#but I also don't wanna sound like I'm lecturing people ;///;

[amymbona]

i’m (s)creaming for private school patrick.

like enemies to lovers in like a patrick is a duchebag who uses his dads money and power to the full extent, always ditching classes, getting caught with alc and drugs but never being expelled like all the other kids, and rumors that say his dad payed for the new building for him to stay after failing half of his classes way. readers also pretty well off, but she never abuses it and works hard for her grades.

him and readers friends are talking at the courts before practice and patrick saids something like why would you try hard if you’re spoilt anyway, and they get into a argument!!!!!!

just a start but i’ve been thinking about this for so long.

He's such a cocky little bitch, you really wanna punch his ugly face sometimes. Spoiled idiot who's daddy is willing to pull him out of every shit hole he jumps into. It's unfair, the Zweig priviledge, when there are people who work hard and put their whole being into something, just to have this Patrick guy come and steal their dreams.

You're the first person to ever tell that to Patrick, yelling at him, a small circle of people gathering around you two. You keep calling him a spoiled kid, a little bitch and much much worse while he just stands there, arms crossed, smirking, loving the way your cheeks turn red the angrier you are.

"Calm down, angel face, you're gonna burst," he counters, patting your shoulder. His words earn a laugh from the group of people around you, only pissing you off further.

"Trust me, you wouldn't like to see me burst," you smile sweetly, poking him in the stomach with to racket to push him away from you. He complies, raising his hands in mock surrender.

When you push past him, the crowd parts, allowing you to walk through. Walking away, you don't miss the whistle coming from behind you and someone complimenting your ass.

Now the more you try to ignore Patrick's presence, the louder he seems to be. Constantly giggling during lectures, occupying the court for hours so you can't even practice properly, smoking with his stupid friends. Patrick Zweig is suddenly everywhere and, without trying, makes your life complete hell.

He's so smug about it too, greeting you almost politely when you walk past each other, telling to smile and enjoy the life. Just being a usual jerk. You really see his face so often that he starts appearing in your dreams. And to be honest, Patrick aha a hard time forgetting your pretty face as well.

He surprises you by falling into step with you on one random afternoon, both of you on your way to the English lecture.

"I have an offer for you," he begins casually, not even sparing you a glance.

"I don't wanna hear it," you refuse whatever he has to say immediately.

Patrick snickers, eyes flicking towards the curve of your nose and your pouty lips. "I could get you to the New York Times, y'know?"

Your steps come to a halt, brows furrowing at the sudden offer, because that absolutely not something you were expecting. "What?"

Patrick turns to face you, a confident smile on his face. When there's a certain lack of excitement on your face he shrugs, lazily walking closer to you. "What? Don't play stupid with me, Y/N. I know about your journalism stuff."

"What are you even talking about?" you exclaim in confusion.

"Look, I'm not stupid," he sighs, eyes rolling. "You're good at tennis, we can see, but that's not what you wanna do, is it? I know you're constantly nagging to the prof about your writing stuff. And lucky for you, my dad is not short on phone numbers."

You can't believe it. All of this sounds so absolutely absurd that you wanna ask Patrick to pinch you to make sure this is real. Because if doesn't fucking sound like that.

"You're weird," you scoff, pushing past him. This is just stupid.

But Patrick is next to you in no time. "C'mon, Y/N, you know you want it. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Just say yes."

"I'm not accepting anything from you, Patrick," still determined, you keep refusing.

"Why not? Isn't that you dream?" the way he says it makes shivers run down your spine. Of course working for the New York Times is your dream, but you wanna get there through your own accomplishments, and not as a result of someone's rich daddy's call.

"That's none of your business," you mutter, attempting to outrun him.

But before you could walk any further, a big hand wraps around your elbow, and then you're facing Patrick again. Much closer now, you can see the freckles on his cheeks and nose. You've never noticed that before.

"Don't be stupid, Y/N. I could literally make your dream come true," the tone of his voice is now much softer.

"You could?" you snicker ironically. "It's my dream and I am gonna be the only one making it real."

Patrick looks at you silently, head tilting to the side as an attempt, you don't even know, to appear cuter? More innocent? To make you accept his offer?

"Think about it, Y/N," he whispers, palms finding their place on your shoulders. "Just at twenty years old, you could be working at the fucking New York Times. Isn't that thrilling?"

It would be thrilling, if it wasn't Patrick Zweig offering you such a thing, "And what do I have to do for that? Sleep with your rich daddy? Sell my soul to the devil?"

"Nothing," Patrick shrugs simply.

Now that sounds even more idiotic. "What the fuck?"

But Patrick is determined, smiling softly. He almost seems honest. "You heard me, Y/N. I don't want anything from you. I just wanna make you happy."

"Like I'd believe that," you scoff, prying yourself out of Patrick's hold. There's no real way you could possibly accept that.

This time, Patrick doesn't stop you, instead allowing you to walk away. But that stupid smirk stays glued to his face, because he's really not blind, and he saw you consider the opportunity. Even if it was for just a split second. "Let it settle in your head, angel face!"

[olderthannetfic]

Gonads on a unicycle, I swear, any time I see people, in this case men, who find out about "problematic" characters and women who like them, and then immediately going full lecture on any female fans or trying to psychoanalyze the women who like these characters.

Dumbass, no shit that character is a villain, a psycho, a monster, a murderer, I don't even fucking know. But we fucking know, as women, that these characters are evil. We fucking know it. We don't need your royal Assholeness to try and tell us that "It's probably because they have teenage puberty brains. If not... I'm afraid for humanity." (Actual quote from a youtube comment sections of one of these #evil guys.)

And then of course these people bring up bullshit like serial killer fangirls. Hey, hey dumbass, the people who simp for fictional evil guys and the girls who wanna suck Ted Bundy's dick are not the same. Sure there's probably an overlap somewhere fuck if I know, but you know, I personally never immediately assumed any guy who wanted Lady Dimistrescu to step on them to also be the kind of guy who simps for Kim Yong Un's sister or whatever. So Idk, but maybe the problem it's that women are simping for fictional characters, and it's only ok when guys do it.

And then some of these guy's legit write these long essays about the #female brain, and why women wanna bang the evil dude from a video game. How women are fickle creatures or some shit. Yeah, guys that makes you sound like cringe ass nice guys. There're also far too many of these essayist dudebros who constantly use the word "female" like come the fuck on, and you want anyone to take you seriously?

--

[monstercampus]

Harpy Professor - First Meeting

(cws: slight alcohol mention, brief lewd references)

wc: 3.5k

Last night was a mess. Priam had been out all night partying with his friends, while Antón had been rage-cleaning the apartment in a frenzy in order to have everything spotless before the first day of term. The two of them you've gotten used to, of course, but their habits still tick you off when you're not in the mood to deal with them. Priam's drunken stumble back into the dorm at 4 AM didn't help either, as your vampiric roommate got into an argument with him over leaving the living room a mess. Exams have been over for weeks, and yet the two of them still find stupid things to fight about in the heat of the moment.

And you were left to endure it as best you could, your pillow clamped over your ears for half the night and your blanket pulled down over your feet by your shadow friend–who also seemed to be quite frustrated by your other tenants and their noise, trying vainly to block out the light and seal your door in his mist to try and muffle the ruckus. Either way you weren't going to sleep, not well, so now you've stepped into your first class of the new semester with bags under your eyes and half your school supplies forgotten. Just get through it today. Tomorrow will be better.

First on the roster this morning is Monster-Human Relations–a class you knew would be small, but not this small, with barely ten or so seats filled so far in the mid-sized lecture room. There's only about five rows of staggered desks on a slope anyways, with a curved, connected desk to separate the section from the front of the class and the podium. And you're a few minutes early, so you anticipate there'll be more students filing in as they wake up from their respective hangovers or hangovers-by-association, like yourself. Being an advanced class, though, it's not going to be much bigger than this. The only reason you're even taking this class was because the professor made a request for your attendance, and gave you special permissions to attend based on your unique species allocation. And lo and behold, even so, there's a face you recognize right as you walk in the door, his piercing eyes perking up as he lifts his head at the sound of your footsteps. It's Nick. Gods you are glad to see him. He peers at you through a few loose strands of dark hair, and at the sight of you a smile flashes across his face.

"Hey," He brightens up, pulling on the back of the chair beside him to offer you a seat. "Didn't know you were in this class too." He chuckles, though your look of relief doesn't seem to entertain him enough not to notice the weight of weariness you carry in your slumped shoulders. You're quick and eager to drop your bag on the table and slide into the chair, but Nick's worry stops you in your tracks. "What's up, buttercup? You look exhausted. Why aren't you in bed?"

"Roommates kept me up," You sigh, flipping open the lip of your bag to pull out your laptop. "But I'm okay. Can't miss the first class, anyways."

"Of course you can." Nicky's grin returns as you hoped it would, but it's gentler this time. "Besides, Wellwright's a big puffball. You can pretty much do whatever you want in his classes."

"I don't wanna be rude."

"You don't have a rude bone in your body." He's not flippant about it, but he does avert his eyes as he makes his comment–although it could just be because he's scribbling the date and the course number down in his thick notebook. "Wellwright's a super sweet guy, he was my mentor in Commonspeak class. He'll love you."

"You took Commonspeak?"

"Sure did." Those pearly teeth make an appearance as he chuckles, pride swelling his chest. "Barely spoke a word when I got here. Now I'm the most voracious person you probably know."

"Voracious?" You laugh, and he joins you, though as uplifting as it is it doesn't last for very long. You're grateful for it even so, your chuckling devolving as more people filter in and drawing to a close as the door to the classroom nearly slams off the hinges.

One moment of peace turns into chaos like the flip of a light switch, a pair of huge, strong wings entering the room with a scraggly, rough-looking man stumbling in alongside them. A tornado of feathers seems to cascade over the front of the room, flying off and whipping up with the breeze as those enormous wings flap and fold in an attempt to keep their host on his feet. Both you and Nick have to grab hold of your notebook and laptop respectively just so they don't fly off the table.

"My apologies!" He squawks, arms full of books and papers that also seem to be flying everywhere as he makes his way to his desk. You spare a glance over Nick's shoulder as he checks his watch, to which he taps and mouths "late" to you to elicit another giggle.

Raven Wellwright, a harpy of considerable acclaim, is definitely a name you've heard beyond the professor hastily scribbling it up on the whiteboard. Not only is he one of very, very few male harpies known to the world, but he's also very conveniently one of a handful of experts on the field of monster and human cooperation. He's penned a library of papers, articles, and books on the subject, won awards for his aid in developmental projects and awareness campaigns, and he's even been the first monster to be welcomed into a previously human-exclusive collegiate of considerable prestige. He's a rarity in all senses of the word…a rarity that's molting his feathers all over his desk, sweat gathering at his collar as his short waves of strawberry-blond locks falling haphazardly back into place while he shuffles around.

"Right!" He bellows out to the three-quarters-empty classroom, the tak tak of his papers hitting the podium echoing off the walls like glass marbles. "What was I saying?"

"You haven't started yet, professor." Nick calls out, and although it's certainly an awkward air in the room the harpy seems somewhat relieved that he hasn't already forgotten what just came out of his mouth.

"Right, thank you Nicholas. Nicholas!" He suddenly bursts into a frenzy, a smile plastered over his glowing face and his eyes sparkling with grateful familiarity. "Nicholas will be our note-taker this term, as well as your TA! Take a bow, Nick!"

Funny enough, even confident-and-cool Nick boasts a spot of shyness and a dark flush to his ears as he's encouraged to stand, turning around to wave at your fellow students who eye him up with varying degrees of interest, all while Raven claps with an eagerness to him that lasts until your friend reclaims his seat. Whispers dominate the classroom while Raven's head is turned, though it doesn't seem like they're just regarding the scatterbrained professor and his handsome assistant–especially not when he turns back and his square glasses-framed eyes land directly on you.

"Oh," That soft puff of air could just as well be a gunshot with how loud it feels to you, Raven's lithe fingers trembling slightly as he pushes his lenses higher up on his nose. For a split second, even with Nick's comforting words in the back of your brain, a tense knot of worry tightens in your stomach as you wonder whether your presence will be met with disdain.

"H-Hello! It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance," And yet that concern evaporates the instant he skirts around the podium, features bright and his wings rustling excitedly as he hustles towards your desk and thrusts his hand out to yours. You barely have to hold his at all with how violently nervous his grip is, fingers clamped down so tight you can just barely feel the itch of his filed claws for nails against your skin. "Raven Wellwright, P.H.D! I'd like to welcome you to our university–it is a joy and an honour to have you here!"

With one last tight squeeze of his unusually cool hand, he pats your arm and releases you from that iron grip to scurry back to his podium. As luck would have it, all he's got prepared for today is a review of the syllabus, which soon flies by despite being peppered with occasional comments and brief anecdotes to supplement it, courtesy of a now hyper-focused prof who clearly knows what he's talking about. It's almost a little intimidating to watch him switch so quickly from anxiety to decisiveness, the nervous shakes vanishing as he briefly divulges the core topics of the material you'll be going over. It actually helps to stir you a bit from your exhaustion, though the half-smushed granola bar in the bottom of your bag also helps once he reiterates that eating in his class isn't a faux pas.

"I'm sure you're all readily familiar with the plagiarism policy and academic conduct sections as well, yes? Any questions?"

A revolution of head-nodding round the room seems to suffice, and with a quick glance at the clock by the door Wellwright rolls out his shoulders and drops his papers against the podium with a refreshed sigh.

"Well, that's good enough for me! Take an early lunch and enjoy the rest of your day, we'll start with our introductory lecture next class–oh, and could you two come to my office for a spell?" As he passes by your joint desks he gives them a tap, making eye contact with both you and Nick with a reassuring smile as the rest of the class shuffles their bookbags and lets their chair legs squeak as they get up from their seats. Your heart kicks up with a nervous thump, thump, thump, but whether Nick can smell it or hear it or is completely oblivious to it he pats your thigh under the table and nudges your shoulder playfully.

"No worries. He probably just wants to gush over you." He whispers into your ear, and with a half-smile conjured up from your dwindling pool of strength you gather your things in kind and follow alongside the werewolf as you both make your way to Wellwright's office, the path known well enough to him that he can chat your ear off the whole way there, and still make it in time to watch the professor hustle along down the corridor with his bag in tow as the two of you wait for him to unlock the door.

"Come in, come in! Take a seat–anywhere is fine–and have a snack! I've got tea…uh, somewhere! Just give me a moment.."

It's most certainly more haphazard being around him in the cramped office than it was in the lecture hall–as Wellwright hurries in and you two follow behind, Nick has to bring his hand down firmly on your head for you both to duck, just barely missing the professor's wing as it swings around and nearly collides with both of you. And with the size and strength of those muscles and that coat of healthy tawn-coloured feathers, you don't even wanna know how hard it would hurt to get smacked with one of those things.

But, oblivious to your plight, the avian totters around his office chirping up a storm while the werewolf at your side leads you–with your heads appropriately bowed under his wing line this time–to take your seats in the two plush chairs across from his spacious corner desk. Raven busies himself by the window with what looks to be a teapot on a portable burner for a minute or two, before the spout starts to whistle a familiar tune and he expertly tips it out to pour three steaming cups of fresh tea. Ginger-flavoured by the smell of it, the scent pervading your nostrils in an oddly relaxing way as he lays out each cup in front of all three of you. Curious, you watch as he takes his own seat, and notice that the arms of his chair dip towards the back for each wing to settle comfortably in the empty slots. Monster creativity truly knows no bounds, no matter how benign the design.

"-Anyways, that's quite enough about me! I'd like to know more about you." His bangs flutter over each brow as he turns to meet your eyes, not an ounce of enthusiasm missing from his gaze as he takes a sip from his cup–and proceeds to splutter and cough with a napkin pulled up to cover his mouth, mumbling in a half-lisp about burning his tongue. When you follow his lead with a giggle you make sure to at least blow on yours, and it's actually rather sweet despite the strength of the ginger threatening to overwhelm you. "I–we–are well and truly excited to have you here! I can't tell you how integral your presence will be in the pursuit of monster-human cooperation–you are sincerely a gift to this establishment, and I cannot thank you enough for taking the plunge and attending despite the odd circumstances."

Somehow–perhaps it's an effect of the tea–the mouthful of praises the professor drops are free from his usual stutters and vocal stumbling, as if the topic of you is yet another subject he can't help but be eloquently passionate about. You, on the other hand? You're not even sure what to say to that...such high praise feels uncalled for, not that it's unpleasant in nature, but that it should be reserved for someone that's actually done something to deserve it. All you really did was go with the flow and refrain from kicking up a fuss.

"I, uh…th-thank you, professor, but I really didn't do much…" You shrug shyly, suddenly wishing you could disappear from the awkwardness and hide inside Nick's jacket for comfort. But the silent moment passes not in a hollow, nerve-wracking way, because it's filled by Raven's easy smile growing into something a little more intimate, his feathers settling to lay flat as he reaches over the desk and gently clasps both hands over yours.

"You took a risk, my dear. Unsure of what lies on the horizon, you chose a path seldom travelled yet long overdue for progress. That in itself is worth a world of praise."

You knew he could be eloquent, but that…that was poetry. And could that warmth tipping his pointed ears be a blush, coincidental with how his fingers retract from touching you? Worried his touches may come off as something more the longer they linger? Or are you simply reading into things?

"Maybe I should go," Nick teases, and that thankfully eases the tension enough for you to snap back into the reality at hand–and for Raven's feathers to ruffle in embarrassment as he leans away from you just to bump his head painfully on his overhanging lamp.

"Sweet Chaos–ah, I'm fine, I'm fine!" He waves away your worry while Nick erupts into a cheeky laugh beside you, the professor's unyielding clumsiness proving too much for him to keep it all sealed in. Especially hearing a string of curses fly from such a sweet, kind-hearted man's mouth, who wouldn't hurt a beetle even if it bit him. "Before I injure myself further, perhaps I should just get to the point." He sighs with a palm pressed to the back of his head, rubbing the soreness off the fortunately very minor bump there.

"It's the MHC thing, right?" Nick pipes up, sobered from the giggle fit but still grinning from ear to ear.

"Just so." Raven nods, those cotton candy-pink eyes shifting back to you. "My dear, I have a favour to ask of you. Would you consider being a human ambassador on my behalf?"

"...Ambassador? As in..?"

"Oh, i-it's nothing too taxing! Allow me to explain: being an ambassador simply means you would be willing to speak as an individual of your species for MHC conferences. It would really just involve me calling on your opinion and presenting it to the Monster-Human Commission–most of it will just be in writing, no more than a sentence or few."

"You mean 'sentence or two', professor." Nick cuts in, leaning back in his chair like he owns the place. If you weren't mistaken, you could swear there's a glint of something fierce in the harpy's eyes as his gaze flits over to his protégé–but it's there and gone in a moment, and you try not to let the thought linger for fear of how it might make you wonder.

"Goodness! Surpassing your mentor already, eh? Maybe you should be the one teaching commonspeak, Mr. Wolf." He soon returns to the comfort of your gaze on him. "By no means is it a necessity, but it would be of brilliant use to my colleagues in the commission. Take some time to think about it, okay? There's no rush. You can start and stop whenever you please."

"I, uh…yes, thank you, professor. I'll give it some thought." Wellwright nods with a happy grin, and allows you to finish the rest of your tea with a few occasional spurts of scatterbrained conversation peppered in between. He's so courteous and well-spoken, gentle and kind…there's no wonder you've heard giggling from the harpy girls on campus when he's brought up, his dreaminess a total diamond in the rough for any self-respecting monster. An absolute gem. A-

"Hey, professor, I can't quite remember–are we reviewing interbreeding this term?"

As if burning his tongue and bumping his head wasn't enough, Wellwright balks at Nick's unforeseen question and nearly chokes on the dregs of his tea, the liquid splattering his chin with a cough that he's quick to wipe with the back of his hand. If it crossed your mind in time, and if you weren't so tired, you'd have half a mind to give Nick a pinch under the desk for torturing the poor man.

"C-Cross-species mating? Uh, ye…yes, we are.."

"Mmh. Gotcha. We've got a human this year, so maybe we can do our independent study on it? That'd be pretty helpful for your research, huh?"

What hits you right away is that he doesn't say no. Not that it's not his first reaction, but that the word doesn't even cross his lips. The slightest twinge of his brow has the harpy narrowing his eyes at the werewolf, and for a brief spell you think the professor might be humouring the exact same reaction as you were.

"Th-That would depend on the human's decision, Nick–and that is certainly not the full extent of my research, I might add!"

"Y-You, um…you study interbreeding, Dr. Wellwright?"

Your query flits out like the most timid of butterflies, curious and interested in equal measure. It must be so easy for both of them to pick up, but you can't really help it–the idea of such a sweet professor pursuing such a lewd scholarly topic is…fascinating, to say the least.

"He does. In great detail." Nick leans over to whisper into your ear, and the air in the room seems to change as Raven squirms anxiously in his seat.

"I-It's a necessary component of my research…" He mumbles, suddenly unable to meet your eyes as the heat in his face stretches to reach the tips of his pointed ears.

"So necessary." Nick adds with a shit-eating grin.

"Nicholas!” Raven finally huffs, brow furrowed and eyes dimmed of their sparkle. Oh, now he's mad. And yet, with a glance over at your companion, Nick couldn't look more enthused about the prospect. They certainly seem to be on familiar terms with how much teasing your friend knows he can get away with. Ripples start to part Wellwright's feathers like shudders, and almost under his breath, he quietly asks if you would give him a moment with his T.A–and you have never been more quick to oblige, setting down your teacup at an earnest pace before your bag is slung over your shoulder and you're soon closing the office door firmly behind you. The click of the lock echoes in the otherwise empty corridor, and though you'd like to wait for Nick out of courtesy, the hushed whispering that ensues followed by the flap of your professor's wings clues you in that perhaps it would be better to give them some…privacy.

Although, at the very least your phone buzzes before you've even left the wing, a glance down at the messages revealing that Nick's gonna be tied up for awhile, but he's alright. His words echo in your head, “Wellwright's just a big puffball”, and it loosens a pleasant sigh from your throat as you let your shoulders relax. The last thing you want is to get anyone in trouble, which you seem to do quite easily by your very nature of being human.

This class may end up being a different story though, if your professor's…enthusiasm towards the human race is anything to go by.

[7-wonders]

Morpheus Does Not Understand Millennial/Gen-Z Humor (Morpheus x reader)

Sometimes, it's difficult to remember that Morpheus is an anthropomorphic personification of a concept that is likely billions of years old. When you look at him, after all, he looks like a regular man (an unfairly pretty regular man, but a man all the same)

Morpheus was also locked up underground for over a century, which adds another layer of complexity to him

This leads to some pretty...interesting interactions with him

Let's face it: Millennials and Gen-Z'ers are nihilists on their best days

We've seen manmade horror after manmade horror our entire lives while living in the midst of late-stage capitalism, which has given all of us a pretty odd sense of humor

When you begin to date/court/see Morpheus, he becomes privy to this in the worst of ways

The first time is when you're attempting to look something up on your phone and you drop it

The device lands face-down on the ground, and you stare at what has now become Schrödinger's phone for a long moment

After letting out a long, pained sigh, you go to pick it up and mutter "I swear to god if this screen shattered, I'm gonna fucking kill myself"

Morpheus, of course, heard you perfectly clear

When you straighten up and look at him after checking your phone (no damage, thankfully), you see his horrified gaze

"I—You will do no such thing. I positively forbid it."

He looks torn between lecturing you and sitting you down for an intervention, so you grab one of his hands to stop his spiraling before it can go any further

"No I don't actually wanna kill myself, it's a..." What is it? A figure of speech? A meme? A joke? Finally, you settle on, "It's just something people say when faced with a minor inconvenience."

Morpheus is not at all impressed with this, and it shows very clearly on his face. "That is ridiculous, that one would become suicidal over something as trivial as their cellular device falling."

You just shrug in a "what can you do?" expression

This isn't the only instance that Morpheus gets to see generational humor at play

One time you're at the New Inn bc Hob is trying to curate a new cocktail menu and needs an outside opinion (Morpheus is just standing in the corner like 🧍‍♂️)

After you try your favorite one you're like, "Hob this SLAPS"

Hob's beaming bc he understands what you're saying since he teaches college students, but Morpheus pipes up and says, "The drink does not have arms with which to slap you"

This sends you and Hob into hysterics

Don't even try to open TikTok when he's anywhere near you bc he WILL want to see what you're laughing at and having to explain a TikTok takes all of the humor out of it

( "Well it's funny because she said that the rats don't run the city like it's a declaration of war against the rats"

"What is it then?"

"...I'm changing the subject")

Matthew has become your gossip buddy because he sees everything, and one night in the Dreaming he finds you in the library with Morpheus

He's doing excited little raven hops across the table and you say, "Matthew, do you have tea for me?"

Matthew's about to reply that, yes he does and you had better buckle up, when Morpheus beats him

"Would you like tea, my love? I can arrange that for you."

You smile at him like he's a child that just said something funny. "No, 'tea' means gossip. Matthew looks like he has gossip."

You whisper popular TikTok sounds under your breath a lot and Morpheus has just learned to not even ask when he hears you mutter something like, "Interior crocodile alligator, I drive a Chevrolet movie theater."

You're just glad you've never been in a car with him, because you know that the instinctive "Road work ahead? Uh YEAH I SURE HOPE IT DOES" that you won't be able to stop yourself from saying when you see a 'Road Work Ahead' sign will probably make his poor head explode

[bvttoneyes]

"Three Lectures Behind and There's This Guy" ~ Lip Gallagher x Reader

tw! sexual references (it's shameless dawg...)

sum! "We got assigned as dorm roommates and I had such a crush on you last year and you don't even know who I am." (i lit found this on the ai fanfic trope so it'll be a little diff)

i rly wanted to write for my mans (do NOT tell my bf abt this one guys 😖) I'm js taking a break from only writing mbav for a sec ☝️🤓

Oh my god. This man. He was so hot. And rumor's say he's good in bed too?! You were freaking out just as much when you found out he was going to be your sorority house boy.

You saw him cooking one day and went absolutely feral. He was also the bartender at parties. Pouring drinks into peoples mouth straight from the bottles...

You noticed he wasn't there the next day after one of the parties. Or the day after that. Or the day after that? Then, never again. You later heard that he gotten kicked out of college. You never exactly found out why, there were rumors of course. Except, you never found out the exact reason.

Well you saw him when visiting Chicago, you were looking for cheap restaurants online nearby and patsy's diner was the first thing online. Only about a mile and a half away. You walk over there with some friends you were with, when you finally got there you saw the boy from your sorority house sitting at a table with a bunch of older looking guys.

Your whole friend group recognized him immediately and started freaking about how to ask him out. You rolled your eyes, tired of their banter. But also internally jealous of them potentially dating the guy you've had your eye on for practically forever.

You get sat at a table with everyone, you had the best angle of him from where you were sitting. Although you weren't going to stare at him the whole time. You all ordered the drinks you want, while you were searching the menu you saw that Lip got up. Our whole table complained, jokingly, but you saw he went in the kitchen.

I guess he works there?

The waitress came back and took your orders as well as your menus. A little while later, after your food came back, you got a sudden urge of confidence. You decided to finally talk to him.

You go up to the bar and ask to talk to Lip. The woman goes into the back to talk to him, as well as grabbing orders while she's back. He comes out, looking for a girl that would be looking for him that looks familiar.

"Uh, Lip?" You say, grabbing his attention. His brows furrowed but he has a smirk.

"You're that uh chick from college? In the sorority house?" He said, skeptically. Almost as if he wasn't completely sure.

"Yeah, you were our house boy. Uhm, i recognized you sitting at the table and I wanted to say hi." You try to explain.

He just nods his head with a small, interested, smile on his face.

"Okay, so I have a confession. When you got put in our house I had such a crush on you and you don't even know my name." You said, somewhat embarrassed.

He looks down, smirking, then looking right back up at you. Whispering back, "I'd be lying if I said I didn't have a few late night thoughts about you. But, uh, your name's *y/n* isn't it?"

You nod, smiling, "yep, thats me. So you're working here now?"

He licks his bottom lip, "Yeah, dishwasher. Sister is the manager, she's in charge of everyone."

You nod, showing him that you understand.

"So you wanna hang out sometime?" You ask him.

He looks at you, his devilish smile, "hang out or... go out?"

"Both?" your tone sounds more like a question now.

He snickers, agreeing to go out. You give him your phone and he puts his number in it. He then explains that he's gotta get back to work, you nod telling him you have to get to your table.

You go back to your table, they saw everything that had just happened. As soon as you sat down you were bombarded with questions. Some you answered, some you didn't. Except now, you don't have to worry about them getting the guy you want.

[strawberrymilk-sunshine]

what if mc is actual shrimp .. like a shrimp merfolk ? > <

I have actually thought about shrimp mer mc before...

Warning(s): some yandere behavior, size difference, some kind of stockholm syndrome near the end

"Heyyyy, Shrimpy~! Wanna go for a swim with me~?" Floyd asked you one day.

"No, that's alright, I'm kinda busy today." You responded.

But he didn't care. He was already dragging you along with him.

He brought you to the pool that NRC definitely has, and shoved you into the water... and then, you disappeared. Your uniform was floating in the water, but you were gone.

"Fuuuuuck, Shrimpy disintegrated........" Floyd said to himself.

Then, he saw a small... something moving around in your uniform. He jumped into the pool and moved your clothes around to get it out, and... well, he was surprised with what he saw.

"Ehe... I guess I was right to call you Little Shrimpy, huh~?"

You see, you were a tiny shrimp mer. Thankfully, the potion you take that turns you human also makes you normal human sized.

You know for a fact that Floyd Leech knowing this information spells nothing but trouble for you.

"You're so... small!" Floyd happily said, lifting you up out of the water and into the air. "You're so tiny, and cute, and... defenseless~" He gave a wide, toothy grin. "I wonder what you'd-"

"If you try to eat me I will fucking bite my way out of you do not test me, Leech." You angrily said.

"I'd like to see you try that, but eh, it's not worth the pain..." Floyd rolled his eyes. "So, Shrimpy, is this why ya didn't wanna swim with me?"

"...yeah, i-it is..." You said, crossing your arms and looking away.

"Ahaha! Were you embaaaaaaarrassed~?" He playfully asked.

"No, I just... I was..." You paused. "...scared."

"Hah? Scared of what?" Floyd asked.

"Of... well, o-of you."

"Of me? Haha! There's no reason to be scared of me, Shrimpy! Morays don't eat shirmp! Octopi do, though. So if there's anyone in Octavinelle you should be afraid of, it's Azul!"

"No, that's not why!" You yelled. "You're so unpredictable, I... didn't know if I'd be safe around you..."

"...oh. Ok, yeah, I got it." Floyd said, before setting you back down into the water. He crawled out of the pool and his body (very messily) transitioned back into a more human form. "I'll... see you later, Shrimpy."

What a weird interaction.

When you saw Floyd in class the next day, he happily patted the seat next to him, inviting you to sit beside him.

During Trein's lecture, he kept sliding you drawings that you kept sliding back trying to say that you're trying to focus on the lecture.

He stayed close to you in the hallways, and made this weird growling/shrieking noise at anyone who got too close to the two of you...

He escorted you to the cafeteria, got food for you (crab with butter, yum), shared some of his food with you, yelled at people who tried to mess with you, it was so... strange.

"Sooo, (Y/N), didja feel... safe around me today?" Floyd asked, walking with you to the Hall of Mirrors.

"Wait. Did you do all this just because I said I felt scared of you yesterday?!" You asked.

"Well, yeah. Why did you think I was doing all this?"

"What the hell, Floyd?!" You yelled. "N-No, you-! You can't just-!" You couldn't form any words.

"Huuuuuuh? What's wrong, Shrimpy?" Floyd asked, a sad look on his face. "You don't hate me, right? I didn't do anything wrong! I did what you wanted from me! I-I was less unpredictable today, right?! THAT'S WHAT YOU WANTED, RIGHT?! YOU DON'T HATE ME, DO YOU?!"

You pushed him away from you and ran into the mirror that led to your dorm.

"But I did everything right..."

You awoke to a loud sound late into the night.

Something grabbed you by the hair and pulled you out of the bed.

"Hiya. I realized that no matter what I try, you're not gonna feel any less scared of me, so then I thought there's gotta be a way to make you forcefully feel less scared, ehe!"

You recognized that voice immediately.

"Just so you know, if you try to struggle, get away, yell for help, anything... I'll squeeze ya good. I'll break your ribs, legs, arms, whatever I need to in order to get you to comply. You don't wanna risk that, do you~?"

You knew he wasn't lying. He would do that to you and he wouldn't care.

Floyd dragged you back to his dorm, and began filling a sink with water.

You see, the thing about your body is that, even when under the effect of a potion, you'll revert to your true form when exposed to water. (Floyd will too, but that's not the point)

Floyd shoved your face into the water.

"If you see something pretty, keep it somewhere safe. Keep it close to you. Make sure you're the only one who can see it. That's what Jade says about his terrariums, at least." Floyd said, lifting the rest of your slowly-shrinking-back-to-normal-size body into the sink. "You're about terrarium sized. I got you one that's filled with water! Ehehe... I'll keep you inside of it... and slowly, slowly, slowly, you'll become dependent on me. And of course less scared of me!!"

You were scooped up out of the sink into a glass bowl filled with water, a few plants, and rocks.

"Ahahaha!! You look so cute like this!" Floyd happily said. "I'll take you back to my room, and we can start our whole little bonding experience! Oh, and don't even think about tying to escape. You know dehydration and drying out is deadly to us merfolk. So from now on, until I say otherwise, that bowl is your entire world."

You don't know how much time passes behind the glass.

Eventually, this life... gets to you. Something snaps within you.

And then you realize the only thing you can trust in this new life is the hand that gives you food, and the heterochromatic eyes that look at you from the other side of the glass.

What was his name again?

...

Come to think of it... what was your name...?

...oh well. It's not like that matters anymore.

"You seem so passionate about that one." Jade said, gesturing to the glass bowl filled with water, rocks, and plants. "I'm surprised you don't have more terrariums!"

"Oh. Nah, I'm not that into it." Floyd responded. "I'm not doing this for the same reason you do it. I'm doing it to make a certain someone feel less scared of me." He dipped his hand into the water of the bowl. When he lifted his hand out of the water, there was a tiny shrimp mer holding onto his hand. "Ta-da~! It's Shrimpy!!"

"That looks like (Y/N). Is... is that (Y/N)?" Jade asked. "How strange. Why did you do this?"

"Because they said they were scared o' me. I assumed this'd be the best way to make sure they weren't!"

"Ah, I see. I suppose I understand your motive, but..." Jade paused, looking uncomfortable. "...never mind. I'll leave you and (Y/N) to your... um... whatever it is you're doing."

Floyd didn't mean to make you dependent on him like a pet, but he didn't care. After all, regardless of how it happened, he got what he wanted.

You weren't scared of him anymore.

[haru-dipthong]

Translation of Sekai no Owari - Habit

I love this song, and the choreo is fucking crazy. I'll attempt to explain some of the decisions I made in the translation below the cut!

First a little explanation about this song. I have been thinking about my gender for a few years now, and I recently had a few conversations that have made me realise I'm probably agender. My partner showed me this song at the peak of when I was thinking about it the most (she didn't know at the time), and I was shocked at how relevant the lyrics were to my thought process and especially to our relationship. This song means a lot to me, and I felt like I just had to translate it.

Anyway, let's talk translation. I've had a look at some other translations, and mine slightly differs in that I feel I've attempted to convey the core message of the song more strongly than the others. For example:

陰キャ陽キャ "What's your MBTI?"

This line could be translated to something literal like "are you cheerful or gloomy" but I felt it was better to use an english-world equivalent of a popular system of putting people into boxes. Also worth noting that this line is extremely short, and my subtitling software warns you when the amount of time the subtitle appears for is too short, based on how many letters are in it. The translation needed to be like, 3 short words. I'm honestly pretty happy with this, I think it fits well and introduces the premise of the song well.

気付かない本能の外側を 覗いていかない？　気分が乗らない？ Nice dichotomy idiot, what exists outside it?　Wanna take a peek? Not in the mood?

Ok, obviously this isn't a direct translation, but I love that post and this song is basically "nice dichotomy idiot" the song, so I really wanted to work it in somewhere. A literal translation would be like "Won't you peek outside your subconscious instincts?" and I had trouble making that sound song-y in english until I decided to work in the meme.

やってるのにイケないヤツ and the ones using skills they don’t have

The Japanese here is a bit of a double entendre. It could be translated to "people doing stuff who really shouldn't be doing that" (いけない being kind of equivalent to ダメ in such an interpretation), but it could also mean "people who are fucking but can't cum". I tried really hard to work in similar sexual imagery ("the ones who go but don't come"??) but it just didn't work and in the end I just made it mirror the preceding line.

I almost want to say that was the hardest line in the song but that award has to go to this:

大人の俺が言っちゃいけない事言っちゃうけど 説教するってぶっちゃけ快楽 酒の肴にすりゃもう傑作 でもって君も進むキッカケになりゃ

Most adults won’t admit it, but what the hell, Lecturing is such a guilty pleasure This, plus a drink - that's heaven And if this gets you to grow up?

Making this catchy and natural was really tough. I actually stole a bit of the first line from another translation because I liked the way they handled the 大人の俺 part. 酒の肴にすりゃ is also a difficult thing to translate - in the English speaking world we don't really have this idea that food needs to accompany a drink.

But the line I'm most happy with is this:

すぐ世の中金だとか愛だとか運だとか縁だとか なぜ2文字で片付けちゃうの？

It’s all about cash, or love, or luck, or fate How neat, summing up the world in 4 letters.

This wasn't a particularly hard translation to come up with ("love" and "luck" are basically the only translations for those words which locked in "4 letters", and it wasn't hard to find 4 letter words for 金 and 縁), but I was surprised to find that none of the existing translations I could find did this. One went with "Why do you want to wrap it all up with a single word?" and another even further abstracted, "How can it be so simple?"

I hope you enjoyed the song/translation! Let me know if you would have translated something differently or if I've made a mistake, I really love seeing your responses!

[metal-junk]

I only reblogged your durgetash college au like an hour ago but it has not left my mind since... it's so stunning and I feel like this kind of au will take over my entire life and I'm so tempted to write something... do you have any headcanons for funsies....... my immediate thought was rival college societies where durge and gortash are presidents of their respective socieities but gortash wants to become student president... also pls free to ignore if I sound insane lol but your art made my entire day <3

Dude u don't even know I have like 3 pages worth of headcanons for this shit

Long ass rant below:

My au is incredibly similar to Canon in that all the gods still exist, although for fun some of them are gods like in canon, but some are just very powerful people. Mystra for example is just gale's ex teacher, but the dead 3 r still gods.

So while the two were initially rivals (they're both far too ambitious, it was inevitable) they eventually find out that the other runs an identical underground worshipping-evil-deity-club, and realise they will get a lot more shit done if they do it together.

Gort is a business student and durge is a philosophy student (durge is such a nepo baby, he just chose something that would allow him to piss off the most people - he enjoys playing devil's advocate in philosophy debates. Deep down, he actually really enjoys learning about different philosophies and how other people experience the world)

In this au ketheric is a post-grad student who works as a TA in durge's philosophy lectures, and he sees how much potential is in both gort and durge but that doesn't change that fact that he finds them ridiculously irritating lol. He finds out they worship the other 2 of the dead 3 and tries to help them keep it all undercover cus lord knows they're just over-confident (read: idiotic) uni students

I have yet to figure out how to translate 'world domination' into a feasible university activity lmfao, and I know I want to include durge's memory loss in this au but I'm not sure how to write that either

Anyway I have a lot of headcanons about all the other characters and their backstories/relationships but I wanna try and get that all put out in art form, so u just wait lol

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Leona, Cater: Rewrite the Stars

I like that Leona’s Groovy is at night; the great kings of the past can watch over him and see how far he’s come ✨The hat shading his eyes in the initial art is also fitting; it really makes his eyes stand out!

Leona voice) Poor me, I need some good rest cuz I’ve been working so diligently as a student and dorm leader 🥺 Lyin’ ass…

P.S. brb gonna grip Cay-kun so hard for saying Leona is “acting like a cool leader” 😊 WDYM CATER??? ??? ??????? ? ?? 😊 YOU 'D BETTRr taKE YhAT BSACk RIgHT NOW MiSTEER 😊 last thing I need right now is a reminder that L*ona’s actually a good mentor OTL

A Boy in Bloom, and his Flowering Future.

“What do you want to do in the coming year?”

"I don't want to repeat a year. That's it."

"Eh." Cater blinked. "You wanna run that one by me again?"

"Clean your ears out and listen carefully next time," the birthday boy retorted. "I'm not going to repeat myself. If you didn't catch it the first time around, then you've only got yourself to blame."

"Nah, I did hear you, but... Well, I guess it's more like a 'Wow, I can't believe this!' moment, y'know?" A faint chuckle emanated from Cater. "After all, you're kiiinda infamous for doing just the opposite! Like, you've already been held back once, and you don't exactly have the best attendance record for lectures."

"An old lion can still learn new tricks," Leona simpered, his mouth twisting into something coy.

"You seem super motivated now, Leona-kun! Did something good happen recently to jump-start this?"

"Good?" A scoff, dryly amused. "That's a stretch. Lotsa stuff happened this year, but I'd hesitate to call any of it 'good'.

"There doesn't have to be some big, fancy world-changing reason for a change of heart. I'm just sick of stewing in the shadows and gazing out to a barren pride land. It's about time for the sun to dawn on a new era—and I plan to be there when that happens."

“Ahahah, well~ Graduating’s the bare minimum for us students. It sounds like you’ve got even bigger goals than that.”

“When you’re as noble of a soul as I am, you’ve naturally got the ambitions to match,” Leona purred sarcastically. His voice was languid, like a cat making lazy strides across the floorboards. “Can’t just be throwin’ in the towel the moment the going gets tough. That goes for Magift and in real life.”

“Hmm? That sounds totes different than the you I remember from the interdorm Magift tournament.” Cater’s mouth pulled into a smarmy grin. “I could’ve sworn you gave up and had a meltdown when your plan was foiled!”

He received a poisonous glare. “You just have to remind me, huh? … You know what? Fine, have your cake and eat it. I’ll own up to it. ‘Sides, it was a long time ago.”

“Right, you’ve had a rebranding and a personality glow-up since. All that’s missing is the formal apology video! It’s a necessity for celebs that get cancelled for their #wicked actions.”

Leona scowled deeply. “Can it, I’m NOT doing that. And who’s a ‘celeb that got cancelled for their #wicked actions’?!”

“Really? Awww, but I bet you’d get mad views on it!”

“Tch, it’s things like this that makes maintaining social grace a real drag,” Leona grumbled under his breath. What I’d give to vanish to a remote resort, far, far away from the idiots I’m surrounded with…

“Anyway, nothing gets done if all you do is whine and then quit. People who don’t try can never achieve anything. They’re already down and out from the get-go.

“Cowards who refuse to look at themselves in the mirror don’t have a place in tomorrow. They’re stuck in the past, clawing for some semblance of hope, however futile. That ain’t me, not ever again.”

“Sounds like you’ve def had this on your mind for a while! You’re acting like such a cool and self-assured leader~”

“Please. This is to be expected of every leader. Even your Red Young Master would know this much.”

Leona leaned his shoulder against the school building. Folding his arms, he lifted his head up. “They’d know it too.”

Cater followed his gaze, meeting a vast expanse of the night. The sky was painted a deep black-violet, speckled in glowing white flecks. Stars—so many of them.

“The great kings of the past,” Leona said, his words tainted with the taste of something bitter. “When we pass on, we become a part of nature: the grass and the dirt that feed the next generation, the stars in the sky that light the way in the dark. The things that keep the world turning.

“In the Circle of Life, we all have our roles to play.” A smirk steadily grew on his face. “I know what mine is, and I intend to act on it. The highest point in the sky may as well be mine.”

His declaration resounded in the silence of the campus. One wish, resolute, uttered only for him and Cater to hear. In the quiet that followed, the green of Leona’s eyes flickered not with vengeful fire, but with a flame more thoughtful and warm and…

… the slightest bit vulnerable. A softness Cater had never witnessed before.

Leona-kun has changed a lot. He’s starting to be a little more honest with himself too. wonder if I could ever meet him on that level.

The thought was quickly shoved away, shelved back in the coldest recesses of his mind before it could properly take hold. The space reserved for the darkest parts of him, where truth soured and masks were neatly displayed.

Familiarity. Safety. Comfort. Perhaps what Leona would have called cowardice.

Cater swallowed.

“… If you ask me, you already shine like the star of a great king,” he said cheerily. “Just check out your birthday get-up! You’ve got the drip and the skills for it!

“I’ve got the skills to be a ball of gas in the sky?” Leona grimaced.

“Hey, hey! Let’s not phrase it like that! It’s so not a nice image to think about. Instead, let’s call it… a ball of stardust!”

“Why stardust?”

“I read in a horoscope once that the reason we can do fortune telling with the constellations is cuz people are made of the same stuff as stars are,” Cater explained with a sure wink. “Stardust! Our essence is the same as the what’s in celestial bodies.

“Don’t you think that sounds so much more poetic? When you wish upon a star, it’s said your name wish will come true—but since people and stars are made of the same stuff… then we should be able to make our wishes come true using our own power ⭐️”

“‘Fraid I fail to see the point of your whole whimsical after-school special. It’s obvious that it’s in our hands to shape the future, balls of gas or stardust or no. The great kings of the past can watch it ‘n weep.”

“That’s the spirit!! You got this~” Cater flashed an enthusiastic thumbs-up. “Go and get’m, Leona-kun!”

“You don’t need to tell me twice.” Leona peeled himself away from the main school building, his broom ready.

The birthday boy plopped down on his magical tool, brazenly using it like a sofa. It floated seemingly on its own accord, effortlessly supporting his full weight. Controlled, obedient—like a waiting pet.

“Oh, wait!” Cater called out, suddenly producing his phone. “Is it okay if I grab some pics of you taking off for Magicam? I’ll just need your handle to send you the…”

Resting an arm on his knee, Leona brought his heel down and grinded it against the handle. A signal, a cue, for the broom to kick into high gear.

WHOOSH!!

A shower of golden sparks exploded from the bouquet, and he smoothly launched into the air, his hair and the brim of his hat flying behind him. The violent kickback slammed into Cater, sending him falling back, his phone clattering to the ground.

(“My phoooone!” he wailed.)

With the shadows out of the way, Leona could see the stars for what they really were. Tens of hundreds of them, sparkling clusters in the inky night.

So many wishes. So many kings. Many, many things. Everything, everywhere, all at once.

A world waiting to be rewritten, to tell of his accomplishments.

“One day… I’ll be among them. They’ll tell stories about me, the greatest ‘king’ of them all.” This truth, Leona spoke to the stars.

The future was littered with prizes, and he was to be the main addressee.

[kaylinalexanderbooks]

Personality through quote

Thanks to @theprissythumbelina here and @mysticstarlightduck here!

Rules: give a quote from your OCs based on the prompt, then tag people with a new prompt!

[A quote about pets/animals]

Lexi: "Animals are so cute! I would love to get a pet one day! Not sure what I'd get though...or how much is too many... I think I can keep up with at least one dog and a cat!"

Maddie: "I can literally turn into animals. Yeah, of course they're cool. Big cats are my favorite. Did you know that cheetahs can't retract their claws? And also, the smallest tiger is the Sumatran. And also snow leopard's paws act like snowshoes? And--"

Ash: "Our house is a little crowded for an animal right now. I'm not sure how responsible I'd be with them, anyway, haha."

Gwen: "Oh, um. A few months ago our cat got really sick and...well there wasn't really a humane option. Um, anyways, we're not quite ready for another pet right now."

Robbie: "With my parents' schedule and me and Sammy losing track of time and everything around us, please don't get us a pet. Akash would have to take care of it, and I don't wanna do that to him."

Akash: "I would love to have a dog one day. Never had one growing up due to, well, everything going on. But I'd really like a pet one day."

Jedi: "I have always wanted a pet ferretsnake, actually. My sister wanted a kitsune. Having both would have been wonderful."

Carmen: "Atsila had Custos, and that's the closest I'll have to a pet." (She loves Custos and Custos loves her)

[A quote about their relationship with money (in the past and nowadays)]

Lexi: "I mean, I'm not suuuper familiar with how money works, but I definitely will be one day. Knowing myself, I'd probably be very organized. Whenever my mom gives me money to like buy something at school or the mall or whenever I go out with friends in general, I always budget beforehand and plan accordingly. But if I'm secure enough, I'd love to buy some clothes or supplies but also gifts for my friends!"

Maddie: "Similar to Lexi, I guess. I mean, I think I'd save up money so I can use it on big things later! A Lego set or something like that. But the patience for that sounds literally impossible."

Ash: "I am also fond of the idea of saving to splurge later. Splurging sounds fun, but you can't do it without saving unfortunately."

Gwen: "My parents have saved money for me to go to college since I was born. I think that's a noble cause. I think using money on schooling or pursuing what you care about, what your purpose is...that's good."

Robbie: "My mom has given me so many lectures about having a secured footing is important, and I get it, but man, it's hard to focus on that. I'd love to go on exciting experiences and all that. Me, Akash, Sammy, Lexi, Gwen--like all of us traveling around the world together. That sounds dope. Awesome. But Mutti says I have to save for that. I really need to focus more on her lectures. Maybe if she made a PowerPoint...."

Akash: "I am probably going to have to do Robbie's taxes and also give him financial advice. I have it in my four year plan for high school to take a semester long financial course in junior year. I plan to use that information wisely."

Jedi: "Saving money for a good cause is something I have always done. My education, Inutilia rights, the Aequales, charities. I believe money can do as much good in the world as anything else."

Carmen: "Pfft, I'm responsible with my money. I'd be an accountant if I had to [she would be miserable]. Make sure everything is paid off, then maybe spend some money on making life a little more comfortable. Like home organizers. Because some people can't seem to pick up after themselves."

Tagging @sparrow-orion-writes @talesofsorrowandofruin @writernopal @awritingcaitlin @winterandwords @drchenquill @keysandopenmind @pluppsauthor @pluto-murphy-writes @writingamongther0ses @willtheweaver @calicohyde + anyone who'd like to

Your prompt: [A quote about a hot summer day.]

TSP intro

TSP tag list (ask to be +/-): @thepeculiarbird @illarian-rambling @televisionjester @finchwrites

[crushculture03]

Chapter 3

Warnings : Age gap, drinking, slight smut at the end

It had been a week since you and matty kissed, and the two of you had yet to talk. He tried to talk to you multiple times, but you felt too embarrassed to even look him in the face.

One day after class, you made the mistake of packing up too slow and by the time you were done the last student had already left and it was just you and Matty left. You hastily threw your bag over your shoulder, but before you could run away you felt Matty grab your wrist. You sigh and turn around to face, "Y/N why won't you talk to me?" he asks, you can see the sadness and confusion in his eyes. You let out a shaky sigh "Matty, I can't do this right now" you say, and turn to leave but his grip on your wrist remains. "Why not? I've been trying to contact you this whole week and you've ignored me" he pleads, "Because I kissed you! God is that what you wanna hear? I kissed you and have feelings for you, that I know aren't reciprocated, so I rather ignore you than get lectured about how you do-" but before you could finish, you're cut off by his lips.

"You overthink too much darling" he chuckles, causing your face to go red. "If you would've let me talk to you I would've told you that I have feelings for you too, it's dangerous I know but when you kissed me it solidified that I have feelings for you" he confesses. Your jaw drops at his confession, "You-You do?" you stutter out. "Yes, I haven't stopped thinking of you or the kiss" he says, your mind spirals at all the new information he's giving you.

"How about this, why don't you come over to my place for dinner tonight" he offers. You smile widely, your heart fluttering in your chest, "That sounds amazing" you say, still in shock. "I'll even play you a song or two" he says, "Really? Wow i feel so special" you tease, "Mm you should I haven't played for an audience beside my dog, for years" he jokes. "Well I'm honored and excited, what time should i be there?" you ask, "How about 6?" he suggests. "6 sounds great, I'll see you then Matty" you said, before kissing him on the cheek, waving goodbye and leaving the classroom.

—

You gently knock on his apartment door, and anxiously wait for him to open it. "Hey love, wow you look gorgeous" Matty says as he opens the door. You blush at his compliment, "Thank you, you look very handsome" you say, and he did, he was wearing his usual dress pants and a silk button up, his curls were styled perfectly, the whole look made you weak in the knees. "Thank you darling" he says, and opens his door a little wider, motioning for you to come in. You walk inside his apartment, it's modestly decorated, something you could almost assume since his office was also decorated quite modestly.

Before you can say anything, you hear the sound of paws running towards you. You look in the direction of the noise and see a big dog, almost horse like, coming at you. "Woah there Mayhem, be gentle to our new guest" Matty says, gently grabbing his collar before the dog can jump on you. "This is Mayhem, he's VERY energetic but very friendly" Matty says, as he gives the dog some head scratches. You walk over to Matty and mayhem and reach your hand out to gently pet the dog's head, "He's so adorable, and big, what breed is he?" you ask, as you continue to pet the dog's head. "He's a Cane Corso, so a very big dog, but he likes to think he's a small dog and sits on people's laps" he chuckles. "He's very cute" you coo, Mayhem continues to look at you while wagging his tail, clearly enjoying the attention he's getting. "Are you ok if I let him go? He should be calm by now" Matty says, "Yeah of course" you say. Matty slowly lets the dog go, Mayhem immediately comes up close to you and leans up against you in hopes of getting more pets. You chuckle and give the dog what he wants, "He's such a sweetheart" you say, "He is!" Matty says, as he admires you and Mayhem.

Eventually the dog gets distracted by one of his toys on the floor and runs off to play. "Well now that he's done hogging you, I can do this" he says, and pulls you in by your waist and kisses you. "Well hello to you too healy" you joke, your face flushes after the kiss. "You're adorable when you blush darling" he says, which causes you to blush even more. "Lets head into the kitchen, dinner's almost ready" he says and reaches his hand out for you to take. You take it and he leads you into the kitchen, "Wow it smells delicious" you comment, "Thank you darling, I hope you're ok with pasta, its the only thing i know how to cook well" he chuckles. "Pasta is perfect" you say, "Perfect, can I offer you a glass of wine?" he offers as he pulls out two wine glasses from a cabinet. "Sounds lovely" you say, as you take a seat on one of the stools that line the island. Matty carefully pours both you and him a glass, of what looks to be a very expensive bottle of red wine. He hands you the glass and cheers it with you.

After 10 minutes of small talk and joking, Matty finally deems the dinner ready to eat. "I'll plate it up for us, if you want to sit down in the dining room" he says, and motions for you to go through the doorway and sit in the dining room, which has been set up for the perfect romantic dinner. Shortly after you sit down, Matty walks into the room with two bowls of pasta, he places one in front of you and the other across from you. He then goes back into the kitchen and comes back out with a salad bowl and a breadbasket, carefully placing them down on the table. Lastly he brings both your glasses of wine along with the bottle.

After bringing everything out he sits across from you, "Everything looks and smells delicious" you say, admiring the spread of food infront of you. "Thank you! I left school early so I could prepare it, i wanted to make sure everything was perfect tonight" he says. Your heart melts at his words, "That's so sweet Matty, I appreciate, makes me feel special " you say, smiling. "You are special my love" he says, looking up at you with hearts in his eyes. "Lets dig in shall we?" he says, you nod your head and begin to eat. You take a bite of the pasta and a small moan comes out of your mouth as you taste the heavenly flavor. "Wow didn't think I'd be hearing that till later" Matty says, a tinge of pink spreading on his cheeks. You blush "Its really good Matty, quite possibly the best pasta i've ever had" you say, "I'm glad you like it darling" he says, before taking a bite of his food.

After a nice dinner, you tried to help Matty do the dishes but he insisted he would do them later. So instead the two of you decided to make your way over to the couch and sit down. Matty had to kick Mayhem off of it a few times since the dog wanted to be right on your lap. "Sorry about him, he doesn't know how big he is and thinks hes a lap dog" Matty says, you giggle and lean down to pet Mayhem, who had decided to lay down by your feet, "Its alright, he's a total sweetie" you say.

After a beat of silence, Matty speaks up, "So remember how i told you I was in a band before I became a teacher?" he says, getting up and retrieving an accutstic guitar that sat in the corner of the room. You nodded your head in response, "Well I wanted to play you the song I was talking about, it's kind of based off of true romance, and since you said it was your favorite movie, I thought I'd play it" He said, and took his spot back on the couch, carefully tuning the guitar before looking up at you. "This is called Robbers, it definitely sounds better when I'm with the band, but hopefully you still like it" he says, before he begins to strum the opening cords.

You sit there in awe while he sings, his voice was angelic and you could see how into the song he was.

She said babe, you look so cool

You look so cool

You look so cool

You look so cool

He sang, before finishing the song, you sat there in awe of the man in front of you. Not only was he a very good professor, but he was also a very talented singer. "Wow Matty that was amazing, you're so talented" you gush, causing him to blush, "Thank you, I'm glad you liked it" he said. You leaned forward and kissed him, to show him how much you liked him and the song. He placed his guitar against the couch, before pulling you on to his lap. You wrapped your arms around his neck as you looked into his eyes, "How are you so perfect?" you ask, as you brush some of the loose curls from his forehead. "The real question is how are you so perfect," he says, causing you to blush. You lean forward and connect your lips to his, you loved the way his lips felt against yours, it was almost like they were made for you. Matty wraps his arms around your waist and pulls you flush to his chest, he pulls you so close you can feel how he has started to grow hard under you. You grind your hips on his, relishing in the sensation of your clothed core over his covered erection. "What do you say we move this into the bedroom darling?" he asks, you nod and before you know it, he picks you up and carries you to his bedroom.

[olderthannetfic]

Gonna throw this out completely unrelated to anything (I just don't wanna invoke the name) maybe a problem is having a YA'ish writing style, with some of the problems that comes with: weird pacing, lack of nuance, heavy handed, lecturing, repeating things ad nauseam and whatever else more negative writing quirks are tied to YA-voice/writing style. Having a problem with some of those, and then trying to tackle heavier themes and topics in your writing doesn't really mesh well.

If an author gets labelled YA even though they say they're not YA, that probably means there's some issue in their writing that makes people assume they do write YA because of their style. Meaning that heavy themes and topics might end up being written in a way the author thinks tackles them well, but the opposite is the case because they might overestimate themselves and their own skill at points.

Some thing that works in our head doesn't always work written down, and its on us to make sure it comes across the way it was in our head. But if you have some issues with your writing style that you haven't noticed yet, or you maybe refuse to work on, then what you wrote will come out in a way that can really split the readers because of how they take in the what you wrote and read the elements of the story.

Maybe some prefer the heavy handed and repetition of YA style, but some other who want to read the heavy themes tackled with more subtlety and don't want to feel like they're constantly being hit over the head over and over with the same message, and might therefore read it as poorly written and lacking in actual depth and understanding and maybe even condescending when it feels like certain information is brought across so on the nose directly.

Tbh, this could be a lot of writers thinking about it. Also noticed it with some Anti-mentality type writers who constantly have to mention how what's happening is bad, constantly repeating "this is bad", like they believe the readers can't figure this out themselves. So who knows.

--

I believe you guys that YA has a distinctive sound, but I'm not sure anyone has quite figured out how to describe it.

Most of the stuff you mention is just bad writing. I'm sure the way heavy topics are treated simplistically can have a YA ring or a crappy adult fiction ring, but the actual description above doesn't tell me anything other than "sucky writer".

The anti thing is a bit more distinctive.

[kjdkive]

cold weather with warm kisses — kth

fluff, tae being a total cutie

A long and heavy winter day. The coffee shop you worked at had many clients today, making you sick of espressos, caramel syrup and almond milk. Not to mention all the coffee spilled on your shirt. The place was small and new, that's why only you and other girl worked the afternoon shift; the problem was that with 15 people waiting in line, you saw the message of your coworker telling you that she wouldn't be going to work because she was sick. Couldn't she have done that earlier? It would, at least, mentally prepare you.

But it was now 10pm, and you were washing the last cups and cleaning the tables. You had now closed the doors to clean peacefully, without people entering. Your arms were telling you to stop moving because of how tired you were, and you also felt like if you saw another client you'd explode. Suddenly, you heard someone knocking at the crystal door. You sighed, trying to ignore the sound thinking it was a client trying to get something. There wasn't any problem if you didn't look back at the person, the place was already closed. You kept cleaning, but they kept knocking at the door. It really bothered you. So you turned around and looked who was so eager to get coffee.

"It's close—!" you tried to say, but you couldn't finish because you saw who it was.

You saw your boyfriend outside, greeting you with the biggest and cutest smile you've ever seen, waving his right hand at you. He knocked again, and pointed to the window so you pay more attention to him than you were already paying.

Without knowing what he was planning to do, he blew hot air on the window and drew a heart, never getting that big smile off his face. When he finished drawing the heart, he raised his arms over his head making a heart shape which made you laugh loudly. He really looked really cute, and the big puffer he was wearing making him look so small made him look cuter.

"Oh, Kim Taehyung." you sighed, smiling.

This type of gestures, you could say you were used to them now, but they never failed to make you feel happy.

You took your apron off, turned off the lights and grabbed your jacket to head outside. You closed the doors and made sure they were safely locked.

"Taeee!" you hugged you boyfriend, falling in his arms.

"How was your day, babe?" he asked, holding you tight.

"Horrible!" you hid your face on his chest, enjoying the warmth he was radiating.

"Do you want me to kick some ass to whoever made your day horrible?"

You laughed again and shook your head to let him know that it wasn't necessary, even though you knew he wouldn't actually do it. It's part of the job at the end of the day. He opened his jacket, and opened it so you could get inside and be closer, and warmer.

"It's not that." you said, making yourself comfortable on his embrace. "Well, yes, but no. My coworker told me 3 hours after opening that she was going to take the day off, and dear God, Taehyng, you don't know how many people came today. I really don't wanna see another coffee machine... or milk. Oh God, not milk! But it doesn't matter now, how was your day?"

"I'm sorry to hear that, baby. My day was just lectures and assignments." He started carressing your hair and cheeks while he spoke. "You worked really hard today, angel." He got closer, shaking your nose with his. You would make fun of him for his petnames, or how he was treating you. But you felt like you really needed that today, so you just got the closest you could to him.

"Your hugs make me feel better, so it doesn't really matter to me anymore."

"I know my hugs are magical, you don't have to tell me. But I don't want you to get cold, let's go home, yeah?" Taehyung separated himself from you, and zipped your jacket all the way up, he took his scarf off of him and put it around you. It felt warm, since he was already wearing it before, and it also smelled like him. He took your hand to start walking, and moved you to the other side, you know, the sidewalk rule as he calls it.

"I'll cook you ramen while you take a warm shower and then we'll watch your favorite show." He told you, while getting closer to you to give you little kisses on your cheek.

You just smiled. What did you do to ever get a boyfriend like this? You could only thank the universe for letting you have the chance to have someone love you this way.

english is not my first language, sorry for any mistakes.

[nekoannie-chan]

Problematic training

Problematic training

Title: Problematic training.

Fandom: Marvel, Captain America.

Ship: Steve Rogers & Brock Rumlow.

Word count: 517 words.

Square: O5 “Train job.”

Rating: Teen.

Summary: Steve and Brock had a problem during training.

Major Tags: Arguing, thoughts of revenge.

Additional tags: This is my entry to @marvelrarepairbingo, @marvelrarepairs Marvel Rare Pair Round 3 2024. MRP-066.

Links: Wattpad, Ao3, Spanish version.

@saiyanprincessswanie

My native language is Spanish so I wanna improve my writing skills in English if you notice any mistakes, please let me know and I will correct them.

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DISCLAIMER: I don't own Marvel's characters (unfortunately), except for the original characters and the story.

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In the Triskelion gym, the sounds of pounding and dumbbells echoed in the air. Steve and Brock were there training.

Steve was going through his morning routine in a disciplined and structured manner.

Brock, on the other hand, preferred a more chaotic and brutal workout.

While Steve was continuing his workout, Brock was lifting dumbbells with a deafening noise, dropping the dumbbells to the floor after each repetition.

"You can't drop the dumbbells like that, Brock," Steve scolded him. "You could damage the equipment or, worse, hurt someone."

Brock let out a sarcastic laugh.

"Are you serious, Rogers? This is a gym, not a library. We come here to train hard, not worry about furniture."

Steve frowned, suspending his training.

"It's not just about the equipment. It's also about respect and discipline."

"Discipline, discipline," Brock repeated with disdain. "Always with your golden boy lecture. Some of us need to release our aggression to be fit for battle."

"Training isn't just about brute strength," Steve replied, stepping closer to Brock.

Brock dropped another weight hard, causing the floor to vibrate, challenging Steve.

"Maybe your way of training works for you, Rogers. But I train my way. And I'm not going to change it because you don't like it."

Overhearing the discussion, some of the agents in the gym stopped to watch them curiously. Natasha was also training on the spot; she quickly rushed over.

"Stop it, you two!" Natasha spat out authoritatively. "We are not here to fight each other. If you continue, I'll have to report you to Fury."

Steve took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "Natasha is right. We need to work as a team and avoid fighting each other."

Brock crossed his arms, looking at them defiantly. He hated having to follow Roger's orders; in fact, he felt displaced since Roger had arrived.

"I'm not going to compromise my training."

Natasha took a step forward. "No one is asking you to. But you could try to be a little more considerate. There's a time and place for everything."

After a moment of silence, Brock nodded slowly as Natasha had again threatened to report them, and that meant they would be spending a few weeks doing desk work instead of going on missions. Other than Steve, the other thing he hated was not being able to go on missions.

"Okay. I'll try not to drop the dumbbells." Brock said while rolling his eyes.

He would probably go train when that pair were gone. He shot a hateful look at the other agents, who looked like they were going to laugh and scoff at the situation. When the pair was gone, he would take it upon himself to punish those who belonged to his team to show who was in charge.

Steve approached to shake hands. Brock forced a smile and did so while also thinking of some way to get revenge. As he wasn't going to allow someone to make a fool of him, he simply had to wait until the time was right, and he would make Steve regret what he had done.

[zkoh001]

"If you think it is my husband you should fear, you are nothing more than a fool."

Im dubbing this the tigermom au, where Misako had a legit reason to leave Lloyd, and it was to put fear of god in the hearts of destinies writers the moment they hear the Garmadon name. (In the meanwhile getting stuck in a time loop/trap)

Honestly I just feel like she COULD be a really cool character, if her abandoning Lloyd with no fair explanation didn't weigh her down. She pretty effortlessly rizzed both sons of god, and is one of the few non EMs shown doing spinjitzu. Also was quite good at it, if we can believe Wu. Tho I think she could do a bit more sass. (She was sassy like twice, and I live for it. Also sassy Lloyd, but that doesn't belong here)

Here are a few scattered ideas:

° When she hears the prophecy, she realises the only way to save her family is to rewrite destiny. Good thing she knows where to do that

° Using her archeology/history background she begins looking for ways to move amongst realms

° She leaves Lloyd at Darkleys (only for a few weeks, she swears) temporarily. Why Darkleys? Well, he probably would be safer with his father idolized rather than despised (see the movie for example)

° I'm not sure of the deets, maybe Travelers tea or some other method, but she leaves for Cloud Kingdom (or perhaps Time blades shenanigans, but honestly, I want her to punch Fenwicks jaw trough his skull.)

° Not looking for a nice chitchat with the people who broke her family, she wreaks havoc amongst the denizens of CK, looking for two specific scrolls

° Eventually they kick her out with joined efforts, and she returns dejected. The worst she expected was Lloyd starting a Garmadon cult amongst the students, not her son all grown up, hanging out with a bunch of teens in pajamas.

° I want to make her showing up more impactful. I want Wu and the ninja to be surprised, I want her to be devastated when she puts two amd two together (she doesn't know about tomorrows tea, so it seems even worse). I want her to mourn the time lost, but still be determined to make it up somehow.

° Note, that while it's not nearly as bad, she still had the attitude, of fighting her way out of her problems over trying to raise Lloyd into not killing his dad. This could be a character flaw to explore, and it could make Lloyd more drawn to her, since her attitude is quite a bit similar to Kai's

Sidenote, I know that sounds like Maya over again, but it does't need it to be similar really. I like to actually make Ray and Mayas kidnapping make sense, with Krux knocking them out with the tea, kidnapping them, and THEN forcing them to stay with the "I know where your babies live" threat.

So while Maya was kidnapped, Misako would have left willingly, albeit, for longer than she meant to.

But let's get to the mom part shall we?

° Honestly, outside of making Misako more interesting, this is a bit self indulgent, because I think Lloyd should have a healthy outlet, since trauma dumping Akita is not really an option now

° Lloyd would be conflicted, not being able to hate her, but still, she was never there

° "You don't have to forgive me"

"It's okay, you didn't mean to..."

"But it still hurts doesn't it? You can let it out"

° I know, it's harder to manage more characters, but I want her to BE there for her son, also let's scrap Wusako, I wanna make her love Garmadon, to the very end, even if it's tragic.

° She won't leave when going gets tough, and she would offer her own fighting skills to help too

Just some fun extras:

° She showed up to the Monastery after some rumors about demigods living there, to examine the place. The spinjitzu brothers found her, she used some incredibly stupid pickup line with fingerguns, and procedeed to steal both their hearts

° She's got rizz that literally only works on these two.

° The spinjitzu brothers would stare down any EM who dares question her presence, and she fucking knows it.

° Will watch with a shit eating grin as Wu lectures, and Garmadon threatens the poor sap

° Since Maya is the overenthusiastic mom, I will make Misako the bad influence mom, who makes her son do dumb shit kids his age should do (and 100% joins in, cause, whose gonna tell her she can't?)

° Lloyd inherited his grandfathers hair, his father's eyes, and his mom's face.

° I just find it funny if Lloyd showed up to CK, and everyone was hostile/angry towards him. And Lloyd being Lloyd would assume it's about his dad, since it always is. Except not now.

° "YOU! I know who you are! You are that woman's son!"

° "...Yeah, he is my fa- wait, what?"

° "Hey, look, looks like your mom made quite a mess for ya"

° " Which only means even more people hate me so thanks MOM."

° Lloyd is the house cat, if he doses off on you, you are not allowed to get up/disturb him (I like to think it started when he was little, but since he is still the youngest mentally, it stuck). The ninja (and his family) strictly enforce this, even on random visitors who fall under the cat-curse. This is not even really Misako related just Cat Lloyd? Cat Lloyd.

° ... Also, I think he should have a ponytail. (Seriously, that hair would be realistically such a hassle while fighting. Pull that hair back, so you can SEE you dingbat)

Just... I mean, Lloyd and Garmadon are already cat coded according to the fanbase, why not give them a feral wildcat mom/wife? She will hiss at anyone who messes with them, don't worry.

[tbnrpotato]

Our Own Choices

Chapter 7

It's been a few weeks now, and I can almost fully function again. I've just managed to hold a pistol steady without my arm shaking, and my knife skills are slightly worse than before but I can probably survive out in the field. Rex still hasn't let me go out on missions yet, he says I have to fully recover first, even though I already have.

When Rex and the 501st come back from the battle of Ringo Vinda, but when I look around for Fives he's not there. Rex says he's on Kamino watching over this clone trooper called Tup whose inhibitor chip malfunctioned during the battle. 

I'm also biologically 18 years old now, so Rex allows me to go to the clone bar now, maybe I'll hangout with Fives there when he gets back. I usually go to there in the nights, I occasionally see Kix and Jesse there.

It's been a few days, and Fives still hasn't come back from Kamino. Kix just told me that people said that Fives tried to kill the Chancellor, and he gives me coordinates on where to find Fives. He says Rex and General Skywalker will be there as well. I probably won't be able to keep out of sight anyways, with a Jedi there and everything.

I see Rex and General Skywalker walk through the place, it's kinda dark so General Skywalker ignites his lightsaber and it casts a blue glow around the area, I head towards them, almost completely silent.

I think Rex hears my footsteps cause the moment I walk up behind him, he whips around and points his pistols at me. General Skywalker does the same, lightsaber in hand and probably ready to slice me in half.

"Oh, great," Rex groans. 

"Heyyyy captain, General, Kix gave me the coordinates to come here as well," I say awkwardly. 

"I thought I told you not to go out on missions until you fully recovered?!" Rex says, lowering his pistols. He's definitely gonna give me a lecture later. Rex and General Skywalker turn around again and scan the area for Fives, I stand behind them doing the same.

"Fives? Fives, we're here," General Skywalker calls out. "Cmon out, we just wanna talk to you."

"Fives?" I take off my helmet so that he can recognize my voice. "Where tf u bro?"

"General Skywalker." I hear Fives' voice, but I can't pinpoint where exactly he is. "Thank you...thank you for trusting me." He doesn't sound good. "Have you come without troops?"

"We have," General Skywalker says, he and Rex and both alert, and I do the same, my pistol in one hand and my knife in the other. (It's a new knife that Rex got me, it has the same pattern as my sword, much to my delight)

"Put down your weapons then!" Fives sounds slightly panicked. 

"I don't think so, Fives," General Skywalker says.

"Please sir! Please, I'm unarmed."

General Skywalker nods at me and Rex and I drop my pistol and knife on the floor. General Skywalker retracts his lightsaber as well.

Rex puts his pistols down on a nearby crate and notifies Fives. 

"What are we here for, Fives?" General Skywalker sounds cautious.

"I need your help."

"I know you do. We know you're not well. It's been rough for you, these past couple of days."

"I'm not crazy!" Fives sounds kinda desperate. "Please...please just-just hear...what I have to say." He's breathing heavily, definitely been drugged or injured.

"I don't think someone like you would ever manage to go insane, considering you play sniper in Call of Duty and on mobile sometimes," I try lightening the atmosphere a bit, the dim light in the area is making me feel uneasy.

"We're here to help you Fives, just come with us," General Skywalker says, and we walk in the general direction that we think Fives is at. "Just let us take you back to the temple."

Suddenly, a ray shield comes down from above and surrounds all 3 of us, preventing us from being able to get anywhere. General Skywalker bangs a fist against the ray shield before Fives comes out from behind one of the crates. 

"I just need you to listen to me...please!"

"I'm not really sure we have any other choice," General Skywalker responds, crossing his arms.

"We're listening to you, Fives," I assure him, I don't need him getting anymore mentally unstable than he is right now.

"I was framed! Because I know the truth, the truth about a plot. A master deception."

"By who?" Rex steps forwards a bit.

"Well there's a sinister plot, and it works against the Jedi! I have proof of it! I can prove that everything I know is true beyond a shadow of a doubt!" Fives holds his head in his hands at one point, he's definitely been drugged, I don't know by who, but it feels like he's telling the truth, and someone's trying to get him not to.

"Show me the evidence," General Skywalker says.

Fives holds the left side of his head with his hand. "The...evidence...is..in here," he points towards the left side of his head. "I-it's in here. It's in all of us, every clone!"

"What is it?" Rex asks.

"It's in all of us?!" I ask.

"Organic chips built into our genetic code..." Fives puts a hand to his head again. "To make us do whatever someone wants, even kill the Jedi." Fives takes a step forward, pointing at the left side of his head again. "It's all in here."

General Skywalker glances sideways at Rex, and Rex puts a hand to the back of his neck, I speak up. "Fives-"

"Let's just get you some help first, then we can review everything. It'll be okay, Fives, we'll sort this out," General Skywalker cuts me off. It's definitely not gonna help the situation. 

"YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME!" Fives shouts, and I can hear it in his voice, he's desperate for someone to believe him.

"Fives, we are listening to you, we only want to help," Rex tries to calm Fives down. 

"How do I know you're not tricking me? How do I know...that it won't be a trap? The chancellor was trying to kill me, I-I promise you that!"

"Fives, why would I be here if it was a trap, I may be dumb sometimes in battle royale but I'm not that dumb," I say, trying to reassure him, I'm not really doing a good job.

"The chancellor?" General Skywalker asks.

"He's in on it!" Fives says, putting a hand to his head again. "I don't know to what extent, but I know he orchestrated much of this. He told me in the medical bay!"

"He told you?" General Skywalker sounds slightly more aggressive now. "When you tried to assassinate him? You have gone too far, Fives. The chancellor is incapable of what you claim."

"General, you're not really helping here," I tell him. 

The popular belief isn't always the correct one.

"He is!" Fives protests. "I swear to you, General, you have no idea-"

Suddenly, Coruscant Guard troopers appear from behind the crates, pointing their blasters at Fives. "Stand down soldier. STAND DOWN! GET ON YOUR KNEES!"

"No, no, STAY BACK!" Fives looks at Rex's pistols from the side.

"Don't do it, don't do it soldier!"

"FIVES DON'T DO IT OR I'LL STEAL UR KILLS IN FUCKING BATTLE ROYALE!" I shout, I know he hates it when I steal his kills, and if he doesn't stand down now he's gonna get shot.

"GET AWAY FROM ME!" Fives takes one of Rex's pistols and points it at the Coruscant Guards, and Commander Fox shoots him in the chest.

"FIVES!" I shout, banging on the ray shield, slamming my body against it desperately as Fives drops the pistol, breathing heavily, and drops to the ground. It's like finding out Echo's dead all over again. That sickening feeling in my stomach as I see his body, the way my insides tense up, I never wanted to experience that again, but here I am now. 

"Fives!" Rex shouts, and General Skywalker orders the Coruscant Guards to turn the ray shield off. Rex starts banging against the ray shield with me, he's calling out Fives' name again.

One of the Coruscant Guard troopers shoots the ray shield generator and Rex and I run to Fives' side.

"Fives...brother..." Rex kneels down next to him, and I kneel beside him. "GET A MEDIC," Rex and I shout at the same time, but no one moves, they know it's too late, and I know as well, I just don't accept it yet.

Fives' breathing is erratic, he's not gonna make it-no he is gonna make it, he is gonna make it...

"Kid...? Rex...?" Fives' voice is half-weak. "Fives?" Rex asks. "This...it's...bigger than any of us...anything...I could've imagined..."

"Save your strength Fives, we'll get you to the medbay," I say, and Rex looks at me with that look in his eyes, I know Fives is not gonna make it, but there's still a slim chance right? I'll take any chance I can get.

"I never meant...to..." Rex holds Fives close to his ear so that he can hear him. "I only wanted to do my duty..."

Fives' breathing is heavy. 

"Fives? Stay with me Fives. Fives?" Rex sounds desperate. 

"FIVES IF YOU DIE...I'M GONNA KILL YOU," I hold back my tears, can't show weakness in front of the other troopers. 

"The mission...the nightmares...they're...finally...over." And then his body goes limp as he closes his eyes, and Rex shakes him by the shoulders. "Fives? No, Fives, cmon Fives, stay with me, stay with me, Fives, Fives, don't go..."

I shake Fives by the shoulders. "Fives? W-wake up! Please, stay with me, cmon man, don't give up on me like this, we still gotta keep our top 5000 in legendary rank until end of season 4 of COD, remember?" I wipe my eyes with the corner of my sleeve. "Fives?"

Rex sighs and puts Fives' body down on the ground, his head lowered. General Skywalker puts a hand on his shoulder, and Rex looks at me, putting a hand on my shoulder, pulling me close to him. 

I stare down at Fives' body blankly, trying hard not to cry. I look up at Commander Fox, the bitch that shot Fives, and then I look at my knife on the floor not too far away, I clench my fist, all thoughts cleared from my mind except one.

Kill him.

I stand up from the floor, moving over to pick up my pistol and knife. I clip the pistol to my belt.

Kill him.

I run over to Fox, my knife in hand, shouting, "FUCK YOU," letting all that grief for Echo, Hevy, and now Fives, out on him, trying to stab my knife through the crevices in his armor, aiming for the neck, getting a good hit on the face as Fox tries to throw me off of him. The other troopers aim their blasters at me as Rex runs over and pulls me back.

"Kid...kid! Stop!" I can hear the desperation in his voice, I struggle against his grip, knife still in hand, trying to reach Fox.

"LET...ME...AT...HIM..." my voice comes out lower than expected, I'm seething with rage right now, my mind still telling me to kill Fox and avenge Fives-

One of the troopers fires a stun bolt at me and my entire body goes numb and everything goes black.

When I wake up, I'm in a Republic prison cell, and Rex walks in, his expression grim, he doesn't look happy. I crack my neck a bit, slightly sore from the stun bolt.

Rex grabs me by the shoulders. "What were you thinking?!"

"I WAS THINKING TO KILL HIM, WHY DID YOU STOP ME?! I WANTED TO AVENGE OUR BROTHER, YOU-" I stop myself before I swear at him.

Rex sighs. "Look kid, you can't just attack a trooper like that and expect nothing to happen. I managed to get them to let you off the hook this time, but you're grounded."

"WHAT?! YOU CAN'T DO THAT!" 

"Yes I can. No more going on missions until I say so, and the other troopers will be keeping an eye on you." His stare is blank, yet stern, and I know the blank part is because he's trying to get over what happened to Fives.

"Fives..." I hold my head in my hands as everything comes rushing back. My stomach tightens again, it's like a choking feeling, the grief, it feels like I can't breathe, but I don't allow myself to cry freely, just looking down at the floor and closing my eyes tightly.

"Let's go." Rex grabs my arm and drags me out of the cell, back to the barracks and my room, and he doesn't say anything as he closes the door behind him.

I move to a corner of my room and curl up into a ball, finally letting everything out, crying loudly, burying my face in my knees, I can't stop until there's no more tears left to cry, and then all that comes out from me in the next few hours is just dry sobs, and I punch the wall a few times, my knuckles bleeding, but I don't care.

Fives...

After hours and hours of crying, I take out my datapad and go into Call of Duty. I get to my loadouts for battle royale and multiplayer, and I change the weapons in my loadout to the ones I perfectly memorized just to beat him every time in 1v1.

I change all my loadouts to the ones Fives uses.