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wonwoonlight · 2 years ago

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my daisy special: little flower | kim mingyu

➝ CEO!Mingyu x Reader

➝ fluff // slice of life // marriage!au // est relationship // a little angsty // hurt comfort..?

➝ warning: mentions of pregnancy (it's literally the plot jshdbf), mentions of sex (no smut scenes), soft Mingyu D:

➝ word count: 4.6~k

A/N: hi! it's been some time since i write this couple. ngl i miss them so much and it gets me a little giddy to see them still popping up in my notif haha. anyway! i'm posting this as a celebration for my 3k milestone, i really i wish i could've written more but i'm happy with how this turns out and i hope this suffice hehe thank you for the love you've been giving to my daisy and please enjoy!! do tell me what you think about it🩷

my daisy masterlist

[✾✾✾]

You have a set of problems.

You’re pregnant.

You don’t know how to tell Mingyu and Gyuri.

And, last but absolutely not least because it’s the one that you think is the biggest of them all:

3. Gyuri just told you she doesn’t want a sibling anymore.

Biting your lip to the point where it almost bleeds, all sorts of feelings run through you as you stare at the three pregnancy tests in front of you. All of them are positive, which didn’t come off as a much of a surprise, if you’re being completely honest.

You noticed the symptoms almost immediately weeks ago, but you didn’t want to jump into conclusions and a part of you wanted to brush them off as something else–everything else. Oh, you threw up? Perhaps you ate something wrong. Oh, you’re lightheaded? You definitely didn’t sleep enough the night before. Oh, your period is late? Happens sometimes when you’re a little too stressed.

You were just delaying taking the test. But, deep down, you knew.

How could you not when you and Mingyu haven’t been using any sort of protection for the past year? It’s not that you’re trying for a kid, but the both of you have decided that whatever happens, happens. You’ve seen a lot of people hoping to conceive and unfortunately not get pregnant even after years have passed.

If you somehow get pregnant without even trying, you’ll just accept that it’s what you’re meant to do.

Plus, you don’t think the both of you would ever be ready for a kid if you plan to have one–nor the emotional baggage that would come if you decide to try only to find out you’re not pregnant just yet.

So, after a lot of thinking and Gyuri’s 7th birthday last year, the both of you agree to just forego protections since. If you end up getting pregnant, it’ll just be a pleasant surprise. You both would love to be pregnant, and you’d like to think you’re mentally (and financially) prepared enough from that point onwards.

Okay.

First thing first.

“Baby?” Mingyu knocks on the bathroom door, wondering if something’s wrong because you’re way too silent and it’s been a whole ten minutes since you’ve excused yourself to the bathroom. “You okay?”

You blink back the tears at his voice, still staring at the pregnancy tests in front of you. You’re happy, you really are, and you know Mingyu would be elated.

But Gyuri?

It was just last month that she declared she’s not up for the sister life.

“Ma, I don’t think I want siblings anymore.” She said out of nowhere when she was cuddling with you. Mingyu was outside the city for a business trip, so the two of you decided to have a girls’ night; complete with the disney movies, pizzas, ice cream, and everything else that definitely left Gyuri too high on sugar by the end of the night.

“Yeah?” You tried to indulge her, though something inside you dropped at the revelation. Gyuri had always been excited at the prospect of being a sister, and she played the older sister role very well with Junseo, Jennie’s son. What changed? “Why?”

“Junseo is enough.” She shrugged, playing with the material of your pajamas. “Also… I don’t want to lose you.”

You laughed at that, but quickly got concerned when Gyuri seemed to be fairly serious about what she had just said.

“You wouldn’t lose me, Flower.” You reminded her with a kiss and a tight hug. “What made you think so?”

“You’d need to take care of the baby all the time…” she trailed off, and you once again wondered what made Gyuri to be this much attuned to her own feelings when she’s only seven. “Dunno… I just want you and Papa for myself.”

“Oh, my little Lili.” You pulled away at her words, cupped her face and reminded her that you’d never abandon her, siblings or not. She didn’t look convinced, though you couldn’t blame her because you kind of understood where she’s coming from.

Gyuri had been an only child for all her life. It was probably a little lonely, but she received all the love she needed and wanted from every single person around her. When Junseo came around, she was just excited that she finally had a friend, some sort of distant relative, and she readily took the older sister role for him.

But you knew sometimes she found him annoying. They’re kids, could you blame them? But Gyuri was a little too mature for her own good, and she’d just run to you or Mingyu when Junseo annoyed her instead of fighting him like any other child her age would. She wouldn’t even cry out of frustration.

She’d frown, try to tell Junseo off, and if he still didn’t listen, she’d just leave and settle by her parents’ side.

It worried you, if you’re to be completely honest. You and Mingyu had never asked her to suppress her feelings, but Gyuri rarely threw a tantrum and the both of you had been worried that it would eat her inside out at some point.

“Just me, you, and Papa.” She closed the discussion, hugging you tighter and eventually falling asleep on your lap.

“Daisy?” Mingyu tries once again, and even calls your name when you still don't answer. You take a deep breath and straighten your posture. Okay, no use doing a grand announcement to Mingyu. He’d be happy either way and you’d rather tell him immediately. You both have more important things to think about than a surprise: Gyuri’s possible reaction to this.

“Coming,” you finally answer before opening the door.

Mingyu looks concerned, not wasting any second to ask if you’re okay. He’s a little startled when you grasp his hands, holding them tight before asking him not to freak.

“Daisy, you’re scaring me.”

You manage to give him a smile though, because despite the worries, you are happy to know you’re pregnant. There’s a life growing inside you–a baby that is both a mix of you and your husband.

As much as you worry about Gyuri, you’re still giddy at the fact that you’re finally pregnant–that your family is growing. And a part of you is relieved that Gyuri’s reaction is the only thing that seems to be of concern. Everything else is fine. If there’s any problem, they’re not big enough for you to think of them now.

Perhaps seeing Mingyu helps too. Because now you’re biting your lip to stop yourself from grinning too hard. You just knew his reaction would be priceless and you can’t wait to let him know about your current situation.

“Daisy, don’t play with me.” He frowns at the sudden change of your mood, but complies when you pull him into the bathroom.

He’s a little confused when you keep your silence, and he’s just about to ask again when he notices the sticks in front of the mirror. You feel him freeze for three whole seconds, and you finally grin when he turns to you, as if making sure that it’s what he thinks it is.

You nod even if he’s not saying anything, and it’s him who surprises you because Mingyu tears up and he almost whimpers if not for the fact that you jump to hug him. The whole situation is a little funny, but it’s not appropriate to laugh just yet so you let him have his moment. Years from now when your kids are old enough to understand, you'll definitely bring this up just so you can all tease him together.

He sniffles as he buries his head on your shoulder, which you’re sure is very uncomfortable due to his height. Mingyu doesn’t seem to care though, and he hugs you tighter like you’ll disappear if he doesn’t.

“Gyu?” You finally call him after a while, and he lets you pull away so he can look at you. He’s not crying, but his eyes are glossy and he’s still sniffling as if to hold back his tears.

You've seen this before. Twice, to be exact. The first time was when he finally proposed properly (whatever that meant) even though he already knew you'd say yes. The second time was on your wedding day, when you finally reached him at the end of the aisle with Gyuri holding your hand.

You smile softly as you search for his face, then you cup his face to pull him down for a gentle kiss. The feel of his breath against your face still makes you fuzzy inside, and when Mingyu presses his lips deeper into yours, a giggle escapes your lips until eventually he joins in, bringing you back in time and to some other universe where you go to the same highschool together, and you're a high-school couple still fresh in love.

“When should we go to the doctor?”

“We can go tomorrow?” You offer, reminding him his parents are in town. “Leave Lili with your mom? And then we can tell her too after.”

“Tomorrow it is.” He squeezes you once more with a happy grin, but only then realizes that you’re holding something back. “You okay?”

“Lili is in the living room with Wonwoo and the others, right?” He nods. “Let’s talk in our room, then.”

You haven’t been able to tell Mingyu about your talk with Gyuri that day and now seems like the perfect time to do so. He listens to you quietly, and you see the way his face falls as you tell him everything, the way it clicks to him why his daughter seems more reluctant to play with Junseo nowadays.

“I’m happy, Gyu. I really am. But Lili…”

“We’ll talk to her. Let’s think about it after the doctor appointment tomorrow, okay?”

You nod. It’s almost magic the way you relax at his words and his touch. And as you catch Mingyu looking at your stomach with a dazed smile, you let yourself be happy and push your worry to the back of your mind.

[✾✾✾]

Mingyu cries when the doctor does the ultrasound and confirms you’re pregnant.

[✾✾✾]

“What about names?”

You laugh at the big puppy that is your husband. Sometimes you wonder what would Seungkwan do if he ever catches Mingyu like this. For someone that is practically a big pile of mush when it comes to you, Mingyu is unexpectedly very good at keeping it low at work.

You thought he’d crack with Seungkwan eventually. But no. Even when you’re out for a friendly dinner after work, Mingyu would keep the PDA to a minimum. There’s some sort of pride battle going on between the two men that you’d never be able to figure out.

“I think we’d need to find out about the gender first before starting to pick names, Gyu."

“I mean… we can always just look for unisex names first…” He pouts a little, which urges you to kiss him. So you do exactly that, catching him by surprise though he’s definitely not complaining.

Mingyu hums into the kiss, his palm cupping your face and his thumb caressing the apple of your cheek.

“You’re very excited about this, aren’t you?” You pull away, just enough distance between your lips to talk.

“Mhm.” He drops another peck before entirely pulling away. He pauses before he continues, his palm never leaving your face as some sort of melancholy fills his eyes. “I didn’t… get to do this during… well, Gyuri’s pregnancy process.”

Your lips drop open to say something–anything. But nothing comes out, and you also know that anything you might’ve said regarding that part of his past wouldn’t help. So you decide to talk about what’s to come instead.

“Well, now we get to do this together for the first time.” You grasp the hand that’s on your face to give it a squeeze. “As long as we’re together, right?”

He tears up again, and you hold yourself back from teasing him and instead grin before you pull him into another kiss.

As long as you’re together.

[✾✾✾]

It’s almost a month later that you decide it’s time to let Gyuri know. You’ve told both of your families and your close circles, and while you initially thought you’d tell Gyuri once you start showing, after talking to your mom and Mingyu’s, they both agree that it’d be better to tell her sooner rather than later.

And here you are in her bedroom, sitting beside her as you break the news.

“But… I told you I don’t want a sibling.” She tears up. And as much as you’re ready for this reaction, it still breaks your heart to hear her say this again.

Mingyu drops to his knee to look into her eyes, his palms grabbing her small hands as he carefully chooses his next words.

“Can you tell me why?” Ha asks softly, and when Gyuri sniffles, her lips trembling as she stares back at him, he’s suddenly reminded of those years he had Gyuri all by himself. The time when he insisted that he could do it alone, that he didn’t need anyone’s help, and that Gyuri was his so he’d do everything on his own.

That he owed her that much.

It’s… been quite some time since he spent some time with her, huh? After you come into the picture, it never occurs to him that he might need to spend some alone time with Gyuri. The kid also seems happy with you around, and the last time he had gone out only with Gyuri had probably been… months ago when you went on a business trip.

“You told Mama already, yeah?” he tries one more time, and when she nods, he continues. “I want to hear from you, though. Can you tell me?”

“I don’t… want to share you and Mama.”

Mingyu nods, then tells her how you’d love her still, that none of you are leaving her behind, that you need her to be with you.

“We will need you more because of this, Lili.” You caress her head. “I will need you to help me. Not only because of your sister or brother. We need you. Mama and Papa always do.”

“But–but you’ll still need to take care of the baby a lot…”

“Flower, we will take care of you both. No favorites, we promise. Please don’t think we’ll stop taking care of you because of the baby, okay?”

Gyuri shakes her head, and this time she drops her gaze to avoid yours as her lips start to tremble again. You share a worried look with Mingyu. You know Gyuri doesn’t want a sibling, and this is actually a problem that a lot of families have, but you still don’t have a clear grasp of how much this actually bothers her.

The both of you watch as Gyuri turns and falls into Mingyu’s embrace then circles her arms around his neck. She’s not sobbing, which is good, but it’s concerning just how upset she seems to be.

“Lili?”

She shakes her head, seemingly done with the conversation.

Mingyu throws you a look, then signs you to leave for a bit because, at the end of the day, Gyuri is still more honest with him than she is with you. Perhaps he can coax her a bit more like this. Just like the old times.

He takes her in his arms and sits on her bed, simply holds her on his lap as he lets her have her moment.

“Flower, will you look at me?”

She’s reluctant, but she pulls away and Mingyu almost regrets asking her to because she looks crestfallen. Is the idea of having a sibling that upsetting?

“It’s been long since it’s just us two, huh?” He says instead, smiling a little. Does she even remember the time when it’s just the two of them? She was three before you came into their lives. “I always share you with Mama now.”

“Papa miss Lili?”

“All the time.” He answers without missing a beat. “But Mama also does, that’s why I don’t mind sharing you with Mama. Do you want me to be selfish and take you for myself instead?”

Gyuri frowns and shakes her head. “No. Lili wants to be with Mama too.”

“You like Mama a lot, huh?”

She nods but doesn’t elaborate.

“Do you think we will stop loving you if you share us with your sibling, Li?”

The words from her lips come out as a mumble. Mingyu doesn’t really get what she’s saying, but he’s satisfied that she’s open to talk now.

“You know, when you were a baby, I didn’t want to share you with Grandma and Grandpa.” He says, thumb rubbing against her cheek. “I was afraid they’d take you away from me.”

“Why would they steal me from you?” She giggles at the prospect of her grandparents taking her away from him.

“I was just afraid I was not a good Papa for you.” Gyuri seems to have a hard time understanding this, tilting her head adorably that earns her a soft kiss on the forehead. “But Grandma and Grandpa just wanted to help. They didn’t want to take you away from me.”

She blinks at him, trying to see where this is going.

“The baby… won’t take us away from you, Lili. I know you’re worried, but I promise we will always, always love you. It’s because of you Mama and Papa are together, you know?”

Her eyes dim at the mention of the baby once again, and he tries to be patient for her sake, caressing her hair as he tells her a thousand reasons why you, him, and the baby need her. That she’s not getting left behind in any way.

“That’s not it.” She starts, her voice small. But her next words are never ones he expected. “Lili… is not Mama’s baby.”

It takes Mingyu a few seconds to understand what she’s saying, and when he does, he’s cold with the realization that this scenario is also possible.

You were insecure about being a mother figure to Gyuri, afraid that you’re not enough for her. He has never imagined the same kind of insecurity would be present on Gyuri’s end.

She’s… insecure because she’s not your blood and this baby would be?

“Oh, Kim Gyuri…” He hugs her again, the puzzle finally clicking. “You’ll always be Mama’s baby. She loves you a lot. Remember when she took care of you when you were sick a long time ago? She wasn’t your Mama yet but she played with you and took care of you anyway.”

Gyuri probably doesn’t. But Mingyu does. How could he not when it’s probably the start of his relationship with you?

“Do you want to talk about this with Mama?” He tries softly. “I think she will be able to understand more if you do.”

“Mama won’t be mad?”

He smiles at her worries, shaking his head and assuring her you wouldn’t be mad at all. “She will be sad if you’re upset, though. Do you want Mama to be sad?”

“No…”

“Let’s go?”

She nods and asks him to carry her. When they arrive in the master bedroom, you look up from the bed, looking concerned still.

Gyuri doesn’t say anything, but leans to you and reaches out her arms so you’ll take her instead.

“Hi, baby.” You kiss her head. “How are you feeling?”

She shrugs, but she leans on your shoulder and lets you caress her hair. Mingyu sends you a look. Apparently, whatever talk they had hasn’t really resulted in anything, not that you expect her to change her mind just like that. Still, Mingyu mouths something about asking Gyuri, so you do.

“You wanna tell me something?” She hesitates, so you do it first. “Can I share something with Lili, then?”

At her nod, you take a deep breath before you start.

“I’m afraid Lili won't like me anymore because of the baby.”

“What? No… Lili always like Mama.” She frowns. “Lili just… Baby…”

Mingyu sits on the bed next to you, encouraging Gyuri to continue as he tells her it’s okay. You look at him in question, but he doesn’t give you any answer. Perhaps the talk did result in something, after all.

“Mama won’t be mad, I promise.” He adds, making you even more confused. “Do you want me to tell Mama instead?”

She nods, burying her face on your shoulder to hide.

You urge Mingyu to talk, hugging Gyuri closer to reassure her that you’re not going to be mad at all.

“She said she’s not… your baby. But the baby will be.”

Huh.

What?

You need a moment to take that, Gyuri–what?

“Lili, what makes you think you’re not my baby?” You ask sadly, wondering if it’s okay to pull her away from your embrace. “I choose to love you, baby. And I will need you to help me take care of me now, not only the baby. Having this baby means I will need you around me more often, you know?”

You and Mingyu spend about another thirty minutes reassuring Gyuri nonstop, thirty long minutes that is luckily not spent calming her tears down. You don’t even know if that’s what you’re supposed to do; should you be giving her space instead?

But that’s always the thing about parenting, isn’t it? Sometimes you make the wrong choice and Gyuri gets the end of it, and sometimes you think you’ve pushed her too much only for Gyuri to actually get the message and fix her mistakes.

“And, you know, I think baby told me that they’re already very excited to see you.” You try another approach. “When this baby is born, you would need to teach them how to play and to draw and to use the bubble bath. Mama and Papa are too old for that.”

This seems to get her attention, and she asks if she can ask them to play with her big barbie house that Junseo seems to hate with all his heart.

“Anything you want, Flower. This baby is going to be your sibling, you can ask each other to play everything if you want, would you do that?”

“Hmm… Is it a brother or a sister?”

You share a smile with Mingyu at last. She’s no longer declining the idea, at least.

“We don’t know yet. Do you have a preference?”

“As long as they’re not annoying like Junseo.”

That you can’t be sure of, but you laugh with her to ease her mind. For all its worth, you’re actually a little touched that Gyuri cares that much about being your flesh and blood. It’s going to be different, your love for her and your love for the baby growing inside you. But you don’t think it would have anything to do with one of them being your own blood.

No.

It’s true. You choose to love Gyuri. She’s not your biological child, and you practically fell in love with her from the first time you saw her by herself in SVT Inc.’s building. But it’s not as easy as people believe it to be to keep on loving her. You have to constantly think about the line you need to keep as someone who’s not her mom, but you definitely care for her and love her too much to be just another person in her life.

Gyuri also depends on you a lot, sometimes even foregoing her father just so she can bask in your comfort. And after the whole fighting episode that ended up with Mingyu proposing to you, she’s even more clingy after it’s clear that she’s allowed to call you her Mama.

“So there’s… a baby… inside you?” She asks after a while, looking at you with wonder.

You take her hand with a smile and place her palm on your stomach. Obviously, none of you can feel anything just yet, but you tell her you’ll be able to in a few months and you'd like it if she’ll be there for it.

“You will have a lot of big sister things to do.” You tell her seriously. Gyuri likes having responsibilities (it’s definitely the perfectionism and hard-working tendency from her father), and if there’s any way where you can make her feel that she’s needed, you’re ready to let Gyuri do whatever she chooses to do. “Decorate the baby’s room, buy new toys, hmm… What more do you think we need to do, Gyu?”

Mingyu grins as you ask him this, and he pretends to think also before throwing the question to his daughter instead.

“What else, Li?”

She takes her time to think, which melts your heart to the point of nonexistence because you didn’t expect her to take things this seriously. And when she finally knows what to say, you almost tear up because you didn’t expect her to say that at all.

“Buy Mama a lot of food?” She offers, a frown on her face. “Eunji says her mom eats a lot when pregnant, is that true?”

“Oh, my baby.” You hug her hard and melt against her body. Gyuri is going to turn eight this year, and whilst she’s almost too big for you to hold now, sometimes it feels like she’s just the small girl you met five years ago. Has it really been five years since you’ve met her and Mingyu? “That is true, alright. And I think some people eat sooooo much ice cream during their pregnancy, will you eat them with me?”

Gyuri giggles at your exaggeration, though of course she happily nods at the prospect of too much dessert.

“I will make a list!” She suddenly jumps in excitement, wiggling on your lap. “So many toys to buy. Can I sleep with the baby? When will the baby come? What do they like?”

You tear up at the change of attitude, so it’s Mingyu who answers even if he wants to tease you about it.

“In nine months. And they will like whatever you get them. But don’t buy too much just yet, okay?”

“That’s so long!” She gasps.

“Yeah, but that means we’ll be all prepared, right?” He grins at her, one arm going around you while his other hand ruffles Gyuri’s hair. “You need to practice to be a big sister, too! Will you be able to do it?”

Gyuri nods vigorously, promising that she will be the bestest sister ever. “And I will help you too, Ma. You will call Lili everytime you need help?”

At this point, you’re already crying as you nod. Gyuri panics a little, tries her best to wipe your tears when Mingyu assures her that you’re crying because you’re happy.

“Do you want to see a picture of the baby? You can’t see them clearly, though.”

Surprisingly, Gyuri shakes her head. But before you can worry yet again, she beams and says she wants everything to be a surprise. “But tell me when you find out if it’s a boy or a girl?”

“You can come with us to the doctor when we find out, Flower.”

She squeals in excitement, the previous stand on wanting to be a big sister seems to have returned. Gyuri starts to ramble about the amusement parks and all her favorite places that she wants to visit with the baby, and you finally share a relieved smile with Mingyu.

He leans forward to peck your lips, whispering that he’s excited for another beginning for your family. The smile on his face is the most beautiful you’ve ever seen. With his heart full, he hugs you both tighter into his chest and simply laughs when Gyuri whines, asking him to let go.

[✾✾✾]

A/N: thank you again for 3k!! see you on mwty special <3

my daisy taglist: @yslshua@penny-quinn@nollixtrml@dnylwoo@itsveronicaxxx@john-and-paul@wheeinz@rjsmochii@w0nuuu@boowanie@n6body@imtotallydef@wwssi@bythe8@cheolright@coupsiekkuma@hoe4wonwoo@kyeomjjigae@jh-fn @clairdelunesstuff @yoongischeeksluv @onlywonforhui@janandbeyond@treasure-hwa@teddy-cheol@tito-jun@projectjuvia@notscoupy@jeonshuawreads@cheoriemoawa@wtfkidult@itsdnguyenxoxo @nothingbutadeadesceane@juli-ssi @soonchanshua@wonunuu @cottonsthings@youcanreadithere

permanent taglist: @stantrash171819 @sebongmochi @luveveryonewoo @thinkinboutwonu@kpopjackie@ursweetener @lavenderautumnx @shuahoshiscoups @sunshinein17 @leechanniee @twogyuu @hoe4wonwoo @h3h3tm0n @noraehey @seokshook @rubyhoons @02psh @just-here-to-read-01 @listxn @pearlygraysky @baekhyunstruly @svtreverie @coveyland @reallydgafaboutmyusername @sysymei @ovai @aikisbbq @fr0g-filez

#caratwritersclub #mingyu fluff #mingyu au #mingyu scenarios #seventeen fluff #seventeen au #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fic #mingyu imagines #mingyu x reader #seventeen scenario #seventeen x reader #mingyu #seventeen imagines #seventeen angst #mingyu angst #mingyu scenario

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lisbeth-kk · 7 months ago

Text

May Prompts (17) Chaos

The Luckiest Girl in the World (chapter 17)

Summary: Mrs. Hudson is treating her tenants to an American dish, and lectures them about a special Constitution Day celebration.

Seventeen Years Old

Nana’s American pancakes were legendary. She’d learned to make them while she lived overseas, and whenever there was a special occasion, she served them. Unlike most countries, the UK doesn’t have a Constitution Day or National Day, but several days are celebrated. It varied from year to year, which of those Nana chose to honour. Our birthdays were never neglected like St. Patrick’s Day, or Wilberforce Day might be. Never knowing when we were graced with the sinful treat, made the surprise even sweeter.

***

“Rosie, dear. Give me a hand, will you,” Nana called from downstairs one Saturday afternoon in the middle of May.

Dad and Papa were reading in their chairs, but not for long.

“Pancakes,” Papa whispered when the sweet and familiar scent crept up from downstairs.

I hurried to assure Nana that I’d be right down to help her carry up the tray with pancakes, maple syrup, and fresh berries.

***

“So, what’s the occasion, Mrs. H,” Dad asked after his second pancake.

The moaning and praise of Nana’s skills had been the only thing breaking the silence so far, but now that the first hunger had been stilled, the time for revelation had come. To my knowledge, we’d never had pancakes on this date before.

“We’re celebrating Norway today,” Nana stated.

“Elaborate.” “Please,” Papa added when Dad sent him a disapproving look for being so terse.

“Well,” Nana said, and sat back in her chair, which meant we were in for a lecture.

Papa rolled his eyes, but he chuckled along with Dad and me, picked up a strawberry and dipped it in syrup before he slipped it into his mouth. Nana cleared her throat and continued.

“Last weekend, I watched the Eurovision Song Contest, and didn’t that turn out to be more chaotic than normal… Anyway, I was enthralled by the Norwegian performance. Quite powerful. I had heard an interview with the band earlier when they spoke of their Constitution Day, and it was most intriguing.”

She took a sip of coffee and looked at us to see if everyone was paying attention to her presentation of this Scandinavian saga.

“They have parades all over the country, but not military parades. Far from it in fact. Children are walking the streets of the cities and the roads in the more rural places, while brass bands play the national anthem and other songs and marches. Everyone is dressed in their best clothes. Their national costumes are really something else. I looked them up on the internet. There are about 450 different kinds! Can you believe it?”

Nana was getting really warmed up now, and there was no way of stopping her. Not that either of us wanted to. Knowledge like this was fun and interesting.

“So, it’s mostly about the children and eating hot dogs and as much ice cream as possible. They obviously cheer and sing, while waving their flags, and in the capital, the royal family greet the children from the balcony. It was mentioned that from an outsider’s point of view, it may look quite civil, but the band could tell the listeners that when the children are to be picked up by their parents when the parade is over, there’s chaos beyond belief. Crossing the streets are almost impossible.”

I thought she had finished and cleared my throat to ask her about the song contest, but a stern look, made me shut my mouth and sit back in my chair.

“There’s also some obscure tradition with graduated students of a certain age, eighteen or nineteen, I think, but I didn’t pay that much mind. What I could gather from it was that it had mostly to do with too much alcohol and dressing up in red, blue or black coveralls with all sorts of patches on them,” Nana concluded.

“Thanks for the history lesson, Mrs. Hudson,” Dad said. “It’s quite refreshing to know that not all parades need to contain soldiers and weapons.”

We all agreed to this, but the question was now burning on my tongue.

“Nana? I thought you were boycotting the Eurovision this year.”

“Stated in a moment of passion, dear. I admit I’m a weak woman,” she said with nonchalance.

This retort resulted in a snort from Papa, and spilled coffee on the front of Dad’s shirt due to him choking on the brew.

@calaisreno @totallysilvergirl @keirgreeneyes @raina-at @helloliriels

More tags in the replies

#mayprompts2024 #may 17: chaos #sherlock fandom #rosie watson #sherlock #john watson #mrs hudson #johnlock #bbc sherlock #sherlock fanfic #ao3 fanfic

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gamerbearmira · 11 months ago

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I quite literally have no idea

Yeah, originally I was gonna do the vampire au, then the werewolf kids au, but then it just. Morphed into this. Enjoy it, idk <333

ESKIETET

—————

Mirabel walked with Camilo in the village. The pair of five-year-olds were giggling wildly at a joke Camilo made, a rather dumb one. But who could blame them? They were only 5, and it was a funny joke.

As they walked, they passed by a cart. Mirabel's eyes lit up, and she skipped up to the cart, Camilo hot on her heels. "I want a cone!" Mirabel said, her voice practically a demand. The ice cream vendor wasted no time and scooped the ice cream from the large cold basin into a cone.

Mirabel got her way. She always did. When her ceremony failed, her abuela just couldn't bear to see her Mariposita so unhappy and got her a room. And she loved it, and she loved her Abuela for doing everything just to get it for it. Mirabel was adored by her family, and she was well aware of that fact. It wasn't said out loud by anyone in the village but...Mirabel was spoiled.

Very spoiled.

She always got her face. And she was fiercely defensive of her family. She loved them to pieces and reveled in the attention that was showered on her. She would do anything to keep them happy, just like how they had done for her on her second attempt at a birthday party.

Mirabel smiled as the ice cream vendor handed her a cone. As she went to enjoy it, she saw Camilo fiddling with the fringes on her poncho. She stopped for a moment, her eyebrows furrowing before she looked at the man again.

"Give him a cone too. Now. And make it fast," Miravel said, pointing to her primo. Camilo's eyes lit up at the idea of also having ice cream.

The man looked towards Camilo. His expression changed, and with no hesitation, he flat-out told him a prince. "50 pesos for two scoops."

Camilo hesitated before digging around in his pockets. He left his pocket money at home. Mirabel noticed his saddened expression and the ice cream vendor's indifference. The fact that the ice cream vendor was charging him anyway irritated her, but she would fix this.

"Just give him a cone! He always helps out in town! I saw him yesterday helping you move your cart up the hill," Mirabel said, and she wasn't wrong. Just the other day Camilo had shifted and helped him, among the many other villagers.

"Look I can just...give out free cones. Bad for business. You're lucky I gave you one," the vendor argued, and Mirabel's top was about to blow. And Camilo could tell.

"Mirabel, it's fine, let's just go to the bakery or something," Camilo tried to reason.

"No! You want ice cream, and you deserve it. It's not fair!" Mirabel tapped her foot again, and by this point, her cone was melted. She paid little attention as she turned back to the vendor. "You WILL give him a cone! You have to!"

"Why? It's my business!" The man argued back. He wasn't entirely sure why he was arguing with a 6-year-old, but he wasn't going to lose.

"It's our Encanto! You wouldn't be anything if it weren't for me and my family! Especially Camilo!" Miravel snapped. She threw her cone to the ground. With a strong kick to her cart, Camilo finally pulled her away, pushing through the crowd. "You hear me? Nothing! I'll make sure no one buys from you again"

Camilo pulled Mirabel aside into a small alley, still holding her hand. The girl was breathing heavily, and Camilo pulled her into a hug. His jokester façade fell away, revealing a more gentle side that he only reserved for family, and even then, only Mirabel.

The girl eventually calmed down and Camilo pulled away. "You didn't have to do that. We could've just gone to the bakery."

"But that's not fair!" Mirabel said, stomping her feet. "I never get what I ask for, the villagers are mean!" Mirabel cried into her hands.

Camilo frowned at her prima's reaction. He pulled her closer, his hand on her cheeks, copying what his mama, tia, and abuela always did whenever Mirabel started crying like that. "Please don't cry Mirabel, it's not that big a deal."

"You deserve an ice cream cone! The whole family does! I don't like this village," Mirabel huffed, tears still in her eyes. With a sigh, she rubbed her eyes. "We should move."

"Or! We can still go to the bakery! Señor Marcelo always gives us treats there," Camilo suggested and Mirabel nodded.

"Yeah. Yeah, let's go," Mirabel grabbed Camilo's hand, rushing him out of the alley and towards the bakery. Camilo shook his head at the sudden mood swing. But he was happy he could make her feel better.

—————

Literally just one of Mirabel’s old concept designs with a few altercations. She’s very mf spoiled in this au. But the only people she’s a brat to is her family.

That’s all I got y’all, I just didn’t wanna leave y’all wit no content 💀💀

#my asks #my asks are open #encanto #encanto au #au #encanto mirabel #encanto camilo #spoiled rotten au

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playbucky · 1 year ago

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Make A Wish

You and Joel have been together for a while, on this birthday a few revelations happen. Characters – Joel x Reader, Sarah and Tommy. Word Count – 1.7k

‘I gotta go.’ You told them, ‘Enjoy breakfast, have an amazing day and celebrate winning your game too hard.’ You told Sarah, she smiled up at you as you pressed a kiss to the side of her head. ‘Happy birthday. Sorry I’ve gotta go in early but I’ll see you later.’ You told Joel, you pressed a quick kiss to his cheek as you picked your bag up and walked out. ‘Oh, and I’ll pick up some cake, you decide where we’re ordering from.’ You pointed at Sarah as you stopped in the doorway. ‘Deal?’ You asked, her smile widened  ‘Deal.’ She agreed with a nod, you smiled back at her before you blew a kiss into the room and sprinted out. ‘Tommy’s here.’ They heard you shout before he entered the kitchen. ‘Happy birthday.’ Tommy said to Joel, he gave his brows a scowl but nodded. ‘How’d you land her again?’ He asked with his head tilted to the side, Joel grumbled as he stabbed the eggs. ‘Did she get you anything for your birthday?’ Tommy asked, a suggestive eyebrow raised. ‘Yeah, when it ticked over into the new day.’  ‘Dad.’ Sarah groaned Tommy chuckled. ‘You both have dirty minds, she got me some new shirts.’ He commented as he stood up, taking his plate and glass with him, he downed the orange juice as he reached the sink. ‘What the shirt that’s inside out.’ Sarah reminded him, he looked down and groaned, the plate dropped into the sink as he walked away. ‘He’s losing it.’ Tommy said, the bacon in his cheek. ‘You think he’s gonna propose tonight?’ Tommy asked, Sarah shook her head. ‘No, I don’t think he wants to do it on birthdays, mean I wouldn’t mind but he won’t want to spoil it.’ She told her uncle. ‘Maybe I’ll propose to her?’ Tommy suggested. ‘Not gonna happen.’ Sarah said, Tommy slouched against the counter but nodded. ‘Yeah, I don’t think I’d stand a chance.’ Tommy stated, Sarah nodded and stood up from the table. ‘You coming tonight?’ ‘Tonight, what’s happening tonight?’ He asked, Sarah nudged his shoulder. ‘Cake and takeaway.’ She informed her uncle, he narrowed his eyes. ‘Oh, not a special occasion then?’ He quizzed, she smiled. ‘I can’t, got a date with a lady friend, I’ll take your dad out later and maybe you and Y/N can join us?’ Tommy suggested, Sarah tilted her head. ‘Or you can take grumpy so Y/N and I can have a girl's night.’ Sarah suggested, Tommy arched an eyebrow. ‘Maybe.’ He said, shoving more food into his mouth. ‘We gotta go.’ Joel said, they moved towards the front door, dishes at the back of their minds as they got ready for the day ahead of them.

‘I’m back.’ You called, shutting the door with your hip as you balanced the cake on one hand. ‘Cake?’ Sarah asked as she appeared. ‘Nice to see you to, and yes, cake is here.’ You said, she smiled widely and skipped down the hallway before she took the cake from you and pressed a kiss to your cheek. ‘How was school?’ You asked her. ‘It was good.’ She replied. ‘Just good?’ You quizzed, she nodded and took a step back as you removed your jacket. ‘Yup, did work, learned something and then came back here.’ She said, you arched an eyebrow. ‘No sneaking away during the time we were away?’ You asked, she quickly shook her head, her thick hair moved on its own. ‘Never.’ She said, her back straightened as you playfully narrowed your eyes at her. ‘Mmm.’ ‘You’ll be doing it in a few years anyway.’ You told her with a shrug. ‘No, she won’t.’ Joel shouted from the living room, you removed your shoes and dropped your bag at the door. ‘I’m gonna put this in the fridge.’ Sarah said, you nodded before you separated. ‘Stop trying to corrupt her.’ Joel threatened as he looked up at you, you rolled your eyes. ‘I’m preparing you for it.’ You told him as you crossed the room, you stood at the edge of the couch, his arm automatically wrapped around your waist as your hand disappeared into his thick hair. ‘I don’t want to think about it.’ He grumbled, you chuckled as you leaned over and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. ‘I’m gonna go get changed.’ You mumbled against his head, he tilted his head all the way back into the soft cushion. ‘Dinners been ordered.’ He said, his hand rubbed your hip. ‘Amazing.’ You whispered and pressed a quick peck to his lips before you swiftly moved away so he couldn’t catch you.

‘Y/N.’ Sarah called out, you turned back to her. ‘Sweetie?’ You asked, she was sat underneath her covers, the soft pink duvet gathered on her crossed legs as she looked at you. ‘Everything okay?’ You quizzed, her eyebrows were pinched together. ‘Yeah, I just - ,’ She trailed off, focused on the covers. ‘Me problem or dad problem?’ You asked, head tilted to the side as you looked at her. ‘You.’ She said, you nodded. ‘Okay, want snacks?’ You quizzed her, she shook her head. ‘Oh, must be serious.’ You joked, you went to make your way over before she lifted her head. ‘Can you shut the door?’ Sarah asked, your brows furrowed as you shut it and walked over, carefully sitting on the edge of her bed. She didn’t say or do anything, you reached out and took a hold of her hand and ran your thumb over the back of her hand. Giving her comfort without saying it. ‘Do you love me?’ She asked, your eyes widened. ‘Of course I do.’ You replied. ‘Where is this coming from? Do I not tell you enough?’ You asked panicked that you only showed it to Joel and neglected her. ‘No, I mean yeah -,’ she let out a frustrated sigh. ‘I don’t like calling you Y/N.’ She stated, now it was your turn for your brows pinch together. ‘Okay.’ You said, ‘What do you want to call me instead?’ You asked her, she rubbed her lips together. ‘I was thinking mum, if that’s okay with you?’ Sarah quizzed, your heart stopped as you searched her face. ‘Mum?’ You asked, she frowned at you but nodded. ‘I’d love that.’ You told her, she smiled widely and lurched forward, her arms wrapped around your neck. ‘You’re crying.’ Joel stated, he placed the tv remote down onto the couch and quickly crossed over to you. ‘I am.’ You agreed with his statement, the warm tears lingered under your eyes. ‘Oh no, what have I done?’ He asked, his hands rested on your shoulders as he took you in. ‘Nothing, baby, nothing at all.’ You told him, he relaxed slightly. ‘Then why the tears?’ He quizzed, you reached up and wiped your cheek, the wetness spread across it. ‘She wants me to be her mum.’ You informed him, his hands dropped to his side. ‘What?’ He asked, you sniffed loudly and looked at him. ‘Sarah, she asked if it was okay for her to call me mum.’ Your voice cracked, Joel froze as you rubbed the heel of your hands into your eyes. ‘Joel?’ You asked, he blinked and focused back on you. ‘Are you okay with that?’ You asked him, he shook his head. ‘I should be asking you that.’ He said, you shook your head and stepped closer to him. ‘Joel… I -,’ you couldn’t find the words due to the hurricane that was spinning through your head. ‘What did you say?’ Joel asked, you inhaled shakily. ‘I said yes, but if I’ve over-stepped, I can talk with her.’ You quickly back tracked your answer when you saw the wrinkles on his forehead, deeper than normal. ‘No, no.’ He quickly said, he tried to push any insecurities away. ‘She beat me to it.’ He commented, a hand came up and scratched his chin, your brows pinched together. ‘What?’ You asked, not sure if you heard him correctly. ‘Just stay here, I’ll be back in two minutes.’ He said before you could give him an answer he jogged away, disappearing up the stairs. You listened as he pushed the door open up the stairs, he cursed when it hit the wall a little too hard. Drawers were opened before he quickly crossed the room again before he bounded down the stairs. ‘Joel?’ You asked, his eyes darted back up to you. ‘I’m hoping you’ll say yes to this, so it’ll become official.’ He said, your eyebrows jumped up when he opened the small black box. Your hands snapped to your mouth as you gasped, the small golden band encircled a small emerald. One of your hands reached out and took a hold of Joel’s wrist, you could feel his frantic heartbeat, his hand started to shake. ‘It’s beautiful.’ You breathed out. ‘Only one suitable enough for you.’ He commented, you looked at him. ‘I wanted to do this for a while, but I couldn’t find a perfect time but since Sarah’s asked you I want to make it official.’ Joel said, he carefully took the dainty ring out of the box before he chucked it onto the couch. ‘Will you do me the honour and marry me?’ Joel asked, he looked at you with wide eyes, you looked at him before you smiled and nodded. ‘Yes.’ You breathed out, he let out a breathy chuckle before pulled you in for a kiss. Joel placed a large hand on the back of your head, he pulled back from you but keep his forehead against yours. You both looked down as Joel took your hand, he carefully slid the ring onto your finger, your wriggled it into place. ‘Mmm, suits you.’ He said, you chuckled as he lifted your hand up and pressed a kiss on the knuckle above it. ‘Did you do it?’ Sarah asked, you both pulled away and looked at her. ‘Yeah he did.’ You said, she squealed and ran down the stairs before she bounded into your arms, Joel wrapped an arm around her as well.

#joel miller x reader #reader x joel miller #joel miller #joel miller imagine #the last of us #the last of us imagines #tlou x reader #reader x tlou #the last of us x reader #reader x the last of us #pedro pascal

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ikeprinces-stuff · 3 months ago

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[𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐬𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐧 𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐭]

A/N : 30 September, Potatoes (me) turned 24, but Romarin turned older than 24... HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE- anyway, Happy Birthday Romarin 🎻🤍

Pairing : Leon Dompteur x Romarin ?????? (OC)

Warning : Foreshadowing for future fics🌚

Words : 3K (Why is my birthday fanfictions always 3k words?💀💀)

Previous fics :

Tendon Entanglement Melody Of A Kiss Two Cups Of Warm Love

Symphony Of Longing Lost Souls Found In Music

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“Is that really the exact date?” the girl inquired, her wide eyes sparkling with curiosity.

The woman sighed, glancing at the worn calendar on her lap, its pages faded. “Well, that’s what we assumed. But honestly, we’re still not sure. It took us hours to arrive at such a decision in the past.” She paused, her voice softening. “But ultimately, it’s up to you. Are you convinced that today is the day?”

The little girl fell silent, her brow furrowing in contemplation. “But... my parents—the ones who brought me into this world—they’re the ones who understand these things. They’re the only ones who really know, right?” Her voice tapered off to a whisper, a tremor of sadness threading through her words. “I… I don’t have those people.” It was a revelation that hung heavy in the air, thick with the weight of her unspoken worries.

Time passed, and as she turned ten, something inside her shifted. With a heavy heart, she faced the place where she had grown up, a landscape of memories now shadowed by despair. She whispered a quiet farewell to the times filled with laughter and joy, believing firmly that she would find no answers if she clung to the familiar. “I can’t stay here,” she murmured to herself. “I have to search for what I’m missing.” And with that, she turned her back on her childhood, stepping into the unknown with a resolve that belied her fragile heart.

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

Rumors had begun to swirl through the kingdom, whispers that tickled the edges of every ear they touched. As King Leon stood amidst the bustling streets, the seriousness of the situation weighed heavily on his shoulders. "I must get to the bottom of this," he murmured to himself, determination edging his voice. He had earned this day of respite after being buried in royal duties for weeks, yet even now, with time to spare, his mind drifted elsewhere. Word had reached him about her—about her whereabouts, or rather, the unsettling absence of them.

“Where is she?” he breathed, scanning the courtyard where he stood. The fountain that usually served as her backdrop was forlornly silent, and the lively notes of her music that once livened the marketplace were conspicuously absent. His heart raced as memories came rushing back—her laughter, her melodies—especially that birthday encounter that felt like a lifetime ago. It had been a month, yet the thought of her leaving, of her decision to vanish without a trace, tightened a knot deep within him.

“Enough with the foolishness, Leon,” he chastised himself softly, as he began to wander through the cobblestone paths, each step heavy with uncertainty. “She’s an itinerant musician. Of course she moves on.” But doubt clawed at him. Would she truly leave without a word, without a single goodbye? Had their charade, which had flickered from a mere play into something alarmingly real, come to such an abrupt standstill?

“I’m overthinking this,” he chuckled softly, trying to dispel the tightness in his chest. Yet, as his footsteps carried him deeper into the heart of the city, the glimmer of hope ignited once more. “She must still be here—she has to be.” Leon picked up his pace, desperation mixing with determination as he sought her out, determined to uncover the truth behind the emerging rumors and to reclaim what he feared he might have already lost.

🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀

“I’m not interested,” she declared, her voice firm as she crossed her arms tightly across her chest, the chill in her expression unmistakable. “Come on, dear, just a little piece of music? What do you have to lose?” The thin man persisted, flanked by two companions—one short and burly, the other tall and wiry, each wearing a disconcerting grin.

“You play for all sorts of people and get paid, right? What makes us any different?” the tall one challenged, his smile never wavering, even as she met his gaze head-on.

“You're not wrong. I do play for anyone willing to pay. That’s my trade as a touring musician.” She stood her ground, punctuating her words with defiance. “But I still have the right to refuse, especially when it doesn’t sit right with me.”

The skinny man let out a stifled chuckle, leaning in closer to her. “Oh, and pray tell, why not?” He was inches away, but she remained unfazed, slowly maneuvering him back with a calm push.

“It's part of my professional policy. No details necessary,” she replied coolly.

One of the men tensed, a flicker of rage flashing across his features as he opened his mouth to retort. But before he could, a voice rang out from behind them, cutting through the tension.

“Romarin.”

All heads turned toward the source. Relief washed over Romarin’s face as she recognized the figure who approached. “You’re late,” she remarked, a note of teasing in her tone as she walked past the shocked trio, paying them no mind.

“Sorry, got a bit sidetracked. Miss me?” Leon quipped, his charming smile instantly putting her at ease.

“A little,” she admitted with the hint of a smile as he sidled up beside her, drawing the attention of the three men.

“Sorry, guys, but I had to steal her away from you. You don’t mind, do you?” Leon said, his grin never faltering, though the tension was palpable. The men exchanged uncertain glances, the tallest shooting Leon a glare before they turned and left.

Romarin exhaled a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding until they were gone.

“Looks like your fame is starting to attract unwanted attention,” Leon teased lightly, but his eyes were scrutinizing her.

She cast him a sideways glance, her silence saying more than words could convey.

“Are they bothering you?” he pressed, his tone shifting to seriousness.

“Nah, don’t worry about it. It’s not the first time I’ve dealt with this,” Romarin replied, but her answer didn’t ease the furrow in his brow. He was expecting a more definitive response, not this vague acceptance.

“Do you always have a knack for showing up at the right moment, or is there a hidden agenda?” she asked, her teasing tone reemerging as she changed the subject.

“Hmm?” Leon tilted his head, genuinely puzzled.

“You just seem to materialize when I’m in a tight spot. What’s your secret?” Romarin scrutinized him, narrowing her eyes playfully.

“You said it, a secret,” he replied with a smirk.

“Tch, you know how much I dislike your evasiveness,” she shot back, exasperated.

Leon raised an eyebrow, half-amused. “Didn’t you just do the same?”

For a fleeting moment, he thought he noticed a blush creeping onto her cheeks, and it sparked a sly smile on his lips. With a playful nudge, she shoved him away and stepped into the bustling street, and of course, Leon fell in step beside her, the two of them weaving through the crowd.

“I was actually looking for you, you know?” Leon said, his voice carrying a hint of urgency as he stepped closer to her.

“Oh?” Romarin replied, her tone casual yet laced with an unmistakable edge of intrigue. She didn’t bother to turn around, her gaze fixed on the gentle ripples of the water in the fountain. “I’m sure you came by the fountain seeking me out, am I right?”

“Sharp as ever,” Leon replied, a playful grin tugging at his lips. The lightness in the air around them belied the tension he sensed beneath her words.

Romarin sighed, her shoulders slightly drooping. “I decided against performing today. Let’s just say, I’m taking a day off.”

“So you have the whole day to yourself?” Leon queried, already suspecting the answer. Romarin nodded slowly, her movements weary. Yet even in her resignation, Leon could feel something was amiss. “You don’t look happy about it,” he remarked, a thread of concern weaving through his tone.

Romarin remained silent, her back still to him, as if she were grappling with thoughts too tangled to unravel. Then, as if shifting gears, she posed a sudden question: “Do you know a place that sells delicious cakes around here?”

Leon blinked, caught off guard by the abrupt change in topic. “Huh?” he stammered, confusion knitting his brow. What was this unexpected craving for cakes amidst the unspoken worries that hung in the air between them?

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As they stepped out of the bakery, the early evening air wrapped around them like a gentle embrace. Romarin cradled a small cake in her hands, her smile flickering like the last light of a sunset, mingling with the sadness clouding her eyes.

"It looks delicious," Leon remarked, his gaze fixed on the delicate confection, its icing catching the fading light.

She turned to him, her expression weighty with meaning. "I know," she murmured, the sweetness of the cake contrasting with the bittersweet silence between them. "That’s why I wanted it to be enough for two."

Leon felt his heart flutter at her words, realizing the unspoken invitation she extended. A wave of understanding washed over him, and he met her knowing gaze with a mixture of hope and hesitation.

“Leon,” she said softly, breaking the fragile silence, “can I ask you something else? Will you show me that place you took me to before?”

The hilltop where they had shared the secrets on his birthday flashed in his mind, a memory imbued with warmth and fleeting joy. Without uttering a word, he reached for her hand, fingers intertwined.

🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀🥀

As they arrived, a heavy silence enveloped them. Romarin's eyes remained fixed on the scene ahead, utterly unyielding to the chocolate cake that sat invitingly before them. Not a single glance had she cast at Leon, though he could sense the whirlpool of thoughts swirling in her mind.

“I know you have a thousand questions racing through your head, don’t you?” Romarin finally broke the tension, her voice measured yet heavy with unspoken burdens. Leon shrugged, meeting her gaze.

“If I wasn’t, I might have thought you were trying to take me on a date,” he quipped, a flash of humor dancing on his lips. Romarin shot him a narrowed stare, her irritation palpable.

“Stop making everything about you, will you?” she snapped, but her annoyance dissolved into laughter, a fleeting connection that hung in the air.

“Now, here we are in this very place, where I opened up about my past—my birthday as ‘Leon’,” he began, his tone shifting to something softer, more serious. “And you said I wasn’t the only one with a difficult story.” He leaned in, trying to peer into her guarded thoughts.

“Seems you remembered my cryptic words better than I thought,” she replied sarcastically, though the weight in her chest could no longer be ignored. Leon's gaze shifted to hers, and for a moment, she glimpsed a smoldering intensity in his eyes that called for her honesty. She sighed, swallowing hard.

“It took me a month to sort through it all…” she admitted hesitantly.

“About what?” Leon pressed, intrigued.

“Today… marks another year for me,” she confessed, her voice trailing off.

Leon’s expression turned incredulous. “You mean it’s your birthday?” he asked, astonishment coloring his tone.

“Not exactly something I would celebrate,” Romarin replied, her nervousness creeping in. She could feel Leon’s curiosity pressing against her, urging her to continue.

“Listen, this is the first time in years I’ve spoken about this. Today is the anniversary of the day I was found,” she revealed, each word like a weight lifting from her shoulders but landing with a heaviness in the air.

“You were found…?” Leon repeated, wonder and concern mingling in his voice. She nodded, the past surfacing like a ghost as she continued.

“I was left at the gates of an orphanage,” she said, her heart pounding in her chest.

Silence fell, and Leon’s eyes locked onto her with unrelenting focus, as if searching for answers in her expression. He sensed her internal struggle, the courage it took to share this fragment of her life.

“In case it wasn't clear by now, the itinerant musician you see before you… grew up an orphan,” she admitted, her vulnerability hanging in the air.

Leon was at a loss for words, grappling with the deep familiarity of her narrative that echoed his own hidden pains. “When you told me, ‘I don’t know who my parents are, I don’t know what my real name is, and I don’t even know when I was born,’ I felt like you were recounting my life,” she confessed, disbelief etched on her face.

The connection between them deepened, an unspoken understanding blooming from their shared experiences. He could have easily wished her a simple ‘Happy Birthday,’ but acknowledging it felt inadequate, a triviality considering the weight of what she had revealed.

“And today, I’m here,” Romarin’s voice fell to a whisper, as if she still struggled to lay claim to her own existence. “But I can’t call it a birthday—not yet.”

"What a coincidence, right?" Romarin suddenly laughed lightly, her eyes dancing with a bittersweet glimmer. "We both kind of went through the same thing… The difference is..." She let the weight of her thoughts hang in the air as silence wrapped around them, thick and palpable. "The difference is, everyone knows you. They love you. Maybe there are even people who see you as an irreplaceable presence in their lives. Imagine… if you disappeared, there would be worry, questions, care. People would miss you."

Leon remained silent, the weight of her words pressing down on him.

"But me?" Romarin continued, her voice dropping to a whisper. "I’m just passing through, an itinerant musician without roots. If I vanished, who would even notice? They’d just assume I’ve wandered off to another land, as I always do. It’s the nature of what I am—come and go, like the wind... but no one really pays attention."

The air was still, the gentle breeze rustling the tall grasses around them, forming a tranquil backdrop to their conversation. Romarin kept her gaze fixed on the sprawling town below, her expression resolute despite the fragility of her words. It was as if she was trying to solidify her resolve, but her vulnerability peeked through, creating a blurred line between strength and doubt.

Suddenly, a warmth brushed against her cheek. She turned, surprised to see Leon’s hand cupping her face, his amber eyes shimmering with an unexpected softness. "You’re wrong," he said gently, his voice a soothing caress that made her heart race. "You think no one would notice if you left… but I did."

Romarin blinked, taken aback by his confession. "Before I found you just moments ago, the thought of you leaving the capital—and perhaps Rhodolite—without a word crossed my mind.” He chuckled then, a warm, genuine sound. “Can you imagine the feeling of dread that gripped me?"

"Please tell me you panicked!" A sly smile crept onto Romarin's lips, and Leon’s laughter enveloped her. "Really? Do you enjoy the idea of me panicking? You’re truly evil."

Another round of laughter broke the tension, and Romarin leaned into the warmth of his palm, letting down her guard just a fraction. "I can’t leave yet…" she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. "There’s still so much left to do… so many unanswered questions..."

Leon’s gaze turned earnest, and he leaned closer, eager and curious. "You mean—"

Romarin met his eyes, and for a brief moment, uncertainty flickered in her gaze before she replaced it with a confident smile. "Be happy, lad. I’m staying here for a while."

Leon’s heart raced as a fleeting smile tugged at his lips, his fingers gently tracing the curve of Romarin’s cheek. The thought that she was staying anchored him, wrapping around his heart like a warm embrace. Yet, beneath that comforting realization lay a swirl of uncertainty. Before he could fully grasp the whirlwind of feelings inside him, Romarin broke the moment open, unveiling the black cake she had brought. Its velvety exterior was adorned with delicate white cream flowers, a striking contrast that drew Leon’s gaze. But as she began to slice into it, a vibrant red layer was revealed, vibrant and unexpected.

“Isn’t that amusing?” Romarin’s voice danced through the air, pulling him from his reverie. “I was drawn to the black and white because it reminded me of my dress. And then, to find this bold red inside—”

“Let’s just eat the cake, shall we?” Leon interjected, a hint of discomfort rippling through him. Romarin, unfazed, simply smiled. “So, you realized I wanted to share this with you?”

“Of course! Why else would you have brought a cake big enough for two? Or were you planning a private feast behind my back?” He raised an eyebrow playfully.

“I figured it was time to share a piece of my past too. Consider it a fair trade,” she responded, sincerity coloring her tone.

Leon’s smile widened. “Thank you for trusting me enough to share what’s in your heart.”

Romarin’s lips curled into a soft smile, her gaze steady. “And thank you for always being there to listen.” She handed him the second piece, a delicate offering. He took it without hesitation, the earlier strange feeling dissolving as the rich flavor enveloped his senses.

With an absentminded motion, Romarin wiped a crumb of the red cake from her lips. As they indulged in the moment, a quiet understanding settled between them. They had both grappled with their pasts, emerging as individuals forged by their experiences. Leon had been pulled into this life, while Romarin’s journey remained a mystery she didn’t explore too deeply. Yet, in this shared connection, the threads of their stories intertwined, weaving a bond that hinted at something deeper. Perhaps, from this foundation, whatever relationship they had could transform into something more profound—if only they dared to explore it, and who knows, maybe this bond might strengthen uhhh... whatever the relationship is between the two now.

“Mmm, delicious,” he said, savoring each bite. Romarin’s eyes sparkled with pride. “Of course it is. I chose it myself,” she declared, her voice light.

Fin ❤️✨

#ikemen prince fanfic #ikemen prince fanfiction #ikemen prince leon #leon dompteur #ikemen prince oc #ikeprince oc #Romarin ??????

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quiet-hypnotist · 7 months ago

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Hazy Dreams - Chapter 2

“Say it.”

Mara gasped, feeling but not understanding how her lips moved first thing in the new morning. Her eyes drifted up towards the ceiling in vacant wonder. What day was it even? For all she knew it could have easily been a completely new holiday, invented just to throw off her schedule. Because she certainly felt thrown off. Sense of time was ultimately a made up concept anyway, just like time itself. A weird thought that she had laughed about so many times when others had attempted to convince her of such obscure and almost philosophical nonsense. This morning suddenly it seemed like a revelation.

Not to her alarm though who huffed and hummed to get her to start what was in fact a regular work day. Duty called.

She got up, frowning at the trail of messy clothes and scattered belongings leading in a straight line from the door to her bed. Weird. That wasn’t exactly business as usual? Last time she’d done that she had been out with Hillary and the girls for her eighteenth birthday, for crying out loud. Okay, well, and after celebrating getting her diplomas. Could people blame a girl for having a blast after some big event?

Except that there had been no big event in recent times. Most definitely not yesterday.

Not if she could ignore the way her body shook as she played with herself because of a singular fragment of an incomplete memory in a bathroom stall at work, at least. That one might be a tall order but she was determined. It had been amazing. And scary. And a bunch of other things that she wished she wouldn’t have to try to pretend she didn’t know just so that she could then continue to convince herself that it had been a perfectly normal harmless thing. Just a girl who never even considered kissing in public suddenly making herself come to something that barely qualified as a fantasy in a very public room – even if that one had been empty. And worst of all the echo of that voice in her head. Her feet carried her to the mirror before she fully understood that she had actually left her bed. Thank goodness for years of practiced routine and habit to kick in during the absence of thought. It was a weird feeling to be so wobbly on her legs but nothing she had not handled before as her hands mechanically brushed her long hair, untangling knots from tossing and turning that she could easily reason away as merely the traces of a somewhat restless night. She breathed a sigh of relief as she met her reflection’s gaze and felt only a warm, tingling surge between her legs. Enough to be distracting in the most enjoyable way, but no comparison to yesterday when…

“Say it.”

The way her lips moved interrupted her train of thought so abruptly that she swayed, temporarily forgetting what it was she had wanted to get done. All attention was consumed by the words her mouth formed, yet as she did not dare to make a sound it was hard to figure out what was actually happening. What was she saying? It was important, she knew that much. Hard to miss when every fiber of her body was taunt with anticipation, fully intent on not missing a single twitch.

“Say it.”

It was the same voice. Firm, yet warm. It wasn’t forceful about the order, but it consumed everything in her mind until there was no distraction from the truth that the command was to be obeyed. It was her one task, the purpose of her being here in this spot at this time. How could she have forgotten? Her back straightened, eyes shining with pride as her mouth opened to breathe the words she knew the voice was talking about. The words her entire being waited to hear. The brush dropped from her fingers as her hand dipped between her legs, gently fanning and stirring the need to put emotion into her own voice as she breathed in and began to…

Her phone rang with enough volume to cut through the moment. Mara jumped. The darn thing! Now she dropped her brush! One day she needed to change the ringtone or something. This one was obnoxious enough to confuse her at the best of times. What had she just been thinking about? It was supposed to be important or something, wasn’t it? One look at the display however put the matter from her mind entirely. The nerve of this woman. “What is it?”

“Well, good morning to you too, sunshine! I see we’re in a brilliant mood!”

“Look, Clarice, whatever it is, we’re about to see each other face to face in less than an hour. Could it really not have waited for at least that long?!”

“Alright, alright, I get it, girl! Hold fire please!”

Mara didn’t even realize how much strain she had put in her voice. That was uncalled for, wasn’t it?

Even towards an uninvited phone call at barely 5:30 in the morning, for crying out loud.

“Sorry about that. Guess I should have gotten a coffee even before a shower today. But my point still stands. What’s so important?”

“No harm done!” It didn’t really sound that way but the cheer had returned to Clarice’s voice and that was good enough for the moment. “I just wanted to ask real quick if maybe you’d be okay with swapping shifts?”

“Clarice, I am not even awake for any reasonable length of time, forced to put up with the mortal peril of stepping through my door without coffee, and you ask me if I want to work more for some reason? I admire your boundless courage, my lady, but if you do not have a really good reason I’m afraid the answer is obvious and not one you want to hear.”

“Ah, drats, that’s fine then.”

“Wait, that’s it?” Now Mara didn’t know whether to be baffled or frustrated.

“Just wanted to check, that’s all. Sorry. I’ve just been feeling kind of weird lately and figured not everyone can get it out of their system while working.”

The pointed comment caught Mara unprepared. Different emotions warred with each other. How did someone even reply to that? Maybe… only maybe though… she should just… say it?

“Just because I give my cunt the time and attention it deserves doesn’t mean I need to hear this before I got some caffeine in my body.”

There was a moment of silence. A heavy breath, slow and almost dreamy. “Give my cunt the time and attention it deserves?”

Mara blinked. Her head felt dizzy, heavy with memory and airy from forgetting.

“Y’know the feeling,” she defended herself while waving the comment aside.

“I… Hm, maybe I do.” Did Clarice sound bashful?

“So no more excuses. For both of us. I don’t think giving my friend advice on how to deal with her needy cunt is a valid reason to be late for our shift.”

Clarice burst out laughing: “Alright, alright! Jeez, girl, you are a role model sometimes. See you there!”

Mara, a role model? The thought cracked her up and put a spring to her step because it was so silly and yet so nice to hear that she couldn’t stop smiling. Some days just called for a compliment.

“Say it.”

The voice in the back of her head looped so constantly that she barely even paid it any mind now, but thinking about a chat with a friend brought the words right back to the front of her mind for a moment. Her lips parted, suddenly trembling as if they were nervous. But they had no reason to be, had they? It’s not like she was about to say anything weird… or anything that could get her in trouble…

“I’m a role model.” She rolled the term on her tongue as if taste testing it. And if she was to be blunt with herself, she liked it. It felt validating in a way. Even if she had been called the same thing a few times before and never really enjoyed it. Normally when people said it, the words just had far too many expectations attached. A model student. A reliable and well behaved older sister. A perfect worker, always putting her best foot forward for the sake of the company. But when her coworker in search of a valid excuse to slack off and probably sleep around had used the words today, they just hit different.

All day they instilled a glowing confidence that carried her through even the most boring tasks with ease. She was a role model. Someone deserving of praise. Even after her self indulgence and her scatterbrained behaviour the day before, there was someone who thought she was worth looking up to for all of herself. The more she thought back to it, the less annoyed she was about the early disturbance because it was just so rewarding to think back to the moment her coworker had such nice things to say about her.

The enthusiasm of this discovery carried her right back into the bathroom stall come break time. Obviously she could wait that long to give her cunt attention. But not a second longer. The moment the lock closed behind her she was almost in a daze, moving solely on the urge and compulsions welling up from deep within. No thought was needed, it would only get in the way.

“Give me your… ”

Her mouth fell open as if in surprise when the voice relapsed back to yesterday’s echo. She mewled, the certainty of knowing that the sentence was incomplete clashing in stark contrast with the heat that shot through her when she felt herself complying with the demand anyway.

“Say it.”

There was something that eluded her. Mara could almost feel it moving in the haze of last night’s sleepy comfort. Another echo, this one in a voice far more familiar and yet strangely different from how she thought it should sound. Her own voice. Slurred and faint, as if speaking in her sleep. Saying perhaps the most important words of her life.

“Give me...”

Her head bobbed up and down, eyes almost crossed from staring into the maze of her past dreams so deeply that they unfocused and saw little of anything at all.

“Say it.”

Words hovered on the tip of her tongue, almost so overwhelmingly present that she could taste them. In a near delirious moment Mara actually let her tongue loll out of her mouth, so sure that the words would follow on their own as her fingers kept all of her attention on her cunt where she knew it felt the best right now. But the words didn’t budge or move or disappear. They just waited patiently for her to be ready. For her to admit it out loud. Whatever ‘it’ was. She knew she didn’t need to think about it, but a stubborn part of her wanted to know what it was that drove her so very far just to chase this pleasure. The answer was so close, too! It had to be. The words almost felt heavy and hot in her mouth as that was where they got pushed while her mind was filled to the brim with only the echoes of last night’s dream.

“Give me your orgasm.”

“Say it.”

Unbidden Clarice came to mind. Or rather, her talent for interruptions with a voice so different from the looping echoes, yet no less seductive: “You can come whenever you are ready.”

Mara’s self restrain evaporated in a torrent of needy pleasure that sent her to the floor. She barely had the situational awareness to pray that no one stood outside the door waiting, but if anyone had, Mara frankly wouldn’t have been able to mind that any more than this. Her body shook and bucked against her hand for what felt like forever until finally the heat of the moment had passed. Staggering out of the bathroom had never felt so difficult. Was it even still break time?

But try as she might, she couldn’t stay worried about it for too long. Her body glowed with the sort of weightless satisfaction that made everything else simply bounce off of her. Maybe she was riding a high, but if so, she should do it more often. Whenever heads would turn or someone would muster her from head to toe, she felt a tingling surge of pride in being such a good role model that she didn’t let any of her wants and desires interfere with her duties. No amount of customers could keep her from doing exactly what she knew she had to do. Not for long, anyway.

But even the most dedicated mind needed a chance to rest at some point. Clarice and her both joked about needing an extra holiday soon if this kept up, though she was weirdly self conscious about knowing that it was probably for vastly different reasons. A realization that lured her thoughts down all sorts of tangents and rabbit holes all the way from the moment she stepped out into the cool evening air to the reassuring click of the lock behind her.

It wasn’t until she saw her bed that she fully acknowledged how sleepy the day had made her. Yet the second that her eyes focused on it, there was no denying that she was about to fall. And she didn’t want to fight it. Not any longer when she was finally home and undisturbed to shed everything, be it expectations, luggage or appearances, and fall into the embrace of the soft blankets.

“Give me...”

The words sounded different. Caring. Tender. An invitation, albeit one that both sides knew in advance she could only accept. The voice dipped deeper into her mind before she could make out the rest, but that was fine. Mara’s eyes dropped shut as her every muscle melted, suddenly feeling far too weak and heavy to move. Everything seemed far away as it only ever could through the lens of a dream.

“Say it.”

Even her own voice sounded like it wafted around her from some place far in the distance, soft and yet beckoning in the way it sent shivers down her spine: “I’m mindless and asleep. I am open and receptive. I give...”

What little had been left of her awareness was swallowed up by the warm darkness of deep sleep, wiping the words from her mind. Only the feeling remained. And the deeper she slept, the more Mara believed that this was exactly what she had been hoping for.

* * *

Did you like this story? Then there’s good news! You can consider heading over to my Patreon and pledge, which will keep me writing even more smut for you every week! Yes, for you! Since my patrons even get a chance to have me write their favorite things. So head over there and learn how!

#my writing #brainwashing #conditioning #mind control #trance #praise k!nk

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lala3244 · 7 months ago

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Obsession Part 2

Finally! I got the inspiration and motivation to write again. I guess being on holiday helps between that and remodeling our bedroom it feels my days nicely! Apparently, I am doing this story in multiple parts as what I want to write can't get done quickly without any explanations. I don't know if people actually want to read the rest of that story but I need to write it and publish it for my own selfish reasons :).

Here is Part 1 for those interested

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Mention of death

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Jessy had a frown on her face when she saw me getting out of Jake’s car. As I walked towards her, I tilted my head and when I was in front of her, I stopped. “What’s up?”. She gestured to the seat next to me so I sat down but she was still wearing her frown which kind of made me uncomfortable. “Hm… You remember that Jake has a girlfriend, don’t you?” I laughed, “Sure, I know. Don’t worry nothing happened.” I tried to reassure her that I am not this kind of person. She shook her head. “Did you know she was a relative of Alan Bloomgate?” I shrugged. “Ok and? As I said nothing happened and nothing will happen as long as he is with her. So it doesn’t matter who she is.” Her face relaxed and she nodded. “I think they have a kind of understanding, him and Alan.” I took the menu to see what they offered as I tried to ignore the ache in my heart. “What kind of understanding?” I tried to look casual but I could barely breathe. I didn’t know why I reacted like that. It was not like I had high hopes of getting with the hacker anyway and I was still mad at him, also I didn’t care that he had a girlfriend. So why was my heart crushed by this? “I really don’t know. Jake doesn’t really talk to me, you know, unless it’s to talk about you.” I hid my blushing face behind the menu as my heart now was swelling by her revelation. I was still not looking at her but I heard her giggle. “He asked a lot of questions about you and especially if you were dating someone now. I did ask why he cared about it as he had a girlfriend. He always shrugged. It made me laugh every time.” I smiled tightly, as if I could have dated someone new after knowing him, I guess I should have. He did do it, after all. “Hmmm… Maybe I should start now!” She laughed. “Okay and who would be interesting to you?” I looked around us, not really looking for someone. “Oh! I know! Your brother!” Her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare?!” I glanced at her quickly then looked away, a smirk on my face. “Well, why not? He is single and he’s been genuinely nice to me. Unless, of course, it would bother you and in that case, I wouldn’t dare, no.” She was still staring at me, wide-eyed, then she blinked a few times as if she was thinking about what I had just said. She moved slightly closer to me. “I guess it wouldn’t bother me only if you are sincere and not trying to make Jake jealous or playing some sort of sick game.” This time, it was me who had a shocked face and blinked a few times. “No! Of course I wouldn’t do that! I actually like him. But I am not sure I want to date anyone anyway.” A waiter came over to our table and took our order. .

We spent the rest of the morning in the café talking about this and that. The time passed quickly and we came out of our little bubble when Jessy’s phone rang. She answered the call and when she hung up she explained to me what was up. “I forgot to tell you! Tonight we are throwing a surprise birthday party for Hannah.” I nodded, smiling. “Oh I didn’t know it was her birthday. I mean I forgot about it. Do you think I’ll have time to buy her a present?” She laughed. “Don’t worry I bought it for you already.” I looked at the girl and smiled at her fondly. “Thank you! You’ll tell me how much it was and I’ll reimburse you.” “Don’t worry about it.” I promised myself that I would find out the price and give her the money. We stood up and went to pay for our drinks. While looking inside my bag, I felt my phone vibrating. I had left it there as I wanted my focus to be only on my friend and I was glad I did. We had such a lovely time, I didn’t really want to go somewhere else or to meet up with someone else. “Where are we going?” She thought about it for a moment. “I don’t know. I am starting to feel hungry though.” I nodded. “Shall we buy some sandwiches and then go to the lake?” She turned back towards the cashier and asked for more food to take away. While she finished ordering and paying, I looked at my phone and saw I had notifications. I went through them quickly as Jessy was done paying but when I started to talk, she grabbed my wrist. “Don’t worry. You don’t need to pay.” I looked at her then smiled. “Thank you but next time you’ll let me pay.” She giggled. “Yeah sure.” And she started to walk away while grabbing her car keys and humming. I stood there, watching her walking happily. I would have thought she would have been destroyed after what had happened with Richy but she took it fairly well. Of course, the first few days were hard on her but rapidly she stopped crying every time we talked, then every time his name was mentioned and now she was humming as if nothing bad ever happened to her. I was glad, of course, but it just amazed me how people dealt with death differently. I walked to the car then we went to the lake. She had a blanket in the trunk of her car so we took it with the food and went to find a spot near the water. We sat down and we ate our food, silently, listening to the sounds surrounding us blissfully. After I finished my last bite, I heard Jessy clearing up her throat so I turned around as I thought she wanted to speak but when my eyes fell on her face, I saw a glint of mischievousness in her eyes. I tilted my head, waiting for her to finally talk. “Let’s go swimming!” She stood up and started to undress, keeping her underwear on, and she ran to the lake. She turned towards me and waved. “Come on! The water is actually alright!” I laughed but I reluctantly undressed and joined her. The water was actually alright. Cold, of course, but with the sun out, it was bearable. The glint in her eyes had not disappeared but I ignored it. I looked at the beautiful scenery, soaking up the sun on my skin when I felt some cold water being splashed on me. I gasped and jumped. I turned around and saw Jessy laughing while running away from me. I ran after her and managed to splash her too. When I did, I dived into the water so she couldn't get me anymore. I smiled at her and swam towards her. “Come on. Get into it. It’s actually nice. I love swimming. It feels like my sorrows and worries are being washed away and I am purified.”

Her face became serious. The carefree, happy woman was gone. Her wide eyes showed some emotions that weren’t there since I had arrived. She closed her eyes and sighed. “If only it was that easy.” I grabbed her hand to comfort her. “Jessy? What’s up?” She opened her eyes, I saw the pain she had been hiding all this time. How could I be this wrong? My friend was suffering and I didn’t notice in the slightest. It broke my heart. “I am sorry Jessy. I… I didn’t realise.” She shook her head and smiled tightly. “I know, don’t worry. I just… I just couldn’t hide it from you anymore.” Tears started to fall down her cheeks, mixing with the drops that were still running down from when she put her head under water. I saw the desperation and the deep sadness she kept hiding all those months back and I finally took her in my arms. I knew words could not sooth her. I could only just be there for the heartbroken woman. She didn’t move when she was in my arms but I didn’t mind. I could feel her tears wetting my skin as the top of our bodies were out of the water. I gently stroked her head while her body was shaking from her sobbing. She calmed down after a few minutes and I realised that the trembling was, now, not because she was crying but because she was getting cold like I was. “Let’s get out of here.” She nodded and slowly peeled herself away from me. As we slowly made our way back to the blanket, I had the weird feeling that someone was watching us. I took a look around and saw a man standing and I recognised Jake. I waved at him slightly and he waved back while joining us to the blanket. I put the stuff on it aside and grabbed it. I put it around Jessy and me in an attempt to dry ourselves. Jessy finally saw Jake. “Hello Jake. Are you being a weirdo?” He laughed and shook his head. “No. I didn’t know you would be there actually.” I quirked an eyebrow. “Really?” He looked away. “I mean, yeah I knew but I had planned to come here before you two came.” I hummed and started to get dressed while trying to hide my body from the man in front of us. “Why do you come here?”. He looked at the lake. “It is nice and peaceful. No one to bother me. I like solitude.” I nodded. “I understand.” He looked surprised by my answer. “What?” He shrugged. “You don’t seem like the type of person to like being alone.” I laughed. “I guess you don’t know a lot about me then.” I smiled at him and I could see a slight blush pinking his cheeks. “Maybe I don’t.” I laughed and turned to see that Jessy was dressed. “We shall leave you alone then.” He chuckled. “Thank you. Are you going to Hannah’s party tonight?” I nodded. “Yes, of course. I am guessing you are too?” I was gathering everything to get ready to leave. “Yes I am. I will see you tonight then.” We finally walked back to the car and we went back to Jessy’s flat to get ready for the party. As I sat down in the car seat, I heard my phone beeping. I frowned as I knew I put it in silent mode. I took it but saw no notification, perplexed I unlocked it and saw that I had one in the messenger app Jake had illegally installed. I chuckled to myself and opened the app.

*You both could have stayed.*

I looked at Jessy who was driving, the car was silent.

*Thank you but we need to get home and get ready. And I thought you wanted to be alone?*

I watched the messages vanish after a couple of seconds. I was startled by Jessy when she started to speak. “Who’s writing to you?” I glanced at her quickly. “Jake” She nodded and hummed unhappily. “What?” She was still looking at the road in front of her. “Did you forget what I said this morning?” I sighed. “HE texted me, first of all and he said we could have stayed.” She chuckled. “I thought he came there to be alone?” I laughed too. “I know!! That’s what I wrote.” I showed her the screen but then remembered that the message was gone. She couldn’t see anyway as she was driving. “What did he say?” I smiled slightly. “He hasn’t answered yet.” We waited for a few seconds and my heart skipped a beat when I saw the beginning of his message

*:)

I did but with you it is different. I do not mind the company.*

I stared at the words until they disappeared again. “So? What did he say?” I looked up from my phone. “Hm?” She laughed. “What did he say?” I looked back at the blank screen. “That he wouldn’t have minded the company.” She hummed quietly. I locked my phone and looked at the road. I realised my feelings for the hacker were creeping their way back slowly and it annoyed me, especially because they were stronger this time around. It was one thing to text him, I could put a safe distance between him and me even though the feelings were there but to see him in real life… He was exactly how I expected him to be, nice, sweet and caring and the fact that he was also gorgeous didn’t help. My phone beeped again, as my phone unlocked onto the opened app, I read the message.

*I am sorry*

The message erased itself after a few seconds. I was perplexed by this last message.

*What do you mean?*

And as my message disappeared again, we arrived at Jessy’s flat. We got ready then left early to help with the decoration and other things. It was at the Aurora. We decided to walk there so we could drink if we wanted. While getting ready, I heard my phone beeped again but I was so carried away with the preparations that I didn’t find the time to read the message. When we were ready with everything, we left the flat and I remembered my phone. I took it out and looked for the messenger app to open it.

*I am sorry that I never texted you. I am sorry I have someone. I am sorry I was a coward. I understand you did not want me to apologise to you but I am. I am really sorry.*

I smiled and sent a text back.

*I am just glad you are safe and alive, Jake. All the promises and other words you might have said were from another life. You don’t need to be sorry.*

We entered the bar and I saw Jake looking at his phone, a look of disappointment on his face. My heart sank at the sight and he looked up at the door being opened. He looked at me and I saw a sadness behind his bright eyes then he looked away. I followed Jessy as I didn’t know what they had actually planned. Phil had closed the bar for a couple of hours so we could set up everything. I went and said hello to everyone. When I hugged Phil, he offered me a drink which I accepted gratefully. Jessy joined us as we actually didn’t have much to do. Lilly and Thomas had done most of the decorations. Finally, it was time for Thomas to go and pick up Hannah. We waited for a few minutes then we turned the lights off so Hannah would not have a clue about what was going on. We only waited for a couple of minutes when we heard the door open. The lights got turned on and “SURPRISE!” Hannah did look surprised and we all laughed as she berated Thomas playfully. Phil turned the music on and opened the bar for other customers. We only took a part of the bar so he could still open it. We all went around the table where all the presents were and we watched Hannah open them all. She made a speech to thank all of us then she came over to talk to me. “Hey! Thank you for being here with us.” I smiled at her but I didn’t say anything. “And thank you for helping my friends… our friends with finding me. I don’t know how to thank you properly. You know I tried to text you multiple times the last few months but I got scared each time I was about to send it. What if you didn’t want to talk to me? What if you hated me? What if…” I cut her off smiling. “Hannah, I would have been more than happy to talk to you and I would have answered you straight away.” Before she could carry on the conversation we heard someone calling her name. We both looked up to the entrance and I saw an older couple waving at Hannah. She looked at me with a smile while they were joining us. “They are my parents!” She hugged them while they wished her a happy birthday. Lilly joined them too, looking stressed. “Mom? Dad? What are you doing here?” Her eyes were darting around and when we heard the door slammed violently, her eyes screwed up shut and she sighed. When she opened them, there was a look of worry and she looked at me as if she was asking me something. “I told you not to come!” And she left in a hurry. I looked at the rest of the family, puzzled. Hannah scoffed. “Right, Mom, Dad this is…” Her dad cut her off and extended his hand. “Yes, we know. It’s really nice to finally meet you. Lilly doesn’t stop talking about you!” I laughed nervously and I shook his hand to be polite. Their mom hugged me and told me that if I needed anything they would be happy to help me. I thanked them and we started to make small talk.

After a few minutes, Lilly came back, worried still etched on her face. She grabbed me and took me away from her family. “I need to talk to you.” I followed her and she looked around to make sure no one was listening. “You need to go and talk to Jake.” I stared at her. “What? Why?” She sighed loudly. “Because MY dad, OUR dad is here…” I looked at the man and made the connection. I kind of had forgotten about it. I sighed. “Why do you think I could help?” Lilly was looking at her parents. “Angela and I tried to speak to him but he didn't speak. I am afraid he might come inside and punch my father.” I laughed at that. I couldn’t imagine Jake being violent but who knows? Maybe hacking his bank account or his computer but not punching him. “Right. I’ll see what I can do.” I followed Lilly outside and I saw Jake pacing around while Angela was trying to calm him down. Lilly called Angela to her and I walked towards Jake. “Hey Jake.” He stopped when he heard my voice and slowly turned to face me. “Hey” I showed him a table with two seats so we could sit. We sat down and stayed silent for a full minute before I started talking. “Lilly said they weren’t supposed to come.” He shrugged. “I know she told me.” I hummed, I didn’t really know what to say. “I just… I knew I would eventually bump into him but I don’t know why I reacted like that.” I leaned forward on my chair. “Will you talk to him? Will you tell him the truth? Will you punch him in the face?” He laughed out loud and shook his head. I saw Angela and Lilly watching us and Angela got upset. I felt bad but I was trying to make him feel better. “No, I would not punch him. I haven’t decided what I should do.” I leaned back on my chair. “Hmm. It’s not easy. I can’t say what would be best. I think it depends on what you want and need. Do you need him in your life?” He shrugged again. “I don’t know, I don’t think so.” His phone beeped and he looked at the screen, a frown on his face then he stood up to look around. “Hey, what’s wrong?” He turned his face towards me. “You remembered I told you that a friend helped me get free?” I nodded. “She is here.” A few seconds after he talked, we heard a car driving full speed and stopped suddenly in front of the Aurora. The engine stopped and a woman stepped out of the car. She was not conventionally dressed, I would say but she knew how to dress herself. She saw Jake who was walking towards her and her whole face was illuminated by the brightest smile I had ever seen. She ran towards the hacker and jumped in his arms while screeching his name. Hopefully, he caught her and held her for a few seconds before putting her back on her feet. I arrived next to them, curious about this woman in Jake’s life, whom he had never talked about. Jake sensed me next to him and he made the introduction.

================================================

THE END

Thank you for reading.

This is not proofread so if you see any mistakes please let me know.

Comments and feedback are welcome :)

Also what do you think about Moonvale?!!!!!!

#duskwood jake x mc #duskwood jessy #duskwood hacker #duskwood everbyte #duskwood fanfiction #duskwood fanfic #everbyte studios #duskwood lilly #duskwood hannah #duskwood jake #jessy hawkins #lilly donfort #hannah donfort

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whimsicallyenchantedrose · 8 months ago

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Girls' Trip Fairy Tale Ending--Chapter 5 of 5

Summary: This is my combined birthday gift for Joni ( @jrob64 ), Marta ( @snowbellewells ) and Krystal ( @kmomof4 ). Happy birthday ladies! Four fandom friends are nearing the end of their annual girls’ trip when they’re suddenly visited by Isaac, the author before Henry. He gives them an each a gift–an opportunity to jump into any scene in the storybook they want and fix it. Large focus on CS, although other characters and relationships will be explored. A big shoutout to @hollyethecurious and @winterbaby89 for betaing!

Word Count: 1090

Tagging a few people who may be interested (Let me know if you want to be added or taken off the list): @sailormew @annaamell @flslp877 @emmateo26 @bethacaciakay

@ultraluckycatnd @effulgent-mind @ilovemesomekillianjones @kat2609 @brooke-to-broch

@missgymgirl @galadriel26 @the-lady-of-misthaven @charmingturkeysandwich @jennjenn615

@laschatzi @kimmy46 @snowbellewells @iamanneenigma @daxx04

@nickillian @gillie @britishguyslover @ginnyjinxedandhanshotritafirst @kmomof4

@linda8084 @golfgirld @captain-swan-coffee @searchingwardrobes @hollyethecurious

@laughswaytoomuch @allyourdarlingswans @winterbaby89 @facesiousbutton82 @therooksshiningknight,

@lfh1226-linda @tiganasummertree @jrob64 @anmylica @booksteaandtoomuchtv @elfiola

Other chapters: (1) (2) (3) (5)

Can also be found on: (ao3) (ff.net)

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Note: I know it's been forever since I posted (and you've probably forgotten what this fic is all about by now), but in the spirit of the thing, I decided to post on the last birthday of our group--which happens to be mine! I hope you enjoyed our adventures!

Epilogue

And with Jen’s return to the cabin, the fairytale adventure came to a close.

“I don’t know about the rest of you,” Jen said, “but for me, that is by far the best way to watch Once Upon a Time. You get to meet the characters, fix plot holes, and experience the Happily Ever After.”

There were unanimous choruses of agreement all around.

“Well, I’m glad you enjoyed yourselves,” Isaac said with a roll of his eyes, “but I hope you also learned something. I hope you all learned that my job is harder than you thought it was–that when you change one thing, there is an entire cascade of unforeseen effects.”

“Is that really a bad thing?” Jen mused. “When the original trajectory was stupid, changes are a good thing.”

“Speaking of,” Krystal said, “can we finally talk about our experiences?”

Isaac sighed. Loudly. “Fine, but no cheating! You have to disclose all of it, not just the things you liked, but the ways it changed the story, the ripple effects it had, the boring moments, the epic romantic moments that no longer happened.”

“Can you wrap this up?” Joni asked, “or is this lecture going to go on for a while, because if it is, I’m going to bed.”

Isaac sighed again. “Just get on with it.”

“Gladly,” Joni said. “I went back to the beanstalk.”

There was a chorus of excited voices at that revelation, being, after all, a very significant moment in the Captain Swan journey.

“So what did you do?” Jen asked. “How did you change it?”

“I convinced Emma to go back and free Killian,” Joni answered. “How about the rest of you?”

“I saved Graham’s life,” Marta said with a sound that was half-way between a sigh and a giggle.

“There’s a shock,” Krystal said.

“How did you make that work with the story?” Jen asked.

“I really didn’t have to do much,” Marta said. “I got Henry to distract Regina, and then I took back Graham’s heart. I got to put it back! Then he kissed my hand and used a Killian line on me.”

“And you’re still alive to tell the tale?” Joni asked.

“Barely,” Marta said, clapping her hands and giggling again, “but it was touch and go for a little while. Anyway, Emma decided she liked Graham, but she wasn’t sure she was in love with him. Then Regina got mad and banished Graham to the mental asylum. Then Ruby and Graham fell in love and lived happily ever after.”

There was a universal chorus of oos and ahs at that. The consensus was that that would have, indeed, made for a better story.

“I went back to season six,” Jen said, when the discussion died down.

“How could you possibly pick one scene from that hot mess to fix?” Krystal asked?

“Wasn’t easy,” Jen answered. “Hot mess indeed. Ultimately, I would have liked to change the entire arc with Killian killing David’s dad and all that came after that. After all, that made no sense at all. Since when would Killian kill someone to keep them from telling people he killed the king’s soldiers? Wouldn’t that enhance his pirate street cred?”

“I needed one more conflict between them before their happily ever after!” Isaac said defensively.

“One, why?” Jen asked, “and two, if you needed one, you could have actually made it necessary to the plot and not just angst for angst’s sake.”

“Well…well…” Isaac spluttered, “that’s not even the scene you picked, so why are we even talking about this?”

“Because you need to hear it,” Jen answered. “Anyway, I decided what bugged me the most about that whole arc was that Emma immediately believed he’d left her, and everyone else in her life just….went with it. I talked some sense into all of them. Oh, and I made it Christmastime–which let them bring Killian home with a little Christmas magic.”

“Well, of course, you can make things work out when you just randomly introduce a magical item!” Isaac exploded.

“You’re complaining about magical MacGuffins?” Joni asked. “May I introduce you to…any of your writing?”

Isaac grumbled under his breath, and then turned to Krystal. “All right. Let’s get this over with. Time for you to tell us about your adventure.”

Krystal shrugged and gave him an evil grin. “I killed off Neal.”

“Naturally,” Jen said. “I assume there was pain?”

“Do you know me at all?” Krystal tossed back. “Of course there was pain. Lots of it. And screaming.”

“So Rumple didn’t absorb him?” Marta asked.

“Nope, and almost nothing ended up changing,” Krystal said. “Except Snowing’s baby’s name, of course.”

Jen, Joni and Marta gave her blank stares.

“What does Neal’s death have to do with the baby’s name?” Marta asked.

“Without Neal around to be a ‘hero’,” she explained, “they ended up naming him Graham.

The blank stares continued.

“Oh come on ladies,” Krystal said, “I thought that would be your favorite part. No one, and I mean no one liked that they named their son Neal.”

“What?” Joni asked. “Why would they name their son Neal? Who would name their son after their daughter’s ex-boyfriend who sent her to jail and broke her heart?”

“Exactly!” Krystal agreed. Looking around, she noticed the other ladies were still giving her odd looks. “Wait….you mean that’s NOT how you remember it?”

“No!” Marta said emphatically. “There was a lot I loved about the CS movie, but the thing that always brought tears to my eyes was the naming ceremony when they named their baby after Graham and talked about how much of a hero he was. It was just…” There was the giggle sigh again.

Krystal looked over at Isaac, and he shrugged. “Far be it from me to deny it when I’m wrong. Neal was a stupid naming choice.”

“You’ve got that right,” Jen said.

With a dramatic sigh, Isaac shook his head and threw up his hands. “I give up. Clearly there’s no reasoning with fanfiction writers. Enjoy the rest of your trip, I guess. And next year? Lay off of the head trauma. By my count you knocked Will upside the head seven times in your story. Gave me a headache just reading it.”

And with that, he was engulfed in a puff of smoke, and a moment later, there was no sign that he’d ever been there. No sign, that is, but the excited chattering of the four ladies in the cabin who discussed their adventures long into the night.

#ouat fanfiction #sort of #girls' trip fanfiction #fandom friends' birthday fics #girls' trip fairy tale ending #my fanfiction

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cherrygorilla · 9 months ago

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Ice Pop 🍃

Aaaah, Happy Birthday, Danelle! I hope you're having a wonderful day! I honestly didn't think I'd be able to get anything done to celebrate this year with how busy I've been, and I felt terrible, but luckily being at home for the last week has given me some time on a night to whip a little something up. It's not the best, or the most exciting, but hopefully it can somewhat make up for my months of radiosilence, and bring you a little joy today. 🥰

Now, this can pretty much be considered a standalone AU one-shot, but it was supposed to be a section in the third part of ASDO - yes, I know I haven't even finished the second part yet, I'm working on it lol - however, due to changes in timelines and things, it's not going to be able to work like this anymore. Still, I wanted my idea for two certain characters meeting for the first time to have some sort of a home, even if it is no longer canon. And who knows? Maybe it'll help for their appearances in other stories haha. But yeah, if you're wondering about the context of the rehearsal it's centred around - that's what it's for 😂

Anyway, enough of my rambling! I hope you enjoy it, and I hope you have a great day however you end up celebrating! You're the best internet friend a girl could ask for, so you deserve it! Happy birthday, Danelle!! 🥳

"Ugh, she just gets prettier every time I see her."

As rubber sneaker soles met blistering asphalt, Vivien couldn't help but giggle. Swinging the door of the sky blue convertible shut, she turned to face Carrie, affectionately rolling her eyes as she saw where her gaze, and flattery was aimed. Proudly plastered across the side of Sound Stage 4 was a colossal banner advertising the newest season of Find Your Voice, decorated with the gigantic heads of eight of its core cast members. And off to the left hand side, beaming down the camera lens over the top of an advanced geometry textbook, was the very same blonde as the one standing there admiring it.

"And Miles wonders why he can't get Royce to stop calling you vain," Vivien sarcastically teased.

Reluctantly tearing her gaze from the studio's prime position billboard, Carrie settled the younger brunette with a contented smirk. "I don't care; it's true," she said, holding back a giggle of her own as she swung her car door shut. "And besides, a little self-love's healthy."

"A little?" Vivien snorted with a raised eyebrow.

Carrie didn't have a comeback for that one, instead just laughing along with the teenager as she locked up her Mustang and rounded the car to join her. Bidding the oversized version of herself a final goodbye with a proud grin and a mock salute, as a way of thanking her for her contributions to their show's ever-growing ratings, Carrie began leading Vivien out of the studio parking lot.

Jogging a few paces to match the blonde's brisk walking pace, Vivien soon returned to scanning her surroundings like she'd just set foot in Munchkinland after a tornado. By now she had thought she was somewhat familiar with the movie world her extended family lived in, or at least the portion by the beach where they all resided. But exploring the downtown area brought that same giddy novelty of her first visit flooding back to her. It was like the whole city had a filter over it, turning up the saturation of the colours in the brickwork or shop signs, and bringing out their warmth to match the sunrays kissing the freckles up and down her arms.

Once she'd finally regained control of her childlike wonder, and had stopped gawping at the buildings lining the street they were strolling down as though they were exhibits at a science museum, her attention returned to the same question that had been plaguing her since Carrie had ushered her into the passenger seat of her car. "You know, you still haven't actually told me where we're going."

"I'm taking you to the venue."

Despite her nonchalant tone, Carrie's revelation made Vivien's breath catch in her throat. "Already?"

"Well yeah," Carrie replied, seemingly confused by the panicked squeak in the girl's voice. "I thought you'd want to get some practice in first."

Melting into a smile with a relieved sigh, Vivien let her shoulders relax and her feet be guided by the clunky, patterned platform boots parading her down Sycamore Close. Acting as a rather effective tour guide, Carrie gave her a walking tour of her and Miles' weekday stomping ground - she pointed out the mechanic shop where he worked, where their favourite sandwich shop was, which place did the best coffee, which place did the worst coffee - she even pointed out the laundrette Miles almost flooded after an unfortunate lunch-break run-in with a meatball sub, and threw in the anecdote that went along with it for good measure. There was the florist shop, the record store, the pharmacy - the whole street looked like it could have been plucked straight out of a movie set. And, in a way, Vivien supposed it had been. But as they rounded another corner, the pastel awnings and inviting smells disappeared.

It was far from a dump; palm trees still sporadically lined the road, and storefronts held haphazard displays of their products to entice the sparse crowds of customers. But the trashbags sitting at the curbside, and the uneven sidewalk slabs, made this part of town feel a little less polished than the rest. Just as Vivien finished reading the intricate chalkboard sign hanging outside a local bookstore though, and she turned back to follow Carrie's lead, a cloud of smoke obscured her view of the path ahead.

Thankfully, the haze had dispersed by the time the girls approached, but the stench of weed that replaced it made Vivien's nostrils itch. Scrunching up her nose, she slightly quickened her pace, hoping to get to a bakery down the street that could drown out the smell before her eyes started watering. But in the seconds that followed, she didn't know what surprised her more: the fact that Carrie was acknowledged by the stoner responsible for the smoke show, or the fact that she actually stopped to talk to him.

"Heyyyy, Carrie-oke! What the hell are you doing here so early?"

"We're down a drummer, so we need an emergency rehearsal with our stand-in," Carrie replied, a hint of amusement colouring her tone - whether that was due to the circumstances, or the fact that she sensed Vivien's utter confusion was a mystery to the brunette though.

"You lost another one? What happened? She didn't-"

"Yeah, Amber dumped him… Again."

"Fucking hell," the guy snorted, taking a quick drag on his joint and blowing the smoke out of the corner of his mouth, away from the girls, which Vivien appreciated. There was something about his entertained grin that drew her interest - or maybe it was that mischievous twinkle she spotted in his dark, albeit bleary chocolate brown eyes as he lifted his round sunglasses onto the top of his head. Either way, her intrigue towards the young man was making the weed smell more and more tolerable with each passing second. "Two drummers in four months? Is she trying to set a record or something?" he cheekily continued.

"I don't know," Carrie sighed with an eyeroll at her friend's expense. "But she definitely made the right call with that last guy; he was a total deadweight."

"Was that the coupon guy?" he checked. And once Carrie nodded her confirmation: "Oh yeah, he was a fucking moron. She can do so much better."

"Exactly," Carrie replied, throwing her head back with a hearty laugh at the brunet's earnest response. "But, yet again, her commendable level of self-respect has left us without a drummer less than eight hours before doors open. Hence the emergency rehearsal."

The deeply pensive expression, pulling the guy's eyebrows together, had Vivien biting the inside of her cheek to stop herself from giggling, especially when he revealed what he'd been thinking so hard about.

"Hence…" he mumbled, through a mouthful of the BLT sandwich he'd picked up from the plate balancing precariously on the windowsill beside him. "Gnarly adverb... Respect."

Carrie just shook her head with another amused grin. "That stuff's hittin' good this morning, huh?"

"Oh yeah," he chuckled with a contented nod of approval. "You want a hit?"

Whilst the offer itself wasn't too much of a surprise to Vivien, the length of time Carrie appeared to consider it for certainly was. For a moment, she even thought she saw the blonde's arm twitch, as though instinctively moving to accept, before she caught herself and shook her head. "No, I can't-"

"Oh come on, just a little one."

Again, Carrie almost appeared convinced, before her better judgement won out. "No, I- Look, maybe later," she eventually compromised, taking a step towards the propped open, painted brown door beside them to prevent any attempts at further complaints from the stoner. "I already told you, I'm not here to just hang out. We've got to rehearse."

"We? What are you talking about? Who's-?" But as Vivien followed Carrie's lead, inching towards the doorway, she looked up to find that set of bleary brown eyes fixed on her for the first time that conversation - any traces of an end to his question completely falling out of his head the second he spotted her.

Now that she'd actually been acknowledged by the guy, Vivien took the opportunity to fully take in his appearance: fascinated by the fact that such a creature even knew Carrie, let alone spoke to her like a friend. His dark, taupe hair fell in half-hearted curls by his shoulders - more in limp waves than anything, which were pushed away from his face by the arms of the scratched, round sunglasses balanced atop his head. His scrawny frame was hidden by a baggy denim jacket that looked as though it was about four sizes too big for him, with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, and a shirt beneath patterned so intensely she couldn't look at it for long without seeing spots in her vision. Old, flared, brown trousers; scuffed, but clearly well-loved, maroon boots; and a jumbled collection of leather bracelets, fabric wristbands, and peace sign pendants completed the look - a look she could only think to dub: dishevelled bohemian. If he'd have been on the cover of a history book about the hippie movement she wouldn't have batted an eyelid. And yet here he was, standing right in front of her, looking at her as though she'd just been beamed down from a spaceship.

Apparently her very existence was all it took to stun him into silence; his brain clearly needed all the energy it could get to process what he was seeing. She could practically hear its cogs spinning on overdrive as he searched her face for some recognisable quality. And just when they were starting to sound like her old laptop loading up The Sims, he tore his gaze from her and fixed it back on Carrie.

"…Who the fuck is that?"

The genuine confusion riddling his expression amused Vivien to no end, having to catch herself before a giggle escaped her lips as Carrie, evidently more familiar with his antics, simply replied: "It's Viv."

But the explanation made absolutely no difference in that empty, freckled head. The guy still looked as lost as ever.

"It's Vivien," Carrie tried again. But when she was met with a further, if not slightly more irritated, blank stare, she let out a frustrated scoff and turned so that she was fully facing the airheaded brunet again. "Vivien O'Brian-"

"You say that like you expect me to know who she is," he cut in with an incredulous scoff of his own.

"You do know."

"Then who the fuck is it?"

"Vivien," Carrie fired back with great exasperation - the kind that could only come from years of friendly, pent-up frustration. "She ice skates. She reads books. Miles talks about her like once a fucking week!"

Ethan's eyes lit up like a Roman candle. "Yoooo, where is Miles?" he asked, all inquiries about the brunette forgotten in an instant at the very mention of that all-important name.

But his eager grin was met with a look of disapproving disbelief. "I don't know," Carrie snapped, left floundering for an answer thanks to the stoner's inability to hold a properly structured conversation. "At work, I assume."

He looked about as satisfied with Carrie's answer as she had with his question though, tipping his head up to the sky and letting out a frustrated groan that would have given a sulking six-year-old a run for his money. "You seriously didn't bring him with you?" he checked, quirking an eyebrow at her out of the corner of his vision - clearly hoping this was just some dorky prank set-up.

"No, I don't think he gets off 'til 5," Carrie flatly fired back.

"Ughhhhh." There went that stroppy groan of frustration again. "That's fucking forever away. What am I supposed to do 'til then?"

"You could help us set up for our rehearsal," Carrie suggested with a smirk. "You know, like any respectable entertainment coordinator would."

He just rolled his eyes. "It's gonna be so boring without him though," he whined, scuffing his boot along the sidewalk as he dejectedly kicked a pebble against the side of the building.

Now it was Carrie's turn to roll her eyes as she let out an incredulous scoff. "Need I remind you, we were friends way before Miles came into the picture?"

The stoner levelled her gaze for a beat before a knowing smile tugged his lips into that same mischievous grin from before. "Yeah, but from that point on, nothing else really mattered, did it? Let's be real," he chuckled. Despite the ribbing, and obvious penchant for a certain mechanic, there was a glint in his blood-shot eyes that revealed his fondness for the blonde after all though.

And the feeling was clearly mutual since she was still willing to continue the conversation - she couldn't even successfully stifle her smile back as she shook her head and muttered a quick: "You're such an idiot."

The brunet made no attempt to argue - in fact he let out an amused snort of agreement as he reached for the rest of his half-eaten BLT.

Seizing the opportunity to take control of the conversation again, Carrie attempted to steer it back on track with an exaggerated, "Anyway." Tugging her guest closer, and dramatically gesturing to her, she continued, "That Vivien we talk about all the time: this is her."

The guy nodded thoughtfully. "Vivien…" he mumbled through a mouthful of bread - still playing that oh-so challenging game of connect-the-dots.

"Yes, Vivien," Carrie confirmed, as though encouraging a kindergartener. "She stayed with Miles and his brothers last April."

"Mmm," he nodded, finally showing some evidence of understanding. "She's dating that other mechanic guy - the one Miles lived with for-"

"No," Carrie cut in sharply over Vivien's incredulous laughter. "That's Mick and Butchy."

"Well how the fuck am I supposed to-?"

"Viv's dating Royce," Carrie explained, cutting off his complaint before he could derail the conversation any further.

"She's dating Royce?" he questioned, half-mumbling to himself as he fought through the disbelief the new information carried. His eyebrows scrunched in incredulity, his lips curled into a sort of confused grimace-

But then it finally clicked - the force almost popping his eyes out of his head in the process.

If the sudden change in the stoner's expression hadn't already set Vivien off to laugh harder, the sharp gasp that followed, and sent what remained of his mouthful of sandwich flying into the back of his throat, certainly did.

"Holy shit!" he eventually managed to choke out between the hacking coughs to help dislodge the piece of bread. "That was actually real?" he went on to ask once he'd caught his breath again, staring at Carrie with tear-stained eyes and a look of utter stupefaction. But she just nodded and chuckled as she handed him a bottle of water from her purse. "I thought Miles just made that up so I'd stop thinking his brother was a lame-ass," he continued, pausing to gulp down the offered water and rid himself of any remaining evidence of his mini choking fit. Holding the water bottle out to its original owner with a heavy, contemplative sigh, he levelled her gaze and lowered his voice to ask a dubious: "You're definitely sure it's real then?"

"You do know you can talk to her yourself, right?" Carrie checked, raising her eyebrow as she took back the bottle and gestured to Vivien yet again.

The guy paused, mouth slightly agape, as the realisation steadily dawned on him. Shifting his gaze to the brunette, he instead posed the question to her. "...You're actually dating Miles' brother?"

"I am indeed," she replied, smirking through poorly stifled giggles at the caricature of a guy's reactions.

"And they're definitely not paying you to say this?"

"I wish I was getting paid," Vivien snorted. "Easiest buck I'd ever make."

A thoughtful nod followed, as though impressed by the girl's honesty. And then came another bite of that BLT as he mulled over the revelation a little more. "Well, shit," he eventually settled on, with an amused smirk of his own. "Good for him… And you, I guess," he added, with a vague nod in Vivien's direction.

And then there was silence. It seemed as though he felt his role in the conversation was over now if the way he engrossed himself in inspecting the limp piece of lettuce sticking out the side of his sandwich was anything to go by. But Carrie had other ideas.

"Is that it?"

"Is what it?"

"That's all you have to say?" she raised an eyebrow and pressed.

"Well what else do you want me to do?"

But Carrie's disgruntled eye roll told Vivien she wasn't about to spell it out for him. "You have the social skills of a fucking garden snail," she muttered, before turning to the younger brunette with an almost apologetic shake of her head. "Well, since he's not gonna introduce himself - Viv, this Ethan. I had other, cooler friends I wanted you to meet first but, unfortunately fate had other plans."

Ethan still frowned despite her teasing tone. "I know you don't mean that, Cole," he protested, to which Carrie just smirked and rolled her eyes again.

Vivien felt like she was constantly on the brink of laughter watching the pair interact, caught between genuine amusement and utter disbelief. "So you two are like legitimately friends then?" she asked, feeling the need to check since her brain still didn't feel ready to process what her eyes were telling her.

Matching mischievous grins graced their faces as Ethan nodded and Carrie stifled another chuckle. "Don't look so surprised," she added after clocking the girl's reaction.

"No, I just-" Vivien floundered, struggling to articulate everything her brain was trying to process into a proper sentence. But after several failed attempts, she let her straight-to-the-point inner voice take over talking duties, with a spluttered laugh to join it. "How the hell did it happen?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well I just- I thought I had an idea of what your friends would be like…" Vivien trailed off, again at a loss for words.

"And this isn't it?" Carrie asked with mock-surprise as she jerked her thumb in Ethan's direction, just as he took another hit of his joint.

"...Well, we call you Barbie for a reason," Vivien teased. "I just didn't expect Little Miss Perfect to hang out with…"

"Someone who looks like they crawled out of Fraggle Rock?" Carrie offered with a smirk that quickly set the girl off to laugh.

Luckily, Ethan started laughing along with them - but not for the same reasons. "Yooo, they call you Barbie?"

"That's what you took from that?" Carrie checked in disgruntled disbelief.

"That's so fucking good," he mumbled as another amused grin settled on his lips.

But Carrie just rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to Vivien. "I swear you kids think I'm some sort of saint," she chuckled before teasingly adding, "You're not the only one who can have cool, weird friends, you know?"

"I never said I was," Vivien argued through a laugh. "I just don't know where you two could have ever crossed paths. Where did you guys meet?"

"He works on the sound for Find Your Voice and a couple of other shows on the lot. So I've known him ever since I booked the part," Carrie explained whilst Ethan worked on finishing what was left of his BLT. "He was just another part of the crew at first, but, because I talk to anyone and everyone all the time-"

"'Cause she loves the sound of her own voice," Ethan cut in through a mouthful of bacon, cheekily licking mayo off his thumb.

Carrie silenced him with a withering stare - but his lingering smirk told Vivien that he wasn't phased in the slightest. Still, Carrie was able to finish the rest of her explanation uninterrupted. "-I started to talk to him between takes, you know, since he was always there with the boom mic. And then one thing led to another, and before I knew it, he was sacking off lunch with the other tech guys to come and raid my dressing room for cookies."

"Oh come on," Ethan frowned at the light ribbing. "Don't pretend you wouldn't do the same for your mom's snickerdoodles."

"You ate crumbs out of a trash can."

"And I'd do it again," Ethan shot back with an earnestness that just made his and Carrie's sibling-like bickering even more entertaining. "You can't talk anyway; you ate that piece of pizza Miles spat out into a napkin the other week."

Ethan's accusatory frown, paired with Vivien's grimace just made Carrie's attempts at a justification even harder to come by. "Listen, I was not…" she began, eyes darting to the brunette on her left as she tried to phrase this in a way that wouldn't tarnish her reputation any further. "...of sound mind that evening. Plus, he's my boyfriend - I've tasted worse than saliva."

As if the first part of the confession hadn't shocked her enough, Vivien jerked her head back in reaction to that last line. "Eww, Carrie!"

Ethan's loud bark of laughter was a completely different response though. "Hey, I never said there was anything wrong with it," he eventually chuckled. "I'd have probably eaten it if you didn't."

"And I bet you'd have loved it too, you freak," Carrie fired back with a smirk despite her nose wrinkling in disgust.

Ethan's proud grin was all the evidence she needed to know she was right.

Once Vivien had recovered from her future sister-in-law's nausea-inducing revelation, she was able to continue with her inquiries about the scruffy stoner she'd become so fascinated with. "Wait so you know Miles too?"

"Know him?!" Ethan squawked.

His reaction sent Carrie's eyes to the heavens as she tipped her head back in despair. "Don't get him started, Viv," she wearily warned.

But Ethan didn't even give the brunette the chance to question any further, seizing the opportunity to talk about the mechanic with both hands, and a lovestruck smile. "Miles is my soulmate; my cosmic chaperone - we're spiritually bound by the very threads of our existence."

The edges of Vivien's smirk twitched, dying to let the guffaws it was holding back free as she raised an eyebrow. "That close, huh?"

Ethan gave the girl a solemn nod. "He's the ketchup to my mustard."

"Well shit," Vivien deadpanned, matching the guy's energy perfectly. "You can't get closer than that."

Shaking her head at the pair, and the situation in general, Carrie went on to explain: "The second I brought Miles on set it was game over. He asked Ethan some dumb question about a song on the radio and he's been following him around like a bad smell ever since."

Both physically and metaphorically.

"It was Money by the Rolling Stones, and we still say it's our song to this day, thank you very much," Ethan cagily retorted, as protective as ever over his friendship with Miles, before adding a slightly more in character: "That guitar line is gnarly."

"'Our song'?" Vivien questioned with a snort. "Are you guys gonna use it for your wedding or something?"

But the teasing remark bounced off Ethan like a rubber bullet as he mulled over the proposal with a mellow grin. "I could dig it."

Again Carrie just fondly shook her head, at both Ethan's response and Vivien's reaction. "Believe me, Viv," she went on to say. "They'd need no encouragement. I mean, you'll see it for yourself later, but they're inseparable when you get them together. Like, think of the biggest bromance you know, then times it by four…and you might be getting close."

"They're really that close?" Vivien chuckled in disbelief.

Carrie nodded intently. "They're like fucking limpets."

"I can't believe Miles has been hiding the fact he's got a best friend from me for all these years," Vivien said with cheeky incredulity. "I'm never letting him live this down. I didn't think losers like him were capable of having best friends."

"Well believe it, because he's not going anywhere," Carrie snorted. "Believe me; I've tried."

"Protest all you want, 'oke. You and I both know you'd be lost without me," Ethan said, slinging his now free arm around Carrie's shoulder and pulling her towards him, before affectionately squidging her cheeks together in a way that immediately had her trying to squirm out of his grip.

"I'd have one hell of a mopey boyfriend, that's for sure," Carrie compromised with an affectionate roll of her eyes as she finally somewhat relaxed into the awkward embrace. "And a pretty boring social life."

"Exactly!" Ethan said, that same mischievous grin from earlier making its fateful return. "Who else would you have to go and play midnight mini golf with? And who'd you get to play ice tag with you on set?"

"Isn't it called 'freeze' tag?" Vivien teasingly questioned. "And why are you adults playing freeze tag at work?"

"Uh, we're 22, we're not dinosaurs," Carrie retorted. "And it's not 'freeze tag', it's 'ice tag': a Carrie and Ethan original."

"Well if it's not freeze tag then what is it?" Vivien laughed.

"Duuude, it's so fun!" Ethan enthused. "You've gotta sneak to one of the craft services ice buckets, grab a couple cubes, then pick your victims. If you get one down the back of their shirt - or pants - without them noticing 'til it's already down there, and without it melting, you get a point - and they then have to be the next one to go get the ice."

"The camera guys hate it," Carrie laughed. "But it makes long filming days so much more fun. We've got like half the cast and crew playing now."

"Yeah, the scoreboard in her dressing room's insane," Ethan added.

"So you've built an entire friendship around a game about ice cubes?" Vivien questioned with an amused quirk of her eyebrow.

"Pfft, no, we hang out all the time!" Ethan said.

"Yeah, believe it or not, Miles and I do voluntarily hang out with him when we're not running around after you guys," Carrie chuckled.

"To do what?" Vivien snorted.

"All sorts. We've had a few good movie nights lately 'cause we found out Ethan's got like the weirdest taste in movies ever; he's seen shit like 'Attack of the Crab Monsters', but not The Wizard of Oz."

"Well I have now, but it was fucking weird, man," came Ethan's review. "The scarecrow guy's face looked like it was melting off." Directing his next point at Vivien in particular, he departed his first bout of wisdom on her. "Not one to watch high, dudette, trust me."

"Noted," Vivien acknowledged.

"So yeah, we've had a couple of rogue movie nights if Ethan's been in charge of securing the projector reels," Carrie continued. "But other than that it's just like general, everyday stuff. At least for us, anyway. We don't really get much chance to properly plan stuff out - it kind of just happens. Like the other day, after work, Amber started trying to teach us all how to do one of her crazy yoga routines - we'd never have suggested that until we did it, but it was some of the most fun I've had in weeks."

"Yooo, I was so fucking good at it. I might get her to show me some more stuff next week; I really felt like I was tapping into something powerful with it."

"Oh it was powerful alright," Carrie acknowledged with a giggle. "Miles couldn't believe it - I haven't seen him laugh that hard since he watched you take 20 minutes to make that packet ramen."

"Look, I just have other skill sets to most people," Ethan retorted with a resigned sigh. But a fleeting memory soon had his confidence racing back. "You've gotta admit I was a key player in helping you wreck Eric's car though."

Vivien's jaw dropped to her purple sneakers. "I'm sorry, you did what now?"

The guilt was written all over Carrie's pretty little face. Knowing she had no leg to stand on if she attempted to deny it, thanks to Ethan's unending honesty, she caved with a sigh. "Ok, yeah, so we may have totaled Eric's sports car-"

"Fuck, it was so fun!" Ethan exclaimed. "Me, Amber, and Carrie went to town on that thing. And Julie-"

"Anyway," Carried quickly cut in, trying to change the topic of conversation.

But the disbelief glittering in Vivien's emerald eyes wasn't about to let her get off the hook so easily. "Oh no, I'm not going anywhere until I hear this story," she grinned eagerly.

Letting out a defeated huff, Carrie compromised. "Alright, fine, I'll tell you later. But not a word of it gets back to Miles, ok? Because he has no idea we were the ones responsible for that - and we need to keep it that way."

"Oh come on, why can't I hear it now?" Vivien asked, sticking Carrie with her classic puppy dog eyes for extra, black-mail-y effect.

But unlike her other half, Carrie wasn't so easily won over by the pleading. "Because we need to go practice," she fired back. "We've wasted enough time talking to this bozo already."

"It's not been a waste," Ethan indignantly replied. "I've had a great time."

"So have I," Vivien agreed with a chuckle.

"And I'm very pleased for you both, but that doesn't change the fact that we need to rehearse. So hurry up and unlock the function room for us, tech boy," Carrie bossily snapped back despite her affectionate eye roll.

"You see how she speaks to me?" Ethan snarkily muttered to Vivien as though behind the blonde's back.

"I thought he was the sound guy for your TV show, what does that have to do with us rehearsing here?" Vivien asked, scanning the outside of the building for some sort of clue as to what the place even was.

"He is, but he's also the entertainment co-ordinator here, which means he's in charge of all the live music equipment, and the emcee for the night," Carrie explained as he stamped out the end of his joint with the toe of his boot. "So we're stuck with him all day, I'm afraid."

"I'm also your number one competition, so you'd better be fucking good," he retorted with another mischievous grin. "'Cause you've yet to beat us once."

"You've got a band too?" Vivien asked.

"Yeah - me, Miles, Donny, Rizzo and Desky. Don't let Carrie brainwash you about her bogus trio though, 'cause she can talk all she wants, but she knows she only put it together 'cause she was jealous of ours."

"You're so full of shit," Carrie retorted.

"Oh yeah? Then how come you've lost the crowd favourite vote to us every single time?" he cockily shot back. And when, for once, she didn't have a snapback at the ready: "That's what I thought. Fucking. Poser."

"Brag all you want, but we're gonna make you eat those words tonight now that we've got Viv on our side," Carrie coolly replied, sparing the brunette a smug smile.

"Oh shit, yeah," Ethan said, his competitiveness vanishing once he remembered the reason for his new friend's visit. "You're filling in as their drummer, right?"

"Yeah," Vivien confirmed, trying to hide the fact that her stomach did a backflip at the very thought. "At least that's the plan."

"Gnarly," he acknowledged with an impressed nod. "Where'd you learn to play?"

"My brother Riven taught me back when we were kids."

"Nice, you ever done any shows before or-?"

"Hello? What part of, 'we need to go practice', do you not understand?" Carrie cut in with a pointed glare in the stoner's direction.

"Uh, we're having a conversation here," Ethan countered, totally oblivious to her frustration.

"We actually have a band of our own with two of our friends that we've played a couple of shows for, yeah," Vivien carried on with a giggle at Carrie's expense.

"Oh really? No way!" Ethan exclaimed, seeming genuinely excited by the prospect.

"Yeah, and we write all our own songs."

"Seriously? That's so-"

"Guys!" Carrie tried again - one more stall away from stamping her platform go-go boot on the ground and throwing a toddler-style fit. "Come onnnn."

But yet again, Ethan wasn't bothered in the slightest by her rising irritation. In fact, he was rather irritated himself by her impatience. "Carrie - can't you see I'm talking to my new friend here? She has great knowledge to bestow, and I have much to learn - so quit interrupting; we're having bonding time. You're being rude."

"You can't pull the 'friend' card on me with Viv; she's like my little sister-" Carrie tried, but her indignant protests were drowned out by more of Ethan's senseless rambles.

"So, we'll circle back to the band thing later; I need to do some mental collage-work first, 'cause your canvas is feelin' a little blank, dudette," he began, leaning back against the brick wall and closing his eyes, as though to better visualise the 'memory version' of the brunette before him. Pressing a couple of fingers to his forehead, in an attempt to strengthen their cerebral connection, he continued, "We'll lay down some basics first. Quick-fire: name, birthday, last bone you broke."

Vivien had to bite back a laugh before responding: "Vivien O'Brian, August 22nd, and it was my wrist when I was 10."

Ethan's eyes peeled open, shining with intrigue. "No way, you've actually broken a bone?"

"Why are you so surprised? You asked," Vivien chuckled.

"'Cause most of these losers I ask don't do anything exciting enough to risk bodily harm," he snorted back, with a smug glance in Carrie's direction, relishing the steam that was practically rising from the top of her head. "How'd you break it then?"

"My skating partner dropped me," Vivien said, luckily able to look back on the memory with a more optimistic view than the other participant.

"'Skating partner'?" Ethan mused.

"Yeah, we're figure skaters - my friend Riven and I; the one who taught me to how to play the drums," she explained, catching on quickly that the more context clues she offered, the sooner they'd get to the point.

"What, like roller skating?"

"No, ice skating," Vivien clarified with a giggle.

Ethan's eyes glazed over in understanding. "Ohhh, right. Like ice hockey."

"No, not like ice hockey," Carrie cut in with an exasperated sigh, trying to break it down as simply as she could. "Figure skating. It's like ice dancing. Think the winter olympics - lots of twirling - little dresses-"

"Ohhh, no way! You do all those crazy jumps and shit?" Ethan exclaimed - finally catching on.

"Yeah," Vivien acknowledged. "At least three times a week, usually."

"At the olympics?" he asked, genuine amazement coating every word.

"No, we're not at olympic level," she chuckled, deciding to forgo the explanation that the olympics, at most, happen 3 times a decade. "Not yet, anyway. Our coach is working us towards it though, so who knows? Maybe one day."

"Holy fuck, we're talking to a future olympian, Carrie," Ethan enthused, bumping the blonde's arm in an attempt to share the excitement with her. But when she just rolled her eyes, yet failed to hold back her smile, he continued. "Do you do other competitions and stuff though? Or do you just like practising and doing it for fun?"

"No, we compete. I've got like a whole shelf of trophies in my room," Vivien said, poorly stifling a laugh as Ethan's eyes grew wider still. "We're the reigning national champs for our age bracket."

"Woahhhh, far out, man," he breathed. "That's awesome!" Thumping Carrie's arm again, this time a touch harder to coincide with his growing excitement, he gave her another aside, "Yo, Carrie, we're talking to like a legit celebrity here."

Vivien didn't know what she ended up laughing harder at, Ethan's genuine awe at her achievements, or Carrie's deadpan look of resignation. Those blue eyes of hers looked like they could have melted steel.

Snorting out a laugh of his own at the blonde's expression, he turned back to Vivien with a smirk. "That never gets old," he grinned, evidently well-versed in teasing Carrie about her level of fame. "Anyway, enough about her; she gets more than enough attention. What other cool, hidden talents are you hiding under those glasses?"

"I don't know, I don't think anything else really counts as a talent," Vivien downplayed. "I've taken a few archery lessons, I like going and exploring abandoned buildings-"

"Woah, woah, woah, 'abandoned buildings'?" Ethan questioned - bloodshot eyes once again sparking to life. "What the hell? You're so cool. She's so cool," he said, turning to see if Carrie was sharing in his bewilderment too. "How the fuck did you end up dating Miles' lame-ass little brother? No offence, but like-"

"Ethan," Carrie scolded.

"No, come on, not in like a mean way; he sounds great - I'd protect him with my life - but like, all I ever hear from Miles is that he fucking reads nerdy library books," he attempted to justify.

"Well I like reading too, you know," Vivien countered with a teasing smirk.

"Yeah, but you still seem to have a life," Ethan retorted, with all the social graces of an ox. The hearty laugh Vivien let out in response soon had him back to grinning like an idiot though. "Yo, why's Miles kept us apart for so long? You're awesome - we've got such a good energy going here," he chuckled.

"Yeah, why has Miles kept us apart?" Vivien agreed, looking to Carrie for some sort of explanation.

Begrudgingly rejoining the conversation, she explained with a teasing smirk at the stoner's expense. "Because you're a terrible influence - I speak from experience. He's gonna kill me when he finds out I've introduced you two without his supervision." But then she turned her attention to the younger brunette. "And because the second you see them both together, his cover as the somewhat responsible adult looking after you kids is gonna be blown out the water."

"Oh come on, how bad can he be?" Vivien laughed.

"It's not bad, necessarily - it's just that when they're together, and you're not around, all responsibilities go out the window, and the 22 years of pent-up stupidity are unleashed," Carrie explained with a laugh of her own.

Grinning mischievously, Vivien said, "In that case, I can't wait for his shift to end."

"Yeah, which is gonna be soon if we don't hurry up and get our asses inside," Carrie said, shooting Ethan with another pointed look.

"Huh? D'you hear something, Viv?" Ethan asked his new protege, intentionally blanking the steadily seething blonde.

"Ethan, come onnnn, please," Carrie pleaded, bouncing on the balls of her feet like an impatient child. "You can continue this while we're setting up."

"Weather's pretty nice this morning, huh? Not too humid, not-"

"Fine, I'll just have to kick the door down," Carrie resigned, hiding her smirk behind his back. "I hope no one's left their guitar lying around where it could get damaged if-"

Whirling around with a look of pure horror, Ethan muttered a sombre, almost warning, "Don't even joke about that; you know she's my baby."

"You play the guitar?" Vivien questioned.

"'Play's putting it lightly; I think I can noddle away on that thing better than I can talk," Ethan snorted.

"Like that's hard," Carrie teasingly retorted before continuing. "As much stick as I've given him this morning, he is really good on that guitar," she went on to acknowledge with a genuine smile. "Riven, Miles, and Butchy can talk all they want, but they're not a patch on this guy - I think if he wasn't so mentally stunted he'd be considered some sort of prodigy or something."

"You know, you can just give me a genuine compliment," he said, frowning slightly at her friendly jab.

"I know… I'll start when you start," she retorted with a smirk he soon reciprocated, before shaking his head and letting out another snort of laughter.

"Ok, we'll stick with this; we've got a nice thing going here, why ruin it?"

Grinning at the pair of old friends, and the way Carrie squeezed him into a hug from the side, Vivien's ever-active brain started formulating a new idea - one that would hopefully get her in the good books of both cartoon-cliches come-to-life. "Well, if you're this good on the guitar I've obviously gotta hear it for myself," she prompted, drawing the brunet's attention back to her.

"Shoot, of course, I'd love to play something with you - you know any-?" Ethan began to gush, shoving Carrie away from his side in favour of chattering away to the brunette again.

"Don't we need to get into the function room first though?" she asked, sparing a quick glance at a suddenly very excited Carrie.

"Oh shit, yeah. You shoulda just said, Viv. I'll go unlock it for us," Ethan chuckled as though the concept was entirely new - sending Carrie's eyes to the heavens again.

But the blonde's groan of frustration was drowned out by Vivien's optimistic giggle, as she teasingly mumbled under her breath, "See? That wasn't so hard."

"You two are really gonna make me regret introducing you both, huh?" she said with a weary chuckle of her own as Ethan disappeared into the building.

"On the contrary; I think we're gonna have more fun than ever," Vivien laughed back. "I need to see more of this 'wild' side he brings out of you. First I find out you're bi. Now I find out you smoke weed and could go down for criminal damages to your ex's car with that…thing. I feel like I barely even knew you before."

Carrie just chuckled to herself at the teenager's amazement. "I did try to tell you I was more than just Miles' girlfriend."

"What else are you hiding now? Surely there can't be more," Vivien demanded. "Are you gonna introduce me to your secret three-year-old or something?"

"Eww, no," she laughed. "Just be patient, you'll find out when you're ready," she smirked with a confident mystique Vivien could only have dreamed of. "I've gotta keep at least some of the mystery alive."

Before Vivien could press the older girl for any further clues though, a bedraggled head of shoulder-length brown hair appeared in the dark doorway. "Come on, Ice Pop. It's all unlocked."

Vivien looked from Ethan to Carrie and back again, perplexed. "Ice Pop?"

"Yeah, Ice Pop," Ethan simply confirmed, with a dopey grin.

"Nicknames are kind of his thing," Carrie explained, her voice barely above a whisper as she leaned in to inform the brunette. "It's just how his little pea-brain works. And once he's settled on one for you, you're kind of stuck with it - unfortunately," she added, thinking back to the months of convincing it took to get him to stop calling her 'Coleslaw'.

"Why 'Ice Pop'?" Vivien questioned - as amused, and fascinated, by the guy's thought process as ever.

"'Cause you ice skate," he explained as though it was obvious. "And you're wearing purple - you've actually just got like a purple vibe."

"What does purple have to do with ice pops though?" she asked.

"Well the purple ones are my favourite, and you're my favourite ice skater, so…" he replied, miming the fusion of ideas with his hands for added effect. "Ice Pop."

Poorly holding back her flattered, yet still slightly amused grin, Vivien tried to protest. "You've never even seen me skate."

"Minor details," he dismissed with a wave of his hand. "You're the only one I know by name though - so, you don't have a lot of competition. But that still makes you my favourite."

All the skating talk was lost on Carrie, but there was something about the conversation that caught her attention: "The purple one's are your favourite? They taste like ass."

"Probably why they're my favourite," he snorted as Carrie just wrinkled her nose. Not wanting to delay the imminent jam session any longer, he quickly turned back to Vivien though, managing to catch her attention between her hearty laughs. "What do you say then? You like it?"

"Yeah, I like it," she grinned, warmth spreading throughout her chest as she watched the stoner's eyes glow with appreciation.

"Sweet," he breathed, holding her gaze for a beat before beckoning her towards the wooden archway in the brickwork. "Come on then, Ice Pop. Welcome to The Grapefruit."

Following a nod of approval from Carrie, who promptly trailed behind her, Vivien let Ethan lead her through a bead curtain and into a dimly lit, oak-panelled hallway. The floor almost immediately dropped into a stairwell, lined with black and white photos of musicians, and prints of various fruits in the same assorted shades of orange, yellow, and green from the beads at the entrance.

As they descended, Vivien, as talkative as ever, especially now that she was more at ease around the guy, decided to start probing Ethan for more details. "So if I'm Ice Pop, and Carrie's Carrie-oke - does Miles have a nickname?"

"Nah, you can't improve upon perfection," Ethan sighed, grabbing the railings of the staircase and launching himself down the last four steps. "I do have a 'government name' I call him though when he needs me to talk some sense into him," he continued after landing with a thud in front of a two-way corridor.

"Which is?" Vivien prompted as they turned to the left and reached another door.

"Miles per Gallon, Miles per Hour, Miles from Anywhere - there's a couple variations," he replied as he pulled a bunch of keys from his back pocket and started working on the lock. "Just depends on my mood."

"Oh my god, I can't wait for him to get here," Vivien giggled. She didn't know what she was laughing harder at: Ethan's nicknames for her honorary big brother, or what she imagined his face would look like when he realised she now knew about them.

"Well, in the meantime, make yourself comfy. 'Cause it sounds like you're gonna be here a while," Ethan chuckled as he pushed the door open and stepped aside to let her enter first. "Behold: your performance space for the evening."

As Vivien stepped into the room, that same surreal feeling she got the first time she set foot in the Wet Side Story world flooded through her - it felt like a dream, like everything would disappear in a puff of smoke if she touched it. But as her sneakers met scuffed, wooden floorboards, she stayed very much in one piece - as did everything else around her. The wood-panelled walls continued into what she now understood was an underground bar - but, despite the lack of sunlight, it was far from dingy. The overhead lights bathed everything in a soft, golden light, which complimented the room's colour scheme perfectly. The same shades of rust orange, mustard yellow, and olive green from the beaded curtain at the entrance clung to the upholstery and decorations - and yet brighter pops of colour, in line with the bar's citrussy namesake, made the whole room come to life. The earthy tones, mismatched furniture and clashing patterns made it feel so quintessentially 60s, but that just made Vivien love it even more - even if it did smell vaguely like stale beer.

"Hold up, how old is she? D'you think I'm allowed to have let her in here if she's not 21?" Ethan asked Carrie as the pair followed Vivien into the function room.

"It's not like you're gonna serve her any alcohol, she's just here to perform," Carrie said, brushing off his concern with ease. "And besides, if she wants anything she can just sneak some of mine," she added with a mischievous grin the stoner quickly shared.

"Yeah, what am I even saying? Since when did I start giving a shit about following the rules?" he snorted, pocketing his keys and crashing onto the nearest, faded leather couch.

"Alright then, Viv," Carrie continued, stepping up behind the teenager, who was still gazing around the room in wonder. And yet it wasn't until the blonde put her hands on her shoulders and steered her towards the centre of the room that she even noticed the sprawling stage - complete with mic stands, a dusty piano, several guitar amps and that all-important drum-kit. "You ready to take her for a spin?"

Vivien's first instinct told her 'absolutely not', but there was something about the warmth in Carrie's hopeful smile, and Ethan's earnest encouragements, still fresh in her mind, that gave her pause. Maybe she could do this after all; they certainly seemed to think she could. And she wasn't going to get over this stage fright without trying, so she might as well give it a go with a supportive audience - a rather unconventional, supportive audience; but one that, given her newfound fondness of the pair, and their apparent abundance of love for her in return, one that she wouldn't have traded for anything.

#p.s. there might be another surprise later that coincides with this 👀#probably not as exciting - but definitely necessary by now lmao #Vivien #Carrie #Ethan

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enlighten3d · 8 months ago

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WELLL claps hand together

the story is about these teenagers trying stop an evil cult from destroying the entire multiverse, so they go to different dimensions to stop their evil ways. Also they are teenagers so they have to deal with personal angst, family issues, morality, school ect ect while trying to stop the cult leader and their right hand men

Caroline is technically the main character of my story, she is basically the bubbly, positive one of the group. Her family is rich as hell, they used to live in Taiwan as successful business people but they moved to America because they wanted to make more money. Her family doesn’t really like her and they emotionally and physically neglect her since she came out as a transgender girl and her older sister is kind of a coward and doesn’t stand up for her (fun times)

anyway she ends up having to do a group assignment with her childhood friend which she kind of drifted apart from (Andie) and some punk girl she probably has a crush on (Mimi), they eventually end up in an abandoned house and find out that their town is run by an evil cult that can teleport to different dimensions. So they feel guilty enough to stop it.

they think the best course is to beat the 7 plane hoppers who are in the way to kill the main cult leader, the stag. though out the whole thing Caroline is basically pushing through by toxic positivity saying everything is alright even though they have killed many people, she also kind of convinced herself that this is a video game and is probably more okay about sacrificing people and herself (for the better good)

Also her sister possessed during her 17th birthday party for funsies

HIII SO RRYYY IM ONLY GETTING SROUNF TO THIS NOW falls over and dies

thank you for the food that is oc lore, i am eating it om nom nom

that all sounds FUCKING AMAZING ACTUALLY. cults ?? universal travel bullshit ????? all while dealing with normal teenage bs ?? thats beautiful. poor little guys. they need a break. i CANNOT imagine trying to exist as a teenager while trying to take down a cult qyehdjdkkdks

dont worry.. your eldritch horror loves you... i am so glad to know that ! /silly

..fuck her family ! they can rot ! caroline )): you dont deserve any of this..

THAT MUSTVE BEEN A REVELATION ?? WOAH ?? just. doing a school project and ope government is a cult (/hyp)... insane

i actually fucking love the whole like. unwilling chosen one Vibe to all of this ?? yes theyre not chosen nor are they truly unwilling but. the Vibe is the same. the guilt (on thier part) is real...

caroline. love. youre fucked up. just like me frfr. agh thats. so cool tho ?? 'EVERYTJING IS FINE, ALL OF THIS IS A GAME !!' and ljke. fuck thats such a fun thing in fiction when a character copes using that ?? its the perfect level of fucked up bcs it rlyyy drives rhe point home and. im giving them all a shock blanket okay ?

oh boy !! thats fun !! poor sister..

what does the cult worship‽‽ i am so fucking curious..

lso like, whats the difference between each plane? is it an alternate reality sorta situation where things are relatively the same but Different, or is it judt flatout. different EVERYTHING (people, laws of physics, all that jazz)?? or somewhere in between or outside of this ofc.

do all the plane hopper guys like.. stay in different universes and have a branch of the cult established there..

why does the cult run the town in the first place ? was it a thing where like. they wrre the original settlers but then the town expanded aorund and beyond the cult ?? or did they move in and do a slow takeover.....

fuck i have so many questions /pos

this is. so cool. i love the Vibes. theyre so... Impending.. ahdjskdisjjdjsks

#asks #!!!!!!!!#eating this #bcs like #oah #woah #i have so many QUESTIONS RHAHHHHAHDHSJSNSNMSKDFJDJJFJD #starign at you w wide eyes /pos

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nowis-scales · 1 year ago

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Takumi Birthday Headcanons

December 14th means that it's time to make headcanons for the birthday boy! Hopefully you like them.

‣ Takumi is the first man of the royal family in a while that didn’t have Sumeragi’s stature. Many of the men have tended to take after their fathers, growing especially tall and imposing in build, but Takumi takes more after his mother, Ikona. When he was a younger teen, he was more embarrassed about it, feeling scrawny and unthreatening in comparison to his brother. However, over time Takumi has been able to take some pride in it — especially since rumour has it, he is credited as being the most handsome Hoshidan prince.

‣ Takumi is the one royal child who the public doesn’t have as much of a definitive opinion of. Ryoma is treated with high regard and admired, praised for encompassing everything that a proper Hoshidan king should be. Hinoka is a little more controversial, being an unusual princess, but ultimately her bravery and kindness have made her a role model to many young girls in Hoshido. Sakura is beloved amongst the people, known for her benevolence and gentle nature, the child that interacts most frequently with the common people. Takumi, on the other hand, is regarded as intelligent and… quiet. They hear about his talents, but because of his dislike of things like banquets and general feelings that people regard him as lower than his siblings, they don’t know what to make of him quite the same. He’s “mysterious” in this regard, which makes some people unhappy with him… but some even more endeared.

‣ Part of the reason why Takumi is so cautious and untrusting is because honestly, he overall has a low opinion of people. He struggles with the idea that people are inherently kind prior to the war, because time and time again the conflict with Nohr has proven humanity’s nastiness. Even the brutality that his own soldiers have to stoop to sometimes makes him doubt human goodness. However, over the course of Revelation where he got to know more about the people around him, he learned a lot more about people and their complexities. And while the people he met weren’t always kind or understanding, they were so much different than what he expected… and he learned there’s a lot more to people than just what he has to fear, prompting him to brighten up his opinion of people. I don’t think he would ever stop being cautious, but it strengthens his spirit to realize that people are better than he might assume.

‣ I’ve mentioned before that I think Takumi is gay, but I feel like if we’re going along with this headcanon, he was probably pretty in denial about his sexuality for a long time. For a long time, he kind of had the attitude of “well, if I don’t like girls then I’m just not interested in anybody”. At times he would feel things for men around him, but he usually chalked those up to a warrior’s or scholar’s connection more than anything. It wasn’t until he was much older, just before the war, that he was able to be honest with himself and admit the affection that he felt. He was a little scared to come out to his siblings just because being LGBT+ is not always as accepted in Hoshido, but they were all very supportive and vowed to protect him from anyone who wouldn’t be.

‣ Of all the royal siblings, Takumi has the best hair. It is long and flowing and gorgeous. It almost never tangles, it’s always got a lightweight feel to it, and it’s always silky smooth. He takes a lot of pride in maintaining his hair, too, making sure that it always has everything it needs to look right and that it always smells nice. His philosophy is that as a male royal, it’s tradition for him to have hair this long anyway, so he might as well spend the time it takes to make it look good.

‣ He’d never admit it upfront, but fighting the possessed corpses of the Vallites kinda freaked him out. As we learned in Boo Camp DLC, he doesn’t really like monsters or anything of the sort. He would prefer that they stay like… waaaaaay over there, thank you. As a result, facing off against the Vallites was pretty uncomfortable for him. He did his best to put on a brave face, especially because by then Sakura was in the company and he didn’t want to frighten her by being frightened him… but they are definitely something he would dream about, and definitely something he would avoid looking at where he could. Blegh. Something about them just makes him shiver.

‣ I feel like for the most part, I see Takumi as a jack of all trades. He needs to know a lot of different stuff, considering he’s the second prince, so he takes pride in putting effort into various subjects. However, if there is one thing that Takumi struggles with, it’s visual art. Ask him to draw or paint anything, and it’s just… overly simplistic and quite wonky. He’s an excellent dancer, he does okay at playing music, and his writing is pleasant enough to read — but his drawings are chicken scratch and half the time it’s hard to make out what it’s even supposed to be. It frustrates and embarrasses him to no end that he just can’t get it right, especially since others around him are so talented in the arts. Him, though? Not so much.

‣ Takumi was like, the world’s most mild-mannered baby. Sumeragi had a habit of bringing all of his kids to meetings at one time or another just because he liked having them around and wanted more time with them in a day — and who was going to say no to the king? If the children got too fussy, there would usually be a nursemaid on standby, but interestingly enough, Takumi rarely if ever needed his. In fact, unlike his siblings, he didn’t even need a toy or something to entertain himself. He’d be happy to just sit and watch the people, listen to them talk, note how they moved and reacted. People even tried to encourage him to play, but he just wasn’t interested. It was like he wanted to see the politics go down for himself or something. Sumeragi thought it was absolutely hilarious.

‣ Speaking of teeny Takumi, another headcanon I have about him is that he was probably speaking in full sentences by the time he was one years old. Constantly surrounded by nursemaids and older siblings, there was just so much language surrounding Takumi that he soaked it all up and started talking almost as soon as he could manage. The first word he ever said was “help” — not in a worrisome way, but just in a way that would let Hinoka know he was having trouble with his sandals and wanted her to figure it out for him. His first sentence, on the other hand, was something about one of his dolls… admittedly, it didn’t make sense exactly what he was trying to say, but the family was so excited with his newfound grasp on language that they didn’t really mind.

‣ Though he would never want it to be the case, if it were to happen, Takumi would make for a pretty good king. He’s cautious but kind, strong and intelligent, and he really cares about the people of Hoshido. It would feel pretty daunting, trying to fill Ryoma’s shoes, but I wholeheartedly think he would do a good job — and he likely works hard every day to do it just in case it is ever needed from him. Until then, though, he’ll support the kingdom however Ryoma and the rest of his family need him to.

#fire emblem fates #fe Takumi #Hoshido #fire emblem Takumi #fe14 #fire emblem fates spoilers #fire emblem fates revelation spoilers #fire emblem fates birthright #fire emblem fates conquest #fire emblem fates revelation #fire emblem #happy birthday takumi!!

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hotvampireadjacent · 1 year ago

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Hey, just wanted to preface this by saying that you’re a cool dude, and obviously I’m not trying to attack you or say you’re wrong or need to agree with me or anything! I just wanted to make this ask to hear your perspective and potentially show you a new perspective on Madoka Magica.

You recently reblogged a post about how Gen Urobuchi wrote a subversion of a genre without showing respect to it, and clown me if I have made the wrong assumption, but was that post about Madoka Magica?

I won’t speak on Rebellion, but Madoka as a show seemed to me like a reinforcement of the themes of the Magical Girl genre. It uses its subversions, not to disrespect magical girls, but celebrate them and their ideals. And that’s only if you consider Madoka a subversion at all, as many people make the argument that it doesn’t actually subvert the genre.

Clearandsweet has a great series on YouTube dedicated to analyzing Madoka through this lens. (The spoiler thesis is that Madoka’s character is a Magical Girl, with all the themes that entails, in a story that’s constantly trying to prevent her, and the show itself, from being one. In the end, she overcomes this the way a Magical Girl would, ultimately celebrating magical girls and their ideals. Everything that goes wrong in this show is not an edgey indictment of magical girls, but rather an exploration of how things can go wrong without them, and therefore a reinforcement of why we need Magical Girls and their themes.)

Sorry if this ask felt out of nowhere or rude! I just wanted to make this ask because the anime-bro discourse about Madoka has seriously lost the plot on what the show is even about. To the point that Madoka ripoffs (that also fail to understand Madoka) plague the genre. I was even someone who felt similarly about Gen Urobuchi and Madoka until I did a rewatch as an adult.

It’s a really well-directed show that was mired with the stupid “deconstruction” discourse of its time, so I definitely recommend watching or rewatching the show with this in mind if you’re ever bored or need something to do. Obviously this interpretation is not objectively correct or anything, but I just wanted to open this up to you because this revelation was something I really enjoyed (and something I felt cheated out of by the stupid anime-bro culture surrounding it), and maybe you’d enjoy it too. And I’d love to hear your perspective on it, too, as I love reading different interpretations of Madoka!

I’m sorry that happened to you or happy it’s 2023 I’m not reading an essay on madoka.

Did read the end tbh I haven’t watched madoka since it aired I don’t remember enough to even give a perspective. Honestly I just hate gen urobuchi bc of fate/ zero.

Anyway it’s almost my birthday and almost midnight here

Only slightly related he said some insane shit about a minor gundam characters death

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joslincox · 4 months ago

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The Bratty Teenage Daughter Trope in Cartoons

Max Goof from A Goofy Movie and An Extremely Goofy Movie, as well as on occasion on Goof Troop, qualifies as a male example. He cares about his popularity and image, loudly complains about minor inconveniences, and is somewhat materialistic, as shown when he expresses envy for his friend who has cool stuff but not a good home life. Most of the time this shows up, however, he learns to appreciate what he has... for now.

Kootie Pie from The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World (1991) is the only Koopa Kid to make "King Dad" sweat via tantrum.

Angelica in All Grown Up! after being a Bratty Half-Pint in Rugrats. In the 1st show, there was Susie's sister Alisa, especially in "The Last Babysitter".

Katie Ka-Boom of Animaniacs. She was more short-tempered and impatient than particularly bratty, though, and was sweet and cute when she wasn't angry.. The 2020 reboot also has one, Cora, who is shown to be upset at having her sixteenth birthday ruined.

Catherine from Arthur in her first appearances. She matures in later episodes though.

Caprice the goth teenager from The Crumpets is into fashion and liking boys, but she does remarkably rude things, gets frustrated, and can extravagantly gush when she can't get things the way she wants. She may hate "this world" or herself, the latter case maybe going into suicidal territory.

Quinn Morgendorffer from Daria, as well as Sandi Griffin, who is also an Alpha Bitch. Quinn, at least, grows out of it a bit.

Candy of Dave the Barbarian. Dave and the other lampshade her many attributes with incredible familiarity.

Judy Funnie of Doug is this sometimes, when she's not being a Cloudcuckoolander or Cool Big Sis. Beebe Bluff too, in the Disney version, anyway.

This was the original characterization of Meg Griffin from Family Guy, which was justified by the desire to gain acceptance from her high school peers.

In the short-lived God, the Devil and Bob, Megan qualifies as one, which her mother revels in when Megan, over her objections, tries to adopt a disobedient dog, complaining about it behaving the same way she tends to.

Trina Riffin of Grojband is an exaggerated take to the point of being downright evil in her self-centered, overdramatic attitude. In fact, Grojband gets the inspiration for their songs' lyrics from her angst-filled diary entries. However, it's been hinted that she wasn't always this way.

Judy Jetson of The Jetsons. She sometimes acts much like a typical rebellious American teenage daughter whose interests include clothes, hanging out with boys, and revealing secrets to her diary.

Discussed In The Legend of Korra episode "A Leaf in the Wind" when Tenzin expresses frustration with his teenaged live-in Airbending student, Korra (the fact she's the reincarnation of his father Aang provides a very odd family dynamic). After his daughters witness a particularly bad bout where Korra insults Tenzin's teaching skills, Tenzin tries to avoid the inevitable.

Lori Loud of The Loud House tends to get uptight when things don't go her way. Justified, given her Valley Girl tendencies.

For a non-Valley Girl example, Lynn Jr. She's a Passionate Sports Girl who will often resort to Tantrum Throwing over the pettiest of offenses like losing a board game.

Miraculous Ladybug: Chloé Bourgeois’ father André is not only Mayor of Paris but also a hotel owner. It’s no surprise she’s spoiled and used to getting what she wants, throwing tantrums, or doing petty things out of revenge when she doesn’t. She gets it from her mother.

Serenity Zilla from My Dad the Rock Star, who's spoiled by the rich lifestyle of being a famous rock star's daughter. However, she does have her moments showing she's not quite as shallow or self-centered as she seems.

My Life as a Teenage Robot: Downplayed, but Jenny occasionally acts like a bratty teenage delinquent towards her mother Dr. Nora Wakeman if she doesn’t get her way.

Ozzy & Drix (2012): Ozzy was this as a teenager, as he only cared about shopping for clothes, idolizing artists like My Chemical Romance (Gerard Way in particular) and Avril Lavigne, swooning over his girlfriend Leah Estrogen, delivering comebacks to his popular Mayor brother, Paul Spryman, and arguing with his police chief dad. Seriously, who thought it was a good idea to turn a bratty teenage cell into a cop just because of his family's legacy.

Peppermint Rose has Rose start out as this, and she learns to put others' needs before her own.

Candace Flynn of Phineas and Ferb. High-strung, to boot. Though she's a more minor example. A more major one from the show would be Vanessa, but having an "evil" goofball for a father would do that to any girl.

Martha DeBoar in Pig City is concerned solely with things that benefit her, and takes pleasure in things that negatively impact her brother and cousin in any way

Becky Detweiler in Recess at times. By the end of the movie, she gets better, and is back to the way she was for the DTV movie "Taking the Fifth Grade".

On South Park, Stan's sister Shelley has been this, but it has become progressively less and less covert.

SpongeBob SquarePants: Mr. Krabs' daughter Pearl often falls into this category. She's regularly crying about mild inconveniences and has little patience for Mr. Krabs' weirder quirks even beyond his greed

Gems in Steven Universe are The Ageless, but some of them certainly look and act like teenage girls:

Amethyst is the "rebellious teen" of the Crystal Gems and is frequently at odds with Pearl, the "mother" of the team.

Flashbacks show Pearl acting rather petulant when she was younger, mostly towards Greg, especially for things involving Rose.

After Lapis Lazuli is defused from Malachite, she has a consistent attitude of apathy and untrusting aloofness. She shows a warmer side toward Steven and, eventually, Peridot.

A flashback dream in "Jungle Moon" reveals Pink Diamond to have been a mix of this and Annoying Younger Sibling to Yellow Diamond, with Yellow Diamond acting like an Aloof Big Sis who gets fed up when her bratty fellow Diamond gets in the way of her work. Pink Diamond, clearly trying to get Yellow's attention, whines that she deserves her own army and colony since she's a Diamond and thus just as important as Yellow Diamond. Yellow Diamond snaps that Pink Diamond sure isn't acting very important. The dream ends with Pink Diamond smashing a window in hurt frustration. And by the way, Pink is about twelve feet tall, but still completely dwarfed by the other Diamonds

Molly from Taz-Mania is Taz's younger sister, who despite being more refined than him, often shares his vicious nature, though in a more Sibling Rivalry sense. She loves the boy band New Chips off the Block and worries constantly about her image.

Kitten from Teen Titans (2003), daughter of the supervillain Killer Moth, who forces her father to threaten Robin into taking her to her junior prom.

Amanda Duff, Elmyra's older sister from the Tiny Toon Adventures episodes, "Take Elmyra Please" and "Grandma's Dead".

Debbie Thornberry from The Wild Thornberrys, who would be anywhere except travelling the world to film wild animals with the rest of her family. Though she's at least a little smarter than the average.

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urbanxfantasy · 2 years ago

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What’s currently going on with Toni and the gang?

So the thing is not a whole lot has been going on the past few months because Real Life happened to basically everyone in my discord group and we've been collectively busy, but I'm going to take this opportunity to summarise what's been going on for the past few years because people I haven't written with since 2016 are here again and explaining what's up with Toni now is an endeavour.

So:

(Tumblr I swear to all that is holy stop moving my read more)

2016-2018

2016 was a hell of a year for Toni. The absolute worst year of her life. Her adopted nephilim sons were murdered as part of infernal politics, Zeke vanished with his brothers in the wake of it, she herself was killed by Hanael due to actions taken to protect Lucida, and then Lucida herself was killed by a different demon anyway after expending her life debt bringing Toni back.

She doesn't do grief well. Can't sit in sadness. She got angry, because anger can save her when everything else is gone, and right then everything else was gone. She left New Orleans with one goal in mind; find a way to kill the demon who killed her children. At the time, she expected this goal to follow her into the afterlife.

At some point in her search for answers she came across Zeke, out on a depression bender after becoming disillusioned with his brother's quick rush into their next misadventure, but they parted ways again soon after.

2019

Toni met Mara (then possessing and going by Malcolm), the literal Whore of Babylon and queen of the NOLA crossroads, online and arranged a coffee date. Discovering that they rather enjoyed each other's company, the pair began to hang out more often. A few months later Toni made Mara her first birthday cake, and the demon's strong reaction to being shown basic kindness means they've been best friends ever since, even if Mara did insist on telling her that her body was "10/10, would posess"...

Ray, one of Mara's underlings and her current lieutenant, was assigned as Toni's bodyguard. Proving to be extremely food-motivated, he has since become Toni's roommate.

2020

Due to the pure coincidence of @concentratedbitterness picking a royal demon name out of a hat and landing on Andras: When Toni learnt that Marquis Andras, the instigator in her children's murder (and factor in much more of 2016's chaos besides) was causing problems for Mara in a bid to expand his own territory by snatching away the one she has worked tirelessly for centuries to make profitable, she sensed an opportunity for at least some petty revenge and threw what resources she had behind the pit demon. However, twists of politics and the revelation of personal secrets (first, that Toni is a former hunter and competent exorcist that the demon had neither suspected or guarded against, and second that Mara has a son whose creation was engineered by Hell to be a God Killer, who had not died during birth as she had lead Hell to believe but was in fact hidden away and being raised by his angelic father) forced more drastic action.

Mara needed to kill Andras.

Toni wanted Andras' death to be by her own hand.

Toni then asked Mara to possess her. Combining the demon's strength and power reserves with Toni's hunter background and research into the weaknesses of that one Marquis in particular, they brought the bastard down.

(In the intervening time, Malcolm, who Mara had intended to re-possess, was set free by Ray...)

Unfortunately, weakened in the aftermath of their victory, they were captured by other demons. This forced Mara's husband, the angelic father of her hidden son, to come out of hiding to rescue her, leading to his own capture by Heaven soon after. In a bid to protect his family, he agreed to take up his long dodged responsibility of overseeing the realm of Purgatory on the condition that they be allowed to come with him. Therefore, Mara (now in possession of a new, brain-dead host after Toni kept telepathically scaring off any conscious girl she tried to pick off the street) found herself dragged to Purgatory against her will, leaving Toni in possession of her earthly estate.

Around the same time, Malcolm, who had been taken on as an appentice by the long-time patron and distant relative of the Brockways, the warlock Santiago de Castilla, kidnapped Ray after rediscovering the notes of Santiago's former apprentice snd reignited an experiment begun on Ray several years earlier; a process to cleanse a demonic soul.

After a negative reaction to part of the experiment lead to Ray tearing off Malcolm's leg and escaping, Toni reconnected with her former roommate. Though her relationship to both parties was strained (with Ray for letting Malcolm go despite the risk he posed to Mara and herself, and with Malcolm for obvious reasons) she offered whatever assistance she could in seeing the experiment succeed, as in it she saw an opportunity to rescue her condemned-by-birth children, if something could only be done to retrieve their souls from Hell.

In the time between their rescue and Mara moving to a new host, Toni became aware through observing Mara and Hanael's private conversations by proxy that Han had begun a put rebellion in Hell which was taking full advantage of the chaos sewn by their assassination of Andras.

After a few months getting affairs in order, Toni and Mara are able to reconnect digitally if not in person. At the same time, Zeke quit his depression bender and reconnected with Toni. After being forced to confront both their grief and feeling for each other they became an official couple.

Toni also took on magic lessons with the fae queen Anna, in order to improve her glamour skills. They came to an understanding regarding Toni's part in her estranged husband's assassination.

With some nudging and woo-to-demon-speak translation work from Toni, Mara transitioned to drawing on Purgatory's energy source as opposed to Hell, suffering many of the same side effects as Ray was during Malcolm's experiment. Noticing the similarities, Toni encouraged the demon to allow information to be shared with her former adversary, helping the experiment with Ray along. Within a few months, Ray was shown to be successfully unbound from Hell.

2021

Toni then heard through the grapevine of supernatural contacts the Han's rebellion continued, but was struggling as the Crowns recovered from the earlier chaos. There lied the next opportunity; to secure her children's souls and take some manner of revenge on the royals who were complicit in their deaths all at once. With Mara's help she made a contract and braved a face to face meeting with Han to present it; all sensitive information gathered on the Crowns during years of overlooked observation and the location of Mara's remaining caches, in return for Han bringing her children along for the ride when he eventually made his run for the door.

While this took place, Mara was crowned Queen of Purgatory, and announced the annexation of the New Orleans territory during the official banquet. What seemed a petty and ill-considered move on its face was actually a calculated play in Toni's favour; resources spent on the territory dispute were resources not available to combat the rebellion or the rescue that relied on it. Meanwhile, New Orleans had been Mara's home base for centuries, with protections against such disputed built into the foundation. All they had to be was activated, and opposition was driven out over night, providing a secure territory for the escapees to retreat to. For security reasons, Toni's family was also moved inside the territory for their protection, revealing the supernatural to them in the process.

Purgatory also began taking in refugees from Hell, with the possibility of freeing them in the same manner as Ray.

Though not without complications, Toni's children were successfully retrieved from Hell, and brought to Purgatory for their own protection. Preparations began to adapt the experiment to their needs. Part of this experiment required drawing blood from the nephilim themselves. While Eli had stabilised and begun to recognise his mom enough to allow it, Asher, who had been much younger at his death and much further along in his demonization, pretended to allow it only long enough for Toni to get close enough to become dinner, then devoured the whole of her lower left arm before anyone could intervein. Devourement being somewhat irreparable, no healing magic would restore it.

Unfortunately, Mara had unintentionally become pregnant with a second god-killer. Heaven discovered this and came knocking at Purgatory's door, spurring Toni to make a deal with Anna for mutual protection of each other's children should trouble come knocking. Anna, learning of Toni's arm situation, offered a fae prosthetic, assuaging Toni's suspicion about the cost by declaring it payment for not going full scorched-earth in her revenge and preventing others from doing the same.

The pregnancy would almost kill Mara, if not for an instance of cross timeline time-travel. Mara's daughter 'Fig' (birth name Antonia), who had been forcibly taken as a ward of Heaven and trained to fulfil the role of the antichrist after it had been rejected by Mara's son in her own timeline, had rebelled against her teachers and jumped through time, seeking the familiar energy signature of Han and Audrey's own god-killer infant daughter. Han, after deducing who she was, attempted to introduce her to Mara in the hope that her power might allow her to rescue the demon from her lethal pregnancy. However, contact between this timeline's foetal Fig and the alternate timeline's adult Fig proved catastrophic, with adult Fig absorbing the very essence of the unborn child and irradiating Mara and her host. Mara re-possessed Toni with her permission and remained dormant within her through months of grief. Only Toni's need to move on with the experiment with her own children convinced the now not quite a demon to take a new host.

The experiment proved a success with Eli, but failed for Asher. Grieving her own child while still not having time to process and box away Mara's grief from the latest possession, Toni threw herself into her work of documenting everything they had achieved and learned.

And then she collapsed.

It turns out that being possessed by what she would later call a 'semi-divine entity' had left Toni with irreparable damage to her health, as Mara had changed her body over the course of her own recovery in order to draw in sufficient energy from Purgatory without knowing the long term consequences it would have for her friend, only to cut Toni off from that energy when she left. She now requires a higher calorie intake to avoid hypoglycaemic crashes, is medicated with a medicine Anna used to regulate her own energy when pregnant by Andras, and must moderate her magic usage to avoid knocking herself out.

Mara's husband also died around this time, leaving Mara as the sole regent yet unable to properly control the realm.

2022

Anna's realm suffered repeat incursions from Hell due to problems caused by the rebellion. When the Crowns refused to take action in accordance with the tithe treaties, Anna cut ties and declared war on Hell. Toni found out about this when the deal she had negotiated to protect her own children was called in by Anna to protect Labella.

With their refugees energy situation proving to be a struggle in an already unstable realm, Toni saw another opportunity and negotiated temporary access to the fae realm's energy in order for Malcolm to try a further experiment on former tithe slaves.

And then there was the bomb.

Hell had smuggled a bomb through agents posing as refugees into Purgatory and planted it at the wellspring of its energy, devastating the realm at large and nearly killing Mara, who ended up possessing Toni again for a brief moment before finding a new host to return and oversee the damage. Though claimed as an assassination attempt, it was a cover for Prince Stolas to steal the remains of the infant Fig in order to do further research into the god-killers.

In the aftermath and with some far less than gentle threats negotiation from Toni, Malcolm was convinced to start working with purgatory in order to solve the refugee energy crisis. To do so, Audrey and Ig tracked down the soul of Augusto de Castilla, Santiago's son, who had been burned at the stake as a result of a deal with Mara to rescue his father from the Spanish inquisition centuries ago. He was an expert in alchemy and time magic.

Also, Toni's little sister started dating Leroy Brockway, Malcolm's nephew. Due to this, she invited Lee's family including Santiago to her family's Christmas dinner. Where Eli, upon learning that Santago's familiar Magdalena had "the same name as Mr Augusto's", spilled the beans about Augusto which until that point had been kept from Santiago lest he do something dangerous.

In the damage control conversation Toni had with Santiago immediately after this, he revealed a book he'd been given supposedly by someone from the future. One of the authors was Antonia herself. She might have thought it was some kind of trick, if it hadn't contained finished paragraphs based on notes she had only just written and not yet shown anyone. It is a book she is already writing without realising, despite swearing to never write a boot on her experiences since Gabriel (the angel of prophets) suggested it to her years ago. She does not want to think about the implications.

It's worth noting that Mara has a blood-vendetta against the entire Brockway bloodline, so when Toni found out Lee had gotten Hannah pregnant, Toni shot him in the ass (she was aiming to kill him, but Hannah pushed her and threw her aim).

Current

Toni is trying to ignore that she's doing prophet things while edging ever closer to doing even more obviously prophet things.

There is an ongoing thread of Toni pointing a celestial-enchanted gun (that Han designed) at Han and telling him to stop threatening to kill her on a whim all the time.

Due to a series of unfortunate and very stupid events, Han crushed Malcolm's hands and no one has managed to convince him to come back to purgatory if and when he recovers yet.

Hannah's pregnancy is ongoing but the timeline has been intentionally blurred until we have time to nail down some key precursor plot points because there's a whole reincarnation thing in here somewhere.

------

Most of these plot points are expended on if you read the drabble tags:

Toni's Drabble Tag

and @concentratedbitterness: HERE

I don't know where anyone else involved keeps theirs.

#long ass post #this is key events from Toni's POV #you will have to ask other muns to expand on their own character's involvement it's too long as it is

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