#shitpost based on the tweet in second image

[meoneru]

[ckret2]

So I've been deeply pulled into the Radiosnake pairing bc of your fantastic writing! Problem is, now I have fic ideas but no knowledge of the Hazbin background. Can you tellI me where I can get more Hazbin info? I've only watched the pilot and read your stuff. I heard there were comics??

That is an excellent question anon, because right now it is really hard to get Hazbin background easily.

Okay, so, the canon info on Hazbin Hotel can be sort of sorted into four tiers, from most to least canon.

Tier 1: The Definitely Canon

There is, of course, the pilot. And then there is an Angel Dust prequel comic, only seven pages of which have been released so far. We’ve been told it’s gonna be finished and we’ve had glimpses of in-progress prequel comics for a couple other characters—most prominently Alastor’s and Charlie’s—but so far that unfinished Angel Dust comic is the only one that’s been officially released.

Finding the in-progress comic pages is... a challenge. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has been specifically collecting all of the pages we’ve seen so far. I was able to scrounge up:

Couple more Angel pages

some Alastor pages

another Alastor page

a random Alastor panel

another random Alastor panel—I’ve seen the full page of this before, Alastor goes “Hello ladies!” and they go “HELLO ALASTOR~<3″ but I can’t find the full page now

There’s a smattering more canon panels on the artist faustisse’s twitter, but I haven’t dug them all out, and some of the posts I’m gonna link in a lil bit have a glimpse of another panel.

If you haven’t already heard of Helluva Boss, I recommend looking into it as well. It’s a second series being created by the same folks, different cast of characters but set in the same version of Hell, so any canon details we learn in Helluva also apply to Hazbin.

Helluva’s pilot is here. Plus a cute music video here.

Earlier this month, during a BLM charity stream hosted by show artist Ashley Nichols—she runs regular streams under the title “HuniCast”—they released a few sneak peaks of future Helluva scenes, all compiled here.

And that’s it for canon. Two pilots, a music video, a smattering of future scenes, part of one comic, a few WIP pages/panels from other comics.

Tier 2: Pseudo-Canon

Everything else we currently know about Hazbin (and Helluva) are things that the creators have told us. Consequently, they’re all pseudo-canon—and likely subject to change in the future as the shows and comics are further developed and released. Some details that were released/described in the past have been contradicted at other times, or else radically changed by the time the pilot came out.

(For example, when Alastor was first created years and years ago as an OC with no plans for Hazbin, he was a demon deer who could shapeshift into a human shape—now he’s a demonized human with a few deer traits. And Charlie and Cherri Bomb used to look very different.)

So until and unless they make it into canon, all these pseudo-canon details are subject to change and should be taken with a grain of salt—but, they also comprise most of what we know about the characters’ backstory and the as-yet-unaired characters.

Pseudo-canon info on Hazbin is scattered mainly between two sources: the creators’ twitter accounts, and livestreams where they take questions and talk about the making of the show. If you and livestreams do not get along (my ADHD and livestreams do not get along), or if you don’t want to wade years and years back into twitter accounts to dig up every scrap of info on the characters the creators have ever mentioned, collating all the pseudo-canon info is gonna be hard. (It’s gonna be hard even if you do want to sit through the streams and dig through all their tweets.) Lots of fans, me included, depend on the absolutely heroic work of various fans who are willing and able to watch hours-long streams and collate a list of canon factoids released during the streams. I’ve reblogged as many of these posts as I’ve been able to find:

Alastor’s sound design (on twitter)

Alastor's Sound Design (post I made with screenshots of weird—but very interesting—subtitles slipped into the aforementioned video)

Sir Pentious and Cherri Bomb’s sound design

Niffty and Husk’s sound design

Charlie, Katie, and Tom’s sound design

Intro song’s sound design

Happy Hotel’s sound design

details from Faustisse (including a pic of a couple costume designs. Most of these posts come from zatyrlucy, who’s been doing a fantastic job of going stream-by-stream to get lists of details from the regular streams by Ashley Nichols and by comic artist Faustisse.)

more details from Faustisse (including a pic of the Von Eldritch family dining room)

Faustisse 3 (better look at that table)

Dollymoon’s Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART ONE (Shoutout again to dollymoon for compiling these, we’ve never spoken but I am eternally grateful for this service. Dollymoon’s posts are THE single most reliable compilation of Hazbin Hotel’s nebulous pseudo-canon facts that I have found to date, including both links to the sources and timestamps where applicable. Dollymoon’s URL has changed since making this post so the “read more” link doesn’t work but the “source” or “reblogged from” links direct correctly to the new blog. Incidentally, the risk of other blog creators deleting their blogs/posts or changing their URLs is why in info posts like these, I always link to my own reblogs rather than their original posts—their original posts might vanish without warning, but I know I ain’t gonna delete my posts, so these links will still work in the future.)

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART TWO

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART THREE

Faustisse 4

HuniCast - Australian Wildlife Relief charity stream

I think this was a faustisse stream (the original source deleted these posts, so the comic pages that were originally behind that read more cut are now gone.)

Faustisse stream 6?

And those are all the masterposts of factoids I’ve managed to collect. If anyone has more masterposts, chuck ‘em at me.

Even this isn’t all the knowledge that’s been released about the show. The posts that dig the farthest back are Dollymoon’s, and even they don’t comprehensively cover all of Hazbin’s production. A couple of these characters, Vivziepop created as a teenager, so there’s some truly ancient concept art floating around out there that will have details that probably aren’t canon anymore... but might still be until something happens to actively contradict them.

Tier 3: The Wiki

The wiki is kind of an absolute mess. It’s a chaotic blend of things actually seen in the pilots/comic, things mentioned at some point in some stream somewhere, and wild fan speculation based on what they headcanon as plausible based on the above, all mixed together with very little indication for which is canon, pseudo-canon, fanon, or speculation. Most of the statements on the wiki don’t have citations.

(And, on top of that, half the main characters’ info gets split up into separate tabs instead of just having a normal-ass wiki page, AND their image galleries are on COMPLETELY SEPARATE pages that are linked to in one of the tabs, and the most important characters all have TWO SEPARATE GALLERIES. Which doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the facts hidden underneath those tabs, but nevertheless drives me up the wall.)

Some things on the wiki were added according to info released so long ago it’s probably changed by now. Some are possibilities that got reported as facts. Other things on the wiki have unambiguously changed, or else are just flat-out incorrect. (For instance, at this moment Alastor’s page still lists him as an overlord, even though it's been confirmed that Alastor is not an overlord despite his power level because he isn’t interested in and didn’t pursue that position, per this stream. For a little bit, somebody’s fanart of their headcanon human Alastor got added to the wiki as concept art.)

tl;dr: the wiki should never be trusted as a primary source. The wiki’s better than it used to be. Even so, at this time, it’s only trustworthy to fill in the gaps of what you already know is true from other, better sources.

The thing it’s good at is it more or less compiles all the known info all in one place. Trying to figure out who the hell this Vox guy is is really hard if you’re reading for mentions of him in compilations of a dozen different streams, much less if you’re trying to comb through those dozen streams yourself, plus a dozen more, plus three different artists’ twitters. In comparison, it’s really easy to, say, just go look at Vox’s wiki page, where all the trivia is compiled. (And Vox’s page is actually one of the better cited on the wiki. Look at all those numbers!)

So, if you need to find out who this character is you’ve never heard of before, if you want to see a full list of the thus far named characters, if you don’t remember whether Alastor likes coffee or tea, if you want to know what Angel’s twin sister looks like, if you need a reminder of Sir Pentious’s death year... check the wiki. It’s an okay starting point.

But, if you see a “fact” on the wiki that you yourself don’t remember from straight out of the pilot, and it doesn’t have a citation that links to a tweet or a stream... regard it suspiciously. And do not trust it unquestioningly as fact until and unless you have seen the source.

Tier 4: Noncanon Creator Shitposting

I’ve mentioned Ashley’s HuniCast streams a couple times. The biggest draw of them is that she usually gets several of the voice actors in the streams, where they’ll happily say nonsense in their character voices. For the most part, they’re not sharing any actual canon info they’ve been given on their characters, just goofing around pretending to be their characters. Nevertheless, a lot of the things that happen in streams get accepted as broad fandom headcanons, like Alastor being into dad jokes. (My favorite, for obvious reasons, is this one.)

It’s easy to find the source audio for all this wonderful nonsense by searching youtube for “HuniCast highlights,” and then rummaging around for animatics people make out of the audio. The only one noncanon video of this sort I can think of that didn’t originally come from HuniCast is a lone one from Alastor’s singing voice (who’s a different voice actor than his speaking voice).

So, obviously, none of these are canon. But they do come from some of the people actually involved in the creation of the show, and they are in the characters’ canon voices, so a whole lot of people treat them as semi-canon anyway. (Even the wiki lists “dad jokes” among Alastor’s likes, which to my knowledge hasn’t come up anywhere except for HuniCast streams.) Since they’re so broadly-known, they’re worth knowing about as important sources of fanon, even if you don’t want to adopt them into your own headcanons. They’re basically the same level of canon as blooper reels.

[agallimaufryofoddments]

DMDP Chapter 36 Thoughts

I kinda thought this chapter was going to be out on Sep 13 (it released on Sep 20) for a couple reasons, but at the same time getting Chapter 36 only a week after Chapter 35 was perhaps a little too good to be true. Getting it two weeks after is a nice treat anyway, so I’ll take what I can get.

In other DMDP news, Young Gangan’s tweet announcement of this chapter release also announced that Volume 4 will be released in November! Already looking forward to its cover reveal, which I assume will be next month; anyone wanna bet on which character will be featured? I feel like Solitaire isn’t a bad guess given his prominence in the dirigible incident/chapters I assume the volume will cover...

Speaking of volumes: the Yen Press release of Volume 3 is still projected for December--so, a month after the JP Vol 4 release. Given that Yen Press has been releasing the DMDP volumes every sixth months or so... I’m thinking we may not get the English edition of Vol 4 until June? (But please prove me wrong and release it sooner.)

Anyway. Chapter reactions/thoughts are under the cut and include: extended paragraphs on Xiaoyu that I should maybe just copy into their own post; appreciation of a potential cynical streak in Izliz (I want to know more about her); and the belated realization that ‘Hagane’ means steel.

Armed people wearing gas masks? Congregating underground? I’m getting flashbacks to Metro: Last Light. 

Also...Goose’s speech to the Lemures in Baccano!, c.f. the speaker referring to himself + the group as “not people” but “spend rounds.” 

Who are these people? What’s their main unit’s goal? The last chapter ended on an Agakura namedrop, but somehow I doubt these guys are the Agakura...

"We are not inferior to Agakura’s boys” / It’s nice to be validated. Nor are they inferior to the Heilei, or “the followers of Crazy Bones Kagura...” Okay, Heilei I recognize....Kagura who, again? I can’t recall hearing the name before. Kinda echoes ‘Agakura’, doesn’t it? Enough that I wonder if Kagura has something to do with Agakura.

Oh hey, that’s the panel which was used in the chapter promo tweet. This guy’s character design definitely maybe me go ?! when I saw the promo image, which I suppose was why they picked the panel as the preview panel...

I think he killed these guys with his bare hands. As one does.

“At least you guys...remarkably...proved you weren’t inferior to Agakura.” In what way? Also, seems like Extra(TM) Tall Man is with the Agakura himself.

“The girls” took out the group’s main unit without casualties in five seconds?? Who are these ladies and when do we meet them???

“Momoya” is our tall guy, it seems. Annnd big surprise, his new job will be based in Shinjuku. Question is whether the ‘visit’ he’s supposed to pay Clarissa (who else could the mediator be) will be a...let’s say, ‘diplomacy’ visit or something more bloody.

Otherworld flashback. “Utsuro Juuza” is the third ranked sorcerer, says Izliz--hey, I recognize that name; I’m pretty sure she said it during the flashback to the empire’s collapse. I also remember it being one word (”It’s as Utsuroju(u)za said”) though...

At first I thought Sabaramond was referring to Corpse God when he said “in terms of ability...you should be standing in my position,” but I feel like it’s more likely he means Izliz. 

Speaking of Izliz, I want to see more of her apparent cynicism streak. I’m not prepared to say she’s necessarily a ‘cynical person’, since I don’t know enough about her yet and she’s also being pretty encouraging by saying the Corpse God can rise to tenth-rank (though, to channel Carol, i have to ask “out of how many”) despite having no magical talents...but she may at least be cynical when it comes to things like court politics.

Speaking of Sabaramond, oof that character design tease; I wanna see his design proper.

I want to make a Narita joke about Sayo’s shark antics but I may just save that for a separate shitpost.

CG says it’s definitely possible Sabaramond could’ve extended his lifespan, but Sayo doesn’t think that’s as important as the possibility of CG having an ally... ah, but is she thinking ally = Sabaramond himself (if he still lives), or that the “bastard children of Sabaramond” could be an ally?

The real Polka got a whole reaction panel to CG’s angst...important how? Maybe we’re gonna hear his take on the situation later.

Meanwhile, looks like we’re going to hear the Rozan-Xiaoyu convo this chapter after all.

See Xiaoyu literally says “something invisible was obstructing Lemmings and the other man” only for next panel to show the news photo of the arms and smoke. And then, “There was definitely SOMETHING there, I know it...!!” Did Xiaoyu end up seeing the large arms or not??

Oof, this conversation is a tough one for Xiaoyu (tears in his eyes!) but it’s one he needs to have. Rozan’s absolutely right on the money throughout the talk, and I think the gentle-but-stinging insinuation that Xiaoyu in distrusting fake!Polka is therefore not putting his trust in Rozan is a pretty apt point. 

(I was several bullet point paragraphs deep into Xiaoyu talk when I decided maybe I should move those thoughts to the post-bullet points section. Continued there.)

Just because I have bad eyesight doesn’t mean I think it’s possible for an ordinary human to be able to spot Xiaoyu at such a great vertical and horizontal distance as Momoya has. This guy has abnormal height, abnormal eyesight...I suppose we’ll learn how else he’s abnormal soon enough. On that note, I suddenly fully expect there to be a Momoya vs Lemmings match-up in the future. I don’t know how or why it’ll happen, but such a match-up is begging to happen nonetheless.

His cap-wearing companion...is that the person we saw on the phone last chapter? The backs of their heads seem similar...

“Shinjuku is Kuraki’s territory” but you don’t want to attract attention...kinda hard not to when Momoya has, what, at least two feet on everyone else. (Also, you can’t be expecting to take Clarissa totally by surprise, can you? Nah.)

Welp Momoya’s the Agakura guy personally responsible for de-limbing Xiaoyu! I’m shocked. Shocked, I tell you. Their eventual (presumed) reunion is going to look like a David vs Goliath rematch. But will David’s cyborg enhancements and extra combat experience be enough to give him a chance at victory...?

We should assume it’s Momoya whom Arase spotted, right? He’s not gonna be able to spot Xiaoyu, and while the companion could perhaps be a ‘twist’ reveal...the companion was about as tall as everyone else in the crowd; Momoya is tall and stands out, so... “It couldn’t be. Could it?” Well, how many guys that tall are walking around Shinjuku...

Top likely guess is that Arase is familiar with Momoya from his yakuza/criminal days, but I suppose there’s also a chance he encountered Momoya during his later undercover operations. Arase’s been in Iwanome’s narrative shadow ever since Iwanome stole the story spotlight from him, so maybe he’s going to get some new spotlight soon?

Ah hey, it’s that journalist from the end of Chapter 35. Her business card is... wait, does it really say her name is “Eightport Kochou” or is CG just misreading it? Though, Takumi has a non-too-pleased moment of recognition...

This reporter and Misaki are awfully chummy. Enough so that my first reaction was to think, “Is this Misaki’s friend Hagane-chan?” Eh, I’ll bet a dollar she is. Dunno about you, but “Eightport Kochou” sounds like it just might be a pseudonym. Just perhaps.

Also, it only recently occurred to me that “Hagane” means steel; lest we forget, Misaki was heiress to Sakimiya Steel until her parents were murdered. I don’t...know what I’m supposed to do with this information? Should I consider it notable? Hagane’s name is first mentioned before we learn about Sakimiya Steel but that’s not what I’d call foreshadowing. Hm...

Right...thoughts. I have those. I guess I’ll start with a continuation of those Xiaoyu thoughts I started writing in the bullet points:

Xiaoyu’s vendetta against both Polkas is mostly a selfish one (he’s been jealous of real!Polka’s filial relationship to Rozan for years), but he has to some extent also (I think) convinced himself he’s acting for Rozan’s sake (fake!Polka must be a threat somehow, must have ulterior motives; Rozan will be better off without someone masquerading as a Shinoyama).

But...dismissing Rozan’s order to protect the fake!Polka was an act that essentially dismissed Rozan’s judgment and authority, even if Xiaoyu didn’t realize it at the time. I get the sense one of the reasons he considers himself to be Rozan’s true (’ideal’) son is because he (I suspect) conceives of himself as being ‘truly devoted’ to Rozan in every way. The real!Polka couldn’t possibly revere or respect or value Rozan in the same way Xiaoyu does, right?

Except if Xiaoyu were truly devoted to Rozan, if he respected and revered and valued Rozan in the way I guess he’s been perceiving himself as doing--if he gave Rozan the respect and service he believes Rozan deserves--then he surely should have respected the order to protect fake!Polka instead of assuming he knew better than his beloved master.

I’m not saying this all because I’m advocating for blind loyalty; I’m spending several paragraphs on this because it looks like this conversation is going to spark some overdue self-reflection on Xiaoyu’s part and yeah, yeah, he needs this. He has spent so much time preoccupied with being an ‘ideal’ (’ideal son’; ‘ideal servant’; ‘ideal guard’; at least, that’s my take on him at this time) that his self-awareness has (at least as of late) perhaps been awareness of a ‘self’ he’s constructed in his mind...

...but Rozan has prompted him into ‘real’ self-awareness now. I won’t be surprised if Xiaoyu’s self-confidence takes a bit of collateral damage, if it hadn’t already during the rooftop showdown, and I’m not sure if Xiaoyu will be able to suck up what pride and paranoia he has left and go have that “heart-to-heart” with fake!Polka right away. 

Do you think Xiaoyu remembers much of Momoya? Whether the trauma etched Momoya into his memory or blocked him out, I’m guessing Xiaoyu’s going to be experiencing some fear either way when he and Momoya inevitably cross paths again...but if they cross paths within the week or something, Xiaoyu might be in just that bit of a more brittle metal state than he already would be. 

Speaking of Momoya... I think Agakura is the name of the organization, yeah? “Within the Agakura” from last chapter indicates as much. I think the phrasing of a couple lines just tripped me up on it; at any rate, ‘Agakura’ doesn’t appear to be an establish Japanese surname or anything. I was half-expecting Momoya’s name to be Agakura, somehow...

But that’s all pablum. Last chapter saw those ex-Agakura (or at least, ex-Agakura associate) sniper siblings asking Clarissa for work, so I’m fully expecting the snipers to be present/relevant/brought up when Momoya pays his own visit to Clarissa soon.

I’m not necessarily expecting the visit to be about the siblings’ departure (since the Agakura guy didn’t seem too concerned by it), but it wouldn’t make sense to not involve the snipers in Momoya’s visit somehow. If they’re not present for his arrival, they’ll probably have some opinions on Momoya to share with Clarissa at minimum; Momoya himself might comment on their departure if he cares to do so.

Initial impressions of Momoya? I like his character design, but you knew that. His barehanded violence reminded me a bit of Claire (as well as his chattiness and self-assurance in being the cream of the crop), but I also got vague Yakumo vibes from his abnormal sight/height/abilities maybe? 

I don’t want to pin anything down about Momoya with only his debut chapter to go on--and I’m not sure I’d be able to pin down Momoya if I tried. He appears to afford ‘respect’ to his opponents (he says he’s impressed and respects Xiaoyu for surviving; he appears willing to consider or acknowledge opponents’ skills), but I can’t say how sincere that respect is (and if sincere, in what respect; e.g. could be more along the lines of Claire’s ‘gracious’ “you’re good; not as good as me, but good by ordinary standards” type of praise).

For now, I guess I’m just going to hope Momoya isn’t going to be a character along the lines of, say...Amaya from the “As the Gods Will” manga. I’m at the very least curious to see how he fits into Agakura, exactly; whether he cares about the group’s main goals or if he’s in the group for other reasons (in before ‘because I get to kill people”). 

As for the chapter ending... my initial response to “She says we’re going to be in the news!” was a somewhat snarky, “What, more than you’ve already been?” but I realize Misaki probably means the fortune-telling shop...uh, ‘local business spotlight’ style. Er, not that the journalist isn’t clearly interested in whatever happened on the rooftop (since she was in the rubbernecking crowd)...

...so I’ll grant the journalist probably at minimum wants to interview CG about the incident last night (”did you witness anything? Do you know anything about it?”). Still, I can see the ‘eyewitness account’ interview having a secondary purpose of business advertisement; the journalist might try to convince CG to be interviewed through such reasoning. 

“You let me interview you about the incident, your fortune-telling shop gets free exposure! Paranormal activity at a building with a grisly past, and on a fortuneteller’s doorstep no less? Everyone’s gonna be talking about it! ‘Hey, you think this guy is the real deal?’ They’ll be queuing down the streets!”

...Or something like that. This is all pure conjecture. This is all also way too many words for a simple Chapter reaction post, and too much time to spend on such a post at that. 

(PS: I remember Fujimoto tweeting about having to come up with at least three new character designs, and hoo boy if the cast numbers aren’t continuing to increase. Once again, I wonder how far Narita has planned head for this story.)

[pratktcven]

love in a time of social media

love in a time of social media part one. shance. eventual nc-17. alternate universe. lance is the king of shitposts and selfies. shiro is an artist who loves his dog and fatalistic humor. somehow, they fall in love. warning! underage drinking and casual use of marijuana

.

They meet online.

Specifically, they meet on tumblr. Shiro is an artist of middling popularity and Lance is a shitposter of the highest caliber. Shiro follows Lance months before Lance follows him; indeed, Lance is unaware of Shiro's work until Shiro @'s him in a small comic.

'I couldn't resist,' Shiro types below the image. 'Thank you for the inspiration, @lances-a-lot.'

Shiro—@white_iron—has a simple art style and a sharp sense of humor that makes Lance laugh out loud. He reblogs the comic, telling his followers to check it out, and proceeds to creep on Shiro's blog. Lance's first stop is Shiro's small about section.

Hello! My name is Shiro. I am a post-grad history student and I spend my limited free time walking my dog or doodling. art tag doodles photography

Shiro's blog consists mainly of his artwork. Occasionally, Shiro will also post real-life pictures of his dog, a beautiful black and white akita with bright eyes and a dopey smile. There aren't any pictures of Shiro himself. Lance—who takes roughly a thousand selfies every day—comments on this oddity to Blue, his enormous gray long-hair.

Blue blinks at him.

"My curiosity has been piqued," Lance replies primly.

Blue blinks her big gold eyes at him again.

"Enough of your judgement!" Lance over-dramatizes. "I can follow who I want!"

Shiro's blog is twenty-four pages of self-produced content that Lance blazes through in less than an hour. There are no reblogs. Lance nearly twitches at the restraint and—after a moment—decides to check if Shiro's likes are public.

"Jackpot!" Lance crows when the page loads.

Shiro's likes are a riot of memes and shit-posts. Art references and how-to's. Nerdy history jokes. Links to academic articles. Male fitspo. Healthy recipes, juice cleanse tips, and over-indulgent foodie pics. NSFW gifs of twinks writhing open-mouthed on rumpled sheets. Pictures of space and nature. Lots of dogs. Several of Lance's selfies. More than one necromancy pun. If it is at all possible to fall in love with someone based on their likes, Lance does it.

Lance's infinite scrolling comes to a halt at half past one, when his one of his many phone alarms notifies him of the time. Lance groans, closes his browser, and hauls his butt out of his narrow bed. It takes him a couple minutes to find an acceptably clean pair of skinny jeans and an unwrinkled sweater; he hasn't done laundry for several weeks.

"After lab," Lance tells Blue as he wriggles out of his worn sweats into his socially acceptable denim. "I'll do a load tonight."

Blue flicks her tail at him, a rude gesture that Lance returns with one of his own. Blue sends him baleful glance.

"Don't look at me like that," Lance says even as he plants a kiss between Blue's mismatched ears. She lost half of her left ear in a fight before the shelter picked her off the street. "You started it."

Blue meows loudly and bats Lance's nose.

"Okay, okay, you're right. I started it." Lance presses one more kiss on his cat's skull. "Have fun bird-watching. I'll see you later."

Then—with his good-byes said—Lance grabs his notebook-laden satchel, and is out the door.

.

Lance's lab is as much of a challenge as it always is. Lance is good at math—numbers and variables are easy—but his brain refuses to wrap around the concepts of physics. It's a small miracle that Pidge is his lab partner; without her, Lance is certain he would fail.

"You're a lifesaver," Lance gushes as they leave the old building. "Let me buy you pizza to show my gratitude."

"I told Matt I'd have dinner with him," says Pidge. "His roommate is going through some sort of clean eating phase and it's driving him nuts."

"He can come," Lance says. Then, less magnanimously, "But he has to get his own slice."

Pidge rolls her eyes as she texts her older brother. Lance shoots a text to Hunk, who responds with a single thumbs up emoji. They all meet at less than ten minutes later at the off-campus pizzeria that sells by the slice. Lance gets three for himself and two for Pidge; Matt, who is the only person over the age of twenty-one, covertly buys a pitcher of beer that they pour into their small, plastic water cups.

"Sweet, sweet, processed goodness," Matt half-cries as he chews, his mouth filled with cheese, pepperoni, and grease. "How I missed you."

Lance would be more sympathetic to Matt's dilemma if the man hadn't embarrassed him in a game of beer pong at a sorority the week before. Lance can't prove it, but he knows in his heart of hearts that Matt cheated. Nobody beats Lance at beer pong, okay. Nobody.

"That bad?" Pidge grins.

"You have no idea," Matt bemoans. "Like—Takashi's a great dude, don't get me wrong—but when I found him on Craig's List I was more worried about being murdered in my sleep than I was about weird diet habits. Turns out I should have been more worried about the diet habits. Our fridge is filled with kale. Kale, Kit-Kat. From the farmer's market."

"Kale is really good for you," Hunk interjects.

"That's what Takashi said," Matt mutters. "I don't know how much longer I can go on like this."

"Hasn't it only been three days—"

"An eternity—"

Lance laughs at Matt's plight and, once dinner is finished and the four of them part ways, he takes out his phone to tweet about the roundabout retribution.

Lance @lancesalot #revenge is best served blanched. or in a smoothie. #kale #healthyliving #karma

.

It's a little past nine when Lance returns to his apartment. His roommate, Rolo, and his ambiguously defined girlfriend/partner-in-crime, Nyma, are sitting on the couch sharing a joint. A bag of popcorn is ready on the battered coffee table and the television is playing an old nineties buddy-cop flick.

"Hey," Rolo says, smoke curling upwards from his mouth. "Wanna join?"

"Nah." Lance turns down the proffered joint with a shrug. "Gotta take my laundry down. You feed Blue?"

"Like she'd let me forget."

Blue—who is perched on the windowsill—releases a single, plaintive meow. She has no problems letting anyone know what she wants and when she wants it, especially when it comes to being fed.

"Thanks man."

"De nada."

It doesn't take Lance long to gather his dirty clothing and stuff it into his hamper. He takes it all to the basement, throws a few loads in, and settles into one of the old armchairs that have accumulated in the corner. He knows that he should read ahead for his classes, but the siren song of social media grips him. An internal debate rages inside him for all of three seconds before he opens his tumblr account.

Lance barely feels the twinge of guilt.

There are several asks—all anonymous, as per usual—and one unread message. Lance is a little surprised by the latter; after a few weird encounters, he changed his setting so that he could only receive messages from people he followed. He clicks on the conversation first.

white_iron Thanks for the follow! I'm really flattered. You're one of my favorite blogs.

Lance smiles at the message.

lances-a-lot no problem!!! ur art was super funny i laughed at everything pretty sure my cat thinks i'm crazy now

After hitting send, Lance plugs in his chunky headphones into the audio jack. He has a new chillwave playlist that Pidge gave him, but he knows that if he doesn't give Tycho his full attention Pidge may murder him. So instead, Lance pulls up his trusted Rihanna compilation and double clicks on the first song. He bops his head in time with the beat and opens his asks, quickly answering his anons.

Several chart-toppers later, a small ping interrupts Rihanna's plea for the dj to turn the music up. Lance looks at the vertical line of icons on the side of the page and sees that he has another message from Shiro. Lance opens the conversation immediately and reads:

white_iron My dog already knows I'm crazy.

white_iron sent a photo post.

A small preview image has been loaded into the conversation. It is a cartoon version of Shiro's akita, her expression morphed into one of extreme judgement. Her eyebrows—twin dots of white on her dark face—are low over her big eyes and her ruff is fattened comically around her muzzle. Lance cannot help but laugh at the exaggerated accuracy and immediately reblog it.''

lances-a-lot OMG THATS FANTASTIC
 THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT BLUE DOES

white_iron Stare into the depths of your decrepit soul and find you wanting?

lances-a-lot haha, yes! blue acts like i dont spoil her rotten shes such a princess

white_iron I definitely know how that goes. Bee has three dog beds, but she insists on sleeping in my bed or in my roommate's.

lances-a-lot blue has peed in every. single. bed i bought for her i stopped trying after awhile it was getting to be an expensive exercise in futility

white_iron Two words. Dog toys.

Lance talks to Shiro for the next couple of hours while his laundry finishes. Mostly, they swap stories about their pets and commiserate about their less than desirable—if not inadvertently hilarious—behavior. Lance even tells Shiro about how he rescued Blue. In turn, Shiro talks about the process he had to go through to adopt Bee. Shiro mentions that Bee is a service dog; what for, he does not say.

Don't be that asshole, Lance reminds himself as the topic wanes. His comfort is more important than your curiosity.

Lance is having such a good time talking to Shiro that he barely notices midnight pass. In fact, if it weren't for the enormous, jaw-cracking yawn that his body produces, Lance would not have noticed at all.

lances-a-lot dude i just noticed what time it was like i could seriously talk about blue forever but laundry sleep ADULTING i have calc at 8 am, ugh kill me now

white_iron Tell me about it. I have to TA an 8 a.m. class.

There is a small pause. Lance gnaws on his bottom lip as he watches the ellipsis that indicates typing flicker in and out of existence.

white_iron Talk to you tomorrow?

Lance bites down harder on his lip. Normally, he would send back a quick affirmation before logging off, but his interaction with Shiro feels different than the interactions he's had in the past. Their chemistry is undeniable and their conversation never felt flat or stilted. Yet while Lance knows he's been lowkey flirting with Shiro, he cannot be sure if Shiro has been flirting back.

Fuck it, Lance thinks as he gathers all his courage and sets his fingers back on the keyboard. He can feel how warm his cheeks are. Just do it.

lances-a-lot its a date ;)

After he sends the message, Lance closes his laptop and jumps off the armchair. He feels jittery and unsure, yet also oddly hopeful that maybe this time—for the first time—his interest won't be a mistake.

.