#i feel like they just buy whats popular at that moment and dump everything else which i guess makes sense

[cowboyviolence]

I agree with the general sentiment on this website that you should utilize your local library but what they don't tell you I sometimes your local library sucks ass

[imkylotrash]

Golden

Pairing: Sky x reader

Requests: The reader is Stella’s sister but Sky is secretly in love with her and he confesses. Anonymous

and

Could you write where sky is with a princess of solaria (Stellas sister) and they attempt to keep it secret from Stella and set before the summer of the events on the fate the winx saga is set.

A/N I paired these request because they were so similar and would have the exact same plot line. Will be doing this to a couple of the requests since they’re so similar. 

“Free at last!” you exclaim as you walk out the doors of Alfea with Sky in tow. You’ve finally finished your last exam and now it’s time to just enjoy the summer. 

“So, what’s your plans then?” Sky asks propping his arm around your shoulders. There’s nothing new in this but you still get butterflies. At this point, it’s just a given whenever he touches you. 

“Oh, you know. Travelling through the realms, visiting all my rich friends. I may even buy a yacht just to pass the time.” It’s a bit of an inside joke between you and Sky. He knows you’ll have to return to Solaria and face the dragon. 

“What about you? Will you be alright?” You’re a little worried about leaving him here. Stella had decided to dump him just days before the exams once again proving that the girl had no regard for other people. Needless to say, you weren’t the biggest fan of your sister. She always tried to live up to your mother’s expectations and acted more than royally around school whereas you had decided that the disappointed frown your mother wore every time you saw her actually suited her face. 

“Yeah,” he says shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans, “I’ll be fine. I have Silva.” It’s right then and there you decide that there’s a greater need for you here than hiding away back in Solaria. 

“You know, my mother is already profoundly disappointed in me. I don’t think it would make much of a difference if I were to stay.” Sky’s smile is brighter than the sun when he realises you’ll be staying right here with him. 

“Thank you,” he says hugging you tightly. He’s never been one to share him emotions easily but over the years you’ve learned to decipher his many facial expressions and there was just no way you would leave him right now. Your mother is as delighted as you expected when you tell her of your plans for the summer but you figure she’ll forgive you at some point. The way you see it, there’s a throne waiting for you back at Solaria and you want to enjoy freedom as long as you possibly can. Sometimes, you catch yourself wishing that Stella was the older sister. She’d be much more suited for the royal life but there’s a strict code of conduct when it comes to heirs and you’re the first born so the crown will eventually be placed on your head.  

“You won’t be returning with me?” Stella asks as she’s packing up her suitcase. Her tone in stern already setting you off. 

“I’ll be spending enough time there once I graduate.”

“Oh yes. The ever-repeating speech on how this is your moment of freedom and you won’t give it up for anything,” Stella mocks clearly upset to be facing mother alone. You feel a pang of guilt knowing what you’re sending Stella back to but the two of you have never been able to see eye to eye especially when it came to mother’s expectations of her daughters. 

“You’re welcome to stay here at Alfea if you’d like.” It’s an offer made to be polite because you know she’ll never accept it. 

“Please. Someone has to be responsible and return home. Our people look to the royal family for support. We can’t all pretend to be someone else.” 

“I’m not pretending, Stella. If I could give you the crown, I gladly would. If I had my way, I’d be just another fairy attending Alfea.” It’s a discussion you’ve had more than once and it’s always the same outcome. You don’t want the crown and Stella does but your mother would never allow the two of you to switch. Stella doesn’t say goodbye when she leaves and you’re okay with that. Instead you head out to find Sky. 

“Ready for the summer of your life?” you ask him and he smiles. It passes by too fast. The picnics out on the field, Silva training with you, walks in the forest at night. It’s nothing grand but it becomes the perfect summer on the final day when Sky pulls you aside as all the students start to arrive. 

“I have to tell you something. I’ve been wanting to all summer but I was scared I might ruin it.” Your heart skips a beat but you tell yourself that it’s probably not what you think it is. Rather than making assumptions, you stay quiet waiting for him to speak. 

“When this summer started, I thought I’d spend it alone and heartbroken over Stella but then you stayed. And I know it seems insane since you’re Stella’s sister, but I just can’t help but feel the way I do around you,” he smiles. It’s too good to be true. There has to be some kind of catch or problem in your way but right now everything feels perfect. You carefully take his hand and intertwine your fingers with his and Sky’s cheeks turn red. He’s always so gentle and kind so you know you’ll have to make the first move. As you stare into his eyes, you notice little specks of green mixed with the blue. You finally close your eyes, lean in and kiss him. Something you’ve wanted to do since you laid eyes on him the first time. You pull away with a huge smile plastered on your face thinking this moment is perfect and then you spot her. 

“Stella.” Thankfully, she hasn’t seen you but it’s only a matter of time before she’ll spot the two of you. Hand in his, you drag him with you behind a tree keeping you out of sight. 

“Of all the things I imagined you’d say after our first kiss, Stella wasn’t one of them.” He’s teasing you but you feel horrible. Despite your many differences, you do care about Stella and it would kill her to know that you’re dating her ex-boyfriend. You’re not even sure if she’s properly done with him or not and just thinking about her finding out about the two of you is enough to make your skin crawl. 

“She can’t know,” you plead looking into his eyes. He has to understand the importance of it. She’s not strong enough mentally to handle this. 

“Hey, relax,” he says cupping your cheeks, “how about we keep it to ourselves until we know what this is?” You know you don’t want to give him up but you don’t want to hurt Stella. His offer gives you him and keeps Stella blissfully unaware of the relationship which is good enough for you. 

“Okay. Just you and me, no one else can know.” 

“Please just kiss me,” he whispers leaning in and you don’t know how you could ever refuse him. Over the next few weeks, you and Sky have stolen moments between classes and nights spent wrapped in each other’s arms. You know you shouldn’t but you love him. One night you whisper it when you think he’s sleeping and he almost gives you a heart attack when he whispers it back. 

“I thought you were sleeping,” you whisper-yell trying to hide your face in his chest. 

“You’ve been turning around every two seconds. It’s impossible to fall asleep,” he chuckles wrapping his arms tightly around you. 

“I’m sorry, I have a lot on my mind,” you sigh. 

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks turning on the lamp by his bedside table. It showers Sky in a golden light making him look more angelic than human. It’s not fair how some people look so beautiful without even trying. 

“Yes. No. Maybe. I don’t know where to start,” you reply sitting up and leaning your back against the wall. You want to tell Stella so you can be done with sneaking around. As much fun as it’s been, you’re getting tired of watching Stella try to flirt with him because she decided he was good enough after all. Of course, he’s been turning her down but it just doesn’t seem to click with her. But you also know it’s a risk telling her since she’s not likely to congratulate you. 

“I guess I’m just tired of sneaking around,” you finally say. He signals for you to lay down with him again and you have no reservation as you crawl into his arms. 

“I’m ready for it when you are. Frankly, I just want to tell everyone you’re mine so the boys leave you alone.” 

“Please, you literally have a whole fan club waiting for you at every corner giggling and blushing if you even look in their direction.” Sky has become very popular now that he appears single and you can’t blame them. He is ridiculously handsome and more importantly, he’s kind and patient and warm. Right about now, he’s your favourite person in the whole world. 

“I do not,” he protests but even he knows it is the truth. His face is serious when he says: “Maybe we should tell her. I know you wanted to protect her but we can’t hide it forever. You’re expected to marry at some point and so am I.” 

“I know. I know. I just feel like a horrible sister.” This feeling of guilt comes as a surprise. You’ve never been that close but you don’t want to be the reason she’s hurting. 

“You’re not a horrible sister. Everything you’ve done these past few weeks has been to make sure she didn’t get hurt. It’s not selfish to want to be happy, Y/N.” But that’s just it. You’re already far too aware of your own happiness. It’s the reason you always stay away from Solaria and the expectations of the crown. It’s why you’re lying in bed with Sky right now. You've always put your own happiness first and you’ve never had a problem with it until now. 

“I’ll talk to her first thing in the morning then.” He kisses you one last time before you both fall asleep. You wake up to a note from him informing you that Silva had added a morning practice which meant you had no reason not to march into Stella’s room right now and tell her about you and Sky. 

“Can I talk to you?” you ask entering Stella’s bedroom. 

“If you must,” she replies not even bothering to look at you. 

“I don’t know how to say this so I’m just going to say it. I’m dating Sky,” you force yourself to keep going even as she goes completely rigid, “and I have been for a while now. I’ve kept it a secret because I never meant for this to happen and I didn’t want to hurt you. But it’s getting serious now and I needed you to know. I promise I’d never ever go for him if I didn’t have feelings for him.” She’s quiet for so long you’re worried she might just never speak to you again. 

“I’m not happy you kept it from me but I suppose if he has to date someone else, it wouldn’t be horrible if it was you.” Relief floods your body as you realise that she’s not breaking and she doesn’t hate you. 

“Thank you.” This is about as heartfelt as it’ll ever be between you and Stella. You share a moment locking eyes with each other before she turns her back to you. 

“I’m going to go then,” you say slowly backing towards the door. Stella doesn’t say anymore but the fact that you’re still breathing is a much better reaction than you’d dared hope for. Immediately after you head to the training grounds to find Sky. Once you spot him, you run right into his arms and he lifts you from the ground. 

“I love you,” you say kissing him in front of everyone. It’s so freeing to know that the secret is out. 

“I love you too.”

[yikesharringrove]

Egg the Cat

Chapter 3

Read on Ao3

-

Billy had to double-check to make sure he hadn't accidentally followed someone else home from the party.

Because Steve lived in a fucking mansion.

“Jesus Christ .” Billy stared at the house. “You didn’t tell me you’re fucking royalty .” Steve rolled his eyes, leading Billy towards the house.

“Can it. You got the booze?” Billy shook the bottle at him.

Steve looked better. Like maybe he had gotten a bit of a handle on himself.

Billy followed him into the pool of light cast over the porch, the unmistakable scream of a very excited cat sounding from inside.

Steve pushed open the door, bending immediately to scoop up his purring cat, holding her close to him as he went inside.

Billy gave a low whistle as he took off his boots, lining them neatly next to Steve’s shoes.

Steve just climbed the stairs, assumed Billy was following.

Steve’s bedroom was nice enough.

Felt as impersonal as the rest of the gaudy house, but there was a cat tree by the window, and a cat bed Egg ignored in favor of curling up on Steve’s lap as he settled in bed, sitting up against the headboard.

Billy didn’t know what to do with himself.

Last time he was in another boy’s bedroom, very different things were happening.

But then Steve gave him an odd look, eyes flicking to the spot next to himself, and Billy took that as his cue.

“I can’t drink a lot. Gotta be home in three hours.” His dad had a very clear rule about curfew: You miss it, don’t bother coming home.

“This is for me, anyway.” Steve gave him the weakest smile Billy’s ever seen, taking the bottle from Billy’s hand, and taking a long pull.

He grimaced at the taste, gasping for breath.

“That’s fucking rank .”

“Not used to cheap liquor?” Steve swatted at his arm, but took one more pull before passing the bottle to Billy.

Egg was still settled in his lap, and Steve ran long fingers through her dark fur.

“She can always tell when I’m feeling bad. Gets extra snuggly.”

“More snuggly than at the diner?”

“Nah, that was the more. She could tell I had been freaking out looking for her.” Her ear twitched and her tail swished, like she knew they were talking about her. “She’s the smartest cat in the world, I think.” He was quiet for a few moments as Billy took a drink from the bottle. “Took better care ‘a me than Nancy ever did. That’s for damn sure.”

“Sucks that she dumped you like that. All drunk and shit.”

“Isn’t there an expression? Drunk words are sober thoughts? Wish she had gotten drunk a year ago. Woulda saved me a lot of fucking trouble.” Egg perked up, standing to pace on Steve’s lap, curling up again, her chin resting on his tummy. “See? Has a fuckin’ sixth sense for when I’m upset.” She purred, her eyes closing as Steve scratched between her ears, down her back.

“How long have you had her?”

“Like five years? Someone was just, giving her away. Said he didn’t need bad omens, or whatever. ‘Cause she’s a black cat. I think that’s fuckin stupid. She’s brought me nothing but good.” Egg purred again, blinking slowly at Steve, nipping playfully at his fingers.

She really was cute.

Billy had never been much of a cat person, always favored dogs a bit more.

But Egg was so human, the way she tracked their conversation, like she could understand it.

“Man, don’t laugh.” Steve took the bottle from Billy, taking another long pull, shuddering halfway through. “I’m already feelin’ this. Haven’t drunk in so long .”

“Pussy.” Steve huffed a laugh, Egg meowed as his stomach shifted, jostling her head. He let the silence sit for a moment, just watched Steve’s fingers stroke through thick dark fur.

“So, uh, are you like, friends with Tommy?” Steve’s voice was way too measured, his tone far too light and casual.

“Who?”

“Tommy. The guy that was parading you around all night.”

“Oh, uh Karate Kid, guy?”

“Yeah.”

“No. He just kinda started talking at me, told me to do a keg stand. Said the guy that still held the record was a poser.” Steve outright laughed at that.

“Yeah, you broke my record tonight. I’m the poser.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

Billy turned to look at Steve, found him smiling this stupid fond smile at the cat on his lap. The room was dim, only one lamp clicked on, throwing a warm glow around the room.

“Can I ask you what happened? You said you used to be hot shit.”

“Nancy.” Steve’s smile evaporated like a flash. “I used to be a real douchebag. Ruled that fucking school. I mean, it’s not like I liked myself. I could definitely be called a bully, like, which sucks. But, you know. I had friends. I was popular. All that.”

“But she didn’t like that.”

“Nope.” Steve made sure to pop the ‘p’. “It’s not like she blatantly said that, but I could tell. I think that, I think that the changes have been good, like I’m nicer to people now. But I kinda cut off all my friends. Just hang out with her most of the time. And now-” Steve trailed off, taking another swig of shitty tequila. “Guess it’s just me and Eggy.”

“You say that like I’m not sitting right here.” Steve smiled at him, a real one, not the tight ones he’s been using all night.

“You hang out with me, you’re gonna be a fucking laughing stock, new kid.”

“Oh, come on. Have you seen me? I could literally never be a laughing stock. If anything, I'll make you cool again.” Steve just hmmmn ed at Billy, his eyes going a little far away.

“I don’t know if I really, really care about that anymore, if I’m being honest.” He swallowed thickly. “Some major shit went down last year. Like, more than Nancy shit. Kinda put things in perspective, I guess.” Egg had sat up, kneading at Steve’s stomach, making a noise like a little cat alarm.

Egg was so in tune with Steve it was utterly fucking ridiculous. They must be wired directly into one another’s brains.

“What kinda major shit?” Steve was quiet. Egg began walking up him, stepping softly until she settled on his chest, her chin resting on his shoulder, little pink nose tucked into his neck.

“Just like, major shit. Like, like people died kinda major.”

“Damn.”

“Like, I legally can’t talk about it kinda major.” Egg sniffed in his neck.

“What, you get mixed up in some kinda lawsuit or some shit?” Steve just sighed.

“Man, I just said I legally can’t say anything.” But he had a ghost of a smile on his face when he turned to look at Billy. “Can I ask you something?”

“Free country.” Steve rolled his eyes.

“Why Hawkins ?”

“You asked me that like, three times yesterday.”

“And you never answered.”

“I said my dad remarried and wanted a-”

“Fresh start, yeah. But you could move one town over and have that. You could stay in the same damn state and do that. Why Hawkins ?”

There was something more behind Steve’s voice, something strained.

Billy just looked back up at the ceiling.

He had to take a breath, talking himself out of actually telling Steve. Telling him how Neil wanted him out of California, where gay bars were only a short drive away. Where Billy could cruise the piers, where a carefully toned you goin’ my way? could lead to a sloppy blowjob in the car.

Hawkins wasn’t necessarily specific, but Neil had wanted a small, God-fearing town. One where he would know if Billy got up to anything unsavory.

“He found a job here,” he said lamely.

Everything in him was screaming to trust Steve. To tell him the truth. Which was just a fuck of a lot. Billy doesn't trust people. He just does not.

He blames Steve.

Blames those soft brown eyes.

“Well, that’s thrilling .” Billy rolled his eyes, smiling a little to himself.

“What were you expecting?”

“Something more exciting. You moved here from California. That’s like, the coolest place ever .”

“I lived in L.A., too.”

“So like, the coolest place in the coolest place.”

“You ever been?” Steve just gave him a dark look.

“Last time I left the state was ten years ago. My parents took me to Chicago.”

“Damn. You’re like, a true hick, then. Only know this little town.”

“That’s me. Pure hick .” He scratched Egg’s back hip. She purred softly. Billy took another long drink, officially calling that his last one. He needed to be sober by the time he went home. Couldn’t be loud and clumsy as he made his way to his room.

He just pressed the bottle into Steve’s hand.

They spent the rest of the time before Billy had to leave just talking.

It was nice, Steve filling him in on the Hawkins drama, told him which gas stations had better candy selections, that the liquor store on the corner of Haven and Burbank didn’t card. He told him that Andrew Conner always had good weed, but it was cheaper to buy from Lisa Kendle.

And the more Steve drank, the more his eyes drooped, the lazier his smiles got, the closer he scoot to Billy.

He was warm, pressed up to Billy’s side, cat still curled on his chest.

He listened with rapt attention as Billy gave him stories about California, about the boardwalk and metal shows, told him stories of his best hookups, told him they were girls.

He was in the middle of one story, switched out the name from Daniel to something more appropriate, when he looked over, found Steve knocked out, mouth hanging open, tequila dangerously close to spilling, cat sleeping soundly on his chest.

It made Billy falter.

He just took in the scene, wanting to remember it.

He moved slowly, tried not to shift the bed too much, and turned out the light in Steve’s bedroom as he left.

[the-badger-mole]

I've honestly always thought Mai loves Zuko for his status and privileges. I really did. There are so many scenes just indicating this.

She's a gold-digger. She canonically favours her own comfort over everything and everyone else, completely lacks any moral sense or empathy. She was RAISED to be like that by the family of careerists. She's always quiet and it feels like she's there for you (even Azula was tricked into believing this), but she ends up doing whatever she wants in the end.

She's also always pretty eager to get back with Zuko after he becomes a meaningful person again...in the first episode she's already jumping on him while he's about to become a prince again and in the final episode - she f*cking forgets she's been in jail for weeks because of him or that he dumped her out of nowhere and she never even actually realised why. And I'll remind you that while Zuko was banished she was totally okay with hunting him down with Azula, or when he was at Boiling Rock she used her authority to press him some more. The palanquin and fruit tart scenes do not help either.

She's just there for royal life, privileges and sex, change my mind.

And before anyone says she was ready to sacrifice her comfort for Zuko's safety I'll say - she had nothing to lose at Boiling Rock. She never feared Azula, neither do I think she was treated as horribly as the prisoners here knowing that her uncle is in charge of the prison. And while it's clear there're gonna be some changes in the country due to Avatar raising the resistance, it's probably the most clever and thought-out politics of her - to sit it all out and wait for it to end.

I love this version of Mai, to be quite honest. This is more compelling than her all of the sudden discovering she was afraid of Azula, just in time for her to realize she loved Zuko more than she feared Azula.

Also, lets be real, even in my most charitable moments, I can't see Mai lasting with Zuko because she would HATE being the Fire Lady. If living with her parents was stifling (nah... I still don't buy that), then being the wife of one of the most powerful world leaders, the wife of a Fire Lord who is trying to balance reparations to the other nations AND making sure his own people don't starve, the wife of a Fire Lord who is going to be looking to his Fire Lady to be an ally and a partner, would be an absolute NIGHTMARE for Mai. She doesn't care about other people in a way that would make her a good choice for co-ruler of a post imperial, post war country. Mai would be a mix of Yzma and the caricature of Marie Antionette. Ruling the Fire Nation with Zuko would be a full time job, and I don't think Mai would be good at it.

IF YOU LIKE MAI as she is in the show, and not the popular fanon takes on her, then I have to question why you ship Maiko. It's like Ty Lee joining the Kyoshi Warriors. That type of responsibility is the opposite of what Mai wanted. Mai wants a carefree life of lavish luxury. She wants the freedom to come and go as she pleases. She wants parties where handsome men pay attention to her. That is NOT the life that would come with being married to a man like Zuko. Maybe a different Fire Lord would give her the trophy life she wants, but if she were married to Zuko, the best either of them could do is stay out of each other's way. Mai isn't going to work with Zuko. Zuko isn't going to stop craving support.

You know who would be a good match for her, at least temporarily? Aang.

Aang wants a woman with no real opinions and who won't challenge him or his paper thin understanding of Air Nomad philosophy. Mai might snark on him and maybe threaten people with knives, but she isn't going to challenge his sense of self, and she isn't passionate enough about anything to cause problems that might need to be handled with violence. In fact, she might be the best ego massage Aang ever got. She wouldn't be on him to do his freakin job. If Aang wants to segregate the world and ban intermarriage, she wouldn't care. The Northern Water Tribe wants to colonize the Southern Water Tribe? Mai has experience with that. Aang gets pissed off for no reason and wants to destroy several city blocks? Mai is sitting on a hillside watching the mayhem through binoculars. As long as Aang supplied good times with little to no effort on Mai's part, she'd be happy enough with him.

[dreaming-of-assclass]

Group 4 Adult hc’s please 😭 they’re all precious! Thank you for loving Group 4

YES OMG! I love this! And you’re so right 😭 They are so precious and I adore them 💜

WAIT. I wasn’t sure if you meant individual hc’s or ones of them all together 😭 If I messed this up, lmk and I’ll do new hc’s!!

Karma Akabane

He’s a distinguished bureaucrat by day, a compete fucking disaster by night

No who am I kidding

He brings chaos no matter what time

Lives to drive his co-workers insane, even if he gets along with them. It’s just a habit of him being around anyone lmao

His apartment is really expensive and nice...except it’s also a fucking mess.

See when he was a kid and lived alone, there was still a maid around. He didn’t live like a slob.

But as an adult with no supervision whatsoever....well, he kinda lets loose. A lot.

Drops his $500 suits right onto his floor, has piles of clothing around, his official government papers are laying everywhere, like Karma, isn’t that illegal??? Lmao

Invites his co-workers out for drinks, or he happily goes along if someone else invites him. Actually makes more of an effort to be social as an adult, surprisingly.

Irritates Terasaka whenever he gets to see him...which is fairly often hehe

Also likes to barge into Group 4’s lives...literally. Like he’ll randomly show up to Nagisa’s classroom, sneak onto Kayano’s film set, invite himself into the nursing home Kanzaki is at and befriend elderly people, etc.

No matter what though, you can’t change Karma lmao. He will go to ridiculous and edgy methods in his job, even snoop on government officials outside of work

You DO NOT want him as an enemy. If any politician crosses him, Terasaka tears up on their behalf. “Just try to survive, man.” “Uh, what?” “You’ll see.”

Competent adult rating: 5/10

Manami Okuda

It’s not surprising of course, but she’s totally dedicated to her work and research. Her loved ones have to remind her to take breaks often.

Her apartment is generally tidy because she’s barely there.

Her work desk space on the other hand...is hella messy lol. She tends to throw papers around in the middle of stuff, and there are a few old food containers or takeout boxes from late night work.

She likes to tie her hair up in a braided bun often, to keep it out of the way. That’s mandatory for lab work anyways.

Dresses in a lot of casual but comfy attire, like blouses, jeans, skirts and boots, etc.

Gets along well with her colleagues, but she still has that habit of being a little reserved. Like she won’t jump right into hanging out with them, only if she’s invited to.

Her communication skills have improved so much omg, let’s all be proud of her <3

She has a pet chameleon!! It’s name is Rutherford, after the chemist lol

Tomohito Sugino

He actually lives by the strictest guidelines out of all of them

Since he’s a professional athlete, he really has to take care of his body and maintain his physique.

So like...a diet focusing on proteins, vitamins, nutrients, lean meats, vegetables, etc. All that good stuff.

And he works out twice a day. Once in the morning, he goes out for a jog as cardio. Then in the evening, he’ll do a more strength-based workout for his core and biceps.

As usual, he is very social and makes friends super easily UwU. When he’s not focusing on work (this is rare) he likes to make plans with people often.

Can’t handle being alone for too long

Gets confused/annoyed by finance matters a lot lmao. Hates filing taxes and doing paperwork, treats it like a chore rather a necessity for adulting

He has a really popular Instagram page actually, given that he’s a well-known baseball player. He posts mostly selfies, pics with friends, workout mirror selfie’s lmao, and of course pics of his dog

She’s a golden Labrador named Kimi, and he adores her so much. She’s a puppy still but she’s very active and loving.

He becomes a really popular meme for his very tired facial expression during a particularly rough game. Sugino takes great pride in this lmao

Credit to @assclass-dump for this amazing idea: Sugino being like Tony Hawke, and literally no one recognizes him outside of his baseball uniform lmaooooo. I love that.

Kaede Kayano

She has her shit together...for the most part

Kayano’s fame as an actress only grows more and more as she gets older. She has a ton of awesome big roles, even internationally.

This is canon: she does her own stunts and she always amazes the entire crew, especially if her co-star is new to meeting her and had no idea.

Kayano tends to not always take care of herself that well though. She exercises and maintains a strong physique daily, but her meals tend to consist of like...a flimsy salad and a pudding cup and that’s it.

Her apartment is pretty taken care of for the most part, especially when she’s filming and only comes back for sleep.

On her off-months though, best believe this girl tries to chill at home for as much as she can lol. She needs that well-deserved rest.

Kayano visits Aguri’s grave once every month. She brings her favorite flowers and gives kind of a life update on everything. She cries every time.

During her lowest moments, she’ll open up the yearbook that Korosensei left for her. She’ll read all his encouraging notes, laugh at the goofy memories they made...

She stays in contact with Kanzaki and Sugino the most. It’s harder with Karma and Okuda who have very demanding jobs too...and Nagisa who is hyper-focused on teaching

Gets involved in a couple dating scandals and such because the media is bored and nosy. But she shuts that shit down so fast and ruthlessly.

Yukiko Kanzaki

Adulting definitely comes the easiest for her, out of all of them

At the residence care facility she works at, she’s known for being the chillest and prettiest nurse

Bonds with most of her patients very easily. She especially has a sweet spot for elderly women, since they remind her of her beloved grandmother

She also had learned to be more open and comfortable with expressing herself. Unlike her junior high self, she isn’t envied or disliked or treated as an idol.

She actively communicates with her co-workers and has become better at making connections.

In true Kanzaki fashion, she absolutely will speak out if an injustice happens near her, and this sadly can be common in elderly care homes.

She doesn’t tolerate mistreatment at all. She voices her concerns and objections in her usual classy way, but if nothing changes, she’ll be persistent and more aggressive.

Kanzaki lives in a fairly modest apartment not too far from work. She walks every morning to get fresh air and enjoy being outside. She also stops by a cafe for breakfast and brings something for a co-worker she’s especially close to.

Even though her family could afford to get something way nicer and more expensive, Kanzaki insisted they don’t. She wants to work hard and achieve things through effort.

Besides she’s always been curious about a more humble lifestyle. She finds that she actually enjoys it immensely.

Nagisa Shiota

Hey hey hey, it’s our favorite new teacher <3

Seriously Nagisa is super dedicated to his job. He spends a good portion of his free time making more plans and ideas for future lessons.

He’s also just...such a spectacular teacher.

No matter how difficult his students may be, he never treats them like they’re problems. He always gives them a lot of kindness and respect, which sadly they don’t get a lot from others.

Disciplines in a really good way, like he’ll correct them but won’t sound condescending. He doesn’t sugarcoat, he’ll be honest but absolutely will give new chances.

Also can be totally fun and goofy if the time calls for it. Doesn’t want his students to ever fear him or feel like he’s unapproachable.

Makes learning to be fun and creative, also connects with each student one-on-one for sure.

He lives in a super tiny apartment. That teacher salary bro 😔

Takes a train everyday for a short commute to get to work.

His apartment also is prone to being littered around with a bunch of teaching stuff until he gets to organizing it.

Is generally very liked by his colleagues! Some of them don’t really agree with his teaching style and think he’s too lenient, Nagisa doesn’t pay them mind.

Can cook really well but is prone to buying convenience store meals often, because of his schedule.

Keeps a photo of 3-E on his nightstand.

[obxfishon]

Chasing Waterfalls

(this gif has my heart (LOOK AT THAT SMILE), creds to the creator)

JJ x Reader

Description: Emotions flow like the water in the waterfall.

Prompts: “I wish I had a boyfriend.” “so what do you look for in a guy?” “real stuff, like the shape of his ass” “So, I found this waterfall…”

Word Count: 1.9k (I’m slacking sry)

“BYE MOM I’LL BE HOME TOMORROW!” You scream as you run from the house.

John B’s was pretty close, and you were about to make today unforgettable. The crew had been down in the dumps thinking that there wasn’t anything new for them to do, it was just the same old same old, but you found something at work yesterday.

You work at the country club with JJ, you both applied together a few summers ago when it was becoming apparent that you needed money to go on all the adventures.

While bussing a table yesterday, the girls behind you were talking about this amazing hike that led to a waterfall that had water deep enough that you could jump off into it. You read the name from their tab and searched for her instagram, sure enough she was public and posted the pictures from the hike with a location tag.

Saving the location you texted the Pogues to meet at John B’s tomorrow with food, proper shoes and a bathing suit. You didn’t want to give too much away but they needed to be at least a little prepared for what you had planned.

Racing onto the property you see that you are the last one to arrive, the rest all sitting on the porch trying to figure out what you have planned.

“Are you all ready to have the best day of your life?” You questioned as you jumped onto the porch with them.

“C’mon (Y/n), just spill, what do you have planned?” Kie asks, excitement evident in her voice.

“So, I found this waterfall, well I actually heard about it at work yesterday, but then I found the location and we’re gonna spend the day there!” You explain, watching the smiles grow on everyone’s faces.

“It’s about an hour and a half drive, but I think it’ll be so worth it!” You finish, slightly jumping up and down.

Everyone smiled and nodded and started packing everything that would be needed for the trip.

“(Y/n),” JJ squeezed you into a tight hug and spun you in a circle, “you have saved us all from extreme boredom, so, you’ve been moved up in the rankings and have become my favorite person, John B you’re now in second.”

“HEY! I thought I was forever at first?!” John B yelled from the van.

“Well I haven’t heard you offering any fun ideas, but you do house me and drive me places, just be happy you're still towards the top.” JJ remarked and grabbed the last load of things to bring to the van, throwing a wink your way.

You met JJ and the rest of the group when you moved here a few years back, your mom ran a convenience store that kept you afloat for the most part, getting a job at the county club helped you guys have a little extra cash after the bills were paid.

You clicked with the group better than anyone thought possible, together you all formed a family and there was nothing that could wedge between you all.

—-

The drive was full of awful karaoke and dances between all of you. The energy was unmatchable, everyone just letting go of the stresses of home.

Quicker than expected you all arrived and gathered the necessary belongings into backpacks before setting off on the small hike to where the waterfall was waiting.

It was a hot day and this seemed to be a popular spot to come so there were quite a few other people when you came over the final hill and laid eyes on the waterfall.

It was beautiful, the water fell perfectly and the water was a crystal blue, speckled with a few other people enjoying the cool water.

The group set up towels and the rest of the stuff in a sunny spot before heading for the ledge that people were jumping off. Kie wasted no time in running to the ledge and jumping off, letting out a yell of pure joy as her feet left the ground, she resurfaces with the biggest smile on her face, calling for the rest of you to follow.

John B, Sarah, and Pope followed, but you hesitated due to the nerves that came out of nowhere, JJ picked up on this.

“M’lady,” JJ held out a hand, offering a little extra confidence with it, that you took before both running to the end and jumping off, not letting go of him until you had to in order to swim back to the surface.

Everyone was swimming and throwing water on eachother, occasionally getting out to jump back in again moments later.

After a good amount of time it was decided to get out and take a little snack and rest break, so the group moved to the towels and relaxed in the warm sun.

Looking out to the water again you watch as a couple clung to each other as they floated around the water, just based on the way they looked at each other you could tell they were in love. Without thinking you opened your mouth.

“Ugh, I wish I had a boyfriend,” eyes slightly widening when it came out of your mouth, but you shrugged it off, everyone wished that… right?

“You know, (y/n), I don’t think I’ve ever even known you to date, have you?” Sarah moved her head up to look at you, as well as the rest of the group now.

“Nope, it’s hard to find someone who can handle me,” you smirked.

It was true, you hadn’t really dated before, sure you had crushes and had been in that weird talking stage before, but nothing ever became official.

You were a very strong willed girl, you knew what you wanted and how you wanted to be treated, and some people just seemed to be turned off or scared of that.

You also currently had a crush so deep that it didn’t really let you see anyone else as an option. As soon as you met JJ it was hard to ignore the butterflies that came every time he brushed your shoulder or smiled so big that it reached his eyes, just the small things.

“What do you even look for in a guy?” Kie propped her head up on her hands.

“Oh you know, real stuff, like the shape of his ass.” You smirked again and looked back at the group to see them all rolling their eyes and scoffing.

“Okay but really, what would it take to sweep you off your feet?” This time John B pushed.

Realizing you weren’t gonna be able to joke your way out of this you shrugged your shoulders.

“I mean, I don’t know. I want someone strong willed like myself, someone who really cares, would be willing to drop anything in order to help someone,” sighing you continue, “he needs to be a good listener, willing to pay attention to the little things. He needs to be able to make me laugh, that’s a big one. Oh! And someone who is giving, not like buying me things, I don’t need that, but someone who is willing to give me their time and is willing to work on things together.” You nodded your head and looked at them all, just staring back at you.

“You want someone the opposite of what your dad was.” JJ locked eyes with you and you felt your smile falter a bit.

“Yeah... yeah I guess.”

Your dad was awful to your mother, always told her that he could have done better, just rude and uncaring. When you were 12 your mother caught him cheating. She packed the two of you up and you left, she didn’t have a destination in mind, just drove until she ran out of land, literally. The two of you happened to stop at a gas station by the ferry and saw a listing for the small house that you two lived in now. She paid for a hotel for the week, got things in order to buy it, and set divorce papers to your father all in that week.

After that you two had started thriving in this new house, just you and her. Of course the divorce got messy, but he gave up custody of you without a fight, so after a year the divorce was final and you and your mother never spoke of him again.

“I learned from my mother what it means to be a strong woman, she taught me what it means to love someone, how to find the attributes of that love in someone else. She also taught me about where she went wrong, I know what traits can quickly turn toxic so when I see that in someone I keep my distance.” You are looking at the ground trying to hold back the tears.

Feeling an awkward silence you stood and plastered a fake smile on.

“I don’t know about y’all but I’ve had enough rest, I’m gonna go jump in again.” Nodding you turned and quickly walked to the other side of the water where the ledge was, where you were slightly hidden from the others.

Taking a deep breath you closed your eyes and just tried to forget about the memories that we’re trying to break through, this was supposed to be a fun day, so dammit you were gonna be happy.

“Hey, (y/n), are you okay?”

Your eyes shoot open to see JJ staring back into your own.

“Uh,” you plastered the smile back on, “yeah, yeah I’m fine!”

“Bullshit,” JJ pushes your hair behind your ear and then takes you into his arms, holding you in a tight embrace, “I’m sorry I brought up your dad, I know it’s a touchy subject, I wasn’t thinking, trust me of all people in our group I understand not wanting to talking about your dad, but you know I’m here for you no matter what.”

He felt a sob shake your body in his arms and held you closer, rubbing small circles on your back, then pulling away from you to wipe your tears.

“(Y/n), I’ll give you my time, my attention, shit, I’d give my life for you,” JJ looked down at his feet then met your eyes with his own, “I hate to see you in pain, let me make you happy, okay?” He smiled at you and you felt a smile grow in your own face, nodding as he wiped the rest of your tears from your cheeks.

He pressed a short kiss to your forehead and grabbed your hand as you two walked towards the original destination.

“You know, as far as the qualities you look for in a guy, I do have to say, I DO have the best ass around,” he looked at you, causing a short giggle.

“Eh I dunno, could use some work.” You tried to hide your smile as you passed him, your hand reaching out slapping his butt as you sprinted for the ledge, hoping he wouldn’t be able to catch you.

He caught up to you at the very end, grabbing your waist before you both launched off the cliff.

After landing in the water he kept his hold on you, you both just floated together, you head resting back on his shoulder.

Maybe he would be the first boy that passed your test, the one to finally break down your walls.

Only time would tell.

[ncssian]

A Favor: Part Two

Nessian Modern AU

Masterlist

a/n: im so sorry i know i need to start editing these

***

Nesta stands in her guest room at Cassian’s cabin, hands on her hips as she eyes the garbage bags full of things she managed to salvage from her old apartment. 

All of her rain-soaked clothes sit in two huge bags, waiting to go through the laundry, while her books are carefully spread out on the windowsill, floor, and anywhere they can catch enough sunlight to dry their pages. Nesta almost cried when she saw that Lorene had salvaged her few adult coloring books and the art supplies to go with them, still dry. 

For a brief moment, she’s glad she didn’t buy any physical copies of her textbooks this year— the loss of that money would be too much to bear.

A brief knock sounds at her door, and Nesta spins to find Cassian standing there, laundry basket in hand. “I can take your clothes down for you if you want,” he offers, lifting his own basket with a hand. 

Nesta’s lips tighten. He wants to do her laundry with his. Their laundry will get cleaned together. Her underwear will get tangled up with his. 

Cassian’s brow furrows. “Nesta?”

This is her new reality now. She’ll have to accept it at one point or another. 

“We can do separate loads if you want,” Cassian adds. “Feyre told me you— well, she said you might be more uncomfortable with some things than others. It’s totally fine if you don’t want your clothes mixing—”

“No.” Nesta finally snaps out of it. “I don’t care about the laundry. My clothes are right here.”

 Because she has a sneaking suspicion she might be being unintentionally bitchy again, Nesta helps Cassian drag her bags of drenched clothes downstairs. 

“I feel sort of bad for bullying you into this deal,” Cassian rambles as he dumps clothes into the washer. “Which is why I need you to know you can enforce whatever rules and boundaries you want while you’re here. If you’d prefer I never speak to you for the rest of your time here, I can manage that, too.”

Nesta looks at him with a hint of disbelief. Sometimes he says the oddest things. “I don’t want you to never speak to me again.”

There’s relief in his sagging shoulders. “That’s good,” he says as he pours out detergent. “I mean, I was a little worried you were against this so much because you hated me, but you don’t know me enough to hate me, do you?”

Hate. Nesta rolls the word over her tongue, tastes the hard corners of it, and decides it doesn’t fit for Cassian. Not even close. She wonders how to articulate this to Cassian.

She settles on: “You seem nice enough. Obviously, since you’re letting me live in your luxury mountain cabin for free. But I don’t want to set any boundaries while I’m here. You shouldn’t have to change your normal lifestyle just for a guest. Do whatever you want; it’s your place.”

Cassian presses a button and the rumble of the washing machine begins. “I want you to be comfortable,” he says, turning to face her completely. “Whatever you need, Nesta, seriously.”

For starters, it would make Nesta comfortable if he didn’t say her name like that. His earnestness makes her skin itch, but she’s not going to tell him that. 

Instead, she bravely lifts her chin. “I’ve been pushed so far out of my comfort zone that I don’t think I know how to find my way back.” The honest truth. “At this point, you might as well keep me out here.”

Cassian’s eyes narrow. “If you don’t tell me what things bother you, I’ll have to find them out for myself, you know.” It sounds like a challenge.

“Go ahead,” Nesta deadpans. She doesn’t know what Feyre’s told him about her, but contrary to popular belief, Nesta isn’t a glass doll. Sensitive, high maintenance, yes, but fragile? Never.

She turns on her heel and leaves Cassian in the laundry room, determined not to let her circumstances get the better of her while she stays here.

***

Cassian takes everything back. He’s obsessed. 

He can’t pinpoint the exact moment, how or when or why he decided he likes Nesta. Maybe it was an amalgamation of different things, but by the time she settles onto his living room couch with a box of takeout Thai food, it’s safe to say he’s fascinated.

She’s nothing like how Feyre talks about her. She’s barely anything like the woman he met at the dinner party two years ago. The problem is, Cassian hasn’t pinpointed what she’s like. There’s still too many walls in place, but here, as she slurps noodles unabashedly while watching TV with an intense fixation, she’s softer than he’s ever seen her. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t feel the need to defend herself to a sitcom; there’s no self-consciousness, only a deep focus on the Community episode they’re currently watching.

Cassian splits his focus between offering commentary in an attempt to make Nesta laugh and observing her reactions from the corner of his eyes. A few things he’s noticed so far: 1) Her cheeks bulge like a squirrel’s when they’re full of food; she seems to have no shame about this. 2) She isn’t inclined to respond to Cassian when he makes comments on the show, but the corners of her mouth tilting up imply that she likes it anyway. 3) She watches sitcoms like she’s studying for a final exam about them. 

When the episode finally ends, she turns to him and glances at his hands. “Are you going to eat that?” she says. 

Cassian glances down at his untouched container of food, a little surprised, but hands it over to her without a fight. He can’t pretend it doesn’t do something to him to see her eyes light up over something as simple as curry and rice. 

Nesta’s poking her chopsticks around the box when she notices Cassian watching. “What?” she says, immediately on the defensive.

“You eat funny,” he admits. Her brows furrow so deeply he thinks they might create a permanent indentation. He’s quick to add, “It’s adorable. Seriously.” It isn’t something he would have said yesterday, but he’s taking Nesta’s words from the laundry room to heart. He won’t put a damper on his personality as long as she can handle it. 

Her hand comes up to self-consciously touch her cheek, but she quickly drops it. “Play the next episode,” she says as she picks up her chopsticks again, and that’s the end of that.

***

Cassian wastes no time coming up with ways to push Nesta out of her comfort zone, just as he promised. The next morning, he greets her downstairs in nothing but a pair of sweatpants. Nesta takes a long, slow blink at his bare torso, muscled arms, and brown skin, and turns around to get started on making breakfast. It’s not good enough— he catches a glimpse of her reddened cheeks when she reaches for the milk container anyway.

It’s only until they’re both settled in the living room after dinner that he realizes he doesn’t have the upper hand he thought he did. 

Nesta is stretched out on her stomach on the Persian rug in an oversized tee and nothing else. Her bare legs swing in the air behind her, and she’s listening to music and coloring. 

Cassian’s unanswered emails sit abandoned on the phone in his lap. He truly can’t stop staring; there’s just too much to absorb.

For starters, she wears glasses. Big, round, gold-rimmed glasses that are almost slipping off her nose at the moment. That revelation alone is so affecting that he has to quickly move on to other, smaller details. Like the sound of her uncapping different markers and filling in smooth lines on the page before her. Cassian feels a desperate desire to see what she’s coloring. Her hair is up in a ponytail, and her legs…

Cassian can’t say that ever since he first took notice of the beauty mark at the corner of Nesta’s lush mouth that he hasn’t wondered where else on her body she might be hiding little moles and freckles. He just never expected to get an answer so soon. Because right there, where her shirt rumples up to reveal her bare thigh, is the smallest dark spot. 

He wants to put his mouth on it. 

His own thoughts take him by surprise, and he realizes he’s gripping his phone so hard the screen might crack. 

He uncurls his fingers from the phone and squeezes his eyes shut against the wave of desire crashing into him. Desire and something else, something achingly fond and frustrated at the same time.

“Cassian?” The sound of his name has his eyes snapping open. Nesta’s watching him, brow furrowed. “Are you feeling okay?” she asks.

He feels stupid for trying to play this push-and-pull game with Nesta, because it’s barely even started and he’s already losing. “I’m gonna go put a shirt on,” he mutters, moving to get up.

Nesta’s lips turn down a little. “And ruin the view?” She says it completely seriously, not a hint of slyness to her words.

Cassian’s ass falls back into his seat in pure surprise. His eyes widen. “Was that a joke?” Did Nesta Archeron just make a joke?

Her frown turns deeper. “I don’t think so. Was it funny?”

“It was teasing.”

“Then it wasn’t a joke.” She shrugs and returns back to her coloring. “If you put a shirt on, I’m putting my pants on,” she says without looking up. 

Cassian has absolutely no idea what he’s gotten himself into. But he doesn’t move from the couch for the rest of the evening. 

***

By the end of the weekend, Nesta has gotten the hang of being around Cassian. There are several occasions in those first couple of days— slips of the tongue, really— where she pauses in trepidation, worried she’s said or done too much. She is always doing too much. But then Cassian grins, or laughs, or as of more often lately, teases her right back, and her muscles can relax again. 

He has also relaxed around her. Nesta knows that quiet front he put up when they first met was partly for her benefit, because the more comfortable they become with each other, the more he reminds her of the Cassian Feyre’s always talking about. And yet, the person he is with her is nothing like the person she’s seen hanging around Feyre’s inner circle. This person doesn’t make her feel excluded or ignored. It’s the exact opposite— she hasn’t been on the receiving end of this much male attention since Tomas. 

And as much as it surprises her to like it so much, she’s not in the mood for his particular brand of teasing at seven in the morning on a Monday. 

She stumbles into the kitchen fully dressed and more than a bit disgruntled, needing the strongest cup of coffee available to get through her morning classes today. Cassian is already sitting at the island with his laptop, and raises his brows to see her up this early. He dares to smile at her before the sun is even fully up. “Glad to see you woke up ready to play, Nesta.” 

Nesta almost throws her empty mug at his head. “Don’t talk to me,” she says, thumping her mug down beside the coffeemaker. 

Taunting becomes questioning as he eyes her outfit. “You have somewhere to be at this hour?”

“I’m a law student,” she grumbles, punching buttons on the coffeemaker. “I have morning classes three days a week.” It’s unacceptable, but it isn’t the worst thing she’ll go through as she tries to get her J.D.

Cassian sits up straight at that. “Who’s taking you to class?” Her car is still in for repairs, and she has yet to rent one to make up for it.

“I’m Ubering,” she tosses over her shoulder.

“That’s ridiculous,” Cassian says. “I’ll drive you.”

Nesta spins around at that. “No way in hell.” She throws whatever bite she has into her refusal. 

Cassian is unfazed. “It’s on my way to work.”

“You work from home.” He’s not even dressed.

“Then today is the day I’ll make a stop at corporate headquarters. My subordinates get to see my pretty face for once, you get to go to class, and we all win.” He grins, and in this moment Nesta truly hates his grin. It lights up his whole face in a way that should be illegal. He’s probably robbed banks with that grin. 

Nesta doesn’t have the brain capacity to argue with him. She doesn’t even feel like criticizing the fact that at twenty-seven, Cassian runs the entire security division of Night Court Inc. thanks to the help of the CEO, also known as his adoptive brother.

She’s never met anyone who makes nepotism look so good.

Grabbing her steaming coffee mug and taking a deep sip, unflinching at the feeling of her tastebuds being burned away, she meets Cassian’s expectant gaze. “Get dressed.”

***

When Cassian texts to ask her when she’s getting out of class, she doesn’t expect him to actually show up outside the law building with drinks and a paper bag of food. She has to stop and glance around for a moment, as if he could possibly be here for somebody else. 

Approaching him cautiously, Nesta takes the cup holder from his hand and inspects the contents. A green tea and a rainbow-colored slushie. She looks back up at Cassian, and he smiles. “Shall we?”

They end up settling under the shade of an oak tree on the lawn outside where her Principles of International Law class is held. “So how was your day?” Cassian asks as he bites into a burrito. 

Nesta can’t remember the last time someone asked her that and sounded genuine about it, and she almost doesn't know how to answer. “It's noon,” she says.

“Fine. How was your last four hours?”

“Nothing more interesting than yours.” She eyes his outfit at that. She’s never seen Cassian in this manner. Work Cassian wears expensive buttondowns tucked into slacks. Work Cassian must use some kind of fancy product on his hair to make it so flowy, because for the first time ever, he looks exactly like the amount of money he makes. “You look so...adult. I’d almost buy it if you didn't have the taste palate of a five year old.” Nesta sips from her tea.

He actually rolls his eyes at her. “You wish you had what it takes to handle an every-flavor-slushie.” Because that's what he’s drinking, a heart attack in a 32 ounce cup. 

“That's bait, and I’m not falling for it,” Nesta says through a mouthful of burrito. 

“You don't need to.” He offers the drink out to her. “Try it.” 

Nesta stares at the cup, chewing slowly. Usually the thought of sharing a straw with someone would disgust her, but— 

She just wants to know how it tastes. Swallowing quickly, she grabs the drink. “Whatever,” she mutters, and wraps her lips around the red straw. 

Cassian watches intently as she takes a deep pull. Ten different flavors hit her tongue at once, and she thinks her brain spasms. She's too tough to make a face, and swallows the slushie like it's nothing.

“You like?” Cassian looks hopeful.

Nesta slams the cup down. “It’s disgusting. My point was proven.”

He laughs. “Weak.”

More easy moments pass like this before he says, “I wish you came around Feyre’s more often. I could have gotten to know you earlier.”

Nesta stills, food halfway to her mouth. “What do you mean?”

Cassian shrugs. “It just seems odd that we’ve talked more in the last three days than in the last three years I’ve known of you. Why don’t you hang out with Feyre like Elain does?”

She stiffens, and considers whether the conversation is even worth continuing. “Feyre’s always with you guys,” she chooses her words carefully. “There’s rarely time left for me.”

She waits for Cassian to tell her that sharing exists, and that she’s allowed to be at Feyre’s place with Feyre’s friends at the same time, but he just watches her patiently. Waiting for her to go on. 

“Besides, I used to come over all the time before my sister moved to Velaris. You were there, too.”

“I was?” That gets his attention; he drops his food and turns to face her fully. “What are you talking about?”

Nesta nods, but an odd, old feeling is bubbling up in her chest. It tastes hard and a little sad. “I doubt you noticed, but I was there. In the background while you guys got drunk or laughed together.”

He huffs an odd sort of laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous. I would have noticed you from a hundred foot radius from Feyre’s apartment. We’ve only seen each other twice before this weekend.”

Nesta is caught between disbelief and disappointment, but she hides it well with a scoff. “We’ve only spoken to each other twice, idiot. I’ve seen you plenty of times.”

Cassian looks like she just came up to him with scientific evidence that the sky is green and grass is blue, and he can’t wrap his mind around it. “That just doesn’t make sense,” he says.

Nesta raises a brow. “Are you implying I’m lying?”

He shakes his head quickly. “No, but— it’s like you’re saying I failed to notice a fucking lion in the room every time I didn’t see you. It’s just not something someone fails to notice. It’s impossible not to notice!” He throws his hands up.

You’re impossible not to notice. Nesta has no idea what to make of that, or whether she should be insulted or not. He didn’t say it with the same backhanded tone as so many of the people she knew in high school, but it didn’t sound like high praise, either. On the other hand, the words are so ironic they’re almost funny.

She settles for a shrug and begins sweeping up her napkins and trash. “Well, it isn’t impossible for a lot of people.” The look she throws him says clear enough, Including you.

He works his jaw, seeming upset, but helps Nesta up from the ground anyway. Walks her all the way back to his truck in near-silence and drives them home.

A/N: you’d think the ‘ready to play’ line was a cute reference but i actually just suck at writing banter so i needed to borrow from sarah.

tagging: @ladywitchling @sjm-things @thewayshedreamed @drielecarla @sensitiveillyrian @superspiritfestival @aliveahaahahafuck @cupcakey00 @sayosdreams @rainbowcheetah512 @claralady @thebluemartini @nessiantho @missing-merlin @duskandstarlight @lucy617 @sleeping-and-books @awesomelena555 @julemmaes @wickedqueenoffantasy

if you want to be added or removed please send an ask or dm!

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #368

“whatever doesn’t kill you, is gonna leave a scar”

Have you ever bought a YouTuber’s merch? My favorite shirt is the Day of the Dead design by Cloak, which is Markiplier's and jacksepticeye's clothing brand. Mom's friend/former co-worker also got me a Ninja Sex Party shirt because she knew I liked them. There are SO MANY YouTubers I wanna support by buying shirts. Do you think oatmeal tastes better when made with water or milk? Milk, 110%. Have you ever left a note in a library book? No. What time of day do you prefer to wash your hair? Morning. Has anyone ever spread lies about you? Yes. Have you ever taken a photograph with a celebrity? If so, did it turn out the way you wanted, or do you wish you could retake it? No. If you could move out of your home country permanently, would you? If so, where would you go? If it didn't mean being so very far from my family, I would love to move to Canada. Is there a celebrity that everyone else seems to love, but you find totally overrated? Why is it that you don’t like them? I legit don't know who's considered currently popular, and I especially don't know who they are as people. If you could volunteer for any charity, which one would you choose? Do you think it’s more important to help humans, or are animal and environmental charities equally important? Something relating to animals, and I think they're both equally important. Do you prefer holidays where you relax, or actually do things? I like a mix. Something chill, but you still do some stuff as a family. Do you think that after we die our spirit is still alive? Yes. Has anybody ever told you that you could be a model? Someone has mistaken me for a model in a picture I once took. It was one of the most flattering things I've ever heard, haha. Do you use different kinds of moisturizer for different body parts? ie. hand lotion for your hands, face cream for your face. Or do you just use one moisturizer for all body parts? Yes. Have you ever felt like you were someone’s rebound? No. Has anybody ever broken up with you over something really pathetic? What was it? Have you ever been dumped in a disrespectful way? (eg. through text, through a friend..) I have 100% been dumped in a very cowardly and disrespectful way; after dating Jason for nearly four years and being very serious, he broke up with me very abruptly over Facebook Messenger. His reason was valid, but at the same time, he NEVER talked to me about it. Apparently my depression was dragging him down. If he'd fucking communicated it, I would have explored new treatment options so goddamn fast. But no, he decided to snap his fingers and disappear. That's exactly WHY it was so traumatic, I think: it was so unexpected and sudden. Did you have a lot of role models as a kid? Animal enthusiasts like Steve Irwin and Jeff Corwin for sure. Do you feel like anyone looks up to you? Why or why not? God no. I'm just... not someone to aspire to be like. What was the last thing you found offensive? I'm not sure. Who is the nicest person you know? My mom. Do you feel safe in your country? I feel safe in NC, rather. Like I don't expect an atom bomb or terrorist attack or something in this obscure area. In the U.S.A. itself, sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. America is definitely not loved by every other country. Do you feel safe where you live? Not in this city, no. Have you been falsely diagnosed with something by a bad doctor? Yup. Did y'all know I apparently have ADHD? I know, shocking. Have you ever had a doctor refuse to treat you? No. Name the strangest game you’ve ever played (video game or real game): The first Silent Hill, probably. It took a lot of reading to get it. Do you know anyone who has been struck by lightning before? No. Which cartoon character would you want to keep as a pet? Does Stitch count? Or a Pokemon. Do you like marshmallows? Yes. What is your favorite flavor of candy cane? I really like the Jolly Rancher candy canes, I think they are? Have you ever fostered an animal? No. Do you still take hot showers when it’s hot out? Not as hot, but not cold except on very extreme occasions. When writing $ sign, do you draw one line through the S or two? Two. What animal have you always wanted as a pet but couldn’t have? I'm thankful that my parents were pretty open-minded to what pets I really wanted, but one I was never allowed to have was a ferret because of how messy and smelly they are. List three people you’ve had crushes on: Jason, Sara, and Sebastian were probably my biggest crushes. Have you ever thrown up from cramps? No, but god have I felt close. List three people you had a hard time forgiving. Jason, Colleen, and my dad. Who is the most spiritual person you know? Probably my sister's mother-in-law. Would you ever start a vlog? God no, I'd bore people to tears. Are your dreams coming true yet? I mean, I guess in some ways with my mental health. In my deepest depression, what I have now was a dream, even though current me is very discontent with it. Most of my dreams, though? No. Do you struggle with depression? I've been diagnosed with severe depression since 7th grade. Are you haunted by your past? A few things won't leave me alone. What medical conditions do you have? Just a lot. There are even more that are up for debate. I've talked about my diagnosed conditions enough. Do you use a Magic Bullet? No. What does your apron look like? I don’t have one. What are your favorite spicy foods? Hot Cheetos, Takis, hot wings, jalapeno pizza... Man, I love spicy food. Which do you like better: being an adult or being a kid? Being a kid. Were you excited to be a teenager on your thirteenth birthday? I had very mixed feelings. Did you feel insecure in high school? Shit, I still do. Would you ever be friends with someone who was suicidal? What the FUCK is this question? No fucking shit I would be. Someone being suicidal in no way affects who they are as a person. Who was the biggest bully in high school? I don't think there really was one. What was your favorite class in high school? Art. Would you rather have a daughter or a son? If I wanted kids, a daughter. Have you ever written to an advice columnist? No. Have you ever had a doctor not believe what you told him? Maybe? I did however have an employee at the ER the first time I went try to pry out of me that my self-mutilation was for attention, and it wasn't until I insisted about a dozen times that it wasn't that he believed me. It's odd looking back that I got REALLY attached to him during that stay, knowing now that it was absolutely horrible and extremely unhelpful for him to do that. If you’re female, would you feel uncomfortable having a male gynecologist? I would absolutely refuse to have a male one. Do you like Lisa Frank? Yeah, like can you talk about aesthetic. What gives you nightmares? Boy, I wish I could tell you, given how much I have them. Were you ever hospitalized as a child? No. Did you get senior pictures taken? No. What color is your bicycle? I don’t have one. Did you ever have to take home a fake baby in health class? No, thank fuck. Would you rather wear ivory or white on your wedding day? What color will your bridesmaids wear? I'd rather wear black. I think red will be the bridesmaids' color. Would you rather have a swimming pool or trampoline? I want a swimming pool so damn badly so I could exercise my legs without worrying about sweating, and I can stop and rest whenever I want, unlike going walking or something. I don't think my knees could handle a trampoline. Do you think babies are cute? Some, sure. But a lot, not really. Do you dream about the future a lot? Yeah. Do you think about your past a lot? Way too frequently. How good are you at living in the moment? I'm trying to get better at it. Have you ever questioned God’s existence? Yeah. Vanilla frosting or chocolate? Chocolate. What’s your favorite foreign cuisine? I've actually been exploring Italian pasta lately. I'm not a big fan of foreign food that I've tried, though. Have you ever moved to another state? No. Did you do anything productive today? No. .-. Can you say the alphabet backwards? No, actually. Do you like flowers? Of course; does anyone not? Have you ever thought you were gonna die? I didn't care if I did or didn't. What kind of mood are you in today? I was honestly really depressed through most of it. Just health stuff was really getting to me. I just woke up from what was honestly like a four-hour nap and I feel all right, I guess. What are you craving right now? I REALLY want Domino's jalapeno pizza. Is there anyone you would seriously punch right now if you had the chance? No. What is worse, physical or emotional pain? Definitely emotional. Have you ever walked in on somebody doing something… questionable? When Dad still lived with us, I think he might have been watching... you know... on TV when I came into my parents' room for something. Idk for sure though. I didn't ask, and I don't want to know. If you were to make videos on YouTube, what would they be of? Oh god, idk. I don't want to make any. What I'd have most fun with would be reptile education, but I 1.) have literally one snake, 2.) am not extremely educated on a good number of them and don't want to be misleading, and 3.) I would run outta content fast. So, leave it to Snake Discovery, haha. Posting pictures of yourself in a bathing suit on the internet - ok or not? Yes, it's okay????? If you're talking about me personally though, you won't see me dead in a bathing suit picture. Do you typically laugh when somebody falls down? No, I gasp and see if they're okay. What is the most disturbing movie you’ve ever watched? Paranormal Entity. The ending is... a lot. Your opinion of Katy Perry, please? I like a couple of her songs. If you could say anything to your Mom right now… what would it be? "Thank you for absolutely everything."

[ice-cream-nekogirl]

i’m falling again (Bakugo Katsuki X Reader) (sad ending)

Guys... Harry Style’s newest song is... heartwrenching and I fucking love it, it’s such a tearjerker and I love it so much, I NEEDED to write something with it... it’s that good and it made me cry... >.< </b>

Think of this as an extra to my ‘Dump His Ass’ series that I never expected to become oddly popular!! Thanks you guys!! <3</b>

However, while I love me some angst, I think after I’m done with this I’ll hafta write another fic with a happier ending, but for now... here’s the sad ending!! :3 

FROM: https://ice-cream-kitsunegirl.tumblr.com/post/188898319229/i-needed-to-lose-you-to-love-me-bakugou-katsuki-x

Summary: Bakugo isn’t known for his soft heart, but when he saw you kissing another man, it physically hurt...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olGSAVOkkTI

Nothing hurt or scared Katsuki Bakugo.

Nothing. 

He’s been strong and brave-hearted since he was a child, fearless by nature he didn’t let anything get to him and never showed any moment of weakness and never cried about anything, no temper tantrums didn’t count. 

He wasn’t afraid of the dark as a child, he wasn’t afraid of the bullies who were bigger than him. His fear didn’t waver as he got older and stronger. Because he wasn’t afraid of the villains who attacked him and his classmates at the USJ. He wasn’t even scared of the villains who captured him at the summer camp.

They held him captive and tied him up so he couldn’t escape or try to fight back, he wasn’t scared then. Nothing could get to him. Nothing could make him break down, he didn’t cry when he got his first shot at the doctor, he didn’t cry when those older kids fought with him, he didn’t cry when he wiped out on his bike and hurt his ankle. 

He didn’t cry and he wasn’t afraid of anything. 

Aside from maybe getting nearly possessed by that Sludge Villain, and then All-Might going into retirement. Those were the only two moments in his life that probably scared and internally harmed him the most to bring him to tears.

However...

There’s only one person who really knew how much that scared and hurt him. And that person was you, his beloved girlfriend. Even when he didn’t want to, because Bakugo didn’t open up to people, it wasn’t in his nature. Still, somehow you knew everything about him, and even enabled him to open up to you on the rare moments where he would let you see even a SMIDGE of vulnerability from him because he trusted you.

You were always more openly emotional than him, so much it was annoying especially when you would just chat and chat about something you loved whether it was a movie, a TV show or something he thought was dumb. Still, he listened to you, and God he wished he did more of that. But he especially listened when you were being vulnerable and opening up about everything. Ever since you and him were kids, he’s had a soft spot for you and actually let you open up.

You knew him, you trusted him, you loved him. And he knew you, he trusted you, and he loved you.

But then you dumped his ass, told him what a shitty boyfriend he had been and said you wanted absolutely nothing to do with him for several months as you avoided him, froze him out and showed how little you needed him because he failed you.

Now that both terrified him and hurt him...

I'm in my bed And you're not here And there's no one to blame but the drink and my wandering hands Forget what I said It's not what I meant And I can't take it back I can't unpack the baggage you left

It’s been almost half a year since the two of you have broken up, and only recently you and Bakugo got some closure and you didn’t take him back. And honestly, Bakugo knew that was nobody’s fault but his own. He hated admitting it to himself but he knew there was no one else to blame but himself.

As he lied in his bed, he tried his hardest to ignore the fact that you still weren’t with him. Valentine’s Day wasn’t long ago, but he didn’t buy you anything because you and him weren’t together anymore. 

The worst part? He didn’t even get you anything LAST Valentine’s Day because he said it was stupid, commercialized and a game that you shouldn’t have played into even as you gave him those chocolates and even a card that he still secretly kept.

He really was a shitty boyfriend. He realized that the more he lied down with an anguished scowl and growled. Bakugo was aware that he could have been a better boyfriend, but the breaking point was when he called you something he swore he’d NEVER call you.

That’s why you left him. You put up with his bullshit long enough, you could handle him being a jerk, saying ‘no’ to spending time with him, but then he insulted your appearance, your weight, and your interests. The same things all the assholes from school used to insult you for, the assholes HE protected you from.

“Dammit!!” He yelled at no one but himself, “You fucking idiot!!” Even though you said that the two of you could still be friends, Bakugo wished for more than that. He wanted you back...

He wanted you back so fucking much even though he knew he didn’t deserve you. Bakugo refused to shed any tears even as he eventually closed his eyes...

“I dump your ass!”

“WHAT?!”

“You heard me. I. DUMP. YOUR. ASS!” You enunciated the words slowly and deliberately to annoy him and he was extremely indignant and appalled that you were… seriously breaking up with him?! HIM?!

“You’re dumping me?!”

“What the fuck do you think I said it two fucking times!!” 

“You’re not seriously breaking up with me over a fucking insult?!” Bakugou’s pride started talking for him though, because he refused to let you bruise his ego by dumping HIM.

“Yes I am Katsuki, and that’s not the only reason… It’s because you’re also selfish and mean! You’re the worst boyfriend ever and I’ve put up with your shit plenty of times but this is just WAY TOO FUCKING MUCH! What you said is just too fucking much for me to even put up with, you’ve completely broken me down I feel like shit and I’ve HAD it and I’m dumping your ass!”

...

“You called me ‘fat’, ‘ugly’ and ‘lazy’ Katsuki. There’s nothing to talk about.” 

“I did NOT call you ugly!” Bakugou replied defensively, aware that he called you ‘fat’ when he really shouldn’t have and he didn’t deny it, but he did NOT call ugly at all. He never thought you were ugly, but you didn’t believe him.  

“Yeah you did… you implied it.” 

“No, I didn’t you idiot! I said shit I shouldn’t have but I never once called you ugly and I didn’t fucking imply it either!”

“You know I’ve been struggling with my self-image and my weight for years Katsuki, and yet you go and say all the things people from school had said to me for years, the people who made me feel ugly, so… you must think I’m ugly if you would say what they’ve been calling me…” 

“I don’t think you’re ugly…” His voice came out as a soft growl, but you shook your head, “Then you wouldn’t have said what you did… it’s okay… I’ve known it for years… well you know what? You’re free now, you don’t need some ugly, fat girl like me dragging you down, maybe now you can go out with that chick from Shiketsu High now..”

...

“How fucking long are you going to punish me (Y/N)?! HOW FUCKING LONG?! ARE YOU REALLY STILL PISSED OFF OVER SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED MONTHS AGO?!”

“Of COURSE, I’m still kind of pissed off! And for the record I am NOT punishing you, you narcissistic asshole, I’m TRYING to think about how I should forgive you for the things you swore to NEVER call me! Or if I even should forgive you! W-What? You want me to j-ju-ju-just… make out with you like its old times?!” You exclaimed with the same vexation that you had been keeping at bay ever since the two of you broke up, not seeing Bakugou’s narrowing eyes and shaking figure as he seethed when you once again, reminded him of the big mistake he made with you.

“I… I mean I… I can’t even look at your face Katsuki! Without… thinking about and hearing the words you said to me and the expression of anger and disgust on your face when you said that I was just some fat pig who was wasting your time!” Emotion nearly choked you up as you wiped your eyes when tears started to cloud them and you couldn’t see just how aggravated and distressed Bakugo was as he clutched his hair out of frustration.

“I FUCKED UP!! How many times do I have to say that I fucked up?! How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?!”

Throwing his hands up, he shouted that he had indeed screwed up, louder than before, frustrated with everything, with you, with himself, with the fucking guilt that just started eating away at him again.

“You can say you’re sorry all you want! I just… I can’t ignore the fact that you would stoop so low to say the same things the people YOU protected me from would say to me. Why did you do that?” 

“ARGH! Dammit! I don’t fucking know! I was pissed off! I had shit I was dealing with and I took it out on you but I shouldn’t have! I admit it!” 

“I just… god… here’s my real question… why are you such a fucking asshole to me?” 

“For God’s sake I said I was sorry for what I said all right?! I’ve said it a million goddamn times! I’m SORRY (Y/N)! I didn’t mean what I said to you! I want to take it all back because it was the worst fucking thing I could have ever said to anyone! Especially you!” He shouted his apology, the angry tears threatening to spill but you shook your head at this.

“I’m not talking about what you said, I’m talking about everything! Ever since we got together you’ve still managed to treat me like shit! Even before we got together you still treated me like shit, and yet it got worse when we became a thing! You hardly spent anytime with me, pushed me away when I tried to help you, made fun of what I liked, insulted me and called me other names for what? Cuz I’m a geek like Izuku, cuz I like geeky things and like to watch TV and eat sweets and say dumb puns and hang out with Izuku and Hitoshi, well I’m sick of it Katsuki! I’m fucking sick of it!”

...

“Look… Katsuki… I mean you no ill will. I still care about you, and I still love you but… I really, really don’t think you’re a good boyfriend…” You said a little bluntly but made your voice soften as he gasped quietly.

“You’re not a bad person… but you’re not a good boyfriend either… and I don’t really think that I can really return to a relationship like that… sorry…” 

“I know I wasn’t! But… look just… dammit (Y/N) I’m not going to say any of that shit to you ever again! I won’t fuck up like I did last time I swear!” He sounded desperate, as if he was pleading to you as he moved closer and you fought the tears starting to build in your eyes when he grabbed your hands. He would beg if he had to, he just couldn’t lose you.

“I love you.”

He said calmly and yet sincerely, out of pure impulse but that’s what he truly meant. He loved you and he just wanted to hear you say the words back to him. He knew you did…

“See that’s just it… I know you love me… I love you too… but… I thought you loving me was enough, at least… until… you said the things you did… now I know you’re sorry… and I don’t doubt that you do love me but… I started hating myself again when you said those things and it made me realize that… I need to love me too, I need to start loving myself… and I didn’t love myself when I was with you. I let you do that for me, and… I can’t do that anymore. It’s not fair to you, and not good for me.”

...

What am I now? What am I now? What if I'm someone I don't want around? I'm fallin' again I'm fallin' again I'm fallin'...

Bakugo’s eyes snapped open as the memories played in his head like some kind of fucked up movie as he remembered every word you said, every tear you shed because of him.

And now here he was, holding in his own tears that he refused to let fall as he angrily wiped at his eyes. No, he did not and would not cry, and he couldn’t cry over spilt milk no matter much it fucking hurt. No matter how much he wanted to just sob and cry out for you to come back to him so he could tell you how fucking sorry he was.

Dammit he couldn’t fucking take it anymore. He got up out of bed so he can go to your room and knock until you answer. He needed you, he needed you now...

He outright dashed to the floor where your room was and knocked somewhat vigorously. No answer. Growling, he knocked a little bit harder but again, there was no answer.

Were you asleep? Probably, you were a pretty deep sleeper, but dammit, he wished you were awake to answer him. But then he froze as soon as he heard the tell-tale sound of laughter...

YOUR laughter.

Relief overwhelmed him as he didn’t even realize that he was running so he could find you and not look as pathetic as he probably did right now. He could still hear you, you were near. The commons, duh, you were a late sleeper and watched Netflix when you couldn’t sleep...

“That is disgraceful...” 

But then the ash-blonde stopped dead in his tracks and froze the second he heard someone else’s voice that wasn’t yours. No fucking way...

Eyebags...

“I know...! Oh my God... how humiliating... I love this show but it so uncomfortably hits close to home...” That was your voice and you were giggling as you happily watched that gross show Bakugo didn’t care about at all. Big Mouth it was called, on Netflix too. You were watching Season 3′s ‘How to Have an Orgasm’ to be specific and of course, it was hilarious...

Unlike Bakugo, Shinsou appreciated the show, and watched it with you as he had with other shows on Netflix such as Stranger Things, Kimmy Schmidt, The Good Place, and Big Mouth.  

“Tell me about it... puberty’s a bitch... still is to be honest.” And to make matters worse, Shinsou was laughing with you and it wasn’t the first time. Bakugo was never a fan of Shinsou, he knew you were friends with that bastard, but naturally he was jealous of him because it just seemed like you two were just so damn buddy-buddy and it was annoying.

And yet there was now, just watching TV with you, while he himself was probably the furthest person from your mind...

What if I'm down? What if I'm out? What if I'm someone you won't talk about? I'm fallin' again I'm fallin' again I'm fallin'...

“Hee-hee... okay~. What do you say? The Office? Since...” Sighing sadly and dramatically you raised your fist in the air, “Friends got taken off...? Or The Good Place maybe?” You binge-watched the entire series before the New Year, because Netflix took it off, but at least you still had The Office and The Good Place.

“Yeah... Friends is gone, but The Office is here for us. Thank God... So yeah... let’s watch The Office. I’d watch The Good Place but I need to watch Season 4 since it just came out but I haven’t seen it yet. And I’ve been dodging spoilers ever since...” Shinsou gave you a smile even though he was just as unhappy as you were when they took Friends off of Netflix.  

“All riiiight~! Hee-hee good idea... I haven’t seen it yet either, I’m waiting til we get the chance to see it with Fumikage, Yuga, Denki and Mina so we can watch the last one altogether~.”

Bakugo had no idea why he was still standing there, but something in him told him to just fucking move already and say something to get your attention so you could see him. He opened his mouth to speak but...

“Can you believe this show’s been out for like 15 years and it’s just getting popular? Like crazy popular?” You nudged Shinsou playfully as he chuckled a bit, “Guess they finally realized how great a show it is...”

Shinsou thought outloud, having gotten closer to you over the past couple of months and spent a lot of time chilling out with you and also training with you as well. Then there were days when you and he would just spend the hours gabbing away about things you both liked. 

“That’s true... some people thought it was uncomfortable... but then they started to like it... which is nice.” You smiled a bit even though you were kind of sad for some reason. The last few months had been... awkward. After all, you had broken up with your boyfriend and went through quite a bit of drama until you cleared it up and made up with Bakugo. You didn’t get together with him, but the two of you reached an understanding and were still friends.

You still talked to him, and you lost your hostility towards him and became more cordial towards him. Although you’d be lying if you said you didn’t still love him. But this was for the best, you couldn’t go back to that, and you were in a better place anyway. You started to feel better and you were able to use your quirk again to fly without your sadness holding you back. You were happier, and not only that...

“Like me.” Shinsou smirked a little bit even though it was a self-deprecating joke which made you roll your eyes. “Hitoshi... okay... you’re a little uncomfortable to be around sometimes, but that was like only in the beginning, you’re great! You’re super great... and awesome. I mean your quirk is so cool, you can fight and punch someone hard enough to knock them out now! AND... you also like Friends, The Office, The Good Place, Stranger Things, smart as hell and you’re nice... well, not nice, but you have a nice side... anyone who can do all those things and like all of that HAS to be great in my book.” You kinda poked at him a bit as he playfully smacked your shoulder with a little grin which made you giggle.

And Bakugo hated it...

“Oh yeah? Well... you’re giving me too much credit (Y/N)... Here’s the truth... I think... you’re great.” 

But Bakugo’s eyes widened when he heard Shinsou say those words to you and you blushed and looked at him with wide eyes that practically shined with stars in them. “Really?”

“Yeah...” He sounded kind of flustered but he didn’t really stop because this was something he needed to tell you even though his face was getting increasingly hot just saying all of this as he nervously scratched the back of his neck, “I mean... your quirk is unique. You made yourself fly, you gave yourself wings to fly, no one else did that but you, you used your quirk creatively and it shows even outside of that, when something bad happens, you managed to make yourself fly again. And you’re weird... in a good way, everyone’s so fake and plastic that they don’t even try to be who they are, but you’re not fake, you’re just... you. Even if you know not everyone will like it, you don’t try to hide it or change yourself for anyone whether they like it or not, and that’s just... great.... I try to do that, I make no effort to change myself but... when you do it it’s actually cool.  I guess... I mean... yeah I just... I think that’s all great. I think... you’re great (Y/N).”

Shinsou stopped making eye contact with you as he felt somewhat bashful, but only when he finished is when he finally looked at you and saw your (E/C) eyes wide and your cheeks flushed. Neither of you aware that Bakugo was still there, listening...

That stupid brainwasher was right... you were great but dammit... HE wanted to tell you that... HE wanted to tell you how great your were and everything else that you were. Beautiful, amazing, intelligent, powerful...

However...

You were so stunned by everything Shinsou told you that you didn’t even think, you acted on pure impulse as you quickly leaned in and you didn’t even hear the gasp coming from your ex-boyfriend’s mouth once he saw your lips on Shinsou’s.

And I get the feelin' that you'll never need me again...

He was falling. Bakugo felt like he was falling as he watched you kiss that brainwashing bastard who made a startled, surprised sound once he felt your warm kiss. Yet Shinsou didn’t deter as Bakugo clenched his fists when he saw his eyes closing as he kissed you back.

He didn’t exist. You didn’t even see him and he knew it because you were lost in such a deep kiss with this extra and it fucking hurt...

He wanted to scream, he wanted to push Shinsou away and tell him to fuck off and tell you that he wanted you back, but he did nothing...

And he knew he was just a fucking loser because all he did was stand there, until his feet started moving as he turned his back so he could get the hell out of here. No, Bakugo couldn’t bear to see you kissing that bastard, he couldn’t bear to see that you had officially moved on.

He didn’t matter anymore to you, he knew it...

Nothing hurt or scared Katsuki Bakugo. Nothing. Except for seeing the love of his life kissing another man. He was a coward, a fucking weakling because now everything was hurting, his chest ached as he lied back in his bed. And he was letting this hurt him, but dammit... it hurt because he loved you. He still loved you and still wanted you here...

What am I now? What am I now? What if you’re someone I just want around? I'm fallin' again I'm fallin' again I'm fallin'...

You were his biggest fan,  his biggest supporter. Not anymore. He knew that... but he didn’t love you just because of that, he loved you because you were you. A dork, a weirdo, unafraid to be your loving and quirky self. You softened his heart and yet he let his own stupidity and asshole self treat you like garbage when you deserved better than that.

He refused to cry, but because he was such a damn weakling the tears just fell and betrayed him by streaming down his face as he swallowed the hard lump in his throat that was threatening to crawl up and make it’s presence known. His breath hitching as he stared up at his ceiling and his mind just showed the image of you kissing Shinsou.

Along with the image of him yelling at you and you ending it with him. It was all he could see through his teary eyes as a soft sob choked him while tears continued to fall and drip down his neck. 

Because you didn’t love him anymore, and you weren’t going to need him again and that fucking terrified him more than anything as he cried and fell back into his misery and wished that it was him kissing you, and wishing that you were here with him to catch him as he fell.

What if I’m down? What if I’m out? What if I'm someone you won’t talk about? I'm fallin' again I'm fallin' again I'm fallin'...

[cowboypossume]

so i reread keeper of the lost cities and here’s my fresh input:

a note before we begin: you know how people fake throw up at things on tik tok? this book is the reason i now unironically do that.

dex and fitz really have the enemies to lovers troupe going for them and i’m ok with it. i really am.

so do sophie and biana at the beginning but it fizzes out so a better description is enimies to friends to lovers

marhella and stina give me such power top energy i cannot express how much i think that contributes to people not liking them

speaking of stina i wish sophie didn’t just immediately hop onto the bandwagon of “oh she’s evil” without investing further, especially with how much she is written as a ‘good’ person (which i can and will defend to the day i die that good people don’t exist but that’s for a different day).

there’s way too much heteronormativity and Patriarchical Ideas mushed into the book. like three hole pages of a 488 page book of teenagers being like “oooooo girls like guys and guys like girls” only for della to join in. not to mention the amount of times keefe is the reason for those ideas because he’s teasing like “oh fitz has a girlfriend”

keefe and fitz didn’t have as many bonding moments™️ in this book as i remember, but they stil know each other really well, have comfortability around each other, and would make a 10/10 best friends to lovers troupe.

oh my god s o many crushes i swear. like two teenagers of the opposite gender really can’t not like each other apperantly

i miss read a line and really thought there was cannon sexism for me to do a whole ass rant about in the notes part of my analyzation but n o p e

but we do have classism, sexist stereotypes, and the fact that there’s been SO many characters who’ve spoken and ✨🌺far too many of them are white🌺✨

oh also: no ones disabled. which annoys me because their society is described as ‘euptopic’ almost implying that it’s something that makes people problematic, which,,,, no

ok a side note on the society, i understand that the story’s message (kinda) is that things that seem perfect are probably deeply flawed, but something tergan said stuck with me. on a page i can’t remember at the moment he says something like “[the black swan exists] in a society that doesn’t have rebels”, which it suck with me bc that’s boarderline dystopic if it’s not there already. it’s one thing for laws not to be broken, but when you think your society is so perfect despite it having obvious flaws and you think that no one rebels, then i really hate to break it to you, you have a massive rebellion about to occur; it’s just scented as foul under your resplendent nose.

please stop flirting. i get its part of teenagers being teens but i swear if i read “s/he realeased a breath” or “their heart fluttered” or literally ANYTHING like that god no.

yall. i missed dex. he actually has more role in this book than ‘you can gadget and we need one’ and oh boy i really missed him. he’s a BEAN and deserves better.

hole’s said everyone deserves better and i absolutely agree so we’re adding that note here.

if you do what i did and read this book out loud to one of your best friends who has no clue anything about this weird fandom and give fitz a really deep voice for no reason it’s comdy GOLD.

i really think i’m reading too much into this point but iggy seems,,,, symbolic to me?

like ok with humans, sophie didn’t ‘fit in’, right? like she grew up hearing things like “why can’t you be normal like your sister” (which i can do a whole other rant about how that will affect her for the rest of her life just a s k)

not to mention looking really different from her family and graduating high school at age twelve 

but you know who never judged her?

m a r t y

so anyway sophie meets this teal-eyed, movie star smiled wonder boy who takes away her entire knowledge of everything she’s known while taking away her family too

and it turns out even in a place of weirdos she still manages to be the exception to everything

and she doesn’t have the comfort to hear what people are really thinking about her anymore (which as i said before say the word and i’ll deadass write a whole speech about how everything she heard will completely fuck up every relationship she has) which unfortunately means that she grew used to confirming people didn’t like her but now she doesn’t have that

she has to adapt to this new space and feel like she’s always felt, like an outcast in a place that was accepting, but yet again, she the exception to everything

but about halfway through the book she starts to become more comfortable around grady and edaline and that’s when iggy comes in

she finds him while cleaning garbage, and grady compliments her. they have a bonding moment and it’s because of this t h i n g. and then sophie actually feels proud not only does she take up a room, but she did something

and her new parents are proud of her

so she finally feels like she BELONGS because she helped out at the place where she lives/they work

to me it seems iggy is kinda a manifesto of the world building and character development that happens in this book

i think the plot/character arc is fixated a little too much on how different sophie is. like, i get it, she’s exception to everything, but the plot really didn’t need her to be that quirky. yes, she’s different, but there’s a lot more to the plot and her character than how different she is.

also, i had to reread pages a lot bc i needed an exact paragraph number and,,,, it’s really paced like a fanfic

some questions i have about the society is:

it’s established that they use books, physical papers, etc., and the only thing i remember about trees is the speech alden gave her about how she doesn’t know the name of their most popular tree, and the fact that people become trees when they die. even then i don’t think the second one is in this book. never o n c e do i remember something about planting trees that aren’t dead elf’s, so do they feel the affects of deforestation and that jazz?? like if they use trees, will they run out of them? can they??? and do they use the coffins of elf’s for paper??

this is more of a rant than a question, but here it goes anyway. in foxfire, students have a testing system very similar to the one in america: a huge test at the end of the year determines the future of a student. that in of itself doesn’t sound too drastic, right? well,,,,, not necessarily. several studies have shown that tests in general, but especially these types, don’t work. despite how good or bad of a teacher i think my past and current teachers have been, every single one of them hates this system that we have in place. they know it’s an unfair assessment that does it’s damnist to make you fail, and they’re trying so hard to denounce it. however, that doesn’t happen at all in the lost cities. in fact, most of the teachers pride themselves on failing students. so if elf’s are in such an advanced society, why do tests still exist? especially in an environment where the consequences are far greater than just staying back a grade. 

so sophie’s figuring out that major problems exist in the world the elf’s created, right? i wonder if more society structured problems exist more than ‘oh bad people do things and the law justifies which is what’. like, as i’ve previously stated, there’s sexist stereotypes presented (like girls like dresses and guys don’t), but does sexism still exist? does racism exist? it’s established that poverty isn’t a thing because of the fund elf’s have at birth and their limited usage of money (which if you understand please explain bc i don’t really get how they buy stuff but still don’t use money) but if someone gets shipped off to exile, do they lose their money? is it possible for elf’s to starve to death because they can’t afford food? do they pay for food?? if they did starve who would they call? because someone on this website, who’s post i tried to find but i couldn’t so if y’all know what i’m talking about please link it, brought up a good point that elwin is a school physician, he shouldn’t be dealing with the near-death experiences sophie has, so who would they turn to? especially if they don’t have access to foxfire because they got exciled??

is therapy a thing in this world? sophie and dex could really benefit from it, yet mental health has only been brought up when someone went insane, which REALLY shows how little they think about it.

that perfectly transitions into my next point: sophie and dex’s trauma. i really don’t get the vibe that there was much thought going into their kidnapping, other than sophie needed something to trigger her inflecting ability and establish the black swan are on the good side, which really sucks because wow trauma doesn’t happen lightly. and the fact that it happened seems rushed to me, but i’ll come back to that. but anyway, their trauma doesn’t get developed that deeply in this book because it wasn’t given the space to. they were beaten, tortured, starved, gagged, and who even knows what else for t e n d a y s, only for them to find them again, repeat the process, but someone saves them and dumps them into an illegal city and they both nearly die from dehydration, coldness, and lack of concentration, and you’re telling me after three days of conscious of bed rest sophie wants to get her failing out of school over with? ma’am, it takes more time than that to adjust to THAT alone, not to mention the realization that “hey your entire life is fake because people genetically altered you to be their weapon in a war so much bigger than yourself” that was recently dumped on her. like,,,, you really expect me to think that three days is what made her feel prepared and CONFIDENT? no sir. i don’t buy it.

coming back to it being rushed: the book starts out slow and then really hits the ground running and doesn’t stop. so much more stuff happens in the second half of the book than the first and it never gets fully developed it feels like. in the first half sophie moves away but gets a new family and struggles a bit but adapts, fires maybe but hey don’t worry about it, dex hates fitz, fitz is ✨d r e a m y ✨ but our main girl doesn’t like him like that, right?, stina’s a bitch, and sophie is a quirky girl and telepath but can’t tell anyone. pretty basic stuff, not too plot intensive. the second half though: sophie almost fails her midterms but doesn’t, grady and elaine want to unadopt her (which that’s never really explained as to why they do that but ok) fires exist in san degio but they’re fine but they’re actually a rebel elf so..., sophie accidentally breaks a law but it was an accident so it’s fine, update on the fires: sophie burns herself trying to get the evidence that it’s a rebel elf and it works, she’s the moon lark and basically a weapon bc no one knows her well enough to evaluate her safety, sophie and dex get kidnapped but fitz can now transmit to her and she has two new abilities so it’s all good, trauma doesn’t exist except for nightmare you can fix with sedatives, sophie doesn’t fail out of school, and yayyy her family doesn’t want her remove their adoption. there’s probably a lot more that i missed, it’s just that’s a LOT of stuff crammed into a little bit further than the second half of the book that really could have been devolped or explore further instead of forcing into less than 244 pages, ya know?

fitz’s eyes are mentioned seven times, the first time being on page TWO of the novel

his smile is mentioned three times

alden says “no reason to worry” five times, he writes it once, and sophie points out he says it a lot so he chances it slightly to something like ‘don’t stress about it’ so i didn’t count those though i should have

speaking of alden, in this book he’s absolutely creepy, but something that stands out to me is how much he calls sophie girl. i didn’t count it, but he said “that’s a good girl” to sophie too many times for it to be normal especially when you consider how he doesn’t do it to anyone else.

i kinda forgot i was annotating for sophie’s anxious habit of pulling out her eyelashes so i got she did it twice, but i highly doubt that number

but i will keep adding to this when i actually do the words with my annotations.

[yupitsfinnhudson]

Daddy Squared

Who: Alexis St. James and Finn Hudson - @alexis-st-james ft Freddie and Brando St James

When: 23rd of December 2020

Where: The St James house in Sunny California

What: Finn meets Alexis’ Dads and sees her room.

Warnings: None? The St James Dads being obnoxious

Finn was looking a little bit pale in the back seat of the car worrying about meeting Alexis’ Dads. He knew they weren’t together but he still really wanted to make a good impression on them, and to make sure that Alexis had a good time if possible. He knew that she didn’t really like visiting her family, so he gave her his best smile. “Ready Miss?” He asked. “I think all the gifts will just about fit through the door.” It wasn't something she would have normally done, but Alexis knew her dads well enough that the 'joke' about dragging her for some canapes on Christmas wasn't really them teasing at all, and sometimes it was easier to just accept than to argue about it and cause more issues. But she still felt sick, the only comfort she had was Finn next to her. They finally pulled up to the house, and she let out a small smile. "As I'll ever be. They're magpies, hopefully the shiny stuff will keep them distracted from personal questions." She said, getting out and grabbing a couple of bags. Staying here for a couple of nights, from the 23rd to Christmas Eve, meant they had their overnight bags, as well as gifts for her fathers of both her and Felix, as well as things for the staff, cats, dogs and anything else currently living in the home. She knew Finn would insist to the driver to carry the load, which he really shouldn't, but she didn't concern herself with that just yet, just pushing open the large front door and letting herself into the modern architecture nightmare of her childhood home, the entrance hall covered in various greeting cards from friends and neighbours of her dads. "Just dump things there, the housekeeper will sort it out," She instructed to Finn where her own bags lay. "You still have time to run, you know." Finn nodded at her words. “It’s okay, you don’t have to answer any questions you don’t want to.” The boy responded, reaching out to squeeze her hand and give her a smile. “I’ll be there the whole time I promise!” He told her, and then blushed because obviously she knew that. It wasn’t like he was going to drop her off at her Dads and then leave. He hid his embarrassment as he got out of the car by grabbing the majority of their bags out of the car. The house itself was extremely impressive, and he couldn’t help but be a bit wide eyed as he made his way up the drive. “Oh.. wow.” He said quietly mostly to himself. He nodded a little when she said that he could dump the bag. “Are you sure.. you don’t want me to take them up the stairs?” He asked gazing guilty at their things. “I don’t want to run Miss.. I want to meet your family.” Alexis nodded as enthusiastically as she could, though Finn was really underestimating her dads and their interrogation techniques. She watched with interest as Finn entered the house for the first time, knowing he was trying to keep his cool about the way it looked, but was excited to be here. She resisted rolling her eyes at his offer. "Finn, that's their job," She said, cringing at how suddenly elitist she sounded, "We have staff to do that for us, we pay them for that. You're a guest, your job is to relax." She then added, hoping that sounded a little better, knowing it probably done. His sincerity in wanting to meet her family almost made her want to jump him right there and then, but instead she just smiled. "Well, brace yourself," She teased, "They're probably out at the pool, but I'll give you a quick tour until we get to them. This is, uh, the entrance hall. And I'm sure they buy a majority of these cards and write them out themselves to look popular," She added as a joke, "but like it's where we put our coats and bags and shoes and the staff neatly put them away. Would you like to see the kitchen, we can get ourselves a drink?" Finn blushed bright red when she told that it was the people’s job. “Sorry.” He said sheepishly. “I just wanted to be helpful.” He explained not wanting to seem like a total dunce, quickly trying to get away from the bags like they had a bad smell about them. He went to hold her hand and then stopped himself because he wasn’t sure. “Oh I’d really like a tour! I’m looking forward to seeing everything!” Finn told her, gazing around at the house his eyes going very wide at the sight of all the cards. “Who are they all from?” He asked inspecting the cards with excitement. He took off his shoes immediately when she mentioned that this was where they put their shoes. Thinking of Caroles new carpets and how important it was that they stay nice. “I would really like to see the kitchen.. Do you have one of those fridges that gives you ice cubes?” Finn asked. "I know," Alexis said softly, though the feeling of taking him against the glass and marble walls hadn't faded quickly. "A tour you shall get." She promised instead. "Uh, just our neighbours, friends and stuff. Will Ferrell," She said, picking up a card with a frown on her face, "Terrible taste," She put it back before picking up a few more. "Reese Witherspoon and family, Kris Kardashian...oh, Bruce Willis sent this one." She said, waving it in front of Finn for a second, momentarily forgetting about his interest in the actor. She smirked at him removing his shoes, her own heeled boots staying firmly on her feet, "Yes, we have one of those ice cubes. Stay being good for me, and I might let you push the button all by yourself." She teased, leading him through the open plan area. Sometimes he couldn’t tell if she knew that it wasn’t normal to just like have a Christmas card from a random A Lister in your house. Once his family had gotten a card from the local radio station after he’d entered a contest and they’d be so over excited that they’d all taken a picture with it. When she waved the Bruce Willis card, Finns eyes went very wide again and he started to shuffle over to the thing as if it were some kind of precious jewel. “The real Bruce Willis?” He asked, inspecting the signature on the inside of the card. “Like Die Hard.. and Looper Bruce Willis?” Finn nodded excitedly at the idea of getting to do his own ice cubes. “I’ll be very good Miss Alexis... does it have more than one setting?” He asked, following after her like an eager puppy. She laughed at his wide-eyed enthusiasm. "Do you know of any other Bruce Willis'?" She asked rhetorically. It was strange, being back home....well, her childhood house. It was weird to even think that this open plan space with glass, marble and harsh corners was somewhere to raise your kids. Maybe it was partly the reason her, Felix and Jesse never had much of a childhood. "I think so? Definitely a crushed ice setting, but I don't know about anything else." Alexis paused as they entered the kitchen, hearing eager footsteps come in from the patio.

"Lex!" Freddie announced, charming Hollywood smile on his face, water glistening of his bare chest, tight swim trunks being the only thing to cover his modesty. "We are so glad you came!"

"Lexi!" Brando had come jogging in then, still a handsome man despite the years of the rich and famous party lifestyle. "Look at you! More and more gorgeous everyday, don't even need to go under the knife like that wretch of a mother of yours!" He and Freddie laughed, Alexis stood there with a tight smile on her face. "Is it true Felix is in the Swiss Alps this year....stuck in with the Motta heir too?"

"It'll be really good if they end up together," Freddie agreed, reaching for a bottle of water, "I think it'll wipe whatever evil smirk is off your mom's face as well...oh." He paused, as if noticing Finn for the first time, and Alexis fought every instinct to grab his hand and run upstairs with him. "This must be your guest."

"Yes," Alexis finally said, "Frederick, Brennan," She said, addressing them with their full, real names, "This is Finn Hudson. A friend of mine, he'll be spending this evening with us." Finn was still thinking very deeply about the ice when the two men appeared, they were like something out a movie. Like Alexis he almost didn’t believe that they existed in the real world. They screamed the Hollywood movies that he had loved so much as a kid, and the red carpets that Odette poured over and he felt shyer than ever. Knowing from years of experience on both he and Sawyers part that he could hardly hide himself he simply moved behind Alexis a little. Afraid that anything that he said would make him sound as small town and unremarkable as he felt in this grand house standing next to all these beautiful people. He could imagine Fauna here with her cheerleader smile and long extensions, or Sawyer who always had something intelligent to say. But he.. he didn’t feel like he belonged at all.  He didn’t know what a regular Alp was, let alone what made them Swiss.

He felt their eyes turn to him and he flushed trying not to swallow. “Hi Sir... Sir.” He said dryly. “You have a really nice house.. thank you for letting me come over.” His words came out thickly and he flushed an even deeper shade of red. All Alexis wanted to do was shield Finn away, take him upstairs and just vibe and do nothing. Instead, she just watched carefully as her dads drank Finn in, and she made herself stand just slightly taller, as if to hide him. Freddie grinned at Finn's introduction. "Of course, a friend of Lex's is a friend of ours." He said, "Are you two planning on joining us in the pool?"

"It really is a wonderful day for a dip," Brando agreed, "You both look so hot and flustered, you especially, Mr. Hudson." He pointed directly to Finn as he leaned on the counter.

"We've literally just got here," Alexis said, "can we have a moment to fucking breathe, maybe?" It was possibly the most LA she sounded in front of Finn, her nasty streak she had been trying to hide leaping out the moment she laid eyes on her dad. "We're going to have a drink and I'm giving him a tour." She then added, with a careful smile.

"Lex has always had quite the temper," Freddie said with a laugh to Finn, "if you're in luck, either me or Brando will piss her off so much we end up plunged in the pool!" He observed Alexis, who clearly bristled under his gaze. "So much like her mother, sometimes. And Felix is like me, of course." He added, glancing at Brando for confirmation, who nodded whole-heartedly. "And Jess...Jesse...the pool boy?"

"Definitely the pool boy," Brando agreed, "Very cocky. So, Lex, shall we get our mixologist to make some signature St. James Cocktails. Finn, you drink right? You're a drinker?" He asked, as if implying he knew something about the Hudson family. Finn was surprised by the immediate invitation to join them in the pool, he hoped that it meant that he’d made a good impression by the way that he was standing alone. Blinking a little bit when they said they looked hot and bothered, hoping that wasn’t like Hollywood code for calling him smelly and trying to subtly sniff himself to see if he needed to sneak off to put some spray on. “We don’t have our swimming costumes on right now.” He explained as if trying to make them understand why Alexis wouldn’t want to go in the pool. His eyebrows shot up at a little when they mentioned that Alexis might push them in, and then laughed because he assumed it must be a joke. The conversation moved fast and suddenly they were talking about Alexis mother again, who he knew was kind of mean. So he didn’t really think they should be making comparisons. “I mean yeah.. I drink.. not like.. a lot. Just for fun.” He flushed uncomfortably, unsure if Brando was getting at something. “And never like if I’m taking care of Miss Alexis... just for fun.” He confirmed again. Alexis tried not to let her face soften at Finn's excuse to the decline the swimming invitation, too guarded around her fathers to show the version of her she was working on for Finn. Instead she just scoffed instead at her dads suggestions, hoping Finn knew she was somewhat just putting on a show. Doing what was best done in the Hollywood Hils - pretending. Acting. "We'll go in the pool in our own time." She answered curtly, "But sure, cocktails sound good. Surprise us." It came out more like an order than she intended to, but anything to play the part of the uninterested, bitchy daughter.

"My my, yes Miss Alexis," Brando mocked, curtseying. "You better watch out, Finn, she's a bossy boots that one." He called out before heading back out to the pool area. Alexis waited for a second, wondering if another comparison to that cunt of a woman who birthed her would follow, relieved that it didn't. Freddie stood there a moment, and she recognised the softness under his sharp features, aged by time and the unhealthy lifestyle that came with fame.

"What?" She barked at him. Freddie held his hands up in surrender.

"Nothing, hon-- Lex," He said, catching himself in time, glancing at Finn for a moment, before back to Alexis, who just stared him down, to answer the unasked question in the air. No, he doesn't know. Do not bring that era up, her sharp blue eyes said. "So, Finn, bet this is a massive change of scenery for you? Been up to anything fun since landing here? When I first arrived in Los Angeles, the City of Angels, the first thing I did was Hollywood Boulevard. I've been obsessed with acting since I was a kid, and I was desperate to see all the names of the greats." He laughed, it faltering when Alexis raised her eyebrows at him. "I have a habit of talking too much, probably why this one doesn't talk enough." He teased. Finn definitely felt like he was missing something from the conversation that Alexis and her Dads were having. He’d started to see a range of moods from Alexis and none of them matched up with the version he was seeing of her now. He supposed people always acted differently around their parents, but this whole conversation sort of reminded him of a sitcom and he found himself sort of waiting for the laugh track.

“Thank you Mr St James... I will um.. watch out.” Finn responded giving the man a very awkward salute. In high school he’d known exactly what to do to impress people’s Dads, you got their daughters home on time and you promised you didn’t drink and you didn’t do drugs. But now these Dads were offering him drinks, and Alexis didn’t live with them. He had no idea how he was supposed to impress. He liked when Freddie spoke, he knew better what to do with this enthusiastic talk. “It’s a big change of scenery for sure Sir.. I’m from Ohio so it’s less like stars and more corn fields. I really wanted to see all the stuff from Die Hard and like the sights..” He explained. “Miss Alexis said.. you auditioned for Die Hard and I think that’s pretty much the coolest thing I ever heard in my whole life. It’s an honour to meet you on two accounts... I also.. um talk.” He looked at Alexis nervous hoping he wasn’t saying the wrong thing. Alexis was conflicted in watching Freddie and Finn interact. A part of her wanted to claw her dad's face off for being soo slimingly charismatic, for managing to put Finn under his spell so easily, but another part of her was happy that they were getting along. That Finn was being his sweet self, and Freddie was actually putting the effort in. She hated her complicated feelings towards her parents, thinking back to when she met Carole, and how normal her interactions with her kids and step-kids seemed, a far cry to what was currently happening in the kitchen. She nodded as enthusiastically when Finn looked back at her, as if asking permission. "Between you two, will Brennan and I ever get a word in at the dinner table?" She joked, wondering if she forced herself to look like she was at ease, it'd put Finn to ease.

"You know he hates his given name, Lex. Ugh, I remember when you were like this big," Freddie dropped his hands to his hips, "Daddy this, Daddy that, I missed that. But yes, Finn, I auditioned but sadly no match for Bruce Willis. But they've been other parts, and I'm currently a recurring villain on that trashy Netflix show, based off the comics?" He asked the younger pair, as if it would jog his memory. "But we adore a talker in this house. But maybe you'll need to save your breath for something else?" He winked at Alexis, who wrinkled her nose in disgust. Ignoring that, she took Finn's hand.

"I'm going to show Finn the rest of the house." She said, back to monotone. "We'll come down to the pool in a minute, okay?" Finn listened attentively to the man in front of him, though a part of him was just studying to see any part of Alexis in him. He knew that she had a somewhat complicated relationship with her parents, but he was curious would he see striking similarities between the two. He didn’t really see any immediately, he also didn’t really see Alexis in the house. There was no sign of her in the white walls and weird furniture. Even though Freddie had just talked about when she was small, Finn couldn’t imagine a child here. “I bet you were so cute when you were little.” He said more to Alexis than to her Dad. “I like thinking of you with little pigtails.”

“I mean I think it’s so cool that you were even in the room Sir.. like you saw the script before anyone else.” Finn told him truthfully. “Wow on Netflix..? I watch a lot of Netflix so I’ll look out for it.” He added sincerely, though his eyes went a little wider when Freddie made what he thought might be some kind of sexual reference. “Yeah I’m really looking forward to seeing the fridge.” He chatted, and then realised that it might sound weird and busied himself staring at the top of Alexis’ head and letting her lead him on. Hoping that he hadn’t made a bad first impression. Alexis didn't want to crush Finn's expectations of her childhood, wanting to let him imagine a little girl in this ostentatious house, playing with dolls, hair up in pigtails, being a little princess people expected that Alexis St. James was in her formative years. Before she could deny the pigtails, Freddie jumped in. "Oh she looked so cute, whilst you two are....getting acquainted, I'll see if I can get the old albums out." He said, "Man I've been waiting to do this. Alexis never brings people home."

"That's enough of that," Alexis interjected, biting back a smile and laugh at Finn's eagerness for the fridge, giving him an extra second as they passed it, passed the grand art, the obnoxious Christmas tree in the centre of the house, and up the stairs to where Alexis' bedroom was. She opened the door, greeted by more white walls and marble floor, the large Queen sized bed in a soft grey duvet, the entire room as if straight out of some catalogue. It had been like this for as long as the Domme could remember, the only personal touches being her and Finn's bags on the floor. She stared at the closet, wondering if the contents of her letter was true, but decided to focus on that later. "This is my room, bathroom is through there, balcony just there." She instructed him, moving to sit on the bed, soft but unfamiliar. Finn grinned when Freddie mentioned the albums, Carole had spent enough time showing Alexis every picture of him and Sawyer covered in ice cream and in his pants that he felt like he was owed this little piece of her upbringing. “Please.. I’d really love to see Miss Alexis as a kid.” He responded, though he noted that this was one of a few times that her father had referenced that she never brought people to meet them. He continued to stare wide eyed at everything that she had to show him, barely being able to believe that houses like this existed. Let alone find a rational for why anyone would ever need any of the ugly furniture that lined the rooms.

Her room was less ugly, but it was weirdly unsatisfying. Deep down he knew that he wouldn’t find the same den of teenage and childhood comfort that she’d been able to see in his room. Because she wasn’t the type of person who liked cowboy wallpaper and checked sheets. But he had expected to find a little more of her, to be able to picture her as anything other than how she looked now. But his snooping came up with almost nothing. “It’s uh.. very roomy.” Was all he could think of to say. A part of Alexis wondered if Finn expected what most people expected when trying to figure out her teenage years. Was her room as goth as her style? Band posters hastily taped over black walls, candles and over Hollywood styled Satanic decor on her dressing table? Or maybe a more Pinterest girly Cheerleader type, school flags hung above her bed, photos pegged on fairy lights across the bare walls. Everyone was always disappointing, because her room was just boring. Beautiful but boring. It was how she always liked things, but she had more personal touches in her room at Devereux. The silk sheets still grey, yes, but only because it was a good duvet colour. But she had little soft cushions she had bought, the Kuromi stuffie Fauna bought her as a welcoming present to the school perched comfortably in the middle. Little photo frames and trinkets lined her nightstands and drawers. The LA house was completely different. “Yes, roomy,” She agreed, “are you disappointed?” Finn looked at her. “Not disappointed...” He responded not wanting her to be sad, and hoping that his face hadn’t betrayed him too completely. “Surprised... and a little um.” He looked around at the impenetrable space, with its soft greys and whites. He wanted to see her in the walls and follow her footsteps over these floorboards and he just couldn’t.  “I mean I guess a little.. I was sorta hoping your room would be a bit like my room.. and I’d sorta find out more about you. This place is like nice, very nice, like James Bonds room or something.. but I don’t know.. I don’t.. it doesn’t really feel like you.” Finn shrugged. “Well the you that I sorta know.” Despite the raised eyebrow at the mention of James Bond, Alexis' face softened when Finn explained his expectations. She never really had a space that was more of a reflection of who she was, but she wanted that now, even if it was just to show Finn something. A little thought popped into her head as he spoke, and she pushed it down for now, to discover once he was finished. "I haven't lived here in a very long time," She admitted, "Not properly. This place is a very nice house, but it's not my home. If you want, we can think of this as spending the night in an Air Bnb." She stood, cupping his cheek, momentarily forgetting their friendship pact. "I'm sorry," She said again, sincerely, "But maybe we'll make my room back in Devereux more roomy when we're back?" She suggested, patting his face gently, heading into her bathroom, smiling at the mirror. The stickers were still there, that she had collected over the years, cheerleading and love-hearts and dated quotes, decorating the reflective glass. She popped her head back out, smiling at Finn, glad that he wouldn't be too disappointed after all. "I mean, this might make it up to you?" Finn listened intently, his cheeks flushing delicately as she touched him. He knew he needed to tone down his feelings for her in case he scared her off again when he had promised to be her friend, but it was so hard when he liked her so much. “Please don’t be sorry.. it’s your room, you can keep it just how you like it.” He promised with a soft nod. “Your version of like you.. might be all this very like zen stuff.” He was used to the idea that people were in some ways more than one person, like they were different people when they were with different people and that wasn’t always a bad thing. His train of thought was interrupted by her words, and he followed her through into the bathroom. His face breaking into a smile at the stickers, this he supposed was exactly what he’d been looking for. “This is cute.” He told her with his signature goofy smile. “You should get some of these for your binders.” He teased. “Or are they all Gucci?” A version of Alexis. The cheerleader dwelled on that for a moment or two, wondering if she could imagine, or remember, a version of her who enjoyed living in here. With all this shitty furniture and interior design. Sometimes Finn surprised her with his different points of view on things, and she felt bad that she was surprised, and she wondered if she would ever not feel guilty for that day after Thanksgiving. She couldn't help but smile, her genuine, cute, soft one reserved only for people in her closest of circles, when he lit up at the stickers. "Haha," She said, rolling her eyes at his teasing but the smile didn't slip to indicate she was fine with his teasing. "I mean, you probably can get designer stickers, but nothing beats the dollar store, you know?" She said, "Maybe we'll get some before we head back to school to decorate all my binders together." She took a deep breath at how quiet and still the bathroom was for a moment, wishing they could stay here forever, when she heard someone calling their names. "You know, they're not gonna stop badgering until they get you into that pool," She said, and with a poke of his abs, added, "and I can't blame them, really, for wanting to see you shirtless." He wanted so badly to lean in and kiss her smiling lips especially when she was looking at him this softly, Finn had learned to save each and every single one when they crossed her face. Instead he just returned the expression the best that he could and then went back to staring at the mirror in front of them. "When I was a kid I was obsessed with collecting these little animal stickers that you got free in cereal, I stuck them all over the toy box in me and Sawyers room. They were those like puffy kind, used to sort of annoy Sawyer because I always stuck them at a weird angle." Finn remembered. "Yeah, I'm sure we can get some mega cool ones from like a gas station or something." He agreed, and then flushed at the idea of them wanting to see him without a shirt. "I mean I don't really know why.. everyone we've seen since we got here has had more of a beach body than me." He laughed awkwardly. Alexis couldn’t believe a mere few a months ago a part of her would have been annoyed at Finn sharing little anecdotes of his past, because now she wanted to indulge in nothing but his childhood stories, drink up the earnest look on his face, just consume herself fully. “I mean it’s the sticker law that they need to be slightly crooked,” She said with assurance, though she of course imagined Sawyer as some stuck up control freak, just younger. “Well that’s our goal, find some gas station stickers.” She said, stepping away from him to stop her punctuating her sentence with a kiss. “You have a great body, Finn,” Alexis told him, “they just like to be reminded of what it was for them like twenty years ago, that’s all.” Finn nodded feeling that was more than a fair statement. “Definitely. It gives them um character.” He decided and then bent down to look for the bag that had his swimming trunks in. Nervous as he was he wanted to make sure he found his nice swimming shorts and not something embarrassing like his ones with sharks with sunglasses. “I mean they still look pretty good now. No offence.” He told her as he located the nice red ones that Carole had bought him for college. “I do like swimming.” Finn confirmed quite seriously because he didn’t want her to think that he was complaining as he changed his bottoms. As they headed back into the main room, she couldn't help but glance over at the closet again, deciding to deal with whatever nasty surprise her mom had in store for her, later. "Yeah, they could look a lot worse, I guess." She mused, smiling softly at Finn's use of 'no offence' because he never really could say anything offensive. Especially not in this house. "Good, we have a nice pool." She said, going through her own case for her bikini. Alexis wasn't planning on swimming, but it was too hot out for her to sit around in proper clothing when everyone else was in their swimwear. "Remember, Finn, you can say no at any time to anything." She told him when they were both dressed, and she was bracing herself to open the bedroom door. "Drinks, tours, foods, anything, okay? They can be....overbearing." It wasn't the word she wanted to use, but it was the one she decided to settle on for now. Finn couldn’t stop himself from admiring her in the bikini just a little. They had after all almost had sex the other day, so she mustn’t mind that he still wanted her in the sexual sense. She looked good, good enough he had to look away for fear of visibly showing appreciation. “Okay Miss Alexis.. I’ll remember.” He promised though Finn wasn’t sure that he should say no to things. His Mom had always taught him that being polite was the most important thing. He was nervous as she opened the bedroom door though, trying to think of all the things he shouldn’t say as they made their way down to the pool. “Okay then,” She said, reaching out and taking Finn’s hand, his presence being a constant calming influence on her. She felt grounded near Finn, and no matter the state of their relationship, she knew he’d be there for her when things got shaky. She opened the door, leading Finn down the long way to the pool, sharing factoids about the house and various features the architect and her dads were proud of. She knew they would want to give Finn the tour themselves, but the petty part of herself was glad she took that from them.

“Finally!” Brando announced from where he was sprawled on his hammock, a bright, fruity drink in a novelty glass shaped like a palm tree sloshing around in his hand dangerously. “What took you two lovebirds so long?”

“Brando, behave,” Freddie lectured, “Mai Tais?” He then offered the pair, “Lex, you remember Carlos right?” The man gestured to the man at the exaggerated tiki bar. He didn’t seem that much older than Alexis or Finn, but he was muscled and tanned, with a pretty boy face. Exactly her dads’ type.

“Not really,” Alexis admitted. Freddie frowned.

“You do but it’s okay, I know you like to show off in front of your friends,” He said, turning back to Finn. “So, Finn, you’re also a Devereux student, that’s very exciting. Did your parents attend? That’s where I met Alexis’ mother. Back then it was all the upper crust, as they say.” Finn took her hand easily, and then had to stop himself from pressing a kiss against her hair. It wasn’t his place, even if he thought that it might take some of the obvious tension out of her shoulders. He wasn’t really sure what she was nervous about other than the fact that her Dads seemed to pick their furniture from a bad sc-fi movie set. They’d both seemed pretty nice to him, especially Freddie. He listened along to the talk that Alexis was giving him before giving both of her Dads a wave as they arrived at the pool. At the offer of the drink he smiled cheerfully. “Thank you Sir! You have really cool cups!” He said honestly really liking the whole palm tree theme.

He gave Carlos a wave too, unsure if he should introduce himself. But when Alexis said she didn’t know the other man he decided not to. Freddie’s question made him blush a little. “Yeah it’s really pretty cool there, I’d never been anywhere that had like so much sunshine before.. but I’d never been to LA either. Oh um no my parents didn’t attend, we actually got a scholarship. Fauna.. got one first and then she suggested that we apply. Me and my siblings.. and step siblings. There’s six of us.” Alexis tried to swallow down her conflicting feelings at just how much Finn was trying with her dads, and how much they had toned back their crazy. Truthfully in the last couple of years, Alexis supposed they hadn't been as insane as they had in the past, and they knew her experience in Ohio shaped things, and perhaps they felt a bit guilty for just letting her go wherever, insteading of leading her to Devereux sooner. And playing nice with her and Finn during their visit was their way of making up for it. And truthfully, she wasn't as worried about Finn now he had settled. He still looked out of place somewhat in the house, but he was standing taller, looking happier, and he did look extremely handsome in his swim-trunks, after all.

"Yeah, Sawyer and Fae are Finn's biological siblings, Evan, Odette and Kurt are his step ones." Alexis said, "Very crowded house during Thanksgiving." She teased, bumping him slightly, resiting to give him a kiss on the cheek as she took the drink from her dad, "I'm gonna go sit by the pool," She announced, finally trusting Freddie to be alone with him.

"God I always wanted a big family, poor Odette though, let's hope she's a sweet little peach, at this rate I believe all Odette's are pure evil," Freddie paused, flashing Finn a smile, "That's my ex-wife's name. Odette. I wouldn't be surprised if you didn't know, Alexis scarcely talks about her mom. You'd think I was the one to birth her."

"And you look great, babe." Brando agreed, pressing a kiss to his husband's mouth, coming up to the bar for a top up, "I was a scholarship student, Finn. It means you're wanted, when you're a scholarship student. Not at Devereux, I was in Arkansas and ran to LA the first chance I got. Planning on ever living out here?"

Alexis watched from where she was perched on a lounger with interest, half scared but half curious what else Freddie would reveal, and if it would scare Finn away. Probably not, but being here put her more on the cautious side. "It was nice though, her being at Thanksgiving with my family." Finn interjected his cheeks going just a little bit red, wanting her fathers to know that she'd been very welcome there and not like shunted into a corner or anything. "My Mom was really happy to have her, and obviously Fauna was too or she's a little bit like overwhelmed by all of us.. you know because she's really small.. Oh have you met Fauna?" He flushed a deeper shade of red as Alexis kissed him on the cheek and then stared at his drink for a minute to process.

"I like being in a big family, because there's lots of people to take care of everyone you know.. Odette is alright, she's a bit different from my other siblings because like.. she's more sensitive I guess. She's into violin." Finn agreed, feeling a bit bad when they brought up Alexis' Mom. He knew that she didn't really like to talk about her family at all, but of course he wasn't going to say that to Freddie. "I um.. I know her name. But yeah I don't think she likes to talk about her, but that's okay.. I don't want to make her unhappy." The submissive explained taking a long drink of the drink in his hand. "Oh cool, scholarship bros!" Finn said without thinking and then hoped that Brando didn't take it offensively. "Oh yeah.. I'd love to move out here.. it's so sunny and there's like a lot of cool things to eat." "We've met Fauna," Freddie ensured, "London, last year I think...Lex can you confirm?" He called over to where his daughter lounged. She gave him a snarky thumbs up in response. "I'm glad your parents accepted her into  the fold, though it is surprising she celebrated it this year. She's normally very anti-Holiday."

"We're honestly surprised she came home for Christmas. First time in two years maybe?" Brando questioned, staring at his husband in confusion, who shrugged. "Anyway, a violin player! How exciting! I could have been first chair in my orchestra back in school." He explained. Freddie couldn't help but snort.

"In your dreams, babe," Freddie said, bumping him. "Speaking of cool things to eat, Finn, as our guest of honour, you can pick this evening's meal. Is there anything you wanted to try that Lex hasn't showed you yet?" He glanced back over to Alexis, attempting to summon her over with a wave. She stared at him for a moment, before turning back. Whatever they needed her for, could wait five minutes. "Well, guess you're the only one choosing." He said with his trademark charismatic smile, as if not totally embarrassed by his daughter. Finn thought he knew why Alexis was anti holiday usually, but this definitely wasn’t the audience of people that you told about that. Because he was pretty sure it was less to do with the holidays themselves and more about not wanting to spend them with her family. “Well it’s hard to be anti-holiday when it’s around my family. We take everything pretty seriously, every decoration is a treasure.” Finn replied diplomatically. “That’s cool Sir.” He said, taking a drink of his drink. Unsure if he should laugh along with Freddie or take things seriously and thus chose neither, instead just giving himself more liquid courage.

“Uh... I mean I wanted to try and in and out.. but like I don’t expect you guys to want to eat that.” He said, going back on his own suggestion almost immediately after he said it. Burgers weren’t sophisticated or stylish like the house that he was standing in. “I’m sure you guys know what’s good to eat around here way better than I do.” He tried instead. “I eat basically everything so.. it’s not really a problem.” leather daddy08/02/2021 Truly it was driving Alexis mad that she couldn't quite hear the conversation a few feet away and, even though she absolutely trusted everyone involved, her curiosity had taken over and she found herself back at Finn's side, elbows grazing his. "Hope I'm not interrupting anything?" She asked them, a coy smile on her face.

"Not at all Lex, refill?" Brando asked, raising his own glass at her as if emitting some type of signal. She merely nodded, it was Christmas after all.

"We're just talking about In 'n' Out, you haven't taken him there?" Freddie asked, "It's the best, truly Finn." He said, and Alexis felt her stomach churn at just how naturally well the two seemed to gel togethe.

"You want that?" She confirmed to Finn, the sharp gaze she had firmly placed on her features since arriving at the house softening, "Because we can, please don't expect us to only be eating caviar and lobster dipped in gold."

"That'd be a good course for our wedding anniversary though." Freddie chimed in with a laugh, "So, In 'n' Out? Brando, baby, will you go sort it? You've barely done anything all day."

"Yes, Sir," Brando said with a playful roll of his eyes, "Bossiness is a St. James trait, Finn. It's how they all got away with being Dominants." He joked, before heading inside momentarily.

"Come, sit with me," Alexis said, and even she could feel herself be amused at how she instantly proved her dad's point, but she really wanted to relax, and couldn't unless Finn was right by her side at all times here. Finn looked a little confused when Alexis asked if she was interrupting anything, because he really didn't know how she could interrupt when she was so clearly the star of the show. "You could never interrupt." He responded honestly. He also panicked a little when Freddie questioned her not having taken him to In And Out, he didn't want her to think she had to do anything. "Oh it's okay.. I mean I do want to eat it but like it's not a big deal." He tried to defend, feeling like he almost couldn't keep everyone happy at the same time.

The submissive nodded at the bossiness comment and then blushed, hoping that Alexis hadn't seen. Usually he might have said something about bossiness being sexy but he didn't want to call her sexy in front of her Dads because that would be weird. "Haha.." Was all he managed and then was very grateful when she suggested that he come and sit next to her, following along and plonking himself down eagerly. Alexis wondered if anything Finn thought about her had shifted, since meeting her dads, wondering if it was a bad idea to bring him at all. Their tentative friendship had just gotten back on track, and she was, admittedly, scared that bringing him here had just ruined everything. Those were the thoughts going through her mind as she observed him, the California sun bouncing off his skin, showing off a few freckles that dusted his shoulders, his long-ish hair pushed back, and she couldn't help herself from drifting towards his abs, and then his shorts, glad for the massive sunglasses she was wearing, snapping her eyes back up to his face. "You good?" She asked him, "At any point you feel uncomfortable we can just leave, if you want." Finn was just staring out at the wide landscape, marvelling at the difference from his own hometown. He'd always thought that there was something beautiful in the view of Ohio cornfields that he'd grown up with, but this was on another level that could never compete. Honestly he couldn't imagine how Alexis had ever managed to leave this behind. Her question startled him, and he looked up as though he'd been asleep for a long time, eyes wide and suddenly alert. "Oh um.. no.. I'm good.. it's nice here. Your folks are nice." He said honestly, trying to work out why she was asking him the question, did she not want him anymore, was he doing something wrong? Alexis didn't know whether to believe him when he mentioned that her parents were nice but she didn't press on it, just studied him instead. Lately she was finding it difficult to do anything but stare at him, struggling with her feelings a little bit. She wanted him, badly, in more ways than just sex, and the hopeful part of her she was letting live longer than five minutes was ensuring her when they headed back to Devereux for New Year's they'd be more than this awkward stage of friendship. "I'm glad you like it here," She told him honestly, in the soft voice she reserved for just him, that she didn't let anyone else here. She reached out to take his hand because it was the only way of touching him that seemed appropriate. "I don't think I've said thank you for agreeing to come with me." Finn watched her watching him and wondered what was on her mind, he could tell that she was trying to gage something from him but he didn’t know what. “I don’t know how anyone couldn’t, it looks like... just amazing. Like seeing so many palm trees in real life is crazy.” The football player admitted. “It’s literally no trouble at all Miss... you’ve brought me to one of the coolest places on earth and let me stay with you for Christmas.. I should be thanking you.. so um thank you!” The submissive rambled, raising his hands in an odd sort of surrender motion as he tried to wrap his head around the idea that she thought she had to thank him for coming to LA. Alexis thought about her plan for the rest of the Christmas break, what she conjured up when Finn first agreed to come with her to LA for the holiday. He was too good for her, in every way she could think of, and it wasn't the first time on this trip she thought about whether or not to go through with asking him to take things to to next level. Because she didn't deserve him, but then, as she reached out stroke his cheek, an almost subconcious action, Alexis thought that maybe she deserved to be selfish for once. "I really glad you like it here," She told him honestly, "And you really don't need to thank me, really, you're the one who came here and willingly met my dads." She said, lips twitching at the hint of a smile. Another idea popped into her head, and she sat up a bit. "Wanna go take a nap? I can get them to bring our burgers up to my room and we can eat in bed. We're going to need all the energy for their festivities later tonight, that's all." Finn still really didn't understand why she thought that she needed to thank him for coming with her, he was excited that he got to meet her parents and see where it was that she had grown up. But he didn't argue with her, instead he just nodded along with her suggestion. "A nap sounds really good right about now.. there's something about the heat out here that makes me sleepy." He agreed, standing up and offering her his hand before leading her towards that strange grey bedroom, happy that she seemed to be enjoying herself at least a little.

[aphrodites-law]

My Favorite

Trope: Soulmate marks.

Twist: Lexa doesn’t have one. Clarke does.

2/? - (Part 1)

~

A week passed at the hotel, but while Lexa glanced into the sitting room each time she walked by it, she never saw Clarke again. She went back and forth between the hotel and her apartment, putting her boxes away while the windows remained opened wide and the smell of paint slowly faded. Eventually she checked out of Griffin Hotel, where Jake gave her a cheery look before sending her off with a basket of fresh fruit from the breakfast buffet - a welcome gift, he’d said.

With her first classes to plan and organize, Lexa spent most of her time with her nose in her books and binders. She used the rest of it to familiarize herself with Polis, where she picked up a few habits in a matter of days. There was the grocery store with the peanut-butter pretzels that melted in her mouth, the bicycle path that cut through the park, and the coffee shop owned by Raven Reyes.

Raven ran a tight ship and was as welcoming as she was fascinating. Her two loves were space and food, and evidently she had combined them with great success. Her shop, Coffee on the Moon, was exactly what it sounded like - the best damn coffee Lexa had had in a uniquely decorated setting. The coffee machines were themed like space crafts, which Lexa had noticed were wildly popular with kids (and perhaps even more adults); the walls were painted in swaths of silvers and dark blues; and the art hung up was courtesy of local artists. In the display case, well-garnished sandwiches made with local produce rarely lasted the day, if even the rush of lunch hour.

Raven seemed to know everyone and everything, an unsurprising fact given her infectious energy. One morning, Raven had come into her shop without her prosthetic leg on account of the pain, she had shared casually, but not once in the following hour had Lexa heard her complain. She was an admirable woman, and Lexa was particularly fascinated by how quickly she had charmed Anya.

Anya, who wouldn’t admit to feeling lonely while her daughter was at summer camp, had surprised Lexa with a visit that had turned into a week-long stay. She’d met Raven quickly enough, and immediately Lexa had noticed the change in her demeanor. Usually always on her guard, Anya had seemed to... soften around the edges in a matter of minutes. It was clear to Lexa that Raven had caught Anya’s eye, not only with her wit but also her ability to run such a good business.

Unfortunately for Anya, who didn’t like to be surprised by her own feelings, she dealt with attraction rather poorly. That is, she’d be ready to snap if Lexa so much as implied there was something there. Lexa, however, could understand her need for caution: Anya was a working mother who would soon leave back to her home, hours away. It was hard to envision this relationship having a future.

And, surely, it would have remained that way had Raven not suddenly noticed the tattoo on Anya’s wrist and shown off her own: a depiction of the moon with the logo of her coffee shop covering the words she’d had since birth.

“Got it at twenty-five when my boyfriend of ten years dumped me for some chick he didn’t even know,” she explained.

When Lexa looked toward Anya then, she knew her friend’s interest was piqued for good. It was rare to meet anyone who had willingly tattooed their mark like Anya had. 

“A decade gone to dust because some skinny redhead told him what he’d always hoped to hear,” Raven revealed with a snort.

“So you don’t believe in the mark?” Anya asked cautiously.

“Oh, I do.”

As equally confused as her best friend, Lexa invited Raven to sit with them at their table. 

“I just don’t think the way we go about it works,” Raven elaborated. “Just because you meet - it doesn’t have to mean you’re right for each other at that exact moment, you know?”

“Or at all,” Lexa muttered.

“Well, I do think there’s truth to it,” Raven admitted. “It’s fucking beautiful, really, if we just see it as it is, but we have a messy approach.”

Lexa shook her head. “It’s just always seemed like... Do you love the person because of who they are, or do you love them because the words on your wrist tell you to?"

Raven smirked, like she had asked herself the same question a hundred times before. To do so aloud, however, was bold. “The way I see it? Just because your souls are bonded, doesn’t mean the relationship doesn’t need work. Sure, most movies show us it's happily ever after once the first words are uttered, but in reality the words are just the beginning. It's not easy to go from perfect stranger to soul-tied, you know?"

Anya rolled her eyes. "Cry me a river."

Raven shrugged. "If it weren't so taboo to admit you're unhappy with your soulmate, maybe some would realize it's because they're taking it for granted. My friend, Bellamy - his soulmate was this broody chick who straight up punched him for sleeping with her friend. Insulted the shit out of him; word for word the string of insults that wrap around his wrist four times. Anyway, she didn't give a shit when he showed her. Took them three years to meet again, and then another three to even like each other. Now they're expecting their first kid. But I think the best thing they did was to grow as people. The mark showed them the possibility for something life-changing was there - but they'd have to work for it first."

Lexa glanced at Anya, who had yet to look away from Raven.

"Look, I know it's fucked how you're treated," Raven continued, "but I don't think the mark itself is to be blamed. I mean, I think it was designed as a way to make life a little easier, that's all. But then… I don't know, most civilizations blew it out of proportion and turned it into something else. Decided that those who have it are better than those who don't - and backed up their points by turning the exceptions into the rule. That people without a mark are going to steal your jewelry or murder your kids one day, just because this one markless dude some thousands of years ago happened to be an ax murderer. Everyone loves to forget that ancient Egypt worshipped the Markless. They believed that they were in control of their own fate - freer. And don't get me started on the Greeks! They had whole temples dedicated to them. There's a reason the statues of their Gods didn't have marks, but nobody likes to bring that up.”

“Moral superiority is one hell of a drug,” Anya shrugged.

Raven chuckled. “I don't think anyone is better than anyone; it's just a bunch of people trying to be happy."

"Well, you're definitely an exception,” Lexa sighed. “I’ve been reminded of my place in the world enough times to know that.”

Raven was about to reply when the door to the shop opened. When Lexa saw that it was Clarke who had just walked in, her heart jumped in her throat.

“You’re back!” Raven exclaimed before getting up to pull Clarke into a hug. “How was it? How’s your mom?”

Clarke grinned in the embrace before pulling back to sign something. Lexa watched with rapt attention, trying hard to follow the movement of Clarke’s hands, but understanding none of her language in the end. She watched as Raven tipped her head back and laughed.

“Classic Abby Griffin.”

Clarke then pulled out a heavy paper bag from her backpack and gifted it to her friend, who immediately looked inside.

“Yes!” Raven turned to Anya and Lexa. “Best goddamn blueberry pierogi in the country!”

Clarke looked toward them as well and gave Lexa a small wave.

“You’ve met?” Raven asked. 

Clarke quickly signed something. Raven blinked, then burst out laughing.

“Oh fine, just go, you idiot.”

Clarke bit her lip before dashing toward the coffee shop’s restroom. Anya got up as well.

“I’ll be right back,” she excused herself.

Alone with Raven, who was now counting the pierogi in the bag, Lexa’s curiosity got to her.

“Are you good friends?”

Raven turned to her and nodded. “Clarke and I got each other through everything. There wouldn’t be a Coffee on the Moon without her.”

Lexa found incredible strength in Raven’s ability to be so open. “I wouldn’t be here without Anya,” she admitted in turn.

“How long have you known each other?”

“Since college. Anya... just helped me believe that I was more than the missing part.”

Raven’s face fell. “Shit. I’m really sorry."

Lexa shook her head. “It’s fine. Just made me who I am today.”

“No, it’s not fine. You know - Polis doesn’t tolerate that. We have each other’s backs here, mark or no mark. I think you’ll notice when you start teaching the kids. They really give me hope.”

Lexa smiled. “I look forward to it.”

Clarke and Anya came back from the restroom together, not exactly chatting but... Lexa could tell they’d communicated something to each other by the small smile on Clarke’s face. Anya sat back down at the table while Clarke signed something to Raven.

“Oh okay,” Raven answered. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Clarke nodded before she glanced once more at Lexa, mouthed ‘bye’, and left the shop. 

Raven turned to the table. “Okay, well, I need to put the pierogi in the fridge and make some calls, but let me know if you need anything.”

Lexa sat back in her chair with a sigh. She watched Anya pick up her cup of coffee and then smirk.

“She doesn’t have one.”

Lexa frowned slowly. “What?”

Anya chuckled, then took a sip of her coffee. “You’re so obvious, you know? I figured I’d check when she washed her hands.”

Lexa immediately sat up, hope blossoming dangerously in her chest. “She... doesn’t have-”

“Nope.”

Lexa worried her bottom lip before grabbing her phone. Anya didn’t seem fazed in the least.

“Are you buying a hundred books on sign language?”

Lexa swiped something on her screen. “Yep.”

-

Part three

[beiingalive]

* ⌞ʾ⁎ ⊰ zoë kravitz, nonbinary, they/she/him ⊱ i think i just saw BOBBIE SONDHEIM walk across trafalgar square, singing to TO BE SO LONELY ( HARRY STYLES ). you know, the THIRTY year old LAWYER? people claim that they are just like BOBBY from COMPANY. it must be because they are CHARMING and NONCOMMITTAL as well… though i could be wrong. all i know for sure is that they live at CHICAGO apartment.⌝

              ❝ they always look like they’re keeping score

                                                                 who's winning , bobbie ? ❞

name: roberta sondheim. nicknames: bobbie, bob, bubbi, booboo. age: 30. date of birth: october 9th, 1989. hometown: new york city, ny. current location: london, england. apartment: chicago. occupation: divorce lawyer.

pinterest: xx. playlist: xx.

→ 𝕙𝕚𝕤𝕥𝕠𝕣𝕪.

♡ roberta “ bobbie ” sondheim is the first and only child of george sondheim and eileen jones. they were born and raised in new york city , something that is clear the instant anyone meets them — they’re from new york, nothing really interests them. they grew up in a big, beautiful apartment in the upper east side with a lovely view of central park. bobbie’s childhood was uneventful — both their parents worked ( george was a lawyer, eileen a real estate agent ) , so bobbie was raised by several nannies who took care of them when their parents weren’t there — they keep in touch to this day.

♡ bobbie was a few months short of thirteen when their parents announced they were getting a divorce. it wasn’t exactly a surprised — everyone could see the marriage had gone stale. the divorce was mostly amicable — they got joint custody and split up the major holidays. george moved out their home and into an apartment that was just a few blocks away. bobbie’s teens were split in two.

♡ it wasn’t long before both of bobbie’s parents remarried. george fell for a partner at his law firm, katrina — eileen fell for raúl, a recent widower she was helping find a new place. both katrina and raúl had children from their past marriages ( katrina had to boys, both in college — raúl had two girls, ages two and four ). bobbie gained two step-parents and two sets of step-siblings. the’ve never been particularly close.

♡ before and after the divorce, bobbie lived a comfortable life. they weren’t spoiled, but they never wanted for nothing. they grew up with money — bobbie was always aware of their privilege — but they never abused it. they were happy with what they had, they were comfortable. they never demanded more than what they got.

♡ in school, they got along with pretty much everyone. they were popular, but never belonged to any clique — they simply floated between them, being friends with everyone, but never getting too close to any one person in particular. that aloofness got them a lot of attention from boys and girls alike. they dated around, but never really got serious with anyone ( a habit they’ve carried onto adulthood ).

♡ bobbie was a great student without having to put too much effort into it — they coasted through. when the time came to start applying for university, they realized they didn’t know what they wanted. they weren’t passionate about anything. they got good grades and enjoyed most subjects ( except for math ). they were in the debate team, they wrote for the school paper, they ran track. they played tennis, they played the piano, they’d even had a few lines in the school’s production of a midsummer night’s dream. still, there was not one thing bobbie could envision themself doing as a career.

♡ they knew they wanted to leave new york — despite how much they loved the city. living the rest of their life surrounded by their entire family wasn’t very appealing. they decided to move to london based solely on the fact that they’d visited once when they were sixteen on a class trip. this is one of the few solid decisions bobbie has made throughout their life.

♡ at the time, bobbie was dating a fellow classmate — dean wheeler. it was almost serious. they dated for most of their senior year, and even went to prom together. they promised to keep in touch after graduation, but that didn’t really happen. it was clear bobbie had lost interest, and they both just moved on.

♡ bobbie got an english degree while trying to figure out what they actually wanted to do. eventually they decided to study law — their father was a lawyer, so it just made sense. after graduating, they started working at a small law firm and made enough money to buy themselves a nice, comfortable apartment. nothing excessive. just comfortable. they’re pretty happy with where their life is at the moment.

→ 𝕡𝕖𝕣𝕤𝕠𝕟𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕥𝕪.

zodiac sign: libra. personality type: esfp — the entertainer. enneagram: type 9 — the peacemaker. temperament: sanguine. moral alignment: true neutral. primary vice: lust. primary virtue: charity. element: air.

♡ bobbie’s a charmer. they can make anyone fall in love with them within meeting them. they’re persuasive and almost always get whatever they want from other people. they’re a fantastic conversationalist, a great listener, and just being around them makes people feel good. they’re very social and can make friends with almost anyone.

♡ people fall in love with bobbie very easily. this is something bobbie isn’t always aware of. the sad thing is that isn’t not always reciprocated. they flirt with everyone ( sometimes without even realizing it ) , even when they’re not interested in pursuing anything.

♡ they can’t say no, so even when they’re not interested, if someone makes a move, they’ll go along with it. eventually the other person will notice and end it.

♡ when they are interested, they’re just not good at expressing it. they don’t know how to let their feelings known when things start to get serious. when it’s time for bobbie to become vulnerable and intimate, they grow distant. they never quite know how to end things, either. bobbie has a nasty habit of letting relationships grow stale and waiting for the other person to do the inevitable.

♡ their relationships often overlap, due to the fact that bobbie is incapable of being upfront with someone they no longer has romantic feelings for, and is also terrified of being alone.

♡ bobbie’s romantic life is a never ending cycle. they flirt with everyone, making them fall in love. they become disinterested, and instead of doing something about that, they wait for the other person to dump them. wash, rinse, repeat.

♡ secretly, they’re a hopeless romantic. they’re scared of intimacy, but they crave it. they yearn for that person who will make all their fears go away. they want to find that person they can be completely open and vulnerable — the problem is they never let things go that far. they get scared when things get too real.

♡ they act like they’re perfectly fine with the way their life is right now — and that’s the problem. everything is fine. just fine. they’re not unhappy, but they’re not completely happy either. they’re just okay. content. comfortable. the crave something more, but they’re too scared to take a risk and do something about it.

♡ romantic disasters aside, bobbie’s a great friend. if you’ve secured their friendship, they’ll never let you down. they’re always just a call away. they’ll make you laugh, they’ll be your wingperson, your babysitter, whatever you need, they’ll never say no.

→ 𝕔𝕠𝕟𝕟𝕖𝕔𝕥𝕚𝕠𝕟𝕤.

♡ FRIENDS: we’re starting out easy here, people. bobbie’s a very friendly person. they can befriend anyone, so this is incredibly open. they’re non-confrontational and a people pleaser, so they’ll get along with anyone. the circumstances of how they met can be entirely up to you.

♡ FRIENDS FROM NEW YORK: bobbie lived in nyc until they graduated high school in 2006. these friends probably wouldn’t be the closest, since bobbie was still pretty young when they left, but it would still be cool to have a couple of buddies from their high school days.

♡ FRIENDS FROM UNIVERSITY: bobbie studied in london from 2006 - 2013 ( approximately, i’m bad at math ) , so these are people they could have bonded with either while getting their english degree or in law school.

♡ FIRST FRIENDS IN LONDON: this could overlap with their friends from uni, since these are the friends bobbie bonded with they they first arrived in the uk and helped them settle in.

♡ FLINGS / FWB / HOOKUPS: this one is extremely open. bobbie flirts with everyone, so the possibilities are endless. your muse could have dated bobbie briefly, slept with them and never got a call back, they could be someone they sleep with casually, or anything else under the sun.

♡ EXES: bobbie’s dated a lot, but they rarely let things get serious ( maybe your muse thought things were getting serious, but those feelings were one-sided ). whether things ended on good or bad terms is totally up to you. bobbie avoids drama at all costs, so chances are they kind of ghosted your muse until they got the message.

♡ ALMOST-SERIOUS EX: this would be someone bobbie could see themselves getting serious with, but never took that step to make it official. they thought about it, but just never had the guts to tell the other person how they really felt. things eventually ended, as usual, and bobbie just moved on with their life.

♡ COLLEAGUES: bobbie’s a divorce lawyer, so your muse could be another lawyer that works at the same firm, someone who’s gone up against bobbie, or just another lawyer they bump into sometimes.

♡ NEIGHBORS: bobbie lives in the chicago building, so if your muse lives there and you wanna say they live right next door, hit me up !

♡ ❝ SOMEONE TO HOLD YOU TOO CLOSE ❞: it’s a cheesy name, i know, let’s move past that. bobbie clearly has commitment issues ( and intimacy issues, and many others that would take too long to list ). still, a part of them longs for that person they can truly be vulnerable with. they want love, they’re just too scared of the sacrifices that come with it. this person is someone who can finally break their shell and make them fall in love. this would obviously develop based on chemistry but i just wanted to throw it up here.

[in-tua-deep]

Your TUA au with five and soft Luther are giving me life tbh. I honestly love it so so much. Would you think of doing something with them all being there for vanya when her powers start coming out again (however that happens) but because they’re all together as a family the apocalypse never happens cause they’re there for her and help her and yeah. Idk I just feel like your au could have such a happy ending. With vanya and klaus able to grow their powers in safety and with love and support 💕💕

asdfsgdDFSGH thank u i didn’t realize the responsible luther au would be as popular as it got?? sometimes i make a post and am just surprised by how many people seem to like them lmao

(other responsible luther au things can be found here, here, and here)

not exactly a snippet like last time but here’s my stream of consciousness rambling style y’all should be used to at this point wheyy >;3c (except of course I end up doing a snippet in the middle of the stream of consciousness so BEST OF BOTH WORLDS I GUESS)

So you have Five, who has been doing a lot of research into psychology things since he’s, you know, seeing a psychologist. So he’s interested, and at a family dinner he asks Vanya what her medication is for. Of course, she responds that it’s for anxiety which is usually where the conversation ends.

Except Five wants to know what it is and what dosage she’s taking, and she tells him. And he’s either “That’s not an anxiety medication” or “That’s a dose large enough to take down an elephant I’m pretty sure” or hey maybe Vanya even frowns and is like “Actually you know what? I don’t know.”

and Vanya in the show says she used to see a therapist, so maybe she’s still seeing them? Except Five insists that clearly something is wrong, and demands she switch to the place where Five goes. Vanya is starting to get an inkling that something is wrong, so she decides to go off her meds. 

Not cold turkey - but she goes off them regardless. And she feels… better. She feels more happy, like she’s more connected with life. Maybe she decides, with her new therapist, to switch to a different medication that’s actually for anxiety after her therapist looks at her current prescription with such absolute bewilderment because what the fuck and immediately is like “Yeah okay something is super weird here’s a new prescription and we’ll see if you feel less of the emotional numbness that you’ve been describing to be.”

So Vanya goes off them, and odd things start happening. But it’s not until she’s in Luther’s apartment and they’re eating dinner and Diego just made a stupid comment and the TV is going in the background and suddenly everything just starts shaking and Vanya is so surprised she snaps out of her anger and everything goes still and they’re all just like ????????

Meanwhile Luther is running on like, two hours of sleep because he has an early shift at the garage today and Five got tangled in the blankets again and woke up screaming and generally inconsolable so he’s just like. Done. He picks up the cutlery that fell on the ground when the table shook and is like “I don’t care who was responsible for that, please don’t do it again or at least not during dinner. Also Diego I saw you draw that knife you know my rules about weapons at the table. And in my home.”

and Vanya is just looking at her hands all wide-eyed like, “Was that me?? What the FUCK guys.”

“No swearing at the table.” Luther automatically corrects her.

“Well I guess we figured out what the fuck was up with your meds.” Five comments, reaching over to steal some potatoes off of Luther’s plate. 

“Language, Five.” Luther doesn’t comment on the theft of his food, instead just scooting his plate closer to Five’s because hey at least it’s getting the kid to eat something. 

“Why am I the only one freaking out about this?” Vanya sounds very stressed out right now, and the knives and forks rattle ominously.

“Actually I’m pretty freaked out?” Diego interjects, raising a hand. “Like, what? You had powers this whole time? When the fuck did you start taking those meds then?”

Klaus shrugs. “Honestly at this point do you really think our lives could get any fucking weirder? Shouldn’t we have been more surprised that Vanya didn’t have powers?”

Luther sighs deeply. “I’m going to actually buy a swear jar.” He tells the ceiling very seriously, “Because clearly this family cannot go one minute without swearing in front of a child.”

“I’m not a baby.” Five scowls, punching Luther in the arm which does exactly nothing except make Five feel a little better. 

“Yeah Luther, he’s not a baby.” Klaus sticks his tongue out at Luther and reaches out to ruffle Five’s hair. Five only allows it because Klaus just took his side.

“I don’t really remember a time when I wasn’t taking them.” Vanya attempts to get the conversation back on track. 

“I feel like giving toddlers anxiety medication isn’t something that’s generally done.” Five point out mildly, mercifully actually addressing the issue which would be good except he sounds very unconcerned and is still stealing the rest of Luther’s potatoes. Luther, for his part, just gets up and goes into the kitchen to get himself more because this is one dinner battle he’s not picking.

“So what? Dad just suppressed my powers?” Vanya asks.

“Why not?” Five shrugs, “He’s done some other seriously fucked up shit I don’t see why he’d draw the lines at drugging one of us.”

“I mean he for sure didn’t really care that I was drugging myself.” Klaus points out, “He definitely knew about it, right? Like I was seriously fucked up for the majority of our formative years or whatever.”

There’s some rattling from the kitchen.

“So you’re saying that if Vanya has powers, Dad knows about them?” Diego asks, waving a knife in the air that Luther definitely expressly forbid from appearing at his table. 

“But why would he mess with my powers?” Vanya asks, very confused. “Maybe they’re dangerous?”

Diego snorts, “More dangerous than Ben’s?”

“Ben takes issue with that!” Klaus protests.

“No he doesn’t.” Five rolls his eyes, because Five has gotten alarmingly good at figuring out when Klaus was accurately reporting their deceased sibling’s comments. 

“Maybe it was for my own safety.” Vanya says, looking doubtful but willing to play devil’s advocate.

“When the fuck did Dad care about our personal safety?” Klaus asks incredulously, and Vanya nods to concede the point easily enough.

“Shout out to when Dad threw me off the roof.” Five mutters before shoveling more potatoes in his mouth.

“OKAY.” Luther says, walking back from the kitchen. “We are going to address that very concerning comment later Five, don’t think we won’t. And also - ” He takes the opportunity to slam a jar on the table which has a piece of paper with ‘swear jar’ hastily taped to it. “ - I am 100% serious about no swearing at least at mealtimes if nothing else.”

“God Luther, you’re such a stick in the mud.” Klaus whines loudly and Diego is pulling such an offended face at the sight of the swear jar that Luther is tempted to tell him his face is going to stick like that if he isn’t careful.

“Guys!” Vanya exclaims, actually looking a little frustrated. “Can we get back to the subject of my mystery powers, please? This is seriously stressing me out.”

“You know,” Five says thoughtfully, “I bet Dad has some journals or something - ”

“No.” Luther vetoes immediately. “Absolutely not.”

“You didn’t even let me finish my thought!” Five protests.

“Dad has genuinely sent armed gunmen to kidnap you.” Luther points out, putting his foot down on the issue. “I just got our door fixed from the last time he decided you were the antichrist or whatever. You are not getting within a mile of him if I can help it.”

“But he is the antichrist.” Klaus grins widely, wiggling his fingers at Five and making the kid roll his eyes. 

“Only on alternating Tuesdays.” Luther says gravely, sparking a laugh out of Klaus.

“It’s still kind of weird that Luther has a sense of humor now.” Diego says, looking at Vanya who just has her face in her hands. She has given up on getting this family to actually stay on topic. It’s like herding cats.

“Aww Vanya,” Klaus coos, “It’s okay. I know figuring out you have a new power is pretty freaky - ” And Klaus would know, since getting sober his powers have been somewhat alarming in their progression. But at least sometimes they can talk to Ben, now? “ - and you can always train with me and Benny boy!”

“Really?” Vanya sniffles.

“No one is practicing anything in my apartment.” Luther says, aggrieved. “There is a bowling ball shaped dent in my wall from the last time Klaus practiced. I still don’t know where he got a bowling ball. And Diego I swear to god if I find any more knife marks in my walls - ”

“Some of those are Five’s!” Diego protests, pointing an accusing finger across the table. 

“And where is Five getting throwing knives, Diego?” Luther scowls.

“Five can speak for himself.” Five interjects absently, gesturing with a knife that looks awfully familiar. Diego pauses to check his knife holster before standing up.

“You little shit - ”

“Swear jar, Diego!” Klaus crows triumphantly. For his part, Diego grudgingly snags a dollar bill from his pocket and dumps it into the jar without any real protest, still glaring at Five who is only offering a shit eating grin.

Luther plucks the knife out of Five’s hand while the smallest sibling’s attention is focused on Diego. “I’m keeping this. Diego, you can come and get it from me before you leave and not a moment before. And for the last time stop bringing your knives into my apartment.”

“You were just saying about Dad’s attempts to kidnap Five!” Diego crosses his arms across his chest. “I need my knives in case there’s another attempt.”

“You can have one, one knife on your person.” Luther concedes grudgingly.

“Two.” Diego bargains.

“Guys!” Vanya interrupts, the table rattling again as her hair lifts around her face.

Diego sighs as if put upon. “I know an abandoned warehouse downtown. You and Klaus can practice there, I guess.”

“You can stay here tonight, Vanya! And then go train in the morning!” Five pipes up enthusiastically.

“This is not turning into a sleepover.” Luther says, completely ignored by the rest of the siblings.

“Sleepover!” Klaus cheers loudly.

“I can sleep on the couch.” Diego offers, “Vanya can have the air mattress in Klaus’s room.”

“Or I can sleep on the couch.” Vanya bats her eyes innocently, “After all, wouldn’t want my powers to go off in the night and hurt someone.”

“That’s not fair.” Diego sounds awfully accusatory. 

“You guys are so rude.” Klaus sniffs in mock offense, “Just because I rolled out of bed that one time - ”

“This isn’t turning into a sleepover.” Luther repeats himself, just a little louder. He is still ignored.

“We could all camp out in the main room.” Five bounces in his chair, “We could make a blanket fort!” Without another word Five vanishes in a flash of blue, probably to go and retrieve as many pillows and blankets as exist in Luther’s apartment.

“Five!” Luther raises his voice to be heard from the other room, “No jumping from the table!” He doesn’t get a response.

“I’m calling Allison in the morning.” Vanya states simply, because clearly her sister will be the most sensible one of them all and will actually have some decent suggestions. And also because Allison should probably know about the whole “Vanya has powers” thing going on

so YEAH that’s how it goes they figure out Vanya has powers and once they eventually get on topic enough to figure out what they want to do they agree that Vanya needs control and to figure out What the Fuck her powers are to begin with

that snippet got away from me mainly because the Hargreeves talking really is like herding cats and all of them at the same table minus Allison?? absolutely terrible

They skype Allison and Allison remembers the whole rumoring Vanya in the basement and everything rattles but Allison is miles and miles away and with the others there they can point out how absolutely fucked up it was for Reginald to demand that of both Allison AND Vanya because they were both what, four? They’re going to blame the man responsible (Reginald) and Vanya is going to have a very interesting next therapy session

so there you have it there is my opinion on Vanya’s powers in the responsible Luther au she finds out about them and decides to train them and she trains with Klaus and Ben and sometimes Diego to figure out that they’re linked to sound waves and all that and she doesn’t go straight up white violin because how are you supposed to be furious when your siblings keep going off topic about swear jars and table manners and kidnapping attempts?? 

so there you have it Vanya is fine because the power of the Hargreeves to derail any and all conversations they take part in is used for the greater good

honestly at this point after everything they’ve already dealt with (including said attempts by their dad at kidnapping Five because for some reason Reginald thinks Five is the cause of the apocalypse) they’re all just kind of like “this might as well happen, adult life is already so goddamn weird.”

on the bright side I’m having a lot more fun with dialogue scenes now than when i first started writing fanfics wheyyyy go me

[purplesurveys]

789

Is it raining where you are? We’re starting to get more of them these days thank fuck, but the weather is still mostly humid and has none of the cold air that the rain comes with. But I’m happy with it anyway because it’s my favorite weather, and it feels nice and refreshing to finally have cloudy days. Would you ever get a white phone? When I was in high school I wanted a white iPhone so bad since that was the really popular color for phones back then hahaha (teenagers will turn everything into a trend, I now realize. Urgh). But because my parents always bought me new phones as a surprise, it meant that I didn’t really get a say about what color I wanted. It’s okay though, I wasn’t at all desperate for a white phone and definitely not spoiled rotten that I’d lash out at them. What was the last board game you played? It’s got to be whatever Elis brought to Skywalk before he graduated, as he liked bringing new board games for us almost everyday. One of the last ones I tried to join was Secret Hitler, but I backed out halfway through the session because I could never follow the instructions for most board games lol. What color is the floor in the room you're in? White. What color do you see the most of right now? White because our walls and floor are white, but with a strong tinge of yellow since we have yellow lights in the dining area and living room.

Are you more hungry or thirsty right now? I’m neither. Dinner tonight was so good so I had a big serving for myself and I also just finished a cup of coffee, so I’m feeling full at the moment. Have you wasted any money lately? I don’t even have any to spend these days hahahaha so nope How about lost any money? Also nope. As disorganized as I can be sometimes, I fortunately haven’t lost money. The one time I did was because someone stole my wallet altogether. What's your favorite kind of tea? I was never a tea person. Artificial sugary iced tea is enough for me. Would you rather go back to the 80's and 90's for a week? Probably the 80s so that it’s vastly different. I was able to live through some remnants of the 90s, so I prefer an entirely new experience. If you could only wear one color of socks ever, what would you choose? Just a plain color, no design? I’d go with mustard yellow I guess. It’s a cute color. What color hairties do you normally use? Black. Brown is an absolute last resort and only for situations where there aren’t any black ones anywhere. I’m super picky with my hair ties lol Do you prefer mints or gum? Gum. Sometimes it can be comforting to chew on something; it makes me feel preoccupied. Have you been sleeping well lately? Yes. My body clock is absolutely fucked, but I sleep very well and uninterrupted, thankfully. I used to wake up at the smallest noise, so I’m glad this quarantine taught me otherwise. Popsicles or fudgeicles? I had no idea what the latter is so I looked it up and...aren’t those popsicles too, just chocolate? :/ Anyway, I do like chocolate popsicles more than any other flavor. When was the last time you made a sandwich? Yesterday. What's your favorite thing for a person to do while you're kissing them? Smiling. Or biting my lip. HAHAHA I can go either way of the spectrum. Blush or bronzer? In the handful of times that my friends served as make-up artists for my face, I loved how bronzer looked on me. I’d always ask for it whenever they work on me.

Is it more important to you to have your fingernails or toenails painted? Neither is important to me. Would you rather your sheets be red or green? Eugh neither, but if I had to pick I’d go with red. Green is my least favorite color, and the only time I like it is when it’s an eye color lmao. Have you bought any bracelets recently? I have not bought anything lately, period. Including bracelets. What was the last reason you bought or recieved a card? A week before the lockdown, a guest speaker in my community press class gave me his business card. He wanted to take a photo with our class after his talk and I volunteered my phone, so he gave me his card so I could send the photos to him. How do you normally wear your hair? These days, ponytail for sure. Do you use a belt normally? It’s never a part of my outfits, no. What do you put on your hot dogs? Not really a common meal to snack on here so I haven’t had the chance to experiment and figure out what toppings I’d like on mine. How about on your tacos? I don’t really like tacos. Do you like watermelon? Nope. What is your favorite flavor of hot pockets? I don’t think we have Hot Pockets here. Maybe the fancier groceries do? but I really don’t know for sure. They look really good though and I’m often thinking about wanting to try them. The Totino’s(???) pizza rolls are also something I’ve heard about and I’m super envious cause they sound like heaven??? What color is your favorite blanket? Pink. What day of the week is it? It isssssss Thursday. I’m not even aware of the days anymore; I had to check my laptop’s clock to answer this. What's the most adventurous thing you've done this week? Stayed up till 4 AM? Lol ughhhhhhh give me my life back plz Would you prefer a brick house or a log cabin? Brick house. Patio or porch? Oooooh I would love a patio. Pool or trampoline? Pool. Trampolines are fun for like, five minutes lol. When was the last time you had orange juice? I don’t know if it counts as juice but my dad recently started buying those fizzy Berocca tablets that turn water into some type of vitamin drink when you dump it in. I hated it from the first sip, and thankfully my parents never forced me to take it after that. Do you like apple juice? Meh, it’s fine. I don’t like juices in general but apple is still one of the flavors I’d drink if it was available or offered to me. Do you have any bright colored shorts? Yes, a couple. Leggings or yoga pants? Leggings but only because I’ve never owned a pair of yoga pants. Do you like b.l.t.s? I don’t hate them, but I don’t get them a lot either. They’re just there to me lol. What was the last drink you ordered at a restaurant? I only ever go for water; it’s never been my habit to order a drink because they make me feel full quicker. Have you went to a Burger King or McDonald's more recently? Wow, neither. But my parents love Burger King more, so it was likely that that was one of the last places they bought takeout from before the lockdown. Do you remember your last dream? I don’t think so, nope. Do you like going for car rides? I do and I definitely miss them more now. Do you have a tree in your yard? No we don’t. When was the last time you lit a candle? Never. I hate using lighters and I always ask someone else to light up something meant to be lit up for me.

[supergenial]

Three Houses sucks actually

It’s been a whole month so after about 180 hours of play and doing all four routes, I thought I’d write down all the minor nitpicks that upset me about this fantastic game. Obviously spoilers ahead.

First of all, I do think it’s a great game, it’s one of my favorite fire emblem titles so far. I will not claim to be a veteran, but I have been playing since the gba games, I’ve played every game between fe6 and three houses, even fe12. I know genealogy is supposed to be GOAT but I’m holding out for a remake like I did with gaiden (and boy, waiting payed up big time on that one). Also if you love this game and think it’s perfect, that is awesome, I urge you to not read this so you don’t get upset about someone not understanding the game that you love (even though I love it too). Anyway, let’s begin:

I. The Four Routes are bad (together)

This game presents the player with a choice of 3 houses they can join, with that decision deciding which story you actually get to see. Along with Lion, Eagle and Deer, there’s also a “Church” route that is kind of lame, but not game-ruining. On their own they’re all actually pretty darn good stories. But these routes are extremely flawed. Not intrinsically, mind-you, but rather as a whole. In a game with multiple routes, you’d expect them to complement each other but instead each route actively makes the other ones actually worse. Do keep in mind that I think each route is pretty good on it’s own (even church) whichever one you pick first you will enjoy it greatly, and it will only deteriorate as you progress through the others.

Edelgard’s route is a political story of a revolutionary who wants to crush aristocracy and replace it with a meritocracy, her objective therefore is to crush the church that oversees the 3 nations. It feels like something out of shin megami tensei, she’s basically a chaos hero (which I usually hate) but with some nuance and less insane. It’s a great route! Gameplay-wise, it is my favorite, and also has the most thematic cohesion with the early game where all the students have misgivings about their noble status. Problem is it would have you believe that Dimitri has a complex ideological reason for standing up against her and protecting the church, when in reality playing his route tells you that he really has no political ideologies that he believes in (he straight up says this to Mercedes in their A support), he’s just a king defending his territory, which is really underwhelming as he has no parallels or contrasting motifs in regards to her, he’s just a dude. Another awful thing that basically everyone agrees is bad about this route is Those Who Slither in the Dark, a group that is set up as villains that have to be defeated, but instead get dealt with off-screen in the epilogue. You’d think it’s because they were lazy, and didn’t want to make a level for them, but there’s 2 routes in which you do fight them, they have their own level already in the game, it’s just not in this route. The plotline then just feels very lazy and incomplete, but even moreso once you play Claude’s route and you just... you just fight against those who slither, which is all I wanted to do at the end of Edelgard’s route. Perhaps the most disappointing route, but I happen to have an affinity for disappointment and the themes it goes for.

Dimtri’s route is a fantastic story of a broken man reclaiming his sanity. It’s the most character-driven and the most emotionally charged of the three. It’s an amazing route! Easily the best written as it picks a single theme (Dimitri’s downfall and rise) and does it extremely well instead of spreading too wide and losing focus. The ending is a bit underwhelming though. Basically everything after Dimitri recovers his humanity feels like filler, though his A supports are really amazing, all of them, making his post-feral phase worth it. The bigger problem is that this route actively sabotages the player’s enthusiasm towards playing Edelgard’s route as it paints her as the ultimate evil, the True and Only villain that has to be defeated. As such, a lot of the reaction I’ve seen online is that people who play this one first flat out refuse to play Edelgard’s route because really, why would you? She’s badbadnotgood, her sanity and reasoning are as flimsy as it gets, and she broke Dimitri’s heart when he was a kid, along with killing his entire family according to this route. You’d have to be insane to be excited to play as her, it’s something you’d only do for the sake of completionism. In the church and deer route you fight Edelgard too, but she’s presented as a well-intentioned extremist rather than an evil snake. Yes, even in the church route, the very one thing she wants to destroy!

Claude’s route on the other hand is so complete it suffers from it. It goes over every major plotline and actually solves it with very little thematic resonance between it all. Those who slide? He takes care of them. Rhea’s misdeeds? They’re acknowledged. Edelgard isn’t insane? He agrees. Who exactly was Nemesis?(the very first cutscene we’re shown!) Got it too. What is Sothis, what happened to her, why is she bound to Byleth? Got it. His route is ridiculous in that it covers too much ground and lore that could’ve been better put in the church route as it has no real thematic cohesion with Claude. He wants to end racism or something, ok cool, but he never fights any “race-realists”, none of the villains in his route are diametrically opposed to his ideals, and his final boss is a last minute diabolus ex machina with no real theme to it. It would’ve been easy to drive the point further that by beating the deadlords they’re burying the prejudices of the past and forging a new world without their literal ancestors hanging over them, but instead the scene goes for a sort of power of friendship type of feel and just rolls with that. It’s an exciting route with many hype moments, but when put together with the other ones, it feels kind of really weird that his route is basically a lore dump to fill in the lore gaps rather than a story about something.

It’s a given that in a game with 3 routes each one would tell their side of their story and be somewhat incomplete, leading the player to play all three to get the whole story. Instead these 3 routes actively try to drag each other lower instead of boosting each other higher, which is really disappointing. 

Don’t even get me started on the church route, that shouldn’t even be in the game at all. It’s the same as Claude’s route, the exact same, but without Claude. Ok so that means Seteth gets a lot of development in this route right? No, not really, he’s just kind of there. Rather than Seteth being the lord of the route it’s more like this is a lord-less route. Ghost Dimitri is a really cool scene, for sure, but outside of that seriously screw this route. You might think “well but I like Rhea, I want to be on her side”, well spoiler alert kiddo: you literally fight Rhea in this route, she’s the final boss. And you don’t get to hang out with her all that much either so forget about that. While I dislike Rhea, I think having a route for her is reasonable since that sickening mommy fetish is so popular these days so of course you’d want to pander to that audience for that sweet cash, but people who like Rhea don’t even get that because you have to actually kill her at the end (which I actually really like, it made the church route Actually Good for me, plus it’s a really fun level despite being yet another fight at Garreg Mach, more on that later). Also in this route you don’t get to see Rhea in her Seiros armor that is 10/10 hot as shit so why even bother, go play Edelgard’s route if you want to see some actually cool Rhea scenes and quotes.

edit: just been informed Rhea does live if you S-support her, kind of disappointed but ok, that’s pretty good for all who liked her and it makes sense.

II. Claude, the master tactician

“Ugh, don’t call me that”, Even he’s fed up with the title

My favorite of the three lords in the game is easily Claude but it’s pretty unfair that he survives every single route (unless you actively choose not to spare him in Edelgard’s route), whereas Dimitri and Edelgard always die outside of their routes. But that’s not the worst of him, what I hate about him is how he gets hyped up as THE MASTER STRATEGIST whenever other characters speak of him. Granted, writing a “Smart” character is hard because you have to be smart or else the readers won’t buy it, but the writers don’t even try and instead make him out to be a complete fool in almost every route (he’s actually pretty smart in the church route imo, but he’s also never seen in that one).

In his route, he does exhibit some degree of strategy and thought, devising a trap to protect Garreg Mach (by setting his allies on fire???) and doing a bit of a Trojan Horse when seizing Fort Merceus. However, if you play Dimitri’s route, Gilbert suggests doing the fire thing, and in the church route you just infiltrate Fort Merceus in the exact same way. So congratulations Claude, you’re about as smart as... Gilbert, a character that no one ever refers to as a strategic or military genius. This is another case of routes weighting down other routes, if you only play his route you think “oh yeah, he’s smart, he Trojan Horse’d the empire, what an absolute madlad”, but once you play the other routes it’s like, oh, ok, I guess that’s just meant to happen that way whichever side you choose.

Ok, maybe he’s not a genius master strategist in his story, sure, after all Byleth is the tactician so of course he’d take a back seat, but what about as an enemy commander? he’s gotta have some devious map design to back up his claim to genius, right? Wrong.

In Dimitri’s route you fight Claude and Edelgard post-timeskip at Gronder Field just like you did before the timeskip. In this battle, Claude’s objective is to stop Edelgard. You think to yourself, oh that’s wonderful, an ally! Together we’ll crush that evil snake together! Except his army focuses yours, instead of going straight for Edelgard, as he did in the very same battle pre-timeskip. The game says there’s some fog, but guess what, this game HAS a fog mechanic to make some maps have low-visibility, and that fog is not present in this map! As such, he comes off as a total doofus in this chapter. This battle feels like Batman v Superman, a fight that just “has” to happen to sell the idea that the heroes are against each other, but Batman and Superman shouldn’t be fighting at all to begin with, they’re on the same side! They only fight because it’s the “hype” thing to do. Sigh.

Later on in the same route Claude is attacked by the empire in his hometown. His “master strategy” is to corner himself against an army that outnumbers his army 10:1, and trust that Dimitri will save him, the very same Dimitri that nearly killed him a couple days ago at Gronder Field. This is a pretty stupid and naive strategy on it’s own, but it gets worse once you look at the enemy troops in this map. They are all horses or infantry, not a single flier. Claude himself, he rides a wyvern. He could’ve escaped out to the sea, you might even think that’s his plan, but no, because Judith is there in the map and she certainly isn’t riding a wyvern, same goes for all his other men. Imagine the mockery, the sheer audacity of driving your enemy into a corner and thinking you’ll kill him only for all his men to suddenly get on wyverns and escape from you, which is possible thanks to the mount/unmount mechanic. Just imagine, you’re trying to save him and upon reaching halfway through the map, he and all his men get on wyverns and escape, saying they’ll trust you to take care of the empire as they run away, as you realize he just fooled you into taking out the trash for him. It would’ve been awesome! A moment worthy of The Master Trickster, but no, you just have to kill the boss before he kills Claude and Judith and that’s the map, that’s the whole thing.

And don’t even get me started on his map on Edelgard’s route. For a whole month people hype Claude up to be John Von Neumann combined with The Joker and Sun Tzu, so I’m expecting his level to be a really twisted one: warps, damaging terrain, falco knights with horse slayers, ballistae, swordmasters with armorslayers, siege tomes, sleep staves, berserk staves, etc. Instead, the level in which you fight against Claude has basically 0 unusual terrains, his “master strategy” is to just call for reinforcements until you cut off the source of reinforcements. This means that his “incredibly genius master tactic of galaxy-brain depth” is to use brute force, which is literally the exact opposite of clever tactics. Needless to say, this was to me the biggest disappointment, really wasted that opportunity to make a level that’s actually unique.

Then you go on to fight Dimitri’s right afterwards and guess what: his map has a siege tome user(with decent crit rate!), it has a unique monster gimmick where you have to kill an enemy every turn to avoid them turning into monsters, it has 4 commanders all calling for reinforcements leaving you to choose wisely which one needs to be stopped first, it has a river separating both sides of the map so that your teams have to be cleanly split up if going for multiple objectives, etc. It’s my favorite level in the game because it’s well thought out, interesting and basically more like what you’d expect of the mission where you’d fight a tactical mastermind. Sigh.

III. Ideological Conflict (a lack of it)

This is my biggest issue with the game

I really memed myself playing Edelgard's route so early because as I said previously it feels like a shin megami tensei chaos-route. She is fighting for an ideal, and so I falsely developed the hope that the game would have an ideological conflict. If you play Claude's route, you see that he is also fighting for his ideals, dude wants to end racism, that is awesome! However even when the characters do fight each other, their ideals are never in conflict. In Edelgard’s paralogue you fend off an almyrian invasion but she tells Byleth that she wishes they could be allies, and that in the future they should sit down and talk with almyrians to make their relationship better. In Claude’s route he is often fed up with the church’s historical revisionism and you can see he holds a lot of contempt for the institution as a whole. Edelgard and Claude may fight each other due to circumstance but their ideals are never against each other, in fact they kind of want the same things. And surely enough, Dimitri also thinks racism is whack, which is mostly explored through his relationship with Dedue. But Dimitri just doesn’t really believe in anything, in his route he’s completely reactive to the forces around him, there’s just no ideal world that he’s working towards, instead he just deals with the bullshit others have set in his way (not that there’s anything actually wrong with that, it’s just really underwhelming when the other stories are about ideals). 

And really that’s ok. Like I said this is a problem of my own I memed myself into thinking I was playing a much better game, and only have myself to blame for those expectations. It’s very normal of intelligent systems to not want to put into the game a playable character who is racist or anti-equality. Except we have Lorenz and Ferdinand, two characters that are so fiercely pro-aristocracy I started the game hating them(nowadays Ferdinand is easily in my top 5). Ferdinand believes that nobility is a cross to be carried for the good of the people and that rather than a highway to an easy life, it is a tremendous responsibility to bear and that commoners are better off relying on a noble like himself to make their lives better.

Nobility being a cross is something supported by the narrative! There are many characters dissatisfied with their lives solely because they were born as nobles and have to deal with problems exclusive to nobles, most notably Sylvain, Ingrid and then Mercedes who straight up becomes a commoner because of the pressure of nobility. Lorenz on the other hand has been pressured by his family so much he’s a completely brainwashed tool of the aristocrats, but as the game progresses he gets his head out of his ass and becomes a more likeable character. 

“Edelgard intends to abolish the nobility, but I know I can disuade her”, Ferdinand you bumbling fool, that is literally her main policy, have you ever actually listened to her?

Those two show it is possible for the team to write characters with bad ideals and then develop them into likeable ones, they just didn’t feel like having a lord that upholds bad ideals and grows out of them or is betrayed by their shortcomings. Hell, just imagine if after the last chapter in black eagles those who slither betrayed Edelgard instantly, showing that allying yourself with villainous people only because they’re convenient is sure to lead to betrayal. It would’ve been a sobering moment to see her say that maybe, maybe pairing up with mustache-twirling bad guys might have been a bad idea after all and having to really consider the damage she might have caused by letting them co-exist with her for her goals. Instead her route just ends, significantly shorter than all others. Aghhh. But yeah, this is a problem of my own expectations because fire emblem never had amazingly complex stories to begin with (I know I know, genealogy is supposed to be pretty deep, but that was over 20 years ago, it’s just not relevant to modern fire emblem until it gets a remake).

“Wait so you want Dimitri to be racist?” Oh hell no. Dimitri is literally perfect as he is, just look at him. What I’m saying is he should’ve gotten his own game, because he doesn’t fit in with the other two lords in this game as he has no vision of how the world should be (other than “Good”) and no ideological struggle he needs the world to understand. His story just doesn’t need Fodlan. The kicker is that his house, were it not for their tight and adorable friendship, is the one that is more likely to side with Edelgard as Sylvain, Mercedes, Ingrid, and Felix all hate nobility/aristocracy, and Ashe’s dad whom he idolizes literally gets sentenced to death by the church. Dimitri on a solo game would’ve been a cool story (better than Fates that’s for sure). But in three houses he doesn’t complement the other two lords, and the other two lords also bring him down. It’s what I’ve been saying: the routes just don’t complement each other. Remember how I said many people played Blue Lions and then just flat out refused to play the other routes? It sounded like I was belittling them but those people were right, they’re living their best life and I applaud them, they truly beat the game.

Worth noting that the church route is technically, from an outside perspective, a pro-aristocracy route. The black eagles students are all aristocrats except for Dorothea, and in this route it’d be a fair observation to say that they’re a bunch of spoiled kids who are trying to preserve the status-quo because they don’t want to give up their lands and servants. Obviously this isn’t how the route approaches character motivations, but an incisive in-world historian would’ve made this scathing observation by simply looking at who’s spearheading the revolt against the emperor: a bunch of rich kids.

IV. The Pre-Timeskip common route (FOUR times)

Moving onto gameplay-related nitpicks: what were they thinking? There’s like 13 chapters before the timeskip in every route, and they are always the same missions regardless of which house you choose. One of them is to kill Ashe’s dad and the other one is to kill Sylvain’s brother, you would think those missions would be exclusive to the blue lions and that other routes would have an equivalent for them: a story that hits home, that gets personal with one of the characters you chose and more importantly that just plays differently across all the routes. Instead the game would have you play the same missions 4 times so that you end up dreading the sight of them, on top of them having no real relation to the characters you’re using in 3/4ths of the routes. If the dlc route has me defend Garreg Mach even one more time, I’ll just go insane. Speaking of that:

V. Dimitri, Claude and Church route all have same maps

If you feel like playing all four routes, it’s gonna feel like you’re just playing the exact same game over and over. The maps you play in are literally all the same. And Edelgard isn’t scot-free either, but at least in her maps you fight from the other perspective of the map you know, you’re at least coming at it from another angle (though she will still have you defend Garreg Mach post-timeskip, completely negating the pleasure of not doing that pre-timeskip). I get it: these maps are huge, and they’re highly detailed because you can zoom in and literally see the battalions and all that, it’s really super neat and takes a lot of time to make so you can’t just have a hundred maps. But I mean by the end of the game (that is, playing all four routes) looking at any of the maps feels so tiring. I feel like I might just never replay any of the routes at least for a very long time because I’ve grown sick of seeing them over and over and over so many times. And dear lord, if I have to play Flayn’s paralogue one more time without fliers I’ll just shoot myself. Speaking of fliers.

VI. Fliers are absurdly broken

Literally what were they thinking. Wyvern Riders have absolutely insane stats and thanks to the dismount feature, they lose nothing by being in that class. The last levels in Claude and Edelgard’s routes are severely favored toward fliers too, both of them featuring tons of damaging terrain that is hard to cross for horses, though at least Nemesis has the decency of having many ballistae set up (probably because Claude himself is a flier so they expect you to have at least one). Also all that damaging terrain screws over horses because they thought horses were broken or something. But really, you’d think mobility is such an important stat that they’d compensate for it elsewhere, but no, all you lose is the opportunity cost of not having more crit as a war master (which female characters don’t have access to anyway) or being able to use magic. And horse units just get screwed over in every conceivable way, you’d expect that they at least get some beefy additional stats over wyvern riders but instead they’re actually weaker since wyverns are faster and speed is such an important stat. Also wyverns have so much defense that even in hard mode arrows (their supposed weakness) will have trouble denting them (or even hitting them thanks to their extremely high avoid).

edit: I also invite you to look at the growth rate modifiers for each class and see that all horse classes provide a negative speed growth rate, which is bad enough without realizing that wyverns are so minmaxed they even provide a cute minus 5 magic as a “balance” while getting boosts to both defense and speed in their final class. Are you kidding me? Horses are basically a player trap, they look cool and they’re half the master classes so they gotta be useful, right? Couldn’t be more wrong. Also what’s the deal with mortal savant providing -10% speed growth, that shit is bananas, how could the Naruto class hamper your speed if Naruto is all about that running, IT’S INSANE.

This is all exacerbated once you go for a low-turn-count playthrough, a fairly popular style of play among fans of the series where as the name indicates you try to beat the levels in as few turns as possible. Suddenly fliers go from clearly the strongest, to necessary. What’s absurd is how fliers are affected by the Stride battalion in the same way all other units are. Stride is a battalion effect that allows a group of units to have higher movement for one turn, your little walking units suddenly being able to walk 12 squares like it’s nothing feels pretty good but this battalion can also boost the movement of fliers and horses which means: why would you waste it on infantry units? It would’ve been so easy, and would’ve made so much sense for stride to only work on walking units, or to at least have reduced effectiveness on mounted units, but they just completely forgot that.

I knew I should’ve gone wyvern, could’ve had way more 1′s

VII. Crests

Oh wow, a neat game feature where each character has a unique skill related to their bloodline, and the story acknowledges their existence by saying they’re so highly valued they decide who’s noble and who isn’t. Surely they came up with really interesting effects for all of them, right? Wrong. “Raise Mt when using skills”, “Raise Mt when using magic”, “Raise Mt when attacking”. This shit is boring. But hey it’s ok right, you can’t expect them to come up with unique interesting skills for each character to have right? Except they did, each character (crest-bearer or not) has a personal skill, and they are all way more interesting than crests. The only non-boring crests are the ones bore by Annete, Mercedes, Hilda and Ferdinand. And Annete doesn’t even learn meteor, so her magic-conservation isn’t even that amazing once she becomes a gremory, though it probably is fairly useful if she becomes a dark knight instead. I will say though, crests are still way better than the personal crit skills from radiant dawn, like Stun and the like which were basically glorified critical hits in some cases or straight up silencers in the case of luna or eclipse (hell, those skills got so bad that the endgame is filled with Nihil wielders, characters who just straight up cancel the activation of enemy skills because the game itself had to patch them out preemptively due to how ridiculous they were, but at least they were impressive and memorable and not just “raise Mt a little bit sometimes” are you kidding me).

VIII. Lost items

Up until now these have all been nitpicks but if anything gets my blood boiling is those dreaded lost items, a gameplay feature that I just straight up gave up on and never looked back. You find a billion lost items throughout the monastery, which is great, an item that shows the personality of the character that lost it, and once you return it to them your affection grows. The problem is that there’s really like a hundred of them, and they’re not hard to find but rather are a pain to give back to their owners, for the screen where you select them doesn’t allow for any kind of sorting options. How hard was it isys?? I press X and the items are ordered alphabetically, was that really so hard? You really expect me to rummage through this endless list until I find the right one from the sea of really small text for ants? THIS IS THE REAL GAMEBREAKER, THIS IS WHERE IT ALL FALLS APART AND I REALIZE THIS GAME IS A TOOL OF THE DEVIL TO WRECK HAVOC INTO THE SOULS OF ALL PLAYERS.

In the end

So yeah, basically it’s a pretty good game, I’d say at least a 9/10 and unironically among my favorite fire emblems. I won’t go into detail about what I like because that’s not the point of the post and really who gives a shit, but it’s really good and I can’t wait for the dlc next year! Also this:

(also please let magic always function like in this game where instead of tomes and staves you have a set number of uses per encounter like it’s dungeons and dragons, that shit ruled)

edit: I did another post about the maddening difficulty, you might like it if you have read this far