#you would not believe how much I struggled to think up of a redesign for Urbosa

[ask-lu-wild]

[maddascanbe-blog]

Miracu-class girls are done! It took less time than I initially anticipated, thank goodness. Let's talk re-write's and re-designs shall we?

Sabrina so freaking cute, give the girl her hat. It was probably a gift from Chloe. For her redesign I thought she would be the kind to dress in cute blouses and flowy skirts. She has tennis skirts in every color for every occasion. As for her re-write- anyone who saw how I changed Chloe probably will guess that their dynamic is drastically changes as well.

Sabrina met Chloe when they were in their tween years, Officer Roger having worked security for the Bourgeois on multiple occasions. One day he had to bring his daughter into work and Chloe found her wandering the halls. When a kidnapper tried to abduct Chloe, Sabrina sprayed him with pepper spray her father gave her and then kicked him in the dick for good measure. Chloe then declared that Sabrina should be her full-time body guard, and she technically is being paid to hang out with Chloe. But Sabrina would have done it with or without the money since Chloe is actually very endearing once you figure out how she works.

Alix is next! Alix's violently pink hair could not be ignored, so I kept it (albeit a little less saturated) Also she is in fact still short. Her outfits are probably all variations of sports gear unless she has an event to attend at the museum. I also tanned her up since I imagine she spends a lot of time outside, girl is sunburnt. She is actually a year ahead in history, having gotten too bored with junior level classes. So she's friends with some of the seniors too. I won't get into Bunnix anytime soon but- let's just say it's a lot more tragic than cannon would ever admit. The rabbit's powers are changing, and Alix still has to live with that.

On a lighter note, Juleka, as stunning as ever. Tall queen. She is a year behind since her lack of participation in classes ultimately tanked her grade in several subjects. Her band director was more then happy for her to stay an extra year though, since she is trained classically as well as electrically on the bass. She may not like talking, but she has little fear of performing when the music can do the talking. Her twin brother actually graduated early, and he's working now to help pay for the band the two want to start. Her design doesn't change much from her cannon one other than the fact I switched her ripped leggings for lace ones. I imagine she actually has many outfits in this color pallet, since Chat Noir quickly becomes her favorite hero.

Mylene, okay the change I made here is pretty obvious. I debated for a long time on whether or not I change her skin tone. And when I did the line art? Wasn't planning too. But changed my mind last second, since I thought it helped the color pallet more. This would imply she is mixed, with her dad looking pretty much the same as cannon. it's hard to tell her unless you look closely but I gave her freckles that just cover every inch of her. She is Sunkissed. He character isn't super different, she is still easily startled, but she knows what she believes and will fight for it no matter what.

And finally, Rose! The lovely Rosey! The flower child! Her nonspecific illness still definitely happened, but I like to think she has actually recovered. I do not know enough about most chronic illnesses to make any sort of specification on what she has so nameless headache disease it is! She struggled a lot as a kid, but now she's planning to start a non-profit to help kids who are going through hard times of their own. She definitely still has her down days, the fact that she nearly died so young is not something she is quick to forget. But she will do whatever she can to give other people hope, sinee she knows all too well what it feels like to be hopeless.

As for her design, she had a bucket of pink upturned on her. She did have to have her hair shaved as an affect of her illness but now it's growing back faster than ever. She gets it cut every time it gets past a certain length to donate it.

Luka is next!

[explodingchantry]

A review of Veilguard from a long time, die hard fan of Dragon Age

When the review embargo on Veilgurd was lifted, I found it hard to take any review at face value. Dragon Age is unfortunately the one series I am very pretentious about, and I can’t trust reviews from people who aren’t huge Dragon Age fans like I am and who don’t hold the same views as me -- those views being, to keep it short, that Anders was right and justified, that he is one of the most tragic characters in the entire series, that he is a hero, that Bioware’s writing can be shockingly biased at times in the wrong ways, and that Inquisition is really not that good at all. These opinions have a lot of weight in whether I will listen to someone about Dragon Age matters. And I haven’t see a proper review from someone like this -- though granted as soon as the game came out I locked down and refused to look at anything in fear of spoilers lol. 

This review will be spoilers free, and there will be an addition at some point with all the spoilers and what I think about specific story details, because I have so much to say. 

The TL;DR? It’s a good game. If you like Dragon Age like I do, you’ll like it. If you open your heart to it, you’ll love it. It was made with love. 

This will be divided in section based on people’s biggest worries about the game and how much I have to say about each of them.

The art direction

Honestly I was a defender of the art style as soon as the trailers started coming out and my opinion has not changed lol. Dragon Age was never exactly known for its graphics - Origins and DA2 look… okay. And Inquisition was fine for its time but has aged like the most rotten milk you could find. Its environments are still pretty, but its characters, man… I’m sorry, it just hasn’t aged well. Frostbite engine did not help Bioware in this case. They’ve spoken about how it was a new engine for them and how they struggled with it and it shows. 

This game? Oh boy, yeah, no, I can believe they got a handle of Frostbite now. It is breathtaking. The environments are crafted so meticulously and with so much love, the lighting is beautiful and that’s even without RTX (because I’m in the AMD gang and can’t splurge on Nvidia lol). Many many times I would stop and go into photo mode either to take screenshots or to just admire the world around me. I’d spam screenshot in cutscenes, too. The character animations are good, especially the facial expressions -- though the body animations remain a tad stiff, like everyone’s got a broom up their ass and forgot their spine can bend and move. It’s not that big of a deal, but I did notice it a couple times. 

You can tell Bioware had fun both with character design and with the environments, now that they’re free of Ferelden’s basic medieval england looking ass. You grow attached to the beautiful and lively environments. Treviso has got to be my favorite, but there’s a lot for everyone in there. 

And no, the smoother art style does not make the game less dark. If anything, some of the enemy redesigns really help make the game scarier. The first time I was faced with the blight in game, even though I’d seen it in all of the promotional screenshots and trailers -- I was horrified and sickened by just how gross they made it look (and sound.). I promise you, you shouldn’t be scared of that. 

The emotional moments sold well even “in spite of” the art style. I don’t know, it’s hard for me to even understand people’s worries about that. Not everything’s got to be hyper-realistic, ya’ll. 

The combat system

That IS one thing I was a tad worried about, when we first saw it. It looked good, but it was definitely a departure from what we were used to. 

Honestly, to sell my point, we have to look at the previous games’ combat system. I don’t actually know if there’s a specific name for this style aside from, idk, “CRPG combat” lol. I like to refer to it as MMORPG combat because you mostly see it in MMOs now, I feel. Your character cycles through a bunch of basic combat animations for basic attacks, and has a lot of abilities to throw in combat which can synergise which each other. DAO had the best system, but DA2 felt best to play due to the updated and dynamic animations and faster paced combat. DAI had the weakest both due to the way they overhauled the classes (especially mages) and made us lose fan-favorite specialisations (spirit healer and blood mage) with not much in exchange. It was simplified and a bit sluggish, in my opinion. It missed the strategy imposed by DAO as well as the punch from DA2. 

And of course, there’s the battle tactics. You get to basically program companion AIs and can chain some really, really good combos with them. It’s really fun once you get the hang of it, but let’s be real: very few people did. Very few people actually used them, as good of a system as it was. 

This combat system… has aged a tad, unfortunately. It doesn’t fit today’s gaming landscape, but even if it did… It would need more to land, I think, if they kept it as it was. Something to make it feel less sluggish, more intense, more involved. Make the attacks FEEL like they land and hit and hurt the enemy. Because the harsh truth is, although DAO has the most in depth combat system of all of the games -- it also has numerous popular mods to skip combat entirely. 

Combat in Veilguard feels really, really good. When I first started I often found myself grinning, going “oh HELL yeah” at the screen, because it felt so good. I almost raised the difficulty a few times because I wanted combat to last longer because it just felt so damn good. I do wish it was a bit deeper, especially in the case of combos, but it remained nonetheless fun to cycle through abilities and companions depending on the area and type of enemies I was fighting. It feels more action-y, but it isn’t a damn hack n slash like I’ve seen people say lol. Have none of these people ever heard of the term action RPG or what. Because that’s what Veilguard is. It’s an action RPG and there’s nothing wrong with that. 

I think Bioware always kind of wanted to move towards this, as well. Since DAO, Dragon Age felt like it kept its combat system not because it was the most fitting for the games Bioware wanted to make, but because they “had to”. Because it was right for the genre. Because it’s what players expect. Because they’d get backlash if they didn’t. But they finally decided to change it, and I think it’s right, for Veilguard. I think Bioware had fun making this system, and it is very much extremely fun to play. 

My only wish is for spirit healer and blood mage specialisation to come back, and for companion leveling up to have been deeper and more varied. They basically have set abilities that you level up and though you can change some aspects of them, that’s it. But it remains a good system. I liked it. I genuinely have really enjoyed fighting in this game and will be exploring all classes and specialisations thoroughly in my next replays, as well as exploring every difficulty. 

The writing

It’s fine. It’s brilliant, at times. Cringy, at others. And you want to know a secret?

You could say that about every god damn Dragon Age game, lol.

I’ve recently -- as in, very recently -- replayed the whole series in preparations for Veilguard. Not only did it have cringe-worthy moments in all games, but some even made me grimaces. DAO is staggeringly misogynistic both for its time and for its setting: You are told in the character creator that men and women are equal in Thedas only to constantly face outward sexism at every turn. It’s shocking. As for DA2, it’s weirdly mean spirited. It calls a lot of its characters crazy and makes fun of them for the meanest fucking reasons. It has a character who fights for his people’s freedom approve of you when you give another character over to a slaver, for fuck’s sake lol. It is very mean. This one is the most “product of its time” of all three, because DAO was misogynistic even for its time lol. And DAI… well, DAI is bland and lacks depth and feeling ina almost everything lmfao. 

Veilguard holds your hand a lot, especially in the beginning, and kind of babies you at times. It also suffers from painful expository moments. Thing is, I feel for Bioware: They have three games and dozens of side media’s worth of lore to explain to you, and have to keep in mind not only that some players will have never heard of Dragon Age, or that some have only played the games and never touched the side media, or that they played the games a whole DECADE ago and can’t remember shit. It’s hard. I would’ve done better lol but it IS difficult. I feel for them. 

Some things are a little less excusable, like the game REALLY holding your hand through a couple puzzles and through the fact that you need to focus on companions and do their quests etc. A part of me wonders if it came out of playtesting, or something. It definitely took me out of it a little bit, not gonna lie. It felt quite jarring. 

There’s a couple other things, like having far too much telling in places. I’d also have liked to do some of the cool stuff my Rook does in cutscenes within actual gameplay, lol. And there were beats where I was left thinking “... that’s it?”, which is never good. 

The codex entries are great and interesting though. Only game in the franchise where I read every single codex entries I found (AND I FOUND ALMOST ALL OF THEM!!!!). A lot of them are fascinating, but more are just very sweet or funny, and they help build the characters and the world. 

And my god, those characters are ALIVE. I truly understand when Bioware said they really put emphasis on the companions. There are so many cute banters, a lot of which you can catch in the lighthouse, as well as little scenes that mostly serve to humanise the companions and make them feel alive. Not only that, but you also get attached to a lot of NPCs -- and I do mean a lot. Each faction has NPCs I cared for deeply, and you always just get to visit them and talk to them, even if it’s just them saying a line or two of dialogue at you. It still helps to build a relationship with them, and care for them. And your companions interact with them sometimes, too! And they have history! It makes the world genuinely feel so much more alive and makes you feel so much more involved than you were in DAI! They manage to transform from pixels on a screen there to give you quests to actual characters with rich lives and feelings that you want to see succeed.

I romanced Lucanis and he is by far my favorite of the companions, but I love all of them. This means it’s the first game in the series where I genuinely really love all the companions. There was always one, maybe two, in each game whom I didn’t care much about or which pissed me off -- but they’re all immensely likeable here, and I care so much about not only my Rook’s relationship to them, but their relationships to each other. And there’s so many little banters, notes, and codex entries which helps further their bond and makes them feel like roommates. It’s very sweet and enjoyable.

I also love my Rook a lot. I played mostly as a sarcastic Rook who was very impulsive and wasn’t afraid to speak their feelings out. There are times you can express genuine fear, hurt, or anger at certain NPCs or situations, and the line delivery really carries it. They felt alive and involved, so much more than the Inquisitor ever did. My Rook has a personality, and not only that, but the way the factions were integrated was really nice. I played as an elven mage grey warden, and each of those bits came up a lot. I’m a bit miffed that you don’t get to choose whether you were dalish or city elf, and more miffed that the game/npcs try to explain dalish lore at you even when you put a wholeass vallaslin on your character, but aside from that I’m rather pleased with the integration of the faction. I imagine some factions (lords of fortune) got the shorter end of the stick - but playing as a grey warden was deeply rewarding in this game. Rook can make comment about it in dialogue, in banter, and other characters mention it too. I got to discuss the joining with another warden, and my Rook commented a few things about their time in the order. And it made my friendship with Davrin mean so much more, too. It also made every plot point involving the wardens hit like a TRUCK. 

And my god, do some of the missions in this game hit like a truck. The villains are believably terrifying. This isn’t Corypheus 2.0. I hadn’t felt this level of dread in Dragon Age since DAO. Some missions especially have rocked me to my core, and some of them I consider to be absolute masterpieces (Weisshaupt, my god Weisshaupt. My favorite mission in any Bioware game, period.) I wish the last boss had been scarier and stronger, though. I felt it did fall short in regards to that. Funny enough a lot of the side bosses were harder than main bosses. That was a bit sad. But yes, Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain feel like gods that you are facing. It is so much better than DAI in that regard.

The game does make you care deeply about everything happening, I can promise you that. And it manages to make even vehement Solas haters like him. I used to be a Solas hater back in 2014/2015, though I did mellow out over my replays. By my last Inquisition replay I did come around to him and was just mildly annoyed at how popular he was because I still found him overhyped, mostly because he suffered from DAI’s bland writing. But Veilguard makes you care for him, and elicits a lot of strong reactions towards him. He’s made me cheer, and also made me feel extreme anger, and then a lot of sympathy. He’s a marvelously complex character and one of Bioware’s best. He went from being one of my least favorite characters to one of my favorites - potentially even top 10 material. This is high praise for me lol. 

The matter of bringing choices in is…. Well, not gonna lie, a few events I was like “hm, no this wouldn’t happen in my world state” or “oh I wish they took in account past choices for this scene/plot point”. It remains an extremely baffling choice from Bioware and I remain really pissed off about it, lol. 

The Inquisitor was fine. I’m not attached to the Inquisitor, so I’m not able to make many comments about them. I’ve seen other people who ARE attached feel happy about their inclusion, so I’d go with that. There were a few nice moments. 

Act 3 is absolutemy amazing, also. It's engaging and terrifying and broke my heart several times. I do not cry easily but I was left sobbing and whimpering at Bioware lmfao. Granted, it was my first playthrough, and my emotions were heightened by having a new Dragon Age game after so long. But I do think Act 3 is just... really, really good. It gets the point of the game across very well, too.

The lore

This… is where the game falls short the most, for me. 

Don’t get me wrong: we get a LOT of new lore and a lot of it is insanely satisfying when you’ve been in the trenches for a decade and had tons of theories. A lot of discoveries left me buzzing with thoughts, new theories, ideas, and excitement. It was exhilarating. 

But there’s many points where, as a guy who just casually reads the lore books for fun, I was left saying “uh, no, that’s not true” to “that doesn’t make any fucking sense”. Mostly, a lot of my issues comes with the integration of the politics of the game. Dragon age has always been a political series, in the sense that the politics of Thedas are just as important as any threat we face in the game. And for like 15 years, the north was built up in a certain way -- and in many aspects, Veilguard does deliver. In others, it feels like it glosses over very important lore, or just tries to gaslight you into thinking you were wrong all along. Some of it is clever recontextualising that I did appreciate, considering all the lore we DO know is in universe, which means biased by the areas we learn the lore from. But there are a few times where the lore breaks took me out of the game and felt very immersion breaking.

Unfortunately I can’t go to much further into this without spoiling anything, but it’s definitely where I was the most disappointed. It’s small things, it’s always small things, but it’s definitely made me either raise my eyebrows or be very disappointed at times. I’ve already spoken about a bit of it in previous posts, and need to write something lengthy about magic specifically. Just beware that if you are insane about the lore, it is where the game will fall short at points. But it will also offer you amazing lore in turn, so you know. It’s a balancing act. 

It feels like the writing has mellowed out in this aspect. It makes me wonder how different the past games would be, if written by these people. How different this game would've been, if it was written by past writers. Only game where I've gone "wait why am I not getting hate crimed right now".

Also the secret post credit scene sucks entire ass and ruins everything lmfao I am ignoring it entirely.

There’s obviously a lot more I want to say about many things. I want to talk about Lucanis, about Taash, about Emmrich, about Harding -- about everyone, really. But that’ll be for further, spoiler-full posts. 

I’ll also save some more in depth review for a later post because I wanna go play dolls in the character creator again.

[mokeonn]

I finally actually watched Hazbin Hotel because I was like "I really shouldn't be so judgey, how can I say I hate a show I haven't even watched?" And I can safely say after 5 episodes in:

I hate it.

So I will preface this rant about my feelings towards this controversial show with the following positive statements:

I understand why people enjoy the show, it's fun, the animation is really enjoyable to watch, the music numbers are pretty good, the voice acting is also good, and the whole thing feels like it was constructed around a fandom. Though that last part is a flaw in the overall series, I completely see why people enjoy it. If a series was practically built around making fanfiction, ocs, or fun redesigns, people are gonna have fun making those things. I literally can't blame anyone for enjoying this show. It should also go without saying that I don't think people are morally evil for enjoying the show. I do believe, however, that your taste in shows is bad if you love this show.

I came into this show expecting the WORST. Everything I was told about it was how it was such an awful show and all the horrible things it does. So I was expecting the worst thing I've ever watched to appear before me tonight.

So imagine my surprise when the first 3 episodes aren't that bad. They aren't good, but they're not awful. It's just mid! The animation is fun to watch, the songs are catchy, and the pacing is only a little off. There were a lot of little moments where we got payoff with no set-up. Things like a dramatic reveal of a character that appears to want to evoke a "oh woah, it's that guy!!" moment, but we don't even know who that guy is. A character belting out a dramatic emotional ballad that is also a duet with another major character, but we were introduced to that character earlier that episode and we don't know her well enough to really care about her heartfelt emotional song. Moments that felt more awkward than anything else. Other than that, the show wasn't too bad! I was enjoying myself! I was worried that I was going to enjoy this extremely hated series and how it was going to reflect on my public tumblr image!

And then episode 4 hit.

Episode 4 starts off very similar to the others, and all around, I think it's a pretty good episode if it wasn't for the ending, but we'll get to that.

Episode 4 is a heavier episode dealing with Angel Dust's abuse at the hands of his boss. It gets fairly graphic at points, but with the way people were describing it, I was actually expecting far worse. It has a catchy song from Angel Dust about this abuse, and towards the end, he falls into a self-destructive spiral and vents about how much he wants to basically crash and burn in the hopes that maybe the abuse would stop or he would become too fucked up to notice/care anymore. You know what? This is a pretty heavy hitting topic and really spoke to me as a person who is dealing with addiction and struggles with depression spirals. I felt a lot of what Angel Dust was feeling, even if our situations were completely different. What is the response our little pink spider friend gets? An admittedly catchy song about how he's right that he sucks and he's a loser, "but hey, I'm a loser too! So we can be losers together."

Now, I get what the song is TRYING to say. It's trying to say that you're not alone, that "if you're a loser, then I'm a loser too. But we can be losers together." Which is a nice sentiment and all... but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn't portray this idea that you're not alone in this world, and there's plenty of people going through similar experiences, so it's important to connect with each other. It instead focuses on feeling more self-depreciating, which is fine and all, but it feels like an inappropriate time to be self-depreciating.

If a person with very low self-esteem vents about their abuse and talks down about themselves, and admits to wanting to self-harm by committing self-destructive behaviors on purpose... I think "seld-depreciation" is the last thing I would want to do with that person.

I get it. The song is trying to be funny and silly with self-depreciating humor to lighten the dark mood and show how Angel Dusk and the weird deep voiced cat-boy (yes, I know his name is Husk) are now getting along and relating to eachother by making jokes about how stupid they were to get into their awful situations... but the song really leaves a sour taste in my mouth because it just feels... wrong. It feels like the wrong response.

The story makes it seem like the song breaks this cycle of self-destructive behaviors and allows the characters to make the first step towards redemption/breaking the cycle of abuse; The song does not fit this theme, it instead just continues that cycle while the story continues on as if it did something else.

I might not be conveying my reasons for WHY the song left a bad taste in my mouth very well, but all you really need to know is that the vibes were off and it seemed like there was something left on the cutting room floor or a mistake between the writers and song writers.

Episode 5 is where I stopped. Like, I can't even finish it. Those previously mentioned pacing issues were nothing compared to the constant wave of hits episode 5 gave me.

First off, we are getting payoff for something that was actually set up! Popping some bottles here! It happens a couple times in the other episodes, but here: a major character is revealed after being talked about and foreshadowed in previous episodes! This really was a first in the series as most of the time, characters were just introduced when the story needed them, causing those awkward moments where a villain or major character got introduced. Valentino was introduced in an episode with some build-up earlier in said episode, but having a character actually be hinted at in earlier episodes before a reveal felt completely new.

And then it was... disappointing. The payoff did not match the set-up. I will state it right now. Lucifer, as a character, caused me to entirely stop watching the show mid episode 5. When you have this big dramatic backstory about how he was an angel of creation who wanted to create, a rebel who went against all he'd ever known to meet another rebel and fall in love with her, a deeply sad man who hid away refusing to take part in ruling hell, leaving it all to his wife? The fact that this is based on Christian theology and Lucifer already has ages of connotation and lore attached to him? Idk I think, "self depreciating, awkward, sad man who doesn't know how to greet his daughter on the phone, and spends all his time making little toy ducks" is... a huge fucking let-down. I understand they're trying to go a more humorous route of "He isn't scary at all, he's just a huge dork!" But it doesn't work, and it just makes me cringe. This alone would be a lot to process in one episode... but Episode 5 still has a LOT of punches in it!

The episode first states that they only have a couple months before the deadline, implying that around 4 months have passed since the first and second episode. Nothing really implies that much time passing between episode 1 and 4, and in the episode, Charlie states all the things they have been working on. Which is things we have already seen in the show. Which tells me that they really haven't been working on anything offscreen during this sudden time skip, so what the fuck happened between episodes 1-4??

Anyways, I could have misread this entire thing and thought far too much into Charlie's stress and the "only a couple months away!". With the word "couple" and the stress the character is clearly going through, I assumed that they were 2 months from the deadline, but maybe I was wrong. I don't know. I didn't finish the episode, and I'm not watching any more.

The first major "hit by a truck" moment was when Lucifer makes his way to the hotel and suddenly, he gets into a feud with Allister. They both sing a song about who is the better Dad to Charlie, and I am sitting there confused because, huh?? Wha?? Where the fuck did this "Allister Dad" thing come from?? NOWHERE in the last 4 episodes (nor the pilot) imply this relationship. Allister is the tumblr sexyman Mary-sue who gets at least 1 new power every episode. Nothing about him out of his entire screen time was paternal. Just as my confusion reaches a boiling point... they introduce a new character suddenly with an unearned "it's ME!" Intro (although unlike past intros, it is ironic).

She's a sassy little flapper who is friends with Allister and whose only purpose this episode is to cause problems to come to the Hotel's way later in the episode, and to give Allister's backstory. A backstory that we really didn't need. Like REALLY didn't need. Seriously this entire show we have been told and shown that Allister is a powerful demon who is feared and not to be messed with. This backstory reveals that he is... a powerful demon who is feared and not to be messed with. The only purpose of this backstory is to reveal a spooky thing he does so he can use it as a threat later in the episode.

Husk confronts Allister about his friend because she always brings trouble, and he snaps at Allister, making a sassy comment. Allister threatens Husk with the previously mentioned spooky thing he is totally known for that was revealed in the backstory.

Lucifer does not approve of the hotel, which makes an awkward scene where Charlie is trying to explain her thinking and her personal experience to her absent father and Lucifer shoots her down by poorly hinting that it just "wouldn't work" because he knows from personal experience. I am not having a good time watching two characters communicate poorly primarily because I hate one of them so much.

The previously mentioned trouble comes their way, and Allister reveals new awesome Allister powers for the 3rd time this episode and goes off to fight off the trouble. Charlie uses this as a way to try to reason with her father. Allister finishes his fight and scolds his friend for using him to fight off the trouble she gets into like Husk said earlier. He then informs here that she either needs to leave or come and stay at the hotel to rehabilitate. She stomps off, and I feel so tired of a third huge payoff with not a lot of set-up.

Allister (who I probably have been misspelling his name this whole time and no I will NOT check) feels like he did a ton of development and growth... entirely off screen. This feels like a 180 to me. This entire show he has been this evil, off-putting guy, that vaguely helps at the hotel, does creepy things, threaten people, and use plot armor powers to save the day or do cool things. So suddenly having an episode where it's stated he has a paternal relationship with Charlie, which has NOT been shown or even HINTED at whatsoever, and where he suddenly turns away a troublemaking friend to protect the hotel he wanted to see fall apart? It's a total 180 from what I'm used to. One could claim that the sudden protection of the hotel was because he wanted to protect his investment, and he knew his friend was using him so he just sent her on her way or offered for her to be tortured in the friendship hotel. I can see an argument for why he didn't threaten or harm his friend when he has killed people or threatened to kill people for less (pretty strong friendship that goes way back when blah blah blah) I can argue about the inconsistencies in how he acts towards the end of this episode compared to the previous episodes of the show all I want.

But come on, you can't argue the sudden paternal thing. That came out of nowhere.

At this point I just, turned off the episode and called it quits. I have heard that the most glaring writing issues come later in the season, and if episode 5 was this bad, I don't wanna keep watching.

Part of me wants to continue watching, as the animation is really enjoyable to watch, and the music is actually pretty fun. But I just know that I'm not going to enjoy myself at all from here on out. It's all going to be downhill from here, and it'll frustrate me. I'm not gonna spend my time watching something I'll hate.

If I wanna watch something frustrating, I'd just watch Jerma play my favorite game for the first time.

[liyawritesss]

If it's not too much to ask sthandwa, do you think you could write a one shot with Nakia or Shuriri x reader of them going ice skating? I just thought it would be fitting since Christmas is almost here and I’d love to see how you would write that story ❤️.

ɪᴄᴇꜱᴋᴀᴛɪɴɢ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴘ:ᴡꜰ ɢɪʀʟꜱ

Characters: MCU!Shuri Udaku, Riri Williams, Nakia, Okoye

Type: Headcanons

Synopsis: In which you go on an iceskating adventure with your favorite BP2 girl!

Warnings: some cursing but overall nothin but fluff!!

A/N: now I normally don't do polyships and things of that nature because I myself don't have the experience of being in a poly relationship, and so to prevent from offending or causing unintentional harm I stray away from writing as such. So I hope that writing them as individual scenarios is alright.

Shuri Udaku

Shuri can’t skate to save her life, so this is an interesting experience for the both of you. Sure, Shuri is good at everything, and if its something she’s never encountered before, best believe she can be the best at it within the next hour. But ice skating was a challenge she never thought she’d have to come in contact with.

The moment she steps onto the ice in her skates shes already flailing like a startled bird. She’s desperately holding on to you, muttering how she’d much rather be at her lab right now, or how she could definitely redesign the skates to be much more efficient and stable. It’s miraculous how she was so panicked earlier, but now being able to hold onto you, she gradually grows calmer

Now if both of you don’t know how to skate….good luck with that one. Cuz all I can tell you is wear extra padding cuz there’s gonna be a lot of falling on your asses. But at least it’ll be fun for the both of you. And afterwards, Shuri will get you both hot chocolate, and you can just watch everyone else skate while you share a blanket under the falling snow.

Riri Williams

I’m not even about to lie to yall, if you don’t know how to skate, Riri is taking advantage of this heavily. She’ll disguise it as a simple cute date but one its revealed that it’s to the skating rink, you can’t help but notice the mischievous look in her eyes.

She gets you on the ice and all you can do is hold on to her and she relishes in that feeling. Riri is still gonna try to teach you the basics, but you're too caught up in the possibility of falling that all you can do is hold on to her. And maybe that was the grand scheme all along. The world may never know.

But if you do know how to skate, this is just a big ass game of tag around the skating rink. No matter how many times the supervisors tell you to watch your speed and be more aware of the other people around you, you two big ass children keep chasing each other around the rink. Its when you accidentally collide and knock a child onto the ground that yall are put out of the rink for the day. But hey, at least it was fun!

Okoye

Okoye is a pro at this. You would think that she’d dread the idea of going to the skating rink. She’s not exactly a people person, and with her mindset almost always on Dora Milaje mode, its already hard enough to get her outside for fun in general. But she surprises you with just how easily she slips onto the skating rink.

Of course, she compares it to the fighting style of the Dora, how its a matter of being graceful and going with the flow. You lowkey envy her seamless transition, but you can’t stay mad at her for long when she offers you a hand.

Okoye guides you through the skating rink while you hold on to her, and actually gives you tips on how to not be afraid of the ice. Ironically, watching you struggle so cutely and the pout your lips wear makes her smile. Perhaps you'd learn better in a more private setting, she thinks, as she starts to conjure up an idea on how to conjure up a private ice skating area on palace grounds. She’s sure she can convince Shuri to do it, and make the princess think it was her idea to do it as well.

Nakia

Nakia poses the idea to you while you’re walking in the marketplace. She sees a flyer for the skating rink and practically starts begging you to go, and how could you say no to her? Especially with her puppy dog eyes and her very persuasive words.

Both of you get onto the ice, and you’re immediately holding onto each other as if neither of you know how to skate. Nakia knows, for sure, but just wants to hold onto you because…why not? She also is the most encouraging, telling you that you’re doing amazing for your first time on the ice and also places kisses on your cheek for a job well done.

There’s nothing but shrieks of laughter and jokes spilling from Nakia’s lips as she tries her best to focus on staying steady on the ice with you. Yall are probably just gliding around the rink in your own little world, people staring at you and questioning why you’re on the ice if you’re not skating for real, but you two are too focused on each other to care.

If you enjoyed, please leave a like, comment, and reblog for others to see! And don’t be shy to send in a request!

[spicyicetea]

So... Me again. Did I just put a post out saying that I probably won't update any time soon? Yes. Am I now putting out a chunky post about a Pokémon au I've been making as stress relief? Yes. Am I scared of being judged or people thinking the au sounds dumb? Very much so. Well here's my au! Please enjoy, I beg you.

Distortian au

This au is centred around my personal favourite pokemon characters and a villain team me and my friends made up one night. The evil team is refered to as team lotus and their main goal is to open a reliable pathway into the distortian realm to comune with Giritina. I don't want to give too many spoilers about why they're doing this, in case I do end up writing a longer story, but it isn't for inherently evil reasons, like self gain or the destruction of humanity. The Y/N character in this AU would be the younger sibling of the leader of Team Lotus. Y/N is unaware of their siblings association with the team and works with the other trainers at trying to take down the team.

Speaking of which, the other strong pokemon trainers, like the champions, gym leaders and other powerful trainers (Like Emmet and Ingo), would join in the fights trying to take down the team as they recruit technology and members of other evil teams from other regions. The team is hiding itself under a man made resort island that is currently hosting a world wide battle competition to determine the the strongest trainer in the world.

How would this change the actual characters?

Well the personalities of the characters wouoldn't change in any extreme way, however I would be applying personal headcannons onto them for what happened after the events of their game/games or just how I believe they would actually act. Just as an example of what I mean by this, I like the idea that certain evil team leaders would have tried to redeem themselves after being defeated. Obviously some of them would have remained set in their ways, characters like Ghetsis not being willing to change his views and Giovanni wanting to change for the sake of Silver but struggling due to old habits. The other evil team leaders I can see redeeming themselves are like Archie and Maxie as they were just very... dumb with their actions and I'm a big believer in a Cyrus redemption arc where Cynthia forces him to therapy out of pity and he reshapes team galactic to monitor the distortian realm with their technology after damaging the veil between the distortian realm and the normal world. I can't help myself, I tend to like the bad guys more than the good guys in pokemon games, or at least the older ones, the newer ones just don't have the same spark and appeal as the old ones in my opinon, excpet for Guzma... I love Guzma.

More about Y/N:

Although I refer to them here with they/them pronouns, if I were to actually write them I'd prob use fem pronouns because it's what I find easier to write for, especially for shipping reasons. As much as I would love for it to be completely self insert with the pokemon team being up to the reader, I will have to make hard decisons if I ever have Y/N in a pokemon fight or just relaxing with their pokemon. For any posts about this au, feel free to put suggestions for pokemon for Y/N to have, the more I see it, the more likely I am to consider it as an option.

Now time for me to dump all my art regarding this au onto yall, or at least the stuff on my iPad. Most of the drawings are just the slight redesigns I use for the au stuff I have written so far. Most are slight changes, but some get complete outfit changes like Cyrus to fit his new role in the au.

[auxiliarydetective]

OC Pride Challenge: Day 23

You can find the challenge here

Today's prompt is Free/Freedom so I decided to make something for my baby Inari (who I have to redesign, oops). She spent a huge part of her life without freedom and once she's actually set free, she struggles a bit at first. This is about that.

Inari still couldn’t believe it. She sat in the ruins of Shandora, staring up at the sky. Around her, Skypians and Shandia talked and laughed and even Nola the deity seemed happy. Mixed between them were the Straw Hats, the ones who had turned the entire island upside-down in such a small amount of time. One of them was her new master, Monkey D. Luffy. He was the one who had beaten Enel, who had beaten God, and had rung the Golden Belfry for everyone to hear. But when she had told him he was her new master now, all he had done was laugh.

“I’m not your master. You don’t have a master. You’re free!”

Free? There were people who said all pirates were free but she hadn’t been free for so many years. Passed around like a toy, a mere servant, she had been a possession. By now, she didn’t even know what it meant to be free. She had no idea what to do with her life now.

A huge bonfire erupting in the middle of the plaza caught her attention, distracting her for a moment. At the same time, drums started to sound and music started to play. Then, she remembered the chaos during the sea battle during which she had been taken away. She wondered if Nusstorte ever regretted taking her with him on that voyage. After all, she had been nothing but a little child.

“Inari-chan, how are you feeling?”

With those words, the flashback ended. Inari blinked rapidly to get back to reality. It was Sanji who had said those words, a calming smile on his lips. They barely even knew each other but it seemed like he had already made it one of his life goals to look after her. He acted a lot like how she remembered her siblings.

“I, uh,” Inari stammered, “I… don’t really know yet.”

“Aren’t you happy to be free?” Sanji asked, sitting down next to her.

“I am, I guess, I just… I haven’t been free in so long that I don’t really know what it means anymore.”

Sanji blew out a cloud of smoke against the night sky. “It means you get to do whatever you want. What’s a thing you like to do?”

“I like cooking.”

“We’ve got that much in common.”

“Baking, specifically. And I was always pretty good at making sushi. My past masters actually always let me cook, they were just glad they didn’t have to do it. I sometimes had to get pretty creative with the ingredients, but when it comes to food, there’s nothing a Charlotte can’t do!”

“Charlotte?”

“My family name. Charlotte Inari.”

“That’s a pretty name.”

“Thanks. It’s been a while since I got to use it. On all those other ships and with Enel, I’ve always just been Inari. Guess they wanted to forget about my family.”

“Or they wanted you to forget.”

“Or that.”

“... Sanji?”

“Hm?”

“I think I want to go home.”

That was when Luffy called out from beside the bonfire.

“HEY! INARI! Come and dance!”

A smile spread across Inari’s cheeks. She hopped off her set of stairs and hurried towards the campfire where Luffy waited for her, bopping to the music. Once she reached him, he took her by the hands and they spun around together. Inari started giggling, then laughing, laughing along with Luffy. When one song was finished, they paused for a while, cheering for the musicians.

“So, Inari,” Luffy said with a large grin on his face, “how do you like being free?”

“It’s nice,” Inari replied and she couldn’t help but chuckle. Then, she got an idea. “Hey, uh, if you wanna become King of the Pirates, you’ve gotta be heading for the New World, right?”

“Yeah!”

“Would you mind taking me with you? I know I’m pretty young but I’ve been sailing with pirates for most of my life and-”

“Sure!” Luffy interrupted with a grin. “You’re nice and you have cool powers.”. Then, he started yelling out to the entire crowd, raising his hands into the air. “GUYS! WE HAVE A NEW CREWMATE!”

“W-wait,” Inari stammered, but it was already too late.

That hadn’t been what she had had in mind. She had wanted to join her mother’s crew, so she hadn’t planned on joining the Straw Hats. But thinking about it realistically, she couldn’t really expect being shipped around on a pirate ship without joining its crew, right? They weren’t a travel cruiser. But… maybe this wasn’t so bad. She could always leave the crew once they got to Totto Land. Or she could stay with the crew and the Straw Hats could become part of her mother’s fleet! After all, staying with them didn’t sound half bad. They all seemed nice and like they’d pretty much let her do whatever. After all…

She was free now, wasn’t she?

[demonoftheseas]

Why do you like Twilight Sparkle? What are your favourite things about her?

OKAY OKAY OKAY. So. Twilight Sparkle. I'm honestly just gonna give you a whole sorta backstory to this whole thing because I feel like it.

I don't exactly have a specific TIME that I started really enjoying her? It was a gradual sort of buildup overtime to where she became my favorite pony, but she wasn't my favorite when I was little. I was a Rainbow Dash kid <3 I loved Rainbow Dash forever and ever and ever... Also Ditzy Doo. Ditzy was also one of my favorites!! I HAD THAT OLD MUFFINS FIGURINE OF HER?? if anypony knows which one im talking about its the one with the black packaging and just a muffin as her name. I HAD THAT ONE!! FUCKING HAD IT!!!!! And i had the rainbow dash one too.

Anyways this is a Twilight Post I swear I just wanted you guys to know . that i had that. i like mentioning it.

I suppose as I grew older and became more aware of a ton of my struggles in life she became more relatable? I mean, she was always funny, I always liked Twilight even before then, but it was when I really started relating with her that I started loving her character, y'know? GODDD I just see so much of myself in her, not just her anxieties with her studies but her interest in books and research and stuff!! And how she wasn't really that social with other ponies- AND the need to overprepare and know everything about a subject? Also her sarcasm or bluntness in the earlier seasons? And her kind of parental or sibling-like relationship with Spike? Also the amount of responsibility she has??? And her fear of failure??? A lot of it just reminds me of myself and I feel her stress and her worries and her joys y'know. Her willingness to wanna help and stuff too... Like. Uhm. Excuse me why are we the same person. Okay maybe im just saying she was a 'gifted kid' and so am I and I could've summarized it with that but I REFUSE to. this is MY twilight sparkle appreciation post and I make the descision on how fucking absurdly long it is.

her being super gifted isnt her whole entire personality though i also feel like a lot of her decisions would be ones i would make in those situations? like from an outside watching perspective it seems like id do it differently but no. girl. its just cuz i know whats gonna happen is why id do it differently if you get what im saying. shes like me if i had a little more confidence in my abilities for stuff. i love her so much. Also I guess I feel like it's a little more obvious that she's not a perfect pony? But still a good person. Which makes me happy. I mean the same could be said for the rest of the main six but I think because it feels like her smarts and everything feel like a really big part of her character it feels more obvious to me? Or maybe I just sound a little silly rn who knows. Don't look at me . maybe I'm looking too deep into it </333 Im gonna feel like I'm 5 when I say this but I also just think Twilight is really fucking cool and badass and I love her for that... SHES SO POWERFUL?? AND AWESOME???? oh my god she kicks ass man you NEED to believe me you NEED to look me in the eyes and accept this. i do not care about starlight i dont care about sunset . Twilight is the MAN yknow...

also design wise i really like her ? ? ? Im usually not much of a purple fan but somethin about her makes my eyes happy. I LOVEE the purple and the pink and how her cutiemark looks and honestly i ADORE her being an alicorn. Unicorn twilight is iconic but alicorn twilight is fucking awesome as well. Literally dont even speak to me right now its so fucking cool. UGHHHH . Also all the stuff people do with drawing her when redesigning her in those little challenges? Its not even canon or anything but I love how people interpret her! I love how people add yellows to her design or make her pelt darker.. its just a design you can do so much with and make her look so majestic or cool and GOSH . people who put her hair up in a bun i owe my life to you. she is so me like that.

HAVE I MENTIONED HOW HER EPISODES ARE MY FAVORITE?????? so many of the episodes that have her as the main focus or one of the main characters are the ones i remember and love the most. The Celestia and Twilight theater one??? The blimp cruise with her family one???? LESSON ZERO??? THE PONY TRIVIA ONE WITH PINKIE??? TICKET MASTER??? its not twilight centric but i also love the scenes she has in the mirror pool pinkie episode. fucking great. PHENOMENAL. UGH. oh my god where do i begin. where do i begin where am I supposed to START??? theyre all so enjoyable. not that i dont love other character focused episodes, i just love seeing the ones that feature Twilight the most. Also her part in Trade Ya! is silly I think it's fun. I always love when they mention the fact Twilight is literally an Alicorn just right out in public. Just a full on princess out in ponyville dude. i also just have a liking towards main character characters I think. I have a terrible problem with it i have a horrible disease that makes me REALLY fucking like main characters of media a lot. what is my problem. I LVOE ALICORN TWILIGHT HAVE I SAID THAT . I HAVENT . I HAVE. I DONT CARE I LOVE ALICORN TWILGITH SPARKLE. they did her final design a little dirty but otherwise... queen... i love her sm... OH MY GOD IN THAT ONE . STARLIGHT EPISODE WHERE STARLIGHT WAS INTRODUCED . HER LITTLE WING FLAP?? very cute i love it. who made the descision to add that. i love you we're married now. OH MY GOD ALSOS LAOS LAOS . have i mentioned her little 'learning to fly and be an alicorn' era? shes so silly then she's so fucking silly i love you Twilight Sparkle you're an ICON.

99% of what i have left to talk about is small scenes or small little tidbits i love about her as a character . I love how her name was Twilight Twinkle its so cute. I love that she VOICE ACTS HER STORIES?? WHEN SHE READS THEM OUTLOUD??? girl i do that too..... we are literally one in the same. I LOVE HER VOICE TOO!!!!! its very memorable!! I think her picking up and dragging ponies around with her magic is funny too I love when that happens. I have so much more to say but i cant im literally writing an essay man... WAIT I FORGOT TO MENTION HER IN THE DISCORD EPISODE??? here comes tom man. ... SHES SO FUNNY THEN TOO SHE IS SO COMPLETELY DONE WITH THIS BULLSHIT . </3 OH M GOD AND TWILGIHT SPARKLE IN THE MOVIE TOO. i love how they wrote her in the movie? She feels like she got more of her original sarcasm back and it was really fun. HER AND TEMPEST TOO?? im not a shipping kind of person, i dont care, but i think they should kiss. or her and rainbow dash. or her and rarity. or her and pinkie pie. or her and applejack. or her and fluttershy. or her an okay now im done. probably. who knows. Twilight Sparkle forever. everyone who doesnt like her i hope your pillow is the opposite temperature you want it to be.

[summonhouse]

what do the others think about death then

finally woken up enough to answer this Cracks fingers leans back spine crackling cricks neck etc etc

in a generalized sense, the two major religions (one far more popular than the other) both feature reincarnation as a major theme. one focused on the mythical ouroboros and infinity and the other on mysticism and fantasy. the first believes in a very buddhist manner that upon death you will be reincarnated depending on your behaviors in your current life BUT is less about endlessly moving forwards and trying to climb up the ladder and more so framed as setting up a good life for the 'new' you as if they were a separate person that youre giving gifts to and being kind. you want to be a good person now so that someone else can enjoy a good home or thoughtful friends. to be nice. thus, death is less drear, easier to accept as the ending of one being leading into the beginning of a new one. the secondary religion is far less popular and focuses on fantastical beings (mythological creatures) as angels. that upon death a horse might reincarnate into a unicorn or pegasus or a bird might reincarnate into a phoenix and all that, provided you do the right things, on a different plane. i guess in the same way you could technically call going to heaven 'reincarnation' in the form of an angel. this too allows for death to be less depressing in the sense that you hope theyve gone to and become what they yearned for.

MAX: his beliefs on death are a massive part of the story given he is extremely against either major belief. he hates change and ending, he is horrified at the thought that you can "live on" without anything that you once were thus defeating the purpose; the actionable you has still died. thus throughout the length of the comic he goes super insane working around these beliefs, slapdash making his own errant constructs for how he hopes mortals should morph to avoid death. a massive important part of the story, the main Thing is that hes massively disrespectful to a certain dead body and worships its decay instead of letting it lay in rest or be known by those who it would matter to. generally does not react appropriately (concerned, distraught) towards death, if anything hes so awkward and stilted he might laugh (real big live leak enjoyer type vibe on this guy), he just hates thinking about his own (or ezras) death.

SARAH: sarah heavily believes in the first mentioned massive religion; her infinity necklace is a symbol of said religion. she is a popular girl but shes really not mean, shes actually very nice and charitable and she highly values the major motifs of helping others. the point i guess isnt to help yourself in your future life, its just a nice add on. she hopes when she reincarnates that even though shed have a good nice life in her new world, shed still fight to help others. she doesnt hope that she is raised in a wealthy household or naturally beautiful or charismatic, but instead that her 'good' life would be to have enough struggle to motivate her to care.

EMILY: she focuses too much on the here and now and actionable present to lock in to thinking about big futures or concepts like the above. shed thought and accepted personally that as far as she cares the current her will die and descend into nothing but darkness (Whether the soul then goes further on doesnt really matter to her if the memory does not remain); when faced with the (apparent) death of her best friend she finds she has not done enough to accept or cope with the concept of death and is fundamentally unable to properly move through grief, unwilling to let go of sarah and continuing to drag her dead weight forward with her. (her design will get a redesign, she needs a memorial tattoo of some sort for sarah) she in fact reacts violently and aggressively to anyone who does successfully manage to cope or avoids the trauma of being near someone who had died (this leads to her aggressively bullying max and ezra, who continue to go out and play despite the happenings)

ZOE: still ironing her whole thing out but she generally doesnt like any organization or being directed in thought so is divorced from major religion but takes bits and pieces for her own personal beliefs. i think she wants it to stop after her time is up and hopes that in some way she will live on to become a scary creature. heaven for zoe is being a wolf ripping apart rabbits or something. she likes when life is simple.

[safitheartist]

It's a bit hard to explain, I wanted to highlight the motherly aspect of Bokomon while also keeping the idea of an digimon who gathers and save keeps knowledge in mind.

I decided to have both their evolutions relate back to the spirit of fire and light respectively so with Servamon I took some inspiration from the phoenix while not directly making a phoenix since we already have plenty of those.

I essentially wanted to make a Digimon you would encounter in a temple and believe they were there as a guardian of that knowledge.

I also wanted to make them undoubtedly beautiful while not falling into the same kinda gross over sexualization Digimon likes to do.

Bokomon's evolution is a reflection of their character arc in my stuff, going from a Digimon who is really struggling with the responsibilities they took on and their personal desires conflicting with each other to a Digimon who embraces their role in the story they are experiencing and is confident that they can be both a caring parental figure and a wise scholar.

I genuinely struggled a lot more with Usagimon actually. It was hard to find something that wasn't "just a bigger Neemon." I took the moon rabbit as an inspiration and then took the elements I gave him in my redesign to inform the rest.

The idea of making him the blind fighter archetype came to me while thinking about Kouji's whole Jedi theme, so I decided he has the ability to feel the aura of other digimon instead of seeing them directly, so he has to be a lot more methodical in his fighting approach.

His arc is about what happens when a Digimon who by nature is supposed to be a coward decides to fight anyways to keep the people he loves safe and how that affects him. Unlike Bokomon's variant form, he is doing something that directly conflicts with his biology which does mess him up mentally even if he doesn't show it much. He's still a Neemon, he still likes lazing around, he still enjoys being silly and he's still a bit dim-witted but instead of running away he chooses to fight and stand up for others, so his evolution is him finding confidence in the identity he carved for himself.

Decided to make some fake evolutions for Bokomon and Neemon, meet Servamon and Usagimon. Some more doodles under the cut:

[funnylittlefella]

My problem with the fashion in miraculous.

Part 1 Marinette.

This is going to be a long rant on why I don’t like the fashion in miraculous, which seems very negative but it’s probably just me over analyzing everything.

In 2015 Miraculous: tales of ladybug and chat noir was released, at the time there were already other rivaling cartoons (such as Star vs the forces of evil, Steven Universe and Gravity falls being the most popular ones) What made Miraculous stand out from other cartoons that were aimed for kids/preteens was the 3D animation, this made the show quite popular, especially since Disney's new 3D animated films such as Frozen, Tangled and Big Hero Six was quite popular especially on tumblr (because of the re-colours and redesigns of Rapunzel/Elsa and whoever else into a hipster or some other god awful fashion trend from 2010-2016)

Miraculous is STILL airing today meaning that when I was in grade 6 I was watching it, now I'm in my last year of highschool and we are finally seeing development in the show (sorry) however we have not seen any character changes in clothing which I know we don't see much but I feel as if Marinette wears the same 4 outfits and I WOULD LOVE to see a storyline where Marinette is maturing and decides to change her hairstyle and her clothing choices.

Lets analyse Marinette's everyday outfit.

Marinette wears a white singlet top(tank top?) with a black outline/trim, on the singlet top we see a flower design that appears to be a cherry blossom or lotus. Over the top of the shirt she wears a dark grey blazer jacket with a white inside with pink polka dots, she sports this same material but inverted so it is pink with white dots on her purse. For the bottoms she wears hot pink jeans which appear to have the same polka dot pattern on the cuffs as the jacket she wears, the jeans also have some weird ripped/line structure too them which has been added with a white stitching. She wears baby pink ballet flats with a slight heel and black lining and a bow.

I don’t really like this outfit, it’s very boring and I think that Marinette being an aspiring fashion designer would wear something bold that shows off her skills and her own personal style. I also believe that Marinette would be on trend, while being ladybug could potentially leave her with not enough time to come up with new designs, I think it would be a good concept for Marinette to be wearing a new design once in a while. (Even though I know it will be the same polka dot,baby pink, flower fabric that marinette seems to have 10000 yards of.)

For example, in Gravity Falls Mable would wear a different sweater each episode (don’t quote me on that I could be wrong)

Mabel wore the same structure of outfit each episode yes, but it was new each time. And while I wouldn’t consider this the height of fashion, it suits Mabels personality and shows that she is different from the other characters who wear the same outfit every episode.

SPOILERS FOR GRAVITY FALLS

Mabels constant changing of sweaters shows the chaos of her character, you never know what to expect with her, which is why she played a vital role in Bills plan, she was unpredictable and let her ego and own happiness succumb to her chaotic actions.

This would be an easy concept to implement into miraculous and would fit with the context, perhaps Marinette would make a new piece of clothing to wear each episode, it could start off with smaller accessories that slowly develop into larger pieces. If Marinette is sad, it could reflect in the item she chooses to make.

However that isn’t the main problem of the outfits, my problem is that I hate them, I’m not judging you if you like them in any way,shape or form, but personally I cannot see a normal teenager wearing these outfits, there is only few characters whose outfits actually make sense.

For example, Marinettes outfit feels more mature, as if she is working in an office, this does not fit her character at all, and while the colours are bright, the structure and presentation of the pieces gives off the boring dull feeling of working in an office and makes her look much older.

Now here is what I would’ve liked Marinette to wear each season. (considering the dates of releases)

Season 1 2015

In season one we are introduced to Marinette, considering Marinettes age 13. Bare with me, I understand these years are arguably the worst for fashion.

The reason why I picked this outfit is because it reminds me of Marinette, Taking inspiration from 2015 trends, we see Marinette following basic trends such as off the shoulder and denim materials, however, I believe she would add her own style by adding the polka dot pattern to the inside of the jacket (like her original blazer) and the skirt. This look is generally what I would consider to be basic Marinette, she could wear this throughout each season since it is a outfit that could fit into any time frame (2000s-2020) with a few alterations.

Season 2 2016.

2016 was also not a good year for fashion but oh well I digress. This season we get to meet new characters, including new miraculous wielders and love interest. This is also when we get a Marinette birthday episode shower her growth symbolically or whatever.

I decided to add ‘edge’ to this outfit, since we do see Marinette get hurt in a few episodes and struggle with having to choose the right people to wield a miraculous. on the left, I chose a bomber jacket since they were incredibly popular at the time, and dark heels to show Marinettes change, however underneath she wears bright pink jeans and a white turtleneck, this is to show that she is still soft and caring.

Season 3 2019.

this is where it gets much better since the trends and fashion were actually really good this year. We see a lot of important points in this season, we get backstory about characters, learn more about the Miraculous lore, AND we see Marinette be very mature and put Adrien and Kagamis happiness over her own.

This is how I think Marinette would dress and yes they are 4 very different styles, but I think that she would want to show variety not only in her work as a designer, but also as a person, Marinette wants to grow.

Anyways that’s all for now, yes this post is very much all over the place and I start point and leave them without conclusion, but it was fun for me.

EDIT: in my research I decided to change my idea lol, Marinette doesn’t wear the item she makes because it’s too expensive to have a character wear a new outfit each episode, but instead we just see her making a new item.

[kiki-shortsnout]

May I request frostiron Mpreg as a prompt? Thank you! 💜

Hey everyone! A few of you have asked if I'm still doing prompts. The answer is yes, but it does take me a while to write them, I do have a day job and restrictions on my time, plus I'm also working on my IronStrange Bigbang, so please be assured I will get to them all eventually, it will just take time! ❤️

Warnings for below: This is Alpha/Omega and contains Mpreg, just so everyone is aware! Also as it's me.....it's also much longer than I initially thought........

***

‘Sleepy,’ Tony groaned, flopping onto the couch and shoving his head in Loki’s lap. Weakly, he lifted his arms, attempting to bat Loki’s book away and have his full attention.

‘Tired, little Omega?’ Loki teased, his voice low as he closed his book and placed it down on the armrest. If anyone else had called him that, Tony would’ve torn a strip out of their hide, unleashing a verbal smackdown so powerful that it made even the toughest Alphas quake. As it was Loki, Tony accepted the words for what they were, a form of sarcastic affection.

Fingers tangled in his hair, and Tony all but purred at the attention, stretching his limbs out and melting into the couch beneath him, feeling safe in Loki’s hold.

Whatever this was between them, it was good. Loki had respected his boundaries ever since Tony had created the foundations of this…relationship. The Alpha had returned to Earth after his trial on Asgard, remorseful over his actions regarding the Battle of New York, but not quite able to apologize properly for it. The Avengers and SHIELD regarded him with hostility, despite knowing he had been held captive to a brainwashing scepter, waiting for the inevitable betrayal, but Tony had seen something different.

He had recognized something of himself in Loki. Tony knew how close he’d skirted the line of becoming a villain, how his choices in life could’ve been very different. He’d been drawn away from crossing that line many times by Pepper and Rhodey, but Loki didn’t have friends, struggled under different obligations, with only his mother believing he could be more.

Tony understood that all too well, a father that always saw reason to fault you, who always saw the worst in you, and a mother who believed in you.

Loki was one of the few Alphas who respected Tony for who he was, who seemed to enjoy the challenges and verbal sparring they had. He didn’t know if that was because of his Jotun heritage, or how Alphas were brought up on Asgard, but Tony had a sneaky feeling that secondary genders didn’t matter to someone who was neither Asgardian nor a Frost Giant, someone who was a bit of both, but not really either.

Just like Tony who had been raised to suppress his Omega characteristics, to overlap them with Alpha traits and now he was a paradox that didn’t fit into either category.

Like this now though, with Loki stroking through his hair, gazing down at him with fondness, Tony inhibited the sweet Omega form, happy to be close to an Alpha, breathing in his scent, the cold bite of snow that reminded Tony of cozy nights with his mother. They weren’t together, even if Tony had allowed Loki to share his heat a few months ago, one of the rare Alphas Tony had trusted to see him vulnerable in such a way.

‘Your scent…it’s different than usual,’ Loki said, his tone cautious.

This was one of the things Tony adored about Loki, his unwillingness to push him for more, understanding that he was terrified at the prospect of being bonded to an Alpha. He hadn’t morphed into an overbearing monster or become territorial after Tony’s heat, he still checked in and made sure he was comfortable.

Loki was the one Alpha he could see himself becoming bonded to, which made whatever they were doing bittersweet as Loki had also expressed concerns about not wanting to be ‘beholden to an Omega’s whims’ as he’d put it. It was beyond ironic, the one Alpha Tony trusted, the one he would consider for a mate held the same ideals about mating as he did.

Tony wasn’t going to dwell on it, he had a good, no strings attached thing here and he wasn’t going to ruin it.

‘Hmm? I haven’t been feeling well. Pepper says it’s stress, as if I haven’t been stressed every day of my life,’ Tony scoffed, lifting his head for more attention.

‘Do you…would you,’ Loki amended, ‘like my assistance with anything? I know I’m not always understanding of what it is you do but-’

‘Thanks, Lokes, but I’m alright honestly. It’s just board members giving me a rough time that’s all, things will ease off soon,’ Tony told him, opening his eyes and looking up into concerned ones. Loki couldn’t help his Alpha instincts, wanting to care and protect those he cared about, heightened by the fact they had shared a heat and a rut together.

Tony lifted his hand, cradling the side of Loki’s face, both in reassurance and so Loki could bend his head down and breathe in his scent from the gland in his wrist, grounding him. Lips dropped a delicate kiss over the gland, and as green eyes opened, Tony felt a lurch in the pit in his stomach and an irrational rage towards his past self.

Why did I put those boundaries in?

***

Tony ground his forehead into the cool desk, chafing the skin, his blinding headache doing nothing to drown out the words of the doctor ringing in his ears.

What was he going to do?

‘Boss, I think you need to take a break, this can’t be good for you, or the-’

‘Don’t, just don’t,’ Tony snapped, feeling his shoulders hunch, his teeth baring in a snarl. His arms came up to cover his head, protecting him from everything and anything. He needed Pepper, or Rhodey, he needed someone to tell him this was going to be okay, to go through his options.

‘Boss, Loki is requesting a visit,’ FRIDAY told him, making his stress levels skyrocket, his heartbeat increasing to match.

‘Tell him I’m busy.’ Tony jerked his head up, looking around the room. Loki wouldn’t teleport in here, that had been one of Tony’s very first rules, no invading his workshop unless invited. Pepper and Rhodey ignored it, but Loki abided by the rule, as did most of the Avengers.

‘I did. However, he has expressed concern regarding the changes in your behavior, the length of time between your last visit, and I really think-’

‘Alright!’ Tony held a hand up to stop her in her tirade, scrubbing his hands through his hair, thinking quickly. He couldn’t do this, he wanted space to think, to plan. It had been days since he’d gotten the news of his condition, and he’d come straight here, needing to work.

‘Let him in,’ Tony said, ‘and I’m sorry, for my shitty attitude, I’m just-’

‘Understandable Boss. No matter what your decision is, I will support you in any way I am able.’

‘I know, honey, thank you,’ Tony breathed out, trying not to cry, knowing Loki would be able to smell it.

‘Are you well, Anthony? It has been longer than normal since the last time I have seen you and I know the idiots you call teammates share my concern,’ Loki asked, stepping forward with narrowed eyes, trying to scent the air without being obvious about it.

‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine Loki, just been distracted with something,’ Tony told him, gesturing with his hand at the schematics in the holographic display behind him.

‘You’re distressed,’ Loki informed him.

‘Damn Alpha nose,’ Tony hissed, turning in his chair to look back at his holograms.

‘It has nothing to do with your scent,’ Loki told him, turning his chair back the other way and bending down so they were eye level. ‘What is wrong, darling?’ he asked, reaching up to stroke his thumb over Tony’s eyebrow, trailing down to circle around his eye. ‘You are close to weeping.’

‘I can’t fix the suit,’ Tony answered. It wasn’t a lie, not really.

Loki’s gaze flickered up, taking in Tony’s designs. ‘Is there a weakness in the stomach plating? You’re focusing much of your calculations on that area,’ he asked.

‘It’s the most vulnerable area,’ Tony answered, subconsciously resting his hands over his stomach and then quickly moving them down to his thighs, gripping his jeans.

‘Anthony, your armor is impenetrable, I would know,’ Loki tried to change the tone of their conversation, making a lighthearted jab about their fight months ago.

Tony looked up at the schematics, knowing that no matter the tinkering, the redesigning of the suit, nothing he did would protect the life growing inside him. It was too dangerous, the number of times he got flung across the battlefield, the energy beams, the alien technology, the stress on his body.

He couldn’t be Iron Man anymore. Not like this.

‘Anthony, you need to breathe, listen to me,’ Loki’s voice faded in and out. Nails suddenly tightened on his knees giving him a focus point, his lungs suddenly remembering how to inhale air. ‘That’s it, one breath in, hold it, now release,’ Loki instructed, his scent wrapping around him, forming a protective bubble amidst all the panic, holding him steady.

If I can’t be Iron Man, if I can’t be an Avenger, then what am I? What use am I?

‘Anthony…Tony, darling, you need to breathe. You are safe, I will protect you from everything,’ Loki swore, his gaze turning brittle as he watched him, his lips drawing back from his teeth as he readied himself for battle.

‘I can’t do this,’ Tony blurted, feeling his shoulders beginning to shake.

‘Anthony, you are the strongest Ome…the strongest person I know. There is nothing you cannot do. Know that I will stand beside you, fighting your demons alongside you, you are not alone.’

Beside you. Not for you. Even now with his instincts going haywire, Loki’s scent curdling in the air, becoming so sour with his rage, he was still respecting Tony’s wishes.

Tony flung his arms around Loki’s neck, clutching him close, burrowing his head into his unbroken bonding gland, even as his nose wrinkled against the foul odor, the aroma thick on his tongue, choking him. Loki held him close, rubbing his jaw the best he could over his head, scenting him in a rare act of claiming, warning others away that Tony usually would’ve balked at.

Instead, he tried to get closer, sending Loki to his ass on the floor as he scrambled onto his lap, his hands fisting into Loki’s tunic top, wanting the warmth and reassurance of the Alpha. Loki allowed him to take whatever comfort he wanted, drawing his legs up so his knees bracketed Tony’s body, his arms in a loose hug around his back.

He felt himself blinking back tears, the agony in his heart ingrained in the very tissues of his muscle, aching with every beat. Had Loki ever wanted more from him? He’d never asked, taking Loki’s word for it months ago that he too didn’t want to be tied down. They’d never spoken about anything changing, and Tony wasn’t certain Loki even wanted him in a long term sense, if he would eventually go home and find a royal Omega.

The thoughts made him shake in Loki’s hold, and even the deep crooning rumbling in the Alpha’s chest couldn’t calm him, the frantic thoughts of his mind more powerful than biological instincts.

‘Listen to me, I do not say this as an Alpha to an Omega. I know the boundaries you have set, will abide by them always, but I hope as one friend to another you will speak to me about what is ailing you,’ Loki encouraged.

‘I can’t,’ Tony whimpered.

He needed to sort this out alone.

***

He’d always scoffed at all of the insipid dramas Pepper had made him watch, the misunderstandings unfolding between two characters, arguments and heartbreak that could have easily been resolved with a mature conversation, sometimes even a word.

I’m pregnant.

They weren’t even difficult words to say, but Tony was suffocating under the weight of them, what they meant to him, to Loki, their future, his future.

Tony stood at the edge of the room, on the fringes of things where he was most comfortable. The charity event was in full swing around him, people in their finest clothes dancing, swirls of colorful silk and chiffon, the dark suits of the men a gorgeous contrast. The atmosphere was bubbly, light and frothy like the champagne they drunk, and Tony was the dark cloud, sucking up the positive emotions and radiating a toxic miasma in return.

Pepper suspected something was wrong too. Betas didn’t have the sense of smell Alphas had, but she knew him better than anyone, knew he was hiding something, and he knew he didn’t have long before she backed him into a corner.

He didn’t want to deal with the issue at hand, had started ignoring it, convincing himself that it would go away if he didn’t think about it. Even as he started being sick, the constant exhaustion now plaguing him, he turned a blind eye to it all, cutting himself off from everyone. The Avengers hadn’t noticed, used to Tony becoming obsessed with projects and cutting them off for weeks at a time.

Loki had though, Tony could feel his gaze boring into his back at the shared common room in the tower, the questions burning on his tongue when Tony refused to suit up as Iron Man. Even as Steve and Tony argued about his cowardice, Fury’s threats to take him from the team, he hadn’t said or done anything, leaving Tony to fight his own battles unless he was called for.

No matter how desperately Tony had wanted the Alpha…his Alpha beside him, he couldn’t say anything. Looking down at the untouched champagne glass in his hand, he gave a self-deprecating laugh. He couldn’t come to terms with the idea of becoming a parent, but understanding he’d been thinking of Loki of his Alpha for some time had been a simple realization.

Looking up through all the crowds of people here for the charity event he was supposed to be hosting, Tony found Loki easily. The Alpha was staring at him, hurt lurking in his gaze before he was quickly able to mask it, offering Tony a well-rehearsed smile, one he himself wore at events like this. Loki’s gaze went down to the still full glass in Tony’s grip, lifting his own and tapping the side of it, asking if he wanted something else.

Shaking his head, he turned away from Loki, forcing himself into conversation with one of the sponsors, nodding in greeting as Thor walked past with Bruce, both talking happily with a crowd of fans following.

He felt like an imposter, knowing he was meant to be part of a team. This…condition would change all that, he wouldn’t be taken seriously, forced into a desk position, watching on the sidelines. That wasn’t him, he wanted to protect the Earth.

I am Iron Man.

Smashing glass caught his attention, an ominous hush settling over everyone at the party, guests drawing away from Loki, revealing him to be the culprit of the damage. His fingers were still poised from where he’d been holding a glass, his eyes huge as he stared down at a woman.

A very pregnant, Omega woman.

Shit.

Tony thrust his glass into someone’s hand, trying to escape while there were people forming a barrier between them, fear clawing its way over his body, seizing him in its clutches as he tried to escape. Others turned to help him as they caught scent of his terror, some thinking a villain had shown up as he started to barge pass, trying to make a run for it.

He smacked into Loki’s chest, the lingering magic shimmering in the air revealing he’d teleported himself straight in his path.

‘I think not, Stark,’ Loki hissed, teleporting them both.

***

Despite the rage oozing from Loki’s body, he still made sure Tony had regained his footing after teleporting before he thrust him away, trying to put space between them both, magic crackling in his palms and snaking down his arms.

Tony staggered over to his bed, taking a moment to appreciate Loki the fact had teleported them somewhere he viewed safe. His bedroom was a sanctuary that few had access to, the one place he could nest without judgement, where he had his heats without fear for his safety, knowing that only FRIDAY could override the security locks on his door.

He wrapped his blanket around his knees, subconsciously guarding the life growing inside him as he hugged a pillow to his stomach. Hidden within it was a prototype gauntlet, and he knew Loki knew that, saw the way his gaze went to it even as Tony slid his hand into it, ready to fight.

‘Did you not think I would find out?’ Loki growled, holding his ground, trying not to threaten a pregnant Omega, but ensnared by the potent mix of rage and hurt. ‘Did you think you could conceal it from me forever, ashamed of me and my heritage? Or did you think I planned this for you somehow, trapping you as mine, the one thing you did not wish for!’

‘That isn’t it, Loki,’ Tony protested.

‘Then what, Stark? Tell me before my patience wears thin!’ Loki demanded.

The second use of his surname stung. He’d grown used to the way Loki said Anthony with reverence, the loving way he used darling sparingly, muttering it against his skin when he’d been exhausted from his heat, or when it was used when he sought affection from the Alpha.

‘I didn’t know how,’ Tony pleaded.

‘How to say you were carrying my child… or how to say you wish you weren’t?’

‘That isn’t it Loki! I’m scared damn it!’ Tony shouted, flinging the pillow to the floor, his gauntlet powering up as he pointed it at Loki. He was reacting to the Alpha’s rage, refusing to ever be powerless to an Alpha ever again. Never would he succumb to an Alphas manipulation that he was worthless because of his secondary gender like his father had taught him. Never would he be vulnerable to an Alphas pride, watching as someone he considered family tore his literal heart from his chest, leaving him for dead.

‘This isn’t about you! It was never about you!’ Tony shouted, standing up on the bed, refusing to have the lower ground. ‘I’m going to lose everything! Iron Man, the Avengers! I don’t know how to raise a child! I don’t want my life to change!’ Tony growled, every bit as terrifying as an Alpha.

That was partly the truth. Tony had a soft spot for children, always had done, but that hadn’t meant he wanted one of his own. These writhing, conflicted emotions he had were proof of it. This wasn’t what pregnancy was meant to be like, it was meant to be gender reveal parties and crying over baby booties, ecstatic would be parents falling into each other’s arms as they sobbed.

Not a twisted, broken Omega who didn’t know how to be a parent.

‘Loki…if I can’t even be happy I’m pregnant how am I going to be a parent? I’ll destroy them, just like my father destroyed me,’ Tony croaked, his hand falling to his side, his bare hand going to his stomach, finally acknowledging the life inside him.

‘Anthony, you’re in shock, I think you’re allowed to feel whatever you want to. Children are a wonderful-’

‘You don’t even want me! Why would you want this?’ Tony spat, lifting his gauntlet up again, aiming it at Loki’s chest.

‘Anthony, of course I want you. I have wanted nothing else but you since I began living here on Midgard. You honestly think I care for the Avengers, for dancing the steps SHIELD set out for me? I came to repair the damage with my brother, but I stayed because you were here. A gorgeous, spitfire Omega who stands strong against any Alpha, who ignores his instincts and decides what he wants out of life.’

Loki took a daring step forward, the anger gone from his posture, his hands held out in front of his chest, his posture meek, unthreatening.

‘An Omega I would have bonded long ago had I not seen how deep the scars life had left upon his soul, how terrified he was of commitment. Anthony Stark, I would have you stand beside me for the rest of your days, longer if you would accept me.’

‘Don’t,’ Tony choked out, his voice thick with tears, his legs struggling to hold him up.

Loki continued walking, lifting his head back, baring his neck in a vulnerable gesture, showing Tony he was in control.

‘I moved slowly because I did not want to scare you. No matter how much I yearned for you, how much I coveted you as a mate, I restrained my intentions because I wanted you, Anthony. I care not about your gender, either of them, I want you, because of you.’

‘What if I hurt them? What if they end up hating me? What if I can’t do it?’ Every ugly thought he had, every insecurity came flying out and he hated himself for it. Who was he thinking about? Himself? Or the child inside him?

‘Anthony, you are not alone in this. Even if you do not wish for me to be your bonded Alpha that will not stop me supporting you, or our child.’

Tony whined, a high pitched noise of distress and Loki was before him in an instant, embracing and scenting him to calm him.

‘This,’ Loki reached out, his hand huge on Tony’s abdomen. ‘This means more to me than I can express in words, that I found an Omega I could love, that he would bless me with such a gift. Do not think I do not want you, nor or child.’

‘I do want you,’ Tony told him. ‘I haven’t been able to tell you, I thought you-’

‘Hush, Anthony. You know the truth now. Now all that needs to be said is where we go from here.’

‘Iron Man, the team-’

‘Will all be waiting for you after the child is born,’ Loki promised. ‘I will guard Midgard for you in your stead, I swear it.’

‘What about-’

‘The fact that you already worry about such a thing reassures me that you will be a wonderful parent. You have taken great pains to reassure me over the past months that I am more than the sum of my parts, and now I speak the same wise words to you. You are not your father, Anthony, and I am not mine,’ he whispered, bending down to swipe away the furious tears building.

Tony surged forwards, kissing Loki, their tears mingling on their lips, sealing them together. Loki attempted to laugh as he pulled away, kissing Tony’s cheekbone.

‘I love you, Anthony. May I please have the honor of courting you?’

‘I love you too, Loki and only if that involves lots of presents,’ Tony tried to joke, his tears still falling.

‘Of course, only the best for my demanding Omega. We shall speak of our…unexpected gift at another time, but for now I believe it is best we rest. You’ve had me worried for weeks and unable to sleep,’ Loki told him, encouraging him back down towards the bed, scooping the blankets around Tony in a haphazard nest, not hiding his impulses now he knew of his feelings.

‘You really think I can do this, that we can do this?’ Tony asked as he settled down against Loki’s side, all the exhaustion he’d been struggling with making itself known.

‘I do not believe it will be free of challenges, but I am not lying to you when I say there are few beings in this universe I could love, fewer still that I would entrust to bear my child,’ Loki whispered down to him, hand splaying over his stomach. ‘Sleep, darling, we will talk more in the morning.’

Shoving aside any rampant thoughts in his mind, for positive reasons this time, Tony allowed his fingers to lace through Loki’s on his stomach, turning his gaze inwards, wondering who was inside there.

[gloryofluv]

Traditionally Obscure Chapter 27

Bombs away!

Previous Chapter

How did it start? Well, the children of the estate were having a summer day of playing with water balloons, and Luke dragged her along. Soon Sasha and Elsa were in shorts and t-shirts, joining the fray. It was an all-out war, and Rosa was tucked behind a tree. Her shirt was dripping, and her hair was matted.

Vyn was resting in his room today, and Ester was watching from the patio. She commented on how youthful people needed to get rid of the summer heat somehow. Rosa was puffing and looked in the bag she was carrying her water balloons inside. She only had six left.

There was shouting of the children across the grass, and she watched as two of the children were chasing each other and throwing balloons. Sasha and Elsa came skipping out, tossing a few balloons at them. Rosa glanced over at the other tree to see Luke lurking. An impish smile grew on her face as she slunk down and waited.

Luke crawled out from his hiding place and began to aim toward the princesses. Rosa crouched and hurried closer to get him; however, it seemed again he knew where she was. He pivoted and rushed toward her scooping her off the ground.

“Luke, dammit!” Rosa screamed, and her water balloons broke in her bag, leaving her with the one in her hand.

He laughed and held her legs with her over one of his shoulders. “Free target!” He shouted.

“Luke!” Rosa snapped.

The children in the distance and princesses were laughing. Rosa could already estimate that her shorts were going to be soaked because of this. She struggled and flailed, allowing her to slid from his grip. He sidestepped quickly, and she missed him with her last water balloon.

The gasping around her wasn’t ideal as Rosa realized she hadn’t completely missed a target. Vyn was walking out toward them, and the water balloon hit him square on his chest. The white buttoned shirt stuck to his undershirt and collarbone. Rosa covered her mouth as her cheeks tinted.

“Dr. Richter! Oh, I’m so sorry!” She huffed and stepped toward him.

He glanced down and exhaled with a curl to his lips. “It’s fine, Rosa. I was just going to announce that Carl will be here within the hour.”

“Oh, is that the magician you were telling me about, Rosa?” Luke asked as he wiped his face on his shirt.

Rosa glanced at him and nodded. “Yes, it is. He’s pretty stupendous,” she paused and gazed down at her soaked clothing. “I suppose I better change then.”

Vyn rocked his head and gestured at his cousins. “You as well, cousins.”

Luke chuckled and shifted. “Well, it sounds like a good way to pass the evening. I’ve always wanted to poke around about how magicians do their tricks.”

Vyn smiled and tilted his head. “It’s about understanding your audience.”

The group of adults waved off the children, who continued their game, and they began pacing back toward the house. “How are you feeling?” Rosa asked.

“Much better. I can breathe today,” Vyn declared.

She pulled out the braid in her hair, and the wavy damp locks curled around her neck. “That’s great. Hopefully, you get some rest while we fly tomorrow.”

“I can’t believe you’re leaving already, Vil,” Elsa sighed.

“Yes, it feels like we’re going to miss you even more. Without Father, we won’t have someone reviewing our French or economics work,” Sasha grumbled.

Vyn tutted and shook his head. “You can always call me. We shall set time in the evenings during the week, and I have your tutor coming to the estate next week. Now that everything with your father has come to pass, it’s time to finish your education.”

Ester approached as they reached the patio. “Rosa, can we have an audience while you change?”

Oh? Rosa nodded and adjusted her soaked shirt. Ester beckoned her inside, and they walked together. It was odd and evident that she needed to speak to her, but why? It felt like there was another shoe about to drop.

The ladies traversed up the staircase to Rosa’s floor, and Ester straightened her dress. Rosa offered the Dowager Queen entrance before following suit and shutting the door. Ester sat down in the armchair as Rosa gathered her clothing from her larger bag.

“You wanted to talk?” Rosa questioned.

“Go ahead and change. I have some questions I need to be answered before you leave tomorrow morning,” she murmured.

The young woman smiled and went into the bathroom. Interestingly, even after her title shifted, she still remained in control of everything around her. Rosa had plenty of respect for Ester and was even more understanding of her now. Vyn may have gotten his temperament from his uncle’s teachings, but there was no down; he learned how to command a room from his aunt.

She had changed into a simple burgundy dress with her hair wrapped in a bun. When she entered the room again, Ester was staring at the flowers sitting on the dresser. There was a forlorn expression that breached her eyes—the declaration of missing a piece of her heart.

“What can I do for you today, Your Majesty?” Rosa asked.

The woman’s eyes cleared, and she glanced at her with a smile. “I wanted to talk to you about my nephew.”

Rosa’s eyebrows raised as her lips parted. “What about him?”

Ester shifted, and her eyebrows dropped closer to her sharp blue eyes. “I understand both of you will take this journey together however you choose to do so. However, do me a favor when you’ve returned to Stellis? Could you please be positive he has you to lean on?”

Rosa breathed as she sat down on the mattress. “I know he’s compartmentalizing. Yesterday I noticed that he nodded off reading his uncle’s letters. He said he missed him in his sleep.”

Ester touched her chest and bowed her head. “My sweet Vilhelm. He would let the world see him as unshakable if only to keep others safe.”

“You raised him. Tell me, does he ever want to take up the mantle as Edmar would have liked?” Rosa asked as she fiddled with her fingers.

Ester smiled and tilted his head. “What is your largest concern?”

“About his decision? Well, I suppose it has to do with the decision itself. If he chose duty over his passion, would he regret it? He wasn’t raised to be king, correct?” Rosa asked.

“He was raised to lead,” Ester shrugged. “I don’t think Vyn would choose anything without knowing in his heart it would be best suited.”

“Do you think he wants to?” Rosa questioned, and her eyes dropped a moment.

“Do you think he does?” Ester asked.

Rosa inhaled and shook her head. “I honestly don’t know. He keeps his plans so close to his chest. If he did want to, I think it wouldn’t be immediately. He would redesign everything about his research center, his patients, and his life as a whole. It would be a remapping of what makes Vyn Richter, himself.”

Ester’s head bounced, and she gestured to Rosa. “Would you support it?”

“I wouldn’t have a choice. It’s his life. I just want him to be happy. I would miss him terribly,” Rosa sighed, and her eyes moved to the vase.

“Do you plan on growing a serious relationship with my nephew?” Ester asked.

Rosa pressed her lips together as her cheeks darkened. “Maybe? We have plenty to go over when we get home. Things I didn’t know,” she stopped and shook her head.

“You didn’t know you felt?”

Rosa exhaled and agreed. “Yes.”

Ester smiled and pressed her hand to her chest. “I would like to share a story about Edmar. Care to listen?”

“Of course,” Rosa smiled.

“It was before we began to court, and I knew he would one day be king. I was rather on the fence about such due to my dreams of running my father’s companies. I wanted to take on his role eventually, and I was quick as a whip at business. However, Edmar was this beautiful and magnetic being with such a vast understanding of human life. I was enamored and was quite torn; if I became his wife, I would be giving up my liberties to run my father’s companies. If I declined him, he would leave my life forever and marry another,” Ester paused and closed her eyes with a smile on her lips.

“There was a beautiful moment I shall never forget, to my dying day. Edmar and I were walking my parents’ estate in France. The air had just turned chilly in the announcement of the coming season. He pulled out a stone from his pocket and handed it to me. When I asked what it was for, he declared that no matter where our lives take us or where my heart travels, I will always have a piece of Svart with me now. I knew at that moment, with him at my side, I could make the impossible possible… so we had,” Ester finished and dug into her dress pocket, producing a small stone.

Rosa beamed and exhaled. “That’s beautiful. Instead of asking you to be his, he released you with the knowledge that his heart would always be yours.”

“This stone doesn’t just signify the land or the man. His intentions were to declare that the memories and affection were greater than the need to ruin my dreams. My nephew will never ask of you to leave your dreams. He might be searching for different answers within questions. However, my suggestion to you, Rosa, is to take to heart what it means to have dreams as a child and dreams as an adult. What we think is the goal when we are younger becomes so much more. I secretly take care of my husband’s legacy, and the companies know why secrecy is so important. Eventually, when laws are changed, the roles in which we live will as well,” Ester finished.

Rosa licked her lips and scowled. “Are you suggesting he has thought about becoming king with me here?”

Ester laughed and raised her eyebrows. “Darling, did you not know that he’s enamored by you?”

Her cheeks truly couldn’t get any darker. “Well, it’s, we haven’t really talked about it,” Rosa sputtered.

“My final word of advice on my nephew,” Ester declared. “He will never expect you to have the answers you aren’t ready to share. He knows them. Edmar was very much like that, and Vilhelm used to be. However, where Edmar flourished, Vilhelm sought domination. The roads of love are difficult, and Vyn has yet to embark on such an experience.”

“Me either,” Rosa shook her head.

“That’s perfectly acceptable. Just remember he may understand, but he can’t give you the answers for your own heart. Be kind to your heart, even with your convictions,” Ester declared and stood up. “I imagine Vyn’s friend has arrived. I’ll let you finish up.”

Rosa stood and reached for Ester’s hand. “Thank you. Thank you for raising him to be compassionate as well as brilliant.”

“It was my pleasure,” Ester beamed and released her hand before moving to the door.

Rosa paced over to the head of the bed and picked up the button. She stared at the shiny object and thought back at Ester’s words.

When I asked what it was for, he declared that no matter where our lives take us or where my heart travels, I will always have a piece of Svart with me now.

Maybe it didn’t represent Svart, but something more. Vyn could have been suggesting with this that no matter where either of them was, she would always have a piece of him. As the theory swirled in her mind, she remembered the timbers of his voice and the smile on his lips. He was confessing his feelings, knowing she would eventually understand this—a simple button.

[shewhowantsmouseears]

morgwing meet-up messy drabble

My year-long-fic-break has been slightly broken, but don’t expect too much. I had enough brain juice in me to write this 3 page silliness.

Still riding the high from @queenie-draws-stuff ‘s rad Morgana redesign, I decided to write a potential “how they met” deal, combining the original Fungus Amongus quotes/situation with Queenie’s Goth Rock set-up.

Additional notes now I think of them before jumping right to what is basically “mel enjoys writing simps”

The Band uses a We Will Rock You style song (been listening to this cover) to hypnotize her fans into attacking Darkwing and the gang.

Halestorm’s cover of Bad Romance is definitely suitable for attacking and flirting with Darkwing at the same time.

At one point, Darkwing gets her guitar away from her and he’s confident “Ahaha! Now that I’ve taken away your magic, you’re helpless!” And Morgana smiles... then bursts into cackles. “Oh, Dark Darling... my guitar isn’t the source of my power. It’s merely a conduit.” (”a... a what”) “In other words...” her hands and eyes glow. “It’s time for the encore, baby.”

OKAY TIME FOR THE SHORT WRITTEN THING ITSELF

In hindsight, this wasn’t the best plan, but in his defense, it worked all the time on a TV show he’d watched as a child. Darkwing paused to think about that train of logic, and pondered if perhaps he should stop trying to plan his investigations that way and instead follow his own instincts next time.

 “OWWWWW BONES DO NOT BEND THAT WAY!”

 If there was a next time. He had assumed the whole goth rock mutant monster image was just that, an image. The guy with two heads, the girl with one eye, the behemoth of a drummer? All of it was just costumes and acting! So when announced his presence in his typical overly dramatic fashion, he assumed they would cower in fear before offering their assistance. Instead, they had jumped him and were now holding his arms behind his back and threatening to tie his limbs into knots. As he continued to squirm in place, he once more tried to plead his innocence.

 “I’m here to HELP!” He cried out, nervously noticing the two-headed terror cracking his knuckles while the one-eyed wonder was pulling out various sharp instruments from her purse, and they definitely weren’t the musical kind. “I was just looking for clues! You know those robberies that have been happening around here, right?! There’s a connection between them and your band!”

 “And now we’re about to disconnect your head from your neck!” Said the left head, and the right headed nodded vigorously.

 Darkwing winced, as the others advanced on him, the grip on his arms tightening. If this was his last day on earth, he really wished his last words to Gosalyn hadn’t been “Remember to run the dishwasher after homework.” He closed his eyes, his brain struggling to think of how to get him out of this sticky situation…

 “HEY!” A sharp - yet familiar – voice broke through the scene. “What’s going on here?! We do not treat our fans this way! Put him down!”

 It took less than a second for Darkwing to recognize the voice – this was the singer of the band, after all. When Gosalyn had showed him the link to her new favorite indie band, Darkwing had taken a compulsory listen without paying attention to the visuals, as he was busy trying to pin down the strange case of robberies where the victims couldn’t remember being robbed at all. The singer was definitely talented, a strong but sultry voice that Darkwing certainly wouldn’t have minded listening to on a loop. But it’d been also terribly distracting, so he hadn’t tried to give the music video any attention. Once again, this proved to have been not the best idea in hindsight.

 Because then he would have prepared for the absolute bombshell that walked through the curtains.

 Darkwing opened one eye to see his savior, and then both eyes were not only open, but they were also quite wide in shock. The woman in question was a leggy stunner, her black and white hair parted over one side and trailing down her eerily pale feathers like a shadowy walk lit by moonlit. Sharp green eyes pierced right through his heart, analyzing him as he stood there in a slack-jawed stupor. She adjusted her blood-red guitar over her back, the crimson and black spider-web outfit giving him the feeling he’d be the fly that eagerly walked into this parlor any day. She rested one hand on her hip, and snapped her fingers – even her nails were unique – long, sharp, yellow, and deadly.

 Darkwing had no more time to realize he had a type and she was it when he was let go and dropped to the floor. As he scrambled to get up and dust himself off, the one-eyed woman huffed. “We caught this weirdo sneaking around here, Morgana.”

 Morgana held up a hand, signaling for silence. “I got this, Cornea.” She looked Darkwing up and down once more before smiling in amusement. “I believe this is where you introduce yourself.” She offered her hand to shake. “Nice to meet you, mister…?”

 “D-Dingwing Dork.”  Darkwing sputtered, his palm feeling incredibly sweaty in her delicate hand. He was quick to realize his mistake, yelped, and fumbled with his hands and hat as he tried to make his brain calm down. “DARK! Darkwing Duck! Dark-Darkwing Duck.” After a hard throat clear, he tried to pretend he hadn’t made an absolute fool of himself several times, tipping his hat politely, doing a gentlemanly bow, and ignoring the various eyerolls of the other band-mates. “At your service.”

 “What an unusual name,” Morgana commented, lightly tilting his beak up with one of her fingers, closing the gap between them for a few but very, very personal seconds. “But then you appear to be very unusual… I like that.” When she pulled away, it was a sheer miracle Darkwing didn’t fall forward, though he certainly leaned in enough to make it a close call. “We were just wrapping up rehearsal. We want to close up shop early, what with all those midnight robberies going on.”

 Darkwing stopped for a second, befuddled. “Hang on. How did you know they were midnight robberies?” He was fairly certain that was something the press hadn’t leaked, and he’d only just figured out the timeline a day before.

 Morgana froze in place – eyes quickly shooting to her fellow players – before rolling her shoulders, readjusting her guitar so that it slid back into her arms. “I… deduced it.”

 Maybe if Launchpad and Gosalyn were there – the former to ask more questions, the latter to smack some sense into him – Darkwing would have taken greater notice of that lengthy pause. Instead? She deduced it, he thought, his heart doing cartwheels. My kinda woman. Despite his clear problematic infatuation, his brain did have enough cells left to ask another important question. “Isn’t it kind of… peculiar… to hold a rehearsal this late?”

 Morgana plucked a few notes off her guitar, walking back onto the front of the stage, the curtains now perfectly parted to show the moon shining down from the ceiling – the venue, such as it was, had certainly seen better days. But now the various holes above seemed to be an improvement rather than something that needed fixing. “I enjoy the night,” she answered, and then playfully added, “Besides, the sun is so harsh on my skin.”

 “You know…” Darkwing casually strolled up to Morgana’s side, his previous predicament forgotten already, “I’m something of a creature of the night myself.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

 Morgana chuckled quietly. “I bet we have a lot in common, Darkwing. In fact…” She lightly nudged the guitar’s neck into Darkwing’s actual neck, enjoying the audible tiny ‘eep’ his flustered mouth made. “I bet we could make beautiful music together.”

[whentherewerebicycles]

hi! i wanted to say i love reading your reflections on teaching, and in general i really look up to/am inspired by your thoughts regarding education and academia. if it's not too much to ask (completely understandable if it is, in that case please disregard!) i would love to get your advice on college related things?

i had pretty significant academic struggles throughout grade school, and ended up dropping out of college after a year. i would've graduated this may, so lately i've been considering going back and finishing my bachelor's. but i've been waffling on this decision because of 1) anxiety about having to drop out again, and 2) some confusion about what i actually want to study. i guess i'm wondering, is it worth it to start from scratch? my struggles were mostly about mental health stuff & difficulty keeping up with coursework—i loved being in the classroom, working with professors, learning from other students. i like being challenged intellectually, but if i have issues with followthrough, is there a way to work on that??? i know these are Big Questions, lol--whether they are answerable or not, cheers and thank you and i hope you are doing well these days. <3

hey! happy to give my thoughts, for what they're worth. you know your situation better than i do so the specifics may or may not be relevant, but i can give some advice just based on seeing lots of students pass through four-year programs!

i've worked with a number of students who took time away from college and came back to finish later. i took a year off myself in the middle of college for mental health reasons, though my school allowed you to take a two-semester leave of absence for any reason (so i always had the safety net of knowing i could come back without having to reapply or start over). in my experience, time away is almost always a good thing. sometimes people just really need that break from the stressors of the college environment! but more importantly, i think people benefit from having a few years' experience living and working in the world.

even though it can be intimidating to come back to college as an older student, i think older students or nontraditional students who took time off and came back tend to underestimate how much more confident and assured in themselves they'll be once they're back in the classroom. working out in the world for a while, even if it's not a job that you especially love or feel is relevant to your long-term goals, tends to help you build more trust in your own ability to get stuff done, manage responsibilities, and be an adult person in the world. in your time away, you've probably grown more than you think, and you may find that some of the things you struggled with at 18 just don't feel as daunting anymore. or they might feel daunting, but you also have more experience talking and working with other people, and you may feel more confident in seeking out & using your college's various academic success resources.

have you considered a two-year college as a possible next step? one of my advisees this year was an adult student who went to college for a year, dropped out, served in the military for four years, came back to do an associate's degree, and decided he liked school enough that he wanted to transfer to our university and finish his degree. (now he's going on to do a phd next fall!!!!) he's one of the most passionate advocates for community colleges i've ever met, and he's stayed actively involved in our local CC community & now mentors recent transfer students at our university. he's talked at length about how CCs are this amazing way for students to explore their interests without having to take on the huge price tag of a four-year degree, within a learning community that's much warmer, more responsive to student needs, and more accepting of the diverse paths that lead people to & through higher education. i wonder if you might consider taking a semester or a year of courses at your local CC, to dip your toes back in and see if you're still feeling energized by the experience.

you might find that some of the courses aren't intellectually challenging enough, but this might also be a wonderful opportunity to create the kind of learning experience you want to have. i was a full-time community college student for a year during my year away from yale, and while i'm sure i was just INSUFFERABLE in many ways, i had a prof in my Western Civ course who was really generous with his time/energy and met with me outside of class to help me figure out how to make the papers into something that i found really exciting and challenging to write. so the class kind of became what i made of it, and i got to read some stuff (dostoevsky!!!) that sent me down all kinds of interesting unexpected rabbitholes. the former CC grad i mentioned above was an extraordinarily bright student who would always go to office hours and ask his profs for more recommended readings, and he ended up becoming a TA for one of his courses and helped them redesign basically their entire intro humanities curriculum as a student advisor. so your CC experience can absolutely be what you make of it. and even if your profs can't give you that kind of support, you could practice doing it for yourself, setting little challenges for yourself either focused on the intellectual aspects ('I'm going to read and cite two scholarly sources in this paper, even though it's not required') or on developing strategies for effectively managing the workload ('I'm going to schedule a writing center appointment on Thurs, so I have to finish this paper two days before the deadline—and then I can devote my weekend study time to practicing for my Spanish test').

CC would be a slightly lower stakes environment for you to try out college again— lower-stakes both in the sense that it's cheaper (so if you decide you don't want to continue, you're not out as much money / don't feel compelled to go on to justify the debt you've taken on) and in the sense that the workload might be more manageable for you as you readjust to academic life and build systems & structures that work for you. as you probably have gathered from this blog, i am a HUGE believer in doing lower-stakes things many times over to build your own confidence and your trust in yourself, and then gradually scaling up the difficulty. by the time you reach the hard thing, you've already built up this strong image of yourself as a person who can handle challenges (and you've also had the chance to identify areas where you struggle & experiment with developing workable solutions).

if a two-year college isn't something you're especially interested in, i think it's definitely possible to start a four-year degree again. if that's the path you choose, i would strongly recommend reaching out to students in some of the degree programs you're tentatively interested in. people are almost always happy to share their ~wisdom~ (see: this ask response, lol) and most people love being asked for their thoughts on the pros and cons of something they know well. so you could get an honest sense from students of what the program is like, what the workload is like, and how useful or engaging people find the required courses for the degree. but also know that it's pretty normal to take courses all over in your first year or two (you have the advantage of having done a freshman year before, so you probably know this!), so you might just want to plan to try out a bunch of different things, with the goal of narrowing your focus by the end of your first year, or midway through your second.

i would also HIGHLY recommend spending lots of time familiarizing yourself with the resources your university has to offer. learn everything you can about the kind of mental health counseling and support they offer to students, and see if there are things you can set up in advance for yourself before you even step foot on campus. for instance, our university offers individual counseling, but they also have free groups that meet every week or two around different topics (coping with stress, students in recovery, etc) that are led by a counselor. check out your university's writing center or peer tutoring centers, too, and set up a standing appointment once a month or once a week or whatever, to bring in something you're working on—so that you know that every week, you're going to talk with someone about what's going well and what you're struggling with in your assignments.

you might also want to look into your university's services for students with disabilities office, as they can help you figure out if you are eligible for various kinds of accommodations or additional support (extra time on exams, notetaking services, recorded lectures, etc). i know you mentioned that you've dealt with academic struggles in grade school, too. if you think it's possible that there may be underlying learning differences that are affecting your academic work, it might be worth seeing if they can help you find lower-cost testing, so you can get a diagnosis that qualifies you for additional accommodations and university support.

many schools, esp large public universities, also have resource centers and mentoring programs for students from specific demographics who may benefit from additional structure and support in their early years of college. my university has a variety of resource centers and programs for students from low-income backgrounds, first-gen students, students who transferred from community college, etc. you don't have to take advantage of ALL of these resources, but proactively establishing a support network long before you need it is a really good way to set yourself up for success. and even just doing the research will probably help you feel more confident in your capacity to 'follow through', since you'll know that you're going into this with your eyes wide open AND with a detailed plan for what to do if you run into some of the same obstacles you encountered the first time around.

speaking of detailed plans: i find it helpful sometimes to do IF-THEN exercises with students when they're stressed about something on the horizon or unsure about whether they can handle some new challenge. IF-THEN is just what it sounds like: 'IF this thing I'm nervous about happens, THEN I'm going to do X, Y, or Z.' what i like about this exercise (i use it with myself too aha) is that it acknowledges that sometimes the thing you're dreading DOES happen. sometimes the professor you emailed for an extension says no. sometimes the TA doesn't understand why you're confused about the assignment. sometimes you don't have time to finish the reading before class. sometimes you overschedule yourself and you have to pull an all-nighter to finish two papers on the same night. scary things, confidence-shaking things, happen all the time, but they are rarely fatal! and there can be something really powerful about acknowledging and naming the thing you're concerned about, and then generating a few next steps you could take, should the thing you're dreading come to pass. i could see you doing something like this as you start thinking about the things that tripped you up last time, or made it difficult for you to balance the workload. if X happens, then what could you try next? giving yourself a few options means that you already have backup plans, too, which can make the whole situation less terrifying. if this happens, i might have to try this, or this, or this, and those things might not be the most fun or the easiest to do or the 'best' thing academically, but they'll get me through this difficult moment mostly in one piece, and once i'm through it i can look back on it and learn from it, or adjust the structures i've built for myself moving forward, to reduce the chance that X happens again.

PHEW!!! sorry this got so long but that is just the RISK YOU TAKE when sending me anons 😅 i hope that some of this is helpful to you, or at least sparks some useful thinking for you, even if it's not all directly applicable to your situation. i would say that if you love learning and find being in the classroom exhilarating, then you should absolutely go back to college! but that doesn't mean you have to go back right away, or that you have to go back and do it exactly the same way you did the first time. there are lots of possible paths to higher ed, and there's no particular rush—college will always be there, if it's something you decide you want now or at some future point in your life. i would also just reiterate again one of the core Themes of This Blog, which is that the brain is NEUROPLASTIC, and that humans have a truly astounding amazing capacity to change, grow, and learn new things (including new ways of getting around old obstacles or working through old challenges). just because you struggled the first time doesn't mean you are doomed to repeat that pattern. if you can spend some time thoughtfully reflecting on what you found most difficult to manage the first time through, you are better equipped to make plans, design new structures for yourself, and build the support networks that will help you thrive in college.

[imagine-that-one-thing]

Styles. || 15

Authors Note:  Hey everyone!! I know it has been a while since I have updated, but I wanted to pop in and say hi, I am back. I intend to do my best to start writing again and to start where I left off at. I have missed Elise and Harry’s story so much, but I needed the break. With that being said, I am back and doing my best to get back to writing their story. Bare with me as it has always been hard for me to end stories, hence why this one is still kicking. I have a strong connection with the story and I just want to keep writing, so here I am. I hope you all love their story as much as I do. Anyway, I hope you are all well and continue to read my work. xx 

For previous chapters, click HERE.

First. Book : Styles and Co

Second Book : Styles’ Towers. 

Third Book : The Rise Of Glory.

Styles & Co. || Extras.

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

Wouldn’t It Be nice.

My apartment is quiet as I type away at my laptop, attempting to stay focused on my essay with a pounding headache. I have hardly slept the last few nights, and I have been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Balancing school and work have proven to be extremely troublesome, but I do not regret my decision one bit to take up Jamie’s proposal. I am incredibly appreciative of the opportunity, even if I manage to get an hour or so of sleep a night.

I landed Jamie the clients and completed the meetings as requested, and successfully redesigned one of the portfolios— it has all been worth it. It will one day pay off to only sleep a few hours.

I massage my temples before the sound of my apartment door opening takes my attention. I turn around immediately, almost plummeting to my feet before nonchalantly recognising it’s Elise and not my worst nightmare. Ever since my father appeared at my apartment that one night, I have been on edge, not to mention I also don’t want Logan coming to my apartment. “Hey,” I half-smile towards her as she closes the door behind her and propels me the apartment keys.

I catch the keys in my hands, “Good to know you’re alive, Harry,” Elise’s commentary takes me by surprise as I kiss her cheek, and she moves away from me.

She’s exasperated.

“What do you mean? What’s wrong?” I immediately challenge, “What’s with handing me the keys?” I dangle the keys in my hand.

Elise raises her brow and crosses her arms over her chest, “What’s wrong?” Elise scoffs, “Harry, you haven’t spoken to me in two weeks, not sure if we are even together.”

“What? Sweetheart, I called you the other night before I fell asleep.”

Elise shakes her head, “You haven’t called. I got a text from you, but it said my name, and that was all,” Elise responds, showing me her phone, proving that she is, in fact, correct.

Fuckity-fuck-fuck.

“Oh,” I trail off, feeling like a horrible person… “I’m so sorry.”

And the award for worst boyfriend, once again, goes to me. How wonderful. At this point, I may as well keep an honorary speech on hand. Damnit.

“Harry… if you don’t want to be with me—“

“Darling,” I begin, “I thought I called you the other night… I swear I even texted you today when I woke up,” I assure her, clutching my phone from my table and clicking her messages.

The messages are somewhere here. I know there’s some sort of logical explanation. I remember distinctly. I texted her.

My heart drops, and I shake my head, dissatisfied with myself, “I uh… I never hit send… I never realised that the texts I did send never delivered,” I show her my screen of undelivered text messages and a message from this morning I never sent. “I look like an ass.”

Elise snickers and nods her head, “What else is new?” She jokes, and I can’t help but playfully roll my eyes and grin at her. However, she may be joking; deep down, she and I both know that there’s some truth to the joking matter. I’m an ass, and I can openly admit it.

“I know it is no excuse, but I’m dead tired and busy. I wasn’t trying to blow you off or forget you. I genuinely thought I had called and texted you… Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“You still want to be with me?”

“I’m sorry you even doubt my intentions. Of course, I do. Not sure you feel the same about me.”

It has never been my intentions for her to have to doubt whether I want to be with her. I want to be with her, one-hundred and ten per cent. She’s the woman I aspire to spend my time with. It’s too early to say this, but I want to spend my life with her. We aren’t ready for marriage, but she is the one I want to come home to every night. She’s the one with who I want to grow and build a life.

“I know you’re tired and swamped, but I did feel like you didn’t want to be with me,” Elise confesses.

I nod my head, considering her feelings and how I may have made it seem like I don’t give a damn. “That’s me just being an ass who is struggling to get everything done. Can I make it up to you?”

“How?” Elise demands.

I can imagine she is tired of hearing whether I can make it up to her. I’m tired of hearing it, too. I sound like a broken record, which isn’t my intent, but I am doing my best. My best isn’t good enough, and I know this, but I will do better. I will do what it takes to make her feel valued. I don’t want her ever to have to question my intentions or love for her.

“Stay the night with me. I’ll go to work and come back at around eight before you have to be up. I’ll bring coffee and breakfast… if you like?” I suggest, unsure of how to make things up to her. Dinner and flowers are too cliche, and I have already promised her that. Right now, all I can do is breakfast, and I physically don’t have time for anything else until the weekend.

Elise nods her head and agrees, “Can you maybe try to remember that I’d like a text or a call, so I know you’re alive?”

“I’ll do my best. I’m sorry, baby, I am,” I step closer and kiss her cheek before giving her a warm hug.

I need to make it up to her, and I need to show her I care and want to be with her. She deserves better than a boyfriend who forgets to press send on a text message. It may not be a big deal to some, it was a genuine mistake, but I feel horrible for not realising I hadn’t spoken to Elise. I feel as though I neglected my duties as a boyfriend to make sure she is okay and feel valued and wanted. It is the small things that can make a difference in a relationship.

Elise hasn’t asked for much; she wants my time and effort, which I will give her to the best of my ability.

❈ ❈ ❈

I feel a tender touch to my shoulders, and I draw myself away from my sleeping state. I open my eyes and groggily glance around. Fuck, I fell asleep on my laptop. “You fell asleep,” Elle informs me, her hand massaging soothing circles on my back.

I nod my head and sigh. I touch my fingers to my temple and rub them slowly, “I have the worst headache, and this is due in an hour,” I gesture towards my computer screen that is only making my headache graver.

“Would you like me to finish it for you?” Elise kindly offers.

“Do you even know what I am writing about?” The words leave my lips without me thinking twice about how they sound.

“Don’t be a condescending ass, Harry,” Elise mutters.

I heavily sigh and nod my head, “I’m sorry. Do you know about this,” I motion towards my laptop that has my composition mostly completed? I am not sure if I am nearly finished or not.

“Harry, I can use the literature as a framework to sum up your essay, unless you don’t trust I have the intelligence to do so?” Elise answers, annoyed with me still.

I do not blame her for being irritated with me, After all, I have unintentionally blown her off, and now I am making her believe she is not intelligent, which was not my purposes. I know she is brilliant. She may not be as into the business world as I am, but she is one hell of a writer. Elise is excellent with essays and literature. “And don’t forget, I have to take business, so I do know the basics,” Elise notifies me, and I bow my head.

“Again, I am sorry, Elle,” I apologise, “Be my guest, have at it,” I move my chair, and Elise rests beside me, immediately beginning to read what I have written.

“For someone who is great at business, you have a lot of errors,” Elisse chuckles, nudging me lightly. I nod my head and hum.

“Business major, not an English major, also wrote that with a headache and no sleep,” I mumble before I rest my arms on the desk and place my head to lean in my arms, closing my eyes and falling in and out of sleep while Elise types away. “Harry,” Elise taps me.

I hum my acknowledgement, “Hey, what is the main conclusion you want to be emphasised?”

“Baby, I don’t care,” I murmur tiredly, “Just write whatever sounds good, just don’t fail me,” I continue.

“Great, so I will conclude on valuation and whether to rely on an algorithm or on an ad-hoc analysis,” Elise confirms.

“Sounds good,” I admit, grappling with concentrating, my eyes stinging and my head spinning. “I trust you, darling,” I drowsily mumble, prompting to rest my head on her shoulder, closing my eyes again and drifting off to sleep.

❈

It isn’t long before I am woken, and it feels like only moments have passed where I was put at ease and managed to get a few moments of relaxation. “Hey, Harry, hey, sweetheart,” Elise gradually and benevolently tears me from my sleep, and I lift my head off her shoulder, brushing my eyes as I attempt to focus on her. “It’s done; you need to just go to bed.”

I groggily come to terms with my surroundings, regarding that Elise has finished my paper, “What time is it? I still have work to do,” I shake my head, remembering the collection of work I need to finish. I need to establish a fundamental algorithm for one of my clients, and I still need to figure out a way to balance Elise’s sister’s portfolio that was due the weekend of her wedding. Still, Jamie put it on hold due to her antics and marriage. With Elouise getting married, there is a chance she could venture to combine assets with her husband, but if he is intelligent, he won’t let her encounter any of his assets. I would not combine anything with her. There is a time and a place to consolidate things, and a new marriage is not the time. They have not established boundaries, nor have they demonstrated the true meaning behind the wedding. I think Elouisa married for money, point-blank.

“It’s one, and we are going to bed. You’re not working yourself to death,” Elise informs me, closing down my emails and shutting my laptop.

“Elle, I have to send it and —“

“I already sent it. You owe me, by the way,” Elise smiles, standing up from her position and taking my hand, dragging me with her.

Elise and I wander towards the hallway, “Add it to my tab,” I chuckle, “Tell ya what… I’ll get breakfast in the morning, and this weekend I’ll take you to a nice dinner,” I inform Elise, aware that she deserves more than what I’ve given her lately. I’m not sure how she hasn’t thrown in the towel and told me to go fuck myself.

“That would be nice,” Elise accepts as we step into my bedroom, and I waste no time taking my shirt off and launching it to the corner. This is the earliest I have managed to crawl into bed, and if it weren’t for Elise, I’d still be awake, perching at my computer and making my headache ten times worse.

“Thank you for finishing my paper,” I grasp a t-shirt from my drawer while Elise draws back the covers of my bed, “I appreciate it,” I assure Elise, handing her a t-shirt for her to wear to bed.

“Ignore me again for a week or two, and I won’t be so nice,” Elise responds, taking the shirt from my hands. I nod my head, and I don’t expect her to be friendly and forgiving when I fuck up and act like an arse. I need to be held accountable. Elise leans up and kisses my cheek before caressing her hands to my chest, “You’re hot.”

“Thanks, but I’m not in the mood for compliments.”

“Moron,” Elise rolls her eyes, “You’re warm,” she caresses her hands to my cheeks, “Your cheeks are flushed.”

“Mhm,” I hum, “I get migraines after a long period with little sleep,” I shrug my shoulders, not too concerned about things, “It happens like once every few months.”

“Has it ever occurred to you to sleep?” Elise challenges with a touch of sass to her tone of voice.

Sleep would be delightful, but I have too much on my plate.

“It has,” I laugh, “But I don’t have enough time for that.”

“How are you not miserable right now?”

“I am,” I respond, “I just know I have to deal with it. Are we going to continue talking about my lack of sleep and terrible migraine, or are we going to sleep for a few hours?” I question, moving to my side of the bed and crawling between my sheets.

In all fairness, I am miserable. I feel like utter shit, my head is pounding, any sort of light burns my eyes, and it feels like I’m just being clobbered with a club.

“A few hours?” Elise seems surprised at my comment.

I only have a few hours to spare, nothing more, nothing less.

I nod my head, “I have work at six, so yes, a few hours.”

“Surely you’re not getting up?”

“I have to, Elle,” I sigh, “I can’t afford not to.”

In all honesty, I don’t want to get up in a few hours, I’d love nothing more than to sleep in and allow my migraine time to dwindle off, but I can’t. The world doesn’t stop because I’m unwell or for any reason. My mother’s bills still necessitate to be paid, meetings still need to take session, and my school work still needs attending. I don’t get sick days. I don’t get to sleep in. It’s nothing against Elise, but I’m not lucky enough to get to have a few additional hours of sleep as she can.

“You’re wearing yourself too thin.”

“I have to.”

“Can’t I help?”

“You have; you finished my paper for me. That’s more than enough.” I smile towards Elise, kissing her, sweetly, “Thank you for your help.” I kiss her again before stepping away and moving to my side of the bed.

It is not Elise’s responsibility to help my situations. These are my problems to deal with, and she has enough to worry about on her own. I do not wish to burden her with my issues, nor do I wish for her to have to deal with anything more than she already needs to. I don’t want to scare her away, and I don’t want to risk letting her help me and then leaving me because it is too much to handle. I can handle things on my own… I think.

❈ ❈ ❈

The drive to Elise’s parent’s house has been nothing but full of anxiety. I have no reason to be anxious, but I am. I haven’t stepped foot back in the house since the weekend I met her parents. Ever since, I have kept all meetings with the parents in public places. The gates to the private estate open, and I drive up the driveway, parking next to Elise’s car before turning my car off. I sit in the driver’s seat, taking a deep breath as I take in my surroundings. One day I will be able to afford such an extravagant house like this, but for now, I will settle with my tiny apartment and non-glamorous lifestyle.

I get out of my car and close the door. I make the short walk along the perfect cobble pathway towards the door. Everything about the estate is immaculate, from the gardens to how the Autumn door wreath sits flawlessly aligned. Although the leaves are shifting to magma-reds, hot-oranges and fever-yellows, not a single leaf is on the ground— the groundskeeper but be astonishing at his job. The barbecue-red leaves hang soundlessly on the trees, and I can't help but glance up and watch in awe, curious as to whether one will fall and wreck the pure aesthetic the Cartier’s have going on. I shake my head and chuckle to myself before walking up the steps. I stand before the double doors and adjust my shirt, making sure my collar is suitable, and my shirt is not creased. I take a breath and knock on the door.

After a few moments, the door opens, “Well, it’s about time you show up,” Conrad, Elise’s dad, comments with a grin, “I thought you were bringing the liquor?” Conrad questions as he opens the door wider and allows me to step into the house.

I shake his hand, “Hello, and no sir, I did not bring the liquor. Next time I will bring you a bottle,” I respond as we shake hands.

I was unaware that it was now customary for me to bring liquor. I shall be prepared for next time. Hopefully, this time, I will not feel as though I do not belong here or that I am not good enough for Elise. Although our last gathering at the house was far from what I had hoped, ever since that day, her parent’s and I have gotten closer and gotten along. Conrad has realised I am not here for the money, and I do not want any special treatment in the business world. I want to make it on my own with my name, not theirs.

“Elise is at the kitchen table, finishing another essay.”

“She has had quite a few to do,” I nod my head.

“While she finishes, care to have a drink with me?”

“Uh, sure,” I agree, following Conrad into the living room and standing by him as he picks up his decanter set and begins to pour a glass.

“Question for you… Would you consider working for me?”

I shake my head, “All due respect, no. You’re my girlfriend's father, and I do not want to make things awkward. I am also quite happy at Jamie’s company.”

“Damnit, Jamie got a good one. Okay, fair… Well, I would like to have lunch with you and talk business one day this week, just to get to know you more.”

“I can do Thursday?” I suggest, “I leave Thursday night to travel with Jamie.”

“I guess that will do,” Conrad nods his head, “Where are you going?”

“We are going to LA.”

“My brother and I need to talk more. I am leaving for LA next week. We could have tag-teamed clients.”

I chuckle and shrug, “That is between the two of you. Do you not worry about competing with each other for clients?”

“No, we have boundaries.” Conrad shakes his head just as Elise wanders in and welcomes me.

She kisses my cheek and beams towards her father, taking a prompt sip of my drink before asking us about our conversation, and of course, rolling her eyes at me when she is told we are discussing business.

❈ ❈ ❈

After a brief moment at Elise’s parent’s house, I was enlightened that we would be setting sail on the River Thames. I had no idea that today's adventures entailed such a journey. I was under the impression it would be a relaxing day at the house— I was mistaken. I did not anticipate spending part of the day on a yacht. I did not know Conrad owned a yacht.

I knew Elise’s family was wealthy, but I did not think they were this prosperous. Elise doesn’t show nor act that she has a very elite lifestyle. She never once mentioned that her father had a yacht. It makes me wonder what the fuck else they have that I have no clue about. After all, Elise has an investment that is almost worth a million dollars— and somehow, she is still asking me for investment help and assistance with the stock market.

“Harry,” Conrad begins as he hands me a glass of some sort of alcohol, “I believe I owe you an apology,” Elise’s Dad begins, taking me by surprise.

I look at him and nod, waiting for him to give me some sort of explanation. I am not sure what he owes me an apology on, but I am willing to listen to him. “I didn’t give you a fair chance when I first met you months ago. I thought you were hanging around for a business opportunity. I know that way of thinking was wrong. I should not have assumed.”

I don’t blame Conrad for not being open to his daughter dating someone who does not come from the same upbringing as she did. I didn’t have a gorgeous house with perfect gardens. I didn’t have the luxuries she had and still has; I grew up with everything I needed and not much more. My mother couldn’t afford luxuries, and she still can’t. One day, I do hope to give my mother the amenities she deserves. I want to be able to fix her house up the way she wants it and buy her a nice car that she doesn’t need to worry about, whether it will break down on her drive to the grocery store. I didn’t grow up anywhere near close to the same lifestyle as Elise, so I understand the judgement on Conrads end. Every father wants the best for their daughter, and I might not have much money or much to offer her materialistically, but I can give her my time and love— I personally think that is better than anything anyone could buy her. One day, I will buy Elise the things she deserves. One day I will buy her the bracelets and the necklaces, all the things women love to receive. But for now, all I can offer Elise is my devoted time and love.

I accept Conrad's apology, “Sir, I want nothing more than to give her all the great things she is used to, but for now… All I have is myself. I can’t give her expensive dinners and diamonds. I can barely get her flowers, I will be honest, but I can give her my time, effort, and love. I care for your daughter a lot… To be honest, I am in love with her,” I begin to speak sentences before thinking about them. Part of me wants to stop sounding so soft, but the other part knows that Conrad needs to know my true intentions with Elise, “I may never be able to afford a yacht like this,” I gesture to the space around us, “And I may be dirt poor, but I will never be the man my father was, and believe me, that means more to me than anything materialistic I could give her. She will never have to worry about whether I love her. She will never have to worry about where her next meal will come from or whether she will be alone… I will put her first, I will put her before myself, and I will treat her the way a lady should be treated.”

Being a man and being the complete opposite of my father is what I strive for in life, aside from being a CEO. I have learnt what a man is and what a man is not. I have learnt the difference between a deadbeat husband and a real husband. I will not be the man my father was; I will worship the ground Elise walks on, and I will do everything in my power to make sure she is taken care of in every way. Like I have said, I might not ever get to give her mansion with the most beautiful art hung on the walls she could imagine, but she will know that every time I walk through that door, that I am coming home to her. Elise knows that I am the one she can call at any hour with any problem, I will always be there for her, and I will support her in all her decisions. I am aware that we may fight and argue over stupid shit. Hell, we will even fight over things that aren’t stupid, but I wouldn’t want to fight with anyone else at the end of the day. We will have our moments where we want to strangle each other. I know the time is coming, and I know there will be times she won’t want to speak to me or times where I have fucked up, but that is the beauty of a relationship— you grow together, and you learn.

I don’t plan to give up when the going is tough. I will not leave her in the dark and call it quits because things might not get any easier for us financially. I may run from many things when it gets tough, I may bury myself in work in school when I don’t want to deal with personal issues, but I will do my best not to run from her— from us.

“You don’t speak of your father. May I ask why?”

I grow withdrawn for a moment, unsure of what to say. I have managed to avoid my father’s issue for most of the relationship with Elise, but I know at some point I will have to tell her a few things. I would much prefer to discuss how Conrad succeeded in his business to the point he owns a yacht and can sail on the River Thames with a skipper and crew. I wonder if he even bought the dock as well that he docks at. I shake my thoughts away, remembering I have been asked a question about my father. “He isn’t in my life.”

“You mentioned that,” Conrad nods.

“My father is not what I would call a man. He is just someone who is a waste of space in society.”

“That’s a bit harsh, Harry.”

I lift my shoulders into a shrug, “All due respect, but that is nothing compared to the things he has done and said to my sister and myself,” I respond, not trying to sound like a prick. I don’t like having conversations about my Father. He is not worth my time or energy. I should have just told them the has is dead. In all fairness, he is dead to me. “He was an alcoholic. I don’t like to get in detail about him.”

Conrad nods his head and respects my decision of not wanting to speak much of my father. Conrad takes a sip of his drink, and I finally do the same, allowing the whiskey to give me a sense of ease. “Elise told me that you had been the one paying to keep your mother’s house?”

I nod my head, “Yes, sir… Mum lost her job and my sister…. Well, she is going through an emotional breakdown and struggling herself,” I admit, unsure of how much detail Elise has told her parents.

“I have a lot of respect for you, Harry.”

“Why?” I curiously ask.

Conrad leans forward and places his drink down at the table, “You are helping your mother and working night and day plus doing your masters, and you have not complained once.”

“I think I have complained,” I shake my head.

“Elise has said otherwise. You’re a genuine and modest gentleman, and you seem to put others first… I respect a man who can do his best to provide and not make excuses.”

I am not sure what to say. If I didn’t go to work and do what I do, my mother and sister would be on the streets. Someone had to step up and do what needed to be done. I would never forgive myself if my mother lost her house. The house may be small in comparison to what Conrad has, but it is still a home. It is the place my sister and I grew up in. It is the place my mother worked hard to maintain to the best of her ability. “I’d do it all over again if I had to,” I shrug, not really in the mindset that this is something that I should be praised for. I don’t need praise for stepping up. I just want my family to be happy and healthy.

“You’re a good man. I see that,” Conrad nods, finally cracking a small smile, “I don’t think I would want my daughter dating anyone else.”

I stifle a laugh and shake my head, “Give it time. I am sure Elise will tell you I am an asshole.”

“We all are assholes at some point. It’s more so common with people like us.”

“People like us?”

“We are businessmen, and we are born to lead and be assertive. Sometimes that crosses over into being an asshole. Do you know how many times my wife has called me every name under the sun? Or how many times she has told me I am being a CEO and need to walk out of the house and adjust my tone before walking back in?” Conrad questions in all seriousness, and I can’t help but chuckle. I can see Elise doing the same thing in the future. “Cathleen does not take my shit, and I don’t think Elise will take it either. She will call you an asshole, and all you can do is learn where the line is drawn between CEO and boyfriend or husband.”

“Elise has already called me an asshole,” I confess, “I deserved it.”

“Half the time, we do deserve it. It’s in our nature, but again, we learn to control it. We better get back to the ladies before they think I have killed you,” Conrad stands to his feet.

I stare at him and raise a brow, “Was that your initial plan, sir?”

“No, but it will be if you call me sir one more time,” Conrad laughs, “My name is Conrad,” Elise’s Dad corrects me, not wanting me to be as formal. I nod my head and stand up, taking my drink with me before we climb the stairs, leaving the cabin area and stepping back out into the crisp air, Conrad and I parting ways and walking to opposite ends of the yacht.

I make my way around the yacht, amazed by how big the fucking thing is. I know this thing had to have cost more than I can imagine. I smile to myself when I see Elise sitting on a blanket at the yacht’s foredeck with a book in her hand. I watch her for a moment as she is clueless to the world around her, her hair is blowing in the breeze of the slow sails, and her eyes are cast on a book with no intentions of looking away. Most people would be taking pictures or drinking on their father’s yacht. Instead, she is content, reading a book on her own and paying no attention to the rest of the world.

I step closer to where she rests, “Elle,” I call her name from her behind, not wanting to startle her as I walk closer. Elise turns to look at me over her shoulder and smiles that gorgeous smiles of hers.

“I see you made it out alive,” Elise chuckles, keeping her finger in place on her book.

“I did,” I nod, “I see you have your nose in a book.”

“I do,” Elise shows me the cover of the book.

I cock my head to the side and look at the title, “Haven’t you read that before?”

Elise nods and hums her response, “And you are rereading it?” I question.

“It is a good book, Harry. Do you have something against the Great Gatsby?” Elise asks, sounding shocked, almost as if I have insulted her but asking if she is rereading it.

I am not the kind of person to read books twice. I read them the first time, watch the movie and then call it a day. I have never been interested in reading something over and over again, just for the fun of it. I know the ending. I know the plot. Why reread it?

I sit down beside her and drape my arm around her as I kiss the top of her head, “Eh, I won’t lie. I found the book boring.”

“How so?”

“It’s a story about elite society.”

“Is that what you got out of the whole book, Harry?” My response does not amuse Elise.

“No, I don’t like how the book was portrayed. Not one of the characters were good. It isn’t like To Kill a Mockingbird where the book manages to display both the good and the evil inside people.”

“It’s the writing style that makes the book so great. It’s the pros.”

“Yeah, not a literary person, love,” I shake my head, “Anyway,” I trail off, “I have to go to LA for work on Thursday,” I finally tell Elise that I have a business meeting in LA that will take most of my time next week.

“Damn it, Harry,” Elise huffs.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“Now, who is going to help me study?” Elise chuckles, causing me to roll my eyes at her.

This woman is something else, that is for sure. “Do you keep me around just to help you study?”

Elise shrugs her shoulders and closes her book, “Also for your good looks, but seriously, I need some help with my China and globalism course.”

“I assume you have a test?”

“Indeed,” Elise nods, “Can I get some help?”

“Sure, we can before I leave, or if you want, we can facetime while I am in LA to help?” I offer, unsure of when the best time will be for her to study. “China Globalism is a blast. You will love it,” I sarcastically add, very aware of the fact that Elise will hate the course. She may be knowledgeable,, but this will be the course that tests her in every way. The fucking course broke me at one point, it was a horrible experience, but it has come in handy with Jamie’s clients. However, I do not foresee this course helping Elise. She doesn’t want to get into this side of the business. She doesn’t even want to be in the business world. Elise has a true passion for English. I know she wants to do something with writing and is only pursuing business for her father.

“I already hate it,” Elise mutters, “So, you will be able to help?”

“Of course,” I agree, “I don’t know why you think I won’t help,” I kiss her cheek as she places her book down on the blanket.

Elise looks at me and pushes her hair behind her ear, “I know you’re busy; that’s why.”

“Mhm,” I hum, “I am going to have to go up to my mother’s sometime soon. Would you like to come with me?” I softly offer, not wanting to make the dreaded drive to Chesire on my own. I don’t want to go up there, but I have to. My mother deserves to see me, even if it is for a few moments.

Elise rests her head on my shoulder, “I would love to,” Elise responds cheerfully, far too cheery to be going to Cheshire. I wish I had her happy demeanour about Cheshire, but I cannot. I can’t even attempt to fake it.

My phone goes off, and I reach into my pocket and grab it. I look down at the screen and bite the inside of my cheek when I see ‘Logan’ pop up on my screen.

I don’t want to deal with him, and I thought I made it quite clear that I want nothing to do with the spawn of satan. My hatred for Logan will probably never subside, so we should have minimal contact, but for some reason, like my father, Logan is determined to cause havoc on my life in every single way possible.

I quickly read the text message, much to my bitter distaste, “Harry, I know you didn’t want to hear from me so soon, but if it’s a 999 situation. — Logan”

I place my phone back in my pocket and stare out at the water in an attempt to find my thoughts. A 999 situation with Logan can only really mean one thing. Blood. The last time it was a 999 situation, I had to swallow my hatred towards him and give him blood. I am not sure why he doesn’t just go to our father for it— but I can’t be petty and scoop to the level of declining him what I believe is primary care. I may hate him, and he may be what I consider the worst thing to happen to my life, but I can’t sit back and not help him with this. Ever since his mother passed away, I have been the one to donate blood to him when he needs it. I don’t remember our ages well, but I know that at around sixteen, his mother died, and up until that point, she was the one who would help him when his health got too poor. Now it is up to me. I could be an asshole and refuse to help him. I could tell him to fuck off and go to our father… But what kind of man would I be to deny someone essential health? What kind of man would I be if I didn’t help someone in need? Most of all, what kind of man would I be if I didn’t put my anger and resentment to the side to benefit someone else?

To answer my questions, I would be a selfish prick like my father, and I refuse to be anything like him.

I pull myself back to reality and remind myself that today was meant to be a day of not stressing about things I cannot change or fix. I cannot change the predicaments that happen. I am not in control of them. I am only in control of what I do. When I am done with Elise and her family, I will see what needs to happen with Logan and do what needs to be done.