#this made me realize how much i miss her purple color palette

[kunshokunsho]

.CAN YOU DRAW MY QUEEN PIXAL.?????.? PIXANE??.? i love your art SO MUCH

yall fw primary interactive x-ternal assistant life-form

[miraculouscontent]

(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Oh My Gosh!!!! I was just thinking about Party Crasher and man I hate how they had Ladybug get captured for the men to save! It's a continuous thing you see in media: strong heroic woman gets put in peril so that the men can shine. I didn't even realize it until you said it! I get that it was probably meant to be a "role reversal" of Chat always getting kidnapped or brainwashed for Ladybug to save, but the fact that this is the "guys' episode" it read like "well damn, we can't have the guys be strong if a girl is in the way; let's have the girl get captured so the boys can prove their worth by rescuing her!".

At least in Sandboy, Ladybug was still competent and came up with the plans, but this?! It makes me sick, and it's all too easy to fall into these traps; even Kim Possible did it! In my magical girl story, the heroine does get put in a magical coma and require someone to bail her out, but it's her female friends AND her boyfriend who save her, so it's not just a girl being weakened so a boy can be powerful, especially since said boy actually does a minority of the work required to save her; the focus is on the female characters so it's her girl friends who do most of it. I still ended up scrapping that side plot anyway, and do you know why? Because regardless of who saved her, I still didn't want my female protagonist to be put in distress at all due to the unfortunate implications! Needing help in a fight? Sure. But outright being captured or kidnapped? Nah fam.

I was honestly thinking about that when the first episode came out. Like, they could’ve just had Marinette NOT SHOW UP in time so the guys take care of things, which at least gives more of a message that Paris wouldn’t go to hell just because Ladybug is a little late or something.

And yeah, the “boys squad episode so gotta toss the girl out” is... sigh.

Anonymous said:

I think the writers were trying to show Chat angsting to show his regret instead of an actual apology. Still doesn't explain why Aeon didn't bring up her death afterwards. Did Olympia delete that from her memory banks?

I guess? :|

I don’t know why Chat can’t just apologize without fishing or trying to earn sympathy. Like JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY, DAMMIT.

Anonymous said:

If you haven't read Maribat, then you won't regret it. I am not in the DC universe but I started reading it and WOW. Literally every single time Marinette is a badass queen and gets her complete revenge and is actually happy! Even if you absolutely love Lukanette (which I have nothing against) you should totally try it.

Appreciate the comment, but I find it hard to ship other Marinette ships outside of Lukanette. Ivanette is a very loose exception and it’s not like I ship it hard or anything.

Anonymous said:

Despite not being a Lukanette shipper I love you. Why? Because you amazing, so right in literally everything and I love you <33

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

The NY Special made it so that Max is literally the only Black/Brown kid that doesn’t exist to make Love Square happen and that just makes me hate it even more.

I wish you didn’t make me have this realization because I hate it.

At least Delmar existed in the New York special???? I guess???? I dunno, I’m trying here, I don’t recall him doing anything love square centric.

Anonymous said:

I honestly don't mind Alix's outfit as Bunnix! I feel like it fits her, plus she's an adult so its not much of a problem, not saying it can't be improved however. I DO have issues with the designs for the underage girls outfits however....those are very sus

Yeah, the problem I take with Bunnyx’s is that it’s a bodysuit. If there was just more definition, like having actual boots, I wouldn’t complain as much.

Anonymous said:

I actually just really like the idea of the new bee being a genuinely nice person who becomes friends with Marinette. Not exactly close friends (since I like the idea of friendly working relationships without actual personal stakes in them). I also enjoy the idea of the new bee having some small animosity for Chat Noir- just because their personalities aren't the greatest mix. I also think that it would make sense for the miraculous of subjection to be at odds with the miraculous of destruction

Full agreement but we know how much the writers are resistant to have characters go against Chat.

Anonymous said:

Not gonna lie the scene where the girl squad gets akumatized almost makes it seem like they got akumatized on purpose, similar to Manon in Puppeteer 2(although she was a little kid who was probably just imagining she could enact revenge). And why can't they have a uniformed design, like they're a team but wear different colors, similar to the Sailor Senshi(like, Alya's the leader and wears orange, Rose wears pink, Alix wears green, Juleka wears purple, and Mylene wears yellow). It's so boring.

Mood.

Not to mention that WE ARE SO TIRED OF THEM GETTING AKUMATIZED INTO THE SAME AKUMA.

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

Relating to the Didn't Need Burrows and Treatment of Marinette bingo cards, have you considered making one for whenever the show fails at girl power? It could say things like "sexualized frames of teenage girls" "boy tells girl what to do" "girls don't get to keep Miraculouses", and "girls are forced to apologize whenever a situation goes wrong". And in the center, it could say "Don't show this to your daughter!"! Lol! What do you think?

lol I feel like I have enough cards, otherwise I would.

Anonymous said:

I saw another post that talked about Miraculous New York, and they theorized that it was rewritten to focus more on Marinette and Adrien in order to get viewers invested in the Love Square again after more people started to lose faith in the ship. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think so. The whole special comes off as trying to reassure love square shippers because of how hard it goes for him. I cut out Marinette’s crushing and it cuts like 18% from the episode, meaning it’s even worse than Season 3 (15%).

Anonymous said:

Maybe the point of the [break-up episodes] is meant to discourage people from shipping Lukanette and Adrigami too?

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

Are we not gonna talk about how in one ask, somebody legit said "(long dreamy sigh) Viperion"? Like same.

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

Ml fandom: I hate how Ladybug keeps secrets from Chat Noir! He sacrifices himself for her all the time and she never appreciates him for it! He has EVERY right to get mad at her!!

ML Fandom when Chat Noir does the same thing in the special: ....Wow Ladybug was way to harsh on Chat Noir!! She doesn’t appreciate him at all!! Shes so mean to him!

:|

i hate it

Anonymous said:

Idk if it's just me, but a majority of the fandom is split in two; it's never one or the other "MARINETTE SUCKS AND IS A HORRIBLE PERSON GUARDIAN MARY SUE WHO SEXUALLY HARRASSES" or "ADRIEN SUCKS HE WAS NEVER ON MARINETTES SIDE" but im personally on the latter, but not to that extreme. i hate videos bashing marinette and then never acknowledge adriens faults

Yeah, the fandom gets more divided as time goes on because of the writers trying to increase the drama/tension.

Anonymous said:

I am PERSONALLY offended they gave Luka the snake miraculous. Snakes have such a negative connotation. A lot of people insult Lila by calling her a SNAKE. And now those ML writers DARE insult the best character in ML?! HOW DARE THEY!?????

I adore Viperion but I agree that I first heard he was getting snake and was like, “BUT MY BOI???”

It gets awkward too because other animals like the pig have negative connotations, like how Daizzi basically means “idiot/stupid” and they’re giving it to the freaking blond character, really???

Anonymous said:

I think that Ivanette would be even better if Marinette was plus-sized character.

I see why you’d think that. I just disagree because then it turns the ship into “let’s pair the heavyset characters together because they heavyset.”

Anonymous asked:

On the topic of romance failures and general series salt, my main issue right now is how the series puts so much focus on romantic relationships while failing to consider other levels of relationship or what they affect.

On the L² front I can completely buy Marinette being in love with Adrien. Most of the time she genuinely wants him to be happy and is ready to take a step back for him, however much it hurts. But in terms of romantic love? It. Is. A. Crush! But if we step back from the formula, what is there left between them? Their civilian relationship is held together by a “comedy” of errors and without that there is surprisingly little left. Well, besides two “best friends” desperately trying to make it happen because somehow they lost their individual characters and instead of being friends became matchmakers?

I too like Luka and Marinette together. Their relationship is pretty nice to see and all. But sometimes it feels like it happens in a dimension of its own, like the writers want to make the endgame clear in that the “sideships” can be easily cut out of the big “how they got together”-recaps. I especially miss reactions from and interactions with Juleka. She is Luka’s sister, Marinette’s friend, and IIRC someone aware of if not even a bit player in the great shipping game. She is in a prime position to step up and bring progress on all fronts: She can talk with Luka. She can either give Marinette helpful pointers or go “All in or nothing”, i.e. trying to make Marinette get her Adrien-feelings in order as she does not want her brother to get less than Marinette’s full heart. Similarly, she can counteract “friendly acts” and stop humiliating situations from escalating, or she herself can escalate them in the “All or Nothing”-scenario. Yet she remains basically a background character who gets little attention from the camera and almost no “non-focus identity”

As for Kagami, I may be too biased. *Any* positive Kagami/Marinette relationship is to me what Lukanette is to you. So naturally I have lots of opinions when it comes to her role ;) But can I just say that Adrien/Kagami is the weirdest ship for me? They have a few cute scenes and I think if they’d spend a lot more time together, they’d do each other good but I don’t know how they work. “No Hesitation” Kagami would lob Adrien’s head straight off with all his…everything. If we are meant to take Adrien’s love for LB seriously (and I guess we have to because how in the name of sanity is any form of the stated endgame gonna work otherwise???), how does Kagami fit into that picture as a girl who can hardly express emotions while Adrien is the definition of a  guy who can not stop flirting or goes for all kinds of romantic gestures? Sometimes it feels more like a “social fit” and “Mommy/Daddy approves” kind of deal which is quite the shame! Normally I like these kind of relationships in fictions but they need a solid underlining or good development. One they haven’t and one the series has not been giving to anyone so far.

Yeah, the whole thing with the love square versus side ships ends up feeling extremely forced. Keeping Luka away and forcing Adrien into Lukanette episode are the biggest giveaways, basically a big fat sign that says, “We know Marinette would forget that Adrien exists if she hung around Luka for more than five minutes.”

AND YEAH, KAGAMI WOULDN’T PUT UP WITH ADRIEN’S GARBAGE. I liked Adrimi but it’s definitely more flawed than Lukanette.

Anonymous said:

Watched your opinion on the New York special and I agree with you. It was mediocre at best. It could have been something nice, like if they added Kagami and Luka, for example, so that we can get a bit of development from the new couples on season 4, so that it doesn’t feel rushed when they start dating on season 4. It could also be a good opportunity to see the other temporary heroes one last time, since Marinette technically has the miracle box.

They could have had an epic fight with the American Superheroes, maybe even giving the bee miraculous temporally to Aeon or Jess so that we didn’t need to see their awful and uncreative superheroes designs. It would have been nice if they made something more useful other than being characters that believe that Adrien and Marinette are “Meant to be”, like, we already got a ton of these already, couldn’t we get someone who didn’t feel something about this ship? It has so much wasted potential that I don’t even know how to start. Do you agree with anything I said?

I agree, yes. They could’ve easily thrown Luka/Kagami into the mix (or had Marinette/Adrien stay behind while flipping perspectives or something; flawed but they could make it work).

Anonymous said:

I'm rereading ladybugout and wow... the moment of silence after "chat deserves that kiss" gets me every time. Everyone stopping and just staring because wow he really just said that

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

I saw the Backwarder post you just talked about and yes, it is so totally ridiculous. They forgot another thing, though. Miraculous isn't just about comedy, action, and romance, it's about embarrassing Marinette. And the fact that almost everyone in the comments was acting like the medicine scene at the end was funny was just stupid and saddening to hear or read about, because it shows how people have been conditioned to hate and rally against Marinette without even realizing it. Granted, there was one lady who said it reminded her of her husband, so I guess that's okay(but all it means is that Adrien will be Marinette's--aka "his lady's"--husband like eeerrrgh!). And there was one person who said they liked that Juleka's advice because "If you're friend isn't willing to commit crimes for your happiness, is she even your friend?". But everyone else liked the ending. And I don't get the person who said we got "Subtle progression with Adrien and Marinette". We're right where we started.

Weeeeell, I understand the “comedy, action, romance” comment because all of those basically boil down to embarrassing Marinette or invalidating her. Comedy and romance goes without saying while action involves her dealing with Chat “Nice Guy” Noir.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me, or does Snow White's "Red Shoes" form look a lot like Marinette. I know, I know, Marinette is Chinese and Red Shoes is Korean, but they still look strikingly similar. They're bodies are really similar, too, but that might just be because animation tends to use eerily similar body types for its female characters on a whole. It's sad and it makes me think of how cute Marinette would be if she was fat. I also think Snow White was cuter than Red Shoes but that's kind of the point.

I think it’s the body type thing but that’s just a guess since I didn’t immediately make the connection.

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one who's never liked "destined to fail" characters? Basically this is when characters aren't allowed to be good at/succeed at something or else the whole universe will somehow fall apart. Think of how in The Amazing World of Gumball, if Richard gets a job, the world will be in complete and utter chaos. So he's better off as a lazy, bumbling dad. In Phineas and Ferb, Candace is always trying to rat out her younger brothers but if she gives up or succeeds something bad will happen.

TV Tropes put it the best: "Not only is she not allowed to succeed, but she's also not allowed to stop trying!"(conveniently under the Cosmic Plaything trope). I just don't like it because it shows that the writers just want to lead them on with the promise of success then snatch it away at the last minute. And now we're back at Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette is humiliated every time she doesn't sign a gift that's for Adrien, and yet when she does, everyone in Paris DIES. Except for...HIM.

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

Also, yeah, it’s so hard to watch, especially in “Chat Blanc” because it’s like, “Oh, you want to give a gift to a boy and you dArEd to use your powers for it? Congrats, but everyone else is DEAD and you can hang out with him as much as you want! You’re welcome!”

Anonymous said:

I think it’d become a “faintest idea blackout card”rather than a bingo.

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

I hate that everything on that list could happen and very likely will

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

That’s be real here. Miraculous ladybug is not a show about Marinette; Miraculous Ladybug is a show about Adrien. Adrien is the real main character.

Notice that when they focused on Adrien in “Lies,” they only cut back to Marinette (IN A SCENE THAT CAN’T EXIST) to have her fawn over him.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me or are Lady Noire's eyes huge? Maybe it's just the green but they seem way bigger than Marinette's

I’m not sure, but considering Rena’s facial structure being different from Alya’s, it wouldn’t surprise me.

asexual-individual said:

With what you've said about Adrien lacking a reason to exist outside of development for Marinette and Gabriel, I have to wonder how different the show would be if Chat Noir's identity was also kept from the audience. Adrien would still be there as himself, but he only gets as much focus as Alya, and Chat Noir's identity is treated as a mystery (a Tuxedo Mask type mystery, but a mystery all the same).

I see what you mean but it might cause Adrien+Chat’s screentime to feel excessive once the reveal happens, because suddenly their screentime gets combined and it’s like, “oh wow so the combined screentime is his then.”

Anonymous said:

I know that the kwami's really only exist so we can hear our protagonists' thoughts outloud (like what the Coraline movie did with adding Wybie to the story). But honestly, what's the point in having magical gods in the jewelry if you're not going to do anything with them?

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

It's funny, originally, I had shipped Marichat in the sense that Chat and Mari start hanging out and both fall in love with the other's supposedly less perfect, more real selves. Then Luka was introduced and I ended up putting both lukanette and marichat at the same level. Then S3 hit and killed any love I had for Marichat. The writers themselves killed the Love Square for me. At this point, it's very clear they are living in a delusion where the Love Square could ever work narratively without Deus ex Machina or Deus Lo Vult (God wills it). Basically, they've gone past scraping the bottom of the writing skills barrel and are now shoulder deep in the hole they dug thru the bottom of said barrel. I'd like to point out that the bottom of the barrel is writing poop and now they're digging thru the useless plastic landfill the barrel was sitting on top of

Uggggh, yeah. Any appreciation I could’ve had for Marichat died in “Weredad.” I already didn’t like Adrien/Chat and then “Weredad” just showed his complete lack of... well, ANYTHING.

cosmostellar said:

Honestly feels like MLBs writers are going based off the "JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE" instead of, yknow, fleshing them out while developing them also in the context of their cultures and giving them these little things that the audiences who belong to the same minority can identify with. I don't mean "have Marinette walk in qipao 24/7" bcs thats just... bad on its own but man, /some/ casual acknowledgments of her culture would be nice.

Reading the sentence “JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE” physically hurts me.

Anonymous said:

Ok, I've always thought that Chloe was robbed of redemption (they held it in front of us, but then jerked it away while Astruc says, "She's irredeemable! We thought she was redeemable, but she wasn't :)!" What are your thoughts! Also, I just recently found your blog and I really like it :)

Thank you!

But I have no sympathy for bully characters, so I didn’t want Chloe redeemed. Maybe I’m still bitter about my own bullying experience, but I just wasn’t here for Marinette being forced to forgive Chloe, which is basically what they did until they backpedaled.

The time spent on her was wasted though and that I can agree on.

Anonymous said:

Me: Writes a 1k rant about how the tweet makes no sense as the "mistake" is about motivation and not the critical plot. Also me: Remembers that in MLB the plot always comes back to the romance. Finally me: Wonders why he got involved with the series post-S3 when all the red flags were already everywhere.

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

I'm semi-catching up on miraculous, and- is it my impression, or does Kagami rebel against her mother more in few episodes she's in (even though her mother's influences on her seem to be stronger in general), than Adrien in the entire show? I /know/ that I don't want to see Adrien free himself from his father w/ the desperation I want to see Kagami free herself from her mother and realize that the standards she's held up to are unhealthy and too strong.

Yeah, I’m way more invested in Kagami than Adrien.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one confused about whether the staff stopped caring and half-asses the series or cares too much and over-produces the hell out of it?

Nah. It really feels like they secretly hate the love square so they have to keep forcing it.

Anonymous said:

ngl I haven't watched any new episodes since Chameleon and I've been getting all that Miraculous News via tumblr to avoid that Marinette Brand Second Hand Embarrassment™

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

If they aired the 6th one first WHAT WHAT HAPPENED TO LEAD UP TO THIS???? WE ARE ON SEASON FOUR WITH TWO SPEICALS, GETTING A THIRD, AND ANY DEVELOPMENT WE HAD HAS GONE BACKWARDS, SUCKED, OR STATUS QUO YO-ED AWAY!!!!! HOW THE HECK DO WE GET ADRIENETTE FROM FOUR SEASONS OF NOTHING?????? I USED TO FANGIRL AT THIS NOW I AM TERRIFIED.

Answer: We don’t get Adrienette. We get forced love square and rushed/fake “development” of it while being constantly confused as episodes air out of order.

Anonymous said:

im sorry But adrienette has been suck in this limbo of one sidedness for 3 seasons. neither of them have become closer, neither of them have confided in one another, but somehow people still ship it? at least luka was able to make a move on marinette lol adrien still repeats the same boring “shes just a friend” line. adrienette is a really boring ship.

lol don’t apologize, you’re absolutely right.

nahte123456 said:

Very minor bit of salt to throw to the pile, but can this show just decide on how strong Miraculous holders are? Yes it's a cartoon and not the focus but in the Furious Fu episode we literally get Ladybug dodging lighting and then Su who seems mostly human and is at least slower then Fu was outspeeding her. It's distracting trying to figure out what is and isn't a serious threat in this show.

The deciding factor in the strength of the miraculous holders is “whatever works for the plot.”

Anonymous said:

At this point the only thing I'm excited for concerning Miraculous Ladybug is when it gets a reboot in like, a decade with actually competent writers

Best case scenario is that Zag goes bankrupt and Disney/Netflix picks up the series and gives it to competent people.

Problem is that the love square has been ruined so badly for me that even a “good” version of it wouldn’t be something I’d be into, but still.

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the problem with having all of Marinette's mistakes result in huge disasters (ex. Feast), is that is gives off the impression that teenagers aren't allowed to make mistakes. This show clearly doesn't like giving second chances to the protagonist, so why would life give one to you? Am I right, kids?

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

If your gonna watch the show, at least pirate the episodes so the writers dont get your support

Don’t worry, I have no interest in financially supporting the show.

Anonymous said:

ml in a nutshell: wasted potential, then giving themselves more potential, only to turn the rest of it into a dumpster fire

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

u know, when My Little Pony, Sofia The First, and fanfiction carries out character development, respect, romance, and the main plot better than the original show, especially when the shows mentioned above are aimed more at little girls and the original show is aimed at slightly older audiences... somethings wrong

*sigh*

And then it’s like--people will excuse the show because “it’s a kids’ show” and then I’m just “okay then, why are there actually good kids’ show?”

If shows get a pass for being for children then all childrens’ shows should just not try and be garbage since the standard is so low.

Anonymous said:

ive seen some cool fic ideas/concepts/reviews that made me think: ml could use so much more looking into how a character thinks in some situations. one fic i read had alya in chameleon (i know its been forever since the ep came out but hey) not question lila cus she thought: "hey, lb wouldnt befriend a bad person" w and added a plot line of lila making her think lb was cobsidering replacing rena rougue. like, just a few lines to make them seem better pls?

YES. Like, show us characters’ perspectives and why they’re rolling with the facts that they’re rolling with, otherwise they just end up looking like jerks.

We sort of got it in “Ikari Gozen” with Kagami but of course it was just to make Marinette look bad.

Anonymous said:

You know I’m honestly considering making reviews of this show and if I do I could create hour long rants about the show just from that mans twitter.

Yeaaaaaah, once you had in the Twitter stuff, it just becomes, “okay so this is going to add another hour or two then.”

Anonymous said:

Okay one thing that bothers me is how plain marinette's suits are despite being a DESIGNER. Her multimouse suit it just blocks of color and her ladynoir suit is just grey with green lines. I think the lines are supposed to represent actually clothes. Like the limes on the calves are supposed to make it look like boots but why not actually GIVE her boots. (Right, because she has to have a skintight suit unlike the boys who get some layers.)

THE SHEER DISRESPECT OF HAVING THE FASHION DESIGNER WEAR SUCH A PLAIN SUIT.

It also goes to show who really designs here, like oh, interesting, the girls get skin-tight simplistic bodysuits and the boys gets all the cool stuff--

Anonymous said:

I heard some people in my class saying they watched Miraculous Ladybug for the first time, and they were saying how good it was, and I was like: 'Oh you poor fools. You have NO idea what it's truly like.'

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

Isn’t it INTERESTING how in Frozer, Luka understands that Marinette is torn between her crushes and continues to support her even though he knows she probably won’t chose him, and in the exact same episode Chat Noir refuses to help save the city because Ladybug told him AGAIN that she wasn’t romantically interested in him? HMMM 🤔😑

dbfgjbdfjkgf

I’M REMINDED OF “FELIX” WHERE IT’S LIKE--THEY WERE CLEARLY TRYING TO SHOW HOW MUCH “BETTER” CHAT NOIR IS THAN FELIX, BUT LUKA WAS THE RESPECTFUL ONE.

Anonymous said:

You know what I want to see? An evil kwami, like they just want to commit crimes. No moral high grounds, just chaotic evil.

That’d be amazing just because I wouldn’t be able to take them seriously.

Anonymous said:

Watching S1 and S3 episodes back to back, it feels like reading salt fics at times, especially in regards to the L². Like, Marinette was happy about weird plans, she both needed and wanted the final push, and most of the time there was at least something coming out of it. Nowadays it just makes her sad, Alya and the girls act *against* her, and we get shipping for shipping's sake.

That’s a good point. The shift from Seasons 1 to 2 to 3 is rather noticeable.

Anonymous said:

I hate how Adrien's busy schedule seems to only matter when it's used to make Marinette feel bad, but the second Marinette has a bit more to do, it somehow has a negative effect on not only her, but also everyone/everything she cares about, like, what's up with that??

I’m reminded of “Lies” here and I hate it. :|

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the way the show treats teenage girls is horse ass. The show treats the teenage girls of this show as if they're stupid, naive, emotional, clumsy, and need a boy to tell them what opinions to have. Marinette is always treated like the show's punching bag and blamed for everything that goes wrong because she's "emotional" or "obsessed with Adrien", Chloe could've been redeemed but the writers would rather keep her a brain-dead Alpha Bitch Valley Girl(even though Gabriel and Felix, the latter of whom is a teenage boy introduced in one episode, get to be treated as redeemable, despite the things they do being far, far worse), and Lila is a conniving, self-absorbed fox.

And even though Kagami seems better, she's still roped into the "girls catfight over an oblivious guy" cliche and so far, all of her akumatizations have been because of Adrien. Whenever Marinette tries to move on from Adrien the other characters tell her what's good for her and steer her in the "right" direction because she apparently can't think for herself, and the writers LOVE to use the girl squad to tell us who Marinette should be with, because they apparently know better than she does.

Plus the show loves to treat all the girls as the same, making them all either fight over Adrien or be obsessed with shipping, as if teenage girls are all one assimilating, homogenized group(also when they treat Marinette as if she's "just as bad as Chloe", rinse and repeat for the other ladies.). Honestly, the show feels like it was written by those types of people who think "teenage girls are the worst" so they make them all mood-swingy, obsessive, showoffs, emotional, and downright clingy.

Plus the way Thomas Astruc talks about the female characters on Twitter is even worse, and only serves to make this more evident: he claims Marinette "has poor control over her emotions"(all the while calling Adrien "perfect"), that Chloe was racist in Kung Food "because she's stupid"(so rather than having that scene serve as a lesson on respecting other's cultures, he just did it to pick on Chloe and make her look "stupid"), that she's incapable of being redeemed, that Lila's unlikable but Gabriel and Felix aren't(even though he claimed Felix was a terrible character and a "cliche", that's not what the show says my guy), and other such nonsense.

Other Twitter users have also called out Miraculous Ladybug and its stereotypical treatment of teenage girls. The only shows I've ever seen do this worse are those pretentious "darker" Magical Girl "deconstructions" aimed at grown men such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna, as well as most shonen/seinen shows such as Naruto and Death Note, which says a lot. Honestly, whenever I feel like watching a show with empowering and respectful depictions of teenage girls that treats them as bright and intelligent and actually unique from one another, I just watch Equestria Girls, Liv and Maddie, LoliRock, ANT Farm, Moesha, PreCure, or Sailor Moon. Because the way the show acts towards them is deplorable, absolutely deplorable.

Yes to all of the above. Almost all of the girls are involved in love affairs in some way, the two teenage girls are irredeemable while Felix got a sympathetic backstory right away (Chloe took forever to get hers which is a failure), and Marinette is flawed because she’s “too emotional” (a misogynistic stereotype).

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the anon who got upset at the lady who made the "Miraculous Ladybug is a Mess" rant, and yes, thank you zodiacspirit17 for liking and agreeing with my rant! I'm glad someone else saw that video! And ugh, Marinette learning to love Chat Noir? Really? I don't remember that line but I also don't want to go back and revisit it to make sure so I'll take your word for it. Ew. That was actually one of the things I hated about the Glaciator scene. Chat was supposedly comforting Marinette by taking her to the rooftop where he planned Ladybug's date, and yet only Marinette finds out about Chat's crush on Ladybug and comforts him on that(while rethinking her feelings), while all Chat knows is that Marinette's heart was also broken. He never asks who it is, or tries to help her get over her crush even if he doesn't know it's coincidentally him.

I know it's because of the "love square" but it's unfair that only Chat's love problems are directly addressed. Come to think of it, the reason Chat took Marinette to the rooftop...I know he was doing it in-universe to help her instead of intruding on her personal feelings(which might have also been why he didn't ask her who her crush was, he was probably thinking along the lines of "we don't have to talk about it right now, we can just have fun!"), but meta-wise, since we know she's Ladybug, the writers were probably trying to tell her "See? This is what you could've been doing, but you missed it. Shame on you!" That's a huge issue I have with the show: characters will do things in-universe to help Marinette, but the show has a different motive in mind. Compare to how Tikki gave actual advice to Marinette in Puppeteer 2, but the writers intended that for the statue scene so they could embarrass her in front of Adrien and the thousands of eyes watching the show(except we're not laughing.). Even if characters do support her, the writer is using them as props for her ritualized humiliation. And yet Luka is the problem somehow.

If Marinette needs to learn how to love Chat Noir, then it should at least be balanced out by Adrien learning to Marinette. I'm sick of this double standard that "girls need to learn to accept boys who like them but guys can do what they want". Another thing she said was that "Marinette needs to learn to define herself outside of who she's crushing on." NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. You see, unlike Adrien, Marinette HAS a life outside of who she's crushing on: she has school, she has Kitty Section, she has her "girl squad", she has her parents, she has her outside family, she babysits Alya's and Nino's siblings, and she has OH YEAH HER FASHION DESIGNING! I didn't even count being a superhero since Adrien does that, too. She has so many things to do outside of Adrien, and yet the fact that she makes gifts for Adrien or dreams about Adrien or wants to have kids with Adrien somehow makes her nothing but an "Adrien fangirl"?

First of all, she's the bloody protagonist?! That's such a "Real Women Don't Wear Dresses" argument, that she can't have her own life AND be in love at the same time! And somehow her crushing on Luka also means her life revolves around him, too! But Adrien's life doesn't revolve around Ladybug even though he doesn't really have anything going for him in his ordinary life? Outside of being rich, hot, white, and male, that is? What are his interests and hobbies, besides what Gabriel lets him do to pass the time? He doesn't even like modeling! And the Agreste plot is more about Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie than it is about him.

And what about his friendship with Nino? He didn't even care that Nino was getting strung along by Lila with the others! What about his friendship with Chloe that also waxes and wanes? Granted, Chloe's not a GOOD person, which that lady acknowledged, but she at least tried to change and has more development than him, the writers just won't let her change. I hate when people come for Marinette for doing literally anything when the show won't let her have agency and progress. It's so unfair of her and I wish they could see that. These double standards are driving me insane and they're sexist(maybe even a little bit racist, too), and it hurts even more when a woman's doing those things.

(I had to cut off some of this ask because I didn’t get all of it, so I cut it off at the point where it still seemed like a full ask.)

I FEEL THE “GLACIATOR” THING SO BAD. It hurts even worse when you realize that “Frozer” has to take place after “Glaciator,” so Chat Noir heard that Marinette has love problems and then ignored it to ask her for advice about his own love problems later on. The total lack of insensitivity???

Also, the idea that Marinette’s life would revolve around her crush on Luka is stupid. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Meanwhile, Adrien has so little going for him and the “interesting” parts of him involve who he’s connected to or what his father has forced him into.

[themetalvirus]

i would love to hear abt how you came up with ash’s design if you’re up for it :0 i think she looks SO cool -catgirlblaze

OMG okokok well first off, here's the pic of her final-ish design

for context: this is ash, the anti-blaze, meant to be an "evil" version / funhouse mirror version of her from a different dimension akin to the characters hailing from moebius in the archie comics.

she actually was a lot more trouble for me to design than gold was!!! her outfit in particular went through a LOT of iterations.

the first thing i actually made was her color palette! it ended up having to be tweaked so that the blue wasn't so bright and out of place.

i wanted her fur color in particular to be the complimentary color of blaze's violet. directly complimentary colors tend to clash in a palette though, so i went with a split complimentary palette

i also realized that i probably shouldn't JUST make her cyan, so i wanted to include the original purples from blaze to retain recognizability while discarding the pinks. i LOVE blaze but the shades of pink and purple her design uses just clash so hard

then i thought about blaze's very distinctly lemon-shaped head and the fact that she seems to tie her hair back. initially i wanted ash's hair to be all down to represent that her personality is WAY more lax, but that quickly prove to be Very Ugly when combined with the lemon head, which i wanted to retain in some way. so i ended up compromising with myself, letting her keep some bangs to cover her forehead gem (as a representation of her deliberately ignoring her equivalent to the sol emeralds, theyre called the moonstones because this whole thing is pretty cheeky) and giving her pigtails to show that she is much, much less mature than blaze. pigtails evoke youth, at least to me, while the almost scene-esque bangs still reflect that she's 14 and not like 5

her outfit in particular was where i was challenged. here's some misc unfinished sketches from the iteration phase

initially i wanted to give ash an Entirely New Outfit, something youthful and silly and generally just out there. not pictured are ideas i had but didnt draw of giving her a romper or a tutu, which just felt like it leaned WAY too far into baby territory. i also considered giving her a tailcoat with the fluffy arm and leg warmers to make it clear that shes capricious, but it felt divorced from who blaze is, and this character is supposed to be a reflection of blaze. i also toyed with some princessy aesthetics/silhouettes because i find that kind of flouncy fru fru girly stuff very cute (and blaze is a tomboy so would in a way be fitting for her funhouse mirror counterpart), and i thought it might portray how recent her abandonment of the "princess" role really is. but she already HAS abandoned the princess role, so for her outfit to still be super princessy felt out of place

i also realized after some iteration that i was really missing the fur elements of blaze's outfit - they made her feel regal, but friendly. the shapes of the furred cuffs on her design evoke almost flamelike shapes. i generally just really like drawing and designing fur coats. so i started to add furry fringe to places that blaze didn't have furry fringe (the neck and hemline of her coat specifically) and that really clicked for me. i also added puffballs on the sleeves and shoes to make things feel more balanced/unified and also because i thought it was cute. the triangle shapes are both meant to contrast the boxy shape of blaze's outfit and compliment the triangular shapes on gold's shoes and hands.

i eventually arrived at this sketch, which i colored both to test out the color palette and to see if this was It. and i liked it, but a few parts still needed changing

for example, there are more (admittedly faint) decorations on the shoes that just muddy the ideas i had, and the full-length slightly off-green pants just made it look like she had miscolored mutant legs. i tried to add a bit of her actual fur color on the midriff, but having her midriff showing didnt click with me

so then i did the final iteration and its the one i liked the most tee hee. i hit the image limit but its up there at the top

other notes include me flattening out her shoes, no more high heels! they still have some semblance of a "heel" but that's to add visual interest to the thick soles of her shoes, necessary for grip while shes frolicking around and setting things on fire. her fire powers are green instead of red because of fun with opposite colors and such! the "radioactive" nature of her colors is purposeful, to evoke an unsettling otherworldly feeling when you look at her very unnatural-seeming colors AND to bring scourge to mind

her tail is put thru a hole in the back of her jacket instead of poking out from underneath for clarity of silhouette, the gem on her chest is a purely aesthetic part of a closure on her jacket, and her forehead gem is turquoise underneath her bangs

the end!!! i hope that was interesting!!!!!

[sputnikissweet]

a few irks i have with the new winx club adaption “fate” on netflix

none of the gifs are mine btw!

Musa was inspired by Lucy Liu, An Asian Actress yet they still casted a white woman. It wouldn’t kill Netflix to hire someone Asian...

Flora was mentioned as Terra’s (replacement flora) cousin but why can’t they just keep the original flora? I like how she’s plus sized but couldn’t they also cast a woc? seeing as how Flora was inspired by Jennifer Lopez. Again wouldn’t kill Netflix to hire a WOC

WHERE IS KIKO?

Why did they also completely erase Tecna? If they do the Valtor storyline (my personal favorite) then who would sacrifice themselves to close the portal at Andros? I love all the girls but honestly only Tecna could survive down at the omega dimension with all her wits and resourcefulness. She also carries them with her logical, let’s not forget when she literally made a device to get through Alfea’s protective shield... the protective shield was caste by FARAGONDA, one of the strongest fairies! and Tecna easily made a device to get through it!Tecna is literally of voice of reason along with Flora, oh wait...

I like how the “Fate” Stella initially goes against the vain princess character (from what i’ve seen from teasers at leats) but that is who she is and one of the more major character development she has !!! It was especially prominent in season 3. The first instance was when she was cursed to be a monster and of course she lost confidence because of it but by the end she realizes that everyone she loves still loves her good looks or not and starts to come to a realize that her looks arent everything. In the water stars episode, she gives up her face for the stars and it just goes to show how much she’s grown because i know season 1 Stella definitely would’ve hesitated for a while but she this Stella was pretty quick in sorting out her priorities. She’s not as vain as she used to be.

This is the angst lover in me talking but why did they are they gettint rid of Riven and Musa? last i remember, he actually matures and it was nice seeing him grow up, finally owning up to his mistakes and work on his communication because of Miss Musa.

um... are they gonna do the brandon and sky switching names storyline cause Bloom really did prove herself to other fairies there. specifically the royals. Also liked the lesson of how you don’t need to rely on riches for alliances, you know? also cute realizations for the ship of Brandon and Stella💖

Why are the trix one person?? How is that gonna work with the three witch ancestors thing? Also they had such a dynamic. Though Icy was the “leader” Darcy and Stormy also had those roles for some episodes and some missions, all three worked well with each other despite their bickerings.

I understand that they’re at college but why couldn’t they dress a bit more vibrant? The trailer is actually so dull and lackluster. Yes this is Netflix we’re talking about but they’ve done colorful palettes before for To all the boys i’ve loved before & it was cute & everyone loved it. Stella blends in way too much and she’s the literal princess of the s u n..?? that’s concerning... ( this is a bit too picky but they also don’t go with each girl’s original color pallete? musa is red+lavender, stella is orange+yellow, bloom is different shades of blue, aisha/layla is light green, flora is pink with touches of green and tecna is purple,green and magenta and they just don’t follow it... (the actresses aren’t to blame though)

That’s all for now, unless i can remember more. A few positives though are Bloom and Aisha. They’re the only ones I can actually see as the originals and their outfits are pretty cute considering that they’re college students now. I also like the body positivity because let’s the honest, the original was kinda um.. damaging with that. Now I’m not gonna fully judge Fate based on the trailer and snipets but i am a bit skeptical because i grew up with the winx and absolutely loved it, it’s comforting for me and i just don’t want them to mess it up too much. All that being said, i’m not hating on it! just skeptical!

[thoughtsofanexcitedspacechild]

The question is inevitable. I stop wiping down the ice cream equipment and look up. For the past two years, that’s all anyone’s ever asked me. Now as I sit here, I realize that by this time next year, I’ll be preparing to move. By this time next year, the question “what do you want to study?” will be answered. The thought of growing up and going to college has always been in the back of my mind, but it always seemed far off. Now as my boss asks me the same question I’ve been asked a million times, the answer doesn’t just feel real; it feels tangible.

“I want to hopefully study something in the arts,” I reply. “I’m hoping to study to then get a job as a concept artist for movies and TV shows.”

"Well, you know art can be just a hobby, right?”

***

I’m three years old. I’m sitting at the kitchen table with white printer paper spread out all over the place. Half of the sheets are filled and the other half to go. My tongue sticks out in determined concentration as I finish what feels like my fiftieth self portrait today. I’m still not happy with how the hair looks, but I’m getting better with every one I make.

“You know art can be just a hobby, right?”

***

I’m eight years old. I wait nervously outside the classroom in the aquatic and community center for my first ever real drawing class. I wait until the door opens and file in behind the rest of my peers into the classroom. I find a spot a little further away from everyone else. Once the teacher begins instructing us on how to draw the basic construction of a horse, I immerse myself into the lecture. Soon enough my anxiety melts away as I immerse myself in the drawing. By the end, I’m not quite satisfied with how my horse looks, but I look forward to the next day. There’s still three more days of camp, and I’m ready to get even better tomorrow.

“You know art can be just a hobby, right?”

***

I’m twelve years old. I’m sitting with what feels like my entire body sunken into an overly plush floral print couch. I watch as Mrs. Scalabrino, a family friend, teaches me how to make a magic loop with the yarn and crochet hook. “I’ve been doing it all wrong! Now I finally understand!” Deb hands me the yarn and hook and urges me to try myself.

This time, instead of having the hook slip through and make a tiny slip stitch, I loop the yarn though and then pull through a final time to create a stitch.

“I did it! I was doing it wrong!”

“It looks very good! Keep going and you’ll be making full projects in no time!” I smile at her compliment and keep practicing.

By the end of the afternoon, I have a long rectangle of clumsily made single and double crochet stitches, but I don’t mind. I’m proud of my lumpy, uneven, handmade rectangle.

“You know art can be just a hobby, right?”

***

I’m thirteen years old. It’s my first time at Blue Lake Fine Arts camp, and I’m taking my first pottery class. I’m carefully carrying my freshly reglazed pot to the back room of the pottery studio after fixing it for a second time. The first time it got damaged I had dropped it after molding the structure and the second time someone else bumped into me, messing up the glaze and sgraffito pattern and glazing in multiple places. I stayed after class during my recreation time and painstakingly remolded and fixed the intricate glazing pattern.

At the end of the session art show, I’m called to the front of the crowd of visiting parents and my fellow campers. I’ve just won the Outstanding camper scholarship. My cheeks flush furiously with embarrassment, but inside I’m also elated. Even though the pot wasn’t perfect. I was still proud of it. I worked hard to save and fix the pot twice broken, and for once, that work pays off. I look out and see the faces of everyone who was with me on the journey to complete the piece, and I know that that pot will always be more than a keepsake planter.

“You know art can be just a hobby, right?”

***

I’m fifteen years old. I lay in bed before my first day of high school. I should be worried about my academic classes, and I am. I can’t stop thinking about the homework for my double paced math class and honors biology, and the more advanced reading we’ll do in honors english this year.

I console myself by thinking about the art class that I’m going to take. By chance there was a scheduling conflict with my social studies credit, and there wasn’t a spot to fit it in. I’d have to test out of the class over the summer, but that meant that I could take Art 1 instead. I stay up and wonder what it will be like. Will it be like my art classes in middle school? Will I finally be able to try oil painting? What about ceramics?

I drift off to sleep anxious, but ready to try all new mediums and make more; to be able to create amongst all the chaos that comes with advanced academic studies.

“You know art can be just a hobby, right?”

***

I’m sixteen years old. I’m almost finished with what was supposed to be my sophomore year, but because of the pandemic, quarantine has made the past month of march even more grey and dreary than normal. The trees outside droop with the heaviness of the recent freezing rain and the sky is a somber grey. I stare absentmindedly at my computer screen waiting for my last zoom meeting of the day to end.

I return to my painting once I log off of our AP Art zoom. I glare at the canvas in front of me. I hate this piece. Even the dull grey color palette outside seems more appetizing than the same oranges and blues that I’ve stared at for the past three months. It’s the feeling in the pit of the stomach when you don’t feel particularly welcome and you know something is off. The dynamic is all wrong and you infuriatingly search the faces of the people there for an answer but to no avail.

I sigh and start to reach for my paints to force myself to push through to a solution, but set them down. “There has to be another way to get through this,” I say to myself as I open my sketchbook against my better judgement. After a quick image reference search, My pencil migrates from the jar to the page. I don’t worry about making it perfect. This piece is just for me.

I sketch out the figures of the boy and girl and boy in the photo, their arms intertwined in an embrace and their lips in a gentle kiss. I make sure her thumb just skims the length of his forearm and that his hand is placed just so on her waist. I step back. We’re getting somewhere.

Long since abandoned for my previous acrylic piece, my colored pencils feel slippery and foreign in my hand. I reach for the tan and brown colored pencils to start, but the bright fuschia red catches my eye. I cautiously begin to apply it to the girl’s face and neck area. Perfect. I don’t stop until the shadows crossing the girl’s face are all shades of pink and red and the boys silhouette is coated in deep blues. What next?

My watercolor palette sits just inches from my paints. I open it and observe my options. I water down a bright pink, an ocean blue, and my untouched cake of deep purple watercolor. I haphazardly splash the pink on one side and the blue on the other, applying purple to blend the area where the two seas of paint mix. I remember an old painters trick of using salt to make cool backgrounds, and apply a generous amount. The scissors come out next, and I delicately cut the form of the girl and boy out. I paste it right on the background and let it sit under a book overnight to press.

In the morning, I observe my work. It’s not perfect. The proportions on the girl’s arm are off and I never quite managed to capture the folds on the boy’s shirt, but I smile. I love it. This is my piece. No one told me to make this. I just did. It’s for me.

My abandoned assignment sits waiting on the other side of the table. I look at it again. This time I do see what’s missing. Like I did while I was working with the pencil, I need to add more depth. That’s why I hate it. That’s why it felt flat and boring. I set my new opus aside and reach for the beaten up acrylic brushes and paint tubes.

“You know art can be just a hobby, right?”

***

The computer screen finally loads. I'm exhausted and have just returned from a missions trip to the Dominican Republic, but in my blissful sleep back in my own bed, I'd remembered that AP scores had come out while I was away. The three numbers I've waited for loom in front of me:

AP Spanish Language: 5

AP Language and Composition: 4

AP Studio Art: 4

A four.

I stare in disbelief at the screen. I'd expected a three at best. I rush to tell my parents.

“You know art can be just a hobby, right?”

***

"Yeah, I know," I respond. "But it's so much more than that to me."

[triptychexe]

TITLE: Sunday SUMMARY: Sora and Fin’s weekend continues with a painting session at the boy’s dorm. Fin is more endearing than Sora thought.  GENRE: Budding friendship, budding romance, a wee bit of angst? PAIRING: SoKi (Sora x Fin), some Platonic!Solra (Sol + Sora) at the end WORD COUNT: 2.1k WARNINGS: swearing, some innuendos, mentions of poor mental health, mentions of bongs. If you think anything else deserves a warning, let me know! :) 

A/N: Almost every line or thought by Sora was written by miss Kara! Thank you Kara for working with me <3 i cant wait to work on more soki stuff w/ you :)))! Find Sora and more works by Kara at @cube-vivid​! 

SPRING 2019

Fin let out a groan as he re-entered his room. Day had left his dirty laundry on the floor, right where Fin had just vacuumed in preparation for Sora’s visit. 

“Myungdae!” Fin stood in the doorway of his room, his voice carrying down the hall. “You left your clothes on the floor!” 

Day’s bleached head poked out from the bathroom, a towel wrapped around his waist. The vocalist gave his friend a sly smirk. “Oh yeah, I almost forgot. You’re bringing a girl over.” 

At the buzzword ‘girl’, Kit’s head perked up from the living room couch, momentarily forgetting his video game.

“You have a girlfriend?” Kit asked in amazement, as if he couldn’t believe his ears. Fin rolled his eyes. 

“No. Lee Sora is coming over to paint.” 

“Right… paint.” Day arched his eyebrows and gave a few air quotes with his pointer and middle fingers. “What kind of painting will you two be doing, huh?” 

Kit let out a snort at the crude innuendo, but the joke seemed to have gone over Hyunki’s head.

“Probably abstract.” Hyunki said simply. The honest response sent his two group mates in a fit of laughter. The two were cackling so loud that they almost drowned out the noise of someone knocking on their door. Kit’s eyes widened as he gathered his things up and bolted to his room, one hand clamped over his mouth to prevent him from laughing out loud. Day’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’ in surprise, a mischievous smile on his lips. “Go get changed!” Hyunki hissed, making his way to the door. “Only if you promise to keep your clothes on.” Day shot back. Hyunki’s eyes widened at the scandalous comment.

Before he could scold at Day, knuckles wrapped on the door again. Day sniggered before closing the bathroom door again. Hyunki hurried over to the door, opening it to reveal Sora. 

Sora seemed to be in a better mood today. She was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, a small smile stretched on her face. 

“Hey.” Sora greeted. “Hey,” Fin smiled back, something about seeing Sora smile made his palms kinda sweaty and heart pick up. 

“So are you gonna let me in or are we just gonna chill out here?” Sora teased, taking Hyunki out of his trance and bringing him back to reality. 

He could feel his entire body flush as he hurriedly stepped aside. “Sorry, come on in.” 

They walked through the now-empty living room to the balcony that was connected to the dorm. Outside, Fin had already set up their blank canvases and paint supplies. He even set a pitcher of homemade lemonade, some snacks, and a radio on a fold-out side table for them. Sora smiled at the layout in front of her.

“I should have brought snacks too, shit, sorry.” Sora apologized pouting absentmindedly. “Ah, don’t be sorry.” Fin shook his head, sitting criss-cross in front of one of the canvases. He was about to pat the spot next to him when he realized something. 

“Oh, wait!” Fin exclaimed, rising to his feet. “You’re gonna want to protect your clothes.” Sora looked down at her outfit. She looked good, even Fin could admit that. She wasn’t wearing anything practically revealing or typically sexy. Her outfit was all black and oversized, the graphic tee she’d tied up to be cropped and chains she wore grabbed Fins attention. The look was streetwear, but he could tell it was more expensive than the casual look appeared. Sora seemed slightly embarrassed looking down awkwardly. 

“Do I look so good it’s distracting you?”

Fin froze at that not really knowing how to reply. His mouth flipped open repeatedly as Sora fought off her smile watching how easily flustered she could make him. 

“I’m joking Hyunki,”

 Fin let out a breath at that nodding slowly as his eyes shifted around the room refusing to look her in the eyes anymore. 

“I should have worn something more chill, huh?” She said in a teasing self-deprecating tone. “No worries, you can borrow some of my old painting overalls.” Fin shrugged, tilting his head towards the sliding door. The two re-entered the living room and into Fin’s bedroom.

“Damn, I should come in here more often .” Sora commented with a chuckle when she stepped through the threshold. Her eyes fixed on the wall display of various bongs. Fin followed her gaze and let out a laugh. “Oh, those are Myungdae’s. A pastime of his.” Fin chuckled before hesitating. “Uh, just don’t tell anyone that we own those.” 

“Own any what?” Sora jokes. She played dumb, a lopsided smirk crossing over her face as she tilted her head to the side. Hyunki nodded appreciatively, giving Sora a knowing wink before dipping into his drawers, searching for some overalls. When he straightened up again, he was holding a beat-up pair of white painter’s overalls. 

“Here.” Hyunki handed them over, a smile on his face. Sora took them, sliding her chunky sneakers  through the baggy pant legs with minimal struggle. As soon as she straightened up, the chest of the overalls sagged towards her stomach, exposing her shirt.

“Oh, lemme adjust that.” Hyunki offered, stepping forward to adjust the straps for her. Sora knew he didn’t mean to be as close as he was but she also didn’t mean to get so flustered by it either. If Fin was any other boy, Sora wouldn't be surprised if he used their close proximity to his advantage and made a move on her. He was at perfect distance to grab her hips roughly and kiss her. It was what she expected. What she didn’t expect was how Hyunki’s fingertips delicately maneuvered over her shoulders, barely touching her. Sora looked up at Hyunki in an effort to better understand him and his intentions, surely this was a move that she was not picking up on. But all she saw was Hyunki’s brows furrowed in innocent concentration as he slid the buckle back a few inches. 

“There.” Hyunki finally sighed. He looked down at Sora, a smile returning to his face. “Ready?” 

The two exited the bedroom, heading back to the patio. Fin sat cross legged in front of a blank canvas, gesturing for Sora to do the same. She cautiously sat down, picking the canvas up. The material felt awkward in her hands, as if the inanimate object knew she didn’t know what she was doing.

Her expression must have been apprehensive, because Hyunki let out a chuckle.

“You look like it’s going to bite you.” Fin teased. He nudged a box full of paint brushes and tubes of paint towards her. “Don’t think about it too much, just go with the flow.” 

“Go with the flow…” Sora repeated to herself under her breath. She picked up a plastic palette and a tube of paint, selecting a yellow color. 

The two sat peacefully, listening to some music and sipping lemonade as they painted. Beside her, Hyunki broke the silence by letting out a huff under his breath, running a hand through his messy hair. 

“What?” Sora asked. Hyunki flipped his canvas around for her to see. On the canvas in front of her were two angels, clearly modeled after Raphael’s Angels. Even though Sora thought Fin’s art was beautiful, his displeased expression told her that he wasn’t satisfied.

“What’s wrong with it?” Sora furrowed her eyebrows, not understanding the issue at hand.

Fin pointed to the complete angel, sighing. “I feel like I got the face wrong. They look like… like…” 

While Fin searched for the correct comparison, Sora felt her cheeks heat up and her heart flip slightly . She knew exactly who the angel looked like, she’d seen that face every day since she was born. It was all she saw when she looked in the mirror.

“They look like me.” 

Hyunki froze, his eyes widening. He looked between his canvas and Sora, cursing under his breath.

“Shit, I’m so sorry.” Hyunki flushed, looking as if he wanted the Earth to swallow him whole. 

“No, no,” Sora shrugged. “No one’s ever painted me before, even by accident.” 

Hyunki gave her a skeptical look, as if he didn’t believe that. He flipped his painting back around and sighed. “Do you want to take this home with you?” Hyunki asked. “I think Sol will kill me if I have a painting of not-you in my possession. And The other members might tease me until I die.” 

Sora laughed at the mental image of Sol finding that painting, nodding her head. “Sol is so protective it’s so stupid. But I’ll keep it, how many people can say they have a pretty painting. I can't wait to rub it in the girls faces, they’re gonna be so jealous.” 

“Great.” Hyunki grinned, blushing slightly at the subtle compliment . 

By the time they had finished, the sun was setting over Seoul, covering the sky in a purple and pink hue. 

“Time flies, huh?” Hyunki looked out over the city skyline ahead of them while holding his hand out for Sora to take. Sora hesitated, but took his hand to help herself up. She looked out over the city too. “Yeah…” She responded. 

The idol was so used to seeing Seoul that the city had lost its sparkle. It was just a mesh of concrete and scattered trees in her eyes but the way Hyunki was observing it made her realize that he wasn’t seeing what she was seeing. When Sora looked at Seoul she saw a city she could never escape, that just reminded her of everything wrong in her life. But Hyunki saw pure art. 

“Isn’t it pretty,” he said barely audibly. A pang went through her chest as Sora realized that it’s been so long since she’s been able to appreciate the beauty of the mundane. She would pay anything to see things like Fin. He seemed so carefree and content. Maybe if she stuck around long enough, Fin and all his multicolored thoughts would rub off on her. There’s nothing she wanted more than for that to be true.

Knuckles rapped on the glass door behind them. Sora jumped, Fin turned around lazily, as if he didn’t appreciate his thoughts being interrupted. The doors slid open, and Soonyoung stuck his head out.

“Hey guys,” He greeted. “I’m home.” ”Welcome back asshole, no one missed you .” Sora grinned, coming over to hug Soonyoung. Sol put his hands up, gesturing to the half-dry paint on her overalls. “How about air hugs?” Soonyoung chuckled. “These clothes belong to HBH.” 

“How was your weekend?” Fin asked, already cleaning up their painting supplies. “It was… a weekend.” Soonyoung responded vaguely, exhaustion etched into his words. Sora pursed her lips. She wanted to ask more questions, but she knew Soonyoung. Getting anything out of him would be like pulling teeth.

“I see you guys kept busy.” Soonyoung nodded his head towards the canvases. Fin nodded, scooping up Sora’s half-dried work. “Look at what Sora made.” Fin said proudly, as if he was the one who created it. “She’s a natural.” 

“Shut up,” Sora rolled her eyes, her cheeks glowing a light pink color, her arm reaching out to swipe the canvas out of Hyunki’s hands. “Or what?” Fin taunted, pulling the canvas out of Sora’s reach. Sora involuntarily mirrored the playful smirk on Fin’s lips. 

Sora leaned down to dip her pointer finger in white paint before launching forward and swiping a streak of white on Fin’s cheek. Fin laughed, turning away and wiping his face.

“Alright, alright, no paint wars please.” Sol intervened. “Sora, are you staying the night?”

Sora shook her head, wiping her finger on her pant leg.  “I actually should probably get back to my dorm before Dayna loses it. I didn’t think I’d stay this late.” 

“Do you want us to walk you to the train station?” Fin offered sweetly. 

Sora shook her head. “I’ll be fine, here,” Sora started to take off the overalls, but Fin waved a hand.

“Keep them for next time.” He said.

“So there’s gonna be a next time?” Sora said cheekily hoping it overpowered the slight nerves the statement created. Butterflies started swarming in her stomach at the idea of seeing Fin again. She cringed at the sensation.

Fin didn’t even think twice before saying a soft “Of course.”

Sol coughed to cover up a laugh. He could see right through her, no doubt.

Fin and Sol walked Sora to the door before saying goodnight. Once the door closed, Sol turned to Fin, a smirk on his lips.

“Please tell me you guys didn’t fuck.” Sol teased.

Hyunki furrowed his eyebrows. “What? No. No way. We were just painting.” 

“Uh-huh. So the ‘next time’ comment wasn’t a follow up date invitation?” Sol pressed, the corners of his mouth twitching into a grin.

“No… This wasn’t even a date so how could there be a follow up one ?” Fin looked completely baffled. 

Sol’s smile faded as he looked at his friend with a look of mortified awe. “You’re an idiot. An actual fucking idiot.” 

[veridium]

fake happy

Well, whaddya know! The College AU is back, baby! Unfortunately June was pretty much hell in a handbasket, so writing took a backseat. But, we are far from done. Thank you to everyone for sighting tight, and to @bitchesofostwick for being a very patient co-author. 

So, where were we? Ah, yes, the holiday weekend from hell. On with the show! Title bought to you by a great Paramore song.

masterpost // last chapter

--

“Hey baby cakes!”

The moment she hears the shrill greeting whilst getting out of her car in the sandstone-colored driveway, Olivia knows she’s in a chapter of Dante’s Inferno. All the calmness she had with Ellinor earlier that day is gone; it is easier said than done enduring four days in the house of Paula Sinclair.

“Hey,” she rushes over her shoulder, pulling the side lever to release the trunk where her bags are kept. Just two, one of clothes and toiletries and the other books and supplies to do assignments. She’ll need the preoccupation as an excuse for the gauntlet of trials her Mom will invite her to.

As she’s filing her luggage out onto the driveway, she sees her Mom’s shadow approaching. She glances and sees her in all her glory: an olive green sundress with one of those straw pool hats. She was probably out basking in the sun all afternoon before this. Olivia is surprised she thought to put down whatever spiked beverage she must have had with her to come outside and greet her only child. 

“Did you have a safe drive? You certainly did not rush to get home safe,” Paula says, halting and crossing her arms. 

Olivia slams the trunk closed and huffs, slinging one bag’s strap over her shoulder and the other on her opposite forearm. “I woke up late, and had to help Ellinor pack.” Sorry, Ellinor. 

“Ellinor! I will miss her this year.” A lie said out of convenience. The whole time Ellinor stays with them, Paula shoots her peculiar questions about her personal life or her political views. Ellinor knows better now after these last couple of years how to play them off, but Paula can’t help but size people up. It’s how she cultivates all her complaints.

“I will, too,” Olivia lets out as she makes her way to the front door, past the splendorous potted plants and fake green grass turf. Her Mother saunters behind her through the open door. 

Once inside Olivia notices what’s missing, and sets her smaller bag down. 

“Wh--”

“No no, do not just leave that there! Take it to the mud room or your bedroom.”

Olivia bites back a groan and turns around to face Paula as she shuts and locks the large-ass, gaudy-ass front door. “Fine. Where is Nemo?”

“Nemo?”

“...the dog, Mother.”

“Nemo! Oh, psh,” she waves her acrylics. “He is off in the yard. I kept him outside because the carpet steamers came this morning. You know how his muddy little paws are! Now, do I not get a hug?”

Olivia tenses up from head to toe, seeing her Mother coming in for the hug she didn’t wait for permission for. At least Nemo isn’t mysteriously gone -- she’s read too many horror stories online of people’s parents being complete monsters about their old family pets dying, and not telling the children who live elsewhere -- but Paula keeps Nemo out in the yard for days at a time when she gets the carpets cleaned. He will need company, and not just the husband going out and practicing his golf swing adjacent to him. 

Oh, right, there’s a husband around here.

Paula hugs her with her arms draped over Olivia’s shoulders, rather than around her waist like a good bear hug. Something Dad would know how to do.

“I imagine Fred is off shooting, stuffing, or smoking something,” she mutters over her Mother’s shoulder, to which Paula gently swats at her shoulder and guffaws. 

“No, silly! He’s in the yard with Nemo, your fellow prisoner,” she teases, picking up on Olivia’s dread with her trademark passive aggression. Only three minutes in the door, a new record. 

“I didn’t say he couldn’t do those things out in the yard.” Lord knows he has before. 

“Where do you think our holiday meal comes from every year?” 

“COSTCO, like God and Uncle Sam intended, right?”

“Ugh, Olivia, your humor changes every year you’re at that College. Don’t be so morose.”

She takes a breath and picks up her eyesore of a bag so that it does not further desecrate the sanctity of the foyer, and makes for the curved staircase just across the pristine hardwood. “I’m just tired from the drive, Mom. I’m going to go upstairs and get settled.”

“Okay, and come downstairs soon! I wanna catch up, okay?”

“Yeah, okay!”

She glances behind her but her Mother is already vanished. Sure, catch up, but not too quick! Releasing her bated breath she lurches up the rest of the stairs. The place is heavily renovated from the home it originally was when her parents bought it. In the beginning they didn’t have much -- well, much compared to what Paula has now -- and so their first nest was a fixer upper. Year after year, corny wallpaper became fresh painted walls, and thick upholstered couches handed down from in-laws became brand new installations from the boutiques downtown. Two additions to the place upgraded it from a modest family home to a wannabe mansion. Olivia grew up in this ever-changing little kingdom of improvements, but only when she was a newly-minted adult did she realize she was one of its fixtures.

The one comfort had always been that her Father dwelled there with her. He brought heart and humanity to the kingdom of objects: his muddy shoes by the front door, not the “mud room.” His fishing rods hung up on the garage rack. His barbeque out in the yard. They weren’t all state-of-the-art, but they were his. But, by now, they, too, were all gone. ‘Improvements’ in every stead, including his.  

Olivia had one sacrosanct place left, and that was her childhood room. Walking down the hall decorated with big, framed portraits of the family -- none of her Father, though, to be sure -- she found her door, the second one to the right in the west hallway. “West” being the original upstairs hallway, the only hallway, before construction added the one referred to as the “East.” She pushed the ajar door open and slid in to see it as she remembered: the bright lavender purple walls strewn with posters, pictures, and a tapestry up behind her bed. The pearly purple carpet smelled of the carpet cleaner, but it did not mask the smell of vanilla she expected. On the opposite wall from the door, her princess bed complete with ivory white canopy was freshly made. Her bedspread was white, with pillows in alternating shades of green and lilac. Years ago she fought endlessly for her Mother to let her paint her room a darker color than the baby pink it was first. Thanks to her Dad, they “compromised” with purple. Sadly, Paula took that as “the lightest shades of purple” and so it was.

In the details, though, there was Olivia’s rebellion. The posters, Paramore, My Chemical Romance, and an old one from a Sheryl Crow concert she found on Amazon, contrasted the brightness with a grit. To the left by her small balcony doors, her vanity mirror and stool were covered with polaroid pictures, concert tickets, movie ticket stubs, and bracelets. She had taken all of her incriminating, “immodest” makeup with her to college, so all that remained were an old bottle of sunscreen, some pastel eyeshadow palettes, and lip glosses. So many lip glosses. 

Olivia dropped her shit in the middle of the floor and made for the reading chair in the far corner, where she collapsed into a curled, reticent ball of conflicted emotions. She predicted this -- she dreaded this -- and now, here she is. The first day is always a test of anxiety, more so than enduring mistreatment. Paula is always good on the first day -- great, sometimes. She is generous, and outgoing, and doesn’t sweat the small stuff. The grueling part comes after the first night ends and she realizes she has to do something with her daughter who isn’t just in for dinner and giggling. That’s when she remembers how she actually feels, and who she actually is. And with no one like Ellinor to buffer and provide excuses for her not standing in one place for too long, it’ll be particularly concentrated. 

She slides limply against the plush chair and closes her eyes. It was a stressful drive full of hasty college kids getting home to their more harmonious families. Olivia was in no rush, though. Three trips through various drive thrus surely added time.

Her phone goes off, and she slips her phone out of her back jean pocket. 

Ellinor: You ready to walk the plank yet?

Smirking, Olivia replies: 

-- I am already keeling over the edge. How is your family?

Ellinor: I nearly did a drop and roll out of Lyssa’s car on the way here, but they’re bearable. They are who they usually are. No surprises, this holiday season! 

-- One of these years we’ll be successful enough to buy everyone therapy for Christmas. 

Ellinor: No shit, I’m making them pay for mine first. 

Olivia is replying when another notification comes up, an instagram like this time, from Maryden. Grinning she taps on it. Maryden finally saw the group pic they all took at the fair: her, Ellinor, Cullen, and then Olivia and Cass in the bottom corner. Olivia had made Cass hold the phone due to height advantage. Her grin expands before it sinks fast. 

Ah, fuck. 

She pulls up her messages again and sees the one Cassandra sent her while she was driving and unable to check. 

Cassandra: Text me when you arrive safe. ❤️

The heart emoji. Olivia’s cheeks turn hot, and she hastily types. 

-- Here in purgatory! 

The sound of a man shouting something, and then laughing, rings from the balcony windows. Fred must be huffing and puffing about something amusing, like meat or guns. She can’t wait for all his odd comments and attempts to “relate” that almost always devolve into him talking about whatever season of sport he’s onto and her nodding along. Poor man. He makes sea sponges seem like sophists. 

Soon after sending, Cassandra replies, an opportunity Olivia doesn’t predict: 

Cassandra: Awesome. my Uncle has stopped us for gas, still about 40 minutes out. 

-- That’s good. Hopefully you won’t get stuck in rush hour. 

Cassandra: My Uncle sucks at navigating traffic, so I wouldn’t bet on it. 

-- Lol

Cassandra: You alright? 

Olivia is sort of surprised by the question and its sensitivity, albeit direct. 

-- Just tired from the drive, that’s all 

Cassandra: You love driving. You would drive the entire stretch of the coast highway without blinking once.

Damn, Cassandra. A bold insight. A correct one, too. 

-- 🤷🏼‍♀️

Five seconds after she hits send, Cassandra calls her. She nearly drops the phone on the floor, and her slack posture goes full vertical. She checks that the door is closed, only to decide to leap, rush, and lock it just in case. Then she hurries to the farthest corner of the room and hits answer right on the last ring. 

“No, Detective, I will not submit to the polygraph.”

Cassandra’s voice rings almost playfully. “Very well, we have other ways of making you talk.”

There’s the hot blush again. “Uh, a-alright, who are you and what have you done with my girlfriend?” She hushes a bit, and hopes Cassandra doesn’t notice. 

“Nothing! My Uncle is in the gas station doing who-knows-what, so I’m stuck in here, boot and all.”

“I’m not kidding, I saw that Liam Neeson movie, I know how this goes. I have a special set of skills--”

“What do I have to do? Express my distaste for something? Quote Plato?”

“...It would be reassuring.”

Cassandra laughs coyly, and despite everything, it livens her spirit. She didn’t expect Cassandra to be in so playful a mood traveling back home. She was cool but unhappy about it that morning when they parted ways, entertained only by Olivia’s presence and a strong cup of coffee. Without the ability to drive due to her ankle, her illustrious but mysterious Uncle had to be the one to pick her up and take her back to her family. 

“I was just calling to check in on you.”

“I thought that was what the texting was for,” Olivia replies more curtly than she intends. She gnaws at her bottom lip.

“Sometimes it is worth the extra effort to call.”

“That is very un-millenial of you, you know. Horrifying.”

“Maybe so. Ugh, what is that man doing?” there’s sounds of Cassandra rustling against the leather seat, probably checking in through the window. “Probably searching for that expensive jerky he gets at Trader Joe’s like it will just magically turn up at an ARCO.”

“Who’s to say it won’t? People of all walks of life can enjoy finer things.”

“Yes, but not just the ‘finer’ things,” she then huffs. “Look, I don’t have much time, so if you aren’t in the mood to talk about what is bothering you, I can let you go and we can talk later.”

“I don’t know if I will be able to. My Mom wants to ‘catch up,’ which in her language means I get a hundred questions and the occasional asinine one from Fred.”

“Fred’s your stepfather, right?”

“He’s...my Mother’s husband.”

“I see.”

She mulls her teeth and looks around aimlessly. Cassandra goes ‘hm’ but nothing else. 

“How are you able to talk so much?” Olivia asks, diverting the subject. “Aren’t you worried your family will pry?”

“The good thing about holidays in my family is there are so many people around, you can get a great deal of private time if you are smart enough. Which is exactly what I intend to do. Ugh...he...oh, sorry. I thought my Uncle was coming back, but it was just another man.”

“Yeah, but you said they have superhuman abilities for nosiness.”

“They do. And I have superhuman talents of evasion. They’ll peck and prod about the ankle boot, though. Usually I can slip away to the gym or for a run to get away from them but...of course...can’t do that. Doctors don’t trust me to set foot in a weight room and it’s been weeks since my injury.”

“Cass, it’s been two weeks, almost precisely.”

“I said weeks, didn’t I? Look, overextending is not the same as knowing my limits. They’re the medical professionals, but they don’t live in this body 24/7.”

Olivia grimaces with sympathy, though she can’t say she agrees given how easy it is for Cassandra to throw herself into things without caution. “Uh huh.”

“Ugh, forgive me. I won’t be able to talk everyday, but I would like to try sometimes, okay? I promise it won’t all be about my messed up ankle.”

Olivia smirks. “You’re being very…”

“Very…what?”

Olivia stalls. Is it an asshole thing to do, saying your girlfriend is being more sensitive and caring than usual? Maybe not “more,” but in a different way. An unusual way. She could have really taken Olivia’s hurt feelings over how she acted about her injury. She could be really trying. But now, in the lion’s den, Olivia’s unsure about whether the timing of it is...well, ideal. 

“Nevermind, I lost my train of thought,” she excuses. “I appreciate you.”

“It’s no trouble. Now, I think my Uncle is coming back. Ugh, he got a whole bag of things...probably for me. Seeing me with my boot triggered his overprotective nerve extra hard.”

“Oh, no, sour patch kids! The torture!” Olivia teases. An ounce of her regular self bleeds through. 

“Very funny. I will text you later. Be safe, alright?”

“Alright. You, too.” She then remembers and slips it in before they hang up: “L-let me know when you get home, too, okay?”

“...O-okay.” There’s a pause, the kind of awkward pause when the thing you say -- the particular thing -- happens. But since they aren’t there yet, it’s full of pause and anxiety. 

“Okay,” Olivia takes her turn to smooth it over. “Bye!”

“Bye.”

Hanging up kills the feeling of safety. She looks into the big oval mirror at her dresser vanity and watches her grin crack, then disappear all-together. The scene in her reflected surroundings loses its luster. Even with all the impossibilities, she kind of wishes Cassandra was with her. It almost makes her laugh at herself: what, would she have driven up with her in the passenger’s seat, hear “hey baby cakes!” and smile, saying “hey Mom, here’s my girlfriend! You’re suddenly not biphobic, right? Oh and by the way she’s a Pentaghast, so, there’s that!” and they all retire to the sitting room for tea and introductions. Right. 

She turns and sees her unpacked bags, her only company. She rubs her forehead slowly with the back of her hand. She has experience being left to her own devices with her Mother. Hell, she has a lifetime of it with her. A long weekend won’t be anything particularly gruesome, and if it is, well, she’s survived them before.  

Fifteen minutes later she has everything organized and put away -- she won’t unpack much, anyway. A quick change into some leggings and a t-shirt, a toss of her hair into a ponytail, and she’s ready to face the music. She’s careful to shut her bedroom door before she descends down the hall and the stairs, betting that her Mother is out in the yard on one of the lounge chairs. She finds her there, indeed lounging, with that missing cocktail restored to her.

Unmoved but always observant, her Mother inquires: “Settled in?” 

Olivia puts on her best polite grin and sits down on the lounge chair five feet away. On the grass, Fred is dressed in pastel blue polo and cargo shorts like the overgrown fraternity pledge he is, throwing a frisbee for Nemo. Nemo, the 10 year old yellow lab, who can scarcely go up the stairs without being winded these days. Too bad for Fred the minute Olivia shows herself, the grey-faced dog bounds in his own way over to the long last playmate.

“Nemo! You little prince!” she smiles, crouching down to embrace him. His tail is wagging a million miles per hour, and he fills her face with old dog breath. His tickling gets her to finally laugh. 

“Good grief,” she hears her Mom say, “Olivia, don’t let him lick your mouth!”

“I’m fine!” she says through her giggles, rubbing his chest and back as she stands upright. “It won’t kill me.”

“Ugh.”

That joy was short lived. She returns to the chair she chose and does her best to make as little eye contact as possible as she sits and sprawls her legs out. Nemo follows circles around her, tail still going.

“Do we know what the plans are for Thanksgiving?” Olivia asks, expecting the same answer as always. Dinner at home with Fred’s relatives and those in Mom’s family who she isn’t on the outs with, all above the age of 35 for the most part, and vote like it. Another dinner she’ll have to dress way too modestly and matronly for her age in order to fit in for the group photo.

“Well, that is what I wanted to surprise you with,” Paula answers. 

Olivia side-eyes her Mom, and delays opening up her phone to scroll through Twitter. “What?”

“We will be having dinner with the family as always, but earlier this week we received a surprise invitation for us to attend a holiday party later on this weekend.”

“You aren’t going to spend the holiday campaigning, are you?” 

“‘Campaigning’ has a broad definition, Olivia, and it is never a bad idea to become more familiar with one’s community constituents.”

Olivia frowns and resumes scrolling. Great, likely another fundraiser or gala, not something substantially humble like volunteering time with those genuinely in need, who are also her “constituents.” She saved the label for those she could depend on to write a donation check -- the other 80% of society barely existed. 

“I assume then you are expecting me to go?”

There’s a sound of Paula’s magazine of choice turning a page. “What do you think the surprise was?”

“That as much as you would like me to come, that you respect my choice not to so that I can have a quiet, restful weekend at home before Finals are in full swing?”

No response for going out on that limb. The proverbial crickets chirp, and Olivia knows her point was deliberately missed. 

“Or,” she corrects herself, “that you want me to go.”

“Yes, silly girl. And for your information, even if I didn’t want you to come, the invitation specifically noted you.”

“P-pardon me?” She looks up.

Paula shakes her head and smiles. “When were you going to tell me you were making friends with the Pentaghast family?”

“I...I-I’m not!”

“You must be, there was a handwritten note in the card, your name and all.”

Olivia can feel a stroke coming on. The heat of the day now feels like a vise around her throat, a semi-truck on her chest. She jerks up and turns to look at her Mother dead on, who is still flipping through her latest issue of Vogue, sunglasses and sunhat and all. 

“So...so they wrote me in? Me, specifically?”

“Yes, that is what I said! Goodness, calm down, you’ll give yourself a heat stroke.” 

Too late. “Why? Aren’t they one of the big blue families? Why would they want to invite y--”

“Are you insinuating that I do not belong in a bipartisan space? Olivia, I work in one for a living. This whole business of networking is par for the course. In fact, it is a long time coming. The Pentaghasts should be taking the ‘other side’ more seriously. I have been in this town’s political realm for seven years, now. They cannot always hide behind their old money and liberal hypocrisy of “inclusion.””

There is that rhetorical savvy and venom. Quintessentially Paula. Olivia falls back on the lounge chair and stares out into the lawn, mouth open and words lost. Where to begin? Hey, Mom, don’t think so highly of yourself, they’re only inviting you to get to me! Because they want to sniff me out as one of their many daughters’ lovers! You’re full of shit!

“Do I have to go? I am serious about wanting rest. This semester has been a lot, an--”

“A semester that I paid for,” Paula cut in, turning yet another page. “It is restful to be with your family. You should consider yourself lucky, Olivia, that spending time with us is so comfortable. You have this nice home to come back to, and good people to spend time with, and beautiful parties to go to. A girl your age in a lesser position would claw someone’s eyes out for the chance to live the life you get to. Is it so really so demanding?”

The shots to the gut have started early. So much for the easy first day. She wishes even more she could pop her Mother’s balloon, but it would mean ultimate disaster for her in the end. Out in the open Fred is still trying to get Nemo to chase the damn frisbee, clearly aware that he should stay away from the two debating blondes. Olivia rolls her lips shut and tries her hardest to swallow the hunk of pride at the back of her throat, but there’s no room in her stomach. It’s completely filled to the top with anxiety about what it means to be going to this party. 

Then it hits her: Cassandra is going to shoot through the roof. 

“Fine, Mom. I’ll go.” The clock then starts ticking for her to find a covert way out of it beforehand. She’s dove deep into her head, and only catches half of her Mother’s pleased response. 

“--something classy, the party is black tie optional.”

“Okay.”

“I also have an appointment for us to get our nails done tomorrow at 11, so do not sleep in too much.”

Oh for fuck’s sake. She does another fake smile as she pulls up her messages on her phone in order to deploy the distress signal: 

-- Change of plan, I need you to call me as soon as you are able. Your family sent an invitation to mine for their big party this weekend. My Mom is insisting we go. Code red. 

[jojoreadwhat]

christmas eve will find me, where the love light gleams. / honey & smoke - m.h. x OFC story

- One Week Later: Winter Break

Lucy's POV.

A White Christmas in White Plains. Running on two hours of sleep as the night before when my brother stayed in my room. Watching Christmas shows and singing along to all the carols. Anxiously waiting but falling asleep before we could hear the thuds of the sleigh on our rooftop. Hoping to hear the goodbyes of the bells jingling as Santa went on with his tight schedule.

Only to be woken up by my enthusiastic mother, her emerald green eyes shining like the green lights hanging in our living room. My eyes meeting the grays of outside. My nose meeting the tickle of her peppermint tea. Tenderly nudging us awake as Christmas had finally arrived. My dad peering into the room as his big arms wrapped around me. Scooping me up from my snug bed, my mother pulling Eric by the hand as the child in her led us to the excitement around the tree.

The ivory colored living room glistened in a parade of different colors. Red, green, pink and blue draped along the ceiling. Paper snowflakes, oddly shaped from my brother and I hanging from the ropes. Tinsel swirled in between, smiling at the reminisce of watching my mom and dad struggling to hang it all over the day after Thanksgiving.

Standing tall with five points in gold shining on the top to guide us home like the North Star. The multi-colored evergreen tree was adorned with different ornaments all over from when we decorated it the night before. Strings of colored beads and garlands hugging around it. Watching as the Lionel toy train road choo-chooed around the track on the snow-like tree skirt.

Exuberance running high. Oh's and ah's coming from Eric and I's jumpy voices as we opened all the things from our letters to Santa. Beaming from ear to ear as we talked the night before of all the things we hoped for. Were being eagerly unwrapped from pretty patterned paper.

I sat in front of the fireplace, my feet pretzel legged under me. In the new footies I got the night before. Patterned with unicorns and rainbows. Eric assumptions being right as I brushed the hair of my Lil Miss Magic. Watching the brush turn her from pink to purple to blonde in seconds. In a daze that it was in my hands in the first place.

Listening to the synthetic sounds of Eric's blue Gameboy that he asked for all year. Giggling as he lost to his game of Pokemon. Stuffing our faces with the fresh baked goods Santa failed to finish.

Looking over at my dad in his red flannel pajamas, complimented with a Santa hat to match his slight grey beard. Nodding off on the couch every once in a while, as early mornings caught up with him. Only for them to be woken up when my mother came in from the kitchen. The aroma from the pineapple glazed ham followed her from being prepared for dinner.

Taking a seat next to my dad, watching as the couch sunk as she relaxed. I found myself admiring my mom. Looking so pretty. Her long dark chocolate hair, hanging over her shoulder blade. Wearing this red long silky nightgown with a chunky white knit duster. Her smile glistening with the silver and golds in the room. Just before her lips met the brim of her oversized purple mug. Indulging in it all as we found Christmas to be our favorite holiday.

++

The resemblance of the gray overcast back home, peered through the windows in London. I woke up with that memory playing out in my mind. Closing my blue eyes as it clashed with the gray. Only to go back to remembering fifteen years ago like it was yesterday.

From the glowing excitement of our abundance of gifts and treats. How my brother let take a turn on his scooter that my mom gave up on telling him not to ride in the house. My heart beating so fast as I road around the couch. Feeling my heart suddenly warm up when my dad intertwined his fingers with hers. Muttering little 'I love you's' and sharing a kiss or two as the joy overlaid.

It was the first lesson I was giving in love. How it should feel, what it should look like. That you didn't need to just love one thing as everything around went and you felt it all at once. As long as that same warm feeling progressed inside you each time, you were in love.

I was beginning to feel this warmth again as chills overwhelmed the exposed skin where Matty's duvet missed.

I would've never known that one slipping glance and a misstep into a pool would land me here. Land me falling ever so hard into the depths of Matty. Completely symmetrical as he was so much more than just this boy persuading a mystery. A boy of rare perception when he spoke, only to realize how misleadingly radiant he was behind his dark disposition.

Focusing on where that gleamed feeling was coming from as he stood peering out the window. His dark chocolate curls slightly lax and napped from his neglect to brush them. Gazing as they frolicked, noticing how they were beginning to meet his shoulders. Shirtless in his famous black jeans below his back dimples. Smiling as I recalled the light pink markings on his back from the night before.

Observing as his muscles danced everytime his hand roused to his mouth. Smoke illuminating from those alluring lips I craved. Colliding with the dark roasted essence swirling into the airwaves from the mug in his hand. I was in awe with his stance. Unaware of my awaken presence in the room as it was my turn to commend.

Disappearing into my arrangement of thoughts. I hadn't realized that Matty had caught a glimpse of me staring till I heard the light clatter of his mug hitting his dresser. Putting out his cigarette in a glass of water.

"Morning," He smiled, then. "Did you sleep well?" As a little hum vibrated through my lips. Tilting my head against the pillow. Watching the rise and fall of his body as he dampened the mattress. Parting my legs with his knees. Crawling till his figuration was poised over me and a hand caressing over my jaw.

He pressed his lips to mine, "Last night was fun." He recalled, my reflecting in my mind as we laid on his bed in the early hours.

Laughing and carrying on as the alcohol consumed and the weed lightened the dark for us. Smoke and wine on our breath, stinging as my lips were still swollen. Eternally glowing down as I looked beyond to the wall that Matty had me pinned to. Remembering how it felt when I was a mess under his tender touch that held me, became raw and potent.

My body being extinguished of any lingering slumber as his lips rejuvenated my senses. Tingling my skin as they trailed down my jaw and to my neck. My lips falling open as they disclosed in a soft whimper sound. Feeling his own form into a heart before his brown eyes met mine.

"Round two, maybe?" He smirked, my cheeks mixing crimson on a empty palette. I sighed, longing for the matter to build again. Only time was catching up far too quickly.

I ran my fingers through his hair, feeling him slightly weigh into my palm at the touch. "We have to leave soon." I reminded, then. Today being the day I'd bring Matty home for all my family to meet. Soon stepping foot into New York on Christmas Eve.

I watched Matty's eyes fleet to the red lit clock, till they deviously meet mine. Settling my hands on his broad shoulders. Flipping him to where I straddled his frame, his bewilderment getting the best of him. Feeling him rising under my ache, his hands resting to my waist.

"I believe we've got enough time." He said, peering up at me with a smirk. Moving one of his hands to the exposed skin of my thigh beneath the sheet I gathered. Becoming a canvas under his finger as he made little infinities, even marking me with an 'M'. It's simplicity nearing me to let it all happen and unravel.

I sighed, "No we don't." Tracing the embracing hands of the tattoo on his chest. "Why's that?" He questioned, tugging at the blanket slightly.

My blue eyes turning pure glass as they looked back him. Biting my lip at the thoughts that cascaded through my mind in that moment, "Because" I began, my hands trailing down his chest to his navel. My selfish need getting the best of me as I gently rested on him. "There's not enough time for what I'd like to do."

Watching his lids fall and brows furrow. His plump lips flat lining as a raspy hum vibrated through them. His eyes rich in golds and browns as the glared at me, my body jolting over him as he sat up. His lips not even centimeters away, feeling the warmth of his breath.

"Your dad is not going to like this corruption I've caused." He smiled before pressing those lips to mine. Giggling in between collisions, wrapping my arms around his neck. Tangling my fingers into his hair, before I brought my eyes to his, fixing the disarray. "He's not going to like that I enjoy it." I smirked. Feeling chill against my chest as Matty slipped open my sheet, using it to pull me closer to him. "Now, let's get ready before I purposely make time."

----------------------------------------------

Matty's POV.

I sat anxiously on the edge of my seat during the flight. Unfamiliarly nervous as it wasn't the idea of being up astronomically in height. Instead when I would be taking two feet onto the unknown grounds of New York. Doing so many things in my twenty-five year life-span. Not once thinking that meeting the family of a girl I was falling amicably for. Would have me in such a rut, mentally rehearsing how to even say 'hello' and not sound ludicrous.

I was charming needless to say as I yield at the bombarding sounds of my own horn. I got along with many, all different types of people as I clinged to others so easily. Feeding the idea of attention I loved and wanted others to devour.

Specially with mothers as my mystic, dark persona had them wishing they were eighteen again. Truly living the idea of the bad boy image they only imagined. One sided as the fathers were never much of a fan because I reminded them of themselves. Leisurely taking hearts and moving on to the next when the sound became to familiar.

That was an old retrospect of me. Sure I wore the same leather jacket, paraded in metal, grunge band shirts. Smoked like a chimney and liked lying in the wonders of a woman. All still potent on the exterior as the interior was becoming a bit more velvet. Finding this comfortable closeness with another, enjoying the beat of the eternal drum that played on.

I looked over at this walk of life I crossed paths with. Her Buddy Holly glasses resting on the brim of her nose. Sitting comfortably with her tight covered legs under her jean shorts crossed over the other. Smiling at the loose green and white flannel she fished out of my closet that fit her perfectly. Complimenting the Jane Austen lithographic shirt tucked in. A book in her lap as her eyes grazed upon the lines, waiting as she silently thought unaware.

Lucy was implementing a part of me that did not see the light of day before the night I met her. Never in a million thinking I'd be flying across the pond. Looking for approval of the ones who brought up this, so extraordinarily unreal human. Situated so calmly as she already found acceptance when she found the same closure in me.

I brushed back the dark loose hairs falling from her messy bun, slipping them behind her ear. Derailing her from her oblivion till her eyes met mine, perfectly lined with a point at the end. Shined in bright blues with gold around her pupil. Squinting a bit as her cheeks rose with the curl of her lightly coral lips.

"Hey," She greeted, closing the book she folded the page to. Bringing her little hand over my hand on the arm rest. "We're almost there." I replied, then. Watching as she tried to mask a big smile, failing terribly but ever so sweet.

++

When we arrived to the airport, we were immersed into the heavy crowd. Observing all the ricocheting sounds and all the gatherings. Seeing all the families being brought into light, hugging tight as some just arrived like Lucy and I. Some also heading out to another place from here, thinking about how I almost would've been like the ones left behind. Feeling the rush of the holidays as they all wanted to settle in the glowing rafts of home.

Lucy being one of them as eagerly pulled me along. Her hand intertwined with mine as she led. Scanning impatiently for the two people she was longing to see. "Where are they?" She questioned, looking behind and past me as she tried covering all her bases.

Only to hear her gasp when she spotted a little sign reading "Sunshine has arrived in the grays of White Plains!" Watching her face light up ironically brighter than the lights in the place. Dropping my hand as she ran her family, trailing behind swiftly as I felt my heart beating uncontrollably.

She leaped into the arms of a tall, slender building of a brunette. Her brother, Eric that I heard nothing but fond memories about. How he showed her her first Smiths record. Saving up money for the complete season of Friends, that she quotes all the time. His light hazel eyes closing as he hoisted her up, evident that he missed her just as much. "Hey there kid!" He greeted, steadily placing her back on the ground.

"Look at you! Have you grown an inch or two?" He began, Lucy sucking in her teeth at the unbelievable recognition. Watching as his bright smile became soft in the sight of me. Diverting our glance as Lucy brought her attention the other man along side Eric, her father.

Lucy talked about how her dad barely has spoken since she has left. Mainly because he was still trucking after twenty years. Finding new places he hadn't seen in his years on the road. Trying to find time to call in as he did so, but she also knew that her being the one away this time. Was just as hard on him as it was on her.

"Hey dad," She croaked a bit, wrapping her arms around the tall man. His beard completely coated peppered around his mouth.

Standing taller than her brother, in light blue denim jacket. His red flannel shirt playing peek-a-boo at the collar, embracing his only little girl in his long, broad arms. "So glad to see you home." His southern accent mixed with New York tongue.

When he migrated up the states when his heart found home with a exciting, city waitress. Tightening his arms once more with a peck on her head before she pulled away. Lucy put her hand into mine, blushing as it became aware she's never brought a boy home.

"Matty, this is my brother Eric and my dad Jerry." She introduced, then. "Guys, this is Matty.. My boyfriend." Sensing my cheeks starting to warm as the words fell from her mouth like she's been practicing. Seeing her face flush as she looked worried I'd protest, but never in the slightest when all I wanted her to do was say it again.

I shook hands with the two gentlemen, firm and strong. Slightly intimidated at any moment I could mess up and they could have my ass. Only to begin to feel relived when Eric flung his arm around my shoulder, "So, my sister says you're in a band?"

++

Lucy's childhood home was very quaint. Dressed up in Christmas lights against the light shade of blue, cascading on the block with a white porch front. Gushing with happy filled memories before you placed your foot on the first step. Nothing compared to the slight mansion of mine back home Cheshire. That lost all of it's fuzzy magic when my parents split.

She had taken me on a tour as we put our luggage in her childhood room. Stories were hanging on the walls, pictures of Lucy, Eric, her mother and father paraded. Listening to Lucy beaming as she told some in passing. Her first time riding a bike at seven. First day of high school. The corgi that use to prance along the wooden floors. All different events that paved Lucy's life, all sharing one thing similar as that same bright smile glistened.

Eventually settling after a slight induce food coma from her dad's home cook meal. I sat on the cream sofa in the olive green living room. String lights dangling from the ceiling, Lucy's fond memories painted clearly as her father and brother tried recreating the arrangement of snowflakes like her mother would.

"Remember when you spilled all the mod podge!" Lucy recalled around the oddly round evergreen as Eric and her continued on traditions of decorating the tree on Christmas Eve. Leaning up onto her tippy toes to hook an ornament near the top. Admiring a little shiny red ball with a tiny fingerprints disguised as snowmen as it twirled on the hook in my hands.

Eric trying to wrap garland around the tree, only to be defeated when he remembered Lucy's summon. "Yeah, and then you put your hand in glitter that took weeks to get off" He remarked, her little angelic laugh bantering as she threw a candy cane at him in protest.

Reminiscing on all the various ornaments that were made when they were kids. Glancing at Lucy who would dance around the tree to all the carols she remembered. In her first gift of night a red and white snowflake pajama set that was slightly too big. Matching the red flannel set that the gentlemen had given me. Pulling me up to help with some of the tall places. Taking her hands into mine as we swayed to the jolly harmonies.

When the tree was lit up, dolled in pretty lights. Overloaded with ornaments and garlands hugging around. Lucy put on a kettle of water for her mother, Emma's famous peppermint tea. Sparsing it between the three of us as her father made an exit to meet some of his pals earlier on. Getting caught up in a game of questions as her brother asked about my band, what I was studying and bonding as we talked Quentin Tarantino films.

He took the last sip of his mug, before letting out a gulping sigh in delight. His hazel eyes trailing as he ran his finger of the rim of the cup. "I miss her a lot." He bluntly stated, Lucy smirking a bit as she grabbed his hand. "Me too. But she's here, always." She reassured when she looked back at the tree. Taking a double glance when she realized her mother's gold star was not placed on the top.

"I'll help you." I exclaimed before she went to explain. Smiling at how I was observant in her flee of thoughts. She went over to the mantel where the star with a string sat. Straightening it out a bit as it was becoming old in age, only to cherished till it couldn't uphold anymore.

With one swift move, I bent down to till I grabbed Lucy's thighs that rested on my shoulders. Watching her little arms outstretch and place the topper, perfectly straight and aligned. Setting her back down on the cricks of the wooden floor.

Eric smiled in awe, "He's a keeper, Lu!" He remarked, walking back in from the kitchen. His cargo tan jacket in hand, "I'm heading to Marco's for some drinks. Want to come?" He offered, then. "They sure miss ya." Adding, placing the jacket on one arm at a time.

"I'd love to, but I'm very tired from my trip." Lucy excused, fixing the collar of his jacket. Eric nodded, "What about you, Matty? I'm sure the guys would love to hear about your music." He asked, smiling lightly at his kind gesture. "I think I'm going to turn in as well. You know, jetlag." I replied, smiling with a nod.

I helped Lucy in the kitchen after her brother left to gallivant. Her running and soaping them up under the warm water. "So, this visit isn't bad after all." She remarked, recalling the days before inching to our flight.

Fabricating different scenarios as to why my appearance would be a havoc. I took the dishes Lucy finished washing over with a cloth to dry and put them on the dish drainer. "It's only been four fours." I reminded.

Leaning my back against the counter as I watched her wipe down the kitchen. She chuckled a bit, smirking at my response. Watching as she gliding the rag around the sink. "My brother offering you out for drinks is a big deal." She replied, draping the rag over the faucet. She stood in front of me, wrapping her little arms around my waist. Planting her head against my chest "Trust me, they like you." She said reassuringly, before leaning up to kiss my chin.

++

Lucy and I retreated to her room. With a faded coat of pink fluorescing off the panels. Old artwork hanging scattered in the mix of transition as she got older. Her love for music progressing with The Beatles to PJ Harvey. Showing off the books that were far too many for her tiny room back in London. Connecting her fascination for a dim room with twinkle lights replicating the ones over the tapestry in her flat.

I lied within the purple sheets of her princess bed. Spooning her to my chest, feeling the hum of her body as it rose and fell steadily. Tracing a bit of her side with my fingertips as the hem of her shirt shifted. Listening to her huff when she aimlessly flipped through the channels. Each every other showing the same Christmas flick.

I went to reach for the remote in her hands when a famously recognizable knock sounded off the TV. Watching the little ginger singsonging to her sister through the door. To come out and build a snowman with her.

"Don't change this!" I insisted as I seen her finger graze the next button. Lucy looked back at me, "You like Frozen?" She questioned, then. Only to answer her back when I picked up from the chorus. Dramatically raising my hand in the air as I sang along.

Mouthing all the words to my favorite scenes and songs. Pressing my lips to her cheek, her neck and leaving her in stitches. Watching as Ana, Kristoff, Olaf and Svan went searching for Elsa to end the icy spell casted over Arendelle.

We lied there as the movie began to near towards the end. Ana turning to ice as she learned the powers she had no control over, protecting her sister Elsa from Hans. Hearing a light sniffle of Lucy's nose as the movie captured her heart like it did mine. Watching her gaze in glee when the ice melted over Ana, breaking the spell and putting Arendelle back to normal for the rest of coronation.

Ana and Kristoff finally realizing what they had in front of them after the time they spent with each other. Turning Lucy to face me in perfect timing--

"I could kiss you. I could. I mean, I'd like to. I–may I? We me? I mean, may we? Wait, what?" I repeated after Kristoff. Implementing a totally different form of kissing as it fell from my lips. Turning off the TV by the remote before I brought my attention back.

I looked down at her as she gazed back at me in question. "What?" She asked, then. Tilting her head against the pillow behind her.

"What's wrong?" She asked again, her naivety kicking in as I was silent. My mind, not so much.

That was the thing, nothing was wrong. Or that was my issue that nothing was wrong. Everything was right, it felt good and it scared me shitless. I had so many things running through my mind. What could go wrong during or after this but right now was all I was worried about and the words that have been hanging of the edge of my tongue for weeks.

Feeling her hands moving the curls from my face as I snapped back to reality. Feeling okay and nervous all at once. Meeting her eyes with mine again before I sat up.

"I love you." I said, then. Her blue eyes widening with every syllable that fell from my lips. "It's been weighing over my mind for a while now, it's something I've never experienced before." I began, "I can't quite put my thumb on it. The feeling just grows and I love you."

Lucy was just starring, listening to me mumble before she sat up. Smiling and growing closer to me.

"I can't explain much of it either." She said, "but I love you too." And feeling the weight lift before I pulled her even closer and kissed her.

[bts-fantasy]

The Boy Next Door

Genre: Thriller AU

Characters: Yoongi, Hoseok x Reader

Next

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You woke up in the early morning to the sound of brids chirping. Yawning loudly you got up and opened your blinds to let the morning sun shine into your room looking at the clear sky your mood got lifted even more after being woken up by the peaceful sound of nature. You had a feeling that today was going to be extra special.

Suddenly you heard a loud bang outside and a deep voice shouting curse words. Your eyes shifted to the guys standing in the driveway next to your house one of them trying to lift up a heavy-looking box.

„Ah, shit! I hope you didn‘t break anything“, the guy shouted, who seemed like the older brother of the one who’d dropped the box on the road. He kept carrying one box after the other into the house next to yours while the younger was staring at the box in front of him as if it was a math problem.

His thin figure was slightly struggling to hold the heavyweight up for too long and he put it down once again with an annoyed expression looking around to check his surroundings as if he wanted to make sure no one was looking his way. His hair was tousled and black as ebony his clothes that were loosely hanging over his body were all in the same color palette of dark grey, black and blue.

Soon his eyes darted up staring directly at you catching a glimpse of your gaze right before you disappeared from your window.

Your heart was beating rapidly inside of your chest for being caught staring and you quickly moved to your bathroom to get ready for school. You put on a black turtle neck sweater with white pants and went downstairs where you could hear your mom fidgeting with the mixer already.

„Mom, are you baking a-“, you stopped as soon as you walked into the kitchen spotting your mom cracking eggs into the batter.

„...cake, for the new neighbors.“

You smiled at her as she nodded. It was a tradition for you two to welcome a new neighbor with your mom’s homemade cake.

„Yes. I saw them arrive this morning and introduced myself to them. They seem to be very nice people.“

You hummed in response taking a bite of the pancake that was already set on a plate on the table.

„Mhmm... delicious! Thanks, mom!“

A bashful smile spread across your mother‘s face since she still struggled with compliments despite the amount she received.

„I‘m glad you like it Y/N. Now hurry up or you‘ll be late for school!“

Finishing your breakfast quickly you left the house after saying goodbye to your mom and ran up to the bus station just in time to catch the bus.

A few minutes later you walked through the big wooden doors entering your school where you were met with the loud noises of students talking and lockers smashing. You walked to yours taking out the textbooks you needed for your classes as you got tackled by someone from behind.

„How was your weekend, Y/N?“, Hoseok‘s loud voice startled you and you turned around with wide eyes that shut him up immediately.

„Sorry, I know you told me not to yell at you first thing in the morning.“

He averted his gaze with a pout but you couldn‘t help but giggle at the adorable expression. It was funny how your friend was sensitive to loud noises but was the loudest one himself.

„It‘s okay. My weekend was so much fun! And with fun I mean I‘ve been working on my assignments non-stop and I haven‘t seen sunlight in two days“, you faked a smile as Hoseok looked at you as if you‘d gone completely crazy. He bent down to meet your eyes studying your face carefully.

„Yep. It‘s clear. You need help.“ He nodded earning a playful punch from you in return as his loud laugh filled the hallways. The bell rang and the hallways emptied quickly everyone walking into the classrooms and you and Hoseok started your day with a good mood.

„Is he hot?“, Hoseok whispered after a few seconds causing your eyes to grow wide looking at him. You‘d just told him about your new neighbors and the embarrassing incident, feeling the heat rise to your cheeks once again at the thought of it. Hoseok kept staring at you with expectant eyes waiting for your answer but you simply didn‘t know what to say so you just shrugged averting your eyes.

Hoseok sighed shaking his head at your response clearly disappointed he shifted his attention back to the teacher in front of you and so you continued the rest of the classes for the day trying hard not to fall asleep.

„Mom, I‘m home!“, you yelled the sweet smell of freshly baked cake engulfing you as soon as you set foot into your house.

„Oh, perfect! Can you please bring this over to the new neighbors? I have an important video conference with one of my clients.“

Your mom‘s eyes were sparkling at the mention of her client. She worked as a full-time artist and selling your artwork was a difficult business and it was always great news when she got a new client who was ready to buy one of her beautiful paintings. So you nodded taking the cake that was carefully packed in a tin and made your way over to your new neighbors. You heard your mom shout a ‚thank you‘ behind you as you closed the front door already dreading the encounter in front of you. You were hoping that his older brother would open the door since you were still too embarrassed to meet the one who‘d caught you this morning.

Walking up the few stairs, you finally stood in front of the black wooden door fixing your hair before pressing the bell right next to the brass sign that read ‚Min Brothers‘. You held your breath as you heard the loud bell sounding through the entire house and someone shouting inside.

„Open the door, Jae!“, a deep voice shouted inside.

„Get your ass up from the couch and get it yourself!“, you heard another voice shout that you recognized as the older one. After a few curse words you heard slurping footsteps nearing the door automatically causing you took a step back as a precaution. The door opened revealing the older brother whose eyes widened in surprise to see you standing there.

„Oh, hey...“, he spoke lowly as you tightened the grip around the cake tin. His black hair was almost covering his eyes which made it hard for you to read his expression. You couldn‘t tell if he was annoyed by your visit or not.

„Uhm... this is for you. My mom made it as a welcome gift“, you spoke rapidly only wanting to disappear but you soon saw his lips pull into a shy smile as he accepted your gift with a bow. He ran his fingers through his hair to get the strands out of his sight so he could look at you properly. His gaze wandered up and down your face examining your details in a calm manner but it made you freeze in your spot your mind racing with thoughts about what to do or say next.

„Thank you...“, he dragged his words implying for you to introduce yourself which you‘d completely forgotten in the heat of the moment. As if you were stung by an adder you realized how dumb you were acting in front of your new neighbor and you quickly introduced yourself with a nervous laugh.

„Sorry, my name‘s Y/N. I live in that house over there“, you pointed towards your house but stopped to look back at the guy when you heard his chuckle.

„Yeah, I know.“

Your eyes widened immediately at his words and he noticed your gaze before he quickly added: „I saw you this morning when you ran to the bus station.“

Your cheeks turned red but you were glad that he didn‘t mention the window incident as you nodded with a shy smile.

„I‘m Min Yoongi, by the way. It‘s nice to meet you, Y/N.“ Your name rolled off his tongue so smoothly it made you shiver and you nodded with a timid smile.

„Uhm... I think I should head back home...“, you said after a long pause stepping down the stairs ready to leave but you stopped when you heard his deep voice speaking up again.

„I‘ll see you around.“

Before you could reply the door got closed and you quickly left as you felt like an intruder standing all alone on their front porch.

Finally, back in your room, you turned your laptop on to work on your homework for the next day as your phone suddenly rang with an incoming message. You furrowed your brows at the unknown number as you opened the message only to feel your blood freeze in your veins.

You tossed your phone away standing up so fast that it knocked your chair over with a loud crash. Looking around your room panicked you moved to your window to see if there was someone outside but all you could see was an empty street illuminated by the lamp posts surrounding your little neighborhood. You closed your blinds quickly trying to calm yourself down as you stood in the middle of your room staring at your phone that laid upside down on your desk, too scared to pick it up again.

„Y/N? Is everything alright?“, you heard your mom‘s voice coming from downstairs startling you again. She must‘ve heard the loud crash of your wooden stool and you knew how scared your mom was of loud noises after everything that went down with your dad. You composed yourself quickly holding onto your elbows to prevent yourself from shaking as you replied to her.

„N-no mom, don‘t worry it was just my chair.“

You walked over to pick the knocked over furniture up again your eyes shifting to your phone as you kept staring at it. Only one question haunted your mind the same words repeating over and over again in your head.

Who was it?

A/N: It‘s finally out! The first part of my halloween series!👻 I sat down with my roommate today to work out the plot and I gotta say that I‘m very, very excited for this one!!🥳

I hope you guys enjoy reading this and comment your thoughts and also if you want to be included on the taglist!😁👍🏽

Stick with me until the end because you don‘t wanna miss it I promise🥺

Thank you all for reading, I purple you!💜

(Btw don‘t get confused when you see my main acc respond to your comments (@thedreaming-poet))

Masterlist

[velvetinewitch]

ahhhh colours!! #2E294E #7C7C7C #52DEE5?

i love this color palette so much! definitely pirate vibes, although how could i write anything less haha. i had fun coming up with a crew for this, thank you!

[send me three hex codes and i’ll write something for them!]

They were nearing the end of the world and the sky was grayer than the floors of any city she’d torn down, but Danu had her crew and her sword, so she knew she’d be fine. She stood at the edge of their ship, where the magical barrier, invisible if not for a mother-of-pearl sheen, stretched upwards from the wooden dock and into the sky. When her clumsy first mate tripped over their own feet, it was the barrier that kept them from tumbling over the sharp edge and into the merciless waves beneath them. They’d always complained to Danu that she needed to add a visible railing, but she preferred the adrenaline rush that swept through one's body when they thought they would fall, only to hit the invisible wall like it was a glass window and they, a bird.

The water splashed up against the wall and receded down its side, leaving a trail of droplets that began to evaporate. Danu turned away and found herself face to face with the devil themself- Seith glanced over her shoulder at the ocean wearily, then offered her a half-hearted grin. There was little humor behind it, and it came off as more of a grimace. “Good day to fall off the edge of the world, isn’t it?”

“There will be no falling,” Danu assured them. Her hand had slipped to her sword by reflex, but now she let it fall to her side and lay lax, knowing that if there was one person in the world she didn’t need to fight, it was Seith. There had only ever been one exception, and she’d been mind-controlled at the time, so they tended to overlook it, unless Seith wanted the upper hand in an argument.

“Slip,” Seith said instead, although the euphemism was worse than “falling,” in Danu’s mind. “Trip. Tilt. Dangle. Sink. Toss ourselves off and hope the ship grows wings.”

Danu rolled her eyes. “No falling,” she said again. She crossed her arms. “Shouldn’t you trust me by now?”

“I will never trust you,” they promised. They both knew it was a lie, but she didn’t cut them off, and instead waited patiently for the long tirade they were about to go on. Like clockwork, they took a deep breath and began to ramble. “You’ve nearly gotten me killed at least a hundred times. There was that time in Pirus, with the man-eating butterflies, or when you broke into the Museum of Glass in Charvetica, and the sphinx guarding the one section tried to chew on my legs. Remember when you sacrificed me to the volcano while we were in the Hashait Islands?”

“Good times,” Danu said, and she couldn’t help but laugh at their disgusted expression. The ocean roared in her ears, and she linked her arm through theirs, guiding them to where the crew members had gathered at the forecastle deck. Each person there, staring out at the ghastly grey water, was a member of her family, and she theirs. They had a hundred stories between them. Advara had been a guard who’d let Danu slip past her and, after being fired, and slunk back to the ship and demanded they let her join them. Gigi was once the primadonna daughter of a rich noble before she refused an arranged marriage and ran off, surviving a month before she heard of a band of misfits who’d take her in. George and Jane were twins that had never known how to use their magic before Seith offered to teach them, and they finally learned how to stop blowing things up. Or rather, blow things up in a more controlled manner.

Advara turned her attention to Danu and Seith as they joined them. “What’s our plan?” she asked briskly. Her eyes were yellow and owl-shaped. She’d used them to spot treasures at the bottom of the ocean floor before, but she was also perceptive enough to notice when Seith was injured. They tended to be quiet about their wounds, and Advara kept them from bleeding out. “If we don’t have one I’d like to know now.”

“If we don’t have a plan I’m jumping ship and swimming away,” Gigi said. She stuck her nose up haughtily, her cheeks powdered with a dark purple that showed on her tanned skin, eyelashes covered in speckles that were crafted from shards of stars. Jane had won her those stars fair and square- a game of poker years ago. “A cute mermaid will find me and bring me to shore and we’ll fall in love while the rest of you slide into the abyss.”

“You’d never ruin your makeup,” Jane told her. Her crush on Gigi was obvious to everyone except them. Even a Red Queen’s soldier had once told them they were a cute couple, during the midst of a fight. George had never laughed like that before, certainly not as hard, until Jane told Seith to take the barrier down so she could toss him overboard.

“We aren’t sliding off the edge of the ocean and into the abyss,” Danu said. “We’ll slide over it.”

Seith turned to her, aghast. “I don’t have that kind of magic!” they said, giving her a scandalized expression. “I can’t just make us float over nothingness, Dan, I’m not a god.”

“No,” Danu said, giving them a reassuring smile. She swept a hand through her hair- even with Seith’s barrier against the elements, it was always wet, but she tended to slick back the short cut. It was one of her lovely quirks. The missing eyes, the slicked-back hair, the way she always smelled the seas salt. They all added together and made a fine pirate, if she did say so herself. “But that’s another one of my secrets: I am.”

Each of her crew mates stared at her, and then Gigi let out a sharp laugh, breaking the silence. “I knew it!” she said. She flipped her hair back and looked smugly at Jane, who sighed. “I told you all I saw her bleed gold once, and none of you believed me.”

“Is this why you flirt with everyone?” George asked. He peered at her over his half-moon glasses. Danu might have been as old as the ocean beneath them, but it was George who looked it. His personality matched; he was the smartest of them all, always suggesting they steal books or scholarly artifacts. “I hear that’s a trait of gods.”

“That’s why you meddle with everything,” Jane realized. “Gods do that too.”  She hid a smile with her hand.

“And why you have no care for your own safety,” Seith said. They rolled their eyes. “Oh my go- I can’t handle this right now. Show me godly magic though, after I finish brooding.” They turned and marched dramatically down the stairs. 

Danu watched them go with a faint fondness. “They’ll be back,” she said, smiling. “Who’d want to miss seeing a god manipulation the ocean for one small, dingy ship?” The ship was more than a dingy one, though. It was the one she and Seith had stolen together all those years ago, the one that had survived canons, dragons, fires, storms, and every other enemy that came with being theirs. It was home.

Advara punched Danu’s shoulder lightly. “The world really is ending, huh,” she said. It wasn’t a question- they’d all heard the prophecies. Oracles had been everywhere they went, spewing poetry about how the sky would fall into the ocean and the ocean would drain off the edge of the planet, like a melting painting. A chosen one, out there somewhere, who’d have to rise to the challenge and defeat the mother of the big five gods. Danu shivered to think of her mother, or the chosen one. Whoever they were, they were in for a grim future. Her crew would be left out of it, though. She’d rather the world end then they have to tear themselves apart to save it. Advara looked at her, tilting her head. “So tell us, oh powerful goddess, why aren’t you off causing chaos in the heavens?”

Danu grinned and met her eyes. “So I can be here with you guys, causing chaos on the seas and in the streets.”

Gigi whooped and threw her arm over Danu’s shoulder. “Let’s go find out what’s beyond the edge of the world,” she said. “This is almost better than mermaid romance.” And they laughed and traded stories, and when Seith finally returned from brooding, she showed them all how to whisper to the waves and taught them to build a bridge across the sky, so they could sail right over the end of the world and into something beyond it.

[ladybender]

I just watched beast with a billion backs for the first time and i was just wondering if there's any general fandom opinion on why fry was so quick to jump into other relationships and forget about leela right from the start of it?

i’m so sorry i’m only responding to this ask now… i was crafting the perfect response for days, because this topic rocks and i have so much to say, and then life got weird, and then i forgot… but now I’m here nonny, and this ask will get ANSWERED

Let me just start by saying, I have one solid hot take for this movie, but it wasn’t first formulated by me, but by my very fav fic author The Sophisticated Shut In, a longish time ago. i’m putting it together again from scratch and memory, so maybe now it belongs to a mix of the both of us? idk. It was her big brain that shock me into belief tho so she should get credit too. That said, let’s start!

So! a month had passed between BBS and BWABB. during this time Fry and Leela most likely didn’t talk much. Leela was mourning the death of Lars and she needed time to sort out all of her emotions (MANY of which are related to Fry). So, she does what most would do when things change drastically and you feel unbalanced, you wish for things to go momentarily “back to normal” just to have some stability and time to think.

But! if Fry and Leela have a weakness, is that they are so terrible at communicating. so while Leela’s seemingly pretending everything that happened actually never happened, Fry doesn’t understand why Leela is leaving him out of her life and is not talking to him. 

I’m gonna take a big step back here. after the opera, Fry most likely left it up to Leela to decide what she wanted to do with their relationship. the opera itself is the last big grand gesture Fry made in the show. after that, he thought he has done everything he could, and pretty successfully told Leela what he felt in a way she understood. So he stood still, giving Leela the chance to step forward. I’m never sure what really happens here, but they must have lost the moment somehow, because Fry's waiting for Leela to make a move and tell him how she feels, and Leela's waiting for fry to maybe prove that he meant it (don’t hate on her, she is basically going the equivalent of “but do you like me, like me?” in this moment and tbh i relate to that level of deep insecurity so much). The result on this: they got stuck.

Now, idk if that gap between TDHAIP and BBS really was 3 years long, that’s a bit to much imo, but if it really was it would make sense (in a sad, frustrating way) why Leela all but jumped into Lars’s arms, and Fry made those drastic and dramatic decisions like, in this order: leaving the future, staying in the past, leaving the past, pretending to be someone else for years, catfishing Leela, not telling anyone he’s dying and instead lying some more, “i’ll only tell the truth in the form of a video-confession at my own funeral” (I mean, I love the guy, but he made some questionable choices. i can understand everything and cry forever if you think it has been 3 + 12 + 2ish years total since he wrote the opera for Leela with no response).

Now, back to BWABB. Leela in ignoring Fry, with all the best intention in the world, but *surprise*, it turns out that it wasn’t a wise move (who would have thought!!), because now Fry is acting out of the ordinary and it confuses Leela more. and instead of saying "calm down mayhaps, i don’t hate you you big baby, i just need to think”, she goes ahead and only indulges him when they are with the others, playing along with the ‘everything is fine’ facade, but when it’s just the two of them and he needs her help (as a friend), she shuts down or lashes out at him. I mean look at this shit

She is outright telling him to leave!!! red flag

Fry, on his end, doesn’t really know what Leela is going through (bc talking? I don’t know her), so if you look at it in his POV it’s pretty depressing. Leela was about to marry Lars, the man she said she loved and was the only one for her, he thought that meant things would change between them now. But as it turns out, things were just the same after. until they turned worse than ever.

Just think about Fry and Leela most representative quote: “you are lonely and I am lonely, but together we are lonely together.” This is not true anymore in this movie. For the first time they are lonely apart. And really, their themes are all about that. For Leela it’s isolation, specifically. She is constantly isolating herself (at Amy’s wedding, for example. Or how she’s the only one not to “love the tentacle” AND to not want to go to heaven and be with Yivo. The only one. In the entire universe. immovable object).

As a contrast, Fry’s loneliness is unbarable to him, and is expressed in this constant and desperate need to have something that will return his love (this is where both his relationships with Colleen and Yivo fit. unstoppable force lmao)

Not but really, Fry’s relationships are so rushed, and clearly just an attempts to push his loneliness in a corner. Fry even put up with an open relationship (something he visibly didn’t want) to stay with Colleen. he was pretty desperate. This relationship with her is also a regression for fry - the way he didn’t want to break up with Colleen resembles a lot Michelle. but that isn’t even the worst of the two because then you look at Yivo, and I cannot even begin to laugh at how big of a Leela mirror shklim is (but I’ll get to that later). All I have to say about Yivo and Fry’s relationship is contained in this quote:

Fry says “it loves me” before he says “i love it”. That kinda says it all.

And finally let’s talk about mirror and color coding bc I thrive for that shit!!

So I think I can safely say Fry is represented by orange and Leela is represented by purple. nothing new under the sun. and those colors play a major role in this movie!! And they are about as subtle as you might think lmao

First let’s take a look at Colleen:

She is literally always wearing purple??? (only when she is in her cop uniform she isn’t). And if you think that’s not enough to prove my point look at this

I KNOW,, what the hell, right?!!

the animator coloring this, probably: “just a little bit of purple to show Fry is trying to get over Leela and failing big time *drops whole palette of purple into the frame* WOOPSY”

PLUS (and here comes the most subtle but BLATANT thing this movie has done so far) look at what Fry sees in the montage after he and Colleen break up

Fry just sees generic couples being happy and kissing!! No colleen resembling anything! Fry is not missing her, he’s missing something else 👀👀👀. all the women in this are wearing purple…. the guy making out with his psychiatrist is one of Leela’s ex-lovers……… the two characters fighting and then making up are orange and purple…..??? I JUST DON’T KNOW WHO COULD IT BE!

and this is not even touching the whole Yivo business. Can I talk about Yivo , I’ve been dying to talk about Yivo with you all day! One eye,? check. purple? check. tentacles??? Check. fry finding shklim after wondering alone in a strange new world, and the lonely monster will help him feel less alone??! CHECK!

I know the movies are weird in a shippy pov (took me so long to understand what the fuck was going on in Bender’s Game from a freela prospective, and i dont even know for sure if i have it right lmao) but the movies make a lot more sense if you look at them as Leela realizing her own feelings for Fry in BBS, and the next three films as her dealing with that until finally!!!!

[spoopyghostgirl]

So, this is a one shot that takes place in my Modern Oblivion AU

The HoK/Silencer is my OC, Lilith (Lily) Corbeau

Pairing: Lucien Lachance X Silencer, Lucien Lachance X HoK, Martin Septim X HoK

Word Count: 2,376

Warm lips. Soft blue eyes. Wet paint on flushed tan skin. Her fingers glided across his bare stomach and up his chest, spreading the slick orange paint from navel to neck. Her canvas smiles, quirking a dark brow, her hand absently moving to hold her jaw.

"Another master piece," his voice, warm and kind, held a hint of bemusement. Smiling, her hand moved from her face, leaving small rust colored spots on her jaw, before lightly grazing up the side of his face. Closing his eyes, he felt the cool slickness of paint spread across the right side of his face, nuzzling gently into her touch. "Improving upon what's already there," he ventured at her continued silence, warm lips fluttering across her palm. Golden eyes moved over the landscape she created across his chest, the skyline a mixture of orange, red, and purple. Several tall structures jutted up into the skyline, mirroring the towering city scape that made up their home town. Pulling her eyes from her work she offered Martin a warm smile, his cheeks coloring at the affection in her golden gaze.

"Improve you?" Her lips quirked, "now that is impossible." Pushing away her wooden palette, she leaned forward, brushing her nose with his. Martin shudder, eyes slipping shut as her lips feathered across his own. Swallowing and with his eyes still pinched shut, he spoke.

"Listen, Lily I-," blankets shifting, the pair jumped, her wooden palette slapping loudly against the wooden floor. Gold met blue, Liliths eyes wide with panic while Martins reflected disappointment.

"I- I should clean that up," she spoke nervously, pushing herself up from her bed and off the blushing imperial. "And you should-," Martin's jaw clenched, already knowing what to expect from her.

"I should get cleaned up and leave." His voice held none of the warmth that had been there moments before. Keeping her back to him, she knelt down, deft fingers wrapping around the paint splattered palette. "Right," Martin left her there in a flurry, not even moving to clean the paint off his chest before he tugged on his plain black t and jacket. Hot tears pinpricked in her eyes before she hurled the palette across the room, grimacing when it shatter and splintered in pieces.

Yellow eyes opening, her lips pressed together once more. Her gaze fluttered over the very landscape she had painted across her lovers- former lovers, chest. Though the sun had come and passed, the night sky was littered with stars, making up for the lack of swirling color. It was beautiful, she could admit, reminding her as to why she had stayed within the city despite its grueling traffic and constant buzz of life. Glancing down at the flute of wine in her hand, her lips pursed, her thoughts moving to the conversation that was had leading up to her withdrawal from Martin. 'Jauffre,' she grimaced at the mans name.

"You need to be careful with the friends you keep," she had laughed at the police chiefs words, a single brow arching. She hadn't understood until then how much he knew of the illicit activites she had recently taken up. "You think that when it's discovered what you've been doing... who you've been working for comes to light that they won't target the ones you love?" Her heart had caught in her throat, his words clicking together in a way that both infuriated and terrified her. Clearing her throat, she had tried to play it off, feigning ignorance, pointing out that she had become a sanguinite because of Martin. Jauffre had stepped closer to her then, yellow eyes flickering with panic when his left hand closed tightly around her wrist, mere centimeters away from the dagger she had been gifted from her Speaker. "I do not appreciate you playing coy when his life is on the line," fangs flashing, she wretched herself from Jauffres grasp.

"You have some nerve-," she began, her muscles moving in reflex when he stepped towards her once more. The blade of woe flashed in the dim light of the room, its blade biting lightly into the flesh of his throat. Jauffres eyes had widened in surprise before his face shifted into one of smug self satisfaction.

"You can play pretend all you want, child, but if I was smart enough to put two and two together, who's to say others will not?" She had whirled on her heel then, blade being slipped back into its place in her sleeve before the door to his office slammed shut behind her.

Lips pursed, she worked her jaw, trying to calm her boiling anger. Finding no release, her grasp on her flute of wine shifted before it went soaring from the balcony she stood upon. She watched it break in half before shattering on the pavement several stories below her place perched on the balcony.

"Did the wine offend you, dear sister?" She jumped at his voice, whirling away from the skyline to face him. Luciens lips quirked, having not had many opportunities to sneak up on the newest member of the brotherhood. Gold eyes briefly held his own chocolate gaze before moving past him.

"It seems the party continues on without us," she offered up when she realized Lucien had no intention of leaving. Turning back to her view of the sky, Lucien stepped away from the door leading back inside, his dark eyes running over her profile. He had found her beautiful from the first moment he had looked upon her and that had led down a very complicated path. A path that led to awkward silences and loss eye contact that had once been filled with easy smiles and late nights in his kitchen cooking.

"So it seems," he had yet to cross to stand beside her, opting to linger a safe distance away. "Though I am unsurprised, what the wuth company you've been choosing to keep." Her back straightened, gold eyes snapping to his face, a single brow arching.

"And what ever is that suppose to mean, Speaker?" She had sneered his title, something he had never witnessed. Responding in kind, Lucien stepped closer, dark eyes flashing.

"You know exactly who I am referring to." Liliths jaw clenched, gold eyes moving away from his furious face. "The detective," 'your former lover', lucien had left the words unsaid but the implication was missed.

"I didnt realize the Night Mother was so worried about the company her children keep." He had reached for her then, his fingers barely grazing her jaw before she pulled away. "Or are your concerns over him more personal?" His cheeks warmed, though in embarrassment or anger, she couldn't tell.

"I have no idea what you speak of, dear sister," he growled, dark eyes flashing dangerously. "But you are well aware of what the dark hand thinks of the company your keeping. Of the implications it says about you and the trust that we can put into you." In an instant she had spun to face him, yellow eyes flashing black.

"You dare question my loyalty, after everything I've done for you, for our family!" Her voice lowered, gold eyes flickering to the solid glass doors that separated them from her familial party and unwanted attention.

"Of course not, dear sister," a sneer, "it just isn't wise to have loose ends. If something were to happen to you, if your loyalty came in to question, who is to say that I- that we, could continue turning a blind eye?"

Crack!

Liliths palm stung from the force of the slap. Scarlet stained her Speakers cheek, her mouth opening and closing once before he was on her.

"You dare raise a hand to me," his right hand wrapped tightly around her throat, back pressed firmly to the railing behind her. "I am a Speaker of the black hand, your superior," he seethed, left hand catching her right hand and holding it beside her head.

"I do not care who you are! No one threatens the man that I-," Luciens lips silenced her declaration. He could not bare to think that the woman he had given his heart to had already given hers to another. Gold eyes pinching shut, Lilith reciprocated the kiss roughly. Her teeth bit into his bottom lip, the hand he had loosened around her throat moved to her hair and pulled. She gasped, his tongue finding purchase in her mouth. Goosebumps spread over her arms, the sweet taste of him and his blood in her mouth causing her to growl with need. Luciens hands slid down, running between her shoulder blades and now her back, down to her bare legs. His warm hands had just grazed her legs, pushing the silk fabric of her dress away when she shoved him away. "Dont you dare touch me," she growled, cheeks flushed, pupils blown wide. "I dont belong to you or your fucking mother!" Lucien laughed humorlessly, making no move to touch the furious girl.

"That is where you are wrong, dearest sister. When you slayed Rufio you became one of us. You belong to the Night Mother body and soul." Hot tears blurred her vision,

"I hate you." Her voice trembled but she pressed on. "And if you or any of your family even thinks of harming a single hair on his head, I'll kill you." Lucien trembled, brown eyes flashing black. Lilith felt the smallest flicker of fear, mind absently moving to the blade of woe strapped to her thigh, mere centimeters from where his hands had just been on her.

"And then what, dearest sister? Where do you think you'd go where the brotherhood wouldn't find you. Where I wouldn't find you?" Pinching his eyes shut, Lucien took a single calming breath, "I will allow your words this evening to go unpunished. I know how much you care for... him and how difficult it will be to let him go but I can not stand by idly while you endanger my family."

"I dont need your special treatment, Speaker." She spat, "nor do I need your approval. If the other members of the black hand or the listener found my behavior or company problematic, they would be here but they're not which leads me to believe that it's only you who has a problem. And you're,"

"Your speaker." He growled, "and you will do as you are told."

"Lucien, that is quite enough,"

"Matheiu." Lilith spoke the young mans name softly, the murder of Speaker Blanchard still fresh in her mind.

"Speaker Bellamont," Lucien scowled, having remembered how taken with Lilith the Silencer turned Speaker had been.

"Speaker Lachance," Mathieu, unfazed by the sharp glare directed at him turned a charming smile on their fair sister. "Dearest Lily, I believe Antonietta is looking for you. You should go find her before she finds you out here alone with him." Lilith nodded her thanks to Mathieu, stopping briefly to squeeze his shoulder, both in thanks and comfort, before slipping between the glass doors he'd come through. "Trouble in Paradise," Lucien had turned to follow after Lilith only to stop, his teeth grinding together.

"And what, pray tell dear brother, do you mean by that?" Mathieu leaned back against the railing, honeyed gaze moving from the dark sky to his fuming brother.

"Oh, just something myself and some of our other siblings have noticed about you and our dearest Lily." He told himself he wouldn't take the bait, wouldn't be tricked into an argument with the younger man but-,

"Talking about me behind my back, Bellamont? How unbecoming of you," Lucien smirked. Bellamont, unfazed by the dig, pressed on.

"You seem rather fond of her, no?" He arched a brow, his question rhetorical but necessary. "But she does not seem to return your affection. It would be unfortunate for you and our family for the black hand to believe that you would use your position to force yourself upon her." Luciens eyes widened as he whirled to face the younger man. "And to threaten her position within the family because she took a lover that isn't you," he clicked his tongue. "Very unbecoming of you, Lachance." Lucien crossed the balcony in five quick steps, his already dark eyes swirling black.

"I would hate to think that you were threatening me, dear brother." Lucien mocked, Mathieu looking up at him, seemingly unfazed by the invasion of space.

"Threaten you? Come now, Lucien, I am aware of the tenants. I would never harm my dear big brother," sipping from his champagne Bellamont continued, "I just wanted to give you some friendly advice. Until her relationship with the Detective becomes a problem, you need to be careful. You never know who could be listening in," with that, Bellamont drained his flute, and brushed by Lucien. "Alas, it would seem it's time to return to the party. It would do good for you to mingle with the guests, brother, many of those inside fund our organization." Pausing at the door, Mathieu rolled his eyes, finding Lucien had taken his place leaning against the railing. "I see you still need a minute," with that the glass door clicked shut. Lucien sighed, right hand slipping into his suit jacket to retrieve his phone. He knew Bellamont was right, a small petty part of him protesting the sentiment, but he needed to be careful. Needed to tread lightly. With rumors of a traitor in their midst, it would not bode well to get turning his siblings against him. With several quick clicks, he had pulled up her contact. He could message her now, apologize before things could get worse or-, shaking his head, Lucien locked the screen and tucked the device back into his suit jacket. Any apology he would offer now would be half assed, his cheek still stinging from the slap, his finger tips grazing over the tender flesh absently. No, he would think of something meaningful to show her how sorry he was And, show her that he was the better choice for her. Smirking to himself he slipped back into the penthouse, a charming smile on his face, and a plan in mind. 'Now to find Vicente and win the heart of our darling dark sister.'

[glykon-fr-blog]

Stupor

Here’s a story I wrote for the Shadom Writing Contest (will reblog with link, since Tumblr is very dumb and bad), for one of my Shadow dragons. It’s about unexpected visits from family, fine wine, and the kinds of tricks and games Shadow Tundras might get up to.

The wine was exquisite, even if the company wasn’t.

A prized import from a storm-swept port in the east, its rarity was matched only by its acidic bite. Deirdre grimaced as she swallowed her first mouthful, nose wrinkling as it stung her throat.

“Not to your taste?” Deirdre’s cousin asked. His shy smile was directed down at their wine-bowls, chipped, dusty things stained pink from countless imbibements. Deirdre would have preferred to use her own wineglasses, which were carved from quartz, but her cousin had set his things up so quickly that she had had no time to protest. And he had supplied the wine.

Still. Drinking bowls were so… old-fashioned. Uncivilized.

“Too bitter?”

With a start, Dierdre realized she had been lost in thought for much longer than was appropriate. Accursed Tundra-brain! She took another pull of wine to clear her head. “Quite the contrary. It has… complexity. Layers. Sour and uninviting, but with a suppleness to it. Richness. How did you get this?”

“I worked on a river barge on the Driftwood Drag,” her cousin said, pausing to plunge his snout into his own bowl. Deirdre suppressed the urge to wince as droplets pattered onto the glossy surface of the granite slab they were using as a table. I just had that polished…

Deirdre’s cousin was the spitting image of a Gloomchaser, the part of their family that claimed relation to the Gaolers of the far frozen south. From his broad, thick-maned head to his wide paws with their blunt, clumsy claws, it was hard to believe that he was of the same Shadow-touched ilk as Deirdre herself. Especially considering his table manners.

“How… interesting,” she said, trying not to look at the spreading table-stains. “Did you meet all kinds of dragons?”

“If I did, how would I remember?” Deirdre’s cousin said. She allowed herself a small twitch of her lips. Tundra humor. An absolute riot.

The evening passed slowly, the cousins slogging through jokes, anecdotes, and stories that had been told and re-told so many times that the words themselves felt worn smooth, like pebbles in a fast-flowing stream. It was all Deirdre could do to keep from dozing off as her cousin droned on about his life as a sailor, how his kin were, who he thought his kin were… and what was this fellow’s name, anyways? Probably something like Spots or Purple. Old-fashioned and dull as dirt.

Deidre herself had been named after a poet, whose collected works she displayed proudly over her fireplace. Her cousin had yet to notice, or if he had, hadn’t understood the meaning of it. He seemed a little simple, come to think of it: his eyes were a pale, milky lavender, and he took long pauses between sentences to mull over his words. Under his familiar scent of fresh-churned earth and waterlogged pines was something pungent, as if he had trouble cleaning himself. Perhaps he couldn’t read at all.

Even if Deidre had never seen snow in her life, and preferred mushrooms to scrub grass, and her fur was so thin that she had to wear a coat in the winter, she was a Tundra through and through. She knew how to treat kin, how to welcome them and make them feel at home. Her cousin had been an unexpected drop-in, but Deidre was determined to send him off well-rested and entertained. It was the least she could do for him, poor thing.

Deidre’s cousin had coyly side-stepped around her direct requests of his identity, and as the night wore on it was clear that he was, in his own clumsy way, invoking an archaic game beloved by Shadow Flight Tundras. The winner would be the first one to ferret out the other’s name, through trickery or truthfulness. She did her best to indulge him.

As the sun began to set, the fungi planted in the far corners of her cave bathed the two of them in soft purple light, as if they had taken up residence in the rapidly emptying wine bottle. Her cousin’s dark gray fur took on a murky hue, and her own creamy stripes became strawberry-colored.

Like a rosé… or maybe a vin gris?

Distracted by this thought, Deidre slopped wine over her paw as she tried to pour herself one more drink. She cried out as she pulled her arm away from the mess, sending a flurry of fat purple droplets over herself and the tabletop. Her cousin lifted his head as wine speckled his nose, disturbed from his drowsing. For such a big dragon, his alcohol tolerance was shockingly low.

“Oh, you look like me now!” he said, crossing his eyes and licking his snout clean. His fur was starkly patterned in black and gray blotches, except a few areas where it grew in shocking shades of violet. Diedre’s wrist now bore a broad purple stain, like the ones scattered over his pelt. “I guess we really are related.”

“I never doubted it,” Diedre said dryly, hobbling three-legged to the shallow wellspring at the corner of her den. She staggered as she lowered her paw into the water, steadying herself with an outspread wing. “Strong wine, this. Feels like the- the room is spinning.”

“Only the best for family! The best wine, the best stories, the best games.” Deidre’s cousin lifted his wine-bowl to her in a toast as she slouched back into her seat. “Are you having fun with our name game?”

She beheld his bland, drunken face and tried to ignore what felt like the makings of a vicious headache. Goodness, this was strong stuff. Nature Flight really knew how to ferment fruit. “Yes, of course. Erm… how about ‘Lavender’?”

“Nope! Wrong again. I’m named after something in this room.”

“Stone? Bottle? Book?” Deidre’s eyes slid over the myriad treasures she had set up on display in her living room, all far too elegant to share a name with her roughspun Gloomchaser cousin. “Um… Mushroom.”

“Too simple! My turn, my turn.” He shook his head, grinning like a hatchling. “Dawnwalker. Dusk. D… Dewdrop.”

“Close. One of those sounds is in my name.” Deidre put her head down on the table, eyelids heavy. Her head throbbed. Deidre’s cousin tapped his chin with a claw, swaying as he tried to focus his gaze on her.

“Giving up? Do I win?”

She said nothing, closing her eyes.

“Cousin?”

“You can’t win if- if you don’t have my name.” Deidre tried to focus on the cool stone beneath her and not the wine churning in her stomach. Her pulse pounded in her ears. “Stalemate.”

“Wrong,” he said, and the ice in his voice made Deidre open her eyes again.

Her cousin loomed over her, pale eyes gleaming in the low light. He leaned forward. One huge paw cupped Diedre’s chin, tilting her head up so that their eyes met directly. She was suddenly aware of the power in that paw, power that could crush her skull like an egg. Her hackles rose, but even that minute movement felt slow and clogged, as if she was swimming through mud.

“How about another game? It’s a simple one.”

“What are you- “

“Two bowls are placed on a table,” Diedre’s cousin said, inclining his head towards their simple setup. His drunken bumbling was but a quickly fading memory. “One is brushed with a powder, tasteless and odorless to all but the most refined of palettes- a deadly poison. The one who drinks from this bowl will be dead by sunrise.”

Deidre felt her blood turn to ice.

“This is my most favorite of all games,” the other Tundra drawled. “Aside from the other one we currently are playing. I’m afraid you weren’t privy to the rules until now, cousin.” The last word was drawn out, mocking.

Diedre made a hoarse, strangled sound and tried to pull away, but her cousin- her guest- the stranger’s grip was like iron. Her wings beat languidly, claw-tips catching on the carpet.  

“It is such a simple thing, to confound the senses. A little liquid fragrance, a touch of magic- Shadowbinder would laugh to see such deception! How could you think we were related in the slightest?” He let go of Diedre’s head and she dropped to the table, teeth clashing painfully as her jaw hit the hard surface. She barely felt it.

That pungent undertone she had smelled earlier- how stupid she had been! How pompous and foolish! - filled her nostrils. It was the smell of incense, of bitter herbs, of dark, dark wine. It was the smell of her death.

“In truth, I can’t quite recall who put me up to this task, or why, but I’m sure it is because you are such a tiresome conversationalist.” She heard the padding of the other Tundra’s tufted feet, and a low creak; he was inspecting her glassware cabinet. “Did you spend your life reading the same three books over and over again?”

Did. Not does. Past tense. Me- I’m- I’m-

A single twitch of her claws was all she could manage. Her limbs felt cold.

“Then again, these household furnishings- they seem rather upscale for a muddy little Tundra living on her own in the swamp. Embezzling from an employer, perhaps?” He tsked. “Naughty, naughty.”

Deidre’s mouth twitched and her eyes rolled as the stranger came back into view, brandishing one of the wineglasses she had wanted to use so long ago, when the world made sense. She let out a choked whimper, tongue thick in her mouth.

“Ah, of course. We never finished our name game, did we, Miss Deidre Murktally?” His voice sounded faint, as if he was deep underground, not two feet in front of her pouring the last of the wine into her glass. He toasted her, took a sip.

“Take this with you, wherever your smug little soul ends up. Think of me when you drink fine wine. Remember the name of Shadowbinder’s favored son.”

He leaned down, breath stinking of sour fruit.

“Zinfandel,” he breathed, and Diedre knew no more.

And here’s a quick scry for Diedre (too bad she’s dead, I love color combinations like this).

[gretagerwigarchive]

Here's How 'Lady Bird' Created an Iconic Teenage Bedroom From Scratch

by Laura Schocker, Mar 4, 2018. source: https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/lady-bird-set-design-bedroom-meaning-256361

The coming of age movie is a Hollywood staple, which often depicts a young woman whose story is defined by a romantic relationship. Part of what made this past year's Lady Bird so special is that its subtle telling of a teenage female experience—from tenuous mother/daughter relationships to shifting friendship dynamics—relied on Lady Bird's personal growth as the main storytelling device. Its actors have received plenty of accolades ahead of Sunday night's Oscars. But one supporting role we think deserves mentioning is Lady Bird's wonderfully-nostalgic, turn of the millennium bedroom.

The teenage bedroom is also often integral to the coming of age story (think: Frenchy's bedroom in Grease or Dawson's movie-poster plastered room in Dawson's Creek). And Lady Bird is no different — the room is both the site of and the refuge from parental fights, as well as an expression of her personality. "We really wanted to show that she was somebody who cared about things as much as she's going through these pains, and trying to fit in," production designer Chris Jones told Apartment Therapy. We spoke to Jones about how he, along with writer and director Greta Gerwig, set decorator Traci Spadorcia, and the rest of the team built those feelings from scratch in a real home in Van Nuys, California.

I read that Greta Gerwig said she wanted Lady Bird to "look like a memory." I think a lot of us have these very real memories about our teenage bedrooms—whether it's the posters that hung on the walls, or the books on the shelves, what we stashed in the desk drawers. How did you go about creating those memories from scratch for Lady Bird? What feelings were you trying to convey with the objects?

 We wanted the bedroom, most importantly, to show the layers of history that Lady Bird already had. The movie is about what happens to her throughout the film, but also what happened to her and what could happen to her in the future, that whole transitional period. We wanted the bedroom to feel like it was also in that transition and growing from something younger to something older.

We went looking for furniture that could be little girl furniture, but that she had kept. The desk in the corner was really an old white desk from, say the 80s and the 90s. Then the bed, it's missing a spindle here and missing a piece there, because it's been around for a long time. We wanted that to be the basic structure of the room. Then we built on top of that with the items that would be more teenage and more adult.

Why did you choose pink for the walls?

Greta and I had spoken about colors, and we wanted the entire film to have a pastel color palette, based on paintings by Wayne Thiebaud, a painter in Sacramento. When it came to her room, we talked about pink or purple. But purple is kind of a royal color, and pink is a bit more playful, and we felt that the character was more playful and strong.

The paint was something that we also thought might harken back to being a little girl, but it's a hip cool color. And it blended with her hair color that we had in the film. It was also very different, shockingly different, from the rest of the house. We did a lot of camera tests with the pink to make sure it was going to work, and to make sure it wasn't going to be too different from the rest of the house so it felt separate.

And how did you build on top of that?

When you work on a film with the budget that Lady Bird had, you can't always get everything you want. And one of the things that's hard to do in a room that's covered with all kinds of imagery like that, for a film or any kind of media, is getting the clearance on items you're showing. One of the things that was relatively inexpensive was album covers. We decided to pick music from the time to show bands she'd be interested in. There was a Bikini Kill cover, a Pixies cover—albums we thought would be cool in that time period and that Greta listened too as well.

We loved making it look like she was always working on something. Besides the art we found and made ourselves, one of the things that really added to the room and that she was proud of were those "Lady Bird for President" posters, and we ended up putting those on the walls too, and it just added to the mix. What was really cool was that we were designing those posters and doing samples for Greta early on, and we used construction papers and feathers and bird heads, until we decided to get kind of weird with it, which were the ones we ended up using in the film. But some of those early prototypes ended up being on the wall, and it was really a beautiful little addition because we tried to use birds throughout the film without being too heavy handed.

The messiness of the room felt very real. It reminded me of actually walking into a teenage bedroom. How did you create those layers?

We were working with April Napier, the costume designer, so we had the actual costumes she was wearing in the film in her closet. As we were doing that, we would find ourselves bringing the clothes in that wardrobe had on their racks, and we would lay them on the bed and start hanging them on the closet or getting them ready for the shot. We realized it was great that she hadn't put her clothes away. There's that whole scene where her mom comes in and is unhappy with the fact she's not taking care of her things.

Because the room has a very busy, jewel-like quality, we wanted to keep it messy. The clothing was a big part of it and the rest of it really came from the way the way the room is dressed. We wanted to get it chock full. We started sticking stickers and little plastic spiders, and hanging Mardi Gras beads from a lamp or whatever. Once that layering started to happen, it really began to give a cluttered, yet not-difficult-to-look-at feel.

Where did you source everything from?

All of the furniture actually came from two big prop houses at the studios. They have furniture that is not in the best shape, which we wanted and the nice thing is that you can rent it. But all the ephemera, all the little pieces, the stuff that filled the room—the day before we were supposed to shoot the first scene in that room, we all agreed that we didn't really have enough stuff. So I went to a store in Downtown LA called Moskatels. Moskatels had all the stickers, all the hearts, all the spiders, all the snakes, all the bird feathers, all the green, all the dead roses. Everything you see in that whole room, a lot of those little pieces came from Moskatels in one big shopping trip I took the morning of the shoot. Then all of us worked together to get it up on the walls.

 Any computers, phones, lights, clocks—any technology needed to feel just right. It's amazing to think that even in 2003, we barely had the phone technology we have now. Only 15 years ago, we were really lacking all the cords, cables, USBs, and chargers we have now.

What about the rest of her house? How did you design her room to be different in mood?

 There's this line about the house being from the other side of the tracks, which can be a negative reference. But for us, wherever they lived, we knew that Marion and the husband loved this house, and it had been their house for a long time. We wanted the house to feel well loved, not sad or disgusting. It was always neat, it was always clean, but it was a muted tone. It showed there was a bit of sadness in the house.

So Lady Bird grows up with that, and starts her life with that as a kid. I felt with all of the items on the walls in her room, and everything that filled the space, it really felt loved. The house also had that, but it wasn't so blatant. It was more about the care and the placement of items.

It seems like bedrooms always play such an important role in classic movies and TV shows. Why do you think they're such a storytelling staple?

It's a person's private zone. It's important to show the character's personality in the bedroom, because that is where they will spend a good portion of their young life. It is almost like your psyche; your bedroom becomes a place where you lie and look at the ceiling—it's the place where you look at your world and experience your world.

It's also the place you go to escape. When you want to go someplace to get away from it all, you tend to go to your bedroom and lock the door.

Do you have a favorite pop culture teenage bedroom?

Maybe Ferris Bueller's bedroom. I was really into music so the fact that John Hughes used music so effectively in his films and that Ferris Bueller had posters for Morrissey and all the bands that I was into, struck a chord with me.

What's funny is that as old as it is, The Brady Bunch boys' bedroom is very similar to the way I grew up with a brother. We had bunk beds and you spend a lot of time connecting and communicating with your siblings on those bunk beds. Even though it's a bit generic and less naturalistic, I still feel that—I can picture The Brady Bunch bedroom in my head to this day, which is odd, but good.

We talked a bit about Greta's influence on Lady Bird's bedroom. Were there any of your own childhood bedroom influences, or anyone else involved in making the film?

Traci Spadorcia, the set decorator—she did little things that were personal touches, like tying up a ribbon that didn't make sense why it was there, putting a picture at a certain angle, or layering one picture over another because that's what she had in her bedroom.

At the end of the movie, when she's moving out, Lady Bird paints over the walls. Can you talk a bit about what that literal fresh start symbolized for you?

That wasn't in the script. But when we talked about how we had to put the room back for the homeowner, Greta and I talked about how long it was going to take to get all of these little items off of the wall. And she said, "Why don't we all help?" And I said, "Yeah," laughingly, and I included Saoirse [Ronan, who played the title character]. And then we all started thinking about it, and we thought, well what if Saoirse and the mom were taking the items off the wall?

We decided the art department would take down quite a bit of it, but we would have them take over. It happened organically. Yes it's symbolizing the end of something, but also the beginning of something else, which Greta has talked a lot about in interviews. They did it together for a while, but then Saoirse just kept going, she just kept wanting to do it. It was really nice to get a lot of footage of her really making the room fresh and clean. It's almost like she cares now. Before it didn't seem like she cared, but she's leaving something for her mom, who she hasn't spoken to much for the summer.

It's not just change, it's a clean slate. It means she's going to go on to something new. And in the next few scenes, you see she starts using her real name. She starts using Christine instead of Lady Bird after she does that change for herself.

[starshineskyandthepowerofrock]

First Day

Part 5 of Starshine, Sky, and the Power of Rock.

I've been told that dreams are commonly nonlinear, nonsensical, and not necessarily pleasant. Some are even scary. I can't imagine being thrust into one's day after experiencing something so stressful. Good thing that never happens to me.

Of all the perks there are to being the Heir to Light, I'd say one of my favorites is the nightly visions. Every time I fall asleep, I'm pretty sure the Crown of Light speaks to me. Well, "speak" isn't the right word, more like it conveys information. Considering I've been on the right track towards my ultimate goal of defeating the Band of Darkness for years at this point, there's rarely much I need to know other than, "Yep, the battle's still a long time from now." Exactly how long it'll take before I have to face Princess Persephone has never been made clear, but I suppose I'll find out when it's relevant.

Anyway, you can imagine how pleased the Crown is to know I'm training so enthusiastically, and with little to report it has gotten into the habit of conjuring up beautiful places for me to rest within myself before I have to start the day. I'm still endlessly excited about starting school when I wake up. And the Crown is clearly excited that I'm excited, because I'm currently laying in an endless field of roses, carnations, and hydrangeas. The mystical auras emanating from each one wash me in a soothing palette of cool blues, lavenders, and pinks. The sky is less a sky and more a deep blue ocean of infinite diamonds, stretching forever above me. I notice a star twinkle, almost wink at me, and I reach in an attempt to give some sort of reply. Ah, yes. I, too, am a star. Hence the name. And in just a few short hours, I'll begin to truly shine the way I was born to.

"Me and my band..." I whisper to myself.

Something pricks me in the back. I sit up and turn to see what the nuisance could be, baffled because I don't remember the last time I felt pain during a vision. Amongst the flowers still glowing with life, one is shriveled and black. And thorny. Really, really thorny. I rub my back.

"Sorry, sorry," I say. "My band and me."

Another rose, this time beneath my hand, wilts and stabs me right in the palm.

"Ow! Okay, well, you know there are instances where 'and me' is appropriate! You say 'and I' when it's the subject of a sentence! Or is this because I made a sentence fragment-"

This one gets me in the butt. I stand straight up. "UGH! Okay, if it's not grammar, then what is it?" But then I remember who's in my band. "Is this about Skylar?"

I'm not met with further violence, which I take to mean "yes."

Gingerly, I sit back down, my silk nightgown billowing around me. I pick a carnation and twirl it between my fingers. "I mean... She's kind of weird. And she could use a makeover. But I don't know... I mean, I know she's a monster, but... she seems... nice." I look down. The carnation is welling up with blood.

I scream. Drop it. The blood flies out on the way down and splatters on my nice blue nightgown. "That was my third favorite!" I shout up at the sky. "She wasn't hurting anyone! What, just because I'm destined to defeat a vampire princess I suddenly have to hate every single one?" The thought escapes my mouth the exact moment it forms. I place my hands in my lap, and stare at them as I turn over the fresh idea in my mind.

The Crown seems to be having the same thought process - I guess magical crowns can have those - because the tainted roses slowly but surely begin to swell with new life, their thorns receding into smooth, harmless stems. See, Crown? I'm reasonable.

⭐⭐⭐

The Royal Academy of Rock's uniform is insanely cute. Granted, I may be biased in that I make everything look cute, but still. I love the way the dark purple pleated skirt twirls with my every movement. I can't fathom why anyone would prefer the pants option, but to each their own, I suppose. I smooth down the pastel cyan blouse before putting on the navy blue tie, which I have spent more time practicing the tying of than I'd care to admit. Said tie matches the double-breasted blazer I slide over all of this. My Soul Key took the liberty of customizing it to have little purple jewels for buttons, which is just so me, you know? Said key, encrusted with tiny blue and purple gems and featuring a fabulous hot pink star-shaped handle, hangs from a loop on my skirt's waistband. And now, there's a familiar tightness missing from my wrist. I retrieve my special bracelet from my jewelry box, slip it on under my sleeve, and twirl for my own reflection. Perfection. Hey, those rhyme!

I take the tiniest detour to jot this down in the section of my journal labeled, "Ideas," put the journal back in my sleek messenger bag that I've made sure matches my uniform's color scheme, look through the bag one last time to make sure everything I need today is there, and look at that! I'm all set!

As I make my way to breakfast, I notice an extra spring in my sashay. I'm joining a drove of kids in matching blazers and ties. They all look so cute! And they clearly feel the same way about me, because necks are craning left and right, jaws are going slack, and I'm hit with the familiar "Your Highness"s from all around. I flash a bright smile in return. I'm fully capable of knowing how gorgeous I am all on my own, but outside confirmation is certainly nothing to complain about.

Without warning, I'm crushed from behind by an enthusiastic hug. Next thing I know, my feet are dangling above the floor and I'm struggling to breathe.

"Morning, Star!" Citrus says in my ear.

"Good morning," I manage to choke out, and that's when he realizes maybe a hug to him is a headlock to me.

He releases me and we keep walking. "Heh heh... Sorry about that..." he says, scratching between his cat ears. "It's just been a while, you know?"

"Ugh, don't I!" I reply. "I wish we had some classes together."

"Or could at least eat at the same table!" Citrus replies.

I giggle. "Agreed. But, you know, bands have got to stick together! Even when we eat. Plus," I indicate the awestruck kids all around us, "I think a lack of assigned seating would mean everyone would try to sit with me."

Citrus looks around as told, his eyebrows raised as though this is news to him. "Oh, but you're just Star!" he says before bringing a hand down on my shoulder. The new hug he gives me is a touch more gentle than the last. "I'd love to catch up," he says.

"Well, how about this?" I offer. "We'll go for a fly right before dinner. Talk to our hearts' content." I haven't ridden my flying horse, Splendor, in a couple days anyway. We could both use some fresh air.

Citrus considers this for a moment. He smiles. "Okay!" He looks ahead to see three other boys waving him over to them. "Oh! There's my band! Gotta go!" And with that, I'm left alone again. But I've reached the dining hall at this point anyway, so it's whatever.

The dining hall is one of the more spacious parts of the palace, which is understandable considering it has to comfortably hold all of the Academy's students, plus a very extensive buffet setup, from which breakfast is currently being served. Each table is labeled with the room number of the band that has been assigned to it, which means I'm scanning each for the one that says "L-42." But it turns out I don't have to, because Crescent is standing on her seat, waving her hands way above her head and gesturing for me to sit with her and Pearl at a table near the far wall. They're backlit by one of the multiple giant windows flooding the room with morning light.

"Good morning!" I say as I make my way towards them. I scan the buffet quickly, trying to locate the others. "Where's Sky and Gossamer?"

My question is partially answered before either girl says anything when I notice kids scurrying off to the side trying to avoid someone, and I find it far from unreasonable to guess who that someone might be. At last, a unicorn boy and a couple mermaids back away from my view to reveal Sky, who looks relieved to find our table and be rid of the crowd.

The image of a monster in our pristine uniform is quite a surreal one. Judging by what she was wearing yesterday, I'm a tad surprised she knows how to tie a tie. I'm not surprised that she didn't tuck it under her blazer, though. Nor am I surprised that she chose the pants option.

"Morning," she says, sitting down and setting her bag next to her seat, and I now notice there's... something smudged on the corner of her mouth. Something red.

I can't speak for a moment, but Crescent manages a tentative smile. "Good morning," she says. "Uh..."

"What?" Sky asks.

I tap the corner of my own mouth. "You, um, have a little something..."

Sky blinks. Brow furrowed, she wipes a hand across her mouth and looks down at her hand. "Oh," she says, and then chuckles. "Oops." She looks up, expecting us to find this funny, too.

We don't laugh.

"What? It's not from a person," she says.

I'm too freaked out to have her elaborate, so instead I say, "Well, I'm gonna go get breakfast. I'll be back."

"Okay," Crescent says through a mouthful of rice, and Pearl just nods. Her eyes haven't left her salad this whole time. I guess that stuff is normal breakfast food where they come from.

During the process of getting my usual meat-lover's omelette with lactose-free cheese, I keep looking over my shoulder at the table. Pearl looks like she's trying to turn invisible, but it seems that Sky and Crescent are at least trying to talk. In fact... I think they're smiling! The weight in my heart begins to lift.

It is then that the Glade sisters burst in. Summer leads the pack, and I can practically see smoke emanating from her ears. Dewdrop is attempting to calm a steaming Aspen. Breezy is telling Gossamer, who brings up the rear, to hurry up. Gossamer stares at the ground, rather than ahead like her older sisters.

Actually, they aren't just looking ahead. Their gaze is aimed right at my band's table. No, not the table. Sky. Oh no.

I head back to the table as fast as I can without dropping my food, set my tray down, and turn to face the Glades, who have made their way over. "Is there a problem here?"

"My sister is not going to be in a band with that!" Summer replies, pointing at Sky.

"I'm sorry, 'that'? She has a name," I say.

Summer scoffs. "As if I care!" She gets real close to Sky, who's been staring at the floor since they came. "Listen, bloodsucker. If you so much as breathe the same air as-"

"Vampires don't have to breathe," Gossamer says.

Summer whips her head around and gives her sister a silencing glare. But then her expression softens a tad with realization. "That's right, Goss. They don't," she says, and leans down next to Sky's ear with a look of pure malice. "Because they're dead. They're filthy, disgusting carcasses that DON'T BELONG IN OUR SCHOOL!"

If Sky doesn't have to breathe, then that makes the deep, shuddering breaths she's taking now rather unnecessary. She stays silent, and she dares not make eye contact with anyone.

The dining hall is silent now. Everyone is staring at us for a slice of the drama. But I don't need drama, especially not on the first day of school!

"Well, Summer, what do you plan to do about that?" I ask her, my voice reverberating in the spacious hall.

Summer slowly comes up and looks at me, eyes wide and lips pursed. She's silent for a second. "I have connections."

"She says to the princess," I respond immediately.

Summer huffs, and looks past me out the window in an attempt at subtly breaking eye contact. "Okay, well..." She blinks rapidly, desperate for a way to have the last word. "Go ahead," she says, her eyes snapping back in place to continue our little staring contest. "Make friends with a monster. We'll see how well that turns out for you." Satisfied with her half-baked comeback, she struts away. Aspen, Breezy, and Dewdrop are yanked along on their invisible leashes, but Gossamer stays in place.

"You know there's assigned seats, right?" I ask her.

Gossamer refuses to meet my eyes, but stares at Sky, her mouth a single line. She looks around at everyone staring, then scurries off to join her sisters. I guess the assigned seating thing is based on an honor system, because no one stops her. Whatever. I don't need that kind of negativity anyway.

"I'm really sorry about them," I tell Sky, sitting down. "I promise, we aren't all like that."

Sky doesn't respond. Her breath slows, steadies, and stops altogether. She finally looks up at me. "Why did you do that?"

"Um, because I'm not a jerk?" I giggle, cutting into my omelette. "You were in trouble, so I helped out. It just felt right, you know?" I take a bite. "Plus," I say after swallowing. "I never pass up an opportunity to deal with Summer."

Sky smiles with appreciation, then her eyes light up. "Did you know people grow rice on the moon?"

Crescent beams. "I've been teaching her about my home!"

So that's what they were chatting about.

⭐⭐⭐

A teacher that makes the kids work on the first day is an insane one. Good thing we don't have those here, but I am just a bit disappointed because this is a music week. Instead, most every teacher has one of those icebreaker games prepared for us.

Ms. Solstice, the music theory teacher, hands us each an index card with a different question on it, and we have to ask this question to each person in the classroom on an individual basis. Cue a disjointed mess of kids wandering around, trying to remember who they have and haven't asked about their top three favorite movies (I only watch musicals and chick flicks, if you were wondering).

The songwriting teacher, Mr. Crystalline, has us write answers about ourselves on the white board for the whole class to see. When asked about her least favorite habit in other people, Crescent writes, "Getting angry." Pearl reveals her favorite pastime to be painting, which sounds hard to do underwater. Gossamer professes her dislike of the scent of grass. And Sky, when asked to share the biggest secret she feels comfortable revealing, writes, "It's not a secret if I feel like sharing it."

Mr. Ebullient asks the guitarists in the class to show the rest what we can do, I suppose as a way of setting an example or getting us out of our shells or something. I preface my demonstration by making it clear that I'm best on rhythm guitar and that Sky will likely end up taking the lead. This statement leads to all eyes gluing themselves to Sky, who sinks into her seat with her arms crossed.

Once it's her turn to sit in front of the class, guitar in hand, she just sits there, eyes wide and jaw slack. She drops the pick multiple times and when she has a good grip on it, it just wavers over the strings, not making a sound. She turns a shivering head to Mr. Ebullient, who tells her that not everyone is going to overcome stage fright in one day and that she can return to her seat. She does so, and hangs her head so that her hair forms a white curtain that hides her face. Whispers buzz through the class like a swarm of flies.

I feel the need to lean over and ask if she's okay. She doesn't respond. So, I reluctantly pull away and bring my attention to the next kid's performance. She'll be fine. I hope.

[brothersemberfell]

Irreplaceable VIII

A writing collaboration with @ocarina-of-what and @cynfuldax for brief mention.

"I can't do this..." Felo’thore murmured at the baby under his suede glove, considering the slow blink of her eyes before closing his own. Not more than a second had passed before his ears twitched with the sensation of her movement, his eyes opening to see she had his finger now in her little grip. Felo'thore did not understand how babies talked, nor did he expect her to understand him talking to himself. But by some force unknown to him, the mage found a response. "You're right. Now is not the time to fret. I must." Slipping gently out of her hand, he left a single glove of his for her to continue holding in her tiny fingers, gently adjusting the amethyst wrap around her to loosen and giving a gentle rock of the bassinet as Xelda had shown him hours ago. The door that grounded the mage's portal room to the Silvermoon apartment's study clicked, the arcane lock snapping with a dim shimmer. Heels clapped softly onto the floor of the study and there Felo'thore stood, snow still dusting his long mourning robes, stiffening in a bout of surprise to see Adrianal only several paces away at his canvas. He froze hesitantly for a few seconds, before swallowing and tugging his remaining glove off his hand.

Adrianal had heard the ghosts of Felo'thore's swaggering footsteps on countless occasions. Long had they lost the ability to make him turn. So when he heard them again he frowned and his ears uncharacteristically tucked back. He didn't move to paint, to do anything at all really, he just kept staring at the blank whiteness. He missed Felo'thore. Now the thought that he would surely lose what family he had made for himself made his throat close and eyes redden. "...Adrian."

The sudden sound of his name made him stiffen and his palette board and brush clattered to the ground. He stood so suddenly and whipped about that the canvas and the chair he sat on both clattered to the ground. He was stiff for a second, a mouse caught in a trap and realizing the true length of his vulnerability. But when his mind gently put the pieces together that it was only Felo'thore, he felt like he stopped breathing.

Felo’thore twitched in a nervous manner, his ears having pinned immediately back with the paladin’s brisk and messy turn around. For several moments, the spire of a man was silent, his large, owlish eyes looking over Adrianal and studying his postured mannerisms, noticing the stare of his foggy eyes through the faded lenses in front of them. The mage fidgeted with his glove, biting his lip. Adrianal’s hands folded and squeezed his suddenly ice cold hands and he tried to remember what it was to breathe. He wanted to run to him and also to stay far away. His body in such an odd and suddenly overwhelming confrontation that he rocked in surprise on his feet. "Felo'thore," he wheezed out. "You're....here...."

“I am. And… lacking punctuality...as usual,” he rasped softly. “I was not...expecting you here, truthfully.”

Adrianal cleared his throat. and finally looked up and away. The world had such a glazed, foggy view and it made his chest hurt worse to see Felo'thore that way. His fingers were starting to hurt from holding them so tighty and they felt like frozen blocks clumped together, "I needed to do some paperwork..." he whispered, hardly audible.

“Adrianal...,” the mage lifted his chin, swallowing again. “I…” His voice slipped, fingers trembling over his glove. “I think we-- are...very much overdue for a conversation.” Felo’thore stepped forward, the light catching his face outside of the shadows consuming the doorway. “Besides...How are you to do paperwork without proper lenses on your nose?” The mage lifted a tentative hand, his fingers trembling into the posture made to summon his little reading glasses. He rolled his chin slightly, motioning to Adrianal that he was welcome to come closer, but in a way that left the man open to a choice.

Adrianal stood still as a statue, not even a quiver of an ear or an eyebrow. He hadn't had anyone be physically near him since their time at the Dawnmeadow, let alone even speaking to him. His self imposed exile to Cynel's vastly endless library had sent him back to ways he was more comfortable with, when he comforted himself by curling up tightly into small spaces with a book in his lap. To have Felo'thore so near was a startling one to his numbed senses. He rocked back on his heels, his instinct telling him to simply flee from the conflict in his chest. To hold everything once more at arm’s length. He'd gotten used to silence again and the cold stillness. But right before Felo'thore might have decided to lower his arm he took a step forward towards him. After another few shaky steps he stood at just where Felo'thore's hand hovered. Carefully he removed the heavy, ugly glasses and let the world snap into near blindness, blinking at the uncomfortable fogginess. The bruises from his duel had gone from black and blue to an uncomfortable yellow and purple look. He just waited, unsure of what to say, eyes wavering as they rather off-key looked more at Felo's ear and tried to look and find his eyes.

To see that coiled, defensiveness in Adrianal’s composure was something that caused a sorrowful chord to twitch in the mage’s chest. Felo’thore knew Adrianal well enough to know that his absence left a deeper mark than the one on his face, watching his blurry eyes tremble at him searchingly.

“My sunshine…” he whispered sympathetically, lifting his fingers very carefully to Adrianal’s temples. Gently, he tapped, and the astromancer’s lenses materialized in front of the paladin’s shaky eyes. Adrianal blinked twice as his vision came into startling focus and allowed him to lock on properly. It was a tad odd to see again and for a moment he looked up and around, admiring being able to see color again. Finally his gaze came again to Felo’thore’s, the rims of the mage’s pretty silver eyes red with the irritation, and the sharpness of his lip twitching.

“I know you think I left you,” Felo’thore postulated, his expression of stone and his gaze hung still.  “Here I am, looking in the gold of your eyes, Adrianal, hoping and wishing that...where I am weakest hasn’t caused you to lose faith in me.” His hands dropped slowly, clutching his wrist in front of his stomach, but the mage’s eyes remained on Adrianal’s. “...Because I certainly haven’t lost it in you.”

It was...hard. Had he lost faith? It wasn't a question Adrianal had really yet to ask himself. Now his hands did shake a little as he looked down and away from Felo'thore. The whisper came from his throat slowly, "I..." he took in a soft breath, trying to clear the tightness in his chest to speak, "I waited...for you." He folded his arms then, tight against his chest in the only motion he could find that seemed to bring him any comfort as he ears splayed lower and lower, "They said that you had gone and I waited for you to come back and you...you didn't." His head and chest hurt, he didn't know if he was really even breathing. His jaw was startling to wobble and his eyes were becoming wet with tears, but a sudden ice took him. His mind melted and sharpened at once and he took a deep breath and stood a little straighter. In a suddenly icy calm voice he headed to the study door, "We should have some tea." A good answer that any finely trained man was apt to do. When in sudden emotional distress- have tea.

It was so hard to hear him say it, to watch the man he loved more than anything dissolve what Felo’thore had feared the most.

“Adrianal, wait…” The mage stepped forward about to follow after him and explain himself, but an ear twisting sideways, he stopped. Felo’thore’s attention briefly turned behind him to the portal room door if considering, before turning forward again. Between the worry of straying far from his secret guest and the last tea soured by the paladin’s mother, tea was the last thing he was remotely interested in. “I never wanted to see myself that sniveling little boy coiled against the wall of his father’s forge ever again. I’ve spent every waking moment of my life since that night...trying to become someone above that experience…” He paused stiffly, swallowing and looking up at the other man. “But your mother...made positively sure to bring me back. What I was forced to watch- To watch her cut you down in front of me and be unable to make it stop…I understand what you went through- what you stood for... It was excruciating.” Felo’thore took another step forward, wincing at the hot tears stinging the red rim of his eyes. “Fault me for not having the strength you have to bear such pain where I do not. I am a sensitive and volatile man. Had your uncle not removed me from that ballroom, I’d’ve done something foolish. I did not want to leave your side. Truly, darling, I didn’t want to...”

Adrianal stood with his back to Felo'thore, shoulders curling forward again as he explained himself. Really the mage didn't need to. But his words only made the unhealed burns of his heart singe deeper. "You must hate me," he said it softly, somehow the words still audible in the large space. He couldn't look at Felo'thore as his head bowed and his hands came up to push through his hair, the tension in his body and the tears starting again in his eyes and starting to drip off his nose. "I shouldn't have brought you there. Or let you meet her. Or accept her request. I shouldn't have...done any of it....and then you left and you didn't come back and...you...must hate me...and I don't even blame you."

“No, Adrianal. My chest hurts, my feet ache, my eyes are sore, I want to...lie down and not see the light of the world. I’m so glad I got to see your home that it only pains me to think I am not welcome there. But none of it makes me stop and question my love for you. None of it.” The mage sucked in a breath, balling the suede glove up in his hand tightly, sucking back the run of moisture in his nose. “I was frightened, Adrianal. Frightened because you are who I go to when the few things in this universe scare me...and your mother barred me from that. I..need you.” The mage’s face dripped to the toe of his boot, his chest shuddering. “P-p-please just..c-come here..and b-b-bloody hold me. How m-much longer m-must I…wait”

Adrianal turned slowly and looked at Felo'thore, just watching his husband as he spoke and giving a careful sniff as the tears continued to soak down his face. Slowly he lifted a hand, rubbing his cheek and taking a deep breath. He came forward slowly, pain and awkwardness in his eyes. How did he make it understood that part of him just...couldn't...? Couldn't grasp onto him desperate and greedy like they were used to. Slowly his frozen hands slid along Felo's warm jawline and he leaned forward, pressing a kiss to the astromancer's forehead and gently tucking him against his shoulder. For that brief moment, the mage rested on him, blinking the tears out of his eyes that continued to stream over the arc of his nose. Adrianal’s body was tense and uncomfortable, trembling wherever Felo'thore would touch him. His sense of touch skewed and still aching with hurt and his body still sore and bruise roughened to want to truly invest in holding or being held.

He didn't know what to say, or how to say it, or what would make it better. Emotion was swelling in his chest, swelling and burning and...that wasn't emotion. A bit alarmed he suddenly pushed himself and Felo'thore against a shelf as suddenly books exploded from their places. Paper was everywhere and books were flying and glowing with arcane. Adrian stiffened, calming himself as they all fell to the floor with loud slams and the papers just slowly drifted to the floor. Adrianal slowly leaned back, a bit alarmed, "I...I'm sorry I have been....reading in Cynel's library on arcane. It is...very tricky...and now things tend to just...go flying sometimes....I don't know how to stop it."

Eyes wide and mouth agape with his heart near in his throat, Felo’thore panted against the woodwork at his back. Within seconds of registering what had happened, he swallowed, his voice coming full in tone and out of the soft murmuring. “I think it’s wonderful for you to explore your inclination to the arcane. But if you...ever feel that again I want you to stop immediately and say something before that happens; do you understand?”

Adrianal looked away, sinking his teeth into his lip. How did he explain that he was simply bored and that...well the one man he would have asked about it hadn't exactly been around. His hands again crossed tight across his chest and he simply turned away. Working his fingers and knuckles he murmured a soft incantation. Slowly the books lifted and began to drift casually back to their spots. Papers floated back to his desk to be properly reorganized later. At least he was getting used to the clean up spells... "Why are you here...." he finally sighed, "why did you come back."

“I made a promise to you, over that brazier, did I not?” muttered Felo’thore. “As did you.”

No sooner did the mage speak did a peeling muffled whine echo from beyond the wall, Felo’thore’s long ears sharply flattened in panic, quickly sliding himself along the wall to his door, leaning against it. His eyes averted from Adrianal completely in a nervous manner before another cough and a small hiccup from behind the closed door broke the silence.

"Promises are feeling a bit flimsy at the moment..." Adrianal whispered. But he paused, his eyes rounding. He looked at the door, then at Felo, then at the door. "Felo'thore...what do you have in there?"

The mage’s eye’s slipped up to Adrianal’s with the same roundness, swallowing the nerves thick in his throat. “The reason I couldn’t come home to you sooner,” Felo’thore’s thick brows pushed together. “Thordemar and I were summoned for a death in the family...and one pending. Magnus lies in his deathbed tonight and...his wife has most tragically passed. Adrianal I…” He let an exasperated little sigh past his lips, lifting his chin. “My heart is heavy, I’m sick with feelings as I’m so very certain you are. But… I need you.”

His hands pulled out of the tight hold across his arms, bony fingers reaching down to carefully turn the nob, persuading the door to creak open. The muffled little fusses were muffled no more, Felo’thore motioning Adrianal with a bob of his head to follow. His long dark shoulder-cloak fluttering with a swift swoop of his heels, Felo’thore came up to the bassinet worriedly to see the glove he’d left with her was tossed aside and the pacifier once in her mouth now rested at her ear. The amethyst linens she was wrapped in were kicked open with only the soft fabric stitched to fit her little wiggling bean of a body.

Adrianal slowly followed after Felo'thore, eyes wide with alarm. A baby? The news of his family disturbed him. But slowly...he looked down into the bassinet.

It was like being sent into the ultimate high and being calm all at once. The spinning spiral of his mind came to a slow and graceful stop. Where Felo'thore was nervous and anxiously fluttering Adrianal's motions were calm as his finger dipped slowly into the bassinet. The girl was lovely. Stunning. He knew she would grow up to be so. Everything about her was perfection and then he saw it...she had the pointed nose and sharply angled cheekbones and jawline, the v-shaped purse of the mouth. When her eyes opened they were of stunning, beautiful starlight blue as if two stars had beaconed down themselves and settled into her little head. Her fussing did not bother him, he reached his arms easily inside and lifted the little bundle. He loosened it just so and gave the softest, warmest of laughs. Slowly he sank down, legs crossed as he expertly tucked the bundle into his arm. "Hello..." he breathed, stroking the tuft of brown hair already sprouting, "Hush now..." he hummed. She just wanted to be held really, wanted to feel the warm weight of a body squeezing her own. Adrian's heart stopped and restarted several times. Stunned and awed. She looked so much like Felo'thore. Didn't the mage see it?

Felo’thore’s eyes hung large and wide, tilting his head slowly in utter dumbfoundment with Adrianal’s cut and dry change of demeanor. He was so worried of dropping such news on the man after what they had both been through. But even the moment his cousin had asked him back at his bedside, Felo’thore knew deep in the faith he had of Adrianal, that nothing would warm his big heart more than that of a child that needed his attention, let alone one one they could care for together.

Smoothing the front of his robes, Felo’thore stood stiffly. His response came somewhat delayed, still standing there, watching the other man take to his plush reading chair and sit with his focus completely captured by the little blinking eyes up at him.  Slowly, the mage bent down and plucked up a sealed envelope and rested it on the open chair beside Adrianal, only to turn, seeming to look for something else as he paced about the crimson rug in his room.

Already Adrianal was absolutely smitten, he didn't lift his head, it felt like his eyes belonged to the little girl now who was peering up at him with wide doe eyes. "Why didn't you call me...I would have come to you. I could have helped."

“It...took me all by surprise, darling. Everything happened so fast, I… I have not seen my mind well in several days. I’m...I’m sorry.” Felo’thore turned to his dim window, his long ears pinning back over his shoulder as he faced away from Adrianal. “It was...so difficult to see him like that. Magnus. And to know he lost his wife in such a way.” He took a sharp breath. “It is his last request that...we raise her as our own.”

Adrianal looked up, watching Felo'thore's back. His coldness and at the same time the profound sense of loss. To lose family was hard, Adrianal had faced that many many times over the course of his brief life. But his eyes turned again to the baby who was once more beginning to fuss. He hummed softly, "I see." Such a thought would have brought him great joy. Probably the greatest joy he had ever known. But it was only... "Do you not want her?" he asked it plainly, unsure of how to beat around the bush. It was a thought that made Adrian's heart slam painfully into his ribs- that the warm little bundle in his arms would simply be...given to someone else. He looked back down to her, stroking her cheek and face.

The reflection of Felo’thore’s facade could be seen in the window, a ghostly cast of his face and his starlit eyes glowing dimly. “ What I want does not matter. She needs us, Adrianal.” The mage closed his eyes, heaving a soft sigh. “I know...I’ve not been ready for this but...I think with you, I have the best shot at trying. That is...if that promise over the brazier means to you what it means to me.” Felo’thore turned fully around to look at Adrianal, tugging at his scarf nervously. “That envelope has the documents proper. She is...ours.”

"Of course it means something to me," Adrianal murmured, stroking along the babies cheek as she began to fuss and slowly...cry. "Mmm...well," he sighed. Standing up now with a look of amusement, "She needs a diaper changing. Can smell that bomb from a planet away."

Felo’thore’s nose scrunched a little, burying the lower half of his face under his scarf. He stared blankly for a few moments before he moved to begin looking through the bags his brother had helped him carry back with them. Felo’thore clattered about, knocking over a crib railing with a yelp as he rummaged, only of course to completely miss the neatly packed canvas bag of cloth diapers sitting only a few feet from the bassinet.

Adrianal gave an amused look as he moved slowly. Gliding over to the bag he hooked it under his arm with a gentle clearing of the throat. Walking to the changing table he laid the little bundle down. Her teary eyes stared up at Adrianal with great offense. How dare they take so long in her changing! Adrianal gave a smile, brushing a finger warmly down her nose as he set about changing her. "She's a sassy little thing. I'm unsurprised she's from Xelda's offspring." He looked up and around and raised his brows to Felo as he lifted the dirty diaper towards him. "Did they give you a diaper can for these? Or do you have a special spell to get rid of them?"

Felo’thore’s eyes widened as the soiled cloth was lifted to him, looking back at Adrianal not entirely sure what to do. The man jogged his memory, biting his lip under his scarf and looking about. It had felt like a whirlwind of a lesson on infant care from his aunt and while Felo’thore was usually a quick mind to retain information, his current state of stress did little to help uphold his memory. But it clicked after a few seconds and the mage remembered that the table they had purchased had a built in disposal vortex. He slinked closer and carefully tapped his fingerpads on the smooth surface at the side of the table, and a drawer slipped open. “Ah...in there.” Felo’thore pointed, not of course taking it himself.

Adrianal's eyebrows raised as he considered his husband. Goodness. But he leaned over and tossed it in. "Haven't you ever changed a diaper before?"

Letting the scarf slip off his nose, Felo’thore looked away, dropping his shoulders a bit. “No… Adrian I’ve never cared for children like you have before.” It was something magical that Adrianal knew right away what she needed when the mage could only wonder.

But he turned back to the baby girl, melting as he listened to her coo in satisfaction. She stretched and wiggled her little limbs a bit before her mouth pursed and she began to fuss a bit again. He wrapped her warmly in the blanket again and smiled as she gave a wide mouthed yawn and her small eyelids hooded.

Felo’thore’s narrow face rounded once again, watching the tender exchange of affection between his husband and the baby, a warm, fond sensation relaxing his chest. For the strain of his emotions over the last several days put wrinkles in his forehead, to see Adrianal so sweet and caught up in the attention of the baby girl was incredibly soothing. He didn’t have to fret any longer about him accepting her into her lives- that much was for sure. She gripped Adrian's finger in her strong hand and his hearted melted again. "She's..." he sighed softly, ears splaying out in joy, "I know you face a loss but she is so...perfect..."

“I am so very glad you think so,” murmured Felo’thore quietly, tugging his sleeve absentmindedly as he watched the two of them. “Cassiopeia Ashelanar Novastorm. That is the name I gave her.”

Adrianal blinked once then turned a bit and looked to Felo again, "Cassiopeia?" He frowned, "what an odd name. Of course you would name her after the stars." But with a hum he looked down to the warm bundle in his arms who was contentedly starting to fall asleep once more.

Felo’thore’s face turned away immediately, hiding the injured look in his eyes. He was still so very sensitive and what was harmless commentary on his choice of name struck the mage in mild offense. “Yes. Of course,” he replied over his shoulder, voice dry of the sprite that usually carried in his tone.

"She is going to need a wet nurse and a nanny. We cant possibly watch her all day round when we have work and battles to fight." Adrian stroked her cheek with a gentle smile. If he couldn't handle affection or being held...at least he would have this. He lifted his head, carefully turning his eyes to Felothore. He looked unsure and took a soft breath. "Come. Lets get these things moved inside. She can have part of the study."

“Her wet nurse in Stoneton sent us what was left of her milk bank to cover us getting her settled here.” The mage then bent to pick up the enchanted container and hung a few other bags under his shoulder before moving towards the door on cold footsteps. He paused in the doorway and sighed, twisting an ear. “The constellation I found in your freckles the first night we…” he paused, huffing. “It was Cassiopeia.” Shifting the heavy bags under his arm, Felo’thore continued through the door. Silently he settled her things along the study wall, moving back into his portal room to collect more of her things.

Adrianal stood a little dumbstruck, hovering over the bassinet now in his study as he heard Felo'thore's words. He looked down at the tiny bundle in his arms because, truly, of course he remembered that night. That the child had been named after such intimacy....he swallowed with a slow splay of his ears and a blush rising to his face. Loath as he was to put her down, because she already had him quite firmly wrapped around her little finger. He did so. Settled back in her crib he followed after the mage.

His large hand stilling Felo’thore from grabbing anything else as he tugged the man closer and gently let him lean into Adrian's stocky frame. He cupped the man's angular face and very gently kissed him before simply letting their foreheads rest together. As much as he wanted to be swept up in the child he knew he couldn't ignore or neglect this as his thumbs soothingly made circles on Felo's temples. "I....I am not..mmm..." he hummed softly, struggling a bit in his own awkward way, "I am not very...good at comforting right now. But I...I am sorry for your loss...." he hesitated, his world feeling rocky and on uneven ground, "I am sorry..my starshine..."

Felo’thore stopped, the weight of his arms heavy at his side as he leaned slowly into Adrianal, his reddened eyes languid and hooded. Like a doll, he allowed the paladin to articulate him with no resistance, lifting his chin with no desire in his lips. His lithe body leaned against Adrianal’s frame like a wet cloth, blinking slowly as their foreheads pressed together. It was comforting to be wrapped around the other man, but his nerves still continued to sour his stomach, and thoughts continued to inspire painful stings. He was still in a state of mild disbelief, wanting to lurch back and squirm away from Adrianal.

But instead, he blinked, catching the rocking bassinet in the corner of his eye, revisiting just moments ago the softness that almost instantaneously took over his husband upon seeing the baby, holding her and witnessing how gentle and knowledgeable he was with her. Long ears twitching in a more content way with the gentle massaging, the mage let a soft sigh pass his lips as his head slipped a little, sinking his nose back into his scarf. “I..understand,” he mumbled. “I am...not very good at expressing my feelings right now.” Making a long noise in his throat, Felo’thore’s ears flicked and twisted, pinching his eyes shut. “I feel too many at once. I need...I don’t know what I need anymore, honestly.”

Adrian's eyes looked up and over from Felo'thore, not letting the man catch the flash of stinging hurt. Horrible thoughts blackened his mind. What if they didn't recover from this. The thought made his heart set an uncomfortable and painful rhythm- if it got too hard would Felo'thore leave again? Voice thick he leaned away, "You need time," he murmured, "and space. Go upstairs and get settled. I can finish down here."

Felo’thore opened his eyes, his ears drooping with his shoulders a little bit. He looked at Adrianal, twisting a drooping ear sideways before tucking his hands under the front of his cloak and sulking towards the door of the study to leave. He only paused to look briefly back at the bassinet, swallowing back a rush of moisture that wet his narrow face again before turning and scuttling quickly out of the room. The mage’s sniffles could be heard out in the kitchen as he prepared a glass of water for himself before quickly making way upstairs.

Head buried under his pillow and his shoes kicked off haphazardly, Felo’thore had all but flopped in their bed upstairs, not even caring to peel back the covers. He was too tired to be angry, too apathetic to get comfortable, too anxious to even think about sleeping. He simply laid there, enjoying the quiet of not being spoken to and not being asked of. He knew this time would pass and the strain of emotion would retreat. But for the night, he laid motionless, save for breathing until his mind would finally give him rest, the last lucid thought that of the glow in Adrianal’s gold eyes at the grip of Cassiopeia’s little fingers.