#but that calls into question how to handle the character that said character would swap with...interestiiiing

[puppyluver256]

So the answer is probably "very yes", but has anyone considered a XBC2 roleswap AU with the Drivers and their main Blades?

I'm just imagining human!Pyra getting on that boat somehow (idk if she'd be a salvager like normal Rex) and then finding blade!Rex but blade!Rex is either Future Redeemed Beefcake Rex by default or close enough to Future Redeemed Beefcake Rex (and also I feel Addam would prolly be in place of Mythra and vice versa). Also a Gormotti Dromarch could be a fun design, as well as a Nopon Poppi / artificial Blade Tora :o

EDIT: Searched for it and yup, at least One person has dipped their toe into the idea...but in 2021, so they didn't have FRBC Rex to base Blade!Rex on so anyone who does it now could still go for that! Hell, even the one I just saw could pick it back up with FRBC Rex inspo now XD

[signanothername]

What do u think of the trope where Blue/Swap joins the bad guy???

I have complicated feelings about it?

I love the trope in of itself, I think it would be a really interesting trope to explore

The problem tho? I never once saw it executed in a way that grabbed my attention or made me actually love the story it was used in

It immediately goes to the “asshole” Dream and Ink and “kind found family” Nightmare gang trope

Which again, if you don’t know, I hate the trope of Dream being somehow an asshole or somehow treating Swap as tho he’s less than him

Ink is a whole different story where the fandom simply villainize him just cause he’s soulless

And the kind found family Nightmare gang is a trope I love, but just like the trope of Blue joining the Nightmare gang, it’s poorly executed most of the time (and I mean, how can you call it a “Blue joins the bad guys” when the “bad guys” are shown to be good guys????)

Like, I opened so many different fics only to be hit with the same execution of this trope over and over, eventually just losing interest bxhxhdhdh

The idea of Swap not being able to “keep up” with Ink and Dream or is somehow neglecting himself to take care of Dream just doesn’t really intrigue me (or even make sense to me)

Like don’t get me me wrong, I’m an absolute sucker for the “Swap is literally the only anchor Dream has left in his life otherwise he’d fucking break down” but I dare say Swap is more than capable of handling it without it weighing him down to a significant degree

This is Swap for god’s sake, he’s literally Papyrus’ personality but in a Sans body, if anything, he’s the one who has his shit together the most and is able to go on with a genuine happy and determined smile on his face, no matter the shit that happens to him, it would make a lot more sense for Dream to be the one to try and catch up with Swap than the other way around

I get that the trope tries to show the limitations of Swap as a mortal compared to Dream and Ink who are both pretty much immortal, but what people tend to do is that they completely twist Swap to be absolutely pathetic just for this trope to work

Which *shakes the fandom* I promise you don’t have to completely change a character up to make a trope work

Like I saw stories that made Blue to be somehow a weak depressed anxious guy trying so hard and is failing and whatnot and I question myself whether that’s even Swap anymore hchcchcjvj

I think the problem I usually see when people try and write different tropes for different characters, is that they try to make the trope make sense, and so they twist the character around to fit around the trope

Which, imho, is ineffective, you should understand the character, and then think of how the character would deal with a certain situation and how that leads to the trope you’re trying to write, one step at a time without having to ignore/erase important personality traits of the character

Of course, that doesn’t mean the trope you’re trying to write can’t fundamentally change the perception, personality, or behavior of a character, but you have to show how it affects the character to such a fundamental degree, show how can the character be heavily influenced and affected in a way that makes sense for said character

For example, I’ve seen people write Swap neglecting to eat cause he’s trying to “keep up” or sometimes Dream and Ink don’t give him the chance to cause they pressure him to go on another mission or push him too hard

Here are some problems I see with this:

- why is the Nightmare gang even somehow attacking every single day? Have they got nothing better to do? Especially with the fact they’re a found family now?

- why is Dream and Ink going out for “missions” every day if the Nightmares aren’t attacking, like damn what are they even doing?? What are these “important missions”?? Since when was Ink so obsessed with “missions”?

- Swap would absolutely not let that shit stand, if anything, he’d be very vocal about it and tell Dream and Ink to sit down and eat his great delicious tacos (Swap’s voice always has power behind it, and his actions are a direct reflection of his beliefs not what others push him to do)

- Ink has a home in the doodlesphere, he wouldn’t even be around enough to push Blue, while Swap has an AU and a brother, there is pretty much no way he’d be with Dream and Ink 24/7, and if he was somehow, you think Swap Paps would let it slide? And even if we go with the idea of Swap not being part of an AU anymore, you think Swap himself would neglect himself just to please others even when it doesn’t align with his own beliefs?

And those are only few of the top of my head, I’m pretty sure if I sat down and thought about this for a few hours, I’d be able to write you a whole other set of problems

Not saying you can never write Swap neglecting to eat, you absolutely can, it’s just needs to make sense for Swap as a character, what would it take for Swap to start neglecting his health? It’s not others pressuring him or pushing him I can tell you that much

So yeah, good trope, not so good execution (for me at least)

I guess I’m way too focused on the logic of it to truly enjoy it for what it is, but then again I always love to complicate things way more than I need to

Not every trope or story has to make sense completely, but I guess seeing Swap be completely made into a pathetic mess with no actual grounds to support it beyond “he’s mortal and his friends aren’t“ just ruins it for me dhdhhdhd

[narrators-journal]

The senku fake dating fic was so good!!! We need a part 2 <3 (this isn't pressure or anything I just find your writing so good and need more :>)

Sorry that this took so long, and that I can’t say with a lot of confidence that this has the same charm as the first part. But I hope it’s an amusing follow-up at least. Senku’s character is...questionable to me? But I may be a bit too close to it. Anyways! I hope you enjoy, and I hope this is as funny as I find it lololol.

“What the fuck was that, Ishigami?!” You snarled with indignant fire in your cheeks as you slammed the hotel room’s door as best the thing would let you. “You asked me to be your date to this stupid fucking thing, so I played your date. What else was I supposed to do?!” He snapped back, his crimson eyes sharp as they glared at you. “Maybe not whip out this wild fucking tale of love at first sight or whatever?!” “I did not say it was love at first sight. I pointedly said you annoyed the shit out of me at first. That’s more realistic.” “Yeah! For a rom-com!” You countered, though the man only flopped onto his bed with a groan as you stood at the foot and glared a hole through him. “Dude, this whole scenario is from some rom-com! Might as well lean into the cheesy crap.” He sighed. “Besides, why are you even mad? My tale was plenty romantic, your aunties and grannies were eating it up. You should be offering to up my pay, not chewing me out for doing my job.” He pointed out after, which only worsened the heat in your face. “Did you not think that this would make it near impossible for them to not ask about you in the future? Unless you’re gonna come to every family reunion, birthday, and engagement party for the rest of our days, I’ll have to tell them we broke up. Then you’ll become that ‘one who got away’ to my family.” You hissed, though you didn’t mention the issue of him having flustered you. That was an unnecessary factor for the red-eyed leek to know as he scrolled on his phone. So, you continued, “I’ll be ten years married and still hearing wistful musings of how my life might’ve been if I’d married that nice young man who was so deeply in love with me or some crap.” “You really over think shit, has anyone told you that?”

You shot your apathetic room mate a dirty look, but he didn’t bother with a glance towards you. Which, you were used to. While you and Senku weren’t best friends, you’d spoken a few times in your time as roomies, and each time, he had a skill for not looking at you as he tossed his barbs and snide remarks like darts. He generally just had a skill for being a bit of an ass too.

Which, on some level, was always fun. It took the pressure off of you to be polite and cordial when he’d trudge out of his room and snatch your coffee from your hands as if he was two seconds from crashing. It was entertaining to swap remarks with him, and hear the, admittedly, funny cuts he could cook up towards you. At least, after you’d met Taiju, and it had truly sunk in that Senku really was just like that with everyone. It was worlds easier to not take offense to being called an elephant or compared to an unsocialized chihuahua when you’d seen him tell Taiju that a rock had more braincells than him without a glance. And maybe, a little endearing..

However, at the moment, that parlay of words and chilly smugness only pissed you off further. It seemed to only dig into the melancholic well of anger, happiness, and embarrassment in a way you didn’t enjoy at all. “Fine then, if I’m just over-thinking, what do yousuggest I do to get rid of any future questions of you?” You asked, your words sharpened by the annoyance at yourself, thankfully. “Easy. Just tell them I died in a car crash.” “SENKU ISHIGAMI.” The only response you got was the leek-haired man’s devious cackle. “That’s a horrible way to handle it!” “Eh, not really. They won’t ask much if they think I died.” He pointed out, almost smug at his suggestion as you growled and flopped onto your own hotel bed. Your face buried into the lavender-scented pillow.

As if he could sense your frustration at the idea, though, Senku did offer an alternative. “I mean, if you really don’t want to lie and you’re so worried about your family missing me, we could just. Date for realsies. That way you wouldn’t have to weave a web of lies. And I could come to your other functions.” Which, sat in the air between you for a long, slow moment while you chewed on it.

When you lifted your head to look at him, he didn’t seem to be lying, he looked as he always did, as if the answer had been obvious, and he was amused at your not seeing it. Though, after what he’d said at the dinner...you couldn’t help but think the glint of amusement in his cherry eyes was an honest, affectionate bit of playfulness. Not pure condescension. But, you were still skeptical as you pushed yourself up from the bed and turned to face him on his own mattress. “Are you being serious? Do you seriously want to date me?” You asked, and Senku shrugged, “Sure. I don’t see why not. Though my pay will have to be upped to fifty a date. I need to pay for next year’s classes.”

You gave a bit of a furious scream and threw your pillow as hard as you could at that. The fluffy, lavender-scented mass able to smack Senku in his laughing face before you flopped back onto your bed. Your back now to him, your cheeks alight with a fresh wave of embarrassment, and his maniacal laugh in the air. Of course the bastard was fucking with you. Senku wasn’t an ass, but he had enough of a mean streak to tease you so viciously. Fine then, fuck face. You’re gonna regret those words, though “Fine since you offered, we’re gonna date. That solves my problem, and you can finally say you get girls.” You snarked, pointedly not looking back at the scientist in a similar way he often didn’t look at you when talking to you. “Fine by me. I need a test subject that’s closer than Taiju is.” Was his simple response. Ever smug, as if he’d won.

God I hate this man.

[mirror-to-the-past]

your reblog about swap aus reminded me of a thought I had once. I'm not fan of aus in general, but I once did entertain thinking about the main cast having different involvements in "the incident" and what they would do (it's really fun). In general I had a hard time imaginating anyone would do something as drastic as Basil, but that made me think, if anyone was in sunny's place, would Basil do the same for them? how I see it, he would try but the others wouldn't let him, but what do you think?

Took me a hot second to try to figure out a response to this- it's an interesting question, I just had to give it some thought. When you say "would Basil do the same for them," I assume you mean the extent of his loyalty. I can't answer to that with certainty, although if you've hung around my blog, you might realize my bias in how Basil might have some level of favoritism towards Sunny. He was likely feeling some tumultuous level of confusion, not just witnessing something so horrible take place, but the additional factor of two of his most key support figures forsaking each other (ever reliable Mari lashes out at Sunny, and then as a result of the confrontation, Basil loses his older sibling figure he looked up to for her sense of grace and capability. Meanwhile, Sunny, his best friend, the kind, "perfect" good listener who's *always* there for Basil's problems, etc, you get the point. Sunny lost his head, then took away Basil's older sibling figure, and therefore also took away Basil's feelings of safety with his best friend. He couldn't handle it, and backtracked into denial-land, trying to salvage what he could of the situation and that which he loved, as best as he could, from his perspective.). So, all that to say, not to imply that the others in the friend group weren't important to Basil either, but they might not have fulfilled a specific, unique social role for him in the way Mari and Sunny did. So, I don't know if Basil would feel as determined as he was in the original Incident if the people involved were different characters. Maybe, maybe not.

To answer the second part of your ask, that's a much simpler answer I feel more confident in, and it's pretty much that I agree with you. Like what I said in the reblog, the Incident only played out as it did because of the unique combination of Basil's insecurity-fueled trauma response and Sunny's tendencies towards passivity, not wanting to be blamed/hated for his actions, and coping via a disassociated state. If it was anyone else, they'd probably, like everyone jokes, call 911. Even if Basil proposed his plan in any other kind of circumstance, they might not even internalize their feelings of guilt as much as Sunny had, at that point, to think it necessary to hide their "mistake." I could see Aubrey/Kel just cutting Basil off without even registering whatever he was saying, and clinging to a belief like "No, they're okay! They're gonna get to the hospital, and it's all gonna work out! It has to!" Perhaps their stubborn belief would lead to a agreement on Basil's end, and a positive version of Basil's "everything is going to be okay," line. Who knows. And Hero, with his perspective, just wouldn't even humor something like Basil's idea. Rather than trying to hide something like that, he'd probably just be honest and subject himself to public scrutiny and judgement, thinking he deserved it.

TL;DR: Sunny's biggest mistake was actually being the only person to trust Basil to a degree the rest of the squad probably wouldn't.

[amaya-writes]

Death Note spoilers!

For the event, can I request reborn!L Lawliet? He died in 2007, so he would be 15 today, so I just wanted some fluff with teen!reader (platonic or romantic, whatever) maybe being friends from school and liking true crime, chatting, just doing normal teen stuff without a care in the world :') thank you so much

Event Masterlist About The Event

Notes: I was going to make this romantic but ran out of ideas lol

Warnings: n/a

Characters involved: L Lawliet, mentions Watari

Gender-neutral reader, you/yours

You had been friends with L ever since you saw him win a middle school dodgeball match by using physics.

You thought he was one of the coolest people you knew. He thought you were annoying.

L Lawliet wasn't exactly the type of teenager people would talk about. His real name was Ryuzaki but for some reason unknown to most he had decided to be referred to as L sometime during elementary school, a decision everyone seemed to automatically accept.

He was quiet and went about his days at school perched on his seat at the back of the class with his owlish eyes observing everyone around him.

Everyone thought he was weird. Even the teachers.

The only reason they never said anything was because of how awfully smart he was.

You prided yourself on being one of the top students in your class. But that was before L came along.

You might have been smart, but he was on another level.

Perhaps that was why you had originally been so vexed by him. Him and his stupid sliver tongue and quick reflexes that ensured even if he was regarded as an outcast, no one could ever ridicule him for it.

Especially not when he came from such a rich family.

You heard rumours about how he had a butler who would follow him around wherever he went. And how that butler was responsible for the chemistry teacher's sudden disappearance a week after she dared to mark L's answer wrong.

The second part was obviously a lie. But you found that it was enough to intrigue you even more.

In the end, it was your love for true crime that brought the two of you together.

There was a famous detective known for his books about the serial killers cases he had handled in your country who had a book signing in your city, and you just had to go.

As luck would have you found a familiar raven-haired boy standing outside the bookstore just as you arrived.

At first, you thought he would avoid you. But that was before he dropped by your table after the book signing to cheekily impose on your reading.

"He was never imprisoned."

"What?"

L took your question as an invitation to occupy the vacant seat across from you.

"The killer. He was a politician who got away with it just because his party refused to believe he could ever do such a thing."

The two of you were quick to share your sentiments about how awful that was, and before you knew it, a simple talk about a book both of you adored turned into reading recommendations and swapping social media.

Apparently, L had only downloaded Tiktok and Instagram to watch videos about the cases he liked to keep up with but actively spent time tweeting about all sorts of things.

You thought the two of you would be restricted to discussions outside of school after that but were pleasantly mistaken the next day when you found L excitedly leaning against your locker ready to talk about how your favourite author had announced they were going to do a podcast.

The two of you became quick friends after that.

It started with both of you reading together and listening to true crime but quickly turned into L tugging you along to a million bakeries and forcing you to play chess with him in exchange for long walks through the park and shopping sprees.

You learned the reason he wanted to be called L was that his late mother had named him Ryuzaki, and he seemed to hold a grudge against everything related to her. He learned about your struggles with perfectionism and need to be the trophy child of your family.

You loved fashion almost as much as he didn't, and he held an interest in all the sports you had never once bothered to learn.

The two of you were different yet somehow still so awfully alike.

It helped that you both lacked any artistic abilities whatsoever. Whether it be dancing, singing, or art.

That was where your other friend came in.

Unlike L who didn't have any friends before you, you had secured a tight-knit but fun group of friends you cared for deeply. One of them was a digital artist who had even gone viral on Tiktok, the other an aspiring doctor who was secretly a theatre kid.

You were acquainted with a few others too, but L preferred to stick around you or the other two.

Everyone else seemed to be glad that you were helping L come out of his shell.

The two of you quickly turned from the peculiar pair everyone would gossip about to normal best friends, and over time people began to stare more when you weren't accompanied by one another.

You cared for each other deeply and would often spend hours on end holed up in L's ridiculously large bedroom as you did everything from reading to studying to watching bad comedy horror movies.

One school year turned into another, and you soon began to think of L as someone you would be friends with forever.

[fireflykaizoku]

Hey!! I'm obsessed with your soulmates swap aus, really i love them they're so good i can't even explain 😭

Could i ask you one with kid but no one can really see they exchanged bodies 'cause they are literally the same? Like y/n has the same character as kid so they seems literally the same as always and it's quite a problem.

Thank you if you do, have a nice day 💕

helloo anon my love! ❤ i'm so so glad you like them! i'm sorry i took long, by the way! but here it is, and i hope you like it! have a nice day ❤

— What are you looking at? — you snapped at someone at the bar. That person was looking at you for you don’t even know how long.

— (Y/N), calm down. It’s your birthday, don’t stress trying to fight again. — one of your friends asked, holding your arm. — Just leave it.

You sighed, taking a sip of your drink. It was easy for you to get irritated and start a fight, you had quite a temper, and honestly, you don’t know how your friends put up with you. The only reason why you didn’t get into more fights, it was because of them.

— I swear, your soulmate better be someone calm. — another friend giggled. — Imagine if they have that temper.

— It’d be a chaos. — you laughed, forgetting about the fight you almost started before. — But I guess the world couldn’t handle a couple like that. I hope they’re level headed.

It was late when you went back home, and you fell asleep right after, hoping you wouldn’t have a hangover the next morning.

Your peaceful slumber got interrupted with a loud bang on the door. Since when your roommate got so aggressive? You barely had time to open your eyes, and realize you were sitting on a chair, in front of a desk, in a room that wasn’t yours. It smelled like oil and metal. What an awful time to switch bodies with your soulmate.

You knew it’d happen eventually, but it wasn’t something you looked forward to, unlike your friends who acted as if it was such an event.

— Kid, the ship just docked. — someone said. — We’ll go get some supplies and head to a bar.

— Go away! — you screamed, still in shock while looking at that body which obviously wasn’t yours.

The man had scars on his chest and right arm, while apparently he didn’t have his left arm, replaced with a heavy mechanical one. You looked at the long coat over your shoulder, the vest and his pants and couldn’t help laughing at his fashion taste. How tacky.

— What a clown. — you whispered to yourself, still laughing. — Out of all people, this is my soulmate? How lucky…

You got up and headed to a bathroom, maybe when you washed your face and actually felt awake, you could find a solution to switch back and go home. Looking at the broken and dirty mirror, your soulmate was very attractive. He had red hair, no eyebrows, a scar on the left side of his face, and goggles. He’s someone you’d look at if you saw him at a bar.

— Now, how do I find him? — you asked yourself. — Well, if he’s in my body, I’ll call my house. I’m sure there’s a den den mushi here somewhere.

When you left the bathroom, you tried to find the transponder snail. It took a while, walking from room to room, but you finally spotted one in what seemed to be the captain’s bedroom. You started calling your house, hoping that your soulmate would answer.

— What?! — the man answered. — If you’re the person who is in my body, you better find a way to switch back.

— Look, I’m not happy with this situation either. I want to go back to my body, so what do we do now?

He sighed, obviously as annoyed as you were.

— I’m the captain of this ship, so you tell my crew to come here to your island so we can switch back. Don’t let people know what’s going on, I don’t want anyone to know about that. I have a damn reputation.

— Are you even that relevant? — you laughed.

— Watch it, just because you’re my soulmate it doesn’t mean you can talk to me like that.

You rolled your eyes, hanging up before replying. First, you went to the kitchen, feeling thirsty. Luckily they had some beer. You took one, and soon enough, you found one of the crew members that stayed on the ship. You demanded to go to your island quick.

— We need to go there. It’s important, and don’t ask any questions, I’ll be working on something or whatever.

You went back to Kid’s workshop, slamming the door behind you. Being in another body was annoying. You didn't know who this person was, you were far from home, and his mechanical arm was so heavy it was bothering you.

When a tall blonde man wearing a mask knocked on the door, opening it right after, you just told him to go away, threatening to throw something at him if he didn’t leave. After that, everyone left you alone.

The only time when anyone knocked on the door after that, was the next morning, when someone said they arrived at the destination.

Finally!

— I’ll be back soon. I don’t want neither of you following me around, got it? — you asked and the crew nodded.

You left the ship, going towards your house. And when the door opened you saw your figure, which was very weird.

— Took you long enough! — he said with a frown. — How do we switch back now?

— I should’ve know you don’t understand about soulmates. — you sighed. — We need to kiss.

— Is that all? — he seemed surprised, thinking it was too easy to be true. — Then let’s kiss now!

— It’s not a simple kiss, you fool. It’s a kiss when we’re in love, which it’s probably not going to happen, so we need to figure something out.

Kid yelled, complained, cussed, and finally accepted how things really were. You two tried to talk without bickering on each other, trying to think of another solution. And after a long discussion, with you yelling at him, both decided that you needed to stay with him on the Victoria Punk until you could switch back.

The crew kept whispering, curious about who was that small person that their Captain just brought to the ship. Maybe an affair? A new member or an ally? No one dared to ask him directly, though, especially since he was in a bad mood.

Kid still didn’t want the crew to know, even though Killer was smart enough and could probably help. You spent many times together at his workshop, seeing him work while you complained you were bored. At night, you two agreed that sleeping in his room would be the best. The red haired man let you keep the bed, saying he didn’t want his body to be sick or in pain, apparently. Whenever his mechanical arm got too heavy, he tried to ease the weight or help you take it off.

Eventually, you had longer conversations with him, seeing you two had a lot in common, surprisingly.

The showers were a little weird, especially during the first few times, when he kept saying your body was very hot, making you feel flustered for the first time in your life. But after a while, it just felt normal.

It has been almost a month since you two met. The ship had docked and everyone was at a bar. A man was flirting with you, or well, with Kid, while thinking it was you. Indeed, you used to draw attention from people when you went out, and you forgot about that until a man was approaching Eustass, complimenting his beautiful looks.

Feeling annoyed, and perhaps even a little jealous thinking that other men wanted you, he got up from his sit and pulled you into a kiss. Of course, the crew had their eyes open. Who knew the mysterious person Kid brought was that straightforward, and who knew their captain would let someone steal a kiss from him.

The kiss wasn’t romantic or cute. It was full of passion and desire, it was unexpected and possessive, as if he was saying “you’re mine”. He bit your lip, and it felt like he was claiming you. Honestly, it was a good feeling, as if you’ve been waiting, without even knowing, for him to make this first move.

You felt butterflies, something you’ve never felt before.

When you opened your eyes, you saw his figure towering over you, and a grin that wouldn’t leave his face so soon. He pulled you closer, making it clear that you were his. He didn’t even ask, but your answer would be “yes” anyway.

— I can’t believe we finally switched back. — he laughed, flexing his arm. — I missed my body.

The crew gasped.

— Switch back? — Heat asked. — Wait, you were in (Y/N)’s body this whole time? And (Y/N) was in your body?

— I must say, I’m surprised. I couldn’t notice any difference. — Killer said. — You two are very alike.

At first, you two seemed offended until realizing the masked man was actually right. You two has the same personality, and it wasn’t what you expected your soulmate to be. Someone peaceful and quiet would be fun, but someone who could raise a little hell with you could be even better.

— You’re annoying sometimes, but I want you to sail with me anyway. — he said gently lifting your chin with his index finger, still with his signature smirk on his face.

[alaina-berry]

Nimbasa City Warden - Part 11

As Ingo and Emmet got dressed for work the following morning- Emmet watched Ingo quietly. He’d been approached by people on the way home and was asked several questions about his disappearance again, asked to teach how to throw bouffalant and druddigon, if he was going to make pokemon wrestling a career… and so on.

This time, he was approached by people that were former members of the disbanded group- Team Plasma, being told he was cruel for treating those pokemon that way, and even tried taking Oliver from him. Emmet and Elesa had to step in and make space for Ingo to walk through both using their galvantula- Circuit and Silk.

It was never said- but Ingo was not looking forward to going to work that day.

Emmet would stay home with him, but they’d called out of work enough that week. He wished there was a way he could take Ingo’s place that day.

He blinked. “Ingo?”

“Hm?” Ingo was getting ready to put on his button-up.

“Before you put that on… What if we switched uniforms for the day?” he asked.

Ingo turned to look at him and rose an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Well, as Elesa mentioned, we aged the same. We still look identical.” he said, “If we switched uniforms, people would think I’m you and would leave you alone, and ask me all the questions.”

“Emmet- are you sure? There’s still those ex-Plasmas, too and they’re relentless.” he said, “It’s stressful, I would not wish that attention on anyone. Except Volo and Ghetsis, maybe.

“They’re stressing you out.” Emmet said firmly, “You’ve been through enough and obviously they aren’t going to stop for a while.” he said. “You cen still hold Oliver- they’ll leave him alone if they think he’s with me.”

Ingo took a deep breath, heavily contemplating. “Alright…” he said, handing Emmet his button-up, “Might as well commit to the ruse.” he said. “We can act like each other well enough.”

“Enough to trick Elesa.” Emmet adjusted his voice to match Ingo’s.

Ingo smiled wide, matching Emmet’s trademark grin, “Sounds like a very good plan.” Ingo said, matching his voice with Emmet’s.

“Bravo!” Emmet handed Ingo his black button-up, “That means you’ll have to conduct the train today.” he said, “Are you ready for that?”

“I’ll be fine.” Ingo nodded. “Thank you…” he said, putting on Emmet’s shirt. When he brought his hand up, he shook his head, “We’ll make sure to wear gloves too. Not sure how many people remember the scar on my hand at this point.”

“Not a problem.”

By the time the twins had left the apartment, Oliver in Ingo’s arms, they looked exactly like the other. They carried on to work and went through their shift. While Emmet took the brunt of everything that would have typically been directed at Ingo, he handled things a little… colder than Ingo normally would have. While Ingo normally would have been concerned, people found that ‘Ingo’s’ annoyance from being bombarded with questions was rather reasonable, and was- for the most part- left alone.

Ingo was relieved to have been left alone, and no one had suspected a thing.

At the end of their shift while they were in their office, they were informed by security that there was a small group of people that was seen going into the tunnels- two of the people being the two trainers that had been seen repeatedly. Their identities remained a mystery.

Ingo and Emmet exchanged glances. “We’ll go investigate.” they declared. Ingo set Oliver on the desk and let out Circuit, Emmet’s galvantula- since they were swapping places, they swapped pokemon too. The pokemon were used to this sort of thing. “Circuit, keep an eye on him, please.”

Emmet let out Wayma, Ingo’s garbodor, “Likewise.” He nodded.

Circuit and Wayma let out a cry of affirmation, prompting the twins to leave the office to go investigate.

Emmet exhaled, the lobby was empty, “Man, I get the pressure.” he said, breaking Ingo’s character.

Ingo was rubbing his face, exhausted from the smiling, “Sorry…”

“Don’t be sorry.” Emmet shook his head, “This was my idea.” he said, “I wanted to give you a break.”

“Hasn’t felt like we’ve gotten much of a break lately…” Ingo commented. “I really hope this is just some juvenile gang meeting.” he grumbled.

“Me too.” Emmet squinted, seeing silvery flecks in the air, “Ingo… what do you think that is?”

Ingo blinked, then lifted his hand to try and catch the flecks, “Oh no… Sleep powder!” He grabbed Emmet’s wrist and started running back down the tunnel, but his and Emmet’s moves became sluggish until they collapsed to the ground.

“...met…!”

“..mmet…!”

“...ome on… Emmet!”

“EMMET!”

Elesa jumped as the twin below her jolted awake. He groaned and sat up. “Emmet, thank Arceus…” she let out a breath of relief. “Where’s Ingo?” She watched him hold his head and furrow his eyebrows, looking around. “Emmet?” she called.

Police surrounded the area investigating the scene, stoutland and musharna helping along. The twin began to look horrified, his breathing quickening.

“Emmet?”

He finally looked at her, his silver eyes full of fear, “I’m not Emmet.”

Master Post

[one-real-imonkey]

New au idea (it's a little au of au.) After the kavado fiasco palpapunk gets Rex transferred to the corasant guard with the excuse that he would to unstable to be on the front lines in an attempt to make Anakin more reliant in him.

Sorry if spelled something wrong.

Yessss.

There is nothing wrong with an AU of an AU, half my Corrie Guard works are different endings post following Hound letting the information out, lmao. And don't worry about the spellings, sometimes I get things so wrong the spell checkers can't work it out.

I'd also like to clarify in advance that some of the opinions Fox has on characters or their actions will be how he perceives them etc and some of his thoughts or opinions on a character may counter what we from an outside perceptive know.

---

The news was crushing. Firstly that Rex'ika had been taken by those Zygerrian slave taking monsters, and then a ruling that his actions on the mission had been reckless so soon after the mess on Umbara and between that and his injuries he was being redeployed.

To Coruscant.

To the Guard.

Part of Fox would almost have preferred he be sent back to Kamino, almost, but not quite.

Rex'ika was coming to the Guard, his vod'ika, the little brother they'd taken into their batch so so many years ago.

He was coming to the Guard.

Fox was terrified, but he wasn't sure if it was because Rex was going to be in danger, or because he was going to learn the truth.

And then Rex would tell Cody and Wolffe and Bly and Ponds and the truth would come out and everything would get out and there would be chaos. The Guard wouldn't just be cowardly paper pushing meat droids, they'd be the weak cowardly paper pushing meat droids who couldn't defend themselves from some rich Senator who'd never held a blaster or thrown a punch.

Like being spat on and insulted wasn't enough already.

Vode an, except when you were in the Guard.

There was more to it, to Rex's joining them, he was certain of it. Rex'ika worked with Skywalker, Skywalker was close with Palpatine, Palpatine was... Fox wasn't sure what but he didn't want him near his brothers. Palpatine was the reason Skywalker hadn't been on Umbara, the reason that Krell had been allowed to play with the clones like toys, the reason so many of Rex's vode were dead... the reason for a lot of things.

Skywalker was the reason Rex was being transferred to them, at least the reason Palpatine was having him transferred. He wasn't certain why, but with how close Skywalker was to Palpatine, how he acted around them sometimes, especially after a meeting with Palpatine, that Jedi wasn't to be trusted. He was dangerous, saw himself above them whether he realised it or not, and he could have them killed if he wanted.

It they'd been sending Rex almost anywhere else, he'd have been glad his brother was getting away from Skywalker.

Getting closer to Palpatine was hardly something he wanted though.

.

.

.

Fox watched the LAAT arrive, and watched his vod’s so clearly unique blue armour appear.

He stayed to the edge of the landing pad until the LAAT had taken off again, and Captain Velt, who lead one of the Lower Level Security Teams and would be, hopefully, looking after Rex and keeping him out of the Senate Building, had introduced himself.

And then he strode over.

Velt knew what he had planned, and had in fact anticipated it, but it wasn’t often one of their vode was brought into the Guard rather than bringing in Shinies, and he knew well enough that Fox was going to be protective of his batch-mate, adopted or not. Velt stepped back as he approached, nodding to Rex and then going to his own squad.

“Rex’ika, with me.”

“What, Fox, where… shouldn’t I...?”

Rex gestured to Velt and his squad.

“No,” Fox grabbed him by the wrist and started pulling, not letting Rex resist, “you come with me, right now.”

He dragged his brother through the halls into the Command barracks, thankful that for all he was clearly annoyed about it, Rex didn’t fight him.

“What was so important, Fox? If you really wanted to catch up you couldn’t wait until I'd settled in?”

He had a meeting in 20 minutes he couldn’t miss, which meant he had no time to address the subtle barb he’d been offered, nor to sugar coat what was happening on Coruscant.

"Vod, you have a lot to learn about the Guard if you're going to survive here."

“Fox, I'm sure General Skywalker will try to get me back to the 501st soon. And I can manage a few weeks handling paperwork.”

“No, no, vod, it’s not paperwork and fun times here. Rex, it’s horrific, and I'm not letting them decommission you because you didn’t know how to protect yourself here.”

“It’ll be a few weeks...”

“Palpatine had you transferred here for a reason, I don’t know what, but I don’t trust Skywalker much better. He’s dangerous, vod.”

“I think I know my General better than you.”

“So you’ve never noticed how he acts after a meeting with the Chancellor, because last time he had one he shoved a shinie into a wall. He's dangerous, maybe not to you when he’s in a good mood, but... but that’s not what you need to know. You're here, you need to survive here. Besides, no-one leaves the Guard except in a body bag,” he left out the or worse, Rex didn’t need that yet, “Rule one...”

“Fox wait...”

“Rule one, you don’t ever, and I mean ever, fight back. Rule two, keep your armour uniform, so if you’re ever accused of anything or slated for reconditioning or decommissioning you can be swapped around. Rule three, no matter how weird or demeaning, you do what you’re ordered. Rule 4, if they call you it or clone or anything like that, don’t argue or try to impress on them your name or anything like that, just do what they say. Don’t react. Now I'm trying to get you put into one of the units that takes patrols rather than on Senate Security, but I can't make promises.”

Rex looked blown away, and a little shattered, but this was reality and he couldn’t afford to be soft on his little brother.

Not if he wanted Rex to live.

His comm buzzed a warning.

“Look, Rex’ika, I have a meeting, but the rec room and commissary are down the hall to the right, I’m sure someone can help you settle in and... I'll answer any questions you have properly tonight.”

He wondered if his voice sounded as defeated to his vod’ika as it did to him.

It didn’t matter, he slammed his buy’ce on his head and headed up to the Senate Building.

He couldn’t keep the Chancellor waiting, not even for his youngest batch mate.

———

Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed.

Thanks for the ask, I love the idea for this AU though I’m not sure yet how or if I’ll continue from here. If anyone has ideas or wants to take it on or anything like that go nuts (obvs let me know lmao).

Like I said at the top, Anakin is nice to the 501st, but all Fox sees is someone close to Palpatine and someone who is always aggressive to them after spending time with Palpatine. He sees Skywalker as a threat and he has to focus on his siblings first. Similarly the vode don't hate the Guard and wouldn't see them as cowards, but due to Palpatine's manipulations, on both Fox's mind and the vode as a whole, these are Fox's beliefs.

Also Anakin is kinda unstable due to palpatine manipulating things, and similarly that why the Jedi can't see whats happening to the clones on Coruscant, but normally (and if/when they find out) they'd be horrified and do what they can to help.

Inbox always open. (-:

[ijustwant2write]

Grow Up Fast-Fred Weasley x Reader

(GIF credit to @hogwartsfansite​)

Part 2

Tags: @obsessedwithrandomthings​

Masterlist

Prompts List

Requested by anonymous: 'Ohhh your one-shots are amazing! Could you do a cute Fred Weasley one where a baby is abandon near the shop and they Adopt it because the reader and Fred got to attached'

Characters: Fred Weasley x Reader (married), George Weasley x Reader (brother-in-law)

Meanings: (Y/N)=Your name

Warnings: Abandonment/Neglect, adoption/orphanage, lots and lots of fluff

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

I placed my hand over my stomach as I felt it rumble, thinking about what I would have for dinner tonight. It had been a long day in the shop, it was becoming busy now, especially with all the children getting ready to go back to Hogwarts. Sighing, I passed by George who had just finished with a customer, deciding that now would be a good time to start cleaning up if we wanted to go home soon.

“I’m going to start tidying up. Call if you need anything.” I explained, receiving a nod from my brother-in-law.

Heading into the stock room, I spotted the pile of cardboard that needed to be taken out to the bins. Although I was tired, I mustered up all of the energy I had left, managing to carry it all outside. Once it had been dumped, I brushed my hands against each other to get rid of any dirt when I heard a strange sound. Freezing on the spot, I listened out once again, hearing a muffled cry. I couldn’t be sure what it was, taking out my wand in case it was something dangerous. Perhaps it was an animal that had escaped one of the shops and had smelt the food thrown out. Slowly and cautiously, I stepped towards the noise, quickly pulling back a piece of cardboard and pointing my wand in that direction, gasping when I saw what was laying there.

A baby lazily swaddled up wriggled around, crying out louder now. I was stunned, not expecting this. Putting my wand away, I carefully picked them up, wrapping the baby up tighter. It was a boy, he couldn’t be older than a few months old, but it wasn’t a newborn. He was still small, and I wondered how long he had been out here. It was cold and wet, he would have surely died if left out here any longer. Going back into the stock room, I perched on a crate, struggling to take off my jacket as I held him, but once off I wrapped it around the baby, providing extra warmth. He wasn’t wailing anymore, he had stopped once he was in my arms. He snuggled his face against me, holding onto as much warmth as he could. Who could leave a baby to defend for itself like this? 

“(Y/N), are you back here?” Fred called out to me, shock showing on his face as soon as he spotted me.

“It’s not mine.” I stupidly said.

Fred’s mouth opened and closed repeatedly, unsure what question to ask first. His eyes remained on the baby as he approached, still baffled by the sight before him.

“(Y/N), what’s going on here?” he finally said.

“I found him by the bins. He was underneath some cardboard, there was no note, there was nothing but this blanket he’s wrapped up in.”

“We’re going to have to call someone, someone official.”

“Can someone come help out here, I would like to go home soon...” George burst in, his words trailing off when he saw what was happening.“Well you kept that quiet, you hardly even showed (Y/N).”

“He’s so cold.” I mumbled, holding the baby closer.

“Poor little fella.” George joined us, smiling down at the child.“Look, let’s shut shop early, then we’ll call around, see who can help us.”

I remained where I was, starting to walk around and rock the child to keep him content. His big, brown eyes stared up at me, he had such lovely eyelashes. For someone who had been left out for who knows how long, he had small smile on his face the entire time. The twins managed to close without me, only Fred returning.

“George is trying to figure out who to contact. No doubt he’ll be taken to an orphanage.” Fred said, wrapping an arm around my waist.

“He’s not made a sound since you left. I didn’t want him to fall asleep either, he’s just so frail.”

“Here, I’ll hold him for a bit.” 

Passing over the baby, I realised how careful we were being, never having actually handled a baby like this before. The shock of finding him had clouded my mind, and now it was clearing once I saw my husband holding the baby. It was quite a sight, this tall man holding someone so tiny in his long arms. Of course we had discussed creating our own family, but that was further down the line. However, I couldn’t help but melt at the sight, imagining this was our own boy. Fred’s toothy grin was contagious, especially when he started cooing and speaking to the baby.

“It looks so natural on you.” I pointed out, standing beside him.

He glanced down at me.“I thought the same thing when I saw you.”

“Fred, are we-”

“Someone has contacted one of the local orphanages, the won’t be able to come for a few hours though. I gave them your home address to pick him up from, is that alright?” George interrupted.

“That’s fine Georgie.” Fred nodded, starting to walk around with the baby.

“I’ll get our things.” I offered, heading back into the shop where our coats were hanging behind the counter.

George followed behind, and I saw out of the corner of my eye that he had a huge grin on his face. As I put on my coat, picking up my scarf, I watched him do the same, though he was almost laughing.

“What’s tickled you Georgie?” I asked, wrapping my scarf around my neck.

“I’m not amused by anything, it was just nice seeing what my brother’s future is going to be like.”

“That’s very sweet.”

“You look great you know, as a family. I know you’re waiting but,you two are going to be great parents.”

“And our children are going to have the best uncle.”

It felt extremely weird to bring a baby home. Luckily there were no neighbours around, it would be a strange story to tell. Fred had wanted to hold him the whole time, and I found it funny that I was becoming a little jealous. I wanted to hold him again. We laid the baby on the bed, grabbing another blanket to lay him down on as well as wrap him in. I took my jacket away, throwing it on top of the pile of washing that needed to be done. Sitting either side of the baby, we found ourselves just staring at him. My hunger from earlier was all but gone, I couldn’t think about anything else.

The baby was flickering his eyes between the both of us, closely watching. It was amazing how infatuated we were, I could watch him all day. He was just too cute. And I loved the adoration in Fred’s eyes, and how he had looked when he held the baby. 

“I wish we had some food to give him.” I frowned, lightly tracing the baby’s soft cheek with my finger.

“He hasn’t started crying again, though I’m worried that’s because he’s weak.” Fred sighed.

“Why would someone just leave him out there?” my breath was shaky, remembering how he looked when I found him.“I understand if people are struggling, but they could have given him to an orphanage.”

“Don’t cry love.” Fred breathed out, getting upset himself, he held one of my hands.

“I’m sorry it’s just so sad. He’s such a beautiful baby boy, I could never leave him, even walking out to get my coat made me feel guilty for leaving him behind.”

“Should we wash him? He’s very dirty.”

“Maybe. I’ve never washed a baby before.”

“How hard could it be?”

“I’ve seen people do it in sinks, should we do that?”

Fred went to fill up the sink with water and find some sort of soap that wouldn’t irritate the baby. For some reason, I laid down beside the baby, giggling when he looked at me and smiled. He was gurgling now, making funny noises as if he was trying to communicate. I spoke to him in a high pitched voice, laughing along with him. As the baby continued wriggling around, kicking his legs erratically, I felt someone watching as. Glancing at the doorway, Fred was stood there, smiling again.

“His bath is ready.” he pointed out, rolling up his sleeves as he left.

“Come on you, let’s get you nice and clean.” I said to the babe, lifting him into my arms once again.

The three of us were laughing non-stop as we bathed the baby. He enjoyed the water, and not being in full control of his limbs, he splashed the water about everywhere. Fred and I were soaked, but it didn’t matter. Fred grabbed a towel, wrapping up the baby and creating a hood for him, it was the cutest thing I had ever seen. I went to get changed, putting on comfy (dry) clothes before I went to swap with Fred. However, as I returned, I realised how quiet it was, melting at the sight I saw in the living room. Fred was relaxed across the sofa with the baby resting on his chest, both of them falling asleep. I didn’t want to ruin the moment; unfortunately it was when there was a knock at the door. My heat sunk as they stirred, and I went to answer the door, realising that it was time to say goodbye. 

A woman was here, she showed me her official badge, thanking me as I let her in. She seemed lovely, very warm and welcoming. I lead her to where Fred was. He was awake, but still cuddling the baby.

“Oh, you two seem to have everything handled here.” the woman said.

“He’s been no bother at all.” Fred explained, not looking at her. 

“Well, cuddle time isn’t over yet, I’ve got some questions about how you found him. Also, I’ve brought him something to drink, I bet the poor thing is starving. It’ll give him some nourishment.”

“That’s good news.”

“Fred, why don’t you get him a clean blanket to wrap him up in. He’ll catch a cold otherwise.” I suggested, sitting down with the woman as he left.

“Have you got any children of your own?” she asked.

“Oh, no we don’t, not yet.”

“Well, you’re both very natural. You both looked very solemn when I arrived. 

“Thank you. And I’m sorry, that was nothing against you obviously. It’s just been...nice to see what the future may look like.”

I answered all of her questions as Fred returned, sitting beside me and feeding the baby. Sometimes I had to repeat questions to him, he was too distracted, even after the baby was done feeding. Time seemed to fly by, because soon enough, the woman was ready to leave. Standing beside Fred, I sadly let him hand over the baby, the woman placing him in a carrier, before saying her goodbyes, thanking us again. We waited by the door, waiting until she had disappeared completely before closing the door. The baby had been sound asleep again, unknowing that he was being taken away. Fred remained silent as he slumped towards the bedroom, and it did seem like something was missing now.

As I followed my husband, I noticed the woman had left a business card behind, for an adoption agency. The name was in beautiful writing, being re-written over and over, her details on the other side. Fiddling with it in my hands, I thought back to what she had said; we looked like naturals. 

Fred and I had hardly said a word to each other as we got ready for bed, even when we were laying down together, his head resting on my chest as I brushed back his ginger hair. All of the lights were off, the sound of rain hitting the window being the only thing I could concentrate on. I sighed before speaking.

“He was lucky we found him.” 

“He was lucky you found him.” he pointed out.

“It was fun, wasn’t it? Even if it was small amount of time.”

“Yeah, he was still a cheeky little thing.”

I kissed his head.“You looked great you know. I...I really enjoyed seeing you with a baby, it was like I had a peek at what we would look like as parents.”

“I was thinking the exact same thing. I know we said we would wait a while but...”

“I mean, we could...”

“Do you...do you feel guilty about him?”

“Thinking about having a baby when we just found a baby who needs a home?”

“Yeah.”

“Yes, I do.”

“(Y/N),” Fred propped himself up, now looking down at me,“it’s pretty clear we’re on the same page here.”

I laughed.“You really want to adopt him?”

“I just have this feeling about him.”

“No, you’re attached to him.”

He chuckled.“I guess I am.”

“That’s not a bad thing. She did leave a card, we could contact them in the morning.”

“Looks like it was fate.”

I smirked.“If we’re going to be having a baby soon, we should probably make the most of our last nights together.”

“If I didn’t know any better, I would say you were a bad influence on me.”

“We might be responsible parents soon, let’s live a little before that happens.” 

[robininthelabyrinth]

im currently obsessed with the thought of a role swap au where jiang fengmian and madam yu are the ones who die young and cangse sanren and wei changze are like "welp! gonna settle down in lotus pier and raise a couple bonus kids" like sdkfjlksdj just imagine how different the yunmeng siblings would turn out, especially jiang cheng

“Well, shit.”

Cangse Sanren stopped trying to wrestle Wei Ying into his shirt – he’d decided that he was a monkey today, with the associated claim that monkeys did not require clothing – and turned to look at her husband. She’d managed to crack open that reserve of his more and more as the years went by, but he still tended not to swear anywhere outside the bedroom, and never in front of Wei Ying.

“What happened?” she asked. “I assume it’s something a bit more of a problem than the usual night hunt requests.”

“Something happened at the Lotus Pier.”

“Oh?” That sounded troublesome, so she put Wei Ying down and lightly kicked him in the ass, sending him tumbling head over heels and giggling madly the entire time. “We’ll settle this later, you hear me? Now get lost or I’ll eat you, little cabbage.” He ran off at once.

“Now,” she continued, putting the shirt aside. “Lotus Pier. What does Fengmian have to say?”

Her husband maintained a semi-frequent correspondence with him on behalf of both of them – she liked Jiang Fengmian, really, and she was happy to hear from him. It’s only that she liked being free more.

“Nothing,” Wei Changze said, and that’s when Cangse Sanren noticed that her husband was an unhealthy shade of pale. “He’s – he’s dead.”

“What?” She snatched the letter away from him. “What – him and Yu Ziyuan both? Impossible! They’re – they’re sect leaders. Of a Great Sect! What happened?”

“We have to go back at once,” Wei Changze said. “I’m sorry, I know it’s not your favorite place –”

Nowhere that tried to trap her was.

“– but I owe everything to him, and his children...the rest of the world is going to eat them alive.”

Cangse Sanren was weak when it came to children, especially those around the same age as her own.

“Oh, fine,” she said. “I’ll go get Wei Ying ready, you start packing, we’ll head out at once.”

“I don’t know what we can do even if we do go,” he said, folding the letter and putting it away. “I was a good friend of Jiang Fengmian’s, but in the end I was still only a servant –”

“Enough worrying,” she said. “First we need to get there.”

By the time they got there, little Jiang Cheng – even younger than her Wei Ying – had already learned to sit on the sect leader’s seat, but not enough to hide the sheer terror in his eyes, and Cangse Sanren was immediately incensed by the very sight of it, pulling out her horsetail whisk and applying it to the leeches that came to a situation like this and saw in scared child only as an opportunity for power.

“Dear, please stop beating all the Jiang cousins,” Wei Changze said. “It’s not going to change anything. The ceremony’s done; he’s sect leader whether we like it or not.”

She bared her teeth to show what she thought about that. Stupid human rules; sometimes she didn’t like them one bit.

“How about you go introduce Wei Ying?” Wei Changze suggested. “And before you say that I’m just trying to get you out of the way to reduce tension in the political situation: you’re absolutely right, I am. Please go anyway – I’ll call you back if there’s anyone else that needs a beating.”

It was very nice to have a husband that understood her.

Cangse Sanren quickly figured out that Jiang Yanli was Jiang Fengmian’s daughter in all the important ways, being calm, easy-going, and generally capable of handling things without becoming overly distraught, and Yu Ziyuan’s daughter in the sense that there was steel in her spine when she stood in front of her younger brother and interrogated Cangse Sanren as to her intentions.

It was, in Cangse Sanren’s private opinion, an improvement on them both.

Jiang Cheng, though – he wasn’t what she’d expected at all, not the way Jiang Yanli was. Maybe it was just the trauma, but he was softer than she’d expected, more vulnerable, more introspective; he took everything seriously, frowning more than he smile, always paying careful attention to everything everyone said even though he was neither especially studious or naturally talented. Every once in a while, his temper would get going and he’d be vicious, lashing out with a poison tongue that was mostly just cute because he hadn’t learned to use it properly, but it was very obvious to an objective observer that he only ever reacted that way when he felt hurt.

No matter what, though, he always tried very hard.

Jiang Fengmian would have hated you, Cangse Sanren thought, and abruptly felt guilty about the thought. Based on her understanding of the man’s character, though, the way he liked people who were free and lively, people who smiled no matter what the circumstances, people who didn’t make trouble or stick too closely to the rules, the way he disliked those that were the opposite to that – no, she was being uncharitable to a dead man’s memory.

Even if Jiang Cheng wasn’t the type of person Jiang Fengmian would have liked best, he was still his son.

“My husband was your father’s servant,” she explained, kneeling down to look at little Jiang Cheng. “He used to help him with all the things he had to do when he first became Sect Leader, and now he’s here to help you.”

“Where were you before?” Jiang Yanli wanted to know, her arms protectively around Jiang Cheng’s shoulders.

“Travelling,” Cangse Sanren said, even though she knew the question had been more about why they hadn’t been there. “Would you like to meet Wei Ying?”

That right there was the best testament to their characters she could find: they liked Wei Ying at once, and he liked them in return.

By the time Wei Changze came to find her, Cangse Sanren had already resigned herself to staying in the Lotus Pier for the short term future, with an option out for long-term, and she told him as much.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that,” he said. “I was speaking with Sect Leader Nie – how much do you know about war?”

Cangse Sanren blinked. “I’ve heard bad things?”

She appreciated that he asked, though. After this long, he recognized that there were certain things one simply did not encounter when one was raised on a celestial mountain by an immortal that was only sometimes a person.

“We may not be able to avoid it, if we stay,” he said. “And – I have to stay. I owe it to Jiang Fengmian. But if you wanted –”

“Too late now,” she said cheerfully. As if she’d leave him! “I introduced Wei Ying, and now he has a shijie and a shidi; he’d be heartbroken if we abandoned them. We’re in here for the long haul. Now…tell me about this war. Who would be the most efficient first kill?”

[weirwoodking]

what do you think sansa's endgame is? and i'm not talking ships. like what do you think she'll be doing by the time the books end.

Anon, you accidentally made me write an essay.

So, to try and guess where Sansa could be at the end of the story, we have to look at where she’s heading currently.

She’s currently in the Vale, stuck under the control of Littlefinger. I think Sansa’s arc in TWOW will revolve around breaking free of his manipulation. There’s a line in Bran’s first ASOS chapter that seems to foreshadow this:

Sometimes he could sense them, though, as if they were still with him, only hidden from his sight by a boulder or a stand of trees. He could not smell them, nor hear their howls by night, yet he felt their presence at his back . . . all but the sister they had lost. His tail drooped when he remembered her. Four now, not five. Four and one more, the white who has no voice.

These woods belonged to them, the snowy slopes and stony hills, the great green pines and the golden leaf oaks, the rushing streams and blue lakes fringed with fingers of white frost. But his sister had left the wilds, to walk in the halls of man-rock where other hunters ruled, and once within those halls it was hard to find the path back out. The wolf prince remembered.

—Bran I, A Storm of Swords

It’s hard to find the path back out, but not impossible. I do believe Sansa will return to “the wilds” that belong to her and her siblings.

George was asked once if Sansa still has skinchanging powers even though Lady is gone, and he said she does. We’ll probably see that aspect of her character start to make an appearance in Winds, especially since the presence of magic ramps up with each book. I think it would make sense if she bonded with a bird (such as a falcon or a hawk), seeing as she has quite a lot of bird imagery (particularly caged bird imagery) in her story. Sansa “flying free”, both literally and figuratively, seems like a logical step for her arc.

I do wonder how her connection with the “pack” will be handled. All of the Stark kids except for Sansa have the telepathic bond through their wolves, so I wonder what GRRM will do with Sansa there. It’s heartbreaking, that she doesn’t have that mental connection that the others do. I don’t know if that could somehow be reformed without Lady? There are a lot of unanswered questions about the Stark kids skinchanging powers (and the telepathic bond). Why did their powers only show up when the wolves did? How far do their powers go? How powerful could they become once they’re properly trained? How does the telepathic bond work? Is that a thing that other skinchangers can do? Is it there because of the wolves or is it through the kids themselves? Is it forever broken with Sansa because Lady is gone, or could Sansa reform that connection through another wolf that joins the Stark warg pack? Would it make sense narratively and thematically for GRRM to give Sansa another wolf?

Anyway, no idea what he’ll do with that. (Some sort of scene where Sansa is like “I don’t have a wolf anymore”, and then all the other Starklings crowd around her for a giant group hug and say “that’s okay, you’re still a part of the pack no matter what” is something I could see happening. It’s not like the other kids would treat her any less for not having a direwolf, she’s still their sister.)

A common speculation I see for Sansa’s endgame is that she could become the new head of House Arryn. And, well, the aesthetic of Sansa being Lady of the Eyrie/Lord Protector of the Vale/Warden of the East is definitely cool. The Queen of Birds up in a mountain palace with her flock all around her like a winged army? That’s some gorgeous imagery.

But...

I don’t think Sansa would ever willingly choose to stay in the Vale if she had the option to go home to Winterfell:

She awoke all at once, every nerve atingle. For a moment she did not remember where she was. She had dreamt that she was little, still sharing a bedchamber with her sister Arya. But it was her maid she heard tossing in sleep, not her sister, and this was not Winterfell, but the Eyrie. And I am Alayne Stone, a bastard girl. The room was cold and black, though she was warm beneath the blankets. Dawn had not yet come. Sometimes she dreamed of Ser Ilyn Payne and woke with her heart thumping, but this dream had not been like that. Home. It was a dream of home.

The Eyrie was no home.

—Sansa VII, A Storm of Swords

One of the largest themes in the stories of the younger POV characters (Theon, Jon, Dany, Sansa, Arya, Bran, Rickon (even though he’s not a POV character)) is that of home. Just go on A Search of Ice and Fire and search for the word “home” in each of those characters’ chapters. I think Sansa will end up at her home, with her pack. We know she must return at Winterfell at some point, as she has the final part of this prophecy to fulfill:

"I dreamt a wolf howling in the rain, but no one heard his grief," the dwarf woman was saying. "I dreamt such a clangor I thought my head might burst, drums and horns and pipes and screams, but the saddest sound was the little bells. I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs. And later I dreamt that maid again, slaying a savage giant in a castle built of snow."

—Arya VIII, A Storm of Swords

The wolf howling in the rain is Grey Wind (or Shaggydog/Rickon, since it’s raining on Skagos when Jon dreams of his “black brother”), the clangor is the Red Wedding and the bells are the ones on Jinglebell’s hat when Catelyn sawed at his throat, and the maid at the feast is Sansa. And Sansa will “slay a savage giant in a castle built of snow.” That castle is obviously Winterfell, although the fandom has yet to concretely agree on who the “savage giant” is.

Evidently, Sansa will return to Winterfell, and she probably has to get there before winter really starts setting in, or else the journey would be nearly impossible in the deadly weather. So, probably at some point in the next book.

Now, I believe that there’s a big moment coming for Sansa in TWOW: the moment where she unrepresses/uncovers her memories. Sansa knows a lot of important things. She knows the truth about Jon Arryn, she knows that her hair net was used to poison Joffrey, she knows that Littlefinger was involved in the disappearance of Jeyne Poole. Sansa’s memory swapping/adjusting/erasing/repressing (whatever you wanna call it) is important to her character. It’s her brain’s way of coping with the trauma she’s been through.

I think that one of these memories coming to the forefront is going to trigger something big: Littlefinger’s downfall. I speculate that what will most likely come out in the open first is what happened to Jeyne Poole. Sansa finding out what Baelish did to her closest childhood friend could definitely be what turns her against him.

Warning, I’m going to mention the sh*w here for a second. George has said that he wrote Sansa and Jeyne’s interactions into season 1, and that he tried to build Jeyne as a character, but her scenes were cut by the showrunners. Clearly, George cares about her, her friendship with Sansa, and her value in the story, he was very upset about the deletion of her character and of Sansa’s friendship with her.* I believe the reveal of what happened to Jeyne will be a major part of Sansa’s story in Winds. She’s repressed her memories of Jeyne and her disappearance because it is, understandably, too much for her mind to handle thinking about.

The reveal of this memory could be a catalyst to the other memories coming forward, especially since they involve Littlefinger. I think Sansa will be a key part in wrapping up the political aspect of the story, she can reveal the truth of why the Stark-Lannister conflict began all the way back in book 1. She can expose Littlefinger’s lies and schemes. That’s where I think her narrative is heading, at least in TWOW.

I’m not sure what Sansa’s story arc will be in ADOS (I’m not sure what anyone’s story will be in ADOS, but Sansa’s is a bit more of a blank page than others). If the Littlefinger conflict gets wrapped up in TWOW, I don’t know where her story will go from there. Supposedly, she could be in Winterfell at that point. What will happen then… well, then it’s Long Night time. Sansa is not one of the “key five players” (Tyrion, Dany, Arya, Bran, and Jon), but I still think she’ll have an important role in the book. I think Sansa and Arya’s relationship is something that will be focused on a lot through both of their chapters in the final novel. We’re going to see Ned’s quote, “you need her, as she needs you”, really matter.

No matter where her arc goes over the next two books, though, I do think she’ll end up at Winterfell. And like I said, I don’t think Sansa would choose to leave her home again after returning. I think that her story will end with her staying at Winterfell with the other kids. The Stark children would never willingly leave each other after reuniting. Jon literally describes the separation from his siblings as “a deep ache of emptiness, a sense of incompleteness.” And, of course, the iconic line Ned delivers to Arya: “The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives.” I don’t see any of their endings being them as “lone wolves” again.

So, to answer your question, I think the endgame for Sansa will be her back in Winterfell with her family, where she belongs, where she is strongest. I do suspect, however, that there will be some sort of epilogue at the end of ADOS, possibly a “10 years later” or somewhere along those lines. Where she’ll be then, I have no idea. She’ll probably be involved with something politically by then, like ruling or advising.

*Based on what George himself has said about the show’s post-season 4 portrayal of Sansa, I don’t think her story will be similar in any way to the show’s very different version of her character (same goes for everyone). George is typically very mild when talking about the show, saying stuff like “they chose to go down a different path with the story”, but this is one of the only times he flat out criticized the show for how wrong it is. He was very upset the show cut out her storyline. He has also said that “every character has a different end” in the books. So take from that what you will.

[peggyrose19]

It is done! And is 3 times as long as my english essay needs to be, yet I guarantee that will take me longer. Anyway. I proofread this thrice, yet I’m sure there’s still a mistake in there somewhere. This fic was again inspired by Miller and the Blog. Characters belong to the wonderful @lumosinlove. I say she’s wonderful each time and each time I mean it. 

@im-oknutzy-trash, @heyitssmiller, @peanut-the-goalie, @spookydiyharrypotterbat, @donttouchmycarrots, and @apumpkinpuff all wanted to be tagged so there you go. Hope you all enjoy!

Interrogations 

“So,” Mrs. O’Hara said in that tone of voice and Finn knew he was in trouble. 

“How’s work going?” 

“It’s fine,” he mumbled, taking a large bite of his pizza. “Just finished a big case.” 

“Really? How’d it go?” Alex chimed in. Finn fought the urge to glare at his older brother. 

“It went okay. We finished the job. One of my partners got injured pretty badly, but he’s doing better now.” 

His stomach turned as he remembered Leo getting shot, lying unmoving on the ground as blood gushed from his stomach. Leo being transferred to the hospital, unresponsive to the EMTs. Standing with Logan by Leo’s bedside, his face pale, his breathing regulated by a machine. Those days had been the hardest. When they weren’t sure what was going to happen, if he was even going to make it. There had been close calls, too many to count, when Finn felt like he couldn’t even breathe. 

“Oh no!” his mom exclaimed, shaking him back to the present. “That’s terrible. What happened?” 

Finn fought to keep his voice from shaking, “Um, he was shot.” The whole family winced. They were all intimately familiar with guns, and knew the damage a bullet could do. 

Hurriedly, he added, “But he’s home now. He’s doing a lot better. Lupin says he should be able to come back to work in a week or so.” 

His mom squinted suspiciously at that, but thankfully didn’t press it. The table moved on to a different topic of conversation and Finn let out a soft breath. 

That had been the worst week of his life, pacing the endless hospital hallways and sitting by Leo’s bed, with Logan at his side, begging him to wake up. Now, a month later, he was at home again, going out of his mind with boredom and begging to go back to work. They had talked, the three of them, before Leo had been shot. Logan had asked to keep them a secret, for just a little while. He wasn’t ready to come out yet. So Finn had vowed to keep it a secret. 

His thoughts wandered so far from the conversation, he didn’t notice Alex asking him something until the room fell silent and he felt everyone’s eyes on him. 

“Sorry, what did you say?” he asked, flushing at the attention. 

Alex laid his fork down with a clatter and fixed his brother with a fierce look. “You gonna tell us what’s actually going on or do we have to guess?” 

Finn swallowed. “Nothing’s going on, I’m fine.” 

“Uh huh.” Alex glanced at his parents. “We’re gonna have to guess.” They both nodded with a bit too much excitement for Finn’s liking. 

And then everyone began talking at once. 

“Were you fired?” 

“Or promoted?” 

“Did you get a big case?”

“Did you get injured too? 

“Is it about your team?” 

“Is this about a girl?” 

Finn froze at that last one. “What? No. God.” 

“Ah.” His dad smirked knowingly. “So it is about a girl.” 

“No. Stop it.” Alex reached over and ruffled his hair. 

“Aw, look at him getting all flustered. You should’ve brought her with you.” Finn glared at him. His heart was pounding now, and he felt a bit as though he was going to be sick. 

“It’s not about a girl,” he repeated, gritting his teeth. 

“A boy, then?” Alex asked sarcastically and Finn froze. 

Alex’s eyes grew wide. “Finn?” 

He sighed. 

“Finn, is it about a boy?” Finn just shook his head, gritting his teeth and stared at the table, willing himself to not say anything. 

“Honey?” his mom asked and he snapped. 

“Alright, fine!” Finn shouted. “It’s about a boy, you guessed it. Congrats. I really wish you hadn’t because they asked me not to say anything, but I guess it’s too late now.” 

The room fell silent. If possible, Alex’s eyes grew even wider. 

“They?” 

Finn froze as he realized what he’d just said. “Shit,” he muttered. He pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyes as tears began to form. Without another word, he stood and left the table. 

His bedroom hadn’t changed much; the few things he’d left were still there, although a bit neater than he’d left them. He flopped onto his childhood bed and took a deep breath, willing tears back, before pulling out his phone. With shaking hands, he dialed Logan’s number.

“Hey, Fish!” Logan answered cheerfully. “How’s the city?”

��Lo-” he choked on a sob.

“Finn?” his voice turned concerned.

“Is that Finn?” Leo’s voice asked faintly in the background.

“Yeah, but something’s wrong,” Logan replied, sounding as if he’d turned away from the phone.

“What?” Leo’s voice was louder now.

“I don’t know.” Then, facing the phone again, Logan said, “Finn, I’m putting you on speaker, okay babe?”

“Kay,” he whispered.

“Hey, love, you alright?” Leo’s gentle voice came through the phone and Finn fought another sob.

“They know.” There was a moment of silence, and Finn could almost see the two swapping confused glances.

“Who knows what?” Logan asked.

“My family, they know about us.”

“Oh.”

“I’m so sorry, I know you said you didn’t want to tell anyone, but they kept asking me questions and I slipped and said-”

“Hey hey hey, Finn, it’s okay,” Logan said, effectively stopping his rant. “Just take a deep breath for us, yeah?” Finn complied, taking a shaky breath, and felt his heart rate drop just a little.

“Keep breathing, love. Just like that.” He did, until his pulse stopped racing and tears stopped threatening to spill over.

“Okay. I’m good,” he said, voice still a bit shaky.

“Good,” Logan said, then added, “And look, Finn, I know I said I wasn’t ready yet, but I don’t mind, really.”

“Me neither.”

“Yeah. Besides, it’s been months since we had that conversation. A lot has happened since then.” Finn heard faint rustling, and knew Logan had pulled Leo in closer. He ached to see them, to be with them, to touch them and hold them.

“I miss you guys,” he sniffed.

“We miss you too,” Leo said a bit sadly.

“Thanks for being so cool about all this.”

“Finn, we love you.” Logan’s voice was soft, teasing. “Your family knowing about us is not the end of the world. In no universe would we be mad about that. And I’m pretty sure Alex already knew. I mean, come on.”

Finn laughed a little. “Yeah, it wouldn’t surprise me. He was the one who guessed it.” They lapsed into silence for a moment, before Finn let out a long sigh. “I should probably go fix my mess, huh?”

“Mess?”

“Well, I just kinda left the table without providing any explanation whatsoever.”

Logan laughed, bright and loud. “Of course you did. Go, talk to your family. We can call again later.”

“Alright.”

Logan laughed again, “Go. I love you.”

“Love you!”

Finn smiled, “Love you too.”

There was a light knock on the door as Finn hung up and set his phone down. “Come in!” he called, sighing quietly.

The door cracked open and his mom poked her head in. “Hey honey. You okay?”

He glanced at her tiredly. “Yeah, I’m okay.” She smiled a little, and perched on the bed beside him.

“Who was that you were talking to?”

“Mom.”

“Sorry. You don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want to.”

“No, it’s… it’s okay. That was… um, that was my boyfriends. Leo and Logan.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell us?” she asked gently, without judgement.

“We decided not to tell anyone yet,” he said, then swallowed. His next words were barely above a whisper, “And I was scared.”

His mom pulled him closer, wrapping her arms around him. “I’m sorry we made you feel uncomfortable. And that we bugged you so much at dinner. That wasn’t fair of us.”

“You’re forgiven,” Finn mumbled, face pressed into her shoulder.

She pulled away and pressed a hand to Finn’s cheek, turning his head so he was looking at her. “I support you, no matter what. You know that, right? I support you and I love you and will continue to do so because I am your mother, and I will be until the day I die. Okay?”

“Okay. Thanks, Mum,” Finn said, his voice thick.

“Now, tell me a bit about these boys of yours.”

Finn smiled despite himself. “They’re amazing. They both speak French, which I do not know. But, it’s ho- er, cute.” He flushed. “Logan’s from Quebec and Leo’s from New Orleans. He always complains that it’s cold.” His mom laughed a bit at that. “I’ve known Logan for a little while, but I met Leo when Remus put all three of us together for a case. It’s how we got to know each other.”

His mom gasped. “Wait! The boy that got shot, was that one of them?”

“Yeah. Leo. He almost didn’t make it.” Finn’s voice wavered then.

“Ohh. Why didn’t you tell us?”

“I didn’t know how,” he whispered. “He didn’t wake up for so long and Lo and I were so scared. I didn’t know how to handle telling you about them when I wasn’t even sure he would survive.”

“Oh, honey,” his mom sighed and hugged him tight. “I’m glad he’s okay.”

“Yeah, he’s doing a lot better,” Finn sniffed. “Re is letting him start work again next week, which is good. He’s started to go a bit stir-crazy. Right now he’s probably driving Logan crazy at home.”

“Do you guys live together?”

Finn nodded, a bit guiltily. “We got an apartment together a few months ago. It’s really nice.”

“That sounds wonderful, Finn.”

“Yeah it is. And it’s… yeah- it’s us.” They fell silent.

“I love them, Mum,” Finn said quietly after a moment.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad.”

Finn smiled.

“You realize you’re gonna have to tell your dad and your brother everything you just told me, right?”

He sighed, “Yeah.”

No sooner were the words out of his mouth than a thump sounded right outside his door. Finn frowned before he crossed the room and tugged the door open. Alex and his dad collapsed at his feet.

“Were you spying on us?”

“No?”

“Yes,” Alex responded at the same time as their dad. 

They scrambled to their feet. 

Finn glanced at his mom and they both burst out laughing.

“Guess I don’t have to tell them,” he gasped out. “Since I’m assuming you both heard everything.”

“It’s possible,” his dad answered. He at least had the decency to look mildly embarrassed. Alex, on the other hand, was grinning from ear to ear, looking unabashedly proud of himself.

“Do you guys want to call them with me?” Finn asked nervously.

“You sure you won’t mind?” his mom asked and Finn shook his head.

“No. No, they’d love to meet you guys.” Hands shaking only a bit, Finn grabbed his phone and called Logan again, this time using FaceTime. “Hey, Lo,” Finn said when his concerned face popped up. “Is Leo there?”

“Finn!” Logan exclaimed. “Yeah, he’s right here.” He turned the phone so that Leo was in frame too, both of them grinning at him.

“You feeling better, sweetheart?” Leo asked. Finn flushed a bit, feeling Alex’s eyes on him.

“Yeah, a lot better. I have someone here with me, actually.”

“Hi!” Alex blurted out, shoving his face into the frame. Finn pushed him away, rolling his eyes. “That would be my idiot brother, Alex. And these are my parents.” Finn turned the phone towards his mom and dad, who both waved.

“Hi boys, it’s nice to meet you,” his mom said.

“You, too,” Leo said politely.

“Hi!” Logan waved cheerfully.

“Leo, I heard what happened to you,” his mom said. Finn stiffened. “I’m so sorry. Are you feeling better? Do you want us to send you anything?”

Leo smiled. “I’m doing much better, thank you. And I don’t need anything, your son has been taking very good care of me. But thank you for the offer.”

“Hey!” Logan protested. “I help too!”

“Yes, of course you do, love.”

Finn grinned at them.

“Well, I’m glad you’re doing better. And I’m glad you had Finn there to help you out.” She smiled. “Alright, we’ll leave you three alone now. It was very nice to meet you both!”

“Nice to meet you too!” Leo and Logan chimed.

Finn rolled his eyes at his parents. “Okay. Bye.” Finn’s parents chuckled at him, his dad ruffling his hair once before they left, dragging Alex with them.

“They’re so in love,” Finn heard faintly through the door and he shook his head, laughing. Alex O’Hara, oblivious to the meaning of the word ‘subtle’.

“Your brother is very...enthusiastic,” Leo said carefully.

“Yes he is.”

“Hey, we were about to watch the hockey game that’s on tonight,” Logan said suddenly. “You wanna join us?”

Finn smiled softly. “I think I’m gonna get some sleep. I’m exhausted from being interrogated all evening.”

“Alright. Get some rest, sweetheart. We’ll call you again in the morning.”

“We love you,” Logan added. “Sleep well.”

“I love you too. I’ll see you in the morning.” Logan blew him a kiss, and Finn grinned before hanging up the phone.

As he laid back on his bed, he sighed heavily, relaxing into the mattress. He thought of everything that had happened over the past hour and smiled a bit. Of all the ways he’d imagined coming out to his family, this certainly hadn’t been one of them. But he certainly couldn’t complain about their reactions.

as always, thank you for reading! i love you all 😘

[quicksilversquared]

More than a Match

Felix Graham de Vanily is back in Paris for the summer, determined to make amends with his cousin. While standing in for Adrien at a photoshoot, he has to deal with a most disagreeable character by the name of Lila.

Unstoppable force, meet immovable object. There can only be one winner here, and Felix is not about to lose.

links in the reblog

Felix Graham de Vanily was more than a little apprehensive about returning to Paris for his mom's summer movie shoot, and for good reason.

The last time that he was in the city, he had caused no small amount of chaos. He had threatened his relationship with Adrien over a (in retrospect) petty, poorly-considered attempt at revenge- how badly their friendship had been damaged really remained to be seen- and gotten off on the wrong foot with all of Adrien's friends, which could make finding people to hang out with more than a little difficult. During that same revenge attempt, he had truly behaved poorly towards one of the city's superheroes, and he would have to try to apologize for it if he could get close to the superheroes again without endangering his life. On top of that, he had palmed his uncle's ring, which- well, was it really stealing when Mr. Agreste had gotten them through less-than-honest means in the first place?- with the full expectation that it would be at least a year before he and his mom returned to Paris, so his uncle might have simmered down by then.

It hadn't been anywhere near a full year yet. His uncle would no doubt still be furious about the retrieval of the ring, and so Felix had to be very careful with it.

Right now, that meant wearing the ring on a strong chain around his neck, hidden under his shirt. If he was going to be spending more than the odd minute here or there in the Agreste mansion, he and his mom might end up looking into getting a safe box for them to lock the ring up in, so that his uncle wouldn't steal it back.

"Don't let on that you're nervous," his mom coached as their train pulled into the Paris stop. "Be confident, don't react to questions about the rings. With a little luck, perhaps your uncle will assume that he misplaced it. Emilie always said that he would mess with his ring when he was designing and she was worried that he'd end up taking it off and misplacing it for good. He's already called me once demanding the ring back and I told him that we didn't have it and maybe he had just lost it."

Which meant that Felix could just act bored about the accusation instead of being surprised. That was useful information.

"I also got us an apartment that's a bit further outside of the city center," his mom continued after a moment. "Both to stay out of the way of the majority of the akuma attacks, and to give us some space from your uncle. We're near a subway line, though, so it'll be easy enough to go and visit."

Felix nodded. His mom had already mentioned that, and he knew that there was a third reason, too: apartments of a decent size close to the city center were expensive. Their family might be wealthy, but (largely due to his father's influence, Felix suspected) they still had never be people to throw money around without due consideration first. "But Uncle Gabriel won't bother to come out and bug us?"

"Of course not. When was the last time that he left that house of his? And if he does- well, I have no problems with kicking up a legal stink. Gabriel would do well to remember that the only reason he has connections to the Mayor's family is because of Emilie and I, so he has no advantage there." Amelie sniffed. "Not that he'll bother to remember that. If anyone asks him, I'm sure he would say that he worked himself up from nothing and made all of his connections himself with his superior bargaining skills."

"Ah, yes, the scowling and yelling and refusing to meet in person is very persuasive, I had forgotten."

Amelie laughed. "Yes, exactly. Emilie was the one who handled more of the PR and meetings with investors, really. If Gabriel had been trying to do it himself, he would have failed miserably." She shrugged, turning back to him with a large smile. "Don't let your uncle ruin your summer, Felix. He roars and rages a lot, but he's always been all bark and no bite."

Felix nodded, taking a steadying breath as the train came to a complete stop and they got up, reaching for their bags. "Right. Of course."

Somehow, he got the impression that that would be easier said than done.

  Really, it- it wasn't as terrible as Felix had thought. The summer had started out slowly- he had seen Adrien at dinner shortly after arriving in Paris, and then Felix had spent a week and a half entertaining himself while his mom started filming on the movie and his cousin finished up his school year.

It wasn't bad, really. He found a small bookstore that was cool and quiet, and he settled down there in a corner to read. It was nice and it was peaceful.

Alas, it was not to last. His mom expected that he would go hang out with Adrien, and so... Felix did. The first three times that he went over, the two of them simply hung out in Adrien's room for part of the day and played some of the video games that Adrien had around. His cousin seemed on high alert at first- Felix certainly noticed fewer things lying around his room, and there were several things with locks on them that hadn't had locks before- but willing enough to try again. By day three, their conversations were far more relaxed, and Adrien spent nearly an hour telling Felix about all of his friends. He wasn't bragging about having them, Felix could tell, but was just genuinely happy to have them and wanted to share that with him.

...unfortunately, Felix knew that it was more likely than not that a large number of Adrien's friends would not be very thrilled to meet him. He had not made a particularly good first impression, to say the least, and they- unlike Adrien- had not had any other interactions with him to go by. Felix didn't resent them for their judgement of him (after all, he rather deserved it, he could admit that much) but it would make meeting them a bit awkward, particularly if Adrien hadn't had a chance to mention how things were going now first.

Or if Felix hadn't done anything obvious to make amends for his earlier behavior. Thankfully, an opportunity to both put off the inevitable meeting and to make things up to Adrien properly practically fell in his lap after Nathalie scheduled a photoshoot right when Adrien was hoping to get together with his friends.

Or, rather, when Adrien had put a meet-up with his friends on his schedule and Nathalie deleted it last-minute to replace it with yet another photoshoot, because apparently she didn't know the meaning of fun. Or being nice, or kindness, or not being a terrible human being, really.

"Are- are you sure that you want to model, Felix? It's not exactly the most fun thing in the world."

Felix nodded resolutely, glancing towards his cousin's door and hoping that no one was eavesdropping on their conversation. "You want to be with your friends, and I would like to make a good impression this time around before meeting them anyway. It's no big deal. I can sit and make clothes look good for an hour or two."

At last, Adrien nodded in agreement. "I- okay, if you're sure. I'll text you the time and location, so you have it, and-"

"Won't your bodyguard be expecting to drive you there?"

Adrien paused. "...oh. Oh, yeah."

Felix tried not to sigh. Oh, yes was right. Clearly logistics weren't his cousin's strongest point.

"Well, I can ask him to bring me there early, so that I can have some time to relax in the park!" Adrien said after a moment's thought. "And then we can meet and swap outfits there- or I'll bring an extra, actually, it'll be less hassle. It'll be harder for me to get to Marinette's place from there, but I'll manage it. There's a bus line nearby that'll get me close enough."

"Your father actually lets you out enough for you to know how to take the bus?" Felix inquired, unable to help feeling a little incredulous. His cousin hadn't been allowed to walk to his collège, which was only a few mere blocks away, so he had assumed that his uncle had required use of the chauffeured car for all of his other travel. "Count me impressed."

A quick grin flashed across Adrien's face. "He doesn't let me out, exactly. I tend to sneak out. And then, of course, I need to know how to get where I'm going fast, or else I'll get picked up by the Gorilla right away before I have a proper chance of escape."

...that was just sad.

"Anyway, I should probably coach you if we're actually going to do this. You know, give you some pointers and all. Uh." Adrien twisted his ring around, glancing up at the ceiling as though that was going to help him any. "Um."

Felix rolled his eyes. "I hardly think that I'll need extensive coaching to be able to sit in front of a camera and pose."

"Yes, but-"

"Will I need to know several dozen poses to do in rapid-fire succession? I've heard that some models do that."

Adrien sighed. "No, Simon prefers to take more organic shots. I've been learning the fast poses on my own, in case I ever get a photographer who needs that or if I end up branching out and start modeling for catalogues instead of just ads, but Father prefers Simon's artistic vision. So he'll tell you what he wants in general, then give tweaks. Like, there's some moving my head around, maybe, but..." He trailed off, shrugging.

Well. If Felix actually needed any advice to pass off as Adrien during the photoshoot, he was pretty certain that he would be more or less out of luck. With advice like that, it would be a wonder if he wasn't left completely unprepared when he arrived.

"I've not had, like, professional training as a model or anything," Adrien added after a moment. "It's all been informal, which is maybe a bit unusual considering what father's like the rest of the time, but maybe it's good for publicity somehow or something." He shrugged, looking remarkably unbothered by the prospect of his father basing his decision on how to treat Adrien during photoshoots on what would sell best. "So just listen to Simon and don't forget to look towards the camera unless he tells you otherwise, and don't be too stiff but don't slouch, either, and-"

Felix tried not to sigh.

  "If- if Lila's there, just- ugh. Just don't agree to anything she says, and- well, she still tries to lie to me all the time, even though I know better than to trust anything she says. She loves manipulating people, so..."

Adrien's comment about his sometimes-coworker- probably the most intriguing and useful part of his "advice" for the photoshoot once he actually managed to think of something to say- ran through Felix's head as he arrived at the site for the photoshoot, a lovely little park in a less busy part of the city. This Lila character sounded like trouble, and he wasn't much interested in trouble. Or in being manipulated, for that matter.

How very fortunate, then, that Felix had more than a little experience with manipulation. He would be able to spot any attempts coming from a mile away. From what Felix could gather, this Lila person was a sloppy manipulator at best, relying on flashy stories and crocodile tears to keep her influence. They were things that would perhaps work in the short term but would wear off and become ineffective in the long run, particularly once people started picking up on inconsistencies. Eventually, things would backfire on her, and then she would be left alone and hated.

Felix preferred more subtle manipulation, and (unless he was not thinking clearly) only when a situation warranted it. A little nudge here and there to increase the odds of things going his way was rather different than Lila's graceless shoves to make everything go her way, to get the kind of popularity that Lila clearly wanted. His technique was sustainable- after all, infrequent manipulations were less likely to be picked up on- while hers was not.

His cousin hadn't really said much about Lila other than to mention that she might be there and to not fall for her lies, but Felix already disliked her.

"Felix! You got here all right, good!"

Felix pushed away his thoughts and smiled as Adrien ran up. He had a bag slung over his shoulder, presumably with an identical outfit to the one that he was wearing. "Yes, I've had sufficient down time to figure out the system. It wasn't hard to puzzle out."

"Oh, great." Adrien glanced around, clearly making sure that he wasn't being followed, and then passed his bag off to Felix after pulling a smaller bag out from inside of it. "I have an identical outfit in here. Are you good, or...?"

"I'll be fine," Felix assured him. "Go on, go hang out with your friends." He paused and considered Adrien. "Ah, are you going to wear a disguise or something? You know, in case anyone takes pictures of you and posts them?"

Adrien nodded, pulling- surprise, surprise- a baseball hat and a large pair of sunglasses out of his bag. "Yeah, this will work fine! There's plenty of guys in France with blond hair, so as long as my hair isn't visible and they can't see all of my face..."

Felix hoped, for Adrien's sake, that that actually somehow worked and he didn't run into any of his more fanatical fans. Maybe the most basic of disguises would work against most of the population, but there were a few weirdos who probably prided themselves on being able to identify his cousin with the smallest of clues.

"Anyway, hopefully it'll work," Adrien finished after a moment's pause. He glanced back at Felix. "Are you sure you're good?"

"Positive. Go."

Adrien went. Felix watched him for a minute, then made a beeline for the public restrooms building that he had seen earlier. He hated the idea of changing in it, truth be told, but he hardly had a choice.

...well, maybe he could have coordinated outfits with Adrien yesterday and only had to fiddle with his hairstyle at the park instead, but hindsight was 20/20.

Despite Felix's worries, the bathrooms weren't bad at all. He changed quickly and did a fast brushing of his hair into Adrien's hairstyle- it was a little difficult to account for the difference in their hair length in a few places, but he managed it well enough- before leaving the restroom and tracking down the plaza where the photoshoot would be taking place. It was a fairly basic set-up, honestly- a small trailer with the outfits to be worn in it, an equally small tent for changing, a couple chairs for touch-ups to makeup and hair with a screen nearby to block the wind. A few things for lighting and the photography equipment were scattered around, but otherwise it was incredibly minimal.

He had to wonder what normal shoots- ones that weren't solely for the boss's son- looked like. Surely not everything that Gabriel did was so low-budget.

"Ah, Adrien, you're on time- early, even!" A man with a camera hanging around his neck- Simon, Felix assumed- appeared behind him, clapping him on the shoulder and making Felix startle. He chuckled. "That's a nice change from the past couple shoots, hmm?"

Felix only nodded, not sure what to say. In all honesty, he hadn't been expecting the photoshoot's staff to be talking to him much, other than to issue directions for the shoot itself. If he had known that they were likely to be chatty, he would have asked Adrien more questions.

Thankfully, Simon seemed willing enough to move on, immediately turning to the job at hand. The first outfit that "Adrien" was supposed to wear was already in the tent, so if he could just go ahead and change so that they could get started...

Felix was more than willing to comply. The sooner they started, then maybe the sooner they would finish. And while Felix didn't exactly have anything else that he wanted to do- hanging out at his cousin's house while Adrien wasn't there didn't sound like fun, nor was he particularly interested in crashing Adrien's friends' get-together- it was hot outside and changing into a dozen different outfits in quick succession and getting poked and prodded at wasn't Felix's idea of a good time.

Three outfits in, and Felix noticed a girl lingering around the edges of the photoshoot area. She wasn't getting shooed off by security, which meant that it was incredibly likely that she was meant to be there. And sure enough, a minute later, the girl headed into the second half of the changing tent.

That must be the Lila that Adrien had warned him about. Felix had rather hoped that he would get lucky and not have to deal with the liar, but apparently luck wasn't on his side today.

Or was it? Felix gave that a minute's thought. He had been a bit bored thus far, and doing a bit of manipulative sparring might be just the thing to spice up his afternoon. Little Miss Terror wouldn't be expecting it- after all, Felix didn't doubt that Adrien's approach to Lila was rather on the tepid side- and it might be amusing to throw her off her game. Going too far might alert her to the fact that he wasn't actually Adrien, though, and she might tattle, so that added another level of complexity, another thing to think about.

He was so busy trying to figure out how strong he would want to come off that he completely missed Lila snaking up behind him until thin arms slid around him in an entirely unexpected (and unwelcome) hug.

"Adrien! I'm so happy that we get to work together again!" Lila cooed, leaning forward to try to press a kiss to Felix's cheek. She missed when he dodged, just enough to get out of her path but not so far that it would look obvious. Lila pouted, but didn't make more of a fuss. "Aren't you?"

"Mmhmm," Felix murmured noncommittally, disengaging himself from Lila's groping hold smoothly to step away and move into the next pose that Simon had wanted. Lila was forced to back off for the remainder of Felix's solo shots, and then he could escape into the tent to change while she did a few solo shots of her own.

And then came the duo shots, aka the absolute longest forty-five minutes of Felix's life.

(Well. Okay, maybe there had been some other instances when time had stretched out far longer, but as far as normal everyday situations went- well, then this ranked waaay up there.)

Things had gone smoothly when Felix was on his own. Despite never having done photoshoots before- or at least clothing photoshoots, he had posed for a few family portraits over the year- he had gotten the hang of it right away. He followed Simon's instructions with little need for further correction, and the photographer had been beaming.

With Lila added to the mix, though? All of that was completely shot. She was completely unprofessional, and quite handsy to boot. Felix managed to get away from her hands most of the time, dodging where he could and stepping smoothly away to make it look natural, but it was absolutely aggravating.

Thankfully, he got a bit of a reprieve when he loudly complained that she had wrinkled the sleeve of the light coat that he was modeling with her vice grip on his arm and she got scolded.

Unfortunately, that reprieve only lasted for five minutes before she was right back at it. She didn't hold on nearly as tight as before when he had longer sleeves on, sure, but other than that there was no real change. If anything, she was brushing her hands over his shoulders and arms more often than before.

Needless to say, by the time the last picture of the last set of clothes had been snapped, Felix was more than eager to be done, change back to his- well, Adrien's- normal clothes, and be rid of the Italian pest for good.

But Lila clearly had other ideas.

"Oh, I think we could pose for a few more minutes, don't you, Adrien?" Lila purred, fluttering her eyelashes at him. Felix could see where her fake eyelashes were starting to come detached. Clearly she had no idea how to apply them correctly, considering that they had been crooked to start with. "Maybe some, ah, closer poses? Oh! I know! Summer romance always sells, right?"

Felix raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Slick, she was not. Her attempts at manipulation couldn't be any more heavy-handed. Or more distasteful. "I'll pass on that, thanks."

Lila's pout grew. "You don't want to? I think it would be fun! I thought that we were friends." The last word was bitten out with a bit of an edge to it, an unspoken threat. Felix had no idea what it was meant to be.

Forget his cousin coaching him about modeling, clearly Felix had needed more insider info on how to interact with Adrien's friends and classmates.

"It is far too hot outside to be close to anyone," Felix countered tartly, refusing to let himself pause in the conversation. "We have a number of photos already. I see no need to risk heat stroke for more. Additionally, this is a clothes company, not a manufacturer of cheap romance novels, and there was nothing about summer romance in the shoot briefings."

Lila's eyes narrowed. Felix refused to back down.

"Adrien is right," Simon said, glancing over his notes. "And if the shoot goes much longer, we'll go into overtime, and Mr. Agreste hates that. It costs the company money, you know. So we're done for the day. Thank you for your work."

Felix murmured a quick thank-you in return. Lila looked as though she had maybe swallowed a lemon. Before she could recover and come up with a new ploy, Felix turned and strode off to the changing tent to switch back into Adrien's normal outfit as fast as he could.

He made sure to keep a suspicious eye out for any unusual ripples in the fabric of the tent. Felix didn't trust Lila to not try to sneak a peek of him changing. She seemed to have a complete lack of respect for normal boundaries and more than a slight fixation on him (or, rather, his cousin), so Felix wouldn't put it past her to try to look or even snap a picture.

A picture would probably be the more appealing option to Lila, if he was reading her right. Properly hidden so that no one else would discover that she had it, it would make valuable blackmail to get Adrien to play along with her little games.

One final change later, Felix exited the tent to see Lila talking with Nathalie. From the look of it, she had been the one to approach Nathalie rather than the other way around- after all, Nathalie had been standing in the same spot for most of the shoot- and she seemed to be trying to persuade Nathalie of something. And- odder yet- Nathalie actually seemed to be listening.

Felix frowned at that. Nathalie actually listening to someone who wasn't her boss? That was unusual, not to mention incredibly suspicious- and so was the entire inclusion of Lila in the Gabriel photoshoots, honestly. Why would Nathalie- and by natural extension, Mr. Agreste- want to bother working with someone like Lila? She was hardly a talented model. Even though she had had more experience with photoshoots than Felix had, and it was Felix's first time modeling to boot, she had needed more direction (and redirection) than he had. She rarely did exactly as the photographer asked, particularly with several shots alongside "Adrien". She preferred making her poses more flirty and having her hands on "Adrien" whenever she could, even arguing with the photographer about the poses he wanted. Lila was hardly any great beauty, either, and her atrocious hairstyle wasn't doing her any favors. And she was hardly rich or famous to start with, despite what she reportedly liked claiming.

Surely Mr. Agreste and Nathalie wouldn't fall for her lies. Maybe they weren't the sharpest tools in the shed, but they had enough experience to navigate what his father had always referred to as shark-infested waters of the business world. They should be able to pick up on the lies and manipulation without a problem.

...so why was she here? What was Mr. Agreste getting out of their arrangement? Besides higher bills from photoshoot staff because of Lila holding things up, of course.

Felix didn't like this. Not at all.

Nathalie finally nodded, making a note on her tablet, and then she and Lila parted ways. Felix glanced away at once- he didn't want to appear to be inviting her over, after all, he had already had more than enough of her for the day- but he could see her making a beeline for him regardless. Felix deliberately stepped away, headed for Adrien's bodyguard. He would very much prefer to go back to the house now, but Lila was faster.

Faster, and had very sharp nails.

"Surely you weren't about to run off without saying good-bye?" Lila crooned, her voice so sickly sweet that it nearly made Felix gag. "How rude."

"If you put holes in this shirt with your nails, my father will hear about it," Felix warned her instead of replying with a cutting comment about how hypocritical it was of her to call anyone rude. Lila only scoffed and tightened her hold, ignoring his words just as he had ignored hers.

"I feel like you're forgetting about our arrangement, Adrien." Lila's voice had dropped to a hiss. "Or do you want everyone to turn on Marinette, hmm? Think about it."

She didn't give him a chance to respond before giving his arm another painful squeeze and flouncing away, trailing her fingers across his chest as she went. It was probably just as well that she left, really, because Felix really wasn't sure what to say about that.

What kind of arrangement his cousin had with that wretched girl, Felix didn't know, but he didn't doubt that it was neither a good one nor a smart one. Considering that it apparently involved threats against one of Adrien's friends- the friend Adrien had gushed about the most over the past couple of days, coincidentally- there really was no way that it could be a good arrangement.

He brought it up with his mom that night, bringing up the fact that Adrien had thought to warn him about Lila and her lies, but he hadn't mentioned the harassment- the sexual harassment, really, considering the fact that Lila had tried to kiss him and rub her hands all over his chest- that was clearly normal for her interactions with him. That seemed like a rather important thing to mention, and the fact that he hadn't...

"Adrien's probably been raised not to raise a fuss," his mom said once she was done ranting and raving about shameless harlots and the adults who enabled them. "Or- you mentioned some sort of deal. Adrien might have decided the best way to protect his other friend was by just tolerating this monster, because no one's taught him better."

Felix blinked. He had heard his mom criticize her sister before, but not since her disappearance. It was a bit strange to hear, honestly, no matter how the indirect the criticism was, but he wasn't going to point it out.

"Emilie wouldn't want someone harassing Adrien," Amelie said after a minute of angry muttering under her breath. "I'm sure she would have taught him about exceptions to the whole politeness rule after he started attending school and running into less savory people. And she would want me to step in now." Her fingers started tapping against the table, an angry staccato as she thought. After a couple minutes, she spun to face Felix with an eager clap of her hands.

Felix, who was more than used to this sort of behavior by now and who had resumed eating his dinner while she thought, merely raised an eyebrow and set his fork back down on his plate neatly.

"You said that Adrien has regular photoshoots with this girl, correct?" Amelie asked eagerly. Felix nodded at once, raising an eyebrow at how hopeful his mom sounded.

"Yeah. And he mentioned that the start of his summers always has a higher concentration of photoshoots, to make up for not having them during exams and studying. That's why I offered to go for him today, because he's been kept so busy that he's not been able to see his friends. And because he had scheduled something with his friends, and then Nathalie just knocked it off of his schedule to put the photoshoot there instead and that didn't seem fair."

Amelie muttered something uncomplimentary about that, too, then her determined expression returned. "Well, that works in our favor. Tell Adrien that you'll do his next photoshoot, too- if you're willing to, of course," she added hastily. "And then I want you to tell this girl no. Tell her to back off. Enforce your boundaries- which I know you're good at doing."

Felix hesitated. He could see where his mom was going with her plan and why it would make more sense for him to be the one to confront Lila instead of Adrien, but- well, another Lila-filled photoshoot really wasn't that appealing.

But it sounded like he wouldn't have to deal with Lila's nonsense this time and could cut it off like he normally would, abrupt and sharp. He could see her downfall in person, see her expression go from overconfident to uncertain to crushed.

Maybe it was a bit petty and vindictive of him, but... well, Felix was a bit petty and vindictive, so what.

So he nodded. "I can do that."

Amelie lit up, clearly excited. "If I'm reading this girl right from what you've said, your no will mean next to nothing to her and she'll persist. To press charges and win, we'll probably need audio- and I can set you up with something that can hide under your clothes without showing."

Felix couldn't help the grin that flashed across his face. "Very nice."

"If my schedule allows, I'll be there too," his mom added. "As close by as I can be, so I can step in as needed. If Nathalie thinks that she'll be telling Adrien- you- to simply endure the harassment, she has another think coming."

"I like that," Felix said at once. "I mean, I don't like the idea of having to tolerate any more of Lila's company, but I can do it."

"Fantastic." Amelie leaned forward, her eyes narrowed in concentration. "Now, as for the rest of the plan..."

  Convincing Adrien to let Felix take over for his next photoshoot was easier said than done, particularly after Felix told him about the brief face-off that he and Lila had had after the photoshoot. Adrien wanted to step in and work to smooth things over before Lila could lash out at Marinette in retribution, but Felix pointed out that Lila wouldn't be able to lash out at Marinette if Felix carried out the photoshoot like his mom wanted him to. She would be completely and thoroughly discredited, and if she turned into an akuma for it- well, so what? Better her than Marinette, surely, or Adrien.

Adrien hadn't considered that, obviously. After another moment's consideration, and the reassurance that it was Amelie's plan and not Felix's, he had given in and sent a screenshot of his photoshoot schedule to Felix so that he could show his mom and they could plan. Thankfully the next photoshoot wasn't too far out, so Adrien might not have to deal with keeping Lila happy in the meantime so that she wouldn't try to smear Marinette's reputation.

(Apparently Marinette was the only one of Adrien's friends who had been told about Felix's stepping in for a photoshoot thus far, and the only one told about Felix's plan to knock Lila back. He hadn't seen her again in person, but from what Adrien told him, Marinette had already forgiven Felix for the fiasco he had caused during his previous time in Paris.)

(Marinette was also the person that Adrien was going to be spending his time with while Felix was doing the photoshoot. Apparently most of his other friends were going to be busy, but Marinette wasn't, and she had been plenty happy to spend some time with Adrien.

Adrien had been pleasantly surprised by that, since he had been sure that she would be busy, too, but Felix hadn't been. After all, Marinette was in love with Adrien, wasn't she? Of course she would make time to spend with Adrien, that shouldn't have been a surprise.

Or had she not confessed to Adrien again in the months since Felix was last in Paris? He would have thought that she would have.)

"Remember to turn the recorder on," Amelie reminded him as they pulled up near the school, where Adrien was finishing up with a fencing lesson. He and Adrien were hoping to make the swap earlier than they had the previous time, since the photoshoot was pretty much right after Adrien's fencing lesson got out and it would be hard for them to swap without risking someone noticing. "And be very clear vocally about your objections, so that the recorder will pick them all up."

"Will we be able to use the recordings, do you think?" Felix asked, a thought occurring to him last-minute. "Or is it against the law here? I think it's fine back at home, but…"

"I'll deal with it if there's any legal issues," Amelie assured him. "I have connections, and I'm not afraid to use them."

That didn't quite answer Felix's question, but he supposed that it was as good of an answer as any. With one last check to make sure that he looked like Adrien and had everything he needed, Felix hopped out of the car and slipped into the school, making his way to the locker rooms. The fencers were finishing up their last matches, so it was easy enough for Felix to head to the bathrooms and text Adrien to make sure that he would know to come into the bathrooms, too. They wouldn't see each other face-to-face before the photoshoot- after all, Adrien's teammates might question how he had somehow doubled himself if they ran into the two of them in the bathroom- but it would make the trade much easier.

It wasn't long at all before Felix heard someone else enter the bathroom. He straightened in his stall, listening closely and keeping an eye on his phone. That could be Adrien, but it could just as easily be one of his teammates.

Luck was on his side. His phone buzzed, and a message lit up the screen.

Adrien: In the bathroom. Left my fencing bag on the chair near the door- you can take it so that the Gorilla doesn't wonder where I left it.

Felix nodded and shot back a quick message.

Right. See you later.

After another pause, Felix stepped out of his stall, heading for the sinks and washing his hands before claiming the fencing bag that was sitting on the somewhat out-of-place chair near the door. One glance- or rather, one whiff- inside assured him that it was Adrien's bag, and so Felix slung it over his shoulder before heading out into the locker rooms. A few good-byes to Adrien's teammates later and Felix was in Adrien's car, being whisked efficiently away by his bodyguard to the photoshoot.

Trade-off: smooth as butter.

Now that he had been to a photoshoot once, there was far less hesitation in Felix's step as he headed into the small tent to change, then out to hair and make-up for a touch-up. He had to wonder why Mr. Agreste would schedule a photoshoot for right after fencing in the first place as the stylists teased his hair to perfection. Surely the real Adrien's hair would be sweaty and messy after fencing and it would have made more sense for him to have some time for a shower first?

Maybe this was a one-off thing, just happening because they were trying to catch up on photoshoots after exams and they also had to work around Lila's schedule. If she even had one, that was. Something made Felix guess that Lila simply spent a lot of time holed up in her room, scheming and plotting. Maybe she pretended that she had a packed schedule in front of her friends, but in reality...

Well, one had to be really uninteresting to go to the same amount of effort that Lila was to get attention, and that generally suggested a lack of real activities to do.

Just like the previous time, the photoshoot started with individual shots. Felix went through the motions, posing and adjusting his expression as requested. It all went very smoothly...

...and then Lila showed up.

While Lila did her first individual shoot and Felix changed into his next outfit, he pulled the recorder that his mom had given him out. It was small and discreet, easy enough to hide until his shirt or in a pocket without creating any lumps. He got it set up to start recording, then headed outside, resigned to at least a few minutes of dealing with Lila and her grabby hands.

And as expected, Lila started clinging to him the second that Felix got back outside.

"Positions, please!" Simon called. "I want you back to back, but not quite touching, just next to each other-"

"Don't you think that we should be closer, though?" Lila asked immediately, wrapping her hands around Felix's bicep. "We could play a couple!"

"Not for these outfits," Simon told her. "Backs to each other, please-"

"Oh, but I think-"

"I think my sleeve is getting wrinkled," Felix commented, trying to step away from Lila. "And if you don't let go, you're going to bruise my arm."

Lila scowled and finally released him. Felix readjusted his shirt- there were no wrinkles, of course, the lovely light fabric that the shirt was made out of wasn't the type to get creased up by a minute's clinging- and then slid easily into position.

"Good, Adrien, perfect!" Simon called. "Lila- no, not like that, I want your arms crossed- if you stand like that, it looks like you're trying to cop a feel, and no one wants that."

...Felix wasn't even surprised.

The next few shots went the same way. Lila was clingy, but not as incredibly forward as she had been at the end of the previous shoot. Maybe getting her off required several reprimands and comments about how she was messing up his outfit, but she did get off. Eventually.

And then they changed outfits again, and Simon consulted his shot sheet. His eyebrows raised, and then he glanced between Felix and Lila. "The top suggested theme for these outfits is, ah, summer romance."

Felix blinked. That... was not what he was expecting. It sounded like something that Lila would have suggested, not something that Adrien's stick-in-the-mud father or his secretary would come up with.

And then it hit him like a brick. He would bet anything that this was what Lila had been talking to Nathalie about at the previous photoshoot. She had been the one pushing and pushing for a 'Summer Romance" theme for an excuse to get close to him in the previous shoot, and now she had gotten it.

"Oh, that's lovely, isn't it, Adrien?" Lila trilled. She attached herself to his arm, plastering herself against his side. "There's so much to work with there! Hugs, kisses- we'll be so cute together!"

"I'm not comfortable with that," Felix said at once, looking to Simon. "You said that was a suggested theme. Would it be possible to go with another theme?"

Simon nodded, referencing his sheet. "Yes, of course. One of the other suggestions was-"

"Oh, I think we should at least try it!" Lila insisted. Her grip got tighter, and her nails dug in. "Here, let's just start now and not overthink it!"

With that, she bounced up on her toes and tried to press a kiss to Felix's cheek, aiming for close to his mouth. Felix leaned back as fast as he could, dodging her completely in one quick movement.

Maybe he had complained about taking gymnastics as a child, but sometimes it really did come in handy. Perhaps he should consider picking it back up again.

"I'm not comfortable with that," Felix told her clearly, ignoring Lila's scowl and the way her nails dug in even deeper. "And since I said no, we're not doing it."

"Well, I want to!" Lila insisted. "Come on, Adrien! We're friends, aren't we?"

There was that edge again. This time, Felix knew what it meant: by the time the photoshoot ended, she was probably going to start her attacks on Marinette's character. It was an attempt to bring Adrien back under her control.

Too bad she was dealing with Felix, not Adrien.

"That doesn't mean that I'm comfortable doing romantic shots," Felix said firmly. "Particularly if you're going to try to spring unwanted kisses on me. Now kindly let go of my arm. Your nails are digging in."

A scowl flashed across Lila's face before she pasted on her happy face again. "How can you know that you aren't comfortable with it until you've tried it? At least a few shots-"

"Remove your fingers from my arm or I will remove them for you."

Lila's grip only got tighter. "Stop complaining, I'm hardly-"

Felix didn't let her finish. Before she could break any more skin, he grabbed two of her fingers and bent them back sharply. They gave with a (satisfying, Felix had to admit) crack, and Lila snatched her hands back with a cry.

"My fingers!"

"I told you to let go," Felix told her tartly, stepping away and rolling up his shirt sleeve to reveal the dents and cuts from Lila's nails. "Simon, would you mind snapping a picture of this? I have a photo from when she did this during the last photoshoot, but this is far worse."

Simon nodded at once, getting in close and snapping photos from all angles. Across the way, Nathalie finally noticed the commotion and hustled over, glancing between Felix and the sobbing Lila.

For once, Felix was willing to bet that the tears weren't fake.

"He broke my fingers!" Lila sobbed, clutching her hand close to her chest. "Adrien, I can't believe that you would be so mean-"

"Nathalie, I think you should look at this," Simon told Nathalie, pulling her over next to Felix. "Adrien has commented numerous times during photoshoots that Lila is holding on to his arm too hard. He asked her to let go several times in a row before he pulled her off, and- well, I can't blame him, she's drawn blood."

Nathalie's lips pressed together in a thin line as she inspected the injury, and then she pulled out her phone. "I'm going to call Lila's mom, and then I'll call Mr. Agreste. I think it's safe to say that Lila will be fired. This is unacceptable."

Felix could barely hide his smile.

  Twelve minutes later, Mrs. Rossi rushed into the park, her wide eyes locking onto the still-sobbing Lila almost immediately. She rushed to her daughter's side at once, kneeling down beside her.

"Mio caro, what happened?" Mrs. Rossi asked, reaching for her daughter. "Ms. Sancoeur said that you got your fingers broken!"

"What happened is that Lila learned the consequences of sexual harassment," Felix cut in coolly before Lila could speak up, and Mrs. Rossi's head swung to the side, her eyes wide. "Some of the consequences, at least. I will be pressing charges, and she'll be lucky if I'm the only one."

"Se- sexual harassment?" Mrs. Rossi exclaimed, glancing between him and Lila. "Surely that's an exaggeration, Nathalie, how on earth would Lila do anything that could be considered sexual harassment to her boyfriend during a photoshoot? Surely this was just an overreaction to a lover's spat-"

"I was not aware that your daughter was dating anyone, least of all me," Felix told her, since- well, it was true. After all, Adrien wouldn't touch someone like Lila with a ten-foot pole. "Frankly, considering how often Lila lies, I'm surprised that you believed her at all. No one wants to be dating a liar, particularly a social-climbing liar with no respect for personal space."

Mrs. Rossi reeled back. "A- a liar? No, Lila's a sweet girl!"

"They're just trying to frame me, Mommy!" Lila sniffled, and Felix rolled his eyes. Of course she would pull out the mummy card now. "Adrien just a-attacked me out of nowhere, we were just modeling-"

Felix snorted. He had abandoned his Adrien act for good now, and from the looks he was getting from Nathalie, she had caught on to the switch. He held up his injured arm, deciding to ignore Lila completely. She clearly wasn't going to admit that she was in the wrong, so entertaining her at all was a lost cause. "A 'sweet girl', hmm? She's given both me and my cousin bruises from clinging so hard, and now she's broken my skin. And she's been threatening to destroy the reputation of one of my cousin's classmates, all because she's a petty brat who hasn't been properly contained."

Mrs. Rossi shook her head, her eyes wide as she took in the injuries. "No, that doesn't sound like her at all! Why- why would she want to destroy anyone's reputation, that makes no sense!"

"Because I haven't-"

"Because Marinette called her out on her lies," Felix told Mrs. Rossi tartly, raising his voice over Lila's whine. "The lies about knowing all sorts of famous people personally, because she 'saved their cat' or was personally helping them with songwriting or was running a million charities, or the lies about going on a- what was it, a three-month trip out of Paris during the school year, when she was actually here the entire time?"

Mrs. Rossi slumped on the ground. "No, no, I can't- I can't believe this-"

Lila shuffled closer to her mom, still clutching her hand to her chest as she made another effort to squirm out of the situation. "They're lying, mama, don't listen to them-"

"Well, you had better start believing it!" Amelie snapped, appearing out of the nearby trees and striding up to the group. She waved her phone. "I have pictures of your little hussy of a daughter trying to force a kiss on my son, and we have evidence of her refusing to let go of my son's arm. You should be ashamed, really! I don't know how I would be able to show my face in public if my son acted the same way that your daughter has! Lying and manipulation and sexual harassment and threats for months and months and months on end, and what have you done to stop it? Nothing, by the sounds of it!"

"I didn't know-" Mrs. Rossi started, but Amelie cut her off with a scoff.

"You didn't know? Oh, excuse me for not being very impressed there. I've been busy as anything quite often with my projects and modeling and films and charity and events, but you had better bet that I made the time to check in with Felix's teachers! If I didn't have the time to go in before or after school, I emailed them. I made sure that I met his friends. I knew the instant that he started acting out, and I could talk to him about it. Have you done any of that?"

"No, but-"

"And this whole business with Lila being 'out of the country' for months! How did you miss that she wasn't going to school?" Amelie demanded.

Mrs. Rossi flinched. "I- she said that the school was closed because of akuma attacks-"

"For three months? That's not even a good lie! Do you live under a rock? Sometimes the akuma attacks drag on for a bit, but it's just hours, not- not even days! All you would need to do to disprove her ridiculous lies would be to turn on a TV! Or do a Google search, that only takes seconds!"

"I-" Mrs. Rossi swallowed hard, and her voice got quiet, nearly inaudible. "I was busy at a new job, and I- I thought that I could trust her."

"Clearly not!"

"In any case, Lila is fired as a Gabriel model, and we will be plenty transparent with the media as to why should they ask," Nathalie told Mrs. Rossi, consulting her tablet. "Adrien has confirmed that he's been grabbed at just like Felix, and that is unacceptable. Mr. Agreste expects that his son be able to work without being sexually harassed by other models."

Mrs. Rossi only nodded, all of the fight drained out of her. Lila whipped her head back and forth between her mom and the rest of the group, panic starting to spread across her features.

"Mama, you don't believe them, do you-"

"Quiet, Lila," Mrs. Rossi snapped. "I've heard enough. I've seen the evidence. I know that you're lying now."

Lila's face screwed up, and then she suddenly lunged to her feet, right at Felix. "How dare you! I had everything going my way, and you've screwed it up! When- when I get akumatized, you'll regret this, Adrien!"

Felix stepped neatly out of the way, extending one foot just enough to send Lila sprawling back to the ground with a wail of pain but not enough that it would be obvious that it was completely on purpose. "Boo-hoo, cry me a river. Also still not Adrien. Try his stunt double instead."

Lila only sobbed on the ground, clutching at her fingers. Her mom hauled her up, looking completely ashamed as she hustled her daughter away.

"Well, I think that's the end of this photoshoot," Nathalie said as soon as the duo was out of sight. She sighed, massaging her forehead in clear exasperation. "Felix, can I ask that next time, Adrien actually shows up like he's supposed to?"

Felix raised an eyebrow at her. "Why? It's not like anyone will be able to tell the difference."

"Gabriel would be most unhappy-"

"Gabriel is unhappy about most things most of the time, so I don't see how it makes any difference," Amelie told her tartly. She looped her arm through Felix's. "Now, if you'll excuse us, I think that Felix and I have a lawsuit to go file. Good-bye."

As it turned out, Gabriel didn't even have to tell the press why its newest model had been abruptly dropped. An Adrien fan had been hidden nearby and watching the shoot, and had taken video of the entire Lila downfall. It had been uploaded at once, and spread across the internet by other fans.

Fortunately, it meant that- at least in Paris- no one would ever believe Lila Rossi again. The outrage over everything that she had done- and especially the attempt at a forced kiss and the clinging to Felix hard enough to break his skin- was enough that Felix was pretty sure that no one would even try to be her friend out of pity. There was no way that any of Adrien's classmates would miss the news, either, which was really what they were most interested in.

Unfortunately, Adrien's fans were over the moon at the idea of an Adrien stunt double, because it meant that there were two of them.

...and unfortunately for some particularly avid and over-eager fans, Amelie Graham de Vanily was none too thrilled about her son and her nephew getting chased around Paris and was still riding high on the success of her lawsuit against Lila. One dinner with the Bourgeois family later and it was officially against the law in Paris to chase after teen celebrities and to form what amounted to search mobs, and there was going to be further investigation and adjustment as needed to prevent other future harassment. Also- and on a completely unrelated topic- Audrey Bourgeois would be in charge of the wardrobe department on the next Graham Films production.

And as for Felix... well, all of a sudden, Adrien's friends all became a lot more receptive to the idea of inviting him to their get-togethers. Some were still a little wary of him, but that didn't bother Felix at all. After all, Felix was used to people regarding him with some trepidation at home, and he was hardly going to make himself comfortable by acting all warm and cuddly. But several of Adrien's friends were fine with that, or perhaps they just were accepting because they knew that it would make Adrien happy.

Felix didn't suppose that it really mattered either way. He wasn't trying to form lifelong friendships in Paris, just trying to enjoy his summer as well as he could. And with Lila firmly out of the picture- she had been shipped back to Italy to attend boarding school, mostly to keep her away from akumas- and with outwardly friendly company...

Well, the summer was looking bright.

[ojcobsessed]

oliver jackson-cohen for flaunt magazine, by jessica romoff, july 2019

***

The first horror movie I ever saw was The Exorcist on my grandmother’s RCA console TV, midnight on Christmas Eve. My grandmother is a Catholic Portuguese woman who was devout to cross stitching and Jesus Christ, resulting in crucifixes nailed into every wall of the living room. So, as every flash and jolt from the TV screen would animate the tortured figurines with chilling white light, I prepared in panic and thrill for each one to flip upside down.

Not only did this movie ignite my passionate love for horror, but actor Oliver Jackson Cohen’s passion as well. Mine lead me to accumulating random 70’s slasher movie memorabilia and sporadic nightmares, while Cohen’s lead him to eventually being the star of hit Netflix horror miniseries The Haunting of Hill House as his character Luke Crain, with a few nightmares as well. The 10 episode show is a modern reimagining of Shirley Jackson’s novel “Hill House” and follows the Crain family during the summer they lived in the haunted home, and flashes forward on their lives decades after the tragic events.

During a phone interview with him, I learned Cohen is much more than just a dedicated actor with a jawline that can cut glass; Cohen is a whirlpool of empathy, an artist who gushes his heart into everything he does, and demands that his character Luke, and those battling with similar struggles, are portrayed more than just their addiction.

With your role in last season, I was really impressed by how you portrayed a character with drug addiction, and how you refrained from making him a stereotypical, one dimensional person - and I was wondering how you avoided leaning on this cliche when approaching Luke?

Thank you, number one, I think we all have seen drug addicts portrayed in movies and tv shows before. Most of the time, they are always portrayed as their addiction, and I don’t think that’s very true for anyone who knows anyone who has substance abuse problems; there is actually a fucking person there. So it was very clear from the get-go that I had a responsibility to present a fully formed human being, and they actually brought in a specific writer to write Luke’s character- who was a heroin addict in recovery. I said to Mike, the director and creator of the show - before we even started that it’s very important that Luke is the sum of all his parts and is not just his addiction. So I think that the way I approached it, is that when I first began doing all the research and the pre-work before we started filming, I started looking at documentaries, because I had never done heroin before, so I thought, Oh I’ll start looking at documentaries - but then I realized quite early on that that was putting a judgement on him. And I don’t think it’s fair - because behind anyone who has fallen into this trap is someone who is deeply struggling. And I felt it - I felt a huge amount of, not pressure, but a need to show the person behind the addiction and show the person who is actually struggling, and why he had become an addict. So I focused on that - so I spent no time whatsoever seeing Lucas as a drug addict; I saw him as someone who was struggling to come to terms with everything that he had experienced and happened in his life. And so I focused on anyone who is trying to numb themselves, that know they’re running away from something. So I built up the terror of that, instead of focusing on “I need my fix.”

Was there something that happened in your own life, that was out of your control and not your fault, but regardless someone judged you because of that - perhaps driving your connection to Luke’s character?

Oh 100 percent, and that’s what is so interesting, because I don’t have a substance abuse problem - but I think that out of all the characters I have ever played in the past 10 years, there’s the most of me in Luke. Like, all of that stuff of just trying to function, and the vulnerability, and just trying to be normal, and being so ashamed - all of that is my own shit, and so [laughs] I didn’t need to be a heroin addict to understand the pain that he was going through, so, so much. I think it’s incredible getting to play someone like that because, in a weird way it felt like therapy - I was able to go to work everyday and just be all the parts of myself. I think it’s interesting as well for men, there’s this whole thing about having to be a certain way, having to always be strong, and I think inherently a lot of people do feel incredibly fragile. So all of that stuff of Luke is me, and my stuff, and I didn’t have to pretend - I just got to go to work and be as vulnerable as I feel. You know we all have incredibly complicated lives and incredibly complicated upbringings,  and I used all of my stuff: I was diagnosed with PTSD a couple of years ago so all of that is in there with Luke - and it felt incredibly cathartic to be able to kind of put it all out there and be there.

When your work is something that is so emotionally rigorous, and strenuous, it must be very draining dedicating yourself to a character who is really struggling his whole life  - How do you unwind and decompress from this intensity?

[Laughs] I….you know what, I’m not very good at it. I feel like I’m one of those people, I’m sort of with the school of thought that you either go to work and you fucking do it  - and you do it for real, or go home. I’m not into this whole I’ll just pretend! thing, so it’s probably not the healthiest way of working. But I feel it’s necessary, and then I don’t know how to handle it. There were a couple of days on set where specifically we were filming all of Luke’s episodes or the stuff where he’s sort of roaming the streets - that got way too intense. We would rap at 6 am and I would go back to my house and sleep for a bit, and then wake up and just be so out of sorts: I would have to call people at home to reassure me that everything was okay.

I imagine the intensity can be overwhelming

Yeah, I mean, it sounds really wonky - but I think that when you’re messing around with stuff like that, and you’re tricking your brain into thinking something is real, and then on top of that you’re drawing from your own personal well of shit that probably should be kept untouched - it’s gonna be messy at times. So yeah, it gets… it did get a little hairy. But again I felt that it was important - and I think all of us across the board in the cast felt that it was so important to do that - to give Luke a voice. And what’s been so interesting when the show came out, it was so overwhelming, the response, specifically from people that have struggled with addiction. And it was so warming to hear these stories from people, so I think it was necessary for all of us as actors to go to those dark parts of ourselves, and put that out on screen.

Is there something that you wish you knew before you began acting in a horror TV series? Or about a TV series with intense family drama with horror influence?

Hm..I don’t know. Just… it’s all good. [laughs] it’s gonna be all good.

Honestly, that’s pretty solid universal advice. And I was wondering, are you a fan of horror in general?

Yes! Huge

And is this a genre that you want to continue with?

Yes, I had never done anything horror before, so this was a dream. I remember I watched The Exorcist when I was like eight or something, and it completely terrified me - and I still to this day have nightmares about it. I think what’s so clever about horror, and I think specifically with what Mike has done on our show, it becomes a metaphor for something else. So specifically with Hill House, if you take away the house and all the ghosts and all the horror elements, it’s about childhood trauma. So you can swap out what all those kids went through, the horror they experienced, can be swaped out for sexual abuse, or physical abuse, or anything like that. So you manage to kind of navigate all of these horrific things we kind of don’t want to look at, in the veil of ghosts, so it becomes palatable for an audience. I never knew this, Netflix told me this, that horror is the most watched genre in the whole world.

Really!?

Across the board, yeah! I thought it would be comedy. But that’s why Netflix made the show. Because they realized that actually there was such a massive market for horror. So yeah, a really long winded answer to your short question - yes I was a fan of horror, I always have been.

Me too! I’ve never thought about how horror can be a metaphor for trauma. That’s so fascinating. Just one last question - I know that you can’t say too much about the second season… right? Or they’ll shoot you.

Right [laughs]

So, see if you can answer this: if Season 1 and Season 2 were mythical creatures, what would they be?

[Laughs] What would they be… ahhh...I genuinely don’t know how to answer that question. They’re both just beasts from the darkest corners of our minds. Season 1…. Uh… what I can say - is that season 1 I believe was amazing, and with what they’re doing with season 2 is even…. More incredible.

[writing-in-april]

Bowling Ball Baby

Franklin x Female Pregnant Reader

(Franklin is MGG’s character from beginner’s luck)

Gif courtesy of the ever wonderful @imagining-in-the-margins

A/N: I have recently become obsessed with Franklin because of @httpnxtt and @sunlight-moonrise so I decided to write some fluff with a dash of angst for him. I also have smut upcoming for this character as well. Thanks to my beta readers @sunlight-moonrise and @definitelynotkatesblog y’all are amazing!

Warnings: Fluff with a dash of angst, marital dispute at the beginning (is later resolved, and a few swear words.

Masterlist Word count: 1.9k (this was supposed to be a blurb lol)

Fighting with Franklin always left me at rock bottom. We both had feisty personalities but still didn’t fight often, usually just scathing quips when we were irritated. On the rare occasions when we did explode into a fight it was full of screaming, crying, and hurtful comments. Our tempers had been close to boiling over for a while now, my pregnancy hormones were making me extremely irritable and Franklin’s feisty demeanor didn’t exactly mesh well with that.

My 8 month pregnant belly felt like I was lugging around a bowling ball constantly, my back felt like it was being broken everyday. I constantly felt like I was standing on pins and needles, plus the baby felt the need to show me just how strong she or he was by kicking me in the ribs.

The fight had started after Franklin came home from work, I was sitting on our couch with my feet propped up and covered in an ice pack to relieve some of the stinging pain. Unfortunately for my poor swollen feet the ice pack did little to dull the throbbing.

“Hey, Frankie?” I called, hoping I could convince him to swap out the thawing ice pack for a frozen bag of peas.

“Not now, I’m busy.” He answered shortly, his back facing away from me, not fully acknowledging my presence. He was usually extra irritable after work; he felt trapped in his job, like it was holding him back from his dream of bowling professionally..

I huffed loudly, not that he could hear it from the other room, doing god knows what. He returned in a rush with his bowling ball bag in his hand, headed for the door, his Big Z Tires shirt hastily thrown on. My mouth fell open when I realized he was leaving for the alley.

“You’re leaving?” I squeaked, watching him while he hastily shoved a bagel in his mouth.

“I’ve got to go to practice” he muffled around a mouthful, sounding annoyed. I always supported Franklin and his dreams of being the best bowler in Little Falls, but this time I wasn’t going to let him escape his responsibilities of our relationship so easily.

“Could you skip today?” Treading lightly by asking softly. “We haven’t spent any time with each other in like a month and even then it was at the alley.”

His face switched from being annoyed to enraged despite my asking nicely, he was still going to get pissed off- figures.

“How could you be so inconsiderate- you know how important this is to me and the whole town!” he yelled. I was spooked but quickly composed myself before replying.

“I’m not being inconsiderate, you're never here.” I stated in a deadly tone, I didn’t want to make this worse by joining in on his raised voice. “I understand it’s the most important thing in Little Falls, but shouldn’t our baby be more important to you?!”

All I got in response was a dismissive scoff. I could feel myself getting angrier, we’d both said we wanted a baby and for the past month he acted like he couldn’t care less.

“You might as well go move into the bowling alley.” I mumbled under my breath, fiery spite fueling my words.

“Even with the pins, it’d still be quieter than your nagging.” he shot back.

“Excuse me?!” Now it was my turn to shout; he just had to continue to stoke the fire increasing in my belly. I waddled my way to stand right in front of him, ignoring the pain of my swollen feet. I didn't want him to wiggle his way out, if he wanted an argument he was going to get one, he was the one who started it after all.

“All you’ve done is whined and complained these past few weeks.” He was acting like a hypocrite, whining and complaining to me about something we both agreed to do together. I had never felt more alone.

“How would you know? You’re never here to spend time with me!” The timbre of my voice cracked as my heart started to shatter.

“Just stop, ok? I get it you’re pregnant but come on Y/N it can’t take that much hard work!” That comment was the straw that broke the camel's back, my anger turned to melancholy as hot tears spilled over onto my cheeks as I waddled away as fast as I could back to our bedroom.

I could hear his desperate voice trying to get me to come back, offering any pleading or begging he could think of, but I wasn’t having it. As I got to our room I slammed the door shut, making sure to lock it tight so he couldn’t follow me. If he wanted to act like a dick, he'll sleep on the couch for the night. Knocks started to hit the door with his voice barely permeating through the wood imploring me to let him in.

Tears fell down my cheeks while I rubbed my belly, all I wanted was for us to be a happy family, but I needed Franklin to be fully committed. Sinking down onto our bed I contemplated where this left us. I almost packed a bag to stay with a friend for the night but I was too tired to go through with it, the fighting had taken all the energy out of me. The mattress cuddled my body but it wasn’t as good as Franklin, which only made the drops fall harder. My sadness deepened when the knocks stopped, the room now a void, offering no comfort to me. Dread sat in my belly as I drifted off into a restless sleep.

~~~

Physically and emotionally I was strung out, I was in no mood to talk or argue so I had been tiptoeing around Franklin all day, his behavior had made me seriously start to question if he was truly invested in our relationship. Once dinner rolled around I padded my way into the kitchen, the baby had been craving some sweets and I was highly considering just binging on candy.

I glanced over to the stove to find a ridiculous sight standing before me. Franklin had his bowling shirt on- he honestly rarely took it off and had about 5 of them. Covering most of the front of his yellow button up was a baby sling I had bought a few weeks ago in preparation, in it sat my old purple bowling ball I used when I was in Highschool. He must’ve dug it out of our closet as I hadn’t used it since our last competition senior year. A wave of nostalgia washed over me as I reminisced about the old team where we’d first met. I gazed at the 8 pound perfectly round ball, weighing down and stretching the fabric directly in the middle, it looked exactly like what you’d think a bowling ball in a baby sling would look- ridiculous.

“I remember you saying you’ve been craving something sweet so I decided to make pancakes for dinner, I even added chocolate chips.” He spoke, breaking me out of my memory. I hadn’t even noticed he was making pancakes, my focus on the bowling ball strapped to his stomach.

“We’re not going to talk about the bowling ball?”

“Well I was being a dick-” I swiftly cut him off. My rage was being stoked slightly by his whimsical attitude, I couldn’t tell if he was trying to cheer me up or was really that thick and couldn’t understand my frustrations.

“Yeah, that’s the understatement of the century.” I’m sure the steely edge to my tone was not lost on Franklin, and I still wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of eye contact.

“Like I was saying- I was being a dick and I was thinking to myself, ‘Frankie she’s carrying the weight of the relationship right now. You want to get inside a woman’s head? You become a woman.’ So I thought I’d join you in solidarity- as an apology.”

Silence filled my part of the conversation as I pondered his words. It certainly was an odd way for someone to make up a fight, usually people bought flowers, chocolate, or go on a fancy date. Franklin, however, always had a way of apologizing in the most obnoxious and ridiculous ways that were incredibly sweet, but also made me want to bang my head against the wall. He had stopped flipping the pancakes, anxiously awaiting my reply to his apology. The slight char they were getting wafted a burnt smell through the air.

“This is the first thing you thought of for an apology?” I giggled out breaking the tense silence, his shoulders relaxed as he let out an audible puff of breath. I may have found this funny but I wasn’t going to let him off the hook just yet.

“Well- you know me, I’m not very good at apologies.” He said in a regretful tone, turning back to the pancakes finally removing the almost carbonized pancake from the skillet. A cringe made its way onto his face after catching sight of the rubbery burnt cake and swiftly chucked it in the trash. “I really am sorry Y/N.”

“You’re saying that now because your back hurts- Am I right?” I narrowed my eyes suspiciously, still not fully accepting this apology.

“No, that’s not the main reason I’m apologizing, but yes, oh my god my back fucking hurts.” His right hand started to massage his sore back as his other poured in the last scrapes of pancakes, sprinkling it with an exorbitant amount of chocolate chips. My mouth was watering at the sight and delicious aroma.

“How long have you been wearing it?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the heavenly scent.

“Like 10 minutes, I totally understand why you waddle now” Flipping over the last pancake, he started to set the table, his waddles were even more awkward compared to mine because of his long limbs.

“Well now that you understand, you’d better be massaging my feet everyday to make up for it.” I sharply stated though I couldn’t help but slip in a few giggles in between. I had been carrying this baby close to 9 months and Franklin could barely handle 10 minutes without keeling over.

“Yes, of course. I promise.” He set the plates of pancakes down on our round table, then pulled out one of the chairs and helped me sit down. I noticed that he had even set up the silverware in its supposed proper place along with the napkins folded into little triangles, he did go all out to make it up to me.“You know, you're the actual god in this family.” He remarked as he slung off the baby sling, relieving the tension from his back. I wished I could do the same.

“I love you, you big weirdo.” I snorted in response. While his godliness was usually referring to his bowling skills, it was nice to have my literal creation and carrying of life inside of me acknowledged too.

“I love you too” He wrapped his arms around me from behind, pressing soft kisses to my neck and rubbing my belly, silently assuring me that everything would be alright.

[tsarisfanfiction]

Whumpy Prompt list

Given as a gift, Eos

Suspicious Parcel

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Gen Genre: Friendship/Hurt/Comfort Characters: Penelope, Parker, EOS

Okay, so I know I whump a lot, but I have to say I've never attempted to whump an AI before, so this was definitely a challenge. Big thanks to @janetm74 who reminded me about the existence of her portable drive from Growing Pains! That was the little nudge I needed to figure out how to tackle this.

There is actually surprisingly little EOS or John in this, but this was the way my muse wanted to handle it, so this is what happened.

Whumpy Prompt List

“There’s h’a suspicious parcel f’you, m’Lady,” Parker announced with no prior warning as he entered the large drawing room, tea tray in his hands. Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward looked up from where she’d been reviewing the latest fashion critiques and raised a single eyebrow at her long-term companion and confidante.

“Have you checked it over?” she asked him, one hand gently carding through Bertie’s short fur where the pug was curled up on his cushion beside her. “I don’t suppose they were kind enough to leave a return address?”

“Not h’at all, m’Lady,” he replied, setting the fine bone china cup and saucer on the low table by her knee and, at a gesture, beginning to pour it. “But h’I could not see h’anything h’alarming when h’I, uh, investigated it.”

“Well, in that case you might as well have it brought up,” she decided, watching the man feign heavy reluctance as he set out a second cup for Bertie. She’d long been aware that the animosity between the two of them had faded away, and that their current relationship was one of a steadfast friendship. Both parties were just dramatic enough to want to put on an entertaining show about it.

“Very well, m’Lady,” he agreed. “h’It will h’arrive momentarily.”

Serving duties finished, she watched him leave the room. With the arrival of this so-called ‘suspicious parcel’ – and if Parker, of all people, considered it suspicious, then she was inclined to listen – there was surely no point in continuing to read the scathing remarks about Lady Bottomsley’s dress at the Royal Gala two days ago, even if she did quite agree that the woman in question had made quite the ridiculous clothing choice for the occasion.

Setting it aside, and making sure to leave the table clear for the parcel, in case it contained a surprise neither Parker nor the Manor’s security had been able to detect, she picked up her cup and took a delicate sip of the tea.

True to his word, Parker didn’t take long at all to return, carrying the parcel warily yet firmly. It was entirely unremarkable – a perfect cube, wrapped in plain brown paper. The stamped code that would project her address if exposed to the correct technology was the only marking to be seen, and even that appeared to be faked, upon closer inspection.

As expected, there was no evidence that pointed towards the identity of the sender.

“Your gloves, m’Lady,” Parker said, after setting the parcel down on the cleared table. He’d already swapped his own gloves for full-cover, she noticed as she accepted her own, heavy-duty gloves.

“Thank you, Parker,” she acknowledged, pulling them on and making sure they sat securely and comfortably over her recently-manicured nails. “Now, shall we see what this mystery parcel contains?”

Despite donning her own protective gear, it was Parker who carefully slit the paper open, revealing an equally plain, innocuous box. The former crook carefully peeled the paper away in its entirety, inspecting both the inside of the paper and the exterior of the box with a highly experienced eye.

“h’It seems clean, m’Lady,” he announced after several long moments. “Should h’I open the box?”

She cast her own eye over it, although with little confidence that she would spot something Parker had missed, before agreeing. “Yes, Parker. Open the box.”

As with the paper, he carefully sliced it open with a blade rather than opening it conventionally, and the sides fell away to reveal-

“Oh,” she said, as Parker drew in a quick, sharp breath. “Well, this is rather distressing.”

John had been beside himself with frantic worry ever since he’d brought EOS, confined to her portable unit, down to Earth on a rescue, only for the device to be stolen, AI and all. While it was true that he had, as always, backed her up thoroughly on Thunderbird Five’s systems, and the AI herself was, as always, his constant companion up there, the idea that he’d lost the original version of the code – not that she was mere code to him, no matter what he claimed – had devastated him.

Even EOS herself seemed disquieted at the fact that a version of her was in unknown hands; she knew as well as the rest of them, if not moreso, how dangerous she could be in the wrong hands, although in a deflection Penelope was well aware she’d picked up from John, she had taken to reminding them of the damage she was sure her original was inflicting upon whatever substandard technology she was exposed to.

It was a transparent attempt, and Penelope knew that, despite intentions, it was doing nothing to cheer John up. He was absolutely terrified what would become of her – not only was her existence sure to be revealed, but they had no idea whohad her, or what condition she would be in if she was ever returned.

As Penelope gazed rather miserably upon the contents of the box, she thought that at least they had the answer to one of those questions, even if it was not an answer she cared for. Part of her didn’t want to inform John, but it would be far crueller to keep it from him.

“What should we do, m’Lady?” Parker was looking at her, no doubt thinking the same but waiting for her decision. She resisted the urge to swallow, strict upbringing rules refusing to allow such a weakness even now.

“Contact John,” she instructed, reaching out with gloved fingers. “Perhaps he will be able to get the answers we seek.”

Once he was recovered from the sight of the ruined drive, charred and partially melted as though someone had thought it was possible to physically torture an artificial intelligence with no nerve endings, she knew that nothing would stop him from tearing apart every piece of data, every scrap of code he could get his hands on, until he found out what had happened to EOS.

Penelope also knew that she would do everything she possibly could to help him in this endeavour. While she might not be as close to EOS as John, the sight in front of her truly was rather distressing.