#only these two could make fishing an actually romantic scenario to me . their power

[cubedmango]

It’s been a while (1 singular month) since I last watched the movie and I feel insane like I forgot that fishing scene was something that actually happened and not something I just made up like my god they’re so ridiculously in love… the way you could watch as kurosawa’s face set deeper and deeper into a look of pure adoration and wonder (WHILE GRIPPING A FISH BETWEEN ADACHI’S HANDS MIND YOU,,,) and the comment about how he’s so cute while excited oh god they make me wanna stick my head into soil

their commitment to being Like That at all times ever to me is like . deeply respect the grind + good for them but also please the fish. ur here to get the fish. stop looking into each others eyes like that stop !!! dude!!!!! the Fish!!!!!!!

[the-insomniac-emporium]

Dimitrescu Daughter HCs

I thought this would only take a few minutes. I was so, so very wrong. Anyway, some of these are somewhat exclusive to my fic (Serenade), but they’ll make sense even if you haven’t read that.

Daniela:

Others have already talked about how Daniela reads a ton of romance novels, so I’m not really going to go into that very much, just saying that I agree 100%, I mean c’mon, it’s practically canon.

While she mainly sources books from her family’s library, there are a few she’s “acquired” over the years that she keeps locked away in her room. These tend to be a bit, ahem, steamier than her mother would approve of/let her read under normal circumstances.

How did she get these? Well, there has to be someone who delivers goods to Castle Dimitrescu (Duke, perhaps?), seeing as the Maidens need, like, actual food to survive. Sometimes Daniela manages to convince them to order books for her, usually just asking for books by authors she likes, or ones she’s heard maidens whispering about.

No, the delivery person does not read the book’s summaries or reviews, they have a feeling (based on titles and covers alone) that they don’t want to know.

As for her experiences with actual romance… she’s so very, very excited about it, all the time. Wants to kiss every cute Maiden she sees, and sometimes daydreams about a beautiful woman fleeing from lycans who comes to the castle for shelter, clinging to Dani for warmth and protection, and it’s love at first sight, and they kiss and kiss and right as it gets to the good part-! Someone interrupts her daydream (usually Cassandra).

However, her actual experiences are fairly limited. Sure, she has kissed Maidens, but she tends to get over excited. Like in Serenade, she starts to rush the process, and usually ends up draining her “lover” aka victim before anything more intimate happens.

She’s definitely done sexual things, just, well, not with other people. Private things. Usually during or after reading one of her special books. You get the picture.

Because of this, and her aforementioned love of romance novels, Daniela has become somewhat obsessed with the idea of her first time. She wants everything to be perfect. The setting, the timing, who she’s with… Hence her reaction in chapter 3 of Serenade. It’s not that she didn’t want to continue, just that the circumstances didn’t feel right. She’s very particular!

Favorite Music Genre: Girl goes wild for an emotional, gut-wrenching love/power ballad. The type to lie in bed and cry while listening to Hozier or Lorde (not that she can hear either of them, considering her limited music options). Doesn’t admit it, though, and mostly listens to indie pop when other people can hear. That and whatever the Maiden plays on piano ;)

Okay it feels weird to joke about her loving music I wrote, anywayyyy

Hobbies: Other than reading there’s not too much I can see her doing, really. She’d be sure to get into anything that her s/o enjoys, though, even if it’s something difficult or time-consuming. Writing is something she’d love, but it’s difficult for her to keep her focus on just one project at a time. Ideally she’d write short stories, romantic ones obvs, and have someone else proofread/edit them. For the most part she’d write within fantasy and historical setting (seeing as she’s got experience in both of those departments).

ADHD, BABY. Bigtime, seriously. Maybe this is just my adhd ass projecting, but I can’t not see her as having it. For her it mainly manifests with hyper-focusing/difficulty staying on task. It’s like a switch with those on either end, flipping back and forth every once in a while. She can spend six hours reading two different books in one sitting, but if someone just breathes too loudly it disrupts her completely. Because of this she’s somewhat prone to abandoning projects. It’s a sore subject for her, and her sisters are aware, normally only bringing it up if they’re really angry with her.

Opinions on the four lords: Thinks Heisenberg is a tool (pun intended), also thinks that he secretly reads super erotic novels. She doesn’t have any proof, though, and would never say anything about it out loud. Just makes fun of him in her head. Doesn’t actually judge him for what she thinks he reads, just judges his personality and the “need he feels to hide his secret”. Loves Donna, and low-key thinks she’s attractive. Daniela mostly bases that off the portrait she’s seen, but, like many fans, also thinks the hands are nice. The puppets don’t bother her, though she also doesn’t really care about them, other than thinking that Donna interacting with them is cute.

Opinions continued: Moreau is… uh… fish boy. Daniela thinks he’s weird, kinda gross, and hardly considers him a “real” lord. Poor boy :(  At least she doesn’t actively make fun of him?... Even if that’s only because she kinda forgets about him most of the time. As for Lady Dimitrescu, well, obviously Daniela loves her mom. The whole family is very close, and as the “youngest”, Daniela gets a lot of attention. Sometimes she thinks her mother is too strict, but at the end of the day there’s no love lost.

Bela:

Cleans up after her sisters a lot, but still nowhere near as much as any of the Maidens do. Often agrees to help with messes in exchange for blackmail material. “Oh, Daniela, what a shame you broke mother’s favorite dish… I could help, but you owe me one.” At the end of the day, though, there’s plenty she would slide.

Being the “oldest”, she’s expected to behave the best, and often feels more restricted than her sisters. Being an example is hard! Occasionally she’ll have the impulse to rebel, but this usually only manifests in scenarios like the one mentioned above, aka she’ll simply be more lenient of her siblings for a bit.

Overall far less sadistic than her sisters. Cares more about the quality of pain then the amount of it. Only ever goes overboard if someone full out threatens or hurts her family. Insults towards them still earn her ire, and will get her to punish someone, but it’s not enough to make her resort to torture. Usually.

Gets the most restless out of the three. As cool (and large) as the castle is, it’s all she’s ever really known. If not for her weakness to cold, she’d go out on hikes a lot. Nature interests her, fascinates her, but she’d be a little less fond of most of it in person. Like, oh, waterfalls sound so cool, followed by a hundred complaints about the noise. Thinks deer are the cutest shit ever (second only to humans, maybe).

Unlike Daniela (though that HC is relevant almost exclusively to Serenade), Bela has actually slept with a Maiden before. She doesn’t really care for them enough to consider it a relationship, instead admiring them for their entertainment value. Definitely could fall for a Maiden, simply hasn’t yet. Of the three I feel like she takes the longest to fall in love, and even longer to actually act on her feelings. Sometimes resents her siblings because they unknowingly “claimed” a Maiden that she was starting to be interested in. However, she fully acknowledges that she should have said something if she didn’t want to lose the girl, considering the situation they live in.

Favorite music genre: Classical, full orchestra style, with a soft spot for swing/jazz. Enjoys having music play softly while she reads, and is very particular about the volume. Absolutely would argue with her sisters if they tried to change the music or turn it up.

Hobbies: Reading, duh. Less interested in romance than Daniela by a considerable amount. For the most part she reads non-fiction books, enjoying learning about history and the sciences. Astronomy is at the top of her favorites list, followed by biology, then obscure (and often bloody) pieces of history. Niche=perfect. Also enjoys music, even if she had to rely mostly on self-teaching books. Knows the basics of piano, but doesn’t actively play, much preferring both the violin and harp. Most of the time she’ll only play if she knows her sisters won’t bother her, or if her mother asks her to.

Opinions on the four lords: Admires Heisenberg’s work/his edgenuity, but thinks the actual man is a temperamental child… who smells like wet dog. He’s only been at Castle Dimitrescu a couple times (per Mother Miranda’s request), and both times Bela moved to the other side of the house so she wouldn’t have to acknowledge his existence. While she would never admit it, she’s low-key creeped out by Donna’s dolls, and really only tolerates Angie. However, she would never act on her nerves, out of consideration for Donna’s feelings. She knows that her mother gets along well with the dollmaker, and keeps this at the forefront of her mind.

Opinions continued: “Moreau who? Oh, the fish guy? He’s still alive?... Good for him.” Wants to make Lady Dimitrescu proud, but not as desperately as Cassandra. Unknowingly mimics a lot of her mother’s little habits and ticks, and would be quietly embarrassed if someone pointed it out to her. As mentioned previously, she feels like she has to be an example for the others, and somewhat resents the pressure this puts on her. On the other hand, she does enjoy being “responsible for” (read: in charge of) her sisters. Additionally, she is the most likely to get away with lying to Alcina, though she does not often do so. This isn’t because she’s the most manipulative (that’s Cass), or the best liar (that’s Dani, if she’s trying), but simply because Alcina doesn’t think her oldest daughter would lie. Even if she doubts something Bela says, she’ll usually give her the benefit of the doubt… as long as it doesn’t happen very often.

Cassandra:

Sleeps the most of the three, if only because she’s the most active of them. Not as fast as the others while in swarm mode, but the fastest on foot, partially because she’s more likely to simply walk places. She knows the sound of feet on the floor scares the Maidens, and she drinks their fear with utter pleasure. Additionally she claims that it just feels nice to “stretch her legs”. But she will not hesitate to enter swarm mode when chasing someone. As fun as it is to smell their fear, she can get impatient, wanting to get close and personal to her target.

Tends to hide most of her feelings, sometimes even opting to “convert” them into anger. In other words, think of her emotional state as an ever-filling bottle of water. As things happen, she feels emotions, and the rate at which water pours into the bottle increases. Ideally if the water level started getting too high, she would address whatever is increasing the flow of water. Instead of that, she often uses anger, which is equivalent to shaking the bottle a bit and letting water messily spill out of it. Doesn’t address the actual problem, but let’s her release some pressure/free up some room.

Goes through Maidens faster than her siblings (yes, even Daniela “draining you of blood is romantic” Dimitrescu). Not all of them even die in the basement, sometimes what was supposed to be a “warning” turns into “oh shit the blood won’t stop coming out, this is how I die, in this accursed castle, no friends or family to mourn me, just the painful knowledge that I will not be the last, I will die for no cause, no glory, just the bitter whims of a blood-soaked mistress” or something along those lines.

While more likely to get attached to someone than Bela, Cassandra isn’t one to do much about it. She might flirt, might even try to kiss (or, uh, kiss while also not wearing clothes wink wink), but she won’t (usually) claim someone as her own, or protest if one of her sisters wants to have some fun with them (even if it’s the bloody kind of fun). Technically gets over breakups and “breakups” (i.e. death) easier than either of her sisters. To be fully accurate, Daniela still goes through lovers faster, but she also remembers them and cares for them for longer post-breakup.

Somewhat of a blood kink. Like, more than vampires automatically have. In intimate settings she cares more about the quantity of blood and what she can do with it (loves bloodstains) than what causes the bloodshed.

Favorite music genre: Rock ‘n roll. Leans towards older stuff, as well as heavier songs. Soft spot for symphonic metal, but doesn’t admit it out of the fear that some might consider it a “weaker form” of the genre. Almost exclusively listens to bands that have female vocalists, and gets crushes on them more than she’d ever admit.

Hobbies: Art! Painting, mostly, but dabbles in sculpture from time to time. It’s been too long since I took an art class for me to suggest a style for her paintings, but I imagine her sculptures would be somewhat abstract. Her art would revolve around emotion, the stronger and rawer the better, with viewers often being left uncomfortable. While Alcina buys plenty of art supplies for her, Cassandra is fond of improvising, especially by creating her own “tools” (of questionable efficiency) out of items she has laying around. She is absolutely the one who took her mother’s lipstick. If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry, it’s just mentioned in one of the RE8 notes that Lady Dimitrescu’s valuable lipstick is missing.

Opinions on the four lords: Tolerates Heisenberg more than the rest of her family by a considerable amount. She’s seen glimpses of his work, his steampunk-adjacent style, and actually kind of digs it. While Bela cares more about the science behind his work, Cassandra just digs the aesthetic. Sometimes for her art she also needs things she can’t get from the castle, and are too obscure to get from a merchant, so she trades tools/ideas with Heisenberg in exchange for him making something for her. “Can you make a battery but whenever it’s in use it makes a horrible screaming sound?” “Yes. PS I hate your mother and Miranda.” “I didn’t fucking ask.”

Opinions continued: Doesn’t really care much about Donna, but acknowledges her as a fellow artist, and would be willing to consult her if she talked more (and talked without Angie). Cassandra hasn’t met Moreau, thankfully (he would cry). Knows about him from her sister/mother, and as a result doesn’t care about him. Internally whenever someone mentions him, she pictures, like, a Goldfish Cracker (the snack that smiles back) with legs except also it’s green and moldy.

Opinions cont.: Loves her mother so much. Determined to please her, to make her proud, but often left feeling less loved than her sisters. This strains her relationship with her family, not that she’d ever voice her feelings and talk through the issue. Let’s be real, Alcina would probably feel guilty for not realizing how Cass felt. Nonetheless, Cassandra probably spends the most time with her mother, often offering to assist her with tasks, or trying to get her to appreciate her art.

[heyyyharry]

Deep End - Chapter 9: Closer

...in which Ezi has her first kiss.

Word count: 5.4k

AU: famous!harry, siren!mc, adult modern retelling of the little mermaid? lol, fake dating, enemies to lovers.

WARNING: MATURE THEMES

All chapters / Synopsis / Moodboard / Playlist

Wattpad link

A/N: Please tell me what you think about the chapter! Reblog if you could :)

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“Do you know why there’s a true love’s kiss and not a true love’s hug?”

“Why?”

“What do you mean ‘why’? I was asking you.”

Harry sighed, his hands gripping the steering wheel. He had to keep his eyes on the road, but Ezi would keep distracting him with her shifting in her seat every two seconds and rambling on about silly topics he had no interest in. However, he’d promised to not be a dick whenever she talked to him, so he wouldn’t.

“Can’t you see that I’m driving?”

“So?” Ezi snorted. “Just answer the question.”

Harry sighed again. “I guess that’s because a kiss is more special than a hug...romantically.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“Why not not? You’re just exchanging saliva.”

“It’s special if you’re exchanging saliva with someone you care about.”

Ezi still wasn’t satisfied with that explanation. “Okay, but what if the person won’t let you kiss them? How will you know if it’s true love?”

“If they don’t want to kiss you, it means they’re not interested, and therefore, it’s not true love,” Harry said. He couldn’t believe he was actually giving this some thought, but oh well, it was a long drive to the manor anyway. “For me at least,” he added, “true love must come from both sides.” Then he stole a glance at her and did a double-take. “Are you taking notes on your phone?”

Ezi flinched and put her phone into her bag right when she made eye contact with him. “No.”

“Liar. You were.”

“I’m learning to be human.”

“Just say you wanna kiss me.” Harry smirked. “We’re the only people here. This is a safe space.”

“It’s never a safe space when you’re in it,” Ezi said.

Harry’s eyebrows went high. “Excuse me? Yesterday you almost attacked a child for cutting the line in the supermarket.”

Ezi gave a firm nod without showing any remorse. “And the child would have deserved it. You, on the other hand, are deadly with your words.”

“How?!” cried Harry. “I’ve been nothing but nice to you ever since we started fake dating.”

Ezi rolled her eyes and checked her watch. “Yeah, your new record of being nice to me is two hours. Congrats.”

Harry exhaled, his shoulders slumped. “Okay, I think we should go over what to do when we see my mum, because if we act like this in front of her--”

“Why are we seeing your mother again?”

“Didn’t Jeff tell you?”

Ezi shook her head. She seemed quite confused, so Harry guessed Jeff had forgotten. To be honest, Harry found it funny and a little concerning that she had no idea why she was in the car after having been in the car for two hours. Someone could just kidnap her one day, and she wouldn’t even realise until they told her it was a kidnap. Or, maybe she just trusted him not to drive her to a government lab and donate her organs to science.

“Well, Jeff wants some new PR content of you hanging out with my family,” he told her.

“Why?” she asked, face scrunched up.

He lifted his shoulders. “To humanise you.”

“Good luck with that,” Ezi scoffed, rested her elbow on the window on her side and twirled a strand of hair around her finger. “It takes a lot to humanise me.”

“Well, not literally. Just in the public eye, because a lot of people suspect that this is a PR relationship. We’ve only been seen together as friends or co-workers.”

“That’s not true. We’re not even friends.”

“Exactly!” Harry exclaimed. “So if we can convince my mother that we’re dating, we can convince the whole world. Trust me.”

Harry didn’t even exaggerate it; his mother could detect a lie from miles away. He could count the number of times he’d got away with a lie to her on one hand. However, he had never lied to her about being in a relationship. So hopefully, she’d be too happy with the thought of him not being a player like his dad to tell the whole thing was fake.

And so for the rest of the drive, he and Ezi tried acting out scenarios for when they met his mother again. They broke out laughing most of the time because Harry would say something too cheesy or Ezi would use some lines she’d learned from those Netflix originals that Harry had rated one star. Now that they were standing on the steps of the manor, they had to keep it together. Because no one would shout ‘cut!’ if they messed up their lines. This was almost like going in for a blind audition, and Harry knew his mother would be the toughest judge to impress.

“Harold!”

“Niall?” Harry’s eyes went wide when his best friend shoved the butler aside and embraced Harry at the door. Mikasa, Niall’s girlfriend, was standing right behind him, wearing a dark green satin dress that fell loosely to her knees. She gave Harry a lopsided smile, her black curls bouncing on her shoulders as she approached.

Harry hadn’t talked to her for weeks, but he assumed she already knew about Ezi. Hopefully just as much as his mother did. Unless Niall had broken the bro code and told Mikasa everything.

“Mimi, long time no see!” Harry said as he went in for a hug.

Mikasa eyed him up and down with her big smokey eyes. He always imagined those eyes having a special power that enabled her to stare right into his soul and read him like an unsealed letter. She was a psychiatrist and always making her friends feel like they were having a regular session in her office.

“So this is your girlfriend?” Mikasa asked, smiling at Ezi.

Harry’s gaze jumped to Niall, who subtly locked his lips with an invisible key and tossed it over his shoulder. Niall knew about the PR relationship, but Harry could always trust Niall not to tell anyone, even Mikasa. Especially Mikasa.

“Darling, you made it!” exclaimed Harry’s mother as she descended the stairs. Harry was just going in for a hug when he saw who were following behind her. And he froze.

Dawson and evil Aunt Beatrice. Dawson was wearing a simple black suit, completely made invisible by his mother in the tackiest neon orange sundress Harry had ever seen. He could hear his stylish crying just from seeing this outfit.

“What are they doing here, Mum?” Harry quietly asked his mother as they hugged.

His mother kissed his cheek and whispered back, “Since you invited Niall and Mikasa, I thought I should invite Dawson and his mother.”

“How is that the same thing?”

“Harry!” Aunt Beatrice said in her glass-breaking voice as she pulled him in for a suffocating bear hug. “Ah, you grew up so fast! I hardly recognise you!”

“It’s only been a couple of weeks, Aunt Beatrice.”

“I know, right? Kids these days.”

“I’m twenty-four.”

“Harry,” Harry’s mother reminded him, so Harry took a deep breath and went to stand beside Ezi. She looked at him like a deer in front of headlights. This couldn’t be good. His family must be overwhelming for her.

“Hey, Ezili!” Dawson waved at her with a smile, and suddenly, her face brightened, and she enthusiastically waved back. Traitorous little fish, Harry thought as he watched the two greet one another.

“Congratulations, you two,” Dawson said.

Ezi opened her mouth to reply when Harry threw his arm around her shoulders and pulled her back to his side. He gave Dawson the best grin he could fake. “Thanks,” was all he said.

“Picture, everyone!” Niall interrupted the awkward interaction and pulled out his phone.

Everyone gathered together, and Niall winked at Harry. “Now, Mother Styles, could you stand closer to Ezili? Closer! Thanks. There we go. Looks like Ezili’s a part of the family.”

Once the picture was taken, he nudged Harry with his shoulder. “You’re welcome, asshole.”

Harry patted him on the back. “Send it to Jeff for me.”

“Boys, are you coming?” asked Mikasa, who was walking ahead, holding Ezi’s hand.

“Coming, lovebug!” Niall shouted at her and told Harry. “See? She likes Ezili.”

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“So what do you do for a living?” was the first question Harry’s mother asked Ezili when they sat down at the lunch table. They were eating in a glass house in the flower garden by the lake. There were people dressed in uniforms serving them tea and appetizers, and Ezili felt like she was Alice having tea with the Queen of Hearts and her courtiers in Wonderland.

“I work at a bookstore,” she said when one of the maids filled her cup with Jasmine tea.

She didn’t understand Harry’s mother’s appalled reaction and why Harry had to add, “Ezi owns a bookstore.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Harry’s mother said, sounding strangely relieved.

Irritated, Ezili leaned in and whispered to Harry, “Why did you lie?”

But he didn’t answer and only shushed her before smiling at his mother again.

“Can’t believe I get to live to see Harry bring home a young lady!” said Aunt Beatrice. Dawson opened his mouth to interject, but she didn’t give him a chance, “I always thought you were gay!”

At that, Niall choked on his tea, and Mikasa had to rub his back as he coughed violently into his fist. Ezili knew what gay meant, but why was it a bad thing?

“What if I were?” Harry asked his aunt. “I don’t see the problem with me being gay, which I’m not.”

“These biscuits are so nice, Aunt Annalise,” Dawson told Harry’s mother, probably trying to save the conversation from turning into a fight. But it seemed like Dawson’s mother was out for blood this morning.

“Harry,” Aunt Beatrice started again, and Ezili saw Mikasa and Niall sink into their chairs. “You’re a celebrity and the heir to this manor and your father's business. It’s so...unexpected of you to be dating some girl who works in a bookstore.”

Ezili wasn’t dumb. She might not understand a lot of things humans said, but she knew sarcasm like her mother tongue. It was her time to say something.

“What’s wrong with working in a bookstore?” she asked, making direct eye contact with Aunt Beatrice, who was shocked by the question. Everyone at the table seemed to be holding their breath.

“How much could you possibly do and make by owning a bookstore these days?” Aunt Beatrice laughed.

Ezili smirked and shook her head. “You could do and make a lot if you knew how to read.”

Harry kicked Ezili’s foot under the table, but she didn’t pay him a single glance. She believed she’d said nothing wrong at all. It was only the truth. Because why look down on people who worked at a bookstore unless you hated books because you couldn’t read?

Seeing his mother’s face turning red, Dawson burst out laughing. “Oh my God, she’s so funny!” Mikasa and Niall started laughing, too, and Harry’s mother awkwardly joined in.

“That’s what they call dark humour, Aunt Beatrice,” Niall told the angry giant lady. “Ezi’s a true Gen Z. She’s all jokes.”

Aunt Beatrice said nothing else. She shot a glare at a smiling Ezili and lifted her cup to take a sip.

“Oh, there’s my new cook!” said Harry’s mother as she waved at the door. “This is Dolores' first day at work. Come say hello, Dolores dear.”

“Good morning. I hope everyone’s having a wonderful time.”

Ezili’s entire body went stiff. Her eyes almost popped out of her head and dropped onto the plate in front of her. She knew that voice. Her heart was slamming against her ribcage as she held her breath. She felt the person’s presence beside her heavy like a weight ready to crush her bones into dust. Out of the corner of her eyes, she looked up.

Her sister Koa was grinning down at her.

“Ezili, are you okay?” Dawson asked, snapping Ezili out of her numbness.

Koa’s devilish grin remained as she circled the table after wishing everyone a pleasant meal, then disappeared out of the entrance.

Why was she here? Why did she have legs? How had she found Ezili?

“Okay, let's get straight to the point,” Aunt Beatrice started again, and everyone groaned at once. “How much did he pay you?”

“Mum!” cried Dawson.

“Excuse me?” Harry arched an eyebrow.

“It’s PR, isn’t it?” Aunt Beatrice said to him. Ezili was having a hard time paying attention to the argument while her heart was still pounding in her head. Her sister was here, either for her, or after her.

“You can’t do that to your mother, Harry,” Dawson’s mother went on. “She might be easily fooled but I’m not.”

“We should’ve gone for mini-golf,” Mikasa muttered to Niall, who exhaled into his hand.

Harry turned to his mother. “You’re just gonna let her disrespect my girlfriend like that?”

His mother opened her mouth to speak, but his aunt was faster. “If she’s your girlfriend then kiss her.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Harry scoffed and threw his hands in the air.

Ezili immediately stood up. All eyes fell on her.

“Excuse me,” she said, her voice trembling. “I must go to the bathroom.”

“I’ll take you--”

“No, Harry, you stay.”

Harry slowly sat back down as Ezili pushed her chair out and headed straight for the door. Thankfully, he didn’t follow her.

She crossed the garden and asked one of the employees where the kitchen was. As it turned out, they had a separate kitchen for when they served food in the glasshouse. Ezili couldn’t see the point of having more than one kitchen, but this was no time to question it.

When she found Koa, no one else was there but them. It seemed as if Koa had known Ezili would follow her here, so she’d asked everyone else to leave.

Ezili stood at the door while her sister stood by the counter with her back turned to Ezili. The first thing Ezili noticed was the knives within Koa’s reach. Ezili must be wise when confronting her sister.

“What are you doing here?” she asked Koa in Séren.

Koa slowly turned and leaned against the counter, arms crossed. “I’m a cook. Can't you see?”

“How did you find me?”

The corner of Koa’s lips curled as she unbuttoned the collar of her white shirt and revealed a gold necklace. Ezili sucked in a breath when she saw the shiny trident-shaped medallion on her sister’s chest.

“Is that--”

“Mother’s trident,” Koa sneered. “Yes, it is.” Then she buttoned up her shirt to cover it. “Now we can see who mother trusts more.”

“Why--”

“Aunt Nerissa came for a visit last week,” Koa said. Ezili knew that name could never be associated with anything good. “Mother doesn’t trust her, so she asked me to go on land to find you, but also to keep the trident away from Nerissa’s clutches.”

Ezili swallowed hard, her fists tightly glued to her sides. “What happened to the cook?”

Koa clicked her tongue. “She’s swimming with fishes now. Like the ones swimming in her pot just then.”

“You drowned her?!”

“In the lake.”

Ezili gripped her head and advanced towards Koa. “How many humans have you killed?”

Koa chuckled and took a few steps forward until she was dangerously close enough to hurt Ezili. She stood with her back straight and arms folded, her silver eyes flickering in the sunlight. “The important question is…” She stared Ezili down. “How many have you killed?” Ezili bit her lip when Koa poked her chest with her long nail. “Or are you too busy dating now? People are talking about it everywhere.” Ezili said nothing, so Koa went on, “It’s a fake relationship, isn’t it?” She leaned in, taunting. “Come on, Sister. Admit that you’ve failed. That you can’t make the human fall in love with you. Why so quiet? Is it because if you admit it, you’re an embarrassment and you lose the trident to me, and if you deny it, then it means you’re becoming way too human to kill him.”

At that, Ezili shoved Koa away and stabbed a finger at her. “Leave me alone. Mother gave me a year for this mission.”

“We won’t have that much time, stupid,” Koa snorted. “Narissa is onto something. The queendom is already in danger as we’re speaking. And you’re here having...brunch?” She clicked her tongue, shaking her head. “Pathetic.”

“Ezi?”

Both of them whipped their heads around and saw Harry, who stiffened in the doorway.

“Ezi?” Koa cackled, hugging her stomach. “Is that your human name? Are you his pet now?”

Though confused, Harry stepped into the kitchen anyway. “Ezi, you’re alright?”

“Harry, watch out!” Ezili shouted, but Koa was already on top of Harry on the floor. She sank her fangs into Harry’s arm with the rolled-up sleeve. Harry yelped in pain as Ezili dragged her sister off of him and slammed Koa’s head against the table. Hissing, Koa grabbed a knife on the counter and aimed it at Ezili, but Ezili was fast enough to kick it out of her sister’s grip and sent one more kick into Koa’s stomach. Koa was stronger than Ezili had thought as she plunged at Ezili again.

“Harry, run!”

But Harry didn’t run. He was back on his feet, grabbed a vase and smashed it onto Koa’s back. “Do not hurt my fake girlfriend!”

Koa rolled off of Ezili. The last thing Ezili could see was her sister’s bloodied face as she stumbled towards the door and ran off into the light.

Ezili lay there until her vision cleared again, and Harry helped her back to her feet.

“What the fuck?!” he yelled. “Who the fuck was she?!”

“My sister,” Ezili said, still holding her aching head.

“The one who tried to drown me? Why is she here?”

“To kill me, I think.”

“Why?”

“Harry--”

But Harry wasn’t listening. He was pacing back and forth like a mad man. “This isn’t good, Ezi. This is bad! Your crazy sister is gonna expose us!”

“Expose us?” Ezili grabbed him by the arm and spun him around. “She almost killed you.”

It seemed as if Harry had forgotten that his arm was bleeding until Ezili had brought it up. He suddenly winced and fell into a chair.

Ezili scanned her eyes around the messy kitchen, panting as she tried to make sure that Koa had escaped. Then, she got down on her knees beside Harry and reached for his wounded arm.

He stared down at her in confusion, then his expression turned horrified when she leaned in.

“What the fuck?!” he hissed and yanked his arm away.

She glared up at him in annoyance. “Let me help!”

“Hell no! You’re not gonna lick my blood.”

“You need to clean the wound!”

“With water! Not by sucking it!”

Ezili huffed and aggressively got up while silently cursing Harry in Séren.

“There’s a--” His voice cut off when she tore off a piece of her dress “--towel over there,” he trailed off. She ignored him and went to the sink to soak the piece of fabric in water. He shook his head and blew up his cheeks. “Nevermind. You do you.”

Still glaring at him when she returned, Ezili got back down on her knees and started cleaning Harry’s arm. The place her sister had sunk her fangs into had turned dark red. It would definitely leave a huge bruise tomorrow.

“Lucky for you Koa was distracted and didn’t aim to bite your whole arm off,” Ezili whispered and glanced up, meeting Harry’s gaze. “You sure you don’t want me to lick your wound?”

“Well, now that you’re already in this position, you could just lick something else,” he chuckled.

Ezili’s eyes narrowed. “Like what?”

To her confusion, Harry covered his face and shook with laughter. “Sorry, that was a dumb joke. I just couldn’t help it.”

“I didn’t get it.”

“Yeah, that’s how a joke loses its funny,” he sighed then snapped his fingers. “Ooh, maybe I should just pretend that I don’t understand whenever someone tells me a joke, so that they gradually lose their funny.”

“That’s the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard,” Ezili remarked.

“What do you mean?” Harry pouted. “I don’t get it, babe.”

Ezili rolled her eyes at his childishness, still, she couldn’t help but smile a little.

Once she had wrapped the piece of her dress securely around his arm, Harry pulled down the sleeve to cover it as he got to his feet. “That should do. Let’s hope my mother won’t suspect that we just got attacked in her kitchen by her cook, who was your evil siren sister in disguise. Damn, that sounds crazy even for me.”

Ezili stood with her arms crossed. “Do you think your mother can tell we’re not really dating?”

“Nah, my mother totally believes it.” Harry shrugged. “Honestly, I think we’re doing a great job pretending we’re in love when we can’t even have a conversation without insulting each other.”

“I don’t get paid enough to call you babe so many times.”

“Neither do I. This PR relationship is harder than I tho--”

Harry’s sentence got cut off by a sound at the door. When they both turned to it, Dawson was standing there, his eyes wide with shock.

Ezili was hoping that was the reaction to the messy kitchen and not to what she and Harry had said. However, luck wasn’t smiling at her tonight. Dawson’s appalled gaze jumped from Harry to Ezili. “What do you mean by ‘PR relationship’?”

.

.

.

“I can explain,” Ezi said, reaching for Dawson, but he backed away while staring at both her and Harry in disbelief. Harry believed Dawson wasn’t shocked that Harry could pull something like this, because Harry hadn’t been exactly the good kid growing up. What Dawson hadn’t expected was Ezi being part of this plan. Ezi must be an angel in Dawson’s eyes.

“So my mother was right,” Dawson said, flicking his finger between Harry and Ezi. “You were lying to everyone.”

“Dawson--” Ezi began, but Harry pulled her back by her wrist.

“Please don’t tell my mother,” he told Dawson and received stunned looks from both Dawson and Ezi. They probably hadn’t expected that coming from him. “This means a lot to her, and I don’t want her to be any more let down,” Harry continued. “Also, Ezi needs money, and I’m just trying to help. She’s also writing the next album with me, so it’s all good business.”

Dawson peered at both their faces for a long moment as if he was psychoanalysing each of them. Then, he breathed, “So you two don't have feelings for each other?”

“No.” Ezi shook her head fast and tugged at Harry’s sleeve. “Harry, tell him.”

Harry opened his mouth. Suddenly, he thought about how frightened he’d been when he’d thought Ezi’s sister was going to kill her. He could’ve run off and let her deal with it alone since he hadn’t asked to be part of her family drama, and he wasn’t brave, either. Nevertheless, he’d jumped in to help her.

“No,” he said, only to realise he shouldn’t have taken such a long pause to say only one word.

“See?” Ezi smiled at Dawson, who seemed less sceptical now.

“Okay,” Dawson said, his face relaxed as he put his hands on his hips. “Who else knows? Niall and Mikasa?”

“Mikasa doesn’t know,” Harry said. “Only Niall.”

“Alright.” Dawson nodded and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “But you guys are really bad at pretending to be in love,” he told them after another moment. “I’ll try to tell my mum to stop being rude to you. But just to be safe, you should make it more convincing.”

Ezi heaved a sigh of relief and placed her hand on Dawson’s arm. Harry swore he saw Dawson hold his breath as if Ezi had the Midas touch, and Harry had to fight the urge to roll his eyes.

“Thank you, Dawson,” Ezi said in the softest tone Harry had ever heard.

“Your dress,” Dawson pointed out while eyeing her and then the kitchen. “What...what happened here?”

“There was a rat,” Harry blurted.

Ezi joined in, “Harry tried to kill it then it knocked over the vase, and I fell and pulled him down with me and ripped my dress on the glass.”

Dawson furrowed his brows as he nodded at the piece of Ezi’s dress in her fist. “That’s your blood?”

Ezi shook her head. “It’s the rat’s.” Then, she looked over at Harry, suppressing a grin. He stayed quiet and glared at her.

“Oh, God. That’s disgusting,” Dawson made a face. “Need me to help you clean up?”

“No, I’ll take care of it,” Harry said. “I’ll take Ezi upstairs to clean up. Could you distract everyone for a while?”

“Yeah, sure,” Dawson nodded, gave Ezi a tight-lipped smile and turned to the door. “Now, where the hell is the cook?”

.

.

.

Harry could hear every single word of the Jonas Brothers song playing downstairs. It seemed like everyone had finished brunch without him and Ezi, and now Niall was turning the manor into a concert. Niall and Mikasa had met at a Jonas Brothers’ concert years ago, and they would not let people forget about it. What they had was cute, but Harry could not imagine being with someone for that long. A PR relationship was tiring enough; he didn’t think he could ever handle a real one.

Back against the wall, he stared at his watch and tapped his foot impatiently before he came to knock on the door to his mother’s walk-in closet. “Ezi, are you done?”

“I don’t know how to put this on!”

Harry tossed his head back and groaned. “Do you need help?”

“Yeah!”

“Goddamn it,” he muttered under his breath. “Cover yourself. I’m coming in.”

Just to be safe, he had his hand over his eyes when he opened the door.

You'll say my name like it's been on your lips

Familiar in ways I can't explain

You got a heart that I know I can miss

Hold me like that and pull me right back again

The music outside became muffled. Harry peeked through the gap between his fingers, and nearly had a heart attack when he saw Ezi standing there topless with only jeans on. “I told you to cover yourself!”

“Oh, please, there’s nothing you haven’t seen.”

“It’s different every time.”

“How? I’ve only got one body.”

“No, seeing you feels different every time. It’s weird.”

Time stands still and it's only us

What we feel started way before we ever touched

Just imagine only us

Yeah, you found me right before I'd given up

Ezi said nothing, and Harry lowered his hand, feeling glad that she was facing away from him now. She looked over her shoulder, frowning. “Help me with this shirt!”

He ruffled his hair and padded over to take the shirt from her hand. “You got the button stuck?! This is my mother’s favourite Chanel shirt!”

“It was like that when I found it.”

“Liar.” Harry shook his head and started examining the stuck button. Ezi turned around, hugging her chest so her breasts weren’t exposed to him. He was trying his best not to look. Maybe he shouldn’t have put her in a dress that didn’t require a bra. He guessed he’d played himself.

“Harry.”

“Damn, maybe I should get you another shirt and buy a new one for my mum. I don't know how to fix this.”

“Harry,” Ezi repeated and tapped Harry on the arm. He looked up, face heating when he saw her.

I just saw the lightning strike

Knew it right then when I looked in your eyes

And I said to myself, "It's no surprise we ain't strangers"

Strangers tonight

Still, he acted indifferent. “What?”

“I think we should kiss,” she said, making him flinch.

“Why?” He was already sweating through his palms. His mother’s shirt could no longer be saved now.

“To make it more convincing,” Ezi said as if them kissing wasn’t a big deal to her. “Maybe if there’s a picture of us kissing--”

“Have you ever kissed anyone before?”

She froze at the question and blinked at him.

I came here looking for another excuse

To run away from something beautiful

It's like it's driving me closer to you

Every step back pulls me right back

At this question, Ezi’s whole life up until that point flashed before her eyes. She had lost count of all the times she’d kissed sailors before drowning them. But she wasn’t going to kiss Harry to kill him. Not yet at least. He would still be there, alive, when she opened her eyes. He would still be aware of her lips against his. And she would, too.

“No,” she lied.

And he believed it. He cleared his throat. Suddenly, her standing there topless wasn’t weird anymore. “Okay, it’s pretty easy.” He put the shirt aside. His fingers were shaking so he opened and closed his fists a few times before beckoning her over. “Come here.”

She took a step forward.

“Closer.”

Another step.

Harry’s face reddened with a small smile. “Ezi, closer.”

He’d never talked to her in that tone before. It was soft and firm at the same time, and she completely forgot having sworn to herself that she would never let him tell her what to do. She came so close she could not tell his breath from her own. His eyelids fluttered, and his pink lips parted, yet no word escaped. Then, he leaned in.

Must be from a different life

Been here before and it just feels right

No, this ain't the first time for you and I, we ain't strangers

Strangers tonight

But it was her who took his face between her hands and kissed him first. He froze for a second, then started kissing her back, his arms circled around her waist, pressing her against him.

Harry’s entire body grew hot. The voice inside his head told him to stop, but it only made him bolder. He liked that she’d taken charge. Her hands were under his shirt as his roamed across her naked back. His eyes went wide when she unconsciously let out a moan.

Strangers

Strangers

Strangers tonight

“Ezi,” he breathed against her lips. But before he could say anything else, there was a knock on the door.

“Harry, are you in there?”

Ezi pulled away as Harry threw his head back and exhaled harshly. “Yes, Niall?”

“Is Ezili there with you?”

“Yes,” Harry answered in a croaked voice and quickly cleared his throat. “Yes,” he repeated, sounding more stable. “Why?”

“You missed all the fun stuff. Your mother scolded your aunt for what she’d said to you and Ezi, and Dawson had to take his mother’s home.”

Harry looked over at Ezi, expecting her to be thrilled by the good news, but she only gave a small smile, her arms still tightly wrapped around herself to cover her breasts. Was she...shy?

Yes, yes she was. Ezi didn’t think she could ever be shy. But here she stood, blushing all over from a stupid kiss.

“Are they in there?” Harry’s mother’s voice outside the door made Harry and Ezi jump.

They looked at each other, scared when Niall told Harry’s mum that they were in the closet together.

“Not in my closet, Harry!”

“I’m just helping Ezi get changed, Mum!”

“You better!”

And then their footsteps faded down the hallway, along with his mother’s laughter.

Ezi and Harry made eye contact with each other and looked away at the same time as silence ensued. Suddenly, Harry started sniffing.

“What is it?” Ezi asked, worried.

Harry leaned in and started sniffing her neck, and she pushed him away. “What the hell?!”

“You smell.”

“Excuse me?!”

“No.” Harry shook his head fast. “You smell good. But..you didn’t have a smell before.”

Ezi quickly lifted her arm to smell herself. “I smell nothing.”

“That’s because it’s your own smell, so you don't recognise it. But--” Harry cut off midsentence and picked up a strand of her hair and brought his nose to it. Then, his lips curled. “Aww, my kiss turned you a little more human.”

“Shut up!” Ezi shoved at his chest. “I’m not turning more human! That’s not true!”

“It is true! Kiss me again. I’ll prove it.”

She said nothing, only glared at him as he burst out laughing and tossed her a t-shirt.

[miraculouscontent]

(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Oh My Gosh!!!! I was just thinking about Party Crasher and man I hate how they had Ladybug get captured for the men to save! It's a continuous thing you see in media: strong heroic woman gets put in peril so that the men can shine. I didn't even realize it until you said it! I get that it was probably meant to be a "role reversal" of Chat always getting kidnapped or brainwashed for Ladybug to save, but the fact that this is the "guys' episode" it read like "well damn, we can't have the guys be strong if a girl is in the way; let's have the girl get captured so the boys can prove their worth by rescuing her!".

At least in Sandboy, Ladybug was still competent and came up with the plans, but this?! It makes me sick, and it's all too easy to fall into these traps; even Kim Possible did it! In my magical girl story, the heroine does get put in a magical coma and require someone to bail her out, but it's her female friends AND her boyfriend who save her, so it's not just a girl being weakened so a boy can be powerful, especially since said boy actually does a minority of the work required to save her; the focus is on the female characters so it's her girl friends who do most of it. I still ended up scrapping that side plot anyway, and do you know why? Because regardless of who saved her, I still didn't want my female protagonist to be put in distress at all due to the unfortunate implications! Needing help in a fight? Sure. But outright being captured or kidnapped? Nah fam.

I was honestly thinking about that when the first episode came out. Like, they could’ve just had Marinette NOT SHOW UP in time so the guys take care of things, which at least gives more of a message that Paris wouldn’t go to hell just because Ladybug is a little late or something.

And yeah, the “boys squad episode so gotta toss the girl out” is... sigh.

Anonymous said:

I think the writers were trying to show Chat angsting to show his regret instead of an actual apology. Still doesn't explain why Aeon didn't bring up her death afterwards. Did Olympia delete that from her memory banks?

I guess? :|

I don’t know why Chat can’t just apologize without fishing or trying to earn sympathy. Like JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY, DAMMIT.

Anonymous said:

If you haven't read Maribat, then you won't regret it. I am not in the DC universe but I started reading it and WOW. Literally every single time Marinette is a badass queen and gets her complete revenge and is actually happy! Even if you absolutely love Lukanette (which I have nothing against) you should totally try it.

Appreciate the comment, but I find it hard to ship other Marinette ships outside of Lukanette. Ivanette is a very loose exception and it’s not like I ship it hard or anything.

Anonymous said:

Despite not being a Lukanette shipper I love you. Why? Because you amazing, so right in literally everything and I love you <33

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

The NY Special made it so that Max is literally the only Black/Brown kid that doesn’t exist to make Love Square happen and that just makes me hate it even more.

I wish you didn’t make me have this realization because I hate it.

At least Delmar existed in the New York special???? I guess???? I dunno, I’m trying here, I don’t recall him doing anything love square centric.

Anonymous said:

I honestly don't mind Alix's outfit as Bunnix! I feel like it fits her, plus she's an adult so its not much of a problem, not saying it can't be improved however. I DO have issues with the designs for the underage girls outfits however....those are very sus

Yeah, the problem I take with Bunnyx’s is that it’s a bodysuit. If there was just more definition, like having actual boots, I wouldn’t complain as much.

Anonymous said:

I actually just really like the idea of the new bee being a genuinely nice person who becomes friends with Marinette. Not exactly close friends (since I like the idea of friendly working relationships without actual personal stakes in them). I also enjoy the idea of the new bee having some small animosity for Chat Noir- just because their personalities aren't the greatest mix. I also think that it would make sense for the miraculous of subjection to be at odds with the miraculous of destruction

Full agreement but we know how much the writers are resistant to have characters go against Chat.

Anonymous said:

Not gonna lie the scene where the girl squad gets akumatized almost makes it seem like they got akumatized on purpose, similar to Manon in Puppeteer 2(although she was a little kid who was probably just imagining she could enact revenge). And why can't they have a uniformed design, like they're a team but wear different colors, similar to the Sailor Senshi(like, Alya's the leader and wears orange, Rose wears pink, Alix wears green, Juleka wears purple, and Mylene wears yellow). It's so boring.

Mood.

Not to mention that WE ARE SO TIRED OF THEM GETTING AKUMATIZED INTO THE SAME AKUMA.

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

Relating to the Didn't Need Burrows and Treatment of Marinette bingo cards, have you considered making one for whenever the show fails at girl power? It could say things like "sexualized frames of teenage girls" "boy tells girl what to do" "girls don't get to keep Miraculouses", and "girls are forced to apologize whenever a situation goes wrong". And in the center, it could say "Don't show this to your daughter!"! Lol! What do you think?

lol I feel like I have enough cards, otherwise I would.

Anonymous said:

I saw another post that talked about Miraculous New York, and they theorized that it was rewritten to focus more on Marinette and Adrien in order to get viewers invested in the Love Square again after more people started to lose faith in the ship. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think so. The whole special comes off as trying to reassure love square shippers because of how hard it goes for him. I cut out Marinette’s crushing and it cuts like 18% from the episode, meaning it’s even worse than Season 3 (15%).

Anonymous said:

Maybe the point of the [break-up episodes] is meant to discourage people from shipping Lukanette and Adrigami too?

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

Are we not gonna talk about how in one ask, somebody legit said "(long dreamy sigh) Viperion"? Like same.

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

Ml fandom: I hate how Ladybug keeps secrets from Chat Noir! He sacrifices himself for her all the time and she never appreciates him for it! He has EVERY right to get mad at her!!

ML Fandom when Chat Noir does the same thing in the special: ....Wow Ladybug was way to harsh on Chat Noir!! She doesn’t appreciate him at all!! Shes so mean to him!

:|

i hate it

Anonymous said:

Idk if it's just me, but a majority of the fandom is split in two; it's never one or the other "MARINETTE SUCKS AND IS A HORRIBLE PERSON GUARDIAN MARY SUE WHO SEXUALLY HARRASSES" or "ADRIEN SUCKS HE WAS NEVER ON MARINETTES SIDE" but im personally on the latter, but not to that extreme. i hate videos bashing marinette and then never acknowledge adriens faults

Yeah, the fandom gets more divided as time goes on because of the writers trying to increase the drama/tension.

Anonymous said:

I am PERSONALLY offended they gave Luka the snake miraculous. Snakes have such a negative connotation. A lot of people insult Lila by calling her a SNAKE. And now those ML writers DARE insult the best character in ML?! HOW DARE THEY!?????

I adore Viperion but I agree that I first heard he was getting snake and was like, “BUT MY BOI???”

It gets awkward too because other animals like the pig have negative connotations, like how Daizzi basically means “idiot/stupid” and they’re giving it to the freaking blond character, really???

Anonymous said:

I think that Ivanette would be even better if Marinette was plus-sized character.

I see why you’d think that. I just disagree because then it turns the ship into “let’s pair the heavyset characters together because they heavyset.”

Anonymous asked:

On the topic of romance failures and general series salt, my main issue right now is how the series puts so much focus on romantic relationships while failing to consider other levels of relationship or what they affect.

On the L² front I can completely buy Marinette being in love with Adrien. Most of the time she genuinely wants him to be happy and is ready to take a step back for him, however much it hurts. But in terms of romantic love? It. Is. A. Crush! But if we step back from the formula, what is there left between them? Their civilian relationship is held together by a “comedy” of errors and without that there is surprisingly little left. Well, besides two “best friends” desperately trying to make it happen because somehow they lost their individual characters and instead of being friends became matchmakers?

I too like Luka and Marinette together. Their relationship is pretty nice to see and all. But sometimes it feels like it happens in a dimension of its own, like the writers want to make the endgame clear in that the “sideships” can be easily cut out of the big “how they got together”-recaps. I especially miss reactions from and interactions with Juleka. She is Luka’s sister, Marinette’s friend, and IIRC someone aware of if not even a bit player in the great shipping game. She is in a prime position to step up and bring progress on all fronts: She can talk with Luka. She can either give Marinette helpful pointers or go “All in or nothing”, i.e. trying to make Marinette get her Adrien-feelings in order as she does not want her brother to get less than Marinette’s full heart. Similarly, she can counteract “friendly acts” and stop humiliating situations from escalating, or she herself can escalate them in the “All or Nothing”-scenario. Yet she remains basically a background character who gets little attention from the camera and almost no “non-focus identity”

As for Kagami, I may be too biased. *Any* positive Kagami/Marinette relationship is to me what Lukanette is to you. So naturally I have lots of opinions when it comes to her role ;) But can I just say that Adrien/Kagami is the weirdest ship for me? They have a few cute scenes and I think if they’d spend a lot more time together, they’d do each other good but I don’t know how they work. “No Hesitation” Kagami would lob Adrien’s head straight off with all his…everything. If we are meant to take Adrien’s love for LB seriously (and I guess we have to because how in the name of sanity is any form of the stated endgame gonna work otherwise???), how does Kagami fit into that picture as a girl who can hardly express emotions while Adrien is the definition of a  guy who can not stop flirting or goes for all kinds of romantic gestures? Sometimes it feels more like a “social fit” and “Mommy/Daddy approves” kind of deal which is quite the shame! Normally I like these kind of relationships in fictions but they need a solid underlining or good development. One they haven’t and one the series has not been giving to anyone so far.

Yeah, the whole thing with the love square versus side ships ends up feeling extremely forced. Keeping Luka away and forcing Adrien into Lukanette episode are the biggest giveaways, basically a big fat sign that says, “We know Marinette would forget that Adrien exists if she hung around Luka for more than five minutes.”

AND YEAH, KAGAMI WOULDN’T PUT UP WITH ADRIEN’S GARBAGE. I liked Adrimi but it’s definitely more flawed than Lukanette.

Anonymous said:

Watched your opinion on the New York special and I agree with you. It was mediocre at best. It could have been something nice, like if they added Kagami and Luka, for example, so that we can get a bit of development from the new couples on season 4, so that it doesn’t feel rushed when they start dating on season 4. It could also be a good opportunity to see the other temporary heroes one last time, since Marinette technically has the miracle box.

They could have had an epic fight with the American Superheroes, maybe even giving the bee miraculous temporally to Aeon or Jess so that we didn’t need to see their awful and uncreative superheroes designs. It would have been nice if they made something more useful other than being characters that believe that Adrien and Marinette are “Meant to be”, like, we already got a ton of these already, couldn’t we get someone who didn’t feel something about this ship? It has so much wasted potential that I don’t even know how to start. Do you agree with anything I said?

I agree, yes. They could’ve easily thrown Luka/Kagami into the mix (or had Marinette/Adrien stay behind while flipping perspectives or something; flawed but they could make it work).

Anonymous said:

I'm rereading ladybugout and wow... the moment of silence after "chat deserves that kiss" gets me every time. Everyone stopping and just staring because wow he really just said that

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

I saw the Backwarder post you just talked about and yes, it is so totally ridiculous. They forgot another thing, though. Miraculous isn't just about comedy, action, and romance, it's about embarrassing Marinette. And the fact that almost everyone in the comments was acting like the medicine scene at the end was funny was just stupid and saddening to hear or read about, because it shows how people have been conditioned to hate and rally against Marinette without even realizing it. Granted, there was one lady who said it reminded her of her husband, so I guess that's okay(but all it means is that Adrien will be Marinette's--aka "his lady's"--husband like eeerrrgh!). And there was one person who said they liked that Juleka's advice because "If you're friend isn't willing to commit crimes for your happiness, is she even your friend?". But everyone else liked the ending. And I don't get the person who said we got "Subtle progression with Adrien and Marinette". We're right where we started.

Weeeeell, I understand the “comedy, action, romance” comment because all of those basically boil down to embarrassing Marinette or invalidating her. Comedy and romance goes without saying while action involves her dealing with Chat “Nice Guy” Noir.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me, or does Snow White's "Red Shoes" form look a lot like Marinette. I know, I know, Marinette is Chinese and Red Shoes is Korean, but they still look strikingly similar. They're bodies are really similar, too, but that might just be because animation tends to use eerily similar body types for its female characters on a whole. It's sad and it makes me think of how cute Marinette would be if she was fat. I also think Snow White was cuter than Red Shoes but that's kind of the point.

I think it’s the body type thing but that’s just a guess since I didn’t immediately make the connection.

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one who's never liked "destined to fail" characters? Basically this is when characters aren't allowed to be good at/succeed at something or else the whole universe will somehow fall apart. Think of how in The Amazing World of Gumball, if Richard gets a job, the world will be in complete and utter chaos. So he's better off as a lazy, bumbling dad. In Phineas and Ferb, Candace is always trying to rat out her younger brothers but if she gives up or succeeds something bad will happen.

TV Tropes put it the best: "Not only is she not allowed to succeed, but she's also not allowed to stop trying!"(conveniently under the Cosmic Plaything trope). I just don't like it because it shows that the writers just want to lead them on with the promise of success then snatch it away at the last minute. And now we're back at Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette is humiliated every time she doesn't sign a gift that's for Adrien, and yet when she does, everyone in Paris DIES. Except for...HIM.

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

Also, yeah, it’s so hard to watch, especially in “Chat Blanc” because it’s like, “Oh, you want to give a gift to a boy and you dArEd to use your powers for it? Congrats, but everyone else is DEAD and you can hang out with him as much as you want! You’re welcome!”

Anonymous said:

I think it’d become a “faintest idea blackout card”rather than a bingo.

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

I hate that everything on that list could happen and very likely will

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

That’s be real here. Miraculous ladybug is not a show about Marinette; Miraculous Ladybug is a show about Adrien. Adrien is the real main character.

Notice that when they focused on Adrien in “Lies,” they only cut back to Marinette (IN A SCENE THAT CAN’T EXIST) to have her fawn over him.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me or are Lady Noire's eyes huge? Maybe it's just the green but they seem way bigger than Marinette's

I’m not sure, but considering Rena’s facial structure being different from Alya’s, it wouldn’t surprise me.

asexual-individual said:

With what you've said about Adrien lacking a reason to exist outside of development for Marinette and Gabriel, I have to wonder how different the show would be if Chat Noir's identity was also kept from the audience. Adrien would still be there as himself, but he only gets as much focus as Alya, and Chat Noir's identity is treated as a mystery (a Tuxedo Mask type mystery, but a mystery all the same).

I see what you mean but it might cause Adrien+Chat’s screentime to feel excessive once the reveal happens, because suddenly their screentime gets combined and it’s like, “oh wow so the combined screentime is his then.”

Anonymous said:

I know that the kwami's really only exist so we can hear our protagonists' thoughts outloud (like what the Coraline movie did with adding Wybie to the story). But honestly, what's the point in having magical gods in the jewelry if you're not going to do anything with them?

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

It's funny, originally, I had shipped Marichat in the sense that Chat and Mari start hanging out and both fall in love with the other's supposedly less perfect, more real selves. Then Luka was introduced and I ended up putting both lukanette and marichat at the same level. Then S3 hit and killed any love I had for Marichat. The writers themselves killed the Love Square for me. At this point, it's very clear they are living in a delusion where the Love Square could ever work narratively without Deus ex Machina or Deus Lo Vult (God wills it). Basically, they've gone past scraping the bottom of the writing skills barrel and are now shoulder deep in the hole they dug thru the bottom of said barrel. I'd like to point out that the bottom of the barrel is writing poop and now they're digging thru the useless plastic landfill the barrel was sitting on top of

Uggggh, yeah. Any appreciation I could’ve had for Marichat died in “Weredad.” I already didn’t like Adrien/Chat and then “Weredad” just showed his complete lack of... well, ANYTHING.

cosmostellar said:

Honestly feels like MLBs writers are going based off the "JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE" instead of, yknow, fleshing them out while developing them also in the context of their cultures and giving them these little things that the audiences who belong to the same minority can identify with. I don't mean "have Marinette walk in qipao 24/7" bcs thats just... bad on its own but man, /some/ casual acknowledgments of her culture would be nice.

Reading the sentence “JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE” physically hurts me.

Anonymous said:

Ok, I've always thought that Chloe was robbed of redemption (they held it in front of us, but then jerked it away while Astruc says, "She's irredeemable! We thought she was redeemable, but she wasn't :)!" What are your thoughts! Also, I just recently found your blog and I really like it :)

Thank you!

But I have no sympathy for bully characters, so I didn’t want Chloe redeemed. Maybe I’m still bitter about my own bullying experience, but I just wasn’t here for Marinette being forced to forgive Chloe, which is basically what they did until they backpedaled.

The time spent on her was wasted though and that I can agree on.

Anonymous said:

Me: Writes a 1k rant about how the tweet makes no sense as the "mistake" is about motivation and not the critical plot. Also me: Remembers that in MLB the plot always comes back to the romance. Finally me: Wonders why he got involved with the series post-S3 when all the red flags were already everywhere.

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

I'm semi-catching up on miraculous, and- is it my impression, or does Kagami rebel against her mother more in few episodes she's in (even though her mother's influences on her seem to be stronger in general), than Adrien in the entire show? I /know/ that I don't want to see Adrien free himself from his father w/ the desperation I want to see Kagami free herself from her mother and realize that the standards she's held up to are unhealthy and too strong.

Yeah, I’m way more invested in Kagami than Adrien.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one confused about whether the staff stopped caring and half-asses the series or cares too much and over-produces the hell out of it?

Nah. It really feels like they secretly hate the love square so they have to keep forcing it.

Anonymous said:

ngl I haven't watched any new episodes since Chameleon and I've been getting all that Miraculous News via tumblr to avoid that Marinette Brand Second Hand Embarrassment™

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

If they aired the 6th one first WHAT WHAT HAPPENED TO LEAD UP TO THIS???? WE ARE ON SEASON FOUR WITH TWO SPEICALS, GETTING A THIRD, AND ANY DEVELOPMENT WE HAD HAS GONE BACKWARDS, SUCKED, OR STATUS QUO YO-ED AWAY!!!!! HOW THE HECK DO WE GET ADRIENETTE FROM FOUR SEASONS OF NOTHING?????? I USED TO FANGIRL AT THIS NOW I AM TERRIFIED.

Answer: We don’t get Adrienette. We get forced love square and rushed/fake “development” of it while being constantly confused as episodes air out of order.

Anonymous said:

im sorry But adrienette has been suck in this limbo of one sidedness for 3 seasons. neither of them have become closer, neither of them have confided in one another, but somehow people still ship it? at least luka was able to make a move on marinette lol adrien still repeats the same boring “shes just a friend” line. adrienette is a really boring ship.

lol don’t apologize, you’re absolutely right.

nahte123456 said:

Very minor bit of salt to throw to the pile, but can this show just decide on how strong Miraculous holders are? Yes it's a cartoon and not the focus but in the Furious Fu episode we literally get Ladybug dodging lighting and then Su who seems mostly human and is at least slower then Fu was outspeeding her. It's distracting trying to figure out what is and isn't a serious threat in this show.

The deciding factor in the strength of the miraculous holders is “whatever works for the plot.”

Anonymous said:

At this point the only thing I'm excited for concerning Miraculous Ladybug is when it gets a reboot in like, a decade with actually competent writers

Best case scenario is that Zag goes bankrupt and Disney/Netflix picks up the series and gives it to competent people.

Problem is that the love square has been ruined so badly for me that even a “good” version of it wouldn’t be something I’d be into, but still.

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the problem with having all of Marinette's mistakes result in huge disasters (ex. Feast), is that is gives off the impression that teenagers aren't allowed to make mistakes. This show clearly doesn't like giving second chances to the protagonist, so why would life give one to you? Am I right, kids?

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

If your gonna watch the show, at least pirate the episodes so the writers dont get your support

Don’t worry, I have no interest in financially supporting the show.

Anonymous said:

ml in a nutshell: wasted potential, then giving themselves more potential, only to turn the rest of it into a dumpster fire

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

u know, when My Little Pony, Sofia The First, and fanfiction carries out character development, respect, romance, and the main plot better than the original show, especially when the shows mentioned above are aimed more at little girls and the original show is aimed at slightly older audiences... somethings wrong

*sigh*

And then it’s like--people will excuse the show because “it’s a kids’ show” and then I’m just “okay then, why are there actually good kids’ show?”

If shows get a pass for being for children then all childrens’ shows should just not try and be garbage since the standard is so low.

Anonymous said:

ive seen some cool fic ideas/concepts/reviews that made me think: ml could use so much more looking into how a character thinks in some situations. one fic i read had alya in chameleon (i know its been forever since the ep came out but hey) not question lila cus she thought: "hey, lb wouldnt befriend a bad person" w and added a plot line of lila making her think lb was cobsidering replacing rena rougue. like, just a few lines to make them seem better pls?

YES. Like, show us characters’ perspectives and why they’re rolling with the facts that they’re rolling with, otherwise they just end up looking like jerks.

We sort of got it in “Ikari Gozen” with Kagami but of course it was just to make Marinette look bad.

Anonymous said:

You know I’m honestly considering making reviews of this show and if I do I could create hour long rants about the show just from that mans twitter.

Yeaaaaaah, once you had in the Twitter stuff, it just becomes, “okay so this is going to add another hour or two then.”

Anonymous said:

Okay one thing that bothers me is how plain marinette's suits are despite being a DESIGNER. Her multimouse suit it just blocks of color and her ladynoir suit is just grey with green lines. I think the lines are supposed to represent actually clothes. Like the limes on the calves are supposed to make it look like boots but why not actually GIVE her boots. (Right, because she has to have a skintight suit unlike the boys who get some layers.)

THE SHEER DISRESPECT OF HAVING THE FASHION DESIGNER WEAR SUCH A PLAIN SUIT.

It also goes to show who really designs here, like oh, interesting, the girls get skin-tight simplistic bodysuits and the boys gets all the cool stuff--

Anonymous said:

I heard some people in my class saying they watched Miraculous Ladybug for the first time, and they were saying how good it was, and I was like: 'Oh you poor fools. You have NO idea what it's truly like.'

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

Isn’t it INTERESTING how in Frozer, Luka understands that Marinette is torn between her crushes and continues to support her even though he knows she probably won’t chose him, and in the exact same episode Chat Noir refuses to help save the city because Ladybug told him AGAIN that she wasn’t romantically interested in him? HMMM 🤔😑

dbfgjbdfjkgf

I’M REMINDED OF “FELIX” WHERE IT’S LIKE--THEY WERE CLEARLY TRYING TO SHOW HOW MUCH “BETTER” CHAT NOIR IS THAN FELIX, BUT LUKA WAS THE RESPECTFUL ONE.

Anonymous said:

You know what I want to see? An evil kwami, like they just want to commit crimes. No moral high grounds, just chaotic evil.

That’d be amazing just because I wouldn’t be able to take them seriously.

Anonymous said:

Watching S1 and S3 episodes back to back, it feels like reading salt fics at times, especially in regards to the L². Like, Marinette was happy about weird plans, she both needed and wanted the final push, and most of the time there was at least something coming out of it. Nowadays it just makes her sad, Alya and the girls act *against* her, and we get shipping for shipping's sake.

That’s a good point. The shift from Seasons 1 to 2 to 3 is rather noticeable.

Anonymous said:

I hate how Adrien's busy schedule seems to only matter when it's used to make Marinette feel bad, but the second Marinette has a bit more to do, it somehow has a negative effect on not only her, but also everyone/everything she cares about, like, what's up with that??

I’m reminded of “Lies” here and I hate it. :|

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the way the show treats teenage girls is horse ass. The show treats the teenage girls of this show as if they're stupid, naive, emotional, clumsy, and need a boy to tell them what opinions to have. Marinette is always treated like the show's punching bag and blamed for everything that goes wrong because she's "emotional" or "obsessed with Adrien", Chloe could've been redeemed but the writers would rather keep her a brain-dead Alpha Bitch Valley Girl(even though Gabriel and Felix, the latter of whom is a teenage boy introduced in one episode, get to be treated as redeemable, despite the things they do being far, far worse), and Lila is a conniving, self-absorbed fox.

And even though Kagami seems better, she's still roped into the "girls catfight over an oblivious guy" cliche and so far, all of her akumatizations have been because of Adrien. Whenever Marinette tries to move on from Adrien the other characters tell her what's good for her and steer her in the "right" direction because she apparently can't think for herself, and the writers LOVE to use the girl squad to tell us who Marinette should be with, because they apparently know better than she does.

Plus the show loves to treat all the girls as the same, making them all either fight over Adrien or be obsessed with shipping, as if teenage girls are all one assimilating, homogenized group(also when they treat Marinette as if she's "just as bad as Chloe", rinse and repeat for the other ladies.). Honestly, the show feels like it was written by those types of people who think "teenage girls are the worst" so they make them all mood-swingy, obsessive, showoffs, emotional, and downright clingy.

Plus the way Thomas Astruc talks about the female characters on Twitter is even worse, and only serves to make this more evident: he claims Marinette "has poor control over her emotions"(all the while calling Adrien "perfect"), that Chloe was racist in Kung Food "because she's stupid"(so rather than having that scene serve as a lesson on respecting other's cultures, he just did it to pick on Chloe and make her look "stupid"), that she's incapable of being redeemed, that Lila's unlikable but Gabriel and Felix aren't(even though he claimed Felix was a terrible character and a "cliche", that's not what the show says my guy), and other such nonsense.

Other Twitter users have also called out Miraculous Ladybug and its stereotypical treatment of teenage girls. The only shows I've ever seen do this worse are those pretentious "darker" Magical Girl "deconstructions" aimed at grown men such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna, as well as most shonen/seinen shows such as Naruto and Death Note, which says a lot. Honestly, whenever I feel like watching a show with empowering and respectful depictions of teenage girls that treats them as bright and intelligent and actually unique from one another, I just watch Equestria Girls, Liv and Maddie, LoliRock, ANT Farm, Moesha, PreCure, or Sailor Moon. Because the way the show acts towards them is deplorable, absolutely deplorable.

Yes to all of the above. Almost all of the girls are involved in love affairs in some way, the two teenage girls are irredeemable while Felix got a sympathetic backstory right away (Chloe took forever to get hers which is a failure), and Marinette is flawed because she’s “too emotional” (a misogynistic stereotype).

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the anon who got upset at the lady who made the "Miraculous Ladybug is a Mess" rant, and yes, thank you zodiacspirit17 for liking and agreeing with my rant! I'm glad someone else saw that video! And ugh, Marinette learning to love Chat Noir? Really? I don't remember that line but I also don't want to go back and revisit it to make sure so I'll take your word for it. Ew. That was actually one of the things I hated about the Glaciator scene. Chat was supposedly comforting Marinette by taking her to the rooftop where he planned Ladybug's date, and yet only Marinette finds out about Chat's crush on Ladybug and comforts him on that(while rethinking her feelings), while all Chat knows is that Marinette's heart was also broken. He never asks who it is, or tries to help her get over her crush even if he doesn't know it's coincidentally him.

I know it's because of the "love square" but it's unfair that only Chat's love problems are directly addressed. Come to think of it, the reason Chat took Marinette to the rooftop...I know he was doing it in-universe to help her instead of intruding on her personal feelings(which might have also been why he didn't ask her who her crush was, he was probably thinking along the lines of "we don't have to talk about it right now, we can just have fun!"), but meta-wise, since we know she's Ladybug, the writers were probably trying to tell her "See? This is what you could've been doing, but you missed it. Shame on you!" That's a huge issue I have with the show: characters will do things in-universe to help Marinette, but the show has a different motive in mind. Compare to how Tikki gave actual advice to Marinette in Puppeteer 2, but the writers intended that for the statue scene so they could embarrass her in front of Adrien and the thousands of eyes watching the show(except we're not laughing.). Even if characters do support her, the writer is using them as props for her ritualized humiliation. And yet Luka is the problem somehow.

If Marinette needs to learn how to love Chat Noir, then it should at least be balanced out by Adrien learning to Marinette. I'm sick of this double standard that "girls need to learn to accept boys who like them but guys can do what they want". Another thing she said was that "Marinette needs to learn to define herself outside of who she's crushing on." NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. You see, unlike Adrien, Marinette HAS a life outside of who she's crushing on: she has school, she has Kitty Section, she has her "girl squad", she has her parents, she has her outside family, she babysits Alya's and Nino's siblings, and she has OH YEAH HER FASHION DESIGNING! I didn't even count being a superhero since Adrien does that, too. She has so many things to do outside of Adrien, and yet the fact that she makes gifts for Adrien or dreams about Adrien or wants to have kids with Adrien somehow makes her nothing but an "Adrien fangirl"?

First of all, she's the bloody protagonist?! That's such a "Real Women Don't Wear Dresses" argument, that she can't have her own life AND be in love at the same time! And somehow her crushing on Luka also means her life revolves around him, too! But Adrien's life doesn't revolve around Ladybug even though he doesn't really have anything going for him in his ordinary life? Outside of being rich, hot, white, and male, that is? What are his interests and hobbies, besides what Gabriel lets him do to pass the time? He doesn't even like modeling! And the Agreste plot is more about Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie than it is about him.

And what about his friendship with Nino? He didn't even care that Nino was getting strung along by Lila with the others! What about his friendship with Chloe that also waxes and wanes? Granted, Chloe's not a GOOD person, which that lady acknowledged, but she at least tried to change and has more development than him, the writers just won't let her change. I hate when people come for Marinette for doing literally anything when the show won't let her have agency and progress. It's so unfair of her and I wish they could see that. These double standards are driving me insane and they're sexist(maybe even a little bit racist, too), and it hurts even more when a woman's doing those things.

(I had to cut off some of this ask because I didn’t get all of it, so I cut it off at the point where it still seemed like a full ask.)

I FEEL THE “GLACIATOR” THING SO BAD. It hurts even worse when you realize that “Frozer” has to take place after “Glaciator,” so Chat Noir heard that Marinette has love problems and then ignored it to ask her for advice about his own love problems later on. The total lack of insensitivity???

Also, the idea that Marinette’s life would revolve around her crush on Luka is stupid. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Meanwhile, Adrien has so little going for him and the “interesting” parts of him involve who he’s connected to or what his father has forced him into.

[thanksjro]

Robots in Disguise (2012), #1-22- A Recap, For Reference Purposes

Before we begin with “Dark Cybertron”, a lightning round style recap on the 22 issues that took place in the sister series to MTMTE, Robots in Disguise; just so we know what’s up with all the folks who didn’t hitch a ride on the Lost Light.

Here’s the Story So Far, since it’s been a minute.

Now for the nitty gritty.

Cybertron is a literal hellscape, as established in The Death of Optimus Prime, the very flora of the planet trying to murder anything that comes within a few miles of the surface. This has caused a massive economic slump in the tourist trap towns, who surely will not survive without the summertime revenue. Truly, life is cruel and not worth living.

Bumblebee narrates, as we show off all the weirdoes who live on Cybertron now. Bumblebee tries to greet a new batch of arrivals, as Metalhawk actively attempts to make him look like Satan incarnate, because all the NAILs have gone full ACAB at this point.

A robot who looks like he’s wearing a beanie commits vandalism and is then subjected to violence via Decepti-cop.

This is more or less the flavor for RID as a whole. You have been warned.

Prowl breaks someone’s hand just because he can. Blurr is made to arrest someone for disturbing the peace, even though he’s, like, basically the only guy on the Autobots who isn’t a cop. Bumblebee doesn’t believe in democracy.

Ratbat is the leader of the Decepticons, even though Soundwave is right friggin’ there. We establish that the military state is in full swing. Prowl commits a microaggression against a Senator. Ratbat gets pissy about his guys going out to beat people up, not because it violates his moral sensibilities, but because it benefits the Autobots.

Probably that you’re killing people by remote control, in as horrified a tone as he could manage, because that’s FUCKING EVIL. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Prowl says to cancel the memorial for the Lost Light, because he thinks the Decepticons are up to something. Which they are.

Everyone hates the Autobots. Like, everyone.

Ironhide runs away from a murderous hedge and smashes into a wall. Prowl has a talk with a mysterious individual about his feelings during a romantic sunset.

Metalhawk releases hat guy from prison. He and Bumblebee have a little chat, during which he tries to gaslight the little guy. Bumblebee explodes Horri-Bull’s head in front of at least 30 people.

Except he actually didn’t, because the chips don’t actually work. T’was a ruse! Starscream enters the narrative. Ratbat used to be an actual person and not just a bat. Sideswipe wants to shoot someone. Bumblebee tasers a man unprovoked; guess he’s picked up a little paranoia from that time he got shot.

Starscream calls Prowl ugly, then spills the beans on Ratbat’s plan to kill Bumblebee at the memorial, solely because he thinks Ratbat is an idiot. Needlenose and Skywarp beat up a NAIL to work through their emotions.

Bumblebee shows a snuff film to hundreds of people at the memorial. Skywarp tries to frame a NAIL for murder, but Prowl says nuts to that idea, through the power of dramatic irony.

Long Haul tells a fib. Bumblebee and Metalhawk agree to work together. Ratbat gets turned into chunky salsa by Arcee, who will use the excuse of self-defense if questioned. Starscream pulls some fucking bullshit and third-wheels the agreement between Bumblebee and Metalhawk.

Ratbat’s death is played off as a suicide. Blurr is still a cop. Starscream is helpful. There’s a guy who looks like a frog, and I don’t care for what his eyes are doing.

Frog guy explodes, because nature is a cruel mistress.

Wheeljack has a hell of a time trying to answer the phone in the middle of an economic debate. Prowl is paranoid. Starscream handles the housing crisis. Wheeljack visits the hospital and causes a scene. Another explosion happens, killing dozens, including this guy:

You will be missed, Tiddytron.

Wheeljack realizes that the moon is trying to kill everyone, so he shoots missiles at the problem. The Aerialbots fuck off into the wilderness.

The Decepticons get some perks now that Starscream’s a government employee. Starscream destroys the military state through the power of talking over people. Prowl and his cronies investigate a murder at the trash factory.

Bombshell is arrested for thought crime, and spills the beans on the I/D chips not working. Prowl has Dirge on a chain for some reason, and it ends up causing nothing but trouble. Blurr runs every red light in the city to make a citizen’s arrest, and gets his ass kicked by a bunch of construction workers. Prowl has a complex about Spike Witwicky.

Prowl fixes the I/D chip issue and things go poorly for the construction workers. Blurr gets upset about having his ass kicked by construction workers. Prowl is very paranoid, even as he has a borderline pinup panel devoted to his weird robot bellybutton and positively ridiculous cinched waist. I begin to worry about how much I’m learning about Andrew Griffith’s tastes.

The poetry shark shows up.

Arcee reveals a little bit about herself, and I shed a tear as I shake my fist in the general direction of England, cursing Simon Furman’s name.

Metalhawk brings Sky-Byte to a literal trashcan fire to meet his buddies, and they all rag on the Autobots for a while.

Ironhide goes joyriding and finds Sky-Byte Oh Yorick-ing a Sweep’s head. Turns out they have a history. Blurr reveals his dream to own a bar. Metalhawk brings up the fact that setting up a group of folks to have their heads explode if they step out of line is some dystopian bullshit.

Sky-Byte meets up with his old buddy Swindle, and gets the skinny on the bullshit that’s being pulled on this brand-new Cybertron. Everything goes to shit very quickly. Streetwise gets set on fire. Prowl needs to stop. Ironhide commits violence against the general populace, then advocates for the removal of the I/D chips.

Blurr opens a bar, and it’s dinosaur-friendly. Prowl commits property damage on a table, because he’s tablephobic. Ironhide reveals the future.

Shockwave sends an entire race of Big Birds to their frozen demise. Orion Friggin’ Pax comes back into the narrative, in the middle of his giant fuck-off-from-responsibility space adventure. Wheelie and Garnak are here, which is cool, I guess. Jhiaxus yells a bunch, and Orion decides to go to Big Bird planet.

It’s farkin’ cold in here.

Orion and Hardhead talk about Rodimus’ tumultuous relationship with death. Shockwave is the only person in the universe who understands quantum mechanics. Monstructor wakes up from his cryo-sleep. Wheelie and Garnak are grievously wounded, and the patch job seems less than medically sound, since we’ve just put a screw into Garnak’s orbital socket to hold his eye-patch in place. Orion walks into a trap, knowingly and willingly.

Wheeljack does some espionage, even though Mirage is right friggin’ there. Turmoil swings by Cybertron to say hello- the Decepticon, not the emotional state. Drift is outed as a war criminal- well, more so than originally thought. Turmoil has a time machine.

Sky-Byte and Jazz team up for slam poetry night. Blurr tells Metalhawk a story. Wheeljack’s espionage adventure goes poorly. Turmoil gets trapped in a hamster ball. Wheeljack and Metalhawk get trapped in a hamster ball.

The Dinobots and Ironhide go on a camping trip. Starscream craves democracy. Skylynx is a glorified taxi. Slag hasn’t changed his name yet, despite half of the people working for IDW being from the UK. Swoop breaks down IDW Phase Two to its bare essentials.

Prowl sits on someone’s desk, because he doesn’t respect tables. Slag’s face is on fire all the time, and it’s sort of distracting. Swindle bothers Shockwave. Ironhide is attacked by the Dinobots.

Bumblebee sits outside and has some Night Thoughts. Cybertron wants everyone to stick together, and God help you if you don’t. Bumblebee is beginning to develop a complex. Blurr is upset with himself. Ravage and the Reflectors go on an adventure. The time machine isn’t actually a time machine. The time machine disappears.

Ironhide finds the Aerialbots, who have been combinered by the horrors of new Cybertron. Everyone yells at Bumblebee.

We get a taste of Old World Cybertronian propaganda, where everyone talks in the third person, as is tradition. Starscream gets curvier every issue. Again, I begin to worry about how much I’m learning about Andrew Griffith’s tastes.

Blurr causes an explosion in the wilderness looking for Ironhide, much to Starscream’s delight. There is a Titan under the ground, and its very existence is making reality shit the bed. Tailgate’s lies in MTMTE are so extensive, red herrings have leaked into the sister series.

Nova Prime commissioned Monstructor, and Omega Supreme hated it so much he punched it in the face.

Starscream invites a bunch of friends over to see the Titan. Brainstorm is used as a scale for end-of-the-world scenarios. Starscream is revealed to be chosen by the gods.

The Reflectors visit a planet and shit gets weird very quickly. Wheelie is about to have a goddamned stress-induced aneurysm, not that Orion particularly cares. Time nonsense is established. Wheelie-speak becomes plot-relevant. Livio Ramondelli subjects me to his nightmares’ nightmares.

Starscream gets interviewed on national television. Starscream owns a hat that makes him look like a Gundam. Omega Supreme explodes. Metalhawk flip-flops between who he’s defending like a fish on the dock. Starscream yells at Shockwave for being an instigator. Prowl and Starscream make a deal.

Arcee stabs a cat in the throat. IDW settles the debate- at least for their own continuity- and says RIRFIB. Prowl takes a fireball to the face to convince people he’s on the up-and-up. Arcee is smarter than Starscream. This asshole shows back up.

Bumblebee really, really wants to kill Megatron, but politics demand he be taken in as a POW. The fellas construct a conspiracy theory. Starscream tries to lead his peers, but it goes poorly. Not a single medical professional of Cybertronian descent actually keeps track of their patients. Maccadam’s gets several light fixtures ruined by Arcee. Wheeljack gets called a tool. Prowl shows up in his hot new body, decked out with enough weaponry to annihilate a small country and a gun that’s as big as he is.

Starscream gives Megatron a piece of his mind. The Decepticons are rioting in the streets. Prowl shows Wheeljack his toys. Arcee plays her trump card. Bumblebee tries his hand at negotiation.

Bumblebee learns a valuable lesson about leadership. Politics are hell. Megatron is released from prison. Democracy finally gets its day. Megatron enters the Black Room with his whole ass hanging out. Pretty much every Decepticon you thought was dead isn’t actually dead.

Metalhawk gets a taste of how 24/7 news has ruined everything. Prowl is revealed to be the mastermind behind all the bullshit that’s been going on the last few months, and he’s been working with Megatron. Swindle gets run over by a train. Wheeljack’s head is turned into a memory by Prowl. The crazy-making signal out in the wilderness was made by Megatron. Megatron walks in in his hot new bod, carrying his old one like his new bride. And what a pretty bride it is.

We get a literal talking heads sequence explaining just how exactly Megatron survived the events of “Chaos” and why Combiners are the bees’ knees. Prowl isn’t Prowl, but actually being controlled by Bombshell.

Dang, wonder who could have caused that, CHROMEDOME.

Prowl is released from his mind-control, and immediately plays the blame game with Bumblebee. The Constructicons and Prowl have a thing going, and show it off, much to Bumblebee’s horror.

Circuit gets given Fixit’s dialogue for some reason, and I can’t tell if this was an issue on the art side or the script side. Devastator wrecks shop. Megatron laughs at Starscream for being a loser, then crushes Bumblebee’s head like a grape. Ironhide finally shows up to the party, and he brought a veggie platter.

Jazz tries to warn the medical staff about the Combiner coming their way, but no one ever listens to Jazz. Prowl has a crisis of self. Jazz breaks up the two-man act. Megatron let Bumblebee keep his cane, proving that even heartless monsters can respect the Disabilities Act.

Ironhide and the Dinobots save the day. Superion and Devestator get into a fistfight. Prowl reaffirms his complex over Spike Witwicky. Bumblebee says some halfway transphobic shit, and I shed a tear as I shake my fist in the general direction of England, cursing Simon Furman’s name. Arcee switches sides again and stabs Bombshell in the face. Prowl takes a nap. The tides turn.

Ironhide resists Frenzy’s sonic attack through the sheer power of gumption. Skywarp says fuck this and gets out of dodge. Devastator becomes a real boy. 

Bumblebee WILL kill Megatron. Arcee makes it weird. Ironhide helps Prowl figure out his life. Bumblebee never learns. Metalhawk saves his BFF, and gets his arm shot off for his troubles. Starscream uses Metalhawk’s fuck-you-level long arm to kill a man.

Swindle carries a dude twice his size to safety with one of his arms off. Needlenose gets his just desserts. Devastator rips off his head to escape his crippling self-doubt. The Constructicons are having a hell of a day.

You said it, Hook.

Wheeljack saves the day from beyond the grave, that clever man. Metalhawk is killed by politics. Hat Guy tries to fight Bumblebee, and gets mad that he doesn’t remember his name. They’ve spoken to each other maybe once.

Metalhawk is made into a playing chip by Starscream, and also a speech writer from beyond the pale. Starscream tells everyone to get naked or fuck off, then takes off his top. All the Autobots and Decepticons who don’t want to get naked fuck off into the wilderness.

The Dark Cybertron “Prelude" issues kick in.

Shockwave and Dreadwing fly through the photorealistic sky to get to where the Titan is.

Listen here you little shit-

Shockwave shoots Dreadwing to test a theory, because ethics are for nerds.

Back when Shockwave was a hot guy with feelings, Jhiaxus was dealing with the Monstructor thing, then fucked off into space. Shockwave took the opportunity to be better than his teacher in every way, as is tradition. Proteus threw a whole-ass person across the room, because classism. Shockwave revealed himself to be a budding ecoterrorist. Shockwave joined a terrorist organization to further his own goals. Orion Pax tried to appeal to Shockwave’s softer side. Megatron killed the Senate. Shockwave replaced his shitty claws with a gun. Shockwave shot Dai Atlas in the legs and can’t explain why.

Dreadwing comes back to life, thanks to the power of Shockwave’s 14th ore.

Bumblebee has the Big Sad about Starscream being King of Iacon. Arcee doesn’t know what emotional turmoil feels like. Metalhawk’s lifeless body lays in the sun for several hours. Prowl is propositioned by the Constructicons. Arcee tells Prowl’s darkest secret, and it kills Bumblebee. Swoop is having a great time.

Arcee knows about Bumblebee being Hasbro’s golden boy. Prowl uses his manners, but only when no one can hear him. Arcee and the Constructicons get into a fight, with more flaming swords getting involved than you might expect. Slag offers to buy Arcee a drink.

Bumblebee gets a hot new body. Arcee gives herself a stick-and-poke tattoo. In a few hours, the sun will rise.

Pal, you are way ahead of schedule.

Shockwave makes a dramatic entrance.

Waspinator tells a story about the time he killed a servant of God and met death. Orion and pals visit Gorlam Prime. The Dead Universe comes into the narrative again. Wheelie has his arm blown off to keep from getting disintegrated, but he shrugs it off, because life is always awful for Wheelie.

Waspinator gets chased through the desert by Monstructor. Orion Pax acts like a dumbass. A Titan is revealed. Monstructor rides on the time-travel ship like it’s a horsey. Waspinator controls a Titan and makes it teleport. Orion plays fourth-dimensional chess, and reveals that his personal ship is named after his best friend.

Starscream talks to a corpse. Blurr tells Starscream to fuck off. A very good boy enters the narrative. The paparazzi ruin Starscream’s attempt to get underlings to do what he wants. A literal rat enters the narrative.

Starscream talks to Megatron, and I genuinely don’t have the words to explain what exactly is going on with that guy. Starscream takes a gander into the very good boy’s toolbox. The very good boy lays it on thick. Starscream destroys a man’s reputation.

Starscream breaks into Rattrap’s apartment. Rattrap becomes a government employee. Starscream talks to Wheeljack, who isn’t dead.

Soundwave has a flashback to when the Decepticons surrendered after the Chaos event, confirming that Ratbat was universally hated. Soundwave has robo-synesthesia. Shockwave is the perfect Cybertronian- Soudwave hates him for it.

Shockwave calls his teacher. Ravage judges Soundwave. The Decepticons reminisce on the time they resorted to cannibalism. Soundwave thinks mourning is for dumb babies and tells everyone to shut up because he’s big man on campus now.

Nobody deserves it more than you, babe.

The infighting begins, because no Decepticon has the ability to be halfway decent to each other, and they won’t learn that skill for a good while. Needlenose throws Blitzwing across a field and admits to having feelings. Soundwave is abandoned by the Decepticon forces.

Soundwave talks to himself in the Crystal City, then gets his ass kicked by Dreadwing.

In the past, Shockwave calls Bombshell a loser and outdoes him.

Soundwave kills Dreadwing. Shockwave hides in the shadows like a weirdo. Soundwave is done trusting Shockwave. Soundwave grabs Shockwave by the boob and yells at him. Soundwave is a hopeful guy.

In the past, Soundwave stole Ratbat’s brain and put it in a cassette, proving that space-Communism only works on paper.

Soundwave punches Shockwave in the head. Shockwave assumes Soundwave is alone, despite knowing he can contain many small men inside him.

Shockwave explodes a cat. Soundwave fires missiles at Shockwave and hits him in the tit. Shockwave would fuck Microsoft Excel if he could. Frenzy is just happy to be here- no, I didn’t mix them up, the colorist did.

Ravage is a grown-ass man. Soundwave’s synesthesia used to be a lot worse. Shockwave sends Soundwave and pals home. The Titan and Waspinator show up.

Soundwave has a face. Ravage and all the other cassettes are emotional support animals, who are also fully sapient.

Shockwave’s gonna fuck everything up.

And THAT, dear children, is the entirety of Robots in Disguise, up to issue #22. We’re all caught up and ready.

[elanska]

"you're just you" - Ibelin vs Latte

I'm a staunch Arwin x Latte supporter, and so often times I've been thinking about Arwin x Ibelin, just to see another POV angle of what could have been.

There are times when I read Arwin x Latte moments and I said to myself, he's supposedly to flirt with Ibelin instead and my heart starts to ache. and I determined to prove that Latte is a FAR SUPERIOR CHOICE (yes, I went on imaginary shipping war with myself. it's a fun activity)

Okay, so let's talk about original Ibelin x Arwin route. In original novel, Arwin is represented as pretty commoner mage boi who have been helping and protecting Ibelin with his magic from time to time in order to gain her affection. And THEN it turns out that this sweet mage boi is actually the most powerful mage. Lording over all the other mage (like, you know, the sweet boy next door is actually the powerful prince that can instantly solve your problem with bitch-of-a-rival! surprise!)

original novel!Arwin fall for Ibelin because of her beauty, kindness (she helps the poor boy in slums and have confrontation with the thugs who tried to steal it), and being different from all other girls(?maybe? this is usual setting for romance novel). anyway, she's superior from all other girls, so original novel!Arwin can't help but falling for her in every scenes. The Eirene dance ball where she dance gracefully, the Eirene street festival where Ibelin watch the ultimate bor....intelligent plays that set her different from other girls who just like shallow romantic/drama plot. The Eirene's Goddess selection where Ibelin show off her charm with her voice and beauty and make him falls harder for her.

As you can see from paragraphs above. Original novel!Arwin is BORING pretty much non-descript. just a human prop to show off Ibelin's charm as the female main character. There's practically not a difference from him, Kenneth, and Rondemio except the guys with different occupations (but all having powerfull status and extremely good looking) that fall in love with Ibelin who is perfect in everything. You can swap original novel!Arwin with other mage who hide his status as tower lord and pretend he's just a lowly friendly mage........and the story will not change much? since Ibelin is the focus here, we just need that non-descript (but still pretty) guy to fall in love with her and the plot will go on like usual (since Ibelin is the focus here, not him)

There's two critical line in Arwin's flag. 'you're just you' = somehow this mage invited Ibelin to visit his home, and Ibelin finds out that the nice, helpful mage is actually the lord of other mage. And that she's surprised, but Arwin is still Arwin. I will interpreted it as "you might be the magician's tower lord, but you're still the mage that kind to me")

And I'm promptly confused, because WHAT THE HELL that supposed to means? It's not like the tower lord title is something bad? unless if we're taken another interpretation that 'tower lord has awful reputation as crazy psychopath' and 'ta-da I'm /that/ notorious tower lord actually'. so that 'you're just you' line means = even though you're the rumoredly notorious tower lord, you're still my friend (well, he's still one of fish option at this point). And this is heartwarming to Arwin because he secretly thinks that no one will accepts him because he's notorious and everyone thinks he's a monster(?). So he questions this sweet, angelic goddess - if she also think he's a monster.

We're gonna pause a bit and explore Latte's route. As you all (y'all) aware, our favorite Arwin is a crazy bastard who enjoy entertainment more than anything and having ummm...an unique sense of humor, and apparently having no idea at all how to courting girls. Or maybe he do have /vague/ idea, but the line of somebody interesting-friend-goofy friend to hang around with-I kinda like this girl-I want her to like me back.......is so friggin’ blurry that we're not entirely sure when it ended in one category and began in another (and from what we read so far, neither were he)

oh by the way, this is same boi on Ibelin route's above. But instead in story where Ibelin's shining as female main characters surrounded by three generic cut-and-paste pretty powerful males, where his characterization fell into 'Arwin is selfish crazy (psychopath) bastard and powerful wizard's lord but *always* eating out Ibelin's hand' bracket, our murderous bunny get, like, "waitaminute. I *am* the selfish crazy (psychopath) bastard here, the *fuck** you telling me I should do again?" and proceed to wreck his bracket. Of course, bits and pieces of his original character still exist - like how he's a sweetheart when he's with the girl he likes. But instead "Hi I'm that notorious psychopath Arwin, but everytime my gal do something, I'll become devoted mob fanboy with swirly googly eyes meep meep at whatever she does" VS "Yea, I'm that notorious psychopath Arwin who likes A, B, C, and hates D, E, F. What's this? we encounter event D? well, with my characterization, I should go flying in rage, but but gal is here and it'll be /pitiful/ if she's crying, jeez. fine, I'll just let this slide (for you)"

(yes, it's cute to see him struggling like that)

sorry getting distracted there. the point is.....the point is....we like Arwin's characterization, we like how he's strongly struggling to stay consistent to his identity but also getting affected by his love for his gal (Latte) and bit changed for the better (hey, love makes you a better person). We like him as a male lead with distinctive personality instead love-interest!mob that exist solely to fanboy over Ibelin's time-to-shine-with-my-heroine-dokidoki-powaa events.

Which is why we strongly had question about the two critical lines-to-ensnare-his-heart.

"you're just you" = on Ibelin's route, Ibelin is a foreigner that came to Empire and therefore didn't know Arwin is 1. head of powerful faction; and 2. crazy selfish psychopath (since he's always nice when he's around her). She just shrugged and goes "hey you're nice to me. You're my friend" and Arwin goes *Doki* oh I totally fell for ya’.

Y'see, Arwin didn't have any reason to hide his position as the Lord of Magician's. And being magicians are pretty respectable. The /royal family/ even conduct business with them. Ibelin just never asks, and Arwin is not the type to flaunting his title around (power, sure, but not title). What about number two? From Latte's excerpts, Arwin never been anything but sweet and cute bunny when he's with Ibelin (her detractors meet grisly ends behind her back, like Iron Mentalle), like 'well I heard rumors, but it can't be that bad, you're very nice guy (to me all this time)" and Arwin goes *DOKI*. And I goes, hey bunny, you know it's not true, you know yourself not a nice guy, why do you fall just because a girl said you are *not* who you are?

(and sorry guys, I don't think he'll goes 'since I've met ibelin, I will strive to change myself to became a nice docile mage that helpful to everyone. Time for myself undergoes self-change to became a better man to fit this angelic Ibelin *doki* or some pretty sappy like that). In fact, this kind of scenario got quickly debunked in Latte's route wherein Ibelin command Arwin to be nice person to Latte and Arwin goes, like, 8 to -10 in instant. in a sense, Ibelin just told him to KNEEL! and like Latte said, it's too big of a dream. You can probably request the lord of magicians to vaguely crouched down a bit to help you search for contact lens that just dropped to the ground /per se/ - and if he's feeling nice and (particularly) likes you, mighta done it, but you didn't outright *command* him. He might also done it *within* time, like +20 years into marriage and had been tolerating each other for old long times already, but definitely not for a pretty stranger that, like, only been acquaintance for a month (and like we told you in the essay-that-I-don't-know-when-it'll-be-finisheddd-I'm-experiencing-writer's-block; Arwin has issues of being in power. He's rebellious edgy fish, this fish #3)

Where was I? oh yeah. and that *doki* question 'do you also think I'm a monster?' What the. Since when it's an issue to you Arwin? If you don't want other people view you as monster, then act nice to other people, hey you. But to be fair to him, Arwin seems indifferent with other people. He's used to people gawking at his out-of-this-world beauty, and used to people keeping their distance since he's the lord of magician's tower. the only thing we witnessed to support his scary reputation is his brutal treatment to dangerous thugs, which while makes you 'isn't that a bit excessive, dude? just hand them over to nearest guard (which never shows up, oh well)' but not exactly *le gasp!* 'what a monster! *flail flail* horrible! horrible! they just want to mug you and you chop their head off? poor them!' (ummm, I'm not the greatest example of showing compassion, so yeah.....)

So, anyway, even though people generally fear Arwin and might be crossing the other street when they see him, they're not exactly goes into 'hide the women and children!' level. Basically, I don't see what's the fuss and why I must adhere to people who call you monster just because you offed the mugger that wants to mug you. they can fret 'you should be nicer' but I will not cry and wailing pitifully because I dun wanna be called a monsteeerrr so I will goes ’tis me! mug me all ye want so I can proven my niceness and be accepted by the society!!'. And if me, the normal vanilla mortal thinks that way, I honestly cannot think the lord of magician's tower with ego that stronger than mine (and absolute power to back that up) will think that way.

So Arwin getting concerned with society's perception of him, having identity crisis and afraid of Ibelin also thought of him that way? bullshit. He /might/ be worried about Ibelin not liking him since she's his love interest and it's normal if you want to be liked by the person you like too. but society? can bugger off themselves. and Arwin is always nice/not monsterly to Ibelin, so I don't know where that came from/what it supposed to be. angelic!Ibelin sees Arwin went brutal to defend her and goes *le gasp* you monster?! - won't exist anyway since she's nice angelic girl. It's weird.

So let's talk about Latte's route. Latte, as you know, is the empire's citizen whom house is only 3 days and 3 nights away from the magician tower where Arwin's reside, so she pretty much know about his reputation (incidentally, Latte's knowledge about the original novel seemingly contradicts Arwin 'real' personality. She often thinks him as monster pychopath (chopping bishot's head off, chopping her head off - all over nothing). Arwin doesn't take offense from this even though it's pretty much rude (then again he likes Latte, and he knows what's his reputation and know for the fact that he is, in fact, ruthless (tho not as severe as the monster that Latte's imagined)

Arwin never be anyone but himself in front of Latte. In fact, he acted his worst reputation  (= crazy psychopath bastard) right in front of her. Burning her hair tie to get her attention, free-falling force play, insist of calling her annoying nickname that she hate. He also acted his best in front of her (helping her cover for Cano, checking on her and fetching her ride home when she needs it most; actually asking for her /permission/ for a dance! - Arwin can *force* anyone dance with him with puppetry if needed to, but he can't make them enjoying it. And since he likes Latte, he wants her to enjoy her time with him, be it dance, or solving mystery together, or just casual banter. It’s a (BIG) shift from I’ll enjoy spending my time with her to I want *her* to enjoy her time with me too.

From what we see, enjoyment is big drive for Arwin. His friendship with Latte (which including her in 'won't kill because she's funny'’ friendlist started when he finds her amusing). He also making a big fuss upon the super boring play that Ibelin makes him attend - verbally lashing Latte for making him go through that (for 30 mins); he left Latte watching Ibelin's singing contest all on her own and told her to not including him next time for this boring shit.

SPOILER FROM NOVEL FOR AT LEAST +3-4 CHAPTERS AHEAD (where Latte will basically saying 'you're just you' and personal wild theories flinging)

so Arwin take Latte a tour on his abode. His house, his room, his personal perching spot. And Latte seems not really enjoy them. viewing the tower walls from outside? normal room, scary-since-it's-so-high loft space with lots of winds around-you-might-find-it-amusing-but-I-don't. He tried to make her comfortable - providing shield from the wind, providing fire so she's not cold, but it didn't change the fact that while he enjoy this place, Latte might not, and no matter what he do, he can't change it. It's like you‘re hardcore cosplayer frequently attending cons and your friend are 'I don't even understand' but then sighed and said 'yeah, you and your dumb shit, what else is new?' and help making your props/booking your ticket/etc anyway. That kind of old familiarity and acceptance and intimate feels of 'I'm so used with all your antics this doesn't baffle me'

As for Arwin, well, we had elaborating about he's not following society standards (if he is, he won't be crazy psychopath bastard that he is), so we're wagering he's using his own standard in relationship. And since we know he's definitely not doing boring/drab things just to please his significant other, the thought of Latte doing it for him ('I don't really like being here, but it's for you, so okay then') kind of touching. Probably. Uh we don't really understand romance. 

and don't even ask me about 'do you also think I'm a monster' thing, because that shit is weird as fuck.

[justadram]

Fic: Beach Week, pt 2

Part 1 here. Jon x Sansa

Beach Week: You drink. You hook up. So what if he’s your brother’s best friend?

Sansa spends a restless night twisting under the scratchy rental house sheets, rehashing two dozen memories she’s got stored up about Robb’s best friend and wondering if she’s been missing something for a while. Then it’s a distracted day, trying to go about her business and not look like she’s suddenly paying attention to every little thing Jon does. But she is, and she can’t help herself.

The sex is great.

Not something she ever expected to learn about Jon. Secondhand or firsthand. And yet, she has and she could, because Asha probably isn’t wrong about Jon being interested in her.

He’s got that fair skin like she does that gives everything away, when she catches him looking. Smiling back at him—To be encouraging? To make it not weird? At first, she’s not even sure—only makes the flush of his cheeks worse. But he’s kind of hot despite his embarrassment. Maybe he’s hot because of his embarrassment. Cocky self-assurance is a turn-off at this point.

Joff got embarrassed, but it made him scary angry rather than sweetly self-conscious; and Harry didn’t give a second thought to how people perceived him. Maybe sensitive is the way to go.

Sansa has a very active imagination. It’s from all the reading probably. Isn’t that what they used to say? Too many novels were bad for young girls? She’s got a lifetime worth of romantic scenarios just a daydream away, ready for the insertion of whatever guy she’s crushing on. Even though she’s known him all her life and that could make it weird, it doesn’t take a lot of mental gymnastics to picture herself and Jon. Actually, all the random details she knows about him, how familiar he is to her, how comfortable it usually is between them, makes it a lot easier to picture how it could be. Like Asha said, but in other ways too. Couple ways.

God, she’s really thinking about what it would be like to date Jon.

Or they could just hook up. That’s what Asha meant, and for once in her life she could be that girl. Unattached and fun and determined to get what she wants. Who cares that he’s her brother’s best friend? Before Beach Week is over, she wouldn’t mind testing out Asha’s glowing assessment, because Jon’s being interested—and not for the first time, come to think of it—is kind of hot.

“Hey,” she says, as she arranges herself on the floor next to him at dinner, cross-legged and balancing her paper plate in her lap.

Even if he’s worried about Robb, it probably wouldn’t take much to get him to break down and make a move. Not with the way he’s been looking at her. Just a little encouragement probably, which she happens to be pretty good at.

He’s got a mouth full of hamburger that he tries to swallow so as to respond, but she nudges him with her elbow and fills the silence with an innocently voiced question before he can finish. “Do you remember that time we went swimming in the Lannister’s pool, when they were out of town? You and me? And everyone?”

It occurred to her last night, when she couldn’t fall asleep. Had to be four years ago, because she’s pretty sure Jon and Robb were seniors. Her parents were out for the evening, and they were under strict directions to behave themselves. That would have included not climbing the neighbor’s fence. Definitely not swimming at midnight with music playing too loud. Normally, Sansa would have refused to join them—she might have even called her parents to tattle—but it was July and the water was warm, and she couldn’t fight the allure.

They were fooling around, playing some game Arya insisted on, when all Sansa wanted to do was float on the big white swan and stare up at the stars. But despite being terrible at the games her siblings liked, Sansa ended up tagging Jon in the deep end.

Their skin felt slick, sliding against each other, as she wrapped her arms triumphantly around his neck. It felt nice in a way she wasn’t expecting, and she remembers how she stared at him like he was something entirely new. It was the first time she felt the electric thrill, the jolt of want and toe-curling conceit from knowing someone wanted her. Testing that feeling wasn’t something she was ready for, but she liked the sensation of him hard against her hip and his arms circling her waist. It’s why she didn’t let go or scream in protest, like the flat line of his mouth indicated he was convinced she was about to, as she slid higher up his body with a shift of her grip.

No, she didn’t want him to turn loose at all and if they’d been alone, she would have been happy to cling to him like a starfish all night. But they weren’t alone—Robb was messing with the playlist and Arya was shouting about revising the rules she’d made up—and guys can only take so much. She knows that now. So, when he’d peeled her off with a mumbled apology, she stuck her tongue out and then commenced not speaking to him for three months.

She smiles around her fork. “That was fun.”

Yes, he almost chokes, which isn’t the sexy response she’s fishing for, but the way she flusters him makes her feel powerful.

“Is that right?” he finally manages.

“We should have more fun like that, don’t you think? It being Beach Week and everything.”

He looks away from her and back, as he sucks in a breath. “You’re trouble.”

“Am I?”

“I thought you were the good Stark.”

The way he narrows his eyes at her is almost playful. He can tease her if he likes. Messing around with Jon might be fun, despite the sullen pout.

No, the pout looks kissable, which is how she knows she’s going to kiss him tonight. What’s the harm in a kiss? More than a kiss if it’s really nice.

Except, it feels like he’s avoiding her when he disappears after dinner. She drinks one and a half beers, slowly to keep her head about her, before she sees him through the kitchen window. He’s out on the porch with his foot up on the rail, sitting with the half of the house not loudly playing beer pong. Somehow he got by her to get out there.

She grabs an extra beer to use as a friendly offering. If she goes out there and he gets up and runs, it’ll look weird. He’s as good as cornered.

Squeezing in between the array of occupied plastic chairs on the porch, two Solo cups held aloft, she makes to join the group, stepping over stretched out legs in barefoot relevé. There isn’t a chair left for her to curl up in with her legs tucked inside her sweatshirt, but being short a chair is part of her evolving plan.

His whole body visibly tenses, when she pauses before his chair, and he grips the arms as if he might stand. He doesn’t have cotillion manners, but as far as thoughtful gestures go, Jon’s a natural. He’s been sleeping on the couch in the living room and she has an actual bedroom she’s supposed to be sharing with absentee Jeyne, but if Sansa told him she needed to crash on the couch, he’d give it up without a second thought. He’s always been like that. He helped move her into her dorm freshman year, hulking boxes in the heat along with her dad and Robb with a lot less complaining about the amount of stuff she’d brought with her.

She extends the cup that’s full to the rim to keep him from getting up. “I got this for you.”

Their fingers brush, and he says thanks after looking from her to the cup and back again, while she stands there, pretending to drink. He lifts his beer slowly, as if he’s waiting for her to walk away, but that’s not going to happen.

Okay, it’s just a ratty band t-shirt, but his arms look really good in it. Whatever her thoughts on lacrosse at the moment, it does a body good. Seriously.

“You mind?” she asks, even as she’s toeing in between his spread legs and lowering herself onto his thigh. Casually. With a big, totally non-threatening smile. All teeth. Nothing flirty about it.

Asha snorts from her corner of the porch, but what’s potentially more awkward than Jon’s caustic friend’s presence is Sansa’s brother, who’s balanced on the rail and staring. He ignores her a good ninety percent of the time like any other older brother, but now his eyes are zeroed in on her, an interloper suddenly interfering with his friends. She twists in Jon’s lap and gives Robb the same innocuous smile. Just a bunch of friends. Hanging out. Talking about whatever it is they’re talking about. A few chairs short unfortunately. Nothing he needs to worry about.

She turns back and taps Jon’s cup with hers, a dorky little cheers that makes his mouth twitch. Friendly, friendly, friendly.

“What are we talking about?” she asks, lowering her voice conspiratorially.

“Um.” Jon clears his throat. “Lacrosse team stuff.”

Great.

Sansa wonders what Robb and Jon and the rest of them are going to talk about now that they’ve graduated, because it’s always team stuff, to which she has nothing to contribute. Not for lack of knowledge. Robb was captain this year; he deserved it, considering what he contributes on and off the field. Theon has a habit of taking too many chances on offense, but most of them pay off. Jon’s really good. Better than anyone gives him credit for, and she’d know, because she goes to every game. But with Harry also being on the team, it’s currently her least favorite subject.

“Yay,” she says flatly.

In her peripheral vision, she can see Robb screwing up the one side of his mouth, but whatever he makes of her plopping down in his best friend’s lap, his complaint is silenced, when Jeyne turns him back to her for a quick kiss. Either it’s just good timing or Jeyne thinks Sansa could use some help. Either way, she’ll take it.

Marg firmly believes what Sansa needs is a harmless hookup. Which feels a little chancy. Her ability to judge guys has been questionable at best, but she’s pretty sure Jon is a good guy. Like a real good guy. She’s probably safe with her brother’s best friend. He’s nice to her little siblings and her dad really likes him. He knows Robb would kill him anyway, and if he can be friends with Asha after, it’ll be cool between them.

Everyone except for Asha, who’s silently chain smoking, goes back to spiritedly recounting that win they managed in spite of Theon’s hand injury. They’ll probably end up talking through every play just like they did two nights ago, when this same exact story came up. No one cares about Robb’s little sister’s appearance on the porch or her chosen spot on it. Alcohol is great for creating invisibility in a crowd.

“So, what are you doing this summer?” she asks, steadying herself with a hand high on his thigh.

The muscle bunches beneath his jeans.

Since no one cares anymore, this time when she smiles, it’s not quite so innocent. The way Jon’s eyes skim over her, he can tell the difference.

“I’m, uh, starting my internship.” His voice has that raspy, bedroom quality that makes her press her lips together.

“At the veterinary hospital?” Jon’s always been really good with animals.

He nods.

“No camp this year?”

“Nope,” he says, pausing for a drink. “I’ll be around.”

It almost sounds like an offer.

It could just be passing interest on his part, and that would be fine. Perfect really for her purposes. She doesn’t need him to be violently in love with her. A little messing around, where she doesn’t have to pretend to be enjoying herself if she’s not, where she doesn’t owe the guy anything, would be perfect. But she hopes if it gets that far, it’ll be good; she really, really hopes so, because sex has always been kind of not so great and she’d rather it was for once.

“You helping out at the dance studio again?”

She didn’t think Jon had any idea how she spent her summers. “Yeah, I’ll be around too.”

That most definitely is an offer if he wants to take her up on it.

“Hold on,” he instructs.

Looping an arm around her middle to keep her from slipping off his lap, he shifts to pull his phone out from his back pocket. He sets it on the wide arm of the chair and sits back, dragging her squarely into his lap with a gentle tug.

The whole thing is kind of smooth. It’s definitely a maneuver, but it’s smoother than she would have thought Jon capable. Asha might have needed to make the first move for him, but Jon’s not entirely hopeless.

She lets her weight settle against his chest and pulls one leg up, toes curling over the edge of the chair. His eyes follow the bend of her leg.

“You cold?”

“A little,” she admits.

“You’ve got goosebumps.”

His right-hand spreads over her thigh. The goosebumps climb up the back of her neck, prickling along her scalp.

“Yeah, I think I’m done with this,” she says, setting her mostly full beer next to his on the arm of the chair. “Too cold. We need hot chocolate or something instead.”

“Like your mom makes,” he says, drumming his fingers against her skin.

He’s got good hands. Nice wrists. She thinks about those hands on her, in her, and her breath catches. There are like eight people on the porch, and she still wants to loop her fingers in his hair and drag his mouth against hers.

“Hey, man.”

Robb’s voice makes her jump, but for all of Jon’s embarrassment earlier, he doesn’t seem rattled by his friend, standing there with an arm around his girlfriend. Jon doesn’t even remove his hand from her thigh. It feels like it’ll leave a print if he does. Marked.

“What’s up?” he asks, sounding remarkably unaffected, just as all her calm cool is evaporating.

“So, we’re going to go play beer pong.”

“Okay. Cool.”

“You want to join?”

“I’m good. You?” Jon asks with a glance at her.

Sansa shakes her head. Jeyne winks at her, which makes her think it wasn’t just good timing a few minutes ago, but otherwise, they leave without anyone pointing out there are chairs available now that Sansa could easily occupy. Instead of Jon’s lap.

“You’re holding your breath,” Jon points out, as half the porch clears out.

“That was a little weird.” So much for her being the one to convince Jon that this was a good idea in spite of her brother.

“It’ll be okay,” he says with a pat to her leg that she feels like a shock in more sensitive places.

“He’s my brother.”

“Trust me,” he says, and she wants to, she almost does, looking into his grey eyes in all their dilated sincerity.

She always thought Jon was too serious. There are worse things to be.

Asha and the rest of them clamber over the rail and head down towards the beach. They’re alone, when his other hand slips just under the hem of her sweatshirt. She bites her lip at the inflating balloon feeling in her chest, as his thumb rubs over the skin above the waistband of her cutoffs.

“Hey,” he says, and she repeats it back just as quietly.

She wants to be the girl who just starts making out with the hot guy on the porch, but she’s not. Or she hasn’t ever been, and when Jon touches his forehead to hers, she knows with the racing of her heart that she won’t be tonight either. She needs to say at least one thing, so there’s no misunderstanding. She doesn’t  want to come off badly, as bad as Harry.

“I broke up with Harry. I’m guessing you know that.”

“Yeah.” His fingers go taut on her thigh. “Yeah, I heard. You okay?”

Robb didn’t know about Harry and that girl—they’re on the same team but not really friends—so Jon probably didn’t know he was cheating either. If she launches into the whole sordid tale, he’ll probably sit and listen, but that’s not how she wants to spend tonight.

She nods, nose just brushing his. “I’m fine. I’m done with him.”

“I’m really fucking glad.”

Her answering smile is just blooming, when he presses his mouth to hers. He doesn’t have to say anything with how he kisses her. Happiness, affection, something raw and gentle all at once is pressed into each touch of his lips to hers. Yes, she’s been missing something and it was this.

She flattens her hand against his chest and scrunches his shirt in her fingers. His hand, warm and sure against her side, slides up as he gives her one soft kiss after another. Soft enough that she slips her hand into his hair to urge him closer to sate the feeling that’s coiling in her chest.

The ends of his hair, where it curls, are damp. That’s why he smells like clean guy—detergent and soap and deodorant. It’s a good smell. She breathes through her nose and her heart does something funny that makes her feel like she’s falling, as he tilts his head and deepens the kiss. Harder, deeper. Finally.

His tongue against hers drags a warmth from her that leaves her feeling limp and strung tight all at once. Their kisses taste like beer; she wonders what he’d taste like, kissing down his chest, lower, and the insistent press of his mouth is the only thing that muffles the noise she makes low in her throat. Desperation drives the rub of her legs together. He doubles it, moving his hand along her thigh until his hand fits to her body.

She gasps his name against his mouth, looking for some answer, some relief for her jumping nerves. Or just more of everything. His arm tightens against her back, and she’s arching into him, clinging, in a suddenly dizzy world.

A shrill wolf whistle cuts through her fuzzy headed arousal like a hot knife through butter. She pulls back, blinking in confusion. She wouldn’t even know where the sound came from, except he’s glaring at something beyond her shoulder, towards the beach. They’ve got an audience, she realizes, and her first instinct is to tuck her face into his neck.

He huffs, disturbing the fine hairs at her hairline. “I’m going to kill her.”

Just like that, his breath against her skin makes her restless again. If he kissed her there by her ear, she’d forget the spectacle they’ve created and indulge in a fresh one.

“Kill who?” she asks, though there’s only one possible answer.

“Asha. She thinks she’s fucking funny.”

She takes a deep breath, thankful for the cool air that crawls along her heated flesh. If she focuses on the chill, maybe she can regain some control. It’d probably be a good idea. If a bunch of drunks pile back in the house to cheerfully report what they’ve seen, her plans are going to be shot to hell.

He reaches up to stroke her hair, letting her sweatshirt fall back in place. “Sorry.”

“S’okay. I’m okay.” She traces the edge of his crew neck, where the skin is perfectly smooth. “I know she’s your friend, but she did say some really weird stuff to me about you.”

“Oh, Christ. I can only imagine.”

“Honestly, I don’t think so,” she says, disentangling herself to stand. She looks down at him in the warm porch light, as some misunderstanding causes his face to go protectively blank just as she holds out her hand to him. “But you should like get her a Starbucks gift card or something.”

Part 3

[micahrodney]

Thread; Chapter 1 - Lost Boy

The following was a commissioned piece for MatthewCaveatZealot. Awakening with a start, Neil managed to bash his head on the ceiling of his dorm room. He collapsed back into his loft bed, running his hands across his temple.  He had always known this was a distinct possibility with his sleeping arrangement; there was barely three feet of clearance between his mattress and the unsettling popcorn-style stucco which always left flakes in his bedding. The only damage appeared to be a mild contusion, and a slightly hurt ego. The boy glanced at the alarm clock, which was inelegantly tucked into a corner of the frame, cord precariously taut.

8:35 AM

“Shit!” Neil cursed.

In his panic, he practically hurled himself over the rail of his loft. Fortunately, his faded blue bean bag chair – presently covered by a week's worth of dirty laundry – broke his fall. Fishing in the bureau just beneath his bed, he managed to dig out a clean pair of jeans and a grey tee.

As he reached for his bookbag, he noticed he'd left his computer on. The dull white of a Lotus document was burning into the monitor. Upon reading the salutation of “Dear Erica” the previous night's phone call came rushing back to him; three years discarded in two minutes.  He had trouble saying what he needed to say in that call. Truthfully, the shock of it had rendered him phased out of reality. There was a hollowness that consumed him upon hearing those words, an emptiness that had to be embraced lest it consume him.  

He couldn't even bring himself to cry.  Tears would only validate the nightmare.  That had to be it:  a nightmare.  One that he would wake up from in a day or two when she called him back and apologized.  When she remembered how happy they had been together and realized what she was giving up. After a few hours, he had passed from denial to bargaining. Every possible scenario played through in his head simultaneously, from magnanimous acceptance of her apology to him banging at her door and pleading to take him back.  That was when the rational approach of writing her a letter presented itself.  

Without bothering to save the document, he flipped the switch. The dull fizzling sound was always a strange comfort.  To Neil, it represented the end of a day.  Maybe that's how he should view Erica: just another chapter in his life that he would move past.  And maybe, like the document itself, there really was nothing worth saving there anyway.  

--- 

Voxton was once a whistle-stop town just outside of the state capitol.  It was the home of an active farm community, and the state's number one exporter of unemployed drunks looking for better opportunity in “the big city”.  Then somebody decided to build a college there in the wake of the 1973 stock market crash, presumably with hopes of turning the state's fortune around.  

McCain University – presumably named for its founder, though Neil had never bothered to find out – had grown to become something of a Mecca for the technically inclined. If you wanted to break into engineering or computer science, you went to McCain, assuming your parents weren't wealthy or connected enough to ship you off to MIT.  

Thanks to a grant from the Governor, the school had an entire campus building dedicated to the most powerful machines on the market. Perhaps this was why Neil insisted upon using a personal computer from the 80s, despite the fact that his father had offered many times to buy him something newer.  

The IBM 386 was more than a little dated, but the chunky machine could do the important things in his life.  Sure his classes had him learning on top-of-the-line Power Macintosh hardware, but it had been the computer he grew up with.  Its impressive 32 MB memory was stuffed with the text-adventure games of INFOCOM.  While his first love would always be Zork, it was the murder-mystery Moonmist that made him want to become a writer.

These dual interests had conflicted before, and while Neil's father was supportive he was also wary.  Writing, after all, was a hard market to break into.  But computer technology was in high demand and only rising.  When he had embarrassingly tried to connect with his son by saying maybe he could learn to make “some of those Nintendo games”, Neil had politely laughed and agreed to consider it.  The boy's consideration didn't take long.  As a lawyer, his dad always was the better negotiator.  Perhaps it was overkill to mention that it is what his mother would have wanted.

Neil opened the door to his usual morning haunt, a student-run coffee shop called “The Junction”.  The place was barely bigger than his dorm, but they also had the best muffins in Voxton.  He stumbled up to the register and barely sputtered out his order before his bookbag slipped off of his shoulder, sending his notebooks scattering.  

“Damn,” Neil cursed.  “Sorry, Angie.  A blueberry muffin and a coffee to go please!”

“Running late again, Neil?” The senior asked, tying her long ebony hair back with a scrunchy.

“I know, they're lucky to have me as a student,” Neil mumbled bitterly, shoving the papers haphazardly back into his bag.  

“Four bucks. Your dad's Amex, I trust?”  Angie replied, extending her hand.  

“Cash today.  I forgot to grab my wallet, but luckily there was a five in my jeans,” Neil chuckled benignly, handing her the bill.  

“Moving up in the world.”

“Tell me about it.”  

“Lemme grab your breakfast, champ,” Angie smirked.  

Neil took his change and leaned back against the bar.  The place wasn't really all that bad.  Sure two people couldn't walk side-by-side behind the bar, but the little brick shack was alright. He had particularly liked the ironic name.  Before the University reclaimed land for a parking lot the place had been a rail depot. The result were tracks that didn't lead anywhere just behind the restaurant and for few miles north and south respectively.  

“And in offbeat news today,” droned a local news anchor on the 16 inch TV in the corner of the bar. “IBM supercomputer 'Deep Blue' went six games against chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov yesterday. Although Kasparov won the match with four games to Deep Blue's two, this is the first time a computer has ever defeated a world champion under tournament regulations. Truly this is a sign of things to come. Just how more advanced can these computers get?”  

“Neil!” Angie called, snapping her fingers in front of his face.  “Muffin, coffee, late for Computer Theory 221, remember?”  

“Right, sorry!” Neil sputtered, grabbing his food and bolting out the door.  

---

“Mr. Brown. How nice of you to grace us with your presence.”

Professor Barker was generally a nice guy, but Neil had tried his patience one too many times.  Tardiness was just one of Neil's offenses against the would-be silicon valley elite.  In short, Barker didn't like his attitude.  He didn't like that Neil would sit through his classes, mind clearly on other things. But what he hated worse was the fact that Neil continued to ace every assignment in spite of his lackluster classroom performance.  It wasn't Neil's fault that he felt he got very little out of the lecture hall experience, preferring instead to study on his own time.  

“Sorry, sir,” Neil apologized half-heartedly.  “Rough night.”  

“Wait until you become an adult, then you'll learn what a real rough night is,” Barker scolded.  

The aging technician looked like a slightly sunkissed Steve Wozniak.  He had the beard and the plaid collar shirts, but his face was a bit more rugged.  Barker had learned computers while serving in the Army during the 70s.  The synthesis was a computer nerd who looked like he used to beat kids up for their lunch money.  

“Now that Mr. Brown has found his seat,” Barker sighed.  “Let's resume. Where were we now?  Ah, yes! The potential of virtual reality.  Now, this ain't your 'Virtual Boy', we're talking about actual virtual reality.”

Barker was nothing if not fond of the sound of his own voice.  The lecture was more or less him pontificating about the achievements that had been accomplished with the budding technology and his wild-eyed fantasies of future use.  Of particular note, Barker's assertion that we could one day use virtual reality to explore the entire planet's history in first-person seemed especially romantic.  

“Imagine, if you would, you put on a visor and are instantly transported to the wild west.  With a few mouse clicks, you are in the Roman Empire, or watching the building of the Great Pyramid of Giza.”

A loud digitized beep came from the clock just over the door. It was already 11 AM.

“Ah, well, I seem to have rambled on right to the end of class,” Barker chuckled. “Alright, that's a good stopping point anyway.  I'll let you head out.  Mr. Brown, a word.”

The students began to pack up and make their way towards the door, as Neil marched down the steps of the lecture hall, prepared for his weekly chew-out session.  The beard of the middle-aged educator seemed to twitch in anticipation and annoyance.  

“Neil, do you want to be in this class?” Barker asked bluntly.  

“Yes sir,” Neil stoically replied.

“You know the class starts at 8:30 AM every Monday and Wednesday, right?”

“Yep.”

“The winter semester has only just started and in the six classes we've had together you have been on time to one of them.”

“That's correct, sir.”

Barker sighed and waved his hands about in front of him as if he was grasping for something to strike him with.  

“I don't know what you expect from me,” Barker steadied his hands and pointed a finger in Neil's face. “But I know I expect from you. I can't have you barging in after the class starts.  If I have to lock that door, I'll do it.  Your work is good, but if you want to stay in my class I expect you to show up on time.”  

“I understand sir.”

“Well, I hope so,” Barker grumbled. “I'm not kidding about that lock either.”

---

Monday was, by design, Neil's easiest day.  He only had the one class, and he used the remainder of the day to run errands.  So as soon as Barker let him out, his first stop was to the Store24 to pick up some groceries.  Considering his food storage options in his dorm was a mini-fridge and the top shelf of his closet, he only wound up with two bags and a twelve-pack of the store-brand cola.  

He dropped off the bare essentials of sustenance and took a brief moment to tidy his room.  There wasn't much cause to impress anyone, but he felt compelled to use the time. It felt better to accomplish something – anything – rather than waiting around for the day to end.  

The next two hours were spent overseeing a load of laundry in the dormitory laundromat. It was pretty depressing, featuring bare stone walls and illuminated by a single dirt-specked window. with a line of six washers and four driers on opposite sides of the room from each other.  There was a table in the middle, slightly off-set from the window in a way that mildly infuriated Neil. There were technically chairs, but two metal folding chairs took a certain wear-and-tear over the decades and had never been replaced.

Neil found himself sitting on the edge of the table, staring out that window and reflecting on the bizarre dream that had woken him with such a start.  The events of the day had driven out most of the fantastic experience from his mind, but bits and pieces still lingered.  Those omnipresent voices, speaking in grand detail about him.  An idyllic planet that was repeatedly destroyed. The beast from within the pit, as Neil was bound and helpless on a web of light.  

He considered whether or not he wanted to try and duplicate the effects of his lucid dreaming again tonight. Was it a story worth picking up? Or did he want to find himself once again at the genuine mercy of some phantasm?

A low blare came from the drier, in what was more than once mistaken for a fire alarm.

Discarding the shards of his recollection, he set about folding his clothes for about five minutes, before hastily shoving the rest of his clothes into his basket and resolving to just “do it later”.  This was perhaps his favorite lie.  

So it was, at 3:00 PM, Neil found himself back in his room with nothing else on the docket.  The young scholar now had to decide between drowning his mounting sorrows in video games, television, or – if he were feeling particularly adventurous – both at the same time.  

Looking to a torn up photo of Erica on his desk, he considered what he would be doing if last night's conversation had not happened. The weekends were theirs and sometimes she would visit him Monday night as well, to hit up a movie when it wasn't crowded with people.  She wasn't a terribly social girl, and Neil had always done his best to accommodate that.  

They both used to joke about how she was a “cheap date”.  She was the kind of person who genuinely enjoyed an experience-driven rendezvous.  Erica would much rather walk through the Voxton arboretum or take in one of the free community light-shows at the planetarium rather than actually go out and spend money.  

On their first date, Neil had nearly blown his chance with her by trying to flaunt his dad's wealth.  He had been given $100 to “impress the girl” with.  Erica, in that way she always did, knocked him flat on his ass.

“I'm not here to get to know your money, I'm here to get to know you,” she said, before insisting on having dinner at the cheapest restaurant in Voxton, where she paid for her own meal.  

The wake-up call had worked, and he loosened up considerably; enough so that she was agreeable to a second date.  In spite of the rough start, they had gotten along famously.  But apparently not as well as he had thought.

A knock on his door disrupted Neil from his day-dreaming.  

“Hey man, open up.  You're decent, right?”

Neil chuckled as he opened up the door.  His friend Damian could only be described as “dashing”.  The heart-throb of choice for all the girls when they were in high school together, his looks had only improved with age.  

“Did they finally let you in?” Neil teased.  

“Dude, they let you in,” Damian retorted.  “If I wanted in, I'd be in.  But money is good in the sales game.”  

“You work in retail.”

“Retail sales.  If I sell ten computers, they give me $50 of store credit,” Damian replied with a dismissive wave of his hand.  “Anyway, we doing dinner?  My treat.  Gotta cheer up my sad-sack friend, don't I?”

“Damian, you don't have to-”

“Nah, brother, I insist,” Damian smiled, patting Neil on the back.  “Breakups hurt. I've been here, and you're gonna be fine.  We will eat, drink, be merry and this weekend we will go out dancing and find a girl to make you forget all about her.”  

It was this benevolent nature that led to the two becoming friends in the first place.  In middle-school, they were both slightly awkward, but Damian had the further disadvantage of being an immigrant.  His mother Tabitha had fled Egypt shortly after that assassination of Anwar Sadat, carrying along a four-year-old Damian with her.  

The pubescent Damian was dealing with bullying and trying to adapt to both a new country and a stepfather who Neil had never met.  The two had met while Damian was hiding out in the library during one fateful lunch and they managed to hit it off over Lloyd Alexander's Prydain Chronicles. Neil had just started reading The Black Cauldron, but Damian was already on Taran Wanderer. A young boy's excitement to talk about his favorite fantasy series led to the longest-lasting friendship either of them had enjoyed. 

“Damian, I'm not sure if I really want to 'forget' about her, you know?” Neil sighed. “But I don't really need to get into that now.”

“Why not now?” Damian asked. “Take the time, friend.  Dinner can wait.”  

“It just seems kinda,” Neil struggled to find the words.  “Pointless.  I mean she's made her decision.  I have no idea why, but she made it clear she was done with me.”  

“Your feelings aren't pointless,” Damian replied, tapping his chest for emphasis.  “It's all we really have in this world.  Of course, if you don't want to talk, I won't make you.  But, uh, make a decision quick.  I skipped lunch.”

Neil laughed and opted to continue keeping his thoughts concealed. At least for now.  

“Alright.  Dealer's choice,” Neil said.  

“What a dangerous power you've given me,” Damian chuckled.  “Thai food it is.”  

---

This one is hard to position.  The thread is destabilizing.  

Neil was not dreaming.  The voice was not in his head. It was just on the opposite side of his dormitory door.  The room around him was shrouded in darkness, and only the door was illuminated.  If he could just reach out and grab the handle...  

A terrible weight was dragging him down, and his limbs felt as though they were made of concrete.  A biting cold was gnawing at him, and there was a presence just behind him. Somewhere in that darkness, a great unseen thing wanted to devour him.  Panic seized him as he flailed his useless forelimbs at the impossible contraption.  A doorknob; he had seen thousands of these.  But his brain could not process how to manipulate one.  

With looming annihilation mere inches from him, he resorted to throwing all of his weight at the wooden barrier, hoping it would yield under the force of what, to Neil, felt like two tons of his own mass.

If the thread is lost, we lose the Binder.  This is unacceptable.

“Nox?” Neil called out, vaguely remembering the kindly voice from the other night.  

We are here, Binder.  Patience.  We will pull you into our realm.  You will not be sundered.  

At this pronouncement, a hideous shriek invaded Neil's mind. The darkness wrapped around the young man and began to flay him, leaving crimson marks on his arm.  By the time the third sinewy tendril had lashed him across the face, he felt an uncomfortably familiar tug around his midsection as he was dragged out of the darkness and through the door, beyond which lay the sea of stars from his prior visit.  

As the distant sparks sailed past him, the memory of that Eden weight heavily upon his mind.  He wanted to see it again, and yet he could not bear to watch it be destroyed once more.  The thought of having to relive the same disaster over and over again throughout eternity was unbearable. How many times would he have to suffer the same loss?  How many people would abandon him to the darkness of his own mind?  

Hey Neil, it's Dad.  Hope you've had a good Monday.  You're probably out with Erica, but I just wanted to get in touch with you about... well, your mother's remembrance.  It won't be a big social gathering like last year's.  Basically just gonna be your siblings and me, but we wanted to coordinate with you. Just give me a call back when you can.  I love you.  

His father didn't know yet.  Of course, why would he?  That was only last night?

Focus on the moment, Binder!

Rem's voice was as stern and monotone as ever, but with a renewed sense of urgency. There was a planet on the horizon, but it was no paradise.  The world was molten rock and scattered space-dust, perhaps one in the process of still being formed.  Or was this was had remained of the other world after the disaster?  

See past the reality of your eyes, Binder. They are not a reliable path to truth, Nox urged.  

He is weighed down by his emotional attachment to his own thread.  We are losing him, Rem added.  

The planet was quite hot, and Neil felt his flesh beginning to sear as he drew ever closer to it.  He closed his eyes as he fell through the atmosphere of a dying world, the weight of his grief dragging him into oblivion.

[maychorian]

Weekly Voltron Fic Recs #52

Happy Thanksgiving! Here are thirty fics. I’m so close to being caught up that I can almost taste it.

This is also marks the 600th post on @maychorianrecs​. Hidey ho! 

And I still have like twenty-seven old fic rec lists I haven’t copied there yet.

Rules: You can find past weekly rec lists here, and non-list recs in my general fic rec tag. Also follow @maychorianrecs for individually tagged posts, the easier to search and reblog. This is stuff I like, and I have a huge bias toward Lance, hurt/comfort, and general fluff, in that order. Gen unless otherwise noted. Please comment on the fics if you read and enjoy them!

Fogged Breath by BluePlanetTrash Words: 2,118 Author’s Summary: Ever since he was little Lance suffered from asthma. He didn’t think that it would be much of a problem in space. Fate had other plans for him, however. My Comments: Great little hurt!Lance fic with an exceptionally protective team. Hits the spot.

oh, the end of infinity by MissSugarPlum Words: 9,896 Author’s Summary: Matt can’t sleep. It’s not like this is a new occurrence. Sleep has been evading him for years now, and he can’t even remember what a proper restful night feels like. He sometimes thinks of when he was still at the Garrison, how he used to think he knew what stress was, how he used to bemoan the pressure from instructors, the rigorous training, the way he could only ever seem to get no more than six hours of sleep a night, and he yearns for the simplicity of back then. Past-Matt didn’t know how good he had it. -x- [Matt adjusts to being in the Castle of Lions.] My Comments: I really enjoyed this exploration of Matt getting used the castle and the team, especially the development of his relationship Lance. It starts out adversarial but gets much less so. Great scenes with Pidge, too. Possibly romantic Klance in the background, but can also be read as gen.

Congratulations by TheWonderTwins Words: 2,433 Author’s Summary: A mission doesn’t quite go to plan and Pidge is taken prisoner. Not everyone takes it as well as Pidge does. My Comments: Ahhh, Pidge. What a badass. This was exciting and fun to read.

Local Color by TheWonderTwins Words: 2,361 Author’s Summary: “Could this be more cliche?” Pidge muttered quietly. Keith smirked briefly. “We could get into a barfight.”“ Please resist the urge to punch people.” Pidge requested. My Comments: I frankly impressed that these two avoided getting into a barfight. Fun little scene with the two of them dealing with some aggression from locals quite well, actually.

What She Sees by HapaxLegomenon Words: 2,263 Author’s Summary: Matt’s safe, now, and Pidge is delighted to have her brother back. But Matt’s different, and she notices. Set during the end of “The Machinations of Perception.” My Comments: Little missing scene from a previously recced fic. Since that fic was entirely in Matt’s POV, it was nice to get a scene from Pidge’s perspective, here. These poor kids. Things are hard, but I’m glad they have each other now.

Easy Target by SunshineAndRainbows Words: 1,832 Author’s Summary: Every move was deliberate, every action filled with intent. He had meant to land his ship, he meant to stand from his cockpit, and so, he meant to walk slowly, deliberately to meet his hopeful allies. He had certainly meant to say something clever and suitably dignified in greeting.He hadn’t meant to collapse the moment his feet hit solid ground. My Comments: How to make me feel sympathetic to Lotor: Whump him good.

Go Go Paladins of Voltron by hufflepirate Words: 2,662 Author’s Summary: Shiro gave up everything, including his spot at the Garrison, to look after his dying mother. Now his mother is gone and he’s alone — until he meets four teenagers with attitude, a set of mysterious keys, and maybe, just maybe a purpose. Written for platonicvldweek 3, for the prompt Alternate Reality/Free, so it’s not QUITE a Power Rangers Fusion AU, but it is the meet cute from Power Rangers (2017), but with Voltron. We’re calling it an alternate reality, not an alternate universe, because they’re gonna end up in space doing their space thing, just… a little differently. (Marked complete because I like the ending ok as it is and don’t have time to write this as a multichapter fic right now.) My Comments: I haven’t seen the new Power Rangers movie, but you don’t need to enjoy this fun, fluffy little getting-together fic.

Bad to Worse by bookwormgir1LH Words: 1,794 Author’s Summary: Lance, Keith, Hunk and Pidge go on a hiking trip. Things start to wrong from the offset, but it soon gets even worse… My Comments: Fun modern AU about an absolutely disastrous attempt at having a good time. Poor kids, but everything turns out okay. Lance’s POV is fun to read, too, even as things go very wrong.

All Hallow’s Eve by this_book_has_been_loved Words: 2,921 Author’s Summary: In which the Paladins discover that Keith’s birthday is only a week before Halloween My Comments: Aw, poor Keith. Everyone’s heart is in the right place, but things are hard, sometimes.

What Could Have Been by Crowoxy Words: 5,222 Author’s Summary: Lotor is only a few decaphoebs (years) younger than Allura and it was just easier for him to leave Daibaazal for Altea. A what-if scenario where if Lotor grew up on Altea, what changed and what stayed the same?Day 7 of the Platonic VLD Week - Free/ Alternate Universe My Comments: I felt bad for Lotor being so obviously neglected by his parents, but it was really nice to see him growing with Allura and Coran and Alfor as his family instead. Cool AU. I would read more of this concept, and I’m not even a huge fan of Lotor. I could see, with the right upbringing, his charisma and intelligence being used for good ends instead of his own ambition.

Snowtron by Eastofthemoon Words: 2,648 Author’s Summary: It had all started with five words. Five words that changed the entire course of the day. Five words Allura never imagined she would hear any paladins say while piloting their lions. “GIANT ROBOT LION SNOWBALL FIGHT!” My Comments: Holy fish balls, this is ADORABLE. I love Allura getting dragged into Earthling shenanigans, and the ending scene with Lotor and crew was icing on the cake. The snowy, snowy cake.

A Gremlin In Glasses Swoops In To Save The Day by Kabber, this_book_has_been_loved Words: 2,752 Author’s Summary: First installment in a Percy Jackson AU for Voltron. In which Lance and Hunk discover that they may not be entirely human My Comments: Really fun action scene for an AU that is just FULL of possibilities. I especially adore Pidge swooping in to save Hunk and Lance. Exciting and intriguing read.

The Opposite of Sorrow by nightwalker for HumanTrampoline Words: 6,165 Author’s Summary: Shiro takes a hit from a druid spell that causes its victims to just quietly give up and die. Fortunately he’s got six good reasons to keep fighting. My Comments: The spell Shiro gets hit with is basically weaponized depression, and it’s pretty terrifying. But the solution is hugs and cuddling and bonding time, and I am all kinds of down for that kind of cure. Extremely sweet and heartwarming fic, and Keith’s POV is wonderful.

let the fog burn let my wick fray by imperiality Words: 4,501 Author’s Summary: Little bonfires are little things Keith and Pidge do. He can’t look away from the flames, Pidge can’t seem to get what he’s after. But then she wants to spice it up on a Halloween night. This purple fog is oppressive. My Comments: Interesting and different way to study Keith and emotionally hurt him at the same time. It’s a good thing his team came after him.

Grateful for the Years to Come by Ms_Marchy Words: 4,001 Author’s Summary: Five years after saying goodbye to her son, Maria McClain gets the greatest gift of being reunited with her son. Everyone knows Lance worries over how much he missed in his family’s lives. No one ever thinks about what Maria was missing about her son’s life. She didn’t even know herself until one day two giant mechanical lions land near her house. The Space War is finally over. Everyone can go home. My Comments: This was heartbreaking and heartwarming in equal measure. It’s sad to see just how much years of war scarred Lance, but it’s also wonderful to see him at home and loved with his family again, and his mother’s perspective is lovely and warm. Ambiguous Klance.

And My Nightmares Will Have Nightmares Every Night by ardett Words: 9,096 Author’s Summary: Restart program? A series of alternate paths in the Dream, Seam series. My Comments: Really cool and unique way of showing a bunch of ways this story could have gone really, really wrong. Or, well, wrong from a certain perspective. I adore this, though it hurts me, like a lot. Warning for major character death, though it doesn’t really stick.

With These Hands by A_Zap Words: 1,486 Author’s Summary: Despite all the trouble they’d been through, Hunk figured everything had turned out all right. After all, he and Lance had managed to return to the castle! Then Hunk sees the bruises and knows that things are not as good as he thought. My Comments: Great missing scene that we were totally robbed of in canon. I love these sweet summer boys and their relationship so much. Surprisingly more hurt!Hunk than hurt!Lance, actually, but I love both flavors.

She’s Looking A Little Green by spitfire00 Words: 3,936 Author’s Summary: Katie Holt was born to pilot the Green Lion, and her father knows it- Even if he doesn’t realize it. My Comments: Great, great Sam POV, and a wonderful Holt reunion in here too. Really cool look at the paladins and their fateful uniqueness.

Bruising Waters by TheStoryVerse Words: 17,743 Author’s Summary: Never tell a Soul. Never Let Yourself Be Seen. His mother’s words had been pounded into Lance’s head from birth; a warning to prepare him and keep his family safe. He’s managed to hide from the Garrison and even in space. But, much to Lance’s chagrin, the universe has other plans. When Lance contracts an alien virus while out on a diplomatic mission that starts attacking his Mer form, Lance figures it’s just a “space cold”. He brushes off the others’ worry and tries to continue as normal. But the pain is getting worse with each passing day, and he hasn’t had a moment’s peace alone to change forms and see what could be causing it. When everything finally hits the fan, the team quickly finds that Lance is in much worse condition than they had assumed. Lance is not only dying, but he’s changing right in front of their eyes.So much Hurt and Whump in the first chapter. So much good Bonding and Comfort in the next two. Let’s do this y'all! (Sorry, Lance) My Comments: This is some PRIMO hurt!Lance, lemme tell ya. A unique form of whump, and holy crow is is brutal. It gets kinda gross too, just to warn you. But the bonding and comfort and in the second two chapters more than makes up for it. Maybe a touch over the top at times, but darned if I didn’t enjoy every moment. Totally satisfying and highly recommended to hurt!Lance afficionados. You know who you are.

Wide Awake by taylor_tut Words: 1,373 Author’s Summary: From an anon request on my tumblr: Lance catches a bug that keeps him awake. When he’s not allowed to train during the day with everyone else, he tries to do it alone at night. It goes about as well as you’d think. My Comments: Aw, poor Lance. Great little sickfic with an unusual premise.

With Hands Tied Backwards by GibbousLunation Words: 6,684 Author’s Summary: Lance had this problem, just sometimes, where his brain got all floaty and his hands started feeling like maybe he’d forgotten to put them on properly in the morning. Like they were backwards and inverted and everything else was upside down too. Lance’s eyes slide out of focus staring at twinkling stars thousands of miles away, he lines his knuckles up in neat little rows, and he thinks too much about too many things. Team Voltron is falling apart in little ways, and building itself up taller ten times over. It started as a joke, “You know what would suck?“ It was easier to pretend they weren’t just kids fighting a war they’d never asked for, probably. "Angry edgy Not-Slav giving you CPR with his beak.” My Comments: Poignant and emotional exploration of Lance dealing with trauma-induced dissociation, and the kind of messed up games kids in war play to distract themselves from the threat of death while still acknowledging that it’s there. Klance that starts out ambiguous and then gets much less ambiguous, but could possibly still be read as gen. The point is survival, not romance.

Immunity by RiRiMania1335 Words: 2,165 Author’s Summary: Keith hardly ever gets sick. But if he does, it hits him like a truck. My Comments: Aw, poor Keith. He gets sick so rarely that he truly and sincerely believes that he’s dying, haha. Fortunately the others are there are to reassure him and take care of him.

Bonds by this_book_has_been_loved Words: 1,470 Author’s Summary: At first, it was subtle enough that none of them realized it. The bond with their Lions—that was obvious. Lance had felt it pretty much as soon as he laid eyes on the Blue Lion, and the rest of them had all had similar experiences. It was the bond with each other that was harder to pick up on. My Comments: I really like how this fic explores the concept of a psychic bond into the current canon, with all of the changes and disruptions and how that affects everyone.

Platonic VLD Week 3 - Oneshot Collection by hufflepirate Words: 10,865 Author’s Summary: WARNING: HEREIN BE S4 SPOILERS Day 1: Sleep/Nightmare - Pidge never wanted to share a room with Matt, but now that they have nightmares sharing’s not so bad. Day 2: Inside/Outside - Set mid-4.1 - Kolivan comforts Keith after the decoy ship blows up. Day 3: Tricks/Treats - Matt plays a trick on Team Voltron (a t-Rick) Day 4: Supernatural/Horror - Keith has an uncanny encounter with some Altean soldiers Day 5: Change/Growth - Hunk helps Allura learn more about piloting her lion [S3] Day 6: Distance/Proximity - Tag to 3.4 - After Allura returns, Coran hovers a little too close (Day 7: Alternate reality/Free is separate and the next fic in my platonicvldweek series.) My Comments: I love everything this author does, and this collection of little fics is like a kaleidoscope of Good Stuff. My favorites are probably day 2 and day 4, but they are all good and worth reading.

Old Soldier and Spy by Crowoxy Words: 1,874 Author’s Summary: Kolivan is the old spy who watches all of these young children grow into this war that’s been happening for ten thousand years. Day 5 of the Platonic VLD Week: Growth My Comments: I love this view of Kolivan as a wise, compassionate mentor for young soldiers, and his perspective on both Keith and Lotor is lovely and kind.

The Fear Of Falling Apart by this_book_has_been_loved Words: 3,211 Author’s Summary: Lance has feelings of inadequacy My Comments: This is so cute, and exactly how I want the relationship between Pidge, Matt, and Lance to develop in canon. I want them all to be wonderful siblings and appreciate each other and have fun playing video games. Pidge has two big brothers and it’s wonderful.

King of Wishful Thinking by BossToaster (ChaoticReactions) Words: 7,126 Author’s Summary: From Tumblr: Send me an AU and I’ll give you 5 Headcanons 1) The Galra attack Earth after the Pals leave in the Blue Lion 2) Pidge conspires to get Shiro a dog, and he ends up opening up a version of the Old Dogs Senior Sanctuary. Oops.  3) Scooby Doo AU (yes really) 4) Shiro’s relationship with his wings (Wing AU) My Comments: Each of these concepts fully deserves a full-fledged, 50k novel-length opus, but these small glimpses into the different worlds provided are immensely worth reading on their own, intriguing and heartwarming and horrifying by turns. My favorite is probably the Old Dogs Sanctuary AU, but they are all good.

Where Light and Dark Meet by squirenonny for Pechat Words: 34,168 Author’s Summary: The Fallen One arises: A captive star yearning for the heavens from which it was stolen… So begins the Prophecy of the Fallen Star, which speaks of the one who will save the kingdom from Haggar’s curse. Lance, Keith, and their friends are summoned to get in touch with Allura, the deposed princess of Altea, who is widely believed to be the Fallen Star from the prophecy. But things aren’t going to be quite so simple. Lance was cursed to become a cat at night; Keith spends his days as a crow. They both have a role to play in the coming battle, and they’re going to have to learn to trust each other–but how can they when they only ever meet in the fleeting moments at twilight when they both are human? My Comments: Klance and implied future Kallurance. I ADORE squirenonny’s fics, especially her fantasy AUs. Such amazing worldbuilding, great descriptions and and plotting and characterization. This one has some really nice hurt!Lance and protective Hunk and Pidge, too, which I always appreciate. I’m very pleased that this is apparently going to be a series, so I’ll get to read more in this world eventually. Just a great, great read, highly addictive, couldn’t stop once I started. I love it when that happens.

Blast Zone by bubblebucky Words: 4,729 Author’s Summary: In the middle of a mission, a bomb going off leaves Lance unable to hear. Still, while he’s deaf, the rest of his team are the ones that won’t listen. My Comments: This hits all of my buttons SO HARD. It gave me that good ache in my chest, you know the one. The other characters may be sliiiightly OOC in order to really hammer the hurt in on Lance, but it didn’t ping my “back away immediately” sense the way woobification usually does. Instead it felt understandable for a high-stress situation and I accepted it. The almost too-severe pain heightened the emotions for me and made the ending all the more satisfying. I REALLY love this. I’ve already read it several times, especially the ending, and it’s definitely in my Favorite Fics folder.

Home and a Half by sarehptar Words: 84,407 (7/?) Author’s Summary: They make a mistake that follows them home. (Or: Keith becomes an unwitting caretaker to three Galra children, who teach him a great deal about how to take care of himself.) My Comments: I am reading fewer WIPs these days because there are so many completed fics I still haven’t gotten to but want to, but this was recced to me so it moved to the top of my priority list, and I’m so glad I gave it a shot. This is far from a fluffy baby acquistion fic, with a lot of moral questions and deep consideration of mature themes, which makes the fic more bittersweet and heartwrenching than cute, though there are plenty of cute moments, too. It’s incredibly well-written and interesting, and the latest chapters have really brought some fun worldbuilding and adventure elements. I was afraid it was abandoned, but the author assures me it is not, and I’m really looking forward to continuing to follow this story to completion.

Previously Recced Fics That Updated:

Shadows of Stars (84674 words) Why it sucks to be a snake in space(52445 words) As Color Fades Away (211491 words) Shifting Sands (38605 words) - now complete

[randomnessunicorn-imagine]

May I have a date scenario with 2p england? I’m a bisexual girl, I have long dark blonde hair worn in a side braid and grey eyes, I also have a baby face I am a very quiet, introverted person with my head often in the clouds and in my own little world, I am often labelled as the ‘cinnamon bun’ of my friends, sometimes I want to sass certain people but I can’t because i’m too polite all the time however when I do ‘burn’ someone I apologize afterwards because I was so rude! (½)

{ After an eternity, I finally wrote it but I had no inspiration and ideas so I waited for them and this is the result. Hope you’ll enjoy it! }

@pokemontrainerlars x Oliver Kirkland (2p England)

💙 FIRST MEETING:

It was a rainy day.It was always a rainy day here in London and you were getting sick of it but there were so many other beautiful things and complain about the weather was not a useful thing to do.While the drops of rain fell and you felt your hair so wet that you hoped not to get sick because of it, you thought to be out of luck. Other than the rain, there was a furious wind, so violent and turbulent that reduced your umbrella in pieces so you found yourself running for the streets searching for a place where you could hide and rest yourself and, especially, dry your clothes. You were running across the night until a light has captured your gaze, it came from a local so you decided that you could go there to find some calm and serenity. You thanked some divinity that passed through your mind that moment, and then you went inside.  A bell’s sound welcomed you while you opened the door, and the place appeared so candid and warm in its pastel and bright colours. The most used tonalities were pink and celeste, and it was comfortable and nice, you had to admit. Since you looked like a drowned rat, you thought twice before entering and you tried to clean your shoes on the doormat but it seemed impossible and you were leaving a trail of water wherever you went. A sweet voice invited you to come inside, «Good evening, lass, make yourself comfortable», you raised your glance noting a redhead man on the other side of the counter. He seemed so kind and friendly and he did not stop to smile. It would be impolite to refuse his invite, «Hello… Uhm…», but you did not want to ruin his place and you were still so wet. Noticing your embarrassment he spoke again, «Oh, dear, don’t worry and take a seat. We’re not that lucky with the weather. », he sighed, coming to rescue you. The English man helped you to take off your jacket, «The bathroom is there if you need to dry yourself. Could I bring you a cup of tea? you seem frozen, darling~», you thanked him taking a seat.This man was really gentle, and you were surprised by his chivalrous manners that you smiled instantly and he smiled back to you noticed it. Then, he performed a little bow vanishing behind the door to prepare some tea.

Oliver was a very cute person and for him was natural acting polite with the customers; it was not only some marketing strategy because he was truly a sweetheart. Actually, he preferred this version of himself than his past self.  Then, you seemed a fish out of the water so he felt compelled to help you and he was still a gentleman. After some time, he brought you your tea and you could admit it tasted delicious, «Oh, thank you so much. It’s so good! », and he was glad hearing it from you. Other than that, he brought also a plate full of sweets and cookies that smelled like Heaven.«It’s on the house», he said and you were so surprised and this food was so good that you devoured everything without any compliment. What seemed a bad day became something magical and so sweet, you felt so lucky and you were hoping to meet this nice guy a second time.

💚  SECOND MEETING:

After than day, you have not forgotten the gentleman of that Bakery, you have not even asked him his name, and maybe it could be a great excuse to make him a visit. Then, you had to thank him for his hospitality and kindness. You had to admit another thing, he knew very well how to gain new clients.You decided to go there this very day and maybe you could buy some other of his desserts since you found them so delicious and this visit would be worthy in any case.Even Oliver hoped to see you again and to have a conversation with you, yesterday the two of you did not speak so much because it was so late and you were so tired and nervous for the weather.The same bell’s sound welcomed you another time and your eyes lighted up the moment you saw the sweet smile of Oliver who was serving some clients. Then, he turned to your direction and you could notice the same light in his eyes because he was so happy seeing you.«Oh, dear, welcome again!» , his voice was so infantile but melodic, you could guess he was a good singer, but you kept this thought for you, «Good morning!», you answered observing the delicacies behind the glass. You did not know what to say without appearing stupid but maybe a “thank you” would have helped, «I wanted to thank you for yesterday, I was totally lost and you have been so kind…», his expression became as sweet as a puppy and you blushed without a reason.«Oh, dear. You don’t have to thank me, I was glad to help you and I realize only now that I’ve not been a proper gentleman yesterday, uhm…», you asked yourself what he meant but he answered before you could open your mouth, «I didn’t ask your name, so I take the chance now. My name’s Oliver, and yours? », the same thought you had this morning and you were relieved he was glad to see you as well. You presented yourself, he found your name so graceful, and then he asked what he could do for you.Actually, you just wanted to see him but eating something would have not been a bad idea so you ordered your favourite sweet and he served you with the cutest smile on his face.The two of you talked for so many minutes even if he was too busy to serve all his clients and he could not ignore his job. You should have thanked for this little incident because Oliver invited you for a date with him so you and him could converse in peace. Obvious, you accepted and you could not lose this occasion.

💛  DATE:

The day of the date finally came even if you and Oliver have chatted and had long telephone conversations and he had the power to cheer up your days, the sun shined for you every day even in a melancholic and cloudy city like London.Oliver has invited you in a sweet restaurant he knew and, in his opinion, meals were the best moments to know a person and you could see the real side of them because food was a pleasure and food made people happier. Like the gentleman he was, he presented perfectly in time at your home and you were ready for a while. He was so cute in his suit, maybe a little too flashy but it was his way to be and another thing you appreciated of him.Oliver escorted you in his car to reach the place of your date. There was not even a moment that you and him have stopped to talk and every argument with him seemed so interesting and magical. He was such a positive person and you were surprised a person like him could exist. In this dull world, knowing that a solar man like Oliver was real made you believe that everything was possible. You and him were so similar and in that moment you understood that dreams could come true and Oliver was there to realize all your dreams. Sometimes, he appeared so infantile or naïve but he was not so stupid and he was so smart and attempt but also so tender in his gestures and words. He was everything.This date could not go better than this and he confided to you so many secrets and memories of his past, what he regretted about his life, but now he was ready to change and become a better person. You said that you believed in him and he was truly a good person and not the monster everyone supposed he was, and they did not know a thing about him or his golden heart. That was the moment he felt in love for you and you did the same.

💜 CONFESSION:

There have been so many other dates between you and Oliver and the two of you still seemed a couple even if none of you confessed to the other. Oliver was not so naïve and he realized for a while that you had a crush on him but he was just waiting the right occasion to confess his red feelings for you.It seemed no moment was that special to declare to you and he was such a perfectionist. At the end, he decided to use his own method to declare his love to you and he prepared a special cake where there was written on it how much he adored you and that he has loved you from the first time he saw you. Oliver was so romantic and this was not the only think he did for you because he also wrote a letter where he explained all his feelings and he was so timid sometime and he would have cried if he had to say it aloud, just try to understand him. His heart was too big for his body, he was such a crybaby but he was so cute that you could not do anything but hug him and say that you loved him so much… And that you could not wait to eat his cake that looked so delicious.

[tinamotherhood-blog]

The Ex Factor Guide | How To Get Your Ex Back Part 3

How To Get Your Ex Back

Step Three: Re-Connecting With Your Ex

How will you know when your ex is ready to be contacted? Well, you won’t. But there are some key steps to take after you finish the No Contact phase.

If you’ve just recently broken up with your ex and you haven’t begged, pleaded, or contacted your ex, then 30 days is usually enough time for you to wait.

However, if you have done any of the above, then you need to at least double that length of time. Depending on how many mistakes you’ve made since your ex broke up with you, you need to extend the Isolation Period accordingly.

In fact, when in doubt, wait longer.

Hopefully during this time you’ll have been dating, hanging out with friends, working out, and keeping busy with new hobbies. Now it’s time to attract your ex back into your life.

I recommend contacting your ex via text message or private social media message (Facebook, SnapChat, etc).

Under no circumstance should you be calling your ex at this point.

Why? Calling at this point is far too forward. You’ll want to take things slow at first, not ambush them out of the blue. Besides, calling just screams desperation. At this point, you don’t want to convey anything at all.

What you’ll want to do is pose what I call a Non-Threatening Question.This is a question that has a purpose.

You aren’t contacting your ex to say hello. You aren’t asking them out on a date. The only reason you’re contacting him or her is to ask them a legitimate, non-threatening question.

For example, you’ll want to send a text message that says something like:

Hey, just was wondering the name of that restaurant we went to on New Years?? Hope all is well with you!

This question has two components. One, it asks a question that needs to be answered, and only your ex can answer it. Secondly, it doesn’t demand attention. You end it with something like.. “Hope all is well” because it suggests that you don’t really care if your ex gets back to you or not.

If Your Ex DOES Respond…

Chances are if you’ve been following my advice up to this point, your ex will reply.

If your ex does reply, you’re in business. You’re going to want to keep conversing, but don’t get ahead of yourself or try to seal the deal in the first conversation.

Instead, just engage in some small talk with a few short, upbeat messages back and forth and then quickly end the conversation..

*BUT WAIT!* Don’t reply too quickly.

When you do eventually reply, leave at least an hour in between text messages. Yes, you heard me… at least an hour. You don’t want to blow it now, do you? Avoid any chance of appearing “needy” in the eyes of your ex by never being too eager or replying to their messages too quickly.

Keep up the small talk, and end the conversation abruptly. Sign off with a message like:

Okay, thanks. I have to go to my yoga class, talk soon!

or…

Sorry, nice chatting, but I gotta run… catch up again soon!

You’ll want to be the one ending the conversation in these scenarios. Why? Again, you’ll want to appear as if you don’t care too much.

Right now, you just want to make it known to your ex that you exist but not that you miss them or need them in any way.

After this period, wait another week until you contact your ex again. Continue this process until you become friendly with your ex again.

If Your Ex DOES NOT Reply…

If your ex doesn’t reply, don’t worry.

The thing is, there could be a multitude of reasons why your ex isn’t responding. Maybe he or she is busy, tired, away, etc. There are a ton of reasons, so don’t get too concerned yet.

If your ex ignores you and doesn’t reply, then there’s one rule you need to remember: Don’t text your ex again!

If you continually text your ex, you will be jeopardizing the whole operation.

You’ve made it this far, so don’t mess it up! You’ll be tempted to text again right away, but instead, focus on yourself again. Go out with friends, and do anything you can to keep your mind off things. Wait at least 1-2 weeks before you try again.

Step Four: The Magnetic Attraction Period

At some point in your interactions with your ex, you’re going to have to set up a meeting in person.

Remember, you need to have a good reason to do anything with your ex, so be prepared to come up with a good excuse to chat with your ex. If you’re confused about this, let me jump right into an example:

Hey you! I’ve always known you had a better eye for interior design than me. I’m trying to renovate my kitchen and wanted your opinion on some stuff. Let’s get together for coffee so you can give me some advice??

or…

Guess what?? I’m planning a trip to Peru this winter! Mind if we get together for a coffee so I can grill you with some questions? I know you’re an expert after your time living there!

You need to be posing as a friend for now. As of right now, nothing sexual should come out of this… at least not yet.

You’ll be wanting to make sure you tell your ex that this will be a short and sweet meeting. Your ex will be intimidated and possibly turned off if you suggest a very long meeting, so make it clear this meet-up will be brief and casual.

Once the actual “date” occurs, you need to turn up the sexual chemistry.Start flirting! Flirting is the number one way to spark attraction again and compel your ex to think of you in a sexual manner.

Don’t know how to flirt? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered…

1.) Touch, touch touch!

It doesn’t matter if you’re a guy or a girl. Touching is a form of communication. Go to a public place and observe friends and lovers communicate with each other. Chances are, they’ll be touching each other in some way.

Something as simple as giving somebody a “high five” is an incredibly bonding experience between two human beings.

Finally, look how couples interact. Kissing, holding hands, and hugs are fundamental bonding gestures between two lovers. So make sure you touch your ex a lot in inadvertent ways. If he or she seems receptive to this, then ramp it up.

Don’t forget the basics of romantic attraction here, folks — your goal is to make your ex fall back in love with you! Flirting and sexual tension are essential to making your ex love you.

2.) Look them in the eyes.

Eye contact is a powerful thing. Again, when it comes to building chemistry (whether sexual or otherwise), holding eye contact is essential.

Don’t just stare at your ex’s eyes. Stare at his or her lips too. This sends very subtle sexual messages.

3.) Smile at them!

This shouldn’t be too difficult.

4.) Reminisce about sexual encounters you’ve had with him or her, but subtly.

Try and re-ignite the passion by bringing up something related to a sexual moment you shared with your ex.

For example, if you and your ex had a steamy sexual encounter right after the Yankees game a year ago, talk about the events immediately preceding the sexual encounter. Try and remind them how intimate and passionate it was.

5.) Use humour.

Obviously, a good sense of humour is a powerful aphrodisiac. Make sure that as you’re flirting, you’re doing all you can to make your ex laugh.

Remember to keep things light. Don’t talk about anything negative. Don’t talk about how your relationship ended. Don’t argue.

Remember, chances are this is the chance to re-attract your ex back into your life. You don’t want to blow things wide open at this point.

After you’ve used all these techniques, chances are your ex will be laughing and enjoying his or her time.

Once your ex is showing these signs of interest in you, you have the green light to move into a more intimate setting. That means you need to find a good excuse to invite your ex over.

Again, don’t forget the fundamentals of this. You need to have a good reason to invite your ex over. Say you got a new collection of fish, for instance, or recently bought a new Xbox game you know your ex will like.

Whatever you do, do not just invite your ex over for no reason. This will be a red flag for them.

If You’re A MAN…

You’ll want to have sex with your ex as quick as possible. That means if your ex wants to have sex with you, it’s on. Have sex with her by seducing her and showing her the time of her life.

You’ll want to do some research on how to make love and how to make sure that what she’s experiencing is the best sex of her life. Make the sex unforgettable so that she’ll never think about leaving you again.

Women get extremely bonded with the partners they have sex with — more so than men. If your ex has sex with you, chances are the next step is how you’ll get back together.

If You’re A WOMAN…

Then don’t have sex with your ex until he’s ready to commit to you. Don’t make it a big deal. When you invite him back, flirt. Keep flirting and make it sexual. Turn him on.

However, the key here is to not have sex with him. This short of thing will drive a man crazy.

Once you do this, a little switch will go off in his mind and he’ll do anything he has to to have you.

At this point, you’ll want to set up even more subsequent dates with him and continue to turn him on. Continue being friendly, feminine, and beautiful. Pretty soon, he’ll want to have the “talk” with you… at which point, you just need to say “yes” when he asks if you want to get back together!

Final Tips For Getting Your Ex Back

This is a pretty long article, and to be honest, I’ve barely scratched the surface. That’s why I’ve written one of the all-time best-selling books on the subject, The Ex Factor Guide. It’s also why I offer personal coaching to you get your ex back.

If you’re really serious about getting the love of your life back, then I implore you to watch this video that I created. It will explain to you in further detail how to make sure your ex doesn’t fall in love with anyone else, and to ensure that your ex will come crawling back to you (oftentimes, on all fours).

Tina Motherhood

Tina Motherhood is a men's dating & attraction coach from New York, USA. A recognized leader in helping men become irresistible to women, Kate works with clients from around the world, helping them to get the girl they want, and the relationship they deserve. Kate is the best-selling author, an award-winning attraction-building program. She also runs a popular men's dating advice channel on YouTube.

[thatsnotbeautiful]

hypmic Secret Santa 2018 requests

hi! thanks so much for making me a thing, i’m excited to see what you come up with!

i’ll go into more detail about what i might like for different hypmic characters and/or ships below, but you can also look at my general likes/dislikes and nsfw likes/dislikes. (some of my prompt ideas are nsfw but i’ll flag them accordingly) 

i tend to be pretty long-winded with my exchange requests, but please know that all of these are intended as suggestions or as jumping-off points for you to brainstorm ideas, if that sort of thing helps you. i’d say the only thing you “have” to read are my general dislikes, i.e. things i definitely do not want to see in a fic.

i’ve lumped my ideas according to crew/ship because it was easier for me to organize everything that way, but i’d also be happy with single-character-centric or platonic/gen fic, it doesn’t necessarily have to be shippy!

~ MATENROU ~  - i ship all three of them in any combo tbh, including OT3  - i’d love to see soft domestic moments together, literal sleeping together, or anything relaxing with any ship combo tbh - i like supernatural elements in general, but i quite like the idea of Jakurai in particular being some sort of supernatural or immortal being living among humans (e.g. Shinigami, vampire, some sort of monster person) - please don’t include suicide/suicidal ideation for Doppo. 

hifudo - i really like their whole semi-codependent dynamic where they help each other with things they’re bad at and fill in the gaps for each other (Doppo reigning Hifumi in when he gets out of hand, Hifumi taking care of/standing up for Doppo)  - silly roommate shenanigans - how did they become roommates anyway? what were the early days of them living together and getting used to sharing a space like?  - i really like intimacy and knowing each other really well, better than most other people know you, so, anything with that? - one of them going on a trip and the other missing his presence?  - maybe Doppo doing something to show his appreciation for everything Hifumi does at home??  - going on vacation together! - get-together fic! i especially like UST and/or mutual pining (them living together for a while but not realizing they’re into each other) or them like... basically dating, or everyone around them thinking they’re dating, before the two of them realize oh that’s p much what they’re doing huh?  - that Hifumi apparently wants guys to call him “Hifumin” as well is too cute... Doppo call him “Hifumin” already. please. 

nsfw ideas:  - sleepy languid sex after one/both of them come home from work and scoot into bed together; exhausted sex  - somnophilia if you wanna take that a lil further (Doppo gets so little sleep......)  - Doppo groping/sexing Hifumi up bc he’s stressed out from work and this is a good release, lol. (i’ve seen so many fanarts from Japanese artists of Doppo just, coming home and tiredly squeezing Hifumi’s ass bc he’s stressed and, it’s good,)  - smooching in the kitchen while Hifumi is in the middle of cooking a meal or sth like the good house husband he is  - (tbh i 100% feel like Hifumi is the kind of person who would start cooking dinner in nothing but an apron for Doppo to come home to as a surprise lmao)  - nsfw offshoot of the nickname thing — Doppo calling Hifumi “Hifumin”, but Hifumi gets off on it. i especially love the idea of Doppo wanting to but being kinda embarrassed about it, and doing it really tentatively in Hifumi’s ear when they’re just lazing in bed or something, and Hifumi fucking shivers  - they’ve been best friends forever, i can’t imagine that they wouldn’t have gotten off together at least once as an ~experiment~ or bc they were pent-up university students and it was convenient. and if there’s UST/mutual pining, even better. if the sex is awkward bc they’re awkward and inexperienced, but feels super good anyway bc they’re both that into it/each other, even better - some sort of scenario with multiple Hifumis (magic? clones?)  - Hifumi selfcest???  - Doppo -> Hifumi watersports. and uh by “watersports” i mean Doppo peeing on Hifumi and Hifumi enjoying it. i’m sorry it’s just... the champagne thing......

jakudoppo  - the way i envision their dynamic is very, Doppo deeply respecting Jakurai as this mentor/role model/authority figure, but also thirsting after/crushing on him so hard he doesn’t know what to do w/himself, and lowkey being unable to reconcile the two (thirsting after your role model is rude/disrespectful, isn’t it??)  - buuut he does work thru it eventually bc i don’t want this to turn into full-fledged angst, tho some (perceived as one-sided) pining could be good - but yeah like... Doppo just, reacting really intensely to the smallest goddamn things. Jakurai sitting there but the sunlight hits him in this nice kind of way and makes him look really handsome. Jakurai patting his head or kissing his cheek. chaste kisses.  - my ship manifesto for them is essentially “Doppo dies a lot” - meanwhile, i really like how Jakurai takes care of Doppo, talks him through his anxieties, etc (both in a gen or a romantic way)  - i also feel like neither of them have done much romantically... (or at least for Jakurai it’s been a while) Doppo because he’s too busy and stressed to make time for dates and Jakurai because i don’t really see him dating casually... if he’s really into the person he’ll date them but otherwise he doesn’t go out of his way to find people to date? i guess what this means is: them getting together and Doppo being relatively inexperienced and Jakurai being rusty so they have to kinda fumble through it a bit, at least at the beginning  - get together fic! who confesses to who? how does Doppo even get past his anxiety to talk about it??  - Doppo in Jakurai’s lap is a good image  nsfw ideas:  - with the above ship dynamic stuff in mind... this lends itself very well to Doppo being cool with doing “anything” for Jakurai (not in the sense of, agreeing to things he doesn’t want to do, but perhaps agreeing to more than he can actually handle and ending up being sort of out of his depth)  - i like... a lot of kinks for them, honestly. it’s real easy to fit other kinks into this D/s sort of framework. e.g.s bondage, breathplay (obvs), fingering/prostate milking, edging, overstimulation, being overwhelmed, fisting, even something more AU or supernatural like naga!Jakurai and tailsex or oviposition  - also just D/s in general or Jakurai service-topping Doppo and wanting to take good care of him in a sex way  - that said, i see them both switching rather than Doppo being bottom all the time — Doppo would prob really be into making Jakurai feel good  - kink negotiation; Doppo being nervous/embarrassed about explaining to Jakurai that he’s into a thing (and Jakurai probably sort of guessing from the beginning anyway)  - Doppo’s anxiety compounding with arousal in general  - Doppo being a virgin or, at least not having done very much (e.g. trading handjobs with Hifumi once or twice but nothing else) and Jakurai being his "first” for a lot of sexual experiences  - Jakurai not being that great at sex bc he’s rusty but Doppo being really into it anyways bc it’s Jakurai - Doppo kinking on Jakurai’s hands/hair 

jakuhifu - admittedly i haven’t thought about them as much as hifudo and jakudoppo, but i still like it as a ship... i especially like thinking about Hifumi being really overt about wanting Jakurai’s attention, sort of as an extension of how he acts in canon (just swinging into Jakurai’s office, going fishing together etc) - i see their regard for each other kinda like jakudoppo, but without any of Doppo’s hangups about it since it’s Hifumi, lol. Hifumi respects Jakurai and crushes on Jakurai and! it’s fine!  - pat his head and spoil him, sensei! 

nsfw ideas: - D/s and petplay is... a really good thought for this ship 

OT3 - please let them go fishing together/do something relaxing together - established hifudo and fitting Jakurai into their relationship  - established hifudo talking about how into Jakurai they are  - h/c or healing each other up after receiving battle damage  - i have this really persistent mental image of them all laying in bed together and hifudo just on either side of Jakurai curling into him... 

nsfw ideas: - hifudo talking about how into Jakurai they are while they get off together - taking “competing for Jakurai’s attention” to a sexual level (who can make sensei feel better?)  - Jakurai getting hifudo off using his hypmic/voice 

~ JYUTODOPPO ~  - the basis for this ship is mostly the fact that they knew each other before and the stuff in Death Respect tbh - riling each other up or angry UST - what they say to each other in Death Respect seems... really personal to me, like they used to know each other way better than just a casual acquaintanceship and/or reading up on each other before the battle. how did they know each other? - i really like knowing each other p well but also being enemies, and weaponizing all the shit that you know about each other  - moving away from the Death Respect/enemy dynamic, Jyuto being a really smooth flirt and Doppo being drawn into it in spite of himself is good too  - or, actually liking each other romantically and managing that relationship on top of being on rival rap battle teams 

nsfw ideas: - angry sex - pain kink, blood  - using sex as a means to feel powerful/dominant over the other  - suit kink; hand/glove kink (it is Jyuto after all)  - semi-public sex  - Jyuto on his knees reducing Doppo to nothing via BJ while Doppo grabs his hair 

~ DICE SHIPS ~ - ...namely: Ramuda, Rio, Doppo (& Hifumi) - tbh mostly i like thinking about the others “adopting” Dice in some way (i mean, for Ramuda this is basically canon lol since Dice goes to live in his house)  - Ramuda just thinking Dice is a teammate (and then maybe an FWB) but unexpectedly catching feelings and not knowing wtf to do about it  - Ramuda using Dice to model his fashion designs  - Rio/Dice and the adventure of living in the woods, Rio feeding Dice and Dice enjoying his cooking etc - tbh out of all of them i actually think Rio/Dice would be the most stable romantic relationship? i just like thinking about them being cute domestic loving boyfriends. Rio seems like he’d be a good rock for Dice’s erratic Dice-ness  - Dice being an actual catboy that gets adopted (i particularly like this one for Doppo + Hifumi) 

nsfw ideas:  - taking the “adopting Dice” idea a step further to sugar baby Dice, except he’s not really a good sugar baby like... at all. instead of coming home to find him being all sexy in bed or something the other person just finds him lounging on the couch with empty chip packets everywhere  - Dice has a thing for thrills and risking himself/risking being in danger and i can definitely see that extending to sex as well. 

~ JAKURAMU ~  - supernatural AU with either or both of them being some sort of monster person (again, Jakurai being a naga. Ramuda being a fae or a changeling. but basically open to any supernatural creature possibility, not even necessarily humanoid ones)  - full-on fantasy AU where they’re not even in the hypmic ‘verse anymore  - i’m really curious about why they hate each other so much or why they both feel betrayed by the other. the common idea is that one broke the other’s heart or left the other, but i’d be interested to see other ideas of what might have lead to this deep betrayal, to the extent that Jakurai thinks of Ramuda as lacking humanity and Ramuda can’t even bear to talk about Jakurai anymore  - both of them seem to have? potential shadiness about them? Ramuda bc of the reveal that he’s connected to the govt (and just, general fake cute fronting, what is it exactly that he has to hide?) and Jakurai bc to me at times it feels like his saintliness is almost too good to be true, plus if he’s such a good person, what exactly did he do to make Ramuda so angry at him? it’d be interesting to explore that as well