#or my own decimated sleep schedule

[octaviasdread]

Dead Poet Date Hc's

Anderperry - Chased by Walt Whiskers

When Todd's publisher demands that he use social media, his manager, Ginny, couldn't have envisioned this.

Accidental sweater thirst traps aside, it's Walt Whiskers driving Todd's media engagement. It's Walt Whiskers who guest stars at his poetry readings, and it's Walt Whiskers who Ginny hires a social media manager for.

Who knew his anxiety aid could be such a traitor?

Because when Todd meets Neil his life goes to shit.

Working in media had, of course, given Todd the expectation that his cat's manager would be attractive. Todd can work with attractive. He can ignore attractive, usually.

But nothing about Neil is normal. He's tall, extroverted, and a Shakespearean actor to boot.

He's not arrogant, gym-obsessed, or suppressing the temper of a stage mom. Neil is a regular guy so in love with his poorly paid job that he decimates his sleep schedule and runs ragged to pay his rent by managing the city's theatre socials.

So Ginny, like any good friend, ropes Neil in before her boss at Todd’s publishing house even finishes the call.

Unfortunately, Todd is a homebody. He is a poet with a Wikipedia page branding him a 'recluse,' and the thing about influencers is they have to exist outside.

Ginny compromises at first. Every shoot is scheduled in darkened, private spaces.

Todd watches each time as Neil's brows raise in perfect, incredulous arcs. He doesn't comment. Instead, Neil hoists Walt onto one of his ridiculously high hips and takes a walk to 'check the light.'

Todd's lungs expand.

To Neil's credit, he tries. Todd finds indoor photoshoots awkward enough as he poses with his lacklustre smile, torn notebooks, and Walt Whiskers perching irritably on his lap.

The outdoor shoots are worse.

"Poetry is supposed to stir you up!" Neil's voice projects through Central Park as he gesticulates wildly. "You look as stirred up as a cesspool."

"I'm not like you."

"Don't you think you could be? People listen to your words, Todd. Now let them meet you."

"I thought you were here for Walt."

Neil rolls his eyes, "you are Walt, dummy. Come on, let's break for coffee."

So they order drinks and commiserate through quotes, exchanging words from Tennessee Williams and Kafka until Todd is comfortable enough to allude to his own.

And when Todd isn't looking, Neil gets the Instagram reel. It's the perfect shot of Walt Whiskers wearing Neil's glasses as he slowly blinks at Todd quoting from his supposedly 'aesthetic,' ink-stained notebook.

With a trendy sound bite, the post explodes.

Todd's latest book flies off the shelves. So naturally, Ginny hauls them into her office to talk strategy.

Strategy, in Ginny's world, translates to valentine date.

"It's logic," Ginny dismisses. Tinny music pours from the speakers as the Hudson River Company keeps her cell phone on hold. "Your latest collection is called, Tides of Love, Todd. I'd be an idiot not to set up a romantic dinner cruise for PR.”

"I'm not sitting there with my cat." Todd turns and appeals to Neil for help. "Tell her what people will think."

Neil opens his mouth, but Ginny cuts him off.

"No." She shoots a firm look at them both. "I know for a fact that neither of you have valentines plans. Take the cat together and secure us a bestseller."

They take the cat.

Todd spends all night pulling at his tux. Walt has no such reservations with his mini paw-printed bowtie. Instead, the damn cat has every waitress sneaking chicken under the perfectly pressed tablecloth.

If he were a better pet owner, Todd would've noticed. In a better world, Todd would've stuck to the no-chicken diet Walt's vet prescribed. But in this world, his cat's manager is wearing a tux.

Neil could be a Hollywood star sitting there under candlelight. With the wine in his head and the river waves in his stomach, Todd wants to take Tides of Love and write it anew.

But he doesn't.

Todd pokes at his Michelin star meal. It may be pathetic, but valentines are valentines no matter how fake.

He crumples a napkin and drops it over the camera lens.

There are no witnesses when Neil pets Walt, his long, delicate fingers brushing Todd's own. Nobody shares how they linger, how they curve, almost taking Todd's hand to hold.

And when Neil makes a determined and tipsy climb up the deck, Todd doesn't turn, doesn't direct his stare away. He finds himself laughing and scrambling to race against Neil's impossibly long legs. With a fire inside, Todd snatches up the lookout post, throwing drunken taunts out in his wake.

With flushed cheeks and Walt warm in his arms, Todd isn't a tentative poet or a hermit half in early retirement. He's Jack flying high through the clouds. He's bold and he's reckless in his dreams, and in his love for a Shakespearean Rose.

Like every ship, Cupid's Arrow sweeps Todd happily into the deep.

It's only with his hangover the inevitable sinking begins. His iceberg is the size of date night floating up his fyp with over 20,000 hits.

A heart-shaped button has never cut so deep.

But with engagement comes sales and not one, but two, NY Times bestsellers, so the poet and media manager keep taking Walt on contracted dates.

Cafes roll into museums, picnic dates, and late-night Broadway shoots.

Walt poses while Neil charms and draws Todd closer and closer into their extroverted orbit.

By April, Todd's poems hang from the walls backstage at Circle in the Square. He walks between frames correcting and composing while Walt scurries beneath seats, and sniffs for wet food pouches stashed under stacks of Neil's scripts.

It's a routine, Todd tells himself. It's enrichment to exercise Walt. It's his typewriter stored as a video prop amongst the leafy crowns and Yorick skulls at home in Neil's dressing room.

It's this home the poet follows, each purr and smile like catnip until he finds himself curling up during rehearsals behind painted, woodland sets. His poems layer across the orchestra, snatches of Neil's soliloquy, and the beat of paws on wood as Todd opens his words and world to TikTok Live.

With these unique readings come sponsors, and with sponsors come trips.

As spring creeps in, Ginny packs them off on a brand deal supplying a '57 Chevrolet Corvette for the road Coney Island.

They shoot Walt in the driver's seat like a city-dwelling Grace Kelly in sunglasses and a scarf. In a second snap, Neil lounges on the red bonnet in a line of Times Square traffic, and Todd is blurrily backlit by Battery Tunnel in a final car shot, the winning polaroid cover for his upcoming collection, Epigraphs for Nostalgia.

The road to true love has never felt so smooth.

Todd knows it can’t last, but he clings to this day straight from the brand’s vintage guide to teenage dates.

Roll after roll fills with charmingly juvenile snaps.

They wave from Deno’s Wonder Wheel. Product placement smears Coney Cone's ice cream over Walt's nose, while Neil and Todd squabble over film and notebook sheets which fly loose to scatter like snow on the boardwalk.

"I told you," Neil whoops, "those dead drafts want to fly!"

Chastened by staff, but thrilled with the candid, self-timer snaps, the poet and media manager take one more shot.

"Come on," Todd grumbles, wrestling Walt into an admittedly dingy photo booth. "You can't take care of yourself."

Walt meows in protest. But the curtain falls and traps both man and cat as Neil slides onto the bench.

Flash. Walt pressed nose to nose with Todd. Flash. Todd squawks while Neil howls at the ice cream Walt smears on Todd's nose. Flash. Walt leaps and Neil dives into Todd's lap in an effort to catch the escaping cat. Ding!

Pink hearts float in bubble letters like cotton candy across the screen: Kisscam Count.

Descending digits blink in and out.

Three.

The poet freezes. His cat's media manager glances up, his body still sprawled across the poet's lap.

Two.

Neil inhales.

One.

The final lines of Epigraph for Nostalgia linger on the seam of Todd's lips.

“Carpe Diem," he mutters.

There's a flicker.

An image appears of an Instagram crashing kiss.

[askmerriauthor]

regarding pokemon sleep, it looks like you’re just looking for things to complain about. it’s designed to be this chill thing you check on during the day and leave running at night. to play it, all you have to do is sleep and feed your pokemon. no one’s telling you you to have to be the very best at it or pressuring you into paying for stuff, let alone the game itself.

If I was just looking for things to complain about, I'd still be out here whinging over Pokemon Cafe's delightfully charming art style being absolutely wasted on a junk puzzle game instead of a full RPG or cozy slice-of-life Sim.

Regarding this post here.

Hi, I'm MerriAuthor. Apparently we haven't met because anyone who follows my blog would know that I've worked in game development well on 20 years now. I've worked across the industry from little nobody indie houses, to overseas gacha-fodder, to big ol' AAA major studios. Video games and their design are a big part of my life and, boy howdy, do I have some FEELINGS about the direction the industry as a whole has gone in as the years go by. Especially in regards to the predatory monetization of gaming and how it actively preys on children, uninformed parents, people with addictive behaviors, people with hyper-competitive personalities, and similar behavioral traits solely for the purpose of making money at their expense.

it’s designed to be this chill thing you check on during the day and leave running at night. to play it, all you have to do is sleep and feed your pokemon.

As with the previous person I spoke with on this topic, that is the base function of the game. But it's by no means the design of the game. Pokemon Sleep's entire game play rotation and marketplace are designed around encouraging the Player to interact with it as much as possible within an intentionally limited time frame. Meanwhile, the game's own time scale is such that it expects Players to log hundreds if not thousands of hours of interaction with it. Its own base gameplay loop is a weekly schedule and its shop schedule is monthly. Some Pokemon require a bare minimum of 150 hours of logged sleep to even access. Pokemon Sleep wants you to be in it for the long haul.

It's also based on collection; nearly every facet of the game is listed numerically and with a percentage value or progress bar, which are functions designed to produce urgency to complete them in the Player. Human brains don't like seeing an unfinished goal, especially one represented so overtly as an unfilled progress bar or a percentage value with a decimal. Want to have your favorite Pokemon as your napping buddy but don't want to put in a ton of effort playing the game to boost up your Snorlax's power score? Better hope it's one of the low-tier Pokemon assigned into the lower brackets of the gameplay progression, because otherwise you're never going to see it. Though you could always just fork over some cash. Nearing the end of your week with Snorlax and you're just shy of a milestone you've been aiming the entire week for? Good luck! You can pay money for that extra little boost, and once you've done it you'll resent its absence enough to want to buy it again! Do you want to level up that cutie first Charmander the game gave you at the very beginning specifically to ingrain itself with faux emotional value into your favorite Charizard? Want your Eevee to evolve into one of its most popular Eeveelutions? Want a Lucario, period? You'll need to put in hundreds of hours of consistent sleep to save up enough Sleep Points exclusively toward that goal... or you can just buy access to it immediately, through first purchasing access to the Premium Subscription! A Premium Subscription which, again, doesn't auto-cancel if you delete the app and can't be canceled through the app itself, for all you distracted parents who don't pay attention to fine print and wonder why your kid's game is running up a bill on your credit card each month after the 14-day free period - just long enough for you to have forgotten all about it in the first place. Snorlax wants a specific kind of Berry this week, but none of the helper Pokemon you recruited gather that berry, or they do and are just too low on Energy to manage it? Aren't you lucky! The shop will just sell you solutions to these problems the game itself created specifically to get you to shell out money!

no one’s telling you you to have to be the very best at it or pressuring you into paying for stuff, let alone the game itself.

Here's some screen shots from the game's own app page. Buttons to make purchases and drive interaction - the app store, sleep pass, how many dream shards you have, a prompt to buy more inventory space, your missions, your current goal, the progress meter and rarity values of your Pokemon's sleep styles, your collection and their levels, etc - are all constantly and prominently displayed. The entire first day of actual gameplay in the app is a tutorial explaining how it wants you to do more than just sleep and passively collect to the point that it literally sets a daily schedule of activity for you. The mechanics explanations are so egregiously long that the Professor character literally apologizes to the Player for being so long-winded about it. Oh, an adorable moment of self-depreciation and understanding! How humanizing and encouraging of empathy from the user, done with a cheeky wink and nod. Now that we've softened your emotional state ever so slightly, here's some more microtransaction-driven gameplay elements!

If this was really just a cute little game to idle around with for its own fun, there wouldn't be a cash shop, nor would the game require a consistent internet connection to its servers. The big thing with games like these is that they're not made for the Player's benefit or entertainment. They're made to make the parent company profits. That's it. If the Pokemon Company didn't think they'd make substantial returns on the investment of development, support, marketing, and online distribution costs to put this game out into the world, they never would have made it. That is a core reality of any product put out these days. I just spent this last week helping my studio's marketing and sales team make sales projections for one of our upcoming titles, figuring out how much we could reasonably charge our potential customers literally down to the penny. And the game we're selling isn't even a service with any kind of microtransactions or DLCs. Profits are fundamental in any studio production and, where microtransaction apps are concerned, are the core focus of why the app exists.

If you're perfectly happy with playing Pokemon Sleep as an idle "pop on every once in a while, poke for a few minutes, then forget about and never pay a cent" kind of game? Totally fine, you do you. But understand that Pokemon Sleep doesn't want you as its player and will not cater to your experience. The core gameplay of Pokemon Sleep is already designed to actively degrade into a subpar experience for those who don't pay to play and that rift will only become more pronounced as time goes by. Everything around the cash shop exists for no other reason than to encourage you to use the cash shop. Over time, the gameplay will further contort itself to drive more interaction with and reliance upon the cash shop as the app sheds its non-paying users who just tire of it and move on, instead doubling-down on the lingering, paying users who have already proven themselves a reliable stream of revenue. That is how these things always go and have always historically gone.

There's also the consistently apt adage of "if you're not paying for the product, you are the product". Pokemon Sleep requires an internet connection any time you want to interact with the app - there is no offline mode. Further, the actual fine print in the terms of service (not the bubbly, legally-meaningless assurances put into the game text itself) addresses that it will collect and may share your device information, user ID, and app activity (ie, the schedules, timing habits, and spending habits the game itself has ingrained into its interaction with the Player) for analytics and advertising purposes, and that they're okay with sharing (ie, selling) that information to third parties without naming who those third parties are. And boy, does the game really want you to link your Google, Apple, and Facebook accounts to it as part of its core functionality! Worth keeping in mind as well is that the app requires constant access to your microphone and can pick up sounds as minor as a sheet rustling when you turn over in bed. The game's bubbly, meaningless text assures you that it doesn't save or transfer the snippets of sleep recordings it makes of you each night, but it makes absolutely no assurances whatsoever in the fine print that it's not using your microphone for other purposes. It does, however, point out that it will be making use of your phone's functions even when you're not using the app.

So, yeah, I'll just still be over here not playing Pokemon Sleep and encouraging others to do the same, as well as pay closer attention to the nature of so-called "free to play" games.

[capitalisticveins]

SURPRISE D.A.M.N CREW GENERAL HCs ‼️

I don’t like making hcs on my phone but Friendsgiving yesterday rlly motivated me to just do it

— Caelum likes to chew on his shirt when he’s bored

— Dear has 5 umbrellas even though they live alone

— FL has no idea AI art exists

— Dear likes to buy Lasko ties

— Caelum thinks cats are adorable but is absolutely terrified of them

— Gavin is shit at golf, bowling, and basically every sport in existence except for gymnastics, cheerleading, and table tennis

— Huxley can flex his tits

— Lasko buys every fan except Lasko brand fans

— Dear hasn’t played Mario Kart before but when they first played with Lasko they decimated him

— Damien’s favorite kind of animals are the hairless ones

— Caelum can’t hopscotch

— FL can’t be trusted to go grocery shopping for people because they have shit willpower and no common sense they will buy the wrong brand of item you want and buy 3 packs of pizza rolls for themselves with the person’s money

— Huxley can’t jump rope properly because the rope can’t go around his body

— Damien has a schedule of what to wear and when. He wears specific shirts on SPECIFIC days of the week.

— FL has a child safety lock on their computer for Caelum and Gavin

— Everyone has to tell Damien where they’re going whenever they leave their houses

— Dear somehow got everyone’s number before Friendsgiving and asked everyone to point out Lasko’s use of Mahogany/Burnt Sienna on the letters

— Gavin isn’t allowed inside Max’s Rustic Pizza anymore

— If Damien would let him, Huxley would touch lava, like seriously slap it

— FL likes to dress up as Aang for Halloween

— Lasko and Damien are the only ones to own a bidet

— Huxley owns a mermaid dress

— Gavin owns a fur coat

— As a kid, Huxley was too shy to ask his moms to peel his oranges for him so he just sorta ate them with the peel on until he was 11

— Gavin is banned on tiktok

- and twitter

— Caelum’s wings flap like a hummingbird’s

— Huxley is the only member to buy proper sweet snacks. Lasko buys offbrand and Damien doesn’t buy sweets

— Gavin’s favorite cartoon character is Bugs Bunny

— Despite popular belief, Damien is willing to wear an itchy ugly christmas sweater

— Dear owns a border collie

— Lasko writes fanfiction

— Huxley’s luck is fucking amazing when he plays DND, so much so that it pisses off Lasko and now whenever they campaign with others he makes Huxley the dungeon master

— Damien doesn’t know how to skip

— Gavin can make his own alcoholic beverage at will

— FL isn’t from Dahlia. They’re from NY, but have never been in NYC

— Dear has a very strong opinion on Dasani. I don’t know if they strongly dislike it or strongly like it, but they feel very strongly about it.

— Huxley heard the news about the Summit online, saw it was hosted by Vincent and Lovely, recognized Lovely’s name, and went “wait a minute—”.

— Damien has thought about burning his baby pictures when Huxley found them.

— He attempted to do it when Gavin found them.

— FL has a sweet tooth and since Huxley is the only member to buy sweets, they sneak into his house and consume most of it.

After Damien moved in with Huxley he once woke up at like 2am to get a glass of water and saw FL hunched over sucking the frosting off of the mini cupcakes Huxley buys and chugging milk out of the container, their eyes were glowing in the dark and there was a ton of containers on the floor.

Damien went back to sleep without saying a word. When he woke up all traces of FL being in the house were gone and they don’t recall the night ever happening. No one believes him.

The only reference to the night happening is that all the snacks he saw FL eating were gone.

Lasko believes him but FL won’t let him tell Damien he believes him (it has happened to Lasko too and that’s why he buys offbrand).

— Gavin has accidentally killed someone with a rift.

— Caelum too but he doesn’t know.

— Dear is gonna buy Lasko rash ointment for Christmas with no malicious intent whatsoever.

— Damien owns the same amount of shoes as Milo.

— Gavin can’t swim. Gavin’s bad at a lot of things.

— Caelum can swim with water wings. Caelum’s good at a lot of things.

[tatters-the-bat]

Random Tatters OC facts:

She lives in a well-furnished cave in the woods, just outside the limits of my OU, Fauxtail City.

The cave is (non-visibly) divided into four quadrants: a small kitchen, a sitting area + wardrobe, a gaming area/living 'room', and her perch, suspended over a sea of pillows.

She is an extremely clumsy flier and thus stays grounded as much as possible. If she flies for too long, she Will end up tangled up in a tree or bush for a bit.

Despite this it does sleep upside down, but it falls off in the middle of the night frequently. The pillow sea was swiftly installed after the first time.

She's kind of a 'mutt' of different bats, having qualities of flying foxes, other nectar bats, long-eared bats, and some others. She mostly eats fruit and nectar.

Her favorite fruit is pineapples because that's my favorite fruit, but they can also decimate a mango or an apple.

Her sleep schedule shifts around a lot, but she's primarily nocturnal.

They own a lot of different colorful scrunchies for their ponytail, but they prefer the purple striped one they usually have on.

They love their hairstyle and actively dislikes haircuts, even when her hair gets messy and tangled.

It doesn't show a lot in my art bc it's hard to make it look good in my style, but she's not completely flat-faced and has a small snoot.

Their original design looked completely different! When I first created them, they were a tiny potato-shaped bat I used as a mascot for my dA (now deactivated), with dark gray fur and short purple hair. Then I realized my gender identity and she quickly evolved towards the current design! :3

Fluffy

[estrellami-1]

In tradition of giving prompts that are just things happening in my life : steddie buy their first home (as a couple or pre relationship) and struggle with trying to figure out how to do maintenance and home repairs (what the Jesus fuck is the difference between nineteen different types of wood filler? And what are the pros and cons of mesh tape vs paper tape for drywall? If these are questions you’re struggling with baby I’ve been doing the research and I have answers lol) and maybe one of them start to feel a little in over their head and like they don’t know what they’re doing even though they’re trying SO hard to get everything right and comfort ensues 😇💜

(This is for the post about wanting to write but I’m so sorry if this is too long of an idea or something feel free to ignore love you also if it is also past midnight for you go to sleep you can write tomorrow haha) 💜💜💜💜💜

Hello my darling!

(It is after midnight but my sleep schedule has long since been decimated and I will sleep… sometime. Probably after I write this.)

Please keep in mind I’m impatient and want to write this Now and am not willing to do research and also am 24 and still live with my parents and only know about fixer-uppers what I’ve learned from HGTV. Which is to say, not much. But I’ll do my best! ❤️

“Stevie, my love,” Eddie sings, in the way he does when he’s getting frustrated but doesn’t want to take it out on Steve. “What in the everloving, flying fuck is this?”

Steve laughs as he joins Eddie in the bathroom, then sighs as he sees what Eddie’s pointing out. “That would be an external wall. With no insulation. In goddamned Indiana.” He sighs again. “I’m making a list of things we need. I guess I’ll add fucking insulation to the list.” He runs a hand through his hair, tugs on the ends.

Eddie looks at him sharply. “What’s wrong?”

Steve blinks. “What?”

Eddie smiles softly. Brings a hand up, tugs at a lock of Steve’s hair the way he just had. “You do that when you’re overly stressed.”

Steve stares flatly. “We’re trying to rebuild a house, Eds.”

“Overly stressed, baby. You handle stress like a champ. It’s when all the little things get to be too much that you pull out that little move.”

Steve sighs, lays his forehead on Eddie’s shoulder. Hums when Eddie’s hand immediately connects with his hair in response. “‘S just… all of it. It’s a lot, there’s a lot to do, there’s a lot of little things that need work that I didn’t know would need work. I just feel… inadequate.” He grips at Eddie’s waist, fingertips digging into the top of his jeans. “There’s fuckin’ nineteen different kinds of wood filler and it feels like we need about twenty-six different types. And I don’t know why just one isn’t enough. Or even why we need wood filler in the first place.”

Eddie hums, moves so Steve’s standing on his own. “Hey.” Fingertips touch Steve’s jaw, a silent request to look up. “Dance with me?”

Steve smiles, like somehow, after all these years, Eddie’s ridiculousness is still endearing to him. “In an unfinished bathroom? In an unfinished house? With no music?” He pauses. “Actually, no, the no music makes sense for us.”

Eddie laughs lightly, already swaying in a kind of dance, grabbing Steve’s hands and spinning him around, pressing his back to Eddie’s front. “No better time, no better place, Stevie, my love.” He hums a few bars of a song in Steve’s ear.

Steve gives in, dances with the man he promised his forever. Who promised him a forever right back. “Eds, why are we dancing?”

He can feel the curve of Eddie’s lips on his neck as he smiles and presses a kiss to his spine. “Because it makes you smile.”

Steve melts. “I’ve gotta go to the store.”

“We’ve gotta go to the store. After we’ve danced in our unfinished bathroom, in our unfinished house. Ours, Stevie, my love. It’ll take however long it takes, but this is ours. Just like the ridiculous ragamuffins you adopted all those years ago.”

“You adopted them. They adopted me.”

“And then you adopted them right back, quit with the minutiae when I’m making a point.” A teasing finger pokes Steve’s side. “Just like Robin, and Nance, and Wayne. They’re ours, our family, and they’ll be here as soon as we tell them we need help.”

“I don’t want to need help.” He sighs after a pause. “This is one of those bring-it-up-in-therapy things, isn’t it?”

“Probably so, Stevie, my love.” A slow kiss to his spine. He shivers. “But for now, we’re going to dance. We’ll go to the store. We’ll call at least Nancy, because she scares me and will probably shave our heads in our sleep if she finds out we were struggling and didn’t ask for help. And even through all that, this will be our house. After all that, this will still be our house.”

Steve turns around in Eddie’s arms, silences him with a quick kiss. “Ours, Eddie, my love,” he agrees.

[luverofralts]

Arkhelios Adventures

"Do you know if my mother will be here? She didn't say anything in her email, but she must have told you, right?"

Princess Victoriana stared eagerly at her posted guard, desperate to be let in on her mother's plans. Last night, she'd received a message from her mother's office, informing her that her presence was required in Sedona. The details were scarce, just that she was to reopen some historical buildings and make a speech or two.

It didn't sound that bad to Victoriana, but her grandmother had read the email with an unreadable expression and stormed away afterward to speak with her grandfather in another room.

What was the harm of dusting off some old buildings in dumb Sedona? The former country had been conquered by Pleasantview centuries ago, and just about everyone had forgotten about them. There were still descendants from their former royal family, but Pleasantview had decimated their culture and history until the only recognized annual event in Sedona was the visiting of the Pleasantview monarch on the anniversary of their surrender to remind them of their place.

"I'm sorry, Your Highness, but the queen regrettably won't be here for the reopening," the guard replied. "Her schedule is only at the palace for today."

"Oh. That's okay, I guess. She wanted me to do this for her, so maybe she'll see me tomorrow to ask how things went."

"A very likely scenario, Your Highness. Her Majesty would never assign you a duty you could not perform."

Victoriana posed by the long abandoned thrones of the former Sedona castle, running her speech through her head before the cameras started rolling. After reviewing the speech, Victoriana had been surprised to see that this grand reopening of the castle wasn't reopening it as a museum, as it once was a decade or so ago. No, this castle and the other, much older castle in Sedona were being restored as living quarters for the Pleasantview monarch.

Victoriana tried to picture herself living in this place. It wasn't a bad place by any means, but it felt foreign and strange to think that she might actually live here. It's years as a museum had taken its toll on the old building, and clearly, they would have to remove the gift shop.

The master suite in the old castle was at least modern enough to be comfortable for the teen. After her speech, Victoriana had been ordered to stay in the building overnight to await her mother's next command. As the highest ranked person in the building, Victoriana got to sleep in the master suite, which was a rare treat. Whenever her mother was present, the queen was given the largest room. For one brief moment, Victoriana could imagine her future as queen. This huge suite would be hers permanently, and she would have the power to decommission museums that she wanted to live in, just like her mother.

It would likely be a lonely life, if Claudia's reign was any example. Victoriana would eventually inherit her mother's endless meetings and busy schedule. She would have to miss out on milestones with her own children, just as Claudia had over the years, and really screen potential spouses to make sure their intentions were honest. She would make sure to make time to see her half-siblings and hopefully her father when her mother was gone. That day wasn't anytime soon though.

Victoriana's phone beeped while she mused over the future. To her surprise, it was a message from her mother.

"Tomorrow, you'll be opening the second Sedona castle as a royal residence as planned," Victoriana read. "I will meet with you the day after tomorrow at the Honora St. Julien Tower in Crystal Cove. Your new speech will be delivered to you shortly. Love, Mom."

The princess groaned at the idea of more speeches but was incredibly excited at the news that her mother would finally be joining her. Who even cared about these dusty old buildings or about boring Sedona? Victoriana would much rather be at home in her own room or at school where she at least got to talk to people her own age.

She'd been texting with her half-brother Theo for the past few days, but only when she wasn't busy or he wasn't in class, so not very often. He seemed like a nice enough guy, and she'd learned a lot about their father from him. Her father was a great baker, overprotective and a passable demon hybrid according to Theo. He had a dark form, and the attention of his sister in law, the Demonic Sovereign. The rest of their conversations were heavily focused on Theo's boyfriend, Adam, or what homework assignment he found tedious that day.

Victoriana had less interesting subjects to talk about. She didn't have a romantic partner or even a crush on anyone. Her grandparents were the only family she was allowed to see unsupervised and her day was packed with learning rules and treaties that were only relevant three hundred years ago. She may live in a palace when she wasn't at boarding school, but her life was far from what the other kids her age assumed it was. What kid wanted to hang out in two museums her mother apparently needed to live in?

Sometimes her mother confided in her about her plans, while other times, Victoriana had no idea what her mother was thinking.

"And that is why we hope that the repurposing of this historical landmark will highlight the vibrant part Sedona plays in our great country. Thank you."

Victoriana stepped down from the podium, scanning the crowd for signs of her mother.

She hadn't been told to expect her mother until the next day, but she had still been hopeful. Eventually, the politely clapping crowd and flashing cameras would leave and she could once again unwind in yet another lifeless building on her own. Theo had written her a long text detailing his defensive magic exam to compare it to her own school's curriculum. Politics and networking were more valued at her school, and the princess often feared that she would fall behind magically, despite her private demonology lessons. There was a lot a crown princess needed to know and she couldn't risk the danger of being unprepared. Fortunately, Theo seemed to be studying dark, complicated magic that he was all too happy to demonstrate the next time they met or virtually on their phones. She doubted that her mother would approve of her contact with Theo, but Victoriana was her own person and she could forge alliances with whomever she chose. If Claudia was too busy for her daughter, then it was only fair that Victoriana got to spend time with people aside from her grandparents.

When her mother did meet up with Victoriana, the atmosphere was tense. First of all, Queen Claudia was dressed in full regal splendor, with her full guard behind her. The second concerning thing was that the queen and her guard were standing in a tower located in Crystal Cove, attracting many worried onlookers.

"Mom? Shouldn't we be in Pleasantview or Old Sedona if we're opening a building?" Victoriana whispered to her mother as cameras flashed around them. "We don't own any land in Crystal Cove."

"You'd be surprised what we own," Claudia informed her daughter, smiling for the cameras. "If you studied your history closely, you would know that when the empire broke apart, Pleasantview officially retained control of Honora St. Julien's tower as a good faith gesture. All I'm going to do is remind them of this fact."

Victoriana dutifully followed her mother inside the building and up to the outside balcony that was already set up with a microphone.

Her mother said a bunch of words that didn't really mean anything, just like most of her speeches. This action she was taking was controversial, it was written all over the faces Victoriana could see from the balcony. This must have been the thing that had made her grandmother so upset earlier. Grandma Anna was an excellent political strategist and one devoted to preserving peace. It wasn't an act of war to take ownership of something that was rightfully yours and it did look like the building hadn't been properly occupied in decades, so they weren't even evicting anyone. Still, restoring the Sedona museums into royal residences had clearly been a front to minimalize the potential backlash of repossessing this tower.

"Mom? What's so great about this building?" Victoriana asked, once the queen's speech had completed and they had a brief moment to smile for the crowds. "Grandma told you not to do this, didn't she?"

"Grandma doesn't know everything," Claudia replied. She paused before replying, making sure that there wasn't an active microphone picking up their conversation. "The king of Crystal Cove is old and inexperienced at ruling. His late wife did most of that for him. He won't fight this. He's probably writing a speech now welcoming us to take more land in order to keep the peace. His heir would fight to pay us the value of the tower in exchange for the land itself, so it's best to do this now, when there's a weak monarch in charge."

"What do we need with this dumb tower anyway?" Victoriana asked, completely baffled that her mother wanted to fight over an old, unimportant relic at all.

"It's a foothold, dear. My advisors believe that it may be necessary to expand our options in the near future. It never hurts to have options."

Claudia maintained a calm expression for their audience, but Victoriana could see past that mask...most of the time anyway. Lately, she had been harder to read. If her shadowy advisors were worried, something must be brewing behind the scenes. Something frightening enough to take controversial actions.

"Mom, should I be worried? Are we going to war?

"If this all goes well, then probably not," Claudia said reassuringly, leaving her daughter with an unsettled knot in her stomach.

"Probably not? Probably?"

Claudia's gaze remained on the crowd and the cameras, though her voice did soften slightly.

"Probably not," she repeated. "Peace is extremely hard to maintain forever, dear, and sometimes sacrifices must be made to ensure it lasts. There are frequently events that could potentially turn violent or tragedies that turn friends into enemies. How we survive them is by thinking ahead, and planning our moves carefully. You must always have multiple plans to fall back on and know when to trust your intel. Your life as queen will depend on it."

"Is...is this about my father? Are we in danger because of his family? Should we tell him?"

"Your father? Certainly not," Claudia replied, a ghost of a smile toying with her lips. "No, for once, I can't blame this on him. When you need to know, Victoriana, I will let you know. This all may blow over and it might not. Just enjoy the pageantry while it lasts. You'll be heading back to school tomorrow."

Despite her worries, Victoriana's spirits rose. Returning to school? She was finally free of her grandparents? Did this mean that her mother would finally let her return to the castle on weekends?

Another thought popped into Victoriana's head when she thought of her time with her grandparents.

"Wait a minute, did you send me away for weeks to Grandma and Grandpa’s just to keep Grandma busy?" Victoriana asked, the accusation clear in her voice. "I thought you were mad at me about asking about my father and sent me away. Was all that a front to keep an eye on Grandma?"

Claudia's only response was to raise a curious eyebrow at her daughter's accusations.

"Both of those theories could be true," she said at last. "You must remember that your grandmother has rules of her own to follow that cannot be broken. A reaper can't be caught interfering with the affairs of the living."

"Can't be caught," Victoriana said slowly. "That's different than not interfering at all. You plotted against your own mother to keep her out of your plans for claiming land in Crystal Cove?"

"In your opinion only, dear." Claudia was having difficulty repressing her smile. Her heart was filled with pride that her daughter was finally learning how to think as a monarch. Victoriana had come a long way recently. With her demand to know her father's name and now, her piecing together some of her mother's plan, the princess was slowly growing into the leader Claudia knew she would one day be. She was paying attention to how the world around her functioned and what pieces of it could be swapped out at her command if she disliked them.

"So who are we almost at war with?" the princess asked. "Crystal Cove? Is that why we need a base inside their country? I haven't heard anything about Crystal Cove at all lately. Why would they want to fight us?"

"I never said it was Crystal Cove," Claudia said sternly. "I don't recall mentioning any country of concern, just that we needed options going forward."

She paused as another thought occurred to her. Victoriana did have access to an entire student body of well connected students who were all very fond of gossiping about what they'd heard their parents say at home. Hearing the gossip and predicting who she could trust to support her reign would be a great help in these times.

"Okay," the queen conceded at last. "It would be very helpful if you could listen to the gossip at school for me. Every detail about what their parents believe helps our cause, but there is specifically one thing I want you to listen for: the Red Queen. If anyone mentions those words, I need you to listen carefully. This is crucial, Victoriana, you can't mention this mission to your friends or seem too interested in asking questions. Nothing can compromise this plan, do you understand?"

"Yes, Red Queen, don't be suspicious," Victoriana confirmed with glee. "What does it mean though? Is it a code word? Is it a another monarch threatening to invade?"

"Just remember your mission," Claudia said abruptly, returning her focus once again on the crowd. "And no texting your half-brother about this. If I find out that you've involved him in this, I will be quite disappointed in you."

Victoriana cringed, kicking herself for assuming that her mother wasn't aware of her and Theo's chats. The saying really was true: the queen of Pleasantview truly did know everything there was to know.

As much as she loved her mother, something inside the princess longed for the day when she would inherit that much power.

[unholyhelbig]

Ronancetober Day #9: Free Day

[A/N: This feels weird, posting in November, holy shit, how is it November? I'm determined to finish this eventually!]

Read on AO3

Summary: Robin is a late-night radio host and has continuous encounters with a mystery caller that seems to have an affinity for her.

“And that concludes my night with you,” Steve Harrington growled into the microphone, his lips barely touching the spongy cover that kept the background noise to a low. “Now, I know it’s tragic that I’m departing on this lovely January night, but this only means one thing. Miss Robin Buckley will be bringing you the best music from Midnight to four am, Eastern Standard time.”

She watched him from behind the studio's glass, and watched Dustin push the sliders every which way to make sure Steve’s voice sounded good to all the late-night travelers, the diners that were open twenty-four hours. Robin was on a different schedule than the rest of the world. She liked the quiet of being a disc jockey in the deep uncanny hours.

Steve had a strong voice, but Robin had a soothing one. While he was better for sports coverage and pop culture, she carried a show that put her psychology degree to use. She’d answer calls and solve problems in the middle of the night. She mainly spoke with travelers, or people working the graveyard shift along with her.

He pulled the headphones from his ears and let them fall to the desk before he ruffled his hair and gave Robin an excited wave. She waited until Dustin have her a thumbs-up before she opened the door to the studio. She’d get settled in, and brew a new pot of coffee. It was easy for her to work the controls on her own until her intern was there to take over an hour or so into the broadcast.

Steve quickly shoved his belongings into his backpack. “I have a fantasy football league to get to that is already peeved that I’ve taken so long to get there.”

“Go, go” She shooed him “get out of my sight.”

“Wait,”

Steve hugged his backpack to his chest, narrowing his eyes. Robin felt her heart against the inside of her ribcage. She thought she had gotten away with having the same conversation she had with Steve every single time they switched shifts. Dustin peered over the rims of his glasses, a dorky grin on his face.

She groaned before he got another word out and flopped down in the comfortable leather chair. It used to squeak before they had the budget to get a new one. The station had come a long way, yet she still had to search between songs for the right cassette tape to hook up. They had downloaded hundreds of singular songs and had a decimal system that Robin had conjured in order to run through the days unbothered.

“Caller number nine?”

“Are you telling me you don’t listen to my show, Steve?”

“I sleep through your show like half of Hawkins. Has she called?”

“No, she hasn’t. And I’d appreciate it if you’d stop meddling in my love life.”

“So, you admit you have a love life?”

She threw a rubber band ball at him. He dodged it expertly and grinned. Caller Number Nine had a beautiful voice that made Robin wish she worked at the same station she did. Instead, she had gathered that Caller Number Nine was an aspiring doctor. Caller Number Nine had clinical's at Hawkins Memorial and tuned into her show as she completed charts in the quieter part of the Hospital.

She’d first called in months ago. Her voice was raspy and alluring and she was answering a question that Robin proposed: What is the weirdest, most unbelievable thing that’s happened on the job?

Caller Number Nine was charismatic. She had explained that while she usually sticks with just listening to the show, she couldn’t hold her tongue this time. They came to the conclusion that people were weird. People stuck things where they weren’t intended to go and it was usually the clinical students that had to remove them.

Robin could talk to Caller Number Nine forever, she wanted to, but the callboard was lighting up and Max tapped on the glass with a stressed gesture. Robin had to move on. She couldn’t focus on the truck driver’s story about a deer with an extra set of ears, or the convenience store worker who claimed that some of the candy bars in the second aisle went missing due to ghostly forces.

Caller Number Nine had called back three times since then. There wasn’t a pattern, but Robin had been significantly wooed by this mysterious woman. It had been close to a month since their last encounter, and Steve had badgered her about it every day since.

“Come on, Robbie, this is exciting!” he waved his hands around erratically “use this to your advantage.”

“Out!”

She stood and shoved Steve from the studio and watched as he mouthed something through the window, making a phone with his hand and wiggling it. Dustin made sure she was set up and gave her a thumbs up before she gave a less aggressive goodbye to him.

Robin took a deep breath before the pre-set songs that Steve had scheduled faded to an end. She felt at home in the little studio, warm and comfortable as she moved close to the microphone.

“Alright, while Steve is one of my favorite sources of entertainment, it’s time to tone it down for the night. I’m Robin Buckley and I’ll be taking over your airwaves until the crack of dawn. As always, if you have anything you want to get off your chest, give us a call at 888-HAWKINS.”

Robin slipped Cemetery Gates by the Smiths onto the docket and let the beginning of the song fill her ears before she pulled the headphones around her neck and let out a smooth sigh. It was another three minutes before she got the mic again.

“It seems like a frigid one tonight, folks. Hopefully, everyone out there has someone to keep them warm on a cold night like this one. I, for one, have been frozen to the core. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have great romantic advice, remember, call 888-HAWKINS to get some free relationship therapy. Can I legally say that?”

The small red blinking light on the switchboard lit up a like a Christmas tree. It usually took a few more songs for the general public to gain enough confidence to pick up the phone. She smiled to herself, trying not to lean into the excitement for too long.

“Congratulations, you are the first caller of the night. What kind of romantic turmoil can I help you through tonight?”

There was a small laugh that made Robin’s palms moisten. “I don’t think there’s much help for me, honestly.”

“No? I think there’s redemption in every aspect of life.”

Welcome Back, Caller Number Nine.

“Not for me.” There was a sigh that moved through the receiver. “Promise not to tell a soul if I disclose this information?”

“Well…we are on air.”

“Right, right. I meant everyone not tuned in right now.”

Robin knew what she meant. Every time she got a call from Number Nine, she felt like they were the only two people in the world. She wanted nothing more than to stare into this girls eyes, to pull her close and sooth her worries. It was overwhelmingly clingy of her to have these feelings for a stranger with a raspy and tender voice.

“The floor is all yours.”

“There’s this guy, he works on my floor at the hospital. He’s a nice guy, really. But he’s not the one that I’m interested in. I’m not trying to lead him on but sometimes it’s inevitable.”

“Oh,” Robin drew in a breath, “Well, that one's easy. Just tell him you’re interested in someone else, and you’d prefer to be friends.”

“I thought of that. I’ve given it a shot, very directly, mind you. But now he wants to know who it is I’m interested in, and I can’t tell him that.”

Robin leaned forward and wrapped the headphone chord around her hand. “Is it his best friend? I have been there, trust me.”

“No, not his best friend. I just don’t know how to tell him that the person I really want to get to know is someone I’ve never seen before. Unless you count the billboard on I-80.”

Robin was quiet for a moment, letting her brain process the information. She had a billboard on I-80. One that she had hemmed and hauled about for a good three days before the studio head threatened her contract if she didn’t pose nicely next to Steve for promotional material.

“Did I lose you?” Caller Number Nine asked, timidly.

“No, I’m here.” Robin rushed “I just don’t know what to say.”

“Wow, I silenced the woman whose job it is to talk.”

“You certainly did.”

“You know where to find me.” She replied.

The line went dead, and it took Robin a few more moments to regain her composure. Part of her forgot that she was on air until Max stumbled into the production booth with wide eyes and mouthed apologies for being late. Traffic meant she had heard exactly what Robin had just said on air.

She cleared her throat. “Right, well, Caller Number Nine certainly had a lot to say tonight. We’re going to take a little break to hear some words from our sponsors. Hang tight, late-night listeners, I’ll be back to answer more questions and bring you 1986’s greatest’s hits.”

She muted herself, the start of an advertisement for a local feed store echoed in her headphones right before she removed them. She had three minutes to vomit, to cry, or to collect herself. Instead, she worked her hand through her hair and tried to calculate how long it would take her to get to Hawkins Memorial hospital after her shift.

[yandere-daydreams]

Title: The Right Direction.

Commission for the lovely @99shadowcat99.

Work Count: 1.8k

Pairing: Yandere!Hawks/Reader

Synopsis: Keigo’s never been one for routine. His life is too hectic, for that, and he just doesn’t have time for a real schedule. But, you do, and he likes that about you. Enough to keep nudging you in the right direction, at least.

TW: Death, Descriptions of Murder, Stalking, Breaking and Entering, Blood, Emotional Manipulation, Financial Manipulation, Gaslighting, Delusional Mindsets, and Unhealthy Dependancy.

It probably didn’t help that he hadn’t been in the best state of mind, when he first found you.

His industry could be stressful, sometimes, and Keigo’d already seen plenty of good heroes fall apart and shatter under the pressure. He tried to take it in stride. He was good at it, too, keeping the sparse remains of his decimated personal life separate from the constantly growing behemoth that was his career. Still, he had his moments of weakness, just like everyone else. Moments of weakness that led him to the threshold of a coworker's bedroom before he found an excuse to leave, to the highest rooftop he could find just to escape the noise of the city below, or in your case, the darkest corner of a well-worn dive bar, his vision blurring and his words slurring together before you saw fit to cut him off with a hand on his shoulder and a concerned smile.

Keigo didn’t have a reason to be as grateful as he was. He’d been drunk, but your call had been a precautious one, your jokes about avoiding a lawsuit from his manager too genuine to be completely disregarded. It’d been human decency to let him sleep it off in your backroom, and he couldn’t call you a saint for not turning him away when he came back the next day, and the night after that, and at least once a week for the month that followed. He was willing to accept that you’d been easy to latch onto. He liked your eyes, the way they crinkled at the edges as you laughed. Your voice was nice, easy on the ears, and he’d never been able to pin down your scent, like flowers and smoke and cheap liquor, all at the same time. It didn’t really matter why, though, and he didn’t like to think about it. He just liked you, a lot.

You were always there, always excatly where he needed you to be, and he appreciated that. He wasn’t going to tell himself there was another reason why he liked you so much. You were where you were supposed to be, always where you were supposed to be, and Keigo was close to loving you for it. Speaking off…

“Hey there, stranger.”

You were always right on time, too.

He pushed himself away from the cement wall just in time to feel you nudge against his side, your shoulder barely colliding with his. He knew your routine, by now. You always worked the closing shift, kicking out the last of your patrons and locking up a few hours after midnight before heading home, you route alresdy permanently engrained in his memory. It wasn’t uncommon for Keigo to wait for you, but you always sent him the same glance over your shoulder, the same teasing grin. You were a creature of habit, and he couldn’t say he minded. “For a busy man, you seem to have an awful lot of time on your hands,” You started, already turning away from him. “Our beloved Hawks doesn’t have any other adoring fans to grace with his presence?”

“None I like as much as you, sweetheart.” He didn’t miss a beat, but he let himself stumble as he followed your lead, earning a laugh and an excuse to hook his arm around your elbow, his hand finding yours soon after. It was a common gesture of affection between the two of you, but Keigo’s heart still beat a little faster, his face flushing and making him thankful for the flickering streetlights. “Let me walk you home,” He went on, if only for the sake of ritual. You’d stopped trying to politely refuse weeks ago, and it’d been months since he’d taken ‘no’ for an answer. “Patrol might be over, but I can still make sure nothing happens to my favorite civilian.”

“Oh, really?” Another mocking tone, a playful squeeze to his hand. You were the one to intertwine your fingers with his, this time, and Keigo forced himself to keep his eyes on the sidewalk. “And what, prey tell, are you afraid the world’s going to throw at me in the block between my bar and the train station?”

It was actually three blocks, three and a half if he counted the range he combed through meticulously every night before meeting you, but Keigo didn’t bother verbalizing the correction. “I’ve seen all kinds of things happen in a block,” He admitted, shrugging, trying to sound casual enough to come off as genuine. “A villain could go on rampage, someone could lose control of their quirk… Hell, a waitress with a vendetta could be burning your bar to the ground, as we speak.”

There was a slight pause, then a humourless chuckle. Just as he’d expected. “It’d be a good night to try. My boss might beat them to it, otherwise.”

Keigo hummed, slowing his pace down as yours began to falter. “I’m guessing there’s trouble in paradise?”

“Nothing I didn’t expect,” You sighed. He recognized your expression, the slight glare, the effortful frown of someone frustrated with their situation, but resigned to the inevitability of it. “I never thought I’d spend the rest of my life working at some sketchy, second-rate bar, I just… We’ve been losing business, and the place is falling apart, and he just seems so... so alright with it. It’s like someone’s paying him to run the place into the ground.”

Someone was. Someone was giving your greasy, gutless, greedy employer enough to last him well into retirement to do just that, to sit back and make sure you wouldn’t have to spend another day serving leering customers with irresponsible coworkers, but you wouldn’t want to hear it from him. You wouldn't understand why he was doing it. It’d break your routine, and you’d be thrown out of your little, familiar world too quickly. 

You didn’t need to know, so Keigo didn’t need to tell you.

“It’s not the only sketchy bar in the world,” He tried. “We could always use another warm body at the agency, if you’re interested. Just as something to tide you over, obviously, I… I wouldn’t want to overstep my boundaries.”

Like he’d said, you were a creature of habit. It took you half a second to shake your head, and another to relax, your next sigh one of fondness, rather than irritation. He glanced in your direction just in time to meet your eyes. Just in time to watch your gaze drift over his shoulder, towards the narrow, cramped sidestreet behind him, the one he'd almost been worried you wouldn't reach. Just in time to notice your smile fade, your mouth fall open, and just in time to catch you, as your knees buckled and anything you might’ve said was drowned out by a long, wordless scream.

He might’ve been a little over-zealous, in hindsight. The body would’ve probably been enough on its own, slumped over and bloodied, but she’d been yelling so loudly, thrashing and kicking and fighting long past the point of stubborn futility, and Keigo must’ve lost his temper somewhere between pinning her down and wrapping his hands around her neck. He’d put so much thought into it, too, using a knife rather than one of his feathers and letting her drag herself just far enough to be visible from the sidewalk before serving the killing blow. But, leaving her sprawled across the pavement, the wounds in her back still and the blood still pooling beneath her chest...

It might’ve been overkill. That was on Keigo, but he was sure you'd find a way to forgive him.

“She’s not.” It was short, blunt, straight to the point. You didn’t try to protest, and Keigo took to unlocking his phone. One of his sidekicks should’ve still been on-duty, and he wanted his agency on this before the police could get involved. It’d be easier, that way. Usually, a hero would only be called in after the crime’s already solved and a suspect’s been found, but no one questions the guy trying to solve the case. “But, we’re not going to let the same thing happen to you, alright? Some of my guys are already on their way, and I’m going to find the psycho who did this.”

Still, the carnage served its purpose. He could already feel you going limp, falling against him as you stared at the grisly scene, barely making half an attempt to push him away before digging your nails into his shirt, instead. “That’s… That’s my roommate,” You gasped, your voice shaking, all jagged fear and sudden terror. Momentarily, he wondered if he should’ve been more subtle. “She shouldn’t-- She’s supposed to be at home, I don’t know why she’d--” There was an abrupt pause, a hasty, choked silence. You slumped against him, letting Keigo wrap his arm around your waist, your earlier anxiety gone and replaced with numb, festering shock. You were trembling, by the time you continued, but for whatever reason, Keigo couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty. “I… I should check on her. She might be--”

There was a stilted nod, an uneven breath. “T-thank you, Takami.”

“That’s what I’m here for, right?” He allowed himself a small smile, a light tap to your side. “You’re going to have to stick around for a little while. I’ll try to make it quick, but if that really is your roommate, we’ll have to ask a few questions. Then you’ll be free to head home.”

Keigo could’ve laughed as you went stiff, your relief dissolving as swiftly as it’d appeared. “I… I don’t know if I should….” You were quick to trail off, to avert your eyes as your thoughts turned towards self-preservation. Keigo could already hear sirens in the distance, but he wanted to be selfish for just a little longer. Just a few more seconds, before he went back to being your concerned friend. Just your concerned friend, unfortunately. “Would that be safe?”

Of course not. He’d wrecked the place, breaking every window and decimating every lock, but you didn’t know that yet, so neither did he.

Rather than giving you a reassuring answer, Keigo only pulled away, moving to cup your cheek. “I mean, I should check it out first. That might take all night, though, and there’s something wrong, we’ll be lucky to finish this week,” He explained, watching your expression darken, clouding over with something between blind fear and impending dread. “But, I don’t know if I’d be able to focus with you in some shitty, unguarded hotel, either. And…” He let himself trail off before breaking into a small smile. Not disarming, but soothing. Just softened enough to encourage you to do the same. “You know I always have room for you back at my place. Only if you trust me to take care of you, of course.”

You barely hesitated before falling into him, wrapping your arm around his neck as you buried your face in his chest, words of appreciation mixing with cracked, half-choked sobs. Keigo welcomed it. Why wouldn’t he?

He was your knight in shining armor, your valiant protector. And you were his rock, his routine, the one thing that kept him sane. He deserved a little praise every now and then, didn’t he? And besides, he had to take advantage of his oh-so-heroic image while he could.

He doubted you'll be so grateful, once you find out just how much he’s done to keep you by his side.

[descendantofthesparrow]

Interlude - Rewrite POYW - Part 6 - new buildings and snowball fights

=

-Six months later(February 2017)-

Diego stood in front of a work in progress building that was supposedly being turned into a shelter for vks that needed a warm place to stay and regular meals that they couldn't get on their own. His eyes drifted to the yet-to-be-hanged sign next to the open door where workers inside built the kitchens and bathrooms.

‘Carlos’ House - A safe place for lost kids - Auradon department of the isle’

Around a month ago King Ben and his councilor; Evie, had announced an on-Isle shelter for anyone that needed it, with two sections of the building, one for adults and one for minors. Fully furnished with fresh food, a handful of bedrooms that could house up to 10 people, multiple bathrooms, two full kitchens, and two snack kitchens, and isle hired guards and caretakers that would be screened and recruited by Harriet's crew.

Some of the building was finished so several homeless or starving VK’s had already moved into the empty rooms. Some of Harriet's crew had taken charge of guarding the building, keeping an eye on the Auradon workers to keep the younger kids safe while also keeping anyone dangerous out.

Diego felt a hint of pride looking at the sign, his little cousin, someone many thought would never amount to anything more than a slave for his mother, was now in Auradon, inventing and creating in Auradon and establishing a shelter for his fellow vks still on the isle.

Diego brushed his thumb over the walkie talkie in his hand, Carlos has sent it to him with one of the workers, something about Diego being an ear on the inside to keep track of things the isle needed and to help spread any news about more vks coming off the isle at some point.

Diego pocketed the device and turned on his heel, walking back to his apartment through the market, eyes drifting over the new posters detailing the upcoming -yet to be scheduled- VK day, where six VKs would be chosen and head to Auradon. It was a good year from now, the so-called CPS that would be ‘in charge’ of the new vks would apparently take the longest and both that and the Auradon shelter had been required for Ben to get the council to approve the new transfer plan.

Diego pushed open the gate to his apartment building and hurried inside, night was falling and even after everything king Ben had implemented onto the isle it still wasn’t safe to be out at this time. Diego walked into his apartment and locked the door behind him, tossing his keys and the walkie-talkie onto his couch.

He sighed and walked into his room, flopping against his bed and buried his face in his pillows. Just two days ago, the rotten four, as they used to be called on the isle before they left, had visited the isle to see how everything was going. And he had seen Carlos, no longer the short and scarily skinny tween, but an almost fully grown young man. Carlos had only been in Auradon for just a little more than a year but he was thriving, he was stronger, taller, and much more confident than he was before.

And Diego couldn’t help but be a little proud. When Carlos had seen Diego, he had rushed over, whispering to him as if it was a secret he was about to tell.

‘when the applications are sent here, fill one out, you’ll be my pick’ Diego pushed down the smile on his lips at the memory, it was nice to know that Carlos hadn’t forgotten him.

So maybe in a year, he would be joining Carlos in Auradon, both finally away from Carlos’ insane mother.

-

Evie overlooked the file that Yen Sid had pulled out for the young daughter of Dr.Facilier, Celia. Dizzy had requested from all of them that Celia be one of the next off, saying that she had promised her friend that she would get Celia off the isle as soon as she could.

And Evie had told Dizzy she would do her best. But unfortunately, it would be up to the council for Celia to be approved, and Evie hoped that Celia wouldn't try to be smart on her application. But again, the applications wouldn’t be sent for a good two years from now, so Auradon and the isle had a long time to wait until they could celebrate ‘vk day’ which was Doug's idea, he had said that the vks still on the isle deserved a day for themselves for waiting so long, and the vks in Auradon agreed, eight months was too long for Harriet and the others, two and a half was overdoing it.

It just sucked that Ben had no choice but to go with the council's requests, and it would be 2019 at least before they got the next round off. It was only thanks to Ben and (y/n) that the vks still on the isle knew that they in Auradon weren't abandoning them.

There was a new shelter being built in the name of Carlos’ for any kids or adults that needed a warm place to sleep, it also served as a place to keep track of the kids that took and turned in applications when the time came. Dizzy, around a week ago, had brought up the idea of possibly letting the older adults apply for Auradon as well, as some of them were long since reformed before the isle. (y/n) had said that Dizzy meant her aunt Anastasia, and told them about the baker and the alternate timeline sequels of Cinderella’s stories.

Which had confused the hell outta them but…considering (y/n) was from a world where they were all characters and had actors, they couldn’t argue with her about it.

Evie sighed and set down Celia's file, standing and stretching to get the tightness out of her muscles from sitting at the table for so long. She grabbed her jacket and shrugged it on, it was mid-February in Auradon so while the deep winter had passed it was still snowing and cold as hell outside.

Evie walked out of her room and made her way outside, smiling as she saw Dizzy, the Smee twins, Sammy, CJ, Harriet, and the rest of the vks (other than Gil) along with Doug, Ben, and (y/n) all having a snowball fight, (y/n) in Harry's arms as he lifted her out of the way of a snowball from Jay.

“Evie, heads up!” Evie squealed and ducked as a snowball soared past just where her head was a moment ago, CJ wincing as Carlos and Mal glared at her “Sorry! I was aiming for Harry!”

“I’m over here yeh lame-ass!” Harry cackled, dodging another snowball from Jay and grabbing your hand to bolt to the next snow fort Dizzy and CJ had made before the battle had started.

Evie laughed as she stood up and ran towards Mal and Ben, pulling Mal in front of her as a snowball from Harriet came speeding towards her “E!” Mal squeaked, wiping her shoulder and chest of the snow and turning towards Evie “No fair! No using your teammates as shields!” Evie laughed and stuck out her tongue, crouching down to scoop up snow.

“vks don’t fight fair M~! you said it yourself!” Evie then screamed as Mal squished a snowball into the side of her head, her blue hair trimmed with white “Hey!!”

“Payback!” Mal cackled, spinning on her heel and dodging another ball from Harriet then sending one back, pouting as Harriet just stepped to the side and the ball hit Sammy in the face. “oh come on-GAH!” (y/n) chucked a ball straight at Mal and hit her in the face, sending Mal to the ground. The snow flurried around Mal, almost creating a blanket on her from the thick frost. “really?”

Ben held in his laugh and lifted Mal out of the snow, holding her into his side as he dived behind another snow fort. “Ben” Mal faked a weak cough, holding her hand out towards Ben “you must…avenge my death…Bleh” Mal ‘died’ and slumped against Ben, closing her eyes and sticking her tongue out the corner of her mouth.

“Nooooo” Ben dramatically yelled out, a smile on his face as he let Mal slip off his chest. He stood, a snowball in each hand “revenge!” Jay cackled as Ben was immediately pummeled by several snowballs from the other side of the battlefield, (y/n) catching herself on Harry as Ben flopped back into the snow “treason! You’ve killed the king!”

“False! Dizzy is king now! She threw the last ball that hit you!” Harry cackled, lifting Dizzy by her armpits and holding the giggling teen in the air “all hail king Dizzy!”

Evie covered her mouth to stop the loud ‘guffaw’ from bursting, leaning on Carlos to prevent herself from falling “all hail king Dizzy!” Jay and Carlos echoed, throwing their hands forward and mock bowing at Dizzy, who was still giggling in Harry's grip.

“Fore!” Jay looked to the side and yelped, a snowball slamming directly into his face and he fell back into the snow “I said fore!” Gil laughed, Jane at his side giggling behind her periwinkle snow mittens.

“there yeh are!” Harry yelled, setting Dizzy down and gesturing for Gil to join the side of the pirates “come on, we need’a tank!”

“don’t you have (y/n)?” Jane laughed, sitting down on a bench nearby as Gil jogged over to Harry and quickly made a large snowball. Gil and Harry looked at each other at Jane's mention of you, then looked to (y/n), who was in the middle of hurling another snowball at the opposite team. They shrugged and Gil continued to make a large snowball

“(y/n)’s tha’ sharpshooter, Gil’s the tank” Harry grinned, cackling as Gil launched the foot wide snowball at the other side, completely decimating the small fort CJ had made and knocking her to the ground. “yeah!!!”

“Ow!” CJ groaned, shaking the snow off and crawling out of the battlefield “im done! Count me out!” she flopped into the snow a few feet away and took a few deep breaths as Gil launched another snowball at Carlos, knocking him to the ground.

“Dodgeball rules! You get hit you’re out, loser team makes hot chocolate for everyone!” Harriet called out, giving a sharp grin as everyone yelled in agreement.

Snowballs flew everywhere, Jane curling in on herself squealing as a few stragglers landed near her “not playing, not playing!”

“Jane!” Gil laughed, running toward her and picking her up bridal style, and running back to the battlefield, setting her behind the fort (y/n) and Harriet had reinforced “stay, I'll protect you” Jane giggled and swooned as Gil stood back up and launched a mid-sized snowball at Jay, hitting Jay square in the chest and getting him out. “got ya!”

“Not fair! You have (y/n) and Gil on your side!” Jay complained, Mal popped up, her eyes glowing green as several snowballs floated next to her. Jay laughed and grinned, running off to the bench where CJ and Ben sat. “ooooh! Yall are goin down!”

Mal threw her hand forward, the snowballs aiming for you but they hit the snow fort instead as you flipped behind it “Dang it! AH!” Dizzy chucked a snowball right at Mal and hit her in the face, marking the fae out “DANGNABIT!”

“Ha!” Dizzy cheered, throwing her hands into the sky, squealing as Evie sent back a snowball at Dizzy “Evieee!”

“Dizzyyy!” Evie mocked, a sharp grin on her lips as she tossed two more snowballs at Dizzy, the first missing and the second hitting Dizzy in the back “Gotcha~!”

Dizzy pouted and joined Mal, Jay, CJ, and Ben at the bench, cheering on her team as the fight continued. Now it was Evie, Carlos, Doug, and Sammy, vs Harry, (y/n), Gil, the twins, and Harriet.

It was all too easy.

Within moments Evie and the boys were pummeled by snowballs, all screaming in ‘pain’ as they fell into the snow. The twins rushed over to the other side, throwing their last few balls into their ‘dead’ brother's stomach. Sammy coughed at the impact and sat up, pulling the two into his chest and rolling around, cackling as the twins squealed with laughter.

“We win! Ya’ll gotta make the hot chocolate now!” (y/n) laughed out in victory, Harry pulling her into his side with a grin, hiding it in her hair.

Ben sighed and gestured back inside the dorms “come on, there's a closed patio with a fire pit, we can make smores too!” the twins and Dizzy gasped at that and rushed inside, Dizzy pulling Evie as the twins pulled their brother and Harriet with them.

Soon all 16 teens were inside the closed patio, the firepit roaring as Harry helped the twins roast their marshmallows, their whipped cream-covered hot chocolates still steaming on their seats behind them.

“I can't believe at one point we outnumbered you and we still lost!” Mal grumbled, taking a layer off her toasted marshmallow and eating it, putting the treat back over the fire to let it toast again.

“that’s what happens when you have both (y/n) and Gil on the same side, (y/n) throws ninety-five miles per hour and Gil throws meteors, it was their game as soon as they picked their side” Ben laughed, handing Mal a hot chocolate in her glittery green and purple mug and sitting down next to her, sipping from his gold and blue mug.

“Then next time have Harry on your team to make sure you also have (y/n) and Gil” CJ snickered, leaning into Harriet's side as she chewed on her freshly made smore, gram cracker crumbs on the corners of her mouth.

(y/n) let out a small snort, leaning back in her seat and lifting her feet, setting them on Harry's shoulder as he helped Skipper set his marshmallow onto the gram cracker. “Maybe, who knows, I might play the other team next time~” Harry turned to look at (y/n), giving her a look “What? Don’t look at me like that? Just because I love you don't mean I won't kick your ass in a snowball fight” Harry rolled his eyes with a fond smile and pushed (y/n)s boots off his shoulder, ignoring the pout (y/n) was aiming at the back of his head.

“well, I’d say today was a good day” Ben sighed, sipping at his coco again and smiling as the group agreed with him, Harry standing from helping the twins and sitting next to (y/n), (y/n) slipping under his arm and laying her head on his chest.

Ben let out a content sigh and leaned back against his seat, closing his eyes and letting his head hit the headrest. Getting more vks to Auradon was going to take almost two years from now but for now, knowing the recent six and the original six were enjoying their life free from the isle was enough.

He couldn’t wait to share it with all the vks in the future.

-end of part 6-

part 6~!!! forgot today was Saturday but its only 630pm for me so i still posted on time, but yeah! Diego! Carlos! snowball fights! cuteness!!! its all getting wrapped up and loose ends are (hopefully) being tied!!!  hope yall enjoyed reading! part 7 next saturday!

@queer-cosette​ @sephiralorange​ @lunanight2012​

@daughter-of-the-stars11​ @musicarose​ @random-thoughts-003​

@remembered-license​ @rintheemolion​ @verboetoperee​

@imtryingthisout​ @thecaptainsgingersnap​ @jatp-rules-my-life​

[aelaer]

First: welcome home & I hope you get the sleep you need to get back into your routines! Second: it's Feb. 2, a significant day to our beloved Stephen Strange. I know you're exhausted right now, and the timing is poor--but perhaps when you're up to, you could write a little one-shot about his feelings all these years later (is it 2022 or 2023?) on the anniversary of the accident that changed his life forever. Can't think of anyone better suited to write it! xx

This was sent a year ago but last month I planned to have it out for Feb 2nd, hah.

For canon, he comes back in 2023 in what I think was likely after Feb 2nd, so realistically he can address the anniversary again in 2024. It'd feel like only 3 years for him while, in actuality, it'd been 8. But when it comes to his experienced time versus actual passing time, Stephen's pretty messed up without the Decimation already (I'm not sure how I feel about the name of the "Blip" yet.)

The prompter also requested first person after I asked for more details, and I haven't ever written Stephen in first person so I thought I'd give it a go. I know first person isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you're willing to give it a shot, call me very obliged.

Warning for canon compliance :P

——————

Staring Back In Time Rating: G (well, other than language)

An entry from the memoirs of Doctor Stephen Strange, Earth's Sorcerer Supreme, during his time as the Master of the New York Sanctum, several months after the Battle of Earth against Thanos:

February 2, 2024

Calendars don't mean as much as they used to. Once upon a time my life was ruled by the calendar. Consultation here, surgery there, society dinner over the weekend. Dates were important and generally set without change once marked down.

It doesn't work that way as a sorcerer. I keep a schedule, of course, one that marks down classes with apprentices and adepts and meetings with other Masters, never mind all the business outside of Kamar-Taj. But I learned early on that these set times shifted occasionally to accommodate the emergencies that the order often had to quash down, and it became obvious that as a Master, my schedule was more of a hopeful guideline than anything set in stone. Flexibility was a necessity.

Ever since my return to the living, keeping anything resembling a set schedule has been more of a laughable dream. Earth being the center of two universe-changing, Infinity Stone-powered events in a matter of hours did serious damage to the fabric woven about reality across the planet, and the Masters of the Mystic Arts are going to be dealing with the multidimensional repercussions for years to come. Nothing is predictable in my day-to-day anymore.

My relationship with time was fucked the moment I confronted Dormammu, so I can't say it's a large surprise that calendars have become mostly irrelevant.

If someone had told me that I, Doctor Stephen Strange, a man of order and precision, would learn to live with such unpredictability, I would have laughed in their face. But I'm not the man I once was (and thank God for that; that man was a dick). However, it's also because of this change that I didn't realize the day until it was nearly done.

I was reviewing my schedule for tomorrow, which I had set up on Google Calendar (Google had, naturally, survived the Decimation just fine, but like most other non-vital services, had many of their upcoming products delayed for years. But their email and calendar services continue to work great). Tomorrow's a Saturday, which means nothing in my world. My work continues on. The threats on our reality care little for weekends or holidays.

Still, it was only during this review, shortly before I planned to retire for the night, that I realized that today is February 2nd.

I won't ever forget the day, of course. It was both three years ago and eight years ago—or perhaps many lifetimes ago would be a more accurate description, though I lost track of time in both of my major journeys with the Time Stone. One day I'll write about them. Not now, but one day. Both memories are still too fresh.

The memory of the day of the accident, though? It feels both like yesterday and centuries ago. Some parts of the day are engraved in my memory like a film. I remember the last surgery down to the individual conversations. Christine's "thank you". Nick's watch. The cling of the bullet as I dropped it onto the tray.

I can remember my last conversation with Billy, too, in the car. Every damned word. But the drive itself is fuzzy, even in my head with my memory. I remember it began to rain during the drive, not beforehand, and I know the road was narrow and two-laned. I know I avoided a direct route to avoid traffic, driving first into Jersey before heading north and crossing the river again. But the rest is forgotten to time, or perhaps to trauma.

I was told that Billy was the first to call 9-1-1 as he heard the tearing of metal and shattering of glass before the connection was lost. The driver I hit—I learned much later that she escaped with only minor injuries—called a couple minutes later. But it was out in the mountains, dark, and raining. It took them hours to find me and extract me from the car.

Funny. Never thought I'd ever write about one of the worst days of my life like this. But I was told early on that personal journals were encouraged for all who stay in Kamar-Taj. Something about its therapeutic benefits was mentioned at some point. I only picked up the practice once I learned that each gifted journal was inaccessible to others until the time of their death, and after I mastered the art of enchanting a pen to write the words I spoke. Unfortunately this journal appeared to others after the Decimation, but Wong has reassured me that no one read it and it has since disappeared again from public view. 

Still, the point is that, one day, someone just might read this—account of a man who was part of an effort to save the universe. And it is difficult for a reader to judge my actions if they don't know how I was the one who ruined my life. My driving was reckless and stupid. I was running a little late, but it wouldn't have mattered in the long run had I been fifteen, twenty minutes, thirty minutes late. Not really.

Then again, I suppose it would have. I certainly wouldn't be here right now.

One could say that the accident and everything that has followed is some sort of penance for my hubris as a surgeon. I enjoy my newer abilities—quite a bit—but the responsibility that has come with them has not come without its own hardships and sacrifices. Perhaps the worst of the sacrifices were the ones I was unable to prevent others from performing, all for the sake of the universe.

Those sacrifices were made willingly, but I cannot help but feel responsible for them, regardless. 

During my first winter again returned to the living, when the days grew colder and my hands ached in the bad weather, and the only thoughts to accompany the pain were bitter, another thought was born. I was tempted, for the first time in a long time, to give it all up, restore my fine motor skills with channeled magic, and go back to the world I once knew, for a life much, much easier than this one is now. Even with all the troubles that had cropped up as people tried to reorganize a world that doubled in size overnight, it was miles away from the difficulties we were facing in Kamar-Taj.

Their sacrifices—the fates I pushed so many people towards—quelled the idea quickly. It did little to ease the physical pain or sting of guilt, but it lifted the temptation. And ever since that day, I have considered the situation and I don't think I will ever be tempted by the idea of giving up my duties for an easier, pain-free life again.

And I suppose that counts for something.

——————

(Hey look, my interest in geography's leaked again.)

I've always wondered where Stephen actually crashed mostly because New York City is *flat* and those mountains were *very much not flat*. I figured out the bridge that he crossed to get out of the city (there are like, 21 bridges that lead out of Manhattan) was the George Washington Bridge, and it leads to New Jersey—but that's not necessarily useful because it can quickly turn back into New York state if you turn north. We also know he crashed down into a body of water, which *might* be the Hudson, but also might not, but that the body of water is to his left, which narrows it down a bit. But again, not much. And the site of his crash is so dark in the videos and screenshots that I can barely tell what's on it. It looks like a bridge and some industrial building, so the Hudson's a good guess, but otherwise? Well, basically I turned on the topography part of Google maps and started searching.

The 202 on the east side of the river just north of Peekskill (again in New York) matches the movie road's windiness, height, and closeness to the river, and even has a bridge that could be just to the north of the crash site. Unfortunately the railing's off and there's no industrial building thingy by the bridge. It also makes the route out of the city via George Washington Bridge make no sense. Like the Stark Industries area in LA in the films, it's probably a completely fictional landscape.

But as I wasn't able to find a better locale that was still close enough to NYC to direct an emergency helicopter to, my headcanon for this scene is that he left via George Washington bridge to avoid some major traffic or something, crossed the river via the 287 a bit further up north to get back to the east side of the river, then went up the 9 to the 202. Unless someone who lives in the area can find the actual road he was driving (if it's real), this is what I'm gonna go with. (And if someone DOES please let me knowwwww). Funny enough, I don't see him getting led to *his* hospital totally unrealistic, because he'd need a very talented orthopedic surgeon with a specialty in hands to come in, and generally speaking a patient can be helicoptered to another hospital where such a surgeon is available. If Stephen is working at the Metro-General, it's likely they can afford a large cast of talented surgeons. So I don't think Nick was necessarily the lead surgeon in his case, just one of many necessary surgeons.

[blackfemmecharacterdependency]

1. Red Tape and Red Lines

Nanefua lived before what they now call “The Fall.” She used to tell stories of green fields for miles and miles. Of trees that grew all sorts of fruits - each fruit from a different tree. Vegetables from the earth. Creatures that we see in picture books that used to live in the sea, and even roam the Earth. She would say, “But, that was a long time ago,” and top it all off with a sweet chuckle and a very inspiring, “And with the right leaders, it may be ahead of us again still.” 

She believed in a future where society could exist again, for all. She dreamed of a world where we all had what we needed to survive, as well as things that we wanted - pleasures of the world to grant us some happiness while we occupy our space here. I’ve always liked to think that she dreamed of this each time that she went to sleep. I like to think she was dreaming of it the last time she went to sleep, in our little hut in the Outskirts. I like to think that beyond this world, she went to another, one where she had trees with fruits again. 

As we buried her in the earth and I watched Baba draw himself a map of exactly where and put it into his favorite book, I let myself dream that Nanefua was in a better place. Not just in some homemade plot identified only by a hand drawn guide. That was the first dream that I can remember ever having, and I credit her stories. Because the world around me was nothing to build a dream upon. The world of my day was anything but fruitful, was as far from good as I can even describe to you…

.

The Fall. It happened before Shani was born. It happened when her parents were too young to even remember. They DIDN’T put it in new books. They didn’t make new books. They didn’t keep places open that did provide books. That was what made Nanefua faithfully believe that books were invaluable. She kept every one that she owned, collected every one that she found, and bought every one that she could afford. 

When the homeless were being relocated outside of the city and lower income households were being pushed further away from the city, Nanefua at least had a van to her name. She was content to live in it, as she wasn’t the best at haggling and that was what they were doing a lot of to get into homes in what was now called The Outskirts. She, like many women, paired up with a man to get into a space. It was a very small apartment, and he fortunately was good at maintenance, because The Fall stopped a lot of building ventures. Many of the apartments in the area were incomplete and abandoned. All of the empty homes of people who died were up for grabs. Squatters rushed into those, and landlords never came to collect. 

It was like people in the city refused to think about them for a while, probably simply hoping that they would just die, out of sight and out of mind. Having a male roommate was good for a lot of things. He built several shelves for all of the books she had, even though he didn’t know WHY she held on to something that was becoming obsolete, and he wasn’t bad looking, either. A little short, and stocky, but he was strong and had a nice smile.

Nanefua and her roommate were not in love. They barely even liked each other. But, they were human and they had needs. Baba was born in the beginning years of The Fall in a small apartment, with barely running water and scheduled electricity. When Baba was 3, the apartment’s original owner sent their emissary to collect payment. Nanefua thought this would eventually happen, so she had been saving up as much as she could. It wasn’t enough. They took what she had, gave a date for the rest and took her roommate to work for it.

She never saw that man again. Emissaries became the norm. They came with muscle behind them, with unfair contracts and rough consequences. She took her toddler and her books and they lived in a packed van and she posted near a well that she would steal water from. Every now and then, she would check the old apartment to see if Baba’s father had come back. When he was 6 was the last time. She saw the emissary bring in a construction team. They were going to work on the apartment, finish some things up... More people couldn’t live in the city and now, middle class folk were forced to live in these apartments.

Middle class no longer existed, they just didn’t realize that yet. Most of them began working JUST to be able to live in their homes. They had to hustle and scrape for other needs - food, water... She was content to build a little hut near the well. The owner of the well hired her to collect payment from anybody who wanted water from it and allotted her a certain amount herself. She used the land to grow food. The soil was better back then. The water was better back then. 

By the time Shani was born, the ecosystem outside of the city was abysmal. Working was done to survive. Rich people lived in the city and the further away from the city you lived, the further away from wealth, health and happiness, and the closer you were to death.

Shani wondered when she was little, “Was there a sickness? Like, a plague or pandemic? Was there a natural disaster? Was there an economic crash? How did things get so bad? What caused The Fall?”

“The rich was greedy and didn’t care if they killed everybody, as long as they had.”

Long story short, ALL of those things happened. Natural disasters, illnesses, every bit of misfortune... but they simply let them die. Pushed them out, forced them away. Let them die. The Fall is what they called it. They acted like it was something that happened. Like the system wasn’t up against these people all along. The system had been messed up. They just finely tuned it with the more money that they made.

That was the world that Shani inherited, but she also inherited the books. And Shani LOVED books. 

.

Her mind worked a little differently than the people around her. From the time she was able to recognize things and respond to others, that had been a truth about her. Her mother had learned to read before all of the school systems became privatized, and since her grandmother purchased as many books on teaching and learning as possible whenever bookstores began to go out of business and funding was cut for libraries - Shani never had a shortage. Reading became something that only the privileged had the best access to. The privileged, and Shani’s family... maybe a few other poor families.

Whenever libraries became obsolete and the buildings began being repurposed, only librarians cared enough to collect all of the now “useless” books and they banded together to get cheap properties and hold the books there. It would have been criminal to refer to these places as libraries. They didn’t receive funding. They couldn’t order other books, and they didn’t have fancy systems or regular staff to keep everything in the best order. 

So, after a few years, the Dewey decimal system was no longer at play. They simply had signs saying that if you dropped off books, you could trade them for others, and if you took any books to keep, to please try to leave another to borrow. After another few years, they had signs that just said: Free Books. Nanefua gathered as many as they could fit into the hut. Shani fortunately began reading very early as a result. 

True, learning to read from a book was extremely different from the computerized learning systems of the privatized schools, but the alphabet had not changed, and most people underestimated the purpose of books. By the time she was 4, she knew how to both read and speak in several languages, because she had been shown books since she was able to say her first word. Mama and Baba disagreed on what that word was, whether Mama or Nana, but the moment any of them heard it, Nanafue said the girl was ready to start looking at letters and words. She would teach her herself.

After all, she had survived mostly on things she learned just from looking into her own book collection.  Baba was a miner, and often had to travel and send money to them from wherever he was on location working. Shani got used to not seeing much of either of her parents as a small girl. Nanefua raised her for the most part for the first 6 years of her life. But, whenever Nanafue was gone, she had to get used to being alone. It was a long year. Time worked really different for little kids, whether or not they were having a ball. And she was not.

Her mother was bused into the city for gardening and landscaping. She did yard work through a firm and was sent to various properties to spend ours cultivating their yards and plant life. She had picked it whenever she was 5, and had been stuck doing it since then… only advancing to harder, more grueling work in fields and on large pieces of land as she got older. Whenever Shani was little, her mother spent most of her time working at a pomegranate farm. It was a very lucrative industry, and being one of the best, her mother made enough money to get her considered for schooling.

The tests for outsiders to get into city schools were much more difficult than they were for the rich people. Outskirts kids had to work harder and smarter to even get noticed, and their parents were charged brutally in order to take every potential step to gain access to a school.

It didn’t help that Shani’s mind didn’t work like other people’s did. They often thought that she was showing off, or trying to make them feel stupid whenever she would have conversations with them. It taught her not to speak too freely. But, that helped her learn to write things down. Sometimes, she couldn’t focus and needed to write many things down. Regardless of her speaking situation, or her focusing habits, she got into one of the best schools in the city whenever she was 5...

But her parents couldn’t afford to actually send her. 

Instead, they sent her to a less expensive Montessori school, on the merit of her acceptance into the Academy of Superiority. The school masters worked with them on paying her fees and she also was assigned several chores to help compensate. She was exceptionally good at organizing and cleaning up, and whenever she took summer breaks, her teachers would alert her of what they would expect to be known in the upcoming years so that she could homeschool for the summer while they saved up for tuition. 

They applied for the scholarship program each year since she qualified at age 7. It wasn’t until she was 10 that she both was granted access into AoS under the work program.

Riding into that part of the city sent her mind into a whirlwind…

[a-spectacle-in-the-morning]

“A Whole Lot Left to Lose” -- Rafael Barba

Summary: You slept over at Barba’s place after turning up the night before embarrassingly drunk. Now you have to deal with waking up in his bed, further workplace awkwardness, and serious arguments about coffee.

Notes: Follow up for this, which is a follow up for this. I’m still unwilling to admit this is becoming a series even though it definitely is turning into one. Catch me on the sixth part saying “a follow up for this, which is a follow up for this, which is a follow up for this…”

And sorry my posting has been so sporadic. School and life caught up to me and I had a nasty case of writer’s block.

--

You awake to mid-morning sunlight and unsettlingly soft sheets. For a sweet second your brain idles, still half asleep, and you relish in the softness of your unknown surroundings. Then your thoughts snap into focus. You’re in Barba’s bedroom, curled up in Barba’s bed, absolutely tangled in Barba’s sheets. And you’re still in last night's clothes. Incredible. Nothing adds to waking up with an increasingly pounding headache like remembering how you made an idiot of yourself in front of the guy you’re catching feelings for.

The analog alarm clock on the nightstand reads around 9:30 and you let out a sigh of relief. You’re not scheduled to go into work until noon, and for a brief moment you consider trying to apologize to Barba before you leave. But then a vague memory of stumbling through his living room and spinning like a toddler unexpectedly comes back to you. Sneaking out without confrontation is clearly the only option. 

The door to the room is slightly ajar and you lay silently for a second to listen for sounds of movement. All you hear are the faint sounds of morning traffic, so you force yourself out of Barba’s bed. You spot an acoustic guitar resting on a stand as you tiptoe across the floor. If you ever shake off the embarrassment of this whole ordeal you’ll have to ask him about it. 

When you get to the living room you find the couch oddly empty. You had assumed after Barba had given you the bed he would have slept out here. Curiosity outweighs caution, and you wander in search of his office. He said he had a lot of work to do last night, you had just assumed he would’ve been finished by now. There’s light coming from underneath a door near the front foyer and you risk cracking it open to peek inside. 

Assistant District Attorney Rafael Barba, who you’re accustomed to witnessing completely decimate opposition in the courtroom while wearing stupidly expensive three piece suits, is asleep at his desk. An array of paperwork is splayed out beneath his head. You have a weird urge to step fully into his office to place a chaste kiss on his forehead or maybe wrap a blanket around his shoulders. You’ve clearly been watching too many rom-coms. Instead you just take a few more seconds to appreciate the sight in front of you then gently shut the door. 

When you get home you are instantly happy for the familiarity, but the couple of hours before your shift are not as relaxing as you’d hoped they would be. You try to catch a few more hours of sleep, but your bed doesn’t seem as comfortable as it usually is. You try to mindlessly watch something on your phone, but you keep checking to see if Barba has texted you. By the time you finally settle, make yourself a box of mac and cheese, and finish eating it’s time to head into work.

-

If there were to be an action figure for Barba it would come with about twenty pairs of suspenders and some form of a cup of coffee. Possibly a white mug, like the ones he uses with the machine in his office, or something disposable from a local coffee shop. Either way there is no way his favorite caffeinated drink would be in the kind of over-sized thermos you used to take to class with you in college. Bizarrely, that’s exactly what Barba’s currently carrying with him as he makes his way towards Liv’s office. 

Instead of striding past your desk like he usually does, Barba slows before fully passing you and stops. The hairs on the back of your neck raise and suddenly his hand is flat on your back; right between your shoulder blades. His fingers press just a bit deeper into your back and you realize that he’s leaning over you to place something on your desk. The thermos that caught your eye just a few seconds ago now sits between your computer and a newton’s cradle your dad got you as a graduation gift. 

Before you can look over at him or turn or even say thank you Barba’s hand is sliding off of you. His middle finger traces a line from the center of your back just below your neck, all the way off your shoulder. Intentionally or not the action sends goosebumps down your entire arm. You don’t realize you were holding your breath until you hear Liv’s office door shut and you let out a massive sigh.

The world around you returns to focus. God, when did it get so out of focus? And you immediately wish you were anywhere in the world than at your own desk. Carisi has the most dumbstruck look you’ve ever seen. You’re afraid his jaw might drop off if it dangles that low for much longer. And when you try to avert your gaze elsewhere you land on Amanda’s devilish grin. The two of you aren’t amazingly close, but you’ve gotten a few drinks together and without even telling her she’d picked up on the tension between you and Barba. You’d told her that even if he was into you you weren’t ready to dive into a relationship with him. He was a lot and you were busy.

But now Barba had walked straight up to your desk, touched you intimately enough, and handed you coffee like he knew you hadn’t slept well. Like he was the reason you hadn’t slept well. That’s what every other member of the SVU seemed to be thinking, at least. Except for Fin who looked to actually be falling asleep at his desk.You can’t blame him. You certainly could use a bit of unconsciousness yourself right now.

-

It’s nearing five and your thoughts are churning in your head. A massive storm is sloshing around up there and leaving you with absolutely no energy. You’re one of the last ones left; Sonny and Amanda having left for dinner about an hour ago. Fin packed up shortly before them and Liv shortly after him. Normally you would’ve finished your work before everyone else. Tonight the paperwork is taking twice as long to get through as normal. You want to blame it on your hangover, but the headache is nothing compared to the onslaught of distracting thoughts about Barba.

After reading each sentence you’re bombarded with an even lengthier montage of the ADA. You’re just getting the image of him in pajamas out of your brain when you remember the weight of his hand on your shoulder this morning. At this rate the thirty pages you have left to get through are going to take hours.

You would throw it in for the night and head home, but you’re afraid the distracting thoughts will get worse. And probably more graphic. With your focus completely shot and a whole lot left to lose you decide to head over to One Hogan Place. You make sure to grab the thermos before you leave.

-

“What the hell were you thinking Barba?” you remain surprisingly monotone as you practically slam the thermos onto his desk. 

Barba sits looking at you wide eyed for just a second before a little sly grin ghosts his face. You’d rushed over from the SVU, making sure to get here before Barba left. Your face is probably flushed from the cold and the slight jog you just did. The jog also got you a bit worked up, hence the aggressive placement of the thermos.

“That you would be hungover and need a pick me up?” Barba offers.

“You can’t do this kind of shit. People talk.”

Barba remains seated behind his desk with the smuggest look. He isn’t responding. Why isn’t he responding? He always has the wittiest comebacks and he’s just sitting there looking at you. You take a chance and make your way around to stand next to him. He doesn’t rise from his seat, but he swivels in his chair to face you.

“You don’t want them thinking we’re something we’re not, right?”

Barba laces his fingers together in his lap and leans back in his chair. “Let me make sure I have this right: you want me to be… meaner to you?”

“No, you-” you squint down at him. “Will you just shut up for a second?”

Barba’s smile grows, but he stays quiet.

“I couldn’t think straight because of you. Do you know how frustrating that is?”

“I think I have an idea-”

“Hey! I said zip it, counselor. You don’t have an idea. No idea. Because every five minutes it was back to you up here,” you tap at your temple for emphasis. “And then I’m finally focused enough to read a sentence or two in the unholy stack of paperwork in front of me, I glance up, and this,” you hold out both of your hands, palms upwards, and direct his gaze at the thermos, “this is sitting there.”

Barba’s smile has dropped. It’s been replaced by something unreadable. Wonder? Amusement? Confusion? Maybe a bit of annoyance? You can’t quite place it and it’s incredibly frustrating.

You let out a deep sigh and turn to lean against his desk. “Sorry. I’m not usually like this. I don’t make these grand” you wave your arms around, “whatever the hell this is…” 

Barba stands and moves to wait in front of you, but remains silent.

“Sorry for busting in here and verbally attacking you,” you shrug. “And for dumping this on you. And for probably making this uncomfortable. You know what? Maybe I should just leave and we can forget about all of this. Go back to whatever bizarre, semi-flirty thing we had going on before.”

Barba clears his throat, putting his hands into his jacket pockets. “Are you finished?”

You nod. 

“Can I speak now?”

You roll your eyes, but nod again.

Instead of making a counterargument he takes his hands back out of his pocket and steps closer to you. Then his hands are on either side of your hips pressing into the wood of his desk. Maybe this is his counterargument: being this close to him is otherworldly. Everything comes down to the green of his eyes and then his lips are on yours. Before you have more than a second to process what’s happening he’s pulled away again. 

He pats his desk once then steps back. “I think I have an idea.”

If you had asked yourself this morning, with your pounding headache and mountains of overwhelming embarrassment, how your day would end, kissing Rafael Barba would be the last thing you would’ve guessed. 

You stare at him for a few seconds, unable to breathe, then awkwardly say, “Sorry for making you sleep at your desk last night.”

Barba lets out a sheepish laugh. “You saw that, huh?”

“Happen often?” you glance over at the coffee machine, already knowing the answer.

“More than I’d like to admit.”

There’s a beat of silence. You glance up at the framed Harvard Law degree that you noticed on the first day you met him. Still ostentatious. 

“How about you make up for those drinks you owe me by taking me out to dinner?”

“Oh, so the coffee counts for nothing?” Barba jabs.

You reach out, emboldened by the kiss, and straighten out the lapel of his jacket. “Coffee is its own thing, Barba. This is about whiskey.”

“Ah, I see,” his gaze follows your hand as it drops from his chest. “It might take more than one dinner to make up for the tab you racked up last night.”

You squint at him, stepping away from his desk and towards the door. “If you’re gonna be a dick about it I’ll ask Carisi instead.”

Barba pushes his chair in and starts packing up his things. “Just give me a minute. Where do you want to go?”

--

I know I said there would be some smut with my next Barba fic, but I really wanted to continue this story and these two ain’t ready for it yet. It was enough work to get them to kiss, goddamn it. I’m thinking of continuing with at least one more part though, so high probability of smut adjacent stuff soon!

And apologies for the growing fixation on coffee in my fics. I’m not a huge caffeine addict, but I’ve recently been really missing my favorite coffee shop in one of the libraries on my campus. I can still remember the last dark roast I got days before classes were moved online…

[popculturebuffet]

New X-Men Xtrospective Part 3: Imperial (NXM #121-126)

To me all you happy people! And welcome back to my X-Citing look at Morrison’s Masterwork on Marvel’s Merry Mutants!  Part One is HERE, Part Two is HERE if you feel like it. 

If not... to catch you up on last time....

All Caught up? Good. Join me under the cut as our heroes head into this old woman’s hedd to see what’s wrong and fight off an alien army while horribly ill. 

Silent, Psychic Rescue in Process:

So we pick up not long after we left off: Thanks to Beast waking up from his bat induced coma, the X-Men now know Charles is trapped in Cassandra’s body and she pulled a Freaky Friday on him, with marginally less bullets. 

And thus we get this issue. This one was part of Nuff Said, an incredibly clever theme month by Marvel and one I wish they’d try and do again at some point in some form. 

The gimmick was simple but amazing: Every issue would be mostly silent, with at most some dialouge at the start and finish to bookend it. So far i’ve only read two issues of this, this one and the X-Statix one, but it is a genuinely great idea. I do think forcing it on the entire line was a bit much, but as I said I do wish they’d do this again just make it optional: have some books opt in or do some annuals with the theme. It’s just a fun break from the usual and with this issue resulted in one of the best single issues of x-men period. 

Naturally given the name, which is cleverly displayed on a sign the x-men have because of course they do, it’s exaclty that: Emma and Jean after readying themselves (Jean kisses Scott goodbye and Emma downs a bottle of jack because why not do an alchol before doing delecate mental surgery), head in. 

Inside they find horrific old lady head doors, stone ol dlady heads around a tower that shoot lasers, and said doors also bite and puke weird goop because it’s Grant Morrison. This is his chance to just go full balls out weird.. and given last time involved skin flake golemns.. and this isn’t even the weirdest he’s done. As mentioned last time he once had a supervillian run for president using a super LSD Bike that made everyone high. 

And just to prove he can reach that level of weirndess we find charles alone, naked and with an overenlarged brain.. before he transitions Jean to a field of sperm. 

Yeah... but this DOES have a point.. as it turns out it’s a meaphorical transition into his gestation as a baby.. and how he had a twin. Yeah turns out Cassandra was not lying he did try to kill her.. but as you can probably tell by the fact she’s a genocidal sociopath, she lied by omission to screw with Hank: In the womb she tried strangling Charles to death with his own umbilical cord..only for him to use baby’s first psonic blast to send her reeling and his mom tumbling down the stairs and well.. you can probably guess the rest. Yeah.. Cassandra’s entire origin story is concentrated 

And I love it. The sheer audacity is nice and everything but what makes it really work for me is the simple concept: An evil version of charles, one almost born at the same time whose every bit as evil as he is good.. granted there’s a TON of Morally Grey in Charles Xavier ESPECIALLY post decimation and even more so now with Krakoa. But he’s sitll at his heart a well meaning person, while Cassandra at her heart is a racist genocidal nightmare. She is pure evil, with enough personality to not make her boring.. and more importanlty all the power charles has but NONE of his restraint. Part of what makes Charles noble is he only uses his powers when necessary. Cassandra.. has no such restraint and will happily mentally snap necks all day. 

So with this our heroine’s leave and we end on the iconic line “Professor Xavier killed his twin sister in the womb. We Really ought to talk. 

This issue is an utter classic. It finally explains Cassandra a bit while still leaving a ton of questions, Frank Quitely is at his best here, and he and morrison are incrediby good at non verbal storyteling. The result is surreal, unsettling and awesome. Check it out. Seriously seek this one out it’s worth the trip. It’s so famous it was homaged with a spirtual sequel in the recent Giant Size X-Men one shots. It’s excellent stuff

Imperial:

So with our first issue we open with things going terrible on that flag ship Cassandra took off on with Lilandra, empress of the Shiar and Xavier’s space wife. She’s revealed herself, is ravaging the ship and mind rapes a the helmsman into crashing it, so with no other options Lilandra sends Smasher, not the one from the avengers run earlier version, to earth to send a warning to the X-Men. 

At the School things are actually going well for a second. In an intresting move the school is changing things up with no officla timetable.. which I think means there’s no rigid class schedule and you can just do them as you please or as necessary for your power. The plan’s the same, they just want to learn from each other in building mutant society and the future. It’s ideas like this that are the bedrock of the current run and were sadly never fully realized here.. but I don’t blame this run for that. Morrison had 2-3 years and it was cut short early, leading to a rather disapointing ending we’ll get to. They never had a chance to really dig in because they were kicked out by morons and then their whole grand design was undone until Hickman un-undid it in 2019. And even then some of this like the idea of mutant culture and what not hasn’t been picked up on yet. I do mean YET, as given the sheer NUMBER of x books touching on all sorts of subjects, it’s only a matter of if not when. 

As for who’s behind this it’s a combination of Jean and Charles: Jean is using charles notes and is going at full tilt. Scott is concerned though.. both about her since she went Phoenix and Logan told him about it and because these plans may alarm the humans. ON the former Jean just brushes him off which is not right.. given what happened with the phoenix force copy of jean, which granted had her personality, memories and powers and Jean later got a set of her memories so it might as well of been and only MAYBE the genocide is something Jean wouldn’t of done under the same circumstances, he’s understandably concerned. He lost her to it last time and it did weird shit to poor Rachel, who hif you don’t know is their daughter from an alternate timeline... because the Summer’s family tree is a WAKING NIGHTMARE. Thankfully I don’t have to untangle it because there’s a handy chart right here to do it for me that was recently released in X-Men Legends, a new series featuring legendary x creators telling stories in the cracks... and given we’re getitng storys by the simosons and peter motherfucking david, yeah good stuff.

And why yes there are more than one clone in this tree and several alternate timelines. , not to mention several clones and a sexy cat lady, it’s complicated is understnading it and i’m not sure what properly states it honestly. Also if your wondering about Adam there he’s the genetic son of Cyclops mom and the ma Shiar empreror who killed her for not sleeping with him through. Again it’s complicate REALLY feels like understatement. 

Point is he DOES have a right to be worried about the thing that lead to her being cocooned for a while and left their daughter in the future at the time of this... just in case you needed a reminder after that wonderful clusterfuck of a chart up above athe x-men are really fucking weird. 

So Jean brushing that off is not okay. She does however call him out on the second one and rightfully so: This isn’t some dominate the humans manifesto: this is simply changing the course of the future and how they teach their students to create a better one instead of adhering to human norms to try and appease “the republicans’, as jean puts it.. which has only gotten MORE RELEVANT, 20 years on: Attempts to appease the norms of society and things “just because that’s how it’s been” have never been a good thing. It’s why the very writer of this comic took several decades to properly identify themselves as non binary because people were too stuck int heir ways to try and see if there really were just two genders. Fighting against the grain, finding new ways to express things that have always been there... it’s what humanity needs to do and certainly what comes after us would need to do. i’ts how we get better as a race. If something’s not working we change it, quickly or slowly. And given Scott’s huge amount of emotoinal repression lately.. I can see why she’d see the former complaint as just him being a dick as opposed to the genuine concern it is. 

Short Version: Jean Grey is fucking awesome and while he’d be the last to write her for decades, no one did it better than Grant and no one has since.  Hopefully Gerry Duggan can clear that bar. 

After this fight we get a fuller verson of what happened both at the end of issue 120 and in the big reveal last issue: Turns out Hank awoke because Charles piloted his body like a truck and needed it revealed fast. Hank’s regained control of his body and facilities by now, but in a twist of irony he helpfully points out, had Cassandra not gone a needlessly cruel and sociopathic tangent and had Beak beat Beast into a coma, Charles wouldn’t of had a body. 

As for Charles in cass’ body he’s now in a tub of goo created by it. 

It acts as a shield as well as melding him with Cerebra so he can talk to jean telepathically as his thoughts are very weak.

Thanks to this and her psychic Jaunt, Jean now knows just what the hell cassandra is: She really is Charles twin sister. As for how the hell she surivied outside of the womb and how Charles never knew, she created herself a clone body using his cells and didn’t fully manifest till now. And while she has plenty of intellegence, at an emotional level she’s fully convinced, much like an infant that only she and charles are real and thus destroying him means gaining domance over her world. So in short she’s both utterly insane and now has an interstellar empire at her fingertips. 

And the news SOMEHOW get sworse: She booby trapped her body and charles only has days before he’s vegatable, having put every psychological disease possible in there, and she’s probably responsible for their colds and the u-men. So in short their pretty scrwed but at the very least Charles plans to try to flip things, use the fact their now public (a clear tactic to weaken them) to share his manefesto, his last will and testiment if you would. 

Scott meanwhile figures since their sick a healer might be a good idea and goes solo to fetch Xorn... who just sorta disappeared after the annual and didn’t return till his arc. 

We get an utterly touching scene after this: With Logan staying on his hobbit like toes in case of another attack, Jean goes to talk to hank. Hank is still throughly traumatized from the attack, fearing Cassandra is right and he’ll just keep devlovling until he ends up in a metamoprhisis type situation. I mean it’s not ALL bad hank,.. I mean going through that guarantees a musical about you. 

But Jean reassures him: It’s okay to be afraid of her, they all are.. but as she puts it...

It’s a really powerful inspiring scene... and really afirms how well Morrison writes Jean from the previous arc onward. She’s confident, powerful.. but also caring and compassionate. Here hank’s at his lowest, disparing that this might get worse.. and she reaffirms that htis evolution is an upgrade.. he may not be the same.. but that’s okay. He’s better. It really speaks to the core message of the X-Men as a whole and why they’ve stuck around all this time: It’s not just okay your diffrent.. it’s WONDERFUL. Your wonderful for being you. Whatever meataphor you read into it, it’s at it’s core a message that no matter who hunts you or trys to shame you for what you are, they are wrong and you are wonderful. And you are not alone... your people are out there.. and they will go through hell to protect you. It’s moments like this that remind me despite the bad parts, the accidnetal transphobic metaphor last time, a subplot with Hank coming up, the affair storyline and Planet X, just.. Planet X.. this run is special to me for a reason. It has heart, character and truly gets how the x-men should work, what makes them great... while making something NEW AND FRESH from it’s bones. Pushing envelopes, chanigng things for good and shaking things the hell up after far too much stagnation. It’s just pure good comicy goodness and i’m proud to finally be talking about it after having always wanted to. 

So as we end the issue Scott grabs Xorn, whose been at a budist temple all this time, and Smasher arrives to warn earth... but his warning missed his intended target. 

Well at least he got to Hellcow’s coven.. maybe she can call in Man Eating Cow and the Chick Fill A Super Cows.. thought hey might not help. Their parent company IS pretty homophobic.. I doubt their high on mutants either. 

Testament Emma and Jean talk over things how i’ts going etc, with Emma unsuprisingly annoyed with most of the students and Jean optimsitc.

But Emma soon has bigger issues to deal with: TEEN ANGST!

Yeah 4/5 of the Cuckoos are upset Esme has a boyfriend. Their concerns in part are because without her their apparently powerless.. which given one will die and another will leave and they’ll be left with three is just factually not true, and either Morrison changed his mind later, or more likely their simply exagerating like teens do. Emma points out it’s pointless to fight this...

So... their in a domestically abusive relationship rife with sexual tension? Are you sure your not htinking of Sam and Diane, Ross and Rachel, Garfiled and Odie perhaps?

Meanwhile Angel’s sulking in a tree talking about how all the kids are stupid and she dosen’t fit in. That sort of thing. Wolverine naturally has a tactful and understandable response to this:

It’s here Angel goes from understandable, a bit hard edged and obnoxious becuase of a very rough life.. and just becomes annoying.  I do get what Grant was trying to do: he was trying to play with Wolverine’s habit of taking sassy teens under his wing by giving him a more hardscrabble one with a harder life pre-xaviers.. not that Jubilee’s was easy, but I get what he was going for.. he just dosen’t succeed. Instead of a realistic version of a teen sidekick she just comes off as an obnoxious brat whose rude to everyone including her one friend Logan and her later boyfriend.  It dosen’t help that ONCE AGAIN, Morrison flew directly into unfortunate implications without meaning to, by having the only major POC character (Bishop guest stars later and there are two significant characters during the Riot at Xaviers arc but both aren’t relevant before or after), be an abused teen with gross fly based powers and a teen pregnancy subplot. Seriously this isn’t even the LAST time Morrison shoves their foot in their mouth like this in this run. While I do like this run a lot, it’s still 20 years old and it’s still going to have a bunch of bits that have aged like harvarti left on a sidewalk, and handing out unfortnuate implications like their candy is tied for the biggest with their handling of Magneto when he finally shows up in person. It’s THAT bad a take on the character that it’s up there with accidental racisim and transphobia. 

So moving on from.. that we get Jean comforting the professor before meeting the press, giving a throughly lovely speech about how Charles got his powers 30 years ago and despite seeing the worst in humanity, used his telepathy to allow him to see past it and see deep down just how scared and alone we all felt. So she takes them into a psychic conference room and we get a very interesting exchange. 

It’s an interesting parallel to how real world disinfranchised groups, how it takes time.. but soon being a POC or LBGTQ+ goes from unrightfully perscuted to celebrated. How a group starts with hates whipsers on the fringe of things but grows to be accepted, like it always SHOULD have been. Take representation of Trans people in the media. It started with Trans people being almost entirely punchlines and sources of fucking horendous “DID DEY USED TO BE A MAN.” storylines and hurtful jabs at people who had transitioned, treating them as a sideshow instead of you know as fucking human beings. But now coming out as what you always were ont he inside is celebrated. Sure the right are dicks about it but they always will be: but most media gladly celebrates when someone comes out as trans. Same with being gay, or bi or pan or polamorus or nonbinary.  Hell I admire grant for showing i’ts not even 100% perfect once you are popular: you still have to grapple both with people wanting to copot your culture and those who still don’t understand you trying to speak for you. 

She also gets the standard question calling the X-Men an army, shoots it down with the normal global peacekeeping operation stuff.. then we get this bitch. 

Who quickly realizes she’s outclassed by Emma Frost, professional that bitch. And while Jean is understandbly going to have to erase that.. I can’t blame her for snapping her.

Just to tear this shit down.: The privacy thing is not something she’s doing. All she’s doing is spcyhic teleconfrencing, you harpy. They fight greek gods and monsters to protect your sorry ass and the last one.. just makes me absolutely livid and feels so much like a real world comment i’m suprised there isn’t a fox news logo next to her bigoted head. 

Trouble follows them everywhere they go.. because their mutants. They can’t help it. A LOT of shit like the demons, aliens, and gods and what not, I do not know if they actually did fight the greek gods but i’m not going to say for sure they did not, the norse gods defintely, not sure on greek. But the point is allt his stuff HAPPENS TO THEM half the time, or is a consequence of trying to PROTECT PEOPLE. I’m so nettled by this because this is how the marvel unvierse acts all the fucking time towards ALL super powered peoples. Mutants esepcailly but they blame the heroes and what not for being chased and harassed by guys in costumes or alien invasions or all the stuff they FIGHT. Sure sometimes they caused it but it’s either because of a monsterous person with a grudge or just because their powerful and some douche took an intrest. I’m just.. so fucking tired of asshole civlians in comics. It’s realisitc I know but it’s just hard to stomach after so many have turned their back on so many for such DUMB reasons. 

Jean recovers well pointing out the genocide and how 16 million people, 16 million possible einsteinss or mozarts are just GONE, and that their trying to focus on the future. She also brings up autistic savants who can talk to atoms and while I don’t like the use of the savant thing, as it brings to mind stuff like rainman I very badly want to see this autistic kid who can talk to atoms as someone on the spectrum myself. Also I just want the crew of HIckma’ns books in general to pour over this because there are a lot of intresting powers and personalities only MENTIONED we never saw proper that could be great characters. Just saying. 

Jean cocludes her speech to the world, including Logan whose wisely getting hammered at anearbye bar.. while Hank finds out what’s going on with their sickness.. nanonscopic sentnels in the blood. 

But while the press confrence ends well with Jean having won over the press.. things go sideways as not only is it clear Esme’s boyfriend is in fact something sinister.. but Jean falls over due to the nano snetinels, and senses Scott being taken in tibet, taken down by a group of the Shiar’s imperial guard.. picutre the legion of superheroes but blindly loyal to the goverment and far more likely to get killed. And the rest are preparing to attacking including Gladiator who if you don’t know him, has all the powers of superman as long as he retains his confidence. 

And it turns out Esme’s boyfriend is an advanced Scout, the shapeshifting amoeba blob thing Stuff, a new addition by morrison and good on him. And the Imperial Guard are here but with one goal

 Superdestroyer

On the Ship we find out both wha’ts going on with Scott and Xorn, they’ve been taken and why the shiar are attempting mutant genocide: Cassandra is puppeting ALL of them, has convinced them the mutants are infected and since Lilandra is a puppet, Scott’s words fall on deaf ears. 

Meanwhile Wolverine ambushes one of the squads, kiling one named Dinosaurer via claw to the brain, while Emma has had a dome thing put over her head and isn’t transforming into diamond to counter it because...

But the Cuckoos fight back, taking out oracle before easily handling stuff since his brain is fairly simple.. and given he’s racist against solid people and unlike the others reveling in the genocide just a tad.. yeah what he deserves. So now with a living weapon the Cuckoos make peace with Angel as they need all the help they can get. 

Jean ushers the press into the panic room, not happy about it but not having anothe roption for their saftey. Hank tells her to self distruct crebra if cassandra get sclose and goes off to join the fight and let off some steam over the situation. Hank easily routes two of them, and one , Manta tries to just fly right ot jtean wince their TK proof. How does that go?

Jean gets to saftey after that, not that she needs it and hank is quickly taken down by a batch of Superguardians.. only for Wolverine to arrive in the Sknitt of time and chop them up.. oh and as one of the puts it...

Bad. Ass. I also like the addition of the flight patch, a nod to the Legion, who the Imperial Guard were based on as those kids used flight rings. 

But while Logan and Hank easily tag team these assholes...

The SHiar call in the big guns.. Gladiator.. and I wasn’t kidding abotu the superman thing. While Logan TRIES to talk him out of it, the murders only confirm Cassandra’s bullshit and Gladiator breaks into the panic room throwing hank and wolverin’e before them having utterly decimated them off panel. I mean Wolvie is a badass.. but even he has limits. I also like recontecullizing the guard as a whole here.. showing just how TERRIFYING they SHOULD be as enimies to the x-men. Yes our heroes did win.. but barely and only till Gladiator showed up. In most cases thier clearly holding back out of affection but here hteir just at errifying unstoppable force, and also apparently used to doing genocides like this. It takes what was a cheesy shout out to David Cockrums other big artistic work, and makes it horrifying and it is AWESOME. I admit to not having liked this arc as much for the longest time but this reread, the sheer teror and hopleessness as an interstellar superman easily cuts through our mighty mutants like tissue... it’s awesome. 

Thankfully one of the Guard found smasher.. and thus the truth comes out so our heroes are given a stay of execution with Gladiator clearly horrified at what he almost did and our heroes now so sick they can barely move and Hank can’t think them out of this. 

Thankfully he dosen’t has to as back in space, Cyclops tires of it and points out something Xorn, not being as experinced nor having delt with the guard ahd thought of: G-Type, the glowly guy about to execute them, is made of solar energy.. and xorn can manipulate that thanks to his star brain. He does, they take out the rest.. and prepare to go save the day.

Losers: PIcking up shortly before where we left off we see Cassandra murder Lilandra’s advisor who figured out what she was just as our heroes escape.. and as Cassandra is having Lilnadra order all of the shiar ships to immolate themselves. 

WIth Lilandra not being any use, Cass tries to psychically force her to commit sucidie but jumping off a space ledge but Xorn saves her. Cass tries another turn at mentally breaking an x-man, pointing out all scott’s recent flaws, his increased repression his faling marriage and while it gets him to stop it dosen’t quite work as well as it did on hank, likely because at his heart Hank is simply a more emotive person. Though his REAL reason for stalling is he can’t kill charles.. which he muses just as the ship blows up real good. 

Meanwhile back at Campus the kids initaiate their plan, having Angel break in and take a dna sample. She also finds beak naked in a tank and decides eh why not and brings him with her. This ends up paying off as Beak suggests the obvious to get emma free.. just force the space guy they have over in the corner to do it. They do and it works

Back in the mansion our heroes prepare for Casssandra... but Jean and Logan object to saving her body, pointing out that getting hank to repair it is exactly what she wants, and that Jean feels she can save charles without uit, with Hank being understandably doubtful given their current condition.. but Jean’s real plan is to put charles in her head and it’s already too far in actoin to stop now: she’s been saving his memories as they flaked off and if she dosen’t do this now there will be no charles left. 

Hank evacuates the civlians to teh danger room, and has an encounter with trish who tries to apologize and get him back.. only for him to rightfully regjecter her..a and then goes a step further by capping it off with:

Yeah on it’s own it’s not TERRIBLE. Still very dated to claim your gay just to spite someone, but for the time it was acceptable and compared to some of Morrison’s other gaffes in the run it’s minor at best. But it leads into a rather annoying subplot we’ll naturally get to that’s a much bigger issue, so i’ll save talking about it in full for when it comes up again. 

Jean manages to shove Chuck into her head, but is naturally leaking a bit and barely holding it or him together and may of overestimated herself just a tad.. while on the lawn Cassandra easily takes out the guards. That said the scene of Jean taking Chuck into her head is REALLY damn awesome. Jean is the arc MVP by a mile and Hank is pretty dang good competition. 

All Hell: We open the final issue of the arc with Scott and Xorn escaping the spaceship using some teleport tubes taking Arakai and Lilandra with them. 

We open with Cassadra utterly humilating gladiator while the kid team prepares to fight her despite you know, the 8 billion to 1 odds against them. 

Jean, despite hte discknes and trying to keep an old man in her brain marches out , prepared to fight, for the kids sake. For the world’s sake. But Logan’s easily taken out and with Jean barely holding it together.. the kids prepare to fight.. likely being slaughtered even if they mean well.. onlyf or help to finally arrive with Scott and Xorn glowy porting in. We get a really sweet , short moment with scott and jean...

Scott not knowing the situation tries to have Xorn heal charles first but since Cassandra’s body is dead and unoccupied that’s a no go.. he’s still usefult hough, curing Jean of her nanosentital sickness and moving on to Scott and Hank while there’s still time. 

We find out more about cassandra: She’s a murrmadi, a bodyless parasite.. eseetinally the dark first test a person faces... she just stuck around because she was one for a telepath.. the world’s STRONGEST telepath. But really other than that part the rest just feels like stuff we alreayd heard LAST TIME, mildly repaackaged and seems enitrley like filler to pad the issue out. 

So while Jean takes cerebra, both to keep it away from Cassandra’s plans of mutant genocide and for whatever she has planned, Scott, Hank and Xorn prepare to hold the line.. and as Jean mentions.. emma’s still out in the wild. 

So we get our climactic showdown.. logan, hank and xorn veruss cassandra, with Cassandra trying to do eveyrthing she can, tear them down mentally, throw out the students with our heroes fighting back best they can. It’s good stuff.  

Eventaully Cassandra gets to Jean.. but she’s already inacted her plan, putting a piece of Xavier’s mind in EVERY mutant, and giving Cassandra one ohell ofa reason you suck speech. 

It’s an incapsulation of what i said earlier and what the runs about: alone we are weak but together.. we just might make it. More on that as we go. But thanks to Cass naturally going fo rcerberba.. she accidently restores charles and is left bodyless.

Emma finishes the fight with her own brilliant gambit, presending cassandra her body.. but it’s actually stuff , reprogrammed into a sentient brain for her to inhabit and leaving her trapped, with Charles hoping t teach the now mentally reset Cassandra.  So Cassandra is beat, the virus is stopped, and our heroes have one.. but naturally for this run.. there’s one last suprise in store. 

Charles can walk again.. and going forward will be a far more active member of the team. The team is complete, Cassandra is beaten, and the future.. is bright. 

Final Thoughts:

This arc is a mixed bag.. it has really good scenes with the first and last issues being the standouts, with the former being an utter classic with an intresting gimick and the latter being a rousing climax with tons of awesome moments, with some good mometns scattered throughout.

But that’s the arc’s issue.. it has good moments and ideas.. but they don’t quite work togehter. The idea of teh Shiar Imperial Guard nearly doing a genocide is good, but the Shiar are such flat characters.. it’s really hard to care. They just don’t have enough connection to the x-men to really have the betryal sting but aren’t callous enough for genocide protocols to maeks sense. It’s a good idea, I still support it being terrifying.. but not enough is done with it and it feels liek Grant is more concerned with throwing weirdos at the x-men than actually saying something. 

The biggest issue however is the art. While inconsitant art is an issue as they’d rotate artists.. but in previous arcs it was usually pretty evenly split but here it’s sloppy: Quitely does the first issue, van Sciver the second.. and the worst of the three Igor Kordey does most of the art. I gave him the beinfit of the doubt last time.. but this time not so much. His art is muddy and tries to be stylized but comes off confusing,ugly and not great. He’s probably a lovely guy but given he’s up against two legendary artists, his lack of style comapred to both shows badly.  And given the arc is alreayd a bit overly complicated, it makes things WORSE by giving us muddled art in a very complex storyline. The flip flopping art makes a fairly intricate story very hard to follow. It’s easily why this arc didn’t grab me in the past and even seeing some better moments, it’s not the series best. It’s not the worst either, Planet X easily takes that ground despite having far better art. It’s an incredibly muddled incredibly long feeling arc and really needed to be compressed by one or two issues but instead is just hard to get through. It’s owrth it for the rest of the runa nd the good moments within but all in all easily one of the weakest points in the series. 

Next Month on New X-Men:The X-Men soak in the new world order, and we meet fantomex, dust and the last surivivors of genosha. 

Next on this blog:Green Eggs and Ham is back!

If you enjoyed this review PLEASE join my patreon. The end of hte month is coming and I need eveyr cent I can get so join at patreon.com/popculturebuffet and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[filamero]

A Mother’s Rage

 [SEQUEL TO A MOTHER’S LOVE]

Word Count: 2885

Summary: 

- It is often said that a mother’s rage is incomparable with anything else in the world. Fierce, scalding, passionate as long as its coals are fanned.A mother’s rage is a force to be reckoned with.

( In which Niki thinks about her son, from both the past and the present. )

[ ao3 link!: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28952805 ]

(fic below the cut!)

It is often said that a mother’s rage is a type of anger that burns bright and hot.  It decimates anything that decides to get in its way, leaving nothing but ashes in its wake.  Mightier than the worst of storms, drawing energy from deep within the heart and soul, strong enough to make even the most powerful bow down to its will—It is said that nothing in the world could ever compare.  Fierce, scalding, passionate as long as its coals are fanned.

A mother’s rage is a force to be reckoned with.

Niki remembers the night that Puffy brought Dream home with her.  

She was surprised that their windows were holding their own, the rain pounding down so hard on the glass that it sounded like the knocks of a madman looking for shelter.  The waves on the nearby shore came crashing angrily, filling the air with loud noises to accent the booms of thunder that seemed to shake the ground.  Her feet had led her outside, standing at her door and looking out for Puffy, just in case the former captain would need help carrying supplies home.  She was glad that she had listened to her instincts after seeing her strikingly red overcoat—in comparison to the blues, browns, and beiges that characterized their home—amidst the raging droplets of water.  Tucked into the shorter woman’s arms was a small child, clinging onto her as if his life depended on it.

She didn’t even bother putting on her shoes before lifting up the skirt of her dress and scurrying to aid her.

“Puffy!” Niki cried out once she was close enough, using her arms to shield herself from the rain.  Her efforts were in vain though, her own hair and clothes beginning to match the state of her lover and the boy in her arms.  “You’re both soaked…Come hurry back home,” she frowned, the chill of the air already nipping at her skin through the material of her sleeves.

“It’s a little hard to run like this, Niki,” Puffy joked lightly, bouncing the child and the bag of traded supplies to prove her point.

Pursing her lips, Niki held her arms open and sighed, “I’ll take one, we just need to hurry before it picks up even more.”

Puffy nodded, loosening her grip on the boy and looking at him.  He looked almost reluctant to let her go, his own hold on her tightening when he felt himself slipping.  “Hey, hey, now,” she cooed softly, giving him one of the softest smiles that Niki’s ever seen on her face.  “This is Niki, she’s a...really good friend of mine.”  (Niki would’ve snorted in laughter at the description, but she had higher priorities that distracted her from the comical part of things.)  “I trust her lots, so she isn’t going to hurt you, Duckling, okay?”  The boy hesitated for a moment more before slowly turning to Niki and extending his arms to her instead.

Niki put on a soft smile of her own, taking him from her arms and not wasting a moment to go running towards the safety of their cottage.  She used her arms and head to shield him from the rain; he already felt light and thin in her embrace, something told her that a storm like this one could easily make him fall ill without trying.  Relief coursed through her veins once the sand and gravel underneath her feet became wood, opening the door with practiced ease and stepping inside.  She couldn’t have been in the rain for more than a few minutes, yet the material of her dress clung to her skin almost as much as the boy in her arms held onto her neck.  Water dripped from both of their soaking figures on the floor.  The boy watched guiltily as the fallen droplets began to pool into small puddles, but Niki only combed her hands through his hair and tutted her tongue.  “We can worry about that later,” she hummed, carrying him to the washroom.

The tiles of the bathroom were cold against her feet as she leaned over the tub to get some warm water running.  She set him down carefully, taking extra care to let him stand on an extra towel instead of the floor.  “Do you mind taking off your clothes?” she asked softly, making a twirling motion with her hand.  “I can turn around while you do, if you’d like.  Privacy is important, after all,” she smiled, already making a show of turning halfway to let him know she was serious.

He slowly nodded his head, and she turned around all the way.

His clothes hit the floor in an almost hilarious ‘splat!’, though Niki made sure to keep any bouts of laughter to herself.  After a few moments, she felt a small tug on the end of her dress, accompanied by s soft, “I’m done, miss.”

“Do you think you can get in the tub yourself?” She asked softly, still facing away from him and looking at the wall.  “Or do you need my help?”

A beat of silence.  “Can I have a little help?  Please?”

Niki felt herself mentally coo.  “Of course.”

She turned around fully, hooking her arms underneath the boy’s and lifting him up once more, easing him into the warm water.  His eyes lit up with a certain glow, immediately sinking further into the warmth—and Niki couldn’t help but chuckle softly to herself.  

“Thank you for letting me use your hot water, miss.”

Niki grabbed a small bucket off of the bathroom shelf, dipping it into the water and gently pouring it atop his head to start washing him off.  “I appreciate your politeness,” she chuckled, leaning over to grab the shampoo, “but you don’t have to be so formal.  My name’s Niki.”

“That’s a pretty name,” he murmured softly, and she could see him playing around with the water a little.

“Mind if I ask yours?”

“Dream.”

Niki smiled.  “That’s a lovely name as well.”

Dream had ended up falling asleep as Niki washed him off, her heart swelling with a certain fondness for the boy she just met.  Gentle with wrapping him up in a towel and heading to the bedroom to scavenge something for him to wear, she set him down on their bed to sleep soundly.  It was hard—even if she and Puffy weren’t the largest people themselves, Dream was much too small and young to be measured by their standards.  (And don’t get her started on trying to find underwear that wouldn’t potentially embarrass him by wearing it.)  The smallest she could find was an old pair of shorts and a shrunken shirt from a laundry mishap, being careful not to wake him up as she slipped them on for him.  Tucking him into the covers and changing into another pair of clothes herself, she made sure to shut the curtains and close the door softly as she retreated to the kitchen.

Puffy met her in the kitchen—while she was midway through cooking soup—also changed and dried off.  

A conversation or two later, Niki found out how exactly Puffy knew Dream.

There was an ache in her heart, imagining just how long he must’ve been alone.  Everyone had their own lives and worries, but she couldn’t help but ask herself why no one thought to help him out sooner.  A kid, who couldn’t have been any older than six.  People ran their businesses differently, she was aware of that too—but that vendor couldn’t have let losing profits of one loaf of bread slip and instead chose to chase after the poor boy?  The ache grew into a small seed of bitterness at the thought, tugging her lips into a growing frown.  The heat emitting from the stove furnace mirrored the one threatening to ignite in her veins, though her thoughts were interrupted by the gentle patter of footsteps into the kitchen.

She turned her head to the side to see Dream looking bashfully down at his feet, playing with the hem of his clothes.  “Miss Niki?” he asked softly, standing on his toes and attempting to look into the pot.  “I’m a little hungry…”

Niki smiled, the sparks of anger at unknown faces extinguishing before they could even ignite.  “Soup’ll be done in a minute, Dream.  Say, why don’t you and Puffy set the table, alright?”

Puffy held her hand out to him, and the pair scampered off into the conjoined living-dining room.

They had their first ‘family’ dinner that night.

Niki managed to work Dream into her schedule perfectly; he was a delight to be around.  Though it took a little bit for him to warm up to her, their relationship eventually became like Puffy’s and his: a mother and her son.  She was fond of the days that he chose to stay home, begging her to let him help her bake.  An occasional crack of the egg here, a mixing the ingredients together there.  Nothing too hard, and nothing that he couldn’t handle.

One day, while she left the kitchen to go grab a damp cloth from the kitchen to clean with, a loud shattering noise quickly brought her back.  Shards of the plate that she had set her cookies on laid scattered on the ground, the cookies semi-piled where the plate must’ve made the first contact.  Dream stood sheepishly at the wreckage, putting on a tight smile and folding his hands behind his back.  “I…I wanted to try one.”

Niki put her hands on her hips, and Dream shrunk a little more into himself.  “Dream,” she started off, her voice gentle yet stern.  “You should’ve waited for me to come back.”  Leaning down and opening one of the cabinets, she pulled out a hand broom and dustpan.  Careful not to step on the shattered porcelain, she continued, “I would’ve come back in only a few seconds.  There was no need for you to rush.”

“Sorry, Niki,” Dream mumbled, his voice impossibly quiet.  She would’ve missed it if the sound of glass dragging against the tiles would’ve been even just a smidge louder.  Saying that she hadn’t been a little annoyed would’ve been a complete and utter lie; slight irritation did simmer beneath her skin for a moment.  But seeing the genuine look of regret written on Dream’s features, slouched posture, and soft tone to his voice made that small bout of temper dissipate.  She sighed softly, shaking her head and carefully making her way towards him.

“I’m just being cautious,” she explained softly, taking his hands into her own and crouching down to be in his line of view.  “I’d hate for you to get hurt, Dream.  You’re my little duckling,” she chuckled, tapping the tip of his nose and reveling in the subtle but clearly there perk up of his lips.

“You’re not mad?” he asked, tilting his head to the side a little.

Niki pinched his cheek and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead.  “I could never.”

A flash of stark white porcelain brings Niki out of her thoughts.  Her grip is impossibly tight on the flint and steel in her hands, the metal warming in her grasp.  Not too far in front of her, explosives rain down from an eerily perfect obsidian grid in the sky, deepening the crater that replaced New L’manburg.  Though it is high and far beyond her reach, she catches glimpse of a figure—clad in a green sweater and dark jeans—navigating his way across them with an expert’s ease.  The sight alone was enough to make her blood begin to boil, her heart igniting with a strong fire that couldn’t be matched by anything she’s ever witnessed.

For Niki isn’t mad.

She’s livid.

At what, you may ask?

Well…

Everything.

Especially at the events of the world that led to the current moment.  A plethora of wars, failed elections, and countless conflicts piling on top of one another and shaping L’manburg into something painfully unrecognizable.  The place she had come to love as her home was now something that she felt no connection to.  Hell, there was a twisted satisfaction curling in her gut as seeing it all come tumbling down in flames.  The country was already ruined beyond belief in her eyes, and to finally see something so insufferable, so unlikeable, so infuriating meet the fate that she wanted so desperately to come.

She doesn’t realize that she’s ignited the flint and steel until the flames’ tendrils reach out to her, warmth caressing her face.  Taking a step back, she watches as the ‘L’mantree’—the only natural tree of the land left standing—gets overtaken in splashes of red, orange, and yellow.  An ironically beautiful ‘sunset’ in the midst of all the chaos and destruction.

Niki feels the fire grab ahold of her, tendrils curling around her limbs and sinking in through her skin—but it doesn’t burn.  Instead, it rages through her veins and heart, crying out with a feeling that she was foreign to.  Not a single tear dares fall, and if one tries to, the heat of her wrath seems to evaporate it without even giving it a chance to start running.  She lifts her hand up into a salute as the tree goes down, but solemn is far from what she is feeling.  It’s almost as if she had taken her sword by the handle and sliced clean through the ropes of the bridge that connected her to her past, her now-empty promises, her memories of long-ago whose importance scorched away into nothing.  They didn’t matter to her anymore, and as she watched the bridge fall and burn away into ashes, she’s sure that it never will matter to her again.

Her eyes drift up to the obsidian sky once more, landing on a figure—wearing a stark-white mask with a poorly scribbled-on smile—sitting casually atop it.  Watching, as if it were a Saturday-morning television show.  Grinning, as if nothing else in the world could be more amusing.  Laughing, as if everything were just a game to him, and everything could be reset with the simple click of a button.

Niki grits her teeth, the fire of anger within her suddenly blazing into an inferno.

Dream.

What had happened to him?

Her sweet little duckling, one that she said she could never get mad at, had thrown a lit match straight into a sea of gasoline, and Niki just so happened to be sailing in the midst of it.

The fond memories that should fill her with sorrow at witnessing such a drastic change in her son only ignite white-hot fury, seizing her mind until all she can see is red.  She can’t remember the fuzzy sensation that would overtake her senses whenever she heard him laugh brightly at a joke that she or Puffy made.  She can’t remember the warmth that bloomed in her chest whenever he would cuddle up to her side and fall asleep ever-so-peacefully in her embrace.  She can’t remember the fondness that would bring a smile to her face whenever she saw him grin toothily at her from across the room.  Dream has long been thrown out of her heart, back into the harsh storm that she sheltered him from all those years ago.

And she hopes it stays that way.

No son of hers was going to be known as cruel, unforgiving, manipulative—everything that she raised and expected him not to be.

Niki takes a deep breath and spins around, not a single ounce of hesitance in her step as she walks away from the scene.  From the burning tree of what once was, from the large crater of her former home, from the man who looked identical to her son yet was completely different in every way imaginable.  

She pictures him in her head: scarred face obscured by the unbelievably aggravating smiling mask at all times; tousled, dirty-blond locks that were beginning to grow just past his shoulders; eyes that could pierce sharper than a poison-tipped arrow; and a malicious smile that she wanted to tear right off of his face whenever she saw it.  She compares it to the son that she loved way back when: freckled face with rounded cheeks; wavy, borderline-curly hair that he always begged to get braided by his mothers; eyes that were friendly and filled with a child-like wonder; and a big, impossibly contagious smile brightened her day whenever it came out to say ‘hello!’

Each note of a difference was just another coal tossed into the overheating furnace, and then and there is when Niki makes up her mind.

She wants that man—that stranger that killed her son, took his face, and replaced him—dead and gone.  To meet the same ill-fate that L’manburg met just moments before this one.  She doesn’t care how it happens; through the powers of nature, by the weapons of all the people that he crossed, or even by her own two hands if it came down to it.

A crack of thunder booms and echoes in her ears, a bolt of lightning striking nearby but steering clear of Niki’s path.

For even nature knows that a mother’s rage is a force to be reckoned with.

[noctuascion]

whispers minecraft bed part 2 minecraft bed part 2 minecraft bed part 2 minecraft bed part 2 minecraft bed part 2 mine cra-

The epic saga of the Minecraft bed. Mm yes I shall continue this work of art in the name of Crypto's cat!

--

Elliott didn't play video games too often. Some didn't interest him as much, and others he liked to play in small capacities (unless it's Animal Crossing; Park had to physically pull the console out of his hand to get him to stop when the game was decimating his sleep schedule). He occasionally played multiplayer games with his boyfriend, but he wasn't quite as good, so he was normally Park's honorary cheerleader or support.

That didn't mean Elliott didn't enjoy them, though, especially the calmer, more relaxing titles. His partner was also rather fond of the titles without high-action gameplay: simple music and graphics alongside mechanics that didn't require much thought. They preferred to play those ones just together, no annoying daredevils third-wheeling their good time in whatever team-based game they were playing.

For the moment, the two were once again in Minecraft, finishing up the large home they had been working on for awhile. It would've been done ages ago, but Park insisted he get to decorate it as well, and decorate he did. Still, Elliott didn't mind. The little log cabin they had stationed just a little while away was enough to keep their supplies in and let them rest when needed.

However, it was becoming nighttime, and Park was still up in the house, finishing up the chandelier (kid really liked getting creative in this game) with the glowstone he got ages ago and refused to use until now.

"Baaaabe," Elliott drawled, repeatedly opening and closing the door to their cabin; it was an obnoxious time-killer, one he hoped would annoy his boyfriend into returning to their cabin, "it's dark out. Monsters are gonna come and blow our shit up if you don't get in here and sleep."

"One second," Park responded without any real intention of stopping in a second. He was almost finished…

Elliott decided to move his character outside, looking around for any monsters that may spawn. Empty, like he was hoping. "You can literally finish it in the morning. It'll take, like, two seconds."

"No."

"Stubborn ass."

"You like this stubborn ass."

"Mm. I do, but that's my line, sugar." Elliott grabbed one of the Nessie plushes on Park's bed and launched it at the other, who immediately looked up from his screen, offended. "Now get your sweet ass in bed. If I get blown up by a Creeper, I swear—"

"We have lights outside," Park remedied, picking up the Nessie and placing it on his desk. "I don't think they'll spawn."

"Okay, Mr. 'Spiders won't attack you so long as you don't attack them.'"

"It was nighttime. They become hostile."

"You're full of shit."

"Am I?"

"Probably. Anyway, come in—AH!"

Park heard an explosion from Elliott's laptop, followed briefly by "Elliott was blown up by Creeper." Laughter broke out of him before he could stop it, a hand coming up to try and stifle it, but, for once, his laugh was loud and carefree, feeding off the misery currently shrouding Elliott.

The trickster respawned, staring dejectedly at the screen, before glaring at his laughing boyfriend. He went outside of their cabin (it was fortunate he was a little away from it, otherwise the Creeper would've taken half of the cabin alongside him), grabbed his items, went back inside, and began breaking his bed. They had just returned them to where they once stood, but he was unhappy with recent events and has decided that this calls for proper punishment.

"N-No, no, wait…!" Park gasped out, still trying to stifle his laughter to no avail. "I'm—I'm sorry…! P-Put your bed back—"

"You deserve this! The universe needs to be balanced."

"E-Elli—Elli, please!" Park pushed himself off of his chair, maneuvering around the objects in his room, before making his way over to his bed, where Elliott sat pouting, sitting down on the edge and gently placing his hand on his knee. "I'm not laughing at you—"

"Yes you are! Liar! Deceiver! I can never trust you again. It's been shattered, broken—frag—fr—fragmented by this betrayal in Minecraft!"

Just when the hacker's laughter calmed down, it started back up, and Elliott, although enamored by the beautiful sound, was too upset to sit down and admire it. All he desired was revenge, and he knew exactly how to get that.

Placing his laptop on Park's pillow, he reached out and grabbed the shaking hacker's hips. He was promptly shoved into the cushioning of his mattress, Elliott moving to sit atop his waist, before strong hands moved to gather up Park's to pin them to the bed. He only required one hand to keep both against the bed, having both a superior muscle mass and the other's continued laughing fit making it difficult for him to do just about anything, so one hand was free to snake down his left side, under his shirt, and dig into the sensitive skin there.

In a lot of areas, Park was surprisingly sensitive. However, after a lot of research, Elliott found out that his sides were especially so, and the knowledge was exploited without shame. It made Park laugh without the usual repression, trying to hide away that breathtaking grin and hide the cute little snort he did whenever he laughed without restraint. Honestly, it wasn't fair that he hid it so much, but whenever he got to see it was reward enough.

He could feel Park's legs kicking, trying to break free, muscles tensing and hands attempting to detach Elliott's hand from his own. His body was attempting to bend away from the offending hand at his side, but he had nowhere left to run, nowhere to hide. He could only lay back and let the mirth take over, laugh out his apologies and ask for forgiveness.

And he was damn lucky he was so cute, otherwise he would've continued on for another two minutes.

He showed mercy by lifting his hand from the other's side, listening to the laughter slowly die out. Elliott's own visage donned a smile of its own, Park huffing out breaths to catch his own, only for the trickster to lean down and press a kiss to his lips, leaning back just a bit to place his forehead against the other's.

"You're a little shit, you know that?" he said, nothing but affection dripping from his voice.

"I'm aware."

"That's all right, though. You're still cute."

"Am I? I thought my cat was cute."

"She's, like, the cutest, but you're also cute. You're like if bunnies knew martial arts."

"… A weird comparison, but thanks, I guess."

"No problem."

"… Can you get off of me?"

Elliott dropped the rest of his weight on the other, head now buried under Park's chin. He heard Park grunt and groan, likely having his little chicken bones crushed.

"No."

"You're like a grown dog that thinks it's a puppy."

"Can't hear you. Falling asleep."

"I hate you."

"Babe, you can tell me how much you love me later. I'm sleepy."

"I need to finish our mansion, moron."

"Later. Sit like this forever."

Park's eyes rolled, but his hands, now released, eventually found themselves running through Elliott's hair, playing with the curls and indulging in the silky sensation against his synthetic skin.

"You're insatiable sometimes."

"But you like indulging me, so it works out."

"… It does, I guess…"

[spicyfloaty]

Give & Take | Chapter 6

pairing: kacchako

genre: slowburn/fluff

words: 3.2k

summary: Ochako's grades are slipping. Bakugo is dangerously nearing suspension, or worse, expulsion. A certain twist of fate pairs them together for tutoring sessions. He teaches her math. She keeps him from getting suspended. A simple exchange, but what if this only brings them closer than necessary?

header credits: @alexbenedetto

[READ ON AO3]

Chapter Five

Chapter Six: Bakugo Drools In His Sleep 

Bakugo manages to show up for the next couple of sessions, all of them, thankfully. Ochako’s almost used to the routine of bickering with him for at least ten minutes before their actual sessions start, then to be followed by more bickering in between topics. As much as it was tempting to shove an entire pencil case down his throat whenever they would argue over the littlest of things Bakugo would deem worthy of being remotely upset about, such as times when she would forget to round up a decimal or factor a term, she can’t deny the fact that she was still learning nonetheless. 

Ochako had also grown accustomed to the close proximity they would consistently share, it didn’t look like Bakugo had any intention of finding another desk to use, let alone another pen. They were all so familiar to her now, though she must admit that there were still moments when she would need to exert a considerable amount of effort to force all thoughts pertaining to how close he was to the most hidden and secluded areas of her brain. Something she still has yet to get used to was Bakugo never failing to immediately take off the second her alarm goes off.

She had never needed to use his number during the last weeks and Bakugo had never needed to use hers. She’d know this since she has been checking her phone out of habit now just in case he does. It’s not like she wanted him to text her or something like that, she just didn’t want to miss anything important that could come up at any moment.

“You’re gonna end up spraining your wrist if you keep checking your phone every five seconds.” Kit points out, leaning against the counter. They were in the middle of a self-proclaimed break since there weren’t any new customers coming in the cafe during this time of the evening, this only gave Ochako more time to habitually check her phone for new text messages.

“Waiting for a text from your boyfriend?” Her coworker grins at her as if he’s caught her hand inside the cookie jar. 

She swiftly sets her phone face down the counter, she might have to check it for cracks later, “No! I mean--He’s not my boyfriend.” She sputters out, blushing from behind the counter.

Kit’s grin only grows a mile wider, “So there’s a he?” He presses. Ochako feels cornered against a wall, her face must have been giving all the stoplights in Japan a run for their money and it does not help her intentions of trying to convince Kit that this he wasn’t someone of importance.

“Well yeah,” She begins, but Kit’s eyebrows skyrocket through the roof, “but it’s not what you’re thinking!” She quickly adds.

Kit pushes himself off the counter and turns to face her with the full force of his skepticism, “Right.” he glances down at her phone, “So is there a reason why you’re waiting for this he to shoot you a text?”

Ochako only gives him the same answer that she gives herself whenever she asks the same thing, “I just...don’t want to miss anything important, that’s all.”

“I don’t know, ‘Chako,” he points at her face, “from the looks of it, you are missing something,” he smiles, “or someone.”

She shoots him a glare that fully conveyed the two words she had locked and loaded inside this look, Shut Up. Math wasn’t the only thing she had been learning from Bakugo and if she does it just right, she’d also be able to replicate the bone-chilling scowl that he pairs with it to complete the expression.

Kit holds both hands up in surrender, “Okay, okay, I’ll drop it, geez.” he concedes, “Since when did you give death glares?”

Since Bakugo Katsuki, that’s when, is what she would have said if she had wanted to continue this interrogation from her coworker, “I don’t know, I just naturally got better at it for some reason.” she observes, “How was it?”

“Terrifying.” Kit echoes out as he makes his way to the doors upon spotting a group of people beginning to approach the cafe, “Ready, ‘Chako?”

Ochako straightens herself up, promptly adjusting her cap while giving her phone one last glance, “Ready when you are, Kit.”

Kit cheerfully greets the group of newcomers, two girls from the lot giggle after he gleefully escorts them to their tables. Ochako discreetly chuckles at this, her coworker was conventionally attractive, yes, but she can’t help but think of him only as an older brother. Her crushing on Bakugo would be a more plausible scenario than her crushing on her coworker. She physically pauses from handing a customer their change the moment she realizes that she could have worded that comparison better, forcefully shoving the thought behind her head

Her shifts during the weekdays had always been the tougher ones since she had school immediately before. She had always been arriving to work late, bustling through the evening commute just to avoid passing the thirty minute grace period her boss had given her, but thanks to Aizawa’s schedule, she was being dismissed from class two hours early to give her more leeway time for her job and less of a workout/marathon whenever she rushed to the neighboring town.

Ochako was cleaning the countertop when she hears someone clear their throat, she looks up to see a woman smiling at her, “Hi,” she begins in a honeyed voice, “I was just wondering when I’ll be seated, I’ve been standing here for forever now.”

Her tight-lipped smile makes her stomach drop to her feet, she glances towards Kit’s direction and notices that he was busy serving two tables near the back. Her eyes flicker to the other tables and seeing as to how all those tables were occupied, she gulps.

“I’m sorry about that, ma’am.” Ochako says gently, “There aren’t any available seats yet, but I’m sure there’ll be one soon.” she gestures towards the exit, “You can sit at the waiting area outside in the meantime.” She offers her a sweet, apologetic smile, but the woman’s smile quickly twists into a frown.

“I’ve done enough waiting as it is and you’re gonna send me back out there to do that again?” She sneers.

Ochako had dealt with customers like these before but it doesn’t make it any easier whenever she gets lucky and encounters one again, “I’m really sorry, ma’am, but we had already reached our full capacity,” she tries to explain, “Would you like your order to go so you won’t have to wait any longer?” Her effort to make the situation better was ignored, the woman’s scowl deepens into a grimace.

“This is ridiculous! I want to be seated at a damn table!” She raises her voice just enough so that a few people seated at the front tables curiously look their way, “I’m not asking you to do the impossible here, young lady.”

You kind of are, she thinks to herself. Ochako can’t just make random seated patrons disappear into thin air just like that, she can’t exactly just make some of them go away either just to satisfy the impatient customer in front of her. She quickly scans the cafe once more, praying for a table to miraculously become available.

“Hello?” A hand snaps in front of her face, “Are you deaf? Or just dumb?”The woman icily asks.

Ochako would have snapped right then and there after that comment, but another thing she’s learned from her tutoring sessions with Bakugo was to know when to respond to a rude remark and when to just ignore it and keep a level head. She observes the lady one more time, noticing the business attire she had on. Maybe she’s just having a rough day at work, she assumes. The woman might also be tired and hungry, which would explain why she was having this kind of reaction over a mild inconvenience.

“There’s really nothing I can do about the seats, ma’am,” she begins, “but I can offer you a complimentary snack on the house while you wait for one?”

Ochako knew that the cafe doesn’t do complimentary snacks so this would come out of her own pocket if the lady were to accept her offer, but she brushes off the concern. She felt like it was the right thing to do.

The woman rolls her eyes, “Oh, save it for someone who cares, I’m gonna have to call your manag--”

“Sorry for the wait, ma’am, right this way to your table.” Kit arrives with semi-perfect timing, flashing the woman one of his million dollar smiles. She visibly blushes at the sight of him, but she is quick to compose herself as she follows him to the newly vacant table. Kit looks back at her and mouths Sorry about that, but she shakes her head and mouths a Thank you back at him.

A few busy hours go by and it was already the end of their shifts. Ochako let out a strained yawn as she stretched her arms behind her head, another day at work had left her bone tired as usual, but today had just sucked the soul out of her. She changes into her casual clothes, but leaves the top of her uniform on since she forgot to bring an extra shirt today.

“I’ll walk you to the station?” Kit offers as she exits the break room.

“Oh! You don’t have to.” She immediately declines, “I’ll be fine on my own.” It was pretty late at night so she understands that Kit just wanted to make sure she got home safely.

“Alright.” he smiles, “See you next week, ‘Chako”

She bids him goodbye as she made her way outside, the hum of jazz music inside the cafe now replaced with the myriad of bustling pedestrians and the chorus of cars huddled in traffic. Her legs were heavy, but they still managed to carry her all the way to the station. She would have slept through the entire train ride and missed her stop if it weren’t for the sweet old lady that tapped her on the shoulder to wake her up.

Ochako finally arrives at the dorms, her thoughts drifting to the soft embrace of her bed. She hobbles her way to the common room, but what she sees stops her dead on her tracks.

Bakugo’s sleeping figure is slumped over the table just in front of the couches, his back steadily rising and falling to the rhythm of his breathing. It was already past ten when she had returned, why wasn’t Bakugo sleeping in his room?

She approaches the couches with the intention of waking him up but she notices the open notebook beside his head, slightly covered by the explosive, blonde mess of his hair. She takes a closer look and the word Round Face catches her eye. Curiosity takes over and she takes a seat beside him, peering at the mysterious pages covered in Bakugo’s handwriting.

Her heart begins to race, eyes slowly widening at the realization that dawns on her as she reads its contents. They were notes. Notes on the things they went over during each session and the points she had gotten wrong. He had also taken note of the concepts she was having a hard time on, a list of sample questions and problems that he had most likely thought of by himself was scrawled beside them, some of them he had crossed over in thick, harsh lines.

She looked over to Bakugo in disbelief, he was still very much asleep. The warmth in her belly spreads to her chest and curves the corners of her mouth into a small smile, Oh, Bakugo. Ochako brings her attention back to the notebook and was about to flip to the next page when a hand grabs her wrist.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Bakugo hisses. She quickly turns to face him, his eyes were hazed by the sleep he was still coming out of, but his glare, even with only half of its power, still held the same flaming intensity.

“I was uh,” she struggles to explain herself. She spots a trail of drool on his cheek and in a moment of pure, utter stupidity she continues, “You have, um, something on your…” She points to his cheek.

His eyebrows knit together, using his free hand to touch his face. He must have felt it because he instantly lets go of her as though he had touched the surface of a burning kettle, briskly wiping his cheek with his sleeve, red tinting the tips of his ears.

He was probably in the middle of an insult when his gaze dropped to her shirt, “What’s that?” He asks pointedly. Ochako follows his line of sight, her eyes landing on the name tag still very much attached to her shirt. Crap, I forgot to take that off.

“Oh, this thing!” She blurts, hastily taking the pin off, “Gunhead started making us wear these now.” She laughs nervously, Bakugo still staring daggers into her soul. Before the silence gets too stretched out or before Bakugo could pick up where he left off with that insult, she tries to change the topic, “How about you, Bakugo? Have you been interning somewhere too?”

She hears the tiredness in her voice, her body was weighing heavier by the minute. Bakugo’s eyes dart away, “It’s none of your business.” He bites back.

Ochako internally sighs. She didn’t have the energy to fire something back at him and her patience tank had sadly already ran out of steam just from her shift at work today, “You know,” she starts, bringing both of her hands to her lap, “I was just trying to make conversation, but if you don’t want to talk to me, that’s fine.” She breathed out as she stood up from beside him.

Her quirk was no match for the gravity pulling her to the ground as the weight of the day grew heavier with every step she made her way towards the staircase.

“Jeanist.” A low, gruff voice says.

She pauses, turning around to face Bakugo. His eyes were focused on the walls, but she gives him an expectant look when they briefly meet hers.

“I worked with him for a while,” He continues, still refusing to look at her directly, “but he’s not taking any interns right now.”

“I see.” She replied. Ochako’s mind goes blank on what to say next.

“How did you end up in an agency like Gunhead’s ?” He suddenly asks, breaking the silence that she had failed to fill. She almost takes offense to this question, was he thinking that someone like Ochako would be too frail or girly to be associated with an agency like Gunhead’s.

Before she could give him a piece of her mind, he adds, “He’s not even in the top 10, you could do better than that.”

Ah, only Bakugo would consider hero rankings when choosing an agency to intern for.

Ochako walks a few steps closer to where he was still sitting, “You.”

A look of confusion instantly twists his face, “Huh?”

“I chose his agency because of you.” She repeats more clearly.

One of his eyebrows shoot upwards, “What the fuck did I do?” He asks as if she had just accused him of stealing the last of her savings.

She had forgotten that she had to be more specific when talking to Bakugo in particular, “Do you remember our fight last year during the sport’s festival?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t need any more words than that to prove it because the way his expression hardens, jaw tightening at the mention of the memory, already told her that he was telling the truth. He stares her down the same way he did in that arena, carefully studying her in anticipation of what she’ll do next.

“After that match,” she continued, “I realized the number of possibilities that could open up for me if I got stronger.” Ochako looks up at him with complete sincerity, “You helped me realize that.”

Bakugo’s gaze linger on hers for a few moments before grinning, “Guess you’re not as much of a dumbass as I thought, round face.”

She smiled at this, only he could make a compliment sound anything like an insult. Despite this, Ochako knew that this comment from Bakugo was worth more than most compliments combined.

“Even with all that training, I still did pretty bad at this year’s festival.” She jokes, looking back at the events that took place months ago. Compared to her first tournament, she had successfully made it past the first round, but only to be defeated minutes after the second one commenced.

“No you didn't.” Bakugo says flatly, his eyebrows could knit scarves with that puzzled look on his face.

Ochako challenges his confused expression with one of her own, “How would you know?”

“Because I watched you.”

This catches her off-guard for two reasons. One being the fact that for Bakugo, whatever he saw during that match was enough proof for him to say that she did well. The second reason being that she didn’t expect Bakugo to care about other people's matches unless he thought that the people fighting were people he found interesting enough to stay for.

“Too bad I didn’t get to beat your ass again.” He teases, crossing his legs as he leaned back into the couch.

Ochako’s hands prop on her hips, “Who says you beat my ass the first time around?” She fires back.

Bakugo scoffs, “Tell that to the medal, round face.”

“The one you refused to accept?” She grins, pleased with herself.

“Tch, whatever. I won that fucking match and your cocky ass knows it.” He barks.

It does, Ochako thinks to herself, “I almost got you though.” She points out. Sure, Bakugo won that fight, but he’s got to admit that her plan had almost won her that match. Not that she expected him to, though.

To her surprise, he mutters, “Yeah.”

Before she could stop herself from blurting out the next idea that popped inside her delusional, tired, brain, she spits it out, “How about a rematch, then?” She hoped that he wouldn’t take it seriously, but she knew better than to think that Bakugo won’t take anything seriously.

His chin tilts upwards, a calculating look masking his face, “You’re on.”

“But,” he lifts himself from the couch, taking a few steps until he was right in front of her, “You have to ace that exam first before I can even consider giving you that rematch.” Ochako remembers the upcoming exam they had for Ectoplasm’s class scheduled weeks from now, it was going to be focusing on the concepts she found the hardest to understand, but deep down she was confident that she’ll be fine once the time comes.

Bakugo walks past her, the sudden electricity from their arms brushing each other almost jolts her awake, “So you better not fail, dumbass.”

“How can I?” She calls out, “The great Bakugo Katsuki is tutoring me.”

“Tch, shut up.” He bites. He was already a few feet away from her, a few steps onto the staircase, when she hears the faint sound of his voice mutter, “Night, round face.”

Ochako smiles, somehow thinking that maybe today wasn’t so bad after all, “Good night, Bakugo.”