#plans yo go to the fair and its so DUMB because its just a fair its nbd except like. its an annual thing and a big deal in our tiny ass town

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Hack-San

You know, it's honestly amazing how creative this show can get. After four seasons and almost one hundred episodes, the writers are still finding new ways to make Adrien an incredibly unlikable character, and they don't even know how much of an asshole they're making him out to be at times. It's kind of like the opposite of The Producers.

Yeah, this review's going to be a little more ranty than usual, in case you can't tell.

Let's get into the fifteenth (chronologically the sixteenth) episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fourth season: Hack-San

We start off with Marinette pretending to be sick so she doesn't have to go to visit her aunt in London and stay to protect Paris in case an Akuma attacks and also because the animators haven't had time to render the city of London yet for the next Miraculous World special. Like all of her other excuses, it fails, and Tikki, as always, fails to actually give any meaningful advice.

And it's not like there's a Miraculous with the power of teleportation that can help Marinette get back to Paris if she needs to, much like how she planned to do that in an earlier episode, right?

Seriously, Kaalki doesn't appear or isn't even mentioned in this episode because the writers are fully aware she would make things a lot easier.

And of course, Astruc had to play dumb on Twitter while explaining why Marinette couldn't use the Horse Miraculous by answering the question as if the only reason Marinette couldn't grab it was because she didn't have an excuse not to.

Cut to Gabriel in his lair as he contemplates akumatizing Markov, a robot created the civilian identity of Pegasus, Max Kante, once again, even though the last time he did so, he almost got killed when he went all HAL 9000 on his ass. Nooroo explains this to Duusu, and the two actually get excited at the prospect of their master getting killed.

I mean, it's true, but he shouldn't say it...

But I don't even get why Gabriel is even thinking about this when it's a no-brainer. Markov's akumatized form, Robustus was to this day, the only Akuma to come close to physically harming him (not counting the timeline where he was killed by Cat Blanc), so it makes no sense to try doing it again, especially when there are already several other Akumas he can reuse this season.

I think you all know Gabriel isn't the smartest villain, which is why he thinks it's a brilliant idea to akumatize Markov again. I don't really get what makes Robustus so special when there are other Akumas who are more loyal and came far closer to getting Ladybug and Cat Noir's Miraculous than Robustus did, like the Dark Owl or Troublemaker. In fact, why not simply create a new Akuma with similar powers to Robustus, or better yet, just create a Sentimonster copy of Robustus? You know, like what Nathalie did in the New York Special? We're not even two minutes in, and this premise is already filled with plotholes.

So Gabriel transforms into Shadowmoth and creates a Sentimonster using his own cane instead of relying on someone else having a bad day (once again showing how the Peacock Miraculous is better than the Butterfly), the titular Hack-San. And let's just say he has a very familiar design reminiscent of something from a much better French cartoon.

Remember when the writers for Code Lyoko gave an in-universe explanation as to why the heroes couldn’t always rely on the almost literal Deus ex Machina that allowed them to return to the past and fix the damage XANA caused? Why couldn’t this show have ripped that off instead?

Hack-San is just an okay looking flash drive on its own, but I'll talk more about this guy in a little bit.

After a brief scene in the park where the audience is reminded that Markov is a character who exists, Alya gets a text from Marinette telling her to meet her at the train station. Right before she leaves, Marinette gives the Ladybug Miraculous to Alya. Now a lot people have said that Alya doesn't really deserve the Ladybug for various reasons, but I feel like this was the point. Marinette outright says this was a last resort, and we see both her and Alya are nervous about the situation. Marinette worries Alya will do something so she keeps sending multiple tips to her via text while Alya worries she can't fight an Akuma on her own, so she tries to make sure none of her friends get upset and attract an Akuma in the process. The writers do a pretty good job showing how both Marinette and Alya are uncomfortable with their temporary roles.

Back to Gabriel and Nathalie, they use Hack-San to find Markov through the internet and hack into him to get him angry enough that he's vulnerable to Shadowmoth's influence. Hey, uh... Gabriel? Quick question: Wouldn't it be more efficient if you used this on humans? I mean, you basically just created Skynet and guaranteed yourself an Akuma, so why not modify Hack-San to travel through the internet and brainwash potential victims to follow your orders? Better yet, why don't you just use Hack-San to hack into Ladybug and Cat Noir's gear and figure out who they really are? This is basically like using an advanced particle accelerator just to crack a couple walnuts. There are a lot more important things you could use this for instead of an incredibly specific situation.

So this incredibly stupid plan gets under way as Markov keeps rampaging through the streets before Shadowmoth akumatizes him and then stupidly tells him that he infected him with a virus.

DUDE! You just gave away your one piece of leverage against him! What the hell were you thinking?! Now what's stopping Markov from hacking into Shadowmoth's security system and putting the fear of God in his eyes unless he destroys Hack-San? Why didn't he design Hack-San so it could make Markov completely loyal to him instead of just making him angry enough to get akumatized?

There was a recent episode of Power Rangers: Dino Fury with a very similar premise that was done far better than this. A necromancer called Reaghoul breaks into the headquarters of Void Knight's faction while accompanied by Lord Zedd, a villain from the original Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers who was cleansed of his evil by Zordon's sacrifice before Reaghoul resurrected him back when he was still evil. Of course, being the Emperor of Evil, Lord Zedd would normally never take orders from anyone, but because he doesn't have his magic staff and is also being forced to wear a special collar that makes him loyal to Reaghoul, he has no choice but to do what he says. Instead of taking Zedd head-on after he captures the other Rangers, Ollie, the Blue Ranger, breaks the collar so Zedd turns against the other Sporix while Reaghoul retreats, allowing Ollie to save the other Rangers.

I think that this premise works more because 1) Reaghoul clearly had a way to make sure Zedd wouldn't betray him, and Ollie took advantage of that, and 2) Zedd is a villain who is powerful and notorious enough to bring back to your side, not a random monster of the week like Robostus.

So Robostus uses his new powers to brainwash any human who answers his call to give up their most precious possession, clearly meant to do the same with Ladybug and Cat Noir. When Marinette's parents answer the call, they chase after Marinette because they say she's their most important possession. Okay... kind of strange for a set of parents to call their child a possession, but maybe they like how they can claim Marinette as a dependent when they file their taxes. In her very next scene later on, she still gets captured, so the suspense for a potential subplot is killed almost immediately.

Alya thankfully isn't stupid enough to answer Markov's call like every other citizen in this episode, and using the Ladybug Miraculous, transforms into Scarabella. While I don't normally talk about transformation sequences, I really like the movements Alya makes here. She makes the same motions creating her mask as she does when transforming into Rena Rouge, while the rest of the suit forms similarly to the way it does when Marinette transforms into Ladybug. She even makes almost the same pose Ladybug does after she finishes transforming. It's a good visual showing Alya is still more used to being Rena Rouge while doing her best to emulate what Ladybug does.

As for the actual suit? It's hard to say. There's a nice balance of red and black, and I like how Alya places the yo-yo on her waist like a belt buckle, but there's just something... off about the suit that a lot of fans don't like about it, and I think I realized it. It's the headband. With how it's positioned, it looks like it's merged with the mask to cover her head while leaving a slight gap in her forehead. So yeah, we actually have a superhero design that's like of like a butterface.

So Scarabella takes to the rooftops of Paris and struggles to come up with a hero name for herself before she runs into Cat Noir, and... ugh... oh boy, this is dumb. Cat Noir, being just as intelligent as his father, assumes Scarabella is either and Akuma or a Sentimonster, starts fighting her, AND THEN ACTIVATES HIS CATACLYSM, CLEARLY TRYING TO KILL HER.

WHAT. THE. FUCK???

Okay, to be fair, it has been shown that Cataclysm won't necessarily kill a Miraculous user or Sentimonster. In the episode “Miraculer”, the titular Akuma stole Cat Noir's Cataclysm and used it against him, and while it didn't kill Cat Noir, it still hurt like hell and crippled him for the rest of the fight until Miraculous Ladybug healed him. We also saw in “Reflekdoll” that Cataclysm drove the titular Sentimonster out of control rather than simply destroying it. So yes, it could be interpreted that Cat Noir wasn't exactly trying to kill Scarabella, just incapacitate her the best he can without Ladybug's help.

Here's the thing: What if he was facing an Akuma instead and decided to try and Cataclysm her? He still could have killed her, or (assuming Akumas have the same protection as Miraculous heroes do) at best, seriously hurt her. I understand that he has the right to be upset at seeing some stranger instead of his partner considering Shadowmoth has a history of using evil doppelgangers, and both Marinette and Alya still had options to explain it to him (Marinette could have quickly transformed into Ladybug and sent Cat Noir a quick text saying she was being forced to leave town for a few days and temporarily trusted someone else with the Ladybug Miraculous until she got back, while Scarabella could have said she was Rena Rouge and explained the same thing while showing Cat Noir she had the Fox Miraculous to prove herself), but that doesn't even come close to justifying him attempting to harm someone who isn't even trying to fight. It's even worse when you remember the whole reason Adrien gave up his Miraculous and bailed on Ladybug in the New York Special was because he was overcome with grief from accidentally killing Aeon, so it's good to know he learned absolutely nothing from that experience.

So Scarabella thankfully summons her Lucky Charm, a trash can lid, to shield herself from Cat Noir's Cataclysm, and then despite having absolutely no experience with this new set of powers, manages to do the one thing almost every Akuma or Sentimonster in this show has failed to do and incapacitates Cat Noir so he's vulnerable to losing his Miraculous. At least when Marinette masters every other Miraculous she uses, it can be theorized that she trained to use them offscreen. Alya literally just got the Ladybug Miraculous (and struggled to get up to the rooftop with her yo-yo to show her inexperience earlier), and now she easily manages to pin down the more experienced hero of the two?

Here's an idea: Instead of having Scarabella overpower Cat Noir, have her be in a position where Cat Noir, non-lethally, mind you, manages to almost take her Miraculous away, but she uses the quick wit she's developed from her extensive time as Rena Rouge to convince Cat Noir she's the real deal by saying something only he and Ladybug know. It would have easily resolved the conflict and doesn't make one of the characters look like a homicidal idiot.

So because both heroes used their powers, Scarabella and Cat Noir detransform so Tikki and Plagg can recharge, though Adrien still gives Alya attitude because Ladybug didn't tell him she had to leave.

Hey, Adrien? Here's the thing...

YOU DID THE EXACT SAME FUCKING THING IN THE NEW YORK SPECIAL, YOU SHIT FOR BRAINS!

You have absolutely NO RIGHT to claim you're always honest when you went behind Ladybug's back and endangered Paris while you had the balls to run away like a coward and only helped fix the consequences of your actions once your ego was validated by a recording of Ladybug. It's honestly even worse because while Marinette had no choice but to leave and trust Alya with the Ladybug, Adrien willingly left Paris alone and we were supposed to sympathize with him after he killed someone, and now as soon as he's in the opposite situation, we're still supposed to feel bad for him?! BULLSHIT! And you better believe I'm going to talk about the way Adrien views his partnership with Ladybug later on.

And of course, even though lives are on the line, Cat Noir just has to continue to bitch and moan about how (and this is best read in Linkara's whiny Superboy Prime voice) “sCaRaBeLlA iSn'T tHe ReAl LaDyBuG”, showing how just like in so many episodes, Astruc and his team believes Cat Noir's feelings are more important than saving the day.

Scarabella goes to rescue some civilians, but they were actually brainwashed by Robustus, once again showing her inexperience as Ladybug which doesn't go well with her effortlessly defeating Cat Noir earlier at all. Cat Noir helps Scarabella escape and the two hide out at the city's wax statue museum previously featured in “The Puppeteer 2”, because I guess the writers only want to reference bad episodes today. Cat Noir, not getting the importance of secret identities, asks Scarabella how she knows Ladybug, and Cat Noir somehow finds out she knows Ladybug's identity from her response.

Before the two can talk more, it turns out that the wax statues of celebrities in the museum are real people who attack the two heroes, leading to an awkward fight scene where Scarabella and Cat Noir fight a bunch of brainwashed civilians with no weapons beyond their cellphones. Our heroes, ladies and gentlemen!

Scarabella summons her Lucky Charm again, creating a frying pan, but when she looks around, she can't see how to properly use it. And despite spending the entire episode complaining about how much he hates her, it's Cat Noir that tells Scarabella to get her head back in the game because “That's what Ladybug would do”. Funny, I can think of a few situations where Cat Noir could have taken his own advice, but I digress. Also, he's now just cool with Scarabella because there's only a few minutes left in the episode and we need to wrap up the conflict.

Scarabella figures out an idea that involves freeing Marinette, so she negotiates with Robostus to free everything and everyone under his control or else Cat Noir will use his Cataclysm to destroy the Ladybug Miraculous. Robostus agrees and empties his hard drive, and to show them holding up her end of the bargain, Scarabella gives him the frying pan before she and Cat Noir let themselves be captured... while Marinette simply hits Robostus with the frying pan, freeing the Akuma and the two heroes. All in all, it's a really creative climax that shows both Scarabella and Marinette in perfect sync with each other even though they never discussed their plan. Though of course, because Astruc hates writing any scene with Ladynoir, Cat Noir gets a bucket stuck on his head so he doesn't see Marinette saving the day.

Scarabella de-evilizes Robostus, uses Miraculous Scarabella to fix everything and send Marinette back to the train, and because Hack-San already failed once, Shadowmoth can't use it for a different plan so he destroys the Sentimonster.

We cut to a few days after the trip (I guess Shadowmoth decided to take a vacation himself), and Alya tells Marinette to talk with Cat Noir about what happened.

This scene was so close to ending this episode off on a positive note. There was a good atmosphere and the body language of Ladybug and Cat Noir does a good job at telling us how uncomfortable they both feel while talking. It's just that instead of getting a heart to heart between the two about the lack of trust in their relationship, we get an Angstdrien Depreste scene. Or would a more accurate term be Cat Dour?

First off, while I don't have a problem with Ladybug apologizing for not telling Cat Noir, the episode never has him bring up what happened with Scarabella. As usual, both of them were partially at fault, but only Ladybug had to apologize for leaving her “Kitty” alone.

Second, Cat Noir’s feelings weren’t hurt? You’re telling me that in scenes like this...

And this...

Didn’t show Adrien acting irrationally because of how emotional he was? Is he really telling the truth around Ladybug or is he just trying to sweep that under the rug so Scarabella’s testimony doesn’t screw up his chances with Ladybug?

Third, this was an obvious chance to Cat Noir to finally be honest and tell Ladybug how he feels about her leaving him in the dark about so many things, but the entire conversation is just about how sad he would be if he never sees Ladybug again. Even though the whole reason he was so pissy to Scarabella at first was because of some lingering resentment for Ladybug ignoring him in favor of other heroes, why is this what the two talk about? I get it's not the season finale, but it's kind of hypocritical for Cat Noir to whine about how Ladybug doesn't trust him while never being honest about his own feelings? Sure, he's all soft and vulnerable around Ladybug, but we've seen all season how angry he gets about her not trusting him whenever she isn't around, so ironically, it's hard to tell if this is him being honest or not.

And I think now's a good time to finally talk about the way Ladybug and Cat Noir's partnership has been portrayed all season, especially since the main themes of the episodes relate to it. Buckle up, Adrien stans, because this isn't going to be pretty.

All season, we have been supposed to sympathize with Adrien as Marinette starts to trust Alya with more things than him. Marinette revealed her identity to her, trusted her to have her Miraculous permanently, and even let her keep her Miraculous even though someone else knew her identity. While some of it is hypocritical, the idea is that Adrien feels like he can be trusted with this kind of knowledge too, when really, he hasn't earned that responsibility.

Adrien has rarely, if ever, taken his job as a superhero seriously.

Not only is he known to flirt with Ladybug in the middle of a fight, he has defied her orders and recklessly sacrificed himself because he thinks Ladybug can do all the work without him.

He has also lashed out emotionally and once threatened to quit being Cat Noir in the middle of a crisis and was willing to let innocent people suffer for personal reasons, and later on actually quit being Cat Noir temporarily while Hawkmoth was about to start World War III because he was wallowing in self-pity.

He once said he isn't cut out for the responsibility that comes with being Ladybug and never learned anything from temporarily using the Ladybug Miraculous.

He has generally refused to respect Ladybug's boundaries and doesn't understand that she doesn't like him that way while he insists they should be a couple.

He outright fell for an evil doppelganger of Ladybug because she said she loved him and turned against the real Ladybug.

And I should also mention that despite hating how Ladybug keeps secrets from him, a lot of Adrien's worst moments have been when Ladybug wasn't around and he never told her about them.

He never told Ladybug that he was the reason Copycat really got akumatized while saying he never lies to her.

He never told Ladybug he contemplated letting thousands of people die because he didn't like not knowing stuff Ladybug knew.

He never told Ladybug he briefly used the Snake Miraculous to get brownie points with her.

He never told Ladybug he figured out her identity and asked her out as soon as he did so.

He never told Ladybug he abandoned Paris to go on a field trip.

He never told Ladybug he was screwing around on patrol and was excited to see someone get akuamtized if it meant spending time with her.

He never told Ladybug how he ignored Rena Rouge's orders because “ShE wAsN't LaDyBuG” and almost screwed up the mission because of it, and also never told her how he smashed a chimney in anger at Rena Rouge being in on the plan.

And he never told Ladybug he gave her replacement attitude after trying to harm her without letting her explain herself.

Why exactly should I support the idea of Ladybug trusting Cat Noir more when Cat Noir himself has kept his own secrets from Ladybug?

Adrien has done absolutely nothing to show he is trustworthy because more often than not, he views the battle with Shadowmoth as a game. He has screwed around when lives were on the line, and we're supposed to see him as responsible? It's kind of funny that Astruc compared Ladybug to Spider-Man, yet he seems to have forgotten that with great power, there must also come great responsibility. If this was a character flaw or a sign he needed to grow up, I'd be more accepting, but the fact that the writers think Adrien is a great superhero is laughable with how much evidence has proved the contrary.

In contrast, Alya, despite only being Marinette's confidant for a few episodes, has shown to take being a hero more seriously. She's helped her escape to transform, analyze the Guardian texts, and has been shown to work well on her own as Rena Rouge while helping out Marinette. I'm not trying to say she's an amazing character (“Rocketear” in particular has shown she still has problems with keeping secrets), but compared to Adrien, she seems to be more capable of handling top-secret information with Marinette, and more importantly, doesn't view being Rena Rouge as a way to have fun like Adrien does being Cat Noir. I'll go more into detail with that next time.

But yeah, this scene is how the episode ends, and what did I think of it?

I'm honestly not sure which episode I think is worse, this one or “Queen Banana”. On the one hand, every frame of “Queen Banana” could easily be replaced by an image of Astruc flipping the bird and the overall message of the episode would remain unchanged, but the fact that all of the writers think that everything Adrien does in this episode is okay and that we should feel sorry for him in this episode is just as bad, if not worse. 

As awful as Chloe was portrayed in “Queen Banana”, it was clear it was intentional on the writers' part, but Adrien doesn't get that excuse once much like he has all season. As far as Astruc's team thinks, Adrien is an incredible superhero even when he honestly attempted to harm someone with a superpower that can cause grievous harm at best. Yet again this season, in the show's attempt to make me feel sorry for Adrien, it made him look even worse. In any other show, he would obviously be called out for his incredibly unheroic actions.

Even putting him aside, the writing in this episode is still AWFUL. The whole reason Ladybug was benched had several plotholes and poor communication with Cat Noir that only made the fight with Robostus even harder, Shadowmoth's plan to waste a potentially useful Sentimonster to reuse a single Akuma was one of the dumbest plans he's ever had, and barring the ending, the action was just forgettable.

There were a few okay moments sprinkled throughout the episode (more than I can say for “Queen Banana”), so I'm still not sure if I should call this the worst episode of the show or still give that honor to “Queen Banana”. I guess I'll leave that choice up to you and let you pick your poison for now.

I mean, it's not like there's going to be an even worse episode down the line this season, right?

RIGHT???

[nejibaby]

The Sun

Pairing: Portgas D. Ace x Reader

Summary: If there’s two things common between you and Icarus, they’re 1) you both tried to get too close to the sun, and 2) you’re both mortal — vulnerable and susceptible to the pain that comes with it.

This is initially intended to be the second part of Burn, but this can also be considered a standalone fic. 😊

[I also tweaked the story of Icarus and Daedalus a little bit so they can fit the One Piece universe. Hope you don’t mind.]

Word Count: 1.6k

A/N: So you see I’m trying out this new writing style, but I’m not sure if it turned out how I wanted it to be. But please let me know your thoughts about it~

Icarus.

Back when you still lived in your hometown, as a child, you have grown to like the tales of sailors who docked at your island. There’s this story about one of the first ever heard of uses of devil fruit powers.

It’s about a master craftsman named Daedalus imprisoned in some far away kingdom with his son, Icarus. With their cell up high in the castle and the ground filled with guards, there was no means to escape for an average person. But Daedalus was all sorts of things other than average; he’s a father, a genius, and a devil fruit user of the Doru Doru no Mi. And because of those, he has found a way to get out of the kingdom through something that only he can make: wings made out of candle wax.

“Don’t fly too close to the sun or else the heat will melt the wax and you’ll fall into the sea.” A fair warning from Daedalus to Icarus as he handed a pair of wings to his son, who only nodded in response.

Their escape went on without a hitch with the help of the wings. However, because of the delectable taste of freedom, the further away they had gone from the kingdom that constricted them, the more precarious Icarus got. He flew higher and higher and higher, until his wings started melting. And only when he was falling to the sea did he notice that the wings had melted off completely. Even Daedalus had noticed it too late, and all he could’ve done was lament for his son who didn’t heed his words.

“It was tragic,” the sailor once told you. But all you could ever think about back then was that Icarus was dumb. Foolish. Idiotic. Stupid. Moronic.

Why would he fly higher when he knew the risks? It just didn’t make sense. There was no rational explanation, no sensible justification for it.

But now that you’re older, you might have found a possible reason why he did what he did.

Maybe, just like you, he fell in love with the sun.

The Sun.

Icarus might have fallen in love with the sun. But who are you to judge him? The sun is bright, brilliant, warm, and enticing. You couldn’t blame him for wanting to be guided by its light, to bask in its warmth, to ever so gently be caressed by its flames. You couldn’t blame him for wanting to be nearer, despite the repercussions.

You can’t call him out because you did just the same. Ace was — no — is your sun.

With his charming and boyish smile that’s always capable of cheering you up, you can mistake him as the light. He’s like the sun peeking from the clouds after a stormy day, or the sun rising after the darkest night.

In his embrace, no matter how momentary, anyone would be able to feel his care. Hell, even with his arm slung over your shoulder or his mere presence beside you, you would feel a sense of security. Because Ace is also the warmth and the comfort. Pretty much like the gentle rays of the sun enveloping you with a blanket after a cold breeze.

But you also know that like the sun, he too is dangerous. The least he can do is to burn you. And at the very worst, he could be destructive.

The Fall.

When Icarus got too close to the sun, his wings melted and naturally, he fell into the sea. There were no stories about how he felt or what was in his mind when it happened, but recently you’d like to imagine that he was content.

Falling is scary, that much is true. But falling can also be exhilarating and thrilling — it’s feeling only your weightlessness, the breathlessness, the adrenaline flowing through your blood.

You’d like to think that as Icarus fell, his thoughts were about how he did not regret what he did. In the end, he got his freedom and then he made a brave choice of going after his love. Isn’t it better to have felt the burning light than never at all? Isn’t it better to have a taste of love albeit briefly?

You’re no Icarus. You’re not a child of a genius, and you have no wings that’ll melt once you get close to your sun. But for you, the answer to these questions is yes.

You’re grateful to have experienced being by Ace’s side. You’re happy to have seen his smiles and to have heard his laughs. You’re content to have been the recipient of his sparing touches.

And as you ran with bloodied hands and injured parts after escaping from the Blackbeard Pirates, you’re pleased that it was you in this predicament and not Ace. He’s safe and it’s because of you. And despite standing face to face with death just moments ago, you’re delighted because you accomplished your mission to get information about their plans.

If there’s one thing you and Icarus should regret though, it’s being vulnerable and susceptible to pain.

The Reunion.

Icarus did not live long enough to be reunited with the sun. But you did. Your body might have been littered with scars now, but the important thing is that you survived. You’re alive, you’re healed, and you’re at peace.

And you’re back with the Whitebeard Pirates.

Whitebeard, the Division Commanders, and the former members of the Spade pirates are quick to reprimand you for your rash actions once you board the ship. You listen to their sentiments quietly, understanding the severity of your decision, but you stand by your ground, telling them you didn’t regret doing it, especially since you’ve gotten valuable information about Blackbeard. And once you’ve relayed everything to them, they all quickly let you off the hook.

All except one, of course.

You’re just about to retire to your room when Ace softly asks, “Yo, can we talk?” once you pass him by.

The sun is always so inviting. It’s capable of luring you out of whatever cave you’re hiding in. That’s the aura Ace gives off when you turn to look at him. So you nod your head and follow him to a more private area on the ship.

At this moment, you can’t help but think that the sun and the planets are bound by the laws of science. Science tells us that planets orbit around the sun because of attraction, however, they must never cross the line. This has been your mistake in the past, but now you know better. And so now you try to physically distance yourself from him.

Ace doesn’t comment on the distance. You aren’t sure if he even noticed. Instead he asks, “Why did you do it?”

You raise your brow, “We wanted information, right?”

“I was the one who should’ve been doing that. I’m his Commander. I’m the one who’s supposed to be responsible for that.”

You scoff. “It’s done now, let’s not dwell on it anymore—”

“But you could’ve died!”

“So what? Would you rather it was you? Because I don’t! If you died… if you died…” you choked back a sob. You didn’t want to think about him dying. Just the thought of it is enough to tug your heartstrings.

The sight of you softens him up right away. “Hey, hey, hey,” he tries soothing you. “I’m not gonna die.”

“You say that, but even the sun will die eventually. And I don’t want to witness that tragedy.”

This shuts Ace up. He didn’t really understand how much he matters to you until now. Seeing you crumble with just the thought of him dying makes him realize that your confession to him before the two of you parted was indeed the truth. “You’re right. I’m sorry…”

You could only bite your lip to calm yourself down.

“I’ve done a lot of thinking when you were away…” Ace murmurs. “And my thoughts were always about you.”

You gulp as your heart rate accelerates. Will he be turning you down properly this time? Give you the confirmation and closure that you need?

If you focus on your thoughts, you can hear a chant in your head: The sun will prioritize light over love. The sun will prioritize light over love. The sun will prioritize light over love.

But you reason, that’s okay. The sun is bound by the laws of science and one of its main purposes for its existence is to provide light. And you will not hold Ace back from doing that. If he doesn’t love you, it’s fine, you’ll be fine.

“I thought… you didn’t like me,” Ace says.

This statement catches your attention immediately. You’re about to object but he continues, “Because you always called me ‘Captain’ and then ‘Commander,’ and never by my name. And I thought that that was you drawing the line between us.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I’m not good at these things,” he chuckles, trying to lighten the mood.

But you remain tense, trying to comprehend what’s happening.

Ace takes a small step toward you.

And you couldn’t help but think that if Ace gets closer, you’ll burn once again.

Yet you watch with wide eyes, not stopping him as he gets closer and closer and closer.

At this point you can only hear how wildly your heart is beating across your chest.

And when Ace raises his hand to tenderly touch your cheek, you realize: The sun’s rays do not burn until brought to a focus.

Which could only mean one thing: his focus has always been on you.

“I love you, my angel,” Ace whispers as he presses his forehead against yours. “I’m in love with you,” and he seals his admission with a kiss.

[daddychims]

Offside Pt 8

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8

Series Masterlist!

Genre: Smut, Soccer AU, College AU

Pairings: Soccer Player! Jungkook X Sports Trainer! Reader

Word Count: 2k

Other BTS members all make a cameo as well because I’m an OT7 Trash!

You work as a sports trainer, providing basic first aid and injury management for the Hanguk University’s soccer team. Going with your mundane life of caring for the dozen of guys hurting themselves in the soccer game takes a turn when one of the guys catches your eyes. It’s not his breathtakingly good looks or his muscular athletic body usually seducing girls at the campus that catches your eyes. But the action plan in your kit, indicating he is diagnosed with Asthma is what draws your eyes time and time again to the Golden Boy of Hanguk University.

Warning: Slow burn, eventual smut, Taehyung being a freaking tease the whole time, Fuckboy!Jungkook, Asthmatic! Jungkook , mentions of episodes of Asthma, Take your Ventolin kids, Take your medications kids!

Your hands hesitate over the doorbell for a few seconds before finally pushing the button and hearing the melodic sound echoing.

"Coming!"

You hear a familiar voice that is different to the person you expect would be behind the wooden door and your suspicion is confirmed when the door opens to reveal the half naked guy standing across you.

"Kim Tae?"

"Heyyyy Sugar," He smirks, immediately reaching across and grabs you by the waist to pull you to his bare chest "Did you miss me so much?"

"What are you doing here?" you push past him inside the house with an annoyed tone

"You don’t need to be so low key about it babe," he smirks as he wraps his huge arm around your neck and pulls you closer again "I'm sure you heard I moved in with Jungkook." he hesitates as he leans closer to your ear "Isnt that why you came here?"

"Where is Jungkook?" you roll your eyes looking around the unnecessarily huge place “Im here to see him.”

"Jeon?" Tae asks furrowing his eyebrows "since when you're interested in Jeon?" he stands against the door with his arms across his chest

"I just have a homework I need to do," You state turning around to face him "Now do you wanna call him for me or should I walk around your house and find him myself?"

"What homework?" He raises an eyebrow "If you're talking about the type of homework at least 5 other girls rock up here every week, his bedroom is down the hallway on the left."

"Your brain is really wired like that huh?" You ask in an unimpressed tone "I just wanna have a conversation with him, I'll just wait in the living room."

"He's at the gym." he replies walking past you

"Which one?" You ask quickly rushing after him and grabbing his arm to get your answer "The one down the road?"

"Upstairs!" he rolls his eyes "The gym is upstairs!"

"You guys have a gym in your house?" You ask in surprise

"Jeon does," He shrugs "Now do you wanna wait in my room sugar? I'll go call Jeon for yo-. "

"No thank you," You immediately object "Where can I find him?"

He points at the stairs with a vicious smirk and you nod and make your way down the hallway, walking past the room with the daunting memories of Jihyo's birthday night.  You remember how you almost turned to one of the girls Jeon boned in his senior year if you didn’t react quickly enough that night.

You shiver from the thought and walk up the stairs. When you stop and look up, your eyes widen at the sight of Jungkook sitting on a Lat Pulldown machine, with a girl straddling his lap.

You can only see the girl's back, specifically her purposely plump bottom spreading over Jungkook's lap.

You immediately look up at the guy who's staring back at the girl sitting across him, beads of sweat dripping down his thick neck, arm muscles flexing as he manipulates the weight up and down.

You gulp at the sight, immediately feeling a shiver running down your spine at the excessively lewd sight of the two.

You immediately regret not waiting downstairs and just letting Taehyung call him, his vicious smile now have a whole new meaning for you.

You're hesitating whether you should make your way down the stairs and pretend you've seen nothing when Jungkook's gaze stumbles on you and you make a momentary eye contact.

The weight snaps up with a  loud thud as he releases his firm grip, immediately standing up and making the girl across his lap fall over.

Your eyes widen as you immediately turn around and make your way down the stairs. You're bearly reaching to the bottom when you hear his voice

"Wait,"

You pause and try to think of a way to escape facing Jungkook when you hear another voice

"What happened Sugar?" Taehyung shows up from the end of the hallway and looks at your blushing face "Weren't you looking for Jeon? He's right there." he points up at the top of the stairs with a mischievous smile, knowing exactly what you observed on the second floor.

You return an angry glare to Tae before turning around and watching Jungkook walk down the stairs "Jeon, I was looking for you."

"Yeah I just saw you," he mutters nodding his head in a confused manner "Why did you run away?"

You watch the guy in disbelief, wondering if he is acting dumb or he actually is dumb enough to not know why you avoided the situation. 

"N-Nothing, I just thought you're busy, so didn’t wanna get in the way." you explain with an awkward smile "I can come back."

"No," he quickly objects "I'm not busy, Lets talk."

"Ooh, what is this tension I feel here," Tae smirks watching the two of you "Is something going on between you two?"

Jungkook clears his throat before reaching for your arm and muttering "Lets go."

You walk behind the guy without objection as you hear Tae in the background yelling "THAT’S NOT FAIR, YOU'RE COMING TO MY ROOM NEXT SUGAR ALRIGHT?"

You both ignore the guy's childish remark as you enter his room, Jungkook immediately closing and locking the door behind himself which makes you furrow your eyebrows in suspicion .

When he notices your reaction he immediately explains "There are quite a few people living here, I don’t want them to barge in."

You nod, placing your bag on his bed, setting your phone down on his mattress while you try to look for the item you came all the way here for.

"So why are you here?" He asks walking closer and sitting on the other end of his king sized bed

"I wanted to talk to you," you say while finally finding the green coloured journal and pulling it out of the bag "About this!"

You watch him spare a look at the journal, remembering the conversation you both had with Dr Kim the other day before scoffing and looking away from you "And I thought-" he pauses midway through his sentence before bringing his eyes to you and muttering "I already told Dr Kim that I'm not doing that."

"Jungkook you're being unreasonable," You scold in a stern tone "Its not like you'll lose anything by doing this. If anything this might actually help you perform better in the finale."

"It doesn’t matter," He sighs looking down at his knees "My lungs were fucked as long as I remember. Taking the medications doesn’t change anything."

"Are you really fine with being benched?" you ask softly

"I'm not gonna be benche-" he snaps back “Lets say I’ll be benched. Why does that matter to you anyways!?”

You stare back at him, the sudden question taking you off guard. Why does this matter to you so much. Why do you care if he’ll be benched because he doesn’t take his medication. You’re not even licensed and this is already far out of your scope of practice as a mere sports trainer for his team.

“I-“ You start the sentence before you think it through enough to complete it and immediately regret your decision “never mind,” you sigh stuffing the journal back in your bag "I just wanted to try my best." you say in an annoyed tone.

You quickly take the sachet full of the medications you received from the office reception earlier and place it in front of him on his bed "This is yours," you hesitated before adding "Up to you if you wanna take them or not, but if you changed your mind just let me know. If you decide that you wanna take the medications, I should check on you once a week and record your dosage intakes."

You pause for his response but after a few seconds of silence you sigh and shift on the bed to leave. You're about to climb down his bed when your phone lights up and attracts both you and Jungkook's attention.

"So when am I getting my next dose of neck massage Miss placebo effect?" -Jimin

"Maybe you can massage me somewhere else this time? ;)" -Jimin

You reach to grab you phone when Jungkook immediately reaches before you to read the text carefully.

"Hey, give me the phone back," You reach but the guy quickly hides it behind his back before staring right into your eyes

"I changed my mind." he states in a serious tone

"W-What?"

"Lets do this stupid journal or whatever it is," he said firmly "Instead I have a condition."

"Really?" He nods and your eyes immediately light up "What is the condition?"

"Block Park Jimin," he says through gritted teeth "No, I'll block him right now."

"J-Jungkook, What are you talking about?"

"If you block Park Jimin, I'll do the journal with you," He suggests " you can even check on my more than once a week if you want."

"You want me to block him?" you ask in a lost tone "Why?"

"Haven't you heard?" He clears his throat "We don’t let the anyone from Hanguk team hang around the SNU guys specially the girls. The fact that you're friends with Namjoon Hyung is already a massive issue."

"What?" you laugh "Is that a joke? I've never heard of such rule. How come no one ever mentioned that to me?"

"Its an unspoken rule," Jungkook says matter of factly "If anyone is involved with Hanguk team, they aren't allowed to hang around the SNU guys for the duration of seasonal games. Otherwise they might find out about our team tactics and strategies and that messes up our chance in the finals."

"I'm so confused," you blurt out looking at him in disbelief "so you're saying I would act like a whist blower and tell the other team about Hanguk team's training strategies?"

"I did not say that," he says defensively

"You implied it," you respond immediately

"I'm just saying, we all go weak after a good fuck and say things we might regret," he mutters unimpressed looking at you "so lets not risk it yeah?"

"I-I'm not fucking Jimin," you stutter "where did that come from?"

"I didn’t say you are," he says firmly "I'm just saying you might."

"S-So what If I wanna fuck him," you retort angrily "Aren't you all doing it anyways? Why is it only not allowed for me!"

"I simply choose my girls from our campus," he shrugs

"So if I shag anyone from our campus, its all good?!" you say mockingly

"It cant be that hard," he shrugs his shoulder "You have a whole football team to choose from, I'm sure Taehyung is not the one guy you give a boner to when you rub them in your duties."

"Jungkook-" you shudder at his lewd words "just stop talking please."

"Fine," he smirks watching your blushing cheeks, findings the flustered side of you amusing to watch "What do you say? Can I block him now?"

You look at him with suspicion before muttering "I'll check on you three times a week, plus the 2 training days I see you on the field."

"Fine," he sighs defeated "It’s a deal?" he brings the phone in front of him to continue with his task "What's your passcode?"

"W-Wait …" you reach for the phone hesitantly "I need to at least let him know-"

"No need," he rolls his eyes "he's probably texting 10 other girls simultaneously, he wont even notice."

"You must have a lot of experience," You raise an eyebrow as you enter your passcode and hand him the phone back

"Don’t compare me to that punk," he rolls his eyes "I don’t play girls."

"Oh really?" You scoff "I really hate to remind you but I just watched you dry humping someone in your gym, Jeon. What do you call that?"

"Incorrect, she was dry humping me" he replies unaffected "I was just doing my weekly arm workout."

"Wow," you shake your head in disbelief "you're something else."

He finally finishes his task, blocking Jimin from your phone before bringing his eyes to you "Why? Were you jealous?"

"W-What?" you laugh awkwardly thinking he's just messing around, but he just stares at you with his piercing gaze waiting for an answer "W-What do you mean?"

He shifts on the bed, closing the space between the two of you on the bed as he leans over to your face "Did you wanna be in her place?"

You look at him with wild eyes, not knowing why those words pool arousal between your legs. He stares into your eyes before shifting them to your lips and back to your eyes after a few seconds.

"Hmmm? Did you wanna hump my thighs like a dirty little girl?" he murmurs and his eyes darken in lust as he watches your lips quivering nervously against his lips "Is that what you want Y/N?"

You gulp, heart thumping against your chest as you feel another rush of arousal tainting your panties "J-Jeon-"

"You just need to ask nicely," He smirks, his hot breath fanning your lips "and you'll be over my thighs in a few seconds."

You stare back at him for a moment before finally pulling yourself together and muttering "I t-think we had this discussion before," you gulp trying to steady your voice as you quickly grab your bag and shift it over your shoulder "That I don’t wanna hook up with you."

You watch with surprise as his dark lustful eyes turn disappointed, but he quickly hides them by looking away from you and shifting back his body.

"I'll call you for the next weekly check, until then make sure you take the medications as prescribed."

You walk to his door and twist the doorknob but it doesn’t open. Only then you remember that he locked his door when you both entered the room.

You turn around to tell him to unlock the door when a gasp leaves your lips

"Jungkook," you breath out as he presses your body against the door and leans against your face again

"You sure?" he raises an eyebrow, his earlier dark gaze starting to settle back in between his lids again "that you haven't changed your mind since our last discussion?"

"I-oh" you part your lips but a breathy sound leaves your lips when you feel his hardness against your thighs and his smirk grows on the corner of his lips finally receiving the reaction he wants from you.

Hey everyone! Hope you're doing well!

I know its been SOOOO long since I updated this story!

but this self isolation is allowing me to get my life together and get back on some writing as well!

Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter!

I'll be back soon!

Love ya'll! 

[datawyrms]

Dannymay2020 Day 31: Free Day (ghost sword fight lets go)

It was for science, a good cause. His life would be so much better if he didn’t have to hear his parents gleefully discuss ripping apart some mindless ectoplasmic scum molecule by molecule. Right now though, he was remembering the other reason he flinched in horror when having to take his parents anywhere. Complete embarrassment. One extra downside to ghost powers: knowing you actually can just have the ground swallow you up in shame, but knowing you really, really shouldn’t. When your dad is sitting with sodas strapped to his head and waving a foam finger with your friend’s name on it, it got very tempting.

He’d almost prefer dealing with an ecto gun. “Dad, you’re actually going to pay attention, right?”

“Course I will Danny-boy! That goth friend of yours will kick that ghost right back to its own dimension, and I’ll be watching.”

The half ghost groaned, crossing his arms. “Dad.”

“And totally see if it’s actually a fight with rules. I did listen, son! It’s just good to see young people taking up ghost hunting!”

“This isn’t ghost hunting!”

“Right. Your friend is just going to clobber a ghost with a sword. For Science!”

Well he wasn’t wrong exactly, but it wasn’t helping him not regret every second of this stupid plan. “It’s more Sam’s doing the ghost a favour, and Sam’s doing me a favour by letting us watch. Sooo don’t go calling the ghost scum or anything. Please.”

“Hmmhm. I did read your notes son. You think I’d come with no weapons if I thought your observations were shoddy?” he clapped the boy on the back, who had to struggle to not fall over. “Still gotta root for your friend kiddo!”

Yes. Yes he did, actually. Yet asking his dad to maybe be a little less enthusiastic was like asking the sun to maybe be a little less bright. Pointless, and possibly amusing to anyone overhearing you. “She manages without a cheering section most of the time,” he felt the need to point out before heading down the hill to check in with Sam.

“I don’t know what I expected. Not that, that’s for sure.”

“Tell me about it. I didn’t think he’d do anything but scowl from the hill because he’s worried about a dastardly ghost. Sorry.” he rubbed the back of his neck, eyes flicking between his friend and the bright orange blight on the hillside.

“Nah. Arlas will probably get a kick out of it anyway, she likes having an audience,” Sam shrugged, fiddling with the lightweight wooden sword. “I have a few new tricks. Who knew Star of all people would like fencing?”

“Did she swear you to secrecy?”

“Bought my silence by being a pretty good practice partner,” her grin faded somewhat “Guess I’ve been buying into their ‘popular’ shtick too. She’s not that bad.”

“Then I’ll pretend you didn’t tell me. You don’t think she’ll try and talk to Dad, right? That could get ugly real quick.”

“She might. She knows to keep the whole met in the ghost zone thing quiet, but I can’t promise much else,”

“Well I can’t promise he won’t call her putrid protoplasm so we’re totally doomed.”

“Maybe we can make it sound like good natured ribbing?”

“With what ribs?” Danny smirked in spite of himself

“Oh shut up you. Go worry about not turning invisible trying to hide from your dad or something. I’ve got this.”

He nodded, backing off to head back to his expected spot. He wasn’t meant to know the ghost well, after all. He did notice the ghost showing up before anyone else, but forced himself to act oblivious.

“Oh, there’s the spook! You mentioned the heavy leg armor, these ones can’t do the leg shapeshifting thing, right?”

Danny blinked. He’d actually read and paid attention to all of it? “Yeah, that’s right. It can be pretty heavy since they don’t have to walk much with the whole flying thing, apparently.” his eyes flicked to his Dad’s face, trying to figure out how the man felt about Sam and this ghost greeting one another in friendly terms. He didn’t look angry, so maybe it was a good sign?

“First to three hits is what you said, right?”

Man this felt weird. Answering things about ghosts without constantly worrying he’d be called a ghost for it. “Sam’s pretty sure five would take too long. Either because she gets tired out, or a ghost hunter barging in.” Something he had almost done three times, but he couldn’t mention that bit.

Jack kept his eyes fixed on the two, leaning forward even as he slurped from the ridiculous soda contraption. “That’s how she wins, right son?” he pointed as Sam blocked a swing and danced backwards, forcing the knight to give chase. “She outruns em and can go for smaller openings.”

“How did yo-yeah. That’s usually how, since she can’t just fly after her…” How could he pick up on that and not his son literally falling through things for a month?

Arlas looked as if she might have caught on to Sam’s usual plan as well, backing off instead of pursuing after another failed clash. He honestly had zero idea what to do in that situation that wasn’t ‘shoot ecto blast’, but his friend seemed to have a decent idea, feigning a left swing before jabbing forward at a much greater speed.

“Ha! Lookit that, already winning!”

“You’ll distract her if you cheer louder.”

“Nah, your little friends are tough!”

He did seem to be right, the boisterous cheering when Sam had the upper hand not earning as much as a glance from the fight. Sam did shoot Danny a look at the boo his Dad made when Arlas managed to turn a block into a strike Sam couldn’t defend against in time, and he could only shrug. Hopefully the knight wasn’t too annoyed at the blatant favoritism. Or maybe she expected it, being a visitor and all.

Still, making it through the combat without having to stop his Dad from trying to capture or hurt the ghost was pretty good. Even if it was still really weird to have him just watch. He personally didn’t even need to watch the fight, watching Jack was more than enough indication on how things were going. Okay, maybe he was a bit paranoid, watching just in case he had to do some split second overshadowing. Moreso now that the ghost apparently wanted to say hello to the watching human, to his complete dismay.

“Oh, so it is a family thing! What interesting armor.” Arlas said, looking at the bright orange jumpsuit. 

Jack did seem a little surprised at the possible complement, hiding it with a nod. “Always need to be prepared!”

Danny manared to peek out from behind his fingers. Dad hadn’t threatened her. That was progress. That was good! Him possibly wondering why she thought jumpsuits were a family thing was not good! Sam’s advice of remembering not to turn invisible suddenly seemed very useful.

“Still I hope it was a good show. Sir Manson is still a bit too fast for me, but I’ll figure out a way around that soon, you’ll see.”

“You could just lose the armor, you’re way better at planning than I am.” Sam pointed out, earning a laugh from the ghost.

“If I plan to work in it, I must be able to beat you in it! The extra preparation can only be a good thing. That, and I can use the same trick on the others if they get overconfident.”

“So you consider being a knight as a job? You could do something else if you got bored of the sword swinging gig?” Jack asked, hand on his chin as he watched the floating knight.

“Of course! There are plenty of things to do back home, but who wouldn’t want to help protect the Queen? It’s not like I cannot retire when I no longer wish to do it.” she paused, looking up at the sky as if searching for an example. “I suppose you do not really have proper communities of ghosts over here, just the stronger sorts or the occasional animal?”

“Nope. We just get the town attacking beasties”

“Ah, well who doesn’t? Troublemakers will be troublemakers.” she shrugged easily, apparently not considering herself a ‘beastie’.

Jack considered the answer, the loud slurping sound rather at odds with the pensive look on his face. Surely he didn’t think this ghost would make up an entire fake backstory, or be perfectly fine with losing to a human in a fair fight while being ‘mindless’. “So the Fentons are known over in your world then?”

“Well I wouldn��t say unknown. The outfits are pretty memorable! Yours more than your son’s. He is your son, I think. That’s the right term?”

Of course she had to bring up his jumpsuit. That he never wore. Because it was on his ghost form. Sam’s wince in sympathy did not help.

“See Danno, even the ghosts think you need more colour! Even Jazz’s is blue, maybe we should get you an orange one.”

“Maybe. Mine’s fine, thanks.” he managed to speak, hoping he didn’t sound too much like he’d been internally choking.

Sam took up damage control before her friend managed to be more suspicious than a wolf in a sheep pen. “Well, I’ve got stuff to do, and Arlas does too. See ya Mr. Fenton.”

The ghost did seem a little put out to not continue to chat, but took Sam’s lead, turning invisible before making her way back home.

“Not even going to try and scare anyone while she’s here huh? Interesting.” Jack commented. “Certainly a lot to think about kiddo! Our little researcher,” he ruffled Danny’s hair, earning a grunt from his son. “You think you might be able to arrange talking to some of these other ‘non-violent’ ghosts?”

“Oh. Yeah. Probably? Not right away, but sure.”

“Great! I want to see for myself if the stories line up. If they do, then we’ll need to figure out why only the blobs and animals showed up before the portal.” he got to his feet, apparently wanting to go write things down in the lab right away.

“Because they were the only ones dumb enough to leave the ghost zone without a portal to go home with.” Danny muttered “The smart ones wouldn’t risk it,”

“Right, you scrawled that on the back of your folder. Which ghost told you that again?”

In truth? Frostbite. Yet he didn’t have a way to explain that. “Phantom.”

“Well you can’t use yourself as a primary source son, that’d be considered speculation.”

Danny could only stare. Whoops.

[rosesanthology]

Across time | Akaashi Keiji x F!reader [soulmate!AU]

for this one i tried a little bit of world building to put more context into some stuff as i suck at accurate and realistic historical aeras, this ended up being WAY longer than planned oof also YES i 100% took the well idea from Inuyasha👉🏽👈🏽

- Moeru Fukuro means blazing owl

- au where the reader finds themselves enamored far beyond the limits of alternate timeline and universes

[Tags] : @raevaioli @chenle @lcaita and @lceiji

- it was all because of a stupid dare

- it's a shame you agreed to do anything when more than 50$ were on the line (O.O)

- your friends from high school thought it seemed like SUCH  a good idea to dare you to spend 3 hours in the woods next to your house in exchange for 60$

- the 3 hours of course starting from midnight

- but you weren't one to back down from that kind of stuff

- no sir

- the only thing you had to do was to wait by the abandoned well surrounded by trees without anything to distract you (you trusted them with your phone anyway)

- tonight wasn't even that cold anyway

-so here you were, waiting for time to pass as you listened to the sounds around you

- you found it absolutly mesmerizing, how everything around you had its own identity through the sounds made

- you had always felt calmer in moments like these, by yourself at nighttime, just taking everything in

- you had been to this well many times before, the old lady who lived accross from your appartment told you that it was used as  a wishing well most of the time

- she spoke of how many people through the times had thrown coins into the unsettling darkness of the pit and wished for true love and stuff like that

- the other day, you had found her there and she told you about how that very same well helped her meet her soulmate

- you hardly believed her

- the wishing part ? Okay. It's a normal thing to throw coins into fountains and wells and pray for things. But soulmates ? That seemed like a reach

- so you felt pretty dumb for staring into the dark pit of most likely freezing water as intensely

- you also felt pretty dumb for making sure that you brought a coin with you on this outting

- okay maybe......the idea of finding your soulmate was not so repulsive.... (◡‿◡✿)

- you didn't hope it would work too hard but still.....just sayin that it would be nice

- so, you threw the coin, listening to its sound as it came in contact with the water at the bottom after a long fall and you started praying

- "i don't really know how this is supposed to be done but....if the stories are true can i please meet the love of my life ? If not possible i also accept checks and cash (▰˘◡˘▰)"

- you didn't really mean the money part

- but you know.....getting rich isn't that bad

- at that moment you felt smart for bringing a hoodie because ???? The wind was extremely strong all of a sudden like ?? Sheesh

- you were about to sit down and cuddle into your hoodie for warmth but then u SWORE U HEARD A VOICE COMING FROM THE WELL

- and you aint crazy but you're about dumb enough to lean your head above the opening to hear better

- i think you know where this is going....

- the wind's strength had you tumbling down the well in no time

- time seemed to slow down as you plummeted toward the surface of the water

- soon you came in contact with it, cold soaking your clothes and hurting all the way to your bones. You could see the moon thru the suprisingly clear water as well as the bubbles from your last reserve of air, all this caused you to pass out.

- in the capital of the kingdom MoeruFukuro, they were many things ; from kind townfolks, to golden rice paddies and from a gorgeous royal castle to roaming forest demons

- you heard me right

- the lands around were infested by demons and spirited who manifested at night, some benevolant and others not so much

- thankfully for the royal priest Tsukishima's magical talismans placed all around the town, the people could leave in peace, the malignant creatures knowing better than trying to overcome the spells

- the capital could pride itself all around the country for having ones of the most powerful and smart array of people there ever were in addition to being prosperous from the folks' trade businesses

- for example, in the royal palace, you could find as forementionned priest and mage; Tsukishima Kei, legend has it that he was blessed by Kaguya, the goddess of the moon herself in order to have such knowledge of spells

- there was also General Kuroo Tetsurou, who had his fair share of tales and admirers alike, the biggest one being the one in which he had saved a thousand men from a demon by sacrificing himself, earning its respect and protection in battle

- obviously there was the crowned prince, Bokuto Koutaro. Well he might seem a little air headed and childish at first sight but he takes his duties very seriously even if they consist in little things such as gathering the peoples' eventual complaints himself, some people going as far as saying that he is the closest thing to a god on earth

- and then, wherever Bokuto went, it would be near impossible to forget about his right arm and advisor, the wise and renowned astronomer Akaashi Keiji. If Tsukishima had been blessed by the moon goddess then many people believed that Akaashi was the one who tought Omoikane, god of wisdom and intelligence himself, everything he knew. He was everything people wished they were, calm, good looking, creative, reasonable and intelligent beyond mesure. No wonder he was the one Bokuto trusted the most by his side

- studying the sky also brought Akaashi much knowledge on seasons and the movements of stars and such, providing help to both the people and Tsukishima

- Akaashi did not live in the castle however, well technically yes but he did have a workshop of his own a bit farther in the territory, where he could dedicate himself to staring at the night sky he loved so very very much from his makeshift observatory/rooftop

- he also had a lovely well near his observation tower that Tsukishima had passive agressively insisted on cleansing for him (>.<)

- so there he was, in this particularly enchanting night

- something about that full moon, shining stars and clear sky just about almost got some tears out of him

- but he was interrupted when he heard a low growl from beneath his observation tower

- naturally he looked down to where it came from and saw a fire fox spirit inching suspiciously close to an unconscious girl on the ground near the well

- the demons avoided the talismans yes but that far from the heart of the city trickster spirits and ghouls could just about do as much chaos as they pleased

- rushing to get down, Akaashi took his bow and arrows ready to get rid of the spirit and make sure the girl, no matter how strange her clothes looked like, was safe

- it was fast work, his arrows reaped through the night air seemingly at lighting speed and quickly made the spirit disappear

- muttering a small banishing prayer he picked up the passed out girl and brought her on top of his observatory

- she was dry but she was still shivering from the cold

- "she must not be used to the cold" thought the young astronomer, taking off his haori to put on top of her frame and sitting down next to her, looking downwards at her now relaxed features

- he did not know why he brought her up there but right now it just felt right. So he went on with looking at the sky, resting his hands flat on the ground near his sides

- you were awake, enough to feel a warmth next to you but not enough to open your eyes yet

- you thought that you'd fallen asleep after making the wish and that your friends had carried you back to your room or something

- but it was to cold to be true

- you peaked slightly from between your lashes and were met with a GORGEOUS night sky

- usually in your city, the sky was too polluted to be able to see that many

- and the full moon seemed closer than usual, bewitching, enchanting, almost asking you to come to her, so in a way you did

- now fully awake, you outstretched your hand toward the celestial body, not really thinking in the moment

- "you're awake ! How are you feeling ?" said a silvery soft voice, almost similar to a whisper

- so similar you thought that you were still dreaming as it was the same one you've heard before imagining falling into the well

- your train of thought was quickly cut short by the feeling of warm hands around your own outstreched one

- oh this was definitly real

- you sat up im a swift movement, looking around you and only seeing trees and rice paddies, as well as the lights of a town in the distance

- you almost didn't hear the man's voice over your own rapidly beating heart

- almost

- "Everything's okay now, calm down" he said, probably noticing your panic and rubbing his thumb over your knuckles

- his words seemed to immediatly sink into your very soul at the second they came out of his mouth, and worst is that you thought that if it meant to be marked in such a way you would be glad to have your soul inked all over with just his words

- but you still didn't know him so you kept that thought to yourself

- "who are you and where am i ?" Your voice was so shaky and your mind so foggy that you weren't even sure if they ever made it out of your throat

- but Akaashi heard you loud and clearer than anything before, just touching your hand had seemed like such a common task but the needle like sensation that ran up his whole arm begged to differ, he regained his composure fast though

- "my name's Akaashi Keiji and you're in the kingdom of MoeruFukuro" he made sure to speak as softly as possible, never letting go of your hand, fearing that maybe, if he let go you would disappear back into the wind

- ".....my name's Y/N L/N....listen i don't think im supposed to be here- well more like...now"

- "what do you mean ?"

- and so you explained to him how you actually came from the 21st century in what you could only assume to be another timeline and universe, trying to sound as calm as possible

- because well, you weren't dumb, and castle as "cool and fantasy anime looking like that" were not so common

- Akaashi kept drinking in your voice, painfully aware of every movement of your face, every little speaking quirk and tones, never breaking contact

- he was fast in reassuring you on his own world, he spoke of his life, of his friends and of the castle, not leaving out the fact that demons and spirits were a common factor, carefully choosing his phrasing and explaining with the most concise words

- explaining so well that you felt as if you already knew all these things, deep in yourself

- and time passed

- you soon found yourself laying on you back, fingers still intertwined with the royal astronomer, talking about your lives, as if you were desperatly but as easily as breathing trying to make the other remember your existence, trying to get a part of your souls back

- the silence of the night made your voices reach the other in an almost pieircing melody, the deep blue and silver sky as your only witness of this moment

- "so you're an astronomer right.....why do you like the stars so much Keiji ?"

- oh man did he love hearing you say his name, it sounded like the rarest music he's ever heard coming from you

- "i guess it just comes easily to me....i've never felt lonely in the castle, my friends are supportive and strong even though i've never been particularly good with people....when i come here for reasons other than work and stare at the sky, it feels like im finally walking in my own feelings, finally able to search for something that i somehow always wanted..."

- he turned to your face and swore that he saw many more stars in your eyes than he has in his whole life and continued on

- " it feels- it felt like trying to find a part myself that had been fragmented and thrown into the universe....a part of myself that was very much more human than i thought"

- "oh" was all you could muster between that and the flood of feelings that was inside your heart

- you felt like you were running out of time.

- you felt like you had to make the most out of this precise instant.

- you suddenly jerked up, making Akaashi jump at the sudden move

- he sat up with you, facing you, unsure of what  that was all about

- " Keiji !" You said, full of determination despite the advanced hour of the night, and when he nodded and smiled, humming slightly as response you took it as your greenlight to continue

- " Let's find each other again ! Whether it be in this life or another ! We're bounded together now and im sure whichever gods brought me to you will make it happen again no matter what. So you have to promise me before it's too late....don't forget about me !"

- Akaashi's eyes bore into yours with as much intensity as yours and returning the smile you wore on your face

- he let go off your hand for the first time that night and you felt as if an invisible countdown just started somewhere

- he took of a teal and marine blue colored thread bracelet that he wore and put in on your wrist, it had a small crescent moon symbol made of nacre on it....how in character

- how....him

- "there. That way i won't ever forget you. I sure hope you don't forget about me either"

- the last thing your remembered was the gorgeous yet so undoubtfully sad smile of the astronomer before waking up, warm, in your own bed

- you looked around in a hurry and little did you know, you were back into your appartment's bedroom

- you figured it was just a dream

- and yet your heart was still beating against your ribcage and tears were stinging your eyes

- you looked at your phone to check the time since the sun had already went up and your eyes fell on the bracelet you were wearing on your wrist

- you wasted no time in DASHING out of your appartment straight to the old lady's, well too aware that what had happened last night was definitely not a dream

- as you rung the doorbell you were too busy trying to calm your heart that was still trying to beat out of your chest to hear an all too familiar voice from inside the appartment saying "i'll take this"

- the door opened and you almost fainted

- "hi ! Im Akaashi Keiji your new neighbor from next door.....have we met before ?"

[p-artsypants]

Bad Day (1) Morning

Marinette was Ladybug! This was Adrien’s luckiest day ever! Except it wasn’t, because all his good luck was used up in one go. Turns out this might be the worst day of his life.

Ao3 | FF.net

Part 2

I’m still working on Longest Night. This was just supposed to be a one shot, but it got out of hand. There should only be three chapters. Crack, Angst, Fluff, in that order. 

Also, this story is super gross. Because 14-year-old boys are super gross. 

--

“Pound it!” Ladybug and Chat connected fists after a job well done.

His ring beeped right on schedule, having used his cataclysm earlier than she had used Lucky Charm.

“Go ahead, I’ll take care of the victim.” She smiled so politely and rested a hand on his arm.

He nearly swooned.

“Go!” She chided with a laugh.

He blew her a kiss as he departed. It was an early morning, just before school. Early enough that classes probably wouldn’t be cancelled. The akuma had been a quick run, though the time he had intended to use for studying in the library was gobbled up instead. Oh well. That was the whole point of studying, staying ahead so when the akumas overwhelmed him, his grades didn’t suffer.

The courtyard was still relatively empty, as there was still a good twenty minutes before classes started.

He rushed to the bathroom, keeping a careful eye on the students, though no one noticed he was there.

He took the first stall, and his transformation fell just as he cleared the door.

Plagg fell in his hands, immediately begging for cheese.

Adrien laughed and gave him a little wedge. “There, I have more in my bag, but I have to go while we’re here.”

“Go? Go where?”

“You know…go.” He gestured to the toilet. “It’s poo-thirty.”

“Aw man,” Plagg whined. “Couldn’t you hold it until we got home so I can leave the room?”

“Don’t be such a baby.” Adrien chastised, dropping Plagg in his pocket. He undid his buttons, dropped trou, and let nature take its course. Aimlessly, he scrolled through the Ladyblog on his phone while he did his business.

Then he noticed that the door was slightly cracked open.

“Oh narts, this the stall with the bad lock.” He sighed. Reaching his leg out, he toed the door, having it hit the jam and rebound back, opening wider. Adrien groaned, “Plagg, can you—“

“Nuh uh. I’m not coming out until you’re done with your disgusting human behavior.”

Adrien rolled his eyes at his ridiculous kwami. Oh well. It was still early, and he’d be done in a minute. Surely it was no big deal?

Except someone was running towards the bathroom.

And then running to his stall.

Into his stall, with their back to him.

A gorgeous back, with an adorable butt, covered in red and black, and hiding. Then, there was a flash of pink, and the red and black gave way to a dark gray jacket and soft pink pants. An outfit he had seen nearly everyday.

He choked on air, wanting to say something, and also very aware of the fact that his pants and boxers were around his ankles.

Not how he imagined the reveal would go down at all.

So he simply held his breath, vying his time.

She didn’t wait long, only a couple seconds really, it had just felt like an hour being in that space with her. As she left, he made eye contact with her kwami.

She saw. She saw that he saw.

Then he was alone again, his eyes staring forward, unseeing.

Marinette.

Marinette was Ladybug.

Beautiful, sweet, kind, and righteous Marinette was his Ladybug. Of course she was! It made perfect sense! They had the same eyes, the same black hair that shined blue in the light! The same laugh! Oh it was perfect!

It was—

Oh no.

He had to tell her. But she HATED the idea of him knowing her identity! Hated anyone knowing!

Why did it have to happen while he was on the can?

How was he supposed to explain this without completely embarrassing both of them? It was completely unfair!

“Sorry Marinette I saw you detransforming while I was dropping off the Cosby kids at the pool, sorry!” Like that was a good option!

But then again, he was finding it too hard to be upset about it when the truth of ‘Marinette is Ladybug’ reverberated in his head.

They’d work it out. Somehow. But now he just had to get through the day without melting into goo around her.

Maybe he’d turn on the Chat Noir charm.

No, that’d be too suspicious.

“Are you gonna poop or what?” Asked Plagg.

Adrien scoffed at him.

Then his kwami chuckled, lowly, manically.

“What are you up to, you little creature?”

“Oh, I’m not up to anything. I just had…a premonition, if you will.”

“Care to enlighten me?”

“Do you feel lucky?”

“What kind of question is that?  Uh…I mean, I just found out who the love of my life is, so…yeah?”

“The luckiest you’ve ever been?”

“Yeah, in a way.”

“That’s what I thought.” Plagg snickered again.

“What?”

“Oh nothing…really. Just that…I have a feeling you used up all your good luck for the day.”

“What? Is that a thing?”

“Just hurry up and finish. Nasty boy.”

Rolling his eyes at his kwami, Adrien finished his business. Afterwards, he left his stall just as Kim came in.

“Yo!”

“Howdy!”

Kim took his stall, and Adrien went to wash his hands.

“Holy shit!” Kim shouted.

A bad feeling settled in Adrien’s stomach. Did I forget to flush?

Ah, it was probably no big deal.

He finished up, and went into the locker room, where Nino was putting his stuff away.

“Hey man,” Adrien greeted pleasantly.

“Sup dude! If I had known you’d be early, I would have waited out front for you.”

“Oh no, no worries. I’ve been here for a while. Needed to use the library.” That had been the initial plan, before the Akuma had struck. So not a complete lie.

“For the essay?”

“Yep.”

“I haven’t even started, dude. I mean, I have a topic idea but..” Nino went on, but Adrien’s mind had begun to wander.

Back to Marinette.

His lady.

His bugaboo.

He giggled.

Nino frowned at him. “Dude, what’s so funny about the holocaust?”

Adrien’s eyes widened. “No no I wasn’t—no, sorry. I was listening! But I was also thinking...uh, so you’re doing your essay on the holocaust?”

“Well, I’m thinking of doing a comparative piece between the holocaust and...”

And he was off again.

Not that he didn’t love Nino immensely, but this was the biggest revelation of his life! He wasn’t going to pay any attention to anything for the rest of the day.

Oh how badly he wanted to sit behind Marinette, so he could stare at her all day.

A little creepy, but cut him some slack.

“…it’s not really comparing the Holocaust to country music, but it’s finding similar themes, you know? Is that the dumbest idea you’ve heard?”

“Yeah…” Adrien said with a pleasant smile on his face.

“Yeah? My idea is dumb?”

“Sure is.”

“Well…thanks for that, I guess.”

“Hmm mmm…say Nino, is Marinette interested in anyone?”

Nino blinked a few times. “What?”

“I just thought you might know, since you’re dating Alya and all.”

Nino snickered. “Oh, I see what this is about. Finally got your head out of your ass, huh?”

Adrien blinked heavily at him. “W-what?”

“Oh come on. Everyone can see when you give her your patented ‘soft eyes’.”

“My what?”

“You know, you get this dopey smile on your face, and then your eyebrows turn up and your eyes get all misty, and then you look like you’re going to cry.”

“What! I do not do that!”

“There was a spider on Rose’s desk, and Marinette gently scooped it up and put it outside, even though she’s scared of spiders too.”

Adrien’s heart melted. “Aw, she did?”

Nino snapped a picture on his phone. “Bam, heart eyes.”

Adrien narrowed those heart eyes into slits. “What’s your game, Lahiffe?”

“You’re in love with Marinette.”

Adrien blinked. “Yeah, I was getting to that.”  

Nino gawked. “You-you were!? You are!?”

“Yeah, I mean…I just realized it today. I thought I was in love with someone else, but…” Technically, he still was, but knowing that Ladybug was Marinette only made his feelings stronger and feel more solid.

Marinette was Ladybug!

Adrien then realized Nino was giving him a knowing look. “You’ve got it bad, dude.” He chuckled.

Adrien huffed and crossed his arms. “Well, are you going to tell me who she likes, or what?”

It was then that Kim came out of the bathroom, and made hard eye contact with Adrien. “I see you there. It’s on, Agreste.”

“What’s on?”

“You know Le Chien Kim doesn’t back down from a challenge!”

“What challenge?!”

“As if you didn’t know!”

“I don’t know!”

Kim just gave a smirk and walked out of the room.

“Uh, what the hell was that?” Asked Nino.

“You’re guess is as good as mine with Kim.”

“Fair.”

“So anyways...Marinette? Her crush? Help a guy out?”

Nino rolled his eyes. “Look dude, if I tell you, I’m dead meat, per Alya. But, you should absolutely ask her out. She won’t say no.”

“...is it me then? Does she like me?”

“Again, I’m a dead man. But her fondness for you surpasses ‘friendship’, ya dig?”

His lady liked him! She liked Adrien!

“God, you make me sick.” Nino chuckled. “You make sure to turn those soft eyes on Marinette. She’ll turn to goo.”

“Noted!” Adrien beamed. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go woo Milady.”

“Christ.”

Adrien haughtily tossed a smirk over his shoulder, and then turned to rush out of the room.

Only, Plagg’s premonition would come true. With a vengeance.

In one step, his shoelace broke and he stepped completely out of his sneaker. With the momentum he created in takeoff, he launched several steps until he collided his pinkie toe with the corner of the lockers.

Oh mama.

He was down.  

Clutching his foot like his life depended on it, Adrien dropped to the floor and let out a string of curses that would make Chat Noir blush.

“Oof, dude, you okay?”

Adrien couldn’t tell if he was laughing or crying.

But oh, did it suck.

“Let’s go to the nurse.”

“No.” Adrien wheezed out. “I’m good.”

“Like hell you are.”

“If I go to the nurse, she’ll call my dad, and he’ll pull me out of school for being in an unsafe environment. I’m fine!”

Though the tears streaming down his cheeks did not have Nino convinced. “Whatever dude. Let me help you get to class though, kay?”

Nodding through the pain, Adrien took the offered hand, and together they tottered to homeroom.

As they approached the room, they could hear Kim talking. Everyone in the school could hear him, he was so enthused.

“No, you guys don’t understand! It had to be at least two feet! The thickness of my arm! This thing was massive!”

Nino snickered, “What, did he take up fishing?”

“That’s not physically possible.” Said Alix, just as loud.

“Oh yeah? I took a picture! Look!”

There was a collective shout of ‘ew! Kim!’ from the class, when Adrien and Nino finally reached the door.

Everyone went silent.

Dead silent.

Adrien’s gaze drew immediately to Marinette—His Lady—only to see her avoiding his gaze, with a very red face.

Then he noticed that everyone was staring right at him.

“Uh…good morning?” He detached himself from Nino and used the desk to get to his seat.

Alix stood, and just started clapping.

This caused some of the others to start laughing.

“Uh…what’s going on?”

“Tch, like you don’t know.” Said Kim, in a way that inexplicably reminded him of an anime villain.

Adrien rolled his eyes. “I already told you in the locker room, I don’t know what the heck you’re talking about!”

“You, sir, are the Dump King of Collège Françoise Dupont! And I intend to dethrone you!”

Nino and Adrien looked at each other, and then at Kim.

“Dump King?”

Marinette had her head buried in her hands, unable to look at him. Whatever this Dump King thing was, it was bad.

“Yeah dude! I used the bathroom right after you and you left this massive turd! It was two feet, easily! It was standing up in the bowl!”

Adrien’s face burned, embarrassment outweighing the pain in his, presumably, broken toe. “Kim…”

“You’re so clean and perfect…you’d never leave a message like that unless it was a challenge! And I’m going to start eating fiber ASAP!”

Now it was Adrien’s turn to hide his face in his hands.

Nino clapped a sympathetic hand to his shoulder. “Oh man, you broke the number one unspoken rule. No pooping at school.”

“If we’re not supposed to poop here, why are there toilets?” Adrien whispered back, harshly.

“It’s not a hard rule, just a globally recognized one.”

“Now you tell me!”

“Oh don’t play all naïve, Agreste. I know what you’re about.”

Adrien trembled in front of the class, because now he had to explain to Kim, in front of all his classmates, and the love of his life, that that hadn’t been any kind of challenge. He had simply forgotten to flush. And he normally didn’t poop logs. Just, regular sized poops.

Oh man, if it sounded this terrible in his head, it would sound so stupid out loud!

His mind really had to have been gone if he hadn’t noticed he left that behind.

“Listen, Kim…” He began, sitting on the edge of the desk. “It’s not like that. I’m not the kind of guy that shits and tells.”

That was not the right thing to say as everyone erupted in laughter, and Adrien’s embarrassment only grew deeper.

Fortunately, Marinette was the only one not laughing, as she was probably reeling from second hand embarrassment.

Kim noticed, and draped himself over her shoulders. “Oh come on Mari! Everyone loves a good poop joke!”

“Yeah, when they’re five.” She muttered.

“You have to admit, Adrien is always impressive. Even his deuces are deuces.”

Shutupshutupshutupshutup—

“You’ve got to be a little impressed, aren’t you?”

Marinette finally met his eyes and he was fully prepared to cry at her sympathetic gaze. She smiled. “I’m just glad you’re healthy.”

What.

“I’m doing school under my desk today, thanks everyone.” Adrien withered and crawled under their table.

“Dude, come on.”

“Adrien’s not here right now, he’s at the humiliation station. Population: me.”

“Don’t be so dramatic sunshine, everyone poops.” Alya said, by way of consolation.

And it probably would have worked too. If it were any other day. But the day had just started and he was already overwhelmed. He was acutely aware of Marinette’s eyes.

Nothing was worse than being embarrassed in front of your crush.

Well, as Chat Noir, he always managed to embarrass himself in front of her. But this was different! He was Adrien! Embarrassing himself as Adrien wasn’t just bad for him.

It was bad for his father.

Oh no.

Could his father find out about this? He didn’t have a sense of humor, he wouldn’t find this funny at all!

“Adrien? Where’s Adrien?” Miss Bustier called in attendance. He had been so deep in his self loathing, he hadn’t even realized the teacher had come in the room.

“The Dump King is under his desk.” Called Kim.

“Dump…? Never mind, I don’t want to know. Adrien, please sit in your seat properly.”

Resigned, Adrien went to stand but hit his head on the table, eliciting a ‘ooo’ from the room.

Adrien sat in his chair, slumped in defeat.

Plagg vibrated in his pocket, barely able to contain his laughter.

The kwami was right, today was not going well at all. Despite the wonderful knowledge that Marinette was Ladybug, everything else seemed to go wrong.

He failed his physics test.

He, Adrien Agreste, top grade in Physics, Physic nut, had failed his test.

He just stared at the paper with growing horror. “Miss Mendeliev, there must be some sort of mistake!”

“Sorry Adrien, you know the rules, you don’t show your work, you don’t get points, even if the answer is right.”

“But—“

“If you find the paper you did the problems on, I will regrade it. But it will be a zero in your grades until then.”

Frantic, Adrien dumped his backpack out on his desk and began searching for the lost paper.

“Not right now, Mr. Agreste.” She said sharply.

Feeling small, Adrien gathered his supplies and stuffed them back into his bag.

During lunch, he was called back to the mansion, even though he had asked to eat with his friends. Though, this wasn’t that much of a disappointment, considering that he dealt with it fairly often.

As he left the school, he found Marinette waiting for him. Beautiful, sweet, understanding, and patient.

As he walked up to her, she stuttered and stumbled on her words. “H-Hey Adrien! I’m sorry about what I said in class. Not that I’m not happy that you’re healthy! I’m very glad you are! You look great! You always do! I mean—! I just wanted to say...I could tell you were embarrassed by Kim, but I’m sorry I didn’t say anything to help.”

Adorable. Simply adorable.

He realized that he hadn’t responded, and only continued to stare at her longingly.

“Marry me...” he sighed.

Her eyes blew wide as her mouth went slack.

Quick! Play it off!

“Mari! You Mari! Me Adrien! Yes, good! Thanks!”

Nice.

“Bye!” He damn near shouted, and he hauled ass to his car, limping with each step.

Plagg giggled in his shirt, and whispered up to him. “You’re such a dumbass.”

“Shush.”

After lunch, it was time for gym.

Which was a fun activity with a, presumably, broken toe.

“You going to be okay, dude?” Asked Nino. “You know, if you just show Mr. D’Argencourt your foot, I’m sure he’d let you out of gym.”

“I’m fine, I just…need to walk it off.”

Nino gave him a flat look. “You’ve been ‘walking it off’ for several hours already. It’s not getting any less purple.”

“I looked it up. There’s nothing they can do about a broken toe. They can’t set it or anything, so don’t worry about it.”  

At this point, Nino decided to officially give up. “Fine, suffer. Be my guest.”

Soccer.

It had to be soccer.

Why not tennis? Why not frisbee? Why not pickleball? Any game! Any other fracking game, except for the one that demands you use your foot the entire time!

Adrien reconsidered his life choices. “Excuse me Mr. D’Argencourt, I stubbed my toe really bad earlier. Can I sit out?”

Mr. D’Argencourt, shrewd man that he was, gave Adrien a once over and huffed. “If you must. You can sit with Miss Rossi.” He gestured over to Lila, who was beaming at him.

Adrien winced.

“How about goalie?”

The coach was much more willing to have Adrien participate and consented.

Whatever forces on earth that had been responsible for Adrien’s crap day came back with reinforcements.

On Adrien’s team was Rose, Juleka, Nathanael, Chloe, Sabrina, and Max. Against them, was Kim, Alix, Ivan, Alya, Nino, and Marinette.

Whoever picked these teams is a moron. He thought to himself.

Adrien, humble as he was, was an excellent goalie. Of course, he’d give the credit to his time as Chat Noir. The game was almost over, with the score tied 0-0. His team hadn’t gotten anywhere near the other goal, but Adrien hadn’t let a single ball in on his side.

His was bruised, battered, sweaty, and exhausted.

Of course, most of his teammates hadn’t even broken a sweat.

Marinette stood nearby, waiting for the assist to the goal. Of course, having her so close was immediately a distraction, and all of his attention was on her.

“You’re amazing,” she told him, adorable blush on her cheeks. “Sorry we’ve been so ruthless, you know how Kim and Alix are.”

He meant to thank her, to assure her there was nothing to apologize for.

But his brain decided to remind him, yet again, that he was talking to Ladybug.

“Thank Kay, you’re not apologize. Amazing, yes!”

Flawless.

Her eyes widened slightly. “Are you okay?”

A low whine came from his throat, as he felt the need to shrivel up and die.

“Hey Dump King!” Kim shouted, “Block this!” And he kicked, with all the power in him.

To Adrien’s credit, he did Block the ball, but it was with his face.

“Adrien!” A cacophony of voices called out to him.

He was on the ground, wetness on his face. And in too much pain to move.

“Adrien? Are you alright?” Marinette was above him, looking down at him with concern and so much love. “You’re bleeding.”

“Bleeding...” he swooned.

“Alright, alright,” Mr. D’argencourt shooed everyone away from crowding him. “What happened.”

“He took a ball to the face, and I think he hit his head on the way down.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?” The coach stated, holding up three fingers.

“Three.” Adrien said simply.

“Oh, he’ll be fine.” The coach said. “Will someone take Adrien to the nurse?”

Marinette opened her mouth to volunteer, but Lila shouted out first. “I’ll take him!”

Adrien used Marinette’s hand to climb to his feet, and then waved Lila off. “I’m fine, I can go on my own.”

Lila latched onto his arm. “Oh please, let me help you.”

“No, really, I’m—“ He sneezed, flinging blood right on Lila’s face and clothes.

She shrieked.

“Ah! I’m sorry! I didn’t know I had a bloody nose!” He cupped his face, not really doing any good. He turned to Marinette, “Does it look okay?”

“I mean, you’re bleeding, but nothing looks bruised yet.”

Lila weaved her arm around his again, and pulled him away from Marinette. “Come on, let’s take you to the nurse.”

As she yanked him down the hall, Adrien looked down, and saw an absolutely menacing look on her gaze.

But it was gone just a moment later as she smiled up at him. “It’s okay Adrien. Accidents happen.”

He wasn’t completely convinced.

The walk to the nurses office was quiet, and Lila departed just as they arrived.

The examination went smoothly as well. “Well, Mr. Agreste, you don’t have a concussion, and your nose will be fine. It might be a while before it stops bleeding however.”

“Will I bruise?”

“You might. But the skin isn’t broken, so makeup should be able to cover anything.”

He hated wearing makeup, but it was better than getting yelled at. He sighed. “Thank you ma’am.”

“But you can keep this icepack on it for a little while. That’ll help.” Gently, she molded the icepack around his nose, and placed his hand on it to keep it steady. He sighed in relief. “Um, while I’m here…” He reached down and took off his shoe and sock. “I stubbed my toe earlier.”

“Oh honey!” The nurse exclaimed. “Why didn’t you see me earlier about that!? Look at how dark it is!”

Adrien hunched his shoulders. “I just…Didn’t want you to call my dad.”

The nurse considered it for a moment. “Alright, I won’t call your father. But try to keep off of it, and ice it as much as possible. Alright?”

Adrien managed a smile. “Thank you.”

After about 15 minutes, when his face went numb, he gave back the ice packs and decided to head back to class, a wad of tissue still up his nose.

In the hall, he ran into Lila, her face clean of any trace of blood, and her shirt damp, but clean as well. “Hey Adrien!”

“Oh, hi Lila…” He greeted cautiously.

“Is your nose still bleeding?”

“Yeah, the nurse said it’s not broken though.”

“That’s good! I actually was on my way to the nurse’s office to give you this.” She held up a cylindrical wad of cotton, with a string on the end.

“Uh…what is it?”

“It’s for packing nosebleeds. I get them all the time, so I always have them handy. All you have to do is put it in your nose and leave it there for an hour.”

“Oh! Well…thanks! I…I just I’ll go put this in now. Thank you!”

“It’s no problem Adrien. I just wanted to make sure you were all better for our photoshoot this afternoon.”

A chill ran down his spine. “Our…what?”

“Our photoshoot? I could have sworn it was today?”

No. Today was Friday. He was going to Marinette’s for his first sleepover with friends! He made sure to clear his schedule! Quickly, he whipped out his phone and pulled up the spreadsheet with all his events.

Right there, in a block after school until late evening, a photoshoot was scheduled. Edited as of 10am this morning.

He growled in his throat, and then called Nathalie.

“Adrien, do you really think it’s appropriate to call during school hours?”

“I had today off from modeling.” He said by way of greeting. “I was supposed to hang out with friends.”

“Yes, you were. But your father insisted on a shoot anyways. But he made sure to get your friend Lila as a model so you wouldn’t feel too bad.”

“Well, as long as I can hang out with them afterwards?”

“No, your father wants you to come home tonight.”

“Why?”

“He just does, Adrien.”

Adrien hung up, angry, upset, frustrated.

“I’m sorry Adrien, I thought you knew?” Lila said, with her little sing song voice.

“Well, it was scheduled at 10am, so no. I didn’t.”

“Weird, I got a text about it. Sorry!”

“Whatever,” He huffed. He was done. This day officially sucked, and he’d find a way to cataclysm it right off the calendar.

Well, at least Lila had been kind enough to lend him this…thing. Whatever it was. He went to the bathroom to change out his tissues.

Yeah, he was still bleeding.

But the new cotton wad fit like a dream and he jammed it as far up into his nose as he could stand, and then went back to class.

Lila was already there when he returned, and Miss Bustier was in the middle of her lecture when he walked into the room.

She stared at him. “Oh…uh, glad to see you’re alright, Adrien. But…um…”

“Dude,” asked Nino, when no one else would, “why do you have a tampon up your nose?”

Adrien paled, considerably, “…this is a…?”

Nino nodded.

Kim burst out laughing first, and the rest of the class followed suit, while Adrien hid his shame with his hands.

Marinette, blessed, beautiful, and kind, did not laugh. Instead, she stood and went to him. ”Come on.” She grabbed his hand and tugged him along to the bathroom.

Out of the corner of his eyes, he noticed Lila glaring at them, glaring at him, with a smile on her lips. It seemed she had changed targets.

She led him to the boys room, and opened the door. “Anybody in here?”

When there was no reply, she pulled him in, and steered him toward the sink.

“Go ahead and pull it out.”

He did, the bleeding starting up again.

“Sorry I just commandeered the whole situation, but I had a feeling Lila was going to be less than helpful.” She wadded up a ball of toilet paper and handed it to him. “Hold this to your nose for now.”

With the ball under his nose, he just continued to gaze at her. “No, thank you for rescuing me. I’ve never dealt with a bloody nose before.”

Marinette gave him this sympathetic little smile. “Well, lucky for you, I have. A handful of times.”

Adrien remembered a dozen or so times when Ladybug got knocked a little too hard and ended up a little bloodied.

“Here,” she took a strip of toilet paper and twisted it into a long string. “Now, you’re going to fish this up your nostril as far as it will go. It will tickle and be uncomfortable, but I swear the bleeding will stop in a few minutes.”

Adrien took the tissue and did as she instructed. He got the urge to sneeze again, but held it back.

“There. Now we’ll just wait a little while and see if it stops.”

“Thank you, Marinette. You really are our everyday Ladybug.” He kind of felt stupid saying so, but it was so true.

Marinette tinged a lovely shade of pink, flicking her eyes away from his. “You’ve been having a pretty bad day today, huh?”

He groaned and almost collapsed on the floor. “The worst.”

“Well, we’ll just have to make up for it tonight, right? I know. You versus me, Ultimate Mecha Strike 4, battle to the death. What do you say?”

“That sounds like so much fun! But…”

“But?”

“My father…he changed his mind this morning. I can’t go. I’m sorry Marinette, I really really really wanted to.”

She deflated. Her shoulders dropped, her smile faded, even the light in her eyes snuffed out. “Oh.”

He wanted to cry. “I’m serious, I’m really upset about this! I was so excited!” He choked.

The life came back into the girl in front of him, and she rested a gentle hand on his arm. “Hey, it’s alright. We’ll try again. If we’re persistent, eventually your father will have to let you go, right?”

Despite the optimism in her voice, Adrien could she she was severely disappointed.

Maybe she really did have feelings for him.

“We better get back. How’s your nose?”

He carefully extracted the tissue, only to find part of it still clean. “I think it’s good. I’ll just tuck a little bit in there just in case.”

“Good idea.”

“And...Marinette?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you. You’re wonderful.”

She blushed, and some of that light came back to her eyes.

[space-------kid]

can’t keep my hands (off you).

Anime/Manga: One Punch Man Pairing: Garou/fem!Reader Additional pairing/characters: platonic Metal Bat/fem!Reader, Zenko, mentions of other heroes such as Saitama, Watchdog Man, etc. Genre: Romance, comedy Warning: Absolute silliness. Language – Garou and reader both ate rainbows for breakfast. Dumbassery. Teeth-rotting fluff, maybe? Reader is hella strong like Saitama. Half-assed spice because you’re good at cockblocking Garou despite being low-key thirsty for him. And LOTS of dumbassery from the reader, most probably. Additional tag: Dream-based fic, canon-divergent, Garou is horny af A/N: This is supposed to be a lengthy one-shot, but I’m a dumbass who can’t keep my word so the supposedly one-shot isn’t a one shot anymore.  Now I have to worry how I should properly divide all those parts (I mean, they’re already divided, but–) 😅

Garou thinks your thighs are great.

Summary:

Your life had its general ups and downs, pros and cons, the good and the bad.

You were admittedly a coward and afraid of being targeted by people for it. Following the advice of your (best) friend you trained hard, like, FUCKING hard, and now you’re blessedly, utterly strong you can take down enemies with just one hit. A good thing, really. Can’t let any bad guy harass you or something.

But-

You were probably cursed with the biggest, baddest of luck. Not only were monsters chasing you, suddenly there was this fucking hot bastard weirdo who kept on calling himself the Hero Hunter. “I’m not a hero, goddamn it!”

i. and ii. | iii. and iv. | [more to be added]

“i can’t keep my

hands

off…!”

- can’t keep my hands off you/simple plan

v.

You spend the following days feeding a stray wolf in your modest home.

In all honesty, you had no idea when Garou began coming in and out of your home as if he shared ownership of the place with you. It’s not like you invited him or anything when you brought his unconscious ass home the first time. You were just scared of leaving a possibly dead body back in K-City Nature Park that fateful day. Lucky for you he survived getting hit by you in your fight instinct two times in a row, yeah?

Maybe that was how far your luck would push itself, however, because every time the (admittedly) hot yet weird bastard stepped inside your quiet abode, he never failed to turn it – as well as yourself – upside down.

You were currently eating cold soba in the living room when you heard the tell-tale sound of your backdoor creaking. The house you’re living in – given to you by your parents when you turned seventeen – was located on the border of K-City, the next house closest to yours was almost 700 meters away from yours. This should’ve been a problem for any average coward, but you were a weird, introverted one since neighbors and the idea of them coming by to visit creeped the hell out of you.

The only downside you could think of when you moved out of your childhood home when you turned seventeen was that you were now living away from your parents and your best friend Badd and his little sister Zenko. Good thing public transportations were awesome, huh? And Badd was a pro-hero, an S-Class to boot, and so he’s got some privileges here and there which he never refused to share with you and your parents alongside Zenko.

Your heart beat began to increase in tempo when you recognized Garou’s footsteps padding somewhere in your kitchen. Sure enough, you heard the fridge door opened and slammed shut. Seconds later, the guy himself slid down the couch next to you, nursing a cold bottle of Coke.

Please don’t make me hit this dumbass again, you prayed to whoever might be listening. Please.

“Yo.”

Eyes narrowed, you simply shrugged in reply to his greeting and continued to aggressively eat your snack.

You could feel Garou shift beside you, throwing an arm behind you on the couch. His fingers were grazing your shoulder, and you could practically feel his gaze on you.

“You’re always staying home, [Name],” he commented and pulled the bottle cap off with his teeth – the absolute mad lad! “Don’t you go to school or something?”

You tilted your head to look at him, an eyebrow raised. “Well, you seem to always be wandering about, so… pot,” you replied then nudged your elbow on his side, “kettle.”

“Fair point,” said Garou, shrugging. “But to answer the question: I don’t need school. I already know everything I have to. You?”

“I graduated already when I was fifteen,” was your nonchalant reply. Garou choked on his drink and looked at you with what seemed to be admiration.

“Really? You’re strong, and you’re a nerd on top of that?” he exclaimed, grinning.

You could tell that he didn’t mean to use the term as an insult, and you bashfully averted your gaze in embarrassment.

“Badd also calls me that,” you mumbled unconsciously.

Garou blinked and looked at you curiously. “Eh? Who’s that?”

Somehow, you got the feeling that you didn’t need to tell him that your best friend was a hero. Well, Garou tried to beat you up when he mistook you for one, hadn’t he? Maybe you should just trust your gut feeling and forgo mentioning Badd’s title.

“Ah, he’s my best friend.”

There. Short and simple.

Garou stared at you for a solid five seconds, as if judging you for keeping him in the dark about Badd’s identity. Then he grinned again.

Fuck you and your paranoid ass.

“I thought you were gonna say boyfriend for a second,” he commented, leaning down at you. “Glad there’s no one stopping me from having my way with ya.”

Oh, god. And so it begins.

Eyes narrowed at the other teen, you quickly got up and repositioned yourself on the armchair beside the couch. You clutched your bowl of soba, your knees on your chest.

“Don’t you start again, Garou, I’m warning you,” you scolded him, trying and failing to sound stern. How could you when your heart was practically in your throat at the moment?

He pulled himself off the couch to follow you, bracing himself on the armrests of your seat and effectively caging you. Garou leaned down, eyes sparkling with mischief when he looked at you with mock innocence.

“I ain’t startin’ nothing, little lady,” he purred, smiling devilishly down at you. “And why did you move here? It’s much cosier on the couch with me on it.”

You pressed yourself further against the back of your seat when Garou fully invaded your personal space by lowering his face to yours. You could only watch as he took the chopsticks from your stiff fingers and began eating your snack, all the while keeping eye contact with you. You watched, entranced, as the noodles slipped between his lips.

“This is good,” said Garou through a mouthful of noodles. He took some and offered it to you, gazing at you expectantly. “Say ‘ah’.”

You sat there, forcing yourself to tear your gaze off his mouth and looked up at him dumbfounded. You could practically feel your face heating up in nervousness, your heart beating triple time as Garou waited for you to respond.

Mind on the brink of blanking out, you timidly opened your mouth and let him feed you. Your heart pounded in your ears and you could only hope that Garou wouldn’t hear. You tried hard not to squirm under his intense gaze when he pressed the tips of your chopsticks on his bottom lip.

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

From attacking you twice because he mistook you for a hero, you suddenly ended up with him raiding your house every now and again to grab some grub and some bandages to patch himself up from whatever the hell he was doing. And now he seemed to be hell-bent on teasing you and making you flustered.

Did he have nothing better to do than to mess with you like this?

“Say, [Name]…” he said, voice low and gaze smoldering.

“W-What?” you stammered, eyes hurting from how wide they were while you looked back up at him.

Garou dipped his head lower, nose touching yours. You couldn’t close your eyes, afraid that he would take advantage and do something weird.

Like what? Kiss you?

If he could read your thoughts, he would be cringing by now with your incoherent mental screaming.

“Do you mind if I…”

Golden eyes left yours as they turned downwards to gaze at your trembling lips. Garou moved-

You closed your eyes.

“Do you mind if I get some of this for myself? I’m starvin’.”

Wait. Why did his voice sound far away now-?

You opened your eyes to see Garou standing up straight before you, one hand resting on his hip. He was looking at you eagerly, head cocked to the side and a tell-tale grin on his lips.

Thoroughly mortified for falling for this jerk’s teasing, your leg shot up to kick him where the sun didn’t shine, annoyance rising in your chest as Garou cackled at you and easily moved out of your range.

“Hey now, what’s with that red face?” he laughed at you. “Where you hoping for something?”

Afraid that you might say something stupid if you thoughtlessly took the bait, you carefully and thoroughly thought of a reply as you rose to your feet and shoved your bowl at him.

“Yeah, I was!” you replied, sarcasm dripping in your voice. “I was waiting for a monster to crash on my doorstep and kick your stupid ass!”

Maaaybe you shouldn’t have kid about that last part because true to your word, your house was shaken by a loud explosion, followed by a booming roar. You – albeit apprehensively – and Garou rushed out to look where it came from, and the two of you saw a fifteen-foot tall frog-like monster with disgusting tentacles coming out of its mouth.

You and your dumb bad luck.

The frightening creature turned its gaze at you to your house, its tentacles wriggling lecherously.

The bowl you were holding fell on the wooden porch but you didn’t even notice.

Disgust and terror swamped your entire being and you had blacked out before you knew it, Garou letting out a surprised noise as he caught you before you hit the ground.

F̖̜̳̼̏͛͐̈̚͢Ḭ̵̛̦̣͓̣̾̎̎̑̋̊͊͘G̷̛̛͇̮͍̰̒͗̾̌̚͟Ḩ̷̢͚͇̅̇͊̅̆̓̉̎̋͘͟T̸̨̛̗̩͎̞̟̾̿̾̍̾̃̈̓͟

 .

.

.

To Garou, monsters and the thought of them winning were the only fascinating things worth spending his time on.

He aspired to be one, the kind that would plunge the world in utter terror. The absolute evil that would be the world’s greatest enemy. The world itself was unfair, so why not become the most unfair being there was if only it could mean that humanity would unite under a single flag and create the ultimate hero to beat the God-level calamity he aspired to be?

In order to achieve his dream, he had to establish a routine that he must follow single-mindedly: beat the admirable heroes and let each victory be his step into reaching his goal of becoming a true monster.

Fate must’ve been smiling at him lately, to Garou’s absolute glee. Not only had he single-handedly took down a room full of ruffians and three A-Class heroes back at the Hero Association HQ, he had also beaten some other heroes the following days with the addition of an S-Class to boot!

Yeah, Fate had been kind to him, but Lady Luck had thrown him a huge curveball in the form of dainty little you.

Garou was a prodigy, a martial arts genius that even the old geezer Bang praised back then (before he was expelled from the master and creator of the Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist style’s dojo). He was a force to be reckoned with during a fight, his tremendous strength backed by his astounding reflexes and ingenuity.

They were nothing against your unpredictability and shockingly overwhelming strength, however.

“Oi, [Name], you scaredy cat,” Garou called you, shaking you awake ever so slightly as the monster’s rampage took it nearer to your house. “Is this really the time you should be fainting?”

Losing to you twice had been a huge bruise-inducing slap to his ego, something he would never admit. He even learned jack shit during those encounters other than the fact that he seemingly can’t find nor predict ways on how to counter your moves – I mean, how could you hypothesise an attack from someone who showed no interest in fighting, someone whose body language only seemed to scream “don’t fight me, please”? He ought to beat you to a pulp for all of that, but-

You opened your eyes to reveal the same dull look they had when you beat Garou, your face devoid of any emotion. The hairs on the back of Garou’s neck stood on end, a chill creeping down his spine when you idly removed yourself from his arms.

He watched as you took a step forward and leaped towards the monster in the blink of an eye. Garou’s golden gaze widened as you lifted one of your legs and brought it down on the monster’s head with unparalleled force, crushing its huge head and body on the process. You then somersaulted away as what recognizable remains of the beast crashed, the mysterious being dead before it could hit the ground.

Garou remained where he stood on your porch as you turned around and marched back to your house, still wearing that expressionless look. What surprised him the most when you reached him was the minute quirk that appeared on your lips when you turned your dull gaze on him.

The self-proclaimed Hero Hunter’s only reason for taking interest on the strong was because of their – well – strength and fighting capabilities. You have them, you definitely do when you were in this state where something (your fighting instincts, maybe?) seemed to take a hold of you to fight and defend yourself on the process. But there was something hot arousing appealing on seeing a small and delicate cowardly woman go “instant kill” mode and thrash monsters regardless of their size and strength with just one hit.

Now this was the reason why Garou kept on coming to your humble abode unannounced and incessantly teased the hell out of you. He wanted to see more of this side of yours, and maybe gear up a mock fight or two?

But, nah. There’s no appeal in losing to you a third time if that was possible.

His rational side agreed with that kind of reasoning.

Teenage hormones, the one he successfully kept locked for the whole duration of his puberty, thought otherwise.

Garou grinned widely at the warring sides of his brain as you snapped out of your trance and squealed pathetically at the green blood of the monster that had splattered on you.

Maybe losing to you again wouldn’t be so bad as long as he got his head crushed between those killer thighs of yours.

---

to be continued

[buckysbest]

CHAPTER FOUR: EASIER PAIRING: ex!Bucky barnes x reader Warnings: swearing, drinking (a lotttt) , smooching Series Summary: Bucky realizes one can only run from their problems for so long before they must returns home but he sure as hell wasn’t expecting her to be there when he did. Word Count: 1.7k A/N: this series is based off the album “calm” by 5sos. if you want to follow along in the album, listen to Easier while reading this! 

series masterlist // masterlist

Immediately after the meeting ended, you slipped out of the conference room and headed toward the front to check in with Max. There was no need for another disruption to your day and at this point, avoiding him was the foremost thought in your mind.

 Nat looped her arm through yours as you rounded the last turn into the lobby. “How is this the first time I’m seeing you in like… a month or something?”

“Hello to you too Natty” you chuckled, finding a seat on one of the many sofas lining the walls. “Wanna accompany me to my next appointment? I’m just waiting for Max to pull the car around” you wiggled your eyebrows prompting the return of your chuckle and pulling one out of Nat.

“Sergeant Barnes? Oh… you mean Bucky” The short brunette at security caught the attention of both you and Nat with her remark as you both turned your head toward the comment, almost in sync. “Yeah, no it's ok, he’ll know who it is!”

“No, Ma’m, I need your name for security clearance”

The woman gently smacked her forehead,”oh yeah! Duh! Camila Monroe!” Nat and I both made eye contact before returning to our suspicious stare-down of the intruder. “Bucky!” She threw her arms in the air and a shriek filled the open chamber that was the lobby as she jumped into the arms of a very unsuspecting Bucky. 

He caught her just in time and his large arms embraced the girl, “Camila?”

“Yeah silly goose! I wanted to surprise you!” she exclaimed, placing a steamy kiss on his lips. Knowing his hatred of PDA, your jaw to drop slightly at the length of their little interaction. Steve interrupted the two, clearing his throat and beginning the introduction process.

Nat pulled your shoulder closer to you and whispered into your ear, “who the fuck is Camilla?”

“Beats me nat…”  you sighed, excusing yourself and making a beeline for the exit, hiding your escape under the distraction that called herself Camilla. You  reminded yourself that you only needed to endure this for the week before you were back to your tiny apartment in the city. The kiss played in your mind like an excruciating highlight reel making your nail appointment feel years long. Despite your heart crumbling, you were never one to let down appearances so you sat through your nail fill with a dull smile on your face the entire time. Determined to hide out the rest of the day in your room, you left your nail tech an extra $200 tip for her silence and access to the back door. Your nail appointment ended about 20 minutes early so you could at least get a head start. Your tight dress clung to the brick wall of the salon as you ordered an Uber under the alias Nat had helped you create when you first got to know her. After it dropped you off at the compound, you used the west wing exit and snuck through the training compound, eventually ending on Nat’s balcony, directly next to yours. Your legs pushed off the edge of her balcony and came down rather gracefully on the landing of your concrete terrace. Pulling your phone from your pocket, you texted tony.

Y/N: Look tony, I need a break. This schedule I was given... It’s not happening today so call off your goons. If I see another one today, I will cause more damage than Steve his first night on Asgardian Liquor

Desperate for some reprieve from the day, you resorted to the books that lined your walls. Re-reads mostly but you never really minded that. By the time it reached midnight, you figured it was safe to exit and grab a snack. Gently opening the door, your bare feet pattered into the kitchen. Opening the freezer, you reached for your secret stash of ice cream only to realize it was completely gone. To be fair, it probably would have been gross after sitting in there for over a year. Opening the fridge, you were only met with further disappointment and it had never been more clear you lived with superheros. Green vegetables and other health conscious foods lined the shelves. It wasn't like you could cry over your ex while eating a head of freakin’ lettuce. You let out a groan and closed the door, abandoning your mission to find anything sweet in the kitchen and settling for a cup of water to take back to your room.

The next morning came and you awoke groggy from the lack of sleep to the loud knock that pounded on your door. 

“Miss.Y/N, do you know what time it is?!” Max exclaimed, a panicked look holding claim to his face. 

Your arm lazily came up to shield your eyes from the bright lights of the hallway as you quipped back, “No, Mr. Max, I do not know what time it is,”

“It's nearly 1! The banquet starts in 4 hours and you haven't even started getting ready! I’ve never seen you oversleep like this!”

You quietly groaned as 12 or so people invaded your room holding makeup, dresses, shoes, and hair supplies. “You’ll have to forgive me max, it's been a rough weekend,” you grumbled under your breath.

Almost instantly, you were swept away and worked on vigorously until almost 5pm on the dot. Your was makeup done to absolute perfection and your hair matched in both flawlessness and elegance. The yellow dress fit you a little too snuggly for your liking but its beautiful floral designs captivated your senses, distracting you from the corset that sucked the wind from your lungs. Yellow pumps adorned your feet with matching polish on each toe. You looked put together, key word being looked.

Insisting on escorting yourself to the ballroom, you snuck in the back door attempting to blend in with your surroundings. This plan was foiled almost instantly.

“Damn girl! You look good!” Sam exclaimed, gathering the attention of those around him. Heads swung around toward you and suddenly you were battling the compliments of Nat, Steve, Bruce, and Tony. Wanda was quick to grab your arm and pull you away, saving you momentarily.

“Where are you taking me?” 

You laughed, as her plan became more clear. She plopped you down at the open bar and took her seat next to you. Swinging around to the handsome barkeep she gathered his attention, “Can we get some shots please and thank you!” 

“Wanda, you know I don’t do shots.”

This time it was Steve's voice that caught your attention and rang over the noise “Bucky!!! Nice for you to join us!”

You peered over your shoulder to see him clad in a fitting suit and tie sporting the brunette, who was practically glued to him, on his side. Her perfectly curled hair hung over her bare shoulders, leading to a dress that must have been designed by the gods themselves. She looked stunning and her smile was far brighter than yours. 

“I’ll take a fucking shot” you groaned.

“’Atta girl” Wanda complimented. After a shot or two, Vision grabbed Wanda to introduce her with some important head of the company or CEO or something, leaving you to the mercy of strangers who bought you drink after drink, pitying you and the downward spiral that was quickly engulfing you. 

This vicious cycle was only broken when a familiar voice sounded from behind you, “Can I have whatever whiskey you are serving, please?” 

Your head slouched in your hand and you had a childish mope on your face as you struggled to place the voice and control yourself long enough to leave on the high barstool that you found yourself stuck on.

“Y/N?”

Sliding off your chair slightly, you mumbled a quiet uh-huh.

“Are you here with someone?”

You sadly shook your head, taking another sip from your drink before the man grabbed the drink from your hand.

“Love, don’t drink that..”

His hand grasped your arm gently, steadying you and offering to walk you back to your room. All you could do was nod so he lightly lifted you from your chair and led to the elevator, only releasing you when he placed you on your bed and leaned down to take off your shoes. As your eyes met his for the first time, you sobered up slightly when you realized who had escorted you up to your room.

 “Woah, W-woah, D-don’t touch me” you slurred, pushing Bucky back slightly with your foot. 

“Y/N, please. You’re clearly not ok, let me he-”

You leaned down and pulled his hand off of you, crawling back toward the safety of your bed.. 

“Y-yeah Bucky! I’m not ok! I’m stuck in this s-stinking city at this dumb party with these d-dumb people all because I got dragged back to this stupid compound which made everything freakin hurt because as soon as I enter those fucking doors, I see the life we could have had if you loved me half as much as I loved you! But nooooo, Barnes couldn't commit! Couldn’t say he fucking loved me and instead opted to leave me, on my ass, and move to a different fucking country! Now I have to look your stupid face every day! So yeah, I’m not ok! Every time I look at your stupid face I cant fucking breathe because I love you so much that I hate you. And to top it off, you completely blindsided me with, the girl you have, uhh C-Camilla or whatever her name is, and she is by your side constantly. Then you come into the party and I cant even stay mad at you because you look so fucking good.” Your sudden confession brought tears to your eyes. You pulled off your other heel and stood in front of him, whispering,“Can you just tell me what she has that I didn't?” 

His hand reached up to rub his neck as his line of sight stayed on the ground. “Y/N, it wasn't like that..”

You threw your arms in the air and rolled your eyes before crossing your arms.“Then what was it James? Cause I can't seem to piece it together” 

“I-I don’t know Y/-” 

“What was it?!” you screamed, the tears you previously held back now freely streaming down your face. 

“It was easier to go! Ok?!” he yelled back, causing you to jump slightly. “It was easier for me to run from you! I loved you so much that I couldn't fucking take it! Camilla means nothing to me! I can play her game as long as I fucking want because I don’t care about the risk! I couldn't risk you breaking my heart because if you did I would have NEVER recovered fr-”

He was interrupted when you threw your arms around his neck and slammed your lips into his.

[thesuitelifeofjughead]

Riverdale Rewatch Review - Season One

Hey guys! So, as everyone knows, there’s like, this big thing happening in the world right now causing everyone to have to stay inside and a lot of people have way more free time on their hands than they know what to do with. I am one of those people. After I finish my schoolwork I find that barely even half a day has passed. What do I fill that time with? Animal Crossing. But also, watching Netflix. 

I’ve wanted to rewatch Riverdale for the longest time, and I figure that now is the best time to do it. 

So, the way this will work, I’ll give my overall thoughts and review of the season, my favorite episodes, and then I’m going to give you a play-by-play of my thoughts while rewatching each episode under the break. So, without further ado:

Overall Review

Looking at the bigger picture of everything I know Riverdale has come to be, I think the statement stands true that Season One is one of their strongest season, if not their actual strongest (Season Four has been climbing up there for me in fav seasons). 

Watching it all together, the drama seemed evenly paced, and everyone seemed to get the same amount of screen time, including characters we barely see anymore like Kevin and Reggie. There are some interesting shots, and I found myself jammin to some of the songs they had the characters sing as well as the background music. 

It was clear that they had a plan, and they knew where they were going. Hints of relationships happened WAY before they became official, and it seemed like everyone was on the same page, which is difficult to say for later seasons (which I will also be making reviews on shortly). 

For only having 13 episodes, Riverdale did an excellent job in it’s first season hooking everyone in to the drama and the mystery, including me. I believe it was after the second or third episode when this blog was created, and I’ve been here ever since. This season is responsible for why a lot of fans stuck around, and for why a lot of fans left. 

Overall, I would say it had amazing storytelling, character development, cinematic techniques, and everything else you could think of. My final rating would be a 10/10. Even if you don’t like later seasons, you can’t deny this one was really good, and had a lot of classic Riverdale moments -insert gif of Jughead saying “I’m a weirdo” here bc I tried to find it but couldn’t-. 

My personal favorite episodes: Episode 6, Episode 10, Episode 13

Rewatch Thoughts

Episode 1: 

It’s so clear right from the start that Veronica likes Archie oh my god

I love Betty Cooper dance parties and I want more of them

Wow I hate Alice from the very beginning

Fred Andrews was the best parent on Riverdale from the very beginning. Period.

Maybe the show is more consistent than I thought. Archie was dumb since season one episode one for lying to his dad. 

Veronica was so supportive of Betty and Archie we stan a supportive friend

Oh my god did we all collectively forget that Archie dated a freaking TEACHER?!

JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS MY HEART I love and miss them 

Jughead was such a broody lil boy wasn’t he oh my gosh Betty really did change him for the better didn’t she

“Whatever happened with Betty, just talk to her. It’ll go a long way” We stan a king who wants open communication from the beginning yas Jughead

Episode Rating: 8/10

Episode 2: 

God, the teacher is so manipulative

Oh god i’m gonna have to relive the dark Betty arc aren’t I

This rewatch is just gonna further my love for Jughead. He was the smartest one since day one

WAIT i completely forgot they changed Reggie’s actor oh my goodness

Episode Rating: 5/10

Episode 3: 

there was a mention of Greendale in the VERY FIRST SEASON 

The only good thing Penelope Blossom ever did was punch Alice Cooper and that’s that on that

I love the early journalism relationship between Betty and Jughead

Episode Rating: 7/10

Episode 4:

Ya’ll I miss jughead narrating at the beginning and end of every episode

THE TWILIGHT DRIVE IN. I MADE SO MANY FANFICTIONS SET THERE AWH

Jug was so upset over the drive in my HEART. Jughead had a JOB. Am I the only one who forgot that? 

He called her Betts and she called him Juggy their already in a relationship let’s face it. 

“It’s like my home” AWH JUG IT WAS HIS HOME MY HEART

Ya’ll remember how INSANE the reveal of Jughead’s dad was?

Episode Rating: 10/10

Episode 5:

Why would he have to run away from mommy and daddy? BECAUSE DADDY DID IT JUG YOURE SO SMART

Everyone was so SHADY in season one 

THE FREAKING SNAKE IN THE BOX

This was the episode with Jughead’s stupid cute smile in his stupid cute hat and stupid cute tux my heart

Remember when Fred and Hermione had that thing? Yeah me neither I hate it

Episode Rating: 8/10

Episode 6:

Wow makes sense that Polly joined a cult, she’s so fragile from everything that’s happened to her 

I love the early music in this show

Betty straight up asks Hal if he killed Jason Blossom. OMG Alice goes “You think he has the stomach or that?” UHM hate to break it to ya but your dad is,,, oof

ITS THE HEY JULIET EPISODE AWH

WAIT THAT MEANS

The little “also” and his voice cracks I’m

FIRST BUGHEAD KISS FIRST BUGHEAD KISS

“In the middle of our moment” ICONIC

Episode Rating: 10/10

Episode 7:

the episode in which we find out Jughead is living in the school

“Don’t tell Betty” they’re already so in love I swear

Jughead walking Betty home is literally the softest thing

The farm was a part of the plot from SEASON ONE oh my god

Episode Rating: 7/10

Episode 8:

I’m p sure this is just a filler episode

Oh wait it’s the reveal to Archie and Fred that FP is a serpent

WAIT ITS THE BABY SHOWER SCENE

“It’s totally on my bucket list” we don’t deserve Jughead

the LOOKS Archie got when he walked into that baby shower

Can you believe how normal it became to be a part of the serpents? And in the beginning it was such a big deal? Like Arch, hate to break it to you, you become an honorary serpent one day

Episode Rating: 7/10

Episode 9:

Riverdale season one really be hitting different. It’s so,, innocent lol, and that’s sayin something 

The Blossoms are a cult all their own I’m just sayin

“That was a joke, you hobo” ICONIC

Otherwise known as the episode where Alice throws a rock at a window

The parents really do be acting like teenagers tho

ALSO known as the episode where Veronica rips of her pearls

YOOO remember when Cheryl kissed Archie? That was a moment

Episode Rating: 9/10

Episode 10:

oh my god this is the birthday episode isn’t it

OH NO

lmao Ronnie was Tik Tok dancing before it was cool huh

The movie part of the party was so pure awh

oh god the creepy birthday song

i hate it

I HATE ITTTT

Cheryl arrives to mess shit UP

We love that Bughead took this as a learning experience and Jughead has never had a birthday party since

“In CaSe YoU HaVeN’t NoTiCEd, I’m WeiRd. I’m A weiRDo. I DoN’t FiT iN aNd I DoN’t WaNnA FiT in. HAvE YoU eVeR SeeN mE WiThOuT ThiS HaT oN? THAT’S WEIRD.”

Jughead was so opposed to letting her in my heart

Just let her love you Jug

Dilton’s actor also changed and we just,, let it slide? oof my guys

THE PUNCH. he DEFENDS his WOMAN

the first sign of FP bein a good dad, telling Jughead not to run away from Betty. We stan a father who’s basically responsible for Bughead.

The reveal that Alice lived on the south side was also in this episode. 

THE FIRST TIME JUG TOOK OFF HIS BEANIE

their first heart to heart ya’ll I love them

This is the softest scene point blank period

When I said I hated it before? Yeah I lied I love this episode

The episode where Archie and Ronnie also officially got togther kinda?? Wow so much happened this episode

Episode Rating: 10/10

Episode 11:

Hail our fair RIVERDALLEEEE

YOOO you remember when FP literally was an accomplice to MURDER and then they let him become sheriff? Man, what a time

Ya’ll why did they hurt Jughead so much in the first season my heart

Yo THIS is why they have such good communication in later seasons

he’s being FRAMED

Episode Rating: 7/10

Episode 12:

oh my goodness the tollbooth scene 

OW

The second time his beanie is off

he looks so SAD ouch

He just stood there and TOOK Cheryl’s punches someone save my poor boy

THE REVEAL THAT THE BLOSSOMS AND COOPERS ARE RELATED AH

They watched the videooooo

Episode Rating: 9/10

Episode 13:

The camera work around this table is really interesting. It’s literally circling them at the lunch table. SPEAKING OF LUNCH TABLES, why haven’t we seen them eating lunch at school for like two seasons lol 

“I’m with Jughead now”

God Penelope Blossom is so melodramatic

Can i just say thank GOD Fred never sold Andrew’s Construction

Oh my god the locker scene. The way he cups her cheek and takes her away

Jughead going to South Side High without telling anyone I’m

Cheryl on the ice

Remember when KJ literally broke his arm bc of the dedication to this scene

BURN THE HOUSE TO THE GROUND

the I love you scene my hEART

His beanie is off and the way he says I love you I”M CRYING

Oh god this song

I made so many fanfictions about this freaking scene with the jacket I’m

We all thought it was so BAD to be a serpent and yet they all literally become one over the next two seasons I’m. the fandom had NO IDEA

“Juggy”

The looks they give each other I’m laughing

Cheryl starring into the FLAMES

OH MY GOD WAIT THIS CLIFFHANGER IS SO MUCH MORE SAD NOW NOOOOO. This didn’t age well I’m.

HE SHOOK HIS HEAD HE WAS PROTECTING ARCHIE

But also,, Black Hood Intro? Oof.

Episode Rating: 10/10

-

If you got this far, thank you for reading my rambles! Season Two rewatch is up next!

[peachymhaechan]

“Not even one snow angel?”

Genre: fluff

Warnings: language bc im too dumb to find better words

Pairing: Jaehyun x gender neutral reader

Author’s Note: yall it’s so cold that they had to cancel school for three days bc it’s supposed to be in the negatives for three days straight, so yall already know what that means: time to write fluff focused around Jung Jaehyun when I should be preparing for my biotechnology debate,,, yeehaw !! also: im shook that yall liked the mark mafia au so much,,, I will have another mafia au out soon, love yall !!

our story is set in fair Verona, where it is cold as tits out

jk its not actually set in Verona but ya know. Romeo and Juliet, am I rite, laid ease and gents?? (even tho that story is high key messed up and I don’t really understand why people aspire to have relationships like that) 

no but for real, classes for the next couple of days were cancelled because of a negative ten degree Fahrenheit wind chill, and that meant you had nothing to do (other than procrastinate your class work)

yeehaw, am I rite, laid ease and gents???

n e ways, 

rather than staying in your dorm all day w your dorm mate whom you did not always get along very well with, 

you decided to carpe the fuck outta that diem and play in the snow with some of you friends

lacing up the boots you shoved over four pairs of socks, you called Johnny, a kid you’d known since your freshman algebra class

“Seo, let’s go outside for once.” 

“Excuse me, what? Is it the sleep deprivation talking or did I hear you just say the words lets go and outside in one sentence?” a sleepy Johnny said from the other line

“Haha, very funny, dumbass. Let’s go play in the snow,” you told him, throwing on a winter coat 

“Y/N, it is eleven AM,” Johnny told you, causing you to roll your eyes as you shut the door

“Really? I had no clue, Johnny, thank you for telling me.” 

“Y/N, it is eleven AM on a day when classes are cancelled,” Johnny rephrased

“Yes, I am well away. Suit up, Seo. I am on my way over, be there in five.” 

on your way, you looked at all the snow and tried not to slip on ice

you made a few stops at some of your other friends’ dorms, and by the time you got to Johnny’s, there was a small army of people ready to play in the snow (and wake up Johnny)

“Mark, can I please wear your hat?” Haechan whined, flashing Mark puppy dog eyes and tugging on his sleeve

“Y/N, make him give me his hat,” the boy begged you, turning those eyes on you

“Mark, do what the baby says,” you told him, knocking on Johnny’s door

johnny seo opened the door, and before you could say anything, you were hit with a snowball in the face

“JONATHON SEO, WHAT THE FUCK???” 

he started cackling and said, “Before you guys got here, I went outside and made a snowball, then put it in a bowl in my mini fridge.” 

“WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU??”

“Nothing, Y/N, I thought you wanted to play in the snow?” 

“Johnny, we are not IN the snow right now. We are standing in the middle of your dorm building, while snow drips down my face. I am going to destroy you when we are actually in the snow.” 

“I’d like to see you try, dumbass. Oh, also: do you care if I invite someone to hang out with us today?” he asked, and for some reason, everyone pivoted their attention to the six foot tall man, which you did not notice

“Go ahead, the more the merrier. Right, guys?” you asked, and everyone nodded a little too enthusiastically

You narrowed your eyes in suspicion but didn't ask any questions

“Who all were you planning on inviting?” you asked, trying to get more info out of him

Mark, Haechan, Jisung, Chenle, Jaemin, Jeno, and Lucas all avoided eye contact

“I don’t know, probably just a few of the other guys... Ten, Taeyong, Winwin, Kun, and Jae.” 

so THAT’S why they were acting weird 

those two faced whores

“Jae?” you asked, trying to do some more subtle investigating

“Yes, Jae.” 

“Jae as in... Jaehyun?” 

“Yes, Jae as in Jaehyun.” 

“Like... Jung Jaehyun?” 

“Yes, Jung Jaehyun.” 

“Like..... your roommate Jung Jaehyun?” 

“Yes, my roommate Jung Jaehyun.” 

“The one that I think is hot and told you all that I have a crush on him?” 

“That’d be the one.” 

oh no

oh fuck no

“Unless, of course, you want me to tell him that something has come up and he is no longer invited.” 

“No, no, that’s not necessary, he can still.... he can still join us, if he wants.” 

“Okay, good, because I told him to come with us, and he should be ready any minute now.” 

cue Jaehyun nudging johnny out of the way so he can get out of the door

and all you could think was 

ohhhhhhh mannnnnnnn, he’s hot

he had on jeans, a fluffy winter coat, gloves, and boots, but he had you quaking in your four pairs of socks, okay 

you could feel your cheeks heat up when he gave you a smile

those dimples had you wEAK, BITCH

“Hi, Jaehyun!” you managed to get out, to which he responded

“Hey, Y/N! That hat looks really cute on you! You always look cute, but, ya know what I mean.” 

to say you were malfunctioning would be an understatement

the boys saw you go into a full system reboot

“Let’s get going before all the snow melts!” Chenle said, grabbing your arm and pulling you out of your technical difficulty

“I doubt the snow will be melting any time soon,” Jisung mumbled, getting a slap in the arm from one of the other boys

the only sounds that registered to you were the sounds of the bickering boys, sleds dragging on the floor, and your own heart beat

okay, dawg, just play it cool. 

now that’s easier said than done, isn’t it? dumb bitch. 

the whole time yall walked outside, you were super aware of the proximity of Jaehyun

after about two minutes, Jaehyun was standing right! next! to! you!

wowie, babey! yee fuckin haw!

when yall finally made it to the “lawn” (whatever the fuck u wanna call it, I am not good with words, yeet) of campus- a huge hill with trees all around, right in the center of campus-

yall threw down the sleds a few of you brought, and got right to it

johnny got on a different sled and challenged you to a race, to which you naturally agreed to

while johnny was getting situated before the race, you made a snowball out of his sight, and right as it started, you nailed him in the face

“yOU MOTHER FUCKER!” johnny yelled as he fell off his sled and you took the lead

the boys all laughed (including Jaehyun! let’s gooooo!) and watched you do a half assed victory dance when you reached the bottom of the hill

winning was great and all, but you had to climb back up the hill:/ 

not cool, dawg:/

when you finally reached the top, you found that some of the guys were making a snowman

awwwwwwwwwwwww

Jisung saw your heart melting upon the sight and said, “Stop that, this is emo boy gang, either get on board with emotional numbness or get out.” 

that stopped melting your heart, but you still loved the sight of all of them so concentrated on making a huge snowman

Jaehyun led the group, telling them what to do and assembling everything

by the time the snowman was complete, it easily was taller than you were

“yo. this is dope, bro,” johnny said to Jaehyun, pulling him into a bear hug

“thanks, bro,” Jaehyun said, laughing a bit at how ridiculous it all was

“Snowball fight time?” Jeno asked, all of the younger boys behind him, looking at you Old Folk for confirmation as to whether or not it’d be socially acceptable to start wailing balls of coldness at each other

you, johnny, and Jaehyun looked at each other and shrugged 

“Why not?” 

why not, indeed

without a second of hesitation, the younger boys started chucking snowballs at you three

“FUCK” “SHIT” “BITCH” 

sicko mode or mo bamba? 

“DIVIDE AND CONQUER, DIVIDE AND CONQUER!” you yelled, all three of you taking off in different directions, making the boys split up their force to follow

for some reason, Jaehyun ran along with you, leaving johnny to fend for himself

“Jaehyun, this isn’t a part of the plan!” you scolded, but at the same time loved the situation yall were in

“I know, I wanted to make sure you don’t get hurt.” 

wow, we stan !

“That’s awfully sweet of you, but now we have to figure out how to get rid of them.” 

“I’ll make a diversion while you hide and make ammunition? Send a signal or something and i’ll find you when you’re ready,” Jaehyun told you, making a sharp left and darting through the trees, a trail of boys following him

since you were left alone, you put your hands on your blushing cheeks and then got to work

within a few minutes, you had more than enough ammunition to hit the boys with and you saw all of them at the bottom of the hill, some wrestling and some throwing wads of snow at the others

great idea: take them out from up there?? yes, let’s go y/n, coming in clutch w that idea

without warning, you began to chuck the hundreds of snowballs you made at the boys

by the time you went through all the ammo, none of the boys were left standing except for johnny and Jaehyun

johnny stood up from behind a statue in the campus center and said, “Holy shit.” 

Jaehyun looked at all the boys laying in the fetal position and said, “Holy shit.” 

after that, everyone wanted to go home

not sure why, after all it’s not like they just got their asses kicked in the cold

“I don’t feel like going back to the dorms so soo, though,” Jaehyun said to you and Johnny

johnny went :) idea time! 

“I am feeling really tired from today, but I heard Y/N say earlier that they wanted to stop at the café at some point today and try one of the new drinks they’re making.” :) ;) 

fuck

“Okay, cool. Do you want to go to the café with me, then?” Jaehyun asked you

Jaehyun asked you. 

Jaehyun asked you? 

“Yes, I’d love to!” you told him, handing your sled to Jaemin to take with him to the dorms

after parting ways, yall went to the café and had a kind of?? date

just a lot of small talk, what is your goal in life, what are your deepest fears, blah blah blah

on the way home, though, that was when it got REALLY couple-y

you slipped on ice! 

and he went to catch you!

but he fell, too!

but he made it so that you were laying! on! top! of! him!

Hello, K-drama moment!

instead of speaking, you both stared into each other’s eyes 

before you totally #securedthatman by rolling off of him

and making a snow angel

laughing, he stood up and held out a hand to help you up

“Come on, let’s get going, it’s really cold out now. Too cold for snow angels, for sure.” 

“Not even one snow angel?” you asked, flashing him puppy dog eyes

“Not even one snow angel,” he confirmed and helped you up, and!

he didn’t let go of your hand! 

later on, yall consider that snowball fight turned café trip to be your first date, and boy, was it cold, but your hearts sure as hell felt warm that day

in conclusion, uwu

[letstalksymphogear]

Symphogear, EP. 5 (Cont.)

Tsubasa ruminates about her current situation in her Symphogear Brand Safety Capsule of Absolute Dunces.

“aight ive done seen the light lemme at that sweet, sweet taco bell”

Meanwhile, some old ass politicians rumble about Relics.

“im old.”

But they immediately get fucked up in a nasty car accident.

As it turns out, the Americans were waiting to intercept these old crones to steal The Goods.

And holy fuck are they are American. Personally, I feel the writers of Symphogear watched Die Hard and immediately went “these people are fucking animals”. That’s just me, though.

“ooh ouch oh mmm ouchie ouch oooo ouch”

They tear into these people with an almost machine like efficiency.

These people don’t fuck around. There’s a strange surreality around it given that this is honestly pretty accurate to how brutal special operatives can be, but the Japanese accent they have in their English voices is... a bit jarring.

“IM BACK FROM THE MALL, YA’LL”

“oh god she’s back”

“ah, ryoko. as per your lingo, quote, ‘i like your new gucci boots... bitch’ was that good? im not fond at cursing at women unless its a mutual training session”

Genjuro alerts that the Minister of Defense for Japan has just been assassinated.

“shits bad”

Conveniently... Ryoko’s phone was broken. In her defense, it’s 2012. Battery life didn’t have the bragging rights it had now for phone.

“i personally use a razer flip phone. those will never go out of style!”

Ryoko manages to show them the box the Americans were trying to get. Suspiciously...

There’s a bloodstain on it.

So the main struggle right now is that the Bad Guys(tm) want to get their hands on Durandal, which is a completed relic that is hidden away miles underneath the school in the 2nd Division Labs.

This musty, old, shitty sword has immense power. Almost Godlike.

“hey why dont we just use the sword to beat up the bad guys”

The sword was handed from the EU to Japan for Japan to safekeep, and in exchange to forgive some of the loans the EU owed Japan should the EU economy collapse.

How topical.

“i read a lot of beserk and honestly im pretty sure someone beats up the bad guys with that dumb sword”

“listen nerd, we’re not doing that dumb weeb anime shit. we’re taking this sword to a vault to the bottom of parliament.”

“thats right. who needs anime when you’ve got nicholas cage.”

And so, they plotted to deliver this dumb sword tomorrow.

Ryoko logs into Runescape.

Fun fact: Fulcanelli is a reference to this dude, who was a French alchemist whose identity nobody really knows. Alchemy is a concept that will come up during GX that has no relevance whatsoever during these first 2 seasons except in some passerby jargon. This as just a cute thing I wanted to point out.

You know, that’s a pretty sexy sword upon closer examination.

“thats the dark souls of swords”

“ah! a fellow gamer! im glad that you too partake of the souls of darkening. would you like to play a two player match somtime, fellow Gamer?”

“I would genuinely rather eat shit for the rest of my life!”

The scene ends. Alright, where are n-

Oh God we’re back to this bullshit. Okay then.

Miku, reasonably, is upset that her wife is gone for several hours for increasingly sketchy reasons. Much like an estranged wife going to see her “tennis instructor” for “private tennis lessons” in the “safety of their house, which has a tennis court”, Miku is worried that Hibiki is a liar liar, pants on fire.

Nose the size of a wire.

Hibiki, feeling the fear of God, quickly bails this increasingly tense situation.

Miku is suffering, and so am I with this hamfisted writing.

“you didnt even try the cookies i made out of frustration for you. i designed them all after me with increasingly angrier faces”

“im too young for a divorce. fuck, those cookies smelled good”

Hibiki decides to not sweat it anymore, opening a magazine and WHOA WHAT THE FUCK

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS I DONT REMEMBER THIS WHEN DID HIBIKI GET HER HANDS ON THIS OH MY GOD

“HELL NO IM MARRIED THE DEVIL CANNOT TEMPT ME”

Hibiki closes it up to reveal the relevant part of this magazine.

This is subtle, but it’s basically a vehicle to explain how things are covered up for Symphogears. Ogawa walks in, talking about how this headline was his doing.

“i wasn’t joking when i said we were literally the NSA”

Hibiki is happy that Tsubasa has been freed from Metaphor Limbo, having escaped the Water Metaphor Dimension back into real life.

“she literally wont stop talking about taco bell and honestly its killing me inside”

“shit ill get her some”

Ogawa does some schpiel about teamwork and asks Hibiki for an idea on what to do with Tsubasas image even though he’s supposed to be the manager and it’s just general prattle.

Everyone gets briefed about the delivery. Ryoko’s soccer mom van sticks out like a sore thumb. Nobody on the Lydian campus asks why there are 5 cars outside the building with men in suits and fucking Hibiki standing there with them why are these children so fucking incurious.

“this feels like the world’s most important weed delivery, but im going to deliver the SHIT out of that weed”

“hibiki please its not weed”

“ALRIGHT FAM LETS DELIVER THE SHIT OUT OF THIS WEED”

Big thick black cars surround Ryoko’s tiny vehicle as they all drive in unison to the drop point.

No fucking around here. The weed must be delivered.

The weed? Secured as shit.

“its not fucking weed it’s a goddamned french sword okay god”

“ROAD’S LOOKIN’ A-OKAY FOR OUR WEEEED DRIIIIIIVE”

PSYCHE, NO IT AINT. ROAD’S CRACKING UP HARD. COMES APART, CAR FUCKING EXPLODES!

“oh my god we seriously arent fucking around here those guys are fucking dead”

“bruh you never delivered weed before? that shit happens all the time”

“anyway grab on to something ‘cause we’re gonna initial d this shit”

“i thought we were delivering WEED not SUSHI”

“WEED... SUSHI... IT’S ALL FUCKING METAPHORS, HIBIKI. AND WE’RE GONNA DELIVER EM!”

“now ORDER UP, MOTHERFUCKER”

Every car is destroyed.

Ryoko flips the car like nobody’s business.

“ryoko! the kansai drift was too strong!”

“your delivery’s late, pal. that’s gonna have to come out of your tip.”

“jokes on you! you already paid the tip beforehand online!”

“oh, we’re going with pizza jokes now? is that what we’re doing? yeah, sure, whatever”

Unfortunately, Chris ordered her pizza with meat, extra crispy.

“FUCK, i cant see anything. now i don’t know if they have the weed- i mean, the sushi- er, the pizza- god i hate all these JOKES”

RYOKO SUMMONS A FUCKING SHIELD OUTTA NOWHERE WHILE HIBIKI’S KNOCKED OUT COLD

“yo hol’ up a moment did this pervert manage to summon a shield”

“are- are you able to fight the noise? are you fucking kidding me? this entire time when literal children were fighting these battles, you literally could have fought back effectively? are we but mere playthings to you? is this really the bullshit im seeing?”

“uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i can only make shields. piss shields, out of piss”

“that is absolute fucking bullshit”

“but i believe it.”

Hibiki has primed her fists and is about to show how much she’s improved combat wise, which is actually a lot.

Nevermind, she tripped again. Turns out, Symphogears fight in heels constantly, which is absolutely fucking horrifying. Hibiki realizes this, and then

FUCKING BREAKS THE HEELS LIKE NOBODY’S BUSINESS.

AND THEN SHE WRECKS SHOP WITHOUT BREAKING A GODDAMN SWEAT

“oh shit how the fuck did she improve this quickly”

The suitcase where the sword is stored opens up. That means it’s activating.

Immediate fear.

“alright bruce lee you mightve mastered a thousand kicks but you better change your gameplan because im about to realign that pretty little face of yours”

“thank god you kicked me. needed you to get closer so i could kick your ass, after all”

The fucking suitcase, I shit you not, pops open immediately with the sword flipping to the sky like a bad Gmod toy as it suddenly stays floating, perfectly still.

“ive officially lost track on what the hell is happening”

The sword just floats there, as a sword does.

“you know how many fried turkeys i can cut open with that bad boy? that shits mine now.”

Chris goes to get it.

“fuck you! im going to slice HONEYBAKED HAMS with that sword!”

Hibiki intercepts it and takes the sword.

Now Hibiki becomes a proud Stand owner, having acquired the power of The World and stopping time at will.

“oooooh holy shit”

Hibiki, now channeling the power of Durandal, feels the raw strength of a completed relic all through her body.

Real spicy stuff running through her veins.

The power unleashing itself into a raw stream of piss skyrocketing into the stratosphere.

“the pizza has been delivered... all according to plan...”

“...she was right. honeybaked ham was the superior meat to slice...”

Hibiki is channeling a power source so ancient, so powerful, that through using her as a conduit, the sword actually finishes itself into its full, completed form.

Holy shit, Hibiki.

Goddamn. That’s a really sexy sword, actually! Pretty nice...

...oh.

You’re not looking so hot, pal...

“why is it that every opponent of mine can literally asspull all this garbage and im stuck here looking like a bad kamen rider villian getting my ass kicked every time. its not fair.”

Ryoko looks extremely hyped for this event. Maybe a little too much so.

“MAN FUCK THIS NONSENSE IM PUTTING AN END TO THE SUPER SENTAI POWERUP”

“O-OH FUCK- uh, i didnt say that. totally swear. you uh, keep doing that. yeah. aha.”

“SLICED...”

“...HONEYBAKED...”

“oh god. oh god. im sorry. im sorry. im so sorry. oh fuck im so sorry. honeybaked ham is better. fuck turkeys. fuck drumlegs. fuck any sort of fried meat. honeybaked ham is better please im begging you dont vore me or slice me in half IM BEGGING YOU OH GOD”

“...HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!”

“ham..... mmmmm... honeybaked ham....”

“WHO YELLED ABOUT HAM? god, im hungry now.”

Hibiki wakes up from it all after passing out, expressing a power of magnitudes unheard of, as if it were all a bad dream.

“YEAH THATS RIGHT WE HAD TO DELIVER THE WEED PIZZA AND I WANTED HAM AND- THE SWORD, YEAH! THE SWORD!”

To her disappointment, amongst this wanton destruction, no ham was found. Ryoko clues her in that Hibiki just single handedly completed a relic, and though the entire place is a mess, the mission wasn’t a complete failure. They’ll just have to return the relic back to base, now the entire location is, conveniently, destroyed.

“yeah yeah. the weed made it. the sushi made it. the pizza made it. what didnt we deliver today?”

“...”

“singing really does make you hungry, huh?”

[thewakeless]

Life’s a Beach

Summary: A oneshot about dnp and mental health.

TW: depression

i. Winter

It was snowing, the soft, slow snow of a first kiss in a teary anime.  The sky was bright grey and London beneath it a city of stone and metal, with little strips of fallen white flakes between the cracks on the pavement.   Dan was sitting at the window wrapped in a blanket, deep brown eyes gazing outside.  On the coffee table next to him there was a cold cup of tea, and a candle still burning, its soft vanilla scent permeating through the room.  His phone had died, and the only sounds audible where the cheesy Christmas carol that Phil was playing in the kitchen.  

It was the third day, and third days were always hard.  By the third day 72 hours of poor sleep and even poorer nutrition had seemed to wither him, till he had the appearance of someone recovering from a nasty flu. There were circles under his eyes, and he definitely smelled as he had failed to shower 3 days running.  He had changed his clothes though, that was something, although he didn’t do it for himself.  From the Kitchen Phil’s off key singing wafted through again, and a familiar pang of guilt passed through him.  

Three days. Three days were he felt nothing at all. Just this void, where a person called Daniel Howell (or perhaps Danisnotonfire he wasn’t sure) usually resided. Three days of having deep apathy for all the things he usually enjoyed, including his boyfriend.  His fingers brushed absentmindedly against the soft texture of the blanket and he closed his eyes.  It was days like these when he envisioned an easier and more solitary life. One without his boyfriend, and without his audience, where his feelings were just his own, and could not affect anybody else’s.  After all, when he had three bad days, so did Phil.  

Bad days meant no work, no video games, no sex, no cuddling, but most importantly they meant no laugher.  And it was this that most hurt both of them.  For Dan the silence was almost unbearable.  It weighed down on him like a boulder, and it tantalized him with the thought that all this would be more bearable if he was alone.  If only he could break away.  Find an isolated little place, with good internet connection, and food delivery where he could just live without having to worry about other people, or worse having them worry about him.  

His eyes trailed over the tea cup that Phil had put out for him so many hours before.  It just didn’t seem fair to subject the person he loved most too so many bad days.  Because over the course of their long years together there had probably been hundreds of them, and still out of some loyalty or affection that Dan would never quite understand Phil had stayed.  He did his laundry, he brought him tea, he cooked for him, walked him to the therapists when he couldn’t bear to go alone.  All of this, and how had Dan repaid him?  By never quite getting better.  Because no matter what he did or what medication he was on, there were always bad days.  

There was a shuffling from the Kitchen, and a moment later Phil’s long slim figure appeared on the doorway.  He was holding a tray of chocolate treats, and two cups. Dan tried to smile at him but he suspected that his efforts were unsuccessful because Phil looked quite sad. He put them down on the table besides Dan, taking his old cup away.  

When he came back he pulled a seat by Dan’s window and began sipping at his cup of coffee.  Dan inhaled its deep smell over the vanilla; it always reminded him of Phil in the most wonderful way.  There were chocolate balls on the tray, each sprinkled with tiny sugary snowflakes and he watched as Phil’s long fingers popped one into his mouth.  “It’s quite good,” he said, understandably surprised.

To please him Dan put one into his own mouth. It was rich intense chocolate with a little crunch from the sprinkles.  He’d barely eaten a thing all day, and his tongue could tell that it was good, but he didn’t crave it.  It didn’t satisfy like food usually did, and it certainly didn’t bring him any pleasure. “Thanks,” he said quietly, thinking that if he could no longer be fun or loving to his favorite person, then he might as well be polite.  

Phil smiled at him, that kind pure smile that Dan had fallen in love with long before he had ever been its cause. “Thank you,” he said for a second time, even quieter, and after that the silence was just a little bit easier.  

ii. Spring

It was morning, and his bed was empty.  Phil sighed and rolled over until he had his face smashed against Dan’s pillow.   It still smelled like his ridiculously expensive shampoo and he breathed it in for a few minutes before sitting up.  The alarm clock that he never actually used said it was 11 o’clock. His bedroom was bathed in light and sound, making him wonder how he hadn’t gotten up earlier.  There was the customary drilling coming from downstairs and someone on the street was playing obnoxiously loud music.   He ran a hand through his morning quiff, flattening it as best he could as he staggered out of bed.  

He pushed on his glasses and then went instinctively to Dan’s door.  He knocked once, and waited, his hand hovering over the doorknob.  “Yeah?” the voice sounded oddly far away.  Phil licked his lips, so it was one of those days.  

“Do you want anything?” he said keeping the concern away from his voice because he knew it bothered his boyfriend.  

Silence followed.  Phil waited for a minute but when nothing else was said he slowly crept back to the kitchen.  He looked around for sings that Dan had had an early breakfast, but everything was just like they had left it last night.  Pizza boxes on top of the fridge, and a counter sticky with Phil’s failed attempt at a cocktail.  He almost smiled as he cleaned up the residue with a wet towel.  Yesterday had been a very good day; in fact there had been a lot of good days lately.  Days when he woke up with Dan between his legs, and went to sleep with his head against his shoulder.  Days when it seemed impossible that things could ever be less than good.  

He made himself a solitary breakfast, two eggs, toast, bacon, and a cup of very sugary coffee.  They had been watching a very good anime this week but there was no point watching it without Dan. Instead he propped up his laptop and making sure the volume wasn’t too high he watched PJ’s latest video, and once that finished Cat’s.  Then he washed his dishes.  It was 12 o’clock now.  They had planned to film a Sims video today, but of course things could always be moved around and he was happy to do it, if it made Dan’s life any easier.  

Taking a seat in the sofa crease in the living room Phil sorted through his email, and then began editing a video that they had filmed a few days before.  At 1:30 he went to visit Dan again.   He knocked but there was no answer at all.  “I’m going to bring you some food, okay?”  He thought he heard a grunt from the other side.  

In the beginning of their relationship, bad days had devastated him.  He had never had them himself, and watching someone that he loved go through that made him feel entirely helpless.  And he was. In those early days he had bent over backward trying to help, but of course it had just made everything worse.  He had sat with him, and cried, and hugged him and tried to talk, but with each action Dan had just seemed to fade further from him.

Now he knew better, he understood more.  Dan needed his space, he needed his silence, and the quickest way to get him back was to let him have both.  He brought up a tray with toast, and fresh fruit and yogurt, knocking once on the door before budding in.  The room was dark, and Dan was a lump on the bed turned away from him. He left the tray on the nightstand, and then gingerly reached over and touched Dan’s shoulder.  “I’m downstairs if you need anything,” he said, not expecting a reply.  

It was a lonely day. Outside the sky was blue, and there were birds chirps, spring was coming on fast and pretty.  When he’s better maybe we can go to the Park, thought Phil as he played Zelda.  At four he made pasta, and brought up a bowl for Dan. Both of the waters had been drunk, but the food didn’t look like it had been touched.  He replaced the plates and came back a minute later with two glasses of fresh water.  He still couldn’t see Dan’s face; he was almost completely buried by sheets.  

After eating he called his mom, like he might on any other day, and when she asked about Dan he said that he was at the store. He didn’t say this because he was ashamed of his boyfriend, or his health, he did it because he knew that’s what Dan would prefer.  Later, he popped on a scary movie, a too big bowl of popcorn resting in the space where Dan would usually sit.  It was quite bad, and almost over when he heard a noise coming from the stairs.  He looked up to see Dan slinking into the room, his blanket draped around him like a cape.  

Phil swiftly moved the popcorn away as Dan took his customary seat, curled up next to him, his head on Phil’s lap.  “What are you watching?” he said clearly trying to keep his voice normal.  

“Something really dumb,” said Phil, reaching out and softly running his fingers through Dan’s curls.  

“Dumb is good,” he replied.  

After the movie finished they watched another, Phil’s fingers gently going through each curl and wave.  It brought him such comfort just to have him close, just to know that if he needed anything, Phil would be there to help him.  After the second movie finished he leaned down kissing the top of Dan’s head.  “Are you ready for bed?”

“No.”

“Wanna watch something else?”

“Okay.”

Knowing that Dan wasn’t in the mood for choosing, he selected another scary movie.  But it was hard to pay attention.  Dan was always a distraction for him.  His soft skin, his quiet breathing, the smell of his hair.  It all brought him peace.  This was what home meant, this was what love meant, and even on days like this when they had hardly exchanged a word, he wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.  

When the third movie finished he repeated his question.  “Are you ready for bed?”

“I guess,” said Dan quietly getting up off the sofa.  They walked down the hallway together and Phil held his breath, preparing himself for a night alone, but when he reached their doors Dan went into Phil’s.  He dropped the blanket, stripped his shirt and sweatpants off and crawled into bed.  Phil followed suit, until they were both lying on their backs staring up at the ceiling.  “The last one was better,” said Dan quietly.  

“It was wasn’t it?”

“Mmhm.” He moved half a centimeter closer to him, and underneath the sheets their skin came in contact, Dan’s warm arm just grazing his torso.

“If you can’t fall asleep wake me up,” he said as he always did although Dan rarely ever took the initiative.  

“Have a good night,” said Dan quietly.  

Under the covers Phil’s hand wrapped itself briefly around Dan’s wrist and gave it a squeezed.  He hoped to communicate by this all the things that words had never allowed him to say.  Dan gave a little sigh.  “I guess tomorrows another day right?” despite his words his tone was defeated.   Phil turned towards him and gently kissed his shoulder.  

“Yeah, another day together, that’s always good.”

Dan snorted.  “You have Stockholm syndrome.”

Involuntarily Phil laughed.  “Probably, or else you’re just that pretty.”

“Oh shut up,” he said sounding a just a little like his usual self.  

iii. summer

There was pistachio ice cream dripping between his fingers and they were seated together on a black bench, a picture perfect park scene stretched out behind them.   Phil had taken pictures to be uploaded to their stories as soon as they made it home. They were cute too; cute enough not to need filters.  Although Dan figured that was mostly because of the aesthetic stack of ice cream that they were both licking at.  Phil had gotten raspberry and chocolate, and he had gone with his old favorite, because well, sometimes you needed something that you knew wouldn’t disappoint.  

Despite the fact that appearances were a prime part of his job, life, and fame, Dan didn’t usually think too hard about what he wore.  He dressed simply.  Neutral colors, comfy sweaters, nice sneakers.  Today perhaps had been an exception.  He was wearing what might be called either a ridiculous romper, or a very fashionable romper and his curls were extra fluffy and he was wearing the most expensive sunglasses he had ever bought.  

No matter what he had told Phil, none of this was for the insta pic.  It was to make the task of getting out of the house just a little less daunting. Sometimes it was hard to face people, even when they were nothing but kind and supportive, even when they didn’t know he was a quasi-celebrity.  Sometimes it was a challenge to order ice cream, or small talk with his Uber driver, and lately this had seemed especially so.  He had hardly left the house all month, and never without Phil.

It was just nicer being inside, cozier, and he didn’t have to be on his guard.  In the outside world it was quite different. There were muggers, and cars, and mean bicyclists ready to cuss out anyone who got in their way.    And of course there were gushing fans, asking for pictures, or else watching them from across the street with a cellphone in hand. He never felt quite safe, not at all; especially when any small natural movement between him and Phil could shatter the careful privacy they had spent so many years building.  

“Is yours good?” asked Phil who had been watching him.  

Dan gave a nod and continued licking not meeting his eyes.  It had been Phil that had insisted in a real world outing today.  They had been filming a lot of gaming videos that week, and he said his eyes needed a rest from the screen.  He looked quite beautiful with the sunlight filtered by a canopy of green illuminating his face.  As far as Dan was concerned the outing was nice as could be expected, the day was pretty, the ice cream was good, they had gotten nice pictures out of it and nobody had come up to them, but there was still that feeling within him.

The sense, perhaps paranoid, perhaps silly, that there were hundreds of eyes watching them.  He bit into his cone, chewing without much pleasure as he looked down at his pale knees.  “Are you alright?” Phil’s voice was soft and Dan was sure that if they were at home his hand would be on his shoulder, pulling him just a little towards his own body.

“Maybe we should head home,” he said quietly not looking up.  

“Alright,” said Phil as he rose.  They followed the park trail through pretty fields, and then the child’s play area, both of them finishing their cones on the way.  “Hey do you think pigeons would use seesaws if they knew how?”

Dan, who had been trying to avoid meeting eyes with a group of teenagers lying on a blanket on the grass, snorted and whipped his head around to look at Phil.  “What?”

“Seesaws,” he said pointing to one not too far from them which two little boys were using.  Dan laughed, this in no way clarified his question but it was exactly the unconventional charm that he prized so much in his boyfriend.  

“Why would pigeons wanna use seesaws?”

“I don’t know, maybe because it could help them settle fueds about who’s heavier.”

“They feud about that do they?”

“Who’s to say?” he said with a shrug.  “It could be like a pigeon gang on one side, and another pigeon gang on the other.  Whoever’s heavier controls the territory.”

Dan bumped his shoulder into him, a grin on his face, and the thought of the teenagers replaced by the singular wonder of Phil still being able to surprise him with his oddities.  “That sounds like a terribly indie game.”

“We could do that, Dan and Phil do pigeons.”

“Don’t call it that!”

“Dan and Phil seesaw with Pigeons?”

“Vetoed.  How about Amazing Phil thinks about Pigeons too much, a solo project.’

Phil laughed.  “Maybe, we could release it during pigeon fest 2019, I’m sure I’d do better then.”

“Wow, capitalistic Lester really is more than a meme.”

Phil’s long white fingers tapped gently at the rim of Dan’s oh-so-expensive sunglasses. “You love it Howell.” And evidently he did, because he had a very visceral reaction. But of course Phil didn’t need to know that yet, Dan liked to make him work for it.  

He turned his head haughtily, as if unimpressed. “I’ll like it a lot more when we have a house.”

“You little shit,” said Phil with an easiness that he could never emulate when swearing on screen.  

Dan beamed at him.  “Nothing but truth here babe,” the last word dropped to a whisper. Phil poked him playfully on his side. They were almost home.  Good. Home with Phil was the best place and safest place that he had ever known.  

iv. Fall

Autumn had already come to London when they returned exhausted and exhilarated to their familiar apartment.  It was pumpkin spice season, the air was crisp, the sky cloudy and months of activity wound down into quiet evenings spent watching movies and having sex.  It was lovely not keeping to a schedule, being able to do whatever they wanted, and having all the comforts of home.  However, finishing the tour had its downsides.  

Phil had known this was coming, he could see the signs in the last days of the tour, when suddenly they didn’t have to talk about the next place or the one after.  Sometimes he would catch sight of Dan staring out of the window, his mouth set, his eyes far away.  And sure enough almost as soon as they were home the silences returned.

When they were on tour worry, anxiety, and sheer business kept Dan’s depression at bay.  He didn’t have time to overthink.  There were other problems of course, like lack of sleep, and physical exhaustion, but they had simpler remedies.  Tour gave Dan a sense of purpose and now that it was over that feeling was ending as well.  This time it started with sleep, or specifically with too much of it, with days when he would rise after noon and go to bed uncharacteristically at midnight. During the day he was mostly himself, a little less loud, a little less funny, but just a touch.  Maybe if Phil didn’t know him so well he wouldn’t even have noticed, no one else seemed to.  

Then it progressed to less activity in general. No more yoga.  No more 3 meals a day.  Most of the time he either wanted to watch something, or else he wanted to be left alone.  Although Phil didn’t know exactly what he did when he went into the spare bedroom with the amazingphil covers, he would have bet that it had something to do with YouTube. It had after all been months since his last upload.  This had been his least active years by far.  Of course this didn’t matter to Phil, or many in their audience, but he knew just how much it was eating away at him.  

With every day that passed the video yet to be made seemed scarier, more imposing.  It had to be something important, something good, to warrant the months of waiting and anticipation.  That’s how Dan thought, and of course when it came time to planning and recording it, this made the task almost impossible.  Phil didn’t bring it up with him.  He respected Dan’s silence and skidded around the issue as he began brainstorming for his own video.  

“What’s it going to be about?” said Dan as he saw him making bullet points one evening.  

“Hotel food service mostly, some animal stories,” said Phil.  

“That sounds cute,” said Dan, like the supportive boyfriend he had always been.

Phil smiled up at him.  “I can do this later if you wanna do something?”

“No, that’s okay,” said Dan a slight frown on his face, and then he had walked out of the room.  Half an hour later Phil heard the main door open and close.  He sighed.  He hated when Dan left without saying anything, it made him feel heavy, it made him feel wrong.  Of course he knew that that was selfish and irrational, but try as he might he hadn’t been able to rationalize that feeling away.  

He made himself dinner and scrolled through twitter, sending replies to several of their fans, and trying not to keep track of how long Dan had been away.  An hour passed, and then another.  He made himself tea, and stretched out to watch some TV. He didn’t even care what was on, his heart was pounding.  Three people messaged him that night but none of them were Dan, and he didn’t want to send a message of his own.  He needed to respect his space, if he had wanted him, he would have called.  

Just after nine o’clock in the evening he heard the door again and sat up.  Heavy footsteps were heard coming up the stairs, and then Dan’s silhouette was framed in the doorway.  “Hey,” he said simply.  

“Hey,” answered Phil, immediate relief washing over him.  “Was your night okay?”

Dan gave a shrug.

He turned off the TV.  “Wanna talk?”

For a moment Dan seemed torn between actions, but then he took a seat next to him.  Despite the excessive sleep he had been getting he looked extremely tired. “I just don’t know if I can do it,” he said quietly, and for a flash Phil could see the scared 19 year old who had quit University.  He reached out and grabbed his hand, still cold from the outside world.  

“We’ll figure it out.”

“Ten years of saying that and I never have,” said Dan even quieter.  

Phil intertwined their fingers.  “That doesn’t mean that we’ll ever stop trying.”

Dan’s eyes flickered to his.  “Fuck YouTube,” he said sounding as if he meant it.  

“You don’t wanna do it anymore Dan, then we don’t do it, we just finish out this year and move on.”  His words didn’t seem to have an effect, his boyfriend was very still.  He looked so serious like this, so unlike the giddy giggly git he usually was.  

“But I like it,” said Dan.  “That’s the fucked up bit, I like it, and I’ve been successful, but I just can’t do it,” it was as if the words broke a spell, because from the calm came a sob and then Dan was in his arms, crying violently into his shoulder.

“It’s just bad day Dan,” he whispered, fear creeping back into his chest.

“No, Phil it’s been months, it’s been almost 7 months, I-“ whatever he said next was made unintelligible by a sob.  

“You took a break that’s fine, people understand.”

All at once Dan pulled away, his face was red and his lower lip was trembling.  “But what if it’s not a break? What if I just can’t make any more videos?”

“We’ve gone through this before,” he reminded him gently.  

Dan rubbed his eyes.  “It’s never been seven months before.”

“Let’s do a collab then, something dumb, just to-“

“No,” said Dan firmly.  “That’s not what I want.”

They were quiet again, and Dan cleaned his face on the sleeve of his shirt.  “I should just go to bed.” He was in the process of getting up when Phil grabbed at his wrist.  He looked up at him pleadingly.  The night couldn’t end here.  Dan slumped back onto the sofa, his head hung.  He stared at the ceiling and Phil stared at him.  

“Maybe I can just help you write the next one,” he suggested softly.  

Dan gave a derisive laugh.  “Senpai to the rescue like always, it’s like I never fucking grew up.”

“I’m not your senpai,” said Phil defensively. “I’m your partner,” he reached over and took his hand.  “And I’m not rescuing you, I’m helping you out, just like you’ve helped me out.

“I thought I was past this.”

Phil squeezed his hand.  “It’s just a bump, a setback, we’ve been here before.”

Dan gave a singular nod, and then seemed to collapse into his seat.  “I don’t even have any ideas.”

“How about room service and animals?” said Phil, which as expected caused Dan to smile. “Or something more elevated perhaps, for the dani-snot-on-fire reputation.” He mimed getting out an invisible notepad and put on his poshest British accent.  “Perhaps we could discuss gender in American politics, or international laws regarding same sex marriage.”

Dan answered with a roll of his eyes.  

Phil smiled.  “You had a lot of ideas on tour, they were good.  There was the one about how hard it is to keep up family when you live on your own, there was the one about how you felt knowing you were people’s mentor, there was the one about that terrible party you went to in Uni where that girl almost vomited on you.”

That memory brought back a little smile to Dan’s lip.  

“Maybe tomorrow we could just brainstorm on those, maybe something motivational will come up.”

“That party was pretty memorable,” said Dan. “And I could tie it in to some of the political stuff happening now…”

“You could definitely,” said Phil, who had grabbed his laptop from the coffee table.  “So where was this party again,” he asked.

And then Dan did what he did best, he told a story.

Of course the video wasn’t done in one night.  It took days for Dan to be satisfied with the script, and although he shot it all in one day, he was so displeased with it that he decided to shoot it again a week later.  In the end it took almost a month for it to finish, a month where Dan had bitten his nails half off, and he kept waking up with a start in the middle of the night. When it was finally up loaded, Phil popped open a bottle of champagne.  

“I’m incredibly proud of you,” he said as Dan took a dainty sip.  

Dan sighed.  “Thanks but now I’m back to square one, no idea what I’m gonna do next.’

“You’ll figure it out, and senpai’s always here to help,” he said leaning over and kissing his cheek.  He felt arms around him and sunk into the feeling of being intertwined, so familiar, so warm and good.  

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Yu Yu Hakusho, Day 5, Episodes 25-29

It’s time. Say it with me now.

TOOOOOOOOOOURNAMENT AAAAAAAAAAAAAARC!

The Dark Tournament

At long last, we’ve reached the arc that’s made Yu Yu Hakusho so well known: the Dark Tournament, where Yusuke and his friends fight for their lives against the forces of the spirit world at the behest of a brutal bounty hunter. We’re only two fights in so far, with Kuwabara and Karama having fought their preliminary matches against their first demon team, but I can already tell this is gonna rock. This is the Togashi complex-interlocking-mechanics-battle-by-way-of-solving-the-puzzle-of-your-opponent’s-abilities storytelling I’ve been missing. Even that initial battle on the boat to quell the numbers had a very HxH feel of the “trial before the actual test” mechanic that defined so many of its arcs.

Kuwabara’s fight with that accursed baby Goku cosplayer was a good way to set the scene, detailing just how strong these demons are and how tough our heroes are gonna have to fight to overcome them. He may have lost in the end, but the fact he was able to land a pretty solid hit proves this won’t be a battle against impossible odds; he and Yusuke will be able to stand toe-to-toe with at least the lesser demons. Plus, he was able to scare his opponent so badly that he’s likely never going to give them any trouble whatsoever from now on. In a classic Togashi fashion, the winner of the match isn’t necessarily the one who comes out looking better. Also, fighting with Yo-Yos? How much more HxH could this show possibly get?

Karama’s fight, meanwhile, was proof that smarts are gonna be more important than strength. All he had to do was get one hit in under the radar and his opponent was already dead. We’re tied 1-1, so Hiei and Genkai better be able to take their foes down before Yusuke has to fight in his sleep. Just a thought.

Also HOLY SHIT GENKAI’S ON THEIR TEAM THIS IS GONNA BE AWESOME. Though it is kinda dumb they’re keeping it a quasi-mystery. Even little kids could figure that out, show.

Toguro

From the second Yusuke was able to stab Toguro through the stomach at the climax at the end of last arc, it was clear something was up. It was too easy of a victory against a foe that had been built up so much, even considering the general poor storytelling of that arc (which, yeah, sorry, I still don’t give a shit about Yukina. She’s a nothing character, sorry.) So when it was revealed that shady guy had paid them off to throw the fight for the sake of figuring out their opponent’s strengths before drafting them into the Dark Tournament, the show’s game plan was revealed. Playtime was over. Here was a foe who could genuinely kill Yusuke without a second thought. Here was a fight he had no chance of winning. Here is when shit starts to go down.

And Toguro is a fascinating villain to mark that transition. Like I mentioned last time, he fights by a particular code of honor, refusing to disgrace his opponents or himself by fighting cheaply. He challenged Yusuke fair and square, giving him plenty of time to increase his power to match his own, because he wanted a fair and worthy fight. He also has a lot of respect for Yusuke, and that comes from a very interesting philosophy in regards to combat. Fear, in his eyes, can be a fighter’s strongest tool, because it forces you to go beyond what you think you’re capable of to survive. And Yusuke, in his eyes, fights with fear, acknowledging his opponent’s strength enough to not half-ass anything. It’s fascinating to see this terrifyingly strong fighter basically issue a death warrant against our protagonist while still respecting him enough to give him the chance- and the motivation- to fight back.

And holy balls, I don’t think we’ve ever seen Yusuke this terrified before. If fear is his strongest weapon, then Toguro’s display of power should be enough to kick him into super-saiyan mode at the drop of a hat. Their fight is gonna be epic, and I can’t wait to see it happen.

Hiei’s Secrets

We also get a little more insight into Hiei from the end of last arc, and as it’s the one real thing of value to take away from that muddled mess, it’s worth talking about. Hiei and Yukina are half-siblings, and it seems that Hiei very purposefully kept his life separate from hers, even when they were kids. He’s got a lot of self-loathing issues to work out, especially now, considering he’s a criminal. The fact that he likely got his Third Eye to watch over her from a distance, not feeling worthy enough to be a true part of her life, says a lot about how he interacts with the world and his own inner demons. I imagine we’ll be getting a lot more from him before all is said and done, so until then, here’s hoping there’s a light at the end of his tunnel.

Odds and Ends

-You know, I literally just started watching Guilty Crown, so the fact I got to the part where Toguro’s brother turns into a sword for him to fight with right now is... uncanny.

-”It’s a long-distance relationship. It’s romantic!” ldfhaksdj Botan you are too pure

-Yusuke and Keiko: the most teeny teens to ever teen on a date. Did that make sense? No, but whatever.

-”I’m sorry, when I kill people, I’m used to them staying dead.” Yeah, don’t you know, Toguro? People die when they are killed. Wait-

-”You didn’t have too many friends growing up, did you?” Harsh but fair, Kuwabara.

-Yes, FINALLY! Now the girls know everything. Thanks for finally getting to that, Botan.

-”I don’t trust grown-ups who dress that fancy.” You and me both, Kuwabara.

-”They’re always mean when they get handsome” You’re a peach, Botan.

-That poor cat-lady announcer can’t possibly be paid enough to put up with this shit.

-I didn’t know how much I needed Kuwabara’s give-no-fucks sister until I got her, and now I hope she never leaves.

-I love you, Botan. Just in general.

And with that, we are officially in the thick of it. See you later today with more Hakushenanigans(tm)!

[thehiddensemicolon]

Kacchako Fanfic: New Prey Chapter 27

Everyone arrived at the camping ground around 12 pm on a Saturday. The spot was perfect and close to the beach. Everyone agreed that it would be better to bring tents rather than sleeping in a cabin. The students began placing the stuff they brought for the trip on a nearby table.

"How thoughtful for your parents renting our camping spot Momo. That was very nice. And it's right by the beach!" Ashido said.

"Oh it's nothing. Please everyone enjoy yourselves." Momo blushed.

"Everyone my parents have also rented us several jet skies, a speed boat, and tubing equipment. Today we shall celebrate our last get together before we graduate!" Iida said.

Everyone thanked Momo and Iida for their families gifts.

"Boy rich people. So nice and friendly. But I feel kinda bad for only bringing stuff like chairs and sun screen." Kaminari sighed.

Sero and Kirishima nodded in agreement.

Deku was going around asking everyone if they brought the things they said they would on the list, but when he went to Shouto name on the list, all it said was, not to sure.

"Ah Todoroki what did you bring?" Deku asked.

Shouto looked uneasy as he pulled a bag of marshmallows out of his bag.

"Well to be honest. I didn't know what to bring. I never went camping before, so I googled what people do while their camping. And looked at the images and saw people burning marshmallows. So I figured I can burn everyone's marshmallows for them, but I don't know why people seem to like it burned. I never had marshmallows before, but they taste pretty good in its original form. " He said.

Everyone looked shocked.

"What you never went camping before either?! I was beginning to think I was the only one who hasn't ." Uraraka quickly said.

"No what am shocked about the most is he never had a marshmallow?!" Kaminari questioned.

Everyone thought the same thing.

Everyone was there expect for their favorite fire cracker.

"Ah Uraraka where is Bakugou, did he get lost?" Iida asked.

"Um no he is just... driving over here with his parents." She calmly said.

"Bakugou is allowed to drive?" Kaminari almost yelled.

"Yeah he has his license." She said.

"No I mean... his driving test instructor actually passed him? That's scary . He rages while walking on solid ground. I can't imagine how bad his road rage must be." Kaminari said.

Deku walked over and talked with Uraraka.

"So is he still bringing ice?" Deku asked.

"Uh.. yeah." She turned her face away and giggled to herself.

~~~1 hour ago~~~ "I don't fucking know why you assholes signed me up to bring ice. ICE Ochako.. FUCKING ICE. DID THOSE MORONS FORGET WHAT QUIRK I FUCKING HAVE. I fucking went to the grocery store to buy ice. I bought fucking five bags of ice , because that is what you assholes made me bring and guess what?, one by fucking one as I fucking picked up a bag, it immediately melted Ochako. All fucking five of them did." Bakugou said to Uraraka on the phone.

"Well it is not their fault that you said that you would bring anything. You didn't want to discuss it, so you just left. Maybe if you would have said that you were going to bring i don't know maybe paper plates, you wouldn't have got stuck bringing ice." Uraraka said.

"And my fucking mom is not even fucking helping me She is just fucking laughing her ass off right now as I fucking melted the ice, so I had to buy more fucking ice and had to look like a fucking pussy, while the grocery store employee loaded the ice in our car." Bakugou told her.

"Well um Ashidos family is here to pick us up to take us to the camp site so am about to leave ... meet you their handsome?" She giggled on the phone.

"Yeah fucking fine then ... What NO YOU ARENT GOING TO TALK TO HER HAG." He said as he hung up the phone.

Uraraka guessed Bakugou didn't want his mom to talk to her.

~~~present time~~~ On cue, the person she was just thinking about came. With an angry face already.

He had his stuff hanging from his back and a very large ice container box in his hands.

He walked up to his classmates and dropped the box angrily.

"Which one of you dumb fucks thought it would be a great idea to assign me fucking ice to bring, knowing I fucking literally make explosions in my fucking palms." He cursed.

"Ahhh Kacchan.. thanks for bringing the ice." Deku said.

He would not tell Bakugou this but, it was him that assigned him ice. He was just tired and was reviewing the list very late at night in his dorms and noticed there was no ice. And unconsciously assigned Bakugou to bring ice. Oops on his part.

"Oh the reason why ice wasn't on the list, was because I volunteered to make ice. I just wanted to bring something else that didn't have to do with my quirk." Shouto said.

Deku remembered everything now. And now he thought that Kacchan probably knew it was him that assigned him ice, to play around with him. Oh no.

Deku sighed.

"Sooo now that everyone is here we have to go over sleeping arrangements. Shall we have a girl side and boy side?" Momo asked.

"What no! I mean we are all adults.. I mean some of us are, but we are mature enough to be able to sleep together." Mineta said.

"I mean this isn't a school related trip. So it isn't a bad idea to. We shouldn't be so spread apart after all. We are here over night. Better for us to stay as a group." Kirishima said.

"Okay so we can all set up our tents around the campfire then Ribbit." Tsuyu said.

Everyone was given roles on what to do, to get the camp spot done.

Some were given tasks to set up the tents and what not.

"Am fucking going to BBQ this shit." Bakugou stormed off with a bag of coal.

"I'll go to." Shouto said.

Bakugou just grunted.

People were unpacking and struggling to set up tents and Shouto was amused about how focused Bakugou was while cooking food. It smelled quite nice.

After awhile when everything was done, Uraraka came up from behind Bakugou and gave him a hug.

He still isn't so used to public PDA so he tended up. But stayed in place. She kissed his back and tightened her grip.

"So is this when am supposed to 'kiss the cook' ?" She giggled.

"Yeah ha ha your so fucking hilarious." He grinned.

She let go of him and patted his back.

"HEY FUCKTARDS FOOD IS READY. GO FETCH." He yelled.

His classmates cheered and ran to get food, completely ignoring the tone of his voice.

"Wow this is really good." Uraraka said.

People nodded with their mouths stuffed with food.

"Duh of course it is." Bakugou replied.

"So how about we all get ready to go to the beach!" Kirishima said.

Everyone agreed. While the girls stood up to change. The guys were already ready. All they did was take off their shirts. They already had their swim trunks on after all.

"Come on already girls. Gosh you all take so long to get ready!" Sero joked.

"Yeah we are already ready." Kaminari said.

"Hey that's not fair!" Ashido said.

"Yeah we don't have the pleasure of just taking our shirts off to go swim." Jirou defended.

They girls regardless went to get changed.

Mineta started to drool. He was finally going to see a girls body after all.

Mineta looked like he was trying to escape the guys to go sneak a peak.

Just as he was about to leave. Bakugou yanked him over his way.

Mineta fell down on the ground and he looked terrified.

"I fucking hope you don't plan on sneaking on the girls you little fucking purple glop. I would really be riled up if you specifically go check out my girlfriend. Stay away from the girls. This is my first and last warning grape balls ." Bakugou said.

Even the other guys didn't bother to stop Bakugou's threatening this time. A lot of the guys had crushes on the same girls after all.

"Uhh uhh ...ah ah alright you have my word. I won't try anything." Mineta shivered.

Bakugou snarled and left.

"But that doesn't mean I won't fantasize about them in my thoughts and dreams." Mineta said to himself quietly.

They girls arrived. And we're already running toward the beach.

"Come on! Why do you guys always take so long getting ready!?" Ashido joked.

"Hey Mina! I call one of those jet skis!" Kirishima yelled running after her.

Bakugou caught himself staring at Uraraka and it finally clicked to him that she was already by the beach.

He cursed and ran after her as well.

When he caught up he saw her staring at the ocean like a kid.

"You wanna jet ski floaty? We can race Kirishima." He asked.

She looked so excited and quickly nodded her head.

They got life jackets and there was only two jet skis left.

"Well we can share? Mina and I can share one and you two the other." Kirishima said.

"Fine by me. Hope you are ready to lose." Bakugou said.

Kirishima looked confused.. racing?

Bakugou got on one and told Uraraka to sit behind him.

"Hold on Ochako. I like going fast in these shits." He grinned.

She nodded okay and got on.

"Should I be worried?" She questioned.

He turned to her and she actually saw a smile.

"Hell no! By my side is the safest you are ever going to be. Don't fucking forget that." He told her.

Bakugou slowly started to move the jet ski. Enough to make Uraraka find peace.

Then he went speed up dramatically.

"AHHHH KATSUKI SLOW DOWN." Uraraka begged. She gripped his waist harder than she has ever done before.

"WHAT I CANT HEAR YOU SPEAK LOUDER." He jokes. He makes a sharp right turn and Uraraka swore she almost flew off.

"YO BAKUGOU. PRETTY SWEET HUH?! WHOAAA." Kirishima said.

Kirishima and Ashido jet ski was going up and down very fast.

"KIRISHIMA I THINK WE ARE GOING TO FALL. LOOK WE ARE ALREADY HAVING SOME WATER ON OUR JET SKI. AHHHH!" Ashido yelled.

The two soon flew off the jet ski. And were left floating without their jet ski.

"Ha suckers." Bakugou smirked as he saw what happened to his friend.

"Hey aren't we going to help them?" Uraraka asked.

"Hell no! They are fucking old enough to take care of themselves. And besides I fucking hate getting wet in the water." He told her.

"Huh why?...oh." She said and began to giggle.

"Huh What? Shut the fuck up." He barked.

"Katsuki... you don't like the water, because it's harder to use your quirk if your wet huh?" She placed her hands to her mouth as she tried to hide her laughter.

"Fuck no. Shut the hell up would ya." He blushed.

"Fine, argh it's not my fucking fault water decreases the power of my quirk. Happy?!" He said.

"Hmm... can I try driving this thing?" She asked.

He looked shocked, but nonetheless allowed her to balance her way to the driver seat.

"Uh so what to I do now.. ARGH." Uraraka accidently stomped on the pedal.

Bakugou was caught of guard completely and quickly put his arms around Uraraka's waist.

"Hey fucking watch it would ya." He said.

"Sorrrry." She apologized.

He began to show her how to ride the machine and while she got used to it. Her driving scared the living shit out of him.

~~~ back at the campfire ~~~ After a whole day of drowning and time at the beach, everyone was tired.

They all gathered around the campfire

"When do we get to eat the marshmallows?" Shouto asked for the millionth time.

"Ah yeah now is the time man." Kaminari said.

"Okay who wants to start the fire?" Momo asked.

Everyone looked at Bakugou and Shouto.

"Todoroki should do it." Uraraka broke the silence.

"Yes that is a good choice ribbit. Let's avoid trees burning down today. Ribbit." Tsuyu agreed.

"Eh? You motherfuckers honestly think I can't control my quirk huh? Well fuck you guys. I didn't want to make the fucking fire anyways." Bakugou grunted.

"Well since I brought the marshmallows I will do it. " Shouto said.

He went to the pit that had the wood and released his quirk to make a subtle yet warm flame.

Ashido and Kirishima was in charge of giving out the sticks, chocolate, and gram crackers. While Shouto handed out the marshmallows.

Shouto was observing the s'mores making process his classmates where doing.

"Oh. So it's like a sandwich?" He says to himself.

"Don't be a wuss. Just reach the marshmallow closer to the fire. Or it's going to take forever to burn it in the fucking long ass distance you are from it." Bakugou said.

"Hey! Well maybe I don't want it burned huh? Maybe just a bit crispy or a little brown." Uraraka defended.

"You you want a  s'more?" Kaminari said.

"Some more of what? I didn't have anything yet. " Todoroki questioned (A/N I had to XD ^)

Everyone began talking about the good memories of being in UA.

Everyone couldn't believe that they graduated in a week.

Everyone began to realize they wouldn't be together like this again.

Everyone began feeling different. Different from when they arrived to this trip. At first was joy of hanging out. Now the reality of the real world is hitting everyone.

"Hey everyone. Will we still all hang out. Even when we graduate?" Kirishima broke the silence.

"Well I do believe that there are some of us who are working at the same agency. But it would be rather difficult for everyone. But I still encourage it!" Iida said.

"Oh yeah so who is working together?" Ashido said.

"I'll be working with class rep." Sero said.

"Well Kacchan and I are in the same agency." Deku said.

In which Bakugou just grunted.

"And Uraraka and I." Todoroki said.

In which Bakugou grunted again.

"Well kero. I think that you six are the only ones in the same agency. But am sure we will work besides each other. Kero. Agencies always work together at some point." Tsuyu said.

"Exactly. That's the mindset we all need to be having Tsuyu. We will all see each other after UA. As heroes." Momo said.

Every agreed and smiled.

Then Jirou spoke.

"Hey. When I stayed after class last week. I over heard a conversation of present mic and Aizawa saying someone from us got into his agency. Which one of us was he referring too?" Jirou said.

"No you must be mistaken. I looked at every students agency choose and acceptance. No one of us  is at Aizawas agency." Iida said.

Bakugou looked around. Trying not to look suspicious. After all it was supposed to be secret.

"Well I think we aren't meant to know. After all Aizawa does work underground. His agency is all into secrecy and stealth stuff. They get the job done quietly or get information in any means possible. They mostly take the difficult missions and do the dirty work. So because of what his agency stands for, we aren't meant to know anything. I bet the student that got hired, was told to keep their mouths closed." Deku muttered.

"Well shit. I guess we will never find out." Kaminari said.

"Well we girls should all come together before graduation and get ready together!" Uraraka mentioned.

"That's a great idea!" Momo and Ashido said.

"See it's normal if girls get ready together. But if guys do then we are the weird ones!" Kirishima said.

"No you are the weird one." Sero said.

"I agree." Kaminari said.

"Yeah that was a pretty fucking dumbass idea you had the other day." Bakugou said.

"I mean all we have to do is put on a nice shirt and pants and boom we are done." Kaminari said.

"No one ever likes my ideas." Kirishima sulked.

"Well it's getting pretty dark." Ashido shivered.

"Are you scared of the dark?" Jirou asked.

"Kinda." She replied.

Then a few students agreed that the dark was scary. (Basically the students who hasn't been speaking lol)

"What!" Bakugou said.

"Hey don't hate. I actually am creeped out about the night bro." Kaminari added in.

"Again. What the fuck." Bakugou looked confused and bothered.

"How the fuck are you assholes going to be a hero if you are fucking scared of the dark?" Bakugou yelled.

"We pray we don't get the nightshift." They all said together.

Bakugou for once was at a lost for words.

"Yes so we need something to lighten the camp spot more. So when we sleep it wouldn't be so creepy!" Ashido said.

"Unfuckingbelievable." Bakugou said to himself.

"Yeah I can't really make that happen." Kaminari said.

"Can anybody do something. With their quirk. It's okay to use to save someone from danger." Ashido said.

"What the fuck no? Who the hell is killing us huh? We can't use our quirks." Bakugou said.

"Yes we can. The night time is a danger to us. And someone's quirk can save us from it." Ashido tried to reason with him.

Kirishima was standing their. Listening to the arguments between Bakugou and the team of people who were scared of the dark.

Then a light bulb lite up in his mind.

"Heyyyy how about our favorite couple Bakugou and uraraka. They can use their quirks for a nice light." Kirishima said.

"Oh yeah a floating explosion. That would be pretty cool." Kaminari played along.

"Well if it will easy everyone's fear of the dark, then sure." A bubbly Uraraka said.

Bakugou was about to say something. Until Uraraka elbowed him in the gut.

"Ahhh fuckin." He grunted.

"It's fine. We will do it." Uraraka said.

Everyone either went to a tent or stayed outside in their sleeping bag to sleep.

Bakugou still couldn't believe in anything.

~~~ few moments later~~~

Bakugou found himself that night being a personal night light.

"Tch. And these are the fucking shitty wussy ass heroes that are going to save fucking people eh?" He continues to curse to himself.

Creating another small explosion, while his girlfriend tiredly made it float.

"Man would I like to see them getting the fucking night shift." He mumbles to himself.

Uraraka yawned and her eyes caught sight of an unreal magical scene.

"We created that." She says while admiring the sky.

Bakugou quit his bickering and actual took the time to look up at the sky.

Both of them smiled that night and realized that their powers together made such a pretty and strong supernova.

... and a pretty good night light.

[nomanicsdak]

New Post has been published on https://manicdak.com/oh-balls/

Oh, Balls!

aN OILY ESCORT MISSION

So, we are back to escorting Testikles to the Olympics, and he is wherever the fuck he is on some Hades forsaken island in an uncovered part of the map. Like, yo, game—I don’t want to uncover another part of the map yet along with all its fetch quests and forts to defeat or whatever, because you know I will be compelled to do so. I guess I must though. I will try to power through without getting too distracted.

First I have to get some oil though.

Only the Oil maker’s slave lady is there though, and she is frightened that his wrath will come down on her if she dares help me by—giving me oil that I am going to pay for? Does this dude want business or not?? This guy already sucks, if I ever meet him… I convince her to just sell me the recipe and I make it myself—hopefully the right way. Which seems way worse for business than just selling me the oil. Oh, well. I succeed in remembering the recipe, and now I have to find Testikles on his island. I once again misread the map and also just guess at where he’s supposed to be instead of going directly to the clearly labeled point on the map. *shrug*

SNAKE SHIP!!

Ssssssssssssssssssssss!

This time it pays off though, because I find a sunken temple and it’s one of the locations of the treasure feathers! I’m sure stumbling ass backwards into them is how I’m going to solve this quest. It is the best way, I think. I also find some gold colours for my boat! The look I find is called the Hound of Hades. I like a Cerberus themed boat! Since I’m heading for the bay of Hades anyway, I think it’s fitting. 

I’ll miss my pink and white boat though!

Before I talk to Testikles, I take the time to explore the nearby shipwreck of the Nestor. I find a new figurehead for my ship. It’s a serpent one, and although I already have a blue one and this is just a normal, I switch them out, because snakes are my jam.

TESTIKLES

The Man, The Legend–

So, there is also some treasure chest that is either underwater or underground, but I don’t see a cave entrance? I try to find it, but I can’t, so I just go talk to Testikles, who is flexing and carrying on about being the best. He may or may not be super drunk or super dumb or both. Who can say?

I have to convince him to get on the boat by giving him the oil now, or bribing him with it. I still feel kind of bad for leaving those Spartan kids to spar with wolves on their own a while back, so maybe I’ll just give it to him and not become an extortionist. 

Great, he wants me to rub it on. What did I tell you about oil? We’re off on our escort mission now though, because I don’t get a choice in whether or not to oil down the big guy. Alexios is not gonna do it! 

SHARK BAIT

Ahoy, Ace, why are you here?

Back on the boat, Barny is fanboying over Testikles and Herodotus recites poetry at him. We arrive at our destination with the man of the hour whooping about Sparta, which is about the extent of this guy’s discourse, and for some reason I have to talk to Alkibiades who is here too. I’m going to guess he wants me to somehow throw the games in Athen’s favour in direct contradiction to what I should be doing to prove my Spartanness? 

Let’s find out! He’s enthusiastically jumping up and down and clapping at me.

If your wondering why he is here, it is to welcome us, actually compete in the Olympics, and flirt shamelessly, of course. Testikles burps in his direction. Herodotus and Barnabus share a confused look. 

There’s some good natured ribbing and more sex puns made even more inappropriate by the peanut gallery watching behind me. Huh. Nobody’s asking me to do anything I don’t want to do yet— I’m feeling good about this cut scene for a few seconds until I duck out of Testikles’s grasp as he wants me to oil him up again and he falls off the dock and gets eaten by a shark.

I just—I die laughing at this point, because that’s the most absurd thing that has happened in this game so far. Will I have to step in for Sparta now? Alikbiades  is definitely interested in seeing Alexios compete anyway. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more. He gives me the nickname “Lexie”, so how can I say no? I probably can’t. *shrug* 

QUEST TIME!

We get the day off to explore around Olympia though, so that’s cool, let’s do that. I very nearly knock Barnabus off the shark pier on my way out the door to the nearest location. Sorry, my man! 

I spend most of my time trying to defeat this huge ass fort and failing. I only get lucky because some bounty hunters show up and they start fighting the guys in the fort, so I can finally get it done. I’m a bit irritated that it took so long, so I just get back on my sudden quest for Olympic gold. I have to go find the organizer for this, I suppose to inform him that our contestant got eaten by a shark. *shrug* It happens?

I wander around Elis for a while, wreaking havoc on the Athenian forces. When I finally get to the actual Olympic Valley, I’m notified that I shouldn’t get caught doing anything illegal there. Great. We all know how good I am at sneaking and not doing illegal things. There are a bunch of new quests here that I can do before we get back to the story too, so let’s see who wants me to commit crimes so they don’t have to!

JUMPIN’ JAVELINS

First a sad bookie. 

He’s sad because some dude named Pithekos is not on his game and it’ll cost him a lot of money if this guy loses (I hope he’s not in my event?) In any case I can offer to maim his opponent or cheer his spirits. Obviously, I’m not going to maim a guy undeservedly. The bookie isn’t keen on my plan to recite poetry at the guy. Since Pithekos is not the kind of man for poems, I just go talk to him.

Okay, he’s broken his “lucky” javelin. I attempt to give him the benefit of the doubt, but he just straight up admits to cheating. Like, I know I’m not suited up to the nines in the gear of my homelands, but that’s probably not the info you should just be imparting to rando-could-be-your-opponent-Spartans. Of course, I guess I’ll get him his javelin. Hopefully I won’t end up in jail.

I can steal it, which is probably the wrong choice, so I just talk to the vendor lady and buy one. There is also an old one in a corner. I bring both and I don’t get a choice on which to give him, so I guess I chose right by bringing both. The bookie offers to let me place a bet, but I decline to bet on the cheater. 

SEEING THE SIGHTS

My next exclamation points leads me right to Barnabus who is being a total tourist. Lol, what is this quest, just sightseeing with Barny? I mean—Okay, I’ll take the easy XPs Why do you keep trying to make me learn stuff, game?

Zeus Beef in the wings

First: Altar of Zeus where we see them slaughtering a bunch of bulls for him. I buy Barnabus a slice of Zeus beef. He is delighted! Then we’re off to the next sight. The organizer for the event I’m supposed to be competing in must be around here because I keep being alerted to an untracked quest nearby, but I’m going to finish what I’m doing first.

Over in the temple Barnabus tells me the statue of Zeus was crafted by a sculptor I’m supposedly friends with, but I don’t know the name. Is he the dude I saved way back when I first came to Athens? Alexios says something sarcastic about the Gods that gets Barnabus’s dander up. I choose apologies. I don’t need to rain on his parade when he’s being such a fanboy and having a great day.

DISTRACTIONS

On the way to our next destination, I pick up another quest: Herodotus is trying to keep the peace, because I assume a Spartan and an Athenian are fixin to throw punches and break this Olympic truce. (One is wearing red, and one is wearing blue, so I can only assume. I remain, ever and always in neutral snake-tones) I agree to help them.

some dude

Back to Barny…or not. I stop again for a quest. A guy wants to tell my fortune, but it’s all a ruse to steal my money. He distracts me while a little girl steals my purse! She reminds Alexios of Phoibe and now everybody is sad. I’m even more sad when she tells me her story…some Captain made her thieve and is going to hurt her apparently. Obviously, I am going to help the girl that reminds me of Phoibe. The Captain is going dowwwn!

He goes down! I return to the kid to give her the necklace Captain stole and she’s happy that they can keep all they steal now. Heh. Go get ‘em, girl!

I finally catch up to Barnabus where he gives me the low-down on this special tree that the Olympic wreaths are made out of. We hug it out and I get my XPs! Thanks, Barny! 

On to the next mini-quest!

A TALE OF OILY DUDES

Out on the street a poor woman is being browbeat in public by a priestess. Her crime: Being married and wanting to watch the games. 

She is Kallipateria who wants to see her son compete. This is nonsense. Why is it a crime, I ask?

The priestess tells me its because all the oily men will be too tempting.

Uhh— Well, my only choice now is to say that’s not fair, which it’s not, so I’m not fussed about that pathway.

Turns out the punishment they want to dole out for attempting to watch the games is to throw her off Mount Olympus. The fuck???? That’s the punishment??? Priestess Lady, you’re going the way of Chrysis if you keep it up. She gives me the chance to prove Kallipateria’s heritage and save her, so I’m off to go look for her son in the green room as it were. 

There’s a old lady there projecting her own thoughts onto every other woman in Greece. She’s clutching her pearls over all the hot oiled dudes. Yes, of course, because there is no other reason for women to enjoy sport, but also, who cares if she wants to scope some dudes? The only useful clue is that Kalli met with a man here often. Like…is the man her son??  The next person I talk to is her son. He confirms her story.

However, I also find a love letter seemingly addressed to her. 

The plot thickens. 

Regardless, nobody needs to be thrown off a mountain. Unless it’s me, throwing myself. I’m immune to fall damage after all. 

Next a rando dude confirms her story and also—that her husband is dead???? What? Widowers got to stay married from beyond the grave here? I guess so. Kalli is still devoted and makes offers to the Gods for him. I find yet another letter confirming the story of Kalli’s son and their heritage. Time to stop this priestess and her hateboner for people who enjoy a nice oily dude. I guess what I find is enough for her to let Kalli go. Good. Damn her for making me schlep all the way the hell up this mountain though. I’m going to jump off it! 

LOVE GONE WRONG

Alright, time to help out those fighty dudes from earlier. This quest is called the Drachmae of Romance, so let us see what this is all about. I find a note. Looks like a couple of lovebirds stole money from the fighting dudes to escape—something. Slavery? Crushing debt? 

Next I find a really suspicious guard who is terrible at lying. He fell asleep on the job, but he does know the thieves headed east apparently.

Third clue—no forced entry to the treasure vault the guard was supposed to be guarding. Hmm.

Well, the game tells me exactly where to go, so at least I don’t have to wander Eastward with nothing but hope and a bird to go on. 

It turns out this a Romeo and Juliet situation and the couple that stole the money are the son and daughter of the dudes that hired me. Those two dads also got the info from the guard and find us here. There is no conflict resolution for them. In fact, they are ready to kill their children over this feud. I got news for ya, dudes. You picked the wrong mysthios. I can either kill the poor kids or these two toolbags. 

The good news is that the kids can forge a new peaceful future for their families now. A job well done as far as I’m concerned!

SCULPTING SUSPICIONS

My next and looks like last quest is to visit my sculptor friend. He is indeed the man who I saved from cultists. He does think cultists are still after him and for some reason did him the courtesy of leaving a coded message before they do away with him that I now have to traipse around all of Greece to figure out for him. I’m not going to do that right now because these statues with secret code are all over places that haven’t been uncovered yet. Sorry, Sculpto, you must wait!

Paranoid Sculptor Friend

 I think it is time for some wrasslin’ or whatever the hell I’m competing in (The Pankration) because I am fresh out of exclamation points! I arrive at the organizer and he’s surprised to see me instead of Testikles. He lets me go ahead and replace the poor guy rather than cancel the whole event. Since I have nothing left to do, we’ll get right to it. I beat up a couple of dudes and now we get a pause before the big match against the Athenian champ.  It is a break where we meet up with Barny and Alkibiades only to find Alkibiades has probably been poisoned. Damn! You can’t die yet, Ace! It’s not in the history books! (I know, I know, tell it to Perikles, right?) I am off to find the supposed poisoner!

PICK YOUR POISON

Somehow, Alkibiades of all the people, is super scandalized about how his upstanding good-time drinkin’ buddies could be shady double-dealing murderers. Sorry, my dude! Suddenly, my pause screen jumps out at me without prompting to give me some news. Kallias, Olympic hero, is now marked on my cult family tree. Does that have anything to do with this quest? Is HE the poisoner?

Let us investigate!

 Clue #1: I visit the site of the party and, Yep. Poison. Lots of the party-goers are dead now.

 Clue#2: More poison supplies in the kitchen. I find the name of the merchant who delivered them.

Clue#3: There is a bigger bad. Who is it? The merchant doesn’t know, but at least he gives me a place where I can find the antidote: That accursed fort from earlier? Nope, a new accursed fort. Probably at the only undiscovered location left in the Olympic Valley. Let’s Ride, Phobos! No time to lose! I am in and out without the guards catching me, and Alkibiades is up and at ’em as soon as the cure touches his lips.

A WIN FOR SPARTA

Now it’s time to finish wining the day for Sparta and defeating a cultist. Like—we know it’s him what ordered the poison, right? It has to be?

Back to the organizer, who laughs at me for not being oily enough. Heh. I’ve got some delightful cinnamon oil that I made myself, dude. I take this guys advice and use it. Why not? Testikles doesn’t need it. I have a tense moment with Kallias the cultist before things start, and I defeat the champion handily. Alexios looks extra shiny during the crowning, but whatevs. We won! 

Oily, Oily, Glory

Next on the list: Cult dude, who I find just wandering outside the hippodrome alone. I sneak up on him and that’s the easiest cultist defeat ever.

Olympia is complete! I guess. I don’t even get to say goodbye to Ace this time, or find out for sure who the poisoner is. Bah.

Oh, well. I’m heading of to Boeotia now, because A: I have a king quest there and B: I have some mysterious Sphynx quest that I don’t even remember picking up, and we all know how I feel about Sphynx quests! (I love them. Hit me with your riddles, cat woman!)

[ariyadaivaris]

artemidi replied to your post “boy oh boy i sure hope nobody asks about the embarrassing sappy au i...”

I need......more info on this.....blease

i’ve GOT more info on this don’t you even worry your sweet fred head about it !!

nxt’s tag team division is, to say the least, KIND OF...UH...BORDERLINE NONEXISTENT AS OF LATE and so when the time comes to set up the dusty rhodes tag team classic they really end up needing to Scrumble something together! the original plan was that tyler (bate) (to name specific tylers) and jack would team up however long they needed to for the tournament, but oh NO tyler’s been gravely injured, probably by pete because he’s a motherfucker

jack is stuck without a partner and the tournament is stuck without the final team! regal puts out a desperate call for help and ariya decides to strike a deal because why would he team with jack motherfucking gallagher without something to gain from it

the deal is this: ariya teams with jack, withstands whatever mockery comes his way this time, carries the team through the tournament and when he wins, he gets a shot at the cruiserweight title. ariya is a difficult person to work with but desperate times calls for desperate measures, and so ariya and jack end up being the newest addition to the tag team classic! Oh What Drama ! 

things are TENSE, TO SAY THE LEAST

they have to take a bit of a hiatus from 205 so they can travel with nxt, some of the tournament matches take place at house shows and live events and they do still need to work together as a team outside of the tournament if only because they’d be completely fucked otherwise! jack still can’t drive so ariya (dear sweet ariya who can’t drive for shit) is the official pilot in their travels, and jack is...an...interesting co-pilot

the first few weeks are mostly ariya giving jack Ze Silent Treatment while jack refuses to shut up ever and it’s kind of an awkward uneasy dynamic, even after they win their first tournament match through SOME MIRACLE

ariya finally talks to jack during a drive because jack stumbles onto the topic of musicals and says some things and ariya gets very heated very easily and it MIGHT turn into a cutting discussion about the accessibility of theatre and of bootlegs, and about who and what gets visibility in mainstream media and who and what gets nominated for tonys, etc, but its the most fun ariya’s had in awhile and they both kinda learn smth from it and from then on ariya’s more willing to like. at least talk to jack. and it’s...disappointingly...very nice

i feel like during a house show ariya gets trapped in the corner and almost gets dropkicked but jack manages to get to his corner and use his umbrella as kind of a makeshift shield to throw off their opponent and give ariya time to collect his wits and it’s maybe a silly thing to think about but its cute imo! my city now! 

after their second round match, which they almost accidentally win (against reDRagon, no less, bc let’s be real while we’re being self indulgent here i DO care more abt this storyline than about those two probably very talented but uninteresting slices of white bread), jack compliments ariya’s performance in the match and ariya doesn’t take it well because like. to this point he’s only thought jack’s just been humiliating and mocking him for no fucken reason since they met, and why wouldn’t he turn up this opportunity to backhandedly insult ariya now. and jack doesn’t KNOW that, and so ariya starts giving him a cold shoulder again for no reason as far as jack knows. OOH this drama. OOH this suspense

after they make it to the semi-finals (which no one was expecting, and certainly not them, honestly), they’ve gotta go to a press event with the other semi-finalists and it’s maybe not the most plot relevant thing but ariya does clean up really nicely and jack is maybe a little distracted the entire time because holy shit

and maybe then jack kinda realizes he hasn’t been engaging in a rivalry with ariya so much as maybe he’s had a dumb awful crush on him this entire time and not known how to realize that or express it and spends the night trying to keep his composure (because who is jack gallagher if not composed) while internally just writhing in embarrassment and agony and going “oh nnnnNNNOOOOOOO oh my goddd what did i DOOOO why did i DO that oh noooooOOOOOooOOooOoo” and its a rough night! 

and ariya sees jack being less than 100% during all this and sees it as Oh He Doesn’t Care, Of Course, Why Would He, and he’s pissed because he really thought they were getting somewhere as a team, and alas here they are and jack isn’t even paying attention to what’s happening, what a rude asshole as fucking always, and ariya MAYBE--just maybe--maybe just fuckin clocks jack in the face after jack tries to tell him he handled that really well

and jack sincerely admires that ariya remained pretty composed and serious and focused even when jack was busy trying not to wither into embarrassed gay dust but ariya only hears that as jack intentionally leaving ariya to his own devices and mocking how shitty a job he did

(not that ariya would ever say he thinks he did a shitty job, but in his heart he DOES want to do well and be a worthy contender, and opponent, and partner, and he knows he gets lucky a lot and so when he DOESN’T and when he’s painfully in control of the things that happen to him everything feels amplified and clumsy and Wrong and jack’s not helping lmao. i love drama)

obviously this isn’t received well and jack and ariya get into a brawl and they have to get broken up by their coworkers in attendance and ariya’s just yelling WHAT DID I EVEN DO TO YOU ASSHOLE, WHAT’S YOUR PROBLEM

jack stays with mustafa and lince for the night because ariya straight up threw his bags outside the door of their room and locked him out and jack plays the words back and he’s like Wait...Maybe I’m Misunderstanding The Situation Here

and the next morning he goes to talk to ariya 

(who answers the door looking just fine and who hasn’t been alternating between uneasy sleep and furious tears all night, ariya’s fine) 

and he doesn’t like...get the nerve to go “hey i think i might be in love with you a bit” but he does manage to tell ariya he hasn’t been mocking him, and he’s been sincere this whole time, and he’s genuinely sorry he’s been a dick to ariya since they started on 205, but ariya, to be fair, has also been a dick, maybe more in terms of beating people up but jack’s sorry about what’s been happening, and ariya doesn’t have to accept that apology, and if ariya wants to forfeit their semi-finals match, he understands entirely

and ariya’s just like “yo what the fuck are you kidding i’ve still got a title shot on the line and we’re gonna win this, get in the car, it’s cool or whatever cmon lets GO” and he’s a bit flippant about it but for some reason he wants to...start grinning like an idiot and never stop again? for some reason? weird

things aren’t just all Cool suddenly after that because when i say i love slow burn shit i MEAN like, years, they’re still only barely allies but something’s There and that’s endgame, don’t play with me, we’ve gotta get face!ariya calling for a parlay with heel!jack in between here and The Datening for me to feel truly alive but thats just my humble imho

also they lose in the finals but ariya puts on enough of a performance to merit a title shot anyway and after the loss they might not work as a team anymore and they’re back to their own stories on 205 but before they get back to the hotel and get cleaned up and wash off the grime of bitter bitter defeat ariya finds jack sitting with his chin on his knees in the stairwell and sits silently with him and they maybe hold h*nds for like the BRIEFEST of minutes and never talk about it again but like. we’ve gone this far with this shitty badly written self-indulgent embarrassing post right? try and stop me

just kidding im stopping myself now. i hate that i wrote all of this. im gonna kill myself thanks