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miraculouscontent · 3 years

Text

(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

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

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

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

I guess? :|

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

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

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

Mood.

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

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

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

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

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

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

i hate it

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous asked:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

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

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

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

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

Anonymous said:

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

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

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

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

asexual-individual said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

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

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

cosmostellar said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

Thank you!

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

nahte123456 said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

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

*sigh*

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

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

dbfgjbdfjkgf

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anonymous said:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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god1ngs · 3 years

Note

Here we go!

Imagine being c!sam's s/o.

You had been together for some time, long before the prison. He is caring, thoughtful, supportive, gentle, affectionate; everything you could wish for in a partner and more.

Then, he built the prison. He was often outside but you were okay with it, you had things to do. You visited your friends, baked stunning cakes that you sold, went outside to pick flowers, help villagers here and there or just went for a walk. When the sun was setting, you usually went home and prepared dinner. You then waited for Sam while reading a book, painting or knitting. He always came home exhausted and it was late. He ate dinner and you prepared a bath for him after, helping him to wash because of how tired he was and then massaged his shoulder while he was half-asleep. After this, you both went to bed and he always crashed out as soon as he layed in bed. He left early in the morning, not before you gave him his lunch and he kissed you goodbye.

It soon became a routine. It was fine though, he was doing this for you both, right? The money he got would be enough for you both to live a perfect life. And he always showed you how much he loved you. Sometimes it was little notes hidden in the kitchen drawer, sometimes it was flowers or jewelry he crafted himself, sometimes, he came home earlier, sneaked on you and unexpectedly hugged your from behind.

And it went on and on until the prison was built. You were both ecstatic. You would finally be able to spend some time together after these long months!

You went on little cute/romantic dates with him. You both were happy.

However, it didn't last. Everything changed when Dream was imprisoned and killed Tommy.

The day it happened, Sam didn't come home at the same time as usual but far later. You were worried sick, he should have been back 3 hours ago. You didn't know if you should start to search for him or wait a bit more. It was pouring outside.

The door finally opened, letting a soaked Sam enter. You jumped in his arms, relieved to see him "oh my god, I was so worried! I thought something happened to you-" he didn't hug you back and just stared in the void. When you asked him if something was wrong, he dismissed you and said he was tired and went to bed straight away.

Since that day, he wasn't the same. Sure, he still offered you gifts and such but everything about him seemed off. He wasn't as physically affectionate as before, keeping his distance with you. Every attempts you made to make him speak about it or just to make him smile genuinely resulted in failure. You started doubting yourself; have you said or done something wrong?

It seemed to get better after some time, even though you were certain it was only a facade. You were happy to see Tommy again, he was missing for some time but you were completely oblivious to his previous death.

You realized it one day when you were telling Sam about your day and mentionned how Tommy helped you to build a tree house or something and Sam just went oddly silent at the mention of his name. You didn't realized right away though and went on about your day, all smiley and giggly when you told Sam about funny jokes the young boy made. When you turned however, you saw Sam's tear-stained face. You instantly cupped his face, panicking a little "baby, what's wrong?" he busted into tears and collapsed on his knees, hugging your form. He told you everything that happened, Tommy's horrible death, Dream's maniacal laughter, how Tommy's begged for his life, how he called out for Sam but he was too late, how Dream taunted him after, how he couldn't do anything and it was his fault. He told you how awful it made him feel and how he didn't think he deserved your affection anymore [hence his distance and cold demeanor toward you after this day]. He wished he could face the blonde-haired boy to ask for forgiveness but it was too hard for him.

You listened to everything, caressing his soft locks while he explained the events in great details. You kneeled to be at his level, hugged him tightly, caressing his back and whispering sweet nothing in his ear, while he cried into your chest. You did so until he calmed down. You cried too, out of compassion for your lover and Tommy, of anger towards Dreams cruelty and of relief. He still loved you. You didn't do anything wrong. He told you what was on his mind and you'll both overcome this together. You ignore how long you both stay like this, but the stars were up in the sky when you finally looked through the window.

You finally got up, never letting go of his hand and when your teary eyes met his, you just said "let's get cleaned up" and for the first time in month, he genuinely smiled at you, with a hint of sadness, but a genuine smile nonetheless.

No need to say you both fell asleep holding each other as close as you could. You missed his touch and he missed yours.

Fin :D

- kory

KORY WTF THIS JS SK.GOOD :((( IM.SO SOFT 2JAY THE FUCK

kory my beloved this is amazing !!! ty for blessing me with this 😭😭💕 have an amazing day <33

#[♡] — bones answers #[♡] — kory #cw caps #cw swearing #this is amazing !!! :(

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daymansbingerecapsandrankings · 3 years

Text

(Originally written on October 8, 2020)

🎵Bang, Bang Bangedy Bang

I said a Bang Bang Bangedy Bang🎵

My How I Met Your Mother Thoughts

I just spent the last nine seasons in New York with the gang that spends all their time in MacLaren’s Pub. SELF FIVE! I have to say, this binge of How I Met Your Mother brought me so much happiness. I started watching this show for the first time back in high school, and I ended up watching the last six seasons as they aired. I remember loving this group of characters, and now I am reminded why. There’s so much chemistry between the five, and it makes for one of my favorite Comedies/Sitcoms of all time. If you’ve read any of my previous Show Thoughts, then you know I’ve been watching several over the course of this lovely Pandemic That Will Just Keep Going. After this rewatch, I’ve decided HIMYM is my third favorite Comedy/Sitcom, right after Boy Meets World and Scrubs.

Now, I know that the Finale is infamous. It’s in the Mount Rushmore of Terrible Endings, and people end up getting a sour taste in their mouth when they bring up the show. Well, it’s been some years. There’s been time to reflect and look back. And, while I’m not in favor of the Finale, I also don’t hate it anymore with the passion of a thousand suns. I just loved watching and growing with the gang, seeing them experience their highs and their lows, their triumphs and their failures. It just hits harder as an adult, like most of these shows assuredly do, and I cherish so many of these episodes and moments.

And now, my rankings for the seasons!

Seasons Rankings

1. Season One

2. Season Four

3. Season Two

4. Season Six

5. Season Eight

6. Season Five

7. Season Three

8. Season Seven

9. Season Nine

My rankings for the girlfriends, purely on how much I like them as a character

The Girlfriends Rankings

1. Robin

2. Tracy

3. Victoria

4. Zoey

5. Stella

6. Jeannette

And now, a ranking of my favorite episodes. From 1-50, these are the ones that stand out above the rest. I consider every single one of these enjoyable.

Favorite Episodes

1. Slap Bet (S2E9)

2. Come On (S1E22)

3. The Limo (S1E11)

4. The Best Burger in New York (S4E2)

5. Ten Sessions (S3E13)

6. The Pineapple Incident (S1E10)

7. Bachelor Party (S2E19)

8. Game Night (S1E15)

9. Oh, Honey (S6E15)

10. Glitter (S6E9)

11. The Duel (S1E8)

12. The Pilot (S1E1)

13. Arriverdverci, Fierro (S2E17)

14. The Over-Correction (S8E10)

15. How Your Mother Met Me (S916)

16. Intervention (S4E4)

17. The Magician’s Code, Part II (S7E24)

18. The Autumn of Break-Ups (S8E5)

19. The Ducky Tie (S7E3)

20. The Best Man (S7E1)

21. The Leap (S4E24)

22. Blitzgiving (S6E10)

23. Three Days of Snow (S4E13)

24. The Scorpion & The Toad (S2E2)

25. Bass Player Wanted (S9E13)

26. The Final Page, Part 2 (S8E12)

27. Duel Citizenship (S5E5)

28. Happily Ever After (S4E6)

29. Farhampton (S8E1)

30. Bro Mitzvah (S8E22)

31. Robin 101 (S5E3)

32. The Magician’s Code, Part I (S7E23)

33. Last Words (S6E14)

34. The Playbook (S5E8)

35. The Time Travelers (S8E20)

36. Splitsville (S8E6)

37. Subway Wars (S6E4)

38. Showdown (S2E20)

39. Drumroll, Please (S1E13)

40. Front Porch (S4E17)

41. Twin Bed (S5E21)

42. Who Wants to be a Godparent? (S8E4)

43. Girls vs. Suits (S5E12)

44. Something Borrowed (S2E21)

45. As Fast As She Can (S4E23)

46. The Wedding Bride (S5E23)

47. The Bracket (S3E14)

48. The Sexless Innkeeper (S5E4)

49. Third Wheel (S3E3)

50. Spoiler Alert (S3E8)

And now, just some thoughts on the show and on the gang!

Ted - I know people don’t like Ted. I don’t actually like Ted all that much. And yet, I found myself rooting for Ted just like I did the first go around. He’s not the worst person in the world, and I would be scared to see half of the decisions we’ve made in the dating game stringed together into a TV show. I know people wouldn’t like me very much for those decisions. Then again, I also don’t get super crazy about details about buildings, I don’t pronounce encyclopedia that way, and he tends to stick his foot in his mouth with this White Man confidence that I just don’t have. With all that being said, I still find Ted being a great friend, a man who is just trying to find the love of his life, and someone who really drives this story with great tales and narration (Bob Saget is the Sixth Man of the Show for just always bringing it). I think Ted does stupid things and he pretty much admits it after the fact. He learns, sometimes, and also doesn’t much like most of us. When he finally found the Mother, when he finally found Tracy, I cared. I cared so much, and I still do. Even though they just shit on her character and don’t give us enough time with her, I almost wonder if that’s a metaphor for the fact that you won’t always have enough time with your loved ones.

Robin - Let’s go to the mall! Yeah! Robin Sparkles is a Canadian Treasure, and so is Robin Scherbatsky. She is one of the best things about this show, and I love her so. Played by Cobie Smulders who I need to see in more stuff, Robin is who we all wanted Ted to maybe be with first. Then we go through all the loops of the HIMYM roller coaster, and a lot of us still wanted them to be together. I was one of them. Yet, she was more than just a romantic plot line for Ted. She was a part of the group who we got to see join it and evolve into a member of their family organically. Robin is fun, loud, full of fun quirks that we get to learn over the course of the series. I was heartbroken when we found out she can’t have children. I was loving the back and forth between her and Barney (the first time), and kind of mad at Barney about being such a crazy ass prankster the second time. Robin shows us just how amazing some gun loving, hockey obsessed Canadian news anchor can be, and how much she cares for her friends.

Lily - Justice Aldrin ends up being one of my favorite characters, even if that gets some curious looks. Yeah, she left Marshall for a summer. Yeah, she had some hesitancy with the marriage and everything. That happens. Lily was also always there for her friends, even if she ends up going a little overboard. She wants Ted to find happiness, and does whatever she can to help. She is there to listen to Robin at all times, and her and Marshall are easily one of the best relationships in TV I’ve ever witnessed. Then we have Lily and Barney which is honestly super underrated. Barney trusts Lily, even though she can’t keep a secret, with all of his emotional problems. Lily is who thought Barney could change before anyone else, and I love seeing their friendship grow from eye rolls to eye tears.

Barney - Oh, Barney. He honestly brings so much annoyance and fun to the show. He’s the friend of the gang who everyone tolerates. He’s the one in the gang who everyone ends up loving just as much as everyone else. Barney shows such a terrible face to the world, sleeping with over 250 women and lying to most of them. He has all these rules that aren’t very ethical. He gives us most of the Misogynism in this show, which is definitely prevalent and makes the show not as strong as it was in the first watch. Still, we get to see Barney grow into someone who wants real love and a happy life. Sure, they show us that his marriage to Robin only lasts three years, but at least they tried. Barney just couldn’t make it work, and that’s honestly who Barney really is. A person who just enjoys sleeping with different people. I was very warmed to see the baby reveal and that Barney becoming a dad was what would change him more than anything. Barney is an underrated friend, and his importance to the gang is legendary.

Marshall - I. Love. Big Fudge. He’s just so fun, caring, goofy, loyal, and everything that I aspire to be in life. For some reason, when watching the show the first time, I related to Ted the most. I was definitely a bit more selfish then. But now, I see that I am a Marshall. He wants to do good in the world, and it drives him so much. He only loves Lily, and his loyalty to their relationship is just Goals. He is also the most fun to watch having a crisis. He gets the big eyes and covers his mouth and just gets obviously super uncomfortable. Some of my favorite moments of the show are also Marshall’s talks with Ted about his feelings for Robin. Any one-on-ones with Marshall and someone else are probably my favorite moments. And yes, I will always root for him over those damn machines!

Last Thoughts:

Sure, the writing wasn’t as sharp or as witty in the later seasons, but I loved the story lines and seeing the gang just live.

Tracy was an amazing character as The Mother, and I truly wonder what could have been if they had given us two full seasons of story with her instead of any episodes of Jeannette.

I really can’t believe Ted told his kids all those stories. A fun premise for a show, but really, not very realistic telling them all that jazz.

Ranjit and Carl are such fun recurring characters that I always enjoyed seeing every time they popped up.

Out of all the recurring jokes and gags, which there are many (y’all said Community has so many, but HIMYM really swings for it), I love the Major/General salute joke. Idk if I just didn’t care for it the first time around or forgot about it, but I just love how silly it is and how they kept it through to the very last episode.

Watching the gang sit at their table in MacLaren’s just hanging out will always make me smile.

#how i met your mother #himym #himym finale #ted mosby #marshall eriksen #lily aldrin #himym barney #himym robin #reviews #recaps #br&r

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homespork-review · 4 years

Text

HOMESPORK ACT 5 ACT 1: Mobius Double Plusungood, Part 3

TW: """funny""" sexual and physical assault of a child by another child, extreme bullying, extreme ableism, a very brief discussion of shipping characters outside their canon sexuality.

CHEL: We get some implications of the part of troll culture we ended on last time when a slightly baffled-looking Nepeta, watching through the viewport, updates her SHIPPING WALL. Instead of hearts, some of the hypothetical pairings she’s painted are marked with diamonds. What this means will be explained shortly.

I can’t help but feel it’s slightly creepy to hypothetically matchmake your own friends, but I’m pretty sure the other trolls know at least that the shipping wall exists if not exactly which ships they’re in, and they do live in a society in which it’s stated later that mating is mandatory, so it would indeed be helpful to have at least emergency-doable matchmaking done well in advance and they might appreciate the help.

I’d like to take a moment to note a ship at the bottom row, left of centre; GA/Tavros. Hussie, on his Formspring, later said that GA was “obviously” a lesbian, or anyway was only interested in women, which doesn’t have a specific term for it in troll culture. It’s actually hard to tell going by what’s shown in canon, because she only displays specific interest in girls except for in a complicated case we’ll discuss later, but trolls are supposed to be bi-normative, plus it’s not like the male selection here is particularly inspiring, so, yeah, the evidence we actually see isn't conclusively "obvious". The fandom, knowing this, systematically harass anyone who even muses vaguely about the possibility of shipping her with a boy, even if they don't know about that Word of God. This is why I’m wondering whether the trolls knew about the shipping wall, because if they did, we can presume GA didn’t care. For the record, I’m sex-repulsed ace and have in fact written about.my own imaginary persona fucking (admittedly fucking an opposite sex clone of herself, it was a complicated injoke) and my reaction to someone else writing it would depend on context and reason, so I can imagine her reacting similarly, but not everyone would. A similar thing with a canonically gay male character explicitly on-screen not caring about hypothetical shipping of himself with girls comes up much later; he’s not a troll, but his upbringing was troll-influenced (long story).

BRIGHT: Harassing people over the ships they make content for always baffles me. It’s not like fanart/fanfic for a ship which contradicts canon has any effect on the canon, and playing around with character dynamics (often in a pornographic manner) is a major part of fanfic.

CHEL: On top of all this, gender and sexuality are really shaky concepts to even try to apply to a species which reproduces hermaphroditically. On this side of the fourth wall it’s obviously because Hussie is a not-very-reflective cisgender heterosexual man, and didn’t think about it any further than “girls wear skirts, right?” Plenty of people fanwank up possibilities for how it could happen on the other side. I think we may have to make a “What The Fuck Is Alternian Biology And Sociology” post or two separate from the sporking at the very end.

Discourse discussion over! Next page, we see some of the relevant terminology used in troll culture, though we still don’t get any explanation of what any of the words actually mean, which is a tad annoying for new readers. The context is a discussion between Karkat and Vriska about getting her into the game.

BRIGHT: Specifically, Karkat wants Vriska to get Tavros into the game, leading to this exchange…

CG: WHY DO YOU EVEN HATE HIM, IT'S FUCKING RIDICULOUS. CG: IF ANYTHING YOU SHOULD PITY HIM. CG: ESPECIALLY SINCE YOU WERE THE ONE WHO PARALYZED HIM. AG: I know. I don't really understand it. AG: It's just a really special kind of h8! It never goes away and it doesn't make a lot of sense. CG: THIS IS KIND OF A WEIRD TIME TO BE CONFIDING IN ME ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS OF BLACK ROMANCE BUT OK. AG: Oh god, what? CG: I MEAN IF YOU'RE REALLY IMPLYING TAVROS IS YOUR KISMESIS I THINK YOU'RE BRAYING UP THE WRONG FROND NUB. CG: BOTH PARTIES HAVE TO HATE EACH OTHER EQUALLY, I MEAN LIKE TRUE HATE. CG: MAYBE YOUR FEELINGS COME SOMEWHAT CLOSE TO FITTING THE BILL BUT I DON'T THINK HE CAN HATE ANYONE, IT'S WEIRD, HE'S KIND OF BROKEN IN THE HEAD.

Finally, our long-awaited introduction to troll romance!

And the introduction is an effective one. We now know that there’s something called ‘black romance’, that it concerns hate, and that one’s black-romantic partner is a ‘kismesis’. The conversation also flows naturally and fits the characters having it, rather than being an awkward as-you-know infodump, although brace yourselves, there’s one of those coming up. Thirteen is about right for kids starting to have romantic feelings and being confused about it, not wanting to talk about it is pretty normal, and Karkat lecturing people at a good opportunity is absolutely in character.

Karkat goes on to lecture Vriska about the emotions involved in different sorts of romantic relationships, and wow, it really says a lot about troll culture…

CG: OK, MOST PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T HAD THEIR LOBE STEM CAUTERIZED ARE CAPABLE OF FEELING THE TWO PRIMARY EMOTIONS, HATE AND PITY. CG: PITY IS OF COURSE JUST THE TONED DOWN VERSION OF THE CENTRAL EMOTION, HATE. CG: AND ALL THE NUANCES OF PITY MANIFEST AS VARIOUS OTHER KINDS OF FEELINGS LIKE WHATEVER CHEMICAL REACTIONS TRIGGER MATING FONDNESS OR THE MYSTERIOUS FORCES THAT ARE BEHIND MOIRALLEGIANCE.

CHEL: It’s never really clear if this is just Karkat’s idea of it or if this is how trolls actually work biologically. Trolls do use the word “love” later on, so I always interpreted it as “pity” being a euphemistic term because “love” in such a warlike and oppressive culture could be exploited as a weakness. Fandom has played it with their love actually being based on a weird form of sympathy/seeing the other as needing protection, which is also plausible.

FAILURE ARTIST: I have played with the pity thing before but in retrospect Karkat is the only one who seems to see it that way. Maybe this is all his fake deep teenager view of romance.

BRIGHT: Vriska makes a performance of how bored she is, but Karkat’s on a roll.

CG: A WELL BALANCED PERSON IS IS GOING TO HAVE A GOOD DISTRIBUTION BETWEEN HATE AND THE VARIOUS PITY HUMORS. CG: HAVING A GOOD BALANCE KEEPS ALL THE EMOTIONS SHARPER, SEE I THINK THAT'S YOUR PROBLEM. AG: Oh???????? AG: I hope you know I already wore out some good note-taking pens today. All the pens. AG: All of them. CG: SEE, MY HATE IS LIKE A FINELY TUNED INSTRUMENT BECAUSE I'M AWARE OF THESE PRINCIPLES. CG: I COULD HATE A HOLE IN PARADOX SPACE ITSELF, STRAIGHT THROUGH TO A NEW REALITY FRESH FOR THE HATING. AG: Hahahahahahahaha, you don't even know how much I'm laughing at this. CG: BUT SEE, YOU'RE TOO HEAVY ON THE HATE SIDE, OR AT LEAST YOU PRETEND TO BE WHICH IS MAYBE WORSE. AG: You aren't reading anything I say are you? You just want to talk and talk and talk. CG: AND YOU THINK YOU'RE HATING UP EVERYONE HARD WHEN YOU'RE REALLY JUST BURNING OUT THAT ENTIRE EMOTIONAL HEMISPHERE. CG: IT'S LIKE LUKEWARM HATE. PRETENDER'S HATE, WITH NO COUNTERPOINT AT ALL. CG: AS SUCH THERE'S NO REAL SUBSTANCE TO YOUR HATE, IT'S LIKE A CARDBOARD MOVIE PROP. CG: WHICH IS WHY YOUR BRAIN IS BROKEN, KIND OF LIKE TAVROS'S BUT ON THE OPPOSITE HEMISPHERE I GUESS. CG: OR MAYBE YOUR BROKEN BRAIN LED TO THE IMBALANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE, I DON'T KNOW. CG: WHATEVER THE CASE IS, YOU'RE KIND OF EMOTIONALLY SCREWED, SORRY TO SAY. CG: YOUR HATE'S TOO DULL FOR A PROPER KISMESIS, IN MY OPINION. CG: AND I DON'T SEE ANYONE CHOMPING AT THE BIT TO BE YOUR MOIRAIL HONESTLY, UNLESS THERE'S SOMEONE OUT THERE WHO WOULD ACTUALLY BOTHER PITYING YOU. CG: AND LANDING A MATESPRIT? HAHAHAHA! CG: SERIOUSLY, LIKE THAT WOULD EVEN INTEREST YOU. CG: BASICALLY ANY FEATURE OF YOUR EMOTIONAL PROFILE THAT USUALLY MAKES SOMEONE VIABLE IN THE REDROM DEPARTMENT MUST BE TOTALLY FRIED. CG: YOUR BLACKROM POTENTIAL'S PROBABLY TOAST TOO.

Whew.

So now we have ‘kismesis’, ‘moirail’, and ‘matesprit’ as terms for romantic partners, as well as the concepts of black romance, red romance, and ‘moirallegiance’ as the relationship one has with a moirail. Troll romance is not going to get any less confusing for a while.

If Karkat’s grasp of psychology strikes you as amateurish, there’s a reason for that: He gets all his knowledge from romance movies.

AG: Hey asshole, stop watching movies for girls.

I think that’s another strike against the ‘girls are the dangerous ones on Alternia’ argument. Romance movies, per this exchange, are both female-coded and seen as inferior -- Karkat defends his viewing choices by saying they’re INTRIGUING SOCIOLOGICALLY, but Vriska isn’t buying it.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 42 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 33

CHEL: I’m not sure an interest in the workings of romance should be a socially gendered thing in a society where, as it turns out, you have to have an acceptable romantic partner by a certain time or die. You’d think most kids would be trying as hard as they could to learn and put into practice everything they could about it, and you’d also think there’d be better information for them than romcoms.

BRIGHT: Has the mate-or-die part come up yet? I’m not sure when Hussie thought of it.

CHEL: I don’t know if he’d thought of it yet, but it does come up very soon.

BRIGHT: Karkat then moves on to the original reason he contacted Vriska -- he needs her and her mind powers in the game, because he’s just run into a double agent called Jack.

Over on the next panel, Karkat is still talking to Vriska, but he’s glancing back over his shoulder at Jack Noir. His hand is covered in blood, which keeps cycling through a range of colours. The blood, it transpires, is because Jack stabbed him. Karkat is amazingly calm about this.

CG: HE'S COOL, IT'S FINE I DON'T REALLY MIND THE STABBING, IT WAS ALL A MISUNDERSTANDING. CG: WELL OK I'M PRETTY SURE HE MEANT TO STAB ME. CG: BUT I KIND OF THINK THAT'S LIKE CG: THE WAY HE GREETS PEOPLE? AG: This game is so stupid. CG: IN ANY CASE I THINK HE'S PROBABLY ALL STABBED OUT.

This would be ridiculously chill even from someone who isn’t extremely cagey about his blood colour -- and it’s not that Karkat suddenly doesn’t care any more, because as soon as Vriska says she’ll ask Terezi or Jack what colour he’s bleeding, he tells her that he’s out of Terezi’s range, Jack is sworn to secrecy, and Sollux (who’s incommunicado) is the only one who knows how to make Trollian’s viewport feature work. (Given we saw how easy it is to use earlier, I’m surprised Vriska doesn’t try to figure it out herself.)

Over on the next panel, the viewer is now Jack, a few minutes prior to this conversation. Contrary to Karkat’s protestations, Jack stabs him because He's got a pretty sharp tongue and can't seem to keep it sheathed. He is curious when Karkat cares less about the wound and more about Jack seeing his blood colour, which is apparently some freakish mutation. Jack looks at his knife…

CHEL: While it’s not a realistic depiction of the colour, recall that this is the shade of red used in-comic to depict human blood. This reveal probably isn’t a surprise to anyone by now, if you’ve encountered fanart, and honestly it wasn’t a huge mindblowing revelation on my first read before I knew, but I do think it’s a clever little “aha, THAT’S why!” moment. Skilfully done.

It seems he's the only one of his kind with this mutant candy-red blood. An outcast. He thinks he was put on this planet covered in an ocean of his own blood to be taunted. Punished for something. Saddest story you ever heard. Got to do something to shut him up.

BRIGHT: Awww. That’s kind of sweet.

This little interchange gave rise to the ‘Stabdads’ fandom phenomenon, where Spades Slick is envisaged as Karkat’s father-figure. In Homestuck canon, it’s dubious how much affection Slick has for Karkat. He seems more irritated by him than anything else, but that’s about on par for how he treats the rest of the Midnight Crew. On the other hand, it clearly makes a massive impact on Karkat. We’ve seen how important blood colour is on Alternia and how insecure he is about his own; his sudden rush of fellow-feeling towards Jack is understandable, even if it does make him way too forgiving about having been stabbed.

CHEL: Karkat and Jack shake hands, and proceed to be in cahoots. Cahoooooooots. Doodling on the defaced parking ticket from earlier, they draft OPERATION REGISURP.

Your whole team executes the plan along the course of its journey, employing espionage, mind control tactics, political sabotage, vicious interrogations and cold blooded assassinations. Everyone does their part and you begin to learn the true meaning of teamwork, as well as this troll disease called friendship.

Yeah, it actually happening is skipped over with one paragraph, but that’s probably a good thing with all the complexity already going on, and we do hear more details about it. First, we’re reminded of the existence and functions of the Queens’ Rings, the magic rings the queens of Derse and Prospit have which give them traits and powers from whatever the players put in their sprites. The trolls have put their lusii in their sprites, except for Aradia, whose lusus died long ago, so she got in the sprite herself. The Queen could put up with getting bits and pieces from eleven hideous monsters (well, ten hideous monsters and one adowable little fairybull thing oh my gosh it’s cuuuute) tacked onto her, but what she absolutely won’t stand for is the other thing Aradia put in her sprite…

She could not stand bearing the visage of the most loathsome creature known to existence. So vile is its appearance, so contemptible its purpose, all depictions of the creature let alone members of its population are permanently banned from any jurisdiction in the reach of her agents. Those of its kind go by many names, and so does the reviled patron god they herald - THE GREAT DETESTATION, KING PONDSQUATTER, SPEAKER OF THE VAST JOKE, or most commonly, BILIOUS SLICK.

Recall that AR thought of the hieroglyphs in the Frog Temple as “illegal pictography”. We’ll find out later why the Black Queen has such a revulsion for frogs, it’s important. But the important part right now is that she took the ring off. At the time of planning it’s in the ROYAL VAULT.

We briefly see a moment in the future of the Black Queen wrapped in rags, just like the human sessions’ White Queen, wandering the desert as the BANISHED QUASIROYAL, and the caption notes the plan was a success.

However, Doc Scratch appears in the desert in front of her, and it’s noted she was given a new purpose. This, it seems, is the origin of Snowman.

FAILURE ARTIST: I would like if there was some canon Homestuck material expanding on this REGISURP plot.

BRIGHT: Same! It sounds really interesting. One example of Homestuck’s idiosyncratic pacing, I suppose -- we spend pages and pages on trivial alchimeter nonsense, but skip over something more meaty.

CHEL: The Red Team work on that, while the Blue Team battle their own session… or so they think. Yeah, I’m sure you’ve all already figured it out, but the trolls hadn’t just yet. They note that their prototypes are affecting the opposite team’s underlings, and the readers are shown Alternia’s two Frog Temples, one near Aradia’s home and the other near Kanaya’s, each with six pillars outside (one seems to have five, but the sixth is hidden behind the building). Superimposed on each other, the pillars make a full ring of twelve.

The truth was it had always been the same session all along. That your teams were not competing, but cooperating toward a common goal. In the more drawn out form of this adventure's narrative, figuring this out would have been a huge deal. We would have been completely blown away by this stunning revelation. Wow. Same session all along. Really? Huh.

This is what Aradia’s been so mysterious about. She knew. We’re provided with a handy diagram, in case we haven’t been able to keep up.

After watching the phrases MOBIUS DOUBLE and REACH AROUND toggle for a few minutes while in a sort of stupor, you finally snap out of it.

(I just noticed, the Blue Team are the Derse dreamers and the Red Team are the Prospit dreamers. Neat!)

The reader’s attention is drawn instead to the Aquarius and Pisces symbols in the top left, belonging to characters we haven’t met yet, and the narration promises we’ll learn about them soon. Drawing attention again to GA’s Virgo symbol, the narration muses about her.

It will probably be quite some time before you get to be her. It could very well be pages and pages and pages.

Naturally, we jump right back to her.

GA’s intro is long, so we’ll take it piece by piece.

Your name is KANAYA MARYAM.

The Sanskrit name for Virgo is “Kanya”, and it’s also the name of a town in Japan. “Maryam” is the Arabic version of “Mary”, as in Jesus’ mother. It may also be a reference to Marya Zaleska, the title character of the movie “Dracula’s Daughter”.

You are one of the few of your kind who can withstand the BLISTERING ALTERNIAN SUN, and perhaps the only who enjoys the feel of its rays. As such, you are one of the few of your kind who has taken a shining to LANDSCAPING. You have cultivated a lush oasis around your hive, and in particular, you have honed your craft through the art of TOPIARY, sculpting your trees to match the PUFFY ORACLES from your dreams. You have embraced the tool of this trade, which conveniently is the weapon of choice for those who would hunt the HEINOUS BROODS OF THE UNDEAD which crawl from the sand at sunrise to feast on the light and the living.

Couple things established here; trolls are not only nocturnal but actively harmed by their planet’s sun, and undead beings other than ghosts exist. Said traditional weapon for hunting them is a chainsaw, which we can see lying against her bookshelf, a reference to the Evil Dead movies.

It would be convenient if you actually hunted them, but it is of course far too dangerous, every bit as suicidal as attempting to poach the terrible MUSCLEBEASTS who roam at night. So you indulge in your bright fascination with the grim through literature. Just before the sun goes down and you join your flora in rest, you immerse yourself in tales of RAINBOW DRINKERS and SHADOW DROPPERS and FORBIDDEN PASSION.

Rainbow drinkers are, as discussed later on, troll vampires. I don’t think shadow droppers are ever expanded on, but they might be zombies or werebeasts. Troll goths, apparently, are the reverse of human goths, dressing in bright colours and staying up in the daytime, which makes sense for a species who can only safely go out at night.

You are one of the few of your kind with JADE GREEN BLOOD. As such you are one of the few who could be selected and raised by a VIRGIN MOTHER GRUB, an event so rare as to elude documented precedent. She would defend you from desert threats, and though her life would be short, in time you would assure her of progeny.

Recall that the Mother Grub is required for troll reproduction.

You are a SEAMSTRESS or a RAGRIPPER or a TREETRIMMER or a LUMBERJACK, whichever you care to be, and your unique hive is equipped with a great supply of advanced technology to accommodate your interests. The technology and indeed the hive itself were all recovered from the ruins nearby when you were very young. The seed of your hive was deployed on the volcanic rocks beneath the sand with the assistance of your lusus and her remarkable burrowing skills, and you have lived there happily together since. You know the ruins and the hive and everything here that is not sand and rock originated from the world of your dreams. You also know that one day you will visit this world while you are awake. That day is today.

Like Jade, Kanaya has been awake on Prospit for years, and the technology in question is Skaian in origin, so that’s how she knows what’s going on with the game.

Kanaya is prompted to equip her chainsaw, which promptly turns into a lipstick in a Problem Sleuth reference. Like Jade, she has a Wardrobifier, set to randomise, which suddenly turns her black shirt and red skirt into a red leaf-print dress. She takes out the lipstick.

You can choose between your trademark jade or black. Even though a troll's lips are naturally black. But they can always be blacker, and a lady with a true sense of style knows this.

She goes with green, her dress turns into a blue kimono, and she’s messaged by someone with a fuschia Pisces symbol. This person, named cuttlefishCuller, turns out to be rather excitable, greeting her in all caps and following it up with Glub glub glub glub glub!

BRIGHT: This conversation is pretty sweet, with some friendly joking about CC’s quirk (they stick hyphens in front of their capital Es) and mention of their Collapsing And Expanding Bladder Based Aquatic Vascular System. There’s another mention of moirails, with CC saying they’ll have to join the game late to keep an eye on theirs.

It also turns out both CC and Kanaya are having some premonitions of what’s to come! Kanaya is seeing visions in the clouds of Skaia, the same way Jade does, but CC hears whispers from a mysterious ‘she’ who needs her voice keeping down. It’s implied to be CC’s lusus, as both Kanaya and CC are aware their lusii are going to die soon.

Kanaya hopes to be with her lusus as she dies, but looks out of the window to find the Virgin Mother Grub has already passed away, apparently of natural causes.

CHEL: The Mother Grub was seen briefly before; it’s a moth-like creature with a huge fat body the size of a bus, with wings too small to ever lift it, horns the same shape as Kanaya’s, and a skull-like head with big lips. The skull on Terezi’s Doomsday Scale was, we can tell now, a Mother Grub, except quite a lot bigger - presumably a breeding Grub.

BRIGHT: Kanaya changes back into her original outfit, and goes down to live up to her end of the bargain… which entails slicing a hole in her lusus with her chainsaw and pulling out a round object covered in spikes the colour of trolls’ horns, called a Matriorb. Kanaya stores it in her sylladex; she’s using a CHASTITY MODUS, which locks each card away, and the key will serendipitously be discovered when it’s time for the card to be unlocked. These modii are getting more and more esoteric.

Kanaya proceeds to have a conversation with her own moirail, Vriska, which we already read earlier.

You then proceed to have the rest of this conversation we already read, bugging and fussing and meddling through the special and magical union one can only describe as being in moirallegiance with another. At least, you guess that's how you would describe it. Maybe. Troll romance sure is confusing!

Yes, yes it is. (Spoiler: It’s not that confusing once it’s explained.)

Kanaya doesn’t have long to dwell on the conversation, as she’s contacted by caligulasAquarium, someone with a violet Aquarius symbol who she doesn’t seem to think highly of. It rapidly becomes apparent why.

CA: kan make her talk to me do somethin GA: Who CA: your no good connivvin fuckin backstabbin girl crush thats wwho

CHEL: Trolls are supposed to come bi/pan as standard, so why does he need to specify “girl crush”? I wonder if Hussie hadn’t decided that yet when he wrote this part, but I’m not sure.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 34

CA’s gender hasn’t been revealed, but let’s not kid ourselves, we know from how he’s talking that he’s a dude. Nice Girls certainly exist but they don’t tend to get portrayed as so whiny in fiction, plus CC comes off as very girly, and that leaves us with six boy and six girl trolls. Balance and opposites and counterparts are a running theme throughout Homestuck. Not that there can’t be nonbinary characters, as some show up in Hiveswap; just that there would most likely have to be an even number of them, split evenly between the groups of players. Fine by me as a nonbinary person with a thing for balance and even numbers of my own.

Also, note that we’ve seen this guy, or at least his hand and foot, before. This is the litter-hater in the bowling shoes.

GA: Overstating Our Relationship Wont Make Me Feel Very Cooperative GA: Its Paler Red Than That Ok CA: pshhhhhh that is a fuckin laugh and you knoww it evveryone does CA: so help me out tell her to talk to me i think she blocked me you got to GA: Why Do I Got To GA: I Dont Got To And Every Time You Take My Help For Granted I Feel Like I Got To A Little Less CA: wwhatEVVER you are so the vvillage twwo wwheel devvice wwhen it comes to auspisticing CA: you cant let a grudge go by you wwont stick your busy stem betwwixt so get wwith the program fussyfangs

BRIGHT: Oh hey, another troll romance term! ‘Auspisticing’ is the last of the lot, don’t worry.

CA: wwho givves a shit wwhy she blocked me or about my fuckin manners come on youvve got a wway wwith her CA: i figure if youre going to auspisticize any twwo brinesuckers wwho sneer at each other a funny wway you might as wwell make it official and be ours right GA: Your Black Solicitation Just Seems Really Indecent

Funny words aside, Hussie does a good job at laying down context for what auspisticism is here; we now know that it involves mediating between two parties who dislike each other and that it’s a form of black romance. Meshing worldbuilding naturally into the dialogue is something Homestuck does really well at times.

Anyway, CA is trying to get in contact with Vriska because he asked her to make something for him and now she’s blowing him off.

GA: What Is It CA: kan stupid wwhat do you think its a fuckin gizmo to bloww up the wworld or somethin CA: ok wwell not that obvviously CA: but somethin thatll kill all land dwwellers wwhat else wwould i be after GA: Can You Just For A Moment Entertain The Thoughts Of One Untouched By Megalomaniacal Derangement And Tell Me Why Id Want To Assist You With That CA: wwell CA: im not goin to vvery wwell kill you am i that wwould be fuckin unconscionable CA: wwhat kind of friend wwould i be

While CA is obviously a douche, there’s something funny about how over-the-top he is about it and how utterly oblivious he is to the idea that Kanaya might have a problem with a device that would kill all landdwellers, although the humour is inversely proportionate to how likely he is to pull it off.

CHEL: Maybe I’m strange, but I think he’s adorable. I get the impression of a small kid trying to puff himself up to adult size.

BRIGHT: There’s also more romance talk, and this next bit is one I find interesting:

CA: you could either play along as our auspistice and do a little mediating like you wwere fuckin hatched to CA: or wwatch she and me devvolvve into fuckin full fledged kismesisses the kind like you dont get once in ten thousand swweeps CA: you knoww thats wwhat it wwould be there wwould be rainboww rivvers runnin through star systems and all nebulizin like liquid firewworks CA: it wwill be beautiful and heartbreaking all at once CA: you should read up on your history instead of poring through that godawwfull sunny rubbish

I’m going to take a step back from Homestuck itself for a moment and talk about kismessitude as it’s portrayed in fandom. People tend to envision it in a variety of ways -- some see it as a BDSM relationship, some as a way of pushing a rival to be better, some as just straight-up hate-sex -- but most depictions show it as something that only affects the two people involved.

Here, though? CA’s talking about kismessitude as something that’s potentially really damn dangerous, to other people besides those involved, and cites history as a backup -- implying it can really be that dangerous, and it’s not just a teenager’s flight of fancy. (Although, that said, CA is clearly using this to try and get Kanaya in a relationship with him, so how sincere he is is questionable.)

CHEL: Later on we do see a little bit of one of the historical cases he might have been citing. We’ll discuss it more then. Also, I do like him saying “sunny” instead of “gloomy”. Makes sense!

Kanaya tells CA none of this matters, and he sneers about the “purity of the bloodline”. That’s an… uncomfortable turn of phrase, especially since he’s speaking to someone not covered by the “purity” standard, but since it applies to aliens and it’s in a society where that’s hammered into its inhabitants it’s not a Problematykks issue. Kanaya tells him it still won’t matter because their race will be wiped out entirely, and his reaction is remarkably understated:

CA: huh CA: wwell ok HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 11

CA says he knows Kanaya doesn’t lie except to herself, surprisingly perceptive for one so puffed-up otherwise. CA might be smarter than he’s letting on? He asks if her clouds told her that; that was the reader’s assumption too, but she says no, she has a different source. Uh-oh. We know what the last source of information was, and it cost Vriska an arm and an eye-sevenfold. CA’s own clouds “hide nothin but misfortune and monstrosities”, so we can guess she’s Prospit and he’s Derse. He goes back to nagging her to tell Vriska to talk to him, and when she continues to refuse he poutily steps off.

CA: you dont wwant to be our auspistice cause you dont wwant to get locked into that sort of relation wwith her i can respect that

Kanaya denies this, and CA says everyone knows, including Karkat.

GA: Its Unbelievable GA: Her Patience CA: wwhat CA: wwhoa wwait wwho GA: Never Mind CA: ok wwait did she talk to you today CA: wwhat did she say CA: or glub or wwhatevver

They’re talking about CC, if it wasn’t clear. Kanaya, in a callback to John’s comment to Terezi, facetiously tells him that she talked about Longing To Touch You Indiscretely and That Shes Basically In The Scarlet Throes For You. CA, flustered, picks up that she’s teasing him, and she tells him the truth, that CC’s just concerned as a moirail.

CA: if youre not savvvvy about howw you define yourself to people CA: you can just splash into the moirail zone before you knoww wwhich wways upwward

I’m going to comment on this attitude in a bit more detail when we get a clearer explanation of what moirallegiance actually is. CA leaves her with some arc words.

CA: being a kid and growwing up CA: its hard and nobody understands

Kanaya heads back to her room, planning to emphatically not meddle but help her friends, and consults her source; it’s fortunately not a Doc Scratch-related one at all. It is, in fact, Rose’s long-forgotten GameFAQ, saved on a server floating in the Furthest Ring, to which Prospit’s clouds directed her. I have to show you the panel for a moment though…

I’m sure there was a way we could see the screen without having it facing away from Kanaya who’s supposed to be reading it.

You can only assume this took place a long time ago. This race is likely ancient, preceding yours by millions of sweeps. Maybe billions! You like to try to imagine the adventures of these players. Were they successful in repopulating their race? Did they manage to protect their matriorb and hatch a new mother grub? Could they hold it together, or were they torn apart by the complex social dynamics, the matespritships and moirallegiences and auspisticisms and kismesissitudes that will surely plague your group along the way? You have little doubt they succeeded with flying colors.

Oh dear, dramatic irony. Kanaya fantasises about a troll version of Rose, thinking she must have been the leader of this supposedly long-ago group.

And yet they appear to have been the only of their kind to have risen to the challenge in a session stacked heavily against them.

Huh. So is this just because Kanaya can’t find more information, or are the four kids in fact the only humans who successfully got into the game? Picking four specifically white-coded kids to be the last of the human race due to supposedly their own competence is… not a good choice. And why the hell couldn’t other people succeed? This strikes me as more of the whole theme of “nobody matters except the people we’re focusing on”. A good lampshading of video game tropes, but in a literary story, that’s the opposite message to everything I’ve ever read, and it’s a creepy one.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 43 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 12 WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 35

BRIGHT: I thiiiiiiiink it’s at least implied later on that there are other sessions going, it’s just that each session is a closed loop of players so we don’t see the others...although if that’s the case, does that mean Earth’s getting hit with meteors from multiple Skaias?

CHEL: That over with for the moment, we cut to Tavros’ house as you take your place as the PAGE OF BREATH in the LAND OF SAND AND ZEPHYR. Vriska, his server player, gets down to the business of building up his house towards the Gate…

… entirely out of staircases.

AT: i THINK THIS, iS, AT: pROBABLY MEANT TO ANTAGONIZE ME,

Okay, this probably makes me a bad person, but I’m crying with laughter at his expression and that line.

It’s more disability slapstick, but here the point of the joke comes off as being more that Vriska is a jerk and Tavros’ reaction is really understated than any reasonable person being supposed to assume Tavros is wrong for not being able to climb stairs. Emphasis on “comes off as”, unfortunately. I’m still gonna give a Problematykks point, and further experience with Hussie’s attitude to disability has soured the joke somewhat, even in just the next couple of pages.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 44

BRIGHT: Vriska tries to get Tavros to crawl up the stairs, first by telling him that he promised not to be boring anymore and then by saying that she’s trying to help him get stronger. She caps off the rant by demanding that he apologise.

AT: oKAY, AT: tHANKS, i GUESS, AT: bUT, AT: sORRY FOR WHAT, AG: For 8eing crippled, you ass! AT: yOU WANT ME TO APOLOGIZE, AT: fOR BEING PARALYZED, AG: Yes. AG: Say you're sorry. AT: i DON'T MEAN TO BE RUDE, oR bORING, AT: bUT THAT'S RIDICULOUS, gIVEN, AT: uH, tHE CIRCUMSTANCES, AG: 8ullshit! AG: It's something called 8asic decency and civility you fudge8looded 8oor. AG: Now get down on your useless wo88ly knees and apologize. AT: nO, i DON'T WANT TO, AG: >::::O

Vriska, what the fuck.

Tavros is really great here. He’s obviously not comfortable fighting with Vriska, and repeatedly tries to redirect her into building him ramps instead of engaging. But, at the same time, he holds his ground and doesn’t let her push him around, and won’t let go of solid hard reality in the face of Vriska trying to emotionally manipulate him.

FAILURE ARTIST: And yet people still call him a wimp.

BRIGHT: Vriska retaliates, because of course she does, by grabbing his wheelchair with her cursor and shaking it about. If Hussie left it at that, everything would be unobjectionable, at least in terms of narrative voice. Instead, well…

Now she's done it. She has awoken the mighty inner fury that is... RUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUFIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

CHEL: It just occurred to me to mention that the name Rufio comes from a character in the movie Hook, the leader of the Lost Boys after Peter Pan left, played by Dante Basco. Tavros’ mental image of him is a reference to that character.

FAILURE ARTIST: Dante Basco did read Homestuck, with hilarious results as we will see.

But unfortunately, Rufio is not real. He's imaginary. A fake. Like a made up friend, the way fairies are. You continue to be sad and alone.

BRIGHT: Eurgh.

Let me be clear: Tavros having no further recourse to deal with Vriska’s abuse beyond his visualised self-esteem is a problem for the character, but it’s not necessarily a narrative problem per se. Escapism is a thing. You could get a decent character arc out of Tavros learning better ways to deal with harassment he can’t escape. It is a narrative problem when the narrator mocks it and makes him out to be pathetic for even trying it.

CHEL: I’d consider this to be just Tavros’ own thought process, but, sadly, this kind of narrative sneering at him carries on throughout Tavros’ presence in the comic and the fandom seems to buy into it. Tavros gets a lot of hate for reasons which mostly boil down to him being a male abuse victim; there’s a feeling that he should “try harder” to fight back, despite him being physically disabled and a member of a caste out of sight beneath her on the social ladder and legally permitted to be killed by her on a whim. Might that count as a point for WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM, for Huss and the fandom not taking the social dynamics into account for why Tavros can’t defend himself?

BRIGHT: I don’t know if it’s fair to count against the fandom when we’re reviewing Homestuck proper, but we can definitely count against Hussie!

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 36

CHEL: It’s also notable that the common fandom interpretation of Tavros is as Hispanic-coded, at least partly due to his Spanish username, and of Vriska as white-coded. That’s probably not helping.

Since Hussie appears to expect us to agree with Vriska that this is funny, I’m adding another to these as well.

ALL THE LUCK: 2 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 45 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 3

BRIGHT: What’s weird about this whole mess is that Hussie doesn’t — yet — try to say that Tavros should be trying to get stronger; his disability is fully acknowledged. I feel like this kind of mockery is usually accompanied by the attitude that disabled people should just get over their disability, but Hussie’s clear that Tavros can’t. Which means he should do...what, exactly?

CHEL: Not have let Vriska disable him in the first place, presumably. Never mind that, you know, she has mind control powers so he didn’t really have a choice in that either. That is, however, an argument Vriska fans actually make. Apparently some of them actually blame him for not flying when she threw him off the cliff, which… well, unpowered flight is a thing that can happen in the comic but he certainly couldn’t do it then.

BRIGHT: ...Apparently I retain the capacity for surprise at how awful people can be. The fuck?

Back in the comic, Tavros fortunately does have one other means of recourse. Back in her hive, Vriska is suddenly prodded in the back with a flying toilet, courtesy of Kanaya.

GA: Just Presenting A Floating Reminder That Tavros Will Need Plenty Of Inclined Surfaces For His Ascent AG: That's silly. I made so many ramps, you wouldn't even 8elieve it. AG: I specifically decided I wanted to 8uild something ugly and 8oring. It is now the land of ramps and yawns. GA: Hes Reported Otherwise AG: That lousy snitch! May8e I should take his computer away so he can't go crying to fussyfangs anymore. GA: Maybe I Should Upend This Load Gaper Over Your Head AG: No, don't! GA: Im Still Learning The Interface GA: It Could Happen Accidentally At Any Moment AG: I'm only trying to help him. ::::( GA: Think Of Another Way To Help

CHEL: Did I mention Kanaya is my zodiac troll? I can only long to reach her heights of awesome. Of course the ability to levitate toilets would kinda help.

BRIGHT: Vriska heads down to her treasure vault and retrieves a pair of ROCKET SHOES. The captchalogue code for these is ‘PSHOOOES’, which amuses me greatly. Vriska sends the code to Tavros, who combines it with the code for his wheelchair to create a flying wheelchair. Now that is a good use of alchemising!

CHEL: Awww!

Tavros flies up to the Gate, and we cut back to him later on, leading an entourage of communed-with imps and ogres to move obstacles and help him solve puzzles. Using his skills well, I see! In another set of ruins the imps load jigsaw pieces of rock into a frog-shaped alcove,

Things, however, don’t continue to go so well, because Hussie hates this poor kid. I do not mean that facetiously. Statements he’s made elsewhere imply he has a hell of a lot of contempt for several of the characters he created, which I don’t understand at all. We’ll go into this after Act 7, but I get the sensation that the characters are merely tools to show off the complexity and meta references, which are the parts he really cares about.

BRIGHT: It’s not unknown for authors to dislike characters they wrote; the great Terry Pratchett reputedly hated his character Rincewind. The key difference is that in Pratchett’s case, the audience couldn’t tell. Hussie, on the other hand, tends to make his disdain pretty obvious, to the detriment of the story.

CHEL: That’s a point. Conan Doyle grew to hate Sherlock Holmes, too. He didn’t, however, set up situations solely to shit on Holmes in his books.

BRIGHT: I think that’s the key. I’ll forgive a multitude of failings as long as the author seems to be treating the characters fairly. That doesn’t mean that good things have to happen to them — plenty of bad things can happen and I’ll enjoy it — it just means that the author has to...respect how the character feels and would behave, I guess.

Of course, respect is Hussie’s antithesis, so.

Also, nothing so far has shown Vriska to be anything other than a (granted, entertaining) bully. I wasn’t around while Homestuck was updating, so I’m not sure when her fandom took off, but it has to be later than this, surely?

CHEL: I don’t know. I wasn’t around till about mid-Act 6.

What was I on about? Oh yes. Tavros is interrupted by Vriska again, who bitches him out for doing things the boring way and seeking the boring lore.

AG: The minds of your consorts are very soft and impressiona8le. AG: As easily manipul8ed as all those imps you've 8een 8ossing around. AG: I have picked apart their tiny little lizard 8rains and seen through all the smoke and mirrors of their riddles. AG: I have gotten to the truth they are guarding. The great 8ig mystery 8ehind this planet. And you know what it is, Tavros? AT: nO, AG: It's 8ullshit! AG: Meaningless, 8oring, fanciful 8ullshit wrapped in flowery poems to keep you guessing. AG: It all leads to one thing anyway, and that's what we should put our attention on. AG: Real gamers cut to the chase. They power through all the nonsense and go for the gold. AG: They cheat, Tavros. AG: It is time you learned to start cheating.

Interesting theory. Tavros thinks befriending his monsters instead of killing them is cheating, and Vriska grudgingly agrees but is annoyed he isn’t killing anything. She claims to have designed a better and more challenging quest for him; he asks after her own quest, and she says she has time because Kanaya’s busy.

AG: Which is just as well 8ecause I was starting to get nannied HARD. WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 37

Strange word choice for a species raised by animals, but okay. Vriska sends Tavros a map to the next Gate, and he sets off in his little rocket chair. Little does he know.

You proceed through what seems to be your second gate, into the LAND OF MAPS AND TREASURE. The THIEF OF LIGHT lies in wait.

In a callback to our last meeting of Breath and Light players, Tavros crashes through Vriska’s wall and is left hanging upside-down in the rocket chair from the large cobwebs across the room, while Vriska sleeps on a pile of broken eight-balls. Doesn’t look comfortable, but trolls rest in worse places later. Vriska wakes, and Tavros falls head-first onto the floor.

Here is where it gets incredibly uncomfortable, and we have to show it in detail to assign points properly and so that there’s no ambiguity about what’s happening, so if you have any sexual assault, ableism, underage, mind control, or victim-blaming triggers you may want to skip this part. No clothing is removed but it’s very unpleasant to read and the attitude toward it is worse. Seriously, this is Taklamakan Zoo levels of bad.

(This heading below’s not part of the comic, I just put it there so you can skip. The sequence ends with the piece of fanart of Kanaya looking at the sideways screen.)

~*THE ASSAULT STARTS HERE*~

Vriska sits up. She’s wearing a very short strappy white Tinkerbell dress with her sign on it, and what look like over-the-knee socks, a commonly fetishised style of clothing. I remind you these characters are supposed to be thirteen years old. The dress is also the same as the one worn by the fairy in the artwork on Tavros’ desktop background. I don’t know if Vriska had seen that or not.

FAILURE ARTIST:

To be fair she’s just in an actually-more-modest version of what Peter Pan’s sidekick/love interest wears and the socks come off as more dorky than sexy.

Oh my! It appears Pupa Pan himself has flown through your window while you were asleep. How exciting! Surely he is here to take you away on the adventure of a lifetime. He is more dreamy and heroic than you ever imagined. But what's this?? It seems the legendary Boy-Skylark has misplaced his shadow. He is looking EVERYWHERE for it, to no avail. He is having a devil of a time, what with being paralyzed from the waist down and all. He clearly needs your help.

CHEL: Vriska is prompted to Help Pupa find shadow, and approaches Tavros with a nasty-looking grin on her face, while he lies on the floor, gritting his teeth in noticeable pain.

Pupa! You truly are a silly goose. Your shadow has been trapped underneath your useless torso the whole time! Honestly, where else would it be you stupid sack of shit?

Charming. Vriska proceeds to kick him in the head, or at least nudge him with her foot, while he lies unresponsive.

Of course, the secret to reuniting with your shadow is to get up and walk around. And play and dance and frolic! Your shadow will surely join in your gaiety. But it appears Pupa has lost the use of his legs. There will be no frolicking in this young man's future. ::::( Unless...

Everyone knows that just a pinch of SPECIAL STARDUST along with a happy thought will allow any boy to get up and walk again. Everyone knows this because it is in the classic tale, PUPA PAN. Young Pupa flies through the window of a fairy girl's respiteblock, falls on the floor, and has trouble getting up like an enormous pansy. The fairy girl then helps him walk again, and in return, he teaches her to fly, even though she probably already knows how to fly. Because she's a fairy. They fly out of her window together, and have magical adventures for many sweeps thereafter. To be honest, you hardly know a damn thing about Pupa Pan. But you do not care.

Pupa remains as pathetic and useless as ever.

FAILURE ARTIST: The story just keeps mocking Tavros for being disabled.

CHEL: Not to mention for being interested in fairies. Because how dare a boy have a gender-nonstandard interest, or a young teenager enjoy whimsical escapism from an increasingly horrible and guaranteed-to-be-short life.

WHITE SBURB POSTMODERNISM: 39

I might be projecting because the fandom has made me loathe her, but it honestly comes off like Vriska dressed up like this in the first place less to seduce Tavros and more to make sure she thoroughly ruined his favourite thing to hurt him further, especially if the narration is supposed to be things she’s actually saying to him.

The stardust did nothing! Probably because it is just glittery powder with no magical properties whatsoever and is basically bullshit. Because in case it wasn't clear, magic isn't real, and neither are miracles. OR It could just be that Pupa has failed to have a happy thought! Your duty is clear. You will have to MAKE him have happy thoughts. Vriska: Make Pupa have happy thoughts.

He certainly doesn’t seem to be having happy thoughts now. Notice his expression, what we can see of it, looks terrified, he’s trembling, and let’s recall that he’s paralysed from the waist down. Even if he wasn’t, she’s of a far, far higher caste than him, legally permitted to do whatever she wants to him, including killing him if he tries to resist. It’s kind of gone back and forth on, but higher bloods are a few times stated to be a lot stronger than lower bloods, and if they work like humans, they’re in puberty right now, a time at which human girls tend to get taller and stronger sooner than boys. Again, it’s gone back and forth on, but a common interpretation is that female trolls are stronger than male trolls in general and/or have the social power advantage. Let’s also remember that, even if none of those factors apply, Vriska has mind control powers. There is no point here at which Tavros has the advantage, nothing he can use as leverage on her. She can do whatever the hell she wants, and she does.

BRIGHT: We’ve also been explicitly shown that Vriska has little to no respect for anyone else’s autonomy if she finds it inconvenient, and that Tavros is her favourite punching bag, and that his ability to stand up for himself when she gets going is extremely limited.

CHEL: Despite the odds stacked against him, Tavros struggles against the kiss forced on him, and when Vriska pushes him back, doesn’t respond with anything but a look of horror, though she appears to expect him to, as a flickering heart-spade with a question mark over it appears between them. I’m not sure whether that’s supposed to be the thought process of him or her or both.

Vriska hurls him onto the floor with some force...

… and activates her mind control, causing little hearts to light up in Tavros’ eyes.

BRIGHT: Vriska has used her mind-control powers on Tavros before, and when it happened she walked him off a cliff. There is basically no way that her doing it again isn’t going to be a traumatic experience for him, above and beyond the inherent horror of losing control over one’s body.

I’m inclined to think that forcibly altering his emotions is worse, though. Being paralysed was bad enough, but Tavros knows what happened and he knows how he feels about it. Making him fall in love with her is just…on one level, it’s a horrible assault on his autonomy as a person, and on another level, it’s tailor-made to make him doubt himself and believe the encounter was something he wanted.

FAILURE ARTIST: I hadn’t thought that he might now consider the encounter as consensual, which would explain his later reaction.

CHEL: Tavros paws at her legs, making kissy faces, and she looks vaguely concerned. Note the background still depicts wavy blue rays coming off her, showing her power is still active.

Looking defeated, she drops the control and dumps him on the floor again.

I’m not sure what she’s supposed to be thinking in this last panel. Is she feeling guilty? Is she disappointed that he didn’t like her under his own power? Has she just decided he’s too useless to be worth the effort? Any could be true.

BRIGHT: I read that as disappointment that even when he ‘liked’ her, he didn’t act the way she wanted. (And the way Tavros acted is kind of disturbing. ‘Mindlessly pawing at someone’ is not what I’d expect from him if he was legitimately attracted to someone.)

FAILURE ARTIST: The common interpretation these days was she was realizing she wasn’t into boys which okay that’s good for her but she should feel more bad about molesting him.

CHEL: That also makes no sense, because she shows interest in multiple boys later.

I’m also not entirely sure if Vriska had the intention of actually raping Tavros here (in the standard way, I mean, as one could argue that mind control is a form of rape), or just making out with him. The fact that she dressed up in vaguely fetishy clothing isn’t making it look good, though. Yes, she’s very young, but traumatised kids in particular have been known to lash out sexually like that. It’s a way of reasserting personal power, and I imagine it would be more prevalent in a society with no sapient adult supervision. While there are mitigating circumstances involved in their social situation and Vriska not really having ever had a chance to learn better, that doesn’t make this not a horrible thing to do, or not traumatising for Tavros.

BRIGHT: The clothing could potentially be down to Vriska wanting to look ‘adult’ without fully understanding why it looks adult. That does come up sometimes with teens — they want to experiment with clothing because that’s how adults dress, not because they want to look sexy, or they might dress a certain way for dates because that’s the social model they have for How Dates Work.

And if I read it like that, this basically looks like Vriska having the date equivalent of a dolls’ tea party. Which says volumes about how she views Tavros’s autonomy.

CHEL: Good point. Though honestly it would say volumes about same either way!

BRIGHT: I said earlier that Vriska is better than Equius at recognising when other people’s desires conflict with hers, and she is, but that doesn’t mean she respects those differences. She just recognises that they’re there, and overrides them. This is a prime example of Vriska viewing Tavros as something between a chew-toy and a prop. First she kicks him around and terrifies him, then she expects him to be able to get over those emotions at the drop of a hat and respond to her advances — and, moreover, she wants him to respond in a certain way, which Tavros has zero way of knowing. This is the first time she’s shown that sort of interest in him, unless her earlier behaviour was the Alternian equivalent of pigtail-pulling.

...I think maybe that was in fact Alternian pigtail-pulling. Or at least Vriska’s version of pigtail-pulling.

CHEL: That’ll actually make more sense, once we explain what the spade symbol means.

Okay, how many counts does this cover?

ALL THE LUCK: 12 ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 31 CALL CPA PLEASE: 26 CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 55 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 13

It also occurred to me during this sequence to think again about how Karkat contemptuously swears at and hangs up the phone on the injured Tavros. This, at first glance, seems to be very much at odds with the “cranky but caring” impression we’re supposed to have of Karkat… but it fits precisely with Hussie’s opinion of Tavros and how pathetic he is for allowing a much more powerful person to permanently disable him. I know at the moment it looks like I’m not separating the character from the author, but it’ll become clear as we go that that is what he thinks.

IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 14

Why didn’t we start a FUCK YOU, HUSSIE count?

BRIGHT: It would have ended up longer than all the other counts combined.

CHEL: The actual assault is over now, but there’s one more picture of it. The ramifications must continue to be discussed, so tread cautiously. The actual act is over now, though.

Said ramifications come pretty quickly. Kanaya, having dealt with getting herself into the game and prototyped her own lususprite, decides to check on Vriska.

Ideally she has not gotten herself into too much trouble. And ideally the dramatic irony has not gotten so thick you could draw a dotted line on it with a tube of lipstick and cut it in half with a chainsaw.

Of course, she sees the exact moment Vriska kisses Tavros.

(Fanart source has now been deleted, sadly.)

~*THE ASSAULT ENDS HERE*~

Humorous art aside over, let’s watch Kanaya’s reaction in more detail. She angrily looks at a copy of the Tinkerbell dress, which she presumably sent the alchemiter code for rather than the actual item to Vriska, hence why she still has it.

So THAT'S why she had you make this dress for her??? And you just went along with it like a sucker. Argh, you are such an IDIOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like Karkat, Kanaya is presented as the caring one, the protective one. The “mom friend” of the group. And yet, she looks at this, in which Tavros is clearly frightened and struggling, and her reaction is to be mad that Vriska didn’t want to wear the dress for a date with her. I’m not sure whether this says more about Hussie’s opinion of Tavros or the social system of Alternia or both, but it certainly says a lot.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 56 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 13 IN HATE WITH MY CREATION: 15

BRIGHT: Kanaya has had to corral Vriska on Tavros’s behalf already! Possibly more than once! She has all the information to realise that this is abusive, even leaving aside Tavros’s reaction! Sure, teens can be self-centred, but even so this is egregious.

CHEL: Kanaya’s Grubsprite comforts her and she throws the dress out the window.

Being a kid and growing up. It's hard and nobody understands.

Yes, I’m sure Tavros thinks so too.

Charles: "I know Sir can be prickly, but you have to understand he had a very terrible childhood."

Klaus: "I understand. I'm having a very terrible childhood right now."

-A Series of Unfortunate Events

#homestuck #homestuck review #homestuck meta #homestuck reread #let's read homestuck #Homespork

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svt-writers-club · 5 years

Note

Welcome back!!! Ask 5, #33 or #37, have u ever thought abt a hanahaki au? ;)

one day you will regret the things that you ask from me. i’m not sure today is that day, but i’ll try to make it so. since there’s no pairing stated, i’m gonna sprinkle in some of my fave ship with my fave boi and make it an ot3 for extra pain.

i’m gonna cram in a little hipster cafe au too, because why not.

#37: “Don’t! Don’t come near me!”

The first petal that falls from Seungkwan’s lips is yellow.

It’s yellow and its scent is mild. It looks almost pristine, innocently sitting in his palm after a cough that rattled Seungkwan’s insides. He stares at it – half in dread and half in confusion – before snapping out of it when Jeonghan calls for him. They’re in the middle of rehearsals, Jihoon handing them a new song to learn. There’s a duet for Jeonghan and Jisoo, a duet for Seungkwan and Seokmin and a solo for Jihoon. There is no time to ponder the petal, so he crushes it in his hand and prays it’s a mistake.

But of course it’s not a mistake.

It’s a chrysanthemum – yellow, for slighted love.

Seungkwan has chrysanthemums growing in his lungs, all for Jihoon.

It’s Jihoon – it has to be. Seungkwan has been nursing a crush on Jihoon, since the first day the elder set eyes on him on the streets of Hongdae and said, “You have a voice I’d love to write songs for.”

(Honestly, who even says that to people? Sure, Jihoon has this unnerving ability to be stupidly blunt all the time and have absolutely no shame about the things he says.)

It starts with a crush – a little spark of a crush that started because Jihoon is a songwriter and accidentally says pretty words to unsuspecting men. It’s a spark that bursts into a flame because Jihoon writes pretty songs that match Seungkwan’s pretty voice and Jihoon says cutting words but soothes them with cake and hot chocolate after.

The flame blazes and burns, scorching Seungkwan from the inside out. With every touch and gentle word, with time in the studio where it’s just the two of them and rehearsals where Jihoon’s focus is solely on Seungkwan, he aches and he longs and he loves.

Seungkwan always knew that falling for Jihoon would end in pain. He just didn’t expect it to end in petals filling his lungs.

In a way, it’s poetic; it’s a death that fits the artistry that encompasses every bit of Jihoon’s life. Of course he’d kill Seungkwan with pretty flowers too.

It’s when the white petals join the chrysanthemums that Seungkwan knows he’s well and truly fucked.

It takes him a moment to understand why the white poppy petals (consolation) join the chrysanthemum he’s still coughing out. He’s watching Seungcheol and Jihoon flirt in their unique way – Seungcheol calls Jihoon short and Jihoon calls Seungcheol an idiot, then they exchange secret grins that belie just how much they care about each other.

Seungkwan watches Seungcheol and his heart aches just as another cough wracks his entire body. He coughs out a handful of petals – and the first couple white petals mixed amongst the yellow sends shivers down Seungkwan’s spine.

He spends too long staring at the handful of petals – still a handful, because it’s been three days since the first petal – and jumps when Seungcheol wanders over, concern in his eyes.

“Hey, are you okay?” Seungcheol asks.

Seungkwan immediately shoves the petals into his pocket, plastering a smile onto his face. “I’m fine, just a tickle!” He coughs again, a light fake thing to throw him off the scent.

Seungkwan nearly jumps again when Seungcheol leans in close and presses a warm hand to Seungkwan’s forehead. “Hm,” the elder hums, “you don’t feel warm.”

“I’m fine,” Seungkwan croaks, the lie as bitter as the petals are sweet when they rest on his tongue, right before he spews them out.

Falling in love with Seungcheol is like sitting in a pot of cold water being heated over fire. At first, their relationship is strictly employer/employee. Then, Seungkwan stumbles his way into the cafe after a shitty blind date Seokmin forced him on and Seungcheol is there. He’s there, with his warm smile and even warmer hugs. He offers Seungkwan coffee and a listening ear and suddenly, they’re friends.

They’re friends and Seungcheol hangs out with Seungkwan. They text and they have inside jokes. The next thing Seungkwan knows, Seungcheol is always there, with a quick smile and even quicker skinship.

Seungkwan doesn’t notice the water is boiling until he’s in too deep and he’s daydreaming of caramel kisses and quiet I love yous in the back room.

The thing about Jihoon and Seungcheol is that they’re the love story. They’ve known each other since high school and stuck together through college. They even set up a cafe together – Sweet Notes – and anyone with eyes can tell they’re in love with each other (even if they’re both oblivious fools).

There’s no space for Seungkwan between them.

He doesn’t even pretend there is. Seungkwan can’t bring himself to be that delusional. It’ll hurt him more in the end.

Of course, he can get corrective surgery. All it’ll take is one little procedure and the flowers will be gone. He can breathe and he can stop the pain – but it’ll mean he’ll never feel romantic love again. He’ll never feel the flutter of his heartbeat when Jihoon and Seungcheol walk in, the warmth that spread through his body when Jihoon smiles at him and tells him a job well done, the silent joy when Seungcheol wraps an arm around his shoulders.

Seungkwan has a brochure lying on his bed. A little brain surgery and he’ll never have to worry about unrequited love again.

It takes him a week before he throws it into the trash can.

It progresses fast. Too fast.

The body isn’t meant to withstand so much heartache. Unrequited love from one person is already bad enough. Most people can last maybe three months with hanahaki disease.

Seungkwan’s doctor says it’s a miracle if he’ll see the end of the month.

The chrysanthemums and the poppies grow in his lungs, feeding off his misery. It scares him, but he supposes it’s not really all that different from knowing the two men you love will never love you back, all because they’re too wrapped up in each other. Seungkwan can’t even resent them for it, because he’s stupid and in love. At least when he’s gone, they won’t mourn him. They’ll have each other, after all.

Seungkwan leans against the toilet bowl. He reaches up with a shaky hand, flushing the yellow and white petals down. His head hurts, a headache building behind his eyelids. He hasn’t been able to sleep, the coughing keeping him up. He’s stopped cleaning up the petals, the yellow and white scattered amongst his bedsheets. The crushed flower petals lend a sickly, floral scent to his home. He leaves them as a reminder – of his sentimentality, of his stupidity.

He can’t go to rehearsal today. He just can’t.

It takes him twenty minutes to drag himself out of the bathroom. Seungkwan collapses into bed and types a bleary message to… well, he’s not sure who. Probably Seokmin, who’s been nagging him about taking care of himself. Seokmin doesn’t know – no one knows, and he’d like to keep it that way. He hasn’t even told Hansol, who’s his best friend in the whole world.

Maybe he should. The doctor said he might not see the end of the month. He’s already two weeks in. Seungkwan toys with the idea of sending in his resignation and spending the next two weeks getting his affairs in order. He doesn’t have a will written up, but… well. It’s about time he thought about it.

He lets his eyes flutter shut.

The pounding at the door doesn’t wake him. The sudden bout of coughing does. He coughs and coughs, the cloud of petals that emerges enough to almost choke him. He’s drowning in petals and the door opens.

Seungkwan looks up, trying to make out the figure through the film of tears. He tries to cover his mouth, but the petals slip through his fingers, fluttering innocently in front of him. Crimson stains the yellow and white.

“Hyung,” Seungkwan croaks, curling in on himself as Seungcheol watches in horror.

“What the hell is going on here?” Seungcheol demands. He takes a step into Seungkwan’s room – his room with the flowers and the blood and evidence of his own failure.

“Don’t! Don’t come near me!”

“Seungkwan – ”

“Please,” he croaks. Copper and chrysanthemum rests on his tongue. He lets out a rattling breath, curling into a ball. “Please. Don’t come near me. I can’t – ”

“Can – is there anything I can do?” Seungcheol asks, a hint of desperation in his voice. He’s still in the doorway, keeping a respectful distance.

All Seungkwan wants is to burrow himself into Seungcheol’s arms and cry and cry. He wants to let himself be comforted, but Seungcheol’s isn’t his to have and he can’t stop thinking about (wanting) Jihoon too.

“No,” Seungkwan answers, burying his face in his hands so Seungcheol can’t see him cry. “Just – go away.”

“Kwannie – ”

“Go away! I don’t want to see you or – or Jihoon hyung. Get out!”

Those are lies. They tear at his throat and he’s not sure if the pain is from the flowers slowly killing him or the words he’s spitting out. He wants to see them. He wants to tell them the truth – I’m so in love with both of you that it’s literally killing me – just so they can pretend to love him for a little while.

Seungcheol stands in the doorway for a good long while, watching Seungkwan curl into a ball on his petal-covered bed. Then, he walks away. The door shuts behind him quietly and Seungkwan cries and cries.

Feel free to ask me more of these ship asks here!

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b00bconnoisseur · 5 years

Text

60 questions for @not-my-brain

1. selfie.......Ugghhhh ok. Imma take one rn

Ok here u go (yes thats a bmth shirt)

2. what would you name your future kids?.....Ooo hmmm well when i was a kid i really liked the names disney, and mesiah. I didn't know at the time that mesiah was another name for god i think lol. I liked it cause of handlers mesiah. I still do. Ooo and maybe Tj too

3. do you miss anyone?......Yeah. My friends on Pinterest from a year ago. My friend lucas. Stan lee. Bob ross. My cousin who died from cancer some years ago. Snape. Sirius. Lupin. Tonks. Dobby. *continues to name every unfortunate death in hp*

4. what are you looking forward to?.......SE-YA next month!! Its the south eastern young adult festival at this college. You can have meet n greets with authors and alot of stuff its the besstttt

5. is there anyone who can always make you smile?......DEFINATELY. @dirtysocke @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye @cristal-kyd1280 @sammchenry my friend lucas and @septembersbloom. ^^

6. is it hard for you to get over someone?..... What like...romantically? Or like a death? If romantically uhhh idk it took over a couple weeks but im ok now. Ive never had another relationship so idk. If death oof yeah idk maybe. Ig it depends on how much i knew them idk. Like when my nanny (great grandma) died i was sad for days (is that alot?)

7. what was your life like last year?.....Sucky af. Still is. But the highlights of my life last year was getting and making friends on tumblr, going to the tøp concert and going to warped tour, volunteering at the library, going to seya and meeting some of my favorite authors, reading, changing and improving my art, listening to all the bands i listen to now, getting into more fandoms, going to a friends house for the first time

8. have you ever cried because you were so annoyed?.......Yes lol. Some years ago when i couldn't find smtn id be so annoyed and pissed id start crying. I dont now but still lol

9. who did you last see in person?.......Hm ig family doesn't count....? Wait do u mean a friend? If so uhh my friends rebekah, anika, and Judah at a TAB meeting at the library sometime last month.

10. are you good at hiding your feelings?......I think so? Like i mean I can hide whenever i get my....time of the month from my mom (talking abt stuff like that with her makes me uncomfortable) and i hid a breakup. And other p big stuff too. So imma say yeah

11. are you listening to music right now?........*pops on earbuds after reading this* yee im listening to bitch lasagna by pewdiepie xD (do i have the best spotify playlist or what?)

12. what is something you want right now?.......To hug @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye but SOMEONE has to live so far away

13. how do you feel right now?........Happy that my earbud still works cause they got washed in the wash yesterday....oops. Its not my fault. I told my dad to remind me to take it out of my jacket pocket before they threw it in but noooooo he forgot

14. when was the last time someone of the opposite sex hugged you?.......Uhhhhh fuck idk it was probably from my lil 4 yr old bro sometime last week. Other than him (hes my favorite sibling) i dont let them hug me too much

15. personality description.......Nerdy. Fangirl. "Emo". Tomboy. Hotsause obsessed. Book lover. Music lover. Black. Blue. Harry potter. Introvert. Fall. Sports. Values friendship. Loyal. Uhhhh i cant think of much lol

16. have you ever wanted to tell someone something but you didn’t?.......*sigh* yes. Yes yes yes. Theres some things abt me, or my life really, that i havent told anyone on here or my irl friends that i sooooo want to so bad but i haven't cause i feel like they'd feel bad and pity me and i don't want that

17. opinion on insecurities........I dont really understand this one. Everyones insecure abt something. Is this askin like if i think its ok or not? I say its ok. Im insecure about literally everything about me. My face. My personality. My socialness. My art. What i do. What i say. Basically my whole body. The things i feel good abt are my books, music taste, and my friends (ily fuckers)

18. do you miss how things were a year ago?.........Hmm this time around a year ago....idk its sorta the same but all the stuff i mentioned abt my year from last year didn't happen yet so nah tho my life sucks rn its better than this time last year

19. have you ever been to New York?........Nooo but i want too soo baddd i wanna visit @septembersbloom !! Im coming for ya soon gramps *does the eye watching thing* my dads been to nyc before tho cause he does construction and he had a concrete job to do there. It was a 23 hr drive for him

20. what is your favourite song at the moment?........Uhhh idk!!! So hard! Maybe.....the whole thats the spirit album by bmth ;)

21. age and birthday?.....15 yrs of age and September 27th 2003 (whats yours brainy? I'll put it on my calendar)

22. description of crush......Its weird idk im not sure if its a genuine crush or not but uh....They like hp :).Thats all u get

23. fear(s).......Losing my best friend @dirtysocke and my other friends. Death. Failure. Momo chasing after me then killing me slowly keeping my eyes open to look her dead in the eyes while i die

24. height......5'6 call me short and I'll fuck u up with THIS *pulls out trusty potato peeler named now steve* dont test me boi

25. role model......Hhhhhhhh so many! But uh gosh one of them is @superraedizzle (youtuberrrr) and vexx and bob ross and da vinci and aaaaaaa so many

26. idol(s)......First person that immediately comes to mind is @sammchenry cause he's super cool and he's really nice and his art's reallyyy good (if u havent seen it w-w-what are u even doin with your life?) And he has a great sense of humor and *continues to ramble about why samms the best*

27. things i hate.......Dabs. Transphobes. Homophobic ppl. Basically any hate on the lgbtq+ community. Bullies. The ship starker. Umbridge. Snape haters

28. i’ll love you if….....U you'll eat pizza, draw, and rp harry potter with mee

29. favourite film(s)......Fantastic beasts. Every hp film. Twilight. The maze runner 1-2. The hunger games. Spiderman homecoming. Kingsman: secret service. Into the spideyverse tho i havent seen it yet

30. favourite tv show(s)......Inkmasterrrrr. B99. The mick. The middle. Uhhh idk mostly ink master xD

31. 3 random facts........Ive never had shrimp. I had a beta fish for over a year once. Im eating pizza crust rn

32. are your friends mainly girls or guys?.......G i r l s. I have all girl friends irl and one boy. And on tumblr it seems like i just meet girls? Likei agree with @cristal-kyd1280 its like alot more gals then dudes here. But i do have some guy friends on here too. But mostly girls

33. something you want to learn.......TO DRAW ANATOMY DAMMIT

34. most embarrassing moment........Every moment of my lifes an embarrassing moment. Idk of i can pick a "most" embarrassing one. But one time i i sent my crush (now ex bf) a hey fuckface and like some hearts or whatever for an ask game that meant like "i have a crush on u" "youre adorable" etc and said Hewo but i did it all anonymously. But he confronted me askin if i sent it cause im the only person he knows that actually says hewo lol. Then later on i finally admitted i really liked him and well y'all know the story after i think. Unless you're new

35. favourite subject.......A R TTTT OFC

36. 3 dreams you want to fulfill?........meet my friends on tumblr. Get into mtsu (college i wanna go to) and study art. And go skydiving

37. favourite actor/actress........favorite actor uhhhhhh probably thomas brodie sangster or tom felton and my favorite actress? Hmmm idk maybe evanna lynch (luna lovegood)

38. favourite comedian(s).......probably kevin hart lol he's p funny

39. favourite sport(s)........basketballllllll and football

40. favourite memory........uhhhhh idk?? One oh my favorite memories was when we went to see tøp in concert

41. relationship status.....single as a pringle

42. favourite book(s)......harry potter and the order of the pheonix. Harry potter and the half blood prince. Simon vs the homo sapiens agenda. Divergent. Maze runner. Twilight. Fangirl. Fallen. Red queen

43. favourite song ever.......TOO HARD DONT MAKE ME CHOOSEEEEEE

44. age you get mistaken for.........16 and 17 sometimes lol

45. how you found out about your idol........i was watching someone on yt and superraedizzle always poped up in my feed and my mom turned on one of her vids cause she always saw her vids too now ive seen most of em i love her. Id heard of vexx but never watched him and i was watching a collab from anthony miller art and shrimpy and i checked out shrimpys channel and was lookin at comments and alot of ppl said his art is like vexxs so i checked out vexx. At first i was like eh ok. Now i cant click fast enough when he posts a vid. And i actually fpund out about bob ross from my grandpa on jan 20 2017 when trump was getting sworn in or whatever. We turned on pbs and my grampa told me to look and bob ross was on and i was IN. I loved it. I even started watching full episodes on YouTube of the joy of painting after that. Wonderful man. My first painting i ever did i think was when i followed one of his tutorials xD (i didnt know it was popular at the time)

46. what my last text message says......."ok your turn"

47. turn ons.....uhh nerds ig idk um book lovers, music lovers, art lovers, potterheads, idk and nice ppl

48. turn offs......jerks. Homophobia. Idk ig whatever i said in things i hate

49. where i want to be right now......uhhhh idk wait didn't i already answer this? Ok this ones different ig so uhh with my friend lucas

50. favourite picture of your idol.....oh shit...favorite? Idk xD i have a fave of vexx but not of rae or bob. But heres pics of them any way

51. starsign......a libraaaaa boiii

52. something i’m talented at......drawing and speed reading. Thats about it lol. Oh and procrastina

53. 5 things that make me happy.......ooooo art, my friends here on tumblr, books, harry potter, and music ^^

54. something thats worrying me at the moment.....if my friend thinks im being annoying

55. tumblr friends......hhhhh so manyyyyyy. @dirtysocke @mysisterlooksforthisaccountsobye @cristal-kyd1280 @chinesewaffles2 @kingantlion @queen-baelin @sammchenry @septembersbloom and more

56. favourite food(s)......green beans, pepperoni pizza, and vanilla madelines

57. favourite animal(s).......basically any reptile. Puppies. Cats. Any animal really but my #1 are snakes

58. description of my best friend.....well she's a tiny bean (5 feet) and she has dark hair, she wears glasses, she doesnt take shit, she's in love with Josh dun, she's awesome, funny, nice (YES youre nice jackie) and shes the best friend ive ever had. Oh. And she has a weird obsession with spaghetti

59. why i joined tumblr.......well i heard abt it on Pinterest over a year ago but didnt want it. Then @mrfastbass-deactivated20181231 on DeviantArt said he got tumblr so i made one then followed him and figured id just post art and that's it cause i thought tumblr was boring as hell when i first got it. Now im p much obsessed with it

60. ask me anything you want.......go ahead brainy shoot. Give me smtn good

#my face #mutual peeps #not-my-brain #asks #60 questions

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crowkingwrites · 5 years

Text

War Creatures (Ch.36)

Pairing: Loki X Reader

Summary: In a crossover of the Nine Realms and Westeros, you find yourself in the dawn of a rebellion. Odin, Lord of Pyke, has made alliances with your family, House Grover of Highgarden. Your father’s army will join Odin’s army to overthrow the King and take the Iron Throne. There is just one cost to this alliance.You must marry the dark, young prince Loki.In a world where Kings do as they wish, where war is an oncoming storm, and peace is nothing but a dream, you are lost but brave. Loki is more powerful than he seems, and love will grow from the flames of war.

Words: 2078 // [AO3 Link] // Seasons 1-3 of War Creatures - Chapter 31 - Chapter 32 - Chapter 33 - Chapter 34 - Chapter 35

:Lia’s POV:

“Ser Petra? Tell me a story,” I smiled at my favorite knight. Ser Petra shifted in his seat. He had been my guest all week at my afternoon tea. He took a bite of an apple in front of him.

“Ah, I have a good one. I remember when your mother was pregnant with you. She had this habit that you now have adopted.”

“What? What is it?” I sat up excitedly. “Is it something I eat?”

“No, no,” Ser Petra shook his head. “It’s a bit of a complicated story. You see, your mother was in a similar spot where you are now. Her mother surrounded her with comfort, food, and a midwife near her at all times. Apparently, it was tradition to be suspicious and overly-cautious in your family.” I laughed and gesturing to the air. Of course, my mother would put me through the same suffering as herself.

“Please, continue,” I told him, enjoying this story.

“Your mother ended up being so bored because her mother never let her do anything, so your mother held tea parties, hosting different people every week. She often told me I was a pleasurable guest.”

“Tea parties? With everyone?”

“Everyone. Including the kitchen girls who do nothing but gossip about others. Those were her favorite.” Ser Petra smiled at me fondly. “It’s good to see you home and safe. A pregnant woman should never be on the road to war.”

“Yes, I suppose,” I looked away from the table and towards the sky. It wasn’t entirely blue, but it wasn’t going to rain. I knew.

“What’s wrong?”

“Here I am, about to be seven months pregnant, and I have heard nothing of my husband and the war for most of my pregnancy. No one tells me anything. No matter who I have tea with. No one gives me a hint of anything. It’s—

“Maddening,” Ser Petra finished my sentence. He took a look around him and sat closer to me. “May I ask you something? Something very personal?”

“Of course,” I nodded. “You’re like a second father to me.” Ser Petra cracked a smile and sighed.

“I wasn’t thrilled to hear your father say he was planning to marry you off to him. I always wanted you to marry some boring lord somewhere, but I am not your father. When I met him, I was greeted with an arrogant, mean, and highly intelligent teenage boy. I feared he would hurt you or worse hate you slowly from a distance.”

“But, you know that’s different now,” I touched his hand. “He loves me very much.”

“I believe that and I’m relieved,” Ser Petra nodded. “Do you think he’ll make a good king?”

“Oh,” I reacted. “I wasn’t expecting that question.” I started to laugh a little until I saw Petra’s face. His frown and waiting eyes told me he was more serious than I thought. “I believe my answer will be biased.”

“If I believed that, I wouldn’t have asked you. You came into this war with an allegiance to one king, and now you support his son, why? Do you seek power yourself? Do you want to be queen? Would that make you happy?”

“No,” you answered honestly. “I didn’t want to be queen. I had little desire in ruling over people, but then I saw the need. Loki is not the arrogant boy you think he is. He has mercy. He has taught me so much. Therefore, I am not the little naïve girl from Highgarden. I have seen parts of the world that are ugly and beautiful. The Nine Kingdoms deserves better than a man using children for war and using his own people to shield him.”

“And what does the Nine Kingdoms deserve?”

“Someone with love in her heart and another who is aggressive but smarter than his advisors. Ruling would not make me happy, but I will do what the Nine Kingdoms deserves. A good queen and a good king.” I looked at Ser Petra and noted the grays in his beard starting to show.

“You’ve grown up and I blinked,” Ser Petra smiled. He took my hand and placed a chaste kiss on top. “Your husband is alive.”

“What?!” I reacted. Ser Petra shushed me immediately, noting the other royal guards patrolling.

“He won the battle and many other battles after that. I wouldn’t be so cross with him. Your husband has been busy sacking the North entirely. His army has gotten larger with every battle. Dwarves, goblins, frost giants—

“He did it? He has the Frost giants?” I asked. Ser Petra nodded. “Your father is rethinking his original alliance with Odin, but he wanted to wait until after you had your first child. He wanted to see Loki as a father first before he made his final decision.”

“Has Loki sent me anything? Letters? Anything?”

“No,” Ser Petra confirmed. “Again, I wouldn’t be cross with him. Your young king has been busy.”

:Xerxes’ POV:

Every time Xerxes heard Loki’s name come out of anyone’s mouth, he wished he could hurt them. Even as Ser Petra stood in front of him now, giving him directions.

“So, it’s true, he’s marching down here. Why?” Xerxes asked.

“To be with Cecelia,” Ser Petra reported. “She’s going to have his baby after all.” The fire inside Xerxes pit grew louder each time it was fed with the reminder that he could never have Cecelia. It burned him, making him feel incomplete.

“And what are we going to do about that?”

“You said you wanted a chance to hurt Loki for what he did to Cecelia. I’m giving you that chance.” Xerxes laughed and his ears perked up.

“You want me to assassinate him? And what do I get in return?” Xerxes strolled around the room.

“You’ll have what you desire the most. A heartbroken girl who is more than happy to stay loyal to the crown. Once she marries you, she will no longer be a threat to the crown. You could have Highgarden.”

The idea played inside his mind for days. If he killed Loki, he could have everything he wanted. Power, money, and the most beautiful girl in the Nine Kingdoms. No one could stop him. All he had to do was defeat the arrogant son of a bitch before he saw Cecelia. Xerxes would often let his mind wander to his queen.

How soft her skin must feel, how the sun hit her hair, and how her laugh sounded like a song. He couldn’t find the words to tell her, but she must know. She must have an idea of how he felt for her. Cecelia was very smart and very kind. She knows. Xerxes didn’t need to say it aloud.

“Xerxes,” a friend called out to him. “Did you hear me?”

“No, I apologize Han. My mind was…never mind. What is it?”

“He’s here. Loki and his entire army. They’re all here. I suspect someone is on their way to tell Cecelia herself, but you are her personal guard.” Xerxes felt his stomach drop. He had no time to think of a plan or even an idea on how to kill the young, dark king. His daydreams had the better of him entirely. He started running towards his queen. His heart beat loud in his chest with an anxiety he never knew before.

Was it because he was so close to failure that he could taste the blood in his mouth? Or was it because he was so close to success that he could taste Cecelia’s mouth on his own?

:Loki’s POV:

Highgarden was just over the hill and a short road to the palace. He could see the size of it from on top of Caina. Joy was not the word he was looking for. Relief? No. Peace. It was the peace knowing you were there waiting for him just inside the castle. It was peace knowing you were safe this entire time. It was peace that he would greet his newborn with.

Loki lost track of time he had been away. His snake skin gloves kept a tight grip on Caina. He beckoned her to go faster. Loki felt his heart leap into his chest. He never felt compelled to race his horse towards a woman before, but here he was reliving the romantic tales that girls passed around. He was living the happy ending.

Caina galloped in front of everyone and everything. Her hooves hustled through like rain drops raced to kiss the earth. Loki started laughing to himself. He was so incredibly in love that he wanted to shout for you.

“Lady Cecelia!” he sang into the air whipping around. “Sweet lady Cecelia!”

As he approached the gates of Highgarden, he found them to wide and open. His horse came to a halting stop and Loki jumped off his horse. He heard a loud, booming laughter beside him.

“Loki!” Lord Garth greeted him. He took a look a young, future king. Loki still donned his golden horned helmet, black and silver furs served well as an outer layer. Loki’s hair had gotten longer along with sign of facial hair. Iced Steel stayed attached to his side. “You’ve been busy, my lord.”

“And here I thought you would be still fighting for my father,” Loki laughed with his father-in-law. They embraced tightly.

“My daughter changed my mind. She speaks so highly of you,” Lord Garth said.

“Where is she? It’s been so long. I was beginning to forget her sweet face,” Loki smiled. Lord Garth and Loki left the common areas, leaving everyone else to greet Loki’s army. Loki ascended stairs and followed hallways directly to your room. He remembered it only slightly now. He could see you now, happily waiting for him with a swollen belly.

A pang of guilt hit him hard. He hadn’t been with you or his growing child for a long while. Would you be resentful? Understanding? You were all at war, in an open rebellion. Hopefully you wouldn’t be terribly mad. Then he remembered Lorelei.

Loki’s hand touched your doorknob of your bedroom and stopped. How was he going to tell you? He needed a way to tell you somehow. Loki knew you wouldn’t like the idea of an ex-lover of his to stay inside the walls of Highgarden. Maybe he could explain it to you. You were reasonable.

He opened the door to your room, finding it completely empty. Loki’s eyebrows knitted together. He heard a voice behind him laced with concern.

“Loki,” Lord Garth held an older woman in his hands. Eir had a rope tied around her wrists and neck. Lord Garth loosened them and the older woman could finally breathe.

‘Eir, what’s happened to Cecelia?”

Eir coughed and wheezed. She turned to lord Garth and Loki. “It was Xerxes and Ser Petra. They have her. Up in one of the towers.”

Loki’s blood started to boil over. The same anger he felt towards Ser Petra returned to him in an instant. Loki’s nostrils flared evenly. He shot a look at Garth. Garth silently coiled the rope in his hands.

“They have my eldest in a tower? As a hostage in her own home? In my home?” Garth said gently. He tied the newly coiled ropes to his side. His war hammer was in his grasp. Loki embraced Iced Steel in his own hands. They both could smell the shit of the men who they trusted in the air as if it left a trail of where they exactly were.

Highgarden had several towers, but this particular one stood in the center of it all. Loki and Lord Garth started climbing the steps up the tower. Loki went ahead first. His fingers itched to hit someone. He trusted Xerxes to take care of his wife. So why exactly was he holding her hostage now? He suspected the honored knight, Ser Petra.

When Loki and Lord Garth reached the top, they were met with the two idiots who made a terribly bold and ill-calculated move.

“My lord,” Ser Petra said, facing Garth.

“My lord,” Xerxes spat out like poison. Loki’s held Iced Steel in one hand. A poisoned dagger in the other.

“Is my wife locked in there?” Loki narrowed his eyes.

“Swear fealty to King Malekith and we will release your wife and child safely to you,” Ser Petra rose his sword. Loki scoffed.

“So, we’re really doing this?”

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maxtothemax · 5 years

Text

Max Einstein: The Genius Experiment - Review

Or overview, really, since I know a lot of you were curious but didn’t want to go through the ordeal of reading it. At least not before someone else screened it. So... you’re welcome.

Authors: James Patterson and Chris Grabenstein

Published: 2018

Genre: middle grade adventure

Overall impressions: Conceptually, I liked it. The plot was intriguing, and Max was a likable character. It suffered from the usual problems of a Patterson production: too fast-paced, not enough details, not enough time spent on character building. (Some of these points will come up in my annotations.) However, it worked as a middle-grade novel. It had a lot of empowering messages for kids, as well as an intriguing and mysterious yet fairly simple plot of good versus evil. The lack of specific detail and fast-paced plot is (unfortunately) common in middle-grade novels, so I can’t exactly fault it for that. I’m going to assume it’s far below the reading level of anyone reading this review, but it’s still an interesting read and I’m planning on reading the sequel, whenever it comes out. There were a lot of unanswered questions regarding Max’s past that I really wish were addressed in this book rather than being saved for later.

My reading notes, by page number, are under the cut (warning for a good amount of swearing, and obviously spoilers).

1 - This girl is living in a dilapidated house?? Where are her parents? (Knowing JP she probably doesn’t have parents.)

3 - Oh! Okay! She’s homeless and living above a horse stable. What the fuck.

10 - Randomly bringing up the “I’m an orphan” thing in narration. Typical.

11 - Doesn’t her suitcase get too heavy with all the books in it?

15 - She goes to school???

19 - Bold of you to assume the cops would actually listen to Max

21 - I’d like more of the backstory on Max’s early childhood, since she has that suitcase but doesn’t know who her parents are. Then where did she get her name? [It’s mentioned later that she doesn’t even have a birth certificate.]

29 - HOW is she in college?? At NYU??

32 - Well, this is sketchy as fuck

33 - ...Max watches The Big Bang Theory??

36 - McS’cuse me?? No one’s going to stop this? A lecture hall full of students and no one’s concerned?? [In the scene in question, Max is being dragged out of the lecture hall by two guys in black suits. It would have been interesting, and more realistic, if another student had tried to intervene. You’d think at least a handful of people in a group of 18-22 year olds might feel protective of the only 12-year-old in their class.]

44 - Aww I like Quincy

If that dude wanted to, like, kidnap Max, why send her to the foster care place at all? [This is later explained, although I don’t think it was a good enough justification.]

48 - Why send her to middle school either?

...God I would’ve loved this in middle school. I probably needed it.

As usual, I just wish the narration would slow down. Add more details.

Actually I’m personally offended by how much this book sounds like something I would’ve written in middle school.

59 - Those two seem kinda sketchy NGL

66 - Don’t you fucking DARE touch Quincy

67 - Okay but what’s the point of disposing of people who aren’t really even a threat? [It’s always putting them in a “re-education” or whatever facility, too, which is probably just because the authors didn’t want the villains outright murdering people, even off-page.]

74 - Max just seems too naive/trusting considering what her life has been like thus far. Or maybe I’m used to Patterson protagonists being snarky and cynical. Both, maybe.

75 - 1. Why is Quincy a snitch? 2. Why would Max have told him anything anyway? They didn’t talk much.

83 - This is sketchy as hell. It just seems too good to be true.

95 - Sketchier and sketchier.

100 - One kid wins? Why not just have them all work together to solve the world’s problems? Also: I know they’re “geniuses,” but why only use children? Because they’re impressionable and malleable? Tend to take things at face value?

[The twist at the end, which I won’t reveal, actually makes the design of the test and a lot of the oversights make a lot more sense.]

113 - “Original investment,” “Einstein Project”... was Max genetically engineered by the Corp? Conspiracy theory.

127 - So I guess Yahav is a spy. Fun.

167 - Why the fuck is Yahav still here? He should’ve been fired!!

I wish Quincy had been a major character...

[Got a case of “getting attached to a minor side character with 0.5 personality traits” syndrome.]

172 - Boy, these villains sure are cartoonishly evil capitalists

200 - Can Klaus please stop being such a dick?

208 - Are they even allowed to mention Tony Stark in here? Like, legally?

You know, this is suspiciously similar to Genius: The Game, which was written by Leopoldo Gout. According to his author bio on Amazon, he’s a filmmaker and has worked with James Patterson on a number of projects (including, I believe, the Maximum Ride movie). Coincidence? Probably not.

227 - I’m beginning to think you don’t know what “mercenary” means

230 - “The girl” come on, y’all know her name

244 - Wait, why aren’t they just troubleshooting to see if they can solve the problem? Why aren’t the geniuses being geniusy? Also: this “failure” isn’t solely on Max’s shoulders, so why is everyone acting like it is?

269 - I’m sorry, what

278 - If you suspected Yahav was a spy, why didn’t you get rid of him??

296 - EXPERIMENTS?? Maximum Ride, where you at??

301 - Why let them go??

315 - I’M SORRY, WHAT

Given the nature of this story, the twist makes sense, but WHAT

God please don’t make this het. Max is 12. She’s too young for romantic subplots.

...That’s the end of my annotations! If anyone else wants to read this book and yell about it with me, my ask box and messages are always open. (You can probably find it in your library’s middle grade section; that’s where I found this copy.)

Also, there’s some pretty gorgeous artwork in the back by different artists. I kinda want prints of them.

#they speak #max einstein #max einstein: the genius experiment #james patterson #chris grabenstein #annotations #i hope you enjoyed my lovely commentary yet again #review

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mazojo · 5 years

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Let’s Play

Sooo if you saw some of my previous posts, you know I've kinda gotten into webtoons and I binge-read another one called Let’s Play and I Looveeee. I will do a spoiler-ish review as of the chapters that have come out so far and and all the images and stuff included are from Mongie, the author of this baby.

Plot

So the plot basically revolves around Sam, who works for her fathers company coding and working on programming but her true passion is creating video games, more specially indie games. She creates this game called Ruminate and its all fine and dandy until super famous youtube Marshall Law plays it and jokingly says it kinda sucks so people and trolls go leave hate on her account so her developer score in this indie publishing website is almost 0.

Sam is disappointed nay this turn of events and tries contacting the company to help her score as its flawed but unfortunately nothing happens. Then we find out super Marshall Law is moving next door to Sam and she flops. He then later realizes how he messed up and as they start becoming friends (slowly but surely!) he is fixed on making it up to her becouse he is a cinnamon roll. There are also other characters involved, from Sam’s gaming crew which is hilarious, to her super hot and sexual tension boss, Charles who is trying to help her grow as a person and as a worker and we also have Lincoln which kinda has a crush in Sam and they’ve been friends for quite a while as Sam helped him overcome his dads death.

The story is funny and filled with great moments, treating also mental health topics and the struggles of Sam discovering she may or may not have feelings for the hotties mentioned above ^^.

Characters

As I did with my Kiznaivers and I Love Yoo reviews, ill list the characters from my favourite to my least (I love them all so it sounds so bad to say the least!) including a song that reminds me of them. I won't list them all as their are many as you can see in the picture above but definitely the main ones <33

Sam

Angels - Owl City

Sam. is. such. a. mood. Like honestly, if you ever wish to know me and who I am as a person and how I work, read this and I am the literal reincarnation of Sam loll. She is very nerdy and suffers from anxiety, sometimes leading her to have asthma attacks. She really cares about those close to her and although she is quite shy and introverted, doesn't doubt the chance to jump in when someone she cares about is in danger. I have no words to describe her but I think I’ve found my long lost drawing form character.

Marshall

Lucky - Britney Spears

Yes, I choose a Britney Spears song for him, is it amazing? Y e s, do I regret it? N o p e. Marshall is just adorableeee. Like he is the literal reincarnation of a puppy and he is much more complex than what it seems? Yeah he’s got this bubbly exterior to himself but deep down he is dealing with depression and anxiety but hides it from anyone, to the point of literally breaking down. He is trying his best at making everyone happy and likes video games and ahhhh ??? I Stan Marshall.

Lincoln

Livin’ on a Prayer - Bon Jovi

Lincoln the embodiment of the dad friend, there I said it. He has such a pure soul and heart and protective aura around those he loves and he is so soft??? He struggled with his dads death and takes care of his brother (which makes a part of the guild Sam is with). He is a little oblivious but other than that Link must be protected at all cost and hopefully finds happiness at the end of the comic becouse if he doesn't I will riot.

Charles

Rude - MAGIC!

Charles is your typical cold but sexy filled with sexual tension moments boss character. He is Sam’s boss and what I love most about Charles is how he wants others to succeed, pushing them their limits to reach their full potential, something I think its quite admirable. Honestly in comparison to the other two boys I haven't connected much with Charles but I still really like his character and hopefully we are able to see more of him in the future!

Monika

Power - Little Mix

The image pretty much describes Monika lol. I decided to include her becouse although she is kindaaaa the antagonist, I feel like she isn't really that bad and honestly, her character is quite compelling. She is Marshall’s girlfriend and a beauty guru, so half of the time she talks about makeup-is things I quite honestly dont understand lolll. However she really cares about those near her and (cues alpha female aura) does her best to protect Marshall becouse she really does likes him, but due to the fame and their worlds they both manage, it makes things complicated at times. I hope she doesn't turn evil or something like that becouse I truly think she is good (or at least up till now) and hopefully she gets a happy ending too ~.

Ships

Sam x Marshall

This was actually so hard to choose! Because I honestly ship Sam with Lincoln just as much but there’s just something about this couple that I just gahhh! They have this chemistry working over them and they complement each other so well too! Like Sam is very perceptive and a good listener while Marshall just fakes a smile every time and I believe she will be the one to notice something is wrong first <33

Sam x Lincoln

AHhHHH I love Link so much?? And how he protects Sam and cares about her is so freaking adorable? I think their mutual support and understanding is what makes it one of the best and Sam clearly has some mixed feelings about him that she repressed for a while in order not to tarnish their friendship but now she knows that he likes her so ??? I hope Link and Sam end happy because they both have to be p r o t e c t e d.

Sam x Charles

As I mentioned before, I don't think I can compare Marshall and Link’s relationship to the one with Charles considering they have had more time together, I believe in the next chapters we will get to see their relationship increase. He is very protective and does whats best for Sam and they have this tension around them which gets Sam all flustered and its really cute. Its not my main ship but I’ll wait and see how things progress in the future.

Monika x Marshall

Okay so this is not one of the main ships and people often don't like this couple but I thought it was important to mention! As I said before, I think Monika is quite a complex character and they are both dealing with their own worlds and problems which may make it hard for the relationship to work and not seem toxic. Still, they both care deeply about the other and I know in the end, they would want to see the other happy soooo we’ll see how it ends ^^

Final Thoughts

I absolutely adoree this Webtoon! I’ll try to review the chapters as they go out like I love yoo giving my impressions and what nots. Here are some theories that I think may happen in future chapters too;

- I don't think I mentioned it but Marshall is really good at drawing and its kinda his passion but he hides it from everyone due to fearing failure. I think Sam in one way or another will encourage him to pursue his dream eventually drawing them closer, and as she needs an artist to help her with her next game, I am guessing Marshall will be perfect for that spot :333

- Charles will definitely appear more I think, most of the “romantic” moments have been with Link followed by Marshall leaving the Charles Stans in need of their baby <33

- I think Angela (one of Sam’s guild member and friend) likes Link?? I didn't talk about her much but in one of the latest chapters she gets flustered by him and I am not really sure? I'll definitely be on the look for that.

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aegon · 6 years

Text

why dany deserves all the love

So after seeing rather blatantly-biased anti-Daenerys posts and political!Jon nonsense on my dash recently which I found ridiculous and unbelievably hateful against a fictional character, and I’m salty af, here’s all the wonderful things Daenerys Targaryen has done (on the show) and why Jon Snow does not need to pretend to love her.

Warning: it’s a goddamn long list.

1) Despite not wanting to be married to Khal Drogo initially and is terrified of what’s about to happen, she still has enough grace to thank him for his gift.

2) She tries to learn how to please him because he’s her husband and she wants to be loved.

3) She adapted and learned a whole new language and culture that wasn’t her own. She didn’t appropriate it or look down on it, but actually adjusted to it and defended them to her own brother. My god what a horrible person.

4) Her brother tries to hurt her and she still asks for mercy for him.

5) She even gets gifts made for the same brother who’s progressively become more and more abusive towards her because Dany still loves him because that’s how big her heart is.

6) I love when people use her threatening her brother as an argument because he literally just hit a pregnant woman and Dany has a goddamn backbone. I’m adding that to the list.

7) She defends the women the Dothraki want to rape, and convinces her husband to do so.

8) She undergoes the same level of dehydration, starvation and horrendous living conditions while trying to find shelter for the khalasar that stayed with her. Never once do we see her lash out at them or mistreat them in any way.

9) After Xaro murders half her people as well as one of her closest allies, she enacts revenge on him. Yeah that’s a positive point because Xaro is a murderer and entirely deserved what happened to him because he’d happily have Dany butchered just for her dragons.

10) She actually takes all the verbal insults Kraznys mo Nakloz dishes her way because she needs his army. If she was such an arrogant, brash woman, she certainly exercised a lot of patience here. Because Dany isn’t petty and understands how to conduct herself.

11) Dany has every right not to like Barristan Selmy. But she still takes him in and forgives him.

12) She offers water to a dying slave. Oh no, the cruelty.

13) SHE FREES THE UNSULLIED

14) SHE COMMANDS THEM TO KILL THE MASTERS BUT PROTECT ALL THE INNOCENTS

15) SHE EVEN TAKES MISSANDEI BECAUSE SHE KNOWS SHE’S AN ABUSED SLAVE AND WANTS TO SAVE HER.

16) While I’ve never been a fan of sacking cities and Astapor is left vulnerable without their army, I’ve come to realise that they needed to literally build back up from their foundations if they needed to change their way of life. Which was slavery. Which is not okay. So I’m giving this point to Dany because no one else did it.

17) It’s a small thing but asking the Unsullied to pick their own names. It’s giving them their humanity back and that’s such a precious gift.

18) Did not buckle down when Yunkai’s slave masters tried to bribe her because she wanted the slaves free.

19) Gets the Second Sons on her side, the very people who would have fought against her. That’s a queen, yo.

20) Frees the slaves of Yunkai.

21) Actually talks to Missandei properly and values her advice.

22) When finding the road full of slaves all hammered to a cross, she insists upon looking at each of their faces and giving them a proper burial, without their slave collars. But y’all are ready to call her insensitive and a mad queen. Go off I guess.

23) Frees the slaves of Meereen.

24) After hearing about her failures to maintain Yunkai and Astapor’s statuses as free cities, she rationally questions herself and decides she needs more experience before moving on to Westeros. And she stays in Meereen and learns.

25) Paying a goatheader three times the value of the livestock he lost to her dragons.

26) Letting Hizdahr zo Loraq bury his father. Joffrey put Ned Stark’s head on a pike, but let’s compare the two anyway because they’re exactly the same.

27) Takes the time to listen to her subject’s complaints and issues.

28) Takes Jorah’s advice when he tells her not blindly seek revenge, but to give a choice of mercy to the Wise Masters who took Yunkai from her.

29) Has boy-talk with Missandei. Like she doesn’t need to be so casual with someone who works for her but she is and Missandei feels comfortable enough to talk about it.

30) Sparing Jorah’s life eventhough he outright betrayed her and committed treason.

31) Has established halls and barracks to give the former slaves somewhere to eat and sleep

32) Understands that freedom means allowing someone to have a choice, and if former slaves want to be sold back into slavery, then they should do so under their own terms. She gave the former slaves the right to decide their own fate instead of letting it be dictated to them.

33) Upon seeing a victim of her dragons, she locks them up. Which is such a massive deal because these are her children and seeing them in chains is distressing af, but she does it because she’s looking out for the safety of her people.

34) Retakes Yunkai.

35) Heeds Barristan’s words when he tells her the truth about the Mad King, instead of calling him a liar.

36) Enacts the right justice to a former slave that murdered someone that was supposed to be granted a fair trial. I’ve seen a post say the people hissing at Dany are a sign of her being a terrible ruler, but she did the right thing. And the people didn’t react well to it because it was a former master that was murdered, and their sense of justice is ruled by hatred. So yeah, let’s side with them just because Dany is supposedly terrible at making the right decision.

37) Tries to understand and adjust to the culture of Meereen by marrying one of their nobles and opening the fighting pits against her own wishes because she values peace.

38) Spares Jorah’s life again.

39) Takes Tyrion, the son of the man that murdered her family, as an advisor because she’s not a revenge-fuelled angry queen.

40) Stands up to Khal Moro despite being alone and vulnerable because she’s a goddamn badass.

41) Despite Khal Moro literally only moments ago threatening her, she still offers to gift him horses if she can get back to Meereen.

42) Destroys the super rapey leaders of the khalasar and takes the Dothraki for her own. I know people have had issues with this because she burnt their sacred place to the ground, but given their leaders had just threatened to have their horses rape her, I think burning them to the ground was an ideal decision. But hey let’s sympathise with them because anyone but Dany amirite.

43) Takes Tyrion’s advice for diplomacy.

44) Saves Meereen looking fly af in the process.

45) Demands the Ironborn stop pillaging the land, because she’s already caring about the people of Westeros despite not actually having met them yet.

46) Grants the Greyjoys the right to rule themselves.

47) Understands that, despite enjoying a physical relationship with Daario, that she needs to marry for alliances and having a lover could be detrimental to that. She’s thinking like a politician and a queen.

48) Tyrion tells her that he believes in her, after he’d given up hope on everyone else. Says a lot.

49) Upon arriving to Dragonstone, gets straight tf to work.

50) Asks Varys to advise her should she ever go astray, instead of betraying her. This is a huge deal, because Dany is openly admitting that she has the potential to go wrong and that she’d look to her advisers for help. That’s not Mad Queen material, that’s what a good queen should be asking.

51) Asks for forgiveness from Jon for the crimes House Targaryen committed against House Stark.

52) Allows Jon to mine the dragonglass for his army.

53) The Lannister battle is controversial, and while I do agree the use of dragonfire was excessive, let’s be real. It’s a battle. It’s her first real battle in Westeros that she’s actively involved in. Also at what point are we supposed to sympathise with the Lannister army again? Arya’s scenes were shown to humanise them, that they’re just pawns in the great game - but Christ, so were the people of the Riverlands and Highgarden that the Lannister army took over. Where was the outrage then? You can’t always side with the people that aren’t Dany at the spur of the moment just because you hate her.

54) SAVES JON SNOW. YOUR FAVE IS ALIVE BECAUSE OF HER.

55) SACRIFICES ONE OF HER CHILDREN. TO SAVE JON SNOW.

56) Pledges to help Jon fight the Night King.

57) Clearly is good enough for Jon Snow to want to pledge fealty to her.

58) Knows the importance of the war in the North, so is willing to sit down with Cersei and have her armies fight alongside Lannisters if need be.

59) Actually does appreciate Jon Snow.

60) Probably is amazing at sex. I admit I’m including this last point so it’s exactly sixty but I’m not wrong.

So there we have it.

60 reasons why Jon is not faking his affection for Dany, and why she’s worthy of the affection in the first place. She’s made mistakes, but she’s done far more good than bad. And given she’s been raped and kidnapped and undergone severe trauma, the idea that Jon Snow would be using her because he secretly thinks she’s a Mad Queen is so anti-feminist because you’re actively rooting for a man to abuse a woman and her trust, so so wrong on every moral level because you’d rather your faves started their romantic relationship based on the misuse of another’s heart and body, and makes a fuckboy out of the man raised by Ned Stark. Which is blasphemous. So jot that down.

Anyways, Daenerys Targaryen deserves love, pass it on.

#daenerys targaryen #jon snow #jon x dany #jonerys #meta #game of thrones

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chogie432 · 5 years

Text

I saw this post which had 70 awful questions. While I sat and read through this post that was obviously made to torture the reader, I realized something about myself. I’ve never been truly honest with myself or others when it came to how I truly felt about many of the questions I’m about to answer in list. So here goes I will list each question with my true and honest answer.

1. Do you have a good relationship with your parents?

No.

2. Who did you last say I love you to?

My nephew.

3. Do you regret anything?

The better question may be what do I not regret.

4.Are you insecure?

I might be the most insecure person I know, but do my best to try and hide my insecurities behind a mask.

5. What is your relationship status?

I’m single with no intentions of dating until I get quite a few things sorted.

6.How do you want to die?

Knowing I wasn’t a complete failure and disappointment.

7. What did you last eat?

Lasagna that had been home cooked than frozen for over a month.

8. Played any sports?

I loved sports as a kid. High School ruined them for me.

9. Do you bite your nails?

Constantly.

10. When was your last physical fight?

Sophomore year of high school.

11. Do you like someone?

I’m in love with someone who’s terrible for me.

12. Have you ever stayed up 48 hours?

More times than I’m proud to admit.

13. Do you hate anyone at the moment?

No.

14. Do you miss someone?

I miss many people.

15. Have any pets?

A dog named Rose.

16. How exactly are you feeling at the moment?

Dissatisfied with myself and my situation.

17. Ever made out in the bathroom?

I want to say yes but I’m not positive that’s true.

18. Are you scared of spiders?

I’m not a huge fan of insects all together...

19. Would you go back in time if you had the chance?

No because I would only make things worse.

20. Where was the last place you snogged someone?

In my bedroom...

21. What are your plans for the weekend?

Who makes plans?

22. Do you want to have kids?

Me having kids is a pretty bad idea.

23. Do you have piercings? How many?

No.

24. What is/ are/ were your best subjects?

I was pretty shit at all of them to be honest

25. Do you miss anyone from your past?

Yes

26. What are you craving right now?

It’s a tie between a butterfinger and human affection. I’ll take either.

27. Have you ever broken someone’s heart?

Possibly the moment in my past I think about the most.

28. Have you ever been cheated on?

While I have no evidence I very strongly believe yes.

29. Have you made a boyfriend/ girlfriend cry?

Possibly all of them.

30. What’s irritating you right now?

The fact that my brightness won’t adjust on my screen.

31. Does somebody love you?

Depends on whether we’re talking romantically or through family.

32. What is your favorite color?

Purple

33. Do you have trust issues?

Well if I didn’t I wouldn’t have to right this would I? I could talk to someone.

34. Who/ what was your last dream about?

Who remembers dreams?

35. Who was the last person you cried in front of?

I don’t remember the last time I cried.

36. Do you give out second chances to easily?

No.

37. Is it easier to forgive or forget?

Forget

38. Is this the best year of your life?

Hell no.

39. How old were you when you had your first kiss?

12/ 13

40. Have you ever walked outside completely naked.

Sober no although I take no responsibility for what happens when I drink.

THEY SKIP STRAIGHT TO 51!!!

51. Favorite food?

Steak and enchiladas.

52. Do you believe everything happens for a reason?

Nah

53. What is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night?

Fell asleep on the couch watching Naruto

54. Is cheating ever okay?

55. Are you mean?

Yes

56. How many people have you fist fought?

Not enough

57. Do you believe in true Love?

I want to

59. Do you like the snow?

I love the snow.

60. Do you want to get married.

To the right person.

61. Is it cute when a boy/ girl calls you baby?

Stuff like that makes me uncomfortable

62. What makes you happy?

Feeling at peace

63. Would you change your name?

I don’t see the point.

64. Would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed?

It would certainly be awkward as we ended on bad terms.

65. Your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

Say it’s about time

66. Do you have a friend of the opposite sex you can act your complete self around?

Yes.

67. Who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to?

I don’t remember her name, just another Tinder girl

68. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

My brother

69. Do you believe in soulmates?

Yes but hardly anyone finds there’s.

70. Is there anyone you would die for?

Any of my brothers.

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sagexbrush · 6 years

Text

keep your head up (i’ll lay my heart down)

or read it on a03

From: Unknown Number

[9:30 AM]

hey so do u maybe want to talk about tonite?

To: Unknown Number

[9:31 AM]

I think you have the wrong number.

From: Unknown Number

[9:32 AM]

wait so you’re saying this isn’t kayla?

To Unknown Number

[9:33 AM]

No, this isn’t Kayla. Looks like someone gave you the wrong number.

“Is Amy texting someone?” Gina asks loudly, peering over Amy’s shoulder. She always has a habit of popping up in the most unexpected places.

Amy jumps about a foot in the air and promptly shuts her phone in the nearest possible drawer.

“On her personal phone?” Gina adds, helpfully. The personal phone was something that Gina and the others never ceased teasing her about. At first, they’d thought Amy was hiding something from them until she told them the reasoning behind it.

She had gotten the advice from her first ever Sergeant.

“You ever want to survive this place?” The older woman had said, “then keep two phones. That way you know if it’s a personal emergency or a work emergency.”

Amy considers that woman (wherever she may be) to be her first ever mentor, so of course she had two phones. That way she could also keep her work line clear for a real emergency. Except that her coworkers seemed to think it was hilarious to send gifs of kittens in the group chat instead of actual crime info (thanks so much Jake).

“It was just someone who had the wrong number,” Amy says quickly, before she can really think about it.

“Oh Amy,” Gina says, shaking her head slowly. “You say that like it was supposed to make it sound better.”

Amy makes a face at her.

That’s when Jake approaches them. He doesn’t have the perp he was chasing down with him, so Amy assumes that his bust didn’t go quite as perfectly as he’d bragged. He’s holding his (solitary) phone and frowning down at it. “What are we talking about?”

“Amy’s pathetic life,” Gina supplies helpfully.

“It is not pathetic - “ Amy protests but Jake merely nods like this is a factual statement. “I can’t stand any of you people,” she says, spinning her desk chair around.

“Gina I think you gave me the wrong number, are you sure this is what - “

“Jake, I am not your personal assistant.”

She doesn’t check her personal phone until later that night. Really, maybe Gina is right. Amy is pathetic. She has a phone for work and a personal phone, and half the time she forgets that the personal phone exists. The wrong number text had been a surprise, for god’s sake. It was perhaps time to resort out her priorities.

There’s only two messages: one is a text reminder from her doctor’s office and the other one if from the unknown number from earlier.

From: Unknown Number

[9:34 AM]

no no, i wasn’t trying to hit on kayla. kayla is my dad’s gf and she was supposed to tell me when he’s next flying thru.

Amy shouldn’t text back. Pathetic, Gina’s voice says in her mind.

Ha, Amy thinks back. I’ll show you. I can have a conversation with someone outside of work that’s not family or Kylie.

To: Unknown Number

[8:02 PM]

Sorry for assuming things. Sorry about Kayla. Sounds rough.

From: Unknown Number

[8:10 PM]

ah no you’re good. for the record tho, the ladies love me.

To: Unknown Number

[8:11 PM]

Have you ever heard of humility?

From: Unknown Number

[8:17 PM]

only nerds know big words like humility

To: Unknown Number

[8:20 PM]

That’s not even a big word.

From: Unknown Number

[8:22 PM]

send me a big word

To: Unknown Number

[8:24 PM]

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

From: Unknown Number

[8:30 PM]

i see what u did there.

One failed case and a day later: Amy feels like throwing something at a wall. Or maybe something out a window. Or herself out that window. Or Jake. Yes, that’ll do. She’ll throw Jake out a window.

“Do you want something Peralta?” She snaps, when she notices Jake is staring at her instead of filling out his arrest report. His successful arrest report, because of course he was successful today. (She’s conveniently forgotten about his failure yesterday.)

“Only to ask if I should evacuate the premises because you look like you’re about to melt something with your laser eyes.” He’s clearly trying to be funny, his mouth quirked up in that infuriating smirk. Even his posture speaks of relaxation, leaned back with his shoulders slumped. Lucky him.

“Oh shut up,” Amy snaps. It’s harsher than she usually is with Jake and he recoils slightly in surprise. She allows herself to feel exactly two seconds of guilt and then refocuses on the task at hand. She can do this. She’s a Santiago, after all.

Her concentration lasts for about three more seconds until her phone buzzes.

From: Unknown Number

[1:42 PM]

i realize this is a weird question to ask bc we’re not really friends but r u a girl?

From: Unknown Number

[1:42 PM]

not in a creepy way. i need advice on a girl situation and all my other girl friends know too much.

Amy looks up. Rosa and Charles are out on a stakeout, Holt is securely in his office, Terry is filling out his paperwork and Jake is texting someone on his phone. Surely no one would mind if she did some texting of her own. Jake wasn’t the only one could bend the rules.

It’s with a sort of defiance that she continues their conversation.

From: Unknown Number

[1:43 PM]

if it makes it seem less creepy, ur name is mary poppins in my phone.

To: Unknown Number

[1:44 PM]

You saved my number?

From: Unknown Number

[1:44 PM]

i promise i’m not a creeper you just seemed like a nice person to talk to

Amy hesitates, before adding his number as a contact into her phone. She looks for a moment at his real number…it almost looks familiar? She brushes that notion aside, it’s not like she knows that many people’s numbers. She’s barely memorized her mother’s.

Besides, she was a cop. If this person tried to pull anything with her…well he’d find out the consequences the hard way. Amy Santiago wasn’t someone who could be messed with.

To: Creeper?

[1:46 PM]

Okay. Shoot me your question.

From: Creeper?

[1:46 PM]

this girl i like is really upset today and i’m just making it worse. what should i do?

Ah, just Amy’s luck. The only boy who’s been even remotely talking to her out of work likes someone else. She changes his contact name almost immediately to something more fitting the circumstances

. If this was a romantic comedy, Amy would be the quirky one that both of the love interests loved as a friend.

(The character that usually ended up alone.)

(AKA, story of her life.)

To: Lover Boy

[1:48 PM]

Ask her what’s wrong once she’s cooled off a bit. If it’s something you can help with, help her with it. If not, just give her some space.

She shuts her phone in her desk drawer after that. She takes a few deep breaths while massaging her temples. The case file in front of her looks like absolute gibberish and that’s not even considering the fact that the perp got away. That she practically let him get away with her sloppy detective work. She goes to get another cup of coffee, even though it’s probably a bad idea at this point. It’s something warm to hold, at least. She couldn’t imagine the level of teasing that would ensue if she started drinking hot chocolate on the job.

“Hey Santiago?” Jake looks a little less relaxed than before, but that infuriating smirk is never truly gone. She’s only seen him angry once, and that was when a police officer was trying to help his friend escape persecution. (She had been surprised to see that he did, in fact, have a range of emotions.)

“My lasers have been deactivated,” she mumbles. “In case you were wondering, you don’t need to evacuate.”

“I was actually just going to ask if you need any help? Not that you’re not a perfectly capable detective, but a fresh pair of eyes might be of assistance?”

She’s too frustrated to note his adult vocabulary, instead disturbed by how much this appeals to her. It’s not a bad idea. It feels almost insulting to accept Jake’s help but… well for once he didn’t look like he was rubbing it in her face. He almost looked like he genuinely wanted to help. His entire posture is open, eyes almost sparkling a little bit.

(Maybe she needs five more cups of coffee. With shots.)

“Sure,” she says, handing him the case file. “I had a lead on him this morning, but he got away. Now I have no idea where he could be hiding out.”

“It says here his favorite restaurant is the burger place by that seedy gas station?” Jake frowns. “How did you get that information?”

“Ex-girlfriend,” Amy says. “I asked the staff and they hadn’t seen him for several months. He’s been on to us at every turn.”

“Doesn’t mean that it still can’t be a good place to start,” Jake says, standing up. “Besides, you can buy me dinner after I solve your case.” It’s accompanied by a blinding smile, which Amy can’t help but return.

“Oh in your dreams Peralta,” Amy rolls her eyes. “Just because I’m letting you ‘help me out’ doesn’t mean you get to take all the credit for the literal months of work I’ve put down.”

Two hours they find the perp in a gas station near the burger place almost entirely by accident. He doesn’t get away again because Jake is blocking the other exit, slamming him down into the ground and grinning up at her.

“Looks like you owe me dinner,” he says, as he fastens the handcuffs about the perp’s wrists.

Sometimes she forgets that police work is intended to have two people at all times. (That, and sometimes she forgets just how good of a cop Jake is.)

She forgets to check her phone until she’s almost about to go to bed, head aching with exhaustion from the day.

From: Lover Boy

[2:05 PM]

it worked. thx.

To: Lover Boy

[10:13 PM]

You’re welcome. Did you ask her out?

From: Lover Boy

[10:15 PM]

its kind of complicated bc i like her a lot but she hates me? idk.

To: Lover Boy

[10:16 PM]

I doubt she hates you. You can’t always predict what people are thinking. Maybe she’s just pretending to hate you.

From: Lover Boy

[10:17 PM]

maybe.

To: Lover Boy

[10:18 PM]

I’m not going to get arrested for talking to you, am I?

From: Lover Boy

[10:19 PM]

not unless ur committing a crime.

From: Lover Boy

[10:20 PM]

im realizing now u meant other things. i’m thirty three.

To: Lover Boy

[10:21 PM]

I’m twenty-nine.

To: Lover Boy

[10:25 PM]

I was thinking, if you wanted of course… I could help you with this relationship with this girl? You don’t need to tell me any personal information or anything, I could just give you advice. If you wanted it.

From: Lover Boy

[10:27 PM]

your contact name has officially been changed to fairy godmother.

To: Lover Boy

[10:28 PM]

Ha ha. You can tell my more about this dream girl tomorrow, then. I have to be at work early.

From: Lover Boy

[10:29 PM]

gnite fairy godmother

“Oh wow,” Gina says. “The personal phone is out on the desk today. Does that mean you’re waiting for a gentlemen caller?” She’s leaning against Amy’s desk and Amy is really trying to focus on this paperwork. She just needs Jake’s signature now.

“Maybe,” Amy says, trying for elusiveness.

“Oh honey,” Gina says. “Nice try.”

“Whatever,” Amy says. “It doesn’t matter. Don’t you have work to do?”

“Oh but this is so much more interesting,” Gina says. “Why don’t you let me try and set you up with someone again?”

“Last time you tried to set me up it was a nightmare,” Amy says. “My dating life is just fine, thank you very much.”

Really, her dating life consists of binge watching Netflix TV shows and sad dates that her mother sets up for her. Gina can’t know that. Neither can Jake, who’s leaning across his desk to listen in on this conversation.

“Are you waiting for a text from a boy?” he asks.

“Oh my god,” Amy says, cheeks burning. She slams the phone in her drawer. “Happy?”

Gina saunters off. Jake scoops up his car keys and turns for the door.

“Before you go,” Amy says, determinedly not looking at him, “I need you to sign this.”

He signs it way more quickly than she would have done, but he doesn’t leave right away. He lingers, his presence almost more of a sound than a sight.

“Hey,” he says suddenly. Amy looks up. “I didn’t mean to - I wasn’t trying to make you uncomfortable.”

“Well great job,” Amy says in that sweet voice she reserves for true annoyance. This time the guilt lingers for slightly longer and then, “Sorry. I just don’t like how my dating life is a constant source of amusement for everyone.”

“I wouldn’t say constant,” Jake says, winking. “Just occasionally. Charles? You ready?”

She’s still glowering at her computer when she hears her phone buzz inside her desk drawer. She waits until Gina is securely in the break room to text anything back.

From: Lover Boy

[11:15 AM]

how do u tell if a girl is really annoyed or she’s fake annoyed

To: Lover Boy

[11:25 AM]

Context clues, I guess. Were you teasing her about something she’s self conscious about?

“Loveeeeer boy?” Gina croons, appearing from seemingly nowhere. Amy jumps about a foot in the air.

“Have you heard of such a thing as privacy?” Amy hisses.

“There’s no such thing as privacy when you’re holding your phone like that,” Gina says. “You’re practically asking for someone to look over your shoulder. Who’s Lover Boy, huh?”

In hindsight, maybe Amy should have picked a different name for this mysterious man she’s been texting. Then again, it came with it’s side benefits.

This next moment is one of the most satisfying moments of Amy’s entire career.

“None of your business,” she tells Gina, and shuts the phone back into the drawer.

She waits until she’s off of work to look at her personal phone (mostly to rub it in Gina’s face when she can’t get anymore gossip than she needs) and spends as long as possible reviewing her brother’s latest message about his daughter’s preschool project before she goes back to their conversation. To show herself that she’s not attached to the situation, nope. Not at all.

From: Lover Boy

[11:30 AM]

well she’s kind of self conscious about herself w/ other ppl sometimes. our colleagues tease her a lot and i kind of jumped on board w/ it sometimes.

You and me both, Amy thought. Turns out she had more in common with Lover Boy’s girl than she thought.

From: Lover Boy

[2:30 PM]

according to my friend she’s apparently seeing someone else now

To: Lover Boy

[6:32 PM]

Who?

From: Lover Boy

[6:33 PM]

idk. she won’t tell us. we’ve teased her about past bfs.

To: Lover Boy

[6:34 PM]

Does she ever tease you back? Seem to enjoy your interactions?

From: Lover Boy

[9:45 PM]

srry i was drowning my sorrows. or am? the night is still young.

To: Lover Boy

[9:50 PM]

Wow, giving up that soon?

From: Lover Boy

[9:51 PM]

no no no. ive liked thsi girl since like what feels like forever

From: Lover Boy

[9:51 PM]

i mean she’s like perfect. u know? smart and funny and pretty

To: Lover Boy

[9:52 PM]

Then why are you getting drunk right now?

From: Lover Boy

[9:52 PM]

bc shes dating someone else again

To: Lover Boy

[9:53 PM]

Again?

From: Lover Boy

[9:54 PM]

ppl r always trying to set her up w/ some boy. idk y, but now ive missed my shot

Amy’s curled up on her couch with Harry Potter playing in the background and feels less lonely for whatever reason. It’s nice to feel like there’s someone else out there that could be completely failing in the romance department.

For whatever reason, she really wants Lover Boy to succeed. Every rational thought is telling her that growing weirdly attached to some boy through text message is a stupid thing to do, but at the same time she couldn’t imagine giving up the easiness that’s sprung between them. It’s simpler than any friendship she’s had before.

To: Lover Boy

[9:57 PM]

You don’t know that yet. There’s always a chance, and you can’t give up just yet. Tomorrow you should tell me more about her, when you’re sober.

She goes to bed at a reasonable time, but it still takes two alarm clocks to wake her up. She has five drunk texts from Jake on her work phone which she ignores, and instead focuses on the personal phone.

From: Lover Boy

[1:30 AM]

okay did i tell you that she smells like dreams

From: Lover Boy

[1:30 AM]

dreAMS mySTERY INTERNET WOMAN

From: Lover Boy

[1:45 AM]

she also is like rlly funny. did i say that? nobody else thinks shes funny but i could listen to her talk all day long

From: Lover Boy

[2:30 AM]

do u know how to delete messages from someone elses phone?

To: Lover Boy

[6:45 AM]

What did you send her?

She barely scans through the texts from Jake (something about smelling meadows? What was it with boys and their noses?) before she texts him back.

To: Jake Peralta

[6:50 AM]

You sure you can handle coming into work? Need me to take over your cases?

She’s feeling overwhelmingly cheerful today. One, true love is possible (look at Lover Boy and the girl that was like her) and she was going to get to watch Jake Peralta with an extreme hangover all day.

She makes a strong cup of coffee and settles in to watch the morning news.

From: Jake Peralta

[7:35 AM]

dont b ridiculous santiago in ur dreams

She rolls her eyes and begins to plot all the ways she’s going to make his hangover life miserable today. It involves loud noises, revolting smells, and a particularly irritating case that she thinks she can get Holt to make him work with her on.

Although, she has to admit that she’s impressed he’s awake this early. Maybe he hadn’t slept at all?

Her personal phone buzzes. Finally, something she’s interested in.

From: Lover Boy

[7:36 AM]

false alarm, she didnt read into it

To: Lover Boy

[7:38 AM]

I wouldn’t worry about. My colleague drunk texts me all the time. Including last night.

From: Lover Boy

[7:39 AM]

hav to sympathize w/ him i feel like death. were his drunk texts as good as mine?

To: Lover Boy

[7:39 AM]

No. He’s just an idiot, really. Probably will roll into work half an hour late because he was sleeping with some random person from the bar. He always does this. I just wish he’d stop sometimes and give me a break really.

From: Lover Boy

[7:40 AM]

why do you care so much

Amy freezes. She’s too distracted to even notice that he didn’t use those childish abbreviations for once, her heart stopping in her chest. He’s absolutely right of course: why does she care? She does, in some weird part of herself that she hasn’t examined before.

She really, really cares that Jake was probably out having a one night stand the night before.

From: Lover Boy

[7:43 AM]

srry if that was too forward. hangover

From: Lover Boy

[7:47 AM]

w/ this girl i like, i kept trying to deny it over and over again. it took me years to figure it out bc emotions are confusing and i still dont know what she means to me. so if ur going thru a crisis im here.

(Texting back feels like an acknowledgment, so she ignores it.)

She is almost late to work, breezing in about the same time as Jake. He, predictably, looks like death. Which she doesn’t care about. She doesn’t care that the shadows under his eyes look as if they could swallow him whole, doesn’t care that his hands appear to be shaking slightly and for once he looks nervous.

“Amy,” he says, before they can leave the parking garage. Why did they have to arrive at the same time, today of all days?

Not that it mattered.

Lover boy doesn’t know me.

“Yeah?”

“I was hoping you could give me some advice,” Jake says, scratching the back of his head. “You know. Because you’re wise and all that.”

“What kind of advice?”

“How to talk to someone advice. I think I said something wrong this morning, but I like talking to this person, and I don’t want to screw everything up -”

Amy bristles. She was sure he had probably said something wrong to whatever person’s bed he had rolled out of this morning. Well, she wasn’t about to be apart of it. Not that she cared. Amy Santiago didn’t care.

“Look Peralta,” she snaps, “I’m not about to start mixing our personal and work lives because you screwed up with someone you met when you were drunk off your mind. And also? Stop drunk texting me. It’s not cute. I’m sure you did say something wrong, so maybe you should just apologize instead of talking to other people about it.”

She stomps off, not even registering what she’s done until they’re in the morning briefing and Jake still isn’t there.

“Has anyone seen Peralta?” Holt asks. Amy’s about to say that she has seen him when he stumbles in. He looks almost no different from this morning, but weirdly…damp?

“What happened to you?” Rosa demands.

“Splashed some water on my face,” he mumbles. “You know. Reopen the senses.”

“And you needed to soak your hair because…?”

“I was really tired, okay?”

“Enough,” Holt barks. “We will get back to the matter at hand…”

Amy approaches Jake approximately three hours later, when she feels like she can’t stand it anymore. She had been unfair, she knew she had. She was just…upset. For whatever reason. A reason totally unrelated to whether or not she cared. (Of course.)

“Jake,” she says. He looks surprised and she reminds herself that she should probably use his real name more often. “Look, about earlier…”

“I get it,” he says. “Sorry. About overstepping personal and work. I just didn’t realize I was working with two Rosas.”

“I’m sorry,” Amy says again. “I just had a rough morning. I took it out on you.”

Jake smiles at her. “You’re forgiven,” he says. “Now, can you go and be loud somewhere else? My head feels like it’s filled with nails.”

(She makes sure to drop a stapler onto the floor less than five minutes later. Just because he’s made her feel guilty didn’t mean she couldn’t have a little fun too.)

From: Lover Boy

[8:15 AM]

idk what i messed up but shes rlly mad at me. drunk texts apparently a bigger deal than i thought. and i rlly didnt mean to offend u earlier, im sorry.

From: Lover Boy

[12:10 PM]

jk. we’re golden fairy godmother. false alarm. but i rlly hope you can forgive me for what i said earlier, it was crossing a line.

“Who’re you texting?” Jake asks.

Amy looks up at him. It’s rare that they take their lunch breaks together, but their schedules synched up and now she has a closer proximity to Jake than she thinks she wants to. From this close, she can see each line around his eyes that radiates when he smiles. She likes his smile, but that’s more about his mouth than him.

Lover Boy was ridiculous, she thought. Ridiculous. She didn’t like Jake Peralta.

“A mysterious fellow,” Amy says.

Jake raises an eyebrow. “More mysterious than the dude with the mesh underpants?”

“How did you hear about that?” Amy demands. “I told Gina that in confidence.”

“Hey - I’m just proud of you Santiago. It turns out you’re more exciting that I thought you were.”

“Title of my sex tape!” Amy says. “HA! You can’t take back that now!”

Jake bursts into laughter and Amy thinks about how she likes how it shapes his eyes and mouth. About how she likes how it shakes through his entire frame and makes her stomach feel all warm and fuzzy. About how maybe she hopes that she could do something that would make him laugh like that again. Anything to make him laugh like that again.

Oh shit.

To: Lover Boy

[7:15 PM]

Okay, so earlier you may have had a point.

From: Lover Boy

[7:18 PM]

welcome to my personal hell

From: Lover Boy

[7:20 PM]

but maybe we can help each other? w/ this romantic hell i mean

To: Lover Boy

[7:22 PM]

That sounds like a good plan. Although I’m still not sure if this is anything. It might just be because you planted that idea in my head. I need to sleep on it.

Knowing that she likes Jake is like knowing there’s a ticking bomb in the room. One, he thinks she’s dating Lover Boy (as does everyone else in the precinct) and two, he’s an idiot. How could she like him? This was not an Amy Santiago thing to do. Liking Jake Peralta wasn’t an Amy Santiago specialty.

Of course, Holt it sending them on an overnight stakeout together. Of course. It’s as if the universe decides the most proper way to make fun of her is to shove her into Jake’s face at every ample opportunity.

To: Lover Boy

[9:30 AM]

We’re going to be spending an extended amount of time together for our job. Help.

From: Lover Boy

[9:31 AM]

tell me about it sis. i swear, my boss is out to kill me. like we often work together but this is a more personal thing…

To: Lover Boy

[9:32 AM]

Same here. Honestly. How do you think I should act around him?

From: Lover Boy

[9:33 AM]

be urself but w/ a dash of flirting

Hours later they’re sitting in the car and Amy can feel the ringing silence between them like it’s a real, tangible thing. How did you cross this bridge? The bomb is ticking louder. Amy is really, really terrible at keeping a secret.

“So,” Jake says. “How are you and Lover Boy?”

Yes. First order of business. To clear up whatever Jake thought was happening between her and the mysterious ‘Lover Boy’.

“Will you please not tell Gina this?” Amy asks.

“Uh-oh.”

“I’m serious. I want to see you nod. Okay. I was never really dating Lover Boy. It’s just a name I gave this dude as an inside joke. Seriously. There’s nothing between us.”

It was the easiest explanation anyways. It doesn’t even really feel like a lie. Sure, Lover Boy doesn’t know what his contact name is, but Amy doesn’t think he’d mind anyways.

“Oh,” Jake says. “I won’t tell Gina.”

“She would have a field day with it,” Amy says. Her personal phone buzzes.

“Oh wow,” Jake says, slipping his phone into pocket. “Taking the personal phone on a work date? I mean stake out? I mean occasion?”

“Why are you being weird?” Amy asks, rolling her eyes. “And yes. This is the number my mother contacts me at.”

Jake laughs, and Amy likes the sound too much to care that it’s directed at her own expense.

From: Lover Boy

[8:45 PM]

SHE SAID THAT SHE’S NOT DATING ANYONE

To: Lover Boy

[8:46 PM]

Be yourself with a dash of flirting. ;)

From: Lover Boy

[8:47 PM]

was that a winky face?

Amy smiles and puts her phone away. Okay. Time to get her flirt…on? She tucks her hair behind her ears and turns to Jake. She could do this. Flirting she meant. Flirting was something that she, as a grown badass woman, could do.

Liking Jake wasn’t something she could put in a list. She couldn’t make a list of all the things she’d say to him because he was simply Jake. He refused to be contained in a list like all of the other boys she’d had a thing for. (Maybe that was a hint of something more.)

He smiles back at her. “Why do you look so happy?”

“I don’t know,” she says, a bit too loudly. “Don’t you love stake outs? And hanging out with people? Friends?”

“Amy,” he says.

“Sorry I’m being weird,” she rambles.

“Amy - “

“I just don’t know how to say - “

“Amy,” Jake hisses, “It’s our guy.”

To: Lover Boy

[11:27 PM]

That was a fiasco.

From: Lover Boy

[11:28 PM]

omg tell me abt it. maybe were doomed to be alone.

To: Lover Boy

[11:29 PM]

I don’t know. Maybe I overthought this and I don’t like him after all. You kind of planted that idea in my head.

From: Lover Boy

[11:30 PM]

well, what do u like abt him?

To: Lover Boy

[11:31 PM]

He makes me laugh. He’s actually a really good guy. I really, really like the way he laughs. I don’t know to explain it. With everyone else it’s like they fit in this nice little box, but he exceeds all my expectations. I don’t know, I just came to this realization yesterday.

From: Lover Boy

[11:32 PM]

i think you just answered ur own question, o wise one.

To: Lover Boy

[11:33 PM]

What went wrong on your end?

From: Lover Boy

[11:36 PM]

our job got in the way of us hanging out. plus i think she was trying to tell me something and i had to be a good person and do my job damn it

To: Lover Boy

[11:40 PM]

Sometimes that’s the best thing. You could always reach out to her.

From: Lover Boy

[11:41 PM]

maybe. i think she’s asleep.

Amy’s about to turn in herself, but her work phone buzzes.

From: Jake Peralta

[11:42 PM]

i liked hanging out with you santiago.

Amy falls asleep smiling.

(She forgets to tell Lover Boy about the text.)

“Santiago!” Jake’s third jelly bean gets her attention, mostly because this one hits her straight in the forehead. She’s trying to avoid him while she tries (and fails) to come up with a way to say, hey by the way I really like your face and your body and your hands okay? If she was Jake, she’d probably just say something like romantic stylez and make sure that the Z was plain and clear.

“Seriously, Jake?”

Before he can answer that question, Gina comes between them with the worst timing ever.

“Amy - I have someone to set you up with!”

Amy glances up. “What? I thought I told you I didn’t want to do anymore of your pity dates.”

She had confessed to Gina that she hadn’t been dating anyone named Lover Boy, and she had been unbearable ever since. Just because Amy wasn’t dating anyone, didn’t mean that she didn’t want to.

“You don’t need to tell me you need it,” Gina says. “I know.”

“If I do this, will you get off my back?” Amy asks. “Like for real Gina. I’m tired of you being on my case.”

“That was a great detective pun, I’m very proud of you,” Jake says. He’s watching their entire exchange with the typical Jake Peralta attention span. Which means that he’s currently trying to build a small tower of jelly beans and barely listening to anything else.

“Do you think I should go on this date?” Amy asks him. She isn’t sure why she’s asking him. What does she want from that? Him to say no? (Yes, her traitorous brain answers. Maybe Amy Santiago has a deeply romantic side after all.)

“Do what you want,” Jake shrugs. Amy feels something like bitterness curling into her stomach. That’s stupid she thinks. You shouldn’t feel anything at all, she thinks. It’s not like Jake knows or anything. It’s not like he has any right regardless to tell her who she should and shouldn’t date.

What a stupid question for her to ask.

“Fine,” she tells Gina. “I accept your date.”

She’s going to put her all into this date, even though it’s the last thing she wants to do. That means heels and that dress Kylie swears makes her figure look like a hundred bucks. It means making her hair look like a goddamn cascading waterfall.

To: Lover Boy

[7:20 PM]

I may have made a mistake.

From: Lover Boy

[7:23 PM]

oh my god me too. shes going on a date and i acted like i was okay with it! who am i

To: Lover Boy

[7:24 PM]

Well I actually am going on a date and he actually didn’t care that I was going on a date at all. So I can tell you right now that’s not the right approach. It sucks.

From: Lover Boy

[7:25 PM]

do u think its worth the risk of just telling her how i feel. i dont even know if she likes romantic revelations

To: Lover Boy

[7:26 PM]

Probably. You seem like you love her a lot, and she’d be crazy not to love you back. Go get her. (And it’s hard to imagine anyone who doesn’t like romantic revelations.) Besides, if you truly fail there’s always alcohol.

If only Lover Boy was in love with her, she thought wistfully for a moment. She couldn’t help but wonder what it felt to be loved like that. Whoever this girl was, she was lucky. She hoped that she realized that too.

She’s going to be twenty minutes early but decides it’s ultimately worth it. It’s better than staring at her phone and waiting to see if everyone else had a happy romantic ending without her. What was next, her ‘single as a Pringle’ brother declaring that he was going to actually settle down?

Maybe she and whoever Gina had set her up with could go on a double date with Lover Boy and his girl. She locks her apartment door tightly behind her before stalking out with purpose. Jake Peralta aside, she was going to have nice time.

From: Lover Boy

[8:12 PM]

i missed her. shes already on this stupid date and idk where it is

From: Lover Boy

[8:13 PM]

like sorry to rant but also not sorry bc she’s absolutely my dream girl and now ive missed her forever and goddamn it. bc im sure whoever her date is will see that too.

Turns out, a nice time isn’t entirely possible. Amy’s in the bathroom, trying to escape her incredibly awkward date. Apparently Gina thought that just because Amy was a nerd that she’d be into…well… the sort of nerd that generally needed to move out of their mother’s basement. The kind of nerd that needs to learn how to take a shower.

She’s frustrated. She feels like screaming because she wishes that she had been going on a date with Jake and doesn’t understand why. Or maybe she understands too much why.

He’s her partner. She’s known him for years. She doesn’t need to worry if he’s hiding some weird secret from her because she knows almost everything about him. She knows more about his life than some of her brothers. She knows his favorite movie, how many books he’s read, what he likes to do to relax and the face he makes when he’s not.

How could you know someone that well and still like them?

To: Lover Boy

[8:14 PM]

How do you know she’s your dream girl?

From: Lover Boy

[8:20 PM]

she’s smart and not afraid to back down from a challenge. shes such a dork and literally even the way she scrunches her nose is cute i swear. usually i tune out whenever someone starts to talk about books but literally i could listen to her talk all day and i dont understand y. she keeps me on my toes. i know like everything about her.

To: Lover Boy

[8:21 PM]

It sounds like that should be pretty obvious.

From: Lover Boy

[8:23 PM]

my friend rosa says its a miracle nobody else knows yet. apparently i am v obvious.

Amy’s plotting on how to escape from the restaurant but freezes. Rosa? Her brain begins to make a frantic connection that she can’t quite comprehend.

Don’t be ridiculous, she tells herself. Lots of people have friends named Rosa. It’s not like it’s a weird name.

To: Lover Boy

[8:25 PM]

You never said what you did. Maybe it’s the stress of the job that’s throwing her off?

From: Lover Boy

[8:26 PM]

im a detective

Oh god, she thought to herself. Oh. My. God. It was Jake. Lover Boy was Jake Peralta. It had to be. How many detectives were there that had friends with the name Rosa? That, and all the times she’d texted Lover Boy and seen Jake pull out his phone -

She pulls out her work phone and clicks on Jake’s contact, pulling up his phone number and comparing the two. They’re exactly the same.

“Oh shit,” she whispers to herself. “Oh my god. I am the worst detective.” And seriously, fuck the two phone rule. That is probably the stupidest thing she’s ever done.

Embarrassingly, she began to cry. Well, this was the end of her stupid crush on Jake Peralta. He was obviously desperately in love with someone from the precinct: maybe one of the cops from downstairs? It wasn’t like she paid attention to Jake all the time.

Of course it was never going to be her. Why would it be?

From: Lover Boy

[8:27 PM]

do u think i should try again w/ her?

Amy hastily wipes away a tear. If there’s one thing she’s proud of, it’s her stellar moral compass. First, she changes his contact name. Then she rewrites the knowledge of this in her brain and promises herself that she can leave this restaurant with dignity.

If liking Jake Peralta wasn’t apart of the Amy Santiago Brand, getting her heart so brutally destroyed by him certainly seemed to be.

To: Jake Peralta

[8:30 PM]

You should go for it. You deserve to be happy.

She means this of course. She’d always scoffed at this in movies: just tell him how you feel! In the end, it’s not that simple. It’s not worth complicating a good friendship because she might love (like her brain frantically corrects) him.

She ditches her date and doesn’t even feel guilty about it. Sue her. She’s heartbroken, she thinks. She deserves to treat herself. Instead she grabs a cup of her favorite hot chocolate from the cafe on the corner and plans on tucking into her bed with her favorite Harry Potter book.

She’s even gotten to the point where she’s kicked off her heels and is holding them by their straps. She’s pretty sure her mascara is smeared all across her cheeks and her hair is tangled but who cared? She was being self pitying. Even the barista had given her a discount when she’d seen her approaching.

“Rough night?” She’d asked and Amy had nodded. A rougher night than anyone had intended, really.

She thinks at first the person sitting outside her door is Kylie. It takes her a few seconds to realize that it’s not her because A, she hadn’t texted Kylie and B, it was obviously a guy.

Which is why she’s instantly mortified when her brain makes the connection and finds Jake Peralta sitting outside of her apartment. He’s dressed in his usual work ensemble and looks really put together compared to her.

“Jake?” she squeaks. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m - are you okay?” He asks as he takes her in. He stands immediately and reaches a hand toward her to what? Comfort her? It simultaneously soothes the raging nerves and enrages then. Amy nods, feeling her chin wobble slightly like it does when she’s about to cry. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” Jake asks. “Did something go wrong on your date?”

Everything, she wants to say. Then she thinks: what is the point of pretending anymore? “Did she say yes?”

“Did who say yes?”

“I’m your fairy godmother apparently,” she says bitterly, pulling out her phone and waving it in his face.

“What?”

“You know, when you were trying to text Kayla? You were texting my personal phone,” Amy says. “I didn’t know it was you, because we didn’t tell each other our names but yeah. It was me.”

“That was - that was you?”

“Apparently,” Amy says. “Did the girl you like say yes? Let me guess, it was Sandra from downstairs -”

“Sandra?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Amy says. “I’m chill, bro. You know. Chill.” She takes a sip of her hot chocolate and promptly burns her tongue. Smooth she tells herself. Wow. How are you even single?

“Well how about you and your mystery man?” Jake demands. “Was it Chad?”

“Chad? My mystery man,” Amy scoffs.

“Well then, who was it?” he crosses his arms over his chest.

Damn it all to hell. She was done with not burning bridges for the sake of maintaining awkward friendships.

“It was you, you idiot.”

Jake’s eyes go wide. “…Me?”

“Yes,” Amy says. “I know. Whatever. We can just go back to forgetting about it now and I’m officially only going to have one phone now - “

“But Ames - I was talking about you.”

She blinks. Her brain is moving sluggishly. She can’t quite comprehend what he’s just said to her. When she finally gets around it to it she opens her and mouth and closes it several times.

“Me?” she finally stammers.

“Yes, you,” Jake says. “Oh my god. We are the worst detectives ever. It’s official.” He’s smiling for whatever reason, as if this is a massive joke. Was it April fools day today? She couldn’t remember.

“But you can’t like me!” Amy protests loudly.

“Oh I do,” Jake says. “I like like you Amy Santiago.”

“But all those nice things you said about her - “

“Were about you,” Jake says. “I swear. I swear on my reputation as a detective.”

“About me?” She asks, feeling another tired tear escape from the corner of her eye.

“And all of your texts - those were about me? Including the ones where you said I was an idiot?”

“I think we’re both idiots,” she says, rubbing her forehead. “Oh my god. We may as well hand the best detective title over to Rosa or Charles.”

“Might as well march over to Holt and turn in our resignations now,” he says, and despite herself she’s laughing. She’s laughing, laughing, laughing. So hard that her stomach feels like it’s about to burst and then he’s laughing too and both of them are careening toward each other like magnets. It ends with Jake’s mouth being awfully close to Amy’s and Amy’s chest being awfully close to his.

“I’m crazy about you Amy Santiago,” he says. “For real. And all of those things I meant, I meant.”

It’s not eloquent, but Amy wouldn’t want it any other way.

She remembers to drag him back into her apartment before she kisses him, real and properly.

(Later, she says it back. “I’m crazy about you Jake Peralta. For real.”)

To: Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago

From: Gina Linetti

[11:30 PM]

if you guys aren’t together by now I’m going to riot. Also Jake, I have Kayla’s real phone number when you want it. If you want it. (She seems like kind of a bitch.)

To: Gina Linetti and Amy Santiago

From: Jake Peralta

[11:31 PM]

DO NOT TELL ME YOU PLANNED THIS

To: Jake Peralta and Amy Santiago

From: Gina Linetti

[11:32 PM]

i told Amy i had the perfect guy for her.

#my writing #Brooklyn 99 #pertiago #amy/jake #fanfiction #woo hoo

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