#and like by style I mean the annoying things about it like how she describe clothes they are wearing down to the brands

[gigantomachylesbian]

Guys. I did not know before now that writing could be painfully millennial in a full prose book but the pho*nix ke*per has proven me wrong and I have to complain about it in the tags

[igotanidea]

Promotion: Dick Grayson x reader

Request: Established relationship, reader starts calling Dick bestie. At first he thinks it's cute, then gets a little annoyed, then goes semi-hysterical, questioning the whole relationship. As they clear the thing out, he uses it as an excuse to propose.

****

“How’s my bestie doing?” Y/N’s voice came from the side of the door, the use of words so surprising that Dick raised his head from the phone, giving her a little frown.

“Bestie?” he grinned. “Is that what I am to you now?”

“Shall I remind you that we started as friends?” she teased, leaning to peck his cheek.

“Never heard you call me like that when we were friends though.”

“Well, I figured—”

“You figured that after two years of living together and seeing each other in pajamas – or without them-“ he smirked mischievously – “I finally deserve the term, huh?”

“What can I say? You’ve been promoted on my list.”

“Promo- wait, hold that thought. So I wasn’t on top? So I am not on top?”

“Well-“ Y/N started, getting the idea where Dick might be going with this.

“cause I can show that I’m the only one who can be on top.” He muttered and did exactly what Y/N thought he would do.

Not that she complained.

***

It was so cute and sweet and heartwarming and nice.

Being called her bestie.

Though it was a little surprising to be called like that after so much time together and getting used to boyfriend, honey, baby and babe, Y/N was still Dick’s princess and she could call him everything she liked and he would love it as well.

Best example being them going out with Dick’s friends.

“Hey bestie, you ready to go out? Wally keeps blowing off my phone, calling me out on us being late! Can you imagine!? Freaking speedsters, judging everyone by their own lights.” She muttered, fixing her clothes in front of the mirror, being picky with it, as always.

“I guess some people never change even when they travel back and forth in time.” Dick laughed. “Don’t worry about him, gorgeous. We can be as late as we want if that means you'll have the perfect  outfit.”

“Well I was thinking we could match and—WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?” her laughter echoed in the bedroom as she took in the shirt her boyfriend put on.

“Do you like it? It’s custom made, especially for you. And maybe a little to celebrate my promotion, as you called it.”

Y/N was laughing so hard that tears started running down her cheeks, clutching her stomach and unable to tear the gaze from Dick’s shirt proudly announcing he was "Y/n’s bestie" in big thick pink letters.

“I know, I know, it’s amazing and you have no words to describe your gratitude at my thoughtfulness.”

“That’s one way to describe it—”

“And speaking about that matching …” Dick reached to the wardrobe, getting a little parcel and handing it to her.

“What is that?”

“Open up and see for yourself.” He grinned, observing carefully as she unwrapped the paper, retrieving the same style shirt with the only difference being the inscription.

“I’m Y/N.” she read, chuckling at Dick’s antics. “Are you sure about this?”

“Of course I’m sure. I want the whole world to know I am now officially your bestie and no one can even come close to claiming that title and be close to you.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Isn’t that why you love me? Amongst other reasons obviously. I mean, I am handsome and smart and 10/10 and—. Hey, Y/N, where are you going, I’m not done counting!”

“I’m changing and we’re leaving before you start inventing words to describe yourself. And before your superfriends decide to put their skills to use.”

“You know I’ll always protect you right? I am your bestie after all.”

***

It was so cute and sweet and –

A little annoying.

Like that one time at the gala when she was simply beaming amongst all those high-class-big-fish full of themselves. There was no way to deny Y/N was the most beautiful of all the women, and no fancy dress or expensive make up could change that. Dick had eyes only for her, becoming overly protective, gritting teeth and throwing daggers at every guy who dared to ask her to dance.

They weren’t a competition to him, but the male ego and pride was taking control of situations that involved another male putting hands on his girl, even if only in a dance.

And sometimes, a little marking territory was absolutely necessary.

Even if subconsciously she was doing everything to make his efforts go to waste.

At the moment he was observing Y/N conversing with some guests who – for once – happened to be around her age, giggling and acting like only young women can and are allowed to. And her having fun was fine, but the second young men started joining it, Dick had to chime in.

“Y/n.” he came closer, wrapping arm around her waist and kissing her temple, taking in the company.

“Oh, hello Dick. I’m not sure if you’ve met –“

“Caitlin and Sarah Mendoza.” Dick smiled brightly welcoming the young girls so cordially, that for a change Y/N felt a little insecure. “We haven’t had the pleasure of meeting in person but-“

“We’ve heard about you, Mr. Grayson” Sarah reciprocated his smile

“All good things I hope?”

“Of course! Everyone speaks so highly of you and—”

“Especially Y/N here. She said you were her bestie?” a male voice, of a guy that Dick did not recognize cut the sentence in half, causing a bit of confusion on his part.

“I’m sorry, who may you be?” Dick smiled with jaw clenched so hard, it almost hurt.

“Dick, this is-“ Y/N started, blushing a little from embarrassment.

“Colin Crawford. We’ve been friends with Y/N since the first grade. Though she never referred to me as a bestie.” He smirked as if sensing what emotions he was stirring in Dick. Getting enough evidence in the form of visible tightening of the grip on Y/N’s waist and even more blinding smile, becoming a little predatory.

“Well, technically we were friends in second grade—"

“That’s amazing, but I suppose I am the special one to you, right honey?” Dick cut her off, without caring about her correction of facts.  

“Of course. I mean you are –” Y/N started again, but there was no chance for her to mitigate the obvious cockfight already going on.

“Cause you see, Colin, I am not just her bestie.” Dick gritted, though the smile did not falter for even a single second and only the look in his eyes showed the annoyance at the other guy’s impertinence. “I am her boyfriend.”

“Oh, I see.” Colin took a sip of his drink, completely unmoved.

“Everyone sees.” Y/N felt herself being pulled closer to Dick’s side as a sealing of his words. “Because we are an inseparable couple, aren’t we, love?”

“We are.” She cut the sentence short to get as little as a chance to actually finish it without interruptions.

“Why don’t we go dance, baby? I do want to keep you close to me, you know.”

They spend the rest of the night, dancing, and making sure that every guy in the party saw Dick’s hands on Y/n’s waist or arm or around her shoulders or their fingers interlaced.

And for the first time, Dick found himself annoyed at the term of endearment, that was so cute and sweet and heartwarming and nice.

***

It’s been almost two months since the first time she gave him the nickname.

And he was freaking out.

Becoming almost sure she didn’t love him anymore.

That she didn’t want him anymore.

And he was trying so hard.

Buying her flowers to check her reaction.

Bringing home her favorite takeout.

Watching her movies and TV shows with her.

Giving her his time and love and affection and devotion.

And she just stopped loving him? Just like that?

But why? Why? WHY?!

What could he possibly do wrong?

He was her bestie and it made him feel like crying, ripping his hair out, and drinking a poison at the same time.

Funny how the tables have turned since the beginning.

He was now sitting in their living room, watching the pictures of them together in different locations.

Fairground. Kissing at the top of the Ferris wheel.

Holiday. With her hair being a mess from the wind and allergy dots on his face.

At the local café with a milky froth over her lip.

At the gala with them dancing and looking into each other’s eyes. So in love.

And now it was all gone.

Now he was reduced to the form of her bestie.

Despite himself, a few tears started running down his cheeks and in his desperate state of mind he couldn’t even wipe them off. He was alone after all,  no one cared whether he was sad, lonely, bleeding out from the unhappy love and broken heart, losing hope for any change of happiness or-

“Dick, what is wrong?” a warmth spread in his side and it took him a moment to realize that it was Y/N, snuggling into him and wrapping arms around him, trying her best to comfort him in whatever turmoil he was going through. “You can tell me. Or not. But I’m here if—”

“Why don’t you love me anymore?” he asked, his voice breaking a little.

“Wh-what are you --?”

“You keep calling me bestie!” he cried out

“But-“

“You’ve been calling me bestie for like two months now!” he jumped off the couch, starting to pace around the room nervously “it can only mean that you don’t love me anymore!”

“Dick, listen I –”

“Yes, I know, you still kiss me and we are intimate, but maybe it’s just a friends-with-benefits situationship for you?”

“Now that is simply offensive-“

“Is our relationship even real for you anymore? Was it ever real? Maybe we had a different approach to it from the very beginning and I was delusional?”

“How can you even assume-?” she clenched her fists at the accusation, but he barely noticed her vexation.

“I was so stupid, I should have known from the start that a girl like you could never be with a man like me! You want someone who will cherish you and love you and do everything for you and what I had to offer was just not enough!” Dick started to become a little dramatic, acting like he was preparing for a role in a Brazilian soap opera or Shakespeare play, throwing his hands around, spinning on his heels, and touching his forehead and heart. “Oh, Y/N, I am sorry, I could not give you more, but why… WHY DID YOU STOP LOVING ME?! AND WHEN DID IT HAPPEN!? WHAT DID I DO WRONG?!” he fell to her feet, embracing her calves.

“Dick-“ she stuttered, not sure how to calm him in this state. “I’m not—”

“Just tell me the truth my love—” he whispered, raising his glassy eyes onto her.

“I never—”

“YOU NEVER LOVED ME!” he exclaimed, getting even more dramatic.

“I NEVER STOPPED LOVING YOU!”

“Wh-what?”

“When did you even get that silly idea? Who put it into your head? Was it Wally? Jason?”

“n-no.”

“Then who?!” now she was the one getting angry “give me a name and I will-“

“You started calling me bestie.” He explained.

“Yes. And?”

“And I thought we were drifting apart?”

“But- but you liked it. I mean – you got a shirt with that term on it, remember?”

“Well, I don’t like it anymore.” He muttered, pouting like a five year old.

“So you want me to stop?” she smiled in amusement at his behavior.

“YES!”

“Then why didn’t you just tell me? You really thought it was easier to develop a whole theory on a single word?”

He didn’t have any response to that, which only confirmed her conviction that she was right.

“Ok, then, so how do you want me to call you?”

“Your boyfriend, your love, your beloved or honey or sweetheart or –“

“Okay.” She smiled

“Or your husband.”

What?

“Husband?” she repeated with her voice shaky a little “but we are not-“

“But we can be-“ he kneeled in front of her, reaching for her shaking hands. “Y/N Y/L/N-“

“Dick, this is not funny—”

“Good. Because I am most definitely not joking now. Y/N Y/L/N.” their eyes met, conveying pure honesty and love he held for her “will you do me the honor-“

“Of not calling you my bestie?” he chuckled, the tension of the moment making her act like a goof.

“Will you let me finish a sentence?” he laughed and she nodded “Will you make me the happiest man on earth and marry me?”

“Yes.” She sobbed from all the emotions.

“Yes?!”

“YES!”

“Oh my god!” he jumped from the ground, taking her into his embrace, holding tight and spinning around “SHE SAID YES!!”

“I SAID YES!”

“WE’RE GETTING MARRIED!” he exclaimed for one more time before putting her on the ground and kissing deeply for the longest time, suddenly not needing any air to breathe.

“You’re gonna have to get us new tailor-made shirts.” She chuckled, cupping both his cheeks and locking her gaze with his.

“Mr and Mrs Grayson, absolutely.” He nodded. “But I’m not only getting us shirts, honey. From now on all your belongings are going to have a monogram. Cause now? Now I feel like I truly got promoted and everyone’s gonna know it.”

[catras-breakup-song]

i’m not gonna lie… i’m lost here. is this supposed to be an 4nt1/cr1t1c4l post? if so, i genuinely don’t understand the point being made.

is it that playful banter is a bad thing? is it that being too hands-on violates unspoken boundaries? the message is so unclear to my autistic ass…

oh, wait, OP provided tags:

so aside from the fact that they are absolutely not sisters by default, least of all canonically (even if you do interpret them that way somehow), nor was it ever intended by nate stevenson, i’m still having trouble figuring out how this is problematic.

in which ways is lighthearted touch totally contradictory to passionate kissing/caressing? why can’t partners who are dating do both, especially in different cultural environments such as the horde where intimacy is discouraged and friendly sparring with familiar peers is a safe expression? if it’s so different, what are we as the audience supposed to interpret from their style of physical affection by the final season? side note, but aren’t we supposed to consider the latest version of anything in general as the most accurate?

now i have a question lol, did you take this moment literally at her word, and all the other times she repeated it?

also, my friend just pointed out that this is the classic homophobic talking point of "they seem to just be very good friends! they were roommates!" lmao. i've never agreed with accusing anyone who cr1t1c1z3s catradora of lesbophobia, which i'm not doing necessarily, because that's simply not how it works, however i found this funny and partially true so i'm keeping it in.

the lip bite was included unintentionally 👀

anyway, as i’ve discussed on this blog before, i’m very arospec and it’s inseparably intwined with my identity itself; i also project that onto catra. something we often bring up in that community, is romance-favorability (as its own spectrum of range all the way to blatant repulsion btw) — which is a personal preference that’s defined as exactly as it sounds like and occasionally revolves around fictional depiction as separate from one's own reality — and arguably more importantly, amatonormativity — which is an arbitrary set of rules for romantic expectations set up by an alloromantic society. this is typically thought of as common denial of the idea that someone could actually want to separate themself from needing a life partner in marriage, but can very much be applied to an annoying list of what draws the line between romantic & platonic relationships. that line is very individualistic and is to be decided on such a level only, and it doesn’t even get into what queerplatonic means, a concept saved for another day!

my point is, the OP seems to be trying to claim that catradora objectively cannot be read as romantic because their dynamic growing up & early-on in the story doesn’t perfectly meet socially-constructed standards of what that should look like. i say we need to eradicate those standards altogether! it’s up to catradora to decide what they are, if anything specific at all, not us as the audience — assuming they could’ve had the words at their disposal to knowingly describe it. going back to my earlier paragraph above about how limited they were in the fright zone, i’ll borrow a quote from a comment i made on one of my recent reblogged posts (which is a great meta on how their mutual desire was uh... definitely not platonic):

"Catra and Adora’s desire for one another is shown in a variety of ways, mostly indirect. There are a lot of glances - until season 5, not the kind of open leering at one another that we’d seen between other characters. Mostly it’s fairly playful - wiggled or cocked eyebrows, glances at each other while smirking, that kind of thing, or really intense and somewhat angry glares when they’re fighting."

it's really bothering me that i can't recall where i read this from before, but someone analyzed before how, growing up, catra & adora didn't have a good sense of how to label their relationship with accurate terminology despite being subconsciously aware that they, whether they knew the other reciprocated or not, loved each other "like that." unfortunately, they couldn't further explore it because such love & affection was seen as a punishable weakness in the horde, so they resorted to the only safe option they seemed to have, which was subtle body language and play-fighting as [testudoaubrei-blog] described above.

also, since this screenshot is included in that post... i would be amused to read an explanation of how THIS LOOK from catra is "platonic with a capital P", because i'm not even sure if it's up for debate to be quite honest with you:

ESPECIALLY with the "i always have!" line (which 4nt1s like to doubt, but i don't care, it's official!):

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for making my sister change before we went to our cousin’s wedding?

Right, so I (25f) am currently guardian for my sister (16f) because her school is nearer where I live than our parents. She lives with me, sees our parents at weekends/holidays and stuff. My parents pay me rent for her staying here, covering living expenses and stuff. So, my sister and I have a bit more of a parental figure/child relationship than a normal sibling one. We’re chill most of the time, but she’s really annoyed with me over this, and I’m questioning whether I did the right thing.

So, our cousin (31m) was getting married last month, and he and his new husband wanted to have quite a relaxed wedding. What they did specify though was that people should be in “whatever formal attire was most comfortable for you” on the invitations.

I asked my sister if she wanted to come do wedding attire shopping (be that a dress or a suit or whatever) with me, but she said that she already had what she wanted to wear and that she was good. So, I assumed that she had picked something that fit with the theme, because well it’s a broad theme hard to mess up, and didn’t pry further.

When we were getting ready to go though, she came out of her room in what can only be described as Japanese schoolgirl style lingerie. It was a little “dress”, more like a camisole really. It was dangerously short, quite sheer and tbh the whole dressing up as a sexified version of a schoolgirl outfit thing is deeply repulsive to me, so I was not impressed.

I told her that it was a formal event, not a clubbing night, and that she needed to wear something else. She started on about how our cousin said we could dress in whatever we were most comfortable in, to which I replied that I didn’t believe she was comfortable in that outfit to begin with and that he said whatever FORMAL attire we were comfortable in. He meant not to enforce the gender binary, not have people in “pedo-bait lingerie.”

I admit that “pedo-bait lingerie” was a bit too harsh on my end, but I mean really what other reason do they make lingerie like that? Its no different to the “sexy schoolgirl” outfits they make of Western school uniforms, I’m not going to give it a pass because they’re sexualising pre-teens from a different culture. But we didn’t really have time for a philosophical discussion about the ethics of sexy schoolgirl costumes and calling it “pedo-bait lingerie” was poor wording on my part. I didn’t mean that she was attempting to bait in pedos, but that is what she took from that.

Anyway, we got into a fight about whether clothes are inherently sexual or not which was very stupid and went on for far too long, before I said “it doesn’t matter if its inherently sexual or not, the invitation says formal and showing up in that is only going to cause a scene and take the attention away from [cousin and fiancée] on their wedding day, and you don’t want the memory of their wedding to be tainted by people talking about how you kept accidently flashing people, do you?”

At that point she stomped off, and came back wearing a dress she’d worn to our brother’s graduation and then we went to the wedding. She avoided me the whole wedding, and our mother ended up calling me the day after to ask for my side of the story, because my sister had told her that I had slut shamed her and forced her to change. After I explained, our parents are on my side, but idk they do lean more conservative so getting outside opinions would be appreciated.

AITA?    

What are these acronyms?

[writingbyshiloh]

Cautious yet Optimistic and Graceful Part 2

Part 1 & Part 3

CW: Morally gray reader, F!Reader, John Wick-type universe (ie, killing, the reader thinks about past injuries from fights. training not descriptive). Not smut but suggestive thinking from both Vincent and the reader, mutual pinning, and worldbuilding but no description of the reader. Smoking, a nonsexual cigarette burn on the reader, brief drinking. MAYBE OCs (Fictional staff for the fictional hotel). NO BETA

Summary: The Marquis de Gramont still annoys you. But he needs help from you(r hotel). Like a good manager, you help. 

AN: PART 2 everyone!!! Thank u for the likes/comments/reblogs! This takes place a few months after part 1. IDEK if this is ooc the man had like 30 minutes of screen time overall and I’ve been writing this for a week. I read it a few times for spelling but something got messed up copy and pasting and a para or 2 got dropped. Part 3 will be out ???? soon(ish)

Something about today had his words bouncing around in your head. Out of all the ways to describe someone, he narrowed it down to three (well technically he used six). 

Cautious. Sure, you can see that. Out of a love of being alive, you tried not to take any unnecessary risks in your fighting days. You also tried to avoid having a marker whenever you could. There was one in existence with your blood on it. A favour for someone you thought was a friend. You held up your end, the bloody fingerprint stored in the New York Continental as proof. 

Optimistic. That also makes sense. You actually enjoy what you do, loving being part of the criminal underworld before and now. You haven't been the manager for too long but would already die for this hotel. 

The part that was throwing you was graceful. You didn't think you were that graceful physically. You have scars to prove that you've taken a hit, slash, or burn many times. Did he mean gracefully with people? Camille did so much for the hotel, you just deal with regular hotel things (like getting Monument Historique status for a collection of French weapons, take that, Vincent). The other part was implanting rules from the high table. Maybe just being graceful and polite when you were resisting the urge to claw your eyes out. 

It could also be flirting. You felt he wasn't the type to hit on someone out of the blue. Sure he was smart and confident, but it seemed like too big a risk for him to take. Unless he is just a playboy, which is something you find yourself tempted to google twice a day. 

You would rather die than admit it, but you almost like when he called you Mademoiselle. Almost. It was like a nickname, plus it brought out his accent more. When you found yourself enjoying.

To make things worse Camielle caught on to your crush immediately. While embarrassing, it did show how clever she was and you were glad she was the concierge. Her knowing also gave you an excuse to just tell Vincent your direct number, so Camille would stop reminding you how frequently he called.

You love the bar in the hotel. It is beautiful, decorated in an Art Nouveau style, with large windows allowing for the sun to filter in during the day. You were almost pleased that Vincent asked to meet you there, allowing you to subtly show off your business. 

Finding him at the bar wasn’t hard, no one else was wearing a dark green three-piece suit, complete with a complexly tied tie and their coat of arms pin. He looks good but tense, one long leg crossed over the other. Plus, you could see Chidi and another guard in their gray suits keeping an eye. You were thankful that you took extra time this morning on your outfit. 

You slid into the chair next to him, after shaking a few hands with other big names down in the bar for a late-night drink. 

“I hear you have a problem.” You say, while not knowing the full details, just that he wanted to meet you in the bar and something was wrong. It kicked your heartbeat up, even if you only told yourself it was the stress of him being here. 

“Correct.”. 

“I’m sure you know because of your love of rules, but I can only help those who are using the hotel services.” 

You didn't care that much, and would absolutely bend the rules to do him a favour, but couldn't resist a chance to get a dig in.

The Marquis pulls out two gold coins and slides them across to the bartender. He orders a top-shelf spirit before his eyes cut to you. Now he's buying you a drink in your own hotel. You would want him to buy you a drink in a different situation but at least he didn't order for you. That may cause you to actually kill him.  

Clearing your throat you order your usual, quietly thanking the bartender when the drink was placed in front of you. 

The bar wasn't loud, but he dropped his head towards you so you could hear him better and to give the conversation some privacy. 

“You have a cartographer here, no?”

You nodded. The cartographer is excellent. He had blueprints for buildings past and present, as well as the catacombs. He also had knowledge and keys to abandoned buildings if something had to be desponded and not be found. 

“How soon do you need him?” While one of the best, he was away for his daughter's wedding

“Tonight.” 

You took a small sip of your drink. You could probably get the information he was looking but you wouldn't be as efficient. 

“While we do have a cartographer, he's gone to a family event. If your plans are that urgent I can try my best to fill in.” 

Content with your answers, Vincent leaned back into his seat taking a swig of his drink. You took the finishing sip of yours before pushing out of your chair. 

“I have spare keys in my office. I’ll meet you back here in five.” 

For how commanding and prideful he is, you never expected him to need the services from your hotel.

The maps room was fairly boring. Three out of the four walls were filled with lockboxes to various maps. Blueprints, and documents for France and even some other countries nearby. 

“Are these your beloved catacombs?” The Marquis asks, studying the paper taped to the wall. You asked the map maker for more information and for ideas on what you could do with them. 

You hum in agreement, deep down thrilled that he remembered such a small part of your conversation ages ago. 

Your eyes jump over the numbered lock boxes in front of you, trying to find the one he needs. 

You half expected him to help you pull out maps and building plans, a blend of chivalry, showing off his height, and getting under your skin. He didn’t, letting you struggle with the lock instead. 

Vincent knew he should help you, but the way your back was arched as you tried to open one of the lockboxes out of the dozens was more interesting. His gaze moved over your legs, before looking at your ass in your skirt. 

Feeling the lock give a turn to the side, you peek inside the box to make sure the plans were there. Hand sliding in, you pulled the thin tube out, double-checking the label on the front to make sure it is the one you need. Leaving the box unlocked you turn to face Vincent, a triumphant grin on your face.

Maybe your grin and pride in getting the correct documents were a bit unprofessional but he didn't care. Not since the small room amplified the smell of your perfume and how the spent the better part of the last five minutes checking out your legs. 

Uncapping the tube, you pulled out the blueprints and spread them on the backlist glass table in front of you.

“Here are your prints,” you state awkwardly. You're not sure why he needs them, and why he personally came here. Chidi is keeping guard outside the map room, despite you repeating the hotel policy of no business. 

The Marquis nods in response already focusing on the table. You flatten a small map from the tube in case he needs context on the area. Not likely since he already knows what to look for, proven by his notebook and the constant sound of his pen against the paper taking notes. 

Watching him study the map may have been alright at first, but three hours later you are tired. There are only so many times you can look at his hair and wonder if he would get mad if you run your hands through, or gently tug it. Or what his hands would feel like, especially with his signet ring. 

The grandfather clock tells you that it's only 2:36 am but you feel like it's later. Even Vincent looks slightly less than perfect, hair falling out of place from where he had gelled it that morning.

He is a guest of your hotel so you're going to keep helping him no matter how long he stays. Just with a bit less optimism. 

“Mademoiselle?” Your eyes snap to his face at the sound of his voice, pulling you from your thoughts. 

“You look tired. You should go to bed,” he comments. 

Wow. Thanks, you think. 

“I’m okay. I’m happy to stay here as long as you need,” you say while hoping he leaves soon. “How are the plans going? The cartographer can help you with the finer details when he gets back.” 

“That is not necessary. I have all I need here.” He slowly stretches and starts to stand. You never considered it but being hunched over the table must have been hell on his back given his above-average height. Finally seeing your chance to go to bed, you quickly make it over to the door, opening it for him. 

“Merci, again.” He thanks you as if this is not your job. 

“Do you want me to walk you to the main door?” You have all your floor plans memorized. 

“We are fine.” He replies. 

He looks at you and you can't read his expression. He's less tense, obviously getting what he needed from the plans. 

“The high table did a good job making you the manager.” 

You feel pride swell in your chest, despite the exhaustion you feel behind your eyes. 

“Bonne nuit, Mademoiselle” 

“Bonne nuit. Bon matin.” You quietly wish him as he leaves, wasting no time putting the plans away and locking the map room door. 

You let out another exhaust of bitter smoke, watching it curl away on the cool night air. You didn't start smoking in Paris, but dropped and picked the habit a few times.

“Fumes-tu, Mademoiselle?” a voice behind you makes you flinch. You didn’t tell anyone that you have a secret smoking place, let alone that you went out to smoke. 

You spin around before relaxing at the sight of the Marquis, clad in a dark suit, his signature pin on the lapel reflecting the light. 

You nod, before realizing he probably can't see you well under the lights in the alcove. He is by your side quickly, long legs carrying him the short distance. 

You tip your head to the small table, where your rolling papers, tobacco and other smoking paraphernalia sit in a silent offer. Vincent looks at the table before facing you again. Guess he's too fancy to smoke you assume while taking a drag.

You turn your head to blow out more smoke, careful not to blow it in this direction, a hard feat considering he was extremely close to you. The smell of his cologne drifted under the smell of smoke. 

You move your cigarette down and out to the side, fully ready to see why the Marquis interrupted you. Watching his face, his eyes dipped down to your lips and then back to your eyes almost a silent asking. The smooth and sophisticated era was still there but there was uncertainty under it. 

You slowly leaned closer, not wanting to make the first move, but you want this to happen. He hand-cupped your face, the cool metal of the ring nice as he shifted closer, leaving a small gap for you to make the final push to kiss him. Just a few more inches and then -

Pain. A sharp burning pain on your pinky finger. 

You jerk back, trying to examine what happened. Your cigarette slipped while you were distracted and the glowing embers of the end dropped only to land on your pinky. 

“Shit. Sorry,” you apologize, letting out a nervous huff of a laugh while holding up your burn. The Marquis was unreadable, hand withdrawn. Does he think you rejected him? 

He reaches for your wrist and you let him take it. Slowly he brings your hand up to the outdoor lamp to inspect your burn. The stinging has subsided but you are sure the flesh is a bit swollen. 

With his free hand, he takes the offending cigarette and brings it to his lips. You can't help but stare, cigarette burns long forgotten as you watch him take a deep inhale, before exhaling over your head, so no smoke blows in your face. Part of you regret not making the final push to kiss him, while another hopes he takes another puff. 

Vincent brings your cigarette down to examine it in better lighting before placing it back in your hand, still firmly in his grasp. 

“It is not a well-rolled cigarette. It is too tight.”

There it is you think. The classic Vincent snark. But you secretly hope he rolls one so you can watch his hands and watch him smoke it. 

“You don’t have to smoke it.” 

“I just wanted to give you this.” He reaches into his suitcoat pocket, retrieving a white envelope. His hands brush yours while you grab it. 

You know his handwriting from the time with him in the map room, and you could easily tell he wrote your name on the front. 

“Thank you?” you weren't sure what was inside but you were being all the things he described you as. 

“I will go, and let you read it.” 

You watch him leave, thoughts racing too fast to try and save the situation.

Do you call out after him? Does he think you rejected him? Maybe not because he still gave you the envelope. 

You ash your cigarette before collecting your things and going back to your office. Maybe things would make more sense there.

Taglist: @heartrot666

[threadsoflacee]

Hi, I'm new to the fandom and unsure who to ask my questions. I recently joined Tumblr and came across your posts while browsing the Hannibal meta tag. I have a few questions: What are Hannibal's feelings towards Bedelia and Alana? I remember Mads once said that Hannibal is in love with everyone on the show to some extent, so what exactly does love mean to him? Also, I'm having trouble understanding the line by Will: "You will only do that if I rejected you" (sorry, I paraphrased). I apologize if these are too many questions. Thanks in advance!

Haiiii welcome to the fandom !!! This will be my own perception of things so if I’m wrong in any way it’s on me !!! Ok so. Hannibal has a very hierarchical scale on his friends and lovers. Don’t know if U finished the show but in s3, Hannibal sees Alana in his Memory Palace as having a deserved place in his psychiatric office in Baltimore, which shows that he has respect for her and she’s a big enough part of his life to occupy the more intelligent part of his attention. We can compare that to how he sees Will as having the first place in the chapel in Palermo, the Uffizi gallery, and the front door of his childhood home, that he described as "it’s the door at the center of my mind, and here you are feeling for the latch", and in a deleted dialogue in the script "you stumbled into the hall of my beginnings". Will is the one who has the most importance in his mind ! Alana is below that. So to Hannibal she’s only a past lover, past work colleague, and an asset to get closer to Will (like when he promised her he would save Will). In s2 he had sex with her ONLY for the alibi when he killed Abel Gideon. So he could tell Jack he was up all night sexing it up when he was actually cutting it up in Gideons guts. OK NOW BEDELIA !!!!! He doesn’t gaf abt her. They only got married under false pretenses so Hannibal wouldn’t get caught in Italy after the whole Mizumono thing. He cuts off her leg at the very end of the show (past the credits after the cliff fall). 1 scene that shows how annoyed he actually is with her is when he kills Anthony Dimmond in front of her, Bedelia is obviously in shock, and he raises her voice at her when she doesn’t answer his questions in time. She couldn’t even be a proper asset because of how sensitive she was to murder (as she should !!!!!). So to Hannibal she was only a piece in the puzzle in his grand scheme of Need To Kiss Will.

Ok now for the second question ! Will saying "you turned yourself in so I would always know where you were. you’d only do that if i rejected you" could mean two things. 1. Will knows that Hannibal is in love with him, or at least desperately devoted, and him saying this is like poking at where it hurts saying "you’re so in love with me you’d ruin your entire life if i rejected you" Which in this case ruining his life is Hannibal turning himself in to the police. 2. Will WANTED Hannibal to be put in jail so it could be done once and for all. He told him "I don’t want to know where you are or what you do" which is clearly saying Get the fuck out of my life we are Done breakup style not entirely out of hatred, but also because he KNEW Hannibal would manipulate his words. And since Will knows Hannibal’s mind so well, he knew Hannibal would find a way to turn this sudden dynamic / domination dynamic around and find a way to put Will in the lesser spot ; which is what he accomplished by turning himself in. He even told him "I want you to know exactly where I am and where you can always find me". In this way Will would always think about him and know against his will where he is and what he’s doing since Hannibal is in prison.

To Hannibal Love is violence. Maybe u read my post abt Will’s question "is Hannibal in love with me?" !!! Hannibal’s love is violence in the way that love and ache gets mixed together. It’s distance and intimacy. It’s sharing meals and music together and isolating Will from all of his friends so they can only be together (Hannibal referenced their relationship to Achilles and Patroclus with the phrase "Achilles wished all Greeks would die so he and Patroclus could conquer Troy alone"). It’s the stabbing wound that Will sees in his nightmare bleeding out his stomach into a bite then a kiss !!! The bite shape is symbolism of possessiveness and the kiss is love. He never fell in love with Alana or Bedelia. He appreciated them as friends, people to fill his days with, and assets to manipulate and eventually guide himself into Will’s way by scaring and erasing everyone that would try to stop him. Will is the only one who Hannibal truly loves on all aspects of the spectrum. Emotionally, physically, psychologically, and selflessly.

Ok now im done lol. I hope this helped !!!

[wilcze-kudly]

Suyin wasn't "coerced" to commit a crime, neither did she want to take herself out of the situation. She wanted to get her friends out of paying for their crimes because she's spoiled and entitled.

She didn't "have" to travel the world, she was sent to family members to take her away from a criminal and endangering environment, and she decided to escape because she's too much of a pick me girl to stay with the so called family "that didn't show her affection". To be honest, you speak of her as some kind of adult avatar-styled Rapunzel, instead of a teenager who deserved to be reprimanded.

She did turn her life around, and kudos to the creators for showing that. No one can say that her story and background is boring by any chance.

She, however, is not the most likeable character out there to a big part of the fandom, but I seriously doubt someone is taking it as seriously as you seem to do. Just chill.

Istg this happens almost everytime I post something mildly touching on the fact that Suyin deserves compassion too. Though you may be the same anon who blew up my inbox a while back so it might just be you.

I've always found the disdain we have for "troubled teens" upsetting because usually, when a teenager "acts out", there's more of a reason behind it that just "ooh they're spoilt or entitled".

[Trigger warning for self harm and suicidal ideation mentions]

Like, I was a very difficult teen back in the day. I argued with my parents, even got into physical altercations, skipped school, ran away from home at night. I was also going through a severe depression, dealing with a shitton of childhood trauma, cutting on the regular and making multiple attempts on my life. Hell, if my parents had brushed me off as "a kid who needs to be disciplined" I probably would've killed myself at 14. It doesn't excuse me for punching my dad in the stomach when he was just trying to stop me from running away into the night but it doesn't mean I didn't deserve help.

[End of Trigger Warning]

These two things can be correct at the same time. Suyin can have done a shitty thing that deserves reprimand and that she needs help that she seemingly had to find on her own. But like, guess which of these two is almost exclusively focused on.

And I mean, it's totally not like the Avatar fandom has a habit of expressing extreme hate towards young girls (especially young girls of colour) making sub optimal choices or just beind "annoying". I've just never seen that before.

Suyin grew up with Toph, who Lin herself has described like this:

Suyin : No, no. My children are a blessing. Lin: Yeah, mom used to say that too, but she never meant it.

Which btw, still an incredibly hillarious thing to say in front of Suyin's children: "Hi kids I'm your aunt Lin and your mother is lying about loving you"

While Suyin has, as a child, expressed doubt that Toph would even care that she's skipping school. And as an adult, she has described her childhood with Lin as "competing for their mother's affection" and still has doubts whether or not her mother is happy with how either of them turned out.

Hell, even though Su and Toph have been said to have made up, Toph still maintains a heavy layer of distance between them, seemingly dissappearing for years at a time!

It's honestly sad how Suyin hugs Toph and puts up statues of her everywhere in Zaofu and yet Toph still just fucked off to the swamp when Opal was probably less then ten and did not contact them.

I mean, sounds like there's not a lot of motherly affection going on there, dude. Idk what to tell ya. We know there were no fathers around either.

And Lin was also a victim of this environment, so I don't really want this to come off as me blaming her for the way she acted towards Su. But Lin is hardly what I would call affectionate.

So of course Suyin would put so much stock in her relationships outside the house. And her friends happened to be fucking criminals fucking hell. And of course Lin, being a kid too did not know how to approach this situation properly, so she inadvertently just pushed Suyin closer to them by insulting them and making her feel defensive.

Because that's what all fucking teens do. The internalise things, they rely on their peers to form their perception of things and they want to be independent. So when someone, especially someone who isn't a parent tries to control them, guess how they'll react? They dig their heels in. Especially a teen like Suyin who has virtually no reason to listen to her older sister other than a vague "I know better than you" type of vibe which really pisses teens off. That's like the time when talking down to them is the worst thing to do.

And fuck off with saying getting arrested and screamed at by your sister in the middle of the road isn't a stressful situation that you wolud wanna get out of. Lin punched a car so hard it dented! (Especially that Lin has already been confirmed to use her status as a police officer against people she has a vendetta against, like when SHE TRIED TO THROW PEMA IN JAIL FOR STEALING HER MANS like how tf did we brush over that)

What I always find interesting in this scene is the front that Su puts on in front of Lin, which slips up a few times, particularly when Lin can't see her expression. Because Suyin is, of course being a fucking brat and taunting Lin, but you can clearly see that she's stressed out.

Suyin also describing the reason she helped her friends as a getaway driver is something I find interesting:

Suyin: I didn't steal anything. I just drove the car. I owed my friends a favor. It's not a big deal.

Of course she's scared and minimising her involvement but the usage of "owing her friends" could very easily imply her not exactly being too hyped about this, as well as her insistence on not stealing anything.

Because the thing about Suyin is that, especially in the flashbacks, we see her only in Lin's PoV. We don't see her relationship with her friends, what led up to the robbery, anything. Which makes sense, because the flashbacks are supposed to be Lin's. But that means we're viewing Su with the inherent bias of Lin, who clearly has an agenda against Su.

Lin clearly blames Suyin for Toph leaving policework, despite us later seeing how burnt out and cynical Toph was about being a cop. Its more likely that Su's arrest was a wake-up call for Toph, but she left due to the buildup of stress and disillusionment and Lin, who has been idolising her mother and her mother's career blamed it on Suyin in her head.

Hell, even they made up, Lin still immediately pivots to accusing Suyin of being involved in the Red Lotus' attack. Despite the attack placing Suyin's life, the lives of her sons and the lives of her guards at risk and Suyin going out of her way to thwart it.

And Suyin's life is just a fucking mess after this point like: betrayal by close friend, daughter kidnapped by terrorists, anarchy in the kingdom, leaders of 2 foreign governments trying to pressure her into subjugating the people in the name of a monarch she doesn't support, betrayal part 2; child boogaloo, the country she lives in being declared a dictatorship, city under literal siege, threat of attack in 24 hours, the fucking Avatar doing fuck all to help, a desperate attempt at assassinating the leader, getting caught and placed in questionably humane restraints, having to watch her daughter be forced to flee, PUBKIC HUMILIATION, the arrest of her non combative son and husbandd, INHUMANE JAIL CELL...

Do I need to go on? Like the moment the Krew came to her gouse her life just started to fucking fall apart its actually kinda hillarious.

And calling Suyin a "pick me" is just... unfounded? Who's she trying to get picked by? Her mom who doesn't love her? Girlie just wanted a family she literally said so in the show, put your listening ears on, babes.

I understand that Suyin isn't the most likeable character to people. I can understand why they dislike her. She can be annoying, hypocritical, rash, the poor structuring of the episodes around her and Lin makes it so she gets unearned favour from the writers etc. People who like Lin and Kuvira, two extremely popular characters in the fandom have an easy villain in their faves' lives if they just tweak Suyin a bit.

But that doesn't mean I'm obligated to dislike her too or that I'm not allowed to post about her in a way that doesn't allign with the fandom's narrative of her. You're not obligated to read it, hun, you can block the #pro suyin beifong tag if it makes you that upset to see me

I want to appreciate parts of Suyin which aren't highlighted by the fandom and I'm allowed to do that. Just because it doesn't fit with your clearly overtly negative opion of the character well, tough luck. And hey, I gladly take the opportunity to talk about Suyin, but I've also made a ridiculous amount of posts around har and have probably addressed almost every single fandom complaint of her at some point so I'm starting to get a little tired of repeating myself lol.

And I'll be the first to admit, my own teenage years probably heavily affect how compassionate I am towards Suyin, particularly in her younger years. But I know how much people hate "troubled teens", how little compassion thet are given.

The narrative that if a misbehaving teenager just gets deisciplined and reprimanded enough they'll stop being "spoilt and entitled" or acting out is wrong and harmful. It hurts tons of teenagers by not getting them the help they need and it would've fucking killed me.

Also hun, I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I tend to use hyperbole a lot. I'm a dramatic bitch. Like did you also think I was serious when I said I'd shoot myself if I saw another ad for Amazon's shit lotr wannabe show?

Tbh everytime I get an ask like this I vaguely consider doubling down and commiting to the bit of being the fandom's "Lin Beifong hater". Though I feel like a lot of people wouldn't realise its a bit and think I actually hate her for real lol.

[the-meat-machine]

dirkuu is pale

I see a lot of people assuming that Dirk/Caliborn is blackrom. In fact, I used to think so too. But the more I've thought about these two, the more I've come to realize that there's a different quadrant that describes their relationship much, much better: moirallegiance.

I want to preface this by saying that neither of these characters are trolls, so one can't expect their feelings to map 1:1 onto troll quadrants. But if you are looking for a quadrant to characterize their relationship, I think that pale romance is a much closer analogue for what's going on here than troll kismesissitude -- and certainly far more on the mark than cherub kismesissitude, which is a whole other can of worms.

So let's start with that. Caliborn is from a species that "naturally" experiences blackrom, so why don't I think cherub-style blackrom is what's going on here?

Cherub vs. troll kismesissitude

We get a fair amount of information about troll blackrom throughout Homestuck, but one thing I want to highlight about it is that it's not just pure, vitriolic hatred. There's a core of respect there, of wanting your kismesis to be better than they are. Karkat explains it well when talking to John about his black crush on Terezi (emphasis mine):

JOHN: i'm just saying i find her, like, somewhat annoying, and REALLY aggravating a lot of the time, but that's it! KARKAT: BUT THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THE FEELING IS! KARKAT: IT DOESN'T START OUT AS FULL BLOWN ANTIPATHY, AND IT RARELY EVEN REACHES SUCH AN EXTREME LEVEL OF HOSTILITY EVEN OVER LONG TERM BLACK RELATIONSHIPS. […] KARKAT: WHAT YOU'RE *TRYING* TO SAY IS, YOU HAD FRUSTRATED, NEGATIVE EMOTIONS TOWARD HER, BUT THEY DON'T COMPREHENSIVELY ACCOUNT FOR YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARD HER. KARKAT: MEANING, THERE ARE SOME THINGS ABOUT HER YOU ACTUALLY LIKE, BUT THE NEGATIVE FEELINGS MAKE IT HARD FOR YOU TO PUT YOUR FINGER ON THEM, OR EVEN WANT TO ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. KARKAT: THAT IS ABSOLUTELY STANDARD. WHAT GOOD WOULD IT BE HAVING A KISMESIS WHO DIDN'T POSSESS QUALITIES YOU ACTUALLY ADMIRED ON SOME LEVEL? KARKAT: THAT WOULD BE BORING, AND IT WOULDN'T EVEN WORK. THERE'D BE NO TENSION, NO PUSH AND PULL IN THE TURBULENT EMOTIONAL LANDSCAPE. THE SUBTLE POSITIVES ADD FUEL TO THE NEGATIVE FEELINGS, OFTEN GIVING THEM A REASON TO EXIST AT ALL. THEY INFLAME THE AGGRAVATING FACTORS, REMINDING YOU DEEP DOWN HOW MUCH YOU WOULD LIKE AND ADMIRE THIS PERSON IF IT WASN'T FOR ALL THEIR INFURIATING FLAWS, AND THE INCREDIBLE SENSE OF FRUSTRATION THAT CAUSES ALONG WITH ALL THE ASSOCIATED HOT-HEADED FEELINGS, THAT'S THE ESSENCE OF BLACK ROMANCE.

Cherub romance, on the other hand, is much more vitriolic. Here's Aranea explaining it (typing quirk removed for legibility):

Like humans, cherubs perceive romance through only one quadrant. Unlike humans, their relationships are exclusively black. But their mating ritual is much more violent than any practice trolls would, or even physically could engage in. And though it is critical to the perpetuation of their race, the confrontations can sometimes be lethal to one or both cherubs. Regardless of the outcome, the stakes are always high. The winner of the duel will assume control of the other's territory, while the loser will slink away to bear the offspring. So as she toured the planetary wreckage, she knew her quest for a mate was not just about the propagation of her species, but the liberation of billions from a monster.

For cherubs, there's no question of wanting your mate to be "better". There's no core of admiration. Your mate is a bitter enemy who needs to be eradicated -- perhaps one only you can eradicate (ah, romance). Cherub mating is a life-or-death battle where the only possible outcomes are defeat or conquest. No one will be waxing red for their mate afterward. That simply isn't a thing, in the cherub understanding of romance.

Furthermore, a cherub's mate is their opposite, in every way possible. They have diametrically opposing goals, temperaments, and philosophies of life. There's no possibility of seeing eye to eye with your mate. They're simply everything you aren't, and you despise them for it.

Caliborn's feelings towards Dirk

So. Does Caliborn have blackrom feelings towards Dirk? And I mean cherub blackrom, in its full, vitriolic glory. Does Caliborn despise Dirk, and think he's a threat among threats who needs to be eliminated at all costs?

Well. He wants to kill him, sure. But of all the people Caliborn wants to kill, he wants to kill Dirk the least.

IT'S THE DIRK HUMAN. HE IS SOMEWHAT TOLERABLE. I MEAN. AS A STRONG AND COMPETENT MALE. What. So you're down with the Dirk? NO. ALL I'M SAYING IS. THE DEATH I WISH ON HIM DOESN'T HAVE TO BE ESPECIALLY PAINFUL. IT COULD BE LIKE. GOING TO SLEEP. WITH MAYBE ONLY A SHORT SCREAM. I think you want to be bros with him. SHUT YOUR MOUTH.

So right off the bat, we can see that Caliborn does not at all have the sort of hatred for Dirk that cherubs have for their mates. He barely even thinks Dirk needs to die. Furthermore, he sees himself and Dirk as philosophically aligned in some ways, both being strong, competent males who like to fuck shit up. Hardly the sort of diametrically opposing role that a cherubic mate would fill.*

Now, what we do see here is some of that admiration that you see sometimes in troll blackrom. And there's a bit more of that in Caliborn's masterpiece, when Caliborn says of the fight between himself and Dirk:

IT WAS A PRETTY GOOD FIGHT BETWEEN US. BECAUSE HE'S STRONG, AND I ADMIRE THAT. WHY SHOULDN'T I LET A BATTLE HAPPEN FOR LONGER, WHEN TWO TOUGH DUDES ARE INVOLVED, STRUTTING THEIR STUFF.

So, okay. Maybe there's something here a bit akin to troll kismesissitude, if not cherub romance. But I still don't think that's the quadrant that matches best. Because, to be honest, there are a lot of people Caliborn wants dead, and several he sees as rivals (e.g. Jake, Dave). But there's only one person he's said anything like this about:

uu: BuT. THE DIRK HuMAN IS A PRETTY COOL GuY. uu: HE GETS THINGS DONE. uu: AND ISN'T AFRAID TO FuCK SOME SHIT uP. uu: LIKE. HE ACTuALLY LISTENS. uu: TO STuFF THAT'S IMPORTANT FOR A DuDE TO GET OFF HIS CHEST. uu: YOu KNOW. HE *GETS* EXACTLY THAT WHICH THE BITCHES CAN NEVER uNDERSTAND. uu: I GuESS WHAT I MEAN IS. HE REALLY KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS. uu: TO TRuLY BE A BRO.

Yeah. Caliborn likes talking about his feelings with Dirk. To be frank, this is an unprecedented admission from him. There are a few people he'll admit to not entirely hating -- mostly his lackeys -- but no one else he sees as a bro.

And why shouldn't he see Dirk as a bro? After all…

Dirk likes Caliborn

Yeah, so, here's the thing: Dirk simply does not hate Caliborn. Like, at all. In fact, he thinks he and Caliborn are friends.

TT: Surely there must be at least one of our virtues you admire. uu: YES. AMBITION. THAT'S THE ONLY GOOD ONE. uu: AND I THINK YOu GOT THAT. WHICH IS MAYBE WHY. YOu'RE THE ONLY ONE I CAN PuT uP WITH FOR ANY DuRATION? uu: LET'S CALL IT A GRuDGING RESPECT. WHICH IS THE ONLY KIND THAT'S EVEN WORTH A FuCK. TT: I'll take that as a rare overture of friendship.

He thinks Caliborn is "fascinating".

TT: You're a pretty fascinating guy, in a way. I can't really figure you out. TT: In case you're wondering why I put up with you more than my friends do.

He's entirely willing to help Caliborn and seems to enjoy talking to him. He made Caliborn's robot leg for him. He very memorably drew a whole bunch of custom "porn" for him, and was entirely willing to do so for no particular reason other than that he thought it was fun.

But more to the palerom point… Dirk tries to pacify Caliborn.

TT: I thought the point was to cooperate with your coplayers to achieve an objective. TT: Not compete with them or try to kill them. I don't think we've had one conversation where you didn't express the desire to kill her. uu: I GuESS WE'LL JuST HAVE TO SEE. WON'T WE? uu: I THINK THIS IS PROBABLY A DIFFERENT KIND OF SESSION. uu: ONE WHERE THE PLAYERS FIGHT FOR SuPREMACY. RATHER THAN WORK TOGETHER. uu: I THINK THAT IT MuST BE THAT WAY. uu: BECAuSE THAT IS HOW I WANT IT TO BE. uu: AND IF I WANT SOMETHING TO BE TRuE HARD ENOuGH. THEN THAT MAKES IT SLIGHTLY MORE ABSOLuTELY IRREFuTABLE. uu: ARE YOu FEELING ME, FuCKER? TT: Maybe you're right. TT: But since that's how you feel now, maybe the truth is that the game is challenging you to overcome those feelings? TT: What if your real quest is to put aside your differences and work together, if you want to both survive, and grow as a person?

He tries to get Caliborn to get along better with Calliope.

TT: Does your sister even know you're into this sappy shipping stuff? TT: You berate her constantly for everything, and I know she likes to write and illustrate romfics and the like. […] TT: I'm just saying, it's an interest you have in common. If you told her you liked her romantic artwork, maybe you could bond over that?

Frankly, these are some textbook pale overtures on Dirk's part.** If they were trolls, there would be no question that his feelings are the palest of pale.

And, look, Dirk is not at all successful in pacifying Caliborn, and to be honest I don't think he ever fully took Caliborn seriously as a threat. But still, if you're looking for a quadrant to describe these two, I'd say moirallegiance is it.

But then again, they aren't trolls. They're a human and a cherub. So in the end, maybe it would be more suitable to just call them exactly what Caliborn is so tsundere about admitting that they are: bros.

-----------

Footnotes:

* If you're looking for someone Caliborn does feel cherub-style romantic hatred for: Calliope. It's Calliope. It's always been Calliope.

** Actually, now that I think about it, they're arguably ashen overtures where Dirk is attempting to mediate between Calliope and Caliborn. Which itself would be a fascinating ship. But let's not get too into that here.

[hugmekenobi]

Wardrobe Change

A Bad Batch Series interlude oneshot

Image from the Popverse courtesy of Lucasfilm (my gif searches were being very uncooperative)

Hunter x femaleJedi!reader

Summary: Times change, uniforms change and this new design has its fair share of admirations.

Warnings: No use of y/n, pet names (sweetheart), Cid being Cid, I make up a timeline, affectionate possessiveness, fluff and feelings, Force communication working how I say it does, PDA in the form of making out and affectionate biting, spicy/suggestive dialogue, getting caught/interrupted, awkwardness

Masterlist for Season 1 chapters

Word Count: 4.7K

Rating: 18+

Author’s notes: It’s the last of the oneshots before we get into S2! This was purely because I wanted to start S2 off with the armour changes being understood and so I didn’t have to describe them lol but I hope there’s more substance for y’all to enjoy! Big shout out to @hugmedin who helped me when I got hit with a bad bit of writer’s block and wrote a section of this, including my favourite line in this fic that had me freaking out when I read it, love you my guy!! 

“Okay! I have them! Ugh this is so heavy!”

You all turned your attention over to the loud thud and you smiled as you saw Lyra collapsed over the container she had previously been carrying. She’d only just managed to get it through the doorway. “You should’ve told us. We’d have helped you bring it over.” You said as you stood up and walked over to her.

“It’s part of the service.” Lyra panted as she stood up and smoothed down her top. “I think you guys will like what I’ve done.”

“Can you get that out the way? It’s blocking the entrance! We don’t have all day for this. I have my own business to run!” Cid said by way of greeting.

“You weren’t exaggerating.” Lyra muttered.

“Give it 6 months and you’ll be on mildly better terms.” You uttered back with grin.

“Oi! Either help her or get out of her way. It’s bad enough you’re using my place as your fitting rooms!” Cid barked over at you.

“Better terms?” Lyra said with a small laugh.

“I did say mildly.” You replied, grabbing the other side of the box, and lifting it over to where the rest of your squad had congregated in the corner.

“Are they finally ready?” Omega asked excitedly as she gave Tech the datapad back.

“Omega, we haven’t finished-”

“Come on, Tech! I can do it later!” Omega griped.

Tech sighed in defeat.

“A quick break won’t hurt Tech.” You appeased.

“Let me see!” Omega said.

“Okay kid, hang on.” Lyra said with a smile. She opened the box and began the process of handing the updated armour out. “I played around a bit with them.”

“How much?” Hunter and Echo asked warily as they took theirs from her.

“Don’t stress. It’ll all look perfect. I changed the colours and symbols as requested but I got rid of a couple things that weren’t really necessary. You guys have more civilian type clothing to wear underneath now, rather than just those blacks you’d handed over. And that means you don’t have to always change into these clothes you’re wearing now if you want to take your armour off. Oh, and your codpieces are gone.”

“You took away a whole section of our armour?” Tech asked sceptically as he took his.

“They were annoying me.” She replied simply. “And I don’t think you’re in a position to act like it’s a super crucial piece you’re missing. You don’t have any thigh armour. That wasn’t a change I made, that was all you.” She added pointedly.

Tech opened his mouth to protest but he couldn’t think of a rebuttal fast enough.

You chuckled as you watched Tech walk away, mumbling something under his breath about how it suits his needs just fine.

“Where’s mine?” Omega asked eagerly.

“Alright kid. Here you go.” Lyra passed the pile of clothes over to Omega who grabbed them keenly and dashed off to change.

“Did I see a hat?” You asked as you watched her turn the corner.

“It makes the outfit.” Lyra replied with a smile.

You laughed. “I won’t question your style.”

“Good. Cause now it’s your turn.”

“You only changed the colour, right?”

“In a way…”

“Lyra…”

“Calm down. It’s nothing crazy. I still kept the hood and mask element you like. I just started from scratch. The top you bought from me before isn’t really suitable for what you do. I didn’t realise you operated with no armour at all. If I gave you the original one back, it would only be a matter of time before you had rips in it. I’m surprised it was in one piece for so long.”

“Okay… so?”

“So, I got my hands on this new material that is generally just sturdier so that’ll help, and you have some armour of your own.”

“Armour?” You said sceptically as you watched her reach down.

“Not a lot.” She reassured you. “I figured you liked the freedom of movement, it’s just a couple of things. Here’s the top.”

You took it from her, and you could already tell that it was better quality. The black fabric was thick but when you put it over your head, it fit snugly but still allowed for flexible movement. The mask and hood were indeed still there and where your previous top had red lining on the outside, this one now had a turquoise. Your eyes also noted the small white half skull that seemed to have been another element that was carried over. “And this was an essential thing you needed to keep?” You said, pointing to the sign.

Lyra grinned. “You both like it and don’t try to deny it.”

You rolled your eyes but smiled with her. “This is perfect though, thanks!”

“I’m not done.” She handed over the additional pieces to your ensemble.

You took the small parts of armour she’d give you. They were black and decorated with a mix of white and turquoise stripes. You also realised they were like the ones Hunter wore on his forearms. She’d also added a pair of black gloves.

“This means you’re also getting rid of that horrendous thing keeping that vibroblade on your thigh.” Lyra ordered.

“There’s nothing wrong with it!” You said defensively, glancing down to your thigh where your vibroblade was encased. Sure, the strap was fraying, and it was no longer the same colour as it was when you had first got it and some of the leather was showing cracks, but it served its purpose just fine. Plus, it had been with you through a lot of highs and lows and although a mantra throughout your life had been ‘no attachments,’ you had found that both Hunter and this strap were exceptions to the rule and you were rather fond of it.

Lyra just gave you a sad look. “Look at it. It’s disgusting. Throw it in here and never think about it again.” She insisted, turning the box towards you.

You sighed and chucked your vibroblade on the table before you threw your old strap into the empty container. You attached the new pieces to your forearms before you sheathed your vibroblade into the one on your left arm. You then put the next pieces that ran from your shoulders to the end of your upper arm. You were annoyed to find that Lyra was right, and you didn’t feel restricted by having them there.

“And you told me yourself your blaster holster is a hand-me-down from Tech. Put that one away too.”

“You were just waiting for a chance to upgrade my stuff weren’t you?” You grumbled as you took your blaster out and removed your holster. It joined your old vibroblade strap.

“Oh yeah.” Lyra said with a smug smile.

You attached the new holster to your thigh and put your blaster in it. “Happy now?” You asked, gesturing up and down your body.  

“You look hot!” Lyra said as she circled you, studying how you looked with the new parts on.

“Shut up.” You laughed, slightly flustered.

“Your sergeant is a lucky guy. How’d your secret project got by the way?”

Before you could reply, a shout got both of your attention.

“We’re ready! I love it!”

You turned to the sound of Omega’s voice, and you grinned as you saw her delighted expression. It had been a while since Kamino and Omega had definitely grown so it was about time she had something that fit with that, and she did now. She had grey bottoms and a red top which was worn underneath a light blue layer, and she had red fabric wrapped around her right wrist. The hat was a cute touch as well. The rest of your squad also looked pretty good. It was odd though, seeing them in colours that weren’t the signature ones they used wear and any insignia illustrating them being Clone Force 99 being gone.

Lyra clapped her hands together. “I truly outdid myself! You guys look fabulous!”

“Yeah, you guys look great!” You added.

Wrecker and Omega beamed, whilst Tech and Echo merely gave small nods.

“You look great too!” Omega said as she walked over to you.

“Yeah, Hunter’s got colours like that too. You guys’ll look good!” Wrecker added.

You smiled and rolled your eyes. “Speaking of that, where is our fearless leader?” You asked.

“He wanted to rearrange the scarf.” Echo replied.

“Scarf?” You repeated, your throat going dry. You looked over to Lyra.

She shrugged. “I like accessories. Sue me.”

You turned your head over to the sound of Hunter coming back into the main area and it took everything in you not to stare at him for an abnormal amount of time. His armour, like the rest of theirs had maintained most of its original structure-minus the codpiece- and his colours were indeed similar to the ones you had. He had the more civilian looking clothes underneath with the rest of his armour donning a mix of black, white, and turquoise. He had the same bit of orange running down the centre of his chest plate like his brothers had and his helmet still had half of it painted white to match the skull tattoo on his face. The red wrappings around his wrists mirrored the one Omega had and the red scarf… well the scarf was definitely a nice added feature.

Hunter nearly did a double take as he saw you. You looked… well you looked powerful, capable. Not that you didn’t look like that already but there was something about seeing you with actual armour that accentuated that part of you. Plus, the fact he was wearing colours that matched with yours was an added bonus.

“Well, my work here is done!” Lyra said cheerily as she bent down to grab the now empty case.

Hunter tore his eyes away from you and nodded his thanks to her before he saw that you were still looking at him. “What?” He asked as he joined the others and grabbed a drink. He brought his cup to his lips.

“Nothing. Looks good.” You said casually, turning away to follow Lyra out. Just thinking of all the things a scarf can do that a bandana can’t.

The choked splutter that followed had you smirking to yourself as you walked out the door.

--

“You sure we don’t owe you anything for this?” You double checked as you both stood outside the entrance to Cid’s.

Lyra shook her head. “You guys helped me out when I was being harassed by Marco and his goons. We’re even now.”

“Yeah, but getting to beat up Marco and Co is fun.” You said lightly. “You don’t need to repay us for that.”

“I wanted to. Besides, it was actually kinda fun. I haven’t had a project like that to work on in a while. Just point people in my direction if they ask who did this fabulous work and we’re all good.”

You huffed out a laugh. “You got it. I’ll see you around, Lyra. Thank you.”

“Yeah, see you around!” She grabbed her stuff and walked away.

You fished the necklace out your pocket and studied the small symbol on the end of the black leather cord.  It wouldn’t be noticeable under his clothes and armour. You just hoped he would like it.

--

You and Hunter seemed to find any excuse to gravitate towards one another and touch each other, even if it was nothing more than a simple touch that lasted a matter of seconds. Yes, you’d started it with your comment about the scarf, but he really wasn’t helping with things. The air between the two of you had been charged ever since you’d walked back down those steps and now every touch sent warmth flooding through you, and you were sure it was the same for him. To the others, the hand wrapped around your shoulder seemed completely innocent since you were all engaged in casual conversations, but it sent a thrumming through your veins you couldn’t control. And, judging by the way he’d tensed up when you’d laid your hand on his thigh, you weren’t the only one. You all had shed your armour since Cid didn’t have a mission so that definitely wasn’t making things any easier for you.

It felt like a test. Who was going to be the one to give in first? You really didn’t want it to be you and you think you had a way to do that. As Wrecker and Omega got up to go play a game of Dejarik, with Tech and Echo going to watch, you turned to face him. “Can I talk to you outside?”

Hunter looked at you quizzically but nodded and followed you as you stood up.

You made your way to the exit.

“Where are you going?” Omega asked as she waited for Wrecker to make his move.

“We’ll be back.” You replied.

--

“Everything okay?” Hunter asked as you began to pace in front of him.

“Yes. I just- Look I’m- What I’m trying-.” You stopped with an aggravated huff. You’d rehearsed this countless times in your head, and it wasn’t a big deal, worst he could say was no.

“Sweetheart.” Hunter grabbed your wrist to get you to stop walking. “Take a breath, look at me.”

You narrowed your eyes at him. “Don’t call me that.”

Hunter tilted his head. “Why not? You usually don’t mind it. In fact, you tend to quite enjoy it.” He added with a smirk.

You shot him a playful glare and removed his hand which had worked its way to your waist. “Yes, exactly. You’re distracting me and I have a plan here. You’re not going to ruin it with your-” You didn’t finish your sentence, you just gestured to him.

Hunter held his hands up in mock surrender and leaned against the edge of the entry way.

You inhaled deeply and started pacing again. “I consider myself a pretty independent person, you know? Not one to be dependent on much, certainly not a man in my life. But then you come along, and suddenly I’m finding particular things I thought I would hate, quite, well, quite attractive. Take this for example.” You pointed to the half skull on your top. “I was convinced I would hate it, but I don’t. I don’t mind the message it sends.” You stopped and faced him. “However, I can’t just be what this suggests. You’re a part of me, the whole squad is, but I don’t want to be seen as someone whose only purpose is to belong to you.”

Hunter straightened up as he addressed you. “I know that. If I’ve given you reason to believe otherwise, I’m sorry. I’m sure Lyra could change it. I didn’t mean-”

“Hunter, I know.” You reassured him. “That’s not what I’m saying. I only mean I thought it would be nice if you maybe had something that- uh.” You broke off with an awkward cough before you continued, “Represented me.”  You brought the necklace out and handed it to him.

“Where’d you make that?” Hunter asked quietly as he studied the necklace which had attached to it a tiny metallic symbol. A symbol he’d seen many times during the Clone Wars. It was the symbol for the Jedi Order.

“Lyra gave me access to her stuff. Don’t worry, she didn’t know exactly what I was doing.” You added quickly as you saw the concern that flashed across his face. You looked down at the ground and scuffed the toe of your boot through the dirt. “Do you like it? I know it’s a bit risky but figured you could conceal it easily enough and I-” The strong hands on your waist that guided you backwards to the wall cut you off. You glanced up but before you could take your next breath, Hunter’s lips met yours and what little resistance you had left crumbled, but hey, technically he kissed you first, so you counted it as a win. You let him press his body tight to yours and you kissed him eagerly. You like it then?

Hunter didn’t answer directly. He just kissed along your jaw and nipped the skin by the spot behind your ear that he knew would elicit a moan from you and you didn’t disappoint. “Do you have any idea what you do to me?” He said, still out of breath and his voice even lower than what it usually was.

You released a sigh and your head fell back against the wall as he continued to leave marks on the skin of your neck. I have a pretty good idea.

“I’m serious.” He slid his hand on your cheek, so you were forced to look at him and he very nearly lost it. Your eyes were wide, and your breathing was still uneven, and he wanted nothing more than to continue but he needed to say this first. “From the minute you showed up on Devaron to help, I was enthralled by you. You took out a line of droids with nothing more than a slightly longer vibroblade on your back and acted like it was a regular day. Sure, later on we discovered there was a bit more reason behind that.”

You smiled slightly but your eyes dipped down as a wave of guilt washed over you at the memory of your dishonesty.

“Hey.” Hunter said softly as he saw your mind leave the current moment. He tucked his finger under your chin and angled your face back up. “That’s not why I brought it up. Don’t go back there. Stick with me here cause there’s a point to all this, I promise.”

You sighed and nodded.

Hunter breathed deeply. “You were incredible and there was no hesitation from me, or the others quite frankly, when it came to offering a place with us. I just underestimated the impact you were going to have on my life. It didn’t take long for my brothers to start giving me a hard time, but I was too stubborn to listen.”

Join the club.

He smiled at you before he continued. “Remember, when there was that stampede of Reeks and I got hurt. It was about two months after you’d joined us?” When he saw you nod, he carried on, “You remember how I got injured?”

“The last dregs of the Separatist droids sent a final charge our way. The blast meant I slipped and fell into the cavern where they were running. You came after me and pushed me out the way.” You said softly.

“Yeah, I did. I- I was in love with you then.”

“Well, then we were on very similar timelines.” You revealed with a smile.

Hunter huffed out a laugh. “So, fast forward to now. You’re wearing something that ties you to me and I don’t think you realise exactly the effect that has on me. And then I come out to see I’m wearing the same the colours you are. And to top it off, you’re asking me to wear something that ties me to you? I can say with no hesitation that you’re a part of me too.” With that, he looped it over his neck.

You took a shaky breath as you watched him put it on and you understood why the half skull on your top had meant so much to him. “You think the colours thing only mattered to you? Why do you think I had to give it to you now?” You murmured. “You were killing me in there.”

Hunter nuzzled into your neck. “That why you dragged me out here? Couldn’t wait?” He muttered into your skin and began to place light kisses on your neck, altering what side had his attention.   

“That why you followed me out here?” You countered as you struggled to keep your composure. 

“I thought you wanted to talk.” Hunter replied, his eyes lifting to yours, an unspoken challenge behind them. 

“I-I did talk.” You maintained. 

“And now?”

“And now I’m done.” You grabbed the front of his shirt and kissed him with fervour. And I’m counting this as a win. You broke first.  

Hunter chuckled and moved so his lips brushed against your jawline again as his hand trailed from your cheek down to your neck where it stopped for a moment before he continued, and his palm came to rest on the left side of your chest. Your heartbeat pounded beneath his fingertips.

You didn’t let him linger there too long. Wrapping your hands around the back of his neck, you pulled him in even closer and bucked your hips forward into him in an attempt to banish the remaining space between the two of you. As you did so Hunter let out a moan into the crook of your neck and the resulting vibrations sent your mind to mush. Your hands frantically grabbed at his shirt, the fabric bunching in between your fingers as you tried to bring him even closer. You let out a frustrated moan, you felt like he was holding back, and you were losing patience. 

Hunter let out a soft chuckle and you could feel his smile against your skin, genuine and unfiltered. “Relax.”  he whispered into your ear. “I’m right here.” 

Your hands slid from his waist up the length of his back, his muscles rigid but warm against your palm. You nipped at his ear, your hips still bucking into him, and you’d never been more thankful that Lyra had gotten rid of the cod pieces, but it also meant you became more and more desperate.  

“I need you closer.” Your voice came out strained as you looked up at him and you made no attempt to disguise your desire as you continued to press yourself against him.   

“That can be arranged.” 

The lights in the alleyway were dim but you could have sworn you saw a glimmer form in his eyes, the kind that only appeared when the two of you were alone. Upon seeing that, all sensible thoughts about the risks of doing this in public left your head completely. 

Bending down ever so slightly he brought both his hands to the back of your thighs lifting you up against the wall in one swift movement. Instinctively, you wrapped your legs around his waist as he held you in position against the wall. Your fingers found themselves wrapped up in Hunter’s hair which you used to gently tug his face away from where he was placing deep kisses along your collarbone. He let out a deep sigh which caught in his throat and resembled something close to a growl. As you held his head there you allowed yourself a moment to admire the way his eyes had grown darker, and his chest and shoulders heaved as he caught his breath. His lips remained parted as he patiently waited for instructions from you. Removing your hand from his hair you brought it back to caress his tattooed cheek, this time allowing your thumb to softly trail his lower lip.

He drew you into a deep kiss, the kind that left your lips raw and your lungs begging for oxygen that you swore you could definitely live without - but eventually you had to give into your reflex and come up for air. 

Hunter broke away first, bringing his forehead to rest tenderly against yours. His hands reached under your top; his gloved hands caressed your skin. “You sure about doing this here? I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop once-”  

Yes. You nodded eagerly but before you were able to continue, a horrified shout got both of your attention. 

“Ugh are you kidding me! You two really couldn’t wait?! Ugh my eyes!” Wrecker complained as he instantly turned away from the scene in front of him.

Hunter quickly let you down and he was sure your mortified expression matched his and you both turned to face the backs of Wrecker and Echo. 

“Oh, uh, hey boys. What, eh, what brings you out here?” You winced out as you adjusted your top.

At the sound of your feet hitting the ground, Echo turned to face you both and gave a disapproving stare. “Omega is about to play Tech and wanted to see if any of you wanted the next round so, we came out to ask. She nearly left to ask herself, but I figured based on past experience-”

“Okay.” Hunter interrupted him before he went any further.

You can turn around, Wrecker.

Wrecker took you at your word. “What happened to talking?”

“I mean… we did talk. Just got a bit carried away.” Your eyes focused on fiddling with the end of your sleeve.

“I’ll say.” Wrecker griped. 

“That’s the third time this month. We’ve talked about this. It was bad enough when Tech interrupted you guys in the cockpit.” Echo chastised you both.

Hunter couldn’t find any words. He just kept his eyes on the ground. 

“Hey, you didn’t have to listen to the lecture he gave afterwards on the importance of hygiene and sanitation.” You grumbled. 

“You’ve been lucky it hasn’t been Omega yet.” Echo continued, paying little attention to your words.

You knew he was right. The two of you had been pretty reckless lately and the very fact Omega hadn’t been one of the unfortunates to witness said reckless moments is something you thanked the Force for. “I’m sorry, we’ll be better.”

“Yeah, sorry boys. It won’t happen again.” Hunter said firmly.

A few beats of uncomfortable silence passed.

“You guys aren’t coming back down any time soon, are you?” Echo asked reluctantly as he nodded to where both of your hands were.

The two of you hadn’t noticed the new places your hands had found themselves in. Your fingers were lightly tracing up and down Hunter’s arm whilst his had found itself around your waist again and his thumb rubbed up and down your side. Upon hearing Echo’s words, you both glanced at each other. Tell Omega I owe her a game. We’ll be back later tonight. You said in a way of reply, your brain slowly starting to block the presence of the other two out.

Echo sighed tiredly. “Just get out of here. Come on, Wrecker. We probably don’t want to linger here much longer.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice.” Wrecker hastily turned on his heels and walked back down the steps to Cid’s, with Echo following close behind.

“Well… that could’ve been worse.” You mumbled into his shoulder after they left before you trailed a line of kisses along his neck, your teeth lightly grazed his skin.

“I can’t say I can see how. That was- that was pretty awkward.” Hunter managed to stammer out.

“I could’ve been in a more compromising position.” You purred as your hand trailed down his chest and you made to kneel in front of him. You knew he was feeling more sensible, and you definitely knew it was better to head back to the Marauder but that didn’t mean you couldn’t have your fun.

He swiftly tugged you back up and shook his head at you as he saw the cat-like grin on your face. “Careful, or I’ll have to continue this here anyway.” Hunter groaned as you slowly ground your hips against him.

“Promises, promises.” You whispered back, tugging his lip between your teeth and you took pleasure in the low moan that left him. Your hands kept a tangled grip in the scarf as you kissed him and tugged him to you.

Before he really did get too carried away, Hunter pulled away, but he still kept you tight to him. “I believe you had some thoughts for the use of this scarf? I got some ideas.” Hunter rasped.

“Hmm, I’m much more of a practical learner.” You hummed against his lips.

Stifling a groan, Hunter kissed you once more before he wrapped an arm around your waist and the two of you hustled away to the Marauder.

Masterlist

Tagging@ @noeasyisnoisy, @tpwkcalli, @fuckoffthanos, @arctrooper69, @graciexmarvel, @flyingkangaroo, @nightmonkeysstuff, @a-streakofazure​, @ladytano420​, @dragonrider9905​, @keep-calm-and-drink-caf​, @yyourmotherr​, @xxeiraxx​ 

[marley-manson]

Out of curiosity, how would you describe ways people are misogynistic about female characters they like? I can probably guess, ("she's a perfect angel", "she's two dimensional now because everything she does is excusable", "she's the mother", etc.) but I would like to hear your take on it

Yeah that's definitely one of the categories of commentary I was thinking of. Reducing her down to a badass lady with the sole braincell, ignoring flaws and complexities and completely smoothing out her personality, mom friend lol, you nailed that. Also the classic awesome lady and her silly boys style threesome stuff, or the canon love interest in m/m who is totally understanding and supportive and steps aside or welcomes an open relationship happily. It's super annoying and tbqh I'd by far rather see people completely ignore a fictional woman's existence than frame her like that. Honestly, I'd rather see genuine character bashing of a love interest lol, because at least in those fics she usually has a personality, and sometimes even gets to do interesting things.

On the het fan side of things I'd also include a loooooooot of the ways people write and talk about het romance. I see a lot of female character fans, usually the kind who are resentful of m/m and call gay shippers misogynist a lot, who act like their favourite fictional woman can only attain personal fulfillment if she gets together with the dude they ship her with and see anyone who doesn't ship her with a dude (often including f/f fans) as like, maliciously depriving her of happiness lol.

But also all those little heteronormative things that add up - the woman is 'spunky' or 'sassy' (because the man has the power), she falls very neatly into the small weak feminine category to contrast with the manly dude with rough calloused hands (no matter how effeminate the dude actually is lol), she's nurturing and comforting and reads the dude's mind to provide him exactly what he needs and is tolerant and indulgent of his shittiness, her good looks are pointed out a lot, she's a great mom no matter what her canon personality is, etc etc.

And then there's the ship wars lol. Being a fan of a fictional woman absolutely does not mean you love all fictional women, and a lot of the absolute nastiest most misogynist statements I've seen in fandom have come from rival hetshippers wanking. You want to see a woman called a screeching harpy or a fugly slut or a manipulative whore or whatever else lol dive into a fandom with rival het ship wars. My favourite woman is practically perfect in every way and deserves the dude, your favourite woman is a wanton hussy.

This also holds true for the very few f/f fandoms that have rival f/f ships ime. Even Xena fandom regularly had plenty of misogynist things to say about any woman who makes eyes at Gabrielle who isn't Xena lol.

Also I would argue that wider f/f fandom's really fucking annoying compulsion to smooth away all relationship and character flaws and write two perfect women braiding each others' hair and maybe delicately finger-fucking at best in fear of problematic dynamics and kinks is also misogynist at its core, at least as an inescapable trend if not on an individual basis. Though, on that individual basis, the rhetoric around policing problematic f/f is absolutely misogynist (and homophobic). Good women don't get off on power and abuse, we can only like totally egalitarian sex, you're probably a predator if you're into dark fiction, that kind of shit.

And of course that also goes for the rhetoric around fic in general and how much misogyny is aimed at women writing kinky shit or m/m etc, but that's a bit of a digression since it's aimed at real women rather than fictional characters, so I'll stop there.

Thanks for asking and giving me a chance to complain more lol <3

[abitterberryblog]

the will of the many, major major spoilers 

( a really really stupid ramble i have during my twotm reread that i needed to scream into the void for under the cut lmfao )

One thing i can applaud Vis for is his amazing ability to be so inherently, ridiculously bisexual.  Like we have him describing people like “yeah this one’s a scrawny short guy, and this one’s a really buff dude who i, at first, thought was a grown adult just chilling at the school tables” and then he randomly goes along describes some other people like he got assigned to do poetry on them for school. And the funniest part is he ends up having more chemistry with just about everybody BESIDES his love interest (who may not be his love interest anymore due to complicated events that involve attempted murder).

For men we have Vis mentally describing Indol as handsome in almost every scene he appears in. Through Vis we learn how handsome, charming, brilliant, and amazing Indol is. How thoughtful and how genius and how capable and how he's the smartest and makes smart plans and whatever the fuck. Almost every line is some form of admiration. There is quite literally a line where Vis calls Indol “the closest thing Caten has to a prince”, which is quite the compliment considering Vis is. You know. An actual prince. And then there’s a line that goes like “I know I’m not supposed to, but I can’t help myself from liking him.”

(AND THEN YOU MEAN TO TELL ME THAT VIS IS A STRAIGHT MAN??? WITH THAT LINE?? Yeah, no. Not possible. It's so funny to read this, because lmfaooo hello???)

And then for women  we have the sheer amount of stuff Vis mentally says for Aequa, ranging from “dark wisps of her hair catch golden rays of sunlight from behind her” when her first meets her to a whole ass paragraph about how brilliant and “fiercely hardworking” and intelligent and radiant about how she truly deserves her top spot in class four and blablabla. and then a whole other line about how she’s smiling radiantly and “practically glowing” when she’s at the festival and sees a bunch of foundation games or something. And then another line about how Vis "genuinely doesn't get why people dislike her, because she's so greaaat and intelligent" (Lmao though I enthusiastically agree, Vis, she's my favourite) and how he finds it "inexplicably annoying" when those said class four students make throwaway jokes about her.

May be a hot take but i’d probably rather ship Vis with either of them than Emissa (even if she gets a really badass villain/well-written arc that I really badly want for her 🤡🤡🤡). Or literally anybody else. Callidus. Eidhin. Indol and Aequa, for gods sake, since apparently Vis can’t get enough of those fuckers.  It’s hilarious though and I love this book. As a bisexual I can confirm that he’s one of us.) 

I know he likes Emissa for a huge chunk of the book, but I find it funny that compared to the sheer amount of chemistry and compliments that Callidus (“he’s so smart and genius and awesome and I trust him sooo much he's great���), Eidhin (“he’s so smart and quick-witted and a marvel of physical specimen (???)”), and Indol who’s basically both a prince and a model in Vis’ eyes, and then Aequa who basically glows in Vis’ vision, and LITERALLY EVERYBODY BESIDES EMISSA gets this treatment, because the lines Vis has for Emissa sound either forced or bland or both. Like, yeah. We know her eyes are green. Thanks for speedrunning your whole scene with her though. Totally not suspicious.

(here's a link to Emissa Over-Analyzation's post where i excitedly ramble about her and her potential arc for an overly long time.)

Tune in (or not because if then please ignore my antics) for when I analyze each Praeceptor and why I really really like their different personalities and characters, and an uncomfortable close look on their teaching styles (or, in terms of Dultatis, their annoying asses).

[jongbross]

Hello, one with Baekhyun where he and the reader broke up few months ago, and he had a dream where she came back, and became true. Thanks🫶🏼

beautiful, beautiful dream (byun baekhyun x reader)

pairing: byun baekhyun x reader

word count: who's to say?

genre: angst, kind of fluffy

warnings: baek is a goner, he's so deeply in love

a/n: thanks for requesting! hope you like it <3

baekhyun could feel his heart breaking. all the times he felt any type of pain in his life was nothing compared to this.

you were beautiful in his dreams, wearing your favorite shirt - your shirt, ever since baekhyun let you borrow it once it was never his anymore - combined with that pair of jeans you always wore for grocery. no makeup, hair in an everyday style.

nothing too special actually, but the prettiest in baekhyun's eyes.

he talked to you, but he couldn't hear his own voice in dreamland, only yours. so he could only imagine what he was saying...

"how are you?"

"i'm fine, what about you?", and a smile on your lips.

"how's your mom?"

"she's great! i went to visit her last month", and a smile on your lips.

baekhyun couldn't think what he could've possibly said to you to make you say your next words though.

"baek... i think we should talk", and no smile on your lips, just kind eyes overflowing with he could only describe as love.

and then suddenly, baekhyun couldn't hear your voice anymore. all of a sudden, just like dreams works sometimes as if it cuts from scene to scene, you two were face to face, sitted across from each other in his favorite table at your favorite coffee shop.

you were talking about something important, baekhyun could tell. you couldn't look him in the eyes, but you used your hands as you spoke, words spilling from your lips in a crazy speed - baekhyun missed the way you spoke faster than your brain could work when you were nervous.

his ears were deaf, a sick and annoying no ending sound echoing through the shop. couldn't you hear it too? was he the only one listening? he didn't want to hear that, he wanted to hear you, your voice, your nervous laugh.

baekhyun nodded at something you said just because you nodded too. he shook his head next, just because you did too. fuck, what were you talking about?

"because... i-i still love you", boom, the noise ended and your voice was crystal clear to him again. "and i'm sorry i said all those things to you, i didn't mean it. i love you, baek. i think we should try again."

baekhyun opened his eyes, shaking awake from his dream. his cheeks were wet, and he didn't need to touch them to know he was crying.

his hands tugged tighter at his pillow, curling himself into a ball as more tears rolled down his face.

"babe?", baekhyun heard your voice followed by your hand on his shoulder. "are you okay?"

baekhyun relaxed at your touch. you pulled him to his back, taking a good look at his face - his eyes were glassy from the tears and sleepy, cheeks tinted in red and wet, lips on the cutest pout you learned to love so much.

"did you have a nightmare?"

"n-no...", he whispered as he didn't trust his own voice at that point. "just a beautiful, beautiful dream."

you smiled. laying back down, you pulled baekhyun to yourself, allowing him to rest his head on your chest. "you wanna tell me about this beautiful dream of yours?"

he hummed, denying. his arms snaked around your waist, holding you tight as he kissed the side of your neck and smelled the natural scent of your skin.

"it already came true", baekhyun whispered once more, closing his eyes to fall asleep again while holding his whole world inside his arms.

[hsrlanedefencesquad]

Ok so I've finally played the haze story and the premier was ok, nothing special, nothing bad about it (same way I've always felt about alice's other books so maybe this writing style just doesn't resonate with me) but I still have high hopes for this story...it has so much opportunity to get better

Things I didn't like:

Alice should have explored on Lada and veraya's relationship more, they didn't feel close to me, so much so that I wasn't moved by the sister's death at all

Dragan - what's this guy's problem??? No seriously, I hate this "boy is mean to you because he secretly likes you" CHILDISH ASS TROPE. It's not even a sort of dislike that I can digest from a red flag, no he is full on being mean and insulting & looks like he hates mc with every fiber of his being (I mean he literally clenches his jaw when he sees her coming) I don't like this (and this is coming from someone who loves romancing red flags) I really hope he has a GREAT excuse for why he acts that way other than he has a secret crush on her or else that would be stupid and I will use all my diamonds in making him miserable anyway I can

I was really expecting better from an RC writer not to do this annoying ass trope ESPECIALLY because GOE has already done it and it was no less ANNOYING...like what's going on with the "Boy is mean to you because he secretly likes you & you think he is in love with your dead twin sister but he is actually in love with you" trope?? Did Alice just take inspiration from anastasia's cas route or did a book recently blow up in book twt that had this trope, making other authors go crazy & venture into it or what?! Stop it, it's annoying & childish 🫵🏾

It's just been 2 episodes and I can already see that Lada has little to no backbone, why did anastasia write Lada being in love with that dragan idiot as the canon?? No like even on the determined/stubbornness path....Lada just keeps blushing like a fool thinking about dragan immediately after the idiot says the most insulting thing about her ever, even when I hadn't taken diamond choices with him, she was already blushing?? I hate my mcs being canonically in love with a character especially when said character is a jerk

Not only that but she also seems pathetic over him too, she obsesses over any little interaction her twin sister has with him, EVEN IN HER DEATH & FUNERAL, like what??? your sister just died and the main thing that made you finally drop a tear was whether dragan's gift was sincere or because he liked your sister so he gave you a gift because she asked.....like I would have been able to accept her having a crush on that idiot if she hated herself for it too or had strong internal monologues struggling with liking someone who despises her, like girl have some dignity please. I don't think I have found any mc so pathetic (in how she treats her romantic feelings aspect) in just 2 episodes.....plus she just feels so empty written (yes it has only been 2 episodes so we can't know much about her but still) it feels like there isn't even anything to know about her and please don't bring up lane because that is a very differently written character, she is written as cold and apathetic but we still could feel out her personality but lada? she isn't even described as being cold or empty, just average yet she still feels so.....meh

(I will humbly offer my apologies and give Alice all the praise if she progresses in the upcoming episodes, please note this isn't my analysis for the WHOLE story just this 2 little episodes so yes I do know there is still room for more and I am excitedly waiting on it. This is not a hate post)

Good thing I can say about Lada is that all her sprites are pretty and even though she feels bad about being average compared to her sister, she doesn't go the pick-me "woe is me, oh look at me I'm not like other girls route or develop some grudge or inferiority complex towards her sister for being better that her, No she accepts the way she is and instead find something else she loves doing that makes her whole)

The races

I either don't have eyes or I'm delusional because let me tell you, I haven't seen ONE black character in this story yet that was all the russians could complain of, either racists are that obsessed with black people that they pretty much see them every where, they aren't or there are some hidden characters that maybe I didn't see because where are the black people everyone was talking about? Only black person I saw was the opportunity to choose your mc's sprite

Infact, the race that I kept on seeing was asian (this also seemed weird to me but I googled it and it says slavic people extended to some parts of asia so they rightfully belong there & I don't really know what the russians have to complain about)

[onelastskip]

Just out of curiosity, how many MCs did you make for Keyframes? Can you tell us a bit about them? I'm interested to know :D

OMGGG HAIII!!!

Technicallyyy 4? I played through the game on all seasons but my other MCs aren't as fleshed out (and I haven't drawn them...) — but I'll talk about what I have anyway!

So obviously Chi was my first baby girl, autumn, romancing Percy straight away, I yap about her a lot already but here's a fun fact I haven't mentioned yet, her full name is Chi Huệ Aubade, very cool!

My next mc was Mika (she's sort recycled from olba, sorta not because I hate the idea of being unfaithful to cove, idk if that makes sense just the way my brain works) she's a summer and... well I was supposed to romance Elio... but then the Percy summer meeting hit me like a truck and I went for him again... now she probably won't get fleshed out but I'm thinking of doing a male mc elio summer run (for real this time, no percy shenanigans)

And then I have my spring mc, Nari, and- I will admit I was very close to reromancing Percy but no! they are a Jamie romance (slowwburn tho) cause I found the cupcake confrontation was so good with a spring personality. So they're uh, well to describe them, in a word, they're self-assured (technically two but semantics). They're extremely competent and they know it, they have a big ego and tend to be overconfident, brash and competitive. Andd they also have a crippling fear of emotional connection and an avoidant attachment style. love my little guys who are so smart yet so very stupid. Anyway their dynamic with Jamie is sort of teasing? They were expecting to be annoyed by him bcos of his reputation but they ended up liking him more than they thought. They have a sort of "people disappoint me" expectation, a lot of the friends and relationships they've had in the past were shallow (not for lack of trying? but nari really didn't put any effort in) they only really mesh with deja and cam and don't even try to form deeper relationships with others, the boys are the first friends they've made in a while, and their first time besides with cam and deja actually trying to connect with people. They're an ISTJ and fun fact about them theyyy are very good at chess.

And lastly my winter mc, Yumi (name pending.) they're my no romance route (or slowburn? it depends how it plays out I guess). They're... to describe them in one word. Chill (lol). They're an artist turned law student and they are very go with the flow. They are also doing a minor of sociology! They stopped painting in their last year of highschool because they were told they needed to start taking things seriously (they had pretty bad-average grades before). While they're generally patient and relaxed, when they do get angry, they are no holds barred, cussing out authority figures, not a single thought in that brain, they get very passionate when they're being confrontational. They're an INTP and fun fact about them they know how to skateboard.

WAIIIIT- I'M GONNA USE THIS ASK TO YAP ABOUT THE ENNEAGRAM (sorry anon my attention span is kinda fucked, ADHD ramble incoming)

Okay I've mentioned before Chi's a 2w3, little lore drop, she's got family issues (eldest daughter in an asian family /hj) but yeah there's a lot of pressure from that direction, that's part why she's doing a law degree (polisci? I forget how it is in america), she was rushed into picking a degree and just went with what she was best at. Anyway I should probably explain the enneagram oops, OKAY, so she has a type 2 fixation, which basically means, she's got a gaping hole where her self esteem is and she tries to patch that up by creating relationships (people pleaser...), that's why she tries to be as helpful as possible all the time, she's got a deep seated fear of abandonment and feels like she can only be loved if she's providing some sort of support (usually as an emotional dumping ground) to the other person.

Buttt, thankfully when she got to college she met Deja and Cam, who did NOT fuck with that kinda behaviour so she's slowly getting better, I imagine over the course of her time at college she gets better at loving herself and sets boundaries with her parents, fixes the relationship (the other drama is she has younger siblings who are still with them and yeah) idk I just like writing character arcs like this it helps me understand my ocs better I think

onto my other mcsss:

uhh Mika's a 7w8, but I'm gonna skip her since she'll probably get reworked into something else anywayyy

so Nari has a type 5 fixation, their whole deal is they need to feel competent, need to feel like they understand the world around them because it's a scary place and if something doesn't fit in with the way they understand things that means they understand nothing. Anyway, their little character arc would actually be centred on the relationship, it's a story about them accepting emotional vulnerability, letting down their walls, losing their rigid world view, and choosing to trust in another person and fall in love :3

Yumi (name pending) has a type 9 fixation, their problem is... well basically, on the surface, they're confident, calm, collected, composed (heh alliteration), they really seem like they've got it all together but internally they've resigned themself to being another cog in the machine. They've lost their passion in life and they're stuck in the pit of "it is what it is". Their character arc would probably involve them dropping out of college and pursuing something they actually care about, that being art.

[commenter2]

Scrambled Eggs review

We get to see the Hotel crew interacting without Alastor for a change, while Alastor meets up with some old pals when babysitting the Eggs.

There are Razzle and Dazzle, I was wondering where they were after the first episode.

With this being Hell, Pentious’ paranoia and want to defend himself must be common with the people. Maybe if there were less demons with asshole or perverted personalities we’d see that. Plus if this continues HH and HB is going to become like Family Guy and depend on that kind of stuff for every joke.

We finally got a name for the scientist from the pilot, Odette.

Carmilla Carmine, an Overlord centered on weapons. Her introduction could lead to some interesting fights.

Vaggie is kind of right, just because someone flips you off, doesn’t mean they want you dead. Niffty on the other hand is someone you should always worry about as she will likely want to do more than murder you.

It’s another example of how we wouldn’t have gotten the storyline if it happened, but I’m surprised Charlie or Vaggie (mostly Charlie) didn’t bring up the idea of having the Eggs join as part of the Hotel’s staff. They look like they could try and aid in cleaning and repair.

I also do like that Charlie didn’t, as so far I’ve seen a lot of examples where Vaggie sacrifices more in the relationship, so I’m counting this as an example of Charlie taking Vaggie’s word/side.

They made the famous Alastor pic of him eating deer into an animation!

BTW with his room being part swamp and the writer’s love of making memes, how long before we get a Kermit the Frog joke from this? If the writers ever decide to do that, they should get YouTuber DevilArtemis to help since he knows a lot about Kermit :)

Another change in Al’s voice when he said “that’s a lot less fun”. Now thinking back to the last episode, Vox had something similar going on with his voice so maybe it’s a common trait for sinners like them but I feel like that is a too simple reason for Alastor of all characters.

Another example of Charlie’s reality altering illusions. Did I ever mention who I think she could fight in an episode of Death Battle?

Is Vaggie afraid to lead people? It is an interesting idea but we have seen her doing just that before, though I guess those previous time could be considered “angry outburst/feelings”. I am one of the people who thinks Vaggie is a former Exorcist and if there is the slightest chance that is true, I could see this being a reason why she left. A bit off topic but going back to something I said in my Overture review, this also would have worked for the alternate idea of how it was common for Heaven losing Exorcist every year till now, as maybe they “lost” some because they quit during/after Exterminations.

Technically Husk did catch Angel, so there is trust their but annoy him and he’ll stop helping.

IDK how to describe it, but its nice seeing the fun art style that Angel and Cherri were drawn as in the pilot return for Angel, Husk, and Pentious here.

With the situation you and Hell are in Charlie, any progress should be considered good.

So that guy’s name is Zestial Modre. You think he talks that way because he is chronologically very old, or just for effect as I’m guessing he’s the Overlord of Fear? You think DC Comics/Warner Bros. would be okay with Vivzie if she gave Zestial a power similar to Scarecrow’s fear gas or have his full demon form look similar to Parallax, the emotional entity of Fear? Viv worked with Disney for a bit, so I bet Warner Bros. would be okay if it meant getting one over their rival company.

If you turn on subtitles, one of the Egg Bois is named Frank. I recall it being said that the Eggs are cloned from an original Egg, so could Frank be said original?

Sure Al, nothing suspicious happened during your break.

Not even the Eggs know about the name thing.

An Overlord meeting! 

I recall Zilla being tall, but not THAT tall. Also does any still ship her with that guy she was seen with in the pilot, the one who was laughing at Charlie and said they should leave?

Nearly everyone in Hell has sharped teeth, so how is Rosie any different Frank?

Apparently the VA of Carmilla is also a dancer, fitting given how Carmilla looks like a ballerina. Also as LK Yusei Fudo would say, “what is up with her hair”?

“Older generation vs. never generation” trope. How long before Velvette makes a “okay boomer” joke?

The Exorcist severed head! Didn’t see that coming! 

Now apparently there are theories of Lilith being disguised as Rosie, which I could see, but I do want to point out that she was shocked at the severed Exorcist head. Lilith seems like a kind of actor, so she could have acted being surprised but it’s still something that should be pointed out.

Looks like Zestial agrees with me that it’s possible that something else could have killed the Exorcist. Also that it sounds like he IS very old, maybe even older than Sir Pentious.

I’m wondering if this scene could help later on if there is a future scene where people blame Charlie for moving up the next Extermination, but then Alastor and maybe the other Overlords defend her by revealing the severed head. If it means preventing Charlie from having a “all is hopeless” scene then I hope it does.

It is interesting that the sinners are divided about if they should use the knowledge of knowing Exorcist could be killed to fight back or wait till they either learn more or to not risk having the whole Pride Ring population be wiped out. Both sides make sense but also have their flaws.

Looks like Angel and Cherri have some competition with Zestial and Carmilla for the title of number 1 BFFS.

“Respectless” is my favorite HH song so far. Really love how it switches between opera music and rap.

HOLY CRAP ODETTE AND CARMILLA ARE RELATED!!! THIS is going to be fun and lead to some interesting discussions, like is she (and the other girl Odette is always with) adopted or did Carmilla and the others die and get sent to Hell around the same time?

Again I get that this is an M rated show, but the series is already good enough that I don’t think it always need to rely on extreme violence and NSFW stuff, as it kind of killed the mood after seeing what happened in the next see. Again, Family Guy.

WHY! 

Another example of why the “Vaggie is a former Exorcist” theory could be true.

I bet Vaggie has been dreaming about thrown Angel to his doom XD.

Liking how Charlie said there are other ways to solve things, going back to an older comment about her and Lilith having different views of how to make Hell thrive.

I’m going to count this as Charlie and Vaggie’s first fight, but at least it’s a good one since its just Vaggie being mad at herself of her lack of leadership and Charlie being mad (more annoyed/concerned) of Vaggie unnecessarily blaming herself.

Confirmation that the other girl (named Clara) is also Carmilla’s daughter.

So Carmilla killed the exorcist. OR MAYBE she witnessed who really did and had to promise to not tell or else something bad would really happen to the point being the fall gal would be a slap on the wrist in comparison.

With Carmilla being against fighting Heaven, I wonder if she could become a potential Hell based ally of Charlie’s in the future. They both want to protect the people they care about from Heaven so I don’t see why not.

Vaggie’s line of “There’s so much I wished that I could say”, is ANOTHER possible hint at Vaggie’s Exorcist past.

Another great song, showing how similar Carmilla and Vaggie are, which again could help in making a future alliance between the Hotel and Overlord.

Yeah I shouldn’t be surprised that Alastor is going to keep the Exorcist info hidden, since he loves chaos. Also a possible an ally of that Roo character, who is on my list of possible characters being behind everything.

Again, Charlie and Vaggie are cute!

It’s adorable to see Pen sleep with the eggs like an actual snake.

SEE! THE EGGS CAN LEARN!

“character not realizing the dumb/innocent/etc. character is actually talking about something real and big to the story” trope.

I’m late bringing this up, but does anyone else think there should be end credit segments at the end of SOME episodes? I mean thanks to movies and videogames it is a surprise when there aren’t any, plus it would have been fun in some cases. Maybe they’ll do one for the season finale.

That was great episode! We got Overlords, great songs, hilarity, and some big reveals.

I really like the idea of Carmilla being a mother, as it adds more to the “always serious businesswoman” vibe she gives off. I’m also hoping it leads to pics where her daughters spend time with their “Uncle Zestial”. Speaking of which, he was a good new character to look about, reminds me a lot of Jack Skellington with a pinch of DC’s Scarecrow with his interest in fear.

We also got news about the dead Exorcist and while I’m okay if Carmilla did kill it with a weapon, I still like the idea of how she is taking the blame or else she will suffer by the hands of the true culprit. It also brings up the drama as the Vs could make this worse for everyone if they decide to get people to fight the Exorcist. At least if they do and fail, Charlie will no longer be the target of the sinner’s anger.

Nothing that bad besides that one creepy NSFW scene as it was annoying that it happened after a pretty big scene.Leave your thoughts about the episode below.

[watori-fics]

Away Mission Test Wholesome Chats & Banters (Suwa Squad #7)

Title: Getting Comfy at Suwa Squad 7 Pairing: Gen (Suwa | Ui | Oki | Katori | Mikumo) Summary: In which the five agents from different squads trying to have a good time, and they actually do during the away mission test.

Note: Suwa squad members working and living together for a week sounds like a blast! Here’s a fun scenario of Suwa Squad with Katori, Osamu, and the rest of the gang, complete with the sibling-like chaos. Love their dynamics. I mean, just reading the extras got me all SQUEEEE

At Suwa Squad's meeting room, late afternoon.

The Suwa Squad had gathered for their routine strategy meeting, but, as usual, things were already spiraling out of control.

Katori slams her hands on the table. "Why are we even listening to Four Eyes again? I mean, seriously, why’s the youngest of us all trying to tell us how to fight?"

Osamu, sitting across from her, remained composed as ever, writing and scribbling quietly in his notes without even glancing up.

Osamu says softly, "Because, Katori-san, you missed the last twenty minutes of planning sessions, and someone has to keep things on track."

Katori hisses, "Who asked you?!"

She crossed her arms, glaring at Osamu like an annoyed older sister who couldn’t stand her little brother’s calm demeanor. Before she could spit out another retort, Ui bounced over, full of energy and serotonin, practically glowing with cheerfulness.

Ui, cheerfully chimes in, "Come on, Katori-chan! Mikumo-kun’s pretty smart! He’s trying his best!"

Katori groans, "Ugh, you’re too positive."

Meanwhile, Oki, who had been leaning back in his chair with a big grin, was clearly enjoying the chaos.

Oki teases. "Katori-chan, give Mikumo-kun some slack. He’s our little strategist prodigy. Besides, it’s kinda cute watching you two bicker." Katori whipped around to glare at Oki, her face turning red. Gritting her teeth, she hisses again. "Don’t call me cute! Gross!"

Oki laughs. "I meant the sibling vibe you and Mikumo have. He’s so calm, and you’re like—" He imitates her hissing, "—rawr."

Katori glares harder. "I will end you."

Before the tension could escalate, Suwa, back from the toilet, entered the room, arms crossed, looking every bit like the rough-mouthed father figure of the squad.

Suwa grumbles. "What the hell are you all yappin’ about? Mikumo, you good? You haven’t quit yet from all the noise?"

Osamu merely shrugged with a little laugh, glancing up briefly from his notebook. "I’m used to it."

Suwa let out a loud laugh, smacking Osamu on the back in what could only be described as a semi-painful display of fatherly affection and grinned. "That’s what I like to hear! Kid’s got backbone. Y’all could learn something from him."

Katori, while rolling her eyes, quips. "Of course you’d take his side."

Ui, ever the bubbly peacekeeper, quickly jumped in with a big smile. "Aww, it’s ‘cause Mikumo-kun is like our little brother! We should take care of him!"

Oki nodded enthusiastically, patting Osamu on the head with a mischievous grin. "Yup, youngest one’s the brains of the family."

Osamu, clearly used to their antics, just sighed softly, not even bothering to move Oki’s hand from his head. He says calmly, "Should we get back to planning for tomorrow?"

Suwa plopped down at the head of the table, kicking his feet up. "Yeah, yeah, let’s hear it, Mikumo. What's the next slick plan you’ve got for us?"

As Osamu started explaining the strategy, Katori was still glaring daggers at him, but even she couldn’t deny the kid knew his stuff. Oki and Ui, meanwhile, were nodding along enthusiastically, with Oki throwing in the occasional joke and Ui offering praise at every opportunity.

Despite all the sibling-style squabbles, there was an undeniable camaraderie in Suwa Squad—a group that bickered like family but, at the end of the day, had each other's backs. Even if Osamu had to deal with Katori’s endless teasing and Suwa’s tough love, he was undeniably part of the team.

———

It’s 7pm, and the timer signals the end of the test period for the day. Everyone in Suwa Squad lets out a collective sigh of relief. The cramped, plain room at HQ has been their home for the test duration, and while they’ve gotten used to it, the confinement is starting to get to them. Still, for now, they’re free to relax.

Osamu, ever the responsible one, takes charge of distributing tea. He approaches Katori first, who’s leaning against the wall with her arms crossed, still sulking about the day’s results.

Without a word, he offers her a cup. Katori eyes him suspiciously, her usual grumpy demeanor in place.

“You better not be trying to poison me, Four Eyes,” she mutters, but grabs the cup anyway.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Osamu replies calmly, completely unbothered by her snark. He moves on to the others, while Katori takes a tentative sip of the tea, her expression softening slightly as the warmth hits her.

Meanwhile, Oki emerges from the tiny kitchen area with cups for the rest of the squad. He hands one to Ui, who, as usual, is all smiles.

“Here ya go, Ui-chan! Hot tea, made with love,” Oki grins.

“Thank you, Oki-senpai!” Ui chirps, accepting the cup. She blows on the tea gently, her lips pursing like a cat testing something too hot.

Oki’s eyes light up. “Ui-chan, ya look just like a cute lil’ kitten!”

Ui giggles, her cheeks puffing out as she blows on her tea again. “Meowww,” she jokes, playfully leaning into the cat comparison.

Katori, sitting with her tea, rolls her eyes. “Dorks.”

Suwa, sipping his coffee, watches the exchange with an amused smirk. “You kids are kinda adorable, I guess. But man, do I miss my beer.”

Oki chuckles, setting his tea down. “Should’ve smuggled in a can or two as part of your personal effects, Suwa-san.”

Suwa snorts. “Yeah, and get us all failed immediately? No thanks.”

Everyone bursts out laughing, imagining the look on the judges’ faces if Suwa tried to sneak alcohol into the mission test.

As the laughter dies down, Osamu, always the calm little brother figure, sits down with his tea. He watches the dynamic around him—Oki doting on Ui, Katori begrudgingly sipping her tea, and Suwa cracking jokes like a rough-mouthed father figure. Despite the teasing and banter, it’s moments like this that make them feel like a real team, even in the pressure cooker of the mission test.

Katori, glancing at Osamu from the corner of her eye, lets out a quiet huff. “You’re not so bad, Four Eyes,” she mumbles under her breath, just loud enough for him to hear.

Osamu, with his usual composure, just nods and takes another sip of tea. No grudges, no bitterness—just the same steady presence that keeps this chaotic squad grounded.

The evening break continues with more light-hearted banter, the weight of the mission test forgotten, if only for a little while.