You know what I've been thinking about?

Putting on the reddest lipstick shade you got, and giving Boba the biggest SMOOCH on the cheek, leaving your kiss mark on his face for the rest of the day.

And no one will ever know, because he's wearing his helmet 😊🥰🥰

A little secret between him and his beloved. And maybe Fennec because the woman sees everything, she can tell when those two hooligans are being flirty with each other.

Oh. My. Gosh. YES!

Oh I 10000% see this happening. You’d kiss him and he wouldn’t have the heart to wipe it off. And of course you’d be an incessant flirt the whole day, even when he’s trying to do business.

Fennec would ABSOLUTELY know and would be rolling her eyes, trying to coax her lovesick boss into doing his job. Ohhhh boyyyeee but he ONLY wants to do you.

It would only get worse through the day, you teasing him, Boba trying to focus, but he can’t, ohhh he can’t. Not when you’re flirting every kriffing second. You know he’ll snap eventually, and goodness is it fun to try his patience - something only you’d ever be able to get away with. You know anyone else doing the same would be risking their life, and oh does it give you a thrill.

But you’d better bet that later, when the day is over and Boba can lay his duties aside, he will make you pay for every little flirt, every glance, every tease (because you know he tallied every single one in a mental list) until you’re a writhing, puddle of a mess screaming his name.

Peli Motto firing a blaster rifle at the Scorpenek annihilator droids on Tatooine. Image from The Book of Boba Fett, Season 1, Episode 7, In the Name of Honor. Calendar from DataWorks.

Grogu had never realized how fierce Peli Motto was until he returned to Tatooine to find the Mandalorian. Luke’s Jedi Sleep Away Camp hadn’t been as much fun as advertised and Grogu realized that he missed the bounty hunter and his friends more than he had missed working with the Force. Peli was one of those people he really missed. 

She was always happy to see him. She made sure that he was clean and fed. She told him stories and let him play games with the pit droids. She even taught him how to cheat at… uh… play Sabacc. But his favorite memory wasn’t the one where she was shooting at the Scorpenek annihilator droids to help protect his dad and everyone else. Nope. His favorite memory was her roasting that huge haunch of Krayt dragon his dad had brought her. That seemed like forever ago.

He was explaining that all to Jon, once they were done at the privies and had finished showing him the N-1. To say the big man was impressed was an understatement. Grogu thought he was going to faint once his dad showed Jon some of the starship’s features, using R5 to demonstrate the hover mode, among other things. Jon needed to sit down and catch his breath, so they walked down the pier to the wooden benches that gave people a place to rest.

“So, tell me more about this Peli Motto character. What does he actually do?”

“She. She’s a mechanic. And a bit of a scoundrel. Whatever you do, don’t play Sabacc with her. She’ll spend your money and walk away with the winnings. But she loves Grogu and that counts for a lot.”

“It should. Our children are our future. Full of wonder. It’s why I do what I do.”

“What do?” Grogu asked. They’d talked about food and Earth and of course Nevarro and the ship, but they hadn’t talked to Jon about what he did. 

“I tell stories. Sometimes I write them. Other times I bring them to life. I’m a producer.”

Grogu exchanged a look with his dad. The only producers they knew managed a grain facility that made components of ration packs. What the heck did that have to do with storytelling?

“I don’t think we understand your term. Producers make things, like powdered grain for protein bars.”

Grogu was glad his dad had clarified it. Gal Basic was a slippery language at best and some words meant complete different concepts depending on the planet or system you visited. For example on Tzura ‘pair’ was a fruit, while everywhere else it meant two of a thing. Slippery. 

“Okay. Hmmm. I make films. You know, videos, moving pictures…”

Vids! Sure. That sounded good.

“Anything we may have heard of? Grogu is a big fan of the Diggle and Daggle series.”

“Diggle and Daggle?” 

Jon seemed baffled. Grogu was baffled. How could he not know about Diggle and Daggle? They were the most famous vids across the galaxy!

“Fish that fish.” Grogu explained.

“You watch videos of fish fishing?”

Jon definitely seemed surprised at that. 

“Educational.” Grogu explained briefly.

“Grogu can play one for you. He loves them.”

“That’s okay. I trust you. I make videos, but they are stories about love and growth and redemption. I’d be happy to show you some of them.”

Before the Mandalorian could say ‘no’, his favorite word, Grogu jumped off the bench yelling ‘Yippee’, his favorite word. 

“I guess that’s a yes. Do you have a data pad?”

Grogu’s dad must have realized that resistance was futile. They were on vacation after all. 

“No, but I have a friend who has a ranch.”

“Sounds good. If you have the coordinates, we can meet you there.”

“Give me a minute.”

Jon pulled some small device out of his pocket and began to fuss with it, while Grogu dashed over to his dad and hugged the Mandalorian’s boot. 

“Thanks, Dad.”

“Well, you know what Peli always says, don’t look a gift fathier in the muzzle. This planet’s kind of nice. I figure we can spend a couple more days here before we have to head home.”

“This is the Way”

“This is the Way”

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Let’s spread the self-love ♥️

Oh gosh, this is so sweet!! Thank you!

This took forever to put together, because tbh I’m overly critical of my own writing and it’s touch to look back on my work after I’ve written it, but I’m sure those of y’all who follow me will not be surprised to see most of this at all. 

Hilariously, none of these are the pieces that are particularly beloved by readers — in fact, some of them have the lowest hit/kudos counts across my entire AO3 profile. And hilariously, only one of them is explicitly a Kastle fic, which seems like the only thing I ever write anymore, lol. 

But hey, in no particular order: 

language barrier — Maya Lopez & Frank Castle, gen, rated G. This spun off my excitement from the Hawkeye finale over Christmas, and is a short little piece of Maya coming to Frank for help after being injured. Frank doesn’t speak ASL, but he can’t not help a kid in need (Frank Castle, magnet for women in distress), so he does his best to learn. I just love Maya and Frank as a friendship, and I’m proud of writing a no-dialogue story while also getting Frank’s inner voice down fairly well. It’s also the first installment in what is slowly spiraling into a Thunderbolts concept I’m working on behind the scenes — which is really just an excuse to give Frank Castle a bunch of adoptive daughters, lol. 

dead ringer — Boba Fett & Fennec Shand & Omega, gen, rated G. This was written for a Big Bang event for Book of Boba Fett, and is one of the few Star Wars fics I’ve written that isn’t some kind of modern day AU to allow me to avoid writing the nuances of sci-fi. It boils down to Boba searching for his fellow clone/sister, and there’s notes of Fennec/Boba in there, but it’s mostly a character piece for Boba, and I’m very proud of both my worldbuilding and the dialogue, particularly Fennec’s narration, since I’d never written for her before — I think this took me like, three days to finish despite being 7.5k. 

hold on — Frank Castle/Maria Castle & Frank Castle/Karen Page, rated G. This was the brainchild of a conversation with one of my besties, and also partially out of spite because I was upset that there are virtually no Punisher fics (especially not recently) that touch on Frank’s relationship with Maria beyond just her death and the days leading up to it. The conceit is that Karen finds one of Maria’s old mixtapes that Frank had kept, and the song triggers a memory for Frank, of dancing with Maria to “Hold On” by Wilson Phillips, hence the title. There’s just something about the tone of this one that I really adore, and Maria is such a fun character to write, even though I’ve only ever done it in flashback — see also my hungry heart piece from recently. She’s so feisty and full of personality, and this fic really successfully pairs her with Karen and establishes that Frank can have two loves of his life without having to shove one to the side for the other. 

a prize for rotten judgement — Oberyn Martell/Ellaria Sand, rated G. Ah yes, my other OTP. There is virtually no content for Oberyn and Ellaria as a ship on the Internet, so I took it upon myself to come up with a hitman AU for the two of them where Ellaria’s a surgeon, and this piece sees her sewing up Oberyn’s bullet wounds on her couch. I absolutely adore Ellaria in the same way that I do Maria Castle, and the dialogue and worldbuilding in this are just spot-on to me. I don’t like Game of Thrones at all, but it’s difficult to find Oberyn content that isn’t painfully oversexualized, and nigh on impossible to find Ellaria content at all, so I’m particularly proud of this corner of fandom that I’ve created. 

tramps like us — Wanda Maximoff & Frank Castle, gen, rated G. My most recent piece, this was the result of me seeing Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and going “god, Wanda needs to sit down and have a talk with Frank because their trauma is so similar”. One of my favorite things to write is a good character piece where two people are able to just talk without much at all happening, and this is just that. I really nailed Frank’s voice here, and this piece feels cathartic for a lot of reasons, not least of which being the fact that I will always defend women in film going apeshit. Also possibly part of that Thunderbolts concept if I ever get around to it, lol. 

Honorary sixth place goes to you look like bad news (i gotta have you), which is the first in a series of fluffy Shane Walsh/Original Character fics I wrote entirely on impulse. It was my first foray into like, real, honest-to-god rom com writing, which is not something I’m normally half-decent at. But that sucker (which was initially supposed to be one chapter and turned into 16k and three chapters, oops) was so much fun and opened up an avenue for me to write easy, no pressure stories between projects if I need to blow off some steam. 

Hi friend! I hope you enjoyed the holidays and that the New Year treats you well!!! For end of the year asks: 5, 9, and 15! 💛

Hello my friend! Thank you so so much- wishing the same for you!!

This ended up being soo much longer than I thought it would be haha

5. What creative work are you most proud of? (your own or someone else's)

So for my own work, I'd have to say The Nanny this year. I feel like the prompt was very out of my comfort zone and I was so worried I wasn't going to give it justice, and I just really love writing it- when I'm not dealing with writer's block lol

9. Recommend something you really enjoyed in 2021

One of my all time favorite stories I've ever read ever on here is possibly getting published! I am so excited that one day I'm going to actually have a physical copy of this story. All this year, I waited for the updates as she was writing it and I fell in love with the story. It's Forget Me Not by @krissology and I can't wait to read it again. I am going to be so insufferable when it comes out. I need to apologize in advance to everyone I know.

I also need to shout out @jedifarmerr and her story Olgo Shipmax. I'm so obsessed with this story, and it's one of the most unique Din Djarin fics I've read and I love it so much.

Elegy to the Void by @jangofctts is my favorite one part story about Ezra from Prospect. I have reread this story so many times. It's just everything I look for in a story. Chef's kiss!

Calling Home by @littlepadika I didn't think I could be more in love with Frankie Morales, and then I read this and was proven wrong. 1000/10 love love love

So i know everyone and their mom has read Rough Day (and i avoid talking about it on my blog) , and while it's an awesome story, I also want to say the stories The Bet and the Locked Door series by @no-droids I love a lot more. I think their other stuff gets lost in the shadow of Rough Day and these two by them are by far my favs.

@ezrasbirdie Make My Wish Come True is my current fav I'm waiting on updates for. It's the perfect Christmas fic and I'm loving it.

Now for my Lee Bodecker baddies ;)

@overr-written Give In is a masterpiece and everyone in the Lee Bodecker/Sebastian Stan characters fandom should read it, I'm sure y'all already are, but if not- you need to!!!

@slothspaghettiwrites anything in their masterlist- and they are a true saint for creating the Hoedecker Club Handbook- an absolute pillar of of the fandom and they deserve all the love

@sweetkingdomstarlight-blog Emma absolutely is an enabler to my Lee Bodecker obsession, and the dark fics on her masterlist are exquisite. My personal favs are Secret Admirer, Games People Play, and Acquiesce.

And then of course, I will always, always talk about your two stories, Of Mended Hearts and Buttons, and I'd Be Surprisingly Good for You. You're writing amazes me and I adore it soo much. I'm trying so hard to be patient but I absolutely cannot wait to read Twisted in Every Way. I know it's going to be phenomenal.

15. What are you looking forward to coming out in 2022

The Book Of Boba Fett - I know the first episode is this week but for the whole show I just ahhhh I'm so excited

Literally all the marvel projects

SPIDERMAN ACROSS THE SPIDERVERSE

Into the Spiderverse is my absolute favorite Spiderman movie and I really can't wait to see Miles again, he's in my opinion the best Spiderman

Also MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS ahhhhh I can't believe I have to wait so long to see this

I'm also looking forward to Wakanda Forever, but I couldn't even watch What-If without crying at Chadwick Boseman's final performance so we'll see how I do. Def won't be the first time I cry during a Marvel movie

also idk when it will be released but Madeline Miller's new book she's working on whenever it is going to be published might not even be 2022 I cannot wait

Gallant by VE Schwab - The Invisible Life of Addie Larue was one of my favorites I read this year so I am definitely going to check this out when it's released.

Bursting Bubbles

My piece for @thedjwifizine that can be found here. It's full of great art and stories. Check it out!

...

Nino looked up into the scowling face of his favorite seatmate.

“Here you go, Bubbles,” she said as she thrust a mango bubble tea into his hand. “One special of the day from The Boba Bar.” Her other hand slapped a small card onto his sheet music. “And here’s your other three week’s worth of drinks.”

“Aw, Alya you didn’t have to do this,” he held up the card. “This,” he grinned as he took his first sip of the drink, “you definitely needed to do.”

“Well you won the bet fair and square,” Alya huffed as she plopped down into her seat. “You really could find a way to get a harpsichord to sound rockin' when you DJ’ed Kim’s house party.”

“Scoops, I’m surprised you could doubt me,” Nino held a hand to his heart. “It’s like you’ve forgotten that music is my life.” He grumbled toward the music piece he’d been assigned, “It’s not like I’ve spent nearly three grueling years learning this European centered musical theory or anything.” Looking at her smirk he added, “Or that I’d hardly be the first person to experiment with combining old instruments to new music.” He thought for a moment before adding, “Or old music to new instruments.”

The next week it was Nino placing a gift card on Alya’s notepad.

“Your payment for getting me those sources for my music history essay, m’lady,” he said as he bowed to her.

“Nino, what-” she asked as she looked at the card “-what is this?”

Nino felt his face warm up, but he sent a shy smile in her direction as he sat down. “You were saying, the other day, that it’s been forever since you had a mani-pedi, but that they weren’t in your budget at the moment so I figured I’d get one for you as thanks for saving my bacon. I didn’t have time to track down those translations of medieval manuscripts for that Music Development in the Dark Ages assignment, but you did it without my asking.” He grinned at her, “You really took some pressure off of me and I appreciate it.”

She looked at him, back at the card, and back at Nino.

“I don’t remember saying that,” she murmured.

“You were picking at your nails because the color was coming off and said that you’d need to see if Marinette was free for a girl’s night so you could get her to do your nails again,” he said as he started to root around in his bag.

“That was two- three weeks ago?” she said, thinking out loud. She looked at him, but he was obviously avoiding her gaze. “I can’t believe you remembered that.”

His head tucked between his shoulders, a turtle pulling into its shell.

“It was easy to remember,” he said. “You had that sparkly red polish. It really drew in the eye. I remember thinking that you had the perfect hands for playing the piano right before you said it.” He quickly looked away again.

Alya was quiet for a moment before smiling up at him.

“That seems like a really nice compliment coming from a musician like yourself,” she reassured him. She looked back at the card. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this place.”

“It’s, uh, one of the local beautician schools,” he told her. “You were right about mani-pedis being a bit pricy, but my cousin is going there to learn to cut hair, and she said the girls in the nail class are crazy talented and eager to get someone not a relative to paint on, and it only costs about a fourth of what the pros charge.” He shrugged. “This way you can have like half a dozen manicures for the price of one.”

Alya lunged at him and caught him in a tight hug.

“Thank you thank you thank you!” she cried before releasing him. “This is the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.”

“Miss Cesaire, if you are quite done groping Mister Lahiffe I’d like to start the class,” the voice of Doctor Agreste cut through the lecture hall and every head snapped toward them.

Alya’s face was nearly as warm and red as his own.

“Yes, sir,” she squeaked as she pulled her arms back to her side.

“Now if we may?” the professor’s curt voice took control of the class.

“Groping,” Nino mumbled. “He calls one little hug groping.” He pulled out a composition that Madame Mendeleiev had assigned just that morning. “I’d like to show him groping.”

He was startled out of his grumbling when Alya whispered, “Me, too.”

Only three more weeks and I’m out of this class and I never have to see this man’s stupid face again, Nino thought to himself. At least after today it’s just student presentations before the final.

They had finally reached the Contemporary Era and the man was butchering even the easiest movements! And don’t get him started on the composers. He’d wasted over half the lecture trying to explain that Richard Wagner wasn’t really an antisemite, but that Nazi sympathizers, mainly Adolf himself, just liked his music so much and thought it expressed National Ideals perfectly! The man wasn’t even a composer in Contemporary times!

And that just served to take time away from some real pioneers of the era like Laura Anne Karpman whose music can be found literally anywhere. Or what about Meredith Monk who includes operas amongst her compositions, since Doctor Agreste seemed to be hung up over Wagner’s damn Ring Cycle. Of course he didn’t mention Yihan Chen the brilliant Chinese pianist and composer. And though the man would fawn and dote on child prodigies like Wolfgang Mozart all day, he wouldn’t give the time of day to “Bluejay” Greenberg who could hear several compositions in his head at the same time and then be able to write them with minimal correction.

Just, UGH!

Nino was done with this entitled little man and the racist ideology he’s attempting to spread about. He was certainly spreading something, but it smelled more like fertilizer than anything else to Nino’s mind.

He could tell that Alya was concerned about his agitation, he’d been clenching his pencil so hard he heard it crack, but he refused to look in her direction. She had a great talent for sniffing out these kinds of things and if he looked at her right now, he’d probably see his frustration reflected on her face and do something dumb- like start an uprising in the middle of class. He really couldn't afford to take this class again.

As soon as they were out the doors Alya started ranting about how it was obvious that Doctor Agreste didn’t even bother to check Wikipedia for sources. She made her opinion known that the good doctor didn’t like the era because more people were included in writing and performing it rather than just white, Western-European men who were either wealthy or had wealthy patrons. And stopped mid rant.

Nino looked at her and watched as Alya got an idea. By the look on her face it was a genius idea: an Evil and Genius idea if the cackle was anything to go by.

“Whatever you’re planning, I’m in,” he declared.

“I haven’t even told you my idea yet.”

“I can tell by your expression alone that it’s going to be the best idea ever,” he said with a smirk. “So want to let me in on our plan?”

She explained her idea and Nino’s eyes lit up.

“Oh, that man is going to regret crossing paths with us,” he chuckled. “Can you come over tonight? I’ve got plenty of stuff we’d need for the music portion of the presentation.”

She shook her head. “I need at least one day to fact-check my notes and another to find accurate sources. Are you busy Saturday?”

Nino thought for a moment. “I’m free in the morning, but I have a wedding I’m playing for in the evening.”

“Okay that gives me a little more time for research.” She smiled up at him. “So, Saturday morning we’ll meet up to pull things together?”

Nino nodded in agreement.

“Great,” she said, “That’ll give us Sunday to type up the report and Monday to practice for our presentation on Tuesday.”

“Tell me the truth, Alya,” Nino looked at her, “Is this too much? Are we crazy to put together a spite presentation in one weekend? At the end of the semester?” He brushed a bit of her hair out of her face and tucked it carefully behind her ear. “You already have so much to do for all your other classes. I don’t want this to be something that stresses you out or makes you do something that hurts you.”

Alya reached up and patted his cheek before replying.

“Nino this is going to be so much fun that I doubt I’ll even notice how much work it is,” she grinned at him fully. “I might pull an allnighter here or there, but I promise you that I’m taking care to not do too much. I wouldn’t have suggested this if I didn’t think we could do it.”

He held her gaze for a moment then sighed.

“Okay, let’s ruin this man’s whole career.”

She laughed loud and pulled him toward the school’s cafe. Obviously this called for copious amounts of snacks and his precious bubble tea.

Tuesday dawned bright and clear. A perfect day to teach about the subtleties of Contemporary music while simultaneously displaying the ignorance and prejudice of the most hated music teacher on campus. Nino sipped at his Thai tea with coffee pudding as he contemplated Alya’s plan of attack. It was a nice simple plan, but it needed something. Seeing a familiar outline hurrying across campus brought a smile to his face. The final nail in Doctor Agreste’s coffin just made itself known. He hurried across the quad to see if he could catch up with Madame before she reached her office.

An hour later he stood at the podium inserting the thumb drive into the computer for the projector.

“Good morning everyone,” Alya began. “As you all know we’ve had to jump over and through many musical ages and movements. That meant we had to skim through a lot of really interesting information. Nino and I decided to do a little bit of music through the ages for the Contemporary Era for you all. Now, get ready to get funky!”

That was his cue. He started the Powerpoint and Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” began to blast from the room’s speakers while Elmer Fudd stabbed a spear into the ground singing, “Kill the wabbit! Kill the wabbit!”

“Welcome to Neoromanticism,” he called to those present.

The presentation went off without a hitch. Madame Mendeleiev had managed to slip in before their presentation and had stayed to the end of class. It was with great delight that Nino watched the Dean of the Music Department approach Doctor Agreste and congratulate him on the quality of his students’ final presentations. She even approached Alya and complemented her on the amount of research she’d done to be ready for the day. Then she turned to him.

“An adequate presentation, Nino,” she said with no trace of humor in her words. “Your compilation was a little heavy on the electronic music and light on the serialism, but I suppose that’s only to be expected with where your interests lie,” she paused, “and in light of the time constraints.”

He gulped and nodded his head. He knew she’d pick up on that.

“Please, send me a copy of your presentation at your earliest convenience.”

His eyes snapped up from the floor to meet hers. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining the slight upturn to the corners of her mouth or not, so he chose not to comment on it.

“I think I might incorporate it into my opening lecture next semester,” she remarked so offhandedly that Nino was sure he was hearing things. “It’ll be an excellent introduction to modern music for the freshmen.” She nodded to him before moving off to catch professor Agreste on his way out the door.

Alya was grinning from ear to ear and practically vibrating where she stood. He turned to her and had a fraction of a second to brace for impact as she’d thrown herself in his direction. Her arms were around his waist as she pulled him into a hug. He returned the hug with matching enthusiasm.

“We did so good!” she squealed.

He looked down into her grinning face and returned the smile.

“Hell yeah, we did,” he replied. “This calls for a celebration.” It was only then that he realized he still had his arms around her shoulders. Then again she was still holding on to him. He pulled back but kept hold of her hands. “I know you have another class in an hour, but do you want to go get boba to celebrate?”

She smirked up at him. “Only if you’ll let me treat you to dinner at Sabine’s tonight.” She looked to the side as she added, “And then we could go check out that concert in the park you mentioned yesterday.”

His mouth suddenly went dry. That sounded a lot like an actual date. Like a real date with this girl he knew he’d started crushing on some time this semester. What else could he do?

“Sounds great, but you have to let me bring pizza and dessert to our study date on Thursday night.”

Her laugh sent a tingle down his spine. “It’s a date!”

Sweet Treats

Pairing: Jeno x Original Female Character|Reader

Genre: Meet-Cute (sort of), Fluff, AU - Non-Famous Jeno

Word count: 2.4k

Rating/Warnings: Teen (12ish+)/Kissing

Prompt: Random Word Generator

*Must be about Jeno

*Must be 2k words (overshot it ROFL)

*Use these words (random word generator):

-main

-mutual

-organ

Author’s Note: Thank you to my friend for their patience with me taking forever to get this prompt fufilled! It wasn't from a lack of inspiration. Hot Sauce era gave me a lot of fuel for Jeno!

--------

If Suyuan could make a dessert to represent her cousin’s bake sale, she’d bake a Keylime Pie. The middle school’s front entrance was lined with thick green grass that glistened in the sunlight. The late spring breeze carried the scent of the lime trees nearby, tingling her nose.

The PTA was throwing a Mountain Retreat Bake Sale to raise funds for a weeklong mountain retreat for the 6th grade class. Fen, Suyuan’s cousin, should have been setting up the baked goods under the tent, but the 12-year-old was having too much fun playing with her friends. They were currently bullying a man who seemed to be related to Fen’s best friend, HaeWon.

He wore black skinny jeans and a loose white and black striped knit sweater. His black hair fell over his eyes as he grimaced a smile. He was trying to dance along to an Itzy song, but the kids were booing him as he refused to do “aeygo”. Suyuan grinned as she recalled how she and her classmates would tease their older cousins to do cute dances to entertain them. It was a circle of life to be forced to do cute dances at various points in one’s life.

“Fen, I think we have to set up the lemonade, too,” Suyuan called out, setting a sign down on the table as she stood up. “Give that guy a break, too! We’re helping you for free, you know. I should have told you to buy me Starbucks.”

“Jeno Lee! Jeno Lee! You can’t dance!” Fen and HaeWon chanted. The main bullies had even started a dance where they sashayed their hips. They stopped once their friends began to retreat back to pick up their tasks.

“Thanks,” Jeno Lee said with a shy smile as he walked away from his red motorbike to join her under the tent. “I’m Jeno.”

“Suyuan,” she replied, waving her hand. “I’m Fen’s cousin. How’d you get roped into this?”

“My aunt and uncle helped me with my bake sale when I was 13,” he replied. He began helping Fen and HaeWon line up trays of cookies on one of the white topped plastic tables. “HaeWon should buy me some Starbucks, too, I think.”

“I don’t even have a credit card,” HaeWon replied, looking over her shoulder to glare at him.

“Suyuan helped me bake these strawberry macarons!” Fen exclaimed, setting the cookies down beside the blueberry jam thumbprint cookies. “My mom and I made the shortbread cookies.”

“Did you have to do this?” Jeno asked as he sat down to help make the signs to indicate the prices of the baked goods.

“No, for our school trip we pitched our trip to family members, Shark Tank-style,” she replied.

“What?” he sounded incredulous as he stopped writing on the white board to stare at her. “Your school turned it into a Economy project?”

“It was fun. I mostly used cute pictures of me in my slides and I kept saying, ‘You’re investing in my future and well being,’ enough to make my parents emotional. It annoyed my siblings and other relatives enough that they handed me at least a couple dollars before I could finish my pitch.”

“Smart,” he said, looking impressed. “Do you know how to write DanPatBbang?”

“My mom made a huge batch!” HaeWon spoke up as she pointed to the golden buns wrapped in clear plastic bags.

“Um, no,” Suyuan replied. “We can write Sweet Red Bean Paste Buns. We’ll find someone to write it the correct way. They look amazing, HaeWon! Your mom told me you made the paste.”

“I also brushed the egg wash on,” she said.

Fen and HaeWon took over all the tasks Suyuan and Jeno started. Soon enough, Jeno and Suyuan were seated behind the pastries and water cooler filled with lemonade, chitchatting. They exchanged war stories about their 6th Grade Mountain Retreat. Jeno’s class were locked in their dorms for a few hours as a family of bears foraged around their camp for food the first day they arrived. It sounded more exciting than what really happened, he claimed.

Jeno seemed captivated as Suyuan told an elaborate story about her group’s river raft ride. Their raft capsized partway through the ride, and her group had to walk their way back to camp with nothing but an old compass as help, all of them soaked to the bone. Suyuan had sprained her ankle, and cried her entire walk back to camp, which had been roughly a half mile walk.

“It’s funny now,” Suyuan said as Jeno chuckled into his fist, “but I was miserable for the rest of the trip.”

“How many days did you have your ankle sprained?” he asked, picking up a sugar cookie and taking a bite.

“That’s a dollar fifty,” she said, holding out her hand. His eyes widened as he stopped midchew.

“All I have is my debit card,” he replied, spitting out crumbs into his fist.

“Don’t talk with your mouth full,” she scolded gently, leaning over to grab a napkin that sat behind him. Her chin bumped into his shoulder and she jumped back immediately.

“Sorry!” they exclaimed in unison. She threw the napkin over his mouth as he spat out more crumbs.

“Let me get you some water,” she said, standing up to walk over to the cooler near a table where HaeWon and Fen were standing. They were talking to some of their classmates, Fen staring at the blue haired kid holding a skateboard. “Can I buy a bottle of water?”

When she returned to Jeno, he was biting into strawberry danish. He thanked her for the water, and gave half of the danish to her.

“I’m going to spend $10, and I’ve eaten $3’s worth of pastries so far,” he reasoned, picking up a scallion pancake Suyuan’s mom made for the bake sale. “These are good. I’d love some kimchi with this.”

“Do you think someone’s auntie brought her own jars of kimchi to sell here?” she asked, sitting up straight to crane her neck around.

“I’d smell it before either of us see it,” he said, pointing to his nose. “Maybe in an hour? It’s good to have people filter in late. My uncle says it keeps the flow going and the food fresh.”

“Your uncle gave you economics lessons anyway,” she said, impressed.

As the day wore on, Fen and HaeWon began whistling Red Velvet’s “Red Flavor” whenever they came around Jeno and Suyuan, to the point that Suyuan had to bribe Fen with $20 in cold hard cash to leave them alone. Jeno was very kind and gentle, but his absentmindedness led to a chaotic energy. Jeno’s card was declined when his aunt showed them how to use electronic transactions on her iPad.

He realized he’d been using his Student credit card’s PIN when the card was declined for a third time. Suyuan poured Jeno a cup of lemonade as he had to call his bank to explain why his card had been declined three times. His face was flushed as he took a sip from the purple straw in the cup she handed him.

“Thank you, yes, I’ve got it,” Jeno said after 15 minutes of transferring to 2 different departments of customer service. “Auntie, I think I’ve solved it. I’m going to buy $10 extra for these pastries.”

“It was that bad?” Suyuan asked as Jeno picked up one of the bao buns Suyuan had made with her aunt and mom. “Those buns are $2.”

“OK,” he said through a mouthful of food.

“You never learn,” she said with a grin, handing him a napkin. “Chew, then speak.”

“These buns are so good, I love the barbecue pork,” he said, staring at the red filling. “This bake sale is probably more legit than the China Town in the city.”

“I haven’t been there in years,” she said. “I heard they opened a Korean patisserie near that tacky karaoke bar.”

“Jeno,” HaeWon called out, waving from the playground behind the tents they’d set up, “how do you shoot from the three-point line?”

Some of the kids had arrived with a basketball, and they watched as Jeno made shot after shot on the basketball court. After making a basket from every angle the kids requested, Jeno handed the basketball back to HaeWon. Despite teasing Jeno earlier, it was obvious that HaeWon looked up to him a lot. She showed it in her own special ways.

“Did you want to go get some boba?” Jeno asked, holding his hand out to Suyuan. “My mom and aunt are relieving me of my duties soon.”

“My mom’s on her way, too,” she replied, taking his hand. “Perfect timing.”

When Suyuan’s mom arrived, she eyed Jeno on his red cruiser motorbike.

“Be safe,” her mom said pointedly before hugging her. “I heard Jeno’s quite polite, but...be safe.”

“Oh, mom, calm down,” Suyuan sighed, giving her mom a grin. “You know Jeno’s parents well enough.”

“A motorbike,” her mom mouthed silently as Fen and HaeWon walked by. She rolled her eyes.

“I’ll text you, mom. Bye, Fen! See you, HaeWon!”

“Don’t kiss him too much,” Fen uttered out and HaeWon laughed as the pair ran off at the sight of Suyuan glaring at them.

Her annoyance disappeared as she saw Jeno sitting against his bike, holding out a helmet to her. His grin made her chest feel like it was growing, and she thanked him in a soft voice as she took the helmet. True to the rumors her mom heard, Jeno politely helped Suyuan secure her helmet on, and checked with her that she felt secure before starting the engine to his motorbike.

She pressed her body close to him as his body warmed her. She smelled the blueberry on his shirt, perhaps due to the slice of blueberry pie he’d accidentally spilled onto the left sleeve of his sweater. It took everything in her not to sit up and kiss his cheek as they stopped at a red light.

Once they reached the boba shop near the church one of her aunts volunteered at, Suyuan slowly slipped her hands away from Jeno’s body. She was afraid to admit to herself that she enjoyed her time on the ride with him. It was better than her time with any significant other she’d ever been with, even her boyfriend of 8 months during her freshman year in college.

The church organ music playing in the distance reminded her to stop her imaginations from going too wild as she watched Jeno brush his hair out of his eyes. As they sat on the picnic table near the boba shop, Suyuan asked Jeno questions about his bike, and how he got into riding motorbikes.

“My Engineering final had me do a group project,” he explained between sips of his watermelon slush. “We refurbished an old Honda Fury. We were docked a grade for turning our Shop project into our Engineering project, too.”

“That’s bullshit,” she said with a grin. He laughed in agreement. “Is it easy to ride a motorbike?”

“Easy enough,” he said with a shrug. “You have to go in without so much doubt and fear, and then you’ll be confident in your riding.”

“You’ll have to teach me,” she said, sidling up close to him. “How were we able to miss each other when we were teens?”

“You traveled in the bookish crowd, and I was with the jocks and gamers,” he replied.

“What does that mean?” she asked, feeling her cheeks turn warm.

“We had Algebra 101 together but you were home sick for the first 3 weeks,” he said. “I had a small crush on you, but I never worked up the courage to talk to you. I wanted to ask you to help me with my homework. I’m not good at math.”

“We went to school together?” she asked, shocked that she had assumed that they were mutual strangers when they met that morning. “I’m sorry. My teen years were my confused queer years. I spent all of high school crushing on girls and boys, and I didn’t know if it meant I was a lesbian or bi...or something else along the queer spectrum.”

“So do you have it figured out?”

“Um,” she grinned at him as he threw his arm over her shoulders, “I’m OK saying I’m bi, but I know that things are never set in stone.”

“I’m glad we spent today together,” he said, resting his hand on her chin, pulling her close to him. He kissed her. “I had to wait for my cousin to tease me for you to notice me.”

She laughed against his lips, kissing him as she rested a hand on his shoulder.

“You wouldn’t have liked angsty me anyways,” she admitted, pulling away from his kiss. She wiped her lipstick stains off his lips with her thumbs. “I wasn’t prepared for a relationship as a high schooler. Did your crush return today?”

“It was when you stood up to my bullies,” he said, his cheeks flushing pink.

“Our cousins?”

She laughed before planting a wet kiss onto his lips. He wrapped his arms around her waist, and requested he take her home.

“For the record,” she said, taking his hand and kissing it quickly, “I think I crushed on you at the same moment. You were putting up with the kids’ bullying so well.”

She held on tight to him, relishing the feel of his back as she pressed her cheek against it, hearing his heartbeat against her ear. His body felt firm, and his sweater was soft, although a bit itchy. Once they reached her apartment complex, she got off the bike and handed his spare helmet back to him.

“Thank you for bringing me home safely,” she said. Before he could respond, she kissed him, pressing her tongue against his lips. He pushed back immediately, his lips capturing hers.

“Can I take you out to dinner tomorrow?” he asked when he broke their kiss. She licked her lips, tasting a hint of sweet red bean paste. “No pressure.”

“Pick me up at 6:00 PM?” she asked. She kissed him, and his hand reached up to touch her cheek.

“It’s a date,” he breathed out as they rested their foreheads together. “I should let you go home. I want to be a gentleman today.”

“I can’t wait to see you tomorrow,” she said before caressing his earlobe. She kissed him. “Text me when you get home?”

He kissed her one last time before they broke apart. As she walked up the stairs to her apartment her mind clouded with thoughts of Jeno’s lips on hers. He was warm, like the bright spring sun. The scent that radiated from him was grassy and refreshing, energizing her in the same way the scent of limes did. Jeno Lee was her perfect Keylime Pie.

------

Thank you always for reading!

AMC and Boba Tea: Prologue pt. 1

Summary: a supposed one-shot about a HongIce movie theater AU where Iceland is an employee at an AMC and Hong Kong is working at a cafe that’s known for its bubble tea. Set in California, in a medium sized city by the coast that’s become quite a popular tourist destination. Taiwan’s outfit is here. Inspired by this, this, and this (@bizarrejelly thanks for the ideas!) (also @aphchinass this is what the q was for). Also, this is a prologue, so no ship action yet (sorry! It’s because I’m a doofus who loves writing unimportant side dialogue). Human AU, human names. Emma is Belgium for those who don’t know, and the only people biologically related to China here are Taiwan, HK, and Macau.

Prologue pt. 2 here!

Warnings: swearing, and I don’t have a job so I know nothing about what it’s like to work at a cafe; it’s probably really inaccurate. Enjoy!

~~~

“Next!”

“One plain taro milk tea, with three of those fruity Danish pastries please.” Leon looked up at the voice. Xiao Mei was standing in front of the counter, wearing her usual denim skirt overalls, a light pink shirt with white neck ruffles, and a smirk.

“Surprised that I’m here?” Leon shrugged, turning away to the ice machine to start making the tea.

“I guess, but mostly I’m just grateful that you’re my last customer and the last person I have to deal with today.”

“Poor you. What rowdy customer did you have to deal with today?” There was only a tinge of sympathy in her voice, and Leon knew she wanted more of an entertaining story than anything, but he didn’t mind. They’d been gossiping about random people doing annoying things since forever, and it was as much fun for him as it was for her.

“There was this guy that came in at about nine, looking all frazzled and everything. Like his life depended on him getting whatever boba tea he wanted right that second, y’know, the typical annoying customer dude who’s super frantic and stuff.” Leon glanced over at his sister, who was looking at him eagerly. He smirked; she was on the hook fast.

“So I asked him as politely as I could—”

“Yeah, sure. When you’re at 100% politeness you still sound snarky. No wonder the guy got more pissed.” Mei was rolling her eyes, and Leon raised an eyebrow at her words, holding up his hands defensively.

“Hey, I didn’t say he was pissed off.”

“Come on, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what his reaction would be.”

“Fine. Anyways, I ask the guy what he’d like to order, right, and he asks for a cappuccino and honeydew melon boba that—”

“Who has such bad taste? Cappuccino and honeydew? Do you guys even sell that?” Leon grinned. Thank god his sister was usually on the same wavelength as him.

“Exactly! I would’ve said ‘in your dreams’ with my most fashionable eyeroll if I wasn’t getting paid to be nice.” He paused to watch in amusement as Mei erupted into laughter. When she’d finally stopped wheezing, he continued. “Anyway, I told him it’s not on our menu, and then he got really mad. Apparently, his daughter’s ninth birthday’s today and she really wanted to try a boba tea with that specific flavor and she’d get really upset if she didn’t get it. I guess the kid’s the type to get all spoiled and bratty about something that doesn’t go her way. I don’t even know why a kid would drink coffee, but whatever.” Leon paused, rolling his eyes. “Anyways, I told him no again and eventually me and this other guy basically forced him out. He was holding up the damn line. Here, your stuff’s ready. It’s 13.98.” He handed over her change, and watched her carefully tuck the bills into her wallet, then reached for the boba tea and the pastries.

“Mei, you going back home?”

“Not yet. I agreed to meet up with some other people at the park today. Emma and Matthew invited me, but I don’t know who else is gonna be there. You’re going to the movies, right?”

“Uh-huh. Yong Soo’s meeting me there. He said we’re going to watch Parasite. Again.” He turned around, holding a freshly made plain boba tea, just in time to see Mei give him a playful glare.

“That movie’s really good!” she said earnestly. “I think you’re lucky to get to watch it twice, so you better not complain like the goof you are.” He could hear the smile in her voice as she nudged him in the ribs. “You’re giving me another boba for free?” He scoffed, snickering a little.

“Of course not; this is for me, dummy.” He saw his sister’s disappointed pout and shrugged. “It’s called ‘treating myself after a hard day of work’, ‘kay? Anyways, I’m closing up. Wanna head out?”

“Yeah, sure.”

When Leon had finished wiping down the equipment and tidying up the counter, he flipped the “OPEN” sign so it read “CLOSED” and held the door for Mei. They walked down the avenue, idly sipping their drinks, sometimes pointing out a seagull or a stray cat. When they reached Central Street, Leon halted.

“The park is that way, right?” Mei nodded. 

“You are going home first, right? I mean, they’d probably give you a bonus for being a walking ad with your apron on.” She was snickering, and Leon huffed.

“Of course. I have a brain, you know.” He shoved her lightly, and when she pouted, he just raised an eyebrow that said ‘you deserved it’.

“Have fun at the park. Don’t forget to tell me about anything ‘interesting’ that happens when you get home.” He made air quotes with his fingers, and Mei nodded knowingly, laughing.

“I will! Tell me about the weirdos at the movie theater!”

Leon gave her a thumbs up and turned away, heading towards the apartment he shared with his siblings three blocks down the road.

~~~

Feedback is welcome and appreciated! (this was so clunky I apologize ;.; it was just ajsifjpwoaijefjdkjfakls I had a good idea and terrible execution. Can’t write a story with mixed description and dialogue for my life.)

My thoughts, 8/29/2020 This year....has been the most confusing and frustrating year I have ever had. Let's roll back time and start at the beginning.

I grew up during the space race, a war, and the bicentennial of this country. Living on the east coast of Florida I watched men go to the moon....and then as a teen a movie came along and changed my life. Star Wars....and the dreamer in me saw so many possibilities. Growing up I wanted to either be a pilot ( planes or helicopters ) or an astrophysicist. Strange but yes if i couldn't fly among the stars I wanted to fly around this planet.

My influences were obviously my parents ,family, and the things you could do at the time which were books and comics. My love for the military came from my family and parents. My faith ,and wonder for the possibilities the world offered came mostly from comics....some DC but the majority was Marvel. Stan Lee and the tales he told subconsciously taught me about respect and love for my fellow humans. Trust me growing up when I did things were very angry....people were not happy with the Vietnam War, race relations especially in the south were very contentious.

So my great escape was reading, whether it was learning about the universe and the technical aspects of flying the best place I was able to find balance was comics. Batman was a double edged sword, I understood the need for vengeance but also saw the repercussions of seeking it. Loving archery Green Arrow was the same as the Bat but also a bit of a Robin Hood tossed in. My favorite though was the Flash. I loved to run....so yah he was cool. Now on the Marvel side let's start with Spiderman...he was a kid with great power thrust upon him...who looked for glory but found out that ignoring the responsibility of how you lived your life could come back and destroy you.

So I grew up with love in my heart, seeing people not color, gender, religion, or country of origin. At times I paid the price for this from family, and friends. I kept myself closed off. It was at this time in my life that my world took an unexpected turn, my parents divorced, and my father who was always my hero was going to be able to spend more quality time with me. My sister moved out with my mom and I felt like this was a chance for us to really connect. But it wasn't to be as a few months later he remarried. That year I went to my mom's for Christmas and never left. I was 15. Many strange things and events later I was 16,disillusioned, and was mentally done. I took my high school equivalency test,passed it and moved out on my own. At 17 I was working full time and taking care of myself and paying for rent and everything that came with being a grown up. Then at 21 I found a job where just under 20 years I grew and had a good career. I was married for 10 years,but was not happy and not wanting to be like my father I just accepted my fate.

Video games became a big source of escape, and one game in particular was huge source of fun. Our clan was Boba Fetts, and we had shirts made. While in the local mall a young man approached me and asked if I was a Star Wars fan, laughing i assumed he noticed my shirt and replied of course, he guided me to a web site Yahoo World of Star Wars , a place where you could hangout, discuss and write about the Star Wars universe. I loved to write stories so I looked it up and it would wind up changing my life forever.

It was during this time of being around people with the same likes and beliefs i had,opened my eyes. These people were more family to me than most of my blood. So big changes occurred, I told my father I was done with him treating me like a kid, after all I had retired from a job with just a few months away from 20 years so yah I was a man thank you very much. I also told him my issue with him was that not once in my life did I ever remember him ever saying to me I love you son. All he had to do was say those 3 words and all would be forgiven. He couldn't bring himself to say it, his loss in the end. So emboldened I relayed my feelings about my marriage and was told that I should give up the things that I enjoyed, but my spouse could still do whatever she wanted and quit being dramatic. I had at that moment had enough and began the process of getting a divorce and moving away from my home state. On a whim I had a friend in Michigan that suggested I come stay with them, it was the best choice I ever made. We became close and 2 years later we were married, a few years later our son was was born, and a few years after that our second son was born. Life was good, I had a decent job and things were great.

Then two years ago my life changed forever, while at work I lifted a box and stacked it on a pallet like I had done many times before but had a terrible pain in my shoulder. Turned out I tore my rotator cuff, during the time I waited for surgery it became worse and I suffered tremors. Surgery was done and it was pretty much significant damage, a 90% tear and the detachment and reattachment of my bicep. During rehab, I still suffered tremors, fearing it was nerve damage I saw a neurologist and was hit broadside with a diagnosis of Parkinson's disease. I was devastated. I was moved to a job that was less physical but I still suffered from pain and tremors to the extent that my doctor prescribed the highest level of medication for the treatment of the tremors and short term disability to give me a chance to heal and get my body in a place that allowed me to get back to work. So I returned to work, but I just couldn't keep up at the end of each day I was in pain and by the weekend I was useless. This year in March I went back on short term disability, and 1 week later Covid hit, and the world turned upside down. Here i was at home, understanding i was in bad shape and with my sons out of school and asking all kinds of questions and trying to answer them without scaring them. Now I'm sitting here, getting ready to transition to long term disability,becoming a stay at home dad, teaching my kids at home this year because of my health, including the fact I have type 2 diabetes along with my others issues and my kids are afraid that if they go to school they may infect me and I will die of covid, thank God school is offering virtual learning, then last night, one of my favorite comic characters, who was perfectly portrayed by Chadwick Boseman, T'Challa, The Black Panther has passed away at 43 of cancer, 11 years younger than me....has hurt me to my core. Not to mention the fact that 40 years later since Star Wars came out and my feelings that we are all humans and that race would not be an issue anymore sitting here seeing no change has led me to one hope, hope we can end the hate, end the fear,become the caring,loving, people not only that we can be but have to be. The sooner we put away our fears and accept that we are one people, humans of earth, and realize that 98% of us are good and that no matter what 2% of us are bad, but the good ones of us are the majority and we have to stop letting those that are the minority stop controlling us and say we are not taking it no more, the sooner we will be the great people we can be and this world will be a better place.

SasuSaku Month Day 7: One of These Nights

Title: Sasuke and Sakura’s Night Out! // Rating: M (drugs, language) // Summary: Sakura and Sakura don’t get out much, but just one night is enough to make up for a lifetime of staying in. Very much inspired by my love for both the movie booksmart and those memes where it’s like aren’t you tired of being nice? Don’t you want to just go absolutely fucking feral? Yeah, nerd SasuSaku going feral basically // ao3 link 

A/N: something to make up for yesterday’s angst, this was a ton of fun to write!! Also why do i keep writing things i dont know about?? Idk anything about the good old mary jane or drugs in general lol but just go with it this isn’t really supposed to make sense Disclaimer: I don’t own Naruto, Booksmart, or anything mentioned in this story. I’m just a wee speck of dust in the universe

----

“One of these nights we should do something actually fun.”

“Since when did watching movies with me stop being fun? Did you want a snack or something? I saw that post you tagged me in this morning, I guess we can build a blanket fort on the trampoline, but you can’t complain about it being cold.”

Sakura sat up from where she was lounging on Sasuke’s bed, staring at the wall. “Now that you mention it, I could go for some boba. Or an edible.”

Sasuke, sitting in his bean bag, stared at Sakura in disbelief, “do you even know what’s in those?”

Sakura straightened up even more and looked down haughtily, “of course I do. Naruto told me a long time ago. And doesn’t a brownie sound so good right now?”

“Sakura, you got drunk off a few sips of your Aunt Tsunade’s rice wine and you’re telling me you want to get high? We’re about to go to college and you want to fry your brain?”  

“We’re about to go to college and we’ve never done anything. Do you know how lame that is?”

Sasuke seemed to contemplate Sakura’s words for a moment before giving her a wolfish grin, sounding every bit the teenage boy he was, “that’s not true. We’ve done stuff. We’ve had sex. Lots of it.”

One of Sasuke’s pillows sailed across the room towards his face, accompanied by a screech, “I knew it, I knew you’d say something dumb! What does it matter when you’re already a stupid boy with no brain. Those ads are totally false, by the way. What’s the harm in trying weed, Sasuke? I wanna try, so you should do it with me.”

Despite being the captain of the speech and debate team, he couldn’t find anything to argue about. He texted Naruto; at least he could trust their “plug” or whatever he’s called by half the school.

Except, they actually couldn’t because he was somehow all out and directed them to Kiba instead.

“Seriously? We’ve known Naruto, like, forever? And he lets us down now? Kiba is smelly and weird. His weed probably...smells like weed.”

Sakura doesn’t let up, “just text Kiba, he’s not that bad. Don’t be lame.”

“What should I even say? Leaf emoji? Side eye emoji? Plug emoji? Is he going to give us a friends and family discount?”

“Sasuke, I know you love using color coordinated spreadsheets to organize your life, but now is not the time. Mention my name. Maybe he’ll give us a hot girl discount.”

“I just sent him ‘weed’ with a question mark. Oh, he already responded. He said come over right now and he’ll ‘give us the hook up.’ Sakura, does that mean he wants us to have a threesome with us?” Sasuke asked with false, exaggerated concern.

That earned Sasuke another pillow thrown at his face (this time it’s his favorite dinosaur plushie) before Sakura gets to her feet and announces with a rather dramatic clenched fist, “get in the car, we’re going to Kiba’s.”

----

“Yooo, Sasuke! Woah! And Sakura? The Kiba Hut is going to have a blessed night if these two legends are here! Come on in guys, we’re having a kickback.”

As Kiba opened the door wider to let them in, a haze of smoke wafted out and the smell hit them like a wall. They had definitely come to the right place.

They saw Kiba’s usual crew, Hinata and Shino, sitting on the couch looking very blissed out already, along with a number of other kids from their school. Sakura checked her phone, isn’t it like 9 pm? Is this late or early for this kind of stuff?

“My guy Naruto told me you’re here for some famous Kiba Hut edibles, and like, welcome to the bake sale, but I’m telling you man, you gotta try the newest from Shino. Shit’s dank, bro.”

The couple turned away from Kiba to look at Shino sitting there with his sunglasses still on despite being indoors. He raised a single hand in greeting, then gestured to a plate of brownies plus something less familiar in front of him. “The new goods or pot?”

Sasuke looked disturbed by the sight and was about to say “neither” before Sakura elbowed him sharply in the side, “we’ll take both!” she cut in with a big smile.

“Adventurous! I fucking love it! Man, you kids are too cute, I’ll give it to you real cheap. You got Venmo?” Kiba pulled his phone out to start the transaction.  

Sakura glanced around, they had never been to Kiba’s house before, so this was a new experience all around. She spotted a bowl of water by the kitchen, “uh, can dogs get high?”

Kiba laughed, “you’re probably wondering where Akamaru is! He’s chillin’ in the backyard. He’s cool with it though, he’s a total bro. He’s got hella treats out there, we’ve got hella treats in here. Equality, you feel?”

“For sure, for sure. I’ll just approve the charge now and we’ll be on our way!”

“Not so fast you two! Here at the Kiba Hut, we support tripping out in a safe environment, so you should take Shino’s new-new here.”

Sasuke and Sakura exchange glances. What did they have to lose?

----

Well, for starters, their grasp on reality.

They sat at Kiba’s kitchen table to take what Shino gave them and saved the edibles for later. And it was like nothing they had ever experienced.

“Sasuke. Your eyes are really red. Like not just the whites but your uh, pupil or whatever is the colored part.”

Sasuke rubbed at his eyes, “no they’re not. I can see them. So I know they’re not red.”

“Uhh, okay? They totally are though. And..did your head get bigger?”

“No but yours did. Ha, if only Ino was here. Hey, forehead. Wait—what the fuck, when did we get so small?”

“Oh my god, you’re so cute. You’re so short, Sasuke, you’re so small!”

*A/N: please imagine them as the SD versions of themselves*

Sakura started scooting forward on her chair. “What do we do now? How do we get down? We’re so small. We can’t stay here. What the fuck is going on? What did they give us?”

“It’s so hot in here. What did Kiba say about getting ready to hot box? What does that mean, like sweaty boxing? Where’s our water?” Sasuke looked up to their glasses of water on the table, which seemed miles away in their shrunken state.

“There’s no way we can reach up there. My head feels too heavy for my body, I’ll fall over if we try to jump.”

“Shit. Shit, okay, take your jacket off, first of all, am I the only one melting? Are the walls melting? Just throw it on the ground and to make a cushion. I’ll throw mine down on top and we can jump down.”

“Are you insane? What if we die?”

Sasuke gave Sakura a judgemental look, “we might as well be, I’m so fucking high! Just jump, I’m sure it won’t be that bad. Plus, I’ll go first and I’ll catch you,” he finished with a wink. He threw his jacket down on the floor with a pointed expression. A burgundy cardigan soon followed. And Sasuke jumped.

A voice sounded from below, “it worked! I made it! Jump now!”

Somehow Sasuke’s now doll proportion arms caught Sakura despite her now huge head. He set her down and started looking for the exit. There was no way they could push the kitchen door open, and he didn’t even want to see Kiba at the moment. It was so hot in the kitchen, he just wanted to get out of there.

“Sasuke! There!” Sakura pointed across the kitchen to the backyard. The doggy door.

“Fucking score! Let’s go.”

He grabbed her hand and they scurried across the tile as fast as their little legs could take them. But they needed to climb up a small threshold to get through the door, and the run combined with the heat of the kitchen had really drained them. They exchanged a look. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Akamaru’s dog bowl was full of water.

“Give me a boost!” Sakura told Sasuke as they faced the metal bowl. The way the metal warped their reflection made her feel even more tripped out, if that was possible. She just needed water now.

Sakura climbed up onto Sasuke’s clasped hands, grabbing onto the edge of the bowl. She held herself up on the edge and dipped her head to take a cool, refreshing drink.

Except her mouth encountered strands of white dog hair floating all around the water. She nearly toppled backwards as she tried to spit it all out, “ew, ew! Disgusting!”

Sasuke lowered her and asked as if it wasn’t already apparent, “so I’m guessing I shouldn’t drink the dog water?” She shook her head, “let’s just go outside.”

They walked to Kiba’s lawn and collapsed. It seemed like the sprinklers had just finished their cycle, so the cool, wet grass was a welcome change from the stuffy kitchen. “Sorry for dragging you here. I didn’t think it would be like this,” Sakura spoke quietly. Sasuke was a bit of a homebody to say the least, so when he didn’t have a good time during their outings, she always felt guilty for pushing him too far for comfort.

But he didn’t care as much as she always thought he did, he just enjoyed spending time with his girlfriend. They would both cherish these memories in the future since they were attending separate colleges. “It wasn’t that bad. Makes for a good story, I guess.”

Except the night wasn’t over, because a deep growl sounded from the shadowy corner of the yard.

Sakura bolted up, “Akamaru?!” before Sasuke dragged her back down, “are you trying to get us eaten? Keep quiet and just run!” Sasuke pointed to the side gate and without another word, they made a break for it. They didn’t bother locking the gate up again, too intent on getting the fuck out of there.

Sasuke took one look at his car and said, “nope. I’m not getting in that thing. We’re still coming down and it’s not safe. What if I get a DUI? What if we die? My dad would kill me either way.” Sakura nodded along as they started walking down the street, not another soul in sight.

Konoha wasn’t a huge town, despite never visiting Kiba’s house before, they could easily make their way back. “Hey, the park isn’t that far away. We could go sober up there then come back for your car?”

----

It seemed like whatever Shino gave them had mostly worn off during their walk and their stone bench looked more inviting than ever. They had shared countless moments there, from their first kiss, to their first “I love you”. They even opened their college acceptance letters there. Sakura swung her legs back and forth on the bench, “You know, I still have the edible in my bag. Should we?”

Sasuke ran a hand through his midnight hair, “Jesus fuck, alright. We’ve gotten this far and I know you wanted to try it. We can split it.”  

They had been sitting and talking for quite some time when Sakura started giggling more and feeling some type of way. “Woah. Is this why half our classmates came to school high everyday? What have we been missing?”

Sasuke’s eyes were half lidded as he slouched on the bench, “maybe Naruto is actually onto something. We should call him. Haha. Naruto. What a loser.”

Sakura started patting around her pockets to call their friend, “Sasuke. I think I left my phone in my cardigan pocket, which we left on the kitchen floor. Fuck, I’m so stupid,” but she was still laughing a little and Sasuke just shrugged. “It be like that. I left mine too. We can get them later and we can call Naruto later. Life is so chill.”

Sakura smiled, “exactly, it really do be like that. And life is so chill. Like woah. Are you hungry by the way?” Sasuke perked up a bit and nodded, “starving. Ichirauku is just around the corner.”

----

Sitting in the vinyl Ichiraku booth waiting for their cheeseburgers, Sakura was relieved to be somewhere she’s familiar with. But then she spotted a face she’s very familiar with after years of sleepovers and flower shop visits: Ino’s dad. She ducked down started tapping her palm the table, “Sasuke, don’t look, don’t look, it’s Ino’s dad. This is terrible, he’s like a fucking mind reader or something he’s totally gonna know we’re high.”

“Can you stop, he’ll look this way if you keep making noise. Just be chill or something.” He couldn’t help but steal a glance over his shoulder to confirm if it really was Inoichi. “Holy shit, wait. Is that Shikamaru’s dad?”

Sakura craned her neck to see over Sasuke’s head, “it totally is! And they’re with Chouji’s dad too! This is crazy. If they see us they’re gonna tell my mom. And then I’ll be on permanent house arrest.” She sank lower into her chair until her pink head rested on the table.

Sasuke placed his chin on his folded hands. He had endured enough shenanigans for one night, it was time to just wait this one out. Once he got his cheeseburger with extra tomatoes he was ready to go home and knock out.

Except Chouza’s laugh carried across the diner, and so did his booming voice, “just like the old days, right guys? We still get the munchies!”

Sakura perked back up when she heard this, “did he just say the munchies? Oh my god, Sasuke they’re high. They probably smoked weed and now they’re here because they have the munchies. Just like you and me. This night is too fucking weird.”

Thankfully as the trio of dads was about to walk out with their food to-go, the waitress arrived with their order and blocked them from view. The pair ate in relative silence, glad for a moment of calm. But it didn’t last because not long after the dads left, another familiar figure walked in.

“Sakura, you’ll never fucking believe it. Actually just look, it’s Kakashi.”

She whipped around to see that it really was none other than their favorite literature teacher. She waved him over without thinking twice and Sasuke kicked her under the table. “What are you thinking,” he grits out. Kakashi was cool, hell, cool enough to let everyone call him by his first name, but he was still their teacher. An adult who worked for their school. Someone who could totally get them in trouble. Like, worse than detention, and they’d never even had detention.

“If it isn’t my favorite students,” Kakashi smiled as if seeing them outside of school was a perfectly normal occurrence. “What are you doing here?” Sakura questioned innocently, as if it wasn’t well into the night and she didn’t reek of weed.  

“Picking up some food,” he answered matter-of-factly. “I could ask the same of you two, you’re normally home studying at this time of night, am I wrong?” Nope, he was 100% correct.

Sasuke chose his words carefully, “tonight has been an anomaly. But I am ready for bed now.” Kakashi nodded, “I see. You look like you’re done eating, so it won’t be long now. Drive carefully.”

The students exchanged a look before Sasuke swallowed his pride and started to beg as best as he knew how, “please, can you drive us home, we walked here from somewhere else and I don’t feel comfortable operating a motor vehicle in my currention condition, if you know what I mean.” Kakashi considered the two of them. They were certainly acting strange. Was Sakura trying to wink at him or was that a nervous twitch?

His eyes crinkled, “one ride won’t hurt, it’s late and what kind of teacher would I be if I left my students out to fend for themselves? I’ll just pick up my order and we can leave.”

----

They got situated in the car, just to find their former elementary school teacher Iruka sitting in the passenger seat. Sakura’s jaw dropped as she looks between Kakashi and Iruka. “You,” she points to the gray haired man, “and you?” she points to the ponytailed man. “Huh,” added Sasuke, “I thought Iruka hated tardiness, but Kakashi is late to class everyday.”

“Honey,” Iruka laughed nervously, “did you not tell your students about us? You always call them your precious students, I mean, I thought you’d tell at least these kids and Naruto.”

“Yeah,” jeered Sakura from the back seat, “what other secrets are you hiding Kakashi?”

“Sakura, shut up, shut up, Naruto texted me to come over now. He has something really cool to show us—or so he says. I wanna see, plus he owes us for sending us to Kiba’s. Kakashi take us to Naruto’s instead.”

Kakashi sighed, “I’ve seen some shit being a teacher, but I never thought I’d become a chauffeur for my students. But alright.” He made a U-turn and headed to Naruto’s. He had been there plenty of times, seeing as Minato was the school principal and something of a mentor to Kakashi.

----

After a car ride filled with the Mamma Mia soundtrack (Iruka claimed it was neutral territory, everyone loves it), they finally got dropped off at Naruto’s. They knocked on the door, ready for whatever surprise Naruto had to show them. When he flung the door open, they had never seen their friend so excited. His blue eyes were sparkling, “hurry! My room!” and he scurried into the house before they could even take their shoes off.

Naruto’s room was already quite a sight to behold considering the orange color scheme and ramen cups littering his desk, but his new orange quilt wasn’t what had Sakura screaming. “Why the fuck do you have a fox? Is that legal? Where did you get that thing?”

The blonde sniffed, “excuse me, ‘that thing’ has a name. Say hi to Kurama. Isn’t he a cutie?” Sasuke crossed his arms. Yup, their best friend had lost his mind. Even the fox’s collar and ID tag were orange. “And just what do you plan on doing with a fox, idiot?”

Naruto considered this for a moment, “I dunno. Didn’t think that far. I got it from this guy I know. Do you think Suna State allows pets in the freshman dorms?” Sasuke pinched the bridge of his nose. Hopeless, he was really hopeless. And then he remembered how Naruto had let them down earlier, but he didn’t think it was because he had acquired a new pet. “What was that all about earlier? How do you not have weed?”

“Oh yeah! I have something else to show you! It’ll explain everything. Come into the basement. Say bye to Kurama first.” Sakura half-heartedly waved at the rather grumpy looking fox in his cage before they followed Naruto down below.

----

There was no way the universe wasn’t fucking with them. “Sai? Why the hell are you in Naruto’s basement?”

“So rude, Saucey-k! He’s my guest, you’re a pest! And he’s painting, duh.” Their very strange and very pale friend was sitting in front of a giant canvas that nearly stretched the entire span of the wall. He was adding details to what looked like a picture of Naruto in a loincloth. He was lounging on his side, eating grapes with one hand, and petting a fox with the other.

“Yeah no shit, I can see that,” Sasuke quipped, “but why?” Naruto huffed at him again, like it was obvious, “he needs money for his college tuition, so I commissioned him to paint me and Kurama. I’m looking pretty sexy, right?” Sakura didn’t bother answering him, “how does this ‘explain everything’, though?”

Naruto snapped two finger guns at them, “oh, right! Sai is an artist. And he does his best work when he’s high. He obviously needed a lot of weed to complete this masterpiece, so I gave him all my weed. It’s like, paying it forward or something.” If at all possible, Sasuke was even more irritated than before. He couldn’t spare a gram for his lifelong best friends, but he could give it all to this guy? Traitor.

“Well, now that you’ve seen it, we should leave Sai to work in peace. Looks amazing, cutie! Kurama, we’re coming back up, did you miss me already?”

---

“Wanna pet him? He’s only bit me six times in the last hour, I think he really likes my vibe or something.” Before either of them could protest, Naruto started opening the cage. “Kurama, come here, come here. Who’s a good boy? Who wants to get pet?” His arms made a circle for Kurama to settle into when the fox started stalking towards the cage door. He pounced through the gap in Naruto’s arms and hit the ground running.

“Kurama, wait! We were just becoming such good friends! Come back here!” The trio immediately chased after the animal, but he was too fast and he escaped out of their doggy door and into the night. They rushed into the backyard just in time to see Kurama leap over the fence and out of the Uzumaki property.

They all plopped down onto the grass and Naruto started wailing, “he’s gone! What did I do wrong? Please, you guys we have to find him!” They definitely weren’t high anymore, they were too tired for this, but they weren’t shitty friends, so they agreed to go look for him.

----

They had even enlisted Sai to help them out. As they walked around Naruto’s neighborhood calling for Kurama, Naruto’s phone started ringing, “do you think Kurama is calling? He wants to come home!” He started excitedly fishing his phone out of his front pocket, “Kiba? Why would he be calling now?” Sasuke and Sakura settled on the sidewalk, expecting some weird conversation between dealers.

“You found him? Holy shit man! Yeah, yeah, I’ll be there soon! Thanks bro!” he hung up the phone and faced his friends, “Kiba found Kurama! Let’s go, we have to go now before Kurama starts missing me too much!”

And they were headed back to the place where the night had begun.

----

Thankfully Kiba only lived a few blocks away because Sakura’s feet were dragging with exhaustion. They were standing in Kiba’s backyard and she leaned against Sasuke’s shoulder as they listened to the explanation. The back gate was mysteriously left open, and Akamaru wandered out into the front yard. He was having a relaxing evening chewing a bone on the front lawn when a fox appeared. It seemed that the fox smelled Akamaru’s treat bank in the back and wanted a taste for himself. When Akamaru started barking like mad, very peeved that some other animal was trying to get at his precious treats, Kiba went outside to see what was going on. He just thought he was hallucinating since he was super high, but it was really a fox.

“And then I saw he had a tag and it had your name and number!” Kiba finished. Naruto had tears in his eyes, “that’s amazing. Kurama probably smelled Akamaru and just wanted a friend. Friendship is so powerful!” He was hand feeding Kurama treats, who looked much more complacent now that he was being fed.

They all made their way back into the house just as Kiba’s kickback was winding down. Sai disappeared into the kitchen for a while, returning with a cardigan and a jacket. “Ugly, this is a terrible color I’ve only ever seen you wear. And your boyfriend is basically attached to you, so I’m assuming this is his.” Sakura reached out to grab them from his hands before settling back on the couch.

“Thanks again, Kiba. I’m gonna take Kurama home now,” Naruto turned to face Sasuke and Sakura. “You two live in the opposite direction. Are you gonna walk?”

“I can drive.” The whole group looked to the front of the room where the voice came from. “Shino?” asked Sakura, “I didn’t even realize you were still here. And aren’t you high?”

“I’m the supplier and the designated driver.” When he offer any further explanation, Sasuke and Sakura shrugged and got up from the couch. Sasuke could get his car tomorrow. A free ride back to his comfy bed sounded wonderful.

----

Sakura had fallen asleep almost immediately when she got back to her own room, not even bothering to change her outfit. It had to be well into the afternoon when she finally woke up. Her head felt fuzzy and her mouth was dry. Was last night even real?

She grabbed her phone out of her cardigan pocket just to find that it was dead. But her pocket also held a napkin, “what is this? I don’t remember putting this in here?”

She unfolded the white napkin to see one of Sai’s signature ink drawings. It depicted Sakura, drawn in red pen, leaning against Sasuke, drawn in blue pen. He even added a bit of background—it looked like the grass and fence of Kiba’s backyard. He must’ve drawn it when he went into the kitchen. Sakura plugged her phone in and flopped back down onto her bed. She stared at the little drawing, wishing she was with Sasuke right now.

So last night was real.

----

A/N: this isnt meant to make nerds feel bad about staying at home. im writing fanfic so i am the nerd at home

First date scenarios for the boys?

So, it’s finally time for a more serious suggestion from my end, after the freakin’ piss thing... I’m sorry for everyone who’s randomly come across it through tags in utter confusion... but I decided that I also have no regrets. This is the sin I must carry with me, and I must learn to live with it.Anyway, I decided to go for this one since it also felt like a fairly natural follow-up from the first one I did! I hope y’all like it!

Shuichi Saihara:- For the first date, Shuichi decides to choose something more simple: A library! After all, he loves novels and thinks it’d be sweet to read them not just alone, but now with his date as well.- The two of them don’t just sit down in a corner quietly and read novels, however. Curious to find out what the library holds in store, Shuichi and his date look through every bookshelf and find out what each of them have in store, investigating them Ultimate Detective-style.- Aside from promising novels to rent, they also find a ton of things neither of them knew someone would even write a book about…- But the highlight of the day was the two stumbling upon the erotica section. Despite their embarassment, they push further and further into the section out of sheer curiosity and find things both amazing and disturbing all the same.- As they finally go out of the library, Shuichi is a nervous, flustered, but satisfied wreck. When asked about whether the date went well and all, Shuichi could certainly state that it was a very memorable first date, and a cute but embarassing story to tell for the future.Kaito Momota:- This is Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars! What else could he take is date to other than an astronomical observatory? However, it’s located on quite the altitude… but does the Luminary of the Stars and his companion for life really need public transport?- In other words, the date starts with him and his date racing to the top of the observatory. Without a single break.- When the two finally arive at the top they are both very physically exhausted, just in time for the two of them to relax as Kaito shows his date around in the observatory.- It’s times like these where the normally seemingly idiotic Kaito’s scientific knowledge as an astronaut shines through as he tells his date of the many discoveries that have been made here and every space-related project that the observatory has supported. It’s very easy to tell how proud he is of this information, and his enthusiastic spirit turns a lecture that would normally be boring to listen to into a truly exciting story.- At the end of the day, the two actually do end up driving back on the bus, Kaito’s date sleeping with their head on his shoulder.Ryoma Hoshi:- Since Ryoma is a bit of a withdrawn person, he and his date agree on making their first date a cozy movie night right at his date‘s home.- Hoshi left it to his date to pick the movies as well. Keeping in mind that despite having lost his past, he is still very nostalgic towards his old talent, they look for anime and movies with a tennis theme to them. After going through everything with Ryoma, they decide on watching the anime together.- While watching the show, Ryoma is filled with a surge of excitement. He tells his date how every single scene reminds him of something he had experienced while he was still a tennis player. He really starts to get invested into the show and cheers for the characters. For someone that’s as gruff as he usually is, seeing Ryoma’s sweet side fills his date with warmth.- They try to embrace Ryoma, and he does indeed not give any resistance to it. It’s easy to tell that this is the first time in a long time where he has truly felt at ease. Hoshi starts to get tired, and in the end, the two fall asleep in eachothers arms as the anime is still running in the background.Rantaro Amami:- As a callback to how they first got to know eachother, Rantaro takes his date to his favorite tea place. It might be a bit old-school, but it’s definitely looped around and became cool again!- He invites his date to the place saying that he’ll handle all expenses and that it’s absolutely no big deal for him to spoil them this once. They feel a bit bad about leeching off his money, but he makes that worry quickly vanish.- The tea place has all varieties of tea one can think of, from every part of the world. Rantaro says that it’s exactly this multicultural charm that makes him come back here every time and encourages his date to try everything they’d like. - The two end up ordering crumpets, cookies and other pastries alongside their teas. As they were waiting for the pastries to be freshly prepared, Rantaro orders Boba Tea first, which is his favorite. He explains that it was an originally Taiwanese drink that became a phenomenon around the world. His date just goes along with him on this one, but makes sure to always change up the place the tea is from on their next ones.- After their delicious tea time, the two leave satisfied - and Rantaro with an empty wallet. But he has no regrets.Gonta Gokuhara:- “Now that Gonta finally is in relationship, Gonta must become true gentleman and take partner out for dinner!”- Of course, it had to be at the fanciest restaurant in the place. It’s not like the two aren’t able to pay it, but his date was not sure whether or not he’ll be alright… but in the end, you just gotta believe in Gonta, right?- In a way, they are proven both right and wrong.- Yes, of course, they still have to educate Gonta on things like table manners a little. Or on how to talk to the staff. But all in all? Gonta is doing great.- They are able to tell how happy Gonta is in his role. He’s absolutely in his element. There are just two sides to him, just like he has two families and two aspirations. And that’s completely fine.- The two leave completely stuffed with all the extravagant dishes they wanted to try. His date tells Gonta how proud they are of him and boy, he’s never been this flusted and happy before upon hearing this, squishing his date in a massive hug.Kokichi Ouma:- How would one even have a first date with Kokichi, one might think. But he just happens to have the perfect answer… - …To the amusement park, of course! After all, Ouma still has a bit of a childish side to him, doesn’t he?- Maybe a bit too much of a childish side, as he drags his date to every ride in the park. Every. Single. One. Without a break at all.- His date was hoping they could maybe eat something at the food court together, but it seems like Kokichi really is just in it for the rides. - Seeing him have so much fun trying everything out really is a cute experience, though. Even though his date was getting a bit annoyed at him, they can’t stay mad at him forever. He’s just too precious when he wants to be.- The two came right when the park opened (”that’ll give us the best chance to snatch some rides early so we don’t have to wait!”) and ended up staying up until the park closed up. At the end, no one could say that they’ve been bored for long throughout this whole date, at least!Korekiyo Shinguji:- When researching where to go for the date, having something anthropological in mind for the first, the two found out that the local museum has a special exhibit on Japanese fairy tales for a limited time.- Interested in hearing and seeing more on the background of the stories one has heard as a child, Kiyo’s date agrees to visit the exhibit with him. Of course, there’s no need to book a tour guide, since the Ultimate Anthropologist himself is at their side!- Surprisingly enough, the exhibit ends up being pretty crowded and well-visited. As Korekiyo is telling his date about each and every little detail of the fairy tales and the objects that are shown to illustrate them, not just they, but everyone else, even the guides, go silent and listen. It is almost a bit embarassing for his date, and they feel a bit left out.- As Korekiyo finishes his lecture, everyone claps and showers him with praise. But he ignores it all and quickly goes on with his date just to spend some quiet time with them and give them his only focus. After all, Kiyo would never let his date feel unappreciated for long.- The two leave, reassured of their relationship, and the date feels much wiser than they were just a few hours ago.Keebo:- Keebo left it up to his date to determine where to go. After all, every step towards understanding human culture better is a good step. The date remembers that Keebo, while he did study comedy routines, never actually went and saw one in action, and they felt the need to finally fix that.- While Keebo is pretty secure about his understanding of human comedy, he is able to be convinced to go watch the show in person.- Saying that it goes well for Keebo would be an understatement. His date stops counting the times he’s laughed in the evening - so far, it has been at even the tiniest, stupidest jokes. It seems like Keebo is indeed able to understand comedy... but as he was never directly exposed to it until now, he laughs more often then even a young toddler. He does ask what certain things mean every once in a while, however, but his date is happy to whisper it to him.- After the show is over, Keebo keeps on gushing about how fun this all was, and constantly quotes his favorite jokes from the show, chuckling at them over and over. It would’ve gotten annoying for his date after a while if this was anyone else... but since this is coming from Keebo, they cannot help but feel completely enarmoured and glad that this was such a massive success!

The Last Jedi: BTan Review (Spoilers)

Here it is: I decided to write everything out because I obviously have too many feelings to process lol #allthefeels. A movie that has already proven to be a fairly polarizing 2nd (or 9th, if we're really counting) entry into the Star Wars metaverse deserves some cathartic play-by-play analysis. After all, that's more than half the fun (and point) of being a SW fan, is it not? Obvious disclaimer for SPOILERS, and I only saw the movie once - Thursday premiere night. Without further ado... here I go. *deep Lamaze breaths.

Comparison: Empire.

Let's be honest: with an ominous title and precedent-breaking RED Star Wars logo, it was inevitable that this second entry in this trilogy would illicit endless comparison to it's predecessor - namely, Empire, the 2nd SW movie ever in the OG trilogy, which has a darker tone and is widely regarded as the "Best" SW movie ever by fans - arguably, I might add. (IMO, A New Hope is the best SW movie of all time. BUT I DIGRESS) Considering how much TFA was designed after A New Hope, for better or for worse, it would be no surprise that The Last Jedi would mirror, borrow, or dare I say steal from Empire: major elements, settings, plot lines, et al. Fans and I alike were simultaneously loathed and relieved to find that this was both true and... not true, in this case.

Let's break it down via Empire lines:

Hoth: Empire/Rebel stand-off with low-rising ships and AT-AT fighters in a cold-climate planet with snow and winter-y creatures? Check. (this time at the end, not the beginning! what a twist.)

Yoda/Luke on Dabogah: Mentor/mentee jedi "training" period that transports a main character away from central Rebel action for the majority of the movie? Check.

"I am your father": Said main character is only to return for a climatic confrontation on an Empire ship with the main villain and discover parentage? Check.

Rebel characters engage in a cat-&-mouse run from a Empire ship that tracks them (A la Boba Fett & the Worm monster in the Asteroid fields)? Check.

Reunion-Hopeful end scene: With some medical care, hand holding, smiling, and small sliver of hope left just by still being together despite all the odds? Check.

Puppet-Yoda. period.

Thankfully, nobody's hand was severed or body was carbon-frozen. (Let's not get all Starkiller Base on us again.) Elements were certainly borrowed, but I don't think it was a hammer over the head in the same way that TFA was to A New Hope. A lot of the reviews are citing how "different" and "surprising" the plot twists and storyline went, and I will give Rian Johnson credit there. This was certainly not a carbon copy of Empire because, while borrowing fairly obvious major elements - Yoda/Luke and Luke/Rey being the most - it does its own thing with them....that doesn't always work out for the best, however.

1. Dagobah vs the Island (Ach-To, or whatever.)I think a lot of us expected (and were ready for) some head-on Yoda training of Rey. Give us a training montage. Knock her to her feet, do handstands, and make her lift that X-fighter from under the ocean (Did anyone catch that down there!?). OK - we don't need the whole she-bang, but give us something. I get that Luke is in no way the same master or teacher as Yoda, and he was going through this whole crotchety old-man complex and didn't actually want to train her. But when he and the movie actually got around to it... what even happened, really? We were treated to, frankly, weird and beautiful but unexplained cinematographic sequences (life! death! balance? and a dark seaweed-y dark tunnel?... ultimately leading to fun with mirrors? so many Reys, so few parents). My issue with them is this whole "training" period - which is a significant if not major crux of the whole movie - is that she's not really trained at all. Luke is basically like, "You're scary, Rey. ...OK, I'll watch you swing around my light saber." Like, what? I feel like the trailer gave the same level of impact of Rey's whole training on that damned island. She goes there, she gets trained eventually, and then she's a stronger Jedi - excuse me, er, "Force User." The movie really dragged its feet with this, and not in a satisfying way to me.

In Empire, you were on Dagobah forever but were enraptured by Luke's fear, frustration, and mystery over the force and his training (not to mention the charm of puppet-Yoda, bless him). Here, I couldn't wait to get off the island. I feel like I was stuck on LOST. Nothing was happening, the main mystery was "What Did Luke REALLY DO to Ben?", Rey talked to Kylo Ren a lot, Rey and Luke stalked each other... and - perhaps most insulting of all - our entertainment/comedic relief was pulled out of admittedly cute but pretty ridiculous creatures. More on all the creatures below, but for now: I'm anti-porg (hated all the random noise placements), and pro-caretakers - cute and funny. BUT - do you see what I mean? How was this adding to anything? We were charmed and entertained by Yoda and Luke all on their own as characters - their dynamic, struggles, values taught, etc. Here, it was like... welcome to the Island! We're, here... on the island. There are cute things and some mysteries. Train yourself Rey and leave as you like. See what I mean? Similar to Empire, but... not really, or at all, a better or improved version just by being different from it.

The saving graces are Daisy and Mark Hamill, who deliver strong and captivating performances as expected. Sadly, it's the writing and script here that fail them. Point is: this is a major/the plot point of this movie, Rey's training and answers as a Force User. Sure- what's happening with the Resistance is important, but the mythology and magic of this SW story is getting built with Rey. While necessary to bring her to the island with Luke, I just think our time there was a bit wasted. Too much "lemme follow Luke" ... "lemme follow Rey"... "oh look, another Porg!" *holds head in hands.

2. Rebels vs The ResistanceMeanwhile - because this movie, as SW movies are apt to do, requires a lot of Meanwhiles - the Resistance is stuck. They're out of fuel, tracked by the Empire after a mission, and getting clipped down. ...totally sounds familiar, right? In Empire, they run and hide - but get caught. They had the benefit of a budding romance with Han & Leia, and chemistry between them all - Chewie included. Here: they try to run, but are stuck. My issue is what they do to make it different this time, instead of Astroid Fields and a Cloud City: I guess they went with "A Codebreaker" and "Political Mutiny."

I have to admit: it must be really challenging to figure out to do with the Rebel/Resistance story arc. I'm sure when they sat down to write this script, they thought "OK: while Rey is off being important, what can we give the Resistance to do and make it fun, compelling, and just as consequential?" -Sadly, I think they really struggled here. It becomes the major middle of the movie, which just drags. Here was their solution: Introduce 3 new characters; go on adventures; solve the problem, and combine the plotlines. go.

First, as I'll discuss below with the Crowded Cast, the new characters (with the exception of Kelly Marie Tran) don't really amount to any new, exciting chemistry. It's less of a family, and more of a clusterf*ck to figure out what to do next... and then some.

Second: The Go on Adventures part was, simply put, random. Finn and Rose's romp to the casino land was a great plug/opportunity for a Mos Eisley Cantina - feel, not to mention pretty incredible wardrobe and set design. I felt mesmerized watching that first long shot of the casino: over the top, significant attention to detail, and fabulous. I do like the backstory we get on the planet's riches from sales to the Empire. Still, those are the highlights, but its all... random. and very quick. I don't want something to just "be a highlight" - it should have some purpose and add to the story. Otherwise, we're in prequel territory (Naboo is beautiful! ...so what?) The rest: "Find the Codebreaker" mission, randomly given by Maz - just seemed silly, and they didn't even manage to make contact with mustached Justin Thoreaux - settling for Benicio Del Toro in jail. Again, all random, and all just kinda like... ok, *shrug*, I'll just go with this? I know that's the spirit of SW - being a ragtag crew that just "figures it out" as you go. Here, however, they give a lot of twists and turns that your head is in a tailspin. They're in the casino, then in jail, but now they're riding creatures, but they got caught, but DJ saved them, but then he sold them out...? You're left feeling like, Wow. what was the point of that at all.

Meanwhile... Mutiny is afoot! Admiral Holdo vs Poe for control. Like I'm saying, it's all just like... so what? They're stuck in space and they need a solution, so Poe waits on one while Holdo pursues another one. It really feels like a placeholder, one that I think they just didn't need to develop all that much- yet, develop they did. They threw in so many twists into this plotline that felt unnecessary: we're abandoning ship?! oh - there's a planet down there? wait - leia's awake? no, wait - they're shooting us all down?... it felt like a waste of time. Sure, show them in struggle against the Empire, but let's move on. (Here, I'd like to note this movie is 2 hours and 30 minutes. that's LOTR territory, yall - not in the good way. Like, yikes.)

To summarize the Empire talk, I think they borrowed many checkpoint facts but didn't change them in truly effective ways. Let's be honest: the Empire framework is one we were all thinking about going into this. Below are more reasons why I think this movie's approach was successful... or not.

Crowded Cast.

Any true fan will tell you why the OG trilogy is the best: chemistry. Carrie, Mark, and Harrison had on-screen spark that continues to last 40 years later. All they had was droids and a walking carpet in Chewbacca as successful, impactful sidekicks (...forgetting the Ewoks, mind you.) We didn't need more. Even when Lando shows up, it's not a big deal - because it feels natural.

Characters aren't just being thrown in and added just for the sake of more characters. (If they are, it's for some plot point or twist that really pushes things along. Lando case in point: Empire needed a double-agent to get Han carbon-frozen & bring Luke out of Dagobah to encounter Vader, get hand cut off, hang from a Cloud City antenna, etc.)

I really thought in TFA, we were building to just that kind of "family" power. In our trio this time around, I think it was a solid effort at re-emulating what once was - The jokes and "banter" in TFA was believable, and you liked them as a crew. A family.

Unfortunately, this is less like a family of a cast than ever before; It's more meta, like: Here's this conflict in space that obviously involves hundreds of characters. Let's give each of them a little spotlight. There really is just too, too much going on character-wise. I'm just going to go at this bullet style with all the ancillary characters, because I have all of the complaints.

General Hux: admirable attempt to emulate Tarkin, but given way too much screen-time as if he actually matters. I think he's funny in the "evil" role - but that encapsulates my problem with it entirely. you should not be funny, or "evil" with g-d quotes around it. (Also, he's Bill Weasley. Like, just train your dragons.)

Snoke: NO. Why? Where's his story? Who is he? WHAT is he? He's just an <insert here> CGI bad guy from nowhere? What - were those scars that looked just like Anakin's head scars just to F*** with SW fan theories?!  There are plenty of bad guys in the SW universe that have Force powers and came out of nowhere. Like, who is Count Dooku, even. But I'm even fine with Dooku. This is like decades after the Emperor has fallen, and now "Snoke" rules the world... we def need a little more than just a gold f***ing kimono.

Captain Phasma: Fail. What an absolute waste. She could've been a cool, deep, fun character. Give her way more screentime over Hux. Instead, we get two lousy fights and a shot of Brienne's eye... like, *applause for your death?

Emo Kylo Ren. Sorry, reviewers: this is NOT a spectacular show of acting. This is bratty, brooding boy turned young man all wrong. I get it, I know -- this shows how darkness is complex and conflicting and not one side of the coin, I get that. Despite that, he still comes off as an impish child. Like, King Joffrey status. (Does that change anyone's mind?!) I don't care that he has great hair and "broods" well. Snoke's dialogue with him is the only thing I like about the two of them: "Take that stupid mask off your face." "You're nothing but a child." Very, true. That's the character. I shouldn't be able to make fun of the darkest evil and now supreme leader in that way. (...then again... Trump.)

Overall, I have been incredibly disappointed with the dark side in this new trilogy. Not menacing, threatening, or even "dark" at all. Throwaway characters. The fact that it can basically be made a joke - Emo Kylo Ren on SNL; Hux's ridiculous flailing and fails - is telling. Now, the light side:

Admiral Holdo: more like Who, doe? Laura Dern is an incredible actor, and she was very underutilized here. Very few lines of dialogue to sink her teeth into, and the whole Mutiny situation all passed by in what felt like an inconsequential flash. I feel like her inclusion was not necessary at all. It felt very Battlestar Galactica-y: commander of a rival ship comes, creates political conflict. She's also completely out of place with that hair and wardrobe... I get you commanded another ship, but aint nobody else on the Resistance looking like that. She looked more suited to the casino.

DJ. again, who? Benicio Del Toro, another fantastic actor, underutilized in a way that demonstrates he prob shouldn't have been used at all. His stuttering was pretty insulting and not charming like I guess they thought it would be. I'm guessing he has some double-agent turn to play in episode 9 (I guess as the Lando addition), but he certainly didn't add any value to this cast or story whatsoever.

Maz Katana: Well, that was funny, but random. Another wasted resource in Lupita Nyongo.

Rose. saving grace of the movie! Anyone knows I'm the first to shout about inclusive representation in entertainment; giving an Asian-American nerd such a highlighted role was fantastic. and not just b/c shes an Asian-American Nerd; just because she was fantastic in it. She's also 28, so she's just like me. That's empowering and awesome to see. Totally emulated the Rey, Finn, Poe trio dynamic-chemistry we got in TFA. Sadly, she's the only one we really got it from, other than:

Finn and Poe. sorry, they go in together because they really didn't give me much this time around. A lot of snappy dialogue and jokes that mostly landed. I'm disappointed, because I was ready to see that TFA chemistry continue and build. It mostly just remained stagnant, which isn't development to me. Also, I guess they're supposed to be main characters, but why didn't it feel that way? In TFA, they had an excuse - this was all just starting, and they had star power in Harrison, Daisy and Adam Driver to share screen time with. Now, I really feel like I needed them to step up as movers in this story - the same way Han was. Sadly, script and writing spread their power potential across far too many others.

Basically: it's crowded. It's like double the cast with half the punch. It's part of why I criticized Rogue One: ensemble cast that seems thrown together, just for the sake of being together. I think Laura Dern and Benicio Del Toro, hands down, just should not have been added. I'm hoping they can revitalize the familial feel we got in TFA in episode IX; I think we will, now that we got that reunion scene and JJ will be back.

Separately, the OGs:

Leia. the movie did an incredible job bidding her adieu. Luke's reunion with her sends chills down my spine. "No one's ever really gone." She's reportedly not in IX at all, so I'm sure they'll have her pass peacefully.

Luke. By contrast, I think his death was anti-climatic.

Puppet-Yoda: was skeptical on his re-appearance, but leave it to Frank Oz to put you back at total Yoda-zen ease. His lines on failure particularly hit home for me, and it def maintains the heart of SW here: the empathy and hope, in the face of loss and despair, really is what matters.

Is this still Star Wars?

One of the more shocking allegations by angry twitterverse is that this movie "RUINED" SW, and that this "isn't a SW movie at all." Especially saying this is worse than Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones! Can it be? I ultimately have to disagree. There are light sabers, the Force, Luke and Leia, spaceship battles, and droids. Also, it splits characters/storylines up in stupid ways on "adventures" that all eventually pull together and make sense (we guess). it's DEF still SW.

I do see their point, however. SW is a space battle/family drama, but you can't help but feel it's pull into different territories on this one. For one, I mentioned the Crowded Cast issue. My most immediate comparison on this one is Battlestar Galactica: stellar ensemble cast & chemistry, with very similar cat-&-mouse chases from the bad guys in space. Sadly, I just don't think SW is built for this kind of meta-character building. That's my main critique for this feeling less "SW".

Second: The chemistry. The humor, comedic relief, and jokes. I mean, where are we going with these? I'm mostly okay with a lot of the "easier" funny moments, because there are a lot of those in the OG trilogy; all it took was one Chewie growl to get us going. I'm glad they didn't do away with them completely - this is still mass entertainment after all. However, I do think they simply went overboard on this one. Ex: The milked BB-8's abilities way too far; is he really capable of taking out multiple humans? It felt a little like Guardians of the Galaxy but with a lot less natural comedic punch. Again, I credit that to chemistry and the crowded cast: there wasn't a lot of opportunity to build much on what was created in TFA. We got it out of Rose, Poe and Finn in limited doses; not much else. Otherwise, we were given a lot of Porgs. Please, let Jar Jar and Ewoks be a lesson of late.

The Last Jedi is totally a SW movie; however, it does admittedly feel different. I would say it feels stretched. Strained. A little frenetic & confused. It does all find itself by the end, but rather than all that being "Ah, The Plan All Along," it feels more like... "Oh, thank god they got there."

Action Sequences

One way it is totally SW, however, and I'm glad they did this justice: epic light saber battles. This struck a golden, perfect balance between the aerobatic, choreographed prequel fights to the more raw, emboldened OG trilogy fights that focus on face and grit. The climax fight is one to behold and is going down in the pantheon as one of the best, likely a top 5. Snoke's chamber and that red backlight is fantastic - ominous, bloody. A little shocked by how good those guards were; where the hell did they get trained? I'm sure we'll get more Kylo vs Rey in episode IX. Rey, thank god, has stepped up her game - treating it like an actual sword instead of a heavy hammer to drag. (But do you see what I mean about there being too much going on this entire movie? I totally forgot that Kylo Ren even had a crossguard lightsaber. like, completely.)

The space sequences are, as predicted, breathtaking and exciting. Wouldn't expect less. In the middle "we're out of fuel!" part of the movie, it does just feel like being stuck on a chess set piece; that's claustrophobic, but not really in the captivating way here. Not like Gravity. More like... I got tired of playing chess and left the board overnight & forgot it was there for a week. and i dont care.

Cringe-worthy.

There were truly a lot, like a lot, of cringes here. These are undeniable, in fact, and simply cannot be done away with. The movie lives with them forever. *sucks teeth*

Floating Leia. NOOOOO. (please send me every meme ever). This is obviously a very polarizing decision. Personally, I think they should've cut that entire segment and left it on the cutting room floor. Kylo Ren doesn't need to get close to shooting her; she doesn't need to be asleep; hell, there didn't need to be a Laura Dern or any Mutiny, imo. She could've hit her head in an explosion and been in a brief coma, if ANYTHING. Idk. It was a lot. Esp considering Carrie has passed, it felt... super, really, uncomfortably weird. Therefore, I will rewind that scene x100 times. (It's up there with "Anakin, you're breaking my heart! You're going down a path in which I cannot follow!" also, I cannot believe they killed Admiral Ackbar with such little grace as that. Offended.)

Blue Milk. What might be a charming easter egg to some was really just a funny-disturbing, horrifically-cringey moment. Luke Skywalker on his knees, sucking down milk from the Tittie-Testicles of a bantha creature in its crotch, spilling it onto his scraggly beard. humiliating. this is not the master jedi I'm looking for. I want to unsee that immediately.

Mirror, mirror. maybe some people thought it was cool. maybe its deep, insightful, or artistic in some way idc to know about. I just dont care. It was giving me Mirror of Erised vibes from Harry Potter, which felt stupid and went totally unexplained. *snap, snap!

Emo-Bitch Moaning: on behalf of Hux and Emo Kylo himself. So many lines, I can't even dredge up from memory just yet, they're that painful. Greatest hit: Kylo bitching "YOU SHOULD BE!" or something equally bitch-worthy to ghost-Luke during their fight. groan.

Benicio Del Toro's stuttering: painful and offensive. of no value.

Rose's "kiss" of Finn. Ouch.

-Creatures

There were, simply, a lot of creatures this time around. Here's some reactions to the greatest hits:

Porgs: I'm decidedly anti-Porg. I wish Chewie ate that roasted one in front of their crying faces. I also can't believe they started burrowing into the Falcon; the disrespect! Please swat them off the drawing board for episode IX, JJ. Unlike Ewoks and even Jar Jar, they added absolutely nothing to the story. Keep it purposeful, not random, please.

Caretakers: cute and hilarious. random.

Canto Bight riding creatures: They look like Voldemort. Actually a cross-breed of Dobby/house elves and Voldemort. Disturbing. (also, why all this Harry Potter crossover!?) random.

Ice Foxes: Cute, pretty, again very random and barely added anything of value.

One can't help but see the commercial angle in throwing the kitchen sink in with these creatures: they're automatic money machines to cash in on Christmas plush toys, not to mention drawings, books/resources to develop in on their stories/backgrounds, etc. Creatures are also a hallmark of SW. Again, though, you can't help but feel like it was a bit overdone here. I hardly remember any creatures from TFA, other than the octopus. (See? That was a fun adventure - and we met Han that way.)

Cliffhangers/Theories

It just seems hard to believe, however, that Rey and Kylo aren't TWINS to Han and Leia. How could they be otherwise connected so strongly and randomly? Just one fight in the snowy woods, and they've got psycho-powers to each other? I guess it could just be a coincidence of their Force powers. High midichlorian count, holla.

I'm still banking on the Kenobi theory myself: why else bring Ewan and Alec Guiness's voices from the grave for her TFA dream? Help us Rey Kenobi - you really are our only hope.

Conclusion

If you read this far, you need to get a life - much like myself. Ultimately, my word on The Last Jedi is: B. OK. Idk! I think there was a lot riding on this movie: It was going to determine how a huge leg of this new trilogy was going to continue and be as an identity, really. TFA did a beautiful job building the legwork, and Last Jedi was both a surprise and let down in many ways. You can't snuff the highlights that made it shine: Canto Bight's casino, the light saber duels, Daisy and Mark, and Kelly Marie Tran. It just needed a lot of editing, which it clearly didn't get enough of at it's running time. The Cringes shoot down at this film significantly.

Most importantly to me: Part of what makes SW fantastic isn't exploding ships and sword fights; plenty of movies have just that. What makes us fans is the draw of their mythology, continuing/evolving story, and feeling like we're on-board with the "Family" of characters we love the whole way through. It's why I love many installments of Final Fantasy, LOST, Battlestar Galactica, and GOT: it's character-based, character development that gets breathtaking. I think Last Jedi may have lost the heart of that, by nature of feeling random, sloppy, and going too long without going much of anywhere. I'm certainly glad to be off the island and out of that awful Chess-like impasse between their spaceships. Moments with Yoda and Luke separately were strong and kept the heart of SW. Still, there were just a lot of choices... too many polarizing choices. the kind you can't come back from, and that really get the movie off the swing of things.

I will obviously be re-watching and contemplating for weeks to come. Ah, to be a SW fan! Feels good. (and a little sad, but good all the same).

What if The Clone Wars had an eighth season?

In an alternate reality, George Lucas showed up to a meeting with Disney executives two hours late while drunk, pantsless, brandishing two stolen live pet chickens like Uzis, and covered with mysterious geometric bruises, forever ruining the rapport between the two companies, preventing Disney from purchasing Star Wars. 

As a result, the Star Wars: The Clone Wars TV show is not cancelled and I think these are some of the episodes that will be created. 

THE FILLER EPISODES

“I don’t care that you fools see me as weak if it means that I will see you drowning in your own arrogance.”                                                                          The show sort of raises the stakes by having General Grievous be brutally competent in an early episode, but he gets beat as easily as usual in later episodes, so there isn’t much point.

“HOOOOO YEAAAAAAH!” *sound of four Z-6 rotary blasters being fired at once by one man*                                                                                                 There’s an episode with absolutely no story or coherence solely focussed on Plo Koon and the 104th and it’s rad as hell.

“I think I’m a bad person if this is what I want.”                                          Katooni and friends try to show off in front of Jedi so that they might be chosen as Padawans, but when they are thrown into a real combat situation, they realize how terrible the war is and give up.

“Relax, friends! Judging by how well things are going, I think that only two of us will die! Pretty good, no?”                                                                                 Obi-Wan returns to his Rako Hardeen persona in order to team up with Hondo and Boba Fett to scam a fortune out of a Hutt crimelord, Grabo the Prosperous, freeing his slaves in the process. 

“BUT DESPITE ALL SETBACKS, THE REPUBLIC CONTINUES TO BRAVELY DEFEND- argh! Stop! HELP ME!”                                                                      The opening bombastic narration of this episode is cut off when the Separatists KIDNAP THE NARRATOR HIMSELF, a Republic newscaster/propagandist and the police of Coruscant have to rescue him. Tan Divo is there, no matter how hard everyone tries to get him to go away.

“Excuse me, sir! I can tell these are not truly Sluissi emeralds from their lack of diffracting lustre! Give me back my credits!”                                                       C-3PO and R2-D2 do some mind-numbingly boring errands for Padmé because there has to be at least one per season for some reason.

THE MERCHANDISE-DRIVEN EPISODES

“Oh no. That’s too many wheels.” “WAY too many wheels.”                                 A show producer accidentally puts in an order for many incredibly bizarre clone vehicle toys, and as a last ditch marketing attempt, a funny, heartwarming episode is made starring a new clone, Rotor, who is not a soldier, but he works in weapons and vehicles R&D. 

“That’s right, boys. I’m dressed to kill.”                                                           Aayla Secura, Adi Gallia, and Shaak Ti infiltrate an elite fashion show disguised as models in order to protect Senator Orn Free Taa, while Aurra Sing, Latts Razzi, and Asaji Ventress, also disguised as models, try to assassinate him. 

The cruddy, mediocre Republic Heroes game gets rebooted using the Battlefront engine. Because executives are imbeciles and believe that no human being in existence wants to buy a story-based FPS, an entire 3-parter, starring Cad Bane, is made to promote the game. It’s basically Casablanca with explosions.

“Ha. Ha. Ha. What do you mean by ‘How’re yer shtil alive?’ You imbecile. ‘Hurr how im gonna kill dat shkakoan? Oh im genius put the high presser lovin’ critter in a high presser.’ The best bounty hunter in the galaxy. Incredible.”                                                     Cad Bane is doing great, until he finds one of his many enemies, Kul Teska, in his favorite bar, despite having personally killed him years ago. Most of this episode is flashbacks composed of in-engine cutscenes lifted directly from the new game, but the animation is good enough that it’s almost impossible to tell.

“Get out of my way. I can’t shoot through you, nice as that’d be. Why you gotta be so damn huge?” “I was a preposterously fat youngling.”                                                                                                      Cad Bane gets a job assassinating Black Sun Vigos for Grabo the Prosperous, the same hutt that got scammed eight episodes ago. Unfortunately, Kul Teska had the same idea and the two of them are forced to work together. Cad Bane hates his life and Kul Teska is mildly amused. This episode is full of crazy action, colorful characters that die after ten seconds of screentime, and petty bantering. Bane finds himself not hating his nemesis as much.

“With luck, I will never see you again.”                                                          Grabo doesn’t uphold his end of the deal, so Bane and Teska put their rivalry on hold to scam him a second time before barely escaping with their lives. Cad Bane decides being a misanthrope loner is a waste of time and asks Teska if he wants to continue being a team. Kul Teska reveals that the only reason he agreed to the gig was to make enough money to get a ship to go back to his home planet. And then he leaves forever. Cad Bane spends the last minute of the episode drinking himself into oblivion.

THE PLOT EPISODES: TOO SERIOUS FOR DIALOGUE QUOTES (Come up with your own. I’m out of ideas because the opening paragraph is the most amazing thing I’ll ever write and this post is too long already.)

There’s an episode about Ahsoka dealing with an existential crisis after being abandoned by the Jedi Order. After struggling with her beliefs that only Republic soldiers are allowed to be heroes, her desire to help others is too strong and for the first time on this show, she kills a tyrannical Republic general and allows the droid army to move in because innocent people would be legitimately better off this way.

Narrated from the perspective of Darth Sidious, this episode shows his daily life, switching from persona to persona, thinking about the best way to exterminate an entire race while smiling and shaking their representative’s hand and consoling depressed politicians so they become so overconfident that they get themselves killed. It’s a parody of the Robot chicken parodies, but manages to be utterly terrifying. 

It’s Life Day. This episode is a bunch of vignettes about how different people celebrate. The clones scrape together some cash in order to buy a feast at their favorite cantina. Padmé is at a fancy gala but wishes Anakin was there. Cad Bane gets an unmarked crate filled with terrifying custom weapons thrown through his window. There is an underlying plot about the clone troopers investigating the spooky rumors of Order 66.

The first of a 3-parter, Anakin and Obi-Wan are fighting to escape worker drones on Cato Neimoidia and have a disagreement over whether to kill everyone because they are mindless insects, or to spare them. Obi-Wan never allows Anakin’s plans to be put into effect, leading to Anakin becoming more and more frustrated until he deliberately allows Obi-Wan to get shot. Now in charge, he puts his murderous plans in action, which worked extremely well and they escape. Obi-Wan is extremely grateful that Anakin rescued him, completely unaware that he wanted him injured.

Without Obi-Wan to veto his ideas and keep him in check, and Ahsoka to go with his plans so hard that he gets concerned and gives up for her sake, Anakin’s tactics grow more and more brutal, and he gains more and more public adoration for how effective he is. He tries to keep this hidden from Padmé, but she finds out anyway and they have a huge argument ending with Padmé realizing he was like this from the very beginning, from when he first slaughtered the Sand People, and she was too lovestruck to notice.

The first half of this episode is Padmé getting involved in banking intrigues with Rush Clovis yet again to avoid Anakin. The second half is Anakin trying to reconcile with her. The episode ends with them forgiving each other and getting back together, but Anakin is already being torn apart by his feelings of guilt, jealousy, and rage, foreshadowing his complete mistrust of everyone and his fall to the Dark Side in Episode III.

Star Wars Quotes regarding the Expanded Universe and it’s place in things under Lucas. -------------------------------------

I’ve shared quotes on this subject in the past, I don’t believe I have shared these ones, some I have only found recently, and other’s I had but I’m not the most organized person, so I found them again. I apologize if some of these are repeats, I tried to avoid that as much as possible. All of these quotes are verified, but you should never take anyone’s word for that on the internet. Feel free to verify them yourselves.

Anyone who would like to use these quotes and include in some of their works, by all means. It isn’t always easy to get to the truth of things, there is a great deal of misinformation on the Internet. It is only my wish to see George Lucas’ legacy remembered for what it was in truth. He gave us such a wonderful gift, that has touched the lives of so many, in so many ways. Wherever our interests may lie, I feel we own him something in return. - This is a decisive subject, and its been so for many years. This is in no way intended to speak to the artistic value found in the EU, that is a totally subjective consideration. There are no right or wrong opinions. Just opinions and everyone is entitled to their own.

I just want his Star Wars to be remembered as it truly was and his words and vision as they truly were. In the end, we all share our love for his creation with each other.

Star Wars is Forever.

"The importance of The Clone Wars that cannot be understated is that it was the last huge expansion of the Star Wars universe that came directly from George Lucas." ~ Pablo Hidalgo

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"I always think of the research you speak of as what I knew about the EU before I took this job. As I stated above, working directly with George changes the way you see the EU and everything in it."

~ Dave Filoni 2008

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DAVE FILONI: The First Time George Lucas Talked About Ahsoka https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAjnLseHQwA

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"I get all my information on the Clone Wars from him. [George Lucas]"

"I can pitch him ideas and say 'lets do certain things', but at the end of the say he will say 'yes' or he will say 'no', and than that is the way it's gonna go." ~ Dave Filoni, 2019

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"From Issue 77 Of Star Wars Insider, Using Dark Empire & The Thrawn Trilogy As Examples. "So so episodes beyond Return of the Jedi exist? Nothing beyond possinle story points and ideas, certainly not fleshed out story treatments or scripts. Fans often wonder if Dark Empire or the Thrawn Trilogy were based off those notes or are meant to be Episodes VII, VIII, IX. - That's not the case. Those works are the creation of their respective authors with the guidance of editors at Lucas Licensing. They are not, nor ever were, meant to be George Lucas' definitive vision of what happens next" ~ Pablo Hidalgo, 2004 https://ibb.co/K9PMgH3

[This is a screenshot of the Original Text that I found]

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“Everything that I’ve worked on at Lucasfilm has been considered canon.” ~ Dave Filoni

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“Working on ‘Clone Wars,’ it was always canon.” ~ Dave Filoni

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One of the main characters in the feature film, a 90 minute introduction to the series that hits theaters August 15, is Anakin's teenage Padawan, Ahsoka. Lucas said:

   "[With Ahsoka] I wanted to develop a character who would help Anakin settle down. He's a wild child after [Attack of the Clones]. He and Obi Wan don't get along. So we wanted to look at how Anakin and Ahsoka become friends, partners, a team. When you become a parent or you become a teacher you have to become more responsible. I wanted to force Anakin into that role of responsibility, into that juxtaposition. I have a couple of daughters so I have experience with that situation. I said instead of a guy let's make her a girl. Teenage girls are just as hard to deal with as teenage boys are."

~ George Lucas 2008

https://io9.gizmodo.com/george-lucas-spills-all-about-clone-wars-at-skywalker-r-5033398

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

"Understand, that the Holocron's primary purpose is to keep track of Star Wars continuity for Lucas Licensing and to some degree Lucas Online. To my knowledge, it is only rarely used for production purposes."

~ Leland Chee 2005/6

[Lucas was in Production]

-----------

"Star Wars continuity, even EU continuity, does not rest on my shoulders. Our licensees submit product directly to either our editors or our product development managers. The Holocron serves as a tool for them to check any issues regarding continuity, and after that, if the editors or developers have any questions, they pass it along to me to check for continuity. At the same time, I am constantly on the lookout to make sure that any new continuity being created gets entered in the Holocron. With regard to the the films and The Clone Wars, I am not involved in continuity approvals though I have often been asked to provide reference material."

~ Leland Chee

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

"The question selected from The Furry Conflict poll was: How much does the Expanded Universe influence the movies?

As I asked him, Lucas leaned back a moment and said to me “Very little.” When he first had agreed to let people write Expanded Universe books, he had said “I’m not gonna read ‘em” and it was a “different universe” and that he wanted to keep away from the time period of his saga. He jokingly complained, however, that now when he writes a script he has to look through an encyclopedia to make sure that a name he comes up with doesn’t come too close to something in the EU.

He later commented that the future of Star Wars may lie in other venues outside of feature film."

- "Marc Xavier", November 2003, "The Furry Conflict and the Great ‘Beard‘ of the Galaxy"  (report based on a Q&A session with George Lucas which occurred at USC on 11-19-03)

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

"Q: in that vein, is it possible we'll see more Star Wars TV product?

A: Because I"m retiring from this part of my creative life, I'm open to more TV Product. but not more feature films, the story is complete. [and any other story wouldn't be my philosophy and views,] the books are not the same philosophy as the movies."

George Lucas 2003

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

Q: Can you quote any good story other than the movies?

A: No, I don't think so. (laughs)." ~ George Lucas

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

"George's view of the universe is his view," Chee says with a slightly grudging tone. "He's not beholden to what's gone before."

~ Leland Chee 2008

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

"And then there's the very top level of canon, the inviolable, infallible level of Truth, marked GWL—George Walton Lucas. It's the divine word of the Creator who stands outside his universe and is not subject to the rules that govern it."

~ Leland Chee 2008

Meet Leland Chee, the Star Wars Franschise Continuity cop.

[Actually, it was more like that Chee was standing outside of his.]

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

"Understand, that the Holocron's primary purpose is to keep track of Star Wars continuity for Lucas Licensing, and to some degree Lucas Online. To my knowledge, it is only rarely used for production purposes."

~ Leland Chee [I'm not sure about the exact date on this, but I think its from around 2004 or 2005]

[Lucas worked in production]]

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

"I've been against a multiverse even before Disney"

~ Leland Chee 2018

[No, really? =p ]

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

"Is the "C" class part of the overall continuity alongside "G" class?"

As far as LucasBooks and Lucas Licensing are concerned, of course it is. LucasBooks and Lucas Licensing hold sway over the content and storylines of the Expanded Universe, and thus have every right to declare a canon of those materials. Whether this internal declaration is subscribed to by parent company LFL or Lucas himself is another matter, one which, though interesting, is outside the scope of this Holocron-oriented thread.

Leeland Chee 2004

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"So with the Story Group overseeing all of the content in film and television and elsewhere, we don’t have to retroactively make those changes. We can anticipate those changes. We can seed things in one medium [and see them grow] in another. So we might be seeding things in books or TV that you might not realize is substantial until years down the road. And if people knew what the road map looked like, they would just be floored.”

Leland Chee, 2017 - SYFY WIRE

[Chee is much happier working for Disney. He finally got what he wanted. A one Universe Star Wars.- Which would be great besides for that whole Disney part! =p]

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

“In these early drafts, the planet was called Had Abbadon. The name Coruscant came from author Timothy Zahn for his 1991 novel, Heir to the Empire. It's actually a real word that means ”glittering” or ”giving forth flashes of light.” When it came time to name the city-planet for Episode I, after considering several other names, Lucas decided to go with the already established Coruscant."

- Steve Sansweet, LFL/Fan Relations, June 2003

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“As far as I know he hasn’t read any of my novels. From what I’ve heard Lucas is a visual man, he likes the comic books for the visual aspect. Frankly I don’t think that he has time to read so I am not offended.”

-Timothy Zahn, Author for the EU, The book report interview November, 1997

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

That means Zahn’s books won’t be directly adapted, but the author says that was always the case: “The books were always just the books.”

“It could be an entirely new storyline, but if he picks and chooses bits and pieces from the expanded universe, we’d all be thrilled to death.”

~ Timothy Zahn

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"Q: Did George Lucas intend for Boba Fett to die in the sarlacc, despite what others may say or print?

A: Yes, in George's view -- as far as the films go -- the baddest bounty hunter in the Galaxy met his match in the Great Pit of Carkoon where --unfortunately for Mr. Fett -- the ghastly sarlacc made its home.

However, Lucas also approved Fett's comeback in the expanded universe. And of course, by going back in time with the prequels, the Star Wars creator has brought Boba Fett back to life himself, albeit at a much younger age."

- Steve Sansweet, LFL/Fan Relations, December 2002

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

As far as I know, George Lucas himself is not involved. He has a liaison group that deals with the book people, the game people, etc. They do the day-to-day work. Occasionally, he will be asked a question and will give an answer."

"I did meet Lucas once for a few minutes."

~ Timothy Zahn

[They spoke about 1930′s cinema and Samurai movies. They never even talked about Star Wars! How nuts is that!]

Timothy Zahn’s Trilogy was outstanding. Gotta give him his due.

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

In 2014, Disney declared the Expanded Universe was no longer canon. It became ‘Legends’. What do you think of this, seeing all of your work suddenly become non-canon?

"Those of us writing the EU were always told, all along, from the very beginning (have I stressed that strongly enough?), “Only the Movies are Canon.” Sure, it was disappointing."

~ Kathy Tyers, EU author [Truce at Bakura] Interview: April 2018

https://starwarsinterviews.com/various/authors/kathy-tyers-author/

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EU Disclaimers [Stating these were not George Lucas' Sequels and not what he would use.] - [I did not take all of these personally, but they do match those that I did.]

https://ibb.co/GfwK0CB https://ibb.co/Tr3dj06 https://ibb.co/19B66B1 https://ibb.co/p1mCFcm https://ibb.co/rtSVh7d https://ibb.co/Tcm7dFy https://ibb.co/ygQXjCN https://ibb.co/GRvmV7V - Jonathan W. Rinzler is/was an author and editor for Lucas Licensing's book division. In 2005, he was hired to write three Star Wars guide books,respectively Star Wars: Visionaries (although he only wrote the introduction of this one), The Art of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and The Making of Star Wars Revenge of the Sith. He later went to write The Art of Revenge of the Sith that same year. In 2007, he wrote and published The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film amongst many other such works for Star Wars.

This is more than a disclaimer, it's a quote, this is a question directly to him as he worked in Lucas Licensing asking him if the Expanded Universe wasn't considered canon ever why did Lucas allow it to exist. Answer - Money. He was also a personal acquaintance of Lucas' for many years. He also is quoted as telling the story as to why Lucas hated Mara Jade so much. -

Rinzler, George Lucas “Couldn’t Stand” The Character Of Mara Jade - http://starwarshub.net/2019/02/01/according-to-author-j-w-rinzler-george-lucas-couldnt-stand-the-character-of-mara-jade/

[Lucas said [paraphrasing], ‘Jedi don’t marry. They take vows.’

[This site also contains a good amount of information on the only legitimate sequel trilogy to Return of the Jedi, the one Lucas came up with himself and completed Treatments for Episodes, 7, 8, and 9 in 2011.]

For a more in-depth look at Lucas’ Sequel trilogy treatment in so far as we know it, these are excellent sites and we know a lot more about his Sequel trilogy and his vision for how the Saga was truly meant to end. There’s some beautiful concept art to be found as well.

George Lucas’ Episode VII - https://medium.com/@Oozer3993/george-lucas-episode-vii-c272563cc3ba

George Lucas' Ideas for His Own Star Wars Sequel Trilogy-https://io9.gizmodo.com/george-lucas-ideas-for-his-own-star-wars-sequel-trilogy-1826798496

STAR WARS: The Original Plans for the Sequel Trilogy - YouTube -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1dM9qFe4p0

https://ibb.co/jvph85c

kpop question tag.

tagged by @eris0330​ - thank you girl! <3

a. Always post the rules. Answer the questions asked then write 11 new ones.

b. Tag 11 people and link them to the post. Tell the person who tagged you that you’ve answered their questions.

Is there a specific clothing your bias has worn, you would want to own?

yes!! literally any and all of the bomber jackets that jungkook has worn on stage for 21st century girls and prolly that one shirt he wore from the baepsae dance practice.... it all just seems so comfy ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;

Favourite inside joke?

the running gag that everyone in bts dislikes jin’s dad jokes bc it is completely false!!!! we all know they all secretly love it and honestly i openly love them myself~

What songs do you listen to when working/walking/Training (If you have a playlist on YT then post it)?

i don’t keep the playlist on youtube unfortunately! but lemme just name the ones that come to mind rn (it’s basic but these really do help me workout better): fire, baepsae, 21st century girls, rush, hero, bang bang bang, fire truck, fighter, and i dope. i think the one song that can really push me through going that extra mile is fire though.

How would you want to meet your bias? (maybe potential romance blossoms (; )

can i just talk about @jungnoir‘s headcanon as to how i’d meet jungkook??? it’s prolly gonna sound so lame and cheesy but idc bc i love it with all my heart and i think about it from time to time: we pretty much meet in a boba shop in norcal cuz he wants to check out more of cali, some rude ass douche basically gets mad at him and the poor bab is struggling because his english isn’t that good in a panic, and i step in to defend him. then he buys me boba, we talk even though he doesn’t reveal who he is in the end when he walks me to my dorm. it’s so cute and i love it ok.

Favourite hairstyle on kpop girl idols and boy idols?

i noticed that i really love short, dark hair on idols like bora; ashy blond on hani; long, dark hair on jennie and chungha; and, this really cool brunette with pink streaks on hyoyeon. then with the boys, i’m a strong advocate for their dark hair like lawddd my ult babies look soooo good with dark hair ;w; but wonho’s silver and blue hair is my weakness.

Favourite Solo artist?

jay park lol. i’ve kept up with him since 2010 ok. oh and lee-hi! (bless @yoongihime for introducing me tbh)

If you had to befriend ONE kpop idol, who would it be?

jennie. i think we’d get along really well!

Favourite Album AND Lightstick?

bts’s “the most beautiful moment in life: young forever” and monsta x’s lightstick.

Favourite kpop crack/vine/try not to laugh video?

the one vine where it’s playing “hold on we’re going home” and it has the camera panning to hobi from different angles. his ears were sticking out of his hat... i think about this vine a lot ok. (i miss vine dsjkdfhsjf)

A kpop dance you have/are learned, learning or wishing to learn?

well, for a hot minute (last summer), i was actually learning fire lol, which i still want to continue. but i also want to learn triple h’s 365 fresh, hyungwon’s choreo with wonho and shownu, and pentagon’s like you. currently learning as if it’s your last!

Favourite Kdrama/Variety show/Episode?

my favorite kdrama is weightlifting fairy kim bok joo and i would say that weekly idol is probably my favorite variety show though i’ve only seen episodes with my favorite groups. doni and coni are both really funny though!

NEW QUESTIONS:

Favorite song lyrics and why?

Tell me about your ult group.

What’s your dream day with your bias?

Who is/are group(s) you’d like to get into but haven’t yet?

How does your bias wrecker wreck you? Like what do they do to make you love them so much?

List all your favorite groups starting with your ultimate group(s).

Tell me about how you’d meet your ultimate bias(es) or what kind of story you’ve imagined with me! You can include a little scenario. (:

What’s your most favorite dance move that you’ve seen an idol do?

Who would you want as your dance teacher?

What’s your all-time favorite fanfic that you could re-read over and over again?

What kind of gift would you give your bias and why?

tagging: @tendershepherd @jungnoir @wonhopes @workofteaguk @yongceo​​ @hyungjooki​

Turbulence in LA Experience

I’M SORRY THIS IS SO LATE. At this point, I’m just writing it to keep it for memory. Where do I even begin?! Honestly it was such an amazing experience I got post concert depression before the boys even left the stage loool I’m gonna split up the posts with this one being about the concert and the other one being about the hi-touch and everything after because girl, that is a whole other story!! 

For those interested in Part 2, you can read it here!

♥ ♥ ♥  If you don’t care then just keep scrolling but I hope whoever reads this enjoys it  ♥ ♥ ♥

♥ My friend and I came from SF and basically chilled all of Friday and went to K-Town and ate at Quarters for dinner. 10/10 recommend eating there, you guys, it’s so good! Then we went to Tokyo Table and our host kept making us drink and I literally wanted to die lol. Then he wanted us to take one last shot and I was like noooo but he said “for got7!” And I was like fuck it I have to do it HAHA let’s not talk about what happened after tho..

♥ On Saturday my friend and I went to Venice Beach for brunch and then to The Grove to get our outfits for the fanmeet LOL we were so last minute. We got our outfits at Topshop and we both ended up wearing denim so that was cool! Hard Carry feels ya know~ For dinner I really wanted to eat tepanyaki but changed my mind and GUESS WHO WAS AT THE PLACE I WANTED TO GO TO. I was sad when I found out the boys were there but whateva I got boba after haha

♥ CONCERT DAAAAY!! We got up super early and went to the farmer's market for fun! Then we got ready at like 12 because we knew we would take forever and we honestly took like 4 hours HAHA It was already packed when we got to the venue but they were still giving out banners so we got some~ We also met some really sweet girls while we were waiting and they kept us company

♥ Right before doors opened one of the boys (apparently) had their phone sticking out from behind the curtain from one of the windows upstairs and everyone ran like crazy to see who it was but tbh I didn’t see anyone. One of the SubK staff, Kevin, and the MC, Danny, came up from behind us and started talking to us and they were super friendly! They let us cut in line because we didn’t realize how long the line was- bless them- and then we went in and got merch!!

♥ After touching up in the bathroom we went to our seats and they were so close, bless my sister honestly *-* My friend and I had aisle seats so we were ready to run to the stage if we wanted to haha While we were waiting, two girls came and said we had their seats and I swear I was gonna swing cause I was like no honey these are my seats but turns out they were supposed to be upstairs so I was just like??

♥ The show started and I was freakin out cause it was my first time seeing them but you guys, they are just as handsome in real life <333 I was dancing and singing like crazy but I felt kind of bad because the girls around us were rather quiet and super calm which was super confusing to me because how can you stay calm when Got7 is right there?!

♥ The show goes on and while Danny was introducing the games, Yugyeom looked over to me and my friend and we waved at him and he waved back!! My friend died because he’s her bias and he was laughing because she held a hand to her heart and was being dramatic af LOL Yugyeom and Bambam kept looking at us and it was prob because we were being extra af

♥ During “Guess that Song” Jaebum came to our side of the stage and he sang a bit of a song (I forgot which one) while looking at us and my heart literally exploded. RIP Stephanie!! 

♥ We didn’t get picked for games because our ticket numbers started with “9″ but everyone they called started with “2″ and we were like wtf!! The boys were really cute and super super funny and they looked like they had a lot of fun which made me happy. Mark carried his partner, Jackson was being posessive of his partner, Bambam called his partner his queen, Yugyeom almost killed his partner, Jaebum was being soft af, and Jinyoung and Youngjae were just perfeeect

♥ The concert goes on and I finally got to see “If You Do” live and that was on my list of things to see before I die and I was so hyped everyone around us was probably annoyed lol sorry not sorry~

♥ Towards the end people were able to run to the stage but my friend and I were too slow to react so we just stayed where we were and the show ended <333

LOL so this is the first part! Hope y’all enjoyed it and I’ll have the hi-touch part up soon!

Valentine’s Day OC Q&A

Oh boy, get ready for another long post followers. @all-made-of-stardust asked me to do this prompt list for my main eight OCs in honor of Valentine’s Day. Odd numbers for girls (which I included Sasha in) and even for the boys.

Disclaimer: Raiqah’s 14, Sasha and Marcos are 16, Angie and Ed are 18, Mae, Daniel, and Nobody are 19.

I’m sorry for this monster. Split into two parts, with the girls below the cut here.

Sasha Hile ♥ (01) Is your OC in love? If so, with whom, and for how long? Sasha has been head over heels in love with Ed since they met and has never shied away from letting him know it. They’ve dated for less than a year, though Sasha was asking him out long before then.

♥ (03) Are there any romantic gestures that your OC loves? Oh lord, anything and everything, but a special shout out to surprising her with her favorite candies and flowers, excessive PDA, and personalized presents like songs or leaving a teasing voicemail on her phone.

♥ (05) What is the most romantic thing your OC has done for someone else? What Sasha thought was a super awesome romantic gesture was taking Ed out for night on the town with karaoke and proceeding to sing just about every single cliche love song to him and trying to cajole him into singing along in front of a gathering crowd. Ed was...less than thrilled by the spectacle and being put on the spot. However, the time she snuck out with him for some low-key rooftop dancing under the stars with tinny iPhone speakers playing classic rock and let him see her in her full on, radiant alien form was more to his liking...

♥ (07) How successful is your OC at flirting with others? Honestly Ed is an outlier who should not be counted, because before him Sasha had a spotless record asking people out. Not overtly flirty perse, Sasha is just constantly bubbly and upfront with her emotions, with an infectious joy that people respond well to. Honestly, considering how much she throughs around “I love you!!” in casual conversation, it could be hard recognizing when she’s not flirting.

♥ (09) What is your OC’s favorite small way to show their love? The aforementioned PDA; Sasha’s big on casual kissing, handholding, and sitting in her significant other’s lap.

♥ (11) What do others love most about your OC? Oh man, that varies a lot, but Sasha’s unending cheerfulness and sheer positivity and love for everyone else is quite a powerful endearment.

♥ (13) How does your OC show their love to those that are not their partner(s)? Full investment in their interests, hanging out and getting some boba, texting all the time, lots of compliments and general enthusiasm, PDA but especially warm hugs, will always share sweets.

♥ (15) What is your OC’s favorite type of Valentine’s Day candy? Valentine’s themed Skittles, Nerds, M&Ms, Gummy Bears, Gum Drops, Watermelon Gummi Rings--

♥ (17) Could your OC fall in love with someone they’ve never met in person? Oh god yes she could. Appearance aren’t make or break for Sasha, so starting a relationship online would work depending on the person’s personality and meme usage.

♥ (19) How highly does your OC value love (platonic, romantic, or otherwise)? For Sasha, love is a great and wonderful things that should be felt and shared as often as possible, be it love for her family and friends, Ed, or the latest Ariana Grande album. So, very highly.

♥ (21) Does your OC believe in love at first sight? Yep, it’s what happened when she saw Ed. The jury’s still out if this was a good thing.

♥ (23) What is your OC’s favorite nice thing to do for themselves? Trying something new and exciting she’s never done before (roller derby, dyeing her hair, DDR, etc.).

♥ (25) Does your OC believe in soulmates? The concept is nice, but Sasha thinks it’s disappointing that people are only supposed to have one soulmate when it’s much more accurate for her to call anyone she likes her “soulmate” (which, let’s me real, is basically everybody).

♥ (27) How does your OC typically spend their Valentine’s Day? Hanging with her (usually single) friends, watching rom-coms, and giving out Valentines while getting tons in return. Oddly enough she isn’t usually dating around Valentine’s Day, but on the occasions she is she’d spend the morning with her friends and the evening getting romantic with her significant other.

♥ (29) What is your OC’s favorite love song? I Really Like You by Carly Rae Jepsen

Mae Niwot ♥ (01) Is your OC in love? If so, with whom, and for how long? Oh yes, with Daniel; they start officially dating a year after meeting and stay together till the end of their stories.

♥ (03) Are there any romantic gestures that your OC loves? Being surprised by a home cooked meal and forehead kisses.

♥ (05) What is the most romantic thing your OC has done for someone else? Planning a hike up the scenic Cascade Mountain in early spring and making all the flowers bloom and trees bud in their wake in a blanket of colors and smells.

♥ (07) How successful is your OC at flirting with others? Mae doesn’t really flirt; she’s asexual and hasn’t really pursued a relationship before Daniel, though she recognizes when someone is flirting with her and is polite about turning people down. Daniel didn’t even “flirt” with Mae, just asked her out once he realised how he felt about her.

♥ (09) What is your OC’s favorite small way to show their love? Asking how your day is going and listening.

♥ (11) What do others love most about your OC? Her strength, both physically and emotionally. Mae is good at helping you move and unpacking emotional baggage.  

♥ (13) How does your OC show their love to those that are not their partner(s)? The aforementioned asking and listening, but also making sure that those she cares about are safe and happy, whether that be cooking them a meal or teaching them how to throw a proper punch.

♥ (15) What is your OC’s favorite type of Valentine’s Day candy? Dark chocolate with peanut butter.

♥ (17) Could your OC fall in love with someone they’ve never met in person? Probably; personality is important to Mae since physical attraction isn’t really a thing for her. She’d want to talk over the phone to get a better feel for them (emotions over text are harder to decipher).

♥ (19) How highly does your OC value love (platonic, romantic, or otherwise)? Love is important, in that love should extend into care and compassion for everyone in your life.

♥ (21) Does your OC believe in love at first sight? Not really. Infatuation, sure, but not love, which comes with time and getting to know someone while building your relationship.

♥ (23) What is your OC’s favorite nice thing to do for themselves? Taking a day to explore a national park and taking some photographs while experimenting with light and frame rate.

♥ (25) Does your OC believe in soulmates? Not really; Mae believes relationships change and evolve over time, so the idea that someone exists out there who is already “meant to be with you and only you forever” is kind of reductive.

♥ (27) How does your OC typically spend their Valentine’s Day? Being kind to everyone in her life with hugs and well wishes, taking some time for gardening and a good workout at the gym. With Daniel in her life they usually spend the whole day together camping and stargazing.

♥ (29) What is your OC’s favorite love song? I’ll Still Be Loving You by Restless Heart.

Raiqah Damji ♥ (01) Is your OC in love? If so, with whom, and for how long? Not in love, but Raiqah gets crushes dead easy, so it’s a good guess that she’s infatuated with someone at any given point.

♥ (03) Are there any romantic gestures that your OC loves? Any romantic gesture would have Raiqah weak at the knees, but especially kissing her hand, reading/composing poetry for her, pet names like “darling” and “dearest”, just the most overtly chivalrous shit.

♥ (05) What is the most romantic thing your OC has done for someone else? Raiqah attempted writing a secret love note to the most popular boy at her school and stuffed it in his locker, though nothing came if it. There may have been sonnets involved. In her defense, she was 12 at the time.

♥ (07) How successful is your OC at flirting with others? 0/10, Raiqah has never gotten past the furious blushing and stuttering stage to actually ask someone out.

♥ (09) What is your OC’s favorite small way to show their love? “I saw this research paper on the interactions of norepinephrine and phenylethylamine and thought of you!”

♥ (11) What do others love most about your OC? Raiqah is the sweetest, kindest, and smartest little bean that ever beaned. She must be protected.

♥ (13) How does your OC show their love to those that are not their partner(s)? Making them chai, generally fretting over them, doing her best to comfort them when they’re upset and doing whatever they ask her to do.

♥ (15) What is your OC’s favorite type of Valentine’s Day candy? White chocolate covered strawberries.

♥ (17) Could your OC fall in love with someone they’ve never met in person? Yep, she’s quick to form crushes on book characters, the same applies to any virtual relationships.

♥ (19) How highly does your OC value love (platonic, romantic, or otherwise)? Very highly; one should always act with love in their heart.

♥ (21) Does your OC believe in love at first sight? Yes, thought she doesn’t necessarily think it will happen for her.

♥ (23) What is your OC’s favorite nice thing to do for themselves? Curling up with a mug of tea with a thick book on 12th century Eastern history.

♥ (25) Does your OC believe in soulmates? See answer to 21. Not that Raiqah doesn’t think she deserves a soulmate or anything, it’s just that statistically it doesn’t seem likely.

♥ (27) How does your OC typically spend their Valentine’s Day? Surrounded by Valentine’s cards she won’t give, blushing furiously as she watches her crush across the classroom/library/etc.

♥ (29) What is your OC’s favorite love song? Romance in F Major, Op. 5 by William Bowles

Angie Hua ♥ (01) Is your OC in love? If so, with whom, and for how long? Not currently, but she’s had a few partners she’s fond of.

♥ (03) Are there any romantic gestures that your OC loves? Quick nose kisses, hand holding and just being in constant physical contact with her significant other.

♥ (05) What is the most romantic thing your OC has done for someone else? Giving her partner a massage while taking a bath.

♥ (07) How successful is your OC at flirting with others? Oh, very, very successful. And that was before she could read minds.

♥ (09) What is your OC’s favorite small way to show their love? Just being there for them, listening to their problems and offering good advice in turn, quick shoulder squeezes and forehead kisses, talking dirty in public to get them flustered.

♥ (11) What do others love most about your OC? Her confidence and calm demeanor even under duress.  

♥ (13) How does your OC show their love to those that are not their partner(s)? The aforementioned listening to problems and offering advice, making playlists for people and cooking a very good breakfast.

♥ (15) What is your OC’s favorite type of Valentine’s Day candy? Dark chocolate covered pretzels.

♥ (17) Could your OC fall in love with someone they’ve never met in person? Yeah, the mind reading helps a bit.

♥ (19) How highly does your OC value love (platonic, romantic, or otherwise)? Love is cool, but not the make or break for all relationships.

♥ (21) Does your OC believe in love at first sight? Nah. Lust, yes, not love.

♥ (23) What is your OC’s favorite nice thing to do for themselves? Put on a nice face of makeup and a rad outfit before hitting up a heavy metal concert and rocking in the mosh pit.

♥ (25) Does your OC believe in soulmates? Nah. Angie’s not cynical, she just doesn’t think you should limit yourself.

♥ (27) How does your OC typically spend their Valentine’s Day? Cutting class and making out behind the bleachers.

♥ (29) What is your OC’s favorite love song? Bad Romance covered by Artist vs Poet.

Nobody ♥ (01) Is your OC in love? If so, with whom, and for how long? No.

♥ (03) Are there any romantic gestures that your OC loves? Nada.

♥ (05) What is the most romantic thing your OC has done for someone else? Spared their life.

♥ (07) How successful is your OC at flirting with others? HA.

♥ (09) What is your OC’s favorite small way to show their love? Not punching them in the face.

♥ (11) What do others love most about your OC? When she’s standing far, far away.

♥ (13) How does your OC show their love to those that are not their partner(s)? Not killing them.

♥ (15) What is your OC’s favorite type of Valentine’s Day candy? Mini Kit Kats.

♥ (17) Could your OC fall in love with someone they’ve never met in person? No.

♥ (19) How highly does your OC value love (platonic, romantic, or otherwise)? Love is just a weakness to exploit.

♥ (21) Does your OC believe in love at first sight? Nope.

♥ (23) What is your OC’s favorite nice thing to do for themselves? A night on the town shoplifting and kicking some heads.

♥ (25) Does your OC believe in soulmates? Nien.

♥ (27) How does your OC typically spend their Valentine’s Day? Plotting revenge.

♥ (29) What is your OC’s favorite love song? Fuck You by Lily Allen