#so i know not all of this necessarily is coherent or follows a red string but yeah

[yappielestappie]

hi it’s me again (symbolism anon) this time to yell at you/with you about how absolutely HILARIOUS the inchident is to me. like, regardless of the original video in all its vine core glory, the background story behind it is legitimately so so funny. the fact that they were both being track menaces (fork found in kitchen) pushing each other on track, i can easily visualise. but then enter babyface!charles being a menace pushing max off track AFTER max had already won the race into a puddle of water. i emphasise on this, because in an interview charles says the water was “probably arriving at his hips” and that is what’s HYSTERICAL to me, the fact that he pushed his opponent out of pure pettiness into a huge puddle only to then shrug it off on camera as a simple incident.

best part of the whole thing: they were both disqualified from the race after. legendary origin story of you ask me, and again without even touching on their perception of the inchident now. (again, I could go on.)

oh again i ENCOURAGE you to go on ...

listen the inchident gained fame for funny pronunciation and bieber-hair, but it is so much deeper. the fact that there had been overtakes on track that charles deemed unfair (even max said in that one quote how it was "a bit defensively" which in fairness we all know means he drove a bit like a maniac), the fact that charles pushed him on track before, overtook him, had a battle of gestures on track too (we know max was already fuming by that point and charles was already petty by this point) and then max winning? taking the lead back and charlie pushing him off?! AFTER the flag? into a puddle? the pettiest move ever made in the history of men?

there is something so absolutely hilarious about charles being the casual little menace that he is, shrugging it off, seemingly getting away with it to a point because yep he got disqualified BUT SO DID MAX so no win taken from him. cause max has always been the one to beat. even to this day, the way even bryan tends to give him max' lap times (and yes he is leading the championship so i get it in theory blablabla but still), the way it is still all about beating max.

it is hands down also why i think max over the years learned how to race charles. i think it is max who has matured, truly. like yes charles is a grown man now too and probably will take less risks to a degree but i think the reason they did not crash or pull more insane moves is mostly MAX maturing. as in i have no clue what conversation went down post austria 2019 but i am certain whatever charles unleashed on max put the fear of god in that man cause he did not pull something like that after, not to that capacity and i truly think it's cause max understands one thing about charles: he WILL rather end both their races than lose out to max. he WILL not hesitate to send them both flying and he will be absolutely unhinged battling max the way he always has been.

... for what is a rival if not a crush you are mad about having?

[ladylynse]

Part 7 [FF | AO3] of Whirlwind: Jake should be used to ominous predictions by now. Randy should know better than to blindly follow McFist. Adrien should think twice before sneaking away. And Danny should’ve expected something like this when he got that phone call. (Secret Quartet crossover)

(previous | timeline post)

-|-

6:48 PM

Susan leaned against the rough brick of the building behind her, trying and failing to stop trembling.

She could still hear his voice in her head, screaming at her, commanding her, and she wasn’t convinced everything was imagined.

This all felt real enough, now that she was back on the ground, but while she’d been in the air….

She sucked in another deep breath and held it, trying to calm the rapid beating of her heart. It was hard to hear anything above the blood pounding in her ears except the phantom voice in her head. She was on the ground again, she was herself again, but she wasn’t…. She couldn’t….

Susan pried the fingers of her right hand off her necklace. She’d been clutching it so tightly that angry red lines were carved into her palm. Part of her wanted to throw the necklace away and see if that broke his hold over her, but she couldn’t make her hands move, not even to simply touch the clasp.

What had she done?

She’d been angry. She’d been foolish. And now…. Now, she might endanger her family. That was the deal she’d made. She hadn’t…. She hadn’t been thinking. She knew better than to dabble in magic like this. There was no fix for the way she was, the fact that she didn’t have the powers that the rest of her family did, but—

But for a moment, when she’d realized it could be given to her, she’d wanted it more than anything else.

She should have never agreed.

How could she have agreed when her own son was the American Dragon? He was undeniably one of the heroes of the NYC. She couldn’t just ignore that fact. She couldn’t talk her way around it, like she had with Danny Phantom and the new Ninja hero. And she didn’t need to know who Chat Noir was to know that she shouldn’t have agreed to steal anything from him, either. It was easy to see all of that now, but in the moment when he’d asked her—

It hadn’t seemed like refusal would be a better option. It hadn’t seemed like an option at all. There had only been agreement. That she’d been able to argue as much as she had, to use his magic to unleash her birthright, her bloodright, when it should have remained forever locked away—

It shouldn’t have been something to consider.

She’d come to terms with being powerless.

She was happy.

So why had she—?

Susan reached up and fisted the hair on top of her head, trying to silence the last vestiges of Hawk Moth’s voice. She could still feel his anger—at her, at Chat Noir, at Phantom and the Ninja. He didn’t know about Jake yet, but subtle was one thing her son was not. The American Dragon would be here soon enough, ready to fight her, as he should. It was his duty to protect the magical creatures of this country, to keep their secret—

“What have I done?” Susan whispered. She knew how prestigious this event had been. She knew there would be cameras, that everything that had happened would be plastered on the evening’s news and the morning paper unless they could find a way to contain it. This wouldn’t be one voice that was easily dismissed, no seemingly wild claim made by a man who had cried wolf before.

She’d offered Rotwood the proof he so dearly wanted that dragons were very much real, and Phantom being back in the city would merely give him another opportunity to prove the existence of ghosts.

She had to get away. She had to leave. She couldn’t stay here. That would put Jake in danger. That would put all of them in danger.

Distance might break the bond she’d forged with Hawk Moth. She had to try. She had to…to….

Her feet wouldn’t move.

They wouldn’t be fast enough, anyway. She wanted to fly, to feel the wind beneath her wings again, to feel what she’d been missing out on for so long, to keep putting all those lessons from childhood into practice, all those long hours of helping Jake and Haley and—

“No,” moaned Susan, closing her eyes and sliding down the wall so that she could curl into a ball. No one was around, no one had been there to see her change back, but it felt like the eyes of the world were on her. Staring. Demanding. Trying to call Dracona back out.

She couldn’t fight off Hawk Moth forever.

It was easier when she was like this, when she wasn’t transformed. It was…quieter. But she was still tied to him. She could almost feel the strings that bound her to him, the way he was ready to have her dance like a marionette, and she didn’t know how to cut herself free.

Susan wanted to scream, but all that came out was a sob.

-|-

6:59 PM

Adrien wasn’t having much luck. Well, no one had recognized him and started to gush over Adrien Agreste, which was a plus, but the Gabriel brand wasn’t as well known over here, and he kept his hood up. He was more likely to be spotted by Nathalie or the Gorilla than by a random fan. The fact that he wasn’t—so far, at least—was lucky.

The fact that he couldn’t hear anything definitive about the dragon was not.

As far as he could tell, it had soared overhead, rounded a corner, and never come back. Adrien had made his way towards that corner—it was the same building where he’d last seen the dragon—but while some people seemed to be waiting expectantly for the dragon to come back, most thought the show was over.

Because that’s all people thought this was.

A show.

Evidently, news of the regular attacks in Paris had not reached the media here—at least not in a form that anyone believed.

Adrien stayed well away from any authority figures, not wanting to give anyone reason to look at him twice. If the dragon came back, or if anything else interesting came up, he’d know soon enough. Most shouts might not be coherent above the general babble of the crowd, but he knew how word could spread.

Eventually, reluctant though he was to leave the relative safety of the crowds, he widened his search. While some people were still coming and crowding as close to the police tape as they could, others were trickling away. He trailed behind some people leaving who had only ever been curious bystanders, judging by their casual dress, and tried to look for the dragon without making it obvious that he was looking for anything.

“Stop,” Plagg finally whispered into his ear, catching something Adrien could not. “I can feel something.”

Adrien couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but he stepped off to the side and pulled out his phone. He held it up to his ear and said, “There’s nothing here.”

“You just don’t know what you’re looking for.”

He was looking for signs of a dragon, and those were conspicuously absent. No claw marks in the pavement, no one screaming or even running away from something, no glint of light off a fallen scale…. Not that he’d necessarily see anything on that front. It was dusk. Sooner rather than later, the streetlights would flick on, regardless of the light pollution that gave the clouds above a soft orangey glow.

Adrien was better off paying attention to Plagg’s nose—or whatever sense the kwami was using—than to his eyes.

“There’s someone here,” Plagg continued. “Nearby. And someone else, too, from that shop. Maybe a few of them. Higher up, maybe. It’s hard to tell. They’re farther away.” There was a pause. “There’s also a pizza place down the street, if you could get me some cheese—”

“I promise I’ll go back to the hotel after this,” Adrien interrupted. Though he wouldn’t mind getting something to eat, he doubted he had enough money on him for a slice of pizza. “Then we can both eat supper. Nathalie will have arranged something for me.”

He didn’t add that Nathalie must have noticed he was gone by now. His father wouldn’t have, being busy as he was, but Nathalie and the Gorilla—

Someone knocked into him, mumbled sorry, and kept walking. With Plagg’s claws suddenly digging into his neck, Adrien turned to get a better look at the retreating woman. He hadn’t been paying enough attention to recognize her as she’d walked by, but she wasn’t wearing a coat despite the rapidly cooling air, and he recognized her uniform. “She’s from the catering company.”

He expected Plagg to ask him to follow her to try to get some cheese. Instead, Plagg hissed, “Be careful.”

“But she’s from the catering company.” He shoved his phone back into his pocket, paused just long enough to confirm that the woman had walked out of a now-empty alley, and started to tail her.

“That’s no reason to follow her.”

It was…odd of Plagg to point that out. Plagg took more risks than Adrien would ever dare, and this was hardly foolhardy. If she happened to notice him, he could let her know who he was and ask after her well-being, pretend that he wanted—

“Stop it,” Plagg tried again, and Adrien hissed through his teeth as Plagg dug in his claws again. “You shouldn’t— Stop. This is a bad idea. We shouldn’t get mixed up in this.”

“We’re already mixed up in this,” Adrien murmured, “whether you like it or not. Hawk Moth is—”

“This isn’t just about Hawk Moth! That woman…. She’s…she’s with the dragons. And the others are close. I know they are. I can feel them. They aren’t…. Adrien, let her go.”

Adrien sighed, stopped to lean against a lamppost, and pulled out his phone just as the woman glanced over her shoulder at him. He kept his head down and she turned away, but he still couldn’t remember seeing her.

And she didn’t look remotely dragon-ish.

“The thing about dragons,” Plagg continued quietly, thankfully retracting his claws now that Adrien had stopped, “is that you can’t ordinarily pick them out of a crowd.”

“Plagg, they’re dragons.”

“And the thing that dragons don’t want humans to know is that they can also look like ordinary people.”

“What?”

“I don’t…. I didn’t want to get you into trouble by telling you this, but you need to know. I think that woman is a dragon. Something…something about her makes my fur stand up. And her allies are going to look just as human.”

“Wait, so those people in that electronics shop…?”

“I’d bet my last wheel of camembert on it.”

Perfect. Another thing Plagg didn’t do lightly. “So the dragon we saw might not even be an akuma. This might not be Hawk Moth after all. The Critic’s akuma—”

“I don’t know. The dragons…. They wouldn’t want this to happen. It’s too public. Something’s wrong. And, no, I don’t know how the Ninja fits into it.”

“What about the phantom?”

“I’m a good guy, I swear.”

Adrien jumped away from the voice, ducking as he did so, but even once he’d found his feet again and looked up and around, he couldn’t see anything. Plagg fell silent, though Adrien could still feel his claws digging into his neck. How had Phantom found him? How could he have known to come back here? To even look here, blocks from where he’d snatched Adrien away the first time?

And how had he managed to find Adrien, be so confident that he had found him, to talk to him when he wasn’t transformed?

It wasn’t comforting to know that Plagg couldn’t give him advance warning, either. Adrien doubted he’d have kept silent if he’d sensed Phantom’s presence. Plagg had said they all smelled different—or felt different, whatever he really meant, since Adrien wasn’t sure—but what if Phantom’s different had only ever been an absence? An absence Plagg couldn’t notice unless he was looking for it?

“Look, I’m sorry, really. Please don’t run or scream or anything.”

The voice was still coming from the direction of the lamppost, near where Adrien had been standing seconds before, and there was still no one in sight.

Phantom’s a ghost, Plagg had said. And Adrien knew Phantom could become invisible—that’s how he’d gotten the jump on him in the first place—but it was still unnerving. At least when he and Ladybug had fought Vanisher, she couldn’t fly or move through solid objects.

“I’m not going to hurt you, I swear.”

“I can’t even see you,” Adrien said quietly, “so why should I trust a word you say to me now?” He would’ve liked to feign ignorance, to pretend he had no idea what Phantom was talking about, but it was far too late for that. He’d reacted, getting ready to fight instead of just run, and he had no idea how long Phantom had been there, listening to him and Plagg, before deciding to jump in and join the conversation.

“I don’t expect you to trust me right away.” The voice was closer to him now. Quieter. “I just…. I don’t know where the cameras are here. I don’t want to be the one to give the rest of the world undeniable proof that ghosts exist, since my friend says no one believes the stories that come out of my hometown and he’d like to keep it that way. That’s why I’m staying invisible. Unless you want to duck into the alley, and then I can crouch behind the dumpster or something.”

Like he was going to let Phantom lure him into the alley—especially if Plagg was right about the lady from before being a dragon.

“C’mon, Chat Noir,” Phantom said, dropping his voice so much that Adrien could barely hear it above the traffic, “just hear me out, please. I screwed up. I’m sorry. I…. I shouldn’t have attacked you. My friend, he, um, knows about your ring, and what it lets you do. He panicked when he saw you. He’d gotten this prophecy from a couple of oracles and…. It’s a long story. Just, we messed up. We need to fix this. And we need your help. The Ninja says you seem to know what’s going on when it comes to these butterflies.”

“You know the Ninja?”

“Um. Kinda. Not well. We’ve only just met. I’m not from here. Neither is he, so he doesn’t know my friend, either.”

Adrien didn’t need Plagg to stick a single warning claw into his neck to know that he had to watch what he asked and how he asked it. “Who is your friend?” He already knew the answer. Plagg already knew the answer. But they needed to know what Phantom was going to tell them.

“He’s the American Dragon. Not, uh, the dragon that’s been terrorizing people, I promise. He wants to stop that. We both do. We’re just not sure how. The Ninja…. He said he saw what happened. The butterfly that caused her to change into a dragon.”

“He knows where the akuma’s hiding.” That was a relief. It would save Adrien precious time if he didn’t have to search for it and risk guessing incorrectly. It might still take him long enough to get it, of course, but—

“That’s what you call them? Akumas?”

“That’s how Hawk Moth changes people.” Even if Phantom wasn’t on his side, telling him that much wouldn’t put Adrien in any more danger than he was already. Whether or not Phantom was working with Hawk Moth and pretending otherwise, he already knew Adrien’s identity, and that was the more pressing issue. He already knew Adrien’s Miraculous was his ring, too. If he decided to steal it, Adrien wasn’t sure he could stop him.

“Will you help us stop him? Please? Call a truce for now, even if you don’t trust us more than you have to?”

He wanted to say no. He wanted to throw Phantom’s apology back in his face, to say that it wasn’t that simple to come back from practically trying to kill someone.

But he’d rather have Phantom as an ally than as an enemy, and it sounded like the Ninja was willing to work with him. Not that Adrien really knew the Ninja well enough to be trusting his judgement like this, but Ladybug wasn’t here, and Adrien could use the help.

Besides, from what Adrien now knew, Hawk Moth likely had recalled the Critic’s akuma and transferred its power to this one. Adrien wasn’t wholly sure if Hawk Moth could have a dormant akuma and an active one at the same time—Ladybug had never let another akuma go free without cleansing it—but he doubted the akuma would be as powerful as this one seemed to be if Hawk Moth was capable of that.

“I want to meet your friends before I agree to anything,” Adrien said, and Plagg let out a loud sigh.

“Then I want some camembert first. I’m hungry.”

Adrien didn’t need to see Phantom to guess his reaction; he wouldn’t have heard Plagg speak before unless he had been listening in on the conversation for a while. Adrien fixed a small smile on his face, though it was arguably more of a smirk than something suitably apologetic. “Yes, I should get some camembert for Plagg first.”

“That’s your…cat, right?”

“One of my best friends.” Adrien wasn’t about to explain what a kwami was to a ghost, especially one he didn’t completely trust.

“Right. Okay. Um. If you’ll let me, I’ll help you get it. I can make you invisible and intangible, too, as long as I’m touching you. That’ll probably be faster, especially with these crowds. We can even fly to wherever it is and then catch up with the Am Drag and the Ninja.”

Adrien frowned. “So in other words, trust you completely?”

“Oh. Right.” There was a pause, and then he felt an invisible hand pressing something into his own. “This is a Fenton Phone. It’ll let us communicate. Please actually wear it and, um, try not to break it. Then, when you’ve fed your cat, we can meet up and figure this out. Please?”

“I’ll call you when I’m ready,” Adrien said, curling his fingers around the strange earpiece. “If you want me to trust you, then you can trust me to do that and not try to follow me. Deal?”

“Deal,” Phantom agreed, but he didn’t sound happy about it. That was fine; Adrien didn’t particularly care if he was happy about it. He cared that Phantom didn’t learn more about him than he already had until he was ready to reciprocate.

Of course, Adrien wouldn’t know right away if Phantom stuck to their deal, not if Plagg couldn’t necessarily tell him, but he had to take risks if he was going to beat Hawk Moth this time, and this was a small enough place to start.

-|-

7:05 PM

“Yeah, that’s her,” Randy said as he passed Jake’s cell phone back to him. “That’s even the necklace she was wearing.”

Great.

Jake would’ve liked, just this once, for this all to be a big misunderstanding. For the new dragon to be someone else, as opposed to someone who knew everything about real dragons and therefore had more knowledge about how they flew than anyone who didn’t have a job or hobby related to flight. (Before he’d ever met Rotwood, he might’ve worried about people who actually believed in dragons, but he was fairly sure that no one who believed in dragons knew anything about them, at least not if they were reading the same books as Rotwood. He had far more reason to worry about ornithologists or biologists with niche interests or someone who otherwise devoted a lot of time to studying flying dinosaurs and the like.)

At least meeting up with Randy hadn’t been any trouble. He could look on the bright side, right? Just because that was the only bright side, didn’t mean he should ignore it entirely.

“I need to warn the others.” He didn’t know how he was going to break this news. His mom knew how important maintaining secrecy was for the magical world. He didn’t know what would have made her flaunt the existence of magic—the existence of dragons—so flagrantly. When she didn’t even want to tell his dad….

“Need help? If you show me more pictures, I can help you look for them in the crowd.”

Jake shook his head. “Nah, I can just phone Fu, and he’ll pass it on. Just….”

“It’s hard?” Randy guessed. Jake blinked, and Randy nodded. “Yeah, I know what it’s like to have someone you care about be stanked. It sucks.”

Jake frowned. He wasn’t sure what exactly stanked was, but— “That’s not what this is.”

“It’s pretty close. Except the dragon lady hasn’t tried to cause chaos, which is a point in your mom’s favour.”

Right. There was that, too. Chat Noir might not be the bad guy Jake had thought he was, but it was hard to misinterpret beware of the butterflies. And while exposure of the magical world, of the existence of dragons, was bad, it was not as bad as it arguably could be. There wasn’t mass panic and people getting hurt in the rush to get away. More reporters weren’t arriving by the minute to report on this story. No one—that he’d heard, at least—was doing what Rotwood would’ve done and loudly proclaimed that they had all seen a real, live dragon.

That was…odd.

Particularly for something that had warranted a prophecy from the twins and which apparently required outside help.

And, clearly, telling more people the truth about dragons.

At least Randy had taken it well. And he had some magical artefacts on him that he was clearly supposed to have. Jake was sure that would help his case when all of this was over and he got another earful from Gramps. He was definitely going to need to check out Norrisville in the future, though.

“Just…gimme a minute, okay?” Randy nodded, so Jake flipped his phone back open and dialled Fu’s number as he walked a short distance away. It didn’t really matter—there were too many people around for this conversation to be private—but pretending gave some semblance of comfort right now. The upside was, no one else who overheard it would understand enough for it to be dangerous.

“What’s going on, kid?”

“It’s Mom.” Jake didn’t know how to sugarcoat it. He didn’t know if he should. “The…the dragon on the news.”

He expected anything from denial to a joke to a demand for clarification, but he got silence instead.

“You still there?”

“Hold on a sec.” There was shuffling and static, the indistinct murmur of Fu’s voice, a roar of wind, and then, “We’ve got you on speaker. You wanna repeat that?”

“It’s Mom,” he said again. He knew Haley would have met up with the others by now, and he could imagine her reaction more easily than G’s; she’d be all wide eyes and slightly open-mouthed, might even gasp in denial, but Gramps wouldn’t react so openly. He’d go still, pressing his lips together and thinking hard before parting them.

“The magic skipped her generation,” Haley whispered. Jake could barely hear her. He might not have made it out if he hadn’t known she might say that. At least her saying it at all meant they were hunkered down safely on their end. They could speak more freely than he could.

“I know, but…. I got confirmation, okay? My…friend. Randy. He saw the whole thing. It was a butterfly.”

Silence on the other end of the line again. He wondered if he could have prevented this if he’d been able to be more specific when he’d talked to her earlier. If he’d had a chance to properly warn her, to tell her about Sara’s prophecy and the butterflies and not just about Chat Noir, would she still have been targeted? Had she even been targeted, or was it just random chance that she’d—?

Random would be better.

A target meant this Hawk Moth person Randy had told him about knew she was special. Knew about her connections to the dragons and to magic, if not that she’d been born into the magical world. Of course, even if Hawk Moth hadn’t known all that, there was no guarantee they still didn’t know all that, and—

“How do we stop her?”

“We need her necklace. That’s where it landed. But we’ll need to find her first. I don’t know where she is. I haven’t seen her, and the dragon’s gone.”

“I’ll call my contacts,” Fu said, “and put out the word to avoid this stretch of town.”

“Tell them to avoid Mom, too. Just in case. I…. She might not be thinking clearly.” If she was thinking clearly, she wouldn’t have done any of this. “Trixie and Spud are going to try to stop Rotwood, but he was coming here, too, and….” And did that really matter now? Now that there was footage from multiple news stations showing a dragon? The fact that some people thought it was a planned stunt was great, but not everyone was going to buy that. “I don’t know what to do.”

“You must continue to be cautious, young dragon,” Gramps said. “Haley and Fu will meet with you and your friends. I will continue to search for Susan on my own. Let me know whatever else you are able to discover immediately.”

“You trust your new friends, kid?” Fu asked.

“I….” They hadn’t questioned the fact that he’d mentioned Randy and not Danny, but clearly they hadn’t missed it. “Yeah. Randy’s cool. It’ll be fine. It’s just….” There were too many people around for Fu to talk freely if he came here. “You should stay with Gramps. All of you. It’s too crowded here.”

“I’m not staying behind,” Haley said immediately. “I can help. Let me help. No one’s going to suspect me! I’m too cute and innocent-looking.” There was a slight pause, but before he could spit out a denial, she added, “Please. This is Mom. I…I need to do this, Jake.”

How was he supposed to refuse her that?

“Fine.” He was going to regret this. He could regret it later. “Meet me at—” Jake broke off and looked around. Which was the least crowded place nearby? He gave her the street corner and then added, “But you should really stay with G, Fu. You’re gonna be a lot more help to us if you can be yourself.” Fu’s sense of smell wasn’t great, whatever he pretended, and having to act like a dog all night would be torturous for him. “Please?”

“Copy that. I’ll run interference and do what I can behind the scenes. But if you need anything, you call, capiche? I’ve been working on my bark. You don’t need to bench me for that.”

“Thanks, Fu. You guys take care of yourselves. Gramps—”

“You are the American Dragon, young one. I will not always question your judgement.”

Right. He’d just question it most of the time. Namely, whenever he assumed Jake was making the wrong call. “One more thing. The kid who came into the shop today? With the ring? He’s called Chat Noir. And he’s not working with this Hawk Moth person. The one with the butterflies. He’s on our side. Or he will be, if we can convince him we’re really supposed to be on his. I haven’t talked to him yet, but I trust that my friends made the right call on this. So if you see him, help out, okay? We were wrong. He’s not the bad guy.”

Jake heard some low muttering in Chinese that would have been a lot worse if Gramps hadn’t just said that he wasn’t always going to question Jake’s judgement.

“And this probably doesn’t matter too much considering the circumstances, but Danny kinda told Randy our family secret.”

Now there was yelling.

More consequences to deal with later.

“Yo, I’ve gotta split. I’ll see you when you get here, Haley!” He flipped his phone closed, silencing the thundering curses in a language he still barely understood. He tapped the Fenton Phone Randy had given him earlier as he walked back towards Randy and said, “Hey, Phantom, you got anything?”

“I found our cat friend. Gave him a Fenton Phone. Not sure if he’s wearing yet. He’ll call us when he’s ready to meet up.” There was a pause. “I promised not to follow him.”

“So you’re following him?”

“I thought about it,” Danny admitted, “but we need him, so no. Trust is a two-way street, and we really need to earn it.”

“Good call. I checked in with the others. Haley’s gonna join us. Haven’t heard from Trixie or Spud yet, so they’re probably still busy with Rotwood.”

“Think they’ll need help?”

“They’ll shout if they do. Until then, we’ve got bigger fish to fry. You heading back now or still scouting?”

“I’ll keep searching till we hear from Chat Noir.”

“Just be careful, Phantom. We don’t know what else this Hawk Moth has up their sleeve.”

Danny said something—acknowledgement or agreement—before signing off, and Jake reached Randy again and filled him in. He knew he was lucky to have friends helping with him with this. He knew he was lucky, even if it didn’t really seem like it right now, that Sara had given him the warnings she could. He knew he was very lucky that Chat Noir was even considering helping them after what they’d done.

But even if they found his mom and figured out a way to help her, even if Randy and Chat Noir swore not to say anything about the truth about dragons, he didn’t know how to fix the very obvious exposure of the magical world to everyone else. Even if people didn’t believe it right away, when it came out that this wasn’t a stunt…. They couldn’t just mindwipe the entire crowd and destroy everyone’s footage. There wasn’t an easy way to fix this.

He wasn’t even sure if it was something that could be fixed.

Protecting the magical world was one of the main things he was supposed to do, and he’d failed spectacularly.

The Dragon Council would take his powers away after this for sure, and Haley would be stuck with the responsibilities of the American Dragon whether or not she was ready, and—

And he didn’t know what the Dragon Council would do to his friends.

Or to everyone else who’d seen proof of magical creatures and now believed in them.

He’d never been told what happened when a dragon messed up this badly. He wasn’t even sure if anyone else ever had. All he knew was that, if he couldn’t fix this and the Dragon Council had to step in, the measures would be…extreme. It made his gut twist just thinking about it. If he couldn’t figure out how to contain this and it kept spiralling out of control—

He had to figure out how to fix this.

He had to.

For everyone else’s sake, not just his own.

(see more fics | next)

[supertransural]

My Bloody Valentine, what the hell

Okay. I know I'm probably not writing a hot take with this one, but I just needed to get all my tangled up thoughts out in the form of coherent strings of words ("coherent" is debatable as you'll probably find out if you read this entire thing).

So here I was, watching a random commentary video, and this scene from 5x14 My Bloody Valentine was included in it:

Now that. That's a bi flag. We know how much care set designers put into the details of the scenes we see. This is an episode centered around love. The cupid here talks about "Love", as in, the broad term. The "all-encompassing" term, if you will. He also says he "loves love", which I personally interpret as "in all its shapes and forms", and I don't believe that interpretation of what the cupid is saying is that far-fetched, after all, he kind of is Love (with a capital L). So what does that scene mean?

Let's find out.

First of all, I just feel like I should mention that I think pansexuality would be a better way to "represent" that sort of sentiment around what Love is, but if I'm not mistaken, the pansexual flag was created after this episode aired, and even if the word "pansexual" has existed for a pretty long time in various studies and areas (usually in psychology, if I understand correctly?), and has been used in LGBTQ+ spaces for a while too, it's still not as "commonly known" in the day-to-day life of cishet people, at least not in the same way that being bi is.

That being said, here's one more little nugget before I do a quick analysis of the scene. The idea of being bi is probably the closest thing that any not-very-informed-but-supportive-ish cishet person could think of if they wanted to relate the concept of "love for the sheer sake of love, having love for anyone, love of the masses" to actual characters and how they're able to love their peers (or more accurately, which peers). It's not so surprising to me that this would be the flag chosen by set designers when trying to pass on the message of "this interaction is about love as a general concept, this cupid is love, this cupid loves everyone, and will bless any couple, and yeah in that scene two out of the three characters (other than the cupid himself) stand in front of that light, no reason haha". It makes sense.

Now, onto the actual substance of this.

First of all, because it's funny, Dean why are you literally staring at this cupid's dick, honestly, what the fuck, Sam is averting his eyes (good call), Cas looks like he's only interested in analyzing the cupid's face (more on that later) and nothing else, why are you staring downwards why why why and why (hello, jacting choices). Second of all, because it's funny too, why do you look slightly flustered, in an oh-god-this-is-not-a-drill-shit-oh-god-fuck-embarrassed way? I mean Sam looks like he's been to hell and back, but not flustered.

It's also specifically interesting to see both Cas and Dean being the ones standing together in front of that light. It happens just a little while before, right here:

They're. Staring at a cupid, whose job it is to bless couples, who's Love incarnate, he hugged these two idiots first before getting to Sam, which means something and I'm not exactly sure what but, if you still have braincells (unlike me) please tell me what you conclude of those facts compiled together.

In this particular scene, I don't think the flag is actually a pointer to specific characters being bi, I think it's more of a broad "yeah these guys love a little different" kind of thing. For example, we see Cas in front of that light a lot.

This is season 5, he's barely starting to understand what emotions are, but he's already faithful to Dean and his cause, he's beginning to get what liking things, what caring means. He doesn't figure it all out until way later (in my personal opinion, that is. And I mean... 15x18 anyone?) no, at that point he's driven by things like want, need, yeah, I'll say it, lust, or simple candid curiosity. But that ties into the idea that right now, in that episode, Cas' understanding of "Love" is very broad. He doesn't understand details yet, the only detail he knows is Dean vs the World, and all he gets about that is "the world matters to Dean, there's probably a reason for that, if I follow him around enough I'll probably discover it, and I trust him enough to lead me there". He's still an angel, fairly through and through. He's curious, though.

Refer back to that previous gif, Cas is watching with acute interest what that cupid is doing. Prior to this scene, he's known the "mission" that cupids uphold for thousands of years, but I doubt he's ever really looked at it with the help of the lens of actual humans (read: Dean). He's interested, this cupid's job is to create love, and that seems to be something inherently tied to what makes his charge... himself. That much he knows. Again, probably not in detail, probably not that precisely, but he's got a sense that this cupid represents something he doesn't know and hasn't felt before, yet something Dean and Sam are accustomed to, and driven by. So yeah, he's curious.

Now here's the thing. We see Dean standing in front of that light, both alone, with the cupid, and with Cas. On several occasions.

(something something something bi flag in the background something something something character centered around love something something something the word "dick" something something something what the fuck CW)

We see the cupid standing in front of the light (scroll back up), and we see Cas in front of the light, with the cupid, alone, and with Dean. What about Sam?

...Yeah, no. I replayed that scene several times and I didn't find one instance where we see Sam even remotely lighted by that flag. And when I say remotely, I mean like this:

The light being somewhat noticeable in the background. Even when we see Sam after he moves a bit, like so:

The light is nowhere to be seen. That's after the cupid's left too, so it makes sense the flag wouldn't be relevant anymore: the entity that it represents isn't there to give it meaning anymore. I mean, during that entire scene Sam's a bit (gross understatement, I know) of a background character, but that's simply because he's not the main focus of what the cupid and the flag mean.

Dean though. Dean's a focus alright. No one can ever convince me otherwise, he's bi. That's just a fact at this point. But that's not all the flag and the cupid mean when relating to him here. He's beginning to form a type of bond with Cas, albeit small. He's starting to open up a door that he's never really noticed before: the one that lets people other than blood relatives (or close runner-ups like Bobby) in. And he's facing that head on, like how he's facing the cupid. Both he and Cas do that actually, in their own way. They're looking straight into the eyes of the unknown (Cas literally looks into the eyes of the cupid): for Cas it's this strange foreign thing called emotion, and for Dean it's letting a known emotion be directed at someone new. They're the ones that talk to the cupid, not Sam, because they have things to be curious or apprehensive about, in the context of love (or different love).

They stand in the highlight of that flag, because they're the ones discovering new things (hello, 10x16 speech, yes I'm relating a random scene with a funny light to a speech 5 seasons later, leave me be, I'm insane) and not Sam, who's for one: human, so he already knows what love is, and two: way more in touch with his feelings than his brother. Basically, the concept of Love being something strange, unknown, new, different, scary, worth punching it in the face for, deserving of focused study, take your pick, doesn't really apply to him.

How could I relate this to destiel you ask? Very easily, I say. This, theydies and gentlethems, is a representation of the first step both Cas and Dean take towards each other. A toe in the waters of a frightening and captivating new thing. And again, they face it in a really direct manner.

That is... Right up until the cupid mentions John and Mary. That's when it goes downhill and we understand that whatever Dean and Cas have going on is about to take years of work and a million steps still need to be taken.

Exhibit a:

Look at Cas' face, when the cupid mentions the Big Plan. He starts by studying the cupid (again, curiosity), then looks at Dean, then Dean briefly looks back (perhaps back at Cas but that's debatable), and that's when Cas looks down, embarrassed. I read that as: "Ah yes, as interesting of a concept this cupid is, as fascinating as these two humans' perspective on his mission is, it's still dictated by Heaven, and they're not going to like that. I'm still dictated by Heaven (as I should (???)) and... He's not going to like that. (???)".

Annnnd then Dean punches the cupid in the face, which... Good point, Cas, he indeed doesn't "like that".

So what are those steps highlighted by the ending of that scene? Well, Cas is an angel. Dean is clueless about so many things. He doesn't have faith. Cas isn't exactly free. It's just always about the plan and the mission, whatever comes up in their tumultuous adventures together, it always brings them right back to the core of why there's still such a long way to go: who they are.

All in all, that scene is just. Imagery there, imagery here, reference after reference, big red arrows (yes, I'm using "arrows" in the context of a cupid episode, I fully intend this sentence to have a double meaning) pointing at Dean and at Cas and at them both together. It's not necessarily a direct reference at either of them being bi, although for obvious reasons that's not exactly off the table either, it's sort of a piece of foreshadowing for what's to come, both in that season itself, and the rest of their relationship (here I use "relationship" as a term meaning something like "friendship-that-evolves-into-something-more-later-on").

In short, I'd like to conclude (you can use that as a TL;DR) by quoting my brain when I first saw that flag and connected a couple dots:

"lol bi".

[khaelisfics]

The Paper Plane

Fandom : Doctor Who - AU Pairing : Ten x Rose Rating : General

Read on AO3

Little did Rose know the handsome man she’d been sketching for almost a year was completely bonkers. But was he, really?

This is actually an October prompt from @doctorroseprompts​, but I stumbled upon it today and I got inspired! A short one-shot, a different take on how the Doctor and Rose met!

I hope you’ll like it! :)

She rummaged through her pink backpack for a moment, and found her small sketchpad and her favorite pencil - a cheap brand she had used for years, because she liked the feel of it in her hand and how it ran smoothly on her paper. She took a glance at her surroundings, and something akin to disappointment made a soft sigh fly from her lips. He was nowhere in sight.

That old bench under the big oak had become her treasured spot a few months back. Ever since she’d seen him for the first time. At first, she’d been coming here for the strings of people rushing down the street, the lazy ones wandering around with a carton cup of coffee in their hands, the old ones walking their tiny dogs and chattering away about the latest neighbourhood gossip. She loved to capture all those irrelevant moments in her sketchpad, slices of life that made it so much more interesting to draw those faces. Spontaneous expressions, natural features, true feelings. So different from drawing all those models that stood before her in class.

And then, one day, she had been enthralled by him. 

A tall man that had been standing at the corner of the coffee shop, long enough for her to draw his face to the shallowest crinkle at the corner of his eyes. She had been fascinated by those features and those proportions. Nothing seemed right about them, and yet the whole ensemble just worked. A left eyebrow that stood high on his forehead above an eye that was just slightly bulgier than the other. A not-quite crooked nose that tended to deviate on the right. A pouty lower lip that somehow compensated for the inexistent upper one. Old-fashioned sideburns that managed to make his face look thinner than it already was and that ran up his temples to melt into a mane of brown silky spikes. Each element taken on its own wasn’t necessarily pretty, but when put together they created the most handsome face she’d seen a man wear.

And she’d had more than enough time to study that face - because she had seen him more than once in the corner of that coffee shop. She never knew why he stood there like a flower pot, but she never complained. Sometimes, she’d even feel like he was there just for her, striking poses, a hand on his hip, the other tugging at his hair, crossing his ankles or leaning back against the brick wall. Of course, he wasn’t, really. She just fancied the idea.

She opened her sketchbook on a blank page and looked around again to find the subject of her next drawing, but nothing caught her eye. If he wasn’t so much on her mind, she might have deemed worthy to sketch that small boy, a baseball cap screwed on the top of his blond curls, merrily licking at a colorful icecream. She brought the tip of her pencil to the paper, and with a resolved puff, she started drawing. Each brush of her pencil against the smooth white surface gave more life to his face, and she was almost scared to know all of his features so well. And rather ashamed to use that knowledge for… What she’d had trouble defining as anything other than lustful fantasies.

Within minutes, a three-quarter view of his face was staring back at her - well, given the eyes squinted shut and the pouty mouth hanging half-open in a silent cry of pleasure she had given him, it was more the other way around.

“Is my left ear that wonky?”

She shrieked when that melodious sing-sang close to her ear and she fumbled to close her sketchbook holding a terrifying amount of very personal fantasies. But a slender hand was faster than her, keeping it open on the one page she had been working on. She was tempted to run away and leave all of her stuff behind, but it was too late. He was already jumping over the back of the bench and sliding to sit uncomfortably close to her - which made it impossible to stop a raging blush setting her cheeks on fire. A quick look on the left and she was sure that it was him. The pinstriped suit, the long brown coat, the deep red tie. Crap.

“I’m so sorry,” she managed to apologize after clearing her throat several times.

“Not at all, in fact, I think you’re right,” he smiled, tugging on his ear. “It is wonky. And to be honest with you, I think all the rest is pretty wonky too. I mean, look at that eye!”

She stiffened when he bent to stick his face mere inches away from her, so close she could feel his hot breath on her jaw and had no choice but to look at his bright chocolate eyes gleaming with a twinkle of cheekiness. Beautiful eyes she would have gladly drowned into if the intensity of their gaze wasn’t stealing away to her last ounce of coherence.

“Is that why you keep drawing me?” he asked - and she wished the floor would swallow her alive. “Because my face is so wonky it’s interesting to draw?”

“No,” she breathed out, finding out it was a bad move to lower her eyes when they fell on those very pretty lips.

“Oh, is it because you like my face, then?” he beamed.

Her blush got worse, if that was even possible, and his smile got brighter, if that was even possible.

“You do like my face!” he giggled, a very communicative giggle that had her laugh despite her shame. “Well, I must say, coming from such a beautiful woman, that is a compliment. By the way, what’s your name, dear lady?”

“Rose, Rose Tyler,” she shrugged, nervously tapping the lead of her pencil against her sketchpad. “Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, I just…”

“Nonsense,” he interrupted, finally allowing her to breathe properly as he stood from the bench. “You have quite the talent, miss Tyler, I am thrilled to be one of your subjects. It means… Quite a lot to me, that you fancy this face.”

“What do you mean, this face?” Rose raised an eyebrow.

“Well, this face is not my first, and won’t be my last,” he answered with a grin. “That one is actually quite recent, and I’m still not quite used to it. Hence, I like that you like it.”

“Of course,” she nodded, thinking she might have stumbled upon a mad man.

“Yep, two months old,” he said, scratching the back of his neck. “The ear might be wonky, but it’s better than it was. My previous ears were too big. So was my nose. Miss the blue eyes, though.”

“I’m sure you do,” she smiled uneasily, stuffing her sketchpad in her backpack, thinking it might be best to run away as fast as she could.

“You don’t believe me, do you?”

“No, I don’t. Look, I should…”

“I’m an alien, miss Tyler. And I can assure you, my face can change. And I got that wonky face two months ago.”

“Yes, that’s probably why I first sketched your face almost a year ago,” she sighed, disappointed that this handsome man was also completely bonkers.

“Oh, that’s because I can travel in time!” he grinned, following in her footsteps when she started to walk away. “I’m the Doctor. Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey.”

“Well, nice to meet you, Doctor from Gallifrey, but I have a class that starts in twenty minutes and I need to go.”

“Right, of course,” he nodded, stopping in his tracks as she started to climb down the stairs into the tube station. “I’ll see you soon, Rose Tyler!”

***

Rose was bored out of her mind. She loved drawing, she loved art, but she most definitely hated those art history lessons. The page of her notepad was still desperately blank despite the lesson having started more than half an hour back, apart from a few doodles she’d scribbled on the corners. At least, she’d been smart enough to sit in the last row of the auditorium, which allowed her to doze off, her face cradled in the palm of her hand.

She jumped when something hit her arm and looked down on her smell desk to see the projectile. A paper plane. She spotted a few lines of graphite on the wings, and, thinking she could use the distraction, she began to unfold it. Her breath remained trapped halfway in when she saw what the drawing was. Him , again. But she was most certain she had never drawn him with that face, in this position - a face that seemed to be asleep, buried in a pillow, the pouty mouth she liked open in what she could imagine to be a soft snore. She noticed that this drawing was even more detailed that hers, with a little something she couldn’t quite see that made it look more realistic. More accurate. More intimate. The kind of details that clearly meant that whoever had drawn this must have spent quite a long time on his side.

Then she saw the few words written under the drawing, and an odd feeling coursed through her. This was her handwriting. Sharp, little letters that read, Trust him, he’s the Doctor, along with a smiley face that had become one of her signatures over the years. And under that, a date. More than five years into the future. It didn’t make any sense. She wanted to laugh at herself for even considering that what this man had told her might be true. A time traveller. An alien. Right. She flipped the bent page over and was surprised to find a few other lines - still her handwriting, but the hurried kind, the undefined letters melting into each other, translating into three short sentences.

Trust me and take his hand. Go with him. He needs you. Rose

Rose rotated on her seat and glanced at the door in the back of the auditorium. Sure enough, the first thing she saw was his face, comically taking a peek at her with a sheepish smile. And then she saw his hand and his wiggling fingers, an invitation for her to join him. She stared at the unfolded paper plane for a few seconds, then at the boring teacher who was still talking about boring facts with his boring voice, then back to the paper plane again.

She grabbed her backpack, shoved her notepad inside, folded the paper plane and tucked it inside her pocket.

A minute later, her fingers wrapped around his, a smile was exchanged, and they both stepped into the weird alien blue box that was bigger on the inside.

Two days later, she decided that she never wanted to leave the Doctor and his wonderful ship.

Three weeks later, she already promised him that she would never leave him.

Four years later, after they’d both acknowledged their feelings and made love for the first time, she drew his sleeping, peaceful face on the page that would eventually be folded into a paper plane.