#this shit just looks so good in black and white

[cherrybomb107]

Gotta disagree with you on this one. Zaun not getting their freedom may be “realistic” but that does not make it good. This show literally has magic; so I think an oppressed group of people being able to fight for and gain their freedom could’ve worked. Also, Sevika being on the Council is less than meaningless. She is the singular Zaunite there. Majority rules, and what’s gonna stop all those Pilties(who still looked down on her, btw) from talking over her or vetoing every decision she makes? And even if they do add more Zaunite members to the Council or elect them for government positions, that still doesn’t change anything. Playing by the oppressor’s rules never ends well.

Malcolm X said it best: “The white man will try to satisfy us with symbolic victories rather than economic equity and real justice”. Obviously, race doesn’t exist the same in Runeterra, but the sentiment still holds true. What is giving a single Zaunite a seat at the table gonna do for the centuries of oppression and months of martial law Piltover enforced? Giving Sevika a seat on the Council is a nice start(if you don’t think about it too much) but it’s just that: a start. And maybe it’s because I’m Black, queer, and female, but I’m so tired of revolutionary figures dying young, being imprisoned, or being worn down and becoming shells of their former selves because the powers that be never stopped finding new ways to hurt them. I see enough of that shit in real life. I didn’t need to see it in my favorite show too🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

There is some criticism of how Arcane season 2 handled Zaun I agree with but at the same time I don't agree with some others.

For me, Zaun not getting a complete resolution is the most realistic thing all season. Because systemic opression isn't fixed in a single day. It is never ended immediately. Progress takes time, and it'll still take years before the equality gap between Piltover and Zaun is closed, or before Zaun becomes independent if it does in this timeline. But a Zaunite getting a seat in the council is both a realistic and a good start to start closing that gap. And while I also am disappointed over Sevika not getting more, I feel like it is also a good resolution for someone who's fought so much for Zaun. Now she gets to give Zaunites a voice and look out for their interests as a councilor.

[meli-writes]

Long Time, No Shear - Ch. 01

A sheepish Fae-girl is desperate for someone to shear her for the summer, and to not be weird about it.

There’s a human on Dolly’s doorstep — and she’s naked.

Okay. No, not literally. Per human customs this is all completely appropriate, if a little avant-butch, for the current weather. Black boots and denim short-shorts; enough chains to lose count; loose, side-slit tank that makes her toned, tanned arms part of the outfit; no attempt to hide the lace bra underneath — citrine yellow, to match the sun beating down on her.

And Dolly, snout pressed on the window, feels like she can see all of her.

But— she’s here because Dolly invited her and Dolly can sympathise, because it has been three weeks since she was supposed to have been sheared and she is melting.

(It is though 100% the humans’ fault this is the 8th ‘hottest summer’ — on record, in a row.)

And so there she is, pressing forward through the curtains, trying not to be noticed while she works up the courage, when all of a sudden the human looks at her.

And waves.

---

sheep-goat Fae needs EMERGENCY help w/ summer shear. Can be reg if not weird

Last posted 18 hours ago on Fluffr, the dating-slash-bulletin app for Fae and panel-vetted humans. Yes, humans named it.

It still takes a weird person to apply to the panel, unless they got Fae-referred but that’s got pitfalls too; it also went public after the grants dried up, and has gotten worse because of that particular human-neoliberal urge to overdevelop everything into ruins; and it’s where she met her Wolf-Fae ex — the one who dumped her four weeks ago. But:

It’s still better than the human apps.

Because Dolly doesn’t need this to become a weird sex thing because it’s already super intimate and freaky — and it’s what every human she meets on their apps tries anyway.

Y’know, before she shuts them down and they false-report her till she’s banned.

None of this is the Dolly-in-distress’ preference. Not by the length of a thousand leylines.

---

“Hey. Sorry about that,” Dolly says, sheepishly.

“You’re all good,” the human replies, a smile perched beneath her silver-rimmed aviators. “I’m looking for someone in need of a bit of help, roommate maybe?”

“Dolly! Yeah. That’s me,” Dolly cuts in.

She points to the thin, white line traced on the interior doorframe, “You see the chalk? It’s a shadowskin enchantment, here and on the windows. Makes me look human from the outside, your side, so no one stares.”

“Ace! Makes total sense. Fiona, by the way,” Fiona says, as she steps past the threshold.

Behind the aviators her eyes glimmer, and Dolly has to remind herself it’s just the dispelled illusion and not— “You are a beaut, but I see yer problem.”

She’s glad Fiona can see the smooth, mottled-white velvet on her face now, because even from across the street anyone looking in would be seeing her cheeks swell up with a redcap-crimson blush.

“Girlfriend broke up on ya, didn’t she?” Fiona asks, a little idly.

“Mutual! It… was… mutual,” Dolly bleats, biting down on a full-blown shriek. “Okay. No. But she did it at the worst time and—” She breathes in the infodump, stops herself, curls in an outstretched finger and restarts, “Remember what I said on Fluffr about privacy?”

Fiona winces, hard, and Dolly has to smother her mirror of it, cursing at herself in her own head for not sucking it up. It’s nothing I didn’t tell her, justifying the post and shit. She was just—

“Yeah nah, totally,” Fiona says to her relief. “Just out to help a fellow gal in need.”

(Fellow. Yeah. Dolly also had to tell her in those DMs that Dolly was trans — up the freak-show sentiment even further — because there was no way around Fiona seeing it.

Humans could never tell otherwise, even though her horns were still buck-sized.

She was half-goat anyway, which explains away most irritating questions she gets from them — even if they still didn’t stop staring at the black thigh-high wool pattern on her legs.)

Dolly tries to move on, before Fiona stepping back over boundaries also means out the door, “Thanks. You’ve got uhh— experience. Right?”

Fiona’s nerves are swallowed in a moment. “Reckon!” she says, bouncing on her feet. “I was a kid when there was still livestock on the big, industrial farms. Went to the sheep-stations each year to help out; docking lambs in the spring and the like.”

(When Fiona had mentioned her ‘experience’ in DMs Dolly convinced herself it was practical. Human ethics have been catching up since Fae unveiled themselves a few decades back, after the Vampires, but it was still… weird.)

Did she have to specify docking? Dolly thinks as her tail twitches, and thinks Fiona can see her trying to hide it, and that Dolly can see that Fiona can see that, and that—

“That’s… okay? You’re okay?”

“Ahh! Yep. It’s helpful, not weird,” Dolly answers desperately. “Well, it’s a little weird, but it always is. Just remember that I’m very much sapient and talkative.”

She steps into the next room without looking, hoping Fiona is still with her.

---

“Alright girl, are ya ready?” Fiona asks, observing Dolly scurrying over the plastic mat that covers the floor, making sure it’s tightly held at each corner by a chair or spare textbooks.

“Uhh, one minute. Could you— look away?” asks Dolly, bringing a long-clawed paw to the neck of her shirt. “I know you’re gonna look back but—”

Fiona turns. She’s not giving you a striptease, she thinks to herself, pottering over to the sideboard to distract herself, “This is the stuff here?”

Dolly watches as Fiona inspects her life-long assembled kit — explains, “Yeah. I had to figure out what was best for me. Was not cheap.” Fiona whistles in agreement, as she slides a slim pair of double-bow metal shears out of the sunlight.

“I know this girl who can roo, so lucky,” Dolly adds, jerking about as her pencil-skirt stretches over her fluff-plumpened ass and— “Okay, ready.”

She sees Fiona tee-up herself, nabbing the electric handpiece. “No wide combs, I like it. Grandpa used to say we lost the union to those things,” she says, before turning back around and instinctively sizing Dolly up.

“Huh… like a whether,” she mutters under her breath.

Dolly has tried desperately to never learn the terminology; doesn’t think when she idly asks Fiona, “Excuse me?”

“Comb on the handpiece: anything bigger than 2.5 inches is a ‘wide’ comb,” Fiona answers obliviously. “So you can go faster, and get paid less. I suppose it makes sense to go smaller, and you’re not looking to sell the fleece are ya?”

(She had — once. When she still had rent to pay, and was needily short, so went and sold it on a Fae-fetish site for a shameful and incredible amount. And still thinks about it sometimes.)

Right now, her hooves grind anxiously into the floor. “No, Fiona. The other thing?”

The human’s round eyes tumble back into the abyss of their sockets, as Fiona’s brow rises in concert with realising what she’s said; something Dolly hasn’t the expertise to know, only the foolishness to ask. She doesn’t answer. Dolly feels the plastic fibres beginning to snag under her circling hoof.

“Say it, or go and don’t help me,” she demands at last.

“It’s a… castrated male,” Fiona says, biting her cheeks. “Sorry. Maybe I should go anyway? It was a bit of a heinous thing to say—”

“Nope. No, you’re doing it now,” Dolly tells her, making it obvious she’s guilting her. “Or, maybe I pull out Fluffr and report you?”

Tormenting her too — all while utterly in the fluff, Fae-adapted phone stylus in hand.

Fiona twists at her shirt, briefly exposing a rippling mid-riff, “You wouldn’t… really?”

Dolly makes a show of walking up, tucking the stylus into a stationary-drowned mug, and looks at her. “Fiona, I’m fucking with you. You apologised, and I’m desperate here.”

“It really is that bad?” Fiona mutters, as much about the overcoat as realising her pitiful remorse is far better than Dolly must usually get.

“You know what crutching is?” Dolly asks.

Fiona nods.

“Eugh. And, it’s a fifth of my body weight. Roughly. And fuck it’s so hot these days.”

“Yeah nah, lost my hometown to a wildfire,” Fiona says, a little dissonantly chipper about it. “Why I moved here to be honest with ya.”

“Shit. Sorry I’m—”

“Our fault,” Fiona reassures. Meaning humans. “Not yours. Just tryna help.”

“You really are, y’know.”

She sinks to her knees, leaning forward and pressing her thighs together to hide herself a little, and coaxes Fiona to join her. “My girlfriend— my ex— she promised to help me after the breakup ‘cos I was due but well… ghosted me, then blocked me after I called.”

(Six voicemails. The first few reminders; the last few begging.)

“The other options are like pay three hundred pounds to get nude at a hairdressers, and/or livestream the thing on a fetish site to break-even,” Dolly continues, knowing exactly what that site is called. “Yeah… nah.”

Fiona listens, but doesn’t look, focused on setting a few implements down before taking an offered arm to follow her down. “Wow, you’re soft.”

“Uhh, yeah? Unlike the sheep you’re used to, I don’t like live in a field,” Dolly says sardonically. “I get a bath in this place.”

“Sweetheart, you’ve got an entrance hall, lounge, staircase. It’s heaps better than ninety-percent of the places in this city. Certainly better than the box I’m allowed to rent,” Fiona retorts, flipping the handpiece on.

Dolly lets out a small, nervous titter. The way humans tangled up their housing with markets seemed remarkably silly. “Adjustment funds, the Greater London—”

Fiona swipes, a whole ream of Dolly-fluff falling off of her.

“Hey-hey-hey! Wait!” Dolly squeals, Fiona blinking as she rushes to pause and Dolly collects herself. “You uh— need to go slower than that.”

“Sorry, sweetheart. Was just thinking you’d want me to be… efficient.”

She smiles plaintively, “I mean, I do. It’s just I wanna make sure it’s not scruffy, or messy, or obvious. ‘Cos that would take weeks to grow out. It’s best to sort of—” She holds her breath, and looks at Fiona who’ll never be more ready for this.

“Go slow and hold me down.”

Fiona swallows, wishing it was light beer and not the sheep-girl’s dignity going down.

“And that’s… where people get really weird, right?” she asks.

“Yep.”

If they somehow got this far.

“Like, seriously — how do I explain on an ad: hiya, I need a girl to pin my nude body down and spend four-to-five hours groping me and not somehow make it a weird sex thing.

And, y’know, not make it too much of a regular weird thing either.”

She sighs; rearranges herself to lean back into Fiona, bumping horn into chest.

“Throat’s best to start,” she says, after a moment.

Fiona’s hand reaches slowly, constantly darting her eyes back-and-forth for consent and, not seeing any complaint, takes Dolly at the horn and pulls her low till she’s able to line the handpiece up against the notch at the base of her neck. She closes her eyes, a little unemboldened. The lambs never talked back to her or looked this cute.

“Come on,” Dolly interrupts. “I’d like to wear clothes again today.”

Fiona fumbles, and blinks open, and the lamb in her arms just laughs. It’s difficult not to, there isn’t a way this isn’t absurd and Fiona thinks she gets that now.

Her gaze focuses, a little less nervous this time. A smile creeps to the corner of her mouth, “No worries. I’ll get ‘er right, sweetheart.”

---

Three hours in, and Fiona’s just now reached Dolly’s hips. The arms were simple, if a bit too close to being nipped once or twice; the back came off clean, and Dolly doesn’t admit she thinks about that site again; the tits weren’t bad — mostly covered in the same velvet that’s on her face, all the way down to her— y’know.

(Dolly also absolutely does not mention the three times she came this morning. Not for any sort of pleasure, spirits no. But to make sure there’s as little chance as possible that she gets hard from the super-hot, basically-nude butch handling her like— well, like a sheep.)

The ass was mild torture; Fiona tearing her facial muscles to shreds in the sternest wince of her life, as she held up Dolly’s fat, soft cheeks to clean up the folds where her ass met her thighs. Dolly, at least, holding herself in a grim but merciful silence of solidarity, till at last both rushed to kick back into listing off more of their shared, fascinating, and agonising spars with each of the respective departments of the Home Office that exists to make their lives a bureaucratic nightmare.

It made it all too easy for Fiona to forget Dolly was even supposed to wear clothes, until she was looking at her bend down to a cupboard to fetch mugs for a strongly needed tea-break, even in the present heat.

But, it’s smooth now, and so she runs a hand serenely down the small of Dolly’s back, not thinking of anything more than just making sure the girl’s cut is clean and consistent — till her hand reaches that newly-shorn ass and—

Bleat!

It’s the tiniest sound Fiona has ever heard, and it sounds hot.

What comes after is worse than the ass-silence. Fiona tries not to panic, hopes that Dolly didn’t feel the still in Fiona’s slide, but before she can click on the handpiece to continue—

“Oh— God. I am so sorry,” Dolly squeals.

“No, no. It’s okay,” Fiona protests but Dolly is wrestling out of her lap and she doesn’t dare stop her, as the self-excoriated sheep covers her mouth in shock. 

Fiona tries to raise her hands in surrender, “I-I wasn’t thinking. Or rather thinking of you like a— I just wanted to check it was all the right length.”

“Fiona, you heard that right. I sounded like I was—” Dolly buries her face into the unshaven fluff of her thighs, butting the tip of her snout through to sniffle at the air. “You know what I said earlier…. weird sex thing. Like I’d never mean to, it’s just you’re hot and I can feel all of you. And I know how dumb that sounds coming out of me and with what the weather’s like but I’m used to people wearing like— more than that when they’re shearing me.”

She parts herself like Moses, and looks at Fiona clenching herself in awkward horror.

It really doesn’t help how it makes all her muscles flex.

“I-I’ve made it weird, not you,” Dolly whines; crucifies herself on the plastic sheet, “You can stop there, and I can wear shorts or a skirt so you don’t need to shave my legs.”

No one’ll notice the bulge. Shadowskin can take care of it. Right?

“Are you sure?” Fiona asks, tentatively placing her on Dolly’s knee and sinking it down a bit into her coat. Forcefully enough to both reach her wayward lamb, and to demonstrate the problem still there. “It’s really okay, that was totally me. I just sort of—

forgot the artwork for the canvas it was on.”

Dolly looks up, jerks a horrifically undecided croak out of her throat, and asks, “Did you prepare that one? You don’t… you don’t think this is a date, do you?”

There’s no velvet to hide the crimson shame that courses across Fiona’s cheeks, nor the same cushioned thighs to tuck them behind. “No, no, definitely not. Sorry,” she cries. “I know what you said too, and I don’t wanna be another weird human that you’re suffering for… basic care! It was just that you seemed… cute? And I don’t know, it feels nice to rescue a gal in need. I-I didn’t expect anything, I just… didn’t want to say no if you liked me too.”

The sheep stares at her, tilted head and pursed lips. Dolly can’t tell what reaction she’s having, which bloody well means Fiona won’t be able to.

Instead she slides back across the plastic and lies on her back, pulling her legs up till each forms a triangle. It does the trick.

“Should do the legs, shouldn’t I,” Fiona says — and Dolly is glad she didn’t have to ask.

---

The door is open, and Fiona hovers at not-quite the threshold unsure if she should be on the inside or the outside of it. Of the chalk line, Dolly’s rather literal boundary.

Dolly at least is— Fiona can’t admit it, not now, but she’s beautiful. To see the whole of her not in shittily-taken photo-form — her stylus is there for a reason it seems — but all in motion, as she stretched and shook and wiggled her tail and shorn-at-last self.

It’s hard not to feel proud too, of a job done well, of a girl saved.

The magic — the metaphorical, right now — worn off though leaves Dolly hovering too. She looks about as stressed as when Fiona showed up, but she hopes it’s only in a way that’s her fault — and that it’ll be quickly settled when she’s been booted out the door never to see her again.

“Uhh. Hey,” Dolly says, sheepishly, like Fiona was just coming in again. “You really helped me out a lot today.”

“No drama, sweetheart,” Fiona replies, the points of boots tip-tapping as she looks down at herself. “But, I should’ve dressed up better, didn’t think at all it’d be such a bother for you. Or— not a bother but— not your fault.” 

“No I— It’s cool. You look good.”

“Oh… Thanks.”

She takes a step back, pulls out her aviators and tries to flip them on but Dolly just reaches out and takes her at the wrist. They stare at each other for a moment, but Dolly doesn’t let go, and Fiona doesn’t shake her off.

“Would you wanna help me next time?” Dolly asks, in more of a squeak than a sensible, unheated whisper. “It’s in a few months time… a lighter cut, for autumn.”

She drops Fiona, watches nervously as Fiona’s own nerves creep across her face, “Oh, I mean, sure! Would you wanna meet up before then, maybe? I don’t know, just to help things be more… normal.”

Dolly laughs, sweet on the afternoon breeze that’s sweeping in. “Now it’s a date?”

Fiona’s tongue wants instinctively to slither down her throat, but she thinks she can spot one of the girl’s teases by now — and she probably does have all the right to be a little mean.

“If you’d like it to be,” Fiona teases back. “But — for real — I’m still happy to help.”

Dolly huffs, and smiles in eminent satisfaction, “Then yeah, we can call it a date.”

It’s when Dolly’s peering through the curtains a few minutes later that she sees Fiona, thinking she can’t be seen, stop at short distance down the street and dance with glee for just a precious, delightful moment, before she looks back with a dumb, fond smile on her face and it just cracks when she realises Dolly can still see her.

And Dolly waves.

And Fiona can see her blush.

---

(Masterpost) / (Next)

[hockeyboistrash]

Joseph Woll is just the cutest (this gif? I'm dead) anyway I had this idea pop into my when I went to a concert the other day and now I'm just imagining him taking you to the eras tour. @stayg-0ld this one's for you 💖 (this is not the way i imagined this blurb going but I hope you enjoy it anyway)

"Shit." You heard someone mumble from the living room. You frowned, not expecting your boyfriend to be home in the middle of the day.

"Babe, is everything okay?" You shouted, hanging your coat up and slipping your shoes off. Before you could walk any further Joseph came out, blocking the living room from your sight. You furrowed your eyebrows, wondering what he was hiding from you.

"You don't wanna go in there. Me and Kniesy have kinda made a mess. Don't worry we'll clean it up." Joseph said, trying to stop you from going inside.

"Oh, Matt's here?" You asked, wondering what your boyfriend and his teammate were up to.

"Hey, Y/N!" Matt shouted from the other room.

"What are you guys up to you?" You tried looking pass Joseph but his 6 foot 3 frame blocked your view.

"Just helping Kniesy with something." Was all he said. You waited expectantly for him to clarify but he diverted the conversation quickly. "Why don't you take a bath while we clean up." Joseph gently guided you towards the bathroom. You decided to let it go for now, noting to yourself to ask him about it later. He started running the bath for you as you undressed, taking the towel he held out for you. "I'm going to go and get rid of Matt." Joseph stuttered, taking in the sight of you in your underwear. The objective of distracting you long gone.

"If you succeed you can come and join me." You winked at him, leaning to press a kiss on his cheek before settling into the bath.

Joseph went back to living room seeing Matt finish the last bracelet. "How's it going?" He asked.

"It's officially finished." Matt told his friend and a look of relief washed over Joseph.

"Thank you. I owe you one." Matt said, taking the bracelet in his hand and inspected it. Doubt suddenly set in, worried you'd hate the surprise. "Do you think Y/N will like it?"

"I hope so. This took us ages." Matt joked before assuring Joseph. "Y/N will love it. You'll be the best boyfriend ever." A small smile crept on his face with a sigh of relief. "I'm going to head out. Let me know how it goes. Tell her I say bye." Matthew grabbed his coat and left the goalie to give you his surprise.

It was a few hours later that the two of you were curled up on the couch, comfy clothes on and a blanket thrown over you both. Joseph's arm was resting on the back of the sofa as you layed your head on his chest. He was sure you could feel his heart rate pick up. He was going to give you the gift now and he was nervous. Joseph had no reason to be nervous. It wasn't like you've given him a reason to. He just wanted you to like it. Even with Matt's reassurance he had a little doubt still.

"I got you something." Joseph said softly. You sat up, turning to look at him. He reached down beside the couch and pulled out a bag, Matt's idea of a good hiding spot.

You gently took the bag from him, taking the gift out. It was friendship bracelets tied together. "Babe." You gasped, reading each bracelet. 'Will you go to the eras tour with me' it read. You read it over and over again to make sure you were reading it correctly. The letters never changed.

"So? What do you say? I've got two tickets." Joseph said after a moment of silence. You hadn't even realised you hasn't answer him yet, so engrossed in the black letters on each white charm.

"Oh my gosh! Yes!" You exclaimed, flinging your arms around him and pressing your lips against his. He caught you, resting his hands on your ass so you wouldn't fall. "This is the best gift ever. Thank you."

"I was worried you wouldn't like it." Joseph admitted and you gaped at him like he grew another head.

"I love it. It's the most thoughtful gift anyone has ever given me." You assured him, cupping his cheeks. "I. Love. You. Joseph Woll." You annunciated with kisses, a soft blush crept on his cheeks. You stayed staying his knee, running your fingers over the bracelets, taking in every little detail. "Wait, did you make this yourself?" You asked.

"Kniesy helped a bit." Joseph admitted. "But yeah I made it myself." You giggled to yourself, imagining your six foot three boyfriend trying to put tiny beads onto a thread. It warmed your heart, the effort he went to for you. It solidified your thoughts that he was the man you were going to marry.

[raddagher]

Arcane is over (😭) and I have some criticisms so here are my lists of who Won and who Lost in no particular order

LOST SEASON 2

1. Isha

Literally wasn't even mentioned after she died, like wtf was that

We couldn't have a memorial or anything? Come on

Her sacrifice was ultimately meaningless because Warwick got brought back anyway

2. Sevika

Didn't get a single line through all of Act 3

Where is my wife

At least she didn't die?

3. The entire Undercity, to be honest

Where did the independence thread go

Giving Sevika a council seat wasn't enough

I don't like that so many of them had to fight in Enforcer uniforms, that felt wrong

That was the MAIN CONFLICT for most of the show. It felt so weird to gloss over it at the end

4. Vander/Warwick

Gonna be real I wasn't super crazy about most of his presence here, I don't feel like it actually contributed much to anyone's development, except MAYBE Viktor's

We would not have lost anything if they didn't have the flashback scene with their mom

Super didn't like Jinx's ending as it pertained to him

5. Jinx

Hey I super don't like that every character who had a moment of suicide ideation or attempt ended up dead or "dead"

I don't like the way she "died" it didn't feel earned

I don't feel like the ending she got aligned well with her character at all. She spiraled and then just. stayed at the bottom of the spiral :(

They put a TON of family stuff in act 1 and 2 that didn't get resolution in 3

I think they kinda did my girl dirty I'm sorry

6. Loris

Clearly would have had more of a role if they didn't have to cut him for time

NEITHER WON NOR LOST SEASON 2

1. Vi

I want to say she won because she got to bang her cop girlfriend in a prison cell and the sex scene was good as hell but

She also was just taking massive L's the whole time

Like it never felt like she ever had any real wins other than that and that bummed me out

Didn't get enough time to be a dumbfuck with Jayce :(

Caitlyn

Didn't get enough proper resolution for her wonderful fascist arc

She felt a little dropped in Act 3 as well

Glad she got that Vussy tho, good for her

And I did like the vs Ambessa fight, that was also good

I honestly feel like Viktor and Jayce's romance was written better than her and Vi's, and as a gay woman who is constantly watching mlm relationships get so much more attention, it rubs me the wrong way

WON SEASON 2

1. Viktor (OBVIOUSLY)

The fucked up robot army. The religious imagery. The body horror. His robot alien design is scary as fuck. Absolutely incredible work

Got to be taller and stronger than Jayce hooray

They're canon. That was the gayest shit I've ever seen in my life

I do wish they had spent more time overall fleshing out more of the disability commentary, I feel like it was a little lacking in the end

Nevertheless BEAUTIFUL and HORRIFYING and TRAGIC

2. Jayce

See above

Yeah he also got to be a big hero and got to be resolved really well

Did NOT see his death coming that was crazy

They Magnus 200'd his ass, damn

He chose Viktor over everything I'm emo

They made a heart when they touched their foreheads together fuck OFF

3. Heimerdinger

Literally just living his best life

Love that he didn't tell Ekko he can't die, he just let the poor boy think he got fuckin atomized, king shit, that's hilarious

I would have stayed in that universe too tbh

4. Ambessa

The single tear over Kino. Her love for her children at direct odds with her need for control. Her arc was explored so well

Died a warrior's death at the hands of her brilliant daughter, I know that's how she would have wanted to go

Also was very hot in every scene. Good for her (and good for me)

She just got a lot of love from the writers and I'm very happy to see that effort put into an older Black woman character

5. Mel

Speaking of gorgeous Black women

I was so worried she was going to get dropped but her ending was SO good

Her glow up with the gold is fantastic, she looks amazing in the white hood

Love that they gave her abilities that would inherently change her priorities AND gave her the throne of Noxus, I have high hopes that she'll be prominent in another show in the future

They made her such a powerful badass but still let her be merciful and forgiving. Absolutely amazing. She is the wolf

6. Ekko (?)

On the fence about him

LOVED the au scene. Perfect

And I loved that our boy savior got to be the one that set off the bomb that stopped Viktor

But he was kind of dropped otherwise? Like what happened with his tree?

Generally wish he had more development and screentime in this season

But I'm happy he was so pivotal to the climax

AND I'm happy he got to kiss Powder. He and Jinx would never have worked out

7. Maddie

Haha I never liked you. Get fucked you horrible little bootlicker. Typical cop

8. Singed

How come YOU get everything you want?

Fuck you.

Basically all my criticisms boil down to it feeling rushed overall. It's clear that they intended to have more time, and that breaks my heart. We all know Netflix's reputation for cancelling stuff out of the blue, and I've heard that maybe certain parties were unhappy with the depictions of gay romance and realistic social revolution. Whatever the reasons, I wish they had a third season, because I think they could have solved every problem I have with it. Regardless, it's an incredible work of art and very likely one of if not THE best animated series ever made.

[faorism]

im feeling real the call is coming from within the house vibes rn, so im going to be kinda nasty for a hot minute because you actually were the reason i came across this post in the first place. my friend and i were so aghast at your racializations of hardison in a fic, that they had to see who the fuck you are. and your own ignorance highlights why this response is kinda bullshit.

incorporating race is absolutely something that fandom needs to be better about doing. absolutely. but up your attempts at doing so show how stomach churning poor follow through can be, where i would have preferred you not give an attempt at all. because in the fic in question, you use the wildly outdated term "ebonics" to refer to hardisons exaggerated speech that he codeswitches into occasionally. my friend and i spent fifteen minutes trying to decipher your implications in the line: "He’s young, or maybe (hopefully) just black, is the first thing."

i did not read your evil!hardison fic, because i didnt trust your ability to write an entire fic focused on him. that said, i felt like a got enough out of this hc post:

so! i think there's some good points here (perhaps!) about what hardison would look like with a possessive god complex, as opposed to him being a thoughtful provider building homes for the people he loves. and yes, "ownership" is a very contentous topic in the Black community, given how white supremacy has subjugated Black capital. but whatever analysis i would give you credit for—and any brownie points you could get from naming the racialized aspect—is immediately wiped when you fucking compare hardison to a goddamn overseer. you know, like an enslaver overseeing enslaved people? you imply here hardison, a Black man, would be a kind master to his employees. which is just so vile to be casual about.

attempts were made, i can say about your posting and writing. but i don't at all respect it, because you still have so much to really pull together to not be offensive about things.

which gets back to this post. you say your saw weirdness. why the fuck didn't you name it? no, really. did you actually see it or are you trying to save face now? you're not welcome for the labor i (nonblack latinx) and my friend (Black) had to go through to process this post. don't rely on others to do the work of naming racism and antiblackness; do the work yourself, or just don't reblog if you can't give commentary.

and, because i have been nasty and might as well be petty: honestly, there's just so much more work you need to do if you want me to trust you with handling race in fandom when you out here posting shit like this:

you're the fucking issue here too.

Well, a realization just hit me. Don't know if this is true of not, I don't remember the timing.

Eliot said he didn't hit cops in the OG show. Well now that makes sense. His dad is Black. What do Black parents teach their kids when it comes to dealing with the cops? Part of The Talk. Just do as they say, not that that always work.

He would have at least heard that talk with other foster kids, or teammates, if not given it himself.

And why would he stick to that? Because his dad was upset with him and he was still trying to be a Good Boy in one way.

[kelliealtogether]

The new barista at Fox Way Cafe was hot as shit.

Or Ronan Lynch hoped he was new. That was the only reasonable excuse why the barista sucked at barista-ing and seemed to provide the fucking worst customer service known to man. The way the guy’s thin smile faltered when he asked someone how he could help them said he’d rather throw himself into an active volcano — or possibly a tiny metal pitcher of freshly steamed milk, given the setting — than take another order for a nonfat pumpkin spice peppermint patty latte with almond milk or whatever, but damn, Ronan would stand in line all day if it meant watching the new guy epically fail at providing a good customer experience.

Ronan Lynch doesn't mean to become a regular at Fox Way Cafe, but when he sees the cafe's newest employee for the first time, he decides to keep going back again, and again, and again.

At least until the new barista learns how to spell his name...

-

Just Coffee is a 4.3k G-rated coffee shop meet-cute with all the trappings of a meet-ugly. Adam is horrible at customer service and Ronan can't get enough of it. Read it all below the cut or here on ao3.

The new barista at Fox Way Cafe was hot as shit.

Or Ronan Lynch hoped he was new. That was the only reasonable excuse why the barista sucked at barista-ing and seemed to provide the fucking worst customer service known to man. The way the guy’s thin smile faltered when he asked someone how he could help them said he’d rather throw himself into an active volcano — or possibly a tiny metal pitcher of freshly steamed milk, given the setting — than take another order for a nonfat pumpkin spice peppermint patty latte with almond milk or whatever, but damn, Ronan would stand in line all day if it meant watching the new guy epically fail at providing a good customer experience.

Ronan didn’t personally need a good customer experience though. He didn’t need any kind of experience at all. He just needed the plainest cup of black coffee Fox Way had ever served because he happened to be an idiot who forgot to add cheap, plain coffee to his last Instacart order. There had been coffee back at his brother Declan’s townhouse — expensive whole bean crap that tasted like battery acid had a baby with nail polish remover — but Ronan appreciated his fully-functioning stomach too much to drink it. That left him suffering the consequences of his mistake, waiting in line behind a bunch of blonde, Northern Virginia housewives decked out in their Lululemon and Patagonia.

At least he got nice scenery as he suffered. Not the cafe itself and the hand lettered chalkboard menu posted behind the counter or the mismatched overstuffed armchairs gathered around whitewashed antique tables, but dusty hair that fell unevenly across a forehead. Mirthless blue eyes that narrowed at the corners with every overly complex coffee order. Long, lean, knobby-knuckled hands that scrawled names on the sides of white paper cups in permanent marker.

It was a sight Ronan could look at all day. And nothing stopped him from setting up residence at one of the cafe’s tables to watch the hopefully new guy suck at his job. The rest of the morning — and afternoon, and evening — stretched in front of Ronan, impossibly empty. Not much filled the schedule of a high school dropout who had ideas about being a farmer until he abandoned that plan after realizing it meant he’d be stuck alone in western Virginia until retirement or the apocalypse, whichever came first. Now, with the luxury of money and time, he’d ditched his would-be farm for Alexandria and was reassessing his life goals while running out the clock on his brother’s hospitality and patience.

But until Declan sent him packing?

Ronan could keep forgetting to add coffee to his grocery order so he could become a regular at Fox Way Cafe, and he’d start that journey with a single cup of black coffee.

“Can I help you?” the barista — he had to be new because he didn’t even have a name tag pinned to the apron he wore over a red t-shirt — asked, pulling Ronan out his head, where he’d started daydreaming about getting to know the hot as shit barista through a series of snarky conversations while cash and cups changed hands.

At the front of the line and now up close and personal with the new guy, proximity rendered Ronan speechless for a long, awkward second before he said, “Just coffee.” After another awkward pause, Ronan — because while he was an asshole, he wasn’t about to be a dick to a customer service person — added, “Please.”

“Just coffee,” the barista replied, like he couldn’t believe someone would enter a cafe and only order a plain cup of coffee. And — fair. The orders Ronan overhead while waiting had all sounded like fantastic sugar-filled monstrosities that left plain coffee cowering in their shadows.

“Yeah. Just coffee, man,” Ronan said. “Not trying to make your life difficult.”

The guy should have appreciated the simple order, but if a sigh could be an expression, that was precisely how the barista looked at Ronan. And, honestly, unimpressed wasn’t a bad look on him. Yeah, it pressed his thin lips thinner and drew his almost invisible eyebrows together so the skin between them pinched, but it made him look even more done with his mundane counter position and Ronan appreciated the desire to opt out of the farce of capitalism.

“Name?” barista boy asked. Ronan didn’t know how he translated the unimpressed look on his face into the single-worded question, but he managed.

“Uh. Ronan,” Ronan replied. Because, apparently, this guy rendered him not just speechless, but stupid.

Some kind of magic put a cup in one of the barista’s hands and a marker in the other, and he scrawled on the side of the cup before capping the marker and using it to tap the register’s touch screen. “Three seventy,” he told Ronan apathetically. The he turned around to fill the cup from a giant stainless steel pot behind the register.

Ignoring the fact a plain cup of coffee cost almost four bucks, and also ignoring the fact this guy had a minimalist approach to talking, Ronan pulled out his wallet and thumbed out a credit card. As he tapped it to the card reader attached to the register, he watched the barista’s pleasantly muscled bicep and how it moved beneath his t-shirt as he pumped the lever on the pot’s black lid. Bewitched, Ronan’s eyes were still focused on where the guy’s upper arm had been when he turned back toward Ronan, which left Ronan staring at the hollow at the base of a very nice throat when the barista held out his full cup of coffee. And there was one of those gorgeous hands again, this time curled around the cup so fingertips bookended Ronan’s name written on white cardboard.

Ronan’s name, spelled Ronin.

“It’s with an a,” he said. Dumbly. Obstinately.

The barista held the cup in his hand so stilly that the coffee inside it went flat and dark and mirror-like as he asked, “Pardon?”

It sounded way cuter than Ronan wanted to admit. A little southern and lilting but sanded down, close to the way people had talked out in western Virginia before Ronan temporarily uprooted himself to Alexandria. It was also a lot more polite than a what or a huh, responses he'd heard a million times before. How Ronan himself would have responded in the same kind of situation.

“My name,” he replied. “It’s with an a.”

The guy blinked once, slowly, like Ronan was an idiot. And — fair. He was standing there being pedantic about how a barista had spelled his name on a cup that hadn't required Ronan’s name at all. With the coffee right behind the register, the cup didn't need to be put in the line waiting for the other barista — a short chick whose hair clips probably violated a dozen health codes — to fill it with a fancy ass drink. So it made absolute sense for the guy to set Ronan’s cup on the granite countertop far away from the register — a clear sign for Ronan to move out of line — before he said dryly, “Thank you for the feedback.”

“No problem,” Ronan told him. Dumbly. Sarcastically. But he got the hint. He picked up his cup and raised it in a toast to the hot barista as he added, “Have a good one.”

And he legitimately wanted the guy to have a good day. No one that hot should be subjected to a bad day, especially when they were stuck serving assholes like Ronan, even if they were kind of a dick themselves. Thank you for the feedback though? If someone in customer service cared about keeping their job, they didn’t say shit like that. And maybe the hot barista didn’t care about keeping his job. On looks alone, Ronan had a pretty high opinion of him. Add his absolute disdain for his current career? That skyrocketed Ronan’s opinion through the roof.

Ronan stopped at the milk, sugar, and compostable stirrer station to shove a lid on his cup before leaving the twee little cafe, but not before glancing back at the barista, who had moved on to serving the next person in line and looked no less disinterested in his work than when he’d taken Ronan’s order. Jesus shit, Ronan hadn’t seen someone look so joyless since he’d told Declan he was dropping out of high school. At least that had made Ronan happy. The barista’s misery please absolutely no one.

Yet the prospect of causing the guy more misery didn’t stop Ronan from returning to the cafe the next day. Sometimes he bent truths and avoided honesty, but he wasn’t a liar. He’d told himself he’d become a regular at Fox Way Cafe and he would. Later in the morning — a time most people would call midday, not morning — he sauntered into the coffee shop. During his drive from Declan’s townhouse, Ronan had mentally prepared for the possibility the barista from yesterday wouldn’t be working, but preparation had been unnecessary. Hot barista stood behind the counter looking as bored as ever as he took a woman’s order.

Ronan sidled into line behind her — the two pump sugar-free vanilla, two pump hazelnut, double-shot, extra hot oat milk latte she ordered made Ronan’s stomach hurt — and after she paid and the barista passed her cup off to the same midget working the espresso machine, the barista looked at Ronan, paused a beat, and then asked, “Just coffee?”

“Yeah,” Ronan replied, blinking his mild shock away. The guy had remembered his — albeit really fucking basic — order from the day before. “Just coffee.”

Again, the guy practiced some kind of magic and procured a cup and marker from thin air, and after he told Ronan his total, he turned to fill the cup from the pot behind him. Again, Ronan watched the barista’s arm while he fumbled through tapping his credit card for payment, and when the barista handed him his coffee, Ronan said, “That’s not where the a goes.”

Because the barista had scrawled Aronin on the cup.

“You said your name was uh Ronan,” the barista replied. “With an a.”

Probably, Ronan should have been flattered that a hot guy had remembered his name when dozens, if not hundreds, of customers streamed into the cafe every morning. And he would have been, if the barista hadn’t completely bastardized Ronan’s name. Okay, sure, Ronan hadn’t said the a went where the guy had put an i because it was common damn sense, but who was named Aronin? The barista had to be fucking with him. Or maybe he was too functionally illiterate to be working the register at a coffee shop.

God, Ronan hoped not. 

For a long moment, he stared at the barista, then — because no one had gotten in line behind him — he set the coffee down on the counter without spilling any. “It’s Ronan,” he said flatly. None of this mattered. The barista didn’t care whether he spelled anyone’s name right or not, but Ronan would be damned if he didn’t at least try to correct it. His name wasn’t Ronin or — what the fuck — Aronin. It was Ronan, a damn good name, and he wasn’t going to let someone get it wrong if he could help it. “Like — row, like a boat.” He mimicked holding an oar and stroked his hands through the air like he was sitting in a canoe and paddling down a river, not standing in Fox Way Cafe. “And nan. Like what you’d call your grandma or whatever.” He picked his coffee back up before he finished, “Ronan.”

The barista simply looked back at him for a long moment, his fair eyebrows and his lips both flat lines. Jesus, he was good looking, even through thinly veiled annoyance. Finally, just like he had the day before, the barista said dryly, “Thank you for the feedback and demonstration.”

Barely — barely — Ronan stopped himself from throwing his hands in the air and splattering the whole cafe with coffee. This guy had to be fucking with him, and if he was, Ronan gave him credit. He hadn’t so much as smiled. At all. Not once. No one could be that stoic for so long in such a ridiculous situation unless they were doing it on purpose. Which — made the guy about a hundred times more attractive to Ronan.

“You’re welcome,” he drawled, narrowing his eyes at the barista. Then, just like he had the day before, he said, “Have a good one.”

If Ronan’s mom had been alive, she would have called the guy difficult or a pill, and that would have only been under duress. Despite her raising him, Ronan had never been that nice. That benevolent. So he mentally called the guy an asshole as he walked out of Fox Way, and he smirked to himself his entire walk to his parked BMW.

He smirked to himself his entire drive back to Declan’s townhouse.

The next day, Ronan should have expected similar shenanigans. Or not shenanigans. Misunderstandings. Because maybe this barista was the type to dick around with every one of his customers, but Ronan didn’t think so. Except as soon as he stepped into the cafe — oddly empty for almost lunchtime — the hot barista grabbed a cup, scrawled something on its side in marker, and turned toward the coffee pot behind him.

“What if I wanted something else?” Ronan asked as he stopped in front of the register.

“Once is an anomaly,” the barista replied, putting the full cup down on the counter, strategically turned so Ronan couldn’t see what he’d written on it. “Twice is a pattern.”

“Okay, Einstein.” Ronan rolled his eyes before reaching for the cup and slowly spinning it until he could read his name. “Oh, come on, man.”

Because, this time, the barista had written Row Nan.

Nonchalant, the barista said, “It’s how you told me it was spelled.”

“I was being phonetical. Not literal.”

Then, the flat line of the guy’s lips twitched — just barely — into something that had ideas of being a smirk before the guy pressed his lips thin again and said, “I’ll take Hooked On Phonics into consideration next time.”

And there would be a next time, because the barista’s snark had become more than mildly appealing to Ronan. He’d come back again and again and again, even if the guy never spelled his name right. Frankly, he was running out of options, or at least normal ones. Not that that seemed like it would stop him if he wanted to get creative.

Ronan welcomed creativity.

Without much fanfare, Ronan paid, muttered have a good one through his teeth, and stalked out of the coffee shop.

Fucking Row Nan.

Mary, mother of God, he couldn’t get enough of the barista. He was awful��at his job. Completely unapologetic. Borderline rude.

Ronan hoped he worked at that goddamned cafe until the end of the world. Or at least until Ronan — maybe, probably — moved back home.

Neither had happened by the next morning, but the guy still remained behind the register when Ronan walked into Fox Way. A miracle really, considering the universe had rarely worked in his favor so continuously. But that morning, as soon as Ronan made it to the front of the line, he stopped the barista before he had the chance to grab a cup and wield his marker.

“No,” Ronan said, continuing so quickly he didn’t leave space for debate or contradiction. “Today, I’m gonna spell it out. Since phonetics doesn’t seem to work for you.”

The barista stared at Ronan for a moment, and after his lean chest and wiry shoulders rose and fell with a long inhale and a long exhale, he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Spell it.”

For the first time since he’d probably learned how to spell it when he was a kid, Ronan spelled his name. He enunciated every single letter so plainly and clearly they couldn’t be misinterpreted. He tried to make it so foolproof that there was no way the barista could possibly get it wrong, and God save him if he couldn’t get it right with Ronan spelling it letter by letter.

In hindsight, Ronan should have been watching the barista’s pretty hands, not the concentration on his face — the knit of his eyebrows, the slight tuck to one corner of his lips. Because after he’d filled Ronan’s cup with coffee and set it on the counter, Ronan got a look at this attempt at his name and said, “That is the worst way anyone has ever spelled my name.”

In a single column down the side of the cup, the first letter of each line one atop another, the barista had written:

Ahr.

Oh.

En.

Ay.

En.

“It’s phonetic,” the barista replied, and as Ronan slowly shook his head, the barista finally fucking smiled at him, so elastic and amiable Ronan almost swayed into the person waiting in line behind him. “Can I get you anything else?”

Utterly speechless, Ronan shook his head again — quicker this time — before he floundered through tapping his credit card for payment and then muttering an unintelligible string of words that may have contained thanks, have a good one, I’m in love with you, or some amalgamation of the three before he wandered out of the cafe without putting a lid on his cup. He didn’t need a lid anyway. As soon as he made it to his car, he dumped the coffee in the gutter and used his black t-shirt to dry the inside of the cup because he was never throwing it away. He’d keep it as a memento of the day the still-nameless barista smiled at him for the first time. Hopefully genuinely. Ronan didn’t even care that the move left him smelling freshly brewed for the rest of the day either. That had the opportunity to irritate Declan or give him another ulcer, and Ronan couldn’t pass those chances up.

He still smelled freshly brewed the following morning because he rolled out of bed and grabbed a shirt from the towering pile of laundry on the chair in the corner of Declan’s guest room, not realizing it was the same shirt he’d worn the day before. Once Ronan had realized it, he’d been too lazy to change, and seeing as he’d blend right in with the aromas of the only place he planned on going, it didn’t matter anyway. It wasn’t like the hot barista could tell the difference between one plain black t-shirt and another. Ronan barely could, which was how he’d found himself smelling like a coffee shop again in the first place.

And that didn’t matter either anyway, because the hot barista wasn’t behind the counter when Ronan walked into Fox Way Cafe. In his usual place stood the short chick who’d been working the espresso machine — twice her size, so Ronan didn’t know how she’d operated it — the past few mornings, and a ghost-like guy worked the machine in her place. Ronan could have turned around and walked right back out the door — he didn’t need coffee the way all the caffeine addicts that kept the cafe in business did — but he stopped himself from retreating to his car when the chick barista called out, “Welcome to Fox Way.”

Caught before he could leave, Ronan gritted his teeth and approached the register. Stunted, he said, “Hi.”

“What can I get you?” this barista — BLUE according to the all caps name printed on the shiny label of the name tag pinned to her apron, and what the hell kind of name was Blue? — asked him when he stopped in front of her.

The completely different approach to serving customers nearly gave Ronan whiplash.

“Just coffee,” he told her.

She grabbed a cup from the stack beside the register and turned to fill it from the pot behind her, glancing at Ronan over her shoulder. “Room for cream and sugar?”

He shook his head as he watched her until he recognized a verbal response was probably warranted. Snapping himself out of his mystification from the one-eighty between how this barista and the hot barista operated, Ronan said, “No. No thanks.”

Pivoting back to Ronan, a little coffee sloshed over the rim of the cup as Blue set it down on the counter. “Lids are behind you,” she told him. “Can I get you anything else?”

And then it wasn’t only the superior customer service throwing Ronan for a loop, but also something Blue had neglected when she’d been taking his order. Something Ronan hadn’t been subjected to in days, though it had colored every single one of his visits to the cafe.

In what probably sounded like it came out of left field, he said, “You didn’t ask for my name.”

Blue blinked, so at least Ronan wasn’t the only one being thrown for a loop during this transaction. “Excuse me?”

“When you took my order,” he explained. “You didn’t ask for my name.”

Slowly, like Ronan had regressed to kindergarten and needed an everyday occurrence spelled out to him very simply, Blue told him, “We usually don’t when someone just gets coffee.”

“But the guy yesterday…” Ronan trailed off as he started putting two and two together. The hot barista had definitely been messing around with him. He had to have been. Which could have been the most fucked up way anyone had ever flirted with Ronan.

He found he kind of loved it.

“Oh,” Blue replied, dragging the word out as she narrowed her eyes at Ronan. “You.”

“Me what?”

“Adam mentioned you.”

“Adam,” Ronan said. He could not have thought of a more fortuitous name for the hot barista if he’d tried. “Mentioned me.”

“Yeah,” Blue replied. Her mouth twisted a little as she swept her gaze over Ronan, and when she met his eye again, she added, “You know what? That —” she jerked her chin at Ronan’s coffee “— is on the house.”

“Why?”

“Because Adam’s a shithead and you’re the only person who hasn’t complained about him.”

Ronan’s heart turned solid in his chest and started slowly sinking toward his stomach with the implication that the hot barista — Adam — wouldn’t be around Fox Way anymore. “Did he get fired or something?”

“No.” Blue shook her head and her dangling soda tab earrings rattled Ronan’s heart back into his chest where it belonged. “He has an organic chem lab. He’ll be back tomorrow. But some of our customers won’t be.”

More Adam for him, Ronan supposed. And he has an organic chem lab? Maybe Ronan hadn’t been too far off with the Einstein comment the other morning. That one sentence alone — combined with the Hooked on Phonics thing from Adam — proved he was way, way too academically overqualified to be working at Fox Way. He'd probably dicked around with Ronan, in part, to keep himself from dying of boredom. Even Ronan would pick an organic chemistry lab over working the cafe's register. Or possibly just a regular chemistry lab given he hadn't made it out of high school. 

Picking up his coffee, Ronan — with absolute sincerity he didn't often display — said, “Thanks.”

Not just for the free coffee, but for finally allowing him to learn the hot barista’s name.

“No problem, man,” Blue replied, pert. “See you tomorrow.”

Needless to say, Ronan would be back. Not only because he had confirmation Adam was on the schedule, but because a lightbulb turned on in Ronan’s brain as he walked to his BMW, and instead of driving back to Declan's, he brought up the closest office supply store on his phone’s GPS.

When he walked into Fox Way Cafe the next morning, Ronan was not empty handed, and he got in line and waited his turn until he stood on the opposite side of the counter from Adam. Again, before Adam could grab a cup, Ronan stopped him. Not with an explanation or display he hoped would finally coerce Adam into spelling his name correctly, but with an offering.

“What’s this?” Adam asked, looking warily at Ronan’s hand, palm-up and extended toward him.

“A name tag,” Ronan replied. “Since it looks like this place is too cheap to make you one.”

The night before, Ronan had had too much fun teaching himself how to use a label maker, and for months after Ronan moved out, Declan would find labels around his townhouse on things that absolutely did not need labeling: the watch he wore only on special occasions, the bottle of lotion in his bedside drawer, the bad art he thought he kept well-hidden in the attic. Most importantly though, Ronan had used the label maker to print a name tag for Adam, which Ronan had smoothed onto a plastic badge he’d scoured Northern Virginia for so it was identical to the one he’d seen pinned to Blue.

Ronan had also had too much fun coming up with horrible ways of spelling Adam’s name, but he liked the one he’d settled on.

Ahdym.

Though Adam pressed his thin lips into a thin line, they twitched — more than once — as he looked at the tag in Ronan’s hand. For a second, Ronan doubted he would take it. That Adam had really just been fucking with him, not flirting with him at all. But finally — without saying thanks because, as Blue had confirmed, Adam was a shithead — Adam took the tag with his long, lean fingers and smoothly pinned it to the front of his apron before he looked at Ronan and asked, “Just coffee?”

“Yeah.” Ronan nodded, fighting valiantly to stop himself from smiling but losing. “Just coffee.”

Despite not needing to, Adam uncapped his marker as he picked up a cup, and what he wrote on the side of it was definitely longer than Ronan’s name in whatever horribly ridiculous way Adam chose to write it this time. But when Adam filled the cup and set Ronan’s coffee down on the counter, Ronan saw his name hadn’t been written on it at all.

The side of the cup read Adam with a phone number scrawled beneath it, and just under the number, Adam had written call me.

-

Likes, reblogs, kudos, and comments are much appreciated. 💕

[smytherines]

Spies are noir

[suntails]

B&W

[saitamastamaticsoup]

Not to be dramatic but since hiori is blasian in canon I need black x readers asap🗣️ like we are DEF not getting any cultural background on this kid (because they just slid it in there like we weren’t gonna recognize in the first place)not that we have any background on any of these children’s parents but I think he should explain how he feels being mixed in Japan because it’s just really funny having these two in the exact same anime, and they are both black 

This is ABSOLUTELY hilarious 😭

Edit: so I’ve noticed a pattern of EVERY character looking like their mother and barely sharing any resemblance to their fathers so ig he gets a pass for being pale BUT there’s even more melaninated characters so let’s give him some sun too!!🥺

Respectfully; come the fuck on

[goldentangerines]

i'm on an archaeology conference this weekend and today (the first day of the conference) i sat through 2½ hours of highly interesting panels from professors all over the world before i realized all i had in my head was sugar by sleep token

[artofapeach]

I like how you use references from 1940s for some of your Termina art. I don't feel like the fandom (and honestly, sometimes the game) really explores or takes advantage of the period piece aspect of the setting. Keep up the good work.

Thank you!! Admittedly, I’m just obsessed with classic movies and old stuff in general, and I shove it into any fandom I’m in. Termina just happens to actually fit that aesthetic 🙈

[longagoitwastuesday]

Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie as Heathcliff and Cathy seems like out of The Onion

[trans-leek-cookie]

Thinking about geto because I want to pour milk on him and throw him against the wall. Imo his beliefs are inconsistent and self serving (which makes sense because he developed said beliefs at age 16/17 while his mental health was at an all time low). Because while he seems to have the primary motive of "only sorcerers = no curses" taking into account how he treats Maki, who has no cursed energy, it shows that the "no curses" thing isnt the main focus- bc while he decided on tbe "forced evolution" thing, theoretically he should not be Opposed to ppl w heavenly restriction bc. They still fuckin. Don't contribute to curses from what I can tell. Also heavenly restriction is pretty obviously something that is punished by uh. Is it just the Zenin's who have it. Anyway they hated Maki and they Hated Toji so he clearly isn't standing for "oppressed sorcerers" bc if so Maki should be like. The kind of person he wants to help more, as someone who would be oppressed by ppl who aren't sorcerers as well as the powerful clans.

Anyway. While getting rid of curses is for sure part of his motivation, as well as helping sorcerers (see Nanako and Mimiko) id honestly argue that his main problem that lead to him spiraling was. How do I put this. Being knocked off a pedestal

Because he was one of 3 people given the ranking of "Special Grade", and he and satoru are grouped as "the strongest". And consider that satoru comes from a powerful clan and literally has some weird omniscience and invincibility shit going on so that's a whole fucking. That's gotta be a wild ego boost, especially for someone who comes from a family of ppl who aren't sorcerers. Like you spend all this time being a fuckin weirdo and then someone finds you and it turns out you're actually incredibly special and strong, given the same rank as a fucking God Child? You're gonna have some wild self perceptions after that

Anyway then you get to watch your invincible friend get stabbed, watch the girl you became friends with and feel shitty about kinda ruining the life of get shot, and get your whole shit rocked by some guy who can't even use the magic power bullshit you have. (Though he's got a whole physical thing going on because of the trade off)

Also writing all of this out actually makes me understand the Cult Leader progression more, like besides the fact they killed ur friend and you want em dead. You're probably struggling with your ego (especially since your weird God like friend got a whole power boost from the situation) so you create a fucking eugenicist cult where you can consistently prove your superiority to yourself (surrounding yourself with people who will agree with everything you say).

Anyway in a similar vein I wholely believe in "a loving father is not inherently a good father" Suguru + Nanako & Mimiko dynamic

Final thought is roughly I feel like looking at Suguru thru the lense of "this character had a level of privilege that they felt they truly deserved, and after experiencing events that are genuinely traumatic and horrific for any person, they develop reactionary beliefs to try and regain a sense of superiority and control" rather than "oppressed minority who killed oppressors and wants to do eugenics"

[seveneyesoup]

also the set was. tight. like you hear about a tight set and you’re like okay you’re just saying words but they got through that shit. no messing around they got on stage they played there was a little talk but less than i’ve seen, they left, blood played, they came back for inok and helena and that was it. absolutely zero nonsense which is an insane contrast bc my day has been chock full of nonsense from other bands

[starlooove]

“They need to drop a show about the toxic sketches” y’all couldnt handle that rose quartz wasnt a good person

[chesedelhim]

Thinking About Shrimp Tank Thursday