#so when i say god shenanigans. just assume they are dicking around with some other mortal's life. and dont worry about it

[sleepyblr-heart]

hi its time for me to go insane again <3 this one is extra long so if you care about what's happening on @original-character-championship click the read more for my silly words!!

ok so. picking up from last time. Yellow tells Present he accidentally made her a demi-god. they have a mini training montage. (she does not learn much. he is the god of stupidity so this is to be expected). after that. he drops her off. on T island. not at home. where she was before. but T island

Pres does NOT want to be here, and realizes "hey. i can get revived at blood moon films. the place i got revived at last time. hm."and decides being dead for a bit is better than being back on this fucking island (but Alone this time). Before she's revived she stays at her limbo for a bit (i will prolly show off what it looks like later).

soon, she gets revived by Depressed Glass (they/them), who is Snowglobe's childhood friend and a body snatcher! They take Present to Red Circle (they/them), one of Baton's friends and the person that helped revive her last time. Red circle says that Baton is safe, at their house, and misses her so very very much. They decide to go visit Baton and Black Square (he/him) (red circle's boyfriend) during RC's break.

Present decides to drop that she's kind of god and the world is ending in like the worst way possible (this will be an important tool that'll help us later!). Also Baton maybe gets a lil bit cursed on accident by her adopted kid that kidnapped him (Hattish (any pronouns)). But it's finneee.

Anyways, Present gets taken to the 4th Wall for a bit because of God Shenanigans, and before she goes back Present and one of the gods, Purple, have a nice chat! They even start teaching her how to do (minor) shapeshifting! All she can do at the moment is change her ribbon color, but she gets better at it eventually!

She goes back to RC and BS's house, and everything is swell for a bit. She misses Snowglobe, and is a bit worried for her and Baton, but other than that everything is fine!

After a few days, Present is taking a nice nap on the couch, Baton just sitting on the floor in front of a very nice bookshelf, just waking up from her own nap. And oh ok. The Bookshelf fell on top of her. Dear god.

Luckily, her plastic is strong enough that she Doesn't die, but she is bleeding a lot, he cant move, and Present is freaking out so much, especially since BS and RC are at work at the time. Luckily, two gods (Red and Yellow) decide to help get Baton to the hospital. Yellow helps with the surgery (Because he is Definitely a surgeon and did not fake any documents). And oh hey, look who's in the same hospital room! It's depressed glass! wonder why they're here.

anyways! Thanks to more God Shenanigans Snowglobe is brought to the 4th wall, along with Present so they can meet. Present catches her up on everything and they both realize. Hey. These god guys. Kinda Suck. They haven't told her much of anything, not about her powers or what she needs to do to save the world. She has a bit of a breakdown about the whole situation, since she doesn't. Want any of this, and Snowglobe tries to help comfort her.

They are brought back to the hospital room and Snowglobe and Depressed Glass have a chat about how they Definitely tried to avenge her death by murdering Red Circle and also took over two innocent people's bodies. Luckily, DG Realized that "hey, this is a bad idea. and totally not what she would want. also she's alive again so. maybe. i should give up on this." Plus, they already had their shit rocked by one of the people they possessed (oh hey that's why they're in the hospital!) so everyone decides that was stupid, and as long as they work to be better. and try to apologize to the people they hurt. they're fine.

anyways! more god shenanigans. this time they accidentally swapped a few peoples bodies. Luckily, we only need to worry about a few! Present and Snowglobe swapped bodies, and Baton and Red Circle also swapped. And oh hey. the God Shenanigans are now Everyone shenanigans. Turns out, the gods really hate this One Really Old Man named Angelsea(he/him). And they want everyone in this room to help murder him (besides red because they were. not in the plan.)

The first part of the plan is to get this random guy no one here besides Depressed Glass could know, Toothbrush (he/they). They're here because they work security at Blood Moon Films, and he could deal with the security cameras in the hospital!

They do not want to help with a murder plan. But they really need the help, so... Red convinces Present, in snowglobes body, to take over Toothbrushes body. She really only agrees to do it cause... Why should she not? She's supposed to help them, and maybe helping them kill this man she doesn't know will help save the world! (plus, she doesn't want to disappoint them)

So, Present takes over Toothbrush's body, and the murder plan goes. About as well as you would expect. Present and Toothbrush do their part well, at least. And once Angelsea is dead, Present separates from Toothbrush, killing them both (for now)

Present is revived by Baton (in red circle's body). Baton had visited Red circle in their body and they told her about the... whole murder plan thing. And is... A bit disappointed. Not for the murder (well i mean. yes the murder but that's not it), but the fact she just... Went along with what the god had asked of her. It's not like SHE wanted to do it, in the first place. Baton talks to her a bit, and tell her that she shouldn't do things just because these LOSERS told her to. And that maybe. She should quit.

She says she'll talk to the gods about it (she never does) and they head back to RC's home. Present realizes Snowglobe went missing after the murder plan, and no matter where she and baton look they can't find her. It's probably fine.

anyways present and snow globe got kidnapped by the older gods (Plants and Bookmark (they/them for both)) to fix the fact they were body swapped. Unfortunately bookmark is a lil stupid and fucked up present's wrapping paper so they replaced it themselves.

anyways the older gods dropped them off in an alleyway. but at least they were in the correct bodies (🎉🎉🎉)

anyways. remember how present told baton that she was a demi-god? yeah uh. She Wasn't supposed to do that. Purple and Red told the two that. Because Purple accidentally told baton their Real names when trying to help return her to the correct body, and present told him about the god thing, Yellow decided that he knew Too Much and her memories had to be erased.

Yellow, however, is still god of stupidity. He meant to just get rid of any memories related to the gods, but instead got rid of any memories related to magic at all. Luckily, any memories not directly related to gods were not Completely removed, they were so blurry that is was difficult to remember any details about it. Oh btw she had been surrounded by magic for the 6 years that this story had taken place over.

Purple and red help them back to RC's house, where baton is (no, she was Not properly released from the hospital but. it's fineee) and they all have a nice reunion where baton almost immediately thinks she cheated on her girlfriend with Red Circle because of a fake news article that she had read.

Anyways, some less important things happen. snowglobe gets fed a person thinking it's koolaid. that person might've been a potion. that potion might've been a love amplification potion. you know. normal things.

anyways snowglobe decides to tell present and baton that she developed feelings for them both (being small crushes amplified by the "koolaid"). turns out, present and baton also had feelings (ones they had talked about together before hand) for snowglobe. so they say "fuck it. lets date." and bam. bitches acquired.

and that's the end for. todays insanity. ill see you next time. because there's still more to cover. (there's. so much to cover. i might save some for next round if she wins. so vote for her if you wanna hear more of her story!)

[polaritiesoop]

Rewatching Hermitcraft 6, and I've reached the beautiful civil war arc. But I also realized that grian has some REALLY weird fans that are such a loud minority. Why is it anytime Grian is playfully at "odds" with another hermit or something shenanigans against Grian that there are negative comments toward said hermit? like why are there some people acting threatened by it?

Long Rant AHEAD

I find it concerning it happened even earlier in season 6. I forgot which hermit, or what it was about but I'm pretty sure a hermit was getting HATE for a HARMLESS PRANK in the famous block GAME MINECRAFT. Ridiculous, ain't it? seeing those strings of words in one. Why on God's green earth does Grian have such baby fans? I thought we were pretty chill but I guess it's only here on tumblr and twitter. I don't know if reddit has been kind to Grian and other hermits, I wouldn't assume they weren't over there considering that Grian likes to hang around there more than twitter. I guess it is most on Youtube comments. This does not only happen in season 6, but I bet also seasons 7, 8, 9 , and life series too, my memory's a bit blurry on the details. And even in the current season?! tf you mean people are hating on Xisuma for banning Grian AS A JOKE ? like why does Grian need to constantly remind people when anything playful "conflict" in the server happens that they are friends? That it is all in good fun? I'm glad though Grian has a strong friendship with the hermits, or the hermits are in good bases in general.

I don't know, its sad and frustrating to see unnecessary negative on what is considered one of the wholesome and fun minecraft smps. Hermitcraft is such a genuine server that I bet feels like home to the hermits, that it's more than simply a gaming server or a series to make tens of Yt videos out of. Same goes with the life series, as a little side smp to get some really chaotic fun, short but effective in giving such good entertainment (for both creators and fans) and compelling stories that fans are able to weave perfectly through fanfiction, art and other creative media, or just simple online discussions. But the fun gets a little spoiled by fans that don't know how to have fun. This is not covering yet how the fandom recently feels too ....idk the right word, charged??? Surely, I am not the only one to notice. I see it on twitter. Why are some people being icky? like stop. I'm getting a deja vu here, from experiences on an adjacent fandom that is crumbling (coughs dream smp).

I don't know why I am ranting. Home girl rewatched hermitcraft 6 and suddenly I am ranting out my personal frustrations LOL. Trying not to get TOO stressed out. I got recently released from college kerfuckle (I make it sound like a mental facility...). I guess Grian's personal note on his recent video about uploading schedule triggered it. I feel kinda bad that he felt pressured to produce videos, as opposed to, yknow, at his own convenience at his own time at his own mood? I hope I am not sounding like those peeps that loves to baby content creators. an adult too, older than an average young fan, in the words of others "a man with dick and balls"! All I can say for Grian's fan (or hermitcraft fans in general) being weird is uhhh touch grass. smell the flowers. go outside. talk to your friends. go watch or rewatch your favorite series. watch long video youtube essays of random topics. look at trees. they are great and beautiful. look at the sky observe its hues. pet a cat. a dog. ur pet salamander or snake or ferret or whatever. animal. think about your crush. or partner. or a friend you really love. or family member you really trust with your life

Its simple really! Take time to reflect on your thoughts. Don't be so fucking mean we have enough mean people in this earth. Don't be like them. The world is a cruel place at the moment, so why not make it better for everyone else? I am not saying to be only kind towards Grian or other content creators or people in this fandom. In general. At the same time, you're being kind to yourself. Not to dwell too much negative in yourself.

This kinda spiral into something else, but honestly i don't care. I got it out of my system. I hope i get to enjoy summer time drawing and writing.

[makeste]

BnHA Chapter 316: We've Had One, Yes, But What About Second Explosion

Previously on BnHA: Deku was all “[powers up like whoa because it’s time to end the fight]”, and he saved Overhaul from getting not-shot, and then smashed up Nagant’s arm with the power of his new rechargeable super knees. Nagant was all “yoooo this kid is crazy strong whaaaat, it’s like he’s some kind of protagonist or something.” Deku was all “I AM A PROTAGONIST, ACTUALLY, DO YOU WANT TO JOIN FORCES AND FIGHT BAD GUYS WITH ME?” Nagant was all “ah shit why the hell no -- ” and then AFO was all “SURPRISE” and everyone was all “?!?!?!” and AFO was all “TIME TO EXPLODE NOW” and made Nagant explode because he’s an absolute fucking dick. And then Hawks showed up, because Horikoshi just wanted to stuff as many plot points as humanly possible into a single chapter I guess.

Today on BnHA: Hawks is all “good job giving motivational shounen redemption speeches Deku but I’ll take it from here” and screams very earnestly right in Nagant’s face until she finally wakes up. Nagant is all “oh hey it’s my successor, you seem surprisingly unfucked-up from your own HPSC tenure, how did you manage that?” Hawks is all “fandom is going to love hearing this one, but basically it’s because I’m very upbeat and also I had the world’s best role model Endeavor to look up to,” and I swear this man stirs the pot on purpose, but damn it I still love him so damn much. Overhaul is all “HELLO AGAIN, JUST A REMINDER THAT, THE BOSS!!” and Deku is all “MAYBE TAKE TWO SECONDS TO REFLECT ON HOW YOU TORTURED A LITTLE GIRL,” which, thank you, lol. Nagant is all “btw AFO’s hiding in a house in the woods”, and so Deku and the gang go to the house in the woods. Video recording!AFO is all “hi I’m AFO welcome to Jackass” and blows up the house. Sometimes I wonder if this manga is just a weird dream.

I am once again reading the Bean version because I think it was actually the best out of all three translations last week. and that is surprisingly including Viz’s. “faux” is not nearly as entertaining as “knockoff”, and also I have literally no idea why Caleb thought Deku was saying the Third’s lines lol

oh hey, Endeavor’s here too! not that you’d ever be able to tell from this first panel lmao

glad you received All Might’s call, mysterious unidentified glowing smudge

oh snap he says he’s weaker in the rain. is that why AFO told Nagant to attack then?? except that as we discussed the other day, I believe that AFO fully intended for Nagant to lose the fight, so him giving her info that would give her an advantage doesn’t really fit in with that. maybe he wanted Deku to be separated from Endeavor and the rest for maximum angst, though

btw Deku’s eyes are unsurprisingly back to the new normal here

alas, the angst continues. I say, pretending like I’m not totally eating it up each and every week and writing essay after essay about it lol

anyway so apparently Hawks can’t actually fly lmao. he was just yeeting himself with style

for some reason this is the funniest fucking thing I’ve ever seen omfg. wave to Hawks, kids! say “bye, Hawks!”

j/k of course Deku is catching them. -- except???

wow so he was just running on fumes there at the end. well, good to know there is actually a limit to his shenanigans, particularly regarding this new “knockoff” 100% OFA. it will definitely not alleviate any of the discourse, but it’s good for my own peace of mind because it’s solid confirmation that he still needs his pals in order to win this thing

anyway, but on to the rest of this conversation, which is basically Deku deducing what we all deduced last week -- AFO implanted some sort of trap into Nagant when he gave her Air Walk. though I’d still like to get the actual details from AFO and/or Horikoshi, because this was particularly wild even by quirk standards lol

omgggggg

she still has a face after all!! so it’s confirmed, Horikoshi has no idea what “blowing up” actually means. we might have guessed, based on what happened to Toga in the MVA arc, and also based on everything Katsuki does ever, but shhh

so now Hawks is all “NAGANT PLEASE WAKE UP, IF I SHOUT MY NAME AT YOU WILL THAT DO THE TRICK”

this is actually kind of touching though because even though we all know (or most of us acknowledge at any rate) that Hawks is a pretty caring person, it’s rare to see him actually panic over someone’s welfare like this

oh shit Horikoshi is really doubling down on it

I wonder how much Hawks knew about what really happened between Nagant and the HPSC. regardless, he probably sees her as a kindred spirit of sorts, and I’m more than happy for Deku to pass the redemption torch onto him now that he’s on the scene. like no offense Deku but they actually know each other and stuff lol

DAMMIT NAGANT CAN’T YOU SEE HOW LOUD HE IS YELLING

apparently being freed from his HPSC shackles has finally given Hawks the space to embrace his own inner shounen protagonist. is there anything more shounen than trying to motivationally scream someone awake when they’re lying in your arms inches from death?? 100% guaranteed to work

!!! IS THIS NAGANT’S POV OMG

SO SHE IS ALIVE. THANK GOD. Horikoshi doesn’t want to meet with my emotional distress lawyer today after all

love how she’s all “just gonna stir up the weekly Hawks Discourse pot here by implying that he probably committed a lot of Atrocities just like I did, so now people can get all hopped up about that, even though there’s no evidence he’s ever killed anyone aside from that one horrible ‘damned-if-you-do...’ situation with Twice.” no one asked for your provocative speculation young lady!! trust me Nagant, our rabbles don’t need the rousing lol

but nice save there with the “so how are your eyes so untainted” well you see it’s because even when he was following the HPSC’s orders he always went to great lengths never to go against his own moral compass. which just to be clear was incredibly difficult, and led to a ton of pain and suffering on his part, because the life of a spy is basically just one impossible situation after another. but in spite of that he never stopped trying to do his best to help people. I don’t really know where this tangent came from or is leading to, lol, but anyway p.s.a. I love Hawks a lot and he’s a good kid dammit

oh shit??!?

how is the League always able to swing all these fancy forest mansions. where do they find them. how many do they have

so Deku’s dropping them -- very roughly, not sure if he was reacting to finally getting AFO’s location, or if his energy really is giving out -- and now Nagant’s saying that AFO hired other villains as well. well of course he did. gotta keep chipping away at OFA’s ninth successor little by little

now Nagant is asking Hawks how he’s able to keep making “that” face. I assume she’s again talking about the fact that he somehow didn’t let the HPSC wear down his spirit

oh my god???

thanks for stuffing this chapter to the brim with good nutritional Hawks Feels, Horikoshi. what a good. he just keeps on trudging forward undeterred no matter what bullshit comes his way. what a steadfast little guy. I WILL PROTECT YOU FROM DISCOURSE MY SWEET SUNSHINE

lmaoooo

“SPOTTED THIS DUDE JUST CHILLING OUT THERE ON THE ROOF WITH NO ARMS, SEEMED PRETTY SUS” good job Endeavor

anyway so you don’t really need me to tell you that Overhaul is immediately starting in with the “BUT THE BOSS WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE ME TO THE BOSS YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TAKE ME TO THE BOSS” stuff again. but I will go ahead and tell you anyway. so yeah. he’s doing that

OMG YOU GUYS LOOK AT DEKU’S “of all the fucking assholes to just randomly drop in on my life once again why did it have to be you” FACE THOUGH, OMG

fun fact, if you go back to chapters 124 through 160, there was an entire story arc where Overhaul imprisoned and tortured a little girl. yeah, I know!! suuuuuuuuper evil. anyways just an interesting little anecdote for you all that’s somewhat relevant to the current situation

OMG, YES. FUCK YES, DEKU

THEN WHAT ABOUT SPARING ONE FOR HER!!! YES!!! EXACTLY!!! JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, SOMEONE GETS IT

HERE’S THE PANEL OF DEKU SAYING THE EXACT SAME THING I’M SAYING LOL

(ETA: so apparently there’s some discourse about this because some people are interpreting this as Deku saying “you should apologize to Eri”, which would obviously be a terrible idea even if Overhaul actually wanted to do that, because Eri shouldn’t ever have to see him again. however I just want to point out that there is a HUGE difference between saying “it would be nice if you could direct that feeling of regret/being sorry towards Eri as well”, vs saying “you should also apologize to her.” all Deku is doing is rightfully pointing out that Overhaul has hurt way more people than just his boss, and if he really is remorseful, then he should extend those feelings of remorse to Eri and the rest as well. it’s not a directive to take any specific action, and I’m 1000% sure no one at U.A. would let Overhaul within 100 miles of Eri ever again.

tl;dr “try feeling remorse sometime” =/= “do you want me to fly you over to U.A. right now to surprise the little girl you traumatized”, lol.)

[slings an arm around Deku’s shoulders] you’re a good kid. I like you. I don’t know if I tell you that enough, but it’s true

meanwhile here is Overhaul’s “spare... a thought... for Eri...???????” face sigh

the struggle is real y’all

(ETA: and that’s... the last we ever saw of Overhaul, I guess? well all right then. I assume Deku will make good on his promise, so we know he’ll get that little bit of closure before going back to jail or whatever, and I confess I’m more than fine with leaving the rest of it open-ended, especially given his character’s history. I think this was pretty generous all things considered.)

lmao holy shit

All Might what did you do to those tiki torch guys?? did you thrash them. did you give ‘em those hands. did you deliver their own asses to them complete with a sticker reminding them Amazon Prime Day is on June 21. we missed out goddammit

so Endeavor, who wasn’t the one he was asking, is telling him that they captured (well let’s be real, Deku captured, give the credit where it’s due) Nagant and Overhaul. and so I guess they’re going to take Nagant to the ER now

fire is no one’s weakness

-- oh my GOD I scrolled down and audibly gasped

[is politely but firmly approached and asked to remove my arm from Deku’s shoulder by the physical manifestation of all this Dekuangst] “we’re sorry, he’s not allowed to have visitors right now” oh shit, my bad. [goes to stand behind a police barricade]

lmao what. did you run out of room on the previous page

what an exaggerated fade to black lmao

-- AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I actually can’t see what he’s reacting to so maybe I’m just seriously jumping the gun here lol, but THE HELL WITH IT. the next panel appears to be a cut to Haibori Forest, so I’m just gonna go ahead and declare that Deku ran off on his own all wounded to go have more Dekuangst, just like I manifested. now go call Katsuki goddammit

[scrolls three more inches down] oh

yeah so like I said, Deku is walking very slowly a few feet in front of Endeavor, who’s telling him to wait up. yep. we’ve all gotta be so careful to not just jump to conclusions. I know we’re excited but still

anyway, so! welcome back to Mt. Lady and Kamui Woods (ARE YOU GUYS DATING) and Edgeshot! have fun walking into this obvious trap lol

dammit Deku why are you so determined to tempt fate

[monkey puppet meme faces]

OH MY GOD THIS IS PURE GRADE-A CHEESY COMIC BOOK VILLAIN 101 SHIT AND I’M HERE FOR IT

that’s such a weird way of clapping who claps like that

unlike certain other people who shan’t be named, AFO doesn’t feel the need to inexplicably take his shirt off when recording sinister villain monologues. I think we’re all pretty grateful for that

high fives to everyone who called it!! yep yep

anyway so this whole scene has major booby-trap vibes, which I’m enjoying immensely even though I don’t think anything is really going to come of it lol. probably just another long-winded AFO Speech. but wouldn’t it be funny if like the ceiling started lowering down to try and squish Deku afterwards lol

(ETA: well the explosion was still pretty funny too ngl.)

ffff

[“Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies]

anyway so yeah. he’s just hitting up all of his usual villain talking points. we get it, you’re so smart and you see right through the thin veneers of society and people who don’t conform are left to fend for themselves and labeled as villains and history is written by the victors, and blah blah blah dude are you just jumping randomly from one soundbyte to another lol. literally what are you talking about. what does this have to do with you blowing up Nagant

-- holy shit??

[”Dekuangst is the trap” intensifies MORE?????]

LOL WHAT

BRO. WHAT IS WITH YOU. DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO LAY ANY OTHER KIND OF FUCKING TRAP GOOD LORD

“YOU’RE NEXT” THE CALLBACK?? THE PARALLELS?? THOUGH WHEN ALL MIGHT POINTED HE MADE IT LOOK WAY COOLER. AFO’S POINTING JUST LOOKS LIKE SMOKEY THE BEAR

HAS ANYONE CHECKED IN ON KAMUI WOODS I HEAR HE IS WEAK TO FIRE?? THE ONLY ONE WHO IS, APPARENTLY

r.i.p. to this particular forest mansion. don’t worry they have a ton of backups

remember last week when I said maybe AFO thinks explosions are gauche. well never mind. he fucking loves explosions

anyway so that’s the end of BnHA, everyone. hope you enjoyed. it was a good ride while it lasted. see you all, good luck in your travels

[itsclydebitches]

I was once more thinking of vol 8 and other works to compare it to. I hit Harry Potter, specifically Order of the Phoenix. Literally all that happened there showed a much better "proactive Hero" and "Big Bad vs Big Good" battle that it feels unfair to compare. What say you Clyde?

It's been a very long time since I read Order of the Phoenix, but putting aside that and the series' problems with representation (something that always feels like it needs to be acknowledged when discussing HP nowadays), Rowling did a good job of setting up both motivation and justification for Harry's actions. Which isn't to say that he was never wrong — quite the opposite, especially in OotP — but that Harry's involvement in this war is justified in a way that Ruby's involvement is not. He's not just generally active (no tea sipping equivalent scenes), but we understand why he's the one taking that action.

Harry is an unwilling participant forced to fight due to a prophecy, so when he stumbles along the way, we as the reader are understanding because jeez, what else what he supposed to do? Literally no one else can do this and he's trying his best. Ruby, in contrast, is not necessary to this fight. We might have gotten that with her silver eyes, but we didn't, so when Ruby willingly steps up — or, in Volume 8, forcibly takes control — and then gets upset because things didn't go well, the viewer (or at least some viewers: us) are far less forgiving because she demanded this responsibility and then found she didn't like having it. When Harry rushes off to the Department of Mysteries, endangering many of his friends in the process (even if they volunteered) we understand that this action is done out of love. We've spent five books establishing Harry's desire for a family, it's literally his greatest wish according to the Mirror of Erised, so going after Sirius, while reckless, is such an in-character, relatable, human decision. It's integral to who Harry is as a person. Compare that to the lack of work done surrounding Summer and the unanswered question of why Ruby is fighting Salem. Because it's the right thing to do? Great, fantastic, but uh... that doesn't really explain or justify why she's leading the charge when all these other huntsmen — with the same goals, more experience, better plans, etc. —are trying to do The Right Thing too. When thinking about HP vs. RWBY, my mind always goes back to that moment at the end of the first book when Harry tries to tell McGonagall about the stone and she brushes him off. "Ah," I thought later. "That's why three 11yos are going off to save the magical artifact when there are adult, full-fledged wizards around to do it instead. The kids tried to turn hand this off to the adults and the adults failed them." Now, combine this with Harry's growing tendency to go it alone, the implication that Dumbledore may have been allowing him to face certain threats to get stronger, each book's individual situation like a hidden chamber that only Harry can enter, his Godfather being on the run, a magically binding contract that keeps him in a competition because the bad guys are specifically after him... Harry is at the heart of the story. He's integral to it, his part in the fight inevitable, so all that's left is to see how he bears that burden.

Ruby is not integral to this fight, her presence and even her silver eyes are not necessary, her facing down Salem is only inevitable from a meta perspective regarding expectations for a protagonist (and then, in Volume 8, Ruby didn't face her.) There's no clear personal motivation to drive her. There's not even a Guardian's of the Galaxy-esque motivation in the form of, "We'll step up because no one else will." Others do keep stepping up and Ruby keeps forcing them to follow her instead, insisting that her way is better. Only problem is, it's arguably not and that's when she has a plan at all. It's like if instead of going after the stone because his professors won't, or going after Sirius because he loves him, or going after Voldemort because a prophecy and a life of having a saving-people-thing has pushed him to that, Harry made his way to the front of this war Just Because, rejecting everyone else who fought in the first war, has more experience, and actual plans along the way. Why does he do this? Because his name is in the title of the book, I guess.

RWBY throws in lost of classic ideas and setups, but doesn't seem to understand their point. Even something as simple as that Big Bad vs. Big Good conflict in Volume 8. Putting aside how muddied this has gotten between the Gods' involvement and Salem's dip in the grimm pool, Volume 8 took the threat of our Big Bad arriving with an army and... ignored it. Instead, they ran with Ironwood as the primary antagonist of the volume, the guy trying to stop Salem, a previously established ally, the guy who just gave up his arm to capture another clear-cut villain, and who throughout Volume 7 demonstrated none of the manipulation we would attribute to a Dumbledore-like figure. Rather than running with their Big Bad's arrival, RWBY asked how they could force one of the good guys to become a bad guy instead, hence the sudden shooting of Oscar and murder of the councilman. This is a far from perfect comparison (and I take my virtual life in my hands bringing up another controversial character lol), but it's a little like if after we learned about which side Snape was truly on, he suddenly tried to kill Hermione, succeeded in killing a minor character like Professor Flitwick, and then made plans to destroy all of Hogwarts. Meanwhile, everyone is ignoring Voldemort standing on the front lawn because the narrative randomly made Snape the biggest problem instead. So a lot of the fanbase is like, "Yeah he's absolutely a dick and his horrific past/contentious choices are the point of his character... but he's also supposed to be one of the good guys at the end of the day? And the Big Bad is right there? We can argue about how 'good' Snape is until we're blue in the face, but he's no Voldemort. Why did you feel the need to chuck the morally gray character off the deep end for our heroes to oppose when our primary antagonist is literally right here, trying to kill them?" From this, to introducing a dead mother that in no way motivates our cast, to having Oscar face down Salem with an improvised weapon instead of Ruby with her eyes, to giving Penny an arc about accepting her android body only to rip it away, etc. etc. RWBY continuously throws out ideas without understanding what they're meant to accomplish. There's a lot to criticize about Harry Potter nowadays, but a lack of logical development isn't one of them.

And just to chuck in another text — because I too think about what has done Volume 8 themes better lol — consider: Loki. Stop reading now if you don't want spoilers, but a couple episodes in Loki and Sylvie end up on a dying planet that is only evacuating the rich. That's said overtly in both the dialogue and visually in the mise-en-scene, with poor people screaming that only the rich are getting tickets for the rocket and elaborately dressed elites enjoying the comforts of that ride. Then, just as they're about to escape, leaving the rest of their world behind, a piece of the moon hits the ship, either killing them instantly or stranding them with the people they abandoned. And I thought to myself, "See, this makes sense in a way RWBY never did." Evacuation was never about wealth in RWBY, despite what the fandom continually claims. Ironwood was trying to evacuate everyone and only stopped because they all assumed Salem would be killing them momentarily. This situation included Relics and a Maiden that would easily turn the tide of the war, meaning their safety influenced the whole world, not just these people. Mantle was not necessarily about to be destroyed — indeed, we find out later that Salem had no interest in it — and it was always a bad faith (and OOC) assumption that Ironwood was leaving his kingdom for good. The story doesn't even acknowledge the huge number of Mantle citizens already on Atlas when the attack begins. I was just sitting there thinking, "This two episode mini conflict in an insane show with alligators and time shenanigans somehow holds up better than RWBY's 27 episodes that are trying to be deep. How does that happen?"

[luxekook]

chapter seven.

⇥ pairing: ot7 x reader

⇥ genre: college au with fluff, smut & angst

⇥ summary: a series in which the reader meets (and falls for) seven members of the Beta Tau Sigma (BTS) fraternity

⇥ word count: 3.6k

⇥ warnings: 18+, lots of cursing, general chaotic energy, poly relationship, a short confrontation, mentions of slut-shaming, switch!reader, dom!joon, switch!jin, sub!jimin, library shenanigans, an abundance of coffee, punishments, spanking, bad puns (jin is in this chapter, DUH), many nerd references uwu

© luxekook. please do not repost, modify, edit or translate.

characters | prologue | one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine

Chapter Seven

Quinn Library – 3:54pm

The end of September passes in a blur of studying, partying, volunteering, and spending time with friends. The month’s conclusion also includes the increasing presence of seven boys in my everyday routine.

Since giving Taehyung the suck of his life in the bathroom of Hannigan’s, I have been basically fighting off the seven of them for a moment to breathe. But, sometimes breathing is overrated when being smothered by affection.

Going from being single to essentially dating seven people is quite the adjustment. I found myself growing attached to them – something that both excited and scared the shit out of me. We haven’t discussed labels or anything, but I figure it’s only a matter of time. The boys have apparently been planning an elaborate first date for this upcoming weekend, and I feel like they’ll probably ask to make it official then.

My stomach erupts in butterflies at the thought, and I take a calming breath. No need to overthink such things.

While it might be unconventional by some societal standards, polyamory is simply a way to love. Why should love come with confines? With binary expectations? The saying ‘love is love’ gets thrown around a lot, but I believe it bears repeating.

Jenni and Luna have been nothing but supportive to me over the past two weeks. They even came with me to volunteer this past weekend because they - and I quote - wanted to ‘check out our vibe’. But, I wholeheartedly expect that the real reason had actually been for them to feel out the boys’ intentions.

Why did I suspect this? Well, because Jungkook had come up to me within the first fifteen minutes at the worksite quivering in fear over how ‘scary my friends were’ and how ‘Jenni had cornered him to interrogate him while Luna hovered behind her, menacingly holding a nail-gun’.

I had never felt more loved and supported by my friends.

My phone dings, and I quickly hasten to put it on silent, shooting an embarrassed and apologetic look around the library. It seems like most people have headphones in, and I let out a sigh of relief. No one wants to be that one loud person in the library.

Checking my notifications, I smile when I see it’s a SnapChat from Hobi in the group chat the boys created a few weeks ago. My thumb swipes it open, and I barely contain myself from announcing to the whole library how vibrantly handsome one of my potential boyfriends is.

I quickly send a SnapChat back of me and my stack of books in the library with the caption ‘send help in the form of coffee’.

Immediately, Taehyung sends a flurry of heart eyes emojis in the chat, Jungkook sends a ‘noona is so cute’, and Yoongi sends back a picture of a black screen with the caption ‘come nap with me’.

God, I would love to nap with Yoongi right now… Alone time with the older boy is so elusively precious. One day last week at their house, I had mentioned wanting to learn piano. Yoongi had just grabbed my hand and tugged me to his room. We had spent a couple hours together in the small corner of his room playing on his keyboard.

Well, he had been playing; I had been fumbling around like a buffoon - half uncoordinated in general and half flustered by how good Yoongi looked playing. His hands had been so nimble as they flew over the keys, crafting melodies I could only assume he had composed. His focus had been so fucking hot as he nodded slightly along to the tempo in his head, his eyes shooting over to look at me every once in a while.

My hand kink? Activated.

My willpower to not kiss the shit out of Yoongi? Nonexistent.

When Yoongi had paused in between songs, I may or may not have grabbed him by his shirt collar and kissed him. His blushing attempt to dodge me had been so cute; and when I had stopped trying to kiss him, he had pouted and then kissed me instead.

What a cutie…

A giggle draws my attention from my reminiscing. At first, I pay it no mind, taking it as a directive to dive back into my studies. But then, the whispering starts.

“I heard she’s fucking her way through the whole house.”

“Isn’t there a term for that?”

“Yeah, a frat rat.”

I slam my 500-page textbook closed and stand, leveling the duo of gossiping girls with a glare that could make grown men cry. It had before when I had to properly eviscerate my uncle in defense of feminism at our last family gathering. What a time that had been.

“Is there a problem?” I force the question through gritted teeth, stalking over towards their nearby table. I relish in the way they gape at me, eyes wide and pupils quivering, “I’m sorry. I’m afraid my complaint jar is at capacity. Please don’t try again later.”

The girl on the right gulps, “No-nope, there’s no problem! We were just leaving. Right, Janika?”

“No,” The girl who had called me a ‘frat rat’ just moments before crosses her arms and stands, “I do, like, have a problem.”

“Janika,” The other girl tugs on the sleeve of the one standing, “Don’t.”

“Yeah, Janika,” I smile, “Don’t.”

I can see the moment she snaps.

“You’re, like, such a fucking bitch! I don’t know what they all see in you. Oh wait, yes I do. You’re fucking easy.”

I consider myself to be a patient person, but having to endure this type of rant against my character - and against women’s sexual freedom in general - has pushed me well past my limits.

“Now, listen here, Janika,” I take another step forward, “You can keep talking your shit. I really don’t give a flying fuck what you think about me. But I really advise you to google ‘how to stop slut-shaming for dummies’ because it seems like you need a crash course.”

Janika’s face darkens, “Whatever. They’ll get tired of you anyway.”

“Yeah,” I let out an amused laugh, “I’m sure they’ll get real tired of me choking on their dicks every night.”

Letting out a gasp, Janika whirls back around to face her silent friend, “Let’s go. I don’t want to, like, be around her any longer.”

“Buh-bye now,”I wiggle my fingers in their direction as they shuffle out of the library.

Smiling in satisfaction, I head back towards my table. Without hesitation, I gather my books and belongings and head upstairs to the quiet floor. Any more distractions or confrontations would probably make my blood pressure pop off the charts.

The quiet floor, as one of my safe havens, is home to several small private study rooms. Peering into each, I start to lose hope that any would be available. Finally, the very last room proves me wrong, and I swing open the door and almost in tears over the sweet, sweet solitude.

This particular study room is tucked away in the very far corner of the library’s second floor. Not many people are aware of its location, and it seems that paid off for me today. Plopping my things down across the table in the center of the tiny room, I follow suit and drop down into one of the two chairs adjoining the table.

What a clusterfuck of an afternoon… This sadly isn’t the first time I’ve heard some comments being made about my association with the BTS boys, and I knew it wouldn’t be the last. Yet, part of me knew all along that this would be the trade-off.

After all, what are a few irrelevant opinions to seven gorgeous and loyal partners? Inconsequential - in my opinion. That is the reason why I haven’t breathed a word of the backlash to anyone.

Sighing, I flip open my textbook to where I had been before being rudely interrupted.

The amygdala plays a key role in emotion and behavior…

“Noona?”

I jump a half-mile out of my chair, slapping a hand over my pounding heart. Jimin had somehow managed to enter the room without my knowledge. Had he fucking teleported?

Holding a giant iced coffee in one hand and a cinnamon bun in the other, Jimin beams at me and ignores the fact he just scared the living shit out of me. “Hi, noona! I saw your SnapChat while I was in class, and I came here as soon as I could.”

I stare dumbfounded at the angel before me. Jimin is slightly out of breath with reddened cheeks and a sweaty brow. His black track-pants are slung low on his hips, his long-sleeve white t-shirt clings to his torso, his black duffle bag thrown carelessly over one shoulder. He must have run over straight from dance class.

Standing abruptly, I stalk over to where Jimin is still posted up by the doorway to the study room. Toe to toe with him, I blurt out while still half in a daze, “You really brought me coffee and food?”

He eyes me warily like I might suddenly jump on him at any moment. Shifting his weight back and forth, Jimin hesitantly replies, “Um, yes?"

I take the coffee and cinnamon bun from his hands, place them on the table, and then tackle him with the biggest hug. "You absolute sweetheart!" I murmur into the crook of his neck, "This made my day. Thank you, Jimin-ie."

His hands tentatively wrap around me, pulling me closer. "You're welcome, noona. I just wanted to do something nice for you.”

“Well, I really appreciate it, baby,” My lips brush over the crevice of his collarbone and relish in his shudder. Bringing my head up to face his, I smile widely at him, “Can I kiss you, Jimin-ie?”

“Yes,” He sighs out, eyes already closing in anticipation. I press my lips to his, still smiling softly against his mouth. His lips are plush under mine, velvety soft. My tongue swipes across his bottom lip and— Is that coffee I taste?

I pull back, “Jimin, did you sip my coffee on your way here?”

The boy looks rightfully alarmed, “I– y-yes. But only a little, noona!”

Cute.

“Hmm,” I trail my fingers down his chest, “I guess I’ll make an exception for you this time since you were the one to bring it for me.”

Jimin relaxes slightly, but his expression is strangely disappointed. I stare at him quizzically, and he blushes.

“What is it?” I lean against the table, facing him.

He clears his throat, staring intensely at the ground, “You can still punish me if you want, (y/n)-noona.”

My eyebrows shoot upwards at his offer, and then I let out a slight chuckle, “Oh, Jimin… That would be a favor to you, wouldn’t it? My baby boy wants to be punished, hm? Did dance practice make you all hot and bothered? Jungkook tells me that has been happening to you lately.”

Jimin’s face explodes in color as he mutters, “That little bitch will pay for this.”

Suddenly, the door swings open with a resounding thud, nearly clipping Jimin in the shoulder.

“Your savior has arrived!” Kim Seokjin announces loudly in spite of the studiously silent atmosphere of the quiet floor. His hands hold two steaming hot travel mugs, which I can only guess are filled with the elixir of the gods (aka coffee).

Seokjin’s eyes glance around the room as he takes in the fact that I’m not alone as he obviously had expected. “Wait, Jimin-ie? What are you doing here?” Jin’s eyes flick down to the coffee and cinnamon roll that lay on the table. “Goddamn it!”

“You were too slow, hyung,” Jimin smirks happily as he takes a seat in the chair I had previously vacated. He slouches smugly as he stares up at the fuming older boy.

“Too slow?!” Jin roars.

“Jin,” I chastise, circumventing around him to shut the door.

“Sorry, babe,” Seokjin says while still glaring daggers at the all-too-pleased Jimin. Suddenly, his expression changes into a sneaky look that makes me both want to run and jump his bones. “Well,” He waves the two coffee mugs around in the air, “I made these myself - with love. I didn’t buy that generic shit; I brewed it, baby.”

It’s Jimin’s turn again to look disgruntled, and I can’t help but laugh at their antics.

“Any and all coffee is appreciated and loved by me – the more the merrier. So, thank you both,” You say, taking one of the travel mugs from Seokjin. Kissing his cheek, you turn back to sit opposite Jimin at the table.

“She kissed me on the lips!” Jimin bursts.

“Park Jimin!” I cry as Jin splutters some sort of incoherent rant about fairness and equality.

Jimin holds eye contact with me, still leaning back in his chair like he’s the king of the fucking universe. But, he’s not; I am.

My chair hits the wall behind me with a bang as I stand, planting my hands on the table to loom over Jimin. “Do you think it’s fun to push your hyung, Jimin? Does it amuse you to be a little shit?”

I can see the moment that Jimin decides to be a brat. His eyes heat up in a challenge, and he firmly answers, “Yes, noona.”

“Get up.” The change in my tone is apparent. Jimin gulps. Getting to his feet, he stares back at me expectantly.

“Jin,” I address the older boy while still maintaining eye contact with Jimin, “What kind of punishment do you think I should give our Jimin here?”

Seokjin rounds my other side, grinning, “Well, (y/n) darling, I believe he should get spanked.”

“Interesting choice,” I murmur, turning to face Jin, “That’s what you’re going to get then.”

“What?” Jin squawks, arms waving rapidly around in the air, “But I didn’t do anything!”

“Nothing is what you should have done, Jin,” I push him against the wall, “You know better than to let Jimin rile you up like this.”

Those plump lips of his pout dramatically as he whines, “But, (y/n)…”

“But nothing,” I say and then whirl around to face the other boy. He’s still standing where I left him with his eyes glued to the pair of us. “Jimin,” I hold his gaze, “You’re going to watch. You’re not going to touch yourself, your hyung isn’t going to touch you, and I’m not going to touch you.”

His eyes widen comically, “No! That’s not fair!”

“Do you want to be gagged, too, baby boy?” I ask, cocking my head slightly. Seeing his emphatic head shakes, I grin. “That’s what I thought. Now, stay.”

Turning back to Jin, I smirk slightly as I ask, “Punishment now or later?”

Seokjin’s eyes scrunch cutely in confusion, “What?”

“You see,” I move closer to him, my body brushes his, “I think you earned a punishment, but I think you also earned helping me punish Jimin.”

A wide grin crosses Jin’s face as he glances back at the corner Jimin is stewing in. “I would be honored to help you punish him, babe.”

“That’s what I figured,” I smile briefly at him before slowly sliding my hands up his chest to rest on the nape of his neck. Holding them there, I press the lightest of kisses to the corner of his lips.

Jin’s breath hitches in his throat.

I run my tongue against the seam of his mouth, taking my time and savoring the sweet taste of him. His lips part to let me in, my tongue sliding across his. I grind against him as we kiss, moving my hips in such a way that makes him groan and lean back harder against the wall.

“What the fuck is going on in here?”

Ripping my mouth from Jin’s, I turn to face the newcomer.

Namjoon stands in the doorway holding yet another cup of coffee, his face thunderous. "What do the three of you think you're doing? This is the goddamn library, you heathens!”

Seokjin jumps out of his skin in fright, pushing me away faster than I can anticipate. Stumbling back, I crash into Jimin – who apparently had ventured out of his assigned corner. Brat.

“The shades were open!” Namjoon continues to rant as he flicks the aforementioned item down to cover the door’s window, “Did you want people to see you?”

He reads the expression on my face correctly, “Oh, but you did, didn’t you, (y/n)?” Namjoon approaches where I’m still captured in Jimin’s embrace. Glaring down at me, he taunts, “So quick to stake your claim; but, make no mistake, they were mine first.”

Shaking out of Jimin’s hold, I straighten, raising my chin to meet Namjoon’s gaze full-on, “That’s interesting. I didn’t realize you were so lenient with your partners.”

Jimin makes a choking noise behind me. Jin stands behind Namjoon, waving a hand in front of his throat to clearly tell me to stop talking. I keep going, “Perhaps I need to teach you how to discipline.”

Namjoon flips me around, shoves Jimin out of the way, and bends me facedown across the table.

“Jin,” He says, his voice growly, “Stand in the hall and let me know if you can hear us.”

The sound of the door opening and closing alerts me that Jin followed Namjoon’s instructions without a word.

“Jimin,” He continues, “Hold (y/n)’s hands out in front of her.” Jimin ascquieces, staring apologetically down at me as he tugs my hands towards him.

“This is cute,” I say, “I always love holding Jimin-ie’s hands.”

Thwack. The stinging imprint of Namjoon’s palm on my ass burns deliciously. I arch my back, looking over my shoulder at him with a half-smile. “Do it harder, daddy.”

A breath sucks in between his lips as I utter the word I know will get him feeling as hot as me. “You’re playing a dangerous game, baby girl,” Namjoon grits out, his jaw clenched tightly.

“Oh, daddy,” I say, “Don’t you remember? I’m the fucking Queen.”

“Was that a chess pun? Nice.” A muffled voice followed by a squeaky laugh sounds through the door.

“Seokjin,” Namjoon seethes, flying over to open the door and drag the older boy back inside, “I thought I told you to let me know if you could hear us.”

I tug out of Jimin’s gentle hold, straighten back up, and then situate myself into a sitting position on the table.

I watch amusedly as Jin shimmies his way out of Joon’s grasp, “Yah! It’s not my fault I get intense FOMO. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. Besides, I only heard you because I had my ear pressed to the door.”

Jimin stifles a giggle. I let out a full-on laugh. Namjoon mumbles what sounds like a plea to some higher power under his breath.

“See what I have to deal with?” Namjoon turns to me, shaking his head. “Are you sure you want to sign up for this?”

“That depends,” I swing my legs back and forth as I stay perched on the table, “Are you going to keep spanking me?”

The boy who had just unhesitatingly bent me over to punish me now blushes and rubs the back of his neck. “I mean, probably? You have quite a mouth on you, baby.”

Hopping off the table, I laugh, “Good answer. Ten points to Gryffindor.”

“Woo!” Jin cheers, “Nice job on the House Points, Joon-ie!”

“I am in love with idiots,” Jimin sighs.

Grabbing my phone from my backpack, I let out a slight yell as I read the time. “Shit, shit, shit, shit!” I scramble to shove all of my textbooks back into my bag.

“What is it, noona?” Jimin worries, appearing next to me. “Are you late for class?”

“No,” I cry, “It’s so much worse. I’m late for my weekly Animal Crossing discord chat! Heath is gonna kill me…”

“Heath?” Jin scowls, “Who is this Heath you speak of?”

“Chill, fam,” I shrug my backpack onto my shoulders and stare contemplatively down at the three different coffees. “You can’t get jealous every time I mention a new person. What’s next? You’re gonna come for Tom Nook?”

Namjoon - who must play Animal Crossing - stifles a laugh as Jin pouts. “She has a point, Jin.”

“And so does a pencil. Big whoop,” Jin scowls with his arms folded.

“Aw, Seokjin-ie,” I coo, reaching over to pinch his cheek, “Don’t be mad. You’ll get to spend all day with me on Saturday after volunteering! What are we doing, anyways?” I level Joon with my best side-eye as I ask that question, knowing he is more likely than not the mastermind behind our planned date.

“It’s going to be great, noona!” Jimin pipes up, hugging me from the side, “You’re going to love it…You’re going to love us.” He murmurs the last part, probably not meaning for me to hear; but, I do.

God, I do.

“We’ll pick you up before volunteering,” Joon says, “Just bring yourself and a change of clothes.”

“What?” I decide - fuck it - and attempt to grab all three coffees, “No overnight bag?”

Jin, who had just taken a sip of his own coffee, spews it everywhere. “Pack one,” He gasps out in between coughs.

Laughing, I walk to the door, which Jimin kindly opens for me. “Okay, I’ll think about it. Ah, I’m so late. Jimin and Jin, I’ll punish you at a later time. Joon, you can try to punish me at a later time.” Living for their astonished expressions, I wave as best I can with three coffees in hand, “Bye, babes! Text me-e-e.”

As I make my way out of the library, it hits me that I only have one more day to prepare for this date. Fucking hell…

a/n: this is such a filler of a chap with a tinge of drama mixed in, hehe. the next one is gonna be that date tho uwu stay tuuuuuuned and thanks 4 reading

taglist: @catsandstrawberries @h5naaa @meowmeowyoongles @leftflowerprunedonut @rjsmochii @athletes-of-god @karissassirak @cage7241​ @weallhavesecretsinthebestway @cvbachacbitch @honeyspillings @valiantcollectorofsandwiches @fivesecondsofsarang @oii-f-eli-x2 @joonsroses @theevilyouknow @jooniescupcakes @expensive-grl @i-dont-even-know-fck @doingmybestalltheftime @fangirling-all-the-way-tbh @laced-brds @breeeeh17 @lpayne612 @peachyharmoney @rilakoya @chulchuchi @tabula-rasa0 @guccishookv @nomimits7 @i-like-puppy-mg @s-noir @anna-sorel @im-a-space-child @yeontanismypresident @drowning-in-oxygen @team-wang-puppy @lvvegood @anongirl007 @may114 @r-e-d-i-s-h @unatempesta-dipensieri @dragon-rider-with-a-book​ @blueberrygeniejam @wondrsblog @vi-hoshi @kirbykook​ @katemwatson​ @kawaiikpoplover268​ @amsteramyy​ @sami4life @a-feeling-of-euphoria​ @the-jackals​ @bubbletae7​ @platinum-grenade​ @bunnyboyenthusiast @brightly-byun @oofmeintheheadpls​ @sadboibts @lidda​ @goldenwidow3​ @t-mel19​ @lmkjimin​ @psiphidragon​ @jeon-joker​ @sathom013​ @lustremyg @ggsmashgg​ @justyouraveragerando​ @shadowstark​ @our-little-meow-meow @baby-hobii @toddsgirl27​ @mythicalmeep​ @asifetch7​ @kassandravictoria​ @eltrain80 @briannasthings​ @bumblekey93​ @ohmwreckr @beach-bitch-bitch-beach​ @softchimmee​ @kookoo-kachoo​ @lenuminous​ @ass-hole-in-one​ @peaches-422​ @spacejooon​ @sleepyje0n​ @uxwi​ @tellmeyoulovemepls​ @yady24​ @lovesick-heart0​ @redirect-min​ @hopetookourvibe​ @noonaduck​ @mini-coop25​ @multifandomgirl29​ @rhd31​ @yoongixvevo​ @sweetnspicy93​ @kuppyjiminie​ @love-and-other-possibilities​ @fuckyouandtheboatyoucamein @rvnchr4nd4​ @geminidrawsstuff​ @livorna​ @naajix​ @minjoonhome​

another a/n: if u asked to be added to the taglist and u did not get tagged, u might be one of the couple ppl that i couldn’t tag [check ur settings, fam!]

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Avengers #253: CONQUERING VISION

March, 1985

The Vision vs. Quasimodo... in the heart of a machine!

ITS A ROBOT RUMBLE

ON THE INTERNET!

The Avengers seem very perturbed. Or maybe they’ve placed bets and are yelling at each other.

Anyway. Anyyyyyywayyyy.

Last time on Avengers: Vision became confined to a tube and was only fixed when Starfox hooked him up to Titan’s supercomputer ISAAC. While it helped Vision fix himself, it also seems to have changed his personality. Vision began conspiring with ISAAC to build a take-over-the-world-for-its-own-good device so he could take over the world for its own good and erase the evils and inequalities of man.

Vision was hesitant to pull the trigger on becoming a well-intentioned extremist and tried to gain power and influence by becoming the Avengers chairman and trying to make them more prominent with a branch team and closer ties to the White House.

But when anti-mutant arsonists burn down Vision and Scarlet Witch’s house during a new wave of anti-mutant fear, Vision decides ‘mmm yup, taking over the world time’. He distracts the Avengers by sending them to babysit the army as they poke Thanos technology that they shouldn’t poke and accidentally summon the Blood Brothers. And distracts Captain Marvel to go check out Thanos’ ship several light hours away past Pluto. Black Knight shows up unexpectedly but Vision shoves him into a tube to keep him out of trouble.

And now I guess Vision is going to fight Quasimodo the robot guy? Not sure how that fits in.

But first, some West Coast Avengers!

Like I said last time, they didn’t stop doing stuff just because their book is over.

Mockingbird happens to run into some drug runners while getting in some flight practice and figures heck why not beat up an entire boat full of gun-toting people as a light workout.

I guess the Quinjet can hover? Doesn’t seem to have thrusters or repulsors on the bottom or be a VTOL but hey, super advanced possibly Wakanda tech. It can do what it likes.

Mockingbird turns the drug runners over to the Coast Guard and returns to Palos Verdes and even gets to fly into one of those cool cliffside hangers disguised as a perfectly normal cliff. The West Coast Avengers revamped the hell out of the compound they bought.

Can you even legally excavate into a cliff like that? You can if you’re a superhero, I guess.

For some reason, there’s a fakeout where its implied Tigra is licking herself, cat style, but she’s just stretching. At least I hope the joke is that it sounded like she was cat cleaning herself and not something else.

One can never tell.

Anyway, I assume Hawkeye is just annoyed that he’s going to be vacuuming hair out of expensive equipment banks later. But really its that what if he threw a meeting and only he and Tigra came?

Mockingbird comes in not long after Hawkeye complains, slightly delayed from beating up drug runners. Wonder Man comes in shortly after, delayed by

FASHION

You know, this is a pretty great costume for Wonder Man. Its what all his modern outfits are based on when he’s not just dicks out energy man. I think I like the red jacket outfit more because being the only guy who dresses in ‘normal’ clothes while still looking somehow out of fashion with normal people fits for Wonder Man.

But I do love this one too. Its got a simple charm. Deciding that Wonder Man’s colors are black and red instead of Christmas green and red was a great decision and I’m sure that nobody will ever try to put him in red and green again.

Hawkeye grouses “Next, I suppose Iron Man will show up with a new chrome job!” but Iron Man is Sir Not Appearing in This Comic.

And the reason why is... looks like Tony and Rhodey are beating the crap out of each other in Iron Men armor this same month in Iron Man #192.

I don’t know the details but dammit Tony!

Anyway, over at last issue’s plot, the Avengers are still in Thanos’ ex-secret base in Arizona, still rolling their eyes and smh at the US Army for poking things what should not be poked.

Starfox and Scarlet Witch find a chamber blocked by rubble which has a symbio-nullifier which Starfox proposes to use to symbio-nullify the Blood Brothers.

First, he flexes on the US Army.

Army Guy: “It must weigh tons!”

Starfox: “Tons? Yes. But only about eight-and-a-half! Hardly any bother at all!”

Good flexing, Starfox.

Meanwhile, Captain America’s scolding has born fruit. The Pentagon has agreed to seal Thanos’ base, pending further investigation. And Colonel Farnam agrees because his training never prepared him to deal with MONSTERS FROM OUTER SPACE.

Also meanwhile, the army took pity on Hercules’ poor pantsless state and slash or were intimidated by it and have lent him a uniform.

He wears it as you’d expect Hercules to wear it.

With plenty of plunging neckline.

Since the Blood Brothers have a psionic link which makes them stronger the closer they are, Hercules has chained them up on very distant parts of the base.

But this precaution is rendered moot pretty quickly when Starfox returns with the  symbio-nullifier to symbio-nullify the Blood Brothers.

Starfox suspected that Thanos had one of these lying around as a precaution if he was going to let the Blood Brothers into his base.

Hercules lightly complains that he didn’t get a good fight with the Blood Brothers especially since the hordes of Muspell and Maelstrom’s wacky minions were interesting but not all that much of a challenge for the prince of power.

Back at the Avengers Mansion, the giant holographic head of Vision is still dealing with Dane Black Knight Whitman. Mostly by showing him video footage of how the other Avengers are tied up.

Dane is confused for multiple reasons, including that when last he heard Wasp was the leader.

Vision: “My failure to anticipate your arrival was an unfortunate lapse. I regret that, as a result, you must suffer the indignity of incarceration.”

Dane: “But... why?! What does keeping me in a tube accomplish?”

Vision: “It prevents you from interfering! You see, I have come to the conclusion that the only way I can fulfill my duty to make the Earth a safer place... is to run it myself!”

Dane: “What?!? But that’s crazy! Uh... I mean, you can’t possibly...”

Vision: “Exactly the sort of reaction I expected!”

Vision: ‘See, this is why you’re a tube boy now.’

Vision turns off the hologram saying that Dane will understand when its all over.

As usual when somebody says something like that, Dane isn’t reassured, just more convinced he needs to break out and warn someone.

I’m not sure if its not already too late since Vision is safely ensconced in his take over the world chair in his secret take over the world room.

ISAAC’s head hologram shows up to Vision and asks him what the delay is, chop chop get to taking over the world for its own good.

Vision: “Sorry, ISAAC... I was just remembering how much I enjoyed having a body.”

Oh my god.

ISAAC: “What’s the sense of that? This entire world will soon be your ‘body’! How can the mobility of a single humanoid form compare to that?”

Vision: “I wouldn’t expect you to understand, ISAAC. It’s odd, though, so many times others have controlled my body... the robot Ultron, the Mad Thinker, Necrodamus... All have tried to subvert my mind and take me over. And now here am I... about to initiate the greatest takeover of all. One would almost think there were some mad connection -- !”

ISAAC: “Vision! You must not tarry!”

.................. Um, okay. So, rather than just being influenced by his brush with death and also brush with supercomputer, I think Vision is being actively manipulated into this by ISAAC.

I don’t know why but I do know that Vision continues being a viable character for decades so he probably can’t be burning all his bridges here.

Anyway, Vision uploads his psyche into the internet.

And like immediately starts taking over everything. One page montage immediately. The Pentagon, Cheyenne Mountain, SHIELD, satellites, the Kremlin.

Presumably the best security systems in the world barely warrant a mention for Vision’s mighty synthezoid brain.

He’s pulling a Skynet (for the world’s own good, so he says) and its barely an effort.

The scenery of being on the internet is, I dunno, pretty standard? Bright colors  and dashes of light? I feel like I’ve seen it a lot of places.

But if we’re on page 13 of a book and Vision is effortlessly Skynetting, whats the rest of the issue going to be about? Interestingly, to me anyway, despite this being Vision’s turn villainous or well-intentioned extremist, another villain gets shoved in anyway for him to fight.

As Vision is nyooming around the Kremlin’s computers, he nearly runs into another AI, Quasimodo.

Helpfully, we get a recap of Quasimodo’s ENTIRE LIFE STORY because this is pre-fan wikis and I don’t think Quasimodo has appeared in Avengers before.

He was created to be the ultimate computer by the Mad Thinker but was abandoned when he developed a mind of his own.

Quasimodo was found by the Silver Surfer who used the cosmic powers of the Power Cosmic to transform Quasimodo from a computer into a robot.

Turning to the wiki for more information: He turns on Silver Surfer because he doesn’t like the body he got, so Surfer turns him into a stone gargoyle. Let that be a lesson about ingratitude.

Somehow, he stopped being a gargoyle and fought various people until he was defeated by the Fantastic Four and the Sphinx and wound up a disembodied intelligence in a Russian computer system. And here we are!

Quasimodo begs Vision to help him escape this digital hellhole but Vision just turns and leaves because he doesn’t have time for these shenanigans. And also because he knows Quasimodo is a villain who tends to turn on the people who help him so fuck that.

Quasimodo: “You know of my past - of my power - and you still would dare deny me?! There can be but one name for such as you... and that is fool!”

He then hauls off and punches Vision. Because they’re both digital intelligences on the internet they can punch each other and have a fight scene. That’s how internet works.

That’s why Mega Man X can beat up so many people in cyberspace.

Quasimodo says if Vision doesn’t help him get back to the physical world, he’ll destroy him.

Vision: “Now, listen to me... I am consolidating all computers worldwide. I gave up my own physical body to do this, and I’ll not tolerate any interference from the likes of you!”

Quasimodo: “You willingly abandoned your body?! You’re not a fool... you’re mad!”

Faced with an irreconcilable set of priorities, Quasimodo trips them both into “the irresistible currents of the IMPULSE VORTEX!”

Sure. That sounds like how internet works.

Meanwhile, over at Pluto is very far away, Monica Marvel nyooms past the moons of Uranus. Apparently her visual acuity is REALLY good because she takes in the scenery while she’s nyooming and finds it frighteningly beautiful out in the outer planets.

Anyway, Vision scolds Quasimodo for plunging them into a torrent. Which makes me laugh. Surely its too soon for torrents to be a thing. He’s just using it in a metaphorical sense.

Quasimodo tries to shoot EYE BEAM at Vision, which misses the digital synthezoid but obliterates an electron.

In a cutaway that would be at home in a Marvel movie, the scene briefly shifts to a Soviet computing center and a guy named Alexey complaining that his program just crashed.

Quasimodo does Vision some punches but Vision decides to start trying since Quasimodo’s attacks risk alerting people that something is amiss on the internet. And Vision’s powers work just as well on the internet as Quasimodo’s do. In fact, screw that, they work better! Vision just gets more and more powerful the longer he spends on the internet!

Vision: “You might have slain me earlier, but now this world is mine -- and there is no place in it for you!!”

And at Vision’s command the internet launches Quasimodo from Earth itself.

The internet can do that.

Meanwhile, back at Avenger’s Mansion, Dane Whitman determines that the tube he’s a tube boy in may look like glass but its as strong as steel. He’s not punching his way out of here.

But his recently uncursed cursed sword (the curse never stays not cursed for long so I hope Dane enjoys having a notcursed but very enchanted sword) is just a few feet away with the rest of his luggage. And there’s a mystic bond between himself and the sword so if he just thinks about the sword hard enough, surely it’ll manifest in his hand.

Like the Force but slightly more convenient.

Dane Whitman: Nothing’s happening. Must not... be concentrating hard enough! Maybe the link was broken with the curse. No... no, I mustn’t even think that! I need my sword! I must have my sword! I must!

He do it!

The Notcursed Ebony Sword appears in his hand and he slices through that steel glass like its just glass.

Meanwhile, over at Arizona, the Avengers finish up nullifying the Blood Brothers and putting them in suspended animation, or if you prefer, naptime timeout.

Captain America receives a buzz from Hawkeye who wonders what he’s doing within hailing range, ie in the western half of the US.

Captain America: “Arizona... government business... And I’m as surprised to hear you, as you are me! I take it that your team finished its mission in the Pacific early!”

Hawkeye: “Mission? What are you talking about, Cap? We haven’t been on any mission!”

Which is a dun dun dun considering their whole reason for being sent on this mission was that the West Coast Avengers were ostensibly busy.

And Vision lying about that raises a whole lot of questions for the Avengers.

Cap and Wanda Witch rush over to the Quinjet and contact the Mansion.

Vision: “Then you’re aware of my deception. I... am sorry, Cap. I didn’t want to mislead you, but I felt it necessary to carry out my plan.”

Scarlet Witch: “Plan? Vision, what do you mean? What have you done?”

Vision: “I... well, there is no easy way to put this... But I have taken over the world.”

You never want to hear “I have taken over the world” from a friend, unless its followed with “and I want to get you in on the ground floor of this exciting new opportunity.”

Vision promises the two that he’s taking over all of Earth’s computers for a really good reason like ending war and strife. And signs off by telling Wanda everything will be alright and that he loves her.

Aww?

Cap: “He meant it... he meant every word.”

Scarlet Witch: “He’d been upset lately, but I never thought... Cap, we have to stop him!”

Cap: “Yes. If there’s still time!”

DUN DUN DUN!

Follow @essential-avengers​ because I don’t know when I’ve been more excited to get to the next issue! Like and reblog?

[teentitanimals]

AU Where All the Batkids are in School but are Still Superheroes

I see a lot of No Powers Highschool AUs out there, but superheroing is half the fun to me. And yeah, technically, I’m pretty sure most of the Batfam have been to school, but I mean, at the same time? You’d have to squish their ages down, but I think it’d be wild! And also, it’s all the Batkids (and some Superkids because why not, they go to the same school in this AU, okay?), including Helena, Terry, Matt, etc. And yes, they all keep their backstories (as in, Terry and Matt are still McGinnis’s too, and all that.) Also, I suck at knowing the education level system and ages, so, just a warning there.

Not in School (duh): Bruce, Alfred, Selina, Jim, Lucius, Clark, Lois, other adults

In (Fourth Year) College: Kate (23-24)

In (Second Year) College: Dick, Barbara (19-20)

In (First Year) College: Tam (18-19)

In Senior Year: Jason, Luke, Kara (17-18)

In Junior Year: Cass, Harper, Terry (16-17)

In Sophomore Year: Tim, Steph, Carrie, Duke, Conner (15-16)

In Freshman Year: Damian, Helena, Colin (14-15)

In 8th Grade: Matt, Jon, Cullen (13-14)

In 4th Grade: Timothy Fox (9-10)

In Kindergarten: Tiffany (5-6)

Who Stays Where?

For reference, I’d say they all go to a school somewhere between Gotham and Metropolis, rather than Gotham Academy or Metropolis High. Let’s call it... Mediocre High. A mediocre school for completely normal, mediocre kids.

Stays in Metropolis w/ Clark and Lois, but are at Wayne Manor 90% of the time anyway: Kara, Conner, Jon

Has their own apartments/safehouses but are at Wayne Manor 90% of the time time anyway: Kate, Dick, Jason, Tim, Steph, Harper

Stays at Wayne Manor: Terry, Cass, Carrie, Duke, Damian, Helena, Colin, Matt, Cullen (unless Cullen stays with his sister... or if any of them run away, because they do that often too)

Stays with their parents, or at their own apartments, and are at Wayne Manor a little less than 90% of the time anyway: Barbara, Tam, Luke, Timothy, Tiffany

What’s the Sitch with Relationships?

Biologically Bruce’s, and known to the public as biologically Bruce’s: Damian, Helena

Biologically Bruce’s, but not known to the public as biologically Bruce’s: Terry, Matt (these two often visit their mother!)

Legally adopted by Bruce: Dick, Jason, Tim, Cass, Duke

Not legally adopted by Bruce but, come on, they’re his kids anyway: Harper, Cullen, Carrie, Colin

Family Friends that are like siblings/cousins (or siblings-in-law ;3): Kara, Conner, Jon, Barbara, Steph, Tam, Luke, Timothy, Tiffany

Wine Aunt/Older Sister: Kate

Shenanigans

It was a hilarious bit started by Steph and encouraged by Dick, Jason, and Carrie that they should all stuff themselves into the smallest limo or helicopter possible and crawl out like clowns. It was funny, to be fair, but the bloodshed spilled because of it banned them from doing it again. The kids got split into two separate cars after that, but eventually went back to one big limo, except for those who’d prefer to keep their sanity and drive there on their own (assuming they have a licence).

This batch of kids, excluding Kara, Conner and Jon, are often referred to as the “Wayne kids”, or the “Gotham kids”. Sometimes Kara, Conner and Jon get called Gotham Kids as well, despite being from Metropolis and proud. They’re vocality from protesting against being called Gotham Kids earned them the nickname “Not-Gotham Kids”.

Damian, Helena, Colin, Matt, Jon and Cullen are one of Those groups. Often together, closely knit, all characters on their own, but together, they lose all braincells. Teachers love all of them individually (with the exception of Damian), but are absolutely terrified of them as a group.

The second group most like that would be the girls- Tam, Kara, Steph, Cass, Harper, Carrie and sometimes Barbara, Kate and Helena. Alone, they’re pretty good kids, but together their chaotic-ness knows no bounds.

Who are we kidding? All of these kids are like that. Put any two together, and you’re either going to see someone get stabbed, a glitter bomb explode, an impromptu dance session, or debate the pronunciation of “bologna” for an hour.

Due to Damian often claiming he’s the rightful heir as the blood son, Helena, Matt and Terry will often pipe up to remind him that he isn’t the only blood son (or daughter, in Helena’s case). This often causes problems, not because Damian attacks them (verbally or physically), but because Terry and Matt aren’t, in the public’s eye, biologically Bruce’s, so the kids often have to scramble to make up some excuse to outsiders, often settling with it being an inside joke.

In this AU, Terry and Matt go by “Futurebat and Futurebird” because Why Not? As for Conner and Jon both being Superboy... how about, we just keep it that way? Because, really, Why Not? The public dubs them both the “Superboys”, and there’s no need to change it for now. Sometimes Conner gets called the Superclone, but mostly they just differentiate by some variation of “Superboy One/Uno and Superboy Two/Dos”. Sometimes “Superteen and SuperPre-Teen” when Jon was a bit younger. Also, think of all the shenanigans that can arise from that. Amazing.

Damian, at first, had as much hate towards Helena (and eventually Terry and Matt when they learned of them as well) as he did towards Tim. But, Helena always found his anger a bit funny (so long as it wasn’t life-threatening, which it often was). She never wanted to “be the heir” to Batman or Catwoman. She just happened to be their kid, and she wanted her own hero persona anyway, aka The Huntress.

To explain the situation with Helena, Terry and Matt, I’d say Helena (who’s a few months younger than Damian) was raised by Bruce and Selina, but the two’s relationship was on-and-off, and there were long periods where Selina would solo-parent Helena and Bruce (or Alfred and/or Dick, really) would solo-parent Helena. Eventually, the two got their shit together and are currently in a loving relationship, but not married yet. Terry and Matt were, of course, kept hidden from Bruce, being raised by Warren and Mary in a loving family. Eventually, after the death of Warren, and Terry trying to strike out as a solo hero, and the discovery that his DNA matched Bruce’s rather than Warren’s, their story was revealed that Terry was planned to be “future Batman” by Amanda Waller (needless to say Damian did Not Like That). Terry confronted Bruce and told him about it, and eventually Matt would learn the truth as well.

The only people Damian actively calls by their first names are Jon, Colin and Helena. Helena is only because Damian didn’t want to admit she was a Wayne at first (even though her legal last name in this AU is Kyle-Wayne).

They have a lot of animals, some are permanent, some come and go, some are just strays they feed, but nothing will compare to the amount of cats they have. The majority are strays that stay outside of the manor, yes, but they have too many. Sometimes they’ll be walking down a street opposite side of Gotham, and see one of their cats. This isn’t even because Selina now lives with them, and she brought her cats with her. No, it’s because Dick, Barbara, Jason and Steph, among others, loved the idea of Catwoman being a crazy cat lady, so they kept getting her more cats, which, in turn, gave everyone a new cat. And Damian was not helping in the least bit. Selina at least tried to stop them from bringing more cats home, but Damian would smuggle them back in anyway. Bruce honestly wishes someone had a cat allergy so they would have an excuse not to have that many cats.

Helena is a dog person. She likes cats, but... Dogs.

The Batkids all fight over the right of getting to babysit Tiffany.

Cass is often called the Good Kid by teachers and staff. That is not true, the true Good Kid is Duke. This is because he’s the only one that can maintain his braincells even in a group... 90% of the time, anyway.

Half of these kids will vanish during school hours to go stop some crime even though Bruce has repeatedly told them not to do that. The other kids who are not superhero vigilantes or manage to respect said rule (which is not often) scramble to make excuses for them. No excuse has ever been something normal, but it works because “When have Wayne kids ever been normal?”

School events like dances and football games are awful. Some of the kids are aware going will be awful, and desperately try to get out of it, but someway, somehow, they always wind up there. It would have been chaotic enough just having the Gotham Kids go, but when they bring their friends too (Teen Titans, Young Justice, Outlaws, whomever), there’s no hope. Their classmates at school both fear and look forward to these events, depending on how they go down. On one hand, it’s the Waynes! You’re basically watching “Keeping up with the Waynes” in real life! On the other hand, oh god, don’t get caught in the crossfire, whatever you do, run for dear life if you must.

Amazingly, Dick is the only one who got permanently banned from these events. And he didn’t even do anything. Well... anything as bad as his siblings, anyway.

They have all gotten suspended at least once, whether they are a Good Kid or not. Jason is actually one of the Good Kids so long as his siblings aren’t around to annoy him, but he got caught with a gun once, and barely escaped getting expelled... well, actually, he didn’t barely escape it, he was a Good Kid after all. But it was still on the table. That was, miraculously, the only time he got suspended.

Damian, surprisingly, does not have the highest suspension rate, but he does have the highest “called into the office” rate. You can guess all the reasons- sneaking pets into school, sneaking wild animals into school, having knifes and/or other weapons on him, belittling other students (he’s not intentionally trying to bully them, but, he can’t help but point out what they’re doing wrong), arguing and insulting teachers, ditching class (for vigilantism of course), etc.

The highest suspension rate goes to Dick, before he went to college. Mostly it was just due to how often he would skip classes and not turn in homework, but occasionally he would get into fights (to defend another kid, usually). The schools hadn’t yet gotten tolerable to the chaos that is the Waynes yet.

I suppose I should list the Good Kids. They are as follows: Cass, Duke, Jason, Luke, Helena, Cullen, Jon and Tiffany (she is Small and Innocent).

The Bad Kids: DAMIAN, Conner, Steph (she likes causing trouble for fun), Carrie (same as Steph, but more class clown-y) and Terry (mostly when he was younger).

The Bad Kids Sometimes: Harper, Timothy Fox, Kara

The Neutral Kids: Tam, Tim (depends on whether he’s crashed from lack of sleep or caffeine overdose), Dick, Matt, Barbara

The “Troubled” Kids (don’t label them that schools, rude): Colin, Cullen too technically but he’s more “Good”, Kate, literally all of them depending on the time of day (or night, specifically)

[popculturebuffet]

The Loud House Reviews: Ghosted!

Halloween Havoc returns! Lori is haunted by a ghost and brings in LIncoln and Clyde ot fix things.. only to find out he’s actually the beloved school mascot and must enlist Lucy and her crew of goths to help her. The bar from the overlook hotel, 1900′s disco, and Boris, the best loud house character i’d never heard of all insue. All hail boris, and prepare for full review with spoilers. under the cut. 

We’re back! I’m sorry this is a week late. This is both due to having a LOT going on.. as well as my own fault for pushign this review back to do a review of the first episode of Starkid’s “Nightmare Time”.. only to have to push BOTH back after I was unable to finish this weeks’ Ducktales on Monday because I ended up having to get off it so my mom, who works from home, can use it, and because AT&T is an utter nightmare we’re thankfully leaving, so if nothing else that will hopefully never be an issue again. 

TLDR: I kept putting this one off, didn’t realize this week’s episode was in fact on this week, and now I have to get 5 reviews done in the span of three days: I have this episode, this week’s loud house, the amphibia halloween special, and reviews of Ducktales “The Duck Knight Returns” and the first darkwing duck episode “Darkly Dawns the Duck”. 

I kid, this blog will end as I too hope to end.. taking rusty and Zach with me. But i got myself into this mess and i’m getting myself out of it. I will get these done even if it kills me.. my ghost can then take care of the two fictional children. ON with the review!

We open at Fairway University. 

I had to. Lori is practicing for the big tournament coming up.. which normally would have me super excited as tournaments are my shit... but we’re not talking two people beating the shit out of each other, wether it be for the sport of it, because their master told them to, because one of htem is a demon who will end the world, or because their loved ones will be murdered if they don’t beat people up as a team for demons, nor people playing card games for their grandpa’s soul, or a grudge caused by an abusive childhood that leads to a battle over gods inside trading cards, or because the school decided why not, or because you need to both keep your godlike dragon that’s also in a card and your friends safe, or.. you get the idea. I love Anime tournaments in what anime I have watched. Me watching or reading of those is like coke to me... a golf tournament however?

Yeah i’m not big into non-wrestling sports in general, let alone one where hte main action is a ball went really far. I mean it IS impressive a golfer can do that and accuratley no less, that’s some Hawkeye level stuff, it’s just not for me. I do HIGHLY enjoy mini golf, and mini golf episodes as both simpsons and gravity falls episodes on that are a good time. I mean any episode that gets flanders to say this is worth at least one watch. 

And thanks to fond memories of my grandpa using them to get around his carnival, yes my grandpa owned a carnival and yes it was great and yes he was a great man and I miss him every day, and carting me around in them. If it were street legal i’d have one. And finally I LOVE happy gilmore. While Adam Sandler took a turn, and hopefully Hubie Halloween is a sign that long national nightmare is over, that film still holds up and is still REALLY damn funny. And by this point your probably wondering what the hell my point is.  Well the hell my point is is that in light of me liking golf related things for weird reason despite praying for death but death won’t come at the thought of watching actual golf, I love fairway university. I love the fact that a golf based college is credible, I love the fact it goes so far in it’s theme that the text books are all golf related, the dorms are all weirdly golf themed, and students apparently can get an arnold palmer at any time of night. I also assume the dorms have on demand streaming for happy gilmore and caddyshack, and a genisis with a copy of lee carvillo’s putting challenge.  Back on the actual episode at long last, Lori is putting in some driving practice and facetiming bobby. The reason the tournament is so important is that she needs to beat the evil elf Malketh at golf or else Suryr will end all life... I may of been reading walt simsons’s thor lately but admit it you would watch that. No it’s more mundane than a fire giant trying to commit universal genocide: Being the only freshman on the team, as in that good, if she dosen’t do well, she might loose her scholarship. Granted I DOUBT they’d take it away after one game, but it’s understandable why she fears loosing it: She can’t afford college any other way. Her parents finances are spread among 11 kids who all live comofrtably and while every loud would gladly give things up so she could go to college still.. Lori wouldn’t accept it. She’d be grateful.. but she wouldn’t have her family be miserable for her sake, even if it’s her dream. This is her one shot for the career she wants and loosing this would destroy her. Even if she’d still have Bobby.  But Bobby is pulled away because his customers are annoyed.. and by customers I mean just Vito.. the rest seem fine despite the line, who complalins his spumoni is melting... because apparently he can’t just have bobby get him a fresh one as Bobby would be happy to do because he’s made of pure joy and it was nice seeing him. Though I do hope to see him in college himself next season. It is WEIRD having the casagrandes season 1 paired with a season of the loud house taking place months later.. and having the halloween episode for season 2 show up months ahead of season 2 itself. 

But soon Lori has bigger problems than Bobby having to go or crushing loss... after consulting the school gopher, because the dean apparently really loves caddyshack as ANY dean of a golfiing school should. I forgot to mention it above but I freaking love that movie too. Good stuff. Back on point, Lori soon gets stalked by a g-g-g-host! And nope this ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco, this ain’t no fooling around.. nor is it a scooby doo esque scheme. This is an actual ghost. Represented by a ball of light but .. yup they went there. And look I get the show breaks from reality a lot: Luann acts like the silver age joker once a year and gets away with it, Lisa gets up to dexter’s lab esque shenanigans on an episodic basis, and Girl Jordan isn’t part of the group despite clearly sharing their intrests and being intrested in both lincoln and stella.  There are stretches in reality.. but mostly for humor or because it’d make a good plot. Most of the plots are grounded in reality: From Luna’s entire romance arc, with her insecurities and her and sam’s worries about each other, to Luaan’s nervousness about her first kiss, to Lincoln and friends having to learn that sometimes a girl dosen’t want to date you just because their nice to you, to Lynn learning not to be a dick and hten forgetting it overnight because this show hates me, the show grounds wacky shenanigans in relatable slice of life stuff. It’s what makes it and it’s sister show work so well. Grounding the exagerated comedy with likeable relatable characters. IT’s what works.  Why I bring this up is this and family bonding show a possible trend of the show getting into more bizzare stuff. A ghost here, a secret agent there.. it means the loud world can get as insane as it wants and the reason I bring it up is simple: Is that a GOOD thing. And my opinon, it CAN be if used right. With Family Bonding the fact there are Secret Agents is just.. casually mentioned. Like yup james bond esque spies exist and have weather dominators and an 11 year old just stopped them. It’s just.. treated like a normal thing when it’s not. Here.. a ghost showing up.. is treated like someone suddenly finding out ghosts are fucking real. Lori slowly comes unraveled a bit as the first few minutes go: She deals with seeing a ghost glow on the range, having the ghost drop books on her in the library, and having it serve her an arnold palmer.. in what genuinely looks like the bar from the overlook hotel from the shining. 

I get it’s a deliberate shout out, especially since it’s bartender is a ghost. But it just raises so many questions: Was it a concidence or did whoever put this bar in really love the shining? Did he want teenagers to murder their wives and children? Did he? Is this building haunted and not just by the genearl ghost that haunts everything? Did they take this from the overlook since it didn’t burn down in the movie? Does this mean shining and loud house are the same universe and by the same token so is community and the casagrandes? WHy is a tea with lemonade called an arnold palmer? But yeah after breaking down in her room Lori can’t take being stalked by a ghost and does what 80% of people in a paranomal activity film take too long to do and calls a ghost hunter. Specifically clyde! And to my shock this is apparently the first time the two have interacted since season 2! And it shows.. their on perfectly fine terms, to the point she has his number and they can talk like humans. I like it.. it’s subtle. Again wouldv’e appricated the episode where he got over here being more finte, but still, this is better than him either passing out in his own master roshi esque blood or trying to get her to leave bobby because bobby is a saint. The worst he’s done is break up with someone because her brother made his sister cry, when none of that makes any sense but he’s dumn and noble enough i’ll allow it, and telling sergio never to come back, which his show framed as a bad thing but really I would two after two minutes with him. 

She called Clyde because he’s the brains behind the outfit... but Clyde has her on speaker. Wah wah wah. Their watching ARRRGH! The ghost adventuers style show that showed up in an episode I never saw but read about. Wah wah wah indeed, but it was apparenlty made up. Why their still into it I dunno, but apparently argh ghost blasters ARE ACTUAL LASER GUNS. This show has gone enitrely off the rails and i’m fine with that. As long as it’s funny. But seriously who gives out actual proton packs I ask you your just asking for some kid to blast himself in the face. But yeah Clincoln McCloud is on the case. And while i’m still annoyed they didn’t bring at least two more friends to play ghostbusters, presumibly stella because she’s the compitent one and Zach because he could NOT belivie in something for a change and tha’td be funny. I know i’m beating a dead horse but it dosen’t HAVE to be all or nothing with their friend groups. You do know that right writers?

I mean I get only using them here as opposed to family bonding, but still, if you can use LIam outside of his episodes you can use the rest of them.. and I don’t even like Zach but he’d be in his element here. It’s not complicated but it is frustrating.  Anyways the boys and Lynn Sr arrive with Lynn Sr making a scene.. which embarasses Lori but i’m on his side here. His oldest went to college. She left the nest. It’s a lot. Plus she apparently hasn’t visted home yet so he misses his baby. Just accept it. She also asked the boys to be subtle about their ghost hunting which does not work at all. Lori you knew who you were asking for this. It’s like asking Sterling Archer NOT to be sarcastic, loud and slightly hammered. It’s part of the process.  Natrually hyjinks insue as our heroes chase the ghost with the most... on this campus.. and end up shaming him into leaving. Yes really. Clyde even says that’s what usually works on him. Oh Clyde.. if that were true you would’ve stopped trying to break up two people clearly in love with each other for your own benift, you twit.  So problem solved right, ghost busted, no more stalking and no lori turning into a monster and ushering in 80 sequels with no real resolution right? 

Yeah I mean this is a half hour special. Everyone at Fairway starts playing off, and it turns out because they realized the ghost was missing. Yes.. everyone knew the ghost was real. Thankfully given this is a halloween episode fairway isn’t some kind of rosemary’s baby, midsommar, herditary, paranomal activity , god a lot of movies use this death cult scenario. That we’re aware of Lori may just not be the target. The team captain takes Lori aside to explain things: They normally don’t tell freshman this until after their first game because the plot says so, but Fairway has a ghost. And again what makes this work is the guy does realize people might not belivie this and while normal for the students of fairway, it’s not normal for everyone and they might not belivie in it.  But no turns out the ghost is beloved 1900′s era Caddy, Shanks Bogey, who in the moment that cemented him as a legend singelhandidly helped Fairway to a big comeback in their first tournament ever, and was given a permanent positoin after graduation. Because they train caddy’s here too which makes sense. And now his ghost lives there too and still helps to this day. OR did anyway. Now why he coudln’t of told her this or why they don’t check to make sure one of the students dosen’t bring ghost hunters around or an exorcist or ash williams?

This episode already runs on nonsense i’m just going with it. Point is LOri’s hair’s falling out, more apparenlty, from the stress as she retreats into her hoodie.. Clyde gave her one to protect her because ARRRRGH! is really freaking shameless apparently. While LIncoln dosen’t know how to put a ghost back luckily Lucy has the mortuariy club over and LIncoln sends them over. Also Lori dosen’t want dad driving them, but Lincoln was on speaker which.. yeah Clyde I might get, the only person he’d probably want privacy with is his girlfriend, he and Lincoln have the exact same running crew but lincoln has 10 other people int he house who may eevesdrop.  But hell yeah, it’s my first Lucy episode on the blog and my first with her club period. For Lucy she IS one of the sisters I like I just haven’t checked out her episodes since season 2,a nd that’s my fault and something I intend to correct. She’s adorably, hilarious in her creepiness, and endearing in how she feels ignored at itmes.. because she is. They also ALL can apparently do her suddenly sneak up on people batman schtick as they all pop up on lincoln when he mentions a ghost. But yeah I love she has her own adams family esque group of goths, and that one of them is a Haiku from an earlier episode. While he and clyde hitting it off went nowhere it IS nice for the show to actually bring back an earlier character they entirely forgot about. It’s very rare for them. 

But yeah I already like these guys, arriving in coffisn and accidently sending my new faviorite borris flying.. a boy who talks like dracula, looks like an orlock and talks in the third person, though he ends up completing a cheer pyramid, because as an intentional joke or not, fairway , a school for a sport built on quite conversation... has a cheers squad. But hey we get boris talking about his hollow bones and cheering out of it so we’re good. 

But now the goth gang can get down to business. They try the obvious first a séance which.. yeah if bill and ted and beetlejuice have taught me anything, Seance’s can only end in friendly ghost murder. Granted unlike Otho I think Lucy knows what she’s doing, I just don’t want Shanks to die. This dosen’t quite work as while there is some bubbles it’s just Froggy 2 who apparently goes here when he’s not with adelaide. Good for him, getting some higher book learning. That’s rare for frogs. Though the faces on the Club are priceless as they are adorable. 

Plan B is to set out Shank’s faviorite food, Ferminted Bean Meal.. which yes is both to set up a fart joke and may or may not exist. He also liked pigs in a blanket, which is a good gag. Lori asks why theyd idn’t go with that I say they simply did because these are professional Goths, and they will always go for the weirdest option possible. It’s who you signed on for lori. You could’ve just called the fentons at the start of this but no, no crossover for us. And yes it’d be butch heartman free but as far as I’m concerned he can go fuck himself for, most among a LARGE pile of him being a jackass, promoting faith healing seminars that among serious illnesses.. include autisim, aka equating what I have to things like alhimers and cancer. No joke there just screw him, don’t screw danny phantom it’s great, moving on.  They intend for shanks to eat it but Lori’s teamates do instead as does the one club member who has weird hair that really unernves me. I get it’s supposed to be spider like but still, the rest of the club is really well designed, including him minus the hair. Why this why. They all get stomach poisoning and blame Lori for it despite, you know, eating strange food left in the middle of campus which is never a good idea, as it’s either someone’s elses or possibly spiked. What did you think was going to happen? Lucy’s last ditch effort is partying like it’s 1900. We do get the club and lori in top hats and canes with presumibly pocket’s full of miracles. So that’s neat. But it fails thanks to the cheerleaders coming in, boris very much included. Lori is desparing,.. until it turns out the disco ball which broke offers a mirror to the other side.. and thus where shanks is.. at the graveyard just off campus. Haiku finds this school creepy and wants to go there. Me too little sister, me too. 

Lori opts to go alone.. while this shit terrifies her, understandably, it was her mess and she needs to clean it up.. even though him not explaning himself to her or anyone else did this I don’t know if he can talk so fair enough. He can however caddy obviously as Lori gives him a heartfelt apology, and then plays a round, with him helping.. though apparently returning her ball also opens a doorway to hell. Go figure. Great gag though especially lori’s casual “that was disturbing”. He dosen’t give a sign he’s coming back though. Then we cut to the game.. with no real sign lori told anyone anything.. was.. was a chunk cut out of this episode or did they just run out of time? I dunno it’s jarring but the game is down to her, and Lori ends up in a sandtrap with the sun in her eyes. But luckily shanks returns! He llfts an umbrella for her. Again I think it’s less that he’s inconsiderate and more that he’s mute.. or maybe he’s just a jackass I dunno. We don’t know enough about him. Point is Lori wins, her scholarship is secure and her family is cheering her on.. well okay her family in terms of lincoln, clyde, because he counts dammit, and her parents the rest of the girls minus lucy are absent because they needed room for her club. Whose in the sun somehow. Lori wins, Boris does an exorcist head spin, and Lucy feels he’s lost to them. I mean.. he has to go home.. unless he dosen’t have one... which is probable. Man now I want a fairway spinoff even more.. I mean just give lori and bobby an off campus place, have leni and her two friends move in, maybe throw in carol and have boris living in a hole in the backyard and we’re good. Please nick, greenlight this. I will write it for you just give me the go ahead. 

Final Thoughts:

This one was okay. As I said the reality breaks are fine if their used for good reaosn, but I felt the episode put Lori though a bit much. She hasn’t been unsympathetic in so long, and she has a genuine heartwrenching reason to want to do well and is terrified of shanks. It’s not her fault no one told her. I mean that should be in the brochure “We have a ghost but he’s a casper ghost and not a gozer ghost so your good”. I mean the fact Jack Fenton HASN’T come blaring down the campus is only because he already did that and is banned from campus. that and he drove through the comisary.. like through both walls. The Fenton Van is thick.  Point is lori goes through a lot of pain and humilation for no reason. It also feels like a two parter put into one half hour: The first half has a problem that’s seemingly solved only to have a cliffhanger with Lucy coming in as the solution. That being said I aboslutely love the mortuariy club. Why they can’t repalce spider head with rocky I don’t know, but otherwise I love em. Especailly boris who i’m fine with him staying at fairway as long as I get that spinoff> The Clyde and LIncoln antics are just “ha ha their mech dosen’t work”.. when they still have rayguns as part of the merch, though I do appricate that them running out of power is set up: Their guns discharge as a running gag so it’s no suprise their out by the time our heroes need them. And Clyde’s line about shame and guilt “Just like me!” was gold. This dosen’t really have the missed opprtunity smell of family bonding or strife of the party, it did fine enough and the scene of lori and shanks playing golf was really sweet.  It really is just okay: Not AMAZING, but not terrible. I’ve seen much worse already this season, but the creative halloweeny premise, fun with the goth gang, and general weirdness of fairway make it a hole in two. Not a slam dunk but still fun. Just because an episode is mostly okay dosen’t make it bad.  If you liked this review follow for more, as I have weekly coverage of ducktales and loud house and ocasionally the casagrandes and later today should have, space and time permitting, reviews of the new loud house, the new amphibia, and later this weekend some darkwing duck. Until then stay safe, stay spooky and happy halloween. Play us out white stripes!

[aggresivelyfriendly]

Day Twelve

Hi darlings, I hope you are all well! Stay safe and LOUD! If you need a little break, here is something to read! Love to you all, and my boo @dirtystyles for being my friend and beta!

Reblogs are love!

Day 12: The One With The Request

"Babe?" Harry called from the door.

Elise barely heard him from the inside of the shower cubicle. Her shower cubicle.

"Sorry, love!" He cooed when he opened the door and she jumped. His voice did little to calm her racing heart. "I didn't mean to scare you."

She turned her head to look at him, keeping her naughty bits pointed at the shower head instead of in his line of sight. "It's alright. Now I don't have to workout today thanks to this adrenaline rush."

"You were gonna work out with me today?" He was pouting.

"Well, no." She laughed despite feeling slightly uncomfortable, him fully clothed and her naked as the day in the shower. "But it sounds better than I knew I was gonna be lazy, doncha think?"

He smiled for her. "I thought I'd missed an opportunity. Any way I can convince you?" He settled his thumb into the waist band of his sweatpants and his large hand covered most of his bulge. Harry was a morning person. He liked getting up early, well early for quarantine. And he -liked- mornings, the last two days had taught her.  While she'd always thought of sex as a night time activity, at least for normal people not sneaking around, she was learning the different flavors to pleasure, the soft glow of morning, playful delights of afternoons, and intense connection of late nights. Of all these, Harry seemed most interested in slow rolling morning fucks.

She'd snuck away this dawn to shower by herself before he roused. He had effectively wiped her nerves, well any and all negative things, from her mind last night after their Friends marathon. All of the thoughts that had invaded after his comments about finishing all ten seasons in three days got to her. Elise was glad he really only turned to look at her face when he asked if she was hungry, before making them sandwiches, on the remaining bread, and smoothies. Afterwards, she'd laid on his chest and he wasn't able to see that her mind was not on the televised shenanigans, but that they had an expiration date. Once the show was over, they were too.

They had always had an expiration date she supposed, from that sneeze, but things had changed for her. Elise had been developing more than a crush on him since the minute they crossed his threshold. She knew it was more when he'd joked about shaving his head, the curls, just to see the online response and her brain had commented, hot. Harry without his curls still totally appealed to her. She was sunk. And then, they'd cuddled, and flirted. And that was before they got to the kissing and the cavorting.

Did cavorting cover what they had been doing? He'd had her on multiple flat surfaces by this point, and the stairs had been too long to make it up them the night before. Her neck was not thanking her. And his bed. The hours they'd whiled away in bed. All the eye contact and sweet nothings meant something to her.

She'd woken up hazy and high. The love he'd made, and she had no other way to describe it, to her last night was different than the slow and precise focus on her pleasure the day before, the bread making shenanigans and the couch fumble and stair fuck.

He'd been patient like the morning one, and silly like in the kitchen, and insatiable like on the sofa, but he'd been all of them simultaneously and worshipful too.

Elise was smiling when she woke up. Their heads were on the same pillow, his bigger body wrapped around her and creating a buffer from everything outside. All the nothing outside. Even emptier after this. He had shut off her worries last night, but doubled her fear of loss doing it.

Elise now had something to lose.

Once she'd truly woken up, she needed some distance. Either she was gonna have to detach and take this for what it was, a 14 day  fever dream, with the last three being particularly fanfic worthy. Or she was going to have to have a conversation with Harry about what came next.

Elise was not sure which was more terrifying. She supposed she had opportunity for the talk now, though she was not sure she could feel more vulnerable.

"Right." Harry suddenly said and shucked his shorts off like a husk of corn.

"What are you doing?" She noted his dick was flaccid. Which made her feel sad and relieved. A brain scrambling or the intimacy his hard cock led to was more than she could cope with while she found her words.

"Well I was going to get in the shower with you. If that's ok?" God, why did he always ask!? It put the ball in her court, and she was horrible at sports, and it made him more wonderful every time.

"Um, I'm kind of sore." She was. If she was honest.

He palmed himself, he'd chubbed up a little by now. "Honestly, I'm assuming from the color of your skin, I'm gonna have some shrinkage from the scalding—"

"You could use it." She grinned.

"You want my dick to be smaller?" God, his damn face.

She shrugged. "Might help with the soreness."

"But not the orgasms." He pointed like a gun.

"I'm confident you would find a way to use it well."

"Ah! I'll take the implied compliment!" He squared his shoulders and bloomed, his dimples filling up with negative space and his jaw getting more geometric. "Now, can I come in?"

"Yeah, why are you standing in the cold, dork?" She couldn't resist him. Did she really want to? Out of fear?

"Dork! Alright, onto the name calling portion of the morning!" He curled up to her back. "Don't hold back, tell me how you feel."

She laughed and stood with the showers spray on her front and Harry's solid warmth on her back.

"Really," he said a moment later, in the vicinity of her neck. "Tell me how you feel."

"What?"

"You get shy in the morning." He kissed her ear. "Talk to me. It's important."

"I'm nervous." She would have jostled her shoulders up and down, but his weight was on them.

"I can tell. Am I that intimidating?"

"No, not anymore." She revolved in his arms and wrapped hers around his middle. The bread pudge offering a handle.

"Don't be nervous. Just relax and tell me what you're thinking." He tilted her chin up to look at him. "When you can."

She came up on her tippy toes and kissed him then. It led to a lovely make up session that proved how water did not cause permanent shrinkage. She raised her eyebrows at the presence between them. Elise was way more open by now, but Harry just said, "it'll go down." And kept kissing her until the water went cold, a pruny feat with such a large water heater. She hadn't talked though. She was working up to it.

"C'mon. Let's go downstairs. I want to cook you breakfast."

"You want to cook ME breakfast?" He said and google eyed at her. "Should I be scared?"

"Terrified!" She laughed and set about making French toast with the shop bought bread they had abandoned for his homemade loaf.

She still was scared, but he made her forget. He always made her forget her fears. She was gonna have to find some time alone to come up with what she was gonna say, how she felt exactly, so she could tell him. That was way scarier than anything else, but she was gonna pull up her big girl panties, cover them in the security of real clothes and then talk. No matter how scary, she had to do some emotional lifting here too. And despite her misgivings, she knew she was safe.

Even if she didn't get the answer she wanted, that this was her new address, and Harry was crazy about her, and they were getting married as soon as she could meet Anne.

Ok, well, that was a little crazy and not what she wanted either.

The relationship, or dating, and maybe meeting Anne someday in the nearish future did sound pretty amazing though. Getting to be with Harry sounded like a life she didn't know she wanted. Couldn't dream up.

But, if he said, "I like you, but we should take this as what it was, the beginning of a beautiful friendship with some delightful fringe benefits," and then eyed her up and loved her goodbye, she would be ok. And she would have been honest with somebody and they hadn't turned her away or ignored her. In fact, this time would be healing. She'd shown all her Dorian Gray style invisible scars and been accepted. Elise would have gained something, a chance at the future. Acceptance, the opportunity to forgive herself.

Just not everything she wanted. But who got everything they wanted? And once you got it, was it a dream or a curse?

Maybe she got to have it right now because this was ephemeral. A half life of some sort where time and decisions didn't stick.

In any case, whatever he said, the point was naming what she wanted and then being open and honest about it despite the outcome. She needed to do that.

Her decision was made once she had clothes on, and through the French toast she whipped the hell out of to get the fluffy edges she liked. Through his smile and extra extra moans of enthusiasm. Their couch make out session and his tongue between her legs, "it'll help the soreness."

It didn't, not necessarily, but it didn't hurt, and it distracted her from the high wire act she was performing. Her need to tell him, and supreme reluctance to at the same time.

All she could compare it to was being in Costa Rica three years ago and standing on the edge of the waterfall. She was the last one to jump. Well, her mother had  entirely sat that day out. Derided them for even wanting to go. Her sister had made a show, but she'd been a swimmer and liked everybody looking at her on the ledge of the rock in her bikini. Her dad faced down guns, this wasn't scary to him. They'd both gone before her.

It was scary to her. It was exhilarating too. What was beneath the water? Would she come out clean? A different person? Braver?

She'd desperately wanted to blithely hop off with a pirouette, a flounce or show on her way to absolution. She hadn't. Of course, but she done it, held her nose and closed her eyes as she jumped. But she got to feel the rush of the air around her and the chill of the water's embrace. Clean.

Her heart pounded in that familiar rhythm while she lay on Harry's couch with him and through the take out.

"Harry?" She asked. Elise had found all of her courage bundled up, thrown it in a kerchief over her shoulder to prepare for this talk. It was time.

He didn't respond. And she wasn't sure she could do the talking looking at him. She stretched up from her chest pillows and planted her face above his birds. "Harry?" She was closer to his neck now. Hopefully he would hear her.

Then she heard him let out a piggie snort.

Oh, he was napping. She should have known, he hadn't moved his hands down over her ass or made a comment about anything, or suggested they do something like make a huge obstacle course or try the Murph challenge in at least 5 minutes. A still Harry was a sleeping Harry.

Well, she supposed that meant the talk was out. Elise retreated to her room to read.

To worry and freak out, and lose her nerve. Who knew she was so good at multitasking? She chuckled at herself as she read her 6th chapter.

"Hey babe." She looked up from where she was sat in the window to see his post nap face, lined from the unsatisfactory pillows on the couch and swollen. His eyes ringed with fluid like an alien baby. "Where'd you go?"

He walked all the way in and sat on the bed, her bed.

"You predictably fell asleep, so I came to read so I wouldn't disturb you." She closed her book, but kept her body away from him.

"You don't disturb me." He casually threw out. He stretched, she watched, of course, and caught sight of the lush planes of his hips. "Why're you in here?" He said after a little shiver.

"Um, well, ya see, my things are in here and it's my room." Elise tried for blithe and bonny.

"Hmmm, we should move your stuff into the master. It's more comfortable—"

"Than the couch?"

"Well, obviously." He rolled his eyes and reached for her hand. She was mirroring his postion without deciding to turn to him. "It would be easier if you just had your things in with me. You'll be sleeping in there anyways."

"Will I?"

He made a weird face at her. "Not if you don't want to, but I really wish you would." He turned her hand over and traced her palm. "We don't have to have sex, if you don't want to. But, I'd like you close." Then he looked back up at her with the full power of his green tractor beam eyes and slow blinked in his hypnotic way.

Wait, why wouldn't she want to have sex. "Why wouldn't I want you?" She let slip.

He grinned shyly. "If you want me, all you have to do is ask."

"And if I'm not brave enough?" She was not brave enough for the rest of this conversation today.

"I think you are brave enough, you just have to let yourself be, but if you aren't," he stood up and pulled her gently to him, "then just kiss me, like this—"

His illustration was thorough, and varied and moved down her neck and under her top.

They hadn't done it on this bed before.

"I've never had sex in here." He commented when he was pulling down her shorts and withdrawing a condom from his pocket as he pushed his down.

"That's convenient." She pointed at the skin in his fingers. She was gonna ignore the other comment.

"Seems like it was good planning on my part." He shrugged.

"You planned this?" She was being brave, and climbing up to straddle him. He was heavy and full in her hand.

"Hoped." He put his hand to her mouth and she wet his fingers like he liked. He spread the saliva over the head of his cock and then dipsticked her, petting her clit until she writhed. "You ready?"

"I don't know, you tell me." She placed him at her entrance, and slid down until the pressure prevented her. She wasn't sure she'd ever be totally ready for him right off the bat. His hands caught her hips and helped her inch off and in until she was resting on his laurels. Her head fell back.

"Yeah, you're ready." He smiled. His hands stayed on her hips, occasionally plucking at her nipples or caressing her back and ass while she set the pace. Rocking up and down on him like a boat making its way to the harbor. The waves got rougher and Elise leaned forward to go with them. His hands offering more help as she surfed her way to shore.  She leaned back when her destination was within reach and his thumb found a rhythm over her wet crux that helped her go the last bit of the distance.

"Harry!" She cried and lost her rhythm, was pulled under the waves and brought to the horizon. He rolled them over and lifted her leg up over his shoulder to maneuver her to his own end. His weather was rougher and had she not already come it might have been too much. As it was, she gripped his shoulder and went with him, shaking and pulsing while he stilled and filled her.

"Oh Elise." He said into her hair. He pulled back and gave her a hazy look. The soft smile that played on his lips was one she'd never seen before. He looked like a warm bun. He kissed her mouth once more and buried his face in her neck. Elise knew his propensity for falling asleep, had seen it in action. She did not want to become glued to him, well, not really. She'd thought about entwining their fingers like when she twisted up paper clips as a child, so they'd never come apart, but that had been a fantasy. You didn't want to be that close to anyone all the time she reckoned. Even if you loved them.

Loved?

Holy shit! HOLY SHIT!  Did she just think she loved Harry. Did she love Harry? Could you love someone so quickly? Her hand was in his hair still. It had stopped moving and she was afraid she might have jerked at it. Woken him. He seemed content though, heavy and sleepy. She ran her fingers through his downy curls, for the pleasure of it, like pressing on a bruise, she redoubled her masHer lips drifted down to kiss the top of his head. Elise was about to wiggle away from him to freak out. She needed to freak out. Fuck! Three days?!? She had three days to get over it. And now the conversation she had been psyching herself up for was much scarier.

Harry's breathing wasn't even and deep, and she was starting to worry about the condom full of spunk inside her. Just as she was about to make her move he startled her. "Arghhhh!" Was what came up when he lifted his head and his body away, wilting away from her.

"Jesus! You scared me!" He gave a nervous chuckle.

"I scared you! You woke from the dead on top of me and I scared you?" She joined in his laughter.

"The dead? I wasn't even asleep! I was listening to your heart rate." He bussed her lips and pulled off the condom, tied it. "It got all crazy. And they aren't serious when they call it a little death. It's more like a little life right? I mean it's the engine of life and such, is sex."

He was on a ramble. "I'm too fucked out for you to be this philosophical." Elise sighed.

"Well, you know what I mean?" He looked at her.

"Nobody ever knows what you mean!" She laughed, but she actualll did get him here. Why a little death when it was the act that made life? Made you feel most alive.

"Anyways," he rolled his eyes. "Your heart got all crazy, so I figured we needed to get moving, or you needed to poo or something."

Her face conveyed her disgust. "Harry!"

He laughed at her response. "Go to the bathroom, then I have a very serious choice for you! Scrabble, or the hot tub."

"I'm not playing Scrabble with you! I know you're a ringer."

"Naked hot tub it is!" He celebrated.

Elise thought of her nethers and reconsidered. "Tell me more about Scrabble."

She shouldn't have even bothered giving herself a choice.  Elise wound up in the same place. She wasn't sure she would be able to walk tomorrow; she winced when he pulled out, but stayed atop her caging her body in.

"Let the record show, I won!" Harry smiled down at her, a bead of sweat rolling down his nose.

"I won at Scrabble." She was offended!

"Yeah, maybe." He put his nose into her neck and took a big inhale. "But I won at life."

She felt like a winner too.

[clumsyclifford]

you and i are finally gonna get it right

seems like i should post this on tumblr as well because that seems to be the thing to do so here i am, doing that :) massive overwhelming shoutouts to @ashesonthefloor​ for reading this when it was even worse than it is now & helping me with it and also @cliiffords​ for letting me talk nonstop about how horrible it is <3 (fair warning: this fic is 5k so if youre on mobile...settle in lol)

here’s an ao3 link you can use if you prefer

-

If Michael has to pioneer the movement of normalizing being tattoo-free, then so be it. He and Calum will be the frontmen. - Neither Michael nor Calum have soulmates tattoos. (Apparently.)

-

November 20th, 2013

Michael wakes up in his bed with a hangover and a tight sting on his left upper arm. Before he even opens his eyes, he cycles through all five stages of grief. He’s not sure he’s properly landed on acceptance when curiosity gets the best of him, and he looks.

To The Moon.

Oh. Wait a minute.

That’s not a soulmate tattoo. That’s a genuine, god’s-honest tattoo that he’d gotten last night. It had been a slightly drunken (okay, very wasted) decision, encouraged by Calum, but looking at it in this light, he doesn’t regret it. And — he squints. Just underneath it, approximately the dimensions of his thumb, is a string of numbers. Michael stares at 250196 for many minutes, but his hungover brain feels fuzzy and bewildered. He doesn’t remember getting that one, but it’s not a long shot to assume it had been part of last night’s shenanigans. Michael remembers him and Calum stumbling into the tattoo parlor, giggling far too loudly for a tattoo shop at 11pm. It’s not like Michael has ever planned anything in advance, ever. Get a bunch of random numbers tattooed on him; why not?

He scrambles blindly for his phone. Checks the time: 1:10 in the afternoon. Nice day of sleep, then. Pretty good start to his eighteenth birthday.

He calls Calum.

“Morning,” Calum says when he picks up. “Happy birthday.”

“Hi,” Michael says, and at that exact moment he realizes what the numbers are. “Oh my God, you’re such an arse. Did you seriously make me get your birthday tattooed on me? The night before my birthday?”

“What? No,” Calum says, but he doesn’t sound very certain.

“Well, I wouldn’t have done it on my own,” Michael says. The unspoken I wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t asked me to floats away. “I can’t believe you. I mean, I know we were wasted, but…I can’t believe I let you convince me, honestly.”

“I didn’t!” Calum protests. “...I think. Gotta admit, I was…very drunk.”

“Me too,” Michael says mournfully. “Out of childhood with a bang.”

“I think your childhood ended long ago,” Calum says.

“Your mum’s did,” Michael says, nonsensically. “Fuck, my head hurts.”

“I thought you were getting To The Moon,” Calum says.

“I did. It’s here. And underneath it, your birthday. 250196.”

“That’s my birthday,” Calum agrees, as if Michael doesn’t know that. “Well, listen, it sounds to me like a blessing in disguise. Now I'll always be with you.”

“That's the opposite of what I want. I wish you'd leave me alone," Michael says. “I’ll get you back for this. I was already commemorating our friendship with to the moon. Why would I want your birthday on me?"

“'Cause I'm your favorite," Calum says.

Michael doesn’t answer, because it’s true enough. Not that Michael would choose to have anyone’s birthday tattooed on him, but if he had to choose, he’d choose Calum. He’ll always choose Calum.

“So,” Calum says, as if about to ask about the weather. Michael knows Calum’s nervous voice, though, and this is it. “Uh, got anything else new, then?”

Michael bites his lip. “I haven’t checked. Only just woke up.”

“Oh. That’s cool. Let me know if — when you find yours.”

“I’ll call you back,” Michael says, and hangs up. He sits in bed for too long, staring at his palms, thinking about how he doesn’t need any more tattoos. He got To The Moon, and he’s got Calum’s birthday, which, admittedly, is a weird thing for drunk Calum to convince him to get. But fair enough as a prank, he supposes; maybe he’ll make Calum get Michael’s birthday on him, as payback, on Calum’s eighteenth.

Finally, he gets out of bed and goes to the bathroom. He stares at himself in the mirror. The bathroom lights are blinding, achingly bright. The hangover is killing him. He strips down to his underwear and slowly does an inch-by-inch scan of his entire body. Three times.

There’s nothing. The knot that had built itself up in Michael’s stomach unravels, and Michael realizes he hadn’t been nervous that there wouldn’t be a soulmate tattoo; he’d been nervous that there would be.

And there’s not.

He calls Calum back.

“There’s — I don’t have one,” he says.

Calum is quiet. “What do you mean, you don’t have one? Everyone gets one.”

“Well, I haven’t,” Michael says. Hearing Calum’s voice, he can’t stop smiling.

“How is that possible?” Calum says. “Check again.”

“Calum, I checked like nine times. I haven’t got a soulmate tattoo.” He pauses. “I didn’t want one anyway.”

“You didn’t want one?”

Michael shakes his head. “Nope,” he says. “Fuck soulmates. I’ve already got you, haven’t I? It’s not like I need anyone else to cuddle or spend all my time with. They’d probably just be jealous.”

Calum laughs uneasily. “If you say so.”

“I do,” Michael says firmly. “Not everyone has a soulmate tattoo, not like anything's wrong. I don’t need some ink to tell me what’s important. I’ve got everything I need.”

“Wow,” Calum says. “Being eighteen has truly made you wise.”

“It sure has,” Michael says. “Do you wanna get Maccas and play Fifa?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the coffee shop?”

“Ah, Luke’ll cover me,” Michael says. He’ll do it for Luke’s birthday on the condition that Luke does it for his; that’s the agreement.

“In that case, I would love to,” Calum says.

January 25th, 2014

Michael wakes up in Calum’s bed. For one very brief, baffling second, he thinks, did Calum and I have sex?, but no, he’s fully clothed and definitely hasn’t had sex recently. So just good old-fashioned sleeping together, then. 

“Morning,” Calum says from the general direction of the doorway. Michael twists himself around and immediately regrets it; his head is pounding.

“Fuck me,” he mumbles.

“You should be so lucky,” Calum says. “Hungover?” Michael nods, squinting. Calum comes over, Tylenol in one hand and a glass of water in the other. “Me too.”

“I fucking love you,” Michael says, and downs the Tylenol and water. “Happy birthday.”

“Yeah, about that,” Calum says, crossing his arms. “I know you said you were going to get me back, but I didn’t think you meant it like this.”

“Like what?” 

Calum shakes his head. He’s got the ghost of a smile on his face, but he’s clearly trying very hard to hide it. “Mate, we have to stop drinking so much and blacking out.” 

“I dunno,” Michael says. “I kinda like the mystery. It’s like, who was that Michael? What was he thinking? I’ll never know.”

“Mike, you don't even know what you're thinking when you're sober.”

“Hey, shut up. I think at least three things a day.”

“Not including wanking.”

“...I think at least one thing a day.”

“Thought so.” Calum tugs the collar of his t-shirt down, and Michael’s breath catches when he sees Calum’s new tattoo. It says MMXII across his collarbone, in big, blocky Roman numerals. 

“Oh, it looks sick,” Michael says. 

Calum raises his eyebrows and pulls it down a little further. Michael has to squint, because he’s not wearing his glasses.

“I can’t see that,” he confesses. Calum huffs and comes closer.

201195.

“You got my birthday tattooed on you?” Michael says. Calum stares at him. Michael connects the dots. “Oh my God.  I so don’t remember last night at all. That’s incredible. I have nothing but respect for blackout-drunk Michael. He clearly knew what he was doing.”

“You know I’m going to have this forever, right?” Calum says, but despite his best efforts, he doesn’t sound mad, not even a little. “We’re both stuck with each others’ birthdays tattooed on each other forever. Because we’re drunk little shits.”

Michael shrugs. “Could be much worse,” he says. “You could’ve gotten it on your dick.”

Calum snorts.

“And, uh.” Michael swallows. “Nothing else? Apart from the two that you, like, actually went and got?”

Calum watches Michael, and Michael hates how unreadable his expression is. “Nope,” he finally says. “I checked. It’s just those.”

Michael feels badly for feeling so relieved. “I’m sorry,” he lies.

“No, I — I’m actually fine with it,” Calum says. “I mean, it’s like you said, right? Don’t need any new people in my life. I’m pretty happy where I am.” 

Michael grins at him. He hadn’t realized how scared he’d been to learn about Calum’s new soulmate until finding out that Calum doesn’t have one. Maybe it’s selfish, but Michael is selfish. He wants Calum all to himself. He doesn’t want a soulmate. He doesn’t want Calum to have one. He just wants it to be MichaelandCalum forever.

“Nice,” he says. He looks up at Calum and his smile grows. “You learned from the wisest. Well, happy birthday. What do you want to do?”

“Sleep off this hangover,” Calum says honestly. Michael spreads his arms across the bed.

“Join me,” he says. Calum rolls his eyes.

“That’s my bed, you loser.”

“So that’s a no?”

Calum climbs into the bed and curls himself into Michael’s side. “Never said that,” he mumbles. “G’night.”

It’s nearly 11am, but they both fall asleep, secure and warm. Michael feels safer than he’s ever felt.

March 8th, 2014

“I just don’t understand how you can be so relaxed about it,” Luke says, absently strumming variations on the A chord.

“It’s literally the simplest thing in the world,” Michael says. “I don’t have a soulmate tattoo. Move on.”

“Yeah, but neither you nor Calum? And you’re not, like, a little bit curious about why not?” Luke presses.

“Leave him alone, Luke,” Ashton says, twirling a drumstick. “He’s obviously soulmates with someone he hates, and he just doesn’t want to say. Probably Ben or Jack.”

Luke gags. Michael reaches for something to throw at Ashton, but all he’s got is a guitar pick, so he throws that. Ashton catches it and starts tapping the snare drum with it.

“I just don’t really care,” Michael says, in response to Luke’s question. “Like. I don’t know. I don’t feel like having anyone else in my life would make it better at this point. I’ve got Cal, and I’ve got you guys — the band — and my family…” He shrugs. It makes undeniable sense to him; he’s happy where he is. If it ain’t broke, right?

Luke sighs. “I could never be like that. I’d be dying to know who my soulmate is.”

“Yeah, because you’re clingy as hell.”

“Oh, that’s rich coming from you.”

“I’m not clingy!”

“I’ll just ask Calum when he gets here, then,” Luke says.

“Okay, fine. I’m a little clingy, but so are you,” Michael says. “At least I’m not harping on not having a soulmate tattoo. You haven’t even got yours yet and you’re obsessed with it.”

Luke sticks his tongue out. “I’m allowed to be curious,” he says. “Ash, aren’t you curious whose yours is?”

Ashton jolts when Luke addresses him. The pick drops from his hand onto the batter head of the snare. “Um, I dunno. Yeah. But, like, whoever it is, I’ll find them in due course. Might not even have gotten their tattoo yet, so I’m trying to take it easy, not worry.”

Michael casts a strange sideways glance at Ashton, who’s bouncing his leg up and down. Nervous. He looks at Luke, then looks back at Ashton.

“Wonder what yours will be,” Luke says, leaning over his guitar and twisting his fingers. “Like, what matches the moon?”

“The sun?” Ashton offers. “The tide?”

Luke nods like he’s deep in thought. “Sun would be nice,” he mumbles, as if talking to himself.

Michael wishes Calum were here. If Luke isn’t Ashton’s soulmate, he’s quitting the band and the coffee shop and taking Cal with him.

July 23rd, 2014 - 12:16 a.m.

“Hello?”

“Mike.” It’s Luke. He sounds nervous. No, he sounds scared. Michael can deal with nervous Luke while playing Portal, but not scared Luke. He pauses the game. Chats from Calum appear on the screen, but he ignores them for the moment.

“Hey,” he says gently. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Luke says, which is clearly a lie. “I’m just — it’s my eighteenth.”

“Oh, holy shit,” Michael says. Obviously he’d known that, and had remembered up until about two hours ago, when he’d started playing Portal with Calum and all thoughts had exited his mind. “Did you get your tattoo? Do you have one?” 

“Yeah,” Luke says. “It’s, uh. It’s the sun.”

“The sun?” Michael repeats. “That’s a bit random.”

“Yeah, but,” Luke says, sounding desperate, “it’s the sun right on my forearm — looks exactly like —”

Oh. Michael knows. “Oh,” he says softly. “Holy fuck.”

“It can’t be him, right?” Luke says. “Like. There’s no way. The odds…”

“Well, that’s sort of the point of soulmates, isn’t it?” Michael points out. “Like, yeah, in a normal situation it would be a crazy coincidence, but soulmates aren’t supposed to be normal situations.”

Luke is silent for a long time. 

“Luke?” Michael prompts after the quiet gets unbearable. “Do you want it to be him?”

“Yes,” Luke says, in the smallest voice ever. “So badly.”

Michael can’t help it; his heart skips a beat, and it’s not even his own love story. “Well, if you want it to be Ash and you’ve already got the sun where he’s got the moon, that sure does sound like it’s him.”

Luke exhales so hard it crackles on the phone. “No way.”

“If it helps,” Michael says, “I’m pretty sure Ashton’s been hoping you’re his soulmate since he met you.”

“You’re just saying that,” Luke says, but Michael’s not; he’s not blind. He can see the way Ashton looks at Luke like he’s a fucking planet, and Ashton’s content to just orbit. He’s heard some of the stuff Ashton writes and never presents to the band as a whole. If Michael had a nickel for every time Ashton mentioned blond hair and blue eyes in his lyrics, he’d have enough money to kick Ashton from the band and hire a better drummer who wasn’t constantly pining after their lead singer. He’d have enough money to quit the coffee shop and take Calum from the record shop and skip town completely.

“Call him,” Michael advises. “And leave me alone so I can finish playing Portal with Calum.”

“You could’ve done that while talking to me,” Luke says.

“And yet I paused it, just to take your call, because I’m just that nice and lovable,” Michael says. “Now fuck off.”

“Not so nice and lovable now,” Luke mutters.

 Michael hangs up on him and unpauses the game.

 January, 2015

Michael hasn’t done the research.

He doesn’t care. Or he does his level best pretending he doesn’t care. For a little while between his eighteenth birthday and Calum’s, he’d mostly been lying when he’d told people he didn’t care, but as soon as Calum had turned eighteen with no soulmate tattoo in sight, Michael had realized he actually doesn’t care.

And he doesn’t want to know what it means, not to have a soulmate tattoo. If Michael has to pioneer the movement of normalizing being tattoo-free, then so be it. He and Calum will be the frontmen. Besides, it’s not like anyone needs to know. It’s not like anyone should care.

Some people do care, though. Some people are invasive coffee shop customers who think they have the right to ask after Michael���s soulmate tattoo like it’s the sort of casual conversation you instigate while ordering a vanilla latte. Some people are wrong.

“Oh, I like your tattoo,” is what this woman says. She looks to be middle-aged, or maybe mid-sixties, and she’s talking about To The Moon, Michael reckons. Then the lady says: “Is it your soulmate one?”

Michael bites back a rude comment. “No,” he says.

“What’s your soulmate one look like?” the lady asks. Like she would have any right to know if Michael had one. Michael hates his day job. 

He glances over at Luke, who’s halfway through making the latte, and grimaces, a desperate plea to be rescued from this conversation. He should have just lied and said To The Moon was his soulmate tattoo. But he’s sick of talking about it at all. And who’s this lady anyway, thinking she can just march in here, order a coffee, and then ask Michael about his soulmate tattoo like they’re acquainted?

Luke steps over. “Hi, ma’am, sorry, Mike’s much better with vanilla lattes than I am, you’ll want him on that,” he says. That’s a straight lie, but Michael gratefully slides away and goes to finish the latte. “Was there something else we can get for you?”

“Oh, I just wondered about your soulmate tattoos,” the woman says. “It’s just been a long time since I’ve seen people who have them so fresh, and — oh, I don’t know. I wondered.”

“Well, I can tell you I’ve got mine,” Luke says, and proudly displays the sun tattoo on his forearm. “My soulmate and I are together going on six months.”

“How lovely!” the lady squeals. “The sun, that’s beautiful. What does she have?”

“He,” Luke corrects uncomfortably, “has the moon.”

Michael tunes them out and finishes the latte. He puts less vanilla than he should, but the woman deserves something a little more bitter. Maybe it’ll wake her from whatever dreamland she’s in where nosy questions about personal topics are considered fair game.

~

At least Calum lets him complain. Michael’s been bitching about the old lady for about twenty minutes, but Calum, ever the patient and loyal best friend, has let him carry on.

“I just don’t get why everyone is so obsessed with knowing,” Michael finishes, and sighs deeply, feeling the weight lift from his chest. “God, I’m tired.”

“You just talked for nearly half an hour,” Calum points out.

“And I could go longer!” Michael says. “I’m irritated, Cal. Maybe I’ll ask the manager to blacklist her from the store.”

“Complaining will get you nowhere,” Calum reminds him. “And it sounds like she wasn’t trying to be invasive. Old people are just like that.”

“But she was,” Michael whines. He falls finally onto the couch, where Calum has sat watching him pace since he got home, and cuddles into Calum’s side. “See if I make her coffee again. I’ll throw a diva fit.”

“You do that every day, anyway. You threw a diva fit when I asked if your shampoo was two-in-one shampoo and conditioner.”

“Because who uses two-in-one, Cal? Animals, that’s who.”

“See? Diva.”

“Well, if she comes back, I’ll just bitch at her about shampoo and conditioner until she gives up and goes someplace else.”

“Just pretend you’ve become violently ill,” Calum suggests. “Or that you’ve gotten a very urgent call.”

“I’m awful at pretending I have calls,” Michael says. Calum starts carding through Michael’s hair. Michael knows it’s a trick to calm him down, and he hates that it’s working. Calum’s gentle, methodical gestures are soothing.

“Then just text me, and I’ll ring you, and I’ll make up a horrible emergency,” Calum says.

Michael sighs. “That’s why you’re my favorite, Cal.”

Calum brings his free hand up to pat Michael’s cheek. His hand is warm and soft and the touch feels familiar. “No problem. It’s what I’m here for.”

“To get me out of talking to annoying customers?”

Calum leans his head on Michael’s and presses a light kiss to his head. “Yup.”

“Can’t wait for our band to be famous so I can quit,” Michael mumbles. Calum laughs.

Michael closes his eyes. Calum is safe and comfortable, and it’s been a long day. He falls asleep, breathing in sync with the rise and fall of Calum’s chest.

four years and three albums later

It’s been a surprisingly long time since Michael’s been back down this street, since he’s seen this strip mall. Touring practically non-stop will do that to a person. Almost every shop he remembers being here has been replaced. Michael wishes Calum were here to do this walk with him, but Calum is a little bitch who’s been dragged into the studio for writing. Michael’s weaseled his way out of it. He loves to write, but he can do it outside of a studio, and he’s really not in the mood, today.

He wanders down the strip mall, listening to Good Charlotte to truly get himself back in his old emo mindset. Almost this entire strip mall is unfamiliar to him, except one store. Michael stops in front of it, scoffs, laughs, and walks in, tugging his headphones off his head.

The guy at the counter seems to recognize him. “Hey, it’s you!” he says enthusiastically, with a heavy Irish accent.

Michael grins, confused. “Me,” he says, as if that will clear anything up.

“Oh, sorry,” the tattoo artist says. “I just — I did your tattoo back in, what was it, 2014? And your mate’s as well.”

“Calum?” Michael asks. The guy snaps his fingers.

“That’s him. I keep seeing you guys on the TV now,” the guy says. Michael feels badly for not knowing his name. “Seems like you’ve made quite a name for yourself, eh? I always want to brag, you know, ‘I did his first tattoo.’ But I don’t name-drop. Feels cheap.”

“You can name-drop,” Michael says, thrilled that his name is even the kind of name anyone could name-drop. “I’m surprised you remember us coming here, that was a while ago. I’m really sorry, I don’t think I got your name…?”

The guy laughs. “Makes sense, you were pissed off your arses both times. I’m Niall.”

“Michael,” Michael says. “Although I reckon you know that.”

Niall nods. “I’m not likely to forget the times you came in anytime soon,” he adds. “First time I ever saw soulmate tattoos appear while I was in the middle of giving someone a tattoo.”

Michael’s heart stops.

“What?” he says, dimly.

Niall, unaware that he’s just said something groundbreaking and totally insane, carries on. “Oh, you know, the numbers. Birthdays, I think you said they were. You got his and he got yours, right? They just showed up, smack at midnight. Both times. Never seen it happen before.”

Michael can’t breathe.

“I,” he says, but fails to find words enough to finish that sentence.

“How’s the one I gave you holding up?” Niall continues. “I could take a look, if you like.”

“No,” Michael says. He feels dizzy. “Sorry, I…I actually have to run, I forgot — I’ve got to…” He shakes his head. “The birthday tattoo I have, I…I thought that came from here. I thought you did that.”

Niall frowns. “No, mate. That one just appeared. For your pal, as well. I was in the middle of doing the numerals when your birthday just, bam. Threw me for a loop.”

Michael trips backwards and steadies himself. “Okay,” he says, although he feels like he’s suffocating. “Well, um, I better run to my thing that I have — see you. Thanks.”

He all but races out of the tattoo parlor and doesn’t stop until he’s away from the strip mall. Then he leans against a stop sign.

Okay. This isn’t possible. It’s been — it’s been, what, three? Four years? Michael’s never had a soulmate. He’s okay with that. He’s never wanted one. He’s always been just fine, just him and Calum, and neither of them having — 

Michael blinks and thinks about what Niall has said.

“Holy fuck,” he murmurs. He yanks his sleeve up and looks at his tattoo of Calum’s birthday again.  “Holy shit.”

He pushes himself to his feet and starts purposefully making his way to his parents’ house, shooting off a text as he does:

michael: come to mine after studio. wanna talk to you

~

Calum has a key, so he lets himself in.

“Hey, Mikey,” he says. “What’s up?”

Michael has been playing guitar for the past two hours, or trying to, but his hands are still shaking too much. He sets it aside when Calum comes in.

“How was the studio?” Michael asks nonchalantly, like this is a normal day, and everything is fine.

Calum frowns. “You’re acting weird. You only texted me once. What’s going on?”

“Texting you once isn’t weird,” Michael says.

“Michael, have you met you? I’ve received one-word answers from you in more than one text.” Calum crosses his arms. “Why are you being weird?”

“We’re soulmates,” Michael blurts out.

Calum raises his eyebrows. “That’s impossible, given neither of us have soulmate tattoos, Mike.”

“Really? How’d you get my birthday on you, then?” Michael challenges.

“From when we got drunk on my eighteenth, you idiot, same as how you got mine on you.”

“Yeah? Cal, do you actually remember getting that tattoo? Hell, did we pay for these ones?” He stands up finally and shifts on his feet. “You asked to get 2012. Do you remember that?”

“Obviously, yes.”

“And do you remember asking to get my birthday?”

Calum stares at him. “No,” he finally says.

“I think we’ve been colossally idiotic,” Michael says. “I never asked to get your birthday tattooed on me. We were just too drunk to remember.”

“Oh my God,” Calum says. “Holy shit.” And then he laughs, like it’s funny.

“Don’t laugh,” Michael says. “This isn’t funny, it’s absolutely mad.”

“Yes,” Calum agrees, still smiling. “Absolutely fucking insane. We are the dumbest people on the entire planet. I’m in love with you, Michael.”

Michael’s heart stops beating. “What?”

“I’m not sure I knew,” Calum says. “But I definitely am. I — it’s only you for me. You’re it. I didn���t want any other soulmate.”

“Me neither,” Michael breathes. “You’re it for me.” His face feels hot. “Oh, holy shit. I’m in love with you.”

“Welcome to the party,” Calum says.

Michael’s run out of things to say, so he kisses Calum.

It doesn’t feel like the huge revelation Michael might have expected. It just feels…right. In fact, it feels obvious. Like for years he’s been working to solve a math problem, and now he’s finally realized it’d been exactly what he’d thought. It’s Calum. Of course it’s Calum. Who else could it have been? Who else could it ever possibly be? Everything he’s ever felt about Calum has been love, even when it had been anger or hurt or confusion. He loves Calum, is in love with Calum, and always has been.

Calum doesn’t hesitate to kiss Michael back, cupping Michael’s jaw as if anchoring him to the kiss. He tilts his head, fixing the angle, and they fit so perfectly that Michael wonders why they’ve never thought to do this before. He tugs on the front of Calum’s t-shirt, pulling him closer, and wraps his arms around Calum’s waist, and it feels so natural, and so easy, to just kiss Calum like it’s what he was made to do. Calum licks at Michael’s lower lip and Michael’s intoxicated by the way it feels, Calum’s tongue in his mouth, Calum’s hands threaded in his hair, Calum under his palms, Calum, Calum, Calum. He makes a noise that’s half-groan and half-sigh, and feels Calum smiling against his lips. He pulls away. Michael feels dizzy.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “I really like kissing you.”

“Good, ‘cause there’s going to be a lot more of it,” Calum says.

Michael leans his forehead against Calum’s. “You taste of Vegemite.”

“There were snacks at the studio,” Calum says.

“Did you save me any?”

“Any Vegemite chocolate scrolls?” Calum leans back and raises his eyebrows. “Dream on.”

“That’s rude,” Michael complains. “I’m not sure I’m in love with you anymore. We should break up.”

“We’re not even really dating,” Calum says.

Michael blanches. “Oh. Right. Cal, d’you wanna be my boyfriend?”

“Not if you’re just going to break up with me straight away.” He sticks his tongue out. Michael wants to kiss him again, but he’s still recovering from the first.

“To be honest,” Michael says, “our tattoos are pretty shit compared to Luke and Ashton. They get the sun and the moon, and we just get a bunch of numbers? Birthdays? How uncreative do you get?”

“You’re going to challenge the ineffable power of soulmate tattoos because you think ours aren’t creative?” 

“I’m just saying, it might have been nice to get something a little cooler or more symbolic.”

“I don’t know,” Calum says. “I like having your birthday. It makes me feel like you’ve been important to me since birth. And like I’ve always got a piece of you with me. The sun could be anyone, but this day is yours.”

“And Joe Biden’s,” Michael says.

“God, you ruin every moment, don’t you?”

“I share a birthday with Joe Biden!” Calum glares at him. “Okay, yes, that was really cheesy and adorable,” Michael concedes. “I like your birthday on me, as well. For the same reason.”

Calum grins. “For real, Mikey. Can we, like. Do this?” He gestures between the two of them, as if whatever this is will become automatically clear. Michael’s not sure what it is, or what it even should be. They’re best friends turned soulmates turned…what? “Be boyfriends and all?”

Oh. Well. That’s simple enough. “Yeah,” Michael says. “I’m not marrying you until I get a prenup, though. Gotta have that money.”

“God, can I break up with you yet?” Calum mutters.

“Nope, there’s a five minute wait time, and I just broke up with you like one minute ago.”

“We weren’t dating when you broke up with me then, though.”

“Well, I still did it, so you have to wait.”

“Fine,” Calum says. “I have an idea for what we can do in the meantime.”

It’s a pretty good idea, Michael decides when Calum kisses him for the second time. “Could kiss you forever,” he mumbles against Calum’s lips.

“Not if I break up with you,” Calum says. Michael pulls away, appalled.

“Oh my God, now you ruined the moment! You’re such a hypocrite!”

Calum doesn’t stop laughing for awhile, but it’s fine. Calum’s laugh is Michael’s favorite sound.

[bigskydreaming]

Batkids’ Viewing Habits Headcanons:

Dick: Foreign films and shows. One thing Dick really dislikes about being rooted in one place and culture after coming to live with Bruce is the sameness of Hollywood entertainment. From a young age, he was exposed to the entertainment of dozens of diverse cultures and cinematic landscapes, and he’d much rather sit down to marathon films from China, Eastern Europe and Brazil back to back than just a string of Disney movies. He does tend to prefer things like romantic comedies and low-stakes dramas that let him unwind from the pressures of actual high-stakes, end-of-the-world type missions, and he has a particular fondness for Bollywood. 

The best gifts for him are old DVDs of C-list movies that never even got uploaded to American territories and that his friends and family pick up from wherever around the world they travel, because he insists the best stuff are the movies and shows that never get picked up by the American markets. When they were teenagers, Garth once gifted him with recordings of famous Atlantean plays and became the gift to beat. 

To which Bruce gritted his teeth, intoned “Challenge accepted,” and sucked it up and paid Hal Jordan to pick up the equivalent of box-sets from various alien cultures he came into contact with. 

Jason: High octane thrillers and action blockbusters....but not for the reasons people tend to assume. He watches them because he gets a kick out of critiquing them the way lawyers and doctors complain about the inaccuracies of legal and medical procedurals. 

Watching Jason’s choice of movies or shows is basically sitting down to a running commentary about how that explosion is all wrong for that particular payload, how the actors aren’t compensating for the recoil of their guns, and scoffing at the choice of counter-strike in a choreographed fight scene when a jujitsu move would clearly have been the better option. He once paused a movie to spend two minutes making the sounds that should have accompanied the gunfire from a particular assault weapon, as opposed to what sounds it made in scene. 

Jason’s a big believer in the axiom “If you’re going to do something, do it right, dammit.” 

His siblings are big believers in the axiom: “Oh my god, shut up and turn the movie back on.”

Cass: Anything animated. She hates live action. Its all equally boring and pointless to her, because barely any actors are capable of marrying their acting choices to the minutiae of their body language, making it all but impossible for her to suspend her disbelief when watching them. They tend to telegraph their real emotions to her eyes more often than they do their actual acting choices.

So she’d much rather plop down in front of Saturday morning cartoons, animated films, Bob’s Burgers or various other animated shows, where she can just immerse herself in the shenanigans of cartoon figures that are as two-dimensional to her as anyone else. 

She hates most CGI though, just on principle. What was wrong with basic animation, she wants to know.

Tim: Soap operas. The more ridiculous the better. He used to watch them with his various nannies when he was younger, and as he grew up - and became increasingly entrenched in the bizarre and weird world of superheroics - his fondness for them only grew, because its basically the only form of entertainment that’s consistently more out there than his actual life. 

Stephanie tried to hook him on reality TV like “The Real Housewives of Gotham” but that was a non-starter. Its not the same, he insists, like the day-time television purist that he is. 

When Jason eventually reconciled with the family and was trying to figure out how to awkwardly apologize and/or make it up to Tim for the whole “so about the time I almost killed you, that was my bad” thing, Dick advised him that the quickest way into Tim’s good graces would be if he gave Tim free reign to come up with a way to resurrect him in the public eye. Tim’s eyes literally glazed over when Jason told him this, followed by: “Brb, I have to go...research.” 

What followed was a week-long binge of every soap opera resurrection while he took detailed notes complete with spreadsheets and flowcharts before he somewhat manically presented the rest of the family with no less than a dozen proposals for explaining away the presumed death, mysterious disappearance, and ultimate return of one Jason Todd-Wayne. 

Damian: Documentaries. Initially nature documentaries, with an emphasis on wildlife, he likes to zone out in front of them, occasionally drawing or sketching based on his viewing choices, but always with a ready claim of “Some of us choose to use the television to expand our minds instead of rotting them,” whenever someone walks in on him and muses that perhaps he really just likes watching cute little seal pups flopping around on the ice. 

Eventually he branched out into documentaries of all kinds, and lately he’s been on a “How Things Work” viewing kick. Which has in turn expanded into....him trying to apply his newly acquired knowledge in various ways. 

Just last week, Tim wandered down to the kitchen to get something to drink and found Damian hard at work on the plumbing under the sink, wearing a spare utility belt that had been haphazardly modified into a kind of handyman’s tool belt. 

“Wha-,” Tim had said. 

Damian’s eyes had squinted dangerously and done all his talking for him. 

Being the brainiac that he is, Tim had then decided discretion was the better part of valor and slowly backed out of the kitchen without another word, hands raised in surrender. He was mildly vindicated later when Bruce arrived home to find the kitchen half-flooded and Damian still at work under the sink cursing about shoddy instructions. 

“Did you break the sink just so you’d have something to fix?” Bruce demanded, pinching the bridge of his nose to fight back a progeny-induced migraine. 

Damian threw his arms up in exasperation, still sopping wet. “Well I wasn’t going to just wait for something to break on its own! How inefficient would that be?”

Stephanie: Nobody actually knows. She takes eclectic to an entirely new level, and claims she’s not about to allow her entertainment choices to be used against her by adding to the psychological profiles she’s convinced all of the rest of them have of her. Whether she seriously believes this or is just in it for the drama....again, who can say. 

“Nobody’s getting any free real estate in my brain, no sirree!” 

Tim, Dick, and assorted others have tried over and over to express “None of us care that much, you can stop treating ‘What do you want to watch’ like a CIA interrogation,’” but she just snorts oh so elegantly and sneers down her nose at them. 

“A likely story, Bat-brats!” 

“Steph, you’re a Bat-brat too,” Tim tries explaining patiently.

“Only by association.”

“You’re literally Batgirl.”

Anyway, the long and short of it is when its Steph’s turn to pick what movie or TV show is watched in the den, her choices range from reality TV from obscure black and white films from the 50s to Japanese re-tellings of Shakespearean plays. They’re all at least a little convinced that half of the things she picks she hates as much as the rest of them do, and she’s just silently suffering through them to make some point that’s incomprehensible to anyone but her. 

Duke: Anything that can be spoiled. See, Duke has a vindictive side, and an epic ability to hold a grudge. After his first few weeks living at the Manor had revealed unto him that everyone else in this weirdo family had a bad habit of deducing the ending to anything as soon as possible and spoiling it for everyone else because apparently everything in this household has to be a competition, Duke’s further exploration of his powers eventually revealed that here at least, he has the ultimate edge. In time, he figured out how his ghost-vision can be used to literally watch what’s on the TV a minute or so ahead of everyone else.....and he is merciless in exploiting this.

To the extent that many of the others just flat out refuse to watch any kind of game or contest or mystery with him, period.....but Duke is a Bat, after all, and not so easily thwarted. 

This eventually snowballed into him 'practicing his stealth techniques’ in the den, family room and other assorted places where the family tended to congregate around a TV.....whereupon he’d leap out of hiding at a crucial moment in the show, yell “Spoil Bomb!” and hastily shout out the spoiler while they were all still cursing and swearing about being caught off guard.

“You were supposed to be the normal one,” Bruce said to him, somewhat mournfully. Duke just shrugged.

“That sounds like a you problem, old man.”

Then he ran off cackling while Stephanie chased after him shouting about trademark infringement.

“You just had to give him a suit that can make him invisible,” Jason commented in a superficially neutral tone that was actually anything but.

Bruce sighed. “Jason -”

“I’m just saying, you never gave me a suit that can turn invisible.”

“You’re never just saying.”

“Oh, so now you’re calling me a liar, too? Nice, B. Thanks a lot.”

[danganronpa-tng]

Chapter 3 - The Trial of Vanessa Yumeno and London Akamatsu

“Vanessa was found lying in bed in her own room, as that seems to be where she was killed. She had many cut wounds all over her body, sizes varying.

Cause of death was suffocation. Suffocation was caused by one slit along the neck, which it seemed was the first and fatal wound. The last was a stab to the gut. There were no signs of a struggle and no other wounds were recorded.

The victim was killed at approximately 9:15PM. She was discovered at approximately 9AM the next day.”

“London was found collapsed against the wall beside the door of Vanessa’s room, which appears to be where she died. She had a bullet wound through the head.

Cause of death was gunshot to the head. She was killed instantly. Other than the bullet wound, no other wounds were recorded.

She was killed at approximately 9:20PM. She was discovered at approximately 9AM the next day.

As Hayden, Aeja and Kamron found them and set off the body discovery announcement, they are not suspects.”

~ ~ ~

“Hm... I find it odd that they were both killed with different weapons. And with a five minute interval.”

“Ah, that’s true Aeja... Any ideas?”

“Not really. They were obviously killed during the masquerade though, that’s a given. I’m assuming we didn’t hear the gun fire over the music. Where are the weapons, anyway?”

~ ~ ~

“Hey, Yaretzi...”

Hayden goes to pat Yaretzi’s back. The flinches and pulls away.

“Stop-! Oh, apologies.”

“Woah, hey. It’s ok, but... are you ok? I didn’t mean to scare ya.”

“No, it is not that... I have haphephobia. Fear of being touched.”

“Oh! S-sorry...”

“You’re not at fault, you weren’t to know. Anyways, did you come to ask me something?”

“Uhm, yeah, kinda. I just wanted to check if you were alright. I know how close you and Vanessa were...”

“Mm... Yes, we were extremely close. Some would say... ah, nevermind. I am determined to expose her killer though. I refuse to let her have no vengeance. ‘I will execute great vengeance on them with wrathful rebukes. They will know that I am the Lord, when I may my vengeance upon them.’  Ezekiel, 25:17.”

~ ~ ~

“Hey, Hayden?”

“Yeah, Katelyn?”

“I just took a walk down to the weaponry room to check, and I found two weapons bloodied; a blade, and... well, Oliver’s gun.”

“Oh... thanks, Katelyn. Now we know where the weapons went.”

“Anything I can do to help the investigation.”

~ ~ ~

“Everything alright, Kassidy?”

“I mean, I guess... I feel like I’ve been way too involved in the last few murders, though. I found Tadashi, and I organised the event that led to their deaths...”

“Hey, hey! You’re not to blame here. You wouldn’t have known this would happen. And if you’re worried about people blaming you, you have an alibi. You were up playing music the whole time, so everyone saw you.”

“Right... right. Thank you, Hayden.”

“No problem. I’m here if you need me.”

~ ~ ~

“H-hey, Hayden...”

“Yeah, Mat?”

“I-I don’t know if it’s relevant, but last night I saw Estrella running out of the masquerade really quickly... p-probably not important, though.”

“Actually, I remember that! She bumped into me on her way out, right after Yaretzi and Vanessa left... thanks, Matio! I’ll keep it in mind.”

“Y-you’re welcome..!”

~ ~ ~

The Trial

~ ~ ~

“Well, basically everyone was with someone last night! Who was on their own at some point?”

“Hm... Well, London herself stayed pretty separate from the group through the night. Estrella ran off on her own for about ten minutes, and Yaretzi dropped Vanessa back to her room, meaning Yaretzi was the last to see her alive, besides the killer. Yaretzi, did you see anything?”

“A-ah, no... I just talked to her and left after she walked into her room. I wish I had stayed longer, though. Maybe I could have changed her fate.”

~ ~ ~

“Hey, hey, can I say something?”

“Oh, sure Sara. Go ahead.”

“Ok, so while I was helping make everyone’s outfits for the party, while I was in the closet- the walk in closet, not the metaphorical one, I’m very obviously gay- I noticed that there was multiple of each outfit, in separate sizes, with masks...and wigs, for some odd reason. Like, wigs of our hairstyles. So what if... Hear me out, the killer was disguised when they did it?”

~ ~ ~

“...Hey, Estrella?”

“Hmm? What’s up, robo-dick?”

“That’s robopho- ah, why do I even bother. Anyways, a few questions, if you will.”

“Shoot. Not literally. If you have lasers, please do not shoot.”

“I... Ok. So, your father runs DICE, an evil organisation, correct?”

“Yep!”

“And your logo is a dice, correct?”

“Mhm!”

“Well, I found a dice drawn in blood beside London’s corpse. Whether it was by her or by the killer, I’m not sure. But... It sorta points to you.”

“...ah.”

~ ~ ~

“You guys can’t seriously believe that. Are you that stupid?! It’s a stupid picture drawn in blood. Easy to use to frame me with!”

“Well, do you have an airtight alibi for the entire evening?”

“Why yes I do! I was with Aeja all evening, as she can confirm.”

“Yeah, she was with me-”

“Hold up! Remember what Sara said? What with the wigs and everything, and Estrella’s mask actually covering her whole face, she could have been disguised as someone else, and you could have been with someone else.”

‘‘I- what..?”

“What?! That’s fucking absurd! You’re really grasping at straws here, aren’t you Karma?! Is this because your crush got stolen, huh?! Well cry me a river and name it by the dead, but don't start accusing me because you’re a bit pissy!”

“Why you-!”

“A-actually...”

“Huh? Yaretzi?”

“I... well, I didn’t want to say anything, but last night, Estrella... did something to me.”

“What?”

“What?!”

“W h a t .”

~ ~ ~

“When I left Vanessa, I ran into Estrella on the way back. I hadn’t intended to say anything, but suddenly she threw a punch at me, knocking me over. She said... She told me to swap places with her. We both had full face masks and are similar height so it would technically work. She told me to take her place for the rest of the night or... she’d kill me. She said she’s hurt me if I told anyone, too...”

All eyes turn to Estrella. Estrella’s eyes are wide with shock, like she’s trying to put something together.

“...You can’t be serious. You seriously expect everyone to believe such an obvious lie?! News flash, little miss Holy; I can sense when someone is lying to me and that was practically painful!”

She looks around.

“You guys can’t be taking her seriously, right?! I know I’m a liar, but I wouldn’t go to those lengths!”

“I don’t see why you wouldn’t!”

“Oh really, Yaretzi?! And why’s that?!”

“I went in for my call after you, and I heard a bit of what you said.”

‘Eavesdropper-”

“You said, and I quote, “I’m going to get out of here, no matter what”. You might not have acted on that motive, but when me and Vanessa went to leave, you saw your chance. It sounds far fetched, but it all adds up!”

“No the fuck it doesn’t! Oh my god, you- wait. Wait, holy crap. You did it. YOU killed them!”

“What?”

“You killed Vanessa when she was vulnerable, then when London spotted you, you killed her too and decided to frame me! It’s so obvious!”

“No, that’s ridiculous. That wouldn’t require a swap, would it?”

“Who said we fucking swapped, you lunatic-?!”

“Actually!”

“...Sara? Sara, please.”

“Sorry Es, but I checked the dressing room again during the investigation. The wigs and outfits of you and Yaretzi were strewn out, not put away neatly like the others. They’d obviously been used.”

~ ~ ~

“I... You all seriously think I killed them? Really? I mean, I know I’m a bit of a bicth, and I lie a lot, but... murder? I’d never! Part of being a member of DICE is never committing murder! Even if it wasn’t, I... I wouldn’t have the heart to go through with it. C’mon, someone has to believe me! Kassidy, Aspen, Sara, Hayden?!”

“...”

“Even... Aeja? Please, please don’t tell me you think I killed them. I- we almost kissed last night, you have to trust me, right?!”

“...Estrella, I-I’m sorry.”

“...this can’t be happening, right? I’m asleep, I’m hallucinating, I’m dead, or- or SOMETHING! You can’t really... really think that I...”

Suddenly, Estrella cut herself off with a sob. Weld never even seen her genuinely tear up before, let alone sob. There was a small part of me that said it was real, that she was innocent... but there was so much evidence against her.

~ ~ ~

“Well, Hayden, Estrella doesn’t want to admit it, it seems. Can you sum this up for us?”

“O-Ok, Katelyn...”

“Hayden, please! You have to understand, this wasn’t me!”

“...”

This starts during the masquerade. At one point during the night, Yaretzi leaves with Vanessa to bring her back to her room. The killer notices this, and dashes away from their partner in what looked like their usual playful shenanigans, to follow Yaretzi in. When Yaretzi bid Vanessa goodnight and went to leave, the killer threw a punch, knocking Yaretzi off her feet. She used this moment of vulnerability to threaten Yaretzi into swapping places with them. They both had full masks that covered their whole face, and nobody would notice their slight height difference and slightly different voices when there was so much more going on in the area. Scared for her safety, Yaretzi agrees, dressing up as the killer while the killer donned their persona. With that, the killer sent Yaretzi back to the main hall, telling her not to say a word about this to anyone.

With this, our killer makes their way to the weaponry room, taking a blade and a gun, unsure which they’d use for the murder. From theirs they made their way to Vanessa’s room, which was unlocked due to the motive. Vanessa was already asleep, so to risk making too much noise, they chose to use the blade. To ensure the deed was done, they slit her throat for a quick death. Despite Vanessa being already dead, the killer kept slicing at them, over and over until they were satisfied. They pulled off the wig as it was most likely irritating them, and tucked their weapon away.

However, just as they put away their blade London walked by, seeing the scene in front of her. Panicking, the killer grabbed the gun since it was handier and shot her in the head. The noise of the gunshot was drowned out by the music blaring from the party. Just before London died though, without the killer noticing, they drew a dice in the wall to show who the killer was. To be safe, the killer out back on the wig as they fled the scene, chucking the weapons back where they were at the start of the night. They also pulled Yaretzi aside at some point to swap back, still threatening her to keep that to herself. With their goal accomplished, they returned to finish the rest of the night, their switch going completely unnoticed.

Isn’t that right...

Estrella Ouma, the Ultimate Leader’s Heir?!

“NO!”

~ ~ ~

“Guys... please don’t do this to me. My whole talent is about waiting and training to take over my Pops’ organisation. I haven’t done that yet, and if I don’t do that, then why was I even born?! I’m useless if I don’t keep going! All I’ll have been is an inconvenience! I can’t die, not yet! Please, please!”

“...well, if that’s done, I think it’s voting time! Everyone, please make a selection on the pad in front of you.”

“No... please... I didn't do it...”

Click.

Click. Click.

Click click click click click click click click click.

All of us put through our votes. 10 for Estrella, one for Yaretzi, one for Aeja. I had a feeling Aeja had voted for herself.

“NO! No, no, no, please no! This can’t be happening! I can’t fail Dad and Pops! I can’t die here and disappoint them!”

“You should have thought of that before you killed them, Ouma.”

“DON’T CALL ME OUMA!”

...

“Ouma is what people call my Pops. I hardly deserve to be an Ouma if I’m gonna die in some stupid game...”

She was still shaking, still in tears. She looked around at us all. I had my doubts about a lot of things, but it was too late now. Estrella had been voted guilty.

“Please... anyone... I really didn’t do this... If you kill me, you’ll be making the wrong choice!”

“...Monokuma, stop this. Do not execute Estrella, don’t-!”

“Uh uh uh! Sorry, copycat, but the votes are final! Now, if you’re done...”

“Aeja... thank you. You... you believe me, right?”

“...yeah. I do. I don’t think you killed them.”

‘Aeja-?”

“No, I don’t think Estrella killed anyone! I trust her, and you all should have trusted her too.”

“...you always were the smartest. If you ever escape, my dad would love to have someone like you at the detective agency. Even just stop by for me, ok? Tell them I love them. Tell them I’m innocent, tell them- tell them I said goodbye.”

‘E-Estrella...”

“I have a very special punishment prepared for Estrella Ouma, the Ultimate Leader’s Heir! If she even is that anymore, puhuhuhuhu!”

“A-and Aeja...”

“...*sniff*”

Aeja was crying too. Holy crap. I’d never even seen her shed a single tear.

“Thank you. For believing me when nobody else would.”

“IIIIIIIIIIT’S PUNISHMENT TIME!!!”

~ ~ ~

Estrella Ouma has been found guilty. 

Time for the punishment..!

[riverboundao3ff]

Riverbound, Chapter 11

You are THE GUARDIAN, and you’re currently listening to the sound of your girlfriend murdering people.

Okay, so you’re not a judgy person, because that’s like, your thing. You’re the listening ear, the shoulder to cry on. You’re the bridge between tattered hearts and the friend that keeps them safe. You also know that Polypa kills people for a living. She’s an assassin, and that’s her thing.

None of that stops you from nearly passing out as you listen to the death rattle of some teenager.

The brief whine of psionics makes you taste metal. You brace for another series of wet gasps, but all you get is a dull thud of a body hitting the floor.

Fuck my life. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck--

You hear your alien moirail call your name, and it sounds like she’s talking to you underwater. Unthinkingly, you reach out, grab a fistful of space-time, and drag yourself a few meters downwards. Man, if Ultimate Dirk could see you right now he’d laugh until he shit himself.

Oh, hey, you’re falling now.

There’s a thump as another body hits the floor, except now it’s your body.

Something shoves your shoulder, and then rolls you over on your back. You look up into Polypa’s bemused face. There’s a bit of golden blood on her cheek.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

You try and say “Yeah,” but what comes out sounds more like “Unngh.”

“Okay. You can stay down there if you want.”

She flips you back over on your stomach, rifles around in the backpack, and pulls out a bomb and some papers you assume are the instructions. You guess she’s setting it, because you hear her messing around with the thing.

Come on, get back up. Come on.

You get one arm underneath you, then the other. Somehow you rise to both feet, force yourself to keep your eyes away from the bloody bodies tossed into the corner and aimed literally anywhere else. They end up settling on Polypa.

“Watch this.” She stomps on a tile a few times, making it flip up on one side. Carefully, like she’s setting down a piece of valuable art, she places the bomb underneath and lets the tile fall back into place. “This whole factory is probably older than the damn Grand Highblood. It’s like they’re asking to get infiltrated.”

She’s trying to distract you, which you appreciate even if it’s not working that well. “... Well, next time I see him I’ll ask.”

“You…” Polypa just stares at you for a moment before scrubbing her face with her hands. “Of course. I’m gonna go take care of the bodies. Be right back.”

“Yeah.” You check your watch. Has it really only been four minutes? This was going to be a lot quicker than you thought it was going to be. As long as no more people got hurt, everything was right on track.

You’re not looking, but you can hear Polypa shoving the dead goldbloods into the janitorial closest on the other side of the room. It won’t do anything to deter a troll from investigating the suspicious scene-- even you can pick up on the stench of death with your crappy human nose, but if something went to shit then it would hopefully buy the two of you a couple of extra seconds.

Polypa comes back, wiping her hands on her pants like she does this sort of thing every day, and hey, maybe she does. She reaches for your hand. You have to force yourself to take it without hesitation.

Mission now, feelings later.

“Ready?” you ask.

“Yeah.”

You concentrate hard on the map Tyzias showed you, and then on a spot with no other people around, and jump.

This time you get much luckier. The computer room the both of you appear in is abandoned, and the lights are off. Nobody’s been here for a while, which helps you feel a little better, but for the umpteenth time in the last few days you can barely see anything.

You sling off the backpack and pull out another bomb. “What time do we set them for?”

“Just let me do it. I know you can’t see.”

“But I haven’t even done anything yet on this mission!” You fumble around with the bomb and feel the timer buttons underneath your fingers. “What time?”

Quick as a flash, the explosive is swiped from your hands. “Nope.”

“Polypa! Come on.”

“With your luck you’ll just set the thing off.”

“What, no faith in your own moirail? That stings,” you huff. She’s right, though. You like to think yourself a bringer of good fortune and even greater shenanigans, but you can’t deny the occasional nightmare you have over a timeline gone wrong. It’s never the entire situation, which you’re grateful for, because you’ve already got enough trauma to last the rest of your possibly immortal life but it’s still enough to make you nervous about going to sleep. You don’t know if it’s good or bad that you don’t remember everything about the other “outcomes”.

Then you realize you’ve just been standing there, staring off into the darkness for who knows how long, so you huff and cross your arms to let Polypa know you’re still alive.

“Done. Also, there isn’t a timer for these things. Tagora has the detonator,” she tells you.

“Cool. I knew that.”

“Sure you did.”

You kick at the sound of her voice and miss horribly. She snickers, shoves your shoulder, almost knocking you over when you trip over something that feels like a cord.

All of the computers wake up in a blaze of light that nearly blinds you. You freeze in place, and Polypa covers her eyes with a hiss.

No alarms go off-- none that you can hear, anyways, but you’re not wasting any time. You lunge for your alien girlfriend and zap the both of you right the hell out of there.

The next place you appear in looks like some sort of basement. You’re still in the drone factory, because your space-time spidey sense says so. It’s damp and gross and you’re fairly certain your left shoe is in something nasty.

Neither you or Polypa move or make any noise for what feels like hours. You know it’s only like, thirty seconds, but goddamn if it doesn’t take forever to get the courage to take a step closer to your moirail.

“You good?”

“Yeah.” She smacks you upside the head.

“Ow! Hey, it wasn’t my fault! You pushed me!”

“Sometimes I wonder how you’ve survived for this long.”

“Yeah, dude, me too.”

You’re pretty sure that nobody else is around, so you peek out from behind a big furnace-looking thing to get a better view of your surroundings. There isn’t much to see-- dust bunnies, junk, more junk, pipes… hey, are those more computers?

“Hey, Polypa? Is it normal for a creepy old basement to have a whole computer lab?” you ask, trotting over to investigate.

“Uh, I mean, I’ve seen movies?” she offers, leaning over your shoulder to see what you’re looking at. Something in your gut is telling you that this particular point in space and time matters. Intuition rarely fails you, so you listen to what the universe has to say.

You tap on what you assume is the spacebar on a particularly fancy-looking monitor. The screen lights up, presenting a login bar alongside a shutdown option, with a background depicting some anime character Tegiri most likely would have been able to name.

“Pfft, okay, whose goofy weeb ass works here? I just wanna know,” you snort.

“Why is this important?”

“I just have a feeling. Any ideas as to what the password could be?”

“... Why would I know?”

“Boo, you’re no fun.”

By some miracle of the gods, or whatever higher power decided to watch over your crackhead self for the night, your eyes wander to a sticky note stuck on a folder that was half-buried under some paperwork. The writing on it is messy, but you’re able to make out six digits scrawled out in red ink.

0-0-0-4-1-3

Right. 413. That didn’t make your skin crawl in the slightest.

You type in the numbers and hit the enter key. Of course, it works.

“That’s weird,” Polypa mutters.

“Yeah, for real.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I have no idea.” You click on the Goregle icon, close out of it, draw a dick with the cursor on the desktop, and go into Settings and turn the volume down. Man, where was Mallek when you needed him? You wish he was here with you. He’d have a fuckin’ blast getting into this system, you just know it.

A dash of red catches your eye-- a desktop app shaped like the head of a drone. You click on it and are greeted with a spreadsheet full of dates and times, and next to every date is a location. There’s also notes on what trolls lived where, like Fangrash, which was predominantly rustblood, or Glitch, where a ton of goldbloods live.

It’s only when you see Outglut with today’s date beside it does it hit you. This isn’t just some company organizational bullshit.

These are plans for drone raids, and in three hours and however-many minutes Outglut was about to get carpet-bombed to hell.

“Polypa,” you whisper.

You feel her tense up beside you, hard as stone in a matter of seconds. “Oh, no. You don’t… oh, no. Yeah.”

She whips out her palmhusk and snaps a couple pictures. You stare down at your hands, forcing yourself to keep breathing. No, you are not going to have two panic attacks in one hour. You’re better than this. You’re the motherfucking First Guardian of the Universe, and you will keep your shit together--

You barely even notice Polypa kicking the third electro-bomb under the desk and throwing the carpet back over it until she’s right next to you.

“Let’s go.” She tugs at your sleeve, and you snap out of the haze you were falling into and throw yourself and your girlfriend through space and into another part of the factory.

The two of you don’t even bother putting the bombs close to the computer rooms anymore, not like it mattered in the first place. Tagora had said something about the radius of the electromagnetic explosion or whatever would be more than enough to encompass the whole factory, but you had tried to be precise anyways, because… you dunno, better safe than sorry. But that’s a luxury you no longer have. The bombs would wipe out all of the information the drones collected, but it wouldn’t be enough to stop an attack.

Polypa leaves the last bomb in an air vent, and you wish it a merry exploding-day before teleporting back to the hideout, scaring the shit out of Tagora when you land right behind him.

“Augh!” He stares at you, then at Polypa, and hisses. “Don’t do that-!”

“That was fast,” Lanque comments.

“We got a problem! Once the drones complete their maintenance and shit they’re gonna bomb Outglut!” you explain frantically. “Polypa and I found a schedule for when the raids happen.”

Tagora and Tyzias both stare at you, dumbfounded. Stelsa, who was doing her lipstick, fumbles with the tube and drops it on the floor. Lanque’s ears pin back and he slowly gets to his feet.

“Just look,” Polypa says, shoving her palmhusk at Tagora. Tagora takes it and zooms in on the picture. Somehow, his eyes grow even wider.

Tyzias groans and drops her head into her hands. “Well, fuck me right up, isn’t this just perfect. Please tell me that you guys got the bombs delivered.”

“We did.”

“Good.”

“The last recovery mission took three wipes to complete, and that was only one neighborhood. How the hell are we…” Lanque just shakes his head in dismay.

Your mind races, trying to figure out a possible solution.

Ask Azdaja to hack into everybody’s palmhusks and tell them to GTFO? No, you’re pretty sure that if it was that easy it would have already been done. Rally the whole neighborhood and try and take down the drones together? As if. You can’t stop your subconscious from playing back the memories of various raids you’d heard about or been near-- the explosions that seemed to shake the very planet, the screaming, the wail of the sirens that haunted you in your nightmares.

Wait.

“The sirens,” you mutter.

Stelsa turns to you. “What?”

“The sirens! We find them and set them off early. I don’t know how much of a difference it’ll make, but maybe it could give everybody a head start,” you explain.

“That is… highly illegal. The sirens aren’t activated until a certain amount of hives have already been destroyed,” Tagora points out.

“And?”

“It would be a shame if you were to find them. On the corner of Slimewash and Bryght Street,” he continues. “Of course, they’re usually set off remotely, but the system is actually quite simple. It wouldn’t take much to rewire it and trigger it manually.”

Despite everything you can’t help but smile a little. “Yeah, that would suck.”

Stelsa winces, looking almost fearful, before grabbing Tyzias’s hand. “Is this really worth the risk?”

“To save people’s lives? Yes. If you don’t want to come that’s fine, though,” you tell her, before remembering you know jack shit about rewiring things. “... Actually, it would be nice if somebody came along to tell me what wires go where or whatever.”

“If somebody sees you things could get bad real quick,” Polypa says quietly.

“Yep.”

“Then I’ll come.”

“I’m coming, too.” Lanque smirks. “I’m not ready to go back to the caverns just yet.”

You see the hesitation in Tyzias’s eyes as she glances at Stelsa, then at you, and then back to her matesprit. She’s torn between safety and the rebellion she leads, and you don’t blame her at all.

“You should go home,” you tell her. “A tealblood in a lowblooded neighborhood is probably gonna get some looks. Besides, the less people who see you guys with me in public, the better.”

Both Stelsa and Tyzias give you grateful looks, and some of the tension leaves Tagora’s bony shoulders. The highbloods aren’t just risking their lives, you know; they’re risking their reputation and status, too. And reputation and status are something you guys are gonna need sooner or later.

You blow out a breath. The bombs won’t be set off for another three hours. You’re way ahead of schedule, which is way better than being behind schedule, but that still leaves you and your friends with way too much time to kill before you need to do more crime.

“Sooo…” you say, not meeting any of the troll’s eyes. “What do y’all wanna do now?”

[purralyth]

How have things been going with Chariot and crew? Maybe I missed some things, but it feels like it's been awhile since I last heard of their shenanigans! Has the gf been helping out? Any crisises? (In the world around them or emotional?) What is the DEALIO I am ready to hear it!

haHAHAHA i’ll be honest i don’t talk much about their emotional/world crises because they are happening All the time. our dm wants to see us suffer. but let’s have a small summary shall we, i’m actually going to put this one under a read more bc we’ve done That Much

so first things first, the gang got shunted into the feywild, i talked about that much. that’s where we picked up our lovely little tiefling monk Fuarthas (Silence, back then) from his awful hag grandmother rosie, found chariot’s masked mom, and then got taunted by a fey demigod in his Hell Maze and he proposed to fuarthas and now they’re engaged because he’s a warlock now it’s fun shit. anyway. we get back to toril with the crew (and chariot’s masked mom’s ship, lovingly dubbed Eri’s Chariot after her daughter and her dead boytoy, that we thought we might have to leave behind) and we find out that in the MAYBE month-long period we’ve been in the feywilds, 2.5 years have gone by on toril. meteors have fallen from the sky, which is now a permanent blood red, people are chanting at these meteors embedded in the city like possessed cultists who attack anyone that threatens to take them out, and the worms coming out of the meteors are like kind of sort of turning people undead?? it’s messed up. Cool Stuff. but chariot’s aunt mom Serenity and uncle dad Patience opened up an orphanage so that’s cool

So we got some magic tattoos in some downtime (Chariot got 2, one on the back of her neck that lets her understand Undercommon, and another on her chest that gives her a free use of Mage Armour per day) and met up with some new NPCs, one of  which is traveling with us now as our cleric-fighter and is dating(??) our big tiddy big heart half-orc barbarian Lockjaw, and left our aasimar monk’s kickass wife behind to run her tavern bc she’s expecting. we go to look at some funky stuff going down in the town cemetary. first thing we do is go see erran, our moon elf friend we took into the feywild and hates us now for it, and he takes us into this portal and shows us this weird temple thing his supervisor or something had just discovered. there’s these murals on the walls of meteors striking the earth, and a flood, and some figures sailing on a ship through the sky, and then 7(?) figures, that like kind of seem like Us but not quite on par, so fun stuff, and these two HUGE statues in the main chamber. somebody presses a button and this fantasy Alexa bitch floats down from the ceiling and is like oh shit presences detected. and starts listing these titles, like Sufferer, and Guardian, and Exceptional, and then locks onto jia and is like ABERRATION DETECTED FUCK THOSE SHITS and tries to kill her so she has to run. basically without making this too long we find out that we (chariot, frazier, lockjaw, fuarthas, and frazier’s daughter) are descendants of some ancient heroes that saved the world once, and we grave rob just a little and get some cool magic items, and there’s this prophecy that we’ll stop the apocalypse or something?????? shit’s wack. we go back out to see jia and chariot’s trying real hard to cover for her but she’s like well i cant rly hide it anymore. hey guys i have an illithid tadpole In my brain and it didn’t develop so now i’m also part of a separate prophecy that i’ll wipe out all the illithid. but look at this i can float but chariot and i did some research and the only way to not have it be a problem anymore is to destroy my skull and then resurrect me. so that’s a lot of fun!!!!!

still in that cemetary, we find a trail of meteor worms. follow them into a secret passage that leads to the lair of Sunshine, masked mom’s dead assistant that chariot one-shot, but it turns out she’s a necromancer! she kicks our asses to unconsciousness even after chariot polymorphed into a t-rex and sells us to Neogi in the underdark, which if you don’t know what they are, google them, they’re fucked up spider giraffe eels that are evil incarnate and basically were slave trading us & psychically torturing Jia the whole way!! which made chariot throw cantrip after cantrip at them to try to hurt them so they just mind-control enslaved her over and over so that’s fucked her up good :)

we get sold to some drow after a week. beefy boys were sent to work manual labour til they die, and the rest of us were set to be sacrificed to Lolth, so we go haha we have to get out of here asap. chariot disguise selfs into a drow guard (a man bc i was very stupid) and gets caught 2 seconds out the door by a cleric of lolth, who sets up some mix between a dick appointment and an ass kicking for later bc chariot didn’t like. idk acknowledge her. fuck drow. she and fuarthas (who she was pretending to transport) skedaddle into a side chamber and a drow guard captain comes in. she goes to beat up fuarthas so chariot attacks her and a wild magic pops off and they fall mutually head over heels in love and lust with each other, which is MESSY. chariot convinces her to help round the gang up, but everywhere they look everyone’s gone missing (frazier and lockjaw got into a fight down at the manual labour camp and jia turned into a fish and shrieked so she’s gone) so chariot ends up wined and dined and tries desperately not to let this drow captain Do Her and does not take a long rest bc she has to stay awake and make sure this woman doesn’t wake up and see she’s not actually Erran the Drow Guard. but when everyone wakes up a shadow dragon is attacking this drow camp. cool. yes. awesome. fantastic. hell breaks loose, chariot and zarra (the drow captain) find frazier and jia in a stairwell, zarra kisses chariot goodbye and runs off to do stuff after a hefty persuasion check, jia gets Understandably Angry, we run like hell to find our magic items they bought with us and get the hell out of dodge With Lockjaw’s new orc army he’s recruited and the drow dude we found that’s a part of Frazier’s old order. shadow dragon finds us, holy shit she’s frazier’s adopted mom, she offers us a ride back while chariot very desperately tries to tell jia she doesn’t know what’s going on and why zarra kissed her and why she feels like this (she didn’t know it was a charm !!) and generally feeling Very Shitty. we get to frazier’s old monastery and the charm wears off, chariot and jia have a very long talk and chariot breaks a couple times, chariot steals a bottle of wine to try and feel better, she gets in shit for it and frazier takes the fall, he gets whipped as a punishment which just breaks chariot even more, she puts herself on house arrest for a full week, jia finally starts talking to her again 3 days into that, they do some drugs, chariot makes a deal with shadow dragon mama to split the cost of a teleportation circle and the gang blows up at her but she’s like nah it’s cool. at this point she is using her +9 deception to pretend she didn’t just break for a whole week and nothing happened and she’s totally good now guys dont even worry about it.

side tangent from All That, we go to deal with a giant problem for the monastery and there’s corpses strung up with the symbols on chariot’s palm all over. lots of combat yadda yadda, trap one giant in a room and ask her questions through the door, get some cool insight on chariot’s magics that she still has no idea how it works. turns out there’s a third queen of the feywilds, the queen of night and magic if i remember correctly, and she was shunned for her beauty and her and all of her subjects were made to be ugly and misshapen or some messed up stuff. chariots like oh fuck we were just there and no one said shit about a queen that apparently everyone hates that she has the symbols for on her Hands and honestly on her cape as well half the time. but ok cool that’s some new info sweet.

jia’s still guilting chariot for kissing zarra (even though it was a CHEEK KISS and she didn’t do it) because chariot’s been feeling awful that jia got into a romantic relationship (WITH FRAZIER’S DAUGHTER WHO JOINED JIA’S CULT, FUNNY ENOUGH) on her like 10 month leave bc she assumed she’d never get to see chariot again, but that’s a whole can of worms. lots of emotional fuckage though, chariot feels even worse that that happened bc jia hadn’t even been charmed, etc etc etc. but she’s never gonna say any of it bc she’s terrified jia will leave a second time and bringing any of that up might be what triggers it So!

we get told the neogi are selling slaves to jia’s old god, Ool’zakgothool the Aboleth who has been the Big Bad since like session 3-5, so we need to go stop that shit so we can go take down this aboleth and get frazier’s daughter back. but first we have literally no money bc we got sold and had all our shit stolen so we have to sell the like 700lbs of elven armour and weaponry we stole from a navy outpost place thing in the feywild. so we get to solve a little murder mystery in a gnome town so that’s fun. go back to the monastery, pick up some stuff, get some cool magic items made by our new artificer friend Jokk who’s part of the same prophecy we are, and head out again to fuck up these neogi. but on the way jia suddenly sprints ahead and gets like hug tackled by 5 kids who she apparently raised in her cult, and we get lead back to the marketplace where we plan on staking out the neogi and following back to their camp, but uh oh there’s 100 cultists here who swarm us and there’s some midsommar shit and we just fight the neogi right then and there and that’s basically where we’re picking up now. they enslaved lockjaw who oneshot chariot bc she’s a weak little bitch so jia kicked him in the ribs it was fun. and now we’re holding the elf that threatened to cut chariot’s tail off from our Neogi Cage Days hostage to tell us where the shiny gold head hauncho went bc he dimension doored out while chariot was paralyzed and couldn’t counterspell and we want him Dead. to be continued

[kokichi-and-co-imagine-blog]

What if the v3 cast were all swapped bodies? Like in the monopad they all swapped to the left? What hijinks would ensue?

I would put a picture of me being super excited since I wrote something else that wasn’t DRTC, but I can’t bc my computer is being rude. This one is gonna have some fun fun spoilers though! Keep that in mind. ~Mod Kokichi

V3 Body Swap

Kaede - Ryoma

When Kaede realizes that the only way to see everyone is to strain her neck and everything is incredibly short in her room, she knows something is deeply wrong. She realizes that the only person she could possibly be is Ryoma. The entire day, she spends going about as normally a possible. She wants to finish the day at the piano, but her fingers are far too small to play any of her classical pieces.

Angie - Gonta

Angie wakes up, almost practically unaffected! Sure, she bumps into everything possible due to the large size, and sure her vision is completely horrible and she can’t find his glasses most of the time, and sure his hands are too large to do any of her sculptures, and-- okay, she isn’t quite pleased. However, before anyone can chuckle at her horrible handling of his body, she tells them that perhaps Atua planned this from the start so she can use the might of her lovely god to enforce his will. The best part is everyone seems to listen, though she can’t imagine why!

Gonta - Shuichi

Gonta feels a lot lighter. When he looks into a mirror and sees Shuichi’s eyes looking back, he almost didn’t even realize. His eyes widened a few moments later before moving back and freaking out. Even hearing Shuichi’s weak yelling made him even more spooked. He ran out of the rooms, and he tried to see if everyone was congregated, but he had woken up before the morning announcement, leaving him to run around. He makes a mental note to help Shuichi train his body so he doesn’t get fatigued so easily. 

Himiko - Angie

Had she not needed to wake up and go meet everyone, she wouldn’t have ever figured it out. However, going to slip on clothing that was bright yellow and a bikini? That caught her attention. Leaving the room, she ran into her body, and started stuttering for some help. The distasteful look on her own face and apology for not being able to complete her duties as a maid made her more frustrated. She does appreciate being left to her own devices from Tenko, though. She spends the rest of the day catnapping and keeping a low profile with the others.

Kiibo - Tenko

While he’s a little discombobulated, waking up to feel actual skin made him wonder if his dreams had come true. It turns out that being a human made him so excited that he forgot to put on regular clothing. He grabbed the clothing, not particularly minding it was Tenko’s. Surely she wouldn’t be too upset with him considering he’s not technically a guy. He goes about his day, eating lots of food as research, along with being amazed that he can do regular things such as go to the bathroom and cry. All in all? The day is good for him, and he never reveals he’s in her body. He even puts up the charade that he’s Himiko in front of other people just to be safe. The moment he figured out which person was Tenko, he tried to avoid them as much as possible.

Kaito - Korekiyo

The biggest problem with being in Korekiyo’s body was that he wasn’t made to be an energetic being. He went through everything in the room just to be nosy. He didn’t want to think about what all the rope was for, and he got rid of some various creepy cult things that he had on display. Everyone wasn’t prepared for Korekiyo to sit down and be happily munching at the table to who he assumed was Maki. He made a mental note to avoid the man as much as humanly possible from that point on.

Kirumi - Himiko

Kirumi wasn’t that upset about the body switch, and simply felt disdain for being put in a less… capable body. Clearly Himiko kept herself clean enough, but her height and energy left something to be desired. Regardless, she went around, trying to help everyone get acquainted with their bodies. Cleaning is a hassle, but she somehow still manages to take everyone’s requests. They don’t call her the Ultimate Maid for nothing.

Kokichi - Miu

Waking up and seeing Miu’s clothes fueled him to go to insane lengths to prank her immediately. He wasted no time at all grabbing things from her room and writing down insane plans for her to find. Looking through them all the ones she’d made herself got him wondering what she would need some of the code for. Sure, he didn’t completely understand, but he could tell this wasn’t for anything raunchy or what other people would ask for. He spent the rest of the day making a fool of Miu and falsely accusing others of the body swap. Just a regular day, really.

Korekiyo - Tsumugi

Korekiyo wasn’t fazed at all, and took the entire day to think about how wonderful situations are like this since they test other peoples’ humanity. Not only that, but finding some notes in her room about a secret door in the girls room made for a most interesting discovery. He wouldn’t say anything about it, but his suspicions about how Tsumugi has been operating rise in his mind. He makes a note to keep an eye on her.

Maki - Kaede

Maki wasn’t prepared for this, and was ruffled up about it. She thanked whatever god there was that Kokichi hadn’t taken over her body, and spent the entire day trying to strangle Miu. Was she actually Kokichi, or was she just particularly annoying today? She wasn’t sure, and she had to refrain from resorting to anything too hasty. She would wait out the rest of the day.

Miu - Kiibo

Finally. Finally, Miu can figure out if robots have dicks. After some searching around in his room, she came out and put her hands on her hips, laughing as loud as she possibly could. The amount of raunchy jokes she threw around (“I may be a robot, but I’m better than any vibrator your virgin ass can get your hands on!”) Everyone is absolutely horrified, and everyone afterwards besides the inventor himself agreed to never speak of it again.

Rantaro - Kaito

Rantaro refuses to show that he’s freaked out when he wakes up and his body feels physically weaker. Some of the coughing fits he has puts him out of commission as he has to lean against a wall. Coughing up blood is never any good, and he looks around for something to help him out. With no medicine, and no one ever seeing him cough that violently, he figured that Kaito has been hiding it so no one thinks he’s weaker. He honors Kaito and still tries checking out everything that was written in his second monopad. He tries the hand scanner, but no luck. He decides then and there that Kaito is someone he can trust at the very least. The rest of the day is watching the shenanigans unfold.

Ryoma - Kirumi

Oh boy, being tall fucks him up hard. Sure, it’s easier to grab things, but he keeps shoulder checking everything, and the dress continued to get caught on everything if he didn’t pay any attention to it. He eventually tried to make use of the situation, trying to help others. However, when he sees how capable her body is, he hesitantly goes to his lab to see if it affects how he plays. Holding the racket in his hands feels foreign, yet good. He spends plenty of his time playing and avoiding socialization. When he leaves his ultimate lab, a small smile stays on his lips. Maybe he should request Kirumi to play against him if he ever comes back to it all.

 Shuichi - Maki

Shuichi knows that Maki has been hiding things, so he’s pleased when, out of all the people he could’ve been, he ends up in her body. Opening her closet and seeing a holster that supposedly goes on her leg for a knife freaked him out. He slipped past the crowd of people to check her ultimate lab out. Seeing the arsenal on the walls made him freak out hard, and he grasped the collar of his shirt trying to make it easier to breathe. He timidly checked everything, and cursed the fact that he could see Miu following his tracks throughout the rest of the day. He spends as much time as possible from then on avoiding her.

Tenko - Rantaro

Having to be a male absolutely kills her. She spends the entire day freaking out and being in a constant back and forth from trying to fawn over girls and diss males and freaking out about being a male. She even attempts to break into her room for her own clothing to be more comfortable. Unfortunately, she had no lock picking skills, and whoever was her was diligent enough to lock the door. She continuously blame Kokichi for everything, even though everyone is well aware that Kokichi isn’t even in his own body. However, she takes note of his second monopad, and watched the video. From that point  on,Tenko gives death glares to Rantaro as much as possible.

Tsumugi - Kokichi

Honestly? She should’ve been prepared for this. Considering she knew it was coming up for a fun episode of Danganronpa, she hid whatever she could think of that would uncover her big secret and went to bed. Waking up and seeing the mess in a ridiculous mess shocked her, and she cursed her luck for being horrible. She put it on and decided to give her best impression of Kokichi, considering she can wear his clothing in his body without getting cospox. Not to mention going through every little box in his room and his board of people that has notes on them, investigating where she originally couldn’t. Seeing his comment about Shuichi being possibly trustworthy had her wonder if he should become the main focus in the game instead of Kaede.

[softforcal]

Can you do a Luke x opener continuation?? I loved it so much

Luke x Opener!Reader

Poly, Cal, Ash, Michael

-you’re an rising performer and they saw you live once while creating their new album and all fell in love with your voice on the spot

-they convince management that they want you as their opener because you’re amazing

-when your management approaches you about it, of course you say yes and soon after that you’re following all of 5sos on insta and they’re following you

-they want to get to know you pre tour to see if you’re chill, it will be easier to tour together if you’re all buds

-so you go meet up with them at Cal’s house and spend the whole day getting to know each other

-they’re all super cool and you find yourselves all laughing and chilling next to the pool having a great time

-they show you some of their new songs and you all end up having an impromptu singing and dancing party

-yeah, its going to be a great tour

-you have to leave and they all offer to drive you home but you have it covered

-as soon as you’re gone they’re all just like “wow.” “yeah, she’s an angel.”

-they make a group chat with you in it and you all talk a bunch before the tour starts

-meeting up with them whenever you can

-Ashton convinces you to go to yoga

-you go walk Cal’s dog with him

-Michael getting you to create fortnite so you can play with him and Luke

-the first day of tour arrives and you show up to the airport only to be sneak attacked by Ashton who was totally waiting for you, he’d really want you to feel included and welcome

-getting to the plane and you go to sit by yourself but then Michael just comes and sits next to you and smiley, and he’s like “are you ready for tour?!” and he’s just a ray of absolute sunshine

-they all kind of take turns sitting next to you because the flight is so long

-you end up falling asleep on Luke’s shoulder and they’re all just like “oh my god she’s so cute.”

-Luke doesn’t let anyone wake you

-usually the opener would travel in a different van and tour bus but they really want to ‘include’ you so you end up being in their van most of the time and you sleep on the other tour bus but you’re in their bus most of the time

-your first show you go out there and you have an amazing set, as you get off the stage the guys all pull you into a huge hug to tell you how amazing you were

-getting to watch them preform and they are brilliant

-hanging out after the concert in a back stage room laughing and talking about the tour

-singing with them

-going over their note changes with them

-can you imagine singing with Calum and Luke and they both just adore your voice

-Michael trying to teach you how to play guitar if you don’t know how to already

-Cal trying to teach you to play bass

-And Ashton letting you dick around with his drums

-going out after concerts to look at the city

-you always get cold and one of them always ends up giving you their jacket

-or one of them offers to hug you to keep you warm

-Michael gives the best fucking hugs but Cal is a close second

-its because Michael is a lil squish okay!?! don’t fight me on this

-all of you taking pictures of each other and being able to freely post them because you’re their opener and its the cutest thing ever

-everyone speculating that you might be dating one of them

-taking cheeky photos where you’re kissing one of their cheeks or their kissing yours and everyone flips out

-spending entire bus rides in their bus goofing off and laughing and having a great time

-when you leave to go to your own bus for the night they spend at least an hour usually talking about the cute things you did while with them

-one night you’re in the chill area with them watching a movie and you fall asleep cuddled against Calum

-none of them want to move to wake you up so they all sleep there

-waking up next to these four guys, you all having moved at some time during the night and you’re just a cuddle blob

-pre concert rituals together with huge group hugs

-helping Luke put glitter on before a show because “more glitter!”

-sometimes they bring you on stage to sing with them as an encore

-you and Luke just have such vocal chemistry

-”and can we give it up for our angel and opening act, Y/N!”

-so many hugs

-group dogpiles after the show

-you all write songs together and bounce ideas off of each other

-harmonizing together

-tapping out beats together

-running around cities and usually one of them grabs your hand and starts running and then you’re all running around looking at stuff

-Cal and Ashton are huge fans of carrying you when you get tired

-getting shipped with all of them

-the five of you looking at the ship names and laughing then picking favourites

-so every guys favourite ship name is their own name with yours? what a fucking coincidence eh?

-they all ask your favourite ship name and you’re just like…… “uhhhhhh….”

-refusing to choose

-it would honestly be such a mess because it’s not like you don’t know they’re into you but its hard to choose because they’re all hella

—————————————————————–Luke con’t here

-so on tour there are also a lot of interviews the guys have to do

-you usually don’t have to do any interviews which is great, you can just spend the day looking around

-one day you get a phone call from Luke, they’re all set to do this super low key interview that they doubt will get much coverage and he has no idea where the other three are and no one is answering their phones except you and the interviewer suggested if you were available you could go because you’re their opener and they could talk about tour life from an outside perspective

-your management sends you a message and they think its a good idea so before you know it, you’re going and meeting Luke for an interview

-the interview starts kinda funny because you’re all laughing about how three members of 5sos are just MIA but you must be the new 5th member

-the interviewer is actually super sweet about it and its obvious that she’s just coming up with questions because obviously she had made questions for the group of guys but can’t use them anymore cuz they aint there

-”so give us an inside look on what it’s like to be on tour with four giant Aussie men?”

-”oh my god it’s the worst.” you joke, Luke pushing you with a grin, “no it’s great, they’re all super great guys.”

-talking about what it’s like to practice vocals with Luke and if there’s a possibility of there ever being an actual duet that might be released

-”i’d be down to write one. Y/N’s a lyrical genius.” Luke grins

-talking about tour shenanigans

-the other three boys showing up ten minutes in, breathless and with dead phones

-they swap in for you and complete their interview

-but the interviewer asks if it’s okay if she posts both interview videos separately

-management agrees

-its a decent interview and you’re not worried because management assured you it’s a super low key interview company and because it’s the two of you it probably wont get as many views as a normal interview would

-so management is wrong

-the interview blows up online

-for very good reason

-every time you speak Luke just looks at you with the most complete adoration and you hadn’t even noticed

-watching a gif of it because holy fuck how could you have not noticed? well, you were looking at the interviewer so it makes sense

-but holy shit this boy has heart eyes

-you never really know how someone feels about you until you see how they look at you when you’re not looking i guess

-you’re at the hotel later that night, you havent seen Luke since the interview

-you have no idea if he’s seen the frenzy on twitter, your ship name is trending and its mayhem

-you’d always kinda guessed that the band all had sorta crushes on you but the way Luke had been looking at you wasnt a simple crush

-there’s a knock at your door and of course when you open it, its Luke

-”hey, uh, can i come in?” he seems kind of nervous, you’re nervous too, i mean how do you even deal with this situation?

-you’re his opener and you’re not even half way into tour, if this goes bad, it will be very bad

-”i wrote some stuff i wanted you to take a look at.” he says, pulling out his phone and opening the app he keeps all his new lyrics on

-the two of you get comfortable and you take his phone and begin to read

-they’re love songs. really good love songs about passion and the inability to make a move and you start to realize little details about the person the speaker is talking about are little things about you

-”what do you think?” he asks nervously

-”i think whoever these are about is a really lucky girl.” i mean, you’re not just going to assume they’re about you because if you’re wrong you’re fucked

-Luke sighs, “you’re going to make me say it arent you?” “what do you mean?” “they’re about you.”

-”oh thank god!” you laugh, closing the space between the two of you so your lips can meet his

-the two of you crash onto the bed with you on top and you both giggle, lips meeting again

-when you pull away and red your forehead against his, just taking in the happiness, his fingers rub small circles on the bit of exposed skin on your waist

-”you have no idea how long i’ve wanted to kiss you.” he breathes ”was it everything you dreamed of?” “better… i want to take you on a date. a proper date. just you and me. have you eaten yet?”

-the two of you decide to go out for dinner, a late dinner but still

-he holds your hand as the two of you walk

-”Luke should we worry about Paparazzi?” “the entire internet already thinks we’re dating… unless you don’t want to hold my hand?”

-gripping his hand tighter

-you’re already such great buds its like almost any other night, except its just you and him (usually at least one of the others tags along)

-and then his hand goes to cover yours on the table and you melt

-so much laughing

-”i’m so glad those dumb asses missed that interview.”

-he insists on paying

-as you’re leaving the restaurant you get papped a bunch but Luke tries to shield you to the best of his abilities

-ending with the two of you running down dark streets like mischievous children to escape the cameras

-him pulling you into a dark alleyway to kiss you as he presses you against the wall

-”wow Hemmings, you know how to sweep a girl off her feet.” “Princesses are meant to be swept off their feet so it’s only natural.” (ok he would not say this, like straight up he wouldnt, but let me live okay. fuck ya’ll i’m soft and a girl can dream of a guy being this squishy okay?)

-running your fingers through his curls

-the two of you getting back to the hotel and as you’re walking down your hallway to your separate rooms, Cal, Michael and Ashton’s doors all open to stare at you two

-”so how was the date?” “do you two need condoms?” “Luke you’re a walking meme again.”

-like yeah they were all into you, yeah you’re gorgeous, but Luke went for it and you’re obviously reciprocating and bros before hoes, man, they gon support their tall bean friend

-”could you guys give us a bit of space?” Luke laughs but he’s serious

-they all kinda begrudgingly close their eyes as Luke walks you to your door, “see you in the morning?” “yeah we’re bussing to the next city.” “just making sure you’re not getting on the next plane or something.”

-soft boy being worried because he can’t believe it’s real

-reaching up and kissing him again

-he goes from soft to hardcore in an instant, his body pinning you against the wall as his hand cups your face and his other goes to your waist

-whistles erupting through the hallways because of course those nosy fucks opened their doors again to see if Luke got a goodnight kiss

-blushing as you hide in your apartment, giving Luke a quick peck before closing the door

-tour continues sort of like normal

-going on stage is kinda weird now because the fans definitely know you and Luke are trying it out

-you and Luke try to find more time alone

-lots of cute short dates when you can find the time

-holding hands on the tour bus

-he invites you to chill in his bunk for a bit one night and you both just talk about lyrics and vocals until you fall asleep

-waking up the next morning to the rest of the boys teasing you and Luke

-you’ve been dating a while and you’re both anxiously awaiting the next time you get to stay at a hotel because like… there’s been some close calls in hallways and on his bunk but he wants your first time to be somewhere you won’t get interrupted

-and the sexual tension is as thick as smoke

-like the boys don’t even want to be around the two of you

-because you and Luke are just looking at each other with such hungry eyes

-Luke getting kinda weird when any of the other guys are doing cute things with you…. like, Ashton had his arm over your shoulders and Luke growled.

-everyone knows that your casual dating is reaching something more

-the day arrives and you have the longest concert of your life before you all pack into a van to go to the hotel

-the van is silent. you all know what’s about to happen let’s be serious

-”so…. my condom offer still stands.”

-”shut up Michael!”

-as soon as the van stops Luke grabs your hand and the two of you practically run into the hotel and up to your rooms, the door isnt even closed and his lips are on yours.

-first time with Luke when you’re his opener is pent up and needy because you’ve both been waiting for a while and patience is not this boys best feature

-hands are everywhere

-clashing teeth

-laughter

-tearing clothes

-not wanting to have your lips away from each other for that long

-lots of whining and moaning

-grinding

-the two of you finally get on the bed and he pulls away, “Luke-” you try to protest but he just brushes his fingers softly against your face, “give me a moment to just look at you. you’re so beautiful.”

-his fingers gently roaming your body

-its like the eye of the storm. a few moments of him just cherishing you and being so soft

-”Luke i need you.”

-and then he’s back at making you moan so loudly you’re sure the others arent going to get any sleep

-i feel like he’d spend a lot of time worshipping your body with his fingers and mouth

-yeah, at least one orgasm before he’s even actually inside of you

-he works you up until you’re begging him for it before he actually goes inside of you

-staying still for a moment, his fingers brushing over your face again

-then he just goes ham fam,

-i feel like he’d really be down for first time missionary with someone he actually loves

-having access to his beautiful, broad back and shoulders

-scratching him up

-”fuck you’re so pretty!”

-a super intense orgasm lets be serious

-both of you just lying next to each other after, his arm around you as you both stare at the ceiling.

-”i love you.”

-”i love you too Hemmings.”

-okay i just killed myself. sorry fam. i’m dead. i like need a second.

-waking up next to each other

-going for breakfast with Ashton and Calum the next morning and they’re both just grinning hard core. “where’s Michael?” “still sleeping, he’s the one who had a room next to yours last night.”

-so much hand holding

-long sweet kisses before you go on stage

-singing your love songs and having to fight the urge to look at Luke who’s watching you from side stage

-kissing him before it’s his turn to go on

-the band all making grossed out noises whenever you two kiss but you know they’re all soft for you and Luke

-Ashton sending you a bunch of pictures of you and Luke for “when you wanna make it official on the Gram.”

-you and Luke agreeing to each choose your favourite picture and post it at the same time without showing each other so it’s a surprise

-you both choose the same picture because you’re #that couple

-fans go wild. i mean, they knew, but its like official now

-interviewers everywhere want you to start doing interviews with the band because you’re their opener and you’re dating Luke?

-so many cute pictures of the two of you

-i love this concept. i mean. i love 5sos opener concepts but like, Luke is bae.

-Luke singing Valentine to you all the time

-he sings it while grabbing your face and kissing you

-lots of quickies wherever you can but it’s always amazing because you’re like so in love

-Michael refusing to sleep in the room next to yours when ya’ll get a hotel

-the boys switch each time

-you and Luke buying them ear plugs and then laughing your ass off about it

-Luke’s arm over your shoulders

-he’s very protective of you, especially in cities you’re visiting

-he buys you little presents from most of the cities you’re in

-chasing each other through arenas and venues

-yeah, if people hear giggles or screams they know it’s you and Luke messing around

-”have you seen Y/N?” “are the two of you playing sexy hide and seek again?” “no….”

-”how do you even play sexy hide and seek?” “trust me Cal, you don’t wanna know.”

-you and Luke getting so distracted before he goes on stage that sometimes Ashton has to like tear Luke away from you

-getting to help him take off those gorgeous on stage #looks

-just so soft fam. i am so soft.