#so it kind of halfway exists and i know for sure two people want it but it doesn't need to be on ao3 for them

[1mnobodywhoareyou]

okay so question.

if one was to write ralex smut

in the bex verse

but context wasn't *really* necessary

who would want to read it?

[breadbrobin]

the trees

clarisse la rue x reader — percy jackson and the olympians

[fem!daughter of apollo reader]

summary: you have a very specific skill set that helps your team with capture the flag, and clarisse thinks it’s fascinating. in fact, she thinks you’re as fascinating as you think she is.

warnings: swearing, arguments, fighting, PINING, heights i guess (reader is up a tree), possibly ooc clarisse but not too much i hope.

word count: 2.5k

(so the brainrot has (inevitably) spread to clarisse. there’s gonna be a part two to this as well, so lmk if y’all want it (tbh i’ll probably post it anyway but still). oh and also i love her and i am a clarisse apologist and lover until the day i die)

(sort-of-enemies to sort-of-lovers, but more like idiots to pining idiots (in a tree))

(part 2 here)

———————————————

archery wasn’t the only thing you were good at, but it was by far the best thing you were good at. a daughter of apollo: master of archery, mediocre of music and magical at making weird ass noises. bird calls, animal sounds, imitations—you name it, you could do it.

and those were useful tactics in capture the flag, for sure.

annabeth chase was a master strategist, and you had to give it to her: she remembered everyone’s strengths, weaknesses and alliances while you couldn’t even remember what you’d had for breakfast that day.

as always, you were tucked up in a tree, around halfway up. you weren’t too high, so that you could speak and people wouldn’t automatically know you were above them, but you weren’t too low so they couldn’t see you.

you kind of liked being in the trees now. after three years of capture the flag and around six months of freaking out every time you climbed above ten feet, you were finally used to it. it was almost calming; a way for you to relax after a stressful day and pretend that nothing around you existed.

until the red team came by, that is.

that’s what you were waiting for. the flag was around fifty feet to your right. your job was to be a lookout and a distraction.

it was your favourite part of the game, getting to trick people and shoot arrows at them when they came too close, allowing the blue team members around the bottom of your tree to pop out and disarm their opponents.

it wasn’t a trick you used every time—not even the ares cabin are that stupid—but when you did use it, you had the time of your life.

there was a snapping branch to your left. you straightened up from where you were leaning against the tree trunk behind you and peered through the leaves. you were perched on a thick bough, hidden by leaves and branches, but able to see enough through them that you could do your job.

you could hear voices, but you couldn’t see anyone.

you listened carefully. you knew that voice.

you realised with a start who it was.

clarisse la rue.

fucking clarisse, man. she drove you insane. and not for the reason she drove most of camp insane. no, unlike almost everyone else, you were attracted to her. in fact, you were, annoyingly, in love with her, you’d have to admit. it was infuriating.

you could hear her cutting through the forest. it was strange. she didn’t usually come for the flag. usually, she hunted in the woods and caught stragglers. she didn’t want the glory as much as she wanted the fight. to her, winning the battle seemed more important than winning the war.

regardless of why, you could hear her voice. she was talking to her siblings below you, creeping through the foliage.

the sun was warm on your face and you send up a brief prayer to your father.

from your lips slipped an almost perfect impression of your blue team guards. you’d used this trick last game, but clarisse hadn’t been there, so she wouldn’t know. “i can’t believe they put us on guard duty again.”

they all froze in their tracks, looking at each other, then ahead in the opposite direction from the flag.

you held in a snicker. “ugh, yeah, it’s the worst. i mean, why can’t we do anything fun? i wanna fight clarisse!”

you could see the smirk curling on her lips and you had to stop yourself from blushing.

you continued this cat and mouse game. the ares kids below you fanned out, aiming to surround you. it would have been a smart move, if there was actually a flag there and not just a tree.

slowly, they inched in, then leapt out.

“ahh!! you caught us! i’ve been impaled!”

they looked around in fear and confusion but clarisse looked straight up. she always did.

“hey, angel, nice voice,” she mocked. “wanna come on down?”

you shook your head. “no, thanks, i’m comfortable.”

she raised and eyebrow, seeing your arrow drawn and pointed directly at her. “that’s not necessary.”

“isn’t it?” your arrow flew and, though she hit it away, you teammates came pouring out of the foliage, having been waiting for your signal.

a fight ensued. it looked like it was going well for a short while, then the tides turned.

they weren’t as caught off guard as they usually were. hell, clarisse was even smiling!

with what looked like very little effort, the ares campers effectively destroyed your teammates. they were left disarmed and defeated, and you were stuck in a tree. typical.

as her siblings took their weapons, clarisse looked up at you. “you wanna come down now?”

you shook your head. “rather not. the view from up here is pretty good.”

she muttered something to herself, but you couldn’t hear her. then she spoke up. “what if we come up there?”

you drew your bow back immediately and an arrow pierced the dirt right in front of her foot.

she looked down at it, then back up at you, an amused smirk on her face. “right, silly me.”

that surprised you. she was usually cold and cruel in capture the flag, always taking no prisoners and leaving no survivors—in a technical sense. you’d seen people nursing their minor wounds after the games when your siblings forced you to help out in the infirmary (not that you’re much help in there, but regardless), and everyone heard the stories they’d tell of clarisse appearing out of the ferns and attacking ruthlessly. so why was she not being so ruthless today?

she was certainly cruel in her fight against your team members, but any other day, she would have thrown her spear at you or thrown one of your arrows back, or even climbed up anyway. instead, she just smirked up at you, content to wait.

“where’s the flag, bows?” she asked, using a nickname she’d only used a few times, one that referenced both the bows you used and the bows you sometimes put in your hair.

you shrugged. “dunno. they don’t tell me anything. i just get out here and told to be annoying.” your traitorous eyes flickered to the direction of the flag. you’d never been good at lying.

and curse her, clarisse noticed. she always noticed when it came to you, it seemed. whether it was catching you in a lie, catching you when you were admiring her or catching your every move when sparring, she always noticed.

she nodded at her siblings and they moved off. “i’ll wait here. try and flush our squirrel out.”

if they were confused or surprised, they didn’t show it.

once they were gone, clarisse plucked the arrow from the dirt and studied it. “this is new.”

“sam from hephaestus made them,” you said meekly. why would she stay behind? it didn’t make sense. you weren’t a threat, or even a good fight.

her face darkened. “oh. and where is your boyfriend now, then? hm?”

your cheeks flamed. “he’s not my boyfriend.” and it was true. he wasn’t. despite the fact that he liked you and made things for you all the time, your heart was decidedly with another. and she was right below you, tossing your prized arrow aside like an old tissue. “he’s on your team anyway. you should know where he is.”

she smirked again. “oh, yeah. i remember now. that’s right, i sent him to try and get our flag. he didn’t even make it five steps before he was attacked.”

her bitter laugh made your heart clench. was it pity for sam or your feelings for her, or both? you weren’t sure. either way, it was starting to get on your nerves.

it was silent for a long time. she looked up at you every few seconds, then at the tree, like she was gauging how hard she’d have to push you for you to die on impact. her eyes were sharp and her smile was sharper, and fuck you were attracted to her.

you cleared your throat and broke the silence, hearing fighting off in the near distance. you would go and help, but the only way for you to do so would be to tree-hop all the way to the flag, and while you could do it, it wasn’t the best idea. “why did you stay h—what are you doing?” you aimed an arrow at her.

“relax, angel, we both know you won’t actually shoot me.” she was climbing up the tree. fast. “and don’t worry, i’m not gonna push you out or attack you. i don’t like looking up at you.”

call you stupid or whipped or whatever, but you believed her. you lowered your bow but didn’t lessen the tension on your string. she’d almost reached your branch when you swivelled around to face her. you moved fast, your arrow returning to its holster and you body facing the trunk of the tree with your legs swung over each side of the wide bough. your dagger was swiftly removed from its holster and pressed under clarisse’s chin.

she laughed at you.

you faltered slightly. “what?”

“nothing,” she snickered. “i just saw it coming. now scoot back.”

you dropped your dagger and shifted backwards, glad the bough was strong.

she clambered onto your branch easily, sitting facing you with her back against the tree trunk, a smirk on her face.

you sighed bitterly. “you see everything coming.”

she shrugged. “pretty much. but so do you.”

“that’s the gift of divine premonition,” you grumbled. it could be useful sometimes, but all you really got was a sense, a feeling or, occasionally, a single frame of a moment. right now, though, your senses were so clogged with her vanilla-strawberry and leather scent, and with her, that you could hardly think, let alone experience a minor prophecy. not to mention the fact that if you did, you’d probably fall out of the tree.

she shrugged. “isn’t that useful?”

“yeah, when it actually works or doesn’t make me pass out.” you shrugged. “it’s temperamental.”

she hummed in thought, leaning back and crossing her arms. her knees were mere centimetres from yours.

“what are you doing up here, clarisse?” you asked.

she shrugged, but you could see a shift in her demeanour when she said your name. it was like the muscles in her shoulders relaxed for a moment, then tensed again. “didn’t want you to escape.”

“so you let your other prisoners escape?” you gestured to the ground, where your teammates were sitting around fifteen feet from the tree in a circle, plucking the grass.

clarisse raised her eyebrows at you in amusement. “oh, i think they’re fine. they’re too scared of me to do anything, anyway.”

you narrowed your eyes at her. “i don’t think you’re that scary.”

she rolled her eyes. “sure. but everyone else does. so you’re wrong.”

“it was my opinion. my opinion can’t be wrong if it’s my opinion.” that was another thing: you were never one to start an argument, but by god would you escalate it.

“your opinions wrong if i say it’s wrong,” she huffed, her jaw tight.

“not how opinions work, babe,” you said lightly, using your dagger point to carve away at the bark beneath you.

she smacked your hand to stop you. “you’re gonna dull it!”

“the point is already dull!” you protested, poking your finger to show her. it indented, but didn’t draw blood. “see?”

“so, what, you threatened me with a butter knife? i’m offended.”

“it’s the idea of it that cuts deeper anyway. the primal fear of being gutted by a dagger. in capture the flag at least.” you shrugged, carving a wonky flower in the bark. “it’s more about threats than action.”

clarisse rolled her eyes. “and what if a monster comes and attacks you, and all you’ve got is this blunt dagger?”

“you ever seen an archers muscles?” you turned slightly and flexed your shoulders. you could see her eyes follow the sharp lines of your shoulders and back. “i’ll use force. force is more effective than sharpness. you know that.”

“and yet, my weapons are all still sharp.” she snatched the dagger from you and pulled out a whetstone from a pocket in her cargo pants. she began sharpening your blade.

“hey, don’t—“

she smacked your hand with the flat of your own blade when you reached for it, and you withdrawn with a hiss, shaking your hand. she laughed. “i guess force is more important, huh, angel?”

your cheeks were hot. “don’t call me that.”

“why, you worried you might like it?” she looked up, teasing. her eyes narrowed at the look on your face and then she grinned. “you do like it.”

“no. shut up.”

she laughed again, but it was a little softer than usual. she looked back down at the dagger. “did sam make this for you?”

“yeah, w—clarisse!” you gasped as she dropped it off the bough. or, more accurately, threw it off the bough. “what was that for?”

she shrugged. “it’s not that good. i’ll get you a better one from the ares stash. don’t worry.”

you glared at her. “that was mine, though!”

“it was blunt and poorly made,” she protested. “it wasn’t good enough for you.”

the way she said it made you think there was a double meaning there.

“he’s not good enough for you,” she said, softer, proving you right.

your eyes were wide and your cheeks were flaming. “what?”

“you heard me.” her softness was staying, it seemed. if you weren’t mistaken, her hand was reaching for yours. “he’s not. you know he’s not. why do you like him?”

before you could respond, a horn blew in the distance and cheering erupted from around the forest. red team had won.

clarisse didn’t look happy. she leaned back—you hadn’t even realised she’d leaned forward—and glared at the bough between you both.

“congratulations,” you said softly. “you deserved the win.”

“yeah, we did.” her voice carried very little enthusiasm.

you studied her face for a minute, like you were committing every feature to memory. “clarisse…”

she didn’t respond. instead, she swung her leg over the bough and started climbing down. only when she got two branches down did you begin to follow her, hurrying in your attempt to catch up. you couldn’t. no matter how good you were at something, she was better.

she nodded at you as she walked off, your foot caught in a tight spot.

once you’d finally got down, your teammates were surrounding you. some asked you what had happened, some accused you of being a double agent for them, some asked if you were okay.

you answered them all absently as you all walked back towards the stream, but your heart wasn’t in it. what the hell was going on?

you’d reached the stream by the time you realised you’d left your dagger behind, and you were back at your cabin, trying to fall asleep, when you realised that it didn’t bother you at all.

(part 2)

[ktownshizzle]

Nerd & Nerdier | Chapter 2

✎ ˎˊ˗ Pairing: Min Yoongi x reader, Jeon Wonwoo x reader; endgame? x reader

✎ ˎˊ˗ Genre: Fluff, Attempt At Comedy, Roommates au, Love triangle

✎ ˎˊ˗ Summary: Moving in with two introverts should have been easy. Not when it’s Min Yoongi and Jeon Wonwoo, who decide they both want you. Unhinged, awkward, and nerdy as hell, they proceed to compete for your attention in the most unnecessarily dramatic fashion that culminates into a… rap battle.

✎ ˎˊ˗ Warnings: Wildly gratuitous, You might 100% chance you’ll fall in love with both of them so that’s a problem, no mxm dynamics to be expected

✎ ˎˊ˗ Chapter Warnings: Not betaread! Really horrendous freestyle rapping! Yoongi and Wonwoo are actually quite fond of each other despite being competitive…

✎ ˎˊ˗ Word count: 1.5k

✎ ˎˊ˗ Posting date: February 22, 2025

✎ ˎˊ˗ Notes: Okayyy so I did not expect to find my people, but I am glad I did and we are here because I am really loving writing this story on a deeply delulu level. Publishing this on my way to a concert so sorry if formatting seems off for whatever reason.

Series Masterlist | Main Masterlist Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Roommate Rule #2: If You Must Compete for Your Roommate’s Attention, Do It In Stealth Mode. - Jeon Wonwoo

It started with a bookstore.

Technically, it started with Wonwoo casually suggesting the bookstore like it was nothing. The very moment Yoongi left to use the bathroom.

“Noona, you said you wanted something new to read,” he said. “There’s this small shop in Sinsadong. I can take you.”

You, bleary-eyed and still half-asleep, had only managed a distracted nod as you shoveled cereal into your mouth. Sure, you thought. A casual bookstore trip. No big deal.

You should have known better.

The bookstore was exactly what you’d expect from a hidden gem: narrow aisles, overstuffed shelves, and the faint smell of old paper. The kind of place that practically whispered stay awhile as you wandered through.

And Wonwoo? Wonwoo fit into the space with unsettling ease.

He moved through the aisles like he’d memorized the layout ahead of time, occasionally pausing to pull out a book and glance at the synopsis before either handing it to you or quietly sliding it back into place.

It was… kind of impressive. In a nerdy, what-the-hell way.

“You’d like this one,” he said at one point, handing you a novel. “It’s got that slow-burn tension you like.”

You narrowed your eyes on him, a teasing smile on your lips. “Since when do you know what kind of tension I like?”

He shrugged like it’s nothing, but his ears are pink. “You mentioned it once. When we watched that terrible drama with the fake arranged marriage plotline.”

That… was over two months ago.

You took the book from his hands without a word, hoping he didn’t notice the heat rising in your cheeks.

When you reached the register, you instinctively reached for your wallet. Wonwoo beat you to it, smoothly sliding his card across the terminal without so much as a glance in your direction.

“Hey!” you protested, as you watched the machine read: payment approved. “I can pay—”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said, handing you the bag.

“Wonwoo.”

“Noona.”

“I could have—”

“You can just owe me,” he cut in smoothly.

Your eyes narrowed. “Owe you what?”

He smiled, slow and almost smug. “I’ll let you know.”

You left the shop with a new book under your arm and a weird feeling in your chest that had nothing to do with plot twists or romance tropes.

You were halfway home when it hit you like a brick to the face.

Wait.

Was that a date?

Your steps faltered, and you turned to Wonwoo, who strolled beside you like he hadn’t just shifted the axis of your entire existence.

“Did you just take me on a date?” you asked, mildy accusingly.

Wonwoo’s head tilted slightly, mouth twitching like he was trying not to smile. “No…?”

“Are you sure?”

“Did I call it a date?”

“Well… no.”

“Then it wasn’t.” He pushed his glasses up his nose and glanced at you, eyes glinting. “Unless you want it to be.”

Your brain short-circuited.

You stared, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. Wonwoo gave you one last, knowing look before turning into the building.

You stood there for a full ten seconds, processing, before stomping after him.

Yoongi was already in the kitchen when you walked in your apartment, the book from the bookstore still tucked under your arm. He clocked it immediately. His eyes flicked to the bag, then to you, then to Wonwoo then back again. His jaw shifted.

“I had fun, noona…” Wonwoo turned to you, then nodded to Yoongi. “Hyung.” Before he skipped happily to his room.

“Bookstore trip?” Yoongi asked, voice casual.

“Yeah,” you replied, setting the bag down on the counter. “Wonwoo invited me.”

Yoongi hummed. He didn’t look at you as he reached into the fridge. “You said you wanted to try that new ramen place, right?”

“Uh… yeah?”

He straightened, shutting the fridge with a soft thud. “Let’s go tomorrow.”

It wasn’t a question.

The next day, you found yourself sitting across from Yoongi in a nice Japanese restaurant, trying to figure out what the hell you’d just walked into—and why is Yoongi wearing cologne?!

Yoongi, of course, looked completely unfazed. He flipped through the menu with one hand while lazily drumming his fingers on the table with the other. His sleeves were pushed up, exposing his forearms, and your eyes trailed the veins towards his ringed fingers. Oof. This is bad.

After ordering, he was quiet as usual but he keeps giving you these charged gazes. When the food was served, you called him out. “You’re being weird.”

“You always say that,” he replied.

“Because it’s always true.”

He smirked slightly. “Eat your ramen.”

You were halfway through your bowl when Yoongi casually pushed a piece of gyoza towards you with this chopsticks.

“What?” you asked.

“It's good.”

You leaned forward to take a bite. The filling was rich and the skin soft but had a crispy underside, and you hummed in approval.

“Good, right?” Yoongi asked.

“Mmhmm.”

When you glanced up, he was already watching you, his eyes dark and steady. Your eyes dropped to his lips, glazed slightly, plump as ever.

Your stomach flipped for reasons that had nothing to do with the food.

And then—

“Yo.”

Your soul left your body. Because standing at the entrance of the restaurant, glasses fogged slightly from the cold, was none other than Jeon Wonwoo.

Wonwoo bowed to the receptionist quickly as he walked closer. “Wow. What a coincidence.”

Yoongi’s face darkened. “You followed us, didn’t you.”

Wonwoo slid into the chair beside you, completely unfazed. “I was just in the neighborhood.”

He reached for your water glass. Yoongi’s eye twitched.

You groaned, burying your face in your hands.

This was getting out of control.

By the time Saturday rolled around, you were exhausted from the nonstop one-upmanship.

So you made the mistake of suggesting a low-stakes game of Uno. Something chill, you thought. Something easy.

You were an idiot.

What followed was an hour-long exercise in passive-aggressive warfare.

“Draw four,” Yoongi said, slamming the card onto the table.

Wonwoo barely blinked. “Reverse.”

“Draw four,” Yoongi repeated, his eyes glinting.

“Reverse.”

“Draw four, motherfucker.”

“Reverse, asshole.”

Meanwhile, you sat there with seventeen cards fanned out in your hands, questioning every life choice that had led to this moment.

“Guys,” you tried, voice strained. “It’s just Uno.”

“It’s never just Uno,” Yoongi muttered, playing another +4 card.

“This is war,” Wonwoo agreed, eyes narrowing.

You groaned and threw your cards onto the table. “I can’t with you two.”

And then, as if the universe decided to add insult to injury, the Bluetooth speaker shuffled to Epik High’s “Born Hater”.

The opening beats filled the air.

You closed your eyes. “God, no.”

“What?” Yoongi asked, glancing toward the speaker.

“Nothing.” You rubbed your temples. “Just… you two should have a rap battle or something to settle this.”

You laughed. It was a joke.

But when you opened your eyes, they were both staring at you.

Wonwoo adjusted his glasses. “A rap battle?”

Yoongi’s lips curled into a slow, dangerous smirk. “You scared?”

Oh no.

The next minute, your living room has become the site of the most unnecessarily dramatic rap battle in history.

Yoongi stood on one side, cracking his neck like he was preparing to defend his underground rapper title. Wonwoo stood on the other, stretching his wrists like he was prepping for an MMA fight.

You sat on the couch, blanket clutched to your chest, already regretting your life.

“Alright,” Yoongi said, voice low. “You started it. You go first.”

Wonwoo stepped forward, eyes locked on Yoongi.

“Yoongi-hyung, writer, producer, always at the cusp of fame,

The only thing ‘bout your lyrics is they all sound the same,

Stop with the sad boy shit, hyung, betta switch up the game.”

You pressed a palm against your gaping mouth.

Yoongi’s nostrils flared. He exhaled slowly. Then:

“You said game? Wonwoo, you think you got game?

Nah bro, you is kinda lame.

Missin’ shots like a broken-ass joystick,

I’m player one, bitch, you’re just my fuckin’ sidekick.”

The tension spiked.

Wonwoo adjusted his glasses. 

“Oh, that’s real cute. But lemme put you on mute.

Thought that shit's gonna bring me down.

Hey hyung, has she seen your fanfic account?”

“I—THAT WAS PRIVATE!” Yoongi roared.

You collapsed into laughter, wheezing as they devolved into personal attacks:

“You record voice memos like a psycho—“

“You write on your books like a child—“

“You alphabetize the spice rack—”

“You think chopsticks go in the dishwasher—”

“Alright, that’s enough!” you gasped, leaping to your feet and planting a hand on each of their (surprisingly toned) chests. “Jesus Christ.”

They froze, breathing hard.

“So?” Yoongi asked, wiping sweat from his brow. “Who won?”

You stared at them. Then shook your head. “You both lost.”

You walked toward the kitchen, grabbing your phone. “I’m ordering pizza.”

Behind you, there was a pause.

Then:

“…Fair,” Wonwoo muttered.

“Yeah, okay,” Yoongi agreed.

But as you scrolled through Coupang, you felt it:

Their eyes, both locked on you.

And if you didn’t know better, you’d swear they were both thinking the same thing.

This isn’t over.

Chapter 3 >

A/N: sooo? Team Yoongi? Team Wonwoo? Team K- for writing that stupid rap battle?! Hahaha

Tell me what you think! Thank you for reading ✨💜

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Divider by: @cafekitsune (thank you!)

[maroonshirt81]

For the tropes request, carcar Valentine’s Day?

thank you for the request <3

---

1,5k carcar, rated m for language

---

“What the fuck?”

To be fair, that wasn’t how Oscar usually greeted people when he opened the door. He’d been raised with better manners than that.

However, when the most annoying guy in his friend group – the one he might be secretly hate-fucking – showed up on Valentine’s Day with a bouquet of flowers, Oscar honestly thought it was one of the mildest possible reactions. He was still contemplating the follow-up reaction of throwing the door in Carlos’s face.

“You always make me feel so welcome,” Carlos said dryly, as if Oscar was the one being unreasonable. “Very nice to see you, too. Can I come in?”

Oscar was about to say no, but apparently, the question was rhetorical because Carlos was already kicking off his shoes and squeezing past him over the threshold.

“What are you doing?” Oscar demanded, trailing after him as Carlos made a beeline for the kitchen.

“Looking for a vase.”

“I don’t own a vase!”

Carlos had the nerve to shoot him a pitying look, as if Oscar’s attitude problem doomed him to a flowerless existence. Which was ironic, since the only person he actually had an attitude toward had just shown up at his doorstep with a bouquet. 

On Valentine’s Day.

“Why are you here?” Oscar asked again, watching as Carlos unscrewed the lid from his water bottle and casually plopped the flowers inside.

“I was in the neighborhood,” Carlos said, flashing a grin.

“You mean the flower shop down the street?”

“Exactly.”

God, Oscar wanted to wring his neck.

“So you’re just not gonna answer me, then?” he grumbled, slumping into a kitchen chair and crossing his arms. For some unfathomable reason, Carlos took that as an invitation to come and straddle him.

“I did not come to be interrogated,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows. “You are a smart man. I am sure you can guess why I came.”

Oscar’s fingers twitched, but he refused to uncross his arms and pull Carlos closer. Not until he got a satisfactory explanation for why there was now a floral arrangement sitting in his damn water bottle.

“They stink,” he said, just as Carlos was about to lean in for a kiss. Carlos stopped halfway, rolling his eyes.

"¡Madre mía, qué mala leche llevas!" he muttered, flicking the crease between Oscar’s brows.

“I looked that up, you know.”

“Awwww,” Carlos smirked. “Are you learning Spanish for me, baby?”

The goosebumps Oscar got from that were definitely from disgust.

“You realize my bad mood can always be traced back to you, right?”

“Yes, yes.” Carlos gave a world-weary sigh. “Maybe we can skip the special foreplay for today, yes?”

“What foreplay?” Oscar gaped. He had never and would never have any kind of foreplay with Carlos. The very thought made him shudder.

“You know, the whole,” Carlos waved his hand, pitching his voice high, “Oh, Carlos, I hate you so much!” Dropping his voice two octaves, he added, “Oh, but still, you cannot resist me!” High again, “Yes, I can! Just… touch me while I list all the things you have done wrong today, and then touch me some more while I list all the things you did wrong yesterday, and then–”

“I hate you so much!” Oscar groaned.

“Did you not listen? I said to skip the foreplay!”

“It’s not foreplay!” Oscar retorted, in what he was embarrassed to admit might have been considered a screech.

“Yes, yes, I know!” Carlos huffed. “Can we at least speed it up a little? We only have an hour until the restaurant opens.”

“R–restaurant?” Oscar echoed, his voice breaking in the middle of the word. “You can’t be serious!”

“Oscar, this is getting a little tiring,” Carlos said, insistently pushing his hips forward. That was when Oscar realized his arms were no longer crossed. Somewhere in the middle of this conversation, his hands had found Carlos’s waist. Now, he used them to push him off.

“You must’ve hit your head!” Oscar said. “Really badly!”

He acted like he didn’t notice the genuine hurt flashing across Carlos’s face. Fuck him. He couldn’t just show up unannounced on fucking Valentine’s Day and act like they were some kind of couple! Oscar was feeling nauseous just thinking about it.

“You know what?” Carlos snapped, straightening up. “Fine! I prefer waiting outside in the cold to dealing with your bad mood, actually.”

And just like that, he jumped off Oscar’s lap, grabbed the jacket he had tossed over the kitchen table, and threw it on, zipping it right up to his chin.

And then.

And then he took the flowers back out of the vase.

Oscar was out of his chair before he really knew what he was doing.

“Now wait a minute!” he protested. “You can’t just…”

“Can’t just what, Oscar?” Carlos echoed, scowling at him with those impressive eyebrows. “You said very clearly you don’t want me here.”

“I… that’s not exactly what I said! But you can’t just barge in here like some kind of lunatic, with your flowers and your restaurant plans, and then leave in the exact same way when I’m not immediately on your level!”

Carlos turned toward the front door with a huff.

“You young people with your text messages and your allergies to spontaneity! When I was a kid, we had to go around the neighborhood ringing doorbells if we wanted to play with a friend!”

“What are you even on about?”

“Next time, I send you a calendar invitation when I want to suck your dick, yes?”

“You…” Oscar grabbed Carlos’s arm before he could open the door. “Wait! Can you just – give me a second to think? Don’t just…” His eyes dropped to the bouquet Carlos was still holding, and his sentence trailed off into an awkward silence.

“Hello?” Carlos said, waving the flowers in front of his face.

Before Oscar could think better of it, he grabbed them.

“Oi!” Carlos protested. “What are you–”

“They’re my flowers! You can’t just take them back now!”

Carlos gaped at him, looking genuinely surprised that Oscar had accepted the flowers, which begged the question of why the hell he’d brought them in the first place.

“And I’m not saying I’m happy about them!” Oscar clarified quickly. “But it’s really bad manners to take back a gift like that!”

“Oscar,” Carlos said, blinking slowly. “They are not your flowers.”

Oscar froze, eyes flicking down to a little tag wrapped around the stems that he’d somehow failed to notice before.

“The flowers are for my mother,” Carlos continued, as if Oscar couldn’t clearly read the “Mom❤️” sticker now staring him in the face. “Who I’m meeting at the restaurant in an hour.”

Oscar gulped. Then, feeling a blush crawl all the way up form his neck, he shoved the bouquet back into Carlos’s chest.

“Carlos…” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “Do you have any idea what day it is?”

“Yes? It’s my mother’s birthday?”

“IT’S VALENTINE'S DAY!” Oscar exploded, smacking both hands over his very red face. “You absolute fucking idiot!!!”

“Ooooooh,” Carlos chuckled, like he was only just putting the pieces together. “Wait… so you thought…”

A seagull-like shriek marked the completion of his thought process, and Oscar seriously considered just slamming the door in his face.

“Oscaaaaaar!” Carlos howled, quickly scuffling after him as Oscar fled in shame, straight to the kitchen, to either drown himself in the sink or commit seppuku with a kitchen knife – he hadn’t quite decided yet.

“Oscar, wait! Come on, don’t be a baby about this!”

“Leave me alone!”

Oscar had reached the counter and unfortunately found himself in a dead end. Carlos came up behind him, dropping the cursed bouquet onto the table before approaching like Oscar was a spooked animal.

“Look, I’m sorry for laughing!” Carlos said, which might have been more convincing if he weren’t still shaking with silent glee.

“Carlos, take your stupid flowers and get out of my apartment,” Oscar hissed.

“No.”

Oscar blinked. “No?”

Carlos shrugged. “You clearly liked the flowers.” Then he turned, plucked a single rose from the middle of the bouquet, and held it out to Oscar. “Here,” he said. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”

“I hate you,” Oscar said darkly.

Carlos had the nerve to wink at him. “I already told you, I do not have time for foreplay right now. But tomorrow, maybe?”

Oscar just glared at him in stony silence, but that had never been a problem for Carlos. He was more than happy to have a conversation with himself. Prefered it, even.

“Great, I will send you a calendar invitation this time. Check your emails.”

Then, as if this whole situation weren’t humiliating enough, he plopped the single rose into the now-empty water bottle on the table, grabbed the rest of his bouquet, and – instead of leaving – turned back to Oscar, taking advantage of an unguarded moment to press a quick kiss to his lips.

“See you tomorrow, yes?” Carlos grinned.

Oscar kept his face completely blank. Give nothing away.

Carlos was unfazed.

“Adiós, Malalechecito!”

And then he was gone.

Oscar stayed slumped against the kitchen counter for a long time after, staring at the stupid rose sitting in his water bottle and stinking up the place.

The notification sound on his phone finally yanked him out of his pathetic reverie.

Carlos had sent a calendar invite.

For a coffee date tomorrow.

With a sigh, Oscar tapped accept.

[peachyscenes]

from the gazebo | mafia!werewolf!ateez x fem!reader

note: this is a snippet of a piece that i'm currently working on. it's definitely not finished nor is it halfway completed, but out of the 10k words written so far, this is one of my favorite parts. publishing date to be determined. definitely inspired by ice on my teeth.

San and you spent most of the day walking about the estate. You had most of the layout memorized. Their bedrooms were also in the right east wing, but scattered, half of them on the third floor and the other half on the first floor. Employees slept in the left west wing of the estate. You asked San if you’d be sleeping there as well since you're also an employee.

“You're a Helper. Very different from regular staff.” You cocked your head.

“How so?”

San helped you pour your tea, insisting on doing so even when you told him it wasn't necessary. You mentioned how beautiful the gazebo looked from your floor, so he took you. You’re both currently taking a break from the tour. The Victorian style of it, of the entire estate actually, was hard to describe as just beautiful. It took your breath away, and you couldn't believe that you'd be living here from now on.

The little girl inside you is squealing with excitement. If only you could tell her that the prince charmings that saved you were not your average, good-doing citizens.

“How do I put this… You're like a personal assistant. It's pretty common for therianthropes to have Helpers, though usually they're put in education programs to be more… refined?”

“Oh…,” you look down at your appearance. You left some buttons undone of your sleep shirt, the bandages peeking out of the opening. Seonghwa had given you some ointment to help get rid of the faint bruises that scattered your body quicker. Your hair was also untamed at the moment, too tired to brush it out when you woke up this morning. “I don't think I have the refined part down.” San chuckles, sipping on his own tea before continuing.

“There are special circumstances where someone can spontaneously become a Helper. In this case, when the contract was signed for you to be… given to us…” You notice how he chooses his words carefully. “You became a Helper. It's illegal to give or sell people without a reason, hence why most are labeled as Helpers.”

It makes more sense as to why you weren't taken seriously when you were with Dongwook. You were considered a Helper for him, which you didn't even know such a concept existed until now.

“The werekin world sure is different.” San lets out another chuckle.

“You’ll get used to it.”

You want to say more, because it's obvious that their world is different from the regular therianthrope world. You're literally in the hands of the biggest crime syndicate of your city. There's a prolonged silence between you two, just enjoying the weather and the comfort of each other's company. Some minutes pass by when another thought occurs to you.

“I’m sorry for all of these questions, but when you said I’d be like a personal assistant, do you mean like waking you up in the morning?”

San nods slowly, but you know there's more to it. He seems to hesitate to tell you, but you place your hand on his. There's a small smile painting your face, and though your face looks tired with sunken eyes from being bedridden for so long, he can't ignore the small palpitations of his heart when your eyes reflect stars.

“Helpers are companions. Kind of like…,” he pauses, thinking of the right way to describe your role.

“Lovers?” You finish for him. He nods, feeling a bit bashful. He wants to say more about it, but he doesn’t want to make you anxious or feel pressured.

“I'm sure Hongjoong won't push you to do more than what you're comfortable with, but the average Helper assists in companionship, that's what makes them different from staff.”

You nod, thanking him with a squeeze of your hand. You notice the faint bruises that litter his knuckles and you want to ask San about it, but you're not sure if it was appropriate, so you opt to stay silent.

You both sit together under the gazebo, sharing things about each other. From the window of his bedroom, Seonghwa spots the two of you as he's finishing his phone call with Hongjoong.

“Should I go over the details of her contract with her? She seems to be getting along well with some of them.”

“Some?”

Seonghwa chuckles at Hongjoong's tone.

“Wooyoung said she hasn't met anyone else yet. Only him, Yeosang, San, Yunho, and I.”

“And me.”

“Yes, and you, Hongjoong.” He hears a sigh from the other end of the line.

“I would've liked to go over it with her… but I'm getting some serious information here about Dongwook.” Seonghwa hums. While you have knowledge that Dongwook has been taken care of, it seems that he wasn't alone. He was double crossing Hongjoong, so now they have to find out who he was actually working for. “Not to mention… I sent some people to look into her sister.”

“Her sister?”

“Yeah, I met with Stray and Chan said she looked familiar. Felix confirmed that he bought a document from her parents three years ago for a job and confirmed it was her. Saw her in a family photo.”

Seonghwa looks out again at the garden, this time, someone else has joined San and you. You laugh hard at what Jongho says to you, with San seemingly trying to disprove or defend himself. He gets back to Hongjoong.

“Let's not tell her anything. At least not until we have confirmed information.”

They bid each other goodbye. Seonghwa turns back around to look at you and his breath hitches. You're staring up at him and once you both make eye contact, you wave up at him. A small smile spreads on his face, and he waves back. Seonghwa leaves the window, turning towards Wooyoung and Yunho. Wooyoung looks bored as he lays on Seonghwa’s bed facing up. Yunho is leaning on his vanity, picking at his nails. Seonghwa had to hold back from scolding him as his perfumes were moved.

“Hongjoong sent some people to look into it already, but I need you two to look into her sister as well.”

“Huh?” Yunho quirks an eyebrow. “How come?”

Seonghwa’s eyebrows furrow as he purses his lips in thought. To be frank with himself, he's not quite sure either. But after having Yeosang look into your family history and your connection to Dongwook and what he's been up to for the last couple of years behind their backs, it's likely that you have eyes on you. From who? He can't say.

“It's just a hunch. I’m not even sure myself, but we need to keep her safe.” He looks back at the window. If he's quiet enough, he can hear your laughter.

“We made a promise to her. No harm will come her way.”

[immaturityofthomasastruc]

IOTA Reviews: Emotion

Hey, remember Felix? You know, that minor character who is the entire reason Gabriel has all of Ladybug's other Miraculous? The writers remembered he existed more than halfway through the season.

Let's get into the eighteenth episode of Miraculous Ladybug's fifth season: Emotion

We start off with Marinette and Adrien getting ice cream, and just like last episode, right when they're about to kiss, Adrien stops at the last second. While we don't see it, it's heavily implied that Gabriel is behind this. It turns out that Adrien has to get ready for some dance for rich people. While it has a name and I think it was mentioned in a few earlier episodes this season, it's really just some dance for rich people, so I don't care enough to remember it. Of course, all of the rich characters we know are invited, like Kagami, Chloe, Zoe, and Prince Ali. Lila, on the other hand, wasn't invited. This might sound important, but nothing happens with her until the end.

Zoe isn't going because of the “character development” she's gotten, so she offers to let Marinette wear her dress to the dance, which just so happens to be a masquerade ball. Tikki asks why Marinette even wants to go to this party she wasn't invited to, but all Marinette says is that it's so she can tell Adrien that she didn't have to keep the dance a secret from her. Why didn't Marinette just call Adrien? Because then we wouldn't have a story.

At the ball, Adrien and Kagami are the king and queen or whatever because their parents are really determined to make their ship sail even though the two show no real interest in each other (insert your own joke about the writers here), but they're interrupted by Amelie, Emilie's twin sister and Felix's mom. She's worried because her son has been missing for weeks, but Gabriel couldn't care less about the little twerp.

At the party, we get a somewhat amusing joke where Chloe fails to recognize Marinette under her mask, where Marinette not only says her name is Zoe, but her “underling” is named Chloe too. But speaking of...

Chloe: How rich are your parents? Rich? Very rich? Immensely rich? Of course, otherwise you wouldn't be here! It's too bad we can't bring out underlings with us. I'm sure these tin cans can serve properly but we can't make fun of them! (grabs a drink from a butler robot before kicking it) So lame!

Okay, did the writers just stop caring about writing convincing dialogue for Chloe? This is a problem I've noticed a lot this season. Yeah, Chloe was bad in the last four seasons, but here, she constantly talks about how Sabrina is her “underling” (Passion), or how she finds Marinete's suffering to be amusing (Derision). It's not really out of character, but it's weird how she's so much more blunt when it comes to boasting about how full of herself she is. It feels like a lot of her lines this season were meant to be placeholders for stuff the writers thought they'd change later, but then they decided to keep it in anyway. And of course to show how stuck up the other rich kids saying the same kind of stuff Chloe normally says, which is somehow less subtle social commentary than Hop Pop shouting “EAT THE RICH!”.

Adrien and Kagami talk about how they're expected to follow orders, while pretty much saying that Kagami is a Sentimonster since the camera really wants to show off her ring.

Oh wow. what does this mean? Wow, this is such a compelling mystery with so many twists and turns. I am so very invested right now.

However, as the two talk, it's clear that Adrien isn't himself, literally.

“Adrien”: Let's leave, I dare you.

Kagami: Are you insane? We can't do that.

“Adrien”: Of course, we can. I can.

Kagami: (gasps) You'd do that?

“Adrien”: Wanna bet?

Kagami: No, we can't.

“Adrien”: See? You're not as free as you claim. Don't you think we should be able to decide our future?

I'll get back to this later.

Marinette tells “Adrien” that she loves her, but Chloe figures out that Marinette crashed a party she wasn't invited to. Of course, because this is Chloe, we're supposed to ignore how unnecessary this plan was for Marinette. Seriously, Marinette crashing the party in “Gabriel Agreste”, as illogical as it was, made sense, because they needed to stop Chloe from showing Gabriel incriminating footage of Marinette. Here, Marinette had no real reason to crash this party when all she had to do was call Adrien, and Chloe, like her or hate her, makes a good point in that she wasn't invited. But again, since this is Season 5 Chloe, she could say she opposes human trafficking, and the writers would still find a way to make her look like the bad guy.

Chloe tells the other rich kids to help her expose Marinette, but because they're so stuck up and entitled, they refuse to touch her. I'll give you all a moment to groan from that unfunny joke. Then we get this conversation between Marinette and “Adrien”.

“Adrien”: All eyes are on you.

Marinette: They're looking at me like I'm a monster.

“Adrien”: Look closer, Marinette. (whispers into her ear) They're the monsters.

I officially take back everything bad I ever said about the Canto Bight scenes from The Last Jedi.

While I get what the episode's going for, we really haven't seen a lot of the 1% doing things that would actually warrant this level of scorn from the audience. Yeah, most of them were egotistical snobs, especially Chloe, but you can't really see this as a shot at the elite when it's aimed at their children instead of their parents. All we've seen in this episode is the rich kids being jerks (and even then, it's played for laughs), Chloe rightfully trying to get Marinette thrown out of a party she had no reason to crash, and Gabriel and Tomoe trying to pair their children together. If you want to show the audience how bad rich people are, you need to show them actually abusing their power and mistreating others. As bad as the aforementioned Canto Bight scenes were, they still worked because it managed to back up the point it was trying to make.

Compare this to characters like the Ferengi from Star Trek or the World Nobles from One Piece. These are allegories for the 1% that work because they do a better job at exaggerating aspects of them that can translate to how we see the elite in our world. With the Ferengi, they represent everything wrong with cutthroat businessmen who base their entire society over financial gains, and with the World Nobles, they represent the disconnect with the common people by being so arrogant, they wear helmets that prevent them from breathing the same air as the commoners. If you wanted to show how bad the rich were, especially considering what's going to happen in a few minutes, you needed to do more to make the audience not like them so we'd be more happy to see them get their comeuppance.

Marinette figures out that Felix impersonated Adrien once again (it honestly stops being impressive when he's done it during literally every episode he appears in), and he decides to transform using the Peacock Miraculous in public for some reason, calling himself Argos.

Argos' design is okay. The suit and coattails look pretty nice, and the coloring on his face works a lot better than Gabriel's. The only problem I have is the way the hood looks. It looks too goofy to go with the rest of the suit. It kind of reminds me of that salmon suit Squidward wore in that one episode of SpongeBob SquarePants.

Before anyone else at the party can do anything, Argos reveals a Sentimonster he created, Red Moon.

Red Moon is... a red moon. It's just a red moon that floats above the city, and it gives Argos the ability to make anyone bathed in its light disappear with a snap of his fingers. If anything, this shows how overpowered the Peacock Miraculous is, and that Gabriel was a real idiot for not trying anything like this while he was Shadowmoth.

Anyway, after making everyone think his cousin is a supervillain as part of his brilliant plan, Argos decides to tell everyone in the room about what his Sentimonster can do. He demonstrates this by, of course, choosing to snap away Chloe before targeting Gabriel and Tomoe. You really have your priorities straight, buddy. Argos then carries Marinette outside before throwing her in a dumpster, because if he snapped her away, than Ladybug couldn't fight him.

But then Argos decides to go to the streets, and decides to snap away a bunch of innocent civilians... while singing a jazz song. To anyone curious as to what it sounds like, I must warn you, it isn't for the feint of heart.

I take back everything bad I ever said about the Hawkmoth rap.

First off, I'm just going to say it, Bryce Papenbrook cannot sing. Argos is clearly trying to sound like a suave and confident villain like Doctor Facilier from The Princess and the Frog, but his delivery is terrible. It either ranges from flat monotone to trying to shout while dealing with a sore throat. The point I'm trying to make is that there was a good reason someone else did the singing voice for Adrien in the recent movie.

Second, this doesn't do anything to make us root for Argos as a character, because there's no reason for him to be doing this. I can understand why he'd use his power to get rid of Gabriel and Tomoe (even Chloe, given we know how much she's done), but why is he suddenly going nuts snapping a bunch of random people who haven't even met him before? The episode tries to make him a character who only does bad things because he has no choice to, so him doing this to a bunch of innocent civilians makes no sense.

Finally, WHY THE HELL IS THIS SCENE A MUSICAL NUMBER?! It's hard enough to see Argos callously wipe out a bunch of bystanders, essentially committing genocide, but the tone of the song is all upbeat and cheery, while the lyrics are about how Argos should get whatever he wants. What is the purpose of adding a song here? Are we supposed to find this funny? Is it meant to establish Felix as a wild card? Is the song supposed to make us like him more because of how catchy it is? What was the writers' endgame here? Like I mentioned earlier, this flies in the face of the characterization the episode is trying to establish for him.

Marinette transforms into Ladybug and arrives on the scene, confronting Argos over what he did last season.

Ladybug: You're the reason why I lost the other Miraculous in the first place! And why he took them! You gave them to him without any regard for the consequences it might have with the people of Paris!

Argos: True, except I work for no one. I only helped Monarch cause it served my plans! I needed the Peacock Miraculous and today I need yours and Cat Noir's so I can make my wish!

Ladybug: Your wish?! What do you want?! What are you trying to do?! You're destroying the world and we don't even know why!

Argos: When I merge your Miraculous together, I'll make a wish to create a better world! A free world, where no one will be under anyone's control anymore, where no one will be excluded like I was! A world without people like you to decide what's right or wrong! Who gets powers and who doesn't!

Dude, you're literally playing God right now by snapping away people who did nothing wrong, while singing a song at that. You have no right to lecture Ladybug on how to use power responsibly. And once again, even though we just saw him happily snapping people out of existence like the kid from that one Twilight Zone episode, the episode is going back to portraying him as someone who's only doing this because he has nothing to lose.

Ladybug tries to use her Lucky Charm, but gets nothing in response. This is because her plan is to get Argos to give up, but even in episodes where her plan was to get Akumas to give up, she still got her Lucky Charm (Rocketear, Qilin, Penalteam, Reunion, Perfection, Intuition), so this doesn't really make any sense. Ladybug calls Argos' bluff, so he wipes out everyone from existence. After running into Kagami and snapping Adrien back into existence, Argos is surprised that they aren't thanking him for wiping out all of humanity, and in fact, see him as a complete psychopath.

We then learn Felix's true plan. Earlier that day, Argos capitalized on a opening he had been hoping he would get for weeks, and then created Red Moon. Right after Adrien's date with Marinette, Argos ambushed Adrien, and snapped him out of existence with Red Moon's power. He then decided to impersonate Adrien so he could infiltrate the dance and snap Gabriel, Tomoe, and everyone else out of existence.

I think my feelings on this plan can be perfectly summarized by Tony Stark.

First off, why did he need to sneak into the dance? All Felix had to do was transform into Argos, and nobody would know who he really was.

Second, why did he need to impersonate Adrien? Felix claims he's doing this for him, yet all he did was steal his girlfriend and ruin his public reputation. As a matter of fact, why did he even snap Adrien away? You're already wiping out all of humanity, so I don't think temporarily doing the same to Adrien will earn you any goodwill.

Third, why did he waste so much time screwing around with Marinette and Kagami? I sort of get why he would try to get in Kagami's good graces (keyword being “try”) by trying to convince her to rebel against her mother more, but why did he dance around with Marinette while pretending to be Adrien? Felix later says he wanted to spare Marinette for Adrien's sake, but he barely knows her, and whether she finds out Felix impersonated her boyfriend or not, she's going to be pissed at either you or Adrien because of your galavanting. In fact, I don't think he ever told Adrien that he danced with Marinette while at the dance in the first place.

Finally, he really needed to wait for this for weeks? If your goal was to get rid of Gabriel and Tomoe, why didn't you just ambush them yourself instead of waiting for a public function? This isn't like has last few appearances where he needed to rely on his intellect. He has superpowers now. All he has to do is create another Sentibug or some kind of assassin Sentimonster and he can be rid of them easily. Instead, he waited weeks for a chance to steal his cousin's identity, dance with his girlfriend, talk trash about Kagami for listening to her mother when he's supposed to be helping her and Adrien, blow his cover in a crowded area by transforming, and use his killer moon to erase all of humanity from existence while singing. Remember, this is the show that usually makes jokes about Marinette's obsession with unnecessarily complicated plans.

Anyway, Argos tries to use his powers to bring Marinette back, but for some reason, they won't work. My best guess is that it's because Marinette transformed into Ladybug, but that shouldn't chance the fact that Argos snapped her with Red Moon's power. After trying to justify his genocide by saying he never wanted to hurt Adrien and Kagami, Argos remembers how his powers work and brings everyone back. After Ladybug lets him go scot-free, Argos goes to a private place realizes that he may have made a few mistakes for almost wiping out all of humanity, tearfully snapping Red Moon out of existence, calling it “his sister”. Because I guess we were supposed to emotionally connect to the giant moon that showed little to no signs of sentience this entire episode? Argos transforms back to Felix, and we learn that Amelie knew where he was the whole time, and she was apparently testing Gabriel for some reason.

After Adrien explains to Marinette that his father ordered him to not tell her about the dance, Adrien goes to talk to Gabriel about it. Gabriel, being Gabriel uses his control over Adrien to force him to never talk about Marinette again. Gabriel then gets a call from Lila, and even though she's been nothing but helpful to him since Season 3, he's apparently tired with her. Why is he suddenly rejecting the help of his most competent (by comparison) ally?

Also, the episode ends with the revelation that Lila somehow knows Gabriel is Monarch. Why? How? I DON'T CARE, BECAUSE THIS EPISODE SUCKS!

Oh my God, this episode was just terrible! “Derision” and “Adoration” definitely got to me with the way their stories were handled, but this was the first episode in a while to really piss me off. The plot was contrived as hell, basically being a repeat of “Gabriel Agreste”, and you all know how I wasn't exactly a fan of that episode. Think about it: Marinette sneaks into a party, Felix tries to scheme against Gabriel, and Marinette and Adrien end up getting caught in one of his schemes.

The social commentary about how bad the rich were just felt more pretensions than anything else. I get that it's meant to teach children a lesson about the real world, but the episode feels so confident in what its trying to say when it's not that deep, even by kids' show standards. Rich people are bad? Yeah, I think someone like me who lives in the same country as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg knows that. Will you actually teach kids about the financial conditions that allow the wealthy to abuse their power or the cutthroat methods they'll resort to in order to turn a profit? No? You're just going to tell kids that rich people are jerks without giving any actual evidence in the same episode you're using to try and to teach them? Man, these writers just keep hitting it out of the park here!

This whole “Rich people suck” message also falls flat because Felix is the one pushing it. You know, someone who already comes from a rich family? It's not like Bruce Wayne where he uses his money to help the people of Gotham, as Batman or not. Felix just whines about how “tHeY'rE tHe MoNsTeRs.” when he's just as well-off as they are. The episode tries to do a subtle discrimination message as evidenced by his rant as Argos earlier, but it doesn't work because we have never seen anyone discriminate against Felix for who he is. Yeah, the episode once again tries to hint at him being a Sentimonster, but because the show hasn't just pulled the trigger and confirmed it, it's hard to really sympathize with him being “excluded” when we've never seen him being treated differently by others in earlier episodes, and even if he was a Sentimonster, nobody would know or be able to discriminate against him in the first place.

I don't know why the show keeps trying to excuse Felix's actions when once again, he pretty much committed fucking genocide yet the episode still wanted us to feel bad for him realizing his actions had consequences. If he actually wanted to own up to his mistakes, he'd either hand over the Peacock Miraculous to Ladybug or help Ladybug stop Monarch. For someone who claims he hates when people abuse power to make others suffer, he's no better, judging from how both times he's gotten to use a Miraculous, he's either screwed over Ladybug (Strikeback) or endangered a lot of innocent people. And if you're wondering why I didn't point out any double standards between the treatment of Felix compared to Chloe, that doesn't really matter. No matter how you feel about Chloe, whether you feel like she got screwed over or not, it doesn't really make how the writers are glorifying Felix any better or worse, as his potential “redemption arc” isn't off to a good start.

The plot was stupid, Felix was an idiot, and it felt like more effort was put into the musical number than the writing. In my opinion, this is easily the worst episode of the season so far.

Although at the very least, now that we have even more evidence that Adrien, Felix, and even Kagami are all Sentimonsters, I think I know what clip I can start using to describe my feelings on this plotline.

THE BIGGEST IDIOT OF THE EPISODE IS... FELIX

For someone who managed to outsmart Gabriel on multiple occasions with no superpowers, Felix's intelligence really took a nosedive the second he got the Peacock Miraculous. He came up with a completely unnecessary plan that involved impersonating his cousin's identity and mocking his friend when he's supposed to try and win their favor, he danced with his cousin's girlfriend without his consent, transformed in public, smearing his reputation even further, and proceeded to gleefully wipe out humanity through a musical number, and needed other people to point out how immoral his actions were. Of course, Marinette gets second place thanks to her plan to break into the party and later letting Argos get away.

[covenofstars]

Shears and shadows

Bucky Barnes x hairstylist reader

Different stylist from previous, also might make a part two????? Let me know. Enjoy.

It wasn’t every day that a super soldier walked into my salon.

Not just any super soldier—him. James Buchanan Barnes. Better known to the world as Bucky, or the Winter Soldier, depending on which headlines you read.

He stood awkwardly in the doorway, tall and broad, with his dark jacket zipped halfway and a black baseball cap tugged low like he thought I wouldn’t recognize him.

“Can I help you?” I asked, pausing mid-cleanup with a broom in hand. The place was empty—it was closing time.

“I, uh... need a haircut.”

I blinked, tossed the broom against the wall, and tried not to visibly flinch at the fact that Bucky Barnes—former assassin turned reluctant Avenger—was asking me for a trim like he wasn’t... well, him.

He seemed almost shy, tugging off his cap and revealing an unruly mane of shoulder-length brown waves that honestly made him look like some kind of post-apocalyptic prince.

“Yeah, sure,” I said, gesturing to the chair. “You’re lucky I haven’t locked up yet.”

He moved like he was still getting used to his own limbs—graceful, but heavy, like he carried more than just muscle.

“You got a name?” I asked, draping the cape over him.

He glanced at me through the mirror. “James.”

“James,” I repeated, testing it. “Classic. You don’t really look like a James, though.”

“Most people call me Bucky.”

I raised a brow. “Bucky it is.”

His lips curved just slightly. Not a full smile—more like a shadow of one. Still, it felt like winning a medal.

I combed my fingers through his hair, sectioning it slowly. “So, what are we doing? You want it short-short, or just less broody and tragic?”

That got a soft chuckle out of him. “Less tragic.”

Noted.

As I snipped away, I noticed his shoulders gradually drop from military-rigid to something softer. He didn’t flinch when the scissors brushed the nape of his neck. He didn’t look like he was expecting an attack.

“You always this quiet?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Not used to this.”

“What, haircuts?”

“No. Being... seen. Talked to.”

My hands stilled for a second. I looked at him in the mirror, our eyes meeting. His were stormy blue, but there was something tired there—like he’d seen too many lifetimes in too little time.

“Well,” I said gently, snipping again, “you’re just a guy in my chair right now. And guys in my chair get two things: a good haircut... and a safe place to exist.”

His jaw flexed like he was trying not to feel anything. Like he’d spent years mastering that skill.

“Thank you,” he murmured, almost like he wasn’t used to the words either.

“Don’t thank me yet,” I teased. “Still gotta blend the back.”

He huffed a breath that was almost a laugh.

We didn’t talk much more. The silence between us wasn’t awkward—it felt like maybe, for once, he was just allowed to be. And me? I tried not to focus too much on how good he smelled, or the way the fading sunlight caught the edge of his metal arm, gleaming like something out of myth.

When I finally spun him around for the reveal, his eyes widened just a little.

“It’s good,” he said, touching his hair, surprised. “It’s really good.”

“Damn right it is,” I said, smirking. “Told you. Safe place and a good haircut.”

He stood, hesitant. “Can I... come back? For another trim?”

I tilted my head. “Only if you bring coffee next time. And maybe actually smile.”

This time, the smile made it all the way to his eyes.

“Deal.”

[thetorturedbuckydepartment]

chapter three: the truce

pairing: Bucky barnes x plus-sized!SHIElD!reader

masterlist

summary: being a SHIELD agent, you have a knack for analysing people, particularly when it comes to attraction. you have everyone figured out, sorted away into the boxes you've created. But there's one man you can never seem to figure out, the very bane of your existence -- Bucky Barnes. On the field, he is a saint, helping you dodge bullets and taking knife wounds in your name. Around the building? Public menace number one, always poised to insult or to spar with you.

After being sent on a 6-month-long torture-cum-vacation with the very man, could all this change? Could you finally figure out what has been bubbling beneath the surface for years between the two of you, the juggernaut that you know you cannot stop?

warnings:  language, mention of being fostered and it being terrible, more hints to reader’s past, dead mother, mentions of sex and reader being dom

word count: 2.7k

taglist: @cjand10 @mcira @calwitch

PREVIOUS PART

A/N: I enjoyed writing this sm! as always, please let me know what you think, all comments and reblogs and likes are heavily appreciated!! love u all <3

You didn’t expect moving to be so much work, and…so much fucking tape. Ever since you escaped the hellhole of your foster house, you’ve been living in the Tower, only ever having to unpack a duffel and a suitcase full of clothes and shoes and makeup. 

The good news that comes from being so tired is that you barely have the energy to argue with Bucky, often falling asleep on the couch halfway through dinner. The TV will continue to blare in the background, and Bucky will continue to chew silently. He lets you take the naps, gently waking you up once he’s done, and handing back your freshly heated dinner plate right back at you, just so you never eat a cold meal. In all honesty, it’s been wonderful.

Somehow, he’s nice to you, now. The two of you haven’t officially called a truce, but it goes unspoken, you suppose. You find yourself helping him more than usual, and certainly have stopped insulting him. You don’t know why. Why he’s being kind, and smiling, even in the privacy of your own home, where nobody else but the two of you have been, so you know for sure that there are no bugs or secret cameras.

The neighbourhood has been pretty quiet, and it seems the Senator is currently on a vacation of some sort, so you haven’t had the chance to profile him in person, or his house. Your own is quite nice, large with a swimming pool in the back garden. It’s modern, and neat, and oozes luxury. 

If you weren’t so fucked up, if you still wanted the ring and kids and picket fence, you would’ve loved it here. You can almost see it — a partner grilling an assortment of meats and vegetables that have been marinating in a secret spice mix for hours, kids splashing and playing about in the shallow end of the pool, you and other guests lounging on the chairs as the sun sets, washing everything in sight in hues of golden orange. Or if it’s just your family, maybe sneak some affection from your partner with a hand around their waist and a kiss pressed to the back of their neck. It’s perfect. Given that Bucky’s from the 40s, he must be losing his mind. He’s pretending, albeit, but he’s gotten the simple life he must’ve dreamed of and clung to. It’s a shame he’s with you.

Which brings you to right now, standing in front of the oven with your arms crossed, waiting for an old-fashioned timer to go off. You stare at it, at the minutes ticking by. There’s nothing much left to do. You’ve already unpacked all the kitchen crockery, throwing away the last of the cardboard. The blue frosting and white icing is mixed and ready on the counter, and you hate yourself. It’s March 10th, today. Bucky’s birthday. 

His kindness in these past two weeks has completely swayed you, so here you stand, baking him a fresh batch of cupcakes you’re going to be decorating, just for him. You don’t know why, it feels like you glanced at your new phone, registered the date, and all you did was blink and now here you stand. Bucky’s still fast asleep in his bedroom.

That was another relief of the house — there were two bedrooms. Thank God, the two of you sleep separately. You’ve shared a bed before, on several missions and attempts to get the two of you to enter a state of permanent civility, and oddly enough you missed those nights sometimes.

When you weren’t tired enough, so the nightmares ran rampant in the small area of your brain and the large expanse of your imagination. Sometimes you’d wake up pressed tightly against him, and you knew he must have held you to ground you. Other times, he’d still be fast asleep, and you would often trace all the intricate ridges and details of his vibranium arm. You’ve gotten adjusted to the sight of his brand new, human arm, but you miss the black and gold. You’d rather die than verbally express so, but you miss it. You miss the way it soothed you, distracted you. The way it created space in your mind for something that wasn’t torturous memories lashing out at you. 

If he knows about it, he’s never said anything. About the nightmares. Not even two nights ago when you had woken up screaming and trying to escape out the window, desperate to escape a phantom wielding a bloodied knife. He’d just calmed you down, talked you back to the centre of the room and held you.

He likes doing that a lot now, finding excuses to touch you. It’s comforting, like you’ve been on edge your entire life and are just now finding peace. You hate it. You hate everything about your current situation, but it’s simultaneously a humongous relief. To not have to constantly have your guard up and be ready to fire insults like they’re bullets. You can just be, and revel in the way he’s not treating you like he’d rather be anywhere else.

The timer goes off. The cupcakes cool. The recipe is something your mother taught you — your only remaining inheritance you carried with you. You smother them in frosting, writing HAPPY BIRTHDAY BUCKY with one letter on each cupcake, leaving two for free reign. You chose to simply put the number 107 on each of them, and arrange them on a wonderful, dark blue tray.

You let yourself smile, proud of the work you’ve accomplished so far, at only 9AM in the morning. And then, a voice grubbed over with sleep, yet not as annoying as you remember calls out.

“Whatcha bakin’ there, doll?” You turn to him, rubbing his eyes and yet thankfully wearing a shirt. His hair is still messy, and you move forward to fix it for him as he shoots you another lazy grin. This has become somewhat of another step of routine between the two of you. He always wakes up with messy hair he cannot be asked to comb, and you got tired of berating him for it. He’d complain theres no mirror around and being to pout until you huffed and fixed it for him.

You try and pretend like you don’t notice his conspicuous eyes fixed on your face like he’s desperate to memorise it. 

“Happy birthday.” You decide to keep your words simple, staring directly into his eyes, so blue that they make some long-forgotten muscle in your chest restart.

You turn around to ignore that feeling, heading back to the counter where your frosted treats await. You miss the desperate, aching look of longing on his face. It brings back memories of him, of how he acted the last time you bothered to remember one of the most basic facts about him — how he’d pretty much thrown your gifts across the room and stormed out of his own birthday party without so much as another word.

He swears to be different now. To be different to you. In all honesty, it didn’t take a genius to figure out why you dislike him so, but on the journey here, he was finally able to read between the lines. It’s pathetically embarrassing to admit why he acted that way towards you, especially now. He wonders if you’d laugh at him, shape it into another painful weapon to aim for his diaphragm.

“Happy Birthday, Bucky. I know being stuck with me isn’t ideal, well, let’s be honest, you’d probably rather be back in cryo—.”

“No I wouldn’t,” he replies all too fast, staring down at the tray in your hands. He tries to ignore the rampant beat of his heart as he registers that you finally called him Bucky, instead of literally anything else. He knows you do it to spite him, and admires that you’d still never call him the Winter Soldier, despite how deep the faux hatred between the two of you ran. Well, faux hatred on his part.

He’s been in love with you for years. And when he finally realised it, you’d already moved past trying to be nice to him. He’s missed his chance with you, he knows this. But he finds himself growing more and more desperate with every passing year to manufacture that chance. But every time he builds up the courage, it seems you’re too busy flirting or eye-fucking literally anyone who isn’t him. And it crushes him beyond belief, every single time.

Without fail.

“Oh, okay. Didn’t mean to bring that up. Erm, I made you these cakes. They’re my mum’s recipe, and as far as I know you’re not allergic to anything in here.” He plasters a grin right back on his face.

“Aren’t you gonna sing for me, doll?” God, you wish you could hate that nickname. But it’s a step above Butterface, that’s for sure. And as much as you hate him, it is his birthday. You don’t know how much you can bring yourself to deny him, especially what with all the kindness he’s been showing you recently.

“Do you want me to?” God, Bucky wishes you could love him back. That those beautiful eyes he dreams about so often, just stare at him with some warmth, some fondness. Like you did when he first got here, when he didn’t deserve your affection. But those versions of the both of you are long gone. 

“‘Course I do. It’s my birthday after all.” You roll those pretty eyes and huff, pretending to be annoyed. 

You grab the candles from the cutlery drawer you bought in a last minute impulse on your grocery shopping run, and stick them in two of the cupcakes, lighting them with your lighter — the only physical inheritance from your mother. You still remember that night, when she pressed it into your small hands and begged you to hide underneath the bed, before all hell broke loose. She always had a lit cigarette in her hand, and the smell of ashes always brings memories of her floating back to you. It’s a simple golden one, engraved with a venomous snake on the front and her name embossed — her name before she got married. It’s your most prized possession. Bucky watches as you run a thumb over it with that fond look in your eyes, and his heart catches in his throat. You’ve never been more vulnerable than you are in this moment, not even when you were on the floor crying over the thought of pretending to be married. All of your guards are temporarily lowered, and he sees how your hard exterior gives way to something softer and warmer, a version of you long buried under the stresses of your job and the malice you exude in his presence.

And he’s obsessed with the ring on your finger, the way you play with it when bored or pensive. Actually, he’s just obsessed with you. You begin singing with a small, yet seemingly genuine, smile on your face. He thinks it’s the most beautiful sound he’s ever heard. 

You have a lovely voice, even if it’s reserved for showers and to be lost in impromptu choirs. But his heightened senses mean he can still pick your voice out of the crowd, can still feel the weight of it wash over him like a perfect blanket. He wishes you’d cling to him like that, like the songs you sing when you think nobody’s listening or paying attention.

And then you call him Bucky again, and his heart goes out the window. He’s practically vibrating where he stands and clutching his fists to his sides in trying not to kiss you. You wouldn’t like that. When you finish, he closes his eyes and wishes for you like he does every year. 

He guesses a lesser man would’ve lost hope, after seven birthday wishes asking for one person, and yet still having them so close yet so out of reach. But he’ll beg, every year, until someone out there decides he shall have no more. He’d beg for you any time, in any way you like. His heightened sense of hearing, and the two of you living on the same floor, means he already knows how much you enjoy being begged for pleasure. How much you enjoy being in charge.

When he first got to New York after Wakanda, the only room that was available was across the hall from yours. He didn’t mind. Even though he’d completely forgotten how to talk to people he finds insanely attractive, so insanely enigmatic that all he can do is try his best to not let drool drip out of his mouth when he watches you do even the most mundane things like eat cereal with your hair still messy from a long night, in a sports bra and joggers. Showing off every inch of that perfect body he’s worshipped so many times in his dreams. It’s why he hasn’t moved out of there, because of the perverted side of him. Something he’d rather die than admit.

And of course everyone in the damn building knows, how could they not? When they see the way he looks at you when you storm out of a room, how he almost misses the punching bag when he sees you training weights across the room with sweat slicking your hair to your forehead. He thinks you’ve never looked more irresistible, and he’d do anything to get his hands on you, in any way you allow. Why do you think he asks you to spar so often? 

You grin at him. “Bucky privileges are only for these 24 hours, then I go right back to James. And I got you something.” You hand him the tiny box, gift wrapped in blue as he looks at you with an adorable blush on his face.

“You really didn’t have to do all of this, doll.”

“I wanted to make you feel more at home. And I needed to talk to you about something.” You’re wearing one of his old flannel shirts, folding your arms across your chest. You’d requested some of his bigger, older shirts to wear, and had told him it’s considered a form of deep intimacy in the 21st century. And those six shirts are all you’ve worn around the house, often with biker shorts on underneath. You know, just to drive him to ridiculous heights of insanity, of course. 

“We should call a truce. Officially. I mean, we’re being civil, and it goes unspoken. But officially, for the record, we should call a truce. At least, not be mean to each other. I wanted today to be the beginning of it, end date TBD.”

“Yeah, that’s fine with me. Now, can I open it?” You nod, gesturing at the box. You watch his face as he delicately unwraps your birthday gift, for any signs of discomfort on his face. If he’s truly okay with the peace you’ve proposed between the two of you. 

“Come here.” He commands. You’re surprised how quickly you comply, walking across the counter to stand mere inches from him. You wonder if he’s going to treat this gift like he did the last, and make sure you end up crying this time. 

“This is a wonderful gift, doll. I really, really love it. Thank you.” Before you can protest, he pulls you in for a quick side hug. You don’t miss how his blue eyes glow as he takes the New York keyring out of it’s container, running his thumb over the Statue of Liberty. 

He feels…so warm. And so cosy, all perfect for snuggling up. You find yourself wishing he hadn’t pulled away from the hug, desperate to feel more of his warmth against you than ever before. You suppress the need as it emerges, but you’re not strong enough.

“Yeah yeah. Whatever. What do you wanna do today? We could go out.” You try to remain impartial, but it’s proving difficult.

Keeping up all of your guards and walls is becoming more and more difficult with each passing day, and you find yourself becoming soft. The one thing you despise, but you also crave. 

You have no idea what’s happening to you.

And it’s terrifying.

NEXT PART

[lifesucks4realz]

chapter 9 - Why Do I Keep Doing This To Myself

“Hey, Moons,” Sirius said, voice warm like the first sip of tea after a cold walk. “How was your little park adventure with the boys?”

Remus couldn’t help but smile back, like muscle memory. “It was good. Dumb. Chaotic. Classic us.”

“Oh yeah?” Sirius raised a brow, leaning closer to his screen. “Define ‘chaotic.’”

Remus huffed a laugh and closed his laptop lid halfway so he could lean back in his chair. “We made a pros and cons list. About Ben.”

Sirius blinked. “Wow. That is chaotic.”

“Yeah. It was Peter’s idea, surprisingly,” Remus said, scratching the back of his neck. “And honestly? It wasn’t... totally unhelpful.”

Sirius tilted his head, a bit of the smile fading into something softer. “So? What’d the list say?”

“That I’m still confused,” Remus admitted. “Even with three pros and two cons, I don’t feel sure about anything. It’s just—Ben’s nice. He’s good. But I don’t know if I want to try with him because I really want him, or because I want to stop wanting someone else.”

There was a beat of quiet on the line, and Sirius nodded slowly.

“Alright,” he said. “You want my unsolicited advice?”

Remus laughed. “Has that ever stopped you before?”

Sirius smirked. “True. Okay—if you really aren’t feeling it, Remus, then eventually you’re just gonna hurt Ben. And yourself. A pros and cons list is fine, sure, but if you’re still this unsure even after making one, then maybe ask yourself these three questions.”

Remus leaned in a bit. Sirius’s voice had shifted—softer, steadier. Serious Sirius was rare, but when he showed up, he meant it.

“Is he kind?” Sirius asked. “Can you tell him everything in your heart? And does he help you become the best version of yourself?”

Remus blinked, caught off guard. “Where the hell did you get that?”

Sirius gave a small, sheepish smile. “Effie. Said it to James once when he was losing his mind over Regulus. Stuck with me.”

And it stuck with Remus, too.

He sat there for a moment, headphones askew, the faint hum of music in one ear and Sirius’s words echoing in the other.

“That might be the smartest thing you’ve ever said to me,” he murmured.

Sirius shrugged, but he looked pleased. “Well. Gotta keep you on your toes.”

Remus smiled again, smaller this time. A little sad. A little grateful. “Thanks, Pads.”

“Anytime, Moons.”

And for a while, neither of them said anything, just sitting in the comfortable silence that only exists between people who really know each other. The kind of quiet that said more than any pros and cons list ever could. 

just a snippet of my lasted chapter of my fic everything sucks when you're 17 on ao3. Please go check it out and enjoy reading <3

[awkwardtickleetoo]

Twinkle Toes

stumbles in covered in blood……. hi everyone

i first started writing this fic as a joke i’ll be completely honest lmao. i did Not expect to finish it, or for it to be halfway decent, OR to actually post it, OR for people to actually WANT me to post it. but here we are.

jokes aside i actually am really glad you guys are so interested in this fic, i was really worried it wasn’t right to post/no one would wanna read something like this so i appreciate your enthusiasm so so much, thank you guys <333

special thank you to @wishitweresummer for reading this one, i knew right from the start this would be right up summers alley lmao so i’m glad she ended up liking it!! and extra special thanks to @mushiewrites as always for being there through the whole process and even being the one i was joking with when i brought this fic into existence lmao

without further ado, here is the infamous pedicure fic

lee!george, kinda ler!dream???? not really tho it is entirely the nail tech lady doing the tickling lmao, 4k words

enjoy!!

--

“I haven’t had a pedicure in so long, I really need to go soon…” Dream spoke quietly, thinking out loud as he skimmed through his busy phone calendar. “It’s been… almost two months, apparently.”

“Does that stuff actually, like… do anything?” George asked curiously, bringing his arm up to rest his head on top of it, leaning back against the couch and curling his legs under the throw blanket draped on his lap.

“A pedicure? I mean, yeah, definitely, it’s just fixing up your nails, really,” Dream explained, also leaning back to stay face to face with George.

“That’s all they do? Just, like, cut your nails for you?” George asked with furrowed eyebrows, still interested in the process even if he was confused about the appeal. He didn’t necessarily understand the point, but he supposed he wasn’t exactly the target demographic. Dream seemed to like it, though, so he still listened anyway.

“No, they do other things too. They, like… soak your feet and put soap and oils and salts and stuff in the water and they, like, clean and exfoliate everything and then massage you and put on lotion. Then they’d usually paint your nails if you want, but I never do that so they just put some clear shit on to finish everything off,” Dream explained, waving his hand around near the end, less sure of the actual nail polishing part than the rest of the process. “I’m sure there's more to it but that’s what I can remember.”

“Oh, that sounds… pleasant,” George replied sarcastically, a grimace on his face at the thought. His toes curled under the blanket, almost able to feel what Dream was describing– a total stranger manhandling his feet and… well, he already forgot half of what Dream said, but his point still stood.

“It is, idiot,” Dream joked, shoving George’s shoulder and making them both chuckle. “But no, it actually is really nice. It’s relaxing, at least I think so, I know some people disagree, but… I dunno, it’s refreshing, I feel like,” Dream continued, and George shook his head fondly at him, the smile on his lips discrediting any amount of disapproval he tried to convey. “You should come get one with me,” He suggested, and George scoffed incredulously.

“Uh, no, definitely not, that sounds like a terrible idea,” George replied, his stomach fluttering at the suggestion. He wasn’t as displeased as he expected to be, he was actually kind of intrigued, but he was definitely not about to admit that.

“Oh, c’mon, it’ll be fun! And it actually is good for you, too, from what I’ve heard,” Dream continued, his face softening as he leaned closer to George, trying to catch his eyes as he bit his lip to hold back a smile. He could tell George wanted to laugh with him, so he leaned into the silliness and reached forward to grab one of George’s legs out from under the blanket. “No, I get it, you’re probably worried about your tiny little doll feet getting hurt.”

“WH– Dream!” George yelped, leaning forward and shoving Dream away from him, but Dream just laughed and cupped his hand around George’s socked foot, squeezing it, his other hand still holding his ankle tightly. George couldn’t help but laugh at his stupidity, his cheeks flushed pink from embarrassment.

“No, it’s okay, really! I’d be scared too if I had to let someone handle something as delicate as these,” Dream replied, shaking George’s foot around in the air and making him laugh even harder, throwing his head back against the couch and groaning in frustration. “I’m shocked you don’t walk with a permanent arch like Barbie.”

“Oh my god, you’re so dumb! Get off me!” George complained as he finally yanked his leg out of Dream’s iron grip, throwing his blanket back over his legs to protect himself and crossing his arms over his chest, slumping back into the cushions and huffing out all the built up energy in his chest, squirming in his seat. Dream gave him a few seconds to breathe, before shuffling closer, sitting cross legged facing him instead.

“It’s alright, I know how you get with this kind of thing, but I’ll be there the whole time to make sure no one does anything that you’re not okay with,” Dream said genuinely, making George smile softly at his words. Dream smiled back, tilting his head and leaning in further to finish his pitch. “Come on. We can go this weekend. My treat, that way if you hate it, you can just forget it ever happened… Deal?”

George looked at him for a few seconds, weighing his options in his head. He could never say no to Dream, especially about something he was determined to get George to do, and he couldn’t deny the curiosity and the butterflies swirling around in his tummy. He rolled his eyes, giving in and telling Dream he would try it, and he supposed it might’ve been worth it to see the victorious look on Dream’s face when he did.

Before he knew it, it was two days later, and they were pulling into the parking lot of a nail salon before he could even process what he’d gotten himself into.

He bit his lip nervously as Dream turned off the car and unbuckled his seat belt, ready to walk in without a second thought. Once he noticed George’s hesitation, he paused, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re sure you’re okay with this?” He asked kindly, voice soft so he wouldn’t add to George’s anxiety. “I was just messing with you the other day, you don’t actually have to do this if you’re not comfortable with it.”

“No, no, I’m alright. I promise,” He assured, and Dream squeezed his shoulder in understanding. “I’m just kinda nervous more than anything, I don't really… know what to expect.”

“Yeah, the first couple times can be scary. But they’ll walk you through everything as they do it.”

“I also hate people touching my feet, Dream. It’s weird– they’re gonna, like, they’re gonna get their stupid glizz on my toes or something and everything’s gonna be wet and cold and they’re gonna touch me– that’s fucking– that’s so weird, Dream, that’s weird,” George rambled, and Dream couldn’t help the laugh he let out at his wording. “What?! I’m serious!”

“No, you are not,” Dream said through his laughter, finally swinging the car door open and getting ready to step out. “Firstly, you’re being so dramatic, and secondly, do not ever say ‘glizz’ in that context ever again in your life.”

“You’re so gross. Get your mind out of the gutter!” He called as Dream closed the door behind him, rolling his eyes and reluctantly forcing himself out of the car too. He followed Dream through the door of the salon, holding it open for both of them to enter with a soft ding of the bell above the door frame.

“Good morning! How are we doing today?” The nail tech greeted warmly from behind the front desk, a slight Southern twang to her voice.

“We’re good! Uh, we’re just here for two pedicures, I called a couple days ago?” Dream explained, smiling kindly at her. “The appointment should be under George,” He finished, flashing George a smile and making him roll his eyes.

“Let’s see here… yep! Gotcha right here, right on time, you can come on back,” She continued, motioning for them to follow her to a private room past the waiting area, holding the door open for them and flicking the lights on.

The walls were painted a light brown color, with white and beige curtains lining the farthest wall covering the windows, but still letting a bit of sunlight in. There were a fair few pieces of furniture; four large leather chairs with empty water basins at the foot of them, two on either side of the room, with a table on either side and a cabinet between each pair, with a small lamp on top. The lamps were turned off, but the room was still illuminated by the warm lighting of the overhead chandelier and a set of string lights by the curtains. Other than that, there were some throw pillows on the chairs, a few shelves on the walls with different nail polish bottles, and a small desk next to the door with a large framed mirror hanging above it.

“Y’all make yourselves at home, get comfortable, I’m gonna get all my stuff together and I’ll be right back.” The nail tech said, and both boys nodded at her.

“Sounds good, thank you!” Dream replied, George tacking on a quiet ‘thank you!’ of his own, and she smiled at them before walking away, closing the door about halfway behind her.

When George turned back around, Dream was already sitting on the edge of one of the chairs, reaching down to unlace his shoes and slipping them both off, clearly familiar with the process. He looked up after a few seconds, smiling knowingly at George and leaning over to pat the other chair.

“C’mon, sit,” Dream spoke softly, coaxing him over and chuckling when George reluctantly did so, sitting on the edge as well, facing Dream.

“You really went all out, didn’t you?” George teased, leaning his shoulder against the back of the chair and tilting his head, earning another laugh from Dream.

“Not really, it wasn’t that big of a deal to ask for a room. Plus, I figured you’d want the privacy. I think it might help you relax more.”

“Yeah, I’ll be soooo relaxed while some random lady touches my feet for an hour,” George replied, clearly bashful, though his tone lacked any bite, and Dream could tell he appreciated the gesture anyway.

“Relax,” Dream said as he reached downwards, gently taking one of George’s ankles in his hand and guiding his leg up to prop his foot up on his knee.

“What are you–“

“Shh,” Dream shushed, glancing up at him just in time to see his flushed cheeks and the dumbfounded expression on his face as he started untying his shoe for him. His touch remained gentle and steady, fingers careful as they pulled at the laces, slipping it off and holding him still as he leaned over to place it on the floor next to his own. George scoffed, his toes instinctively curling at the new level of exposure, but Dream simply continued on. He pushed George’s leg back, letting it drop to the floor, before repeating the process with his other shoe. “Just chill. It’ll be fun, I promise.” Dream let his foot drop back down, breaking into giddy laughter when George just stared at him in confusion.

“Shut up! Why would– You’re such an idiot!” George complained, face flushing, sliding back against the chair and curling his legs up. He yanked his socks off and threw them on top of his shoes before crossing his arms over his chest and pouting, all while Dream laughed at him from a few feet away. He was about to protest some more when the nail tech came back into the room with an arm full of towels and a clear plastic case, closing the door behind her.

“Alright, who’s up first?” She asked, setting her supplies down on the desk. Before George could even think of an answer, Dream had already beat him to it.

“He is.”

“What?!” George asked, whipping his head around to look at Dream. “Why?!”

“Because I said so.”

“This was your idea, though!”

“Exactly, which is why you’re going first,” Dream finalized, turning his attention back to the nail tech with a smug smile on his face. “This is his first time,” He explained as she wheeled the small round chair over from under the desk, setting it in front of George’s chair and sitting down, nodding with a small laugh of her own. George scoffed at the wording, rolling his eyes and rubbing a hand through his hair.

“Ohh, I see, we’re a little nervous?” She asked, looking up at George, who shifted in his seat and looked down at the chair as he replied.

“Yeah, def– definitely a bit nervous,” He said with a laugh. He didn’t feel good about admitting that, but he didn’t want to seem rude by not answering honestly.

“Well, don’t you worry, darlin’, there’s nothing to be afraid of,” She replied as she turned the faucets on the basin connected to George’s chair, letting water flow into it and testing the temperature with the tips of her fingers. “Unless you’re ticklish, then I can’t promise anything,” She finished, and George felt his stomach drop about six stories.

He hadn’t even considered that. How the fuck did he not think of that?

His eyes widened, and he glanced over at Dream, who had a shit-eating grin on his face, laughing at George’s expression. George couldn’t help but laugh too, in awe of the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, dropping his head down to hide in the crook of his elbow and leaning on the arm of the chair. He heard the nail tech chuckle at them as well, picking his head up just in time to watch her sprinkle some salts and pour some soap into the tub, turning the water off shortly after.

“Alright, you ready, baby?” She asked cheerfully, shooting George a kind smile, and he let out a sigh to calm his own nerves.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” He replied, earning another laugh from the other two. The nail tech held out her hands, motioning for George to bring his legs closer, and gently took his ankles in her hands when he pushed them close enough, guiding him towards the basin.

He let out a soft breath when his feet touched the warm water, decently impressed by how perfectly relaxing the temperature was. For the first time that day since the car ride to the salon, he felt the tension ease from his shoulders, and thought the experience might not be as terrible as he anticipated. He leaned his head back against the chair, shifting slightly to get more comfortable as he relaxed more and more, sharing idle small talk with Dream or the nail tech whenever he was prompted.

After a while, he heard the nail tech clear her throat and begin rustling around in her bag of supplies, and he blinked his eyes open, only then realizing he had even closed them. He watched her take a few tools out, things that he couldn’t guess the names of if he tried, only recognizing the nail file and clippers out of the handful she had, and he furrowed his eyebrows as she turned her attention back to him.

“Don’t worry,” She began, reaching forward to pull his left foot out of the water, propping his heel up on the edge of the basin. “I’ll be gentle,” She assured, and George let out a shaky breath, mentally preparing himself for the worst. He glanced over at Dream, who simply smiled at him, turning towards George’s chair to keep an eye on the situation.

Then, she got to work. She began with clipping and filing his nails, then pushing back and trimming his cuticles, occasionally dipping his foot back into the water to refresh his skin for the next step.

Thankfully, that part wasn’t nearly as bad as George anticipated. There were some hiccups– for example, when he squirmed and giggled each time her nails grazed the below his toes when she switched between nails, or how he jumped and squealed when she slid over the side of his foot. Or, of course, when he yanked his foot out of her grip when she scratched down his sole in a way that definitely felt intentional even though she swore it was an accident, and he giggled so much he needed to hide his face and had to be coaxed back into position by both her and Dream. That didn’t exactly help with his embarrassment.

Despite how flustered and nervous George already was, and how much his cheeks burned at the thought of it getting any worse, he managed to tough it out when she repeated the process with his other foot, finishing off with some weird citrusy cuticle oil that he didn’t understand but had to admit smelled really, really good when she reached forward to let him smell it.

She gave him a few moments to calm himself down, which he was very grateful for, but his time was cut short when he finally felt like the warmth of his cheeks was under control.

“Okay, darlin’,” She began, looking up at George with a sweet, sympathetic look in her eyes, holding something in her hand that he couldn’t entirely see. “You’re about to really not like me anymore.”

“Why, what is it?” He asked nervously, curling his toes and pulling his feet up onto the back of the water basin, away from the nail tech. She chuckled at him, reaching forward to grab his ankles again, and he let out a giggle against his own will before she even did anything. She pulled his right foot forward, letting his left stay free to move, and then dipped whatever was in her hand into the soapy water. As she did so, George finally caught a glimpse of what it was.

A scrubbing brush.

Why the hell did he agree to this?

“Oh God,” He groaned, attempting to pull his leg back, but her grip on his ankle remained just as strong as her knowing smirk, which only made the pit in his stomach grow wider. He held onto the arms of the chair, digging his fingers into the plush leather material, biting his lip and still curling his toes anxiously. His left foot came back to rest on the edge of the basin, his leg swaying side to side, until Dream rested his palm on his knee to stop the movement, and George whipped his head around to glare at him. “You’re not helping.”

“I’m not trying to,” Dream replied, and George would’ve had a snarky rebuttal ready, but he suddenly felt the bristles of the brush swipe over his sole once, and his attention was immediately focused on that instead.

“Oh–“ George choked out with a gasp, clamping his lips together and squeezing his eyes shut. The brush swiped over his foot again, then again, and again, until she was properly scrubbing it clean, the soap and water only aiding the brush in sliding over his smooth skin.

George thought he was going to implode, and the look on his face sure didn’t help to hide that.

“If you need to laugh you can laugh, sweet pea,” The nail tech said kindly, drawing a muffled giggle from George as he shook his head, curling to the side and dropping his head down to hide in the crook of his elbow, resting his arm against the chair. “Aww, look, I almost gotcha!”

“Ohohoh–“ George fought, curling up even further, contorting himself to hide as much as possible as his laughter started flowing freely, unable to keep it in any longer. Right as he did so, the brush moved back down to his heel, making him try to yank his foot back again as more raspy laughter fought its way out of him. “WHA– hahaha–!”

“There you go! I knew those giggles were in there somewhere!” She praised, letting the brush glide up to his toes, tightening her grip as she attacked the underside of them and making his entire body tense up.

“Oh myhyhy Gohohohod!” He laughed helplessly, foot flinching in her grasp as he squirmed in his seat. His left leg bounced against the edge of his chair, trying to expel any energy he possibly could, still death gripping the arm of the chair with the hand he wasn’t currently shielding his blushing face with. “Whahaha–“

“Is he always this jumpy?” She asked, directing her question to Dream, laughing along with George when he shook his head at the question.

“Oh, always,” Dream confirmed, chuckling as well.

“Fuhuhu– mmm– hmhmhm–“ George hummed against his hiding place, taking in some much needed air as the nail tech pulled the brush away and gently placed his foot back in the basin of water, still just as warm and comforting as when they first started, which made him realize that what had felt like the eternity he’d been trapped with two demons set to destroy him hadn’t really been that long at all.

“He wants to curse you out so bad right now,” Dream teased, breaking into laughter when George reached out to blindly hit him, eventually finding his leg and slapping him with so little force it was almost pitiful. Dream reached forward, letting his hand drop to the back of George’s head, scratching at his hair and cupping the back of his neck soothingly.

“Aww, that’s okay. I’m tough, I can take it,” She reassured, grabbing his left foot and pulling it towards her, making George gasp and shoot his head up to look at her. “Besides, you’re gonna need to when I do this.”

“Nonono– NOHO, SHIHIHIT!” George squealed, flinching and falling back into helpless laughter as she repeated the harrowing process on his other foot. He hid back in his arm, any attempt at concealing his laughter out the window, squirming and complaining when the other two threw coos and teases his way.

Eventually, she seemed to finish that step, as she put his foot down and discarded the brush, letting him breathe once again. He picked his head up a few moments later, in time to watch her drain the water from the basin and grab a towel, taking each foot and drying him off gently.

“Is it over now?” He practically whined, playing up his dramatics slightly, trying to gain some semblance of control back. She chuckled at that, reaching over to her supplies and pulling a small bottle of lotion out.

“Almost, baby, almost. The hardest part is over,” She reassured, and George would be lying if he said it didn’t help to calm him down. She popped open the top of the lotion bottle, dispensing a small amount into her hands and rubbing it between her palms, before taking one of George’s legs again and gently massaging his foot, as well as up and down his calf.

The rest of the experience went pretty smoothly, apart from some rogue giggles and flinching during the massage portion, his skin extra sensitive and smooth from the lotion and previous steps of the pedicure. The final step came along in no time, and she ended George’s first pedicure experience with a clear coat of polish to finish everything off.

After that, the nail tech had let Dream know it was his turn whenever he was ready. As she filled the basin in front of him with water, he already seemed to know the process quite well, and went along without a second thought. George curled up in his chair, admittedly very cozy and content to watch Dream have a turn after everything was done on his side, though he grew less and less entertained and more and more embarrassed when Dream barely had any adverse reactions to the process at all.

He made it through the nail filing and cuticle trimming without so much as a chuckle, he continued chatting with the nail tech through it. When it came to the brush, he got a little giggly, but nowhere near the level George was, he even remained completely still the entire time. Even with the massage, the same thing, next to no reaction apart from a few giggles and flinches here and there.

George was furious. And it didn’t help that Dream kept teasing him about it– about how much of a big, dramatic baby he was about the whole thing, even though George knows that’s not true.

But whatever. Who cares. They were finished, they had said their goodbyes, gone up and paid, left a generous tip for, direct quote from Dream, everything she had to deal with with George, which George found very rude. George would never have to worry about getting a pedicure ever, ever again.

Well… until they got back to the car.

“So… should I schedule again for next month?”

And who is George to say no to that?

[gloriousbookwyrm]

I’ve been busy most of today, but had a last minute idea for a Pocky Day ficlet, ft YuuMalle

Nonbinary Yuu, who is mentioned to have had a girlfriend at some point in the past

After the sun sank below the horizon, and the campus grew dark, Yuu stepped outside and waited by the gates of Ramshackle. Sure enough, the air soon filled with green sparkles, and Hornton joined them, holding a box of pocky, and explained why after he greeted them, “Lilia tells me there is some human celebration around this snack. Apparently it involves some manner of game, but he didn’t explain what. I don’t suppose you learned anything about it from your classmates?”

Somehow, Yuu was more surprised to learn Twisted Wonderland also had Pocky Day than they had been to find out they also celebrated Halloween. They answered Hornton quickly, “Actually this exists back home too. I can teach you the pocky game, if you want?” Hornton nodded smiling, and Yuu opened up the box and pulled a stick out. They had been harboring a crush on their charming, elusive visitor for a while now, but had no idea how he felt about them. They didn’t even know his name! And from some of the things he said, they had put together that he almost definitely wasn’t human, and was probably some kind of fae, which they had heard from a few people apparently existed in this world. Even if he was interested in dating a human, who knew if his romantic customs would even be recognizable to them, or vice versa? This could be a fun way to gauge if he shared certain things in common with them, and if he did, how receptive he was to those things, coming from them. “You take one end of the pocky in your mouth, and I take the other. We’ll take turns moving down the stick until one of us breaks it. Whoever gets to eat the most pocky wins.”

Hornton blinked, “That seems too easy for whoever gets the first turn. What’s the catch?”

“How about you go first and find out?” Yuu bit gently on the chocolate-covered end of the snack, sat up in the stone wall so he wouldn’t have to bend so far, and waited. For a moment, it looked like Hornton really was going to just take the entire pocky at once, but halfway to them seemed to realize how close their faces were, blushed, and stopped there. So fae did have kissing, and considered it at least intimate enough to embarrass him, even he had been a little slow on the uptake there. Equally interesting was the way even the pointed tips of his ears turned pink, and how his slit pupils widened when they made eye contact.

It was Yuu’s move now. When they had played the game with a now ex-girlfriend back home, they had liked to surprise her by making exactly the move Hornton had threatened, claiming the bulk of the snack and a kiss at the same time. Something about Hornton’s reaction made them want to draw it out little, though, so they moved forward by barely an inch. Hornton would have to draw in closer by his own volition, or else break off early.

He opted to move forward, but only barely. However, when Yuu responded in kind and moved an even shorter distance towards him, he huffed, and took enough of the snack that there was only a fraction of an inch between them. A moment later his fluster caught back up with him, and he blushed even further. His face was too close now to really see his expression, but from his eyes and action, Yuu could see he clearly wanted them to be the one to close the gap. They leaned in until there was barely any pocky left between them, and Yuu took in the way his pupils had blown out so large that almost none of the green of his eyes could be seen. Briefly, they considered taking pity on him and the way his lips had parted slightly in anticipation. Instead, they bit the snack in two, and hopped back down onto the ground before he could react. “Well, looks like you have the bigger piece! Want a rematch?”

“I— That is— ” Hornton stammered, but before he could answer, they both heard the raised voices of a pair of Diasomnia students who sometimes patrolled nearby, presumably looking for dorm mates straying out past curfew like Hornton clearly was. Instead he hastily bid them good night and disappeared, leaving Yuu with the overwhelming desire to keep teasing him, whenever they next met.

[oscconfessions]

Counter to the one megahater anon. I hope One gets loved and cherished. I want to comfort her, make sure she's okay at every moment. I want to help her lead the best life she can and break her out of bad habits. I want to know the true reason she wants Two's power, and help her reach a reasonable means to an ends without putting anyone in harm's way. I want her to rebuild her relationships with the other algebraliens and I want to help her work through any potential past trauma. I want to hug her and kiss her and tell her everything will be alright. She doesn't deserve malice or hatred - she deserves love and understanding. Her actions in canon are horrible and unjustified, yes, but she can still prove herself to be a better person than she was before, even if she has to cut a lot of people off in the process. Deep down, I believe even One has a loving heart, and I want to see it grow and get stronger. I want to make sure she feels loved, to make sure she knows I'm there for her, that she's special to someone. I want to comfort One, and to show her someone cares. That someone wants to see her shine. That someone wants to make her dreams come true. That someone is there to console her.

The very idea that people can hate this silly armless number to the point of AM-level hysterics bewilders me. At the end of the day, we don't know enough about her to determine whether or not she can even be classified as 'pure evil'. I'm one of the people that believes anyone can change, even reality-destroying numbers who like stars too much, so I can live with either one of those realities. She's an asshole, but she's my asshole, and I can fix her, even if only halfway. Also, she kind of doesn't exist. So, like, she's not an actual problem. So people wasting their precious time on feeling angry at actually nothing is kind of strange.

TL;DR One do you want a dog. I can bark

.

[thevoicefromanotherworld]

"I'VE COME TO TAKE YOU HOME"

I WROTE A FIC BASED ON SEVERANCE FINAL EPISODE

I hope you like it!

Warning: Severance 2X10 spoilers under the cut

Mark's outie woke up in the elevator Irving had directed him to, his body and part of his face covered in blood.

He stared at his hands for a moment, also soaked in blood. He didn't know who his innie had killed, but whoever it was, he was sure they deserved it.

He and his innie didn't agree on many things, except for the most important of all: that Lumon should cease to exist.

Mark tried not to stare at the blood too much, and after enduring a slight dizziness, he got out of the elevator and headed down the white corridors, looking for the door he was looking for, behind which you were supposedly: his wife, the person whom, despite being led to believe you were dead, his innie discovered you weren't.

It turned out you were alive somewhere in that damned place, and Mark was willing to do anything to find you.

He looked down at his hands again and realized he was holding a gun. He wondered where his outie had gotten it, but it was clear that didn't matter at that moment.

He didn't even check to see if it was loaded: a gun, even if it didn't have bullets, is still good enough to threaten someone if necessary.

His outie held the weapon tightly as he walked straight down the endless hallway lined with doors, looking for the one with the file name he'd just completed.

He quickly read the names on each one without success, and just when he thought he'd be gone, his eyes read the two words he'd been waiting so long to find: Cold Harbor.

He ran toward it, but before he could reach the door, a woman in a nurse's uniform blocked his path.

"You can't be here," she said very seriously, as if seeing a man covered in blood and holding a gun didn't affect her in the slightest. "If you don't leave right now, I'm going to call Mr. Milchick."

"I'm not going anywhere without my wife," he declared, nodding behind her. "Open the door."

"I can't do that," the woman blurted out.

Mark was tired of all that shit. He just wanted to go home with you and pretend it all didn't happen. He wanted to get back to the life you had together, before Lumon came into your lives and turned them upside down

"You misunderstood me," Mark growled, pointing the gun at her head. "I told you to open the fucking door!"

"No!"

"Open the fucking door or I'll blow your fucking head off!"

"You're not going to kill me," her outie cursed, having no idea whether the gun had bullets or not

"You're not going to kill me," she decreed. Mark gave a smile halfway between amused and malicious

"Do you really want to check?" he said, putting the gun to his temple "I'll say it just one more time," he murmured "Open the door, or I'll paint these walls with your blood"

"Fine, fine! I'll fucking open it!" the woman said, placing her hand on the reader that unlocked the door

When it opened, Mark's gaze focused on her for a long time before gesturing toward the hallway.

"You have five seconds to get back the way you came before I kill you," he murmured, "and I'm warning you, I have very good aim," he murmured very seriously. "I won the hoops game we played at Dylan's waffle party," he added, pointing the gun at her. "Time's ticking," he said, placing his index finger on the trigger. "One…" he whispered. "Two…"

The woman started running away from him. By the time she reached five, he had disappeared from sight. Then Mark turned around and saw you. You were dismantling a baby crib.

He tried to contain the anger he felt toward the people who had done this to you.

It was just proof that you had no feelings, no emotions of any kind. He stopped himself from screaming in rage before walking slowly over to where you were.

"Honey," he whispered. You turned to him, holding the screwdriver high, afraid he'd hurt you. "It's me," he murmured. "It's Mark." He gave a gentle smile. "I've come to take you home."

"I don't know who you are," you replied, and the fear and coldness he saw in your eyes was enough for Mark to know you meant it. "How did you get here?"

"This is a long story short," he murmured, clicking his tongue with ill-disguised impatience. "I know you don't know me right now, but your outie knows who I am." He held out his hand to you. "I know this is going to sound very strange, but your name is Y/N Scout," he said, "and you're my wife," he explained. "The only way we can be together again the way we both want is if you come with me, please," he added, looking at you firmly.

You didn't know who this man was, but there was something in his words and the tone of his voice that told you that what he was saying was true, and that therefore you could trust him.

So you took his hand and he led you out of the room where you were.

Then it was as if you were waking up for the first time.

You experienced a sensation of falling, before returning to your senses and noticing the face of the person in front of you facing you, and the hand that held yours with the same strength and warmth it always had.

You looked up quickly, and that's when you saw him. Mark was there, and he'd come for you.

"Mark," you almost sobbed, happy as never before in your life to recognize him, when you didn't even think you'd see him again. "Is that you?"

"It's me, baby," he smiled, holding you in his arms. "It's me," he said, squeezing you against his chest, and you cried against him without being able to stop yourself. "Shh, calm down, you're okay, everything's going to be okay."

"But how? I…" you hiccuped. "Oh, Mark, I'm so sorry, I…"

"You have nothing to apologize for," he interrupted, placing a loving kiss on your forehead. "The important thing is that I found you and we're together," he said, holding your hand tightly. "Now we have to get out of here."

You nodded and let him guide you through the hallways back to the elevator.

Because it didn't matter what happened to you anymore, those few moments when you were able to return to who you were were the real reward.

[alice-after-dark]

here's an ask/fanon take opinion: I don't think Alastor was needlessly cruel or violent to Vox except maybe for their breakup fight. Maybe they had a battle or two, but I don't think Al was destroying Vox's screen with his cane halfway through every conversation. Like besides the people he literally sees as enemies or his overlord takedown back in the day- do we even see Alastor hurt anyone except if you include pulling Husk's chain. But I doubt that actually hurt him. If Vox was really Alastor's close friend and confodent, I don't even think he would hurt him even in a confession rejection like the fanon wants to believe. Unless he had to desperately break things off cause his deal. They just treat Vox as this punching bag and literally the only person we see who had an indication or want when it comes to hurting him is Valentino. I like to think that Alastor poked and prodded at Vox with curiosity and teasing, and my guy is for sure handsy. But HURT Vox, like wound him. Even though Al is a serial killer, I just don't think he would do that to anyone he enjoyed the company of. What do you think? Cause frankly it just seems to be such a cold take on Alastor. We see this guy as bloodthirsty but he also has friends???? The mere presence of Rosie and Mimzy just show that he created compatible human connection, like the fuck? Kind of pisses me off if I'm being frank.

Thank you so much for the ask!

I do agree, though I can't say I've actually seen this situation before (about Alastor regularly hurting Vox during their friendship). I definitely agree though that Alastor isn't the type to just arbitrarily hurt someone he viewed as a friend.

Alastor's friends exist in a special circle. We see how warm he is towards Mimzy and Rosie. Even when he tells Mimzy off, he's not overly harsh about it. It's implied that he's effectively cutting off their friendship, but he's not cruel and he definitely doesn't get physical with her. He simply tells her to leave. Literally the most I can see him doing is knocking them gently on the head with his cane.

We don't actually even know if they did canonically fight when they had their falling out. It's widely assumed, yes, but we don't actually know if their falling out led to a fight. Valentino mentions that Alastor "almost beat" Vox but he doesn't actually say how Alastor almost beat him or when it even happened. I think it's pretty safe to say that it was probably their last encounter before Alastor disappeared, but we don't actually know that Valentino is talking about a fight. Alastor likes to play games, so we know fuck all about what Valentino is referring to.

Also them having regular physical fights is another thing assumed by the fandom. For all we know, Alastor has never physically hurt Vox and vice versa. The closest thing we see from them in terms of a fight is "Stayed Gone" which is essentially a glorified rap battle.

TLDR I don't think Alastor is the type to use any of his friends as a punching bag. I think becoming someone he considers a friend is a hard fought battle and he treasures them very deeply (which of course would make any betrayal to that friendship - real or perceived - sting all the worse).

[intheorangebedroom]

Hi Maddie! I hope you are having a wonderful September and you are enjoying the start of autumn. This might sound obsessed or weird, but PTMY and TYBTM are seriously some of my favorite things I've ever read... ever, like I'm putting it up there with novels I've read. It is insane to me how much talent there is in this fandom. Like the Pedro girlies are literal authors, putting out works of art. For me, you are the best of the best! Obviously, both stories have me very hot and bothered lol, but it's just the way you write intimacy and relationships, the peculiarities of your characters and the world's they inhabit so brilliantly, beautifully. I'm sure you know that at times you write like it is poetry! It is so immersive and I love it deeply. My question (apologies in advance) is about writing. I was wondering if you have any tips on (a) how you have improved as a writer, like in terms of how you've been to find your style? (b) how to overcome perfectionism? I've been wanting to take a crack at some Frankie ideas I've had, but I get so weighed down by self doubt and inertia. And also, I worry it's just not original enough. Okay, sorry for the rant! I will never be as good as you OBVIOUSLY lol, but for you I am grateful. I'm so excited for the next part of TYBTM and sad we are almost halfway to the end. I'm so excited for whatever you have in store for the future. Sending you so much love and hope you're having a great day.

Hey Nonnie 🧡

I apologise in advance for the length of this answer. 

Your kindness, your generosity and your time mean everything to me. I’m the worst at expressing gratitude when I’m paid a compliment. "Compliment" doesn't cut it to qualify what you said about my stories, it’s too much, it’s so incredibly kind. You made me so soft but also so much stronger. Thank you 🧡 My first impulse upon reading your message was to throw away my phone and scream I’VE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK I’M DOING but I owe it to you to at least try to answer you. Also do you need some blood? A kidney? I have two. You name it it's yours.

I would like to start with the second part of your question, if you don’t mind. 

I have never ever thought any given piece I wrote to be perfect. At best, I think it’s not that bad, but that’s when I read it again a month after posting, because at the time I post it, it’s more like omfg if I read that shit one more time I’m gonna stab myself in the eye.” 

But life is too short for perfectionism. I’m sorry to be speaking like an old fart, but it is. You blink and it’s over. If you have a milligram of creativity in you, do not hesitate. Channel it. Create what you want, what you like. I’m serious. DO IT. Enjoy doing it. 

Self-doubt is a fucking bag of dicks. I’m riddled with it. In every corner of my existence. Every step of the way. Every word I type (not in my mother tongue…). How many times have I wanted to give up, especially during PTMY. The current tybtm chapter has fucking killed me dead. I hate it. It’s not good. Bad. But I’m forty fucking five years old and I’ll be damned if I let self-doubt and fear prevent me from achieving what I set out to do.

When I came back to tumblr in 2020, I saw numerous posts saying “you write for yourself first,” and I did not really understand what they meant. It’s nice to have an audience! It’s nice to be liked and validated! It’s nice to connect with people over something you’ve created. Musicians play live, and get a hell of a kick out of it, right? Why not us, writers? And one day, I think at the beginning of tybtm, it hit me. I understood. Fuck yeah I’m doing this for me. Because I need it. I need to tell this story. I need the satisfaction of having done it. The entire process makes me both incandescently happy and abysmally miserable, and you know what? That’s the fucking spice of life. I want both. I am alive when I write. Through the pleasure and the pain. So if you need it too, well, go for it. Don't let anyone, including you, tell you you're not good enough. Got for it.

There are 99% of chances that what you’re gonna write has already been written. So what? It hasn’t been written by you. No one sees people, life, or Frankie the way you do. Even if you write an age-old trope, even if you write the same trope over and over again in every story (me!), you’ll still bring your own precious singularity to the story, the characters, and the narration. That’s worth EVERYTHING. Please trust me. Maybe no one will like it. Maybe every one will like it. Whatever. At the end of the day, you still did what you set your heart on. I cannot stress enough how important this is. Carpe diem, baby.

Then, how did I improve as a writer, oh Nonnie, I’ve no idea. I don’t think I’m any good. I don’t think I am legitimate to give you any advice. 49.5% of the time, I think I’m too much (too gothic, too lyrical, too big with the feelings and emotions). 49.5% of the time, I think I’m not enough (not precise, concise, clear, good enough). But alright, I’ll try. For you. But please bear in mind I say all this in the most humble spirit.  

I write. All the time. In my head, in the shower, walking in the street, driving, aaaaaall the time. And then I type it down in a doc. And edit it and revise it again and again and again, until it feels smoother and/or I want to puke at the thought of having to go through it again. 

I try to take my time without panicking. If I’m stuck or in a bad mental place, I try to let it rest a bit.

My first year at uni, I studied screenplay writing. I would be unable to tell you precisely what I learned, but I think some of it is ingrained? In terms of conveying intentions through actions and dialogues (I know I tend to write pages and pages of introspection, and I swear I try to restrain myself, even if it doesn’t always translate to the doc).

Then, I’m an art vampire. I soak up everything I can, especially painting, music, and movies. I let it inspire me. I take notes on my feelings, fleeting emotions that I can’t articulate at first, and reflect and work on them until they become fully formed ideas I can inject in the writing. 

I read. A lot. And sometimes not at all when it feeds the self-doubt (comparison, you bitch!). I wait until I feel better, stronger. It may take time. 

With books/fanfics and movies, I analyse the narrative process employed. What I liked or disliked, what moved me, what didn’t. I take notes. To that effect, you can read reblogs of your favourite fics! Sometimes people reblog with some pretty neat analyses, just soak it up!

My obsession is finding the Right Word. I can spend days on the quest. A thesaurus helps. And sometimes it doesn’t. I also read my stuff out loud, because I like when it has a certain rhythm. And when the meaning of a sentence doesn’t work in a rhythm, I rework it tirelessly until it does. Fun times... 

I want to say that if you take the leap and start writing, after a while, you will feel instinctually what works for you. What feels right in terms of personal style. Maybe at the beginning you'll subconsciously write like someone else, but with practice and patience, your style will come out. If you need someone to cheer you on, I'm here.

Oh yeah because, very important, I whine to the very good angel friends in my phone whenever I’m stuck (they will recognise themselves if they read this)(okay they are @dreamymyrrh and @pedrit0-pascalit0). I forfeit all dignity and beg them for virtual hugs. I don't know what I did to deserve them.

And lastly, I have been privileged to witness the genius of Kelli ( @frannyzooey ) in the works and wow. She's it for me. Everything she writes resonates with me, so I just soak. it. up.  

So yeah. to sum it up: carpe diem and be a vampire 🦇

Hope that helps 🧡

I’m also gonna leave that here: 

Claire ( @just-here-for-the-moment ) is one of the best people I’ve been fortunate enough to meet here. She’s patient, sweet, kind, and SO FUCKING SMART. Don't be afraid to reach out.

Nonnie, again, I'm so sorry this is so long. I sincerely hope you'll find something useful in all this gibberish. If not, come back to my ask box with any question. And again, thank you 🧡 From the bottom of my broken vampire heart, thank you 🧡

[a-really-cool-blog-name]

Did somebody ask for adventure forward head canons that may or may not interfere with the actual canon because I haven't played the games in a while?

No? Screw you, you're getting them anyway.

Warning ⚠️ I am cringe, but I am free so I feel like that makes up for it.

VERY LONG LIKE INCREDIBLY LONG YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED DO NOT CLICK THAT SEE MORE BUTTON UNLESS YOU WANT TO READ ADVENTURE FORWARD HEAD CANNONS YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Also I say head cannons but like halfway through I derail into my AU of what crown of shadows and vein reveal would be like so I still think it's really interesting but I'm very biased.

("I hate celesteal!" I say, before making a bunch of head cannons around him.) I really like celesteal as a character I hate him as a person but I really love him as a character

Do not expect this to be arranged well it will not be. This is not chronological this is not even like grouping a character altogether this is really messy, I'm just getting all my ideas out.

The two different canceled sequels are both different timelines (that I may or may not make crossover in my head) and I have different ideas for how each of them would go so I will refer to them as crown of shadows (COS) and Vain revival (VR) to specify when it is only for one of the versions.

Anshine and Stratosfear are happily married.

I don't know if this is cannon or not but Sheldon definitely made Miobot. And also accidentally made him sentient, oops, sure hope that doesn't come back causing both of you to get forcefully ascended to a higher existence.

Celesteal admire humans a lot mostly because he can't figure out where they keep coming from (he does not know how reproduction works) and he can't figure out how to make one.

VR! The shard saver is his closest attempt to a human looking mostly correct but having the little quirk of her having pink blood and also thinking it is normal for a person to not remember the first 15 years of their life (She does not know she is not human at first) The shard savior is also the only one of his creations that he considers to be his child.

It took Celesteal a couple hundred years to figure out how to make a sentient being at that point he was kind of already cuckoo bananas.

Yawgate was one of his earlier creations and often accompanied him to where he needed to go because Yawgate does the portaling.

The pure points did not learn how to speak English properly they were just imbued with that knowledge shortly after they were made. Unfortunately they are all British because of this. (Celesteal thinks that accent is the most quote on quote "cool" and therefore he speaks in it)

Celesteal refers to everyone using they/them most of the time because he does not know how genders work at all.

The first Star Savior is a 39-year-old closeted gay man named Stefan. (I accidentally stole that name from a fanfiction like 2 years ago, oops)

Mason is a 40-year-old and is also a closeted gay man. The main reason he became the mayor is because his father was the mayor and his father is now dead. The hat wears is his father's. He is also really tired of the may or may not jokes, yes he has heard it before it lost its funny factor since he was a child and heard it from people saying that to his father. Stefan doesn't think it's lost it's funny factor and still makes those jokes.

Mason and Stefan are childhood best friends and may or may not (Haha get it) have feelings for each other. Unfortunately, that issue won't be resolved for another 300 years. (Talk about a slow burn)

The second Star savior is a 28-year-old man named Nicholas (I also stole that name from the same fanfiction I read 2 years ago accidentally, oops) who has served in the military. His only remaining family members are his aunt, who he has a rough relationship with and his cousin who he has a fine relationship with, but he hasn't talked to since before he joined the military.

Anshine is really bad at naming things like "if he had a Dalmatian he would name it spot" type of bad at naming things.

Stratosfear for a brief period of time forgot his own strength because he didn't really have to do stuff like opening jars when he had to play the role of the star steeler and he's kind of been trapped for 300 years so not a lot of time to get used to how strong you are with objects and stuff.

Stratosfear is immune to poison and venom because he himself can make poisonous stuff if he really wanted to. He can also make red metal into any shape he wants, he just thinks scorpions are cool and so has a bunch of metal shapes in the shape of the scorpion tail, that is one of the very few things he got to choose for himself in that time loop.

Evon has somehow managed to in all her years of being a cashier, which is two, meet every single pre-point and not realize it. Evon goes by Eve. Whett is Eve's boss. Whett and Randall are friends.

Eve lives with her roommate Rose who has very obvious feelings for her and Eve is oblivious. (Would really be a shame if something were to happen to Eve which caused Rose to never be able to properly tell her her feelings, ha. On a completely unrelated note Rose is actually one of Nick's ancestors so maybe that's a good thing because he literally wouldn't exist if they were together oops. This just in, woman (me) who can't handle tragedy made another tragedy.)

Umbra may or may not be in a cult?? It's really unclear to an outsider if it's a cult or just a really dedicated group of people to studying the Moon. She does have powers from this because I think that's cool.

If Cynosura had a nickel for every time he has been brutally transformed he would have two nickels which isn't a lot but it's weird that it's happened twice.

He got cursed by a weird gem thing that was in his backyard when he was like twelve. Given the fact that he's already cursed he can't be cursed again so he goes out looking for those items to stop anyone else from being cursed. (Yes, he has ice powers I thought it would be cool for his pre point to also have them, shut up.)

Cynosura and Umbra used to be friends before Cynosura's cursing and then became penpals because they couldn't see each other in person they recently have started talking in person again. I feel it is important to mention that Umbra literally couldn't care less that he was cursed, she's more mad he didn't talk to her in person for that whole time. (They're like in their thirties I don't know the exact ages)

(Wow sure hope Umbra doesn't see something she's not supposed to see and go to run off to tell him and drag him down with her to be higher being of existence forcefully accidentally because she couldn't keep it to herself) (also Celesteal gets Cynosura pointified Midway through talking about how they probably shouldn't know this and how one of them might get hurt because he quote unquote "thought it would be really funny" Umbra tried to punch him in the face, to little success.)

Despair is an orphan and is also distinctly not human. (He's not exactly sure how to say what he is in English so he just goes with what everybody else calls him, a demon.) he also chose that name when he was an edgy teenager, his friends call him Dee because it's kind of hard to take the name Despair seriously. Despair still finds the name cool even though he is going to be twenty soon.

Cynosura offered him a place to stay shortly after he lost his parents at like 10ish. He takes up this offer randomly and then randomly leaves. They consider each other to kind of be like Uncle and nephew.

Eve, Despair, and Laoin are all friends.

Laoin is part dragon because I think that's cool.

Funny random thing I thought of, Laoin is friends with Trussy (I don't like that name that much I kind of want to change it but I don't know to what) who is friends with Sheldon And Laoin is also friends with Despair who is friends with Cynosura so when Cynosura needed house repairs once Despair mentioned that to Laoin who mentioned it to Trussy who then paired up with Sheldon to help fix Cynosura house while not knowing him directly at all.

Ixol gets pointified last and only gets pointified because his entire friend group mysteriously disappeared and he managed to -in his grief- figure out almost everything he had a board with red string across it and everything he was like one pin away from figuring out the identity of Stratosfear, I am serious. He figured out that the points probably where his friends because it's a little suspicious that each time one of his friends disappears there's a new guy with their exact personality who doesn't remember their past, this happened to him like four times. Cyalm when he realized what Despair had figured out was shocked and really impressed because he proceeded to do that and then never do anything like that ever again.

Yawgate is not supposed to let the pure points into other pure points dimensions but he does it anyway behind Celesteal's back because he feels really bad that they wouldn't be able to see each other any other way. (Celestial doesn't really care that much, he knows Yawgates doing it he just feels like it's not worth his time to stop it. Yawgate doesn't know that Celesteal knows about that) Only reason he didn't visit Stratosfear for that whole time is because Celestial specifically blocked off that pocket dimension.

Morword is surprisingly optimistic for seeing an infinite number of alternative timelines that the future could go into many of which includes people she cares about dying. But she chooses to specifically not think about that.

Pasless is one of the only people who knows about the infinite amount of timelines cause unlike the rest of them there is only one him and he is just split apart infinitely, he does a surprisingly good job at keeping the different parts of him separate and not letting anyone else know that he is constantly doing that. He talks to Morword about it occasionally though. Morword doesn't let him know how much it bothers her that those infinite number of timelines that she sees do actually happen in a different timeline.

That whole speech Morword and Pasless gave about how "you control the future but can someone else control the past and if so would we know" was incredibly pre-planned, they practice that for like a month straight once Morword saw that someone was going to see them.

(Yes, I am a sucker for them considering themselves siblings, how did you know?)

Stratosfear has PTSD.

The Red x did not have a name he consistently went by until someone else decided to name him (I want the first star savior to name him but I am not sure if that directly goes against the canon) and then once he realized he could change his name he went ballistic with changing his name. Like, come on he did it thrice.

Blueband is one of the few humans the Red x personally likes blueband is very loyal to the Red x and as a reward for his good behavior he gets to be pointified and keep his memories (he's the red guy who tried and failed to guard the elemental points) he's a little upset that he can't wear his hat anymore due to the horns. When blue bands pointified form I forgot his name and I don't care enough to look it up see stratosfear he exclusively refers to him as the star stealer, this annoys Stratosfear greatly.

VR! The shard savior is a 20 year old (or at least she thinks she is) named Charlotte (hooray I didn't steal that name form that fanfiction I read 2 years ago) who, as previously established, thinks it is completely normal to not remember the first 15 years of your life and is Celesteal's favorite creation. (She does not know this)

VR! Verfection (Yes, he is a pointified version of the second Star saver, he has lost all of his memories.) is best friends with the Voxier. (Their friendship is the poster child for extrovert adopts introvert) Verfection is one of the very few people that Voxier actually cares about and makes them actually want to exist and not return to the nothingness he (supposedly) came from.

VR! Verfection and Charlie freaking hate each other.

COS! Arrolin and Ixol freaking die. And on a completely unrelated note Compale loses one of his legs. (They're not supposed to be able to lose those but voixer managed to anyway) You see the joke is that it's not unrelated Ixol dies so Compale won't, haha. (This just in woman (me) who, once again, can't handle tragedies has made another tragedy.)

Still COS! Ixol also had the ability to see ghosts and was able to see Arrolin's ghost she was happy about this, Ixol was not. Ixol could always see ghosts, he just thinks he's really lost at this time, he already knew he was probably insane this was just the tipping point for him to actually realize it. Once Ixol is dead he also becomes a ghost and realizes he probably should have told the others before he kicked the bucket.

Also COS! geez I have a lot of head cannons for COS! Said crown of shadows is a corrupting force that corrupts the user and when in a room with only one person will attempt to attach itself to said person's head. Voixer would have without the crown of shadows never tried to actually kill the points just try to figure out a method to go back to the void it's only the crown of shadows that gave him the idea of killing the characters in the story to also kill himself to end the story. Not that the rest of the points will ever know this except for Nicholas.

You know what I'm just going to tell you when it's not COS! Anymore okay?: Oopsie Daisy, Nick, you killed the guy who the crown was on and you were the only person in the room, guess what the crown is going to try to do. That's right! Force itself on your head. So Nick any actively crumbling building thing starts getting pointified, uh-oh. Luckily for him he's in an actively crumbling building (a sentence that has probably been said exactly once) and the rubble knocks the crown of his head, (Yay!) it also cuts off his arm (Not yay!) because he is not fully point yet and he does not get the neat ability to regrow his limbs until after one of his limb is already gone.

He wakes up surprisingly okay for just being under a crumbling building, he's also a point now and actively missing an arm and there's also this evil crown trying to get on his head so in his panic he tries it to stuff it in his bag, this somehow works in stopping it.

A little meme based off of that:

He's going to go by verfection now because he feels a little weird in breaking tradition of choosing a new name when you become a point. He also got the ability to see ghosts, get haunted by your dead friends, idiot. Surprisingly this is good for Verfection's mental health because that means he can't completely isolate himself. Voixer doesn't directly haunt him because he feels a little still messed up in the head and also feels guilt, a lot of guilt, and shame, quite a bit of shame.

Verfection just went back to living at his house because he didn't tell anyone where he lived. Verfection is not doing well because even though he got the crown off soon enough that he didn't go completely mad he still isn't doing great mentally and feels a lot of guilt because he got the memories of Voixer and now feels like he killed someone who didn't deserve it. He's mostly just trying to keep the crown safe to stop anyone else from getting it put on their heads. Surprisingly putting it in a bag still is working. Just for safe measures he locked it in a specific room that no one is meant to go into as well as putting it in a safe in said room. He still has not told his friends he's alive because he feels a lot of guilt and a lot of emotions right now.

Also Signol just loses her memory again, don't worry she'll get it all back when they managed to figure out how symbol breaking works in the crown of shadows timeline which I haven't figured out how they're going to figure that out but I know they will figure it out.

FINALLY WE'RE DONE WITH CROWN OF SHADOWS FOR NOW

VR! Verfection was actually a scrapped idea that Celesteal had he scrapped it because he thought it was too similar to the first star savior's fate. However those scrapped ideas came out whenever the world started literally breaking.

None of them know how points work (except celesteal for obvious reasons) exactly they mostly got it figured out but sometimes they'll just figure out something completely new about how they work for instance,

Okay after this point I'm just going to specify when the vein reveal section is done: There would be a boss fight between Stratosfear and Anshine in which they would fuse and then not figure out how to defuse until after they were uncorrupted. After Celesteal was brought back he revealed but that's just a thing they can do and I've always been able to do he just never mentioned it before.

Despite the fact that Yawgate is on the side of "we need to bring celesteal back or else the world will literally end", it is important to know he is one of celesteal's top five biggest haters. Probably being biggest hater number two or three. He was often threatened with being erased from existence by him and over time him threatening to do that to people that you love and actually doing it at least once causes you to dislike a person over time.

In the final fight of "we shouldn't bring back an evil dictator who literally locked up a guy for 300 years cause he thought it'd be funny I guess" vs "okay but we literally need to bring him back or else the world will literally end we hate him too" Verfection accidentally cuts Charlie's arm off which simultaneously makes Verfection's symbol break due to the intensity of it all and causes Charlie to realize that she is indeed not human because her arm is bleeding pink and is shattering into shards that are actively rebuilding themselves in front of her. All of the same time celesteal is actively getting remade from the shards collected.

Celesteal did not intend to come back after being killed he did not think that the world would just shatter into pieces, he thought it would be more like a crown of shadows if anything. When he does come back he's like "Oh. Oh. I messed up didn't I? I made a miscalculation somewhere... :D Hiiiii Charlie! <3 My favorite creation! How are you doing? Oh, you've grown so much! What are they feeding you around here?" And everyone's just kind of standing there like "what".

ALRIGHT I THINK THAT'S THE END OF IT

I definitely forgot some of my head cannons (I have a lot) but this post is getting so like incredibly long I think I'm good with ending it here.

Ending notes:

"Why do half of the pre points know each other? It's not very realis-"

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 🤫🤫🤫🤫🤫 I don't care. And they all live in pretty close vicinity just because that's easier for me. And by pretty close I mean no one is more than like a city away.

"Where are the elemental points? You barely mentioned them."

Shut up they're still there I just forgot their names and I don't have a lot of ideas for them all I know is blue bands pointified form I forgot his name was supposed to be guarding them, he failed at guarding them. They all want the crown of shadows because it is immensely powerful even though it's a corrupting Force I don't know what happens next I haven't thought about them nearly as much as the others.

I also have several au's including the previously established vein reveal and crown of shadows au's I explained above and several others including "pathetic loser villain OC makes Nicholas have a bad time" (ASK ME ABOUT HIM PLEASE) and "what if Verfection was a pure point" and other various ideas.