#is meant to dissuade people from seeing what we’re actually saying

[wyvern-of-the-evening]

JKR isn’t a radical feminist, she’s gender critical but that’s not what inherently makes one a radfem. The same thing can be said about LBGA, and an added point that men cannot be radfems, so the gay men can’t be radfems. Neither of them are funded by heritage foundation. That would, however, be WoLF, which most radical feminists don’t support, for that very reason. The right wouldn’t fund LGB alliance because they’d be funding a gay rights group, which isn’t, as the chronically online would like to believe (not talking about you btw just general) an anti-trans group, it’s for protecting LGB rights. When it comes to JKR we’re talking about a woman they condemned for “spreading witchcraft” and “turning children to the devil”. They agree with her on a singular issue, not for the same reasons, but agreeing on a singular issue doesn’t make her funded by conservatives. She runs charities meant for women’s well being and protecting children, things conservatives don’t care about.

Are trans politics somehow not also backed by political groups? Are we pretending that they haven’t gotten as far as allowing males in female prisons. The things being demanded of people are not rights. Males don’t have a right to go to the women’s bathroom. It isn’t a right that they be called a particular set of pronouns or a specific name. If they were fighting against employment/housing/medical discrimination, that’d be admirable. I could get behind that, but telling me I have to harass other LGBs for not wanting to date them, being told I have to share a changing room with a male and that if I leave because said male is there that I’m transphobic, etc. why would I support any of that? When they threaten to rape and kill women they don’t like.

There is no difference between racists. A racist is a racist and has government backing because racism is just one of the heads on the hydra. We at least actively call out racism within our community. I can’t say as much for TIMs because anytime they’re outed for wrong doing, the person revealing their actions is told they’re making the community look bad. That’s not always the case I’m sure, but that’s what I’ve seen now, and from my own time back when I was in your position.

I’ve never heard of a conservative preferring a gay child over what could potentially be seen as a “straight” child. Radical feminists wanting gay children to know it’s okay to be gay isn’t the same, and it’s dishonest to portray it as such. Saying “you shouldn’t have to feel distressed or ashamed for being same sex attracted, you don’t have to be straight because homosexuality is normal” isn’t the same as conservatives saying “my child is a sinner who needs to be fixed because their attraction makes them an abomination in the eyes of the lord”. I do agree with your last statement to an extent. Their rights aren’t being wiped out unless they’re experiencing the discrimination I’ve already mentioned above, they aren’t being arbitrarily arrested for being trans, they aren’t tortured in prisons (especially when put in the same housing as the very people they harmed to get put there), they aren’t being enslaved.

People are disagreeing with the medical malpractice happening to those people. The amount of uninformed “consent” and life long medicalization, and rampant misogyny and misogynoir is what’s turning the leftists like myself. The right really didn’t need much convincing. Moderates are feeling that way because the ever-changing rules are exhausting to keep up with and grow more and more ridiculous by the day. The dysphoria discourse is a good example of that. If people don’t need dysphoria to be trans, what distress are they experiencing from any of this? Self ID instantly makes being trans a choice (something being SSA is not), and what’s to stop me from just identifying as trans and telling you not to speak over me on this issue? That is why the trans community is losing support. Conservatives base it off religion. My disagreement is based off what I’ve seen them do to women’s rights and gay rights, as well as the life long medicalization of humans who weren’t fully informed by greedy doctors.

Radfems are often told to make our own spaces by TRAs. And yet when we do, they TRAs and TIMs throw massive fits about it, and try to invade it. Unfortunately this time they’re doing it. Giggle was supposed to be a female only platform, now being invaded by TIMs and their handmaidens, for being a female only platform. Posting pictures of someone spreading their asshole, literally. Funny how you don’t see this in male only spaces. Why is that I wonder

[writingwithcolor]

Gingerbread man as golem

@yaronata asked:

I would like to write a character who is Jewish and uses a Golem. She's based on the D&D class of the artificer which looks magic but isn't, because they produce all their effects with inventions, like the "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" quote. Her story is that her very Jewish town was under attack from a terrible monster when she was little. Her Rabbis made a Golem to protect the town, and it succeeded but was torn to pieces in the process. She was fascinated by the Golem and as a kid didn't see a big difference between it's sentience and person's so was really thankful for its sacrifice like you would a person's sacrificing their life for you. They thought all the pieces had been devoured by the monster before it died, but she went looking and found the piece used to animate the Golem, which she, kinda misunderstanding called its "heart". She kept the piece and grew up to be an incredibly skilled cook, specialising as a baker in the town. I imagine she would make a lot of really good food for the Jewish holidays, or to break fasts on ones like Yom Kippur or Tish'abav. But she also made a town specific holiday to honour the Golem's sacrifice and the town still being alive, because I feel "we are not dead woo" is a big theme for Jewish holidays from my research, so it could fit, for which she invented ginger bread men to be the golem, and gave them little "hearts" of fruit or honey, and you're meant to eat them limb by limb like the beast did before eating the heart. This would be the inspiration for using the "heart" piece later to make her own giant gingerbread Golem to help her save the world.

These are my questions 1) would it be considered bad or disrespectful for someone who isn't a Rabbi to make a Golem, or is this method of taking an animating piece someone else made disrespectful? 2) Her journey will take her far from her town and her Jewish family and friends and she will likely travel with gentiles. Would it be disrespectful for a Golem to be used to protect a lot of gentiles and one Jew in the course of saving the world? I don't want to fall into the stereotype of someone putting all their effort into valuing and protecting very specifically the group that in real life is oppressive to them. 3) While she is not using magic and is actually mimicking its effects with technology she invents, is this drawing too close to the line of "magical Jew"? 4) I like to "play test" my characters in ttrpgs to really get a feel for them before I write. Would it be disrespectful to play a Jewish character when I am a gentile, and would it be disrespectful to play a Jewish character in a setting where there are demonstrably real gods other than the one of Judaism?

I really like this character idea and I think it's cute and fun and rooted in Jewish culture but I really want to make sure it's respectful and as good as I, a gentile researching on the internet, thinks it is. Thanks so much! Have a nice day!

My answer to this is very complicated because there are things I both like and do not like about this premise. First of all, I love the idea of a cookie golem, and I'm even imagining the magic word that brings him to life (EMET/truth) would be written in icing. And I'm okay with the part about how she found a piece of the old golem and used it to build a new golem, because that makes sense for a golem made from a baked good when you think about how people use sourdough starter to make a new batch of sourdough.

However, here are the thing that make me cock my head to the side like my little sister's German shepherd:

1. re: "magical Jew" - that's not a trope I've ever heard of. Remember, marginalized groups don't receive identical disrespect across the board. It is indeed a trope to use Black people or disabled people as supernatural plot devices who exist only to further the stories of white main characters or able-bodied main characters. But I can't say as I've ever seen anyone using Jewishness that way. Usually if we are someone's one-dimensional plot device it's as someone's lawyer, fixer, "money guy", etc, not a supernatural force. So this isn't something you have to worry about.

2. I have a certain level of discomfort with you playing as a Jewish character just because playacting as a marginalized culture you're not part of strikes me as off, but I understand that that's how you gain insight into a character you're about to write so it's more of a writing exercise than anything else. (I wonder if D&D regulars from marginalized groups have written about this -- I've only played a few times casually with family so if I did run into this type of discussion in my social justice reading I wouldn't have absorbed it. If anyone is curious I played first as Captain Werewolf, and then switched to playing as Cinnamon Blade because lawful good was too hard. :P )

3. I would prefer you omit the detail about eating the cookies piece by piece symbolically, for two reasons: a. it unintentionally evokes Communion by having appreciative people consume a baked good symbolic of an entity who sacrificed his life for theirs, and b. focusing on the details of flesh consumption reminds me too much of Blood Libel (yes, a gingerbread man is in the shape of a person but how many of us actually think about it literally, the way this act would cause?)

As to your first question: I'm fine with her making a golem even though she's just a rando. Second question: I see what you're saying and maybe it could be more okay if it's really clear how well these gentile folks are treating her? And questions three and four are answered above.

I really do love the idea of a giant gingerbread man golem. Cookie golem T_T <3

--Shira

I would like to second Shira’s point about not ripping apart the gingerbread cookies. I honestly would prefer they were used as decoration, and other cookies eaten instead, since that part just feels so not-Jewish to me, but I don’t have golem-specific issues other than that. It seems like you have already been doing a lot of research, which is appreciated.

As far as the ttrpg/DnD aspect… I bounce back and forth on the topic of playing characters that are so very different from our experiences, other than in fantasy-related ways. However, I am aware that a lot of people will play with, and experiment with gender in game, and learn something about themselves in the process (the number of trans players of ttrpgs who tried out their gender in game before they were out is high). It’s different with Judaism, and even more significantly different when it comes to things you can’t convert into, like various actual, real-world races. But because people do sometimes experience growth from experiences like this, I’m hesitant to dissuade players completely. I do urge you to, at a minimum, bring the same care, research, and willingness to learn, that you brought to this question.

--Dierdra

This sounds like a creative storyline that you could have lots of fun with 😊

At first I was confused by this part:

She also made a town specific holiday to honour the Golem's sacrifice

But then you really got me thinking about different types of Jewish holidays and how they come about, so thank you for that!

Because it’s often the little details that either make a story super powerful or kind of nonsensical, I think it would be a good idea to decide what type of holiday is being created here:

A full-blown chag with restrictions on labour and halachic obligations? These are commanded in Torah and new ones can’t be added.

A minor yom tov with halachic obligations but no restrictions? These were instituted by the rabbis prior to the destruction of the Temple, so again new ones can’t be added.

A public holiday or equivalent? This would usually be declared by the Knesset in Israel, and filter to the rest of the Jewish world from there.

A community-based yom tov with specific customs only for people in the know, such as certain Chasidic groups celebrating the birthdays of their deceased leaders? I asked around, but no one can really tell me how these holidays get started, which is probably a good indication that they arise quite organically from a group of people who all just feel that it should be celebrated. Probably not created by a single person, as such.

Something she runs from her bakery, not religion-based, but more like a day of doing special products and deals the way many small businesses do on their anniversary?

Now, if the people of a modern-day town were actually saved by a real live Golem, that would arguably be the most overt miracle for many generations, so there would be a decent chance of options 3 and/or 4 happening. It’s entirely plausible that there could be special foods for this day that become a tradition, including Golem cookies. People who directly benefited might also return to the site where the Golem fought the monster and recite the prayer, ‘Blessed is Hashem, Master of the Universe, Who performed a miracle for me in this place.’

Alternatively, if it’s important that your MC created the holiday, something like option 5 might be the best. Hopefully this will still fulfil what you need: you describe her as incredibly skilled, so I can imagine the day when she goes all out on the Golem cookies being one of the most exciting events of the year for the townspeople, just because her baking is that good. Plus, they already have a personal stake in the Golem’s sacrifice, so I definitely think it could be a thing without being an official holiday. Also, if she is outside of an all-Jewish environment, don’t forget that she would have to decide whether to commemorate the anniversary in the Hebrew calendar or the local one.

Coming back to the cookies, sorry if we’re getting a little repetitive on this point! But I don’t see the cookies being torn limb from limb as part of a celebration. First of all, this doesn’t sound like a very celebratory thing to do, to say the least. Can you imagine explaining that to a three-year-old on their first Yom HaGolem? They would be terrified! (I don’t read this suggestion as accidental anti-Semitism so much as getting carried away with a metaphor, which I’m sure as writers we have all done!)

But also, it’s worth pointing out that our commemorative foods aren’t usually that literal. If you think about hamantaschen, maror, or apple in honey, they’re all symbols. That’s not to say that having Golem-shaped cookies is a problem, as this sounds like just a bit of fun that the MC is having and not something that is directly at odds with Judaism or Jewish culture. But it’s worth bearing in mind that the more literal you go from there in terms of tying the cookies to the event they commemorate, the less culturally aligned your holiday food becomes.

Finally, about the Golem protecting non-Jewish people: I like this idea! There’s a stereotype that we only use whatever is at our disposal to help ourselves and other Jewish people, so a Golem being created by Jews but helping others as well is a big plus for me. Of course, as has already been pointed out, this would be an odd choice if her Saving The World team were anti-Semitic or otherwise disrespectful to her/her community, but I don’t think you were headed that way!

-Shoshi

I have to come back in here just to squee over the phrase “Yom HaGolem.” Well done :D

--Shira

[chaos-burst]

one way or another (i’m gonna get you)

Dorian has a problem.

That problem is currently drunk off his ass and trying to balance one of Opal’s daggers on the tip of his nose. Of course he’s failing miserably, hitting himself in the eye with the blunt end twice thus far and maybe Dorian shouldn’t chuckle about it, but Dariax just keeps trying as Opal and Fearne edge him on.

“If you’re not careful you’ll stab your own eye out”, Orym says. He’s still nursing the same beer he started drinking an hour ago, probably to stay sober enough to stop any shenanigans that go too far.

“Oh, don’t worry about that, buddy. That already happened to me, like, three times, and I just healed it back together. No big deal.”

Dorian can see that Orym is at a loss for words.

“Dorian, do you think I can do it?”, Dariax calls over to him where he’s sitting, holding his lute and enjoying the warm evening breeze.

“Sure, Dariax. I’ll write a song about you if you do”, he says with an amused smile. Dorian tries to keep his smile from widening as Dariax beams at him and tries even harder.

All his life Dorian has been taught to be proper and well behaved—maybe that is why he feels drawn towards—well. Towards the group. The group that Dariax is also a part of and that Dorian definitely doesn’t feel drawn towards more than any of the others.

He starts moving his fingers mindlessly over the strings of his lute as Dariax stumbles backwards, falls over Opal’s outstretched legs and lands in her lap with the dagger clattering to the ground in front of them.

Dorian thinks about Dariax sitting on his lap, then he almost chokes on his own spit because so far Dariax hasn’t done anything even remotely appealing or attractive. He’s had shit on his beard, piss on his hands, he’s dirty and loud and so obnoxious.

But when he told Dorian that he’s the handsome one and that he’s just good at talking to people and whether Dorian wants some tips from him—Dorian was tempted. For a split second, he was thinking about Dariax offering to teach him how to flirt.

Because Dorian might be aware that he’s handsome, but he has exactly zero idea about how to flirt with people.

“Hey, Dorian! Do I still get a song?”, Dariax shouts, still half sitting in Opal’s lap.

“Sure, buddy. I’ll write you a song.”

“Cool! It’s a promise!”, Dariax says, thumbs up, a big grin on his handsome face.

There, Dorian can admit it.

Dariax is handsome. They’re all handsome. It’s really no big deal. Not at all.

Dorian tries not to think about what his parents would say about Dariax, because it’s completely irrelevant. It’s not like his parents will meet his friends, and especially not Dariax. Maybe he should go to bed and hope that come the next morning his circling thoughts will have stopped.

“Are you working on the song?”

Dorian blinks and turns his head, only to come face to face with Dariax who managed to get up from Opal’s lap and is now sitting right next to him, leaning way into Dorian’s personal space.

Dariax smells like ten different kinds of alcohol, leather and thankfully no bodily fluids, which is definitely an improvement. Dorian wishes that the fact that he’s seen this man with shit on his beard would dissuade his heart from beating a little faster every time Dariax grins at him.

Sadly his heart doesn’t care.

Neither does his stomach, which is currently doing all kinds of complicated gymnastics since Dariax invaded Dorian’s personal space.

“No. I don’t think I can concentrate in here while all that is going on”, Dorian says and gestures towards Opal who is now teaching Fearne how to do body shots.

“Aw, man. Can you play something? Something...hm. Something cool.”

“All my songs are cool, thank you very much!”

Dariax laughs.

“Yeah, okay, you’re not wrong there. You have a really beautiful voice, buddy. No wonder that goliath lady fell in love with you after like, three minutes!”

Dorian feels something that reminds him a lot of the feeling he gets when he’s falling or misses a step on some stairs. His heart starts doing an offensive little tumble and he clears his throat a little too loud as he leans out of Dariax’ space and clutches his lute as if his life depends on it.

“I don’t think I would know what to do if someone actually fell in love with me”, Dorian says with an embarrassingly shrill laugh and a second after the words have left his mouth he regrets them already.

“Aw, buddy, I told you—I can totally teach you a few tricks, you know? Just show you how to get real popular with the ladies. Or gents. Or people in general”, Dariax says and winks at him.

Dorian wishes he could turn into thin air. His cheeks feel very hot.

“I—uh. I don’t think that’s necessary. It’s not like I really have the time—“

Dariax snorts and raises his eyebrows.

“Oh, come on, Dorian. We’re just hanging out, right? If you wanna get laid, we have plenty of time for that. You should just relax a little more. Okay, so. What’s your type?”

Dorian stares at Dariax for almost thirty seconds before he clears his throat again.

“Uh. I—don’t. Well. Adventurous. Maybe—uh. Maybe brunettes?”

“Adventurous brunettes? That’s pretty vague, buddy. Just saying. Wait a second!”

Dariax leans closer again and puts his hand on Dorian’s shoulder. Then he does a terrible shout-whisper into Dorian’s ear that shouldn’t give him goosebumps but, fuck, it definitely does.

“Are you into Orym?”

Dorian blinks and turns his head to stare at Dariax who looks as if he just found out an earth-shattering secret through some careful investigation.

“N—no! No, he’s not. I mean, Orym is—fine? I don’t, uh—what I meant to say is... I don’t really know what my type is”, he ends lamely.

Of course Dariax feels the need to put an arm around Dorian now.

“Don’t worry, buddy. We’ll get you laid in no time. You have a pretty face and voice and all that, pretty sure that’ll go easy peasy.”

“That’s really not—“

“Hey guys, what are you whispering about?”, Opal shouts.

“We’re trying to figure out what Dorian’s type is to get him laid!”, Dariax shouts back.

“No, that’s not—“

“Ohh! Interesting! You don’t have a type? Did you never have a relationship before? Wait—are you like, a virgin?”

Dorian abruptly gets up from his chair. He’s definitely not drunk enough for this.

“I’m going to bed”, he says and leaves the room in a hurry, ignoring the disappointed shouts of his new friends following him outside.

*

Dorian hopes that his friends have forgotten the whole thing about supposedly getting him laid and about how Dariax intends to teach him flirting. But unfortunately the universe decides to not do him this favor.

Suddenly, every remotely attractive person they pass invokes a whole litany of questions.

Opal, Fearne and Dariax want to know everything. Which height, body-type, eye color, temperament, and style of clothing does he like? Does he prefer any genders to others? On six different occasions, Dariax tries to wingman Dorian into asking random strangers on dates.

Dorian is so desperate that he considers just telling them that he actually has someone back home, just so they will leave him alone.

It wouldn’t be the first lie he told.

Dorian feels a pang of guilt for lying about his name to these people who keep fighting alongside him.

Orym, bless his soul, is the only person who doesn’t partake in these interrogations and at some point, after Opal had asked Dorian if he was more into “tits or asses” Orym had quietly stated that “he deserves his privacy, you guys”.

Dorian has no idea if he’s a “tits or asses” kinda guy.

But Dorian just can’t stop thinking about the way Dariax’ voice sounded when it lilted “Man, you have the prettiest fucking eyes I’ve ever seen” the last time they were drunk.

It seems weirdly typical and ridiculous that Dorian has to have his first crush on the most chaotic man he ever met.

Dorian wishes he could forget about those damn words, just like everything that happened in their first week.

“You know”, Orym says to him two nights after that cursed conversation as they’re making their way further south towards Byroden, “if you told them to stop in earnest, I think they would respect that.”

The landscape is a carpet of green, sloping hills, rolling fields that lie bare now that winter is closing in around them. The sky is blue and cloudless and as they talk their breath puffs up in front of their faces and vanishes shortly after.

Dorian looks at Orym and then pointedly turns his gaze at Opal and Dariax, who started making a list of their findings regarding Dorian’s type.

“You sure?”, he says with one eyebrow raised.

Orym looks at least as pained as Dorian feels right now.

“I see your point. But they’re not—you know. Not bad people, I guess. I don’t think they want to hurt you.”

“Well, they’re not hurting me, they’re annoying me to death!”

Orym pats him on the back in a way that is so pitiful, Dorian can hardly take it.

“I wouldn’t usually encourage lying, but maybe you could just make up a girlfriend. Or boyfriend. Or—“

“What if I just tell them that you’re my type”, Dorian interrupts and Orym blinks at him.

“Uh—“

“No offense, you’re not. Not that you’re not handsome or anything, I just. Well—“

“It’s fine”, Orym says with a snort and shakes his head with a disbelieving smile. “You don’t have to fuss about it. You’re also very handsome but not my type.”

Dorian tries not to be offended after the last kick to his ego in Gilmore’s shop and clears his throat.

“Okay, so. What about it? Will you be my—I don’t know. My fake boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Oh, come on, Orym, I’m desperate here!”

“I will not be swept up in all of that. I still think you should just try to talk to them.”

Dorian feels betrayed and huffs, but he doesn’t press the issue any further. It’s probably going to be fine, he thinks. That is, until Dariax walks up to him, grins up at him cheekily and bumps his elbow into Dorian’s side.

“So. Are you finally ready to admit it?”, Dariax asks.

There is a glint in his eyes that Dorian can’t quite read.

“Admit what?”, he asks, already dreading the answer.

“That you have the hots for Orym!”

Dorian stares down at Dariax, the man he, so, so very unfortunately has “the hots for” and sighs deeply.

“You caught me”, he says with a gravelly voice. “I have the hots for Orym.”

“I knew it!”, Dariax shouts, then catches himself and turns his voice into a whisper instead. “I fucking knew it!”

Dorian massages his temple.

Maybe becoming an adventurer was a terrible idea. Maybe he shouldn’t have come here. He could make a name for himself somewhere else. The Menagerie coast is supposed to be lovely all year around.

“Okay, don’t worry, buddy. I gotcha. I’ll keep your secret, won’t even tell the girls at all. And you know what, because we’re such great friends I have a special offer just for you”, Dariax says and leans in even closer to Dorian, who has to lean down significantly.

“And what offer is that?”, Dorian asks with a sigh, resigning himself to his fate. At least Orym knows that Dorian isn’t actually attracted to him, so, he thinks, this can’t possibly get any worse.

“I should totally be your fake boyfriend so you can make him jealous.”

Dorian stares at Dariax.

Dariax stares back with the proudest grin on his handsome face.

The universe is trying to punish him. For whatever reason, it must have decided to make Dorian the butt of a cosmic joke. That’s the only explanation for all of this.

“I don’t think that’s—“

“It’s perfect! Don’t worry, I have experience with this sort of stuff, just lemme handle this.”

Dariax winks at Dorian and then grabs his hand to intertwine their fingers.

“Hey guys”, he calls as he pulls Dorian along who follows helplessly, his heart stumbling in his chest as his consciousness zooms in on the feeling of Dariax’ hand in his, “guess what. I should’ve clocked it all along, but of course it makes perfect sense! Check it out!”

And as Orym, Opal and Fearne turn their heads, Dariax raises their intertwined fingers and beams at the others.

“Wait…”, Orym starts slowly, his brow furrowed in confusion, “what…?”

“Too late, Orym. He’s my boyfriend now”, Dariax says and Dorian wishes that the wind would just pick him up and carry him away.

*

Dorian has to say something.

He can’t, under any circumstances, keep this up.

He is sitting—and gods, his heart is beating so terribly fast—on Dariax’ lap.

Dariax had insisted on it and now his muscular arms are wound around Dorian’s waist as if this is the most normal thing in the world. For someone who doesn’t actually have to breathe to survive, Dorian feels a little bit like he’s suffocating from the staccato inside his rib cage.

They made camp close to a rock formation that, according to Fearne, looks like a pig with wings. The night smells of snow, but Dorian feels hot despite the cold.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He knows it even less when Dariax’ hand finds one of his and just casually starts rubbing circles into the back of his hand with a thumb. Dorian can feel Orym’s eyes on them and sadly that edges Dariax on even more because he thinks his plan is working.

“You know”, Dariax says and sounds way too casual about it, “I can’t believe how lucky I got. Pretty sure you’re the most beautiful person I’ve been with so far, Dorian.”

“I—uh”, Dorian says, then somehow forgets how to speak. His cheeks feel incredibly hot even though he doesn’t sit remotely close to the fire.

Orym cocks his head and suddenly his eyes turn a little too wide for Dorian’s tastes.

Dorian doesn’t want anyone to understand anything about this disaster.

“Well, I would certainly love a boyfriend who tells me nice things like that”, Opal sighs dreamily. “Or—you know. Maybe a girlfriend. Who knows. I certainly don’t.”

She laughs a little too shrilly but Dorian doesn’t have the mental capacity to think about it anymore because a tingling sensation is running through his body and crawling along the underside of his skin as Dariax’ fingers just keep on gently, way too gently, drawing nonsensical symbols and circles on Dorian’s hand.

“Well, I just know what’s good. I make a great boyfriend”, Dariax announces with a smug undertone to his voice. The sad thing is that Dorian can’t even disagree.

So far, Dariax has been nothing but—well. There is no other word for it. Gentle and accommodating. He also started flirting with Dorian and his flirting only ever got tasteless twice during the last twenty-four hours.

He has offered to carry stuff for Dorian, held his hand, given him way too many compliments for Dorian’s poor heart to handle, helped him climb over some rocks and purposefully took a hit for Dorian in combat earlier today while shouting “Not my boyfriend, you ash-hole!”.

If someone had told him that Dariax makes good boyfriend material, Dorian would have scoffed at them.

But now.

Well.

Now he’s in even deeper shit, because this doesn’t help his feelings at all. It does the exact opposite of helping.

Gods, Dorian wishes he could kiss him.

“Well, I am certainly—uh. Happy? For you two”, Orym says with a pointed look at Dorian. Dorian tries to tell Orym that this wasn’t his idea with his eyes alone, that this is the worst, that Dorian definitely needs saving, but he doesn’t think anything gets across because the moment that Orym says that and looks at Dorian, Dariax seems to decide that he can’t have Orym looking at Dorian like that.

Dorian makes an embarrassing screeching sound as he is dipped backwards on Dariax’ lap. There is a very handsome, dwarven face with glinting eyes right in front of his when he opens his eyes again.

“Just go along”, Dariax whispers and before Dorian can protest or even just try to catch up with what’s happening, there are dry, warm lips pressed against his mouth and Dariax is closing his eyes.

Dorian’s brain is blank for a few seconds, then it kicks into overdrive, much like his heart that seems eager to jump right out of his chest and into the campfire. Dorian can’t fault it, because he, too, would love to jump into the campfire, never to be seen again.

Dariax is holding him with one arm while his other hand is resting on Dorian’s cheeks where Dariax’ thumb starts rubbing circles again as he kisses Dorian.

Dorian wants to run away.

He wants to kiss back.

He wants this to be real.

Dariax doesn’t actually want to kiss him. He only does it because he’s pretending, there is nothing real about any of this, no matter how nice and exciting his warm lips feel against Dorian’s.

Dorian pushes him away, clambers up from his position, trying very hard not to fall as he stands up, and steps away from Dariax hastily.

“I—ah. I need to. Pee. Yes. Pee. I’ll be—uh. Later!”

And he walks as fast as he can without breaking into a run.

His lips are still burning after he stops walking without even seeing where he’s going. It’s dumb. All of this is so incredibly dumb.

Beautiful eyes, beautiful voice, beautiful person.

Dariax really has to stop saying these things.

It’s already enough that Dorian developed this stupid crush after such a short amount of time on the road. It’s stupid that it had to be Dariax of all people—couldn’t it have been someone reasonable? Like Orym?

Couldn’t it just have been no one? Or a nice, noble lady that he impressed with his songs and good looks?

No.

He’s standing in the middle of nowhere, his heart beating rapidly in his chest with no clue where he even is or what he’s doing. The trees around him are leafless and bare, stretching towards the dark sky like skeletal silhouettes. Dorian doesn't know what to do.

Dariax kissed him.

He had his first kiss with a complete and utter maniac of a person. His lips are still tingling and gods, he wants to kiss him again and again and again—

“Dorian! Doriaaan!”

Dorian turns around and wipes at his face that feels weirdly wet.

Gods, he hates everything and everyone right now.

Dariax comes to a halt in front of him, his breath coming quickly and holding his compass rose.

“Okay—wow. Your legs. Are so. Long. You’re so. Fucking fast”, Dariax huffs and puts his hands on his knees as he tries to catch his breath.

Dorian looks at him and can’t decide whether he wants to kick Dariax in the shin or just run away further.

“So, uh—sorry. I got a little carried away and I kinda—uh. It was brought to my attention that it wasn’t very cool of me to just kiss you without asking if that’s okay with you. So—uh. Really sorry about that, shoulda thought about that before I—uh. You know.”

Dariax scratches the back of his head as he looks down at Dorian’s left knee.

“It’s—well. Yeah, I suppose a little warning would have been nice. It’s—uh.”

Dorian stops and wipes at his face again and when he looks back up Dariax is studying him, his gaze intense and uncharacteristically serious.

“Wait—wait a second. Was that your first kiss?”

“No! I mean. Yes! Sort of! Maybe!”

Dariax gapes and Dorian wishes the earth could swallow him up whole.

“Oh fuck, buddy, man, that’s. I’m really sorry, I didn’t—damn. I really fucked that one up, huh?”

Dariax looks so earnestly mortified at what he’s done that Dorian can already feel how he’s forgiving him, how he finds it endearing, how his heart swells in his chest like the idiot that it is.

“It’s not such a big deal. Don’t worry about it. Just—uh. Maybe we should talk about all of this stuff before… you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, totally. I swear I’m usually not a creep or anything, it was just… you know. The heat of the moment, or something. So…”

Dariax is scratching the back of his head again and swallows before he shoots Dorian a lopsided grin.

“So. No kissing and stuff like that, huh? Just the hand-holding? Hey, maybe a hug or something?”

Dorian stares at him and he could swear that Dariax’ cheeks are a little redder than before, which, Dorian supposes, comes from his embarrassment about his earlier fuck-up.

As long as they’re doing this fake-boyfriend gig, Dorian could kiss Dariax whenever he wants. Because apparently Dariax doesn’t mind that one little bit. He might never get the chance again to kiss him if he says no now.

So Dorian does something incredibly stupid and impulsive and maybe it’s even a real ash-hole move. In this tiny moment in time he decides to be selfish.

“Kissing is fine. Uh—you know. You’re not that bad at it, I guess”, he says and laughs which sounds terribly false in his own ears but Dariax perks up and throws him a reckless grin that makes Dorian’s heart stumble in his chest.

“Ha! You just wait for it, I’ll kiss your brains out before you know it!”

*

Dorian might be addicted.

He knows that this is all a ruse based on a misunderstanding but gods, kissing Dariax is so good.

And Dariax somehow makes it seem as if he’s just as into it as Dorian is, because he keeps kissing him all the time. Of course, it never happens when they’re alone and only when Orym is in more or less close proximity but if Dorian isn’t careful he’ll start believing that they’re actually boyfriends sooner than later.

Dariax is so good at pretending.

He kisses Dorian as if he never wants to kiss anyone else. He holds Dorian’s face in his hands as if it’s something precious. He kisses Dorian breathless and at more than one point Dorian had to stop him because he was getting a little too into it and he’s afraid of overstepping any boundaries.

Dariax promised that he would kiss Dorian’s brains out and it’s absolutely working. On the seventh day on their journey south they get so caught up in making out that they don’t realize that the others have gone to find a camping place for the night.

“We should—uh. Probably follow them”, Dorian croaks and stares down at Dariax’ lips.

“Hmhm. Yeah. Probably a good idea”, Dariax mumbles. Then he kisses Dorian again.

Dorian gets lost in the sensation of tongues sliding against one another and the feeling of Dariax’ hand cupping his cheeks. Dorian slides his hands into Dariax’ hair and buries his fingers in there, something that provokes a sound from Dariax. A sound that gives Dorian goosebumps all over his arms.

He wants to hear it again. He wants to touch more. He wants, he wants, he wants—

Dariax pulls back, his eyes glassy, his breathing labored.

“I—uh. Ha. I got a little carried away. Sorry. What do you say about checking where the others went?”

“Sure. Yeah. Great idea. Let’s go.”

He steps away from Dariax and stuffs his hands into his pockets to keep Dariax from reaching for them. This is a complete and utter disaster.

Dorian knows that he should stop it.

He shouldn’t abuse Dariax’ trust like this and keep up his pretense when all that Dariax wants is to help Dorian make Orym jealous.

Which has, of course, not worked in the slightest, but Dariax insists that it’s just because Orym is such a rational and level-headed guy.

“We just need to wear him thin, you know.”

Dorian doesn’t know.

He feels like he doesn’t know anything anymore.

When they finally reach the campsite, Fearne has placed her head in Opal’s lap and seems to be napping as Opal carefully braids her long, green hair.

“You guys alright?”, Orym asks with his eyebrows raised. Dorian feels himself flush and clear his throat.

“More than alright”, Dariax answers and winks. The implication makes Dorian’s cheeks heat up even more.

He didn’t think that Orym’s eyebrows could climb even higher, but that’s exactly what happens as he regards the two of them.

“Dorian, can I talk to you for a second?”, Orym asks and gets up from the log he was sitting on. Dorian shoots Dariax a glance and he seems… off.

Dariax doesn’t return Dorian’s look, he just walks over to the fire, lets himself fall down next to Opal and asks, way too loudly to be necessary “So what’s for dinner?”.

But Dorian doesn’t have any time to think more about this, because Orym grabs his wrist and pulls him towards a group of trees, away from the campfire and away from Dariax whose eyes seem to bore themselves into the back of Dorian’s head as he follows Orym into the night.

“What are you doing?”

Dorian doesn’t have to ask what Orym means. He wrings his hands and stares at the ground.

“I—uh. I don’t really... I don’t really know?”

“So when you said adventurous and brunette, what you actually meant was short, stocky and a complete disaster?”

“I—um...”

Orym looks at him with raised eyebrows and despite the fact that Dorian is so much taller than him he suddenly feels very small.

“Well. Dariax kind of got it into his head that I’m into you. Which I’m not.”

“Yes, we established that.”

“Exactly. And. Well, he thought it would be a good idea to be fake boyfriends to make you jealous.”

Orym’s eyebrows rise even higher towards his hairline.

“But I’m not jealous. Because you and I are just friends.”

“I know, okay? It just kinda got out of hand?He’s so—I don’t know! I don’t know what to do!”

Orym sighs and rubs his temples.

“So. You’re actually into Dariax?”, he asks.

Dorian presses his lips together and takes a deep breath before he nods.

“And he doesn’t know. He thinks you’re into me?”

Dorian nods again.

“And now he’s waiting for me to get jealous and for us two to be boyfriends?”

Dorian shrugs helplessly.

“Isn’t that... I don’t know. It seems like lying to him.”

“What do you want me to do? Just tell him that I have the hots for him and then leave the country forever?”, Dorian hisses.

“Well, maybe he has the hots for you, too!”, Orym whispers back and Dorian can’t help but laugh. It sounds a little hysterical.

“Then why would he offer to help me to get with you?”

Orym stares at Dorian for a full thirty seconds. Then he sighs.

“I guess it’s a little hard to... fathom... what goes on in Dariax’ head.”

“That seems like an understatement.”

Orym scoffs and shakes his head with half a smile on his face.

“I can’t believe you actually fell for—that.”

“Hey!”

“Sorry. I guess to each their own.”

“So what’s your type then?”

“Uh—I don’t really have a type. I’m not into the whole relationship stuff. Or—uh. The sex stuff, for that matter.”

“Oh. Oh! I see. Well, that seems pretty convenient. Way less stressful than what I’m doing with my life.”

Orym smiles and shakes his head again.

“I’m not going to lie, when I’m watching you and Dariax or Opal and Fearne I am glad that I don’t have to deal with any of it”, Orym admits.

“Opal and Fearne? How do you mean?”, Dorian asks. His brain is still stuck on kissing Dariax without Orym even being in any close proximity. His whole brain capacity seems to be occupied by thinking about Dariax. It’s an absolute clusterfuck.

“Never mind. So, what do you intend to do? You can’t keep this up forever”, Orym says and pulls Dorian away from a trail of thoughts that was leading towards something explicit and utterly unbefitting of a talk with a good friend about feelings.

“I—uh. I’m still figuring it out. I’ll just. You know, I could just tell him that I’m not into you anymore and then he would probably stop”, Dorian says and ignores the uncomfortable tightness of his chest as he thinks about not being able to kiss Dariax anymore. Or hold his hand. Or being told that he’s beautiful.

He’s so fucked.

“I think you should just tell him, you know? We’re adventurers now, no one knows what might happen. If I learned anything from our Voice of the Tempest, it’s that you should do your best to live without any regrets, because time is a precious thing”, Orym says.

“A weird soup”, Dorian answers, his voice weak and his heart hurting. Orym snorts.

“Yes, sure. A weird, precious soup. Anyway. Think about it, okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

*

Something is up with Dariax.

Dorian has no idea what it is, but there is definitely something wrong.

He’s quieter than usual, which is disconcerting. He’s also, very definitely, holding onto Dorian’s hand way tighter than before.

“Hey, is everything alright?”, Dorian asks him quietly as they’re getting ready for the night. The sky overhead is dark and full of clouds and the moon is barely visible.

“Yeah, sure. Stellar”, Dariax says but he’s not looking at Dorian.

“You don’t look stellar”, Dorian insists and puts his hand on Dariax’ shoulder. Dariax’ eyes flicker down to his hand and then up to his face. Dariax opens his mouth to answer, but Dorian doesn’t hear anything because there is a searing pain on his back and he slumps forward and crumples onto his knees.

His vision goes blurry from the pain and he can feel that there is something coursing through his body. It hurts.

“Dorian? Dorian!”

Lying down seems like a great idea. What if he dies now and he didn’t even tell Dariax that he’s not into Orym? What if his adventure ends here already? He doesn’t want to sink into the weird soup that is time already. He wants…

“Take your hands off my boyfriend, you fuckers!”

“Hey! What’s going on?”

“Dorian, are you okay?”

He is definitely not okay and while he probably should have different priorities as he’s bleeding out in the grass, all he can think about is the fact that Dariax just called him his boyfriend.

“Dorian, are you okay?”, Dariax’ voice sounds muffled and far away.

“Heh. You’re really good at pretending”, he lulls as he’s turned onto his back to look up at Dariax’ face.

“What? Guys, I think he has a concussion or something!”

“Well, heal him!”

“I’m trying! Dorian, hey! Buddy, don’t pass out on me, okay?”

“Did you know that your eyes are really pretty?”, Dorian slurs and he wants to raise a hand to touch Dariax’ face that seems way too red all of a sudden, but he can’t move a muscle and as he feels Dariax’ warm healing magic flow into him, he passes out from the mind-numbing pain.

*

Dorian has never shared a bed with anyone. Neither in a platonic nor in a romantic or sexual way.

When he wakes up there is someone plastered to his side. The quiet snoring tells him that it must be Dariax.

“Are you okay, Dorian?”, Fearne’s soft voice reaches his ears and he turns his head to see her sit on his other side, her hand places closed to his shoulder as if to make sure that he’s within reach.

“Uh—ow. Yeah. What happened?”

Dorian tries to concentrate on his own body and on Fearne’s words, but he’s distracted by the feeling of Dariax sleeping so close to him. His arm is thrown over Dorian’s chest and his face is pressed into Dorian’s shoulder. Orym is nowhere to be seen.

“Those Nameless Ones seem to have a pretty far reach. They really want that spider crown.”

Dorian groans as he tries to move.

“They hit me with poison or something?”

“Yeah. Dariax fixed it. Then he insisted on carrying you back to the cart. Then he insisted to tuck you into bed. And then he just sort of flopped down next to you and stared at you really intensely until he passed out.”

Dorian tries to laugh but almost chokes on it as he imagines this short man trying to carry someone as tall as Dorian. His thoughts circle around the fact that Dariax cared for him, healed him, tucked him into bed.

“So. Ah—where are Orym and Opal?”, he asks to distract himself from the feeling of having Dariax pressed so close to him.

“They’re checking to see if we’ll be safe for the night. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay.”

“That’s very kind of you.”

Fearne smiles down at him and starts scratching Little Mister under the chin as she hums a melody that Dorian’s never heard before.

“Did you ever have a really dumb crush?”, he asks before he can stop himself. Fearne turns her head to look at him again and cocks her head.

“A crush that was dumb because it wasn’t mutual or a crush that was dumb because the person was dumb?”, she wants to know.

“Ah. Huh—I haven’t thought about it that way. I guess… how about we go with both?”

Fearne puts her index fingers to her lips and cocks her head from side to side as she thinks about it.

“Well, I don’t think crushes are dumb just because they aren’t mutual. And I also think that Opal is very intelligent in her own, special way.”

Dorian blinks.

“Wait. What?”

“Hm?”

“You have a crush on Opal?”

“Sure. I thought it was pretty obvious”, Fearne says and smiles dreamily.

“Uh—maybe. Now that you mention it, I think Orym clocked it.”

“She is just. You know. Very exciting and spontaneous and funny and creative and pretty.”

The way that Fearne just talks about her crush makes Dorian wonder why he isn’t able to just say it like this. That he likes Dariax because he’s funny and brave and adventurous and a complete idiot in a lovable kind of way.

“What do you like about Dariax?”, Fearne wants to know.

“Uh—well”, he laughs nervously and clears his throat. Dariax is still softly snoring into his shoulder. “I guess… I guess pretty much everything?”

“That’s so sweet! And that’s what he said too. You guys just fit so well”, Fearne says with an earnest smile.

“Wait. What?”

“Hm?”

“What did you just say?”

“I said that you guys fit really well.”

“No. No, I meant before that.”

“Uh—well, when I asked him what he liked most about you, he also said that he likes everything about you. I thought it was really sweet, you know? There was a whole list of things, but he stopped midway through it and said ‘So basically, everything’.”

There was a whole list of things.

A list.

 “So basically, everything.”

“Dorian? Are you really okay? You look a little flushed.”

“Hm? Oh—yeah. I’m fine. Perfect. Peachy. Never better.”

He laughs nervously and glances over at Dariax as his insides dissolve into small, hyperactive butterflies. Maybe it’s not what he thinks. Maybe Dariax meant that he likes everything about Dorian as a friend.

“If you’re sure you’re okay I think I’ll stretch my legs a little bit. This cart is pretty small”, Fearne says and scoots towards the exit of the cart. Little Mister follows behind her and a moment later Dorian is alone with a snoring Dariax, whose hand has somehow managed to sneak under Dorian’s shirt.

What is he supposed to do now?

Wake Dariax up? Confess his feelings?

His heart beats so quickly that Dorian is almost afraid that it might just leap out of his rib cage. In the end he’s not brave enough to wake Dariax up and instead intertwines their fingers and turns his head to look at Dariax who has definitely drooled onto his shirt.

He knows that he’s completely fucked because he thinks that this is endearing.

Dorian raises his arm and gently cards his hand through Dariax’ hair.

Dariax makes a small sound in his sleep, something that sounds like a content sigh, and the butterflies in Dorian’s stomach start dancing happily.

“D’you really think my eyes are pretty?”, Dariax mumbles a second later and Dorian pulls his hand away hastily as Dariax’ eyes open.

“Um—well. Yeah. They’re… they have a very nice color”, Dorian croaks. Dariax pulls his hand out from under Dorian’s shirt and starts rubbing at his eyes.

“You okay again?”

“Yeah. Thank you for saving me. And carrying me to the cart. And—uh. Tucking me in.”

Dariax’ cheeks redden as he coughs slightly before sitting up.

“Well, you know. It’s what boyfriends are for, right?”, Dariax says with half a laugh in his voice that doesn’t sound completely genuine.

Dorian swallows and bites his bottom lip as he tries to find the words. He’s usually not bad at talking, so why does this seem so endlessly hard?

“So—uh. I have something to confess”, he starts as his thoughts start spinning around in panicked circles. Dariax turns his head to look down at him.

“I know, I know”, he answers.

“Huh?”

“Well, I figured, you know. When Orym dragged you away I thought you guys probably had a talk?”

“We did, yeah”, Dorian says but he is endlessly confused about what that has to do with anything.

“See, I knew it. So you think it finally started working, huh? Told you, I’m really good at this kind of stuff.”

Dorian decides that he has to sit up for this. His head is spinning and his heart is racing and he is endlessly confused about what in the ever-loving hell is going on.

“Working? What are you talking about?”

“You know, the jealousy thing.”

Dorian stares at him.

Then it finally clicks.

“Dariax… I don’t want to be fake boyfriends anymore”, he says quietly before he can think of a better way to say it. Dariax’ expression twists and he looks away, his hand reaching for the back of his head to scratch at his scalp—a sign for nervousness, as Dorian knows by now.

“Yeah. Okay. I—uh. That’s—“

“I want to be your real boyfriend.”

Dariax blinks a few times. Then his face turns the deepest shade of red that Dorian has ever seen on him.

“You—what?”

“I don’t like Orym. I never have. Not like that. I—uh. I like you. And when—if—I kiss you again I don’t want it to be just pretend, I want to really kiss you. Because I—uh. I really like kissing you.”

Dariax is still staring at him, seemingly stunned. The hand at the back of his head has stopped moving and started to sink slowly back into Dariax’ lap.

“So…”, Dorian says and the nervous energy humming under his skin is almost unbearable, “can I? Can I… kiss you? For real?”

If Dariax doesn’t say anything soon Dorian might have to flee from the cart and actually leave the country. The suspense is torturous, his words hang heavy in the air between them. And then, faster than Dorian can react, Dariax lounges himself at Dorian and kisses him so passionately that Dorian can’t suppress the moan that escapes him.

Dariax pushes at him, shoves Dorian back down onto the bedroll, sinks one hand into Dorian’s long hair and cups his face with the other.

Dorian’s brain goes blank as he arches up against Dariax’ weight on top of him.

“So, is that a yes?”, he pants into the kiss.

“Yes. Yes, yes, yes”, Dariax rasps and kisses him again. “Gods, you’re so pretty. I thought I was going to go insane.”

Dorian makes a very embarrassing noise somewhere between a moan and a whimper. Maybe he likes those compliments more than a normal person would.

“So you like me?”

“Are you kidding me? So fucking much.”

Dariax is kissing his whole face now and Dorian wraps his arms around him. He feels light as a feather and the butterflies in his stomach have gone completely off the rails.

“Are you guys decent?”, Opal shouts from outside the cart.

“No! Go away! I want to make out with my boyfriend!”, Dariax shouts back and Dorian laughs.

“Don’t leave any icky spots though!”, Opal says.

“Oh, come on”, Dorian hears Orym protest.

“That’s what Prestidigitation is for, Opal! Read a book about magic!”, Dariax announces loudly and Dorian has no time to protest this obscene exchange because Dariax is kissing him again and Orym seems to be dragging Opal away from the cart.

“So do you know what that means?”, Dorian mumbles against Dariax’ lips.

“Hm?”

“I don’t need any flirting lessons from you after all.”

[voiceless-terror]

#21 and #46 for kiss prompts, maybe? I can't get enough your writing tbf

kiss on a dare- a little jonmartin season one fluff <3 All in all, this is one of Tim’s better Friday nights.

It’s been ages since Jon’s hung out with them, and never with Martin along for the ride. The Archives had been off to a messy start after the Dog Incident and Jon’s subsequent panic over the state of the place. What used to be an ‘every couple of weeks’ tradition turned into an almost-never one as the newly-assembled team got buried under more and more boxes of dusty statements. He’s pretty astounded that Jon agreed to dinner and drinks- although it’s a Friday night, Jon’s been apt to stay weekends more often than not. He figured if he arranged for it at one of theirs instead of a pub, Jon would be more likely to come. He always preferred less crowded settings.

No, the real feat was getting him to come knowing Martin was invited.

Jon’s been getting...better around him, that’s true. He was perfectly fine at his birthday party, going off about emulsifiers for a solid fifteen minutes. Tim’s always been rather fond of Jon’s infodumping, and if he’s comfortable enough to do it around Martin that must be a good sign. Despite an initial freeze-out, he now thanks Martin for his tea and saves his most pointed comments for Martin’s more egregious screw-ups (and even those have less bite than usual). Still, a colleague does not a friend make, and Jon’s never been good at opening up to people he doesn’t know all that well. However, Jon just nodded at the Martin caveat, seemingly not giving it a second thought. And Martin didn’t seem all that worried either.

Whatever, Tim’s not going to look a gift horse in the mouth. He’s just happy they’re all here, having a good time. It’s late and Jon’s had enough wine to keep a smile on his face. He missed that. It’s nice how easily they slot together, even with all of the upheaval and a new addition. Martin himself isn’t so shy after a drink or two, more willing to engage in banter and keep the conversation going. This is what it should be like all the time, Tim thinks. Shitty archive job or not. 

It’s when they retire to the living room, drinks in hand, that he finally notices the little grin on Sasha’s face. And Tim, knowing exactly what that means, is both a little afraid and excited. Four-drink-Sasha has always been a host unto herself.

“Why don’t,” she begins, a hiccup interrupting her as she slumps into an armchair. Tim snickers and ignores the glare this earns him. “Why don’t we play one of our old games-”

Tim raises a glass in agreement as Jon, predictably, groans. Martin looks quizzically between them. Ah yes, time for your initiation, Marto! Not that they’ve played this in about a year or so, of course, but it's always fun to revisit the good old days.

“Seriously? We’re not children-”

Tim gives Jon a playful slap on the back that sends him flying forward on the couch, spilling a bit of wine on Sasha’s rug. He hopes she doesn’t notice. “C’mon, it’ll be fun, boss! Nothing like it to break the ice, and there’s definitely some ice that needs breaking.”

Martin blinks, hand tightening on his glass. He looks nervous, like he always does when he doesn’t know exactly what’s going on. Which is a shame, because he’s been so nice and open all night. Even chatting with Jon. “Sorry, what are you talking about?”

Jon rolls his eyes, giving Martin a commiserating look. “Truth or dare.”

Martin lets out a disbelieving laugh, relaxing minutely. “Wait, really?”

“Yes, really.” Jon’s foot reaches out to shove at Tim’s leg. “Tim loves pulling ridiculous stunts-”

“-Hey, you loved the karaoke idea-”

“You sing?”

“No.” Tim would dispute that, but the look on Jon’s face declares it a bad idea. “And Sasha likes to ask probing questions.”

Sasha preens, though the remark was certainly not meant as a compliment. “What can I say, I’m the Queen of Truth-”

Tim snorts. “Hacking and blackmail more like-”

“Anyway-” Sasha sings out as Tim dodges a pillow to the face. “Tim….truth or-”

“Dare, always dare.”

“You’re absolutely no fun,” Sasha pouts, though it doesn’t take long for her eyes to narrow in thought. There’s very little Tim won’t do, but that’s a dangerous look. “I dare you...to text…”

“Text? You can do better than that, Sash.”

“Text...Elias.” That’s more like it. 

Jon immediately scowls. “Tim, no-”

“I don’t have his number-”

“I do-”

“Sasha!”

“Jon, it’ll be fine! He’ll just say ‘oops, wrong number’ afterwards, no harm, no foul-”

Tim takes this time to snatch at Sasha’s phone, sitting precariously on the arm of her chair. She doesn’t notice, too busy gesturing at Jon empathically. He scrolls through her contact list.

“And then it’ll come down on me-”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “How is he going to connect it to you? It’s not like he knows we’re all together-”

“Done!” Tim tosses the phone back onto the couch with a little grin. Sasha blinks, looking down in confusion.

“Wait, that’s mine-”

The screech and smack on the arm at Tim’s hastily fired off ‘u up? ;)’ to Elias Bouchard were definitely deserved. He’s sure he’ll face consequences for that in the near future, but Jon and Martin’s immediate laughter had been well worth it. Shouldn’t dish it if you can’t take it, that’s Tim’s motto.

In the next round, Tim manages to get Martin to confess to his poetry-writing habit, an admission that has him turning an attractive shade of red. Jon just giggles quietly to himself as Martin reads through one of his poorer attempts at rhyme saved to the notes of his mobile. Tim watches the two of them; Martin keeps looking up at Jon throughout it all like he’s the only one in the room and god, his crush is so evident and yet Jon is oblivious, smiling at him like he’s not on the receiving end of some of the most loaded glances of all time. 

Martin gets Sasha to admit to her most recent perusal through confidential institute records, which turned out to be previous archival expenses (solely to find out what Elias would cover with their new jobs, of course). At first glance, there wasn’t much in the way of extravagant meals or supplies, but a bit more digging had her finding Gertrude’s extensive travel budget. For an old woman, she certainly was a globe-trotter.

“All I’m saying, Jon, is that we could definitely do with a trip to China-”

“Yes, I’ll be sure to ask Elias about Gertrude’s trip to China, something I certainly shouldn’t know about, and he’ll have to let us go.”

“Refill?” Martin’s on his feet, taking Jon’s wine glass in his hand and Tim watches as their fingers brush- go Martin!- and yet Jon just nods his thanks, completely oblivious to the seduction taking place before him. Tim’s given it some thought and honestly, he thinks they’d make a cute couple. An odd pair, for sure, but Jon’s so soft once you get to know him, and Martin’s one of the funniest, sweetest guys he knows. They could be good for each other.

“Well, I still think it’s worth a try.” Sasha’s eyes are starting to blink heavily - she’ll be out for the count tonight, for sure. “Anyway, it’s your turn. I dare you-”

“I didn’t even pick!” Jon says, though he doesn’t seem too put out by it. This is the Jon Martin should know, the easy-humored, smiling man sprawled out before him. He’s even taken his little sweater vest and tie off, looking more like the familiar friend from research Tim knows so well. It warms his heart.

“Fine. Truth or dare?”

“Dare, I suppose. Seeing as how you already have one queued up.”

“I dare you to...to...to give a little kiss to someone in this room.” She waves her glass around imperiously. “Anyone you like.”

Silence. Tim gives Sasha a warning look that she ignores. She’s well in her cups, and he supposes any sense of propriety has gone out the window along with her sobriety. He’s actually seen Jon give quite a few kisses on a particularly memorable New Years Eve, but that was a different time. He doesn’t want him to feel pressured, not when he’s just starting to open back up.

 “Jon doesn’t have to if he doesn’t want to-”

Sasha rolled her eyes. “Oh come on, you remember-”

“It doesn’t matter- Jon, you can skip this one if you like, we can think of something else-”

“Tim, it’s alright.” Jon puts a hand on his arm to stop the argument, and there’s a strange look in his eyes that can’t be attributed to liquor. It’s mock-serious, almost playful paired with his little sly smile. He thinks for a moment that Jon’s going to lean in and kiss him but instead he gets up from the sofa in a smooth motion and walks across the room to Martin, who’s just turned around with two glasses in hand. He freezes in place as Jon gets on his very tippy toes, takes his face in both hands, and kisses him. 

Jonathan Sims. Kissing Martin Blackwood. Against a kitchen counter. Martin Blackwood, who, once he’s over his surprise, puts the drinks down behind him and kisses right the hell back, arms winding around Jon’s waist like they belong there.

What. The. Fuck.

_____

“The leg bit was a nice touch.”

“Hmm?” Jon’s in Martin’s lap, sprawled out on his couch back at his own flat, eyes closed in contentment as he leans back against the other man’s chest. Martin’s got one hand in his hair, and the other entwined with Jon’s, twirling the black ring on his finger. It’s heavenly.

“Thought you were trying to climb me.”

“Well, you usually pick me up at that point, make it easier.”

“Sorry, next time.” Kissing Jon’s always fun but kissing him out in the open, in front of their friends? Was that something they could do now? “Should we tell them we’ve been dating for two months?” 

Two whole months since that night in Document Storage when Jon had finally let his guard down. When Martin had held him in his arms. Jon was very particular about keeping up appearances, though that all seemed to have crumbled tonight. Sasha rather fashioned herself a matchmaker, and Jon didn’t do anything to dissuade the fact. It’d been nice, having their relationship to themselves, the secret of it, the obliviousness of their friends who still thought Jon only tolerated him. It’s not that he wanted to keep it that way, of course, but it was nice while they were still figuring it out. 

“If you’d like. Maybe it’s time.” Jon tilts his head back, giving Martin a fond look. “Though I know how much you enjoy playing the lovesick fool-”

“There’s something so poetic about unrequited love, yknow?”

“All the more when it’s requited, I’d say.” Martin couldn’t argue with that. He leans down to give Jon’s forehead a peck. 

“Hmm. Give it a few more weeks. Act out the honeymoon phase for a bit, it’ll be fun.”

And when Jon squeezes his hand and smiles back, Martin thinks he won’t need to do much acting at all.

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31318724

[rantrambles]

Ever get so upset you make a Tumblr account to vent?

I haven’t even listened to The Penumbra Podcast yet but it’s on my list because it’s insanely popular and the cosplays I’ve seen are hot as hell (A+ to all the cosplayers I’ve seen you’ve done great work). Now, with the recent news surrounding the podcast, I’ll wait till it’s done if I ever do get into it. I’m Asian and part of the LGBT community but I’m not nonbinary so I can’t say much about the trans represention in the art but I wanted to add my two cents on the matter as a person of color and someone examining the situation from the outside. Also, before I get deeply into it, I’m not the only person of color with opinions on this matter so if people have their own frustrations and criticism with the racism in The Penumbra Podcast and/or the new artist they hired, definitely listen to them too. These are my own personal opinions, and I’m sure other people will disagree and that’s fine. We’re all going to have different views on this so bear that in mind. Also, feel free to correct me or add anything if I’ve missed some information. Here’s a great breakdown of the whole situation for those that don’t know what happened. Finally, I was very hesitant to post this, but I felt it was important because I make a statement at the end on how race should be presented in a podcast format so if you are interested in making a podcast and want to have a diverse range of characters, please skip to the end to read those thoughts.

I’ll start off by saying, I’m not even that upset with the new artist that The Penumbra Podcast hired. I know that statement alone is controversial but I don't personally know them, and I’m not going to judge who they are as a person by a few pieces of art they’ve made. They are the least of the problems that I have here. Since the announcement and the backlash, I’ve been scrolling through the artist’s Instagram account and I can tell why people find the designs offensive, but I’m also comparing the designs to the artist’s other work, and I honestly believe that’s just their style. They’ve exaggerated the features of just about every character they’ve made, regardless of race or gender. From what I’ve seen the sharp angles and overly round curves in the anatomy that make some of the character’s features more jarring are how they prefer to draw. I’m sure they’re capable of drawing more realistic proportions but for the most part they’re art aims to call attention, be bold, and create distinguished features. Not inherently a bad thing on its own.

And yeah I’d understand the issue if this were a scenario where the artist heard how these characters acted in the podcast and thought “hey, obviously this character is a black woman because they are super strong and therefore must have big muscles, no other woman could look like that” or “hey, this character has to be Asian because they act super seductive sometimes better draw them as such.” But from my understanding the race was already decided by previous official artists and a general description of the characters were already generated by the audience, similar to how The Magnus Archives leaned towards drawing scrawny Jon with black, greying hair and dark skin. The new artists couldn’t really change those features even if those features aren’t described in canon because a depiction that strayed too far from popular fandom interpretation would make the character’s unrecognizable to the fanbase. 

I think the reason this became such a big issue for most people is because the new Penumbra artist used their exaggerated art style when making these characters and people of color and nonbinary folks already see themselves drawn as these exaggerated caricatures all the time (with those images being used to further discriminate against them). I’m sure the artist didn’t mean for their art to be offensive, but that of course doesn’t change how it was received. 

According to some, the poses and expressions the artists chose did not fully represent the characters entirely and only served to further perpetuate harmful stereotypes, and I’ll have to take their word for it because I still haven’t listened to the podcast so I have no idea how the characters act. But again much of the criticism is based on the one line-up and doing a deeper dive into the artist’s work I managed to find artwork that was much less offensive. Here some art where Vespa is depicted in a non-violent pose and one where Vespa is in a threatening pose but not an overly violent one. Here is Peter drawn in a non-seductive pose. Hopefully, the artist truly does keep the criticisms in mind as they work on the new official art. I’m just not the type of person that wants to get the pitchforks out and cause this particular person to lose a job they seemed really excited about over their old character line-up, especially when that person is also part of a marginalized group.

Again, that’s just my opinion on that particular artist. Those who are offended by their art are still valid in how they feel, and the artist should absolutely take their criticism to heart to better how they represent the characters.

What I’m more upset about is that I think The Penumbra Podcast should never have released official art for their characters in the first place and that’s their mistake that they refuse to own up about. They have made it clear that the story was never meant to portray characters of colors, a fact emphasized by the fact they hired mostly white actors from the start. They only started releasing art of the characters to get a profit. And the thing is they know what they did was wrong. All I had to do was search Penumbra Podcast racism and there is a note on their website saying that they archived some old official art.

“We have discontinued all Penumbra merchandise that uses the original character designs, and in the meantime, any profits on the sales of that merchandise will go to the For The Gworls project. We also realize that the depiction of these characters as POC, while not appropriate for us to use in our marketing and merchandise, has nonetheless become personally meaningful to many POC listeners. For that reason, and because we do not wish to distance ourselves from our mistake, we are keeping these images on our website for archival purposes. Though we do want to make it clear that many of the main/featured voice actors are white and that we did not write the characters to represent any specific POC experience, you are, as always, free to imagine these characters in any way that you like.”

I went to their shop and they still sell posters and pins with the character’s faces on them, but they are donating it to a good cause so hopefully that stays the same. However, I still find it a little uncomfortable that they are still selling character merch and have plans to continue selling character merch. They have no right to dissuade the fans that already found representation in the characters, but they also have no right to profit off the representation that was built, regardless if they made the story. 

Let’s compare this to another piece of popular media. I love Avatar the Last Airbender and, I liked the ATLA voice actors just fine but there should have been more people of color doing voice acting behind the screen too. The voice actors for that show were mainly white too, however, the creators knew that they would be making poc characters. That’s what makes the difference. Did they still choose to go with mostly white voice actors? Yes. Could they have done better and pay more people of color? Also yes. But I’m not as furious at them because they did their research on the cultures they were basing the ATLA world off of and intentionally gave us a show where Asians could see characters that looked like them represented on the screen. The Penumbra Podcast did not do any of that. Again, they openly admitted that it was never their intention to make the character’s people of color when they made the podcast so that goes to show no research was made to properly represent specific cultures. The color of the character’s skin in their official designs therefore became more of aesthetic choice rather than representation, and it wasn’t even their aesthetic choice to begin with!

Race isn’t a color you can just throw onto the character because you feel like it. So I want this to be a lesson to anyone that wants to make a podcast: if you want to include poc characters please do some research into the cultures you plan to represent the way you would with any other form of media. Just because the audience can’t see the characters and just because it’s harder to smoothly introduce the character’s appearance doesn’t mean you’re allowed to be lazy on how you present the characters. Do research before you start writing the first episode and take the time to hire poc actors. Hiring poc actors is actually the least that can be done to show representation. Also, since the audience cannot visually see the race of the characters on a podcast and it can’t typically be described the way you would in a book, you’ll have to be creative. It’s not my job to say how, but my suggestions would be, before the fans come up with their own image of the character, you need to establish race in the first few episodes or release character profiles on a website so that the fans know you canonically intended the characters to be of a certain race even if you aren’t able to mention it in the actual podcast. If you are unwilling to do any of these then the best route is to avoid stating race at all and allow the audience to build their own representation into your form of media. However, once this happens, you are not allowed to profit off popular fan interpretations. You lose all rights to create official art or images of the characters. You cannot use “we have a diverse cast of characters” when you market your story. It doesn’t matter whether you created the content or not, you did not create the representation for those minority groups.

It’s one thing for fans to build their own inclusivity into a form of art like a podcast, but it’s another thing for the creators who never worked to make the representation happen to take advantage of the representation that the listeners built for themselves. Thank you for attending my TedTalk.

[heliads]

Being Miss Misery

Based on this request: “a fic with newt based off mr perfectly fine by taylor swift”

masterlist

If you were going to describe the one thing you looked forward to each morning, the one person who made you want to fight your whole life to escape the Maze, you would say it was Newt. How could you not? You love him, after all. Or, you loved him. There are days when you wish you could go back in time and tell yourself that you had gotten it all wrong, that some dreams were just meant to stay dreams and never become real. Then again, if you had never let yourself jump this time you’d spend the rest of your life thinking about the fall you could have had.

In the end, you suppose there was no way you could have ever chosen differently. No matter what happened, no matter what words were said, you could never quite forget how happy you were before, even when you were stuck in the Maze. That was the best thing about Newt, after all- he made you smile like no one else ever could. There’s always a second side to every coin, though, and that means that he has hurt you in a way so unique to him that no one else could ever hope to mimic it. No matter how many times Janson or WICKED tried to hurt you, nothing would ever cut quite as deep as this.

With every story, there’s a start. A reason why things ended up the way they did. Yours begins with the Box, the same way every other Glader remembers their first day. There is no before, not in the Maze. Just the Box, and what comes after. Everything else has been wiped from your mind, cleared away like fog from a glass. Gone, never to be found again.

You had been pulled from the metal box and stood, squinting, letting your eyes adjust to the sudden bright sunlight. You had looked around, taking in the sight of the massive stone walls surrounding you and felt your pulse start to skyrocket. Before you could really start to panic, though, a voice sounded out from behind you. It was quiet, peaceful, and you knew from that second that you would be alright.

“That’s the Maze.” You had turned to face a blond boy, one with a limp and a slight accent that tinged his words the same stilted gold as a piece of bronze. “The Maze?” The boy had nodded sagely. “You’re in the Glade now, greenie. The Maze keeps us stuck in here.” You had nodded again, and the boy apparently took pity on you, softening his tone even more, folding it up into a more peaceable sound. “I’m Newt, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”

You had started for the usual greeting, the fine, thank you, and I’m- but the problem was that you couldn’t remember your own name. No place, no history, no name. It’s like you were a blank canvas, but one that had once held the most brilliant of landscapes if you could only remember it. Newt had clicked his tongue softly. “You won’t remember it, love. It’ll take a while before your name comes back to you. Don’t worry, everyone forgets.” You had stared at him. “Where are we? I know it’s the Glade, but where is it?”

Newt had shrugged. “Nobody knows. We all just showed up here, one at a time, with no memory or anything except the shirt on our backs. You can ask all the questions you want, but we won’t have any answers.” He had looked at you sideways then. “Actually, don’t ask all the questions. We told that to Chuck-” he points to a young boy with a mop of curly brown hair, “-and he took us too literally. Don’t think we slept for a week. All we heard was questions.”

You bite back a laugh. “Sounds good, Newt. I’ll keep my questions in the single digits.” Newt flashes you a smile that seems as bright as the sun. “I like you already. I think we’re going to get along very well.” If only he had known how true that would be. If only you had known, so that you could stay away.

You’re not sure you can remember quite when you realized you loved him. In the end, the exact date doesn’t really matter. It happened, you couldn’t shake it, and it felt like the most beautiful mistake you might ever make. In the Glade, you couldn’t count on anything- not the weather, not the people, not even the Maze, which changed each night. When Newt had told you how he felt one night by the campfire, you were sure that it would haunt you for the rest of your life, that it was too good to be true or too good to last.

You had started to stand up, ready to hurry away and pretend like you hadn’t heard a word. Newt had stood up too, taking your hand and keeping you by his side. “I’m not going to break your heart, Y/N. I promise. I’m not going anywhere, alright? I’ve been waiting for you all my life, and I want to be here with you. Right by your side, until the end.” You had smiled at him then, finally letting the last of your walls down. When he kissed you, even the whoops of the other Gladers weren’t enough to dissuade you.

There was nobody like him, that much was true. He made the Glade better, made even the stormiest days feel like a cloudless blue. You came to trust him, to depend on him. You believed that he wouldn’t leave. It was like he said, right? He looked you in the eye and told you he would never go away. You two were practically inseparable, and it was the best feeling on the entire planet.

When Thomas arrived, bringing with him the destruction of the Glade and promises that he could get everyone out, you thought it was the best thing you’d heard in a while. You had held Newt’s hand while you ran through the Maze, dodging Grievers and doing everything in your power to keep the other alive. That was what you did best, after all- loving each other, staying together. You can still remember that one night before you left, when fires had been burning the homesteads down and the shrieks of dying Gladers echoed through the night. It drives you to run faster, to move farther away from everything that had happened and all the horrors you had seen.

Newt had taken your hand in his, pulling you close in the dark of the night. “We’re getting out of here, alright? Promise. I love you, Y/N, and we can finally have a life outside of all this.” You had smiled at him, letting him press a kiss to your cheek. It sounded perfect, that was the problem. Perfectly fine, and none of it was true, although you’d have no way of knowing it then.

That day seemed to pass in a blur, and the next day, and the next. You made it out of the Maze, out of the nest of Grievers, and into a pressed-clean WICKED facility. They promised you safety, shepherding you into groups of other boys and girls who’d managed to make it out of their respective Mazes. When Newt gestured for you to talk to him separately, away from the other boys from your Maze, you had assumed nothing of it. How wrong you had been.

His voice was quiet, eyes darting over to the other boys as if wanting to make sure that they didn’t hear. “I want to break up with you, Y/N.” You had stared at him, not able to understand. “What?” He swallowed, then repeated himself. “I want to break up with you. I’m really sorry, Y/N, but I don’t think this is going to work out. I just- I stayed with you for longer than I should have in the Maze, because I thought we were going to die, but-”

You cut him off, feeling your tone turn icy. “You’re done now because our lives aren’t at risk anymore? You don’t have to feel guilty about it?” Newt winces. “It’s not like that, Y/N. Honest. You’re a great girl and all that, I just don’t think it’s working out anymore. Sorry.” With one last insincere apology, he turns and walks towards the rest of the boys, his step considerably lighter as if a sudden burden has been relieved from his shoulders. You’re left to stand there, alone and mute and utterly heartbroken.

There’s nothing left to do except pick up your broken pieces and go back to the table with the others. Even this brief moment of weakness, this one last hesitation by the door, has drawn looks of confusion from the Gladers. You force a smile, a spring in your step, and sit down next to them. If you make sure not to sit next to the backstabbing blond boy, well, that’s nobody’s business but your own.

The days blend together, one into the next. You didn’t realize how much you depended on seeing Newt, talking to him, saying something clever and warranting a smile, until it was all gone. You were still a Glader, and that meant that when everyone escaped the WICKED compound he made sure you stayed alive like the others, but for once, there are no more strings attached. No promises to make it out, no lies told to make it through the night. This is what it was like in the beginning, you remind yourself, and you have to learn to deal with it once more. If only it was as easy to do it as it is to say it.

Now you sit alone at a campfire in the Scorch, watching white-hot sparks cascade into the open air. Your friends from the Glade have met up with the girls from Group B and some members of the Right Arm, meaning that you’re in a crowd for the first time in a while ever since entering the Scorch. All around you, people are taking advantage of the sudden numbers to mingle and chatter with the din of a flock of birds, but not you. No, you use the overwhelming mass of people to hide away, blending into another silhouette in the desert.

It appears you’re not to be alone forever, though. Someone slumps down into the seat next to you. You smile ruefully at the expression on her face- the same heartsick, stupidly trusting look that you have no doubt has been on your own. Brenda, it appears, is not doing well with the sight of Thomas parading back and forth with Teresa. 

“Having a good night, Brenda?” She gives you a look. “About as well as you, I think. How are you, by the way? I heard you were dating Newt in the Maze but if looks could kill I think he’d be worse off than the Cranks.” You sigh. “We were dating, that much is true. He broke up with me out of the blue, broke my heart for no reason other than the fact that he didn’t feel like he had to protect me anymore as we were out of the Maze.”

Brenda stares at you, all thoughts of Thomas banished. “He didn’t say that. Tell me he didn’t say that.” You nod, smiling bittersweetly. “He did indeed. Mr. Casually Cruel, that’s his new name from now on.” Brenda looks over at you. “If he’s Mr. Casually Cruel, what does that make you?” You prop your chin up on your hands, staring with unseeing eyes at the throngs of people around you. “Miss Misery, I guess. He’s perfectly fine, I’m falling apart.”

Your eyes find a familiar figure in the crowd, one you’ve been doing your best to avoid but always seeming to return to. “The worst part is that he moved on so quickly. You’d think he’d forgotten he’d ever heard my name. I mean, look at him.” You jerk your chin towards a pair of figures on the opposite side of the roaring campfire: a blond boy, arms wrapped around Harriet. He smiles at her, lingering traces of his face disappearing into a haze of heat from the flames in between you. 

“I’ve been picking up the pieces of my heart, he’s been picking up her. I’m starting to think that I never meant anything to him at all.” Brenda clicks her tongue indignantly. “That jerk. Hey, if you ever need someone to accidentally push him off a cliff-” You cut her off, laughing. “I’ll look to you first. Don’t think we’ll need that quite yet, though.” Brenda folds her arms across her chest. “You don’t need him, though. Honestly. He wants to promenade around here like he’s Mr. Always Wins, fine. He just walked out on the best thing in his life and he doesn’t even realize it.”

You smile at your friend, a true smile this time. “Thanks, Brenda. Now, if you could keep your same advice around Thomas-” Brenda holds up her hands, starting to laugh. “We’re not talking about that! I changed my mind, let’s go back to Newt.” If you’re so distracted by the conversation and laughter with your friend that you don’t notice a certain blond boy looking your way, eyes drawn to you again and again even if he does his best to pretend otherwise, maybe it’s for the best.

The night is late, stars hung in the sky as if by some absentminded hand. The fire has died away to ash and coals, tendrils of smoke starting to creep up to the horizon. The din of the gathering has proved a little too much for you, and you’ve chosen to fade away into the night, your feet carrying you further and further from the center of the group. You lean against a rough rock face, letting your eyes trace the curves and stars of the night sky. You’re distracted enough by the sights that you don’t hear the uneven footsteps coming up behind you, the telltale lurch of a boy with a limp.

“You always liked looking at the stars, didn’t you?” You startle at Newt’s voice, appearing out of nowhere. You shake yourself, forcing your shoulders to sink and relax once more. “They’re beautiful. Always have been.” Newt’s smile is as sure as a running river, always strategized, always well-placed. There’s a confidence there, too, an edge. Proof that he’s so far above you in every sense, above feeling anything at all. “Just like you.”

You raise an eyebrow. After everything he’s put you through, after everything that destroyed you but never fazed him, you’ve learned to doubt a careless compliment like this. That may be all you’ve learned, but it is enough. Newt takes your silence as an invitation to keep speaking. “I think I’ve made a mistake, Y/N. You’ve always been so good to me, you know? Always here to stay, always at the right place at the right time. I hate to speak too quickly, but would you consider giving me another chance?”

You’ve thought about this moment for a long time. Mr. Perfectly Fine, Mr. Casually Cruel, finally seeing you in new eyes and realizing that by leaving you he was giving up everything you might have had together. But you’ve seen this moment through a hundred times in your head, and for once your head is clear, eyes bright and looking forward instead of on what might have happened. You know your answer, once and for all.

[davidmann95]

Sooo… Superman and the Authority?

magnus-king123 asked: Your thoughts on Superman & the authority Give it to me...lol

Anonymous asked: Seeing Bezos take his little trip into space the same day Morrison puts out a Superman comic that touches on how far we’ve fallen from the days when we dreamed of utopian futures where everyone explored the stars was a big gut punch. Not used to Superman being topical in that way.

Anonymous asked: What'd you think of Superman and the Authority#1?

This is far beyond what I can fit in the normal weekly reviews, so taking this as my notes on the first six pages, with this and this as my major lead-in thoughts:

* Janin's such a perfect fit for Morrison - the scale, the power, the facial expressions selling the character work, the screwing around with the panel formatting as necessary to sell the effect, the numinous sense of things going on larger than you can fully perceive amidst the beauty and chaos. It's a shame he wasn't around 25 years ago to draw JLA, but I'll take him going with Morrison onto other future projects.

* His intro action sequence is such a great demonstration of why Black actually does have something to offer, and also how he's such a dumbass desperately needing Superman to save him from himself.

* While Jordie Bellaire didn't legit go with an entirely monochromatic palate the way early previews suggested, it's still an effect frequently and excellently deployed here. And glad to see Steve Wands carry into this from Blackstars since there's such an obvious carryover from its work with Superman.

* "Gentlemen. Ladies. Others." Great both because of the obvious - hey, Superman's nodding at me! - and because it's a phrasing that reinforces that this take on him (and let's be real Morrison) is old as hell.

* I'm mostly past caring about whether this is an alt-Earth Superman until it becomes indisputable one way or another, this and Action both rule so what does it really matter? But while there are still a couple signs in play suggesting some kind of division (the Action Comics #1036 cover, Midnighter up to time-travel shenanigans) the "lost in time" quote clearly thrown in after the fact to explain how he could have met Kennedy outside of 5G that wouldn't be necessary for an Elseworlds, the assorted gestures towards Superman's current status quo, the Kingdom Come symbol appearing in Action, and that Morrison would have had to completely rewrite the ending if this wasn't supposed to be 'the' version of Clark Kent going forward as was the intent when they first planned it all say to me that no, no fooling around, this is our guy going forward one way or another.

* Janin and Bellaire making the first version of the crystal Fortress ever that actually looks as cool as you want it to.

Anonymous asked: I like that Superman and The Authority is basically the anti-All-Star; instead of the laid back, immortal Superman who is supercharged, we have a stressed, ageing Superman whose tremendous powers are fading. The former will always be there to save us, but the latter is running out of time and needs to pull off a Hail Mary. Also, he mentions in his monologue to Black that he was "lost in time" when he met JFK, so maybe he is the main continuity Clark. Or he's the t-shirt Supes from Sideways.

* You're absolutely right - the power reversal is obvious and the ticking clock in play seemingly isn't for his own survival but everyone around him as he wakes up and realizes all the old icons grew complacent with the gains they'd made and he's not leaving behind the world he meant to. Both, however, are built on the idea of preparing the world to not need them anymore - it'll still have a Superman in his son, but that'll only work because of the others he empowers and inspires. The question is what happens to Clark if he's not going to live in the sun for 83000 years.

* Clark's 'exercise' here does more to sell me on the idea of Old Man Superman as a cool idea than however many decades of Earth 2 stuff.

* Intergang being noted alongside Darkseid and Doomsday speaks to how much Kirby informed Morrison's conception of Superman.

* This isn't exactly the most progressive in its disability politics but at least it makes clear Black's being a piece of shit about it.

* It's startling how much Clark can get away with saying stuff in here you'd never expect to come out of Superman's mouth. "I made an executive decision" "Privacy, really...?" "You have nowhere to go, Black. Nothing to live for." "There are few people in my life who I instinctively and viscerally dislike, and you've always been one of them." It only works because there's zero aggression behind it, he's just past the point of niceties and being totally frank while making clear none of these assessments preclude that he cares and is going to unconditionally do the right thing every time. He is absolutely, per Morrison, humanity's dad picking us up when we're too drunk to drive ourselves home.

* The story doesn't put a big flashing light over it, but it's not even a little bit subtle having the material threat of the issue be a ticking timebomb left by the carelessness and hubris of generations past.

* Manchester keeps trying to poke the bear and prove his hot takes about Superman and it's just not working. The front he put up under Kelley is gone after decades of defeats, and as Morrison understands what actually conceptually works about him as a rival to Superman underneath the aging nerd paranoia he's exposed as what he absolutely would be in 2021: a dude with a horrific terminal case of Twitter brainworms. I was PANICKED when I heard there was an 'offensive term' joke in this, I was braced for Morrison at their well-meaning worst, but it's such a goddamn perfect encapsulation of a very specific breed of Twitter leftist who uses their politics first and foremost as a cudgel and justification to label their abrasive, judgmental shittiness as self-righteousness (plus it's a killer payoff to a joke from way back in his original appearance). Cannot believe they pulled that off when they're so very, very open about basically not knowing how the internet works.

* @charlottefinn: Manchester Black using his telekinetic powers to force someone he hates to fave a problematic tweet so that he can screenshot it and start a dogpile

@intergalactic-zoo: “Once they cancel Bibbo, Superman won’t be *anyone’s* fav’rit anymore!”

* Friend noted this issue had to be fully the conversation because the whole premise stands on the house of cards of these two somehow working together, and with three 'silent' inset panels the creative team pulls off that turning point.

* So much of this feels on the surface like Morrison bringing back the All-Star vibes with Clark, but when he drops a "That's all you got?" in a brawl you realize what's underlining that bluntness and confidence in the face of failure is that deep down this is still the Action guy too. This dude ain't gonna get wrecked in his Fortress while the other guy chuckles about him being A SOFT WEE SCIENTIST'S SON!

* Bringing up Jor-El made me realize that Morrison already spelled out that this is the final threat to Superman, what he faces at the end of the road:

"Now it's your turn, Superman."

* A l'il Superman 2000/All-Star reference with the Phantom Zone map!

* There's so much intertextuality going on here even by Morrison standards - Change or Die with the old hero putting together a team of morally nebulous folks out to 'fix' everything, Flex Mentallo with the muscleman trying to redeem the punk, Doomsday Clock with the fate of the world hinging on whether Superman can get through to a meta stand-in for an idea of 'modern' comics cynicism, DKR and New Frontier and Kingdom Come and Multiversity and Seven Soldiers and What's So Funny and All-Star and Action and the last 5 years of monthly Superman comics and Authority and probably Jupiter's Legacy and Tom Strong - but none of that's needed. You could go in with the baseline pop cultural understanding of the character and not care about any of the inside baseball shit and get that this is a story about a leader of a generation that let down the people they made all their grand promises to as inertia and day-to-day demands and complacency let him be satisfied with the accomplishments they'd made long ago, looking at a new era and seeing the ways its own activists are dropping the ball. The only thing that fundamentally matters in a "you have to accept you're reading a superhero story" sense is that because he's Superman he's willing to own up to it and listen to people who might know better about some things and try to set things right while he and those who'll take his place still have a chance. And yes, the oldster looking back on their legacy with a skeptical eye and hoping for better from the next generation, hoping most of all that their little heir apparent can fulfill the promise inside of him instead of being a provocating little shitkicker, is obviously also autobiographical.

* The overlaying Kennedy reprisal is such a great visual of a sudden intrusive thought.

* The Kryptonite secret is the obvious "This is going to matter!" moment, but "He lied about his son" is a bit that doesn't connect to anything going on right now so maybe that's important here too? More significantly, the Justice League can't actually be the villains here but that Ultra-Humanite's crew are in an Earth-orbiting satellite makes pretty clear what's up.

* I've said before that between Superman, OMAC, and a New Gods-affiliated speedster this was going to use all of Morrison's favorite things. King Arthur playing a role isn't exactly dissuading me.

* Love the idea that all the antiheroes have their own community in the same way as the capes and tights crew. They definitely all privately think the rest are posers though and that they alone are Garth Ennis Punisher in a mob of Garth Ennis Wolverines.

* Manchester's fallen so far he's gone from trying to convince Superman to kill to convince him to dunk on people for their bad takes and Clark just doesn't get it. Official prediction of dialogue for upcoming issues:

"According to these bloody Fortress scans, the only thing that can restore your powers is an unfiltered hit of dopamine. Don't worry, Doctor Black has a few ideas."

"Hmm. Maybe I'll plant a nice tree?"

"...fuck you."

* Ok I already talked about how great the Fortress looks in here but LOVE this library.

* A pair of pages this seems like the right spot to discuss from Black's original appearance that underlines both his and Superman's inadequacies up to this point:

Responding to the problem of "the government and penal system are hopelessly corrupt" neither of them has any actual notion of what to do about it in spite of their respective posturing beyond how to handle individual outside actors - each is in their own way every bit as small-minded and reactionary as the other. Clark's coming around though, and he's holding out hope for the other guy.

* Superman: Have a lovely mineral water :) proper hydration is important :)

Manchester Black: *Is a dude who can get so mad he vomits and passes out. At water.*

* That last page is the one to beat for the year, and does more to put over the idea of this as an Authority book than that Midnighter and Apollo are literally going to show up. It also feels like Morrison tacitly acknowledging all the ways the premise could go or at least be received wrong - from Superman saying 'enough is enough' to who he's bringing into the fold to go about it - in the most beautifully on-the-nose fashion imaginable. Maybe they'll save us all! Or maybe they'll drown us in their vomit.

[trashlie]

Anticipating the end of the Shinae Alyssa flashback arc

Rarely do I feel confident enough to actually make an ILY prediction post - I prefer to, you know, just think about direction or whatever because I know I cannot ever predict HOW anything will happen. But I do want to. Try talking (hopefully briefly...? at least for me!) about how I think the rest of this flashback arc will play out! I’ll put it all under a read more for those who aren’t up to date on the fast pass! Again, it’s not really an actual prediction, just me feeling out what I think remains of the story, I guess?

I think - and maybe I’m wrong, but I thiiiiiink - we are within 3 episodes of the flashback ending? Timelinewise it feels like we’re right on the edge of it, right? While I think it COULD wrap up in one episode, I feel like it could come across tight and rushed if that happens? But my thoughts on this are based on: 

Using episodes 16 and 102, we know Shinae’s fall seems to happen when Minyuk has a tournament and Shinae is on cleaning duty with Alyssa and a couple other girls.

Shinae and Alyssa aren’t hanging out much anymore - or maybe at all. By this time, Alyssa has made friends with some other girls. 

The fall seems to happen when Shinae is trying to talk to Alyssa and uses the line “Why are you saying this? I thought we were friends!”

There’s an incident where Shinae is accused of taking someone else’s project. Originally I’d thought that was the project she recovered from the girl who bought hers, so I don’t know if this something quim has changed or a result of other kids hearing about the incident and thinking Shinae is a bully who steals other peoples’ work. Timeline-wise, it doesn’t seem to fit the project incident we’ve already seen, thus I’m wondering if quimchee has altered some of these flashbacks a bit. The details between 17 and 102 are consistent - Alyssa is wearing a ponytail in Shinae’s hazy memory and in Maya’s memory, we see Alyssa pass her while putting up her hair. I know that’s a tiny detail but, design-wise she’s keeping it the same. 

My main reason of thinking there’s not long left between where we currently are and when Shinae’s fall happens is that it doesn’t seem like a long time has passed between Alyssa hanging out with the other girls, given Shinae’s use of the line “I thought we were friends”. If more time had passed, then she may have decided “I guess Alyssa is done with me” or something. 

It’s in Maya’s memory that we see Alyssa talking about how her parents don’t want her hanging out with “people that aren’t good influences” and also “she really is bad news, huh...” Notably, this happens on The Day of the Fall. Alyssa could be lying about her parents not wanting her to hang out with Shinae, and she’s chosen to pull away on her own, but... idk I’m still inclined to think that maybe her parents wanted to dissuade her from being friend with Shinae. 

I guess my line of thinking is this: it’s heavily hinted that Alyssa is being bullied by those boys in 196 for her sexuality. They use very stereotypical homophobic bullying tactics, saying she’s cute and it’s a shame that it’s “going to waste”, tell her that there’s something wrong with her head, that she has a mental illness. I can’t imagine what else this is meant to be implying, frankly, that would use this heavy-handed language. Combined with the fact that Alyssa wants no one to know, not the teachers, presumably not her family, not even Shinae, it is a heavily guarded secret, and based on her angry outburst, one she’s not completely comfortable with - maybe out of fear of how other people will react or treat her, maybe fear of what her father would say or think (or maybe, worse, she already knows his thoughts on and knows he wouldn’t approve?). 

I think it makes sense that Alyssa is afraid of Shinae finding out - especially knowing how highly Shinae thinks of her, because if she’s that afraid of people finding out, it would reason that she’s afraid of Shinae finding out, should Shinae think like other people do. As readers, we have enough confidence that Shinae would not turn on Alyssa for that, but we know Alyssa is absolutely terrified of being ostracized, and maybe that’s why. Maybe she’s been there before, or maybe she’s seen enough online or something to know what happens. It’s hard to be confident in who you are if you don’t feel supported by people, right? And to have finally made one friend, wouldn’t you be afraid to learn that maybe this friend could be that kind of person? 

So my thoughts are that someone will intervene - I know we’re supposed to think it’s Shinae, but she’s a floor above Alyssa still so I’m not sure if it would be? Though I guess she could call down to her. We’ve seen Minhyuk set up to intervene before, and I think it would make sense for it to be him. But I think Alyssa is still going to see that Shinae is there - which is exactly what she’s afraid of. 

In episode 57, when Alyssa and Shinae are left together sitting awkwardly together at the ball at the Kim formal, Shinae muses the following to herself: I can only guess she doesn’t want Yeonggi knowing anything... Is she worried I’m going to say anything? I know better than to go running my mouth off to people... Especially when I don’t exactly know the whole truth.

It was always easy to assume this is about the fall - thinking that Alyssa is afraid of Shinae telling him about how hey lol ur girlfriend and i used to be besties and then for no reason at all she ditched me and then i fell and cracked my head open isn’t that funny lol or something, but in retrospect... doesn’t that seem so minor compared to, idk, maybe harboring a secret about your sexuality? This is for another post, but the point I’m getting at here is what I bolded: Especially when I don’t exactly know the whole truth. 

So I’m thinking the miscommunication just compounds at this point. Shinae already doesn’t understand why Alyssa is so hot and cold with her, but I feel like overseeing this moment, Alyssa being bullied for exactly what she’s trying to hide from Shinae, is where it all spirals. Maybe it’s shame, maybe it’s fear, maybe it’s pride, maybe it’s all of the above. A thought I’ve actually had is, maybe in some weird way, Alyssa is trying to protect Shinae? Lol in the same way that Nol thinks by ending his friendship with Shinae will protect her from Yui, it’s possible that Alyssa may think severing ties with Shinae will stop people from dragging her through the mud with Alyssa. And if these boys are already bullying Alyssa, implying she’s a lesbian or something, then isn’t it likely they’re spreading rumors about Alyssa and Shinae together? And while Shinae would probably not even give a damn, Alyssa doesn’t know that. 

I know other people might not see it that way but, idk, I just can’t help but think maybe Alyssa could be naive enough to think maybe it would protect Shinae.

I fully acknowledge that ti seems out of sync with what we see the day of Shinae’s fall, though - that Alyssa has somewhow made friends with other girls, but could that not also be part of the process of trying to get the rumors smothered down - that if these girls accept her and like her, then why should anyone believe those boys and those rumors? Self-preservation, something we’ve seen Alyssa work at all times. 

I guess the one thing that stands out to me is Alyssa and the “She really is bad news, huh” and I can’t tell if she’s just saying this trying to sus out these girls, if she’s just assimilating, or what? Like.. you know, going through the motions, saying what she thinks they want to hear from her so that she can blend in and live that normal life she wants...? 

So I think this incident is going to be the wedge that drives Alyssa to pull away from Shinae and start hanging out with the other girls? Like I said, the timeline feels murky compared to what quimchee has shown in 105 before - maybe it’s going to be altered a bit, maybe more time is going to pass than I think? Time where Shinae is hanging out even more with Minhyuk, waiting to see if Alyssa will flip flop again, and then comes the cleaning duty day and we see Alyssa once again playing a role, doing what she can to resist running back to Shinae? “Who would want to be friends with you?” a line she probably didn’t mean, a push she didn’t expect would injure, and then the story we know? 

IDK I could be TOTALLY wrong and I wouldn’t be surprised, but I think you can see why I think it would be rushed if it happens in the next episode? I think we have to established the point where Alyssa finally pushes Shinae away and makes a choice? And then we’ll see it happen...? Curious if that’s what anyone else thinks (or frankly if anyone is looking to read this given that uhhh I know people don’t care about the flashback lol). 

Something I’m just really hung up on is Shinae’s use of the line “Especially when I don’t exactly know the whole truth” because I think it lends to the concept that Shinae knows Alyssa kept something from her, or maybe it was a rumor she heard and Alyssa never cleared up for her, you know? I’m guessing it’s more like that... that Shinae knows just enough that she could tell Nol if she wanted and it would ruin things for Alyssa, and THAT is why she’s so paranoid about finding out Shinae and Nol are friends. But again that’s a post for another day! The point that stands is: I think it’s something Alyssa pointedly never confirms or denies for Shinae and she’s left wondering what it was all about ever since. 

[shera-dnd]

Cupid’s Kiss

Took me way longer than expected curse the whims of my mental health but the winner of this month’s 3k fic poll is finally here!

In which Carmen and Julia have a lovely totally not date in Paris while in search for two thieves who are certainly also not having a date

if you’d like a chance to get your fic ideas written by me, or just want to support me, you can feel free to donate to my ko-fi (rules over here)

and here is the ao3 link if you’d rather read it over there

also this fic was brought to you thanks to the help of @cantdrawshaw

NOW ON WITH THE FIC

Carmen Sandiego was the best at her job. She had bested trained assassins and killer robots, evaded the world’s most advanced detective agency, and destroyed the largest criminal organization. All in her early twenties.

Yet there was one task she was not prepared to face. One that escaped her skills, both martial and technical. One that she had failed to plan around. One that existed entirely beyond the range of her skills. A foe that she could not beat.

“Come on, Carm,” Zack called, “it can’t be that hard. If even Ivy could score with the girls, you can do it too.”

“Even Ivy?!” His sister replied, furious, “I’ve been with more girls than you, jackass.”

“Guys, guys!” Carmen interrupted, “you’re not helping.”

Mentioning her interest in spending more time with Julia Argent had been the biggest mistake she had made in weeks. This was supposed to be a peaceful day at their old home base, but now here she was.

Her friends were trying so hard to help her and she couldn’t even be mad at how poorly they were doing, because she knew she wouldn’t fare much better were the roles reversed.

“Sorry,” the siblings replied in unison.

“I appreciate the support,” she assured them, “but I’m not trying to ‘score’ with anyone. I just wanna get to know Jules a little better.”

“So this is not a date?” Ivy asked.

“No!” She replied, a little too quickly, “me and Jules aren’t like that. She’s more of a… professional acquaintance. A coworker.”

“Carm,” Zack replied, “we’re coworkers and you’ve never had a bouquet of roses delivered to my door.”

“It was just a thank you for handling all those precious artifacts for me,” she explained, “she’s a hard worker, she deserved it.”

“Sure,” Ivy nodded, unconvinced, “is that why you take time to chat over coffee with her every other caper?”

“Not every moment of our lives has to be a chase, you know?” she countered.

“Or why you keep finding excuses to dance with her?”

“It’s the easiest way to speak privately at those parties without garnering unwanted attention,” she recited as if from a textbook.

“Or why-”

“Cease this!” Shadowsan’s stern voice commanded and the siblings fell silent, “VILE has trained her to never cave under interrogation. You’ll have a better chance extracting information from a rock.”

Carmen smirked at them, proud to have her skills of deflection recognized.

“Do not be so full of yourself,” he added, making Carmen flinch just a bit, “I have taught those lessons for years and I know how to see through them.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she deflected, looking away.

He walked up to her and placed a hand on her shoulder with uncharacteristic gentleness.

“I have seen the happiness Miss Argent brings you,” he said, “and I wish you the best of luck should you wish to pursue it.”

That meant a lot to Carmen. More than she could really express in words. But after she had been so thoroughly embarrassed by her friends, all she could really say was,

“Not you too.”

She looked up at the smirking siblings and braced herself...

“Hey, Red,” Player’s voice called, just in the nick of time.

“Player!” She jumped to attention and grabbed the laptop from their desk.

“Woah!” he exclaimed, “everything okay, Red?”

Zack and Ivy snickered as they sat by each side of her, so they could see Player.

“I think Carm would rather you sent her on a crazy chase instead of sitting here talking about her crush on Jules,” Ivy teased.

“Well it looks like you might get to do both,” Player replied, to Carmen’s dismay, “look who our cameras just found walking around Paris.”

The screen cut to a video feed of one of ACME’s hidden cameras over the streets of Paris. None of the people on camera seemed particularly conspicuous… until a particular pair walked on screen. Even without their costumes Carmen could always recognize them.

“Tigress and Paper Star,” she noted, “those two can’t be up to any good.”

“Looks like we’ll be going to Paris, eh Carm?” Ivy commented as she playfully nudged her side.

“City of love,” Zack added as he joined the nudging.

Carmen groaned. This was gonna be a rough mission.

Chase had grown a lot over the past few months. His deductive reasoning had vastly improved, his mood was far more amenable, and he actually stopped to listen to Julia nowadays. What hadn’t really improved with time was his overall clumsiness. 

“Miss Argent, I’ll be fine,” his insistence was interrupted by a powerful sneeze, “This is nothing.”

“Agent Devineaux, please,” she pleaded, “you’re in no state to continue this investigation.”

Devineaux had landed himself into his fair share of rivers over the months he had worked for ACME, and it seemed that so many cold baths had finally caught up to his health. Not that he would ever admit to that.

“Nonsense,” he claimed, “I’ll be back in perfect shape by the time we land in Paris.”

The sneeze that followed said otherwise.

“Chase, please,” she asked again, “rest. I can handle this.”

“I refuse to send my partner on a mission by herself.”

“As sweet as your concern is,” she countered, “I doubt I’ll be by myself for long.”

“Ah yes, I’m sure La Femme Rouge will make for good company,” he agreed and she was glad he did, but it sounded like there was more to his words. “Were you anyone else I’d worry this was all a ploy to have some private time with Miss Sandiego.”

She shot him an unamused glare.

“Apologies,” he said almost immediately.

“Accepted,” she sighed, “but I do not appreciate any insinuations as to the nature of me and Miss Sandiego’s relationship. We’re good friends, nothing more.”

“Of course,” he nodded, but Julia could tell he had more to say.

Truly his detective skills have improved considerably as of late. It had become harder and harder for Julia to pass her excitement for those missions as simple passion for her work. Not when she had abandoned that work as soon as it conflicted with her passion for… something else.

Chase was her friend and she knew he’d understand her feelings for Carmen. She was also sure he’d do his best to keep it a secret until she was confident enough to bring these things to light. She trusted him and she didn’t fear anything of the sorts.

What she did fear was Chase trying to wingman for her. Just the thought was enough to fill her with dread. Enough dread to keep her mouth shut about her feelings in the vicinity of Agent Devineaux. Even if it felt bad to hide this from her friend.

Thankfully the Chief chose that exact moment to call her to give her updated information on their targets. 

Now she could just shut off all these awkward feelings and focus on her work.

The Louvre had been an obvious target. The world’s most famous museum, home to thousands of priceless works of art, including the Mona Lisa itself. It was so obvious in fact that VILE had never bothered to consider it.

But VILE was gone now and its escaped students no longer had any faculty to dissuade them from this target.

That’s why Carmen now walked its halls, diligently searching for any security flaws that could be exploited and any sign of the two master thieves on the loose.

She still took time to appreciate the art of course. This was the most famous museum in the world for a reason and she wasn’t gonna let this unique opportunity escape her, even with the evil duo to watch for.

Carmen had her attention split in every possible direction, her mind juggling its many tasks as she wandered hall after hall. Until, that is, she found something that pulled her focus into one singular point.

A shorter woman in a nice fitted suit, standing before one of the statues.

“Jules,” she greeted as she walked up behind her.

“Miss Sandiego,” Julia smiled as she greeted her, utterly unsurprised. She must have been expecting her, “it’s nice to see you here.”

“It’s nice seeing you too,” she replied, “and we went over this before, Carmen is just fine.”

“Carmen,” she said, in a way that warmed Carmen’s heart, “I take it you’ve been enjoying your time in Paris.”

“Hard to go sightseeing while I’ve got work to do, but I’m making do,” she shrugged, “how about you? What caught your attention today?”

Julia turned back to the statue she had been appreciating until then, “Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss.”

Carmen smirked, it was her time to shine.

“Sculpted by Antonio Canova, commissioned by welsh art-collector John Campbell in 1787,” she recited from memory, “its prime version was acquired by the Louvre in 1824 after the death of its previous owner, Joachim Murat.”

“Very impressive,” Julia praised, “I wish my students put half as much time as you do into their research.”

“I’m just good at memorizing trivia,” Carmen shrugged, trying to hide her pride at earning that praise, “I’m sure you know so much more than me on the subject.”

Boy was Carmen right about that. That seemed to have been the cue to send Julia into a long lecture about the neoclassical and romantic periods, as well as an analysis of the sculpture’s mythological origins and the many interpretations of the myth.

Many people would probably find this amount of information unspeakably tedious. But for Carmen, who was always hungry to learn about the world around her (and could never get tired of Jules speaking so enthusiastically,) it was exciting and endearing.

Carmen had realized then that she wanted nothing more than to spend her every waking hour listening to Julia talk on and on about anything she wanted, as long as it was passionate like this. Maybe someday soon.

Right now they had the whole rest of the Louvre to scout.

“Alright, alright, victory is yours,” Carmen playfully interrupted, “I guess you really are the biggest history nerd here.”

“Oh I’m sorry, it seems I got a bit carried away,” Julia cringed in shame. Damn it Sandiego! “I didn’t mean to bore you.”

“You couldn’t bore me if you tried,” Carmen assured her as she placed a hand on her arm, “I mean it. It’s nice hearing you talk.”

“Unfortunately I no longer teach,” she replied, “otherwise I would have given you an open invitation to any of my classes.”

“Well, how about you show me around the place?” she suggested, “we can call this a private lesson.”

At that Julia smiled again, “then I hope your memory is as good as you say it is, Carmen Sandiego, because I’ll be quizzing you at the end of the tour.”

They both laughed as Julia led them along to the next art piece in what was clearly a meticulously planned tour of the museum. Jules kept her teacher face on for all of her little lectures, but as they walked from room to room it felt so simple and casual.

For once Carmen felt like there was no rush and that she could just enjoy her time with someone she cared about. Maybe that was the moment. Her chance to make something out of this and let Julia know how she felt.

“Hey, Jules,” she called, walking a little closer to her.

“Yes?” Julia turned to look at her, she seemed surprised by the sudden closeness, but did not move away from her.

Carmen decided to take that as a good sign.

“This has been really nice, you know?” she tried, her usual confidence failing her, “just spending time with you like this.”

“I guess it was,” she replied with- Wait, was that a blush? No, that had to be wishful thinking.

“Yeah,” she agreed, awkwardly scratching the back of her neck, “and I just feel like-”

It was then that she was rudely reminded of what she was here to do.

“-you have got to be kidding me!”

“What?” Julia jumped a little in surprise.

“5 o’clock, behind you,” Carmen instructed.

She turned to look and there they were. Tall, blonde and scheming, and short, monochromatic and homicidal. The two thieves they were here to catch. Two thieves that had also noticed them.

They both smirked at them for a moment, before Paper Star whispered something into Tigress’s ear and they both bolted in separate directions.

“I go for Tigress, you go for Paper Star,” Carmen ordered as she bolted after her target.

Tigress was the fastest of the two, and the one most likely to pull dirty tricks on them. Unfortunately for her, Carmen was well-versed in all of those tricks, and of course had all her equipment on her. It’s amazing how much she could hide in just a red hoodie.

Soon Tigress had led the both of them out of the main building, ready to make a run for it and disappear into the city. Her mistake though, was going somewhere Carmen could use her grappling hook without worrying about damaging priceless works of art.

She swung after her, quickly closing the distance and knocking her down with a kick to the stomach. Tigress groaned as she forced herself back up, but instead of running again or getting ready to fight Carmen, she simply shouted.

“Come on!”

“Done running around?” Carmen taunted.

“Yeah yeah whatever,” she replied. Well that was unusual, “did you girlfriend catch Paper Star already?”

“What!?” She nearly jumped in surprise, “She’s not- we’re not- that doesn’t matter! You’re going to jail, for good this time.”

“For what?” she replied.

“Trying to steal from the Louvre!”

“Ah yes, because that’s the only reason we’d be enjoying some time together in the city of love,” she mocked and rolled her eyes.

Was she implying what she thought she was implying?

“Aww, babe,” a voice above them called. Paper Star leaned out of a nearby window and openly teased her partner in crime.

Babe?

“She caught you already?” she continued

Tigress groaned again, “not my fault you got easy mode.”

Paper Star jumped down and casually hooked her arms around Tigress’s neck.

“Well I’ve won,” she declared, “now where’s my prize?”

The last thing Carmen expected was for the two of them to kiss right there in front of her, and yet that was exactly what they did.

“I did not need to see that!” She complained.

“You were the one who interrupted our date!” Tigress complained back.

“Do you seriously want me to believe that you two were just spending the evening together in the Louvre as a date?”

“Was that not what you and your little agent were doing too?” Paper Star teased.

Carmen’s reflex was to say no, but… was that what they were doing? They had been walking around, sightseeing, talking and laughing and enjoying each other’s company and- oh god Carmen almost confessed to her back there. 

This was her chance to have a proper date with Jules and it got ruined right at the finish line because of a mission that didn’t even exist in the first place!

She would have time to figure all of this out later, right now she had a job to do and two smug assholes to put in their place. Thankfully she already knew just how to do that.

“You’re right, it was very rude of me to interrupt your romantic evening,” Carmen raised her hands in surrender and backed away, “how about you two get back to what you were doing and I can arrest you both tomorrow?”

“What?” Tigress challenged, “no romantic chase over the rooftops of Paris?”

“I’m sure your girlfriend would love that,” Paper Star added.

“Actually I think Julia would rather just have you behind bars,” she shrugged.

Right on cue the ACME’s blue sleep gas finally reached the both of them, making them both drop on the spot. It was kinda cute how they were put to sleep still holding each other. Carmen almost felt bad for arresting them. Almost.

She pulled her grappling hook again and launched herself through the open window above, landing right next to a very proud Julia Argent.

“Two for one,” Carmen praised, “at this rate, pretty soon you won’t be needing my help anymore.”

“I appreciate the compliment, but I had my partner down there to keep them in place,” Julia replied playfully. Carmen’s heart skipped a beat at the word ‘partner’, even though she knew she meant it as coworkers.

“Always happy to play distraction for you, Jules,” she played along.

Taking another step forward, Carmen felt her sense of balance completely leave her as she accidentally inhaled some sleep gas fumes. 

She tumbled forward, but before she hit the ground she felt Julia’s arms holding her up. It took her a second to shake away the effects of the gas, and another second to process the position they were in. How Julia was holding her like she had just dipped her in a dance.

For a moment they froze, staring into each other’s eyes as they held onto each other, until finally Julia helped her up again.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Julia apologized as she tried to fix up Carmen’s scuffed clothes.

“It’s fine,” Carmen assured her, “I should’ve been more careful around the sleep gas.”

Still Julia fussed over her, readjusting Carmen’s hoodie as she muttered a few more apologies. It took her a moment to notice just how close they were both standing now. The realization made her jump back a bit on reflex, but still she remained considerably close to Carmen.

She took a moment to collect herself before finally asking, “so uh- you had something you wanted to tell me?”

Carmen sighed in relief. Good to know those two hadn’t completely destroyed her chances.

“I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed our time together today,” she admitted, “before we got interrupted that is.”

Julia gave her a genuine smile that made her heart stop, “I enjoyed our time too. It’s nice to be able to talk about these things outside of work.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, feeling her confidence return bit by bit, “wanna do that again sometime? Maybe over some coffee.”

Jules seemed surprised at first as she caught on to what Carmen meant, but that expression was quickly replaced by a playful smile.

“Carmen Sandiego,” she called, “are you asking me out on a date?”

“Nothing escapes ACME’s best detective,” she joked, “I guess I am.”

“Then I’ll have to ask you to wait a little for my answer,” she asked.

Carmen opened her mouth to say that she was more than fine with waiting however long she needed, but she was frozen mid motion when Julia’s lips met her own. A quick, sweet little peck. 

“I want to finish our first before we plan the second.”

[something-very-special]

they ran over the seals

More Replicant playthrough observations and general nonsense under the cut. For reference, up to the keystone quest; completed the Forest of Myth and Junk Heap.

This fucking game I swear to god.

A vaguely coherent ramble about sidequests An observation about sidequests in general in this game -- and I don't recall if I ever voiced this somewhere public or it was just a personal observation from my time with the original -- is that the quests in the first half of the game are all relatively easy to complete. There's that one asshat who wants 10 goat hides, but other than him, most of the sidequests are either very much based on finding characters, or gathering a sensible number of items that are either relatively common, purchasable, or given a guaranteed spawn for the duration of that quest.

The sidequests everybody remembers having to do are in the second half, where everybody is demanding and awful and I'm sorry ten MACHINE OILS do you know how goddamn rare those are? They're goddamn rare.

(We'll not discuss Life in the Sands.)

This is generally agreed to, in the technical vernacular, 'suck'. And it's always funny that the most interesting sidequests are the ones with very minimal requirements (Yonah's cooking, getting Popola drunk, the Lighthouse Ladoh my god everything's gone blurry I'm not crying you're crying who am I kidding we're both crying). That particular aspect of the design also feels intentional, not really gating your ability to progress the really meaningful or funny sidequests behind an unreasonable number of rare items. The other aspect of the design is that these quests are not meant to be completed in a single playthrough; most of them are single-stage and just absolutely unreasonable, but if you're going through the game four times you have a... reasonable chance of getting everything you need more or less naturally.

Nobody does that but I think that was the intended design. I think it's a good idea, although the execution of expectation is flawed so I don't really blame people for saying those sidequests suck. (Although I will in turn blame people for saying the sidequests suck as a blanket statement. Yeah getting that guy who burned his kitchen down a billion Broken Motors is aggravating but did you not find that old man's dog? Speak to Ursula on her death bed? Solve a murder? Then again I think tracking down that rotten son who's trying to get away from The Family Business only to learn his father is a con-artist and get literally no reward is the height of comedy so maybe I'm not the greatest point of reference.)

But that asshole in Facade can get bent. I can't exploit my garden properly, jackass! I am no longer a god of time. (I kid, of course.) (This guys sucks even when you can fix your clock.)

Forest of Myth It didn't even occur to me to wonder how they would incorporate the comprehensive voice acting into the Forest of Myth. I like how it plays out, although I wish the voices maybe had a fade as you went deeper into the dream instead of just cutting out at some point, especially for the lines where the characters are being ascribed actions by the narrator that they themselves aren't doing near the start of the Deathdream. But it's just delightful to go back to it. The second half of the game really sticks in your mind both for emotional reasons and because you play it at least three times per full playthrough of the game, but the first half is just so much fun.

Protip: Talk to everybody after you've finished the dream sidequest. Weiss tries to dissuade you. Don't let him dissuade you. I'm still delighted by the Mayor; "We're building a statue of you, made of solid gold. I know you don't own a horse, but we're going to put you on a horse."

I forgot about Yonah being a disaster chef Papa Nier's reaction to the stew is better. Brother is still funny but Papa Nier just expecting to die is comedy gold.

For anybody curious, the joke about the cakes is that Yonah made 'fruit cake' using some of the worst possible fruits for cake-making. If only she'd thrown a tomato into the mix, too.

Lighthouse Lady Every time. what the fuck is a canal I'm aware of the addition of the new-old content but it didn't occur to me until Popola suddenly starts nattering on about fixing the canal when I'm expecting Yonah to talk about a penpal that oh, yeah, I guess Seafront would have had something going on the first half that would play into the second half? (I assume it does. Be weird to introduce these characters just to have groundwork for an added sidequest. ...but it was a cute sidequest.) But look Popola my boy is supposed to be in the next area I visit could we-- I mean he's on the way could we just-- no-- fiiiiiiiiiine. (It was short and sweet, though, and I appreciate that the couple's love is exemplified by them both calling Weiss a floating magazine in tandem.) On a related note but was I the only person suddenly concerned when the sidequest completion maxed out at 50% and not 51%? I had to double-check with a guide just to make sure, since I've spent the last decade telling people to make sure you hit 51% before going on to Part II.

MY BOY I love that nowadays, Emil is everybody's son. But I really wish I could go find somebody only familiar with Automata and just watch their reaction. (I'm guessing there are streams out there that fulfill this but man I'd love to get it in-person.) If you're only familiar with him from Automata this has to be a mindfuck.

Personal anecdote, but I've had the privilege of playing NIER with somebody else almost every time I've gone through it. I had a wonderful experience of doing a replay some years back with somebody who had experienced it with me before but didn't have the most solid memory of the beginning (and had actually missed the entire weapon's lab the first time through). I get to the boy at the piano introducing himself and the 'Wait, what?' was a thing of beauty.

MY ANDROID This was a welcome mindfuck for me; finding Sebastian and having him 'reactivate' in such an unnatural, mechanical way. I don't recall if it was ever officially confirmed that Sebastian is an android (I know that it's just understood that this is the case but I'm not I can't recall a specific one) but the little flair they added to his animation caught me completely off guard. I liked it!

Destroying the food source A lot of people will cite a major inciting incident for the game as being when the protagonist heading back into the village and killing the child Shades just outside the entrance. This moment is such a great bit of subtle foreshadowing that's so easy to miss... but kind of joining that, just before the Knave of Hearts attacks, I realized that the Shades out on the Northern Plains are clearly ramping up for an assault of their own by murdering the sheep. The sheep population at this point is decimated (which is great when you realize you haven't gotten the Sheepslayer trophy and you're about to enter Part II and you don't know if the boar drifting minigame got carried forward with the inclusion of 15 Nightmares). You go out onto the Plains and you will find not only small clusters of sheep left behind instead of the vast, terrifying herds from the start of the game, but until you get their attention the Shades are prioritizing killing the sheep. (Also annoying because that doesn't count toward my sheep murder number.) The Shades will be out there also killing sheep earlier on, but since the whole map is in Overcast mode after talking to Yonah it's especially prevalent to go out to the Northern Plains and seeing the slaughter. And I realized-- they're cutting the Village off from a primary food source. Shades don't eat and they don't have any beef with the local ungulates (at least, no more so than anybody else does), so why are they hunting down the sheep? To deprive their enemies of resources. Sheep are extinct by the timeskip. It's actually really clever of them, and a really clever indication of their sentience and intelligence before it's fully verified.

"Let's get these shit-hogs!" Everything about the way Kaine and Emil interact across the entire game is perfect I will brook no argument this is objective fact.

Emotive Rectangles I wrote an essay about this before but it really bears repeating that the job the original animators did with this scene is just phenomenal. The way Weiss drifts, flits, flips, fans his pages, drunkenly swerves, shoots around the room in defiance... He's a goddamn rectangle, but there is so much emotion and personality in this scene just based on the movements conveyed through a what is effectively just a box. Ten years later and triple-A titles with full facial capture don't have this much seething personality. I really have to give props to the cavia animators, wherever they wound up. That studio could really put some subtle love and care into their titles, utterly unnecessary and easy to miss but you can tell that whoever was working on it was giving it their all. The books are probably the exemplification of this, but every time I go into Seafront and visit the seals I can tell that the guy on seal duty was having just the best day. They made Emil so pretty There's an FMV cutscene right smack in the middle of the original game after the battle against Noir. I understand why it was a necessity on a technical level, but it always looked pretty out of place and a little uncanny valley compared to the rest of the graphical fidelity. That's no longer a necessity so this cutscene is rendered in-engine. I admit I was actually curious to see it redone this way and it looks fantastic. I single out Emil since he is the focal point of cutscene and because his particular high-poly model had some pretty weird difference from his in-engine model, but he and Kaine both look great. But, like, it's almost mean how pretty he is.

They made Brother Nier so pretty Yeah okay you got me he's kind of hot. Kaine's expression when she wakes up and looks him over is... significantly easier to read now. Good voice, too. (Ancient rumors tell that one of the issues with international releases of RepliCant was that they couldn't find an English VA with a voice that 'fit' Brother Nier. He sounded good out the gate but hearing him growl "Let's go TAKE CARE of those KIDS" during the thief sidequest-- I got chills. It sounds so silly but there's a kind of percolating fury to that delivery. Papa Nier was like frustrated but mostly disappointed dad; I felt like Brother was going to take care of those kids, and nobody was going to find the bodies. Younger Brother Nier just never stops looking goofy to me but Older Brother just looks great in motion, between the alterations they made to the movement and just the entire weaponry system. The distinction between the two halves of the game was always a little odd in the Gestalt version-- not odd enough to really raise eyebrows if you didn't know about RepliCant, but of course you can tell that this age gape between the optimistic doe-eyed dogooder and a man largely ruled by his fury and calloused by tragedy is what the timeskip was going for. Swab me down and call me Ishmael, it works. Younger Brother wasn't quite clicking with me-- not because of any writing or voicework issues, but I've got Papa Nier on the back of my mind and it's impossible not to compare and contrast the delivery and dialogue between the two. I know that this is intentional, too; Younger Brother is supposed to be that happy-go-lucky video game protagonist, always doing the right thing and helping people, in order to contrast against the man he becomes. Even just edging into Part II the effect is dramatic and it recontextualizes Younger Brother into a much more effective overall character. And let me reiterate, I enjoyed my time with Younger Brother just fine, I have no issues with him. But he's up against Well Meaning Big Dummy Part I Papa Nier. No contest. And I'm excited to see where Older Brother goes from here.

Speaking of voices I mentioned this before but the delivery on the character's lines is different. The entire game was re-recorded and quite a few lines are still pretty similar to the original, but there are some that are... definitely different. Part of this is a difference in the relationship between characters based on their life experience and ages-- Weiss is much more of an ass to Younger Brother but has a much more even respect for Older Brother (neither of which are like the rapport he established with Father). Some of Kaine's lines feel more aloof, dismissive, and almost tired in the front half of the game. I haven't really gotten to a point to dig into Emil's rapport with the other characters, but the delivery feels more hesitant and uncertain (which I think is more in line with his Japanese VO, but I'm prefacing that on an untrained ear and a presumption rather than recent memory). It's been interesting to see not just where hey adjusted dialogue (and how-- there are some lines that didn't need to be rewritten), but also how they adjust tone and delivery. Dealing with Younger Brother is one thing, but as I said, I'm very excited to see what's different in the second half, especially being much more familiar with that part of the game. Speaking of Voices! Halua got dialogue! I... preferred when it was inferred (and the implications of "I'll always be watching over you" are borderline malicious given the results of their fusion dance, yeah THANK YOU HALUA this is GREAT). Halua's delivery also felt a little too innocent and upbeat both for the situation and when compared to her narrative voice in The Stone Flower, where she comes across as much more cynical and cold. But given what she's been through and the nightmare she's finally escaping I guess she's allowed express happiness. She's certainly earned the right to having a spoken line. No matter what. Every fuckin' time.

"Here we go." This was always a great line to kind of ease in to the officially-official start of Part II-- every time you start up a New Game+ you're greeted with Emil musing about his conflation of Halua to Kaine, and then the phrase "Here we go". There's a lot in that one line. On a personal level he's grounding his thoughts in the moment and steeling himself for what comes next and pushing through his pain and sadness and fear. Whatever Nier told him in the facility he's still terrified, desperately terrified, that Kaine -- who was the one who told him his life had meaning -- is going to reject him. And why wouldn't she? Ultimately they don't know each other, not really. He understands at that moment that his relationship with Kaine is based on confused memories of his sister, that maybe the bond he thought they established isn't actually real. As soon as he frees Kaine he's going to have to confront her, like this, and how could she ever-- she won't-- but he can't just leave her. Whatever happens next. Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. (God it matters.) "Here we go." On a meta level, that's our introduction into the second half of the game. The first half is all prologue. This is where we'll be spending the rest of our time, even to the point that 'New Game+' skips straight ahead to this moment. Now that we've finished the establishment, this is where it all builds and where it all matters. Here we go, audience. The ride starts now. You get up to this point now in Replicant. You get the same lead-in. My dumb ass even whispered "Here we go", because I can't help myself. And he says, of course he says--! "Anyway." ... ...a-anyway? What the hell kind of line is that? "Here's some deeply personal musings that are also an indication of my own discomfort as I babble to myself just to fill the void so I can stave off thinking for just a few more seconds. ANYWAY." What a... bizarre decision. Just bizarre.

Upgraded melee combat The introduction to the armored Shades always feel kind of rough-- the defenses on those Shades are significantly higher than anything you've faced and the new weapons you're given to combat them just aren't that good. (If you got lucky you could have a fully-upgraded Faith by now, which is nearly three times as powerful as the 'heavy' two-handed sword you're given; if you downloaded the 4 YoRHa pack for Replicant you've probably been able to upgrade one of those weapons once, which are also a really nice strength boost that leaves the freebie heavy swords and spears in the dust). As an introduction to the new weapon types it always feels like rough going. But then you get a chance to get decent weapons and the combat system truly opens up, and compared to the first game you really feel it. At this juncture I would always just bustle off to Facade and grab the Phoenix Spear and never look back-- the raw power compared to the rest of your arsenal coupled with the triangle dash is basically the bread and butter of the rest of the game. It's not exciting, but it's effective. No more triangle dashing, which was deeply disappointing... but both weapons definitely feel good. I am also somewhat ashamed to admit that it wasn't until now that I realized attacks weren't just about rhythmic input-- you can hold the attacks down to do different charged hits and combos depending on when you execute them in your combo, similar to Automata. I, uh... I felt a bit dumb. But hey, wow, it's a welcome adjustment and it makes all of the weapon types feel equally valuable for different purposes. I never liked using the heavy blades in the original release because they just felt too slow for the damage output they did, even if their 'point' was mostly to sheer off armor (and they definitely felt too slow for use in crowd control). Now they're still heavy and slower, but not to the point that you're basically leaving yourself open just trying to attack. Spears now do crazy sweeping combos and multi-hits. Both of these properties were borrowed from Automata and I find myself prioritizing melee combat and almost forgetting I have magic because honestly it just feels intuitive and fun. I feel like Kaine and Emil might have gotten a power boost as well? Not that I can really confirm this but going into some of the Junk Heap rooms I'd focus on killing a few robots in the corner and then turn around and just see a field of item drops and no more robots. Don't take my word on that, of course, but they felt a little more effective, and a placebo effect is still an effect. "You're staging a protest? That's fun!" Emil. Rebel without a cause. Will not hesitate to kill you if you trespass on his property. (Might explain the statues in the courtyard, actually.) I'll have to double-check this dialogue because I definitely remember more of a melancholia before we get to roasting marshmallows. I think Papa Nier actually offers to talk to/implicitly threaten the villagers to let them in the Village whereas Brother offers to sleep outside with them... which is actually kind of funny. In the former it comes off as Emil and Kaine maybe kinda-sorta not wanting to be allowed in the Village for their own reasons (they're not happy reasons but they're reasons nonetheless) and reassuring Father that no, it's okay, it's fun! The latter is almost telling Brother to stay inside because he'll ruin their sleepover.

(They're absolutely having giggly girl talk about him outside the gates, 100%.) they ran over the seals All I want in Seafront is to enjoy the music and run out to the big beach and hang out with the last living seals and they put a fucking pirate ship on top of them. Oh, wow. Gideon. Wow. OG Nier featured a Gideon that tried to keep himself together and then had fits of mania. You'd be concerned about him during some of the dialogue but generally speaking he came across as... functional. The delivery on all of his lines is now so insanely murder bonkers, like every line he's addressing you like you're already chained to the wall of his serial killer dungeon and it's glorious. I don't know if the distinction between the games is deliberate (in that Gideon in Gestalt was just more even-keeled between his 'rip 'em apart' snarlings and was always just totally nutso in RepliCant) but I do appreciate it. It's a good mirror to Brother Nier's own anger, which only ever seems to be mollified when he's talking to his friends (even kindly accepting sidequests there's a pretty consistent -- not universal, but consistent -- air of barely-bridled frustration). The other characters that Brother encounters are various reflections of himself if things had just been a little different-- Gideon was a representation of the kind of obsessive madness that would have eaten Brother alive if he hadn't had his network of support. Gideon's constant fury and bloodlust even bleeds into him just saying "What can I do for you?" He has no anchor to keep himself sane, nobody to stay human for; he's all mania, all anger, and he only takes any real interest in Brother on his return because he sees an opportunity to act out his vengeance. After defeating Beepy and Kalil he even goes so far as to not only blame Beepy for killing Jakob, but for also killing their mother, which is patently insane but really speaks to how far his justifications and fury have taken him. Papa Nier responds to his anger toward Beepy by basically backing away slowly and saying "Oookay then". Brother, however, actually commiserates; "That's enough. [...] We get it. We really do." This is definitely one of those moments where Brother's context works better than Father's; he absolutely sees himself in Gideon. He completely understands him and sympathizes. He recognizes the madness of his own quest, he sees where it could take him, and there's a resignation when he speaks to Weiss: "Revenge is a fool's errand." "...yeah." Papa Nier has a similar delivery and similarly implies that he understands how terrible his quest is, but there's something decidedly haunting in Brother's sympathy. Also just verifying something on the wiki and this bit of 'Trivia' really jumped at me:

Gideon is the only character to only cause the deaths of other characters. In his case, he caused a platform to crush Jakob and ordered the deaths of P-33 and Kalil, with P-33 surviving.

Metal AF.

[batterycityghoul]

Love’s Strange (Billy Hargrove/Reader)

Title: Love’s Strange

Pairing: Billy Hargrove/f!Reader; background Steve/Nancy/Jonathan

Summary: Written for the ‘The Breakfast Club’ prompt for The 80s Challenge by @nellblazer​ . “You were starting to get your hopes up that it would only be the four of you, but then the library door opened once again and your hopes were quickly dashed by the sight of Billy Hargrove being escorted inside by Principal Himbry. Himbry had a hand on Billy's elbow, as if he thought Billy was about to make a run for it if he didn't personally usher him inside the room. “

Word Count: 9.4k

Warnings: Underage drinking

Author’s Note: Set after season two of Stranger Things. Title taken from Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds. Principal Himbry is very much so based on the principal from Scream. I couldn't resist.  Masterlist / Read on AO3

You thought the whole concept of Saturday detention was bullshit. You didn't understand what the point was of coming into school to waste half of your weekend. You would have preferred staying after school every day for a week than giving up your Saturday.  

It wasn't as if you had anything planned, though. You would sit in your room, listening to music, and ignoring that the rest of the world existed. You would probably catch up on homework or finish the assigned novel for your English class. You didn't lead the most exciting life, but you really didn't want to spend your free time stuck in detention.

You knew what people thought of you at Hawkins High. They thought you were quiet. They thought you were a nerd who only focused on your grades and had no fun whatsoever. You usually didn't care what anyone thought about you, though. You were there to get your diploma and then get the hell out of Hawkins.  

So what if you didn’t spend your weekends at parties or had a full social life? You didn’t know why you would bother to waste your attention on the other kids at Hawkins High anyways. They had never given you any consideration and you weren’t really jumping at the opportunity to try to change their minds about you.  

At the end of the day, they had already made up their minds about you. Did it bother you sometimes? Sure. Were you tempted to try to change their opinion of you? Not really.  

You sighed as you pulled open the front door to the school. You had been forced to walk to school, since your parents were out of town and you didn't have your own car. You didn't mind the walk, but since it was almost Thanksgiving, the air had a chill to it that took your breath away.  

Once you got inside, you started pulling off your gloves.  

"I see you've finally showed up," you heard from in front of you.  

You glanced up to see Principal Himbry standing there, an unimpressed look on his face.  

"I had to walk," you offered helplessly.  

"That's no excuse," he said. "All of you little delinquents are late." He sighed before he glanced down at his wristwatch, shaking his head when he noticed the time. "You'll be in the library. I suggest you get there now," he snapped before he brushed past you to step outside.  

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes as you made your way to the library. You weren't sure who you would be sharing detention with, but you hoped it wasn't any of the idiots you had come to dislike during your time at Hawkins High.  

When you got to the library, you noticed it was eerily silent. You considered the row of three tables taking up space in the middle of the room. Each table only had three seats, so there weren't a lot of seating choices. You were glad you were the first one in the room, since that meant you got to choose where you wanted to sit.  

You made a beeline for the table at the back. You chose the middle seat, hoping it would dissuade anyone from sitting at your table.

You sat in the silent library for long enough that you started to wonder if you should try to find something to read to pass the time. Just as you had convinced yourself to get up, the door to the library opened and three people walked inside.  

You quirked an eyebrow at the sight of Steve Harrington striding into the room followed closely by Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Byers. Nancy shot you a quick look before she moved to take the middle seat of the first table, Jonathan and Steve flanking her.  

You were more than a bit surprised to see Nancy and Jonathan. They were a grade below you, but even you knew they were generally regarded as good students. Seeing Steve wasn't as much of a shock. You had a few classes with Steve and while he seemed like a level-headed guy, he also had a habit of bickering with Tommy Hagan or Billy Hargrove and disrupting class.  

You really hoped neither of them showed up for detention, because you were sure it would lead to more bickering and fighting between the boys. You only wanted to do your time and get home to enjoy what was left of your weekend. You really didn’t want to get pulled into any drama.  

You were starting to get your hopes up that it would only be the four of you, but then the library door opened once again and your hopes were quickly dashed by the sight of Billy Hargrove being escorted inside by Principal Himbry. Himbry had a hand on Billy's elbow, as if he thought Billy was about to make a run for it if he didn't personally usher him inside the room.

Billy jerked his arm out of Himbry's grasp. "I told you I know where the library is," he insisted. "I didn't need your help."

"Your grades would suggest otherwise, Mr. Hargrove. Take a seat."

Billy rolled his eyes, but didn't bother to say anything as he moved forward. You noticed Steve's shoulders tense as Billy brushed past him, but you were quick to drop your gaze to the table in front of you when you noticed Billy's attention focus on you for a moment.  

You were aware of Billy dropping into the middle seat at the table in front of yours and felt relieved that he didn't choose to sit at your table. If there was anyone who didn't mind pushing boundaries just to get a rise out of people, it was Billy Hargrove.  

You didn't bother looking up again until Mr. Himbry spoke. "I know you five think you've been given a free pass to just sit around and do nothing all day, but that's not how Saturday detention in my school is run."

Billy snorted as he tipped his head back, rolling his eyes at the ceiling. "Please, enlighten us," he remarked.

Mr. Himbry shot Billy an exasperated glare. "I want you to write me an essay," Mr. Himbry started as he moved over towards the librarian's desk. He grabbed a small stack of loose-leaf notebook paper and a handful of pencils before he started distributing them among the five of you. You frowned down at the blank paper in front of you before you glanced up to see Himbry standing back in front of the door, his hand on the doorknob as if he was about to leave the room.  

You hastily raised your hand, hating that you were going to call attention to yourself.

"What?" Himbry asked when he noticed you.

"What are we supposed to write about?"

You heard Billy groan as a smirk appeared on Himbry's face.  

"I'm glad you asked. I want you to write me an essay about your character. Explain to me why what you did was wrong and how you're going to improve so it doesn't happen again."

Billy raised his hand. "But, sir, what if we're not sorry? What if we like our choices?" His voice had a mocking tone to it and by the annoyed expression on Himbry's face, you were sure he caught it.

"Mr. Hargrove, I hope out of anyone in this room, you will take this day to reflect on your bad decisions. You’ve certainly made a lot of them since you decided to grace us with your presence."

Billy leaned back in his chair as he kicked his feet up on the desk in front of him. "That'll be the day," he commented.

"I am sick of your attitude, Mr. Hargrove," Himbry snapped. "You just earned yourself another Saturday detention."

Billy chuckled as he moved to pull a stick of gum from the outer pocket of his jacket. Mr. Himbry crossed over to him and held his hand out.  

"And no chewing gum in the library. It's bad enough you kids stick it under the cafeteria tables. We don't need that in here either."

"Sure thing, Mr. Himbry," Billy replied as he handed over the stick of gum.  

He waited until Mr. Himbry's back was turned before he pulled out another piece, unwrapped it, and popped it into his mouth. When he realized he had your attention, he shot you a wink.

You rolled your eyes, not wanting to admit even to yourself that you found Billy Hargrove dangerously charming, even when he was being a bit of a dick.  

Mr. Himbry turned to survey the five of you. "I want those essays finished by the time you're allowed to leave here today," he said. "You will stay right here in this room. No going off into one of the private study rooms. If I think you've left your seat when I get back, I'll add another Saturday to your sentence. Do I make myself clear?"

"Aren't you going to stay here?" Steve asked.  

"I have better things to do with my time than watch you all day, Harrington. I'll be locking you all in so I can be sure you won't leave."

"But, sir, isn't that a fire hazard?" Billy’s tone suggested he didn’t really care, but he just wanted to piss off Mr. Himbry by bringing it up.

"Shut it, Hargrove. You’re lucky I gave you detention and not suspension for smoking on school grounds,” Mr. Himbry responded, a displeased look on his face.

Billy held up his hands in surrender before he reached into the inner pocket of his leather jacket and pulled out a pair of sunglasses. He rocked back in his seat, not caring that his head was dangerously close to the edge of your table.  

Mr. Himbry sighed and shook his head. "At least you're graduating this year," he grumbled before he turned and left the library.  

You had no intention of actually writing the essay. There was no way Himbry could grade you on it, so there was no point in actually wasting your time on it. Instead, you grabbed the pencil he had left for you on the desk and started doodling in the margins of the paper. You were mindlessly drawing stars and scribbling snatches of lyrics from some of your favorite songs when you were torn out of your thoughts by Billy's voice.

"I should have known you would live for that extra homework bullshit," he said. When you glanced up, it was to see Billy sitting back up in his chair, his feet planted on the floor once again as he considered you over the top rim of his sunglasses. "Did you get turned on by the thought of writing another boring-as-shit essay, Miss Honor Roll?"

You shot him a glare before you bent back over your paper. You made sure to print the letters large enough on the page to be able to read them at a distance. You held the paper up so Billy could read your message to him.

His lips stretched in a smirk as he read the words. "Fuck off, huh? Such language from such a pretty girl."

"Just leave her alone, Billy," Nancy cut in, shooting a glare at Billy over her shoulder.  

Billy turned back around in his seat, facing the table in front of him. "I'm surprised to see you here, princess," Billy said as he leaned forward in his seat, his gaze set on Nancy and Steve in front of him.

Steve turned around, a scowl on his face. "Hey, don't call her that."

Billy smirked. "I was talking to you, Harrington."

"You're a real asshole. Do you know that?" Steve snapped, turning fully in his seat so he could consider Billy.  

"So I've been told," Billy drawled, seemingly unaffected by Steve's words.  

"Why the hell are you even here, Hargrove? I would have thought you were above showing up for a Saturday detention."

"Oh, but then I would have missed seeing your face, Harrington. I couldn't possibly go a day without it."

"Just do what Y/N said and fuck off, Billy," Steve spat.  

Billy chuckled before he pressed his hands to the surface of the table, pushing himself up to stand. "With pleasure," he hissed.  

You watched him move over towards the library doors. When he reached out to try to open them, they didn't budge.  

"That dick actually locked us in," you couldn't help saying. You really didn't think Mr. Himbry would go so far as to lock you all in the library. What if something happened? What if you needed to leave?

Jonathan glanced at you over his shoulder, a surprised look on his face.  

Steve snorted as he leaned back in his seat. "Of course he did," he muttered. "Because that's just what today needed."

Billy turned around, his focus immediately going to you. "There you go with that smart mouth again," he said as he leaned back against the locked library doors. "How did you even end up in detention in the first place? Aren't you the perfect little teacher's pet?"

You rolled your eyes and moved to grab the paper and pencil from the desk. You pushed yourself out of your chair and then made for one of the private study rooms dotting the perimeter of the room. You didn't care if Mr. Himbry had forbidden it or if you ended up being punished for it. You would do just about anything in that moment to get away from Billy Hargrove and his insufferable attitude.  

"Oh, we've got ourselves a rebel!" Billy called after you.  

You didn't bother to look back at him or the others as you pushed the door closed behind yourself. You let out a sigh of relief when you dropped into one of the chairs found at the table in the middle of the room. You were sure you would be even more bored all by yourself in the study room, but you didn't care. If it gave you just a few moments to yourself, then you would happily take it.  

You spent a couple of hours by yourself, absently drawing your own constellations on the paper and trying to find ways to entertain yourself.  

You were thankful that it was warm enough in the room that you could slip off your jacket. You weren’t sure if the others were talking or even bothering with each other, because you couldn’t hear a thing from the main room. Sitting all alone in the study room without music or anything else to occupy your time was mind-numbingly boring, but you couldn’t help but think it was better than potentially listening to Steve and Billy fight all day.

You were starting to get sleepy and seriously considering balling up your jacket to use as a pillow when the door to the study room abruptly opened. You were startled enough that you almost tipped out of your chair.  

"Get out of there," you heard Mr. Himbry snap behind you.  

You sighed before you made yourself get up. You grabbed your things before finally turning and looking at Mr. Himbry. He sighed and shook his head, disappointment clear in his expression as you brushed past him.  

"I'll see you here next Saturday," he told you.

Billy was sitting in the seat you had originally claimed, his sunglasses still on his face. When he saw you, he smirked at you. "Looks like I won't be lonely next Saturday after all."

You rolled your eyes, choosing to sit in the middle seat of the second table.  

Mr. Himbry sighed as he passed your table. "Now, if you didn't bring lunch, which I don't think any of you thought to do, then there are pre-packaged sandwiches and chips that can be found in the cafeteria." He moved to stand near the librarian's desk, his gaze fixed on the five of you as he considered you. "You," he said as he pointed at you. "And Harrington," he added after a few moments. "Go to the cafeteria and get lunch for everyone."

Steve glanced at you before he pushed himself to his feet. You were quick to follow, glad that you would be able to leave the library for just a few moments.  

"And don't take more than ten minutes," Himbry called out. "Or it's another Saturday for the both of you," he warned.  

You really didn't want to spend your weekends leading up to Christmas in detention, so you simply nodded your head and followed Steve out of the library.  

You didn't really know Steve Harrington all that well, even if you had been in classes together for years. However, everyone at Hawkins High knew who 'King Steve' was, even if he had recently fallen from the ridiculous heights of popularity he once seemed to enjoy.  

"So," Steve started, shooting you a glance as he swung his arms idly at his sides. "Y/N, right?"

You quirked an eyebrow at him, amused by the question. "Yeah. Steve, right?" You jokingly asked.  

Steve rolled his eyes before carding his fingers through his hair, pushing it off of his forehead.  

"I'm just trying to make small talk. I don't really know anything about you except that you're one of the smartest kids in our class. How the hell did you even end up in Saturday detention?"

You shrugged your shoulders. "I'm more than just a nerd, King Steve."

"Alright, alright. Point taken."

"How did you end up with Saturday detention?"

Steve bit his lip before he shot you a grin. "I told Tommy H. to go fuck himself. Himbry overheard."

"Huh," you breathed. "Knowing Tommy, I'm sure it was deserved."

"Yeah," Steve agreed with a laugh. "Now will you tell me how you got detention?"

"Nope," you answered.

Steve laughed again, shooting you an amused grin, before he shook his head. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You seem to like your secrets."

"Oh, I'm full of surprises, Harrington."

"Yeah? I guess you are."

A companionable silence fell over the two of you once you reached the cafeteria. You helped Steve grab the food helpfully waiting for you on the lunch table closest to the door leading to the lunch line. You caught a glimpse of one of the women who regularly worked in the cafeteria through the open door. She raised her hand in a wave when she saw you and you offered her a smile in return.  

When you got back to the library, Mr. Himbry was pointedly looking at his wristwatch. "Another minute and you would have added another Saturday to both of your sentences." He considered the both of you, a scowl forming on his face. "And where are the drinks?"

"Uh," Steve started, shooting you an uncertain look. "You didn't mention anything about drinks, Mr. Himbry," he pointed out.

"It was implied, Mr. Harrington." Himbry sighed before he glanced away. "Wheeler and Byers," he called, snapping his fingers at the pair. "Go get drinks for everyone."

Nancy frowned, but didn't say anything as she got out of her seat. Steve watched Nancy as she passed by him, a look of longing on his face. You had heard about his brutal breakup with Nancy at Tina’s Halloween party and you couldn't help but feel a bit bad for him. By the look on his face, you figured it was safe to assume he wasn't over her.

You moved to take your seat again, dropping a sandwich and bag of chips in front of Billy.  

"Thanks, baby," he purred, sitting up in his chair.  

"Don't call me that," you snapped, shooting him a glare. You faced forward in your seat, noticing Himbry stepping out of the library and closing the door behind him, leaving you alone with Steve and Billy.

"Sure thing, sweetheart," Billy quipped, earning an eyeroll from you. "So, hey," you heard Billy say. "I heard an interesting rumor about Harrington."  

You saw Steve's shoulders tense, but he didn't bother to acknowledge that he had actually heard Billy.  

"I don't care," you answered, reaching out to slowly unwrap your sandwich.  

"I heard he's fucking both of them. Nancy and Byers." You heard Billy chuckle, as if amused by his own words. "The princess gets the freak and the jock. How's that for a fairytale ending?"

You noticed Steve's hands clench into fists. You only shared one class with both Billy and Steve, but that was enough to know that they had a complicated relationship. Billy constantly riled Steve up and thought it was hilarious when Steve finally snapped back. Hell, Billy liked to pick at everyone. You weren't sure if it was his own way of making sure he stayed at the top of the high school food chain or if he had another reason for bullying people, but you were sick of it.  

"You know what?" You said as you turned in your seat to look at Billy. You noticed his eyebrows rise in surprise, as if he didn't think you would actually be bold enough to stand up to him. "It's none of your business if they are in a relationship. You know whose business it is? Theirs. No one else's." You considered Billy for a moment, noticing the way he seemed to be studying you. "You know what I think, Billy?"

"Enlighten me," he retorted.

"I think you're lonely," you told him. "You spend so much of your time antagonizing other people so you don't have to take a good, hard look at yourself. Because once everything is said and done, all you have is yourself. And maybe you don’t like you all that much."

"You don't know a damn thing about me, sweetheart," Billy muttered, his tone close to a snarl.  

"Maybe that's because you don't want anyone to really look past those aviator glasses and that leather jacket," you pointed out. "Maybe if you let someone in, then you wouldn't feel the need to drag everyone else down with you. Maybe you should let someone lift you up."

Billy scoffed and shook his head. "That's the biggest piece of shit I've ever heard in my life."

You shrugged your shoulders, not bothering to respond as you turned back around in your seat.  

Steve was watching you, an unreadable expression on his face for a moment, before he grinned. You rolled your eyes, feeling yourself flush at his silent approval, before you began to pick at the sandwich in front of you.  

When Nancy and Jonathan got back, Himbry locked you in again.  

You thanked Jonathan when he handed you a can of soda. You noticed the way Steve reached out to clap a hand to Jonathan's shoulder and the soft smile Jonathan shot Steve in return. You couldn't help but wonder if there was any truth to Billy's words, but then immediately felt guilty for even thinking about it. If they really all were in a relationship, then you told yourself it wasn't any of your business. Although, a small part of you couldn't help but feel curious.  

You picked at your lunch, not really in the mood to eat. You really just wanted to go home and fall into bed.  

An hour managed to crawl past. The silence in the library was almost unnerving. You had long run out of space on your paper, so you had taken to using your pencil to try to color in the full page.  

Every so often, you heard Nancy, Steve, and Jonathan all softly whispering to each other, but you were never able to catch what they were talking about. You didn't really want to eavesdrop, but you were so bored out of your skull that you were just about ready to try anything to stop yourself from banging your head against the desk as a form of entertainment.  

"I'm bored," Billy groaned, finally breaking the silence in the room.

"No shit, Hargrove," Steve snapped. "We're all bored."

"Well, I have something that'll help," you heard Billy say.  

You turned in your seat to see he was reaching into his coat. When he pulled out a flask, you couldn't help but roll your eyes.

"Of course," you muttered to yourself, turning back around to face the front.  

"What?" Billy asked defensively. "You have something against making things interesting?"

"How is drinking going to make things interesting?" You wondered why Billy even thought to bring a flask to Saturday detention in the first place.  

"Because we're going to play a game," Billy said, reaching forward to poke at your shoulder.  

Steve turned in his seat, his eyebrow quirked at Billy. "You have to be kidding."

"Nope," you heard Billy say, a smile in his voice.  

You heard Nancy sigh before she turned to consider Billy as well. "What game?" She sounded like she didn’t really want to ask, but she was so bored she couldn’t help but grasp at any distraction.  

Billy was silent for a moment, as if thinking over his choices. You heard him snap his fingers before he spoke again. "Never Have I Ever," he offered.  

Jonathan snorted before he blushed when you all glanced at him, having obviously been caught off-guard by Billy's suggestion.  

"What? You've got something to offer, Byers?"

Jonathan sighed before he glanced at Billy over his shoulder. "Just thought you'd think something like that was lame."

"I'm bored, Byers," Billy drawled as he pulled his sunglasses off before putting them back in his jacket. "There's a hell of a lot I'd do to avoid that."

You heard Steve groan before he pushed his seat away from the table. "You know what? Fuck it," he conceded. "Sounds a lot better than sitting here in silence."

"I never thought you'd agree with me on something, Harrington."

"I still hate you," Steve told Billy, glaring at him.

"Feeling's mutual," Billy sneered.  

You shook your head, still working on shading in your piece of paper. You were going to have to get up soon and sharpen your pencil if you had any hope of completing your self-assigned project.  

"I'm out," you muttered. "You guys have fun."

"Oh, come on," Billy coaxed. "Live a little. Have some fun yourself for once."

"I don't want to play," you told him, not even bothering to look back at him.

"Why not? You scared I'm going to get to know you like you seem to think you know me?"

You finally turned and met his gaze, momentarily getting drawn in by the smug look on his face.

Playing this game with the others was probably a terrible idea. Steve had been right to guess you liked your secrets, and it was mostly because you were sick of other people judging you. You knew that Billy likely picked at people for the same reason you also didn’t let them in. You didn’t want others to see you and then decide you weren’t worth it.  

It was probably a terrible idea, but you really had nothing better to do. Besides, you didn’t like the challenging look on Billy’s face.  

"Fine," you finally bit out. "Let's play."

"Great," he said, a smirk pulling at his lips. "What about you, Byers? Wheeler? You in?"

Nancy rolled her eyes when Steve turned a pleading look on her.

"Oh, come on, Nance. Don't make me play by myself." His lower lip poked out in a pout and you saw the moment Nancy began to cave.

Nancy glanced to Jonathan, catching his hesitant nod, before a reluctant smile flashed across her face.  

"Alright," she agreed. "We're in."

"But how is it going to work with one flask between the five of us?" You couldn't help but ask. "Don't we all need our own drink?"

"We'll improvise," Billy answered with a shrug of his shoulders.  

"Wait," Nancy called, hastily getting to her feet. "Maybe we don't have to."

You frowned when she went behind the front desk and disappeared into the librarian's office. She came back after a few moments with a small stack of mini paper cups. "There's a water cooler in there," she explained. "These will make things easier at any rate."

"Alright, let's do this," Billy said, getting out of his chair.  

He moved to drop down into the seat next to yours while Nancy set the cups down in front of you. Steve and Jonathan had already turned their chairs to face your table and you felt weirdly flustered at the feeling of everyone focusing on you.  

"Look alive, nerd," Billy said, nudging you in the side with his elbow. "Make yourself useful and help me out here," he added, nodding at the cups in front of you.

You rolled your eyes before you reached out to grab the cups. You separated them, holding one out to Billy at a time as he poured a little of whatever was in his flask into each cup. You handed them out to the others as you went, wondering if this was such a good idea.

"Don't make me regret wasting the good stuff on you assholes," Billy said as he finished. He twisted the cap back onto his flask, shaking it for a moment as if checking to make sure he still had some left. "Plenty left to go around," he added. "So, who's going first?"

"I've got an idea," you said, reaching behind you to grab one of Billy's blank pieces of paper. You ripped the paper into pieces and wrote a number on each one. You made quick work of folding each piece and then mixing them up. "Okay, we'll just go in order of the numbers we choose."

"Smart," Steve commented, shooting you a quick smile, before he reached out to grab a number.

Jonathan ended up going first. He looked like he wasn't really sure what to say at first.

"Come on, Byers," Billy groaned. "Do you not know how to play?"

"I do," Jonathan assured, shooting Billy a glare. "Never have I ever," he started, trailing off for a moment. "Used a fake ID," he finally finished.  

Billy snorted before he downed his shot. You noticed Steve did as well.  

Steve scrunched up his face and shook his head, turning his head to cough into his sleeve. "What the fuck is that?"

"The good shit, Harrington," Billy said. "So shut up and drink up."

"My turn," Steve said, holding his cup out to Billy to refill. He seemed to think about what he wanted to say for a moment before he finally spoke. "Never have I ever played hooky."

You quirked an eyebrow at Steve. "Really?" You would have thought King Steve would have skipped school at least once before.  

"Really, really," he confirmed with a nod of his head before he smirked over at Nancy and Jonathan.

"Not fair," Nancy grumbled before she laughed and downed her shot, Jonathan not far behind her. You noticed Billy tip his head back as he had his second shot of the game.  

He glanced over at you when he noticed you watching him.  

"You're zero for two, sweetheart. You should join in on the fun."

"You're two for two," you reminded him. "Maybe you should start having a little less fun."

"Never," he said, smirking at you.  

You rolled your eyes, glancing away from him.  

"Your turn, Y/N," Nancy reminded you when you were silent for a few moments.  

"Right," you agreed, staring down at the '3' you had scribbled down on the slip of paper in front of you. You weren't really sure what to say. When you agreed to play the game, you seemed to have momentarily forgotten that you really hadn't done all that much. It made it easy to do your part now, sure, but you were about to make it clear how much of a social life you didn’t have. Maybe you really were as straitlaced and boring as everyone made you out to be.  

"Tick tock, babe," Billy drawled, knocking his shoulder lightly into yours.

"Don't call me that," you automatically said, barely even thinking about your response. "Alright, never have I ever been in a fist fight."

You noticed Steve, Jonathan, and Billy take a shot. You glanced to Jonathan, surprised that seemingly sweet and gentle Jonathan Byers had enough fire in him to have been in a fight.

Nancy went next, admitting that she had never been arrested.  

Billy and Jonathan downed a shot for that one.  

"You know, maybe I was wrong about you, Byers," Billy said. "You're quite the miscreant, aren't you?"

You noticed Jonathan's face flush, so you looked to Billy, figuring turnabout was fair play.

"Get on with it, Hargrove," you said, reaching out to tap your fingers against his slip of paper with the '5' written on it.  

"Patience, baby," Billy said. "I know how to make a good thing last."

You heard Steve groan and shake his head. "Stop flirting with the poor girl and just get on with it, Billy. This was your idea," he pointed out.

"Stop ruining my fun, Harrington," Billy snapped. He considered Steve for a moment before a wicked grin appeared on his face.  

You instinctively knew what he was about to say would likely be a dig at Steve.  

"Never have I ever," Billy started, pausing as if for dramatic effect. "Had a three-way," he finished after a few seconds.

You reached out to smack him on the shoulder. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" You hissed at him, shooting a quick, worried look at the three in front of you.

To your surprise, all three of them were taking a shot. You felt your eyes widen in surprise before you looked to Billy, noticing the satisfied smirk on his face.  

He leaned over until he was in your space. "Called it," he whispered, winking at you, before he pulled away.  

You hated to admit that you felt a tiny thrill at having Billy Hargrove so close to you that you could smell his cologne and feel his hair brush against your shoulder. You also would never admit that when he leaned away, it left you feeling just the tiniest bit bereft. You didn't understand why you seemed to have a bit of a crush on him. He did nothing but poke at people and call you pet names. He thought you were a stick in the mud and would probably never seriously glance your way when every other girl in the school was attracted to him and looking to get into his pants.

"Uh, earth to Y/N," Steve called. "You still playing?"

"What? Yeah," you answered, blinking at Steve. "What did I miss?"

"Byers here has never done drugs," Billy told you, watching you expectantly. When you didn't touch your cup, he snorted and shook his head. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Shut up," you muttered, feeling your cheeks flush.  

"My turn," Steve said. "Never have I ever flirted with a married person."

Billy was the only one to take a shot for that turn.  

"Why am I not surprised?" You echoed, fixing Billy with an unimpressed look.

"I can't help it if everyone knows I'm hot shit," Billy told you, seemingly unconcerned.

"You're one of those things," you muttered, ignoring Billy's scowl. "Alright, never have I ever had a friends-with-benefits relationship."

Billy smirked at you before he downed his shot. "We can fix that, you know."

"You're the last person I'd want to fix that for me," you told him, even though it was mostly a lie. Would you and Billy actually have any semblance of a functioning, healthy relationship? Unlikely. Would it be hot as hell while it lasted? Most likely.

You were able to take your first shot when Nancy admitted she never got stitches. You noticed Jonathan quirking an eyebrow at you in surprise, but you shrugged your shoulders, not wanting to get into the story.  

You hated to admit it, but as the game progressed and you got to know the others a bit more, you started actually having fun. You had managed to down a couple of more shots, admitting to being drunk at a family event and then later confessing to going skinny dipping.

"Never thought you would have had it in you," Billy said. He swayed in his seat, bumping companionably into you. "You've surprised me, angel."

You shrugged your shoulders, not wanting to fess up that the only reason you had gone skinny dipping was because you had been completely alone and didn't want to get your clothes wet. Still, when Billy shot you a pleased smile, you couldn't help but gift him with one of your own.

You noticed that, to your ultimate surprise, you all seemed to be bonding. You were all so different, but it seemed one dumb party game was enough to bring you together, if only for a small amount of time. If only because all of you had nothing better to do in that moment.  

When Nancy admitted that she hadn't lied in the game, shooting a pointed look at Steve, you couldn't help but laugh when he begrudgingly drained his cup.  

"Okay, so I have played hooky before," he offered with a shrug of his shoulders.  

"I knew it!" You pointed at him accusingly, catching the amused grin on his face.

It wasn't all fun, though. When you admitted that you never lost someone, Billy and Nancy both somberly took a shot.  

"I'm so sorry," you told them both. You knew Nancy must have been thinking about Barb. The aftermath of the discovery about Hawkins Lab and their involvement in Barb's death just a few weeks before had rocked the town. You knew that Barb’s absence had to be eating away at Nancy and couldn't imagine what it was like to lose your best friend.  

You noticed Steve's arm come up to wrap around Nancy's shoulders as Jonathan reached out to grab her hand. You glanced away from them, giving them a moment of privacy, as you considered Billy. You couldn't help but feel curious about his loss, but you knew it wasn't your place to ask. Instead, you reached out to cautiously squeeze his shoulder, before you drew your hand back. He gave you a lingering look, his eyes dipping down and then back up, as if checking you out.  

He cleared his throat, glancing over towards Nancy. "Alright, your turn Wheeler. What do you got?"

By the time the contents of Billy's flask were dangerously low, everyone was at least a little bit tipsy.

"Somehow, I doubt this was what we were supposed to do in detention," Jonathan said, glancing around at the group.  

"Yeah, this has almost been nice," you reluctantly admitted.  

"Enough for one more round left," Billy said, shaking the flask in his hand. He moved to stuff it back into the inner pocket of his jacket before he glanced at you. "Your turn, babe. Make it a good one."

You didn’t even bother to tell him not to call you that, since from the shit-eating grin on his face, he knew.  

It was then you noticed everyone's attention on you. You bit your lip, struggling to think of something interesting, but not embarrassing, to confess.  

"Never have I ever had sex in a car," you finally offered, shrugging your shoulders at Billy's incredulous look.

Only Steve, Nancy, and Billy ended up drinking to that. You glanced down to the shot in front of you before you looked to Jonathan.  

"We can be losers together," you told him, holding out your cup towards him. "Cheers?"

You saw a brief smile flit across his face before he reached forward with his cup to tap it against yours.  

"Cheers," he said before he drained his cup.  

Once you downed your shot, you noticed Billy staring at you.  

"What?" You felt suddenly defensive, not knowing why he was watching you so closely.  

Billy startled, as if he hadn't realized he was still looking at you. "Nothing," he immediately denied, shrugging his shoulders. "Just don't get how you can be so boring."

"What?" It felt like your stomach dropped at his words, a cold wash of dread crashing down on you.  

"You took the least shots out of all of us. You've done nothing," he added. "You just spend your days making all your little class notes and probably having wet dreams about acing your calculus exam."

You felt the good mood you had just moments before suddenly dissipate.  

"Leave her alone, Billy," Nancy snapped. "What has she ever done to you?"

"Y/N, are you okay?" Steve asked, leaning forward and watching you in concern.

"Fine," you said. "Just regretting thinking that maybe Billy Hargrove wasn't such a dick for a moment."

"Oh," Billy breathed on a helpless laugh. "So, you do have some teeth. There's the fight I was looking for."

"I would think you've had enough of fights," Jonathan told Billy, raising an eyebrow at him.

"I love fights," Billy argued. "Especially when I always win. Just ask Harrington here," Billy continued, gesturing towards Steve. "Or did you forget I just beat the shit out of your boyfriend a few weeks ago?"

It wasn't long before an argument broke out. It seemed that Billy just couldn't help riling up the others. You sat at the desk, picking at the side of your paper cup, and wished that detention was over. All you could think about was Billy calling you boring and thinking that you lived and breathed for nothing except school. You weren’t sure why his words stung, but they did.  

You jumped at the sound of the library door slamming open, Himbry standing in the doorway with a scowl on his face.

"I can hear you kids yelling from just down the hallway. What the hell is going on in here?"

"Nothing, sir," Billy said, reaching into his jacket and pulling his sunglasses back out. He put them on, smirking at Himbry as he leaned back in his seat. "Just having a little friendly conversation."

Himbry snorted as he walked farther into the room. You noticed Nancy hastily reach out to grab the other paper cups and stack them again before hiding them beneath her chair.  

"I know better than to think there's anything friendly about you, Hargrove. I've had to suffer through having all of you in my school for some time now. You think I don't notice things? I notice things!" Himbry's face was starting to flush red in anger as his voice steadily rose. "You kids think you run this school, but you'll be out of here soon enough! And who's stuck here taking care of the next generation? Me," he hissed, pointing a finger at Billy.  

"Uh, Mr. Himbry?" Nancy hesitantly spoke up. "Are you okay?"

"No," he snapped. "I've had enough of this and I obviously can't trust the five of you to follow rules. So, you're each going to a study room and you're going to stay there, by yourself, until Saturday detention is over."

"Fine by me," you muttered, already moving to grab your stuff.  

A couple of minutes later, you were back in the study room you had retreated to for solace earlier that day. You went back to trying to shade in your paper, hating that Billy Hargrove of all people had managed to get under your skin.  

You weren't sure how long you had been sitting there, glaring down at the progressively-darkening paper in front of you, before the door to your study room opened.  

You glanced over your shoulder, hoping it was Himbry telling you it was time to go home, but to your surprise it was Billy standing just inside the room.  

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Billy shrugged his shoulders before he pulled his sunglasses off. "I was thinking," he said, moving to sit down in the chair beside yours.

"I didn't say you were welcome here," you reminded him.  

"Come on, Y/N," Billy said, grinning at you. "You can't tell me you weren't a little excited to see me here."

"I'm not excited to see you here. Get out," you told him, already turning away from him.

"Hey," he called, his tone softer than before. He reached out to wrap his fingers around your wrist, tugging until you faced him again. "I wanted to apologize."

"What?" You blurted, thrown for a loop by his words. "You can't be serious. Are you just making fun of me again?"

"No," he insisted. "God, this is why I don't tell people I'm sorry. They always give me shit for it."

"You have to admit it's a little unexpected given your track record," you couldn't help but point out to him.

Billy brought his hand up to scratch the back of his neck, a nervous smile on his face that looked remarkably out of place. You were used to Billy practically oozing an obvious charm that he bestowed on anyone he thought he could get into bed. Otherwise, he was almost hostile, picking fights and mostly winning them. A nervous and awkward Billy Hargrove wasn’t something you thought you would ever witness.  

"You know, I've seen you around school before. You get this smile on your face when you think no one's looking. Like, you're away in your head and anywhere else other than this shithole. It's nice," he said.  

"You've noticed me? I thought you were too busy being too cool for someone as boring as I am."

"Oh, I've noticed you," he confirmed with a nod of his head. "And I shouldn't have called you boring. But I just always thought you were too good for me. You’re going to graduate top of the class and go to some fancy university in a big city. You’re better than Hawkins and you’re better than me."

"Maybe I am and maybe I’m not," you said, rolling your eyes. "But maybe if you stopped being such a dick to me, then you'd find that out for yourself. Maybe if you actually got to know me, then you would know that I have more to offer than my good grades."

Billy narrowed his eyes at you before a self-satisfied grin broke out on his face. "Alright, then," he said, leaning back in his seat. "We've still got at least an hour locked in here. What do you say to getting to know each other a little better?"

You raised an eyebrow at him. "Just talking?"

Billy held his hands up, palms facing towards you. "Just talking," he promised, even though the smirk on his face did nothing to convince you he wasn't lying.  

You thought that maybe Billy Hargrove wasn't capable of being alone in a room with a girl without making a dozen innuendos. You thought Billy Hargrove would have hit on you relentlessly or tried to goad you into doing something more than having a conversation. You thought Billy Hargrove would rather eat his own shoe than spend over an hour with you alone, simply talking and getting to know each other better.  

Billy Hargrove managed to surprise you.

During your time together, you learned that the loss he admitted to earlier during the game was his mom.

"She didn't die or anything," he told you, shrugging his shoulders as if unbothered by what he was saying. From the pained look in his eyes, you knew that he still obviously cared a lot. "But she ran out on me and I haven't seen or heard from her since. Left me in a pretty shitty situation," he confessed, carefully not looking at you. “She’s as good as dead to me now.”

"I'm sorry," you said, at a loss for anything else to say.  

"Whatever," Billy breathed, his expression smoothing out. "So, what did someone like you do to end up in here?"

You normally wouldn't have wanted to fess up, but after Billy had practically bared his soul for you just moments before, or as close to it as he ever got, you couldn't help but want to trust him with something of yours.

"I threw a book through Mr. Himbry's office window. Smashed it."

"What? That was you?" Billy looked almost impressed as he finally looked at you again. "Why the hell did you do that?"

You shrugged your shoulders. "I was going to fail gym. I told him it was a bullshit requirement, but he wouldn't listen to me. I guess I got angry. He said the only reason I wasn't expelled was because I was top of the class."

"A hothead, huh?" Billy chuckled, an expression that looked a lot like fond amusement appearing on his face. "I can respect that."

As more time passed and Billy revealed more and more of himself to you, you couldn't help but wonder if he was ever this open and candid with anyone else.  

You talked about favorite movies and teachers you both hated. He told you about his car and you bemoaned your lack of one. You told him about some of your favorite books and he shared some memories about his favorite places in California.  

By the time the end of your detention was approaching, you felt like you had gotten to see a side of Billy Hargrove that no one else was allowed to.

"So, hey," Billy started, tapping his fingers on the surface of the table. "I was thinking I could help you out."

"With what?" You asked, wondering what he could possibly be talking about.  

"With some of your answers to that game. Or, I mean, lack of answers," he amended. "You barely got to participate. It's a little sad."

You rolled your eyes. "I'm not having sex with you in your car just because I've never done that before." Even if it is a nice car, you couldn’t help but think to yourself.  

He laughed, sounding genuinely amused by your words. "That's not what I had in mind," he muttered before he leaned forward in his chair. He reached out, tipping your chin up towards him, before he brushed his lips against yours. "This okay?" He quietly asked, pulling back only enough to meet your gaze.  

You nodded your head, pulling him back towards you. It was strange to think that you started the day dreading the sight of Billy Hargrove and now you felt almost breathless with anticipation while he was pressed so close to you.  

One little Saturday detention had somehow managed to change your opinion of him. You couldn’t help but admit to yourself that you really didn’t hate the turn of events that ended up with his lips pressed to yours and his fingers carding through your hair.  

The next time the door to your study room opened, it really was Himbry.

"Enough!" He snapped when he caught you and Billy making out. "It's bad enough that you two ended up in Saturday detention in the first place, but it’s even worse that you just couldn't respect my rules for even one day." He sighed, sounding oddly defeated. "Detention is over. Get out of here. I'll see you two here next Saturday." As he turned, you heard him mutter under his breath. "Honestly, between these two and the other three, I'm starting to wonder why we even bother with Saturday detention anymore."

When you turned back towards the table, you caught Billy looking at you.  

"What?" You couldn't quite read the look on his face, but it had you shivering in your seat.  

"Nothing," he answered as he reached forward. He pressed his thumb just under your jaw, a smirk on his face. "Looks like I helped you out with something after all."

You remembered his biting kisses to the skin he was considering with an intent in his eyes that you couldn't help but melt at seeing. You also remembered admitting earlier that you had never before gotten a hickey.  

"You're something else," you muttered, moving to gather your stuff. You briefly wondered if you would be able to hide the love bites Billy had gifted you with, but a part of you really didn’t want to.  

You left the study room, aware of Billy trailing right behind you.  

When you looked up, you noticed Nancy righting her blouse just outside the study room she had been confined to earlier. Steve and Jonathan were just right behind her, talking softly to each other.

It was then you suddenly understood Himbry's words from just moments before. You quirked an eyebrow at Nancy when she realized she had your attention and she blushed in response, shrugging her shoulders. You grinned at her before you mimed zipping your lips shut. She shot you a grateful look before turning towards Steve and Jonathan.

"Told you," Billy whispered in your ear.  

You glanced at him over your shoulder before you shook your head. “You better not go spreading that around school,” you warned him. “It’s not yours to tell.”

Billy didn’t bother to answer, but from the expression on his face, you hoped he agreed to keep his mouth shut.  

You walked out of the library, already dreading the walk home. You pulled your jacket back on, knowing that it would likely be freezing outside.

When you opened the front doors to the school, you shivered at the blast of cold air that greeted you.  

You hastily tugged your gloves back on and pulled your jacket tighter around you. You only made it a few steps away from the front doors before you felt someone tug on the sleeve of your jacket.  

"Hey, nerd," Billy called, an almost affectionate tone to his voice. "Let me give you a ride home. You'll catch pneumonia walking in this cold."

"And you care?"

"Just get in the car, Y/N," he groaned before nodding over towards his blue Camaro.  

You watched him step towards his car before sending you a questioning glance over his shoulder. You moved to follow after him, feeling a little exhilarated as you ducked into the passenger seat.  

The car ride to your house was filled with an almost awkward silence. You weren't really sure where you stood with Billy now that you weren't sentenced to spending time together. Were you friends? Something more? Surely friends didn't make out with each other, right? You had certainly never given any of your friends a hickey. But were you dating? Were you anything other than a Saturday detention fling to Billy?

By the time Billy pulled into your driveway, you had managed to almost convince yourself that the connection you thought you had forged with Billy was tenuous at best. He would probably never speak to you again past today and the thought hurt, even though you knew you didn't really have any claim to him or his time.  

You moved to get out of the car. You hated that he wasn't saying anything as you pushed yourself out of the car and closed the passenger side door shut behind you.

"So, Y/N," Billy called, looking at you through the open passenger window.  

"Yeah?" You pulled your jacket tighter around you, shivering at the chill in the air.  

"Can I call you some time?"

You felt your breath hitch, your knees going a little weak at the expectant look on his face. He looked as if he was looking forward to the idea of speaking to you again.  

"Sure," you answered, trying to keep your tone even. If you let him know just how eager you felt for more of his time, then he wouldn't let you live it down.  

"Great," he said, reaching into the front pocket of his jacket and pulling out a carton of cigarettes. He shook one out before he placed it between his lips, his gaze going to you as he lit the end of the cigarette with a lighter he pulled from the glove compartment.  

You weren't really sure if you were supposed to leave now, but you couldn't help but say one more thing before stepping away from the car.

"So, I guess I'll see you at the next Saturday detention," you reminded him. A part of you really hoped that it was only going to be you and Billy there. You relished the idea of having Billy all to yourself.  

He smiled at you, pulling the cigarette away from his mouth to breathe out a cloud of smoke.  

"It's a date," he agreed.

[spell-cleaver]

Astrophilia

@star-wars-wlweek

Day 5: Enemies to Lovers & Canon Divergence

Read it on AO3 or on FFN!

One world trapped under a mouse's paw saw Leia and Han having a peaceful moment at odds with the chaos around them, before she threw a glass of wine in his face.

"That's not normally how I drink Corellian wine."

"This is low, even for a scoundrel like you." Leia threw the glass down as well and marched away. "We are running for our lives from the Empire while on a mission of vital importance to the Rebellion. The only thing between us and capture are those electrical storms keeping the Imperials at bay." She jabbed her finger at the red clouded sky. "This is no time for your cheap attempts at seduction."

"This wine wasn't cheap, and pardon me for wanting a drink after just saving our lives."

"We wouldn't even be in this mess if you hadn't lost your nerve!"

"Lost my—" Han's indignant splutter sounded like a speeder backing up. "Lady, I've sailed from one end of this galaxy to the other, and believe me, there's nothing out there that could make me lose my nerve!"

But Leia wasn't listening anymore. "Did you hear that? Sounded like a ship."

"And for the record, I wasn't trying to seduce you! I'd sooner seduce a gundark!"

"That's not an Imperial ship. I thought you said no one else knew about this place."

"We should run. Now."

They did not run.

*

Her ship swung down and Qi'ra may have drawn too much satisfaction from the way Han unconsciously threw himself in front of the woman he was with. The woman was staring up at the ship, eyes narrowed, but Qi'ra evidently wasn't one of the Imperials hovering just outside the storms so she didn't run—yet. She landed, cracked open the landing ramp, and trotted down it.

The probes she'd left in atmo had paid off. She'd found Han again, and now he was going to pay.

She saw Han freeze and pale, even while his companion sized her up, from her surprisingly stylish spacer's gear to her blouse to her neatly bobbed hair, as well as the blaster in the holster at her belt. She didn't bother drawing it, yet, though both her and the woman were clearly ready to at a glance.

The woman wasn't uninteresting to look at, either. She had a familiar face, somehow, with pretty dark braids and a white jumpsuit with pockets, which looked easy to move around in. "Who are you?" she demanded.

Qi'ra responded by shooting. A warning shot, fair enough, but Han got the message when it skimmed his face. He opened his mouth to bluster something before she shoved her blaster back in the holster and spoke.

"I'm Qi'ra Solo," she said. "And Han"—another warning shot, eyes narrowed—"is my husband."

*

Three shootouts, a lot of yelling and another glass of wine in Han's face, staining his yellowing collar, later, and they were in a more amenable situation to discuss… everything.

"You're not after me," Organa—Leia Organa, the Rebel terrorist princess, as she apparently was—said, squinting at Qi'ra. "Just Han?"

Qi'ra sized her up. "I could get a good price for you with those Imperials up there, Princess, but I'm no bounty hunter. You wouldn't be worth it."

"Charmed." Qi'ra almost laughed, but didn't complain when Organa put her own blaster back in its holster and inclined her head towards an outcropping of rocks a few dozen paces away. "May I speak with you, then?"

"A peaceful negotiation? I wouldn't be opposed." Qi'ra glanced at Han. "However, if he escapes—"

"We'll be able to see him still. Shoot if he tries to make a run for it."

Han looked so wounded. "Leia—"

"We can talk later. Especially about the things you've apparently been lying about."

"She's not my wife!"

Organa looked a little regretful, but turned to Qi'ra anyway. She didn't want to negotiate, clearly, no matter what a scoundrel Han may have been to her. She wanted to protect Han—a sentiment Qi'ra could once have empathised with—since Qi'ra seemed so intent on either killing him or getting something from him, but she was smart enough to try to hear the full story before navigating unknown skies.

That was sensible. Qi'ra liked that.

Once they'd walked away a little, Organa cut right to the chase. "Why are you after Han?"

This woman clearly had an excellent ability to detect nonsense, but Qi'ra tried to string her along nonetheless. "As I said. He's my husband."

Organa said nothing, but her body language said it all: she shifted her weight onto her left foot, folded her arms and raised her eyebrows.

"We were married," Qi'ra insisted, trying not to smile. She was canny, then. No wonder Han liked her.

"Han may be a scoundrel and a thousand other things, but he doesn't strike me as the type who would lie about being single when he has an," she looked her up and down, "apparently very loyal wife."

…blast Han and his overwhelming, foolish tendency to play the good guy even when he was trying to be immoral.

A blast Organa's judge of character for being able to see it.

Still, she tried. "My apologies if he led you on, then." She gave a pointed look to the spilled wine that still stained his front. "I know he can be… seductive."

Qi'ra desperately wanted to laugh, so she was relieved when Organa laughed for her. "Him? No. I'm afraid not." She straightened up. "But he is my friend, so I'd prefer it if he wasn't harmed. So I want to know the truth of your involvement with him."

"That is the truth." Qi'ra shrugged. "We were childhood sweethearts, we were roped together years later in a job to steal some coaxium… and we only escaped with our crew by staging a fake wedding."

Organa stared at her in blatant disbelief for a moment.

Then she shook her head and snorted again. "Of course he did."

"And then," Qi'ra emphasised, her tone growing colder, "he ran off with my cut."

Organa shut her mouth. "That also sounds like him."

"I want my husband back," Qi'ra said with a wicked-sharp grin, "and I want the cut he owes me."

It wasn't even necessarily about the money, she had to admit. It just also happened to be the principle of the thing. Sana, Lando, dozens of others involved in the underworld knew that he had double-crossed her, for thousands of credits. If she let it slide when she, quite literally, had him cornered, that would hardly dissuade people from crossing her again.

Organa looked at her intenty. She seemed to be mulling it over.

"What do you mean by you want Han?" she pressed. "Do you just want your credits, or do you want to take it out in blood as well."

Han, still in earshot, noticeably went pale, but still didn't interrupt, thankfully.

She considered it. "I'm not a sadist. I don't have my heart set on violence. But you understand that vengeance prevents other people from double-crossing you the same way."

Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan, was someone who should have known nothing about those brutal, underhanded tactics, but Qi'ra supposed from her flattened lips that she did have her own personal experience with cruelty.

"It doesn't," she replied. "Fear only works so far. Eventually, the only this it teaches is how subtle you need to be."

"Of course a Rebel would say that."

"Of course a Rebel would know." She met her gaze, hard and level. "I won't let you hurt Han. If you do, I'll shoot you. No matter how skilled you are, that's two against one."

"Han would say never tell him the odds," Qi'ra parried.

"You're smarter than Han."

Han's "Hey!" told them he was still listening intently, but that wasn't what had Qi'ra red lips curving into a smile.

"More like you?" she pushed, watching Organa closely. Her eyes had been arrested on her lips by the smile, and only now did she flick them up to lock their gazes again.

"Indeed," she said, voice smooth.

"So we're at an impasse?" Usually Qi'ra was more frustrated by such a situation, but Organa was… fun… to spar with.

And even now she looked thoughtful. Thoughtful, and resolute.

"Not quite," she suggested. "Han is far from skint. He recently did a great service to me and earned a great reward. He is meant to pay off Jabba with it"—of course; Han was in hot water with that slug, too—"but since it's been months and he seems to have no inclination to go to Tatooine to actually do so, I feel the credits would be better used here."

Han opened his mouth to protest, but Organa cast him a stern look and it fizzled out. He was as rambunctious as ever, then, but now had the sense to know when a good deal was being negotiated for him.

"We are agreed," Qi'ra said. Through it was subtle, she read the relief in Organa's relaxing shoulders.

When Organa held out her hand to shake on it, Qi'ra went one step further and took it, kissing the back of it gently.

Organa—Leia—froze for half a moment, her expression torn between excited and scandalised. But she was back to her stoic, professional face a moment later as she gently took her hand back.

She was still a little stiff, but the smile she gave Qi'ra was not disinterested.

"Han," she called, "do you have the credits with you on the Falcon?"

Han grimaced. "I… left them back on base." It was a poor excuse for getting out of this, if he was using it for that, but Qi'ra didn't think he was.

"Then we'll have to take Qi'ra with us when we return, give her the credits, then drop her back here to retrieve her ship." Leia seemed unruffled even as Han gaped at her.

"Take me back to the Rebel base? You are bold."

"You shan't be allowed onto it, of course, nor to know the coordinates, location, or see any part of it. But I wouldn't want you to stay behind and think we were running off. I assume you have no trackers on you?"

"No."

"Good."

Qi'ra suggested, "You could send Han back for the credits and remain here with me as a guarantee."

"With the Imperials in the sky? Not a chance. Besides," she glanced at the hand Qi'ra had held hers with, "I may convince you to join the cause along the way."

Qi'ra laughed out loud. "That will never happen."

The disappointment that pinched Organa's face was hardly visible, but her voice grew flatter. "Then this will be our only voyage together." She gestured ahead. "Shall we?"

Qi'ra smiled at her, oblivious to Han staring in confusion. "We shall."

[shapeshifting-wildcard]

Eating lunch on the roof at Gekkoukan felt so different from eating on the roof at Shujin. There wasn't as much space on Shujin's roof, and there weren't really any places to sit other than the scattered desks left haphazardly up there. But at Gekkoukan there was plenty of space on the roof to find somewhere to sit. There were even benches placed at various spots, allowing one to sit and stare out over the city. You could see for miles from up here. It almost reminded him of some spots in Inaba that everyone liked to go to just to look out over the sleepy town. Everything looked so small and insignificant, but not in a bad way.

His three classmates had dragged him up here to eat lunch with them. Morgana openly joined them, gladly nibbling at whatever they decided to offer and soaking up the attention they gave them. Chouko had short black hair cut into a bob and grey eyes like Jou's. She sported a cute little blue butterfly hairclip given to her by Hanako. Hanako was taller, almost as tall as Jou, with long black hair and red glasses. Ichiro was the other boy of the group. He had bleached blond hair arranged in carefully constructed spikes meant to look messy at a first glance. But the thick glasses he wore made his attempts to look "cool" and intimidating fall a little flat.

"Hey, hey," Chouko piped up between bites, "did you guys hear the rumor about someone dying up here?"

"What, you mean..." Ichiro's gaze wandered towards the fence around the roof, meant to dissuade people from getting too close to the edge.

"No no no, I don't mean by jumping off!" Chouko quickly shook her head. "I mean they just up and died on the roof."

"What, seriously?" Ichiro leaned back in his seat a bit. "That's gotta be a rumor."

"It's totally real!" Chouko insisted. "Here, lemme look it up again."

"You actually did research for once?" Ichiro said.

"If only you could put this much effort into your essays," Hanako murmured.

"School essays are boring!" Chouko said defensively.

Jou was admittedly a little curious, but not curious enough to pay their rambling too much mind. Listening to them talk was nice, definitely. It reminded him somewhat of eating lunch with Ann and Ryuji back in the day.

It was starting to get cooler now, since they were well into the fall. The wind was cool, but not cold enough to make him shiver. Which was fine by him, as he actually didn't mind when it was this cool. It was a welcome reprieve from the stifling heat of summer, anyway.

"Dude," Ichiro said, catching Jou's attention, "how are you doing that without dropping your phone?"

Jou blinked in confusion. Ichiro pointed to his phone, and Jou realized he was talking about him spinning his phone around. He looked back at Ichiro and shrugged. "Practice."

"Found it!" Chouko interrupted, holding her phone up triumphantly. "It was back in 2010! Someone just up and died on the school roof around graduation day." Jou's brow furrowed slightly. Graduation day, Gekkoukan's roof... He shared a glance with Morgana, who looked to be thinking along similar lines.

"We should ask Mitsuru about it sometime," Morgana suggested. Jou nodded, and thankfully the gesture went unnoticed.

"So the roof must be haunted, right?" Ichiro said. "How come I've never heard of any sort of ghost appearing on the roof, then?"

"Not every death results in a ghost," Hanako pointed out. "Or else they'd be so commonplace that we wouldn't even talk about them."

"That's assuming ghosts are even real," Ichiro said, scratching his head. "Which was kinda my point."

"They've gotta be real," Chouko insisted. "There's that ghost down by the station! Everyone says it shows up right around this time of year."

"I thought it showed up around the fourth?" Hanako said. "So if we wanted to see it we're already too late."

"W-Well, there's always next year!" Chouko said.

"I am not wandering into a den full of delinquents in the middle of the night, are you kidding?" Ichiro said.

"That's rich coming from you, tough guy."

Ichiro blushed and sank into his seat, muttering under his breath in annoyance. Chouko started talking excitedly about how to catch ghosts on camera and making plans to go ghost hunting in some of the local "haunts." Jou was happy to just listen, as long as he didn't have to be the one making plans. It was nice to have someone else take the lead for once, anyway.

[mcheang]

Bustier salt(you don't have 2 if its 2 mean) Bustier use to be like Chloe and Lila and Mari reminded her of her old rival who defeated her she only singles out Marinette out of misplaced retribution and tells that to her smugly alone where Mari record the whole conversation and give it to Nadia (guest star Bustier's rival) Bustier gets busted down on her knees defeated

Petty Grudge

I made up the surnames from snow. If I had to make Caline a mix of Lila and Chloe; I’d say she have the wealthy background and snobby attitude; but she plays nice, hiding her true feelings. Post-Ladybug episode. I claim this as a rough draft!

“Marinette, could you come down for a moment please? There are some people here who would like to see you.”

“Ms Bustier, may I speak to you for a moment? In private.”

Ms Bustier put down her pen. “Of course, Marinette.”

They walked outside the staff room and found a deserted corridor.

Bustier: What seems to be the problem?

Marinette: I’m not sure this whole forgiving method with Chloe is working. She hasn’t really changed for the better.

Bustier: of course, she has. Even Ladybug has noticed and given her a miraculous.

Marinette: She loaned Chloe a miraculous, and that was only when the situation was dire or the akuma was someone close to Chloe. But Chloe’s attitude hasn’t improved. She still bullies. Yesterday, she purposefully ruined Nathaniel’s sketchbook!

Bustier: Marinette, I appreciate your concern, but I believe i am the teacher here.

Marinette: Then what makes you so sure Chloe will improve? You’re just indulging her and she knows it!

Caline stiffens. “Watch your tone, young lady.”

To her surprise, Marinette doesn’t back down. She just holds her gaze with her own steely blue stare. Oh, how Caline hates that look.

Calming down, Caline said gently, “Let me tell you a tale of a girl I once knew.”

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Caline. She had been the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in Paris. Caline had it all at her school. She was the A-list girl. People deferred to her. She was even friends with the most popular boy at school. Thomas Neige was a very cute boy and a local movie star.

Then she came. Tessa; the new girl. Tessa came from an ordinary background but she had dared to challenge Caline. She claimed Caline wasn’t doing anything to help the class and ran against her for class presidency.

To Caline’s shock and outrage, the class actually backed Tessa. She implemented ridiculous changes like a shared class chore list and added more bins in their classroom to encourage the class to recycle.

The next thing Caline knew, Thomas and Tessa were blushing around each other.

Caline tried to help Tessa fit in, but Tessa rejected her assistance.

Caline had been young then. She let her emotions overwhelm her to the point that she sabotaged Tessa’s dance recital.

Tessa caught Caline and exposed her. And when Caline apologized, Tessa still insisted Caline face the consequences of her actions and Caline was suspended.

Caline tried to rouse her friends to the problem that was Tessa, but they all ditched her now that they found a “real class president.”

Caline knew she could not win and suggested a truce with Tessa when she returned. Tessa had accepted.

Caline is ashamed to say she couldn’t handle the truce. Tessa had taken everything from her. Her crush, her kingdom, her impeccable record. It had only been minor bullying; a trip here, an accidental food spill there. But Tessa didn’t understand Caline’s sadness and punished her again.

Caline had been left alone, outcast by the class. She graduated into a teaching college because no one wanted her with her school record. While Thomas and Tessa got married and went on to act and dance to stardom, Caline had been stuck with a teaching job. Money couldn’t help her now. Her Father had made some bad investments and lost most of his fortune.

“So you see, Marinette, I know that punishing bullies never leads to coexistence. It only leads to separation.”

Marinette just stared at Caline. “You’re just letting your feelings get in the way. You were the bully at your school, and because you didn’t change your ways, your class decided to give up on you. It had nothing to do with whether or not you were punished.”

“Now Marinette...”

“No!” Marinette refused to listen. “You’re just living vicariously through Chloe, aren’t you? Because she gets to bully others without reprimand. You let her bully Ivan; bully Nathaniel, bully me, for years. And you’ve never stopped her. You’ve never done anything to dissuade her beyond a trivial sentence now and then for the class’ sake.”

“The principal has insisted we do not anger Chloe, considering her father’s position.”

“Don’t you dare blame other people! Regardless of Chloe’s threats, you could have at least tried to talk to her. But you didn’t. You just kept forgiving Chloe when it was not your place to forgive, but us!”

Marinette paused. “And if Chloe is meant to be the new you, I’m guessed I’m the new Tessa. That’s why you’ve ignored me when I called out Chloe on her misdeeds. That’s why you let Lila organise a massive seat change. And that’s why you blindly believed a note that I was cheating when the test answers were stolen after the exam had taken place!”

Bustier: What does Lila have to do with this?

Marinette laughed. “I recognised your style. You may have had the wealth, but you were like Lila, pretending to be nice all along. Do you dare to look me in the eyes and tell me honestly that you believe Lila has a dubious disability from saving a kitten on the tarmac, somehow bypassing security in the process and never purchasing the necessary hearing equipment? You and I both know she just wanted to sit next to Adrien. And you were willing to let me sit in the back alone because of your petty grudge.”

Caline shrugged. “Lila just wanted to make some friends. Her methods were dubious but harmless at the end.”

Marinette groaned. “Ugh, you sound like Adrien. But harmless? she framed me, and you knew it and you let it happen.”

Caline stared at Marinette for a long time. “So what? Who’s going to believe you Marinette? The whole class adores me. They already didn’t believe you about Lila. Why should they believe your accusations about me?”

Marinette glared at her teacher. “You shouldn’t be a teacher. Teachers are supposed to want to help their students.”

“You’re right,” Caline agreed. “I shouldn’t be a teacher. I was not born to teach rowdy teenagers. But this is where life has left me. I need to make the best of it.”

Caline straightened her back. “Now if you’ll excuse me, Marinette, I have some papers to finish grading. Rest assured, I never sabotaged your grades. I do have some morals.”

Marinette shook her head as Caline smugly went back.

The next evening....

“Good evening Paris, I’m Nadja Chamack and I have here with me, world renown choreographer Tessa Neige on her new campaign to stop bullying. Bonsoir, Tessa.”

Tessa, a pretty brunette in a fabulous dress, greets Nadja and takes her seat.

Nadja: before we begin, may I compliment you on your wardrobe?

Tessa grins. “Thank you, i decided to hire a school designer with massive talent to custom design it for me. This is a Marinette Dupain-Cheng original.”

“I know Marinette. She’s a sweet girl. But we’re here to discuss your stance on bullying.”

Tessa takes a breath. “Yes. I’ve been bullied before and i want to help stop this problem. The best defence we have against bullies are the teachers, which presented me with a problem. What happens when we have a faulty faculty?”

Nadja: Like Teachers who overlook bullying?

Tessa nods vehemently. “Exactly. One of the girls who bullied me became a teacher. I decided to check in on her by asking Marinette about her.”

Nadja: Marinette’s teacher used to bully you?! Who is she?

Tessa: Caline Bustier. I had heard she was a popular teacher and had hoped she had learned her lessons. I went to see Marinette about this when I went to commission my dress. What I learned instead shocked and saddened me.

Nadja: Why? What did she say?

Tessa: Marinette told me that Caline asks her to be the bigger person and forgive her bullies instead of making sure they get punished for their misdeeds. Basically if Marinette is bullied, she shouldn’t complain about it and just forgive the bully.

Nadja: that’s horrible. Do you mean to say the bullies are never in trouble?

Tessa: exactly! It’s the other way around instead. It’s the victims who are unfairly blamed and punished.

Nadja: But this is one girl’s word against a teacher’s. Do we have any reason to trust Marinette? I know Marinette and I believe in her, but the rest of the world does not have any cause to.

Tessa: I’m glad you asked. I asked Marinette to do a small favour for me and she did a marvellous job. She sent me the recording already.

Nadja: Let’s watch it then!

Cue recording on screen.

Nadja says softly. “Shocking. I’ve never been more appalled in my life.”

Tessa looks sadly at the screen. “It’s a shame that the class has to suffer. Bullies have to be reprimanded and punished or else they might never change. I’m sad to see that Caline hasn’t changed at all.”

“No, she hasn’t. I’m sorry for what bad memories this must have brought back to you, Tessa. Thank you for coming here to inform us of this heinous error in the educational system.”

“Not at all. I made a promise to myself to never let a bully get away with their wrongdoings; not if I could help it.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, Tessa Neige.”

Needless to say that airing finally exposed Lila and Caline. The school board interceded and fired Caline. They threatened the principal to either punish Chloe or get sacked. Chloe was suspended. Lila was expelled.

The class apologized to Marinette for not believing her or being sensitive to her feelings. They also thanked her for standing up for them.

Adrien apologized to Marinette for his dumb advice. She accepted. The boy was still new to the world of making friends.

Bustier’s termination of employment was a sad affair because the class did thought she was a teacher who cared for them. But the victims of Chloe’s tyranny knew better. When Ivan tried to protect Mylene from Chloe’s insults, he was sentenced to detention for disrupting the class. When Chloe stole Nathaniel’s sketchbook, Caline accused him of drawing in class. And for crying out loud, everyone knows Chloe never does her homework or projects. It’s not a wonder she gets As when Sabrina is doing all the work or her Father bribes the principal.

[war-of-the-words]

A December Night

A very merry Christmas and happy holidays to my @dcmkkaishinevents giftee, Clef! I sincerely hope this gift makes you smile! -Two

Kaito hated wearing heels. They weren’t any problem for him now, he could wear them for hours if he had to, but that doesn’t mean he enjoyed them. And when you’re disguised as an attractive young woman at a private auction for high-priced items, heels were practically mandatory. Plus, heels made his legs look fantastic.

He hadn’t sent an advance notice this time. He just wanted it to be a quick in and out kind of deal. The majority of this decision was because Nakamori finally got time off and he promised Aoko that he would spend the day holiday shopping together. Aoko had been so excited to hear it, and Kaito thought that they both deserved some father-daughter time.

Unfortunately, that meant that Kaito had to spend more time than he liked weaseling an invitation for his disguise from the organizers. It never ceased to amaze him how sleazy “high class” people could be. But he was there now, circling the buffet table like a shark and eating his fill of the pretentious mini desserts. 

“Excuse me?” a voice said from behind him. An incredibly familiar voice that made Kaito’s blood run cold.

“Hm?” he hummed, turning around and giving the intruder a warm smile. The face wasn’t one he wanted to see. Kudou Shinichi stood there, looking incredibly handsome in a fitted charcoal suit, a smile on his face. Kaito hated how he couldn’t help but notice the way one side of his lip always pulled a little higher than the other.

“I’ve been looking everywhere for you babe.” What did he just say? 

“Um, I think you’ve-” Kudou tilted his head ever so slightly, a sharp look in his eyes. Kaito slid his gaze to where Kudou indicated and noticed one of the more sleazy organizers orbiting a little too close for comfort. It clicked, Kudou had seen a woman in potential danger and stepped in like a knight in shining armor. “-got the wrong idea about why we came here, dear. The jewelry is great and all, but you know I can’t resist a good dessert table!” Kudou laughed, it made Kaito’s heart do backflips. Why, of all the people that could materialize at a secret KID heist it had to be him.

“How did you think I knew to find you here?” Kaito was about to respond, but the organizer finally decided to make his move.

“Miss Yamagi!” He said, walking over from where he was not so subtly eavesdropping. “I didn’t know you knew Kudou Shinichi!” His smile didn’t quite reach his eyes, he thought he was catching Kaito in a lie here, whether for leverage to get Kaito alone or to make a fool of him like the rich often like to do.

“Of course I do.” Kaito said, pushing as much honey into his voice as possible. He ran a hand through his long blonde wig. Yamagi was an aspiring model after all, a good cover for being taller than average, and a wonderful opportunity to use one of his favorite wigs, but she was best for winning over unruly men. Kaito watched the way the organizer followed Kaito’s hand as he played with his hair, winding the soft locks around his finger. How easy this would be. “We’ve been seeing one another for a while now, but its a secret.” Kaito pushed out his bottom lip into an adorable pout.

“Her modeling career hasn’t taken off yet, and my darling refuses any help from my family. She’s determined to get there on her own terms; that’s why she insisted on getting her own invitation to this event instead of being my plus one.” Kudou said, moving closer to Kaito’s side and smoothly wrapping his arm around Kaito. Kaito didn’t want to think about how easy it was to lean into Kudou’s side. 

“Is- is that so?” The organizer looked like he was trying very hard to refrain from mentioning the PDA. “Well, be careful that the press here doesn’t see you.”

“We will,” Kudou said with a cold smile, letting the organizer know his intentions were known, “We’ll just be on our way, excuse us.” And with that Kudou guided Kaito out towards the balcony, which was devoid of people thanks to the chilly weather.

“Thank you,” Kaito said once they were out of earshot of the rest of the guests. He could’ve easel handled it himself, but it was nice to be given help.

“You’re welcome, although I have to admit I had ulterior motives.” Kudou shimmed off his suit jacket and wordlessly placed it around Kaito’s bare shoulders. Suddenly, Kaito was very thankful he had worn a strapless dress.

“Oh, and what might those be?” Kudou probably didn’t know he was KID, he hadn’t even sent a notice so there should be no reason to even suspect that KID would be here.

“I just wanted to know why such a beautiful girl would look so lost.” He gave Kaito another killer smile and Kaito could feel his face flush. This man is criminal. 

“I have no idea what you mean.” Kaito averted his gaze out to the clear night sky. The moon wasn’t even half full but the winter night was bright.

“Hm, my hunches usually aren’t wrong.”

“Well, this one was.”

“If you say so.”

Kaito was about to say, ‘I do say so’, but something made him stop. He chanced a glance at Kudou; he was staring at the sky too. His face was soft in the moonlight, the usual tension eased. Kaito never got to see him like this, and he was usually the reason why. He found himself playing with his hair again, he found it soothing. He called Kudou the “Great Detective” for a reason.

“You promise not to tell anyone?” Kaito cringed out how quiet it came out, how obviously nervous.

“Cross my heart.” The words hung in the air for a while, Kaito desperately trying to regain control of the pounding of his heart. It was so loud he was sure that Kudou could hear it.

 “I guess I’ve just been overthinking a lot of things lately.” The words felt thick in his mouth, and they fought to stay in his throat. “I know everyone acts differently in front of others, but sometimes I feel like I’m an extreme case.” The irony that Kaito was saying this in a voice that was not his own was not lost on him. “My jobs requires me to be someone else, but all of those people are me in one way or another. So when I’m alone I guess I don’t really know who I am. Which one of those masks are actually my real face, you know?”

“Probably, not to the same extent as you, but yeah, I think I do. You would be amazed out how often.” Kudou let out a low chuckle. Kaito laughed too. It was sweet that Kudou was trying, but he highly doubted Kudou could understand this gnawing feeling Kaito had been trying to ignore for months.

He had been changing faces as KID for so long that when he was “himself” it started to feel like an act too. Especially in front of Aoko. The amount of times he wanted to tell Aoko about his plans for a heist, a trick he was developing for KID, were piling up. Not to mention all the times Aoko dragged him shopping but he found himself shopping for his different personas instead of his best friend. He’s caught her casting suspicious glances at him when he’s spent a little too long looking at clothes Aoko would never wear. But Yamagi would, although at this point that’s the same as saying that Kaito would. His appearance had become completely detached from who he actually was. Even as the faceless Kaitou KID he put on a mask.

“It’s harder when you have no one to lean on.” Kudou interrupted his thoughts. He was still facing forward, eyes to the sky, a soft smile on his lips. “But it’s hard to find someone to lean on when what you feel feels so earth-shattering. No one can carry the weight of the world but Atlas after all.” Kudou turned to look at him, still wearing a smile Kaito never had the privilege of seeing before. He reached out and tucked a loose strand of Kaito’s hair behind his ear, and Kaito shivered but not from the cold. Kudou let his hand linger on Kaito’s cheek, it’s warmth a stark contrast to the night chill. Kaito was sure now that Kudou could feel his racing pulse, and the sound of it nearly made Kaito miss the announcement that the auction was about to begin. It was a chance to escape, to slip away from this dreamlike moment and return to his reality.

“Kudou, I really appreciate what you did for me tonight, but I-”

“Of course, this is an auction after all. But what did you come here for?” Kaito contemplated it, it couldn't hurt to tell him, right? Kudou just thought he was an attractive young model-

He never told Kudou he was a model. He never had a chance, Kudou just said he was a model to the organizer. Did he just guess? He was a detective after all, and considering Yamagi’s height it wouldn’t be that big of a stretch… “A necklace,” Kaito said tentatively.

“I thought so,” Kudou was still so close to Kaito, he could feel the detective’s hot breath on his face as he breathed out a laugh. 

 “Forgive me if I’m wrong, but this is the first time we’re meeting, isn’t it?” Kaito tilted his head in the way that made most men swoon and gave Kudou a pretty little smile. If Kudou had suspicions he had to dissuade them as quickly as possible.

“Mmm, no. It isn’t.” Kudou’s lip pulled up into that smirk that made Kaito want to simultaneously flee and kiss him senseless. He reached into his pants pocket, and Kaito had to physically fight the urge to run as fast as possible. He did not need to make a scene. Instead, he closed his eyes and tried to steady his breathing. Stupid crush, making him act all stupid. He should have just thanked Kudou as quickly as possible and ran. He hadn’t made any announcements on purpose. And why had Kudou said ‘I thought so?’.

His thoughts were cut short as he felt hands brush the side of his neck and a weight fall onto his chest. Startled, he opened his eyes and took a step back. “What?” Kaito stammered, confused. Glancing down, he saw his target, glimmering in the moonlight. “What?” Kaito said again, searching Kudou’s eyes for answers.

“It really suits you, KID.” And Kaito probably would have run if Kudou’s voice hadn’t been so damn gentle. “I knew it would suit you as soon as I saw it.”

“Okay Meitantei, you’re going to have to break this one down for me.” Kaito said, with his own voice this time. It didn’t seem to faze Kudou.

“I knew it was you as soon as I saw you walk in. Your presence fills the room, KID, even if you don’t mean it too.”

“I think you’re the only person with that problem, Meitantei.”

“I would never call that a problem, KID. But after I saw you, I was sure you were here for something from the auction.”

“But I didn’t send a notice, how did you know I wasn’t just here for fun?”

“And free dessert? Just call it a hunch. And the knowledge that Nakamori was very excited to have some time off to spend with his daughter.” Kaito let out a sigh.

“I hate how much you know about me.”

“No, you don’t.”

“Oh, cocky now, aren’t we? So, what’s the catch, you’ve got me collared,” Kaito gestured at the very expensive piece of jewelry around his neck, “are you going to turn me in?”

“What, I can’t just get you a Christmas present?”

“Seriously? Shinichi, I know what the starting price for this was going to be, and I don’t want to know how much you paid to buy it before it could even be put on sale. This isn’t something you just give to your favorite rival.”

“Hmm, I suppose it isn’t. But rivals also don’t call each other by their first names.”

“I, um, well-”

“Look, KID, I like you. A lot. I’m drawn to you like a moth to a flame. I’ve come to terms with that now, and if the way you’ve reacted to me tonight was anything to go by, I might have a chance.”

“You haven’t been flirting with me all night because you think I’m a hot supermodel?”

“I’ve been flirting with you all night because you’re Kaitou KID. It’s just a bonus that I got to see you looking like a hot supermodel.”

“But that whole thing I said about-”

“I told you, KID, it’s so much easier to share it with someone, and I desperately want to be that someone. You’re not Atlas, and even if you were, I’d carry the world for you.”

“So you don’t care that I’m-”

“KID, you could fill in that blank with anything and my answer would be the same.”

“I’m the magician here,” Kaito laughed, “I’m supposed to be the one to leave you speechless.”

“I might know a way you could shut me up.” And there was that smirk again, but it no longer made him want to run. And so he kissed him senseless, underneath the bright December sky, where it felt like it was only the two of them in the entire world.

[lobster-tales]

Modern AU - Rangshi

Day 5 of Winter ATLA Femslash Week. This fic is available here on AO3. 

Prompt: Bending or Modern AU 

Kyoshi and Rangi arrive at prom, only to be accosted by bullies. Usually Kyoshi would back down, but not this time. Basically every American high school rom com.

CW: bullying, language, implied drug/alcohol use, blood

Warrior paint looked different on everyone. Tonight, Kyoshi’s took the form of bold red eyeshadow and heavy winged eyeliner. She stared at her reflection, counting the freckles. She could have put foundation on them, covered them up, but she had decided against it. 

A voice came from downstairs. “Kyoshi! Your friend is here!”

She scrambled, rising so fast that she nearly knocked over the makeshift vanity. “Coming!” she called. Kyoshi bowed her head beneath the low ceiling, smoothing the folds of the green dress. She paused at the stairway of her attic room, doing a mental checklist of everything she needed. Kyoshi brushed a finger to her bare lips, returning to the vanity. She took a tube of crimson lipstick in her hands. 

At the base of the stairs, Rangi stood at attention, her arms behind her back. She noticed Kelsang, Kyoshi’s adoptive father, staring at her, and nodded curtly. Kelsang stood behind the counter of his bakery, using a wet rag to wipe the same spot over and over. His shop was technically still open, but Rangi and he were the only ones inside. She stood out against the homely chairs and tables, with her neatly fitted suit and black topknot. 

Kelsang cleared his throat. “So… You and Kyoshi are…”

“Dating, yes.” Rangi made quick work of conversation. “We’ve been dating for several weeks, actually.”

“Really?” Kelsang mindlessly wiped flour off his apron. “She didn’t tell me.”

“Well, I’m telling you now.” Rangi realized she was being too curt and decided to switch tactics. “I... like your bakery. Kyoshi brought me some of your red bean buns, and they were delicious.”

“Thank you.”

“Soft on the inside, but crispy on the outside. And the red bean paste was very…” Her mind raced as she tried to think of an appropriate adjective. “... Beany.”

To her surprise, the intimidating man began to laugh. “Yeah, you two are definitely a match,” he chuckled. “How did you meet?”

Before Rangi could respond, the stairs creaked. They both fixed their attention on Kyoshi. She slowly descended from her attic room, ducking under a beam as she did so. 

Her dress was nothing spectacular. The glossy emerald fabric rose from her waistline, crossed over her chest. Sleeves sprouted from her shoulders, draping along her arms and gathering at her wrists. The only visible piece of her olive skin was her breastbone, but even that felt revealing to her. The skirt was designed to pool at the floor, but instead hung inches above her ankles. Kyoshi preferred it that way, in case she needed to make a quick escape. This sentiment was reflected in the practical, black flats on her feet, the only ones in her size.

Rangi’s mouth had dropped completely, her usually fierce face wracked with awe. Kelsang recovered from the sight before she did, and he stepped out from behind the counter. He embraced Kyoshi, saying, “You look beautiful.”

“Thank you, Kelsang.” Kyoshi returned her attention to Rangi, who had regained her composure long enough to stick out her arm. 

“My… lady.” Rangi had never said those words in her life, but felt there was nothing more appropriate to call her date. 

As Kyoshi took Rangi’s arm in hers, Kelsang snapped his fingers. “Wait! Pictures!”

The two girls groaned. Kyoshi tried to dissuade him. “Kelsang-” 

“Nope. Against the wall, now.” He held up an ancient disposable camera. “Say cheese!”

Neither of them smiled. The light flashed, signalling their freedom. Before Kelsang could rewind the film, Rangi had dragged Kyoshi to the door. “I’ll have her back by 10, sir.”

Kelsang shook his head. “Actually, I’ll be leaving the shop at 8, so you should have her back by midnight at the earliest.” He flashed them a grin. “Have fun, you two! Enjoy it!”

Kyoshi tried to think of something profound to say, but only released a casual, “Bye” before the door shut behind them. 

***

The girls basketball team had tried to recruit Kyoshi all through her first year of high school. At the beginning of her second, she had caved. She had arrived at practice ten minutes late, failed to dribble the ball, and missed eighteen shots in a row. After that, the team had quickly lost interest, and Kyoshi had never expected to set foot on the gymnasium floor again. 

Until now. 

Kyoshi and Rangi approached the throng of high schoolers, all dancing together in a sweaty mass. Kyoshi easily saw above their heads, and was surprised at how well the prom committee had decorated. A makeshift stage had been set up beneath one of the goal posts, silky curtains providing a backdrop. Christmas lights hung in waves against the walled bleachers. Every so often, a balloon would be punched through the air, and the dancers would throw their hands up to keep it airborne. 

She noticed Rangi eyeing her, and returned her concern with a smile. Kyoshi was out of her element here, but she felt braver on Rangi’s arm. A few heads turned as they made their way along the edge of the group. Most of the glances were just that, and the dancers ignored her again. 

Rangi led her to a seat near the side of the gym, leaning close to her ear so she would be heard over the pounding music. “I’ll get us some punch.”

Kyoshi responded with a nod, and her date disappeared. She leaned back in the chair, drinking in the sight of the dancers. Without thinking, Kyoshi tapped her foot along with the music, and briefly fantasized about pulling Rangi onto the floor. 

A silhouette interrupted her thoughts. Kyoshi looked up to see three people stalking towards her like wildcats, blocking the bright lights. 

“So,” Aoma said from the center of the trio, crossing her arms over her heavily sequined gown. “You decided to come.”

Kyoshi hesitated, but only briefly. “I did.”

On Aoma’s left, Suzu cocked a carefully filled in eyebrow. “And with Topknot.”

Kyoshi stifled a laugh, thinking of all the horrible names they had called her from their preschool days to now. It eased her to know that Rangi was too feared to be referred to as anything genuinely cruel. “Her name is Rangi.”

“Oh trust me,” Jae chimed in from the right. His hands were stuffed into the pockets of his tuxedo. “We know.”

“We’re good friends with her,” Aoma said. A smirk played on her mouth. “Real good.”

On any other day, Kyoshi would have suffered their petty attacks silently. Easier to let them take out their feelings on her than to fight back. Neutral jing. But today was inexcusable. She rose to her feet, straightened her spine, and lifted her chin. Her gaze was neutral towards them, almost bored. “Are you now? Funny that she didn’t ask you to prom, then.”

Jae and Suzu exchanged worried glances. Aoma’s smirk dissipated, but she maintained eye contact. “Oh please, like she actually wanted to go with you.”

Kyoshi had thought her new armor was impenetrable. Turns out there was a chink in it after all. “What are you talking about?”

Seeing she’d regained the upper hand, Aoma eyes flickered. “So she didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?” 

Aoma released a callous chuckle. “Come on, Kyoshi. You really think someone like Rangi would want to date someone like you?”

“An orphan,” Jae sneered. 

“A poor orphan,” Suzu added eloquently. 

Those were facts, and nothing Kyoshi hadn’t heard before. But Aoma was holding back something new. Kyoshi felt like she would have wrung Aoma’s neck to get the truth out of her glossed lips. Instead, she settled for a low voice. “What do you know?”

Aoma flipped her wavy hair over one shoulder, saying casually, “It was a bet, Kyoshi. We told Rangi that if she took you to prom, we’d pay her 200 dollars.” Her smile became vicious. “Of course, even that almost wasn’t enough to convince her.”

Her mouth felt dry. Kyoshi had grown accustomed to picking out Aoma’s lies, but this time, her face showed no tell. She was sincere, if not wickedly pleased with herself. 

Tears sprang to her eyes, but she turned before they fell. She refused to give them more satisfaction. Kyoshi forced herself to relax as she walked towards the exit. As far as anyone could see, she was just going to the bathroom. 

The school hallways held a different aura at night. There was no glaring fluorescence, no crowd of backpacks and sneakers. Her vision narrowed to the stairwell, and she shoved against the door so hard that the lip-locked couples within jumped. 

She had hoped to be alone, but refused to back down from her decision. Kyoshi disappeared, past their staring faces, around the corner to the next floor. Before she reached the top step, tears cascaded down her cheeks. Kyoshi turned and perched on the stair, wrapping her arms around her knees. 

She had to try and think straight. Focus. Aoma must have been lying. That was the only logical conclusion. 

Her mind raced to that day, when Rangi first approached her in the library. Rangi had commented on the book she was reading. Now, Kyoshi couldn’t even remember what the book was called, just Rangi’s face, illuminated by the soft afternoon light. 

She pulled her knees to her chest, filing through memories of the last two months: late study nights, trips to the diner, anime marathons. The sound of Rangi’s laugh, the pressure of her lips…

Kyoshi heard the stairwell door open, followed by the scuffling of the couples. Only one thing could make them scatter so quickly. 

“Kyoshi?” Rangi’s voice called. “Are you there?”

She said nothing, but her sniffles betrayed her location. 

Rangi paused, then said, “I uh… talked to Aoma. She told me…” Rangi sighed. “I- I don’t know what to-”

“Is it true?” Kyoshi’s voice sounded colder than she intended. 

“... Yeah. It’s true.”

Kyoshi buried her face in her arms, struggling to steady her breathing.

“But it’s not like that, Kyoshi! I promise, I never meant to-”

“Never meant to what?” Kyoshi stood, fueled by rage as she rounded the stairwell and pierced Rangi with her eyes. “To lead me on? Lie to me?”

Rangi climbed the steps towards her, hands out. “Please, don’t be angry, I didn’t-”

“Don’t tell me what to feel!” Her lip curled. “And don’t come any closer!”

Rangi froze. She was only a few steps away. At the close distance, Kyoshi could see the wetness in her bronze eyes, but found no sympathy within herself. “Kyoshi-”

“You know, Rangi, if you wanted to make fun of me, you could have at least had the courtesy to do it to my face like everyone else.” 

This time, Rangi said nothing. She searched Kyoshi’s face, then silently knelt in front of her. “I’m sorry.”

Kyoshi’s fury softened at the sight. Her hands trembled, and she sank wearily onto the top step. “Why?” she said quietly. 

“Because… I liked you.”

Kyoshi’s breath caught in her throat. Her shaking hands went still. 

Rangi said, “You… you always said the right answer in class. Even though the teacher didn’t call on you that much. I would see Aoma picking on you, but you never gave in to her. Just stood strong and… grounded.” Her voice became quieter. “I… really admired that about you.”

Admirable. Kyoshi never thought anyone would describe her that way. 

“I overheard them one day,” Rangi said. “Aoma and her cronies. They were talking about who they should place the bet with. I knew if I didn’t put myself in their line of vision, they would choose someone who would really hurt you.” She winced. “Though… I guess you got hurt either way.”

Kyoshi raised her head slightly, peering at Rangi.

She continued. “Everything I said was just to play along. I’d already decided that if you didn’t like me back, I wouldn’t even ask about prom. I’d tell Aoma the truth and threaten to beat her up if she ever pulled that shit again.” Rangi let out a harsh chuckle at the thought. “But then… you and I started hanging out. You were so interesting, and funny, and…” 

“... Why didn’t you just tell me?”

Rangi looked at her, relieved to hear her voice again. “I should have! I know, but I wanted to wait until after prom. After I…” She ran her hand behind her neck sheepishly. “After I bought you a really fancy dinner.”

Kyoshi scoffed, but the sound held no anger. 

“Look…” Rangi rose onto the top step, sitting beside Kyoshi. “I know… I know how bad they treated you. The way they still treat you. There were so many times I wanted to intervene, but I never did.” She grimaced. “I just walked by, left you to face them alone. And when I heard them talking about it… I thought of this whole thing as a sneakier way to fight. For you.”

“You don’t have to fight for me.”

“But I do, Kyoshi.” Rangi took her hand, bronze eyes gazing intently into hers. “And I will. Because you are worth fighting for.”

Kyoshi removed her fingers from Rangi’s grasp. Her betrayal was still too fresh. “I’m sorry, I just… I don’t know if I can trust you.” She averted her eyes. “How am I supposed to know that you’re not just saying this? That after tonight, you won’t just leave?”

Rangi paused, mind racing. She took a breath of finality, rising to her feet and outstretching her hand. “Come on.”

Rangi briefly returned to the gym, but rather than stay by the door, Kyoshi went to the bathroom to wait. She was surprised to see her makeup mostly unsmudged, save for a few lines. Kyoshi fixed her appearance as best as she could, exiting the bathroom to see Rangi leaning against the wall. Rangi took Kyoshi’s hand and said, “They’re meeting us after the next song.”

The front entrance of the school was unguarded. The concrete steps rose in a semi-circle around the doors, with a bronze statue of a fox, the school mascot, in the center. Kyoshi and Rangi stood behind the statue facing the school, spines straight, hands clasped. 

Within minutes, Aoma, Jae, and Suzu appeared. They stalked towards them in their same positions as before, with Aoma in the center. She stopped several feet away, hands on her hips as she raised an eyebrow. “No… don’t tell me.” Her tone was more mocking than shocked. “Really, Rangi? I didn’t take you for the pity date type.”

Rangi’s free hand clenched into a fist. “It’s not a pity date, Aoma. Kyoshi’s my girlfriend.”

Aoma rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Your Stockholm syndrome isn’t my problem.” She snapped her fingers at Jae. “Here’s your money.”

Jae reached into his jacket, pulling out a short stack of 20 dollar bills. He tossed them on the ground at Rangi and Kyoshi’s feet. Kyoshi frowned at the paper. She should have felt humiliated, but instead she was disappointed by the small amount. 

“Keep it,” Rangi spat. “That’s not why I asked you out here.”

Aoma’s concerned glance at Rangi’s fist did not go unnoticed by Kyoshi. “Then why are you wasting our time?”

Rangi squeezed Kyoshi’s hand once before letting go, reaching for the phone in her pocket. She opened a video, stretching her hand out to show Aoma. Kyoshi didn’t see the contents, but she heard loud music, a sniffing noise, and cheering. Aoma’s face went white. 

“You… You wouldn’t…” Aoma said. 

“Not cool, Rangi,” Jae growled, coming to Aoma’s defense. “We didn’t have to invite you to our parties.”

“Oh, but I’m so glad you did,” Rangi said sarcastically, swiping a few times on the phone screen. Another video began to play, and this time Kyoshi heard a crowd cheering the word “Chug!”, followed by a loud crash. 

Jae’s jaw stiffened, but he kept quiet. 

Rangi glanced at Suzu. “I got yours too; wanna see?”

Suzu’s face flushed. “No, I uh… I believe you.”

Rangi huffed victoriously, placing her phone back in her pocket. “Trust me, there’s plenty more where that came from. See, the fun thing about you three is that you like to brag. I have pages and pages worth of text conversations, about your parties, your exam cheat sheets, the bet-”

“Who cares about the fucking bet!” Aoma snarled, her usual aloof composure wrecked by anger. She pointed a manicured nail at Kyoshi. “You think anybody gives a shit about her?!”

“I do,” Rangi said in a low, threatening voice. 

Aoma, empowered by her rage, said, “Just get to the fucking point already. If you don’t want the money, Rangi, then what the fuck do you want?”

“I want you to leave Kyoshi alone.” Rangi narrowed her eyes. “I don’t want you to hurt her ever again.”

Aoma scoffed. “So that’s what this is about.” She crossed her arms. “You know Rangi, I don’t get you. You were living the dream with us; you could have picked any tall girl you wanted, and you’re going to throw it all away for this freak.”

Rangi took a single step forward, but the action was enough to make the three bullies flinch. “Don’t call her that. See, that’s the kind of shit I’m talking about. Either that ends tonight-” She lifted her phone out of her pocket. “-or say goodbye to your trust fund.”

“You bitch!” Jae leapt forward, tackling Rangi against the pavement. She clung tight to her phone, sliding it towards Kyoshi as Jae grappled her arm. Kyoshi snatched the phone, looking up to see Aoma and Suzu prowling towards her. 

Jae straddled Rangi, his legs pinning her arms to the ground, and swung at her face. His knuckles collided with her temple, and her head crashed against the concrete. 

“Rangi!” Kyoshi moved to help, but Aoma and Suzu closed in, surrounding her. 

Aoma hissed, “If you don’t give me that phone, Kyoshi, I will ruin your life. Your little girlfriend might need receipts, but I don’t. It doesn’t matter what I tell the school. They’ll take my word over yours any day.”

She could give in. Give them the phone, survive today. Kyoshi had faced the choice so many times before, and always chose neutral jing. 

Kyoshi grit her teeth. “No.” 

Aoma’s face contorted with fury, and she hurled her open palm towards Kyoshi’s cheek. Kyoshi blocked Aoma’s wrist with her own, delivering a swift punch to her diaphragm. Aoma staggered back, gasping for breath. 

Kyoshi glanced at Rangi. Jae was now pinned beneath her, Rangi delivering one final blow before she stood. Jae scrambled to his feet, cowering behind Aoma. Suzu had disappeared, retreating to the safety of the school. Aoma’s breath came ragged, murder burning in her eyes. 

“Enough of this.” Everyone’s eyes landed on Kyoshi, and she realized the stern voice belonged to her. She paused for a moment, but steeled herself and continued, “We’re done here.”

Aoma growled, “No, we’re-” but stopped dead when Rangi held up her fists. She pressed her lips together, shooting them each one more glare before she huffed. “Come on, Jae.” Aoma slunk back towards the school, Jae trailing meekly behind her as he muttered something about going home.

Before Kyoshi could move, Rangi was in front of her, checking her face. “Are you okay? Did she hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” Kyoshi said with a smile. Her finger traced Rangi’s swollen temple, causing her to wince. “Are you?”

“I’ve had worse.” Rangi frowned, murmuring, “I’m sorry. For everything. I know this was all… a lot, and I didn’t-”

Kyoshi cut Rangi off with a kiss. They relaxed for a moment, relishing in the warmth of each other. Kyoshi finally broke away, grinning as she pressed her forehead to Rangi’s. “Don’t worry,” she said, removing Rangi’s phone and a wad of cash from her dress pocket. “At least you made it worth my while.”

Rangi gaped. “But… You…”

“Come on.” Kyoshi took her hand, pulling her back towards the school. 

“You want to go back in?” Rangi asked, trotting to keep up with her long strides. 

Kyoshi had spent her whole life waiting and listening. Now, she was ready to act. “It’s prom, Rangi.” She smirked, kissing her girlfriend’s knuckles. “And I want to dance with you.”