#its hard to choose only 5 things and not make them sound so basic

[snowy-bones]

ask game!

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers ♡

i might not do the sending into the inbox thing because shy but i can certainly list a few things! 1) VCing with those i love the most 2) peach juice 3) SUSHI 4) The gremlin man (Ash) 5) knowing that i am loved and cherished by so many people....

[boypussydilf]

various rambling and working out a vague picture of the timeline bc sabertoothwalrus has me thinking about The Fucking Thing With The Empress again

in the past i’ve assumed vampires didn’t really start coming out (of hiding i guess?? where were they?? what were they doing in all those centuries before the war when people did not believe magic was real so it’s not like they were aware vampires existed and were still around but . maybe they hibernated who knows whatever it doesn’t matter it’s just funny)

ANYWAY i kind of had assumed vampires didn’t really Come Back Out Into The World until marcy’s teen years/10-ish years after the mushroom bomb but vampworld VK finding marceline when she was like 6-7 indicates they were Out And Walkin’ Around pretty much right after the apocalypse hit

i guess as far as i remember there’s never any indication whether or not simon & marcy ran into any Vampire Problems while they were still together. i’ve assumed not but there’s no actual evidence for that. we basically know like 2 things that happened to them we don’t have a lot to go off of for what they Did or Did Not run into together

but for now i’m assuming not. it seems like vampires prefer to be Where Groups Of Humans Are, for obvious reasons, and it seems like simon & marceline never ran into any humans together (or at least not any friendly ones.) simon’s notes from i remember you indicate he thought they might have been the only people still alive & let’s be real if they ever found other people who were Not Hostile and had resources to survive simon would’ve immediately gone Oh boy!!! Someone who can take care of marcy and not fuck up!!!! and made her go with them while he fucked off into the woods to be sad and alone or whatever the hell he did after leaving her aside from getting hypnotized by a vampire.

i just got distracted bc its so funny Why did the empress choose this guy ??????????? like . insert “a thousand years later and you still can’t get anything right” girl if he’s always sucked at this why is he your Emotional Support Thrall. how did he not get killed

anyway i don’t think we have any indication whether he ever ran into any vampires while he was still with marceline but one way or another he sure does remember when there were vampires around and has a dedicated set of Vampire Survival Skills. skills is maybe the wrong word. he tries so fucking hard but he can’t stake a completely nonmoving target. did he always suck at this too

we know from the empress’s dialogue that simon had still not lost his mind all the way by the time she decided to make him her Favorite Little Human Servant - still remembered his name, still sane enough to Get Hypnotized, her surrounding dialogue when she calls ice king “this pathetic clown character” implies she remembers him acting More Like Simon and Less Like Ice King which is really fucking impressive, actually, he’s extremely Not Holding It Together when he leaves marceline and he still managed to hold on to his identity and some of his usual behavior for 5+ years after that without her jesus christ man

simon in the star talks about marceline becoming A Great Vampire Hunter kind of like it’s something he saw. she could’ve just told him about that part of her life sometime after CAWM, but,

the way marceline talks to the empress in empress eyes sounds kind of like she saw simon interacting with the empress. (“that’s the last time you toy with his heart”)

did they see each other again there? while marceline was hunting vampires? while simon still remembered who Simon Petrikov was?

who left who?

In conclusion fucked up right. Like huh. The entire situation raises so many questions. Why did they never bring this up again

[juvenile-mudcrab]

Okay my dwemer headcanons time yippee

Under readmore bc it was longer than i expected

1. Their telepathic capabilities, or the Calling, had limited range akin to a walkie-talkie. The tips of their ears are longer and thinner than other races like a tv antenna. They would move their ears to either tune in or out from others. They could extend their telepathic range or accuracy a bit via specific piercings and/or headgear. Tonal architects used special headgear to tune out from others entirely to focus only on their work. Longer distance communication had to be achieved with radio. This is an adaptation as a result of frequently being in low-light environments and working with things that make a lot of noise, its easier and much more efficient to communicate with someone without the danger of them simply not hearing you.

2. Both men and women grew beards. In fact, there wasnt that much difference between the two sexes. Intersex dwemer werent uncommon at all. It wasnt really something that they made a big deal out of.

3. Most, if not all, dwemer are nearsighted, another result of underground living and constantly working with fine details. Pretty much everyone carried glasses with them to use whenever.

4. Every child would be taught how to construct a dwarven spider, and that spider would be with them ideally for their entire lives. They may gradually learn build more complex animunculi as they develop their skills. They usually take on a full apprenticeship to learn the intricacies of dwarven metal and some basic tonal architecture once they are teenagers, but occasionally they may not take on an apprenticeship until they are older.

5. Some dwemer names are more like titles that they take on, most often ones that end with -ac. For example, the name Dumac is a name that every major dwarven leader has, though that may not have been their original name. Every clan has their own Dumac and Kagrenac (every chief tonal architect would be called Kagrenac), as well as other names/titles that we dont know about.

6. They did not sleep on straight up stone beds they had some sort of mat to put on top of them. They just stored it away and used the stone part for other things when they werent sleeping or resting (though im sure some managed to find the actual stone comfortable enough to doze off on)

7. More often than not when talking to anyone of another race their words would be misinterpreted, so they had to choose their words carefully. This is because a lot of meaning behind their words get completely lost because nobody else is telepathic. A conversation between two dwarves may seem short and full of long silent pauses and they may even seem like they arent addressingeach other at all, but thats because a lot of the times theyre just kind of beaming their feelings and thoughts directly into each others minds. This is also why dwemer literature, notes, etc. tend to be hard to comprehend since its hard to convey things on paper without that additional communication so it has to be more verbose. The communication barrier between them and other races often felt like much more work than it was worth, which is why they were usually very isolated and held themselves in a higher regard.

8. They acted different around other people than amongst themselves which also added to the impression most people had of them. Partially because of a society-wide superiority complex and partially because of the communication barrier, they acted a lot more calculated and blunt towards others.

9. The average dwarf was shorter than an altmer and taller than everyone else

10. Mushrooms were a huge part of their cuisine

11. They could hear sounds of both higher and lower frequency than the average person can. This helps them pinpoint issues a piece of machinery or structural may be having, structural integrity of a building or excavation, or with tonal architecture in general.

12. They sometimes used their voice for fine tuning, especially tonal architects. A group of tonal architects working together could sound like a harmonized choir. They arent singing for fun (they could if they wanted to though), its just part of the job. Just how stuff works. Im not gonna act like i fully understand what tonal architecture even is.

13. For the dwarves of skyrim, chaurus were their primary source of meat but they didnt find their chitin to be very useful for much so it was often discarded or traded. The discarded chitin was then utilized by the falmer at the beginning of the War of the Crag which helped give them an advantage for a good while.

14. A lot of traps in skyrims dwemer ruins were later additions in the midst of the war of the crag, which is why many may seem oddly placed, unecessary, or nonsensical to an explorer.

[skysometric]

top 5 sonic games go

warning: i am inviting you to poke a hornet's nest and i am the hornet

oh i am very aware of your Unique sonic opinions...

by contrast my opinions are gonna be more on the basic side! i'm a simple gal, i like going fast and letting the wind take me down routes i've never seen before. getting to explore big, open levels is one of the series biggest strong suits!

this is a hard list to narrow down, partly because the sonic series is so diverse and there's so much to love... but mostly because i haven't gotten to play a whole lot of sonic recently? i'm slowly trying to change that, like i just finished sonic battle last week and sonic origins the other day. to keep it easy, we're gonna stick to the main series only – i'd probably explode if i had to rank the spinoffs...

all told, that means my two biggest ranking factors here are Level Design and Nostalgia, so i doubt this list is particularly set in stone. as i replay more of the games, my top 5 will probably change – but for now, here's my best attempt at:

My Top 5 Sonic Games

5. Sonic Advance 2

the Rush games are stylish, fluid, and set the blueprint for modern sonic as we know it – but the granddaddy of them all was Sonic Advance 2, and i can confidently say that i've sunk more time into this one than any of its successors.

honestly, advance 2 is one of my most replayed games of all time! it's so easy to jump in from the beginning and let the game carry you through to the end in one sitting. i always think of the other sonic games as more of a commitment, something i have to plan around playing... not so with this one, i can blast through it in an hour or two and love it the whole way through.

i'd say this game's biggest strength is its level themes – this is peak modern sonic aesthetic, with some really unique level tropes and some of the most gorgeous pixel art on the gba. i know the gba's sound chip isn't for everyone, but i think advance 2 makes great use of it!

i know this game has a LOT of flaws – the chaos emeralds are a pain in the ass to acquire, and so many of the game's best features are locked behind getting the emeralds with every single character??? but i'm not thinking about the meta-game when i choose to blast through the levels in one sitting, and i've played it so much that i know where all the bottomless pits are and how to avoid them.

all told, sonic advance 2 is my most comfy sonic, so it deserves a spot on the list.

4. Sonic Adventure 2

if you read the story behind my least favorite game, then you probably saw this coming – adventure 2 is the game i played most with friends, long ago when i had my dreamcast. of course i still have a soft spot for it!

what i didn't mention in that post is how much mileage i got out of the chao garden, but that's because i put in most of those hours on the gamecube. i was obsessed with boosting my chao's stats with the little critters i found on my adventures 💙 so one of my favorite comfy ways to spend a saturday morning was to go collect animals for my chao...

...in the hunting stages. i actually love the hunting stages! and i really like the mech stages too! this isn't just nostalgia for sonic and shadow – i genuinely love playing the whole game, through and through.

thinking about it now, i sunk SO MANY HOURS into this game... that i got a little tired of it and stopped playing it for years. even when i picked it up on pc as an adult, i had no desire to actually replay it – why would i, when i have the whole game memorized? but maybe it's time to revisit this for a casual playthrough sometime soon...

3. Sonic Generations

i will freely admit that this one's cheating: half of the reason i love this game is because of the Unleashed Project mod. i haven't yet played unleashed, but one thing this mod taught me is that the level design is immaculate – infinitely replayable, highly rewarding to get good at, and a feeling of speed unlike any other sonic game.

but it's also kinda hard for most casual players! this is where the original generations comes in: it has less punishing low routes, and as a result, it was my gateway to modern sonic in 3d.

my pipeline was simple: i loved the hell out of my first playthrough of generations, so i replayed it enough to learn the stages and routes. by the time unleashed project released, i was good enough at modern sonic to not fail endlessly – so i loved my first playthough of unleashed project, and replayed that a ton to learn the (more advanced) stages and routes. a perfect pairing!

...but don't sleep on classic sonic either! i genuinely enjoy the classic sonic stages in generations, and i think it's a crying shame that people love to hate on them these days. it makes me think less "classic sonic" and more "sonic advance 4" in a way that makes my nostalgia happy 💙

1. Sonic Mania

no, that's not a typo, and i didn't skip one: my top 2 sonic games are tied for first place. i can't choose which one i love better!

what is there to say about mania that hasn't already been said? it's classic sonic perfected for the modern era, with gorgeous pixel art and the best level designs in the series. if you've never played a sonic game, start here and you'll fall in love.

sonic fans sometimes rag on the fact that mania leans so heavily on reused zones and nostalgia, with only a handful of new zones. that's a fair criticism, but let me flip that on its head:

i love that they revisited these old zones, not for nostalgia's sake... but because they could revisit some of the old games' biggest flaws, and smooth those over. then, in act 2, they expanded each one with new mechanics and flavors, remixing the nostalgia into a new experience that's more than the sum of its parts.

that is the impossible dream for a sonic game! that's never happened before! and it may never happen again. but at least they caught lightning in a bottle once, and it'll be with us forever, just like the memories of old.

1. Sonic 3 & Knuckles

shocker: sonic fan likes the popular game, more at 11

no, see, i grew up with sonic 2. and to be honest, i'm a little sad i didn't get to fit it on this list for nostalgic reasons. sonic 3k is everything i love about sonic 2, but bigger.

i just got through replaying this in sonic origins, and the game is just as magical now as it was when i was a kid. possibly moreso now that i know how to get past that damn barrel! let's be honest, the original games had some mean level design, and my recent playthrough wasn't 100% smooth... but nostalgia wins the day.

this game defined my childhood – even when it kicked my ass – because i had the power of a long lost art in video games: cheat codes. i got my mileage out of exploring this game simply by picking whichever zones i wanted to play in the level select and going ham! even the game's debug mode turned each zone into a playground where i could spend hours just experimenting and exploring.

then, one day, i got good enough at the game to beat it legit, with all the emeralds... fulfilling a journey that lasted so many formative years of my childhood. this is a special game to me for so many more reasons than i could list in one post, but i hope i summarized it well.

...oh, and even with all the debug mode as a kid, i still found new routes in this game last playthrough lmfao

[oscurolena]

Welcome to Aurora Bay, [SELENA VALDES]! I couldn’t help but notice you look an awful lot like [PRISCILLA QUINTANA]. You must be the [TWENTY-NINE] year old [BARTENDER AT GOLDEN HOUR LOUNGE]. Word is you’re [RESILIENT] but can also be a bit [STUBBORN] and your favorite song is [WOULD'VE COULD'VE SHOULD'VE BY TAYLOR SWIFT]. I also heard you’ll be staying in [SEABROOK QUARTER]. I’m sure you’ll love it!

CHARACTER BASICS

NAME: selena valdes NICKNAME: lena AGE: twenty-nine DATE OF BIRTH: september 29, 1993 ZODIAC SIGN: libra GENDER & PRONOUNS: cisfemale, she/her ORIENTATION: bisexual STATUS: single HEIGHT: 5′2″ OCCUPATION: bartender at golden hour lounge NEIGHBORHOOD: seabrook quarter

QUICK FACTS

selena valdes was born out of an affair her mother, an up and coming model who had to cut her career short, had with a wealthy married man. growing up, selena never really had a proper father figure. although her father made sure that she and her mother lived a comfortable life, he felt more of a benefactor to her rather than a real father. she never really met him as an adult, but she had some vague memories of him when she was younger--though she wasn't exactly sure if they were real or if she just conjured them in her mind. besides, only a handful of people knew about her existence since her father wanted to keep mum about what happened.

lena didn't exactly hold resentment towards her father since she didn't know him well enough for that. her mother made it clear to her that it's just how the world works and she just accepted it at that time. nonetheless, she lived a comfortable life growing up and her mother cared for her as best as she could in the way she knew how to.

however, her mother also wanted that affection, so she kept on seeing different guys and none of them really lasted that long in their lives. that was the tiring part, meeting new people--thinking she'll finally have the family she always wanted, but just always getting disappointed in the end.

when she was in her second year in college and working part time in a coffee shop, she met someone who's quite older than her, but the two hit it off quickly. they simply clicked and lena fell hard for them. they were not her first love, but they were the one that left a permanent mark on her. everything seemed great at first and their relationship lasted for more than a year until everything fell apart. she found out that they were married and the last thing she wanted was to be just like her mother. lena broke it off between the two of them and cut all ties with them.

after them, lena became more evasive with romance and chose to date without truly committing to the other person. they've completely destroyed her ability to trust other people and she became more closed off. she's a huge flirt, but she rarely catches feelings. more often than not, she chooses to see the worst in people to make sure that she wouldn't get hurt by them.

lena has a degree in business management, but she cannot commit to just one job either. she's always quitting and looking for another job since they easily bore her.

a few months ago, someone contacted her and told her that he was her half-brother. it sounded like a scam at first, but google did its work and it turned out to be true, so she decided to come and visit them at aurora bay. but after being enchanted by the place, she decided to move here for now. currently, she's been residing in aurora bay for 3 months and found a job as a bartender at the golden hour lounge.

WANTED CONNECTIONS

her ex lover (39+)

regular customers at the bar

acquaintances or friends

frenemies

someone who has odd jobs for her to do?

yoga/gym buddies since

tinder matches

one night stands

ex fling

potential romantic interest?

will they won't they

anything else you'd be up to tbh. if u wanna plot with her, just give this a like and i'll dm you <3

[amphibifish]

okk im answering a maloki 30 questions thing cause…. i need to talk abt it n why not?

1. How did you get into the fandom? I forgot how i initially found maloki, but i remember wanting to get into more norse mythology media after researching the myths for a few months. then i found it and it was the first thing my brain latched onto so now... we're here !!!

2. Favourite character? Oh i dont know.... maybe Heimdall..... just maybe...... and anime!Hel, i don't care for her manga counterpart since they're so diff lol

3. Least favourite character? idk none of them really stick out to me as being awful so much i hate them, theyve all got their charm.. baldr, ig ? i dont care abt him..

4. Favourite series? (Out of the original, Ragnarok or Shin Sekai no Kamigami.) ragnarok or shin sekai. ragnarok i think is fun and shin sekai i like just because it gets really heim centric lol the og series gets on my nerves....... its just sooo bad. its just awful.

5. Favourite case? (Since Matantei Loki doesn't give names to the cases, you can describe the case instead of trying to pinpoint it. However, if you can remember which chapter/episode it came from, that would also be good.) I keep forgetting that this is a detective series, and also i try not to reread the original because it really sucks more than usual imo, so idk

6. Least favourite case? see above

7. Most heartwarming moment? episode 24 of the anime,,, hel's plotline is honestly the most well written out of the entire series..

8. What didn't you like about the series? i have an entire post where i just complain to mutual rosquinn, but basically the many plotholes, the misogyny, the weird relationships that keep getting pushed, the amount of weird comments made abt mayura, the character development for heim in the manga which is basically him getting worse and not acknowledging anything at all in the plot for the sake of being evil... the anime is so much better abt this, but freya had so much potential there that was just lost :/

9. Favourite comic relief character? Freyr & Freya

10. Favourite song from the series? idk i don't pay that much attention to the sound traack

11. Would you like the English translation to cover everything in the Matantei Loki manga canon? The people responsible won't know what you said, but you can still voice your opinion. yes?

12. If they made a movie out of the series what would you like the movie to be about? ragnarok's plotline could work nicely in movie format i think.

13. Who would you most like to meet out of the cast? probably Mayura or Koutaro. being in the presence of some sort of god would have me stressed ok. i think frey and freyja might be chill tho

14. What kind of crossover would you like to happen with Matantei Loki? the tv show supernatural because that would be funny and my friends like spn

15. Do you think the manga will ever cover what happened to Heimdall's right eye? (If you saw only the anime, you can't answer this.) This is explained? I guess showing the actual event, it's very vague on how it really went down.

16. What song do you think suits Matantei Loki best? fighter - jack stauber matches a lot of the chars i think. doesnt necessarily fit though.

17. Manga or anime? If anime, fansub or fandub? Sub or dub? anime, i prefer the eng dub just because i think its funnier lol

18. Do you think Sakura Kinoshita could have added something to make the series (as a whole) better? If so, what could she have added? there's so many things to be fixed this list would go on forever.. as one thing though, i really don't think there should be as many romantic subplots as there is, esp if they're all going to be loki centered. it just gets annoying

19. Favourite quote? Freyr's "Nice one, Heimdall! It might be copyright infringement but it's working!" is very funny to me.

20. Favourite moment in the series? (It can't be the same as no. 7 though.) hard to choose, but maybe the part where its revealed heim got revived to help hel in the anime? or the part where heim almost gets murdered in his sleep i just like seeing heim be evil.

21. Least favourite moment in the series? The part where Narugami tells loki to look at mayura's boobs and generally loki being a freak abt this. This chapter is majority the reason i despise the og series. it is so awful. it makes me throw up. also the part where heim and loki each kiss mayura. literally what. what. what. im going to throw ten million hammers (mjolnirs) at you.

22. Do you think Tactics is better or worse than Matantei Loki? If you don't know about Tactics, which series would you say is similar to Matantei Loki? don't know tactics but in supernatural they;re also hunting creatures and killing them.

23. Despite Matantei Loki being shonen, do you think it would benefit if it were a shojo series? i dont know enough manga/anime terms to answer this ^^''   

24. Do you think Kantarou of Tactics (if you don't know who I'm talking about, Google him) was deliberately made to look like Loki? i don't really see it all that much.

25. If you could add one character to the series, what kind of character would it be? Do you have a name decided for the character - if so, what's their name? i think skathi from the myths would work great as another antagonist, esp. as she is the only other aesir that has the kenning of "loki's foe". (Heim is the other one)

26. Did you even want to learn about Norse mythology after seeing/reading the series? the reverse, I only got into maloki because I like norse mythology.

27. How well do you think Matantei Loki teaches people about Norse mythology? Not at all, but better than other popular media based off of norse mythology (cough cough marvel). I think a lot of its base is pretty accurate though, save a few things here and there (such as heimdall being god of tactics and dawn? straight up wrong and incorrect and false and not true.)

28. Do you think the portrayals of Loki in Marvel Comics/the movie Thor/Norse mythology etc. are incorrect now that you've seen/read Matantei Loki? They're both just diff interpretations and portrayals. I'd say they're equally incorrect but maloki gets extra points for keeping Loki's family tree accurate because that is such a pet peeve of mine.

29. What do you first think of when the name Loki or Thor is mentioned? the guys from the mythology.

30. What do you think the ending will be like? Or do you not want it to end at all? Uhh heim gets his shit rocked and his ass kicked again. iirc odin comes back? don't really know much else but i know loki gets the eye staff at some point, he's the protagonist after all. I reckon baldr gets stopped and the valkeryies are freed. Odin gets placed as king again.

[m39]

Doom WADs’ Roulette (2007): Demons of Problematique

One thing before we start – In my introduction post, I forgot to mention that since Cacowards 2007, the award that focused on the Multiplayer WADs (Best DM level) was replaced with the Best Multiplayer level and that this award ceremony was co-written by Dean Joseph (deathz0r).

Now with that out of the way, time for the silver league and the 2007 runners-up.

S1: Demons of Problematique

Main author(s): Dennis Meuwissen (Exl)

Release date: July 16th, 2007

Version played: ???

Required port compatibility: ZDoom

Levels: 5

We start with the ZDoom-spiced appetizer – Demons of Problematique. Created by one of the Community Chest 2 and Newdoom Community Project contributors. So basically, we are dealing with another case of taking a look at one of the contributors (mostly) solo project.

This WAD (or rather PK3) was supposed to be one Boom-compatible map (after some motivational talk from Trevor Primmett, another NDCP contributor), but the author got carried away with it and ended up with a 10MB large monstrosity of a WAD. Was it worth making it that big? I mean it’s not technically big WAD, it’s five maps big (technically three according to the author in the textfile). But was it still worth it? There is only one way to find out.

Demons of Problematique looks good. I think I saw better-looking WADs than this one in the past but on its own, it has its moments; particularly with larger areas. And even if most of the time you will spend in hell, the human base has its moments too.

For around two-thirds of the WAD, there is no music. Instead, we hear ambient noises and droning in the background, giving a closer feel to Doom 64 rather than the Classics.

As for the two tracks that appear in this WAD (Gateways (Nitro/Trauma) and Stepfather (Dan Nyman)), these are... fine I guess? The former one fits relatively well for Cydonia, and the latter one that plays in the credits section of the WAD is just okay; it’s not really my cup of tea to listen to.

Demons of Problematique isn’t really complicated in my eyes. You won’t really end up stuck for a longer period of time. I wish I could say more about typical stuff related to map design, but I don’t think I have anything else to say here.

As for more unusual stuff, this might be the first time when you don’t choose the difficulty mode. Sure, there were maps/WADs in the past that had the same amount of enemies no matter what difficulty skill you chose, but there was never the case where it straight-up skipped this. Look how far ZDoom modding went, kids.

I really like how smoothly you go from one map to another. Usually by using the teleporter (when you get a short cutscene) but there is a moment where you go from one part of the map (that has the same name as the WAD) to another by grabbing the white Soul Sphere.

Most of the maps function like the typical stuff you’ve seen in Doom aside from the fourth map – Cydonia. It kind of functions like a final boss map, where you have to press nine switches, and then kill four Arch-viles to finally use the teleporter in the middle of the map back to the base from the beginning. If this kind of sounds like another Icon of Sin ending, then let me assure you, it is not like that.

This WAD isn’t really hard. There might be some heat moments, but overall... eh. Typical challenge from its time IMO.

There are some additional difficulty bumps though. There are at least three moments where the enemies respawn infinitely. Thankfully it’s just Cacos and Imps so none of the Icon of Sin bullshit I talked about earlier.

There are also new enemies, all appearing in MAP03 (asides from one that appears at the end of Delusion). Lost Ghoul and Stone Bruiser are tougher variants of Lost Soul and Baron of Hell respectively. Thankfully, fighting them is skippable since in the former’s case, you can go straight into the teleporter in Delusion as they start appearing (infinitely and they can’t be harmed) and in MAP03 they won’t attack you unless you grab the Super Shotgun. With the latter, you can telefrag two of these despite having 20000 health points each, and the third one will automatically die after pressing two switches required to unlock the exit portal guarded by the Cyberdemon.

Speaking of Cyberdemon, he too gets a variant, although it’s more of a joke enemy than an actual threat – SaiberDeemun. You can only encounter them after pressing the secret switch near the MAP03 exit. These are gremlin-sized siege cows that will try to bite your ankles. But they have only 40 health points, so anything can kill them with ease.

Demons of Problematique is flawed, but it’s overall a harmless WAD. I think it’s worth checking out. And I heard that the sequel released in 2009 got a Cacoward, so maybe there is more potential in it than it seems to be at first.

And as for the main course/second runner-up, oh boy. We are going to have a marathon folks. We will finally tackle another WAD with over 32 levels that is not partial/total conversion.

See you next time.

Bye!

[duckprintspress]

Advice for Writing Trans Male Characters

Hi everyone, and welcome to our second guest post! We approached a trans man, and fellow writer, to put together a list of suggestions for cis people who want to write trans male characters! He has chosen to remain anonymous. Always remember, there is no one trans experience, and no one trans person’s knowledge will reflect the range of ways that trans people live. Our post author writes from his perspective, based on his knowledge and research, and much of this is relatively specific to the modern United States. Always use multiple sources when writing a character with an identity or identities that you don’t share!

*

So, you want to write a trans male character but you're not a trans man yourself. Good! We need more trans male characters out there in the world. There are a few things to consider, however. This is not a perfect list (I would never claim to be perfect), but here are some thoughts from a trans man about writing people like me.

Trans men are men. They talk like men, think like men, and walk like men, except where socialization as women has forced otherwise. By this I mean that descriptions should not include things like “he walked delicately, like a woman”. However he walks, it's like a man, because he’s a man. Other characters should not note that he “thinks like a woman” or that he “acts like a woman.” If you talk about a trans man transitioning and you mention that he is working on ways to masculinize his speech patterns or walking, that's fine, but make sure it's done from his perspective, e.g. “Michael tried to lower his voice, attempting to sound more like his father.” Do not use “Michael tried to lower his voice, not wanting to sound like a woman.” It's his voice and he sounds like a man. Also, many woman have deeper registers and many men have higher registers, and there's honestly not that much difference between a woman who speaks in a low alto and a man who speaks in a high tenor. Avoid gendering voices, mannerisms, and other things. A good rule of thumb is that if it's a concept, idea, or an inanimate or non-sentient thing, it is physically and/or emotionally incapable of having a gender and you should not assign one to it.

1. A trans man who has decided that all he needs to do is come out to be a man is still a man, with a man's body and male genitals, because he says he's a man. Even if he is not out, he is a man. He can be uncomfortable with his body, or with how others perceive his body, but it should not be described in terms of “womanly” aspects.

EX: David's breasts made him uncomfortable, reminding him that others looked at him differently than how he would have liked.

2. 72% of trans men do not ever want full gender reassignment surgery, and this doesn’t make them “less of a man.” The surgeries are expensive, invasive, and don’t always result in a fully functional genital apparatus. Also, there are a lot of them. A trans man, to have a full semi-working penis (one that will not be useful for sex but will at least be useful for urination), is looking at at least three surgeries: to remove the labia, to 'bulk up' the clitoris, and to move the urethra. There are also surgeries to remove the cervix and/or the uterus, to create a scrotum, and to add a pump inside the scrotum attached to a surgical implant in the penis to assist with arousal. Even if a man has all these surgeries, the penis he gets loses most of its sensitivity and won’t become physically aroused (as in, achieve erection) without medical intervention. He may also need electrolysis to remove pubic hair. Ultimately, many trans men opt not to deal with it. Many still want top surgery, or a hysterectomy, or both, and often testosterone is used to help deepen their voice and change their body shape (but, again, gendering a trans man's voice by suggesting it's “feminine” because he's not on testosterone or because his voice hasn't dropped yet is not a great idea). It depends on the type and amount of dysphoria a person experiences, versus their financial and mental ability to deal with the different choices. Some trans men are happy with no hormones and only top surgery. Others want or need everything. There is no “correct” way to be trans.

3. Unless your story revolves around their transition (which, as a cis person, maybe it's best you don't do, honestly), there’s no reason to go into detail about your trans male character's surgeries. If it’s not plot relevant, it's probably not necessary.

4. If you’re writing porn, make sure to always use male pronouns for him, even if he has chosen not to go through surgery. If he has gone through surgery, what he has will be indistinguishable from a cis male penis except that he may need viagra or a surgical pump.

5. Reactions to testosterone are different for every trans man. Some men never have their voices drop, never grow a beard, and/or never bulk up and get all muscle-y. Some men are on testosterone for two weeks and have a Gandalf beard with a voice low enough to sing bass. It just depends, mostly on genetics. If your character's father is a super hairy mountain man who sings bass in his lumberjack quartet, then your character is more likely to end up similar. If your character's father is basically an elf, then he's likely to be similar to that. Also, for a number of reasons, a trans man may choose not to or may be incapable of taking testosterone. Most doctors won’t prescribe it if the man wants to carry his own children in the future, for example.

6. Keep in mind that the order in which testosterone produces effects on a man’s body isn’t predictable, so don't worry too hard about 'getting it right.' Even trans men can't predict what they'll look like after being on testosterone for a while.

7. Also, a note: If your character is transmasculine and nonbinary, and taking testosterone, it's likely they will be on a lower dose than a trans man. That's not always true, but testosterone can be given at a few different doses, depending on how drastic a change a person wants and how quickly they want that change to occur. There’s still no guarantee: a trans man may never be able to grow a beard on a full dose, while a transmasculine nonbinary person might be on a very low dose and have a beard within the first month. But, generally, lower doses are meant to bring out smaller changes over a longer period of time, while higher doses are meant to bring out larger changes over a shorter period of time.

8. A non-fluid trans man is going to consider himself a man at all times, and always use he/him pronouns for himself, whether or not everyone else does. If you're writing a trans man point-of-view piece where he's not out or where he's not fully accepted, make sure he or the narrator always uses the right pronouns when others don't. That helps remind your audience that he's not the person other people think he is.

EX: Daniel was frustrated. His grandmother insisted on calling him “Sarah” no matter how many times he corrected her.

9. Menstruation is a difficult topic for a lot of trans men. Some men lose their ability to menstruate when they take testosterone, while others continue to menstruate. If they retain their uterus, however, the possibility of a menstrual cycle is always there. If/when menstruation happens for a trans man, it's often a time of major dysphoria. A trans man may have a lot of issues surrounding menstruation. Having a cervix also means yearly Pap smears, which can also be uncomfortable or dysphoria-inducing. Dysphoria can also happen during ovulation, when a person is most fertile. The body during this time is “getting ready for a baby” and the changes can be very triggering.

10. Testosterone may stop menstruation, but it doesn't necessarily stop pregnancy. Also, some trans men will go off their testosterone in order to carry their own child. During their pregnancy, it is important that they are still referred to as men. A trans man will generally prefer to be called “father” even if he carried the child, but some may prefer the term “mother.” If a cis person wishes to write a pregnant trans character, it would be better to err on the side of caution and use “father.” A trans man who has gone through top surgery will not likely be able to nurse his own children, but a man who has chosen to use a binder instead will be able to (probably - some people don’t/can’t lactate for other reasons). Whether or not he chooses to will be up to him.

11. Gender Dysphoria is the medical diagnosis given to trans people who want to do any form of medical transitioning. Being transgender is not in and of itself a diagnosis. A person can be transgender and choose never to transition medically. Dysphoria is generally most clearly understood as a form of discomfort in the body you possess. Sometimes a person experiencing dysphoria is uncomfortable with their body no matter what. He doesn't like his breasts, for example, unless they are bound, no matter what his setting is, who is looking at him, etc. His dysphoria takes the form of nausea at the mere sight of them. Alternatively, some people only experience dysphoria relating to how others see them. For example, a man may not mind his breasts when he's alone, and he doesn't usually bind, but on a specific day while he wasn't binding someone glance at his breasts before calling him 'ma'am' and now he can't uncross his arms in case someone else looks his way. For some people dysphoria comes and goes, and they have good days and bad days. Also, images can be dysphoria-inducing. For example, seeing a pregnant person might remind a man that he has a uterus, and make him extremely uncomfortable all day. Other people may go several days, or weeks or months, without experiencing dysphoria, but when it hits it affects them for a long time or very severely. Or a person might experience dysphoria every day, as kind of a low-level mental fog they can't shake.

12. Gender Euphoria is as valid as Gender Dysphoria. Gender Euphoria is the idea that a person might be content in the body given to them, but will never be truly happy unless they make a change. These people can live their whole lives as the gender assigned to them at birth without severe mental issues or physical problems, but it's like living a life without color. They can do it, but if there's a way to get color back, why wouldn't they?

13. Changing names is complicated and takes time. It also differs in every state/country, and may need to be re-done when a trans man moves. In some states, all they need to change their name legally is a court order. In other areas, a trans man needs to have lived using their new name for a period of time, or have doctor’s notes and authorizations. Once the character has changed their name legally through the courts, they need to change their driver's license, banking information, insurance, work papers, social security information, passport, birth certificate, and any other documentation bearing their name. It can take anywhere from a month to a year or more, and is expensive, sometimes prohibitively so. It's okay to have a trans male character who goes by “Mark” but whose parents or grandparents refer to as “Melissa.” The important thing is to make sure narratively you are confirming that those people are wrong.

EX: “Melissa! It's nice to see you come to visit!” Mark's mom said. Mark cringed, hating the sound of his deadname, but he hadn't yet been able to convince his mother to use the right one.

14. Do not portray a character binding for more than eight hours or with unsafe binders in a positive light. Just don’t. Binding, even with professional/high-end binders, is not safe. It's a stopgap - safer than not binding at all for some people whose dysphoria is really bad. It constricts the lungs and can break ribs if not done properly. It can permanently alter a person's chest cage if done for an extensive period of time. It's a necessary evil for people who are waiting to get their surgery done, in order to keep them alive to have that surgery. It's not a permanent cure-all. Binding also can cause dysphoria. A person who doesn't have dysphoria surrounding his chest can develop it after wearing a binder. So, have your character bind safely, or discuss the issues surrounding unsafe binding. (And yes, this applies even in a fantasy setting or world where the technology may be different. A story is a story, but the impact it could have on a real trans man is potentially dangerous, so write with consideration, and if you do introduce a magical or technological solution to this, maintain awareness of the reality.)

15. Transitioning without an in-person support group is one of the most common factors in transitioning regret. Give your character someone to go to the doctor with them, someone to hold their hand when they get scared, someone to talk them through moments when they're unsure. No one who goes under the knife is always completely 100% sure all the time. They need a community. Surgery and hormones are scary, even if a trans man knows he wants them, and trying to go it alone can spell disaster.

16. Given that a trans man will consider himself a man, it can be challenging to make it clear to a reader that he’s trans. If he's the main/POV character, you can write him dealing with some dysphoria. For example, if you decide your character binds, mention that his breasts are bothering him particularly badly one day. Have him adjust his binder. Describe putting a binder on. That kind of thing. If he's a minor character, it can be more challenging, but you can still have him do things like adjust a binder. You could also mention surgical scars, if a character takes off their shirt. Another thing you can do is just have the main character remember a time “before Mark went by Mark” (for example). Another way is to have the character mention some way in which they are fighting for trans rights, and acknowledge that the issue is personal to them. Try not to use the deadname unless he’s facing an actual microaggression by another character. The narrative or narrator character should never deadname the character.

17. FTM is not an accepted term anymore, as it implies that a person was one thing and changed. Generally speaking, if a trans man is not genderfluid, then he was never female or a woman. Likewise, the phrase “born in the wrong body” is not acceptable for use by cis people. The only real use it has is to explain dysphoria by transgender characters to cisgender characters who aren't inclined to listen or try to understand. The accepted term is AFAB, or Assigned Female At Birth. Keep in mind that terms and labels change with time, so do your research. For example, if you’re writing a historical piece, different terms may be more appropriate, and if you’re writing a modern current-day piece, understand that in ten or twenty years the terminology you use will likely have grown outdated.

18. The proper way to write the term is always “trans man” and never “transman”. Trans is an adjective describing a type of man, just like you might say an Asian man or a muscled man or a gay man. This comes back to the idea that a trans man is always a man, first and foremost.

19. An easy pitfall to avoid if your trans male character's setting is modern or modernesque is: Don't make the story all about their oppression. We are aware of the many ways in which the modern world is trying to oppress and harm the trans community, but trans men can still be happy and interesting people. They can have dysphoria without being depressed. They aren’t necessarily the “down in the dumps” character. Also, trans men have a long history of being activists, and are often erased in history, so don't be afraid to make your trans men an out-and-loud activist. Yes, terrible things have happened and continue to happen to trans men, and any trans man who has done any research into trans history will know about individuals like Brandon Teena. Trans men know the dangers they face. Knowing that bad things can and are happening doesn't mean a trans man can't find his own joy in life, despite things not being perfect.

20. Keep in mind when writing in historical settings that trans men have existed for as long as people have existed. Many trans men were able to go through life completely “undetected” until they died and those around them conducted culturally-common burial practices. It’s not unreasonable to have a trans man in Regency England, Yuan China, or Roman times. If you're writing about non-European-centric history, many cultures acknowledged those who didn’t present the way their AGAB (assigned gender at birth) would suggest, and do your research. Also, keep intersectionality in mind, and tread especially carefully when writing a trans man from a culture and period other than your own. This post is mostly applicable to trans men in the modern era, and especially in the United States. The trans male experience will be different in other places in the world, for people of different ages and of different religions and ethnicities and races, so the more traits your trans man has that are outside your own experience as a cis writer, the more you should consider if it’s wise for you write the story you have in mind, or if it might not be better to allow in-group members to tell those stories. And never forget - trans men can and are all things - all races, all religions, abled and disabled, etc. People have nuanced identities and multiple identifiers and trans is always only one of many.

21. In fantastical or science fiction settings, please always ask yourself if oppression of trans people or bigotry against them is even needed. Maybe a society doesn't assign gender at birth, but waits until a child is old enough to tell the society where they belong. Maybe a society reveres those who are under the transgender umbrella. Maybe children are considered genderless until they reach puberty. You have a million and one options; why limit yourself to what modern predominantly Western white Christian society says? If you do make a society that doesn't look anything like the modern world, for example they assign gender at age five, think about how that would affect society as a whole. What kind of pronouns would be used for children under five? Are young children genderless, or are they seen as genderfluid? What about people who age past five and are still genderless or genderfluid? What are the naming conventions for children?

22. There are mixed feelings regarding how a science fiction or fantasy setting should treat transitioning. Should it be an easy fix, with magic or advance science doing it instantly or nearly so? Or should it be difficult, reflecting the modern situation where the process often years before a person can feel “finished?” That's up to you. Trans people themselves are split on this, so there’s no pleasing everyone. Do your best, and whichever way you choose, make sure to tag it accurately or, for original fiction, be clear up front what approaches you’ve chosen, so people can choose not to read something that may make them uncomfortable at best or trigger them and profoundly harm them at worst.

Ultimately, your trans man is your character and you can do with him as you wish. Write responsibly, and do your research, and if you can, get a sensitivity reader or a beta who is a trans man.

So, go, diversify those stories, write the things, and present good representation! Happy writing!

[agent-whiskeys-sweetheart]

Meant To Be (ii)

Pairing: Hotch x F!Reader

Summary: Over a year after your first interaction with the BAU, it is finally time for your first day as an official team member. Even with all the excitement of the day, the biggest thing you look forward to is seeing Aaron Hotchner again. However, your perfect first day quickly turns out to be not at all what you had imagined. 

Warnings: None, some angst? 

Word Count: 5,585

A/N: Just know that I promise things are going to get better lol.

NOVEMBER 2007

QUANTICO, VA

For the first time in your life the sound of your alarm is a very welcome one as it rouses you from your light slumber. The whole room is filled with light as the sun streams through the cracked blinds. You had been in this apartment for two months now. It had taken some getting used to but it was starting to feel like home. That was very important to you seeing as Quantico was where you were going to be for the foreseeable future. It took you no time at all to sit up in bed, throwing off your blanket. When you got up to start getting ready, everything was exactly where it was supposed to be. Your clothes draped over the chair at the end of the bed, your go-bag on top of the dresser, and your entry paperwork out on the kitchen table. As always, you had thought out every minute detail. You are determined to make sure that your first day at the BAU is perfect. It had taken excruciatingly hard work and dedication to get to where you are now. Nothing and no one is going to spoil it for you.

After getting dressed in record time you grab your go-bag off the dresser and head out to the living room. You set it on the table next to your paperwork and make your way into the kitchen. Scrambled eggs and toast sound like a good way to start the morning so you get out a skillet and a few eggs. Before you even have a chance to turn on the burner the sound of your phone going off in your bedroom causes you to run back in to check it. As you pull it off the charger you immediately smile widely at the name that flashes on your screen.

“Hey there Miss FBI Agent. God, that sounds good doesn’t it? FBI agent. Or maybe BAU agent. Didn’t I hear you say SSA once? What does that mean? Is it good? It sounds pretty powerful.” 

“It means Supervisory Special Agent. And anything you call me that means I’m not hallucinating this whole thing is fine with me.”

“I like that. SSA Y/N L/N. Sounds official. Which is exactly what you are as of today! How are you feeling right now?”

“Excited. Prepared. Kind of like I’m on top of the world.” 

“As you should! It’s been a long journey to get here, you deserve to enjoy every step. I still can’t believe my little sister is in the FBI.” 

Your sister has been your biggest support system for as long as you can remember. No matter what path you choose, you know she will always have your back. It had been heartbreaking to leave her when you moved but you knew it would be worthwhile in the end. Today is when it finally pays off. She has called you almost every day so even though you are states apart, she is never truly absent. Hearing her voice now, getting the chance to share this moment with her, is more important to you than you know how to express.

“I can’t believe that you’re awake before noon.” This earns a scoff.

“I will have you know that I set an alarm for 5:30 so I would be awake in time to tell you good morning before you head off to work.” 

“That’s very sweet of you. I’m really glad you called.”

“Hey, there’s no way in hell I was gonna miss your first day!” 

“I appreciate that. It means a lot to have your support.”

“Of course! I will always give it freely. Besides, this is too cool not to talk about. You get to catch bad guys. You now have special government access. Plus you can basically read minds. You’re a real life superhero. How totally awesome is that?”

“Oh, I know. Why do you think I wanted the job? I’m glad you’re able to see its merits. Most people find it very morbid. Or boring.” 

“Well most people aren’t us.” Glancing over at the clock, you can’t help a small sigh from leaving your chest. Your sister of course catches on. “Do you have to go?” 

“Yeah. I only have about 15 minutes. Thank you so much for calling though! I always look forward to hearing from you.”

“Well I don’t have any patients today and I expect you to call me later tonight so we can talk about everything, okay?”

“Okay, it’s a plan. I love you.” 

“I love you too. Have a great first day.” You hang up quickly, making your way back into the kitchen to put away what you had gotten out. Instead you pull out a few granola bars to eat on the way. Even though this isn’t quite what you had planned you don’t mind one bit. Talking to your sister is more important. You briefly wonder if she took today off just so she could be there for you or if it is just a coincidence. If it was on purpose, you wouldn’t be surprised. It had always been kind of funny to you what careers both of you had chosen. She is a therapist. You are a profiler. While the two do have distinct differences there are also a lot of striking similarities. It’s just funny how life works out sometimes. Never what you expect. 

You head into the bedroom to grab your go-bag, making sure everything you need is in there. Picking up the paperwork from the table, you head out the door and downstairs to your car. After loading your things up, you turn on the radio to the most uplifting station you can find. This is the kind of morning where nothing less than radiant positivity is welcomed. It’s the first day of your new life and you are going to make the most of it, even if it kills you. 

The drive seems to go by in an instant and soon you find yourself in the parking lot of the BAU headquarters. There is still confidence bubbling inside of you but seeing the building right there in front of you causes the nerves to kick in as well. It seems so much bigger to you now. With a deep breath, you realize you need a little boost from your good luck charm. The small compartment on top of your dashboard opens with a click and you pull out the piece of paper inside. It feels good to have in your hands and you read the name at the top over and over again. Aaron Hotchner. His business card had stayed in your car all these years and whenever you felt nervous or unsteady, you pulled it out and for some reason it always calmed you. You were grateful to have it now more than ever. 

Feeling renewed, you set the card back in its cubby and get out of the car. Things in hand, you stride right up to the front doors and let yourself inside. Once inside the main lobby you head over to the front desk, where a man asks for your ID. Reaching into the front pocket of your go bag you pull out the badge you had collected weeks in advance. A feeling of power washes over you when he clears you, much like a year and a half ago when you had stepped inside the Fort Worth precinct. However, it was a much more intense feeling now. 

The journey towards the main offices of the BAU feels like a dream. The elevator carries you to the right floor and you float towards the glass doors that lead into your new workspace. Inside, it is bright and full of life. People move past you with such fluidity that it seems almost like a dance and baby, you are ready to tango.

Soon your attention is being commanded by a friendly voice you recognize very quickly. “Well, look who it is!”

Morgan makes his way towards you, a wide grin on his face. He looks just how you remember. You are glad the first person to greet you is someone you know. Now standing in front of you, he raises his arms and his expression changes as he silently asks for your permission. With a nod, you reach out as well as he pulls you in for a hug. 

“It’s nice to see you again sweetheart. I was starting to wonder if you were ever gonna show up.” Laughing lightly at this, you feel yourself relaxing. “Look at you, all professional. How does it feel?” 

“Completely liberating. It feels like it took me a lifetime to get here and now that I am, I can’t wait to get started.” 

“Well, you’re gonna get your chance sooner than you think. We just got a case this morning. They called us in a little early to debrief us. We’ll fill you in on the jet. It’s go time baby.” He lightly pats your arm with a smile as he leads you over to where the rest of the team is, all sat at their desks. Spencer and JJ you recognize but there’s one face that you haven’t seen before. “Look who finally made it.”

JJ stands quickly to give you a hug, patting your back. “Leave her alone. She was doing a lot of hard work to get here. She doesn’t deserve to be teased in her first ten minutes on the job.” She says to Morgan, shooting him a playful glare. “Welcome. We’re really excited to have you here. You’re going to make a wonderful addition to the team. If you ever need anything just let me know, okay?” 

“I will. Promise. Thanks.” Spencer is the next to stand, extending his hand to you. Taking it in your own, you nod respectfully. You don’t linger, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. 

“Hi. Sorry, I’m not much of a hugger.” 

“Oh, no need to be sorry. I definitely get it. It’s nice to see you again. I know we didn’t really get a chance to talk the last time we saw each other but I’m hoping to change that now that we’re coworkers.” 

“Of course. I would like that.” There is still a slight awkwardness in the way he smiles but not nearly as much so as when you first met him. He’s the only one of the three that you don’t feel much of a connection with but you are determined to change that. These were your peers now. Your new family. It was important to you that you get to know all of them. It was jarring at first seeing how familiar they are with you already but it doesn’t take long for you to become comfortable as well. However you quickly remember that there is one person you still haven’t met. Turning to her, you extend your hand. 

“Hello. I’m Y/N L/N.” She shakes your hand.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Emily Prentiss. These guys seem to have the advantage here. How do you all know each other?” 

“Oh, I shadowed them about a year and a half ago now while I was still a student. Today is my first day as a member of the team.” 

“That’s wonderful! Well, I’m excited to get to know you as well.” She offers a welcoming smile, one you appreciate. As you look around the bullpen you take note of the fact that Elle is nowhere to be found. At the moment you feel it isn’t your place to bring this up, so you simply smile at the people who are with you now. 

“So, I hear we’ve got a case.” You begin, desperately wanting to learn everything you can now so you can fully prepare yourself.

“Yeah,” JJ answers. “It’s a string of high level armed robberies in Los Angeles. Nobody has been able to identify or apprehend any of the unsubs. There are five of them. All of the robberies were almost identical except for the last one. Someone was shot and killed. That’s when the authorities invited us to work the case.” 

“Sounds like fun, huh?” Derek chimes in, jabbing you with his elbow. 

“I don’t know if fun is the right word. Interesting sounds better, I think. I’m ready to get started though.” 

“Yeah, I see that,” He gestures to your go-bag. “Good thing you’re all packed. That was a smart choice. They don’t always tell you to bring a bag on the first day. You’re all over it though.” 

“Well, you only get one shot at a first impression. I wanted to be seen as professional. Plus I am very rarely unprepared for things.” 

“Good. That’s a pretty good philosophy to hang onto, especially in this profession. The more prepared you are going into it, the better equipped you are to handle the stressors of the job. There’s a lot of tough things you’re gonna have to deal with but if you charge head first with a clear sense of where you’re going and what you’re doing, it’ll take a lot of the anxiety out of it.” You listen intently as he speaks with a tone of sincerity you have not yet heard from him. When he sees you staring at him, he chuckles. “First tip is free but next time I’m gonna charge you. Good advice like that doesn’t come cheap.” 

“Okay, good to know.” You laugh, looking towards the others with a smile. “How about you guys? Any free tips for the newbie?” 

“Yeah,” Emily chimes in. “Don’t listen to anything Morgan says.” This causes him to roll his eyes jokingly. “Although here’s a real piece of advice. No matter what happens, no matter how hard the job gets, don’t forget who you are. Don’t let this work compromise your beliefs and your morals. There are going to be times when you rethink what you know but don’t let the awful things you see harden you and turn you into someone you’re not. I can already see that you have a real light and kindness about you. Never let the bad people take that away from you or else they win.” Hearing this, your expression softens. For only having known you for a few minutes, Emily already seems to have bonded with you. Enough to give you such important advice. Her words linger in your head for a moment.

“I’ll definitely remember that.” JJ places a hand on your arm. 

“Can I add something?” You nod eagerly, wanting to soak up all of the knowledge that you possibly can from these people. “My advice would be to talk to your loved ones as often as you can. Trust me, you’ll definitely want to after some of the stuff that we see. Talking to someone outside of work and grounding yourself in those relationships will help keep you sane. You’re going to be really grateful for a strong support system later on.” 

“Luckily I do have a really strong support system in my sister. She basically raised me. She’s my best friend. It was hard to leave her but I know she still supports my decision.” 

“That’s so great. I’m really glad you have someone like that.” You nod, feeling a small tinge of sadness when you think about how much you wish she was here with you. However, it passes quickly when Morgan puts his hand on your shoulder as a sign of comfort. The gesture is simple but calming, almost as if he’s telling you that he is a part of your support system now too. You know the people surrounding you will have your back. That thought lifts your spirits immeasurably. 

“What about you? I’m sure I could get some good advice from a genius.” You say to Spencer after clearing your throat. 

He chuckles lightly and thinks for a moment. “I guess I would say don’t let your age stop you from reaching your potential. You and I are the same age so I think I know to some extent how nerve wracking all this must be. Just know that even though you are young you have a lot of skills and abilities to bring to the table. Chase after what you want and soak up everything you can now. I’m obviously a strong believer in the collection of knowledge so the more you learn the better off you’ll be later. And you have as much right to be here as anyone else. You’ve done the work so believe in your own skills.” The three of you watch him for a moment and he looks between you. “But, hey, what do I know.” His joke makes you laugh.

“No, that’s really good advice. Thank you.” Before you have a chance to say anything else, a voice from behind causes all of you to stop.

“What’s all the commotion out here?” Turning around quickly you see an older man with dark hair standing on the walkway that wraps around the bullpen. His eyebrows are raised as he begins making his way towards you. Upon seeing him you put on your best professional face but the others seem to stay relaxed as he walks over to you. Once he’s standing next to you he offers you his hand. “Hello.” You take it quickly, shaking hands with him as you maintain eye contact. Unsure of who this man is, you are afraid to make a bad impression. As you look into his eyes there is something so strikingly familiar about him but you aren’t quite sure what it is. “Who might you be?” 

“Sorry, sir. I am Y/N L/N. Today is my first day as a member of the BAU. It’s a pleasure to meet you.” His dark expression immediately lightens as he gives you a small smile. 

“Ah. It’s nice to meet you as well. Sorry to scare you. I just have to keep these trouble makers in line from time to time.” Seeing him smile causes you to grin as well, beginning to relax again.

“Of course. It’s not a problem at all sir.” 

“Well I’m David Rossi. Welcome to the BAU, I guess would be an appropriate introduction. I promise I’m not always so scary.” 

“Just most of the time.” Derek adds, causing David to give him a look.

“Please ignore him. I like to think I’m a nice man. I don’t want to scare you off on your first day.” At this you can’t help but laugh. 

“Oh trust me sir, you won’t. I’ve worked really hard to get here. There’s no getting rid of me now.” This causes him to laugh. 

“That’s a good attitude to have. It’ll get you pretty far in this career. Keep working, keep putting the bad people away. It may take a while but it’s a gratifying feeling. In the meantime, just keep your chin up and you’ll be just fine. You seem like a bright kid.” 

“Thank you, sir. I appreciate that.” 

“Please, you can call me Rossi. Everyone else does.” 

“Okay. Rossi. Thanks.” With a warm smile he pats your arm. 

“If you want a prime example of working hard to get ahead, look at Hotch. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that man not at work. That’s why he’s the boss.” Derek says. His words make your breath hitch. Just the mention of his name makes you nervous. It’s been such a long time since you’ve seen him and you only spent time together for one day but even so he has been such a huge inspiration to you. And seemingly for good reason. You already know that Hotchner is going to be the man to impress around here but you don’t mind that much.

“Speaking of, have you spoken with Hotch yet today?” Rossi asks. 

“No. I actually have some paperwork that I need to give to him before we leave, clearing me to travel and all of that. Could I possibly see him now?” You try not to sound too desperately hopeful.

“Yeah, of course. His office is right up there.” Rossi points to a door across the room. With a deep breath you nod in gratitude and then begin making the walk over to his office. It seems like an endless journey as you remind yourself over and over again that he’s just a person and you don’t need to be so afraid. Or nervous. Excited? Infatuated? Whatever the feeling is, it’s overwhelming. Once you’re outside his door, you close your eyes and breath before knocking. His voice is clear coming from the other side as he tells you to come in. 

Opening the door cautiously, you step inside with paperwork in hand. Hotch is sitting at his desk filling something out, not looking up.

“Good morning sir.” Upon hearing your voice he looks quickly up at you. His eyes are just as dark and intense as you dreamed, fixated completely on you. The two of you maintain eye contact for a moment and the world is nothing but him. Suddenly realizing what you’re doing you force yourself to snap out of it, reminding yourself that this man is your boss and you’re acting like a lunatic. 

“Good morning.” He says simply, not moving as he watches you intently. Willing yourself to gather up all of your confidence, you walk over to stand right in front of his desk. 

“It’s really lovely to see you again. Being here is like a dream. At the BAU, I mean. I’ve been looking forward to it for so long, I almost can’t believe that I’m here. Now that I am though, I’m ready to work. I plan to earn your trust now just like I did the last time we worked together. I won’t let you down.” With a sudden flush of embarrassment, you grip the papers tightly. You have only been in his office for a few seconds and already you have completely exploded in excitement. Taking another breath, you calm yourself. “Sorry sir. I’m just very excited to be here. If you couldn’t tell.” 

There is another moment of silence as Hotch’s eyes stay locked on yours, scrutinizing your expression with calm intensity. For a second you can almost see him thinking, as though he’s working something out in his head though you aren’t quite sure what that is. After a moment he stands up, putting you both on equal footing. Everything about him commands your focus and attention. A quiet prayer hangs on your lips as you wait for him to say your name again after all this time. Just once is all you need and then you’d be happy. No more daydreams, no more delusions, no more distractions. Just once and you can do your job. If only he’d quit staring at you so deeply and tell you exactly what you want to hear.

“I do appreciate your heartfelt words ma’am but I’m afraid I’m at a loss. I’m not sure I know who you are.” With that your heart drops. Of all the things he could have possibly said, this was the most disappointing. It’s such a small sentence but it is a mighty blow.

“I’m sorry?” You inquire, hoping that maybe you misunderstood.

“I’m really very sorry ma’am but I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not sure we’ve ever met.” Nope, you had understood what he was saying perfectly much to your dismay.

“My name is Y/N L/N sir. We did meet a little over a year ago now. You came to my hometown to work on a case and I spent the day shadowing you. I was a student at the time. Today is my first day here as a team member.” Hotch says nothing in response for a time, his expression exposing what seems to be a deep sense of regret. 

“I apologize. We go through a lot of cases, it’s difficult for me to keep track of all the people that come and go in my life.” That is all you need to hear to shut down any further fantasizing. You had come and gone from his life a long time ago. Frankly you feel foolish for indulging these thoughts anyway. It was one day a year ago. There is nothing to look into. He is your boss now, not some high school crush. This is a professional environment. This would be for the better anyway. At least those are the sorts of things you tell yourself. “I really don’t mean any offense. It’s nice to meet you. Needless to say we’ll get to know each other now since we’ll be working together. Welcome to the team.” He tries to soften his expression but there is still a severity to it that doesn’t ease the knot in your stomach. 

“It’s really my fault, sir. I shouldn’t have expected you to remember me. It was a long time ago and you’re a very busy man. No offense taken. I’m excited to work with you.” Trying to change the subject, you extend your paperwork towards him. “Here’s all of my entry paperwork. It gives me authorization to travel, my medical and professional history is there as well. All I need is your signature and I will be clear to begin working.” Looking through it quickly he nods before signing each of the necessary lines. He hands it back to you and you nod awkwardly before deciding to merely head towards the door. “Thank you sir. I’ll take this to the front desk really quickly and I’ll be good to work this latest case. I’ve already brought a go-bag.” 

“Oh, you won’t be needing a go-bag.” This stops you in your tracks.

“I won’t?” You ask, turning to face him. 

“No, you won’t. You’re not travelling with us for the case.” Every dream you’d had about your first day at the BAU is crumbling around you with every word that comes out of his mouth. 

“Can I ask why, sir?” Leaning down to open a cabinet, he pulls out his own go-bag and unzips it to check its contents. This simple act of dismissal is enough to make you feel an inch tall. 

“It’s only your first day, I don’t hardly know anything about you. I don’t feel comfortable taking an agent into the field that is practically a stranger to me and to the rest of my team. It will only compromise your safety and the safety of others. When I get back, we’ll have a discussion and see where you’re at when the next case rolls around.”

“But sir,” For a second your own words ring in your head. You’re the boss. No explanation necessary. You are not the kind of person that questions authority. You never have been and you thought you never would be but hearing your new boss say this to you makes your blood boil for some reason. It’s like Spencer said. You have as much right to be here as anyone else and you have not gone through seven years of grueling work to be put on the sidelines from day one. “I have studied and trained for a long time. I put in the work, the same as the rest of you and that’s why I’m here. I didn’t just show up on accident, it’s because I’m good at what I do. I have all the paperwork and I am prepared to put in the effort on this case.” His movements have stopped now and his eyes stay locked on yours, unable to look away as you speak. Once you’re finished he breaks away and sighs deeply. 

“I am not disputing any of that but I am responsible for the safety of my team and now that includes you. It would make me feel much better if I could talk with you before sending you to the front lines. I’m on your side here even if it doesn’t seem like it. But at the end of the day I am your boss and I have final say. The answer is no. I want to like you, Y/N. Don’t give me reason to distrust you on your first day.” 

“Yes sir,” Is all you are able to mutter as you feel yourself deflate. “I didn’t mean any disrespect.” The shift in your demeanor must have been palpable because his expression suddenly softens and a hint of a smile ghosts over his lips as he walks over to you. 

“I know you didn’t. I’m sorry to disappoint you but you’ll have your chance soon enough.” With that, he grabs his bag and walks out of the office. In no more than ten minutes all of your big hopes and dreams for your perfect first day at the BAU were crushed. Everything has been happening so fast that it still seems like it might not be real. It’s all you can do to walk back out into the bullpen. Derek is the first one to notice your mood shift. 

“What happened?” With a forced smile you shake your head.

“I’m not going to be joining you guys. The boss doesn’t feel comfortable letting me into the field just yet. I guess it makes sense.” Hearing this, Derek, JJ, and Spencer all three share a confused look.

“It actually doesn’t make that much sense. If you’ve got the paperwork, you are clear to go in the field. Everything should be in order. I’m not sure why he would wanna keep you behind. You’ll learn more in the field than you will sitting here.” Emily and JJ nod in agreement and you shrug off his questioning.

“It is what it is. I’ll just have to make the most out of it.” You quiet down but he can see that there is still something upsetting you.

“Okay, come on. What else happened?” The expression on his face is one of determination as he stares you down, waiting for an answer. 

“It’s nothing really. It’s just that he didn’t remember me and I was a little disappointed. That’s all. It’s not really a big deal.” 

“No, that is definitely a big deal. Hotch is not a forgetful man. Especially when it comes to people. If he worked one on one with you a year ago and he knew you were going to be a future member of his team, he would have paid especially close attention to you. That just definitely doesn’t seem right to me.” As much as you agreed with him you decided now wasn’t the time to push the issue. 

“Well, I’m sure he just had a lot on his mind. It doesn’t matter. Anyway, good luck guys. I’ll see you when you get back.” The look on Derek’s face indicates that he wants to continue the conversation but he doesn’t. The three of them grab their go-bags and head to the door. Following them you smile when Derek gives you a side hug.

“We’ll all go get a drink when we get back. I promise.” You nod. 

“I’ll hold you to that.” Before he can walk out the doors with the others you stop him. “Hey. Thanks. I know we still don’t know each other that well but I appreciate you making me feel welcome.” 

“No problem, kid. You’re one of us now. We have to protect our own.” With one last smile he disappears through the main doors. Stepping out after him you stop when you see Hotch standing right outside the doors. With a small breath you walk over to him. 

“You’ll be working with our technical analyst, Penelope Garcia. Go down to the bottom floor. Her office will be the third door on the right when you get off the elevator. She’ll introduce herself. She’s very friendly. We’ll speak when I get back.” With that, he too disappears. 

In little more than thirty minutes, your perfect day is ruined before it has even really begun. Thoughts spin inside your head faster than you can comprehend. It feels like your fault for letting your expectations get so high. There is no way of erasing it. No matter how many good days you have from here on out, your first day at the BAU will always be a sad memory. It hadn’t been all bad of course. It had been nice to talk with the other team members for the short time that you had. However, that feeling was quickly ruined by your interaction with Hotchner. He was one of the main reasons you were so excited to begin working. You were sure that he would have some inspirational words of advice for you but all he had done was make you feel belittled. There was no way of taking that back. Now you were side lined for your very first case and it was completely out of your control. You really wish you had your good luck charm right about now. Something tells you you’re going to need it now more than ever. The Hotch that exists within that business card is the one you want to linger in your memories. The respectful and professional agent who had made you feel so respected and appreciated. That is the Hotch you need right now but that isn’t the man you’d spoken with today. That is what broke your heart more than anything. With one last longing look at the main doors you gather yourself up and head down to meet Penelope Garcia. 

Tags:  @talesfromtheguild @lannister-slings-and-arrows @gamingaquarius @gryffindorwriter @nopeforyou @sheerfreesia007 @roxypeanut​ @ssahotchie​ @ohpedromypedro @ithinkhesgaybutwesavedmufasa @readsalot73 @the-mechanical-angel @races-erster @maxlordd @pascalisthepunkest @paintballkid711 @hotchafterhours @h0tchner @ssahotchswife @ssahotchhner @technotic-prophecy @klinenovakwinchester @hotch-stufff​

[beauty-and-passion]

What Eurovision 2021 taught us

1. That a nice, enjoyable show was possible (even if 4 presenters are still too much)

Of course nothing can beat Love Love Peace Peace (even if Ja Ja Ding Dong does its best), but this year's intermissions were very enjoyable.

We expected something flashy and over the top because hey, The Netherlands. Sex, drugs, gays and all that jazz.

But instead Covid surprised us. And then The Netherlands surprised us even more, by making a very enjoyable show, despite the restrictions. My personal favourites were:

The water intermission of the first semi-final. I loved the mixed feelings, how water is both scary and respected, for being such a powerful, unstoppable force.

The rooftop concerts during the final. Social distancing? Sure, no problem, let's make the past winners sing on top of some roofs all over Rotterdam. That was pure genius, I loved it so much.

On the other hand, the presenters were basically all useless. We could've had just two of them instead of four. But hey, at least they weren't as cringy as the three scary ukranians from 2017 or the useless four ladies from Portugal. The true highlights of the show were the intermissions, the guests and especially the songs themselves and this is perfectly good for me.

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2. That we can live in a world without boring ass ballads

I’ve never been so proud of the Eurovision public, especially during the second semifinal: that evening was PACKED with ballads. Boring ballad after boring ballad, with just a couple more funny songs in between.

The ballads were all left behind. Even the two Amen. And I love the irony we chose El Diablo and the finnish band for the final, but no Amen. No saints allowed, only the norwegian angel. As it always should be.

And so we had the best final I've seen since I started following Eurovision in 2014. Catchy songs, dance songs, upbeat songs. And power ballads. Yes, ballads can still have a place, but only if they're good.

Because yes, Switzerland and France were good. Very good. Just not as good as the ones the public wanted.

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3. That we want Eurovision, not Englishvision

Every year, the same message blasts from all Europeans: send a song in your native language. This show is supposed to make other people from Europe (and the rest of the world) to know more about your own country, to enjoy its rhythm and to listen to something we don't usually hear. So why waste this huge opportunity, to bring a generic song in English?

Because the English song wins. Because we all understand English, so English has more chances.

Flash news: GUESS WHO WON THIS YEAR. No, it’s not the generic English song.

The public has been crystal clear, the final poll is even clearer: the top five includes an italian song, an ukraine song, two french songs and only one english song. We want different styles and rhythms, we want to listen to Europe.

So I want to give my full thank you to:

Albania: amazing song, great voice, wonderful language. Do it again.

Serbia: these ladies are fantastic, their song is great and they sang it in their language so I love them

Switzerland: thank you for leaving English to the side to give us some good french

Spain: the song wasn't as good as Universo, but it was in sexy spanish, so thank you for using it almost every year

Danemark: the song was terrible, but it was in your language and this alone deserves everything

France: I know we all make fun of you for being France, but your language is perfect for songs, so thank you for always using it

Ukraine: take note, Ukraine, because Europe is madly in love with your language and your rhythm

Italy: our language is beautiful, so thank you for delivering every year

While my biggest biases go to:

Greece: a generic pop song with no balkan rhythm and no greek either? An absolute shame, greek should always be used for songs.

Russia: russian language is very melodious and yes, we got something this year, but what about bringing a full russian song? We want it!

Germany: I may sound crazy, but I honestly think german language is good for songs. It's not like the mediterranean languages, but it still works. So please, do not be scared and show what you can do with it!

Scandinavian countries: why do you never want to bring your own language? Do it, don't be scared! Yes, Sweden, I'm talking with you: you still never tried to bring something in swedish, so do it.

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4. That we don't want Americans to play with us

For reasons we still have to understand, Flo Rida was competing this year. And he was competing for San Marino, the smallest European country.

I'm pretty sure they took some time to explain to him what was going on, where he was, where San Marino is, wtf was happening, why there were sexy italians and ukranian witches and a norwegian angel and loads of beautiful women everywhere.

And I loved how we all send memes about this, about ahahah why is Flo Rida here, what if San Marino wins where would they host Eurovision, all while enjoying an actual catchy song.

And then, in the end, Flo Rida basically disappeared. Who remembers Flo Rida, when we got Ukraine, Italy, Finland, Iceland, and the UK? And Germany being wholesome? And the love story between Norway and Azerbaijan? We collectively forgot about him and I think it's very sexy from Europe to just say "nope" and push America away, even if for just one week.

And this isn't the first time: we basically showed Madonna in a corner in 2019, thanks to Mans, Eleni, Verka and Conchita. Once again, Europeans knows what they want: we don't want Americans. Australia can because they're like that little brother we took under our wing for no reason and now it's part of us. But not Americans.

The rest of the year is all yours, but one week is ours.

________________________

5. That we can lose like bosses

This year, the voting results have been absolutely insane and FOUR COUNTRIES got zero points from the public, while the UK got both zero points from the public AND the jury.

Don't get me wrong, the song was bad. And yes, Brexit played a role in this. And yes, hating England is Europe’s favourite sport.

But can we please all take a moment and appreciate how James Newman reacted? The public gave him a round of applause and he celebrated this achievement like a boss.

And he had all the reasons! He achieved something incredible, he unlocked something that this new voting system was supposed to never lead to. But he did it. So hats off to you, my boy: My Last Breath was better.

Germany is also used to the bottom of the chart, but this year I really thought Jendrik could have a chance to achieve a higher position. The song was funny, carefree, lively, the hand costume was the kind of trash we need and the message was nice as well. But he still got 3 points.

Despite that, Jendrik celebrated like a maniac and seeing his this happy made me happy as well. I really wish him the best.

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6. That FUCK YOU JURY

Again, same message every year: the jury vote should be eliminated. It's a fucking farce and their votes have nothing to do with what the public want.

The jury focuses on the voices, except when they don't, and clearly giving points to your neighbours is because you like the song, not because they're your neighbours.

I usually make fun of Greece and Cyprus showing eternal love to each other, by giving 12 points to each other every year, but this time, it sounded even more stupid than usual. It really looked like a farce. Why should we see this farce? Why can't we just choose what the public wants? So at least we would blame ourselves for our shitty musical tastes.

Even if I'm pretty sure we all have great musical tastes. Let's not forget that in 2019 the public's winner was Norway, with a song that mixed english, a catchy rhythm and an amazing part in yoik language. Arcade is good as well, but we cannot deny the norwegian entry was a lot more interesting.

And this year, the public's taste was flawless:

Look at this beauty: italian glam rock, ukranian techno folk, french powerful ballad, finnish hard rock and whatever that thing was with Iceland.

There's variety, there's everything for everyone. And there are native languages. Italian, Ukranian, and French on top three, followed by English.

Moral of the story: the public is great and the jury should be abolished forever.

________________________

7. That Ukranian technofolk is all we needed in our lives

I didn’t see enough love for Go_A, so as italian, I think it's my sworn duty to give my appreciation to them and their amazing entry, because this band is awesome and Shum is currently on top of the Spotify top 50 - as it should be, because everyone should listen to it and join this slavic rave party.

I already liked their entry for 2020, Solovey. But I also liked My Last Breath from the UK and Universo from Spain. And this year they brought two of the worst songs. So I was very wary of Go_A.

But Shum is an absolute blast. Katerina Pavlenko's voice is unique and the song is even more, because based on ukranian folklore and traditional dances to summon the spirit of spring. They managed to teach something to all Europe in a three minute song and I think that’s incredibly sexy of them.

And so, I searched for other songs and OMG, I don’t know how it’s possible, but they are all great. Rano-Ranenko, Zhalmenina, Tanula, they all are perfect and I’m in love with this band.

And if all of this is not enough, THEY DID A COVER OF DANCING LASHA TUMBAI. The most iconic Eurovision song, sang by our god Verka. And this is the coolest, most badass cover ever in the whole universe. Please listen to it HERE everyone needs to hear this.

So thank you, Ukraine, for giving us Go_A. We all had a small empty place in our hearts and this place has ben perfectly filled by them.

And yif you think you don’t need ukranian technofolk, is only because you still haven’t listened to it. Please listen and enjoy Shum. You’re welcome.

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8. That rock and roll never dies (and Italy’s well deserved victory)

The last time Italy won was in 19-fucking-90. 31 years ago. I was just born.

And now, they finally won again. And what a song! Despite being italian, I've never listened to Maneskin before, but oh damn, this song is good. Not all their songs are, but this one is. And also Morirò da re.

Their show was perfect as well. This post is really eye-opening about how well they put on their show. The use of the stage, the movements, everything has been part of a great performance, even their clothes. Damiano's voice never faltered, despite having an entire continent watching him. They handled the stage like bosses, despite being only in their twenties. And they gave us some good fucking rock.

And so the public said a loud "FUCK YOU" to the jury and chose its winners. The sassy, sexy italians.

And yes, I know that there has been a lot of petty polemics because those youngsters are having drugs!1!! as if they were a bunch of idiots who used drugs on international TV, with their manager sitting next to them.

Of course it was a pointless accusation and honestly I don't care if some people are sore losers. The drug results were negative anyway, what a shocker.

What we should truly think about is how strong the Maneskin's bladders are, because they spent the whole evening of the final drinking the entire alcohol supply of the Eurovision and, at the end, they were still happy and cool. Hats off to you, you sexy people.

This man is just iconic, why did I miss him before.

Also, have some more Maneskin. You know, as a treat.

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9. That solidarity and wholesomeness are the biggest winners

It's just beautiful to see these nice people, from all over Europe, bonding, having fun, taking photos together and being friends.

The true winner of this, is probably Norway: Tix wanted to have a good time and he had a good time. The video of him vibing with Ukraine and Germany while listening Hard Rock Hallelujah is the best (HERE). His love story with Efendi from Azerbaijan is even better (please, check the video on his youtube channel, it's hilarious). I don't like his song, but he's a great guy and deserves everything.

The italian and finnish rock relationship is also great. Maneskin and Dark Sides found each other, considering they were the only two rock bands in the competition, so mutual appreciation was inevitable.

But Damiano is also a man of culture and he appreciates Ukraine's entry. And Ukraine appreciates both Finland and Italy. Is this what world peace looks like? Because I love it.

________________________

10. That Italians will be Europe's clowns again (and you're all allowed to make fun of us)

Beware, Europe: we Italians are messy and chaotic, our presenters don’t know a single word in English, we are homoerotic AND homophobic at the same time, our musical competitions are so fucking sloooow... let’s say next year’s Eurovision is going to be interesting.

And yes, you’re allowed to make fun of us. We don’t care, we won, so we deserve to be Europe’s clowns once again.

And I don’t know who the presenters will be (my bets are on everyone’s favourites: Fiorello, Amadeus and Malgioglio), I don’t know how we will ridicule ourselves once again, I don’t know where will we find the money to put on the show, I don’t know how ungodly long it will be... but I know that Mans Zelmerlow will be part of it. This man loves Eurovision just like all of us, so I can already see him packing his suitcase and planning his flight to Italy. Come to us, Mans, we will wait for you. We actually need an English presenter, so if you have nothing else to do...

[issaxcharlie]

Falling like the stars✨

Pairing: Alive! Luke Patterson x Fem Reader

Summary: Luke and Y/N never got to be a thing. Whatever they had ended abruptly when she settled on someone with far more status than the aspiring guitarist. Months later, now single, Luke entangles her in a scheme to make Sunset Curve more popular. The only thing she needs to do is fake date him for 2 weeks.

Songs used: Holy Ground by Taylor Swift, Loved You First by One Direction and Falling Like The Stars by James Arthur.

High school is a world by itself. It has its own system and everyone moves through it. It is something that although it is not discussed, everyone knows. Including the three members of Sunset Curve, who are lying in the yard trying to find a solution to their latest problem.

"We need more people to support our music. If we can't get this little school to support us, how are we going to fill clubs or sign with a label?” Reggie wonders aloud to himself, no matter how hard they try, they can't get the Los Feliz student body to listen to their band.

“We should have thought about it before, Reg. Now we're just the problem kids who most likely won't finish school. Why would they come to see us at those seedy little clubs when they can go show off at football games.” Luke stands up suddenly after Alex words, one of those huge smiles that comes out when he has a really bad idea on his face.

“Well it seems that the solution is easy, boys. We have to make them see us on the same level as those jocks.”

“Oh yeah, and how are we going to do that, genius?” Alex fiddles with his hands as he rests his head on Reggie, both tired of not being able to come even close to fulfilling their dream.

Luke points to the nearest post, on which there are at least 5 posters to support the homecoming king and queen.

“Really? Do you think someone would vote for you? Before all those star athletes who also have a cheerleader to back them up? You basically have just us and I don't think I can do one of those tricks.”

“We’ll think of something. Winning that stupid thing would put us directly in the top of the pyramid. We’ll find a way, we always do.” Before anyone can respond, some screaming and commotion can be heard.

“Savannah is accusing Y/N to mess with her man! Run, they are in the hall!" students mention as they start running to watch the discussion.

“Oh god, Y/N. I’ll better go and see if I can help her somehow.” Alex gets up and Reggie begins to follow him, but not before turning to make sure Luke is following too. The guitarist makes an irritated face but ends up walking behind his friends.

From the moment they enter the main hall they can hear the screeches of probably the most popular girl in school, Savannah Miller. One of those typical unbearable girls who for some reason always reach the top of the elite in schools despite treating everyone badly.

Y/N Y/L is on the other side of the discussion, she looks calm and even bored. The first thing Luke digests from Savannah's words is that she thinks Y/N was making out with her idiot of a boyfriend during third period. What's interesting about the situation is that Diego cheated on Y/N with Savannah maybe a week and a half ago and had been dating her ever since.

But that's not Y/N's style, no matter how angry she is.

Luke knows her well enough, or so he wants to believe. She was always good friends with Alex and Reggie, and her relationship with them remained strong over the years despite how unstable and fleeting her relationship with the guitarist was.

He's never going to admit how deeply he felt for her. How much it screwed him up that just when he finally began to believe they could be something else, she completely walked away from his life so she could date the man that would end up cheating on her just because he looked more promising at the time. Rich, popular, the quarterback of the football team, the ‘perfect guy’ she said to the boys.

But hey, that's past.

Luke looks up to meet Y/N's eyes on him. In the moment she realizes she was caught, she sneakily turns to Alex, who is just inches from the guitarist and smiles at him.

“Are you actually smiling? You think this is funny?” The girl looks furious, but she's smart enough not to make this a battle of strength.

“I already told you, Savannah. It wasn’t me.”

“I can count, Y/N. Neither you nor Diego were in class."

And that’s when it hits him. The possibility of getting to the top of the pyramid in front of him. Because maybe Y/N is not the most popular, but it is undoubtedly one of the most loved by everyone. Intelligent, caring, beautiful, talented. And she certainly has the status after dating Diego Hernandez for one semester. No one had managed more than 3 months with him and the guitarist thinks that was a good sign that that idiot is not a good idea but well, it wasn’t his choice.

Luke begins to walk towards the center of the circle, Alex tries to stop him but cannot catch his arm in time. Both girls turn to see him surprised, but neither says anything.

"You can go find culprits elsewhere, Y/N was busy with me at the time. You can ask whoever you want and they'll tell you that I wasn't in class during third period either."

Of course, he wasn't there because the trio got into Reggie's old truck to get some hotdogs but no one has to know that.

His hand goes to take her firmly by the hip, just like all those nights that now only remain as memories. He is looking at every inch of her face, searching for her reaction, and is surprised by the naturalness with which the girl accepts the gesture. As if his hand belongs there. And maybe, just maybe, it does.

“Do you really want me to believe this?” Savannah asks, clearly annoyed.

“Y/N and Patterson? There’s just no way in hell. C’mon babe, he’s just pathetic, you could do better.” Diego says out loud as he approaches the scene in the middle of Y/N and Savannah.

There's something about the disgruntled way they both said it that makes Luke want to prove that a girl like her could want him. He doesn’t know how to distinguish if it is pride or insecurity but at the moment he is not interested.

He's barely going to open his mouth to defend himself when Y/N starts talking. "No. You can speak as badly as you want of me but you're not going to bring Luke into this."

Luke lets go of her so he can step back a few inches and see her from a better angle. She’s definitely not calm anymore. Her face looks altered and she is undoubtedly in protective mode. She turns to see him when she feels his hand leave her body but he offers her his hand and she intertwines it between her fingers without hesitation. At this rate she is taking control of the situation so he is going to let her continue and try to achieve his goal along the way.

“I know you need a partner to have any hope of winning the crown, but choosing Patterson is a desperate move.”

And that’s his cue. "If my baby wants that crown I will get it for her. It's that easy.”

“What? I do-” At that moment Luke panics and pulls her by the hand that they have intertwined and with the other holds her face while bringing their lips together. When he reacts to what he is doing he is afraid that Y/N will push him in front of everyone but to his surprise she kisses him back instantly, releasing his hand to bring him closer to the neck.

The kiss is passionate and almost desperate, but it only lasts a few seconds since a voice brings them back.

"This feels like deja vu." Reggie whispers to Alex, they both walked during the discussion towards the circle and are so close that Luke and Y/N heard him clearly.

“Well, we already clarified that she was not with your boyfriend so, I’ll take my girl. It was a pleasure, we should repeat this another day... said no one ever." Luke takes her hand and leads her to the nearest empty living room, Reggie and Alex locking the door behind him.

“What the hell was that crown bullshit? Why did you even cover for me? What are you up to? At least tell me is fun... or that includes you shirtless.” She jokes, a cheeky smile spreads in Luke’s face.

“I need a favor and thought you’ll appreciate an alibi.” She raises her eyebrow in reflex.

“Why would I help you, Lucas?” Luke can only think of how she makes a name as simple and boring as Lucas sound so sexy when she says it. Is incredible.

“Cut the act, beautiful. We both know you've never been able to resist me.” Y/N laughs amused at the boy’s sassiness. She won't admit it but she missed his eyes on her. She missed the way he uses that cocky stupid voice that melts her when he wants something. How he gets closer with each sentence, or his lips on her mouth.

Before she can counter attack, Alex stands in front of the guitarist raising his hands. “I know he’s an idiot, but we really need your help, Y/N. If we want Sunset Curve to gain popularity we have to start here, and this is our last year. Gaining popularity among the elite of the school would help us a lot.”

“We are getting desparate.” Reggie adds, a sad smile on his face.

“And pretending I made out with Luke in third period and getting to be homecoming dance queen and king helps you... why?”

“That crown is literally a test of popularity and status. It would put Luke on the same level as the popular kids like Savannah and Diego. People would be more interested in Sunset Curve after that. For now, for them we are only three good for nothing that one day will not appear around here again. You heard yourself that those two didn't think Luke was good enough."

Her face flushes with anger as soon as she remembers the contemptuous tone of voice they used to refer to Luke. If they hadn't been in the middle of the hall, she probably would have said a lot more than she did. That single comment is enough to make her decide, so without thinking Y/N asks “What do you need me to do?”

“Just play perfect couple with Luke until homecoming dance. Then you are queen and king, Sunset Curve gets the fans we deserve, you get to laugh at Savannah’s face and you can separate next day if you want to.”

“I’m not sure If someone is going to believe it.” She blurts out loud as she glances at the guitarist.

“Oh please, you know each others mouth better than your own names.” Reggie says without thinking, Luke snorted with laughter and Y/N blushes like crazy.

“Yeah, and you used to spend a lot of time together too, two weeks shouldn’t be that hard.��� Alex tries to recover the seriousness of the situation to close the deal.

“Okay then. If I can help Sunset Curve and get that smirk of superiority off Savannah's face then sounds good to me. Are you willing to date me, Patterson?”

Their eyes meet again and without a sign of hesitation her now officially boyfriend for the next two weeks, answers.

“Beautiful, you have no idea.”

There is something about relationships that never get to happen that make the heart weigh more, that nostalgia to be stronger, the person more difficult to forget. Luke can't help but remember during the last periods of the day just how good it felt to taste the girl's lips again. Feelings of desire, of familiarity, of belonging. All colliding and going deep into his bones.

He decided a long time ago he didn't do relationships, but if he did, it would have been with her. He was willing to break that rule for her, but she had the final decision and it wasn't him. He accidentally put himself in the perfect situation though. All those what if’s will finally have an answer.

For two weeks he can test what it would have been if Y/N Y/L had chosen him. And when he finally tries the experience he will be free. Free from all the what if’s, free from her, from her memory. And there's also the part of how much the band will benefit. The main objective of doing this, obviously.

The last hour is finally over and Luke sped off toward Reggie's truck. In front of it is Alex already waiting and he can see Reggie and Y/N also walking in the same direction. The four of them regroup and Y/N starts to discuss game plan.

“If we are going to do this, we are going to do it well. There will be a party at Finch's house this Saturday and the three of you are coming with me."

The three members of Sunset Curve make an annoyed face at the words of their friend. "That's exactly why no one supports you. You think you are too cool to hang out with the people but then you want everyone to happily buy your shirts and listen to your music."

“She has a point there.” Alex agrees, and puts his arm around her shoulder.

“Okay, let’s do this. If you all come with me, we can leave early and crash one of those places you usually play. Maybe even have some people of the party to come with us and hear you rock the shit out of that place.” All three smile with bright eyes In response.

“You got yourself a deal, pretty lady.” Reggie says in a flirting tone and winks at her. Luke gives him a light punch on the arm.

"I'll see you on Saturday in my house then, at nine. Goodbye boys." She winks at Luke and walks over to her car, making sure to do a perfect walk because she knows pretty well that the guitarist isn't going to stop watching her until she pulls out of the parking lot.

Luke gives her a perfect smile one last time before Y/N leaves school. These two weeks are going to be weird.

The four members of the band are in the truck, Bobby decided to get out of school recently but a party and a gig sounds like a rad Saturday. Luke gets out and walks to the door to wait for Y/N to come out. When she finally comes down he feels like all the air is coming out of his lungs.

She's wearing the black Sunset Curve t-shirt that he forgot one of the many times he climbed up to the second floor of the house to see her. A short black skirt and one of his red flannels that he probably left there several months ago as well. Black fishnets stockings which he can't help but imagine ripping out with his teeth, her lips in that tone of red that drives him crazy, and her classic black boots that he hadn't seen since she started dating the cheating idiot.

“Genius huh? Is there anything that says more ‘Luke Patterson’s property’ than this? I don’t think so." She smiles proudly and blushes when she notices Luke's gaze locked on her legs. Fishnets may have been included in the outfit due to a certain weakness that the musician has towards them.

The hair that the guitarist is used to seeing in a perfect bun lately, is now loose and tousled. As rebellious as the day he met her, moving in harmonious tune to the rhythm of Now or Never.

Luke reaches out to to entwine his hand in her hair and whispers slowly into her ear “You look... fucking hell, you are not playing fair, baby.” Lightly biting her lobe when he’s done speaking.

They both linger in a trance for a few seconds, considering whether they should just walk in and lock the door. But before they can decide, the boys that already know this story pretty well and are sick of waiting for them while they flirt, get out of the truck. Reggie carries Y/N like a sack of potatoes and between Bobby and Alex take Luke by the arms, putting them in the vehicle so they can finally get to the lame party and then, the gig.

When they finally arrive, the eyes of almost all the girls go to the members of the band, who are definitely dressed for the occasion. Y/N can't help but notice how most of the cheerleaders wink at her boyfriend. Yeah, it’s not real and will last two weeks, but for now she justs wants to forget that part and enjoy the feeling of him being hers.

So she makes a small, harmless gesture to mark territory and puts her hand in the guitarist's back pocket.

Luke turns to see her, an amused smirk on his face. “Jealousy looks so hot on you, I wouldn't mind if you marked my lips with that red lipstick too."

That statement resonates in Y/N’s head. All the times Diego refused to kiss her so as not to stain himself and even forbade her to use that lipstick that for her was part of her brand returning to her head. Followed quickly by every night Luke came down after finishing playing and instantly attacked her lips with his, caring for nothing more than the feel of their tongues fighting for control.

“Not jealousy, just a quick reminder to everyone. You are all mine tonight.” She puts a little more pressure on the hand in his pocket and stands on her tiptoes to kiss the corner of his lips.

“Dance with me?” She asks innocently while giving him a flirtatious smile.

“With you, always beautiful.” He smiles back, winking charmingly.

His hands find hers and she begins to dance and jump gracefully to the rhythm of the music as he spins her around, both singing the lyrics to each other with unmatched energy, happy to be together.

“Tonight I'm gonna dance, for all that we've been through.” She sings with a determined voice, taking the musician by the hair and bringing their faces closer.

“But I don't wanna dance, If I'm not dancing with you.” Luke returns the verse with the same passion, just inches separating their lips. His beautiful and trained voice tends to sound like a more country vibe when he gets carried away and especially in more pop melodies like this, and honestly drives her crazy.

The fact that the rocker at heart gave in to listen to other genres for her and even remembered the lyrics was enough to melt her heart. The last time she was able to let herself go and sing at the top of her lungs like this was with him, listening to a mix of their favorite songs in his car while going for their favorite icecream. Whatever they had was a lot more deeper than what they are willing to admit.

“Did we really just see Luke sing and dance to a pop-country song?” Reggie asks the band, Alex and Bobby behind him laughing at the guitarist who blushes and kisses his date's forehead. “I am not going to discuss this. I'll go get us something to drink." He winks at her and dissapears into the crowd.

“I’ll go too, be right back.” Bobby announces leaving Y/N with Alex and Reggie, who smirk at her.

“It seems that pretending is easier than you thought.” Alex can't stop smiling, Reggie playfully itches the girl's ribs who grins from ear to ear.

"Everything always fits when I'm with him. I ruined my chance. I'm totally aware, and I'm not expecting anything from him, because I honestly don't deserve it. But I plan to enjoy every second of these two weeks that came from heaven to the fullest.”

“You should explain hi-” Before Reggie can finish speaking, Diego appears behind Y/N and tries to forcefully pull her by the arm.

The guys manage to react quickly and release her arm while stepping in front of her. But right away his teammates get behind him.

“Save yourselves the pain, she is going with me.” Diego says confidently, his face showing arrogance.

“Guys, ple-” She tries to stop them from getting hurt, but both step a little forward, determined to protect her no matter the cost.

“You are not taking her, Diego. But you are more than welcome to try.” Alex's voice sounds cool and calm, but Y/N can see how much his hands are shaking and her heart hurts at the sight.

They are all so into their own business that nobody notices the guitarist's return until his lips collide with his girl, who is surprised for a few seconds but immediately recognizes him and gives him space for his tongue to taste her mouth.

They both lose themselves in the kiss for a few seconds longer than necessary and then slowly separate. Y/N grinning from ear to ear as she tries to wipe some of her lipstick off Luke's mouth. He just smirks, as happy as ever.

"Sorry guys, do you need something?" He plays the innocent card. After that kiss, most of the people at the party are watching the scene, so Diego, who looks furious, chooses to leave without saying anything. Right away they can hear a long restrained breath from Reggie and Alex.

“You are a cocky genius, I'm not sure we could have won that one.”

“I’m not sure? Did you seriously think we had a chance?” Alex asks, clearly anxious after what had just happened.

Y/N stands in front of them and throws herself into their arms, whispering how many thanks she can say in a row. They return the hug and begin to relax in each others arms. Bobby and Luke join in the hug, and Luke whispers his own thanks to his friends.

The band decides that it’s time to go and to their surprise, when they let people know that they are going to play at a small club in the center of the city, some decide to follow them. On the way, Y/N spends her time wiping her lipstick off Luke’s face with some wipes she had in her bag, struggling not to press her lips against his every time he made her an adorable grimace or a flirtatious smile.

“You know the drill, beautiful.” Luke turns to see her directly in the eyes, concern on his face just like every time before.

“Front row, not a second out of your sight, so if I need something better wait for you guys to finish performing to get it. Better safe than sorry." She recites, proud to remember every word.

“Thank you, baby.” He smiles a little more calmly, gives her a light kiss on the cheek and starts to help take out the instruments.

They are only doing a few songs from their repertoire, but the energy they transmit drives everyone in the little club crazy. The Sunset Curve members look at a Luke they haven't seen in a long time. The energy and passion in his voice dedicated entirely to the little woman in the front row who sings with all her strength every word and melody, imitating Luke's guitar solos or Alex's drums with her arms.

The 15 students who decided to attend are close to Y/N, trying to get her attention from time to time but nothing can take her eyes off her friends. Not even she knew how much she had missed seeing them play. The look of maximum happiness on their faces.

The last song is one that the little club seems quite familiar with, but she had never heard it before. So it must have been written in the last six months.

“Had my chances, could've been where he is standing.

That's what hurts the most, girl, I came so close

But now you'll never know. Baby, I loved you first.”

The lyrics leave her breathless. Luke, who had made contact with her practically all night, now seems to avoid her eyes like a plague. She definitely has to ask Alex about this song before getting any ideas.

The four bow and get off the stage, Luke launches immediately for Y/N, some of the girls try to get his attention and even try to grab him by the arm or waist but he remains firm until his hands meet his girl's hip.

“What do you think?” Luke's fingers shaking in the grip on her waist tell her he's nervous. The fact that her opinion of them matters so much to him that it makes him feel insecure makes her heart skip a beat.

“It was amazing as always, rockstar.” A huge smile appears on the guitarist's face, who gently takes her face with his hands and kisses her nose. After all, he has to remember that they are only pretending to date and for now he has no good reason to push his lips against hers. It doesn't matter how much he needs her.

The way home is uneventful, Y/N sleeping in Luke's arms while Alex puts the guitarist's red flannel over her.

“Will they ever stop pretending they're ridiculously in love with each other?” Bobby asks Reggie as he turns his head to see the couple.

“They are both stubborn and allergic to real feelings. Especially love. They are so terrified that they have to sabotage themselves somehow.” Alex answers for Reggie who just nods without taking his eyes off the road.

"Do you really have to talk like I'm not here?" Luke asks, resting his chin delicately on the head of the woman in his arms.

Tonight felt unreal. Felt practically like one of the many dreams he has had with the girl throughout these months. Seeing her in his clothes was enough to make the night special, but without a doubt dancing in her arms, savoring every inch of her mouth and seeing her energetically sing each of his songs to end the night with her in his arms is just perfect. Reggie parks at Y/N’s after dropping Alex and Bobby, and as Luke decides how to get her to bed without waking her she sinks deeper into his chest.

"Carry me to the door hotstuff, I like to be in your sexy arms." Luke lets out a cheeky laugh in surprise, another laugh coming from Reggie.

“She’s so asleep, I can’t. Adorable though.” Luke agrees and takes her bag before walking down with her in his arms and carrying her effortlessly to the door.

“Thank you for tonight. I didn’t think I could ever feel this happy and complete again.” She murmurs in his ear before giving him a sweet peck in the lips and enter the house.

What the two of them took from tonight is that indisputably, they are both still head over heels for each other. But it was like that the first time and it just wasn't enough.

Days go by with the couple being the school's favorite gossip. People talking in the hallways about the special way Luke looks at his girlfriend, comparisons about the dry way Y/N used to be with Diego compared to how she is with the guitarist, always touching him somehow and spending all the time with him as possible, visibly much happier. Some also talking about how good the band sounds and wondering why they hadn't heard it before. Everything going according to plan.

On Thursday afternoon, Luke arranged to pick her up for the two of them to find him something formal enough for the dance. When Y/N opened the door she met his beautiful greenish hazel eyes, and swears that for a second she forgot how to breathe.

She knows this scene. He smiles sweetly at her, takes her hand and opens the door of the car for her. Multiple interesting memories inside this car coming back to her mind. His firm hands on her legs, his tongue testing her mouth, his hot moans after biting his lower lip...

“Beautiful? Whatcha thinking?” Luke's voice brings her back to the present, his hand goes directly to her thigh as all that many midnight drives and without saying anything he plays the girl's favorite album.

That’s it. If she wants a chance with him, she needs to make this right. “I- We really need to talk.” Hearing the tone of her voice, Luke senses what is coming. He was here before. So he turns off the car that hadn't even started to move yet and turns to look at her.

"I know we've been putting it off, but we have to talk about how it all ended, I-"

Luke interrupts her before she can finish, his voice sounds broken, sad, angry. "I really don't want to talk about how you preferred an idiot for whom you don't feel the remotest thing just because he'll get a football scholarship and this perfect future.”

She spends a few seconds processing his words. Did he really say what she thinks he said? "It wasn't like that, Luke."

"I know it looks like I can't compete with him, but I would have done anything for you. And I thought you knew that.”

She doesn't know what to do or say. She was so unconscious, so selfish, so heartless, that she didn't even think about how he could have understood the situation. In how much he must have suffered these months watching her with Diego, believing he wasn’t good enough. Believing that she chose someone who wasn’t him, because he wasn’t good enough.

He stays quiet, examining the girl who seems about to cling to tears. The anger evaporates instantly and he leans into her seat to wrap his arms tightly around her. She starts sobbing, but seems determined to talk.

“R- Remember the night we met? It was the first Sunset Curve presentation. I had just entered the little club, but your voice dragged me to the front row like a magnet. And when I was finally in front of the stage, I knew it. It was you. The butterflies that everyone talks about for the first time in my stomach. I knew I could never feel again something even close to what I was feeling at that moment.

I got carried away in your voice, dancing to the rhythm of the melody and recording every sound in my head. And when I opened my eyes again, yours were staring at me. And I understood that you felt it too. It was me, and you knew it. It was so natural, powerful, magnetic, deep. I loved you since the first day, Luke. How is that not going to scare me?

When the feelings started to get so strong they burned, I knew I had to run. You always made it very clear that relationships were not your thing, I could not continue to wait for something that from the beginning you made it clear you could not give.

Then Diego arrived at the right time to give me an exit, and I took it. I knew he just wanted to have me around to raise his good boy status, and feeling nothing was safer than feeling too much. So I lied. I lied to you, to me, to everyone. And I’m sorry, but I was so scared. I was a coward who should have done things differently.”

When she finally finishes pulling out what she's been saving for months, she pulls away from Luke to see his face. His eyes look crystal clear, his cheeks red. But his beautiful white smile lights up his face.

"Next time you love me so much that you can't bear it, let me know, please? I can step on your foot or sneeze in your face. I was literally going to ask you to be my girlfriend that weekend. I even wrote you a song."

“You were? The one you sang the other night?”

“Okay, I wrote you a lot of songs. Maybe too many. But the one I'm talking about is different. Maybe I'll let you listen to it one day. If you stick around long enough this time.”

She smirks and kiss him lightly on the lips, enjoying the feeling of being able to. He knows he reacted way too chill. But he also understands her feelings. What is the point of reproaching her for something they can no longer change? A bad decision made by a love so immense that it left her blind. He is simply not willing to waste any more time. They are finally going to do things right. Neither of them is going to self-sabotage it this time, and since he doesn't trust it, he'll put Alex and Reggie in charge to make sure.

The night of the dance arrives. Y/N is wearing a beautiful black dress and her classic red lips. Luke tried his best to look fancy and he's wearing a pretty cool suit but in a sleeveless version. His still fake girlfriend couldn't stop smiling when she saw him. Just perfect.

Dancing in his arms, letting him go only once in a while to dance with the other three members of Sunset Curve made the night amazing. The rest of these two weeks they spent it talking, laughing... making out. Enjoying the most of the time they lost. Even completely forgetting why they were faking it in the first place, until they ask the candidates to take the stage.

"And your king are queen are... Y/N Y/L and Diego Hernandez!"

They all turn to see Luke in shock. Just hearing their names together is enough to make him frustrated, but there's not much he can do right now. And that's when he remembers what he asked the boys to play for the king and queen's first dance. Great, now dance they’ll dance to his song together. Just his damn luck. He sabotaged himself again without imagining it.

They are crowned and Diego offers her his hand, not without first throwing a face of superiority to the guitarist. She walks but continues straight until she is in front of her lover.

Luke looks at her strangely, she smiles at him.

“But I don't wanna dance, If I'm not dancing with you. Remember?” She sings happily in his ear, and offers her hand.

“Dance with me?” He looks at her adoringly and takes her hand.

“Always, beautiful.”

They walk to the center of the floor, Alex begins to sing the first verse. Y/N rests her head on Luke's chest, her hands around his neck, as he presses her against him by the hip, wrapping her in his arms. His head bent to sing the song in her ear.

“I swear to God, I can see... you're still the girl in the club.”

Tears of happiness begin to flow from Y/N, the words that she never had the opportunity to know, finally getting revealed. Luke's sweet, soft voice in her ear. The perfect melody and the beautiful voice of Reggie and Alex in the background.

“And I need you to know that we're fallin' so fast

We're fallin' like the stars, fallin' in love.”

The moment he sings in love, Y/N lifts her head to meet his eyes. He lifts his hands to her cheeks to wipe her tears, gently holding her face to make sure she sees him recite every word.

“And I'm not scared to say those words. With you, I'm safe.

We're fallin' like the stars, we're fallin' in love.”

The second Luke finishes singing, Y/N stands on tiptoe and pushes her lips against his. Tears of happiness continue to fall from her face, wrapped in a passionate, slow, deep kiss. He's all she wants. Her heart chose him since the very first day.

“I can’t believe one of Luke’s random ideas it's what made them find their way back to each other. Reg, we tried for 6 months and we were never even close. Two weeks ‘pretending’ and bam! they are just fine.”

Both watch the happy couple dance now that they are official.

"You know what they say, Fake it till you make it.” Reggie smirks while watching Luke happily kiss Y/N.

“Fair. At least everything was fixed before we shoved Luke into the pool to see if Y/N would rescue him with a mouth-to-mouth kiss."

“We still could try, you know... for science.”

“Cool. Monday works for me. Do you think that even though he didn't win, we still have a chance to win some more fans?”

Reggie raises his head before answering, a smile appears when he sees the bunch of girls and boys who are spying on them just a few meters away. Probably waiting for them to finish talking to get closer.

“I think Sunset Curve will be just fine too, Alex.”

Thank you for reading✨

Taglist: @writerinlearning , @ghostofmgg, @strangerthanfanfiction713, @thebloodthirstyvampress, @kinda-really-lost, @kcd15, @magnet-girl, @aliandthephantoms, @stxrkspidey, @pinkrockstar19, @s0uz4s, @shycupcakealissa @cookiebuba, @fangirlangioma, @sageellsworth05, @twist3dtinkerbell, @sunsetcurvenotsunsetswerve, @caitsymichelle13, @ifilwtmfc, @luckylouiebug, @bibliophilewednesday, @totomoshi, @siennanoelle01, @lunashadow6955, @bookfrog247, @morganayennefertyrell, @kiss-themoongoodbye, @rachelle3musicals, @imsydneywalker, @really-dont-forget-it @agentstarkid @talksoprettyjjx @kaitieskidmore1

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A monster-taming game recommendation list for fans of Pokemon

Whether you're a pokemon fanatic obsessed with all things pokemon past and present, or a veteran fan disillusioned with GameFreak's recent adoption of monetary philosophies and strategies reminiscent of other major game publishers, or looking for a monster-taming fix as you await new Pokemon content...

I'm compiling here a post of little-known games in the genre that Pokemon fans are likely to enjoy!

Under readmore cause long, but some of these games really don’t get the attention they deserve, so if you have the time, please read!

(I am also likely to keep updating and editing this post)

First up is Temtem!

Temtem is a game made by and for Pokemon fans, from the spanish indie developer Crema. Temtem is currently in early access on Steam and PS5, and is likely to remain in early access until sometime late next year. Full launch will include a Nintendo Switch release, too. Despite this, it has plenty of content to explore before full release. The developers are active, release new content on a semi-regular basis, and are responsive to the community as a whole and individuals if you happen to come across a bug you want to report.

Temtem boasts a wide variety of monsters to collect and train. It takes place in the Airborne Archipelago, a system of floating islands that orbit their star, the Pansun. The monsters inhabiting the archipelago are called Temtem, or tem(s), for short.

As far as game mechanics go, it has many similarities to Pokemon, but also many important distinctions. The biggest one, in my opinion, is that the element of chance has been removed from battle entirely. Moves cannot miss, have the same power constantly, and status afflictions have an obviously displayed countdown to when they will wear off (for instance, sleep lasts as long as it says it will last. Not 2-4 turns). PP does not exist, either. Your tems can battle for as long as their HP holds out. In place of PP, a new system called Stamina exists. Stamina is an individual stat, like HP and Attack. Each move costs a certain amount of stamina. If you go over the amount of stamina your tem has, the deficit is detracted from your health instead, and that tem cannot move next turn. Stamina passively regenerates a certain amount each turn, and items and moves exist that can heal stamina. All battles are also double-battles, you and your opponent will typically have two tems on the field at a time. This is just a few of the differences Temtem has from Pokemon, but they're some of the biggest ones.

Temtem is also a massively multiplayer game. You complete the storyline independently (or with a friend through co-op!), but in the overworld you can see other, real players moving around and interacting with the world. There is also public and area-specific chat you can talk to other players through. Despite this, all multiplayer functions are (currently) completely optional. You do not need to interact with others to complete the game.

Overall, Temtem is suitable for the Pokemon fan who is looking for a more challenging experience. Temtem is not a walk in the park you can blaze through with a single super-strong monster. For one, individual tem strength is more well-balanced than it is in Pokemon. There are very few (if any!) completely useless tems. Even some unevolved tems have their niche in the competitive scene! Aside from that, enemy tamers are scaled quite high, and you typically cannot beat them just from the exp you get from other enemy tamers. You have to do some wild-encounter grinding if you want to progress.

Temtem is a very fun game and I've already gotten over 100 hours out of it, despite only 3/5-ish of the planned content being released!

However, I do feel obligated to warn any prospective players of one thing: the current endgame is quite inaccessible. After you complete what is currently implemented of the main storyline, there is still quite a lot left to explore and do, but much of it is locked behind putting a lot of hours into the game. You kind of have to get perfect temtem to do the current PVE (and this is also somewhat true for the PVP too). By perfect I mean you have to breed a good tem and then train it to get the preferable EVs (called TVs in temtem). This takes... well, for a whole team... tens of hours. Of boring grinding. Some people enjoy it! But I don't. Regardless, the game was still worth buying because the non-endgame content is expansive and fun.

So overall, pros & cons:

Pros

Battle system is more friendly towards a competitive scene

Cute monsters

Lots of gay characters, also you can choose pronouns (including they/them) independently from body type and voice

Less difference between the objectively bad tems and good tems than there is in Pokemon

Lots of stuff to do even in early access

Most conversations with dialog choices have the option to be a complete ass for no reason other than it’s fun

Having less type variety in your team is less punishing than in Pokemon due to the synergy system and types overall having less weaknesses and resistances

At least one major character is nonbinary

Cons

Falls prey to the issue of MMOs having in-game economies that are only accessible to diehard no-life players

Related to the above point, cosmetics are prohibitively expensive

Endgame CURRENTLY is inaccessible to most players unless you buy good monsters from other players or spend tens of hours making your own. However I must add that the grind is great if you like that kind of thing and is quite easy and painless to do while watching a show or something.

Here is their Steam page and here is their official website.

Next is Monster Hunter: Stories!

This is a spinoff game of the Monster Hunter franchise released for the 3DS in 2018. If you're anything like me, and you've played the core Monster Hunter games, you've often thought "Man, I wish I could befriend and ride these cool dragon creatures instead of killing or maiming them!"

Well now you can! In Stories, as I will be calling it, you play as a rider rather than a hunter. Riders steal monster eggs from wild nests to raise them among humans as companions and guardians. And yes, egg stealing is a whole mechanic in of itself in this game.

This game works pretty differently from most monster-collecting games. You do battle (usually) against one or two wild monsters using your own, except you fight alongside your monsters too. With swords and stuff. There's armor and weapons you can smelt to make yourself stronger. Type match-ups also kind of don't exist in this game? Except they do? But not in a way you'd expect?

The vast majority of attacking moves you and your monster use fall into categories reminiscent of rock-paper-scissors. Moves can be categorized as power, speed, or technical. Speed beats power, technical beats speed, and power beats technical. The matchup of your move vs your opponent's determines how a turn will go down. If one move beats the other in matchup, then the winner's move will get to go and the loser doesn't get to do anything. If you tie, you both get hit, but for reduced damage. There's also abilities and basic attacks, with abilities basically being the same as pokemon moves, and basic attacks just being "I hit you for normal damage within this category". Also, you don't control what your monster does all the time in battle. You can tell it to use abilities, but what kind basic attacks it carries out is determined by its species' preference. Velicidrome, for instance, prefers speed attacks, but Yian Garuga prefers technical. Stamina also exists in this game in a very similar manner to Temtem.

Overall this game carries over a lot of mechanics Monster Hunter fans will find familiar (how items and statuses work for instance). You don't have to have played a core Monster Hunter game to enjoy Stories though! It's fine and is easy to understand as a stand-alone.

The story has some likable characters and is rather long (it was actually adapted into an anime!), for those of you who enjoy a good story.

I'd really recommend this one especially. If it sounds fun to you and you can drop $30, just do it. I bought it on a whim and I got a few weeks' worth of playing almost nonstop out of it, and I didn't even get to do everything! (I got distracted by Hades, oops)

Stories is also getting a sequel later next year on the nintendo switch! How exciting!

And yes, you do ride the monsters.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Large variety of cool monsters to befriend and raise

Pretty lengthy story

Every tamable monster is also rideable

Deceptively simple combat mechanics, easy to be okay at, hard to master

Incorporates some mechanics from early turn-based party rpgs like Final Fantasy for a nice twist on the monster collecting genre

Cons

Many monsters are objectively outclassed by other ones, making what can be in an actually good team more limited than you’d expect

3DS graphics inherently means the game looks like it was made 7 years before its time

Here is the Monster Hunter Stories official 3DS product page.

And here is Monster Sanctuary!

Monster sanctuary is a game that just had its 1.0 launch- meaning it was in early access and no longer is! Although the devs say they still plan to implement a few more things into the game in future updates. It is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and PS4.

Monster sanctuary is a metroidvania twist on the typical monster collecting game, meaning it is also a sidescrolling platformer in which you use abilities you gain throughout the game to explore the world around you. The abilities in this case are the monsters you get! Every monster has an ability that helps you traverse the sanctuary.

Speaking of the sanctuary, the game is set in one. The monster sanctuary is a magically shielded area, cut off from the rest of the world, created by an order of monster keepers, people who befriend and protect the mystical monsters inhabiting the world. Humankind encroached too far on the natural habitat of monsters and were hostile to the native wildlife, so the keepers created an area of varied environments to safely protect and preserve the remaining monsters of the world.

Unlike many other monster collecting games, this game only has 5 types: fire, water, earth, air, and neutral. However, the types themselves do not possess resistances and weaknesses. Instead, each monster has its own assigned weaknesses and resistances. And yes, this can include things like debuffs, physical vs special attacks, and the typical elemental types.

All battles are also 3 vs 3! And unlike in pokemon, where you can only hit the enemies nearest, all monsters have the ability to hit any opponent they want. Turns also work a little differently in that speed doesn't exist, you just use 1 move per monster in your turn and then it goes to your opponent's turn. Your monsters hit in whatever order you want them to.

There is also a quite important combo system in this game, where every hit builds a damage multiplier for the next. Moves often hit multiple times per turn. Healing and buffing actions also build this combo counter. So what monsters you have move in what order really counts!

But the main mechanical difference between this and other games in the genre is how it handles levels and skills. Instead of learning a set move at a certain level, this game incorporates a skill tree, and you get to allocate points into different skills as you grow stronger. And jeez, these skill trees are really extensive. Monster sanctuary is a theorycrafter's dream. Each monster has a unique, specially tailored skill tree, making every monster truly able to have its own niche. You can make use of whatever monster you want if you just put thought into it!

And like Temtem, this game is not made to be beatable by children. I'm sure a child could beat it, but it's not made to be inherently child-friendly like pokemon. It's honestly quite difficult.

On top of that, you are actively encouraged to not just be scraping by each battle. Your performance in battle is rated by an automated system that scores your usage of various mechanics like buffs and debuffs applied, type matchups, and effective usage of combos. The rating system directly influences the rewards you get from each battle, including your likelihood of obtaining an egg from one of the wild monsters you battled (no, you don't catch wild monsters in this game, you get eggs and hatch them). If you're not paying attention to how the game works and making good, effective use of your monsters, you'll have a hard time expanding your team!

The music is also really good, it's made by nature to be able to play over and over and not get old as you explore each area, and the composer(s) really did a good job with this. Some area songs, namely the beach one, I especially enjoy, so much so I've actually played it in the background while I do work.

This is a game I would really recommend. If I made it sound intimidating, it is by no means unbeatable, you're just gonna have to put some thought into how you play. At no point did I actually feel frustrated or like something was impossible. When I hit a wall, I was able to recognize what I did wrong and how I could improve, or I could at least realize something wasn't working and experiment until I found a solution. It's challenging in a genuinely fun, rewarding way.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Extremely in-depth combat system

I genuinely don’t know if there’s an objectively bad monster in this game

Evolution exists but is completely optional, as even un-evolved monsters can be great

Entire soundtrack is full of bangers

Large and diverse variety of monsters to tame

Cons

Story is a little lackluster, but passable

That’s the only con I can think of

Here’s a link to their Steam page and the game’s website.

A kind of unorthodox recommendation is the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series!

Likelihood is that everyone reading this has heard of this series already, but just in case anyone hasn't, I thought I'd include it! I would categorize this as a hybrid between the mystery dungeon genre and the monster collecting genre, because you recruit pokemon as you play and can use those pokemon on your team!

If you're unaware, the mystery dungeon genre is a small subset of dungeon crawler games where you progress through randomly generated levels called mystery dungeons. Throughout the dungeons, there will be enemies to fight and items to collect. The challenge of these games is mostly due to the stamina aspect of them, in that you have to manage your resources as you progress through the level. If you go all out in each fight, you will inevitably lose quite quickly. You have to learn to win against enemies while balancing your use of items and PP, so you have enough for the next fight, and the fight after that.

Pokemon mystery dungeon in particular is famous for its stories, the likes of which isn't seen often in Pokemon games. They are hugely story-driven games and are notable for the emotional depth they possess. It's pretty normal for the average player to cry at least once in the span of the game. There's lots of memes about that specifically.

This entry in my list is also unique for being a series. So, which one should you play first? It actually doesn't matter! Each storyline is entirely self-contained and requires no knowledge of prior entries. The quality of each entry varies and is a point of contention among fans. I say you should play all of them, because they all have their merits (though some more than others.... coughgatestoinfinitycough). They're mostly distinct for the generation of Pokemon they take place in. Rescue team is gen 3, Explorers is gen 4, Gates to Infinity is gen 5, Super Mystery Dungeon is gen 6, and Rescue Team DX is a remake of a gen 3 game but has the mechanics and moves of a gen 8 game.

My only real caution is that you play Explorers of Sky, not Darkness or Time. Sky is basically a combination of the two games with added items and content. It's an objective upgrade over its predecessors, and I honestly wouldn't waste money on the other two. 

I’m not going to include a pros and cons list for the PMD series because I’m incredibly biased and it wouldn’t be an honest review.

Next is Monster Crown!

Monster Crown is a monster collecting game that seems to take heavy inspiration from early-gen Pokemon games in particular. It is currently in early access on Steam and is not expensive. I learned about it through the developers of Monster Sanctuary, when they recommended it on their official Discord.

The game has lots of charm and interesting creature designs, and an entirely new take on monster typings as well. Instead of monster types being based off of natural elements like fire, water, electricity, etc. Monster Crown uses typings that seem to be influenced by the personalities of the monsters. For instance, Brutal, Relentless, and Will are all monster types!

It also captures a lot of the charm many of us look fondly upon in early GameBoy-era games. The music is mostly chiptune, with some more modern backing instruments at times, and the visuals are very reminiscent of games like Pokemon Crystal in particular. Monster Crown is definitely the monster collecting game for fans of the 8-bit era!

The thing that stands out the most to me about this game is the breeding system. Instead of one parent monster passing down its species to its offspring, you can create true hybrids in this game.

However, it is very early access. I would consider the current build as an alpha, not even a beta yet! So temper your expectations here. I have not encountered any major bugs, but visual glitches here and there are quite common. The game also could definitely use some polish and streamlining, and is quite limited in content currently. But the dev(s) seem quite active, so I fully expect these kinks to be worked out in time!

The reviews are rather positive, especially for being in early access. I'm all for expanding the monster collecting genre, so if you're looking to expand your horizons in that sense, I would recommend you at least give this one a look! I personally had quite a bit of fun playing Monster Crown and am going to keep an eye out for updates.

Pros & cons:

Pros

Charming artstyle, appealing monster designs

Faithful callback to a bygone era of gaming

Controls are fairly simple and easy to get the hang of (and are completely customizable!)

Cool breeding and hybridization mechanics

There's a starter for each monster type!

You can choose your pronouns, including they/them!

Cons

Inherent nature of being very early access means can be clunky and unpolished at times

Also not much content as of right now, see above

User interface could use some redesign in places

Here’s their Steam page and the official website!

Here’s an oldie but a goodie, Azure Dreams!

This is one I actually haven’t played, mostly because it’s really old and therefore only practically accessible if you play it on an emulator, unless you're one of those old game collectors. Azure Dreams was developed by Konami and released for the PS1 in 1997. My impression of it was that it either didn’t sell well or only took off in Japan, because it’s actually really hard to find any comprehensive information about it on the internet.

Azure Dreams is a monster collecting - dating sim hybrid. You can build relationships with various characters and can pursue some of them romantically, although that isn’t the main draw of the game. There is also a stripped-down version that exists for the GameBoy Color, which forgoes the dating portion of the game entirely.

Azure Dreams is kind of like a mystery dungeon game in that you progress through a randomly generated, ever-changing tower using the help of the familiars you have accrued throughout your adventure. Similarly to Monster Hunter: Stories, you yourself also take part in the fighting alongside your monsters. Each time you enter the tower, your character’s level is lowered to 1, but your familiars keep their experience. Thus, progression is made through strengthening your monsters. To obtain monsters, you collect their eggs, just like in Monster Sanctuary (which, turns out, was at least partially inspired by this game!)

Due to this game being very old and on the PS1, the visuals leave a lot to be desired... but if you can get past that, Azure Dreams has lots of replayability and customization to how you play the game. To this day, it appears it has a somewhat active speedrunning community!

If you don’t mind the effort of using an emulator, and like old games, Azure Dreams just might be that timesink you were looking for in quarantine.

Honorable mentions:

Pokemon Insurgence (or any Pokemon fangame/ROMhack, really!) is a Pokemon fangame that introduces Delta Pokemon, which are really cool type-swapped versions of existing Pokemon. It’s sufficiently challenging and has a lot of variety in what you can catch in the wild, so you can pretty much add whatever you want to your team! The story is quite good, and the main campaign is multiple times longer than a typical Pokemon game’s campaign. Download it here!

ARK: Survival Evolved is NOT a monster collecting game BUT you do get to tame and fight alongside a lot of really cool extinct species, including but not limited to the dinosaurs we all know and love. This game is genuinely fun as hell, especially with friends, but I must warn you: never play on official servers. I highly recommend singleplayer, playing on a casual private server, or making your own server. Here’s the Steam page.

[probably-haven]

Hello!! After seeing what you wrote about xiaoven fics I went to see what things you usually write and omg, your archon Venti headcanons????? I am absolutely in love. So if it isn't annoying, could you talk about xiaoven or Venti or Xiao or whatever ship or character you like? I don't care what you are going to say, I just want to know more about your thoughts ^^

I- is this... bestie, this is essentially a free ramble pass- kerujsgheskdfug. Trust me when I say that in no way is this, and in no way will it ever be annoying in the slightest- i literally- lets just say rambling off thoughts is kind of my specialty, especially when provided a topic to branch off of because otherwise I'm just- really indecisive about it so- iujskdh yeah- 100% definitely down to talk about Venti, Xiao, and/or Xiaoven XD. Also, yes- it may have been awhile since i last posted one(cuz again, indecisive about which direction to take part 5), but the Archon War Era Venti headcanons are still without a doubt my favorite posts I've made. It's just such an interesting topic with such endless potential that so few people actually think about or consider or even realize is there, so i always just get really psyched whenever i see someone interact with them lol.

.... this ended up being a bit of a mess: warning in advance

Anyway! onto the actual content!

- You see the thing about Xiaoven is that there's a lot of different ways that it could end up working out, and just personally my favorite way of portraying Xiaoven in my mind is as an unlabeled relationship because if anyone in genshin would give off that vibe its these two. And a number of other reasons.

- Firstly, I heavily headcanon Venti as being an aroace polyplatonic or perhaps heavily demiromantic. However, regardless of this I just don't think that Venti is really the kind of person to worry about how he should label his feelings, thinking it's silly to try to put them in one box or the other, especially with feelings and emotions being as fluid as they are in general. Plus it fits his whole God of Freedom vibe. I just- dont think he's the biggest fan of labels or social categorization in general.

- And secondly on the hand of Xiao... his defense mechanisms are very much ingrained in his personality. It's probably hard enough for him to not go into fight or flight(the answer is fight) at the slightest affection at first, at the slightest feeling of vulnerability. Even further down the line, with his fierce dedication to Liyue, I cant help but get the vibe that the moment he recognized that he was falling for Venti he would begin avoiding him, not only to avoid distraction from his duty, but to avoid corrupting him or losing him in general like he has with like basically every other person he gets close with(even believing that the cycle had repeated once more when he first heard of Morax's death)... now imagine Venti tryna slap a label on their relationship and tell me Xiao would have a positive reaction.

- The thing with Xiaoven.... honestly, i feel like theres more ways that it can go wrong than it can go right, but if they do manage to make their relationship work out, it's just simply beautiful in all terms of the word.

- Lets talk about killing. - During the Archon War, both were forced to kill a large number of people and gods alike- Venti out of a need to remain alive to protect Mondstadt, it's freedom, and the nameless bard's legacy by extent- and Xiao out of servitude to the god that was once his master

..... actually- break here- ive talked a lot about Venti on this blog but I havent actually spoken about Xiao all that much- so i should probably do that a bit first... do note though that my characterization of Xiao is pretty flexible actually- this is just- the possible characterization of him that i tend to favor as being the most- uh- "realistically complex"

-

Theres a line I saw this one time in a certain story: "He is a trained weapon. That's what he is, was, and always will be. You cannot change that so stop trying." And i just- think its a really interesting concept- that applies pretty well to Xiao now that i actually think about it. - the concept behind it is this: After spending more than a vast majority of his life killing or otherwise in battle, it's become a part of who he is, a normalcy that after centuries and centuries would be near impossible to get rid of or reverse, and even if it was possible, with his karmic debt constantly eating away at him its unlikely he has enough time left for that to happen. - it sounds like a cruel thing to say about him- but in context it's actually pretty layered and i think about it a lot. It's not as much a "he's a killer lol, that his whole personality" its more of a "The centuries of trauma he experienced have conditioned him into a constantly alert and battle ready mindset while also shaping his dehumanizing inferior-in-worth-but-superior-in-capability view of himself that would have likely been necessary to get through those time, and at this point he's been under that conditioning for long enough that it's essentially ingrained itself in his personality."

- the main idea is- it's a part of who he is, that needs to be accepted as who he is because its not something that he can just up and change. It's not all he is of course but his constant battle mode, as though always waiting to be ambushed or to be granted a new target to eradicate.

a couple character story quotes:

-"His past of service under the evil god had rid Xiao of his innocence and gentleness. All that remained within him was the means to kill and the weight of his sins. The only way he could be of service to mortals was in combat." -"Xiao does not feel any hatred. Having lived for over two thousand years, no single karmic debt constitutes anything more than a fleeting memory. No grudge can last a thousand years; nor is any debt so great that it cannot be paid off in this time. Xiao has spent many long years alone. But his battles have never been in vain." -"where did Xiao have to return to? He was merely leaving the battlefield." -"since Xiao wages a constant war against dark forces powerful enough to devour Liyue in its entirety, any bystanders who witness him in the heat of battle are likely to end up as collateral damage." -"The war he fights can never be won, and will never come to an end." -"Because ultimately, the one with whom Xiao wrestles is himself."

i feel like at some point this very nearly did consume his whole personality, almost turning him into nothing more than a being of slaughter under Morax's control, devoid of any "humanity" at all, consumed and corrupted by his karmic debt like his fellow yakshas before him. - until he experienced a moment of clarity- a song in the wind, the peaceful melody of a dihua flute. - and pulled back from the border of something he wouldnt have been able to return from, there a was a shift in his mind- a concept grown unfamiliar enough with time that it took him a great time to identify what it was; a curiosity. Something that there was no place for on the battlefield, something that by all means should have been completely useless to Xiao, and yet he held onto that curiosity, slowly regaining over time, a sense of who he was and who he could choose to be with each song that the wind chose to carry towards him every once in a blue moon.

and eventually that curiousity turned to longing. Longing "for a day to come when he will wear the mask and dance — not to conquer demons, but to the tune of that flute amid a sea of flowers"

...... uh- heh- if you couldn’t tell already i have a tendency to make my characterizations/analyses of characters more serious that i probably should. 

to summarize: Xiao is constantly toeing the line between his ingrained nature and his humanity- almost as though still trying to decide how much of that humanity he deserves to have, how much he is allowed to have, and how much is safe to have.

^looking back after writing this, i think the best way to explain it is that this is the view that i keep in mind/the lense that i tend to most enjoy looking through and refering back to while examining and/or analyzing his character, actions, story, lines, and overall personality.

idk- i kinda got off track but i just think its a really interesting interpretation to think about because it has some really interesting implications ig- it’s not the full extent of how i view him of course, but i kinda got ahead of myself and its long enough as is so ill just elaborate as i go- Lol i actually have in progress playlists for both him and venti and just- vibes- i could ramble about the playlists alone for hours explaining everything... It’s probably a problem- uh- ill keep going now lol.

anyways! stepping off the angst path for a brief break! Brought to you by their lines in the snow: both waiting for it to get thick enough, Venti for the purpose of a snowball fight and Xiao for the purpose of a tasty and nutritious breakfast.

but its actually something of note that Xiao doesnt actually need to eat so anything he does eat is usually out of obligation or enjoyment- so like.... snow.... like i dont blame him, but of all things- an adeptus who refuses to eat basically anything but almond tofu looks at the freezing-cold-floor-water that yeeted itself from above and decided at some point- damn- that seems more edible than basically ever single actually edible thing ever.... im gonna eat it- like- im glad if eating snow makes him happy but- at the same time...

He probably convinces Venti to eat snow too though and Venti wouldnt even resist I mean he’s wind and has probably consumed worse things in his time so- 2 anemo cryptids with glowing tattoos sitting in Dragonspine monching snow in the dead of night is an amusing thought to me.

- kay, now back to more serious-toned thoughts

One of the things about the ship that i really like is the different contradicting parallels between them:

A lot of how i view Xiao’s character is someone formed largely by the things he cant control and who was forced to accept that accepted that and learned to thrive in it as much as he can.  Venti on the other hand is surrounded by things he cant control and is ever adapting to control as much as he can while embracing whatever he cant as being part of the unpredictability of the world, seeing beauty in it. 

both of them have lost people and do what they do to honor their memory: Xiao continues to do what the Yakshas once did And Venti chooses to do what his friend couldn’t

Xiao’s power coming from himself  and Venti’s from others And both seem to appear to use their power for their own gain while truly helping others behind the scenes

both have killed a lot of people during the archon war Xiao views it as another necessary event out of his control and Venti would likely view it as a tragedy he chose to enact himself

and this is where we meet out balance

Xiao- contrary to how i think a lot of people view him as thinking of himself as a monster- seems canonically to have accepted this as part of his duty, as long as those he killed are not mortals. I dont think he enjoys it no- but someone has to do it and he’s just accepted that its a part of his duty Venti on the other hand-

See the beauty of the ship- as someone with an angst-centric mind- is this- these are two of the most traumatized mfers in the game 

Xiao is by far the one who needs the most help and who can serve to benefit most from the ship- but he is nowhere near self aware enough to recognize that there’s anything wrong or unhealthy about his mindset in the slightest-

whereas you have the contrast with Venti who sorted through most of his trauma with the nameless bard alone during the archon war and while the result appears more healthy- is still really not- but he’s not self aware of that either because i mean- who’s going to tell him? nobody even knows. 

however- venti is aware enough to notice flaws in Xiao’s mindset and “Venti” enough to want to help them through it-

Xiao- while not aware enough to recognize the flaws in Venti’s mindset, can recognize where it contrasts with his own, and is blunt enough to point it out- and then it’s out there to be mulled over- 

they’re so similar and yet so different and a feel just conversing between the two of them, being in each others precense, just being exposed to two mindsets that are so very different could do both of them a whole lot of good.

GEEE THAT BIT OF RAMBLING HAD LITTLE TO NO DIRECTION AT ALL- LET ME-- LET ME MAKE THIS START MAKING SENSE- WITH... DYNAMICS OR SOMETHING

I don’t think Xiao needs to sleep really- and i dont think that sleeping would do anything except make him uneasy at first- he’d probably just get nightmares after all he’s been through- but with Venti he would soon learn that it doesn’t have to be that way, lulled into the first peaceful sleep he’s had in... as long as he can remember.

anywho back to not making sense cuz im fickle and i think most questions about ships are best displayed through character interactions so like- a possible exchange thats cliche but cliches exist for a reason

Xiao: Why do you try so hard to help me, it isn’t easy. I know that much Venti, with the most adoring expression: Because you’re worth it, obviously Xiao: But surely there are others more deserving of- Venti: No Xiao, everyone is just as deserving as the next person, you included Xiao: Then why me above others? Venti: ehe, cuz ur my warrior of course [O//////O oh shit, hes right] Xiao: My contract is with Morax alone [gay panic but in broody yaksha]

it’s kinda difficult cuz neither of them really address their feelings.  I mean Venti does but he does it very indirectly and its rare that he ever does it with like- genuine directness- even spilling his backstory was in the form of a song- and told in the third person- so a lot of their interactions would often have some deeper meaning, especially with Venti being the bard he is. 

I come up with a lot of- errant thoughts about Xiaoven- but this is making me realize that a true analysis of their ship is rather difficult because it just encompasses so many dynamics so its hard to settle on just one and not go rambling about who knows what bouncing from one end of the ship to the other-  Because you truly can and thats the beauty of it

within one moment you can be having a heartfelt conversation about the archon war the impact of lost friends and times past, and the next moment Venti is trying to forcefeed Xiao an apple while Xiao screams about disrespecting the adepti and its just- so lovely

so while they have picnics with nothing but apples, dandelion wine, and almond tofu they can sit down and talk about the dreams Xiao once devoured, and the dandelion wine and apple cider that the first Ragnvindir invented from the plants that never could have grown in Old Mond. The foods that tasted of familiarity, or of the grilled ticker fish Pervases always used to eat, foods that tasted of friends and frankly family that had since passed, glaze lilies and cecilias and qingxin flowers scattered in the surroundings and woven into Xiao’s neat braids and Venti’s now messy ones, rebraided by the steady and inexperienced hands of one unused to gentle action. 

and then of course Venti steals Xiao’s tofu once the mood becomes too grim and replaces it with a bottle of wine that Xiao refers to as “vile poison,” a remark that fatally wounds Venti as he collapses on the floor, proclaiming how he can only be healed by a Yaksha’s kiss. Xiao ignores this of course and simply takes back his tofu with a slight smile on his face, but as Venti persists he soundlessly places a kiss on his own palm before intertwining their fingers and pulling him back up from where he was dramatically sprawled on the floor, grumbling about how such action was “unbecoming of an archon.” A sign of affection only Xiao would ever know about. But Venti is literally wind and I hc his senses work differently anyways so he definitely knows- plus Xiao’s face is red as the blood of his enemies and the way he is pointedly not looking at Venti at all really speaks volumes anyways. 

 -Venti playing epic battle music whenever Xiao goes into fights in what looks like a ridiculously extra performance to anyone else but is actually doing wonders to keep Xiao’s karma at bay

-Venti preaches the practice of “kissing wounds better” and Xiao is unfamiliar with this medical treatment but views it as unnecessary regardless because adepti have accelerated healing, doesn’t mean he’s going to stop him though. 

-Messages whispered on the wind

-Venti’s 1000 year sleep- an accident, not a fun time for the yaksha, and not a fun time for Venti once he woke up. Venti is actually more afraid of restful sleep than Xiao is, hence the sleeping in trees thing, but when Xiao is there, he can sleep restfully with faith that Xiao wont let another millennia slip through his fingertips. 

- Xiao tends to make excuses when doing things that aren’t necessary to his duty, like in his birthday voice line “Have this, it’s a butterfly i made from leaves... Okay. Take it. It’s an adepti amulet -- it staves off evil” because at the current point in his progress it helps him to feel like he’s allowed to do these things. Not wanting to put him off from progress, Venti never comments on his excuse but never fails to whisper a quick reminder of how proud he is of how far Xiao had come.

- Xiao’s karma saddens Venti greatly- not only because of how it effects Xiao but also because its a reminder that as much as Venti tries to honor the memory of those he’s killed, there will always be those who resent him for it, and when he took the option of living away from them, he truly can’t blame them. - And when he gets too wrapped up in thoughts, whether around this topic or similar ones or otherwise, eventually, he’ll hear the sound of a flute on the wind. It’s not divine by any means, but as his own wind connects him to the source, he gets the sentiment all the same. “What impact does one individual’s remaining wrath have on the present. You have done much to help the living in the present” the unspoken idea that Xiao has included himself in that statement, because now, with Venti’s help he’s beginning to learn just how to experience living for himself. 

- Venti’s form and Xiao’s mask are off limit topics though because if either mentions it the other will counter with the opposite and the mood will turn immediately bitter at the idea that both know that what they’re doing is destructive but neither are willing to change

- Venti who has different tells for negative feelings than most people because as much as he likes to pretend it is- this form isnt his, and Xiao who is able to identify those

- many fanfics and headcanons have Venti recognizing when Xiao is uncomfortable and getting him out of those situations. I see that and I love it but i raise you: - Venti taking Xiao to Mondstadt, careful that he doesn’t get to the point that he’s uncomfortable. And nothing goes wrong exactly, but Xiao notices the the way Venti’s cape is blowing in the wind, the way he’s holding his weight, barely on his feet so much as floating on the wind, connected with the ground only for the sake of appearance, all the while he looks just as happy go lucky as ever. And without a word, he grabs his hand and teleports them both out of Mondstadt.  - turns out it was just a slight thing that reminded him of the archon war (cuz i will die on the hill of him having more tragic backstory than just Decarabian), and he of course gives a sincere if not flustered thanks to Xiao, because he’s really not used to people noticing. 

- Venti trying to vent sneakily through fictional stories and Xiao is just like “Didn’t that basically happen to you” and Venti is just like “<_< shit”

- Venti once said affectionally that he wished he had met Xiao sooner and Xiao immediately and seriously shot it down by saying “If you had, I would have been forced to kill you” and both of them now stay up at night wondering who would have won that fight, not sure which result would have hurt more. (because honestly I have no idea who would win in that fight and that terrifies me- I like to think it would have been one of those legends that end with “and the fight persists to this day” or something along those lines)

- “How long have you been together?” “Adepti have no need for-” “1000+ years T^T how dare you deny our love” “O///O our...? ...useless”

- its disney- let me explain- i have this- i have this headcanon inspired by watching too many animatics- - so venti has a human form that isnt his- which he would have had to get used to moving in- and he’s a bard- - uh- anyway- as a third degree black belt in mixed martial arts, i can speak as an authority on this(not really an authority since i havent gone since quarantine but lets pretend). We have a thing referred to as the big three(most things do), and those things are martial arts, gymnastics, and dance. The idea is that they reflect really well off of each other and the best in any one category are good in all three. Timing, balance, form, discipline, technique, hand-eye coordination, grace, ease of motion, they all play a part- anyway-

- Venti taking Xiao’s prowess in martial arts and acrobatics and teaching him how to dance, and as someone who’s extremely skilled in the first two, the third comes easy to him, almost naturally. And it’s delicate and beautiful and lovely and it isn’t hurting anyone. And Venti points all these things out and more and despite how much Xiao insists that he feels ridiculous he truly does enjoy it and it goes a long way towards helping him form more healthy views of himself and his worth.  - Verr Goldett walked in on him once and made a joke about performing at the inn. unfortunately Venti was there and agreed on Xiao’s behalf before he could protest and- and it wasn’t as bad as Xiao thought it would be... he still wouldn’t do it again though without reason, but with good enough reasoning he could probably be convinced. 

- anyways point is he likes dancing to Venti’s songs and i just think that’s really cute - just picture the idea that all the animatics you see actually have the potential to be canon- ugh

- venti tries holding something out of Xiao’s reach since he’s taller and Xiao just fucking teleports 

- both need their space but when they dont, all they have to do is speak the other’s name and they’ll be there.

- and because i just had to.... love languages

- lets start with Xiao- i don’t think he’d view acts of service or quailty time as a love language tbh, and he blunt but really bad with words so affirmation is out, leaving gift giving and physical touch. However, he seems to view most material things as meaningless so- - Xiao who’s love language is in his fleeting touches, something he’s only recently grown comfortable with because of Venti, and now is giving back, which he knows he doesn’t have to do, but that he want’s to, though he’ll still continue to make excuses for each one. “you were shivering” “The inn is high up, you could have fallen..... I said what I said, you’d question an adeptus?”

- and as easy as it is to say words of affirmation for Venti- he does that for everyone- i want to say his is actually acts of service - its the acts of service that let him see just how much Xiao has progressed afterall, from teaching him to dance, to playing another song on the flute, to supplying him with the almond tofu he seems to enjoy so much. Every little thing he does helps Xiao to grow and he couldn’t be happier about that. 

-

- of course most of my headcanons for the ship do take place latter into the relationship because- y’know the less serious unhealthy vibes allow for greater range of thought, but i do still love to think about the serious implications so i kinda hopped back and forth. So sorry about how messy it is btw, i kinda- got carried away- it kinda got some kind of structure near the end tho so- maybe it’s okay. anyway- back to... lol something, we’ll see where thought forests lead. 

[cuddlesslut]

Part FOUR : Chance Encounters

Atsumu x fem reader, Suna x fem reader, Hinata x fem reader

Tags: slight NSFW, Heavy Angst.

A/N: so this will NOT be the last chapter there will be more. Just like there are more choices now lol, don’t be shy to tell me who you route for. Also let me know if y’all want more NSFW I’m chill with writing it . ALSO slight canon divergence the timing on when Hinata comes back from Brazil is different, obviously in the Manga he’s only gone for two years. In this story it is longer. Hinata isn’t on MSBY yet. Also we are only caught up on 5 months since the dreaded birthday.

Part Three: Memories

Part Five: Friends

You spent your birthday in some hotel room. Sitting on the plush bed still in your dress not bothering to change your curl in to a fetal position as sobs raked through you. Your whole world crashed down on you everything you knew was a lie. Your phone lit up with one last birthday message from some distant relative. You see the time it’s now one in the morning you’ve been laying here for hours you can’t understand how you have any liquid in your body left to cry but still tears trail down your cheeks as you look at your lock screen. It’s a photo from three Christmas’s ago. Atsumu held you close from behind as you pose in front of a festive Christmas tree. Your eyes are shut tight from laughter as the setter places a kiss to your cheek bone, his arms wrapped tightly around your waist. This was your favorite photo of the two of you, it always showed the realness in this candid shot. You remember laughing so hard from some cheesy joke he had just whispered in your ear. Your heart twists at the photo, a moment of anger slices through you. Was any of it real? You fling your phone at the wall effectively shattering the screen. You scream into the pillow. You wish you could feel numb to all of the emotions. But no ones that lucky. You aren’t sure when you feel asleep but you wake to find the remnants of tears stuck to your face. You move to the bathroom. You look like death. Your face is pale and eyes swollen and red. Your body aches from the fitful sleep you had. You grab a quick shower before putting on your comfiest pajamas and lay back down. All the energy is drained you look for your phone before remembering your fit of rage last night groan. You switch on the TV for some form of distraction but the gods must really hate you as it opens to a sports channel and you see him in all of his intensity standing on the volleyball court. Part of your brain pleads to change the channel but you must be a masochist as you watch him in all his usual glory. He commands the stadium as he goes up to serve. He looks perfectly fine like you hadn’t just walked out of his life. Like he hadn’t just ripped your world to shreds. You're finally turning the television off sitting in the silence thinking of the memories of your home. You ordered some takeout trying to settle the ache in your stomach. The food tasted bland, everything has lost its edge. The bed offers no comfort. The sunlight offers no warmth. It’s not long before you fall into another depression nap.

Waking up late in the evening you can’t stop your mind from making a stupid decision. But you miss him. You just want to see him. That’s how you end up outside of the door that leads to the home you shared with him. Trying to work up the courage to enter. His car was in his usual spot so you know he's here. A bitter thought run through you at the thought that while you were here he couldn’t be bothered to be home before two am at the earliest, yet the first night gone and here he is at home at ten o’clock. Silently you open the door. It was a mistake. You don’t make it even completely through the threshold before you hear the obnoxious moan and grunts, the sound of skin slapping. It makes you sick “OH Miya-San!” You hear some woman bellow out. You feel nauseous. You hurry out the door trying you best not to cause any noise to interrupt the activities in the house. You bend over you feel as though you’ll throw up right there on the spot. After calming yourself you make a way to a convenience store picking up a bottle of wine before heading back to you hotel room. There’s no way you’ll make it through the night sober.

The next morning you clean your self up before heading to the bank and clear out your joint account. Normally you’d feel bad taking the money but this cash was saved for your wedding and that would never happen now. You stopped by the phone store getting your own account not wanting anymore strings attached to the player. You spend the rest of your morning looking for a small affordable apartment. Luckily you were able to find one with in distance of your school and a reasonable price. It’s now the afternoon and you have to rush not wanting to be late for your class. Although it probably wouldn’t have made a difference if you had missed today, you barely pay attention. You find yourself back with the hotel walls.

You feel completely and utterly alone. You want nothing more to call your best friend or stop by Samu’s shop and cry on his shoulder while you eat some comfort food. But there is hesitation Suna was Atsumu's friend before he was yours, and you'll probably break down in tears just looking at Osamu he was his damn twin for heavens sake. What were you to them you wonder. You only got close to them because of the setter. Part of you wanted to believe that they cared about you and all of those friendships would still be there but you couldn’t. How could they want you around. You really question your place in their lives. It’s hard to trust in anything you had also believed Atsumu loved you and would never hurt you, yet that much was proven untrue. It's hard to trust in anything you feel or know. Another reason is your afraid of all of the memories you shared with them Atsumu ever present in those moments. You don’t want to think about him any more. You don’t want any remnants of that man In your life. While you want to believe Suna would be there for you, that he’d choose you. It was not a risk you were ready to take. You don’t think you could survive another heartbreak. It’s better to leave things as is, to cherish the good memories and not risk tainting them with pain.

It’s been two months since your birthday. You’ve moved into a quaint apartment. You got a job working at a little cafe to pay for rent. Between work and studying for your degree you try to keep yourself busy. It’s hard being on your own. You try to distract yourself with the things that brought you joy. Some days are better than others but all in all everything still hurts. Graduation is only a couple of months away so at least there’s something to look forward too. There are moments that come quite often that you miss your friends but you can’t bring yourself to reach out still untrusting. You look back sometimes and wonder where the lies stopped. You avoid everything that has to do his Atsumu Miya. Even the sight of a simple volleyball brings distress.

Three and half months later the cosmos played another prank on you. It was just another Friday afternoon and you were working in the cafe. You had just helped a young beautiful woman at the counter. She seemed so familiar but you couldn’t quit place it. You could see a puzzled look on her face. Then it hit you. You knew exactly who this woman was. She was the one with your ex fiancé at the restaurant that fateful night. The realization must have struck her too. Her eyes grew wide with worry. Although you weren’t expecting what she did next.

“I AM SO SORRY,” she basically yelling as she bows in front of you. “ I’m so sorry for the part I played in your pain.” She continues. You can tell she is really distressed. You coworkers and a few costumers look at the spectacle. Hating all of the attention now directed toward the both, you beg her to please stand.

“I need you to understand I had no idea, I would never have gone for a taken man.”

You sighed and sent a look to your coworker that you were going to take a quick break. “Would you like a cup of coffee,” you ask her. You never thought That you’d be sitting having coffee with the mistress of the only man you ever loved yet here you are. There’s an awkward silence for a moment. You don’t rush things you can see she’s also having a hard time trying to figure out where to start. You take a sip of your coffee as she finally speaks.

“My names Yuki,” she states.

“YN ,” you offer back.

“Well, umm YN I just want to say I am so sorry for wh-” you cut her off holding up your hand.

“You said you didn’t know, correct?” You send a glance at her raising your eyebrow. She nods.

“Are you still with him?” She sits up straight.

“Absolutely not,” she states with conviction “after you left I asked him what just happed and he explained who you were and I left.. well not with out dumping my drink in face" she gave a little giggle.

“Ha! Oh I wish I could have seen that,” you laughed picturing him drenched in the restaurant. “In that case you have nothing to apologize for, you are a victim of Atsumu’s selfishness as well. I’m sorry he put you through that.” She gave a sad smile you could see she was hurt too. The two of you spent a few more moments in each other’s comfort discussing the facts of his affair. It hurts to know that he had a legitimate relationship with Yuki but a part of you was glad to know. It was a small piece of closure to know how deep his transgressions ran, knowing it wasn’t just sex hurt even more. But it furthered your stance that he didn’t love you and if he had at one point the love had faded on his part some time ago. You spent the rest of your shift plagued with thoughts of you past.

After your shift you went home to change before heading out to your local bar. In your time alone you had taken solace in drinking with strangers. After dressing in an appealing yet comfortable outfit you headed out. You wanted to feel comfy and relaxed but that didn’t stop you from wanting to look nice. In your past visits it wasn’t uncommon for men to try and talk you up and while you did indulge in the compliments none had succeeded in getting you to return home with them. There had yet to be a guy who fully kept your attention away from your former lover.

You found your favorite spot at the bar, just far enough from the blaring music and smokers. You smiled at the bartender before ordering your usual. You sat there letting the liquor relax you as you listened to what music the DJ was playing tonight. Normally you stick to just drinks but after the day you had you need something to take the edge off. After downing a shot of tequila you notice a presence next to you.

“Is this seat taken,” the man smiled at you. You had never seen him here before and you know damn well you would have noticed him before. Although he wasn’t a giant like most of the men you knew in your life, he wasn’t excessively short either you could tell he’d still stand taller than you. You couldn’t lie the man was extremely defined and muscular, you swear his tanned thighs that you saw peeking from under his khaki shorts were bigger than your face. His skin was tanned you can tell from pleanty of time in the sun. He had strong jaw line but his most prominent feature was this bright mop of orange hair he tried to hide under a ball cap. He had a bright smile that reached his alluring brown eyes. It was safe to say he was very handsome. He tilts his head to the side a little smirk reaching his lips. It then you realized you had never responded and just been sitting here gawking.

“Um no it’s not uhh go ahead,” you stammered out feeling a blush creep on to your cheeks at your response. What is this feeling why are you acting like a school girl.

He takes the seat next to you ordering a beer then turning to you reaching out his hand. “ Shoyo Hinata,” he states.

You accept his hand giving it a light shake. “ YN LN,” you responded. “ I’ve never seen you here before Hinata-San,” you prod wanting to know about the stranger.

“Just Shoyo is fine,”he gives you another dazzling smile. “I actually just moved back to Japan,” he states “this is my first time at this bar , but with customers as beautiful as you I’ll definitely have to come more often.” Ohh hes smooth you think. You let out a light chuckle at his compliment although it’s fairly simple compared to some of lines you’ve heard it definitely has the desired affect on you.

“Well then Shoyo where are you traveling from?” Question not wanting the convo to stop.

“I just got back from Brazil,” he mused that signature smile never far from his face.

“Wow Brazil! That’s so far was it hard to be so far from home?”you questioned.

The conversation with Hinata flowed effortlessly. Pleanty of laughes shared as he told you countless stories of his time in South America. Being in conversation with him is like talking to the sun it’s so bright and happy. He does eventually mention playing beach volleyball and for a moment you mind thinks of your ex but it then you realized it was the first time since Sho made his appearance that you had thought of the setter. It felt nice to finally have your mind clearing from the twin. As of recent at any mention of volleyball you would have ended the convo making an excuse to leave, yet you didn’t want to, plus beach volleyball is completely different than regular volleyball you reason.

Time passes by as well do several drinks. You are by no means drunk just a little tipsy. Over the course of your talking the space between Hinata started to narrow. Right now you were so close you could smell his cologne and the slight minty scent of his breath. His hand caressed your elbow. Your breath hitched when he finally leaned in “do wanna get out of here?,” you can see his iris’s darken ever so slightly. “We can go back to my place,” he continued.

Several thoughts ran threw your mind in that moment. One, you were nervous, you hadnt been with anyone other than Atsumu. Two, you were sure you weren’t ready for a relationship but it was just sex it’s not like he’s asking on a romantic vacation. And three you wanted nothing more than to feel his lips against yours. “Absolutely.”

That’s how you got to where you are now. You barely made it through the threshold before Hinata had you pinned to the door. You were locked in a searing kiss. It was like he was stealing the air from your lungs. His hands roamed your figure before slipping under your blouse. “You are absolutely gorgeous,” he breaths before pressing a kiss under your jaw trailing down you neck. You place you hands on his shoulders trying to ground yourself. You let out a loud moan as he gives a bite to your shoulder while grabbing a hand full of you breast. He smiled into you neck with pleasure from the sounds you made. The two of you stumbled a bit as you started making your way to his room shedding clothes left and right. The door closed to the bedroom and you were ready for a mindblowing night.

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[boldlyvoid]

Amoreena | chapter eleven

chapter eleven

main summary: Heaven is a real place and it's located exactly 14.6 miles away from the FBI, Quantico Headquarters. Off behind a small park, under a fantastical willow tree surrounded by wildflowers, in every colour young minds can imagine.

Don't forget, heaven also comes with angels.

Chapter Warnings: Y/N POV: details of what happened to Stephen, her grandmas cancer, and very detailed explanations of how babies are made (as biologically accurate and not very graphic as possible) this is an angsty trauma filled chapter that made me cry a lot just writing it so I'm sorry in advance

word count: 3K

from the beginning <3

June 13th, 2010

There’s a knock on her parent's door at 4 in the morning, Y/N’s sound asleep on the couch back at her grandma’s, awoken by said grandmother as she hears all the noise beyond the porch. There are 2 cop cars at the main house, worry starts to settle over them.

She puts on a pair of shoes, taking her grandmother's hand in hers as they begin the early morning trek up the road, anxiety seeping in deeper and deeper as they get closer to the lights illuminating their driveway.

Her father is talking to an officer on the steps, her mother is crying behind him. “We’re so sorry for your loss,” the officer says and Y/N’s blood runs cold, numbing her from the impending despair.

“What happened?” Her grandmother asks, rubbing a hand along Y/N’s back in preparation for the worst.

“Evan was in a car accident,” her father says softly, knowing that Y/N knows Stephen was with him tonight. She breaks away from her grandma and without thinking she’s right in the officer's face.

“Which one of them died?”

“Ma’am,” it was never a good way to start the worst conversation of her life with that word or in that tone. She felt like a '40s housewife learning her husband wasn’t coming home from the war, only he wasn’t even her husband yet.

He would have been on next Saturday.

“I’m sorry, Stephen was pronounced dead on the scene,” he says the worst sentence she’s ever heard, and now she’ll never forget it. “The passenger side took the worst of it, once again, I am so sorry for your loss.”

She’s surprisingly calm, managing to whisper, “thank you,” before she’s walking off into the field, pushing everyone's hands away as she travels as far as he feet will take her.

She ends up at the willow tree by the pond as soon as the sun is rising, it happened a lot earlier in June than the rest of the year. The birds singing, the wind blowing against the leaves making them carry a tune in harmony together. The world is still spinning, life is moving on, but how?

She sat there against the tree for a while, picking blades of grass and weaving them into a chain, soothing her brain as she makes a pattern. Giving her hands something to do so they stop going numb, it’s the only thing that really reminds her that she's real, that she’s controlling the twists and tucks, the shape and length and the fact that it was created at all.

Ending the life of the single blade of grass as she picks it, never to be whole again. Snatched from its happy place, where it grew loved and surrounded by other matching green strands as they blew in the wind.

Then she's pulling fist full after fist full of grass out of the dirt, her hands covered in mud as she shouts, throwing handfuls of grass and dirt towards the pond. The once blue water starting to turn cloudy; disrupted and upset with her anger as it swallows her weapons, but it doesn’t make her feel better. All she did was disrupt the earth, changing the way this once beautiful patch of land used to look. She couldn’t help but sob, realizing that she was like this field now and her beautiful green pasture was disrupted, overturned and ruined.

The life that flowed through her died along with the love of her life.

“Stephen was pronounced dead on the scene,” the words echo in her mind in a constant circle like she’s stuck in a tin can.

It starts to reverberate, getting louder and louder as the same 7 words all run around in her head. Bouncing off the walls, smacking her down again and again as she hears them over and over and over… she’s holding her hands on her ears, shaking back and forth, sobbing when she feels someone wrap their arms around her.

She doesn’t open her eyes, instead, she's rushing to push them off of her, struggling out of their grasp as she fights them. Finally, she loses, being held in her brother's embrace as they both cry, he barely has a scratch on him when she finally looks at him.

she’s never been physical in her life, but she punched him right in the face. Her twin brother, best friend in childhood and the person she’s known the longest in her life. He held her close in the womb, crying if they separated as soon as they were born, she loved him deeply and yet she hated him something fierce at that moment.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Evan cries, “we were stopped at a red light, Y/N!”

“I don’t care! He was supposed to be my husband!” She swats at him, smacking his arms again and again as he tries to hold them back, holding her so tightly as she basically screams bloody murder in the field.

All she can see is his face, her beautiful happy Stephen. The first time she ever saw him, standing under a street light in Boston, papers in his hand and wonder in his eyes. The way he looked up at her, the glow of the light making a halo glow over his head.

She should have known he was too good to be true. Always destined to return to the heavens, he was truly angelic with his big emerald eyes that were only the tiniest bit yellow on the edge of the pupil, the way her name sounded on his tongue like a blessing coming true.

They buried him 2 days after what was supposed to be their wedding. Disrupting another beautiful patch of earth to hide him away forever, she placed a single rose on his casket, she never said goodbye and she never planned to.

“See you later, superstar,” she patted the glossy black box once last time before sending him down into the earth.

—

September 2012

This fucking willow tree and 7-word sentences…

“What do you mean you have cancer?”

Her grandma let a tear slip from her eye, “I’ve got colon cancer, honey, the doctors said I have another 2 years, maybe 5 if I'm lucky.”

Every time someone sat beside her in this one spot, she learned the worst information in the world. Sure Evan didn’t mean to kill Stephen, doesn’t mean she’s talked to him at all in the last year. with Grandpa dying only a few summers back, her favourite house cat now buried in the yard, she can’t lose her grandma now too.

“Okay,” she starts to plan in her head, her eyes about ready to jump out of her skull as she tries to think of all the things they need to do before it’s too late, “let’s go to England, let’s blow my bank account, you can’t leave me without going to England with me? We were supposed to get tea and pretend to be the queen and princess?”

She couldn’t stop the tears, her whole body heaving as she sobbed into her grandma’s dress, “you can’t leave me too!”

“Your grandfather and I have a fund for you, you were the last baby we got to raise when your mom went back to work, I want you to use it for that baby we talked about,” her grandma’s voice is barely a whisper, softly getting the words over her vocal cords as the tears joined Y/N’s on her dress.

Without another word, she took her hand and walked home, getting in her car together and heading to the closest fertility clinic, she booked her first insemination for February, pre-paying for a round of IVF hormones and everything to start in January, she had 3 months to plan.

Finding the perfect donor was the only hard part. She had 3 different books to choose from with all the clinics in the DC area sharing 1 sperm bank. She finally made her decision 3 weeks before they were set to get her pregnant when they updated the books.

Sample 2319, male 30’s, healthy, high IQ, 6’1, brown eyes, brown hair (curly). “Sounds a lot like Stephen,” her grandma agreed, saying his name for the first time in over 2 years, she knew this was her guy.

—

June 14th, 2021

Peeing on a stick shouldn’t be as terrifying as it is.

She hasn’t been this nervous since the first time Dr. Collins inseminated her. Laying back on the table at a weird elevation to make sure she got pregnant, her whole body tense as she thought of the possibilities of her future child.

Sample 2319 sitting in a cup not too far from her face as she prepared for a man she barely knew to put the semen of another man she didn’t know, inside her. She only picked this guy cause he was smart and tall, no health issues to report and the number made her think of Monsters Inc.

In her mind, she made a baby with a man she named mike wazowski, not knowing his real name was actually Spencer Reid and he was only just down the road at Quantico the whole time. It was the weirdest day ever, and then it became the second-best day of her life

Nothing could top holding her baby in her arms for the first time. Her grandma and mother beside her as they all cried, the perfect purple baby screaming on her chest as they tried to wipe the white gunk off her tiny body. her sweet little coos, seeing her swollen eyes open for the first time, the silence that overcame her as they made their first introduction to each other. Her little person, the love of her life, her wonderful Amoreena.

Her cry was perfect, like music to her ears she wanted to hear her little voice as long as she could because it meant she was alive and real. She was healthy and beautiful and the most perfect bundle of joy she could have ever made.

Now she was hiding in the bathroom to pee on a stick while her 7-year-old had breakfast in the next room. Oh, how times changed, but one thing remained the same, she was finding out alone again. Only this time she meant for that to happen, it was exactly 4 days since her period was supposed to start and it wasn’t there, neither was Spencer.

He had something to do that morning, but he’d be meeting them later that afternoon, it was Amoreena’s last day of kindergarten after all. She wanted time to either enjoy the thought of having another baby or cry in peace because for once it didn’t work, giving her a week to recover before trying again.

Amoreena was a miracle, the easiest IVF baby they ever made at the clinic, apparently. If she was pregnant this easily again it was a sure sign that he was Amoreena’s father too, only he could get her knocked up while not even trying.

She didn’t remember pregnancy tests taking this long, she flipped it over and walked out of the room, unable to think of anything else while she waited for 3 minutes to pass. Amoreena noticed she was being weird, studying her mother's movements as she paced the hall outside of the bathroom door.

“What are you doing?” She asked, curious as ever as she twirled lightly in her new princess dress.

“Can you keep a secret?”

“Always mom, I’m the best secret keeper in all the kingdom, remember?” Amoreena smiled, holding onto her leg as she stared up at her.

“Your dad and I tried to make a baby,” she whispered, petting the litter hairs on her forehead as Amoreena looked up at her, her first little baby. “I’m waiting to find out if it worked, but we can’t tell anyone in case it didn’t, okay?”

Amoreena’s eyes were wider than she’s ever seen them, her mouth opened slowly as she understood the words in her mind. She didn’t look happy or surprised, nor upset or worried. She looked confused, “how?”

She laughed then, shaking her head as she lifted Amoreena into her arms, she would have to know soon anyway. “You know how every month mummy has a bad week where she bleeds and her tummy hurts?”

“Yeah?”

“When people with our parts grow up they make little tiny eggs but we don’t lay them like chickens do, they stay inside our tummies and wait to become babies and if they don’t we have a period and release all the stuff our bodies saved up that month to make a little person. You’ll have one soon too in a few years, probably when you're 12 like I was, and when people with a penis get old enough they’re able to help us make the babies like roosters help the chickens. Our bodies are really special and make some really cool things when we try to,” she explained it in the most simple farmhouse way she could.

“Like when the goats are all born in the spring and they just show up?” She tried to clarify, understanding it at the basic level.

“Kinda, you’ve seen the photos of you in my tummy and how aunty Shannon’s stomach grew when she had your cousins, I’ll get really big like that too if I’m pregnant, the baby will grow for 9 long months till they’re nice and healthy and then we’ll have another person in the family,” she couldn’t help but smile as she thought about it.

“How do we find out?”

She opened the bathroom door then and carried Amoreena inside, setting her down on the sink and pointing at the upside-down test stick. “We create a special hormone when we’re pregnant, it’s something that can be detected in our pee!” she explained it like it was magic, watching her get excited instead of grossed out.

“So I peed on that stick and if it has 2 lines I have a baby in my tummy, if not then your dad and I have to try again.”

Amoreena picked up the test and looked at it, keeping it out of her mothers sight as she did so, “there’s two lines,” she lit up waving the stick lightly as she squealed.

Y/N wrapped her up in her arms and twirled her around, “you’re gonna be the best big sister ever!”

“How do we tell dad?” Amoreena’s soft voice whispered in her ear as she snuggled into her shoulder.

“I have an idea,” she whispered back before carrying her back into the kitchen.

Her All About Me project was sitting on the counter, ready for Y/N to drive her into school today. She set Amoreena down on the floor to watch her as she took some tape and taped the stick to the bottom corner of the project. “Pass me the marker, please?”

Amoreena ran to the counter to get it, coming back and placing it in her mom's hand before leaning in to watch what she was writing.

“I’m going to be a big sister sometime next February!” Amoreena read the words as her mother wrote them, unbelievably excited.

“Your dad can read that at the ceremony tonight!”

“I thought you said we can’t tell anyone yet?” Amoreena questioned her, like always.

“Your teacher can know, the other kids won't know what it means, it’s just important Spencer sees it, but we will wait to tell nanny and poppy, okay? Sometimes the babies don’t always stay, it’s sad so we keep it a secret until they’ve got a tiny little heartbeat in there,” she didn’t want to scare her, but she knew it was always a possibility.

“Then we try again,” Amoreena smiled, “It’ll be easier now that you don’t need Dr. Collins to help you, how did you even make me without Spencer?” She didn't use his real name often anymore, only in times when she wasn't referring to him as her father.

She sat down then, pulling Amoreena into her lap so she could hold her while she thought of the right words. “So we have eggs, but people with penises have something called sperm. When adults, and I mean adults you have to be at least 25 to have a baby it’s the rules,” she teased her slightly, ticking her arms.

“Adults have sex, babies are made when someone with a vagina and someone with a penis get together. But when you don’t have a partner with a penis to help, sometimes they’ll donate their sperm to the doctor's offices to help people like me make their perfect little families all by themselves.”

“Interesting,” is all her little mind can say, she has learned so much in one day, Y/N was surprised she was still listening and surprisingly still for once. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

“We won't know for a while,” she smiled, holding Amoreena closer to her chest. “How do you feel about all this?”

Amoreena was quiet as she thought about it, “is Spencer the guy who gave the doctors the sperm for me?”

“We think so, but we don’t know, why?”

Amoreena looked at her softly, “it wouldn’t be fair, I know he said I don’t need a father but why do they get to have him for both?”

“I think Spencer is your father, you’re just as smart and wonderful as he is, there’s no doubt in my mind that you’re his baby too. but if you want to know if he isn't, when you turn 18 the doctors will tell you who it is, it's completely up to you to find out,” she whispered, the tears starting to fall down her cheeks as Amoreena tried to wipe them away.

"I like thinking he's my father, so he is." Her mind worked in the most wonderful way. Y/N couldn’t help but hold her close as she lightly cried, “I had a dream yesterday that I had 8 sisters,” her voice was so soft and innocent as her tiny hand cupped her mother's cheek.

She gasped lightly at the words, remembering Spencer’s panic in the middle of the night last night, how scared he was to leave her all alone with 9 babies and no one to help her. They knew something that she didn’t yet, cheaper by the dozen seemed less like a dream and more like a prophecy.

“I’m so happy to make your dream come true,” Y/N whispered, “I promise I’m happy, the baby just makes me emotional.”

Amoreena placed her hand on her tummy then, “I love you, baby.”

Y/N stuck her tummy out as far as she could, “I love you too, big sister,” she said in a funny voice to make Amoreena laugh, leaning back in the chair as she held her.

And just like that, getting pregnant with Amoreena was bumped into 3rd place for the best day of her life. Sharing the moment with her and no one else was perfect, insuring she knew that she was just as important moving forward as the little person she was growing this time.

tag list: @shemarmooresfedora @spencers-dria @spookyspence @reidsfish @manuosorioh @mochionly @samuel-de-champagne-problems @jswessie187 let me know if you would like to be added as well!!

[danielxricciardo]

Prompts

1. "Hi, my ex just walked in. Would you hold my hand please?"

2. "I didn't expect to see you here."

3. "Have you seen this dog?"

4. “That mouth of yours, does it ever stop making noise”

5. “Seven minutes in heaven is for virgin teenagers”

6. “Slam that door one more time and I’ll shove my foot straight up your cute ass”

7. “Jesus! Knock next time would you”

8. “You have money go and get yourself a hoodie that’s not mine”

9. "I hate roses, I thought you knew"

10. "Do you think I am an angel? Ha"

11. "I wanted to sleep but someone decided to die"

12. "I can kill you right now, what are you talking about?"

13. "Hi, I am lost, can you come after me?"

14. "When I first saw you I wanted to date your best friend"

15. "I am so funny and you are just jealous"

16. "If I have to choose... no"

17. "Stop breathing like that!"

18. "I just did my nails"

19. "I'm the best driver în the world"

20. "Will you marry me?" "No"

21. "I think I broke my arm" "So?"

22. "I think I love you" "Thanks"

23. "My arms are lonely, don't you think?"

24. "Apparently we are dating"

25. “Well it’s kind of hard to move when you’re sitting on my lap”

26. "Those things you said yesterday, did you mean them?"

27. "If we elope, you think they'll kill us?"

28. "This is yours"

29. "You can’t just kiss me, laugh and then walk away."

30. "Are you using ass as a pillow?"

31." I find your lack of faith disturbing."

32. "And I took it personally"

33. "In here I am the boss"

34. "Oh, bite me!" "Where?"

35. "What will you do if we break up?"

36. "Where is my T-shit?"

37. "This is no time for sarcastic comments."  "There is always time for sarcastic comments."

38. "I’ll keep quiet, you won’t even know I’m here."

39. "The way you flirt is just awful"

40. "Don’t be fooled. I’m the epitome of mess."

41. " If you are on TV should I congratulate you?"

42. "And this, is why we can’t have nice things."

43. "That's what he said"

44. "I am scared of your boss"

45. "You should know, a lot of girls have a crush on me"

46. "Everyone is afraid of you"

47. "If I'm watching that movie one more time I'll lose my fucking mind!"

48. "I thought being on vacation will be stress free"

49. "My parents don't trust you"

50. "I don't think I should give my last name so easily"

51. “I really wish I could unsee that.”

52. “Who would’ve guessed we’d be sharing a room.”

53. “I feel like you have an unhealthy obsession with me.”

54. “Nah he’s fine, it’s the other one you really got to watch out for.”

55. “I have a suggestion.” “I’m not taking my clothes off so forget it.”

56. “You’re the genius, why don’t you tell me?”

57. “Have I ever told you your accent makes me swoon?” “Really?” “No.” He/she smiles. “ that’s why I’ve never told you.”

58. “I’m alive? How am I still alive?”

59. “You’re crazy! I love it!”

60. “Never have I ever is about to get a lot more interesting.”

61. “What did they do?” “Dude. They did the do.”

62. "You can’t keep pretending it didn’t happen, cause guess what? It did!"

63. "Well this is awkward."

64. "Im too sober for this."

65. "Im pregnant." "Wall done, Virgin Mary!"

66. " I want to protect you."

67. "Kill that spider and maybe I'll forgive you"

68. "I have no one to go to the wedding"

69. "Don’t you dare touch _______!"

70. "I thought you were dead!"

71. "This is, without a doubt, the stupidest plan you’ve ever had. Of course I’m in."

72. "Take care of you, please"

73. "If your best friend single?"

74. "Just remember, if we get caught, you’re deaf and I don’t speak English."

75. "Why does everyone assume we're a couple?"

76. "Im craving something sweet" "Are you pregnant or something?"

77. " What is the magic word?" "I'll kill you în your sleep"

78. "When I see you my knees get weak"

79. "Finally you're single. Can I take you on a date?"

80. " So, I guess you don’t do after hours?"

81. "I know what I'm doing, I've watched two whole seasons of Grey's Anatomy."

82. "I can't believe I'm stuck here with you right now."

83. "Okay, this did not go as I planned it in the shower."

84. "I'm not going to sit around and watch you destroy yourself."

85. "You were my best friend"

86. "You did what?"

87. "Can you just pretend to love me for a second!"

88. "You are enough"

89. "Take the shirt off"

90. "Your nickname is bitch"

91. "What do you want to watch?" "You"

92. "How could you ask me that?"

93. "Your mouth does this thing and I can't resist it"

94. "Are you allowed to drink?"

95. "I said Im done, leave me alone!"

96. "Don’t raise your fucking voice at me”

97. “Yeah, I remember the drill”

98. “Tell me again, slowly this time, why that dog is in my bed.”

99. “Gave you so much, but it wasn’t enough.”

100. “You and me, we were destined to fall apart.”

101. “No, you don’t know who you are until somebody breaks your heart.”

102. “I want to tell you everything. The words I never got to say the first time around.”

103. “It’s better to feel pain, than nothing at all.”

Song lyrics prompts

1. “It’s the little things about us, that I love so much.”

2. “Last night I told you I loved you // woke up blamed it on the vodka”

3. “It’s a better place since you came along”

4. “You make me love the things I hate  “

5. Just a paper sheet and half a cigarette are left in my hand

6. Your faith walks on broken glass

7. "And can you teach me how to dance real slow?"

8. "I'll throw away my faith, babe, just to keep you safe"

9. "One night, you won't forget the rest of your life"

10. "We only said goodbye with words"

11. "I'll try to give you love until the day you drop"

12. "I like the pretty boys with the bow tie"

13. "Lets get drunk forget what we did"

14. Your kisses lift me higher

15. When you're ready we can share the wine

16. "And if you don't love me now you will never love me again"

17. "Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?"

18. "When there's nothing to lose and there's nothing to prove"

19. She's the kind of girl who only asks you over when its raining, just to make you lie there catching water dripping from the ceiling.

20. Now I understand, you're a human, and you got to lie, you're a man

21. The good and the bad times: we've been through them all.

22. Now I ain't educated but I sure ain't stupid

23. I grew up in the shoes they told me I could fill

24. It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep

25. A lover would just complicate my plans

26. And in the morning, i’ll be with you, but it will be a different kind

27. My heart is yours, it’s you that i hold on to

28. And with one kiss, you inspired a fire of devotion that lasts for twenty years

29. I let go of my claim on you, it’s a free world

30. I’m in my bed, and you’re not here and there’s no one to blame, but the drink in my wandering hands

31. Cause you gave me peace and i wasted it, I’m here to admit that you were my medicine

32. Oh, dear diary, i met a boy, he made my doll heart light up with joy. Oh, dear diary, we fell apart, welcome to the life of electra heart

33. For you, I would cross the line, I would waste my time, I would lose my mind

34. Is it really me you're missing?

35. Remember that night?

36. How many times can I break till I shatter?

37. As long as I breathe, I’ll call you my home

38. "You wouldn't know love if it crushed your fucking chest."

39. "When we scream our lips don't make a sound."

40. "Please don't let me sink, wrap your arms around me and carry me home."

41. "This hasn't torn us apart so nothing ever will."

42. "A long time ago we believed that we were united."

43. "I miss the person that you were but I don't miss you."

44. "If home is where the heart is, why do I feel so fucking heartless?"

45. "I can't live, I can't breathe with or without you just go away."

46. "I'm not afraid to die, I'm afraid I'll survive and have to watch you suffer."

47. "I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away."

48. "I'm not like you I just fuck up."

49. "All because of you I believe in angels, not the kind with wings, no not the kind with halos. The kind that bring you home when home becomes a strange place."

50. "I just want to go to sleep and never wake up again."

51. “I wish people liked me more.”

52. “How could I ever love someone else?”

53. “I guess you’re getting everything you want.”

54. “She probably gives you butterflies.”

55. “I hope that you’re okay.”

56. “I defended you to all my friends.”

57. “I never cared about what they say, only care about me and you” 

58. “Either way i’m gonna lose, so i’m just gonna keep on loving you”

59. “You know i’m bad at communication, it’s the hardest thing for me to do”

60. “Iwas your lover, i was your friend, now I’m only just someone you call when it’s late enough to forget”

61. “It’s fucked up but it’s true that i love you like i do”

62. “Well we both had nights waking up in strangers beds but i don’t wanna, don't wanna, i don’t wanna give up yet”

63. “Tell me I’ve got it wrong somehow.”

64. “I’m begging for you to take my hand.”

65. “I can’t make it go away by making you the villain.”

66. “He feels like home.”

67. “I’d be breaking all my rules to see you.”

68. “But I know you’re not scared of anything at all.”

69. “When can I come back?”

70. “I’m ready to owe you anything”

71. “I’ll always look best in your head”

72. “I know you know it’s wrong, but I’m ready”

73. “All I ever want is breaking me apart.”

74. “Let's talk sweetly like all our love is false.”

75. “You put a fire in my heart, painted blood on my stars, gave me faith.”

76. “I wanna meet your girlfriend, she sounds nice.”

77. “How is kissing me so wrong?“

78. “Can’t you see that I’m already yours?”

79. “I’ve been losing track of the romantic sh*t I’m tryna say but basically I love you"

80. “I don’t wanna be your friend, I wanna kiss your lips, I wanna kiss you until I lose my breath”

81. “I apologize for all your tears, I wish I could be different but I’m still growing up into the one you can call your love” 

82. “I’m out of my head, of my heart, of my mind cause you can run but you can’t hide, I’m gonna make you mine”

83. "I never loved someone the way that I love you"

84. "It's the way that you know what I thought I knew, it's the beat that my heart skips when I'm with you"

85. "I hope she gettin' better sex, hope she ain't fakin' it like I did, babe"

86. “I know we’re young and people change and we may never feel the same”

87. “I can’t change the world, but maybe I’ll change your mind”

88. "You don't own me. Don't tie me down 'cause I'd never stay."

89. "Leave everything that is worth a single cent and just take me instead."

90. "And then I got you off your knees, put you right back on your feet, just so you can take advantage of me."

91. "Hey, I can't let you go with nobody. Cause I love you, baby."

92. "Tell me that it wasn't my fault and that I was enough for you."

93. "We were good at faking forever, I get it, whatever."

94. "Cause you had your chance and you blew it. Yeah, you ripped it up and you chewed it."

95. "Well, I'm too busy for your business. Go find a girl who wants to listen."

96. "Stop looking at me with those eyes, like I could disappear and you wouldn't care why."

97. "Oh, we could do whatever you want, but boy, don't go falling in love, you can't stay with me, all you'll ever have is one day with me"

98. "I pray the medication slow me down, but that shit doesn't work when you're around"

99. "Told her that I loved her once and now she'd kill for me"

100. "What the tell were we? Tell me we weren't just friends"

Who I write for

Formula 1

Daniel Ricciardo

Lewis Hamilton

Max Verstappen

Charles Leclerc

Esteban Ocon

Carlos Sainz

Lando Norris

Lance Stroll

Sebastian Vettel

Mick Schumacher

Pierre Gasly

George Russel

Football

Erling Haaland

Jadon Sancho

Giovanni Reyna

Jude Bellingham

Julian Brandt

Marco Reus

Roman Bürki

Emre Can

Mats Hummels

Leon Goretzka

Joshua Kimmich

Kai Havertz

Mason Mount

Christian Pulisici

Ben Chilwell

Gerard Pique 

João Félix

Ianis Hagi

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain

Trent Alexander-Arnold

Virgil van Dijk

Jens Petter Hauge

Martin Ødegaard

Alexander Sørloth