#will i get sent to super mega hell if i bring my so???

[addysfandomdump]

I know I'm not that popular so this is probably not gonna get a lot of attention but,

Premises under the cut:

The Finer Things in Life - Rouge pities Shadow's depressingly minimalist living space and takes him out to steal get some stuff to decorate his room. ("Damn bitch, you live like this?")

The World's Most Way-Past-Cool Game Night! - It's game night at Amy's house, and everyone's invited! Chaos ensues within the crowded living room of Amy's apartment. Based on Cover B illustration for IDW Sonic’s Issue #27.

The Sun is Also a Star - Super Sonic and Super Shadow float in an endless void, singing to and comforting each other.

Like a Moth to a Flame - Light and fluffy Super Sonic x Shadow oneshot.

Te Aviso, Te Anuncio - Sonic is attending a celebrity gala for Amy's sake when Team Dark crashes the party to steal a prized treasure being displayed at the gala that Rouge is seeking after. Sonic and Shadow fight/waltz homosexually, playing hot potato with the prize until finally, one of them makes off with it.

Worst Family Reunion Ever - Semi-crack Sonadow fic. Shadow is forced to come to the bicentennial Black Arms Family Reunion that happens once every 50 years lest everyone he knows and loves is killed. Needing a plus-one, Shadow decides to bring Sonic, who pretends to be Shadow's "boyfriend" and be as obnoxious at the family dinner as possible.

This Place is Not a Place of Honor - Rouge is sent on a mission to retrieve old documents on a rickety space colony called the ARK. By the time she realizes the horrors that lie within the ARK, it is already too late.

Steel Pig - Imagine the hit indie horror game Iron Lung but with Sonic the Hedgehog in it. His worst nightmare.

I Love My Enemy - Boom!Sonadow Divorce Arc 💔

A Chaotic Companion - Sonic (Classic) meets a strange and peculiar figure in the Special Zones while trying to collect the Chaos Emeralds.

Where's the Girl? - A chronicled depiction of Maria's life on the ARK, told from her perspective.

God DAMN it, Sonic, where the HELL are we!? - After a freak accident with the Chaos Emeralds, Sonic, Shadow, and Knuckles are transported to another world where there are only humans (our world/real life). They go on the hunt for the Chaos Emeralds, learning to navigate the strange new world they've been thrown into and getting into all sorts of wacky shenanigans.

A mega slow burn Sonknuxadow fic and rewrite of a slightly older Sonadow fic with the same premise that I wrote myself into a corner for. This time, Knuckles is here! This fic is gonna be fucking massive, with 100 chapters (or "episodes") in a screenplay format. One of my most ambitious fics that'll definitely take a looong time to complete. I'll probably write the first 10 episodes, then drop them on a weekly basis, then rinse and repeat for the rest of the fic.

[beatbawksradio]

vent about having my accomplishments undermined

just feeling melancholy today about smth that happened literally 12 years ago, that has ended up still sticking with me today. it kinda sent me on this spiral of thinking about other scenarios like it and how often ive been trapped with people who treat me like this.

see, back in 2012, i went to my first and only ever convention. I've never gone to another mostly bc ive struggled financially all my life and can't afford the tickets for such a social luxury that im too anxious to even properly enjoy. but, its also bc of how... conflicting my first experience was. there was a panel for pokemon fans basically, which my friends was excited to bring me to, and during this panel, they held a tiny little drawing contest. it was like, you got small dry erase boards, and 15 seconds to draw the pokemon described. being an artist and also young (still in high school), i was super pumped to volunteer for it- i have always had very extreme stage fright, as evidenced by me being red as hell and sweating the whole time, but i powered through that for the sake of having fun in my Element. the final challenge was a 60 second chance to doodle mewtwo, and this was right when the y mega was revealed so i went with that, and the crows went insane. i won the contest, by a landslide, and it was such a genuinely amazing and unbelievable moment in my life. it was just a stupid local 15 second drawing contest with a small crowd of people, but hearing everyone be so excited about my art was so. just incredible.

but... afterwards... the friend who brought me there, while i was excited and celebrating that id actually, yknow, won something for the first time in my life, instead just. told me "well it wasnt really fair bc those other people weren't actually real artists like you are"

and that completely took the wind out of my sails. it crushed me. i felt like i had cheated, like i had stolen a victory from people more deserving, and that i should've never have raised my hand to begin with. id won a little prize from it but couldn't even feel all that happy about it. i felt like i didnt deserve it. i felt like people were mad at me for being decent at art

12 years, and that experience has still stuck with me. i remembered it bc my job is doing this funny little "daily stretching" challenge, and i was going to sign up for it bc i already stretch all throughout my work day, but i ended up holding myself back. bc i thought, well, is it really fair when i already do this as a daily habit? this challenge is to get people who don't stretch often to do it more, and reward them for it. would it be right to reward someone who doesn't need the extra push?

so i didn't. i thought itd be unfair. i thought people would be mad at me if i won bc i have such an advantage already.

and its just sent me down this spiral of remembering all the times ex-friends and past abusers have done this. how I've never been able to just feel proud of myself or happy that ive accomplished something or that im even just decent and capable at whatever the thing is. i can't talk about my meta-raised pokemon bc it isn't impressive when meta specialized mons plow through things. i can't talk about my art getting big numbers bc it isn't impressive when you bandwagon something and it gets spread around bc of that. i can't talk about defeating a tough monster in monhun bc its just my leveled up equipment carrying me. I'm not allowed to be good at anything, bc I'm either just cheating or i dont deserve the win bc i work harder than others. and me winning makes everyone mad that they didn't win instead

so i just accepted being a loser. being stupid. being bad at everything. bc it was easier to be a loser and let my friends always beat me at everything than to make a loser out of my friends, even though i was never trying to compete to begin with, i just wanted to have fun. but I'm not allowed to have fun bc me having fun makes other people upset and mad. and that sucks. id rather just lose. then everyone else can be happy

but. yknow. obviously that's not healthy. and what it ended up leading to was me just, isolating. i didn't wanna show my art to people anymore, i didn't wanna play games with anyone, i didn't want anyone to see me and be negatively affected by my existence. so i just started doing things by myself, and trying to live off self-sustained validation and happiness. and there is some merit to learning how to validate yourself and make yourself happy, but it shouldn't come at the cost of your ability to socialize entirely.

bc the problem was never with me. it was the people i was surrounded by. bc real friends talk you up, cheer you on, and celebrate your accomplishments. they dont see themselves as losers just bc you've won, they see themselves as teammates who have won simply bc you're happy. they don't make life a competition. that's how friendships are supposed to be. it was never about there being something wrong with me. i wasn't the problem

[bunnibai]

Wait where do I sign up for Dashcon 2021 and is the ball pit included or do I have to pay extra?? 

[mummifiedgoose]

since a few people were down with the FNAF x Ghoul Boys cross over here's some of my thoughts about what they'd be up to into this universe :)

Also, ignore the actual cannon of the FNAF universe cause I don't know everything about it so some of this is definitely off the mark lol

Shane and Ryan are security guards at the Mega Pizza Plex

They meet because they were hired at the same time and have been best friends since (like Buzzfeed)

They hang around each other all the time, even when they aren't assigned the same shifts

Their coworkers hate them for how often they're in their own little world talking about God knows what and not doing their jobs

God forbid you end up on the same shift as them they will third wheel the shit out of you

Shane likes to antagonize the animatronics cause he knows it's not in their programing to ever hurt him for it

Ryan loses his mind when he does this cause they're 8 feet tall hunks of steel that hold grudges and "They have emotions, Shane!"

Shane told Roxy "Good job" once and she decided he was her favorite immediately. Shane's a little weirded out by it but he thinks Roxy's funny so it's cool

Ryan snuck Chica a fresh pizza once and she lost her mind. She still hasn't stopped thanking him.

Monty absolutely joins in on making fun of Ryan's height

Freddy thinks both of them are bad influences on the kids and the animatronics (on account of all the swearing and slacking off) but Ryan tries to make it up to him by being real nice

Shane booped Freddy's nose once and it sent the band into chaos because they didn't know his nose squeaked. They were late getting on stage that night

Sun adores Ryan because sometimes he'll sit and draw with him

Ryan thinks it's sweet but he's still pretty cautious

Shane isn't the fondest of Sun because he creeps him out and is too high energy and he absolutely hates Moon because he's even creepier

However, Shane does put on little puppet shows in the daycare occasionally

The kids love it and Sun absolutely LOVES the handmade puppets

Shane makes one of Sun and he nearly cries

Ryan mocks Shane for his puppets but he thinks it's nice (like puppet history except family friendly so it's cuter and has less lore)

Shane hates DJ music man and finds him absolutely horrifying but Ryan, surprisingly, is kinda pals with him

Ryan used to be scared of him but he realized that while the other animatronics are overly emotional and kind of unstable DJMM literally just wants to vibe and make music and he likes that

DJMM will pat Ryan on the head as greeting. He tries to do the same to Shane but Shane freaks out.

Shane and Ryan are the reason there's a mini music man loose in the vents

Shane makes lil hats for the wet floor signs

Ryan is super polite to the cleaning and security bots and even convinces Map Bot to try to give a map to Shane every time they see him

Shane hates map bot because of that

If one of them is working and the other is off the clock they'll still hang out with each other

Too often one of them (usually Shane) will abandon their normal shifts just to go where the other one is patrolling

They're friendly with Vanessa even though she gets pissed that them for screwing around so much

They do listen to her which she appreciates

They're the only people who notice that something is up with her as time goes on

Ryan eventually ends up doing research on the Fazbear company as a whole and comes into work the next day with a case file full of info and print outs, a cup of coffee, and an insane look in his eyes

Shane tries to brush it off but is admittedly uncomfortable with all the disappearances and conspiracy

They agree that William Afton was super suspicious and Shane condemns him to hell

Shane convinces Ryan that all of that was a thing of the past and they have nothing to worry about and while Ryan does drop it neither of them forget about it

Ryan brings it up again when kids start going missing in the area and again, Shane tries to convince him that it's no big deal but he can't even convince himself

As for the actual story of Security Breach, I have some stuff thought up but it's not perfect. If anyone's interested in hearing about that please let me know! And if anyone wants to talk about this funky lil AU PLEASE share your thoughts because I am DYING to talk about it. FNAF and the boys are my two main hyperfixations so I have a whole lot of thoughts lmao

[vivithefolle]

I was always confused by Hermiones behavior towards Ron in OOTP. Was she trying to hide her feelings? because she didn't really gave him any signs. Why she was so nasty at him with the teaspoon thing. Was she trying to make him jealous with the letters? What did or didn't she understand from Ron giving her the perfume. Is all this just JKR being stupid because she don't want them together before the very end. Sry for all these questions but I am rly confused can you plz help Vivi?

Once again, I’ll copy one of my Quora essays!

it’s a stereotype to say that girls resort to underhanded tactics when it comes to dating, or like to “test” their partner’s love… but it’s a stereotype for a reason: there are teenage girls who resort to those tactics.

The archetype of the Tsundere exists as an exaggeration of the traits some teenage girls demonstrate when they find themselves in a position of vulnerability such as “having a crush on someone”.

For someone as prideful as Hermione is, having a crush on someone is extremely threatening.

Hermione prides herself in her logic and intelligence. The validation she receives from getting good grades is something she needs, because she’s very insecure deep down. She thinks all she has to offer is her intelligence, and as she goes from a little girl to a young woman, this causes her grief because she doesn’t want to be just “intelligent”. As her body develops and changes, she finds that being the smartest one in the room isn’t enough anymore - she still loves being the smartest in the room, but she wants more than just that, she wants validation for other things. That’s why she was extremely hurt when Ron tactlessly (and Rowling-ly) remarks “you’re a girl” - she wants to be seen as a girl, as a woman, as more than a walking brain. She wants validation that she is a girl, and beautiful, and sexy, and capable of making heads spin. She needs “sexual” validation, for lack of a better term.

Of course she doesn’t really realize those feelings. All she knows is that it hurts when Ron seems to consider her “one of the guys”, or looks at girls that aren’t her. She likes it when he compliments her, but she’s also angry at him because he only ever seems to compliment her intelligence and damn it, she wants him to compliment something else! She wants him to look at her, REALLY look at her! Look at her like he looks at the pretty girls!

Little does she know that Ron does look at her, but he probably thinks he’s a pervert for doing so. Because - because she’s Hermione! She’s not like other girls, she’s not - she’s not the kind of girl you ogle! She’s the kind of girl you gift flowers to - roses, they’re her favourite - the kind of girl you have long, meaningful talks with - not sure if they’re always meaningful, but they sure talk a lot together! - she’s the kind of girl you… the kind of girl you love, not the kind of girl you just look at…

*wistful sigh* Mutual pining, mutual admiration, slow burn, +100k words…

But truth is, many people go around saying that Hermione treating Ron harshly and treating pretty much every boy (with exceptions like Draco Malfoy) more gently is because she actually doesn’t like Ron, and likes anyone but Ron.

When the truth actually is that… Hermione is awful. No, no, seriously, when Hermione is in love, she’s terrible. She can be a nice friend but when she’s in love with you she’s horrible. Especially since she’s a teenager.

Hermione is a prime example of a Tsundere.

The cute, blushy, giggling Hermione who flirts with [insert character here] and cries delicately when she’s rejected? Pure fanfiction. Canon Hermione keeps her love aggressively hidden behind countless iron walls, only letting it peek through when she’s absolutely sure the person she likes isn’t looking.

“How was practice?” asked Hermione rather coolly half an hour later, as Harry and Ron climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room. “It was -” Harry began. “Completely lousy,” said Ron in a hollow voice, sinking into a chair beside Hermione. She looked up at Ron and her frostiness seemed to melt. - Order of the Phoenix

Rare footage of the Hermione Granger, scientific name Selfinsertus Overratedus, displaying interest in specimen of mighty fine hunk

Hermione isn’t sweet and tender and kind with the one she loves. At least, the teenage Hermione isn’t. She’s harsh, she’s disdainful and only gives out breadcrumbs of affection once in a while as part of the complicated mind game she’s playing.

You see, Hermione is never going to make the first move. You must be the one to ask her out, because she sure as hell ain’t going to do it for you.

This is due, I think, to the events of Goblet of Fire. Viktor Krum asks her out because Rowling absolutely wants Hermione to be the ugly duckling who transforms into the beautiful swan, so she brings in Cardboard Cutout With No Personality Aside From Being Famous to woo her self-insert.

Now Hermione has gotten the experience of being asked out, and being a rather socially awkward person who also hates being vulnerable - more on that later - well, now she just assumes that if someone asked her out once, then anyone who does like her can do the same.

Which is why she doesn’t realize that Ron is actually aware he loves her. There’s a big comedy of assumptions going on in Romione’s love story.

Hermione believes that Ron either 1) likes her but is oblivious to his own feelings and so she thinks she has to “give him hints” to make him realize it. Emphasized best by this exchange:

Hermione laughed. “Harry you’re worse than Ron [at understanding girls]… well, no, you’re not, “ she sighed, as Ron himself came stumping into the Hall splattered with mud and looking grumpy.

“I’ve sent him so many signals and yet he doesn’t notice. Woe is me!”

2) doesn’t actually likes her, but sees her just as a good mate or worse, as another sister.

Hermione keeps flip-flopping between her two assumptions throughout the series, all because of her biggest assumption: she thinks that if Ron was interested in her, he would ask her out. Because Viktor Krum was interested in her, and he asked her out, so why wouldn’t Ron do the same? They’re both boys and she’s a girl, after all. Isn’t that how it works?

This is also why Hermione’s “““invitation”““ to the Slug Club isn’t even an invitation - really, it’s worse than Ron’s invite to the Yule Ball, at least he was actually offering her to come:

“We’re allowed to bring guests,” said Hermione, […], “and I was going to ask you to come, but […] I won’t bother.”

“I was going to ask you to come but I won’t bother.”

This is literally what she says. It’s more of a “look Ron! An invite! If you’re good maybe I’ll think about letting you have it!” than anything else.

It’s because this is Hermione’s last resort. The ultimate humiliation. She has to resort to inviting Ron when in her mind, he’s supposed to be the one asking her out. He’s the boy! He’s supposed to do it! (And this is why I laugh at all the fools who claim that Hermione is the pinnacle of feminism. Seriously, the girl is more of a misogynist than any other character in the series.)

Hermione failed to take into account that Ron’s insecurity cripples him worse than she imagines, and that he copes with it differently than she copes with her own insecurities.

And this is the part where I explain about Hermione’s hatred of being vulnerable.

You see, I can relate quite a lot to Hermione - I see a lot of me in her, and a lot of people who hurt me in the past as well.

Bullied because she was an easy target, being the know-it-all and local teacher’s pet? Yep. Bullied for her appearance (I got braces when I was 8 and have been wearing glasses since I was a toddler, she had her bushy hair and buck teeth)? Can relate. Cried easily? Super check. Rule enforcer when the teachers weren’t around? Mega check.

And naturally, when you’re such a water fountain as I was, there’s nothing more humiliating than ending up crying in front of your bullies. You quickly learn that it will bring you nothing but more bullying. More humiliation. More vulnerability.

Hence why you start despising any form of vulnerability you find in yourself.

Obviously, being in love? That’s one of the most terrible things you can find yourself in when you’re afraid of being vulnerable. Because, oh god, your feelings are completely insane around the person. They make or ruin your day. You keep wanting to show them how cool / great / impressive you are, and you try desperately to mask all your little faults so they will hopefully return your feelings.

Given that Hermione is already not the most socially-aware battering ram in the knife drawer, she acts especially nasty to Ron, because she’s overcompensating for the vulnerability he makes her feel. And she most likely isn’t even aware of it! Forget Fanfic Hermione cringing as she realizes how mean she sounds, welcome Canon Hermione who just doubles down on a pointless argument just to drive home how totally in control she is and how Ron has absolutely zero effect on her, no siree!

In short: Hermione overthinks. She overthinks everything. She’s overthinking every of Ron’s actions, she’s assuming he’s either out to get her because she assumes he’s perfectly aware of her crush on him and he’s just toying with her (this is the very insecure, pessimistic Hermione speaking), she’s assuming he’s completely oblivious to her feelings and so she uses the ages-old technique of the “subtle hints” to make her feelings known to him (and fails miserably because she doesn’t want to put herself out there too much in case he rejects her, which would be the ultimate humiliation and the worst possible thing to happen to her, in her teenage girl mind), and she’s assuming he’ll never like her the way she likes him, all the while being woefully oblivious to the fact that Ron does want to be with her but she keeps sending him signals that she sees him as a troublesome child rather than a potential partner.

All in all, a teenage Hermione in love is utter torture. She’s her own worst enemy, and it’s only when she decides to let go of it all - of the mind games, of the distancing, of the passive-aggressive; of the overthinking - and just takes a chance that her efforts bear fruit.

There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione’s arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.

(As much as I’m disillusioned with Romione, this kiss is still one of my favourite parts of the series. They mutually sweep each other off their feet for god’s sake, you wish your ship would.)

[wonderwomanfantasy]

good morning Alpha

yes, I am posting two ‘sleepy morning sex’ fics in a row,,, whoops ;-;

Alpha!Shinsou x Omega!Reader

warnings: smut, ABO stuff, dry humping, oral, light somnophilia, dom/ sub relationship, degradation,  and swearing wahoo let's go

 word count: 1,800 (about)

Summary: Shinsou has a bad habit of teasing you while he is asleep, a bad habit you can’t take when your heat hits. 

You can tell a lot about someone by how they sleep. If they are open starfished out or curled onto their side. and How they wake up; if they are eager to start the day or reluctant to leave their warm bed. It was even said that the first thing you reached for in the morning was your addiction, the thing you couldn’t live without. in the middle of the night, Shinsou often found himself reaching for you. 

He wasn’t a super cuddly person, at least not while he slept, his arm would fall asleep or it would get too hot and he would just have to push you away again. but somehow he always woke up tangled in your arms. somewhere in his sleep, he felt the need to touch you and he ended up either shifting over to you or pulling you into his arms. 

You usually didn’t wake up when Shinsou pulled you into his arms, you were always stirred slightly, dimly aware that you were being dragged across the bed. but this night was different, you were already half-awake when Shinsou’s hand reached out for you. you were in the middle of your heat and you were definitely feeling the effects.  your skin was uncomfortably hot and your body was beginning to ache again. 

Shinsou tugged on your arm and you went to him hoping his embrace would help you sleep again. Shinsou’s hand trailed down your waist landing on your thigh he squeezed the soft skin and hooked your leg over his hips. your core was pressed right against his crotch. you sucked in air sharply feeling his length press against you. he wasn’t rock hard but firm.  

“Hitoshi?” you squeaked. he grumbled softly but didn’t wake. you called his name again but he didn’t answer still sound asleep. you whined and moved your hips slowly, dragging your barely covered sex along his bulge. 

“you’re mean Alpha- doing this to me during my heat,” you whined gripping his shoulders. Suddenly he shifted, you thought he was waving up but he just rolled onto his back, taking you with him, pulling you on top of him. This was nothing short of torture. you sat up, straddling him slowly grinding your hips down. there would be hell to pay when he did wake up, but you didn’t care you needed som release and you needed it now. you placed your hands on his shoulders and slowly began humping your sleeping mate. you didn’t try to quiet your moans, you wanted to wake him up even if meant a punishment, you just needed attention. 

Slick started to pool soaking through your underwear and sleep shorts you pushed the drenched fabric to the side and pressed your bare pussy down onto him. the drag of his sweatpants against your sensitive clit made you throw your head back. you reached up and palmed your breasts and moaned his name wantonly.  He shifted again and this time one of his purple eyes cracked open. 

“ ‘Mega?” he croaked reaching for your hips. 

“I need you,” you whined, he just smirked and squeezed your skin. 

“Naughty, girl aren’t you? getting yourself off without permission, making a mess, and waking up, Alpha,” he counted off, Suddenly he flipped you so you were beneath him. he was surprisingly energetic for just having woke up, 

“It’s your fault, you woke me up,” you huffed.

“awe poor thing, But I think you still need a punishment,” he purred in a low voice.  You shuddered, partly excited and partly scared to see what he was planning. 

“what are you going to do Alpha?” you asked, knowing he couldn’t resist you for long, your thick saccharine sent testing his patience. 

“Not sure yet,” he responded yanking your shorts down. “I think I’ll either make you cum over and over again until you can’t breathe or spank you until you cry,” he told you taking your shorts off completely. Hitoshi spread your legs and examined the apex of your legs. 

“please touch me Alpha It hurts.” you cried desperately. He just shushed you patently.  

“okay ‘mega on my knee,” He commanded and you obeyed instantly, draping yourself over his lap and almost teasingly wiggling your ass. “look at you so needy,” he laughed.

 “you couldn’t even wait until morning uh slut,” He stated, groping your ass roughly.

“count, for me,” you did your best to keep up counting off every harsh slap to your ass, but it was hard when the pain felt so good and he went so fast. 

“good girl, such a good Omega,” he purred his hand traveling south of your ass to massage your wet folds. 

“please Alpha,” you whined, you felt so empty like you would go crazy if you didn’t get something inside of you. 

“on your knees,” he hummed and you eagerly moved to the floor. Shinsou pulled down his sweat pants and freed his half-hard cock, stroking his length without much need. you squirmed licking your lips but waited for his next command. 

“you want to suck my cock? make Alpha nice and hard?” he asked teasingly, watching as your eyes bobbed up and down in time with his hand.

“yes,” you answered instantly. His thumb swirled over the slit of his cock gathering the translucent precum with the pad before offering the digit to you. you lurched forward taking his thumb in your mouth and licking off the delicious wetness that covered it. 

you whined in disappointment when he pulled his thumb out of your mouth. “Relax you brat I thought you wanted to suck my cock not just my thumb,” he chuckled 

“Can I?” you asked rubbing your tighs together. The second he nodded his head you were on him licking your lips, before dragging your tongue along the underside of his cock from the base up to the head.  you were about to take him into your mouth properly but he ran his fingers through your hair and jerked your head up stopping you. 

“Slowly, Kitten,” he purred before relaxing his grip. you did as he asked and slowly lowered your head fitting the flushed head of his cock into your mouth, slowly running your tongue over his skin tasting the salt of his skin and hallowing your cheeks out around him. a deep moan left his lips showing his approval of the action. 

You flicked your eyes up to watch his face as it contorted in pleasure. His purple eyes so filled with lust it made your sex pang with longing. his grip on your hair was firm not letting you take him all the way like you wanted to. you settled for kissing the veins that covered the side of his shaft and lavishing the head with attention. you got so into the taste and feel of him in your mouth that you almost forgot your own neediness. almost.  

Shinsou Pulled your head off of him for a second time that night. he fixed you with a lustful, hungry look and shoved his sweatpants completely off.

“tell me exactly what you want,” he demanded, bringing you to your feet and tossing you lightly back on the bed.

you gulped and dropped your gaze, unable to look him in the eyes as you spoke. “I want you to pin you me down and breed me, I want your knot,” you whispered spreading your legs further letting him see your glistening sex. he growled and jumped on you holding both of your wrists above your head like you had asked. 

He pumped his cock at a slow pace watching you squirm beneath him. He loved seeing you like this, so needy and desperate for him. your heats were really were his favorite.

He eased into you slowly stretching you out around his cock. you howled at the feeling your back arching off the bed. He chuckled and ran his free hand over your stoumach soothing your frenzy, but only slightly. 

“Alpha please move I need it,” you whined desperately. He kissed you, quieting you with his mouth. His thrusts were teasingly slow, pulling out almost completely before thrusting back in until he bottomed out. you squirmed under him trying to buck your hips to get more of him. which didn’t go very well for you. Shinsou never planned on teasing you, but you were so cute when he did, he was hardly ever able to resist himself. 

“Hitoshi please,” you begged once more and his resolve finally broke. Shinsou puled your leg over his hip and really began thrusting into you the bed nocking against the wall with the intensity of it all. He lowered his head to your throat breathing in your erotic scent. He growled and bit at your established bound mark. His mouth wandered across your throat while his thrusts increased in speed. Shinsou tried to keep a steady pace but it was hard not to pound you senseless when you felt this good wrapped around him.

“Alpha I’m so close,” you warned your walls clamping around him like a vice

“hold it Omega, I wanna cum with you,” he instructed

“I- I can’t Alpha I need to cum now,” you protested

“Try,” he growled. you tried to breathe,  holding back your release like Shinsou asked, your omega instincts forcing you to follow his orders. you were riding that edge to the best of your ability.  all the while pleading for him to let you cum. 

“you still want me to breed you?” Hitoshi gasped. 

“Yes Alpha, please knot me I want to be filled by you-” You screamed making Hitoshi smirk. 

“r-right, ‘mega cum for me,” he decided and that was all you needed to come undone beneath his touch. you were just coming down from your high when you felt his Knott pressing into you, trapping his cum inside of you. you purred happily, the ache disappearing being replaced with the satisfaction of being so full. Hitoshi nuzzled your neck as he caught his breath and released your wrists letting your arms fall back to your side. 

“Better?” he asked softly threading his fingers through your messy hair

“much,” you confirmed. 

“good,” he yawned “Let’s go back to sleep.”

[wittyrosebush]

Dare

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Female!Reader

Summary: As Tony Stark's assistant, you must always expect the unexpected. What you didn't expect was him asking you to play a game with his co-workers.

⚠️Warnings⚠️: Mega fluff, alcohol, brief swearing, embarrassment (idk if that counts but I'm putting it), Tony Stank being a lil shit, Steve being oblivious

Word Count: 1641

Date Posted: 10/20/2020

A/N: Hey! Sorry this is unedited, mostly because I'm writing this at 4 am. But if anyone wants to be an editor shoot me a message. This is my 2nd fic for America's ass, but I do other characters, too! I apologize for the bad pun that Mr. Stank makes, me being very wordy, and the crappy ending.

Hope you all enjoy!

You walked into Avengers tower wearing jeans and a sweater, which was much more different than the usual blouse and skirt you wore on workdays. Even though it was your day off, you received a message from your boss, Tony Stark:

Come to the tower at 7 o'clock sharp, you definitely wouldn't want to miss this. And dress casual ;)

You had shrugged off the strange invite, expecting him to show you a new gadget he and Dr. Banner had produced. But you secretly hoped to see Steve Rogers. You've had a small crush on the super soldier since you began working for Tony, and seeing him often at the tower every day only made it worse. He would give you a smile and wave whenever you passed him in the halls as you strictly kept your head down to hide your flustered expression.

As you looked around the entrance you saw the star spangled man jog towards you after hoping off the last step of the stairs. He wore a dark blue button up shirt, black pants, and that smile that made your heart swell. Before you could walk away and pretend to be there for a different reason he waved at you. Because you were raised to be a polite person you waved back, and that was your downfall. Now he knew that you saw him so you would have to talk to him.

After mumbling a string of curses to yourself, the male was now standing in before you, lightly panting, “Hey, Y/N, Stark sent me to bring you up to the living quarters for game night.”

You quirked an eyebrow, taken aback, “Game night? Why would Mr. Stark invite me?”

Steve put his hands in his pockets as a pink hue came to his cheeks, “I’m not sure, but I’m glad you’re here.” You couldn’t tell if his face was red because he ran down the stairs or if your presence had flustered him. Either way you raised a hand over your mouth to hide the dopey smile that was forming on your face.

“Thank you, Mr. Rogers, but we should probably start heading up.” You nervously chuckled. Steve regained his normal posture and stiffly nodded and started walking towards the stairs.

Right as he was about to take the first step up he felt you put a soft hand on his shoulder and froze. “Why don’t we take the elevator? Its probably quicker,” you smiled at him as you spoke and gestured towards the elevator.

“That would be good but the elevator is out of-” Steve was cut off by the sound of the nearby elevator door chiming. He tilted his head in confusion as he recalled what Tony had told him.

. . .

“Y/N is here,” Tony announced, smirking at the super soldier and patting him on the shoulder, “would you mind brining her up, old timer?” Steve held back the urge to roll his eyes and stood up. But before he could make it out of the room he heard the philanthropist call out, “Make sure you take the stairs, elevator’s out of order.”

. . .

You chuckled at the man’s expression, “When has anything in the tower not been the way Mr. Stark expected it to be?” Steve shook off the strange  and started walking with you to the elevator. Once inside, you both looked around the small space in an awkward silence.

When the elevator stopped a few stories up, one of your coworkers, Derek, walked into the space and stood between you and Steve with a suggestive smirk, “What are you doing here on your day off? Miss me too much?” You chuckled at his antics, he had always play flirted with you. The first time it happened you both laughed and he told you he did it to everyone to make his boyfriend jealous. But Steve didn’t know that.

“Of course, I just had to see you,” you teased with a wink. You saw the playfulness in Derek’s eyes as he wrapped an arm around your shoulders and pulled you into a hug. What you couldn’t see was Steve’s deathly glare towards the other male.

Who the hell was the guy flirting on you, he thought. After the initial frustration passed, his fear set in. Why didn’t you ever look at him that way, he asked himself. Ever since the 40′s Steve was used to ladies picking every other guy over him. Even after the serum, the insecurity stayed with him and turned him into that kid from Brooklyn again.

Derek finally left the cramped space after going up a few more floors. You and Steve continued ascending the tower in a tense silence before the elevator rang and you eagerly followed Steve to the rest of the group.

Tony was the first to greet you. “I’m glad you could make it, I hope capsicle didn’t bore you on the way up,” the playboy said, making you chuckle and Steve blush. “Lucky for us it is my turn to choose the game for tonight,” he stated with a suspiciously excited smile, “come in and take a seat!”

After a few minutes of introductions and small talk, you ended up sitting next to Thor and Bucky. You noticed both of them were slightly shivering but trying to cover it up. Just as you were about to ask him to turn down the A/C, Tony clapped his hands as he addressed the room. “All right everybody, the game that we will be playing tonight is... truth or dare!” Half of the room’s inhabitants groaned while the others rolled their eyes.

Natasha leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms, “That’s juvenile, even for you.” Tony snickered and took a seat, “It was my turn to pick so you guys have to do it. Anyways, who wants to go first?”

. . .

Sam squealed as Bucky dumped a glass of ice down his shirt, "You son of a bitch!" The winter soldier snickered and ran for the door, his friend close behind. You let out a laugh as you continued to shiver under the A/C.

"I believe it is your turn, Stark," Thor exclaimed as he took another drink from his Asgardian mead.

Tony smirked as he glanced at you and faced Steve. "Alright, Rogers, truth or dare?"

Steve sighed, "Truth."

"Come on, you've been picking that all game. But now I have something you certainly don't want me to ask you." Tony gestured towards you, who was now trying to hold back a shiver.

Steve tried to get a word out but ended up dropping his head in embarrassment, "Dare, please."

Tony stood up with a broad smile and spoke almost as if he was speaking to the entire room, "Final answer?"

Steve gave a defeated nod before he spoke again, "Fantastic, I dare you to sit on Y/N's lap for the rest of the game."

The room went silent. You hadn’t been paying close attention but you knew exactly what you heard. Desperate for any kind of way to get out of this situation, you looked around the room to find everyone but Steve looking calm. The super soldier could barely keep eye contact with you when he too looked around for help as his face turned a deeper red.

Both of you ended up laying your eyes on Tony. “Get to it soldier, I mean she’s been freezing the entire game. Might as well be a human torch and heat her up,” he ordered. Steve was about to protest when the other man held up a hand, “We all agreed to the rules so no backing out.”

After a few more minutes of the two arguing about the dare, Steve gave up and walked over to you and did everything he could to not meet your eyes. “I’m really sorry, Y/N. I won’t do it if you aren’t comfortable with-” you hesitantly cut him off, “Its ok, Mr. Rogers.”

After silently debating what to do in his mind, he softly nodded and sat down. The tension was cut by Tony clapping, “Now that wasn’t so hard. Dr. Banner it is your turn next.”

The team went through a few more people before ending up talking, which you and Steve did not notice. You hated to admit it but he was very warm. The man in your lap brought your attention to him when he spoke to you in a whisper, “I’m really sorry. I know you have a boyfriend and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, “Boyfriend?”

“The guy from the elevator?” Your eyes went wide before you let out a quiet chuckle. “That was Derek, he is just a friend from work. Plus he is definitely not as warm as you.”

“Well that is good to know.”

“Maybe now you can take her on a date now instead of moping around,” Tony chimed in.

You both looked at the other Avengers before you spoke up, “Did you plan this?”

“Of course I did,” Natasha gave Tony a pointed look, “well I planned most of it and these guys helped, and Derek even did it for free.”

You smiled and felt your face heat up as Steve stood up and sat next to you. He sheepishly smiled before turning towards you, “Is there a chance that you are free Saturday?”

“Only if there is a chance this is you asking me out.”

“Then its a date,” he wrapped an arm around you and the evening continued with the team talking while you and Steve fell asleep on the couch.

. . .

“Tony, Steve’s going to be pissed,” Natasha whispered as Tony took a picture of you nuzzling your head in the crook of Steve’s neck while he had his arms protectively wrapped around your waist.

“Eh, he’ll get over it.”

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #26: The Superhero Project Prelude (a preview of things to come)

(Art by blakehunter)

My journey into tokusatsu began in 2013 when I watched Power Rangers Samurai on television and was enthralled at the use of kanji in the series. This led me to learn about Super Sentai through watching its counterpart, Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. Later, I began to learn about Kamen Rider through watching Decade thanks to its crossover arc with Shinkenger, which would lead me to watch other Super Sentai and Kamen Rider series. Eventually, I also learnt about Metal Heroes through watching crossover movies and Ultramen after watching some episodes of Orb online out of curiosity (Ultraman was on TVB through satellite back in the day, though I never really cared for it).

While the adaptations of Super Sentai and Kamen Rider in Gokaiger and Decade were among the initial elements teased and hyped for the Moushouden Series, it should be noted that they had their roots in previous series. In the final instalment of the second run of Kisekae Insights, allow me to walk you through how I implemented Super Sentai before 2018 and give you all a little bit of a preview of what is to come.

Samurai Mode: The prototype powers

The second half of Series 9 in 2014 featured the Doctor and his companions becoming beta testers for the Superhero Project in the form of Samurai Mode. The arsenal of Shinkenger was adapted, but the names were kept close to their adaptation counterparts, with the exception of the core rangers’ morphers, which are named the ShodoPhones. The Samurai Morpher and the Gold Ranger’s powers were the first to be developed for alpha testing; their tester, Hiroki’s assistant who was also one of his “triad” comrades, would go on to become ShinkenGold when the Superhero Project was launched. Akari had also managed to get her hands on a ShodoPhone as well, presumably having been stolen from UNIT.

Red Samurai Ranger: Hiroki Ichigo

Blue Samurai Ranger: Momoka Mizutani

Pink Samurai Ranger: Angelina Mouseling

Green Samurai Ranger: The Doctor

Yellow Samurai Ranger: Satoyuki Saitō

Gold Samurai Ranger: Hiroki’s assistant

Female Red Samurai Ranger: Akari Ichigo

Samurai Mode was first used by the Doctor and his companions on Destination One, but unlike in Shinkenger, they weren’t fighting demons or monsters; they were fighting Girl Power and their allies. Following that adventure, the Doctor passed his ShodoPhone on to Storm Dasher, who used it when he fought Lord Tirek alongside Twilight Sparkle on Equestria. Dasher did not transform into the Green Samurai Ranger, but he did temporarily transform into an alicorn – an unintentional foreshadowing of things to come in the Moushouden Series. Dasher gave his ShodoPhone back to the Doctor at the end of the episode.

As for the other five, they went on to fight at Sekigahara, Osaka and Kyoto (Honnōji and Nijō Castle), though they never used their Samurai Mode powers at Sekigahara. The Doctor would rejoin them when they fought the final battle in Yokohama as he had been on Trenzalore during the events of the Series 9 finale.

The year after, I wrote a “director’s cut” version of the arc which is basically just a remake but with the Samurai Mode powers given more prominence than they did during the series while also toning down on influences from Dynasty Warriors, Samurai Warriors and Final Fantasy. I also used Mega Mode outside of a Megazord setting (instead of it being a combination of power-ups) and featured Megazord finishers on human-sized opponents with the Mega Blade. Because the events of the director’s cut version are different to the original episodes, I consider them to be non-canon.

The road of the Xtreme Legend

Before Gokaiger and Decade premiered, a set of prelude stories were made for Series 10 and 11 in 2017; to complement the BBC Series 8 and 9 having 12 episodes each, I write a total of four episodes – one to replace Deep Breath (titled The Advent of the Doctor), two extra original episodes (one for each series) and an original Christmas Special (titled Dawn of the Space Pirates).

After Girl Power’s defeat, everyone began focusing on their high school studies. By 2016, the first wave of UNIT’s Superhero Project teams were launched; alongside the new Shinkengers led by Akari that replaced the beta testing team, the Gekirangers, Go-Ongers, Goseigers and Zyuohgers were formed as well. The five teams got into a conflict with the Doctor, Hiroki and his assistant while they were investigating a conspiracy involving the Clockwork Droids harvesting organs from students who had committed suicide over their studies and a company giving students unfair advantages in their studies (through cheating).

The year after everyone graduated high school (2017), Hiroki, Akari and Narutaki discover the return of Kawakara, the lost city of Akari’s grandfather, Antoni. Later that year, Narutaki went missing after she and Hiroki were freed from the possession of Evil Death (the Grim Reaper, not to be mistaken for Good Death based on the character played by Simon Farnaby in Horrible Histories) and her role as ShinkenBlue was replaced by another member of Girl Power. Around the same time, Takumi Kamijō and his team at Torchwood Pleiades became the Magirangers after testing a prototype system during the Superhero Project’s beta testing phase.

That Christmas, Hiroki encountered a demon named Suira, also named Sui after the demon in Chinese folklore that explained the origin of money in red pockets. Suira transformed Hiroki into Gyūki after having done so 17 years earlier in an effort to help him get revenge on his parents after being sent to time out. Meanwhile, the Doctor began gathering up the Gokaigers in response to the Zangyack Armada’s vanguard fleet attacking cities. They fought Shikabanen before they help the other Rangers fight Suira, who had transformed into a demonic orge named Dokkaebi (based in Korean folklore) and later combined with Gyūki and Nian (the Chinese New Year Monster) to become the Krlunk Smasher. Although the Rangers defeat the Krlunk Smasher, he grows giant and the Gokaigers form the Legendary Megazord to defeat it.

From the Doctor’s point of view, the 2017 Christmas Special and the events of Gokaiger take place between Series 11 and 12 – after Hell Bent but before The Husbands of River Song and the episodes featuring Nardole, which are collectively known as the Nardole Saga.

A look at the first wave teams

So in summary, the first wave of Superhero Project teams shown in the preludes to Gokaiger and Decade are the Magirangers, Gekirangers, Go-Ongers, Shinkengers, Goseigers, Gokaigers and Zyuohgers. For the most part, the names of their arsenal are derived from their original Super Sentai series, but there are a couple of exceptions; the Shinkengers’ arsenal uses the names from Power Rangers Samurai (as stated earlier) while the Gokaigers’ Zords and Megazord combinations uses names derived from Power Rangers Super Megaforce.

Very few teams had Megazords in Gokaiger due to time constraints; in fact, the only teams that have Megazords featured (aside from the Gokaigers) are those that have a button on their morphers to summon or combine their Zords. Out of the teams in the first wave, the Zyuohgers are in this category, though Cyber Knight and the Gosei Ground Megazord would appear mid-way into Gokaiger.

Speaking of the Shinkengers, what happened to the beta testers for the Superhero Project? Hiroki would go on to become Kamen Rider Decade; Hiroki’s assistant would retain his equipment and become ShinkenGold; the Doctor and Angelina would become part of the Gokaigers; and Momoka and Satoyuki would resign. The ShodoPhones were handed back to UNIT and four of the new Shinkengers received the Samuraizers (from Samurai) as their morphers; Akari retained her ShodoPhone when she became the official ShinkenRed.

Power-ups for the Shinkengers and Goseigers were also introduced; the Black Box and Shark Disc were introduced in Series 9, while the Super Goseigers were introduced in the 2017 Christmas Special.

And that’s all I’m going to tease for the third run of Kisekae Insights. As I stated in the last instalment, this is going to be final instalment of the second run as I want to focus on other things, including the Doctor Who Series 13 reviews and finishing off my personal project. I don’t know when I’ll begin work on the third run, but right now, I’m currently dreading the time until then because of various things, particularly in regards to current affairs.

Kisekae Insights will return, but be warned that things might not be the same. I leave you with my take on an English version of the Shinkenger opening song that I wrote in 2018 after being inspired by Psychic Lover’s take on it. For the most part it’s the same, but I modified the lyrics to fit with the tone of the Shinkenger arc in Series 9.

That’s it again from me. Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook and Tumblr to see more of my posts.

Samurai Sentai Shinkenger English Lyrics (modified by me)

Original lyrics here

Dance! Dance! Get up! Fight together! Chop! Chop! Take down Girl Power! Samurai Sentai Shinkenger Forever! Year upon year it goes This Time War never ends Humans, Time Lords and Daleks are fighting again So we are serious And we are dangerous When we see your weaknesses Your future is over! Let the words light up the sky The elements make us strong! These heroes are makin’ noise They’re fighting for us all! Swords clash, gunshots blazing loud Go Go Samurai Power Rangers! Just do it! Fight for time and for our universe! Don’t! Don’t give up! Don't be afraid We say ‘Banzai’ in the end When Rangers get together, it’s Samurai forever! That’s ‘Bushido’ Hey bring it on! Samurai Sentai Shinkenger Forever! What are we fighting for? Harmony or discord? We indeed fight for peace To understand your drive When we get serious Regrets are part of us We practice so we can fight with no more regrets! Let the words light up the sky The elements make us strong! These heroes are makin’ noise They’re fighting for us all! Flowers blossom, moon sun storm Go Go Samurai Power Rangers! Just do it! Fight for those who really believe in you! Fighting, dancing, shining, dreaming For our future, don’t be afraid! When we combine our powers We will not be beaten! That's 'Bushido' Cut with the sword! Samurai Sentai Shinkenger We are dreaming of the day when the world will be at peace If you don’t wanna understand, then we will take you down! Dance! Dance! Get up! Fight together! Chop! Chop! Take down Girl Power! Our love and courage is what powers our swords! Dance! Dance! Go Go Samurai! Chop! Chop! Go Go Power Rangers! Altogether we will break the darkness of the world That's 'Bushido' Hey bring it on! Samurai Sentai Shinkenger Forever!

[quickspinner]

I’ll Give You the Stars - Ch 3 Share Your Dreams with Me

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4

Luka was about ready to nominate Penny Rolling for sainthood. It had become crystal clear over the past couple of days that while Jagged could put his name in the spotlight for a brief flurry of publicity, it was Penny who could actually get his foot in the door of the industry. It was Penny who had sent Luka a list of classes and private tutors he should consider, not only on musical subjects like composition and performance, but on business and publicity as well. It was Penny who gave him tips for handling the media attention his unexpected performance had temporarily garnered, and asked for his approval on the press statement she had prepared for Jagged. 

It was Penny who kept him from being completely overwhelmed and paralyzed with her prioritized action item list, and included with that list were applications for music scholarships Jagged sponsored—both for his age group and Juleka’s. Because chasing your dreams costs money, after all.

She’d also suggested he consider selling some of his compositions, and implied that Jagged Stone would love to have the first chance at whatever he came up with.  

Luka had to take a long walk to calm down after she’d suggested his music might actually sell. That Jagged Stone might be willing to perform something he wrote. Rose was going to flip.   

Finally, while Penny explained that she herself couldn’t represent him as repping Jagged alone was a full-time job, she had also sent him a list of agents she knew and trusted and promised to get him a meeting when he was ready.

So when Penny sent him a release form for his unscheduled appearance and begged him to have his mother sign it before her legal team paraded her corpse down the Champs Elysee for letting Jagged pull a minor onstage without parental consent, he gladly went to bat with Anarka, who despised paperwork in general and legal documents in particular, and pestered her until it got done. His mom would probably be extra contrary for at least a week, but that was fine, he could handle it. At this point Luka was so grateful that he was pretty sure he’d donate a kidney for Penny if she needed it.

Now, she told him, it was just up to him to keep the ball rolling until he was musically and emotionally ready to try for the big time—to keep his name out there and build his fanbase. 

Fanbase.  Like he was ever going to be emotionally ready for that.  

Luka coped with his sudden crushing case of imposter syndrome by focusing on the band. He saw no reason why keeping the ball of his popularity rolling, as Penny put it, couldn’t include bringing the rest of Kitty Section along for the ride. After all, none of this would be happening if Marinette hadn’t done the same for him. He’d asked Penny to include Kitty Section’s Instagram in her press release, though he’d cringed at her insistence on the wording “Kitty Section featuring Luka Couffaine,” as if he was any more important than any other band member, and their number of followers had tripled overnight. Rose had posted pictures and a short clip of him on stage with Jagged, and she’d been calling every club and venue she could find to pitch Kitty Section.

It was a beautiful madness that was at the same time overwhelming and so far removed from his daily life that it didn’t quite seem real, and finally he decided to give himself a break from trying to figure it all out, and he took his guitar out on the deck.

Luka was staring dreamily into the sunset, singing softly along with his guitar, when suddenly his view was blocked by a curtain of black and purple hair with lace sleeves. 

“Okay,” grumbled a familiar voice from within the curtain. “What the hell happened when you walked Marinette home?”

Luka sighed as Juleka came to plop herself down in the other chair.

“What do you mean?” he asked. 

“You haven’t sung in ages.”

He eyed her suspiciously. She was speaking in full sentences so something was up. “You didn’t want me too.”

“Not while you sounded like a cat in heat, but that’s been over for a while. Why now?”

Luka shrugged. “Why not?”

“Luka.”

He said nothing.

“Do you realize that ever since the concert you sound like you’re putting together the soundtrack for a heavy metal romcom?”

“I do not,” he grumbled. Yeah, smooth. God, nobody could get under your skin like a sibling. Especially his. 

Juleka was silent for a minute. “She has a crush on Adrien Agreste.”

Luka’s jaw tightened and he turned his pick in his fingers, pressing into the hard edges. 

“Like a super-mega-nearly-stalker crush, Luka.”

He said nothing.

“You know that stuttering, word-scrambling thing she does that you think is so cute? She’s a million times worse with him. It’s a small miracle that he hasn’t decided she’s a complete psycho.”

Luka sighed. “You’re telling me this why? And why now?”

Her face screwed up the way it used to when she was five and he wouldn’t let her play with him. “Because you’re my stupid brother and you’re getting in over your head, and I hate you and I’m scared you’re going to keep me awake with your sobbing when she breaks your heart.”

Luka had to smile at that. “I love you too, Juleka,” he said, with more sincerity than he’d intended. “And I already knew she had a thing for Adrien.”

“Has  a thing, Luka. A big thing. Eiffel Tower big. The Great Wall of China, visible from space big.”  

Luka plucked at a string, pretending to tune it. “Does he have a thing for her?”

“Luka.”  

Luka groaned and rolled his eyes. “Look, I know the score. It’s fine. I’ll be fine. I’m just...we had a nice moment, okay? We don’t have to be destined soulmates for me to enjoy her company. Now get lost so I can watch the sunset without your mopey goth doom and gloom.”

Juleka sighed gustily. “I’m going to have to smother you with my pillow, aren’t I?”

“Tell me about Lila,” Luka said abruptly, and Juleka tilted her head. 

“Why do you want to know about Lila?”

“I don’t know, I just kind of got a weird vibe that night while you guys were talking about her.”

“Marinette doesn’t like her.”

“Why?” 

Juleka rolled her eyes. “Because Lila is pretty and confident and wealthy and well-connected, and Marinette’s insecure and jealous. She thinks Lila wants Adrien and it makes her act crazy.”

Juleka’s words were so discordant with Luka’s reality that he almost felt nauseous. “That doesn’t sound like Marinette at all,” he said cautiously.

“I told you, Marinette loses her mind when Adrien’s involved.”

“Yeah...so much so that she agreed to help him ask out another girl.”

“She probably did that so she could spy on his date. She’s as threatened by that Kagami girl as she is by Lila, only nobody actually likes Kagami, so she’s a tiny bit less crazy about it.”

“I was there, Juleka,” Luka reminded her sharply. “Nothing like that happened.”

Juleka leaned her chin in her hand and looked at him. “You’re biased, Luka.”

“Biased, not blind, and Marinette’s not exactly hard to read.” Luka put his guitar aside and turned in the chair to face her. “Juleka, you know me. I’m not wrong about this. I was there. She told me when she asked me to go that we were going to support Adrien, and that’s what she did. I watched her smile at him and encourage him when he was nervous. I gave him advice myself right in front of her. And yeah, she looked at him like a sad puppy whenever he couldn’t see, but she didn’t even give him a hint at how upset she was.” He sat back, studying his sister. “I thought Marinette was your friend.”

Juleka started. “She is.”

“Are you even listening to the things you’re saying about her? Does anything you’ve said actually make sense with what you know about Marinette? Look, I believe you when you say she’s crazy about Adrien, that makes sense, and I can believe she’d come up with some crazy convoluted things to get his attention, but do you really think she’s that jealous and petty? And if she were, that I’d be so crazy in love that I couldn’t tell?”

Juleka chewed her lip. 

“Marinette’s done a lot for us...and for you, Jules.”

Juleka lowered her eyes. Luka just shook his head and reclined back on his chair, picking up his guitar. “Look, I think I’m done talking about this, forget I asked. Tomorrow’s the first day back at school since the concert and to be honest I’m kind of freaked out about how things will go, so…” He made a little shooing motion with his hand. “Can I just get some space please?”

Juleka didn’t move or speak for a moment. Then she said, “Are you going to be up here singing more sappy barely-rock love songs?”

“Vocal practice was on Penny’s list. I’m more marketable if I can perform my own vocals.” 

“Right,” Juleka drawled. “Penny’s list.”

Something about her tone made him put down the guitar again to look her in the eye. “Juleka, anywhere I go, you go too, for as long as you’re up for the ride. I promise.” 

She held his gaze for a moment, and then stood up, and started to walk off. “Whatever. Enjoy your quest for the perfect rock ballad to serenade Marinette. Just don’t call me to bail you out of jail when Officer Roger arrests you for public disturbance.”

“It’s not for Marinette.”

“Sure.” She waved over her shoulder. “Try not to be a total cliché or I’ll disown you.”

Luka just smiled and shook his head as he picked up his guitar.

***

The first day back in class after the crazy fever dream of the concert night was as surreal as he expected it to be. Some of his schoolmates were at the concert, enough to whisper and point and spread the news around the school. The weight of his guitar on his back was steadying, but it marked him. There were a lot of awkward conversations with people he barely knew. 

The attention he got from girls who were suddenly giggly and handsy was what really threw him, until his best friend took pity and passed Luka his phone, open to a news site that had a photo of Luka playing at the concert. Luka stared at the photo and covered his mouth to keep from...something. He wasn’t sure if he would laugh or swear. 

It was clearly a professional photo, not like the slightly hazy ones that Rose had taken from the pit. They’d caught him mid-riff, his arms flexed as he played, his hair flying about his face, his eyes focused and a smirk on his lips. He understood now why girls kept grabbing onto his arm or cuddling up and slipping their hands under his jacket. The picture made him look hot, and there was a lot of muscle on display in that custom-fitted MDC Original shirt that was totally hidden in his usual layered look.

Luka passed the phone back and put his head down on his desk while Evan tried to smother his laughter.

He wondered if Marinette had seen the picture. Maybe he should see if Penny could send her a copy. For her portfolio. 

***

A week after the concert Rose texted that she had big news and asked if he could meet the rest of the band at the collège after class.  

Rose and Juleka were the first band members out, walking with a red-headed girl Luka didn’t recognize. He’d expected Rose to be bouncing, bubbly, excited after the tone of her messages, but instead Rose looked a little uncomfortable, and Juleka...Luka’s eyebrows rose. Juleka had her murder face on. 

“That’s so great, I knew Gustav would come through,” the redhead giggled to Rose. “He and I are such good friends ever since I grabbed that fire extinguisher and saved his club from burning down. I knew I could convince him to book Kitty Section!”

“Um, that’s really sweet of you, Lila,” Rose was saying. “When I called, you know, he said that he saw Jagged Stone’s press release and—“

“Oh, yes, I sent that to him as soon as I got it!”

“You...got it?”

“Of course, I get all of his press releases. You know we’re like this.” She held up her crossed fingers. “And honestly, I felt bad for you guys! I’m sure Marinette meant well but singling out one person to meet Jagged, it just seemed so unfair! You all deserved that chance, but maybe she just didn’t know him as well as she said—I mean, as well as she thought she did! I wish I’d been there like I planned, I could’ve done something. It’s too bad that I had to cancel to go help Prince Ali with that emergency at the children’s hospital.” She dropped her voice so that she was only barely audible to Luka. “Honestly I’m surprised Marinette would use her connections like that just to impress a boy, I would never dare, but I guess we all know how far Marinette will go when she has a crush!”  

Juleka’s eyes lifted from the ground and met Luka’s. 

He realized he had his murder face on too. 

The two siblings smirked at each other and then both looked at their feet. Luka breathed, reminded himself of little black butterflies, and when he looked back up his face felt more normal.

“W-well, I understand why you might think that, but you haven’t heard Luka play, he really was the best choice and—“ Rose began, then Juleka caught Rose’s chin and turned her face toward Luka. Rose brightened. “Oh, there he is!”

“Oh!” Lila slipped ahead of them to plant herself in front of Luka, hands wrapped around the strap of her bag as she looked up at him from under her bangs. “You must be Luka, I’ve heard so much about you,” Lila gushed, batting her eyes at him. “Juleka talks about you all the time.” Juleka gave her a sidelong look, which made Luka want to laugh. Juleka hardly talked about anything, and never talked about Luka if she could help it. “Rose and Juleka and I were just talking about this gig I booked for Kitty Section at L’Accord d’Or!”

Luka smiled over Lila’s head at Rose. “That’s great Rose, I know you’ve been trying to get us in there for months.”

“Yeah,” Juleka said flatly. “Who knew that all that time all Lila had to do was make a phone call.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Rose fluttered, not seeming to know where to look. “What’s important is that we got the gig now!” Her face brightened with genuine excitement. “And it’s not at the open mic, we’re the headline act. And it pays!” She bounced on her toes, hands clasped together. 

“That’s great news, Rose. I know you’ve worked really hard to make it happen.” Luka said, giving the girl’s shoulder a little squeeze. No wonder Juleka was pissed, if Lila was trying to take the credit. 

When he looked back at Lila, Luka could practically see the calculations appearing over her head as she looked him up and down. He gave her a bland look back that was part disinterest and part warning. He knew that look, he’d seen it over and over in eyes the same blue as his own. It wasn’t even any special kind of insight that told him this girl was selfish and self-centered, just cold, hard experience. 

Maybe he’d done too well at shielding Juleka if she couldn’t see it too. Luka turned his attention back to Rose.

“I thought we should get together and talk about it right away,” Rose was saying, “since we only have a couple of weeks to get ready. He wanted to do the gig soon while people are still talking about Luka. And I thought maybe Marinette could help us make up some T-shirts and things we could sell.”

“You’re so forgiving, Rose,” Lila said with admiration. “Even after Marinette ditched you guys to be with Luka.”

“Marinette’s done a lot for all of us,” Luka said mildly. “But Rose, If we’re getting paid, we need to make sure Marinette is too. She’s already done all of our costumes and the backdrop.”

“Wow,” Lila cooed, curling her hand on Luka’s arm with that slip-squeeze move girls had been pulling on him all week. “She did all of that? She must be so into you.” 

Luka didn’t even hear her, gaze suddenly focused on the door. “Here she comes now.” He tried to keep his expression neutral, but he knew he hadn’t entirely succeeded. It was kind of impossible, given the rush that flooded his system. He hadn’t seen her since he had kissed her in the hall at the bakery. He pulled his arm away from Lila absently, plucking her hand off when she didn’t let go, and reached for the guitar pick in his pocket, pressing the edges into his fingers. He’d promised her when they kissed that it wouldn’t change anything and he was going to keep that promise if it killed him. Marinette caught sight of them, blushed, waved, and tripped on the steps. 

Luka moved without thinking, even knowing he was too far away to help. Suddenly there was a flash of white and blond in front of them and Adrien was lowering a red-faced and stammering Marinette carefully to the pavement.

“Adrien,” Lila squealed, bouncing over to them. “Oh, it’s so good that you were there, that was a really bad fall, Marinette. I know you must be excited to see Luka but you should be more careful.”

Marinette’s face turned even redder as she got to her feet. Lila pushed in between them, and linked her arms through both Marinette’s and Adrien’s, pulling them with her back over to Rose, Juleka, and Luka. “I was just telling Luka about the gig I booked for Kitty Section!”

Juleka growled at Luka’s side and he put his hand on her shoulder. He got an elbow in the ribs for his trouble, but then she folded her arms and huffed out a sigh. 

“Hey Luka, good to see you!” Adrien waved, trying to discreetly pull his other arm free of Lila’s. Marinette was less delicate, shoving the girl’s hand away with a disgusted expression. Undeterred, Lila simply wrapped both hands around Adrien’s arm as he continued. “I saw the clip of you on stage with Jagged, it was awesome! You looked like you were born for it.”

Luka ran his fingers through his hair. “Thanks, I’m just glad he picked that song since I’ve played it so many times at home. I thought I was going to pass out just meeting him, but he was really cool, and it was really funny watching him tease Marinette.” She blushed slightly when he smiled at her, and his heart did a little flip. 

“Really?” Adrien chuckled. “I know he’s a fan of her work. She signed my copy of his last album cover.” He grinned and nudged Marinette with his elbow.

“Yeah, it’s adorable actually, he treats her like she’s his favorite niece or something.” Luka kept his attention on Adrien but watched Lila out of the corner of his eye. “And he brags about her like a proud grandpa.”

“Wow,” Lila said, opening her eyes wide. “Marinette must really have wanted to impress you to use her connections like that. That’s so brave, Marinette! I mean, I would never have dared to bother Jagged Stone just to impress a boy. Oh, isn’t it sooo cute that Marinette likes Luka so much, Adrien! They make such a cute couple!”  

Marinette flushed from her hairline to her collar. “We’re not a couple! It wasn’t like that! I only know Jagged because I was in the right place at the right time and he happened to like my work. It was crazy lucky and Luka’s so talented, I just thought he should have the same chance that I had. And he did great and now he’s opening doors for Kitty Section. I think it’s awesome that we can all help each other succeed in our dreams. After all, what good are all these ‘amazing connections’ if you can’t use them to help your friends?”

Something ugly flashed across Lila’s face but Adrien spoke up before she could bite back. “You’re right, Marinette,” Adrien agreed brightly. “It might have been luck that you met Jagged but you’ve definitely made the most of it, and paying it forward to help Luka and Kitty Section is really cool.”

“Y-you think so?” Marinette nearly whispered, still red in the face. 

“Yeah, it makes me think I should be more active thinking of ways I could do the same,” Adrien rubbed his neck. “I never really thought about it before, but there’s got to be more I could be doing.”

“Oh, Adrien, it’s so like you to think that way,” Lila purred. “Maybe we could have coffee sometime and we could talk about it? You know I’m involved in so many charity projects, I have tons of experience at that kind of thing.”

Marinette looked like she might explode. Adrien laughed uneasily and finally managed to get his arm away from Lila. He started backing away from the group, glancing back towards the silver car waiting for him. “Some other time, maybe, I have uh, somewhere to be right now. Bye guys, and congrats again on the gig!”

“Bye Adrien,” Lila waved cheerfully, and then turned to Marinette. Luka felt a physical pain at the way Marinette tensed up. “Oh, Marinette, it’s so good to see you’ve finally moved on from your hopeless crush on Adrien. I hope that means we can be friends now since there’s no more need for you to be jealous.”

Marinette folded her arms and gave Lila a look that Luka had last seen aimed at Bob Roth. “I think we both know that’s not going to happen and why.”

“Oh, Marinette, it’s really not fair for you to lead Luka on if you’re still hung up over Adrien,” Lila returned, sugary sweet, and Marinette went from red to white, and Luka felt his own face heat. “Or,” Lila lowered her voice to a perfectly audible stage whisper. “Don’t tell me that you went to all that trouble for him and he still turned you down. You poor thing, that’s so…” she paused, as if looking for the word, and then smirked. “Pathetic.” 

Lila whipped around as Luka began to laugh. “You can’t be serious,” he managed to get out between chortles. Beside him, Juleka was smirking. “You’re not taking anyone in with that one.” 

“Yeah,” Juleka drawled. “He’s been stupid over Marinette since they met.” Rose giggled, though she still looked uncomfortable.

“All right guys, are we having this meeting or what?” Luka stepped around Lila and put his arm around Marinette’s shoulders to guide her away. “Anybody know if Ivan is coming?”

“Oh, he asked me to tell you he had to stay and talk to Miss Bustier for a little bit,” Marinette said. “He’ll be along in a few minutes. Um, if you want, we could have the meeting at my place? It’s not big but at least we wouldn’t be standing in the sun. Plus you know Maman and Papa will feed us.”

Rose and Juleka both perked up. “Sounds like a plan,” Luka grinned. “Lead the way.” 

“Don’t worry, Marinette,” he heard Lila purr behind them. “I’ll take good care of Adrien now that you’ve moved on. You couldn’t have gotten in at Gabriel even with Adrien’s help, anyway.”  

“Ugh, she makes me nauseous,” Luka said softly to Marinette as they approached the crosswalk. “I see what you meant, now.”

“Oh my God, Luka, I’m so sorry, that must have been so embarrassing for you,” Marinette whimpered. 

“Not really. It was the truth, I’m crazy about you and I’m not ashamed of it.” Luka tightened his arm around her, and then reluctantly let her go, pretending not to see her radiant blush. “She wouldn’t be so threatened by you if you weren’t so amazing. People like that, you almost have to feel sorry for. How lame must her life be to make her so bitter?”

Marinette was silent for a moment, her blush fading as her expression fell. “So you think I should just let it go?”

“What? No!” Luka said, surprised. “Feeling sorry for her doesn’t mean putting up with her crap. Whatever’s going on in her life, she has a choice about how she treats other people. And I can tell you from experience, people like her will take everything they can get and then burn down the rest just out of spite.”

“Adrien knows how she is,” Marinette said quietly. “But he didn’t want me to say anything. He said making a bad guy suffer has never turned them into a good guy.”

Luka snorted softly. “All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing.”

Marinette’s head whipped around to look up at him. He met her eyes got a moment and then focused on the sidewalk ahead of him.

“Look, it’s to Adrien’s credit that he is the way he is. In a way he’s proof of what I was saying. He has a crappy home life and he still chooses to be optimistic and compassionate, and maybe that means he has a weak spot for people like Lila and Chloé. Maybe if he admitted to himself that some people are beyond redemption, then he has to admit that there’s no hope for his own father. That his dad will always be cold and calculating and manipulative and Adrien will never be good enough for him.” Luka paused and took a deep breath. “It’s a hard thing to admit to yourself. It’s even harder to admit that the reason those people won’t change, is because they don’t care enough to try.” He glanced back at Rose and Juleka, glad to see they were trailing far enough behind that they wouldn’t overhear. “I get it, you know? He still has hope. I just…” He lowered his voice without really meaning to and she swayed a little closer to hear. “I remember how it felt when there wasn’t any hope left, just all of us exhausted and used up and tossed away, and all I can think about is how much time we wasted believing the lie that if we just tried hard enough we could make him want to stay. So no, I can’t agree with Adrien. Giving in to selfishness never turned it into generosity either.” 

Marinette stopped walking and put her arms around Luka’s middle, squeezing tight. He patted her arm, and then pulled away, a little uncomfortable with having said so much. “Anyway, you do what you think is right, Marinette. Protect yourself and trust your instincts. You might not always get it right the first time, but I know you will in the end.”

“Thanks, Luka. I think I needed to hear that.”

They waited in silence at the crosswalk for a moment for the others to catch up. Luka chuckled suddenly. “You know, she made a mistake today.”

“What?” Marinette blinked at him. 

“Lila screwed up. She pissed off Juleka.” Luka grinned. “Rose has been spinning her wheels for months trying to get us into that club, and Lila just up and claims it was all because of her that Rose finally got through. I’m not sure whether Juleka believes Lila and is mad that she didn’t do anything sooner, or if she knows Lila didn’t do anything and is mad at her for lying, but either way, she’s mad that Rose is unhappy. So that’s one less person on Lila’s side anyway. That’s how I know you’ll come out on top no matter what you decide to do.” He didn’t even try to hide the affection in his face when he looked at her. “You can call it karma or whatever, but I’m sure you’ll always have people on your side. Maybe there will always be a Lila out there, taking the credit and name-dropping and looking out for number one. But you...you’re always lifting up the people around you. You don’t let pursuing your own dreams stop you from caring about everyone else’s.” 

As he said the words, the world seemed to stop for a heartbeat, and suddenly he knew what he wanted to sing for her.  Her pink cheeks grew a little pinker as he smiled a slow, secret smile, but before she could ask any questions, Rose and Juleka joined them and they all crossed the street. “You’ll come to the gig, right?” he asked, trying to keep his tone casual. “We wouldn’t even be playing a place this big if it weren’t for you.”

Marinette sighed. “I wish you’d stop saying that. You’re the one who impressed Jagged. You’re the one who played in front of all those people.”

“You’re the one who gave me that chance. But I’m sorry, I’ll try not to bring it up anymore if it makes you uncomfortable. Anyway, will you come? I’d really like you to be there.” 

Marinette waved her phone. “Already on my calendar. Actually I was thinking I might try to get there when you guys do so I can help you get ready, if that’s okay? I want to make sure your costumes are perfect for this!”

Luka smiled. “Better make sure your website is ready for all the traffic you’re going to get. Rose said people are already asking about T-shirt’s and things.”

“I’m not surprised, you did make it look good.” Marinette slapped her hand over her mouth and Luka looked away and coughed to hide his laughter. 

***

Kitty Section worked harder than they ever had for the next couple of weeks. It was a scramble to finish the new song Luka and Rose had been working on, and then they had to figure out what else they were going to play and practice that. (Penny said covers would be a good way to pad their setlist, Luka had informed the group.) Fortunately all of the band members were extremely motivated, so once they got over the hurdle of agreeing on which songs to play (which turned out to be a very high hurdle indeed), they worked relentlessly to get them down, meeting every chance they got to practice.

Marinette had to miss a lot of those rehearsals, but that was fine--that was actually good as far as Luka was concerned, since he had to get the band on board with his plan and then teach them the music he had reworked to suit Kitty Section's metal sound. 

He tried to frame it as platonically as he could, but he still spent almost as much time ignoring teasing comments (and Rose’s overly romanticized fantasy world where he and Marinette had a wedding officiated by Jagged Stone before honeymooning during Luka’s first international tour) as he did practicing. As he lived with Juleka, he was accustomed to blocking out things he didn’t want to listen to, so he let most of it roll off his back. 

Luka was surprised when Ivan stopped after practice one day to lean against the rail next to him.

“Hey,” Ivan said, rubbing his hand over his hair. “You um...okay? We were kinda giving you a really hard time today.”

“Yeah, you were.” Luka shrugged. “But it’s okay. I know I’m an idiot.”

“You’re really in love with Marinette?”

Luka sighed. “Head over heels, man.”

“Wow,” Ivan mumbled, and then was silent for a moment. “So you think the song’ll work?”

“Nope.” 

Ivan blinked. “Really? But…”

“Rose’s romantic fever dreams aside, I’m not doing this to try to win Marinette over. I know she loves somebody else and—well, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish for something different, but that’s her choice to make, you know? I just…” He paused, automatically beginning to play his feelings as he tried to find words. 

“I owe Marinette a lot,” Ivan said after a moment. “She was the one who really encouraged me to confess to Mylène. I might never have gotten up the guts of it weren’t for her.”

Luka grinned, looking up at him. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah, I was the first akuma victim, you know. Yay me.”

Luka huffed. “I feel you on that one.”

“I was so in love with Mylène but every time I tried to get close to her, I scared her. I was feeling super down about it. Marinette gave me a pep talk. I mean, things still kinda got worse before they got better, but it turned out all right.”

Luka shook his head, smiling to himself. “She’s something else. You know I was impressed with her before we even met. You wouldn’t believe how much money I’ve spent on ice cream and nail polish every class photo day for years. I was all set for Juleka to come home crying yet again, and instead she comes home with a smile on her face. Even having been akumatized that same day, she was so happy. I asked her what happened and she just smiled and said, ‘Marinette.’” 

“She’s always helping out, huh?” Ivan rubbed his hand over his head again. 

Luka slid his hand over the fretboard thoughtfully. “I just...want her to know how special she is, you know? Like I said, it’s not about winning her over, just...letting her know.”

“Yeah, I think I get it.” Ivan punched him lightly in arm and Luka tried not to wince. “Still...good luck, man. You and Marinette, you both deserve good things.”

“Thanks, Ivan.”

Even though Marinette couldn’t always be at practice, she was still working for them. She presented them with three new t-shirt designs, all of them simpler than the ones she’d originally made for the band so they could be easily sourced out to a printing company. She’d teamed up with Marc and Nath (names Luka only vaguely recognized) and they’d created posters and fliers featuring comic-book style drawings of the band playing on the back of a winged cat unicorn. Luka had to admit, once he stopped laughing, that they were pretty awesome. The band plastered them all over their schools, in as many local coffee shops and music stores as they could get to, and Luka had to smile when he passed one proudly displayed in the bakery window. 

And somehow, the image, including the gig date and time, got passed to Jagged Stone, who tweeted it out to his billions of followers. “I thought we were going to have to give Nath oxygen when we told him,” Marinette giggled. 

By the time the gig night rolled around, it was no shock to anyone that the club was packed.

***

“Are you nervous?” Marinette asked as she helped Luka lift the breastplate into place and began to fasten the ties. 

“If you’d asked me that yesterday, I would’ve said yes, totally, but tonight? Honestly, I’m stoked,” Luka told her, tilting his mask in his hands to admire the play of the glitter under the club lights. “This place is amazing, the set list is sick, the crowd energy is amazing, and your costumes look unreal under these lights. We’ve worked really hard and I feel like we’re ready for this. I can’t wait to get out there.”

Marinette shook her head. “You guys are amazing, if it were me I’d pass out. Is this okay, can you move?”

Luka moved his arms experimentally. “Good as gold. You’re amazing in plenty of other ways, Marinette.” 

He wasn’t even sure she heard him. She bounced and squealed. “You look so great, you’re right, this is gonna be awesome! You’re gonna knock ‘em dead!”

She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. He blinked at her but Marinette just flashed him a shy smile, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, and turned away to help Rose. 

He took a few minutes to himself to just close his eyes and breathe, and when he opened his eyes again the rest of the band was ready, and Marinette was passing him on her way to the door. “Hey,” he caught her shoulder. “Can you try to get a spot up front? I want to be able to see you.”

Marinette smiled. “I’ll be there. Adrien’s already out there and he has his bodyguard holding space for me and Nino and Alya.”

“Great,” he said, letting his hand fall to catch hers and squeeze it. “Hey guys, all in real quick before Marinette leaves?”

The band crowded together to slap a high five. “Kitty Section!” They yelled together. Marinette and Mylène went to find their places. 

Luka slipped his mask over his face. “All right guys, let’s do this.”

The crowd roared as the band walked on stage. Luka took a deep breath as he slipped his guitar over his head.  Remember the plan.  He played a short riff to get the crowd’s attention as the others took their places. He stepped up next to Rose at the center mic as she welcomed the crowd, and then handed off the microphone to him. There was a cheer as he took off his mask and waved to the crowd.   

“Thanks for coming out to hear us tonight,” he began. “Let me introduce the members of Kitty Section, first on lead vocals, Rose Lavillant!” Beside him Rose lifted her mask, waved, and held up a victory sign. “Rose is also writes our lyrics, runs our Instagram, and books our shows, she’s amazing and her hard work and persistence got us here tonight.” Eat that, Lila. “Next, if you didn’t know, I have the coolest kid sister in Paris and she’s here on bass, Juleka Couffaine.”  Juleka left her mask in place and her wave looked more like clawing the air. “And last, he plays a killer set of drums but he’s also one of the greatest friends any of us could ask for—especially if you have furniture to move—ladies and gentlemen, Ivan Bruel.” Ivan stood up behind his drum set and punched his arms in the air as the crowd cheered.  “Alright, let’s get this place rocking, I’m Luka Couffaine and we are,” they all bellowed together, “Kitty Section!”  

Ivan counted them off as Luka slipped his mask back on and relinquished the mic to Rose, her own mask back in place as she belted, “Oh I love unicorns…”

The energy in the crowd was amazing and it definitely fired up the band. Luka didn’t think they’d ever played better. They went through the first half of their set flawlessly and Luka felt incredible. 

Then it was time, and for the first time that evening the chill of nerves wound down Luka’s spine. 

“Thank you!” Rose hollered into the mic. “And now we have something special for you tonight, so ladies and gentlemen, kittens and unicorns, give it up for Kitty Section’s own Luka Couffaine!”

The audience erupted as Luka took off his mask, handing it to Rose as he took his place at the mic. 

“Wow, thank you,” he said, grinning out at them and hoping his nerves didn’t show as he raised the mic stand to a more comfortable height. “Really, thank you, I’m so humbled and grateful to have all your support.” Chants of Luka, Luka broke out and he laughed. “Wow, seriously, you guys. Thank you so much.” He cleared his throat. “So this next song is maybe an odd choice for a rock band, but I hope you’ll like what we’ve done with it. I’ve been thinking a lot about hopes and dreams lately. I think you can probably guess why,” he grinned as laughter rippled across the audience. “It’s been a pretty surreal experience. And it’s got me thinking a lot about dreams and life and just...potential, you know? I think about how lucky I am to have gotten the opportunities I’ve had. But, at the same time it feels disrespectful to call it luck, because it was intentional. It was a very special person taking the opportunities she’s been given and passing them on. If you ask her, she’ll tell you she didn’t do very much, but that’s not even remotely true. For one thing, she designed our awesome stage gear,” he tapped the sparkling kittycorn on his breastplate. “And if you could have been there in the band meetings and listened to what the poor girl had to put up with while we were tossing ideas around, you’d be even more impressed.” There was another ripple of laughter, and Luka chuckled, turning his pick in his fingers. “You know, some people think you have to be ruthless to follow your dreams, that you’ll never get anywhere without stepping on the people around you.” His eyes locked on Marinette, who was gaping at him, mouth open and one hand locked on Alya’s arm. “But then there are some people who aren’t afraid to share their dreams and who are excited to share yours, and that’s what Marinette has been for us. I don’t have time to tell you half of the things she’s done for Kitty Section and also for me personally, or to tell you how she’s encouraged and inspired a lot of people in this room, and if I tried she’d probably pass out.” He grinned and winked at her. “So instead I’m just gonna say, this one’s for you, Marinette Dupain-Cheng, the girl with a million dreams, and a heart big enough to hold all of ours.” There were scattered cheers from Marinette’s friends, but for the most part the room seemed to hold its collective breath.  

Luka closed his eyes for a moment, gathering himself. When he felt ready, he began to play what he’d been working on for weeks. He took a deep breath, and stepped up to the mic, eyes still half-closed as he began to sing, his voice low and mellow despite the metal sound of his guitar beneath. “I close my eyes and I can see a world that’s waiting up for me, that I call my own…Through the dark, through the door, through where no one’s been before, but it feels like home…”

Luka opened his eyes, and smiled down at Marinette, who now had both hands over her mouth. “They can say, they can say it all sounds crazy, they can say they can say I’ve lost my mind...I don’t care, I don’t care if they call me crazy...we can live in a world that we design…”

Luka tore his eyes away from her, scanning across the crowd, feeling Ivan’s rhythm through his feet and Juleka’s bass thrumming behind him and Rose’s voice coming in to support his. “Cause every night I lie in bed, the brightest colors fill my head, a million dreams are keeping me awake…I think of what the world could be, the vision of the one I see, a million dreams is all it’s gonna take...a million dreams for the world we’re gonna make.” He was starting to see faces in the crowd, now, friends that had come out to support them, faces with dreams for their own. He wanted every one of them to have the same gift Marinette had given him. He sang on, and his already racing heart tripped and stuttered, and he closed his eyes again to keep back the tears trying to spring up as he poured his heart into his hands and voice. 

“However big, however small, let me be part of it all...share your dreams with me...we may be right, we may be wrong, but I wanna bring you along, to the world I see, to the world we close our eyes to see, we close our eyes to see…”

He dropped his hands from the guitar and held the microphone instead.

“Every night I lie in bed, the brightest colors fill my head, a million dreams are keeping me awake.” He barely remembered to pick up his guitar in time to catch the crescendo. “I think of what the world could be, a vision of the one I see, a million dreams is all it’s gonna take, a million dreams for the world we’re gonna make…”

His voice caught on the last line. “For the world we’re gonna make.”

There was a beat of total silence, and the crowd exploded.  Luka could only raise a hand to acknowledge them as he stepped back, and accepted his mask back from Rose, who hugged him impulsively before coming back to her place at the microphone. He settled the mask back over his face, breathing hard, and tried to remember what they were supposed to play next. It was several minutes before he felt composed enough to look at Marinette.

Her face was in her hands, but she looked up just as he looked down and caught his eyes, and though her face was tear-streaked, the smile she gave him was blinding.

[baronfulmen]

Untangling Palpatine

Today's exercise is trying to figure out what Palpatine was doing between Episode 6 and Episode 9, and whether or not there's some way the shit we see can make sense.

We start our plot reconstruction at the end of Episode 6, when Vader throws Palpatine down random Death Star shaft #45,641.  There's that burst of energy that appears to be Palpatine being disintegrated, but clearly that's not the case so let's say his force lightning just caused some component on the wall of the shaft to explode.

So Palpatine hits the bottom, fall softened somewhat by a force push but not so much that he's unharmed.  He breaks a lot of bones, plus he once again lightninged himself which seems to be a problem he's got.  Some maintenance worker sees him and flips, calls some other guys in and they get him to safety.  Right at this point the whole place is about to blow, but they get him to an escape pod or something.

So he's alive, and the movie is over.  Anakin has not really brought balance to the force, so I guess that prophesy is a bust - but then I don't know it was confirmed to be specifically about him anyway.  Maybe that was about Kylo or Rey or something.  The Empire doesn't cease to exist right away, but it's not doing great.  It could use some leadership.  Leadership like, say, the Emperor.  But no, he for some reason would rather let the empire fracture and fall into chaos - maybe that was a little too close for comfort, and he wants to lay low until the heat dies down some.

But he can't completely let things go, so he pulls out the old clone vats and makes some pseudo-emperors.  Because that was always a thing he could do, I guess.  He names one Snoke, and one Sloke, and one Skoke, and one Billy just to mix things up.  He sends them to each part of the splintering empire and most of them get killed and that's fine.  He salvages a few areas, and the biggest group turns into the First Order.  And he uses the force to control Snoke - it's not clear how sentient Snoke is when the Emperor isn't pulling his strings, but let's say he's mostly a figurehead and has very little intelligence or initiative of his own.

But meanwhile this body is getting pretty ragged, and his kid (that we've never heard of) has run off and married some girl and knocked her up.  Okay, well that's fine, maybe the kid will be force sensitive or something and he can use that.  It's... not clear why this needs to happen.  His own son is not a person of any interest, presumably the force skipped a generation.  There are other force sensitives out there, does blood relation matter so much?  If it does, is there a reason he can't use a clone?  Also, can he just have more kids himself?

Even if the force lightning has rendered him sterile, wouldn't he want to kidnap his living son and use him as a breeder?  But no, even though for some vague (possibly religious) reasons he wants to use a relative he decides he doesn't care about his kid.  He has the entire might of the first order plus a few million other remaining Empire soldiers at his disposal but he wants this mission to have the personal touch so he sends just one guy to go get his son, his daughter in law, and his granddaughter.

He could give the guy his coordinates - he already has a whole fleet of ships flying to and from the "secret" Sith planet day and night working on production of the planet-killing Star Destroyers, plus all the support personnel, etc. but instead he wants this guy to use one of the two Sith Wayfinders.  One is somewhere in a forest in a box for some reason, the movie never explains that, but the other was right by his throne room in the second Death Star.

So Palpatine force-projects over there, floats around as a ghost, confirms that the throne room survived surprisingly intact and the wayfinder is sitting there in his secret closet.  Cool.  He floats over to the coast, picks a spot at random, memorizes the shape of the wreckage from there, and then commissions a knife.  Why?  Style, that's why.  He writes some coordinates on there - in Sith, obviously - although he doesn't make the coordinates very specific so it's down to luck if the guy will stand at the correct part of the coast for the shape of the blade to line up.

Then he sends the knife to the guy, so the guy can use it to get to the wayfinder and use the wayfinder to get to the planet where the millions of Empire people already live while they build the mega-fleet.  Not overcomplicated at all.

The guy goes, grabs the Emperor's son and daughter in law, ignores the child chasing after them yelling "mamma, don't go!" because surely that's irrelevant, and then briefly and ineffectually questions them before stabbing them to death with the map-knife.  He could go back and look around for the child but it's been a long day and he doesn't want to. Instead, he goes to some other random planet, parks in the middle of the desert, falls into a patch of beads that somehow drops him into a tunnel without letting the beads through, and then he gets eaten by a snake.

Palpatine knows the guy has never returned, but he doesn't send anyone else to check out Jakku or go get the wayfinder or anything.  It's fine.  Everything is fine.  He didn't care that much anyway, and he's already decided that he would rather manipulate Han and Leia's kid who is almost old enough to start training.  Thankfully, despite being surrounded by powerful force sensitive people who love him nobody notices Palpatine reaching across space to mess with the kid.  He does this as Snoke, and sometimes as Vader just for giggles.  Anakin's force ghost thankfully never appears to the kid, that would have fucked up everything.

Eventually he gets Ben to do the privileged white teenager thing and shoot up his school, and brings him into the First Order.  Thankfully, Luke responds by retiring and not fighting the remains of the empire in any way or making any effort to clean up his mess.  This opens the way to really ramp up the First Order, which the opening crawl of Episode 7 implies has just become serious AFTER Luke took off even though with the scope and power they have that's not really possible.  Whatever, we'll say this is the time they start gaining back the ground that was lost in some areas.

So we're at the start of the first of the new movies, Episode 7.  Even though by now Palpatine must already have the Star-Destroyer sized Death Star guns designed, he still has the First Order build the Starkiller Base which is maybe not the best use of resources.  But it works, and in one shot blows up all the goodguys apparently.  Just like that, as the next movie makes clear, the First Order is the main power in the galaxy and the new republic is back to being a tiny group of plucky rebels.

All that's left is the cleanup, but Palpatine doesn't reveal himself or his millions of troops and gigantic fleet of Star Destroyers that must be at least partly completed by now.  He's still holding out for some perfect moment.  Then the Starkiller base gets blown to hell, and there's someone that seems to be a new Jedi.  He orders her killed - does he know this is his granddaughter?  Unclear.  Certainly he keeps ordering her killed after he knows, but it's possible he doesn't find out who she is until... I don't know, until she's close to his Snoke Puppet.

Either way, he tries to get Kylo to kill her.  Luke shows back up, then dies which is what the First Order wanted anyway.  The rebel forces are down to like twelve people, although between episodes 8 and 9 their numbers somehow swell a bit.  It doesn't matter, things are great and it's all over but the party planning.  The fleet of planet-killing Star Destroyers are done, but he buries them underground so that he can have a cool dramatic reveal.  Snoke is dead, and Kylo wants to take over the First Order, but he figures that's easy enough to deal with.

How?  Why, by sending a voicemail to the galaxy as a whole yelling at them.  It's... a roundabout way of doing things to be sure.  He could have just appeared to Kylo, or sent in a Snoke clone (Spoke is almost ready, just needs to be pulled from the vat), or sent the voicemail just to the First Order, or a million other things.  But nah, he tells everyone he's alive at once and then waits for Kylo to hunt him down.  Then he tells Kylo he's Snoke and pretended to be Vader and whatever else, and he dramatically raises all the star destroyers from the ground, but he doesn't deploy them.

The First Order is cool with all this.  It's probably strange for them to find out he was somehow secretly Snoke or in charge of Snoke or whatever, but fine.  And they probably wonder why he didn't bring in the enormous fleet of star destroyers before, and who the millions of people manning them are, but... fine.  Whatever.  It still means they won.  At this point he has told Kylo to kill Rey again, and also revealed who she is.  "Hey, go kill my granddaughter.  Thanks!"

He gets bored at some point and sends out one of the Star Destroyers, blows up a planet.  This star destroyer isn't explicitly accounted for later.  Just saying.  Then he sits back, and he waits for the next thing to happen passively.  He senses, presumably, when Rey is coming.  He certainly is aware when she enters the system, and he must know that she could be bringing the remains of the resistance down on him.  This would be a great time to launch all the star destroyers.

Nah.

So Rey walks in, and he tells her that he WANTED her to come even though he had been sending people to kill her this whole time.  He convinces her that he wants her to kill him and become the new Big Bad Sith - this is super clumsy if it's true, but if it's bullshit it's not a bad idea.  So let's give him some credit and say he never wanted her to kill him and it was reverse psychology - kill me, please, this is my plan!

Kylo shows up too, somehow.  Wait.  Rey stole his ship, right?  Whatever, he called an Uber.  Anyway, he's there and Palps tries to have him killed but that doesn't work.  Then they're both there in front of him and he remembers that he can suck the life out of them.  He couldn't do that to the Snokes Crew, but here's the pick me up he needed.  And then he chucks Kylo down a bottomless shaft because that always works, and... well, okay, it didn't work when Vader threw him down one.  But surely this time it will.  And then he tries to kill Rey.

In the past when he tried to use force lightning on someone with a light saber it went really badly.  This happened several times, but it's his go-to move.  Sure, he could pick up Rey and bash her into a wall until she's paste or something but no!  Force lightning is sooooo cool!  I mean, he's strong enough now that he can, somehow, use force lightning to target every single enemy ship in the sky without looking so killing Rey is no big deal.

Just like those other times, though, she blocks it with the light saber.  It's doing the feedback thing some, and she looks super intense like she's going to try something.  He could just stop the lightning and do that force smash thing.  But but but... force lightning!  So he keeps going.  She blasts him, somehow, and he keeps going, and she does it again and he... explodes.

Huh.

It kinda seems like if he had done anything differently he would have won, and like every part of his plan was needlessly overcomplicated.  It seems like he had the power and resources to take over the entire galaxy at any moment and yet remained invisible enacting redundant or contradictory plans until the last minute.

So, can it work?  Is there a story that makes the revelations of Episode 9 fit into the rest of the story?  Kinda!  But it's super, super stupid.

[coleisunderrated]

My 100th Post

I can’t believe it happened so soon. I made it to 100 posts without being eaten alive on this hellsite. To celebrate this milestone, remember that post with my headcanon of Ash perfectly mimicking Zane’s voice? I went through with the idea of making a short story based on Kai’s quote so here it is!

Kai sat in one of those rooms where prisoners get to talk to friends and relatives while being separated by those glass walls. The orange jumpsuit was so uncomfortable, especially because he was literally wearing nothing else. Apparently, being a ninja doesn’t make him exempt from the law but it better be worth it...

“Where is he?” Kai’s ears picked up a familiar silky smooth voice carrying hints of exasperation.

An officer guided the white ninja to the room where Kai awaits him. Zane sat on the other side of the glass and stared at him with a face that was worthy of being next to the word ‘disappointment’ in the dictionary.

“Zane! Thank god you’re here!” Kai didn’t care how pissed the nindroid was and he still wouldn’t respond but it didn’t matter. The fire ninja will get what’s been promised to him. After several moments where no words were exchanged, the fire ninja went straight to the point.

“So... now are you gonna lemme smash?” Kai bluntly asked.

“Why would I want to do that after what you just did?!” Zane finally broke his silence in an incredulous tone and looked at the fire ninja like he was some sort of disgusting creature. Everyone else in the room turned to stare at the normally calm ice ninja yelling at Kai.

“But that’s what you told me to do!” The fire ninja still insisted.

“I would never allow you to do something as foolish as that!”

“And yet you did! You called me at exactly 11:28 from McRonald’s!”

“I wasn’t there at the time!”

“Then where were you!?”

“I was at the Samurai X layer helping Nya and Pixal all morning! I told you I was going to meet them and I even made food for Nya and Pixal doesn’t like to eat! There was nothing to necessitate a visit to any eateries!”

“Wait, so you’re telling me you didn’t tell me to run around Mega Monster Amusement Park naked singing All Star!?” Kai asked, not happy that he humiliated himself all for nothing.

“NO!” The ice ninja was one iota away from the robot equivalence of a brain aneurysm.

“But you really said that and I have proof! I just need my phone!”

“Officer, if you please.” Zane beckoned the security guard to fetch the device.

The brawny guy searched through Kai’s confiscated items and soon found the fire ninja’s phone and handed it over to Zane. With a simple scan, Zane gleaned the password and searched through the records of all the calls Kai received and found the most recent contact. The phone number didn’t match up with anyone the ninja know. Zane couldn’t believe Kai was so trusting as to accept a call from a complete stranger.

“This is not a number any of us have ever contacted before. Why did you even answer in the first place?”

Just listen to the voicemail!” Kai urged the nindroid to keep investigating.

With some reluctance, the white ninja checked the voicemail from the number. Little did he know he’s in for an unpleasant surprise.

“Greetings, Kai.” A voice that sounded just like Zane’s spoke, leaving the ice ninja stunned. Only Pixal could replicate his voice but she never left the Samurai X lair so it can’t be her.

“I have something very important to tell you but only if you call back.” Whoever imitated Zane repeated with each and every ignored call.

“Apparently, you did call back...” Zane glared at Kai. He still can’t believe the red ninja allowed himself to be duped so easily.

“Luckily for you, I had our conversation recorded in case you’re still in denial!” Kai remained defiant and Zane was tempted to leave him right then and there. Still, he planned to discover the truth and played the recording...

“Zane, is that you?” Kai’s voice played out.

“Of course it’s me. Do you not recognize the voice of the one you love?” The same person replied again with a perfect impression of the nindroid’s voice. It was so strange for Zane to hear his own voice coming from someone else besides himself and Pixal.

The more Zane listened, the more appalled he became. This imposter had potentially defamed his character and manipulated Kai into tarnishing his permanent record. Not only that but they said a bunch of stuff the real Zane would never say. He still can’t believe Kai fell for it. The white ninja wasn’t going to let this person go so easily. He’s going to find them and deliver karma.

“I must get to the bottom of this.” Zane didn’t hesitate to begin his own quest to solve this mystery.

“Wait! But who’s gonna bail me out!? You can’t just leave me here! Zane!” Kai banged on the glass but the white ninja was out of the building within seconds.

He better get back before he has to go into those prison showers...

Zane went straight to Borg Industries and searched the data of the phone number. Turns out the owner of the phone was someone named Brent M. That’s one clue down. Next, the nindroid searched for all the Brent M.s in Ninjago, assuming the owner of the phone had some sort or relation with anyone the ninja knew. He looked through their family history, Bookface accounts, and even Instameter. It was time-consuming but a ninja never quits. The nindroid kept snooping until something caught his glowing optics in the ninteenth Brent M.’s Instameter. He recognized the person that apparently had blood ties with him.

This Brent was a distant relative of none other than Ash, the Master of Smoke. Looks like he’ll be paying the elemental master a visit...

One moment the Elemental Masters were minding their business and the next thing they knew, a freak blizzard struck their house. Before they could investigate, a figure clad in white marched in.

“Zdravstvuyte Zane!” Karlof greeted the nindroid cheerily, oblivious to the bitter cold and the ice ninja’s dark expression, “Why visit at time like this?”

“Where. Is. Ash?” Zane glowered, his voice distorted with rage and the calm way he spoke made it all the more terrifying.

“Oh! Ash hiding in kitchen! Ash! Say hello to Zane!” Karlof unwittingly ratted out the Master of Smoke he spotted under the table in the other room.

It took less than a split second before Ash found himself encased in ice from the neck down. Right in front of him was Zane and now he wished the phrase ‘if looks could kill’ was true because death was much more merciful than what the nindroid probably has in store for him.

“You were the one who called Kai, am I correct?” The ice ninja hovered over the incapacitated Elemental Master with a voice to match the terrible cold.

“W--w what are y-you t-t-talking about...?!” Ash asked through clattering teeth.

“Don’t feign innocence. I tracked down the call and you’re the only person with access to that number as well as knowing Kai’s.”

The Master of Smoke should’ve known Zane would find out. The nindroid never knows when to quit.

“Dude, it was just a prank!” The Master of Smoke confessed, “No one was physically hurt so what’s the big deal?”

“Oh? And what if I get destroy all your belongings and then say it’s just a prank? Will that make it better? I can do that right now if that’s what you think.” Zane went for the cupboards and found Ash’s collection of snacks from his home country.

“Y-you’re not r-r-really gonna d-do that a-are you?” Ash asked but the white ninja didn’t respond. The nindroid mutely dropped a handful of Gansitos onto the ground and began stomping on them.

“No! Anything but that! Stop!” The Elemental Master begged but the nindroid moved on to the de la Rosa Mazapan and scattered the fragile peanut candy all over the already ruined Gansitos, completely ignoring Ash’s pleas. He paused to give him an ultimatum, “Did I hear something? Oh well. I won’t stop until I hear an apology.” With that, he moved on to the Pulparindo, tearing up the tamarind pulp into shreds.

Ash still pleaded but Zane kept destroying his precious hoard like he didn’t exist. The nindroid crushed every last Vero Mango lollipop until he moved on to the next snack...

“No! Not the Takis! Anything but the Takis!” Ash cried out and still, the white ninja ignored him. He opened a bag and fetched a bottle of milk and was about to pour it onto the super spicy snack until...

“Okay, okay! Fine! I’m sorry! I’ll tell everyone the truth! Just leave the Takis alone!” Ash finally caved in, now a blubbering mess.

“Are you gonna tell them everything?” Zane made sure Ash was being truthful. He wasn’t going to accept a half-assed mumbled fake apology like Lloyd does all the time.

“Yes! I’m sorry! Now let me go!”

The white ninja took an uncomfortably long time pondering over the thought of freeing Ash.

“Okay, but not only will you have to tell Kai the truth but also...”

Several hours later...

Kai was surprised to see Ash with Zane once he finally returned.

“Zane, what the hell is Ash doing here?” Kai asked.

“Tell him.” Zane curtly ordered the Master of Smoke to speak for himself.

“Uh... you remember that call ‘Zane’ sent you...?” Ash started.

“Yeah...?”

“It’s actually a funny story. You see, it all started when...”

More hours later...

Before he knew it, Kai was now stuck in a specially made fireproof cell in the Kryptarium Prison. Zane stood before him but this time, he couldn’t bring himself to even look at him.

“What did I do this time!?” The fire ninja complained.

“Really? You’re asking me that after committing attempted murder and arson?” Zane retorted dryly, “Now I’m gonna have to wait for Ash to get out of the hospital before he can make up for what he did...”

“And that is...?”

“Originally, I was going to make him pay for you bail but that will have to wait.”

“Really? You let him off the hook that easily?”

“Not exactly,” Zane retorted with an eerily calm aura, "That alone wouldn’t have been good enough. He will also have to drive me to my appointments with a therapist for separation counseling.”

“Hehe, gotta love when your humor switch is on!” Kai chuckled.

Zane stared at Kai coldly and briefly opened his chest panel to reveal the switch was off. Without saying a word, the ice ninja left.

“Zane...?” Now Kai was getting scared. What if they really do break up? Even worse, Zane was already gone.

...

The anguished cry of the ice ninja’s name echoed across the entire realm of Ninjago.

[femaleboysblog]

♥ super(hero) love ♥

| hwang hyunjin x superhero!reader | sorry for any mistakes! english is not my first language!

part i | part ii (final)

word count: 3.4k

warnings: tumblr!au, fanfic writer!reader x fan!hyunjin, enemies to lovers, fluff!!!, minor violence cause u know superhero stuff yadda yadda, some cursing here and there, (1) alcohol mention, 

A/N: just rewriting some old stuff :) | gender neutral reader (if you consider dude a gender neutral term lol)

“ Hi y/n! I’m sorry if i’m bothering you, but i just came by to say that i’ve read your last chapter last night and i can’t help but fall in love with your writing, you never disappoint! You’re always so creative when it comes to making stories and putting them into words, it’s almost like you’ve lived them! haha. So i just wanted to ask, where do you get your ideas? What are your inspirations? With love, Genie ;)”

 Damn it. I stared at the ask i just received for a few long and tortuous minutes, definitely more than it was actually necessary. But hey, don't blame me for that, i mean, how in the hell i'm supposed to answer that? I can’t just go and say "Hi again Genie! Thank you for all the love, i really appreciate it! I get all my inspiration on my day-to-day life as a superhero. You probably have heard about me, i'm that one person with white clothes that shows all the time - if not every single day, in the morning news for saving and helping the city and their beloved citizens. Most people just call me 'the light hero' even though they know the right name for the supervillains, in special, Scarlet Devil - my arch enemy. In case you don't know my superhero name either, i go by Starlight. Kinda lame, i know. But it fits with the backstory of how i got my powers. Since it's a situation i went through, of course i'm going to know all the details in full experience and in first person, even that one where the protagonist rips his pants in the middle of a fight in the street and in front of everyone, only to reveal his red underwear constrasting the rest of the outfit, that is something i will never be able to forget, sadly. Hope i didn't disappoint you!" Let's be real, i could. Kinda.  But i won't be doing that for obvious reasons, i don't want even more people after my back because of this, the police is more than enough.

I sighed, pushing my chair closer to the desk and cracking my fingers so i could write something in return that didn't sound suspicious at all. "Hi Genie," i started, already struggling a little,"I really appreciate asks like this and i'm also happy to know that at least one person likes the lame things i write! :) I get all my inspiration from.." No, stop, stop. I can just go all in like that, i have to be subtle. Normal writers usually get their inspirations in a lot of differents things and ideas, if i say something like that there is a chance that it would come out weird. I think. "I get most of my inspiration in, well, superheros, of course. I read a lot of comics, books and i really like watching movies and animations with any types of heros. :)" Sent. That actually went a little better than expected. "Genie" whoever it was, sent another ask only a seconds after, i clicked on it already starting to feel anxious again. "That's so cool! I suppose you are into superheros in real life too. If so, are you fan of any of them?" Why did they had to send questions that are so hard and complicated to answer like that? The only superhero i know well enough to pretend that i am a fan of is Jeongin, you probably know him by Spark. But he also reads my blog and wouldn't let me live if i ever said i'm his fan, another thing i'm not really found of. Another superhero i'm really close with would be, well me, of course.

"Actually, i do. I'm a big fan of Starlight for some time, what about you?" I answered, my choice of words trying to be as lowkey and casual as possible, putting the right amount of weight in them. This person, whoever they were, seemed to be nosy sometimes like a shy high-schooler wanting to keep the conversation going with someone with that they liked and in a way, that was most likely the situation. They’re the only person who follows my blog for some time that i remember constantly sending me messages and checking up on me but the one thing that was different this time was that the person, my fellow readers, forgot to put the ‘anon’ option on this time, their blog url shined brightly and effortlessly on my computer screen.

This time, Genie took a while to answer, so i took that as a chance to take a look at their blog. Clicking on their url, i started scrolling down their posts. I couldn't help but cringe really hard when i started noticing that most of their posts was reblogs from fyeahscarletdevil and others fansites with cheesy compliments in the tags, they seemed to be a really big fan of the supervillain, my supervillain. The one who puts kittens in really high places where they can't come down anymore, the one who sets fire in close neighbourhoods backyards and gardens to ruin their grass and flowers they worked so hard on, the one who sets dogs out of their leashes suddenly creating an army of dogs or anything that would cause disturbance in the peace of those around him in the world. I want to say i am starting to see red out of anger but in all honesty, that would make me even more pissed. Red is his color, just like white is mine. Unclenching and relaxing my jaw, - bad habit, i know - i hadn’t even noticed Genie had answered. “Oh really? I’m a major fan of Scarlet Devil!” No shit, Sherlock. Duh. “I think he’s a great dude who fits perfectly in the whole ‘model’ supervillain concept! Especially when it comes to Starlight too! They both are made for each other and have a perfect chemistry, they would be nothing without one another like soulmates. I probably sound like a total nerd now, but thats what i think lol wbu? - Genie” They signed in the end, even though it was obvious it was them. Not only did this person ship me with my arch enemy, they were also a big giant nerd and a huge fanboy of the red devil. Rubbing my forehead, i prepared myself to write back a long and sharp reply arguing against everything they said, ready to win and probably lose one of my readers in the process. Or more than one, you never know how many creeps who are his fans are lurking on this website.

Turns out Genie, was a very cute boy called Hwang Hyunjin who lived close by the neighbourhood i lived at, he was tall and acted very shy when he wasn’t talking about things that he liked very much, such as supervillains, dancing and comics. After our argument that day about which one was better - Starlight and the one who shall not be named, we got extremely close to the point i couldn’t go one day without texting him and in some nights we’re one of us couldn’t sleep, we would call the other and talk for hours. Since today, we both had the day free, he suggested that we met in person for the first time and the weather being intensely hot and stuffy right now, we settled in the shopping, going for a walk and eating ice scream while getting to know each other more and maybe even watching a movie together. But if that’s not obvious enough already, i have a major, gigantic, mega, blast, huge, enormous crush on him. From the way he softly laughed when he talked about this new move he learned with his group of friends who danced too, from the way he asked me how my day went and actually listened to me talking about it carefully showing he actually did care, the way he blushed at every compliment i gave him. I could feel my heart beat faster with the thought of seeing his cute moles in person and of even having an opportunity to hold his hands. But, was this a date? Does he even like me back? Would he stop talking to me if he found out i am Starlight? Would he start liking me only because he found out i am Starlight? No, i should worry about all of this later. I took a deep breath in hope to calm myself down, looking at my phone. I’m not going to bring it with me this time, what if Jeongin calls me for an emergency or him being a trickster and ruining the moment? I shook my head. Y/N, you can’t think like that. As much as Nini can be a little shit sometimes, he’s still your baby brother and you need to be there for him when he gets into trouble with your uniform, fists and powers ready to help him. Grabbing my phone, i ran by the door hoping i would be able to get there in time.

I checked my phone. And then, checked again. No calls or texts from spark boy and most importantly, Hyunjin. I sighed in frustration, am i about to be stood up by my crush in our first time meeting in person? Is it bad that i’m getting ice scream before he shows up? Too many questions, calm down, ok? You’re the city’s biggest hero, you got this. - Hyunjin, Jin, Jinn-i said out loud to myself to distract from my anxiousness as i paid the lady for the ice scream but my line of thoughts were interrupted by well, another voice. A soothing voice. - Genie. Did you call me? You have three wishes. - he replied jokingly with a sweet smile in his lips and holding three fingers up. I just stared at him, amazed, not sure of what to do. It was like an angel had just spoke to me. - W-What? - he asked softly, his cheeks getting red out of embarassment. - Nothing, i just...I can’t believe you’re really here... - I trailed off while hugging him tightly. The way he hunched a bit to put his chin on my shoulder making my heart beat faster inside my chest. Get it together, Y/N. - Wait, - he stood back a little, to look at my face properly - You didn’t think i would leave you hanging, did you?    - Well, it wouldn’t be the first time that happened. Nothing personal. - i said, trying to laugh it off. - Then you’ve been going out to dates with the wrong guys. If i couldn’t come, i would’ve called you or still had came here to let you know we can’t spend the day togethe- - D-Date? - i gasped quietly but he was still able to hear, his face getting a tad more redder.  - Ye-yeah, i mean, if yo-you want to, i’m okay with that with thi-this being a date. Yeah.- he shrugged, looking down while visibly embarassed. - Yeah, i want that. It’s a date then! - i added confidently after he nodded, acting like it was no big deal for me. - Is it okay that i got ice scream without you? Sorry, it’s just that it’s so hot today, i couldn’t help myself. We can go back to the line if you want to! - No, it’s okay. Shall we? - he offered his arm which i accepted, his boyish eye smile making it even harder for me to control the butterflies in my stomach. I was falling for his charms, indeed. After a few minutes walking side by side and commenting on the things we saw on the windows of the stores, i decided i should finally take initiative. - So, what did you do today? Besides coming here, of course. - i asked with an interested smile before turning to my ice scream, the cold on my tongue seeming to help me deal with the hot weather better. God, why is it so hot today? What’s going on with the weather? - I slept really late before waking up and coming here, i almost lost track of the time. - he laughed lightly.  - Oh, same. - i replied in a flat tone. Right, cause i totally didn’t take two hours to get ready for Miss ‘I woke up like this’ right here. - Unless for the time part. Did you stay up praticing your moves? - Something physical like that, yeah. - he said, serious. - Did you stay up last night too? - Yeah, actually. - i agreed, regretting instantly. I stayed up all night because Jeongin had trouble sleeping, nightmares which made him cause a blackout in the whole neighbourhood by accident. Me, being the good older sibling, brought him to the energy station of the city and helped him bring all the power back before tucking him into bed and waiting for him to sleep again. If only had it been that easy., tsk tsk. On my way to dragging my sleepy little brother back home, i was met face to face with my arch-enemy straying through the city’s street during the night, his shameless bad-boy persona flirting with me while showing off his dark jacket and threatning to set my shoes on fire making my blood boil again. The reminder that i shot his hand for touching me, leaving a lightburn mark. My brand. - Are you okay? - My date’s voice cut me off. I shook my thoughts away, i already spend too much time thinking about that damned boy who liked setting my life on fire. Sometimes too literally. - Yeah, i just have too much on my mind, i guess. I stayed up most part of the night because my brother couldn’t sleep..I had to hold him until he fell back sleep so he wouldn’t have nightmares. - Oh, i didn’t knew you had a brother! - he looked surprised, rolling his sleeves up while guiding us to sit somewhere more reserved. - He’s not really my brother, he’s like a....consideration brother, if that makes sense. It’s complicated. - In fact, it really isn’t. I really do consider Jeongin my brother, i take care of him at any and all times especially at matters that his parents couldn’t understand, his powers. But i can’t just explain that to any normal person. - I see. I have a brother too, actually. Older. His name is Chan. - he replied brightly. Frostkiller. No. Not every Chan you know is the frosty meanie who happens to be partner with the Scarlet Devil, i’m sure there’s a lot of Chan’s all there, in the world. Far away from here. I smiled back, making him laugh lightly, his eye smile showing up again and making my heart skip beats. He had his chin propped on the palm of his hand, his eyes looking down shyly, his pink lips pressed together in a small smile. - Aren’t you hot? I mean, i feel like i’m melting here even though there’s AC here. I don’t know what’s going on today with the weather. - Oh really? I don’t feel anything, i even thought today was a bit chilly, actually. - What? - i gasped loudly, stretching to touch his forehead with the back of my hand - Are you okay? You aren’t sick, are you? - Don’t. - he stated coldly, closing his hands around my wrist to stop me, his warm fingers digging on my skin. But it was a bit too late, my fingertips touching his forehead already, i flinched taking my hand back, fearing it would burn my skin. - Hyunjin, oh my god! You’re on fire! Aren’t you with fever, shouldn’t we head to a hospita- - No. I’m okay, really. Don’t worry about me, okay? I guess i’m just that hot, pun intended. - he opened a sweet smile, winking - I’m going to buy us something to eat, sit still. - i stared at him, mouth open, still on shock. What does he even mean with ‘i’m okay’? I felt like i just had touched a heated oven or fire. Pure fire. I stared at his back, confused. I have enough experience to know something was definitely up, something not common. My area of expertise. I opened my lips, about to argue back but something caught my eye as i analised his back. Red. I got up from the table, charging at his direction with my fists closed and ready to feed him his own teeth. - What do you want- Oh! - he turned around, his face flushing and his eyes getting a bit bigger because of our proximity. - Give me your hand. - i demanded in a stern manner while stretching out my own hand. - W-What? - he gasped innocently, not affecting me now that i know he’s not so innocent anymore. I pulled on his wrist, turning and examining his forearm and instantly finding exactly what i was looking for. - What’s this? - i questioned, trying to hold back the poison on my tone. He looked down, biting his lips nervously. - Ok, you got me. I stayed up last night cause i was partying with my team colleagues and one of them was so drunk he started playing with fire and i tried helping him before things got worse but he ended setting my sleeve on fire and burning me. I didn’t tell you cause i was scared of what you would think about me, i don’t want you to have the wrong impression. - I bit the inside of cheek, thoughtful. - It doesn’t look like a fire burn though? - he gasped like a fish out of water, i didn’t care about our surroundings and if we looked like a couple arguing, i let his arm go ready to throw my second accusation at him. - What’s this the- Before i could finish and stick my hand behind his back snatch the evidence from his pocket, i was interrupted. Dance the night away, let’s dance the night away! Ooh! I sighed loudly, taking my phone out of my pocket. and turning my back to him. - This is not over yet. - Hey, Y/N. Could you- the voice in the other side of the line said quickly but i cut him off. - No. I’m in the middle of a date as we are speaking, ok? I told you that earlier! I really like this guy and something sketchy came up, i can’t do my light thing right now. - i whispered the last part. -Bu-But, Y/N! - Here we go, the whining - I’m about to have my ass frostbitten! You need to help me! I’m your brother! Are you really just gonna leave your little brother freezing here? - Jeongin whined loudly, hissing noises echoing in the background. I flinched, already picturing the mess on the street with tall buildings half-frozen and snow covering the sidewalks and cars. - Is the grumpy old dude there? - Yes! And very much gladly, Scarlet Devil isn’t here yet. Lucky you. - Can’t you just tell him to calm down? I’m sure he won’t hurt you if you do that, he loves you just as much as he loves his penguins on North Pole. - Very funny, ha. Just come here, you firefly. - Fine! Let me make up an excuse then. - Thank you, Y/N! - he replied in a singing voice. - You own me a pizza. - i said flatly before hanging up. Turning around, my date boy scratched his neck, his cheeks visibly red and hyperventilating. He looked like he would melt away at any moment out of embarassment. - I gotta go. - Yeah, me too. My room mate texted me and he needs help with the, hm, - he coughed before continuing - Caking a bake,i-i mea-an, Baking a cake, yeah.. - Sure. - i nodded at him briefly and in an awkward way before leaving. - Bye. - Wait! - He reached for my arm - I can still text you, right? - he questioned shyly. - Not if you’re gonna keep lying like this to me, Hyunjin. - i see. - he nodded back after giving me a hurt puppy look and letting of of my arm. I felt my heart clench at the sight, i just wanted to hug him and give him a chance to explain himself but i needed to talk with someone first. I gave him a weak smile before going my way, knowing i had broken his heart. Maybe Changbin was right, i had a bad taste on guys.

[artificialqueens]

How Far I'll Go Chapter Six (Ninex) - Mia Ugly, Meggie

A/N: We’re baaaaack! Hi hello how are you? LIFE is crazy. We’re so sorry it took so long to get this chapter to you guys, but honestly, Snatch Game was probably the hardest thing we’ve written. It’s hard to be funny. I’m going to be way nicer to queens who do badly on Snatch Game from here on out because it’s not easy, mama. Anyway. We hope you enjoy this SUPER MEGA SIZED CHAPTER (10.5k!) to make up for the super long hiatus. And hopefully we’ll be back with more very soon. Come visit us on our blogs: @mia-ugly and @artificialmeggie

Previously: The runway was purple, but Blair’s Scarlett O'Hara realness wasn’t enough to save a poor performance and she was sent packing. Brooke and Vanjie are (most definitely) probably still messing around, and Nina and Monet had a moment backstage when Nina narrowly avoided elimination. Or was it a moment? Oh, and Nina’s probably losing his mind.

To come: Katya, Snatch Game, a hotel bar date, and a musical number.

Nina wakes up and is still on Drag Race.

He might be having some kind of a nervous breakdown (and breaking into song periodically) but that’s showbiz, kid.

And now it’s time for the fucking Snatch Game.

Shower, shave, dress.

Prepare for another sloppy Branjie moment in the elevator (and thank God, Nina gets to avoid that for a change). Nina Bo’nina is riding down alone, and the two of them chat distractedly on their way to the conference room.

A few of the mentors are there, but no Monét and no Trixie.

Nina tries not to let that bother him as he nibbles his toast and drinks his coffee. He’s focused this morning, ready for whatever happens next. He’s been thinking about Snatch Game since the moment he got the All Stars call, is determined that this is going to be his challenge (of course, he might have had that thought about the last challenge too… No, nope, move the hell on, girl.)

Nina doesn’t see Brooke until they film the Werk Room entrance. The man looks exhausted. There are circles under his eyes that the makeup guy has done his best to cover, but it’s still obvious Brooke is not at his best. It makes Nina remember that - no matter how stupid the Canadian is being about Vanjie (and no matter what sort of history he has with Nina’s equally stupid heart), Nina still loves him. Will probably always love him in some kind of way.

“No coffee this morning?” he asks quietly as they’re waiting to get mic’d.

“Not enough.” Brooke pulls down his hideous knitted beanie (where the hell does he keep getting those? A P.A. should - frankly - take them away.)

“Have a late night?” Nina doesn’t really want to know, but if Brooke needs to talk about it -

“Oh no. No. Just - thinking.” He rolls his neck. “Like - we know what’s coming up, right? And last season - it wasn’t my best look.”

Nina barks out a an embarrassingly loud laugh. “No kidding.”

“You didn’t have to find it that funny.”

“It’s pretty funny.”

“You’re a dick, you know that? No matter how sweet Monét thinks you are.”

This makes Nina stop laughing. “Sorry - what?”

“He was just going on about you when he was watching Asia film our scene last episode. Like - ‘try this, Nina does this, blah blah.’”

Nina doesn’t know what to think about that. It makes him feel a bit warm and light-headed, but absolutely incapable of responding.

“Clearly you’ve got her fooled. I know what you’re really like.”

“Haha, yeah.” Nina’s voice is weak and he hopes to God Brooke doesn’t immediately clock his blush. Luckily, Vanjie chooses that moment to start flirting with the sound guy, and Brooke’s attention is suddenly elsewhere. Yes, yes, that’s good. Nina will have to keep Vanjie close by at all times, just in case he needs to distract Brooke.

They all romp into the Werk Room together, Shea and Asia working their few seconds in the doorway for all it’s worth (“pose for me, pose for me, POSE”). They talk a bit about Blair going home, but before they can say much about it there’s the sound of a video message, and the television flickers to life.

“Ladies,” Ru’s face comes onto the screen. “I picked you queens for All Stars because you represent the best of the best. But on second thought… I think I’d like to see some other queens in your place. Sorry, not sorry.”

The video ends.

“What the hell does that mean?” Shea asks.

“Nah, nah.” Vanjie is shaking his head in denial. “We don’t need no more hos up in here. We got too many of y’all already.”

“Hello, hello, hello!” The door opens and Ru comes into the Werk Room, followed by the mentors. Nina tries to smile and look as excited to see Ru as he’s always supposed to be, but - he can’t help being worried about whatever the hell twist is coming up. (Monét winks at him as he comes in, so that’s something. Nina will keep that one brief moment like a diamond in his pocket.)

“Ladies, for this week’s maxi challenge, it’s time for another All Star Edition of Snatch Game!”

Most of the queens around Nina are delighted - except Brooke. Nina can see him smiling, but it’s fragile and fake, and his arms are folded very tightly around himself, legs crossed at the thigh even though he’s standing; a clear indication he’s stressing.

“This time, however, to celebrate my recent single ‘Queens Everywhere’— available now on iTunes—we’re going to do things a little bit differently. I know you’re all amazing queens, but for this Snatch Game, I’d like to see if you have any other queens inside you.” Ru raises a suggestive eyebrow. “Not to give Miss Vanjie an unfair advantage.”

Vanjie’s jaw drops even as he laughs, mutters “shade” through his perfect teeth.

“For this Snatch Game, I’m asking you to channel one of your sisters. We’ve had a lot of iconic queens on this series, so you’ll have plenty of personalities to choose from. And luckily you’ve got some experts here for inspiration. Hashtag Snatch Game All Stars. Gentleman, start your engines. And may the best All Star… win!”

“The fuck?” Vanjie whispers to Nina as soon as Ru leaves. “Bitch, I had a damn plan. I brought the little gold trophies and everything. Watched all the fucking movies. Now I got to be one of y’all’s tired asses? That ain’t fair.”

“Trophies, like - you mean Oscars?”

“Sure, whatever.”

Nina has to admit that he’s kinda thrilled about this twist. He’d been telling anyone who will listen who he was going to be for the Snatch Game if he ever got another chance. He’d had a couple back-ups, of course (they’d all been told to bring a former queen, so honestly, they should have seen this coming from a mile away), but this really couldn’t have gone better for him.

He feels bad for some of the other queens though, especially Vanessa (the bitch was prepped to do Meryl Streep - Brooke’s idea, and a fucking hilarious one. He’d kill to see it).

“X-Queens assemble,” Monét calls over at him, and Nina pats Vanjie on the shoulder, goes off to sit with Monét and Asia.

Monét looks good. Real good. He’s in some loud patterned sweatshirt that has tiny slices of pizza all over it, and another pair of thick-rimmed glasses (white, or maybe baby pink?), and he’s smiling at Nina like - no, nope. Move along.

“It’s actually the Avengers that assemble,” Asia tells Monét, who rolls his eyes at her.

“Girl, you can’t be a bigger nerd than me. I won’t accept it.”

“Yeah, ‘cause knowing about the Avengers is real obscure, serious fan-only shit.”

“The shade, Miss Asia! Nina West, are you going to defend your mentor?”

Nina holds his hands up. “You’re the fearless leader, you got this.”

“The pair of you.” Monét shakes his head. “All right, what you got for Snatch Game?”

“I’ma be Brown Cow Stun-ning, yes, honey.” Asia pops her tongue after a pretty admirable impression of Monique Heart.

“And Miss Nina West?” Monét is looking at him with an eyebrow raised. Nina wonders if he’s heard the interviews, if he already knows.

“Miss Vaaaanjie,” Nina says, “Bitch, you know I don’t play games. Don’t play Monopology, Uno, Twistah, Tag, Marbles -”

“Jesus Christ, stop it.” Monét is covering his face with his hands, while Asia is cackling. “Does she know?”

“Not yet.”

“She will live. Okay, okay, I ain’t worried about either of you. Take me straight to the finale, win me that serious mentor coin.”

They run through a couple ideas for jokes, focusing more on Asia (who struggled last time and still has a bit of anxiety flaring behind her contacts). There’s a break for lunch, but it’s weirdly quiet, subdued. Snatch Game is an opportunity to stand out, to prove you deserve to be there. It’s also an opportunity to crash and burn in front of Ru, the judges, and later on - the world. So there’s that.

After lunch everyone starts putting on their paint, fixing their wigs. The cameras zoom in to get some Werk Room chatter about who is playing who, and of course they’re all dying for Vanessa’s reaction (as soon as he sees Nina pull out his pink-petalled Barbie-head dress from its garment bag, the pussycat’s out of the Prada bag).

“Noooo, bitch,” Vanjie shouts across the room, but he’s smiling. “Oh, I’mma have to whup your ass if that’s what I think it is.”

“Deuces!” Nina shouts back at him, throwing up the sign as well, while Brooke covers his face.

“That ain’t right, it ain’t right. Thought we was friends, sis.” Vanjie is laughing about it, though; Nina knows they’re cool.

“Who are you playing, Miss Shea Coulée?” Asia calls over to her sister, who is fussing with a nasty looking green wig.

“Paaaarty…” Shea drags out the word, working that vocal fry for all she’s worth. “I’m going to be Adore Delano, darling.”

Nina Bo’nina Brown thinks this is the funniest thing she’s ever heard, can’t speak for laughing so hard. Shea seems entertained by it at first, but her smile starts to tighten a little after the laughter continues a bit too long.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing, nothing. Just - good luck, girl.”

“Who are you doing then?”

“Yeah,” Cracker interjects. “You were Jasmine Masters for your season’s Snatch Game right? The judges loved it.”

“Right. So why mess with perfection? I’m going to do Miss Jasmine Masters.”

A couple of the girls stop what they’re doing when she says this.

“You’re going to play the same queen?” Cracker repeats, a bit shocked.

“Yeah. I was sickening last time, I’ll be sickening this time.”

“Aren’t you worried that they’ll read you for not showing them what else you can do?”

“Nah. They’re gonna be laughing too hard.”

“Mmmm…” Vanjie makes a low, skeptical noise.

“Trust and believe, Vanjie,” Nina B. calls over to her. “Trust and believe.”

The cameras have to reset then to film Ru’s entrance into the Werk Room, and catch all the queens’ “surprised” reactions.

“Hello hello hello, kitty girls!”

Nina beams, claps his hands, that whole production. He’s feeling pretty good though - the energy is real. He’s actually excited for this challenge, ready to show Ru what he can do. (That’s how he felt last year too, then Silky went and yanked the win right out from under him. But no time to dwell on that now.)

“How are my All Stars? I thought I’d take a little look-see at what you were planning for us. And I brought along one of our extra special guest judges to help me out.”

From behind Ru, Katya Zamolodchikova comes in waving and smiling, teeth glowing white against her red lipstick.

“Oh my god! Get your own thing!” Trixie yells from across the room, and Katya does that ridiculous/adorable silent laugh that Nina has seen on “UNHhhh” too many times to count.

“Thanks for coming, Katya!” Ru says cheerfully.

“No problem, Ru. Thanks for unlocking the attic door!”

“Well, it was a special occasion. And I was feeling generous.”

They go from station to station, cameras following them around silently, and Nina fusses a bit with his dress while eavesdropping on their conversations with the other queens. There is a bit of concern for Brooke, who’s playing Detox (no big surprise there). How is Brooke going to make Detox funny seems to be the main issue. Nina has the same question. Brooke seems more confident than last season, though, so Ru and Katya wish him luck.

There’s some controversy over Nina Bo’nina playing Jasmine again, but the girl won’t be convinced to try something else. Nina listens to some of the critiques, ignores some of the others. He’s interested, but he also knows he needs to focus on his own performance, and not get in his head. He’s not as bad as Brooke at over-thinking things, but no one goes into goddamn musical theatre who isn’t at least a little bit destroyed (psychologically speaking. Okay, maybe also a bit romantically. It’s fine).

“Nina West!” Ru says close to Nina’s ear, and he almost jumps a foot in the air. (Girl, Katya is standing four feet away from you, be cool, be cool.)

“Hello, hello, hello Christine,” he says, immediately launching into his Vanjie impression. Both Ru and Katya laugh - and Katya’s smile up close is completely unfair, like a smile cut out of paper, perfect and sharp-edged.

(“I don’t know her!” Vanjie shouts from across the room.)

“So who are you going to be?” Katya asks, completely straight-faced, as soon as she and Ru have stopped laughing.

“I don’t know, still making up my mind,” Nina says, back in his normal voice.

“And the uh -” Ru gestures to the hideous floral Barbie dress, “gown?”

“Do you like it? One of my best gowns. What’s funny?”

Katya is wheeze-laughing. Katya is wheeze-laughing because of something Nina said! He stores that one next to the Monét gem from earlier; hopes to have enough for his own tiara in the unthinkable event that he doesn’t win.

“Now on Season 11’s Snatch Game, you were hilarious, you played -”

“Harvey Fierstein and Jo Anne Worley-”

“Yes! And really, it might have been one of the strongest performances in Snatch Game herstory.”

Nina smiles gratefully (only slightly furious that Ru’s saying this despite the fact that Nina didn’t win. He deserved to win).

“So how can you possibly outdo yourself this time?”

“I’m not trying to outdo myself, I’m trying to do something different. Like Katya, when you played Björk -”

“Yes, yes, back to me,” Katya says, nodding.

“Completely different from Suze Orman, but still so funny. That’s what I’m going to do. Just - mix it up.”

“All right, Nina, good luck. Can’t wait to see it,” Ru says, moving on.

It’s fine. It’ll be fine.

As soon as Ru and Katya leave the Werk Room it’s a mad dash to get dressed and made up and before Nina knows it, before he can light a bunch of candles on an altar and find whatever religion will bring him the most luck, they’re all being rounded up and led into the studio for the Snatch Game.

Okay.

Okay.

Brooke’s Detox look is iconic, the yellow and black striped bandage dress from the Season 5 premiere (probably borrowed from Detox herself) hugs his perfectly padded body, but he’s absolutely trembling as he walks beside Nina. Nina has to squeeze his shoulder, tell him it’ll be fine.

“It’s fun, Brooke. Just have fun with it,” he murmurs as he hits the bright studio lights, has to blink until his vision adjusts (the first thing he sees is Monét and Nina’s blinded by him).

Okay.

The mentors are sitting along the sidelines, ready to watch the show play out. Nina wasn’t expecting that, but it’s - fine. Monét smiles at him, and Nina’s going to use that smile as a good luck charm - a rabbit’s foot, a four leaf clover, whatever. It’s impossible not to feel lucky when someone who looks like Monét goddamn X Change smiles at you like that.

“Welcome to the first All Stars ‘Queens Everywhere’ Snatch Game!” Ru says after they’re all mic’d and seated, upbeat music playing behind him. “Let’s meet our contestants.”

Katya beams from where she’s sitting behind her glittery podium and microphone.

“It’s everyone’s favorite queen that we found digging in the dumpster outside - Katya!”

“And yet I’m still hungry!”

Katya smiles at Ru and then snaps her teeth at the other queens.

“And - just when you thought we’d finally seen the last of her - halleloo! It’s Shangela!”

Shangela raises one hand in the air, nodding seriously. “That’s right, I’m back again, bitches. And I ain’t even in a box this time, baby.”

“Ladies, are you ready to meet the queens?”

“Yaaaaaaaaaas,” they answer in tandem.

They reset so that Ru can film the introductions, and Nina’s heart starts rattling like bones in a bag. He’s buzzing with adrenaline and nerves, but he’s going to channel that into a goddamn win. That’s right, he tells his inner saboteur - you can fuck off. This challenge is mine.

“The heart of Season 10 - Monique Heart is here!” Ru starts with Asia, whose Monique look is extremely correct.

“Hello world! Hello America! Are you brown cow stunning?” She tosses Ru a ridiculous cow-patterned baseball cap. Ru briefly feigns excitement before throwing it over his shoulder in distaste.

“Burn that,” he murmurs to one of the camera crew. “Next up, we have the original party-queen - Adore Delano!”

Shea Coulee stretches her arms in the air before making a peace sign, growling “Party,” in a gravelly voice.

“How are you doing Adore?”

“I mean, I’m good, you know? Like. Excited to be back. Where am I again?”

Nina has to turn his mouth into his shoulder to stifle the laugh that bubbles to his throat immediately. He wasn’t sold on it when they were discussing it in the Werk Room, but Shea is killing it as Adore. Her voice, her delivery is hilarious. The makeup is flawless. Her perpetual open mouth is complete perfection. As always, Shea Coulee is slaying the competition. Nina’s stomach gives a nervous jolt, so he sucks in a deep breath and reminds himself to pay attention.

He realizes he’s missed Ivy’s introduction, but Katya is gagged at the illusion of, well - Her - that Ivy is turning today. A mid-length honey blonde wig barely brushes Ivy’s shoulders and her red bustier is covered in rhinestones (and, of course, the scythe and hammer.) The look is great. The accent, on the other hand… Nina sighs a little, but tries not to get comfortable, regardless of how terrible Ivy’s Russian accent is.

Vanjie is seated at the end of the top row, decked out in red lace, a large pair of dark sunglasses balanced precariously on her nose. There’s no denying the air about her: Miss Vanjie is living Miss Valentina’s French vanilla fantasy, and no one could doubt it.

Ru beams at him. “Valentina! How wonderful to see you again!”

Vanjie draws in a deep breath. “That’s right, Ru, it’s me - Valentina. I’m back, and this time, I just want you to know, I fully learned all the words to ‘Greedy.’”

“Excellent! You want to sing us a verse right now?”

“No,” Vanjie answers, extremely primly, and even in his gravelly voice, the delivery is enough to make Ru laugh.

“Maybe next time.”

“Probably not.”

Then Ru’s looking at Nina and - oh, god, why did he think coming back for All Stars was a good idea again?

“Miss Vaaaaaanjie is here!” Ru trills.

Nina sucks in a deep breath and - “What’s the grease, mama?”

Down the row, Brooke buries his face in his hands, but his shoulders bounce with laughter. Ru is giggling loudly. Even Katya and Shangela are agape at the spot-on impression like it’s the first time he’s done it, the first time they’ve heard it.

He lets himself relax a little.

“Three seasons in a row.” Ru consults his cue cards. “Girl, aren’t you tired of competing yet?”

“Mmhmm.” Nina shakes his head vehemently, the wig he pilfered from Vanjie weeks ago flying around his shoulders. (He really does owe Brooke one for that.) “Nah, girl, you know I’m still trying to get my own show. Like Vanjie of Love or some shit like that. You know, something where these triflin’ hos gotta pay me some damn attention.”

In his periphery, Nina catches Brooke cut his eyes to him. He hopes this is okay. They haven’t really discussed the Branjie territory in regards to his jokes, but he kind of assumed it was fair game. Besides, he isn’t planning on directly hurting anyone’s feelings. He’ll keep it light, keep it fun. Besides, they’re the ones who marketed their portmanteau and gave the profits to charity. It’s practically public domain at this point.

“Next up we’ve got - oh my goodness, it’s Jasmine Masters!”

Nina Bo’nina gives Ru an extremely “over it” look. “Yeah, and I got something to say.”

“Now Jasmine - no tea, no shade, but haven’t you been on Snatch Game before?”

There’s a bit of an awkward pause before Nina Bo’nina waves him away.

“Bitch, I’ve got something more to say.”

Ru chuckles a bit, “I bet you do,” and moves on to Brooke.

“Another former All Star contestant, welcome Detox!”

Brooke looks sullen and concerned. He gives a little nod at Ru and the contestants.

“Detox, what’s the matter? You don’t look happy to be here.”

“Oh, am I not smiling?” Brooke asks through his extremely full, painted-on lips. “I can’t feel anything above my neck.” He shapes his mouth into a grotesque smile using his hands, and Ru almost doubles over. Okay, okay. Nina feels a little less worried about Brooke.

“And last but not least, we have - um, Aquaria! Hey girl!”

“Hi Ru!”

“Aquaria, is that the new way you’re spelling your name?” Cracker has written Acwareea on her name-card. A couple letters are backwards.

“Huh?” Cracker looks down at the name card. “Oh, I can’t spell my name. Actually, I can’t spell anything.”

“Okay then.”

“You know, some girls chose to read books, I chose to turn looks.”

“Yeah, you did! Now let’s get ready to play the Snatch Game!”

They break for a few adjustments on the cameras and microphones, and Nina tries not to hyperventilate, and then fuck - they’re rolling again.

“Here we go. The first question is for Katya. Katya, All Stars Season 1 paved the way, and brought back some of the most celebrated queens of all time to compete. This time, instead of competing in pairs, the queens are competing in BLANK.”

Be funny, be funny, be fucking funny. Nina tries to think like Vanjie and writes down an answer as soon as he’s got one, hoping it will be good enough.

“Okay, pens down. Katya?”

“I said competing in traction.”

“In - traction?”

“Yeah, you know, when all the bones in your body are broken and you’re in the hospital bed with your leg in the air.”

“That would certainly be a different kind of competition.”

“I’d watch it,” Katya says seriously, and Ru laughs.

“Let’s go to the Queens and see if we have any matches. Miss Valentina. What did you write down?”

Vanjie has put a lace mask on over the bottom of her face. She mumbles something indecipherable.

“What was that?” Ru asks. Vanjie mumbles something again.

“Valentina,” Ru says, clearly picking up on the joke. “Take that thing off your face.”

“I’d like to keep it on please.”

Ru shakes his head slowly, and at last Vanjie removes her mask.

“Now, Valentina. What did you write?”

Vanjie flips her card over, and Ru starts to wheeze with laughter. “That’s what I wrote down. I’d like to keep it on please.“

Vanjie’s Valentina voice is slipping, but she’s hella charming anyway, as always.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but that is not a match. Moving on to Aquaria - oh! You’ve got a new outfit.”

Miz Cracker was scrambling to put on a new wig and geometric headpiece made of iPhones while Ru was speaking to the contestants. She looks great, and she’s killing Aquaria’s affected head wobble.

“This season the queens are competing in BLANK.”

Cracker flips her card to reveal Aquaria’s instagram URL. “I wasn’t born when All Stars Season 1 aired, so I just wrote this.”

“Oh, okay - not a match.”

“I’m young,” Cracker insists, and Ru nods, patiently.

“We all were once. What did Miss Vaaaaanjie have to say?”

“I said we’d have to compete in swimsuits,” Nina says, flipping over his card.

“Swimsuits?”

“Yeah. Cause maybe then Michelle won’t read my ass for filth every damn week.”

Ru gapes at him, like he can’t believe he just came for Michelle in Snatch Game.

“Swimsuits be glamor when everybody else is doing them too, bitch!” Nina pops his tongue.

Ru laughs, high and clear, and then turns to the other Nina. “What about you, Jasmine? What do you have to say?”

Nina Bo’nina slaps her hands on the table and purses her lips. “We gonna be competing in making viral videos to get Justin Bieber’s attention, Ru.”

The room — pauses while Ru tries to save face with a polite chuckle. Nina West can practically hear the shade rattle sound effect that will inevitably be edited in at this exact moment.

Jasmine Masters probably wasn’t Nina Bo’nina’s best option (anyone could have told her that and, good god girl, they really tried). It’s not working. Nina doesn’t think any of it’s working.

Ru clears his throat, shakes his head. “I’m certain you could teach them a thing or two about that, but unfortunately, it’s not a match.”

Nina Bo’nina shrugs.

Ru shuffles his cue cards and moves on. “This next question is for Shangela. In All Stars Season 2, we changed things up by letting the queens choose who would be eliminated. This season, as well as eliminating each other, the queens will have to BLANK each other.”

There’s the scribbling of markers from the queens around Nina (who like to think he’s got this answer down blind.)

“Okay, pens down. Shangela? This season, the queens will also have to…”

“I knew what y’all were looking for, because y’all are nasty…” Shangela turns her card around. “But I’m a lady, so I said they’d have to ‘tuck’ each other.”

“Tuck each other!”

“Sometimes a girl needs a helping hand, mama.”

“Ain’t that the truth. Let’s see if we have any matches! Katya, what did you say?”

Ivy looks a bit startled to be called on first, but she beams with her red lips, flips her card over. “I said eat each other. To consume each other’s power and fill the gaping void that lives -” She pats her chest. “Right here.”

Katya (the real Katya) shrieks, but Ru shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, that’s not a match.”

“Da,” Ivy says solemnly, in her terrible Russian accent. “Da. It never is match. Like me and Trixie. Match but… No match.”

And, okay, Nina might imagine it, but it seems like the studio goes eerily quiet as everyone waits for Trixie’s reaction. She’s smiling, but it looks forced. Katya clears her throat but laughs, which seems to dispel the weird tension that formed.

Ru, oblivious to the entire thing, moves on. “Miss Vaaaanjie, what did you say?”

Nina sighs and flips his card, feeling pretty pleased with himself. “I said date each other. You know, I still be lookin’ for that Notebook shit.”

“Oh yeah, we know. No more Post-Its, right?”

“No more Post-Its, never again. I ain’t got the time, Mary!” He glances over at Brooke, raises his eyebrows seductively. “Hey, how you doin’?” Behind him, the real Vanjie mumbles something under his breath.

“I’m sorry, my dear, that’s not a match.”

“Bitch, it might be!” Nina says, still looking at Brooke, and Ru bends over laughing, stomping his foot into the ground. It’s adrenaline, it’s power, it’s like Nina knows this challenge is his.

“You ain’t even know!” he continues, channeling angry Vanessa as much as possible. “Just ‘cause one tall blonde bitch did me wrong don’t mean they all will. Shit.” Nina crosses his arms over his chest, leans back in his chair, sees Brooke duck his head and blink rapidly a few times.

That might have been too much. He just got caught in the moment and… Fuck. Dial it back a little, but stay focused.

“Moving on to Aquaria,” Ru says. Aquaria, this season the queens will have to BLANK each other.”

“I said ‘copy each other,” Cracker says tightly, in Aquaria’s low voice. “And it’s too bad Miz Cracker isn’t here. Maybe then she would have won something.”

“Oho!” Ru laughs, a bit scandalized. “Not a match, my dear.”

Cracker shrugs and throws the card over her shoulder. “Someone save that so I can call and ask Cracker if she wants more of my sloppy seconds.”

“Adore Delanoooo!” Ru trills the last syllable as he turns to Shea, who tosses the long green waves over her shoulder.

She flashes Ru one of Adore’s signature winking, mouth-open, tongue-out smiles with a peace sign.

“What did you write down, darling?”

“I said ‘party with each other,’” Shea drawls in Adore’s affected tone, adding more fry than is entirely necessary, but it gets the point across. She’s goofy and perfect.

“Party with each other,” Ru repeats.

“Yeah! I mean, you guys all look super cool. I’d hang out with you, smoke a blunt, eat some pizza. You know, party!”

Ru tsks. “Sounds like a great Tuesday night, but unfortunately not a match.” He turns to face the contestants, where Katya is sitting with her hands folded primly on her stack of cards. “Back to Katya! In All Stars Season 3, BenDeLaCreme shocked the judges by sending herself home. This season, Michelle Visage will shock everyone by BLANKING herself.”

Katya takes a minute to ponder, pressing her index finger to her lips then writes something on her card. Nina and the other queens follow suit, and when their time is up, Katya is smiling ferociously.

“Let’s see what our contestant put down. Katya?” Ru faces her. “Michelle Visage will shock everyone by doing what?”

Katya clears her throat. “I could have gone the obvious route, you know.”

“Obviously,” Ru says.

“Instead, I said, ‘sacrificing herself.’”

“Sacrificing herself?”

“With fire. To the Gods, honey.”

“Okay… Any particular God?”

“…Satan.”

“Of course. Let’s go to our queens. Detox, this season Michelle Visage will shock everyone by…”

Brooke flips his card over. “I said motorboating herself. I mean, if anyone could do it -”

“I don’t know how shocking that would be… but either way, I’m sorry, not a match. Vanessa Vanjie Mateo! What did you say, my dear?”

Nina flips over his card. “I said cloning herself.”

“Cloning herself?”

“Mmm-hmm. Need two of her to manage your ass.”

Ru laughs, and Nina thanks every God he knows the name of. The burn landed!

“And now she got that done, she’s gonna clone me some Canadian bacon.”

“Is that right?”

“Hell yeah it is.” Nina does not look at Brooke or Vanjie. “But only the good parts, baby. Trim all the fat; I’m a growing girl, need more protein in my diet.”

“Bitch, you couldn’t handle that much protein,” Vanjie-as-Valentina cuts in, and Ru fans himself.

“A controversial question! Let’s go to Monique Heart, see what she said. Michelle Visage will shock everyone by…”

“I said believing in herself.” Asia-as-Monique-turns her face to the camera. “Like I believe in myself, America. And that’s why I’d like to take this moment to announce my run for office.”

“Which office is that?”

“Whichever.” Asia’s got Monique’s flighty passion down perfectly. “One of the big ones, you know. And thank you, America, for your trust. I won’t let you down.”

Ru reads the last question of the night. “In All Stars Season 4, history was made when we celebrated the first Drag Race double crowning. This season, we’ll be making history with a double BLANK.”

Shangela is already shaking her head knowingly. There’s a scrabble of writing from the queens.

“Ladies, pens down. Shangela?”

“I’m giving the people what they want, Ru. I ain’t proud. I had to say a double fisting.”

“Did you really have to say it though?”

“Actually, mama, I did. The PAs have my children.”

“Ha! All right ladies, let’s see if we have any matches. Adore Delano. This season we’ll be making history with the first double BLANK.”

Shea holds up her card proudly. “I said the first double… elimination.”

Ru is quiet for a moment. “That’s actually been done before.”

“It has?”

“A couple of times, actually.”

“Oh.” Shea is unfazed. “Well. I don’t watch the show.”

Ru wheeze laughs, and so does Nina.

“I mean, I don’t know who any of you people are.”

“Sorry, Adore. Not a match.”

Shea shrugs, flashes a peace sign.

“What about you Katya?” Ru moves over to Ivy.

“Well, I thought about what Trixie and I like to do behind the scenes of ‘UNHhhh’ and I just had to put - fisting!” She flips her card.

“It’s a match!” Ru exclaims.

Everyone is laughing, but Nina can’t help check out the subjects of Ivy’s joke. The real Katya Zamo is smiling but - her teeth look clenched. And over with the mentors, Trixie Mattel is not smiling at all. She’s staring at her hands in her lap, systematically picking at the baby pink polish that adorns her fingernails. Hopefully none of the cameras pick up on that.

“I’ll see you later tonight!” Ivy continues, pointing at Trixie. There’s a halfway amused smile on Trixie’s face right away, but Nina feels like he was punched in the stomach. Something’s going on between the two of them, clearly. It hurts to watch - not like watching Vanjie and Brooke hurts (that’s more like watching two attractive bricks smash together). But Trixie and Katya - there’s so much history there. So much darkness. And God knows enough people have been convinced they’re in love -

“Monique Heart, what did you put down? This season we’ll be making history with the first double BLANK.”

“I said the first double crowning, dahling.”

“I’m sorry Monique, we already did that as well.”

“I know y’all did it, but I feel like it didn’t really count because my ass wasn’t wearing one of those crowns. It should have been me, and that’s a fact, America. And facts are - what? Facts.”

Ru laughs for a moment before turning to Nina. “What about Miss Vaaaanjie?”

“I said the first double wedding. And before y’all even ask: I do.” Nina glances over at Brooke, hoping he isn’t hitting this note a bit too hard.

“You do? Who’s the other happy couple?”

Ivy interrupts before Nina can answer. “Trixie! I’ve been meaning to ask you!”

“Oh honey,” Trixie calls out, looking flushed and uncomfortable. “I know I said I’d give more to charity this year, honey, but my generosity has limits.”

Behind her podium, Katya’s face is absolutely expressionless.

“Well, queens, we’re out of time,” Ru announces. “Which means the winner is… Xanax! Talk to your pharmacist. See you next time on the Snatch Game!”

Nina throws ‘deuces’ at the cameras as they get some closing B-roll, keeping up his Vanjie-persona until the very end. As soon as the director yells “cut!” Nina lets out the breath he’s been holding for the past two hours. God, it went by fast, but now he’s feeling every second of it. His muscles ache like he ran a marathon this morning and then tried kick-boxing for the first time.

“Nice work, ladies,” P.A.’s are congratulating them as they leave the set, but Nina barely hears a word. He de-drags, does some of the talking head interviews he loves so much (has to look shady about Nina B.’s performance, and worried about Brooke. Nina doesn’t put on an act or anything - he is kinda worried about Brooke. Brooke did ‘okay’ - better than Celine for sure - but didn’t stand out the way some of the other queens did. And if Brooke goes home tomorrow night - fuck. Nina doesn’t quite know how he feels about that).

Brooke was also kind of weird as they took off their paint in the Werk Room. Nina thought at first that he was in his head about the Snatch Game, but now he’s starting to wonder if his answers as Vanjie might have fucked Brooke up a bit. He hasn’t had a chance to address it, but he’s going to have to tomorrow, just to make sure they’re cool. He thinks it will be okay. He’s pretty sure. Basically. Almost positive.

Nina might be working through some latent confidence issues as he pushes himself for four miles on the elliptical later that night in the hotel (work through the pain, he reminds himself), but it’s fine really. Nothing to see here. Move along.

His legs ache and his face drips sweat, but he feels—good, actually. Solid about his performance. (He did last year, too, but he’s trying not to think about that.)

Dolly is singing about ways to make a living in his ears. He’s not assuming - but he is preparing. Just in case. If he has to lipsync for his legacy, he wants to be ready. Wants to win this one more than any other challenge, and call him crazy, but he feels like there’s a real chance. He can’t pinpoint why exactly, but there’s some kind of feeling settling down into his bones, making him think that maybe maybe maybe—

Underneath that, something uncomfortable has wormed its way into his psyche. It has almost nothing to do with the actual competition. It’s stupid and predictable and oh-so-not what he should be concerned with while on the set of All Stars for Christ’s sake. But he is and he’s here and he’s feeling things, and Nina taught himself a long time ago that feeling things fully for a while and then letting them go is far more beneficial to his mental health than taking the Brooke route and bottling everything up and burying it under vodka cranberries and couch cushions.

So sure. Okay. He’s feeling some kind of way about this thing that he saw that he wasn’t even supposed to see and isn’t even any of his business, but that’s just Nina’s luck for you. So that’s what he focuses on (or tries not to) as he turns up the resistance and pushes through the last of his workout.

He’d risked a glance back at Monét right before the PAs had shoved them off the soundstage. He’s in the business of gem collecting now, savoring those moments, polishing them up for later use, and maybe he wanted a ruby tinted the exact shade of Monét’s lipstick as they’d smiled across the room at each other.

Instead, he’d seen Monét reaching out to Shangela, crimson lips puckered, arms outstretched, ready for the kiss Nina couldn’t make himself watch.

Maybe they had kissed, Nina didn’t know; he’d made himself turn away before he could inflict any more psychological damage on himself. (He’s choosing healthier options now, remember.)

Of course they hadn’t had a moment after the last runway. Why would he think that? When Monét could have anyone he wants, and Nina is practically an amorphous blob. Like. He knows drag queens are all touchy-cuddly most of the time, and he knows that there’s probably nothing going on between Monét and pretty, perfect, halleloo-ing Shangela. But there could be, right? And goddamn, that would actually make sense. As opposed to whatever madness was going on in Nina’s head last night.

He adds even more resistance to the elliptical - just for “fun.” Or maybe spite. And yeah, okay, one night of really solid work in the hotel gym isn’t going to turn him into Naomi Smalls with legs up to his asshole or anything, but it’s a start. And the sooner Nina can convince himself that he isn’t doing this for Monét (or anyone other than himself because he likes exercise, damn it), the better.

He’s a grown-ass adult. He recognizes delusion when he sees it in the mirror every morning. It’s time to face facts—he and Monét had one (wondrously) sensual, albeit (incredibly) drunken night months ago. Monét had left the ball in Nina’s court. Nina was too chickenshit to do anything about it. Now they’re tentative friends (Monét is his mentor after all), Nina might be going crazy (this whole bursting-into-song-but-not-really thing has gone too far), and it’s all just so messy.

Nina wipes his face, stretches, and heads out of the hotel gym. He probably looks like a sweaty disaster (okay, there’s no ‘probably’ about it) and he’s waiting for the elevator down to the floor with his room, when the doors “ding” open and he’s face to face with Monét.

Could be worse. Could be Branjie again.

“Get in loser, we’re going drinking!” Monét says, with a wide smile on his face.

He’s so fucking charming that Nina momentarily forgets that he himself is a hot damn mess. Literally, like hot. Dripping with sweat.

“Um.” He gets into the elevator anyway because - he’s gotta go somewhere. “Are we?”

“If you want.” Monét gets strangely shy as soon as the elevator doors close. Or maybe that’s just in Nina’s mind. “Was the Mean Girls reference too much? I feel like maybe it’s played out.”

Nina laughs out loud, awkwardness momentarily forgotten. Monét never seems anything but confident and composed, and that one moment of doubt is - surprisingly endearing.

Not that confident, composed Monét isn’t completely endearing as well. Like. It’s all good. It all works a little too well for Nina. Everything about Monét is working a little too well for Nina lately.

Shit, the elevator is moving, decision-making time is limited.

“I kinda look like - this?” Nina waves a hand at his damp self.

“Fine as hell, girl,” Monét says with a grin, “and no pressure, obviously. Though if I’m drinking alone at the hotel bar, it’s going to look a little sad. And, look, I can make sad work for me, that’s not a problem. But after the day I’ve had -”

“Oh, the day you’ve had. Yeah, I forgot how stressful it must have been. Competing on a reality show and all that.”

“Fuck off. Uh oh, we’re passing your floor -”

“How do you know which floor is mine?”

Monét blinks at him, briefly speechless, mouth agape. (It makes something spark like a firework in Nina’s chest, shoot colours across the night sky.) The moment passes and then Monét doesn’t even have the decency to look embarrassed, just smiles like a gorgeous monster as he taps his temple. “That’s classified mentor information.”

“Yeah?”

“Hell yeah. You don’t want to know about my top-secret dossier.”

“No, I - don’t.”

“You sure you don’t?” Monét winks at him, and the elevator dings as it reaches the ground floor. “Ah, shit, missed your stop. Better come do shots with me.”

“I mean, I could just press the button again.” Nina doesn’t know why he’s resisting, he wants to get tipsy with Monét more than he wants to do most things (aside from win All Stars and run for office someday maybe).

“Nah, girl, this elevator only goes down. One-way elevator. Sorry, should have told you.”

“Guess I’m out of options.”

“Guess so.”

They look at each other. Nina remembers the man that asked him up to his room the night of the finale. Nina remembers the taste of his mouth, the way Monét kept kissing him, like he couldn’t get enough. Nina -

- is clearly exhausted. And still delusional. But fuck it.

They go to the hotel bar (isn’t this how all the bad stories start?) and Monét buys them both a tequila sunrise and tells Nina way more than he should about Trixie Mattel.

“So her man and her are split. She’s feeling some kind of way about it.”

“Of course she is. Haven’t they been together for, like, ever?”

“Something like that. Fuck.” Monét drains his drink, motions for another round. “We’ve been talking about it, but I’m not - you know. I love her, she’s incredible, but - I’m not - her best friend.”

“You’re not Katya,” Nina says quietly, and Monét scrubs his hands over his face.

“Yeah. That.”

“So why isn’t she talking to Katya, then? You guys have your phones; Katya’s here now, for Christ’s sake.”

Monét shrugs. “Beats me.”

“Are they -” Nina doesn’t have any right to this information, but - he figures that Monét wants to talk about it. “Potentially… do you think -”

“Who the fuck knows? Honestly, when I said I’d come back to do this show, I did not think it would be like being in high school again. Like who is crushing on who, who is hooking up, it -” He darts a look over at Nina and then snaps his mouth shut. “I mean.”

Nina looks away. Finishes his second drink a bit too quickly. “You want another?”

“Okay,” Monét answers before Nina can even finish the sentence.

The bartender is particularly attentive, gets another round in front of them right away. He’s got a lot of smiles for them both, says, “This round’s on me, I’m a huge fan,” as he walks off to help another customer, and Nina - can’t help it, he’s a masochist - raises an eyebrow at Monét.

“Think you’ve got an admirer.”

“Yeah?” Monét rolls his eyes. “More like you do.”

“Should we turn this into an awful romantic comedy where we make a bet about who he likes more?”

Monét laughs like he’s shocked at himself. “Girl! Okay, but what happens at the end? Who wins?”

“Well, if we’re following the formula, we probably both realize that real love was right in front of - you know, I don’t know. You, you win.” Fuck fuck fuck, what the hell is Nina even saying? He watched too many Hallmark movies last Christmas. “That voice, that ass, right?” He tries to make it into a joke, even with Monét’s eyes all honeyed and serious on his face.

Monét purses those perfect lips, presses them into a semi-smile. “Just… didn’t want to assume nothing.”

They talk for another couple drinks, and it’s - shit, it’s easy. It’s never this easy with someone Nina likes. He knows he can be funny, knows he can bring out the charm (with the right amount of alcohol in his system) but usually if there are feelings involved it all goes to hell. Nina gets weird and in his head and laughs too loudly and spills his drink everywhere.

But with Monét - it shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t be this easy, especially with all the longing covering up the background like terrible flowered wallpaper. It shouldn’t be this easy for Nina to stop over-thinking things and just exist in the presence of this gorgeous person.

But it is. It is easy. That’s the worst part of it all.

Monét is laughing and grabbing for his arm (just like finale night in the other hotel bar) and there’s heat in Nina’s cheeks that isn’t just from the alcohol, and Monét’s lips are glistening and wet as he pulls the straw between them and sips every last bit of the cocktail into his mouth.

Nina swallows thickly, leans into the sound of Monét’s deep rumbling laugh, reaches for his knee when he starts to slip off the hotel barstool.

How many drinks are they in now? Four? Five? More? The room is spinning.

Nina is laughing. Light, airy. Not giggling exactly but laughing and his cheeks are burning and Monét is looking at him through narrowed eyes.

“Be careful, Nina West,” Monét says, and his voice is low and dangerous. “Be careful lookin’ at people like that. They might get… ideas.”

Nina’s breath hitches in his throat and he swallows hard. “Ideas?”

“I might get ideas.” Monét smiles crookedly; his eyes are half-closed and sleepy as he rests his chin on his hand and leans against the bar. “You never texted me.”

Nina’s so glad he’s drunk. So glad he missed his floor, even if it has led to this. Because this conversation, this thing has hung between them for the entirety of filming and it hasn’t been uncomfortable exactly (because they’re adults, thank you very much), but it hasn’t been wonderful either. And Nina more than anything wants to rewind back to May, go to lunch, talk about anything and everything and nothing with Monét until they fall back into hotel sheets and kiss and kiss and kiss until—

“Why didn’t you ever text me?”

Nina clears his throat. “I was… I… I wanted to.”

“But?” Monét’s eyes are wide and pleading now. Still glassy with the alcohol, but inquisitive, bright, waiting to see how Nina is going to explain himself.

Nina is too, to be honest.

So he shakes his head. “I don’t know. Honestly. I don’t have a good reason. I wanted to. I should have.”

Monét ducks his head, takes the paper straw from his drink and twirls it between his middle and ring finger. It sends tiny droplets of tequila sunrise all over the wooden bartop.

“I thought about that night a lot, Nina West,” Monét says quietly, wiping at the droplets with a damp beverage napkin. “I don’t do that. That’s not like me.”

“Me either,” Nina says.

Nina knows that if they were sober this would be a very different conversation. There would definitely be more emotions, there might even be some yelling (although that doesn’t really seem like Monét’s thing and he’s never been one to raise his voice, so maybe not). Either way, they aren’t sober, and now they’re the sleepy kind of drunk and exhausted, so they just sit there at the bar staring at each other, not sure what to say next.

“Why’d you pick me?” Nina finally asks. “For the competition? Because of… that night?”

Monét shrugs and pulls his credit card out of the back pocket of his jeans. “Just wanted to win, girl. That’s it.”

“Shit, I don’t have—”

Monét waves him off. “I got it. Consider it after-hours mentoring.”

Nina thanks him repeatedly as they stand (clumsily) and make their way out of the hotel bar (stumblingly) and back to the elevator. When the doors shut behind them, Nina has a brief flash of all the things that two consenting adults can get up to in an elevator (some of which he has seen in recent days). But no. No. They had their chance, right? The ship has sailed.

Nina’s room is a few floors beneath the mentors’ (apparently), so he steps off before Monét.

“Can you find your way back to your room?” Monét asks, and Nina wishes he could says ‘no. No, I’m going to get completely lost, no, I’ll fall down every two steps if I don’t have you holding me up. No, I need you to linger in my doorway, I need to panic about whether I should try to kiss you goodnight, I need to think about inviting you in.

(I wouldn’t. Of course I wouldn’t. So - unprofessional. But - it’d be nice to think about.)’

“Yeah.” He smiles. “I’ll manage.”

Monét grins. Nina likes to think there’s a bit of disappointment around the edges of it, but he’s also a couple drinks in, and wears the rosiest of glasses at the best of times.

“Thanks for the company and conversation, Nina West.”

Nina nods. Doesn’t touch him, doesn’t look over his shoulder at Monét as he leaves the elevator.

But he doesn’t go back to his room either.

He wanders the hotel. Presses the down button and gets on a different elevator a few minutes later.

Nina’s going to regret this tomorrow when he’s exhausted, but he just can’t imagine shutting himself in his dark little room and lying down right now. He’s vibrating, on edge. It’s a bad idea, because there’s nothing more depressing than a silent hotel after midnight - something about the lateness of the hour makes all the shine come off. Nina’s feet lead him down one hallway and down another, and he doesn’t realize he’s heading to their usual breakfast-conference room until he hears… music?

Yes, there’s definitely music coming out of there, the casual strumming of a stringed instrument that doesn’t have anywhere to go. Someone might be humming too, it’s hard to tell from a distance.

Nina follows the sound.

The door is open, just a bit, and all the lights are on. Sitting alone in the room is Trixie Mattel, bent in concentration over her autoharp.

Out of drag, she looks smaller, more vulnerable. It’s clear just how young she is. She’s picking at a tune, murmuring something under her breath. Nina suddenly feels a warm breeze against his skin, and the melody that Trixie’s playing becomes clearer, a delicate bluegrass riff that would be at home on Nina’s old Emmylou Harris or Linda Ronstadt records.

Along with the warm breeze comes a gust of dandelion seeds, floating through the hallway like tiny wisps of cotton. Nina feels like he’s alone with Trixie in the middle of a waving wheat field, sun-baked and desolate. He can smell the cracked soil beneath his feet, hear the sound of crickets chirping in time with Trixie’s brittle melody.

Oh no. That thing is happening again.

Trixie starts to sing:

“You’re the brightest star in any room.

I’m never lonelier than when I’m with you.

I miss something that’s never happened.

I miss a place I’ve never been to.”

Her voice is quiet at first, but it grows louder.

“There are some bridges that you cannot cross

Say it again ‘til I convince myself

But all this certainty it feels like loss.

I wouldn’t risk this much for no one else.”

Trixie gets to her feet, starts walking through the wheatfield as she sings the chorus.

“And there’s a wide field between us

How you traveled all those miles without me I don’t understand

I’m always on the edge of falling

And you could pull me over just by reaching out your hand

If you’d only take that chance.”

She keeps plucking at the harp, and Nina feels words welling up inside him, ready to spill from his mouth (when he starts singing, he’s thinking of Monét. Because of course he is.)

“This sort of thing, it don’t come easy

I never know just what to do or say

It feels impossible, believe me

That you would ever look at me that way.”

He thinks of Monét’s lips on Shangela’s after the Snatch Game. He thinks of Monét’s eyes on him at the bar. (“Be careful lookin’ at people like that, Nina West.”)

“There are some bridges that you cannot cross

I built up walls around this paper heart

But when I see you I forget it

All of the reasons we should be apart.”

Trixie harmonizes along with Nina as he sings the chorus.

“And there’s a wide field between us

How I traveled all these miles, baby, I don’t understand

I’m always on the edge of falling

And you could pull me over by just reaching out your hand

But could I ever take that chance?”

Nina sings the last line one more time, feeling the weight of his hopeless longing rising like a tide inside his chest. “If you’d only take that chance…”

“Nina?”

“Um.”

Trixie is sitting in the conference room, staring at him. She’s holding her autoharp but there’s no flowing wheatfields or whatever. Somehow Nina ended up in the doorway, just standing there. Fuck’s sake. Is he dissociating? Musically??? This is unbearable.

“How long have you been there?” Trixie asks, confused.

“Um, just got - here, so -” Nina’s face is probably turning bright red, and he’s hoping against that he hasn’t just been shouting song lyrics blankly at a terrified Trixie Mattel for the past few minutes. “Are you okay?”

Trixie winces. Then she nods.

“Yeah, of course. Just - yes. Couldn’t sleep. Figuring some - stuff out. You?”

“Just - you know. Having an emotional spiral.”

“Oh honey…” Trixie’s smiling but her voice is soft and sad. “My first perm was an emotional spiral, honey.”

Nina laughs in a brittle way, because 1) Trixie’s hilarious and 2) it’s obvious she’s trying to make him feel better.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not right now,” Trixie sighs, shakes her head. “But thanks.”

Nina leaves her to it. After - whatever that just was - he feels ready to crash at long last. He’s still a bit buzzed from the tequila, but his nervous energy has banked, and he heads back to his room. He’s ready to sleep, ready to deal with tomorrow when it gets here.

So of course, there’s someone waiting for him outside his room.

“Nina West.” Maya the P.A. gives him a slow, broad smile the moment he comes into view. “Found your way back, hey? Great. We need to talk.”

Interlude: Trixie

Conversation with:

swamp thing

i cunt believe i agreed to this

Fuck autocorrect CANT

It knows what you REALLY MEANT

It knew i was texting you and assumed

I’ll take it

You’ll take anything

I ain’t proud mama

I’m hunnnnnngry

For serious though, things okay there?

For serious serious

4 C-ri-us

GROSS

That’s gonna be my dj name

Please welcome to the stage

Why do I talk to you

Why do i even know you

Yes things are find its just weird

Being back on set

And like also runnign a business and

planning a tour and all of it. At least

they let us keep our phones

Must be hard being successful

I’m crying for you

I didn’t know you could still produce tears

I squeeze em out

Like milking a cow

Just need the right suction

Stop talking to me

What can you say that you won’t get sued for

I want drama

Who’s fisting who

Ha monet wishes she was fisting someone

Shes like middle school crushing on a queen here

Its kinda cute and sad

If love isn’t pathetic i don’t want it

And there’s last seasons whole thing

#branjie

sell those hats

That is not about hats

I saw them at a show in LA last summer

They’re fucked up in love, mama

IN LOVE???

Who even are you

I’m a person who has eyes

that can see things

Are they not together? They’re togther right?

NOPE

Are you fucking kidding

I don’t believe it

Since when are you this romantic

I’m not romantic

I have no romance in my bones

It’s just OBVIOUS

Well not to them

SO

Ahhhh the gays

When will we figure our shit out

Realize what’s right in front of us

You gone?

Yeah sorry

Going to pass out

Don’t die or anything

Whiel i’m gone

Aren’t you sweet

Conversation with:

sure thing

Doing anything fun tonight?

Or just missing me

Babe?

Ok sorry filming again

Call you on break

Do not let me do this again

I don’t care what they offer me

(id o care what they offer me)

Breaks over talk to you after?

How was your day?

Call me if you want

I’m done for the night

Just getting white girl wasted alone

In my hotel room

At the mini bar yes i’m that famous now

I’m gonna crash call me if you get this

Love u

Conversation with:

swamp thing

I dreamt that i was in a bsatroom

At mcdonalds that one you puked in

After the show in philadelphia

Do you remember? Probably not

And you were there and fucking

Gordon ramsay was there (!!!)

And he wad hitting on you

And i wasd so pissed off

And thrn this lady came in and was like

‘You can’t be in here, this is for ronald only” And i fully shot her with a GUN

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TRACY

I just woke up and feel like a monster

She was just doing her job

Ronald mcdonald needs his private shitter

And i just killed her

I killed a living dream person

Thank you for sharing this with me

I feel so close to you right now

Yeah i don’t confess dream murder

to just ayone

But WHAT DOES IT MEAN???

Latent Ronald mcdonald fetish

Clearly

I’m not a doctor or anythng

But i’m sorry you’re dying

Yep yep makes sense

I always knew it would end like this

fuck/marry/kill

me/gordan ramsay/ronald mcD

(you wanna know what the D stands for)

No i want to sleep

For 3 more hours

But i’m on reality tv again

You should havw stopped me

Maybe this dream was a warning!

I’m supposed to save you

From endng up on Chopped

What did you dream about?

U have to tell me even if it’s sexy

That’s the law

Another teeth falling out one

Mama you know that’s my kink

Conversation with:

sure thing

Good morning sexy thing

I’m so tiiiiiired

Don’t make me get up yet

Hey are u alive?

Yes

Yay u r alive!

I called u yesterday night

And at lunch

U ok?

Did u get my messages?

yes

Ok

Can i call you?

I miss your voice

I cant talk right now

Sorry

Ok

I’ll call you tonight

After filming?

Sure

Love u gorgeous

Hey just called left a message

Give me a shout later

I miss you

Brian

Have you seen the pics

from the MTV Movie Awards?

Ummm ok

No i’ll look them up

Ok

Fuck my lashes are so uneven

U breaking up with me over lashes

Lol

U and kat are pretty cuddly

Haha

are u being serious

Ur joking

Are u ok? Can i call u?

I’m out right now

Call you when i get home

Ok

But we’ve talked about this before right

U know we’re friends

Me and Kat

We’re just friends

U know this

Yeah i have lots of friends

And we don’t hold hands and kiss eachother

All the fucking time

So we’re fdoing this over text?

Is that what we’re doing

No i’ll call u later

Call me ok? I love u

U cannot be jealous of katya

She’s my Business Partner

And it’s DRAG

We touch each otehr all the time

We all do

Gotta go call u later

Conversation with:

swamp thing

Can we talk?

Not if ur busy

Let me just stop blowing this senator

And kick the clowns out

And get thes handcuffs off

No i’m not worth it

Keep these good things goin

It was winding down anyway

Gettin awkward

I have yoga tomorrow

Whats up pussycat

This is gonna sound really weird

Have you seen the pics of us

from the movie awwrds

Probably blocked them out

why????

am i like a troll

No more than usual

David texted me about them

And he’s all pissed off??

Because of us holding hands

Like so so stupid right

WHAT???!

Thats crazy!

Im so sorry

This isn’t the handmaids tale

He can calm his tits

(sorry, not to attack him just) Has he seen our shows??

What did you tell him

To fucking call me!!!

And he hasn’t

And i’m on this stupid set and can’t just go

See him and convince him how crazy he is

I’m so sorry

Do you want me to call him

I’ll call him

Tell me what to say

No don’t

Don’t worry

Its fine

I’ll talk to him

Conversation with:

swamp thing

Hey are you awake

If youre awake call me

david and I are done

over the phone

FUN

sorry you’re clearly asleep

I’m just a little drunk

brian

he said some things

that ive been thinking about

maybe call me tomorrow if u can

guess ill see you soon anyway

dont die while im gone

miss u

[tumblunni]

MORE UPDATES ON THINGS WHAT HAPPEN

The half week milestone of the hospital house thingie time! I think the term they use for it is "a residential stay"? Cos like its not a hospital its a shared housing block thats just full of doctors. I get to sleep in a real bed and there's a nice community room and board game nights and stuff. But its still really scary how intense the supervision can be! Like they have a window to look into your room once per hour every hour constantly. And they have to go through your undies and catalog them as part of the possessions check. I was not warned about that and it was mega embarassing trying to explain a binder to a bunch of old lady doctors! Oh and i had yo do a urine test today which was possibly the most fuckin embarassing thing in the actual universe. And you're not even allowed to take your own pills! They keep them locked in a big ominous wall of lockers and you have to come into the office and swallow the pill while theyre watching. I guess maybe because some people might be faking their illness and selling their pills on the black market or whatever? But that literally doesnt happen with antidepressants, they have no 'high' or even any effect at all on non-sick people. So it just makes no sense to me and its real embarassing cos like i said i suck at taking pills with plain water and without a straw. The ones i take are real damn chunky things the size of my thumbnail! I think i'l get better at not (literally) choking under pressure over time, tho. Hopefully.

Anyway that's all the bad out of the way! Now the good and the neutral and the just miscellaneous!

Its still nervewracking having to shower in a shared house but they have a cool walk-in shower and ive never tried one of those so it was vaguely interesting. And im allowed to take my showers early at 6am to minimize the chance of anyone else trying to use the door, lol. My biggest fear is having some staff member walk in on me when im naked like back in that homeless hostel. Oh or that time in the homeless hostel where the teenage boys filled the entire bathroom with inflated condoms wall to wall. Like wow so much damn effort to prank the stupid nervous bunni who probably would have been embarassed by literally anything else. Man this place is bringing so many memories of that homeless hostel but at least this time its a place specifically for sick people and they know i'm anxious doing shared cooking and board games and whatever so they dont make fun of me for it. But in a lot of ways that hostel had more freedoms too.. *shrug*

Anyway! A good! I get to have cooking lesson!! I know literally nothing about cooking and now i get to know several thing!! This nice doctor called Josie taught me how to make an omelette and i tasted ham for the first time! That is just how limited my life experiences are, lol. Oh and they want me to say that she's a 'mental health worker' not a doctor, but its all real confusing?? Like they have the staff that look after you and then the only ones we're supposed to call doctors are the ones who actually have the authority to prescribe pills and diagnosies. But like if youre in a hospital you'd call them all doctors, not just the actual surgeon? Or i guess theyre kinda like nursing home staff?? But they cant be support workers cos support workers are specific government assigned inspector type guys like Richard who only meet with you once a week.and i have to remember to not call him a social worker either cos social workers only work with family and custody related stuff. I dunno?? Basically the medical industry has a lot of names that dont really describe what the actual thing is, lol. Anyway the ham omelette was great and now im gonna try and remember so i can try and make it myself next time! HAM ACCOMPLISHED

Also i played bingo with a few other patients and it was fun but funny that i lost 6 times in a row when there were only 3 of us. I got a consolation prize of a pack of neon highlighter pens so hell yeah!!

I'm getting booked in to try some additional classes starting next week on monday and tuesday morning. The computer programming one was sadly unavailable, but i managed tp snag a place in "confidence building group therapy" and "basic how to use power tools". I wasnt really all that interested in that one but i thought it would be a useful skill even if its less fun. And maybe you get to actyally make something to take home at the end? A lil shelf to help organize this awkward lil room better, maybe?

And an unexpected bonus of being semi-hospitalized is that i get a free bus pass! And cos im here cos of my social anxiety theyre gonna help me get outside more and actually use this thing to the fullest! The first thing we did was the trip to actually get the bus pass itself. It was like "bus, take my money to take me to the place where i can never give you money again!" XD Ive been really stupidly nervous about going on tne bus in my old neighbourhood cos MAN it was really isolated there and everything just amplified my mental illness. An almost two hour bus ride to get to ANY SHOPS AT ALL, with only one bus for the whole town so it was always crowded and full of screaming kids and gossipy everyones. Social anxiety: maximum level proud mode!

So yeah i feel BIG ACCONPLISHED! I was able to take this bus for the first time with a doctor coming with me. Power Grandpa The Strong. His actual name is Paul and he has awesome sleeve tattoos of like anchors and dragons and sports teams and stuff! And he likes thrift stores and wearing silly hats too! Its like he's powerful enough to wrestle away everyone's anxieties! I was able to be a bit reckless too and i went out wearing my fave shirt thats like trans pride coloured plaid. A POWERFUL SHIRT IS REQUIRED FOR THIS QUEST! so we went to the office to register this bus pass and i panicked a bit cos apparantky we brought the wrong form and i wrote my name in the wrong box and then my passport photo looked terrible and aaa! But it all worked out and i was kinda freaking out for nothing. And he took me for a lil tour of the place and showed me this cool shop that does spray paint tye dye t shirts with spiderman on them?? Why does this incredibly specific shop exist and how have i never heard of it before?? There was also a new harry potter shop next to the disney shop, and the old used book store i used to visit as a kid was still there, complete with rickety spiral staircase and ominous basement trap door. I'm still not brave enough to go down there, but apparantly its just the history books section so meh. Then we actually went to a fancy coffee shop and i had this brain freeze mango ice frappucchino thing! Im trying all the new foods!!

And i was TOO HIGH ON DECADENCE and made a RECKLESS CHOICE! i blame power gramp's amazing tattoos, they were totally whispering to me that i shoukd screw the rules and ride off into the sunset on a metaphorical harley davidsen of mental health

So i was like Hey Paul I Am Totally Fine Getting Home On My Own, and it was like i was floating off in the distance somewhere begging my body to not speaketh these words. But it ended up working out okay! The excitement of it all and the sense of accomplishmebt from getting there all okay allowed me to mostly not freak out as i spent the day in town and looked at some shops and stuff. Basic Living Skills: Completed! I chilled out in the library (tho i dont have a card yet, alas!) and visited like five comic and anime stores, and got lost but found a Pizza Hut and that was SO NOSTALGIC FOR MY CHILDHOOD and it didnt taste quite as good as i remembered but the waiter guy was super nice and had a similar shirt and it was All Good! Oh and i gave all my money to a homeless person and that's why i'm broke now. And i bought a plastic slug! I just saw it from across the room and was like OH NO I AM BEING MAGNETISED TOWARDS IT OH NO IT HAS ALREADY BEEN BOUGHT. I need to think of a name for this new friend!!

So yeh i got home okay and i felt really acconplished and that was the furthest trip away that i've taken in ages! Man my mental illness makes me feel pathetic, but it also brings ridiculously big joys from the smallest of silly acconplishys!

Oh and thank you so much to the people who sent me emails! It really helped so much to keep me from giving up during the first few days before i made a bit of progress and felt like i could really do this, yknow? Especially big thanks tp the friend who sent me that mysterious super happy song that they found on a mystery disc in a german market?? Im still not sure whether its in greek or hasidic jewish but it sounds AMAZING and i hope someday i can figure out the band so i can hear their other singles!

Ok this is bunni out! BIG HUGS FOR THE EVERYONE AAAA

[angelicspaceprince]

Summer Lovin’ (Part 1)

Author: Anna

Title: Summer Lovin' (Part 1)

Pairing: Gabriel/Reader

Character/s: Gabriel, Castiel, Lucifer, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Balthazar, Crowley, Michael, Charlie, others I can't remember.

Word Count: 3, 634 words

Warnings/Tags: Teacher!Gabriel, History Teacher!Reader, overseas trips, having a crus on our man, lead up to smut, angst and goodness

Summary: You had no idea how this happened. Well, that was a lie. You knew exactly how this happened. Those stupid golden eyes and ridiculously sexy smirk somehow managed to throw you off course every time they were in your vercinity. You had no idea how you were going to handle spending two months taking care of an entire grade of students as you travelled around Europe...especially when Gabriel was going to be with you every step of the way.

Notes: Just discovered the @gabriel-monthly-challenge blog and saw their prompt for this month being high school AU and decided, yes, Gabriel as a high school teacher being the little shit we know and love. So, here we are! I'm about to go on placement so either there will be a TON of more writing that may or may not be. (Was originally going to be one large fic but had to break it down, I start placement NEXT WEEK so I'll prbably finish this series then plus all my others that are overdue to be finished)

Tags: oddone92. elyshakate. authoressskr. thewhiterabbit42, gabriel-monthly-challenge, saintbartine, ever-faithful-sidekick, saltvattenshar, diehadess, mega-supernatural-writings, shanghai88, sassysousa, micas-dont-like-rain, randomlonelytorment, oldparchmentandcoffee, ihopehellhaswi-fi. gabrieltrash, thoughtfullyoptimisticgalaxy, djpaige13paige, letsfeerintheheadlightsuniverse, taylorchwan, pizzafromhell, tuesdays-suck-for-tuesdays, archangelsanonymous

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 Summer Lovin' (Part 1)

 You have no idea how this happened.

Well, that was a lie. You know exactly how this happened.

Those freaking golden eyes and that ridiculously sexy smirk.

Mr Gabriel “call me Gabe” Shurley was the religion teacher at your new school. An elite school for the rich that made you feel incredibly small and insignificant when you first approached it looking for work.

You'd just moved from your old home to here, looking to get away from a nosey family and old boyfriends, and you were extremely lucky in the sense that the old history teacher has decided to retire, leaving a place for you to slip right in to take over.

You were fairly easy going and it took a lot to fluster you. But somehow that religion teacher always managed to make your brain short circuit and cheeks flush a deep red.

You didn't even hear what he said, just agreed to it when you realised he asked you a question and wasn't telling you a story. When a bemused Sam Winchester - science teacher who, as you had figured out during your third day here, every female and a few male students either had or had had a crush on him and was (as your class put it) “super cool” - came up and gently explained what you signed up for.

A six-week long school trip around Europe.

Okay, a) what sort of school has a grade-wide trip to Europe to help with their studies and b) how did you not realise that's what he was asking?

You, as a general rule, avoided day excursions like the plague. The paperwork alone was enough to invoke anxiety, but with the added stress of being the sole responsible adult for 23 kids was enough to set you off.

You didn't know if you could handle a two-month trip, responsible for an entire grade. The planning alone was enough to cause you to freak out. You should pull out, you still could. Hell, Mr Gabriel ‘Call Me Gabe’ Shurley had come up no more than six times to ask you if you wanted to withdraw.

But you couldn’t say no to him.

At least there were going to be other teachers attending, thank God. The school had decided that for a grade of a hundred and five that eight teachers and two aides for the kids who required one-on-one support would be sufficient. And, to make matters somewhat more bearable, the other teachers and aides being sent you were, at the very least, on good terms with. When Sam told you that Zachariah (not Zach. Never Zach) never came along on school trips, you swore if God Himself appeared before you, you would have kissed him in relief. Creepy Zach and Lilith, who were the two major staffing members that you had real issues with, weren’t even invited according to your reliable source. The staff that was coming, you felt comfortable with and were class favourites.

Sam was coming, obviously, and so was his brother Dean, the PE teacher. Both of the Winchester brothers were nice enough, Dean was flirty and always insisted on wearing these tiny, red shorts during PE sessions, Sam assured you that they weren’t coming on the trip, he was making sure of it.

Then there was the Maths and Art teacher, Crowley MacLeod. The snark sessions the two of you shared left most of the staff room amused, and you enjoyed the banter the two of you had on a regular basis. You were still pretty confused as to how he could have two completely opposing subjects as his classes, but he seemed to make it work. Took no shit from anyone and, quite often, would sass his students (or anyone, really) just for being in the room.

You loved it.

The drama teacher was also an amazing person, although you didn’t believe his name at first. Who on Earth calls their son Lucifer?

Lu, as he allows you and a select few call him, was also incredibly sarcastic. Must come with the job description for the teachers in this school, including ridiculously good looking, honestly. Were they running a school or a runway?

Doesn’t matter, that’s beside the point. Lu had a flair for the dramatic, both in the theatre and out of it. So it made sense to you that he took up drama, although his teaching style could be rather...well, simple. On several occasions, the kids had told you that he played drama games every so often but for the most part he’d tell them to write a play to perform in x amount of weeks.

I mean, if it fits the modules he had been given then you guess it’s okay? You could never imagine doing that, however, you had to have everything planned to the minute’s detail, including plans A-Z in case anything happened that caused you to go off track.

Then you have Castiel, the English teacher. Possibly the most amusing person you had met. Most things just flew over his head, but the few things that he actually questioned always cracked you up. He was possibly your favourite teacher to approach for serious concerns and philosophical discussions, always having the time to chat. Quite often, the two of you would start a conversation about school or marking, him answering any and all questions you had, and it would quickly turn into a discussion or debate about some topical issue. It was amazing.

Then there was Balthazar. When God created the word Man-Whore, he had Balthazar in mind. His shirts were always plunging and awfully tight, and every Monday morning he’d walk in and loudly proclaim his weekend activities, or as he liked to call it, his conquests. Teaching Food and Bev as well as French, you were pretty sure he embodied the phrase ‘well, it’s four pm somewhere’. Kids loved him, he always had some story to tell and, for the older ones, stories involving alcohol were a fan favourite.

The music teacher was another friend that you actually started spending time with outside of school. Marie, the tall brunette that was kind, wise but with an evil streak. From the moment that you first met Mr Gabriel “Call Me Gabe” Shurley, she was determined to set the two of you up, which led to a lot of awkward moments. I mean, the moment he’s in the room, all rational thought is out the window. Scratch that. All thought it out the window. You were pretty sure Marie got some form of derived pleasure out of this. And you highly doubt that she was going to behave over the two-month trip.

Finally, you have your two aides for Crispin and Louise, your friendly neighbourhood geek and lesbian, Charlie, and possibly one of the most serious men you’ve ever met, Michael. Charlie was amazing, a people’s person and genuinely funny. The two of you would talk about your favourite shows and movies before and after classes, and would often come up with new and creative ways to encourage Crispin with his work. Michael, on the other hand, was completely opposite.

The relationship you had was strictly professional, and you often didn’t know what to say to him outside of school work. He was very focused and was amazing for Louise, patient and kind to the girl with so many questions as she signed them out. You had put in a few things to help with Louise, but for the most part, she just needed a translator and occasional assistance with understanding school work. He made sure to remind you for subtitles on all YouTube videos or movies shown, even though you made a point not to forget without his reminders. The texts he sent you were short and sweet and were always to remind you of things you needed to bring in for Louise’s dyslexia.

So, he was an amazing guy. Just a polar opposite to Charlie.

All in all, you knew the trip was going to be a great one. Even as you stand, practically comatose, with your steaming coffee warming your hands as you all do a final headcount at the airport. Parents either respecting their kids and not making a big deal over them leaving the country for what would most likely feel like an eternity, and others full on embarrassing them as they blubber and sob as their babies make their first step to exploring the world (somewhat) alone.

Who decided that you were all going to fly out before the sun had even risen? To meet up at the airport at four in the morning was a feat you weren’t sure you were going to be able to succeed in but, miraculously, here you were, rather than in the comfort of your warm, soft bed.

Gabriel was, of course, a morning person. Already up and running at a speed you didn’t think you could ever match as he was excitedly chatting away and reassuring parents and students, making final checks and rushing around the airport to make sure that everything was in order. So far, when any of the members of the faculty came up to greet you, they got a grunt.

Simply too early for you.

Marie, as it would appear, was in the same boat as you, standing next to you as the two of you silently count and recount the students as Gabriel does the final lot of announcements about how the lot of you were going to travel. Travelling with a hundred and five students was going to be a challenge, so having groups of students that each teacher and/or aide was responsible for seemed logical, after all, it’s easier to look after nine-point-five students then it was all of them at once. The ten you were responsible for were the easy ones, thank God. Any other time you’d have the brain capacity to take care of the difficult students but today was not that day.

Marie bumps you slightly as you take a sip of the ambrosia that is your coffee. “What seat are you in again?”

“1B?” You confirm, looking down at your ticket. You see a faint smirk in the corner of your eye as Marie moves to take a mouthful of her drink, no doubt to hide the fact that she knew something you didn’t. “Marie? What’s going on? Why did you want to know?” She shrugs.

“Curiosity.” She replies sweetly before moving to stop an argument between two boys before it got physical. You had a funny feeling, but that could be from the lack of sleep. But the almost sinister look Dean was sending your way made you think that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t that.

Final goodbyes were said and the boarding of the students commenced as the eleven of you tried to get them to board in an orderly manner. An impossible task, but somehow you managed.

You were seated with Jordan next to you, a quiet boy who, immediately after sitting down, pulled out his book and started to read. You liked Jordan, very brainy and never really was a bother. Relieved that you wouldn’t have to deal with one of the more hands-on kids directly next to you, you settled, pulling out your own book to read once take off commenced. Usually, you’d listen to music but you didn’t think that would be a great idea this time around.

“Hey there, neighbour.” A cheerful voice states as a weight plonks down in 1C. When you turn, your stomach does a turn, cheeks instantly flushing red and burning your skin. Golden eyes meant one person. Gabriel.

Shit.

Ten and a half hours next to the one person you couldn’t properly talk to.

“Hey.” You finally managed to not-quite blurt out with a tense smile. “Kids ready?”

“Yeah, just.” He agrees. “You ready for this?”

“Once I fully wake up.” You can feel yourself trying to be somewhat normal, but your voice has somehow gone back to how it was when you were fourteen, something that caused embarrassment to eat away at your very core.

“If you need a nap, I don’t mind being your pillow.” He winks your way, clearly enjoying how you somehow managed to get more blood into your face.

“I’m sure I’ll be fine.” You state somewhat sharply as you open your book and attempt to read, the words not quite making their way into your brain, signalling the conversation was over.

Wait a minute.

Wasn’t it Dean who booked the plane tickets?

~~~

When, and how, you fell asleep was news to you, but all you could think of now was the ridiculously warm and soft pillow you were leaning on. And occasionally moving.

It was annoying, causing you to grumble and shift slightly in an attempt to get more comfortable. A quiet voice asking ‘sir’ with a low ‘shhhh’ in response quickly made you realise two things.

A), there was no pillow and B) if there was no pillow, that meant there were two possibilities as to whom you were leaning against.

Sitting up quickly, rubbing your eyes and the slight drool that dampened the corner of your face, you were completely mortified when you realised you had been sleeping and drooling, on your crush, who saw nothing of it.

“Morning, sweets!” He exclaims cheerfully as the student - Olivia - walks away, clearly, her question answered. “Sleep well?”

“I’m so sorry.” You start, ready to jump into a full-blown apology when he simply shrugs you off.

“Don’t apologise, I’ve been told that I’m a fantastic pillow.” He grins brightly as your brain fog begins to, yet again, settle down causing your brain to slow, the bright smile he sent your way causing it to jar suddenly. For fuck’s sake. “Not a morning person?”

“Not much of a person in general, if I’m honest.” You hear the words tumble out of your mouth as you move to sit more comfortable, grimacing at the crick in your neck. You can see his face twist in amusement, trying to hold back a small amount of laughter from bubbling forth. “Where’s the coffee? Actually no, where are we?” You correct yourself as he opens his mouth to answer.

A small paper cup filled with glorious brown liquid appears in front of you. “You missed her by about two minutes, so I grabbed you a cup.” The sip you took felt heavenly as warmth filled your system and you began to slowly pull out of the fog and the wrench in the gears of your brain started to shift slowly. “You slept for about eight hours, we have another hour and a bit to go.” You groan. “What? Is sitting next to Jordan that bad?” You quickly swivel to make sure Jordan isn’t offended but, thankfully, he’s fast asleep. He’s a little bit sensitive, that boy.

“No, not a fan of flying.” You admit. “If God wanted us to fly, He would have given us wings.” You quote your mother. Gabriel starts to laugh, obviously trying to keep the volume low so not to wake up the surrounding sleeping students.

“You sound like Dean.” He lifts his head to look behind the two of you, you follow suit. Sure enough, there was a pale, with an almost green tinge, Dean Winchester, gripping onto his chair for dear life as Sam continues to obviously enjoy his misfortune and tease the shit outta him. “He hates flying.”

“Then why do the trip?” You ask him quietly, smiling reassuringly when Dean’s eyes flicker to yours for a second.

“To get some of, and I quote, hot European ass.” You roll your eyes as you turn back, leaving Dean to his misery.

“In that case then, Dean can suffer.” As you move to drink more of your coffee, you feel Gabriel’s laughter next to you.

You really liked his laugh.

~~~

The rest of the hour flew by quickly, sleepy but excited students slowly waking up as the plane prepares for landing, chatter slowly filling up the cabin as you help calm nervous students and stop the overexcited ones from freaking out the rest. In between all of that, you managed to somehow, miraculously, have a semi-normal conversation with Gabriel, find Marie to basically just slap the upside of her head as clearly, she knew the torment that awaited you when you first boarded the plane, and finish the last two chapters of your book. The moment you were on land again, you could have jumped for joy. Dean all but fell down the stairs his legs were so shaky from the ride, and you were certain his voice was about two octaves higher than usual.

Student check and baggage claim happened relatively quickly...well, slightly quicker than you expected for a group of over a hundred. You managed to track down Dean to check up on him as your kids were getting their bags, and although his voice hadn’t quite returned to its normal deep pitch, he didn’t look as green as he did when he left the stairs.

He was, however, strangely interested in how your flight was, and surprisingly disappointed when you informed him you spent most of it sleeping and the rest dealing with the kids. If it wasn’t for the fact that you were adults, you would have suspected something was up.

Herding tired and excited kids into a bus at 7:30 at night was a little disorientating (read: super fucking hard) when you were still running at your home state’s time of 2:30 in the afternoon, your mind confused at why it was suddenly going dark, but you managed. Thankfully, the bus driver who addressed everyone as ‘flower’ did a pit stop at McDonald's so the kids had something to eat before checking them into their rooms for the night, having a meeting with the head of their group before lights out. Gabriel had run ahead to check him in, so you grabbed him something to make sure he ate, which allowed Marie to basically take the piss out of you as you two waited for the others to finish.

Finally, you were at the hotel. Your heavy eyelids wanted to cover your lead-like eyes, but your jobs weren’t done. You had to hold a meeting with your group of students to remind them of the rules (no fooling around, lights out at 10pm, breakfast at 7am and to be ready for departure at 9am, unless otherwise specified, no sneaking out, no alcohol, no drugs and, if you really must leave your room, make sure to inform a teacher and take a buddy, no we don’t care that you are 18 we are responsible for you, therefore, you will do as we say) and get them ready for the next day, which was going to be an easy one. Visit Westminster and possibly do a bit of exploring.

The nine you had were easy, and you had the added extra help of Charlie as Crispin was in your group, alongside Victoria, Lucas, Ursula, Joel, Ryan, Elizabeth, Jane and Angela, meant that you were sure you were going to have it easy. Sure, Lucas and Joel together was often a recipe for trouble but the two of them never caused you any grief and Victoria was upset that her boyfriend was in another group but she would be fine once they all figured out that these mini-groups were just to check to see if everyone was present and to give them the run down of the next days events.

After explaining this to them, they all seemed settled that they were, in fact, going to be able to hang out with their friends. The meeting itself lasted only ten minutes, located in the boy's room before you left them all to get ready for bed, having shown the girls to their room as you walked down to your room.

You already knew that you were going to have to share with another teacher. The groups had to share rooms in their gender and so did teachers, mostly due to room restrictions and to be fair on students.

You had no idea who you’d been paired with, but Marie had assured you that she had put in a word so you wouldn’t have to deal with the snorers (the Winchester bros) or the extremely fussy ones (Castiel and Michael), especially as you would have to stay with them for the duration of the trip.

Secretly, you were hoping for Marie, who was hoping for Dean, or Charlie, who was hoping for Marie. That was a Shakespearean love story right there.

So, when you opened your door and no one was present, you assumed whoever you were staying with hadn’t finished their meeting, so you move to claim the bed closest to the window, hoping to be more or less in bed within the next ten minutes.

Teeth brushed, PJs on, book out, you were more or less ready for bed and just waiting for the other teacher to rock up. It wasn’t until another twenty minutes had passed that the door was finally slammed open.

Oh no.

You can’t be serious.

You don’t know if your heart, mind, body and soul could take this.

“Hiya sweets!”

It was going to be a long trip.

[vivithefolle]

I love your analysis about the Cho/Ron interaction, but I'm just curious as to how Harmionie shipping Quorans would respond to it if you post it there. Knowing them, they'd probably see it as more proof that Harmony works because "Look! Hermione doesn't care when Harry is tactless but she can't stop nagging Ron when he is tactless!" 🤣 Seriously, though. Hermione is WAY nicer to Harry than she is to Ron. Come to think of it, Hermione is nicer to most people than she is to Ron.

Aaaah, well that’s simply because Hermione is… awful.No, no, seriously, when Hermione is in love, she’s terrible. She can be a nice friend but when she’s in love with you she’s horrible. Especially since she’s a teenager.

Hermione is a prime example of a Tsundere.

The cute, blushy, giggling Hermione who flirts with [insert character here] and cries delicately when she’s rejected? Pure fanfiction. Canon Hermione keeps her love aggressively hidden behind countless iron walls, only letting it peek through when she’s absolutely sure the person she likes isn’t looking.

“How was practice?” asked Hermione rather coolly half an hour later, as Harry and Ron climbed through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room.“It was -” Harry began. “Completely lousy,” said Ron in a hollow voice, sinking into a chair beside Hermione. She looked up at Ron and her frostiness seemed to melt. - Order of the Phoenix

Rare footage of the Hermione Granger, scientific name Selfinsertus Overratedus, displaying interest in specimen of mighty fine hunk

Hermione isn’t sweet and tender and kind with the one she loves. At least, the teenage Hermione isn’t. She’s harsh, she’s disdainful and only gives out breadcrumbs of affection once in a while as part of the complicated mind game she’s playing.

You see, Hermione is never going to make the first move. You must be the one to ask her out, because she sure as hell ain’t going to do it for you.

This is due, I think, to the events of Goblet of Fire. Viktor Krum asks her out because Rowling absolutely wants Hermione to be the ugly duckling who transforms into the beautiful swan, so she brings in Cardboard Cutout With No Personality Aside From Being Famous to woo her self-insert.

Now Hermione has gotten the experience of being asked out, and being a rather socially awkward person who also hates being vulnerable - more on that later - well, now she just assumes that if someone asked her out once, then anyone who does like her can do the same.

Which is why she doesn’t realize that Ron is actually aware he loves her. There’s a big comedy of assumptions going on in Romione’s love story.

Hermione believes that Ron either 1) likes her but is oblivious to his own feelings and so she thinks she has to “give him hints” to make him realize it. Emphasized best by this exchange:

Hermione laughed.“Harry you’re worse than Ron… well, no, you’re not, “ she sighed, as Ron himself came stumping into the Hall splattered with mud and looking grumpy. “Look - you upset Cho when you said you were going to meet me, so she tried to make you jealous. It was her way of trying to find out how much you liked her.”“Is that what she was doing?” said Harry, as Ron dropped on to the bench opposite them and pulled every dish within reach towards him. “Well, wouldn’t it have been easier if she’d just asked me whether I liked her better than you?”“Girls don’t often ask questions like that,” said Hermione.

“I’ve sent him so many signals and yet he doesn’t notice. Woe is me!”

2) doesn’t actually likes her, but sees her just as a good mate or worse, as another sister.

Hermione keeps flip-flopping between her two assumptions throughout the series, all because of her biggest assumption: she thinks that if Ron was interested in her, he would ask her out. Because Viktor Krum was interested in her, and he asked her out, so why wouldn’t Ron do the same? They’re both boys and she’s a girl, after all. Isn’t that how it works?

This is also why Hermione’s “““invitation”““ to the Slug Club isn’t even an invitation - really, it’s worse than Ron’s invite to the Yule Ball, at least he was actually offering her to come:

“We’re allowed to bring guests,” said Hermione, […], “and I was going to ask you to come, but […] I won’t bother.”

“I was going to ask you to come but I won’t bother.”

This is literally what she said. It’s more of a “look Ron! An invite! If you’re good maybe I’ll think about letting you have it!” than anything else.

It’s because this is Hermione’s last resort. The ultimate humiliation. She has to resort to inviting Ron when in her mind, he’s supposed to be the one asking her out. He’s the boy! He’s supposed to do it!(And this is why I laugh at all the fools who claim that Hermione is the pinnacle of feminism. Seriously, the girl is more of a misogynist than any other character in the series.)

Hermione failed to take into account that Ron’s insecurity cripples him worse than she imagines, and that he copes with it differently than she copes with her own insecurities.

And this is the part where I explain about Hermione’s hatred of being vulnerable.

You see, I can relate quite a lot to Hermione - I see a lot of me in her, and a lot of people who hurt me in the past as well.

Bullied because she was an easy target, being the know-it-all and local teacher’s pet? Yep. Bullied for her appearance (I got braces when I was 8 and have been wearing glasses since I was a toddler, she had her bushy hair and buck teeth)? Can relate. Cried easily? Super check. Rule enforcer when the teachers weren’t around? Mega check.

And naturally, when you’re such a water fountain as I was, there’s nothing more humiliating than ending up crying in front of your bullies. You quickly learn that it will bring you nothing but more bullying. More humiliation. More vulnerability.

Hence why you start despising any form of vulnerability you find in yourself.

Obviously, being in love? That’s one of the most terrible things you can find yourself in when you’re afraid of being vulnerable. Because, oh god, your feelings are completely insane around the person. They make or ruin your day. You keep wanting to show them how cool / great / impressive you are, and you try desperately to mask all your little faults so they will hopefully return your feelings.

Given that Hermione is already not the most socially-aware battering ram in the knife drawer, she acts especially nasty to Ron, because she’s overcompensating for the vulnerability he makes her feel. And she most likely isn’t even aware of it! Forget Fanfic Hermione cringing as she realizes how mean she sounds, welcome Canon Hermione who just doubles down on a pointless argument just to drive home how totally in control she is and how Ron has absolutely zero effect on her, no siree!

In short: Hermione overthinks. She overthinks everything. She’s overthinking every of Ron’s actions, she’s assuming he’s either out to get her because she assumes he’s perfectly aware of her crush on him and he’s just toying with her (this is the very insecure, pessimistic Hermione speaking), she’s assuming he’s completely oblivious to her feelings and so she uses the ages-old technique of the “subtle hints” to make her feelings known to him (and fails miserably because she doesn’t want to put herself out there too much in case he rejects her, which would be the ultimate humiliation and the worst possible thing to happen to her, in her teenage girl mind), and she’s assuming he’ll never like her the way she likes him, all the while being woefully oblivious to the fact that Ron does want to be with her but she keeps sending him signals that she sees him as a troublesome child rather than a potential partner.

All in all, a teenage Hermione in love is utter torture. She’s her own worst enemy, and it’s only when she decides to let go of it all - of the mind games, of the distancing, of the passive-aggressive; of the overthinking - and just takes a chance that her efforts bear fruit.

There was a clatter as the basilisk fangs cascaded out of Hermione’s arms. Running at Ron, she flung them around his neck and kissed him full on the mouth. Ron threw away the fangs and broomstick he was holding and responded with such enthusiasm that he lifted Hermione off her feet.

(As much as I’m disillusioned with Romione, this kiss is still one of my favourite parts of the series. They mutually sweep each other off their feet for god’s sake, you wish your ship would.)