#that was a one off issue that happened last year and people are terrified to death to discuss masking again

[nope-body]

.

[finelinevogue]

the best thing

summary - you hate harry after that one night together, but when you need someone the most he will always be there

a/n : mentions of sexual assault, quite intense scenes, crying, angst, drunkeness

word count : +3.8k

pairing : ceo!harry x reader

You don’t know how you got here.

One minute you were eating crisps at home and watching reruns of Friends, then the next thing you know you’re at an exclusive event in the centre of London with your best friend; Leia.

Apparently, your best friend is now dating some actor who is in with all the A-list celebrities and so she can get into all these cool events now.

This party was hosted by none other than Harry Styles, billionaire and CEO of StylesTech. He happened to be the one man on Earth who you absolutely despised. Well, maybe he wasn’t the only one.

Harry became a celebrity when he got put on the front cover of GQ’s magazine for sexiest man alive four times. That’s right… four.

Harry was friends with James, your best friends new boyfriend, and had said she could also invite a plus one. The more the merrier was what Leia had said over the phone.

Now you were here.

Some rooftop bar in the heights of London. The lighting was very low, the music was very loud and the room was completely packed.

There was a dance floor where people were grinding more than dancing. There was a bar, which apparently was a free-bar. There was panoramic views of the city and tiny people below, making you feel like a Goddess up here in the clouds.

“We’re going to get drinks, you coming?” Leia asked you, James tugging on her hand to move them through the crowd.

“Yeah.” You nodded and grabbed onto her open hand.

You weaved through the crowds, apologising for people you bumped into.

You felt slightly too single here. Everyone seemed to be clinging onto someone and yet you were clinging on to a couple - third-wheeling to be precise.

When you reached the bar Leia and James ordered together, leaving you wait for another waiter to come to help you.

You waited a few more moments, before someone whistled behind you like they were calling over a dog.

“Oi, Henry. Serve this lady now.”

You turned around with a disgusted look on your face, only to be met with Harry Styles in front of you. He smirked at you when he noticed your facial expression.

You scoffed and turned back to Henry. “Don’t worry yourself about me. You can finish whatever job you were doing, hun.” You smiled at the young boy, who looked terrified of his boss behind you.

“No, he won’t.” Harry came and stood beside you. “She’ll have a vodka cranberry with ice.”

“She has a fucking name. Prick.” You mumbled the last word under your breath. “Sorry, Henry. I’ll actually have a Long Island Ice Tea, please. Thank you.”

Henry was off, probably to get away from Harry and make your drink.

“Sure your tolerance can handle a Long Island?” Harry laughed beside you.

“Don’t act like you know me, Harry.” You sneered his name.

“Oh, but I do know you. Don’t I? Know you very, very, well.”

You huffed, trying to not let his words effect you.

You knew exactly what he was talking about. Specifically, the night he was talking about. It had been one night back when you were working in a rival tech company. You had been issued to attend a conference weekend, there had been limited numbers of rooms and Harry - the gentleman at the time - had offered you a space in his room.

That night you had too many vodka cranberries and ended up sleeping with Harry that night - although not much literal sleeping actually happened.

The point of hatred for Harry occurred when he left in the morning after you’d confessed that you could see yourself liking him. You’d offered yourself to him for a date together and all he said was; ‘I don’t do seconds.’

Hence, the birth of the hatred for GQs sexiest man alive x4.

“That was one night, years ago. Wasn’t anything to remember.” You sneered.

You lied. It was actually one of the best nights of your life and no one has been as good since.

“Except it was. You didn’t scream that much because you were hating it.” Harry sipped on his glass of whiskey.

“You’re a fucking pig.” You grabbed your drink that Henry had given to you now. “Stay away from me, Harry.”

“Then why did you come to my party?”

“I’m here because of Leia, not you.”

You scoffed and walked off, leaving Harry leaning against the bar in his gorgeous suit to stare at you as you walked away.

The little black dress and heels would do wonders for the power walk away from him. He could see what he has been missing.

You saw Leia and James standing at a table and went over to join them.

“Hey.” You said on approach.

“Hey babes.” Leia smiled as James wrapped his arm around Leia’s waist.

“Cosmo?” You asked, pointing to Leia’s drink.

“You know it. And what the fuck did you get?”

“Long Island.”

“Do you even like them?” Leia laughed.

“No.”

“Then why—”

To prove a point. “Dunno.” You shrugged, taking a sip and feeling sick already from how disgusting the drink was.

“Oh hey man.” James unwrapped his arm around Leia to shake hands with someone. Unfortunately for you, it happened to be the one man you were trying to stay away from.

“Hey. How are you?” Harry asked as they bro hugged.

“Good, good yeah. This is my girlfriend, Leia.” James introduced her.

Leia smiled politely, shaking his hand, and you suddenly wished you’d told her that the story behind the ‘One-Night-Stand’ guy had been this guy. “Hello. Great party.”

“Thanks.”

“And this is Y/N, Leia’s best friend.” James introduced you, not realising that you didn’t need an introduction.

Harry stuck his hand out for you. If you didn’t shake it someone would know something is wrong, so you could your hand in Harry’s and tried to ignore the soft skin against yours. Instead, you tightly squeezed as if you were trying to strangle his hand.

“Lovely to meet you, Y/N.”

You just tightly smiled, not feeling like returning the sentiment.

“Have we met before? You look very… familiar.” Harry had the cheek to say to you. He was an evil man.

“No. You don’t really have a face that I’d remember.” You pulled your hand away from him in disgust.

“Oh really? I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

“It’s not.” You smiled, returning to your drink and trying not to gag with how awful it tasted.

“Uh, so, what are you drinking Harry?” Leia asked, clearly sensing some tension between you.

“Vodka cranberry.”

“Ah no way! That’s our Y/Ns favourite drink.” Leia smiled genuinely.

“How coincidental.” Harry faked a shocked face.

“Yeah. Truly.” You rolled your eyes.

“You two must be soulmates or something.”

“That would require two people going on an actual date.” You stabbed into the conversation.

“I guess..” Leia looked awkward now.

“Your capable of going on a date, aren’t you Harry?” You innocently questioned, turning to face him.

Harry’s nostrils flared and it looked like he was biting back from saying something brass. Instead of speaking, he shot back a good half of his drink.

“Lovely speaking to you, Leia. James, we’ll catch up in a bit.” Harry nodded his head to them both. You didn’t miss how he didn’t acknowledge you as he left the table in a hurry.

You breathed a sigh of relief after he’d gone.

“What the fuck was that about?” Leia asked you immediately.

“What?” You asked dumbly.

“You and Harry. The sexual tension was insane!”

James nodded his head in agreement.

“Don’t be silly.”

“Y/N… C’mon. I’ve seen a penis and a vagina have less sexual tension than you and Harry. Get a fucking room next time.” Leia fanned herself.

“I give up.” You shook your head and downed the rest of your disgusting drink.

“Where are you going?” James asked.

“To find a fourth wheel for me.”

•••••

Twelves minutes later and you’d managed to find someone to spend the rest of your night with.

His name was Jordan and he was very good company. Attractive company too.

You two were cornered away in the back of the room in a circular booth. A tray of shots lay empty in front of you and another tray contained full ones.

You were playing a drinking game to get to know each other and now you were absolutely spinning. Your head had taken a hit after the fifth shot and now you were nine deep and couldn’t stop yourself.

“M-my turn.” You laughed as you hiccuped.

“Okay.”

Jordan sat close to you, his arm wrapped around the back of the booth where you were sat. His eyes were deep brown and his hair was light blonde. He looked the complete opposite of Harry, which maybe was subconsciously a choice.

“Favourite sex position?” You giggled immaturely.

“Hmm. Doggy. I actually hate seeing a girls face when we’re fucking.” He replied and you had to take a shot because he answered honestly.

That should’ve been your first red flag about Jordan.

You just laughed instead.

“My turn. Have you ever masturbated?”

“Alllll the time. No guy does it for me anymore.” You laughed sadly.

Jordan took his shot and then moved in closer towards you. You tilted your head so he could speak into your ear.

“I could fix that problem for you.”

Your eyes bugged at his forwardness.

“No thanks.” You shook your head and laughed to try and keep it civil.

“Oh c’mon. You’ve been flirting with me all night and you know it.” His hand dropped onto your shoulders and pulled himself closer. His other hand dropped onto your bare thigh and started rubbing up and down on your soft skin.

“No I haven’t!” You laughed the situation off.

“You have. And I bet you’re all excited ‘cause of it.”

He started moving his hand further up your leg. Due to your toxic alcohol intake your reaction times were a little slower, but when his hand had made it underneath your dress-skirt you gasped and tried to tug his hand away.

“No. Please stop.” You said softly, whining as he tried to push his hand higher.

His face came closer again and he started to kiss your cheek. You tried to move your face away but his other hand was there to trap you and keep you close.

You started to worry because of how dark it was and how hidden away you were. Everyone was busy dancing and drinking away and none the wiser about the situation you were in.

“Give in, you tease.” His hot breath felt disgusting against your skin.

“I said no. Please.”

You struggled to push him off. Both your hands were focusing on his hand on your leg that you couldn’t do much to get his face away from yours.

“You’ve been teasing me all night and now we get to play.” He laughed.

Tears formed in your eyes as you kept pushing and pushing and pushing. You kept saying no over and over again, but Jordan was just not listening.

He felt disgusting on you and it made you feel just as disgusting.

Jordan just kept laughing whilst you were crying.

An employee caught your eye - in fact, it was Henry. You thought he might’ve come over to you and help, since he could clearly see you crying and struggling with Jordan on you, but instead he turned and walked away.

You sobbed then, thinking that might’ve been your only chance to get help and he just left.

You wondered whether it was because Harry was a dick to him.

You closed your eyes and tried to think of happy thoughts as Jordan started attacking your neck.

You tried to think of Harry. It wasn’t hard.

He was constantly on your mind.

“You taste so good. Stop denying me all of you.” Jordan bit your neck too harshly to be pleasurable.

“Jordan, no!” You shoved with all your strength and managed to completely get him off. You were pissed now. Your mascara may have run, your eyes red and blotchy, your breath shaky, but that was all he was getting from you.

“No?” Jordan scoffed. “NO?”

Jordan grabbed your cheeks and pulled you towards him.

“Ow.” You mumbled through his harsh grip.

“Listen here you little bi—”

“The fuck is going on here?”

Jordan dropped your face and straightened his jacket, whilst you turned your head to find who you already knew was there; Harry.

His voice had sent a wave of calmness through your body the second he started speaking. Now he was standing there with a deathly look on his face you couldn’t help but feel relief.

And you noticed Henry standing behind him, looking just as angry.

“Hi boss. Just having fun.” Jordan responded.

Harry looked between Jordan and you. Jordan looked dazed and content, whilst you looked broken and scared.

“Are you okay?” Harry looked intensely at you.

“She’s fi—”

“I wasn’t fucking speaking to you, was I?” Harry rhetorically asked. “Y/N, come here, love.”

Harry held out his hand, palm facing up.

You made no hesitation as you weakly moved away from Jordan and towards Harry.

Harry helped you stand up and kept a tight hold on your hand. It grounded you, his touch.

“Can I touch you? Just on your face?” Harry asked you softly and you nodded.

Harry cautiously held your chin and moved your head to the side, noticing the red mark and blood on your neck. He hadn’t taken note of your legs yet, but he would come to find red marks on them too.

Your teary eyes were wiped by Harry’s careful thumb. You looked down at his shoes the entire time, too afraid to look at him. You knew you’d crumble if you did.

“Are you okay?” He asked you again.

“No.” You said softly, shaking your head. “I-I was really scared, Harry.” Your voice broke and Harry immediately cupped the back of your head and brought you into his chest. You collapsed there and Harry’s hands held you up strong.

“You’re okay now. I’m here, you’re okay. I’ve got you.” Harry said, whilst nodding his head discreetly to the two security men.

They came over within seconds and yanked Jordan out of the booth. His protests were no match for the security guys. As he was being escorted out, Harry stopped him to say “See you in court.”

After Harry had thanked Henry with a nod and smile, he walked the small distance over to the same booth and sat down on the edge of it, pulling you to sit on his lap.

Your body was still wracking with sobs, but only because the adrenaline of the situation had been too much for you.

Now you knew you were safe, it was too much.

Harry made you feel safe.

He rocked you as he held you. It was too loud to have a quiet, serious, conversation, but his actions spoke loud anyways. I’m here. You’re safe. It’s okay now.

You heard Harry shout to someone for a glass of cold water, which was brought back to you within a minute.

"Here, sunshine, drink this." Harry spoke closely to you so you could hear.

He held the glass up to your lips and tipped it back slowly for you. Your hands were too shaky to hold onto it yourself, but you managed to drink carefully with the help of Harry.

He even knew when you'd had enough.

Harry's hand cupped the side of your head and brought you to rest back onto his chest. His head stayed rested on top of yours and you both just sat like that for ten minutes or so. It was hard to know exactly how long.

You just sat and thought about everything that had happened tonight and everything that could have happened. Mixed with that, your brain was constantly thinking about Harry and how much, no matter how hard you try otherwise, you like him.

Your heart feels constantly pulled towards him. He's like a beacon in the middle of a storm, safely guiding you towards home.

Just as those thoughts were circling your mind, Harry made his move.

He told you he was going to stand up, so you let yourself slide off his legs onto your own shaky ones. You thought he might be leaving you to go back and mingle with the other guests, so you stood shy to the side.

Harry leaned over to Henry and whispered something in his ear to which Henry nodded.

Before you could make plans as to what you were going to do now, Harry held out his hand to you again - giving you a choice to take it or not. Of course, you took it.

He squeezed your hand in reassurance and then lead you off and out of the room.

You two made no conversation as you wandered out of the noisy room and into a quiet staircase. Harry started walking up the stairs, so you followed him.

It was another two minutes before you made it to the top of the stairs and through a door that led to a rooftop. It was only very small. It overlooked the city skyline, with hundreds of twinkling lights casting shadows over the small space.

There were twinkling fairy lights too, up here. They were knotted around various creeping wall plants like ivy. In the corner of the square space there was a big L-shaped sofa with plenty of cushions and throws.

Harry turned back to smile at you, leading you to the sofa.

He sat down and let go of your hand, allowing you to choose where to sit.

You took one last glance at the skyline and up to the moon, before deciding.

"Wanna sit next to you." You said in a small voice.

"Okay." Harry smiled perfectly.

He shuffled back into the corner of the L-shaped sofa, sitting up and letting his legs stretch out on the chair in front of him. He patted his lap next with a smile. You shuffled over to him and sat on his lap, perpendicular to the way he was sitting so your legs stretched out along the other length of the chair.

"Comfortable?" He asked.

"Mhm."

Harry wasn't too sure though, and next thing you knew he was gathering a couple of blankets to throw over your legs and shoulders.

"Better. Thank you." You nodded.

"You're welcome."

"It's beautiful up here."

"I guess it is."

"Is it all yours?" You questioned.

"What? Everything up here?"

You nodded. Harry then took your hands in his and started to play with the few rings you had on.

"No. Not everything is mine."

You looked up at him and into his eyes, noticing he was looking straight back at you.

Your breath caught in your throat as you thought about the implications to his words. You couldn't help but let a blush and smile take over your face. If he was implying what you thought he was then maybe you were in with a chance of Harry liking you back.

"What do you want to have? You're a billionaire. You could have anything you want." You asked, curiously.

"No even a billionaire can buy everything." He smiled sadly.

"Well, what do you wish you could buy even though you can't?"

Harry chuckled under his breath, "Redemption. A second chance. Love."

You tilted your head back against the sofa, your head feeling less and less drunk by the minute. You sighed, looking at the beautiful moon and wondering how lonely she must be up there.

Loneliness is something you've suffered with for far too long.

You wanted to find that connection with that someone who makes you feel wanted, feel loved and feel chosen. You craved it.

You chuckled.

"What?" Harry asked, softly caressing over the back of your hand.

"It's just funny, is all."

"What is?"

"Us, wanting the same thing. Wonder if we want it from the same people." You tilted your head to the side to face Harry, watching him lick his lips as he looked at yours not-so-subtly.

"You already know we do." Harry said quietly, leaning in towards you.

Your breath hitched as he got closer, your heart beating faster than your brain was processing the motions. You knew you wanted to kiss Harry as badly as he wanted to kiss you, but not like this. Not yet, at least.

"Harry, wait..." You said, watching him stop immediately.

"Fuck. Shitting, fuck. Sorry, Y/N. That was completely inappropriate of me. I mean.. After... Tonight and us... and...."

Harry shot back to his original position and ran a stressed hand over his face as he tried to work through his thoughts.

You smiled as you watched him panic, before taking his stressed hands in yours and kissing the back of it softly - right over that small triage of freckles you knew sat pretty there.

"Hey. It's okay." You reassured him. "I'm not stopping you because of what happened this evening. I'm stopping you because I feel I deserve to know why I wasn't enough the first time around."

This was you standing up for yourself.

"Weren't enou-.. Y/N, love. God, I was such a dick. I never, ever, left you because I thought you weren't enough. I left because I didn't think I was. I was a nobody back then. I looked at you and saw someone who could literally be the epitome of sunshine, and then I looked at me and all I saw was a dark cloud that would cover you. I never thought someone as bright, as happy and as golden as you should ever have to be with someone like me. Hell, it's still a thought that niggles away at the back of my mind. But, I've learnt that I can't let those thoughts win. I owe it you myself, and definitely to you, to at least try."

"Well that was as good as apologies get." You sniffled, trying to hold back the happy tears.

"I'm sorry, Y/N, for our wasted years. I... I just wasn't ready for us back then and I know I was a prick about it."

"You were. A right big prick."

Harry wiggled his eyebrows and you had to fake punch him for it.

"I'm sorry." He said honestly. "And I'm sorry for tonight too."

"That wasn't your fault, okay? I promise." You squeezed his hand.

"Okay. I'm still suing that motherfucker though."

"You're a billionaire already!"

"So? I was going to donate the money to a sexual assault charity or something." He shrugged his shoulders like what he just said was no big deal - like he hadn't just shown his truest heart.

"You're a good person, Harry, who deserves good things." You moved closer to him.

"I am?"

"Mhm."

"Do these 'good things' include you?"

"I don't know. Do you think I'm a good thing?" You teased him.

Harry leaned in closer. "No. I think you're the best."

[prideprejudce]

I feel like people have read into Alicent's response to Rhaenyra's ultimatum in both good AND bad faith ways, but i feel like I haven't seen much of what Rhaenyra was feeling about it!!

Personally, I feel like the ultimatum she gave Alicent was the product of 3 different motivations- first, it was the obvious political move to kill the usurper to her throne, duh. The second, is that I think Rhaenyra is super aware- and terrified of- being trapped in a cycle of loss, being passed over for a son, and her claim to the throne standing only because of what she represents not her as a person. Thats its own whole fascinating character essay i cant get into here lol.

But the third reason is that I THINK she has a desperate personal obsession with being chosen by Alicent over Aegon, and leans into the ultimatum as a way to extract what she needs from Alicent-- to be chosen and prioritized over her father's son, and be the centre of Alicent's attention (romantic or not).

The directors/writers have mentioned one of the crucial aspects of Rhaenyra and Alicent's relationship is how many times Rhaenyra reaches out, only to be rejected by Alicent over and over. I think Rhaenyra, as someone who really internalized going after what she wants from a young age, is a bit spoiled, and is obsessed with Alicent's continuous rejection as both a novelty, and a deep source of insecurity.

Rhaenyra has a bit of magical thinking where she really does think that if she just pushes hard enough she can change the world into the shape she wants it to be, and I think when Alicent CONTINUES to deny her, she gets more and more frustrated.

Double this with her general issues around being passed over for a son, first from her father with baelon, and then COMPOUNDED with baby aegon stealing both her father AND alicent's attention as alicent prioritized birthing and probably caring for her son over rhaenyra's sulking when Rhaenyra was in the most pain she had been in yet in her life.

I think Rhaenyra is HIGHLY resentful about not just aegon usurping her throne, but also the lack of attention during the HEIGHT of her teenage years, where she already has a contentious relationship with her father AND .....stepmother?? first love??? sister?? (targaryen family incest issues are a wonderful icing on top of this cake)

It was very clear that the reason Alicent married viserys was SPECIFICALLY to have more children, and that Alicent CHOSE (from Rhaenyra's perspective) to put herself in that position JUST after Aemma died from the same cause, becoming a mother rather than staying with Rhaenyra and daydreaming about riding off into the sunset. In Rhaenyra's mind, she lost her mother to the promise of a son, only to lose Her Alicent™️ to ANOTHER promise of a son right after. This is probably the deepest rejection Alicent could have given her.

The entire second half of season 2 is more denial; Rhaenyra's marriage proposal of their children is rejected, Alicent rejects Rhaenyra's bastard sons in general, and Rhaenyra's choices by extension, then driftmark happens, then the ENTIRE USURPTION happens, rejecting Rhaenyra's claim to her own birthright.

Rhaenyra even tries AGAIN in season 3 - extending herself to go into Alicent's place of comfort to sue for peace, even telling Alicent bits of a personally sacred religious doctrine only to be rejected AGAINNNNNNN.

(I could write forever about how Rhaenyra indulges Alicent's religious but never gets the same back on her own customs)

Yah, I think when Rhaenyra sees Alicent next, its not just that the ultimatum is a political necessity, but its decades of rejection culminating in 'you need to choose and prioritize me over everything, including your son, bc i cannot take anymore rejection from you, and I cant handle NOT being the most important thing in your whole world tbh :)' Especially on the heels of her newfound radicalization i feel like Rhaenyra sees Alicent's 'Choosing Rhaenyra' this time as a Holy Blessing and the last crucial piece she needs to self actualize.

(Also never forget all of this takes place in the targaryen CESSPOOL that is Rhaenyra having Alicent as a sister/step mother/half employee?? Alicent was at least her subordinate at one point/only confidante/possible first love-- theres probably alot of projection on Rhaenyra's part for what Alicent's approval means to her)

sorry this is so long the word rejection has ceased to mean anything to me at this point

"Rhaenyra sees Alicent's 'choosing Rhaenyra' this time as a Holy Blessing and the last crucial piece that she needs to self actualize"

what if we all just set each other on fire

[lexirosewrites]

I had a horrifying omegaverse idea. Dont mind if you wait for Sunday. I know you normally have Steve as an omega, but just this once:

Omegas in heat are in genuine danger around alphas. A few, mostly ignored, people claim that alphas can control themselves if they really want to, but there are many cases of Alphas injuring themselves, to the tune of breaking their own bones, to get to an omega in heat. There are suppressants that can help, but they’re not a sure thing and alpha centric society means that it’s seen as demeaning for alphas to have to limit themselves.

What society has managed is really really good suppressants for omegas. Every society has had some kind of suppressant all the way back to prehistory, but modern medicine is a wonder. It almost completely wipes out the pheromones that make alphas lose it. And sure, omegas have to pay for the suppressants, and take them for the entire month leading up to their heat, and the list of side effects is hella long, but no omega risks doing otherwise. An omega in heat who gets caught can comply, and hope they don’t get forcibly mated, or they can resist, and hope the alpha doesn’t go into a frenzy and kill them.

During puberty, when kids are heading into presentations, there are weekly blood prick tests, and any indication of a spike in hormones sees the kid off to a special secure medical units, staffed by betas, to keep them safe. Alphas get mild sedatives and a space without anything to hurt themselves or others with. Omegas get personal guards, similar rooms, and pain meds. After, alphas go about their lives, a little smug. Omegas go on suppressants, but, they just need to stay home for the three or so days of their heat.

By seventeen, anyone that hasn’t presented is determined to be a beta. 99.9% of presentations happen by age sixteen. The next year is for security. By seventeen, that last .1% has gone down by another 90%.

But late presentations still happen. It’s alphas presenting late usually. 4 out of 5 times. The other is an omega. Those are the stuff of nightmares.

Eddie is a beta. He’s not shocked, almost his entire family is. There’s a cousin or two on one of the branches that were recessive omegas. There’s a guess that a great great great grandpa was an alpha. But Eddie? Definitely a beta.

There’s not a magic formula that causes late presentations, and it happens too rarely and too suddenly for studies to be anything but anecdotal. Almost every late presentation goes… badly… for the omega.

Eddie drops into a presentation heat in the summer of 86, in the middle of the soup aisle. There’s half a dozen alphas in the building, including Steve, who was trying to get the rest of the cream of mushroom from the back of the shelf. Steve, who takes the alpha suppressants daily because he never wants to be like his dad. Steve, who lost some of his secondary sense of smell thanks to the last few years. Steve, who has a hell of a crush, but was never going to say anything about it. Steve, who never wins a fight.

So you have Eddie, terrified, in pain, vicious in his vulnerability, convinced this is how he’s gonna die, because no way in hell is he going to submit to whoever gets to him first. And you have Steve, clinging to control so he can hold off the other alphas long enough for emergency personnel to get there.

ohhh🥺🥺 poor eddie not expecting that and poor steve who just wants to help and is literally the worst fighter known to man!

(side note: i read omega eddie/alpha steve with no issue, even if it’s not what i tend to write. i love seeing different combinations of designations so please throw them all my way!)

[artsy-hobbitses]

Do you perhaps have any headcanons on the miscreant Starscream??

DO I EVER.

I'm gonna assume you're new here or at least have not seen all headcanons, so I'll collated into one document. RIP you're getting sandblasted with a horrible sky gremlin who has hidden heart of a hero (DON'T LET THEM HEAR YOU SAY THAT, HE HAS STREET CRED TO MAINTAIN).

Starscream/Stefan Scavarro got his codename from the shriek that his suit's engines made when he would divebomb opponents from the heavens. Combined with them seeing literal stars when he blindsided them and how much of a 'sky devil' he was with his red armor, a terrified senate guard described him as the rebellion's "(Azrael) Morningstar, screaming bloody vengeance as he swoops down from the heavens to hunt the wicked". Hence, 'Starscream' was born.

He wears his hair long to cover the Cold Construct barcode on the nape of his neck. Touch him there without his permission, and he will break your fingers.

He's the best cook on the team, and he'll say it's because he's rather eat barb wire (the taste of his blood would at least add some flavour) than be subjected to the military slop he lived with for twenty years. It's never too late to learn how to how to cook and eat well, though if you substitute fresh garlic for powdered garlic in something you're serving him, he's going to fight you across the dining room table after he's done eating it. Food should be respected, even if they were the product of a culinary crime.

He learned to tailor his own clothes during his college days, and has since become very proficient at it. He make most of his formal garments, and is considered the most fashion-centric member of the team.

He was very close to Senator Shockwave/Sharifuddin Waseem as a young politician, to the point of having an unrequited crush. Sharif accepted him as a part of the senate despite his status as a (freed) Cold Construct driving others away from him, and both spent most of their time together in the senate researching and drafting bills pushing for more rights and protections for the Manual Class and Cold Constructs

He has a personal dislike of Optimus Prime/Omar Parvez, and blames Omar for what happened to Sharif, as Sharif surrendered to Proteus on Omar's watch. He had earlier requested that Omar not leave Sharif's side before their mission began and he was assigned to another post, because he had a bad feeling about Proteus' plans for Sharif, and accused Omar of being too spineless to stop it. That Omar had to choose between saving Sharif or the men Sharif told him to keep safe was something he refused to consider. However, in time they do come to an understanding when he accepts that Omar was given a impossible choice and made the one that respected Sharif's last request and sacrifice.

While he can't bring himself to keep pets (he doesn't want to get attached amid a war), he does have a fondness for cats! He admires their beauty, grace, independence and low tolerance for bullshit. He eventually adopts an old and ornery female cat named Graymalkin post-war to keep him company while Windblade/Wariko Baisho is out at work

Stefan has a ridiculously high pain tolerance due to the abuse he was put through from childhood at the air base he grew up in. His eardrums have ruptured more times than he can recall from flight test chambers and high altitude barotrauma, and if he didn't stop crying, his handlers would give him something to really cry about before they dragged him off to the medics. He has an accelerated healing factor, they saw no issue with letting out their frustrations on him, as he was simply an asset in their eyes, even as a seven-year-old.

As such, he has very warped idea of what constitutes a 'major' injury on him---he can be running around cradling his disemboweled intestines in one arm without breaking a sweat. He offhandedly tells people that an injury doesn't register as 'major' to him unless it's a skull fracture where he can feel a section of his head caved in, or a direct shot to the heart.

Because of this, he also has a very skewed idea of what 'hurt' means to him personally and how he's meant to react to it. He's internalised his handlers' assertion that because he can heal, his pain does not matter. So what if people hurt him? It's what he was built to withstand. There is a weird sense of pride he has about this, he sees it as a mark of strength, and it's partly why he's as defiantly blasé as he is about Megatron's abuse when they get in each other's faces. At the same time, it's also deeply lonely for him and he oscillates wildly between shying away from physical contact and being starved for 'good' touch at the same time.

To add to this, while he grows to harbour unspoken attraction towards Wariko which he attempted to throttle multiple times in their early says interacting with each other, he stops icing her out when she becomes the first person to acknowledge his pain, and that him being able to heal and bearing no scars from his abuse doesn't make that pain any less real. She's also his first experience with 'good' touch, which he quickly finds he cannot get enough of.

He adores musicals. In particular are The Greatest Showman, Moulin Rouge and The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

When he and Morgan are in one of their more civil moods, they play chess together in a weirdly companionable silence, as despite their mutual disdain, they understand each other the most. They're equally matched, and it's the only time where Morgan will sincerely compliment him about something, and he'd accept it without sneering or boasting. (He used to play with Sharif, who doesn't do so now as Shockwave, while Morgan used to play with Omar, so it also feels like a moment of bonding over shared loss)

He's an excellent dancer! Mostly ballroom-based which he picked up during his days as a young politician for big senate events, but he enjoys mixing things up a bit with tango or freestyle.

Has mastered walking in high heels.

He alternates between having a soft spot for Thundercracker/Teo Cortez, who he sometimes sees as a younger brother, and calling Teo out as being the 'weak link' of the Trine. He can one day be planning a heartfelt birthday party and baking a cake for Teo since Teo can no longer celebrate it with family, and the next day be screaming at Teo for messing up at target practice. He justifies this hot and cold by saying that someone like Teo isn't made for war, but since Teo insists on being here, he would rather have Teo sad or angry at him for being harsh over the work they have to do, than to have Teo dead from softness and carelessness. He was genuinely relieved when Teo finally left the Decepticons, and they do reconcile post-war.

Openly calls Tarn out for being a fanboy simp in bad Decepticon cosplay.

He never really takes Bumblebee/Benjamin Bane seriously as a fellow combatant and is constantly breaking into Omar's comm signal on the field to yell at Omar to send "your son" back home, this is NO PLACE for a child playing DRESS-UP. (Ben's "I'M 18 YOU POMPOUS PRAT" is immediately met with Stefan's "DON'T YOU TALK TO ME LIKE THAT, STOP KICKING ME IS PRIME RAISING YOU IN A BARN")

That said, despite being on opposite sides of the fence, when Ben becomes a discorporated soul, he is drawn to Stefan, who can hear him because it is Stefan, rather than Omar or even Memo and Charlie, who unknowingly first truly heard him. This goes back to when Ben was nine, and had a chance to visit the Quintesson War Museum on his birthday; his father and mother however, had no interest in exploring the exhibits with him and left him to do so on alone. On a whim, he asked a passing man, a young politician Stefan who was visiting before a conference, to help him take a picture. Stefan wanted this to be a one and done, but after asking Ben about his parents and finding out they left him to celebrate his birthday alone, he decided to chaperone Ben through the entire time that Ben was there and listened to this boy talk about everything under the sun. He didn't put much thought into this after he left, it was just a few hours of making a child happy/feel less lonely on on their birthday (he's never celebrated one! what a novelty that is), he didn't even have the presence of mind to ask for the boy's name since he himself was not given one until he was 18, but Ben never forgot.

As vain as he is, Stefan hates seeing old pictures of himself, especially those taken of him during his old senate days. He hates the boyish way he used to smile, he hates the hopeful light in his eyes, he hates coming to terms with the part of himself he felt he had sacrificed to hate over humanity on the day they razed the Senate… and how he barely recognizes the man he used to be. Wariko eventually makes him see the truth; that the man he was is the man he still is deep down.

He loves collecting plane models. He does not love putting them together, however, and it's a task he often bribes Skywarp into with offerings of muttabaq fresh off the gridle.

Sharif's old nickname for him is "Pretty Bird", Wariko calls him "Uguisu" (Japanese Bush Warbler).

Extremely protective of his armored flight suit. It was a prototype made by Sharif years ago for him--it was his first taste of flying without a helmet or within a cockpit, and he's never been able to forget that feeling. He also sees it as the last gift Sharif ever gave him before becoming 'Shockwave'. He refuses to let Morgan touch it, and the one time he did approach Shockwave to make some amendments, Shockwave told him to rubbish it for a better upgrade. He declined, and has since learned how to fix and programme the suit on his own. He won't admit it, but it feels like keeping the last physical bit of Sharif's memory alive.

Deeply in love with sky and flying in general; he embraces it as the most free he ever feels. He's up early for morning flights to catch the sunrise, and when he feels like he needs to get away from it all, he flies up high enough that ice gnaws at his face and he can't breath before freefalling through the clouds. It helps him gain a sense of perspective.

Stefan and Wariko do eventually get married, and he settles into a Way Of The Househusband role to her Lady First Delegate. They end up adopting two Cold Construct kids, Suzume and Gabriele.

If you'd like more Winblade/Starscream headcanons (because they are my power couple!), you can find them here and here!

[metalomagnetic]

The 27th chapter is AMAZING we got so much kid content I’m crying. But after reading it I became kinda curious about what Astrid really thinks of the marriage. She is obviously happy and very proud about how her life turned out, but what does she think about the first years of the marriage? The first time she had met Sirius in the story he was in his best mental state, the happiest place, just chilling and vibing, but when she got to marry him he was out of azkaban, heavily medicated and overall concerned about anything but reality. What was she even expecting? Sorry for bothering, but thank you for answering if you do. And obviously a huge Thank You for the chapter, it was breathtaking.

Astrid was warned that Sirius was just out of Azkaban, but Narcissa hid the extent of the damage (besides, back then Narcissa had no way of knowing exactly how damaged Sirius was and it wasn't going to be an easy recovery) and Thor didn't have access to much information about post Azkaban Sirius, since it's only been three months and Sirius wasn't going out in public where someone could spot him. He did hear about the stunt he pulled at the Ministry with Bella, and he judged by that that Sirius mustn't have been damaged by Azkaban too much, if he had the clarity of mind to pull it off. Again, Thor also had no way of knowing that Azkaban was the last of Sirius' issues, had no way of knowing how destroyed he was because he lost his bff and lover.

Otherwise, yes, Astrid was a bit taken aback to see 3 months post Azkaban Sirius compared to what she remembered of him.

I think she was a bit afraid of him in the beginning, then slowly relaxed as she noticed he wasn't a danger to her; however she remained nervous, because she had though she'll be ok because she will manage to charm Sirius' pants off, but she didn't know what to do with a Sirius that had no interest in her whatsoever.

And then they went to Black Manor, Sirius was off the potions and seemed better, they had Orion, and she was actually beginning to think maybe she can have a happy life with him.

But then we know what happened. The ring took over. I think she was genuinely terrified during that time, secluded and trapped with a toddler and a newborn baby, AND PREGNANT, far away in the countryside, with a Sirius that was getting weirder and weirder by the day. She tried writing to her father about it when she just couldn't take it mentally anymore, when she'd catch glimpses of Sirius and see the horrors in his eyes, and how he seemed not to care even about Orion, or that she was pregnant, or anything at all.

Sirius doesn't remember this, but Tom didn't allow the letters to go through; he didn't want any northerner to come to the Manor, after all.

So when Astrid saw that no one was responding to her letters, she realised Sirius must stop them, and you can imagine the abject terror. 'Thankfully' that was just in the last month or so, the very worst of it, and then Sirius took the ring off.

Astrid woke up with Bellatrix inside the house, and she actually asked Bella for help, the very next day after we saw Bella arrive at the Manor.

But it was also Bella's first day without potions, and besides, she didn't care about Astrid at all, but she told Astrid that things will be better, but no, she better not write to her parents about anything that just happened.

Astrid only calmed down when they got back to Grimmauld and she had access to people again; she was even happy to see Walburga once more.

And she did not complain to her father, especially as Sirius was visibly getting better.

However, it took her a long, long time to trust Sirius again after that, and she kept waiting for him to reverse to that awful state, but eventually she understood it won't happen again, and allowed herself to move past it.

After that, she is happy with the marriage, with the way Sirius treats her and the children. I think her only complaint (not that she'd ever say it) is that Sirius lets his mother and Bella get away with absolutely everything, but that's not a major issue for Astrid, and she has her own ways of bypassing Walburga and Bella, without Sirius needing to get involved.

By current timeline in the story, she is content with her marriage, doesn't regret it, and has long settled into Britain and the Black family. She made genuine friendships there, Narcissa being the most important, and she has grown to love Sirius, just as Sirius loves her. She definitely enjoys his company, and sees him as an ally in everything (expect in matters that concern Bella and Walburga).

If you'd make her go back in time, she'd still choose to marry Sirius, without any hesitation.

[loycspotting]

Leaving Tumblr

Last night, my account was terminated. I don't know why. I was in the middle of using the site when suddenly I was locked out. No warnings. No announcements. Nothing. I was an absolute wreck. I couldn't eat or sleep. There was no word from Tumblr's management team. I could only explain what happened and sit on my hands. I felt utterly helpless waiting and hoping for a miracle. I had a home here. I had friends who became family. People that I love. Fandom that was my absolute joy and honor to participate in. It was all ripped away for no reason at the drop of a hat. My work. My mutuals. My home. Gone. Just like that. I couldn't say goodbye. I didn't know if or how I'd be able to find my moots again. I was able to create a second account called @loycspotting-thee2 and wracked my brain trying to remember my friends' usernames while terrified that that account would disappear too. I couldn't focus on anything. I was completely distraught. Thankfully, a miracle did happen and my account was magically reactivated. Again, no warning. No one reached out and explained what happened. One moment it was here, gone the next, then here again. In all my years of being on social media, I've never feared that a platform would kick me off like that until last night. I stayed up reading story after story of people who have used Tumblr, some of them holding accounts for YEARS with thousands of followers, logging on just to find it wiped from existence on any random day. This is a serious and repetitive issue, but not apparently to Tumblr. I may not have been a Tumblr user for long, but this incident has irrevocably broken my trust. No amount of saving and cataloging and backing up my account will protect me from being a victim of this website's carelessness. I would always have to worry if I'd be the unlucky user of the day that got their account deleted with no guarantee that it would be reactivated. I cannot and will not live in fear that everything I've created and the home I've found will be taken from me again against my will. Therefore, I have decided that the best option for me is to deactivate my account and say goodbye on my own terms. I am absolutely heartbroken to come to this decision. This has been the most unreal online space. I loved it here! It was everything I've been looking for and I only regret not signing up the first time I heard about it all those years ago. I love being in the Ewan McGregor fandom! Where it's not just a fandom. It's a fanhome 😁. I found my voice here, as well as people who heard me. People who understood me. This was my absolute favorite place to be, bar NONE. I felt fulfilled writing and reviewing. There were so many more things I wanted to do and experience with you guys. It was you who encouraged me. You listened, reblogged, commented, and messaged. You accepted me. From the bottom of my heart I love my mutuals. Even if we don't follow each other, if we've talked or interacted with each other's posts I love you too. I love the passion and creativity flowing through this site. I don't know what will happen with the Ewan McGregor Screentime Percentage project. I'm not ready to quit just yet. Maybe I'll start a Reddit or letterboxd account. Of course, for the writing, I can consider joining Ao3. If you want to keep in touch, then I implore you to message me so we can work something out. The friendships I made here are paramount to everything else. I'm going to leave this up for 9 days (or until I'm terminated again 🙄) to give myself time to get things in order. On September 1st, I will say goodbye.

[bella-rose29]

Deck the Halls (and not your partner) - part 7

the mistletoe scene I have to give credit to the lovely @novelizt because of this post

this is basically just 3.5k words of fluff to make up for all the pain I put you through the last two parts

Word count: 3.5k

Warnings: swearing, making out (it's happening people, but also it's mildly in detail so for the one tiny paragraph feel free to skip if you're either not comfortable with it or not old enough), Will asks the important questions (both sensible and not), brief mentions of self-esteem issues? lockwood is a bit silly at the end, actually they both are

series master list

(why does he look like this :3 😭)

"What?" Y/n breathed. She wasn't entirely sure that she'd heard Lockwood correctly.

"I said that I think I've fallen for you."

He looked so sincere, his eyes more vulnerable than she had ever seen them before, and Y/n felt her heart constrict in her chest.

"You..."

"I know, I know." He rubbed his hand over his face, turning to lean back against the window. The mistletoe still hung at his side in his other hand.

"But you were horrible to me! From the very start!"

"I know. I was awful to you that first night and my only excuse is that I was exhausted and in desperate need of my bed, which I know isn't good enough. And then when you came in for your interview I just didn't want to be the one responsible if anything happened to you - wait, that came out wrong. You walked into the doorframe, Y/n. I was worried that you'd hurt yourself on a job, and I didn't want to get too attached to you in case that happened and you got injured or hospitalised or worse and I couldn't do anything to stop it. When I saw how easily the others took to you I knew that I was doomed," he let out a laugh, shaking his head. Y/n hoped he realised how ridiculous he sounded. "I know that doesn't excuse my actions, Y/n, but I meant what I said about that job we took in March. I really thought I wouldn't get there in time and I was terrified."

"Lockwood... you can't just... say that! I mean, you have said some genuinely horrible things to me and now you're saying that you - you what? That you-"

"I don't know!" he cried, filled with exasperation. "Alright? I don't know how else to describe it! I don't know if how I feel is love because I've never felt like this before, but I do know that I care about you far more than I should given I'm your boss, and I really don't know what would happen to me if you got seriously hurt, alright?" He was out of breath, cheeks flushed as he looked at her, and Y/n felt her own face heating up at his admission.

"Okay, okay," she said quietly, still processing everything he'd said. They stayed there for a few minutes, both leaning back against the windows as they tried to figure out what the hell they were going to do now. "I don't..." Y/n broke off with a sigh. She needed to phrase this right or they would be in even deeper shit than they were before. "I don't think I can just... forgive you, Lockwood. You have a lot - and I mean a lot - of grovelling to do to make up for how you've treated me these last few years." He nodded frantically, hope starting to shine in his eyes.

"Anything," he said. "Anything at all." She knew that he meant it.

"And I want to go on more cases if I'm staying at the company, because you can't just keep me behind because you think I'll walk into a doorframe."

"Done." He paused for a moment, looking like he wanted to say something else. "But you have-"

"Nope! No protests, thank you!" He stopped talking immediately, looking rather like a lost puppy as he gazed at her. "No more hating each other, either, although I feel like that's a given. And the first date had better be fucking incredible, alright?"

"... First... date?"

"Yeah, keep up, Schmoopie." She couldn't deny how her heart lifted at the sight of Lockwood looking so happy, and when he grinned her responding smile was involuntary.

"Wait... so do you... you know. How do you feel, about..." he waved his hands vaguely in the air, then accidentally hit himself in the face with the mistletoe. "Shit, I think that went in my eye. I forgot I was holding that," he grumbled, and Y/n didn't bother biting back her snort. He sent her a glare, but there was only amusement behind it.

"I don't really know, Lockwood."

"Anthony."

"What?"

"If we're going to start dating I'd much rather you called me Anthony." He blushed and went quiet as he looked out the window. "I like it better when you call me Anthony anyway. Sorry, I uh, I interrupted you."

"Oh, no, that's... that's alright. Uh... yeah. Like you said, I don't know how to describe it. I know that it really hurt me when you said that you wouldn't ever feel the same way, and I guess I just didn't want to admit to myself that I care about you a lot too because you were such a huge arsehole to me-"

"Yes, got it, sorry again."

"-but I do care about you, Anthony. A lot. And honestly that does annoy me because I'm pretty sure I've liked you since we met because I did think you were really gorgeous, except then you were really rude and-"

"Wait wait wait wait wait," he exclaimed, waving his hands in front of him. "You think that I'm gorgeous?"

Now it was Y/n's turn to feel her face heat up, and she swatted at his hands. "I did, yeah. Then you opened your mouth."

"Oh."

"Yeah." She waited a moment, then spoke again. "If you must know, I still think you're gorgeous," she muttered, and Anthony lit up, a smug smile landing on his face. Surprisingly she'd missed them, and while she still felt the burning flames in her body at the sight of that stupid smirk, it was no longer hatred.

He stepped forward a little (only a little, since they were back to being incredibly close to each other) and held the mistletoe in both of his hands. "Your grandma Jean gave it to me," he said. "She told me we might need it because it used to be a symbol of peace, and if people met under it they had to stop fighting." They both had been looking down at the plant, but when Anthony lifted his head so did she, and her breath caught in her throat at the look in his eyes.

"So you want to kiss me again?"

"I mean, I wouldn't be entirely opposed to that, if you're offering."

"Really? Really, Anthony?" Her tone was joking, but she felt him move back almost imperceptibly when she didn't immediately agree to it, and her heart skipped a beat when she realised he was waiting for her permission.

"Well I can't kiss you if we aren't under it, can I? So I don't know what you're so worried about, darling."

"Better try and catch me then if you want a kiss," she teased, and leapt away a second later.

"We're running now? When we've just had a huge meal?" He stepped forward anyway, and Y/n laughed with pure joy when he started chasing her around the room, attempting to catch her but just missing every time. Finally she tripped, catching her foot on the corner of the bed, and Anthony swept her into his arms to stop her from hitting the floor. Instead they hit the mattress, Y/n landing on her back and Anthony on top of her, his arms bracing his body while he still clutched the mistletoe in his left hand. They were both breathing heavily from the last five minutes of running and laughing, and now their faces were so close together that they were essentially kissing already.

Anthony held up the mistletoe over their heads the best he could while simultaneously not collapsing on Y/n, and he raised his eyebrows at her. "May I kiss you, darling?" She couldn't speak, so she nodded instead, and within a second his mouth was on hers, somehow better than it had been the first time. It was tentative and small, and he pulled back to flick his gaze between her eyes and her lips. It had left her breathless despite how short it had been, and before she could think they were crashing into each other with the same passion as they had the night before, her hands lifting to grab his hoodie and his hair in desperation. At some point Anthony dropped the mistletoe to move his hand to her waist and bring her closer to him.

There was nothing but him, nothing but the weight of his body on top of hers and his hands touching her and his tongue in her mouth, and then he was pulling back for air and she was chasing after his lips, and he was smiling down at her like she was the only thing that mattered.

For whatever reason, they started laughing, Anthony dropping his head to nestle in the crook of her neck while Y/n wrapped her arms around his torso to bring him impossibly closer.

"So... does this mean I can call you my girlfriend?" he asked, hope making him light up like the Christmas tree they had in the living room.

"Yes, Anthony, you can call me your girlfriend," she laughed, and it turned into a snort when he got up and did a celebratory dance. "You're ridiculous, you know that?"

"Oh, believe me darling, I am fully aware."

~~~

"Hey, Squeak. You alright?"

Y/n had been sitting in the library, staring out the window at the snow that had started falling while she tried to concentrate on the book in her hands. Anthony had been called into the living room by her parents, and they'd parted with a not-so-small kiss just out of view of her family. Will had apparently managed to find her, and was settling into the opposite side of the window seat that she was occupying. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

"I dunno. You seemed a bit... off. At dinner. Is everything alright with you and Lover Boy?"

"Oh," her face burned at the memory of what had happened barely twenty minutes ago. "Yeah, we're all good." She awkwardly sent him a thumbs up, her smile more of a grimace than anything else, and Will looked unconvinced.

"What's really going on, Y/n/n? Because if I need to beat him up-"

"NO! No, don't... don't beat up my boyfriend, please." It felt weird calling Anthony her boyfriend now, despite it being more real than it ever had been before. "Really, we're fine."

"Fine? You're fine? What did you two talk about upstairs? Because I'm pretty sure I heard shouting."

"We were just..." At the look on her brother's face she trailed off, and glanced at the door to make sure it was closed. "What exactly did Mum say when she got off the phone with me a few days ago?"

"What do you mean?"

"When she told people that I had a boyfriend, what did she say? How did you find out?"

"Mum went into the kitchen to take your call because we were all in here playing board games, and then we heard her shout 'You have a boyfriend?!' and Linda went to investigate, and then you turned up with Lover Boy."

"And are you sure that Mum wasn't just... making it up for some reason?"

"Why would she make it up?"

"Because I didn't have a boyfriend, Will."

"But... if you don't have a boyfriend then why the hell are you making out with your boss?"

"We are not making out!"

"Sure. But when you kissed yesterday under that mistletoe," he pointed to where it hung over the library door, "I definitely saw tongue."

"WILL!" She picked up the nearest pillow and chucked it at his head, then hid her face behind her book. "Oh my god, this is not happening."

"Ok, but that still doesn't answer my question," he said after half-heartedly throwing the pillow back at her. "If you didn't have a boyfriend, then why is your boss here saying that you're dating?"

"Because I made him. We actually can't stand each other. Or, we couldn't. We made up. Ugh, this is complicated. We have hated each other for about three years and then when Mum said very loudly that I was bringing my boyfriend to Christmas in front of Linda I didn't have much of a choice but to bring someone or face utter humiliation. Apparently nobody wanted to go to the middle of the countryside for three days with a complete stranger and pretend to be her boyfriend so I had to ask Anthony because George was already busy, and honestly I think we did a pretty good job of hiding the fact that we hated each other."

"And the shouting was you making up? Or were you angrily making out?"

"Will! Fuck's sake! Making up. I did tell him he's got a lot of grovelling to do, but now we're actually together."

"So you did make out."

"What's with the weird obsession about whether or not I'm making out with him?"

"I just like making you uncomfortable. That's my job."

"Well quit your job and get a different one." They sat in silence for a while, just staring out the window at the dark landscape. Although she knew that Will couldn't see them, she still pointed out the few ghostly figures that she saw. Her Sight wasn't nearly as good as Anthony's when she wasn't using her Touch, but she could still make out the glowing shapes in the fields.

"While we're on the topic of jobs... I'm guessing you're not leaving the company anymore," he said after a while.

"What?" she asked, startled by his words. "What do you mean?"

"I heard you at dinner, Squeak. You said you were gonna leave the company. I didn't hear anything else 'cause Nanna Jean was talking to me about her garden again for like, the eighth time today, but when I heard you say that... I dunno. You love your job, and I didn't think there was anything that would make you leave it."

"I wouldn't have stopped being an agent, I would have just moved company. He said a lot of mean things, and in fairness I said some horrible shit too, but he's not got that much power over me."

"Squeak... are you sure you wanna be dating him? If he hurt you so bad that you wanted to leave the company then I don't know if it's the best idea," Will frowned, concern in every inch of his body.

"I know. If he fucks this up then I am leaving. Properly. Because I know that it's not... ugh, I don't know. I was just tired of not being treated in the same way that he treated the others, and he's explained why he was like that, and he was weirdly similar to a puppy when he apologised - not that that convinced me to date him, by the way - and I really hurt him too, over the years."

"Just... out of interest... what exactly did you say to each other that made you start hating each other this much?"

"I was walking back from a solo case, walked into him, apologised, stepped on his shoes, and he told me that he'd just bought them in the most stuck-up voice I had ever heard and it pissed me off." Will stared at her.

"That's... it?"

"To be fair I then went for an interview at his company, didn't realise it was him, and the moment I walked in he went 'we don't want agents like you' or something, so... you know!"

"Okay... that's still not a lot though. You really started what, three years of hatred based on... on that?"

"Well, when you put it that way it sounds stupid, but-"

"No, no 'buts', missy," Will said, waggon his finger at her. "It is just plain stupid. Did you actually hurt each other or were you too busy being idiots?"

"In fairness I really struggle with keeping up to other peoples' standards, alright?! And it did hurt that nothing I did ever seemed to be enough to make him like me!"

"With the way he was talking about you, he definitely likes you. And thinks you're good enough. You have nothing to worry about there, that's for sure." Y/n flushed at Will's words, thinking back to what she'd overheard Anthony say in this same room the day before.

"So explain to me your feelings on this? Because I feel like you went through every emotion known to man just now."

"I initially thought you two were great together because you're a lot more confident in yourself when he's around, then you told me you weren't together and I was incredibly confused, then you told me that you hated each other and I was even more confused, then you told me that you are actually together now and I was happy, and then you told me that he was horrible to you and I wanted to beat him up, and then you told me that you stepped on his shoes and that's why you hate each other and I was confused again. Make sense?"

"Just about. It wasn't just me stepping on his shoes that-"

"Nope!" Will turned his head away, lifting his hand out in front of him to stop her. "I don't want to hear anymore of this silliness, thank you very much!"

"But it-"

"Nope!" Will pushed forward, grabbing the pillow that he had earlier thrown back to Y/n and whacked her around the head with it. "Nope, nope, nope!" Each 'nope' was punctuated with another hit, and Y/n barely had time to pick up the other pillow and fight back before he was swinging again.

~~~

"Hey," Y/n whispered to Anthony as she came over. He had been sat in the loveseat again (he was almost completely certain that Y/n's family were leaving it specifically for the two of them to use, since her five siblings were squished up on one of the sofas most of the time), and he put down his mug of tea to help her sit comfortably.

"Hi," he whispered back, immediately wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her back to curl into him. She brought her legs up to hook over his and was turned sideways in the seat, her head nestling into his shoulder. He picked up his tea again and was about to take a sip when Will burst into the living room, board game in hand and a slightly crazed look in his eyes.

"We're playing Yahtzee! Everybody take a sheet, you don't have a choice in this!"

"Is this the one you're terrible at?" Anthony asked, speaking quietly into Y/n's ear, and he chuckled when she slapped his arm.

"You can't be terrible at Yahtzee, Anthony, it's a fucking dice game. It's based on luck, idiot."

"Oh, right, silly me. I meant charades. That one you are truly awful at."

"Just because you get really into it and put on ridiculously large hats doesn't mean I'm awful at it," she responded indignantly. "Also, by the way, the use of props is against the rules of charades, so technically you've lost every single one you've done."

"I have not!" he jokingly started, putting on an accent and pretending to be mad. "I am the best at charades! How dare you accuse me of- mmph!" Y/n shut him up by pressing a kiss to his lips, and while he sat there for a moment with his eyes wide open and his posture incredibly tense, he quickly relaxed into it. He still wasn't used to kissing her, and he didn't think that he ever would be, and when she pulled away a few seconds later he was left to chase after her mouth while she giggled.

"Sure, whatever makes you happy, Ant." That was another thing he'd never get used to. The way she said his name. He didn't think he'd heard anything sweeter, and then she was laughing at something one of her family members had said and he realised that he would spend his whole life documenting which of all the things she did was the most heavenly.

"You're what makes me happy, darling," he mumbled, not expecting her to hear. She looked round at him, surprise on her face. He thought she might say something nice in response, but instead when she opened her mouth something else came out.

"You are so cheesy, Anthony Lockwood."

"I'm just getting started, darling. Like you said, I have a lot of grovelling to do. I hope you're ready for how cheesy I can be." Y/n wrinkled her nose in disgust, but the wide grin on her face gave her away.

"That sounded weird," she said, and he leaned forward to press a gentle kiss to her nose. He shrugged in response.

"You're just going to have to get used to it, I'm afraid."

"Good. Hopefully you'll finish all the grovelling needed by the time you're about thirty, then."

"I'm grovelling every second of every day if it means I get to keep you near me, darling," he replied, and he revelled in the flush that crept up her neck. He accepted his score sheet from Will (who was getting very serious about the game, making sure that nobody would be cheating by using loaded dice), and took a sip of tea.

Then he nearly spat it out when he fully registered what Y/n had said.

"Thirty?!"

part 8

Tag list (once more hoping that this is everyone): @ahead-fullofdreams, @aislinrayne, @anathemaloren, @anthgoldenhrry, @augustisintheair, @avdiobliss, @aysha4life, @bobbys-not-that-small, @briar-rose23, @curseofhecate, @dangelnleif, @edible-rat-vomit, @el-de-phi, @ell0ra-br3kk3r, @ettadear, @fearlessmoony, @fudosl, @idkbubs, @imaginebeingmentallystable, @informedimagining, @karensirkobabes, @lady-ashfade, @light-23, @locklyebrainrot, @locklyle1kanij, @locknco, @magicandrosewaters, @mentallyillsodapop, @mischivana, @mitskiswift99, @mrsklockwood, @mrsyixingunicorn10, @newbooksmell777, @no-morning-glories, @novelizt, @phlooper, @ran23sblog, @reggiepeterss, @simrah1012, @somethingrandomwatzit, @star-of-velaris, @superpositvecloudshipper, @t2sh0, @taygrls, @tournesol77, @whistle1whistle, @whenselenefallsinlove, @wordsarelife, @y0urm0m12

let me know if you want to be added to/removed from the tag list! <3

[hyrules-warrior]

There needs to be more fics focusing on Joel’s PTSD and other issues after returning to Jackson.

I mean the guy has finally opened himself up after loosing his daughter. He was having panic attacks in episode 6, had full on dissociative episode with the events at the hospital. This guy has issues and finally being safe with Ellie in Jackson, those will start to come out as he relaxes for the first time in 20 years.

There are pancakes for breakfast at the canteen one morning. Joel gets in two bites before he goes white faced and barely makes it outside and between the buildings before he violently throws up everything he has ever eaten in his life and sits there hyperventilating and shaking until Ellie finds him and he comes back to himself. Sarah and him were supposed to have pancakes for his birthday breakfast that last day......before.......

Ellie has horrible nightmares, but so does Joel. Terrifying dreams of failure, of dying in that basement and leaving Ellie alone, of failing to make it to the surgeon in time to stop the surgery, of letting David......... He wakes up and has to stumble over to Ellie’s room to check on her just as much as she does for him after her dreams. Sometimes he is so shaken he has to wake her to make sure she is okay. But usually he just sees and hears her breathing and that is enough. He will settle in the window seat of her room with a gun and keep watch the rest of the night. Unknown or maybe just not acknowledged by both, Ellie herself sleeps the best the nights when he does this.

He has moments of high anxiety where he just has to lean against something for a few moments and breathe through it to settle his ringing ears and pounding heart. He isn’t even sure of the triggers most of the time, it seems to come out of nowhere. He also has sudden moments where he totally checks out but still functions. He is thrust back into survival mode and usually after has no idea why and barely remembers what happened during it. He closes right off, seems to stare at something far away instead of who is with him, his responses come out in his “asshole voice”, cold and distant. People just think he is grumpy, had a rough night or something but Ellie knows better. If she is there she works to keep people off of him and remove him from the situation in case that has triggered this shut down moment. When Ellie is with him her voice and touch grounds him, is the lifeline he tugs on to swim back to the present. It takes 10 times longer to drag himself back if she isn’t there.

His stab wound was major and the first aid done on it was understandably not the best. It never really heals right and remains sensitive. It pulls uncomfortably sometimes and aches horribly on cold winter days or when the pressure drops before a storm. And the phantom pains....... He wakes some nights from feverish dreams of the basement swearing he has just been stabbed all over again. The pain so fresh and sharp he thinks someone broke in and stabbed him there with a red hot fire poker. The first time it happens the wounded animal noises he lets out unbidden scare Ellie so bad she thinks he is dying and her extreme fear is what brings him back to the present. In the future he tries to hide it, dealing with his pain in silence (or attempted silence). Ellie still seems to know though and will silently come into his room and curl against his side allowing him to slowly settle. Or if the pain comes during the day she will push him into laying on the couch and get out the hot water bottle. Heat and seeing Ellie alive and well seems to soothe the pain, chase the winter away from his memory. 

Just like with Ellie’s trauma, these things begin to fade with time and attentive care from the one he needs most.

[bonny-kookoo]

I have a request for Velvet Heart.

I'd like to know how or why things changed for Jungkook, what happened in the past that brought him so close to madness.

A/N: Obviously warning for Yandere content, psychological horror, mental illness. Don't read if that makes you uncomfortable, I'm not responsible for what you consume.

Jungkook has always been a little.. vulnerable, mentally. He's easily stressed, and stress makes him act irrationally sometimes- but no one ever thought it would become an issue, down the line.

He's just soft. It'll be fine when he grows older.

Wrong. It just got worse.

So much so that after yet another incident of someone finding out his phone number and mass calling him, he's brushed off as no issue at all. That he's old enough to deal with this on his own now- 'You're 21 now, that's an adult, Jungkook. And adults have to make their own decisions.'

Suddenly. Huh?

Suddenly he's supposed to be independent.

After years and years of being babied and belittled and having everything chewed up for him so he wouldn't have to use his teeth for anything. Suddenly he's supposed to hunt down his own food and provide for himself.

And it's when he realizes it, in the darkness of his small private apartment he got scolded for buying last year.

He's nothing but a product. No one actually cares for him- only for what he represents. A brand. A puppet. Something to buy. Nothing to love.

He's told to just ignore it, use another phone or request another number and just move on from it. But how can he move on if there's people out there who call him nothing but a dog for simply missing a comment on a livestream? He can't just play after everyone's tune, there's too much music at this point, beats bleeding into one another so much so that he can't find a spot to place his feet any longer.

He keeps tripping, and everyone blames him for it.

They've even taken his phone away from him entirely, years back. Now they're doing different things to control him. Tell him to concentrate, loose weight, gain it back, loose it again. Get surgery, don't get it, or rather get it but hide it. Promote this, just to get blamed if the brand does something stupid, stop promoting it just to get called a coward.

Die, but stay alive, but also die, but also keep going. What's going on?

Left?

Right?

Is there a middle to choose instead?

He's got no voice. He sings, loudly so, stable as ever- but his voice doesn't belong to himself. Is what's wanted, it's what fits the concept, just like the rest of him.

Interchangeable. Morphing, constantly.

One day he's the boyfriend, next he is the brother, then he's the boy next door, just to become the sexiest crush all the girls want. What is he?

Who is he?

He hasn't called back the company, has locked his doors and shut the blinds. He doesn't want to do this any longer, this is all just insanity, doesn't anyone see this? Is everyone just so obsessed with wealth that they don't care about being honest?

He's walking alongside Han River, hood deep over his head, facemask hiding what's exposed, clothes dark. He doesn't want to be known, by anyone, ever again. But even if he moved to the other end of the world, starting again as a no-name is a luxury he'll never be granted.

Someone's sitting on the ground, clothes wetly sticking to the skin. Long hair. A girl? He's not sure.

You're moving, barely so, shivering, body trembling in the cold temperature. He lends you his jacket, eyes wide open as they look at yours. You're like a scared little animal, nothing behind those eyes that's coherent, but most importantly-

there's no recognition.

Even when he pulls his mask down a little to test it- you don't seem to know who he is. You don't talk at all, even when asked for your name.

You just cry, scared, terrified, leaning closer to him when he tries to get up.

Is that affection? Or maybe what affection could feel like?

If so, this is affection without any thought behind it. Nothing to gain. Nothing to receive. You just want to be close to him. To him.

Not to him.

It's so wrong. God it's so wrong, it makes him nauseous, makes him panic a little when he realizes that he somehow managed to get you into his home, where you now sleep in his bed, freshly showered, arms wrapped in bandages, hair dried, dressed in his softest clothes, safely tucked beneath the covers.

He should call the cops. But then he'd be blamed, right? They'll think he's insane, a creep, a criminal- and when it get's out, he's a wanted man, even if he somehow doesn't get put into jail.

No. He can't do that.

He can't have that.

But he can have you.

And he wants to have you.

Someone who wants him.

And not the version of him staring back at him from the billboard across the street.

You're just what he needs.

And he'll become all that you'll need in return.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

i know you will have a lot of messages about liam's death and won't presume i will be the first or last place you hear about it, but wanted to send a personal note to you specifically.

i followed you on and off when i was in the thick of my 1d fandom. i often do not agree with you as i do not believe many things you do. (but one reason why i appreciate your perspective is that i do think you would endorse me having my own opinions and interrogating those opinions regardless of what someone on the internet says.)

i haven't been on your blog in years. (i got a job i like in public service, and it keeps me busy, so only occasionally do i think about 1d.)

when i saw what happened to liam (who was, for a very long time, my favourite member) i found myself typing in your name.

this morning (my time, a few hours ago), i had spoken at length to my friends about my feelings that i had put so much time and care behind an abuser. (i am a survivor of dv, so that makes it even more painful.)

i also talked about my guilt over still feeling defensive about some aspects of liam's life (particularly the way he was piled on when he was just a little stupid or made jokes people didn't want to understand). i felt guilty for clinging to a belief that he was a good person who experienced addiction and mental health issues and that his story is tragic in so many ways.

(i will never forget how he spoke about drinking excessively for his boss photoshoot, the one where he was in his underwear. that, to me, will always be emblematic of how desperate he was and how sick.)

i'm rambling from the grief, but i thought you would help me make sense of this, and it didn't take much scrolling through a search for liam on your blog for me to find the post about abusers not being cackling evil masterminds.

i think it's really going to help me work through everything i feel. multiple stages and kinds of grief. so i thank you for still being here when so many already left, and i hope you are well, even though i know so many of us are not.

Thanks so much for this anon. It's so lovely that you let me know that you thought of me and shared your thoughts. It's awesome that you like your job and I'm really sorry for the guilt you experienced.

I really appreciate hearing your complex feelings - it helps me make sense of my own.

I had tried to answer honestly when anons had asked me how I was responding to Liam once Maya had described how I treated him. But I'm realising that there was a lot going on that I hadn't really processed. When I talked and thought about my response - I focused on what I was doing - how I was posting what I reblogged and not really my feelings.

I had so much affection for Liam - after Harry and Louis he was the one I responded to the most. The way he would just say things was charming, hilarious, and terrifying at different times (it's where my URL comes from). He was so transparent about wanting to follow the rules and wanting to make everyone happy - and hated when they were impossible individually and also conflicted. And I responded to that both as an observer and as someone else who had that very human reaction (I've been wondering if people who mention his desire to make people happy in their statements are intending to draw the connection between that need and the distress he felt.). My 'Oh Lima' tag - I think reflects the combination of responses I had to him.

That affection withstood a lot. There aren't many people who said they were voting Boris Johnson in the 2019 UK election - where my response was anything but life long range. But what he said was so absurd - and so compatible with the other ridiculous political statements he'd made - all I did is move him down on the list of objectively worst members of 1D and keep tagging things 'Oh Lima'.

I wasn't naieve. I knew there was a high risk that he was hurting people, particularly women he was having sex with. I've said as much at various points. I knew that there's a risk with any men, particularly touring musicians, and particularly people whose coping mechanisms for their distress are destructive.

So I wasn't surprised when Maya described how she'd been treated. I stopped allowing to respond publicly to Liam in that mode. But that didn't resolve or change how I felt. Years of affection, built up through empathy, just sat alongside the knowledge about what he'd done. I think that was a fine response - I had other priorities this year than resolve what I thought about Liam Payne. I think part of my inability to articulate anything immediately after his death was because existing tension.

It's really natural to feel guilty - but I hope you feel like you don't need to. I didn't feel guilty about my reaction to some of the pile ons about Liam. I hated the way that people felt righteous about making fun of everything he did. It matters if someone chases their girlfriend with an axe - it doesn't matter if someone does cringey dancing at the concert - and treating those as the same is incredibly trivialising with violence. I thought the response to him on Logan Paul's podcast was all about people pretending their desire to make fun of people was righteous.

His story was tragic. I knew one of the things that I was observing and responding to was Liam's distress. But that didn't make it easy to reconcile my what I'd seen, and his responses to distress that he'd hidden until recently. Learning to hold the line about the harm people do, and process our connections to them and understanding of their humanity - is an ongoing process for all of us.

I think it's really normal for our response to this to be multi-staged. What it brings up will be different for everyone. I'm still trying to understand what it means for me (I've realised since his death that wanting to keep everyone happy and follow the rules is causing a lot of my stress at work. And I probably identified with Liam more than I knew). I'm so glad you found my tumblr in this moment and that it was useful.

Everything you say here sounds very wise. It is a process. It's OK.

[animalsalvationassociation]

A.S.A. Octonauts Headcanons:

Pt. 1 — Kwazii: (Updated 11/8/2024)

Kwazii’s real last name is Navarro and before he found out (they managed to find his birth certificate lol) he put "Gilbert" on his military ID. Ofc in the government’s eyes that’s kind of a problem, but through Dashi’s wizardly tech skills, they were able to fix it without any issues. Let’s be honest Kwazii is a special case.

(I didn’t know that Calico Jack was a real person or that CJ was based off of him. I figured it was just the name the creators chose for the character)

Navarro was his father’s surname (oh wowww how convenient and not at all last minute planning to make things fit)

Kwazii’s mother is Calico Jack’s daughter

Kwazii is still trying to figure out what happened to his parents and remaining family as they all disappeared around the time CJ went to the Amazon. (He was an infant at the time)

Kwazii served with Captain Barnacles on “ The Adelaide ”, a navy vessel that they sailed on for 3 years before Kwazii and Barnacles were promoted to Captain of the Octonauts.

Kwazii and Emma have been going steady for a few years now.

Kwazii’s favorite food is his grandfather’s “Pirate Stew” (It’s still a mystery why)

Fav Color is Green~

Kwazii doesn’t actually need the eyepatch (which is hilarious to me).

Boot Biscuits

Cannot surf to save his life. Literally.

Fav Gup?? Do I have to even answer that???

It's the Gup-R . . .

I JOKE!!!! I JOKE!!!!

At least once a week Kwazii locks himself up in his room and dresses up like a certain pirate captain, he then spends several hours role-playing grand adventures while making a mess inside his room. (Yes he has preformed in front of Emma before, she thinks it’s adorable — Sometimes she joins in on the fun 😉 He’s started collecting costumes for her because she enjoys it so much)

Consumes anything with the word “Pirate” in front of it. He’s actually become pretty reliable when it comes to media because he knows so much.

Actually pretty clumsy

Peso: “If you have to go to the Medical Bay ONE MORE TIME—!”

Tominnow and Tunip hang out with him the most. The others pop in every now and then but you’ll at least see Tominnow by his side.

In true Kwazii fashion.

. . . . . . . . . . . . thank you.

(Lol I forgot what I was gonna say but I think we can all agree)

Kwazii has learned to enjoy girls nights. He made the mistake of accidentally walking in on one and has been “dragged” to every girls night ever since. (Blame Tweak and her need for revenge — *cough, cough* Gup B *cough*)

Kwazii has an exceptionally gentle heart, sometimes it’s hard to see it past the . . . ahem . . . “no thoughts only soup” and "impulsiveness" . . . but when it comes down to it he cares so much for other people/creatures that sometimes he gets swept up and actually forgets about himself. I know, shocking. (I blame Barnacles)

Kwazii tries to put up a front but sometimes he lets slip how lonely he actually feels.

He and Barnacles have a very tight knit relationship, but runner up of “Best Friend” is definitely Peso.

(I remembered what I was going to say earlier)

Kwazii loves spooky stories, mostly because it makes other people squirm (aside from Barnacles, that man is a rock). But Kwazii is quite the scaredy cat (pun intended) himself, not just with spiders n’ stuff.

He tends to get so caught up in those stories that he has a hard time sleeping at night, especially because of how dark the ocean gets at night. I mean he’s got a massive window right next to him, I’d be terrified too if something big popped up without warning.

(It helps when Emma comes over for a visit. Their sleep schedules are kind of off depending on the season so sometimes he asks her to keep a watch while he rests. Ofc she’s more than happy to keep watch and “beat up” any monsters that appear.)

Kwazii has a hard time separating reality and his own imagination, he fully believes those monster stories, or at least most of them. Some are a little crazy even for him. But it’s fun to tease Peso.

Kwazii & Emma’s Relationship:

(Optional reading ahead, this is for anyone who’s interested/curious about their relationship)

Like I said, Emma and Kwazii have been going steady for a few years now. They’ve actually done pretty well despite the distance.

Not to mention they’re quite the well balanced couple. Kwazii being the rambunctious “bouncing off the walls” kind of guy, while Emma is pretty chill and level headed. But I’m not saying they don’t have their moments where they completely switch personalities depending on what’s going on.

Gives “Tall Girl, Smol Boy” vibes.

“I have to find my darling husband, I’m so worried about him!”, “Honestly what do you see in that guy?” , “He makes me laugh.” [ Who Framed Rodger Rabbit? 1988 ]

They met around the time Kwazii was appointed to Sergeant of the Adelaide. He was only nineteen at the time while she just turned twenty.

The reason he became Sergeant so quickly was because of a recommendation by Barnacles. And because of that Kwazii ended up advancing much faster than others in their field. I think Barnacles saw something in him that not many other soldiers had at the time. Of course it wasn’t the highest title he could’ve achieved but it was an honor nonetheless, especially because Barnacles insisted on keeping Kwazii close. He was still so young and without anyone to look up to familial-wise, I think Barnacles had a soft spot for him.

Kwazii and Emma really only started dating after the Octonauts were given a second wind, they reconnected through Barnacles and the A.S.A. and just hit it off. They’ve been long distance ever since.

Of course Emma and Kwazii visit each other every now and then, more than most other long distance couples. You can thank Professor Kelp and Barnacles for that.

In a way they’ve become apart of one another’s teams. In the sense that whenever Kwazii visits the S.S.Jade or Emma visits the Octonauts, it’s as if they’re apart of the family.

He won’t admit it because he doesn’t want to freak her out/scare her off, but Kwazii has always wanted to settle down with Emma. Which sounds crazy I know, but stay with me here.

Both of their jobs are very important and equally dangerous, making it hard to keep in contact sometimes. I think Kwazii is afraid that one day he’ll wake up and find out that Emma has gone missing or worse.

Just like Kwazii, Emma is a thrill seeker. Problem is, Emma pushes herself way more than Kwazii ever has or will. She’s very protective of her team and those that are in her care, and she tends to completely override her own needs for other’s.

Every day Emma is at battle with thugs, gangs, and international villains. Putting herself in more danger than is really necessary. And a lot of times she forgets that there’s more to life than putting away the bad guy.

But the way Kwazii thinks of settling down is completely different to how Emma sees it. They’re both travelers by nature and Emma sees settling as a way of tying herself down to one singular place and never moving again. And just the thought of it makes her anxious, so she tends to avoid the conversation whenever Kwazii tries to bring it up.

But Kwazii sees it more as having a place to themselves whenever they need it, going off to do their jobs but being able to come back and live away from everything for a little while before returning to their duties. He doesn’t expect them to ever stay in one place, but he wants to at least have a commitment to where their relationship is headed.

Unfortunately over the last few months Emma has been distancing herself from him. Just like Kwazii she doesn’t want to loose him or see him get hurt, but her version of this is keeping him at arms length, not too far but not close either.

Doesn’t sound the most healthy way to continue a relationship does it? ;)

Captain Barnacles ( 1 / 2 ) / Peso / Dashi / Tweak / Shellington / Inkling

[ This is a Octonauts AU, in no way is this canon to the OG storyline. ]

[polyhexian]

TW: Suicide

You've got that headcanon that Hunter makes a few suicide attempts after Belos's defeat; how would that factor into the eventually au?

Does he not attempt it cuz instead he just shoves so much of his self-loathing onto Jasper that first year after? Or cuz having his dad around in general just helps somehow?

Does he try it like he did in your Loving is Letting Go fic but instead of calling Camila he calls Jasper? Does he still call Camila, but she calls Jasper instead of Darius? Does she still call Darius and then Hunter doesn't want them to tell Jasper this happened because he feels awful about it but it's like, dude, there's no way your dad isn't going to find out about this?

Jasper having to deal with the realization that while he feels like he's dead, and he wishes he had died, and he's so, so tired of existing, he can't stop yet because apparently his son is having some similar issues and if this happens again Jasper is probably the only person who'd be able to locate him, teleport to him, and heal him all in 60 seconds tops.

OKAY SO IVE BEEN ROTATING THIS IN MY HEAD ALL DAY

There's a couple of sort of "Nate draikinator fanon canon" things like, hunter has killed three people and who they are, vee tried to kill him once, he tried to kill himself that one time and called Camila for help when he changed his mind. Lots of little things that I generally repeat unless I have a specific reason to change them.

I definitely think he still does it. He's come out of an extreme trauma and he's adjusting to a new normal and it's completely to be expected he's going to have wild and violent emotional swings as he tries to come to terms with everything that has happened to him. A lot of it IS guilt, that he feels like a massive burden who is never going to recover and he's just going to ruin the lives of anyone who cares about him (just like he ruined Jasper's) and that's terrifying and heavy and soul crushing and miserable. And one bad night he just snaps and makes a very poor spontaneous decision in a manic depressive spiral of self destruction. But he still changes his mind at the last minute and calls for help.

And I think he's still calling Camila. He's not thinking clearly but she's an emotional rock for him he relies on and he's going to call her. Then we have her dilemma: call Darius or Jasper? Both can teleport, but jasper is an incredibly skilled healer.

But he's also incredibly unstable, and she doesn't know if she can trust him to keep his cool jumping into the old throne room when it's covered in hunters blood. So she calls Darius. And when HE gets there he realizes it's Pretty Bad and calls jasper. Even tho hunter is like noooo noooo don't call him noooo. And jasper pops in and there's only like one second where Darius actually recognizes him as present and afraid and himself before he fully locks down into serious GG mode and drops to his knees.

So MEDICAL MAGIC STUFF he tells Darius to hold pressure because he can't heal the wounds yet until he gets as much blood as he can back in him, because you can't just regrow blood, so he's immediately drawing circles so that blood gets pulled off the ground and out of his clothes and he's basically picking it apart to filter out particulates and dirt or anything before he can put any back in, and only some of it is good since some is already old cuz hes been here awhile. And hunter is crying and apologizing and jasper literally is not even acknowledging him. He's fully 100% on task. Refills what he can and heals the cuts but advises Darius that he could still die of exsanguination without a blood specialist, and then says he is too low on magic to translocate two people so he has to take hunter to the hospital without him, and tells him like "you're going to tell them he's a stage 2 triage, massive blood loss from radial artery damage, and that you want to see [name], the resident blood specialist and NOT [name] because she hates him and can't be trusted with his life" and Darius obviously has like a moment he tries to argue but jasper like. He's in GG mode. He knows how to deliver an order.

Which leaves him sitting there on his knees in front of the throne in the dark soaked in hunters blood

Just like. Staring at nothing. Because jasper is 100% not home right now

Or also maybe he's fixing up hunters blood and realizes there's not enough clean blood here to save his life so without even missing a beat he tears off a sleeve, ties a tourniquet around his arm and pulls it tight with his teeth and then cuts himself open just to get some for him. Darius horrified like the fuck are you DOING and jasper just completely deadpan informing him that their blood is completely identical like twins so he can safely use his and he can safely lose quite a bit of blood himself before hes in trouble, so it's only makes sense. And besides he can heal himself when he's done. It's not a big deal. Obviously.

So like. Hunter's good. He's safe. Darius is gonna bring him to a hospital anyway tho. Obviously. But jasper is just like. Not fucking home rn. He's truly going through it. He's already convinced HE'S dead. And jasper has never struggled with suicidal or self harm thoughts in his life, any time he has ever hurt himself was for a reason. He can't possibly fathom what hunter is going through because it is so DIFFERENT from his experience. But he knows he waited too long, he didn't even save hunter, Luz did, and it was too late because he has everything he needs now and he still wants to die. He should have acted sooner. He should have taken the risk that hunter would get killed if he tried to liberate him sooner because he waited too long and it's too late.

And also hunter called CAMILA and Camila called DARIUS. Not him. Hunter didn't call him even though he can teleport and heal. Not even Camila called him despite the fact he can teleport and heal. Hunter is dying and he doesn't call him for help. He calls his mom who can't even help him instead. He's just going to be so utterly crushed by this. Meanwhile Hunter is struggling with the kind of overwhelming shame and humiliation that comes with an aborted suicide attempt. And he doesn't want to see jasper because he's terrified to see him, he feels like- like he broke his whole life and he can't even be grateful for it, jasper sacrificed everything for him and Hunter tried to just throw it in the trash and he's ashamed of that and guilty and miserable.

And jasper is STILL just sitting where he got left staring at the throne and sitting on his knees covered in his and hunters blood.

I literally cannot give eventually jasper a fucking BREAK, can i

[digitaldreams0801]

How the Production Problems of Digimon Adventure Tri Directly Parallel the Issues of Ace Attorney Dual Destinies

i lied. put your clothes back on. we're talking about why digimon adventure tri is the worst thing to happen to the digimon franchise (and how its problems directly parallel ace attorney dual destinies and spirit of justice)

this is a very long rant i typed in a discord server first but it’s something i’ve been thinking for years and i finally put it into words. everybody clap and cheer. (contains very negative opinions toward tri and lukewarm takes on adventure 2020 and ghost game, proceed at your own peril)

let’s talk about digimon tri and ace attorney dual destinies

so first and foremost, what exactly *is* digimon adventure tri?? digimon tri is the seventh-ish season of the digimon anime that released from 2015-2018. despite running for over three years, this show has twenty-six episodes that were split up into six movies and then divided into twenty-six episodes again. that alone should tell you how much of a struggle the production was, but when i tell you this anime might have had the most troubled development of any anime i have ever seen, i fucking MEAN IT. digimon tri is a disaster. 

so to start, it's time for a history lesson. digimon adventure aired for around a year in 1999-2000. it was going to be a standalone anime, but it was extended into a second season known as digimon adventure zero two (the zero two standing for 2002, the year the series takes place in). the second season follows the youngest of the first season cast forming a new team of six for adventures in the digital world. the original digimon adventure was universally beloved as one of the best anime of the 90's and early 2000's, but zero two was received a bit less well. it was a bit of a divisive season with some people really loving it and others not so much. personally i adore zero two and think people's adventure nostalgia keeps them from acknowledging how good zero two is. but that's beside the point. after zero two, the team behind digimon decided to start from scratch and make an entirely new cast of characters going forward, so the series began to follow that pattern going forward, and no season after this save for adventure follow-ups have characters shared with another season

digimon tamers was the next season and it started airing in 2001. the first thing people noticed about tamers is that it is a MASSIVE departure in tone from adventure and zero two. the first two seasons were already surprisingly dark for kids' shows, but tamers in my eyes just. flat out is not for children. this is a horror anime they put under the digimon name. it's very beloved by the fan base now and is known as one of the best seasons of digimon but at the time it was known for scaring kids and generally being terrifying. so the series is starting its decline going into 2002

so to fix this, the next season is the black sheep of the franchise: digimon frontier. i could write an entire paper about the problems in digimon frontier but to put it simply this is the digimon season i have rewritten in excruciating detail. digimon frontier tried something radically different at the time and tried to capture the child audience once again by being a lot more episodic than the last three seasons. in the end frontier struggled a lot with maintaining a consistent quality and fluctuates massively from being amazing to being really bad. frontier being so radically different by taking away partner digimon and instead having the main cast turn into digimon was a massive turn off for a lot of people, and after frontier ended, the digimon anime ended, and the so-called "golden era" of digimon came to a close with the last episode of frontier airing in 2003

after a few years' hiatus, the next digimon season, savers, aired in 2006, and it was very clearly targeting a teen audience. it was also radically different from most other seasons and was most in line with tamers, though even that isn't really a perfect comparison. it has a radically different art style, departs from series tradition by making the characters mid to late teens instead of in the 10-13 range, and is very intense in very strange ways. like the main character just punches digimon. savers was a very strange anime and definitely a second wind but not quite the one the franchise needed to keep going, so the anime went back on hiatus after savers ended in 2007

after another few years, we got digimon xros wars, the longest season of digimon. i say season?? it's one season of 79 episodes split up into three parts. xros wars was a return to form with tween main characters and an overarching story that was nowhere near as intense as tamers or savers. xros wars was radically different because it involved fusing digimon instead of straight evolution, and out of all the digimon seasons, it feels the most like the one made to sell toys. this season was picked up by nickelodeon internationally if that's any indication of how much of a success they thought it was going to be. in practice though?? the third and final part of xros wars went out on a whimper and was so bad it didn't even air internationally. digimon was just falling out of favor with people, and an anime that had once been so good that it was competing with and even *beating* pokemon in ratings and views was now having a hard time getting a season off the ground in japan, much less internationally

and that is where digimon tri comes in. digimon tri was an attempt to recapture the golden era of digimon with its most popular and universally beloved season: the original digimon adventure from 1999. tri was announced as a fifteenth anniversary project, and it would bring back the adventure cast for the first time in fifteen years. this was the first red flag though: it was bringing back the *adventure* cast, not the zero two cast. there are four new characters who join the party in zero two, and they are all very significant. there are two characters who carry over from adventure to zero two, and to be quite honest with you, they are closer with the zero two cast than the adventure cast. like takeru has a much stronger connection with the zero two cast than he did with the adventure cast. but all four characters from zero two were suspiciously absent from all promotional material, and even as fans asked where they were, their questions were never answered. they were just *gone,* and nobody knew why. this is especially bizarre since zero two is very much an extension of adventure. like you can watch adventure alone but it is much stronger with zero two and zero two is the definitive ending of the story. so why the fuck were they ignoring the ending they had set to to their own story??

sighs loudly. the director. i hate this man. i have beef with him. his name is keitaro motonaga, and in cloud's words, he should sleep with one eye open because i am coming for him. so motonaga did this super cool thing called "directing tri without ever watching the source material." ...what? yes, you read that right: the director of tri had *never seen* the original adventure nor zero two. he was going off what i can only describe as a spark notes description of everything that happened. the original adventure was very heavily focused on the subversion of common anime tropes. the ditzy popular girl is the most emotionally genuine. the oldest is the most irresponsible, and the youngest is the most put together. even the two "rivals" aren't *really* rivals when it comes down to it. digimon adventure takes a lot of anime tropes and stereotypes and flips them on their head to make very deep and compelling characters. so when you're operating on a spark notes understanding of the story, you're going to fall back on those tropes, and that is *exactly* what the director did. rather than watch the source material and become acquainted with these characters and their relationships, he operated off stereotypes the characters were made to subvert and completely butchered them in the process. taichi and yamato were always at each other's throats when they were genuinely friends in adventure. mimi became overly mean and insensitive. jyou stepped *back* from a character beat in adventure in a major way that ruined him. in trying to play to nostalgia, digimon tri completely forgot what made all of these characters so great in the first place and then spat on it

i know you're wondering: why the *fuck* did the director not watch the source material? he thought it would "dampen" and "ruin" his creative vision. he shouldn't have even been adapting a media he knew nothing about, but there he was, and it was bad. since he only got the spark notes for adventure, he ignored zero two entirely and cut the characters out of the plot. in fact, various things meant to invoke zero two nostalgia were done solely for the sake of "rule of cool" and nostalgia instead of actually meaning anything. none of it made any fucking sense. there were others on the project who had other ideas of what the story could have been--ideas that actually made sense in line with the spirit of adventure and zero two--but they were shot down in the name of the creative vision of a man who had never seen nor engaged with the source material. keitaro motonaga went on to get a massive reputation in the anime scene after tri ended for doing this with multiple adaptation projects of his: ignoring the source material for the sake of a creative vision that made no sense. it was overall fucking atrocious 

and you can tell it was bad because in japan, they generally don't let the audience know when production is going bad on the back end of something. however with tri, it was bad enough to be addressed multiple times in many ways, and i'm sure that what we know is only the tip of the iceberg. it was a disaster from start to finish. i know a lot of people joke about production disasters but sincerely this was fucking atrocious and i hate it from the bottom of my heart

while tri was airing, it was being released internationally. it actually got international support unlike the traditional season airing at the same time: appmon. out of the two, appmon is *much* better, and it's a return to form for the franchise. i would argue that appmon is much more deserving of the golden era than frontier. appmon is amazing, but because it always had to compete with tri for attention, it never truly got off the ground in japan, much less internationally where it didn't even get official subs until YEARS after the fact. appmon was much more deserving of the spotlight and was actually written well but didn't get jack shit because tri was the adventure thing and therefore drew in people for nostalgia. hindsight is 20/20 though because if they had marketed appmon, maybe toei wouldn't have to bitch all the time about digimon not going well. this is your own damn fault you dipshits

tri has been panned by both japanese and western fans for a lot of reasons. it's heartless slop meant to prey on a person's nostalgia for adventure, and it has none of the heart of its predecessors. it's clumsily written and overall a poor exploration of what an older cast for adventure would get up to. the plot doesn't make sense, and it's a train wreck from beginning to end. the director wanted it to be "mature," so the season is unnecessarily dark and edgy much to its detriment. the creative vision of "maturity" and darkness completely ignored the fact that the original adventure and zero two *were* mature anime with very deep character development. they're classics for a damn reason, but they were pushed aside for the sake of being more "mature." fans panned tri for feeling insulting to their intelligence, like toei thought they would eat up anything as long as it had the digimon name attached to it

and it backfired like all hell. because nobody wanted *anything* to do with tri after it ended. when it ended, it was without any ceremony to speak of. it was 26 episodes split into six movies and then back into 26 episodes again, and it took over three years to release. it had more than double the release time window of appmon, and it had *half* the episodes of appmon. it's not like the tri was an animated spectacle or anything either. in movie four, the budget goes off a fucking cliff and never recovers. appmon may have had shaky animation at times, but it hit it out of the park where it count. tri has a color grading problem in its last two movies, and it's impossible to make out anything that happens in the finale because of it. things happen without reason, the characters have been obliterated completely, and the story makes no fucking sense. everyone was RELIEVED when tri ended, but it was such a massive failure that the digimon anime went on hiatus for ages after it ended, and for a while, everyone thought it would never come back

and when it did?? toei was trying to recoup the losses from tri the best it could. tri was purged from almost all digimon media, relegated to background cameos in future digimon media at most. nobody wanted to talk about tri to the point that when a sequel movie set after tri (last evolution kizuna) was released in 2020, tri was completely ignored. kizuna focuses on the zero two cast to overcompensate for the fact that they were completely absent from tri. the zero two cast even got a new movie last year (the beginning) all their own to try and make it up to fans that they were gone. the adventure timeline has continued, but tri has been entirely excluded from it aside from a few brief snapshots in the background of kizuna and the beginning. nobody wants to remember this anime existed despite it being a part of the main anime's timeline between zero two and kizuna. it hasn't been outright retconned but it might as well have been

after tri, toei decided to play it safe again. they went for an adventure reboot as the next season, and thus, digimon adventure psi (or adventure: or adventure 2020, it has a million names) was born. adventure 2020 is just,,, mediocre. it's a lot more focused on the spectacle of big fight scenes now that the digimon anime has a budget to speak of, and the character growth took a backseat. adventure 2020 took a long time to get dubbed though. like over two years. and it's still very inaccessible to this day because it's not available on any streaming service but instead (reads smudged writing on hand) available on the play station store where you can buy every individual episode out of 67. adventure 2020 is the second longest season of the anime after xros wars but it's still kind of a nothing burger because it fails to capture the emotional heart of adventure 1999. it's a fine enough season but a lot of people lost interest when it turned into just a fight compilation instead of developing any of its characters in a meaningful way

adventure 2020 also saw the continuation of a big problem with tri which was favoritism. since both adventrue 2020 and tri were meant to be franchise revivals in their own ways, they play it very safe and focus on taichi and yamato almost exclusively to the point of ignoring many of the other characters. the problem is at its worst in adventure 2020 in my eyes even though it is present in every season to some extent or another save for tamers and appmon. since adventure 2020 focused on two characters and their fighting capabilities while kind of shelving the other six, it fell into the pitfalls of past seasons (especially frontier and xros wars) and kind of ended without anyone really caring about it

after adventure 2020, the final season of the digimon anime was ghost game. this one is the most episodic digimon season of the bunch to try and appeal to a casual audience, and i think it does that very well! unfortunately it doesn't really develop its overarching plot at a good pace and crams everything together into the last five episodes after having a run time of over fifty episodes before that. ghost game is fine, but it's not a character driven season because of its heavy reliance on the monster of the week structure. the characters were always the draw of digimon, and each season has its own method of going about developing its characters. ghost game,,, doesn't do that! so it's just kind of there, and it once again ended without a grand finale and no one really cared much that it was over

so in conclusion, digimon tri was meant to be the revival of the digimon anime. in practice though, it had a very troubled production and didn't give a damn at all about the suorce material it was meant to follow, and it fell flatter than any other digimon season in the process. tri soured a lot of people's opinions on digimon, which is ironic since tri was supposed to bring back the audience that was lost all the way back when zero two aired in 2000. the digimon anime has not recovered since then, and i think outright ignoring tri in favor of new projects is the best way to go

now for how this ties in with ace attorney dual destinies and spirit of justice! i feel like you can figure out where the parallels are just by reading through everything i've already said, but i'm going into it anyway. ace attorney's popularity started to fall off after the original trilogy ended, and after a few experimental entries (aa4 and the aai games), it was decided that they needed something to bring the old audience back. that wound up being bringing phoenix back into the courtroom for dual destinies. however, dual destinies tries to act as an entry point, so while it's not the same as deliberately ignoring everything that came before it, it has the same effect. dual destinies does not let itself reference anything that happened before it released, and that means it's relying on nostalgia without actually digging into what implications the story will have on the greater narrative. the no-spoiler rule ends up very similar to the tri director's refusal to watch the original digimon adventure and zero two. on top of that, dual destinies tries to tackle darker, more mature themes, completely forgetting the maturity of the storytelling that came before it. frustratingly enough, both dual destinies and tri have nuggets of gold in them, but they're squandered by bad plot points and also reusal of old plots. tri's entire premise is actually just the basis of the first movie for zero two. it's just hurricane landing again but stretched out for closer to ten hours instead of just one. similarly, dual destinies' finale follows a very similar premise to the end of the first game, but it reenacts it without understanding what made the original great. it *could* have been great though, and that is ultimately what frustrates me so much about both of them. they're so close to being amazing, but they just fall short

the difference between ace attorney and digimon though is that digimon did not double down. after tri didn't work, they yanked the wheel in the opposite direction and made kizuna, a movie that *is* narratively cohesive with adventure and zero two. i'm not a huge fan of kizuna but i do acknowledge that it is very well written. ace attorney, on the other hand, doubled the fuck down and made spirit of justice in the same vein as dual destinies. in doing so, they wrote themselves into a corner they now can't get out of. pandering to nostalgia fell short in the end, and it wasn't enough to truly bring ace attorney to a wider audience as they had hoped. apollo is out of the plot, and he was character assassinated before he was pushed out. athena has been sidelined because of nostalgia around phoenix specifically. spirit of justice is the epitome of the bad decisions made in dual destinies, and they're blowing up in capcom's faces now. there's no easy way to write a seventh ace attorney game now without retconning something, but since they doubled down in spirit of justice--a game that is much worse than dual destinies both in terms of bloat (which is also a tri problem lol) and writing--they can't just quietly escape it the way digimon did with kizuna and the beginning. ace attorney hasn't come out with a new mainline game in eight years. if you ask me, it needs to cut its losses and either a) go the appmon route of making something entirely different since dgs did that and was an amazing game just like appmon was an amazing anime or b) figure out what to retcon and what to keep because going down the same path of spirit of justice very clearly is not working. they realized it too late though, and now, they're in trouble for it

[wyrmwud]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE GREATEST GAME FRANCHISE EVER CONCIEVED FNAF YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE MY ENTIRE HEART <3

I don’t like leaving long captions but it feels important today. ten years ago I was a nine year old kid with a lot of my own. issues. I couldn’t talk to people very well or make lasting connections, all I knew how to do was sit on the floor of my bedroom and draw. one day, I see my cousin playing this new game on his phone, the first thing I saw was chica. I remember the jumpscare terrified me so badly that my leg cramped up. I didn’t think about it for maybe a few weeks after. then videos started popping up on youtube. I can’t tell you how exactly it happened, but one thing led to another, and fnaf became the most important thing in my life. I’d spend hours, days, obsessing, listening to songs about it, watching videos, drawing myself with the characters. they felt safe. this morbid horror game had become my safe place in a toxic household. I owe this stupid game my life, it’s remained important to me for the past decade of my life, all through middle school til I dropped out and needed it most. as much as the dude pisses me off, thank you scott cawthon. and thank you markiplier, and every creator who brought this game into my life. may the future contain a billion more ridiculous sequels and fan media of my longest lasting special interest. I love you fnaf. okay enough being sappy this took me like 3 or 4 days so pls share it :P

[lanshappycorner]

Recently I saw people slandering Ace for what he did in the last few chapters of ep 1 to Riddle and because I am petty and salty, I'm going to defend Ace to the death here like my life depends on it

*I've posted this before but this time I'm going into more detail so yeah. Also this is written with spite I am going to be so passive aggressive sorry

why ace demanding a tart and a party from riddle is not bad, you guys just cant read, an analysis:

Let us begin by establishing what happens on the surface of the last few scenes of ep 1.

Riddle has just come back from overblotting. He begins to admit to the things he always wanted as well as the things he cared/didn't care about. For example, he lists that he wanted to eat the chestnut tart that Ace and friends prepared. He likes milk tea better than lemon tea, he wants to hang out with his friends and talk to lots of people after a meal.

After saying these things, he promptly breaks down, crying. However, the moment is ruined as Ace tells him that he won't forgive him, just because he's crying, and he promptly demands a party and a tart.

To some, this may be seen as an assholish move. Riddle has finally admitted to his wrongs, and yet Ace has the audacity to see this broken kid in tears and go "I still don't forgive you". That's terrible right?

WRONG.

Now that we have established what happens on the surface, let us establish reasons as to why Ace may be upset at Riddle, just to have everything on the table first because there is a lot to unpack here.

First off, Riddle kicked Ace out of his own dorm. This issue was brushed over, as Ace went to Yuu for shelter, but let's really stop to consider how ridiculous this is. Riddle, a dorm head, whose job is to care for the students in his dorm, kicked Ace out of the dorm without knowing if he would even have a place to sleep at night...because he ate his food.

If Ace had no friends at the time, he would have no where to sleep, and considering this is a magical school, there might be weird shit crawling around at night and idk about you but the prospect of it is completely terrifying to me. Not to mention, Ace is a first year. Everything on campus is new and unfamiliar to him. This has got to make things at least a good percentage more terrifying.

Secondly, Riddle threw away the tart that Ace made for him. At this point, Ace has come to the conclusion that he idk needs a place to sleep at night and he needs to be able to use magic (Riddle's collar is still cancelling Ace's magic...in a magic school. This is objectively detrimental to his studies). And so he makes Riddle a tart, not even being sassy about it, like the guy genuinely is offering this hoping to be forgiven. And what does Riddle do? Throw it away.

Working hard on something, and having someone badmouth it is one thing. To have the person you made said thing for PHYSICALLY DESTROY IT right in front of you...is probably not a good feeling. Ace is stronger than me I would've cried but anyways

Thirdly, in case you guys forgot, Ace was pissed but still kept his calm until Riddle insulted Yuu's lack of education, as well as the fact that their parents could not use magic. Despite everything that had happened to him, Ace did not snap and resort to violence until his friend was insulted. The only time he actually lost it was when he became angry on behalf of his friend, as well as the only person that would let him stay over after Riddle had kicked him out of his dorm.

I don't know if this particular fact plays any part in Ace's anger, but it's something to note that Riddle calls out Yuu for having parents who cannot use magic, and Ace has mentioned that his father cannot use magic either. It's possible that he may have taken it personally as well, but that fact was not revealed at the time of Episode 1's release, so I won't go into it much.

Fourth and lastly, putting aside all previous offenses, Riddle straight up nearly killed Ace. Yes, Riddle was not in the right state of mind and yes, going through overblot is extremely stressful and damaging to him. But the one being attacked was Ace. Overblot is exceedingly rare, and there were a variety of ways this could have gone badly had they not had the power of plot armor. Honestly, the fact that Ace wasn't angrier with Riddle is commendable because how do you respond to someone apologizing for almost killing you like.

C'mon now. Be honest how many of you guys would be willing to forgive and forget. Would you not feel a little wary? Or upset? Because I guess now you can't even be properly angry because he apparently wasn't in the right state of mind when he tried to kill you. I'm sure it was probably complicated for Ace but he handled it like a champ tbh. Anyways

Now we have established all the reasons why Ace is, (hopefully by now you guys understand) understandably angry, I hope you guys keep these things in mind as we continue forth.

Since we have now laid out the facts, let us finally dive into the actual analysis.

Regardless of how we feel about Ace's alleged insensitivity and demands, we can all agree that what Riddle did to Ace was in no way okay right? It was straight up shitty. And what did Ace ask for as compensation for 1) kicking him out of his dorm 2) throwing away his hard work 3) insulting his friend and 4) nearly killing him? A redo party and a tart.

My guy could've asked for anything in the world, anything at all. Riddle knew his faults, and he probably knew that Ace had every right to embarrass him, punish him, or ask something outrageous of him.

And yet all that he asked for was a redo party and a tart that Riddle himself baked. It almost sounds too simple, too easy really. This is the first sign that what he asked for is not as simple as what it may seem on the surface.

But before we talk about that, let's loop back to the whole point of this chapter. Riddle was a tyrant because he never faced any consequences for his actions. There are two sides to this. The first side is as mentioned above, he was a tyrant because no one ever thought to berate him for his actions.

Riddle overblotting and nearly straight up killing people is by far the biggest mistake he could have ever made. It's not something small, it could actually end someone's life. If you don't enforce some consequences then, when will you enforce consequences? Until someone actually dies???

That is precisely why Riddle needed to face some sort of consequence for his actions. In this case, what the consequences were did not matter. What mattered was that he needed to know "What you did was wrong and when you do this shitty thing, something is going to happen".

Now, the second side to Riddle's complex is the fact that Riddle may be an absolute tyrant now, but in his childhood, he was reprimanded and punished for the smallest of mistakes. Being punished is a large part of his trauma, which is exactly why I mentioned above "something is going to happen" instead of "there will be punishment for bad behavior". Because what Riddle needs is not punishment, and Ace knows this.

Ace knew full well that Riddle was in a rough spot, and he saw Riddle breaking down in front of his eyes. He could've humiliated Riddle as punishment, kick him out of the dorm, make him face the same things Ace himself went through as a result of Riddle's actions. However, he asked for a redo party and a tart, neither of which Riddle associates with "punishment". On the contrary, these are things Riddle likes.

Moments before Riddle cries, he admits that he wanted to eat the tart Ace made for him, and that he wanted to hang out with friends too.

What Ace requested of Riddle was less for himself and more for Riddle. He gave him a consequence that would require hard work, but did not have any traumatic or negative associations tied to it. If anything, it would be something Riddle enjoyed doing. It was not punishment, it was a consequence. It's much more gentle than any consequence Riddle had ever faced in his life.

This is also further demonstrated when Ace was able to laugh off his tart tasting horribly. If he really cared about the party, if he really cared about the tart, if any of his demands meant anything personally to him, Ace would've been more upset. But he wasn't.

When Ace refused to forgive Riddle as he cried, many characters called him out for being a jerk. However, Yuu comments after Ace demands a redo party and a tart, saying that Ace isn't very honest. They know that Ace's way of saying things may be rude, but he truly does have Riddle's best interests in mind.

Also side note but I think it's really funny how Ace gets so much shit for interrupting Riddle and saying he won't forgive him, when TREY was also part of the conversation. Riddle started crying, Ace says he won't forgive Riddle, and Trey comes in and says no what you did was wrong and you need to apologize rn 💀

Only after that did Ace demand a redo party and yet people are out here bitching about Ace being terrible to Riddle and not forgiving him instantly while he's crying.

Trey interjecting to tell Riddle off is like a key point in his character arc too because he finally stepped up to say something when Riddle was in his right mind so idk how u guys just conveniently forgot Trey's involvement in Riddle's post overblot and pin everything on Ace.

However TO CONCLUDE, the party and tart that Ace asked for was very much a form of symbolism and a chance for Riddle to start over with a clean slate.

(Also last minute adding this in but having a redo party is a great idea because things may still be tense between Riddle and his dorm mates, and if Riddle is now hosting another party without all the strictness, it will show to his previously angered dorm mates that he has changed and they have no need to be wary of/continue to hate him.)

It is not just Ace being selfish or Ace being mean and I'm going to bite the next person that says so. Thank u for coming to my ted talk