#or put him in situations that are totally absurd

[writing-for-life]

A Game of You—Shawn McManus

[abbotjack]

Honestly I think Shawn, a grown man, can stand up for himself lol

“He’s a grown man, he can stand up for himself.”

Right—but that response isn’t as neutral as you think. It’s a deflection. A way of shifting responsibility for boundary enforcement back onto the individual who’s been placed in an uncomfortable position, rather than asking why he was put there in the first place.

Because this isn’t about whether Shawn Hatosy—or Pedro Pascal, or any other man—can assert a boundary. It’s about how we’ve created a culture that expects them not to. It’s about how consent is routinely ignored, overwritten, or turned into a joke in public space—especially when it comes to men, especially when it’s dressed up as irony, “feminist thirst,” or progressive kink-positivity.

It’s about the refusal to admit that consent isn’t just about sex.

Consent is about presence. It’s about participation. It’s about emotional safety. And it’s about power.

And that matters in every context—including fandom, celebrity culture, and the increasingly blurred space between admiration and projection.

When you call a male celebrity “daddy” in the middle of an interview—on camera, unprompted, fully aware it’ll go viral—you’re not giving a harmless compliment. You’re placing him inside a sexualized, hierarchical, kink-coded role, and demanding a performance. You’re not inviting him into a shared dynamic. You’re building one around him and daring him to resist.

And that’s not just parasocial behavior. That’s coercion. Coercion dressed up in a clickbait blazer and a winking “teehee.”

And patriarchy? Patriarchy loves that. Because patriarchy has always taught us that men, especially older, stoic, men, aren’t allowed to have boundaries. That they should be flattered by sexual attention. That their discomfort is a flaw in the man, not a failure of the situation. That a man’s silence means yes.

So when a male celebrity tenses up or shifts uncomfortably after being called “daddy,” we don’t pause. We dismiss him. We say:

“Come on, it’s just a joke.”

“He’s hot. He can take it.”

“It’s part of the job.”

That’s not the language of consent. That’s the language of normalized entitlement.

Now compare that to when I commented on Shawn Hatosy’s TikTok and said he was “so babygirl-coded.” And he liked it.

Why? Because “babygirl,” as it functions in contemporary online fan culture, isn’t built on dominance or performance. It doesn’t demand control. It doesn’t assign erotic authority. It’s a term that signals affection, vulnerability, softness—a playful, sometimes absurd, often tender reverence for men who deviate from traditional masculinity.

That kind of language lives within fandom culture—inside our sandboxes. And when I call someone “babygirl-coded,” that person can ignore it, engage with it, scroll past, or opt in. There’s no pressure. It’s an aesthetic label, not a demand. So when Shawn likes that comment, he’s participating on his own terms. That’s what parasocial consent looks like: voluntary, pressure-free, and rooted in choice.

Now imagine if I had written, “You’re such a daddy. Ruin me.” Totally different tone. Totally different power dynamic. Even if he never saw it, I’d still be inserting a kink-coded script into a public space as if he had agreed to it. And if he had seen it and felt uncomfortable? The onus would fall on him to disengage quietly or laugh it off, because culturally, we’ve given men almost no tools to say “no” without backlash.

Feminist methodology asks better questions:

Whose comfort is protected?

Whose silence is treated as consent?

Whose body is seen as public property?

Whose boundaries get overwritten for the sake of the bit?

We know the answers. They’re gendered. And they’re broken.

When a man is called “daddy” during a press tour, he’s not being asked to play. He’s being expected to perform, sexually, powerfully, on command. And if he doesn’t? The consequences aren’t just social, they’re structural. He’s seen as less fun. Less marketable. Less valuable as content.

That isn’t just unfair. It’s anti-consensual.

As Sara Ahmed writes, to be the one who names a problem is so often to become the problem. The one who says “this feels off,” “this crosses a line,” or simply, “this makes me uncomfortable” is marked as difficult, humorless, or ungrateful. We see this dynamic unfold constantly with male celebrities—especially those who don’t laugh when called “daddy” in person, or who subtly resist being pulled into a sexualized performance they didn’t agree to.

When a man sets a boundary, even quietly, he disrupts the fantasy. And instead of asking what created the discomfort, the culture asks why he couldn't just go along. Because admitting that men can say no, that they’re allowed to feel uneasy, that they don’t exist for our projection, requires challenging the very entitlement fandom often runs on.

So let’s be clear: You can thirst. You can spiral. You can bark, cry, and post your little essays about his shoulders in peace. You can call him whatever in your sandbox corner of the internet.

But forcing someone into your kink-coded fantasy in person, without their consent, and then reacting negatively when they don’t play along, isn’t empowering. It’s not subversive. It’s just public boundary crossing, dressed up as flirtation.

It’s not “owning the gaze.” It’s replicating it—just with the roles reversed.

And reversing the roles isn’t the same as dismantling them.

Roles—no matter how ironic or reversed—are still roles. And assigning someone a role without their participation isn’t liberation. It’s just performance under pressure.

So yes, he’s a grown man.

And that’s exactly why his boundaries matter—especially because he’s not just a celebrity, but a real person, and a parent. Being called “daddy” in person, during a professional setting, isn’t just awkward—it’s an unsolicited invitation into a kink-coded dynamic he didn’t agree to. And when that man is a father in real life, the term becomes even more jarring, blurring roles in a way that’s neither funny nor flattering. His visibility shouldn’t come with the expectation that he absorb sexual projection or emotional labor just to keep the mood light. Silence is not consent. And feminist ethics, if we’re actually practicing them, demand more than clever thirst and role reversal. They require awareness, accountability, and respect for boundaries, no matter who you’re talking to or how attractive you think they are.

And if your only defense is “He can take it,” you’ve already admitted he might not want it, and decided you didn’t care.

That’s not fandom. That’s entitlement. Wrapped in a punchline and passed off as progressive. (referencing this interview)

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Miraculous vs The Power of Love

I've written several posts where I talked about Miraculous' poor use of the power of love trope and how that massively turned me off to canon. Three strikes and you're out! When this topic comes up I usually bring up Adrien and only Adrien. This has led to some anger at the fact that I didn't mention love failing anyone else as it absolutely has. I've also seen some anger over my desire for Adrien to defeat Gabriel's control and win the day since Adrien is a victim and that means that it's perfectly fine if he fails to beat his father's control no matter what the consequences of that failure are. After all, the failure isn't really on Adrien. It's on Gabriel. A sentiment I understand, but don't agree with since this is a writing blog. I'm discussing the message the writing is sending not which character gets the in-universe blame.

I'm not going to change how I discuss this topic since it is my honest opinion, but I can explain that opinion in depth to hopefully save us all from miscommunication! That's why I'm making this post! It addresses all of the above. I'll be linking to this whenever the topic comes up so that I can include some nuance without having to go into all of the detail I'm about to go into because - as you'll see - this is a long one which is why I don't go into this depth in other posts. It would just totally derail them. I'm also not going to go into the deconstruction aspect of things here because this is already really long, but I do have a post on that for even more nuance!

If you disagree with any of this, that's totally fine! I just ask that you keep the your counter arguments civil. Remember, we're talking about a badly written kids show that none of us have the power to change and the magical power of love isn't real so it doesn't actually matter if I'm right about this. Nor is Adrien going to thank you for coming to his aid. He doesn't exist and, as always, my issue is not him as a person. My issue is the way the narrative uses him as a storytelling tool.

What Is the Power of Love?

The power of love is a trope where either platonic or romantic love saves the hero from some type of conflict or upsetting situation. It's a rather broad trope that can be used in conflicts of any size, but even TV tropes acknowledges that it's primarily "applied in dire situations to make things better. In fact, in many Disney movies it's the solution to everything." That definition is how I approach the power of love.

To put it more bluntly, unless we're talking about a specific example, when I say "the power of love" I am thinking of a story's climax or, in the case of something like a multi-season show, one of the climaxes. More specifically, I'm thinking of the lyrics to one of my favorite cheesy pop songs:

There comes a time When you face the toughest of fights Searching for a sign Lost in the darkest of nights The wind blows so cold Standing alone Before the battle's begun But deep in your soul The future unfolds As bright as the rays of the sun You've got to believe In the power of love

If it's not the toughest of fights or the darkest of nights, then the power of love failing may disappoint me, but I don't consider it an unforgivable sin. In some cases, I'd even be disappointed if the power of love was brought in before the climax! The power of love is the ultimate cheesy move so it makes sense to save it for the last minute if using it earlier would lessen or even ruin that last minute epic save.

To show what I mean, let's talk about another trope that Miraculous has failed to use well, but that doesn't ruin the show for me. A trope that has led the show to do the exact thing we just discussed: ignore a small moment when love should have won to allow for a bigger win when all hope seems lost.

The Evil Clone Thing

[Image description: the Buzz and Woody meme with the words "Evil Clones. Evil Clones Everywhere"]

There have been an absurd number of episodes where the evil clone/evil twin trope came into play, but the three big ones are Ladybug, Optigami, and the season four final. In each of these episodes, we see a good character replaced by an identical evil version. We also see the good character's love interest fail to recognize that their crush/romantic partner has been replaced. That means that all three of these episodes see the power of romantic love failing. We also don't see a more platonic version of love show up to save the day.

The worst of these episode is the season four final where Marinette doesn't recognize that Felix has taken Adrien's place. That deception is how Gabriel steals the miraculous so it's obviously a pretty big deal and can be argued as a major fail for the power of love. I don't disagree. I think that Marinette's love should have let her see through the lies and dislike that the writers took this route to make her lose. However, I don't have this on my list of moments when the power of love needed to win for the story to work.

While Marinette failing to recognize Felix leads to her darkest hour, it does not happen in her darkest hour. Her darkest hour comes when she actually loses the miraculous which happens in a completely different scene from the one where she's deceived. It's also worth noting that Felix is not present in this moment of loss so there was no opportunity for the power of love to pull off a last minute win.

The loss of the miraculous leads to a scene where Ladybug is sitting alone in the rain, ready to give up all hope. And what happens next?

[Image description: Chat Noir standing in the rain, smiling, holding out his hand to Ladybug]

Chat Noir shows up to reignite Ladybug's will to fight via his love and support. She takes his hand, he draws her into a hug, and they stand together as one, ready to once again face their enemy:

Cat Noir: We're gonna get them back one by one…until the very last. And we'll make sure this never happens again. Ladybug: You...and me? Cat Noir: You, the best superhero there ever was... and me, your loyal partner.

A lot of people love this scene and it led to some major hype for season five which means that it's time to quote some more of that cheesy song that I brought up at the start:

Stand by my side There's nothing to hide Together we'll fight to the end Take hold of my hand And you'll understand What it truly means to be friends You've got to believe (you've got to believe) In the power of love

While I don't love the season four final, it is a B-tier execution of the thing I was talking about earlier. Canon let love fail in a small moment to increase tension and give Ladybug a "darkest night" moment. That darkest night moment then led to a semi-epic power-of-love comeback that understandably got a lot of fans super excited for season five because they assumed that it was going to be the season of Ladynoir. In other words, for a lot of fans, the power of love did its job in the season four final!

All of this is why I don't bring up Marinette when I talk about the power of love failing. It does fail her, but not in her darkest nights and toughest fights. Any time she's overwhelmed and ready to give up all hope, someone comes along to give her the will to fight on. That person is usually Chat Noir because he's her end game love interest so of course the writers use him! His "you and me against the world" moments may not be the most epic example of the power of love winning, but they are the power of love winning, so saying that the power of love fails Marinette feels like an overstatement of harm. She's never had a total loss.

The closest we get to Marinette truly losing is the season five final. That episode feels like an ultimate-level failure to many of us, on par with Ephemeral, but the writers clearly don't agree. For them, season five had a happy ending which makes critiquing that final fight tricky. I'll be arguing that Adrien lost hard in the next section, but I can't say the same for Marinette and this section is about her so let's focus on that for now.

No matter how much I hate the final, I can't look at the picture below this paragraph and argue that love failed Marinette because what did losing cost her? This isn't the season four final where she genuinely suffered. This is her getting everything she's ever wanted! The miraculous are back in her hands, she won the heart of the boy she loves, and no one is actively messing with her love life anymore. That's a pretty solid win even if she didn't win the actual fight.

[Image description: Adrien and Marinette at the end of the season five final, kissing in the spot that used to house Emilie's statue.]

This is further complicated by the fact that - as written - the season five final doesn't put Marinette in a position to use the power of love. She's never given a chance to save Adrien or even just talk to him. She doesn't know that's he's in trouble, locked up in a padded cell, suffering all alone! And Adrien's love can't rally her in her darkest moment when all hope seems lost because - for the first time ever in a season final - she never got one of those! She was a badass in the final fight! No pep talk or supportive teammates necessary! She would have had a total victory if the writers hasn't made her try to talk sense to the villain or sent her Adrien's ring just so Gabriel could make the wish, further adding to the problem of this show's absolutely vile messaging around love.

In other words, lack of love isn't why Marinette loses the final fight. She loses because the writers wanted love to empower Gabriel in his darkest moment, a move the writers have the audacity to call a mutual victory. (Gross. Abusive terrorist should not get power of love moments without a massive redemption arc first. It's yet another insult to the trope. Gabriel did not deserve peace while his son goes on to suffer.)

If you think about the episodes Ladybug and Optigami you'll notice a similar problem. The power of love failed to let Chat Noir and Alya recognize that their romantic interests had been replaced, but that failure didn't lead to their ultimate defeat. It didn't even lead the villains to a minor victory! Both episodes maintain the status quo.

This doesn't mean that I like those episodes. I would rewrite both of them to let love win because they're good examples of small moments where love can win without cheapening or ruining the season's big climax. I just don't view these episodes as times when the show needed to use the power of love if it wanted to honor its chosen genre. That requirement only applies when it's a darkest night or toughest fight.

Before we move on, please note that Ladybug was the power of Adrien's love failing, yet I never mention it when I'm complaining about the power of love failing. That's because I'm never purposefully listing every time Adrien's love failed and ignoring everyone else. I'm simply listing the moments when love needed to let the heroes win because we were in one of the show's darkest hours and that is the only time when I consider the power of love a true requirement. Love can fail in small moments to increase the tension, but if love fails at the moment when all hope seems lost, then why are we even here?

There are only three episodes that get that level of criticism from me and each one had a single character whose writing infuriated me: Adrien.

Adrien vs The Power of Love

There are three episodes where Gabriel's identity is revealed and the final fight goes down. Those episodes are Chat Blanc, Ephemeral, and the season five final. In each of these episodes, Adrien suffers on a scale that no other character has had to suffer:

In Chat Blanc he is akumatized and forced to use his cataclysm to kill both his father and the love of his life, dooming him to spend eternity alone in a dead word.

In Ephemeral he is akumatized and forced to use his powers to hand the love of his life over to his father, thereby allowing Gabriel to win and rewrite reality.

In the season five final, Adrien is left alone in a jail cell, tormented by nightmares while his father dies leaving Adrien an orphan. Adrien is then told some truly colossal lies about what actually happened, leading him to believe that Gabriel scarified himself to save Ladybug's life. Since Chat Noir's usual role in fights is protecting Ladybug, this is arguably the equivalent of Adrien being told that his failure to show up killed his father. I'm not even sure if that's the wrong message because Gabriel did die from a cataclysm and Adrien would understandably blame himself for that, too, so maybe this was a way to address that without going too dark for kids and why does that argument hold water? Wtf was this trash fire of a story line???

When you compare Adrien's treatment in these episodes to something like Marinette's treatment in season four final you can hopefully see why it feels like comparing a broken arm to a mortal blow. It's not that Marinette doesn't suffer. In terms of individual moments of suffering, Marinette beats out every other character! But while she may beat Adrien in breadth, he is the clear winner in terms of depth and the only one who never gets a true power of love moment.

Marinette's darkest nights and toughest fights ultimately work out so that she can go on to some new type of suffering, the old suffering fading away to nothing more than memory. Adrien's darkest nights and toughest fights lead to loss and suffering for which there is no cure other than rewinding time or rewriting reality. The season five final even has Adrien directly state that he's not worthy of Marinette's love:

Adrien: I'm not in my right mind. I'm too angry — at myself for falling short of Marinette's love, at my father for sending me here in London, at this stupid app and these rings that use my image... it makes me sick! This nightmare is giving me the horrible feeling that, if I transform, I'll get akumatized and destroy everything with my Cataclysm — Marinette, Ladybug... (Takes off the ring and hands it to Plagg.) Plagg: Surely Ladybug can help you. Adrien: If I ask her for help, I'd have to give her information that would jeopardize my secret identity... and I can't.

This is literally Adrien's last scene in the main story line. He doesn't show up again until the happily ever after epilogue where he and Marinette kiss. In other words, the show had Adrien directly state that he's unworthy of Marinette's love and then did nothing to counter that statement. I guess this poor unfortunate soul is just lucky that Marinette likes him enough to keep him around in spite of his many failings...

Writers, seriously, what the hell are you doing? This is the kind of dialogue that should lead into a power of love moment! How is thinking about Marinette leading Adrien to despair instead of strength? Why is Plagg just accepting this? Plagg is a magical being who was assigned to watch over Adrien. Shouldn't a character like that help Adrien rally in his darkest night? Where's Adrien's you and me against the world pep talk? That should go both ways!!! Have him break out, call Ladybug to tell her that he's not coming, only for her to rally him so he comes and at least fights outside in the city while she does her solo fight! Don't leave him alone to rot while almost every other character in the freaking show gets to fight!

It would be one thing if Adrien gave up because he was alone and scared, but Plagg is there and the writers directly bring up Marinette and love only to do nothing to show those as positive forces in Adrien's life!!! Instead, Marinette is the thing that keeps him from the fight because Adrien's nightmare is him getting akumatized and killing Marinette even though Adrien knows nothing about Chat Blanc.

[Image description: Adrien's nightmare where he's a blue haired version of Chat Blanc, holding Marinette's body in his arms having killed her with a cataclysm]

To be clear, in each of the three episodes I listed above, Adrien is undeniably a victim suffering at the hands of his main abuser. They're also some of the worst moments of abuse in the entire show. It would be perfectly reasonable for a real life person to give into despair if they were put into this situation, but real life people don't transform into magical cat boys who wield the raw power of Destruction. I was not looking for realism here. I was looking for hope and inspiration!

I wanted to see Adrien win! I wanted his love for Marinette and/or his friends to give him the strength to overpower his father's control because that's what the power of love is all about! When all hope seems lost, it's there to let the hero win because love is stronger than despair, hatred, fear, and magical remote controls! It is the bright light that blasts away the darkness in your darkest night! Unless your name is Adrien Agreste, then no love for you! Suffer, feather boy, suffer!

Example of what I wanted from canon

There are many ways to fix these three episodes so love wins, but to keep this simple let's focus on Chat Blanc and what the power of love winning might look like if we let canon play unchanged up until the moment where Adrien loses control of his powers:

Hawk Moth: Cat Blanc, I'm giving you the infinite power of destruction!! Together, you and I will seize Ladybug's Miraculous and awaken your mother!!! Obey!!! Cat Noir: (tries to fight back but fails) I'm sorry, Ladybug! (He succumbs his akumatization and transforms into Cat Blanc. Ladybug watches in horror at his transformation.) Hawk Moth: Seize her Miraculous, My Son!!! (Cat Blanc lifts his right arm to Ladybug, activating Mega Cataclysm.) Ladybug: No, Adrien! You have to resist!! (Cat Blanc whimpers as he changes his mind and points his arm to Hawk Moth.) Hawk Moth: How dare you!? Not me, Adrien!! Cat Blanc: (whimpering while looking to both of them) I... I don't know what to do!!!!!!

Instead of having the mega cataclysm go off here, we instead see this: Ladybug and Hawk Moth both realize that Chat Blanc is incapable of listening to either of them. Hawk Moth's reaction is to turn and run away, desperate to save himself. Ladybug's reaction is to run to her boyfriend's side, not caring about the danger. She wraps her arms around him, closes her eyes, and tells him that it's okay. That she's here and she loves him and she'll stay here and love him no matter what. It doesn't matter who his father is, it's still him and her against the world now and forever.

The more she talks, the weaker the mega cataclysm grows. By the time she makes her final vow, the mega cataclysm is little more than a flickering glow. A black clad hand touches both of her hair ties, disintegrating them, leaving her hair to fall free around her face since that was a thing in this episode. The minor wardrobe change makes her pull back and look at her boyfriend to see that he's back to Chat Noir, a purified akumas fluttering off in the distance. Chat Noir is crying, clearly distraught, but he's himself again because Marinette's presence allowed him to focus on her love over his father's poison. They won. Love won. Fear and abuse lost.

The couple embraces. Hawk Moth's big gambit failed and they now know his identity so the fight is almost over. Paris will soon be free.

From there you can have an epic battle with the temp holders where the butterfly and the peacock are recovered. Nino gets to punch Gabriel in the face a dozen times or so as a treat and Adrien gets to cuddle up with some treats, sitting the fight out since he's already done his part by surviving the reveal of his father's identity.

You could also have Gabriel just give up because he doesn't have any moves left and the full implications of what he did are smacking him in the face, sapping him of the will to fight. Anything that lets this asshole suffer is fine by me! Emilie's fate is up to you. I like to make her at least semi-decent and revive her to give Adrien a happier ending and Gabriel the horror of divorce papers, but that's just me.

Final Thoughts

As I said at the top, I'm going to continue to complain about the way that Adrien was written in these episodes. I don't consider his victim status a reasonable excuse for the way these episodes played out. If anything, his victim status is an even bigger black mark against the writing!

I come to family-oriented media for hope and happy endings! I want stories about victims being empowered! I want Gabriel's controlling nature to totally backfire on him and not in a mutually-assured-destruction way like we saw in Chat Blanc. I want Gabriel's choice to cost him everything and for him to suffer that loss for the rest of his life while Adrien gets endless love and support, allowing him to survive the reveal and go on to live a happy life. If that's not what you're selling, then I'm not buying thus me giving up on canon after the season five final. There's just no coming back from that kind of colossal writing failure.

I will try to remember to use the word "forced" when describing the problems (as in "forced to kill"), but that's the only thing I can change while still sharing my honest opinion since my main problem with these episodes isn't Gabriel's treatment of Adrien. While I don't like how far these episodes took Gabriel, you don't need to rewrite him to make the episodes work. It doesn't matter how far the writing takes Gabriel, he should never be able to successfully manipulate Adrien while threatening Adrien's supposed True Love.

As soon as Adrien knows that Marinette/Ladybug is in danger, it should be game over for Gabriel because love is supposed to be stronger than all of the awful things that Gabriel has done up to and including the sentimonster crap. In fact, the sentimonster crap just makes it even more important for Adrien to win! Gabriel should think he has victory in the bag because he views Adrien as a perfect doll, but love proves Gabriel wrong letting Adrien overpower his amok and win. The trope is called "love conquers all" not "love conquers the mildly inconvenient." The more dire the straits, the more important the win!

Unfortunately, that's not the message Miraculous is sending. By letting Adrien give into his father's control in the show's darkest hours, the message is that Gabriel's control is stronger than love. That Adrien will never be free. That he was Gabriel's perfect doll and you were silly if you ever expected him to be more than that. That's not a message that I'm that ever going to agree with and is yet another reason why I only bring up Adrien + these three episodes when I talk about the power of love failing.

You are never going to convince me that Adrien being allowed to give into despair was a good thing unless you pair that argument with some major changes to canon like love square not being together and/or Adrien not knowing that his actions would endanger Marinette. Even then you need to design that fix in a way that ultimately allows Adrien to win otherwise you are sending a terrible message to the audience. There should never be a scenario where the final battle ends the way canon had it end.

Gabriel is the show's big bad, Adrien is his main victim, and the theme of their relationship has been control. That means that, when it comes to the final fight with Gabriel, Adrien needs to be involved in a way that gives him agency. I'm not saying he needs to fight his father on his own or even at all! I'm okay with him sitting out the fight so long as you pair it with something big like Adrien being the one to learn Gabriel's identity or something more dramatic like my simple Chat Blanc fix.

However, Adrien sitting out only works if it's his own, freely-made choice. As soon as you pair it with something like magic nightmare dust you are once again sending the message that Gabriel's control is the strongest force in Adrien's life. I truly don't understand how anyone can embrace that message and call it good, especially when canon didn't ultimately do something positive with it like letting Adrien become stronger as time went on. He actually got weaker as the show went on!

Chat Blanc saw everyone lose because Adrien was able to at least try to fight back, denying his father total victory. Ephemeral saw none of that fighting spirit and Gabriel just outright won. Season five once again saw Gabriel win only, this time, the show didn't even let Adrien be part of the fight. What an uplifting character arc for Adrien! (That was sarcasm.) Play the episodes in reverse order and you might actually have something if you add a fourth one where he finally wins!

If you want to talk about more minor conflicts where the power of love should have won then I'm happy to do that! Canon has lots of options to pick from! But unless you specify that you want to talk about something minor, these three episodes are going to be my only examples of the power of love failing because they are the only times when love completely failed the character in question. Total loss, no silver lining, writers wtf are you doing?

Listing times when love failed Marinette or Alya in the same list as these three episodes just feels insulting to Adrien unless the context is something like a list ranking the failures from smallest to largest. I'll once again point out that I don't even list the other times when love failed Adrien because my issue isn't Adrien as a person. My issue is Adrien as a tool of the narrative and the asinine message that the Agreste arc sends to the young children this show is aimed at. I wouldn't even be okay with this in a show aimed at adults unless it was clearly marketed as a grimdark take on superheroes. Miraculous should not feel like a kiddiefied version of The Boys and yet here we are.

Why was Adrien granted magical powers and allowed to fight his controlling father for five seasons if Gabriel was just going to die without Adrien getting a decisive victory? Why focus season five on Gabriel controlling Adrien to such an extreme if Adrien was never going to be allowed to break free? Why make Adrien the main love interest and focus the entire show on romantic love if you don't have anything positive to say about romantic love? Why bother getting the love square together before every single final showdown in the freaking show if their relationship status was going to mean nothing? Where is my power of love always so strong?

(Btw, that song I kept quoting is from the original English dub soundtrack to Sailor Moon R - The Promise of the Rose. It plays as love and friendship save the planet Earth from an asteroid. The updated dub replaced the song with the original Japanese soundtrack and the comments are full of people complaining about the change because the song just takes this scene to the next level! I bring this up because Sailor Moon set many people's standards for the magical girl team show genre that Miraculous is clearly taking inspiration from, but failing to fully embrace. If you don't want love and friendship to be on par with nuclear weapons and asteroid attacks, then don't write a show about love and magic aimed at kids.)

[thekingbananas]

WE DON'T HAVE ANYTHING TO WORRY ABOUT (JAX X READER)

art by @/grape-souffle

Warning(s): Bad Writing, Fem!Reader

Summary. One of Caine's adventures leaves Jax and Reader alone in a field of mystical flowers. Each one has a chance of puffing a cloud of pollen at them, the effects are totally and completely randomized for each flower.

Tags. Sex Pollen, Desperation, Dry Humping, Grinding, Praise Kink, Jax is bad at feelings, Soft Jax, Flowers, Vaginal Sex, Dacryphilia, 'This came to me in a vision', Smut, Shameless Smut, One Shot, Begging, Whining, Whining/Whimpering Jax, Minor Overstimulation

Words. 1,754

Crossposted on AO3

“God, this is so stupid,” Jax groaned, holding an empty basket while he stood slumped over in a field of flowers, trees surrounding him with you alongside him. You also seemed pretty annoyed about it, glancing over at Jax every once in a while.

Jax had always been someone you’d had mixed feelings for. on one hand, he was incredibly fucking annoying and a total douche. On the other; it made your heart flutter whenever he spoke to you directly and especially whe he’d mess and tease you.

You had often found yourself grinding against your pilling as his name escaped your lips in low, whispered, whimpers. However you weren’t an idiot, he wasn’t like that and you didn’t want to even give yourself the slightest hope that he was, so those kinds of fantasies stayed for your lights out, horny-self.

The current situation at hand was a result of Caines most recent adventure. It’s pretty basic; get the crown that grants you one wish. Except for the fact that the adventure has been divided into multiple, unnecessary, tedious tasks.

The two of you had been tasked with finding the ‘3 mystical flowers’, from a huge field of other flowers. Apparently, each and every single flower has a chance at puffing dust at you, and if you inhaled said dust there would be various, unique effects.

The NPC of this adventure had been uncomfortably and annoyingly vague about the effects of these flowers. “Anything’s possible,” she had said, “not even I know the full extent of their capabilities!”

Which, to you, sounds like Caine just coded ‘anything’ and fucked off; but hey, who were you to judge?

“The hell are they even supposed to look like? All these flowers look mystical to me,” Jax scoffed kneeling down to look at the nearest one, a glowing orange flower, pulsing as if it was alive.

“Jax, uh, maybe don’t get so close to it?” You said, taking a cautious step back.

“What, you scared?” He mocked, pointing his finger into the center of the flower, “we don’t have anything to worry about. Caine wouldn’t have put anything that baaa—”

Just as he was nearing the end of his sentence, the flower puffed a huge cloud directly into his face. And, despite your best efforts,  the cloud expanded so quickly it had reached you too.

“Jax!” You nearly shrieked in reaction.

For a moment, he looked genuinely startled; his face frozen and his eyes wide in shock, however he quickly put back on his smug persona and turned to look up at you, “you’re so dramatic, I don’t even feel anything,” he said with a huge grin.

“Urgh!” You groaned out loud clenching your fists, “you are unbelievable!”

-------

You barely remember blinking, but whatever the case—whatever happened, your entire body is feeling hot, flaming even. The amount of arousal building in your lower abdomen at the moment feels disgustingly absurd, and you couldn’t tell if you sitting atop Jax’s crotch and grinding as incessantly as you were was helping at all as he laid with his back against the grass.

You could feel tears building up in the corners of your eyes with how desperate you were getting and you were finally starting to figure out that no, it definitely wasn’t helping.

All it was doing was deepening the sudden arousal, the sudden need to fuck by giving you more to be aroused about. And yet, neither of you could bring yourselves to stop.

Jax certainly couldn’t, way too lost in the sensation of you grinding against him, each grind you both let out a whine, a whimper or a gasp and it’d be impossible to say it wasn’t sexy as hell to hear him making those noises.

“F…fuck,” he grunted lifted his hands up to your hips; eagerly pushing your body harder against him, rocking his hips up and against you with a whine, “god, no—no, this isn’t--,” Jax was struggling to get any words out, his hips consistently drawing out new and louder noises from you, “please, take off your pants,” he pleas, letting go of your hips; yet his rocking never stopped, or falter.

You whined in response, knowing you had to, but just the idea of stopping the friction felt painful to your core.

A frustrated sob escaped your throat. As soon as Jax heard it, he without hesitation reached his arms up, pulling your upper body down onto him before swiftly rolling over, shifting positions to where you’d be below him.

His grip on you shifted to your waistband, and he both hastily and desperately pulled your pants down, doing the same with his overalls. You didn’t even get a chance to look down at his length, you were panting so hard, it felt near impossible to get any air with the heat you were feeling.

All you could do was stare up into the sky, your vision blurry.

Jax held onto your thighs, spreading your legs apart as he readjusted himself between your legs. Each and every single touch from him felt almost electric, like a spark of arousal would shoot through you with each one.

You could feel his tip pressing against your wet and desperate hole, “I’m gonna put—”

Cutting him off before he could finish that sentence, “please” you whimpered out.

With that he immediately thrust himself into you, nearly trembling with the sensation, you both gasped, and your whimpers became more insistent the deeper he went.

His arms slammed down to the sides of your head, desperately trying to balance himself as the gradually got faster with his thrusts, “fuck, you look too pretty like this,” he grunted out, your whines completely nonsensical at this point.

Your hands reached up to his forearms, holding onto them tightly as he slammed into you faster—harder, even. Apart of him reeled at the sight of tears forming and beginning to stream down your face.

The slams of his hips against you was becoming too much for you to handle, and while it was definitely helping more than dry-humping had, it still made you need so much more.

It felt like he was nearly splitting you in two, even with absolutely no resistance between your two bodies whatsoever. And yet, in this moment you couldn’t care.

In a regular situation, you’d beg whoever you were with to slow down, take it easy, tell them they were going too hard; but this wasn’t a regular situation. You needed this, you both needed this. It felt way too fucking good to even think about stopping.

Your walls fluttered around him as you could finally feel flickers of your orgasm approaching.

“Angelface, I’m close—I’m so close,” he whined out as soon as he felt you flutter around him so beautifully, he started pounding you into the grass, his attention fixated on where your two bodys connected, watching the mix of fluids and listening to the erotic noises it made.

Jax’s pace stuttered once, and then again, until his thrusts were not at all rhythmic, yet his force remained the same.

“Jax, you feel so good inside of me,” you panted out and it seemed just those words were enough to finish him off as with one final slam you could feel him tremble inside you as his eyes squeezed shut with a groan.

He quickly opened his eyes and looked down at you, your hips still rocking aimlessly with him inside you, unmoving.

For a moment he stared at your body, mesmerized until he took a deep gulp and used one of his hands to reach of yours, guiding it down to your clit, “I need you to touch yourself,” and with a whine began to continue fucking you with the same force, the pace of his thrusts unpredictable as he winced, and whimpered above you.

You immediately listened, using the mixture of fluids from both your bodies as lube, as you pressed down and circled your clit the feeling of him pumping into you at such a speed paired with you teasing your clit was far too much.

Within seconds you could feel your orgasm building, your body still felt hot, and you were sweating beneath him, “please, ah--,” you whined beneath him, each and every single thrust of his being punctuated with one of your moans.

“Keep going doll,” he praised, “keep touching yourself,” Jax leaned down closer to your face, “cum for me, please,” his voice was strained, he was probably overstimulated by the sensation of you still wrapped so tightly around him, “f-fuck.”

You were so fucking desperate; you would’ve given anything in that moment to rid the feeling of unbearable heat—the feeling of unbearable horniness that was filling your senses right now.

Continuously getting closer and closer, your body was literally shuddering with every thrust of his, the look he was giving you was downright sinful until you finally came.

Your body exploded with shock waves, it was absolutely the hardest you had ever came in your entire life, the sensation of it lingering for far longer than it probably should. And you again let out sputter whines and whimpers.

Jax finally pulled out with a groan, his dick evidently softer than when you had started. He pulled his overalls back on and rolled over to the side, laying beside you his chest heaving, “I’m feeling a bit better,” he flatly.

As you came down from your high, your hole still clenching, feeling extremely empty from the inside.

Jax sat up to look down at you, his gaze fixating on your abused pussy, enjoying the sight of mixed fluids causing it to listen and he muttered to himself, “that’s kind of cute,” very flatly.

You were finally feeling better, your body wasn’t feeling like an overheated CPU and you could take proper, deep breaths again. Finally you were given a moment to process what had just happened, and you felt your heart rate spike for a completely different reason this time.

You just fucked Jax. For real this time. Not some silly fantasy you made up in the dead of ‘night’. It was real. You were still half naked beneath his gaze.

“We—We don’t have to talk about this ever again, okay?” You stammered out quickly, sitting up and placing your hands beneath your thighs suddenly feeling incredibly exposed.

“You crazy?” He said with his typical grin on his face before turning to the flower again, “want me to touch it again?”

[sluttywonwoo]

u should write something abt dom wonwoo having to stop to clean your squirt off his glasses, imagine if you laughed at him

it happens too fast. you don’t even recognize the feeling creeping up on you until it’s already too late. one second your boyfriend is tongue-fucking your cunt, the next, you’re squirting all over his face.

you gasp in horror and cover your mouth with your hands as wonwoo raises his head from between your legs.

“oh, my god, i’m so sorry!”

he wipes his dripping mouth with the back of his hand and shrugs. “happens.”

happens? what the hell does that mean?

you can’t tell what he’s thinking. did he think it was hot, or was he totally grossed out? he’s never not liked it before but he’s being uncharacteristically quiet.

you’re usually pretty good at reading your boyfriend but for whatever reason you can’t right now.

it takes a second before you realize it’s because you can’t see his eyes. his glasses, just like the rest of his face, are covered in… you and the droplets of moisture on the lenses have obscured what’s behind them.

the whole situation is so absurd that you can’t help but laugh a little, still trying to hide your expression with your hands.

wonwoo takes his glasses off, finally, and wipes them on the t-shirt he’d taken off and thrown aside a few minutes earlier before putting them back on. he’d have to clean them for real later.

“are you laughing at me?” he asks, voice even.

you freeze. “…no?”

he tongues his cheek as he looks down at you, cocking his head to the side as if he’s deciding what to do with you.

“i make you cum and you pay me back by laughing in my face?”

“i-i’m sorry, wonwoo…”

“and then lying to me about it?”

you gulp. this couldn’t end well for you.

“i’m sorry,” you repeat.

wonwoo hooks his arms under your knees and yanks you down the mattress to be flush with his hips.

“i don’t think you are sorry,” he sneers, teasing your sensitive clit with the head of his cock, “but you will be.”

[muletia]

i love the idea that the only thing you and the rest of the decepticons are on the same page about is how "wtf" you are about how megatron is acting.

like, you don't want to be here. they don't want you to be here. after the tenth time it's started to get exhausting for all of you but like what can you do about it? pretty much nothing.

it's not enough for a friendship, but at least there's something reassuring, on both of your ends, about the fact that you're as put off by it as each other.

this is the only moment you can truly relate to the decepticons. sure, you’ve got megatron wrapped around your finger, but that doesn’t mean you can fully control him. he lets you get away with a lot, and your defiance goes unpunished, but at the end of the day, you’re still just a human—you can’t defend yourself. you can’t stop the next kidnapping, which, yes, becomes incredibly annoying and exhausting over time.

maybe one day a certain vehicon got brave—or was just a plain fool—and pointed out to his master how absurd the whole situation is, saying that kidnapping a human contributes absolutely nothing to their cause and doesn’t help them achieve the goals they’re fighting so fiercely for. it’s no surprise that vehicon was killed on the spot, and since then, no one speaks publicly about you, not even in a fake positive light. but i can totally see vehicons and higher-ranked bots like knockout and breakdown gossiping about you and megatron in the medbay.

i can absolutely picture moments where some decepticon soldier is assigned to abduct you, and on the way to the nemesis, you temporarily bury the hatchet and roast megatron with the most outrageous insults you can come up with. it kind of humanizes the vehicons in your eyes and broadens your perspective on them. not that you plan to get too friendly with them, but those quiet moments before megatron starts his usual nonsense, ranting about you becoming his queen, are really important to you because they help settle the disrupted harmony of your life. they are the quiet before the storm...

[werezmastarbucks]

we've been thinking about kanazawa

yoongi x reader oneshot (pls don't ask for chapter 2, it was an improv because i was in a hospital yesterday due to my old age back pain)

summary: Yoongi is hard to pin down. You do it with kindness, laughter, maturity and a Filthy Frank t-shirt.

word count: 3568

warnings: i know nothing about the city but my bestie is going to Japan soon so i got inspired. yoongi's pov 100%

music: afraid to forget by hammock

When Yoongi wants to be alone, he wants to be absolutely, totally alone.

He wants to pretend to be someone else; not out of hatred for any aspect of his life, but out of curiosity. He wonders what it feels like to be a seagull sitting on a wire and watching the Little Kyoto change day and night.

When he meets you during his short and intentionally lonesome holiday, he finds his settled design - unsettled.

It is perhaps the most daring thing he does in a great while: he approaches someone on the street. He doesn't do "meeting new people". People are a mass around him, every day, with only a few discernible faces that he wants in constant rotation; he has learnt to filter them otherwise. But when he's on incognito holiday, he switches that function off, and starts seeing humans clearer, like they are warm. Like they are reachable. Like he can afford it.

He doesn't want to approach at first; he doesn't do that. It takes all the nerves pulling him in his feet to do it at last. Something about the way you put your hands on your hips with empty anger. Something about the way your hair is put back with a huge neon-green claw non-neatly. Something about the way you dressed. The way your face expresses the sincere struggle between frustration and genuine kindness. Yoongi likes kind people, he only gravitates towards kind people, and he himself is among kind people. He has experienced enough spite to get tired of the unkind ones. It's kindness, and the total lack of stiffness that radiates from you, that makes his hand pull down his face mask and put his palm on top of his head, adjusting the hood.

He approaches, wondering sharply whether he is about to step into absurd comedy territory, when your eyes light up with instant recognition. But you don't say anything, you watch him in a way that tells him you suddenly have hope in the very specific linguistic aspect. You light up because you know he can resolve it.

He's been listening to you trying to explain to the supermarket security guy that the bike isn't stolen; that the bike renting app is all in Japanese and doesn't have the English version, and that you simply don't know how to unlock it anymore. The bike is in the limbo. You are in trouble. The security guy doesn't speak any English, but all Japanese, and Yoongi becomes the hesitant golden middle in between you. He has: a little English, a little Japanese, and a little bit of faith in you once your eyebrows go up - wooooow it's him! - and then down - anyway, where were we?

He helps shoo the overly alert guy away and notices: the sunset is coming. You keep your hands on your hips, and he notices also: you are in pain.

Yoongi hates the situations where funny circumstances suck him into a vortex of consequences. A minute ago he wanted to help out a fellow tourist, and now he is taking you to the hospital you've been looking for blindly, like a kitten. You make him laugh with your dry resignation. That's the second thing, after kindness: you are softly done with everything. The back is killing you. The evening Kanazawa sky, preparing to paint itself pink, is mesmerizing you. The flip-flop on your foot keeps catching tiny stones. It's so gently funny, how you left your airbnb, and rented a bike, and cycled here in flip-flops, cursing under your breath, because you sprained a muscle while pulling your suitcase up the street.

Yoongi asks himself why. Why he takes you to the hospital on foot, which is twenty minutes away. Like a bad archer, you shot a bit off. Why he accepts one earbud when you offer and say that's the only gratitude you can think of as of now. Why he keeps the mask under his chin even though people pass by. Why he shows you how to get into the ER and then, lingers instead of going where he had been going. Which was - supermarket. He simply needed some tuna.

There are so many people in the ER that Yoongi takes you outside, and you sit on the bench next to the building, and watch the clouds slowly turn pink, and then you point and say:

"Pink".

Thanks, I see it too, he says. The clouds have been curved into smiles by relentless wind of the daytime, the wind that tore off all leaves from several trees nearby his rented apartment.

Yoongi stops asking himself, he starts listening. How he is actually curious about that backache of yours. How he admires the combo of house sweatpants and sunset-like pink t-shirt with the badly plastered Filthy Frank print on it. How he can't stop giggling because suddenly he is light-headed; must be the fresh sea air, he thinks. Closeness to the sea always makes him just a little bit drunk, because he is so used to sitting his ass for weeks in the stuffy rooms.

He is a tiny two-footed human, he realizes, with awe, as the arrow of pink strikes across the sky, and you both lift your heads to watch the plane fly away, leaving the burning tail. He is a human who is having a good evening, not just that: you insisted at this time of day, listening to slow ambient is a must. And everything about music enthralls Yoongi to no end. He clutches on it: why evening? Why at sunset? What emotion does it evoke? Through music, Yoongi still learns about other people, those, who are, and always will be out of scope of his attention.

He doesn't do "meeting new people", and it doesn't feel like what he's doing. What it feels like, is the bench under him, painted black. The summer wind, incredibly warm, against his wrists. The perfume he recognizes, coming in scattered waves from you. You didn't bother to dress up in order to go to a hospital, but you wore fragrance. What's happening is, he is having a full, unmeaningless conversation with another human, and he likes your voice.

You say you know things about space. He says he knows things about Earth. It matches in a weird, harmonizing way. He uses the phrase 'Earth nerd' to beat down on himself a little, recalling how he has about ten closest people in his life, and all ten of them constantly call him an annoying know-it-all. He asks you childish questions before he can stop his mouth, and after a while he stops caring about how childish they are. You still haven't dropped the bomb. You still speak to him as if he is just that: a human. You rub your back from time to time and talk about the texture of the cloud that looks like chopped pork. How it reminds you of the biggest disappointment of growing up:

"I was the maddest when I finally realized clouds aren't bouncy castles, and I will never be able to climb on them".

"How old were you?"

"Six".

He asks you about your favourite space object, and you don't laugh. You say it's Titan.

"Because it's a fine reminder nothing is perfect".

Nothing, and no one, is.

You are pinching the paper queue number in your fingers. He tells you that you have pretty hands before he registers what he is doing. He asks to touch the texture of the nails.

Talking helps you relieve pain. It doesn't feel like falling in love. It feels like speaking to a friend.

He notices you try not to tell him things about himself, but you can't hold back from one meaningful thought nagging on you.

"Are you really the person who wrote SUGA's Interlude?"

"Mm, partially", he says, and you look at him the same way as you were just watching the pink skies.

Yoongi has heard a lot of good things about himself. He's heard a lot of praise. He's got a lot of physical manifestations of this praise in the form of awards that brought home the idea that he does have something of essence to say. He's felt a lot of admiring stares and he's heard a lot of awkward gasps. But for some reason he suddenly feels so very proud about a song from forever ago that wasn't even on his album. When you say it's one of the best songs I've heard, ever, as in, in all my life, you say it in such a way that makes him feel big. Oh, so that was the whole point. A Yoongi from ten years ago, a very different Yoongi, suddenly wakes up from the depths of his skull, and makes him feel big, and light, like the whole sky.

When the dark falls, Yoongi takes you inside, still under the very genuine guise of helping out a fellow tourist. He wanted to feel like one. He feels that's a part of it. What's a solitary trip without unwillingly getting himself into someone else's situation like this? He keeps looking at you. What a different life has filled your mouth with all those curious words. The way you hold your back is different. The way you put your feet on the floor is different. The way you look around with your eyes wide-wide open, is different. It's not just "i have to hide and you don't". It's, he knows, pure, foreign enjoyment of collision.

It is a collision. You collide elbows when you sit down in the waiting area. You collide glances. You point to the TV on the wall:

"Look at this. They are playing Prometheus!"

He's seen that movie. It was an okay movie. He reads it off your face as you watch.

And when your number is called, you hiss because you don't want to skip it. And after you've been assessed by a nurse and given a painkiller, he retells you the scenes you've missed, and says, yeah. Let's finish it. Yoongi goes to the vending machine, because it's been four hours since he wanted some tuna, and buys all the little packages with crisps, crackers, candy and nuts, and a couple of lemonades.

You stay in the midnight-empty ER waiting room, two foreigners in flip-flops and dressed like you live polar opposite lives. And watch the movie at such low volume that every word you utter steals a full scene. Yoongi doesn't care about the movie. It's the familiar joy of something favourite, wrapped in an alien package of a stranger's perception. He thinks: you have tricked him. You have let him come close because you know him. You have let him take you to the hospital because you are deluded into trusting him. You are sharing hospital snacks with him, speaking about the film, and not explaining certain parts of it, because you feel like he is not a stranger to you.

That is Yoongi's loneliness that he was trying to escape by going to Japan alone.

That is his caution of people who greet him like they know him and his mama.

That is why he doesn't do "meeting new people".

Somehow you make it work because you keep talking about your things. Your gaze slides off his face once you finish your thought. You look at him like you know him. Not like you own him.

And when the movie finally ends, and a nurse leaves the room for the third time to give you both a questioning look, he thinks, fuck it, I'm in.

You walk through the night city and smell jasmine bushes. He tells you about the sea. You tell him about one time you think you saw Aldebaran in Greece. He tells you about a monument in the East part of the city. You tell him about The Southern Cross. He notes that you just miss Greece. And you say you miss it every time you're near sea. Like it imprinted you. Like it stole your heart. Like the Aegean sea filled your bones with salt and made them heavier.

Yoongi's stomach gulps, and he asks if you are hungry. You say yes. It's one past midnight, and he takes you, leading you again, through the sleeping back neighbourhoods, into an empty little sushi place, where the old owners don't know his face, but for some reason know Otsukare.

You chuckle-gasp at him when he starts chewing ice. He feels the need to defend the habit. You ask if it hurts his teeth.

Yoongi doesn't think of himself as cold, but often he has to be, with people. He doesn't like the whole 'she looked at me i looked at her' thing. That's the Yoongi from ten years ago: angry, aimless, but also vulnerable like an open wound and ready for someone's gaze to pierce him straight through the bones.

The way you use your chopsticks summons that Yoongi back.

It is the most foolish thing he does in a great while: it feels safe, like being inside a dark clam shell, shut tightly.

He lets that Yoongi get aroused when he takes you home. Lets him take the wheel and berate himself to his face about how cowardly, detached he's become to humans around.

He leans towards you in the dark and he knows you will kiss him back. For once, he wants to use it for himself.

He isn't in love. He thinks it's kinda funny, and is glad you can't read his mind. But he is instead grateful. Because you let him stroke his savior-helper ego. Because you didn't laugh at the space questions he asked to let you talk. Because you didn't make him feel famous. But instead made him feel seen.

When he fucks you, he notices the way your hands slide through his hair, like you're slightly distracted. He knows you are having a one on one with your old version, as well, and lets you carry it. He knows you're an adult, and it makes him feel so warm, because one more thing that radiates from you - something he loves very much - is maturity. He fucks you carefully, moving his hips smoothly, in missionary, because he doesn't want to hurt your back further. And it still feels good.

In the morning he is woken up by the warm, furious gust of air through the open window, and for a moment he thinks he is inside a summer-set cartoon.

He leans against you and sniffs your hair like a maniac while you're asleep, and then crawls out of bed to get his phone.

He has promised to meet some friends today - yeah, yeah, on his solitary trip. It's always like that. I am invisible. I am not here. Yeah, sure, let's meet, I won't ask how you know.

But for today, he apologizes and says he needs a raincheck.

He looks around the room, trying to see if things feel different in daylight. And all he gathers is the smell of your hair. Shade of your skin. He has been very lucky indeed; one thing Yoongi's never been is stupid and ungrateful. But life is just a tiny bit more full-blooded now that he has allowed himself this. This stupid thing. This dangerous thing. He giggles on the inside when he thinks to himself that he won't even talk to you about an NDA. He feels deliriously like gambling. He feels like making a mistake, it's almost self-harm. He looks at the stretchmarks on your thigh: recalls how they feel against the tips of his fingers. Tiger stripes.

He lingers.

He lingers, lingers, he stays.

You make him breakfast with rice and tuna he never got. He asks to play him any music of your choice, and you say you recently assembled a new playlist, because, crisis. Yoongi assembles your bright spots instead: kind, funny. Basic but underrated. Space nerd. Music feeler. Little grump. You play the array of songs that, you say, are masterpieces. Yoongi's understanding of a masterpiece is honed, foolproof and confident, and yet he hears the songs he doesn't know. It's the supernova of new sound. He shakes himself out of it, slaps the Yoongi from ten years ago on the back of his head: you gotta retreat back. There are millions upon millions of songs in existence: of course there are some he hasn't heard.

He leaves soon, because you have a tour at two-thirty in the afternoon. He puts the hood on and the mask, getting into the taxi. He says:

"Do you want to go to the sea?"

When Yoongi is alone, he wants to taste loneliness in its essence. He feels like a car is too encapsulating, so on solo holidays, he rents a bike.

He watches your eyes grow with fear when you see a motorcycle, and a helmet in his hands.

From then on, he lets himself enjoy the fling. He holds you by the waist. He squeezes his eyes shut when he laughs. He opens his ears up and unzips his mind: sure, go on. He wants to hear everything. Everything about your ex, who got you into Japanese music and then cheated, leaving you Minako Yoshida and an iPad. Who cares. He keeps quiet and listens to you spill important and non-important stuff, enjoying the sound of your voice, because none of this will matter. That's the joy of adulthood. He almost roars with happiness when he realizes he managed to jerk off the maximum of this small vacation. You don't ask to take pictures with him and protest when he tries to take pictures of you, for you. He texts Jimin about this because it's real, even if it's not, and he likes sharing with people who are dear to him.

Yoongi is so un-used to occasional hookups and flings, he forgets that he is the only weirdo like that in his own surrounding. He realizes he has been clutching his own life with whitening knuckles. He's been so passionate about his job that it became a habit. He's been so aloof and superior that the muscles of his back are iron-tense, commotion of the world becoming monochrome due to his tunnel-vision. He's been so concentrated to be right by himself, chasing that 'married to his job' status, out of fear of getting distracted from that love. And now, as he is breathing in the sea, touching another human, he realizes his instincts had gone dry.

In order to write real music, he needs something to write about.

He says,

"I am not looking for a relationship. But..."

He wants to say this should go on for as long as the both of you are in the same city. He knows another sushi place. And another crowdless shore, and a picturesque road that is unpredictable enough that it will make you clutch his sides with triple force. You interrupt him:

"Me neither. I don't think I can handle you long-term".

And then you finally laugh. And it feels like you're laughing at him.

Yoongi isn't scared of you imprinting on him. Together with pink! skies, and crunch of a shrimp shell, and the Japanese City Pop. For once, he admits to himself something he's been gaslighting the Yoongi from ten years ago about: he was also bold, and risky. He welcomes those associations. The cirrus clouds. Filthy Frank. Back pain. Saturn's biggest moon. Rubber top on the fingernails. They are full-blood. You are full-blood, living, happy and you taste like sweet macadamia. Undateable, detached, superior Yoongi, soft like clam on the inside, is shy about his belly until he sees how hard he makes you cum when you lie on your back, your hair spread on the pillow, your pretty hands hurting his forearms.

When you both say goodbye, Yoongi returns to his lucky, amazing, wonderful life of music, friendship, fascinating business and stage.

You return - he doesn't know what to. Maybe to the stars. Maybe to the pulsars. Maybe you amalgamate with the pink-spear chemtrails and fly away not to a foreign country, but to another planet, because, he feels, you're a little bit done with this one.

No, he knows you're just a human, of course. In fact, one of those he has to filter out every day.

He forgets you have his number, and it never bothers him. No scandal follows; no news erupt. He doesn't get a call from his manager. He gambled right into the sea water, and he won. In case of a person like Yoongi winning means complete, total, blissful silence.

In this silence, he continues his life.

Until he realizes he keeps remembering the way he sounded when you made him laugh. How wide he had to open his mouth to let all that laughter out. How familiar and tired he felt when you told him you're one of those Ghibli Studio freaks. He keeps remembering the way you looked at him: at first, on the periphery of his mind, and then, when he catches those sneaky thoughts, he realizes they are way bigger than they seem.

The way you looked at him: like you know him, and accept this knowledge.

Like he is just another passerby who just so happens to be your soulmate. Naive, deep eyes full of light. So many people have seen him? It's his job, to be seen. So many pairs of eyes. But Yoongi finds it ridiculous. Nobody has ever looked at him the way you did.

He keeps thinking about your hand passing him the bowl of rice and tuna. Thumb on the inside, touching the food. He keeps scrolling through the ambient playlist you shared with him, and finds the track to which you both watched the sky go dark at the hospital, and it shakes him to the core for some reason: afraid to forget by Hammock.

Yoongi and Yoongi from ten years ago look at each other in silence.

Oh do you remember the feeling when we ate takoyaki Pringles at the hospital and shushed each other to hear Prometheus on the TV on the wall?

Oh do you remember how funny it was when she tripped on the stone beach and hopped on one foot?

Oh you do remember holding her in our arms.

Oh do you remember the seagulls soaring in the sky, screaming with their sea-salt voices, spreading their wings against the endless clouds?

Yoongi doesn't do "meeting new people", and it's not what happened. He didn't meet a new person. He met you.

Yoongi fuses back into one, dropping all cautious nonsense, feeling fine, defined thread connecting him to you in the simplest way possible. He is grateful you never named the type of gaze you looked at him with. Because now he can name it himself.

He remembers he has your number, at least the number you used in Japan. And he hopes it still works. He goes to the window, where dirty Seoul air makes Namsan Tower burn yellow, and takes the picture of the sky.

And sends you the picture, showing that sunsets are beautiful here, too.

You respond,

"Pink! Like your gums".

He is smiling.

perma tag: @n33mesis , @ryryvna , @mar-lo-pap

[cwwv9]

«Child in the shower, disaster in life»

— Without gender!Children's!Reader x Isagi Yoichi, Meguro Bachira, Hiori Yo, Karasu Tabio, Chigiri Hyoma, Michael Keiser, Alexis Ness, Rin Itoshi, Sae Itoshi, Shidou Ryusei.

Genre: casual, romantic subtext, fluff, a little thrash

Warning: The text is the maximum amount of absurdity, folly and unexplained logic that exists in people whose inner child has never grown. The reader is a walking natural disaster with the soul of a child who rejoices at frogs, plays pranks, falls into ridiculous situations and invariably draws characters into chaos.

Note: I didn’t plan to go down like this, but my powers failed. I still don’t feel very well, but I will try to get myself together this weekend. I actually thought about trying "fem! character x reader" coming soon, do you think it’s a good idea?

wrote it exclusively for your smile, enjoy reading!

Isagi Yoichi

- Yoichi! - you’re screaming from the other end of the field, waving your hands.

He just finished training, wiping sweat off his forehead when you run to him, hiding something behind your back. He immediately gets excited. Your smile is wider than that of a horror maniac, and your eyes are burning with excitement.

- I’ve got a surprise for you! - You put both hands in front of him, clenching your fists. - Do you want to see?

Yoichi looks at the coach in the distance, then again at you. He had already been caught in "surprises" like a pie in the face, a shocking beetle and one very suspicious candy from which his tongue was green all day.

- Is it safe? he squints. I won’t have to eat porridge through a tube for another week?

You’re not happy.

- I’m serious! That’s nice! Really. Honest. Well... almost.

- "Almost" is already suspicious.

You can’t hold it and you want to, your chest tickles with impatience. Finally you breathe out:

-Okay, all right, you ready?

-No, - Yoichi says dryly, but he’s already leaning closer.

Your hands are wide open.

A small, living, grey frog jumps out of them.

- WOW! - Yoichi yells, bouncing back, almost stumbling over his own boots.

You fold in half from laughing. You fall on the grass, holding your stomach, and the frog jumps aside, shocked by what is happening.

- DID YOU SEE YOUR FACE?! - Yell through tears. - God, I would frame this!

Yoichi is breathing hard. His hand on his knee, his face distorted by a mixture of horror and laughter. He throws a murderous look at you, but the eyes already appear tired, but warm "of course".

- Why am I still surprised when you do that? - He sighs, helping you up. - How old are you? Five?

- Six and a half, thank you.

You walk beside him, touching him while he’s walking.

- And the frog was jumping, huh? Just like in a cartoon! We still have to find one. Or maybe we can have an aquarium at home, huh? And there’s frogs and bugs. And mice are allowed.

- Mouse?.. - Yoichi stops. - No. No, please. We and one of you are enough for chaos.

You throw yourself at him and cling to his hand, slightly pressing your cheek against his, feeling his warmth.

- Admit it, you liked it!

He sighs. And here is the most sincere smile of the day on his face. He looks at you as if you were a natural disaster, which is impossible not to love.

- Yes, he says, rubbing your top gently, you’re a total lunatic. But mine.

Meguro Bachira

— We only take macarons, okay? Ma-ka-ro-ne - Bachira leans towards you, clinging to the importance as if you’re a spy on a top secret mission. - No step left, no look right. Only. Pasta.

You nod with a face like you get it, but in three seconds you’re already crawling along the windows, stretching your neck and your eyes picking up shiny boxes, rustling packaging and... toy department.

- Bachira! Look! Look-look-look! - you suddenly disappear from view and burst into toy paradise like a tornado.

- Bachira! Look! Look-look-look! - you suddenly disappear from view and burst into toy paradise like a tornado.

He follows you, of course. He always comes after you - no matter how much he sighs. Because he knows: where you are, it will be either fun or dangerous. And more often both.

You’re already squeezing the breast of a plush cat. Pumpkin on the head, tail with glitter. Too bright, too ugly... and definitely your favorite for the next three days.

- He FARTS, - you proudly declare by pressing on his stomach. And indeed, something... sinister-breathing is being pulled out of the speaker.

Bachira blinks.

- What is he?

You press again. The cat makes another moist sound.

You’re laughing so hard, you almost fell.

- It’s fate! He talks to us in my native language!

Bachira picks up the toy, turns in her hands. She croaks. But then he looks at you - you’re shining like a midnight firework, holding that vile thing like a shrine.

-Okay... add to your collection, - he sighs. - seventy-one. We have a shelf to change.

You jump for joy and kick like a little child.

- I’ll call him Puffy. He’ll guard the bed from monsters!

-From me, I guess.

- He’ll let you in. I swear!

He laughs quietly, pushing you closer as you go to the cash register. And, hell with macarons.

Hiori Yo

It was a hot day, too hot. The sun was burning your neck, and you were running around the yard with a water gun like an apocalyptic gremlin. Behind the bush - ambush, on the tree - base, and in your hand - weapons of mass destruction.

- Hiiori! - you scream with a belligerent squeal. - GET READY TO SWIM, DEEP-SEA SHRIMP!

He only carries out a towel and a bottle of water, as if the jet is flying into him - direct, precise, straight into his chest. He doesn’t even have time to breathe as you’re already running up and kicking your feet in place.

- Hit! Right in the heart! Critical damage!

- You said, "You’re not shooting today," - Hiori breathes hard as she squeezes out her shirt. - That was a lie.

- I forgot, honestly! you say with a big smile. But you’re too much of a target. I couldn’t resist.

He nods, calmly and with restraint. He goes into the house... suspiciously calm.

In five minutes he comes out. He’s holding a plastic bottle of coke.

- Peace? he asks, holding it out.

You smile like you’ve never done anything wrong in your life, grab a bottle.

- Of course, the world! Drink me! - You turn the lid off quickly.

PSHCHHHH!

You forget that you yourself have shaken this bottle before as a "time bomb". Cola shoots the fountain - in the face, on the T-shirt, on the arms. You reflexively put the bottle to your mouth, trying to "save" the drink, but with laughter you get nervous, let out a fountain from your mouth and literally sprinkle Hiori with a sweet soda.

He stands. Impregnated. Sticky. With pieces of ice under his sock.

- It... was... he says slowly, looking at himself.

You’re already lying on the ground, hovering like a madman. You’re dripping with water, looking like a flared firecracker in cotton candy.

- THAT WAS GENIUS! - you squeal. - Hiori! It was a self-destruct attack! You should have seen your face!

He looks at you... then just sits quietly next to you. Takes a newspaper that is lying nearby, and puts it on his face.

- You’re like a child, he mumbles, but the corners of his lips are still shaking with a smile. - Absolutely uncontrollable.

You roll closer and squeeze to his side like a wet puppy. Licking his shoulder, which was in the ruts of coca cola. He sighs but does not repel.

- You still love me, don’t you?

- Hardly. And in the breaks between washing, he snorts.

And yet his hand gently rests on your head. As if to say: "yes, I love. Even with sticky hair and water gun".

Karasu Tobio

You were unpredictable. Like the weather in April. Or like a machine with toys, which instead of a rubber ball gives out a dead crab.

Today started well. Karasu led you around the mall by the hand like a child, so that you didn’t get lost and run off to the station with fluffy slippers.

But suddenly you got out of control and rushed to a group of serious, solid men at the coffee shop. On the go opening the tablet.

- YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS! - Loud, too loud.

Karasu stalled. His face was stretched out like a dough in a pizza.

- No. Not again.

You run to the men and with a solemn look put in the face of the screen: where the wife is sad and the child spanch bob, and the panch bob was already lying in the grave.

— Sad, right?! Hahahaha! The baby spanch bob is crying so bitterly, with comments saying that he’s already an orphan! because mom left in a man.. - Do you ask, leaning towards one of the men. - Is this for you?

They don’t talk. One of them already has his phone. The other is coughing and looking at you like you’re infected with something dangerous.

- It’s... not funny, young man - frown alone. - Where are your parents?

- I... - You look back. - I’m with him!

And Karasu, as in slow motion, runs up, grabs you under his arm like a sack of potatoes, and looks tired guard drags you aside.

- Are you BACK? he hisses. - You promised not to traumatize strangers with the strange pictures you made.

- But there’s Sponge Bob, with a beard! He LOOKS AT THE SOUL, Tobias! It’s art! You don’t understand anything! - you scream, your feet are wagging.

He stops, puts you on the ground and grabs your face.

- I can’t do it anymore. I need pills. I need a lawyer. I need... a psychotherapist to learn how to live with you.

You smile and throw yourself at his neck.

-But you love me, right?

- I’m guarding you, that’s different.

- Okay. But I still have a picture of a pigeon with the face of a grandfather saying, "Give back your pension". We show it in the bookstore?

Karasu rolls his eyes.

- Only if I sign up first.

Chigiri Hyoma

- Hyoma! Hyoma! Come here now! - you’re breaking into the room where Chigiri was quietly drinking tea and trying to breathe.

He does not even have time to turn his head - you have already grabbed him by the wrist, hold him like a raging tornado, and loudly, with encouragement you are saying:

- I’ve made a DISCOVERY! Scientific! Medical! I’m a genius! You’ll be the first to try it!

– It won’t be like last time, right? - Chigiri asks anxiously, remembering the case when you smeared his nose with honey "so that a raspberry grows on it". Or when you tried to "tame" the microwave, saying «Jars, beasts, jars».

- It’s DIFFERENT. You’ll have a mustache. Serious ones. I tested on a stuffed hippo, and it looks solid!

Before Chigiri could do anything - click, you pressed two fluffy black things to his face, and on top of that you put a hairspray, super glue and for some reason a bun-smelling perfume.

- That’s it! - you exhilaratingly scream. - Now you are... General Hyomka! You have a new personality! Walk, command, go!

Chigiri is looking at himself in the mirror in complete shock. He has a huge, ridiculous mustache - one side bent up, the other dangles like a sad worm. And it’s not coming off.

- ... you ruined me. I’m like a bad guy from a cartoon about potatoes.

You clap your hands:

– That’s right! UskKom 3000! I create personalities! I can give you a cape, and you will interrogate plush toys. Someone has to keep order in the house!

He’s dead.

- You... put something on my face. REAL GLUE?

You nod. Proud. Happy. Absolutely no remorse.

- Not to fall. Stability is the foundation of leadership.

Pause. He turns around, slowly goes into the bath, and in a few seconds you hear:

- I’m going to shrivel my face, I’m going to get smoother than walk with this!

You’re giggling on the floor.

- General Hyomka against the innovations... Too bad.

And you already take out of your pocket the spare kit... with eyebrows-nuts.

Michael Kaiser

You burst into a room with a homemade helmet out of a cereal box strapped to the head of a pot, and proudly say:

- Today we’re going to Mars to save my son!

Kaiser doesn’t even lift an eye from his phone.

-You don’t have a son.

- I have one. It’s a plush toad named Herman. It was stolen by the evil cucumbers from Jupiter. You don’t want Herman to become a salad, do you?

He sighs. Very slowly.

-Is it because you drank ketchup and coke?

- It’s because I’m a great space traveler! King of the Clouds, Lord Lugh and Count Ploppi!

The Kaiser is still watching. And for a long time.

You wave your pawn like a scepter, and pull out from behind... a folded map (actually a pizza flyer) with the pen reading: «HERE IS MARS».

- We’re leaving in five minutes. Get your toothbrush, it’s gonna be a long battle!

- I’m not going to Mars.

- Then Herman dies.

- It’s a toy toad you left in the oven.

You are offended:

- It was a bunker!

- There was lasagna.

- Herman loves lasagna...

You lower your head. Sad, theatrical. It’s time for you to go to Cannes for this drama.

Kaiser rolls his eyes.

- Where’s your spaceship?

You pull out a mop and a stool.

- Get ready for the acceleration, princess. We’re going to hell.

Ten minutes later, the Kaiser, still in his pajamas, sitting on a stool, holding a broom and watching you yell in a bucket: "Open the portal! Herman, hold on, Daddy’s flying!"

- That’s... - He exhales. - It’s worse than when you tried to give me a jam shot.

You giggle and kiss his cheek.

- Thank you, you saved the planet. Herman will be proud.

- I hope he chokes on lasagna.

You make a sullen face, then you spit on his knees.

- And Herman wants a brother. Do you mind if I get a snail?

- As long as she stays silent and doesn’t burn the microwave like your "dragon".

Alexis Ness

- Look, look, look! - you yell from a distance and fly down the sloped gravel path on a skate, waving your hands as if trying to get off the ground.

Ness is sitting on the blanket, just started to turn out the container with fruits, as notices your death flight.

- NO! he screams, leaping on his feet. - Not on the grass! Not through the tree! Not in the

BACH.

Skate rolls by. And you - fly right into it, carrying Ness and container with watermelons in the bushes.

You’re lying on top of it, happy as a clam.

-Did you see? I was almost in the trenches! A little bit more, and I’d have a world record. I had a real backflip going on in my head, honestly.

Ness is looking up at the sky. He’s trying to remember how to breathe.

- You’re in my head right now spinning funeral.

You sigh as you leap:

- Okay, okay, this is going to be really cool. I found a log! You can slide it on your belly like a snowboard. I called it the Thunder-2000.

- It’s... a regular log.

- But if you believe - it’s a real miracle

Ness comes up, shaking, and mumbles:

- I just wanted to eat cherries and sit in silence...

And you’re already climbing up on the log, clinging to it like it’s a giant carrot, and yelling,

- Look! It’s like "Forsag", but cheap and with bumps!

And you go. The log rolls down the hill, you squeal like a teapot, your legs are wobbly, your face in the leaves. At some point you just fall, roll over and get up with a mossy forehead and a happy smile.

- I’m alive! My ass - no, but I’m alive!

Ness comes in, grabs your wrist, checking your pulse.

- I had to sign a paper saying that I was responsible for you? Where is my legal team?.

You hug him by hanging him around your neck.

— You are my little insurance agent. And now... for the shish kebabs! - you point to the mangal, who unskillfully burned himself. And that at this moment begins to smoke suspiciously bright.

- No-no-no! - in a panic, Ness yells and runs to kill.

And you, in a fire of coal and memories, sit with the guitar and start yelling something about skateboards and love for frogs.

He already knows: the day is just beginning.

Rin Itoshi

Rin opened the door and before he could even breathe, you flew into the hallway, all wet, dirty, with hair sticking out in different directions and a bright smile on your face. On the cheek - a heart, painted, seems to be chalk, on the jacket - a mark of a boot, on the hand -... a plastic spoon?

- Rinn! I drew you on the asphalt! Only... a bit like a crab. But it was you, I remember!

You have removed from the pocket a handful of colored chalks, behind which there was immediately smeared wet grass, petals and paper from the gum with the princess.

Rin blinked.

-Why are you all wet?

You proudly raised your finger:

- Because it rained!

- And you thought that was a... reason to go outside and...?

— Dancing, drawing, catching sparrows, jumping into a puddle, competing with the child who throws the next stone... Well, I also saw a butterfly! - You put your hands on it. - I wanted to show her the peacock dance, but she flew away. Rude.

Rin pressed his palm to his face.

-And how are you... still alive?

You smiled joyfully:

- It’s because I have a strong spirit. And you also gave me vitamins, remember?

- You’ve been cold for a week. Your spit was only yesterday.

- But it was fun!

The next morning you woke up with a nose like a tomato. Walked around the apartment with a roll of toilet paper, breathed like Darth Vader and resented:

- Why is everything leaking?! I have a hole in my brain?

Rin sat at the table, eating his boring, proper breakfast and looking at you like a disaster on a natural scale.

- And I said it. Dancing in the rain is romantic until you become a slut.

You, with your nose full, tried to turn gracefully. You almost fell. You shrunk. You cried.

- I’ll go again anyway. The neighbor’s cat gave birth, I have to name the kittens. One will be Pelmeni.

Rin sighed.

- I give up. Next time just take an umbrella. And wear a hat. And... maybe don’t lick the puddles?

- It was an experiment, Rin!

He put the fork down.

- I still don’t understand why I’m with you.

You sat next to him, nodded at him and moaned through the snot:

- Because I’m beautiful.

- Because you’re a disaster, said Rin.

And I still moved the cup of tea closer to you.

Sae Itoshi

You’re standing in a perfectly white room, glowing with delight, holding a glass of soda and candy on a stick. You were dressed in decent clothes, combed your hair and even put on a bow tie that does not suit you at all, and which you tried several times removed, but as a result of Itosha each time clapped his hands and corrected him, And in the opinion of Sae, it makes you look like a decent man.

The event was important: a bunch of rich and famous people, social conversations, shiny dresses and veiled insults.

You did it.

And then I noticed a lady in a lush skirt, whose bow was slightly crooked.

You came close.

- Do you have lace?

She blinked:

- Excuse me?

- Well panties! With ruffles! I saw it. They’re so funny! Like a cupcake, honestly!

And - hop - the skirt flies. Woman screams. Someone drops a glass. Journalist turns camera.

And you - run away, drooling in your own laughter, like a goose on rollers.

- Yes! - you scream, just seeing him.

He has already squinted. He sees you rushing through the whole hall, behind you - a guard, behind him - a woman with a hat and the expression «call court».

You run into the Sae and hide behind him.

- Can you tell me it was me? Well, I guess.

- You were literally shouting, I’m a hero, I’ll see all the panties» before that - weary, he burkes, catching you by the hood like a coddling cat.

You’re putting candy in your mouth.

- But they were beautiful. I just wanted to praise them. That’s kindness, Sae.

- You’re a nightmare in patent shoes. We just got here, and it’s time to run.

— Can I get one more lady? She’s got a marshmallow skirt! - talking to the girl next to him, starting to squiggle to try to look under his skirt, but he is lifted up behind his jacket on time

- No. I’m going to put it on your head.

- You’d be a beautiful girl, Saé. I’d lift your skirt too, honestly.

He stares at the ceiling as if to ask for power from heaven. Or a new brain. Himself. Or you.

-Why am I with you?

- Because you love me, - you’re snorting, looking over his shoulder. - And because you can’t turn me in!

- You’re terrible.

But still takes you by the hand and pulls you away from the light, the cameras and the women in skirts.

- The next event is only if you’re wearing a straitjacket, okay?

You were wondering.

- And the bow is with the lace?.

Ryusei Shido

- Bro, brooo, there’s a frog path! - your voice is on the other side of the bush and Shido already suspects something’s wrong.

He takes his head off the phone where he tries to make a funny selfie with a pitcher, and comes out from behind the trees - only to find you kneeling in the green mud with your hands outstretched forward and your eyes shining with happiness.

- Really? Did you fall into the radiation?

- No! It’s a secret place. I called it the Kwa-kva-park. Look at all the frogs!

- It’s a swamp. And they may be guarding you as the new king, he snorts as he approaches. Get to shore before the toads grow wings.

You want to, you’re spitting on the surface and suddenly you’re lifting something.

- It’s an ancient sword of the swamp knights! you scream, showing Shido just a stick.

He laughs, comes up close and says:

- Give me this, I’ll show you the «double rotating hummingbird cam». Watch carefully, little one, it will be-

Plum.

You grab his wrist and pull him down.

- SURPRISE!!! - you yell.

Shido has only time to curse, before falling close by, the splashes are flying in the sides, the birds break from the trees, and the silence of the forest is broken by a deafening slap.

You both come out. Shido has algae on his head, and you have a snail on your shoulder that you now call an alter.

- I’ll KILL YOU,' says Shido with a hoarse laugh, wiping out his eyes. 'I look like a salad!

You’re snorting in the swamp, completely satisfied.

- We’re a team of swamp rage now. We’ll save the world with frogs and clay. We’ll even have a logo!

Shido looks at you, then at himself, then at you again. The smile is getting wider.

- Damn, you’re contagious. Let’s go again. But this time I’m the first one.

You jump into the swamp together, screaming and laughing while the world sinks in mud and happiness.

[vicolette]

𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲 !

– Warnings : English isn’t my first language, mentions of y/n & pet names, keeping secret, swearing, not proofread.

"Lamine."

Pau's voice sounded, for once in a while, rather threatening and both of the boys knew why. The said person, who was surrounded by Hector, Pau, and a few other friends from your small friend group, were currently hiding in your dark lighted living room.

After all, it was a very important day for you – the birthday kid. And Lamine, your oh so loving boyfriend, just wanted to rush out the door and search for you, or call you and finally wish you a happy birthday.

But no. No, because he was supposed to keep it all a surprise from you. It was boring, lame, and whatnot.

(He completely dismissed the fact that it was his idea to throw you a surprise birthday party four weeks prior, but who cares?)

"C'mon, bro! I don't wanna-"

"Pshh! She said that she's in five minutes here..." Amelie, a mutual friend of yours, whispered harshly in order to get everyone's attention, staring at her phone, which was the only source of light in the otherwise pitch black room. "... and six minutes have already passed!"

Then, it was pure silence – so quiet, that you could hear a pin drop. Well, if we ignore the occasional groan and complaint from Lamine every twenty seconds before Hector shushed him.

All of a sudden, the front door opened.

Lamine stopped breathing for a moment as he listened to you during your usual routine after a long day, which consisted of throwing your shoes to the ground followed by a sigh, taking your jacket off and hurrying into the living room.

A hint of light came from the light bulb of the hallway, so it gave you the opportunity to see a man in the middle of your beloved living room, making you let out a scream. As you placed a hand over your heart, the other one went hurriedly to the light switch, making the room finally glow after half an hour being spent in darkness.

Once your eyes met Lamine's dark brown ones, he tried to grin even wider, although he looked absolutely absurd. With a rose in his mouth (to appear more romantic, blantly) and holding a poster, which read out "Happy Birthday, Y/n!", the teenage boy looked like he was dared to do this.

But he obviously was doing from his free will, even if he looked a bit... odd, to say the least.

"Happy Birthday!" All of your friends suddenly called out, jumping from their hiding spots as everyone threw confetti and beamed with excitement. To be honest, it scared you a tiny bit, yet your focus was purely on your boyfriend at the moment.

"Yo..." His voice sounded weird, totally, as he furrowed his eyebrows. This wasn't as bad as he thought, if he didn't notice how Yasmin had snapped a polaroid photo of you two from the side. "Ha- hawy wir-" 'I can't fucking speak.'

"Oh, guys..." It took you by surprise to see how much effort your friends had put into all of this, with the ballons flying in the air and the birthday cake on your small coffee table.

They, too, were a bit worried at the sight of you tearing up, especially Hector, who glared at Lamine and wondered if he had done anything wrong. "You didn't have to..."

"Hey, what's wrong?" At that moment, Lamine took the rose off of his mouth and approached you with precise attention, yet was hesitating to touch you in fear of making it worse. Once his hand brushed against yours in an attempt to comfort you, you suddenly wrapped your arms around him tightly and began to laugh.

"You're stupid, y'know that?" In response, Lamine rolled his eyes playfully and hugged you back, while you raised your head and softly smile at how relieved the others were. "So stupid..."

"Hey, the idea wasn't that bad though-"

"It was." Both Hector and Yasmin said in unison, making Amelie laugh at the absurdity of the two friends and the whole situation. Meanwhile, Pau was admiring the birthday cake that was in your favorite favor, his lips twitching as he glanced back to his friends.

Each one of them, except for you and Lamine, who were busy enjoying each other’s company, were already staring back at him, daring them to even lift a finger.

"Alright!" His hands now in the air, Pau pouted at how demanding his friends were. "I won’t touch anything… yet."

"C'mon, Y/n." Amelie called out as she looked at the two lovebirds, feeling disgusted by how much you both loved one another, although it was only because she was single. "Let’s cut the cake."

While the others were now surrounding the cake and debated over who should light it up and film the scene, Lamine slowly let go of you and placed a delicate kiss on your cheek, pulling you closer with your hands in his. He had the same boyish smirk as always, yet it was softer as he wiped some remaining tears away.

"Happy Birthday, love."

"How often are you gonna repeat that now?"

– A/N : guess who's allowed to legally drink now

[noellefan101]

Nick-Names - Genshin

Characters: Xiao, Scaramouche, Venti, Lyney, Albedo, Kaveh, Thoma, Diluc, Childe, Heizou, Kazuha x GN reader

Warnings: a lot of cheesy and weird nicknames, if you dont like some for a specific char you're welcome to send me your ideas, could be modern au, established relationship

(you can clearly see that i prob put in an OC, so im so sry, but some i just also really head-canon as the "would rather date a loving person than be loving" if you get what i mean)

Summary: both of your pet names for each other, some silly some sweet

Note: you can really tell where i had no ideas for nicknames. and ik i use both 'pet names' and 'nicknames' but im just kinda stupid and didnt care to change stuff when i was already done with it. also i may just have a problem but why does princess sound 10x better than prince, no matter your gender, anyway love youuuu

Xiao

He will always say what is on his mind, and he did the same thing when you brought up using pet names. he wasn't very fond of the idea, and sometimes he still isn't(depending on the situation). but he has gotten used to it more over time, like when you burst open his door and to talk to him while using the most absurd nicknames he´s ever heard of.

__

Pet names for you: lovely, qinxing, [shorter version of your name](sry people with short names, i fell ya)

Pet names for him: babe, baby, cutie, dove, birdy, my alatus

Scaramouche

Will never admit he likes being called weird things by you, EVER. if he did then he was drunk and he was totally lying. and that counts with calling you stuff as well, he would rather die than admit he doesn't just call you that bc you wanted him to.

__

Pet names for you: idiot, princess/prince, dear

Pet names for him: smoochi, love

Venti

He was probably the one who suggested the idea at first, like two days/weeks (seconds) into your relationship. i also think he already had at least one nickname for you when you were "just friends", in the crushing phase, and has some for all his other friends as well(prob also his teachers if school au, lul).

__

Pet names for you: windblume, cecilia, [insert the cheesiest thing you can think of], my love

Pet names for him: venni, my dear, sweetheart, my bard

Lyney

He would be over the moon if you gave him a nickname, and would instantly be looking like a tomato too. would increase its usage by tenfolds if you said you liked one of his nicknames. you cannot stop him even if you somehow got 'Father' involved.

__

Pet names for you: babe, mon trésor, mon amour, beautiful

Pet names for him: sweetie, amour, lyn

Albedo

He didn't really see a use for it at first, finding it kind of useless. but sooner or later realized how happy you looked when he had somehow slipped up and called you 'love' when he needed your assistance. and later just didn't bother to stop.

__

Pet names for you: love, my cecelia, my dear

Pet names for him: 'bedo, lovely, (my) genius

Kaveh

He LOVES nick-names, probably made one for everyone in the friend group(yk alhaitham, tighnari n cyno), and would be delighted to make some up for you.

__

Pet names for you: beloved, lovely

Pet names for him: baby,

Thoma

He really wanted to try using them, yes he calls Ayato and Ayaka my lord and my lady, but its just not the same as calling your lover something sweet. and good luck if you don't like it, he's keeping those names forever.

__

Pet names for you: babe, sweetheart, baby, sleepyhead, lovely

Pet names for him: babe, love

Diluc

He honestly wasn't a fan at first, he hated it even. but of course, you being you, insisted on using names for him, and encouraged him to at least try to use some for you. so he kinda got into routine with it.

__

Pet names for you: my love, my dear

Pet names for him: dear, red head, love, my hero

Childe

Of course, he would use nick-names and such, he uses nick-names for the traveler and paimon, so of course he would be using such with you. honestly how could he not, especially when you're looking all cute cuddled up in his hoodie.

__

Pet names for you: my love, beloved, cupcake

Pet names for him: ginger, ma strong man(only for teasing purposes), hubby

Heizou

He'll almost never call you by your actual name, he didnt even when you two were just friends, only in the most serious of times would he do that. so it was no surprise that when you actually started dating, they could only become sweeter and cheesier as time goes by.

__

Pet names for you: princess/prince, baby, beautiful, (my) sunshine

Pet names for him: hei, zou-zou, babe

Kazuha

He loves it bc no matter what you call him he'll be happy. and he makes sure you have "some" as well, and i guess he just can't stop coming up with more, and they're always more cheesy than the last. you don't know how he does it, but maybe its just his poetry skills coming through.

__

Pet names for you: dove, (my) love, sweetheart, sweetie, my dear

Pet names for him: kazu, dear

thank u for reading whatever this thing is(totally not a filler bc i habe been working on that streamer au for too long), luv ya-Masterlist

You are welcome to reblog and like any of my posts, but you CAN NOT translate, copy or hate on anybody for liking my posts

[the-awful-falafel]

Decided to share a megapost of my Fake Peppino relationship / character dynamic headcanons! Not comprehensive at all but should give a rough outline of my personal interpretation of things at least

PEPPINO:

Peppino and Fake Peppino's relationship is... deeply complicated lol

It's the focus of my brainrot (and utterly central to how I see Fake Peppino's postgame character development happening) so I won't quite get into all the progression and nuances here, but if I had to loosely summarize it, I'd say it's kind of a platonic slowburn "weird uncomfortable doppelganger housemate/employee" + enemies-to-trucies-to-uneasy-friendship situation. Lots of black comedy and ominous horror stuff too

More will be explained / shown off over time, hopefully!

GUSTAVO:

Gustavo generally seems tolerant or even oblivious to Fake Peppino's weirdness, although not to a Noisette extent

He doesn't get caught up in paranoia around Fake Peppino like Peppino does, although the odd behavior and comments the clone sometimes makes can be slightly unsettling

Gustavo casually calls Fake Peppino "Peppino" to be respectful (something that agitates real Peppino) and occasionally tries to encourage Peppino to do the same

Gustavo acts relatively friendly and encouraging to Fake Peppino-- believing in good faith that most of his behavior is harmlessly weird and that, if he's anything like the real Peppino, he could use a friend-- but he often feels out of his depth interacting with him for too long, so in practice it's more of a "cordial acquaintances" situation

Fake Peppino sees Gustavo as a nice friend/fellow chef, first as an extension of Peppino's relationship with him and then later more genuinely

Fake Peppino strongly appreciates Gustavo's penchant for adventure, and will often tag along Gustavo's adventures without asking and without warning when he's in the mood to forage for new ingredients or simply observe

BRICK:

Brick does not like Fake Peppino and she gets a bad vibe from him

Fake Peppino thinks the big rat looks delicious but politely holds off because he assumes that Gustavo is saving all that meat for himself

PEPPERMAN:

Pepperman is mostly face-blind towards humans and cannot tell Peppino and Fake Peppino apart unless they're side by side, and only then just barely

Pepperman somewhat admires the surrealism and ethical quandaries of Fake Peppino's existence, and rambles about it to him whenever he's around

Fake Peppino thinks Pepperman talks way too much and too fancily, and therefore tunes out at least 90% of what the pepper says

Fake Peppino has secretly stolen / borrowed paint from Pepperman before, and once or twice he brought over his weird Peppino caricature doodles to show him and get "art advice"

Fake Peppino has contemplated how Pepperman is an impressively big pepper, but there's no shortage of peppers back at the pizzeria, plus the smell of paint and ego kinda gets in the way

Fake Peppino is very pleased whenever Pepperman confuses him with Peppino

THE VIGILANTE:

Vigilante has only met Fake Peppino a handful of times and doesn't have a lot of knowledge of him or a strong opinion on him, thinking that he seems strange but friendly enough

Later on, Vigilante's opinion skews more pessimistic and he views Fake Peppino's creation as another one of Pizzahead's crimes that he must be held accountable for

Fake Peppino thinks the "cowboy cheese" is nice and helpful for giving him directions in the tower at one point, even though he finds his arsenal of guns and gruff demeanor slightly off-putting

Vigilante is the most likely of the bosses to go missing if there's a cheese supply shortage

Vigilante is also the most likely of the bosses to teach Fake Peppino what a flamethrower is

THE NOISE:

Noise finds Fake Peppino hilarious, seeing him as a total freakshow that mocks Peppino just by existing and being generally absurd

Noise would occasionally visit Fake Peppino in the tower alongside Noisette, mostly to just gawk and encourage the weirdo to do food crimes

Because of this, Noise also doesn't take Fake Peppino seriously-- an approach that has backfired on him a couple times, although he stubbornly refuses to learn. (Noise is good at using intimidation and startling loud noises in a pinch, but it never scares off Fake Peppino permanently)

Noise, when possible, likes to encourage Fake Peppino's general chaos and torment of Peppino, although it's just as likely to get thrown back in his face

Fake Peppino generally likes Noise because he sees him as one of his first regular customers alongside Noisette

However, Fake Peppino doesn't like how evasive Noise is at actually eating the complicated "pizzas" he orders, so he's increasingly determined to get Noise to eat one of his pizzas someday, even if it requires coercive methods

Fake Peppino can be unexpectedly passive-aggressive towards Noise when Noise is being more of a rude asshole than usual, although it's more in a playfully antagonistic sort of way... maybe

Fake Peppino was very confused by the whole NTV movie situation and went off-script a little too much for Noise's liking, but Fake Peppino still went along with it and got paid via expensive pizza ingredients afterwards (money was not enticing enough for him, for some reason)

NOISETTE

Noisette sees Fake Peppino as a funny guy and close friend, sharing both a goofiness and love for making dubiously edible food, and she is thoroughly immune to / oblivious of the horrors

She befriended him back in the tower via getting lost and obliviously stumbling into Peppino's Pizza 2, and her ditzy friendliness, utter lack of fear or acknowledgement of red flags, and promise to visit again led to a much more positive (and safer) interaction than all the previous customers had

Noisette's repeat visits were both because she genuinely found his pizzas "interesting" (... despite the fact they kept giving her violent short-term food poisoning, she assumed it was part of the Italian food experience and she thinks it's important to encourage his creativity) and because she was worried he was lonely, working so hard in his secluded restaurant all the time

Noisette always calls Fake Peppino "Peppino" and wholeheartedly affirms his identity

Noisette's overt tolerance and obliviousness of the horrors is not always a good thing and can lead to her enabling Fake Peppino's more dangerous and maladaptive behavior

Fake Peppino sees Noisette as his first and favorite regular customer, and he'd consider her his first friend too, although the lines between friend and customer are very blurry in Fake Peppino's mind

Fake Peppino visits Noisette on rare occasions (rather than the more common other way around), both because he enjoys her company and because he thinks studying her likes/dislikes up close and integrating them into his pizzas is key to maintaining her patronage

Fake Peppino will play party games and board games with Noisette and Noise when she offers, but he's kinda inattentive and doesn't follow the rules (it's okay because half of the rules Noisette makes up / doesn't care about either, and Noise cheats)

GEROME:

Gerome doesn't interact with Fake Peppino much, and when he does, he mostly just regards him with either vague interest or pity

Gerome is aware of the cloning lab and Fake Peppino's true nature/purpose, and has had a lot of experience with his brother's clones-- as a result, Gerome is pessimistic about the Fake Peppino's ability or willingness to change from what he is

Fake Peppino sees Gerome as the small stone man who sleeps all the time, and is interested by his janitorial work, but otherwise doesn't have much of an opinion on him either

PILLAR JOHN

John regards Fake Peppino with a similar sort of pity as Gerome does, although it mostly leads to him expressing sympathy and solidarity towards Peppino over both of them being cloned by Pizzahead and having awkward interactions with said clones after the tower collapsed

Fake Peppino doesn't really know John, but he was warned extensively to never touch the pillars holding up each level gate, no matter how tempting it may be to kick one over

Fake Peppino still follows this rule after the events of the game, even though this pillar is now walking around, but his curiosity will probably get the best of him one of these days

PIZZAFACE

Pizzaface has no opinion on Fake Peppino because he's a (secret) robot/mech whose autopilot AI is quite basic and limited-- he's obedient/loyal to Pizzahead and nobody else

Fake Peppino doesn't understand why you would make a pizza that isn't for eating

PIZZAHEAD

Pizzahead is directly responsible for creating Fake Peppino along with all the other clones, and even though the results didn't match his original "Better Peppino" design concept 1:1, he doesn't care and doesn't see it as a failure at all-- he thinks it's much funnier and more entertaining this way

Pizzahead doesn't really perceive Fake Peppino as a person or sapient entity deserving respect -- he sees Fake Peppino more like a fun new custom-built toy, guard monster, and walking punchline of a joke at Peppino's expense, all rolled into one

Pizzahead doesn't openly mistreat Fake Peppino, necessarily-- he's goofy and irreverent towards him for the most part, just like how he acts towards most other people-- but he certainly exploits and manipulates certain aspects of Fake Peppino's behavior for his own amusement, and saw leaving Fake Peppino on the fourth floor with minimal safeguards as the funniest possible thing to do with him. Look and watch the weird freak go! Wooooo!

Pizzahead is very affirming and encouraging of Fake Peppino believing himself to be really Peppino, mostly to better exploit/manipulate his behavior and to better egg on his established aggression towards "other Peppinos" in preparation for him being sicced on the real Peppino

Pizzahead's inability to take anything seriously extends to even the most bizarre, horrific, and dangerous of his creations, in a way that would probably backfire if it weren't for his power and cartoonish immunity

Pizzahead probably would have gotten bored of and abandoned Fake Peppino at some point if Peppino hadn't destroyed the tower

After the events of the game, Pizzahead is surprised by Fake Peppino's reduced aggression towards Peppino and has attempted to sneakily exploit Fake Peppino's behavior once more to see if he can generate any more funny conflict, but it's not very effective as Fake Peppino has already formed his own ambiguous goals and doesn't really have a reason to listen to Pizzahead anymore-- although he still cheerfully takes the "advice" into consideration

Fake Peppino doesn't know that Pizzahead is responsible for his existence, nor is he aware he was even created in the first place. (Fake Peppino would not believe Pizzahead if he told him, either)

Fake Peppino likes and respects Pizzahead as the tower's owner who pulled him out of the laboratory and gifted him important advice and a restaurant free of charge, but Fake Peppino is otherwise somewhat ambivalent and isn't even particularly loyal to the pizza, instead being obsessed with working the restaurant and working hard at being Peppino

Fake Peppino doesn't quite like Pizzahead's tendency to cartoon-logic grab and deposit him in new locations at random, as he (usually) dislikes being grabbed or touched and Pizzahead doesn't have much regard for his personal space, but it thankfully doesn't happen often enough for it to be a major concern, just an uneasy irritation

Fake Peppino is very curious about what Pizzahead's pizza head tastes like and has attempted to bite it off twice, to no success and Pizzahead barely acknowledging it aside from casually clamping Fake Peppino's jaws shut / sidestepping it and causing Fake Peppino to faceplant

[verysanebsdfan]

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 𝟷: ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀʏ ᴡʜᴇɴ ɪᴛ ᴀʟʟ ʙᴇɢᴜɴ

The Perfect Equation: The day when it all begun

Ishigami Senku x fem!reader

masterlist tpe masterlist

<previous ・・・・・ next>

✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦

"On that day...every human on earth...turned to stone!!"

・・・・・

"Listen up, Senku!!" Taiju bursts into the school lab. "There is no stopping me! It's gotta be today!! After five long years of having feelings for Yuzuriha...I'm gonna confess my love." He yelled out loud, startling everyone besides Senku, who was even remotely close to the school laboratory. It would not be surprising if Yuzuriha heard him from wherever she was; hopefully not. Even so, it would not change much since his feelings are quite clearly not one-sided.

"Hm...Interesting, very interesting." Senku exclaimed and turned around to face the loud boy. "I'll be cheering for you so hard from here in the science lab that my vocal cords'll snap." The male said, clearly not thrilled. It is not like he does not care for his friend; it's just that the outcome of this situation is quite obvious.

"Oh yeah? Thanks, Senku!" Taiju yelled, too loud, again. "Silence. I won't cheer even one millimeter for you, you big oaf." The scientist retorted. "Wait, so which is it?!" Taiju exclaims, to which a young girl standing opposite of Senku sighs. "Don't worry, Taiju, I will cheer for you." She says. "Oh, thanks (Name)!!" the brown-haired boy immediately responds to the female's encouragement.

"A fool who takes five whole years to say anything is the epitome of absurdity." Senku says, to which Taiju retorts, "You are no different," leaving the girl accompanying them confused.

"Allow me to provide a method so rational it'll kill you," Senku says as he turns for something. "Quite literally..." (Name) mutters with a small smile because she saw what her friend was reaching for. "This will send your pheromone production into overdrive. Basically, it's a love potion." Senku turns back while grinning menacingly. "Your success is ten billion percent assured if you drink this!" He hands it to Taiju.

The male was staring at it; you'd think he was actually considering it, but then he spilled the contents of the flask into the nearby sink. Was it good, spilling it into the sink? Probably not, but they have filters, or at least you think they do. "Thanks, Senku, but... no thanks! I can't go and cheat my way into her heart." Taiju says and leaves the laboratory with a confident but scared smile. And (Name) quietly cheers him on.

"Was that really a love potion, Senku?" A member of the science club calls out, and the girl chuckles.

"Of course not. It's just ordinary gasoline. Me and (Name) produced it from plastic bottle caps." Senku answers the question, uninterested. "Just think about the atomic structure of polyethylene, you fools! It's merely long gasoline molecules chopped up by a few hydrocarbons. Simple enough to understand," he explains, although it does not seem to have the desired effect since most of the club members seem to not understand.

"It's actually done in commercial plastic-to-fuel plants. By heating plastic in the absence of oxygen, you can break down the long hydrocarbon chains in plastic into simpler hydrocarbon molecules, which include components of gasoline, among other things. The process is called pyrolysis." (Name) adds not only some cool info but also their confusion.

"So...Taiju would've died if he drank it?" The same club member who inquired about the existence of a love potion earlier asked the obvious question. To which the seemingly only capable members of the club nodded. "He would not drink it." The girl shakes her head. "He is too honest for his own good."

・・・・・

"I bet you 100 yen that he'll get totally rejected." Said one of the guys watching Taiju's confession.

"Five hundred says she'll reject him." Another says, albeit I do not see any other difference in their bets besides the amount of money.

"Put me down for a hundred." Another voice calls out.

"Ten thousand yen says she'll accept him, contrary to expectations," Senku says, looking too smug while buying a drink from the vending machine, and the girl, who always seems to accompany him, nods along while sipping her (favourite flavour) milk.

"Hey, Senku..." She looks at the horizon. "What is that?" She says as Senku notices it as well. Neither of them knows what it is, but either way, Senku pushes her behind him, still keeping her close.

・・・・・

"It's so cold, and I can't feel anything. Did I die? No, that's unlikely; dead beings have no brain activity... Maybe it's my last seven seconds? I don't think that's true, either. It has to do with the light. Or maybe it's the afterlife? Well, if it is, it sucks!! I imagined it to be some nice place where you can at least interact with other people!! Ah, I miss my friends...Taiju and Yuzuriha were outside when it happened, I hope no natural catastrophe comes. Well, I don't think the old school building would protect us any good, too, so..."

"You should not let your consciousness slip away, but it has been so long. Humanity must find a way to help you, right? Or are you really- no!! No way!! After all, your friends, especially Senku and Taiju, would not give up. Both for different reasons, of course. Taiju for the reason of confessing his love for Yuzuriha, and Senku possibly for survival? No idea. Seems like the thing he would do."

"I wonder how long has it been. Feels like a really long time, but I have nothing to entertain myself with, so time really does feel like an illusion. I hope there are only a few people in this state, Someone might take care of my cat..."

"I cannot let my consciousness slip away. What if I don't wake up?"

"I'm so tired... and feel so, so cold..."

"Maybe a small nap won't hurt..."

"It will hurt!! Get a hold of yourself. Count equations, name the elemen

・・・・・

[sepdet]

Killing Time excerpts #2:

Kirk & Spock compare dreams over breakfast (p 7-10)

(from that totally canon Star Trek novel that Pocket Books rapidly recalled from stores to de-gay certain Kirk/Spock scenes, but my Mom beat the censors to a first edition!)

Kirk poked at the eggs on his plate with the tip of his fork, but it was blatantly obvious to Spock that the captain had little interest in the food.

"I don't know who I was, but ... I wasn't who I was supposed to be." He laid the fork aside and took a healthy gulp of the reconstituted orange juice. "And that's not exactly right either," he continued, not quite looking at the Vulcan. "It was as if I was still James Kirk—the same James Kirk I've always been—but I wasn't in the right . . . place." He shook his head in frustration. "I can't explain it, Spock."

Spock eyed his friend carefully. "Dreams of alienation are not unusual," he pointed out. "In situations such as exist onboard starships, they are, in fact, extremely common." Taking a sip of the hot herb tea, he pushed his own plate of untouched tood aside. He couldn't help remembering that he, too, had been experiencing dreams of alienation and displacement for nearly a full solar week; but something restrained him from mentioning it. "In your dream, Captain," he continued cautiously, "was it as if you were . . . not how you would normally envision yourself to be?"

Kirk frowned thoughtfully, then glanced up as his open palm slapped the table."That's exactly it!" he exclaimed, then lowered his voice as he noticed a young yeoman at the next table cast a quick look in his direction. He leaned closer to the Vulcan, feeling vaguely ridiculous for the outburst, but somehow closer to the solution. "I was on the Enterprise— but it wasn't even the Enterprise—at least not like I know her," he added as an afterthought. "And . . . I kept seeing you." At last, he looked up. "But you were different, too, Spock," he stated emphatically. "I'm not sure, but . . . I think you were the captain."

He shuddered internally, as the haunting quality of the dreams sharpened. He thought he saw a faint smile come to the young yeoman's face as she stood and quickly left the dining area, but he no longer cared. At least it might alleviate her boredom. "And I didn't know who I was." He shrugged uncomfortably. "I must've been an ensign or something, because I remember trying to think of some way to approach you—to tell you that things weren't the way they're supposed to be."

He grinned without looking up, and took another swallow of the orange juice, tasting it for the first time. It only strengthened his resolve to put in a formal request to Admiral Nogura for fresh orange juice at the next opportunity. "And I also remember thinking that you would never believe me. After all," he added as the smile broadened, "you were the ship's captain— and a Vulcan! What chance would a lowly human ensign have of trying to inform the Vulcan commander that he (meaning me!) was supposed to be the cap-tain?" He laughed aloud, feeling some of the tension ebb away just in the act of telling Spock about the absurdity of it all.

The Vulcan leaned forward, and their eyes met across the table. "Jim," he murmured in a tone suddenly deep and foreboding, "I also dreamed."

Kirk swallowed the lump of nervousness which rose in his throat, but he could only stare mutely at his first officer. Guiltily, he looked around to see if the yeoman was still eavesdropping. Bad enough that the captain's having anything but delusions of grandeur, he thought. But if Spock buckles . . . He let the thought drift into silence.

The Vulcan steepled his fingers in front of him. "At first, I believed the dreams were attributable to the somewhat uneventful mission currently assigned to the Enterprise. However, I am no longer convinced that such is the case."

Kirk looked at his friend for a long time, their eyes holding them together. "What did you dream, Spock?" he asked, forcing his tone to remain neutral.

But he didn't need to hear the answer; it was clearly inscribed in the dark eyes, carved in the angular features, written in the almost tangible conviction with which the Vulcan spoke.

One eyebrow arched, and it seemed for a moment as if the first officer might surrender to the human urge of shrugging. He did not. "I do not believe it is worth concerning yourself, Captain," he said as if attempting to dismiss his own statement. Somehow, it sounded far less logical in reality than it had in his own thoughts. "We have observed in the past that our minds have developed a telepathic rapport of sorts. Perhaps I was merely receiving fragments of your dreams, thereby—"

"Spock," Kirk interrupted with an exasperated sigh. He reached across the table, resting his fingers lightly on his friend's arm. "I know it's an inconvenience to your Vulcan logic to have this link with a human, but just tell me!" But the gentle smile robbed the words of any harsh implications.

After a moment, Spock nodded almost imperceptibly and took a deep breath. "I dreamed that you were an ensign," he stated, "and that I was . . . captain of the Enterprise."

Kirk leaned heavily back in the chair, letting his hand fall back to his side. He could think of nothing to say.

"Perhaps we should inform Doctor McCoy," Spock suggested. "Since Vulcans do not normally dream whatsoever, and since our dreams do bear remarkable similarity . . ." His voice drifted into silence.

Kirk glanced at the chronometer on the wall, then nodded. "You're probably right," he agreed. "As a precautionary measure, we probably should tell Bones. But . . ." He put one hand to his forehead, sensing a headache struggling to break through. "Just keep it to yourself today, Spock. I'm going to talk to a few other people and see what I can come up with first."

Spock's head inclined in acknowledgment, and he rose from the chair as Kirk stood and followed him toward the door.

Once inside the lift. Kirk tried to shake the feeling of uneasiness with a deep breath. His success was marginal. But when the double doors opened to reveal the familiar refuge of the bridge, he stepped back, smiling deceptively at Spock's apparent confusion. "After you . . . Captain Spock," he offered graciously.

The Vulcan turned, both brows climbing in a moment of surprise. "Illogical," he noted, but nonetheless stepped onto the bridge first. "Captain, I need not point out that it would be irrational to base rank solely on the basis of dreams—regardless of the fact that I would, no doubt, make an excellent commander.*

Kirk shrugged, scrutinizing his first officer discreetly. "Maybe," he conceded, stepping onto the bridge and pulling the professional air of command into place. But he couldn't resist one final urge. "But keep in mind that I'd make one hell of a lousy ensign, Spock!*

The Vulcan stopped, meeting Kirk's eyes warmly. "Of that," he readily agreed, "I have no doubt."

Next Time

Things get steamy (literally) as Kirk dons a lumberjack shirt and invites Spock to stroll with him in a garden.

See tag Killing Time excerpts for more

[luminoustarlight]

As Fate Would Have It | Chapter Three

Lines are beginning to blur between you and Anakin.

◂ chapter two ▸ chapter four

rating: mature | pairing: dilf!anakin skywalker x afab!reader | wc: 5.2k | read on ao3

warnings: alcohol, age-gaps, body image insecurities (anakin), sexual fantasies/content, swearing, a little bit of mean anakin

“Tell me everything! Is he everything you thought he’d be? Totally dreamy? All stoic and boss-like? Oh, what does he smell like? Expensive?” 

Your best friend has barely taken off her shoes before bombarding you with questions about your first day working for Anakin Skywalker. You give her a welcoming hug before taking her hand and leading her into the living room. “Come on, I’ve already opened a bottle of wine.” 

Two empty glasses stand next to a middle-shelf Pinot Gris on your coffee table. Sabine takes it upon herself to pour the wine and pulls the granny square blanket from the back of your couch over her lap. She looks like she’s settling in for a bedtime story. 

“Okay, I’m ready. Lay it on me.” 

You situate yourself on the opposite end of the couch and slip your legs under the blanket. You take a small sip of wine before attempting to answer any of Sabine’s questions. Your first day at Skywalker Enterprises went by in a blur. Meeting your boss was not at all how you imagined it would go. It was all so clumsy. Anakin seemed more like an embarrassed school boy than the confident CEO you were expecting. He looked like he saw a ghost when he saw you sitting behind your desk. And then, in the car on the way to his house, he addressed your butt. 

“Let me know if your butt gets too toasty,” he said. It was so incredibly adorable because you could tell he let a little bit of his guard down when he said it. Obviously, he didn’t mean to. Because no sensible boss should talk about his assistant’s butt. Especially not when you’ve only just met each other. You found it endearing. 

But then, after the initial awkwardness faded and you continued talking to each other throughout the day, there was a sense of familiarity about him. The structure of his sentences when he spoke reminded you of someone. You’re just not sure who. 

“He’s not really what I thought he’d be like.”

“How so?” Sabine asks. 

“I don’t know,” you shrug, unable to explain the stirring of feelings and emotions in your chest. “He’s… he was sort of awkward when we first met. Like, stuttering and fumbling over his words. Almost as if I made him nervous.” 

Sabine nods slowly with her eyes narrowed. “Go on…” 

“Well, that’s crazy, right? The fact that I could’ve made him nervous?” 

“Not necessarily. Look at you. You didn’t have a successful OnlyFans page for nothing.” 

“Yeah, but he’s in his forties,” you emphasize. You remind yourself of his age nearly every minute to remember how inappropriate it is to be attracted to your boss. Applying for the job was such a bad idea. What made you think you wouldn’t be attracted to him when you saw him in person? Your cheeks get hot as you think about him rounding the car to open your door once you got back to the office after dropping off his son’s pants at school. It was just a common courtesy, not a sign of interest. But damn, was it nice to be on the reciprocating end of something gentlemanly.

“And he’s a dad! I shouldn’t be making dads nervous,” you add. “I mean, I saw a picture of his wife at his house. She was stunning. Stunning, Sabine. High cheekbones, a nice straight nose, a gorgeous smile…” 

“Wait, he’s married?!” Sabine sets down her glass. 

“Widowed.” 

“Oh,” Sabine says sadly. Then her eyebrows perk up. “Oh.” 

“Don’t,” you hold up your finger. “Don’t give me that look. He’s my boss.” 

“But you like him,” Sabine sings. “And from what it sounds like, he likes you too.” 

You cannot let Sabine put the idea of Anakin Skywalker, engineering millionaire, having a measly little crush on you. Because it’s absolutely absurd. He’s him and you’re… you’re just a girl who was uploading videos of herself masturbating for money just last week. Not that there is anything wrong with sex work. It’s empowered you in so many ways, but it was time to find something a bit more steady and reliable. And less physically taxing, to be perfectly honest. 

“Sabine, be serious. I-” your phone pings with a distinct tone that makes you pause. 

New Message from Skyguy81 

“Oh, my God,” you say. 

“What?” Sabine asks. 

“It’s Sky,” you answer her while opening the message.

Sabine eagerly crawls on top of you to peer at your screen. “Sky as in Rich Guy Sky? Did you upload a new video or something? What did he say?”

“No,” you shake your head. “I haven’t uploaded anything since last Thursday. Get off of me so I can read his message.” 

Sabine retreats to her side of the couch as you begin reading to her. 

“I thought about you at work today. I thought about you more than I would like to admit. You have no idea what you do to me, Honey. No idea what I would do to you.” Your tongue feels like sandpaper and your heart is in the bottom of your throat. 

“Oh, shit!” Sabine exclaims. “You’ve got this boy whipped! Honestly, you should just keep making videos for him. He was your best tipper, anyway.” 

“He’s never… he’s never messaged me out of the blue before.” You chug down the last of your wine, thinking you may need some liquid courage for whatever conversation is about to unfold between you and Sky. 

“He wants you,” Sabine says simply. “Make it happen.” 

“I can’t just meet up with someone from OnlyFans. It’s an episode of Dateline waiting to happen.” 

Sabine rolls her eyes. “Don’t be so cynical.” 

“I’m not being cynical, I’m being logical,” you counter. You’d be foolish to risk your life by meeting up with Skyguy81. No matter how nice and genuine he seems over private messages. No matter how much money he has tipped you. There is no guarantee he’s not absolutely creepy and going to kidnap you.

Okay, so maybe you watch too much true crime. That’s why you have to balance it out with The Great British Bake Off. 

“I don’t know. I’m just saying,” Sabine finishes her wine, “you never know. He could be the love of your life.” 

You’re quiet as you contemplate the love of your life. Sabine is the romantic. You’re the realist. You have a hard time believing there’s one person in the world who you’re destined to be with. How do you explain Anakin losing his wife? Was she the love of his life? Is he not supposed to move on and potentially find happiness with someone else? None of it makes sense to you and it’s quite possibly because you’ve never been in love. 

And the image of the person who you might like the opportunity to love is entirely unavailable. 

.

.

.

It’s times like tonight when Anakin wishes he didn’t raise such inquisitive, curious children. Leia is simply chock-full of questions about her dad’s new assistant. When do they get to meet her? Soon. Is she old like Auntie Dorothy? No. Does she like vintage Disney movies? (Anything before 2010 is “vintage” to Leia). I don’t know. 

Luke, on the other hand, was very disappointed to learn that you were in the car while his dad dropped off a new pair of pants. “You made her wait in the car like a dog?” 

Anakin snorts. “I wouldn’t quite say like a dog, Luke. I was gone for less than five minutes.” 

“Did you at least roll down the window? So she could have fresh air?” Leia joins in on the comical idea of their dad leaving his assistant in his car like a pet. 

“That’s enough out of you two,” Anakin says through a grin. These 9 year olds, man. What is he going to do with them? 

Luke and Leia nod, going back to stabbing their dumplings with their chopsticks. 

“I have one last question.” Leia watches her dumpling precariously dangle on the edge of her chopstick. 

“What is that, princess?” Anakin asks.   

“Is she pretty?” 

Anakin’s pulse is going to burst. It’s a simple question- one that always seems to be on the tip of Leia’s tongue. She wants a woman figure in her life. Soon, she’ll be at the age that is easier to navigate with a maternal presence. Anakin is really not equipped to talk her through menstrual cycles. 

But it’s the nature of who his new assistant is that makes him feel so exposed. He can’t very well tell his children you’re the most beautiful woman he’s seen since his wife. And he definitely can’t tell them that you’ve been in his life not since this morning, but since three years ago when he downloaded OnlyFans. 

Anakin cleans the corners of his mouth with his napkin while he formulates an appropriate response. He’s kept his answers short and simple because if he thinks about you for too long, your figure seeps into his vision, your voice burns in his ears, and he’s unable to focus. 

He feels like such a sleaze for getting hard just by thinking about you. You are so much more than a sexual object. And trust him, he can’t wait to learn about all that makes you you. But morals be damned. He wants you desperately. 

“Yes, Leia. She’s quite pretty,” Anakin finally answers. 

Leia can’t help but dance excitedly in her seat. “I can’t wait to meet her.” 

“I could’ve met her today,” Luke mumbles. “If Dad hadn’t locked her up in the car.” 

Anakin is laughing now. “I have a feeling you are going to be bringing this up for a while.” 

After dinner, the kids clear the dishes and load what they can into the dishwasher. Meanwhile, Anakin does something either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. 

.

.

.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. 

I thought about you at work today. I thought about you more than I would like to admit. You have no idea what you do to me, Honey. No idea what I would do to you.

Now being 10 pm, it’s been 3 hours since Anakin— or rather, Skyguy81— sent you that message. 

And you still haven’t replied. But you read it. 

And the fact that you’ve read the message but decided not to reply makes Anakin feel so incredibly foolish. What was he thinking? What was he expecting from you? More meaningless flirting? 

Except now it’s not meaningless for him. He’s not sure if it was ever meaningless. But now that he knows who the woman behind HoneySuckle is, it’s completely different. You have a name— which he had to look up in employment records because he’s convinced he actually blacked out when you introduced yourself. You have passions and interests, favorite snacks, and a go-to karaoke song. He wants to know it all. 

And even though he’s going to see you tomorrow, he couldn’t resist the urge to message you on OnlyFans. But since you’ve opted not to reply to him, he’s now wallowing like a teenage boy. 

Ridiculous. He’s better than this, goddamnit! 

Finally deciding to stop staring at his phone, Anakin strips down to take a shower. It’s hard for him not to feel disappointed when he looks at himself in the mirror. Arguably, he’s still in great shape. He lifts weights at the gym at least twice a week, sometimes three if he has the time. He doesn’t have a beer belly, which he considers an accomplishment at his age. But he does have some extra fat around his love handles. He has sun spots on his shoulders from the countless pool days when the twins were younger. And then there are the undeniable lines around his eyes, which are incredibly prominent when he smiles. 

Anakin has never felt particularly insecure about his image before. He’s accepted that his body is not the same 20 year old body it once was. But there’s a new nagging insecurity in the back of his mind.

Is it good enough for you? 

Anakin turns on the water in the shower, needing to wash away all delusions of you and him ever getting together. As soon as he steps one foot on the tile, his phone buzzes. He grabs his phone off of the counter and his heart rate immediately ticks up. 

Hi Sky, I’m sorry for the delay. I had a friend over. Here’s a special little something for you ;) 

Attached is a picture of you on your bed, sitting on your heels with the thin straps of your panties pulled over your hips. You’re lifting an oversized t-shirt above your breasts, which also expertly hides your face. Right. Because you don’t know that he knows who you are. 

Still, the picture was worth the wait. It’s almost embarrassing the way his cock is already standing upright, the tip pressing against his lower abdomen. He focuses on your hard nipples, picturing himself enclosing his mouth around one of your mounds. He’s rolling his tongue over your bud while massaging your other breast. Your hands are in his hair and you’re anything but silent. You’re moaning his name, begging for more, whining for him to put his cock inside of you. 

Anakin is too preoccupied to even reply to you. He gets himself under the steady stream of hot water and grabs the base of his length. Now he’s picturing you on top of him, tits bouncing in his face while you fuck yourself on his cock. 

“Mmm, yes! Anakin, please. Feels so good.” 

Your hands are pressed against his strong chest for support. He loves you like this— in control but still pathetically needy for his dick. “How much do you love it?” he asks. “Tell me how much you love this cock inside of you.” 

You throw your head back when he slaps both of your ass cheeks. He grabs onto your flesh firmly and your cunt clamps around him while you proclaim it to be the best feeling in the world. “I love it so much, Ani. Nobody's cock feels as good as yours.” 

“Damn right,” Anakin grits. He holds your chin with a strong hand, forcing you to look at him. “This pussy is mine. You understand that?” 

“Yes, sir,” you moan as Anakin bucks his hips up, hitting deep inside of you. “Only yours.” 

“Yes, sir,” huh? That’s a new kink unlocked. Anakin presses a palm on the shower wall to steady himself as he cums. It’s anything from pretty. It happens suddenly and quickly, thanks to the vivid images he was creating in his mind. He bites down on his bottom lip to keep from moaning too loudly. But your name is rolling off of his tongue effortlessly. As if it’s always been in the recesses of his mind, just waiting to be said intimately and passionately. 

He tries to list off the hundreds of reasons why he should never utter your name in a less than professional manner while shampooing his hair. 

You’re his assistant.

You’re significantly younger than him. 

The power imbalance (see 1 and 2). 

That’s all he can come up with for now and it’s enough. Nothing good will come out of pining for you and fantasizing about you. It still doesn’t stop him from messaging you back after he gets out of the shower and settles in bed. 

Now I feel guilty for not responding sooner. Thank you for the spectacular photo. It is unfortunate that I had to take matters into my own, ahem, hands. I would have much preferred to have your help. 

You flatter me, Sky. Do I really get you that worked up? 

Impossibly so. 

When you said you thought about me at work… What exactly did you mean? 

To be perfectly blunt, you were bent over a desk with your skirt pushed over your ass. I was fucking you well and hard, with my name being the only thing falling from your pretty lips. 

Anakin lets out a heavy sigh and pinches the bridge of his nose. Why does he keep putting himself in situations that result in an erection? He just needs to have a good fuck. Get it out of his system. Yeah, that’s what he’ll do. But under no circumstances will it be with you. 

I think I’d like that very much. 

Goddamnit. Anakin needs to stop while he’s ahead. While he’s not succumbing to jerking off for a second time tonight. This was a disastrous idea. Because now when he sees you at work tomorrow, he’s going to think about how you would like for him to fuck you over your desk. Except you don’t actually know that it’s him who wants to fuck you over your desk. 

Maybe in another life. 

Anakin leaves it at that. He puts his phone on do not disturb and attempts to get some reading in before going to sleep. He also prays for G-rated dreams. 

.

.

.

The morning fog of late November in Northern California is still hanging in the air when you get to work at 8 am. Anakin won’t be in until he drops off Luke and Leia which means he should arrive around the same time he did yesterday. It gives you an hour to go through voicemails, reply to emails, and brew a pot of coffee in the breakroom. 

Ben Kenobi arrives shortly after you, sharply dressed in dark blue slacks, caramel leather Oxfords, and a white collared shirt with small polka dots that match the color of his pants. 

“Good morning, Mr. Kenobi,” you greet.  

“Please, call me Ben. No need for formalities around here,” Ben replies. “You’ll soon see we operate very much like a family. There will be shouting and likely some name calling, but it’s all in the name of love for engineering and innovation.” 

“Got it,” you nod. “It’s just that Dorothy always called Mr. Skywalker by, well, Mr. Skywalker. And yesterday he didn’t tell me to call him otherwise.” 

Ben strokes his nicely groomed beard. “Interesting. Well, I suppose you can continue to address him as such until he tells you to call him Anakin. Which I’m sure he’ll do this morning when he gets in. Have you brewed the coffee yet?” 

“Not yet.” you stand. “I wanted to check messages first, but coffee is next on the list.” 

“Excellent.” Ben follows you into the breakroom. “How are you enjoying your time here?” 

“Well, it’s only been a day,” you remind him with a light lilt to your voice. “But it’s been good! Everyone I’ve met is super friendly.” 

Ben leans back against the counter, crossing his ankles and arms over his chest. “And you and Anakin? You two getting along? He’s not giving you too much trouble, is he?” 

You nearly spill the coffee grounds as you bring the spoon up from the container to the machine. “No!” you say a little too loudly. “I mean, no. He’s been very nice. Quiet, but nice.” 

“Anakin? Quiet?” Ben almost laughs. “I’ve never heard that word used to describe Anakin before.” 

“Oh.” you continue scooping grounds into the machine. How many spoonfuls are you supposed to put in? You’ve lost count. Maybe two more for good measure. You’d rather make the coffee too strong than too weak. Nothing is worse than weak coffee. “Maybe I caught him on an off day. He did seem a little weird when he brought me to his house. And then I sort of told him off in the car…” 

This gets Ben away from the counter and walking over to you. “You did what?” 

“Well, I mean, I didn’t tell him off per se. I just asked him to give me a chance. It seemed like he’d already made a decision about me and we’d only known each other for a couple of hours.” 

“Good for you,” Ben replies. “Anakin is headstrong but he can be reasoned with. If the reason is worth being reasoned over.” 

“Am I?” you ask. “Worth being reasoned over?” 

Ben appears to give you a once over and then nods once. “Yes, I’d say so.” 

“Thanks…” you say with uncertainty. Ben takes himself and his briefcase to his office, which is the next door over from Anakin’s. He leaves you alone in the breakroom with a dozen questions. Was Ben assessing your appearance? Surely not for himself. He’s insanely in love with his wife— the mayor. Then who for? Anakin? No. No way. 

The coffee has begun to brew— the nutty notes of Philz Philtered Soul bringing you back to your college days. There’s one in walking distance from campus and you and Sabine spent every finals week there chugging back Mint Mojitos and Mocha Tesoras. 

Those days were not that long ago for you. For Anakin, on the other hand… 

You shake your head, effectively shaking thoughts of Anakin taking any interest in you away. And why would he have an interest in you? He’s bound to have a list of more age-appropriate women he can bring home to his children. 

Stop thinking about it. 

But it’s so damn hard not to. A forbidden office romance with your boss who’s 20 years your senior? Yeah, it’s cliché and sort of sounds like the plot to a porno but it’s sort of fun, too. As long as you keep yourself in check, what’s the harm in pretending like he’s secretly in love with you and wants to take you home? 

.

.

.

When Anakin gets into the office, he doesn’t even greet you before saying, “Call Rose. Tell her to come as soon as possible.” 

So much for him being nice yesterday. Now he won’t even look at you. “Who’s Rose? What- what is the appointment for?” 

“You don’t need to know what it’s for,” Anakin snaps. “Just find Rose in your little phone book, call her, and tell her I need to see her immediately.” 

“Y-yes, sir,” you say while thumbing through the contacts Dorothy left behind for you. Without another word, Anakin goes into his office and slams the door. 

What the hell was that about? That was once again another awkward morning of Anakin slamming his office door after talking to you. You thought you left work on good terms yesterday. What changed? 

.

.

.

Rose Montgomery arrives 47 minutes after you call her. You hear her Louboutins clicking on the floor before you see her. Your eyes trail up from her long legs to her slim waist and perky boobs until you reach her face. Good Lord. She is strikingly beautiful. Her fiery red hair falls in loose curls over her shoulders. As she walks closer to your desk, you are drawn to her perfectly round green eyes. She’s like the real-deal Jolene from Dolly Parton’s hit song. Seriously, did she grow up being called Jolene solely based on her looks? 

“Aw, look at you,” Rose smiles down at you. “You must be the new Dorothy.” 

“I suppose I am.” 

“Aren’t you just the most adorable thing.” 

Uh… What the hell are you supposed to say to that? “I’ll let Mr. Skywalker know you’re here.” 

“No need,” Rose informs. “I’ll let myself in.” She begins to walk away with an extra sway to her hips. You want to hate her but she’s got such an air of confidence that you actually want to be a little more like her. 

“Oh, um, actually I’m not sure about that,” you come out from behind your desk. “He seems to be in a mood so I don’t want you barging in his office to make it worse.” 

Rose turns on her heels and purses her lips. “Actually, sweetheart, I’ve known him longer than you and this isn’t my first ‘appointment’ with him. So if you don’t mind, I’d like to go make his mood a little better.” 

Okay. Now you hate her. With that, Rose leaves you standing outside of Anakin’s office with a dumbfounded look on your face. Is that… is she… a booty call? 

All of the insinuations are there; from the air quotes around “appointment” to the way she said she’ll make Anakin’s mood better. Coupled with her outstanding looks, you’ve decided that Rose Montgomery is a friend with benefits of Anakin Skywalker. You trudge back to your desk and do your absolute best not to think about what’s happening behind your boss’s door. 

.

.

.

At the sound of his door opening, Anakin quickly closes his computer tab and turns off the monitor. He pulls his headphones off of his head and puts them in the drawer. 

Rose is none the wiser as she drops her Birkin bag on the table beside the chaise. “Ugh, who is that child you have sitting behind Dorothy’s desk?” 

“My new assistant,” Anakin answers through a dry throat. Rose sits herself on his lap and drapes her arms over his shoulders. She begins playing with the ends of his curls, which normally, he would enjoy. But he really just wants to get this over with. He draws down the zipper of her black dress while she kisses along his jaw. 

“She seems incompetent,” Rose says between kisses. “What is she? Like, 15?” 

Anakin twirls Rose’s hair around his fist and yanks her face away from his. This makes her gasp with pleasure, and despite his annoyance, he loves the reaction he gets from her. “I didn’t fucking ask you here for your opinion on her. Do not talk about her again. Do you understand?” 

“Yes,” Rose breathes. “Where do you want me?” 

“On your knees.”

.

.

.

When Rose leaves Anakin’s office, you can absolutely tell she and Anakin had sex. Did she even bother looking in the mirror or her phone camera before coming out? She avoids looking in your direction at all costs and knowing how awkward those walks of shame can be after a one night stand, you decide not to watch her walk to the elevator. 

You busy yourself in a filing cabinet until you hear Anakin’s door open again. You tell yourself not to look up because if you look up at him you might actually burst into tears. Which makes absolutely no sense to you but you feel that stinging in your nose and you’re trying to think of the time you got Panini because at least those were happy tears. 

Anakin says your name. 

Damnit. Get it together. You take a deep breath and plaster on a smile. At least he doesn’t look like he just had sex. His hair is combed back the same way it was when he walked in and his clothes are wrinkle free. “Yes, Mr. Skywalker?” 

“Would you like to go get lunch?” 

It’s only 10:45 but of course, he’d be hungry after having sex. “Oh, sure. What can I get you?” 

“I meant me.” 

You furrow your brows together. “Sorry?” 

“I mean us. You and me, together. Fuck,”  Anakin mumbles that last part. It’s like he loses the part of his brain that forms proper sentences when he looks at you. Think back to the car, Anakin. Things weren’t so bad in the car. Wait, yes they were. He told you to tell him if your butt got too toasty. 

You can’t help but smile as you start to see the Anakin who let his guard down in the car. He’s nothing like the Anakin who walked into the office this morning. “You want me to get lunch with you?” 

“Yes. If you would like.” 

You grab your thrifted black leather bag and your coat off of the back of your chair. “I think I’d like that very much.” 

I think I’d like that very much. 

That is the second time you’ve said that to Anakin. 

On the drive to the farm to table restaurant he suggested, he thinks about telling you the truth. That he’s Skyguy81 and you’ve been messaging each other for three years. Oh, and that he’s seen you naked. 

He weighs all of the pros and cons and all of the ways the situation could play out if he tells you. He decides the only way it’s going to end is with you quitting and never wanting to see him again. Telling you who he is is out of the question. 

Your face is buried in the menu, effectively blocking you from looking at Anakin. Your nerves are irritably on fire as you sit knee to knee with your boss. You go out to lunch with someone to talk. To get to know them. But you have no idea what to talk about with him. Either he’s super blunt or incredibly awkward and you don’t know what to make of it. 

Could Sabine be right? Does he have a crush on you? Do men in their forties even get crushes? 

“You are awfully quiet behind there,” Anakin finally says. “Are you hiding from me?” 

You slam your menu down nervously. “What? Oh, no. Just… looking at all of the options.” 

“I’m kidding,” Anakin chuckles. “If it helps, Leia likes the poke rice bowl. Luke likes the flatbread with artichokes. And I normally just get a burger.” 

“Wow, a 9 year old who likes poke? You’ve got some interesting kids.” 

“You have no idea,” Anakin replies bashfully. He really calms down when he talks about his kids. Maybe that’s your key to him. Keep him talking about his kids. 

“Well, I think I’ll try Leia’s favorite. Do your kids enjoy trying different types of food?” 

Anakin gives you a noncommittal shrug. “I suppose so. I didn’t raise them to be picky eaters. They eat what I eat. We had dumplings last night. They’re shit at using chopsticks but it makes for an entertaining meal.” 

You laugh along with him, feeling yourself relax the more you see Anakin relax. “I love dumplings!” 

“Yeah? We’ll have to have you over some time for dumplings, then.” Anakin doesn’t even realize what he’s saying until it’s hanging between you, awaiting your response. 

“That would be nice,” you admit. “I can’t wait to meet them. Of course, you know… if they even want to meet me.” 

“Are you kidding? Luke almost threw a fit over me leaving you in the car yesterday. And Leia… well, Leia gets excited about any new woman in my life. I mean, not that you’re my new woman, just you know, in terms of you being Dorothy’s replacement and-” 

You place your hand over Anakin’s without a second thought. And it’s more than just skin on skin. It’s electric. You resist the urge to pull away because the overwhelming feeling almost keeps you from saying: “It’s fine, Mr. Skywalker. I get what you mean.” 

Anakin is looking down at your hands and you wonder if he feels it too. Or if it’s entirely inappropriate to put your hand on his and he’s going to go back to being standoffish. You remove your hand from his and sit on it. 

“You don’t have to call me that,” Anakin murmurs. “Mr. Skywalker. I would much prefer you to call me Anakin.” 

You look up at him timidly. He’s being sincere. One corner of his lips are quirked up to form a sideways smile and your heart— your stupid, stupid heart adores it.  Perhaps there is harm in pretending like your boss is in love with you. Perhaps keeping yourself in check is going to be a lot more difficult than you thought. Because now that you’re on a first name basis with Anakin Skywalker, you fear simply being his assistant is not going to be enough.

◂ series masterlist ▸ chapter four (coming soon)

[aste-te05]

(A very late) Valentines Day Special 💖

A Knockout x human! Reader fic

(This is all fluff no worries maybe some Wheeljack x reader sprinkled in but whatever)

Enjoy!

So this is where it gets you. Where you solemnly put yourself to rest because god knows if you'll have the will to make it out alive.

You succumb to the situation at hand and have decided from here on out, you're just going to let yourself put your guard down for once. The situation can no longer get any worse then it already is, and you know you only had your best intentions at mind when you chose to follow your friend through the ground bridge. You were scared for her, you knew how the decepticons were ruthless, how they give no thought to this planets inhabitants and would be happy to squish them under their peds. You were only trying look out for the teen, despite the lack of attention you paid to your own safety at hand. You knew she made it out safe, you saw her make it out of the cave as she ran to her green guardian, baffled at how she even made it to their coordinates being under the bots' radar the whole time. Did she notice you didn't make it out? Did she even tell the others you were there with her?

A million thoughts rattle your brain, you believe it's the remainder of dust particles in the air or something having a slight effect on you, making any attempts of rational thinking almost impossible, but you can't help but let your emotions wonder through you. You're scared, you're without the cover of safety that the Autobots have chosen to shower you with. You're on your own.

Well not totally. Aside from being stuck in this energon mine, one other being was just as unfortunate like you to wound up in this tough situation. 

Knockout.

You hadn't notice the red racer car behind you at first, only paying attention when you heard him suddenly cursing the rock fall out and approaching it in a fitful manner. You're not sure if he acknowledged you as he was busy kicking the rocks away in a weak attempt of escape. A pitiful attempt you think. 

"Primus no, this can't be fair" You heard him mutter in exhaust as he sat down on the rocky floor. He lets out a sigh of annoyance as he looks like a kid who just got out on the wall for time out.

You're scared to move, seeing as you were already aware about how he felt towards humans like you, not even attempting to make a slight noise you turn your head to investigate the wall that separates you from the sweet outside air. 

"You just going to stand there fleshy?" His voice is like a nail to your head, so rudely interrupting your train of thought as you jump slightly realizing his attention was now on you. You notice his blazing red eyes and for a moment you’re entranced. In other context you'd say they were more beautiful then intimidating, but not now and definitely not here. He was a predator, and you were the weak prey that had an unfortunate chance to get stuck with him.

You glare in slight annoyance, stepping cautiously around him until you were a foot or two beside his giant frame, you notice the details of his paint job, all the red with yellow accents, you find that it weirdly just suits him. You also hold in a small giggle as you notice how the shiny finish warps your face into absurd shapes. Graciously sitting your ass down you choose to lean away from the Decepticon, scooting slightly farther away as he proceeds to eye the fuck out of you like the creep he is. 

As you attempt to go through the very few options you have that you make  race back and forth, Knockout takes the time to drum his knife-like fingers atop his knee, he has one leg up and the other laid down. You watch him wordlessly as he continues to look around the perimeter, maybe searching for a quick solution out. Or maybe he was searching for a big enough rock to hit you with, it was difficult to try and figure out an answer with him.

Judging by his mildly off setting demeanor you come the conclusion that he is safe. (For now) and continue to sit beside him, both of you occasionally stealing glances at each other from time to time. It makes your nerves feel like they’re on fire whenever you catch his eyes gleaming down at you. You wonder what he’s thinking, or if there’s anything he wants to say, you soon get your answer as he clears his throat.

”you know earthling I’m usually not too fond of your kind, but I do find your company to be more… tolerable then the others.” He looks away from you and you can’t help but let your body tense up, are you surprised? Unsettled? You’re not even sure, as this was something you weren’t expecting to hear. Especially coming from a Decepticon, especially coming from Knockout.

“Thanks… I appreciate the uh. Compliment?” You question that last part since you don’t really know what that was, only that it made you feel something in the pit of your stomach, a feeling that relates to nausea almost.

He smiles at you and leans towards your minuscule frame, putting his weight on the arm holding him up as he sits in a relaxed posture. He’s fully facing you now which finally makes you notice his grin, his more than cheerful grin that you’re not sure if you like at the moment. Especially considering you both were still stuck together in a cave, and as you wonder if the oxygen will run out before you’re saviors get the chance to free you, you find yourself grateful that you get to spend quality time with someone you might be able to consider a friend after this. If there even is an after.

He chuckles slightly and you proceed to watch as he shakes his head. 

“It’s crazy to me that I just said that, but despite everything I’ve put you through earthling I’m surprised you’re not cowering of fear that you have no way out, trapped with a Decepticon that has gladly gambled on your life in the past.”

it was true, he has been the reason of you almost dying numerous times. But a part of you can’t exactly hate him for it, you’re both on opposing sides of the war, both sides fighting for what they believe is right. You can’t exactly blame him even if you wanted to.

”I’ve gotten used to it, but I appreciate the sentiment Knockout. Maybe if we ever get out of here we could be something similar to acquaintances. I’d quite like that.” 

You aren’t certain what made you say that last part but you find it hard to lie when your life is very well in someone else’s hands. This seems to surprise him however and he gives you a small grin. You find no malice in his expression as he nods in confirmation.

”as would I”

you smile at this, you don’t know why you smile but it just hits you in the part of your heart that’s been aching for a connection to someone. You gain a false sense of hope that maybe Knockout would be the one to do that for you.

You open your mouth to remark his words when you’re startled by the sound of collisions. Someone’s trying to break through the rock wall, you stand up swiftly hoping it was one of your autobot saviors, but to your absolute terror you hear a voice that you’d taken a disliking to.

“Knockout, what is your designation?” It’s Starscream. He sounds angry and before you’re newfound friend can get a sentence out you’re sprinting behind a boulder, just in time to see the once blocked entrance now reopened, the seeker sauntering in as he approaches Knockout with fury.

The red mech stands up and brushes himself off, the sediments and particles flying off of him. You hear the two exchange very few words as Starscream transforms to his alt mode and whisk away, Knockout getting prepared to trail behind him, he stops however and turns back to you.

Suddenly everything you two said is forgotten as that same fear rattles the bones inside you, you’re shaken with fear as he approaches and stares at you for a moment.

”aren’t you coming?” He asks, gesturing to the fallen rocks and the landscape that beckons you outside. You can’t move however, as you’re scared that Starscream might still be near the area, surveying somehow.  

Where were the autobots?

”im going to wait until help arrives, im not going to risk being seen by your commander.”

You notice he looks almost solemn as you both remember you’re technically enemies to each other.

”very well, I’ll wait with you.” 

You look at him almost wide eyed. Kind gestures weren’t far inbetween but for a decepticon, hell, for knockout it was almost non existent.

”what?” You ask sheepishly. Almost scared that he’ll scowl and walk away, leaving you to deteriorate in your own madness.

but he doesn’t. His expression instead softens and he straightens his stance.

”I said I’ll wait with you, did I not speak clear enough before? Have the dust particles gotten into your tiny human ears?” He says, almost jokingly. It was meant to be a taunt yes but more friendly than you’re accustomed to. You let yourself smile but immediately wiping it from your face. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction.

”No it’s just- I wasn’t expecting… this.” You say, gesturing between the two of you in an awkward motion with your hands, which makes Knockout chuckle once more. A sound you’ve grown to almost like.

”It’s a hard situation to grasp i know, but maybe it’ll make sense to you in the future.” You can’t help but feel that statement was foreboding almost, it makes you nervous to think about it, similar to when the author give you foreshadowing of the ending of the book. It’s something you choose to ignore.

You turn away from him and reluctantly choose to say silent, afraid that anything you might say after might annoy him causing him to leave. In truth you enjoyed the ‘cons company, which almost came to you in surprise as you realize just how far you’ve fallen.

suddenly, the rev of engines garners your attention once more, you turn to peek around the boulder cautiously as you spot two sport cars and a motorcycle approaching the now open cave entrance. You’re ecstatic and run towards them in a frenzy, the motorcycle transforms first and Arcee rushes towards you. You assume she was going to ask about your status when she noticed the red bot behind still lingering in the cave, immediately she draws her blasters in a swift motion, the autobots that arrived with her; Wheeljack and Smokescreen, do the same.

Their guns are out and you start to regret your choice of running out in such a hurry, you look from Knockout to Arcee with the fear of seeing one of their guns go off, before the mech yet again clears his throat.

”Not here to fight, I was just making sure your little human friend made it out safe.” He points to you while you’re slowly ducking down behind Wheeljacks peds, not wanting to see the outcome of a maybe gruesome situation.

”Likely story, now leave before we let it rain on you” you hear Wheeljack remark, his tone is threatening and you can only watch sadly as your new Decepticon friend raises his hands in the air in a means of surrender, as he continues to transform into his alt mode and race off, away from the foreseen blast zone.

”Close call” Smokescreen says, continuing to but his blasters away as the trio look down at you in awe.

”we were concerned when you didn’t make it back with Miko and Bulkhead.” Arcee begins to add. You shrug in embarrassment and Wheeljack continues to chuckle beneath his breath. You however, are just relieved that everyone made it out unharmed, this could’ve gone so terribly wrong and yet the universe has decided to grace you with this new opportunity. This new friend.


シ

Months pass by since the incident, to your relief Miko has since grew a bit wiser about rushing into danger, and you find yourself more relaxed then you were before, in a spontaneous course of action, you decide to put the past events behind you, wanting to enjoy the time you have now with your mechanical comrades. The day flashes by in a flurry and you’re excited when the time to go home finally dawns upon you and your human friends.

Like clockwork you each go to your respected guardian, at least your three friends do. As of now you have yet to call any bot on base your guardian as that’s not a burden you wish to put on them with their busy schedule. Optimus had offered at first and soon after he arrived, same as Wheeljack, you declined both of the offers of course (to their mild dismay) as you had mentioned that you’re grown, it’s not like you were in need of close monitoring in times like these. 

Wheeljack, in your eyes, almost seems excited to get the chance to take you home. Over time, as you two have grown to know each other, a bond has quickly developed. You considered him a reliable and close friend and he did so you as it wasn’t meant to be anything more, you’ve mentioned to him once before, as you both were having a sit down talk looking over the Nevada desert on a cliffs edge, that you’re not looking for a relationship with anyone other then a human, only to notice his face slightly fall as he hears your words. The sun began to set over the horizon and he remained quiet for the duration of your hangout, it’s something you’ve chosen to push aside to the darkest parts of your mind, mostly for the sake of not wanting to put down your friend in any way, and also because you can’t believe in a love like that. It’s not written in your script to be with a bot like him. Wheeljack obviously knows of that and he’s willing to work with your boundaries, but it doesn’t mean he won’t push them a little.

“Ready to roll out kid?” He asks as he transforms to his vehicle mode and opens the passenger door for you to strap in.

you settle in the cushioned seat rather comfortably and swiftly fasten your seatbelt, leaning back in your chair as Wheeljack begins to make his exit out of the base tunnel and into the crisp Nevada night. You proceed to take in the view of the sky through your window, you’re relaxed and you’re happy to unwind as you think back on previous events of your life, you even begin to think about Knockout when you hear Wheeljack begin to speak through his radio.

”You like watching the stars kid?” He asks, you smile at his interface and nod solemnly. Choosing to ignore the fact that he must have been staring at you somehow, as you choose to stay blissfully unaware.

”Yes I find it to be relaxing if you must know.” You reply bluntly.

“Maybe if you’re up for it I can take you out on a ride in the old Jackhammer, get you up close and personal with the stars up there, you like the sound of that?” It was an invitation, one you couldn’t possibly refuse despite the feelings you know he has for you, he wouldn’t pressure you into anything romantic without going over it with yourself first, at least, you’d like to think he’d do that.

”sounds like a good idea ‘Jack, maybe one of these days we can do that when the Decepticons aren’t plotting to destroy Earth every waking hour.” To that you both begin to laugh, and after for the rest of the ride you two decide to sit in a comfortable silence, and as he pulls up to your house’s driveway, he leaves you with parting words as you step out of his vehicle form and onto the sidewalk and cool night air.

”I’ll consider it a date then.” You don’t get the chance to respond before he closes the door and speeds off, you’re left in confusion and you’re left to stupidly stand on the sidewalk for sometime until you make an attempt to walk yourself to your front door rather slowly. You decide that this is something you’ll have to deal with tomorrow, or the very least you could block it out of your mind until the time for the hangout actually comes. Taking out your keys from your jacket pocket, you sit and pause for a moment, thinking about the routine you’ve came to follow religiously once you get home; Walk through the door, take off your shoes, then you head to bed. So simple and so mundane.

Why not change it up? You were in high spirits tonight and it wouldn’t hurt to treat yourself. 

As you step off your doorstep and head towards your car that’s parked lazily in the open garage, you’re greeted by a pair of headlights heading up the road towards you, giving you not even a second to react before the vehicle pulls into your driveway. It’s passenger door opens and you hear an all too familiar voice call out to you as you stare at the empty leather seats inside, anticipation building within you.

”I’d figure you’d want to change up your schedule tonight.” You hear Knockout say as you settle in the seat, you can feel your heartbeat pounding against your chest as you let the seatbelt strap itself over you and the door closing as he backs out of your driveway. Speeding down the road to what you assumed was the drive in theatre you’ve both grown accustomed to hanging out at.

”what’d make you come to the conclusion that I didn’t want to sit at home alone tonight?” You ask, as you watch the houses swiftly flash by in the view of your window.

”A little birdie told me it’s a holiday today, something you humans call Saint Valentines?” You smile and proceed to cock a brow at him, hearing the rev of his engine as he notices your slight amusement.

”A little birdie huh? Don’t you mean the World Wide Web? Also, you know this holiday is meant for couples right?” He stays silent for a moment before he replies cockily, “Well yes, but wouldn’t you say we already match that criteria? I mean we already go on dates to the drive in theatre, and I got you these beautiful flowers that I thought you’d appreciate.” 

Your attention is drawn from the window to his backseat as you spot a bouquet of pink roses strapped neatly in the middle. To this you smile and turn back around to face the front dashboard, you’d figured you’d ask how he got those later as you didn’t want to spoil the mood in any way. You ever so gently pat his interior and you’re delighted to hear his engine purr in response.

”Thanks Knockout, you didn’t have to do that though.” You say, you’re caught off guard when you hear him scoff at you. The audacity of sassy men.

”Why of course I did, how else am I suppose to honor my gorgeous lady on this very important holiday?” You smile and shake your head in an endearing manner, all the while trying to hide the urge to sob and thank him so graciously, as you don’t want to get feed his ego even more.

”it’s more of a minor holiday, but I appreciate your efforts nonetheless” you say, folding your hands in your lap in a polite manner.

”Good, it’s not everyday I get to shower you in gifts of which you deserve my lady.” He replies. You’re forced to hold back a small laugh as your cheeks turn slightly red. You almost forget how much of a charmer your boyfriend has become since you two had become friends in the result of getting trapped in a cave together. A memory you two have come to laugh about and reminisce in the months following once you both realized the others affection was nothing less of romantic.

”Well Happy Valentine’s Day to you Knockout.” You say to him as he pulls into the drive in theatre, an old timey movie is playing on the big screen all black and white and you can’t help but smile. As the light shines down on you through the windshield. 

”Happy Valentine’s Day earthling.”

_______________

WANT TO ASK QUESTIONS OR HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY!? my ask box is now open to anyone so feel free to share whatever you’d like <3

Phew I’m so tired, literally had a war with a03 trying to get it to save and eventually gave up.

-Jen Jen

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Not sure what made me realize this, but outside of the hero side of the plot for Volpina & Chameleon, S1-5 Marinette's victories over Lila were always handed to her.

Think about it, it was Adrien's actions during Ladybug that made Lila back down and allowed Marinette to return to the school, Lila flat out won during the civilian side of Revelation and handed the win herself to Marinette during its hero plot onlt after getting what she wanted, and of course who could forget the problematic episode Confrontation were Sabrina was retcon into having a moral compass out of the blue which resulted in her telling Marinette what was going on thus leading to Marinette's victory.

Hell technically an argument could be made that if it wasn't for Alix, Lila would have won during the london special too.

That issue goes beyond the Lila stuff. Marinette was also randomly given Gabriel's identity and the Emilie video that "defeats" him. She did all of nothing to find the big bad or learn his weaknesses. Marinette didn't even know that Emilie was in the basement until the fight happened! In other words, Ladybug could have been anyone and the fight would have played out the exact same way. That is not how you write a unique and interesting lead character or a unique and interesting boss battle!

Of course, like most of the writing issues, this isn't unique to Marinette. It's a systemic issue. Almost every major victory in the show came from sheer dumb luck and/or the writers forcing it. Since most of the major victories go to the villains, let's just focus on them for now.

Example 1: Gabriel getting all the miraculous at the end of season four came from Felix randomly showing up with the miraculous, something Gabriel absolutely did not plan for. He didn't even know Felix was in Paris! Gabriel's actual plans failed, but the writers wanted him to win, so he was handed a victory.

Example 2: Felix getting all the miraculous also wasn't the result of careful planning. His plan was to steal the peacock from Gabriel and it failed! If Felix had tried that plan on any other day, then it would have been a total loss for his character, but he just so happened to switch places with Adrien on the right day for him to be handed victory. Even then, the writers had to break the lore to give it to him. That video rants about the pre-season five crap, but after Intuition, the season four ending is even more embarrassing from a writing standpoint. Intuition is the episode where Gabriel couldn't win even though he had the snake because the lucky charm always gives the heroes a victory no mater the situation. That rule that should have applied in the season four final, too. The idea that Ladybug messed up the lucky charm by not realizing that it was telling her where the akuma's object was hidden is absurd. I don't think that the lucky charm has ever worked that way before or since this episode. Her interpretation of the charm was perfectly in line with the way it has worked in other episodes where she was told to get a temp hero. Especially since the charm had the previous day's date!!!

Ladybug: A ticket for the Jardin des Plantes? It's from yesterday... (gasps) I know! I've gotta put an end to this madness ASAP! (leaps off)

Example 3: The season five final sees Lila get the butterfly, but there's literally no reason why that should have happened. How did she know where the final fight was going down? How did she know that the butterfly would be up for grabs? How did she manage to get to the butterfly without Ladybug seeing her? Your guess is as good as mine.

I could go on, but hopefully you see my point. The writers seem to have no idea how to write characters who pull off complex plans in order to win in part because the kind of smart and clever characters Miraculous begs for can't exist in the type of show Miraculous is.

A character like Marinette should have spent the entire show trying to find Gabriel. I can buy her failing that mission since it's a needle-in-a-haystack scenario, but she still should have been actively trying. Same goes for Alya, especially once she became Rena Furtive. But that kind of thing would require serialized elements and Miraculous has vowed to avoid those so you get characters that can't fully embrace their intended role, leading them to feel worthless and inadequate in that role because the show's basic format inherently undermines their characters.

Marinette and Alya are the most glaring victims of the problem, but Felix and Lila bother me more. While the girls are failed in the large scale, Marinette and Alya do get genuine moments of intelligence on the small scale because they have lots of small problems to solve. I want more for them, but at least their intelligence has some substance. Meanwhile Felix and Lila are antagonists who primarily operate via complex schemes that need multiple episodes to be properly set up. Because those schemes can't be set up over multiple episodes, they all feel asinine!

Marinette getting expelled in Ladybug is a perfect example so let's give it a brief glance to show what I mean. Everything Lila does in that episode was nonsense, but to keep this quick we'll just look at the first step of her plan:

Miss Bustier: I've graded your mock exam papers. Most of you did quite well, some better than others, but before I hand them back, Marinette, could you bring your schoolbag to me, please? I need to check something. (Marinette does so) Today, someone placed an anonymous note in my mailbox, claiming that you'd stolen the exam answers, and it looks like the anonymous person was right! (Everyone gasps)

Why would Marinette still have the answers in her backpack after the test was over and graded? Why would she have the answers on her at all? A big sheet like that would be glaringly obvious during a test. To cheat effectively, Marinette would have either memorized the answers or put them on something smaller that was easier to look at during a test. Also why would she cheat on a mock exam? And how did Lila get the answers in Marinette's backpack? How did Lila get the answers at all? How did she know that Marinette was going to get a perfect score? Everything about this frame job is terrible, but the writers can't give us a good frame job because a good one would take too long so we get this nonsense instead.

Like most instances of a character being smart and clever, this episode gives the veneer of Lila being smart and clever, but if you think about any of it for more than two seconds, it all falls apart. Nothing she tried here would have actually worked. The same can be said any time a character has to do a clever thing that needs multiple episodes of setup to really work. The show can't do multi-episode plots so you get shoddy hack jobs instead.