#i actually get so sad over her bee business when i think of her abandoning it out of grief depression and desperation

[snarky-bee]

High Priestess, Wheel of Fortune, and Strength reversed for Moxie!

The High Priestess: When has trusting their instincts paid off for your character?

Ehhhh usually it's a case of well that mostly worked out but it also kind of didn't. Did me best. Her goddamn fucking problem is that her instincts will be like hm this seems sketchy as fuck and her reaction will be okay i will simply outlast outwit outplay or whatever the survivor tagline is.

her chaos instinct has helped One (1) time that I can think of and that is her desire to follow along with the betrayers rise things like giving something of value and waltzing through a room to open a door.

The Wheel of Fortune: What are your character’s proudest successes?

BEE BUSINESS. god she is still the most proud of that. her little labels, sleepy bee, the people that she made happy with her little cart and donkey visits from small town to small town to bring around her goods. It was so fulfilling in so many ways. she never thought she would have something like that.

And much more recently. Making it out of the betrayer's rise successful, everyone alive, rift closed, and for the first time a hero? She was so scared to even go in there, the relief when it finally hit her was a hell of a drug (well also the alcohol was a hell of a drug). never would have thought she could DO something like that.

And find Strength reversed here ;)

[aliensunflower-fics]

How to Exploit Kindness [A New Kind of Lila Salt Prompt]

[ Ive seen Lila and Class salt that goes a lot of different ways. In some Lilas a sad lonely girl who will do anything for friends and the class fall for her lies through a mixture of manipulation and Lila’s genuine sad lonely but real persona. In others Lila is insane and the class get basically sucked into her cult. And in others still, Lila slowly breaks the class down by preying on there insecurities, hidden jealousies ect. There are the versions where Lila just bribes the class with connections and the versions where Lila frames Marinette until no one believes her. But I wanted to write a new idea for people to use, one that I feel is a bit more realistic. One where Marinette’s classmates are more their more authentic kind selves but still get slowly pulled into Lila’s web and where Lila is just a bit more intelligent. ]

[ As usual with all my prompts feel free to borrow the idea to write for your own thing salt, sugar, cuteness angst ect just be sure to credit me for the idea so I can read it. ]

Lila was furious! This wasn’t how it was supposed to go! She was supposed to be everyone's friend! She was supposed to finally get a cute perfect boyfriend who would cherish her like she deserved! She was supposed to be HAPPY! But no, the pathetic beetle Ladybug and that goody two shoes Marinette kept ruining everything!

No… No that wasn’t quite true. As much as she wanted to blame her problems on those two it wasn’t entirely their faults. Honestly Lila wasn’t quite sure what had happened. Her lies had been working at first, they had gotten her praise and compliments and adoration and friendship! But now? Now they were all ignoring her, unimpressed by her celeb lies! She could not understand it! At first she’d been sure it was Marinette or Ladybug maybe even Adrien had turned on her! But when she’d probed for information she’d learned that none of them had blown the whistle. So what was it! Tomorrow… Tomorrow she will find out one way or another. She needed to get them back under her thumb somehow.

 It was Chloe who gave Lila her answers. Chloe was the reason none of her classmates cared about her stories! Chloe was the idiot mayor's brat. And what a brat she was constantly wiggling her way into her mothers fashion shoots or had celebrities over at the hotel. Of course Lila’s classmates didn’t care about Lila’s celebrity connections because Chloe was always name dropping just as many people as herself. The only difference was Lila used fake modesty and shyness that made her ‘friends’ view her lies in less of a gloating light than Chloe’s haughty claims of celebrity meetings.

It was a damn shame, celebrity lies were her bread and butter, they were exciting got people to think you were important and they were hard to prove or disprove allowing Lila to easily get around the messy little detail of ‘proof’ if someone asked for pictures all she could say was that her mom didn't let her take any because she didn't want her precious daughter being targeted by crazy fans. And if someone asked her to use her celebrity connections? Well she could just turn on the water works and cry about them just being her friend for her connections. Thus her prey would be forced to be her ‘friend’ , always listening to her and doing things for her, unable to ask for anything in return. Then when her mother announced their next move Lila would tearfully say goodbye and leave all her suckers behind. But without the sway of her celebrity lies her system broke down. That was the problem with picking the school full of rich talented idiots she supposed.

Well with Chloe ruining her system she’d need a new one. Scrolling through her classmates' social media for a clue she sneered at their overly cheerful and cutesy posts. Always encouraging one another and posting encouraging puff pieces about this or that. Always acting like they were so nice. As Lila scrolled over a charity fundraiser event that Alya had retweeted from Milene a sudden thought crossed her mind. Her classmates were very ‘nice’ and annoyingly so. They were always butting into each other's business, always being SO concerned, always organizing events to help each other and appreciate each other and going to charity events.

In fact now that she thought about it the stories that had intrigued her ‘friends’ always had some sort of charity garbage attached. Saving Jagged’s kitten or raising money for some cause or other that always got her heaps of praise. Sure saying Clara whatshername stole her dance moves got attention but not in the same way saying she raised money for some green project. Was it really that simple? Sure her classmates all loved Marinette for her extreme generosity and kindness but was it REALLY that simple? She needed to check.

 It was actually that easy. One simple little lie about how she pulled a blind old man out of danger when he was nearly run over and suddenly the class was bathing her in praise. And the ‘fact’ that the whole very real thing made her miss first period and sprain her ankle? Well that was just the cherry on top. Suddenly Max was offering her a copy of his notes and everyone was back to caring for her like she was a princess. The fact that Marinette looked like she was seething only for sweet naive Adrien to keep her mouth shut was just so perfect. She’d found her golden ticket. Her classmates were truly ‘good kind people’ and nothing could be exploited quite like kindness.

With this knowledge Lila would easily be able to destroy Marinette, sure she wouldn’t be able to do it quickly but slowly she would replace her, with every good deed she made up with every act of false modesty she would build a reputation greater than Marinette’s she would replace her and become there new ‘everyday ladybug’ and the best part was she wouldn’t have to say ANYTHING against Marinette. Not. A. Thing. No sweet righteous Marinette would eventually snap, sadly for her it would probably be too late with how much control Adrien had over her, so when it happened Marinette would look like the jealous crazy girl going after the girl that was kinder, sweeter, and better than herself. As for Adrien… Well she had a hard time believing it at first but he really was an idiot with a pretty face as long as she was careful as she built her new reputation he would genuinely believe that she was changing for the better and then he'd fall for her.

The best part was, her classmates were genuine. As she built her new good girl heart of gold persona they would genuinely come to love her, all the loyalty Marinette got to enjoy all the perks of being friends with such talented, kind, sweet people would become hers. Slowly no matter how Marinette struggled she would lose, eventually she’d have nothing left. Of course she’d need to be careful with her lies but that was easy. Bring the class to a charity here and there and tell them that she was the one who gave the idea for the charity to the actual organizer but didn't want any credit because she was just that kind and humble. If they tried to make her do actual work then she’d have a sudden accident that would require she sit down.

And then once she’d done more photoshoots with Adrien for Gabriel she’d ‘convince’ the man that a charity would make him look good and boost sales. She’d MAKE her lies true all while winning over her future father in law, and heck maybe she’d even pocket a little of the money, she could use a better wardrobe and the extra would be perfect to buy her ‘friends’ the occasional ice cream or presents. In between that she’d just lie about saving people or volunteering on weekends. Maybe even let it ‘slip’ how she was a temp hero for Ladybug . One of the sweetest parts was that between volunteering with Lila, there own activities and hanging out with Lila so she could ‘thank them for their hard work’ no one would be spending a second hanging out with sweet pink little Marinette, they'd abandon her without even realizing it because they’d be SO busy. Sadly this plan of hers would take a little more work then her others, but it would be worth it to become the queen bee of the class- NO the school! And when Marinette eventually slipped up and looked like the biggest jealous bully in the school. Well she’d have no choice but to leave the school with her tail in between her legs.

Victory was looking sweet and satisfying.

 [ And where it goes from here is up to you. Lila can win, she can slowly convince the class and school that she's a model citizen and an everyday hero. She can sneakily maneuver the class to not spend time with Marinette slowly separating the girl from her friends. In this way Alya and the rest of them don't become evil salty versions of themselves who overnight hate Marinette and love Lila, but rather they are good naive people who got slowly separated and tricked by someone who wants to use their genuine talents and skills to make herself look better. Adrien who is already shown to be naive and wants to believe the best in people, can fall into Lila’s trap and become genuinely convinced that his high road method really worked and ‘reformed’ Lila into a better person. OR Lila can fail, she can claim to be the wrong temporary hero for ladybug, or she can pick the wrong charity to lie about, or get exposed any number of ways and the class can realize with horror that because they are kind but flawed people who are perhaps too trusting and gullible that they got pulled away from Marinette through subtle manipulation and so they can be redeemed because instead of turning into outright bullies they stayed the same kind people they always were but just got genuinely tricked which is something that can actually happen in real life. You can go heavy salt where Marinette does eventually leave the school or class heartbroken that her kind friends have fallen prey to a bad person Marinette cant find a way to expose. Or you can go clever salt where Marinette figures out Lila’s plan and fights her from the inside slowly exposing the cracks in her facade. Or you can go sugar and redemption where maybe just maybe Lila actually LIKES being nice to people and having real friends who dont care about her fake celeb connections, maybe she honestly redeems herself and even makes amends with Marinette. You can do genuinely anything with this idea and I hope to see this generate some new less *and suddenly everyone is evil* content for those that like salt and angst. ]

[sturchling]

Turn the Page - Part 1

Thought I would try my first multi-part fic. 

Next Part

After Lila takes control of the class, Marinette finds she has a lot more free time. What will she decide to do with that spare time?

Hope you guys like it! Let me know what you think!

Marinette felt lost lately. The tension in the class was at an all time high, ever since Lila followed through on her promise. Almost her entire class had grown to hate her because of the lies. It had taken a while for Lila to accomplish her goal. The class had been hesitant to doubt their Everyday Ladybug. But when Lila started to show them ‘proof’ of Marinette bullying her, the class started to doubt Marinette. Lila had shown them texts and emails that were supposedly from Marinette. Unfortunately for Marinette, the class didn’t confirm where these messages came from. They trusted Lila, and Lila had apparent proof. At first, they just ignored her. But Lila kept making bigger claims about Marinette’s behavior. Eventually the class believed that she was a cruel person and they had started being cruel to her as well. The only people that hadn’t fallen for it were Nino, Chloe, and Nathaniel. They all knew that Lila was lying, not just about Marinette but about everything.

 --------------------

Nino had found out by trying to help Alya. He was fact checking Alya’s most recent blog post about Lila, because Alya had been attacked online for her lack of sources. Despite that, Alya kept posting without sources. Nino thought that if he gathered some sources, he could post them in the comments to help his girlfriend. But the more he looked for evidence of Lila’s stories, he couldn’t find anything. The only time Lila was mentioned online was by other posts on the Ladyblog. He decided to research her other stories, and quickly discovered that she had been lying since the beginning.

  --------------------

Nathaniel had found out when Lila had lied about the wrong thing. She had seen him doodling some drawings of Ladybug for the next issue of his comic. Lila had decided to try and win Nathaniel over with a new lie. She sauntered up to his desk and said, “You really like drawing Ladybug huh? You know, I know the author of that new Ladybug comic, The Adventures of Ladybug. She is so sweet. I could introduce you to her!” Nathaniel was shocked. That was his comic. What did Lila mean that she knew the author? And she was calling the author a she! Nathaniel realized that if Lila was lying about this, Marinette may have been right. Lila may have been lying about everything. After a little research into her lies, it became clear that was the case.

  --------------------

Chloe had known that Lila was a liar since the Miraculer incident. Chloe wasn’t an idiot, and new that the dance Lila showed her was bogus. The only reason Ladybug had been there was because of the akuma. At that time, Ladybug had told Chloe that she probably wouldn’t be able to be Queen Bee again, because it wasn’t safe. Chloe had decided that while she may not be able to be a superhero, she could still be heroic in her personal life. She decided it was time to try and make amends with Marinette. She apologized to Marinette about the bullying and vowed not to bully her anymore. Their relationship was still rocky, but they weren’t at each other’s throats anymore. When Chloe and Marinette became closer, Lila began to view Chloe as a threat as well. Soon, Chloe was just as isolated as Marinette.

  --------------------

It hurt at first that the class had abandoned Marinette. She had thought they were close enough that Lila wouldn’t be able to pull them apart. Then one day, Lila stepped up her game even more. She started telling the class that Marinette had been threatening her before class. “She is so mad at me for showing you guys the mean texts! She told me I better stop talking about it or she would ruin my life.” The class was furious and began texting and emailing the young designer very cruel messages. They thought if they were mean to her, she might back off of Lila. At this point, Marinette’s parents found out what had been happening. They found out because they came up to her room to tell her dinner was ready. But instead they found her sitting at her desk crying. After some coaxing Marinette told them everything. They had wanted to go to the school and raise hell and get Marinette out of that horrible class. Marinette talked them out of it though. “I still have some friends in class. I don’t want to leave Nino, Chloe, and Nathaniel.” Tom and Sabine reluctantly agreed and decided to just change Marinette’s phone number and email address.

  --------------------

Unfortunately, this didn’t solve the problem or even help it a little. Lila was able to use this to her advantage. No one in the class besides Marinette’s friends knew that she had changed numbers and emails. The class just thought that Marinette was ignoring them. This just caused them to get angrier, and it was easy for Lila to convince them to take revenge. She got the class to start destroying Marinette’s stuff. They ripped up her homework, her sketchbooks, and anything else they could get their hands on. They were hoping that maybe doing this would make Marinette change back to their old friend. They were expecting apologies, and tears, and promises to be better. They didn’t get those reactions however. Instead, Marinette would just calmly gather the tattered remains of her stuff and leave the room. The class didn’t know what else they could do to try and fix Marinette.

  --------------------

The final straw was a few weeks later. Lila was furious that Marinette wasn’t more upset. She had hoped that by causing the class destroy her stuff, Marinette would be completely destroyed. She thought doing that, would upset the designer more than it actually had. Lila decided to take another thing from Marinette. This time, she set her sights on the class rep position. She starts telling the class that Marinette had started physically attacking her. She came in with fake bruises to sell the lies. She had told the class that Marinette was attacking her because Lila had asked questions about the next fundraiser. She then got the class to start doubting her. “I just wonder why Marinette was so defensive when I brought up the fundraiser. I have to wonder if something is wrong.” The class started to wonder as well. Marinette hadn’t answered any of their questions about fundraisers either. Of course, this was because they were asking these questions over email, and still sending the emails to the old email address. Eventually, Lila had chipped away at their confidence in their class rep enough that the class called for another election. The class elected Lila to be the new class rep.

  --------------------

Marinette wasn’t as shocked as she thought she would be. Marinette had known for a while that the class was losing faith in her. It still hurt her deeply that her class did not trust her enough to even let her stay as the class rep. After school, the day of the election, Nino, Chloe, and Nathaniel came over to the bakery after school. They were comforting Marinette, who was still very sad over what had happened at school. “It is ok Mari. If they don’t want you as the rep, then they don’t deserve you.” Marinette wiped her eyes and said, “Its not that. Its just that Lila has finally done it. She has taken everything from me.” Nino pipes up, “That isn’t true dudette! You still have us. And your parents. And she could never take away your success with fashion either. That is three things right there that she could never take.” Chloe looked pensive for a moment. “Speaking of your fashion, I had a thought. You have a lot more free time now that you aren’t class rep. Why not take this chance to expand your business? Maybe start a website and take commissions?” Marinette thought about it, she had wanted to work on her fashion more. Chloe was right, she would have a lot more free time now. Maybe it is time for Marinette to think about furthering her future career. “I love that you have that confidence in me Chloe, but that is a lot of work. I don’t know if I can do that.” Chloe just stared at her with a blank expression. “You are being ridiculous Dupain-Cheng. Utterly ridiculous. Even if you were going to do this on your own, you would be able to do it. But you won’t be on your own. I don’t know about these two, but I am going to help you.” Marinette was stunned. “You? You want to help me Chloe?” “Of course, I will help you Dupain-Cheng. Who better to help you start your fashion career than the daughter of the Style Queen herself?” Nino and Nathaniel also quickly volunteered to help. “I’m not sure how much help we will be, but we both have experience running a website. I set one up for my DJing and Nathaniel has one for his comic. We can at least help you with your website.” Marinette was still hesitant. “Oh, come on Dupain-Cheng. What better time to start?” Marinette slowly began to smile. She looked up at her friends with a smile on her face for the first time in hours. “Let’s do it.”

[summerlovingbaby]

War Torn

Y/N was walking home to find it crawling with cops, that’s when she knew something was off. Because it wasn’t just cops it was special agents, and shield agents crawling in her neighborhood, sure she lived in a rough part of town and there were always cops, it was never this many, so she knew something was wrong.

She had an escape plan, she always had an escape plan. She knew what she was doing and where she was going. She hoped that he would be there, waiting for her just like promised, but when she saw the news she knew that he wouldn’t be.  Y/N  was planning her next move when she read another headline.

All the headlines everywhere read: Winter Solider Escapes Custody With The Help of Capitan America and Sam Wilson. Millions of questions ran threw Y/N’s head. Where was he being held? Why was he being held? How did he escape? Why did he escape? And mostly how did they find him?

She had to find him, Bucky would do the same for her. She had to find him, though she would be breaking a promise. They made a deal if something happened to one of them, they wouldn’t come back for one another, but she had to. She owed Bucky a great deal, and he would do the same for her.

All Y/N knew was that The Winter Solider escaped custody, he was with two of the avengers, all the borders were locked down tight, the rest of the avengers are looking for him, and they set up a 12 mile blockade. That means that they were probably hiding out somewhere, planning for their next move. Y/N had an idea of where he would be, and she somewhat had a plan.

The next thing she knew she was at a abandoned warehouse, with an AR-15 slung over her shoulder. She could hear muffled voices, one of them was Bucky’s voice, at least he wasn’t dead. As she walked closer she heard the voices more clearly. They were talking about trust, about trusting Bucky.

“ Hands up.” Y/N said peeping around the corner her gun pointed at the black guy.

The black guy reached for his side arm and had it pointed at her within seconds , but the white guy held his hands above his head. Bucky looked up when he heard Y/N’s voice, he knew that she would be coming for him, but hoped that she wouldn’t, He didn’t want her to be apart of this right.

“ Buck-.” Y/N started to say but was stopped,

“ Y/N I’m okay. Drop it.” Bucky’s voice was breathy and he sounded tired, he looked tired and sad.

“ James-” Y/N said looking for reassurance. Her eyes still trained on Sam.

“ Put it down.” Bucky said, he was watching Y/N, he knew that there was only about a 45% chance that she would actually listen to him, but he had to try.

Y/N shrugged her shoulders and pointed her head toward Sam. Steve began to lower her hands, he took his hand and he pushed Sam’s gun down and angled it towards the floor. Y/N did the same, her finger still on the trigger.

“ Y/N you shouldn’t be here.” Bucky said, his head hung low from shame and tiredness.

“ Neither should you.”

“ I did something bad.”

“ I know, I saw.”

“ Buck who is this woman.” Steve said breaking the silence.

“ She’s a friend.” He said looking at Steve with puppy dog eyes, that he didn’t mean to use, those where just his eyes now.

“ Hate to break up this reunion but we need to leave. Like yesterday.” Sam said putting his gun away. “ We need a car.” He said, he begrudgingly looked at Y/N, who payed him no mind. Y/N was too busy looking at Bucky for any sign of trouble. To be honest he looked mostly okay, just tired.

“ Can you get us a car.” Steve looked at Y/N with those Captain America eyes.

“ Yeah I can.” Her eyes moved between Steve and Bucky. “ Should I?” She asked towards Bucky.

“ Steve.” Bucky said in a quiet shaky voice. So that was Steve, the Steve. Y/N thought he was dead by the way Bucky spoke of him.  Y/N knows how much Bucky cared for Steve, respected him a lot too. Y/N heard story’s about him, and Bucky cried for him. She just thought he would be smaller.

“ I can get you a car, not legally.” Y/N spoke, finally looking away from Bucky.

“ Go.” Steve said nodding towards the exit.

“ No, no, no, no. Go with her.” Sam said to Steve. “ Leave the gun, might get some looks.” He said with a sarcastic smile.

Y/N leaned the AR-15 against a pole, and her and Steve left. They walked for a bit in awkward silence, the parking garage that they were going too was surprisingly full, but they needed a car that wouldn’t be reported stolen. Steve broke the silence.

“ You know Bucky.”

“ Yeah.”

“ I guess I meant how do you know Bucky?”

“ I-  he’s a friend.”

“ How did you two meet?”

“ He saved me.”

“ What did he rescue you from a burning building.” Steve said half as a joke.

“ No, he shot me.”

“ He shot you?”

“ Yeah, I deserved it though, it’s not his fault.”

“ Did you do something bad?”

“Define something bad.”

There was a pause, Steve knew Y/N was playing coy, avoiding questions.

“ I am assuming that he told you about Siberia- the others. I was one of the others.”

“ Okay.”

“ Under the circumstances, the brainwashing didn’t work as well as they planned, so I got away. And then I heard about HYDRA and SHEILD, so I moved to Romania because I knew that they wouldn’t look for me there, but they found me anyway. And then they said the words and they made me someone I’m not. I guess James- or Bucky whatever you call him, he saw me on the news, and then he found me, so I tried to kill him. And then he shot me and hit me on the head really hard, helped me remember who I was. He helped me, he cared for me. I was sick, mentally and physically. HYDRA wouldn’t feed me, I was underweight had some broken ribs, my hair was falling out, I couldn’t keep food down. He kept  me alive when I didn’t want to live. Then there was the incident-”

“ What incident?”

“ I don’t think you want to know. I helped him, and then he helped me. He let me stay, at his place. It was only supposed to be for a little bit, but it felt nice to have someone looking out for you, so I stayed. And then we made plans, plans incase something happened. We promised that we wouldn’t come back for each other, but I couldn’t- I can’t leave him. I owe him, I owe him a lot. More than my life, I owe him about a dozen times- a dozen lives. So he’s my friend.” Y/N said. Steve just now noticed that she was crying, but didn’t press the issue because they found a car.

Steve started to break the window, but stopped when Y/N started to pick the lock quite eloquently. Then she popped the dash board and started cutting some wires, so the car started, The ride back to Bucky was almost silent.

“ You know he saved my life too.. fell off a train for me. I’m glad you were there for him, sense I wasn’t. If he trust you I trust you, you seem like a good person. All things considered.”

“ Thanks.” Y/N said watching the windows, it calmed her to see the tree flying by her. It made her feel like she was flying and she liked flying.

They got back to the empty warehouse, Bucky’s arm was free, and Sam was holding the AR-15 begrudgingly, aimed at Bucky. When Y/N saw him free, she fought the urge to run to him. She just wanted to hug him, to touch him, to feel him, hear his heat, his heartbeat. It looked like Bucky was fighting something too, but he opened his arms anyway. Y/N walked to him, and fell into his arms. He enveloped her in a his arms pulling her close to his chest.

Sam tried to break it up, but Steve made Sam give them a minute, he knew they needed a moment of calm before the chaos. They stopped hugging and got in the car. Steve stopped and got some gear, and when Y/N blinked they were at the airport. Something was about to go down. Y/N knew a fight was going down.

Sam noticed that Y/N and Bucky were sharing words in a language, that wasn’t English.

“ You can still leave, its not too late to back out of this.” Bucky said in Romanian

“ I’m not going anywhere.”

“ You don’t have to stay, not for me.”

“ I’m doing this.”

“ This is a suicide run, if they catch you they will kill you.”

“I could say the same to you.”

“ This is my mess, let me clean it up.”

“ Its our mess, and you’re not talking me out of this so drop it.”

“ We had plans, you made plans. You promised that you wouldn’t come back for me.”

“ You would have done the same.”

“ That’s not the point.”

“ Then what is the point?”

“ You can leave, I won’t be mad at you.”

“ I know you won’t. That’s why I have to stay.”

“Y/N-” Bucky started to started to say but was interrupted by the overhead speakers. They were evacuating the airport it was now or never.

‘ May I have my gun please?” Y/N asked. “ I won’t kill anybody I swear, just distract them.”

Steve nodded for Sam to give her the gun, but Sam was still protesting.

“ We don’t need another gun.” Sam said.

“She’s more than a gun. If you’re going to fight do it right. Show them.”

So Y/N did. She was standing next to Bucky one minute, and then she took the place of Sam. Literally. She swapped places with Sam, then Steve, then Wanda then Scott. They didn’t have much time to further press the issue, because they saw a plane landing. Sam was very thrown off, but was too busy thinking about the fact that he was about to commit a war crime.

Y/N was hiding in the hanger with Bucky and Sam. Steve and Tony seemed to be sharing unpleasant words, then something blew up and they got their signal to start running. So they ran like hell. Then a spider-child crashed through the roof, he sounded pretty young. He sounded adorable. Y/N would have found it amusing if it wasn’t for the civil war part. What really threw them for a loop was when he caught Bucky’s arm midair. He wasn’t punching to kill so it wasn’t full strength, but hard enough to knock him out.

But Sam used his drone to trick the boy into falling off the roof, so they were clear. They exited the hanger, and made a bee line to the quinjet, but were stopped. Y/N was stopped by Nat, Clint was stopped by Black Panther, Falcon was stopped by Tony. Y/N didn’t see much more though. Wanda was putting up a good fight, but Y/N was too. 

Everyone was tied up fighting someone, but they didn’t have time to fight. Steve asked for something big and we got something big. Y/N could hear Scott mumbling about tearing himself in half, then he grew. Really big, taller than the airplane hanger. Scott started swinging his arms aimlessly, then he grabbed onto Rhodey, and Ironman starting blasting at him and Vision flew threw him. This couldn’t get any weirder was all Y/N was thinking. Y/N was distracted with Nat and Black Panther. She was doing her best to hold them off, but Black Panther slipped past her.

She looked up to find Antman being tipped over, and saw the spider-ling flying through the air. He was falling, falling fast. He would hit the ground, hard. It would probably kill him. Without thinking Y/N took his place and crashed into a stack of boxes. She thought it would be fine, maybe break a few ribs, but she felt a sharp pain in her abdomen. She tried to raise herself up, but yelped groaned loudly. She looked down to see a large piece of metal through her stomach,

When she saw it she tried to muffle a loud cry. Bucky heard her scream and asked for her status, she didn’t respond. All anyone heard was heavy panting and muffled screams and moans. Suddenly spider-boy ran over to help her. His mask was half off. Wow, he was young.Y/N thought he looked like he was 15 maybe 16.  

“ Oh mu gosh are you okay? You don’t look so good. Just stay there, Mr. Stark will know what to do. “ The boy stuttered.

Y/N would have found him funny during most circumstances, but she had steel sticking out of her stomach so she wasn’t amused. She was watching when she saw war machine free falling. Crap. He was going to die if he hit the ground. She grabbed at the spiderboy and pulled herself up. She could see him falling, but her vision was fading, her wound was bleeding a lot. Her eyes were growing heavy, she tried to wait til he was closer to the ground, but she couldn’t. Her eyes started closing, and it was now or never. She switched places with him and she was now free falling through air. She was falling, she was 100 feet from the ground.

She opened her eyes slightly and could see Sam racing to her aid.This calmed her down a bit, but she knew that he wouldn’t catch her. Her eyes closed as she fell to the ground, she landed hard. It made a crater where she landed. Sam narrowly missed her, but landed beside her. All Sam could hear was Bucky asking if she was okay, but he wasn’t responding because he didn’t know.

Y/N didn’t know this but Bucky was watching the whole time. He tried to convince Steve to turn it around, so they could help her, he just wanted to help her, but Steve wasn’t budging. Then Steve heard strained gasping and heavy breathing.

“ She’s breathing.” Sam whispered.

“ Good, can anybody help.” Steve was glad that Y/N was okay, but he was still focused on the mission, and Iron Man was still tailing the plane.

“ How far away can you get in the next minute?” Y/N asked, her eyes still closed her voice barley above a whisper.

“ Y/N no.” Bucky yelled.

“ Far.” Steve said, his voice laced with confusion.

“ Y/N don’t.” Bucky repeated

“ Don’t do what?” Steve asked.

Everyone could hear Y/N straining through coms, Bucky’s eyes went wide, he started pleading for her to not be dumb and the fight was over, but it was far from over. Suddenly Y/N’s eyes opened wide, they were glowing white.

 “ What the hell?” Sam said.

Y/N’s chest started to lift from the ground, so did her whole body. A bright white light surrounded her body like a shield, as she rose higher and higher. Everyone stopped and watch Y/N go higher and higher. The energy around her glowed brighter and brighter. They could hear Y/N straining harshly, then she started yelling. She flew up higher and grew brighter, then with one final yell she pushed it outward. The energy field expanded in a wave, knocking Iron man off kilter just enough to let Bucky and Steve escape. Y/N could see them flying off in the distance which made her happy. But that’s the last thing she saw, and then she fell from the air. Sam caught her, but she didn’t know that because she was passed out.

Y/N woke up in a straight jacket, and a shock collar, in a cell. She was confused and in a lot of pain. She didn’t know a lot at the moment, but the one thing she did know was that she wanted Bucky.

part 2

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[silkling]

Silkling, I really love your writing. Could you please write a TFA fic of Isaac and Bulkhead bonding over growing up on farms?

You know, I always forget Bulkhead grew up on a farm. But I would be thrilled to! I hope it’s to your satisfaction!

———————————————————————————————————

Bulkhead was painting again. That in and of itself wasn’t something new. He painted a lot. What made this time different was that he was alone at the base. Sari had taken the others to something she’d called a “theme park”. He didn’t understand exactly what a park had to have to be called a theme park, but she’d told me it usually involved lots of things called “rides” and lots of games. He also didn’t understand how a ride could be fun, but then again he didn’t know what a ride was. He had a feeling that the way Sari used it, these “rides” weren’t the kind of ride that was defined by the dictionary definition of the word. She had also, helpfully, said that theme parks were always popular and the funnest part of the “rides” was the screaming. He had opted out at that point, being more confused by what exactly that weird park entailed. So, here he was. At the base, alone and painting with peace and quiet.

He rather liked it, actually. He knew Bumblebee didn’t understand, but it was moments like this Bulkhead found himself really getting Prowl. Stillness and quiet could be nice, sometimes. He was intending to do a big project today, wanting to take advantage of the rare peace to be found in their make-shift home. The others had said they’d be gone all day. He wasn’t expecting them back till close to sunset.

So when he heard a voice from the front of the base, he was rather startled. Thankfully, he didn’t ruin his painting as he jerked, and he sighed in relief before dropping the brush in the water pot. Then he turned to the voice, head tilting as it called out again. Oh, wait. He knew that voice! The large bot lumbered towards the unexpected guest, and as soon as the smaller form came into view his engine let out a soft churr of greeting.

“Hey, Professor Sumdac.” he said contentedly. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

The human had turned at the sound of approaching pedes, his gaze locking on the Autobot at the soft rumble of his engine. He blinked rapidly, not having expected the largest of their alien guests to be the one to greet him. He would have thought it would be Optimus, or perhaps Bumblebee. Still, it wouldn’t do to be rude. He may have had more humble beginnings than most of his wealth, but his mother had taught him manners and he intended to use them. Besides, Bulkhead had been polite enough to come out and greet him, even though he was technically intruding on the gentle giant’s own home.

“Good afternoon, Bulkhead. It is very nice to see you. I apologize for the intrusion, but I was looking for Sari. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is, would you?” he asked hopefully.

Bulkhead only blinked a few times, looking a little surprised. “She took the others to something she called a theme park. I stayed behind. Screaming for fun doesn’t really…sound good. I’m surprised she got Ratchet to go.” he paused. “Actually, that may be because I’m pretty sure she has blackmail on him.” he added, as if to himself. Then he seemed to remember the point of the question, and he frowned at the older human. “She didn’t tell you?”

“That she’s going to a theme park or that she’s blackmailing senior alien robots?” Isaac said dryly. “She told me neither of those things.”

Bulkhead smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, Professor.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it. I’m certain she would have found a way to the theme park either way. I do wish she would stop skipping her lessons, though.”

Bulkhead blinked. “I suppose. You’re very patient with her. On Cybertron, if a youngling consistently misbehaves than their creators wouldn’t be as patient.” he said offhandedly.

Isaac blinked. “Youngling? Is that your word for a child?” he asked. Then the second part of the statement caught up. “Ah, pardon me for asking, but what are “creators”? I was under the impression you are living robotic organisms, not built by someone else.”

Bulkhead hummed. “Yeah, youngling! I’m one, technically. Though I’m closer to being considered a fully grown mech than Bumblebee. I’d be considered the equivalent of a 16 year old human?” he said, running the calculations in his head. “Yeah, somewhere in that range. Bee is the equivalent of a 13 or 14 year old.” He was pretty good with math. His numbers were mostly right, or at least close enough for his point to be understood.

Isaac was staring. “You and Bumblebee…are not yet adults?” he seemed stunned.

“Nope!” Bulkhead was cheerful. “Bossbot and Ratchet are. Prowl is too, I think? He’s really private but I’m pretty sure he is. He’s older than Bossbot is, anyway.” he smiled, humming to himself. “I actually think Prime is only just considered a proper mech? Like, uh….between 19 and 21 in humans terms?” he tapped his chin with a finger, only just then noticing the open mouthed gape the professor was sending him. The large bot squirmed, uncomfortable. “Professor?”

Isaac snapped his mouth shut with a audible click, then shook his head. “You and Bumblebee-“ he cut himself off, shaking his head again before he kept speaking. “You are not yet adult on your world?” he repeated, still internally flailing over that revelation.

Bulkhead blinked. “Well, no.” he said, tilting his head. “Why?”

“Because if you’re still so young you shouldn’t have been allowed off the planet!” Isaac answered, his hands flapping with his distress.

The Autobot frowned. “Well, I’m close enough to being an adult that I’m considered capable of any type of non-combatant work. When I flunked out of the Academy that left space bridge repairs.” he said. “My creators were fine with it cause they were sure I’d be staying in Autobot space territory, and since they know how well I know space bridges they weren’t actually worried about me being in danger.”

“What about Bumblebee? You said he’s even younger than you!”

“Ah….” Bulkhead hunched his shoulders. “Bee, um. He doesn’t have creators. He wasn’t cold-forged, which means he wasn’t just placed in a protoform after Vector Sigma spat out his spark, but he was a abandoned at a Youth Center as a sparkling. A, uh, a baby.” Bulkhead explained awkwardly. He squired at the probing stare. “Please don’t make me explain Cybertronian reproduction differences. Ask Ratchet.” he said desperately. He did not want to have that discussion.

Isaac sighed. “Oh, very well.” he agreed. He didn’t want to make Bulkhead uncomfortable, after all. “So, creators…I gather they are the equivalent of human parents?” he tilted his head. “Would you mind telling me about yours?”

Bulkhead perked up. “Yeah!” he confirmed. “My creators were real proud when I joined the Academy. I’m lucky they weren’t disappointed that I flunked out. They understood.” his gaze went soft and fond. “I do miss them. I know they were a little sad I didn’t want to continue on with the family business like my older brother, but…” he shook his head. “Breakdown didn’t mind staying at the farm. I always wanted more.” he sighed. “Roadbuster and Beachcomber, my creators, were just happy I was getting the chance to do something I wanted.”

Isaac stilled. “Farm?”

“An energon farm!” Bulkhead supplied cheerily. “The farm was built on top of a really big underground energon spring. Our job was to extract it, purify it, then refine it into different grades and types of energon to be shipped out to the rest of Cybertron.” He shot a fond look around the building. “This place reminds me of the energon refinery on the farm, actually.”

Isaac blinked. “You grew up on a farm.” It was a statement.

Bulkhead frowned. “Didn’t I just say that?”

Isaac smiled. “I grew up on a farm as well, Bulkhead.”

The Autobot’s eyes quite literally lit up at that little tidbit, and he shot a glance at the small lounge area they’d put together. “Sit?” he asked hopefully. “I’d like to know about earth farms.”

Isaac nodded, leading the way and taking a seat on the himself couch while Bulkhead sat himself on one of the odd tire seats. “It was a dairy farm, primarily.” Isaac smiled. “My family raised cows for their milk and sold it to stores and at farmer’s markets.” he sounded fond as he reminisced. “We also made our own cheeses. I still have the recipes!”

Bulkhead tilted his head. “What happened?”

“I…” a pause. “I was always good with machines. I suppose that I, like you, wanted more. So I went to school for robotics and then, well…” he put out his arms. “Here I am.”

Bulkhead hummed. “…I miss the farm sometimes. Even if it was annoying to have to get up so early.”

“Ah, yes. Early mornings.” The human groaned. “I remember those. I despised them. Especially when I had cleaning duty for my morning chores.”

Bulkhead made a look it disgust. “Tell me about it. Cleaning out the energon purifiers and refiners was the worst job on the farm, but I always got stuck with it cause I was the youngest.”

Isaac hummed. “I remember the smell, even years later.”

“I remember the slime.”

He paused, unsure if he wanted to know. “…slime?”

Bulkhead nodded. “Yeah, see, when energon is being refined and when it’s being purified, the process involves removing unwanted contaminates or components at a base level.” he tilted his head. “The finished product comes out looking fine, but then it leaves a very thick, sticky slime on the insides of the machines that has to be cleaned out.” He grimaced. “I really preferred the work of extracting the raw stuff from the spring. It was really hard and labor intensive but at least it wasn’t slime.”

Isaac found himself grinning. “I was much the same with the cows. I detested mucking out the barn, so much so that I would prefer to do twice my share of the milking. That was dull work, but at least I could plan out blueprints for my projects in my head while I worked.”

Bulkhead found himself humming softly. “I liked the farm. I would have been happy there, I think. But…”

“It wasn’t what you wanted to do with your life.”

He grinned. “Yeah.” he paused. “I do miss the songs, though. And my brother, though Breakdown is probably annoyed that I missed so many calls. I miss my creators too.” he frowned. “I hope they don’t think I’ve offlined. I was in stasis for a while.”

Isaac softened, sighing and feeling something fond well up in his chest. “I’m sure they held out hope. Speaking as a parent…well, I don’t think I’d ever stop hoping if Sari were to go missing.”

Bulkhead glanced up, then smiled faintly. “Thanks, Professor.”

“You mentioned something about songs?” he asked with a smile in return, hoping to shift to topic in order to cheer up the green bot.

“Yeah!” Bulkhead brightened. “My creators had old songs that were passed down from their creators, and that they taught us. Whenever we were all working together we’d sing!” he seemed fond as he recalled the memories. “It was always really nice. When we were singing, I almost wouldn’t mind cleaning duty.” he shuddered. “Almost.”

Isaac barked a laugh. “I see! My family never had any songs, but we had recipes we shared and cooked together. We would all make dinner together after a hard day’s work. Those were my favorite moments of the day.” he sighed.

“Your parents must be proud of how far you’ve come.” Bulkhead mused.

Isaac smiled sadly. “They’re dead, Bulkhead.”

“Oh…” he reset his vocalizer. “I’m sorry.”

The human sighed. “It is alright. I have had time to mourn and grieve. And you are right. They were very proud. My father was proud even when I left the farm. He was happy to see me trying to pursue a better life. My mother was disappointed that I would not carry on the family legacy.” he sighed and tilted his head up. “But she did come to terms with it. In the end, she was happy for me and proud of all I’d accomplished.” He glanced at the Autobot, considering. “I own the farm now, though I no longer work there and I have far fewer cows. One of my cousins stays there when I am not to take care of the few cows there are, and I return with Sari during holidays sometimes.” he shot Bulkhead a warm grin. “In fact, I was going to bring her there again for the upcoming Fourth of July. Perhaps…you would like to come as well? I can show you life on a human farm in person.” he offered.

Bulkhead almost seemed to vibrate with glee at the prospect. “I’d like that a lot, Professor! And hey, if you’re ever on Cybertron, I’ll show you may farm!” he said brightly.

Isaac laughed, loud and free. He doubted that he’d ever see the alien planet, but the sentiment was still very nice. “I’d like that very much, Bulkhead. Thank you.”

Just then, he heard the sound of approaching engines, and when he looked towards the door he realized he could see the sun setting. Goodness, he and Bulkhead had been talking for hours. As the other bots stopped and transformed, Sari hopped out of Bumblebee before he did so and froze when she saw her father.

“Uh, hiiiiii, dad!” she squeaked.

Isaac sighed. “Sari, you should have told me where you were going! I was worried about you!” he scolded. “Come, we’re returning home. It’s getting late and I have the feeling you haven’t had proper food all day.” he said.

“But dad-!”

“No buts! The car is outside. Go, please.”

She groaned and grumbled, but after a quick goodbye to the others she obeyed.

Isaac turned to Bulkhead, smiling. “Thank you for taking the time to talk to me, Bulkhead. I enjoyed it.”

Bulkhead, for his part, merely beamed in response. “You’re welcome! I had a lot of fun! It was great to learn more about you, Professor Sumdac!”

Isaac smiled. “Please, Bulkhead. You can call me Isaac.” he said warmly.

The Autobot blinked a few times, and before smiling even more brightly. “Right. Isaac.”

Isaac grinned in response. The young bot’s joy was positively infectious. “I would enjoy talking further another time, Bulkhead. For now, I must take my leave. Goodnight!” he said, before walking out the door.

Bulkhead waved. “Goodnight, Isaac!” he called.

When the sounds of the human car had faded into nothing, Bulkhead turned to find everyone else staring at him. He smiled at his teammates, standing from his seat. “Hey guys! Did you have a good day?” he asked. Then he realized he had forgotten his painting. “Awe, scrap. You can tell me about it later! I have to go!” And then he was gone, hurrying to see if his art couldn’t be saved.

Even if it couldn’t, he didn’t mind. He’d gained a new friend today, and that was worth a thousand paintings in his optics.

Back in the main room, Bumblee could only stare after his friend. “Uhhh…what was that all about?”

———————————————————————————————————

And there it is! I hope you liked it! I gave Bulkhead a family because I wanted to, and yes his big brother is Breakdown. That means his brother-in-law is Knock Out. Ratchet is horrified when he learns this. Roadbuster and Beachcomber are very worried for their youngest. They were told he’s dead but like Isaac said, a parent never stops hoping. The team is currently very confused about what they just witnessed.

Also, poor Ratchet. Sari will never let go of her blackmail on him. How does a child get blackmail on a millions-of-years-old giant alien robot? It’s Sari. You could tell me she convinced Megatron to agree to peace purely by annoying him and I’d believe you. I love her. :D Anyway.

Until next time, folks!

[like-a-bag-of-potatoes]

Then and Now - Smells Like Home

AN: It's been a while since I’ve written Supernatural, or Dean, but I'm back now with a new Series. Gonna be 10 parts in total with a lot of feels and fluffs. I've been toying with this idea since I started re-watching spn earlier this year (thank you quarantine) and then after reading a series by the amazing @percywinchester27​ I got inspired and started writing. Shout out to my awesome beta @thorne93​, you da bees knees. 

AN2: I'm doing a thing where I raffle off a personalised drabble every month. How do you join? Easy, just hammer that reblog button. Reblog is one entry, reblog with comment is two entries. So you help spread my work and you might get a little sumpthin’ in return. Win Win

Pairing: AUDean x Reader

Warnings: None I think. 

Wordcount: 2494

Summary: It's 2010 and you’re back in Lawrence to settle your family’s affairs after your mom passed. You hope to be in and out of town before anyone really knows you’re there, but that doesn't go as plan. Will a certain green eyed mechanic convince you to come back to the life you once had in Lawrence? Or are you going to return to the real world as soon everything is settled?

The small town air in Lawrence was so much different than the polluted, exhaust filled air in New York. Here, you could actually breathe and not feel as though your mouth and lungs filled with whirled up dust and fumes from the constant traffic. It was something that you had gotten used to doing as the first thing when you reached a new place, to draw a deep breath through your nose and smell the town. It sounds weird, but every town and city had its unique smell, and Lawrence? Well… Lawrence smelled like home. 

It had been a long time since you called Lawrence home though, and now, considering the circumstances, you didn't know if this place would ever feel like home again. Even though it smelled like it. 

The town passed by the window as your cab made its way through it, some of the small businesses that you remember going to as a kid had been replaced by others, but some remained just as you remembered them. Like Rufus’ Hardware, where your dad got all his tools and things like that, and Harvelle’s Scoops where you used to hang out after school. The memories made in that place brought a smile to your lips. It had little to do with the fantastic ice cream sundaes they served, and all to do with the group of friends you used to hang out with. At the edge of town, you passed the Winchester Auto Shop, and again you smiled. The facade hadn't changed since you were here last, and neither had the clutter that surrounded it. Dean Winchester ran it now, your mom had told you not to long ago. John had passed away about a year earlier, in his sleep of all things. You had thought then about picking up and calling Dean, to offer your condolences, but it didn't seem appropriate after all this time. 

A knot started to form in your stomach as the cab turned from the main road and started down the gravel path that led to your childhood home. This place would never be the same again to you, not now that you were the only one left. The words your father had preached so many times echoed in your ears as the house came into view, and all of a sudden you felt the familiar sting of tears behind your eyes. ‘A home is not created by four walls and a roof, it's the family inside that makes a home’, but there was no family left in that house, and therefore it was no longer a home. 

It smelled like home though, moreso out here than it did in town. It smelled of freshly cut grass and flowers, and somehow it still smelled of the livestock that hadn't lived in the barn in many years. When your father had died about six years ago, your mom had discontinued the run of the farm, she just wasn't up for the task anymore and you weren't willing then to come back and help her. It was a huge mistake you had made back then, something you'd have to carry the guilt of for the rest of your life. 

As you climbed the few steps up to the front porch of the house, the planks creaked just the way they had always done, and a weird feeling of comfort crept upon you. It was soon washed away though, as you saw the wilted flowers in the pots on each side of the door. Memories of planting the flowers every spring with your mom played in your mind, bringing with them a hollow sadness that you couldt allow yourself to feel right now. The flowers before you had wilted away, just like your mom had done, alone on this farm without anything or anyone breathing life into them. 

You had abandoned her when she needed you the most, and that was something you could never take back. And for what exactly? Your career? The illusion of love from a man that turned out to be something else entirely? The starry eyed dream that a city like New York promised to make true? No. It was all for nothing, and it was too late to make things right now, you could never fix this mistake. 

Pushing away your emotions wasn't easy, especially as you walked through the old house that hadn't changed much and the memories from your childhood threatened to bring you to your knees. No, you had to push it all away. You were here to get things in order so that you could sell the place and then haul your ass out of town again. A week. Two at the most, and then you could return to the messy life you had left back in New York. 

***

It was early in the morning when the sun crept through the curtains of your room, making you groan in displeasure. Back in New York, tall buildings surrounded yours making it so the sun didn't reach your window until 11am. Something that suited your lifestyle perfectly. You were a night owl, always had been. 

As you opened your eyes, you saw the five members of Backstreet Boys smiling down at you and you couldn't help but laugh. The poster you had once hung in the ceiling had been long forgotten, as had the girl that hung it up there. It was barely past six am as you begrudgingly dragged yourself out of bed, but the sooner you got started, the sooner you could get out of here and back to the big city where you belonged. Nothing had changed in your room in the past - what- 13 years since you lived here. Your parents hadn't touched it, and whenever you visited, you never stayed long enough to bother changing anything. 

In your closet you found your old flannel shirt, the one that a certain green eyed boy had given you one night when it was cold. You took it from the hanger and ran the rough fabric through your fingers before you, as on instinct, brought it up to your nose. It didn't smell like him anymore, but you hadn't expected it to either. You threw it on over a white tank top and shimmied into a basic pair of jeans, and then you spotted them. The brown cowboy boots your dad had gotten you as a going away present when you left. The boots that you had left behind because they didn't fit into the style of life you were pursuing in the big city. Unused and filled with guilt they stood there and basically mocked you. With mixed emotions you slid your feet into them, like if it was an effort to make up for past behavior or something. Nothing changed, your dad would never know how much you appreciate them in this moment, but you still wore them, completing the farm girl look as you set out to start the day. 

It was nearly noon before you took a break, the scorching sun forcing you to find some shade to hide in for a little while. Tomorrow you had a meeting with a realtor, she would help you with everything that came to selling the place, what you would have to get rid of beforehand, and what could be sold with the property. So until then, you just went around and cleaned things up a bit. Now it was lunch time, but you hadn't done any shopping yesterday, and there was a limit to how many granola bars one could have. 

Inside you found the keys to your old truck, and with a nostalgic giddiness you practically skipped outside to the garage to find it. It was an old Ford pickup truck, blue with a white trim around it. Your father had kept it running for as long as he was alive, but now it probably hadn't even been started since you were last here. Two years had passed, but you had unrelenting faith in this truck. “Come on, baby. Show me what you’re made of,” you gently coaxed as you slid the key in the ignition. As you turned it, you closed your eyes and prayed to a higher power you didn't believe in. A meek noise came from the engine, but the engine didn't turn at all. “It was a long shot,” you conceded.

There was a greater chance of getting your mom's car to start, a shaggy, old Volvo that she had had forever, but it was well kept so you had a home there. But no such luck. 

You thought for a moment, but it was abundantly clear what your next move had to be, and you didn't really look forward to it. 

As you waited on the front porch, you looked at the hammock chair that hung there. The ropes that came with it had been exchanged with chains that had started rusting. Visions of your mom reading while she rocked back and forth flashed across your eyes, remembering how the creak of the chains had reverberated and amplified up to your room and annoyed the shit out of you. How you had yelled out the window and how she had apologized. You also remembered how your dad had caught you and Dean there one night, way past either of your bedtimes. That particular memory brought a smile to your face. If your dad only had known where Dean's hand was a minute before he came crashing through the front door. Oh to be young and in love again. Or young. Or in love. 

The roar of an engine pulled you from your little trip down memory lane, and as you got to your feet the sleek black car came into view. Part of you wished he would just send someone else out here, but somehow you knew that he would be the one to come. 

As he excited his car, you ascended the few steps from the porch, a weary smile on your lips. “The allusive YN YLN,” he said with that cheeky grin of his. 

“In the flesh,” you responded before you gave him a hug hello. “It's good to see you, Dean,” you offered. So good in fact that your heart skipped a beat as you laid eyes on him. He looked exactly the same as he had done all those years ago, the only difference was that his leather jacket had been discarded somewhere in exchange for a simple black t-shirt. Knowing Dean, though, and you did, the jacket was still somewhere waiting for the summer heat to ease up so that it could be used again. 

Five years had passed since Dean saw you last, but you hadn't changed much, if at all. “I was starting to think I’d never see you again,” he half joked. 

“Well…” you started, but let your words trail off. “Thanks for coming so soon,” you said to change the subject. 

“You kidding? I haven't seen you in forever, couldn't let that chance go to waste,” he noted. “The old Ford?” he wondered, pointing to the open garage. 

“Yeah. The engine’s not turning, so I'm pretty sure it's the battery. I probably just need a jump,” you explained. You weren't an expert in any way, but growing up on a farm you learned a thing or two about engines. 

“The battery?” he asked with a chuckle. “YN, this thing was old as sin back when you got it. I'm not sure it has any more miles on it.” 

You tried really hard not to notice the freckles across his nose, or the bright green of his eyes, or the scruff on his jaw, or how his muscles moved under the shirt as he opened the hood. “She might be old, but I know that she has more in her. She's younger than yours,” you retorted. Trying really, really, really hard not to notice the crinkle of his eyes as he smiled. 

Dean didn't respond to your comment, he just made his way to the driverside to get in and try starting the car. He listened intently as he turned the key, and then he jumped back out. “We can try jumping her, but from the looks of this battery you’re gonna need a new one,” he noted. 

It took a few tries, but it finally started. It wasn't the confident engine roar you were used to from this car though, it was more like a cough and a stutter before it settled into its idle rhythm. 

“Can I drive it into town like this?” you asked, looking up at Dean who was still listening to the engine sounds to make sure it was alright. 

“I wouldn't stop it though. I'm not sure if you'll get it started again if you do.” He looked up at you as he wiped his hand on a rag he pulled from his back pocket. “I'll get you a new battery. Might be good to let her sit until then.” 

You sighed and ran your hand through your hair, holding it away from your face for a moment. “But it’ll be fine if I don't cut the engine off, right?” you asked, a hopeful look in your eyes. “I need to go shopping,” you explained before he could discourage you. 

Dean sighed. “You have my number if you get stuck in town,” he offered. 

“Can I ask you something? If you’re not in a hurry, that is?” 

Dean checked his watch and then motioned for you to go on. 

“I'm here to settle the property,” you started to explain. “And I'm not sure if this is in your wheelhouse or not, but I wondered if you could check out the farming equipment that we have, the tractors and such? I just want to know what I can sell and what's a good price.”

“You’re selling the place?” he asked, eyes widening in surprise. 

“Yeah. I get that it might be out of your expertise, but maybe you can recommend someone who knows about these things?” 

“I can take a look,” he offered. “But not right now, I'm already late for something. Can I come back later tonight?” 

“Of course,” you said eagerly. “How about I make us some dinner… as a thank you?” 

Dean furrowed his brows. “Are you gonna cook?” He thought back to all the meals you had prepared for him over the years. It was sweet and all, but you could hardly call it food.  

“I know what you’re thinking, but I took some classes and I'm actually a pretty decent cook now,” you said proudly, but Dean's face was full of scepticism. “Okay. I know how to cook a few things.” He still looked right through you after all these years. “Alright. One thing. I know how to cook one thing. I hope you like chicken parm.”

“Can't wait,” he said with a chuckle. 

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[dangan-meme-palace]

PokeV3 AU – Boys!

Rantaro

Flying Type

His theme is loosely based on travel.

He got delibird because he canonly likes to bring back souvenirs. Mantyke was his first pokemon and hes been using it to travel around on the water. The rest he got just by traveling to different parts of the world.

Rantaro is a traveler for sure, but when he finally settles down I imagine he would become a pokemon breeder and he studies for that while traveling.

His family is different than canon so heres some info on them too:

His dad is like a green haired Saxton Hale. Used to adventure a lot but then settled and became a business man, and a surprisingly good one at that. He owns the poke center chain and a certain mansion where he let's people visit and battle the staff for fun. Absolutely loves the fact that his son is adventurous like he was and will pay for whatever he needs. Not worried about Rantaro because he turned out all right, so why wouldn't his son? Adventure runs in his veins haha! He's just a happy go lucky guy that really loves his kids and supports them.

His mom is VERY worried about Rantaro in stark contrast to her husband, and gets mad that her husband is so carefree about their own child. She waits impatiently for the day Rantaro finally settles down so she doesn't have to worry anymore. Very doting and cute!

His sisters arent lost, they're the poke center nurses!

Ryoma

Fighting Type

His theme is competition and teamwork!

Ryoma used to be one of the youngest people in the elite four until his pokemon got stolen by the antagonist team. He barely made it out alive, but lost his pokemon and hasn't been the same since.

Would only adventure if someone gave him hope that he could find them again. The adventure ends when he finds them all because he'll want to go back home and settle down now that he's finally got them back.

He wouldn't necessarily get back into the elite four after finding them because he's just not as enthusiastic as he used to be about fighting, but he would probably become someone that gives advice to young trainers around his town.

He used to be super famous when he was in the elite four, and everyone knew him for his competitive spirit and his good sportsmanship. Lots of people still remember him and wonder what happened to make him quit so suddenly.

While he's still missing his pokemon he would hate it when people would be like "omg weren't you in the elite four?!?!" but when he gets them back he just kinda cracks half a smile and chuckles, not really answering but also not saying no.

Korekiyo

Ghost Type

His theme is ancient culture to absolutely no one's surprise.

Frosslass was given to him by his sister. He found golett, yamask, and duskull in different archeological digs that he visited. Banette and misdreavus just took a liking to him, so they joined up with him. He's surprisingly really good with ghosts types? They just like him for some reason...

Korekiyo is an anthropologist like in canon.

His sister is alive but she's really frail after her health took a dramatic turn and has to stay home instead of exploring like she used to. She was super into ice type pokemon, but cant go catch them because her body can't handle the weather anymore.

Kork wants to show his sister the world she cant go out and see anymore and so he travels and brings back souvenirs and pictures for her. She's a little sad she can't go with him, but tries to keep her spirits up despite not being able to fulfill her dream and supports her little brother's dream instead. She's still getting used to the thought of not being able to adventure like she used to.

She was a kinda famous ice type trainer that was about to make it big before her health started failing.

Her health problem is hereditary and her mother died from it when Korekiyo was born because her body couldnt handle the illness and giving birth to Korekiyo at the same time. She won't die as long as she's careful, which includes not going into cold areas and not engaging in strenuous activity. Only the girls in the family get it, and no one really knows what it is.

They dont know where their dad went, but he left after their mother died because he couldn't stand the grief.

Gonta

Bug Type

Fun bug fact: he somehow managed to accidentally catch all the bug types people that freak people out (spider, centipede, wasp/bee hybrid, bugs with pinschers, the parasite one, etc). People have run away from battles with him before and he feels bad about it but cant figure out why they ran.

Gonta doesn't really battle so much as he goes looking for new bug type pokemon. Really enthusiastic about bug types and helps his professor by giving him all the field notes he writes.

Oddly doesn't seem to have any parents? The professor has basically adopted him at this point and they don't talk about it.

Kaito

Dragon Type

His theme is any pokemon he thinks is cool.

Kaito wants to be the champion and if he calls someone his sidekick it means he wants to have them be in his elite four.

He has a penchant for doing things he thinks other people would find cool. Probably has a fucking cape and sunglasses. Wants what Leon has so fucking badly but ends up looking like an egomaniac and a try hard on accident. Totally lies about his adventures to try and look cooler to people, but little does he know that no one ever believes him.

Hasn't actually traveled much despite what he may tell you, but you could get him to tag along as long as there are no ghost types involved. He's scared of them.

Hates cold weather.

Kokichi

Ghost Type

His theme was childish looking pokemon, but then they evolved so it's mischievous pokemon with cool and spooky lore

If the dex entry mentions anything about children, odds are he's caught it already. He's a magnet to those types of ghost pokemon for some reason.

The way he caught his drifloon was cuz it thought he was a little kid and tried to steal him lmao

Kokichi "haunts" (read: terrorizes the townsfolk of) whatever place he's at until he gets bored, then he goes to a new place and starts again. He's another one that oddly doesn't seem to have parents.

He gets excited by adventure and challenges, but I dont think he would leave his country unless he had people he really cares about ask him to go with them, and he'd only go because he doesn't want them to leave him. He'd eventually come around to the idea of traveling and really enjoy it, you just have to give him some time to adjust.

Kokichi in this AU gets really attached to places/things/people that leave an impression on him and doesn't wanna let them go kinda like how ghosts possess places and things and dont want to leave until they get exorcised or find closure. Luckily for Kokichi he "definitely doesn't" let himself get attached to things anymore. I wonder why...?

His tragic backstory is that he's always had an affinity to ghost types and that freaked everyone out so they basically cast him out when he was younger and he's lowkey traumatized by it. Was kinda raised by ghost types in an abandoned, haunted mansion after that because they liked him a lot. Raised in that place but eventually forced to leave because it was so decrepit that it finally collapsed.

Once he meets someone he likes who actually likes him too, he sticks to them like glue and doesn't let go. So much for not getting attached.

Scared of bug types.

Likes Falinks and Pawniard even though they're not ghost types.

Kiibo

Electric/Steel Types

Kiibo is human in this AU. He's a technology enthusiast and a huge fan of Miu's work.

Knows a lot about pokemon like Shuichi and would absolutely geek out with him, but his interest is mostly directed towards steel and electric pokemon rather than all of them, unlike Shuichi's interest in ALL pokemon.

Heir to his father's tech company and that's how he met Miu; she works for his dad. They're really good friends and have been for years.

Magearna has been passed down through his family.

Shuichi

Psychic Type

Shuichi is a pokemon fanatic and is probably in a pokemon fan club.

Studies all day about everything from type matchups to berries but gets overwhelmed and forgets everything he's learned until he really gets into the battle.

Not bad at battling when he's not overwhelmed.

He's good to have around because he's basically a walking wiki page.

He has a knack for finding pokemon and his life goal is probably to try and discover new species or types of pokemon.

His uncle is a detective and he still lives with him like in canon. He's tracks down lost pokemon more than anything though because those are the only cases he really enjoys working on. I imagine he would be like a lost pet/pokemon detective when he's older because that's his specialty.

Solved a big case involving the antagonist team when he was younger and wears a hat to hide his face so they don't recognize him and try to get revenge. Really, really hopes that it will eventually blow over.

He would be nervous about traveling very far, but looking on the bright side of things he gets a change in pace, some new experiences, a chance to avoid the antagonist team, and new friends. He would accept for those reasons, but he would only go with someone he trusts.

[my-kingdom-of-slamalot]

My Way | Chapter 2: And So The Hunt Begins

Words: 976

Authors Note: Kleo could’ve killed Adelaide because if you look at her terminal she wants to kill everyone in Goodneighbor but we’ll just say at some point Adelaide saved Kleo so she’s thankful and actually wanting to help more.

Warnings: Sad Stuff, Cursing, One (1) Sexual Related Thing, Canon-Typical Violence, Recreational Drug Use Mentioned

|*INSERT GIF HERE BECAUSE MY INTERNET SUCKS*|

“Kent, I need you to do me a favor. You still have the Shroud costume I gave to you after killing those people?” Adelaide questioned the ghoul with a thick accent. He lept up from his seat and made a bee-line to the wardrobe he put in his room. 

“It’s right here! Why...why do you need it?” Adelaide took the hero costume from him and took the Silver Machine gun from beside the wardrobe.

“I’m going after the bastard that killed Hancock.” She replied bluntly as she walked out the door. 

“SINJIN? YOU C...CAN’T GO AFTER SIN...SINJIN! YOU’LL GET YOURSELF KILLED!” Kent frantically tried to get the new mayor to come to a halt but to no avail. Instead, Adelaide tightly hugged Kent and went to The Oldstatehouse to change into the Shroud costume she donned long before. Muggsly and Jerry were both hunched over the coffee table of one of the rooms talking about something. What it was Adelaide didn’t care. Instead, she started changing near the bed.

“Woah! Hey! Miss Mayor!” Jerry started. She really didn’t care. All of the watch had seen her nude before during the watch parties Hancock had thrown. And that’s exactly what she had told them. She tossed on the shirt, pants, jacket, and hat. She called out for Dogmeat who had been chilling under the coffee table. She told Muggsly and Jerry where she would be heading and they too tried to stop her. Nothing would stop her.

“I’m gonna see if Kleo wants to come with me.” She uttered as she left the building. The assaultron was busy serving a client when Adelaide had shown up. “Kleo, I’m going after Sinjin, I’m gonna need a strong woman. Care to join?” Kleo seemed to think for a second before responding to the new mayor.

“I could go for some.... hot-blooded murder.” The robot said in her typical seductress tone. She closed up shop for the night and followed Adelaide out of Goodneighbor. The sun was high in the sky as they slashed past super mutants, raiders, and gunners. Adelaide let out a soft chuckle as she remembered the things Hancock had said during combat. Little things like, “OH NOW I’M FERAL!” It’s ironic how that was one of the last things Adelaide ever heard him say during one of their last sexual moments. 

“We’re gonna need to set up camp for the night,” Kleo spoke as she took glanced to the now darkening skies. Adelaide nodded in agreement as the robot hauled her off to some abandoned building. Dogmeat followed both into the building and sat to watch while they sat down a sleeping bag for Adelaide. Kleo stood beside the sleeping bag and went into a temporary sleep for the night.

A few hours had passed. Dogmeat had wriggled his way under Adelaide’s arm and Kleo was still partially asleep. That’s when it happened. Raiders. Dogmeat woke up and started growling and Adelaide had fully woken up. Slivers of moonlight had peaked through the run-down building and she could see the outline of three raiders. 

“Kleo,” Adelaide whispered. Kleo began to stir. “Raiders. Get ready.” Kleo’s eyes did their usual red glow as she raised her claw-like hands. As the raiders rounded the corner she began the laser fire. Adelaide used her old shotgun rather than the Silver Machinegun to take out at least a raider and injure another. Kleo finished taking out the rest. Neither could sleep after what had happened. Well, Kleo could and Dogmeat could have, but Adelaide couldn’t. 

She already hated killing unless she had a truly valid reason. Sinjin? She had a valid reason for wanting to slaughter his ass and she would take joy in it. Kleo, despite not being the comforting type, tried her best to comfort her. “They probably had families or pets!” She sobbed. Kleo sat a hand on Adelaide’s head and stroked her hair.

“If they did have family or pets there is a likelihood they were all as bad as them. Now come on, hot stuff, get some sleep so we can kill the bastard that killed Hancock.” As usual, due to her seductive personality, she emphasized certain words such as hot-stuff, kill, bastard, and the last part of Hancock’s name. 

Dogmeat barked and laid his head in Adelaide’s lap trying to comfort her in his own K-9 way. His fur was soft and it reminded Adelaide of her three childhood pets. One, an Irish wolfhound, named Dog. Yeah, real original. Her grandpa always wanted to name a dog...well...Dog. So that’s what Adelaide did. Dog was the first animal her parents gave her and she loved him to death. Wherever she went he went. They were like Tommy and Spike. 

Kleo stood beside Adelaide as she sat up against the wall with Dogmeat still in her lap. The trio stayed in silence until sunlight started filtering through the cracks of the building. Adelaide stood up and started to gather the contents of their make-shift camp so they could head to Milton General Hospital and take out the bastard. This time Kent was safe in Goodneighbor and hopefully, no one innocent was being held captive by Sinjin.

Kleo bent down and rubbed Dogmeat’s head before following Adelaide out of the building and back onto the roads. The sun hung low in the sky which was painted a beautiful orange, red, and purple color. Tears came to her eyes again as she remembered the times she and Hancock would climb to the top of The Oldstatehouse and watch the sunrise as well as the sunset. All while getting high off jet or mentats...hell...sometimes both. Then they would stay there and sometimes spend a little while longer making soft love until they head back in.

[votederpycausemufins]

Red: ch 8 Alya

this is cross posted on Ao3 (my user name is causemufins)

Marinette talks with Alya and then Ladybug tells Alya about the problems with Lila.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “And then I swear at the end of the video Chloé was saying that the fox and turtle are being replaced too!”

    Marinette half comforted her former friend, but the feeling behind it wasn’t there. “If they’re being replaced, maybe it’s for a good reason. Maybe they moved, or are too busy to be heroes, or something else.”

    “No they’re not!” Alya exclaimed, surprising Alya. “I mean, one maybe, but both of them?”

    “You run the Ladyblog, right. And you’ve met with Ladybug. So maybe you can try talking to her. Besides, you don’t know if Chloé was telling the truth.”

    Alya looked happy at that. “You’re right. Chloé probably would lie about something like that. Thanks girl!” And with that she left.

    Marinette sighed as the reporter left. She hated how Alya was acting like an off again on again friend. Especially since it was directed for her. If Alya needed someone to comfort her, or listen to her rants, or agree with her, she would go after Marinette. But if Marinette needed the same from Alya, she was pushed aside.

    “Maybe if you talk to her as Ladybug, she’ll understand better.” Tikki said, flying out of Marinette’s purse. “It might also help her change for the better!”

    “I guess you’re right. It’s after school and I do have extra cookies. Would it be okay if we did that now?”

    “Sure Marinette!”

    So Marinette changed into Ladybug to head to the rooftops. She had to wait a minute or two before Alya walked out of the building and she waited a few minutes more, carefully following before swinging by in full view of the reporter.

    “Ladybug! Hey Ladybug!”

    Ladybug looked over her shoulder and then swung back towards Alya, landing near her. “Hey Alya.”

    “Ladybug! I’m so glad I found you! I need to talk to you about something important!”

    “What’s wrong?” Ladybug asked, though she knew the answer.

    “Do you know the new blog, Spot-light? Well there was a new video and I think Chloé was trying to say Nino and- well the fox and turtle holders are going to be replaced!”

    “First of all, I do know that blog. The creator approached me about it before making it.” Ladybug started her answer, motioning for Alya to hold her questions. “Second, you unfortunately heard right. New people are going to get the fox and turtle miraculouses.”

    “What?! Why?! Is this creator person getting one of them?”

    “Please calm down Lila. No, they are not. I just want to give them to people I trust more if they are available.”

    “Trust mo-” realization ‘struck’ Alya. “Lila! She’s not traveling anymore so she can get the fox miraculous! She’s said you two are friends! I even have that report on the-”

    “Ladyblog.” Ladybug finished. “I know, and I saw and… could you take the video down?”

    Alya was taken aback. “Take it down? Why?”

    “Alya, you’re a reporter and you want to be a good reporter. A good reporter doesn’t post lies.”

    Now Alya was angry. “Lies! They aren’t lies! Lila said that you two were friends!”

    “She may have said that, but we are not friends. In fact I think she hates me. I… sort of got her akumatized once.” Alya stood their with her mouth wide open as Ladybug continued. “I saw her bragging to someone else about how she’s the descendant of a fox hero of the past and that she had the fox miraculous. She claimed to be my friend in front of someone who I have seen seems to like me greatly. My best guess is she told that lie to take advantage of him. I got upset that she was using me that way, pretending she has connections to get what she wants. It… reminded me of Chloé before she started to improve. She also talked to someone I liked and tried using her lies as a way to get him to like her. I felt jealous at first about how she was managing to do it and I got upset at that too. But I owned up to my mistakes and when she was akumatized I did my best to help her and gave her a chance to start again. Unfortunately she didn’t accept.

    “Sometimes I wonder if I hadn’t been so mean, would she be nicer and more likely to improve? Then when the video you had came out about us being friends, my actual friends believed it, even when I tried to tell them otherwise. Other stories of hers surfaced and when I tried to poke holes, there was already a way to cover them. By the time I had real proof, the people I thought were my friends abandoned me. I thought if I tried again, they would get angry at me. Then, I met with someone else having a similar problem.”

    “N-no…” Alya started, half mumbling. “Marinette. Sh-She was right all along. Oh no! And I kept asking her for proof when I didn’t even have any. No wonder you’re upset at me!”

    Ladybug nodded and put a hand on Alya’s shoulder. “Marinette has helped me a few times. She lives close enough to the school that with the number of akuma attacks there, I’ve landed there to rest. Chat Noir does too sometimes. Marinette is nice. In fact, she actually made me think of giving you and Nino your miraculouses.”

    “And you’re taking them away because we betrayed her trust?”

    Ladybug nodded. “At first she wanted you to have a second chance, and a third one, and a fourth. Even though she was betrayed and hurt, she didn’t want to hurt you as well. But after a talk, it was agreed that you can’t be heroes anymore. I’m sorry.”

    Alya shook her head. “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. Even after how horrible I was to Marinette, she still wanted me to be a hero? I should go find her and apologize.”

    Alya was about to run off when Ladybug stopped her. “Start by texting or calling her that you want to talk. She may want some time first. You shouldn’t just leave her alone because then it will feel like you’re hiding that you know, but just take it slow so you don’t fight again, okay?”

    “Yeah.” Alya nodded. “Thanks Ladybug. I’m sorry I acted this way.”

    “If you want, you could help choose people who might work well with the fox miraculous.” Ladybug suggested. “We’re not sure, but the fox miraculous may end up with a permanent holder.”

    “The turtle too?” Alya asked, feeling a little sad that the new holder could keep the miraculous when she could not.

    “No.” Ladybug started. “The turtle is staying a temporary miraculous. There is already another holder but they are not well enough for consistent battling. And it was agreed before Abelle was made into a hero that if there was a bee holder chosen, they might visit Chloé, so we may be able to do the same with you and the fox holder.”

    Alya agreed. “That…. That would be nice. Thank you Ladybug.”

    “Alright, I’ll see you Alya. Bug Out!”

[princess-of-the-corner]

Taking a little break from Monarch to write out some of my ideas for how Love Eater and Miracle Queen work out in the Lady Luck AU. I thought about waiting for Chat Blanc and Felix but oh well!

As the Lady Luck AU focuses on Chloé having the Ladybug Miraculous from the beginning and getting actual character development until she’s a decent person and leader of an entire team of Heroes, there is no subplot about her and the Bee Miraculous.

Other things in the AU involve the lack of a Love Square by this point(it was only a lopsided triangle to begin with, but Secret Identities have been tossed out the window), and the fact that Chloé’s parents are getting divorced as Audrey is a horrific person.

So naturally, the entire episode has to be rewritten. I have a couple ideas on how to do this, but one of the biggest ideas involves Senti!Bug, or rather, Senti!Luck sticking around a bit longer. So here we go!

After the events of the Episode ‘Ladybug’, the corresponding chapter being called ‘Lady Luck’, Senti!Luck accidentally is left existing.

This is due to a combination of the Peacock malfunctioning due to being damaged combined with the Miraculous Ladybug ability trying to ‘fix her back into existence’.

As she seems like a real person now that she’s not being puppeted by Mayura, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to have an Amok Item(I forget the technical term right now), they decide to treat her like a real person.

Before I go further, let’s discuss how ‘Sentient’ the ‘Sentimonsters’ are, along with ‘Is Senti!Luck a real person?’. And tbh, I’m going to use a computer AI metaphor.

Sentimonsters are like a program’s AI. You program them, give them enough learning capabilities and executive decision making abilities to let them do their job efficiently, but ultimately, they are just a tool.

Senti!Luck, is like this at first. Sure, she’s good at seeming like she has emotions, but she is following her Programming.

After she comes back with the Miraculous Ladybug, she is much more real, like a real person.

The crew decides to treat her as a real person, and tries to figure out how exactly to do that.

Since they’re still not entirely sure if she’s real or not, they don’t let her in on the secret identities.

Lady Luck drops her off at Chloé’s place and then later comes back as Chloé saying ‘oh Lady Luck trusts me to help you’.

Chloé even discusses it with her dad a little bit. She tells him that ‘Lady Luck trusted her to look after a friend’, and basically convinces him to pretend Senti!Luck is a distant cousin or something if asked.

Many things go into cementing Senti!Luck as a person. This all happens during what should be ‘Love Eater’.

One of the first things is a name. After all, they can’t keep calling her Senti!Luck. I’m choosing the name Astra Avalon.

Firstly, because when Senti!Bug happened in Canon, I got flashbacks to W.I.T.C.H. and Will’s Astral Drop.

Secondly, way back in the day when I was writing TOWCK, I was planning on giving Chloé a half-sister named Astra Avalon. Though at that time I had picked ‘Astra’ because I planned to make her an Akuma called ‘Star Maker’.

I’m going to call her Astra from now on in the post.

The next thing is honestly a bit of a make over

Despite being made to imitate Lady Luck, Astra doesn’t look like Chloé. There’s similarities, but between the mask and whatever Magic goes into keeping the identities, Mayura doesn’t know what Lady Luck looks like and just guessed as it would work well enough for the same reasons. Chloé and Astra could pass as related, but not identical twins.

However, they do want to minimize the chance of Hawkmoth and Mayura finding her.

This ends up being a drastic haircut and maybe a bit of hair dye, and a montage of Chloé digging through her closet and finding her an outfit.

The next order of business is seeing how smart Astra is and where to put her in school

Originally I was going to use Ms. Bustier for this, but… Kwami Buster made me switch it to Ms. Mendelieve. Maybe both work on it idk.

Anyway, they want to see what all she knows. Both in a ‘what grade level is her intelligence/learning ability?’ and in a ‘how well does she understand social norms?’ way.

They eventually figure out that she has pretty average intelligence for someone of Chloé’s age group, and a basic idea of how to act in society, but a weird blank in her knowledge on things like common phrases or popular media. It’s not a big thing, but it’s something a little noticeable.

Overall, they agree that Astra could be put in Chloé’s class, but will need some support in social interaction. Since most of the class are Heroes and know about all this, they’re all willing to chip in. Adrien is already planning a movie marathon to catch her up on things.

Cue montage of Astra loving life and being alive

The class is very friendly and understanding, and she’s enough of a blank slate that she can get along with all of them fairly well.

She’s hella curious since even if she has an understanding of things, she doesn’t quite ‘get it’ until she does it herself.

From music to food to tv shows, it’s all new experiences and she enjoys all of them with a hell of a lot of enthusiasm.

Where everything goes wrong is a combo of Lila being a fuck and Astra having a breakdown over the standard ‘oh god I’m not a real person’ thing.

Lila figures out that Astra is Senti!Luck.

As a liar herself, Lila is good at figuring out other people’s lies. She realizes something is up with Astra due to how many lies everyone else is spinning about her, and eventually finds out.

While the info is filed away for the next time Hawkmoth Akumatizes her, Lila decides to confront Astra and threaten her.

Basically, it’s a ‘you help me, and I won’t tell everyone you’re a Sentimonster!’.

Said help would be things like turning against Chloé and friends, getting any dirt Lila could use against them, backing up Lila’s lies, etc.

When Astra refuses, Lila gets all ‘come on, they might be friendly now, but what do you think will happen when they find out what you really are? Our so-called Heroes didn’t even want you around! Just dumped you on some brat with enough resources to keep you alive’.

Cue existential crisis

I mean that literally. Astra begins to question how ‘real’ she is. And to make the AI comparison again, it’s the ‘Sure I feel things, but do I really feel them or am I Programmed to?’ thing.

She also panics over the fact that Lila might be right. As far as Astra knows, only Chloé really knows that she’s just a Sentimonster. The rest of the class has been nice and friendly, but would they do the same if they knew that she wasn’t even Human? Just a Magic Construct that happens to imitate Humanity enough.

I guess it’s a little similar to the Robustus situation, but tbh there’s also the added in ‘Sentimonsters are something evil’ thing added in.

Of course this is enough for Hawkmoth to Akumatize her.

Due to the nature of Astra’s Akumatization, Hawkmoth now knows that she’s Senti!Luck

That’s bad for a few reasons.

I’m debating on Astra’s Akuma form.

Miracle Queen is still an option, being able to control Miraculous holders.

Star Maker though, I could bring her back. Star Maker has the power to create fighters out of Constellations. Think kinda like the Ursa Major/Ursa Minor from MLP. She could use the Zodiac against the Zodiac!

Eventually Miracle Queen/Star Maker is defeated.

Astra is still upset, but the Heroes decide to tell her the secret identities. They didn’t abandon her, and the ‘normal civilians’ she’d been befriending knew what she was the whole time.

She’s still a little sad that they didn’t trust her in the first place, but they explain that even if they trust her, they weren’t sure how much influence Mayura still had over her.

But Mayura had made another Sentimonster during the fight and wasn’t able to control Astra like she did with Feast.

As for what happens to Astra after, I’m not sure. I’ll have to see what happens in Season 4. Unfortunately.

Maybe she stays. After all, she’s a real person now and Hawkmoth can’t control her more than he can control anyone else.

On the other hand, he still might try something with her, so it might be better to send her away. Like the ‘My uncle lives about an hour away from the city and he can take her in’ kind of way.

Either way she is safe and happy!

As for the plot with Master Fu and the Miracle Box…

Lady Luck doesn’t have to go to him all the time because all the Heroes are permanent, so Hawkmoth wouldn’t be able to reliably make a plan that would let him follow her to the Guardian.

And even if he was just waiting and hoping she would, Astra is the only Akuma this time, so it would happen after she’s Akumatized.

Maybe Lady Luck tries to add a new Hero. Maybe Master Fu himself slips up.

Actually, so far I’m thinking that no one slips up.

Master Fu sees how far the Team has come, and especially how far Chloé has come as their leader.

He realizes that they really don’t need him anymore. The only time anyone really comes to him about something other than handing out more Miraculous is either training Chloé as the new Guardian, or Mylene visiting(Something she does so that Master Fu can still talk with Wayzz, since he misses his friend.)

And honestly, with the training there’s very little he can teach that isn’t either clearly outlined in the Book of Miraculous Bullshittery, or things she’d need to learn through experience.

So Master Fu decides to retire.

While he names Chloé as the new Guardian, she does say ‘this is a hell of a lot of responsibility for one person, so the whole team is getting part of this’. Basically creating their own Order of Guardians, in a way.

Since he’s retiring and not ‘giving up Guardianship as a last resort’, the memory wipe thing doesn’t happen.

Instead, he meets up with his girl(I forgot her name like an asshole, sorry), and they leave the country.

Chloé still has his number, just in case he’s really needed, but for the most part he’s still hella gone.

So, again, I might change some things depending on Felix and Chat Blanc, but for now…. >:3c

[iknownothingihearnothing]

Game of Thrones 8.4 “The Last of the Starks”

I. Am. MAD.

This...this week’s offering right here is an example of an episode I loved and loathed in equal measure. There were lovely moments of--

And then...then there were even more ones of--

Y’all know what I’m talking about. From Brienne’s heartbroken face to that motherfucking Northern stubbornness, to Missandei’s capture and death, to Jon still not knowing enough (he’s so naive), to Euron shooting poor Rhaegal out of the sky, to JON BEING A HORRIBLE WOLF-DADDY!

He just ABANDONED Ghost! Without even a pat goodbye! Even if he had to leave him, he could’ve at least spared a frigging goodbye. Yeah yeah budget blah blah. You couldn’t get an actual big, white, fluffy dog for the few seconds needed for Jon Snow to bid his wolfy buddy who RISKED HIS LIFE for him a proper farewell?! 

I pet my dog and call him a good boy when he gets the ball and goes poop outside. You couldn’t spare more than a “laters, brah” nod to your poor puppy?!

LOOK HOW SAD HE IS!

I want to hug him and kiss him and snuggle him and tell him he’s the goodest boi in the North. Pawning him off to Tormund to live Beyond the Not Wall where he knows no one, what’s the matter with you, Jogon of House Snowaryen?! 

Dany may be leaning a biiiiiit too far into her House Targaryen roots but at least she is a dedicated pet owner. We know she loves her...scale...babies? They have spines, right? Spine babies? Fire babies. 

Ugh, let’s get into this week’s slice of sadness. 

The episode opens with a massive funeral for those that died in the Battle of Winterfell. Including Jorah, Lyanna, Theon, Mr. Edd, and Beric, who is now definitely out of lives.

Dany, crying, leans over Jorah’s prone body, kisses his forehead, and whispers something we’ll never know into his ear.

At least, we’ll never know unless either Emilia or Iain decide to spill the deets. Iain Glen said in a post-ep interview with Entertainment Weekly that it was “something definitely profound”. But who knows, he could be bullshitting us and she actually said “I like muffins” or something and he had to lay there pretending to be dead.

On second thought, she’s English. So perhaps she prefers crumpets. 

Sansa is sniffling over Theon’s body and places a House Stark pin in his shirt. Jon is looking out at this sea of corpses like--

There is no more Ol’ Nighty to bring them back.

Or so we’re led to believe. 

The camera pans across the mourners and we catch a glimpse of our favorite furry friend.

He’s such a good, loyal doggo. Wolfo? Direwolfo. 

Oh Jon I am so MAD AT YOU!

Saving my rage for a bit further down. Barely.

Jon gives a farewell speech about all their dead--they defended the realms of men, no one will ever see their like again, etc. etc.--and then some of the mourners who knew the dead best are given flaming branches in order to set the bodies alight. In the North, they burn their dead. I guess cus the ground is forever frozen and one day someone from House Whyrevr said fuck it and lit his dead grandma on fire. 

Afterwards, they have a joint funeral/”glad we’re alive” party because of course they do. Kinda reminiscent of our shiva except people are sitting on chairs. At the head table, Jon is looking awkwardly at Dany--apparently, that whole “we’re technically related and oh you have a better claim to the throne than me” stuff has lingered beyond fighting for their lives. Damn. Not even surviving Team Undead’s invasion could get them out of that business. 

Elsewhere, Gendry asks the Hound if he’s seen Arya. Does Robert’s bastard have a wee more on his mind than all the death? Like, say, his wee-wee?

Some things never change, no matter what century it is.

Gendry tries to stutter that it’s not about that but the Hound knows it is. Gendry’s alive and the dead are not. Might as well take ASS-vantage of it.

Eh? Eh?

Srsly, this is like the worst party in the history of Westeros. Uh, aside from the Red Wedding (but not the Purple one, #ByeJoflecia). They just buried burnt a heap of their dead, two of their hosts are keeping a huge secret from everyone (and being super weird around each other because of it), and Dany’s endlessly fighting against that frigging Northern hardheadedness. It’s not GREAT, Bob.

Speaking of that famous Northern jackassery, Dany sees an opportunity to crack that stubborn ice as Gendry crosses the party hall. Calling him over, she at first inquires about his parentage, asks him if he knows that Robert Baratheon kinda had her whole family killed and wanted to slaughter her as an infant. Gendry’s like “Whoa, did not know that he was my daddy until after he was dead” and Dany’s all “Yep he dead and so are Renly and Stannis so who’s Lord of Storm’s End?” and no one knows.

This is Dany’s chance to make good.

Not only did Gendry survive the battle, he got laid and made a lord!

You go, Glenn Coco, Gendry Baratheon, Lord of Storm’s End!

Ser Davos, the onion knight (lol) leads the room in a toast to Gendry, the newest Lord on the block.

Don’t be fooled cus he’s now a Lord, he’s still he’s still Gendry from the Forge.

Tyrion remarks that now Gendry will forever be loyal to her and Dany says that he is not the only one that is clever.

Sansa, hearing this, looks at her like bats just sprouted from her head and flew out her ears while her eyes turned red as she chuckled evilly. 

Oh, come on! This is what people in powerful positions on the show do. That’s how they secure allies without, you know, marrying their allies. You want someone’s loyalty, do something for them. Dany’s not the first one to try that. And it’s not like she had Drogon Dracarys the hell out of one of Gendry’s enemies to secure that loyalty. She made him a damn Lord. 

The Starks are annoying me this season. Except when Arya laid the smacketh down on Ol’ Nighty. 

In another corner, Jaime and Brienne are celebrating by gettin’ crunk. She offers a halfassed excuse but Jaime’s all “Dude, we defeated a horde of zombies. Drink up!” and she does, giving him this look:

Bow chicka wowowwwwwwwwwwwwww chicka chicka boom.

Not that I can blame her. Aside from all that incestin’, Jaime’s a fine slice of Kingslayer pie.

Ser Davos of House Onion and Tyrion are talking about Melisandre, who last episode took off her necklace and aged into evaporation. Davos tells Tyrion that he swore to Melisandre he would kill her next time he saw her but he never got the chance, as she did it to herself. Or the Lord of Light took her. Or whatever. They don’t like him much. They fight his war and then he fucks off. 

Tyrion crosses the room to BranBot, who is reading in his wheelchair, which Tyrion calls a clever invention. I keep forgetting that wheelchairs aren’t really a thing in Westeros. 

BranBot, as animated as he’s programmed to be, delights in telling Tyrion that it is reminiscent of the one Daeron Targaryen made for his nephew over a hundred years ago. Just your regular episodic reminder that BranBot is...BranBot. 

Tyrion says BranBot’s BranVision will come in handy as the Lord of Winterfell, which he technically is as Ned Stark’s last surviving “trueborn” son. But BranBot doesn’t want it. BranBot doesn’t really want anything or anyone. He totally just doesn’t care, man.

Tyrion envies BranBot’s ability to not give a shit and and BranBot tells him not to because--

Yes, yes. You’re an “old soul”, BranBot. BranBot calls himself a grandpa in a teenager’s body. He forgets what generation he is and refers to people his own age as “you youngins”. He constantly crows that he is a “proud introvert” who’d rather be reading. We KNOW, BranBot!

Tormund leads a toast (with his awesome tusk cup) to the Dragon Queen and everyone cheers so maybe Dany’s making headway. She herself turns her own toast to Arya, the hero of the Battle of Winterfell. 

Jaime, Brienne, Tyrion, and Pod are playing a Westerosi version of Never Have I Ever with wine and Tormund, a bit drunk off his red ass, is going on and on about how awesome Jon is. Meanwhile, Dany is listening and though she toasts him she knows that she will always be an outsider to these people and they fucking love Jon.

Also, this happened:

“May I have your name?”

“Daenerys Stormborn, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Mother of Dragons.”

“Okay, that’s Daniellris Shoehorn, the Sunburnt, Keen of Mean Girls, Bean of the Sandals and the Thirsty Hen, Call Sweetie of the Eight Assed Bee, Brother of Wagons. Is that correct?”

“Ugh. Just write Dany.”

“Okay, Fannie.”

The PTB at HBO have since digitally removed The Cup from the episode but wah bro I think they should have kept it in. That’s hilarious. I want to live in a world where Starbucks exists on Game of Thrones. And it survived the battle. Of course House Styrbycks is right around the corner from Winterfell, conveniently situated at the heart of the town square. 

And you better believe there’s a ride-thru for the horseman on the go.

I enjoy how HBO came out with a statement that Dany ordered herbal tea. I can see Dany ordering herbal tea.

In warmer climes, though, she’s definitely a dragon fruit smoothie girl.

Aside: Liam Cunningham recently went on Conan and gifted him The Cup:

He swore it was the actual cup. How is that even possible?! Wouldn’t someone have tossed it after all this time? And the fact that it was still around had to signal to someone on set that a) trolol a person in Consistency fucked up and at least one dude on GoT knew it before the ep aired and b) that Emilia’s discarded latte appearing in a scene would be gold. 

I want to believe it’s legit. I want to believe so hard that it’s the real Cup and that all these circumstances came together to land the Cup in Liam’s hand all this time later. I want to, and so I shall.

(Yes, I know it is not the real Cup but shh I want to BELIEVE!)

So, Dany is watching everyone have fun and be close with each other, especially how everyone seems to love Jon here, and she’s feeling even more like an outsider (and not a bit insecure about her claim to the throne) and she gets up and leaves. Varys starts to follow her with his watchful Varys eyes.

Jaime, Brienne, Podrick, and Tyrion are still playing their game and getting increasingly drunker doing so. Drunker and more giggly. Everything’s all well and good until Tyrion suddenly sits up, looks Brienne in the eye, and accuses her of being a--dun dun dun--virgin. Pod nonchalantly sips his wine.

Brienne clambers out of her seat and mutters that she has to piss. Tormund, also drunk as a skunk, stumbles to their table, celebrating, and asks--

Well? Who did shit in Tormund’s pants?!

It’s kinda awks because Tormund is into Brienne but Brienne has feelings for Jaime and when did GoT become a teen soap opera? It’s like The North 00000 up in here.

Tyrion pours more wine into Tormund’s tusk as Jaime follows Brienne out.

Dramz. Will they? Won’t they? Stay tuned next week!

No, they totally will right now. 

But first, Tormund is going to bitch.

I was cheering for Tormund to win his Big Woman, I really was. But then Jaime showed up and their chemistry just...reignited. 

Tormund expresses sadness until a Northern lady volunteers to take up his time. The Hound continues to drown his sorrows--tho idk what he’s sad about, he’s alive--ignoring even the prospect of sexytimes until Sansa, finally able to make eye contact with the Hound, shares his table. It was a long time ago when she couldn’t even look at him, back when she was just a little bird. But now she’s a dark phoenix (see what I did there? Because Sophie Turner is starring in Dark Phoenix!) risen from the ashes, having had her revenge against her latest torturer/husband, Ramsay Bolton via his own hounds.

None of if would’ve happened if Sansa had left K.L. with the Hound way back when. But Sansa gently squeezes his hand and says that without Ramsay, Littlefinger, and all those assholes, she’d still be that same naive little bird.

Anyone else get the vibe that David and D.B. are kinda...trying to justify what Ramsay did to Sansa here? Just an itty bit? All that’s missing is Sansa belting out Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter”. 

Outside, Arya is practicing her archery skillz when Gendry, the new Lord of Storm’s End, is imbued with way too much enthusiasm after being dubbed by Dany and legit blurts out a proposal to his one night stand right then and there.

Ugh. I can’t wait until my shitty copy of Phhotoshop arrives. Until then I have to use paint shop. Look at those corners! They are making me itch.

Anyway, Arya obvs rejects Gendry’s proposal and it’s d’awww. Gendry is like that guy you hook up with once because he’s hot and afterwards, he won’t stop calling you and texting you and trying to add you as a Facebook friend and messaging you on Twitter suggesting that you fly to Michigan to meet his parents for Thanksgiving. This is something I know nothing about.

Ah, now we’ve circled back to the Jaime and Brienne Show!

That’s if he’s not still obsessed with his siiiiiiiiissssterrrr (she’s a psycho!)

Brienne’s throwing more wood onto yet another hearth (there are a lot of hearths in Winterfell) when Jaime knocks on her door and unceremoniously proclaims that she did not drink when Tyrion accused her of being a V to the gin. He pours her some Dornish red and mutters about it being hot in here; Brienne has learned in the North to always keep a fire going. Jaime has learned in the North that he hates the fucking North. Brienne counters that it grew on her.

Jaime wonders if Tormund Giantsbane also grew on her. He seemed quite sad when she left.

He wants the V-card and the V.

Jaime chuckles awkwardly and begins to pull at the collar of his shirt because “it’s bloody hot in here”. Brienne watches him warily for a second until she gets annoyed and unties the garment herself.

You see where this is going.

First time for Jaime, too. He’s never slept with a knight before.

Has he ever slept with anyone who isn’t his sister before?

Shows how much he cares about Brienne. Letting someone in who isn’t Cersei. That’s a good, non-incestuous step forward, Jaime.

It’s a big moment for Brienne, too, aside from the obvious. She’s had a thing for Jaime for years. This is like that guy you’ve been secretly pining for suddenly realizing he’s totally into it.

In the next scene, Dany confronts a “slightly drunk” Jon, who did not know Ser Jorah very well, but he is pretty sure that if he would’ve chosen a way to die, it would have been protecting Dany. Dany knows Jorah loved her, but she couldn’t love him back--not the way he deserved, not the way she loves Jon.

They kiss and it’s like before Jon ever found out he’s also Aegon until--

“Does Westeros have any support groups for this? Maybe I should ask Ser Jaime.”

Jon wishes that Dany had never told them that they were related and I’m sitting here like--

He would’ve figured it out sooner or later, right? I mean, if he knew he was half Targaryen and all and Rhaegar was his daddy. I understand math is hard but...

Dany tries to forget and sometimes almost succeeds until tonight when she saw all those people gathered around him, looking at him like I’m The Hero! People have looked at her like that before, lots of people, but not here, not on this side of the Narrow Sea. She begs him not to tell anyone of his Targaryen lineage, to swear Samwell and BranBot to secrecy, so that things could go back to how they were before between them. 

But Jon must tell Sansa and Arya because family and nobility and Starkism and all that. And we all know Sansa no likey Dany, despite the fact that HER ARMIES SAVED YOUR NORTHERN ASS.

She begs him some more and he promises that she is his Queen and they can all live together. And they can, if Jon keeps his trap shut.

In Brienne’s quarters, if the animal pelts are a rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’!

Warm enough in there now, Brienne? 

In the War Room--damn, don’t we all aspire to have a War Room?--our favorites are gathered around the Great Table or whatever with a map of Westeros in the center and some old timey Checkers pieces standing in for the two sides’ respective armies. Obvs, the Battle of Winterfell has depleted Dany and Jon’s forces greatly, but they still have enough to wage hell on Cersei. Yara has taken back the Iron Islands in her name, and the Prince of Dorne pledges his support. Still, Cersei has the Golden Company led by Guyliner Greyjoy and the Lannister Army fresh and ready to fight. 

Dany is not appeased. No matter how many noble people declare their fealty to her, while Cersei still sits on the Iron Throne, she can still call herself Queen of the Seven Kingdoms.

Jon, Tyrion, and Varys reassure her with talk of dragons and the people of K.L. having rebelled against their King before. Sansa adds that she wants to give the armies time to recuperate, which is also--

--since they just fought Team Undead and all. But Dany wants to hit up K.L. NOW NOW NOW because the longer they wait, the stronger her enemies become. Or something.

Someone’s starting to lean a wee too far into her Targ roots. It’s just common sense, Dany. Take a chill pill.

But Jon sticks up for his GF. Very sternly, he swears the North will honor its commitments and allegiance to the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms and blah blah blah. 

Dany appears smug.

Silently, Arya and Sansa trade glances like--

Tyrion narrates that Jon will lead the remaining forces up the Kingsroad while a smaller group of them will take a fleet to Dragonstone while the Queen will follow on...dragonback.

Jaime will remain at Winterfell as a guest. 

The camera ticks to Brienne’s expression at the mention of her former crush and new lovah’s name:

She’s trying to outwardly remain passive, but inside--

She’s getting laid and she’s not dead. Those are good times in Westeros.

Dany completes the conference and Arya demands a word with Jon. Outside, Jon is like “We’d all be DEAD if not for her” which is again DUH and Sansa snides “Arya’s the one that killed the Night King”. Arya wouldn’t have had the chance to kill the Night King without Dany’s armies because they’d all be DEAD. Seven Hells, you people are ridiculous. “We don’t trust her, ShE’s nOt OnE oF Us.” That is an absurd reason not to trust someone. I’m from New Jersey. It’d be like me about to be murdered and refusing help from someone because they’re from Florida. Don’t trust her because of her personality not because of where she is from.

And then, like a naive idiot, Jon actually thinks because he swore them to secrecy, Sansa and Arya will for sure totally keep his true lineage behind zipped lips.

This here was one of the scenes that made me roll my eyes so hard, they almost got stuck.

From that, thankfully, GoT moves on to one of my favorite scenes of the episode. Jaime and Tyrion sitting there over drinks gossiping like yentas. Jaime’s giving his younger brother all the deets vis-a-vis his liaison with Brienne. When Tyrion doesn’t say anything snide, Jaime is visibly uncomfortable, and Tyrion claims he’s happy Jaime is happy. 

And--

Tyrion has been waiting for ages to make tall person jokes.

He also wants to know what she’s like “down there”. Jaime calls him a dog.

But then Bronn shows up, finally after Creepy Qyburn hired him to kill Cersei’s “traitorous brothers”, a bit drunk off his ass, brandishing that crossbow. After he smacks Tyrion in the nose, he tells them that Cersei offered him Riverrun, but he knows the Queen is fucked after seeing Dany’s dragons, even with their depleted forces. And Cersei can’t pay up if she’s dead, so...

So Tyrion counters the offer. Highgarden for Riverrun. Bronn would be made Lord of the Reach. It’s certainly open now that House Tyrell has been decimated (RIP Olenna, you ultimate badass). Jaime blanches. How could Tyrion just give him Highgarden? Well hell, it’s better than being dead. 

Jaime doesn’t think Bronn will seriously kill them. Jaime is wrong.

Jaime scoffs Highgarden will never belong to a cuttrhoat but Bronn laughs pish-posh. Isn’t that how all the great Houses started? Kill a few hundred, they make you a Lord. Kill a few thousand, they make you a King?

Tyrion gives Bronn-y his word he’l give him Highgarden as long as they take King’s Landing. Bronn opts out of leading the fight, but wishes the brothers luck with a casual “Don’t die”.

The Hound yells “FFS!” when he meets up with Arya on the Kingsroad. Yep, they’re both goin’ Kings Landing way. Nope, Arya doesn’t really care to hang around, even if she is the hero after knifing that horned fucker. Yes, she probably will abandon the Hound again if he gets hurt.

They both have “unfinished business”. Arya to scratch Cersei off her infamous Kill List. The Hound, presumably, to finally fulfill our fantasy of Clegane Bowl!

Elsewhere, Dany is getting ready to leave the fucking frozen North, petting her dragons. And on this show, that is not a euphemism. One of them, presumably Rhaegal, takes flight.

While Drogon remains with her, that mama’s boy.

On the bridge, Sansa is watching Drogon and Rhaegal lift off, trying to shoot them down with her eyes.

Before he leaves, Tyrion tries to convince her one more time that Daenerys is it, or at least a way better option than Cersei, and he believes in her, her people love her, Jon loves her, etc, and he’d totes appreciate it if they were at least allies, and he turns to leave as the camera pans close on Sansa’s face; she calls him back to spilleth the beans..eth.

Did I win?

As Jon is loading up his Horshon Wagon, Tormund jokes that he’s not riding the dragon down south. Jon laughs that Rhaegal needs a break; he doesn’t need Jon weighing him down.

Tormund says that he has had enough of “the south” and plans to take the Free Folk back Beyond the Not Wall through Castle Black. It’s not home, not where they belong. Or, suddenly, where Ghost belongs either after EIGHT YEARS.

Yeah, this is where I RAGE.

Jon insists the North is no place for a direwolf and asks Tormund to take Ghost with him back Beyond the Not Wall, where he knows no one, will be lonely, and have to contend with even colder weather than what he’s used to. Tormund tells Jon that he has the “real” North running through his veins and “maybe” they’ll meet again before he departs and Jon goes to HUG EVERYONE. 

ALMOST.

RAGE! RAGE AGAINST THE JONCHINE!

I know, I know working with the CGI wolves is ExPeNsIvE, blah blah. I DON’T CARE. There are dragons that spit actual fire on this show. Y’all couldn’t substitute a real big, white, fluffy doggie so Jon could bid his furry friend a real goodbye?! This was the saddest scene in GoT history. Forget Ned’s beheading or even the Red Wedding. This right here is inhuman.

The episode’s director, David Nutter, tried to defend himself, weakly, by insisting he thought this way was more powerful. He obviously does not own dogs. Or any pets of any kind. He did not anticipate how much we all love our furry friends. As soon as the episode aired, Twitter lit up with #GhostDeservedBetter. Poor Ghostie. He lost an ear for you! You’re leaving forever. I snuggle my dogs when I just leave to go to the bathroom. I shall honor Ghost here, First of His Name, Protector of the Realms of Men, the One Eared and the White Furred, Warden of the North. Or at least Warden of the Woof. 

I had to watch this portion a few times to get the right screenshots so now I must go snuggle my own doggies. And tell them they are my own little direwoofies and I will never ever leave them. Especially for King’s Landing.

Jon “I’m the worst Wolf Daddy in Westeros” Snow rides off and Sam, Gilly, Tormund, and Ghost watch him go, even after his owner slighted him, because he is the goodest boi on the continent.

On the way to Dragonstone, Tyrion has immediately spilled to Varys because let’s be honest: Jon’s true parentage was always going to stay a secret for about, meh, an hour? And now eight people know--Jon, Dany, Sansa, Arya, Tyrion, Varys, Sam, and BranBot. Which makes it less a secret and more info. If the internetz had existed back then, the whole of Twitter would’ve known within fifteen minutes. #JongonSnowgaryen would trend worldwide. Westeroswide? 

I need to start following The_Mastr. 

People like Jon. They follow Jon (even tho he’s a terrible pet owner). If this were to get out, Dany would lose the North--Winterfell and the Vale. Sansa would see to that. 

Tyrion suggests marrying them and they could rule together. They love each other, but Varys ain’t so sure Jon could ever see beyond that whole “she’s his aunt” thing. And Dany doesn’t like to have her authority questioned. Then Tyrion cheerfully suggests that Cersei could end up killing them all anyway and that would solve their problems.

And then Guyliner Greyjoy comes out of nowhere and motherfucking shoots down Rhaegal!

I literally gasped “NOOOOOOOOO!” out loud when this happened. My animal-loving heart can only take so much, Game of Thrones. There’s a fan theory that technically we didn’t see Rhaegal die and two somethings appeared in the sky in the trailer for the next episode so he could come back with a vengeance. Please come back with a vengeance, Rhaegal. 

Dany is furious that Captain Maybelline shot her baby and orders Drogon to make a beeline for him. But afraid for her other baby’s life, she turns at the last minute. Euron, annoyed that he only took down one dragon, instead aims for the boat carrying Team Daenerys, which explodes under the force of multiple scorpion arrows. 

All of them swim to shore--all of them, except one. Just before the arrows flew, Grey Worm ordered Missandei to seek refuge on the skiff, and, when we shift to the castle gates, we see Cersei presiding over thousands of innocents who will be caught in the crossfire of war between her and Dany, her child (which she tells Captain Maybellne is his), and a captured Missandei.

In the War Room at Dragonstone--every Great House has a War Room, it seems--our merry band is presiding over a map of King’s Landing where Varys looks Dany in the eye and begs her not to attack the castle. They have Missandei, they killed Rhaegal, yes, but thousands of innocents are held inside the Red Keep, which is Cersei’s modus operandi. Varys pleads with her not to destroy the city she came to save but Dany believes she has a destiny to rid the world of tyrants, and she will fulfill it, no matter the cost.

That sounds vaguely culty, Dany. It wasn’t that long ago you were doing all you could to avoid a battle inside King’s Landing, cus you didn’t wanna destroy the city and the people you were gonna rule over. What happened? Don’t go all Aerys on us.

Tyrion suggests offering Cersei her life in exchange for the throne to avoid carnage. Dany knows Cersei will never go for it, but it’s good for PR, anyway. The people will know that Daenerys Stormborn tried to avoid bloodshed, and Cersei Lannister refused.

Take it back a few, Dany. Just a few, mkay?

At the hearth--there is always a hearth chat going on, and Dragonstone is no exception--Tyrion and Varys are having A Talk. Varys has served many tyrants, and they all talk about destiny and stuff. But, Tyrion negates, Dany has walked through fire and made dragons and lived, maybe she really is destined to rule the Seven Kingdoms. 

Varys considers How To Solve A Problem Like Jon Snow. Who may not be a problem so much as a solution. Who would make a better ruler, Jon or Dany? Varys knows Jon doesn’t wanna rule, which is partly why he bent the knee, but maybe a good ruler would be someone who doesn’t want to rule at all.

And Jon’s a dude, which, in ye olden times, was important. Also why he’s got a tighter claim to the throne than Dany does. They’re talking treason right now. Tyrion accuses Varys of abandoning all of the kings he served under. Varys reaffirms that he will always serve what’s best for the realm and the people, thousands of whom will die if the wrong person sits on the throne. 

Tyrion asks what happens to Dany and Varys gives him a look like “What do you think?” 

At Winterfell, the Northerners are rebuilding while Sansa and Brienne are being all secret-like, talking in whispers and glancing at Jaime. He follows them, having the creeping sensation that they’re talking about something that pertains to him. When he asks what’s up, Brienne tells him that they just got word of Guyliner Greyjoy’s ambush on Dany’s ships, Rhaegal’s death, and Missandei’s capture. 

And another for Jaime Reacting to Bad News screenshots:

BUT what exactly is he reacting to? That Cersei is going to die or that he isn’t going to do it himself?

That night, Jaime is watching Brienne sleep, then creeps outside to pack up his mighty steed to head back to the capital. Too bad Brienne wakes up and catches him. The city is going to be destroyed, they all know this. And Jaime doesn’t have to die alongside Cersei.

Jaime doesn’t think he’s a good man. He pushed a boy out of a window and crippled him for life (which led to him becoming BranBot) for Cersei. He strangled his cousin to get back to Cersei. He would’ve killed every man, woman, and child in Riverrun to get back to Cersei. She’s a monster. And so is Jaime.

And then he leaves and Brienne is heartsick and her POOR FACE. 

THIS EPISODE IS KILLING ME.

But--and I know a lot of other people think this, too--after I wrung my hands a bit, I thought about this moment. I think Jaime’s going back to K.L. to off Cersei himself, leaving Brienne to believe he left because he thinks he doesn’t deserve her. It still SUCKS but it’s less sucky than thinking he’d rather have his twin sister’s V. 

In said capital, the remaining Unsullied and Dothraki forces, along with Dany and her merry men, are lined up outside the gates. Cersei, Pirate von D, and Cersei’s ever lurking zombie Mountain are on the battlements with a chained Missandei. The camera sweeps to show both sides and when did King’s Landing get so FLAT?

Isn’t King’s Landing supposed to be all lush and hilly? What has Cersei done to the place?! This is Dubrovnik, ffs!

Creepy Qyburn comes out of the gates and Tyrion goes to meet him, Hand to Hand. Queen Daenerys demands Cersei’s unconditional surrender and the return of Missandei, unharmed. Queen Cersei demands Daenerys’ unconditional surrender. It’s a stalemate and they’re not getting anywhere so Tyrion tries to appeal to Creepy Qyburn’s logic. They have a chance to prevent bloodshed. To not cause the screams of thousands of children as hellfire is rained down upon them. It’s not a pleasant sound, Qyburn agrees. Alas, he still goes on about Cersei being the one true Queen so Tyrion pushes past him to speak to his sister himself.

Meanwhile, the rest of us are all--

Dany also thinks this is not a good idea.

Some of the Lannister army up on the battlements with Cersei and Co get their bows and arrows ready but as Tyrion approaches, Cersei waves them off with a smug smile. Calling up to her, Tyrion says he knows Cersei doesn’t care about the people of the Seven Kingdoms; they hate her and the feeling’s mutual. 

He mentions her children, her unborn child. How she loved them more than life itself. And just because her reign is over doesn’t mean her life has to end, her her child has to die. 

Just for a moment, one moment, it appears as if his words are getting to her. Cersei takes a deep breath, lets it out shakily. Lena’s acting in this instance is superb. And then, she crosses to Missandei as Dany and Grey Worm race toward the gate in alarm, and murmurs “If you have any last words, now is the time”.

Missandei’s last word?

With her last word, Missandei is telling Dany to fuck it all and burn King’s Landing to the ground.

Cersei gives zombie Mountain the nod to take off Missandei’s head, and poor Grey Worm can’t watch as the undead monster kills his girlfriend.

Dany shakes, turns, and walks away as Cersei smiles triumphantly.

The Mother of Dragons is so done fucking around, y’all.

Ughhhhhhhhhhhhhh this episode was a ride. I wanted to wring SO many necks. Jon Snow, how does it feel to be the villain of the internet? Jaime, you best be headin’ back to K.L. to kill Cersei. Don’t you be breaking Brienne’s heart for nothing. Burn it all down, Dany! #Cleganebowl!

I am EXCITE for the penultimate ep. So EXCITE!

[romanticsuspense]

The Birds and the Bees

This episode should have come with an emotional whiplash warning.  It was so intense and my emotions were swinging from happy to sad to anxious and then back to happy.  Here are the highs and lows for me...

Heartbreaking: “Ye have my hand here, and my ear if ye need it.”  In the book, Lizzie Wemyss mostly serves as a plot device, setting in motion everything that happens to Roger.  I sometimes forget that she’s more than that.  She’s a frightened young girl and what she did was out of concern and affection for Brianna. In this scene she was nothing but a true friend, offering what little comfort she was able to give.  It was excellently acted by Caitlin and Sophie, especially considering this is the first time we’ve actually seen them interacting.  Brianna in a shocked daze.  Lizzie confused and anxious and unsure of what to do or say.  Brianna trembling and flinching from Lizzie’s touch.  Lizzie trying, but unable, to look away.  Brianna shedding a single tear.  I hope Lizzie isn’t shunted into the background in future episodes now that she’s served her “purpose.”  I want to see more of her and Brianna and I want to see if Young Ian ever realizes she has a crush on him!

Heartbreaking: "I love you a little, a lot, passionately, not at all”  These two just can’t catch a break, can they?  I’m really glad they showed them both trying to find the other.  Although, it makes me really sad that Brianna believes Roger has truly left her for good.  For a second there I was worried she was going to throw his bracelet into the water!  I’m curious about how that mistaken belief will play into the next episode, when she’s trying to decide what to do about the pregnancy.  Abort the baby?  Go back through the stones?  Try to find Roger and tell him about the baby?  Maybe everything will be revealed sooner rather than later.  I need Brianna to know that Roger came to Fraser’s Ridge looking for her and he didn’t abandon her.

Heartwarming: “My name is Brianna.  I’m your daughter.”  Perfection.  I don’t have much else to say, except Sam and Sophie nailed it.  And Brianna and Claire’s reunion was just as amazing.  

Heartwarming: “When it comes to ye, Auntie Claire, I’ve learned it’s better not to ask too many questions.” Young Ian gets the best one liners.  After learning that Jamie and Claire have a 20-something year old daughter they never told anyone about he’s just like, “Okay, cool, hey Cuz.”

Heartbreaking: “And now he’s headed to Scotland.  And back through the stones.”  “Over one argument?”  Same, Claire, same.  Did anyone else feel like this conversation was a little awkward?  I liked it because Brianna admitted she’s in love with Roger.  And I’m surprised she told her mom they were handfast, when in the book she keeps that a secret.  I think it was an important conversation because the audience needs to know that Claire knows about Roger.  But, the whole thing just felt like “here is some information you need to know.”  And honestly, I hate to criticize because she was superb this whole episode, but Sophie’s acting was subpar in this scene.  Maybe it was just the way it was written?  I don’t know.  Something about this scene just felt off. 

Heartwarming: “Ah, it’s good to have family around the table again.”  This scene around the dinner table was exactly what I wanted from “Down the Rabbit Hole.”  FAMILY.  Murtagh telling stories about Jamie as a wee lad.  Brianna witnessing Jamie and Claire’s affection.  Young Ian being “chided” by his mother from across the ocean.  Ugh, so good.  

Heartwarming: “You have Danu, I have Eros.” I had no idea who Eros was when I watched the episode, I assumed he was the Scottish equivalent of Bonnet’s Irish Danu.  But, then I read this review and the author astutely observed that Eros is the Greek god of love, so when Roger evokes Eros: “he’s really communicating to us, in the most succinct way, that every action he takes is because of love.”  Oh, Roger, you hopeless romantic.  I love you.

Heartwarming: “Sure I’m not a bree?  Disturbance, huh?  Murtagh told me” “Aye, ye are.  As was yer mother before ye.  But ye’re one I welcome.”   I absolutely loved how they incorporated this one little quote from the book, about Bree meaning “a great disturbance,” into the episode.  Jamie doesn’t really know Brianna, and Brianna doesn’t really know Jamie.  So they’re tiptoeing around each other not just because of Frank, but because they are Father and Daughter and don’t know what that means for them yet.  This whole conversation under the bee hive was great because they’re finally addressing the elephant in the room: Frank.  But, I also think Brianna is looking for a little affirmation here from Jamie that he actually wants her there and is glad to see her and she’s not an unwelcome intrusion in their lives.  All of this was really cleverly written.  

Heartbreaking: “Brianna!  Oh, Brianna!  No, it’s not your fault!”  So much emotion is going on here.  Brianna’s relieved at finally confiding in her mother about what happened; but then also devastated about her situation.  The confusion, then sheer horror, on Claire’s face when she realizes what Brianna is telling her is just gut-wrenching.  Poor Brianna.

Heartbreaking: “Good day sir, could ye tell me if Fraser’s Ridge is near-”  Roger’s just chillin’ by that tree, minding his own business, politely asks for directions and then BOOM.  He’s knocked out.  It all happened so fast that I’m sure Roger has no idea it was Jamie Fraser who attacked him, right?  I had to cover my eyes, it was too gruesome.  Poor Roger.

[destieltropecollection]

Destiel Trope Collection 2018 Day 17 | Holiday Fic

Witchcraft and Whiskers | @nox-lee​ Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 6,401 Main Tags/Warnings: alternate universe, spell failure, cats, fluff, bed sharing, halloween Summary: Castiel brings home a disgruntled, abandoned cat the night before Halloween. He thinks nothing of it. He lets the animal inside and gives it something to eat and a warm place to sleep. Pretty typical, right? Well, that would be until Castiel wakes up to find his animal companion gone and a certain someone standing in his kitchen. Naked.

Baby Its Cold Outside | @nox-lee​ Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2,043 Main Tags/Warnings: Impala POV, cold weather, huddling for warmth, fluff, christmas Summary: Baby is tired, cold, and dirty. All she wants is to be home in the bunker for the holidays where she can stay warm and clean. But her OTP are being idiots. In which Baby ships Destiel. Fed up with their unresolved sexual tension, she intervenes to encourage a Christmas miracle.

The Archaeologist and the Disco Ball | @saltnhalo​ Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2,761 Main Tags/Warnings: Alternate Universe - High School, Halloween, Halloween Costumes, Fluff, Love Confessions Summary: When Dean had agreed to take Castiel shopping for a costume to wear to Meg’s Halloween party this Friday, he had not expected the actual expedition to be so… difficult.

New Traditions | @pherryt​ Rating: General Audiences Word Count: 27,683 Main Tags/Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Bedsharing, First Kiss, Coming Out, Forced Coming out, Fluff and Angst, Mutual Pining, Disowning, Confessions, Christmas Summary: Cas’s Christmas season is fraught with ups and downs. He’s not going home to visit his family - which is great for avoiding drama - but now that means he’s going to be celebrating it alone - which isn’t so great just in general. And to top it off, none of his roommates seem to be in the holiday spirit. But he’s determined to enjoy the holiday, alone or not. Good thing he won’t be as alone as he thinks.

Express Yourself | @50shadesofsubtext Rating: Mature Word Count: 1,301 Main Tags/Warnings: Halloween, Drag Queens, Drag Kings, Dean in Panties, Public Hand Jobs Summary: Dean and the squad cross dress Halloween in full Disney drag and bar hop around town.

Mermen and Mistletoe | @robotsnchicks Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 6,490 Main Tags/Warnings: Office Co-workers AU, Awkward Flirting, Oblivious!Castiel, Lonely!Castiel, Christmas Fluff, Christmas Party Gift Exchange, First Kiss, Mistletoe, Mutual Pining Summary: When Castiel draws his long-term crush’s name for the office gift exchange, he is determined to find the perfect gift. Unfortunately his co-worker Meg has an unconventional suggestion.

This Christmas (Destiel Christmas One Shot) | @anchorsoutatsea Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 7,488 Main Tags/Warnings: Christmas, domestic fluff, canonverse Summary: Dean isn’t supposed to be able to have this, a happy ending. But he does…with Cas. It’s the first Christmas he, Cas, and Sammy have been able to spend together with the world not ending at their doorstep, and Sam and Cas are determined to make it the best Christmas they possibly can.

Just One Thing I Need | @blueascend Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 3,503 Main Tags/Warnings: Christmas, competition, fluff Summary: Dean and Castiel get competitive over Christmas gifts.

Better Not Pout | @blueascend​ Rating: Explicit Word Count: 907 Main Tags/Warnings: Christmas, PWP Summary: For a moment, everything is wet tight heat, and Cas’ hands grabbing at his hips hard enough to leave bruises, and then Dean makes the mistake of looking down. And promptly bursts out laughing.  Cas pulls away and gives him an irritated look.  “Sorry,” Dean manages to gasp. “I just- I can’t take you seriously with that thing.” Cas sighs and reaches for the Santa hat on his head. “Do you want me to take it off?”

Oh, Howly Night! | @thedogsled​ Rating: General Audiences  Word Count: 1,256 Main Tags/Warnings: Tooth rotting fluff, Christmas fic, Domestic!Dean, Sam gets a dog, Team Free Will 2.0, Proposal, Poetry Summary: It’s Christmas morning in the bunker on Jack’s first Christmas as part of the Winchester family. Castiel is here, of course, and gifts wait around the tree to be given out. And if one of those gifts, labeled “Sam”, gives a little wiggle, then no big deal, right? Illustrated by the author

The Promise in a Kiss | @destimushi​ Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 1,348 Main Tags/Warnings: Valentine’s Day, county fair, Post-Canon, Kiss cam, Marriage Proposal, Cas loves bees Summary: It’s Valentine’s Day and the annual County Fair is in town. Dean uses this chance to do something he’s been meaning to for a long time.

My Christmas Valentine | @ellen-of-oz Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 9,756 Main Tags/Warnings: Christmas Fluff, Christmas in the Bunker, Bunker Fluff, Romantic Fluff, Season 13, First Kiss Summary: Christmas isn’t usually a big deal for the Winchesters, but this year with Cas home and Jack excited for the holiday, the Christmas spirit is strong in the bunker. Cas is looking for a reason to stay and Dean is trying to give him one, if he can only find the courage to do so.

Waiting in the Wings | @flightoftheseraph​ Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2,107 Main Tags/Warnings: Reverse!Verse, Angel!Dean, Hunter!Castiel, Mild Blood, Valentines Summary: Castiel an injured hunter stumbles into a town and meets an angel who may just have be having the same rotten luck he is.

Tradition (Tradition) | @alxdiamond​ Rating: Explicit Word Count: 2,843 Main Tags/Warnings: Human!AU, Holiday Traditions, Jewish!Castiel, Semi-Public Sex, Inappropriate use of a Christmas Tree Summary: “Look,” Aaron said more seriously, “it’s been how many years since high school? It’s about time you got together with your idiot and figured out a shared tradition that’s meaningful to both of you, instead of getting grumpy about it. Welcome to the modern reality of the blended family.” Dean has loved the town Christmas tree his whole life; Cas has resented it for almost as long. They work out a compromise.

Honest as Always | @surlybobbies Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 3,186 Main Tags/Warnings: Christmas, friends to lovers, fluff Summary: He turns off the engine. “Get it together, Winchester,” he mumbles to himself, a pitiful pep talk for facing the man he’s been in love with for two years. He takes a deep breath to steel himself, then grabs the plate of cookies from the passenger seat before getting out of the car. He walks up the steps to the porch just in time for Cas to open his front door. He’s wearing a thick dark blue sweater with a large googly-eyed reindeer sewn onto the front. He probably made it himself. “Dean,” Cas says, and there’s so much surprise and affection in his voice that Dean stumbles on the snow-covered ceramic frog near the top of the stairs.

Plotbunny | @mittensmorgul Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 21,550 Main Tags/Warnings: Case Fic, Canon Divergence, Fluff and Humor, Crack Treated Seriously, Sharing a Bed, John Winchester’s A+ Parenting, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, vaguely implied attempted rape, Easter Summary: Sam finds a case in a town that harbors long-repressed childhood trauma for both him and Dean. Once upon a time, it played host to Sam’s discovery that the Easter bunny was a fraud perpetuated by his brother. But while Sam was busy resenting Dean for how that truth came to light, he missed the bigger picture of what Dean had been up to for the month John had left them behind, and the boy he’d spent most of his time with. Now, with a potential supernatural killer on the loose, Dean has to dredge up a part of his past he’d thought he’d safely buried so deep it would never see the light of day. Cas helps.

A Lot to Learn About Living | @zetsubounikki Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 9,184 Main Tags/Warnings: God!Castiel, Christmas, Animal Sanctuary, AU - Hunters Summary: At the tail end of a hunt on Christmas Eve, Sam hatches a brilliant idea. Said idea takes Dean blissfully away from Homestead, Florida to the uninhabited island of Marquesas Key off the coast of Florida, all under the guise of finding a god. Only upon their arrival, they’re not met with a human face, but rather, the large muzzles of two Newfoundlands instead. Because Marquesas Key isn’t home to just any God. Marquesas Key is home to Castiel, the God of pets, and over the centuries, Castiel has inherited a problem–at any given point in the year, strangers leave their ailing animals on the island, believing that Castiel would take care of them in the afterlife. Dean and Sam are the first humans Castiel has unwillingly interacted with in decades, not counting the Christmas banquets in Key West centered around feeding the community. And the moment Dean sets foot on Castiel’s porch, Dean is utterly lost in this Jimmy Buffett reject that breathes new life into everything he touches. One thing he knows for sure, Dean will never forget this Christmas.

Garbage Cookies | @sternchencas Rating: General Audiences Word Count: 2,389 Main Tags/Warnings: fluff, Christmas Eve Summary: Both Dean and Castiel aren’t very fond of Christmas. They don’t even put up Christmas lights, incurring their neighbors disapproval. But when Castiel notices Dean’s sadness, he decides to bring a little light in the other man’s life.

match made in hell | @sternchencas Rating: General Audiences Word Count: 5,682 Main Tags/Warnings: Valentine’s Day, naked cupids, declaration of love Summary: Dean deliberately ignores Valentine’s day so Sam feels the need to find a date for him. With help from a very naked cupid. Or two.

Brother Duty | @profound-boning Rating: General Audiences Word Count: 1,059 Main Tags/Warnings: POV alternating, gross boyfriends, pure fluff, halloween Summary: “Dean Winchester, you are taking your little brother trick-or-treating tonight and that is final.”

Never Take an Ex-Angel Shopping | @firefly124 Rating: Teen & Up Word Count: 2,635 Main Tags/Warnings: bunker!fic, christmas Summary: Dean knew it was a bad idea to take Cas shopping for Christmas decorations. Good thing he did it anyway.

[jenobloom]

I DON’T KNOW WHY I BOTHER (Pt 2)

Part 1

I round of quick, harsh knocking came from my door, rudely yanking me from my peaceful sleep and cloud-like bed. I ungracefully rolled off my mattress and onto the ice-like floor with a hard thud before stomping over to the black door and pulling it open, an unwelcoming scowl gracing my face to make sure I conveyed my annoyance to the unexpected caller correctly.

“What?” I huffed, before registering who was actually at the door.

“Not a morning person I guess?”

I looked at Jihoon, his light blonde hair brushed neatly, a cheerful smile gracing his irritatingly perfect bare face and a small bouquet of pastel blue, baby pink and white flowers accompanied by a letter in his hand. Suddenly I was embarrassed by my own appearance; my messy bed head of faded violet hair fell around my puffy, sleepy face and an oversized crumpled BTS shirt that barely covered my way too revealing underwear was all that I wore.

“U-uh, come in? Sorry about the mess.”

I left Jihoon at the door to quickly make my bed (if you could call it that, it was just 2 mattresses stacked on top of each other on the floor with a few mattress toppers to make it softer) so that he had a place to sit before dumping the plates and cups that littered my desk in to the sink, my studio apartment was tiny and barely furnished by Pledis so even a few things out of place could make it look messier than what it really was. Jihoon had now seated himself on my makeshift sofa, his shoes abandoned carefully by the door and his legs crossed so I placed myself next to him, crossing my legs and pulling the oversized T-shirt down more as I was aware of my lack of clothing but was shameless enough to not care after opening the door to him; I had known him for over a month now and we had become close enough for it to not be weird or uncomfortable.

“So, what brings you here at,” I glanced at the small digital clock on my desk across the room, “10AM?”

“I wanted to thank you for your vocals on our song and celebrate how well it has done since being released 2 weeks ago!” He handed me the flowers and letter, giving me a small pat on the leg by my knee, “I also came to give you news...”

I shot him a look with my left eyebrow raised, placing the bouquet gently in front of me on the floor before inspecting the envelope carefully. My full name had been printed on the front which suggested that it had not been written by Jihoon himself like I had first thought, it was light also which meant it couldn’t contain more than 3 sheets of paper. Ripping along the top of the envelope I grabbed my glasses from my bedside table, so I could read easily before pulling out the single page.

Dear Miss Weon,

I am writing to inform you that a decision regarding your career with PLEDIS Entertainment has been made. From December 20th, 2015 your contract as a solo artist will be terminated and you will begin a new contract with PLEDIS Entertainment as the 14th member of SEVENTEEN.

Please attend a meeting with us on December 19th, 2015 at 12:00PM to discuss and sign the new contract and talk about accommodation arrangements.

Yours sincerely,

Kim Lee

Head of PLEDIS Entertainment creative direction

 I stared at the short letter in my hands with wide eyes for a few more minutes as I soaked in the information on the paper, my mouth opening and closing like a fish’s as I tried to form words and questions that would make sense. I slowly turned to Jihoon, looking to receive an explanation as to what was going on, unsure on what I had just read as a million thoughts trampled my brain and failed to form anything that made sense. I wasn’t sure if I should feel sad, angry or happy about my career as a solo artist ending and I didn’t know if I should be excited about joining the boys of Seventeen or worried about not all of them accepting me as part of their group, my friendship with most of them was still new, me and Minghao didn’t exactly get along, would they look at me joining their already well-known, quickly rising group as me using their hard work and tears? Would I set their team back in terms of popularity and progress? Would I even fit in with their image?

“Jihoon, I don’t think I can do it. I’m not doing it, I refuse, I’m going to get dressed and go to the offices to sort everything out.”

I slipped in to the bathroom to change my underwear and put on a bra then stepped out, ignoring Jihoon completely as I stood half naked in front of my wardrobe, tugging on a pair of black ripped skinny jeans before grabbing a white tank top and the distressed soft baby pink oversized hoodie from the chair at my desk.

“Kia,” Jihoon finally pulled my attention back to him with difficulty, having to grab my wrist gently to make me pay attention. “We want you to be a part of Seventeen, everyone has agreed with management and signed their side of the contract, we’re actually looking forward to you joining us. If you really don’t want to then it’s fine but please don’t turn down the opportunity because of us,” he released my wrist and offered what was supposed to be a comforting smile as I chewed roughly on my lip, considering his words and playing with a random thread from the hoodie in my hand.

“Okay... I’ll do it. I’m not going to have any important parts though, I’ll stay in the background as best I can, and I’m only joining if management let me create myself, no more of this bubble gum bullshit.” I finally pulled the tank top and hoodie over my head, the hem of the hoodie hanging loosely off my frame, ending at mid-thigh and the sleeves falling past my hands so I could make sweater paws. “Okay, bubble gum colours are staying but only because they’re pretty.” I giggled at Jihoon’s quirked eyebrow and amused expression.

We both laughed lightly at my comment, I continued by taming my nest of hair, putting the faded purple locks in to two messy space buns and styling my bangs to fall correctly over my forehead, applying my usual base make up before applying smokey pink eye shadow and winged eyeliner, giving my lips the pink ombre look and finally putting my thin framed glassed on so I could see properly as I was too lazy to bother with my contacts before clipping a small hoop and some chain earrings in to my right ear piercings and a simple few studs in my left piercings. Finally, I pulled on some black wedge heel boots and a smart oversized long black coat.

“So, Mr Lee, where to?” I smiled at him, grabbing my phone and my black satchel as we left my tiny apartment.

“Coffee shop? We both need the coffee, it’s cold and a perfect way to celebrate, oh and I hope you don’t mind but I’ve also invited a friend to meet us, he’s going to help with a future hip hop unit solo song, so we need to discuss the type of sound we want.” He stuffed his hands in to his pockets for warmth and I mirrored him.

“And here I was thinking you had left your business side at the dorm for once,” I poked his squishy cheek as he shot me a joking glare. “Out of curiosity, what unit will I be in?”

“…We’ll discuss that at the coffee shop.”

“Jihoon oppa, you’re so mean!” I pouted, smirking as I knew he hates being called oppa.

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

Next day

- - - - - - - - - - - - -

From: Heonie

Good luck with the meeting today, don’t sass them too much

To: Heonie

I don’t need your advice but thanks bee boy <3 Meet up soon? I miss you guysss

From: Heonie

And just as I thought the insults had stopped >.> but yeah sure

I laughed and tucked my phone back in to the pocket of my long coat, looking back up from the floor and straight at Dino’s questioning chocolate eyes. The whole Seventeen group was here to attend the meeting with me, each of them (even Minghao surprisingly) promising to help me get a position as a rapper in the group as we knew it was what I was best at and what I wanted to do.

“You ready?” Dino smiled down at me, poking my cheek affectionately as I poked his in return as it was now the standard way of us greeting one another.

“Yeah, I guess, I can’t believe I’m about to join a large group of boys though. The dorm is going to bloody stink.”

“Hey, we’re not that bad!” Mingyu interrupted the conversation, “Me and Minghao keep it clean, just stay away from the bedrooms with Seokmin and Vernon.”

“Hmm, I’ll consider it.” I cheekily smiled up at the brown-haired male, he pulled a fake shocked face, a hand going to his heart and everything, before we were called in to the already crowded meeting room.

The 14 of us filtered slowly in to the meeting room, bowing respectfully to the company members as we entered, and took a seat along one side of the large table in the hard black leather chairs. I was sat in the centre with 7 members on my left and the other 6 on my right, sandwiched between Seungcheol (as he’s the leader of Seventeen) and Jihoon (as he’s the producer of the group and so he has a stronger influence on what part of the group I should fulfil). My hands began to shake slightly from nerves as I fiddled with the hem of the slightly distressed black T-shirt that I was wearing as a dress, trying my hardest to look confident and unintimidated despite the mess that was going through my scrambled brain currently; I was still trying to wrap my head around the fact that I was about to join one of the new rising groups of Korea.

“Thank you for coming everyone, I believe this meeting will be straight-forward and quick. All we have to discuss is rules, roles and arrangements, so let’s start.” The women, who I recognised from my last contract signing, began, flicking her pin-straight brown hair over her shoulder and pulling out a pile of papers, slipping a thick copy in front of me. “The rules are no relationships that could ruin the reputation or function of the group, an obvious one however it had to be included within the contract as to avoid scandals and problems. No romantic looking gestures when in public, for example holding hands, kissing cheeks or outings with just one person that could be labelled as a date by the media for the first 3 years. All of these rules are on top of rules from your previous contract, please sign here,” She pointed to a blank spot on the page under the rules section, “if you agree.”

I signed the page neater than usual, not having any objections to the rules as they were all expected anyway, considering I was entering an all-male group.

“As for your image, we would like you to continue with your image from your previous contract however, it will need to be carried on outside of your schedule as the members of Seventeen are constantly being watched.”

“I have an objection with that, I want to discuss my role within the group.” I quickly interjected, fiddling with my pen and tapping the end without the ink lightly on the paper as I made eye contact with her.

“What is there to discuss? The image fits perfectly with the group.”

“If I could interrupt, as Seventeen’s producer I feel like Kia would fit the group better as a member of hip hop unit, we have enough vocals and I believe if she joined as another vocalist it would throw the ratio of rappers to vocalists off and upset the feel of the group’s albums.” Jihoon piped in.

“Also, as the leader of Seventeen and the hip hop unit, a female rapper would work within our favour in the solo rap unit songs, she can sing well so we wouldn’t need to bring vocal members in to the group and we can separate solo hip hop songs from seventeen. Her image would have to be darker to fit hip hop unit though,” Seungcheol finally spoke up to support Jihoon’s point.

“I believe I could perform better as a rapper too, rap has always been my strongest point and I have more passion for it, so I could produce better lyrics, my personal style and attitude outside of the workplace match up better too so there would be less slip ups. Also it would allow me to separate my solo career from my career within the group.”

We watched as she thought about it, conversing quietly with the others on her side of the table to see if they agreed with what we were all saying as the boys nodded in agreement with mine, Jihoon and Seungcheol’s statements.

“We’ll allow you the position however your image will have to be a little more… revealing- nothing that isn’t out of reason as Seventeen have a set public image.”

“I’m fine with it, as long as I get a say on what’s too revealing.”

“Deal.”

1 long hour and a hand cramp later and me and the 13 boys walked out of the Pledis Entertainment building with a 2-hour time frame to move all my belongings out of my current apartment and in to the tiny dorm that I now had to share with the boys.

“I can’t believe they expect me to live in a tiny dorm with 13 boys, I’m only 16, it’s going to be like I have 13 older brothers!” I groaned, kicking a random stone on the pavement as I trudged along next to Dino, a pout on my face and my hands stuffed deep in to my pockets.

“Hey, we aren’t that bad!” Chan whined back, poking at me. “Anyway, you get to room with Cheol, Hansol, Wonwoo and Mingyu, they can be a little messy but they’re all great people to room with. They know when to be quiet, and if it gets too much then you can come sleep in my bed and I’ll take yours for the night,” he offered me a half smile and side-hugged lightly me as we walked.

“I’ve called Jess, she’s going to meet us at your apartment with a few large boxes from work, we’ll just have to put the rest of your things like clothes in bags.” Jeonghan chirped from my left, looking up from his phone.

“Jess is coming to help?” I let out a grin at the thought of seeing his girlfriend, aka my adopted step-mum, my mood cheering up instantly as I began to laugh and hop along with Soonyoung who was hyped over having his ‘baby sister’ move in with him.

We skipped (literally) around the corner, my arm linked through his, until we saw Jess walking up to the door of my apartment building, her bright blue hair drawing our eyes to her instantly; both me and Soonyoung screamed suddenly and sprinted over to her, nearly knocking her off her feet when we both lunged towards her and wrapped her in a tight hug.

“Ew, get off.” She awkwardly scolded us, pushing us away and walking over to hug Jeonghan and do her weird hand-shake with Jihoon who had finally caught up with us.

“Ouch, you can’t even hug your daughter!” I pouted once again before going to hug Seungcheol who had become my adopted father, tucking myself in to his side while he gave me what could only be described as a fatherly hug as we all stood around in the street. “At least Daddy loves me!”

I nearly died of laughter and collapsed on the floor laughing at the reactions of Seungcheol, Soonyoung, and Chan all choking on air at my statement, their eyes wide as they stared at me.

“And now you’ve outed the boys and their kinks, let’s go pack your shit.” Jess grinned, laughing along with me and the others before shoving me gently towards the door to lead the way to my apartment.

___________________________________________

I finished unpacking the last large box, placing my last frame on the shelf above my bed, and then watched in amusement as Vernon and Mingyu pretended to be me, both with one of my bras on over their clothes and Mingyu wearing one of my signature baby pink skirts while performing ice cream cake’s choreography as well as he could in the small space.

“I really can’t believe I’m sharing a room with you nut jobs,” I huffed, earning aegyo hearts from the two supposed men as a response.

“If it gets too much I can show you a quiet place to escape when you need it.”

I jumped back a little, losing my balance and falling back on my mattress to look up at Wonwoo who had stopped reading his heavy looking book, the fringe of his fluffy brown emo-style hair cutely resting over the right side of his round frame glasses.

“Wow Woo, great way to go around giving girls heart attacks.” I jokingly glared at him, “carry on and I might end up hitting you one day out of surprise.”

“Sorry,” his nose scrunched up a little as he smiled and laughed at me, my head dipping to look at my lap, no Kia… you can’t find his laugh cute.

“Want to show me that quiet place? It’s a bit crazy here, I wouldn’t mind going out for a walk at,” I glanced at the time on my phone, “10PM to clear my mind with a chilled out person.”

“Sure, I’ll go tell Coups!”

We both hopped down from our bunks (me doing it rather ungracefully as I nearly lost my balance but Vernon thankfully steadied me) that had been pushed together to make more space in the tiny room, he walked out of the room in search for our leader who was probably watching a film while I went and quickly looked in the mirror. My hair was still in the same style that I had put it in this morning however, my face was now make up free which left my freckles and the odd spot on show, my thin framed glasses were perched on my nose, my legs were now covered in a loose pair of blue Hello Kitty pyjama bottoms while my top half was covered by the matching t shirt and hidden by one of Seungcheol’s black pullover hoodies that nearly reached my knees for maximum comfort, I shrugged at my appearance knowing that I wouldn’t look too out of place next to Wonwoo as he was in grey jogging bottoms and a blue hoodie with no make up and his own glasses and continued to pull on my thick coat, military style boots to protect my feet from the wet snow that had appeared in the past 2 hours and wrap a scarf around my neck to make sure I wouldn’t freeze to death in the harsh winter wind. I crept out in to the hallway as I was aware of other members sleeping due to the late time and was met by a ready and waiting Wonwoo who had pulled on trainers, his coat, scarf and a thick black beanie to protect his head.

“Let’s go!” He whispered, opening the door and allowing me to leave first as he locked the door behind him to ensure the safety of everyone in the dorm.

We silently left the apartment building of the dorm that was larger than my previous one and stepped out in to the now silent streets, gently lit by lamps and the occasional car passing by, snow fluttering around us as we walked along and settling wherever it could. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable, as cliché as it sounded, both of us appreciating how we could walk along silently and take in our surroundings. A welcome end to a rather confusing day.

“It gets a little crazy sometimes you know,” Wonwoo broke the silence, his low voice floating through the air. “It’s almost magical when we get the chance to do things like this, it makes you forget that you have a few thousand fans looking up to you, watching nature in peace and just getting the chance to relax and unwind as you walk in the quiet. It makes you forget the stress of being an idol and makes you feel like a normal teen.”

“You’re such an emo Wonwoo, I never expected such a soft side to come from you.” I poked him teasingly before folding my hands across my chest, admiring how the little flakes of snow would rest on his hair and slowly melt.

“Everyone should take a moment away from life and pause in a peaceful atmosphere, want a piggy back?” He grinned and stopped to bend slightly in front of me, so I could jump on his back as he already knew what my answer would be.

“How to keep a girl happy Wonwoo.”

“Better than giving them a heart attack though, right?” I rested my chin on his head and loosely put my arms around his neck to keep myself from falling backwards, his hands gripping at my thighs to keep me up. “Don’t get used to it Kia, you have to keep your soft side a secret from the others remember.”

“Damn Oppa, no need to attack me like that.” I smiled, ruffling his hair gently as he laughed once more. “So where exactly are we going?”

“Right here,” I held out my arm to push the antique looking door open as he walked forwards before softly dropping me back down on to my feet on the dark wood flooring. “Evening Mrs Kim!”

I bowed politely in greeting to the elderly woman who was sat in a large brown leather armchair behind a desk by the door as she read and sipped at what seemed to be tea, having to then jog a little to catch up to Wonwoo who had gone to the back of the small book café and sat himself on a large bean bag big enough for two.

“A 24-hour book café?” I quirked an eyebrow as I not so gracefully flopped down next to him, stripping off my coat and scarf which I then placed on top of his on the floor next to us.

“It’s quiet, not so well known and convenient to go to at any point in the day because it’s not that far from dorms and not many people know about it so I don’t have to worry too much about fans,” he reached to the shelf behind him and pulled out a thin book. “Macbeth, let me read it to you?”

I didn’t reply, only nodded and decided to curl up in to his side and breath in his nature like scent, putting my legs over his long thin ones and listening carefully as his voice smoothly began to read the words from the page with ease despite the old language as if he had read the book a million times before, I could feel my eyes slowly beginning to close due to the relaxing atmosphere of the small shop and due to how comfortable I was.

Wonwoo’s p.o.v

I reached the end of the book and looked down at my chest, Kia had fallen asleep after the 17th page surprisingly and had slowly started shifting so that she was eventually curled up at my side with her head on my chest and my arm resting over her, Mrs Kim had come over to give us hot chocolate as she usually would and covered her up with her coat to keep her warm which I was grateful for. I put the book neatly back in its place on the old shelf before carefully getting up to put my own coat back on, texting Coups who I knew was still up at the late hour of 12PM to meet me downstairs at the apartment building’s door. As I carried Kia’s sleeping frame the short walk back home, wrapped in her coat and a spare blanket from the café also to make sure she wouldn’t get ill, I took a glance at her peaceful face, her glasses were tucked in my pocket to avoid them falling from her face and breaking or getting lost, her cheeks and lips slightly swollen from sleep and her hair blowing around in the slight breeze that accompanied the late night’s air. As promised, Seungcheol met me at the apartment block door to help me out all the way back up, even taking her shoes off for me and helping me to quietly tuck her in to the top bunk of our room next to my own bed.

“Wonwoo, remember the contract okay? I know that look, I can tell it’s more than a friendly thing and I don’t want either of you to be unhappy with the unfair circumstances that the company has placed on us all.” Coups muttered, offering me a smile before going to climb in to his own bed while I climbed in to my bunk next to Kia’s.

I pulled the blanket up and over her a little higher as it had shuffled down when she had tossed around to find a comfortable position, curling in to a ball like she had at the café and almost making it over to my side of the bunk if the wooden barrier hadn’t been there to stop her.

“I won’t Coups, I promise.”

[cordonianchoicesqueen]

Rewritten: The Royal Romance: The Hedge Maze (Part Seven)

A/N: I did actually pay for this diamonds scene the first time I read it and it was what made me feel like Liam was the only person for Riley... for a little while.

Summary: Riley and Liam sneak out after the Masquerade to the Hedge Maze. Riley is introduced to Bertrand and finds out about the financial difficulties the Beaumonts are facing.

Choices Chapter: Book One, Chapter Four

Disclaimer: Characters and main storyline from Pixelberry’s Choices.

Word Count: 2600+

Warnings: tiny little bit of NSFW, but pretty PG-13

The Hedge Maze

The King gave a short thank you and farewell then the party dispersed either back to their rooms in the palace or to the cars out front. Within fifteen minutes I couldn’t hear a sound in the building. I paced my room, watching the clock. I thought about changing but something felt so exciting about running around a hedge maze in a ball gown I couldn’t afford with a Prince who wasn’t allowed to be alone with me, especially at this hour. The shoes and mask however were abandoned at the side of my bed. Adrenaline coursed through my veins as I creaked open my door and tiptoed down the hall being careful to check for staff or security. I somehow found my way back downstairs and made a bee-line for the ballroom. The staff were clearing the room so I waited for an opportunity to sneak through and go out onto the veranda. As I made it out into the garden, I broke into a sprint heading for the hedge maze, feeling the dewy, well-trimmed grass beneath my toes. The maze was much larger then I thought as I got closer, the hedges towering above me. The tree at the centre with it’s elegant lights throughout the branches looked magical. Just as everything did in this fairy-tale world I’d found myself in. Out of nowhere, Liam materialised, looking even more dashing with the added touch that this wasn’t allowed.

“Cutting it a little close there,” I chided him, looking at my wrist as if I was wearing a watch. He sighed, “I was trapped in a conversation about table seating for tomorrow’s picnic but I managed to tear myself away from that truly awe inspiring discussion… for you. Shall we?” His eyes twinkled, a handsome quality, and he offered me his hand. I liked the way he did that. Always giving me the option to either walk alone or with him. It was my choice. It was an easy choice. I took his hand and we approached the maze, “it really is beautiful here at night.” I gestured over to a colossal fountain depicting dolphins jumping and lights cascading through the spitting fountains. “I wish I could take all the credit but the gardens out here were my mother’s vision,” he said with pride, “it was her last wish. Sometimes when I stroll this garden at night, I think of her.” I squeezed his hand as we paused. He looked up at the star-studded sky, more stars than I had ever seen. The city lights in New York drowned out the natural sky and seeing it now, I was filled with wonder and how I had survived without this spectacle for so long. “I’m sure she would have appreciated how much you care for her garden and her creativity,” I said softly. “Thanks. The garden holds a lot of good memories as well. You probably think my games with Drake are silly,” he blushed. “I don’t know,” I said, “it… sounds like a lot of fu- TAG, you’re it.” I let my hand slip out of his, tapping his shoulder and ran straight into the maze. I hitched my skirt with one hand and ran my other hand along the wall of the maze with the other, feeling the cut hedges graze my finger tips. I could hear his laughter and his feet pounding the ground chasing after me. I knew there was no way he could hear what direction I was going with my bare feet carrying me at what felt like the speed of light. I kept my eye on the tree at the centre, trying to find the right path. “Cheater!” I heard him yell a little way off. I couldn’t help but let out an excited giggle as childish excitement pulsed through me. Despite my head start, I knew he was gaining. I turned a sharp corner and was faced with a straight path to the centre of the maze! With new energy I sped ahead. The hedge here arched over me and beautiful flowers bloomed from the walls. Fairy lights were strewn across wooden beams and I was mesmerised. I could hear Liam approaching round a corner connecting to my path and instead of going straight ahead I dug my heels in and stopped. As he turned the corner I jumped out at him. He let out a small yell and barrelled straight into me. We both went tumbling to the ground, but Liam’s reflexes were fast and he held onto me tightly to take the brunt of the fall. I lay on top of him as we breathed heavily, laughing. All pretence of nobility and monarchy disappeared. “We made it, I can see the centre just up ahead,” he said, our faces only inches apart. “I do believe I win,” I said, picking a blade of grass off his shoulder. “How do you figure that?” he raised an eyebrow. “Easy, I am on top,” I giggled. We both suddenly became very aware of just how close our bodies were. We could feel each other’s hearts pounding in our chests from running. You could have cut the tension in the air with a knife as my body straddled his. We both wanted each other, deeply, intensely. “Hey! We don’t know who tagged who here. I want a second ruling,” he teased, placing his hands on my hips, pulling me down onto him. “Well we don’t always get what we want… even princes,” I teased, whispering in his ear. He laughed. His gaze resting on my red lips. I bit my bottom lip, trying to control my desperate need to kiss this man, to strip him naked and have him kiss every inch of my body. I could only imagine that he was thinking the same thing looking into his craving eyes.  “There’s something about you…” he shook his head, “that is just so right.” He cupped my face in his hand, his fingers warm and soft linger on my cheek. “I can’t help myself,” he whispered, caught in the moment. He pulled my face towards his and my desperate need for his mouth was answered. I feasted on his lips, as our kiss quickly intensified. He tasted like champagne and strawberries. His hands moved across my back, gripping me as close to his body as he could. I bit his lip and kissed down his sharp jaw line, licking the bone, sending shivers down his spine. He let out a small groan and arched his body against mine as I kissed his neck, sucking lightly and playing with his skin with my teeth. With an animalistic growl from the back of his throat he flipped me onto my back so that he was on top of me. It was a delicious noise that made me want to scratch my nails down his back and take off all his clothes. I wrapped my legs around his back but he was careful to not put all of his weight on me as he expertly kissed my lips and wrapped his fingers in my hair. I didn’t want him to be careful with me though, I wanted to feel his full weight against me. He kissed down my neck, gently, his hands on my tits and squeezing them. He hit a sensitive spot on my neck and I let out a whispered moan of his name. “Liam,” I said in ecstasy, craving him more than I had craved anything in my life. However, my call of his name had the opposite of the desired effect I wanted it to have on him. He seemed to shake himself awake and pulled himself from the dream we were in. “Oh, I’m, eh,” he stumbled, blushing, “we shouldn’t. We don’t know what will happen… I can’t hurt you... What if…” And like that the moment was lost as he stood up and backed away from me. That was the question. What if I am about to watch him fall in love with someone else. What if I am about to watch him literary choose someone else over me. I had known this man a day yet I wanted to give him everything. I trusted him and felt like I knew him but two intense days together did not mean I was the definitive choice. Olivia had said herself that she had known him since they were children. I did not have a bond like that with him. It was far more likely I was going to end up heart broken in this situation. No matter how you looked at it. “I know,” I said standing up and trying to shake some of the dirt off my now off-white dress. I didn’t want to look at him. I felt embarrassed for beginning to assume that we were on the same page, in the same position. We may have a connection but I was nothing. I felt small. He came up behind me and surprised me by wrapping his arms around me and whispering in my ear, “what is it about being around you that makes me want to break all the rules I’ve ever learnt?” I let myself sink into him, already at the level of comfort you’d expect to have from someone you’ve known for years, “maybe, you need someone like that in your life.” “Maybe I do,” he kissed my cheek. “This was unexpected… but it was perfect.” I felt the embarrassment ease as I could tell he was being honest. I wasn’t reading the signs wrong, he wanted me as badly as I wanted him. I guess he just had better control. “You laughed more in this maze than you did all night at that ball,” I finally turned in his arms to face him, snuggling into his chest. “I guess, I really needed this,” he enveloped me close. “Thank you, Riley.” “Thank you, Liam,” I said. We held each other for a moment, as equals. As two people without responsibility or somewhere else to be. “Will I see you soon?” I asked, looking back at his chiselled jaw and glittering eyes. “Yes, tomorrow. It will be very busy… but I’m sure I can find some time… for you,” he kissed my forehead. “I look forward to it,” I smiled, warmly but with still a twinge in my heart.

When I snuck back into my room I rest my back against the door and let myself slide down it until I was sat on the floor cuddling my knees. I was so sleepy but awake because of the jet lag, so sad but happy, so confused but so sure. A million thoughts in my head. Suddenly, I heard a tap at the door. So late at night, I wondered who it could be. I wondered if Liam had managed to get away from his guard, not wanting to be away from me unless he had to be. I opened the door. “Maxwell, hey!” I said, hiding my body behind the door as I was still wearing my white dress, now covered in dirt. “Sorry. I know it’s late but there’s someone you should meet,” Maxwell replied, with excitement. “Bertrand, this is the one I was telling you about! This is Riley!” Maxwell stepped to the side to reveal an imposing man with a stern expression. He was nothing like Maxwell, I could already tell by his stand-offish stance and the way his eyes sat stone cold. “This,” he said slowly, “is the girl you’ve chosen to represent our house?” “Yes! Nailed it right?” Maxwell exclaimed. “Riley, this is my older brother, Bertrand.” I realised it was probably weird I was still hiding behind the door and stepped out to shake his hand, “It’s nice to meet you, Bertrand.” He looked down at my hand with a scowl and took in the dirty marks on my dress and my dishevelled hair, “the proper way to address a Duke is ‘Your Grace.’” “Oh! I’m so sorry, Your Grace,” I said, dropping into a neat curtsey. He rolled his eyes in a very Severus Snape-esque style, “at least it looks like you can be trained.” I was so fed up of these nobles looking down on me that I couldn’t control what I was saying when I angrily and wearily replied, “hey, I’m not your pet!” “He doesn’t mean it like that,” Maxwell looked at Bertrand with pleading eyes. “Maxwell… a word in private,” Bertrand responded. Without waiting for a response, Bertrand grabbed Maxwell’s arm and yanked him further back into the hall. I turned around to give them privacy. Although I could just about make out what they were saying in hushed, angry whispers. “That’s the girl you picked to represent our family?” Bertrand hissed. “Yeah. Liam really hit it off with her when they met at the restaurant for his bachelor party. She was our waitress,” Maxwell said, positively. “A waitress…” Bertrand said but then repeated in an explosive whisper, “You brought a WAITRESS? I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you! We could’ve had our pick of any unsponsored duchess or countess in half of Europe!” “Well sure, but like I said, she and Liam have a lot of chemistry. I think he really likes her,” Maxwell said, completely ignoring his brother’s outburst. “I know you probably don’t care but she could make him really happy. Like I have never seen him look so happy kind of happy. Shouldn’t Liam have a shot at that, even if he is the Prince?” I smiled to myself. No wonder Maxwell was being so kind to me, a stranger. He was really just being a great friend to Liam. He thought I would make Liam happy and was going out of his way to make sure we had the opportunity to explore that. He knew making me happy would make Liam happy. “Spare me your sentimentality,” Bertrand grumped. “You’d better hope that this waitress doesn’t ruin everything.” I heard his heavy footsteps making their way back to my door. I turned, knowing I was doing a bad job of covering up that I had heard their entire conversation. Bertrand squinted his eyes at me, “we have to trust one another to be successful.” “Right,” I said nodding. “Perhaps Maxwell didn’t full explain this, but if our house puts forth the Prince’s choice, we’ll win fame and recognition…” Bertrand said clearly. “Something we could really use right now, because we’re actually kind of broke,” Maxwell pulled a face. “Maxwell! You overstep!” Bertrand yelled. “Sorry,” Maxwell sighed. “You’re broke? Is that why I had to sort out my dress for tonight?” I looked down suddenly wishing I hadn’t just rolled around in the dirt in something that wasn’t easily replaced. “That’s precisely why,” Bertrand said. “Sorry about that. We can only afford to get you the bare minimum through this process. No one outside of our family really knows how bad things are,” Maxwell said playing with his hands. “Do you get money if I marry the Prince?” I questioned. “Not directly but we get leverage through prestige. It would be best to get that leverage before others find out about our… situation. In the circles we run, if word got out of our financial ruin, it would be a scandal,” Bertrand exclaimed dramatically. “But our name is worth something at least!” Maxwell interjected. “At the very least, we can introduce you to the right people, get you invitations to the right events, even a couple dresses to help you through. I only regret that we can’t offer you more.” “Speaking of which,” Bertrand said curtly, “we must prepare you for tomorrow’s event.” “The Derby!” Maxwell said. “You know what a Derby is?” Bertrand looked at me raising his eyebrows. Completely on the spot, I felt like I was on a quiz show, “isn’t it just fancy horse racing?” “Basically, yes. It will be your first opportunity to make an impression on the press as they will be covering the event,” Bertrand did not give me any points for my correct answer. “The press love events like this, especially with all the tabloids taking a huge interest in the search for the new queen,” Maxwell said. “Everyone in Cordonia will be influenced by what is written about you. The monarchy serve the people. You will need the approval of the press and, therefore, the people to win Liam’s hand,” Bertrand explained. “The Queen will, also, be present. You must earn her favour.” Looking at my tired and overwhelmed face, Maxwell said, “we’ll speak tomorrow more about it. Nothing to worry about. You’ve got this.” Maxwell gave me a quick hug. “Goodnight,” Bertrand said already half way down the hall.

[sunnysidewrites]

Neighbor!Woozi

based on this post hehehe

i just fed yall TWICE. in the span of just 2 DAYS!!! AND THEY’RE BOTH MORE OR LESS THE SAME LONG ASS LENGTH!!! yeah that’s right i went overboard again gtg

happy happy bday to the lovely admin bee of @mansaeboysbe you are such a beautiful person inside and out, and im incredibly proud to know someone like you :’))) i’ve already sent a bday message to you so im not tryna redo it LOL but just know that i love you a whole lot and i always will! 💗💗💗💗💓💓 (she’s also the same person who gave me those beautiful headers on my mlist so please give her tons of love <333) love you sm hub hope you have a wonderful and fantastic day!!!

*to all the mutuals with bdays that have either passed or are coming up, i love you all SO FREAKING MUCH so pls dont feel left out!! it just so happened that i wanted to write this au for a long time and i wanted to present it as a bday gift for this jihoon stan hehe but i rlly love each every single one of u ok babes? <333*

warnings: i feel like i dragged this on for too long but i hope it’s still cute :’)) also i put in a joke like twice LOL anyways lil wooz only gets tongue-tied around you so you become his muse for songs

You were looking for a place to stay in bc “I am a grown adult i am not living with yall anymore” you @ your parents

And they’re like lol ok Good Luck Kiddo

After a month and a half of deeeeep searching you finally find a reasonably priced place to live in

It’s quite a distance from your parents’ home but it’s the point of you moving out to begin with

On the move-in day, you’re carrying your boxes up to your new apartment complex and you hear some tunes drifting from your next door neighbor

And you’re like hey this is actually really good music but i’ve never heard of it

You shrug it off and continue settling in

Once you finished hauling your boxes, you were about to pass out on your couch

Ok you actually did pass out on your couch

But you had to unpack some necessities later that night for bathroom and bedroom purposes

All you had for dinner was pop in some instant ramen and call it a night. You then hopped in the shower and got ready for bed

The following morning it was primarily you unpacking and shifting around your furniture a little but it was challenging by yourself

You were making a good amount of noise and in the middle of the day you were met with a very loud knock on your door

And you were in the middle of unpacking your kitchenware so you were like oh shoot ahh i’ll be right there!!

Little did you know your next door neighbor wasn’t having any of it

Can’t I get some peace and quiet around here? He grumbled as he impatiently waited for you to open the door

I swear, I’m gonna tell them off they won’t even knOW what will hit--

You finally opened the door, and he’s like oh. My gosh.

You had a few pieces of hair sticking to your forehead and your hair was tied back in a messy bun

You were dressed in a faded coral tee underneath a pair of worn-out denim overalls with house slippers

Everything he planned to complain about suddenly vanished and his first thought was:

“Is that Pikachu on your front pocket?”

Apparently he said that aloud, which he didn’t register until he saw you giggling

“Yeah, it was a hand-me-down! Still cute, right?”

And he’s kinda still just staring at you with his mouth slightly agape

And you’re like oh right ahem did you need anything?

That’s when he notices the utter mess behind you: plastic covering still over some of your furniture, half-emptied boxes littered in almost every inch of the floor, etc.

And that’s when it hits him: all that noise was you unpacking

“O-oh yeah, I just,, wanted to let you know that it was getting a little loud since I live right next door”

He silently curses at himself like i almost went off at my new neighbor rip that wasn’t gonna be a good first impression

Luckily for him, you were chill about it and you’re like omg sorry!!! It’s a little tough doing this by myself, sorry for the ruckus

Before he could stop himself, he blurted out, “do you need any help?”

Jihoon internally: u doofus u have an album to produce whAT ARE U DOING

Jihoon externally: i can help you :))) no matter how smol i may be

But that internal reprimanding melted away when he saw your eyes light up in relief and you’re practically bouncing up and down

“Would you, really??? It would be great if I had another hand around! Oh, but you’re probably occupied doing something, right??” and you feel bad that a stranger, your next door neighbor nonetheless, was about to abandon his work just for you

A cute neighbor, at that

Jihoon is like ok this is your chance to get away and go back to work cmon man

But there’s just something about you that pulls him in magnetically and he finds himself trying to reason internally that it’ll just be for a “few moments”

Yyyeaaahhh that doesn’t happen lmao rip Jihoon’s songs

Jihoon is just like “nah it’s fine I can help out for a bit” and you’re like god bless this human being

When you open your door further to let him in, he’s like oh right btw I’m Jihoon

“I’m y/n! Sorry about the mess, I only got here yesterday evening”

He shakes his head and quirks up his lips ever so slightly, “i remember when my place looked like this too except replace this space with music production things”

And you’re like ooOOoOoOO you make songs??? That’s amazing!!

And that’s when you got the ball rolling!!!

“A few moments” turn into hours and the next thing you know it’s dinnertime

“Oh crap sorry for keeping you for this long,,, those songs won’t produce themselves, right? I think I can take it from here”

Admittedly, jihoon didn’t wanna leave just yet bc he actually enjoyed your company and it was nice taking a break from staring at his screen frustratedly

“Well, I don’t mind helping out. I could show you my work one day if you want”

And you’re like holy cheeseballs yES

He starts getting up and brushing off his clothes and you’re a little sad that he’s leaving and he kinda is too :(

“If you’re not too busy tomorrow, you’re welcome to help me out more! I mean, you already helped me a whole lot today, but there’s still some things left to do”

As much as his brain is telling him to NOT DO IT,,,,

He does it

Next thing you know, jihoon is at your door again around the same time and he has something in his hand

As you let him inside, you ask him what it is and he’s like ;))))

“It’s a CD that compiled just a few songs I thought you might like”

And you’re #shook bc did he really just have a CD like this out in the open or did he really take his time yesterday to transfer songs on it??

“Do you have a player or a laptop?”

“Yeah, my laptop is on my bed, you can bring it out here!” You shout over your shoulder as you arrange your things in the living room

Shortly afterwards he emerges from the hallway and he presses a few buttons and clicks here and there and beautiful melodies ring out from your speakers

You can’t help but stop rustling to take in the sweet tunes and you’re just like :’))) have i heard anything so beautiful??? :’)))

One of the songs sound vaguely familiar and you realize it’s what you heard when you first arrived here

“Did you actually produce this??? This sounds like an actual song you can hear on the radio”

And he’s like yep made by yours truly!!!

He was only using “yours truly” half-metaphorically if you know what I mean ;)))

You keep bouncing to all the catchy tunes and swaying to the soulful ones

And in all honesty, seeing your reactions makes Jihoon feel really warm and even a little proud bc it’s one of the biggest reasons why he loves his job so much

He makes eye contact with you and you’re like :D and he’s like ahEM COuGh coUGh i’m gonna dust this shelf over here

He suddenly stands up and busies himself and you’re like ???? okie dokie

He’s a real help around the place and you’re practically done settling in

As you survey your fresh living space, you can’t help but feel a little…. Disheartened?

Bc it was actually really fun to have him around even while he made blunt remarks about your taste of decorations

“This looks like something my five-year-old niece would have”

“For your information, I got that from a five-year-old!! It’s cute, alright!”

You spent the past three days with Jihoon unpacking and talking about whatever comes to mind

Jihoon is pretty devastated that he has to go back to his makeshift studio in his room as much as he will never admit it

He eventually leaves your place and the both of you are just sad little puppies

From then on, every time you pass by each other, you greet him with a friendly smile and wave and you never fail to make his heart skip several beats

You don’t talk as much as how you first started bc he’s gotten much busier trying to mass-produce a lot of songs

For some strange reason, every time you hear a melody coming from the other side of the walls, you feel like you’re somehow connected with him

Well, except for the muffled cursing LMAO

And sometimes you would also hear several male voices at once and you’re guessing they’re his friends or the people he’s working with on the song, but based on their friendly banter and the constant run-throughs, it’s probably both

You would hear the same melody play over and over again, and you’re guessing he’s stuck on a certain part of a song as he tries to recreate new melodies from that point on

“aaAAGHGHHHGGHHHH” *deep sigh* me trying to overcome writer’s block LMAO

This would happen for about half an hour and you can’t help but wanting to reach out to him, but you’re not exactly the most musically-inclined person sadly

When he ultimately calms down, he goes back to working on the song until he finally gets the results he desires

More often than not, you fall asleep from hearing the slow ballads he creates with a smile on your face

Lil Jihoon does try to visit you and vice versa!! He sometimes shows up with random food and more CDs and you’re wondering just how many songs has this guy produced in his lifetime??? He looks around the same age as you but he’s probably produced 26+ songs by the way he packs a decent amount on each CD

Usually his excuse to sharing a meal with you is that “the guys brought over too much and i have a ton of leftovers that i can’t finish by myself”

In reality, he stared at a restaurant’s menu and contemplated for about twenty minutes about what you would like. This guy’s got dedication not just for work

“Would it be weird if i get fried chicken?? Maybe just a bowl of noodles?? What if soup is better??? It would give weird vibes if i bought drinks too, right?? Or should i just go ahead and buy them???”

Regardless of what he buys, you’re eager to eat anything and everything with your fav neighbor *wink wonk*

You feel bad when he would do that though, so you try to return the favor every so often as well

One time, you ordered some takeout but the servings were waaaaay bigger than advertised and you’re like Idea!! Let’s head over next door!! So you took the plastic bags and put in some drinks before heading out the door

You knocked on the door and that was when you heard light chatter on the other side of the door

You’re like sldjfljds i hope im not interrupting anything aaa mAYBE I SHOULD JUST LEAVE--

Too late, someone’s voice rang out “I’ll get it!” and next thing you know, the door swings out to reveal a face you’ve never seen before

“Oh, hi!” He says a little surprisedly but with a smile nevertheless

“H-hi, umm,,,, is Jihoon there?”

The guy is nodding his head in the direction of the back hallway, “yeah, he’s in the bathroom” and that’s when he looks down at your hands and his eyes instantly light up

“Omg did you bring food?? You’re so thoughtful!! Come in, come in!!” and before you could protest he literally drags you in and you’re met with a bunch of other strangers who are staring back at you like :oooo????

“Who’s this?? Jihoon never mentioned someone coming over today,, AND YOU CAN’T JUST DRAG SOMEONE IN THIS ISN’T YOUR HOME”

And you’re like ya i didnt know either lmao

You’re awkwardly shifting on your feet and praying jihoon will pop up instantaneously bc you’re gonna melt in embarrassment

“I just wanted to give him some of this,” you hold up your hands to gesture your food, “since it’s too much for me to finish on my own”

“Oh that’s cool! Some of the other guys are actually out to get more lunch, but food goes out fast with all of us here,” another guy says as he pats your shoulder reassuringly. “Well, since you’re already here, you can join us!”

“I-it’s ok! I hope I wasn’t interrupting anything, I just wanted to deliver this,,, I’ll get going” and you’re about to zOOM outta there but the same guy who ushered you in is like nO DONT LEAVE

“We’re taking a lunch break, so it’s cool if you join us! I’m Soonyoung” and he’s like :DDD and you’re just like ,,,, what a hyper guy but i like him

Everyone goes around to introducing themselves

you do a headcount of 8 and you remember there’s more guys getting food for them,,,, holy heck how many people do they have???? You’re about to introduce yourself after them but then

“Soonyoung, who was at the door--” a familiar voice calls out in the hallway before he emerges

And jihoon is like dsljLSJDF what the hELL

“Y/N??? What are you doing here???” *side eyes soonyoung*

And everyone’s making eyes at each other like waIT WAIT THIS IS Y/N???

“Soonyoung dragged me inside”

“Gdi soonyoung, how many times do i have to tell you that you can’t go around dragging people to join us???”

This guy who you think is named Seokmin pipes up, “yeah he does this all the time at our workplace too. A lot of our coworkers always end up extending their stay for far too long” and you’re nodding slowly like yeahhh i can see that happening

Soonyoung’s eyes are widened and he turns to jihoon like “is this the y/n that inspired your recent so--”

And jihoon is quick to cover his mouth so his voice is all muffled

“aHahaAHHAH soonyoung’s always the joker, april fools day!!! Let’s set the table, the others should be back soon”

jihoon whispering to soonyoung: you better sleep with one eye open tonight boi

And you’re like uhh alrighty :)))???

About twenty minutes after you’ve arrived, there’s another knock on the door

Soonyoung is practically bouncing on his way to the door and you can hear more unknown voices

They’re filing in and they suddenly stop and look at you like wait what

Them: :o????

You: :))),,, what up

Jeonghan briefly explains the situation to the guy who came in the door first and you’re lowkey intimidated bc he seems to be eldest and looks like he could beat you up to a pulp

BOY WERE YOU WRONG

After jeonghan tells him, he breaks out into this gigantic, cute gummy smile like welcome!! :DD i’m seungcheol! And the other guys behind him follow suit

Jeonghan’s like “this is,, y/n” and everyone tries to be subtle and nods like they didn’t hear jihoon babble on and on about you for weeks

You: ok why do yall act all weird when my name is brought up whAT DID JIHOON TELL YOU

Them: i would tell you but i don’t wanna die just yet sorry dude

Jihoon, somewhere in the kitchen: SET! THE! TABLE!

You end up staying there for a pretty long time, bonding over the whole feast you have and it’s really lively and fun, not to mention super loud with 13 guys in the same room,,, but you’re genuinely having a good time

Jihoon would glance at you nervously occasionally to check on you if you’re uncomfortable in any way

Jeonghan, who’s sitting next to him, notices jihoon’s eyes are practically glued to you and he’s like “is this the part where you confess your undying love and propose”

And jihoon is like shUT UP NO WHAT this chicken tastes great *quickly chugs down water*

You look back at jihoon sometimes and see he looks flushed but it’s not like he’s drinking alcohol

“Jihoon are you feeling ok?? Your ears are bright red” which obviously makes them redder rip

“I-i’m fine,, wow is it hot in here maybe it’s just the spiciness of the chicken let’s open the windows”

You eventually leave them as much as they protest and even try to get Jihoon to guilt trip you (unsuccessfully)

“Don’t leave just yet y/n!! You should stay, right Jihoon???”

“Huh?? O-oh yeah, I mean, you can if you want,,,,, we kinda need to work though”

Everyone’s looking at jihoon like bro wTF are u kidding me

Rip reader i can feel your heart drop :’(((

You’re feeling slightly dejected but you nod understandingly. You’ve already stayed far longer than you anticipated anyways, and work comes first for Jihoon

“Yeah, I totally get it! Good luck on the album guys!” You put on your shoes and close the door

When they finally hear your own door close, they’re attacking jihoon like

“SO Y/N IS THE ONE BEHIND ALL YOUR SAPPY LOVE SONGS HUH!!!”

“I knew it, the lyrics just suddenly got cheesier -- there had to be someone behind all of that”

And jihoon is just praying you won’t hear what they’re saying like “SHUT UP THESE WALLS ARE THIN”

Back at your apartment, it suddenly feels much emptier and lonelier

“What am i doing,,, I just met the guys for like two hours???”

You sigh and you try to busy yourself doing other things but you hear a loud commotion on the other side of the walls with just a bunch of incoherent shouting

You smile and laugh to yourself when you think about how close they all are

Your smile slowly fades when you start wishing you wanna be close to Jihoon and you’re like snAP OUT OF IT!!!

A couple of weeks pass by uneventfully but you notice that Jihoon has gotten more reserved around you

It’s just him being bashful around you and he panics every time he sees you but obviously he doesn’t want you to know that

You’re standing at your little mini balcony and admiring your cute little cactus plants

Just as you start thinking about him and his wellbeing, you hear your name and you’re like wHO’S THERE

You look down and see Jihoon staring back at you and honestly he looks like he’s awestruck by your whole beauty bc seriously everything you wear always looks super good to him

[insert photo]

(also pretend he’s holding plastic bags)

He holds up his hands and you’re laughing bc you know exactly what that means

“Come on up!”

There’s a knock on your door promptly afterwards and what do you know!!! It’s the man himself!!!

It’s just funny how the both of you have this ongoing routine that you know what to expect

When you let him in, he places the bags on your table and quickly smiles to himself when he sees your laptop on your bed

You and Jihoon both mindlessly do your respective roles as usual

He slowly comes out in the living room with your laptop and he’s like “so the album is pretty much done now,,, i can’t release all of the songs yet but there’s one i want you to listen to. I’ll show you after we eat”

You’re like ooo im excited and you start catching up with him as you’re eating

You can’t contain your excitement any longer, so as soon as you eat the last bit of your food, you’re like “oKAY SHOW ME IT NOW” as you’re restlessly shifting on your legs

He nods and pulls up the media player on your laptop. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath before pressing play

It’s a melody you’re quite acquaintanced with after hearing it countless times at night, the same tune that lulls you to sleep

You have high expectations for this song, and surely he surpasses them with flying colors

You’re enjoying the song and telling him “wow this is a really good song!” when suddenly some lyrics catch your attention

You hear something about messy hair pulled back, ruffled clothes, eating meals

And you’re like huh that sounds a lot like us haha is that supposed to be me??

Jihoon is avoiding eye contact with you and looking down at his fidgeting hands as the song progresses in its later verses

The lyrics talk about wanting to develop a deeper relationship, one where “it’s okay to tell me anything, your hardships and desires. I just want to see you smile” and you’re like wait,,,,

And one of the final lyrics says something about “i can’t help feeling like this, will you accept my hand?” and you’re like wait wait w a i t

The song comes to an end and silence fills the room

You’re not sure whether you should speak up first or wait for him, but either way you’re speechless and wouldn’t know what to say anyways

Jihoon clears his throat awkwardly and stumbles on his words poor bby

“S-so, yeah,,,, I’ve been working on this one the longest,,,, umm do you,,, like it?”

But you know better that he’s not just talking about the song

“Nah sorry man i’m not interested”

“O.”

April fools kiddos ofc you are

“....yeah. I do like it”

And he finally brings himself to look at you and he’s like !!!!! really????

“Wait, for real??? You actually like it???”

He’s pretty much paralyzed in shock and all he can do is watch your hand move towards his and hold it

“I like it a lot, Jihoon :)”

He blinks slowly and he can’t fight the grin that spreads on his face as he grips your hand back

“I’m accepting your hand now heehee ^^”

“Okay let’s not talk about that”