#full screen for best resolution!

[hauntingblue]

Kaido lore?!

[actual-changeling]

we do not talk enough about the moment right before crowley puts his sunglasses back on. the "nothing lasts forever" is devastating and if you're like me your eyes were so full of tears you couldn't see the screen the first time you watched it (just like crowley, look at us all twinning in sadness!).

there is a shift that happens in his eyes and i think it is absolutely fascinating and heartbreaking at the same time.

we begin with crowley averting his gaze from aziraphale's face and staring off into the distance instead, and you can see his spirit break. that crowley just lost the one thing in the world he cannot live without and we can see it written across his face like a neon sign.

then, as you'd expect, he gives into the need to cover up his pain, to try and make himself less vulnerable, and even before he lifts his glasses he looks down so aziraphale can no longer see his eyes.

now, the next part is what would not let me out of its grasp all day. we know it happens because of his demeanour afterwards and up until the kiss, but you can actually watch as crowley makes himself numb to the world.

i am intimately familiar with dissociation as a trauma and stress response, and while you can never fully control it, you do eventually find the switch in your mind that makes you snap back into the haze. crowley has had six thousand years to get really, really good at leaving reality behind when he needs and/or wants to.

that's exactly what he does.

he still looks sad, and yet there's just something distinctly distant in his eyes, the shift from openly heartbroken to "i don't want to feel any of this let me leave".

glasses? on

emotions? off

hotel? trivago

i have stared at those four frames more than any person probably should and i don't know if it's the light, if i am going insane, or if there is a single tear sliding out of his right (our left) eye. i'm probably insane and the light is a bitch so if anyone has some high resolution shots or anything that could answer that question without a doubt PLEASE do add it.

by now you are probably ready to threaten me with a knife in a dark alley but before you do that or drive your car off a cliff, let me tell you the best part:

aziraphale notices.

they might be communicating on two different frequencies but aziraphale knows crowley. he knows and loves him, and, most importantly, over the last few years he has gotten used to seeing crowley without his glasses. aziraphale could probably write a book on the expressions in his eyes alone and watches that shift happen and is devastated.

look.

he tries to make himself hope the same second, tries to convince himself crowley is putting on his glasses so they can leave together, but he knows.

aziraphale sees the light leave crowley's eyes, sees crowley leave, knowing that he is quite literally running away from him. you and me against the world, angel, but in that moment crowley firmly pushes him back to "the world" (or tries to, anyway).

the entire season we see crowley take off his glasses whenever he enters the bookshop to the point where he's running around without them on in broad daylight with jimbriel right there.

can you imagine how hurt and confused aziraphale must be?

because what crowley is telling him, if we really, really break it down, is that aziraphale is no longer a safe person for him. and repairing that trust is going to take time and work, no matter how much crowley loves him, how badly they love and need each other.

anyway to seal this off and really rub in the pain - how it started vs. how it ended. <3

oh one last thing: now crowley no longer has a single person he can be himself around, no one that knows him, no one he trusts. no one in whose presence he can take his glasses off.

and outside of the bentley and his own flat, he no longer has a place to do so either. the bookshop was theirs. with aziraphale gone, is it really a safe place anymore? is it somewhere he can just let himself be knowing he will be looked after and protected?

easy answer: no.

alright, off i go. see y'all on the next angst post or in the tags.

[teeny-tiny-revenge]

It's home cinema manufacturing time! 🏴‍☠️ Gonna put my pirate show on my shelf! (I'm doing an Arts and Crafts Project and I'm making it everyone's problem.)

After seeing how much they cost, I abandoned the idea of getting a Blu-ray writer for now. For the time being, good old DVDs is what it's going to be! My TV is old and not very big, so DVD resolution is gonna be fine.

It's been ages since I last burned a DVD. For the full experience, I'm gonna create nice menus and pretty sleeves for the boxes. Graphic design is my passion! Um.

Well. First needed to find a program to do stuff with. I'm a Linux guy, so I'm using Devede. (Which is free, btw. In case someone else wants to do a low cost spot of putting pirate show on the shelf.)

DVDs fit a maximum of 120 minutes of video. So, four episodes, I thought. But after a quick attempt, the program refused to do more than three (maybe because of the menu also taking up space, and four episodes cutting pretty close to the 120 min mark?). Anyway, three episodes per disc it is. It's a pretty nice runtime for watching the entire disc, IMO. An hour and a half, and then you can return to reality to realise you should probably eat something, or go to bed because it's midnight.

OFMD with its current two seasons has a total of eighteen episodes, which is divisible by three. You get the following setup:

Disc 1: Pilot, A Damned Man, The Gentleman Pirate - That's pretty good, Stede's introduction to piracy all on one disc!

Disc 2: Discomfort in a Married State, The Best Revenge is Dressing Well, The Art of Fuckery - All bangers. Great to watch together, our boys meet and shenanigans happen!

Disc 3: This is Happening, We Gull Way Back, Act of Grace - Many romantic moments, lots of great scenes, shit hits the fan at the end there. Alright!

Disc 4: Wherever you go, there you are, Impossible Birds, Red Flags - ... Pain and angst! What have I done!?! The disc of horrors. Gotta make sure to have tissues at hand when I watch this. But hey, it also has messy bun Ed! Small mercies.

Disc 5: The Innkeeper, Fun and Games, The Curse of the Seafaring Life. - Another disc with all winners. I love all these episodes so much! (You can watch this disc to recover from the trauma of the previous one!) But seriously, this one slaps.

Disc 6: Calypso's Birthday, Man on Fire, Mermen - Great combination again. Season finale! Love and excitement!

... Honestly, except for the psychological damage of putting all the most painful episodes together, this is coming out pretty cool. Says a lot about how good the show is. I actually really love all the episodes (yes even the painful angsty episodes of massive depression). Thinking about this little project really reminded me how much I love this entire show.

So, we got a tracklist, now menus, then we can burn this stuff!

I did the menu backgrounds in GIMP. Realised I have a big folder full of screenshots I took myself, screenshots someone else took and posted on Tumblr, official promo pics for the show, and I have no idea anymore where most of them are from, because I named the files according to what's on them. Which is useful for when you want to find pics (Need a picture of cursed suit Stede? I have files named that, easy peasy!), but not so great if you wanted to give credit to whoever took a given pic you used. (It's probably @sherlockig or @ofmd-ann or @blakbonnet. Please feel credited, your beautiful screens and gifs brighten my day, and some of them are now probably part of my DVD menus. Shrunk down and cropped, but, yeah.)

I originally wanted to structure my menus as having the title of an episode, then some pics from it, then the next episode, then pics from that, and so forth, but I couldn't convince the program to give me the necessary padding between the menu items, so I ended up just putting the episode images below the menu. Still like it.

Anyway, DVD menus can also play sound! Behold a crappy video of my beautiful creation (provided entirely for sound):

It plays Gnossienne N°5!

More crappy pics of my other disc menus:

Gonna make them some nice sleeves next. Some day. Gotta make sure they all work properly first. So. I'll be on my sofa, watching my DVDs. With menus! (Edit: here are!)

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - All's Quiet on the BL Front

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top.

May 2024 Wk 3

Ongoing Series - Thai

Wandee Godday (Sat YT) ep 3 of 12 - I love how were getting a solid depiction of two queers just genuinely enjoying sex with each other. That’s actually rare in BL. In this case, it manages to also be weirdly adorable and cute.

Dee is such a tease. I guess Y likes a brat? 

LOOK at those bedroom eyes!

Linguistics corner: when these two are being serious, sweet, or flirty with each other they use rao/nai which is kind of old fashioned and charming and not common in BL. They move pretty seamlessly into gu/mueng and back depending on the style of convo, tho. It's FUN to hear them talk.

Let the fake relationship commence!

My Stand-In (Thai Fri iQIYI) ep 4 of 12 eps - I HAVE THOUGHTS. I'm really enjoying the sinister backbone of this show. I hope they have the courage of their convictions in that regard and lean into a kind of sexy evil revenge narrative. It was a pleasure to watch the break up and I do not want a redemption arc for Ming or a romance for us. Fuck 'em, let’s just ride a revenge train, okay Joe baby?

That’s said, I totally sniffled at the ending scene where Ming (for two years!) has been paying penance cooking for two and waiting alone. Excellent pathos. Now, I understand how they're gonna make this a full 12 eps. And I’m excited about it. Carry on!

We Are (Weds iQIYI) ep 7 of 16 - I wasn't a fan of Winny & Satang in My School President but I'm loving them in this. The thing with Q, Toey, and Chain had me hooting with laughter. I think I’m finally just easing into the relaxed absurdity of this show. The key is not to expect anything from it. Just them being tiny gay idiots.

Two Worlds (iQIYI) ep 10 fin - Someday I’d like to really enjoy a MaxNat show, but today was not that day. (I feel like ever since Between Us I’ve been generally disenchanted with established OG pairs and what they’re bringing to the table. Perhaps that’s a discussion for another day. Cherry Magic excepted, of course.) 

OK, so this final episode, they sure tried to fit a lot in. But that made the pacing better for me. So I kinda liked this weird cliff notes resolution to the story.

In conclusion:

MaxNat do a credible job with a messy script about parallel worlds, gangsters, and strange diseases cured by forest fruits. It sounds confusing because it is. The chemistry is excellent the side pair is entirely forgotten about, and one could drive a Tardis through the plot holes. Still, I found it modestly enjoyable if not at all rewatchable. 7/10 

Only Boo! (Sun YouTube) ep 6 of 12 - I do love how bold and brash Moo is. He’s truly a great character, such an utter outgoing sunshine puppy focused on his pursuit of his older boy. I'm charmed by his utter harmlessness. They gave us a sweet coming out scene, and an awesome supportive mom. Frankly GMMTV has a good track record with moms. (With a few noted exceptions, of course.)

That said, I do keep forgetting this is a GMMTV offering. It just doesn't FEEL GMMTV. Just me?

OMG Vampire (Thai Sun ????) ep 1 of 10 - Starts tomorrow, will report on sitch next week. LeeFrank are back - not unlike the undead. But how do we feel about it? Unsure given their track record.

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

At 25:00 in Akasaka AKA 25 Ji Akasaka de (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 5 of 10 - I like it. I like our sulky 2nd lead. He’s pouty, adorable, brash, and adding some much-needed tension to this narrative. The blurring lines between show within a show is a lot of fun. Probably the best I've seen done in BL so far.

Living With Him AKA Kare no Iru Seikatsu (Japan Thurs Gaga) ep 6 of 10 - I like that we got backstory, but we also sort of already knew it. So this ep felt a bit like filler. They are wonderful when they’re on screen together but when they aren't it's a bit dull. I hope we just get them together for the next 4 eps. But this is Japan, so I doubt it.

Blossom Campus (Korea Thurs Gaga & iQIYI) ep 1 of 6 - The image resolution on this show (via Iqiyi ) is terrible. Meanwhile, awkward crush. Jock nerd pairing. Dorky. Maybe a bit too much awkward/dorky for me? I'm not sold on this one.

Meanwhile the ordering then not eating or drinking of food continues. Very upsetting.

Boys Be Brave (Korea Viki) eps 5-8fin - This show was just never sure what it wanted to be. Slacker sunshine KiSub moves in with nerd JinWoo, mostly because he knows JinWoo likes him but won't confess and that's never happened to him before. It reminded me of some earlier KBLs like Behind Cut, yes is had bones but not much flesh, so it only just hung together and progressed through not very much plot in a jerking rattling fashion like an animated skeleton. All the story and chemistry was with the side couple and none of the screen time. That just annoyed me. What did this BL want to BE? Who tf knows. I, for one, don’t care, and resolve to think no more on it. 6/10 

Blue Boys (Korea Sat YouTube) - This ended at 4 eps on a cliffhanger. Since this is a very small studio I don’t have a lot of faith in there being a part two. But they have bundled both this BL, and the GL, bingable chunks on YT. So if you want to binge it, it’s there. Just be aware that it ends on a cliffhanger.

My thoughts?

Promising reunion romances full of class and coming out struggles but I grade with what we got, not on expectations, and you know I HATE a cliffhanger. So yeah, it HAD promise but as of now it gets a 4/10 - fatally flawed. I reserve the right to change my mind if they amend for damages.

It's airing but...

You Made My Day (Thai YT) ep 1 of 5 - mini series staring the I Will Knock You couple Tar & Bom, started but I couldn't find it. I also didn't try very hard.

Lady Boy Friends (Thai WeTV grey) 16 eps - reminds me a bit too much of Diary of Tootsies only high school. Not my thing. DNF unless it turns a corner and is truly amazing.

A Balloon's Landing (Taiwan movie) trailer - A frustrated Hong Kong writer, Tian Yu, meets a Taipei street gangster, Xiang (Fandy Fan from HIStory2: Crossing the Line), and the two of them embark on a journey to find the Bay of Vanishing Whales. Along the way, they discover unexpected twists and turns and close bonds, which brings out the message that "there is always someone like you in this world who is waiting for you. This released to cinemas in Taiwan, no word on international release.

In case you missed it

A really really thorough and fascinating article on 2 Moons 2 and what happened.

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

May Releases

VBL (Taiwan) is releasing 4 'Special Episode' epilogues to their 4 2023 shows every Friday this month on Gagaoolala, Viki & Viu. Not sure on search terms or how to find these. (Or, frankly, if we need them.)

5/10 – You Are Mine

5/17 – VIP Only

5/24 – Stay By My Side

5/31 – Anti Reset

5/25 The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer - HoTae & DongHee are back but unfortunately not in a cinema near me. Side couple from Unintentional Love Story, same actors, same character names. I love them. I NEED TO SEE THIS.

5/28 My Biker 2 (Thai movie YT?) - trailer

5/30 Knock Knock Boys (Thai Thurs WeTV) - I'm hoping I can get it elsewhere since my WeTV account is inactive, but I do love Best and I'm interested in seeing him in a new pairing. That said, I'm not wild about Seng... so I won't be too cut up if I can't get hold of this. More here.

5/31 The Time of Huannan (Taiwan movie) - May not be BL

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

I'm a sucker for this king of casual claiming. (Only Boo)

It me! (Wandee Goodday)

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @sunflower-positiiivity @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious

If ya wanna be tagged each week leave a comment and I will add you to the template. Easy peesy.

[shardechance]

𝖏𝖆𝖜𝖇𝖗𝖊𝖆𝖐𝖊𝖗

ao3 link | playlist | detailed content warnings | masterlist

pairing: feysand rating: explicit wc: 23k warnings: non con

Feyre’s a big fan of scary movies. So much, in fact, that Halloween night spent curled up on the couch and watching Poltergeist while the kids she’s babysitting sleep upstairs doesn’t sound so bad, even if it means missing out on a party or two. It’s a relatively boring night, until a real ghost appears. Rhysand, in the shittiest costume she’s ever seen, picked the wrong house to trick or treat... but scary movies aren’t scary until they’re real.

[FREAK WEEK DAY 1]

read on ao3 or proceed below for small snippet.

The movie is better than Feyre remembers it, which isn’t exactly a surprise. The first time she saw it, her sisters stole dresses from Mom’s room and dressed Feyre up as E.T. so they could stuff her in a closet. They’d instructed her to hide, and after too long spent in the dark, Feyre eventually wandered out on her own. She found her sisters downstairs, seemingly having forgotten their little sister, with the credits already rolling on the TV.

By contrast, the boys let her have her own blanket, and laugh along with her even when they don’t get the joke. They leave the last bit of popcorn for her, and even though it’s hard in the middle and the chocolate’s gone, it tastes good. There’s fifteen minutes left in the movie when Feyre’s phone buzzes in her pocket, and she’s more than a bit disappointed when she gets up to answer it.

“Be right back, boys,” Feyre sighs, flinging the blanket off her lap.

She stands in the foyer, where she can see into the living room to keep an eye on the boys and the movie, and brings the phone up to look at the screen. FaceTime Video. Lucien Vanserra.

“Hey, Lucien,” Feyre says, a bit distracted. What greets her in full and glorious outdated iPhone resolution, is half an opera mask, an open dress shirt, and the smug grin of her best friend.

“Sing, my angel of music!”

Her thumb hits the end call button before Lucien can embarrass himself further.

She doesn’t get the chance to roll her eyes, let alone head back to the boys and their movie. Before she’s even lifted her thumb from the red reject call button, his picture flashes across her screen again. Against her better judgment, her thumb slides across to green.

“Why are you such a bitch?” Lucien asks by way of greeting.

“Mind your manners, potty mouth. Tiny ears present,” she warns, turning her back to the living room as if to shield the kids from his bad language.

He snorts, shooting back something from a red solo cup. “Oh yeah? Fu—”

“Shut up!” She snaps. Her shitty phone speaker is no match for surround sound, so it’s unlikely the boys can hear from the other room, but Feyre doesn’t want to be the reason they learn their first swears. “You look like a loser.”

“What do you mean?” He lifts the mask, revealing his scarred cheek, and half a smirk. Usual golden prosthetic eye switched for a scarlet alternative. “I’m told it plays to my strengths.”

He’s gorgeous. Unfortunately, he is very much aware of that. Scars and all. Chicks dig it, she’s told. Feyre takes the last few steps to the kitchen, dropping a couple of stray candy wrappers in the garbage on her way past.

“What do you want?” she says. “I’m working.”

“Yeah, about that,” Lucien says, his tone dripping with the promise of trouble. “Ditch the kids! Come play!”

And lose the easiest hundred bucks of her life? No way. Yeah, seeing Lucien in his element, chasing the highs of what little nightlife there is to offer, flirting with boys, dancing with girls—

“Negative.” Feyre inspects her cuticles. “This is easy money.”

tag list: @velidewrites @melting-houses-of-gold @popjunkie42 @secret-third-thing @separatist-apologist @the-lonelybarricade @jon-snows-man-bun @iftheshoef1tz

[cyber-therian]

hi all! i made my own “alterhuman ID” template, free to use for anyone :D the box in the right-side corner is to add the symbol of your identity (therian, alterhuman, otherkin, otherhearted, etc)

make sure you dont put any information that could put you in danger! this is just for fun and you dont need to put your actual information if u dont want to! making things up is totally okay.

also make sure to have the images full-screen if you are saving them, as it will give you the best resolution.

i edited mine in IbispaintX

“registration date” is the year i realized i was nonhuman, you can put whatever youd like

inspired by this & another i cannot find!!

[felassan]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard settings details - Display and Graphics

This post is under a cut due to length.

This information comes directly from the game.

DA:TV menu 'pages': Display, Graphics, Audio, Controls, Gameplay, Interface, Accessibility, Other.

For some of the settings, additional detail on a specific one (the one that was selected at that particular point during the video, e.g. "Window Mode" was set to "Full Screen") is given after the general explanation/definition of the setting itself. These are in italics at the end of an entry.

DISPLAY

Display Mode

Active Monitor: Select the monitor for game display. Window Mode: Switches between full screen, windowed, and borderless windowed modes. You can press ALT+ENTER at any time to switch between full screen and windowed modes. In full screen mode, the game will play on the entire screen. Screen Resolution: Changes the game's display resolution. The game's level of on-screen detail is determined by the number of pixels it contains. Higher resolution increases the number of pixels displayed, which will result in a clearer image. This comes with a potential cost to performance. Refresh Rate: Sets how often your display will refresh game visuals. A higher refresh rate means a smoother picture, depending on your computer's hardware. Frame Rate Limit: Sets the maximum framerate for the game. VSync: Synchronizes the game's framerate with the display's refresh rate to prevent screen tearing.

Calibration

Brightness: Adjusts the intensity of the game's visuals. Makes all visuals lighter or darker. Contrast: Adjusting the contrast will change the difference in color and light between the brightest and darkest parts of the screen. Enable HDR: HDR (High Dynamic Range) mode provides enhanced color and contrast ranges. This option can only be enabled on supported displays. HDR must also be enabled in your operating system. Use the HDR Calibration option below to adjust. HDR Calibration: Launches the HDR calibration tool which adjusts the HDR settings to best match your display. The maximum brightness level should generally be adjusted to match what your HDR display will support. Measured in nits. This is only available when Enable HDR is turned on.

Upscaling

Unsample Method: Improve performance and visuals by rendering the game at a smaller resolution, then "upsampling" to a larger resolution for display. The pixels that make up the difference between the two resolutions are generated using advanced algorithms. Unsample Quality: Select the desired quality level for the upsampling method selected. DLSS Frame Generation: DLSS Frame Generation can generate additional frames that boost your overall frame rate. In order to use Frame Generation, you must have an NVIDIA RTX 40-series graphics card. NVIDIA Reflex: NVIDIA Reflex is a technology that helps reduce input latency while playing the game. In order to take advantage of NVIDIA Reflex's feature, you must have a supported NVIDIA graphics card. Anti-Aliasing: Anti-Aliasing smooths out pixels along the edge of objects that can look sharp or jagged in certain situations. Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) uses information from current and past frames to address aliasing issues. The high setting uses a large range of frames and will result in a higher quality anti-aliasing effect, but with a higher performance cost.

Resolution Scaling

Render Scale: Controls the resolution the game is rendered at relative to your display resolution. Settings below 100% may decrease visual fidelity, but can improve performance. Settings above 100% may increase visual fidelity, but can negatively impact performance. Dynamic Resolution Scaling: Automatically lowers the game's resolution in real-time to maintain the target frame rate. Target Frames Per Second: Determines the target frame rate for dynamic resolution scaling. Minimum Resolution Scale: Determines how low the resolution can be scaled when Dynamic Resolution Scaling is active.

GRAPHICS

Graphics Preset

Graphics Preset: Graphics presets are predefined configurations that simultaneously adjust multiple graphics settings to achieve a balance between visuals and performance. Restart required for setting change. Maximizes visual fidelity by setting most graphics options to their highest values. Recommended for the Ultra hardware specification tier.

Textures

Texture Quality: Selects the level of detail and resolution for textures applied to objects in the game. Higher settings will result in more detailed textures, potentially at the cost of performance. Restart required for setting change. CPU - Moderate. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Major. Texture Filtering: Adjusts the appearance of textures at varied angles and distances. Higher settings will increase texture quality, though potentially at the cost of performance. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Minor.

Light and Shadow

Lighting Quality: Adjusts the appearance of shadows, reflections, and light-scattering. Higher settings increase the visual fidelity of light effects. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Major. Contact Shadow: Contact Shadows improves the appearance of shadows when objects are close to one another. It fills gaps between objects and shadows that can occur with static lighting. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Minor. Ambient Occlusion: Ambient Occlusion is a technique to simulate soft shadows where objects are close together or where surfaces meet. This makes the scene look more realistic. Disabled when Ray-traced Ambient Occlusion is enabled. CPU - Minor. GPU - Major. VRAM - Minor. Disables Ambient Occlusion. This potentially increases performance at the cost of visual fidelity. Screen Space Reflections: Screen Space Reflections simulate reflections of objects and light on visible surfaces. Enabling this will result in high-quality reflections. Disabled when Ray-traced Reflections are enabled. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Moderate. Volumetric Lighting: Adjusts the appearance of volumetric lighting effects. This simulates how light interacts with atmospheric elements like fog, smoke, dust, and clouds. Higher settings increase the quality of these types of elements. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Minor. Sky Quality: Adjusts the appearance of the sky, clouds, and celestial bodies like the sun and moon. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Minor.

Ray Tracing

Ray-traced Reflections: Enables the use of Ray-Tracing to simulate realistic reflections of objects and light on reflective surfaces. This is a more advanced technique and requires specialized Ray Tracing compatible hardware. CPU - Major. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. In selective mode, the game will only enable Ray-traced Reflections in specific areas that can best take advantage of the feature. Ray-traced Ambient Occlusion: Enables the use of Ray Tracing to simulate soft shadows where objects are close together or where surfaces meet. This makes the scene look more realistic. This is a more advanced technique and requires specialized Ray Tracing compatible hardware. CPU - Major. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. Ray-Traced Ambient Occlusion is always on. Ultra Ray Tracing: Enables the highest level of ray tracing effects, which provide better quality visuals at the cost of performance. This setting is available on the Ultra and Custom graphics presets and is only recommended for high-end graphics cards.

Geometry

Level Of Detail: Adjusts the distance at which objects are visible and the level of detail as they get father away from the camera. Higher settings increase the visual quality of objects at distance. Restart required for setting change. CPU - Major. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. Strand Hair: Strand hair simulates the appearance and movement of individual strands of hair. Enabling this will result in more realistic and natural-looking hair. CPU - Major. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. Terrain Quality: Terrain is the natural landscape and ground surfaces. Higher settings will increase the detail and overall quality. CPU - Moderate. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. Terrain Decoration Quality: Adjusts the appearance and detail of terrain elements like rocks, vegetation, and other environmental objects. Higher settings will increase the quality and density of the terrain elements. CPU - Moderate. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate. Visual Effects Quality: Adjusts the quality and detail of visual effects throughout the game. This includes particle effects, decals, and screen effects. Higher settings will result in higher quality effects. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Moderate.

Camera Effects

Depth of Field: The Depth of Field effect causes some elements of the scene to be in focus, and others to be out of focus. This effect is generally only used in cutscenes and conversations. CPU - Minor. GPU - Minor. VRAM - Minor. Depth of Field is only enabled in cinematic sequences. Vignette: The vignette creates a subtle darkening of the image towards the edges of the screen during cinematics and gameplay. This is generally used to enhance the atmosphere of scenes. CPU - Minor. GPU - Minor. VRAM - Minor. Motion Blur: Motion Blur slightly blurs fast-moving objects. This helps make motion appear smoother and more natural. CPU - Minor. GPU - Minor. VRAM - Minor. Post Processing Quality: Adjusts the overall quality of the post process effects above like depth of field, bloom and motion blur. Higher settings will result in higher quality effects. CPU - Minor. GPU - Moderate. VRAM - Minor. Field of View: Adjusts the field of view, which changes how much of the game world is visible during gameplay. A higher field of view allows you to see more of the game world. CPU - Major. GPU - Major. VRAM - Moderate.

[source]

[eskcreative]

Before I had a blu-ray copy of And Then There Were None, I took this screen shot in standard definition and used Remini to sharpen it up. I have no problem with Remini IF USED CORRECTLY. I have always loved this shot of Philip, and the top photo was the best edit I could get...until now. On the bottom is the beautiful full resolution blu-ray screenshot of the same frame. Remini is a blessing and a curse. I think it can do a pretty decent job if the photo is clear enough to start with, but it can sometimes produce some pretty terrible results which result in very misleading photos of Aidan circulating around. Anyway, just thought I'd share. Look at our handsome guy!

[thefrogman]

Fishing for Follows

I don't really like Instagram.

It does a bad job of displaying photos as an artist intends. So artists have to adapt their photos to conform to how Instagram works. Any photography that involves high resolution detail get shrunk down and compressed and usually seen on a tiny screen. But if you do want to see it on a proper screen, the desktop version of the site still shrinks your work and dedicates half the page to comments. Put the comments underneath! They want you to use their crops and their shitty filters. And for some reason, everyone uses reels now instead of just a regular post. Timers make me anxious! I don't like the pressure of having to consume the content in the time alotted. Sometimes my brain works slow and I just want to process what I'm seeing. And then if I want to come back and see that thing again, IT'S GONE! Why do you all like self-destruction so much?

Oh and there is no real community sharing infrastructure so if you want to build any kind of following it's like twice as hard.

Instagram kinda sucks, is what I'm saying.

But I am trying to be a legit photographer again and Instagram is where all of the photographers seem to end up.

And if I want to get clients at some point I will be asked, "what's your Insta?" from people wanting to vet my work and see if I have chops.

So I am trying to curate a collection of my best work.

Due to being a full time caregiver for both of my parents, I had to quit photography for a few years. Most of my work was captured before 2017, but it is all edited in 2024. So, I was not nearly as good at lighting, but I can mostly make up for that with my much more advanced editing skills.

Like, I took this photo of a shoe with a full studio setup and fancy lights.

Cut to present day, my studio is now a storage room, my fancy lights are gone, and all I have is a tiny front room and two inexpensive video lights.

I feel like I did more with less.

I spent these past 6 years studying the blade.

My brain is filled with so much knowledge.

And once I rebuild my studio, I'm going to photograph some cool shit.

And so... if you don't mind...

Would you please follow me on Insta?

Do I really have to say it like that?

Can I just say Instagram? Embrace my age a little?

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

The Many Failures of Lila's Writing

There are three main issues with Lila Rossi (or whatever her name is): she was introduced too early, she doesn't fill a unique role in the story, and her lies are too over the top for her to feel like a good villain. Let's go through that list in order because the issues build to create the show's most annoying character even though her setup could have led to a legitimately great character who we would have all loved to hate.

Issue 1: Lila Shows Up Three Seasons Too Early

Lila is introduced in the final episode of season one and then essentially disappears from the show for a full season. The only time we see her in season two is her brief appearance in season two's finale where she takes on the role of Volpina again in order to help Gabriel fake Ladybug's death. That's also the episode where we learn that Lila has been "in Achu" for some unknown amount of time.

[image: a list of Lila's season two appearances (source)]

Season three sees Lila show up with reasonable regularity (8 episodes, none of which are two-parters) and we get a real conflict with her, truly establishing her as a villain who lies like crazy and who wants to destroy Marinette.

Then season four comes and Lila is once again forgotten about. She shows up more than she did in season two, but only as a background character and most episodes don't see her at all. She doesn't have a single line until the final three episodes of the season and her role in these episodes is exceedingly minor. She does a few petty things to remind you that she's awful, but she's not the focus of the plot. She's just there to remind you that she exists and to establish her and Chloe as coconspirators of some sort.

[image: a list of Lila's season four appearances (source)]

Then season five comes and Lila is back to being an active antagonist. She shows up in almost every episode and we even get her very lackluster defeat.

This is some of the worst pacing that I have ever seen. It's honestly impressively bad. I hope the issue speaks for itself, but in case it doesn't, you don't chop a story up like this without a good reason and, frankly, there isn't one. Lila's introduction, villain setup, and defeat should have all take place over the course of a season or two, forming a mini arc.

Just in case you don't know what that is, most stories have a main conflict that drives the whole narrative (ex: getting the butterfly miraculous back) but within that story you have lots of mini stories. Things that get resolved so that it feels like things are moving forward and so that the audience stays engaged. If you don't get any satisfying resolutions until five seasons in (or more), then the audience will start to get annoyed or just stop watching. It's also a good way to keep expectations from getting built up too high. If every season or every other season has a satisfying conclusion to some big conflict, then you don't leave everything riding on the big finale.

By chopping Lila's story up, you made the audience spend four seasons dreaming of her defeat. Expectations were sky high. She's more hated than Gabe! If she's been introduced mid season 4 and had the exact same story arc, then her lackluster take down would be a mild disappointment and not a major issue for most of the fandom.

Issue 2: Lila and Chloe Should Never have Coexisted

When it comes to story telling, characters fill roles. Ladybug is the lead. Alya is the plucky best friend. Gabriel is the big bad. Etc. Etc.

Generally speaking, you only want one character in a given role. Having two or more characters in the same role leads to character bloat where characters are fighting for screen time because they don't have a clear place in the story. This is especially true for key antagonistic roles. It's a lot easier to balance two best friends than it is to balance two big bads.

Enter Chloe and Lila.

I've mentioned before that I thought that Chloe was going to be redeemed. The reason I thought this was not because of anything to do with Chloe. It was because the show introduced Lila and, narratively speaking, Lila and Chloe are the same character. They're both petty school bullies whose main job is to cause trouble for Marinette while she's at school and to give setups for akumas.

However, in terms of perceived threat, Lila is the bigger badder Chloe. No one but Sabrina likes Chloe. Everyone but Marinette likes Lila. Chloe doesn't make plans. Lila lives to manipulate and plot. If you're going to get rid of Chloe, Lila is who you'd replace her with. That's just how this works.

One of the most well known examples of this type of setup is Zuko and Azula from Avatar the Last Airbender. Zuko is the main antagonist of season one, but season two sees him step out of that role as he starts his journey of self-discovery and redemption. And who is introduced at the end of seasons one? Azula, Zuko's evil, more powerful sister. In season two, Azula fills Zuko's former role, but also makes things feel more serious because she's a bigger badder Zuko.

This brings us back to a big part of issue one. Namely, Lila's ongoing disappearing act. She only does that because of Chloe.

Chloe is a much easier villain to write. She doesn't have to hide anything. She is openly petty and evil. So if you're going to pick a character for a petty conflict, you're going to pick Chloe. The only time Lila gets pulled in is when the drama revolves around lies because Chloe is actually a strikingly honest character. She rarely lied prior to her "friendship" with Lila because, for the most part, Chloe doesn't care if everyone hates her. She only cares about the opinions of a chosen few. (Or, at least, she acts like she does.)

For Lila to work, Chloe needed to be redeemed or written off the show. The best proof of this is season five, where Chloe straight up becomes Lila's minion because the writers had to force that relationship if they wanted to have both characters involved in the plot. It's also why season four saw Chloe suddenly obsessed with Marinette when, prior to that, Chloe bullied everyone. The only way to team Chloe and Lila up was to give them a common goal and that didn't exist in the first three seasons.

So, building off of point one, Lila should have been introduced much later and she should have stepped into Chloe's shoes after Chloe either switched roles or completely left the show.

Issue 3: The Lies

I think that we can all agree that Lila is a terrible liar. Even a toddler could see through the BS that spews from her mouth. There are multiple satisfying Lila takedown fics that don't involve clever plots to beat her. They involve Alya or someone else doing a google search because - even with the declining quality of that tool - that's still all that it would take to prove what Lila is.

This is a really bad way to write a character who is supposed to be a master manipulator. Especially when she's going to be the next big bad. They desperately needed to tone her down.

For example, DON'T have her claim to be Ladybug's best friend. Have her claim that Ladybug saved her. That would still go up on the Ladyblog and, more importantly, it would be a lot harder to disprove. I doubt that Ladybug remembers everyone she saves so no one would fault Alya for just taking that at face-value, but Marinette could still instantly peg Lila as a liar.

Tinnitus from saving Jagged Stone's cat? How about tinnitus from being too close to the speakers at Jagged Stone's latest concert? The concert where Lila even got to meet him because she had back stage passes. Once again, hard to disprove. Jagged meets a lot of fans. I doubt he'd be able to tell you that she was lying.

And definitely don't have her openly state that she's a liar. The fact that she did that and was STILL able to manipulate the adult characters is abysmal writing. Especially because it comes right before Lila disappears for a season, giving the impression that her confession essentially defeated her, only for the show to go PSYCH! No one cares about her confession, it meant nothing for the Lila conflict.

I've had someone tell me that they think that Lila's lies were suppose to be a joke and, to be fair, that's plausible. The show relies on a lot of ridiculous humor. If Lila had shown up later, then this might have worked. But because Lila has been around for so long, we've all had time to think about her lies and build up the expectation of how they'd be handled.

I don't just mean Lila being exposed. I mean the fallout of all of her "fans" having to deal with the truth of who Lila really is, an issue that I won't go into here because this is already super long and I think that the issue of how her lies effect characters like Nino and Alya is pretty well understood.

There's also the Chloe thing. Chloe is very over the top, so replacing her with a character who is over the top in a different, more terrifying way would have made some sense. But Chloe's still here and she's more ridiculous than ever, so Lila matching that ridiculous just makes them an annoying duo that we all have to suffer through. Their team up was one of the most forced elements of seasons five. I just do not buy that Chloe would ever subject herself to being someone's minion. When it comes to that team up, the hand of the author is glaring.

Conclusion/Final Thoughts

Manipulative characters are fun. They make for fantastic villains and Lila could have been one of these fantastic villain, especially if Gabriel was played as more sympathetic. If there were lines that Gabriel wouldn't cross, then Lila getting the butterfly would be terrifying. As-is, I don't see how she's any worse than the dude who created Chat Blanc. Plus I'm not even sure why she needs the butterfly. She could already get anything she wanted with minimal effort because her lying powers are so OP. Like, why should I care about that twist? What has changed with the passing of the butterfly? The stakes have not been raised. If anything, they've been lowered.

Lila is just your generic evil villain who is evil for evil's sake. The heroes already hate her. Finding out that she's the big bad is not emotionally devastating. If anything, Marinette should be thrilled that she finally has an excuse to punch Lila.

It's possible that the writers will give Lila an interesting back story, but because she's been around for five seasons, I don't have any faith that they will. I mean, what was the point of introducing her all the way back in season one if you weren't going to use that to set her up in a satisfying way? I've seen people say to just wait and see and wait for what? They couldn't manage to pull off Gabriel's defeat or Chloe's defeat/redemption or Lila's first takedown in a way that was narratively satisfying. Why should I give them a chance to disappoint me with Lila's next take down? Three strikes and you're out!

@tallwriter as requested, there are my thoughts on Lila. As with every character in this show, I think she deserved better. She could have been great. She's one of the worst examples of squandered potential because everything about her was done wrong.

[dustdeepsea]

Rugan x Tav

Paradise Circus

Done in Infinite Painter, on a Samsung Galaxy Tab

View full NSFW version: Original version | Bonus tattooed version

As cheesy as it sounds, this drawing is a love letter to fan culture -- I haven't written or drawn this much in literally years, and it's all thanks to the wonderful people I've met in the BG3 fandom.

A special thank you to @littleplasticrat for help with the anatomy and constant encouragement <3 <3

If you'd like to see images like this early, or just hang out with chill and lovely folks, swing by the Zhentil Keep Discord. Details on @my-favourite-zhent's post. Thank you all for being the highlight of my sabbatical :)

Detailed shots under the cut

Please view in full screen for best resolution

Bonus process GIF (NSFW!)

@fistfuloftarenths the placement and physics of the snake nearly did my head in, but I hope you enjoy it as much as I do :)

Although I've drawn nude people before, there were a lot of firsts for me in this image. First explicit male and female scene, first tattoo, first fully rendered cock LOL

Overall, I'm really glad that I pushed myself and went for it!

[shubblelive]

— CUT THAT

summary : being an editor for the sorry boys means you witness a lot of embarrassing moments. but there’s no one tommy would trust more with them.

genre : fluff

warnings: swearing, just general tommy-ness

pairing : cc!tommyinnit x gn!editor!reader

pronouns : they/them

featuring : cc!tommyinnit, cc!wilbur soot, cc!sorry boys (mentioned)

request : @gaytoadwithapopsicle can you do being a feminine reader (they/them or she/they) in sorry boys! and it’s tommy x reader (romantic)

word count : 966

note : i made reader an editor cause i had this cute little idea and it’s not really something you see in fics a whole lot

it was late. everyone else had gone home, it was just you, tommy and wilbur. you and wilbur in your separate booths editing videos, tommy sitting on the floor with his knees pulled to his chest as he scrolled through his phone. wilbur was working on the first video and you were doing the colouring for the second, and the three of you had lapsed into a comfortable silence in the few hours you’d been there.

but of course tommy’s calm state had an expiration date that allowed approximately three hours of quiet, and now he was getting bored.

“can we go home?” he huffed. “i didn’t even get a chair. i don’t want to be a floor boy anymore,”

without even looking away from his monitor wilbur pointed at the couch behind him. you glanced at your boyfriend, giving a sympathetic smile. “i’ll be another hour or so, and then i still need to wait ‘till i get a reply. sorry, tom. you don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

tommy sighed dramatically. “i offered you a lift home, i’d be a bit of a shit boyfriend if i left you here alone with him.”

“i’ll split an uber with you?” wilbur offered, spinning slightly in his chair. “make sure you get dropped of first.”

“oi,” tommy said from his position on the floor, pointing threateningly at wilbur. “back off,”

you rolled your eyes affectionately. “sorry, the lighting in this prison was absolutely abysmal. there’s a lot to fix.”

tommy finally pushed himself off the floor and almost tripped walking towards you, looking at your screen. the part you were currently colour-correcting was focused on charlie and wilbur, and tommy nodded resolutely. “yes, there is a lot to fix there. i don’t know how you stomach it,” you laughed quietly with wilbur rolling his eyes, but tommy wasn’t done. “like, look at his fucking hair. it’s too long, i hate it. i know something else that is too long.” 

this time it was tommy sniggering at his own joke, but instead you looked up at him from your chair and said “how long we’ve been together.”

at that, wilbur burst into laughter, with tommy trying his best to hold back his own. he was spluttering while attempting to reply, and in the meantime, you decided to go back to your work. “anyway tommy. the amount of shit jokes of yours i have to cut out because they’re just not funny is so incredibly high, if anything it’s your fault we’re still here.”

“fuck you my jokes are funny.” tommy pouted. “at least my face doesn’t look like that.” he pointed to where you had paused on an unfortunate face charlie was making, and you scoffed.

“i have an entire folder of dumb faces you’ve made in videos that i’ve cut out,” you replied. “i just choose not to share them with you because i love you.”

“so you’ve been removing tommy’s face from the entire prison video, then?” wilbur asked.

you nodded. “the second you’re done with the courtroom cut i’ll go back and fix that one too.”

tommy was growing increasingly offended, hiding the fond smile he was directing at you. you’d been hired as an editor for the new group channel because of him, and while he’d known his friends would love you he had been a little worried. the two of you had only been going out for four months before you took the job, and at the time you’d only met wilbur. 

but when you first showed up at the office on the day of the first full production meeting, he’d been relieved that everyone loved you. seeing you get along so well with wilbur filled him with comfort, and he resisted the urge to plant a kiss on your forehead, knowing it would break up the banter you were sharing.

“you can talk, wilbur.” he spoke up. “your face is dumb and if i were you i’d keep growing my hair out so no one has to see it.”

“says the kid who got the same haircut as me.” wilbur fired back.

“alright, you two,” you stopped them. “tom, give me half an hour and i’ll be done? then i am all yours for the rest of the night.”

tommy reluctantly nodded, and went to go sit back on the floor. but before he could, wilbur spoke up again. “nah, you guys are alright. you should go home, i’ll finish the rest of it.”

you shook your head, pointedly ignoring the way tommy’s face lit up at the prospect of getting to spend time with you after a very long day. “no, will. it’s too much for one person. it’s my job, i’ll do it. it’s fine, really.”

“whatever i don’t finish tonight, we can do tomorrow,” wilbur encouraged gently. “we’re way ahead of schedule thanks to you. take tonight off, go do what the youths do.”

“yeah, listen to him,” tommy nodded eagerly. “he’s old and wise like a president,”

you looked uncertain, but the fond smile wilbur was giving you both was enough to make you cave. “five minutes to finish up? then we can go home?” tommy nodded and pressed a kiss to your temple. that night, when you got back to your flat, tommy immediately pressed his face into the top of your head, holding you close to him. 

“i missed you,” he mumbled. “i’m really glad you took the job. i love working with you.” his voice was low, and you knew he was being uncharacteristically earnest, but you couldn’t resist.

“i think i’m getting sick of you,” you tried, bringing a hand up to scratch his scalp gently. 

“no you’re not,” he corrected, closing his eyes against your touch. he wasn’t wrong. 

[dadsbongos]

dads rockin' new year's eve!

count the seconds and belt those carols because the new year is approaching quick! let's celebrate right by appreciating our fictional loved ones! be sure to read through the do's & don't's below the cut or be kicked outta VIP! 17/23 prompts remain

tagging peeps who seemed inch rested: @toxycodone / @maniacpixiedreamboy + @xyfanficarchive + @antoine-tte + @dreamsandsuns + @kingofthe-egirls

**collab is open!**

PARTY RULES let's be mindful of our guests and ourselves!

full-length fics are completely non-necessary, but if the inspiration is hot i want people to have plenty of wiggle space! i’d say minimum ~400 words - 5k absolute max.

prompts are first come first served with no repeats. prompts remain open until picked or until December 15th. 

NSFW is allowed, however, i'll need an age or adequate age-indicator plainly visible on your blog or it’s gonna be a party foul! all characters involved must be aged up to 18 or older. dark content is allowed, so long as it’s appropriately tagged.

if, for any reason, you gotta ditch a prompt before midnight please let me know asap so we can get it back out there for a different date! switching one prompt for another can only be done once.

feel free to post as soon as you’re done, posts will be reblogged but not shared on a cohesive masterlist until closer to the deadline: December 26th. please tag your post #dads rockin new year and link back to this post :] 

also! i’d like to avoid repeating characters as much as possible, after 2 prompts are filled by the same character then we’ll need to freshen it up with a new face!

RSVP when's the party, and how to enter!

the big new year's eve bash will be on December 31st, no posts will be let in after the party ends!

to enter: pick an available prompt and drop the emoji in my inbox or messages along with what character you’re writing for (and what fandom they hail from!)

BYOB pick a prompt! the fun part!

12 grapes 🍇

champagne bubbles 🍾

gold tinsel 🥇

silver spoon 🥄

ball drop 🎊

hangover 💊

sloppy midnight kiss💋

fireworks🎆

woop-woop sirens!!🚨

snowball 🍧

recluse at a party 🌱

daddy’s fancy yacht 🚢

minutes after midnight, already broke a resolution⏰

regrets ⭕

last chances! 🍷

and the best part of this year was… 🍰

“you can’t spend the night alone!” 👯‍♀️

late night toast 🍞

stargazing ⭐

streamers 🎉

party favors 🎈

auld lang syne 🎶

secret special super surprise pick! ☢️

(dad spins a wheel and randomly assigns a prompt not pictured on screen. one re-roll allowed.)

GUESTLIST who's allowed in, who's coming, and their date for the party!

writers: @toxycodone x daisuke (mouthwashing) - sloppy midnight kiss💋 @toxycodone x chilchuck (dunmeshi) - regrets⭕ @24kills x satoru gojo (jujutsu kaisen) - silver spoon🥄 @dreamsandsuns x katsuki bakugou (bnha) - ball drop 🎊 @xyfanficarchive x captain curly (mouthwashing) - stargazing⭐ @antoine-tte x kylar (degrees of lewdity) - recluse at a party🌱

fandom: any, be wild be proud be unabashedly cringe as we welcome the new year!

feel free to ask if you have any questions i either didn't cover or if you need any clarification! this is my first go at an event like this, so i want it to run smoothly!

[ihatesocialmedia45]

My Debut Onto The Tumblr Homelander Fanfic Scene

I see a lot of other Homelander writers post their fics on here, and I think I will start, too! Here is Chapter One of my fic: (also - you should listen to Guts' Theme from Berserk while you read!)

Sunshine, Happiness and Rainbows

Vought's New Year's Countdown was in full swing; VNN was filming live, and the camera panned outside, to show the cheering crowd huddled outside the Tower. Homelander watched from the window, the flash of cameras lighting up his face, wearing a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. He would be hosting this event, he thought with an internal sigh. The people outside might have been genuinely celebrating - but to him,  to the rest of the Seven, it was just another soulless bid for attention. They hadn't even officially been asked to host; The Tonight Show had fought them tooth and nail for the time slot - but Stan would not be cowed, and Vought had won, once again.

All this, just to celebrate another pointless year... 

"Over here, Homelander!" a cameraman urged, waving wildly. Homelander flashed him a dazzling smile; the shutters clicked faster.

Deep was entertaining a gaggle of fans outside, taking pictures, while Maeve was nursing an old fashioned inside, leaning on the meeting room table. Noir, hidden the back, was wearing a neon sign that flashed colors and messages across the screen: 20 minutes till next year!  Sage, the sourpuss, had managed to find a way out of the affair entirely, and was probably scraping her brains out and eating fast food... or whatever it was she did during those moments of idiocy she quite literally carved out for herself. Homelander felt his lip curl in disgust. The Seven was in shambles, and Stan had saw fit to drag them on TV and make them dance, anyway. 

Starlight and Firecracker seemed to be making the best of it, at least, talking to the camera about their resolutions. "Well... I hope to beat my record for saves this year! 350," Starlight said, puffing her chest out slightly. Firecracker gave her a teasing look. "Oh, what a coincidence! I also hope to beat Starlight's record of 350 saves this year," she joked, giving Starlight a playful push. 

As Stan gave his annual speech - his State of the Union, Homelander scoffed, suppressing an eye roll - everyone watched as the camera panned to Noir and his sign: 10 minutes till next year!  Homelander watched the sign flash, Stan's voice like static in his ears. He was already thinking of what he'd do tomorrow; he'd go down to the 30th floor, maybe terrorize Ashley a bit (holidays made him angry), do his itinerary... maybe fly across the globe, sit at Mount Everest... He'd built something of a settlement on the summit, where he could sip his milk and watch the sun rise at the highest elevation in the world. Of course, he could have flown higher, but he'd recently decorated the place with a very deep leather recliner, complete with a heated cushion. Every king needed his throne, after all. Stan fixed him in his steely gaze, snapping him from his reverie. He smiled.

"Now that I've said my piece, I'd like to turn the mic over to Vought's own... Homelander," Stan said smoothly, making way for him. Homelander stepped to the mic, that same static from before in his ears, choking out the festivities and leaving him in a silent film of a scene.

Just move your mouth, John. Tell them what they want to hear.

He felt the words come out, heard the crowd's answering laughter at his jokes, their cheers... but nothing registered in his own ears. He watched the crowd give their silent shouts, mouths set in open grins - and he answered with yet another one of his own, clenched fist throbbing under the podium. His face was starting to ache.

Standing there, at the podium, ushering in a new year he couldn't care less about, but being too influential to miss the show, Homelander straightened his spine, even as he felt his face twitch when he saw a couple outside, wrapping each other into a passionate embrace. He kept his eyes on them, raking over the way they moved - a tender brush of hair, a kiss on the forehead. His eyes felt hot - the urge to laser. He stuffed it down, willed himself to smile.

Finally, though, someone announced that the time had come; there were only 10 seconds until the ball dropped. The city held its breath as Homelander raised his hands, counting down, the words falling on deaf ears, sweeping his gaze around once again.

Five!

Maeve, looking depressed as she stood apart from the show.

Four!

Sage, in her dark little den, lobotomy wand in hand, as the masses celebrated outside.

Three!

Deep hugging a fan, bristling as their hands brushed his gills.

Two!

Noir, forever mute and unable to join in on the countdown.

One!

And Homelander, overseer of the entire sordid affair, fists tied in a white knuckled knot under the podium.

"Happy New Year!" everybody cheered, and the crowd outside went wild. The air, once so charged with anticipation, seemed to let out a breath, the smattering of glitter and confetti shimmering in the night sky as New York celebrated. The Seven looked on, their rehearsed smiles growing wan.

Oh, God... Homelander groused, looking around; everyone had begun to embrace, swaying gently as they kissed, hundreds of thousands of hands that held their partners close, the breaths of a million contended sighs reaching his ears and turning his stomach.

He'd seen enough; his duty fulfilled, he stepped stiffly from the podium, shouldering his way past the throngs of people, his step determined. Maybe he'd be able to make it to Everest in an hour if he left now. Less, if he sped. 

In his haste to leave, he heard snatches of conversations ("Is that Homelander?!") that he waved off, his façade waning alongside his patience. He couldn't take a picture. Not today.

He'd finally broken free of the crowd, and was preparing to fly off - when a new voice sounded, a few dozen feet behind him, the melody low and soft in his ears. He stopped himself, lowering his arms. 

"Did you see him, though? He looked so..." they let their words trail off. The friend snorted, and Homelander felt a surge of irritation flash through him.

"What - sexy?" Homelander rolled his eyes but pressed on now, looking for the duo, only to find a hoard of faces obscuring his view.

"No," the reader said, a hint of disgust at her friend's callousness in her voice. "Lonely."

Lonely. 

The word bounced around in his skull, and for a moment, Homelander was incandescent with rage. Who did this... girl... think she was, to act as if she knew him? To lay his inner turmoil out so plainly, as if it was something she could understand. But as the word sunk into his mind - lonely, lonely, lonely... he felt his anger fade, in the wake of its truth.

Lonely. 

He imagined the New Year's celebration he'd planned for himself, sipping steamed milk on Mount Everest, with the heated cushion serving as the only other source of warmth for miles. But the speaker's pity grated on him; he grit his teeth at the feeling.

Was it pity, though? No... that wasn't quite the word. They'd sounded... concerned when they said it. Concerned, for him.  He found himself leaning in, waiting to hear more.

"Yeah, but he's Homelander. He probably has an afterparty to get to," someone else responded. "I doubt he has nobody to kiss on New Years."

"I'd kiss him..." the first voice mumbled furtively. Homelander raised a brow, craning his neck to find the person behind the statement. Their friend scoffed.

"Yeah, I bet! 'Oh, Mr. Homelander, you're dreamier than the posters give you credit for!" 

"Shut up!" 

So, this person was a fan? He stepped closer, his dark mood lightening somewhat. And the way they'd spoken about him... it wasn't in the same dismissive tone their friend had. Gods got lonely, too - a sentiment this fan's insipid friend couldn't seem to grasp. But they did.

Lulled by their dulcet voice, Homelander's legs carried him to her, lingering occasionally so as to make their eventual meeting seem organic. He ghosted behind them, hidden by the trees, the glint of his eyes the only proof of his presence, watching as the girl - wearing a Homelander shirt, he noticed with a wry little smile - walked her friend to her car, then set off, to walk home themselves.

Walk?  Homelander quirked a brow, cocking his head. That wouldn't do at all. Silently cutting through the air, he brought himself a few yards out, where the girl would eventually cross his path, and put on a contemplative face. Barely hiding his smile at his ingenuity, he waited for them, hand tucked into a fist under his chin - the Thinker, waiting for her to bring him to life.

Eventually, she reached him, headphones in her ears, jumping nearly a foot in the air when she realized who she'd discovered. Eyes like saucers, they stuttered out their greetings, hands shaking when they raised them to remove the buds.

"Homelander?!" she started. He smiled, genuinely for the first time that night; beneath the sounds of the city, and the celebration at Vought, he could hear the hummingbird patter of her heart as she took him in. 

"The one and only," he greeted them, rising to his feet. He pointed to their shirt, a teasing smile tucked away at the corner of his mouth.

"Don't tell me you've been following me," he joked, smile widening when their jaw dropped, hastily making to turn the shirt backwards.

"This isn't - no! Well..." shirt turned backward, they brought their shy gaze to his, cheeks turning rosy from the cold - and a hint of embarrassment.

Homelander extended a hand to them, eyes kind despite himself. It wasn't his way, to offer favors to fans - mudpeople, his mind spat before he banished the thought... but in this case, maybe he could make an exception. New Year, new Homelander.

He'd looked so... lonely, her words echoed in his mind. He felt his smile falter, but quickly brought it back to life.

"Let me take you home. It's too cold to walk," he said, the thin veneer of bravado melting slightly when she took his hand.

Warmth. Pure, unadulterated warmth. The shock of it, radiating from their hand, had him stuffing down a gasp, the softness of their palm seeping through his glove. She wrapped an arm around his waist, the warmth bleeding into him there, too, and when she looked up at him, he saw the full moon, reflected in her wide eyes.

I'd kiss him. I'd kiss him...

Then kiss me.

The thought shocked him, but try as he might, he couldn't will it away. It floated to the forefront of his brain, soft and insistent all at once.

Do it. Kiss me. Please.

The fan - the woman - murmured her address into the crook of his neck, her breath leaving goosebumps in its wake, and he held her to his chest as he breezed through the night sky, the gentle breeze wafting her hair. Homelander caught a whiff of her conditioner - vanilla, bergamot - and inhaled as quietly as he could. They seemed content to let him carry them, head relaxed on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. The thought that that wasn't all they could hear gnawed at him, but he shook it off and kept his eyes forward, focused on how right their weight felt against him.

Finally, he reached their apartment, setting them on their feet, and giving them a strained little smile. They stood at the doorway, lingering, and for a brief, wild moment, he imagined them, inviting him in, sharing hot cocoa, hands entwined as they watched television. Through the window he could see she used warm lightbulbs for her lamps, nothing like Vought's clinically bright ones. The image burned him with its sweetness, and he felt the strange urge, again, to lash out. How dare she make him envision a vignette that could never possibly happen? Even as he fought from leaning into her, his rage flared. He hated her. He hated the emptiness she'd left in his arms, when she'd stepped out of them.

"Well... I'm sure you're very busy," they said, opening their door.

I'm not, Homelander thought, burning to follow her in. She turned to face him, a glimmer in her eye; Homelander held his breath and hoped against all reason.

"Thank you, for taking me home. You were right - it was chilly tonight!" They shared a small laugh, the ache in his chest throbbing.

"Goodnight, Homelander. Happy New Year," she murmured, closing the door behind her. He made to leave, only to retake his position outside the door for a moment, his breath floating above him in frigid puffs as he stared. The reader's farewell, saccharine as it was, left him with a sense of uneasiness he couldn't shake. He nearly pressed a hand to the door, but held firm. It wasn't right. It wasn't right.

John,  his heart wept, something inside him quaking as though to come apart. Call me John.

[always-outlander]

Outlander 7x02 Thoughts & Easter Eggs

Spoilers below the cut for “The Happiest Place on Earth”

Wow, what an episode! There’s so much to unpack here but I will start by saying that I deeply enjoyed this one. A lot of direct from the book dialogue, some plot that was reworked and-in my opinion-for the better. Brilliant acting by many but especially Sam and Cait. It had a lot squeezed into it but let’s get into it.

Alan Christie

To start, we finally had the resolution for Malva and learned that Alan not only assaulted and abused her for her entire life, but was also the one who killed her. This was such a sensitive storyline and to have those flash backs with Malva made me emotional. Jessica Reynolds is a wonderful actress and her Malva was perfect. This scene was the first one I could feel the pain point of having to end season 6 prematurely. The gap between Malva’s death, followed by the hiatus, to now reach the culmination here almost made the impact of Malva’s death take a back seat to the beginning of these new storylines. You can feel that 7x01 and 02 were meant to be a part of that ending, but what can you do 🤷🏻‍♀️ that’s me being nit picky.

But back to Alan. This was almost exactly what happened in the books and I was happy that Young Ian made such a brief appearance. That spacing between episodes likely made people forget that he had a little romance happening with Malva, but his honor once again rang true with his actions here.

Major continuity error with Claire’s wig though– only when she is burying Alan does her hair grow 3 inches, then magically is cut again for the remainder of the episode.

Mrs Bug

Book readers know the upcoming storyline with Mrs. Bug, and we set the foundations this episode when Wendigo and his men come to the Big House in search of gem stones. There they uncover Arch Bug’s hidden gold (which is very significant later on). I loved seeing this preview of what is to come.

Mandy’s Birth

Amanda Fraser is born and we get a very quick moment of happiness for this little family, when the hammer drops that she has a serious heart condition that Claire cannot fix. This is the impetuous behind the MacKenzie’s and the Frasers separating for what I assume will be majority of the season. The scene with them all at the stone circle was very touching and I felt like Cait and Sam’s acting shined brightly here. The best part for me was the quote from Jamie taken directly from the books where he tells Claire

“For your sake, I will continue–though for mine alone…I would not.”

I also deeply enjoyed the Disney tie ins from the book, the humorous moment where Jamie tries to understand how a giant rodent is meant to be fun for children, and his wishes to Jemmy to give a mouse named Michael his regards. All direct from the books, and delivered perfectly.

Bree meets William

The moment we’ve (I’ve) been waiting for, WILLIAM has graced our screens. Though it was short, I squealed when I saw him and Lord John together, especially him in his red coat. You can certainly see the resemblance and while we have yet to see his acting chops on full display, Charles appears to be a perfect casting. He has the cocky confidence of a young Jamie Fraser down pat, I’m curious to see what other nuisances he brings to the role.

Lord John and Jamie

This scene was touching and so well done, Sam and David have always had such great scenes together and really made this relationship between these two men such a beautifully complicated thing. John has long been trying to convince Jamie to do the right thing and fight for the British, but you can see his true intentions here more than ever. If Jamie fights for the British, he can protect him. When Jamie chooses to fight opposite John and William, he knows he cannot.

In a last act of love and friendship, John returns the gem to Jamie from his escape at Ardsmiur. Something we know meant so much to John. His love for Jamie will always win out in the end, and I loved that the scene had room to breathe at the end. John crying alone in his room, and Jamie’s pause outside the door and his watery eyes was perfectly done.

Claire’s Breakdown

In the last scene of episode 1, Claire and Jamie have a discussion about Tom Christie and his confession. In the show, they chose to end that scene with Claire going to sleep while Jamie takes revenge on Richard Brown (and what a badass scene that was). In the books, the moment ends with Claire and Jamie trying to be intimate again, and Claire having a breakdown.

The show has now taken that scene and moved it into episode 2, which actually felt a lot better to me having watched it this way. I was sad that this moment was removed from episode 1 but beyond happy to see it here because it was another wonderful showcase of Sam and Cait’s acting and Claire and Jamie’s love. In the books, Claire cries because she is sad for Tom, for Malva, for Frank. Jamie tells Claire to weep for them because you “canna keep a ghost at bay. He tells her to let them in and grieve for them so she can heal.

In the show, Claire cries for the loss of her family –Fergus and Marsali, the MacKenzies, and Jamie mentions Faith, Murtagh, his mother and brother. They have both lost so many, and he encourages her to cry for them. To me this was so much more poignant and relevant to the events of the episode. I really loved this change.

The Throwing of the Gem

Another iconic scene the we finally got to see brought to life was when Jamie gives Claire the gem stone and tells her that she can go with Bree, or go back if he should die. The acting in this was so perfect and in the books, Claire throws the stone far into the woods to prove to Jamie once again that she is never leaving him. I enjoyed his little jab that she should probably go and recover it.

Wendigo Donner

The return of Wendigo Donner finally closed the loop on the big house fire, and I’m so excited to see how the beginning of episode 3 starts. The highlight of this scene for me was the callback to season 3, when Claire is pretending to be abducted so that Jamie can get what he needs from Lord John Grey. In this scene (and in the books) Jamie is lying to Donner about not having gemstones in the house, but then changes his tune once Claire’s life is in danger. He leans into the ‘disgruntled husband upset with his wife’ tune and tells Donner that Claire hid all the stones while he was away, so she is the only one who knows there location (thus making it impossible to kill her). The humor in Claire’s eyes made me laugh in an otherwise tense scene.

We get much of the same dialogue and story beats as the books here but the one subtle change happens when Jamie finds out that the man in their house is in fact Donner and not some random group of men looking for money. As soon as he hears his name, he lunges for Donner to seek revenge on what he had done to Claire.

In the books, Claire slips out of Donners arms and lunges after him, with Jamie holding her back at the waist. They try to plot an escape but one thing leads to another and Jamie actually kills Donner with a knife before the ether explodes. In the books, it is because Young Ian lit a match to help illuminate the dark room everyone was sitting in. Big change, subtle change, but one I’m interested in seeing them explain next episode.

All in all I loved this one, I’m enjoying the changes made and the pacing of this felt better than the first episode. Would love to hear your thoughts!

[linksthoughtbrambles]

The Unexpected Benefits of Late Weather Warnings

A gift for @pastelsandpining for Midna's Merry Mixup! (Zelink, modern AU, Rated T, 13K words, also here on ao3. What might have been the worst public transportation experience of Zelda's life became the best bus ride ever). Note: Read "eyeSlate" as cool Sheikah eye followed by the word Slate, please!

Zelda grimaced at the message blinking between red triangles on her eyeSlate.

⚠ Warning! ⚠

⚠ Hazardous weather conditions! ⚠

“Hazardous, indeed,” she muttered to herself, swiping a few snowflakes from the screen, shutting it off, and stowing the slate in her coat pocket. She winced—she’d done it again. She’d resolved not to talk to herself so much. Her students had noticed her talking to the rubidium atoms cooling in the magneto-optical trap, and while she appreciated them having a little fear of her, she preferred it to be for the right reasons, and not because they believed her on the verge of madness.

She wasn’t mad. She simply wished her experiments to proceed as planned.

In fact, she generally preferred things to proceed as planned whether they were experiments or not, and tonight, her plan was to be social (which she’d also resolved to do, partially to assist with her other resolution—after all, if she spoke to other people more, perhaps she’d speak to herself—and rubidium atoms—a little less). She’d therefore agreed to attend Purah’s solstice celebration tonight, and she had no intention of reconsidering over the most recent in a long string of weather warnings regarding unremarkable winter weather.

The temperature is significantly below freezing? ⚠ Warning! ⚠

A few inches of snow? ⚠ Warning! ⚠

The occasional puddle-turned-ice on the ground? ⚠ Warning!!! ⚠

A flea sneezed, creating a slight, chilly breeze? ⚠ AJFDSA;JFDA SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING!!!! ⚠

“They’ll be locking us all indoors next, until the equinox arrives,” she muttered as the market’s doors slid open to admit her. Then she cringed. “I’ve done it again- ah!”

A scruffy-white-bearded shopper on his way out gave her a look which certainly qualified as wary, and Zelda attempted to dismantle her unreasonably annoyed pose and expression before anyone else decided she was mad.

And yes, she was being a bit unreasonable. The slate had warned her to stay home occasionally rather than struggle through snow to her lab on off-days. But she’d left work already, already traveled over half an hour to this particular market which stocked alcohol and had an excellent bakery, and it wasn’t as though she would remain here all night in fear of the possibility of snow.

Her heart sank again when she recalled she’d miss seeing the handsome new man on the bus. She reached for a box full of gorgeous-looking mixed butter cookies, thinking if she truly meant to speak to people more, she should finally take the plunge. She’d been trying not to stare at him for months. She ought to do him the courtesy of asking his name, especially since he almost certainly had caught her looking several times.

It took her a while to decide what to buy, especially regarding the alcohol. Daruk did not seem like a wine-drinker to her, nor did Robbie, but she rather thought wine was more usual to bring to these things than hard alcohol. After far too long considering whether her perceptions were based in fact or bias, she chose not only a bottle of dry red wine, but one of mead and yet another of peated whiskey. She rushed to scoop up cheese and crackers, choosing not to fluster herself by checking the time. She’d simply hurry to the bus stop.

She left the shop more heavily laden than intended but confident she wouldn’t disgrace herself that evening. A burst of freezing wind whipped her hair into her face along with quite a few snowflakes. A shocking amount of snow had fallen while she’d shopped. She hadn’t been in there that long, had she? She picked up her pace despite the slippery sidewalk.

The walk to the bus stop took longer than usual, the wind jostling her in long gusts while she kept her face turned as far into her scarf as she could, the snowfall thickening the entire way there. A line of people stood beneath the stop’s little shelter already, shifting between their feet, shivering, and craning their necks in search of the next bus. Zelda slid in, just barely beneath the little roof. The nearest person stepped aside to give her more space.

“Th- thank you,” she said into her scarf with a little shiver.

“No problem.”

Less snow fell directly on her head that way, but the next gust sent a lot of it into her face, wrinkling her nose and squeezing her eyes shut automatically. The flakes on her eyelashes created fascinating little cold zones on her eyelids.

A soft laugh came from beside her. She liked its sound immediately, despite it being at her expense. “Here- we can switch places,” the person said.

“I- am quite alright,” she said, which was true. Cold eyelids were very little to complain about. “Besides, you’ve been waiting longer.”

“It wasn’t this bad when I walked here, though. There’s less snow on me.”

“It worsened quickly.”

“Yeah, it did.”

Zelda transferred all her grocery bags to one hand to brush the snow off herself. The bottles clinked and she grimaced at her already-moistening knit gloves. The wind continued to barrage them with snow as they waited, and a few people on the other side of the shelter began muttering.

“So how long have you been here?”

“At least a half hour.”

“Ghg. Real behind.”

“Just hope it’s not all full up.”

That was an unpleasant thought.

As Zelda’s mood soured, she sunk deeper and deeper into her scarf and coat, pleased no one had tried to make small talk. She despised small talk. It always ended, somehow or other, with her having confused the other person, and she’d simply given up at this point.

The bus arrived much later than it should have, crawling up the street and nearly invisible until fifty feet from them. The driver applied the brakes early and the bus made a slow skid to a stop, ending at a jaunty angle further past the shelter than usual. Warm light fell on the growing snowdrifts as the bus doors slid open, and they queued up single file to get on, Zelda last.

That is, she was last until the stranger who’d made room for her did so again. He stepped aside, his hand outstretched, allowing her to go first. She blinked, surprised and a little confused at the unnecessary gesture, her eyes following that hand (which also held several bags) up the arm of a rugged coat, and to the face of the man she’d been silently ogling since early autumn.

He had a friendly, lopsided smile, with a dimple and crinkled eyes (shockingly blue). With his nose and cheeks cold-reddened and his bangs sticking haphazardly out from under his hat and hood, he struck her not only as handsome (as usual), but absolutely adorable.

She stared at him as the line shortened.

He made that soft laugh again, and her heart surprised her with a single beat against the wall of her chest. “It’s okay—go ahead.”

Her feet shuffled, and she found herself hurrying past him, grateful the cold had also reddened her features. “Thank you,” she said again, muffled.

She took the steps as quickly as she could, registering that while not entirely full, the bus had very few seats left. She moved nearly to the first row of front-facing double-seats before she realized the gift-bag-laden woman ahead of her was about to take the last one remaining toward the back of the bus. The only empty seats would be behind Zelda.

Only two seats, in fact—the ones right next to the door in the row facing the driver’s side.

Zelda turned to find the handsome man staring at them, his face difficult to read. Then he looked at her.

“You can sit,” he said.

Air puffed out her nose above her damp scarf. She tugged it down. “So can you.”

At that moment, the driver spun the wheel and Zelda lurched to the right with an odd, gulping gasp. For an instant, she thought she’d end up in the lap of the man in the third seat, but handsome-man’s hand shot out and caught her upper arm, their grocery bags clanging into the metal pole beside her and swinging to nearly hit the seated man’s face, too.

The support gave her a precious second to grab the pole, find her feet again, and register that the man she’d almost squished was the scruffy-bearded man from the shop.

“Sorry!” said handsome-man to scruffy-man.

“Sorry!” said Zelda to scruffy-man.

“Sorry,” said handsome-man to her.

She stared at handsome-man, and he stared at her.

Scruffy-man stared spook-faced at both of them.

Handsome-man glanced at his own hand on her arm, suddenly spook-faced himself. “Sorry!” he repeated, releasing her like he’d palmed a hot iron.

“N-no need,” she said, her gloved hand slipping around the pole as the bus swayed. “I’d have fallen.” A tiny, nervous laugh left her. “Thank you.”

“Uh- yeah, of course. Maybe-“ he eyed the seats. “Maybe you’d better-?”

“Y- yes. Indeed.” Zelda plunked into the seat, her face extremely hot, with another apology to the man she’d nearly smooshed. (He grunted). She pulled her bags between and behind her legs, hoping not to trip anyone in addition to the scene she’d caused.

Handsome-man hesitated, still standing, one hand securing himself to the pole beside the steps.

Zelda struggled both to look at him and not to look at him. Her eyes took a meandering zig-zag of a path from her knees to his knees to the pole to a button on his coat, back to the pole, and finally to his collar, from which she sheepishly lifted her eyes to his, her face turning yet another shade of scarlet.

“You- can sit,” she said.

A little huff came from scruffy-man’s direction.

Handsome-man hesitated one more moment, then slid into the seat beside her, tucking his bags back just as she had.

Zelda’d curled her index fingers and thumbs together, considering her wet gloves in lieu of the man beside her, feeling both fortunate and unfortunate that she couldn’t feel the warmth of him through their insulative clothing, and that he had, in fact, managed to sit without touching her at all. She didn’t need to feel the surprising and unusual things he did to her insides while sitting with mere centimeters between them. She tugged the gloves off and sat them on her woolen lap. He pushed his hood back with a small sigh.

The bus seemed barely able to do better than a brisk walking speed, but at least it was warm and dry. (Well—relatively dry. Her snowy coat was making a mess of the seat already). She looked out the windshield (driver’s side, so handsome-man wouldn’t think her staring at him). The snow swirled first one way, then the next, the windshield wipers flapping madly back and forth, and the driver’s elbow made a sudden jab past the barrier as he made a quick adjustment for an unmistakable slip. Zelda swallowed.

Her eyes flicked to the side of the windshield closer to her and caught a glimpse of handsome-man side-eyeing her.

She snapped her gaze forward.

Then she tried to see him out of the furthest possible corner of her eye.

He appeared to be considering the window directly across from them—all but falling snow utterly invisible beyond it. She considered it too, a tiny voice which was much braver than she felt reminding her she’d meant to ask him his name.

The bus made a stop, a howl of cold wind from the opening door followed by hurried steps as six people boarded, one holding packages above his head and another grumbling in Gerudo, tall enough she’d have to duck under the hand-hold bars. Shuffling at the back of the bus signaled passengers disembarking, and the newcomers all moved that way.

“Pardon me,” a short woman said as one of her canvas bags scraped its way past Zelda’s shin.

“It’s alright,” she said automatically.

Her eyeSlate buzzed.

Zelda tried to fish it from her pocket without poking handsome-man in the leg. She succeeded, though she realized too late she’d leaned a bit into scruffy-man’s space again.

She turned to find him leaning away from her, spooked once more.

“Apologies,” she said.

He just stared at her.

She shook her head at herself and tapped the screen with practiced motions.

Purah had messaged her.

Zelda sniffed, irrationally annoyed at the timestamp. It’s not as though she hadn’t known she’d taken a long time in the shop, or that the bus had taken a long time to arrive, or that it was absolutely crawling.

A laugh puffed from Zelda’s nose. Then handsome-man shifted a little and a tiny gasp left her. She concentrated hard on the screen, refusing to indulge the sudden urge to see if he’d looked at her.

Zelda laughed again. There were few people she could successfully tease. Purah was one of them. If anyone else had thrown a party, she’d have declined the invitation. Zelda lowered the slate to her lap and glanced up at the still-worsening storm out the windshield, suddenly wondering if handsome-man was looking at her again, though for a different reason. She repeated her trick of glancing out the nearer side of the windshield and found him looking out it too.

Her heart sputtered relief and she texted quickly.

Zelda slapped the slate to her chest with an involuntary glance his way, her heart pitter-pattering like rabbit feet along with the slate’s ceaseless buzzing.

Handsome-man had turned her way, his face blank enough that she had no idea if he’d already been looking or if her sudden panic had drawn his attention.

She felt a shift on her other side, too, and turned to see scruffy-man looking much more obviously confused.

She tried not to shrink in her seat.

“Ad,” she said.

Her eyebrows shot up in shock at her own lie.

At her incredibly foolish lie, for the only material on her slate she should be so ashamed of ought to have been very mortifying indeed, far more so than handsome-man knowing she thought him attractive.

But no. No, instead, she’d implied she was hiding something unsuitable to be seen in public, and considering her slate wouldn’t stop buzzing she doubted anyone would assume she’d simply opened a personal document by mistake.

No. No, they’d think porn. Wouldn’t they?

Of course they would. NSFW. Porn with rumble effects.

Then she did shrink in her seat.

She wildly considered shoving her still-buzzing slate into handsome-man’s line of vision. Shame and relief would mingle for certain, but It would be an improvement over the pure humiliation within her now.

It stopped about thirty seconds later.

Zelda couldn’t help it. As though dragged by some invisible force, her head turned with extreme slowness toward that handsome man beside her.

He was still looking at her, now with a very small smile on his face.

Zelda tried not to appear quizzical.

His smile grew a little. She had the impression he was trying not to laugh.

He flashed his eyebrows at her and she lost it. Silent laughter shook her chest, her face twisting into something between a smile, a pout, and a grimace, her eyes squeezing shut.

“Must’ve been some ad,” he said.

She groaned, placed her slate face-down in her lap, and rested her face in her hands.

She heard that soft laughter beside her again. “My name’s Link,” he said.

She took slow, calming breaths as she lifted her head to see his smile deepened, his eyes twinkling at her.

She tried not to let it take her breath away. Yes, he was handsome, and she loved his voice, but she hadn’t exactly made a spectacular impression. She took an intentionally deep breath instead. “I’m Zelda.”

He held out his hand, still gloved, to shake hers. “Nice to meet you, Zelda.”

She smiled quite a bit more than she should have and flushed even more. “Nice to meet you too, Link.” A jolt of electricity ran through her when their hands met despite his glove, but she thought she hid it reasonably well.

“I, ah,” he said as his hand returned to his lap, “was surprised to see you at the stop.”

She blinked. “Oh?”

“Yeah, I’m late tonight. Went shopping so I wouldn’t have to tomorrow.”

It slowly penetrated that he, too, had been aware they usually rode the same bus. “I- also. The same. Apologies, no, not the same,” she said, shaking her head with her eyes squeezed shut. What was wrong with her? “Shopping, yes, but for a friend’s party tonight.”

He raised an eyebrow and eyed the storm outside.

“Heh. Yes, well… I don’t believe this was expected.” Her brow pinched and she fiddled with her eyeSlate. “Did you see the warning?”

He shook his head. “No, my slate’s off. Battery.”

She turned hers on and swiped Purah’s barrage of messages away, her eyes widening. She’d caught “date” and “hanky-panky” before it left the screen, hoping he hadn’t, as he was quite clearly and correctly expecting her to show him what she meant. She navigated to her notifications and tapped the warning.

⚠ Warning! ⚠

⚠ Hazardous weather conditions! ⚠

A winter storm alert is in effect in central Hyrule, Lake Hylia County, Northwest Faron, West Necluda, and Southwestern Eldin until 2:45 pm HST. 32” total accumulation expected. Wind gusts up to 70 mph.

Zelda stared at it, swallowing, part of her wishing she’d read the warning earlier—the other part quite logically pointing out it would’ve made no difference unless she’d begged to sleep at the market. Had she made her way back to the bus stop immediately, she’d probably have been waiting, empty-handed, under the little shelter that entire time regardless.

She huffed a little.

Then she scowled.

It would be the one evening she had social plans that central and southern Hyrule would be inundated with snow rather than Hebra. 32”—she hadn’t seen that much snow at once in this region since she was very little.

“I was really, really not expecting that,” Link said, frowning at the warning.

“You… don’t live too far past the highway, do you?” she asked.

“Just two stops past you.”

“Ah. Not so bad then.”

“No, but-“ he craned his neck, straightening his back to peer out the windshield. Then he sat back, shaking his head. “I don’t want my food to get nasty.”

She took a closer look at his grocery bags. They appeared to be the same as hers. “Are you also partial to LonLon’s?”

“You bet I am. Only place near my route that has grass-fed butter and beef.”

“Is that what you have?”

“Not beef today, but the butter, yeah.”

“At least that will keep.”

“Raw pigeon won’t,” he said with a wide-eyed grin.

“Oh.” She blinked at his bags. “Oh dear.”

“Yeaaaah.”

The bus crawled to another slow stop. Zelda frowned, trying to see as the doors opened, snow bursting onto their heads and shoulders. “Did we… only just reach the next stop?”

Link craned his neck, though he avoided directly blocking anyone entering or exiting. “We might’ve passed… one without stopping? The snow’s so thick.”

“Malon street,” the driver said with a sniff.

“Oh,” Zelda said, trying not to sound too dismayed. They had, in fact, not passed one without stopping.

She and Link looked at each other.

“Your pigeon is most certainly in peril,” she said.

He snorted. “I may have to shop tomorrow after all.”

“With nearly three feet of snow on the ground?”

“It’s fine, I’ll walk to the mediocre store near my apartment.”

“If it’s open,” Zelda said.

He grimaced. “Ooh.”

“Indeed.”

“What about your party?” Link asked.

“Oh,” Zelda shrugged. “I don’t believe it matters much. Purah is always up late regardless, and with her house full of scientists and engineers, she’s likely not to sleep at all until morning.”

“Wow, some party!” Link said, his eyebrows disappearing under the bangs sticking out from under his hat. “Are you all working together on something?”

“I suppose she and her colleagues are in general, but no—the conversation is just likely to be ceaseless.”

He studied her, his brow pinching for a moment. “You don’t sound that excited about it.”

“Oh, I’m not much for parties, but I’d resolved to make an attempt at socialization.”

His smile brightened. “Does this count?”

“Heh,” she laughed. “Indeed it does. And what of you?”

“Eh, I socialize all the time.”

Her smile remained, but she didn’t know how to respond to that.

He seemed to sense it. “I teach,” he said. Then he looked up and to the right. “Basically. Sort of. Yeah.”

Her face brightened, then fell, then became quizzical. “Oh?”

“I work at the rock climbing place.”

She cocked her head.

“On-The-Wall.”

Her head cocked further.

“It’s on Chickaloo Street.”

“Ah,” she said with an apologetic smile. “I haven’t explored that direction. Do you enjoy it?”

“I love it,” he said. “First off, I get to climb. No complaints there. Second, I like teaching the classes, and third, there are birthday parties!” He smiled excitedly. “With crazy kids being crazy.”

One of her eyebrows became even more quizzical. “Is that a good thing?”

“Oh yeah, it’s awesome. Little wackadoodle banana-monkeys. You never know what they’ll do.”

As he smiled at her, Zelda registered two things.

First, he, unlike her, was not at all opposed to parties—and second, he, unlike her, had no aversion to unpredictability.

Then a third thing registered as she processed the first two: that his smile faltered a little with her silence.

She grasped for some response other than the turn her thoughts had taken. “I- ah… I also teach, but my environment, I suspect, is more predictable than yours. I can’t imagine I would have much success corralling a herd of children in my lab.”

His face brightened again. “Lab?”

“I work at U of H Central.”

“Oh, you’re a professor! What do you teach?”

It was her turn for her smile to falter. “Ah- um. Physics.”

His eyes flew wide. “…Physics?”

She nodded.

She waited for it.

This, typically, would be the point at which things went badly. A significant portion of the population presumed her to be from some alien planet after this pronouncement.

She tried not to show her prehensive disappointment as he continued to stare at her.

“Wait, wait wait,” he said, his smile growing skeptical, “how can you manage not to socialize?”

Zelda’s jaw dropped.

He… wasn’t surprised?

He didn’t think she ought to be an elderly man with hair sticking out at odd angles?

He didn’t immediately break off the conversation?

“That’s- that is-“ she stuttered, struggling to return her train of thought to his question. “It’s different. I’m- I’m at work. There, I must socialize.”

“Ohhh,” he said. “I get you. Yeah, I know the feeling. After work, I’m pretty shot for dealing with people. Need to recover. Especially if people were grouchy.”

She blinked at him. “You seem perfectly amiable to me.”

He squinted an eye.

“What?”

He squinted more. “That means friendly.”

“Well-“ she sat up straighter. “Yes. Yes it does.”

He squinted both eyes suspiciously. “I only know because I watched Affection and Affectation twice.”

“Twice?!”

“It was good!”

“Well- yes, it was. I enjoyed the play on words.”

“Me too, that’s why I watched it in the first place.” He smiled wider. “So. You watch stuff.”

She huffed a laugh. “Of course I do. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, I don’t know, if you’re a professor maybe you need to be reading a lot of—I don’t know. Physicsy things.”

“I do that, too.”

“You have time for both?”

“I also read non-physicsy things.”

“No way.”

And now, apparently, it was her turn to eye him suspiciously. Was he teasing her?

He shifted in his seat—only a little, but it was to face her more fully, his eyes on hers waiting, apparently rapt, for her reaction.

Her heart skipped a beat.

What sort of smile was that on his face?

And what was the feeling tugging so insistently at the corners of her mouth?

A blast of cold, snowy air from the opening doors burst the moment, squeezing both their eyes shut in defense against the icy incursion.

Zelda hadn’t realized she’d gripped the pole beside her.

When she opened her eyes, she found Link watching the bridge of her wrinkled nose out of one very squinty eye, the other suddenly bearing quite a few snowflakes.

She giggled. She couldn’t help it.

Link grumbled and took the back of his wrist to his snowy eye.

The bus slipped the instant it pulled out into the street, drawing their attention back to the windows (to no avail). Zelda took the opportunity to text Purah, ostensibly so she wouldn’t worry, but in reality to scroll up her previous stream of embarrassing messages.

She waited with the keypad up, trying to think of something else to say to scroll those messages even further. Then an enormous gif of a korok, its arms raised, with flames ever-burning in the background appeared and did that job for her. She stared at it for a moment.

Zelda sighed. Societal expectations were not her strong suit, but she had the sense that inviting a person she’d just met to another person’s party would cross one of those invisible etiquette lines so difficult to detect, even if said person enjoyed parties.

The bus made a few more slow stops and a turn which meant they’d finally reached the service road beside the highway. She rather thought she should say something else to Link—perhaps it would even be reasonable to ask for his slate number, considering they got along well so far—but would she seem desperate? Forward? Irritating? Perhaps it was best to wait. As she did, her mind turned on whether the driver would take the usual route. The plows usually tended the highways diligently, but a prickle of anxiety reminded her even the warning of this storm she’d ignored had arrived late. Some unexpected weather pattern must have occurred.

“Kids are going to be disappointed,” Link said, out of the blue and seemingly to the snow outside.

Zelda blinked. “Why? Tomorrow wouldn’t have been a school day, regardless.”

“Exactly.”

It took her a moment. Then she smirked. “A wasted snow day?”

“Yep.”

The bus lurched toward the left side of the street, jostling them and answering Zelda’s earlier question as it crossed lanes of traffic to approach the highway’s on-ramp. She swallowed as it began to climb the incline up to highway level, at first at an accelerated pace. She hoped that meant the plows and salt trucks had indeed been effective, but as the seconds passed she realized they were slowing—then the bus’ front began twisting to the right. Zelda tamped a gasp and clamped her hand on the pole beside her. Link grabbed the one on his other side.

The driver spun the wheel frenetically, his elbow popping in and out from behind the barrier, and she thought she heard him curse under his breath. Her grip turned white-knuckled as the bus turned more and more sideways. A sudden vision intruded on her thoughts of it going completely perpendicular to the ramp, still sliding, then rolling down the hill faster and faster. Her heart lurched into her throat as the speed of the slide seemed to accelerate.

Apparently, Zelda was not alone in this line of thinking, as a current of airy, tense sounds ran through the passengers, and something changed in the way Link was sitting. His back straightened, and he spent a long moment watching the driver like a hawk, his expression intense. Then he looked at Zelda and silently offered his other hand, palm up.

She gripped it like a lifeline.

The bus lurched left to a collective gasp from the passengers as the driver won his battle with the wheels. The bus began to right itself, and breath returned to Zelda, her grip loosening. It tightened again when the bus began to list left instead. She took an audible, involuntary gulp of air—it seemed to stay stuck in her throat along with her heart. Link kept switching between looking at her and the driver.

“Are you alright?” he asked under his breath, his eyes intense on her.

She nodded swiftly.

He looked like he wanted to say something else. His gloved fingers flexed around hers, and it seemed for a moment he was going to change positions.

It seemed to take an absolute age, a purgatory of possible death-by-bus-roll as the bus drifted over and over again to the side, Zelda in two agonies at once: one of pure fear, and another of elation at the feel of Link’s hand holding hers so tightly. When the bus finally fishtailed its way to the top of the ramp and began its slow, rolling merge onto the blissfully flat highway, Zelda tried and failed to release her death-grip on Link.

Someone in the back whooped, someone else whistled, and a chorus of cheers and applause filled the space.

“You deserve a medal, man,” Link said.

Zelda privately agreed, but seemed incapable of speech (or regulating her heart rate).

The driver gave an exaggerated wave. It seemed to say all in a day’s work, but his eyes were quite wide, and his face a little too flat to be genuinely calm.

“Some ride,” Link said quietly.

Zelda managed to let him go. Her hand came away stiff and tingling as she found her voice. “I- hope I didn’t crush you too badly,” she said, wiggling her fingers.

“No, did- did I hurt you?” he asked, his eyes widening.

“Not at all- I believe I hurt myself.”

He laughed a little. “It was pretty scary.”

“Yes.” She returned her hand to her lap. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” he said, his voice soft.

The highway was hardly any faster than the roads had been. A few times, the brakes issued long, slow, squeals followed by grinds as the wheels shuddered their way through building snow on their way to a stop, despite how slow just about everyone was going anyway. Every once in a while, a car blew past them somewhere far to the left, evidenced only by its lights and the sound of it. Some of the other passengers tutted.

“Wish I was a Rito,” muttered the scruffy-bearded man to the ceiling.

Zelda privately disagreed, as Rito had just as much difficulty flying in such weather as others had in traversing it on the ground.

The bus started and stopped so many times it all began to blend together. Zelda turned her slate in her lap, thinking again she should ask Link for his number, but still feeling too shy to do so. Her eyelids grew a little heavy with the monotony. Link seemed intent on the driver. He didn’t seem tense, exactly, but watchful. Her slate buzzed in her lap, and she jumped. She unlocked it sheepishly.

Zelda nodded to herself and opened the map, zooming in to the general Romani area. The display remained heavily pixelated. She swiped toward Applea instead without better luck—then she zoomed out, attempting to let the map simply load for a few minutes. She watched the progress bar remain utterly still as her patience waned.

Zelda sighed. The infrastructure did need updating, and the weather couldn’t be helping. She wondered how many other people within a hundred feet of her were attempting to load GPS information at the same time. A good old-fashioned look out the window told her absolutely nothing.

She blinked.

Absolutely nothing is exactly what had happened since before Purah had texted her. The bus hadn’t moved at all.

Zelda shifted in her seat, then glanced around at her fellow passengers. Some, predictably, were facing their laps, likely deep in some mobile game or another. A few were leaning back in their seats or against the walls, napping or attempting to. The Gerudo woman had the most bored look Zelda had ever seen on anyone’s face, and that included students trapped listening to the 90-year-old igneous rock expert in her building drone on about the injustices of his tax bill. Scruffy-man sported an impressive resting grump-face. Link was the only other passenger who seemed fully alert.

He seemed to sense her watching him. He turned and gave her a small smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

She wondered if he was thinking the same thing she was.

She squeezed the slate in her hands. Then she held up a finger for his attention and opened her notes app. She typed in very large letters: Are we stuck? She turned the screen toward him.

He chewed his lips, pulling them into his mouth, then found her eyes. He flashed an eyebrow and half-shrugged.

She checked her slate again. The map still hadn’t loaded. She shook her head and closed the app.

Zelda’s stomach gave its first pitiful squeak of hunger. She willed it silent, then turned her slate off. Better to conserve battery, just in case.

The driver made a quiet call into DoT-H.

“This is Botrick, bus C-H-O-C 11. I’m Crenel-bound on the Romani Highway past exit 16. No movement. Please advise.”

She could feel Link straining, just as she was, to hear the answer.

Two bursts of voice-toned static arrived, way louder than the driver (he grimaced). Zelda couldn’t tell if the sounds meant anything to him. Scruffy-man also leaned forward in his seat, and the woman across from him tried to peer around the driver’s barrier.

A string of sounds issued from the speaker at the driver’s station. They were almost unintelligible, but Zelda could pick some of it out.

“No eyes” on the situation yet. “Continue route.”

Zelda tried not to make too grouchy of a face.

Link was chuckling. At her questioning look, he shook his head. “Just- what does he do if they say ‘abort route’?”

She snorted. “Abandon ship!”

“Abandon bus.”

“All hands to the lifeboats.”

“We’d need sleds.”

“And dogs to pull them.”

“Oooh, reindeer!”

“Truly, someone providing sleigh rides through Mabe Prairie Park tonight would make a killing,” she said, turning to look out the window behind her, then feeling rather silly, as there was still nothing but snowflakes and indistinct headlights to see. “They’d pass us right by.”

“I feel like I’m missing an entrepreneurship opportunity,” he said, that sideways smile of his back full-force. “Wonder if I can just walk right off the highway and start my own business.”

“You’ve no reindeer,” she pointed out.

“There’s horses at the park. And cows.”

“Hmm, less festive.”

“Still faster, though.”

“Are the cows much faster?”

“Eh…” he thought about it for a moment. “I- am not sure I’ve ever seen how fast a cow can run.”

Zelda swept one of her hands high through the air. “Link’s Cow Rides.”

“That has absolutely no ring to it whatsoever,” he said, suddenly choking on a laugh.

“Indeed, and unfortunately it doesn’t clarify the sleigh aspect of the experience.”

“I can hear the ad already, though. ‘Dashing through the snoooow in a one-cow open sleiiiigh.’”

Her muscles punched a laugh from her stomach. “Dashing may be unlikely, but laughing all the way is a strong possibility.”

“Or getting really bored. If the cows just stand around munching grass the whole time.”

“In the snow?” she asked, her eyebrows raised.

“Oh yeah! Yeah, definitely laughing.”

“Excellent. You do appear to have your opportunity, as the bus hasn’t moved an inch.”

“I’m still missing something, though. No sleigh.”

“Ahh, yes. Well. Perhaps one of those plastic children’s sleds.”

“The sad thing is that would still be faster than this,” he said. Then he winced a little and looked at the driver. “Uh- not blaming you.”

“Glad to hear it,” the man apparently named Botrick replied, slouching over the wheel.

In the pause as Link recovered, the bus seemed even quieter than before, the only sound the stream of air from the heating system—battery-powered. There wasn’t even the rumble of an engine.

In that environment, grumbling stomachs easily stood out.

It wasn’t Zelda this time. It was Link.

She looked at him.

He was still wincing.

Zelda’s stomach squealed as though in agreement.

His torso lurched with a silent laugh.

Zelda could swear she heard other stomachs complaining, too. “Do we give in and eat on the bus?” she whispered.

“Not the pigeon,” he said.

She huffed. “Definitely not. We’ve no restroom in which to deal with the consequences.”

His eyes widened.

Her smirk began to fade with the extremely unpleasant thought of having to relieve oneself in the middle of the highway.

Surely it wouldn’t come to that.

“Perhaps we wait,” she said.

Link nodded vigorously.

The stillness dragged on.

At one point, the bus began to roll again to a collective, hopeful breath drawn by the entire bus.

It stopped mere inches later.

The collective groan was the loudest sound they’d heard in half an hour.

“What a tease,” the Gerudo woman said.

With no movement and no information forthcoming over the radio, Link seemed to become restless. He stretched his legs straight out in front of him. He leaned far back in his seat and looked up. He wiggled his nose repeatedly. He flexed all his fingers and cracked all his knuckles, then his neck (the woman across from them scowled at him). He sat back up and shimmied in his seat, still somehow avoiding jostling Zelda, then began tapping his fingers to some complex, inaudible drumbeat on his knees. Then he did the unfathomable. He raised his eyes to the strip of ads lining the bus above the hand-hold poles.

He had broken some invisible barrier by doing so—Zelda’s eyes followed his.

A classic tan-orange-brown Death Mountain color scheme backed a Goron cheerfully smiling with a knife in his hand, a grinding stone beside him, and a speech-bubble above his head: Gorrrrrrrron Grrrrrrinding! Bring us your knives! We’ll bring you to heaven.

Zelda’s head listed to the side for a long moment. Then she turned to Link.

He looked horrified.

He shook his head and ran a hand down his face with a sigh. Then he gripped the pole, stood, and stepped sideways to the top of the stairs. “Let me out? I can walk around, take a look at what’s going on.”

Botrick did a double-take. “What what?”

Link jerked his thumb behind him, pointing at the doors.

“We’re on the highway,” Botrick said.

“We haven’t moved in at least an hour.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s safe.”

“I’ll stick my head out. If nothing’s moving, I’ll get out.”

“Jerks’ve been blowing by on the left!”

“They’re way on the shoulder. I’ll be here, next to the bus.”

“And they could hit something, and things could slide, and you could get squished.”

Link squinted at him. “Okay, I could get on top of the bus instead.”

The look on Botrick’s face was utterly flabbergasted. “What?”

“I’ll stand on the bus, get a good view.”

“You’re crazy.”

“Nah, just a good climber.”

“I don’t need you falling off my bus!”

“I won’t. Well-” Link tilted his head back and forth, looking up- “probably not. It’s slippery.”

Botrick just stared at him.

Link shrugged and put one foot on the lower step. “At least I can tell you how deep the snow got while we sat here.”

“Oh. Ohhh,” Botrick said, taking his rectangular glasses off and feverishly cleaning them on the hem of his shirt, pulled from under his coat. When he returned them to his face, he said, “Fine,” and opened the doors.

“BUT,” he said, as Link stuck his head out, “If you get killed it’s your own damn fault.”

Zelda did think the driver was overreacting a bit, and possibly thinking more about regulations and liability than practicality, but a flutter of nerves struck her as Link disappeared out the door. Botrick closed it.

A surprised “oh?” left Zelda’s mouth.

“To keep the heat in,” Botrick said.

The shadow of Link’s hood appeared in the window behind her along with a squeaky scrabbling sound. Scruffy-man shot forward in his seat as Link’s fingers tried to find purchase, with a brief pause after which they returned to do so gloveless. Zelda watched, astonished, as he leapt straight up, grabbed something, and pulled himself out of sight.

His footsteps on the roof seemed to wake everyone up.

“Is he really up there?” the Gerudo woman wondered (she sounded impressed).

Scruffy-man grunted.

Every set of eyes on the bus followed the sound of his feet walking the length of the bus, pausing, and walking back. He slipped at one point, and everyone gasped.

Botrick made a strangled sound of stress and cleaned his glasses again.

Link dropped down with a muffled thump at the bus doors and knocked. He came up the steps covered in snow, trying to brush it all back out the door and sniffling. “It’s more than a foot built up around us,” he said. “Maybe a foot and a half. Cars forever, just every direction. A few trucks and a flatbed. Nothing’s moving at all, as far as I can see.”

He looked at Zelda.

He didn’t say it, but the shuffling said everyone knew—they’d be stuck here a long time. She almost joked that his idea of walking off the highway was, in fact, the quickest way to get home, but it was also the surest way to get hit by a car on the shoulder, or to succumb to hypothermia. They would have to walk all the way to an exit ramp.

She shook her head. Abandon bus, indeed.

Movement at the edge of her vision drew her eyes to see Botrick turn a knob. The air flow from the heating system lessened to almost nothing, its temperature also lower. He was conserving battery, too.

Surely they wouldn’t run out? These buses had to run long days and nights without charging.

Then again, it was cold, and they were still. Lower efficiency.

“Do you mind if I-?” Link gestured to his still-snowy coat.

“No, no, of course not,” Botrick said.

Link nodded gratefully and draped the coat over the banister before returning to his seat, not looking defeated, exactly, but concerned.

Zelda sighed. She rummaged around in her bags, removed the enormous box of butter cookies she’d bought, and began untying the twine keeping it closed.

Link slumped in his seat a little, side-eyeing the box.

Zelda couldn’t help but smile at his poor attempt at feigning indifference.

He really was quite cute.

She lifted the lid and presented them to him—cookies of all different shapes, sizes, and colors, some sandwich-style filled with jam, some chocolate-dipped and coated in sprinkles, others with dollops of jam or chocolate in their centers.

He stared at them, his face oddly blank like when she’d hidden her buzzing slate.

“Go on,” she said. “Have one.”

A tiny hopeful smile quirked one corner of his mouth. He uncrossed his arms, leaned forward, and carefully selected an apricot sandwich-cookie almost the size of a Hylian’s palm, half-chocolate-dipped with rainbow sprinkles.

Zelda then turned and offered the box to scruffy-man.

He looked shocked.

“It’s alright,” she said, holding the box a little higher.

He still hesitated.

Compelling reasons to accept her cookie offering swirled through her head. There were so many (and she couldn’t think of many reasons not to have one, unless he suffered from allergies, and suddenly she thought that might be it). “They were made in a peanut and tree-nut free facility,” she said. “Though I don’t believe I can guarantee they’re free of other allergens. They’re also delicious.“ He still hesitated. “It’s not as though I’d planned to eat them all myself. Besides, better the cookies than each other.”

Link choked on his cookie, and scruffy-man once again began a slow lean away from her.

“A little early to resort to cannibalism,” said the Gerudo woman.

“W- well.” Zelda shrugged, face scarlet and eyes suddenly sealed shut. “Yes. Exactly. Thus the cookies.”

Link was wheezing. She turned to see him in the throes of laughter, cookie crumbs cupped in one hand while he failed to chew. “Y- you-“ he wheezed more- “have to appreciate the honesty, though.”

“You’d better eat one, my dear,” the Gerudo woman said with a pointed look at Zelda. “Otherwise we’ll all think you’re fattening us up.”

Zelda retrieved a cookie immediately (lemon-zest in the batter with raspberry filling) and offered the entire box to scruffy-man’s lap. After a long moment, he finally accepted it, took a random cookie without ever taking his eyes off Zelda, and passed the box to his left. Zelda ate her cookie slowly in mixed mortification and relief that at least she’d only seriously terrified one person.

As the box moved, the mood and voices on the bus lifted. It turned out the man who’d held packages above his head had taken leftover pizza, garlic bread, and fried cheese home from an office party, and someone else had a birthday cake for a gathering he certainly wasn’t making it to. He even had candles.

“My brother’ll live without cake,” he said as he stuck the candles in it. Someone else lit them with a lighter.

They sang solstice tunes instead of “Happy Birthday,” and kept singing while they passed small pieces of cake around on paper plates.

Zelda thought Link might have felt guilty about making the driver nervous. He brought a plate full of cookies and cake up to him personally.

It was then that Zelda realized she’d missed a trick.

She waved a hand at the crowd, but no one noticed (except scruffy-man, who continued to view her with apparent suspicion), so she stood. “Ah- excuse me?” A few people turned her way. “Does anyone have a corkscrew?”

The entire bus perked up at that.

Link cleared his throat and held up a spectacular, hefty multi-tool he’d just retrieved from his drying coat.

“Perfect,” Zelda said, retrieving her bottles. Link popped them open with a flourish and birthday-party-man provided a stack of paper cups.

The bus was soon very merry indeed—all but for Botrick, who stared longingly at Link’s cup (he’d opted for mead).

“We’ll save you some,” Link said. He took another of the very small sips he’d been taking.

Zelda had also chosen mead. “It’s quite good,” she said, though she’d taken only a very small amount, hyper-aware that she hadn’t used a bathroom since she left work.

“This is a nice one. Sometimes they’re weirdly harsh. Mead shouldn’t be harsh.”

“Oh! You’ve had it before?”

“Oh yeah, loads of times. I like to try things.”

“Indeed?”

“Yeah, food’s pretty much my hobby.”

“As in taste-testing?”

“Ohhhh not just that,” he said. “I love to cook. I was going to coat that pigeon in a rosemary, Hyrule herb, and warm safflina-infused oil I made a few weeks back and roast it, make it nice and crispy” He swallowed, his eyes widening, and Zelda had the sudden impression he’d caught himself salivating. “And I was going to braise the apples and red cabbage to go with it. And I was thinking about making some custard tarts with wildberries.”

“Here I was thinking you ate so healthy, until the custard tarts,” Zelda said with a smirk.

“I figure it averages out,” he grinned. “Can’t really share the eggs around, but if people need another round of food the fruit’s in here. There’s milk… too…” He suddenly sat at the edge of his seat, looking wildly around, his eyes landing on the forgotten twine from the cookie box half-under Zelda on her seat. “Can I… can I have that?”

Zelda passed it to him and watched him rummage in a bag which contained only the packaged pigeon and frozen peas. He tied the twine tight around both.

“Does this open?” Link asked, pointing at the front-most window.

“Yeah, only a few inches, but-“

“It’ll just take a second.”

Botrick grunted.

Link opened it, fought the pigeon out the window, and lowered it by the twine. Then he shut the window on it and tied the other end to the pole. “Ha!”

He appeared extremely pleased with himself.

Botrick appeared nonplussed.

Zelda finished her mead, stored her cup in one of her bags, and turned on her slate.

10:23 pm.

--

As the night wore on, the merry volume dwindled and the snow climbed higher against the sides of the bus. Snores began to issue and sputter as people jerked awake in the seats, shifted and re-settled again. Zelda stood at the front of the bus, peering down the long windows at the snow which cradled them.

“Will we be able to move? Once the car in front of us does?”

“I think so,” Botrick said. “There are a couple shovels under the floor if not.”

Another set of headlights went out.

“It’s fortunate the bus is battery-powered. With this much snow, we’d have had to dig out the exhaust pipe.”

Link sat suddenly forward. “Oh- Hylia.”

Zelda turned to see him scanning the pattern of lights outside the windshield. “What is it?”

“How many of them don’t know they should do that?” he asked. “Or just didn’t think of it. I mean, I know you should but I didn’t think of it until you said something.”

They looked at each other.

“Where are the shovels?” Link asked.

A few minutes later, he and the Gerudo woman left the bus armed with shovels and promises not to try and save the entire highway personally.

After half an hour, Zelda made Botrick open the doors again so she could check on them. She held on to a pole and leaned out into the frigid air—and found, to her relief, they’d enlisted a good deal of help from elsewhere. People were using ice-scrapers. People were talking to each other. Lanes were carved and stamped out between cars in places.

Other people were wading in thigh-deep snow.

She pulled her head in. “Is there an ice-scraper, too? One of the ones with a brush?”

“Yeah,” Botrick said.

“Excellent.”

--

The bus doors opened, and an extremely snowy Link popped his head in. “Hey, Zelda?”

“Yes?”

“Can I have the bag with the milk and fruit please?”

It only took her a moment of rummaging. She passed it over the end of the seats.

“Thanks.” He hesitated a moment. “Kids.”

The doors closed.

Zelda found herself staring at the place his face had been, part of her lamenting there were no cookies left to give them, and another part unable to unsee his extremely wind-and-cold-burnt face.

“Open the door, please,” she said.

She stuck her head out and found his profile. “Link!” she shouted.

He turned toward her.

“Cheese and crackers!”

He jogged back.

She ducked down and retrieved the last of the food she’d bought. Children were unlikely to want fancy cheese, but they also quite likely had hungry adults with them, and they’d all like the crackers.

She stood with them on the bottom step.

“We should trade places,” she said.

“No way,” Link said. “Your pants are thin, you’ll be soaked in under a minute.”

“You’re already freezing.”

“I know where the kids are,” he said with a bit of a smirk.

She opened her mouth, then closed it.

He had her there.

He gave her an extremely warm smile as he lifted the bag from her fingers. “Thank you,” he said.

“Come back after this,” she said. “You’ll freeze.”

“I’m alright.”

“Stay that way. Come back! And bring- ah-”

He huffed a laugh. “Her name’s Urbosa.”

“Bring Urbosa, too.”

He nodded. “I will.”

--

When they returned, Zelda was ready, along with leftover-pizza-man (Horace) and gift-bag-woman (Anna).

Armed with the largest ice scraper she’d ever seen, Zelda attacked them with the brush-side. Snow flew off Urbosa down the steps (Link dodged). She worked quickly until all that remained was anything that had already soaked into her clothing, then passed her off to Horace. Then it was Link’s turn.

He made an adorable “mrp” sound when she first swiped the brush down his front. She tried not to laugh. She miscalculated when she tried to get his chest and shoulders and caught the tip of his nose with the bristles.

“Oohf,” he said, his hand coming up to cradle his nose protectively.

“Sorry!”

“’Sokay,” he said, squinting strangely.

“Coat off,” she said when done, but she didn’t have to. He was already removing it and returning it to the banister.

Then she removed hers and plunked it across his shoulders.

“Huh-? You don’t have to-“

“I’m warm and dry. You’re not.” The blotchy redness on his face and neck said so clearly. “Hat,” she said.

He removed it and she gave hm hers.

She lamented again that they didn’t have any spare pants, but it was Anna’s turn now.

Zelda turned to see Urbosa already seated, now in the front-most set of double seats, huddled in Horace’s coat with a brand-new, cheerful, solstice-themed throw over her shoulders and cradling a mug of warm water in her hands.

Zelda smiled. That was battery well-spent.

Horace dropped another throw over Link’s shoulders and pointed at his seat. Link sank into it with a surprised smile, and Anna lifted a 2nd cup from the electric mug-warmer she’d plugged into an outlet on the bus.

“Here you go,” she said.

Link hooked the handle, circled the mug with his other hand, and sighed, appearing to burrow into the layers of warmth. “Thank you so much,” he said.

“Can we drink this?” Urbosa asked.

“It was top-snow,” Zelda said.

“Wonderful,” Urbosa said in throaty tones of relieved gratitude as she sipped it. Link followed suit.

“If you’re all done saving the world,” Botrick said, “I’d like to keep those doors shut from now on. Keep the heat in, save the battery.”

“Yes sir,” Link said.

People generally returned to seats after that, though they’d rearranged. Scowling-woman (Linda) had taken a double-seat near the back with scruffy-man (Zelda still hadn’t caught his name). Zelda looked at the empty seat beside Link, hesitating for a moment.

A puff of air left him with a smile. One of his hands reached under the blanket and patted the seat.

She smiled back, feeling unaccountably shy again. She slid into the seat.

“Thanks,” he said. “Really.”

“You’re welcome. I hope your nose is alright.”

“Heh.” He rubbed it with two fingers. “It’s still kind of numb.”

As he sipped his drink, Zelda reached for her slate—then realized it was now in his pocket.

“Link, would you mind handing me my slate?”

“Oh.” He fished for it and slid it out the gap in the wrapped throw.

“Thank you.” She turned it on.

1:47 am.

“Wow,” Link said.

“Well. On the upside, the storm should end in an hour.”

Link sniffed, looking a little bleary as he stared at the screen. “You have messages.”

She did indeed.

Zelda snorted. She turned to see Link also smiling at her slate. Then he looked at her and his eyes shot wide.

“Oh! Sorry.”

“Why, Link,” she said. “Here I was thinking you were a perfect gentleman.”

That was definitely a spooked face.

“Do you make a habit of reading people’s personal messages?” She kept her face mostly stern, though she allowed a tiny twitch of humor at one corner of her mouth.

His face became blotchier. “Well. I.” He swallowed. “Not. Not usually, no.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Only mine?”

The blotches faded to total pallor. Concern dropped Zelda’s stern-face for her, but he spoke at the same moment it did.

“I’m- really sorry. I didn’t mean to. I just- it was making a racket and I looked.”

She stared at him, confused.

“I thought you were getting a call.”

It took her a moment. Then her lips parted. “You mean earlier.”

He nodded.

“…You read it.”

His shoulders climbed toward his ears. “…Yeah.”

Zelda turned extremely red.

“��Do you… want your coat back?”

“Of course not- I’m not angry, I just-“ a wan smile appeared on her face and she stared at her hands now gripping the slate in her lap. “I feel ridiculous.”

“…Why?”

“Because you knew the whole time.”

“…I did?”

She looked up to find him appearing genuinely confused.

“…Of course?”

He looked first one way, then the other, then back at her.  “But… I still don’t.”

She squinted a bewildered eye at him. “How can you not?”

Link blinked at her. Then he shot a quick look over her shoulder—so quick she could’ve missed it if she’d blinked.

She turned to find scruffy-man at a direct shot from his eyeline. He saw her looking and blanched. She gave him a nervous smile and a wave before she turned back to Link, who had a bit of a grimace on.

His look turned sheepish, and he tilted his head. “I- uh. You don’t have to tell me, but I’ve been trying to work out which one of us it was.”

She stared at him. Then her jaw fell open. “You- thought he was the cute one?”

“Well, there were two guys sitting next to you-“

“He’s far older than I am.”

“Some people like that.”

“He’s not usually on the bus with me.”

“Didn’t know that was part of the equation.”

“I’ve been speaking with you most of the time.”

“A lot of people get nervous and talk to everyone but the person they like. You even went all anxious when you tried to give him a cookie, you were blushing, and you did it again just now.”

“Because he believes I’m unhinged!”

Link snorted. Then he smiled. Then he grinned. A lot. “So… does that mean it’s me?” he asked.

Zelda sat suddenly straight up, her face somehow trying to pale and flush at the same time. She swallowed and tried to have a well, obviously face on even though she’d begun to tremble. Her knuckles turned white on her slate. “Of course it’s you.”

He sat up straighter again, too, his eyes flicking between hers. Then he saw her shaking. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“…Are you cold?”

“Not really—you should keep the coat until you’re fully warmed.” She said, her eyes again on her slate’s now-blank screen. The throw rose and fell slowly with his breaths in her vision.

Then he dug around inside it somewhere. He stretched out a bit to reach something, then produced his own slate. He turned it on, sniffing a bit, and unlocked the screen. The battery icon was red.

“Can I show you something?” he asked.

The tremor in his voice made her seek out his face. He swallowed nervously.

“You may,” Zelda said.

He gave her a sheepish smile, opened his messages, and tapped on a conversation with someone named “Cheeter.”

She gave him a quizzical look.

“It’s what I call my sister,” he said with a smirk. He scrolled up to a certain part. “Here.”

And he handed it to her.

Link groaned. “Sorry. She just likes messing with me.”

A deep smile had grown on Zelda’s face. She’d tried to hide it by resting her mouth in her palm as she read. “I can tell,” she said muffled into it. “I- believe you’ve only a little battery life left to respond.”

“Yeah.” He reached for it. Then he smirked at her. “You can look.”

“Oh?”

He shut his slate off and stowed it back in his pocket. He stared at his lap for a moment, his face very red, then dragged his eyes up toward hers with a face clearly hoping for forgiveness. The smile on her face seemed to open his entire expression up.

“You’ve been… babbling about me for months?” she asked.

There it was—that soft laugh of his again.

She loved that laugh.

“You’re… very pretty. And super cute.”

She smiled deeper, her eyes seemingly searching the bus for reasons she might be interpreted as cute.

“There. You just did a cute thing,” he said.

“All I did was be confused.”

“You do this cute thing when you side-step.”

She blinked. “When I… side-step?”

“Yeah! Like when the bus is standing room only and you step left or right, you do it cutely.”

This time, she did stare at him like he was crazy.

“But I didn’t know how kind and thoughtful you were until today,” he said quietly. “Or how smart. Or how good you are at bringing people together.”

“Oh no- no, social skills are most certainly not my strong point.”

“No one else here made a move to help each other get through this until you did. No one else thought about something that legitimately could’ve killed people out there tonight. And it was you who organized this-“ he tugged the throw and lifted his mug- “wasn’t it?”

“Well. It wasn’t a difficult undertaking. We merely had to identify what we had available to bring you two back up to temperature. And,” she said with an involuntary hair-toss, “we only did so because you two braved the storm out of concern for people’s safety.”

A small smile tugged the corner of his mouth. “I can hold a shovel.”

“It didn’t have to be you.”

He shrugged. “I’m in good shape, my clothes were good for it, and I’m fast. It made sense.”

She huffed, squinting at him suspiciously, though she couldn’t stop smiling.

She supposed he could have been showing off.

Just a little.

Now that she knew she’d already caught his eye.

His eyebrows went further and further up under his (now extremely messy) bangs.

A yawn interrupted Zelda’s pondering of his motivations—a spectacular yawn indeed. She held the back of her hand to her mouth, as it didn’t seem to want to shut.

“Oh- nohh-“ Link yawned in response.

“Oh NOOhhh-hhh-hherrr!”

They both looked at Botrick.

He yawned again.

“Yawns’re infectious,” he said. “Especially at 2:30 am.”

“You… were watching us?” Link asked.

“What else do I have for entertainment?”

Any response Zelda might’ve had disappeared into another yawn.

Link gave her a sheepish look. Then he opened the throw with a questioning one.

She blinked at his arm, now outstretched on the plastic seatback, holding one edge of the small blanket.

“If- if you’d like to,” he said.

She only hesitated a moment.

Then she twisted to face forward and sit back in the seat. His arm wrapped around her shoulders, the throw with it, and after a moment, she rested her head on his shoulder.

She peered up at him.

His smile was absolutely adorable.

--

Zelda awoke pleasantly warm, even on the crown of her head, and with a bleary smile she didn’t understand at first, though her neck hurt a bit. She snuggled deeper into the warmth at her side, and an arm hugged her warmer and closer around her shoulders. Then she remembered.

Her eyelids drifted open to the odd sight of her own coat on someone else’s chest.

Link lifted his cheek from her hair. “Good morning,” he said.

She craned her neck, her chin now on his chest, and she could hardly believe she was looking up at him. “Hello,” she said.

Sunlight backlit his smile.

Then she noticed the commotion outside.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Seems like we’ll be leaving soon. There’s plows.”

“Praise Hylia,” Botrick grumbled, arms crossed and eyes bloodshot.

“Are you alright to drive?” Zelda asked.

“I slept. I just didn’t like it.”

Link cocked his head at him. Then he looked at Zelda. “You officially awake?” he asked.

“Yes.”

He tugged questioningly at the throw.

She nodded, suddenly understanding, and sadly allowed that glorious warmth to be removed.

Link stood, stretched, and draped the throw over Botrick’s shoulders.

Botrick looked like he was going to protest—then he pulled it closed around his neck and muttered a thank you.

“We did save you some mead,” Link said.

“Can’t accept it. Driver can’t open-carry.”

Link’s face fell. “You sure?”

“Yup.”

--

The bus finally moved at 7:01 am, on 12% battery-life and higgledy-piggledy lanes carved by everything that moved before them. They bumped along at a snail’s pace, bouncing over every snow-hill made between standstill cars and the plow-passes of the last few hours. They all cried out in mixed indignation and laughter with each one, and when they finally felt the incline of the off-ramp, they cheered.

Link and Zelda exchanged coats and hats, and throws, cups, mug-warmers, and the responsibility of trash disposal were distributed among the passengers. Canvas-bag-woman retrieved Link’s bag with the red-cabbage in it, which had rolled toward the back of the bus.

Scruffy-man and Linda got off at the first stop, hand-in…

Hand?

She tromped down the steps without a second glance, but scruffy-man stopped and looked at Zelda. He then raised his hand with the most unnatural-looking smile she’d ever seen.

“I’m… taken,” he said with a nervous laugh.

Then he disembarked.

Link turned to her, wide-eyed. “See?! See, he thought so too!!”

When Urbosa’s turn arrived, she paused by them, too, and handed Zelda her card.

“That’s my number,” she said. “I want to be invited to the wedding.” Then she nodded at Link. “It was a pleasure working with you.”

Zelda stared, transfixed, at the card as the doors closed. Link turned beet red and rubbed the back of his neck.

The weather warning had been an understatement.

Easily three feet of snow had accumulated, with snow drifts and plow-mountains the height of the bus itself. Botrick was stopping to let people off at the edges of intersections rather than stops—otherwise they’d never make it. The sidewalks were haphazardly shoveled, and it appeared that in order to get to one of them, one had to navigate snow-hills the height of the parked cars.

Zelda’s stop was coming up.

She adjusted her hat and donned her gloves. They’d long-since dried.

“You’re next,” Link said.

“Mm-hm.”

“Uhm.” He swallowed. “I- could I-“

“Oh!!” she struggled to tug her slate free of her pocket. How could she have forgotten to get his number? After all that!!

He tried to turn his on, but it remained black. The battery had finally run out.

He rolled his eyes and returned it to his pocket, looking at her as she managed to turn her slate on, at least. The bus rolled to a stop while it was still booting up.

“Oh-“

Link stood and offered her his hand.

She took it.

His smile turned very lopsided. “I’m not far from here,” he said. “I can walk you home?”

She beamed at him.

They waved goodbye as they stamped down the steps. Link landed perfectly in a 2-foot deep bed of crispy snow like a gazelle, his feet punching perfect holes in it. Zelda didn’t quite have that level of grace, but she didn’t disgrace herself either, neither slipping nor wobbling on her way out.

The doors closed, and Botrick began to pull away.

A soft bonking sound drew Zelda’s eyes to the bus.

“OH!” She shouted.

Link spun, his hands outstretched as though ready to grapple. “What?!”

“STOP! STOP!!”

As the bus trundled, a strange little package bounced off its side, spinning merrily on the end of a length of twine.

“Oh NO!” Link yelled, and suddenly he was off like a shot with snow-mountain-climbing angled feet, hurrying to the top of the peak in that direction.

Zelda packed a massive snowball and threw it at the windows.

The bus squeaked to a halt, and the door opened.

“What in Hebra are you two DOING?!” Botrick yelled.

Zelda cupped her hands around her mouth. “THE PIGEON!!”

“Hylia save us!” floated Botrick’s voice as he put the bus into park.

--

They stumbled, slipped, climbed, and giggled their way to Zelda’s little house three streets straight in from the stop, their arms around each other’s shoulders half the time, not because they had to be, but because they couldn’t seem to help it.

A package of frozen pigeon hard as a brick (and accompanying peas) dangled from one of Link’s hands. He didn’t want to put it in the bag with either his red cabbage or eggs.

Only a small amount of mead remained in the bottle in Zelda’s bag.

When they reached Zelda’s walkway, Link waded through the snow to make a path for her—no one had been home to shovel. She thanked him the only proper way—by packing and throwing snowballs at his back.

“If I hadn’t just cut a path for you, I’d throw you in the snow,” he said.

She threw a snowball at his front.

“That’s it.” He stalked toward her.

She eeped and spun, but he was quicker. He had her in his arms in an instant, one under her shoulders and the other under her knees. She squeaked and wrapped her arms around his neck hard.

He swung her to the side. “One.”

She gasped and clung harder.

And again- “Two.”

She squeaked more.

“Three!” he said with a swing she was sure would send her into the neighbor’s yard, but he pulled her back to his chest with that soft laugh of his.

She looked up at him with trepidation.

He twinkled at her.

Then he walked her sideways, slowly and carefully so her feet and hair wouldn’t drag in the snow, up the steps, and deposited her safely at her front door.

She didn’t want to let go of his neck—but she did. She made a show of brushing the snow off his coat.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Any time.”

And then it occurred she still hadn’t gotten his number. Her smile fell.

He breathed a soft puff of air. “Well. I’d better dig my way home and do something with this pigeon. I-“ he hesitated. “I’d really like. To. Um…” he scratched the back of his head. “See you again.”

She curled one of her hands around his. “Did you… have plans today?”

“Today?” he asked.

“Yes. Anyone expecting you?”

He shook his head. “No.”

“Well, then.” She eyed his clothing. “If- if you’d like to, you’re welcome to come in.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

He glanced at his still-spinning package of peas and poultry. Then he smiled. “I could cook for you.”

Her head jerked up. “Oh?!”

“Yeah! I don’t have the apples anymore, but I can still braise the red cabbage, and I can still do the pigeon as long as you have some oil and herbs, or even if you don’t, really, I can figure something out.”

“…I have apples,” she said.

“Well then! Uh-“ he paused, looking down at himself. “Although – maybe I’d better stop at my place first. I’ll be soaked.”

She shook her head. “You’ll end up snowy all over again on your way back. Unless there are any other reasons you wish to go that you’re uncomfortable telling me, in which case that’s completely fine, I propose instead that you borrow some of my comfy pants.”

“Comfy pants?”

“Indeed. Unreasonably large sweatpants I would have absolutely no business wearing in public, but which are utterly inoffensive to the tactile senses.”

He looked so deeply into her eyes. “They sound amazing.”

“They are.”

He nodded. “That settles it. Your pants, my food.”

“Happy Solstice,” she said with a grin.

“Happy Solstice,” he chuckled.

As they crossed the threshold, kicked off their snow-coated boots and hung their hats and coats, an earlier worry crossed Zelda’s mind: that he, unlike her, had no aversion to unpredictability.

She’d thought that might be a point of friction.

Relief widened her smile even further—for she’d been completely incorrect. This event had been utterly unpredictable in every way, but unless she was very mistaken, it was one of the best things that had ever happened to her.

He turned from the coat hooks, caught her eye, and flushed, and it occurred to Zelda that she may not be the only person in the room who had a little difficulty navigating social situations.

She took his hand again. “In case it isn’t clear—and it may not be, these things confuse me—I like you very much.”

He flushed deeper. “I like you very much, too.”

“And I am interested in kissing you.”

He seemed to almost laugh, but it turned quickly into a sideways smile that morphed into a swallow, then a nervous face. He squeezed her hand, and his next breaths arrived faster. “I am- very interested in kissing you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Very?”

He nodded with a small, puffed laugh.

She took his other hand in hers. “But I will not pressure you.”

“Pressure me?”

“Yes. You appear nervous.”

“I am,” he said, with another swallow. “You’re-“ and another swallow- “so beautiful.”

Her breath caught. “And you- are extremely handsome.”

He shrugged.

It made her laugh a little. She brushed one of his bangs away from his eyes.

It seemed to pull them together, somehow.

The tip of his nose touched hers—then slid toward her cheek—and their lips met soft like feathers, with a silent thrill that made Zelda’s body rise, her hand warm on his cheek. When their lips parted, she could feel him trembling everywhere, even in the way he breathed on her skin.

“Best bus ride ever,” he said.

She found herself giggling, and his soft laugh turned into full-on laughter as he curled his arms up her back and she wrapped hers hard around his neck, an embrace of joy and of hope for a spectacular new year.

~~The End~~

[Note: A huge thank-you to my partner who let me borrow his phone for the purpose of making the images!]