sitting down beside him.

“What kind of distraction?”

“Literally anything. Just talk to me about something. Stupid stuff. Happy things. Or funny things. I don’t care, just get my mind off those stupid chocolates.”

More like get her mind off all these stupid deaths. First she’d had to deal with seeing her snake beheaded, then suffer the pain of a nasty death by snake bite, and now witnessing Max die too? Part of her wished beyond reason that she never had these timeline powers in the first place. They were only making her unhappy. But then again, if she didn’t have these powers then she wouldn’t have been able to warn Max about the chocolates, and he would have died this time too…

“What should I talk about?” he said, his voice weak and tired. He had taken off that little heart brooch from Kim and was looking at it fondly. Those two really liked each other a lot, didn’t they?

“How such a smart, logical person like you could have been so dumb about your ridiculous crush on Kim for several months,” she suggested, smiling a little. Max began smiling too, looking embarrassed.

“I just didn’t think he would like me back…”

“Yeah, I know, you kept saying that. It was so annoying.”

“Yes, it must have been…” Some thought must have occurred to him, since his whole demeanour suddenly changed. He looked down at the floor and said, in a rather fake-casual voice, “By the way, um… you said you wanted me to talk to you about ‘stupid stuff’ well, I uh, had a bit of a question actually, I’ve been meaning to ask for a while…”

“No, I’m not telling you what happened in the lift, and it wasn’t even very stupid. It was cool.”

“Oh, it’s not that! I just… um…” He was fiddling nervously with the brooch. “From, um, a scientific point of view, because I’m curious, I was just wondering… well… everyone knows what happened at the winter party, and based on things you’ve said happened in other timelines, I wanted to ask… alright this is sounding a little stupider than intended but… do you have any tips? For kissing Kim?”

For a few seconds she just stared at him in disbelief. Whatever she had been expecting him to say, it wasn’t that.

“For science!” Max said quickly.

Science. Uh-huh. Sure.

She couldn’t help it. She burst into laughter.

“I wasn’t joking!” Max said, giving her a rather sharp poke in the arm. “If I’m going to be a good ruler then I need to have knowledge in a vast area of subjects, including romance, so…”

“It’s really not that hard,” she said, still laughing a little. Some stupid humour was indeed a very welcome distraction from traumatizing deaths. “It’s not like I knew what I was doing either, I mean, you just gotta like try to forget how gross it is and make sure you breathe, ‘cause that idiot has the best lung capacity and doesn’t need to so you better not die, and if you don’t tilt your head then your nose will get in the way and it’ll be hilarious, and he’s pretty tall so maybe stand on something…”

“I know all this already,” Max huffed. “I’ve already kissed him twice actually, and I’ll have you know that I have indeed studied the art of kissing, so I know plenty of this…”

“You’ve studied the art of–”

“For scientific purposes!” he said hastily. “For science. Of course.”

“Of course.”

“Shush. Anyway, I didn’t want generic tips. I want tips specific to Kim. What does he like? Considering how much he hates admitting that people are better than him, yet in both this timeline and others you seem to have apparently proven yourself a better kisser, you must have done something right.”

She shrugged. “Dude, Kim already likes you loads. I don’t think he really cares if you’re good at kissing or not. Just do what you want.”

“I suppose… if he survives all this assassination drama, that is… otherwise it’ll all be irrelevant anyway…”

The seriousness of the situation hit her again, like a tidal wave. But no – she didn’t want to think about it! Anything but those poisoned chocolates, the very real possibility that her friends were close to death.

“Fine, I’ll help you,” she sighed, trying not to laugh again when saw how Max’s face lit up. He was as much of a dork as Kim was, honestly. “But for the record, I’ll just warn you that kissing is totally disgusting and I don’t get how people enjoy it.”

“I think that’s just you.”

“Yeah…”

She thought back to the other timelines, carefully avoiding recent chocolate-related events, and went straight for those cursed spring holidays. Well… part of them, anyway. Thinking about them too much was definitely going to have her throwing up again, and her mood was already bad enough as it was.

“You already know what a hopeless romantic he is,” she said, “which honestly makes you a way better match for him than me, like seriously what was he thinking. Anyway, the point is that if you be really cheesy and sappy and like… I don’t know, whisper lovey-dovey stuff in his ear or whatever, he’s gonna melt. Just be really romantic.”

Max quickly stood up to grab a piece of paper and pencil off Alya’s desk, then sat back down and started writing. “Be… really… romantic…”

“Are you seriously making notes?”

“I told you, this is all purely for scientific research,” he said, still writing.

“Wow, I can’t wait for you to tell Kim that when you’re making out with him. ‘Hey Kim, isn’t this scientific research fun?’ So very romantic of you. He’ll love it.”

“Just keep going!”

“Alright…”

Trying not to gag, she carried on looking through the timelines. It was a mess. Hopefully Kim and Max’s relationship wouldn’t end up such a superficial, colossal trainwreck.

“Like I said, he has the best lung capacity,” she continued, “so he’s not very good at uh… stopping. Because he forgets that other people need to actually breathe. So don’t be afraid to just shove him away and go do something else because you’re bored or grossed out or whatever. Though I expect that won’t be a problem for you.”

“I shall practise holding my breath,” Max muttered as he continued to write.

“You’re really taking all this that seriously?”

“Yes!”

Wow… people really surprised her sometimes. All her life she had known that romance was something considered very important, yet she still often found it hard to believe that it wasn’t just some conspiracy that everyone was in on. Surely people didn’t genuinely care about it that much? But clearly Max did, and she knew that Kim did too, and so did everyone else…

She reminded herself firmly of the article in the science journal, and that being aromantic was a real thing, and that it wasn’t just her alone in the universe like this, and then she forced her bitterness out of her mind to carry on helping Max. Now was not the time to be grumpy. Especially considering everything else that was going on.

“I don’t even know why you would do this in the first place,” she said, “but if you even attempt to do that gross French-kiss thing with the tongue then he will go and get a pair of scissors and chop it off so you can never do that again. Because he actually does agree with me that tongues are gross. Though he disagrees about the teeth. Apparently those are okay for some reason.”

Max nodded, then jotted that down on the piece of paper. He really was taking this absurdly seriously. It was almost funny, really. At least she knew for certain that he loved Kim a hell of a lot.

“And I’m pretty sure he has a secret weakness for neck kisses, so uh, do that thing.”

“Doesn’t everyone?” Max asked, finally looking up.

“Man I don’t know, I’m the complete wrong person to be asking.”

He chuckled. “Oh yes, true… you have been making your distaste very clear so far…”

“Good. Hmm, what else… well he likes pillows, so he will definitely cheat on you with his imaginary pillow sweetheart. But you knew that. And he absolutely has a thing for sports bras, which you probably knew too, though I guess that might be irrelevant in your case. Who knows if it works with guys. If you’re a girl then it’s a definite shortcut to him wanting to make out with you though, that’s for sure.”

“Are you sure it was the sports bra’s fault? Are you sure it wasn’t just you?”

“Um, trust me. It was definitely the bra.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do. I’m not telling you because it’s weird. So stop being nosy.”

Max grinned. “There’s a lot you haven’t told me…”

“Yeah, because it’s weird, and I don’t want to have to think about it or I’m gonna vomit. Anyway, I’ve had enough timeline digging for today, you can figure out everything else yourself. And I’m pretty sure Kim likes you for different reasons than he liked me, so maybe everything I’ve said might be irrelevant.”

“Thank you anyway,” Max said, folding up the piece of paper and slipping it into his pocket.

At that moment the door opened and Alya came back into the room, dragging a sleepy-looking Kim in with her. She quickly shut the door behind them.

“I’ve found out some information, and also woken up Kim and explained everything, since I doubt either of you would want to have to go through that again,” she said, so fast, bringing the mood back down to how low it had been before.

Kim went and sat down on the other side of Max, giving them all a shaky smile. “This is a pretty weird thing to wake up to, isn’t it… that I’m so cool I’ve got actual assassins after me, how rad is that…”

“It won’t be so rad if they actually succeed,” Alya said, sitting on the desk chair and looking down at the three of them. “Anyway, I haven’t yet found out who did it. All I have been able to discover so far is that the school authorities have quietly disposed of the chocolates without testing them, which most likely suggests that they already knew about the assassination plot and were told to ignore it – either because they planned it, were part of it, or are allied with whoever planned it. So the culprit is probably someone from the Bourgeois Empire or one of its numerous allies. Of course, Bourgeois isn’t officially allied with Agreste until they manage to track Adrien down, but according to Chloé, Bourgeois will do anything to provide Agreste with assistance, which could involve aiding an assassination. But none of this is certain.”

That was a lot to take in at once. Alya scribbled something in her little notebook.

“I’ll carry on my investigations and try to find out who is behind this and how to stop them,” she continued. “It might take a while. In the meantime, I’ll find a way to keep you safe Kim, don’t worry. My kingdom is like this all the time, I’m used to it. Dodging assassination plots is my business. Just carry on as normal, and don’t act like anything is different. Don’t mention the poisoned chocolates to anyone.”

“I’ll try,” Kim said.

“Good. You’ll be alright. And Max, I’m glad you’re okay too. As for Alix, well… you’re going to hate me for this, but I have a difficult job for you to do. I know looking into the other timeline is the last thing you want to do right now, but if you can manage it, it might help us somehow. The death of a royalty student, and especially not the one the authorities were expecting, is high treason and would certainly be thoroughly investigated, and they might be able to find out who was responsible quicker and more accurately than I can. So if you can find out from the other timeline who the assassin is and why they did it, that can help us catch them here as quick as possible with minimal suspicion. Is that okay?”

Alix just nodded, feeling her heart sinking at the prospect of having to look at what was going on in that timeline right now. A timeline where the reality was that Max was dead, and there was nothing she could do about it. It was hard enough to not cry again when blocking out the timeline, so how was she supposed to cope when deliberately looking at it?

“I suggest you all go get some sleep now,” Alya said. “I know that seems impossible, but just try. I know what it’s like to be in danger. You’ll get through this. Now goodnight.”

“Can’t we have a sleepover?” Kim asked.

“Do you really think there’s space in here for that?”

Memories of the Imperial Prince Adrien Protection Squad suddenly flooded back into Alix’s head. “Yeah, there’s space for that,” she said.

“No there isn’t. Alix, you have a monarch-size room complete with a balcony. Us princes and princesses don’t get that.”

She looked around, realizing that it was true – Alya’s room was smaller than her own, and she had never even really noticed.

“Anyway, things will seem a little better in the morning,” Alya said. “Just get some sleep. It’ll be sorted out soon, I promise. Spymaster Alya can sort out anything.”

Alya sounded so confident, so sure of herself. Maybe she was just acting the part to get everyone to stop worrying. But it did somewhat work.

“Fine,” Alix said, standing up. “Goodnight.”

Part of her wanted to go and hug Max again, just to remind herself that he was indeed okay, that he was alive and well, that he hadn’t eaten those chocolates. But if she did then she was afraid that she would never want to let go, and everything would be overwhelming again. She just couldn’t go through that again. The feeling of having someone she cared about killed.

So instead she just waved and left the room, trudging back to her own one and trying not to imagine some cold-blooded assassin waiting in the shadows, out to get her friends. There was someone in this very building who was planning a murder at this very moment. It made her blood boil with rage.

Whoever they were, she was not going to let them get away with this.

Kim was up early the next morning. To be fair, he really hadn’t slept very much at all. After going back to his own room last night he had lain awake for hours, his mind spinning. Did someone really want to kill him? And who would be cruel enough to do it with chocolates, of all food?

The part that scared him most, though, was that somewhere in another timeline, Max had paid for it with his life. His poor, precious, sweet Max, an innocent victim. Gone forever. It sent shivers down his spine to think of losing him, made him tear up, made him want to punch a wall, all sorts of weird and terrifying emotions that he barely knew how to handle. He wanted to be worried for himself, like he knew he should be considering that someone was trying to kill him, but all he could even think about was Max.

That Max really had died, somewhere out there, and the only reason he didn’t here was down to luck alone. One tiny moth was the difference between him living and dying.

So it was really no wonder that Kim had barely got any sleep that night, considering he had just been hugging a pillow and trying to stave off the tears as best as he could. He was afraid, he was stressed, he just didn’t know what to do. How on earth was he supposed to act totally normal in the morning, as if nothing was wrong at all? How could he do that when all he wanted to do was hold Max in his arms and protect him from harm until the end of time?

Before breakfast that morning, they all met up in Alya’s room again. It was mostly by accident – clearly they all wanted to check up with her about whether her investigations had uncovered anything else, and what were they supposed to do now.

“I looked in the other timeline and found out some stuff,” Alix said, looking and sounding grumpier than Kim had ever seen her, which really was saying something. “Because of… what happened to Max… the police forces from the International Alliance got involved and worked through the night. They found out who did it and managed to track him down and arrest him. Some dude who claimed to be working for the Agreste Empire, I think his name was Theo or something. I’m not entirely sure, since the version of me from that timeline is really not in the mood for doing anything except maybe committing a few murders herself.”

“Theo?!” Alya leapt to her feet. “Are you sure?”

“I literally just said that no, I’m not sure.”

“Theo… Theo…” Alya began pacing around the room. “Surely it can’t be him. Surely not. He used to work for me, quite a while ago. But then he did take up another job… but I thought he was working for the school, not an undercover assassin from Agreste… Would he really commit a murder? Well yes, he really would… and if he’s working for the Agreste Empire, then… that could only mean…”

She stopped abruptly and looked up at the others, her face determined.

“I think I know what’s going on. You see, if Kim dies and the evidence points towards the Agreste Empire, Lê Chiến would almost certainly declare war on them, which is exactly what Emperor Gabriel would want, so he can use the unfounded accusation as an excuse to take more land without being so condemned by the other countries. In fact, Lê Chiến is already fairly weak – the previous king died in mysterious circumstances, an elderly regent is currently ruling, and they’re enemies with the most powerful empire in the world. Kim is the only thing holding the country together, and he can’t even go back there right now. If Kim dies, Agreste can attack. And that’s exactly what they want.”

None of it felt real. Here they were, a bunch of teenaged royalty, in a dorm room chatting about death, murder, global wars. Kim felt like he was going to have a heart attack every time someone mentioned him “dying”. It was so different to this time yesterday, when everything had been so blissful and perfect. How could it all have changed so fast? Did Adrien’s father really want him dead?

“Of course, since the authorities threw away the chocolates, there’s no evidence of the crimes in this timeline,” Alya said, “and I doubt Alix’s timeline powers would be enough to go upon. No one from the Bourgeois Empire would be willing to help incriminate someone from Agreste, except Chloé probably. Theo – if he really is the assassin, which seems likely – is still roaming free as a supposed school guard, and probably still trying to kill Kim. We have to find a way to stop him without raising suspicion.”

“Can I fight him?” Alix asked, completely deadpan.

“I was thinking more like hiring him as a double agent actually. I’ve worked with him before, I know him better than anyone from Agreste does. Anyway, the most important thing for now is finding a permanent solution to the question of how to keep Kim safe. We need a way for Emperor Gabriel to not think it worth it to kill him and start a war. And I’m thinking that the best way to do that is to get Lê Chiến into the International Alliance, or at least ally officially with the countries in charge of it, which would deter Emperor Gabriel from causing a war, as it would result in much deeper backlash for him.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” Max spoke up suddenly. “But how would that be possible? Kim hasn’t been crowned yet so he doesn’t have the authority to do such a thing, and his grandmother the regent is definitely not about to leave the country in order to organize it. In fact, there’s barely any way to get communications in and out of Lê Chiến, let alone people.”

“Messenger pigeon,” Alya said. “We get Kim to call Cheng, they send a pigeon to his grandma, she sends an official form giving him permission to be in charge of allies and possible entry into the International Alliance. And then you take him to Alix’s kingdom in the holidays, since they founded the International Alliance in the first place, and while he’s there he can negotiate alliances and get himself and his country some protection.”

Kim’s head was spinning again. This was all so much to take in. He wasn’t good at this politics business, he had no idea what he was doing, he couldn’t understand how any of this would stop someone halfway across the world from sending poisoned chocolates after him. He could barely understand why someone who he had never even personally met wanted him dead anyway. How could someone just be like that? Kill without a second thought? As if someone’s life just meant nothing?

He felt something on his shoulder and jumped a little, only to see that it was Max resting his hand there and looking up at him, concerned.

“Kim, are you alright with all that?”

Kim gulped and nodded. “Um… yeah. I have to get my grandmother to let me make alliances and stuff. And then stay with Alix for the holidays. And somehow try and single-handedly get my country into the International Alliance – all without being assassinated…”

It really was all starting to weigh on him now. How was he supposed to do this? He had no idea what he was doing. Barely a prince, nowhere near skilled enough to be a king, the worst possible person for being put in charge of the fate of a country – the fate of so many innocent people if war ever really did break out! This wasn’t just about his own life, this was about everyone’s life. So much overwhelming pressure… how could he even begin to do this?

“You don’t have to do it single-handedly,” Max said, his voice gentle and soothing. “We’ll be there to help you. I’ll come with you. It’ll be alright.”

Oh… that calming influence. Thank goodness for Max.

“In the meantime, I won’t let you get assassinated,” Alya said. “I have my ways. It’s better if you don’t know all the details, but trust me. You’re not going to die any time soon.”

“I’ll kickstart the alliance discussions back home if you want,” Alix said. “I can call Jalil and tell him to start getting the forms and meetings and stuff ready so that it’ll be quicker by the time we get there. Oh, and I have a venomous pet snake, so if anyone tries to hurt you then I will kill them.”

“Um, maybe don’t kill them,” Kim said.

“Okay, I will scare them away. Is that better?”

He nodded. His friends were all so brave – willing to get involved in this political mess, just for him. Going to such lengths to protect him. It almost made him want to cry.

“Anyway, we’d better go to breakfast,” Alya said, looking at the clock on her wall. “And remember, just act normal. Don’t speak about this to anyone. You never know who’s listening in. Now come on.”

She put on her glasses – had she not been wearing them before? Kim hadn’t even noticed – and went out of the door. Alix quickly followed.

Kim took a deep breath, trying to return his brain to whatever its “normal” state was. At this point he didn’t even know. Right now it didn’t feel like life could ever go back to normal again, not really. Everything was different now. He had to actually step up and be a proper prince now. He wasn’t just Kim anymore, some foolish royal kid. He was Prince Kim, heir to the throne.

“Are you alright?” Max asked him. What an impossible question to answer.

“I guess,” Kim replied, once the silence had gone on too long to bear. “Are you?”

“Well I didn’t eat any poisoned chocolates, so I suppose I’m doing fine.”

Those poisoned chocolates… oh, poor Max…

“I’m really glad you’re safe,” Kim managed to say. How was he supposed to cope the whole day if he could barely even talk to Max without feeling too overwhelmed to function?

“I’m glad you’re safe, too.”

Aware that Max’s hand was still on his shoulder, Kim reminded himself what “normal” had been for him at this time of day yesterday. Normal had been swooning over Max, his new sweetheart, showing him off for all the world to see. Normal had been laughing with his friends, not a care in the world. At least some of that could be brought back. It would be a start.

He took Max’s hand in his own and gently kissed the tips of his fingers, feeling a comforting, familiar rush of adrenaline as he did so. Max was always the one constant he could rely on in this ever-changing world, the one person who made him feel at home.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he mumbled, willing himself not to cry. “You just… you… you’re…”

Max pressed his hand to Kim’s lips. “Shh. I know. I’m amazing.”

Kim couldn’t help but smile at that. “You really are.”

“And so are you, which is why all of us will always be here to help you out. Things will be okay.”

Things will be okay. It was hard to believe, but Max saying it made it sound much more real. If Max believed it, it must be true. Everything would turn out fine in the end.

“You’re a good prince,” Max continued, almost as if he could hear Kim’s thoughts. “You’ve been put into a very tough situation, but you’re doing your best, and that’s what’s important. You always do your best. It’s… part of why I like you so much…”

And now Max was looking down slightly, smiling to himself, probably blushing somewhat. It was almost too cute to bear. At least being overwhelmed by his feelings for Max was much more pleasant than being overwhelmed by the pressure of knowing an assassin was after him and his death would cause a war, so perhaps his brain really was starting to go back to normal a little. At least enough to pretend like it to the others, anyway.

“Maybe we should go down to breakfast now,” he said, a little reluctantly. Part of him wanted to just stay here with Max forever.

“Yes, I suppose we should…” It sounded like Max was just as reluctant as he was. The thought sent his heart into loops. It was still hard to believe that Max loved him back, out of all people, out of all possibilities. That was one positive thing in a sea of negativities.

All of a sudden, Max held the sides of his face and pulled him into a kiss – a soft, lingering one, so sweet he was sure his brain was melting, and despite how long it lasted it just wasn’t enough.

“I love you,” Max whispered, before taking his hand and pulling him out of the door and towards the dining hall.

Kim was a little too catatonic to say “I love you too”, so he just let himself be pulled along by his sweetheart, trying not to stare, failing miserably, falling into a hopeless lovesick daze. Drowning in his love for Max was so much more preferable to drowning under an ocean of pressure and responsibilities.

Oh… thank goodness for Max. Thank goodness for all his friends. Maybe, with their help, he really could survive this.