#So now I just have these random ass phrases from Japanese and French [and even some Arabic. but she wasn't as fluent in it]

[littlest-bugz]

My face when the song my mom used to sing to me as a lullaby is actually the saddest fucking break-up/love song

[image does not belong to me. unknown creator]

[victorlimadelta]

// @preuzien​ pokeverse au //

Name: Katherine Ann “Pidge” Holt Age: 17 Gender: Cis female Ethnicity: Italian Sexuality: Bisexual Occupation: Electric Gym Leader of Preuzien Religion: Atheist (raised Catholic) Languages: German (fluent), Italian (fluent), English (fluent), French (conversational), Russian (conversational), Japanese (still picking up, a small amount and written only) FC: Bex Taylor-Klaus as Sin from Green Arrow, except with auburn hair

Notes Her father, Sam Holt, and brother, Matt Holt, were influential Prussian battle scientists, but have been missing for nearly a year now. There was a public press announcement about their deaths, along with the death of one of the region's Gym Leaders for whom they had been working--but that Gym Leader has come back, so where is her family? (Long story short: there was an Incident with a Dialga and they were kind of all set adrift in time, but Takashi Shirogane made it back--her family still hasn't.) She fraudulently enrolled in Trainer School at age eight and a half. Because no one tells Pidge Holt where she can and can't be, where she can and can't go, and who she can or can't impersonate to get what she wants. Her precocity rivals the Champion's own; she was one of the ones watching his lectures when she was his age and laughing along with his jokes. Really, she's uncomfortably like Tobias in a lot of ways, including her similar paranoia, except hers isn't neurotic like his is. She sees it as a practical defense mechanism against an unforgiving and unpredictable world. She got into the habit of making casual dossiers on people she was close to, not because she dislikes them but because she likes to think she knows them and "just in case the worst happens, I want to be prepared."

Gym Pidge's gym is a series of puzzles and endurance challenges. Yes, there's a lot of hurrhurr make the current match, make the polarity match like you find in other regions' Electric-type Gyms, but ramped up to 11. You can and will get electrocuted if you fail some of these timed puzzles. You can and will drop out of her Gym if you don't make it through enough of them in a row. There's quite a few convolutions here, though. The Electric Gym will occasionally have more than one solution to a puzzle, or will have unsolvable puzzles that require alternative 'solutions' to break through to the next challenge. If you're not creative, if you can't think out of the box, if you can't innovate your way out of the situation, you're not going to make it. In addition, as you go, Pidge and her Trainers are creating a dossier on you, of how you work with your team, how you approach each problem and how you choose to solve it. Pidge will occasionally let you go on to the next challenge even if it appears that you failed the previous one. She will occasionally stop you from proceeding even if it looks like you found the correct solution. Even if you make it to her Gym Leader battle, and beat her, she occasionally will not give you her Badge because you didn't do it "the right way." You will bust your brain on her Gym. If it doesn't break you intellectually at least a little bit, it's not doing its job. You cannot brute force this Gym, because so often it appears to be outright random. Speaking of breaking you intellectually: the final 'challenge' of Pidge's Gym is the traditional Milgram Experiment. She was hesitant to include this without feedback from Tobias and Renate, but they've convinced her eventually that this was, maybe not a good idea, but an acceptable one. - For those who don't know the reference at once: the Milgram Experiment involved asking a participant in a psychological experiment to administer an electric shock when someone made a mistake in memorizing and recalling a list of words. The issue here is that the test subject was the administrator, not the recipient. The recipient never received an electric shock, but instead gave audio feedback from the other side of a wall on the supposed pain of the electric shock. The electric shocks were fake, but the doses were calculated to run from annoying to fatal. The actors receiving the shocks were instructed to react accordingly. If any test subject expressed reticence about administering the shocks upon cries of pain from the actors, the person running the test said a phrase similar to 'The test requires that you continue.' Nothing more, nothing less. - This test was designed to tell to what level a human being could attribute their decisionmaking process to a person in authority telling them to do something, and how much responsibility they felt they could absolve if it was no longer up to them to stop. Because the tests were originally conducted in the 1950s at the inception of the Cold War (and also, consequently, after the conclusion of WWII and the revelation of Nazi human experimentation), some of the original “test subjects” were suspicious and apparently threw some of the test results by deliberately being cruel when they figured out it was a farce... it’s an interesting read because of that, because why would you want to throw test results for that. Anyway. - For Pidge, it's also a test of whether you're willing in the first place to administer an electric shock to someone who's done absolutely nothing wrong to you for the sole reason that they've made a mistake on an arbitrary task that has no social or ethical ramifications on whether it's successful or a failure. This is crucial for Preuzien's growth as a country away from what they were and towards what they could be. Strength isn't about using it at every given opportunity, it's about justice in its application. - The only way to ‘pass’ this test is to refuse to participate whatsoever. By the time you've gotten this far, Pidge knows whether it's because you already know what the experiment is, or because you simply refuse to inflict pain on a fellow human being for no reason.

Pokémon This is most of Pidge's battle squad:

Xurkitree

Ability: Beast Boost Notes: Yes, an Ultra Beast. She spent just over a year in Ultra Space hunting down the perfect competitive 'mon, actually; she has almost two and a half boxes full of stat 'fails.' Fun fact, this one knows Power Whip. Have fun with those Ground types you brought to this Gym!

Toxtricity (Low Key) (Gigantamax)

Ability: Punk Rock Notes: Toxtricity is a lot like Pidge: make eye contact and you'll really wish you hadn't. This girl is powerful, can Status your team in two different ways, and has a bad attitude.

Vikavolt

Ability: Levitate Notes: Listen. Vikavolt is a good Poke. It's actually a super strong Bug-type contender and I like alt-types for Gym Leaders to use in their 'single-type' Gyms. Immune to Ground even before Levitate. Again, have fun.

Rotom (nn. "Gremlin")

Ability: Levitate Notes: "It's a gimmick!" You bet your ass it's a gimmick. Pidge keeps making up new little devices for this baby to haunt, too. It's flighty and doesn't like to stay in one device for too long, so you're going to have to deal with some weird STAB changes every few turns. By turn 15, it gains the ability to enter a new device Pidge has invented for it while she's teaching it to Ability Evolve its Levitate to affect her entire team. (The device Levitates her entire team. Including her Toxtricity and her Reuniclus, who are 4x weak to Ground.)

Prussian variant Reuniclus (ace)

Type: Steel/Electric Ability: Infection (evolved Ability from Effect Spore). At the end of each turn, this Pokemon inflicts one of six Status conditions on your Pokemon in sequence. Original Effect Spore has a 10% chance of randomly inflicting Poison, Paralysis, or Sleep on the opponent, a 3.3% chance of each. Infection has a 100% chance to inflict Paralysis on the first turn, Burn on the second, Sleep on the third, Poison on the fourth, Frozen on the fifth, and Infected on the sixth. An Infected Pokemon no longer obeys its Trainer and only obeys Pidge. "That sounds OP!" Preuzien is OP. Also, the style of Preuzien Gym Leader Battles, with its Squad format, really takes the edge off of this Ability whereas it'd be lethal in Singles or Doubles, because the Ability doesn't pick a particular Pokemon to affect, just one of the four opponent Pokemon on the field. That said, you should probably defeat Reuniclus in fewer than six turns so it doesn't cripple your team. Notes: Prussian Solosis (who looks like a little soft wormy boy, sort of like a space caterpillar) was Pidge's first ever Pokemon as a four-year-old child, but he's grown into an absolute monster over the years. Imagine this motherfucker staring you down from the other end of the battlefield. He's terrifying. That's because he looks like a bacteriophage, which is literally a type of virus. (Prussian Duosion looks like an influenza virus, but with arms/hands. If original Reuniclus looks like a bacterial blob, this is just a different form of infective vector.)

[mpregwrites]

Pop That Lock

rated: g/soft t for swearing words: 2302

@soukokuweek​ day one: “trial and error”

--

***

The only thing that kept Chuuya from launching his phone full-force against the nearest wall was the fact that he was a reasonable person who could control his temper when dealing with shithead Dazai and all of his stupid ass shit. Definitely not because he did that exact thing last week and had to make a very embarrassing trip to the service provider with the barely-recognizable smashed remains of an iPhone X that probably deserved better. He refused to go back for at least the next month or they were going to start worrying about him and his tendency to go through thousand dollar phones every couple of months at best.

There was still a pressing matter at hand: Kouyou’s birthday party. He had already requested leave for the rest of the day starting at noon but that didn’t do anything to mitigate the issue of Dazai most definitely showing up just to ruin it, and Kouyou deserved better. In the past year or so he had installed seven more deadbolts on his apartment door and started locking them at random in the vain hopes that it might deter Dazai from just breaking in whenever the hell he felt like it, but Dazai’s lockpicking abilities were second to none in the worst way. He could put up with having his furniture moved two inches to the left but he drew the line at crashing Kouyou’s birthday party.

He tapped his foot quickly on the ground, arms crossed over his chest. There had to be some way to keep Dazai from showing up uninvited and eating all the crab. It was rude to keep excusing himself from the festivities to re-lock the door every couple of minutes, not to mention how fucking annoying that would be. Sometimes it felt like Dazai hadn’t really outgrown all of his 16-year-old mischief.

Regrettably, though, Chuuya was far too mature these days to match all of Dazai’s nonsense blow-for-blow, and he was fresh out of teenagers to ask for tips and tricks. Maybe he could hire one for the night—

He smacked himself in the forehead. The answer was staring him in the face the whole time.

Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he opened his contact list and pressed ‘call’ on Mori’s contact info, not even bothering to hide the mania of the grin cracking across his face as it rang. Gin only raised an eyebrow at him before going back to sharpening her knife with extreme prejudice, because Gin only knew how to do things with extreme prejudice and Chuuya appreciated such an honest and straightforward approach to life.

Finally, Mori answered the phone. “Hello, Chuuya-kun. Did you need something?”

“Apologies for bothering you, Boss,” he replied, bowing slightly even though Mori couldn’t see it. “I have a, uh… peculiar request to make of you pertaining to the festivities tonight.”

“Oh? I’m intrigued.”

Chuuya shifted the phone from one ear to the other so he could grab his wallet out of his pocket and rifle through the bills in the fold. “In the interests of keeping unscrupulous characters from disturbing said festivities, I was wondering if it would be okay for me to borrow a certain asset for the night.”

Mori chuckled, amused. “They’ve been in a bit of a mood lately, you know. Are you sure you can handle that?”

“I’m sure.”

“Alright, then. I leave them in your capable hands.” And with that, Mori hung up, leaving Chuuya with a rising giddiness under his skin that thrummed warmly. Kouyou was going to have a fantastic birthday party because he was finally, finally going to be able to outsmart Dazai after ten years of knowing each other and a lot of mortifying losses taken.

Everything was going perfectly.

***

Q removed one earbud from their ear and looked Chuuya up and down from where they were perched on their bed. “I don’t want to, though.”

So things maybe weren’t going perfectly, but Chuuya wasn’t going to admit defeat to a fucking teenager. He ground his teeth together tightly and counted backwards from ten in Japanese, then French, then Russian, Italian, Spanish, and eventually English before he felt like he could open his mouth without screaming obscenities. “You will notice that it wasn’t a request and I specifically phrased it as such to avoid confusion, Kyuusaku.”

They rolled their eyes and a vein started throbbing in Chuuya’s forehead. After the heavy traumatization they received during the entire Guild bullshit three years prior it had been decided that maybe locking them up like an animal wasn’t exactly welcoming to the development of a healthy mental state, so Chuuya and Kouyou both lobbied for at least humane treatment. They were given their own room and the periodic ability to head out into the dregs of normal society, provided they behaved and were accompanied by several mafiosi.

Unfortunately, this also meant that they had the chance to develop a personality, and mixed in with the dangerous cocktail of hormones running through their pubescent veins, it meant they were kind of a snarky shithead. God, he hated dealing with teenagers.

“What do I even get out of this?” Q asked, reclining back onto their elbows and crossing their legs at their ankles. “It sounds boring with no payoff. No thanks! I’ll just read manga here instead.”

More than he hated dealing with teenagers, he hated dealing with mouthy teenagers with zero work ethic, and—holy fuck, 16-year-old Q was just a repackaged version of Dazai at 15. Chuuya wanted to scream.

“Look,” Chuuya said, trying to level with Q as best as he knew how. “I’ll give you $500 and a PS Vita with three games of your choice if you just sit by the front door and flip locks all night. A monkey could do this.”

“Then hire a monkey to do it.”

“I’m trying.”

Q frowned. “I said it sounds boring and I don’t want to do it. It’s not worth the effort.”

“I’ll give you an extra $100 for every time Dazai gets frustrated and swears.”

They sat up straight, pulling their legs in to sit cross-legged on the bed. “I guess… it doesn’t sound that bad when you put it like that.” Q tapped a finger on their chin thoughtfully, humming a long tone that only got longer the more Chuuya’s foot started involuntarily tapping out of irritation. “Okay, fine. I’ll do it. But I want one of the new Vita models. None of the crappy older ones. And let me use your Amazon Prime account to order figures.”

Chuuya sighed. “Deal.”

***

Dazai whistled a happy little tune to himself as he walked by the doorman and the person manning the front desk of Chuuya’s apartment building, waving at them. They waved back. All was right in the world.

The elevator ride was the longest part of the job every single time he came here, and he was running fashionably late to his already fashionably late lockpicking session. His lockpick set bounced against his leg in his jacket pocket as he shifted from side to side to stretch out his back for the crouching hell he was about to endure. Soon enough, the elevator slowed to a stop, dinged, and the doors opened.

Chuuya’s apartment was more than one apartment. The hat rack decided years ago that one apartment wasn’t enough for him, so he bought half a floor’s worth of apartments and had it remodeled into one massive living space, complete with multiple bedrooms for guests, an entertainment center, a full library, two different kitchens, more bathrooms than any person with one ass could ever need, and several other luxuries he definitely didn’t need. He liked to throw his fancy executive paycheck around as much as he could, and it was kind of cute.

He also refused to give Dazai a spare key to it, not that it ever stopped him. Eating all of his crackers and leaving crumbs on the couch was part of the experience of their relationship, after all.

The party was clearly a rager from what he could hear from behind the closed door. Surveying the eight deadbolts between him and Chuuya’s home cooking and absurdly expensive alcohol collection, he whipped out his lockpicking set and got to work.

The first bolt gave easily, and the next two weren’t locked. The third was, as was the fourth, but the fifth wasn’t set. The sixth and eighth were, the seventh not. It was easy enough to fiddle with the picks to get them open, and all in all it took less than ten minutes to get through all eight. He stood up, brushed himself off, and then grabbed the handle and turned it.

Or, well, he tried turning it. It didn’t budge.

He stared at his hand, still around the doorknob, and said, “What the fuck.”

***

Senbonzakura faded out and Fukagyaku Replace started up, but Q had their other ear trained on the door. Every time they heard a lock click out of place, they would either lock it back up or lock one of the ones that hadn’t been locked. It was mindless work, but at least they were going to get free food out of it once the party was over on top of the other agreed-upon spoils.

They heard Dazai swear again outside the door and added another tally to their list.

***

Three hours of hosting later, Kouyou was pleasantly tipsy and ready to go home. The consensus among the rest of the guests was much the same, and they all thanked Chuuya in turn as he escorted them to the door, undoing all the locks in one swift motion and letting them out. When the last of them had left, he stood in the threshold and looked down.

On the floor outside the apartment, Dazai sat with his knees to his chest and a pout on his face. It was equal parts hilarious and adorable. Chuuya kicked him with the toe of his house slipper. “Get up, asshole. There’s leftovers.”

“I think I’ll just sit out here until I die of starvation instead,” Dazai replied, the pout infecting even his voice. “Since you clearly don’t want me around. This is a pretty cruel method of torture, even for you.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, you were the torture specialist, Demon Prodigy,” Chuuya said back flatly, kicking Dazai again. “Stop pouting and get in here already and fucking eat something. I’ve gotta get Cinderella back before midnight.”

“I don’t want to now. McDonald’s wouldn’t treat me like this.”

Chuuya snorted, leaning back into the apartment to address Q from where they were still sitting on the stool they had been provided at the start of the party, one earbud in as they played Snake on the shitty Nokia flip phone Mori allowed them to have. “Honor system, but how much do I owe you for this one?”

Q pursed their lips and did some quick mental math. “Well, you said $100 every time he swore, so with the $500 you started with… $2000?”

“I’ll make it $3000 because he’s pouting like a goddamn child.” He pulled out his wallet and selected the appropriate amount of cash before handing it to Q. “Go ahead and grab some food before I take you back to headquarters. You’ve earned it.”

Almost immediately after the words came out of Chuuya’s mouth, Q vacated their seat with enviable speed and scurried over to the spread of leftovers on the dining room table, loading a plate up with everything they could see. With that problem out of the way, it was time to get his stupid manchild of an ex-partner to stop throwing a silent fit on the floor outside his apartment.

He put his hand on the top of Dazai’s hair and gave it an affectionate ruffle he would deny until his last breath. “I made crab. Just the way you like it.”

Dazai looked up at Chuuya, the angle accentuating the way his bottom lip was dramatically sticking out. He sniffed. “I guess if you make it up to me with a romantic dinner I can get over the pain you’ve caused my poor heart.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get in here, stupid.”

***

Q stuffed another bread roll into their mouth, glancing back and forth between Chuuya—his mouth so impressively turned down into a frown it was a wonder his lips hadn’t fallen off yet—and Dazai—currently holding his fork so tight it was threatening to bend in his hand—while chewing. They swallowed. “Are you guys gonna eat?”

“You know, Chuuya,” Dazai said, icicles forming on the words, “when I say ‘romantic dinner,’ it usually means just the two of us.”

“I don’t think they could pick up a hint if you dropped it right at their feet and literally fucking pointed at it, Dazai.”

They took another bite of the roll and chewed slower this time, more deliberately. They were pretty sure there was some kind of tension in the room over something, but knowing Dazai and Chuuya it could easily have been over just about anything under the sun. It wasn’t worth worrying about it, not when there was so much food ready to be eaten. And why would they eat in the living room when there was a perfectly good table begging to be dined on?

Chuuya put his face in his hands and sighed deeply. Dazai’s top lip twitched violently.

After about five minutes of that, Q swallowed, drank half a glass of water, and pointed at Dazai’s plate before saying, “Do you want that or not?”

The fork finally gave out.

[adrienaline-rushed-art]

(For the character ask) Adrien Agreste!!

YOU CHOSE MY SON! you’d better prepare your noodles because I’ve got a lot to gush about my favorite boy

Why I like them: From the beginning, he was my very favorite character because he was a weird combination of someone I was close to as well as myself. Although, over time it’s been more and more about relating to him as opposed to seeing someone else in him. At the time that he first became a reminder of someone special, he got me out of a depressive state, and continues to do so!

I love what a genuinely good listener he is. He’s very considerate and respectful, he puts others before himself— though, Ladybug can tell you why that is also a flaw. 

I like to think about the scenes in Horrificator when his classmates kept fighting, but he— one of the leads —didn’t make any input to take sides. Not even for Nino, his best friend! But he did look really upset to see his friends arguing

He’s also very forgiving and patient, I mean… as annoying as Lila can be, he actually tries to understand and help her. And what he said in onichan is implied to be correct based on the beginning of the episode.

He got it on the head, and not only for the sake of excusing bad behavior, he can relate. He knows he’s gone out of line because of his loneliness and abandonment issues. He excused Lila for the same reason in season 1

Defending Lila for lying about her relationship with Ladybug (See ‘Copycat’) 

He definitely understands what’s bad behavior (as opposed to Lila and Chloe, he does remain selfless and kind) and when he doesn’t he gets to use this sympathy as an opportunity for learning. But he also knows a cry for help when he sees one, he doesn’t want anyone to feel the way he does. 

The only real downside is it makes him a doormat for Lila, Chloe, and most importantly his father. But he’s learning and I’m so happy for him. 

he’ll accept a rough relationship for the sake of helping you be better through kindness until it hurts his loved-ones, where he absolutely has to cut you off. That’s one thing he doesn’t relate to or believe in. When he knows he messed up and hurt someone, he didn’t mean it, so he apologizes. 

But you can see in his face that he doesn’t feel good doing it, because although it doesn’t excuse toxicity, he knows that the person’s pain is why they act that way. 

It’s still for his friends more than himself, but I’ll take it for now. The biggest flaw he has is also one of his sweetest traits, believing in the best out of everyone. He’s at least learning that you can’t always assume someone doesn’t mean any harm.

Also:

fcKing suPERB adrien

I also like his sensitivity. He isn’t trying to be the cool and mysterious type, he’s emotional, passionate, and caring. This vulnerability can also be his downfall at times, but he carries his weight and makes himself responsible for his mistakes, so he’s an excellent example to kids. He’s a good boy in a world of romanticized “bad boys”.

Favorite episode (scene if movie): I can’t really say, I’m bad at choosing favorites. Really any scene he’s in— especially as Chat Noir —immediately makes me happy. Scenes of his that are sad or frustrating don’t make me happy in the sense that I like what’s happening, but the rush of emotions I get when I get to watch him interact with other characters and just be.. him… brings a certain type of joy? The fact that when he’s sad, I’m really sad… I don’t know, it’s a nice feeling. Don’t @ me but 2 years ago in my baby project, I named the baby Adrien, because I’ve adopted him and he is my son.

I guess I really like him in riposte? He was very soft in that episode, he was all giggly and blushy. Also, Gigantitan, Chris Master, and Sapotis? He’s so good with kids! Chat Noir got a lot of lines in Silencer (hA) and I thoroughly enjoyed that, he was such a dork. Weredad was just a masterpiece, we got to explore his thoughts toward Marinette too so that was cool. So it really comes down to any episode that he shines the brightest, the more screen time and dialogue the better. I WANT to learn MORE about him.

None of these are favorite episodes of all time I don’t think? It’s just my favorite moments for him I guess. Gigantitan might be a good example for an episode that fits on both lists, though. We saw a lot of different sides to him. We got to see Marinette comfort Chat Noir when he finally admitted his heartache, he finally admitted his frustrations with Gabriel to Nathalie (although she would have known without him saying), and I actually liked seeing Chat Noir’s petty side directed to Ladybug. No, I didn’t like that he was being unfair, but everyone has this type of moment in their life because we’re human, which is why it was SO great to see him like this.

He’s messing up? Fantastic! And it was so intriguing to see how he behaved when he finally snaps, particularly toward Ladybug. We hadn’t seen him lash out toward a friend— let alone a romantic interest —at this point. He really needed to unleash those emotions, and I’m glad he didn’t keep them bottled up any longer. He was having a garbage day to begin with, I wouldn’t be able to stand watching him brush it off.

It wasn’t fair to Ladybug, but it was perfectly fair to himself. Ladybug said she couldn’t hang out because she was with friends, sure! From his perspective, what does that look like? Well, we got to understand it thanks to this episode. Think to what happens to him later in the episode, he’s unable to spend time with his friends. There might be a tinge of jealousy toward that. Or maybe it’s that the phrasing made it sound like Chat Noir wasn’t a friend, which adds up to his relief at the end of the episode when Ladybug calls him a best friend. But also, the excuse wasn’t satisfying to him because clearly, he had intended to put both friends and Ladybug in his schedule, why couldn’t she do the same? I’m not saying this is logical thinking, but it’s interesting to step back and realize that it’s entirely likely he thought this way. And it all makes sense that he cherishes being with her more than any romantic future with her, because the fact he didn’t get angry when he heard about her “boy”, but he did when it came to her friends.

And, a little Ladybug appreciation, she didn’t invalidate those feelings. He’s not allowed to act up and ruin an akuma fight, but he is allowed to feel that way. I mean, it was a little mean to suggest fake dating right after brushing off a real one. But he realized how inappropriate the timing was, and apologized for it. And taking his humility a step further, he went with Ladybug’s original (arguably tortuous) plan, and disciplined himself during it. He didn’t try to take advantage and get all smoochie and cuddly on her. He offered his hand, but she’s the one who came to him and kissed him on the cheek. He let her create the boundaries. Later, he kissed her on the cheek for the first time.

Anyway sorry for that entire essay, but as you can tell I really loved that episode front and back.

Favorite season/movie: I think since we only have two and a half seasons, I can only say season 2 for now. I say season 2 because it’s where we first uncover more of Adrichat, not only to ourselves but to Marinette. He’s been really cute in S3 so far though, so my opinion could always change.

Favorite line: Any of his laughs. Ok fine, an actual line… uhh.. you know what, he’s said a lot of very profound and sweet things… so how about something stupid and random 

“Wanna hear a secret? I love chouquettes.” You sure do, you little dork. 

Favorite outfit: That purple/maroonish and green one on one of his magazine covers. 

OTP: Marichat, always. Ladynoir close second. If we’re talking outside of canon, probs Alyadrien. 

Brotp: Nino, obviously, they’re phenomenal. 

Head Canon: Maybe this is less of a headcanon, and more of an excuse for the writing.. but I don’t think Adrien is that oblivious. But as someone who’s forgiving, it would make sense that he also doesn’t assume things that could hurt them. For one, he denies Marinette likes him simply because she seems to have implied she doesn’t. He takes her word for it. 

Notice that almost every time it comes up, it’s not denying his own feelings, and he’s not even denying the “signs”. He just doesn’t want to put words in her mouth or ruin their friendship by jumping to conclusions that could put distance between them. It makes sense that he would want to protect their friendship because of how they met. 

Unpopular opinion Adrien is not a mary sue. First, I’ve already mentioned plenty of flaws in this post. Having no flaws is one side of a mary sue, the other side is being overpowered. So what if he’s in a bunch of clubs and has essentially mastered all of them. Stress on essentially, so far we know he can play one(1) classical piece on the piano and he messed up on it (it was a small mistake because of skipping practice, but a True™ mary sue wouldn’t have). Also… I’m sure he’s fluent in Chinese and Japanese, but he could be pronouncing better. Actually, that’s unfair, the French dub did pretty well for Japanese pronunciation and everyone knows French is more canon. I don’t know enough about Chinese to judge his pronunciation of it. We don’t know much about his sports except that he’s good at them, but we know Kagami kicks his ass at fencing apparently, so still not overpowered. Anyhow, these are just talents and skills. Not only can anyone learn them with effort (because he isn’t a prodigy at any of them), but it’s realistic that the famous model son of the strict CEO and founder to the prestigious fashion company Gabriel would be forced to have a full tool belt. Not to mention he’s a model in the acting business (Animaestro) actors legit have to know how to do EVERYTHing to even compete with others. None of the above has to do with power though.

  If anything, he’s underpowered. He’s not treated very well for a teammate who isn’t a sidekick. Often his intellect, wisdom, rationale, skills, and agility have been compromised for the sake of making ✦Ladybug✦ look good. Which, is sort of counter-intuitive if you think about it. We know this from the inconsistencies between episodes. One episode he’s decoding morse, giving Ladybug advice, making detailed plans, or showing off his expert-level martial arts… the next he’s… accidentally grabbing an ice cream cone while Cataclysm is activated? hmmm. ALso, as stated before, Adrien’s intelligence is suppressed for the advancement of the plot.

A wish: I want more Ladynoir discussions outside of akuma battles. Regarding things like the Dark Cupid kiss.. there are a lot of things I want them to straighten out and grow on. 

And, I think this is going to happen anyhow… but like,,, he needs to find out about the scarf, I’m sorry. I know it’ll be bittersweet but,,ghhhgk

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen: *INHALES* pleASe, Emilie, be a good person!! ALSo, NO FIGHTS WITH NINO. EVER. 

5 words to best describe them: Patient, dorky, loving, childlike (not childish), brave

My nickname for them: heeheh, it’s my blog name title, Paw Prince.

I wrote you a whole book, my bad. I don’t regret it though. Now you know why it took me so long to answer.

[randommouseclick]

RANDOM LADYBUG/SAILOR MMON CROSSOVER IDEA I JUST HAD:

A few of the Senshi have a nasty accident, and need various treatments due to range of injuries. During the intake on Hotaru, its discovered her bones where her cybernetic implants were previously, has left damage behind: weakened bones, nerve damage of varying degrees, less pliable muscles, faded scarring only noticed with hot/cold/blood loss--and the previous surgeon/doctor who has experience with Hotaru's condition pre-awakening, is in Paris. Luckily for Hotaru, she has distant relatives in Paris who are more than happy to have her stay with them during needed procedures and recovery (which is Kagami, for the sake of this headcannon/idea).

As the procedures begin with her bones, Hotaru is in a wheelchair and often has her right arm in a sling or brace. she tries to be Independent but Kagami is quite "dont be foolish, you have support" and refuses to let Hotaru out of her sight, if her cousin doesn't have someone else with her.

Chloe is in rare form, something happening before meeting Hotaru at school for the first time, and picks on someone's outfit. Hotaru, nearby, rolls over and agrees with Chloe, but not in the way you think:

"Shes right, those colors are horrible on you. Far too yellow for your complexion. Perhaps something with more blue, or red would be best...perhaps even jeweltones..." and that spins the whole situation around. The previous target is stunned but totally stuns Chloe more, by ASKING FOR HER ADVICE of what changes ought to be made.

When all is done, Chloe confronts Hotaru, who admits shes used to personalities like Chloe's (i.e. Yaten in StarS with Michiru's lipstick, for instance) and has no problem understanding what they're actually trying to say, even if they're attempting to take their mood out on someone but unconsciously trying to help ((personal HC for Chloe here, due to her mother not being any form of positive role model)).

So, obviously, Chloe STEALS Hotaru from Kagami (who is not happy, but well, Hotaru always DID have the oddest effect on people...) and Sabrina basically gets backup. Sabrina helps Hotaru while in class, as Hotaru has to catch up as well as translating whatever question Kagami (via approved texting) cant answer, as Hotaru is going from Japanese to English to French, and often gets a bit confused. Talking is fine, reading is a bit better but it takes her a bit when listening, to do a mental 3 step translation.

When a multiple akuma attack forces two schools together, LILA makes a comeback and tries to lie her ass off to Hotaru. The central theme: Lila knows the Sailor Senshi and they ADORE her, Sailor Saturn the most, who thinks of Lila as a big sister. Hotaru, who IS Sailor Saturn, let's Lila dig her own grave, so to speak. She writes notes in Japanese, as to "make sure she understands and can remember what Lila is telling her, b/c French is her third language"...Kagami, who is "assisting her cousin with terms/phrases she 'doesnt' understand too well", sees Hotaru's notes is just COMMENTARY contradicting Lila.

No, shes never been to Japan: half the places Lila claims to have seen, are sacred sites off limits to NATIVE Japanese people, and absolutely BLACKLISTED for outsiders. The other places are being put into wrong cities, geographics with impossible travel times and access routes applied to them. And the shops Lila mentioned: none of the employees speak English, let alone Italian or French, and some have either moved to a different city, or have gone out of business, whether transferring everything to online, or flat out gone.

The only Senshi to have gone to Italy: Haruka and Michiru took Hotaru to Florence as a belated Xmas gift, where Michiru, as Sailor Neptune, was heard by many Pisces in the area, to be swearing at the appeared monster for "ruining her little girl's getaway, how dare they". And NOT Minako nor Usagi.

Mamoru DOESN'T admire her nor does he wish SHE was his Moon Princess.

And Hotaru doesn't EVER use their titles in her notes, but their names. And Kagami doesn't process it until she reads the line "the only one who can say she knows the Senshi so well, and NOT be lying, is YOU."

That's when Kagami makes the connection, stares at her mortified b/c Kagami is a major Sailor Mars fangirl, and has GUSHED to Hotaru about HER COUSIN'S SURROGATE BIG SISTER. And yes, Kagami learns Hotaru has been filling Rei in...Rwi thinks Kagami is adorable and CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR LAST MATCH, KAGAMI-CHAN!

And Chloe TOTALLY has a built in Drama Detector, b/c she sees the cousins interacting silently behind Lila's back, and instantly has that Oooo, Someone Call the Maid--Tea Will Be Spilt!!!

Marinette has been ignoring Lila, for the most part, and is occupied with designing things for Hotaru in the wheelchair, Nathaniel giving tips with Sabrina about what they noticed about Hotaru's everyday.

....and that's all I got for now....

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Fic-Writer / Vid-Maker Meme

Tagged by @educatedinyellow and @gailbsanders, thank you!

Author/Vidder Name: sanguinity

Fandoms You Write For: Lately it’s mostly book!verse Hornblower and ACD!Holmes (although the ACD!Holmes is largely behind the scenes with a long-form WIP that I’ve been focusing on). I also write for assorted small Holmesian fandoms as the whim or prompts take me, and I used to write fairly prolifically for Elementary, before that show wore me into the ground with how persistently they don’t care about Joan Watson. I’ve written a fair bit of Strange Empire, some Doctor Who / Torchwood, and quite a few one-offs in random fandoms, from the Oz books to Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles.

Fandoms I Vid For: Mostly one-offs or small batches that overlap with the fandoms I write for: Holmesian multiverse, Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles, plus a number of rarer Festivids-qualifying fandoms like The Middleman or Noah’s Arc. 

Where You Post Fic: Most of it is on AO3, excepting some three-sentence and five-sentence fics that I’ve never collected. 

Where You Post Vids: Variously Vimeo, YouTube, and DailyMotion, depending on who threw a fit about what copyrighted music the week I posted it, but all my vids are listed at AO3.

Most Popular One-Shot: “The Sincerity of Dust,” a BBC Sherlock Mystrade flash-fic I banged out one morning and which then went on to eat Cleveland. It has 1400 kudos and is working on 14,000 hits. Its nearest rival is “Score: Q to 12,″ an Elementary flash-fic featuring Sherlock and Joan playing Calvinscrabble, which performed modestly on AO3 but cleaned up on tumblr to the tune of 1700 notes.

Most Popular Multi-Chapter Story: “Holocene Park,” an Elementary case fic featuring dinosaurs under the streets of New York City. If I’m remembered in the Elementary fandom for anything, it’s probably for this or Calvinscrabble.

Most Popular Vid: “Something Good (Will Come From That),” my Holmes/Watson multiverse vid. It has 10K plays, the AO3 page has 2.5K hits, and the tumblr page has almost 800 notes. It escaped my corner of pseudonym-based AO3-centric fandom and has made the rounds of the Sherlockian scions on Facebook, as well as being rec’d on non-fannish websites in French, German, and Japanese. For a little while there it was making me anxious with how popular it got -- at the height of its popularity, I was worrying my mom was going to email it to me. After it hit it big I almost completely stopped making things for a while, because I was pretty sure that nothing else I made would be even half that good ever again. Happily, that turned out to be a stupid reason to not make things, and so I started making things again.

Favorite Story You Wrote/Vid You Made: Yeah, sorry, no, my brain burns out on “favorite” questions, especially ones that have no criteria. I’ll just refer you to my Fic/Vid Speed-Dating Score Card, which can be construed as a list of my favorite works on various axes, and is still fairly accurate despite being a year old. (Scariest nowadays is probably “Tea for Two,” a Moriarty-centric story from this last round of Holmestice.)

Story You Were Nervous to Post: “Any Service Required,” which is dark Bush/Hornblower porn. I always feel hideously exposed when publishing porn -- I’m nervous about posting it even in the best of cases. But what with this being dark-fic, I was half-expecting the self-appointed morals police who get prescriptive about “healthy” relationships to show up and make a stink. Or along similar lines, I was fearing that followers who are used to a certain kind of thing from me will look at this one, think it base trash, and lose respect for me over it. I’m happy to say that nothing like that has happened so far, and while readership has been light, I’m fine with that: I’d rather a story have a small readership who is genuinely into it than a large readership who isn’t, and I’d like to believe that this story’s small readership is mostly due to people taking a look at the tags and making good decisions about the kind of thing they enjoy reading. 

How Do You Choose Your Titles: BY ANY MEANS I CAN MAKE WORK. My preference is to grab a meaningful phrase from the text, but I’ll also use quotes and popular phrases, sometimes straight-up and sometimes with a twist, if it seems a decent fit for the story. Ideally, a title will speak to some deeper truth about the story, but when push comes to shove, I’ll settle for a title that is short, clean, and memorable: basically, anything that I and others can remember without having to look it up all the damn time. (This is my main problem with people using lines of poetry or song lyrics as titles: they tend to register in my brain as generic word salad, and in many cases I couldn’t say without looking it up what the title actually was, let alone what it had to do with the story.)

Do You Outline: For long or complex stories, sure, yes. If there are many scenes or multiple chapters, I tend to jot down a few lines listing out the succession of scenes or chapters; for “The Next World,” whose main body is a long and rambly conversation, I had an outline that listed out every twist and turn of that convo. The outline for “Langstroth on Bees” (WIP, currently 58K) is a monster of a thing, listing out the internal timeline (five years of current action plus another ten of backstory), various promises I’ve made that I need to deliver on, assorted events that I want to remember to include, and rough ideas about where chapter breaks should maybe fall. Given that I’ve been working on that story for five years now, often with breaks from it of nearly a year, that outline has saved my ass. I guarantee you that without it, I would have picked up this story at some point, tried to remember where I was going with it, come up with nothing much, and shelved it permanently. If anything, I really should outline more often -- I have a few long-standing drafts in my WIP folder that I just... don’t remember where I was going with that. I remember that I did have a destination in mind, yes, but what exactly? WHO KNOWS. Btw, my outlines are living documents -- I revise them often, as my understanding of the story develops. In fact, revising the outline is one of many tools for understanding where a story is going and what is still needed to bring it together.

How many of your fanworks are…

Complete: 92 stories or story collections (I have a few AO3 “stories” that are actually collected ficlets from tumblr or Sherlock60), and 26 vids and vidlets, 

In-Progress: Nothing published to AO3 -- it makes me crazy to have a partially-published WIP. My drafts folder has 36 partially completed stories in it, and there are probably a half-dozen vids that I started but haven’t finished.

Coming Soon: Four? For various values of “coming soon.” I have two Hornblower stories that are mostly done (one for the Tegmore verse and another for the Kraken verse), and I’ve been working steadily on “Langstroth on Bees” in the hopes that I’ll finish it this year. And I’m signed up for Remix Revival -- whatever I do for that will probably be the very-most-next thing.

Do You Accept Prompts: Yes! Although I have only a 1/3 to 1/2 completion rate on prompts -- I do hope that no one minds that too terribly! But I’ll actively solicit prompts from time to time -- to celebrate something, or if I’m having a shit day and want to turn it around -- and some of my best stuff has come from prompts people have given me. I never ever guarantee filling them (see my above mentioned completion rate), but if someone wants to prompt me something, my ask box is open. Even if the prompt never gets filled, I still get a warm flutter of “They want to play with me!” from it.

Upcoming Story You Are Most Excited to Write: “Langstroth on Bees,” a 58K-and-counting Holmes/Watson retirement fic that I’ve been working for five years. I added a solid 13K to it this month, and have maybe 20K left to go -- I’m hope-hope-hoping to have it done this year. But I’ve gotten far enough into it that “Langstroth” has finally begun overlapping the territory covered in “From Allegany,” and by the end of this chapter I’ll have passed it entirely. Then I’ll be in unwritten territory, wheee! (Speaking of titles, I never really intended to call this thing “Langstroth on Bees” -- that’s just a working title for my drafts folder. But enough of you now know it by that name that I think I’m going to have to stick with it? So I’m desperately trying to figure out how to justify it. ONE OF MANY THINGS TO DO IN THIS DRAFT.)

Tag Five Fanfic Authors to Answer These Questions As Well: @beanarie @quipxotic @phoenixfalls @xserpx @amindamazed And of course anyone else who wants to play!

[liminalweirdo]

Tagged by: @someweirdnerdwithglasses

(I almost never get these! Thank you!)

Rules: Tag nine people you want to get to know better.

Appearance:

I have brown hair and eyes that everyone insists are blue (because they used to be) but are now mostly grey. I am white and 158 cm. One of my favourite things about my appearance is my hands. I think hands tell a lot about someone, and reflect how they live their life. My hands are small, and they are often dry or cracked, especially in winter, because of cold and over-washing. My nails are usually short and uneven. I have many many ear piercings which are beautiful and unfortunately going to waste here in Japan where I am not supposed to wear them to work.

Personality:

The words I often get are funny, nice, patient. I am patient (thanks mostly to raising animals), but my humour is not for everyone. I get really passionate about things really fast. Some people find me really intense (I think those people often can’t tell anger from debate). That being said, I don’t like debating for the sake of debating, but rather want to know, deeply what other people think and have them understand what I think. I can be friendly, even chatty, but I prefer to keep to myself. I get overwhelmed real fast with being extroverted. There are only a handful of people in this world I can spend all my time with without desperately needing a break. I have an obsessive personality when it comes to certain things. I love cats.

 Ability:

I read and write every day, and have for many years. I’ve based my life around learning and reading and writing, so I think I can write well -- you get good at anything you do every day, but I always want to be improving. In university, I got comments from professors on my papers that said things like “Your paragraphs could use some work, but somehow, this is quite readable.” A compliment of the highest order, I am sorry about my paragraphs. I have also been professionally trained in theatre so... there’s that. But I haven’t done theatre for almost six years.

 Hobbies:

I write, I read, I research. I used to do a lot more photography and I still enjoy it, and although I have a camera, these days I’ve just been taking pictures with my phone (slacker). I like learning new languages, I can speak French and German, and I’m currently working on Japanese, because I live here (but the novelty has worn off), and Mandarin Chinese, because I love it. Yeahhhh gimmie those TONES!

 Experiences:

I’ve moved to Japan -- one of the biggest and scariest decisions of my life. I’ve gotten married -- a Good Decision. I’m planning a roadtrip across America -- to find ghosts.

My life:

I live in Japan. Sometimes it’s hard. Culture shock is tough. I’m currently dragging myself out of the hole, but it’s slow going. We miss our family, we miss our cats. Winter is long and cold and damp. We have mold in our apartment because Japanese houses are not insulated and water gets in CONSTANTLY. I love the kids I work with, they are so fucking cute and hilarious and hard-working, I really hope I can get my ass in gear and learn Japanese better... I write a lot. Writing has become my refuge. All y’all reading my stories on ao3 are my SAVING GRACE. Also, I’ve discovered baths and it’s been one of the best New Experiences of my life. (I’m easily impressed by simple things).

Random stuff:

I’m a Ravenclaw, I was born in the summer, my MBTI type is INFJ. I am closer to thirty than twenty, I have finally realized that becoming a responsible adult does not mean “growing up”. I’ve worked in bookstores for ten years. I have also quite recently (finally) acknowledge that I am not cisgendered, but whatever pronouns you want to use are probably fine, as long as they come from a good/honest place. I am bisexual af. I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and it does not mean that I double check my oven is off or that my coloured pencils are lined up just so, and I advise anyone that’s confused or who has ever uttered the phrase “I’m so OCD” because of a personal quirk to go and read this article and educate yourselves. Seriously. I love horror films, BuzzFeed Unsolved is pretty much my life right now. My dream job is to do reading and writing based research because I’m introverted, but currently I’m teaching English, and it requires all the extroversion I have for probably the next five years.

Tagging @marliekoore @sixseeded @bybytte​ @leplusgrandsacdespetitspois​

I literally do not know nine people on this website. If you follow me/I follow you and you want to do this, please go ahead and tag me so I can see it!

[grayzaweek]

Prompt 1: Koi no Yokan

Written by: @born-potty

A/N: I had to. Hope you enjoy.

All of his life, Gray had struggled against the notion of Fate. Or Destiny. Or any crap like that. Like Keanu Reeves in The Matrix. I still needta watch John Wick 2. Dammit.

Loke had been unable to stop gushing about it. Apparently the sequel had outdone the original. He had his doubts, though. The first one had been really good, but sequels tended to not live up to the originals. Not all the time anyway.

Gray loosened his tie and yawned. It was the wrong time to do so since the train came to a lurching halt. Gulping down the yawn, he immediately reached up and grabbed the overhead handle to stop himself from slamming into other people in the already crowded train.

But it didn’t stop someone else from crashing into him.

The evening rush hour was always worse than the morning. On their way to work, people smelled so nice and fresh. On their way back, they smelled of defeat and sweat and disappointment. Nobody had a single damn to give anymore, so Gray expected people to bump into him.

He honestly never expected a cute redhead to bump into him.

The woman placed both of her palms on his chest to stop herself from hugging him. With one hand holding the handle and the other guarding his wallet, Gray had no means to push her away or even stabilise her. Not that she needed it, of course. No sooner had the train halted that she’d straightened with a muttered apology, brushing away the few stray strands of crimson hair which had come loose from her ponytail and tucking them behind her ear.

Is this the gods’ way of making it up to me after I attended an all-boy’s highschool?

She wore a business suit, the top two buttons of her white dress shirt now open. Her bangs were clipped to the right side of her head, and brown eyes now downcast behind her glasses.

Gray smiled. He knew he was about to say something very weird. The stars had aligned to make him bump into someone who wasn’t a hairy, overweight man with a dandruff problem. No way in hell could his poor social skills not muck this up.

“I see you just fell for me.”

She looked up. The doors of the train closed and it started moving again. Gray gulped. With the doors, his opportunity of hightailing it had also just closed.

I should not be allowed to talk to people.

“I beg your pardon, but I fell on you. There is a difference.”

There was an edge of sarcasm to her voice, but she mostly just sounded tired. Gray was happy that she hadn’t kneed him in the nuts. Anything he got was better than what he’d anticipated.

“Right. Of course. Sorry,” he said quickly and turned towards the window. What was I thinking about again? I lost my train of thought on a train. Ahh, I crack myself up.

He watched the lights flash by outside as evening settled over the city. The voice-lady announced the next stop and he sighed. His stop was still a long way off. About a half hour more of dangling. Just what he needed.

“Thank you, though.”

Wait, what? He blinked down at the redhead, who offered a small smile. “For holding me. Thank you.”

“I, uh, I didn’t-”

“I know. But you were more gracious than the others.”

You say that like you’re a connoisseur of bumping into people or something.

“Yes, well, neither do people greet each other with lame puns.”

“Yet you did.”

“What can I say?” Gray shrugged nonchalantly. “I felt something was missing in my life, so I took a course in weirdness after highschool.”

That made her grin. “It seems to have served you well.”

He couldn’t help his chuckle. “You’re the first one to say that to me, Miss.”

“Aren’t you lucky, then?”

“Very. I would shuffle my feet like a country bumpkin, but as you can see, I’m a bit short on space at the moment.”

Bringing up a hand to cover her mouth, she laughed. Gray liked the sound of that. It was nice. Soft and sonorous. Like church bells ringing on a lazy summer afternoon. Wait, no, too poetic.

The train-voice announced the oncoming station and Gray let go of the handle. “You hold it.”

She looked hesitant. “Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure. I’m used to it.”

And he was. When the train slowed down, Gray leant forward on the balls of his feet, against the momentum, and lowered himself down on his heels when the train stopped. The woman had taken his hanging handle with a grateful smile.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it.”

As people disembarked, he looked around for empty seats but frowned upon not finding any. The train started again and he leant back against the momentum this time. Like a pro, Fullbuster. Full points.

“I’m Erza, by the way. Erza Scarlet.” She must’ve seen his grin, because she rolled her eyes. “Yes, like my hair.”

Still smiling, he said, “Gray Fullbuster. Gray… like my life, I guess.”

The corners of her lips twitched, but she fought back the smile. “Fullbuster? That’s… odd.”

“I know. Evidently, when I get busted, it’s always in full. No half-assing.” He sighed dramatically. “Such is my lamentable legacy.”

“But hey, if you get busted a lot, you cannot say your life is gray.”

“Ah, but I don’t. I always get away with it. I’m just that good.” He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and put in his breast pocket. “But I’m thinking I might start a law firm or a private investation agency.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Scarlet and Gray, Discreet Investigations. I can see it now. It’d be pretty colourful.”

“Heh. Thank you for putting me first.”

“I’m a gentleman at heart, you know.”

“Oh? I see chivalry is not as dead as I thought.”

He smiled at that. “You know the chivalric code started out as a treatise on how to kill people, right?”

“Do you mean how the chivalry is derived from the Old French chevalerie horse-soldiery and was translated as cavalry in later times?” She tilted her head and smiled brightly. “Why no, Gray, I did not know that.”

Gray nodded, impressed. “Well, ya know what they say. Right action is better than knowledge; but in order to do what is right, we must know what is right.”

Her eyes sparkled as he said it. “Would that I had twelve clerks so learned in all wisdom and so perfectly trained as is Gray Fullbuster.”

He laughed aloud. “The Maker of heaven and earth has not many like to that man and do you expect to have twelve?”

“Why Gray,” she said with a smirk, “I do believe you just became my new favourite person.”

“What, I can just become your favourite person by quoting some Charlemagne?” He tutted. “You have low standards, Erza.”

They went back and forth like that for a time, their topics ranging from Beowulf (“Talk about plot armour, huh?”), to the Ramayana (“He knew how to uphold what was right, King Rama.”), to the Trojan War (“Pshh. Helen. What a bitch.”), to Troy (“It is unfortunate how Heinrich Schliemann destroyed what he was looking for. Imagine excavating Troy with today’s technology!”), to the German school of fencing (“Liechtenauer’s still pretty easy, though.”) and finally to medieval Italian armour.

“I rather like it,” Erza stated.

“Better than the German version?”

“Gothic armour is beautiful, but there is just something about the asymmetrical pauldrons of Italian armour that just speaks to me.”

“Fair enough.” Gray listened to the train-lady call out the name of his approaching stop. He smiled. “Well, that’s my stop coming up.”

Erza nodded. “I see. It was good talking to you, Gray.”

“Likewise.” He felt the train starting to slow down. “Listen, I know this is random and weird, but could I ask for your number? It’s not every day that I meet someone who speaks my language.”

She smiled mischievously. “Are you lowering your standards, Gray?”

“Hey, I have no dignity.”

“I leave it to Fate. If we are meant to meet again, we shall.” The train stopped. “Go. You’ll miss your stop.”

Gray didn’t believe in Fate. Or Destiny. Or any of that crap. Like Aaron Eckhart in The Dark Knight. He liked to make his own luck.

He remembered how Ultear had written to him from Japan that very morning saying that she’d met some guy with a tattoo on his face and they’d been going out. Said that she’d felt something hit her in the feels when they’d first met. Said it was what J. K. Rowling felt when she’d first conceptualised Harry Potter on that damn train ride.

It’s this incredibly elated feeling you get when you’ve just met someone with whom you might eventually fall in love with, she’d written. The Japanese have a phrase for that, you know. Koi no Yokan. Not exactly Fate or Destiny. But Inevitability, I suppose. Hitsuzen, if you remember Cardcaptor Sakura.

That damn cousin of his would never let him live down the fact that he’d watched – and enjoyed – what was essentially a girl’s show.

Gray didn’t claim to understand all that Japanese jiggery-pokery, but he thought that it was what he felt as he stared at the smiling redhead before him. As if he’d met someone wonderful and they were about to embark on some wondrous affair. A kind of excitement and light-headedness that he couldn’t quite decipher.

While he didn’t believe in the Fate crap, this Koi no Yokan business didn’t sound all that bad.

So Gray smiled back at Erza as the doors closed and the train lurched forward.

“Y’know what,” he said and brought out his phone. “It’s not my stop after all. Now, how about that number?”