#but I made those comments back on his second onscreen appearance

[localcanadiancreature62]

Fiddlestan au memory tapes quick drabble

@maya-custodios-dionach this one's for you.

"So Mcgucket,are you ready to see your memories?" "I don' know. What if ah don't like what i see?" "You have to,it's your only chance of knowing who you are" Mabel remarks as Mcgucket then nods and watches as the braces girl puts in the memory tapes. A young Mcgucket appears on the TV screen as the twins hear a familiar raspy forced cough. "Fiddlesticks,are ya sure that you wanna do this?." Young Stan asks in the background of the video as he holds onto the camera while Fiddleford glares at him. "Of course i'm sure,darlin'. Now get the darn camera rolling. Anyway. My name is Fiddleford Hadron Mcgucket,and i made this new invention so that i can unsee what i just saw. Something terrible. Test 1. Subject name,Fiddleford Mcgucket." Fiddleford remarks as he closes his eyes and blasts the memory gun on himself. The scene then switches to an amazed Fiddleford as the second test comes around. "It worked!. I don't remember a thing!." Fiddleford exclaims as Stan rolls his eyes behind the camera as he does NOT want to do this although he compromised for the sake of his southern nerd. "But ya still remember me,right?." Stan asks as Fiddleford looks at him once more. "Course',Stan sweetheart. Now onto the next test." Fiddleford replied as he left the frame but then before the next tape plays,Mabel gasps in shock from discovering that Stan was actually dating Mcgucket. "GRUNKLE STAN WAS BOYFRIENDS WITH MCGUCKET?!. WHY DIDN'T HE SAY ANYTHING?!." Mabel yells as Fiddleford looks at her confused,as he too doesn't remember being with the con man. "Now i've seen everything. I can't believe it. Grunkle Stan,and the town kook?." Dipper says as he shudders in slight disgust. Fiddleford then expectantly looks at them both. "Look children,ah don' know about me datin' yer uncle either. But before ya start jumping to conclusions,let me see the rest of my memories first " Fiddleford remarks as the twins nod and play the tapes again. A more deranged Young Fiddleford appears onscreen with various crossed out eye symbols in the background. "I made a community where people can use my invention to unsee the things they saw!. The experiment is a success!." Fiddleford exclaims happily as Stan sighs in disbelief in the background. "Fidds,isn't this getting a little out of hand?. This sounds kinda nuts with the whole 'community' thing." Stan asks as he refers to his southerner's cult while worrying for his sanity. "You're nuts!. I'm finally picking up mah life again after that insufferable bastard ruined it and now you're going to get in the way too?!." Fiddleford shouts as the grifter starts to grip the camera harder,if the audible static-y sounds of him playing with the camera are anything to go by. "Jeez. Relax. I'm just worried for ya,y'know?." Stan replied as the southern man ignores his comment and the scene switches to an even more unstable Fiddleford. "I did somethin' bad. This was a mistake,i'm forgettin' my name my job and everything!." Fiddleford says as the scene quickly switches to Day 189.

"I accidentally hit someone with mah car. I feel tegible,t-terrible. Terrible. I've been forgettin' words lately. And Stanley.." Fiddleford remarks as even in his slowly slipping sanity,he holds onto the memory of the grifter whom he has already abandoned at this point. "I seen something!. Something big!." "I realized that i've been losin' mah hair,so i got this hat from a scarecrow!. Get outta here ya darned critters!." Fiddleford says as he tries to shoo various animals away from his place at the dump. Fiddleford then utters incoherent gibberish as he makes a triangle symbol with his fingers over one of his eyes as the tape ends. "Oh, McGucket, I'm so sorry." "Aw, hush. You kids helped me get my memories back, just like you said." "But did you want those memories back?" "After all these years,I finally know who I am. Maybe I messed up in the past, but now that I seen what happened, I can begin to put myself together again." "I won't be able to put MYSELF together again after hearing that you and Grunkle Stan were apparently lovers." Dipper remarks in disgust as Mcgucket and Mabel laugh. The rest of the episode goes exactly as canon,with Mcgucket saving the gang from getting their minds erased by using his own empty mind as a shield as Dipper then erased the Blind Eye Society's memories of their own cult as he and Mabel go home after happily helping the town kook.

[princesswithabraidedcrown]

A’Fei is bonding with Vermillion Bird Master! A’Fei is acquiring another red clothed...family member? A’Fei shall rule the world by banking on the affection these grown-ups have for her and her chronically ill smart mouth of a boyfriend!

[discoscoob]

"What Loki got wrong – and Doctor Who got right Redeeming a villainous character isn’t easy but the Disney Plus series could pick up a few tips from the BBC’s flagship series.

We all love Loki – the God of Mischief, Lord of Chaos, a wannabe tyrant and murderer with a twinkle in his eye and a spring in his step. So where on Earth (or rather, in the multiverse) did he go during his eponymous Disney Plus series? When Loki was first proposed, I was intrigued to see a Marvel spin-off that focused on an amoral, self-serving character. But over the course of its six episodes, we saw Tom Hiddleston abruptly deliver a reverse heel-turn, transforming a character that had always skirted in grey areas of villainy into a fairly bland, heroic type who just wanted to save the universe.In the final episode, Loki was offered the chance at universal war and chaos, a throne or a quiet home life in the background. The mind boggles that someone who tried to rule the planet just a few weeks before and apparently revelled in disorder would so quickly plump for the third option, no matter how nice his new friends were. .Maybe Loki needs more ‘good’ characters to bounce off for him to play the fun bad boy, as he had in the Thor movies. Maybe creating a Marvel series with a morally ambiguous lead, à la Rick and Morty, was never on the cards. But there was a way that Loki could have redeemed its central character without completely compromising what made him interesting in the first place. In fact, it’s been done before in a different series.A few times over the course of Loki, viewers had compared it to Doctor Who, mainly because of its general time-travel premise (what are the officious TVA except Time Lords with a dental plan?) and especially after episode three saw Loki and Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) trapped on a dying world. In fact, many commented that Loki did ‘Doctor Who’ better than Doctor Who itself, thanks to a higher budget and bigger stars. (Though did Loki have a sonic screwdriver? I think not. Case closed.)And I actually think Loki could learn something from Doctor Who, more specifically, from a storyline that saw an iconic villain try to change their ways with Cast your mind back to 2017 and Peter Capaldi’s final series as the Twelfth Doctor. A major throughline of those episodes was the Doctor’s attempt to redeem his old nemesis The Master, then played by Michelle Gomez as Missy. Initially reluctant (and not before a few final backstabs), Missy did end up playing the hero, only to be cut down by an alternate version of herself (AKA her predecessor in the regenerating role, John Simm) before she could reveal to the Doctor that she’d finally come over to his side.Crucially, during this process Missy was often as unpleasant, irascible and darkly funny as she’d ever been at her most villainous, regularly still insulting and belittling the Doctor and his friends even as she did gain more empathy and something of a moral code. She didn’t just completely gain a new personality, in other words, and the story was more moving and believable as a result.Of course, Loki is changed by what happens to him over the course of his series – the “journey” he goes on, as Jonathan Majors’ He Who Remains puts it, is needed to put him in the position where he’s willing to take over the TVA himself. But what we see him go through on screen doesn’t feel like enough to justify such a change in the character – or why the show would choose to make him so much less entertaining.If Loki had always been how he appeared in the finale, he wouldn’t have lasted as long as he has in the MCU, let alone get his own spin-off. Make Loki fun again! It probably doesn’t help that we’ve seen an onscreen version of Loki’s journey already which did a better job, with the ‘older’/original Loki’s arc in 2017 Marvel movie Thor: Ragnarok making a much better case for his gradual turn from self-interest to semi-heroism, though still with a trademark blend of arrogance and style (including bellowing “Your saviour is here!” as he rescued the people of Asgard).Maybe it helps that, in that film, he plays second fiddle to Chris Hemsworth’s Thor. Maybe Missy’s story only worked in Doctor Who because she wasn’t the main character, and similarly had the good

Doctor to bounce off (though if someone does want to make a Missy TV show, I’m in).Whatever the reasoning, something still feels a little off about this newly heroic Loki variant. Time for, if not a pruning, then at least a bit of a redirection if season two is going to find its glorious purpose"

reading this article rolling my eyes first off Missy went by a different name, also was not really a redemption of the master but that version of the master e.g missy which still don't know where this version is suppose to happen cause imo missy was the master but unlike the master had more redemptive qualities, wanting to be the doctors friend again/wanting to change but never getting the chance/past version didn't want to change, while this version feels like always on a path of redemption to the be killed off and the master comes back still evil, most likely missy version of the master will never be mentioned again/ never see this version again. also have they watched the Loki show, he literally learns he dies in the future, his stuck in a unfamiliar place by a very powerful organisation, also his self serving persona has always been a façade mostly, people can suddenly want to change which imo Loki hasn't really wanted to as Thor as pointed out about him going round in circles and him never seem to want to change in Ragnarok he was still not really change even though he shown he can be a better person, he also betrayed thor show still self serving. but Loki in the series makes sense his perception would change, his lost him home, his free will, Thor, learns he died/dies, and can't back to his timeline, but find it unbelieveable that Loki whole attitude would change... i think people need to pay more attention/don't really understand Loki, also he is still fun 3 episodes in just because his not acting like a clown and shown to be vulnerable and shown be more genuine and wanting be a hero doesn't mean they completely stripped his personality, hopefully we see his fun personality back next series. the reason he lasted in MCU so long is not just because his fun etc but because his a complex character, if i remember correct his fun personality didn't really come out until the dark world and then ragonorak in Thor he was angry and bitter and avengers was angry and bitter and wanting to rule earth. also we saw his fun personality up until episode 3 as slowly began to stop clowning around and become more genuine through Sylvie, also good friends didn't just change Loki, it was already in there it was a journey he always destined to go down as saw in the films which now some what reset in the series for another journey but thing is Mobius and Sylvie not just better Loki but his also bettered Mobius and Sylvie, also makes sense he change his self serving behaviour as learns even gets the throne or what he thought was his glory purpose he still not be truly happy, just like Sylvie and just like Mobius at The TVA. i feel some just don't really go into who Loki character is or just like his boring now if his not there being smug or clown or him finally actually being genuine = bad telling of redemption ok *rolls eyes*

I 100% agree! Reading that made me roll my eyes too, until I got to your part of the anon, that was a relief to read.

[hallothere]

Brave the Darkness

Previously titled “Blunt Force Ghost Trauma” but since no ghosts actually get served onscreen I changed it. Also because like Halros and the Very Bad Time it isn’t uhhh.... funny enough for that kind of title!

(warnings for Candaith Going Thru It but there’s no like blood or anything)

Somehow, the cold was coming from inside his bones. The chill was ice in his marrow. Radanir visibly shook next to him, as did some of the others. He was hard-pressed not to tremble. Halbarad, his companions, they would all have to stand strong together. They had been warned off once by the Oath-breakers in this cursed place. Candaith supposed these were not the sort of spirits to give a second warning. 

The frostbite within only sharpened as he continued further onto the Forsaken Road. With a glance over his shoulder, he wondered if Thurvi- his shadow in this lightless place- had ever felt such a chill in the Mountains of his homeland. The Guardian seldom spoke of the land of his birth, of the Dwarven city of Kechel, nor of Dwimorberg whose fell name lay like a shadow over their quest. Perhaps he hoped not to discourage his companions. Perhaps the dwarves did not venture near enough to these places to know them so well.

Candaith had become accustomed to the mask his friend had acquired in Lhanuch. The Grey Company’s enemies were Thurvi’s enemies as well-- and they knew his face. Though there were likely few Dwarves in Enedwaith, he sought to protect them with his anonymity. It was the same logic behind their ‘uniform’. Though a dwarf traveling with a bunch of Dunedain was going to stand out like a hobbit in Othrikar, Candaith appreciated every precaution. 

After all, his friend had kept the company from danger more than once. Though quiet, he was quick to action and sturdier than the rest of them. The last Candaith had seen of Thurvi before his summons, the dwarf had been preparing to head to Angmar with nothing but a large club and a scavenged shield. But the Grey Company’s odd companion out had returned from parts unknown with a dwarf-make axe of strange metal, and a shield with the unmistakable stylings of Khazad-dûm. 

It was only too bad there was no time to stop for a fire. If the Guardian could coax a spark from the bed of the Anduin, he would not be much surprised. Still, the Grey Company needed more than warmth to kindle their hopes. This was a desperate gamble, but one Candaith believed in. If they could gather this host of the dead on behalf of their Chieftain, if they could muster an army unhindered by death nor pain nor hunger-

Maybe it was not such a vain hope or a far-fetched plan! Surely the Oath-breakers tired of existing like this? Did they not long for peace? Candaith did. His kin yearned for it, as did the Eglain, the people he had spent so much time near. The heir of Isildur could bring it. He believed that. Surely the Dead- if not motivated by honor- could only see the release from their curse as gain! A swift, deathless army to bring peace to the world. An invincible host at Aragorn’s command…

“This seems to me a good sign, Thurvi!” he whispered, turning back to his companion. It was dimmer still here, but they could both carry on. “If the Oath-breakers will fulfill their oath to Isildur, we will command an army the like of which has never been seen in Middle-earth. Surely victory will not be far behind!” His comment was met with only a tight smile. This place weighed heavily on them all. 

But soon they would be free of it. Of this, he was certain. 

Another shade flickered into view before them. The Dead all appeared able to hide themselves from sight if they wished, and it was an effective intimidation tactic. Based on the temperature, this could be none other than Britou before them. Idly, he wondered if Dwarves were hardier to this fell atmosphere than Men. Candaith stopped and his Guardian friend came to stand beside him. 

If it was a show of force the Dead wanted, so be it. They acquitted themselves well, though Candaith found the glacial air sapped his strength and stiffened his limbs. He looked to Thurvi but could see no sign he was in any way affected. Britou was probing for weakness, but he would find none. There was strength in the Dunedain. Candaith would not fail his brothers. 

Back to back they fought on. Ghostly blades rang against their steel, but these Dead did not move with the same fell determination as others had. Doubt began to chip through the frost around Candaith’s heart. Was Britou toying with them? This test was little more than a farce for his amusement. What then? Did he desire proof? More learned foes than he had doubted the line of Kings remained unbroken. What would the Dead on the Forsaken Road know of the way Aragorn’s ancestors had endured?

They cared little for the living, that much was clear. They threw around insults, hurled belittling words without thought. The Dead had nothing but contempt for them. Indeed, with the bones of travelers and the plague of shades above ground, what evidence did they have that any of the Oath-breakers’ intentions were honest?

Hah. He was a fool for giving them the benefit of the doubt. But no longer! If they would not be swayed by words or arms, let them be swayed with power. 

“Hold!” He thrust his blade through yet another shade with a shout and commanded the attention of the leader of the Dead. Candaith was breathing hard. The doubt had wormed its way in deep, but he could not let it end like this. Greed was a powerful enough motivator for any Man, even those among the Dead. 

“I have the authority to command you and all your kind, Britou!” He straightened up, emboldened by a confidence he could not feel but must not let waver. "For I...I am the Heir of Isildur!"

He could feel Thurvi’s eyes upon him, as well as the attention of the Dead. The cold was like a rock in Candaith’s chest. As long as they were in peril, he could not falter, but every breath became heavier. It seemed the very air was hardening to stone and ice within him. 

Britou fell silent. For a long moment he stared, sizing Candaith up. Now was not the time for fear. More than ever, he was grateful for the mask. It was as much a shield as the one his Guardian wielded. Perhaps his and Thurvi’s uses for them were more alike than he had thought. 

"What evidence do you have that this be so?" 

Britou’s voice reverberated off the frozen walls. Now more than ever the cold pained him. Candaith tried not to wince as he drew the breath to answer. Taking a finger of his glove in his teeth, he slid it off without lowering his sword. "Only this: the Ring of Barahir, heirloom of Isildur's line!"

After all, they had been made for one purpose: to deceive the enemy. Why not use it now, as it had been intended, for their advantage? 

It was a long while still before Britou spoke again. “I see.” The cavern was still. “We will fulfill our oath at last, that the Heir may lift the curse. Tell your Men."

Candaith could not breathe a sigh of relief. The cold had taken him, and it was all he could do to nod, to turn around, to look for the relief that must be plain on Thurvi’s face. 

It was not there to greet him. Candaith saw only fear.

"But that is not the Ring of Barahir, and you are not the Heir of Isildur."

He did not have time to think. There was ice on his skin now, on his fingers. Cold pierced him. Thurvi was moving faster than Candaith had ever seen him go. There was a horrible rending of metal, and the ice splintered under his skin. Dust and rock rose up to meet him. 

There was a black and frozen pause. Trapped within a pincushion of ice, Candaith did not notice at first that he was being moved. He could clear little space in his lungs to cry out, and he could not coax his algid limbs to motion. Too many frosted shards had gathered themselves within him. They cut like glass, tore at his mind, and ate at his heart. He knew naught of what was transpiring, only that he had failed his kin. He had led them to this place of ruin, and now he was to join the miserable Dead. 

His whole body was jolted up and sideways. A single pauldron came into view. Thurvi! Candaith’s tears were surely frozen, but he felt the warmth of relief thaw them a little. It mingled with the heat of shame long enough to warm sensation back into him. There was new pain too. His back was taut and tearing as Thurvi hurried him away. With a final cry, his awareness too failed on the cursed road. 

Something was trying to crush him. A pressure bound him, constricted his thoughts. He could not will himself to move or to breathe. So Candaith struggled. The now-familiar cold had abated some, but it had not released its stranglehold on him. He had failed, but for now desperation overrode his shame. The others-- his brothers were nearby! If nothing else they needed a warning, they needed to know that no Dead would ride by their side save to run them down. 

Candatih fought to turn over. He had fallen flat before Britou in that frozen chamber, and now he must get up! He must get up or let his brothers be slaughtered for his reckless gambit--

“Fool! Be still, Candaith!” 

A hand, warm and living, reached him from the darkness. It held his shoulder with a gentle firmness that made him pause. There was no time for this! So far underground, they needed every moment to escape.

The crack of a log fire hoisted him up from the dark then flung him down into awareness. His waking senses hit him with force and the air was driven once more from his lungs. Suddenly Candaith discovered he could feel, only to wish desperately that he could not. What had once been solid ice had thawed, and his whole body burned in the spaces where it had been. He turned to push his face into whatever had been beneath his ear. Candaith was on the ground, and pain trampled him flat. 

The hand was joined by another on his other shoulder. He tried to smother a rising scream as the fire was stoked again by his squirming. 

“Candaith, listen to me.” The voice was familiar, but it was as full of uncertainty as he was. “We are out of there now, but you are lucky to be with us! Lie still if you can. If you are too stubborn to listen, it will be hard to bring you back to Lhanuch alive! We will give you…” Here the voice paused, and with more clarity came a growing certainty that Candaith had never heard Radanir more distressed. “We will give you something for the pain.”

“Radanir!” Halbarad’s voice cut through the fire and the relief was like a balm. More crushing a blow than the catastrophe he knew would have been the loss of their leader. Halbarad was the cord that held them together in Aragorn’s absence. They would follow him with the same loyalty and should he be lost grieve for him with the same sorrow. 

But Halbarad lived. It brought Candaith less comfort than he had hoped. 

“Hold him up. We must do something for the wound before we try moving again.” It was not at all what his leaden limbs wanted to hear. This time Candaith could not stifle a groan as Radanir hefted him like a sack of potatoes. 

“You could not… be more careful?” The words sounded strained to his own ears, but as his head was being rested over one of Radanir’s shoulders like a sickly infant’s, he would not get to see a reaction. 

That did not stop Radanir from having one. “And you could not stop from telling falsehoods to the undying shades of traitors!"

It brought down a deathly quiet. A popping ember rang as loud into the night as a thunderclap. Radanir had gone as stiff as a statue, and only after a long pause could Halbarad get things moving again. 

“It is a grave wound, but it might have been much worse.” Candaith could feel the sleeves of his tunic, but the back had been torn asunder. Now exposed to the night air, he wished for the blanket or cover that had seemed so smothering a moment ago. Halbarad was moving the fabric. Every pull jostled the nettles that had taken up residence in his limbs. He tried to push away, but Radanir held him up under his arms. 

“If we have to set you back down, there will be less firelight to work by.” The words were terse, but there was an undercurrent of concern nonetheless. Radanir was right, Candaith was a fool. It was becoming more and more obvious just how close he’d been to being a dead one. 

To his surprise, Thurvi stepped into his narrow field of vision. The dwarf offered out his hand. Weakly, Candaith took it.

“Distract him if you can, Thurvi.” Halbarad instructed. “We are lucky he is awake but we might have been luckier were he not- at least, not for this.”

Candaith was reluctant to meet the Guardian’s eye. It had been a rather poor performance on the Forsaken Road. He had shamed himself and shamed the entire Company. Only by a miracle was he out under the stars instead of rotting among the Dead. To his surprise, Thurvi did not attempt to make conversation just yet but began sliding up the metal mask that had long covered his face. 

Despite everything- or perhaps because of it- Candaith could not bite back a delirious laugh. “You have a line! Clear… right across your face from cheek to cheek, over the bridge of your nose-”

Halbarad chose that moment to strike. Something cold and stinging coursed down his open wounds. He gritted his teeth and tried to crush Thurvi’s hand and Radanir’s arm. The work had begun in earnest. Now, Halbarad would not stop until everything was dressed to his satisfaction. 

Thruvi pulled his hand down. Attention diverted, Candaith managed to look up. “Your cloak did not make it, I’m afraid.” The Guardian said in a solemn tone. “Alas, it was the first casualty. And my shield gave its life for yours. Cursed be the blades wielded against the craftsmanship of Khazad-dûm!”

Candaith could not laugh. Thurvi’s heart was not in the attempt at wounded pride. It was hardly the shield of his homeland, and besides that it called to attention a more glaring absence. 

Ignoring the agony behind him, he ground out a question. “The others…?” His mind flew to Linnor, his and Saeradan’s friend, to Calithil who he had last seen by Radanir’s side. Old Hodhon and Himeldir had been there as well, they who had been fraught with worry over Dagoras’ capture and thick as thieves again upon his return. 

Thurvi’s face was more exposed now than it had been underground. The mask was pushed into his hood on top of his head. Candaith did not know if his friend was old for a Dwarf, but he looked older than he had the last time his face was on display. 

“Scattered.” he said at last, “We lost all the torches as the Dead gave chase. You and I were tempting enough targets to allow the others space to run. If they were pursued to the road or to the bluffs, I do not know. We ran into Halbarad and then Radanir in the dark.”

Candaith tried to focus on the words instead of the pain. Whatever salve Halbarad had conjured burned as fiercely as his shame. Loath might he be to admit it under other circumstances, Radanir was right. Who was he to command the Oath-breakers? What right did he have to try!

There was little left of his strength. Candaith used it to first return Thurvi’s grip on his hand, and then to better support himself on Radanir’s arm. Neither he nor Halbarad had spoken again, and it was time for Candaith to acknowledge the disaster on all their minds. 

“I should never have-- I would give my life a thousand times... to be even the smallest help to Aragorn… That was all… all I-” Halbarad took his shoulders and started to tip him back. The movement clouded his vision so completely he could hardly be sure he was still awake. Numbness started to overpower him and Candaith did not have the strength to be alarmed by the empty wave. 

The void held him captive for a moment. But, vigilant Pain was quick to revive him as bandages met the raw edges of his wounds. He was slumped in a sitting position as Thurvi held him up and Halbarad finished wrapping the tender flesh. Candaith was given something bitter from a water flask, and then worked up the courage to try and speak again.

“I am… sorry-” he croaked from the ice-carved hollow in his chest. 

“If you are sorry, Candaith, I am doubly so.” Halbarad’s voice was thick with worry, and regret. “For had I not sought to make copies of the Ring of Barahir, had I been more focused on keeping us from danger, this never would have occurred.”

Halbarad finished tying off the bandages, and Candaith was surprised to find Radanir waiting there at his shoulder. He was without a cloak, as were the others, and did not waste time in guiding his dead-limbed companion to where the collected fabric was balled up into a makeshift bedroll. Far though they were from a suitable camp, he was going to see that Candaith had some small comfort. Not Thurvi, not Halbarad, but Radanir who was rightfully furious with him. 

Of all their companions, he was one of the least likely to shy away from saying what he meant. There was no quip too untimely, no sentiment best left unsaid. No doubt it was why he had taken on this task. Halbarad was too noble to scold a man on death’s porch if not it’s doorstep. And something about Thurvi’s tight-lipped expression had told him that the Guardian had seen the events transpire in an entirely different light.

Of one thing Candaith was sure: whatever reproach Radanir had ready for him would be well-deserved. Only, Candaith did not know if he could bear it. He had almost just gotten eight of their number killed in an ill-advised attempt to sway the Dead- the Dead who were known chiefly for their treachery! He feared the long night as he had been frightened of the long road underground. What if the others had not made it out? Their blood would be on his hands, and he would have to meet the rest of the Company alone with his shame.

No doubt his chief critic would be Radanir. Radanir who had been forced to flee with the others, who had stumbled across Thurvi in the dark, who must have been told the tale from the eyes of an observer- and the only one of them who could never have done the same in his place! 

Still he could not help but to look. Candaith turned his head to the side and found Radanir’s stare fixed on him. Guilt swept over him again before it was replaced by great confusion and worry. The firelight illuminated anger, yes, but also vivid fear that took a moment for Radanir to conceal. 

“I suppose I prefer you a living fool rather than a dead one.” The irritation in his tone was as empty as Candaith felt. “Still,” here an edge of something crept back in, “do not ever attempt such a thing again.”

As much as he wanted to assure Radanir that he would not dream of it- that he was shaken to find a lesson learned had nearly cost his and his kinsmen’s lives- Halbarad had designs of his own. Whatever herbs had been in the water were beginning to take effect. The pain of his wound was no distraction anymore. Already sensation was floating away. It felt as if he would dissolve if it began to rain, like dust on stonework. Candaith could no more keep his eyes open than he could leap up and begin the search for the rest of their group or to share the burden his decision placed on them. 

He could no longer see the light of the fire when Radanir’s hand came to rest carefully on his shoulder. Their companions were discussing something too quietly for him to hear. It would not be long now before Halbarad’s bitter potion forced him to rest. 

“That was a fear so cold I thought I would never be warm again.” Radanir’s voice was nearly lost to the cushioning effect of the medicine on his ears. “But I would prefer to never be rid of it than to lose even one of my brothers.”

The candor in Radanir’s words did not absolve him, but it was a balm to a hurt no healer could treat. Comforted beyond measure, Candaith could at last bear to face the night and any troubled dreams it could conjure.

[quicksilversquared]

The Supervillain Rap

Adrien has imagined discovering Hawkmoth's identity dozens of times- hundreds, even. He thought that he had imagined every possible iteration of how it could happen.

But identity reveal via rap? That’s a new one.

links in the reblog

Adrien tried not to sigh as the Gorilla pulled into the garage. His friends were planning on getting together that afternoon, and once again, he wasn't going to be joining them. It was a common occurrence, really, but this time it was entirely self-imposed.

Photoshoots and too many akuma attacks had meant that Adrien had fallen really far behind on his homework and general studying, and it was pretty stressful to not be completely on top of things. So he had made the decision to not go out this time, and hopefully he would be able to get caught up and not have to stay up past midnight to get things done this time. He had had to do it every single night now for several weeks running, and, well, he was getting worn down.

That didn't mean that he liked missing the get-together, though. Especially since he had gotten permission to go out with his friends this time around, back before he got so overwhelmed and exhausted.

Adrien hopped out of the car once it had stopped, doing his best not to slam the door when he closed it. His father had complained recently about how much noise people were making in the mansion- doors slamming, doors creaking and squeaking, footsteps echoing too loud in the atrium- and Adrien had done his best ever since to not make noise. The Gorilla spent pretty much an entire day oiling and re-hanging doors so that they would be absolutely silent when they opened, not that they had been very loud in the first place. As always, Gabriel Agreste was just being overly picky and dramatic.

Carefully- so that his father wouldn't scold him for running around and making noise- Adrien headed up the stairs. The Gorilla closed the garage door- and honestly, that was the biggest improvement of all the doors, Adrien hadn't even known that it was possible for a garage door to be so absolutely silent- and followed him up. Adrien reached the top and pushed the door partway open. Then he paused.

Because instead of a completely silent mansion, or the muted conversation of a conference call, there was music.

Puzzled, Adrien glanced backwards at the Gorilla. His bodyguard looked just as confused. He placed one hand on the door, keeping it open just that little bit, and gestured for Adrien to keep quiet. Adrien nodded- he was curious about what was going on, and if he made noise, then his father would turn off the music and probably be ticked off at Adrien for not keeping Nathalie entirely up to date on what he was doing and at the Gorilla for- well, Adrien wasn't sure what, but when his father got seen doing something that he didn't want people to know about, he got super ticked off instead of just making up some excuse.

Seriously, though, what was this music? Was his father listening to different music to set to one of his runways or something? Normally- when he was doing proper runways, at Fashion Week instead of just small brand runways to feature Adrien in a low-pressure (well, lower pressure) setting- his music was entirely classical. It fit with the formality of the brand, even if it wasn't exactly what made people sit up and listen.

Maybe Nino's music had inspired his father! This sort of music and beat was something that Adrien would associate far more with his friend than his father.

"Aha! I've got it!" Mr. Agreste suddenly exclaimed, loud enough that Adrien startled. "Nathalie, how is this for the chorus- I will win, and I will rise- all of Paris, akumatized. No more secrets, no more lies. Soon their Miraculous will be mine!"

Adrien's brain screeched to a halt, abruptly more alert. Soon their Miraculous will be mine? All of Paris, akumatized? That- that didn't sound good. But- but his father couldn't be Hawkmoth, that wasn't possible. Maybe he was just doing a Miraculous-themed runway walk and there was a Hawkmoth section.

Nathalie's exasperated sigh cut through Adrien's thoughts. "Sir, are you still working on that song? I don't understand the point. I mean, sure, it's catchy, but don't you have work to do?"

"Perhaps it doesn't seem productive to you, Nathalie, but music is good for lifting spirits. It's sure to be a morale-booster." The background music stopped, cut off mid-song. "And we need it, after the bumps we've run into recently."

"A morale- sir," Nathalie sighed, sounding thoroughly exasperated. "Is a morale-booster worth the time? Or, if you disregard the time- if you consider the chances of someone overhearing you..."

"The chances, which are zero to none. I'm far too careful for that to happen. Now, how about this section-"

Adrien swallowed hard, glancing back towards the Gorilla. They exchanged a look as Mr. Agreste started rapping- rapping!- about a cane and wearing a mask and turning the city evil, and then the Gorilla nodded down the stairs.

The message was clear: we have to get out. Now.

Adrien nodded, stepping backwards carefully. He couldn't make any noise, because if they were heard, if they were seen and his father and Nathalie found out that Adrien and the Gorilla knew...

Well, it wouldn't be good, that was for sure.

"A troubled soul cries- time to akumatize! Fly my faithful servant- dark wing, rise! This rotten cat, that pesky girl-"

The door finally shut, cutting off Mr. Agreste's voice.

The Gorilla herded Adrien down the steps, steering him around the side of the house so that they wouldn't be visible from the office. Once they were in back, the Gorilla tapped on a certain brick, sticking a key into the lock that appeared after a moment. A hidden door swung open, and the Gorilla ushered him through.

"Aren't you coming?" Adrien asked when his bodyguard didn't step through after him.

The Gorilla shook his head. He held up his phone, open to a recording app. Adrien frowned, even more puzzled.

"I thought it was illegal to record people without them knowing?"

The Gorilla nodded, swiping to the side several times, then held up his phone again. Onscreen was a photo of Ladybug and Chat Noir. Adrien considered that, then perked up.

"Oh! So you can show the superheroes!" That was a good idea, actually. If he hadn't heard the song himself and someone came up to Chat Noir and announced that he had figured out who Hawkmoth was because he was singing about it, he would probably think that they were crazy. "Be careful."

The Gorilla nodded, waiting for Adrien to step out of the way before shutting the door, sealing the wall again. There was the faint click of a lock snapping back into place, and then almost-silent footsteps on the other side of the wall. Adrien listened to them fade, his heart in his throat. He knew that his bodyguard was careful and had plenty of experience with being silent and going unnoticed, and he knew where all of the security cameras were, but that didn't make it completely safe.

"Kid, he'll be fine," Plagg said, popping out of Adrien's collar. His voice was uncharacteristically serious. "Seriously. Find somewhere safe to go. Then we'll find Ladybug later."

"Yeah." Adrien sighed, shifting the strap of his bag on his shoulder and starting up the street. "So much for catching up on homework. I'm not going to get anything done now."

  The Gorilla managed to snag an amazingly clear audio recording of Mr. Agreste's entire villain song within an hour's time. Ladybug and Chat Noir listened to the recording from the privacy of a study room at the back of the Dupont library, with the Gorilla hovering anxiously over their shoulders.

"Well, you can't deny that that's a banger of a song," Ladybug commented once the recording came to an end. She looked a little thrown off, though Chat Noir could tell that she was far more rattled than she was letting on. "Seriously, why is he a fashion designer if he can just come up with songs like that out of nowhere?"

"Bug, focus," Chat Noir reminded her. "I think there's, uh, more important things to think about than Hawkmoth's song-writing skills."

"I know, I'm just...processing." Ladybug worried her lip, considering the recorder. "Okay, so, uh, we know who Hawkmoth is. And we know who he is because he decided to compose a villain song. A villain song that seems to have a fair bit of work put into composing it. Uh."

The superheroes paused. Ladybug reached out and tapped the play button again. Chat Noir snorted.

"D'you think you're going to get more clues the second time through?"

Ladybug looked slightly abashed. "No, I was just curious- do you think those laughs are his own? Because that is over the top. And I want to say that I can't picture Mr. Agreste doing that, but..."

Chat Noir and the Gorilla shrugged in unison. As stoic as Mr. Agreste acted in front of others, he could be a complete drama queen when he wanted to be.

"Okay, so, what to do next." Ladybug tapped the table once the song came to an end (again), clearly making an effort to pull herself back and be serious, despite how ridiculous the song was. And, frankly, how ridiculous the entire situation was. "Take the Miraculous back, obviously, but we'll need backup."

The Gorilla grunted, getting their attention, then raised his hand. Chat Noir blinked, then grinned.

"You're willing to help us?"

The Gorilla nodded, gesturing again. He motioned like there was a smaller figure next to him, then made a very recognizable protect gesture. Ladybug tilted her head to the side, clearly puzzled, but Chat Noir caught on right away.

"Because you want to help Adrien," Chat Noir filled in for Ladybug's benefit, and his bodyguard nodded. "It's good that he'll still have an adult to care for him."

"Yeah," Ladybug agreed. "Okay, I'm gonna go get more Miraculous. I'll be right back!"

With that, she slipped soundlessly out of the room, leaving Chat Noir alone with his bodyguard and his thoughts. Oddly enough, he didn't feel nearly as conflicted and off-kilter as he would have expected. Like, sure, his father was Hawkmoth- and Nathalie was almost 100% guaranteed to be Mayura- but at least he had the Gorilla still. Add in the fact that the Gorilla was bound to be more flexible and less restricting than Mr. Agreste when it came to Adrien (and also more caring about Adrien's emotions and friends and general well-being), and, well, there was a lot to look forward to post-Hawkmoth defeat. Maybe he would feel differently later, when his father was sitting in the police car and heading to jail, but for now all his brain could focus on was how absolutely crazy this whole situation was.

Maybe it was the lack of sleep getting to him. Honestly, this whole thing was starting to feel like some strange sort of sleep-deprived hallucination.

Most of the time, Mr. Agreste seemed like one of the most straight-laced adults ever. Nino had called him 'the definition of a stick in the mud' more than once. He seemed hyper-competent as he directed an international fashion house, making sure that details were in place and that everything would run smoothly during shows and releases. Trying to combine the image of that man with the supervillain who sent out akuma after akuma with sometimes terribly-thought-through powers, who had managed to akumatize a huge portion of Paris once and had still failed to win, who had decided that it was a good idea to hand over the box of Miraculous to an akumatized Chloe instead of hanging on to them himself or at least supervising a whole lot more closely, who had managed to out himself because he wanted to have a villain song and hadn't been careful enough to notice that Adrien and the Gorilla had returned to the house...

Well, Hawkmoth wasn't the most competent villain in the world. Not that Ladybug and Chat Noir objected to that- not at all- but it was just a funny contrast to how his civilian self operated.

Perhaps that was because universities didn't exactly have classes for Supervillain Strategy like they did for Business Management, so Mr. Agreste had been forced to learn everything on his own.

It didn't take long at all for Ladybug to return, and when she did, she wasn't on her own. A towering man in green followed her into the room, the shell hanging on his back leaving no questions to what Miraculous he held. When he stopped, a small woman stepped out behind him. Her magenta suit was tiger-striped, and Chat Noir blinked.

Well. They hadn't seen the Tiger in play before. Why Ladybug had gone for that particular one, he wasn't sure, but he trusted that it would be apparent before long.

"These are Tanker and Shadow," Ladybug explained, stepping up to join Chat Noir. "I figured that more backup would be a good thing."

"Right," Chat Noir managed. "Uh... Shadow?"

"Because tigers wait in the shadows to strike," Shadow explained. "They seem to burst out of nowhere." She grimaced. "...and I kind of came up blank when I was trying to come up with a name."

"Ah, fair enough."

"I also brought the Ox Miraculous," Ladybug said, pulling a small box out of her yo-yo and sliding it across the table to the Gorilla. "The Miraculous of strength, though I don't think anyone besides Shadow will have to activate their powers. I can give you instructions on the way over, though, just in case."

"Wait, what powers does the Tiger grant?" Chat Noir asked, trying to wrack his brain for the answer. He was pretty sure that Ladybug had mentioned powers for some of the other kwamis at some point, but he had been really tired at the time and hadn't really remembered much. "Why would she have to use her power?"

Ladybug's grin widened. "The Tiger grants the power of invisibility. And we're going to sneak into the mansion and strike before they even see us coming."

  Unsurprisingly, it was very easy to slip into the mansion with the help of both superpowers and the Gorilla's knowledge of secret entrances and areas without camera coverage. Their team of five slipped through a back delivery entrance and through the kitchens, doing their best to go unnoticed despite the presence of two very large men among them. Thankfully, there didn't seem to be any household staff members around- it was the chef's day off, and the cleaning staff wouldn't come around until the next day- and so the only thing that they really needed to worry about was keeping their footsteps light and soundless.

Oxen was very good at sneaking. Tanker... well, Tanker needed some work. Thankfully, the house wasn't completely quiet at the moment.

"Once I have their Miraculous, then I'll rule the world! I will win, and I will rise. All of Paris, Akumatized! No more-"

"Sir, if I have to hear that song one more time today, I will walk out and leave you to deal with the Bernardi contract on your own," Nathalie threatened, sounding completely exasperated. "Morale-booster or no, listening to you sing the same thing over and over and over is absolutely maddening."

"My apologies, Nathalie, I wasn't even consciously trying to sing it," Mr. Agreste said. There was the sound of shuffling paper, and then he continued. "It's a little too catchy, I'll admit that. It's gotten stuck in my head now."

"I honestly cannot tell if that is a genuine problem that you're dissatisfied with, or just a way to humble-brag about how well your song turned out." Nathalie sounded fully irritated now. "You know full well that if you keep absent-mindedly singing that song, someone is going to overhear. Adrien is bound to be back from his outing with his friends at some point, and the Gorilla could very well pop in whenever."

Mr. Agreste sighed. "It is, in all honestly, actually stuck in my head and it's a problem now. I hoped that singing it a time or two more might help with that. It's what I saw recommended on the Internet. But that's a fair point. Singing it down here might be more risky than I thought. Perhaps I'll go up to the lair and try there."

"Okay, we have to stop him before he gets out of the office," Ladybug hissed. "He must have a secret entrance in there somewhere. Shadow, are you ready?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." She squared her shoulders, gripping tight to her weapon. "All right- Camouflage!"

At once, Shadow vanished, melting away into the - well, into the shadows. There was no indication of where she was at all, and Ladybug gave her several seconds before starting to creep in the direction of the office as well. The other heroes followed, pausing by the cracked-open door and waiting to hear the sound of any unnatural disturbance.

"Frankly, sir, I feel like you'd just be wasting more time," Nathalie told Mr. Agreste. There was the sound of her chair sliding back from the desk, and her taking several steps towards the center of the room and Mr. Agreste. "You've sang that song far too many times, that's why it's gotten stuck. Try finding something else to listen to. Something that won't give away your identity, or mine."

Mr. Agreste sighed. "I suppose. Would you mind reaching out to both Adrien and the Gorilla to see when we can expect them back in the house? I don't want to be listening to the radio when they come back, they'll just question it."

"Sir, if I might remind you of the existence of headphones."

Ladybug hastily pressed a hand over her mouth to muffle her giggles. Tanker's eyebrows were creeping upwards.

"This is the guy who thinks that he can rule the world?"

Gabriel Agreste gave a loud sigh of exasperation. "Very well, fine- ack!"

"Sir, whaaaaa!"

There were two dual thuds, and the superheroes leapt into action. In a moment, they bounded around the doorframe and into the office, landing in the center of the room almost soundlessly. Without even planning it, Tanker and Oxen took the lead, landing right in front of the fallen supervillains just in time for them to sit up, still groaning and rubbing their heads. When their eyes landed on the towering superheroes, they froze and turned white.

"So," Chat Noir said cheerfully, stepping out from behind Oxen and spinning his tail in a jaunty circle. "How's that morale-booster working for you?"

  With the help of the adult superheroes, their final battle wasn't really a fight at all. Tanker and Ox kept Nathalie and Mr. Agreste down while Ladybug and Chat Noir snagged the Miraculous off of Mr. Agreste and Nathalie. Then they were unceremoniously frog-marched out of the house and to the curb, where they waited for the police to show up while passerbys stared.

And to add insult to injury, both Ladybug and Tanker were absentmindedly (or perhaps not-so-absentmindedly) humming Hawkmoth's song as they waited. The result was both Mr. Agreste and Nathalie looking like they were close to exploding.

Upon second thought, the humming was probably entirely intentional. It was maybe a little petty, but considering the number of times that the two villains had interrupted their day and tried to kill them and generally been unpleasant...

Chat Noir joined in on the chorus. Oxen snorted. Shadow sighed. Ladybug ducked her head in a failed attempt to hide her grin.

"I'm not even going to ask," the first of the responding police officers said with a sigh when they pulled up. "Besides- Hawkmoth and Mayura, I'm presuming?"

"Correct," Shadow told her. She nodded towards Ladybug, who extended her hand. The Peacock and Butterfly sat in the middle of her palm, glinting in the sunlight. "And we've recovered their Miraculous."

"Fantastic! Oh, Paris will be happy to hear that there won't be any more akumas." Two more police officers came up, starting to handcuff the two former supervillains. "We'll take them off of your hands now. We'll let you know if we need anything else."

"Thanks!" Ladybug told them, smiling. The superheroes stepped back, the police took control of Mr. Agreste and Nathalie, and then they were bundled off into the back of the police cars and taken away. The superheroes watched them go, then retreated back into the house before any of the lingering bystanders could ask any questions.

"Will you need us to keep helping?" Shadow asked once they had gotten inside. "Because we can certainly stay and help, if needed. Otherwise..."

"Oh, you can get back to work," Ladybug said hastily. "I can come get the Miraculous later, I know where to find you. We'll just spend a bit of time looking for Miraculous-related stuff in the house so that nothing vanishes from under our noses."

Oxen grunted, raising a hand and then pointing towards the hidden hallway and gesturing towards Shadow and Tanker. I'll show them out the back way. Ladybug and Chat Noir nodded, and then their teammates were off.

"Would it be safe to assume, do you think, that all of the Miraculous stuff would be in the office?" Ladybug asked once their footsteps had faded away into nothing. She was already looking exhausted at the thought of spending the rest of their afternoon- no, sorry, their evening, it was definitely the evening already- combing the house for what was bound to be well-hidden

"I think the office is the best spot to start," Chat Noir agreed, muffling a sudden yawn. He had been feeling fine earlier, but now- well, all of the excitement of the day was catching up with him, and he was exhausted. All of the adrenaline from the discovery and the planning had been keeping him upright. He wasn't going to leave Ladybug to do all of the work on her own, though. "Dunno how we'll get the safes open, though, unless we detransform and have our kwamis do it."

Ladybug snapped her fingers, suddenly energized again. "Actually, if we could pull Nooroo out, he could probably tell us exactly where to look! He was with Mr. Agreste long enough, surely he knew all of his secrets. Give me a moment, I'll get him out."

Chat Noir blinked. Oh. That was a pretty obvious approach, actually.

"I hope he knows where all of the hiding places are, at least," Ladybug added as she glanced towards the windows, tucking the Peacock away and pinning the Butterfly to the front of her suit. "Otherwise, we're really going to be here all night and I'll never get my homework done."

"Oh, no kidding." Chat Noir yawned again, grimacing at the reminder of homework. If he had been behind before, that was nothing compared to now. Lost time aside, he was just too tired and strung-out to be able to do it now. His teachers would probably be ticked, unless... "Hey, d'you think that finding out that my father was Hawkmoth will be enough get me an extended deadline for my assignments?"

There was a pause. Ladybug blinked at him, and Chat Noir blinked back, puzzled at her reaction. Normally Ladybug gave him at least some sort of answer when he asked her questions, so what about this time was different? Chat Noir ran over his words in his head, trying to push past the exhaustion. He had just asked her if she thought that his teachers would give him an extension on his assignments because he had found out his father was Hawkmoth-

-his father was Hawkmoth-

Whoops.

"What?!"

[kriscme]

One Life To Live

Hi, to anyone still around.   Here’s the next chapter, also available on AO3.  There will be another chapter next week.   Thanks as always to Ronja for permission to write fanfic of her Hunger Games fanfic “The Chance You Didn’t Take.”

Chapter 32

Before I knock on Peeta’s door I go over my checklist.  Focus on my objective to help Peeta find himself.  Be prepared for Peeta’s questions and answer them honestly.  If he asks if I was in love with him, I’ll answer yes because that is the truth.  And if he asks if I’m still in love with him – well, that would be a problem, but I doubt it will happen.  Peeta won’t ask. Still, I hesitate.  I was so confident when I agreed to it, but now every instinct tells me to turn tail and run.  What if he does ask?   What do I say?  Do I lie?  Because I don’t think I can.  Not convincingly, anyway.   I’ll just have to trust that Peeta is of the same mind.  After all, it doesn’t advantage either of us to bring it out into the open.  And he’s sure to be sensitive to my situation having gone through it himself.  In those months of ignoring each other before the Victory Tour, he surely would have wished he hadn’t been so open with his feelings.  How much easier it would have been for him if he could have laughed it off as part of the strategy.  And of course, I know Peeta would never do anything that could embarrass me. Gathering my courage, I rap sharply on the door.   It takes a while for Peeta to answer it.  I must have caught him in the middle of doing something because he looks a little flustered.  He’s casually dressed in shorts and a faded T-shirt the same shade of blue as his eyes.  I’m similarly dressed in shorts and a sleeveless top.  Maybe we had the same thing in mind for our wardrobe choice.  What you’d wear hanging around your house with an old friend on a hot afternoon and didn’t care what you looked like. My eyes do a brief sweep of the living room before I enter.   It’s the usual setup of a two-seater sofa in front of the television and lounge chairs on either side.  I gaze longingly at the single chairs and I’m tempted to dive for one of them but since that could look as if I have something to fear I reluctantly take a seat on the sofa.

Peeta sits down beside me.  The coffee table already has been laid out with refreshments.   A pot of tea and two cups.  A pitcher of iced water and two glasses.   A platter of cheese, fruit and crackers.  A plate of iced cookies. “Who else is coming?” I ask.  There seems to be an excessive amount of food. He coughs nervously.   “Um, no one.  I just thought, maybe, that if you have the time, we could watch the tapes all at once.  There’s not that many of them.”  He indicates a small stack by the television.  There are three tapes – four if there’s one already in the video player. “Sure,” I say.  I’m as anxious to get this out of the way as he is.  Max won’t mind if I turn up late or not at all.  Our meetings at the pub have never been more than a casual arrangement. I slip off my sandals and pull my knees up to my chest in my defensive position but then put them down again when I see Peeta staring at my bare legs.   Maybe he doesn’t like feet on his furniture.  My feet are clean though.  I had a shower when I got back from the woods where I’d spent most of the day.  I hoped the stillness and tranquility of the place would help get me in the right headspace for the coming ordeal.   The effect doesn’t seem to have lasted.  My nerves feel all jangled and on edge.  Peeta doesn’t look any better. “Tea?” asks Peeta. “Thanks.”  Tea slops into the saucer as he hands it to me.  I can’t tell whether it’s him or me and I put the cup back down on the coffee table.  “It needs to cool,” I tell him.  I shift my gaze to the television.  “Do you think we should get started?”  I want this over with. “Yes, of course.” Peeta picks up the remote, points it at the television but then lowers it again.

“Katniss, before we go any further, I’ve been wanting to talk to you about the way I’ve acted since I came back to 12.  Now that I seem to have most of my memories back and can see more clearly, I realize how insensitive and confusing my behavior must have been and I want you to know how much I appreciate you sticking with me despite it all.  It’s only because of you that I found the motivation to find my way back to myself.  So, I want to thank you and also apologize for any offence I’ve caused.  I’m sorry.” His apology takes me by surprise.  It’s true that Peeta’s behavior has been insensitive – even appearing at times as if he deliberately wanted to hurt me.  But I can’t hold what the hijacking was responsible for against him.  It wasn’t really Peeta in the same way that his trying to kill me wasn’t really him either.  And I think, maybe, that in some ways I owe him an apology.  At the very least, I can’t claim credit for sticking with him.  Not all the time anyway and it had to be on my terms.   My behavior would likely have seemed just as insensitive and confusing to him as his was to me. “I’m sorry, too,” I say. “There’s nothing for you to be sorry about.  None of it is your fault.   But I don’t want to go on like this, ignoring each other and then trying to act as if nothing’s wrong when other people are around.  So I thought if I could stop being so, you know, wounded, we could take a shot at being friends.” Friends.  It’s what I expected, but somehow it still hurts.  Peeta’s not hard to read.  He’s letting me know, in the nicest way possible, the rules for how we’ll approach this.  We’re to be friends and whatever is on those tapes will be interpreted as such.  Typical of Peeta, he’s even taking on the blame for the awkwardness between us, claiming himself as the wounded party when we both know it’s my injured feelings that are the cause of it.   But perhaps the worst of it, or the best of it – I can’t decide which, is that Peeta sounds like his old self, the one who could always think of the right thing to say.  Perceptive, unassuming, kind, wanting to put others at ease.  Nothing could break me faster.  My Peeta is back.  And he doesn’t love me anymore. I blink back tears.  “Okay.” “Is that all right?” he asks, his voice edged with concern. I manage a wobbly smile.  “Of course, it is.  I’m just glad we’re friends again, that’s all.  I’ve missed it.”

Peeta gives me a relieved smile in return and turns back to the television.  “Yeah.  Me too.” He clicks on the remote and we’re transported into dense jungle.  Hot, steamy, oppressive.  Finnick, Mags, Peeta and I form a single line as we slowly tramp our way through thick vegetation.  Peeta is in front slashing at vines with his knife. I see the ripple hanging in mid-air that signifies a force field and I start to call out a warning.  Peeta’s knife makes contact and he’s slung backwards to the ground, lifeless. I steal a glance at the Peeta on the sofa.   I see no recognition on his face at all. This is new to him then.  I turn my attention back to the television and try to prepare for how I should react to what’s about to happen.

The onscreen me screams his name and attempts to revive him by shaking him and slapping his face.  Finnick calmly pushes me aside and checks Peeta over before pinching his nostrils shut.  When I try to stop him, he shoves me violently against a tree.  I reach for my bow but stay my hand when I realize what Finnick is doing.  Just when all hope seems lost Peeta gives a small cough.  I hurl myself at him, brushing his hair from his forehead, tears streaming down my face.  And then I start to sob, great heaving sobs that I’m powerless to stop.  Finnick blames baby hormones and I glare at him.   But instead of returning it with sarcasm, his glance travels between Peeta and me, his expression puzzled.   And that’s when the image on the television freezes.  On Finnick’s baffled face. I turn to Peeta wondering why he stopped the tape and see the same bewildered look on his face that was on Finnick’s. For one horrifying moment, I’m afraid he’s going to comment on the hysterical way I reacted.  He’s supposed to ignore stuff like that.  But then it dawns on me that he’s just seen himself die.  That’s why he looks so shocked.   It would unsettle anyone. “It was the forcefield,” I explain hurriedly. “I only knew it was there at the last second because I’d seen one in the training room.  Beetee and Wiress pointed it out to me.  There’s an irregularity – a chink in the armor they called it.  It looks like a sort of wave hanging in mid-air.  Not all over, just the odd patch.   We later used it to cook food by throwing it at it.” I know I’m rambling but the way Peeta is looking at me is disconcerting.  It’s as if he’s trying to figure something out about me.  Perhaps it’s made old doubts resurface of the time I tried to kill him when he and the careers had me treed.  I suppose it could look as if I tried to stop Finnick from saving his life. “It’s just as well Finnick was there.  I didn’t know what he was doing at first.  I thought he might have been trying to finish you off when he put his hand over your nose.  But then I recognized it as a technique I’ve seen my mother use a couple of times when a person’s heart stops.   If you can get to them fast enough you can sometimes get it started again. “ I grab the remote from the coffee table and un-pause the tape before Peeta can say anything.  His gaze lingers on me for a few seconds before he turns his focus back onto the screen.   I hope this hasn’t reawakened his distrust of me. The tape continues with Finnick and me disagreeing over whether Peeta should get moving or rest.  My nose is still running like crazy from all the crying I’d done.  Mags rips hanging moss from a tree for me to use as a handkerchief to mop up all the snot.   “So embarrassing,” I tell the Peeta beside me.  If he wasn’t attracted to me before, this should clinch it.   The tape ends with me noticing the locket with the mockingjay engraved on it around his neck. “Well, that’s about it,” I say.  “It’s pretty self-explanatory.  You get zapped by the forcefield and Finnick saves you.   No lasting damage.   How about we move onto the next tape?” I’m already out of my seat.   I seize a tape at random, remove the one in the player, and insert the new one.  I hope this one is less incriminating. It’s worse.  It’s Snow’s execution.  If Peeta’s distrust of me is re-emerging then this will send it soaring into the stratosphere.  How can you feel secure around someone whose job it is to kill one president but then suddenly decides to kill another?  Such a person could turn around and kill you next.  And it’s not implausible as far as Peeta is concerned.  I’ve pointed an arrow at him twice with intent to kill – the first time in the Games when he pulled out a knife, the second in a Capitol sewer.  Both times were in anticipation of him killing me but Peeta might not remember that.  Indeed, looking at him now, body tense, apprehension etched on his face, that’s probably what’s going through his mind right now.  Memories must be triggered if he knows enough to be nervous about it.  He looks down at the faint double crescent scar on his hand and runs the thumb of the other hand across it.  He’s remembering . . . something.  I don’t think it’s good. I shift my attention back to the television screen.  I need to focus.   This must be the footage that was broadcast across Panem going by the way the camera picks out the VIPs in the audience.  The voice-over from Claudius Templesmith has been edited out but the noise from the crowd can still be heard.  I guess Dr Aurelius wants Peeta to hear only my version of events. The execution takes place in the narrow terrace in front of the president’s mansion.  It doesn’t allow for a large audience – this was clearly intended as a television event – but what is there is packed in tightly.  The remainder had spilt over into the City Circle and down the side streets.  Guards and officials take their places.  And then rebel leaders and victors.  The victors have been given a prominent position at ground level close to where I’m to stand.  Peeta is between Johanna and Beetee looking slightly dazed. Loud cheers welcome President Coin as she appears on the balcony and takes up her position.  It doesn’t afford Coin the best view as she can’t look her enemy in the face before he dies, but more dramatic from a staging perspective to have the triumphant leader directly above the defeated one in a single camera shot.  That’s what Plutarch would have told her.  But Coin would surely have felt vulnerable with a loose cannon like me in front of her, armed, and within easy shooting range.   Vulnerable enough to invent a scenario to test my loyalty?  Well, there’s no sense in going over my theories of why things happened as they did.  This is about Peeta’s experience in this particular moment.   He’s just come out of the victor’s meeting believing that I wanted another Games.  Who knows what was going through his mind?  That I’m indeed the monster that Snow made him believe? I emerge after Coin takes her seat and then Snow is marched out and secured to a post.  The camera is in a close-up of his face.  There’s no remorse or fear.  Only amusement.  I aim at the rose pinned to his chest, shift my arrow upwards and release the string.  Coin topples to the ground.  Dead. What happens next took mere seconds but this has been edited to include as much detail as possible.  There are images of Coin’s lifeless body, landed face down on the paving.  People rush to her aid and turn her onto her back.  A red rose blooms on her breast to contrast with the white rose on Snow’s. Her eyes are wide open, her expression one of surprise.  Snow is literally choking with laughter, blood frothing from his mouth.   Guards surge towards me.  I whisper something indecipherable and raise one arm and twist my head to reach it.  Peeta is suddenly in the frame.  He grabs my upper arm and my teeth clamp down, drawing blood.  I lift my head and yell something at him.  There’s too much noise from the crowd to make out my words.  It’s the same with Peeta’s desperate response.  He’s pulled from me and a scrap of fabric can be seen clutched in his hand.  I’m lifted off the ground over the crush of people, frantically struggling.  I open my mouth and scream.   The audio picks up the single word.  Gale!  Gale!  The tape ends when I’m carried into the mansion and disappear from sight. Very slowly, Peeta reaches for the remote control and turns off the television.  We both sit in silence to digest what we had just seen.  I expect to be evicted from his home shortly.  Siding with Coin over another Games, shooting the leader who was instrumental in defeating our arch-enemy Coriolanus Snow – the man who had Peeta tortured and ordered the bombing that killed his family.  And then biting his hand so hard when he tried to save me that he still bears the scars. “It looks bad, doesn’t it?” I venture when the silence grows too long. “Yeah. I’ve watched this tape before.  With Haymitch.  He explained most of it and told me what preceded it.  You know, the meeting with Coin.” He runs a hand through his hair and gives his head a shake.  “I can’t believe I didn’t see it.  I actually voted to exterminate the entire Capitol citizenry.  That was the choice offered, wasn’t it?  A single Games or kill the lot of them?” “Yes.  But you weren’t the only one.  Even Beetee missed it.”  I don’t tell him that he influenced the other’s choice by voting first under the presumption that it was a simple choice of Games or no Games.  He feels bad enough already.  “But if you’ve seen this tape already and you’ve discussed it with Haymitch, why would Dr Aurelius want you to watch it again with me?” Peeta’s face turns red.  “There was a question Haymitch couldn’t answer and it was bothering me.  He told me I’d have to ask you.” Oh.  “You mean what we said to each other?”  That’s the only part of it I can think of that Haymitch may not know. “No, I remembered that.  And why I stopped you from taking the nightlock pill.  It was just . . .” He stops, takes a breath, and ends in a rush.  “Why did you call out for Gale?  After everything you’ve said about him not being your boyfriend. It doesn’t make sense.” I’m so startled I’m momentarily lost for words.  With all that was on that tape, has that question actually been preying on him? “It’s because we had a pact.  If either of us was caught by the enemy, we’d kill each other first so they wouldn’t have the satisfaction of taking us alive.” “You wanted him to shoot you?” “Yes.  He didn’t, obviously.  And I couldn’t shoot him when he was captured by peacekeepers.  Sorry excuses for hunters and friends we turned out to be.” Peeta’s face clears and even breaks out in a smile.  “I’m glad he didn’t.” I laugh.  “Yeah.  Me too.”  I feel the tension ebb from my muscles a little.  A much-needed respite from all the drama so far.  “Shall we watch the next one?” It’s our first Games.  My head is bandaged which means this happened after I’d gone to the feast for Peeta’s medicine.  Heavy rain can be heard from outside the cave and Peeta and I have no choice but to remain where we are, our hunger pangs worsening by the hour.  Peeta wonders what we’d have to do to get Haymitch to send us some food.  This reminds me to ramp up the romance angle.  I take Peeta by the hand and playfully suggest that a lot of resources had been used on the sleep syrup that helped me knock him out.   I think I can guess what Dr Aurelius had in mind with this tape.  It’s the first kiss from Peeta that had me wanting another.  He thinks it will lead to a discussion that not all my romantic responses were faked and that my attraction to him had started early in our relationship. This one is easy.  Even if Peeta doesn’t believe it was faked, it won’t be hard for him to pretend that it was.   I lean back into the sofa, feeling relaxed for the first time since I got here.   Peeta doesn’t seem anxious about it either. I imagine that I’m one of the many thousands of people who watched it on TV.  I know most bought into the romance as genuine – especially in the Capitol.   In the Districts, the romance was secondary to our perceived rebellion against the Capitol.  I later learned that I didn’t fool Snow and my fellow victors who saw through the act.  Yet somehow, they missed this.  It was perhaps the only kiss that Peeta and I shared in those first Games when I wasn’t acting. I watch the girl falter over her words.  The boy wants her to go on, his face alight with budding hope.   The feeble excuse she makes.  The boy leaning in.  The soft explorative kiss growing more confident, gaining heat.  The girl’s hands coming to rest on his shoulders.  Her eyes closed and lips slightly pursed in readiness for more kissing.  The boy’s concern over her head wound.  And her disappointment when that second kiss manifests as a mere peck on the nose.   Yet despite all that, it doesn’t scream out as being significantly different from the many other kisses we shared.  It’s in the subtleties.  You’d have to be watching carefully to see it.   I turn to Peeta, confident that the last thing he’ll want to do is to scrutinize it too closely.  But he’s watching the screen intently, his brows drawn together in concentration.  I have a very bad feeling about this.   Please, please, don’t go there.  This is not how it’s supposed to work. “You weren’t acting.”  He looks to me for confirmation. Be honest.  I want to ignore that little voice.  Tell it to go away.  I can see the yawning chasm of a slippery slope opening up.   If he wants to talk about how I felt about him then it could lead to how I feel about him now. But then I remember how Peeta was at the dinner and what he had intimated to me earlier.  Friendship is the game going forward.  He’s as anxious to avoid any talk of my present feelings for him as I am.  An honest discussion of the past can’t hurt.  It’s a necessary part of Peeta finding himself. “No,” I say simply. “Can you tell me what was going through your mind?” “Well, it made me think of what it would be like if you had died and that made me realize that I didn’t want to lose you, that’s all.” “And the kiss?” “I liked it.  I wanted to keep going.” I pause, pondering the wisdom of how much I should reveal and then quickly make the decision to put it all out there.  This is our final session.  After today, we don’t ever need to talk about it again.  I won’t be telling Peeta anything he doesn’t already know or has guessed, anyway.   “Look Peeta, most of what happened in the Games was an act, but it doesn’t mean I didn’t care for you or wasn’t attracted.  I thought you were acting too, and quite frankly, there was a lot going on, I mean there were people who wanted to kill us – to be thinking of romance.  And then on the train back to 12, I got to thinking about how being a victor would fit with my old life and it was kind of overwhelming.  I didn’t know what to feel about anything.  But I did miss you and wished we could have stayed friends.”  I put a faint emphasis on the word “friends.”  Peeta will appreciate that.  It puts us back in a safe place after all this talk of attraction and kissing. “Friends,” repeats Peeta.  He seems to retreat into a far-away place before he rouses himself.  “Your favorite color is green.  Mine is orange.  Right?” “That’s right,”  I say smiling.  “It’s what we talked about at the start of the Victory Tour when we decided to make a try of being friends.”  I make sure to stress “friends.”

Peeta suddenly rises from the sofa.  “I just need to take a break for a minute.” While I wait, I change the tapes over.  It’s the last one and I have an awful feeling about it.   It’s sure to be the kisses on the beach.  I doubt that Dr Aurelius would have left it to Haymitch and Johanna as I’m the only one who can say what was really going on.  I suppose I’ll have to be honest.  Say, yes Peeta, I did like kissing you and no, nothing was faked.  But as long as he doesn’t ask how I feel about him now, we’ll be all right.

I question the value of having to talk about it in any case.  It’s not as if the conclusion hasn’t already been decided.   Whatever happened in the past has no bearing on the present. Our purpose is to construct a wall of pretence so that we can be a family with Haymitch and stand to be in each other’s company.  We’re fooling ourselves that we can be friends though.  We won’t be.  Not really.  No wonder Peeta has to leave the room.  The hypocrisy must be killing him. I take a sip of tea, now grown cold, and start to nibble on a cracker before putting it down again.  I have no appetite and nor, it seems, does Peeta.  The food is almost untouched, so intent we’ve been on getting through these tapes as fast as possible.  Peeta returns, pale but composed.  “Let’s finish it,” he says. Finish it.  My heart clenches at the implication.  The end of Katniss and Peeta, star-crossed lovers of District 12.  I press the play button on the remote and the tape begins.

[thegayagenda-forkids]

Why Cami is important, and why we need more of her types of characters.

While everyone is watching the Cartero/Tennis Boyfriends storyline, as well as Elena’s story and Gabi’s story, I want to talk about the only openly gay character at the moment (Episode 7/8), Camilla, but to really get to talk about her, I have to dive a little bit into the history of gay characters in comedies.*

**I’m only including gay characters in comedies because otherwise my list would be too long to be able to dive into, and this post is going to be mostly about Cami.

So, the first openly gay character to appear on American TV is Steve, played by Phillip Carey in 1971 on “All in the Family.” He appeared for only one episode, but he opened the door back when being gay was taboo, and wrong, and he wasn’t killed onscreen or beaten up. In fact, he was played straight, in a way. Throughout the episode, the main character is speculating about several other men being gay, while Steve was described by that character to be “a real man’s man.” It’s at the end of the episode where Steve comes out to him, dismisses the rumors about the other men the main character suspected, and then he was never seen on TV again. And his appearance is so important because it challenged stereotypes of what gay men on TV were, and where it was appropriate to see these topics. He opened the door for more gay characters to show up.

However, it was a bit of a double-edged sword because for the next several years, the gay characters we saw were “very special episode” characters, approached the same way these characters would approach cancer, or drugs, or addiction. They were a sensitive topic people need to know about, the episode will be less funny to show the full gravity of the situation. But, gay people were seen on TV.

Slowly, people start accepting that gay people exist, and while they might not wish direct harm on them, the general attitude was still very anti-LGBT rights. So gay characters shifted on tv and they were no longer sensitive topics to approach, but a minor/recurring character who was overwhelmingly male, flamboyant, stereotyped to hell, and typically, the “Gay Best Friend.”

The true turning point, in my opinion, was Ellen DeGeneres on “Ellen.” She was the main character of her show, personally in the process of finding herself and coming out, and then deciding to have the character she played come out in a serious, but relatively humorous way. There was backlash, her show didn’t last much longer after that, and overall, she took a huge risk. But she started the first step of the process: character first, sexuality second. She wasn’t defined for being gay like every other person, with potentially the exception of Steve, was up to this point.

But Steve and Ellen served different purposes. Steve de-stigmatized the idea of gay people appearing on TV by only revealing he was gay at the end. He only appeared for one episode, let everyone see how throughout the episode, he was the opposite of gay men they built up in their mind, and then only let the hammer drop right before vanishing forever. Ellen went through four years of people getting to know her, she was the principal main character, and then she came out after. Steve allowed gay people to be shown more on TV, Ellen allowed us to get to know them.

Then around that time, let me just say this: “Friends” was pretty problematic with several issues like the character of Ross and how Chandler’s birth parent transitioning, but there was one thing that was pretty well handled and relatively holds up, and that’s Carol and Susan. Now, by no means was their portrayal and representation perfect, and Ross frequently made jokes revolving around the fact that his ex-wife was a lesbian, but they were never jokes about Carol being wrong or weird, but rather self-deprecating ones, and then the show went on to show them raising and co-parenting a young boy with Ross and they even had the first lesbian wedding on TV, and, at least in my memory, they were never sexualized, meaning that they weren’t created to be objects of mens’ desires, they were simply in love and trying to lead fulfilling lives with each other.

And now we go from the sidelines all the way front and center with the original airing (not the reboot) of “Will and Grace.” The main character was an openly gay man living with a straight woman, who had a gay and an ambiguous, but potentially, bisexual best friends (Jack and Karen). And boy, was this show the first of it’s kind. Will wasn’t portrayed as flamboyant and taking on a stereotypical job, but rather the respected position as a lawyer, owning a nice apartment, and him being gay was only used as a fact while he dated men throughout the show. People at the time earnestly believed Will and Grace would get together in the end by how un-stereotypical and “not gay” Will acted.

But acting as his foil was Jack, perhaps the most flamboyant character to ever grace TV screens. He was loud, overly dramatic, cared too much about his appearance, and his goal was to be an actor. And he wasn’t automatically Will’s boyfriend because he was also gay. He was Will’s closest friend, a confidant, and though he could be an asshole, Jack was true to himself, even if his true self was every gay stereotype shoved into one body while Will got to break those stereotypes by being a well developed and well rounded character.

From there, Gay characters are a mixed bag. Normally in tv shows marketed for people 16 and up, not for children, and typically as side characters. We get our Kurt Hummels, our Mitch and Cams, our Oscar Martinezes, and all these others. They’re occasionally the main character in a cast, most of the time the side characters, and they’re varied. They’re also more visible, and they’re popping up more and more. Now, I’m not even going to get into Brooklyn Nine-Nine in terms of Queer representation because I could go on for days about how they’ve got it, and go into the similar media and target audience.

I’m, of course, talking about “Good Luck Charlie.”

Now I know, I KNOW! It was one episode where there were two moms that showed up for a play date. But it was one of the first kids’ shows to show a gay couple, and by kids, I mean that it’s marketed for people under 16 as well. And it was also pretty well addressed. The parents are wondering how to separate the couple in order to hang out while their toddlers played at the same time as arguing over who was the child’s mother since they each only met one. And when they open the door to Cheryl and Susan, they greet them normally and the only acknowledgment that comes is the father hitting his head like he had forgotten a word and saying “Taylor has two moms,” simply settling the argument about who was Taylor’s mom. And the rest of the episode was just about the parents trying to make friends but being annoying people until Susan and Cheryl fake headaches to leave. The episode treated them not as a “Gay Couple,” but rather a couple who happened to be gay. Not even Modern Family 10 years after the pilot can act like that.

And I KNOW you guys are waiting for it: Cyrus Goodman and Thelonious Jagger Kippen. I bet if I were to take a poll right now of who’s Disney’s first openly gay character, at least 90% of people would say it’s Cyrus Goodman. He was developed as his own person first; this adorable, quirky boy who loved his two best friends more than anything and would get over-enthusiastic for anything they did or he decided to pursue, and he went through panic, then he came out to Buffy. It’s also impressive that for Disney’s first gay main character, they didn’t have him already self-assured that he’s gay, but rather figuring it out and terrified when he came out to Buffy. He was afraid of what she’d think of him, what she’d say, and how their friendship would continue, which I touch more on *here.* At the same time, T.J. is also developed from a bully and antagonist to one of Cyrus’s newest, closest friends. He faces homophobic microaggresions while developing feelings towards Cyrus until he finally finds the courage to confess and start something new at the last episode. The fact that T.J. didn’t come out as gay until the last episode does not diminish his worth as a gay character. He was groundbreaking too because he is the first gay love interest in a Disney Show (and I mean mutual, because otherwise, that title would go to Jonah Beck and I’m not sure he can be counted as canon anything).

And now everyone is focusing on Bobby and Liam on “Diary of a Future President,” which is what the writers are shooting for, but we cannot forget about Cami! She is a form of casual representation that we need more of in writing. There was no marketing for her by Disney as a gay character, and she portrays a realistic representation. She mentions her girlfriend, makes small comments like “you two are hetero goals,” and lets us glimpse into her life. And she doesn’t take over a room like Jack does, she’s there for Cami, and has a good relationship with her kids, as proven by Gabi trusting her to pick up Bobby and Liam from Jupiter. And then the significance of Cami freeing Bobby and Liam from a storage closet is something I touched on earlier *here*.

So why is Cami important? Because she is the casual representation we want and deserve! She’s not a big deal on the show, but she also not diminished. She doesn’t need to make headlines to be important. She’s real, and believable, and I’m hoping there’s more of her as well as characters like her. Casual representation is important too, and it’s important because she’s not the only queer character on the show, and the other queer person isn’t her love interest.

Hopefully I got my message across that Cami is the next step of queer characters in shows.

[formerlyrunephoenix6769]

It would seem that the RWBY FNDM is currently gripped in a merchandise controversy, namely the tshirt below.  

The discourse surrounding the T shirt has once again brought up the nature of Blake and Adam’s relationship. 

Some are supportive of Roosterteeth’s decision to pull the merchandise, and others not so much. And it would seem that those who are not in agreement with the company’s decision fall into a number of camps. 

I'm of the opinion that those people who are calling others 'snowflakes' or 'over sensitive' haven't been in an abusive relationship/situation and therefore don't understand why some people are so upset and disappointed with the RWBY Manga Women T Shirt design in the first place. 

I don't think I have ever seen an abusive relationship portrayed seriously in this medium and an abusive relationship portrayed so well, in general.

CRWBY have made it unequivocally known that Blake and Adam's relationship is/was abusive, via out right verbal cues, and abusive rhetoric and behaviours recognisable for those unfortunate people who have been in abusive situations and hopefully eye opening for those who haven’t. 

If this wasn't the case, why would so many people be coming forward and sharing their own stories and how much the Blake and Adam situation felt too real?

People who are going on about "it didn't happen on screen, so it didn't happen," are ignoring the visual and verbal cues that have been peppered throughout the series from the very beginning, starting in the Black trailer.

In a strange way, this lack of perception on the part of members of the audience who refuse to see that Blake and Adam's relationship is abusive is sórt of a meta commentary on Abusive relationships and how they are perceived general.

I'll get back to that point, but first, How Abusive RL can come about,

Often an Abuser will be charming, a pillar of the community, an angel in the streets and a devil behind closed doors. They present themselves as one thing, when, deep down, they are another.

They isolate their victim, with emotional and mental manipulation, guilt tripping,

"I Don't Know What I'd Do Without You?"

"Your Friends Don't Like Me, It's Me or Them!"

All through this stage they will be tender, loving caring, touching the victim in reassurance, reinforcing their falsehoods in an action known as handling and grooming.

"Your Parents Are Snobs, They Just Don't Want Us To Be Together!"

"They Don't Understand Us or How Special We Are"

Lying, gaslighting, and isolation from others who care,  wear down the victim’s self worth and options until they are absolutely reliant on the abuser for everything, emotional, mental and physical well being. At this point the victim is charmed and stripped of their autonomy.

Not long after this arguments will become more frequent and explosive, nasty comments directed at the victim, attacking their insecurities and the victim will have no idea what they have done wrong but they will believe it is their fault as at this point they don't know if they are coming or going.

 Gas Lighting and Guilt Trip groundwork complete.

"You Don't Support Me!"

"You're just like your parents"

The victim will trip over themselves to reassure the abuser that is not the case, going so far as to be physically intimate, handling etc, as the abuser "sulks" or withholds affection... Making the victim work for it.

Then this is usually when the physical abuse starts..

First time, it is an accident, Second time

"I'm Sorry. I Didn't Mean It"

"This Is Your Own Fault!, For Making Me Angry!"

"You Made Me Do This! If You Had Just Done As You Were Told!"

The abuser will blame the victim for all their problems and things that the victim can not possibly control. The abuse will escalate whether that be emotional, mental or physical abuse.  

It takes so much strength for a victim to leave, and no amount of demands to leave from friends will make them. 

This is in no way the victims fault.  Victims are brainwashed at this point, programmed and also absolutely terrified.

 They have been perfectly conditioned to the abuser. Isolated from friends and family, sometimes they have no financial independence whatsoever and in some cases children are involved and the abuser will also threaten their wellbeing. Some abusers may even threaten suicide if a victim ever thinks about leaving.  

This fear isn't something that just goes away or disappears. Leaving an abuser is a difficult and hard decision, depending on the circumstances, might not even be an option at the time, but when they finally do leave, with courage and bravery, it is usually by running, in a moment when their abuser is unable to follow, (some cases it's planned in advance, in others is a bolt as soon as an opportunity presents itself. It can result in changing appearance, identities, hiding in a sanctuary of sorts, and always with the fear that the abuser might find them.)

Is this sounding familiar?

Back to the 'meta commentary', unfortunately we as a society have a nasty habit of blaming the victim.

Remember how I said Abusers are often charming and are pillars of the community?

"Oh, but Person A is such a good person and does such great things, there's no way they could be abusive!"

"They are a Police officer, surely they would never do that. She must be blowing it out of proportion and making stuff up."

"His wife is 5ft nothing. I'm pretty sure he can defend himself against her. Unless he's a total pussy."

"Oh, B, I'm sure it is not all that bad!"

The thing is about abusers, they don't do this stuff in public for all to see, (unless they get really cavalier and comfortable in their control of the victim) .

Their power and control works best when they keep their victim off kilter and have all around them not believing them, so to keep the victim second guessing their own sanity and questioning the nature of the relationship.

Women are beaten to death, stabbed, shot, etc by abusive partners every day, and it is an unfortunate truth that after the fact people make comments such as, 

“I can’t believe he killed her. He always seemed so nice!”

By then it's too late! And maybe people ought to have listened?

This is exactly what the part of the fandom are doing by calling others "snowflakes" or "overly sensitive". They are belittling those members of the fandom who are telling you (often from their own experiences,) that this is an abusive relationship! 

That they recognise all the ques that the audience has been given. And reducing it to merely a lovers quarrel belittles those who have or are experiencing the same things.

"I don't see this relationship as abusive."

Let's have a look at this shall we?

In Adam’s short, he brings up Blake’s parents, calling them cowards, alluding to Blake that she is also a coward. This is something we find out that Blake actually said to her parents back when she was 12/13 (a very vulnerable age). Adam is playing on her insecurities. He also guilt trips her and then reinforces it. 

Adam: I don't know. I'm out there fighting for us, and when you fight, people get hurt. What, do you want me to just abandon our cause? Like your parents?

Blake: (worried) No! I'm not saying that! I... I don't know.

Adam: I'm sorry. I shouldn't have brought them up. I just get scared when it feels like you don't believe in me anymore.

Later in vol 2 we see Blake running herself ragged, racked with guilt about what the WF are doing, she also admits to her team, 

and she did, 

Often the FNDM has been torn about the exact meaning of Blake’s comment in Mountain Glen and that all boils down to how you perceive the exact nature of their relationship. However, a reminder that abuse can come from many places, family members, spouses, partners, girlfriends, boyfriends and even close friends, abuse takes many forms. At this juncture there is no exact definition as to nature of Blake and Adam’s relationship. 

Yet we move on to vol 3. 

This action in of itself does not leave the Abuse question up for debate. He not only stabs her but then proceeds to threaten everything that Blake holds dear. And as we know he lops off Yang’s arm. (for the sake of argument we shall ignore the under currant of Blake and Yang’s developing relationship at this moment as there is no onscreen indication that Adam is aware of exactly what Yang means to Blake, other than Yang’s reaction and Blake’s terrified look when he says,  “Starting with her!”)

(Often abusers will threaten those nearest and dearest to the victim in a bid to maintain control and keep the victim fearful)

In Vol4 and Vol 5 we begin to see the slow unraveling of the morally grey freedom fighter persona when Adam becomes obsessed with Blake and her family, to the detriment of his mission and the overall WF objective, calling for their assassination with an ulterior motive of retrieving Blake. 

Again, this control is abusive rhetoric 101. And often abusers are on the surface charming, collected and well put together in public, only for that facacde to slip when feeling that their control is waning. 

  Adam becomes almost unhinged to the point that it is commented on by the Albain brothers. That he has lost sight and has other priorities. 

At the end of vol 5 , Blake finally stands up to him, and his peers begin to see him for what he truly is, a coward who was not wholly there for the faunus cause as he not only tries to kill everyone there out of spite, but then flees. Abandoning his fellow WF members. 

And that brings us to Volume 6 where the abuse narrative is further cemented. 

Not only does he stalk her across a continent, which for many abuse survivors is all too real, he tactically picks his opportunity by waiting until Blake is in a vulnerable position, away from her teammates. 

Again, this is a tactic often used by abusers when they track down their victims. It is a very real fear of many survivors. 

Blake is terrified out of her wits. And Adam reems off yets another comments from the Abusers Handbook 101.  He tries to shift the blame for his problems onto her. 

Adam is wholly responsible for his own actions, he is a grown ass adult.  

The fight between the pair is incredibly violent. Adam is out for blood and Blake is fighting for her life. Throughout the fight he continues to taunt, shift blame and play on Blake’s insecurities. Using every tactic of the previous grooming as ‘handling’ and ‘sweet nothings’ will no longer work. This is once again pulling on the groundwork of gas lighting and guilt tripping, trying to get into her head which is a tactic often used by abusers. 

Adam: I wouldn't have to be doing this if you just behaved!

Suddenly, Adam grabs his sword and flings away Blake's cleaver, before knocking her in the side of her head with the hilt of Wilt. Blake gets knocked back several feet.

Adam: But you're selfish!

Adam knocks Blake back again.

Adam: You're a coward!

It is when Yang arrives that the situation shifts and the audience are given confirmation of the nature of what exactly Yang and Blake’s relationship is becoming and so cements and subtly confirms the nature of Adam and Blake’s relationship in the past, or at least how Adam views it. 

Adam gives it to us himself, when he flies into a jealous rage when he sees the way the two girls look at each other, 

Adam: Hit me already!

Yang dodges.

Adam: What does she even see in you?!!

This comment in of itself, and the taunts leading up to this, is not the reaction of a butthurt buddy but implies that something more is going on and  tells the audience that Adam sees Yang as a rival for Blake’s affections, therefore cementing the nature of their relationships, completing the arc that began all the way back in volume 3.   

"But, he was never meant to be like that, It was BAD WRITING!"

If anyone who isn't Miles or Kerry or a member of CRWBY claims they have personal knowledge of Monty’s wishes or intentions for the RWBY narrative as a whole or individual character arcs, can politely bugger off or provide solid evidence. 

But app Adam isn't abusive, even though there is plenty of onscreen evidence to suggest otherwise?

If you still are not willing to accept it, then I don’t know what to tell you other than we obviously are not watching the same show and a small reminder that

Abusers are never what they seem, the public never see it and the victim finds out far too late. This was alluded to in Blake's trailer when she left him, and Yang points this out in Vol 6. 

Adam: You know, she made a promise to me once. That she'd always be at my side. Heh, and look how well she's kept it.

Yang: Did she make that promise to you? Or to the person you were pretending to be?

"But they are fictional characters!"

Yes, but life imitates art and the medium is the message!

And in this day and age representation in media is a thing, Gerald!

And CRWBY could not have made the abuse narrative any more obvious! 

[remys-lucky-franc]

Sick - Queen of Thieves Fic : Nikolai x MC (Daisy)

Pretty fluffy - no bad language or nsfw - no trigger warnings

Shout out to my friends @ispookyloaf and @stopforamoment as this was a product of a silly idea on one of our fun chats 💕

Word Count ~2200 (couldn’t resist the sneezing cat gif 😂)

[[MORE]]

Remy scuttled out of Nikolai’s room with a frown and a worry-line stretching the length of his forehead. He rounded the corner to the kitchen as he ran into Daisy. She stepped back looking surprised as he exclaimed,

“Ma Cherie, you’re back!”

Daisy nodded,

“Yeah, glad to be home, was a long couple of days. Leon’s just bringing the rest of the stuff up from the car. Worth it though, think we have the mark’s movements down to a tee... Remy are you ok?”

Remy raked a hand through his thick hair and sighed dramatically,

“Non. When was the last time you talked to Niko?”

Daisy looked puzzled, concern creeping into her voice,

“We haven’t talked on the phone, but we sent some text messages yesterday... Is he ok? What’s going on?”

Remy shook his head, looking towards the heavens,

“Did he tell you he is... Unwell?”

Daisy’s eyes widened, as she stared towards the closed bedroom door,

“He’s ill?! What?! Since when?!”

Remy sighed again,

“Since yesterday. Daisy, it’s not pretty...”

Daisy raised an eyebrow, starting towards their room,

“Not pretty? What the hell’s happened to him?!”

Remy reached out, catching her arm to stop her,

“He’s in bed, congested, running a temperature! He can’t taste his food, he has a disgusting cough, a sweaty sheen-“

Daisy held up her free hand to stop Remy in his tracks,

“Wait. Remy? Are you trying to tell me that ‘Master of the Impossible’, Nikolai Stirling, has taken to his bed with ‘man flu’??”

Remy covered his face with his hands,

“Go! See for yourself, but don’t say I didn’t warn you...”

Vivienne breezed past, pursing her lips and commenting,

“Are you heading in there, darling? Good luck! I wouldn’t dare! He’s foul when he’s poorly, the only person who would brave going in there is Remy!”

Remy shrugged, a sad look flitting across his face,

“I take him his favourite soup...”

Daisy noticed his expression, but only barely, as she shook her head at both of them,

“You two are exaggerating! He can’t be that bad - plus he’ll be happy to see me!”

Vivienne waved a dismissive, if perfectly manicured, hand at Daisy,

“If you want some advice? Let him be, darling! He’ll emerge like a beautiful butterfly from his chrysalis in a few days time!”

Daisy tutted as she headed towards the door, Remy and Vivienne exchanged an awkward grimace as she gently knocked, edging it open, with a half-whisper,

“Nikolai?”

He turned to face her and Daisy tried to stop automatic recoil as she caught sight of him: Remy was not exaggerating!

“Solnishko, you’re back.” A faint smile crossed Nikolai’s face as he watched her step inside, his usually sparkling blue eyes heavy and puffy-looking as he pushed his way up into a seated position against the plush cushions, “Things went well?”

Daisy nodded as she made her way across the room, Elizabeth twining around her feet and meowing as she went, eventually Daisy perched on the edge of the bed and pressed a soft kiss to the top of Nikolai’s head,

“I’m more concerned about what’s going on here? When did you start to feel like this?”

Nikolai waved away her concern, voice irritable but somewhat dulled and nasal,

“I’m fine, I had a particularly late night last night, that’s all.”

He tossed the covers back, readying himself to stand, only for Daisy to flip them back across his lap,

“Ohhhh no you don’t. You never sleep? You’re sick.”

Nikolai opened his mouth to protest, starting a second attempt to get out of bed but erupting into a kink of coughing as Daisy grabbed for a box of tissues from the bedside table. She smoothed his dampened hair back from his forehead easing him back into the soft pillows by his shoulders,

“Kotik, you’re sick. You don’t have to prove anything to me, please will you just relax?”

Slumping backwards into the soft bedding as Daisy kept a gentle pressure on his arms, Nikolai let out a frustrated groan,

“I can’t be ‘sick’. This is quite inconvenient, there’s still so much to do for the- ACHHOOOO!! Urgh. For the heist.”

Daisy tucked the duvet around his shivering form, smoothing his hair as she told him firmly but kindly,

“The heist is already ahead of schedule, I know you like to feel indispensable, but there’s literally nothing at this stage that the rest of us can’t do to keep ticking over for a few days until you’re feeling back to normal. Just please, stay there, let me look after you? Please?”

Nikolai didn’t vocalise his answer, he simply closed his eyes and relaxed his aching head against her hand, feeling too poorly to argue any longer.

Daisy murmured, “You’re burning up, just, stay put...” heading into the bathroom and swiftly returning with a cool face cloth, pressing it to his head as Nikolai hummed in appreciation.

“Did you take any medicine?”

“I don’t like to.”

Daisy frowned,

“You’re going to take two paracetamols. They’ll stop all this shivering. You’ll feel better.”

“But-“

“Nikolai.”

Nikolai attempted a sigh, that turned into another bout of coughing as Daisy headed back towards the kitchen, she was sure there was a collection of over-the-counter medicines in one of the drawers. Remy raised an eyebrow from his seat at the breakfast bar as she entered,

“Well, how is he?”

Daisy nodded firmly,

“He’ll survive. He just needs to rest for a couple of days.”

She rummaged around, locating the paracetamol, and pouring a tall glass of iced water, “And I’m going to look after him til he’s back on his feet.”

Remy shrugged his shoulders, smiling at her,

“Of course you will. That’s what you do. You’re his partner now, what’s that expression, ‘in sickness and in health’...”

Daisy swatted at Remy’s arm as she headed back towards Nikolai’s room,

“Firstly, that’s not an expression, it’s a ‘wedding vow’, and secondly, I don’t think when those were written they were intended to cover the common cold, Remy.”

Ducking out of her reach, Remy smirked, calling after her,

“Bonne chance!”

—-

Handing Nikolai the pills and the glass of water, she watched to make sure he actually swallowed them, before heading to the bathroom and returning with a vial of essential oils. Nikolai looked at her curiously as she dripped a few droplets onto his pillow. She took a deep breath in, wafting her hand, encouraging him to do the same,

“It’s menthol. It’ll help you breath.”

“I can’t smell it.”

“You will, eventually. In the meantime, here.” She pushed her iPad into his lap, “We are going to binge on Netflix until you feel better. None of your high-brow stuff, Nik. We’re going to watch something that you don’t even have to concentrate on. Easy watching, total trash. No arguments.”

Nikolai pulled a face as Daisy reiterated while she climbed onto the bed snuggling into his side, “No arguments. I’m in charge of getting you better, ok?” He stroked her cheek offering her a half smile as she pulled up the Menu.

___

Three episodes into Daisy’s TV trash of choice, Nikolai, despite himself had become quite captivated. He could feel his eyelids getting heavier, but was fighting the urge to close them, because he didn’t want to miss the drama unfolding onscreen...

Daisy could see him getting more and more tired,

“How about I switch this off and you doze for a little bit? I won’t let you dream.”

Nikolai forced his eyes wide, blinking,

“I’m fine, put another episode on, I want to see what happens to- Dear god what is happening to me?! Am I delirious?! Maybe I do need to sleep.”

Daisy smiled as she fluffed the pillows around him, dimming the lights, and in a hushed voice, she began,

“Soooft kitty, waaarm kitty, little ball offfff-“

Within seconds Nikolai’s eyes were wide again and staring in confusion,

“What is the meaning of this?”

Daisy shrugged,

“I thought you might like it?”

Nikolai closed his eyes, a perplexed wrinkle appearing in his forehead as he settled back down,

“You’re a very strange woman sometimes.”

Daisy squeezed his fingers,

“I mean, I don’t have to sing to you?”

Nikolai murmured, his eyes still closed, voice with a warmer edge to it than before,

“I don’t think anyone has ever sang me a lullaby before. I suppose it’s not completely terrible.”

Daisy beamed as she snuggled back into her snuffly partner, closing her own eyes and stroking his chest lightly as she hummed the rest of the tune.

—-

Daisy jolted awake, she wasn’t sure quite how much later, but quickly exhaled a sigh of relief when she realised that Nikolai was in a peaceful, even if he was softly snoring, sleep: there were no thrashing movements or strained facial expressions. He must really have needed the time to rest and heal his tired body. She touched his forehead - he felt decidedly less clammy than he had before. Grinning she decided that the paracetamol must have worked. Gently she ran her fingers over his cheek , murmuring his name softly until he started to stir. She’d promised not to let him dream, so she shouldn’t leave him asleep too much longer...

A faint smile crossed Nikolai’s face as he looked up at her,

“May I have my tea?”

Daisy’s jaw dropped, horrified,

“No, Nikolai! You can’t have your tea?! You’re not drinking poison while you’re taking paracetamol?! Absolutely not.”

Nikolai started at her indignantly,

“You’re being ridiculous. Anytime Remy’s looked after me, he’s brought me my tea.”

Daisy scoffed, one brow arched,

“I don’t believe that for a second! How about I call Remy in here and ask him?”

Nikolai opened his mouth to retort, but knowing her was beat he simply muttered about how ridiculous the situation was instead.

Daisy rolled her eyes, trying to change the subject,

“Hey, how about I get some more of the soup you love? I’m sure Remy would have made a whole vat of it. It’s funny, you know? I would have sworn you didn’t like mushrooms?”

Nikolai froze as Daisy looked at him curiously, confused.

He eventually broke the silence,

“Daisy, please don’t tell him, but I don’t. I’ve never had the heart to tell him when he’s been so kind as to make the soup for me. Remy is the only person who’s ever looked after me when I’ve been ill. Even as a child, my mother would ‘shoo’ me if I were poorly. My father would always say it was a sign of weakness and tell me to show some mettle.”

Daisy felt like her heart would break as she looked at him; the expression on his face looked like he was holding himself together, bracing himself against an unkind blow, but at the same time wanting to share something important to him. She reached out squeezing his hand, nodding in encouragement for him to keep talking.

Giving her a tight-lipped smile Nikolai continued,

“Remy has such a good heart. When I was first poorly, he asked me what my mother would make for me, back at home. When I said ‘nothing’ he was appalled. That’s when he started to make me chicken and mushroom soup, because that’s what his grandmother would make for him whenever he was unwell. I don’t like mushrooms, but I always finish the bowl.”

Daisy picked his hand up, kissing his knuckles,

“Even though you don’t like the taste it makes you feel better?”

Nikolai gave her a half-laugh,

“Exactly. Strange isn’t it?”

Daisy shrugged,

“Not so much. It’s not about the food, it’s about the feelings. That’s why they call it comfort food I guess? Do you want me to go get him to bring you some?”

Nikolai’s cheeks flushed as he nodded.

Daisy quickly smoothed his hair as she headed back to the kitchen,

“Remy?“

Remy lifted his head from a glossy magazine,

“How is the patient?”

Daisy, understanding that Remy had been looking after Nikolai for many years before either of them knew she existed, suspected that sharing the soup might warm Remy’s heart as much as being cared about warmed Nikolai’s,

“He’s ok. But I really think he needs another portion of chicken and mushroom?” She watched intently as Remy’s big green eyes lit up, grinning, “Maybe you could even teach me to make it some time?”

Remy enthused about his grandmother’s recipe as he busied around the kitchen of the penthouse heating a bowl for Nikolai, telling her the perfect type of mushrooms, which oil was best, how long to prepare the stock...

Daisy nodded as she repeated instructions and asked about ingredients, finally stopping and sighing,

“You’ve been making this so long, it could take years for mine to be as good as yours-“

Remy cut in, a look in his eye that said he knew exactly what she was doing, but choosing not to call her on it,

“Ma cherie, I’ll be here to help you! We can make it together! Or I can make the soup and you can snuggle with him until he feels better?”

Daisy beamed as she extended her right hand for Remy to shake on it,

“Deal! We’ll take care of him together. ”

Remy ushered Daisy back in the direction of Nikolai’s room as he placed the soup and a spoon on a tray, following closely behind her.

[nerdiests]

you really nailed it right there, buddy!

alright!! got more @linkeduniverse fic coming your way, buds! it’s! a bit of a long time coming on my end (if you count like two weeks as a long time but whatever) and i’m excited!! 

check it out on ao3 under the same name!! 

It’s dark for a few seconds, before the studio lights up. The camera turns on, and focuses in on a man wearing a dark green shirt with a blue scarf wrapped around his neck. There’s a glimpse of a tie under the scarf, but it’s not extremely visible. He grins as he gestures at the camera, and there’s a sigh from behind it. 

“Hello lovely viewers back at home and welcome back to Hyrule’s hit baking show, Nailed It! I’m your wonderful host, Link Ellanher, and today we’ll be going back in time to a period not too long ago, where heroics were common and-” Link’s introduction is cut off by another voice behind the camera.

“Stop it with your theatrics, Warriors, and get on with it!” Link - Warriors - sighs, and looks pointedly at the camera. As he does, a banner goes across the bottom of the screen, reading, “Link Ellanher (Warriors), Master of Prose.”

“And that was snarky comment number one from the peanut gallery. Alright Legend, let’s get on with it, then!” Warriors says. The camera turns towards a fully-stocked kitchen with three separate workstations as Warriors continues to speak. 

“With today’s episode, we’ll be taking a look at the heroes of old - or not so old, in this case - and our three contestants for today will be attempting to recreate some delicious treats inspired by some of the heroes of the recent past for the opportunity to win ten thousand rupees! Now, shall we introduce our contestants?” Warriors asks, perfectly timed. The doors swing open and there’s a cloud of smoke. Three people walk out into the room, but as all three of them start to walk in the middle figure starts coughing. The one on the left stops and turns towards the middle figure. 

“Hyrule, are you alright?” the left figure asks. The middle figure - Hyrule - coughs a few more times as the figure on the right turns back around.

“You need a hand?” they ask, and Hyrule shakes their head as they stand back up. Their brown hair flies around a bit as they walk forward.

“No, I’m. I’m good. Just wasn’t expecting that,” Hyrule says, before looking at the camera directly.

“Legend you should’ve told me there was smoke, you know I take deep breaths to calm my nerves!” Hyrule says, and there’s a quiet mumbling sound from behind the camera. Offscreen, Warriors laughs as the three contestants stand in a row. The camera cuts over to Warriors from where the three contestants stand.  

“Oh contestants of ours, shall you introduce yourselves?” Warriors asks. The camera cuts back over to the three of them. It’s quiet. There’s a cough from behind the camera. Then the figure on the right steps up with a sigh. 

“I’m Link Lon Lon Junior, and if you call me that I will scream. Call me Twilight. I’m only on this show because you asked me to be Warriors, you know that,” Link - sorry, Twilight - says, and the camera moves back over to Warriors, who’s cackling. 

“I know, I just wanted to hear you have to say your legal name that you never go by,” Warriors grins. The camera pans back to Twilight as a banner unfurls underneath him onscreen, reading, “Link Lon Lon Jr (Twilight), Tired of Warriors’ B.S.” For a moment, Twilight locks eyes with the camera, before it bobs once in solidarity. The camera pans over to the next person in line, Hyrule.

“Hi, I’m Link Hyrule, and I think I can nail whatever challenges you’ve got today! You can call me Hyrule, that’s what everyone calls me!” Hyrule says, and if anyone could be the personification of the :D emoticon, that was Hyrule in that moment. A banner unfurls under Hyrule onscreen, reading, “Link Hyrule (Hyrule), Trying His Best!” There’s a chuckle from behind the camera as it pans over to the last contestant in line. 

“Hello! I’m Link Crimson, but you can call me Sky. Warriors asked me to come on the show, but I love baking too, so I think we’re all going to have a great time,” Sky says, giving the camera a smile. The same banner unfurls under Sky as it did under the others, reading, “Link Crimson (Sky), Here To Have A Good Time.” The camera switches view over to Warriors, who’s looking over to his left and tapping his foot. 

“He’s taking too long…” Warriors mutters, before cupping his hands around his mouth and yelling. 

“WILD GET YOUR BUTT IN HERE!” he yells, and a blue streak dashes into the room. A hat falls from their head as the blue streak solidifies into a person as they vault over a table and come to a skidding stop next to Warriors, not even breathing hard. 

“Sorry ‘bout that Warriors, I got distracted. Muffin?” the blue-clad person offers. Their polo is covered in powdered sugar and flour, their long blond hair is in a messy bun and they’re not wearing an apron, but the muffin they hold is immaculate. Warriors sighs, before taking the muffin. 

“As all you viewers back home will know, this is the renowned chef and baker, Link Farore, or Wild. Who’s also renowned for his tardiness,” Warriors says, turning towards Wild and putting one hand on his hip. Wild only shrugs, pulling a second muffin out from somewhere and munching on it. Twilight raises an eyebrow as a banner unfurls under Wild onscreen, reading, “Link Farore (Wild), A Literal Child.” As Wild continues to munch on his muffin and the three contestants look at Warriors for a few seconds, it’s quiet. Then Warriors blinks a few times, before his eyes widen. 

“Oh my goodness I almost forgot our wonderful guest judge for this episode. Might I introduce the head baker and owner of one of Hyrule’s most well-known bakeries, Heroic Baked Goods, Thom Ellanher?” Warriors says as the camera pans over to a set of doors. Everyone on set pauses when no one walks out from behind them. There’s no smoke, no silhouette, nothing. Warriors’ brow furrows, before he seems to come to a realization. He mouths something to himself, before looking back at the camera. 

“But that last name sounds… Very familiar to you viewers, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it’s my last name. May I actually introduce the wonderful Thom Ellanher, my wonderful husband?” Warriors says, and this time someone comes walking out when the doors open - though they look to be walking rather fast. The tall man with long reddish-brown hair bends down slightly to give Warriors a kiss on the cheek as he walks up. 

“I’m sorry about that pumpkin, I got a call from Annamarie about something that I needed to take. I thought you were introducing me as not your husband?” Thom asks. Warriors sighs to himself. 

“I was going to, but you missed your cue, hon.” Thom blinks, before smacking his face with his palm. As he does this, the banner that’s unfurled under everyone makes its appearance, reading, “Thom Ellanher, Handsome but Oblivious.” For a moment, the studio’s quiet. 

“You’re married?” Wild asks, looking over at Warriors and Thom confusedly. Warriors raises an eyebrow, holding out a hand with a ring on it, nudging Thom as he does. The other man holds out a hand with a matching gold band on it and Wild blinks. 

“Huh. Did not expect that,” Wild says, and Warriors’ eyebrow raises further. 

“What do you mean by that, hmm?” Warriors asks accusingly, and Wild puts up his hands. There’s snickering off camera, and a significant pause. 

“Well! Shall we get back on topic? The show will go on and all that jazz?” Warriors asks, quirking an eyebrow. There’s a hum of affirmation as the snickering dies out, and the camera angle changes. 

“Today, the three of you will be attempting two challenges,” Warriors says, directing both the attention of everyone in the room and the camera itself towards a door to the left of the judge’s table. It’s labeled with a bright blue “1.” Cutting back to the judges for a moment, Warriors grins. 

“With the first of these, the winner will be getting an extra prize! Baker’s Choice!” There’s excitement in the air, and Thom is smiling while Warriors grins. Wild just looks like a maniac, but that’s normal. 

“Behind this first door here, we have not three but four treats inspired by the Hero of the Four Sword himself! May I present… Four Sword sugar cookies!” The door opens with a puff of smoke, and the camera focuses in on four immaculate sugar cookies. They all look fairly similar, with each having the same face but in different colors - either green, blue, red, or violet. 

“I thought you normally had three treats to choose from?” Twilight asks from where he stands, raising an eyebrow at Warriors. Warriors shrugs. 

“This is about the Four Sword, I couldn’t not have four cookies made. And the forgotten cookie will be remembered,” Warriors replies as he turns towards the contestants.

“Well? What’re you waiting for, go pick your cookie!” Warriors says, waving his hands. Hyrule jumps into action half a second before the other two, and races up to grab the cookie he’d been eyeing the entire time. With Hyrule’s abrupt movement, both Sky and Twilight are spurred into action, and race their way over as well. After a few nudges, there is one cookie left and Twilight, Hyrule and Sky are standing back where they were before their mad rush began. Each one of them holds a cookie. Twilight’s is red, Hyrule’s is green, and Sky’s is blue. Warriors gives a sad glance over at the violet cookie sitting alone. The camera focuses in on it for a second. Sad music plays for all of two seconds, before the camera moves over to the three contestants again.

“Alright, you’ve made your choices. One hour’s on the clock… Go! Go, go go!” Warriors says, moving his hands in a shooing motion as a timer appears at the bottom of the screen. Yet again, Hyrule takes off like a shot towards the middle baking station, while Twilight and Sky move at a more leisurely pace while still staying about as fast as they can reliably go. With those three starting on their cookies, the trio of judges makes their way up to the table. 

“I still can’t believe you’re married,” Wild says, and Warriors laughs. 

“I don’t talk about it a lot, yeah, but you really didn’t notice the ring?” Warriors asks as he pulls his phone from one of his pockets. Tapping a few times on the screen, he brings the phone up to his ear. Almost immediately after he does that, he starts talking. The person he was calling must have picked up quickly.

“Hey Four! ...Yeah, I’m filming today, I actually wanted to invite you down. Why? ...I don’t have an ulterior motive, no… There’s a cookie in it for you? Alright, see you in fifteen!” Warriors takes his phone and taps the screen again, sliding it back into a pocket. Wild raises an eyebrow curiously. 

“What was that about?” he asks, and Warriors only grins.

“You’ll see.”

While the judges talked, the contestants immediately got to work. The camera focuses on Twilight as he takes a few seconds to scan over the recipe before going and grabbing what he’d need, setting it out in a bit of a disarray. He glowers at the mixer that he pulls out, before starting to sort his ingredients. The camera moves over to Hyrule, who’s already putting things into the bowl of the stand mixer as he makes a face at something. Sky, meanwhile, is meticulously checking and double checking the ingredients he has, so he can make sure everything that he needs is there.

“Sky’s being particularly thorough,” Wild comments. Warriors and Thom both nod as Sky starts separating his ingredients into different categories. 

“Twilight is as well, even if I do know he doesn’t care for baking much,” Warriors adds, and Twilight makes a vulgar gesture over his shoulder as he reaches up to grab something from a cabinet. 

“Rude much!” Warriors gasps, right as there’s a loud whirring noise and a puff of flour. 

“Did… Did Hyrule put his stand mixer on the highest setting?” Thom asks. The camera angle changes, showing Hyrule covered in flour. He shakes his head, and little bits of flour fly everywhere.

“Yep! Regretting it!” Hyrule chimes from his workstation, brushing bits of flour out of his hair. The camera shakes a bit, almost in a disapproving manner. As the competitors start in on the monotonous bits of cooking, the camera pops back over to the judges as Warriors leans on the table, the violet cookie sitting next to him, waiting for something. 

“So! Wild, Thom! How would you go about this interesting process?” Warriors asks, looking between the two of them. Wild gives Thom a gesture, and Thom sighs, before he starts to explain. 

“Well, these cookies won’t have cookie cutters, that’s for sure. You’re going to want to cut out the exact shapes of the cookies after you make the dough, since you’ll need to be precise with certain aspects. Especially those fingers on the green and blue cookies, and the pom-poms on the red one. After you get them baked, you’ll decorate with royal icing, outlining the bigger areas and filling them in, and adding the details afterwards on top,” Thom explains. Warriors nods to himself and leans against Thom a bit. 

“You could say it’s one tough cookie,” Warriors says, and there’s a groan from across the room. 

“Your puns are the worst, Warriors,” Twilight groans, and the camera shakes a bit as Twilight visibly goes through the five stages of choosing to not slam his head onto the table. 

“I know,” Warriors replies, a shit-eating grin on his face. There’s a laugh from Sky’s part of the kitchen as he moves about his workstation. He hums to himself, and even if it sounds a bit out of tune it doesn’t sound all that bad. The camera focuses in on him as he moves to grab a rolling pin so he can roll out his cookie dough. The humming only get louder as he gets to work. As the camera pans over to Twilight and Hyrule, they’re both doing the same thing. Though Hyrule looks to be having a bit more trouble with rolling out his dough.

“It’s… It’s sticking to the rolling pin,” Hyrule mutters as the camera focuses in on the rolling pin Hyrule holds. Thom raises a single eyebrow from where he sits at the judges’ table as the camera pans over. Wow, the camera’s been moving a lot, do they not have multiple cameras? Or is there just one overtly enthusiastic camera man? As if to prove this point wrong, the camera angle changes, focusing back in on Hyrule. If one pays attention, they can see an angry blond man standing behind another camera. 

“What did I do wrong?” Hyrule asks, looking up at the ceiling. Meanwhile, the blond man fumes and walks up to the judges’ table, crossing his arms. A different camera focuses in on them. 

“I’m the cameraman, let me work the cameras,” he says. Warriors raises an eyebrow. As the cameraman fumes, a banner unfurls just like for the others, reading, “Link Hyrule (Legend), The Personification of Salt.”

“You’ve been using one camera. We have more than just the one, Legend,” Warriors says. The cameraman - Legend - huffs and walks off, right as there’s a noise of triumph from Hyrule.

“I figured it out! I didn’t flour the rolling pin!” Thom sighs again. 

“Why did I agree to do this?” Thom asks quietly. Warriors leans into his side again, looking up at him.

“Because you love me and I asked nicely?” Warriors asks in reply. Thom glances down for a second, before sighing again and giving Warriors a kiss on the forehead. 

“That is the exact reason,” Thom replies. The camera changes to Twilight, who’s rolling his eyes but has a face like he’s used to their antics. 

“Been friends with Warriors since college. Helped him get together with Thom, did not expect them to be this lovey-dovey,” Twilight mutters as he grabs an exacto-knife and studies the cookie he’s supposed to be cutting out closely. 

“These pom-poms are gonna be the death of me,” he mutters. The camera changes again, focusing on Sky as he slides a cookie sheet with four cookies on it into the oven. They don’t really look like what they’re supposed to, but Sky tried his best, and that’s the spirit of the show. Hyrule grimaces from his station.

“Oh, oh no, he’s getting his cookies in the oven and I still haven’t…” Hyrule looks down at his dough and the camera zooms in. It looks a bit… Patchy? Hyrule frowns, before picking off a few pieces of dough from the rolling pin and pressing them back onto the dough. He smacks the dough with his hands a few times, before moving to cut out his little waving man. 

“Well, Sky’s ahead of the game,” Wild says as a different camera focuses in on the judges. Warriors is still snug against Thom’s side, but they’re all looking at the contestants. A camera behind the judges focuses in on the contestants, keeping the judges in frame. 

“Pays to keep organized,” Warriors comments, giving Wild a look. Wild puts his hands up.

“My kitchen’s organized!” Wild protests, and Warriors laughs.

“I’ve seen your kitchen. If it’s organized anything, it’s organized chaos. You’re the only one that can get around in that mess,” Warriors says. Wild pouts as the camera changes and it shows in quick sequence both Twilight and Hyrule putting their cookies into their respective ovens. Twilight’s have a semblance of what they’re supposed to, but Hyrule’s… Look like lumps. The time flashes across the bottom of the screen, reading 48:47, and Hyrule hums happily to himself as he walks away from the oven. 

“Cookies in the oven, got the cookies in the oven. Let’s make some icing,” he half-sings, moving around the workstation to try and find the royal icing mix. As Hyrule does that, Twilight does the same and Sky works on making his own. While they start on their cookies, a door opens and a short man with a headband walks in, wearing a slight disarray of colors but he still manages to pull it off. 

“Four! You made it!” Warriors calls as the man, Four, walks up to the judges’ table. As with everyone beforehand, a banner unfurls under him onscreen, reading, “Link Minshi (Four), Just Here For The Cookies.” Four raises an eyebrow at him as Warriors looks around. 

“Legend, can you get a chair?” Warriors asks into the room. There’s a flash of red in one of the corners and a loud groan. Four pauses, glancing at the door nervously. 

“Might want to make that…” Four trails off as a blue blur runs into the room and at Warriors. 

“Warriors!!! School let out early today so I called Four to come pick me up!!!” Warriors jumps up as the blue blur solidifies into a bundle of teenager. Warriors leans back a bit to lessen the impact and sets the teen down on his feet. As the teen bounces on the balls of his feet, yet another banner unfurls on-screen, reading, “Link Outset (Wind), A Baby That Should Not Be Here, Stay In School Kids.”

“Wind what do you mean school let out early? Today’s not a holiday or anything, right?” Warriors asks, turning to Thom for confirmation. Thom nods as Wind starts talking.

“Oh, there was just an issue in one of the chemistry labs, so they had to get the school cleared out. I think it might’ve been Four’s cousin, but I don’t know,” Wind shrugs, and Warriors turns to Four with a raised eyebrow. 

“I don’t know much about that, all I know is that Wind asked me to pick him up since he said both you and Thom were busy,” Four says, and Warriors narrows his eyebrows before sitting up straight.

“Can you get another chair, Legend? My brother’s here too, apparently,” Warriors calls. There’s a louder groan from somewhere, and Twilight looks up from the icing he’s making.

“Oh, hey Wind. What’s up?” Twilight asks. Wind grins and starts to go on the spiel that he’d just given Warriors. The camera focuses in on Warriors and Four, though.

“Well, I asked if you’d want to come in ‘cause I had these wonderful contestants making cookies of Green, Red, Blue, and Vio,” Warriors says. Four pauses, taking a look over the kitchen. When he takes a closer look, he spies the cookies that’re sitting out by each workstation. Four raises an eyebrow. 

“Did you want me here for accuracy, or?” Four asks, and Warriors laughs and shakes his head a few times. 

“Oh, no. Vio the cookie didn’t get picked, do you want to eat it?” Warriors asks. Four seems to think for a moment, before shrugging. 

“It’ll be odd eating a cookie with my own face on it, but I suppose,” Four says, right as Legend lugs up two chairs and sets them down. He glares at Warriors for a few moments, before stalking off. 

“Alright, pick a spot and put your chair there,” Warriors says. As the two new arrivals get adjusted, the camera angle switches back to the contestants. Sky’s glancing down at his icing, his eyebrows furrowed. 

“This looks a bit too thin… But I’ll run with it,” Sky says, shrugging. Hyrule laughs from his station, holding up a spoon covered with a thick clump of royal icing. 

“Think mine’s too thick!” Hyrule says with a laugh, moving back down to work on his frosting. Twilight sighs from where he’s working. His icing looks fine, but he isn’t the most confident in his cookie shape. With a deep breath, he moves to sort out the different colors he’ll need. From what he can tell… There’s nine colors. He’s going to need a lot of red. 

“I’m not going to need that much green,” Hyrule says quietly from his workstation, looking over the cookie he’s supposed to be making. Twilight actively makes a face as Hyrule says that. 

“Did… Did he just say he wouldn’t need that much green for the Green cookie?” Four asks worriedly from the judges’ table. Wild just puts up a hand. 

“This happens. Don’t say anything, Four,” Wild says. Four opens his mouth to speak, but thinks the better of it and takes a bite of his cookie. 

Time flies by while Sky, Hyrule, and Twilight make their icing. Wind tells Warriors about his day as the clock ticks down. A timer goes off somewhere, and Sky runs over to take his cookies out of the oven. Hyrule starts to fret over his icing as Sky pulls his cookies from the oven. Twilight glances over at the oven and nods to himself. A timer flashes along the bottom of the screen as Twilight’s cookies - which sort of look like what they’re supposed to - come out of the oven. 21 minutes and 39 seconds left. Warriors opens his mouth to say something when his phone rings. 

“I swear…” Warriors mutters, reaching for it. He raises an eyebrow at the caller ID, picking it up. 

“Hi sweetpea, what’s up?” Warriors asks. Wild looks over at Four and raises an eyebrow. Four shrugs. Thom tilts his head, before his face brightens. 

“...What? You need me to… I’m on set, sweetpea,” Warriors says, sounding a bit defeated. Then he perks up. 

“Wait, you know what? My show, my rules. Bring ‘em over,” Warriors continues. There’s a loud noise from the phone, and Warriors smiles softly. 

“Let them know I’ll see them in twenty. Love you, sweetpea,” Warriors says, before hanging up the phone.

“What was that about, pumpkin?” Thom asks. Wild opens his mouth to add on to that, when Warriors interrupts him, a huge grin on his face. 

“Annamarie’s bringing Amity by,” Warriors says. Thom pauses to process for a moment, before grinning gleefully. 

“Oh, they’ll love this,” Thom says. The camera pans over to Hyrule as Wild and Four start to ask Thom and Warriors what they mean. He’s staring at the oven, as if watching the cookies bake will make them bake faster. From his station, Sky glances over curiously.

“He’s… Does he not know that they should be done by now?” Sky asks quietly. Hyrule gives the cookies another glance, before gasping. 

“They’re done!” he says triumphantly, opening up the oven and taking the tray with the cookies on it out with the oven mitts he has on. He takes the tray over and sets it down on the counter, nearly knocking over a bowl in the process. 

“Be careful man!” Twilight calls from his station, and Hyrule grimaces a bit.

“I didn’t mean to knock into anything, whoops!” Hyrule says, reaching over to grab a spatula to take the cookies off the tray. His cookies look… A bit browner than they should be and nothing like they should, but he’s putting his all into this. That should count for something, right? 

“Time to decorate,” Sky says, tapping one of the cookies with his finger. It’s not hot to the touch, so it’s perfect to ice. Nice. Hehe, nice. He laughs a bit as he picks up his black icing and starts to outline the basic shape of his cookie. Twilight, meanwhile, gives all of his cookies a critical glance. 

“I know I should probably outline these first, but. Would icing the big red bits be better?” Twilight muses to himself. Thom blanches from the judges’ table as Twilight nods to himself and picks up the first of the reds. 

“Is… Is he not outlining the shape that he needs to fill in??” Wild asks, confused. Warriors looks over at Twilight, who locks eyes with him and winks. 

“That shithead! He’s doing it on purpose!” Warriors says angrily, narrowing his eyes. Twilight only winks again and goes back to icing his cookie. 

Hyrule, meanwhile, has also started icing his cookie. But it’s clear from the look of distress on his face that he did not think this through. 

“I’m out of green!” he mutters to himself, looking at all the other colors he has. There’s still some white left, right? Yes. But there’s not… Fuck it. Hyrule takes half of the white and dumps it into the green icing bag, hoping that the colors will work out right. 

“Alright, there’s seven minutes left on the clock everyone! Let’s get those cookies decorated!” Warriors says. Hyrule balks, and Sky looks down at his cookies. He’s only just finished the basic outlines, he… Might need to hurry a bit more. Twilight, meanwhile, grabs an inverted spatula and starts spreading the royal icing on his cookie. Warriors grimaces as Twilight locks eyes with him and grins. Goddesses. Why this. 

“This isn’t what I wanted today, goodness,” Warriors mumbles, leaning into Thom’s side more. Thom doesn’t say anything, he just stares at the atrocities against baking that both Twilight and Hyrule are committing. 

“We just need for Amity to get here, pumpkin. Everything will be fine,” Thom replies, and Warriors hums. The camera switches over to look at Hyrule, who’s grown worried again. The icing did… Not do what he’d hoped. 

“Aw beans,” Hyrule mutters, continuing to ice the cookie because what else can he do? Leave it un… Wait. This could work for him. He could get like. Those green sour candies and put those on top of the icing that could work? With a nod, Hyrule finishes putting the white icing on rapidly and runs off to the pantry. The camera follows him as he tears across the room, looking through the candies until he finds the green sour strips he was searching for. With a triumphant cry, he makes his way back to his cookie and starts layering the green strips over where they should go - the white parts of the icing. 

“What is he… Is he using sour candies?” Four asks, sounding concerned. Wild nods, giving them a critical eye.

“It could turn out okay, but I’m not thinking it will. Sour won’t pair well with the cookie or the icing,” Wild says. Thom nods as Warriors gives another glance at the clock and sighs loudly. 

“Oh thank the goddesses there’s only two minutes left! Finish icing your cookies you heathens!” Warriors says. There’s a swear from Twilight’s general direction, while Sky smiles down at his cookies. They don’t look good, but they look sort of what they’re supposed to look like! All he needs to do is add the final details and everything will be stellar. Hyrule’s also confident in his cookies because he did, in fact, have enough icing for the other colors. It was just a grievous oversight on his part to not make enough green. 

“I’m not a heathen!” Hyrule calls back, fiddling with the sour candies so they can make a semblance of the hair on the cookie. 

“You’re committing baking crimes, Hyrule,” Legend’s voice comes out of nowhere, and Hyrule whirls around. Legend stands in the doorway to the pantry, and Hyrule stares at him for a few seconds.

“You burnt cookies one time Legend. They caught on fire,” Hyrule replies evenly, and Warriors’ eyebrows raise into his hair. 

“I am so glad you’re not baking, Legend,” Wild comments, and Legend glares at Wild for a few seconds, before flipping him off and walking off into the void where cameras don’t reside. Wild blinked for a few seconds, before turning back to the other judges.

“Well, that happened,” he says. Hyrule, meanwhile, looks into the nearest camera like he’s on the Office. Warriors laughs, before looking at the clock again. Well, that’s bad news for the contestants here! At least they’re all almost done!

“Five seconds! Four, three, two and one put it down you’re done!” Warriors yells. Hyrule drops his icing bag in a hurry, while Sky calmly sets his stuff down. Twilight stares at the cookies, giving his horrible icing job a once-over. Then he sighs. 

“Alright, come and bring us judges your tasty treats!” Warriors says, Before any of them can start moving to the center of the room, there’s a gasp from across the room. The camera pans over to a very small child, who immediately starts running across the room.

“Papa!” the small child yells, grinning and jumping into Warriors’ arms. Warriors spins them around, a grin on his face. 

“You have a kid?” Wild asks, incredulous. 

“Yeah! My name’s Amity!” the kid in Warriors’ arms says. Another banner unfurls onscreen, this one reading, “Amity Ellanher, A Literal Six-Year-Old.” Wild blinks, and Amity wriggles a bit in Warriors’ hold before spotting Twilight. 

“Oh!!! Uncle Dog Man!!!” Amity says happily, and Twilight smiles at Amity. 

“Did you bring any of your dogs with you Uncle Dog Man?” Amity asks curiously. Twilight laughs, before shaking his head. 

“No, I couldn’t bring any of the boys with me today, they’d try to get into the food,” Twilight replies. Amity starts to pout, but Thom taps Warriors on the shoulder and gestures for him to pass Amity over. 

“Daddy!!” Amity cries, reaching their arms out towards Thom as he takes them from his husband’s arms. 

“Hi there, my little hero,” Thom says, and Amity grins. One of their front teeth is missing, but it’s all the more endearing. 

“Alright well. We need to judge these cookies. Amity, honey, I don’t think you’ll want these,” Warriors says. Amity shakes their head. 

“No! I want a cookie! Can I have some?” Amity asks. Warriors pauses. Hyrule, for his part, immediately whirls around and plucks up his cookie that he’d been using as a model. 

“They can have this one? It won’t be as bad as mine are going to be,” Hyrule says. Amity pauses for a few seconds, before shaking their head. 

“No! I want one of your cookies! I love you and I want one of your cookies!” Amity says, smacking their little hands into Thom’s arm. Warriors pauses. Thom also pauses. Actually, everyone pauses. 

“I… I suppose?” Warriors eventually says. Amity throws their hands into the air, nearly smacking Thom in the face. There’s a big grin on their face as the group of four walks over to Twilight with his cookies. 

“Alright Twilight. You were trying to recreate this cookie here, let’s see what you did!” Warriors says. Twilight, without any fanfare, takes the glass covering off the cookies. 

“Nailed it,” he says in a deadpan. Thom immediately grimaces, despite hoping he wouldn’t. Wild, on the other hand, busts out laughing. The cookies have seen better days. Red is oozing everywhere, and there’s barely a defined face. The pom-poms are the only thing that actually look vaguely like pom-poms. 

“I’m… I don’t have words for this..!” Wild wheezes, and Twilight just rolls his eyes. Warriors gives it a level look, while Thom schools his face to not look like he just saw someone deliberately stepping on a cat. 

“So… You took the unstructured approach?” Thom asks. Twilight shrugs. 

“Man, I just wanted to see if I needed to outline my cookies. Turns out I did,” Twilight says. Thom pauses again, while Amity reaches for one of the cookies. 

“I want one! Uncle Dog Man made one, I want one!” Amity says excitedly. Twilight laughs a bit, as Wild recovers from his laughing fit. 

“Well. Let’s try it, shall we?” Warriors asks. Twilight nods, and all three of the judges convene on the plate like hungry… Judges. For lack of a better word. Warriors breaks off one of the pom-poms and takes a bite. His eyes widen as he chews, and he gives Twilight a look as the other judges go and eat. 

“That was really good, Twi, where in the world have you been hiding that baking ability? Jeez!” Warriors chides playfully. Twilight laughs as Wild raises an eyebrow and Thom nods to himself. Amity makes another grabby-hands motion, and Thom breaks the other pom-pom off for them. They grin while they eat the piece of cookie. 

“Yummy!! Uncle Dog Man can you make me cookies sometime??” Amity asks. Twilight’s laughs grow louder, but he nods through them. 

“That cookie was surprisingly good. Not too tough and dry. The icing was a bit… Too sugary for my tastes, but I can’t point out too much wrong with it other than how it looked,” Thom says. Wild nods, motioning his head towards Thom. 

“Yeah, I definitely agree. Really enjoyed it, but it could’ve been better,” Wild adds. Warriors shrugs. 

“Already said my piece man. Alright… Next!” Warriors says, and the quartet moves down the line to Hyrule. Hyrule bounces from foot to foot anxiously, and as the judges stop he attempts to stop moving but his hands start moving instead. Ah, anxiety. Hate it. 

“Alright, Hyrule! Here’s the cookie you were trying to make, let’s see what you did!” As Hyrule attempts to stop his fidgeting, he grabs the glass cover and pulls it off, his hand shaking a bit. 

“Nailed it!” he says, voice wavering a bit. There’s a pause in the room, before Wild takes a step forward and gives the cookie a critical eye. It doesn’t really look like it should, there’s not enough green, and… What is that? On the icing for the hair?

“Is that… Sour candy on the icing?” Wild asks slowly. Hyrule nods, shaking a bit. Before he can speak, Amity smacks Thom’s arm.

“Let me down! I want to give Mr. Hyrule a hug!” Amity says. Hyrule smiles shakily as Thom sets Amity down. Amity immediately runs for Hyrule and takes his hand before hugging his legs.

“You’ll be okay! I’ll stand here with you, okay?” Amity asks. Hyrule’s smile is a bit less shaky as he smiles. Amity continues to stand next to Hyrule, one hand holding Hyrule’s, and the other attached to the arm wrapped around Hyrule’s leg as they hug him. The camera focuses there for a moment, and on screen a few sparkles fly across the screen. 

“Let’s try this sweet and sour creation, shall we?” Warriors poses. Thom and Wild nod, and each of them break off a piece. They all make sure to get a piece with a bit of sour candy. When Warriors puts it in his mouth, he chews for a moment, contemplating. 

“The sour candy does not help with flavor,” Warriors comments after swallowing his bite of cookie. Thom nods, but Wild shrugs. 

“You know I’ll eat pretty much anything. I can say the candy doesn’t particularly… Work as well as you probably thought it would, but it’s an interesting mix!” Wild says. Amity reaches up for a piece of the cookie, looking up at Hyrule as if they’re asking permission. Hyrule nods, and Amity breaks off a piece of the cookie and puts it in their mouth. 

“Yummy!! Sour candy!!” Amity says, continuing to munch happily on their piece of cookie. 

“The texture is… A bit cakey,” Thom comments, and Hyrule’s hopes appear to raise for a moment. 

“But that’s not really what you’d want from a cookie. Maybe try not getting as much air when you cream together the sugar and the butter, or watch how much flour you’re putting in,” Thom continues. Wild nods. 

“I noticed you were just putting everything together in your stand mixer, did you separate your ingredients?” Wild asks. Hyrule gives a slight shake of his head. 

“Maybe… Try that, next time,” Wild advises. Hyrule nods. 

“Alright. Thank you very much, Hyrule, now onto our last competitor!” Warriors says. Hyrule glances down at Amity, who shakes their head and clutches onto his hand tighter. Hyrule gives the six year old a watery smile, and they grin back. Now that is an adorable sight. 

“Alright, Sky, here’s the cookie you were trying to recreate… Let’s see what you did!” Warriors says. Sky lifts the glass cover with a slight flourish, moving his hand to indicate the cookie that sits on the plate. 

“Nailed it!” Sky says happily. Warriors’ eyebrows raise above his head. These cookies look a bit off from how they should, and the icing colors are off (the gold looks brown and the tan looks a bit… yellow) but the structure?

“This… Wow,” Warriors says, giving the cookie an interested look. 

“The colors are off, but the structure is good. It looks like it’s supposed to, for the most part,” Wild comments. Thom nods. 

“It’s good, for having had an hour to do. You’ve got to have good time management to do something like this,” Thom says. Sky smiles. 

“I like to think I’m good at managing time,” he says. 

“Well. We should probably eat this,” Warriors says. He glances over at Amity and the camera pans over to Amity refusing to let go of Hyrule’s leg. Their smaller hand is still holding onto Hyrule’s, and he’s laughing quietly at something Amity said. Amity doesn’t look back at their papa when he speaks, they’re focused on the story they’re telling. 

“Alright, let’s munch then!” Wild says, reaching forward and breaking off the moderately-well iced hand at the top of the cookie. He takes a bite as the others snap their own pieces off the cookie. 

“It’s… Tough,” Wild says, looking down at the cookie with a slight disappointment. Warriors and Thom take their own bites of cookie, pondering for a moment. As Thom finishes chewing his bit of cookie, Warriors is still chewing and making a face. 

“How long did you put these in the oven for?” Thom asks. Sky puts a hand on his chin, thinking for a moment. 

“Uh… There wasn’t a specific time on the recipe, so I guesstimated?” Sky replies. Wild facepalms. There’s laughing a bit further down the line, and it sounds a bit like Twilight. The camera only fixates on Sky’s confused face. 

“Is that bad?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

The room goes quiet for a few seconds. Thom, Warriors, and Wild all lock eyes. 

“But other than that, it’s a pretty good cookie. Try and… Not guesstimate next time,” Thom advises. Sky nods. Then Warriors claps his hands together. 

“Alright! Us judges have come to a decision! Come on and shuffle on down this way!” he says. Amity looks up at Hyrule as he doesn’t move. 

“I can walk with you Mr. Hyrule! If you want!” Amity says, taking Hyrule’s hand and leading him down to where Sky stood. The camera pans over to Warriors and Thom, who both have slight tears in their eyes. 

“Our baby’s being such a sweetheart,” Warriors says, giving the softest of smiles. Thom nods. 

“They’re our kid, pumpkin. I bet they got it from me,” Thom replies. Warriors gasps and shakes his head. 

“They did not get it from you, they heard you call me one of the no-no words last week!” Warriors replies, and Thom places a hand over his heart. Before they can continue their “argument,” Wild clears his throat.

“Are we not going to announce the winner of round one?” Wild asks. Warriors coughs, and Thom straightens his collar, before they all turn towards the three contestants and one six year old. 

“The winner of this round is… Sky!” Thom says cheerfully. Sky’s eyes widen at the declaration, and Legend starts to roll a cart out. Barely in frame, Amity squeezes Hyrule’s hand a bit. 

“And with this round, you get a very special prize… You’ll be the star of any decorating club with this… 263 piece decorating set!” Warriors announces as Legend continues to push the cart. He tosses something to Warriors, which he catches flawlessly behind his back.

“Not only that, but you get the rockin’... Gold chef’s hat!” Warriors continues, pulling out a gold and sparkling chef’s hat from behind his back and walking up to Sky and crowning him with the bedazzled hat. 

“Now Twilight and Hyrule both know who to look out for. Now… Follow us on over to! Door! Number! Two!” Warriors grinned as he started power-walking to the door to the right of the judges’ table emblazoned with a “2” in the same manner as the first door was. The camera follows after him, as the rest of the judges started walking towards the door as well. The contestants followed, and Amity still refused to let go of Hyrule’s hand. 

“Alright! So this next round is called Nail It or Fail It! With this challenge, we’ll be asking you to go above and beyond the past round. As all of you know, there are multiple heroes within recent memory. And within this recent memory, one of those heroes was married. Let’s see how y’all fare at recreating the one, the only… Hero of Time’s wedding cake!” As Warriors finishes speaking, the door opens with a flourish. A four-tiered cake covered in caramel and flowers is revealed as smoke pours out onto the floor. Hyrule and Sky’s jaws drop, but Twilight locks eyes with Warriors. There’s an anger there, and Warriors only grins back. 

“This twelve tiered cake is a masterpiece befitting a hero of the era, with four main tiers made of three layers of cake each, covered with just the right amount of buttercream, and caramel artfully drizzled down the sides. The flowers are made of fondant, and you’ll have to make those yourselves,” Thom explains. Warriors’ shit-eating grin only grows larger. Twilight’s glare grows sharper. 

“But don’t worry, y’all’ll be getting a bit of help in this round. Each of you will be getting a panic button, where one of our two judges will come over and help you for three minutes! And Hyrule, since you had a bit of trouble in the last round, you’re getting something extra,” Warriors says. Amity glances at Warriors curiously as Hyrule tilts his head to the side slightly. 

“You’ll be getting the “Running Wild” button. At any time, you can press it and Wild here will go and bug your opponents for three minutes,” Warriors continues. Wild grins at Twilight, for some unknown reason, and Twilight grimaces, breaking the glaring contest with Warriors. 

“Alright, bakers! You’ve got two hours on the clock! Go! Go, go go! You don’t have all day!” Warriors says rapidly. Twilight and Sky rush off, and Hyrule glances down at Amity for a moment. 

“I’m gonna go sit with my papa now, but you’re gonna make the bestest cake! I love you Mr. Hyrule!” Amity says, before letting go of Hyrule’s hand and running over to sit at the judges’ table. Warriors makes to go call for Legend to grab a chair when they just clamber up into his lap like a little monkey. How cute. 

As the trio of bakers get to work, the camera focuses on the judges as Amity gets settled in their papa’s lap and does a little happy wiggle. Warriors grins down at them and ruffles their hair. 

“Aaah!! Papa, no!!!” Amity protests, giggling all the while. Thom smiles softly at his husband and their youngest. 

“So. Wild, how would you go about making a cake like this?” Thom asks curiously. Wild pauses to think for a moment, and Wind watches him intently. 

“Well, I’d definitely make sure that the cakes were all done right - though I’m not sure if they’ll be able to do all twelve tiers between their two ovens-” Wild is interrupted by Warriors chiming in. 

“Oh, they can, I had Legend test earlier,” Warriors says. Legend peers out from the first set of doors and glares at Warriors for a second before disappearing into the cameraless void. 

“That’s cleared up then. If I can fit all the cakes in the ovens, once they’re baking I’d start making the buttercream icing, caramel, and the fondant decorations. Airspraying the fondant might end up being more effective than coloring the fondant itself, but that comes with its own risks. I’d go the long route, even if it’s more tedious. I’m just hoping that the air isn’t filled with the smells of burning sugar in a bit,” Wild says. Thom nods. With that, the camera pans over to the three contestants. Hyrule is reading over the recipe a bit more, while Sky is grimacing.

“I’m going to need. Multiple stand mixers,” he mutters to himself. Twilight is glaring at the recipe, and glaring over at the stand mixers. 

“I’m going to need how many eggs??” Hyrule asks confusedly from his station. 

“This is too much cake,” Twilight says in a deadpan. Warriors laughs from up at the judges’ table.

“That’s the point!” he says with a grin on his face. 

“I hate you,” Twilight grumbles, and Warriors’ laughing only grows louder. The contestants continue to work on getting all their ingredients together, and as the stand mixers start to whir, Amity starts to fidget. 

“Oh! Amity!” Wind says, catching the six-year-old’s attention. With a curious glint in their eye only a small child could get, they tilt their head curiously. 

“You wanna hear about the dog I got to see at school today?” Wind asks. Amity sits up ramrod straight and nods vigorously, As Wind starts to weave a tale of the goodest of girls, the camera pans back over to Hyrule, who’s vigorously cracking eggs into separate bowls. He has two stand mixers set up - as does everyone else - and he’s attempting to get his eggs cracked into a separate bowl before he goes and actively starts mixing. An improvement from the last round, at least. Sky, meanwhile, is working on adding his wet ingredients to the dry, while Twilight is just… What is Twilight even doing? He certainly doesn’t know what he’s doing. The camera tilts a bit, before moving back to Hyrule. He looks like he’s humming something to himself. 

“Baking cakes, gonna bake some cakes, yeah!” Hyrule sings quietly to himself as he shimmies slightly in place and the mixers work their magic. There’s a quiet laugh behind the camera - is Legend camera-manning again? Who knows. 

“This is the worst idea you’ve had, Warriors!” Twilight calls from his station. The camera angle changes, and oh, look at that. Twilight is covered in flour. It got all over his hair, now he looks more bleach blond than dirty blond. Funny. 

“Not at all!! It’s the greatest for multiple reasons!” Warriors calls back, laughing as he does. Twilight glowers at him, before going back to angrily sorting through his ingredients. Warriors’ laughter only grows louder. 

In no time at all, the contestants are getting their cakes into the oven in a slightly precarious manner, and Wind has changed from talking about his school day to talking about a new book he’s been reading for one of his classes, about dragons. A timer declares they have around an hour and a half left. 

“Alright, let’s make this caramel,” Hyrule mutters to himself as the camera moves around the room. He reads over the directions and frowns to himself. 

“Heat over the stove? But… You know what, I’ll make the icing,” Hyrule mutters again, moving around to make the buttercream instead. Twilight, in the meantime, is grinning as he stirs a pot over his stovetop. 

“The only thing that I’m confident in making,” Twilight says, stirring a spoon as he glances down at the sugary mixture contained in it. Sky’s reading over his recipe, and nods to himself as he moves to go grab both the ingredients for caramel and buttercream.

“Oh, that’s smart. He’s making both the buttercream and caramel at the same time,” Wild comments. 

“Saving time, but he needs to be careful,” Thom adds, and Wild nods.

“Yeah. If he’s not careful, he could mess up the buttercream by overwhipping it if he doesn’t keep an eye on it, or he could burn the caramel and that would stink,” Wild says. Four nods solemnly from where he sits, and Wild raises an eyebrow. 

“How would you know that?” he asks. Four stares at him for a moment. 

“Shadow wanted to try cooking. He burnt chocolate and sugar, it smelled disgusting,” Four says in a deadpan. The camera focuses in on Four’s face, and he stares into the camera disarmingly. 

“I couldn’t get the smell out of the house for two months, Wild. Two months,” Four says. The room is quiet, other than the sound of stand mixers whirring. 

“That sounds stinky!” Amity pipes up, and the camera pans over to Amity’s wrinkled-up face. It’s adorable. But all six year olds are. 

“It was, Amity. So, horribly stinky,” Four says. Amity nods. 

“Hmm hmm hmmmm, making buttercream,” Hyrule hums as the camera changes. The stand mixer is whirring, and he’s slowly keeping an eye on how he’s putting everything in. A notable improvement from the last round. There’s a loud sigh, and the camera pans over to Twilight, who’s lifting his spoon up and letting caramel drip from it. Perfectly golden brown. 

“How’d you do that?” Hyrule calls, looking at the masterpiece from where he’s making his buttercream.

“Just keep an eye on it!” Twilight replies. Hyrule pauses, takes a look down at his buttercream, before nodding and deeming it sufficient. Time to work on the caramel, he guesses. Right as Hyrule starts on his caramel and Twilight starts on the buttercream, there’s a rancid smell that starts to make itself known.

“Oh hell no,” Four says, standing up and starting to walk out. Wind, who he’s sat next to, shakes his head. 

“You’re staying, you’re my ride back home, Warriors can’t take me,” Wind says in a rush. Four looks at him.

“Sky just burnt his caramel I don’t want to smell that,” Four says, right as Amity starts to wrinkle their nose and look up at Warriors with confusion.

“Papa it smells bad!! I don’t like it!!” Amity says. Warriors sniffs, and immediately regrets it if the look on his face is anything to go by. 

“Oh goddesses, we need to get some fans in here. Legend can you please get some fans?” Warriors calls. Legend pops out of nowhere, wrinkles his own nose, and runs off to presumably get something to get that smell out of mind. Two seconds later, the sound of the ventilation gets louder, and a fan sound makes itself known, whirring loudly. 

“Thank you Legend!” Warriors calls. There’s no reply, but no one needs it. The acrid smell slowly leaves, right as Sky turns around and grimaces.

“Oh goddesses, I burnt my caramel!” Sky says, running over to the pot and immediately turning off the heat and taking the pot off the stove. 

“I’m not going to have time to make more of it, oh no,” Sky mutters as he fills the pot with water and puts it in the sink. This is going to be abysmal. He could always make a little bit and make an extra batch of buttercream and flavor it with the caramel and try that? Sky nods to himself, deciding to try being innovative. 

“Oh, that’s what that smell was!” Hyrule says as he starts moving his caramel off the stove and heads towards the ovens to pull out his cakes. At least he remembered to grease the pans this time! That’s a crucial step, and he remembered it! Hyrule’s so proud of himself. As Twilight finishes up his buttercream and takes a glance at the oven, he rushes over to pull all his cakes out as well. Sky follows soon after, and a timer along the bottom of the screen reads 59:52. 

“One hour left everyone! Oooooone hour!” Warriors calls while Amity messes with his scarf. Hyrule nods as he sets his cakes down one by one and starts assembling his cake. Buttercream between the layers, making sure the cakes are evenly spaced… Would he need cake boards? Hm. 

Twilight, meanwhile, was also putting his cake together, though he wasn’t putting all four mock layers together yet. Each stack of three was set aside as he places each on a cake board and takes dowel rods and put three in each cake. Now he’d know where to place each cake. As he let his cakes sit off to the side, he turns on one of the burners on the lowest heat he could possibly get it and puts the caramel back on it. It needed to be a bit warm if he wanted his plan to work. Now, with that out of the way, it was fondant time. 

And Sky? He was just a disaster. He was leaving another mixer with more buttercream in it running, making more caramel on the stove, and was glancing at the oven anxiously. After a few more anxious seconds, Sky moves the caramel off the hot burner with a nod and dashes over to grab his cakes, almost forgetting to grab an oven mitt in his rush. 

“You doing alright?” Hyrule calls over, giving Sky a curious look. 

“Fantastic!” Sky replies, carrying two cakes and setting them down on the counter, before going back for more. As all the cakes are laid out, Sky starts applying the same technique that Twilight is, and starts putting each mock layer together with cake boards and dowels. 

There’s a triumphant cry from Hyrule’s station, and the camera pans over to see six layers of cake stacked on top of one another. As Hyrule turns to go and grab the next cake board, however, the camera zooms in as the top three layers start to sink.

“Oh no,” Thom whispers from the judges’ table, drawing the rest of the table’s occupants to what’s happening. 

“Oh no indeed,” Wild says quietly. Right as Hyrule turns back around, the top three layers fall into the lower three, smushing the bottom three layers. Hyrule stares for a moment, before his eyes start to water. In a panic, he smacks one of his two buttons and Warriors and Wild lock eyes. 

“Running Wild!” Warriors says, and as Wild vaults over the judges’ table and a timer next to the graphic of the Running Wild button with 3:00 appears on screen, Twilight locks eyes with Warriors. Meanwhile, Amity is wriggling in Warriors’ lap, and manages within a few seconds to wriggle their way out and starts running over to Hyrule. They reach him right as Wild reaches Sky and starts to bug him. 

“Oooooo!! What’re you up to?? That’s a lot of buttercream can I have some I want some!” Wild says. Sky sighs quietly, attempting to ice his cakes. Twilight watches with trepidation, while Amity grabs Hyrule’s hands in their smaller ones. 

“Mr. Hyrule it’s gonna be okay!! It’s gonna be okay!” Amity says, tugging on his hands. Hyrule looks at Amity, eyes watering with unshed tears, and they give one of those smiles that only small children can give. 

“I’ll help you! Just cause your cake col-lap-sed doesn’t mean we can’t make it not col-lap-sed!” Amity continues. Hyrule sniffles and nods. 

“Okay,” he says quietly, before taking Amity’s hand in his and leading them over to his cooking station. They gasp, wide-eyed at all the things Hyrule has set up. Before Amity can say anything, Wild runs across the floor and dashes at Twilight, jumping onto his back.

“Sweet Din, Wild!” Twilight says as Wild koalas around him. 

“What’reyoudoingwhat’reyoudoingwhat’reyoudoing!!!” Wild says like an excitable child. The timer at the bottom of the screen declares 1:28 on the Running Wild timer. What’s disarming about Twilight, though, is that he shrugs off Wild being a koala. 

“Making fondant decorations,” Twilight says. If you look closely you can see a slight twitch at his brow, but it’s barely noticeable. 

“Ooooo!! Pretty!!” Wild says, watching over Twilight’s shoulder as he keeps on molding fondant into a shape that doesn’t really look like a flower, but he’s trying his best. Meanwhile, Hyrule is talking to Amity over at his station.

“So we need to make flowers, but I need to figure out how to not make the top two layers fall into the cake,” Hyrule says. Amity blinks, before gasping. 

“Daddy always says he puts… Uh… Cake dow-ells in his cakes!!” Amity says. Hyrule pauses, putting a hand on his chin.

“Cake do- Oh!” Hyrule moves to look for something and whirls back around when he finds what he’s looking for. 

“I should… Put them in the cake to support the cake board oh,” Hyrule says, glancing at his sunken cake. 

“Well. I can’t fix that, it’s beyond saving. But I can make sure that none of the other layers do that,” Hyrule says, sticking cake dowels into the cake at where the edge of the cake board would go, in the middle, and a few extras just in case. 

“Struc-tur-al sup-port is im-por-tant!” Amity says soundly, and Hyrule nods. 

“Alright, so do you want to make some flowers Amity?” Hyrule asks. Amity gasps and nods. 

“Yes!! Pretty flowers!!” Amity says, clapping their hands together a few times. Hyrule smiles at them, and as Amity starts to mess with fondant, Hyrule continues to assemble his cake properly. There’s a loud “aw” from the judges’ table, and the camera pans over to Thom and Warriors both smiling softly. A buzzer goes off somewhere, and Wild hops off Twilight’s back as the “Running Wild” timer disappears from the bottom of the screen. 

“Thank the goddesses,” Twilight mutters as Wild heads back up to the judges’ table. Wild only winks in a childish manner. Twilight rolls his eyes at the antics, as he goes back to working on making fondant flowers. They don’t look the best, but he’s trying. As he starts to work, Warriors and Thom lock eyes.

“Is this allowed, pumpkin?” Thom asks. Warriors shrugs. 

“Hon, it’s my show. And Amity’s our kid, they like Hyrule. Legend, would you mind getting that smaller apron stored away?” Warriors calls. Legend pops out from nowhere, already holding it. He walks over to where Amity and Hyrule are, and hands the smaller apron to Hyrule. 

“For the kid,” he says, and Hyrule nods. 

“Hey Amity, you wanna match?” Hyrule asks. Amity looks up from making some cartoonish looking flowers and grins. Their missing front tooth only makes the grin more endearing. 

“Yes!” they say, and Hyrule drops the apron over their head, tying it quickly in place. Amity oohs and aahs at the apron, and gasps when they see their name embroidered on the upper part. 

“That’s my name!” they say. Hyrule laughs. 

“That it is! Do you want to make more flowers now?” Hyrule replies. Amity nods rapidly, moving back to making more flowers. 

Sky, meanwhile, is rushing to make his fondant decorations. Using some quick thinking, he decides to make all of them white and airbrush them to look like the colors they’re supposed to before he puts them on the cake. Nodding to himself, Sky starts working on his fondant decorations. A timer flashes along the bottom of the screen. Roughly thirty minutes remain, now. 

All the contestants plus one six year old get down to the gritty business of the final half hour, working as rapidly as things will allow. Hyrule finishes assembling his cake in a quick fashion, and starts working with Amity on the fondant decorations, quickly deciding to follow the style that Amity had started with. Plus he probably wouldn’t be able to make the fancy flowers that were supposed to be atop the cake anyways, so making them look a bit more cartoonish works to his advantage. Sky’s pumping out fondant flowers as fast as he can make them - which is pretty sloppily, but there’s a lot of them - and setting them all down so he can airbrush them with basic colors. Twilight, meanwhile, is still making flowers, but he’s paying attention to detail somewhat while still going fast. 

“Is… Is Sky going to airbrush his flowers?” Thom asks, turning towards Wild with a curious eye.

“What’s so bad about that?” Wind asks, looking up from the game he’s playing on his phone curiously. 

“Well, he won’t be able to get the pastel colors he needs, so his flowers will come out looking a lot more vibrant than they’ll need to be,” Wild replies, and Wind nods, even if he doesn’t necessarily understand. 

“Mhmm,” Wind replies, his eyes darting back down to his phone. There’s a very interesting game there, to be sure. Four glances over, raises an eyebrow, and goes back to watching the contestants. 

Time continues to go by, with decorations being made and contestants being watched. Eventually, Warriors takes a glance over at something and gasps. 

“Oh, oh my! Five minutes remaining!” Warriors calls out. He glances around at the different contestants.

“You should be getting those details on your cakes, and getting your cake screens up!” Warriors continues. Twilight pulls up the screen as he starts putting fondant flowers on the individual layers. Hyrule pulls the screen up, before lifting up Amity to place a flower at the tippity top of the cake. Sky, meanwhile, yanks the screen up as he sets the last layer of cake on the top, before going back to furiously airbrushing his fondant decorations. 

“Sky’s going to town,” Four comments, laughing as he does so. Warriors nods.

“That he is!” he replies, right as Sky releases the trigger on the airbrush. He doesn’t hazard a glance down at his hands as he grabs a second bowl of buttercream colored caramel (and flavored with it too) and starts to put it all over the cake as to mimic caramel falling. 

All the contestants are in a rush as the final minutes slowly start to wrap up, and as the timer on-screen reappears with seconds left on the clock, the bakers are all scrambling to get their last few details. Twilight is placing something on the top of his cake, Hyrule’s fiddling with something, and Sky’s haphazardly placing things on the cake. Amity’s also messing with something. Making something out of fondant? Hm. Wonder what it could be? 

The countdown clock flashes red as the final seconds start, and Warriors opens his mouth as the timer flashes. 

“Three! Two! One! And you’re done!” Warriors calls, and each of the contestants lift their hands away from their cakes. Amity looks up at their papa, pouting. 

“But Papa! I was making something for Mr. Hyrule! Not the cake!” Amity pouts, and Hyrule gives them a curious look. Amity lifts up a fondant heart. A lopsided one, but one nonetheless. 

“I made you a heart because I love you!” Amity says in that six year old way. Hyrule tears up as Amity hands it to him, and the camera pans over to the judges’ table, where there’re soft smiles all around. 

“Alright, now that my child has stopped being an adorable bean… Bakers! Wheel us your creations!” Warriors says, as the three judges step down from the judges’ table. Wind’s still engrossed in whatever game he’s playing, while Four seems content to watch from a distance. Each cake is wheeled over, and Amity skips behind Hyrule as he moves his own cake. 

“Alright, before we get to judging the cakes on appearance and taste, we have two planned special guests for tonight!” Warriors says as he looks at Twilight and grins wolfishly. Twilight tilts his head a bit, before narrowing his eyes in a glare. 

“As everyone will know, these cakes were recreations of the Hero of Time’s cake from his wedding. We had the wonderful fortune of being able to get both the Hero of Time himself and his wife Malon to come on the show today! Might I introduce Link Lon Lon and his wife, Malon Lon Lon?” Warriors says. Twilight’s glare only grows more intense as two people walk onto the set, their hands entwined with one another’s. 

“It’s a pleasure to be here, really, Warriors,” the figure on the left says. They have a noticeable accent, one that’s very calming. 

“It’s not a problem, Mrs-” Warriors cuts himself off as the two people come into view. A tall blond man with a scar over one eye, and a shorter redheaded woman. The woman puts the hand not holding the man’s on her hip, and she gives Warriors a look.

“Now what have I told you about calling me Mrs. Lon Lon, Warriors?” the woman says. Warriors looks admonished for a moment, before nodding.

“Right, sorry Malon,” Warriors says. Malon sighs quietly, and looks up at the man. 

“Well, Link?” Malon asks, and the blond man blinks, before nodding slightly. 

“Like my wife said, it really is a pleasure,” Link says. A banner unfurls on screen under the two standing together, reading, “Link (Time) and Malon Lon Lon, Couple Goals.” As it does this, Malon looks to her left and perks up.

“Oh, Link, honey! Warriors, you didn’t mention that Link was going to be on the show!” Malon says. Twilight goes bright red, and smiles a bit at his mom. Warriors grins.

“Well, I thought it’d be a nice surprise,” Warriors replies. Malon moves to speak, when Time interrupts.

“Both of our sons are here, apparently,” Time says, and that draws everyone’s attention. Wild grins, face bright red.

“Hi mom, hi dad,” he says quietly, and Malon perks up. She takes a few quick steps towards Wild and gives him a big hug, before turning towards Warriors as she speaks. 

“Link, honey! I didn’t know you were on this show! Warriors, you didn’t tell us both of our sons were going to be on this show!” Malon says, slightly admonishing.

“I… Didn’t know Wild was your kid?” Warriors replies. Time raises an eyebrow curiously. 

“You’ve known the pup here since you were both in college and you didn’t know that he had an adopted younger brother?” Time asks. Warriors goes red, and tucks his lower face into his scarf as the tips of his ears turn bright red as well. 

“N...No?” Warriors says, voice muffled by his scarf. Before anyone else can say anything, Thom reaches over and leans down to give Warriors a kiss on the cheek. 

“It’s fine hon. Wild didn’t know you were married or that you had kids, so it should be even,” Thom replies, propping his cheek on Warriors’ head. Malon perks up at that.

“Link, you didn’t know Warriors here had a husband or kids? Now shame on you!” Malon says as she wags a finger in his direction. Before anyone else can speak, though, there’s a gasp.

“Auntie Malon!” Amity cries as they run at Malon and hug her legs. Malon smiles softly and looks down.

“Oh, look at that. My favorite child,” Malon says. Both Twilight and Wild gasp, and Wild puts a hand on his chest offendedly. 

“Mom, I thought you loved me!” Wild says accusingly. Malon opens her mouth to speak, but Amity looks up at Wild and blows a raspberry, before hugging Malon a little bit tighter.

“I love you, Auntie Malon! But I gotta go! I gotta stand with Mr. Hyrule, I helped him with his cake!” Amity says, before running back over to Hyrule and grabbing his hand again. Malon coos at the sight, before looking up at Time.

“Goodness, I remember the times that both our sons were like that,” she says. Time inclines his head slightly, nodding a bit.

“Mmm, it’s been a while,” Time replies. It goes quiet for a second, before Warriors clears his throat pointedly. 

“Mm, yes. I did invite the two of you on for a reason,” Warriors says. Malon tilts her head slightly, curious. 

“As I mentioned when I called last week, on the show here, people try to recreate these amazing sweet treats, and since the second challenge was yours and Time’s wedding cake, I thought I would call the two of you in,” Warriors explains. Malon and Time both nod, and Warriors turns to the three competitors and six year old. 

“So you have five judges for this round. The three you had last round, plus Time and Malon here. Now… Twilight, could you show us your cake?” Warriors asks. Twilight locks eyes with Warriors and glares. For a moment, it seems like Twilight won’t do it, but he sighs and presses the button to unveil his cake.

“Nailed it,” Twilight says, voice slightly more exuberant than the last round’s reveal, but not by much. 

“Oh my,” Malon says, giving the cake a once over. The cake looks roughly like how it should, but the fondant decor… Does not look like flowers. There’s too much buttercream, and the only redeeming feature is probably the caramel. 

“That’s… Definitely a cake,” Warriors says, covering his mouth as to not show off the full grin he has. That would just be rude. 

“It looks off, son,” Time says, not trying to soften the blow whatsoever.

“Well I did only have two hours to make it, so,” Twilight replies almost automatically.

“Only two hours?” Malon asks, turning towards Warriors with a bit of concern.

“The intent isn’t a perfect recreation, just the best they can do with what they have,” Thom says, and Malon nods, turning back around.

“Well, for two hours, it looks good. You’ve got the basic structure of the cake, all the elements are there, there’s just a bit too few fondant decorations,” Wild says. Thom nods. 

“And we’ll get to see how it tastes in a bit,” Warriors adds, before clapping his hands together.

“Alright! Onto the next cake!” Warriors says, making his way to Hyrule and Amity. The others trail after him and come to a stop scattered around him. 

“Okay, Hyrule. Let’s see what you did!” Warriors says. Hyrule pauses, and Amity looks up at him from where they stand next to him holding his hand. 

“We can both hit the button!” Amity says, reaching up with their conjoined hands. Hyrule nods, and Amity smacks their hands onto the button that brings down the screen.

“Nailed it!” Hyrule says, sounding extremely anxious.

“Nailed it!” Amity choruses after him, sounding a lot more excited. They’re bouncing on the balls of their feet. 

“Oh, honey, what happened?” Malon asks, looking at the collapsed layer of cake. The cake itself is about a tier shorter than it should be, and the fondant decorations look a lot more cartoonish than realistic, but the caramel looks good at least! 

“Forgot to support the second layer of cake and it crushed the first,” Hyrule says quietly.

“It’s fine, Mr. Hyrule! It’s gonna taste good!” Amity says, tugging on his hand slightly. 

“Yeah. It should, I paid more attention to what I was doing,” Hyrule replies. 

“You did your best in the time you had, and you recovered from the cake collapse admirably,” Thom says, giving Hyrule a reassuring smile. Hyrule smiles shakily back. 

“I agree. And besides, a cake’s nothing if it doesn’t taste good!” Warriors adds. Wild and Time both nod quietly. 

“Absolutely. Sometimes the best things don’t look the prettiest,” Malon says. Hyrule’s shaky smile gets watery, and Amity looks up at Hyrule with concern on their face.

“Mr. Hyrule! Don’t cry!! It’ll be okay!!” Amity says, tugging on his hand again. Hyrule sniffs a few times.

“They’re kind of happy tears,” Hyrule replies, his smile wobbling a bit. Amity pauses, before grinning up at him. Their missing tooth just. Makes that grin even more adorable. What a small child. How cute. 

“Adorable children aside, let’s move on! To the last cake!” Warriors says, barely managing to tear himself away from his adorable child. Thom nods, as does Wild. The five of them make their way to Sky, who smiles a bit.

“Alright, Sky! Why don’t you show us what you did!” Warriors says enthusiastically. And Sky, just as enthusiastically, presses the button that reveals his cake and moves his hands to show off.

“Nailed it!” he says, his cake on display.

“Is that. Is that buttercream instead of caramel?” Wild immediately asks. Sky’s smile, surprisingly, doesn’t waver at all. 

“Well, I made do with what I could, cause I burnt my caramel, so I tried my hand at making caramel-flavored buttercream. Not sure how it turned out, though,” Sky says, gesturing towards the caramel buttercream. Overall, the cake doesn’t look too bad. The buttercream on buttercream doesn’t look… The best, but it’s about as good as one can get without actual caramel. 

“I saw you airbrushed your fondant decorations,” Thom comments. Sky nods.

“I thought it would save time!” Sky replies cheerfully. Thom nods.

“Well, the disadvantage is sharper colors than you’d normally have. It saves time, but you lose the right color,” Thom continues. Sky nods once, and Warriors claps his hands together. While they were walking from cake to cake, two more chairs appeared at the judges’ table, almost as if it were magic.

“Alright, bakers, bring us the best slice of your cake and we! Will! Taste it!” Warriors says, before leading the five judges up to the table. Twilight, Hyrule, and Sky all cut pieces of their cakes - although each of them cuts from different places, with Twilight favoring a middle layer, Hyrule favoring the top, and Sky going directly for the bottom layer - and take them up to the judges. 

“Well, Twilight. Your cake is first,” Warriors says. The cake starts over with Time, who takes a bit with his fork and passes it on to Malon, who repeats the process and passes the slice of cake down the table. 

“The buttercream is good, though the caramel is much better. Did you put some in between the layers of the cake?” Wild asks curiously. Twilight nods once.

“Good choice!” Wild says. 

“The cake is fluffy, the buttercream is good, even if there’s a bit too much for my tastes,” Thom says. 

“I have to say that I’m a bit biased, but nothing will beat the cake we had the day we got married,” Time says, giving Malon a soft smile. She smiles back, leaning into his side. Wild sticks his tongue out childishly, and Twilight rolls his eyes at Wild’s antics. 

“It’s good! Never knew you could actually bake, only that you made a mad caramel dip for parties,” Warriors says. Twilight shrugs. 

“If I have a recipe in front of me I can manage pretty well. Plus I picked up a lot of stuff from osmosis from third wheeling you and Thom when Thom would talk about baking, so,” Twilight replies. Malon laughs at that, which gets Wild laughing, and eventually the studio is filled with laughter. As the laughs die down, Warriors claps his hands together again.

“Alright, alright! Hyrule, your cake is next!” Warriors says. It goes through the same process that Twilight’s cake went through with the grab a bite and pass strategy. 

“This is moist cake, though the buttercream is a bit too buttery, and the caramel isn’t… Quite at the right consistency. Have you ever made caramel before?” Thom asks. Hyrule shakes his head once. 

“I, for one, love it. You took what you had and you did your best, and that’s admirable,” Malon says. Time gives a silent nod from next to her. 

“I’d try adding a bit more sugar or vanilla next time you try and make icing, the buttery taste won’t be as prevalent,” Thom advises. Hyrule nods. 

“The cake turned out really well. I liked it a lot, although there are a few things I’d recommend you try with mixing ingredients together,” Wild says. Hyrule nods again, and Warriors sets his fork down satisfied.

“I liked this cake, it was light. The buttercream, not as much. There’s improvement to be had, and I believe you’ll get better with time,” Warriors says. Hyrule nods for a third time, and feels another tug at his hand. Amity. They grin up at him, and Hyrule smiles back down. 

“And now, Sky’s cake. Let’s taste it!” Warriors says, and Sky’s cake undergoes the same process that the last two have undergone. 

“There’s… A bit too much buttercream for me, here,” Warriors says. 

“I can agree, but your ingenuity in trying to keep all the elements you needed while not having all the elements is admirable,” Thom adds. 

“The cake is light and airy as well. Good contrast to the buttercream. Well. The buttercream’s pretty lumpy, what happened?” Wild asks. Sky glances down at his shoes for a moment.

“Well… I panicked when I burnt the caramel,” Sky mutters, looking back up. 

“But I still did the best I could,” Sky continues, smiling slightly. 

“That’s the spirit, honey. You did the best you could with the time you had, and that’s good,” Malon says. 

For a moment, the room is quiet. Warriors glances up and down the line, meeting eyes with each of the judges. They all nod, and Warriors gives Thom a nod. 

“Alright, so. All of your cakes were good, but there was one that was better than the rest. Thom, you ready to make it rain, hon?” Warriors turns to his husband, a glint in his eye. There’s a matching one in Thom’s. 

“I’ve always wanted to do this, pumpkin,” Thom says seriously, lifting up a bedazzled “gun” of some sorts. There’s a small slit on the end, is it for… Money?

“Papa, how’s daddy gonna make it rain? We’re inside!” Amity says, tilting their head to the side curiously. Warriors laughs quietly at Amity. 

“You’ll see sweetheart,” Warriors says, before looking at each of the three contestants. 

“The winner of this round not only gets ten thousand rupees, but gets to take home the soon-to-be-collectible Nailed It trophy, which is… Legend? Where’s the trophy?” Warriors asks, looking around. From the void where cameras don’t reside appears Legend, his hat slightly askew as he passes Warriors the trophy and walks off, ignoring literally everyone except Hyrule, who he nods at when Hyrule gives him a wave. 

“Alright then! The winner of Nailed It is… Sky!” Warriors says. As soon as Warriors finishes his sentence, Thom pulls the trigger on the “gun” and rupee notes start flying. Sky gasps and grins. 

“Congratulations!!” Warriors says, as everyone at the judges’ table gets up from the table and walks around. Warriors passes off the trophy to Sky as Twilight, Hyrule, and Amity walk up. Amity reaches over to tug on Warriors hand. 

“Papa, I want up!” Amity says. Warriors smiles at them, before obliging and picking them up. 

“Thank you so much for watching this episode of Nailed It! The Linkpocalypse, that’s for sure,” Warriors grins as the rest of the group clusters around him. Twilight squeezes himself in on one side next to Warriors, with Thom on the other side. Wild’s standing behind Twilight, and Sky’s next to Wild who’s next to Hyrule. Four and Wind are both in front of Warriors, while Time and Malon are in the back. It makes for an almost perfect group picture. 

-

The laptop snapped shut with a clicking noise. The fan whirring in the room continued to make noise as the chair previously occupied by someone made a scooting noise on the hardwood floor. As feet pad across the room, someone hums an unfamiliar song quietly.

“That was… Odd,” an unfamiliar voice says, moving to grab something hanging nearby. 

“Maybe the next episode’ll be different,” they continued, moving towards the door as they slip on a pair of shoes. 

“For now, let’s go chow,” they said, leaving the laptop and source of the show behind. There’ll be more time to watch it later.

[littlemisskookie]

Langour

Langour Ship: Hoseok | Reader Description: Hoseok’s got a lust-driven thirst for his step sister. Warning: Step-Siblings!AU, Incest Sorta? Impregnation Kink, Somnophilia, PWP, Dub-Con? Dirty Talk, Voyeurism, Masturbation, Oral, Fingering, Intercourse, Handjob Word Count: 3,387 A/N: I’m sooooo going to hell for this I’ve never seen anyone write this particular kink s h i t.

There's an unspoken but clear rule that everyone knows about family- and one that Hoseok seemed to have broken.

Family doesn't look at family with lust.

More precisely, Hoseok happened to look at his sister with lust. Even more precisely, his step-sister.

Sure, it wasn't incest- but considering the fact that you two lived together and shared the same parents, it was wrong nonetheless. He couldn't help it, though- it was as though you were enticing him with your mere presence.

Hoseok hadn't thought too much about when his father's girlfriend said yes to the proposal. He was happy for his father actually- the man had been lonely and sad ever since Hoseok's mother died years ago. He had never seen his old man so happy. He liked the new woman anyway- she was very liberal and down to Earth, being open-minded.

He didn't think much either when he found out she had a daughter.

"Eleanore's got a daughter about your age, you know," his father commented after a few dates with said Eleanore. Hoseok was a mere teenager at the time, at the peak of his hormones and being flooded with school work. It wasn't as though he had much time to think about the possibility of a step-sister.

But when you moved in... that's when things changed.

You were fun to be around, but he could never quite get comfortable with you. Sure, he was at ease, but it wasn't familial ease. It wasn't even quite the friend-type of ease- there seemed to always be a tension between you two, so thick it could be cut with a knife. He had a feeling you could sense it, too. It wasn't that you two weren't fond of each other- it was the opposite.

It was as though Hoseok had fallen into a trap. He was a teenager, it was natural for him to be horny and lustful over any girl his age who wasn't related to him by blood. It didn't help when you snuck out of the shower, hair slicked back and wet, water droplets rolling down your skin, and a small towel pressed daintily against your body. Or when he'd call you down for dinner only to see you prancing around in your ridiculously short shorts, and on occasion, underwear.

He remembered what shame he felt when he clasped his hand over his mouth, biting down on his fist as he jerked off to the memory of you pinned down by another man against the wall, his chest pressed against yours so tightly that your toes barely grazed the ground. Hoseok felt seething jealousy- though he disguised it instead as brotherly anger. He had marched himself over to the two of you, shoving the guy off of you. "Get away from my little sister" and bullshit like that. Though he's never thought of you as a sister. Not once.

What made him stop in his tracks, lungs constricted from oxygen, is when he turned around to face you, his nostrils flaring and his eyes practically bulging out of their eye sockets. Your lipstick was smeared, lips swollen and cheeks rosy. Your eyes had a blown out appearance to them, practically black with how dilated they were. Your hooded gaze had fallen onto Hoseok, and at that moment he felt as though someone had knocked all of the air out of his body.

"You should stay away from creeps like that, Y/N," Hoseok scolded, chastising you. "Hell, isn't that the guy who's been sliding into your DMs? What do you want with a jerk like that? What do you see in him, anyway?"

You simply gave him a sultry look, a smirk on your lips as you gave him that innocent shrug. "I guess I just like guys who take what they want."

God, how those words sent Hoseok ablaze. He was always the kind of guy who respected women- respected anyone, really. He didn't cross boundaries and was cautious and tenacious. He considered himself a feminist and was disgusted with some of the acts he'd hear about on the news and such.

However, he had never suspected a woman would actually like that behavior. Maybe it was the confidence of it all that had you attracted to it, but it left him hard in the middle of the night, only able to jerk off to the sight of your swollen and glossy lips along with your dangerous gaze. Fuck, and to think you were peacefully sleeping on the other side of the wall, your rooms connected to one another.

He could forgive himself for that, though. He was a teenager- it was bound to happen to a degree, especially since he never considered you a sister.

But now he was an adult.

And he still wanted to fuck your brains out.

God, if his stepmother and father knew, they'd shit a brick. He had no doubt you knew, though. You'd tease him, often, it seems. Your smile was too coy to be innocent, brushing against him as you passed by, your ass pressed against his crotch. You'd grin from ear to ear whenever you'd ask him to hold onto your waist and balance you as you tried to reach something on the top shelf, on your tiptoes as you balanced on a stool. Hoseok would always try to look down, your short and inviting skirt giving him glimpses of the black lace you wore underneath. It took a lot of self-control for him to keep himself from throwing himself at you whenever you strutted about the house in the skimpiest clothes you could find. You'd meet his glares with sharp giggles.

What a tease.

There was one night, though, when it all snapped. You two were watching a movie. Your parents have fallen asleep due to their older age. You had a habit of snuggling against him, as though for warmth, but Hoseok always felt so tense. He couldn't imagine you actually felt comfortable.

There was a certain scene in the movie where the man had snuck into the woman's room, feeling her up and kissing against her neck as she slept.

Hoseok grimaced. "Isn't that... wrong?"

What a stupid question.

You shrugged in response, your eyes trained on the glowing screen. "I dunno- I think it's kind of hot."

Hoseok tensed at that, his muscles tight. "What about that is hot? It's sexual assault."

"It's called somnophilia, Hoseok. Look it up. And I wouldn't want just anyone to do it to me- I'd kick them in the face. I think I'd be ok with it, though, if it were someone I trusted."

"To each their own, I suppose," Hoseok murmured quietly. He had never pictured you as the type to have a kink or fetish like that, but you still managed, to this day, to surprise him. As he thought about it, too, he could picture how you could get turned on from the idea. He didn't think he'd feel comfortable with putting his dick in an unconscious person, though.

Hoseok's breath hitched when he felt your hand on his knee. You were hesitant, waiting a few seconds to observe his response through the light of the people having sex onscreen. "You know I trust you, right?"

Hoseok didn't know how to respond to what you were insinuating. However, you dismissed that worry from his mind, as though knowing he wouldn't want to directly answer.

You sat up, stretching your arms as your mouth went agape. Letting out a yawn, you rubbed your sleepy eyes. "I think I'm gonna hit the sack. Night, Hobi."

Hoseok watched you walk away, his eyes trailing after you, gaze firmly planted on your rear as you sauntered out of sight. He couldn't believe what had just happened, and as his mind filled with ideas and questions, he looked down only to realize that his body had also reacted to the vixen that was you.

Shit.

Needless to day, Hoseok was restless that night. He tossed and turned in bed, unable to so much as close his eyes. Why was it you had this effect on him? Why you, of all people? Why did he have to be so goddamn attracted to his step-sister? It was driving him mad.

He debated in his head whether to do something about it and finally sleep with you, or to pretend as though it never happened.

He was starting to seriously consider the former when he heard something.

His name.

Someone from the other side of the wall was moaning his name. Your voice rang out, light and airy, and though there was no doubt your sleeping parents wouldn't be able to hear, Hoseok sure as hell did.

His name spilled from your mouth in breathy moans, small groans and whimpers tumbling out, and Hoseok strained to hear. It was as though he were possessed, getting up from his bed to open the door to your room, though it was already slightly ajar. He had suspected something like you masturbating with a vibrator or toy in hand, but instead, he found you sound asleep, your body moving reactively to whatever wet dream you were having.

You were having wet dreams about Jung fucking Hoseok.

He felt his throat get tight, and though he was undeniably aroused at the moment, he wanted to deny the temptation. He couldn't- you were asleep- he was your brother-

"I guess I just like guys who take what they want."

Hoseok felt as though he wasn't even in control of his own actions at this point. He found himself climbing into bed, slithering between your legs, and his fingers hooking into the waistband of your panties.

This is wrong, this is so wrong, he thought to himself as he slid them down your legs, throwing them to the side. He was about to get up to leave when you gave another moan.

"Fuck, Hoseok, please, please touch me."

He felt his hard-on throb with need at that, and he took in a deep breath, your wetness and feminine scent clouding his train of thought. Slowly he slid down to lay on his belly, his head between your thighs as he pushed them further apart. He could see your pussy barely glistening in the dark, and he felt as though he were a starved man tempted with delicacies before him. There was no other accurate description.

Tentatively, he licked a stripe up your glistening cunt, the sweet flavor of your slick on his tastebuds making him want to devour you whole. His eyes rolled back, and despite the fact he had gotten a mere taste, he felt as though he were in heaven. This was enough jerk off material for years, no doubt about that. You tasted too goddamn sweet.

He licked you again, spreading you with two fingers as the flat of his tongue pressed against your clit. You mewled, writhing beneath him, your thighs tensing at his sides. He found himself gradually getting firmer as you coated his tongue, the greedy muscle occasionally dipping into your sopping hole. His lips pressed and kissed the folds, tongue causing wet, lewd, and sloppy sounds to fill the room. He enjoyed how your moans would get low and more groan-like at that, and when his tongue twirled around your clit you would become more breathy and whimper-like.

You began to tense more as his tongue lashed out, becoming more punishing with how loud your moans were. Chanting his name, he couldn't get enough. He slipped two fingers into your glistening heat, a come-hither motion making it easy for him to find your g-spot. You were unraveling, your thighs clamping together around his head as you felt yourself come undone, a violent orgasm wrecking throughout your body as Hoseok continued his harsh motions, the searing pain as he continued causing undeniable pleasure.

When you came down from your high, your body went limp, your skin glistening with sweat. Hoseok saw your eyes peer down at his, your chest rising and falling with each deep breath you took, your mind dazed from drowsiness and the lust-filled haze.

Hoseok kept his eyes locked with yours before pressing his tongue flat against your clit, toying with the swollen nub once more. You cringed from overstimulation, hands flying down to grasp onto his locks as your thighs instinctively locked him in. "Mmf, Hoseok."

Hoseok gave you one more strong lick, enjoying how you shuddered beneath him, your bottom lip trapped between your teeth. He came up, between your legs as he caged you between his arms, the lower half of his face glistening with your juices. "Did you have a nice dream, Y/N?"

You nodded slowly, looking at him with hooded eyes. He was shirtless at the moment, wearing nothing but sweatpants. You reached out, palming the prominent bulge beneath the fabric. "Do you even have to ask?"

Hoseok grinned at that, his eyes darkening as he saw you waiting intently, eyes peering up at him as though to wonder what his next move will be. "You came pretty hard, there. What will Mom and Dad say to know I'm corrupting my little sister?"

"Why don't you corrupt me further?" you questioned, spreading your legs alluringly, your pulsating heat beckoning to him once more. "You still need to be taken care of."

"Fucking shit," Hoseok hissed as you pulled his dick out from beneath his sweatpants and briefs, stroking him slowly. You stopped for a moment to reach down, swiping your fingers through your copious arousal and twirling the little nub, moaning a bit. Your fingers dipped into your puckered hole, coating the small digits further in your arousal and the leftover result of your previous orgasm. You slid your fingers back up, swiping them through the folds and letting them graze over your clit before you wrapped the hand back around Hoseok's cock, your juices mixing along with the pearls of precum that circled the tip of Hoseok's cock.

"We could've been doing this years ago if you weren't so scared," you whispered, cocking your head to the side. "I've waited long enough. I can't wait for you to wreck me."

He moaned, shuddering as you continued to prep him, lubricating him thoroughly. He swiped your hand away quickly, however, wanting to get to the real deal. "I'm gonna fucking destroy you, baby. No other man will be able to perfectly wreck you the way I will."

"Fuck me, big brother," you said, arching your back and lifting your hips in the air so your entrance can meet with the tip of his cock. You circled your hips in the air enticingly before Hoseok grabbed onto your hips, slamming you back down into the mattress as he pushed inside of you.

Both of you moaned as your walls enveloped around him, and you hissed at the delicious burn of his cock stretching your walls further. He began to move, bucking his hips against yours as he buried his face in the crook of your neck. He kept himself above you, his elbows acting as his support as he was careful not to crush you. It was good that he was caging you in, however, because the velocity of his thrusts threatened to have your head bang against the headboard. There was no doubt there'd be bruises on your pelvis by the time this was over.

Your feet reached towards the sky, heels to heaven as you arched your back beneath him. Hoseok licked against your neck, collecting the salt, as though his tongue was a paintbrush and your skin was the canvas. You grabbed onto his face to eagerly mash his mouth against yours, tongues twirling together in a sloppy kiss. You could still taste remnants of yourself on his lips.

It's odd to think that you two have gone this far, and yet this moment was actually your first kiss together. Right as he was drilling into you at a brutal pace, his sharp pelvic bone causing just enough friction and applying just enough pressure as it rubbed against your throbbing clit. You could feel your body shake, your walls clenching around him as your second orgasm approached, but you wanted him to come too.

Sensing that you were close, Hoseok hitched your legs up, your heels on his shoulders as your feet dangled beside his head. He leaned forward, the angle allowing him to penetrate you deeper, and you felt your eyes rolling back. You were beginning to convulse around him from the intense sensations of your approaching orgasm, but you kenw you wouldn't be satisfied with just that. You wanted to feel the soreness between your legs the night after, knowing each moment you moved that the cause of it was because your brother had snuck inot your room to plow into your tight cunt. More than that, though, you wanted to feel him fill you up with so much cum you were practically overflowing.

"Cum in me, Hoseok," you begged. "I'm so, so close. I want to feel you inside me from this moment to when I wake up in the morning- mark me as yours."

That seemed to do it. Hoseok's eyes rolled back as he let out a few more sloppy thrusts. Your heels dug into his ass as you pulled him close to you, his last few strokes having your orgasm spread throughout your body, intense as it bloomed from your crotch to the tips of your fingertips.

You were panting heavily, and Hoseok's arms shook as he tried to stay upright instead of falling on top of you, though he looked worn out from both the orgasm and the exercise.

You grinned at him, knowing all too well the worrisome look on his face. Instead, you helped him roll over, sitting on top of him as you planted a wet kiss against his mouth.

"You filled me up so good, baby," you whispered in his ear. "I'm going to keep this in me all night. If I weren't on birth control, you would've gotten me pregnant. You filled me up that much- it's spilling out of me already."

"God, you're dirty," Hoseok said, enjoying the way you spoke teasingly and erotically, pulling you down for another kiss. "Imagine what our parents would think if they knew what a dirty girl you were."

"They'd be horrified to know you knocked me up. I'd be so swollen and full, my breasts filled with milk, and they'd know you corrupted their precious baby girl," you smiled, feeling up your breasts as though you could already sense how tender they were. "Our kid would be so precious, huh? So pretty and handsome- just like you. All because you fucked me like an animal."

"You're the filthiest girl I've ever met. I should've fucked you sooner," he said, groping your ass, feeling the full flesh of it as he palmed you thoroughly.

"Daddy always said I should find a decent guy once in a while. I doubt he'd say his own son wasn't decent," you giggled, sliding off the bed to go to the restroom, feeling quite content despite what others would perceive as very wrong.

-

You still had that after-sex glow in the morning, despite how many hours had passed. Your family was having breakfast, and though you and Hoseok had done your best to remain inconspicuous, the passing stares and glances towards one another would be obvious to anyone who was paying attention.

Hoseok had returned to his own room after the sexual encounter, not wanting your parents ot be suspicious. The two of you had yet to talk about it in the morning, but judging from your teasing smirk and glinting eyes, you most certainly didn't regret it. In fact, you seemed content on teasing him.

You also happened to be purposefully brushing your foot against his leg, just to tease him. It was fun seeing him so uncomfortable and riled up, it made you laugh, evidently. Hoseok gave you a passing glare at the audacity of your boldness, but you batted your eyes demurely in response, acting innocent as always.

Your mother looked between the two of you and sighed, taking a sip of her morning coffee. "I do hope you two used protection."

[you-guys--are-losers]

Celebrity AU for Spideychelle

//Ooh, I like this! I think I’m gonna make it kinda an Irondad fic as well, to justify why Peter is a celeb.  We’re gonna try a new format for this one. Hope you guys enjoy! 

michelle jones has never much liked peter parker. 

it’s not a topic she discusses often, especially out her inner circle, because the opinion is probably one of the most unpopular she could have. 

even so, as soon as it is pulled from her in confidence by a few friends, the reaction is unanimous, and mj is left on defense. 

of course she knows about all that he and his mentor, tony stark, have done with the capital that they made off of their joint film, yes, she’s aware of the amount the two actors give to charity, and she obviously isn’t against the powerful political stance they aren’t afraid to take onscreen and in interviews. she is in complete support of all of it. 

and that’s the damn problem. 

everyone in the industry loves both parker and stark. they’re supposed to be incredible to work with on a project, they stay out of trouble and involved with charity in their free time, and they have a generally warm and playful dynamic. their swarms of fans all agree that the pair of them are nothing less than perfect.

and no matter how much she wants to, mj just can’t buy into it. 

mj’s own rise to hollywood wasn’t dirty, but it wasn’t easy, either. she had to fight for every scrap of ground, audition until she wanted to drop, defend her right to take a stance on something and to not look perfect offscreen with everything she had. 

and for them, it just seems like it’s so easy. 

it doesn’t create any issues for her at first, really. mj just doesn’t bring them up in interviews, and if they’re ever mentioned she just smiles, nods, and lets someone else answer the question. the few times that peter’s brought up as an example of some of the men of hollywood, mj just responds by pointing out that she’s alright being single, thanks. 

but then she gets the call. 

it’s not a bad call, not at first; in fact, it’s a really good one. she’s got the role, she’s going to be playing her dream role in the remake of moulin rouge, and from here on out it’s going to be all sparking diamonds and love songs…

until they tell her who she’s going to be acting opposite. 

they brought him in from the outside, they tell her, and he’s apparently got a voice like a dream (because of course he can sing), and they are looking forward to the way the two will be interacting onscreen.

but all mj can think when she hears the name peter parker is shit. 

because now she’s going to be working with the one actor in hollywood she just can’t figure out. 

she manages to put it from her mind in the craze that follows her role being announced. she posts a few stories hinting at the announcement, of course, and one cryptic selfie on snapchat taken with the filter that makes her face and eyes seem to gleam. once the news breaks, her phone blows up with twitter, instagram, and snapchat notifications in a way that gives her a rush of excitement. the articles pop up minutes later, and she likes a few tweets strategically and replies to a couple comments before posting about the role to confirm it and then falling asleep. it’s a good night, and she manages not to think about it, but the little, nagging thought still lingers. 

the next morning, when mj checks her phone after checking in with her agent, the fans are already at it. 

there are already edits, conspiracy theories, and a million people commenting how good the two of them are going to look onscreen together, how well they’re going to fit their roles, and how their real-life chemistry is going to be interesting. 

mj is about to close her phone when she sees an update from him, on his instagram story. she can’t keep herself from clicking on it, no matter how much she wants to.

when his face pops up, bright and friendly as always, mj blinks. he’s outside, walking through what looks like his yard wearing a button-up that’s rolled up at the sleeves, blinking into the sun. she has to catch herself to keep a smile from creeping onto her face. she knows he’s one of the most successful people in the industry, but he honestly just looks like a dork as he squints into the camera. 

“i’m so excited to announce that i’ll be starring as christian in the 2026 remake of moulin rouge!” he exclaims in a voice that mj knows instinctively is genuine. “i can’t wait to work with so many talented people on this film, and i’m humbled to even be given the opportunity to be a part of this incredible project. i’ll probably update a ton, but i’ll let you guys know once we’ve started! thank you all so much for your support, and i can’t wait to share this amazing film with you.” 

the whole time, mj is watching for all of the markers of insincerity. she’s used to spotting them in other actors and celebrities, and at this point, she’s honestly got it down to an art. and this time should be especially easy: part of her wants him to be lying, so it should be that much easier to spot it. 

but she can’t. not a whiff of insincerity or hesitation, not a single statement that feels a bit strained, no dodgy body language. and mj knows, as she watches it play, that he means it-- every word. so, after a moment, she closes out of the app and puts away her phone for the next few hours. 

things go pretty well until the day of the read-through. mj is still buzzing with the feeling of having earned the part, and she has watched the movie at least six times (though of course she would never admit it). 

and she doesn’t even want to admit to herself that her heart stops a little bit every time she hears “your song,” because come on. no one can really have that much passion for someone else, not in real life

but when it comes to the read-through, mj knows that this is the real beginning of everything. a table read is going to show how the actors interact with one another, meaning that she’s going to have to figure out how she works with parker and with the rest of the cast-- and fast. 

when mj shows up in clothing that is slightly more dressed up than casual, she is relieved to be one of the first. she takes her seat behind the label with her name and the character name “satine” in large script and busies herself with taking out the script she has already begun memorizing, as well as reaching for her tumbler full of tea.

it's then that mj hears a voice from beside her, one that greets her, "hello. are you michelle jones?"

mj stiffens slightly, taking a deep breath. she knows that voice because it is the one that played from her phone all those days ago. mj raised her eyes to his face, but it's much different in person.

sure, he's still got brown hair and eyes and what she supposes is an attractive face, but it's not just that. in person, mj can see the slight smile lines on the edges of his eyes, the easy grin on his crooked lips that makes her feel slightly warm, and the muscular nature of the forearm that he is extending to her in hopes of a handshake. if she breathes in deeply, she can smell a scent that she thinks might be lemongrass.

mj keeps her face neutral, however, as she peers up at him, nodding with a polite smile. she returns the shake, trying not to think about how easily her hand slides into his.

"yes, i am. nice to meet you," she replies, though she knows that if she had the choice she wouldn't continue the conversation.

or at least, she'd like to think she wouldn't.

his hand lingers in her for a moment, then he takes it back, sitting next to her. "i'm peter," he introduces himself as he sets the cup of coffee in his other hand down in front of him. "peter parker."

mj holds back what might be either a laugh or a scoff, she's not sure which. of course she knows who he is-- everyone does, so why does he bother with the formalities? but something tells mj it's sincere, so, after a moment she responds, "i know." her statement is not unkind, but it's simple, leaving it to him to continue as she opens her script.

"i'm really excited to get to work on this together, i think it'll be great," peter continues. mj can hear the earnest, truthful tone in his voice, and when she hazards a glance over at him, she can see the look reflected in his eyes. it makes him appear younger than he is. "i was really glad to hear you got the part."

mj glances over at him, more hesitant than ever now. she is quiet for a moment as she processes it, and once she is sure he's not screwing with her, she replies, "oh, thank you." she pauses for a fraction of a second before blazing ahead. "do you mind if i ask why?"

mj could almost swear a rosy hue comes to his cheeks, but he doesn't look away or allow himself to appear flustered. instead, peter parker says something that catches her off guard.

"i've always admired you," peter admits, not looking away from her. "i respect what you stand for and that you haven't allowed success to change you, and i can't imagine how difficult it must be to maintain the independence and dignity you do in this industry. i've always thought it was incredible."

mj stares at him, and for a moment she might forget to breathe, because what the hell?

peter parker, hollywood's biggest heartthrob, admires her? and not just for anything, but for her values?

what is she supposed to say to that?

luckily, mj is saved from having to respond when their new director begins to speak, but mj isn't listening to a word she's saying. the actress is far too busy making some attempt to figure out how on earth she is supposed to handle this turn of events.

after a brief interlude, they begin immediately-- it's time to get into the script, and mj is so ready. she isn't in the beginning scenes, so mj takes a chance to watch the cast perform.

they're incredible: mj can see why they were all chosen, and the chemistry between them is perfect. they are on the same wavelength, and though of course there are mistakes, there are also many moments that hint at the perfect piece they're going to create together.

but for some reason, mj can't stop watching him.

he's a young writer in the film, and it suits him perfectly. the soulful, passionate, naive character plays out perfectly through peter parker-- and he doesn't just go surface level. peter acts with such an incredibly subtlety that mj can't look away, and she's grateful when her character enters so that she can stop staring.

for a while, she gets along perfectly with the other actors who she interacts with, and she loses herself in the flow of the acting. it's not complete yet, but for a few moments here and there mj can feel satine taking control of her rather than allowing mj to continue as a pale imitation. it's a character study, and she's learning how to be someone else-- of course there's a learning curve. but it's exhilarating, and for a moment she forgets about peter parker.

until it comes to their first scene together, which begins as a comedy but continues on into a love song.

of course they're not singing together yet, but they're doing the dialogue, and that's enough. at first, it's just comedy, and watching peter's character, christian, attempt to figure out the antics of her own character is amusing. she gets a few laughs out of the rest of the crew, too.

but then things start to become more serious, and they begin to speak about love for just one sweet moment between.

and when he looks at her?

for a moment, satine falls away completely, and mj is all that is left. so it is mj who sinks into those dark brown eyes that are looking at her like she is the sun, like nothing else could possibly shine as bright.

no one in the room moves, breathes, says anything as peter and mj speak, their words weaving the scene together around them, turning chairs and tables and empty coffee cups into rich silks and shining lights and summer nights.

the moment lingers, only to be broken by the entrance of another character, and mj shakes away the spell.

and she plunges forward in order to continue, shoving down the disappointment she feels deep in her chest.

because maybe those feelings exist, but they're for another day.

and she's not ready to admit that maybe, at least when it comes to peter parker...

she could have been wrong.

[dweemeister]

Emitaï (1971, Senegal)

In 1963, Borom Sarret became the first African film to be directed a black African. I imagine many people reading that last sentence are thinking to themselves, “what took so long?” Simple: colonial governments forbade film productions by native Africans. With Senegal becoming independent from France in 1960, this allowed Ousmane Sembène to be the first black African director on a short (Borom Sarret) and a feature-length film (1966’s Black Girl). Before Borom Sarret, Sembène was primarily an author residing in France (he smuggled himself to Paris in 1947) – his literary works commented on colonialism, racism, identity, and tribal relations. Around 1960, Sembène found himself fascinated with films and wished to experiment in how to express his ideas through a visual medium. Studying filmmaking for a year in Moscow gave him the skill needed to return to Senegal, intent on crafting films for his fellow Senegalese (Senegal recorded a 51.9% literacy rate in 2017, so Sembène’s writing was inaccessible to many), to help them see and understand the lives and cultures similar or dissimilar to their own.

Sembène, born to a Lebou family among fellow tribespersons, turns his focus to the Diola – an ethnic minority also known as Jola – people for Emitaï (sometimes translated to “God of Thunder”, but it refers to a supreme, remote being). The Diola have a language quite different from Wolof, Senegal’s lingua franca, and the Diola language has several dialects. While directing Emitaï, Sembène learned the specific dialect used by the villagers used as extras in this film. That local dialect is the language used in the film, not Wolof as many websites and film databases online claim. Here, we learn how – through the Diola’s culture – they comprehend and react to the dilemma they contend with in this film. Soon enough, the audience learns of the spiritual richness of the tribe depicted and witnesses the French characters’ contempt towards the Diola’s way of life. Emitaï is a remarkable film, paced to the tempo of life in a rural village, and deeply attuned to storytelling traditions not often honored in film.

Somewhere in the Casamance region of Senegal, black Vichy French soldiers are abducting several Diola tribesman, forcibly conscripting them into service. Vichy France fought with the Axis powers, as it was a puppet state of Nazi Germany. Back in the village, the tribal elders are discussing if they should respond, given that these abductions are interfering with the rice harvest. No action is taken and the film progresses one year. It is the summer of 1944. French colonial officers – Robert Fontaine (“Monsieur” in Black Girl) as the Commandant, Michel Remaudeau the Lieutenant (as well as cinematographer), Pierre Blanchard the Colonel – follow orders to enforce a severe rice tax on tribal villages. They dispatch a detachment of black troops to that Diola village to levy said tax (this detachment includes the men abducted the prior year). As the conscripts round up the locals, the tribal leaders consult their animistic gods and the women rebel against the French officers and the tribesmen-turned-soldiers.

Emitaï tells its story at its own pace. The camera is kept apart from tribespersons and French soldiers alike, keeping them in a full or medium shot, rarely employing close-ups. The surrounding nature is depicted to suggest the villagers’ relationship with nature. Winds sigh through the trees and tall grasses, the nearby marshes (maybe unclaimed by agriculture) form the background for the rice harvesting scenes, and we hear nothing but the sloshes of water during a boating scene. Conversations between individuals, a group, or antagonistic groups develop, intensify, and subside without a cut taking the viewer to someplace else. The conversations are self-contained within the seconds or minutes they occur between characters or groups; the effectiveness of these scene is thanks to the fact that the characters believably are without certain knowledge about what is happening in other parts of the village. There are no knowing winks to others (or the audience), no clever asides that would feel inappropriate in a tale of colonial oppression. Yet, Sembène’s film never putters in philosophical circles nor feels plodding. Less patient filmmakers or those who too stubbornly subscribe to postmodernism might feel unsettled here, wishing to whisk the audience from a scene before a Major Plot Reveal (this might be culturally compatible with Sembène’s or the Diola’s understanding of how they share stories) with their itchy fingers. Sembène uses this time to help viewers learn about the Diola. Whether one might be a non-Diola from Senegal or from the other side of the Earth, we learn basic aspects about Diola culture that amplifies how we feel when we see the villagers being rounded up and young, able-bodied men who just happened to evade French capture taking arms against African-wielded, European-engineered munitions.

The Diola worship and fear their gods, and the rice they harvest is not only for themselves, but used as an offering to their gods. And as the tribal elders communicate with the gods, the quality of their rice harvest may impact how their gods converse with them – there is one fantastical sequence where this occurs. Some viewers might see the dialogue with the gods as a delusion, an unnecessary detour in an allegedly straightforward colonizer-versus-colonized narrative. But recall that Sembène wanted to make films so that his fellow Senegalese – no matter their ethnicity, linguistic skills, or religion – could empathize or see their histories onscreen. The Diola believe in these animistic gods to keep their families and villages at peace (although – though not portrayed in the film – some Christian and Islamic influences have been introduced), to guide them when an enemy is bearing down on them. Who are we to say they are wrong for doing so? Sembène, who also wrote the screenplay, may not have been Diola himself, but he clearly showed enough respect and attention to them that he would allow their gods have a presence in Emitaï. A Diola did not write Emitaï, but those moments with the gods – a daring decision that I am unaware has any such parallels in a colonizer-versus-colonized film – and the inclusion of a few funeral ceremony scenes complement the “voice” of the Diola. Traditions of African folk stories and religions are prevalent in how Emitaï is shot and how its story unfolds – including, as a pervasive convention in these traditions, a tree that connects humans to a spiritual plane.

The tribal leaders in Emitaï appear to be all men. The women of the village are mostly seen as tending to the children, as well as performing the bulk of the rice harvest. They are the first to be detained by the forcibly conscripted soldiers, but not in a position of distress. After a skirmish between some of the young, uncaptured men and the French forces, the women arrange an impromptu funeral procession for one of the fallen tribal leaders. They sing what sound like celebratory, not mournful, songs – perhaps for a life well lived, bravery in defending the Diola way of life. What should be uncontroversial becomes rebellion. With forcible conscription may result in further encroachments on Diola culture. Already their sacred harvest is disrupted, so what might be next? In Black Girl, Sembène’s feminist arguments circulated around personal discontent and racial subjugation. Though not nearly as intimately portrayed here, Emitaï expands on those themes – showing us the solidarity of the oppressed women. None of the black characters in Emitaï are professional actors and none of the women are given character names. Nameless though they may be (perhaps this was an attempt to “universalize” the film to the tribal peoples of Senegal), the village’s women seldom appear helpless as the conscripted soldiers force them into position by the sides of their rifles or the French officers barking at them about the location of hidden rice. Unarmed and forced to sit in the baking sun, they are stronger that anyone might guess.

Their understanding of “the white man’s war” is limited and the Diola feel little responsibility in helping the French officers fight it. A message delivered in the final minutes reveals that Marshal Philippe Pétain (Vichy France’s leader) has been deposed by Charles de Gaulle, meaning that the Allies have liberated France from the Axis (Sembène – who himself was drafted into France’s colonial infantry and later served among the Free French Forces – makes a cameo appearance here as the soldier ridiculing de Gaulle for being ranked lower than Pétain). Leadership has changed thousands of miles away, but the situation for all the native Africans – soldiers and civilians alike – is unchanged. Allied victory has brought not liberation, but a new poster of some mustachioed, uptight Frenchman who just happens to now be in charge. The casual cruelty and cultural ignorance on display by the French – as they complain of the backwardness of where they are stationed and how the most consequential decisions are being made by military bureaucracy – is rather restrained. Though it would be difficult to recall any nobility among the French soldiers, they do possess a cartoonish, outward malice. Sembène castigates the French characters and colonialism not through soliloquies, but their escalations and actions. Emitaï’s most violent moment is never shown on-camera, yet it was enough to provoke French censors to scrub the scene (among others). Ironically, despite Senegal’s independence from France eleven years prior, this meant the film could not be released in its entirety in France or French-speaking Africa until 1976 – five years after its debut at the Moscow International Film Festival.

Nor did Sembène catch a break from Senegalese censors. President Léopold Senghor’s regime censored Sembène’s films regularly: Sembène’s next feature, Xala (1975), excoriated colonialist institutions that remained in Senegal post-independence and its lead actor was chosen partly due to his resemblance to President Senghor (it doesn’t help that the plot revolves around the lead character looking for a cure for his sudden impotence). In the case of Emitaï, the reasons are not readily available, but the censorship most likely was targeted towards how the forcibly conscripted soldiers are depicted. The dynamic that the Senegalese censors singled out in Emitaï would be multiplied and inflamed by Sembène’s Ceddo (1977) – that film is set shortly after France establishes a colonial government in Senegal; there, Sembène draws parallels between that film’s tribal leaders and future Africans who would conspire with European slave traders (the Senegalese government’s perceptions that the film criticized Senegal’s political leadership and bourgeoisie was accurate, but that is a story to be told when I review Ceddo).

An unofficial sequel to Emitaï was released in 1988, Camp de Thiaroye. That film touched upon many of the themes Sembène remarks upon in Emitaï: the destruction of identity among African soldiers in the French military, violence in the name of colonialism, and structures of racial supremacy. It, too, was censored in France and Senegal upon release. But by Emitaï, Sembène’s cinematic style – freed from the constraints of speech and linguistic barriers – had become crystallized. Like his prior works, Emitaï is uncompromising in its depiction of human cruelty and how that is manifested in colonial or neocolonial paradigms. He criticizes so effectively by juxtaposing behavior, not through rhetoric – it matters not if the oppressor is white (as they almost always are in his films) or black. Away from urban settings, his pacing adapts to the surrounding environment, the slow and seasonal life of the Diola village. Many who see Emitaï will not recognize much of the life and culture of the Diola. It is a testament to Sembène that he makes this biting film so empathic and compelling.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

[ashleaannya]

The 2200, Chapter 1

Everything for Kamiya started with a deep breath. She took a deep breath before writing her hit single “Marketplace,” an semi-autobiographical Indy rock ballad about how men (her exes) treated women’s bodies like a grocery store. It was a hit. “It resonated” was how Billboard described her riffs and runs about feeling like, quote, a “man’s meat market”, with no say in how she should be loved. That was five years, two Grammy’s and three tours ago. She still took a deep breath before approaching the microphone, before recording herself in the studio, and before giving her fans the BTS (Behind The Scenes) content her 35 million fans craved—no, demanded.

           “Let’s do this,” Kamiya said to her herself, breathing deeply and sitting on the goose feather bed in her presidential hotel suite. She adjusted her DSLR camera to better frame her upper body and flipped the lamps on the hotel suite’s end tables. The tripod creaked with newness as she made the micro-adjustments to get her and her hotel suite backdrop in perfect focus. It was a little dark, but it would fit the mood she was about to create for her fans.

           Her phone pinged and vibrated beside her as another thousand comments on her social media rang through. Text messages burst through as people who wanted her money, attention or both made their voices heard in all capital letters, exclamation points and emojis. Without looking away from the camera flip screen, Kamiya reached beside her and powered her phone off. She glanced over at her hotel door, looking at the silk and gold furnishings and designer dresses hanging on a rolling rack. Rows of flowers from athletes, and fellow musicians wanting to sleep with her wilted on a glass dining table designed to seat twelve. No one ever ate there. It was a reservoir for gifts and miscellaneous stuff. She lived in this room now. The floor of this hotel was more her space more than the three homes she paid ghastly mortgages. Kamiya’s eyes lingered on the cream colored double doors, making sure it was locked. What she was about to do would cause her team to beat her door off the antique hinges. By then it would be too late.

           The camera’s light flickered and then settled on a bright amber. Kamiya knotted her fingers in her lap seeing the word “REC” blink in the upper corner of the screen. It was time. She had already left written, detailed instructions for her manager, accounting team, design team, social media team, and news outlets she wanted to break the story. The courier would deliver her instructions in exactly one hour. The timing mattered. Her wishes were explicit and once her video aired, the necessary parties would have no choice but to honor her demands. There would be nothing to second-guess. The video especially would be very clear. She practiced how she would do it and even recorded herself doing mock versions of the act to make sure she would not loose her nerve.

           “You got this, Miya.”

           Kamiya also knew that nothing else “groundbreaking” would be going on in the social media sphere that would distract from her message. The good thing about being connected was other celebrities in her circle and members of famous teams (say a stylists or nanny) told her what dates to avoid. For example, when Kamiya’s second album was set to drop on Sept 1st, a friend of a friend whispered that she should not use that date because TMZ was about to report on an impending divorce. Divorces in her world were common enough, but this divorce was a megachurch pastor and there was digital evidence the break-up of his marriage was due to a transgendered mistress who had a massive social media following. Needless to say, she changed the date. Her album release would have been overshadowed and her release week would have been abysmal. She released a week earlier to the delight of her voracious following and debuted at number one on the Pop charts. The same connections would today make sure her choice went viral. This was her one life. She should get to live her life on her own terms. A tear fell down her cheeks, realizing that her freedom was on the other side of this post. She would have her body back, her mind, her music, her voice. Should she go live instead? That way people knew it was real.

           Kamiya jumped up off the bed and grabbed her laptop. She would record both. Just in case.

           “Hey guys,” Kamiya said, waving at the screen.

           The numbers in her Live Chat jumped from 300 to 3,000 to 2 million instantly. Kamiya swallowed. Her mouth was dry and her hands were damp with sweat. Texts jumped up on the bottom of the screen as her followers flooded the Live Chat with emojis, declarations of love, and sexual comments that would make a porn star blush.

           “Whoa, whoa, guys, this is going to be quick so I can’t answer a million questions right now—um, guys, whoa, um, no, no I can’t do a video chat with anyone. Thank you though that went bad last time,” Kamiya said, laughing awkwardly.

           She glanced up to make sure her camera was still recording. It was.

           “Ok. I have an announcement. I wanted to record it and make it all fancy, but my career started here, right?”

           Thumbs up emojis and hearts flooded the screen in unison. She smiled and tears pricked at her eyes, but she coughed and rubbed her eyes into her sleeves. People were commenting about how they had followed her since abandoned building days.

           “Wow, that’s a throwback. Um, for those who don’t know, let me explain all of the abandoned buildings comments.”

           Kamiya sat up and twisted her long curly extensions in around her fingers. She dug her nails into her spray-tanned legs, leaving pink nail marks. She was already black, but her team told her, going a shade darker would make her skin look even and was the ideal skin tone for her audience.

           “Ok. So most of the videos have been deleted because, well, I was fat then.”

           That comment was met with encouraging remarks and angry emojis. She felt relieved at that response. Then as if reading her mind, onscreen comments appeared. Some people were proud of her ‘healthy weight loss journey’. This pride flooded the comments. She ignored them. She was thin now with the dimensions of a doll, narrow waist and all. She ate 400 calories per day and had more cosmetic surgeries than a Kardashian. She was discrete about them and timed everything so it looked more believable, but nothing was healthy about her new body.

           “Um, yea. I actually started on social media for singing in abandoned buildings with my sister. She would record me singing in old churches and subways and other random places that were technically condemned but had great acoustics. That’s how I build my fan base and YouTube channel. A lot of people think it was from Marketplace, my first single, but I didn’t get attention until after my Abandoned Concerts page went viral or whatever.”

           The comments zoomed by so fast she could barely ready them. The emojis were all wide-mouthed shocked faces and then there were demands for her to post the old videos. Kamiya shook her head and laughed. She did not want to see her old body ever again. Kamiya froze seeing a familiar handle enter the Live Chat. It was @Camera_Cat, her sister. She was in the hotel lobby grabbing dinner and would likely be banging on her door at any moment. Everyone knew that Kamiya hated going live so Cat would be giving her the Catrina patent “WTF” face.

           “Okay, guys, real quick. I have an announcement,” Kamiya said, straightening her back and lowering her voice. She had to say this seriously or people would think she was playing a game. As you all know, I hate social media and, like, hardly ever post, because—well, let’s keep this all the way real, okay. You guys are trash.”

           Question marks and angry and shocked emojis flooded the screen at lightning speed. Kamiya smirked ready to drop every bomb in her arsenal before the grand finale.

           “Yes, you are. Half of you lie to yourself and to others every day and will never accomplish your dreams because you are inconsistent and talentless. There. Now you know.”

           Kamiya jumped hearing rapid knocking on her hotel room. She pulled her laptop closer and swallowed. She could hear her sister calling her name.

           “I don’t care if it hurts your feelings. It’s true. You aren’t loyal to yourself or your dreams so why should I expect you to be loyal to me or care about my mental health. I have done so much and sacrificed so much to make you bastards happy. I’m literally so damn lost right now I barely recognize myself. I hate having you guys around me.”

           Some of the comments were consolatory and others were curses and name-calling. Kamiya did not care. She was right and she would show them.

           “If half of you were forced to be honest about how jealous you are of my life before you could comment on my posts, you would never hate on me. You hate me because your dreams are dead and your work ethic is trash. Do you have any idea what I go through to be here. I’m supposed to be nice to you hateful bitches when you are all collective trash.”

           The banging on the door sounded like thunder. Muffled yelling echoed outside of the room. The voices were getting louder and Kamiya was glad the deadbolt was on because her sister and manager had keys to her room. Well, technically, they could access her room through the hotel app. The app could not work against a deadbolt and an old fashioned chain.

           “I’m being honest when I say I hate most of you. I wish you never heard of me. I wish I never shared my music with you. You don’t deserve me. I give so much to you people. You people who are supposed to be the woke generation. I hope you die alone.”

           Kamiya sat back and watching as the number of people watching her quadrupled. Screenshots of her and clips of her ‘rant’ would be viral in seconds. She smiled ready for the final blow.

           “Effective immediately, my social media is closed. My website is closed. My brands are closed. I am closed. You hear me? You no longer have access to me. You all have officially been fired from being my fans.”

           The word ‘no’ with about a hundred Os flooded the screen, followed by side-eye emojis and comments about her going crazy.

           “There is one exception,” Kamiya took a deep breath. “Moving forward, I am only accessible to 2200 loyal fans. I will hand select these people. If you look at my main page now, you will see that no one is following me and I am following no one. You will also notice that all of my posts are now gone. In one hour, my page will be private, so get your screen shots now. Yes, I’m talking to you Shade Room.”

           The number of people watching her, now exceeding the number of followers she had ever had on any platform. Tears pricked her eyes realizing she finally had their attention. The same question kept popping up: “How do I join the 2200?”

           “You don’t join. I choose you.”

           Kamiya slammed the laptop closed and fell backward on the overstuffed pillows of her European king bed. Phase one was complete. Now on to phase two.

[thegloriouscollectorlady]

Daryl’s role as a father figure

I haven’t done a lot of posting recently because I haven’t had much to say throughout the season. I really really enjoyed season 9 and overall thought Angela Kang did a great job but I haven’t had much to comment on. It wasn’t until after the season 9 finale that some really important themes jumped out at me and in recognizing them I wanted to share my thoughts. I am going to put them under a read more because like usual this got a bit long. 

               So first I am going to take this way back to when Angela Kang wrote Still in season 4. That was the first episode where we saw Daryl really open up to someone about what his past was like. About how he grew up and more importantly about how that made him feel. Daryl shared small pieces and hints of his story before that but not in a way that indicated how it made him feel. It was more so the audience could begin to piece together what his life looked like before. In Still we begin to understand how those formative life experiences made Daryl feel about himself and the world around him. The most important aspect of this arc which continues into season 5 is that because of these experiences Daryl does not see himself as a worthy person. He has not been loved enough to have the confidence to believe he is a good person. Now the audience knows that everyone around Daryl sees him as someone who is strong and capable but Daryl doesn’t see himself that way which is why I believe Daryl bonds so deeply with Beth. In multiple ways Beth tells Daryl over and over and over again that he’s a good person. She literally says as much at the funeral home during Alone and Daryl finally feels something he’s never felt before and that’s acceptance and love and in feeling those things from someone who Daryl perceives as a good person he is finally able to believe them about himself. This is a huge emotional leap for Daryl and one he does not maintain but it’s hugely important because it cements Daryl’s bond to Beth.

So the question that arose from Daryl’s time with Beth was what did this relationship mean to them and what was its context within the story itself. Now the writers left this ambiguous and to this day its never been clarified by those who are actually part of the show. The actors Emily and Norman hinted at a possible romance and didn’t deny that it would be possible. But with no actual clarification from anyone officially connected to the show a certain portion of the viewing audience felt very strongly that Beth and Daryl’s relationship was a familial one of either an older brother and younger sister or of a father and surrogate daughter. I personally don’t feel it’s either of those and but the older brother younger sister thing bothers me the least because it implies there wasn’t a huge age gap because there isn’t typically between siblings and in reality Beth and Daryl were not related in any way. So even if Daryl had initially approached their relationship that way things can change and personally I didn’t see Daryl’s responses to Beth in Alone as brother sister and I think they actually mirror a relationship we’ve seen this season and the show which was most certainly a romantic relationship. But one thing we absolutely have learned from season 9 is that Daryl’s relationship with Beth was not in fact that of a surrogate father and daughter.

So how to do we know this? Well that would be from the narrative itself which clearly indicated this season that Daryl would become a first time father this season. Aaron talks to Daryl about it early in season 9 (that one day he will know what it’s like) and then confirms later in the season that Daryl has indeed taken on the role of a father figure. All indications from the writers are that this is a first in Daryl’s life and not a role he has taken on before. Then of course we actually have the relationship that the writers are presenting to us for Daryl. . . where Daryl is the surrogate father figure to. . . a teenage girl. In  watching 9X16’s The Storm we actually see Daryl in his role as a surrogate father figure to a teenage girl and what that looks like for Daryl. We can ascertain from the passage of time that Daryl has been in this role for at least a short time. As long as he was with Beth we can assume. Oddly enough Daryl’s father daughter relationship with Lydia is pretty typical. He brings her food, protects her, defends her, and overall looks out for her well being. But in no way does it mirror Daryl’s relationship with Beth during season 4 and especially during Alone. I doubt for example that we will see Daryl drinking moonshine with Lydia, that he will bridal carry her, that he will seek out reasons to touch her including holding her hand (Daryl’s scene with Lydia at Henry’s pike was a mirror of the graveyard scene with Beth during Alone) and placing his hand on the small of her back, or that Daryl will gaze longingly at Lydia while she is engaged in activities that she enjoys such as when Daryl watched Beth play at the funeral home. I would also expect that we won’t see similar conversations to what occurred between Beth and Daryl during Alone. Two jump out at me as very important. The first is when Beth implies to Daryl that he is a good person.  This conversation happens when Daryl observes that someone has been keeping the food stock from collecting dust and the implication is that the person might come back. So Daryl tells Beth that they will only take what they need and leave the rest (in case the person returns) and Beth observes see I knew there were still good people implying that Daryl is one of those good people.  He then gets all shy and bashful and in order to lighten the moment he scoops jelly out the jar with his fingers causing Beth to joke that his actions are gross. Beth’s observations please but also embarrass Daryl and he isn’t ready to talk about them. Contrast that moment to the second important conversation that Daryl has with Beth where he is also eating jelly but in a different manner. In the second conversation right before Beth is taken Daryl is eating jelly out of a jar with a spoon indicating subtly that he is ready to talk to her about good people. Very seriously Daryl tells Beth that he now believes in good people and when she asks why he implies that it is because of her leading to the very emotionally charged “oh” moment where Beth possibly gets a hint to how much she’s been able to influence Daryl and how much she’s begun to mean to him. The nonverbal cues in this moment are intense as Daryl who doesn’t make it a habit to maintain eye contact with folks because of his vulnerabilities makes prolonged and significant eye contact with Beth in possibly one of his most emotionally vulnerable moments on the show. He is literally baring his soul to her and he looks her in the eyes while doing so. It’s an intense moment for Daryl and it shows a deep level of trust between Beth and Daryl that indicates an equal give and take relationship.

So by listening to what the writers are saying within the narrative and by observing how the characters interact we can ascertain that Daryl’s relationship with Lydia is his first foray into a surrogate father role. Daryl’s relationship with Lydia on screen is nothing like his relationship with Beth but there was a relationship on the show this season that I believe was actually an intended mirror of Beth and Daryl’s relationship and it explains a lot about the onscreen narrative choices that were made even down to some of the dialogue in the finale such as the moment Daryl asks C@rol who she sees when she looks at him. So to hash this out a bit when examining Beth and Daryl we have a dark haired, emotionally closed off, pessimistic, abuse survivor paired with a blonde haired, optimistic, thoughtful and emotionally available individual who was raised in a loving household by available parents. Now who does this dynamic remind you of from this season? If you guessed Lydia and Henry you would be right. The writers even drove this point home by paralleling Henry so strongly with Beth at the beginning of the season and using those moments to remind Daryl of Beth through Henry. Now of course Lydia and Henry got their own story but within that story Henry paralleled Beth and Daryl parallels Lydia. The descriptions of the characters are the same Lydia is a dark haired, emotionally closed off, abuse survivor (childhood abuse survivor exactly as Daryl is) and Henry is a blonde haired optimistic individual who comes from a secure and safe home with loving parents (Ezekiel and C@rol). I would just like to take a moment to point out how far in advance the writers were planning this dynamic before I continue. Way back in season 5 when Daryl is searching for Beth he picked up a book in the shelter that C@rol took him too. It was on surviving childhood abuse and at the time it seemed that Daryl picked up that book for himself especially in light of his conversations with Beth but it would appear now that instead that book was most likely foreshadowing Daryl’s arc with Lydia. Which means that the writers have been planning this particular part in the story for quite a long time. We often see this with TWD. There are hints in the story that don’t come into play until seasons and seasons later indicating that the writers have a very long term plan for characters and they take their time setting those arcs into motion.

But I digress from my original point which is that the writers purposefully set up an arc where Daryl is parenting a young woman who is a parallel to himself right down to her relationship with Henry/Beth.  We even saw in 9X16 a parallel to Daryl in 5x10’s Them with Lydia wandering away from the group multiple times to try to harm herself and just like with Daryl in Them it was C@rol that followed Lydia away from the group. Just like in Them it’s C@rol that reaches out and touches Lydia in a way that matters. For Daryl she gave him Beth’s knife and told him he needed to let himself feel his pain and with Lydia she tells her she is strong. She provides the thing they both most need to hear in their grief. I also think the awkward bit of dialogue that viewers struggled with when Daryl asked C@rol who she saw when she looked at him was about this. C@rol says first that when she looks at Lydia all she sees is Henry meaning she is only focused on her own grief and not on this young woman for who she is. Daryl then says who do you see when you look at me and C@rol says that of course she sees him. But I think that moment when C@rol follows Lydia to that barn is when she really sees her for the first time and I think what she sees breaks her heart. I think she sees in Lydia an echo of Daryl that tugs at her heartstrings in a way she can’t deny because C@rol knows what losing Beth did to Daryl and she on some level I think recognized that Lydia is suffering the same way and she truly saw her as her own person for the first time. It’s a very powerful but very subtly done sequence of events that only comes together in hindsight.

I think the finale also pointed out another really important piece of Daryl’s story that I think has been largely overlooked and it’s the idea of home. Throughout this arc Henry is wearing a compass shirt and Angela did an amazing job of pulling together the theme of compasses and home and what it means this season. In the episode where Negan escapes he takes Judith’s compass and leaves the ASZ but by the end of the episode he realizes that ASZ is now home and he returns. This theme goes all the way back to Carl telling Judith when she was a baby that if she ever gets lost to follow the north star home. It also ties into Ezekiel’s speech at the end of the episode where he talks about a house not being a home (callback to 4 Walls and a Roof) and that home is where your heart is. Where the people you love are. Henry was wearing a compass shirt because he became Lydia’s north star and he guided her to a place where she felt safe and where she thought she might have a home. Without him she is completely lost and she says as much during 9X16 when she is talking about not fitting in anywhere and no one wanting her around. But this theme is larger than even Lydia and it goes all the way back to season 4 with Beth and Daryl. At the end of Alone Daryl tells Beth he wants to try staying at the funeral home. He wants to make it a home because that is where Beth is even if no one else from TF is there. Fast forward through all of seasons five, six, seven, eight, and nine and notice one thing. Daryl has no home. He never fits into the ASZ when they first arrive, he bounces from community to community during the war with Negan, afterwards he’s at the Sanctuary for Rick, and then in the woods looking for Rick, and then this season Ezekiel offers to Daryl that he can stay at the Kingdom if he wishes (before Henry’s death). This all indicates that Daryl has not had a home since losing the prison and since losing Beth who like Henry is a north star. Beth is Daryl’s north star and without her he is as lost and aimless as Lydia is without Henry.  So it fits writing wise for the writers to pair Lydia and Daryl because these two characters have traveled on parallel arcs to this point. All the set up between Beth and Daryl back in season 4 and 5 plays into the Henry and Lydia arc this season and also points to where the story might go from here.

So after the season finale there was a moment where it hit me that the writers had set up a very deliberate paralleling of arcs and in doing so had defined very clearly some things about relationships that up until this point had been ambiguous and the way they did so was very subtle unless you look at the story in its entirety. I think what they set up has some really interesting implications for Daryl’s arc moving forward and what it means and also for C@rol’s arc and where that is going. I also think that the seeds of where Daryl and Lydia’s arc is headed were planted in the finale and I also think those are very interesting. I have some ideas about where the direction of the story is headed and I will post them in a separate post because this one is long enough and I have a feeling that one will be quite long as well. I also have another really interesting idea I want to look at that came to me watching the finale and I can’t wait to hash that out because it has to do with character deaths on the show and how they are used and it has some really interesting implications for what happened in season 5 and how that might affect Daryl in the coming season.

[lokislytherin]

gorgeous // yoonseok

pairing: min yoongi x jung hoseok

summary: a fic in which hoseok can’t keep his eyes off a certain mr min yoongi, and namjoon has to play matchmaker.

word count: 1310

a/n: this is my first time writing a fanfic/oneshot, so please bear with me! it’s unedited, but please enjoy!

jung hoseok hated min yoongi.

no, it wasn’t the type of hate that enemies had, nor was it the type of hate that had them both screaming at each other on a regular basis.  it was something different, something hoseok had only for yoongi.

he hated how effortlessly yoongi held himself, how the tip of yoongi’s lips would quirk up whenever hoseok made a fool of himself, how yoongi managed to do nothing and everything at the same time.

it was a little foolish, maybe.  

“hobi-hyung, you’re zoning out again.“

hoseok shakes his head, blinking himself back into reality.  it was namjoon who had spoken.  clever, perceptive namjoon.  hoseok made a mental note not to think of yoongi in front of namjoon again.

“sorry, joon-ah.“ hoseok plasters a fake smile on his face.  he can feel the difference between that and his real smiles, the smiles that would appear whenever yoongi was unintentionally funny, the smiles that were as bright as the sun itself.  he’s pretty sure namjoon can see the difference too.  “i was just thinking.“

“wow, hyung,“ teases jeongguk, “i didn’t know you could think.“ for that comment, the maknae of the group is instantly reprimanded by seokjin, their mother bother brother figure.

“let’s go over the choreo for boy with luv again,“ jimin suggests, “we need it to be perfect for army.“

hoseok nods, grateful for the interruption.  namjoon keeps his gaze on hoseok, curious but cautious.  the seven young men- or rather, the bangtan boys- shuffle into position.

the music starts.

***

after rehearsing the dances for what seems like the billionth time, the seven are thoroughly exhausted, especially seokjin, who complains about it loudly, wanting to take a break.  hoseok doesn’t mind- dance may be his escape, but it is only a temporary escape from his thoughts.

he struggles to tear his eyes off yoongi, who wipes a bead of sweat off his forehead, that adorable gummy smile breaking across his face after jeongguk makes yet another snarky comment.

he forces himself to look away, wills his traitorous mind to stop wanting to be the one yoongi is smiling at.

he needs to get away from yoongi.

he yanks the door of the dance room open, apologizing profusely as he almost hits taehyung in the face with it.  he steps out into the corridor, frigid wind from the air-conditioner blasting into his face, tousling his hair.

“you could always just talk to him, you know.“

hoseok jumps a little.  he hadn’t expected anybody to follow him. it’s namjoon- it always is.

“jesus! where’d you come from?“

the green- or is it grey?- haired young man snickers.  “hyung, i’m namjoon, not jesus.  i wish i was jesus.”

hoseok snorts.  “seriously, joon?”

namjoon ignores him.  “like i said, you should really talk to him.“

hoseok huffs.  “i don’t know what you’re talking about.”

the door suddenly flies open, and jungkook comes running out, jimin and jin not far behind.  tae follows, looking faintly amused.  hoseok is a little surprised when yoongi doesn’t appear.

namjoon barely dodges out of the way as the door flips open, the golden maknae of the group yelling at the top of his lungs as he runs from an enraged jimin, taehyung following bemusedly as a cackling seokjin trails behind them all.

“go on,“ namjoon says, “talk to him.“

hoseok shakes his head upon spotting yoongi, whose stiff yet graceful stretching makes his heart skip a beat.  “no way!” he whisper-yells.  “i’m not going to talk to him!”

namjoon rolls his eyes.  “fine, then.” he shoots hoseok a sh*t-eating grin.  “we’ll do it your way.” namjoon pushes hoseok into the room, swiftly locking the door.

horrified, hoseok jiggles the handle, but it doesn’t budge.  “kim namjoon!” he pounds his fists on the door.  “unlock the door!”

“no can do, hyung!“ comes namjoon’s gleeful reply, and hoseok can almost sense his grin.  “you’re not getting out until you get things sorted with yoongi-hyung!“

“namjoon!“ hoseok roars.  his face may as well be on fire.

“being locked in a room with me can’t be that bad, can it, hobi?“

hoseok yelps, flustered by how close yoongi is to him.  yoongi prowls even closer, almost cat-like in his actions.  hoseok can’t help but feel as if yoongi is the predator, and he, prey.

“i- i-“ hoseok struggles to form a sentence that makes sense, the slowly disappearing distance between them reducing his brain to mush, his thoughts to incoherent gibbering.

“you what, hmm?“ yoongi purrs.  “tell your hyung, hobi.“

hoseok flounders for a few more seconds, and-

“i hate you!“

by the time his rational brain starts functioning again, it’s too late.  it’s already been said.

“i hate you and your pretty hair and how basically any haircut in any color looks good on you.  i hate how i’m the one on the dance line, but you’re the one whose hip thrusts turn me on more than anything i’ve ever seen.  god, i hated your part in ‘baepsae‘.“

yoongi looks slightly taken aback, but hoseok can’t stop the thoughts he’s kept inside for so long from bursting out.

“i hate the way you talk to me, onscreen and off, ‘cause you sound casual but flirty, and i never know whether you’re being genuine, or leading me on, or just being, you know, min yoongi.“

his emotions are spilling out now, like water sloshing out of a bathtub.  yoongi stares on, and hoseok can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“dammit, hyung-“

finally, yoongi moves. he surges forwards, pressing a long finger to hoseok’s lips, effectively silencing the younger boy.  hoseok’s eyes grow wide as he stares down at yoongi.

“i think that’s quite enough hate speech for today, hobi.“ yoongi teases in that raspy voice of his, clearly knowing how much his mere presence affects hoseok and enjoying the power he has over hoseok.  “you’ve had your turn to talk.  it’s my turn now.“

hoseok waits with baited breath.

“truth is, you affect me more than you know. those antis who say you’re ugly can go f*ck themselves, because you’re hot.“ he says bluntly.  yoongi isn’t lying- hoseok can see it in his eyes.  “no, f*ck that, you’re not just hot, you’re beautiful.“

yoongi’s tongue darts out, wetting those full, pink lips of his.  hoseok watches in fascination, wondering how it would feel to kiss those lips.  “do- do you really think that?” hoseok asks, hesitant, hopeful.  he can’t quite believe what yoongi is saying.

yoongi smacks him on the head.  “hobi, do you remember april fools day?“

hoseok nods, blushing furiously.  how could he not? “somebody set the bts twitter profile to pictures of us, and it said sope, and-”

yoongi gives hoseok a look, and hoseok comes to a startling realization.

“you did that, didn’t you?“

yoongi sighs.  “yes, you oblivious boy! i didn’t think i’d actually have to confess out loud.”

hoseok groans.  “oh god, i’m such an idiot.”

“yes, you are!“ a muffled voice shouts from outside.  it’s namjoon.

“just kiss already, hyungs!“ it’s… jeongguk? “we’ve all been swimming in sexual tension for the last… umm, hyungs, what’s nineteen minus thirteen? i’m so bad at mental math.“

“six, guk!“ jimin screeches at jeongguk, clearly still angry from earlier.

“what they mean is,“ explains namjoon, “we’ve been third-wheeling you two since 2013.“

yoongi steps a little closer to hoseok, and hoseok can’t help himself from leaning in.  “we can let them third-wheel a little longer.”

yoongi’s lips meet hoseok’s.