#it's not all deflection she really believes in romance as a creative force and sometimes the only answer is to have a laugh about it and

[cumbiazevran]

2, 4, 6 for Rowan 😌

HEAVY IS THE CROWN OF KIRKWALL'S COMMIEST JESTER, ORANA PLAY RÁFAGA**

2. a song I associate with my muse’s past

Ribs, Lorde

There's, of course, always a degree of family burden to Hawke, no matter the individual Hawke, but while store bought is fine, we have a whole mad scientist blorbo lab at home, and we're using it.

My Hawkes, or rather, the Aguilar, are moulded after the Latin American experience of forced disappearances and family severances during Dictatorships. Rowan's grandmother was a freedom fighter in Ferelden's war of independence, whose narrative story echoes the Abuelas de la Plaza de Mayo, with the disappearance of her son.

Rowan is, very much a recipient of that history, and there is nothing, nothing more jarring than having to grow up in a place of endless dormant violence that you will have to come to terms with, sooner or later, because you have no choice. Because History is an uninvited guest and it's here anyway, and the door must be answered.

History is a ghost bell reminding you of those truths you're not responsible for, but must bear anyway.

At first glance, Rowan is confident, courageous, witty, a good hearted buffoon with a good-listening pair of ears and very willing helping hands. Rowan was taught by papá to stick for the underdog and for what is right, and to ask questions, and to support each other. Because if you don't go and do it yourself, then who? You can't sit around and wait for salvation to come and the Maker to deliver you your happiness, when there is action you can take to support and love each other, despite the world's violence. We do not put our boot over others, we help others get out from under the boot.

Because when history comes, offer it a glass of wine and some sense of humour. It won't change history, but it'll change you.

Yet, for every action there is a reaction, and this "fuck around and find out" (funny answers only) jester is very much the responsible eldest regardless. The joke deflecting eldest, the wants-to-say-no-but-everyone-keeps-asking-these-big-if-i-fail-kill-me-debts, the beneath all that vigour there is terror, and loneliness, and grief, and the feeling of being lost, and the wish that just for one more time she wants to look back and ask her parents for help.

But they're both gone and Kirkwall is on fire, and the boot is rising up to stomp.

She can't let that happen.

We've all hit that point of adulthood where we realise we're growing. We're having "adult" fun, whatever that means, and we still pull a Barbie 2023 and start thinking about death in the middle of a good time. WHAT SONG IF NOT RIBS

4. a song lyric that describes my muse

A tombstone in your bed / Well my girl eats a wounded preacher / 'Tween two loaves of bread

She's My Man, Scissor sisters

6. a song that makes my muse want to dance

I could make her an entire playlist but aside from anything Ráfaga plays, it's gonna be Comerte Toda by Nene Malo

** Argentinian cumbia band. you have to imagine Rowan lying face down on Hightown's streets, rain falling down, them raising a thumbs up while this band plays in the background

[dragonofyang]

From the Sock Puppet’s Mouth

Well folks, good news and bad news.

Good news: the ABTV interview on March 4th confirmed for us that WEP is the reason for the last-minute changes and that certain things were fought tooth and nail for until they came down and axed it.

Bad news: WEP is still using the EPs as their meat shields to hide behind, and despite not being really able to refuse, Joaquim Dos Santos and Lauren Montgomery still said some fucked up shit in this interview and the one before. And we probably should gird our loins for the next interview with Let’s Voltron!

But Yang, why in the fuck are we not going after the EPs, then?

The answer to that and why this is happening is three little letters, my friends.

NDA.

Non-disclosure agreements.

AKA the bane of your existence. And ours. And almost certainly JDS, LM, voice actors, animators, and literally anybody who has to comply with the season 8 we got back in December and the resulting fallout.

These are fairly standard in lots of situations where you’ll be working with confidential material, stuff like stories, military paperwork, movie production, that sort of thing. They generally tell you that you can’t spill the beans until a certain date when the contract expires, or when the information becomes public knowledge and the need for secrecy is lifted. Pretty standard in the entertainment business, keeps people from getting spoiled to trade secrets or important plotlines and ensures that you can trust your employees with whatever you need done for the project in question.

One other thing that these pesky little pieces of paper do is give your employer (say, the owner of a franchise or a superior officer), the ability to order you what to say just as easily as what not to. Don’t believe me? Look up interviews with the people who were in The Last Airbender (yeah… THAT movie). During production and when it was new, they all said how excited they were to work on the movie and be a part of it, but once those magical dates came by to free them of their legal obligations, they spilled more tea than the American revolutionaries did back in Boston. As soon as they wouldn’t get sued, they changed their tune about working on TLA.

Sometimes you just don’t like a project, sometimes your boss is a dick, whatever, but the fact is, if you sign one of those little things titled “Non-Disclosure Agreement”, you are bound by law to say whatever your boss tells you to. It’s very much a “they say ‘jump’, you say ‘how high’” situation. The only time this sort of shit doesn’t apply is if it implicates you in a crime. So like, your boss can’t embezzle money and then tell you to say you did it, or that you helped, or whatever. If it means you’ll get pressed charges, then you’re free to stand up and say “fuck this noise” and leave.

But JDS and LM aren’t being forced to admit to a crime, as heinous as some of what they’ve said in the past two ABTV interviews was. I’ll admit, I saw red the first time I heard the interviews on February 25 and March 4, but ya know fuckin’ what? That was the goal. Those interviews were meant to be a targeted blow against those of us in the VLD fandom who want the real s8 and for the characters to get their stories told correctly, rather than the slipshod stoic nonsense that ultimately created a story with zero meaning.

WEP/World Events Productions/Bob Koplar holds the Voltron intellectual property. JDS and LM are their puppets right now because unless they’re ordered to admit to a crime or otherwise break the law, they could be ruined legally, financially, and closed off from their trade. Would it be nice if they stuck to the scruples they displayed back when the show first started? Fuck yeah. I’d love it if they said, “screw it, here’s the real s8 with the heroine’s journey and the parallel storylines and the ending you deserved to see and get catharsis with.”

Fact is, they can’t, but we, who have never signed an NDA with WEP, DreamWorks, or Netflix or whoever the fuck else is involved, can.

They’re lying, yes, and they said despicable things that would make anybody’s blood boil, but the fact is they’re just the unfortunate human shields that will let WEP get away scot-free and it sets a very dangerous precedent about what happens when a story is being told and someone up top doesn’t like what they see. The narrative LM and JDS are being told to spin is that when the writers left, they went ham and ruined the story and that the real season 8 would be worse than the concoction we got on December 14. LM and JDS have said awful shit as WEP tries to demoralize fans and chase them off from going after the original season 8 and deflecting blame off where it should be aimed. But why would they have to write a story that’s animated and would have been completed before the writers left? LM said it herself that animation is extremely ahead of schedule compared to releases, and if you’re a fan of HTTYD like myself, you’ll know that the third movie’s release date had to be pushed back multiple times to account for the animation schedule because they failed to accurately project when it would be complete, and so pushed it back as opposed to releasing a shoddy product.

It’s simple enough to realize that the story being spun is just logically fallible and factually untrue, but because so much of what’s been said has been attacking the fandom, it’s easy to believe it. I almost wanted to believe that, too. It’s easy when there’s already a face and a name to blame. It’s harder to dig through stinging nettles, even if you know there’s a pot of gold under it all. Luckily I brought work gloves and have friends who know how to wield gardening shears.

We knew before that there was last minute edits to season 8, and @leakinghate did an excellent breakdown of that here in case you want to settle in for a nice read to see what should have been. But the interview on March 4th confirmed multiple times that the problem with the changes and story didn’t come from the EPs or even Dreamworks. The pushback came from the IP owners. JDS says so right toward the beginning, about 12 minutes in when he’s talking about Adam and Shiro’s romance. JDS and LM both discuss how it was the IP owners who gave the order to change an already-storyboarded and approved plotline for Shiro, which directly negates their tweet on March 1 claiming that the store has no creative control and the letter Bob Koplar wrote to a few fans, also written March 1, which claimed the same thing and seemed intent on absolving him as a responsible party for s8. Sure, the person tweeting and the person handling orders might not have to approve things, but that account and the store are both owned by WEP, which is easily proven if you dial WEP’s number. But the IP holders got discussed multiple times throughout the entire episode, more towards the first half than the second, which is when what they’re saying gets really screwy in terms of logic and what they’ve said before and general bullfuckery. Until JDS and LM are thanking the hosts for the unprecedented two hour interview and JDS says, “I don’t agree with myself” at 43:03, they were thanking the fans and apologizing for what happened and explaining that it wasn’t them or Dreamworks, but rather the IP holders who were pushing back.

Don’t believe me?

Click to 12:10 of the March 4 interview. JDS talks about Adam and Shiro’s relationship and how it was originally meant to be portrayed, and at the 12:50 mark he says that they got pushback about their relationship, not from Dreamworks, but from “other controlling parties with Voltron.”

Click to 18:52, where JDS mentions how they didn’t have the position as being creators of the IP. He also points out that, “We were, for all intents and purposes, like, started as a show for boys 6 to 11 to sell as much toys as possible.”

Does that phrase bother you as much as it bothers me?

Because it should.

Ever since VLD ended and the fans started pushing back against what got published as season 8, the EPs have been silent, at least for the first two-ish months. They didn’t say a word anywhere publicly about the show or if they liked it, because their NDAs probably had an “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all” clause. Generally, that’s the case because part of your job is to build good PR and hype up your project. Don’t believe me? Look at how they were after literally every other season, they came out immediately saying how much they loved it and how much they hoped the fans would too, and when there was pushback about Lotor’s abuse and the colony plot they were like, “please trust us, we want to do his story justice” even when it probably would have served them better to remain silent.

Not with S8.

Until these interviews, nobody talked. And when they finally did start talking?

They all kept saying the same things.

“This is a show for boys and their dads” and “this is a show meant to sell toys to little boys.”

At no point before this did anybody on the production team say anything even remotely related.

You can look for yourself, but I guarantee you won’t find anything. “Boy toy show” has been the go-to phrase for everybody ever since the silence around season 8 broke, and it’s not their words.

It is, without a doubt, from the IP holder.

We were promised that Lotor’s arc would continue and that “there’s a lot that is at play in his brain and his mind,” in the GeekDad article about him. Narratively, Lotor and Allura were meant to foil Zarkon and Honerva/Haggar. We should’ve gotten an alchemist-versus-alchemist showdown and a cool Lotor and Lance arc. Many things that were built up in seasons 1 through 6 were dropped, and if you refer back to Hate’s meta “Seeking Truth in Darkness”, you’ll find her analysis on what was cut, why, and the plot she pieced together based on the inconsistencies in the details of the season 8 that got released. In the latest interview, JDS said, “We were just trying to break the trope, our own trope. You know what I mean? Like Voltron was its own trope and the sort of little nook that we inhabited was, like, sort of boys toys was its own weird tropey situation.”

And despite all this talk of family and love and complexity and breaking barriers, we received two things from December 14 and on: VLD season 8, and silence.

Complete and utter silence.

The VAs were trotted out to face the wrath of the fans at SAC Anime 2019 and there was nary a word to be heard from the EPs, Dreamworks, WEP, Netflix… Nobody had anything to say about the final season of Voltron. The VAs even commented that there were things they were and weren’t allowed to say. And if they wanted to say anything, their NDAs and general social etiquette prevented them from saying whatever was actually on their mind, because I guarantee you nobody happy about the season would have kept silent. Even when all the season 7 backlash happened, JDS and LM asked us as a fandom to please wait and see, because there would be narrative payoff.

Which is why the latest two interviews with ABTV are all the more rightfully infuriating.

In the February 25 interview, LM specifically says that the initial pitch was to kill everybody, everybody would die and that would be the end of it, and that they had to back off from that. After the broken promises of season 8, that’s pretty damn believable to a fandom who’s rightfully hurting and grieving what could have finished a great show. But then with this March 4 interview, she says that she wanted to go Sailor Moon with it and have Allura come back as a baby after sacrificing herself. Kind of hard for those two stories to mesh when the person LM says would raise Allura would also have been one of the ones to die in the initial pitch.

So what exactly is the truth there?

Frankly, I think neither of those ideas is the truth. At least completely.

Why? A) It sounds like a super early pitch idea and B) because their general behavior disagrees with every interview leading up to season 8. Because if LM and JDS were proud of this product that got released, they would have said so and behaved as normal, if maybe a little more reserved due to fandom backlash. Because they wouldn’t be silent and only coming out with interviews after two months and several of #TeamPurpleLion metas that poke massive holes in what exists of season 8, CallVoltron has been sending letters, and #FREEVLDS8 garnered over 30,000 signatures. WEP has been trying to do damage control ever since we as a fandom started putting two and two together about where these disastrous last-minute changes came from, and only when the petition got updated to include WEP as a point of focus did WEP start trying to discredit the fans and meta writers who were coming too close to the truth. Here is a complete list of everything that’s happened since December 14, to give you an idea of just how wild of a ride this has been.

One main consistent thing throughout everything that’s happened since season 8 dropped is that everybody from the EPs up is lying, whether by omission or outright or through someone else, people have been lying like mad. WEP doesn’t want you to know that they own the IP and have strong input, despite confirming it by liking a tweet on February 13 and how you can be directed to their store if you call WEP’s phone number. WEP doesn’t want you to know that they gave the original season 8 the axe. WEP got scared that we got close and so they trotted out their EPs after two months of silence to try and break those of us hunting for the truth. These two interviews, which, mind you, came after what was scheduled to be the last one.

The official story continues to fall apart with every word of these last two interviews, too. JDS says that they were crafting the epilogue for season 8 during the aftermath of season 7, but according to him they completed season 8 back in June.

Again: which is the truth?

I stand with @leakinghate and the rest of #TeamPurpleLion and think that the original season 8 was completed back in June, but that the backlash from s7 and the general disapproval of a story of empowerment caused the truly-eleventh-hour edits to s8. The EPs are being forced to lie to you due to their contracts, WEP wants to keep hiding and lying and calling their customers liars and mocking them. But the funny thing is that the more intricate the lie, the harder it is to keep it straight versus the truth, as evidenced by how JDS and LM seem to be confusing what was in s8 versus what was pitched versus what they were told to say.

So what’s it all mean, then?

It means you should be watching and writing letters and calling WEP and calling them out publicly whenever WEP and Bob Koplar lie to the consumers and customers that express dissatisfaction with their service and their products.

WEP forgets that there is more to fandom than diehard dads and young boys.

The more they ignore the majority of their consumers, the more money they lose, the more faith they lose, and the less people will want to follow their future projects (like if they decide to do an MFE spinoff). Let’s Voltron is coming up with a new episode with JDS and LM, and they’re hoping to get it up soon. I’d just like to remind y’all that it’s scripted and pre-recorded, it’s not live, and it benefits from being the official Voltron podcast and has to keep good relations with WEP in order to retain that status. So don’t stop calling, write letters, hell just leave a Facebook or Twitter review of the business to express your satisfaction or lack thereof with how WEP treats customers and its show and everything. After all, the road to s8 is paved with honesty.

@felixazrael @leakinghate @crystal-rebellion @voltronisruiningmylife

[yuuchre-moved]

Love Me in Spite: Chapter 2

chapter 2 is up!! yay!! 

read it here on ao3 or read under the cut for chapter 2

fic summary: With the Garreg Mach Ball fast approaching and all the girls at the monastery giving him the cold shoulder, Sylvain realizes that he's going to have to get creative if he wants to maintain his dignity and snag a date for the occasion. Enter Felix: hostile, unamused, and utterly confused, he's somehow dragged into becoming Sylvain's fake boyfriend for the better part of a month. During their time together, the two might just learn to separate love from lies and turn hopes they didn't know they had into realities. 

Felix glared pointedly at his teacup, wishing he’d never agreed to help Sylvain. He splayed his fingers over his knees, clutching the fabric of his pants so he wasn’t tempted to pick up the teapot resting on the outdoor table and hurl it across the courtyard. 

“Aren’t you going to drink your tea?” He could hear the smile in Sylvain’s voice without having to look up at him. 

A moment of silence passed. “Maybe not. What did it do to deserve a frown like that?” 

Felix sighed and dragged his gaze up to look at Sylvain. A small smile danced on his companion’s lips. Of course he’d find this situation funny. It wasn’t like he was being torn apart on the inside every moment he spent here. 

“No one would believe it if I suddenly started mooning over you. I’m trying to make things realistic.” 

Sylvain shrugged. “Fair point. But, on the other hand, no one is going to believe it if you act like you hate being with me. Could you try and smile a little? For me?” 

Felix fixed him with a cool stare and lifted the teacup to his lips. To his surprise, even though it had become lukewarm, he found himself enjoying the familiar taste. 

“Almyran pine needles. Your favourite, right?” Sylvain was grinning at him, obviously proud of himself for making the effort to utilize that knowledge. 

“You really don’t half-ass this ‘romance’ thing, do you?” Felix muttered, pained to admit that he was right. This was the sort of thing that made their situation almost impossible to tolerate. Sylvain wasn’t required to play the charmer and hunt down Felix’s favourite tea and act like he cared. But he did, and Felix wanted to strangle him for it. “Who did you have to bribe for that information?” 

“No one, actually. I remembered because it’s sort of bitter, like you.” He paused for a moment, still grinning like an idiot. “Kidding. Kind of.” 

Felix ignored him. “I’ve decided that you’re going to train with me sometime.” 

Sylvain sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Doesn’t seem like I have a say in it. If that’s the price I have to pay for your help, I guess I can afford it.” 

“You’ll never get anywhere slacking off like you do. You’re going to end up dead on the battlefield one of these days.” 

“Why would I spend time training when I could be with a cute girl instead? I’m not going to die just because I missed a few sessions.” Sylvain lifted his cup to his lips, obscuring his seemingly perpetual grin. “But fine, fine. We’ll train. Eventually.” 

Felix left it at that, not in the mood to argue with him when he wasn’t being serious. He pushed the teacup away, way past his emotional limit. He’d wanted to leave since the moment he sat down at the table. Usually he opted to train after class, not participate in a stupid tea party. But before he could stand up, Sylvain started to speak, his voice hushed. 

“Has anyone asked you about… us?” 

“No, thank the Goddess. I don’t know how many people have made the assumption yet. I don’t even know what I’d say to someone who asked. As if I could… you know. Explain… as if…” His face burned as Sylvain stared, waiting for him to finish. He  gestured between them and hoped his embarrassment wasn’t showing through. “As if this were real. It’s just ridiculous.” 

“No, it’s genius. It should be, considering the fact that I’m the one who came up with it. Just talk the talk and everything will be fine, regardless of how you actually feel.” 

“I’m sure you’re quite the expert at lying through your teeth,” Felix said dryly. “You’ve practiced it on enough women. But I’m not a liar. You were stupid to pick me to do this.” 

“I don’t lie to people.” Sylvain had his lips twisted into a tight pout. “Exaggerate, maybe. And don’t blame me when you’re the one who said yes.” 

Felix stood, bristling. “Don’t you dare say that when you’re the one who begged and bribed me to agree. Do you really think it’s wise to pick a fight with me when I’m the one helping you out?” 

Sylvain’s pout had been replaced with a look of genuine anger. He opened his mouth to respond, but was cut short when someone appeared beside their table. 

“Oh, my. Are the rumours wrong? Or have I interrupted a lovers’ quarrel?” Dorothea tapped the table and lifted an eyebrow. 

Sylvain was by Felix’s side in a second. He laughed a little and placed his hand on Felix’s lower back, pulling him a little closer and throwing a wink in Dorothea’s direction. “Just a misunderstanding.” He turned to Felix and frowned. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” 

Something in Felix snapped when he saw Sylvain wink at Dorothea, as if Felix was being ridiculous by getting upset and would be satiated with a cutesy apology. He hooked his fingers around Sylvain’s belt, pulled him close, and stood on his toes so he could look Sylvain in the eyes as he spoke. “A misunderstanding indeed, darling. Make it up to me later, and actually mean it.” 

He abruptly let go and turned away, leaving Sylvain to explain them both. 

✿ ✿ ✿

For the smallest moment there, Sylvain had thought Felix was going to kiss him, of all things. His breath caught in his chest when he’d stumbled forward, their faces mere inches apart. He had to laugh at himself for expecting that kind of thing from Felix. It was almost embarrassing that he’d thought it would happen, like Felix had tricked him into revealing something hidden about himself. 

Dorothea startled him out of his thoughts with a laugh. “You certainly chose a feisty one! To think you’d end up going after someone like that… it’s quite a surprise.” 

Why was he always the one who got stuck explaining their so-called relationship to people? “I guess it is. But love is strange, you know? The heart wants what it wants.” 

“Your heart wants Felix?” 

Her expression was innocent, but he suspected she was trying to get something out of him. He chose his words carefully, hoping she wouldn’t press him anymore. “Yes, it does. He’s different. I know it’s unexpected, but I’d never hurt him.” 

Dorothea pointed after Felix. “I want to discuss this some more, but I think you should probably go after him. He looked fairly hurt.” 

“I probably should, huh? I will after I clean all this up.” He stacked Felix’s cup on top of his and did the same for their plates. 

Dorothea looked curiously at him for a few moments, then nodded. “Don’t forget that I want to talk to you soon.” 

“Oh, I’m looking forward to it, beautiful.” He winked before catching himself, his blood running cold when he realized he’d just flirted with her without even thinking about it. Dorothea stared at him, eyes wide in surprise. 

“Well—”

“Force of habit!” Sylvain blurted, laughing nervously. “I’ll… I’m going to put these away. See you later.” 

She didn’t try to stop him as he rushed away, pieces of the tea set clutched unsteadily in his hands. 

✿ ✿ ✿

“Damn, you’re good today.” 

Felix scoffed, but he was smiling. It was easy enough to find Felix at the training grounds after Sylvain had cleaned up the tea. He probably spent more time there than in his own room. 

They were both panting as they circled each other, weapons at the ready. Sylvain took the opportunity to really look at Felix for a moment. He looked happier than Sylvain had seen him in days, with a wooden sword in his hand and his eyes bright with excitement. It made guilt well up in his chest, knowing what he’d done earlier without Felix there. They weren’t dating for real, so there was no reason for him to feel bad about it when the whole point of this arrangement was to get Sylvain a real girlfriend. So why did he feel so shitty for doing it? At any rate, it was nice to see him genuinely happy for once. 

Felix rushed forwards and hit the side of Sylvain’s torso when he was distracted. Sylvain stepped back and blocked him with his lance before he could swing again. 

“You’re distracted,” Felix said, going in for another round of swings that Sylvain had to rush to block with his weapon. 

“Maybe.” He pushed Felix’s sword back and tried to jab at him, but Felix easily deflected it and mercilessly barraged him with more attacks. Sylvain was not about to admit what was troubling him. “You’re not letting up, are you?” 

“No. You’re not going to learn if I don’t push you.” 

Sylvain frowned. “Too difficult. How long do we have to do this?” 

“Until your sorry ass can knock this sword out of my hands. Get to work.” 

As tired as he was, Sylvain refused to give up before Felix was satisfied. It was the least he could do to thank Felix for putting up with his antics and screw-ups. 

“Hey… do you want to go to a café sometime?” 

“Not particularly. But I won’t say no if it’s going to help keep up our act.” 

Right, Sylvain had to make sure people knew they were going together. It would be easy enough to casually mention it in class or something. Maybe they could even meet up with another couple and have a double date with them. 

“Okay, cool. I’ll find a nice place where we can go after class, and maybe invite another couple along with us.” 

After they’d sparred for another twenty minutes or so, Felix declared that they’d done enough for that day. He put up the training sword and left before Sylvain even finished putting his lance away. 

Sylvain wondered if he should have said something about Dorothea, but couldn’t decide what that would even be. Should he have celebrated the fact that a girl wanted to talk to him, or apologize for flirting and disrupting the precarious believability of their fake relationship? He could chase after Felix, but it felt like the time to do so had passed. He headed towards his room instead, wondering if he was making the right decision. 

✿ ✿ ✿

As the professor lectured the class about some battle technique Sylvain had stopped caring about ages ago, he was almost completely focused on the person beside him. Namely, Felix. His arms were wrapped tightly across his chest and his gaze bored into the wall, directed too far up to be aimed at the professor. 

Sylvain draped his arm over Felix’s shoulders and pressed his cheek to the top of Felix’s head, eyes trained on the professor so he appeared to be engaged in the lesson. “Could you try to look slightly less murderous? It ruins the whole ‘adorable couple’ look.” 

Felix jerked his head away and whispered back, his voice full of venom. “No. Shut up and get off me.” 

“How hard would it be to give me a smile or a kiss on the cheek once in a while? I kiss your cheek every day, so the least you could do is return it.” He planted a kiss on Felix’s temple, if only to push his buttons even further. 

“You little—get off! You know I don’t do that kind of thing. You can’t just expect to treat me like a lovesick schoolgirl and expect me to bend over backwards—“ 

Felix abruptly stopped talking. It took Sylvain a few moments to realize that the entire room had gone silent, and the professor had them fixed with a cool stare. 

“Is there something you’d like to share with the class, boys?” 

Felix subtly placed his hand on Sylvain’s knee and dug the tips of his fingers in without meeting his eyes, silently warning him to say something, and fast. Sylvain dropped his arm and slid away from Felix, painfully aware of how awkward they must have looked. 

“Nope, nothing to see here. Lovers’ quarrel, you know? Sorry, Professor.” 

Someone giggled, and the lesson resumed, as if the interruption had never happened. But when Felix gave him an angry, hurt glare, Sylvain knew that he’d be hearing about this later. 

✿ ✿ ✿

After class, Ingrid pulled Sylvain into his room to talk, ignoring his protests. 

“What were you thinking? It seems I’ve underestimated how childish you can be. I can’t believe you.” She was scolding him before she even slammed the door shut. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Don’t play dumb with me, Sylvain. You seriously need to grow up before you end up hurting someone.” 

“Fine, I’ll bite. This is about Felix, right? You’re overreacting. Jealous, perhaps?” Sylvain folded his arms over his chest. She was the one who wouldn’t help him in the first place, so it wasn’t like she had a right to judge him. 

Ingrid’s scowl deepened. “I don’t know what Felix was thinking when he agreed to this. He must have—I don’t even know! You never stop to think about the consequences that your actions will have. He must realize that, so why did he allow himself to get dragged into this?” 

“It’s not like that, Ingrid. The only consequences will be positive ones. It’s not your problem, anyway. This is between Felix and I, so there’s no reason for you to get yourself involved.” 

“I’ll be forced to get involved when I have to clean up the casualties you leave strewn behind you. At the very least, be careful.” 

Sylvain shrugged and sighed. “Come on, you know I’m not out to hurt anyone. This is just a temporary arrangement benefiting both parties.” 

“I can’t decide whether to be more angry at you or Felix, actually. You’re being immature, but he’s agreed to dig his own grave. Did you force him into it?” 

“Wh—Ingrid, please. Of course I didn’t force him. There may have been a tiny bit of wheedling involved, but I’d never make him do it against his will.” 

She stared at him for a long moment, lips set in a hard line. She seemed to be thinking over something, or maybe deciding the best method to chew him out some more. 

“It’s not right for you to lie to people like this. Unless you intend to date Felix purely because you want to, I’d suggest you quit while you’re ahead.” 

“Your concern flatters me, but I think I can handle it myself. I’ll assume you’ll be there for me so I can cry on your shoulder when I tragically break up with Felix?” He winked and sat down on his bed, hoping she’d take the hint and leave him alone so he could take a nap. “Oh… and could you maybe not mention this to anyone? The plan will be ruined if word gets out that I orchestrated this whole thing, not to mention how ashamed poor Felix would be if that happened.” 

Ingrid let out a frustrated sigh. “Fine, I won’t say anything. For now, at least. I hope you think about what you’re doing. We’re going to discuss this again later.” 

“Yeah, yeah. See you.” He fell back onto the bed and sighed as she left. Multiple girls wanted to talk to him, but it was only because were concerned or curious about Felix. This plan might end up winning him more girls than it would for Sylvain. He frowned at the thought, annoyed. It would be just his luck that Felix ended up with a woman while Sylvain himself stayed tragically single. 

✿ ✿ ✿

“We need to set boundaries.” Felix hung up his sword and turned towards Sylvain, folding his arms over his chest. 

Another round of training had just ended, and Sylvain was eager to get back to his room to sleep. “Boundaries?” 

“Yes, boundaries.” 

Sylvain shrugged, rubbing the cuff of his jacket between his fingers. He quickly filed through his memories to find the thing he did that pissed Felix off enough to prompt him to bring this up, assuming something he did triggered this confrontation. It was probably building up over the past few days and set off by the scolding in the classroom. So he could either play his concerns off or be upfront about his actions. The latter was not sounding too appealing. “Um, isn’t the point of dating not having boundaries?” 

Felix rolled his eyes. “Was that a joke? Maybe that’s how you act with other people, but that’s not how it’s going to be with me.” 

Sylvain gave him a quick smile and leaned against the wall, bracing for an angry rant. “Okay, shoot.” 

Felix took a quick breath, his shoulders tense. “It gets on my nerves when you touch me.” 

Sylvain waited for more, but Felix just stared back at him. With every second that passed, his eyes grew darker, and whether it was from anger or shame or annoyance, Sylvain couldn’t tell. “Okay. I get that, but you know we can’t entirely cut touching from this arrangement.” 

Felix swallowed and shrugged, his gaze flicking towards the door like he was mapping an escape route. “I know.” 

“Work with me, Felix. We have to touch each other, but of course I’m going to listen if you don’t like it.” 

Felix drew back and said nothing, his face cloudy. 

Sylvain extended his hand towards him, keeping a space between them, and felt a little smile spread across his face. “You know I never want to actually make you mad at me, right? So let’s try a compromise: I’ll ask before I touch you, but you can’t say no purely to make my life difficult.” 

Felix lifted his gaze and suddenly gripped Sylvain’s hand, squeezing it with much more force than necessary with a challenge in his eyes, like he was daring Sylvain to comment. He didn’t say anything, though, just happy knowing Felix was willing to hold his hand, however aggressive his methods might be. It wasn’t worth criticizing him if he was going to draw back. 

“There you go,” Sylvain whispered, pulling Felix a little closer. He held out his other hand, which Felix grabbed after muttering a few curses under his breath. 

“See? This isn’t bad. How are you ever going to get a girl if you can’t stand holding her hand?” 

Felix’s expression darkened and he dropped his hands before starting to storm away. Sylvain cursed under his breath and chased after him. 

“Hey, hey, Felix! I was just joking.” Sylvain stepped in front of him and cleared his throat. “Please don’t go.” 

As Felix silently held Sylvain’s gaze, Ingrid’s words suddenly echoed in his mind. You never stop to think about the consequences that your actions will have. Was he really that insensitive? Felix knew he was just messing around, didn’t he? 

“I… look, I’m sorry. You’re the one helping me out and I guess I haven’t really been all that nice to you.” It was incredibly difficult to figure Felix out. Sylvain couldn’t quite decide how to act towards him. Everything he’d done so far only managed to upset him time after time. It wasn’t like he went into this expecting Felix to be happy about it, but nothing he did seemed to ease the tension between them. He’d thought it might be better to keep things light and joke about the situation, but all that seemed to do was frustrate Felix. 

“I’m the one who agreed to this, and I’m going to see it through. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to make it easy for you, and it certainly doesn’t mean you can treat me like a toy. Get your act together.” 

“What do you mean? I don’t see you as a toy.” 

Felix ran his finger over the hilt of one of the training swords and sighed, his brow furrowed. “You’re pretty blind for someone who spends most of his time ogling women. I’m going up to my room.” 

“Felix…” 

His plea fell on deaf ears as Felix waved him away and exited the training grounds. 

Sylvain stifled a groan. What was he doing wrong? 

✿ ✿ ✿

Felix had to stop this. He was getting too close to the fire buried deep in his chest and sooner or later he was going to get burned. His feelings were spinning out of control and he couldn’t stop himself from letting them slip through his fingers. Honestly, he regretted calling out Sylvain for being blind. It wasn’t his fault he didn’t know why Felix was so moody; Felix was the one who’d struggled to choke off his own feelings for so long. 

Usually, the ache of a good training session was something he found satisfying, but today it was overwhelming when combined with the exhaustion of dealing with Sylvain. 

He closed the book he was studying and pushed it away so he could lean his elbows on his desk and rub his eyes, feeling lost. He’d be humiliated to admit it out loud, but he felt so helpless when it came to Sylvain. He was infuriating, but Felix still stubbornly… he couldn’t even admit his feelings to himself. He couldn’t stamp out the feelings he had for Sylvain no matter how desperately he tried. 

He felt his lips twitch up in a bitter smile. As if it even mattered what he felt towards Sylvain. He would never consider if Felix felt that way towards him, and even if he did, it wasn’t like the feeling was mutual. Even thinking about it like this was a waste of time. 

He slumped forward onto the desk, holding his head up with his hands. Instead of feeling happy that Sylvain had to treat him like his partner, he felt hollowed out by it. His affection was nothing more than a costume, something fake he could shed at any time. 

Sylvain was the one with the upper hand. He could pull the rug out from under Felix’s feet at any moment, and that was the reason why he couldn’t open up to Sylvain. Why he couldn’t stand his touches and smiles, because it was a knife through his chest to acknowledge that they weren’t real. 

It was probably hours after midnight, and Felix still couldn’t stop thinking about him. His eyes burned from lack of sleep and overuse after distracting himself by doing schoolwork and rereading the studying material over and over just to think about something other than Sylvain. 

He let his head fall onto the desk and shut his eyes, hoping the physical discomfort would distract him from agonizing over the same topics again and again. He only allowed himself to acknowledge how much being with Sylvain like this hurt in his final moments of consciousness before sleep, terrified to confront it during the harsh, revealing light of the day.