#i saw this and i went. disney is being a liar like she does

[sapphosclown]

and he was right

[artist-issues]

While we're on the subject of Disney princesses vs. feminism, I want to bring up my own hot take on Jasmine and Aladdin. I see a lot of women saying, "Jasmine's an idiot! Aladdin lied to her!" Well, um, SHE lied first. He first saw her when she was pretending to be a peasant girl, because that was the only way she could sneak out of the palace. And she went along with him lying on her behalf so she could keep up the pretense of being a peasant girl. They're really 2 peas in a pod on that point.

And here's the thing I never see anyone talking about: Aladdin's not your run-of-the-mill peasant boy that desires to trick a princess into marriage for power, prestige, and money. He saw what he thought was a peasant girl in the marketplace and decided, "yup, she's the one." THEN he found out she was a princess and lost hope until he met Genie. In a way, Aladdin's story is just Cinderella in reverse.

I see what you're saying. I actually think it's important to compare how Jasmine seemingly "pretends to be something she's not" with how Aladdin definitely "pretends to be something he's not."

Jasmine and Aladdin make a great compare/contrast character study.

Jasmine's treated like she's precious and worth caring for her whole life. Aladdin is treated like he's worthless his whole life. Jasmine never gets to make her own decisions, even though she's about to be considered an adult. Aladdin has to make all his own decisions. Jasmine doesn't know how dark and dangerous the world is. Aladdin does, he's lived it.

But anyway. The point is, when Aladdin goes out and pretends to be a Prince, he has a goal. He genuinely wants everyone (especially Jasmine) to believe his lie. Jasmine's focus, when she goes out in disguise, is totally different. You can tell she's not really focused on making everybody believe she's a peasant girl. She even almost forgets to pull her hood up and hide her crown in the marketplace.

You can particularly tell she hasn't thought through a big, elaborate lie about a false identity when she is confronted by the angry stall owner. She straight-up says, "If you let me go back to the palace--" And sure, it's in a moment of panic.

But the whole vibe of Princess Jasmine in Disguise is very naive, like she hasn't thought this through, like she was so interested in seeing the world that she didn't expect the world to see her, back.

The point I'm trying to make is, the storytellers were focused on Aladdin being the liar. They did not let Jasmine be thought of with the same culpability as Aladdin for her deception. When Aladdin asks her where she's from, she has the opportunity to make something up. Thats what he would've done, and does do, later on. But Jasmine, NOTICEABLY, does not make something up. She literally says, "What does it matter? I ran away and I am not going back."

(Specifically, she says “what does it matter?” What does it matter where she’s from? That’s all Aladdin can think about: if Jasmine knew he was “a crummy street rat” she wouldn’t value him. But one of the first things she ever reveals about herself is that she doesn’t think where she’s from matters in their first real conversation. Someone had to write that line in. Someone very carefully crafted her dialogue so that we, the audience, knew, somewhere deep down, that Aladdin was wrong to think she couldn’t be trusted with the truth of who he was. But that’s not my point, my point is:) She tells him the truth. The vulnerable, emotional part of the truth. The part that invites Aladdin getting to know her better, the part that opens herself up to follow-up questions about herself.

Because that's what Jasmine represents, and it's what Aladdin learns from in the movie: the truth will set you free. If Jasmine had been the kind of girl who didn't talk to lowly peasant boys, or tried to front and fake and lie, she wouldn't have been open enough with Aladdin to fall in genuine love. But she's naive. She believes the best about the world. She easily trusts him.

She's the kind of girl who would give an apple to a hungry child without payment even occurring to her--because in her mind, why would anyone even think about payment when a child is starving? She's the kind of girl who would share how she feels with the first random stranger to be kind to her, regardless of the fact that they're sitting in a ruined abandoned hut or they just met two seconds ago and she already knows he's a smooth-talker.

She's just trusting. She chooses trust (without being an idiot) while Aladdin does not. Because Aladdin doesn't believe that the truth will set him free. Jasmine does. And she lives like it.

Al's not a Cinderella story. Cinderella doesn't have to learn anything in her story--she teaches everyone around her. She also doesn't make decisions to change her circumstances. She makes decisions to stop her circumstances from changing her. Aladdin and Cinderella are not alike, except that they're both sort of poor.

[unmaskedagain]

Irredeemable my foot

Hi everyone, I decided to write a fic centered on Chloe; is a sugar fic. I always liked her character. And I would like to dedicate this fic to Sienna, aka @catsandfanfic. Happy 14th birthday. Her birthday is March 6th. In my time zone it’s March 6 so hopefully you’re not getting this too early. I hope your birthday is amazing, and I really hope you enjoy this fic; i heard you like Maribat. And @justdyingontheinside gives you a shout out on your special day.

Chloe knew how everyone expected it to go. The blond could admit… She was spoiled, selfish, petty, and insecure, with mommy issues galore.

           But she wasn’t a villain. Yet she could understand why people thought she’d go down like one.

           Nevertheless, for people to think she’d ever willingly work for Hawkmoth; a man who ruthlessly used his power to corrupt the hearts and minds of innocents (like her father, mother, Adrien, Sabrina, and everyone else in Paris) and use them to further his own agenda… was too much.

           The people who believed that was basically saying Chloe was irredeemable; that there was no way she could ever be anything more than what she was. Like she couldn’t grow. Like she couldn’t better herself; like everyone in the world had that ability except for her. She was fourteen-years-old.

           Only fifteen!

           Why was it so easy to write her off?

           Chloe Bourgeois was a bully, not a freaking serial killer.

She wasn’t a Supervillain.  However, Chloe could admit, that for one brief moment when she realized she was passed over yet again by Ladybug for the chance to help save the day, hurt and anger had filled her. That if Hawkmoth had sent a butterfly after her that maybe… MAYBE for a second, she’d take his offer.

At least, he thought she could be of some use.

It wasn’t fair, Chloe remembered stomping her foot as jealously filled her.  Why didn’t Ladybug pick her? She was so much better than all those other stupid heroes! So much better than that mangy Chat Noir even. Queen Bee would be a much better partner. If she could just prove it!

           And that suddenly it was like a lightbulb went off above her head, the kind you only see in cartoons. A smile spread over her face.

           The dark butterfly that was headed her way suddenly changed its course.

Yes, Chloe had thought, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll prove it. I’ll show them all. I’m a hero. And I’m going to save everyone!

She could be better.

She would be better.

           (And once she did, maybe Ladybug would think so too)

           Nevertheless, even if Ladybug never knew. Chloe would. She would know she did the right thing because it was the right thing to do; no other reason. That would be enough for her. Even if it meant she’d never be Queen Bee again.

           Chloe was going to prove she was a hero after all. With or without the mask or magical powers.

           The world thought she wasn’t redeemable. Well, she was going to show the world what a real redemption arc looked like.

           The first thing needed to do was plan. Hawkmoth was too strong. He needed to be brought down fast before he becomes unbeatable. Ladybug was perfect but she was still just a kid. She needed more help.

           Outside help. Chloe knew there were other superheroes out there. The Avengers. The flash and his team in central city. Superman and his superfam in Metropolis. The Teen Titans. The Justice League. But to beat Hawkmoth would take stealth. It took intelligence. And people used to dealing with total nutjobs in costumes. Heroes who could help finally crack the mystery of who Hawkmoth was.

           Paris needs the Batfamily.

           Which means Chloe was going to Gotham. But she wouldn’t go alone. She needed an Ally, or preferably Allies.

Chloe decided to figure out who was who on the best board of life.

           The first was easy Ladybug was the White King; a true, just, and kick-butt hero. Chloe made herself the Queen; because whether Ladybug knew it or not, Chloe had just become her strongest protector. (She only just manage to argue against making Chat Noir a pawn; instead named him a Knight.) Sabrina, though had some major insecurity, was a good friend of Chloe. She was smart enough not to fall for Lila’s fool’s gold.

           Sabrina had learned at the heel of her father when it came to detective work. She had mastered computers thanks to her mother who was a high-level computer programmer.  She knew self-defense since her parents shoved her into Karate when she was younger. The redheaded was organized to the point of being OCD. She was loyal to a fault.

           With a little confidence, Sabrina could be a real asset to Team Ladybug. And she would be. Chloe just needed to show that she trusted the redhead, believed in her.            

Chloe wished she could bring Adrien in but he was a civilian with the backbone of a twizzler. He was too forgiving and to sheltered from the real world. It had worked in her benefit before, otherwise, he’d have dropped her as a friend a long time ago. But things had changed. Chloe needed friends who would stand up against her not just threatened to not be her friend anymore. It wouldn’t do any good in the long run after all.

           Hawkmoth was the Black king; pure evil. The Peacock shrew was his Queen. And, Chloe decided, Lila was his bishop. The sausage haired was a manipulative, rancid, liar. And from what she had seen of Lila’s akumatization, the Italian girl was fully in control of her actions. Which meant Lila was working with Hawkmoth willingly.

           And since Lila was the only bad guy she could give a real name for, Chloe decided she would be the key to bringing down Hawkmoth.

           Thus Lila Rossi became public enemy number one.

           Lila was dangerous in a way hawkmoth couldn’t be. She lied and twisted minds with no powers whatsoever. She turned nearly all of Bustier’s class into untrustworthy minions. They should’ve been White; on the side of good. But they had proven to be disloyal and easily influenced. The class couldn’t be trusted.

           They had turned against the one person even Chloe had a hard time not deeming a Saint.

           Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

           Chloe strongly disliked the girl, mostly out of envy. The blond didn’t need therapy to know that she wanted what the bluenette had; a mom that adored her, a dad that actually tried to help and not just throw money at any situation, sheer talent, and pretty much the instant admiration of almost anyone she met.

           However, she was also strong and fierce. Marinette was a force of good hard to reckoned with. Chloe needed all the help she could get.

           Which meant recruiting Dupain-Cheng for the cause.

           That might prove harder than getting Batman to help out.

           When Chloe and Sabrina showed up at the bakery and politely asked to speak with Marinette, she was given a suspicious look by Marinette’s mother (Sabel or something, Chloe couldn’t remember). Still, she called her daughter downstairs.

           Marinette walked into with a bright happy smile that quickly faded when she saw Chloe.

“We need to talk, Marinette,” Chloe forced herself to say the other girl’s first name. “Its an emergency.�� Sabrina nudged her. “Please.”

           It was obviously the shock of Chloe saying please that got Marinette to take them up to her bedroom.

           Marinette tried her best to smile, “So what’ s the emerg-” Chloe cut her off.

“We’re going to Gotham to recruit Batman and his fam,” Chloe told her. “To help Ladybug bring down HawkLoser. You coming or not.”

           The bluenette just blinked.

           Sabrina winced at her best friend’s lack of tact, “What Chloe is trying to say is… We could really use your help. Ladybug could use your help. Everyone likes you. You can convince Batman to come.”

“…Why?” Marinette asked after a moment of silence.

“Ladybug needs help!” Chloe told her. “Chat Noir throws tantrums all the time. Hawkmoth has the Peacock and Lila at his deposal. Ladybug hasn’t called in Rena or Caraprace in almost a year, so there has to be a reason for that. She needs help! She needs us!”

           The Asian girl nodded slowly, “I mean, why come to me? Why help Ladybug like this?”

           Chloe frowned, “Because you always do what’s right; the good, noble thing even if it’s utterly ridiculous for you to do so. I’m doing this, helping, Ladybug, because she needs help. I’m a hero, no matter what anyone says or thinks. And Heroes help.”

           The bluenette looked at the two girls. They had been a thorn in her side for years. But she always thought they could change. She believed they could. And coming to her, Chloe archenemy, was proof that they were changing. “What’s the plan?”

           The blond smiled. “Sabrina managed to outline the patrol routes for the batfamily.”

“They switch who does what route but there is a predictability to it,” Sabrina added. “The idea is to force a confrontation. I’ve gathered evidence to show them so they could understand the gravity.”

“My job is to get us,” Chloe said. “You have plenty of time to come up with one of Disney motivational speeches to get them on board. We leave for Gotham tomorrow.”

           It was after midnight. Three girls stood on top of an old condemned building in the heart of Gotham; dressed in black, shivering from the cold.

“By my calculations,” Sabrina said. She held a computer under her arm. “At least two of the bats should be by monitoring the area during this hour.”

“And we’re sure this is going to work?” Marinette asked.

           Chloe smirked, “Oh yeah.” She took a deep breath and screamed. “AHHHHHHHH!! Help!! Help! Someone please!!” She gave a fake sob and fell to the ground; causing Marinette to jump back in shock. She looked up at Marinette and Sabrina with a wide grin on her face, “How was that?”

“Become an actress,” Marinette told her. “Let me design the dress you wear when you accept the Oscar.”

           There were two loud thuds behind.

“What’s going on?” A tall hero they recognized as Nightwing asked.

“We heard screams,” Red Robin stated.

“Its go time,” Chloe told them as she got up.

           Sabrina nodded firmly as she opened up the laptop and started quickly.

           Marinette smiled at the heroes, “Hi. My name is Marinette. This is Sabrina and Chloe,” She motioned to her friends. “We’ve come from Paris to seek the aid of Batman to stop a supervillain that has been terrorizing our city.”

           Red Robin stepped forward, “A supervillain? In Paris?”

“We haven’t heard anything about it,” Nightwing said. “We know there are heroes there that takedown small-time villain, But nothing too damaging that we’ve seen.”

“Hawkmoth possesses people,” Chloe hissed. “Turns them into monsters. Turns kids into monsters. Literal Babies into monsters. A girl who can control the weather and could end the world.  Another who absorbed energy from people so she could travel back in time. Until the people she steals energy from will freeze and slowly disappear. A man with the power of the Egyptian gods and tried to revive the dead. A villain who could trap people in pictures. Another that can bring people the worst nightmares to life. How about one that caused most of the citizens of the city of Paris to drown. One man caused all that happened. Our city gets destroyed over and over again. People die over and over again. Hawkmoth is behind it all.”

           Sabrina turned her laptop to them, and show the video they clipped together. “This is a news real, videos sent from regular smartphones.” The video showed proof of the fights, the monsters, the deaths, the damages, the terror. “Check any new channel centered in Paris. It will show you. This. IS. Real.”

Marinette fought the urge not to tremble as she remembered every villain she fought. “Ladybug fixes the damage the akuma causes; including bringing people back to life. But the people who die still remember. Ladybug can’t do this alone anymore. Even the help of Chat Noir isn’t enough. If Hawkmoth gets what he wants, it could be the end of everything and everyone.” It hadn’t been for a long time, she thought bitterly. Chat Noir loved the glamor and excitement of being a hero but it was like he never really felt the burden of the weight of Paris on his shoulders like she did. To him, it was all game. Or some stupid action movie. And he was too busy trying to get the girl to realize that they might not be able to save the day.

The bluenette looked hard at the heroes, “We need help. I know it’s not your city. I know you don’ have to care. I know you have your own villains and problems.” Tears burned in her eyes. “But we wouldn’t be here if we had other options; if we could handle it by ourselves. So We’re asking anyway. Will you please help us?”

Two identical horrified looks were on the batkids’ faces. Dick and Tim looked at the three kids, thousands of miles away from home, in the middle of the most dangerous city in the world, at night, to beg for help against what sounded like an undeniable monster. The teen girls were scared, near hopeless, and willing to ask for help from Batman and his family, heroes most civilians were too scared to even cross paths with.

Their situation was dire. Direr than the risk of being three, alone, beautiful, teenage girls in Gotham.

The other bats had been listening and or watching the conversation and were equally horrified. But that quickly gave way to fury.

“Red Robin, I want the intel off Sabrina’s computer,” Batman growled. “Oracle, I want everything you can find on Hawkmoth. We’ll start preparing to leave for Paris”

“On it,” Barabra stated. “I also brought up info on the girls. They’re all clean. Sabrina’s dad a cop. Marinette’s an all-star student, who has quite a few famous friends. Chloe’s the daughter of the Style Queen and the Mayor of Paris.”

“I get to kill Hawkmoth, right, B-man?” Jason asked. “I mean, I’m watching a video where he turned a crying baby who literally just wanted a lollipop into Gigantitan and used him to terrorize people. That’s gotta be a free pass on the killing thing.”

           There was silence. No answer from Batman.

“Holy shit, are you considering it?” Jason asked stunned. “Kids really are your Achilles’ heel.”

           Nightwing nodded. Batman always had a soft spot for kids. But even Dick was considering beating Hawkmoth to death. “Batman has agreed to help.” He told the girls who visibly sighed in relief as weight had come off them.

“May I use your laptop?” Tim asked the redhead. Sabrina nodded quickly and handed it over.

           Nightwing observed the girls, “What else can you tell us about Hawkmoth?”

“No one knows his identity, obviously?” Chloe rolled her eyes. “His Allies include another villain named Mayura, identity unknown. And a civilian named Lila Rossi.”

Sabrina still couldn’t believe Lila stooped so low. “We have evidence that she has been willingly working with the known terrorist Hawkmoth and has allowed herself to be akumatized multiple times.” She pushed up her glasses. “She’s in our class. She has been lying and causing emotional distress to multiple students, increasing Akumas.” Lila had always caused the near break up of Ivan and Mylene, Nino and Alya, and for several friendships to nearly be destroyed. It was awful. “We think she will be the best way to finally snuffing out the villain. She has some connection to him we’re trying to figure out.”

“Suspects?” Damian asked in comms. “Stop being obtuse. We need to know who they suspect.”

“Robin, you shouldn’t be on the comms,” Batman reprimanded. “It’s your day off. Relax.”

           Tim nodded, “Any leads on Hawkmoth’s identity.”

“Just one,” Marinette admitted. “A man named Gabriel Agreste. But we ruled him out after he was akumartized.”

           Chloe snorted, “That’s stupid.” She said. “If Ladybug’s cure can heal the damage of an akuma, including what’s inflicting to her and that Alley Chat; there’s no logical reason, Hawkmoth can’t use his own powers on himself. To think otherwise, would be ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.”

           Sabrina agreed, “Or he could’ve gotten Mayura to use it. I mean Ladybug and Chat Noir switched before. Why couldn’t they?”

           Red Robin nodded, “That’s a good point. We’ll investigate him further.” He told them. “How much are you involved?”

           The girls shared a look. Chloe stepped forward proudly, “I was the Hero, Queen Bee.”

“No!” Marinette said strongly. “She is the Hero Queen Bee; a loyal friend and ally of Ladybug.” She swallowed hard as she fought the nervousness. Tikki and her had talked about what would happen next. Chloe had proven herself as far as two were considered. The blond deserved a real chance to prove she what type of hero she could be.

           Marinette took a deep breath and reached into her bag and pulled out a necklace and a hair comb that Chloe recognized instantly. A series of emotions flashed over the blonde’s face; recognition, understanding, disbelief, envy, embarrassment, frustration, acceptance, and then finally a look of admiration.

“Here,” She handed the comb to Chloe and the necklace to Sabrina. The kawami’s floated out.

“My queen,” Pollen purred as she landed on Chloe’s shoulder. The blonde looked ready to cry.

           Trixx spun around Sabrina’s head, “Kit. I have new Kitt!”

           The batfamily was just confused.

           Marinette straightens up, “Chloe for your show of loyalty, for your dedication to justice, and for your willingness to help from shadows; I name you an official and permanent member of the miraculous team. Keep moving forward. Keeping bettering yourself. I believe in you. And I welcome Queen Bee back.”

“Wha…” Nightwing said only to be cut off by Chloe

           She yelled, “Pollen, Buzz On!" And before they’re eyes, she transformed into the hero Queen Bee. “Eat your heart out, boys,” Chloe smirked at the stunned heroes.

           Marinette giggled. She focused on Sabrina who now realized exactly what was about to happen. “Sabrina, when Chloe brought you, I didn’t know what to expect. It turned out you had spent months researching and gathering evidence. I didn’t there was proof Lila was working with Hawkmoth willingly, you did. You saw through the lies and deception to find the truth despite the danger it could bring you. Which why I give you the kwami of Illusion.”

           Sabrina shakily put on the necklace. Trixx patted her head, “Now say, Trisx let's pounce.” The redhead did as she was told as was instantly transformed into a fox themed hero. Unlike Alya, Sabrina’s look was grey and a startling silver. It was more like an actual combat uniform.

“Truth is neither right nor wrong,” Sabrina stated. “It's not good or evil. It's not light or dark. Truth just is. I am Renarde Gris.”

           Marinette smiled and then said, “Tikki, Spots on.” And was transformed into Ladybug. Her suit was different; darker and better armored. “I am Ladybug.” She told the bats. “And I thank you for help.”

           Nightwing opened and closed his mouth repeatedly.

           Red Robin just pinched his nose, “Did you just make a civilian into a superhero just like that?”

           Ladybug tilted her head innocently, “Why? Isn’t that how batman got you?”

           Jason snorted, “She ain’t lying.”

“You were trained before going into the field,” Batman corrected. “You all were. But let’s focus, Ladybug is a child!”

“You’re just a kid,” Nightwing said. “You’ll all just kids.”

           Sabrina crossed her arms, “Weren’t you the first Robin? And didn’t you start at like ten-years-old? At least we’re teenagers.”

“And we don’t dress like traffic lights!” Marinette and Chloe snapped together, to their surprise, and then high-fived with a laugh.

           Red Robin examined Ladybug in a new light, “You’ve been protective Paris for three years.”

“Alone?” Damian growled in their ears. “Father, you said I was too young. I am the same age as them. I demand to be treated befitting of my status.”

           Ladybug shrugged, “The current Robin has protected Gotham on his own many times. He’s even led Teen Titans on missions. He has proven as I have that age is meaningless in the pursuit of justice. “

           Nightwing shook his head, “You’re just kids. Robin is just a kid.”

“Tell me, what bothers you more?” She asked. “The line of children that followed in your footsteps. Or that current Robin is better than you ever were.”

“…I love her.” Damian said. “Father, I love her and I will marry her.” It went quiet. “Red Robin, tell her of my affections. Superboy wants Chloe’s number. Spiderman requests Sabrina’s. I still don’t understand, why, you thought a ‘kids’ game night’ was necessary, father?”

           Batman just sighed.

           Tim cleared his throat, “Robin would like to, uh, court you.” He said. “Superboy would like Queen Bee’s phone number.” He could wait to tell Conner that Jon had a crush. “Spiderman request Renarde Gris’.”

           The girls all blushed prettily.

“Then he can hero up and ask me himself,” Sabrina smirked in a way that made Chloe proud.

“Same,” Marinette said with a smile. Chloe nodded in agreement.

“…We’re on our way,” Damian said into the comms.

           The sigh that answered that statement clearly belonged to Bruce.

[popculturebuffet]

Star Vs: Total Eclipsa the Moon and Butterfly Trap (Tomtrsopective Interlude)

Hello you beautiful people, and welcome back to the tomtrospective... minus Tom, since as i’ve mentioned a LOT in recent parts of this tribute to eveyrone’s faviorite demon voiced by shawn from boy meets world, realized I hadn’t mentioned that in a while, I”m also covering the metora arc from the second half of season 3, as Tom plays a pretty sizeable roll in it’s climax , the season 3 two part finale Divide and Conquer, and if i’m going to cover what’s essentially an hour long episode i’m going to do it right. It’s why i’m also doing the della arc alongside the Lena arc next month, the latter of which is fully paid for: because Shadow War pays that off too. Even if it makes way more work for me, if i’m going to review something, i’m gonna do it right. So we come to this pair of episodes.  First question a lot of you might be having... 

To which I say.. I ? We’ll see. The second is that “Why aren’t you covering the bog beast of boggabah?”. Well.. honestly it’s for time constraints. I have a LOT of episodes to cover, my own fault I know but again if you do a job you do it right, and cutting the one that while part of the plot isn’t nearly as essential to anything and ultimately only sticks for one episode character development wise. It’s not bad, almost nothing with Alan Tudyk in it is bad. That’s a fact, that’s a Disney fact. 

Point is while I like covering EVERYTHING I can, I do have to draw a line and since this retrospective is about TOM, i’d rather not pile on more episodes that don’t involve him than absolutley necessary. Bog Beast just dosen’t feel NEARLY as much of a necessary detour as these two coming up or Skooled and Tough Love down the line.  So with all that out of the way, join me under the cut for a discussion of Eclipsa’s character up to these episodes and the episodes themselves. 

Our detour DOES take us right into my OTHER faviorite character in the series, tied with tom and the other character that makes watching the series post battle of mewni, worthwhile: Eclipsa. We’ve mentioned her before obviously but this is the first episode she actually shows up in that i’m covered, and i’m delighted to finally tackle her head on. And the other faviorite thing isn’t an exageration: She’s equal to tom in my heart. She’s just as compelling, just as well acted, and unlike Tom actually gets a decent resolution to her character arc. In fact she’s one of the ONLY characters to get a decent resolution.  It’s also at this point her character undergoes a shift. While she dosen’t change as a person that much, before this it was left purposfully vauge if Eclipsa was really.. evil, and possibly the big bad of the season. On the one hand her magic is unquestionably dark and evil even if she isn’t, and while Star wasn’t at all effected by her chapter, Marco went all 

For a second before Glossaryck fixed it off screen, and using her “Darkest Spell” left both her and moon with blackened goop on their arms for the rest of their lives. Not only that but she pushed Star into morally dubious actions: Teling her Marco could be her squire simply because she said so, and being the one that encouraged her to explore her butterfly form. 

But we also saw her GENUINELY bond with Star, the two relating both on seeing monsters as people, and dating them, and on being reckless, powerful and often looked down upon by Moon for unfair reasons. Something I hadn’t realized but shoudl’ve before this is, for Season 3 at least.. Eclipsa is the mentor star never properly had. Glossaryck, while he did do a decent job from time to time, is just too damn neutral to be a proper mentor, not really carring what happens to mewni or if he even lives or dies, a neglectful attitude that honestly caused a good chunk of Mewni’s problems, never remotely trying to invervene in his protege Solaria’s genocidal campaign against monsters, his children’s growing fantatical racisim, or well.. anything. He just dosen’t care.  Moon TRIED to be one, and can be a good mother on occasion.. but the two are exact opposites: Moon is controlled in every aspect of her life and compartmentalizes and structures everything, while Star is pure chaos and impulse. It’s why River has an easier time parenting her, as she got a LOT more of his personality than her mothers, and thus can actually relate to her. Bog Beast shows this off well: He teaches her a lesson Moon probably has tried to a thousand times, to be patient.. but does so on her level with an old family ritual and using a metaphor, rather than trying to drill it into her head. It’s why when he did actually teach her Glossayrck used the same: Star is just not a traditional learner, moon is. And there in lies the problem.. Moon just cannot accept for most of the series that her daughter isn’t like her despite her best efforts or try to see it on her level, and Star dosen’t really try to see it from Moon’s perspective either, though being you know the Child and not the parent, it’s a bit more understandable. Moon has a real hard time seeing other people’s perspectives, and really changing.. and given Star has gone from being a proud racist to realising how horrible her attiude to monsters were in under a year, really is why the two clash so much. It’s something I sadly relate to: While my own dad is not racist, he is a staunch republican, is one of those morons who belives the “Well if trans people can use the bathroom they want then rapists will put on women’s clothing just to enter a bathroom!” bullshit fully, and while he supports gay people myself included did NOT support gay marraige and when I was a teen would often say “Wellt hat’s as valid as me marrying bob” Bob.. is my dad’s cat who hates me for understandable reasons as I was not great with cats when he got him. So yeah I get your parent being an impenetrable brick wall on important issues. 

The point is Eclipsa...actually listens to star, agrees to her views and instead of trying to FORCE star to go the way she wants simply guides her, giving her advice and being gentle with her. The two are similar enough that Eclipsa’s advice, good or bad, tends to stick, and that Eclipsa actually cares what Star thinks which Moon does not. But it was hard to gage if she GENUINELY cared or was just playing star. But these episodes shred that ambiguity to pieces, showing that while eclipsa is not without faults.. she’s not evil... and the people who called her that very much ARE. So without further adeu....

Total Eclipsa The Moon:

In the previous episode, Star burst into Moon’s room giving her the revelations of the night. Moon.. did not take it well, both unaware and furious her daughter had a party at the monster temple, refusing to believe her and taking umbrage at Star’s VERY understandable accusation that she sent Rhombulus after them, since he had her royal guards with him, levitating her daughter out of the office. 

But what is suprising is that, as this episode opens after brooding a bit and TRYING to get back to work.. Moon clealry can’t get the idea out of her head. You can see the wheels turning: Sure star is impulsive and did falsely accuse her.. but she’s not a liar. While Star hides stuff on occasion.. when she lost the book she came right to her parents to confess, something Moon genuinely appricated. Why would she TRANSPARENTLY make something up? While the trial is close, Star would at least, if sloppily and ucnovncingly try and fake evidence if that was her goal. And while the party isn’t something Moon is happy about it is VERY suspcious Rhombulus didn’t tell her about police action on her terriotry using her own guards involving her daughter, several monsters, and the heirs to every kingdom in the land.  So she takes the Royal Lineage book and goes to see Eclipsa.. who made a guitar out of bones because she’s awesome and that’s what you do when you have a lot of itme on your hands and nothing else to do. 

She’s casual with Moon, who just assumes she’ll get the answer she wants l,  asks her to identify her daughter.. though Eclipsa is taken aback by this. She’s willing to.. she just hasn’t seen her face in thosands of years let alone as a grown woman and assumes she’s dead by now. It’s a very good, very small moment.. and it’s made more striking both by what we learned last episode.. and the fact she has no idea who Festivia is, and knows who her one and only Daughter was: Meteora. And while Moon does bring up that her name just could’ve been changed... Eclipsa shoots that down.. Meteora had clover cheeks and “The cutest little tail”. Moon asks how this even makes sense and Eclipsa’s response is absolutely wonderful “When a queen and a monster love each other very much...”. Before we can get to the sexy details Moon then clarifies that she’s confused how she didn’t know about this and wants answers, though she still keeps Metora still being alive a secret for now.. but it’s understndable as Moon still dosen’t trust Eclipsa, and dosen’t want to risk her trying to escape to find her right before the trial. Eclipsa tells her there is one place they could get a solid answer, the archives, which are in the commission building, though Moon apparently doesn’t have access..despite being queen. You think she would’ve questioned that by now given the name.

But Moon plans to go, and refuses to take Eclipsa along.. but is swayed when Eclipsa genuinely not only accepts it.. but sadly and without any hint of manipultion and with pure honesty asks her to tell her what happened to her daughter. And for the first time... Moon sees Eclipsa as not the boogeyman history wrote her as.. but just another mother desperatley looking for her child and finding out history covered her up and she may never know what happened to her.  So we next cut to the magical high comission building, where we see Shawn, the security guard, deer man and bumbling doofus, who ends up not scanning moon when the magic detector, basicallyu a metal detctor, goes read because she terrifies him out of it. And yeah.. good point she is on the comission he really shoudn’t have to do that. Though I like the sublte hints with this and the archives that the comission have slowly creeped up in thier authority: while the queen is still granted a seat at the table.. she’s not given ALL the toys in the box despite that not really being fair given how much sway the comission has in mewni politics.  But naturally Moon has snuck eclipsa in and even more naturally is nearly having a panic attack over breaking the rules. But she dosen’t have time for that and asks Eclipsa where the archives are. 

She’s not tricking moon or anything though: It’s been thousands of years and the comission building has changed vastly, when she was around the archives were just a stone hut off to the side. That gives Moon an idea and they find a stone wall in the storage room, which Eclipsa activates in her own weird and endearing way.  This also shows off the one trait that seperates Eclipsa from star: Star usually just does random things because. While Eclipsa isn’t IMUNE to this usually when she does something weird it’s specifically to acomplish something, she’s just using her own unique methods. LIke here she rubs her back against the stones and what not.. ut it gets the door open. Unfortuntely our heroines then run into Shawn who being a natural narc, runs off ot tattle before Moon cuts him off. Eclipsa insists they zap his memory and only hasn’t for a crucial reason: she can’t do magic without a wand. It’s an intresting and understandable reveal: like star she just relied on the wand for it and never learned how to do her spells without it as she never really needed to.. and even now she dosen’t. While her magic COULD help her escape.. she has no intrest in escaping since it’d only hurt star and even a sham trial will still make her a martyr for mosnter kind and prove Star’s point she’s not a bad person. Even if she looses she wins. So she simply had no reason to relearn it and likely figured correctly doing so might just rouse further suspicon or get her locked in chains or other nonsense and given she can, if unbenownst to moon, wander the castle freely via the secret passages.. she’s really not bothered by house arrest.  Moon of course dosen’t want to.. but in a great gag ends up doing so by mockingly saying “Memory eraser gun” and making a gun gesture with her hand.. and ends up actually doing that as a result. They put the comotose magic outside. And this scene is a great character bit to me for both characters: It shows off a bit flaw for each character: For moon it’s that she lacks the ablity to improvise. She can and has created magic but is so orderly and regimented it has to be percise and she dosen’t grasp just HOW easily a spell can be created simply by imagining it. She lacks the pure raw creativity and talent of her daughter and supposed ancestor.... but makes up for it in what she calls eclipsa out on: restraint. While Moon has ENTIRELY too much, serioulsy the stick is so far up her ass she can see it when she talks, it’s not itself a bad thing, and using it recklessly and irresponsibly, as the suplmental big boook of spells shows, without thought or without proper preperation can have devistating consequences. Skywinn, one of the past queens and the first in the book, destroyed an entire dimension simply by letting loose far too much, while Rhina, Moon’s great great grandmother, acccidently kileld her abusive husband because her heartbreak spell was a bit too literal. Power is fine and all. but you have to control it. It’s why Xavier’s School Existed before he decided to take all the kids to an island because humanity suck so much: you need to learn to use your pwoer responsibly and eclipsa never did. She can contorl it perfectly as we’ll see.. but she also dosen’t think of the implications of what she does with it, she just does and to hell with the consequences. And that’s really her whole problem: She acts mostly on impulse without thinking, and it’s had bad consequences.. though ironically her fleeing with Globgor, as said book wonderfuly outlined.. was NOT a rash or impulse decision but a VERY hard one where she was stuck between keeping the crown and pleasing eveyrone.. or fleeing with her lover, being happy and taking care of a serious threat to the kingdom as a whole WITH him, but knowing it might not end well.. and sadly it did not.  Eclipsa does show her skill though once agian, having made up a silly song to rmemeber where to go and since the archives haven’t been touched and are about the same, easily leads them in. Though once they reach the door they can’t open it, but Eclipsa has a solution: A rat hole. “It’s so gross in here” she says delighted. Moon isn’t happy about it but agrees to it.. but her ass gets stuck.. and that’s not me being crude or making a joke her ass literally gets stuck and Eclipsa has to go for help but takes an hour, long enough for a spider to hypnotize moon and steal her crown and for moon to question trusting her.. before Eclipsa returns.  And this is what cements what I was getting at: Before there was clear ambiguity in “Is eclipsa the villian or not”. Here.. it’s gone. She has shady powers and her morals are flexable.. but she’s still a kind, loveably weird woman and it’s obvious by this point her reputation as evil was horribly exagerated, and primarily brought on by racisim. And moon’s realizing it too. They find the archives, which is a cool concept: magitek hands that record everything that happens to a royal, even showing some of what’s going on right then in the other plot. Moon quips that this actually really would’ve helped with the trial, but apologizes for it showing that she’s slowly realized what Star knew from minute one and what I just mentioned: Eclipsa is not a bad person. She’s flawed, but she’s not evil or some nightmarish destroyer of worlds.. she’s just a batty 40-50 something woman who dosne’t think through her actions. 

Eclipsa does explain it probably wouldn’t of done moon good, as it’s near impossible to find anything unless you know where to look.. which makes perfect sense. The scroll records every queen’s every actoin every minute of every day. Even summarized that’s like trying to sift through footage of eveyr minute of your life. Even sped up, it’d take weeks or months or even years to find something without knowing where exactly to look. Thankfully Eclipsa does.. but finds the Scroll has been offered as the “Daughter of queen eclipsa nd king shatacan” is sewn in there as festivia.. literally.. like part of the scroll was ripped out. And as close friend, endless resource and tom expert bar none @jess-the-vampire​ pointed out to me when I asked for her imput on these ones, that makes no sense as the two never had a daugther and I feel they just didn’t think that through. Plot hole aside.. it’s VERY clear someone has tampred with the archives and if Moon wasn’t already questinoing if Eclipsa was really bad this clinches it: Someone ERASED one of her family from history and hid the truth even from them. And Moon’s going ot get answers.. after our heroes run from the security system, get the crown back and BARELY escape with the scroll before the comission catches them. 

Back at the castle Eclipsa is disgraught over her daughter and Moon clinches their new bond by revealing she might still be alive... Moon might not KNOW if Star was telling or even knew the whole truth.. but she knwos something is going on and she’s going to find out. And whiel she may not know everything.. she has a damn good idea who did this.. .and says so just as star comes in from her adventure, having learned patience. Cue the credits.  Final Thoughts: This was a fun one, with Moon and Eclipsa having a delightful odd couple dynamic, the regminted overly serious and overly stuffy moon with the wild and reckless and charmingly weird eclipsa is just a great dynamic and endlessly entertaining and I wish the show had done more with it before what’s about to happen but what we got was great and minor plot hole mentioned aside, the reveal only deepens the intrigue for what’s next.. so speaking of which...

Butterfly Trap: Here. We. Go. One of the series best episodes, if not it’s BEST. Oh me mow i’m excited. 

We open with the long set up trial of Eclipsa Butterfly.. and as you’d expect by a trial by a jury of her enimies, the comission mostly sees this as a formality outside of Moon. Sean is excited though, he gets to bring out the typey thingy. Usually Rhombluus just crystalises them. 

Yeahhh... the show never properly deals with Rhombulus’ tendency to imprison first ask questions never or gets any of his victims, i.e. the ones he probably had less reason to crystal up not ones who were eating universes or whatever , free. But this is the LEAST of the dropped threads from this one. Point is this isn’t a remotely fair trial.. as hammermed in by the fact Hekapoo is upset and confused that Star is here too. Moon wants her to see eclipsa got a fair trial. Also Rhomblus wants her DEAD, but the others shot him down on this. HIs reasoning , for him, is suprisingly good: crystalising her didn’t work last time and implicilty given star likes her star could just order her freed when she’s queen. But I get their reasoning: Killing her would only make her a martyr to monsterkind, and to Star who probably woudln’t listen to or respect them EVER again. And Moon still wanted that when she started the trial.  So while clearly a sham this does crystalize, pun unitended, how corrupt the comissoin is. Their holding a trial with no jury, no witnesses, not that most are alive but some are, and with everyone CLEARLY thinking she’s guilty before it starts... and no one questioned it. This is even unusual as they rarely have an actual trial. And it’s about to be revealed to be a WHOLE lot worse. 

So the trial begins and Moon brings out the evidence, which is oddly disorganized given how much work she was putting in before, and ismostly secondhand accounts and interviews and their going to have to just sit there and sort through it all, which NONE OF THEM, especially rhomblus are happy about “THIS SOUNDS LIKE MATH!”

But Eclipsa has a simplier, if much more risky suggestion: Trial by Box. While Moon points out this isn’t great for her as the box is merciless and will not take lies, but Eclipsa counters rightly that she has nothing to hide. ANd honestly again given the commission are clearly out for her blood.. this is the only way she gets anything resembling a fair trial. Resembling being the key word. This is the most clearly rigged trial i’ve seen since that time Batman’s villians kidnapped him and put him on trial with joker as the judge.. good episode though.. and THAT was even a more fair trial as they actually gave him a lawyer and let him go when she made a convincing enough case. 

So the box is brought out, and it turns out to be the truth or punishment cube from season 2. Which Moon insists isn’t a party game.. despite the fact a bunch of teenage girls easily got one and it has a setting for that when moon grabs it. Along with, in a really great bit, settings for Bachelorette (All right ladies!) and Intervention. Know someone who could use that honestly. 

So the Comission ask their questions. We start with Rhombluus who asks if she wrote the “Evil Chapter” in the book of spells. Eclipsa dosen’t deny it but ponits out THEY labeled it that, Star rightly points out none of htem have actually read it moon included, and Eclipsa.. shoves her foot in her mouth by pointing out she’s made FAR WORSE spells that didnt make the cut. “Writing is rewriting you know”.  Love this woman. 

So next up is Hekapoo who asks if she abandoned her husband to run off with Globgor. Well they dont’ use his name because end of season plot twist but still. Eclipsa not only firmly doesen’t deny it but fondly caressses the projection of him “Hello sweetie”. Hekapoo marks her down with evil for this which... Jeff if you would?

Thank you. Not only is this racist bs that star perfectly destroyed earlier in the season, as the comission themselves are monsters in all but category, but the spellbook makes this so much worse. As I said for once Eclipsa .. wasn’t being impulsive. She was torn between duty and love and choose love, and even then partially did so to prevent the septarians from wiping out both the rest of monster kind AND mewmans. And Shastacan, was a massive dick, who took her not being in love with him like he was with her as a sign to throw her monster child away as we’’ll see and rightfully got eaten for it. I know this is all obvious stuff but it’s hard not to yell about it.  Next it Rhombluus.. who asks if she ate those babies. Again that was Bubipsa as Hekapoo understandably yells at him for but no backsies, and she sgets another evil mark on H-Poo’s good or evil tally because she’s that bitch. Finally Moon asks if she’s sorry for what she’s done.. and given the most they genuinely have are that she wrote spells that while dark and evil, were not only not the worst she could do but were clearly not used on any innocents, had an interracial marraige, and did not eat babies.. yeah, she’s not. So the comissoin prepare to cast judgement on the woman whose only “crime” is interacial dating, in a sham trial. 

Thankfully.. Eclipsa turns the tables. Before they can hastily refreeze her... Eclipsa points out she has a question.. and Moon points out as a former queen of mewni she’s entitled to a comission seat and thus TECHNICALLY a member. A loose rule and one you’d think Moon wouldn’t enforce.. but she does, a large hint at something i’ll get to in a moment as the reveal’s just too good to spend already. Naturally she has but one question for them:

No, obviously it’s “What did you do with my daughter”. Even more obviously they deny it.. but as we saw last time the cube came out, even lying to YOURSELF isn’t something the cube accepts so outright lying to save your fucking hides is even worse and it begins to crush them all. And after spending most of the runtime putting up with their racist and clearly biaserd bollocks it’s SO fucking cathartic to see them desperatly scramble and fail to avoid the box, with Hekapoo screaming “We didn’t do anything!”. 

Eventually Star calls them out on it pointing out they enforce the rules for everyone ELSE, and Hekapoo in paticular called Star and Moon on keeping the book being stolen a secret and Marco on Star’s butterfly form fiasco, so yeah, their glass house is in shards.. and Rhombluus FINNALLY ends this charade and confesses. Hekapoo naturally is mad at him for this.. despite the fact that if he hadn’t they’d all be dead and none of this would matter. 

Also Eclipsa is just badass during the entire sequence. While Moon and Star are panicking and the comission are covering for themselves, though the former two are probably doing it more just to keep up appearances but we’ll get to that in just a moment. Eclipsa, SHe just has this expression the whole time, as I put at the top for good reason. 

Just a look of pure SCORN, of a mother’s rage at having her daughter hidden from her and wiped from history, of having her husband imprisoned for rightfully getting vengance for it, for having HERSELF imiprosned and made out to be some kind of ghoul for the crime of marrying who she loved and saving her damn kingdom. She’s politely put up with this shit for as long as she had to to get to this moment.. but now as her tormentors despretly try to avoid the consequences of their actions and the truth.. she can only look on with pure, justified hatred at EVEYRTHING they’ve done and just how cowardly it is they refuse to admit it. 

So with the pepretraotrs in the cover up explosed, Rhomblus explains he was tired of lying. This COULD have been a good turn for the character, showing he had some remorse and have him get a redepmption arc... any of them could’ve.. but instead thier just 2 dimensonal asssholes after this because “racists be like that’ which they do, but it dosen’t mena you couldn’t of used them as big bads for the final season instead of wasting them.  But yeah back on point Rhombluus prods omni to tell them via his projection thing and he does: After Eclipsa was imprisoned, Shastacan got rid of meteora, and we of course know where she went and soon we’ll find out just what happened to her there, but more ont hat another time, and the comission covered things up by taking a pesant girl, though unlike the graphic above we later found out she was left behind by her family and taken in by the comission, who are shown to also have raised her by the book of spells. They gave her the wand, putting magic in her veins.. how ..

Look me and Jess discussed this: magic being given by the wand is terribly inconsistent and while I might go into it in a seperate article some other day, now is not the time or place for it. 

It is however the time and place for the reveal as Moon’s reaction to all of this? “We suspected as much”

Yup, as our heroines explain and Shawn freaks the fuck out in one of the series best gags, and mirrors the audience’s reactions, we find out this was all a setup: and as I alluded too one cleverly set up the whole episode, pun unintended: Moon is suddenly dour and ready to to through with the trial despite last episodes revelations, she brings in evidence that’s entirely unsorted despite being a control freak who was previously working on gathering and sorting said evidence, and she backs up eclipsa despite it clearly givng her an advantage. All little hints that something wasn’t right there. Whlie Hekapoo, being again that bitch, is naturally furious, Moon is undaunted and explains why they did this.. and Star was in on it too, which shows that even if her patience lesson from bog beast dosen’t stick entirely, sigh, it does stick for this one episode as she not only waited through this sham trial.. but played her part well, arguging with moon at times to make it seem like nothing had changed. Everything was a careful and constructed plan to get the commission into a position where they COULDN’T lie. Even if Rhombulus hadn’t cracked one of them might of when theyw ere close and while it was a huge risk they all knew going in... it paid off. The truth is laid bare. If only Lekmet’s bi ass were here .. so he could aslo get raked over teh coals for htis. Also yes bi, he had the bi flag colors on the flowers on ihs portrait they left where his seat used to be. 

So with the cards all on the table, the Cube passes judgment; Eclipsa is guilty.. but so are her judges minus Moon, so he tells them to think about that, which they do, while he leaves so they can sort out their issues. Star reads the assholes the riot act.. until she stumbles on realizing something: Eclipsa, her supportive, loving, and wonderful grandma whose actually like her.. isn’t her grandma. Eclipsa responds with an “I’m sorry sweetie’ making two things clear by her tone: She’s just as devistated by this reveal as star, she just has more pressing things in her head right now, and that even if their not bound by blood.. sh’es still star’s grandma and always will be.  What hits harder is the realization sh’es not a princess and her life is a lie. Granted she is TECHNICALLY a princess , since her dad is still a king by blood and could take the johnason throne if he wanted, but tha’ts being pednatinc: the real point is that the legacy that put so  much pressure on her all her life is a lie, and she isn’t who she thought she was.  “We’re nothing mom, we’re nothing. “ 

So star runs off as both of her moms try and comfort her. And as we close out this episode god damn is Eden Sher good in this. Just her acting in this scene is so damn heartbreaking and powerful, going from indignant and calling out the cocmisison.. to heartbreaking, slowly and quitely falling apart as she realizes what happened. So what’s this anguish star’s going through amount to?

Oh sure the ending of season 3 wouldn’t happen without this reveal.. but Star being devistated by it goes NOWHERE. There’s no character arc of her dealing with the fact she’s no longer a princess or once she gives teh wand to eclipsa, even heir to the throne probably. No angst, no deep reflection not even an offhand joke. We find out who the commoners Festivia descended from were.. but that’s IT. Star just kinda ignores this like her confession to marco last season only that at least got a payoff. I will bitch about that payoff soon but it’s you know A PAYOFF. This is a WASTE of an utterly amazing plot twist, one that turns the show on it’s head and star’s entire rebelious princess character around. because they just didn’t care to actually let her change as a character after this season. She learns nothing from this point, dosen’t really grow, and ends in a really terrible and ghastly place. This episodes excellent and while it’s after effects would be felt.. it left SO much more on the table they never bothered to pick up and use. 

Final Thoughts: As I said full of wasted potetinal.. but one of the series best episodes still. Hampered a bit by said waste of potetial but on it’s own it’s gripping, has a well set up swereve, and some great acting and animation all around. 

So that does it for this review: Next Time: Star and Tom’s relationship progresses as Tom is forced to see what his privlage has insulated him from, while it then hits a massive road block as we get.. to Booth Buddies. And yes i’m doing Skooled second, Booth Buddies is TECHNICALLY seasonly approraite for valentine’s way.. just like herpes. Until then follow this blog for more reviews, my comissions are open shoot me an ask for details and until the next rainbow, it’s been a pleasure. 

[angelkurenai]

His Princess - Chris Evans x Reader

Title: His Princess

Pairing: Chris Evans x Reader

Warnings: None

Prompt: Hello!! I’m so happy your requests are open again! Can you write Chris Evans going on set to his gf’s music video of "Beauty and the Beast" (w/ John Legend) and he’s so happy to date a «princess» please?

“Alright, one more for the net. Just stay like that, you look wonderful!”

You couldn't help but giggle at the enthusiasm of the young assistant. What with your manager being unable to show up any of the days of the filming the way she normally would and her always wanting you to have someone with you all the time besides bodyguards, make up artists and stylists that would be there more as a friend than anything else. And so her assistant was yours for the week as well, and you would be lying if you said you weren't already having great fun just by being around her. Not to mention the excitement of being on the set itself and living the dream quiet literally already had you grinning the whole day long as you skipped around the place.

“Alright, is this good?” you asked, resting your chin on your palm, nearly kneeling down on the floor so that the dress looked more like a flower that had enveloped you whole. The maroon color only a great contrast against the white walls of the small room and the lights shining over your diamonds jewellery.

“That's perfect, yes!” she nearly squealed, snapping another photo that made you laugh “Alright, I'm pretty sure we've got more than plenty of photos and videos now. I'm gonna get out of your hair now and see what little I can post to tease the fans. Oh and Eric left the gloves on the chair in the corner. He said it would be best if you wore them because they wanted to run a few tests with cameras and see if they will keep them or not in the end.”

“Alright, Coco, don't worry. I've got this.” you nodded your head, already picking up the fabric and slipping it through your fingers “See you in a couple minutes!”

It wasn't long before you were left in your own devices by the assistant and a calm silence fell in the room. You looked at your reflection, fixing your gloves and dress you hummed the tune of the song.

Taking your phone you scrolled through your feed, one last time before you went to work, only to soon take notice of the photos that had already been uploaded by Coco and grinned widely when you saw that some of your friends had already commented, earning a soft laugh from you as you went through them. Most of them already knew about the filming you were doing for the song of the new Beauty and The Beast movie. You had been overly excited both about the opportunity to sing the song itself – alongside none other than John Legend at that – and even more film the music video. You were so thrilled even before you got started, there was no stopping you from telling your friends everything about it even before you got started.

After so many years in the music industry, so many worldwide tours and music videos and albums later, and more than just a few in the movie industry as well you had seen and experienced so many things and yet you still got so excited over the most simple projects. Much like this one, there was not a single thing you didn't look forward to. At first you were sure it was going to be in a unique location but it was a totally different thing getting to actually see it, especially when you realized that most of it was real and not just a green screen. So with a beautiful set, dressed quiet literally like a princess it was impossible for it all to not feel like a fairytale and have you enticed even before you got started.

“Disney princess or the new Queen of Asgard? Easily both!” Chris Hemsworth had commented.

“Could have not said it better, Chris! What would a King be without her Queen after all?” Tessa comments made you grin.

“Safe to say, running Marvel and Disney has never looked more classy!” it was one from RDJ.

“And then they said not to believe in fairytales. Looking stunning as ever! If you wanna switch up a Captain, I'm always available!” your friend's comment made you laugh and you made a mental note to reply to Brie the second you got the chance to.

“Alright, so what petition do I need to sign to have them make this a live-action Disney movie now?” Liz Olsen with a great variety of emojis.

You couldn't help your smile all the while you scrolled down the comments, seeing many more not just from costars, friends or other celebrities and plenty from fans; but it was all the while a bit too tight. It didn't reach your eyes, certainly not the more you looked and found no comment from your boyfriend. You knew you shouldn't hold it against him but part of you couldn't help but feel the first waves of sadness wash over your soul. Mainly because he was the one that knew most about this song and video clip, how nervous and excited you had been from the first moment; it felt like he had been with you the whole way through all of it and therefore you wanted him to see this too, even if it was only part of what was to come.

On one hand the fact that he was such a big Disney fan was no secret either and it had always made your eagerness to see his reaction to this grow even more. And on the other, loving the man so much meant that his compliments always held a different, much more big, significance to you. Maybe, you realised slowly as you dwelled on it more, it also had a lot to do with the way he said everything. There was always so much emotion in them, such great love and admiration and adoration and every other beautiful feeling he felt for you, showing through not only his words but also his eyes, expression and touches that after all these years you had learned to picture even when he was not close to you.

You decided not to think any more of it, realising that he surely had work to do and it would be better if you focused on it. The fact that you missed said man because you had not seen him in over week due to said work completely put aside.

Setting your phone aside you started making some final checks on your dress and looks, getting the feel of it as you signed softly to yourself “Tale as old as time. True as it can be. Barely even friends, than somebody bends-”

“Unexpectedly.” the singing was soft in your ear, the breath fanning over your cheek and bare neck before a pair of arms sneaked around your waist and a pair of lips were pressed on your neck, making shivers run down your entire spine with such intensity you couldn't hold back a gasp. When a squeeze came next you didn't even have the time react because his one hand slid up to your arm and rested on your shoulders, drawing the familiar goosebumps you had so missed the past couple days.

You would have leaned back into the firm broad chest, the action as natural as blinking. Every curve and edge of your body always seemed to fit perfectly with his no matter the position and you would be a big liar if you said your body was already reacting to his touch. Your heart with its unruly heartbeat – one that easily matched his – and your lungs refusing to take in a deep breath as the pleasant warmth spread through hands around you were easily a sign of who it was, every cell in your recognizing the contact.

Your eyes widened and your vision nearly blurred as you turned around to face the man you had not even realized was there but could recognize even with your eyes completely closed. “Chris?”

“Your highness.” his smile got even bigger when you turned to lock eyes with his and oh wasn't that a sight to make your entire day worth it, if anything making all of your worries and fears disappear. His eyes were so soft, filled with so much adoration and almost sparkling in a way you had not seen before.

You stared at him for what felt like an eternity, unable to believe he was there, looking at you so lovingly. His hands were cupping your face and only when you heard him whisper “Hello, my love.” did reality dawn on you. Realizing it wasn't a dream you almost squealed before you jumped in his arms, wrapping yours around his shoulders. Earning a deep chuckle that made his chest ramble, you couldn't hold your own laughter when you felt it against your own chest.

“Oh my gosh.” you choked out, eyes squeezed shut as you tried to force yourself not to cry “Chris.” you pulled just slightly away to look into his eyes, cupping his face in both your hands. Your eyes roamed over his face, taking everything in as it felt nearly impossible to believe this was happening. You leaned in to press your lips to his in an urgent kiss that still earned a soft laugh from him. You let out a soft breath when you pulled away and as you rested your forehead against his you repeated “Chris.” and he smiled even more widely “You're here. How?”

“Do you really question that? I would travel from the other side of the world for you.” and his smile turned into a small smirk “Isn't that what a prince always does?”

“Why-” your smile turned more into a smirk as you slowly started pulling away, despite the small sound of protest that came from his lips “I didn't know you were officially my prince charming. That is a title that must be earned, is it not?”

“And it would be my greatest honor to...” he started with a small smirk of his own which eventually faded much like his words as he fully took in the sight of you in the beautiful gown, with the jewelry and gloves adorning the whole look, you realised he was completely at a loss for words.

“Well, seeing as you didn't see the photos posted on instagram yet, I'll ask now: How do I look?” you probably already looked confident enough but that didn't mean you didn't want to hear his opinion more than anybody else's.

“Dear” his eyes were wide as he took everything in “Marry me already.”

And as you expected it wasn't he words, or at least not only the words, which made your heart leap to your throat. It was the pure love and awe that filled his eyes, his smile brighter than you had ever seen it. It was the way his voice became low, almost hoarse as if his throat closed from the overwhelming emotion in his chest. It was the way he reached out for you again and slowly traced his fingers over yoru cheek, touch light as a feather, as if he feared to break you. In his eyes you saw you were more than just a fragile porcelain doll, way more important and precious to him than anything actually.

“I'm fairly sure I wouldn't mind the idea, however, should you not do something heroic to say the least to earn that right? To have the hand of a princess and even more her heart, that requires more effort, don't you think?” you said with a smirk and he chuckled before straightening his back.

“Why, your highness, had I known you'd be so open to the idea I'd have brought the ring with me. It has been tucked in the back of my drawer for too long, I fear.” he said it so casually and truthfully, without a hint of pretend for the sake of the small momentary fairytale you were living through, that it made you pause for a second to hold your breath and blink at him.

Too caught up with your own thoughts you didn't even have the chance to question anything when he spoke again. A soft laugh escaped his lips as he slowly took both your hands in his, the act slipping for the moment, as he whispered again “My gosh, you look stunning. How did I ever get so lucky in my life?”

“It's no big deal.” you felt bashful all of a sudden and you were well aware it was because of the way your heart had sped up at the thought of said ring which he had joked about a long time ago but not in this way, not with such underlacedhonesty and seriousness.

“No big deal?” his eyebrows raised “I'm standing in front of the most beautiful disney princess to ever exist, both on the inside and on the outside. And on top of it all she is my girl and only mine. I'd say I don't deserve this kind of love but who am I to judge? My ideal fairytale I coming to life, this is too good to be true and yet it is. I'll take whatever you have to give me and offer everything I can in return. Who knows-” he pulled away, you not having realized when his forehead had come to rest against yours “Maybe I'll do a job good enough or the ring will be impressive enough to make at least a bit something like a prince charming.”

The wink he sent your way earned a laugh from your own lips, easing some of the tense feeling in your chest. You realised there was no reason to dwell on it or overstress it, not at the moment, so you let your smile become more easy if not more teasing “I'm sure you'd have plenty to offer, my kind sir. But first, if only in order for a proper courtship, you must have to catch me, don't you?”

“I must wha-” he started but all words died on his lips. You were sure he had already caught up somehow, the glint in his eyes telling you as much, but didn't give him the chance to fully question it before you were already pulling away from him and with a wink, opening the door and sprinting down the long hallway.

You heard the deep laugh, filling the entire hallway and with only the smallest glance over your shoulder you saw the man start to follow you fast enough. Grinning you picked up your dress and with that, picked up your pace so that you were running. As if the feeling of the dress bouncing around like a soft cloud, the air warm inside the building but present nonetheless - not only because of the running but also because of the studio you were fast approaching and that you remembered had more than a few doors and windows – wasn't enough to make you laugh, hearing your boyfriend's laughter as he tried to catch you get louder made you feel as if you were flying more than running.

“(Y/n)? What are you-”

You recognised the voice immediately but didn't have the time to reply let alone stop for even a second when you heard Chris get closer “Can't talk now Chrissy, I gotta go! Ah!” you actually yelped – or perhaps it was her, though the laughter that came next were surely hers when your boyfriend nearly bumped into John's wife and his apologies were the proof because you didn't turn to see – before you quickly run around a corner and down some stairs.

It wasn't even a couple seconds later that you found yourself running inside the studio itself, the cameras all around as the crew was setting everything up for the filming. You almost got so carried away by the entire place, many things having been added since the morning when you first showed up, and in the middle of admiring the realistic set of a castle they had managed to build. You were sure if you had not been in any hurry, you could have easily spent hours wanderingaround the place and admiring the detailed work, getting lost in a daydream much like a fairytale. But, again, you were in a hurry and as you felt the first fingers slip over your waist, aside from earning a small yelp from you they managed to get you moving again, or more specifically running.

“You have to be faster than that, darling.” you grinned, rounding the piano so that you were on the one side and he on the other.

“Who says I am being nearly half as fast as I can really be? Who says that if I really wanted to I wouldn't already have my hands on you?” he smirked, raising an eyebrow at you that made you giggle “I am merely being your perfect prince charming.”

“Alright, first; I like the sound of that but it's not going to make me give in just yet. And second; we both know that you're just being a sore loser here. You haven't caught me yet not because you can't. You're also a sore looser, not a prince charming, dear.”

He groaned, placing a hand over his chest “Another wound, all within the span of only a couple minutes. How do I survive this? Oh yes, in fairytales, a kiss always always does wonders, doesn't I? If only my princess would be kind enough to not run away from me anymore and instead save my life?”

You had to admit that although he was being both dramatic and cheeky, and you had to keep serious, you couldn't hold back your wide smile as you spoke “For starters, you will have to earn it. And-” you paused, jumping away as he made a move to run around the piano but you were fast to get away so that you had now swapped places “If I may ask, what's the first one?”

“Wouldn't you know? As if you can't see my bleeding heart which has been struck worse today at seeing you like this. But-” another jump that got him dangerously close “I suppose if I can't get a kiss, I will make it my last wish that you wear a similar dress soon.” his words made you frown until he added “Only in total white. And really, the soonest possible so we should probably start making a guests list.”

“Chris” you caught yourself pausing, longer than expected and than should be right in this case but you felt like you had no control of your body at the moment “This is not a funny joke anymore.”

“Who said it was one in the first place?” he asked, and you could swear you heard Chrissy and John gasp softly in the background. At some point you had even seen them but now your entire mind was blank. You focused on Chris, his voice much softer than before, his posture having relaxed as if to let you know he wasn't playing any game of sorts “And maybe-” he took a slow tentative step towards you, eyes on you to judge your reaction all the time. When he saw you didn't move away from him, he took more steps closer to you “If you'd let me, I could show you real soon that I was serious from the first moment.”

“Wha-” but you stopped yourself because you knew that wasn't the answer you wanted so bad to ask, it wasn't the one your heart longed for to be answered so instead you whispered “How?”

Chris leaned in to press a kiss on your forehead, extending a hand which you took before he said another hing “First, I believe it's best if you get to job as fast as possible. And for that to happen, it would be right of me to stop playing around. So, what do you say we start things the way only in fairytales they do: a dance?”

“It doesn't necessarily happen in this order but-” you smiled, glancing over his shoulder to see John and his wife do the same, the music having only second now starting to play “I think we've already found the perfect song, so why not?”

“Think of it... as practice.”

[willddheartt]

Won’t Say Love | Randall Carpio

Inspired by: I Won’t Say I’m In Love - Disney

Warnings: none

Word Count: 1765

Masterlist

If there's a prize for rotten judgement, I guess I've already won that

If being a bad judge of character was a race you would be ahead by miles. You first met Randall Carpio at the campus bar, you didn’t like him from the start but that never stopped him from trying to get to know you. After being initiated into the order you found out who Randall really was, or more what he was. For most Acolytes hearing about Werewolves who would kill you if you did bad magic was enough to scare them out of that, like a children’s fable. But you found yourself curious about the ever so annoying, yet charming, boy. Your childhood fascination of the supernatural and paranormal was hard to keep contained.  You found yourself not being as cold to the dark-haired boy and letting him stick around whenever he’d slip into the empty seat that was across from you at the bar. 

No man is worth the aggravation That's ancient history, been there, done that

“So,” He said, sliding into the other side of the booth and crossing his arms, “What is it going to take for you to let me take you on a date?” He asked.  You had to give it to him, the boy was persistent. Closing the book you were reading and crossing your arms over the cover, “Help me leave the order,” You said  “The order? Like the bullshit secret society? C’mon, they don’t even exist.” Randall asked, putting on his best lie “You’re lucky you’re pretty because you are a terrible liar,” You shook your head, “I know you know about the Order, and I also know you’re a werewolf,” You said dropping your voice to a whisper  Randall dropped his head in defeat, “How did you know?”  “I ask you to help me leave the Order and that’s your only question?” You asked  “One thing at a time. How did you know about us?” He repeated his question “Like I said, Randall, you’re a bad liar. I found a book,” you mumbled  “Okay so wait, why do you want to leave the order?”  “They’re not who I thought they were,” You said stirring the ice around in your drink with the straw. “What makes you think I can help?” He asked  “They’ll wipe my memory when I leave, I found this potion that will keep my memories and mind from being messed with. I can do the incantation, I just need someone to help me get the stuff for the potion.”  Randall nodded, “Okay but what’s in it for me?” He asked  You sighed, “I just said I’d go on that date with you, you know the one you haven’t stopped asking me on since our first day here,” 

There was no real reason why you hadn’t yet given Randall a chance, he was a nice guy and definitely good looking but you had your share of broken hearts from random flings and people using you in your life. You had built an automatic security system, without noticing, that would shut anyone out before they got the chance you hurt you. 

Who d'you think you're kidding He's the earth and heaven to you Try to keep it hidden, Honey we can see right through you Girl you can't conceal it We know how you're feeling Who you thinking of

“I know you have the hots for Randall Carpio,” Gabrielle Dupres said, as she was walking beside you now. You were on your way back to your dorm for the afternoon, having finished all your classes for the day. “What?” You shook your head, “No. Never. He’s not even my type,” You scoffed, you weren’t sure if you were trying to convince yourself or Gabrielle.  “Who’s not your type?” Randall asked, walking by your other side now. “Speak of the devil,” You mumbled The shorter girl hummed with a tight-lipped smile before turning off down the path to the library.

“What’s her problem?” He asked continuing to walk with you “She thinks I have a thing for you,” You rolled your eyes.  “I might be a bad liar but you’re even worse,” Randall smirked, making you roll your eyes again,  “Whatever,” You shook your head, “Did you get the stuff or not?”  “In my bag,” He pointed to the bookbag hanging off his shoulder. 

I thought my heart had learned its lesson It feels so good when you start out My head is screaming "Get a grip girl Unless you're dying to cry your heart out

Despite all your inner voices telling you giving Randall a chance would end in heartbreak you help your end of the deal and went on the date. 

“So,” Randall asked after the waiter came around with your drinks, “How does it feel being free form the Order’s rule?”  You chuckled, “Its nice. Free.” You nodded, “But I have to be honest, being part of a secret society was fun while it latest.”  “You still know about them so that’s a plus,” He smiled. You nodded. 

As the night went on you couldn’t shake the butterflies that appeared and never left, every part of you was screaming at you to make it stop, and turn it off as you normally could but it was like something was blocking the switch. Every time his hand would brush past yours as you walked down the dimly lit paths the butterflies returned. But nothing compared to when you locked your fingers with his after letting your hands brush together one last time. 

You felt your cheeks heat up with a light blush as you glanced over to see his reaction. 

You keep on denying Who you are and how you're feeling Baby, we're not buying Hon, we saw you hit the ceiling Face it like a grown-up When you gonna own up that you got got got it bad

After the date, you and Randall were seen together more and more. Of course, knowing about the Knights from the Order you hung around the old house in the woods. Most evenings you could be found laying on the couch with Randall laying his head in your lap as you read one of your many books.  The comments from Hamish, and on the rare occasion Lilith, about how the two of you were inseparable or like a married couple never seemed to end. 

“So are you official yet?” Hamish asked, walking in the living room to his bar  “Try again tomorrow,” You said, turning the page in your book  “Love birds,” Lilith said aggressively “C’mon, let’s give the people what they want,” Randall smiled sitting up and leaning in   “Nice try, lover boy,” You chuckled, putting your hand over his face before he had the chance to kiss you. “Ooh, rejected,” Hamish laughed from behind the bar  “It’s not the first time,” Randall sighed.

“Why don’t you just get it over with,” Lilith sighed, “You’re obviously into him,” 

You’re not sure if it was the hostility in her voice or the fact that it was coming from Lilith, but this was the first time that going for it was thought, all you wanted to do was shut it down but Randall was persistent. 

“Yeah, the tension is so thick you can cut it with a knife,” Hamish said, handing a drink to Lilith “Do you agree with them?” You asked Randall, he nodded slowly. “Fine,” You sighed. Grabbing Randall by the collar of his shirt you pulled him in and crashed your lips onto his for a quick second before pulling away 

No chance no way I won't say it, no no (Give up, give in, check the grin you're in love)

“See, nothing,” You lied, sitting back on the couch and opening your book to where you left off, leaving everyone in the room shocked. 

If only they could see through the book you held in front of your face as you pretended to read. There was a smile on your face that you couldn’t force away and your cheeks were blushed red, while your lips tingles and the only thing that played through your head was what would happen if you kissed him again. 

This scene won't play I won't say I'm in love (You’re doing flips, read our lips; ‘you’re in love’)

It was like the flip of a switch since kissing him in the living room of the packhouse you couldn’t sake his form your mind. No matter where or when Randall was on your mind, even if he was just in the back of it, he was still there.  For the first time since the kiss, you found your way to the house hidden away in the woods. Laying on Randall’s bed while he sat at the foot of the bed finishing a paper for one of his classes. 

“So, about the other day,” Randall started as he continued to mindlessly type away  “Oh god,” You whispered, “Can we not? I don’t know what I was thinking,”  “So you think it was bad?” He asked  “No!” You blurted out, sitting up, “No,” you said more level headed this time, “I don’t know what I think,”  The boy nodded, “So what, then? What happens now?” He asked  “I don’t know,” You shook your head, “I probably shouldn’t have done that though,”  “Were you trying to prove a point to Hamish and Lilith or to yourself?” Randall asked, closing his laptop and setting it off to the side  “Both,” You mumbled. 

“What if you just forgot about that for tonight, hm?” He asked, softly as he slowly moved closer to you  The offer ran through your mind before you answered, “Fine,” You sighed, “But if it breaks my heart I’m blaming you,”  “That’s fine, you can totally do that,” Randall chuckled before you jumped on top of him, mashing your lips together as your limbs tangled together in a mess. 

You're way off base I won't say it Get off my case I won't say it

You woke up the next morning in Randall’s bed, but he was nowhere to be found. Making your way downstairs you followed the sound of voices to the kitchen.  Randall was leaning on the island, when you came up behind him and wrapped your arms around his waist. Lilith and Hamish took that as their signal to leave. 

“Morning,” Randall mumbled turning around so he could face you.  “Morning,” You replied, kissing his cheek.  “I take this as you’re willing to give this a shot?” He asked  You nodded. 

(Girl don't be proud it's okay you're in love) At least out loud I won't say I'm in love

[mcheang]

Lila the evil witch

Inspired by the Disney evil sorceresses: Mother Gothel, Ursula, the Evil Queen...what if Lila was an illusionist...but what was she after? The Disney villains were literally after a physical component: hair, voice, heart... the exception was Queen La of the Leopardman, she wanted Jane’s Husband

WARNING: THIS IS A DARK STORY...involving religion and exorcism.

The Daughter of Mrs Rossi was dead.

Inhabiting her youthful skin was an evil witch’s spirit named Lila. She even legally changed the name of the diplomat’s Daughter.

In the past; Lila had posed as a sweet Wiccan in an American village, living humbly. But she wanted more! (Inspired by Sarah Ravencroft from Scooby-Doo)

Lila was in truth a witch, and she longed to have the materialistic desires that everyone else desired. She was just willing to risk her soul in the process.

Lila cast love spells on the richest boy, causing him to obsess over her. She stole the beauty of the fairest maidens in the land to heighten her own. And those that opposed her soon found themselves sick.

It was the second issue that got the reverend concerned. His own daughter had suddenly gone from pretty to having burned skin.

He prayed in the Church for wisdom and guidance.

And perhaps it truly was holy intervention that caused a hypnotizing ray of moonlight to lead the reverend into the woods where he found Lila the Witch preparing a bath in a sunken pit of dark liquid. (Inspired from the book Another Faust where Belle took a painful chemical bath to maintain her beauty and allure.)

It was a repulsive bath. There was nothing so horrifying as the smell of blood, but there were crushed butterfly wings floating on it.

The reverend had seen enough. Lila was no innocent Wiccan; but a witch!

He wanted to expose her right there and then, but Lila had the male youth population on her side and was engaged to a very wealthy lad.

The reverend left the witch to her evil bath salts without alarming her to his presence.

So, the reverend gathered trusted adults for a secret plot to drive out the witch to the community.

He waited till the next moonlit night to lead them to the sunken pit and there they exposed Lila as a witch.

Lila snarled at them and raced out, her stinking naked body painted red. The men raced after her, determined not to let the evil escape.

They succeeded when one of their own threw a pitchfork at her torso. Lila lay dying in agony.

The villagers gathered around her in grim triumph.

But Lila had the last laugh, while she mocked them about their daughters’ disfigurements, she secretly cast a spell so her soul would not leave the earth. She knew hell awaited her for her crimes.

But being a disembodied soul is no picnic. And yet Lila knew currently, the judge’s Daughter was wasting away in bed from her curses.

Lila waited until the girl’s soul had passed on, before moving in on the still warm body.

When the judge returned from the witch hunt, he was jubilant that his Daughter had been cured.

Lila played her role carefully, lest she arouse suspicion again. She waited years before deciding to move to another town. By this time, Lila’s stolen body was middle-aged. She kept her eyes out for young blood.

And so it went on, Lila looked for a body with a wonderful lifestyle for her to steal. With her acting skills, it was a breeze. The few who noticed were silenced.

Of course, there were the other magical folk who realized what she was. The goody kind sought to exorcise her. They never succeeded.

One day, she came across a diplomat’s Daughter. She had a good life. A sufficient allowance, fabulous travels around the world, and little parent monitoring. She became Lila’s next victim.

After a couple of countries later, she legally changed her name.

Then Mrs Rossi announced they were moving to Paris. Lila initially had some concerns. The Miraculous were ancient relics lost to time. But given Hawkmoth’s failures and the heroes’ inexperience, Lila suspected they were not well versed in identifying magical creatures.

She studied her talented new class, looking for possible new victims. Living a life of travel was fun and all, but it wasn’t fully luxurious.

Obviously those with artistic talent like Marinette, Nathaniël and Kitty Section were out.

To be fair, the only viable candidate was Chloe. The girl was served hand and foot and got to be mean! That sounded ideal to Lila.

But, with Hawkmoth around, Lila suspected the mayor would get akumatized trying to cure her. Or even Sabrina.

Ugh, she’ll have to wait till he is busted then. What a bummer. Who knows how long that will take?

In the meantime, Lila might as well have some fun. Her gullible classmates were her new servants. But Adrien and Marinette kept their distance.

You see, upon first sight, the kwamis saw her for what she really was and warned their holders to be cautious. Thankfully they were strong enough to counter whatever magic tricks Lila could come up with.

Lila didn’t do that though, she relied on her lying talents.

As a result, Marinette never got the chance to spy on Adrien once Tikki strongly told her to not raise the liar’s suspicions.

Also, Plagg thoroughly was alarmed by this Lila girl and warned Adrien to keep his distance while they were separated in the library, and don’t let her take anything that belonged to him. As a result, the book is safe. And Lila doesn’t have a chance to be akumatized.

Ladybug and Chat Noir discussed how to exorcise her. It would take joint efforts but the original soul inhabiting Lila’s body was gone. After the exorcisement, the body would be a corpse.

The action itself was simple, Lila was physically no match for them. All Ladybug had to wind her magical yo-yo string around her and let its magic nullify Lila’s own. (Tikki’s magic can’t do that for Nooroo’s akumas) then all Chat had to do was literally push her with his baton.

Plagg’s power would destroy whatever was anchoring Lila’s soul and force her out.

But how to go about it? In public? In private? How do they convince Mrs Rossi her real Daughter is dead and an evil spirit now possesses her body?

No, the real daughter of Mrs Rossi deserves to be given closure. Her Mother should be mourning for her real daughter, not the Lila ghost!

Ladybug and Chat Noir brought in Alya’s help for this, as well as tell her Ladybug is so not BFFs with Lila!

Lucky charm: an actual recent video of the real Miss Rossi at the zoo for her birthday. Apparently she has an intense fear of snakes.

Ladybug and Chat Noir visit Mrs Rossi at work and ask to speak with her in private. Mrs Rossi is of course, disbelieving, until Ladybug suggests they use the snake test. If Lila acts as Mrs Rossi expects her to, they won’t perform exorcism. But if she does not, Mrs Rossi will let them go through with it.

Mrs Rossi is still skeptical about this bargain before Ladybug points out that with all the akumas and superpowers, how can she doubt what was happening? Even New York has superheroes!

Mrs Rossi admits she doesn’t want to face the truth that her Daughter has been dead all this time and she never even noticed.

Chat consoles her that she can at least give her real Daughter justice.

Alya and Marinette organize a class field trip to the zoo.

Mrs Rossi disguises herself as a zoo attendant.

Lila is paired with Alya to study the snake exhibit. Lila shows no apprehension whatsoever.

At the dim, empty snake exhibit, Ladybug and Chat Noir act. Lila shrieks and demands to know their reason behind this. She pleads for Alya to intervene but Alya just stands back, with the zoo attendant. Both watching silently as Chat Noir gently pushes her with his baton.

Lila’s body collapses. And a visible spirit manifests, still trapped by the yo-yo.

The spirit of Lila the witch is no longer youthful, and they finally see what her real form looks like. An ancient, withered hag snarling and screeching in hatred and agony.

Mrs Rossi condemns Lila for killing her Daughter.

Lila spits at her. “What can I say? A Daughter with little to none parental attention? She was such easy bait! I’ve been here for years and you never noticed.”

Mrs Rossi flinched at the accusation.

Alya stepped forward. “And what about Marinette? Were you going to target her too?”

Lila laughed. “I target those with envy-inducing lifestyles. Marinette may have the connections but she’s no Chloe. I was waiting till Hawkmoth was defeated before I took care of her. Marinette though, was open game. I don’t tolerate people who call me a liar.”

Chat: you are a liar.

Lila glares hatefully at the heroes. “You won’t win. I’ll be back, and when I do, I’ll kill everyone you love.”

Chat: yeah, I don’t think so.

He plunges his baton through her spirit, into the earth. The baton channels the evil spirit away from the earth. In the afterlife, there are 2 paths. Lila obviously has shown no repentance...her destination is obvious.

Back at the zoo, Mrs Rossi weeps for her Daughter. The heroes assure her that Lila is gone and won’t return. Alya is preparing to tell her class the news. They decided to keep this matter private. Mrs Rossi isn’t ready for this to be public.

The fake story: Lila suffered a sudden stroke.

The class wants to hold a funeral but Mrs Rossi insists on going back home immediately. She can’t stand the thought of the class mourning for that horrible ghost. They never knew her real Daughter.

Oh, and btw, Plagg finally convinced Adrien to take pictures of the book and send the information to the Guardian.

[siren-queen-imagines]

I’m Not The Only One

Went through the Wayback Machine to find old imagines I wrote when I was imaginingwwesuperstars! This is the last wrestling related imagine fic I am posting for now (see pinned post on blog). I hope you enjoy!

This was based on Sam Smith’s song and music video! Be prepared for some bad guy Finn!

Masterlist

You and me, we made a vow

For better or for worse

I can’t believe you let me down

But the proof’s in the way it hurts

You had been married to Finn Balor for the last 5 years. Finn is currently a WWE Superstar and lives on the road majority of the year. Seeing as you’re a nurse, your job requires you to stay in one place. Finn’s been kind enough to bring you on the road with him when your job would permit it. You two enjoyed those times considering you only saw each other maybe 2 or 3 days a week in person.

Just last month, you had learned that Finn had been cheating on you. You were lying in bed while he was in the shower when you heard his phone jingle, signaling a text message: I miss you, babe. Can’t wait to see you again. And sent along with the text was a picture of the woman’s breasts.

The usual questions went through your mind: how could he do this to you? WHY would he do this to you? If he wasn’t happy, why didn’t he bother to say anything? You two had a very healthy and active sex life, is that not enough for him?

You had looked back at who could’ve sent it…but it was an unknown number. You had to give it to Finn…he knew how to cover his tracks. Apparently with texts like that, he knew who it was. Who else would be sending him texts like that if it’s not you?

Finn made you believe that he wasn’t capable of doing this before he proposed to you. You went into this marriage, believing that something like this wouldn’t happen to you guys. But here you were…how could he betray your trust like this? He married you, he promised to love you and made all these vows…and he broke them along with your heart.

You never believed in a million years that your husband would hurt you the way he has…it felt like he ripped your heart out from your chest, stomped on it and threw it into a roaring fire. It fucking hurt like hell.

You remembered getting the hell out of there. You took your keys and got into the car, driving to the middle of nowhere before you broke down into tears. You didn’t want Finn to see you cry, you felt that he didn’t deserve that.

For months on end I’ve had my doubts

Denying every tear

I wish this would be over now

But I know that I still need you here

Here you are now, one month later. Still with Finn.

Previously you had your suspicions over the past few months. And just as recent as the day before you even asked Finn about it, telling him to be honest because you needed to know. You promised him that you wouldn’t get mad and that if he was cheating on you, you would be okay with a divorce because clearly he wasn’t happy in this marriage anymore…he wouldn’t cheat on you if he was happy right?

“Y/N, come on, you’re being crazy.” Finn lightly teased, kneeling in front of you as you sat in your chair. He took your hands in his and gently rubbed his thumbs over the backs of your hands as a way of comfort. “I would never cheat on you. Ever. I love you too much to even think about being with another woman.”

Liar. Fucking Liar.

“If you did, you would tell me, right?”

“Of course, love. I couldn’t hide something like that from you.”

Liar, liar, pants on fucking fire. Why does he keep lying to you…but then again, you aren’t any better because you aren’t calling him out on it.

You knew he was cheating on you…why haven’t you done anything about it? It’s been a fucking month already…what’s the hold up? You know that you should confront him. You know that you should be crying, screaming and yelling at him, demanding answers. You know that you should be in the process of dissolving your marriage.

But you aren’t…and why is that?

You love him. Despite the fact that he continues to hurt you, you still love him. A huge part of you can’t let him go.

So what have you decided to do?

Go on about your life with Finn, putting on a front that you don’t know about what he’s been doing behind your back…what he will continue to do behind your back. You don’t want him to know that you know because that could be the end of you and him…you loved him way too much for it to end now.

You know you deserve better. But you didn’t know how to let him go…you were in too deep. All you wanted was for him to be with you and only you…you knew it wasn’t too much to ask, he did agree to it after all by marrying you…but again, why did you love him so much that you had a hard time in letting him go? Why did you feel so weak to dump him?

You say I’m crazy

Cause you don’t think I know what you’ve done

But when you call me baby

I know I’m not the only one

You couldn’t help but think back on yesterday. You and Finn had such an amazing day. It was a day off and he decided to take you to Disney World. Although, there was one moment in that day he checked his phone and replied to texts with a smile on his face.

“Who is that?” You asked as you guys walked, your smile slowly faded when he took a second to reply.

“Oh it’s just work.” Finn replied before locking his phone and putting it back in his pocket.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, of course. I was just told that I’d have to leave a little early this week for a signing.”

You knew who he was really texting as you had subtly peered over towards his phone. He was texting her. You had still yet to find out who she was…but you had caught the number and managed to store it in your phone…it was easy considering that Finn was distracted by his own phone.

“Oh, okay.” You said with a nod, holding back your tears.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Finn said, stopping you and grabbing your hands. “I know things haven’t been easy since I was promoted to the main roster. But I promise you that I’ll make it up to you somehow.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and nodded, offering him a small smile.

“I love you, Y/N. Nothing will ever change that. I swear I’ll make it up to you.” Finn continued.

“Okay. I love you too.” You smiled to hide the pain you felt deep in your heart.

Finn pulled you into his arms and kissed the top of your head. He held you for a few long moments before pulling away. He gently cupped you face and wiped your tears away from your cheeks with your thumb. He leaned forward once more to kiss your forehead, offering you a comforting smile.

“How about we sit for a bit and then go on Space Mountain?” Finn suggested, his comforting smile on his face.

=================================

Your eyes closed as Finn slowly thrust into you. You felt him bury his face in your neck as his hips moved against yours, your nails gently digging into his back.

Sex had been a little different for you since you found out about Finn’s affair. There were times where it wasn’t the same to you when you made love. But when you fucked, you always felt that you had something to prove…to prove to him that you have everything he needs here at home; that he doesn’t need to go anywhere else. But you tried anyway…you tried for…honestly, you weren’t too sure why you were trying.

“Feels so good, baby.” Finn breathed into your neck as he picked up his speed.

Baby…that was another thing that was different for you. Whenever he used to call you baby, you liked it because you were the only one he would call that…but now knowing that he had someone else on the side…how many times had he called her baby? Did he ever do it when they had sex? Who were you kidding, of course he did. It was Finn…he called you that almost always and most likely her too.

=================================

Now here you are pacing back and forth in the living room, phone in your hand. You were trying to decide if you should call the number Finn was texting. You had the number ready and had your number blocked…now all you had to do was hit that green call button.

Did you even want to know who it was? Would it make anything better? Well, most likely it would make things worse….especially if you knew who it was.

Dammit, you have to know…you needed to know who your husband was currently running to.

You pressed the call button and brought the phone to your ear. You heard the other line ringing when you heard a cheerful voice.

“Finn, I told you that it was room 208.” The Irish toned voice said. You could sense a smile by her happy tone. ”Hello?” She said when you hadn’t spoken.

You immediately hung up the phone when you recognized the voice.

Becky Lynch.

A sob escaped you as you realized that your friend was the one sleeping with your husband.

You’ve been so unavailable

Now sadly I know why

Your heart is unobtainable

Even though, lord knows you kept mine

Becky cried out as Finn brought her to orgasm. She worked to catch her breath as Finn pulled out, removed his condom and finished on her stomach. Sometimes Becky found herself wishing that he would go without the protection…feel all of him without anything between them and then finish inside her…most likely the way he does with Y/N. It’s not like she isn’t on the pill or can’t go get the morning after pill to be safe. Just once, she wanted to feel like Finn loved her the way he loved Y/N.

She remembered asking once when they had started their affair if Finn uses protection when he’s with Y/N. He sort of blew off her question and at the time, she didn’t think much of it. Time went on, of course, and it had begun to bother her…why couldn’t he treat her the way he treats Y/N, especially in bed?

Finn rolled off Becky before getting up from the bed. Becky sighed and looked over to see Finn walk into the bathroom to take care of the condom. She leaned off the side of the bed and put her shirt back on before laying back down. Finn came back out and put his briefs back on before getting back into the bed. Becky watched as he got settled in before turning to face him, moving closer to him.

“Sorry Becky, but I don’t really want to cuddle.” Finn said, stopping Becky from getting any closer.

“You mean with me?” Becky replied, feeling a little irritated. “I’m good enough to fuck but not cuddle with?”

“It has nothing to do with that. I don’t cuddle with my wife, either, it’s just a thing.”

Liar…he’s a liar. She knows he cuddles with you. She remembered talking about cuddling with you once and even mentioned that she enjoyed a good cuddle after sex. You agreed, mentioning that Finn was the same way. But Becky decided to let it go.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Yeah, sure.” Finn replied, his eyes closed.

“Does Y/N make you use protection with her?”

Finn’s eyes opened and his eyebrows furrowed.

“Why?”

“Just curious. I mean, it’d be kind of messed up to sleep with me and not offer her the same courtesy to wear protection.”

Finn paused for a moment and sighed, closing his eyes once more.

“No. And it’s not messed up. I wear protection with you because I have enough respect for my wife not to get you pregnant. That’s the last thing both of us need right now, hm?”

Becky knew what this ‘relationship’ was. She knew it was just something for Finn to have while he was away from Y/N…but it had gone on longer than even Becky expected. It’s been two years now. And in that two years, Becky had fallen in love with Finn.

Becky loved Y/N, of course. Y/N had become a great friend of hers, which is why she should never know about what Becky and Finn are doing; what they have been doing. She wanted to end it a few times but she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

She loved Finn too much to let him go…the worst part, is not like she couldn’t let Finn go, it’s more or so that she wouldn’t let him go. Again, Becky loved Finn too much. She knew she shouldn’t…she knew she deserved better than what Finn and her have.

Becky hated that she had to hide what she had with Finn…she hated being a secret; she hated that she couldn’t brag about the necklace Finn gave her for her birthday not too long ago. She’s spent the last two years struggling in being the other woman and not the only woman.

In the beginning, Finn made it out that they were just friends with benefits. But as time went on he acts and sometimes even treats Becky like he loves her. Behind closed doors at least, but still treats her like Becky’s seen him with you. But it’s still not the same way she had hoped. There’s always something different in the way he treated you than he does her.

She loved him…but love shouldn’t make her feel guilty. She shouldn’t feel guilty about betraying your trust because if she was a good friend, she wouldn’t have done it to begin with.

Becky and Finn had so much history and it wasn’t surprising to her that they ended up sleeping together. She just didn’t think that it would happen while he was married to Y/N.

But she knows with Finn still married to Y/N after starting their affair two years ago that he might not ever leave her. She’ll be destined to be Finn’s dirty little secret until she’s had enough…or until he’s had enough. She’s pretty sure that he doesn’t know that he’s breaking her heart, not like she’s ever told him any of this.

Becky knows that if she tells him the truth: actually vocalizing that she loves him, she risks losing him. He’s never told her that he loved her. He may be treating her like he loves her, but he may not actually love her. Care about her, sure, but not love her.

She broke out of her thoughts and looked over to the sleeping Finn next to her. He would be leaving her to go home to Y/N tomorrow. She hated knowing that he was going back to her when she felt like he should just get it over with and stay with her.

You say I’m crazy

Cause you don’t think I know what you’ve done

But when you call me baby

I know I’m not the only one

Becky got out of the shower and brushed her wet hair. Finn was leaving today to go back to his wife. She hated every time he left. She hated it so much that she had considered more than a few times to tell Y/N about their ‘relationship’. But then she never did.

She never did because she knew that it would burn her bridge with Y/N. She wanted her to know but didn’t at the same time. Becky loved her…so much. When this started, she never expected things to get to this point…hell, she never expected to have even slept with Finn. But it just happened one night and it continued for the next couple of years.

Becky couldn’t stress enough how much she hated that she’s Finn’s secret. If she wasn’t, he wouldn’t have to leave to go back to her. She would be the one waiting on Finn when he came home; she would be the one he slept next to and held close through the night, whispering how much he loved her…she could be the one to have kids with him and grow old with.

Why couldn’t he see that? Why did he have to keep breaking her heart like this? Why couldn’t she just tell him the truth about her feelings? Why does she feel like she’s being so stupid?

Becky wiped the stray tear that fell from her eye and placed her hairbrush down. With a sigh, she plugged in the hair dryer. Before she turned it on, Finn came inside.

“Hey, I’m taking off. I’ll see you next week.” Finn said, kissing her.

Finn went to pull away but Becky pulled him back to her, deepening the kiss. Finn’s right hand rested on Becky’s waist for a moment before he pulled away from her.

“I wish you didn’t have to go.” Becky whispered sadly.

“I know, but we’ll see each other next week, baby.” Finn assured, lightly smacking Becky’s butt with a smirk.

“Bye.”

Finn had gotten to the door before replying, “Bye.”

Becky sighed to herself once more, working to keep the tears at bay. She stared at her reflection in the mirror for a moment. She hated what she’s become.

But she knows at the end of the day, she’s gonna stick this out with Finn because having him in this way was better than not having him at all.

I have loved you for many years

Maybe I am just not enough

Every time Finn left home now, you always wondered how he could do this to you…it stays on your mind the entire time, on top of what he’s doing and if he’s with Becky at the moment. And then if you think he’s with Becky, your mind is bitchy enough to think about what he’s doing to her in bed…all you see is him pleasuring a woman that isn’t you.

How…how are you not enough for him? Again, you and Finn had a very healthy and active sex life…why does he feel the need to step out on you with Becky?

Ugh, and then there’s Becky. After learning about her involvement with Finn, you know that things would never be the same…as far as you were concerned, your friendship was over. So fucking over. The same question applies to her: How could she do this to you too?

You broke down into tears once more, crumpling to your knees as you sobbed. You took another swig from the bottle of Jack you were nursing, not even reacting to the burn in your throat anymore.

Finn was everything to you…he was everything you had left. Why couldn’t you be the same thing to him? He promised to love you and never lie to you but he does it everyday. Why wouldn’t you just leave? Or at the least do something about it?

That suddenly set you off. You grabbed your bottle of Jack and stormed upstairs. Taking another swig as you got to your bedroom, you went to the closet. You stared at Finn’s clothes hanging up before setting the bottle on the floor. You ripped Finn’s clothes from the hangers and stepped out of the room to throw them to the first floor before repeating the process with the clothes in his dresser drawers.

Once you were done, you picked up your bottle and chugged the rest of it. You caught your reflection in the full length mirror and you threw your empty bottle, shattering the glass from both the mirror and the bottle.

You were like a person possessed; you swept things off the dresser and knocked it over. Doing that felt so good that when you went downstairs to deal with Finn’s clothes, that you suddenly grabbed a fireplace poker and began to break everything in the living room. Once everything that could be broken was, you pushed over shelves and even the TV.

Suddenly your eyes found Finn’s pile of clothes once more. You grabbed the pile and went outside throwing it on the lawn before grabbing more. Once you were done, you went back inside and went into the kitchen, grabbing a bottle of vodka and some matches. Heading back outside, you opened the bottle and poured its contents all over Finn’s clothes, tossing the empty bottle on the top of the pile. You then pulled out your matches and lit it, staring at the small flame for a moment. Glancing back at the pile of clothes, you dropped the match on them, setting the clothes ablaze.

You stood there and watched the fire for a moment. You couldn’t help the smile that crossed your face.

You then snapped out of your thoughts. You realized that you were still on the living room floor crying with your bottle of Jack. You looked over to the clean and neat living room before looking over to the coffee table where Finn had just finished putting together another lego pirate ship before he left.

A sigh came out of your mouth as you wiped your tears away. A jingle came from your cell phone, catching your attention. You got up from the floor and saw that you had a text from Finn.

Hey love! I made it back alright. I’m headed home. I’ll see you in a bit!

You swallowed the lump in your throat and went into the kitchen. You closed your half empty bottle of Jack Daniels and put it back in the cabinet. You sighed once more, heading upstairs to clean up any traces of your day so far.

You made me realize my deepest fears

By lying and tearing us up

Becky sat on her couch, wiping the tears away from her eyes. She had just gotten off the phone with Finn and she had decided that maybe it was time to tell Y/N about their affair. The fact that she hurt every time she thought of herself as Finn’s secret trumped over her feelings about her and Y/N’s friendship ending…yes, that’s still gonna hurt her…but a part of her needed Finn in her life.

But then Finn came up with an excuse as to why he couldn’t tell her. In that moment that’s when she realized that all she would be to him is some action on the side…nothing more.

“Look, it’s not a good time, alright? I’m literally just about to walk through the door.” Finn told her.

“Finn, if you don’t tell her now, then there will never be a good time.”

“Then I won’t tell her! Stop pressuring me, Becky. I’ll tell her when I tell her.”

“So never then.”

“God dammit, Becky. We’ll talk about this later.”

Becky lightly scoffed when Finn hung up on her. Angrily, she threw her phone as she worked to keep her tears at bay.

Finn was never gonna tell Y/N…she could tell with how fast he got irritated when she asked. Why doesn’t he see what’s right in front of him? How could he not notice by now how much she loves him? Does he choose not to see it or what?

=================================

Once again, Becky found herself laying next to Finn after a round of lovemaking. He came over and apologized for their argument last week, bringing her some jewelry. Finn kissed Becky before he got up and got into the shower. He couldn’t stay long, as Y/N was waiting for him to come home.

Becky heard a jingle from Finn’s phone, which was in the pocket of his jeans on the floor. Curiously, she got up. She knew it must’ve been Y/N asking when he would be home. But she unlocked his phone (she was still wondering why he didn’t have a passcode on it) and saw a text from someone…and it wasn’t Y/N.

Hey babe. Can’t wait to see you tomorrow. I’ll show you exactly how much I missed you.

Then to end it, there was a winking emoji and a kiss emoji. Becky looked up towards her bedroom door, her heart breaking. Then another jingle sounded, causing Becky to look down at the screen. A picture was sent…it was a nude photo of…Charlotte?

What the hell was happening?

The photo didn’t show her face, but Becky knew those tattoos anywhere. How could he? He decided that it was a good idea to sleep with her fucking best friend? Becky locked Finn’s phone and put it back the way she found it.

You say I’m crazy

Cause you don’t think I know what you’ve done

But when you call me baby

I know I’m not the only one

Becky stood up straight and began to get dressed. She quickly wiped the tears in her eyes as she put on a t-shirt. God, all it seemed like she was doing lately, when it came to Finn, was crying.

Why did it feel like her heart was being ripped out, stomped on and thrown into a fire? Was this how Y/N would feel if she were to find out about her and Finn? Because if she could ever feel like this then maybe she doesn’t have to know about them. She doesn’t want Y/N to go through what she’s going through in this very moment. As much as she hated being a secret, she didn’t think it was worth putting someone else through the same thing she’s feeling…especially considering that they’re supposed to be friends.

Becky looked over towards the doorframe when she heard Finn coming out of the bathroom. She didn’t say a word as he began to get dressed. Once he was fully clothed, he checked his phone. Becky watched, her heart dropping when he smiled at the screen and began to reply.

“Is it Y/N?” Becky asked, pretending as she didn’t notice.

“Yeah. She wants me to get home. She made my favorite for dinner.” Finn replied, looking up at Becky.

Liar. Fucking liar.

Becky nodded as Finn gave her a kiss on the cheek, getting ready to leave. Becky pulled Finn back to her and kissed him deeply.

“Finn?” Becky whispered as the separated.

“Yeah?”

“This is probably a stupid thing to ask, but, you aren’t seeing anyone else, are you?”

Finn backed up to look Becky directly in the eyes.

“What?”

“I mean, you seem distracted today and I don’t know…like I said, I know it’s stupid.”

“You’re being crazy, Beck.” Finn assured with a smile. “I wouldn’t do that to you. It’s bad enough I’m doing it to Y/N, but I would never do that to you, baby. I love you.”

Becky’s heart shattered into millions of little pieces. Not only did he just lie to her, he finally told her that he loved her.

“Okay?” Finn continued, cupping her face and comfortingly brushing her cheeks with his thumbs.

“Okay.” Becky answered, lightly nodding.

“I’ll see you in a couple days.”

Finn leaned in to kiss her once more before leaving.

I know I’m not the only one

I know I’m not the only one

You stared out the window of the living room. You had been there ever since you left your doctor’s appointment a couple of hours ago.

You were pregnant.

And that meant that even if you found it in you to leave Finn, you definitely wouldn’t now. Now not only did you have to put on a brave face for yourself, you had to do it for your child. Finn still didn’t know that you knew about Becky and it was a for sure thing that it was gonna stay that way.

In a way, maybe this is what you deserved for not speaking up sooner. Don’t get it wrong, you knew you were gonna love this baby regardless of the piece of shit his or her father was…but again, his or her father was a piece of shit. He didn’t deserve the joy that this baby was going to bring to their lives because he can’t even enjoy the one he has with you.

He wanted more when it came to his sex/relationship life…what if he wanted more when it came to your future child? What if he wanted more kids and had some with Becky? Or even worse, what if he decided to pursue other women than Becky and have babies with them?

You shuddered to think that Finn would pursue other women outside of Becky. You were having a hard time enough as it is, the last thing you wanted was another one.

You paced back and forth, waiting for Finn to come home. Regardless of how you felt about things, you were having a baby and you were gonna have to suck it up. You needed him because not only did your future child deserve to have a father in its life, but because you weren’t sure you could raise a child by yourself.

You stopped when you heard Finn walk through the door. You immediately made the decision that your act of feigning ignorance towards Finn’s infidelity would have to become a permanent state of being if you wanted this to work for you and the baby. Despite how you feel about Finn’s actions, yes, you still loved him…this ignorant state of being would also make you and Finn work. Maybe one day he will realize what he has with you and he’ll stop.

He had to, right? Plus, you knew you couldn’t keep living your life the way you have been since you found out. It’s been killing you because you haven’t been sleeping too well, you having been eating much and you’ve been drinking more than usual. This is where you are now…and this is where you decided that this is the life you have to live with for now.

“Hey, love.” Finn greeted, smiling as he walked over to you.

“Hey.” You replied, your smile quite not reaching your eyes.

“Is everything okay?” His eyebrows furrowed curiously, clearly concerned.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just, I went to the doctor today cause I’ve still be super nauseous.”

“That’s right…” Finn drifted from you for a moment, clearly lost in his thoughts. “What’d they say?”

You paused for a moment…could you do this? Like really, because this constant second guessing yourself…you knew that you should follow your instincts and confront him about his cheating and dump his ass. But you also have a life of a child in your hands now. Could you live with yourself by letting him or her possibly growing up without a father? Could you financially handle that without Finn’s help?

No.

No, you couldn’t let your baby live without a father or financially support a child without Finn’s help.

No, you couldn’t do this.

But you knew you had to. You felt now that there was no choice…you were gonna swallow your pride and do all of this for your baby. This child had done nothing wrong to deserve a possibly crappy life because its mom couldn’t suck it up and let it go.

“I’m pregnant.” You told Finn, offering him a sheepish shrug and a small smile.

Finn froze for a moment as he stood there. He took a moment to register what exactly you told him before his eyes shone with unshed tears and a giant smile made its way to his face.

“You—we’re having a baby?” Finn asked, his smile never leaving his face.

“Yeah. In 6 months.”

Finn grabbed your hands and pulled you into his arms. He couldn’t help his laughter as he kissed your cheek, your nose, your lips and your forehead constantly. You had already wrapped your arms around him, but you tightened your hold on him. You looked up at him and shared a smile before you gently kissed him.

You want so badly to believe that he’ll stop seeing Becky and you’ll be the only woman in his life again, especially after this reaction to the baby. They say ignorance is bliss…and you hoped for that to be true.

For the baby and for you.

You hope that pretending to think that you’re the only woman in his life will make you happy again…even though in the back of your mind, you will always know the truth.

And I know, and I know

And I know, and I know

And I know

And I know, no

I know I’m not the only one

[jeremys-blogs]

Belos: What Does He Want?

Disney has a long history of great and memorable baddies, and with the Owl House they've given us one more to add to that list in the form of Emperor Belos, the mysterious despot of the Boiling Isles. The supreme figure of the witches who rules over them and their society with an iron fist. Throughout the first season we're told of him and his "big plans", but it wasn't until the emotionally devastating Agony of a Witch, near the season's end, where we finally saw him. And that, coupled with the actual season finale, definitely set him up as a force to be reckoned with. This is no joke villain like Yzma or Captain Hook, this is a guy that it would be most unwise to take lightly, and since our heroes have already gotten on his bad side it's likely we'll be seeing a lot of him when Owl House returns to us. But I'm not here to discuss the character, but rather his so-called big plans. Because thus far we have no concrete answers as to what Belos' endgame is or what he's trying to achieve. So today, I'm going to try and piece together what we know about his schemes and try to guess what it could be leading to.

To start off, let's just lay out what we know about Belos so far. He's been ruling the Boiling Isles for a long time (about fifty years) and established the coven system to prevent witches from mixing different types of magic. Additionally, he believes only he and those directly working for him have the right to use more than one school of magic, and that anyone who breaks away from this control he has is to be deemed an enemy of the state. He is a revered, if secretive figure in witch society with many speaking of him in a way that suggests less a leader and more a deity-like being. According to him, he is able to communicate with the Titan, the ancient corpse that makes up the Isles themselves, and that everything he has ever done has been by that creature's wishes, adding more than a touch of zealotry to his personality. And on top of everything else, we know that his plans involve getting hold of Eda's portal to the human realm, which he is at least partly successful at by the time the first season is over. Aside from that, and his clear mastery over magic, we know very little about him, though this is likely to change once the second season comes along.

Admittedly, this quick rundown of him tells us very little other than the fact that he's an incredibly powerful control freak. And as such trying to figure out his plan is going to be difficult. The one concrete thing we've been able to find out so far is that he needs the portal to the human world for some reason. And this opens up a rather interesting thing to consider. You see, at the start of the series it was established that every bizarre thing humans have in their culture is a result of something from the Boiling Isles crossing over into their world, such as griffons. And even entire species, like giraffes, can be banished there wholesale. This tells us that, at least at one point, travelling to the human world was something that used to happen a lot more frequently for the denizens of the Isles. But this has clearly changed, and it seems that Eda's portal may be the only door to Earth that's left to the witches. Because it's not unreasonable to assume that, if there were other portals out there, Belos would simply try to find them instead, rather than going for the one owned by someone famous for escaping his clutches for who knows how many years.

When I first heard that Belos was after the portal, my first suspicion, as well as the first suspicion of many in the audience I'm sure, was that his plans involved invading or conquering Earth. After all, this is a tyrant who wants to get to another world. Nine times out of ten that scenario always involved wanting to take over said world. Yet Belos outright stated in the finale that ruling Earth is "not part of the Titan's plans", indicating that he doesn't want ownership of the human realm. Now, this seemed to undermine my initial prediction of his goals, until I remembered that Belos has already shown himself to be a massive liar to others. Remember, he deceived Lilith and got her to capture Eda so he could get that portal, going back on his promise to heal her curse. So it's established rights away that he'll say anything to get what he wants. Because of this, I maintain that he pulled a similar move with Luz. Telling her he's not going to conquer Earth as simply some means of convincing her to part with the portal, only to then go back on that assurance once he actually got it. So as of this posting, I'm harbouring the belief that conquest is still on the table for him, even if he hasn't admitted to it.

However, for the sake of argument, let's just assume that what Belos said to Luz was true. Yes, I know that ascribing honesty to a dark overlord in a fantasy story is a tall order, but let's attempt it all the same. So, if we take his assurance that he's not planning to invade Earth at face value, we have to ask what other interest that world would have for him. And there was one moment in the season finale that gave me an idea of what might be happening. In Luz's brief fight with Lilith, the two stumbled back through the portal and onto Earth, and Luz attempted to use her glyphs against Lilith, only to find that they don't work. But Lilith's magic, by contrast, was successful. So we learn that Luz's brand of magic doesn't work in her own world, and only works in the Boiling Isles. This is the first time this information comes to us, and I can't believe that it's coincidence that we learn this at the same time we learn about Belos' desire for the portal. There is a chance, however small, that his plan to get to Earth is somehow connected to the fact that witch magic is the only kind of magic that works there.

I think it's also important to consider that this is a modern Disney cartoon that we're talking about, and as such it's entirely possible that we're going to get one of their more recent staples, that being the surprise reveal that causes us to question what we thought we knew about a character. And Owl House has already done this a couple of times, with characters like Amity and Lilith. Behaviour and actions that were shown as negative being revealed to have some other motive behind them that, once shown to the audience, caused those actions to be seen in a new light. Amity cut off her friendship to Willow, but it was shown that she did so in order to ensure the girl had a chance of getting into school. Lilith served the Emperor and hunted Eda down, but it was then shown that this was all in order to fix her greatest mistake and heal her sister. As criticized and maligned as the "twist reveal" has been in recent stories, Disney has already primed us for seeing Owl House as a show that gives us more to its antagonists than meets the eye, and there is no doubt in my mind that they might try to pull the same trick with Belos.

As for what that reveal might be, I have my suspicions, mostly from the fact that everything we've seen of Belos thus far has been, for lack of a better word, off. He's unlike any other witch we've seen in the show, both in his mannerism and, more importantly, in how his magic works. Owl House has been very good in establishing very strict rules for how magic goes in this world, and the one consistent rule is that, aside from Luz, witches need circles to perform it. Belos, by contrast, uses no circles, and seems to have a brand of magic all his own. And the way it seems to work just comes off as disturbing and unnatural, even when compared to some of the more unnerving imagery we've seen in the show. Additionally, his staff is unlike any other witches artefact seen so far, having more of a technological bent, rather than the wood and palismans we see in the likes of Eda or Lilith. Belos is someone out-of-step with every other witch of the Isles, and that's interesting because there's one other person in the show for whom the established rules of the Isles don't seem to apply, and that person is none other than central character Luz herself, whose differences in magic have all stemmed from her being a human, rather than a native witch.

Now, I'm sure a lot of you can already see where I'm going with this, and yes, my prediction here is that Belos will eventually be revealed to be a human who, like Luz, came over from Earth. Remember, travel between the two worlds is apparently old enough for numerous myths about creatures of the Isles to take root in the human world, and given how old those myths are, it seems unlikely that no human besides Luz has ever made the jump to the Isles before now. Also, consider that when we're given the true history of the Isles, as told by King at the start of the season finale, it makes no mention of Belos prior to his establishing of the covens and his ascension to Emperor status. As far as the Isles are concerned, the guy just came out of nowhere one day and immediately started having an influence on the place, which sounds an awful lot like Luz's own arrival. What I'm guessing here is that Belos is someone who started out much like Luz, and who went on something of a similar journey, learning about the Isles and its magic, but unlike her went in a wholly different direction, winding up as some sort of dark reflection of her and as a form of cautionary tale of what she herself might be if she stays there too long.

Imagine, for a moment, a young kid, over fifty years ago, perhaps no older than Luz. A boy who obsesses over fantasy and adventure stories, and whose interests have isolated him and made him something of an outcast among his friends and family. Then, one day, he happens upon one of the entrances to the Boiling Isles, and with his over-eager thirst for discovery, goes through. Here, finally, he has his escapism, a whole new world to explore and a fantasy epic he always dreamed of, but a dangerous and often horrific place where magic is unlike anything he'd ever expected. Though bewildered and taken in by such strange new sights, he eventually comes to a conclusion. This place is all wrong, and so is the magic. This isn't what he dreamed of when he imagined other worlds in his childhood. No, this world needs to change, and he, as the "heroic youth" from the ordinary world, is clearly destined to be the one to change it. So, he sets to it, learning all he can about this world and, more importantly, its magic. The work is long and difficult, but in the end his efforts bear fruit, and he emerges onto the scene as a powerful magic-wielder. He finally makes his presence known and, eschewing the identity of his original world, takes on a new name for himself; Belos.

Thus, Belos begins his efforts to reshape the Isles into his perfect vision, his perfect fantasy. It takes years, but finally, he manages it, becoming the undisputed ruler of all witches. Then, both to ensure that he is the only one of Earth to come here, and to ensure he can never go back to his ordinary life, he seeks out and destroys every portal to the human realm, succeeding at eliminating all but one, which will one day wind up in Eda's possession. Content that he has fulfilled his self-appointed destiny, he enjoys his position of lording over everyone else, even going so far as to use his unique human-based magic to prolong his life to experience this reality forever, making him less and less human as a result. But as the months lead into years, and the years lead into decades, his love of this new life begins to fade. And eventually, he realizes that he's made a terrible mistake. He sees the Isles not as an escape, but a prison he's made for himself. And so he devotes himself to a new cause, finding a way home. And this new plot eventually leads him to discover the final portal, Eda's portal, which he pursues relentlessly, until he finally gets his hands on it with his battle with Luz. But once again, he's denied his way out, with the portal engulfed in Luz's flames, causing him to have to try some other means of using it.

So, there's the theory. Belos is a human who travelled to the Boiling Isles and wanted the exact same things Luz did. Adventure, wanting to feel special, all of those things. But while Luz has managed to grow out of that, Belos didn't, and as a result he was twisted into a selfish tyrant who now wants to go to Earth for the exact reason he left it in the first place. Escapism, plain and simple. And he knows that human magic, his magic, won't work back on Earth, so his hope is that, once there, he can undo whatever he did to himself to make him the way that he is. His feeding on palismans? A way not to extend his life, but to alleviate the pain he feels from having already extended it himself. His day of unity? Not an attempt to unify witches, but to unite himself with his old life, and maybe whatever family he left behind. After all, it wouldn't be the first time Disney would have revealed the construction of a mysterious portal to really be an effort to reunite with lost loved ones. Taking the portal instead of asking for it to get home? Merely a result of spending decades of getting what he wants by force. Belos will, I think, be revealed to Luz as someone she herself might become, or could have become, had she not gone down the more selfless path she had walked by the time the first season was over. That's my speculation, but hey, I could just be totally wrong about it all. That'd be fine too 😅

[thenightling]

My scatter-brained review of Wonder Woman 1984 (written partly while watching and then revised afterward)

I finally got curious enough to watch Wonder Woman 1984.  

Warning: There ARE spoilers here! 

I was reluctant to watch it because I knew the plot would deal with wishes coming true “But at a price” and Wonder Woman’s love coming back as a result of this plot Magoffin. This is something I have seen many times before.   And frankly I was bored with it years ago. 

 The predictable plot beats being a “Be careful what you wish for” theme.  The Monkey’s Paw (and all adaptations of the story) and variations like The Twisted Claw in “Are you Afraid of the Dark?” It was obvious to me that such a wish would bring Steve back and he would eventually “have to “ return to being dead. Frankly, I’m tired of that.  I think a great twist would be if the person didn’t have to return to being dead for once.  I’ve seen this plot done too often in comics, TV, and film.

Now for the good.  I LOVE the early 80s aesthetic.  I even got a bit of Legend of Billie Jean vibes.  It’s very accurate to the look and feel of a 1980s film.  It felt authentic, not just “Hey, remember this!”    

Nineteen minutes in and I saw the ham-handed tell-tale signs that Diana would have to learn to love again, to trust and open her heart, and to invite others in again.  And to heal she would have to “learn to let go” of Steve.  But as I said, I’m tired of these grief messages. Especially now, especially in 2020.  I want a new twist . I want the lost loved one to come back, I want the happily ever after with the formerly dead loved one.  I’m tired of this trope.

They even out-right compare it to “The Monkey’s Paw” story in the film.  Acknowledging that something is a cliché doesn’t make it any less of a cliché. You’re just trying to lampshade it by pointing it out in story and it just didn’t really work for me.

The “Dreamstone” in this does not look like Morpheus’ ruby amulet but instead it resembles the “ruby” (this one is a citrine) from Justice League Dark (the animated movie).  And no, the God mentioned is NOT Morpheus.  The God in question is a “trickster and a liar.”  Gee, I wonder who that could be?   I suspect the “true name” wasn’t given because they were afraid of confusion with Marvel’s depiction of the same character.  A lot of people don’t realize Loki is in the public domain.  Even Joanne Harris (author of Gospel of Loki) thinks her book can’t be adapted into film because Marvel / Disney owns Loki but that’s not true.  The character is as public as Snow White or Robin Hood.  Anyone can use him. 

There’s some subtle hints of Diana’s bisexuality.   I’m glad for this, I still come across fans who refuse to accept she’s bi and insist word of author (Gail Simone) don’t count because she didn’t “create” Wonder Woman.  The same people should REALLY look up the behind the scenes life of the man who did.  Anyway, I almost thought Diana lean in and kiss Barbara after the rescue in the park but she didn’t.

Maxwell Lord offers Diana a nineteen inch TV.  Note to kids: that is NOT big even by 80s standards.  We did have large screen TVs back then. My grandfather had a very big one back in the 80s.

I also really like the soundtrack.   

When the camera spun around Diana and Steve’s reunion it made me dizzy.   I don’t like that effect.   It’s so common with romantic scenes but I found it dizzying.  Flashbacks of the film Legend of Hercules from 2014... 

The dreamstone in this appears to have been made of sand all along so maybe it is one of Dream of The Endless’ dreamstones after all.  But that’s the only hint to even suggest this.

When Steve shows up, it’s like the writers forgot modern history.  He shouldn’t be THAT impressed with an escalator or a a subway.  Subways were already in existence when he died! The New York City subway, for example, opened in 1904.  And he knows what trash cans are!  I know that was meant to be funny but that’s stupid.  He’s from the early twentieth century, not five-hundred-years-ago.

How did Maxwell Lord know Steve Trevor was inhabiting someone else’s body but didn’t know for certain Barbara had made a wish?  Does he just know everything the stone touched or does he sense the desires of others?  How did he know to suggest “Don’t you want to be a real boy?” with Steve?

Steve’s fate was painfully predictable, so much so that I felt nothing when she had to let him go.   See, these “realistic” / “have to stay” dead plots they’re shoe-horning into comic stories are now done so often that they are trite.  You know what’s coming.  You know what they want you to feel and you (or I, at least) went numb instead.  I think I would have felt more if she somehow got to keep him . But the fact that he wasn’t even in his own body was the first clue that my prediction was right.

Finally, I actually really like how they resolved the Maxwell Lord (Trump-esque) plot and his character arc.   It was very late in the story that they decided to show a sympathetic side to him, and flashbacks of his upbringing and I feel it should have been done earlier in the film but it still worked.  I like that love for his son is what saved everyone.  I am a sucker for a redemption story.  

  I like the themes of love and hope even though I still resent the predictability of what happened with Steve Trevor and the hamhanded “She needed to learn to move on” part.

The Steve plot was the weakest part of the story, in my opinion.   But as far as superhero movies go this was decent . It wasn’t boring and the morals weren’t too preachy.  Sure, it had some corny and predicable moments (Not just with Steve Trevor) but in general it was enjoyable to watch.   

I don’t think it was as good as the first Wonder Woman movie but I do like it more than most of the Marvel sequels so that says something.   I’d like it a lot more if the Steve Trevor plot wasn’t even in there or had a new and interesting twist rather than the “You have to learn to let me go.”  As I said, I’m tired of death.  I’m tired of grief plots.  And I’m tired of how predictable this new obsession with perma-deaths in comic book-inspired stories has become.  

I’d say the film is a seventy nine out of a hundred for me, maybe three and a half out of five stars.  Not the best superhero film and definitely not as good as the first Wonder Woman movie but still better than many other superhero movie sequels.   

Also a certain outfit was added to the movie shamelessly to sell a new action figure.  Even kids know the trick.  A superhero movie gets a sequel, that means the hero has to get some new costume, or their look has to change in some way, just to sell a new action figure distinctly from this movie and not the first.  Marvel did this all the time. Loki went through three distinct outfits for three films.  

I loved Lynda Carter’s cameo in the end credits bonus scene for her.  That was the perfect role to her and very respectful to her legacy as having been the 1970s Wonder Woman.   That was one of the nicest and most respectful “original actor” cameos I had ever seen. 

Something else, I kind of wish the films would reveal the Greek Gods aren’t dead.  It really bugs me that they have implied since the first Wonder Woman movie that all the Greek Gods are dead / gone.   Then why do things imbued with their power still work?   I wish Hollywood would be more respectful to the old lore and polytheistic beliefs that many people (such as Neo pagans) still have.

Anyway, good.  Not great.   But still god and better than a lot of other superhero sequels and still better than more than half of DC’s other films of the last ten years.    

[uniarycode]

Takari Week, Day 1 - Confession

Takeru has spent weeks trying to confess to Hikari but somehow he can never actually get it out.  Hikari has a different interpretation on how they’ve been spending their time.  Done as part of @takariweek 2020

Today was the day.  Today everything would change for better or for worse.  Today marked the first sentence of a new chapter of his life.  Today was the day he was going to confess to Hikari.

Unlike all those other sentences he had to re-write.

This was not the first day this month Takeru had planned to confess.  However, he was a romantic at heart, and no matter how much resolve he had beforehand somehow the moment never felt right.  He would always be able to tell their grandkids about how they met, but he wanted to be proud or the story of how he first asked her out.  And none of the opportunities so far fit his taste.

It was either that or he was afraid.  

Even if his confession was successful, it would still mean a fundamental change would occur in his and Hikari’s relationship.  And Takeru had a mixed relationship with change. Change meant the loss of his father and brother.  Change meant the introduction of a strange world filled with monsters.  Even the first time Patamon had changed into a new form had led to one of the most traumatic events in his life.

But change also led him to meet Patamon in the first place, something he wouldn’t trade for all the riches in the world.  Change meant moving to the same school as Hikari, and meeting Miyako, Iori, Daisuke and Ken.  Change meant that one day society might accept Digimon as a whole.

And whether he liked it or not, change was coming.

It was still surreal to him; his brother and Taichi had always seemed so close.  They had never been part of the same cliques, and they spent almost as much time fighting as hanging out.  But their friendship always eclipsed everything else, social standings, heated disputes, none of it mattered; they were best friends, through and through.

Then college happened. Now the legendary duo’s primary means of communication was via their siblings.  Hikari would learn some new fact of her brother’s life, tell Takeru during the course of casual conversation, and Takeru would update his brother of the going-ons later that week.

It wasn’t just them.  Even Mimi, who had an incessant talent for attaching herself onto someone and refusing to let them go, seemed much further from the rest of the chosen then she’d even been while she lived in America.

Takeru knew their bond was strong, that what the eight of them had done could not be forgotten or replaced.  But even if distance could not destroy the bridge holding them together, it could certainly increase the hassle of travelling back and forth.

The last thing Takeru wanted was for that distance to appear between himself and Hikari.  This was their final year in highschool, if he didn’t at least try now he might not ever get the opportunity again.  He needed to try, despite the inherent risks.

Besides, Hikari had rejected Daisuke dozens of times, and they were still friends, right?

Gathering his courage, Takeru had asked Hikari if they could have a day to themselves, ‘just the two of them’.  He’d suggested Wednesday, when neither club duties nor pressing assignments devoured too significant portions of their time.

Ever the romantic, he had it all planned out: First, karaoke.  A good, private way to judge the mood, and get Hikari to let her hair down.  Next, they had tickets to a movie, the new Disney flick that Hikari had been dying to see but never gotten around to (and without someone pressing, likely would not until it became available on dvd.) Finally, a romantic stroll on the boardwalk at sunset.

The boardwalk overlooking the bay.

The bay where they fought Ordienmon.

The bay where they’d been forced to kill one of their friends.

It was only after beginning his long-rehearsed spiel that Takeru had this epiphany, and, fearful that his date may have been quicker on the uptake than himself, he scrambled for a plan B.  

Salvation came in the form of a nearby cat café, he knew as soon as he suggested it that Hikari would lose herself in the felines, paying more attention to the four-legged critters than she did to him, but it was worth it to avert potential catastrophe.

Fate still deigned to mock him however, from the instant he sat down a maine-coon attached to him, refusing to move from his side, or to let the memories of past failures escape.

All cats attached to Hikari, she merely shared them with the other customers as she saw fit.  There was no doubt she enjoyed herself, but the moment had been well and truly ruined.

Takeru had managed to obtain an opportunity of redemption. ‘Same time next week’ had been the agreement, and he had near instantly resumed planning.  Whatever he came up this time had to top what he’d just done, or else he might have to explain away his mistake.

But even the most perfect plan does not survive contact with the enemy, and the enemy presented itself as an ill-timed phone call from his father.   One of his coworker’s households had apparently been graced by the appearance of a small white blob with a voracious appetite, and Hiroaki was wondering if his son could stop by after school and help calm the panicking mother, perhaps also giving tips for digital care.

Hikari would not allow him to say no, and insisted on tagging along.  But the TV station itself held a lot of painful memories for the girl, every year she returned with an offering of flowers and incense for Wizardmon’s grave.

It was far from a total waste since an idol Hikari had been following was also present.  Somehow the idol had overheard their arrival, and considered themselves interested in the pro-digimon cause.  In fact, the idol had been downright helpful, asking questions of him and Hikari that the coworker was likely to embarrassed or too naïve to think of.  Hiroaki ended up taking them all out for dinner, and they chatted for hours, finally assuaging the fear of a parent whose daughter now had a dog-head as a life partner.  

By that point, he had to take Hikari home, with no real opportunity to confess, even if Wizardmon wasn’t on her mind.

The third attempt was a no go from the beginning, Hikari had been sent into a rare, foul state.  All she wanted to do was eat ice-cream and rant, so they went to a dairy-bar overlooking the beach.

He’d let her vent when she wanted to vent, and when she was done he did what he did best: deflecting the conversation to some odd antics of Daisuke or his brother, anything to get her happy and cheerful again. Even after her mood had recovered, steering the conversation towards a confession felt like he might be taking advantage of her, or putting her on the spot somehow.

Cheering her up was reward enough, even as he paid for the forty-flavor super-jumbo, bottomless Sunday that they’d managed to make a liar out of.

(He’d eaten perhaps an eighth of it, there was no doubt in his mind that Hikari could have eaten the whole thing; but she at least wanted the plausible deniability to claim that he’d consumed half the calories.)

The fourth attempt was similarly doomed, he’d been too sick for school that day, and while Hikari had dropped by, he was too delirious to form a real confession, or for her to take any confession seriously.

The feel of her hand stroking his hear as she tended to him had been so heavenly though.  He couldn’t regret the experience.

By this point Takeru was convinced their Wednesday gatherings were cursed.  There was little reason Hikari would even see them as special.  And while he always enjoyed spending time with her, especially just the two of them, he was worried that regularity may dampen the splendor he’d initially been going for.

This week he requested to move their weekly hang out session to Saturday.  It would allow more time for them to be out at night, and thus more time for him to enact his perfect confession.  Hikari’s father was away on business, and her mother had already agreed to be rather lax on her daughter’s curfew.

His mother had not, but she would not punish him if he told her he was out on his first date, nor would she punish him after getting rejected, yet another reason he needed to actually spit it out today.

And it seemed all the stars were aligning, on top of her father being out of town: a photography exhibition at a local gallery was going for half price, and her favorite indie group were headlining a public concert at the beach until sundown.  Finally, there was a forecast for a clear, bright moon, and a local botanical garden was advertising a moonlit stroll through their flowers.

Hikari had agreed on one condition: they could wade through the shallows, but not do any real swimming at the beach.  It had seemed odd to Takeru at first, but the beach had been more about the free concert than seeing her in her swimsuit.

***

When Takeru arrived at the Yagami apartment he was stunned by the vision of beauty that graced him.  Hikari was wearing a strapless dress, black with accents of pink and white, that he’d never seen her in before.   Based on how high her head was coming up his body, she had to be wearing quite daring heels as well.

And her makeup had been done with so much precision and effort he had to wonder if perhaps Mimi had come back to town to help her.

“T-Takeru?” she asked, and he realized he must have been staring.

“I’m sorry, have you seen Hikari?  Brown hair, about yea tall,” he held his hand about three feet off the floor, “may have a family of ducklings following her around.”

“That was one time.” She scolded.

Takeru stood on his tip toes and moved one hand to sit above his eyes, like a visor.  “Hikari? Is that you?  Are you trapped behind this radiant goddess in front of me?”

A tell-tale pink infiltrated her cheeks as she turned around.  “It’s too much isn’t it?  I could still maybe change and-”

His hand shot out and grabbed her arm before she could escape. “You look perfect.” He said sincerely, pulling her in for a hug. “Besides, people at the exhibit will be expecting beauty and art.  They just may not be expecting the source.”

“You’re just saying that.” She deflected.

He wasn’t.

Takeru was not the same connoisseur of photography Hikari was.  When push comes to shove, he wasn’t sure anyone was the same connoisseur of photography Hikari was.  That said, he enjoyed exhibits well enough.  He liked to look at the pictures, and soak them in.  Try and memorize every detail to regurgitate later.  

Or occasionally, he would find a particular picture, and write a story in his head.  How had they gotten here, to this moment, what did picture mean to the squirrel which was the focus?  What was he doing immediately before?  How did this moment change his life?

Such joys eluded him today, instead his focus was solely on the brunette accompanying him.  The pictures only mattered in how they changed the expression on her face as she examined them.  

After exiting the gallery, there was still about an hour before the band started playing at the beach, they stopped for a bite to eat, and Takeru did his best to fake his way though her questions on the exhibition.

What was his favorite photo?  He named one on the left wall of the one she stared at for ten minutes, that had framed her head the whole time.  Why?  He made up some impromptu story he’d concocted about the scenery involved.  It won him a laugh from her as he turned the questions around.

When they got to the beach, Hikari replaced her heels with flat sandals she kept in her purse.  Takeru noted that he at least recognized the heels this time, unlike her dress, but he’d still never seen her wear them before.

Despite her insistence they not swim, (something Takeru now realized had to do with the amount of time she’d spent on her makeup,) hikari had instantly dragged him towards the water, to wade in the shallows.  They didn’t go much more than ankle deep, anymore and they risked getting hikari’s dress and his shorts wet, but it had been romantic nonetheless.

When the main act began to play, they collected their shoes and moved towards the stage, communications dampening as the speakers drowned out all sounds but the band on stage.

Takeru didn’t need words, the sight of Hikari, framed by the sunset, losing herself in the moment was more than enough for him.

It was twilight when the band’s ‘second encore’ had concluded and the crowd began to peter out.   There was a small ice-cream sack on the beach, and Hikari rarely turned down an opportunity for more of the frozen delight.

They talked about the concert, the waves on the beach, of everything and nothing all at once, until the residual light from the sun faded and the moon came in full force.  In the city like this, there was always a glow of artificial light, but it did not diminish Tsukuyomi’s splendor.

Meandering towards the botanical gardens, continuing their chatter about daily life.  Just outside Hikari stopped him, finding a bench to switch back from flats to heels, insisting it was more ‘proper’.  Takeru didn’t let her get away unscathed, suggesting that if she wanted to feel taller, stilts would be more appropriate.  She responded by playfully warning him that he may ‘wake up one day, two feet shorter’.

Neither comment had nearly as much effect as when the woman at the counter remarked on ‘What a beautiful date this would make’ and how she ‘wished her boyfriend had been so romantic at that age.’

Hikari’s face could be mistaken for a tomato, and Takeru adopted an uncharacteristic stutter as he paid their admission and ushered Hikari outside.

The woman’s words had a chilling effect, the natural conversation had all but dried up, replaced with subtle pleasantries and tepid remarks about the moonlit flowers.  Before long Hikari had her camera out, taking pictures of the various plant life, abandoning most conversation all together.

Was this it, had such a small, well-meaning action already cursed him?  Everything was going so well.  Was he a modern Sysphus?  Doomed to forever push himself up the hill of a relationship with Hikari only to fall down at the pinnacle and start all over?

“Takeru?” Hikari asked, snapping him out of his monologue, “Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Takeru replied “Just thinking.”

She grabbed his arm, pulling him towards a nearby bench. “Come on, let’s take a break, these shoes are killing me.”

“The price of fashion.” Takeru said sagely.

After they reached the bench, and Hikari had relieved herself of her footwear, they paused, focusing on some hydrangeas flow in the wind, accented by moon light.  A weight appeared on Takeru’s shoulder, where Hikari began to rest her head.

“Right now.” She said “This moment just feels so…perfect.”

Takeru took a deep breath.  He had the most wonderful girl on his arm, after spending nearly eight hours with her. “Yeah, perfect.”

A perfect moment.

It was unlikely a better opportunity would present itself.

“Hikari.” He said suddenly, just as she chimed in with his name. “Sorry,” they said in unison.

Her head pulled off his arm, quite disappointingly in his opinion, as she turned to face him.

“Ladies first.” Takeru said “I insist.”  She gave him a soft look, knowing that he wouldn’t let her win this one.

 “Okay.” She started “This last month, has just been so wonderful, so amazing.  I know I’m not the most experienced with this, and I know we haven’t really put a name on it, but it’s still been like something out of a novel.  I guess I should expect that from you.”

She had begun to look down, rummaging through her purse, as takeru tried to sort out exactly what she was talking about.  Had it already been a month since they started these ‘friend-dates?’

Hikari continued obliviously, “It’s not much, especially since you seem to do all the planning, but I thought you’d like it.” She pulled out a tightly-wrapped box. “Happy  one-month anniversary.”

Ani-what?

Dates rolled back in his head as he began to piece things together; the dress, the makeup, the heels, those were all for him?  Had she always been considering these less friend-dates and more dates-dates?

And he, in a move of pure coincidence, had moved this week’s date to Saturday, one month to the day of that first date, and even asked her mother for permission to stay out late.

Takeru did the only thing he could think of in the moment.

He laughed.

“Tak-Takeru?” she asked, and he could already sense fear and hesitation begin to well up within her as she saw her (boyfriend?) laugh at her anniversary gift.  He grabbed her and pulled her into a hug to dissuade any doubts.

“Happy anniversary,” he said when his hysterics died down.  “One month, I’ve been trying to confess for a month, and you hit me with that.”

“Wait, confess?” Hiakri said, begging a laugh of his own that quickly spread to Takeru.  “All this time and you didn’t even think we were dating?  You completely stopped flirting with everyone else.  Did you really think I didn’t…”

“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” Takeru teased in response.

“Yeah,” Hikari agreed. “Well, if you finally managed to confess after all that, maybe I can do something I’ve been too scared to do for the last month.”

Takeru looked down at her, “What would that be?” he asked leaning in close.

“This.” She pressed her lips against his.

[lyrazehedgieboiii]

Sonic catches Amy reading / writing sonadow fan fiction?

LMAO YES, THANK YOU FOR REQUESTING THIS ONE, I WANTED TO DO THIS SOOOOO BAD. ALSO SORRY THIS WAS LATE.

Sonic was over at Amy’s house, enjoying some cookies and tea, because goddamnit, her double chocolate-chip cookies were to die for.

  “Thanks for inviting me over, Ames. These cookies are sooo good!” Sonic moaned in delight. Amy giggled.

   “You’re welcome, Sonic. I made some for Tails, but the poor little guy was up all night working on an invention, so I put some cookies on the counter for him, and wrote a note, so he knows I made them.” Amy said, as she put the tray down on the coffee table. “Anyways, I’m going to change, you can turn on the T.V. Okay?” Sonic nodded. She went to her room, and Sonic watched as her sway her hips. He got a little excited, but controlled it. He turned his head back and turned on the T.V. Please be Comedy Chimp, please be Comedy Chimp-

And it’s a drama. Wait no. It’s a play. It’s Hamilton. Wait, wasn’t it supposed to be on Disney Plus on July 3rd? Oh welp, might as well watch this. Sonic remembered the time he and the gang found Amy’s script, and they acted to it. He looked in the drawer that it was originally in, only to find a book labeled ‘Sonadow.’ Curious to what it was, he opened it, and skimmed to a random chapter. It said ‘Pregnancy Test.’ He started reading until he realized that Shadow and himself were the protagonists of the story. Shadow was the pregnant one. This book was in Amy’s house. In. Her. Drawer.

   “Okay I’m back-” Amy stopped in her tracks when she saw Sonic holding the book. She immediately thought of excuses and stories to why she had that book. She wrote it, but was glad that she hadn’t written her name down in the book, otherwise it would get very weird between them. “That’s n-not mine...” Sonic appeared quite flustered.

    “Then who does it belong to?” Sonic asked, his eyes twitching in what seemed to be anger.

    “...Would you believe me if I said it belonged to Lyra?” Amy replied, hoping Sonic would actually fall for that.

   “Makes sense, I guess. I mean, I thought she shipped...well...us?” Sonic blushed deeper while saying.

   “S-she has many ships, so don’t expect her to have just one...” She knew that Lyra had OCD’s when even thinking about Sonadow, but it was the only reasonable excuse she had, she didn’t want it to become awkward between them.

  “O-Oh...y-you haven’t read this, have you?” He asked her.

  “I saw the title and understood immediately...” She said cautiously. She knew Sonic very well, but at a time like this, she was very confused as to what his reaction would be.

  “That girl is going to publicly humiliate me one day.” Sonic nervously chuckled. Amy repeated his actions, not sure of what to do now.

  “I-I’ll give it back to her later, why don’t you just eat the cookies and pretend you never saw that?” Amy said in a rushed expression. Sonic noticed and decided not to think too much of it.

  “...Okay...” He hesitated before saying.

- TIME SKIP!!!! -

Amy was sitting in her room, doing something on her laptop that had her complete focus, Sonic observed. He made some sounds on purpose to see how Amy would react, but she didn’t even seem to notice.

   “What is she doing? She’s never this distracted.” Sonic thought out loud, only to hear Amy giggle while typing something in. She looked like she was about to swoon. She started cracking up, and put the laptop on the edge of the bed, which was on the other side, and she got on her back and tried to take deep breaths. Sonic snuck in through her windows, which have no glass and are covered by tapestries. He started reading whatever she was typing and saw Shadow’s name.

  “Ah~ I just love Sonadow~ It has a better chance of being canon than SonAmy will ever have.” She said, completely unaware of the second person in her room. Sonic got up and cleared his throat. Amy’s eyes immediately widened, her eyesight never leaving the ceiling. “IS SOMETHING LYRA WOULD SAY HEHEHEHEH...” Amy nervously continued saying, before taking the computer.

   “Then how come you were writing it?” Sonic asked in a disapproving tone.

    “Uh...Lyra was asking me to edit it, so I was helping?” Sonic still looked unconvinced. he yanked the laptop out of her hands.

   “Why the fuck do you think that SonAmy has a less chance of being canon compared to Sonadow?” He questioned, waving the laptop in the air.

   “Well, you would never like me, and you’re always arguing with Shadow and you just seem like you enjoy his company more than when you’re with me.” Amy replied sadly, her ears drooping.

  “Ames, I enjoy your company! I just tease him that he’s slow, that’s all. No romantic feelings for him. Just rivalry and friendship!” Sonic exclaimed. Amy giggled.

 “But wouldn’t you like to be more with him?” Amy asked, scooting closer.

  “Eww, no. He’s too emo. I prefer girls.” Sonic said, dropping the laptop on the bed, and putting his hands behind his head.

   “Yeah, I know. I see how you always flirt with them...” Amy responded with a melancholy tone. Sonic noticed this and got an idea.

   “Welp, I gotta go...run, and stuff like that.” And with that, Sonic zips off to who-knows-where. Amy quickly grabs her laptop and clicks the publish button.

- MEANWHILE WITH SONIKKU -

Sonic went to Lyra’s house to get something, and he went back to his hut in less than two seconds.

  “Okay, Sonamy. What are lemons...” Sonic zoned out, wondering what on Mobius citrus had to do with Sonic and Amy. Sonic wasn’t a huge fan of having anything with lemons in it, and he knew that Amy doesn’t really make sour or bitter foods. He clicked on what said Sonamy boom lemons, and saw that there were a lot of chapters. He went to the first one, and started reading. “Oh. OH. OHHHHH MY CHAOS, HOLY SHIT! THAT’S A LEMON?! AND WHY THE FUCK IS MY DICK ONLY FOUR INCHES IN THIS STORY?! IT’S MORE THAN THAT-” Sonic stopped himself when he realized that he was upset over his member size and not the fact that Amy was taking control of him in this story.

   “I need something...AH! Here! This is perfect.” Sonic smirked at his idea, and then ran to Amy’s house to bring his idea to action.

  “Sonic?” Amy answered the door, and her face was showing shock. Sonic walked towards her, until she was leaning against the back of her couch.

  “My beautiful Ames, my gorgeous Rose, how would you like to go on a date with me?

   “I-I-I-I...what?” Amy asked flustered at the sudden and definitely unexpected question.

   “Did I stutter? If anything, you were the one stuttering. I know, I’d be stuttering too, if I were to ask me out on a date~” Sonic repeated himself, adding a witty comment in that.

  “Are you Sonic?” Amy cautiously questioned, hoping this wasn’t another prank by Morpho.

  “I am, Amy. Sonic the Hedgehog, Fastest Thing Alive.” Sonic proudly stated. Amy giggled.

  “So you are. Why are you asking me out on a date? Is this to prove that you’re not into Shadow?”

  “No. I’m asking you out because I want to, and you better say ‘yes’ or I’m just going to nag you until you do.”

  “Okay, okay. Yes. I’ll go on a date with you, but what’s up with your sudden flirtiness? You never act like this, let alone with me.” Amy inquired. That made Sonic smirk.

   “Why not? I have to be your dream hedgehog, otherwise you’d ship Silver with Shadow.” Sonic responded. Amy shook. Sonic got worried by her weird uncharacteristic actions. “Amy! Why are you shaking? Are you okay?” He saw that her eyes were glossed with tears. “Amy! Are you crying?” He honestly didn’t know what to do, hug her? That’s what Amy does whenever someone’s crying. He wrapped his arms around her, genuine worry crawling over his features. Amy flinched as soon as his hands touched her, and she backed away after taking in everything.

-----------STOP HERE------------------- There are two endings for this story. Right under this is the humorous one, and below that is the one for hopeless romantics.

      “Okay Sonic, game’s over. What do you want?” Amy asked after attempting to ignore the weird twitch and tingles in her body.

     “Whatever do you mean, Amelia?” Sonic responded in a dreamy tone. Amy rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips.

    “Do you even like me? You only flirt with every other girl, apparently not me...unless you’re trying to get or prove something...” Amy hesitatingly tells him, puzzled as to why he was acting charming to her. Sonic’s cheeks and ears turned a deep shade of red.

   “...Maybe, but I only flirt for a reason-”

   “Don’t give me that shitty excuse, Sonic the Hedgehog. You’re a terrible liar, and I don’t want to hear it.” Amy sassed out, which wasn’t surprising to Sonic, because ever since they all moved to Hedgehog Village, her attitude changed, as so her habits.

   “But it’s not...I actually like you! And if I have to chase you for the rest of my life to prove it, so be it! I’ll run everywhere just to look for you! I want you~!” Sonic whispered in her ear, after giving it a nip and kiss.

   “Please don’t. I don’t want our reputations tarnished because you decide to run after me like some kind of weirdo. Honestly, I should’ve written that you were the pregnant one,” (anyone noticed the fanfiction reference? :D) Amy stated bluntly. Sonic took two steps towards her. He leaned his face in her’s.

  “Say that again, Pinky.” Sonic warned as her arms went around his neck. He heard a ‘POOF,’ and sweatdropped.

   “What did you call me, Blue Boy?” She queried. Sonic started to sweat and blushed once again at the sudden closeness. His confidence then returned out of nowhere.

   “I called you, Pinky. What’s the matter? Don’t like it?”  Sonic smugly replied. Amy glared at him.

   “It’s not that, it’s just that I’m getting turned on by the second~.” Amy lustfully said, biting her bottom lip. Sonic widened her eyes.

  “W-WHAT?!” Sonic shrieked out, not knowing whether to pounce or to run away.

   “Why are you acting all jumpy? You literally just bit my ear in a seducing tone!” Amy yelled out at him, her sexy act forgotten. Sonic looked heavily disturbed at Amy’s choice of words.

   “Seducing?!” Sonic squeaked. Amy was trying her best not to swoon at how adorable she found that squeak to be.

    “Yes! Don’t you want me?!” Amy hollered, her own cheeks burning up.

    “Okay, fine! Yes! Now can we get to the part where we say how we feel and kiss?” Sonic uttered out.

     “I love you!” Amy exclaimed. You shouldn’t be shocked by her boldness, as she’s been like that all her life.

    “I-I l-lo-love you too!” He responded. There was practically steam coming out of their ears by the amount of blushing that was happening.

    “Let’s kiss!” Before Sonic could respond, Amy pounced on him and tackled his lips. They both felt fireworks soar through their body, shivering at the new sensation that they gave each other.

   “Give me a strip show, baby~” Sonic inaudibly murmured in her ear.

   “Only if you use protection.”

   “What’s the fun in that?!”

HOPELESS ROMANTIC ending----------

   “I-I’m sorry.” She breathed out in a troubled voice. She slammed the door shut, and ran to her room sobbing. Sonic was confused. What did he do wrong? He knocked on the door, before remembering that this was Amy Rose. She never opened the door when she was upset, she just wants to be alone.

  ‘Well, not today!’ Sonic thought, as he broke down Amy’s door. He was going to have hell to pay, but it would be worth it. He went to her bedroom door and heard her crying. He did the same thing that he had did with Amy’s front door, and saw her face-first on the bed. He tip-toed towards her, and crawled on top of her. She looked so fragile in this state, that he just wanted to hug her sadness away.

  “Ames, if you’re ready to talk, why are you crying?” Sonic gently raised her chin up and asked.

  “Haven’t you wondered why I even like Sonadow fanfiction?” Amy asked her love interest. Sonic thought for a moment, and realized that not even he knew why she liked it. It was probably the most random thing she’d be into, and the ship itself was very random.

  “Never really thought about it during the thirty minutes in which everything happened. It actually makes me think about it now.��� Sonic told her. She wrapped her arms around his torso, which caused Sonic to stiffen. After a few moments, he began to rock her side-to-side to calm her down.

  “I thought you’d never love me, so I tried to keep my mind out of reality...” She said, sniffling in between. “At first, I started reading fanfiction. I saw SonAmy fanfiction, and it broke my heart seeing it. I read Sonadow, and it still hurt, but I just couldn’t get enough of it, next thing I know, I’m writing a popular story on Fanfiction platforms and the compliments and comments I get makes me feel happy. Even though it injures my heart too much...” Amy sobbed. Sonic lowered his eyelids.

  “Amy, if it’s giving you a heart-ache, then why do you still do any of that?” Sonic queried. Amy gave an emotionless chuckle.

  “People say that I make them happy writing the fanfiction. They smile, and I’m happy that I make them happy. Even if it pains me to do it.” Amy smiled. (Lmao don’t worry, it doesn’t happen to me) Sonic couldn’t tell whether it was because she was happy genuinely, or her clouded, closed mind was telling her that she was happy. She clearly wouldn’t be happy if it gives her pain.

  “Then stop it. It hurts you, so you should stop. You’re basically telling yourself to feel the pain.” Sonic told her while stroking her quills gently. He kissed her forehead and continued. “Start connecting with your friends and soon-to-be-boyfriend, please.” Sonic said, trying to keep a straight face as he felt her jolt up.

  “When you say soon-to-be-boyfriend, do you mean, you?” Amy asked, trying her hardest not to wag her tail in excitement.

   “Who else? Plus, don’t hide your tail, I wanna see it~.” Sonic lustfully whispers in her ear. She took her hands off her of her tail, letting it sway in happiness. Sonic, being a perverted, hormonal 19 year old, got an idea.

...

...

...

  “SONIC! WHAT THE FUCK-” Amy squealed as Sonic actually had the nerve to pull her tail.

   “I wanna see more~”

   “You wanna see more?” She mused. She raised up her dress a little more...

    “YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO MARRY ME IF YOU WANT TO TOUCH ME!” Amy exclaimed, taking Sonic off guard.

   “I JUST BECAME YOUR BOYFRIEND! ONE STEP AT A TIME, AMES!” Sonic yelled back.

   “SO?! IF YOU WANT THIS BODY, THEN YOU’LL HAVE TO VOW TO IT!” Amy continued. Sonic made a face.

   “WELL I LOVE YOU, MY BEAUTIFUL ROSE!” Sonic unexpected shouted.

   “ISN’T SCREAM THERAPY WONDERFUL?! IT MAKES YOU REVEAL YOUR THOUGHTS MUCH EASIER THAN JUST SAYING THEM! ALSO, I LOVE YOU TOO, YOU LITTLE SHIT!” Amy screamed.

   “WILL YOU BE MY GIRLFRIEND?!”

   “ONLY IF YOU BE MY BOYFRIEND!”

    “GOOD!”

    “FANTASTIC!”

And they all lived happily ever after, (Eggman is in his lair fangirling with me) THE END.

[sparklyaxolotlstudent]

New Girl 2

Second Part of this fic

Tentatively “New Girl” or “New Girl at School”, because Sentibug Deserved Better!

-

Marinette, Tikki and the former Sentimonster went down the stairs to the family room, where Marinette asked her two friends to wait for her to talk first with her… their parents. To her surprise, she found them talking in the family room, both very excited. They both hurried to her when she greeted them.

“Wonderful news my little Bun-bun”

“You can return to school first thing Monday!”

“Really?” Marinette asked, completely blanking on her own news. “What happened?”

“Well, I went to have a talk with the mother of that… Lila girl” Sabine had chosen her words very carefully. Marinette was very sure she swapped some swear words for her sake. “I thought we could do some mother to mother talk. I thought that maybe if we apologized she would talk on our behalf to revoke the expulsion.” Sabine was giddy with her information. It had never occurred to Marinette to talk with Lila’s mom, and realized now how dumb she had been.

“Tell her what happened! Tell her!” Tom was equally amused. It was like a joke they couldn’t wait to share with their daughter.

“I am! Well, we got to talk, and the more I talked with her, the more I realized she didn’t have any clue of what I was talking about. Neither of Lila’s grandmothers or any relative for that matter has given a necklace, so she was very surprised to learn someone had stolen it from her. And then she called to Lila, who came down the stair practically and with such glee! You should have seen her face when she saw me. Mrs. Rossi very calmly asked her about her falling down. She called me a liar, so of course Mrs. Rossi called the school to confirm the story. Lila tried to say some nonsense about Mr. Damocles being akumatized, which I guess technically happened, but she called anyway. Oh boy, she was furious with both her daughter for her obvious lies AND with the school for not calling her when her daughter supposedly took a fall from stairs and they didn’t even thought of taking her to the hospital. And so we both went to the Board of Education to put a complain on both Miss Bustier and Mr. Damocles for the way they handled things with your expulsion and with them not telling Lila’s mom about the supposed fall, which was fake, but they thought at the moment she had fell from real and only applied some crappy bandages. So the school is now under investigation and it will be closed for the rest of the week. It’s possible someone will come to interview us, and it is very possible that neither of them will return to the school.”

“They lost their jobs?”

“Sweetie, I’m going to be honest with you. Frankly, I don’t care. If what Alya and Nino told us is right, Miss Bustier was wrong in calling you out in front of everyone, and was further wrong in believe an anonymous note telling her exactly where to find the cheat sheet and not only find it incredibly suspicious, but take it at face value without further investigation. They were wrong in not taking Lila to ER when she thought you had pushed her from stairs that big. They were wrong in not being suspicious when Lila knew exactly her supposedly stolen goods where, not to mention the necklace she claimed to be a family heirloom was from an Agreste collection from last year. Which again, if it was as valuable as they thought it was, they were wrong in not calling Mrs. Rossi. Their mistakes could have impacted severely your future, not only academically, but in all fields and if that causes them to lose their jobs, that’s their problem, and I hope they learn from it or someone else may suffer like you almost did.”

“I will have to deal with Lila when we return” Marinette moped, thinking on how Lila would lie to turn things around and make her guilty of the loss of their teacher and principal.  

“Oh, I forgot to tell you that part! Mrs. Rossi was so angry, especially after how much lies Lila has told, especially the ones that affected you at school that she effectively pulled her out. She was debating whether to have her privately tutored with people that she can trust won’t be fooled, or have her in ST. Olga, a Catholic private school with extremely strict nuns. She’s out of your life.”

Marinette couldn’t believe it. The day had started horrible, but now it was all sunshine. She hugged her parents as if there was no tomorrow.

“But seriously, I know we raise you to be independent and strong, but if you face those kinds of problems again, don’t hesitate to come to us. We’re your parents and we love you no matter what, we will always help you, you can always trust us with your things, no matter how big or small they are.”

“About that…” Marinette laughed nervously. “There is something I have to tell you. You might want to take a seat.”

“What’s wrong honey? It surely can’t be worse that being expelled from school?” said Sabine nervously. They both took a seat at the couch.

“Well… not worse, but certainly different… “ she breathed. “TurnsoutImthesuperheroofParisI’mLadybugandIfoughttodayagaisntMayuraandshemadeacopyofmeandnowwehavetotakecareoofher.”

Her parents blinked in confusion.

“What?”

“Marinette, sweetie, don’t forget to breathe. We couldn’t understand a thing of what you said”

She breathed again.

“During the day, I’m Marinette, a normal girl with a normal life, with the most amazing parents one could wish for. But I have a secret that one knows… “

“You’re being too dramatic sweetie. That sounds like the start of an adventure book.”

“I’m Ladybug” Marinette said finally, closing her eyes. She slowly opened her eyes to look at her parents, who looked very confused.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“I’m Ladybug. I’m Paris hero. Today I had a fight with Mayura and she created a mon… a being that was my duplicate. Long story short, she betrayed the side of evil, Mayura killed her, but the Miraculous Cure brought her back, so now we have to take care of her.

Tom and Sabine looked at each other, and started laughing. “Good one sweetie! You almost looked serious there”

Marinette smiled nervously and signaled Tikki and the other Marinette to come down.   Her parents stared at all of them.

“Listen, I know is too much to ask, but I couldn’t just leave her on her own and…”

“Well, this certainly explain a lot of things…”

“Yes, like that time your grades were slipping”

“And all that sneaking out of the house”

“And when we hear voices coming from your room. We thought you were talking with Alya”

“And that time you declared your love to Chat Noir… wait, does he know you’re Ladybug?”

“No, actually, no so…”

“Oh boy, he’s gonna be so surprised. I hope we get to see his face when he realizes the hero he loves is the same girl he rejected.”

“Tom, that is bordering in petty revenge… but yeah, I sort of want to see it too.”

“So, are you gonna introduce us to your… floating ladybug friend and your new sister or what?”

“You are taking this surprisingly well.”

“Well, we always know you were extraordinary. This only confirms it.”

“And we had our suspicions anyway… It’s not like you change much of yourself when you’re Ladybug”

Marinette smiled widely. “This is my Kwami friend, her name is Tikki, she allows me to become Ladybug and fight against Hawk Moth.”

“Very pleased to finally meet you Mr. Dupain and Mrs. Cheng! You have raised a very good daughter”

“Thank you very much. It’s nice to meet you too.”

“And she is… huh… we haven’t decided on a name yet, actually”

Tom and Sabine looked at the new girl. She looked a lot like Marinette, but her hair darker and with a red streak of hair. They couldn’t help but smile at her.

“Hello young lady. I’m Tom and from now on I’m going to be your father, if you want of course. Marinette calls me ‘dad’ or ‘papa’, and you’re free to call me that too, but again, no rush.”

“And I’m Sabine. I’m going to be your mother, and you can call me ‘mom’ or ‘maman’. If you want of course. You have a place in our family regardless of what you decide your relationship with us is.”

The former Sentimonster starting tearing up, without knowing why. She felt lucky to have fallen in such a loving family.

“Well… I was created as Sentibug… but Marinette told me that’s not a real human name… and she said you named her because you are her parents, and I was wondering…”

“You want us to give you a name?”

The girl nodded. “If you want, of course. I mean, you’re going to be my parents, so it’s only fair.”

“Of course dear. We’ll have to come with some cover story about why you just suddenly live with us, but we’ll manage.”

“Well, your second option for Marinette was Bridgette”

“But we can’t name her western style. I was going to suggest telling she was Marinette’s long lost twin sister, but your parents know she doesn’t have a twin sister. It would be safer if we say we’re adopting her from my family, so we should name her something Chinese.”

“But neither look that Chinese to begin with. We can say a cousin of yours married a westerner and now we’re adopting her because they’re no longer here.”

“So, I’m Bridgette?” asked the former Sentibug, making a face. It looked like she didn’t really liked the name.

“No, people close to us know about that name. And you're not a second option of Marinette, You are your own person.”

“True, I’m sorry I implied otherwise.” Tom said to his new daughter, who was in the verge of happy tears.

“Well you have sort of red hair, and I have always liked the Enchanted movie, so how do you feel about ‘Giselle’?”

The girl smiled widely. “I love that name” she said. “Hello, I am Giselle”

“It seems our family has just gotten bigger”

“By the way, Marinette, we are very proud of you, but you’re still grounded for sneaking out of the house all those times”

“What”

-

Marinette is in trouble :p

I was looking for french names and Giselle turned out… she is one of my favorite Disney Princesses, so she’s now that. (Feel free to suggest other names, but I pretty much made my mind with that name)

And yeah, so much salt for the way Miss Bustier and Mr Damocles handled Marinette and Lila. 

[hoochy-coo]

Honestly I'm even surprised that selena gomez managed to stay relevant for a decade. Like she actually managed to make it this far, not to be harsh but she doesn't have anything special that she brings to the current landscape of pop culture, like, sure she's gorgeous. But other than that she's average at almost everything she does. Her personality doesn't leave an impression, her vocals aren't one to exactly rave about, I watched two films with her in it, she's entertaining at best.

- And my impression is she doesn't write most of her songs ( all though I know she wrote a few ). What's more mind boggling to me is that she's pretty much one of the most well connected girlies In the music industry. She had so many opportunities that I feel she didn't take advantage of. At her peak she was seen with anyone who was anyone in the industry. Her bff taylor swift ( I don't know how genuine the friendship is ) is one of the most prominent female songwriters of this decade. Now I'm sure taylor knows many people in the industry that could help selena with some of her albums, some upcoming songwriters who could write her something, or talented producers who are looking for exposure. I feel like what selena lacks most imo is direction, and which with revival we saw a glimpse of. Sometimes she comes of uninspired and lazy when it comes to music. And after rare... the album was lackluster and disservice to the progress that was made in previous eras. 

I feel like Selena’s real talent lies within media play and making connections to keep her relevant. It’s quite fascinating to see because Miley is undoubtedly the biggest household name out of that generation of Disney stars but for the last 4-5 years, Selena has become the bigger name. I completely agree that she’s average in every area but she must be doing something right in terms of attracting stans because she’s got a stable and sizable fandom that goes hard for her whenever she drops a new project. All her collabs (which she singlehandedly bagged through industry connections) have been really average but it always seems to chart well/get decent radio play. I wouldn’t say that Selena hasn’t capitalised on the opportunities that have come by though. Just off the top of my head, I can name a fair few instances where she used her connection in the industry to get further/stay relevant: She made an appearance on Taylor’s Rep tour 2 years ago, she and Bieber capitalised on each other and their relationship and milked it for what all that it's worth (Her fans are gonna hate me for this but Bieber definitely got her into all the prestigious award ceremonies as his fate. Without him, she would have had zero chance to sitting front row), her friendship/fling with Charlie Puth got her a feature on ‘We Don’t Talk Anymore’ which has gone like 4 times platinum or something, she dated Zedd and he gave her ‘I Want You to Know’ which ended up being huge, etc. 

The only stage in Selena’s career where I felt like she failed to capitalise on was when she was dating the Weeknd. She should have at least done a song with him or went through with the rebranding her and her team was trying to do with ‘Fetish.’ That could have been an iconic era that cemented her in the pop music game but she fumbled by not dropping an EP to follow up the hype of that and ‘Bad Liar’ (not that it’s completely her fault, I know she went through a massive health scare and needed time to heal). If she’d follow ‘Revival’ up with an equally strong/critically acclaimed album, her singing career would look a lot different now. You’re correct that she lacks direction and I suspect that it’s because she’s not even all that passionate about making music...? I remember her saying how hands-on she was with the creation of ‘Rare’ but she didn’t even recognise her own lyrics when Madison Beer mentioned it on the live stream. In terms of writing lyrics, you could literally add one word into a line and that would be enough to get you a songwriting credit. Honestly, the best move to make now is to get herself a Taylor feature or vice-versa. They share a portion of their fanbase so it’s a win-win for both of them. 

[dukereviewsmovies]

Duke Reviews: Avengers Endgame

Hello, I'm Andrew Leduc And Welcome To Duke Reviews Where Today We Are Continuing Our Look At The Marvel Cinematic Universe...

And Today We Are Looking At The Big One...Yep, We're Finally Here...Avengers Endgame...

This Film Sees The Grave Course Of Events Set In Motion By Thanos That Wiped Out Half Of The World And Fractured The Avengers And Guardians Of The Galaxy's Ranks Compels The Remaining Members To Take One Final Stand...

Will They Succeed?

Let's Find Out As We Watch Avengers Endgame...

The Film Starts On The Barton Family Farm As We See Clint Barton Still Under House Arrest, Training His Daughter, Lila To Maybe Become The Next Hawkeye...

Yeah Right, We Know That Kate Bishop Is Most Likely Going To Be In The Disney + Series...

While His 2 Sons Play A Game Of Catch And His Wife Velma Dinkley Prepares A Picnic But As He Talks To His Wife For A Second Barton Turns Back To Not Only Find His Daughter Gone But His Wife And Some Too As They're Now Casualties Of The Snap Heard Around The World...

3 Weeks Later On Board The Benatar, Tony And Nebula Start To Run Out Of Supplies On The Ship, So He Uses His Iron Man Helmet To Chronicle Their Final Days With The Hope It'll Be Found By Pepper...

However As Tony Goes To Sleep, They Are Saved By Captain Marvel Who Takes Them Back To Earth...

Reunited With Pepper And The Other Avengers, Steve Asks If He Knows Where Thanos Is Only To Erupt Into A Furious Rant Where He Mentions Thanos And Their Civil War Fight Before He Faints...

And Thank God For That, As Anymore Out Of Tony's Mouth And I Would Have Punched Him...

Locating Thanos On An Uninhabited Planet With Help From Nebula, They Discover That While He Has The Gauntlet The Stones Are Missing, Which Leads Him To Explain That They Would Have Been Nothing But A Temptation If He Had Kept Them So, After Serving Their Purpose He Had Them Destroyed...

They Believe Him To Be Lying At First But If There's One Thing Nebula Knows Her Father To Be It's Not A Liar, So Thor Decapitates Him...

Five Years Later, Earth's Remaining Population Attempts To Persevere Against Such Catastrophic Losses But Things Start To Change When Scott Lang Is Released From The Quantum Realm, Disoriented And Confused About What Has Happened...

Visiting A Wall With All The Names Of The People Who Vanished To See If His Daughter's Name Is Among It, Thankfully It Isn't, So Racing To His Ex's House, Scott Discovers That Cassie Has Aged From A Child To A Teenager...

Trying To Make Cassie Stinger A Little Fast There, Marvel?...

Arriving At The Avengers Facility Where He Talks With Cap And Widow, He Explains That He Experienced Five Hours And Not Five Years While Also Talking To Them About The Quantum Realm And How It Could Allow Time Travel...

The Three Visit Tony At His Lakeside Home Where He Lives Now With His Wife Pepper And His Daughter, Morgan Where They Ask Him To Help Them Retrieve The Stones From The Past In An Attempt To Reverse What Thanos Did, But Tony Refuses, Worrying About What Will Happen With His New Life If He Does...

So They Turn To Banner Who During Those Five Years Has Restarted His Research Into Gamma Radiation And Used It To Morph His Body To Have The Appearance And Strength Of The Hulk While Retaining The Intelligence And Control Of Banner Digivolving Into Professor Hulk!

But As For The Quantum Realm, Banner Says That Quantum Physics Is Outside Of His Area Of Expertise But He Agrees To Help Them Try..

Meanwhile At His Lakeside Home, Tony Does Dishes Only To Discover A Photo Of Peter Parker Which Makes Him Change His Mind And Look Into Time Travel And It Turns Out It Is Possible...

Returning To The Avengers Facility The Next Day, Tony Tells Steve That He's Agreeing On The Condition That In Trying To Reverse What Thanos Did It Won't Reset What Has Happened Since Then As He Doesn't Want To Lose His Daughter With Cap Agreeing The 2 Men Set Their Differences Aside And Get To Work...

Banner And Rocket Fly To New Asgard In Norway Which Is Home To The Asgardians That Are Left Including Valkyrie And Korg And Miek Who Survived...

But As For Thor (Who Has Put On A Considerable Amount Of Weight, Become An Alcoholic And Spending Most Of His Time Playing Fortnite)...

I Always Saw Thor As An Overwatch Guy But If That's His Game, Hey I'm For It!...

He Gets Upset At The Mention Of Thanos' Name To The Point That He Wont Go With Banner But When Rocket Mentions Beer, He's In...

Meanwhile In Tokyo...

Barton Who Now Goes By Ronin, Attacks A Group Of Yakuza Only To Be Confronted By Widow Who Wants To Bring Him In, But Wanting Nothing To Do With The Plan At First Barton Eventually Changes His Mind And Goes With Her...

Back At The Avengers Facility, Banner And Stark Complete Construction Of Their Own Quantum Tunnel And Advanced Tech Suits As The Team Prepares For Test Runs With Barton As The Test Subject...

And It Works, Barton Is Sent Back To A Time On His Farm Before The Snap Which Leads Them Into The Next Phase: Determining The Location Of Each Infinity Stone In The Past Which Proves To Be A Problem As They Only Have A Small Supply Of Pym Particles To Do So...

Deciding To Go After The Time, Mind And Space Stones During The Battle Of New York, The Reality Stone On Asgard With Jane Foster, The Power Stone On Morag With Star Lord And The Soul Stone On Vormir...

Their Destinations And Teams Are Set With Tony, Cap, Banner And Scott Going To The Battle Of New York, Nebula And Rhodey Going To Morag, Barton And Widow Going To Vormir And Thor And Rocket Going To Asgard...

Starting With Team 1 With Stark, Cap, Banner And Scott, Banner Visits The Sanctum Sanctorum Where He Meets The Ancient One Who Doesn't Want To Give Him The Stone At First But After Hearing That Strange Gave Thanos The Stone, She Gives It To Banner Realizing That It Must Have Been For A Reason...

Infiltrating Stark Tower In The Aftermath Of The Battle Of New York, Lang Plants Himself Onto The 2012 Tony Stark As Him And The Other 2012 Avengers Head Downstairs Only To Be Confronted By Alexander Pierce Who Wants The Tesseract And Loki...

But Scott Causes A Distraction By Sending 2012 Tony Into Cardiac Arrest Which Leads Our Tony Stark To Get The Tesseract But When 2012 Hulk Bursts In, Past Loki Manages To Get The Tesseract Which He Uses To Escape To His Disney + Series...

But As All That Happens, Cap Manages To Get The Loki's Scepter From Brock Rumlow And Jasper Sitwell Only To Be Confronted By 2012 Cap Who Believes He's Loki...

(Start At 0:16, End At 1:48)

Regrouping With Cap, Tony And Lang Tell Him That They Screwed Up But Tony Realizes That He Knows A Place Where He Can Not Only Get The Tesseract But Pym Particles Too, So Giving Scott The Scepter, Tony And Cap Travel To Camp Lehigh In 1970...

Arriving In 1970, We Get Our Last...Stan Lee Cameo..

Stan Lee Cameo!

A Moment Of Silence For A Great Man...

Splitting Up, Tony Gets The Tesseract In The Place Where Cap And Widow Found Arnim Zola In Winter Solider But While Down There He Runs Into His Father, Howard Who Is Looking For Arnim While Also Talking About The Birth Of His Son Which Is Expected Next Month...

While Talking With Howard, Tony Sees His Father In A Whole New Light And Now Understands What He Went Through Being A Father Himself Now But As Tony Makes Up With His Father, Cap Distracts A Young Hank Pym So He Can Get The Pym Particles Necessary To Return...

So With Everything In Hand Tony And Cap Leave 1970, Which Takes Us To Asgard With Thor And Rocket But As Rocket Gets The Reality Stone, Thor Runs Into His Mom, Frigga, Who Realizes That He's From The Future...

Attempting To Tell Her About Her Soon To Be Coming Death At The Hands Of Malekith, Frigga Doesn't Want To Listen Insisting That Thor Fix His Future Rather Than Hers, So With Rocket Having The Reality Stone In Hand, Thor Reclaims Mijolnir Before Saying Goodbye To His Mom And Leaving...

Now On Morag, Romanoff And Clint Use The Benatar To Fly To Vormir To Get The Soul Stone While Nebula And Rhodey Knock Out Star Lord In A Scene That Ruins One Of The Best Scenes In The Original Guardians Movie...

Thanks Alot Russo Brothers...

And They Get The Power Stone And Rhodey Returns To The Present However, Nebula Becomes Incapacitated When Her Cybernetic Implants Link With Her 2014 Self, Allowing The Thanos Of That Time To Learn About His Future Successes And The Avengers Attempt To Thwart It...

Determined To Rebuild The Universe So No One Will Remember What He Has Done, Thanos Replaces Present Day Nebula With 2014 Nebula As Barton And Widow Arrive On Vormir And Learn The Price That Must Be Paid Which Leads Them To Fight Over Who Will Make The Sacrifice...

Eventually It's Widow That Sacrifices Her Life For The Soul Stone...

Well, I Guess That Black Widow Movie's Not Happening...

O.....Kay...

With Everyone Reuniting In The Present They Are All Saddened At The Loss Of Black Widow But They Realize That They Must Not Let Her Sacrifice Be In Vain And Continue Their Plan...

Creating A Nano Gauntlet To Harness The Stones They All Have A Debate Over Who Will Unsnap Everything But Eventually It's Banner That Does It Because Of His Physical Form And His Relationship With Gamma Radiation...

But Despite Unsnapping Everything, 2014 Nebula Activities The Quantum Tunnel And Brings 2014 Thanos' Ship Into The Future Where It Blows Everything To Kingdom Come...

Yeah, They May As Well Have Done That...

Convincing 2014 Gamora To Help Her, Present Nebula And Her Kill 2014 Nebula After She Refuses To Help Them...

Ok, I Know They Made Their Own Time Travel Rules Here But Seriously, With 2014 Nebula Dead, Future Nebula Should Be Dead As Well...

With The Avengers Separated, With Thor, Tony And Cap Being Up Top So They Decide To Attack Thanos On Their Own But Thanos Outmatches Them And Summons His Army From His Warship, But Luckily They Have An Army Too...

Shortly After That, Captain Marvel Arrives On The Scene And Destroys Thanos' Warship, But Thanos Overpowers Her And Gets The Gauntlet...

And So, With Thanos Defeated, Tony Is Weakened By The Raw Power Of The Stones Before Succumbing To His Injuries After Being Comforted By Pepper...

After Tony's Funeral, Thor Appoints Valkyrie As The New Ruler Of New Asgard As He Joins The Guardians Of The Galaxy...

Only To Not Appear In Guardians Vol.3 But His Only Movie Which Chris Hemsworth Is Only Doing To Wrap Up The Character...

And Cap Returns The Infinity Stones And Mijolnir Back To Their Original Timelines Only To Decide To Stay In The Past With Peggy Carter While Back In The Present An Old Cap Passes On His Shield To Sam Wilson To Tie Into That Disney + Series As Our Film Ends...

While There's No Mid Credits Or End Credits Scene, That Was Avengers Endgame And What Can I Say About It?..

Despite Everyone Being Divided On It, I Absolutely Enjoyed It, The Story Was Interesting, The Characters Were Well Written, I Thought Thanos Was Equally Good Here As He Was In Infinity War. However, Some Of The Time Travel Logistics Kinda Had Me Questioning Things Still Though I Say See It...

Next Week We Finish Our Look At The Marvel Cinematic Universe By Looking At Spider-Man Far From Home, Till Then, This Is Duke, Signing Off...

[hypmicscenarios]

Disneyland Date

DisneyLand Date + First Kiss

A/N: Again, using they/them pronouns to make it universal

You were nervous, very nervous. One of your first official dates and it as a trip to Disneyland??? Wasn’t typical first dates like the movie theaters,a restaurant, anything that wasn’t as extravagant and out there as Disneyland? Not that you minded. You loved amusement parks and you were sure the day would be fun but….you were more worried about you kissing him. Maybe you were a bit too “old” to not have had your first kiss but...it just really never happened. And sure you always fell for the bad boy character in movies but….you never thought it would happen in real life. Or….that he would like you back? You didn’t think you were anything special. However, even with all these thoughts, there were still ways that he made you feel very special, like the luckiest person in the world. Very very lucky.

As you two agreed upon, you waited at the train station, dressed in, what you would say, one of your best outfits. Soon, you heard a deep voice behind you. A voice that was impossible to mistake. You turned around with a smile,”Samatoki, hey,”you said, being brought into a small and quick hug, enjoying the feeling of his chest for a moment before you pulled away, his arms still loosely around your waist. “Are you ready y/n?”,he asked. You nodded,”of course I am.”

Samatoki moved his hands away,placing one hand behind his neck and speaking,”you look cute today...not that you dont always look cute though,”he said, blushing a bit. You smiled at him,”thank you, you look very handsome, like always.” There was also that. He may have had a bad boy look but when he acted like this, it seemed like he had never even hurt a fly. It was cute. He was very cute. Especially what he was wearing. It was hot that day, so he was wearing shorts and red, blue, and orange floral colored button up.

Soon, the train came, and seeing the amount of people boarding, Samatoki instinctively pulled you close by your shoulders, walking into the train. Since it was the weekend, it was understandable that there were no seats...and crowded. Samatoki grabbed onto a handle, keeping you close to his chest, which made your heart beat….and his as well. You smiled into his chest as you could feel it with your hands and looked up,”thank you,”you said. “Just stay close.”

“Phew, who knew the whole train was basically going to this side of town,”you said, finally getting off. Samatoki grabbed your hand and led you to a bench,”lets sit down for a couple minutes,”he said, you thanking him for how considerate he was. You took a deep breath and looked at Samatoki,”were you able to get any sleep? I tried to, but I was too excited. Ah, dont worry though, I have way more than enough energy today.” Samatoki spoke,”the same...happened to me to. I was excited to go with you.” Your heart beat a little out of its chest and you spoke,”so were both still up even though we told each other goodnight,”you said, letting out a chuckle.

A couple minutes later, you and Samatoki stood up and headed towards Disneyland, your heart and body fueling with more energy the closer you got to the amusement park. Once the two of you got in, you were quickly stopped by a person with the camera, asking if the two of you wanted a picture. Might as well.

You stood next to Samatoki as he wrapped one hand around your waist.

“You two are lovers right? Closer closer! And you,”the photographer said, pointing to you,”maybe like, wrap your hands around his waist. And loosen up a bit, this is Disneyland, the happiest place in the world, show use those cute smiles!”

You did as she told, blushing at all the words. Lovers….such a big word! Wrapping your hands around Samatoki as he moved his hand around you shoulder.

“Make a heart with your free hands!”

You made half a heart, couldnt help but smiling at this point, the person’s energy hit you even though they all the way over there. Smiling up at Samatoki, he blushed, making the other half of the heart, the person taking a couple of pictures, then handing them a ticket.

“You can go pick your photos up as you leave over there, the place with a giant camera in front of it! Cant miss it!”

Bowing, you thanked them and looked at Samatoki,”you doing good there?” Samatoki nodded,”of course I am, I was just looking at the shop.”  

“You want to go there and get some things to wear around? Like mickey mouse hats!”

Towards the middle of the day, the two of you had gone on a couple rides. The pair of you were wearing Mickey Mouse hats, yours pink and his blue, even getting your names engraved in the front. You were walking around and took a small break in a arcade. Your eyes went towards the claw machine and you gasped as you saw a [fav disney character] plush in the middle of it.

Samatoki noticed,”you want it?,”he said, smirking,”people always struggle but this a piece of pie to me,”he said, very confidently, so when he didn’t get it on the first try, you giggled. “Piece of pie huh?”,you said, only slightly teasing him. He blushed,”I was just warming up” You watched him as he tried five times. But he finally got it. He looked so determined to get it for you, when he got it out, his eyes were sparkling and he gave it to you proudly,”here, for you,”he said….it almost looked like he was a puppy waiting to be praised.

You smiled and hugged him,”thank you Samatoki,”you said, taking the plush,”and he says thank you too,”you said, holding the plush up in front of your face. You joked around and moved it towards his cheek,”mwah”, you said,making a sound, giggling as Samatoki waved it way,”really…”,he said, looking away and blushing. But...he was happy that he could make you smile.He had been a bit worried that he’d make it boring for you...but the two of you just always found thing to talk about.

“Are you hungry y/n?”,he asked.

“Yes,I am!”

The two of you went to grab a bite to eat and sat down for a bit to let the food rest before you went on anymore rides. So, you sat down in a resting area outside, the two of you at a table. You were on your phone and went to snapchat, opening the dog filter, placing the camera on Samatoki who was currently looking down at his phone. As if he felt your gaze, he looked up, and you took the shot. “Hey wait, what type of photo was that?”,he asked. You smiled to yourself,”just a photo.”

“Youre lying, you know you’re a bad liar y/n,”he said, leaning over the table. You moved back, phone to your chest,”but its cute!”,you said, and you had already saved it. “Thats exactly why it needs to be deleted, you put a filter on me again, didn’t you?”,he said, standing. Oh no. Hes standing. “S-Samatoki wait..”, you said, getting up yourself,”I cant delete it.” Samatoki’s eyes was filled with determination,”oh, you cant? I’ll gladly do it for you.” Your heart raced as he got closer and you went back,”I mean I can, but I wont!” Quickly, you turned around, running towards a bench, then behind a statue, going in circles as he chased you, and sending the photo to your email, because you knew capture was inevitable, until you hit into a broad chest,”Oof.”

Large hands wrapped around your body,”I got you.” You playfully screamed as you struggled in his arms and he pulled your phone away. He looked at the snap, stopping as he read the caption,”my cute boyfriend,”his face going red. Samatoki held it up, despite your desperate attempts to reach up at it. Tch. He pressed post then handed it back to you, then exiting the app.

“There,”he said with a smirk.

You hit his chest with your fist,”meanie!” Lucky you sent it to yourself.

Samatoki chuckled,”youre cute when your angry.”

“Sadist!”,another soft punch to the chest.

“Does that make you the masochist?”

Your face heated up,”n-no!”,you said. Even at times like these….you still loved him. Despite how nervous he seemed sometimes, he would sure contradict when he said bold things like that. You walked over to your table as Samatoki followed behind.

The two of you passed the day away until it came time for fireworks. He held your hand, fingers intertwined, as the two of you searched for a good spot, an hour early, even going on the internet to locate the best spots to see them, since the two of you didn’t know. You found your self sitting down in a a patch of grass. Samatoki had purchased a mickey mouse blanket for the two of you to sit on.

As you waited for the fireworks, you reminisce on the whole day, and thanked Samatoki for purchasing the tickets and….absolutely everything that day. You tried to get him to budge but once the words “this is our first date, so I want to do everything, so you can be happy without any worries.” You knew he was just being a gentleman, but that caught you off guard. You caved easily after that.

Your legs were spread out in front of you, a content smile on your face,”Samatoki...thank you for everything today. Being with you made me really happy. Definitely one of the best days of my life. And not cause its Disneyland but...cause you were here.” You were too embarrassed to look him in the eye.

Suddenly, a hand around your shoulder pulled you towards him, your head now on his chest.

“You make me happy too. Today was nice….and seeing your beautiful smile all day was the best part of it all,”he said, despite his slight blush. “Im lucky to have you.” You smiled,”isnt that my line?”

“No its not,”he said, pushing you away so he could look at you. Both hands went on your cheeks as he continued,”Im so very lucky to have you. I always push people away. I even tried to do that with you. But, this time, I couldnt bear the thought of you being away. You managed to weave your way into my heart, you’re special to me, dont ever think that you arent. Or else I’ll tickle you until you say the words from your mouth.”

Your heart was moved by his words and you were getting a bit emotional till he said his last words,”thats unfair,”you said, pouting. Samatoki pulled at your cheeks,”its very fair. I know all your weakness.” You chuckled,”is that a threat?”

“Hm? I dont know…”,he said and before you knew it, hands were at your side. You fell back on the blanket as you tried to move his hands away,”t-t-toki, unfaiR-ahahaha,s-stOP-” he stopped, laughing along with you, now hovering above you. Samatoki looked lovingly into your eyes and placed a hand on your cheek,”y/n, I love you.” Your heart rate instantly increased but you looked back at him, with the same intensity of love, smiling fondly,”I love you too, Samatoki.”

You could this was it. The moment.

When he started closing in, you closed your eyes, indicating that you were ready. You felt your lips connect and….it felt absolutely magical. As if on cue, the fireworks started, but you and Samatoki were you in your own fantastical world at the moment to care at the moment. As the kiss went on, and you slowly started to get the hang of kissing in general,your hands wrapped around his neck. It was definitely more than what you imagined, but you were glad it was Samatoki.

When you pulled, your face was very hot, and Samatoki pressed your foreheads together,smiling,”fireworks?” You nodded with a smile,”Yea, fireworks.” He pecked you on the lips again before you pulled aaway and the two of you enjoyed the fireworks.