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softcallofdutyimagines · 3 years

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The crew with their soulmate headcannons

Ok, to make it up to y'all for the angst yesterday, here's a response to the death by broken heart post 😌

This one goes out to @smokeywhalee since I've had her crying for the past like three posts 💀💀😂 I also snuck in a little something to the Weaver one for @direwolfspostsrandomshit and I specifically 😌💅🏻

No warnings, just a very long post and lots of fluff lol

Adler

You two met when he was still young, before he even joined the CIA

Back when he was a goofy, carefree kid who didn't know better

You've been with him through so much by now, that he knows he can always count on you when something's bothering him

There's no one he trusts more in the whole world

Adler knew you were the one around the time he got his scars

He thought for sure you'd leave him, thinking he looked like some kind of monster with half his face bandaged and bloodied like it is

But when he came home from the hospital, you were so overjoyed to see him again, it's like the bandages weren't even there

You kissed his face and helped him clean and dress the stitches and cuts everyday until they healed

With you there to give him all that affection, he's never let his scars make him feel any less then handsome

Of course, it doesn't hurt that you remind him often

Even now, he never tires of you kissing his scars

Hudson

You and Hudson met in college, back when he was a shy, nerdy outcast

It's not like you were exactly popular, but you at least had some social circles to run in

He never thought someone like you would even look twice at someone like him, but...

He's been wrong before

One day you decided to give him a chance, maybe just see what his story is, and you've never looked back since

Hudson's life path calls for the utmost secrecy for nearly everything, and you've lost contact with a handful of people because of it

But you've never complained

If anything, you consider it their loss for losing you

That's how Hudson knew you were the one

You have an undefeatable, never give up attitude and can find the silver lining in just about everything you put your mind to

And of course... You indulge him in his love of head rubs

It's you and his best kept secret of all

Lazar

You've known each other since you were just kids

For him, it was puppy love at first sight, and he was crushing hard before he knew it

But... He was always insecure about his weight, being a bit chunky as a kid and all

He was afraid of rejection because of it

A shame really, since you would've loved him no matter what

But as fate would have it, you stayed friends all the way up until highschool where sports had him shedding weight like crazy

All the fluctuation has left him with stretch marks, some loose skin, and a belly pouch, but luckily growing up gave him enough confidence to make up for it

He asked you to the senior dance your last year of highschool, and later that night you shared your first kiss behind the bleachers outside

You were his first kiss ever

Lazar always knew you were the one

You've been his closest friend and biggest supporter since you were kids on a playground

He just wanted to make himself feel worthy of you first

No one else makes him feel as comfortable in his skin as you do, and only you are allowed the special honor of touching his body

A gift you exercise frequently when you cuddle him at night

Mason

Alex didn't meet you until after Vietnam and the whole... brainwashing business

After trying and trying for years only to end up with an ever growing list of failed relationships, he just assumed he was too damaged to love

Besides, he's getting a bit older now... Maybe he's just not meant to find someone

Or so he thinks

He meets you randomly in public, on an ordinary day in an ordinary place

You two happen to hit a conversation and it just keeps going and going...

Until finally you exchange numbers and begin seeing each other more frequently

And that's when Alex knows you're the one, he can just... feel it deep down

But it isn't until one, vulnerable night, when he tells you about his past and the war and.... Well, everything, that he knows for sure

With so much fear being pushed about the Russian threat and all that, he thought for sure the knowledge that he's been a brainwashed sleeper agent once would scare you away

It was a shock for sure, but... You aren't afraid of him, in fact, you feel sympathetic for his plight of anything

Alex doesn't need your sympathy, mind, but he is thankful for the empathy

That's all he wants, really

That, and someone who'll hold him through the nightmares at night

Looks like he lucked out there too :)

Park

She met you as a fellow agent through MI6

Things were purely professional for a looooong time

But she must admit though, you're quite charismatic, cunning, and frankly?

Adorable

Helen's not quite sure when the joking, friendly flirting turned serious but...

She's glad for it

You ask her out on a date first and things go well

More then well

She doesn't kiss and tell, but let's just say... She knows you're the one

You always have her back on the field and off

You're her closest friend and confident

She's breaking the rules by cluing you in on the goings on with the hunt for perseus and all, but there's no one here she trusts more for feedback and brainstorming

But it's probably a good thing you're not in the safehouse, considering you almost killed someone after the skyhook debacle

She rolls her eyes at your fussing, but you swear to never let her go again

And you know what? Park may not show it, but she loves how much you care for her

Perseus

He met you back in the ussr, when he still looked like his picture

You two grew close in your service to the government, and you were one of the first people he trusted to try and recruit for his operation

When you didn't even hesitate to say yes, that's when he knew you were the one

You've already proven yourself and impressed him with your wit and integrity in your service to the ussr

In fact, few have ever stood out to him in such a way as you have

All he needed to know was if you trusted him and truly believed in a better future

Many are jelous to see you running around with the exceptionally handsome man, but perseus was never one to get hung up on looks

However, he's glad you enjoy his appearance as much as you do his mind

Together, you raise hell for the capitalists, bringing a true biting edge to the cold war threat

In return for your loyalty, he does all he can to keep you a secret, both as his lover and his accomplice

If anything happened to you like what happened to Bell...

He would take the fight to your captors himself

And they wouldn't stand a chance...

Weaver

He met you through working in Requiem

You're one of the strike team operators, but you spend a fair amount of time talking with the consultants and himself back at base

Weaver finds you a little intimidating, but in a good kind of way

Sort of how he use to be back in the day

When he realizes he may or may not have a little thing for you, he suddenly becomes very shy

He's afraid to try and make a move on you because surely rejection would be the only outcome?

After all, he's way too far past his prime by now, missing an eye and slowly letting himself fall out of shape

It's a mess

So why haven't you just moved on from him yet...?

Doctor Grey seems strangely invested in this little one sided romance, so with a bit of help, he manages to ask you out for coffee

The last thing he expected was for you to say yes

It's not until the day that you almost don't make it back to base that he realizes how very much you mean to him

Weaver stays with you as frequently as he can while you recover and can often be found cuddling you in your med bay bed (bc why the hell not?) or at home

He has to pull back a little on visiting you in the med bay however

He's starting to get teased for how much he loves all the head pets, jaw scratches, and tummy rubs you give him while you're bored and resting

Carver has now begun addressing him as "Fido" with no end in sight

Woods

He meets you out at the marine base he spends all his time at

It was one of the many occasions that he was doing target practice at the range, and he today he's caught you watching him

At first he honestly didn't think much of it, but of course he took the opportunity to show off a little

He succeeded in managing to lure you over with his skills, where you came to stroke his ego a bit

For that, he offers to show you some pointers and before either of you know it, target practice together becomes a regular occurance

From there, anything more social is up to you to initiate

He's a bit taken aback when you invite him out to do something off base sometime, but... He accepts

Once out of his element, he's like a whole other person

You're surprised to find that he's a lot more shy and little more warm towards you

You find it adorable

That starts the slippery path to how he knows you're the one

You're the only person he truly feels like he can be himself with

Everyone else expects the hardened sargent, and while that is still him...

He never feels like he has an opportunity to share his softer side

You can never complain about being cold or lonely with him around

Frank loves nothing more then cuddling with you whenever and wherever he can

Not only is it just, well, nice, to have the human contact, but it makes him feel like he gets to protect you

And nothing makes him happier then to see you safe :)

#black ops cold war #call of duty #russell adler x reader #frank woods x reader #jason hudson x reader #helen park x reader #eleazar azoulay x reader #lazar x reader #perseus x reader #grigori weaver x reader #alex mason x reader

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visionofhope04 · 3 years

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Memories and Dreams

Tim Drake x Reader

Requested: no

Ages: You and Tim are both 18

Prompt: Your dreams are your soulmate’s memories. (You can’t hear anything, you can only see.)

Quick note, I wrote this in April so it might not have my best writing. Also I'm trying to get part 5 of neglected out as soon as I can. Hope you enjoy this!

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You were looking through someone else’s eyes, seeing everything from their perspective. It seemed as if they were chasing down a group of people. They had been chasing them for about 20 minutes now. You hadn’t been able to get a good look at their faces, but you assumed they worked for Black Mask.

Ever since you were 5, your dreams had been your soulmate’s memories. You knew all about them from their parents getting murdered to them being a vigilante. You weren’t sure which one, since you had never seen their appearance but you knew they wore a cape which got in the way of their sight quite often. They were also obsessed with coffee and barely slept.

You assumed he was a boy. He was still chasing the gang when suddenly, they took a wrong turn and ended up at a dead end. The men turned around to face the vigilante. He extended his bo staff and began to fight them all off. During the battle, other vigilantes arrived and aided him in battle. The vigilantes were Batman, Nightwing, Red Hood, and finally Robin.

He hadn’t been aware that a thug behind him had their gun aimed at his chest. Just as he turned around, a shot rang out and he dropped to the ground. You instantly shot up and out of bed, panting and covered in a layer of cold sweat. This worried you since it was new. You hoped he was okay and still alive. You weren’t too worried though, because if he died, you wouldn’t be seeing his memories.

Glancing at the clock, you noticed it was 6 am. You usually woke up around that time, so you decided to get ready for the day. You completed your normal routine quickly with half an hour to spare. Deciding to head to school, you exited your apartment. You had lived alone since your parents lived in Metropolis and you had earned a scholarship to Gotham’s top school.

As you were walking to school, you noticed there was a coffee shop. Since you were early, you decided to stop by. You walked inside and waited patiently in line. Once it was your turn, you ordered a black coffee. You had thanked the barista and sat down at a table near the door. You were casually scrolling through your social media and heard someone sit in front of you.

You looked up and saw one of your classmates, Tim Drake. This confused you as he never really bothered to talk to many people. You had interacted with him once or twice and he seemed nice. You thought of him as an acquaintance. He was known as the smartest kid in class. He always knew the answers to every question.

“Oh hi.” You decided to start a conversation.

“Hi, you’re name’s Y/N right?”

“Yeah it is, you’re Tim right?”

“Yeah. So what brings you here?”

“Oh nothing much, it’s just that we have about 20 minutes until we actually have to be at school.” You stated.

“Yeah. I understand. By the way, have you figured out who your soulmate is yet?”

“No, but I do have my suspicions. What about you?”

“I have an idea of who it may be but I’m not sure yet.”

“Well it looks like we’re in the same boat.”

“Haha yeah.”

“Anyways I’m going to head to school now. Feel free to come with.”

“I’m fine. I’ll see you later, bye.”

“Bye.” You threw your drink out and headed to school.

(Time skip to the end of the day brought to you by my hate for school)

School went well as always. You hated school but knew you had to learn somehow. You were heading home as usual until you saw a disregarded newspaper on the floor. It was talking about the vigilantes in Gotham, specifically the Batfamily. Then something clicked. Your soulmate was Red Robin! He used a bo staff, had a cape, and was the only one you didn’t see in your dream.

You were shocked. What would you do now? You can’t just go up to him and be like “Hey, I’m your soulmate so wanna get to know each other?”. If only it was that simple. You came up with some ideas on how to find your soulmate. Idea number one chasing him down which was immediately crossed out since you weren’t about to be desperate.

Idea two was to try and figure out his real identity so you could confront him that way. Idea number three was to just wait. Since waiting would probably be the best option, that’s what you decided to do but also decided that attempting to figure out his identity would help. You were excited to meet your soulmate, you wanted to know everything about him. You weren’t obsessed, you were curious.

As you were walking home, you looked forward to sleeping that night. You hoped whatever memory you were going to be in wasn’t a traumatic one. He had some rather pleasant memories. Others, however, not so much. The worst thing that has happened to you was getting a bad sunburn, while he had evaded death more times than you could recall.

You had finally arrived at your apartment. Placing your bag down and digging through it, you began to complete your mountain of homework and eventually, time started flying by. By the time you had completed all of your homework, it was 12 am. Even though you had missed dinner you weren’t hungry.

You placed all your things back into your bag neatly and shut off your laptop. You made your way to your room and began to prepare for bed. Once you finished, you laid down and got comfortable. You closed your eyes and let the darkness take over.

You were currently in his memory. Your soulmate was in a huge house that was like 10 times the size of your apartment, possibly more. He then ran into Bruce Wayne?! Wait, what? You were bewildered and then everything clicked. Bruce Wayne and his whole adopted family were vigilantes!

How’d you know? Well, every time there was a new addition to the Wayne family, a new Robin showed up either a bit before or after that. They also had the same height. Well, your soulmate isn’t Dick since he already found his soulmate. Jason is a no because your soulmate is short and it’s not Damian because he’s a baby. So that means your soulmate is Tim Drake or rather Red Robin.

Your theory was proven to be correct once his memory had shown him walking into the coffee shop you both met at. You didn’t really know how to feel about it. You did know that you had to tell him though, and you preferred sooner. So that’s how you ended up confronting him at school the next day asking to meet at the coffee shop you both met the previous day.

You were pretty anxious since you weren’t sure how he’d take the news. He could either be okay with it, happy or extremely irritated by it. When you saw him enter the shop your anxiety was amplified. You kept telling yourself to remain calm. He was in front of you, coffee in hand and stared at you.

“Okay so I don’t really know how to say this but I’m your soulmate.” You said quickly. He didn’t seem shocked by this so you assumed he knew as well.

“Yeah, I wanted to tell you too. I found out last night.” He stated.

“Okay so uh want to get to know each other a bit?”

“Sure that sounds nice.”

#tim drake #tim drake imagine #tim drake x reader #tim drake imagines #tim drake x you #tim drake x y/n #soulmate au

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itsclydebitches · 3 years

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Risk”

Welcome back, everyone! I have a lot of mixed, complicated feelings about today's episode and I'm already sure this recap will miss a great deal that should be said. There's a lot to digest, we need some time to do that, so until things have settled I think that the one, entirely confident claim I can make here is that our writers weren't BSing the fandom on twitter. The last few days have seen a number of big claims made regarding "Risk" —

— and whatever else we might have to say about the episode, it certainly delivered in terms of shocking content. From confessions to reveals to a new plan in place, there's a lot to unpack.

So let's get started.

Our first shot is a problem.

I don't want it to be! But I've got to work with what I've got. We open on Salem's flying monkeys — or gorillas, if we're being technical — and my immediate thought is where in the world they came from. I mean, obviously I know where. We ended Volume 6 with the post-credit scene of Salem adding wings to an army of Beringels, Hazel commenting that she'll lead the invasion herself. When Salem arrived at the end of Volume 7 and we picked up where we'd left off in Volume 8, the fandom was obviously expecting an attack led primarily by flying, transformed grimm. That didn't happen. For ten episodes the plot forgot that the Beringels existed, focusing instead of the Hound, the grimm soup, then the Whale, then the ground grimm the Whale was producing. Months back I encountered a number of posts asking, "What happened to the resource we know Salem brought to this fight?" and those questions are partly what inspired the "Introducing new grimm that are then quickly abandoned" spot on the bingo board. Now, suddenly, the Beringels have re-appeared and that is a good thing. Though it's too little, too late, as is so often the case with RWBY. Getting something you expect has a sour taste when it arrives months past when it was needed, especially when that something only exists for a second on screen.

This is doubly true given that we saw Oscar eliminate the grimm last episode.

At least, I thought he had? Pretty much everyone I've spoken to thought he had. This last week's discussions have centered around RWBY nerfing the stakes, taking out a whole army of grimm in one, magical blast. That's far from great. Yet now we see that we were apparently wrong. Atlas remains overrun with grimm, this problem remains a problem... so, yay? But we're once left with a tradeoff. RWBY has no longer eliminated the stakes with a deus ex machina as we had originally thought, but in its place we're left with a badly executed scene last episode and an assumed problem that is "fixed" with an enemy we should have been dealing with since the start of the volume. The road to the Beringels has been messy indeed and all they've done so far is fly across the screen.

Which reminds me: if this army of grimm still exists — and absolutely existed prior to Oscar's blast — how come not a single one is attacking the Schnee manor? This opening is in Atlas, the skies are overrun, we've seen a few grimm show up to help out the Hound, yet miraculously nothing bothers the group while they freak out at the dining table, or freak out as Penny tries to leave. That's a whole lot of grimm and a whole lot of negativity... yet somehow these two things never meet in a way that would inconvenience our characters. While from a writing standpoint I can understand not wanting to interrupt all these conversations and feel good moments, the show can't simply ignore the rules of its world whenever it's convenient. If anything, given that Atlas' population is currently hidden beneath the city, Schnee manor should be even more of a hot-spot than it normally would be. There is one (1) group of people out in the open for them to target.

Yeah, we're a single shot into this episode. It's a doozy.

Moving right along, those Atlas citizens (and, let's not forget, a large number of Mantle evacuees too) are still huddled in the tunnels, listening to Ironwood's insane broadcast. They're obviously terrified, as are those down in Mantle who are staring execution in the face. Fiona bursts into tears.

It makes me wonder why we didn't get the airship subplot now. As I've mentioned extensively in the past, that decision didn't make much sense and I think the writers knew it didn't make much sense because they chose not to reveal what Ruby and co. planned to do with the citizens once they were on board. The point was never to come up with a feasible plan, something the audience would put to the test, but rather to just make it seem like the group was doing something Smart and Heroic before Ironwood inevitably derailed it. Don't look too closely at the man behind the curtain. Normally, I'd comment that yes, it's damn hard to come up with a brilliant plan to save others in a situation like this — our characters can only be as smart as our authors! — yet that sympathy dissipates when we hit this episode and are given a scenario where airships would have been great. Ironwood has threatened to nuke Mantle. Suddenly, it is imperative that the civilians leave the safety of the crater as soon as possible (whereas before it was not). So Whitley remembers that they have access to these ships and the group hatches a plan to sneak them down while Ironwood is distracted, get everyone up into Atlas so he can't use Mantle as a bargaining chip anymore. Then they're spotted, the plan revealed, and Ironwood shoots their ships down, leaving them devastated that their attempt to help the citizens has literally gone up in flames. We're still left with the problem of why Ironwood wouldn't just allow a continued evacuation now that Salem is briefly out of the mix and the Schnees have provided extra resources — the writing really took a sledgehammer to his characterization — but the group trying to get people to Atlas to avoid death by bomb at least makes more sense than them trying to move the citizens to an undisclosed location, for unestablished reasons, when they were already relatively safe. The bomb is what makes those airships a necessity.

It really makes me wonder how much editing goes on and how much time the writers have before they finalize scripts.

Regardless, we cut from terrified people to Ironwood himself, accompanied by Winter. The animation has some nice parallels going on here, what with the same black, white, and blue color scheme, hands behind their backs, the need for robotic accommodations, and steps perfectly in synch. As we're about to see though, Winter is very good at looking the part of a loyal soldier while actually bending the rules.

However, are we really going to ignore that she betrayed Ironwood last episode? Betrayal from his perspective, that is. Winter was given a direct order, disobeyed that order, pissed off Harriet in the process, and wasn't able to give a good explanation for her actions — she was too busy being creeped out by Ironwood's reaction. For all intents and purposes she should be considered disloyal right now. Or at least under suspicion, yet Ironwood acts as if everything is fine. We've skipped over any meaningful fallout between them, or a reason why Ironwood would dismiss her betrayal. This ties into something I'll bring up later in the episode: namely, that RWBY introduces too much too quickly and doesn't have time to satisfyingly tackle — or tackle at all — the plot points they've introduced, simply because there's always a new one to focus on. We dropped the "Winter went against Ironwood at great personal risk" plotline to make room for the new "Ironwood has randomly threatened Mantle" plotline, which likewise doesn't do Ironwood's characterization any favors. I don't just mean the obvious "Omg he's willing to murder a whole city now" issue. Ironwood used to be smart, yet his unfounded trust in others makes him look foolish now: first trusting Watts, now Winter. Alongside that, the story and fandom have both pushed the idea that Ironwood is paranoid, yet that "paranoia" has only ever been attached to justified threats. If he were actually paranoid then Winter's actions would have caused him to mistrust all of the Ace Ops now, labeling everyone near him a disloyal enemy, despite evidence to the contrary (especially when it comes to Harriet). Yet across two volumes Ironwood has continually been "paranoid" only in regards to things like Cinder and Salem — proven threats — while simultaneously trusting known villains and ignoring when his subordinates straight up say, "She let our enemies go free." There’s little rhyme or reason to any of his decisions here.

Still! A nice, meaningful shot lol.

As Ironwood and Winter get closer we see the Ace Ops discussing the threat. "Of course he's not going to do it," to which Marrow pushes back with, "So what? He's bluffing with a whole city?" This is a really, really important moment that I don't think the writers realize is important. See, everyone is shocked when Ironwood reveals that he intends to go through with the threat. The Ace Ops, Winter, Robyn, our heroes... everyone grapples with the idea that this is actually happening. Everyone has some moment of, "It's just a bluff, yeah?" and I don't think that's just denial. The characters' shock tells us that Ironwood normally wouldn't be a man who'd do something like this. Ever. That shock has to stem from something, such as an ingrained understanding that Ironwood is a protector, not a murderer. Note the difference between the fandom and the characters' reactions. Whereas a good chunk of the fandom went, "Of course Ironwood means it. We all saw this coming! Remember how he..." and then proceed to list various things — persuasive or otherwise — that prove he was always a bad guy in the making. Yet no one in the RWBY world is inclined to use those moments as evidence. Winter doesn't go, "He's not bluffing. I saw him shoot the councilman just for speaking up" and the Ace Ops don't go, "Oh, he'll do it. This is the man who destroyed his arm to take down Watts. He'll stop at nothing." After everything they've seen — the same things we've seen — there's still some instinctual, nebulous knowledge that goes, "No. Ironwood wouldn't. He's one of the good guys." We can certainly talk about real life people getting swept up in horrible institutions, unwilling to admit how bad things actually are until they hit a specific line they can't cross... but I think this is less a comment on some sort of bystander effect (RWBY isn't that deliberately nuanced lol) and more an unintentional acknowledgement that until the very sudden and entirely unexpected shooting of Oscar, Ironwood actually wouldn't have done this. The Ace Ops are reacting to a man who absolutely existed until the writing erased him and they believe the core of that man still exists. To my mind, he should, but because our show can't actually have Salem as the main villain right now, she's conveniently blown up and Ironwood takes her place.

So we've got some loaded implications there, as well as Vine's comment that he hopes "the kids" see sense now. I am begging RWBY to pick a lane already. Are they kids, or are they adults? Because that answer makes a big difference and we can't continue to have it both ways.

Ironwood and Winter arrive were Ironwood orders that she prep drones with the "payload." That's the moment Winter and the others realize he's serious. Cue that shock all around. The revelation is the last straw for Marrow, prompting him to start yelling some excellent points about how Ironwood is doing Salem's job for her. See, this accusation works. Telling a guy threatening to blow up a city that he's as bad as their villain is accurate. Having Oscar tell that same guy that he's as bad as their villain because he wants to save a city full of people... is ridiculous. Totally different setup here and RWBY got it right this time. The only line that didn't work for me was Marrow asking the Ace Ops if they believe in anything. Uh... yeah. They believe in saving Atlas + all the Mantle evacuees they got. That's pretty well established. I swear, most RWBY speeches are padded with generic, heroic-sounding lines that don't actually mean anything, or are outright falsehoods we’re meant to ignore.

We'll see more of that with renora.

Marrow attempts to leave and his eyes go wide as he hears the click of Ironwood's gun. Remember I said that Winter is good at playing the obedient soldier? It's after Ironwood aims that she tackles Marrow.

On the surface it looks only like she violently disarmed him, but in reality she got him out of the bullet's path and kept Ironwood from firing at all. She saved his life, choosing to play up how she'll “take this traitor to the brig” where he belongs, rather than watching him die. A really nice moment in terms of strategy and one of the few lately where I've actually felt like I'm watching smart characters.

However, I cannot deny the uncomfortable implications in this scene. Smart or not, necessary or not, it hasn't escaped anyone's notice that one of our darkest characters was a) nearly killed by a white man and b) beat up by a white woman. To say nothing of Marrow's status as a faunus. I was cringing during his line about loyalty: “I used to wear this rank with pride. Now I see it for what it really is: a collar."

Honestly, I don't have the qualifications to unpack all that, so let's just acknowledge that the scene, while good in some respects, was massively insulting in others. I’ll let others in the fandom defend or damn it as they see fit.

We get a shot of how shocked the Ace Ops are that they nearly watched their team member get executed for speaking up against a bomb threat. It once again highlight's RWBY's strange depiction of violence and when it's deemed appropriate. Harriet has threatened people a couple of times now — here telling Marrow she'll shut him up herself — yet her reaction tells us that she never would have killed him as Ironwood nearly did. Threats, then, mean little... unless Ironwood is making an exaggerated comment about shooting Qrow. Then it's evidence of evil intent that's bound to come to the surface eventually. So does that mean Harriet will be trying to bomb cities herself someday? If so, it once again leaves our heroes in an awkward position, considering that Ruby started the fight Harriet wouldn't, Weiss stuck her weapon in Whitley's face, etc. If it says something awful that Winter would punch a minority — even to save his life — what does it say about Qrow that he would punch a child in anger? Outside of the easy to label actions like Ironwood's bomb threat and shootings, there exists this gray space that asks, “When are you justified to use violence? When is a threat forgivable?” The problem is, the show keeps coming up with contradictory answers. I bring this up not because Winter's punch or Harriet's threat are the most significant examples of this that we've seen, but because the themes of forgiveness and violence take center stage at the episode's end... and RWBY completely drops the ball. Keep these complications in mind.

Before that though, the group is crowded into the dining room and no matter what else "Risk" might give us, I'm reminded that I really like the design of the Schnee manor. I'm glad the episode found an excuse to show us this room again.

My initial thought upon entering the scene was, "Are we going to talk about Penny's hack? The silver-eyed grimm? Ozpin's return?" and to RWBY's credit it touches on all of these, though I stand by my point about plotlines coming too quickly. Any one of these should have been given the space to grow, not fighting for space against the potential destruction of Mantle. If you don't acknowledge these things in "Risk" you've lost your chance (much like how "Oscar is kidnapped" replaced "Oscar has to deal with Ozpin's return," resulting in a scene where Oscar was just... randomly okay with Ozpin again. We lost the chance to deal with the first conflict introduced because we barreled into the second), yet if you do spend episode time on these issues, it feels like the characters aren't dealing with the immediate threat. Questions of silver eyes, what to do about Penny, and Ozpin's return needed to be given their due before there was an hour time limit resulting in thousands of deaths. Now, you have to wonder why Yang and Ruby are talking about their mother when a city's safety is ticking away. Where were these questions and reassurances years ago?

I think this is why this episode — maybe even this whole volume — simultaneously feels too full and too boring. We're being introduced to lots of Big Things, but then putting them off to focus on other, smaller stuff, and by the time we circle back around it's no longer the right time. We're constantly focusing on the least interesting, least important thing in the room. Why is the group sitting around with their tea when we could have moved the Hound plotline up and started this groundwork earlier? Which means we're doing that work now instead of worrying about Mantle or Penny. All of which is connected to Salem herself being here, yet Ironwood is our villain instead... We're just introducing new idea after new idea, dropping each to focus on something else when the viewer is already emotionally invested in the last conflict. It makes the show feel overly packed with problems we don't have time for while simultaneously having too much time in which the characters do nothing of importance. We're never dealing with these issues at the right time. Talking about a silver-eyed grimm while Salem is here feels like Too Much and having the girls unpack that now, with Mantle’s life on the line, feels like Too Little. Stop sitting around while you've got less than an hour to save half a kingdom! We needed this conversation in a different episode, one not already driven by a problem that’s objectively more important.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We're in the dining room and the group is listing all the stuff that has gone wrong lately. Blake mentions that Qrow and Robyn are still in custody, because we definitely want Blake remembering that Qrow exists, not one of his nieces. Ruby, meanwhile, is having a meltdown. "So then it's impossible!" she yells, head in her hands.

Emerald sneaks in an insult: “See? If Ms. Hero here with all the answers doesn’t have one..." and the others, of course, jump to Ruby's aid. But Emerald is right! It's entirely Ruby's fault that Atlas didn't get the chance to escape with those they had. Her actions and lack of a plan led to where they are now. I'm not saying she's responsible for Ironwood's insane decisions — that's like saying he's responsible for Qrow's in relation to Clover — but Ruby indeed played the part of the hero who had all the answers... without actually having any answers. Now that things are worse than how they started, her only answer is to say it's all "impossible" and throw up her hands. Ruby is an absolutely terrible leader right now and someone should indeed be calling her out on that, it's just too bad it's Emerald, someone technically still presented as an untrustworthy figure for the next couple of minutes. (More on that later.) Any and every criticism of Ruby is dismissed out of hand. Don't believe Ironwood because he's crazy now. The Ace Ops? His boot lickers. Yang has things to say, but once Ren agrees with her she does a 180. Now Ren is heading towards an extra special apology for daring to doubt Ruby. May calls her out, only to also change her opinion the next episode. Now here's one more person, but she's a bad guy. The show has never once encouraged us to treat these criticisms seriously — never allowed them to stick, let alone lead to change — and at this point I'm done with everyone falling over themselves to absolve and praise Ruby. By making Emerald the criticizer and having Ruby throw herself a pity party, the writing ensures that the conversation goes from, "Yeah. You messed up big time and now have a responsibility to fix things" to "Aww, don't be so hard on yourself! We won't let mean Emerald insult you anymore."

Ruby makes herself the victim here. She gets so upset and acts so defeated that all anyone can do is reassure her. The focus turns towards her, a focus centered around hiding against the table, or cowering on a staircase, so that it feels cruel to call her out on her deadly mistakes when she's so clearly upset. But they still should have, especially since cowering and tears have never protected anyone else from the group's criticism. Ozpin is proof of that.

What I'm getting at is that Ruby runs away. She's faced with the consequences of her actions, is informed she needs to help come up with a solution, and instead of braving that decides it's "impossible" and literally runs from the room. While they're on a time limit. Keep this moment in mind for just a bit longer. These choices become doubly important later.

So Ruby can't handle the responsibility she violently ripped from others and the group goes out of their way to comfort her in this. Especially since the writing again decides to conflate Emerald and Ozpin through a comment of Oscar's, demonstrating that it still has no decent sense of what "responsibility" or "villainous acts" means. These scenes are three years in the making and every step getting here was dogged with problems, so the fact that the end result is a mess isn't exactly surprising.

We (thankfully) leave Ruby for a bit and instead turn to Jaune. He's amplifying Nora's aura, but admits that he can't get the scars to go away. That makes sense. After all, they're scars. His semblance helps people heal, but at this point Nora has already healed. Those scars are the result of that.

She says it was “Just another ditzy move from Nora” and I'm glad we're acknowledging that, even if it is all framed through the lens of Nora being incorrect in that assumption. Once again, the writing continually makes statements about characters, but fails to have their actions reflect that. Nora wanted to do more than just hit things with her hammer without thinking them through... and we showed that by having her hit a door with her hammer without thinking it through. Was it heroic? Absolutely. Did it lead to any growth? No. I'd much rather someone acknowledge that yeah, she did the same thing she always does, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Nora's impulsivity is a part of her and, given the talk of teammates here, she could have gotten reassurance that she'll always have people around to help her temper those impulses. Instead, we're (again) told that she shouldn't do A anymore, watch her do A anyway, the writing presents it like it’s B, Nora admits that she did A, and everyone rushes to assure her it was actually B. Just let these characters make mistakes for once, especially mistakes made in an effort to help someone. This should be the easiest and kindest way to criticize the group and RWBY can’t even manage that.

Which brings us to Ren. Ren, I am so sorry. You deserved better than this. Nora rips into him, saying, “We were supposed to be a team, but that didn’t matter to you! You shove people out so you don’t have to feel things that are hard!" and again we have RWBY making grand statements that are meaningless. Did Ren keep things bottled up in Volume 7? Yes... and no one tried to help him with that. Instead, Nora decided to bypass his problems completely and try to kiss it better. When that (shockingly) didn't work, Ren was finally forced to open up at Yang's insistence and was abandoned for his perspective. That's what that was, literally and metaphorically: they walked away from him and made it clear that so long as he believes these things, he's not welcome. What were those things? We've made mistakes, Ruby made mistakes, we're not ready for this stuff. That's it! "We were supposed to be a team" makes it sound like Ren betrayed them in the worst possible way, when in reality all he did was acknowledge that they're imperfect and that things are a mess right now. But of course, that is the ultimate betrayal for this group: acknowledgement that they’re not perfect. Everyone can call themselves out to generate sympathy — Nora does it, Ruby does it — but as soon as someone else agrees and implies that they should make changes, they’re dismissed.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the refusal to question Ruby makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Is this as bad as Ironwood shooting someone who questions him? Of course not, but that doesn't make it good. The group has made it clear from Ozpin to Ren that if you put a toe out of line, that's it. You're gone. You are not a part of the group until you are willing to back the group 100%, no matter what horrible things they might be up to. That Nora yells at Ren for questioning and Ren learns to keep his mouth shut, apologizing to both her and Jaune for speaking his mind is... well, it's horrible. That's not friendship. I know the fandom doesn't want to hear that given how much we otherwise love these relationships, but it's not. If you can't question and voice concerns without about serious topics like this without the threat of abandonment — literal or otherwise — then that's not a friend group you should be sticking with. Ren’s "biggest failing as a teammate and a partner" is that he didn't agree with the others and didn’t immediately change his mind when they demanded it. There are awful implications attached to that, especially since Ren’s perspective was a good one. He’s not out here slinging horrific views like, I don’t know, homophobia at the bee’s non-relationship. He just went “We made mistakes” and the group responded “Absolutely not. Absurd. Fuck you.” They didn’t even consider that position, which speaks to both a lack of respect for Ren and a level of arrogance that keeps getting them into trouble. But these issues are easily overlooked given everything else that surrounds them. Outside of Ren's apology, I quite liked the renora moment. We got a detail about Nora's backstory! She called Ren pretty! We got an "I love you"! He booped her nose!! It's all very cute and wholesome... and soured by the knowledge of what Ren had to do to get here.

Outside of these generalized responses, there are three other points I wanted to make about this scene:

Yes, more obligatory humor to ruin an otherwise serious moment. Jaune could have just smiled softly and slipped out. Or have him leave before the conversation started (because Ren shouldn't have been apologizing to him in the first place...) Instead, we got multiple seconds of him being awkward, including a bunch of funny sound effects.

I'm legitimately happy we got that "I love you" — outside of the problems since arriving in Atlas, I've always enjoyed the ship — but coming on the heels of last week's episode, it makes the bee's forehead touch look even worse. Renora has been confirmed multiple times at this point, but we still can't get something overt for our one, queer ship.

On the one hand, I really like that Nora set a boundary here — a surprisingly mature conversation for RWBY — but I'm confused as to what exactly the boundary is. She says she needs to figure out who she is without Ren, but what does that translate to on a practical, day-to-day basis? Normally, when a couple needs to figure out who they are they separate, but renora can't do that. They're still on the same team, stuck in the same war, presumably off to do the same things they've always done together. It sounds great on paper to say that Nora is going to discover who she is without Ren, but unless they separate again I don't see how that can happen. More likely, we'll get a volume or two of them looking and acting exactly as they always have, but when it comes time for relationship drama again, Nora will insist she's a different person who is now ready to be with him. That she's changed. But change requires, you know, making a change, so is renora actually going to look any different moving forward?

While these two confess their love but also decide to be separate (is that what happened?), Qrow and Robyn have knocked out some guards and retrieved their weapons. Robyn watches four security feeds, whispering, "He's... really gonna do it." See? Even Robyn, someone who never liked Ironwood and considered him dangerous from the start, is in shock that he would go this far. Qrow doesn't want to talk moral downfalls though, he's all action: "Not if we stop him first."

You know, at least Qrow is doing something. What he's doing is stupid, particularly given his motivations, but with the volume we've had I give him props for coming up with a plan and sticking to it. That's more than many of the others have done.

Yet then, suddenly, Robyn doesn't want to kill Ironwood. ...Since when? Robyn has been the most trigger happy of the lot while Qrow initially wanted to talk. Now they've switched places for no reason I can see, with Qrow all murder happy and Robyn cautioning restraint. Which admittedly isn't uncommon. Remember how Nora was all about protecting Mantle and then randomly decided to help with Amity instead? Remember how Yang was critical of Ruby and then decided to defend her to Ren? Remember how Hazel was pro-Salem until he saw a blue naked lady and decided to defect? At this point, characters just do things at random.

Robyn says that Qrow isn't trying to kill Ironwood because that's the right thing to do, only because he wants revenge. A true enough assessment. But then she follows it up by claiming that Qrow is a better huntsmen than Clover because he does the right thing. Without rehashing all my arguments regarding how Clover was not the devil incarnate for refusing to let two potential criminals walk free — especially after they attacked him — we're really playing the dead guy card now? Clover was murdered. Robyn and Qrow were participants in that murder. Now Robyn is making sweeping claims about who is the better person when Clover quite obviously isn't here to defend himself? That's all kinds of messed up.

Before they can bash the dead guy anymore though the elevator arrives. We see Qrow and Robyn's shocked expressions at whoever is behind the doors, presumably Winter and Marrow. It seems likely that Winter didn't really intend to take him to the brig. They're defecting and have now found two more allies to help them. Robyn wants a plan other than run upstairs and stab Ironwood? Winter will likely provide one.

We return to Ruby who, as established, is wallowing in the most dramatic position on the staircase. Obviously things are legitimately horrible right now and if Ruby had been given a storyline different from what we've seen since Volume 6, I'd feel sorry for her. As it stands, it's just frustrating to watch her look like the maiden of a Victorian novel while Mantle's time ticks away.

The conversation between her and Yang is great though. At least, it is for the first few sentences. I love that the show remembered they're sisters and have them talking again. I love that Yang tries to cheer Ruby up by saying she outshines her big sis in regards to the Hound. I love that she nevertheless acknowledges that the Schnees were a part of that defeat, giving them their due rather than putting all the praise on Ruby. We establish that Yang has learned what the Hound really was. This conversation is going strong...

...but then.

"That's what happened to mom."

Really? Really? In eight episodes we went from, "Lol just because the Hound spoke doesn't mean Summer was secretly made into a grimm. That’s a crazy theory" to "Summer was absolutely turned into a grimm. That's canon now!" Except because it was made canon by Ruby just announcing it one day, we can expect for an even bigger "twist" in the future: Summer is still alive. Why wouldn't she be? The Hound was untouchable outside of silver eyes, so we have little reason to think anyone has defeated her in the last 14 odd years.

I'll admit the timeline works out better than expected (I think) with Salem killing SEWs during Maria's time before switching to experimentation, but there's no emotional weight to this. I just don't care and frankly I don't think the fandom cares either. Oh, there's plenty of excitement over the reveal, but that's all for the version of Summer Rose people have built up in their minds for the last eight years, not anything that exists in the show. If you strip away all the headcanons and fics, Summer isn't interesting because she barely exists. We know nothing about her as a person and therefore we have no reason to care that she's likely another Hound. Worse — because maybe this could be smoothed over if we just care since Ruby cares — everything else surrounding this reveal was badly done. Summer, as said, has been a non-character for this whole series. Yang only just remembered two episodes ago that Summer is her mom too. The only evidence of experimentation we've seen is on other grimm, not people. There was more mystery surrounding why Tyrian was interested in Jaune, not why he'd kidnap Ruby (Big Bads always want to kidnap heroes). We have no idea who this silver eyed faunus was. We have no idea why Salem would randomly start experimenting when she doesn't need additional weapons. We don't know why she would keep these weapons to the sidelines when she’s apparently had them for over a decade. I don't even buy that Ruby, someone who we never see thinking about or questioning any of this, suddenly put all these pieces together to hit on the revelation.

None of this adds up because it wasn't planned. Summer was dead, added to the series purely because having a dead mom is interesting, and she was treated as dead for seven years. Not just by the characters, by the show. Then, suddenly, the narrative raced to remind everyone that she's supposedly a Very Important Character so we could get this twist. It’s awful. Not because the idea itself is horrible, but because it was shoved into a story that wasn't prepared for it and certainly doesn't need it. The group has Salem herself attacking the kingdom, Ironwood threatening destruction, three Relics still to discover, not to mention all the other personal conflicts going on — Emerald walking around the mansion, Ozpin is back, Penny is being controlled, Oscar has finite magic now, Nora is still recovering — but we're going to introduce another subplot to deal with? RWBY acts like it's terrified that if it doesn't add something new and flashy every third episode, its viewers will jump ship. Despite its hiccups, there's a reason why the arcs of Volume 4 worked well overall: characters were given the time to explore specific problems, like Yang's PTSD and the destruction of Ren's village. Now, in episode 11 of 14, RWBY reveals that two of the characters' mom was turned into a literal monster, but there's only time for a tiny bit of comfort because Penny is escaping and they have less than an hour now to save Mantle. There is way too much going on and we're not devoting enough time to any of it.

Hell, even the conversation can't afford to stay on the Summer reveal for more than a few sentences. Ruby segues back to her self-chastisement, saying that she wasted time on Amity. She did, but not because people didn't come. She never should have made that terrifying, nonsensical announcement to begin with. But just like Ruby never thought through the pros and cons of telling the world about Salem, she apparently never thought about the logistics of getting help. She's written the world off now — so you just know help will appear in the finale — yet she never considered how long all this would take. Our timeline is (supposedly) two days, so how long would it take a kingdom to digest the information she gave them, decide on a course of action, get people and resources together, then fly all the way to Atlas? After Ruby used most of the first day just to send the message? As I and others have pointed out, the answer is “way longer than the group has.” It shouldn't be possible, yet neither Ruby nor Yang realizes basic facts like, "What's the flight time between Vacuo and Atlas?" Like Qrow blaming his semblance rather than his decision to team up with Tyrian, Ruby blames the world for abandoning them rather than her terribly thought out plan. Both have reached the right emotion — regret — but not for the right reasons.

Also, Ruby says that Amity fell. Are Pietro and Maria okay??

Yang talks about blind optimism vs. no optimism at all, something I could really get behind if the group hadn't been governed by blind optimism this whole time. Also if what the rest of what Yang said made sense. She fires back with, “And in case you didn’t notice, my plan for Mantle didn’t work either." Uh... what plan? As far as I recall there was no plan. They just went down to do any tasks that needed doing: supply runs and grimm killings. What plan is Yang talking about?

This conversation is a disaster. We circle back around to Summer with Yang saying she also took a risk (the title is very obvious this episode) but "she's still my hero." Is she? Because the only thing you've ever said about Summer is that she baked great cookies. Regardless, Yang lays her head on Ruby's shoulder and they cry some more.

Then Jaune hurries down the steps because Penny has woken up and broken through a window.

Again: how were they planning to deal with this? Did anyone discuss it? Because it looks like Klein said, "Hey, that friend of yours powered up and could have hurt us," Nora said, "Hey, Penny was fighting some sort of control," and Whitely said, "Yeah, she wanted to open the vault and then self destruct" and everyone just left her alone in some room, deciding they'd worry about that later. If Penny had just snuck out a little more quietly the group would have been screwed.

What I do like though is the teamwork to keep Penny from flying off. It feels like we get so little teamwork nowadays, which makes everyone piling on others' range weapons, or Jaune boosting Weiss' glyphs, really enjoyable. Even Emerald gets in on the action because apparently they gave her her weapons back!

We're going to talk about this nonsense in a second.

For now, Ruby implores Penny to fight it, which is exactly what I said we'd get. Penny insists Ruby kill her though, saying that if she does she'll ensure that the power passes to her. I find this to be a weird priority. Does the group really care about who gets the Maiden powers right now? The threat here is that Penny will successfully open the vault — which shouldn't even be that much of a worry. Just let Ironwood leave instead of trying to destroy Mantle! Keeping him here has made things worse! — and that Penny will self-destruct. That feels like the biggest worry: that Penny will die. So they're going to prevent her death by... killing her themselves? Priorities and motivations really feel shaky this week.

Luckily, Ruby remembers that Penny is A Real Person and tells Jaune to amplify her aura. The fact that she has a soul keeps the virus from overtaking her. Hurray!

That's like saying my sense of self will beat off rabies. Just believe that you're your own person and nothing can touch you. They go so far as to say, “That’s who you are. Our friend, not a machine” and that feels like such an erasure to me. Penny is a machine. She is! And that was great back when this was accepted as a good thing, not something to ignore. Remember this?

You think just because you've got nuts and bolts instead of squishy guts makes you any less real than me?

Here, Ruby acknowledges Penny's difference and reaffirms that she still has worth. Now, the group denies Penny's difference in order to prove that she has worth. She has worth because she's supposedly not a machine and supposedly can't be controlled like one... even though she is a machine and is being controlled. It's only Jaune's semblance that keeps her from going under again. The concept of Penny's personhood is now connected to her ability to resist a machine-based virus and she has failed to do that. This doesn't confirm Penny's humanity, it tells Penny (and us) that humanity is distinct from the machine parts of her, rather than a concept that includes it, and the moment she is too influenced by that machinery she ceases to be a person. The group isn't accepting her here, they're encouraging Penny to ignore and deny the parts that make her Penny.

If you want an example of how to do an arc like this far, far better, go watch The Next Generation with Data. He's what Penny could have been.

Regardless, the virus has been held at bay, at least so long as Jaune has aura. Which seems to be endless given that he was exhausting himself in the whale, but is now boosting Nora, Weiss, and Penny without any difficulty.

At least that's a minor concern in the grand scheme of things. What we're about to get? Not so much. Honestly, I'm 7k into this recap and I just don't have the energy that these two scenes deserve. Which scenes? The one where Emerald is welcomed into the fold with laughter and Ozpin has to grovel for forgiveness.

Emerald first. Last week I said:

“However this fight ends, we could really use someone like you, [Emerald.]” That’s it then. Discussion over. We knew as soon as it started that blindly trusting her was being presented as the “right” thing to do and now here we are, deciding that conclusively, despite Jaune and Yang’s complaints. By the time the group reaches the mansion, Oscar is defending Emerald from Ruby. We’re supposed to just accept that she’s a part of the group now, only minimal pushback allowed.

and I was right. Over the course of the last week I spoke with a number of friends, many of them working under the belief that this was just the start of an arc for Emerald. Obviously the show wouldn't instantly have the group trust her after all this. They'll need to warm up to her first. She'll need to prove herself. Well, I was far more pessimistic, arguing instead that I thought this was it. She was already being presented as a perfectly trustworthy figure. I'd briefly thought I'd been mistaken when the group turned on Emerald for her comment to Ruby, but then suddenly she's been given her weapons back. It's not even a matter of "You should be able to defend yourself, but you're still not trustworthy" (which would still have problems, but). No, she makes a comment about "switching sides" and that's it, trust achieved. That's all it took — nothing at all.

Now, some shows do function on a second chance policy. We can name hundred of stories where heroes instantly forgive antagonists and there's nothing wrong with that. The problem is that RWBY is very much not that show. In the exact same scene Ozpin apologizes to the group and begs that they try to trust him again:

“I’ve failed all of you. I should have trusted you with the truth and I should never have run the day you discovered it."

This is complete and utter bullshit. Sorry, I'm not mincing words for this one. Two years we waiting for the group to come around, hoping that there would be apologies on both sides, but there wasn't. The group doesn't physically or verbally hurt Ozpin anymore — they do accept his request — but it's done with expressions that say this is what they are owed. You’d better apologize.

I could rehash all the arguments I've already made about how atrociously they treated him, how Ozpin had no reason to trust a bunch of teenagers, how important it was that both sides admit their mistakes, but if you're reading this recap you're likely already familiar with all that. Rather, what I want to emphasize here is that our opinions on Ozpin don't even matter here. Even those who take his apology at face value — fully believing he did fail them, he should have told them everything from the start, and that him leaving was "running away" rather than being driven off — even if we accept for just a moment that Ozpin is as guilty as the show says and heinous as the fandom claims... surely he's not as bad as Emerald? In roughly chronological order she has:

Tried to ally herself with Adam along with Cinder and Mercury

Helped to attack Amber, resulting in injuries that would have killed her if Cinder hadn't gotten to her first

Helped kill Tukson

Pretended to be a transfer student and Ruby's friend for the rest of the semester (that’s a lie that would breed mistrust)

Tricked the world into thinking that Yang had attacked Mercury unprovoked

Uses her semblance on Pyrrha, causing her to unintentionally kill Penny

All of this was in service of the Fall of Beacon, an event that destroyed a school, killed an unknown number of students, killed Pyrrha, and lost Yang her arm

Participated in the attack on Haven which, beyond the intent to further Salem's goals, nearly got Weiss killed

Came to Atlas to assist in the next attack

Went after Penny, Pietro, and Maria — two of whom might still be in trouble depending on if Amity literally fell out of the sky

Listened to Oscar being tortured, hemming and hawing for a while before realizing that, if the whole world is in danger, she's in danger too

Finally jumped ship

Emerald is one of the bad guys. All the sad looks over the years doesn't change that. Yet somehow an antagonist we've had since Volume 1 is considered more trustworthy than Ozpin, a man who hasn't intentionally helped kill their friends and who has been helping and apologizing for months now.

Yang "Aww"s when Emerald speaks. Just sit with that for a second. The woman who went through all of that horror because of Emerald, who just last episode was correctly saying they can't expect her to forget all that, is going "Aww" after... Emerald helped hold Penny for two seconds? This is ridiculous. These are the faces of the group when talking about Emerald's trust

whereas these are their expressions when talking about Ozpin's

It’s not a matter of who deserves trust or not, here it’s purely a matter of comparison. Emerald should not be more quickly forgiven than Ozpin.

Now toss in the story Ozpin tells. Unsurprisingly, it's another fairy tale — we've gotten a little heavy-handed lately — about a young girl who flees the consequences of a choice and, having never learned from her initial failure, spreads even more trouble. That's Ruby. That is Ruby to a T in this episode and the last three volumes. She is literally a young girl who has caused staggering consequences, literally ran away from the conversation about those consequences, and is now poised to continue making those mistakes because everyone keeps reinforcing her flaws. That's Ruby, yet somehow the show thinks it's Ozpin. He positions himself as the young girl here, as if he didn't face his consequences generations ago when he left the cabin, didn't learn from his mistakes by keeping Salem's secret, and hadn't been driven away by the very people he's asking for a second chance. This scene has everything backwards and while normally I'd grab hold of the possibility that maybe things will right themselves later on... we're done. This is the ending of that arc. After two years of saying, "Maybe, maybe, maybe," Ozpin has been taken back into the fold after begging his way back in. There's no more time to correct things. RWBY missed its chance. Weiss says that "Trust is a risk" and that's how Ozpin is forgiven. They have taken the risk of trusting him again after months of reflection, life-saving actions, and apologies. Emerald is granted the risk of trust in under an hour. I’ve heard so many people say they’re dropping RWBY this volume and scenes like this are precisely why.

Ugh. Heavy stuff, folks! I feel like I need to lighten the mood. Here, let's take a moment to acknowledge that the Schnees and Klein only marginally know what's happening.

Someone help them.

That is, to all intents and purposes, the end of our episode. Ruby has some sort of epiphany about actually handing Penny over — "That's actually a risk we haven't considered" — and Ironwood will no doubt fall for whatever plan they've concocted because he's stupid now. He receives a call from Ruby saying they agree to his terms, Watts is attempting to get communication of his own up and running, and Neo arrives to do... whatever she intends to do. Idk, I have assumed she wanted Ruby, but Cinder obviously doesn't have her yet for a trade off. Regardless, Neo is ready for a fight while Cinder just smiles. Team up 2.0?

As for bingo, I'm using my free space for "Worst redemption arc I've ever seen," with an honorary nod to Hazel too, and Ozpin's square gets blacked out in exes because that was just #bad.

This bingo board is a mess. Appropriate lol

Three more weeks, everyone. Hang in there! 💜

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby risk #mymetas #rwby recaps

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simpcircus · 4 years

Text

Accidental

Warning(s): cursing, fluff

Word count: 2.8k

A/N: Sorry for taking way too long for this request! I hope I don’t disappoint you too much, anon TT

“T’as d’beaux yeux, tu sais?” The flirtatious voice of a man you knew so well entered your ears from afar and you were trying your hardest to ignore the tinge of jealousy that was currently present in your chest.

Not too far away from you, there stood Polnareff in all his glory - shooting his shot with a bunch of young looking women using his flirty lines. Him being a smooth talker is old news and everyone in the team already knew how flirty Polnareff could be. His words are so sweet as if they’re coated with honey everytime he speaks, and his dazzling smile has never failed to charm you.

While you had to admit that you did fall in love with him due to his flawless outer appearance at first, Jean Pierre Polnareff is definitely more than his loud and silly demeanour. Time and time again, your assumptions about his personality were proven wrong as he kept showing new sides of himself to you. He’s an honorable man and despite his mild narcissism, you could tell that he means well. You also learn later on that Polnareff is a compassionate person and it only adds to his many charms.

It’s practically impossible for you to not fall in love with the frenchman honestly.

You had to hold back a sigh when you heard him shoot another flirty line to the girls. You’re well aware that jealousy is a disease, especially when he’s not even your boyfriend but you couldn’t help yourself. God you wished it was you instead that he’s flirting with because your feelings for Polnareff have started to become much more serious - to the point where he’s the only person you could think about nowadays.

It scares you on how much the Frenchman could affect your mind despite him not even trying.

With the scorching sun hanging in the sky above you, the level of your annoyance only accelerated the more you heard him flirting with those women. It was hard to ignore the bitterness in your chest and at this point, anyone can spot the frown on your face as you stared at the ground in silence.

“Are you okay (y/n)?” A gruff voice grabbed your attention, successfully pulling you away from your envy filled thoughts. Your eyes were quick to look up from the ground, only to see Mr. Joestar’s concerned face. “Ah, Joestar-san. I’m fine, don't worry about it.” Your lips quickly stretched into a smile to reassure him that there was nothing to be worried about and the man nodded. However, despite the nod he gave you, it was obvious that he’s not buying it - though the man didn’t want to be seen as intrusive, which was why he decided that it’s best for him to excuse himself.

Keeping your little crush for Polnareff to yourself wasn’t as easy as you’d expected it to be. While it was unnoticeable for the other crusaders at first,the extra observant ones like Kakyoin and Avdol were able to catch up rather quickly. It’s a relief that Avdol isn’t the type to focus on unimportant stuff like this, but Kakyoin seemed like he enjoyed teasing you about your crush for Polnareff. The redhead would give you knowing looks and you couldn’t do anything to stop him.

“I take it that you’re bothered by something, but I wonder what could it be” Kakyoin instantly appeared by your side as soon as Mr. Joestar was out of your sight, the tone of his voice was showcasing his curiosity and concern. You weren’t sure if it’s the right choice to tell the crusader about your jealousy, especially knowing that Kakyoin will tease the hell out of you later on.

Polnareff's flirting, your deafening silence and foul mood seem to give him an idea of what’s actually going on and you could almost see a lightbulb appearing on his head when he managed to piece everything together. Kakyoin’s violet eyes went back and forth between your sulking figure and Polnareff before he continued speaking. “I don't wish to assume, but is it about him?”

‘Just how observant this guy is?’ A small thought echoed in your head as you could feel a drop of cold sweat went down your back. He figured it all out by himself and you didn’t even say anything that could hint about your feelings.

“Fine. It is about him.” The frown on your face deepened as you admitted to your feelings, and Kakyoin instantly gave you the smirk that you knew so well. It's almost like he's proud of himself for being able to guess your thoughts correctly. “Maybe you should just tell him about your crush, (y/n). How long are you planning to keep it to yourself?”

Like hell you would.

“Non non non non non” You furiously shook your head at his suggestion, your arms were now crossed against your chest. “I would rather die than confess to him. Of course I didn’t want to die literally but you get what I mean.” Your face turned red at the thought of coming clean about your crush to the frenchman while Kakyoin let out a snicker out of amusement at your reaction.

"Even the way he speaks has rubbed off on you. Just how infatuated are you with him (y/n)?" You only glared at Kakyoin after his words but the redhead paid no attention to your silent threat.

Your friend parted his lips to continue taunting you but his words were cut off by some distant angry voices coming from Polnareff’s direction, and both of you were quick to turn to look at them. The women he was flirting with earlier looked unhappy while their mouths spouted appalling insults to the silver haired man.

“This guy really thinks he had a chance with us by relying on his shitty flirting skills. Pathetic!”

“You think your hair is cool but it’s actually not.”

“Your chance of getting into a relationship is probably as big as your non-existent eyebrows!”

The change in Polnareff’s facial expression wasn’t hard to spot. You were gritting your teeth while your eyes shot daggers at those women.

“(y/n), calm down.” Kakyoin tried his best to keep your anger under control even though he’s well aware that his effort was useless. Your mood was already foul to begin with, so he wouldn’t be surprised if you do anything that could cause harm to the women. Their obnoxious laugh only fueled your anger and as soon as another insult left their lips, you started stomping your feet towards their direction.

“Maybe you should mirror yourself first before approaching girls like us next time-” “The one who needs a mirror is you.”

Your voice was stern as you spoke and Polnareff’s eyes widened after realizing that you came into his defense. All his life, the man has never thought there will be a day when the person he’s interested in would defend him against a bunch of rude women. It made his heart flutter and Polnareff was trying his best to keep his composure around you. Though, he had to admit that his current situation was kind of embarrassing.

“How dare you!” One of the women glared at you but you weren't intimidated at all. Your journey with the other crusaders to Egypt has led you to meet countless enemies who are stand users. With the way they're dressed - lacy overpriced dresses that hung on their bodies like table cloth, unflattering homemade curls with badly drawn eyebrows and unblended eyeshadow - you wondered what exactly Polnareff saw in them to make him want to flirt with them. A bunch of rude, unfashionable and obnoxious women wouldn't scare you.

"Hah! Looks like the guy couldn’t even stand up for himself. How sad!"

It was the last straw for you, and your patience has finally run out, completely. As if a switch inside of your head got flipped by an unknown force, your cold eyes burnt with nothing but fury and you could tell that those women were greatly intimidated with the look in your face. They took a few steps backwards everytime you moved closer to them - while Polnareff watched in awe at how much power you have in scaring the group away.

He instantly took note to stay on your good side.

"What rights do you have to freely insult him? Are your insecurities that bad to the point where you would settle for cheap insults instead of just politely declining his advances?" You were trying so hard to not yell out of anger. The amount of unadulterated rage you have for these women were forcing you to lash out, give them some good beating with your stand and create a scene, but the more rational side of your brain stopped those barbaric thoughts - constantly reminding you to keep your cool especially when Polnareff's around to witness your actions.

Their deafening silence gave you the green light to continue talking and defend the frenchman who has stolen your heart. "Haven't you heard? If you have nothing nice to say then it's better if you just stay silent. This so-called 'pathetic' man might look 'uncool' or 'sad' but that still doesn't give you the right to insult him."

Polnareff wasn't sure if he should be offended by your words, or feel grateful that you're trying to stand up for him. Either way, his pride has taken a little hit.

"So you're defending him, yet your words implied that he is indeed, uncool and sad. Wasn't that a contradiction?-" "I'm not done yet!"

Your fists clenched by your sides while your nails digged into the flesh of your palms. At this point, all your thoughts about Polnareff have spiralled out of control and words of appreciation on the tip of your tongue are threatening to spill out from your mouth. You couldn't bear the thought of letting other people see him as a terrible person when he's not. You couldn't bear the thought of letting other people look down on him just because of his flirting tendency.

"I obviously can't change your opinion towards him, but I'll let you know that you're wrong."

All your life, you have always held onto the whole 'opinions couldn't be wrong because everyone has different perspectives' concept. However, this time's an exception.

“This guy right here” You paused your sentence to point your finger at Polnareff, your eyebrows furrowed in determination to prove those women wrong. “He’s AMAZING”

"He's more than how he appears. You probably think of him as a degenerate, but let me tell you again, you're wrong. He's great and he cares a lot for his friends." Your mind reverted back to the time when Polnareff risked his own safety just to save you. The enemy stand was too strong for you to defeat on your own, but you were still reckless at that time - which was why you were so quick to throw yourself into the battle despite all the warnings from the other crusaders. If it wasn't for him, you probably would have died.

"Polnareff doesn't deserve any of your insults! He almost got himself killed to save me, and I'll be damned if I say I didn't feel bad about it. All this time, I thought of him shallowly - just a prideful man who loves to boast about his abilities to literal strangers, but I was just as wrong as you are."

Polnareff stayed in silence as he listened to your words, his mouth slightly agape with shock. Butterflies fill in his stomach with every word of appreciation that leaves your mouth. Is this a dream? Or reality? He just simply couldn't believe it - his crush is speaking highly of him.

"The more you know him, the more charming he gets and I'm happy to know him as the person he really is. There isn't a day when I would complain about our fated encounter. It almost felt like a blessing, even, to know Polnareff. Everything about him is perfect despite his flaws. If you couldn't accept someone's flaws and opt to insult them instead, then I would kindly ask you to stop and leave. Your negativity and audacity aren't needed here."

It does feel nice to be able to speak out your thoughts.You had to mentally congratulate yourself for not completely losing your cool and still remain respectful while you were trying to defend Polnareff. However, those angry women seemed to target their fatuous insults towards you, but it was a relief that their attention wasn't fully directed towards the frenchman behind you.

"Look at them desperately trying to defend that walking trash."

"They probably like that poor excuse of a man so much."

"Where has their taste in men gone to?”

With the level of your anger increasing again, your brain could no longer think rationally as you began verbally lashing out on them, the tone of your voice raising higher and higher the more you spoke.

"What the hell is wrong with you? Are you so idiotic that I have to repeat myself? I said, you have no right to insult people. Yet here you are, still running your foul mouths like it's the only thing you could do in your sad life!"

Their faces turned pale at your outburst and Polnareff was getting more and more worried for you.

"H-hey (y/n).. Let's just leave-"

"No, Pol. I'm not going to let them get away - not after they've horribly insulted you."

You took one final step closer towards the group and they weren't moving an inch, as if you were about to end their lives in the most brutal way if they do.

"Jean Pierre Polnareff is a beautiful man inside out and it saddens me that your eyes have failed to capture his magnificence. He is the literal manifestation of art and inner beauty itself. Flaws or not, he's perfect in every way and I love him for who he is!"

And just like that, your biggest secret was no longer a secret. Polnareff was in utter shock, his eyes widened as he looked at you in disbelief. His face was covered in red; a rare shy response to your accidental confession - but you had it worse than him. The embarrassment you had for your own sudden, unplanned confession was unbearable and you wished you could just throw yourself deep into the depths of the atlantic ocean, never to be found again.

"L-let's just leave these two idiots, girls! We're clearly wasting our precious time here."

The women quickly turned to the opposite direction and left while grumbling about how scary you were, but you didn't pay much attention to them. Not when Polnareff has found out about your feelings for him.

Other than embarrassment, there was fear present in your chest as you didn't dare to look directly at him. Your heart was pounding loudly as you stood there in silence, awaiting for Polnareff's response. After a long moment of speechlessness, the silver haired man finally cleared his throat to ease the tense in the air.

"Thank you for having my back, amour. Those girls are being mean to me for no reason!" Polnareff's tone was lighthearted as he spoke and you quickly shook your head. "I-it's fine. I'm just trying to help, that's all." You still weren't able to look at him in the eye and Polnareff took an initiative to confirm his suspicions about your feelings for him.

"Say.. (y/n), do you really mean what you said earlier?"

A nervous laugh immediately left your lips as you rubbed your nape, your face still red from embarrassment. "Oh about the whole 'you're a great person and no one should insult you' thing? Of course! Insulting people is a bad thing to do anyways-"

"(y/n), mon amour."

You froze as your brain finally comprehended the fact that he called you 'amour' and your face only got redder than before. Did he really feel the same? Does Polnareff like like you?

The dumbfounded look on your face only caused him to laugh, and you'd dare say it was music to your ears. However, a small sigh left his lips shortly after he was done laughing. "Though, this is a little unfortunate, cherie. I've made an extravagant plan on how I wanted to confess to you but looks like you've beaten me to it!"

"Wait- you like me too, Polnareff?"

Polnareff let out a playful chuckle before decreasing the distance between the two of you, and leaned in towards your direction. Despite his playfulness during the current moment, there was warmth and adoration in his gorgeous blue eyes as he looked at you. "What if I say yes? Will I get a kiss, ange?"

You had no idea where your sudden surge of confidence came from, but it was surely useful for your current situation. Flashing him a cheeky smile to match his playful demeanour, you gave him a quick 'sure' before leaning into him and planted a quick yet sweet kiss on the corner of his lips, purposely missing his actual lips.

Polnareff was the one left in shock and just when he was about to whine about your little kiss, you were already walking away with a giggle. "Come on, let's get going Polnareff! Jotaro's gonna get mad at us if we're late"

#jjba x reader #polnareff x reader #JJBA #jean pierre polnareff #polnareff imagine

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bunnyywritings · 4 years

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how would prohero! bakugou, todoroki, and midoriya react if a teenager went up to them (at a meet n greet or on the street or something) and whisper to them ‘don’t show any emotion, call 911, my foster parents have been abusing me for so long’ and back off with a smile and a ‘have a nice day’ before walking into a bathroom or something to wait out

[a/n: Thank you anon! I did these as an hc and they might’ve turned out a bit long? I’m not sure but here it is. Slight warning seeing as this is a sensitive topic and there’s a curse word or two in Bakugou’s but it is Bakugou so...? I also made this as fem!teenager, I hope that’s ok -yours truly, bunnyy-`ღ´- ps. Despite probably not being able to do much, my inbox is always open if anyone needs to talk. This is a judgement free zone! I’m here if you ever need any support 🥺 ]

Prohero!Bakugou

* Ever since Bakugou debuted as a pro hero, he had gotten used to teenagers (both guys and girls) approaching him and asking for a picture. He was aware they thought he was handsome and whatnot

* He didn’t really care for it but to rise in the ranks, he needed high social ratings too

* So he wasn’t very surprised when a teenager approached him while he was on patrol

* He waited for the usual “oh my god! It’s Ground Zero!” Or “look! It’s Ground Zero! Please take a picture with me!” But it never did

* He quirked an eyebrow as she looked around cautiously before meeting his gaze with terror filled eyes

* “Please don’t make a scene but...help me. My foster parents, they-they’re hurting m-me. I just c-can’t take it anymore. Their abuse has gone on for so long.”

* His eyes widened as he watched her practically beg for help with a totally neutral face but the eyes gave it away, he could see the fear, he could see how tired she was

* Before he could respond, she took a deep breath before a smile made its way onto her lips and a cheery, “Have a nice day!” filled his ears as he watched her walk into a convenience store

* He grit his teeth. Sweat beading on his brow. He didn’t know what to do. Domestic situations like this were usually a job for the police...but he couldn’t wait for them, they’ve proven time after time how unreliable they can be to get to the scene quickly and it was HIM who was directly asked for help

* His mind went blank when he saw two older adults walked passed them and into the convenience store. “Why did you run off?! We told you to stay in the car while we were getting groceries!” He watched as the teen who just begged him for help was roughly grabbed by the arm and yanked out of the store

* Grabbing his phone, he scrambled to call it in

* He audibly growled when he watched as one of the parents raised their hand and the poor girl flinched away in terror

* His body reacted before he could and he was suddenly in front of the terrified girl and gripping the parents wrist in a death hold

* “You should never EVER raise your hand at a child that way. Get away from her before I blow your asses to kingdom come!”

* “That’s no way for a pro hero to speak to innocent civilians.” They had the AUDACITY to act like they weren’t guilty

* “Abusers are villains in my book! Your time of causing harm has come to an end!”

* And right on time, the police arrived and Bakugou briefed them on the situation before reluctantly letting them take her into their care

* After he finished giving his statement to an officer, someone collided with him. He looked down to see the girl wrapping her arms around him. Tears dripping onto his chest

* “T-thank you...you’re the o-only one whose ever b-believed me.” She cried as she clung to him

* “O-oi. Stop crying, they’ll never able to hurt you anymore” he hesitantly wrapped an arm around her comfortingly, his hand coming up to pat her head

* She thanked him once more before she was called away

* A small grin appeared on his face, it never failed to amaze him how good it felt to save someone, he really hoped she’d get the happy home she deserves

Prohero! Shoto

* As one of the top heroes, he was used to being called in for a bunch of different things and he’s seen a lot of unsightly things

* He likes to believe that he’s been desensitized to the violence that he’s witnessed a countless number of times

* Boy was he wrong

* He was on his usual patrol when a teen approached him

* Shoto had a good social rating and learned how to make peace with the fact that people thought he was attractive even if he still couldn’t really see it

* “Can I get a picture please?”

* He accepted and wrapped a friendly arm around her and pose to take the selfie

* “My foster parents have been abusing me with their quirks, please save me. I can’t take it anymore.”

* His eyes widened, he could see the skin of her wrists that peeled out from her school uniform

* There was nasty burn marks littered all over

* “Thank you!” She moved away from him and bowed, “have a wonderful day!” She had a bright smile on her lips but she seemed on the verge of tears

* She walked past him

* A bewildered expression took over his face as he turned, wanting to reach out to her when he saw her with her parents

* The way she subtly flinched at certain movements and the way they gripped her arms or shoulder

* To the untrained eye, it seemed completely normal

* But he knew the signs of abuse all too well, emotional and physical

* “Excuse me!” He called out rather calmly

* All three of them turned around, the teens eyes widened

* “I need you two to unhand her and come with me please.”

* They resisted, claiming that they had done nothing wrong

* “Just because you aren’t doing anything despicable at the present moment doesn’t make you innocent. I’m not a hero that takes child abuse lightly, especially when the use of a quirk is involved. Please come with me before I decide to use force.”

* Another hero or two caught wind of the situation and proceeded to assist in the arrest so Shoto could stay with the girl before the proper authorities showed up

* “Thank you....s-so much, I t-thought it would n-never end.”

* “Believe it or not, I know what it feels like. But it will get better, I promise. Besides, that was something pretty brave you did. I’m sure you’ll recover soon and be stronger than ever.”

* He would make it his personal mission to check in on her from time to time and make sure that the next place she ended up in would be somewhere where she’d be loved and supported

* Because he had Class 1-A to help him recover

* She needed love and support to recover, he made sure that she got it

Prohero! Midoriya

* Poor baby is devastated whenever kids or teens were directly involved while doing his job

* He was doing his usual patrol

* He assumed school had let out already since there was a bunch of kids in school uniforms wandering about

* He never minded being approached by fans, he knew what it was like to be a fanboy so he encouraged photos and autographs

* So when he saw a girl running in his direction, he didn’t think anything of it

* He prepared himself to take a cheesy, peace sign selfie

* But when the girl basically rammed into him and clutched onto his hero suit for dear life, he was instantly worried

* Images of when he encountered Eri for the first time flashed across his mind

* “Please. They’re hurting me.”

* “Who is? Who’s hurting you?” His eyes frantically searched the area before looking down and meeting her tear filled gaze, lip quivering and eyebrows pinched together

* “M-My parents, w-well my f-foster parents. They-“ her tearful stuttering was cut short when the shout of a name caught both their attention and she tensed up in his arms

* “Please don’t let them take me.”

* He told her to hold onto him and he picked her up, using his full cowling to make him run faster in the direction of his agency

* He was determined to not make the same mistake this time around

* I think he’d probably call Uravity aka; Ochaco, to come and help calm her down and keep her company

* After receiving word that someone had called in a report about a missing teen that fit the girl’s description, he used that to confront her foster parents

* Making sure they were properly taken care of and were no longer able to ever have foster kids or adopt kids for the foreseeable future

* After things seemed to calm down, he actually noticed that the girl went to UA

* “Oh! Are you in the hero course?”

* She was shocked by his excitement as she nodded

* “What’s your quirk?”

* He couldn’t help it but he needed to distract her for the time being

* He hated seeing people hurt, the innocent being in fear for their life but this is what he lived for

* Seeing the people he helps smile again, be carefree while speaking about their favorite school subject, even, anything is better than them being in fear

#bnha x reader #mha x reader #pro hero midoriya #pro hero bakugou #pro hero todoroki #headcannons #anon ask #anon #request

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haikyuulovercompany · 4 years

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Can I request an angsty Daichi imagine where the reader and him are exes and they’ve been on and off for a long time? Then the reader feels kind of jealous and upset when she sees Daichi with a new girl and when they get back together, s/o is really emo and asks him something like “do really want me? do you even love me? Why do we keep doing this?”. A nice happy ending pls.

Okay, I really tried to include everything, and I hope you like it! It’s nice to write for Daichi. He’s very warm and it’s easy to put him in different situations (: I don’t know how angsty this was, but i hope it is enough?? Thanks for the request!! -Admin Bunny.

----- Giving a relationship a second chance wasn’t easy. One could think it would be easy to fall into routine since both parts already knew each other, and if two people decided to try again, it meant the feelings were too strong to let go. There was a side some people didn’t think when adventuring once again with the same person: there was history.

After spending almost, a whole year apart, meeting again with Daichi and watching the love between them bloom again, ______ thought they would finally get the proper chance they deserved. She hadn’t foreseen the downside of it, but she quickly discovered it.

You don’t break up your relationship because of nothing. They had fallen out of love, or so they had thought. In that moment, the decision had hurt but it had made sense. They loved each other but it simply wasn’t the same after three years.

Getting over Daichi had proven to be the hardest part, especially because she hadn’t been able to truly get over him. After three months, ______ thought she was doing better. She missed Daichi only in certain situations that inevitably reminded her of him, and even then, it was nothing but nostalgia. It wasn’t the same pain she went through the first weeks. It was like that until Sugawara had uploaded a story to his social media, and ______ had saw Daichi hugging a new girl. In a frenzy, she had gone through his socials and quickly found said girl. It was quick to verify they were romantically involved. She shared much more of her life than him on her socials. It had been like getting her heart broken twice. ______ fell into the toxic game of comparing herself to her. It was truly painfully to see him happy with someone else.

She didn’t know what had happened, but she knew it had been a brief relationship. As Daichi put it, he hadn’t been ready and he rushed with someone else, unnecessarily hurting the two of them. He had openly talked about it, and in the moment, it had calmed her heart. They were restarting things, and she had never been so unsure of herself. She wanted to make things right so badly, she was obsessing over anything threating their relationship.

It had gotten to a point where _____ kept checking the socials of the other girl. Daichi’s words revolved around her head constantly. Brief or not, Daichi had broken things up because he wasn’t ready, not because he didn’t like her. Digging into that type of train of thought was noxious. She should be enjoying being with him again, but the ghosts of the previous months haunted her daily. She was afraid he would fell out of love with her again, or maybe he wasn’t even that in love anymore. She was afraid she was sharing his heart with someone else, and this fear only increased when she found out Daichi still followed the other girl everywhere. Maybe he couldn’t let her go.

It didn’t help when two weeks later, Daichi was acting distant. He hadn’t been answering to her texts with the same consistency than always, and whenever she called him, he seemed to be in a hurry. Was he regretting being with her again? Weeks of stress and insecurity had accumulated, putting her under a pressure she had no idea how to get rid of. She had to admit to Daichi she had been lurking through his life, and the least thing she wanted was be the stereotypical crazy girlfriend who had tabs on him. She didn’t want to be that person.

One week went by. Daichi had promised to have dinner with her that night to compensate for how absent he had been. This didn’t help ______. He was aware of his behavior, and he was quick to notice upon his arrival there was something that wasn’t right with his girlfriend.

He hadn’t expected her to jump and scream, but the short kiss he had received raised an alarm in his head. He had tried to shrug it off. It had been just a kiss. However, as the minutes pass and ______ wouldn’t even meet his eyes and kept her distance. “Is everything okay?” he finally asked.

She raised her eyes to him and nodded before looking away, warming up dinner for the two of them. “Yup.”

“______,” Daichi called, walking up to her and turning down the fire of the stove, and dedicating her a worrying look. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing, okay?” But her tone told otherwise.

Daichi grabbed her softly by the arms, putting enough strength to keep her in place. “Can you please just talk to me?”

“Do you really want me?” ______ asked abruptly with anguish all over her voice.

He blinked. “What do you mean?”

She broke loose from his hold, putting distance between them again. “I mean us. Me as a girlfriend. Do you really want this?”

“______, obviously I want you. Why are you asking this?”

Tears welled up in her eyes, and what he wanted the most was to bring her into his arms, but it was plain obvious she was in a defensive state, and she wouldn’t let him. He waited for her to gather up herself and speak. “You dated someone else, and it wouldn’t be too crazy if you still want her. I know you still follow her everywhere, and I just wonder. I wonder all the time. You fell out of love with me once, you know,” she confessed, nibbling on her lower lip.

Daichi quickly knew what he had done wrong. He had assumed things would be as good as always. They couldn’t really start anew. They had to start from where they had left things. He had dismissed their past mistakes instead of resolving them. He didn’t need closure, but she clearly did need it. “We can agree that the both of us fell out love,” he started. “I needed to see a little bit what was out there, and in the end, there was nothing like you. That’s why seeing you again at that party was a relief. I had been considering on texting you. Check if just maybe you were missing me, too. It was funny because the more time it passed, instead of moving on I just wanted you more and more.”

“It was the same for me,” she admitted. His words were working on her. Her doubtful heart was peeking out of her chest at Daichi, yearning to hear more.

“We got blind and we needed to step out to see what we had. And I love what I have with you. I’m sure I could never find what I have with you with anyone else. There’s just one ______, and that’s who I want.” She looked at him, and he was already staring at her with tenderness. He smiled softly. “Come here.”

______ obeyed, and slowly made her way to him. He trapped her in his arms. “But what about her?”

“It’s over with her.”

“You said you left her because you weren’t ready. Not because you didn’t like it.”

He chuckled. “Because all I could think about was trying things with you again. Maybe if I had asked for a second chance, and you had rejected me, then I would have my answer and truly move on. You were always on my mind.”

“Really?”

“I swear on my life. But I need you to trust me in this. I’m looking for a promotion and there will be weeks where I will be very busy, but it doesn’t mean it has to do with you. Can you trust me?”

“I can.”

“Can I kiss you and then we can have dinner?” he asked, returning to a much lighter tone.

She smiled. “Yeah.” He leaned down and connected his lips with her, making sure to make the kiss last more than the regular peck. Goosebumps went down her neck at the feeling. It was the perfect way to seal her insecurities away. Daichi had never been a liar, and there hadn’t been a hint of deception. He wasn’t that type of guy. At the same time, she felt too naïve to believe Daichi was someone who would toy with others feelings. In that moment, the toxic thoughts torturing her through the week felt silly and without base. She had really let the worst of her took the wheel, and drove her to dark places. Thankfully, Daichi was like a beacon, guiding back to the shore—back to him. “We’ll make it work this time around, you’ll see,” he assured her before kissing her one more time. She felt a spark of happiness, and kissed him back with more enthusiasm.

#daichi sawamura #daichi x y/n #daichi x reader #daichi x you #sawamura x reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #haikyuu!! x reader #haikyuu!! x you #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu x you #haikyuu x y/n #karasuno #karasuno x reader

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shadowhuntertrash · 3 years

Text

High Notes

Chapter Eight

I own nothing but the plot

Character belong to Cassandra Clare

When Thomas woke up, he was absolutely terrified and questioning every life choice he had made that got him to where he was. How was he supposed to put on a concert? How many people were coming? Who would even want to come to see him?

His stomach had dropped all the way down to his feet by the time they were heading down for breakfast. It must have shown on his face because the minute Lucie and Cordelia came down to join them Lucie pulled him into a tight hug and Cordelia smiled providing encouraging words.

Thomas just poked his eggs, too nervous to actually eat anything. James and Christopher seemed to be in the same boat, neither of them having touched much of their food while Matthew, Lucie, and Cordelia happily ate their entire breakfast.

When Cordelia finished eating she checked her phone, a flash of annoyance on her face. “Alastair isn’t responding so I’m assuming he’s still asleep. I’ll be back.” She stood up grabbing her trash and froze in her spot, his eyes dancing around confused. “Problem?” Matthew asked, taking a bite of his apple.

Cordelia continued to look confused for a second before slowly sitting back down. “Umm, I forgot where his room is.” Thomas laughed quietly. “Room 302.” He said easily, still pushing around his eggs, mind running through all the things that could go wrong that night. Looks like sleep didn’t help anyway. He grabbed his cup of orange juice and took a sip.

Lucie gave him a knowing look and Cordelia smirked at him. “And how exactly do you know where Alastair’s room is?” Thomas’ hand froze midway to his mouth and he laughed awkwardly. “Umm, we all told each other our rooms remember?” Lucie and Cordelia weren’t buying it, Thomas didn’t even have to look at the other Merry Thieves to know that they weren’t either.

Cordelia’s smirk only deepened. “Oh yes of course. What is our room number Thomas?” She asked innocently, Thomas wished nothing more in that moment than for the earth to open up and swallow him whole. “It’s umm, it’s,” Thomas scratched his head, face far too hot than what was acceptable. He cursed his inability to remember things on the spot.

“It’s-” Thomas was cut off by someone plopping down into the seat to his left. Alastair grinned at him taking in his flushed face. “What are we talking about that’s making Thomas blush so hard?” Alastair asked with a raised eyebrow. Thomas turned away from him, his embarrassment threatening to bubble over.

“Oh just y-” Lucie was cut off by Cordelia’s hand over her mouth, stopping what Thomas highly suspected was Lucie saying ‘you’. Lucie pouted, slumping in her chair and Cordelia smiled that deceivingly innocent smile of hers at her brother. “Nothing Alastair, we were just teasing him.” Alastair gave Thomas a hard look, a silent question in his eyes. ‘Really?’ Thomas shook his head numbly, desperately willing Alastair to drop the subject.

Alastair seemed to get the message and looked around the table at everyone’s plates, Thomas suspected that it was to see who was nervous. His suspicion was proven correct when Alastair smiled a rare genuine smile at everyone. “I know some of you are nervous,” His gaze lingered on Thomas who blushed and looked away. “But you really have no reason to be. It’s scary at first but once everyone is screaming and the music is playing it’s actually a really powerful experience.”

Matthew scoffed and rolled his eyes, James elbowed him in the ribs and Matthew pouted. They shared a hard look before Matthew relented, slumping in his chair mumbling a “thanks Alastair” before going back to his previously abandoned apple.

Alastair looked smug.

Thomas smiled at Alastair, a warm feeling spreading through his body. Alastair when he chose to be could be a really encouraging person, anyone who has been the target of the encouragement could tell you that it was the best feeling in the world. Alastair gave Thomas a sincere smile before sitting back in his chair, his knee brushing against Thomas’. Thomas expected Alastair to move it but instead Alastair just flashed him a grin and winked, his knee staying flush against Thomas’ own.

Thomas’ heart flipped and Lucie and Cordelia were both watching him with identical ‘We’re talking about this later.’ looks. Thomas started fiddling with his sweatshirt, it had the logo for The Beautiful Cordelia that Lucie had given him as a gag gift last christmas. It had always made Lucie laugh because it was a joke but Thomas actually really enjoyed it and wore it quite frequently.

Cordelia stood up again, this time going to throw away her food, and when she came back she had a big smile on her face. “Okay so are we ready? We have about a thirty minute drive to the arena and then we are practicing for a bit.” Matthew nodded enthusiastically as Lucie stretched and stood up. Christopher stood as well gathering his things quickly.

James and Thomas exchanged anxious glances, both positively sick with worry. Thomas felt a hand on his lower back and then Alastair was whispering in his ear. Thomas almost missed what he said, the only thing he could think about was Alastair’s hand and if he moved it just slightly down-

“Just calm down, you’ll be fine I promise.” And then Alastair’s hand was gone and Thomas was finally able to breathe, James walked up to him smirking, all nervousness gone without a trace. “You’re so whipped.” Thomas laughed and hit James’ arm lightly, James threw his head back laughing too, his golden eyes sparkling the way they did when he was truly amused. Thomas rolled his eyes, well at least someone was amused.

When they got on the bus the boys were shocked and a little confused as to why Jesse was there, Anna readily explained that he would be with them a lot making sure everything ran smoothly, she then told them separately to be nice because he really was a good person.

It came as even more of a shock when the girls climbed onto their bus chatting excitedly only for Lucie to freeze when she saw Jesse. Thomas saw James go to explain who he was but was cut off by Lucie’s confused words. “Jesse? What are you doing here?” Jesse laughed, one of the first emotions Thomas could sense from him and shrugged, still smiling at Lucie. “It’s my job, I didn’t realize this Anna was your cousin Anna.”

Jesse turned to look at Anna, dressed nicely in business attire, all black, eyeliner around her eyes making the blue stand out strikingly. Thomas envied her ability to be so utterly comfortable and confident with herself. “Though I guess that’s on me, you certainly are one of a kind, Anna.” Jesse said, turning his charming, and it was charming, smile on Anna.

Anna rolled her eyes and ruffled his hair which in turn caused Jesse to roll his own eyes, James was watching their interactions with a highly confused expression that Thomas found rather funny.

“I’m sorry what is happening?” Lucie laughed and turned to her brother. “This is Jesse we met at a coffee shop once, he spilled coffee on me and in turn offered to buy me another, failing to realize it was his own coffee he spilled.” Lucie said, eyes clouding over slightly as if she was reliving the memory, a soft smile danced on her lips. Jesse blushed, a small smile on his lips too. “I did say sorry.” He said looking at Lucie in a way that told Thomas there was far more to the story than what Lucie had supplied.

This time it was Thomas who gave Lucie a knowing look, the only one having picked up on what was really happening besides Cordelia who was smirking at Jesse as he tried, failing terribly, to hide his blush.

“Anyway Jesse,” Thomas said, saving Lucie and Jesse from further embarrassment. “It’s great to have you on the trip, I have a feeling you’ll fit right in.” Jesse smiled gratefully, Thomas was starting to think that maybe he did show emotions and he might have just been closed off to the boys because they were strangers.

Lucie and Jesse sat next to each other on the couch, Cordelia perched herself on the arm of the chair Matthew was sitting on, James leaning on the back of the chair, chin resting on Matthew’s head as the three talked. Christopher sat down with his sister on the other couch, Thomas felt a weird pang in his chest. He sat on the ground in front of Lucie, leaning against her legs, her hand automatically went to his hair, her fingers running through it in a calming fashion.

Thomas let out a small sigh. There were occasions, such as this one, where everyone will have conversations and forget to involve him. He is well aware it is not on purpose but it doesn’t help the fact that it still felt bad, bad enough to make him not want to talk to anyone.

Thomas laid his head back, he was getting antsy and needed someone to touch him. Lucie had her hand in his hair but that wasn’t doing much so he stood up and walked over to James, Matthew, and Cordelia. Cordelia and James were talking and laughing about something, Matthew watched with a smile that soon dissipated when he saw the expression on Thomas’ face.

Matthew stood up rather abruptly and James let out a small yelp, having bit his tongue since his chin was still resting on Matthew’s head when he shot up. Matthew apologized and kissed him briefly before grabbing Thomas’ hand and pulled him into one of the bedrooms.

“Are you okay Tommy?” Matthew asked, his green eyes searching Thomas’ brown ones. “I’m alright.” Thomas said, Matthew stood silently for a few seconds before walking up to Thomas and hugging him tightly. Thomas all but fell into the embrace, glad Matthew knew him well enough to not need words for what was upsetting him.

When Thomas pulled away they sat on the bed, Thomas’ head resting on Matthew’s lap, Matthew’s hands taking Lucie’s place, his fingers running through Thomas’ hair. “I like him a lot, and I’m just confused.” Thomas said suddenly, knowing full and well Matthew had sat in silence because he knew Thomas hated it.

Shifting slightly, Matthew smiled sadly down at Thomas. “Talk through it.” Matthew said simply, his hands moving to put Thomas’ relatively short hair into small braids. Thomas hated when Matthew braided his hair but the motions of it was sooting to Thomas and he needed it right now.

“He’s just so confusing. Before this tour I didn’t even think we were friends but now we’re all buddy buddy and he keeps winking and he called me a snack.” Thomas was talking with his hands and at this point he stopped and looked at Matthew to emphasize his point. “A snack! Who does that! Who calls their friends snacks? Was he joking? Does he flirt with everyone? I just want him to stop if he doesn’t actually like me. I don’t want to keep getting my hopes up if he is just kidding.” Thomas stopped and took a breath sinking further into Matthew.

He didn’t know how or why but Matthew was by far the best person to go to when you needed to rant or needed comfort. Normally he was dramatic and didn’t take anything seriously but if the need arose Matthew was quite good at being serious and giving advice.

Matthew hummed in acknowledgement and when it was obvious that Thomas was done talking Mattew looked down at him, a fond smile on his face. “Tommy, if it bothers you it is okay to tell him to stop. I get where you’re coming from so you could just ask him if he cares about you, the worst that can happen is him say no and you can just play it off as a joke. That would suck but then you’d have your answer.”

Thomas took that in. He could ask Alastair, he could ask him in a teasing way so if he said no Thomas could play it off but in all honesty he didn’t want to just play it off. He wanted Alastair to care, he wanted to live in his head where Alastair did care. He was far too into Alastair to just be okay with Alastair saying he didn’t reciprocate those feelings.

��Did it hurt,” Thomas asked in a small voice, not meeting Matthew’s eyes. “When you realized you loved James before you two got together?” Matthew’s hand stilled in Thomas’ hair momentarily while he thinks, resuming when he begins talking. “It did a little, it was sort of bittersweet because he’s such a touchy person that it also gave me hope but deep down I was so certain that he didn’t like me. Love will always hurt Thomas.” Matthew said, meeting Thomas’ eyes. “But the thing about love, is that no matter how much it hurts, it’ll always get better. Let it be with the person you’re with or the next person you’re with who fixes what the first person did. Does that make sense?” He asked, caring green eyes staring at Thomas questioningly.

Thomas smiled softly, “Yeah it does.” He said mulling over the idea in his head. Thomas stands up and stretches, Matthew following suit. Thomas smiled at Matthew and ruffled his perfectly messy hair, causing Matthew to shriek and duck away which only made his hair look worse. Thomas laughed and as they went to the door he looked over at Matthew with a more serious expression.

“Honestly though Math, thank you. A lot.” Matthew shook his head and shrugged it off, opening the door and putting his hand out in a signal for Thomas to go first. “After you your highness.” Thomas laughed again and walked out, smiling at Alastair who must have appeared sometime when Matthew and Thomas were talking.

Alastair smiled back and opened his mouth to say something but abruptly closed it when Matthew came out, smoothing his hair down. Alastair’s face fell momentarily before he masked it with a fake smile that made Thomas wonder how many people it fooled. He wasn’t one of them.

Thomas quirked an eyebrow and threw him a questioning look which Alastair pointedly ignored, turning back to Cordelia who he had previously been in a conversation with. Thomas stiffened and felt a wave of hurt crash through him.

Normally Alastair would have laughed or said something sarcastic, Thomas couldn’t remember the last time Alastair blatantly ignored him. He felt a hand land on his shoulder and turned to look at Matthew’s concerned eyes. Thomas just shrugged and walked over to the couch, sinking down to the ground, back against Lucie again.

Had he done something to offend Alastair? He couldn’t think of any off the top of his head but he was sure there was something he had done, what else explained his hostility towards Thomas? Alastair’s actions threw Thomas for a loop after the conversation he had just had with Matthew.

Lucie’s fingers were in his hair again and his eyes started to get heavy, anxiety wearing him thin. He tilted his head back, slouching so it was more comfortable and closed his eyes, pretending to sleep. He didn’t really have the energy to do anything or talk to anyone.

There was only one person he really wanted to talk to but Barbara was off doing wedding plans and had told Thomas that she wouldn’t be available for the next two hours. He briefly thought about blowing her phone up anyway but eventually decided against that.

Thomas listened to the conversations around him. Matthew and Anna were talking about some bar they couldn’t wait to go to, Thomas had never heard the name. Cordelia, James, and Christopher were talking about their song selection for the concert tonight, Thomas quickly tuned them out instead opting to listen to Jesse and Lucie talk in hushed voices.

“What is the likelihood of you getting this job!” Lucie said excitedly, Thomas heard Jesse laugh, “Honestly I was thinking the same thing. All the jobs and I wound up with you, not that I’m complaining.” Thomas mentally pulled a face, reminding himself yet again to talk to Lucie tonight or tomorrow morning.

The only person who Thomas couldn’t hear was Alastair. Thomas opened his eyes slightly, not wanting to give up his sleeping facade. Alastair was sitting opposite Thomas, his back propped up against Cordelia’s legs, not unlike Thomas and Lucie. Thomas realized with a start Alastair was watching him, but he calmed when he realized Alastair had that far away look in his eyes, a tale tail sign he was deep in thought.

Thomas briefly wondered what he was thinking about before shaking the thought off and closing his eyes all the way again. It really wasn’t any of his business.

Thomas woke to someone shaking his shoulders unnecessarily hard, his eyes peeled open and he saw Christopher in front of him. Thomas looked around and was vaguely alarmed at the fact that they were the only two in here.

“Where is everyone?” Thomas asked, his words slurring slightly in exhaustion. Christopher rolled his eyes, “We tried waking you up and it was decided I was most likely to get you up eventually.” Thomas blushed slightly, normally Thomas was a very light sleeper but other times when he was more emotionally drained than physically it took at least three people to wake up.

Christopher reached out his hand and Thomas took it, using his hand as leverage to pull himself up. Thomas stretched and followed Christopher off the bus. “Hey Kit, where are we going?” Thomas asked, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. “We get the stage for rehearsal so we’re heading to the arena.” Thomas nodded as they entered a hall that was made of stone, there was writing all along the lines and Thomas traced some of the names, stories popping up in his head about the people who had been here before.

Had they been nervous too?

When the hallway opened up to a big room, Thomas walked over to where James was sitting, a half eaten apple in his hand, his head thrown back laughing at something Matthew had said. Matthew was leaning against the wall in front of his boyfriend, soft smile on his lips, the kind only James got.

Thomas and Christopher walked over to them and James smiled widely at them. “Are you ready?” He asked looking at all of them in turn, his nervousness from the morning seemingly gone. The closer it got to the concert the number Thomas was getting, he wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing but he wasn’t hating it.

Matthew and Christopher nodded enthusiastically and Thomas shrugged. Christopher threw an arm around his cousin, “Come on Tommy it’ll be amazing, aren’t you the least bit excited?” Thomas found himself smiling, unable to be anxious when all of them were looking at him drowning in anticipation.

Thomas threw his arm around Christopher laughing. “Okay maybe a little.” They all cheered and Matthew grabbed James, pulling him up and walking further down the hallway. Christopher and Thomas followed, throwing their feet to the far left and right of each other taking exaggerated steps together.

Thomas froze when Matthew opened a door that led to the stage. It was relatively dark but that’s not what made him freeze. Once he took a step onto the stage this feeling washed over him as he surveyed the thousands of seats, the lights dancing on the stage, the big posters and drum seat that all read ‘THE MERRY THIEVES’ in big letters.

It felt like home.

Fighting off tears from the overwhelming feeling, Thomas walked over to his guitar. Picking at the strings he watched his unbiological brothers get their own instruments, tossing jokes back and forth.

Thomas felt a lightness settle in his bones, as long as he had them he would be fine, it had always been like that. He let out a breath, the anxiety from earlier leaving as he exhaled. Matthew clapped dramatically. “Let’s start! Do the order we’re doing for tonight.” Waiting long enough to receive three nods he turned back to the empty chairs and started counting.

Thomas started strumming and Matthew started singing, he realized the girls were sitting in the audience when he caught sight of Cordelia’s auburn hair. They were both jumping up and down pretending to be fangirls, Lucie was fanning herself as if she might pass out and Cordelia was screaming “I love you!” at the top of her lungs.

Smiling at his guitar Thomas leaned into the microphone in front of him to sing backup for the chorus, both girls screamed louder when his voice came through and Thomas had a hard time keeping the laughter out of his voice.

After they played through their concert portion and the last song finished Lucie and Cordelia screamed and clapped, jumping up and down while the boys laughed. Thomas was so caught up that he physically jumped when someone grabbed his elbow, turning Thomas realized it was Alastair.

“Are you going to sing for us Lightwood?” Thomas almost sighed audibly at the name, so he was back to Lightwood now? “Not tonight no.” Thomas said, shaking his head, Alastair watched him for a second before saying, a small smile on his lips, “Then why don’t you sing now instead of the concert tonight?” Thomas considered it before pulling a face and shaking his head slowly. “Oh come on Tommy!” Matthew said, Alastair and THomas turned to look at him. He was standing next to James, as he almost always was, and James was playing with his fingers, kissing the pads lightly.

Thomas rolled his eyes at their cuteness and turned back to Alastair who had a very confused look on his face. He turned back to Thomas, eyebrows furrowed as he tried to work something out. “They’re- Are they- wait.” Alastair spluttered. Matthew’s eyes darkened and James froze. “Together? Yes.” Thomas said, watching Alastair’s face carefully. Thomas knew Alastair wasn’t homophobic or anything since the thing with Charles happened and all but it didn’t mean Alastair wouldn’t be uncomfortable with James and Matthew.

“Is that a problem?” Matthew asked defensively, Alastair’s eyes widened and he shook his head quickly. “No! No, god no. I only meant- well I thought,” Alastair blushed and looked at the empty audience. “Well doesn’t matter, nevermind.” Thomas raised an eyebrow. “Now I’m curious.” Alastair laughed and rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly. “Well I kind of thought- well I thought you and Matthew were dating when you two came out of the room and yo-your hair was messed up and your shirts were wrinkled.” Alastair mumbled quietly.

The room fell silent and Alastair turned a deeper shade of red before everyone burst into laughter. Matthew slumped against James and Christopher threw his head back, Cordelia and Lucie were giggling loudly as they made their way to the stage. Thomas had his hands on his knees supporting himself as he laughed loudly, Alastair slapped his arm lightly. “Shut up Thomas!” That only made him laugh harder. “A-Are we ba-back to T-Thomas?” Thomas asked between the laughter.

Alastair groaned, his cheeks going impossibly redder. “Oh god.” He groaned into his hands which had come up to cover his face. Thomas grabbed his stomach which was starting to hurt from the laughter that wouldn’t stop.

“So are you singing or not?” Alastair asked in a bitter voice as a way to change the subject. “Only if you sing with me.” Thomas said without thinking, as soon as he caught up with his words he shook his head. “Wait no.” Alastair was grinning at him shaking his head. “No no I do believe you’ve already said yes.” Thomas groaned as Christopher, James, and Matthew walked off the stage making themselves comfortable on the front row of seats.

Matthew winked at Thomas and Thomas returned it by flipping him off. Matthew laughed and Thomas picked up his guitar again, Alastiar walking to the microphone. Thomas walked over to him. “What song are we singing?” Alastiar pulled the microphone down, quietly cursing Matthew and his height. “What about Have It All?” Thomas nodded. Thomas had set down one day with Matthew and wrote that song, it was how Matthew asked him out. James had cried.

Thomas went back to his microphone and Alastair looked over, watching Thomas for his count before starting. Thomas bobbed his head slightly as he silently counted the beats before strumming slightly, flashing a smile at Alastair who returned it before he started singing.

May you have auspiciousness and causes of success

May you have the confidence to always do your best

May you take no effort in your being generous

Sharing what you can, nothing more nothing less

May you know the meaning of the word happiness

May you always lead from the beating in your chest

May you be treated like an esteemed guest

May you get to rest, may you catch your breath

And may the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows

And may the road less paved be the road that you follow

Well here's to the hearts that you're gonna break

Here's to the lives that you're gonna change

Here's to the infinite possible ways to love you

I want you to have it

Here's to the good times we're gonna have

You don't need money, you got a free pass

Here's to the fact that I'll be sad without you

I want you to have it all

Oh! I want you to have it all

I want you to have it

I want you to have it all

May you be as fascinating as a slap bracelet

May you keep the chaos and the clutter off your desk

May you have unquestionable health and less stress

Having no possessions though immeasurable wealth

May you get a gold star on your next test

May your educated guesses always be correct

And may you win prizes shining like diamonds

May you really own it each moment to the next

And may the best of your todays be the worst of your tomorrows

And may the road less paved be the road that you follow

Well here's to the hearts that you're gonna break

Here's to the lives that you're gonna change

Here's to the infinite possible ways to love you

I want you to have it

Here's to the good times we're gonna have

You don't need money, you got a free pass

Here's to the fact that I'll be sad without you

I want you to have it all

Oh, I want you to have it all

I want you to have it

I want you to have it all

Oh, I want you to have it all

All you can imagine

All, no matter what your path is

If you believe it then anything can happen

Go, go, go raise your glasses

Go, go, go you can have it all

I toast you

Here's to the hearts that you're gonna break

Here's to the lives that you're gonna change

Here's to the infinite possible ways to love you

I want you to have it

Here's to the good times we're gonna have

You don't need money, you got a free pass

Here's to the fact that I'll be sad without you

I want you to have it all

Oh, I want you to have it all

I want you to have it

I want you to have it all

Here's to the good times we're gonna have

Here's to you always making me laugh

Here's to the fact that I'll be sad without you

I want you to have it all

Thomas played the last note numbly. His heart was racing and it took all of Thomas’ focus to not let his hands slip on the strings, cold sweat on his palms. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Alastair who was now looking at him with a huge smile, it took a minute for the other’s cheers and shouts to reach him and when he looked down he saw Lucie with her phone out, the light on.

He couldn’t tell if it was the flash from a video or just a flashlight but Thomas hoped it was the latter.

Alastair came over to him clapping his hands. “Thomas you really should sing at the concert you’re so good!” He said happily, seemingly having forgotten about whatever Thomas had done earlier. Thomas laughed and shook his head.

Alastair quieted and stared at Thomas, Thomas was about to break the silence when Alastair blurted, “Do you want to go out with me?” Thomas froze, his eyes widening, heart racing. Alastair seemed nervous but he still had that confident smile he always wore.

Before he could say anything Anna was on the stage getting everyone’s attention. Thomas couldn’t pull his eyes away from Alastair who was now looking at Anna. “Every go get dressed we start in an hour!” Anna said motioning for them all to leave.

Alastair turned back to Thomas and smiled. “See you after the concert.” He said in a chipper voice. “Wait what?” Thomas asked quietly, his mind reeling. Alastair was quite a ways away by the time he got his voice back. “Wait what?” He shrieked when he finally processed Alastair’s words. Alastair turned and winked at Thomas before disappearing behind a corner.

Before he knew it, Thomas was being led to a dressing room to get ready. Thomas didn’t know what he was more nervous about now, the concert or talking to Alastair afterwards. Thomas sighed and changed into some skinny jeans and a too tight shirt that had him questioning Anna’s antics before sitting in a chair and letting the makeup lady apply face paint.

Thomas closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. He knew one thing for sure, it was going to be a long night.

#thomas lightwood #alastair carstairs #james herondale #anna lightwood #christopher lightwood #matthew fairchild #lucie and cordelia #cordelia carstairs #lucie herondale #lucie x jesse #jesse blackthorn #matthew x james #heronchild #alastair x thomas #thomas and alastair #thomas x alastair #thomastair #tsc fanfiction #high notes

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theawkwardterrier · 4 years

Text

Prototypes, Pekingese, and Other Things That Might Test Your Patience

Steggy Week 2k20, day 1 Prompt: Domestic Bliss

Summary: Sunday afternoon, Steve comes home from the movies and finds Peggy sitting on the sofa, having what seems to be a staring contest with the ugliest little dog he’s ever seen.

AO3 link here. Thanks to @steggyfanevents for organizing!

Sunday afternoon, Steve comes home from the movies and finds Peggy sitting on the sofa, having what seems to be a staring contest with the ugliest little dog he’s ever seen.

To be clear, the dog is the kind of ugly that probably means that its ancestors came over on the Mayflower and it is the result of centuries of very carefully considered and high-standard breeding which would put Steve’s own pedigree to shame. That said, the animal has been left with a flat face, watery eyes, sharp little teeth, minuscule legs, a coat that probably weighs more than its actual body, and an apparent tendency to snuffle even when at rest.

None of this makes a good first impression.

“Hello,” Steve says carefully, closing the door. “I thought you were finishing up the Beckworth operation today.”

“We did.” Peggy breaks her stare with the dog on the floor in front of her, sounding sour. “The first part went absolutely swimmingly. He was entirely willing to reveal the location of the safe while showing off for Gladys.” She gestures to a curly blonde wig lying on the side table. “The distraction was timed perfectly, and I was able to crack back in while he was gone and remove the prototype before calling for backup. We arrested him without incident. It was all as smooth as you like, textbook even, until I gave the prototype into the care of Fletcher in evidence collection - you’ve met him, ginger, entirely too tall? - and the man immediately dropped it on the floor only to have it eaten by this thing.” She glares again at the dog. “And now it has to be watched while we wait for the prototype to...pass, so it can be used as evidence and then handed over to Howard and his merry band for examination.”

“Ah.” Steve lowers himself into a chair, keeping a careful eye on the dog. It seems the type to be easily unsettled by simple things in its surroundings. “And it needs to be watched here? By us?”

“Well, after what happened today, I’m certainly not going to give more responsibility to Fletcher or any of the so-called experts in evidence collection.” They’ve barely finished staffing the various departments over at SHIELD, but Steve now suspects based on her tone that they might be going back to the drawing board in some places. “Of course, I wouldn’t trust Howard to take care of it himself, and Jarvis and Ana have been told by the adoption agency to be on the alert in the next few weeks—”

“Hey, that’s great!”

“It is, but of course it means that they should have as much time as possible to prepare themselves, which does not at all fit with taking responsibility for this. And, of course, I’m trying to build a more official reputation for the organization. As reliable as Jarvis has proven himself to be, I’d like us to try to appear slightly less homegrown than we have in the past, at least for the moment.”

Steve looks around himself at the living room of their home, then down at the dog, which has started to pace and sniff around itself. “So it’s up to us.”

“Yes. But I can’t imagine it will take long for the prototype to reappear, and then they will both be off our hands.”

Peggy comes home on Monday evening and, flipping through the mail on her way down the hall, nearly forgets to even look for the dog until she reaches the kitchen where Steve is washing dishes.

“You didn’t call,” she says, “so I assume that the prototype is still…”

“As far as I can tell,” Steve says, looking a little worn. “And I’m pretty familiar with what did come out of him today.”

“How was—” she tries, just as a high, incessant yapping starts from the front room.

“Sorry, he’s been looking out into the yard all day, going nuts over squirrels, birds, the mailman, anything. It’s a good thing there weren’t any Girl Scouts going door to door today,” Steve apologizes before calling tiredly toward the next room, “Knock it off, Eliot.” To Peggy’s surprise, the sound turns to a whining, nasal growl, which is at least softer.

“You gave it a name?” she asks, kissing him quickly as she leans to put the mail on the counter.

“He didn’t come with one that I could figure out, and I had to call him something.”

“And why decide on Eliot?”

Steve finishes drying off his hands, then points into the trash can where there’s a pile of shredded paper mixed in with the usual garbage.

“I guess the books looked at him funny because he started clawing at them pretty early on. I managed to move most of them up to higher shelves before he got them too bad, but he really did a number on Middlemarch. Moby-Dick, too, but he didn’t exactly seem like a Herman any more than he looked like a George. And I guess I could have called him Pepper, because he knocked that over too, but he’s the wrong color.”

Eliot comes, nails clicking, into the kitchen to bark at their feet. Peggy stares down on him. She sighs.

“Well, your instincts about Melville were spot on, at least,” she tells the dog, and takes her husband upstairs to show her gratitude for his forbearance.

When Peggy calls Tuesday morning and tells Steve that she’s scheduled a veterinary appointment for Eliot that afternoon, he groans aloud down the phone line.

“He’s actually finally quiet,” Steve says, watching from out of the corner of his eye as Eliot yawns, peers out the window, and seems to start dozing again. “If I take him out somewhere new…”

“Yes, but that place might be able to offer some guidance about when we might get to see the prototype again, and therefore when we might never have to see the dog again.”

Eliot shies away from anything particularly cold or shiny at the vet’s office in a way that Steve remembers from his own earliest medical experiences. He keeps up a constant, quiet growl; Steve considers it polite if anything based on the lowered volume, and luckily none of the staff seem overly concerned or insulted. Then again, they aren’t actually that helpful either: the vet cheerfully informs Steve that these things usually pass by themselves within a few days, and as long as Eliot is still able to eat, drink, and play normally there’s no reason to be concerned.

“You can come back in if something changes, and of course, if you’re really concerned, I can refer you to a colleague about an hour away who can do an x-ray of the little fella,” the vet offers, and then quotes a price for it that makes Steve laugh reflexively at what must be a joke. (It isn’t.)

The only helpful piece of advice comes at the end of the visit.

“Fur like that,” the vet says, going over to the door, “I’d expect you must be showing him.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, dog shows, contests, like that.”

“You mean we can get him trimmed if we don’t care about all that?” Steve asks, relieved. He’s wearing his only pair of brown trousers today; even though Eliot sleeps downstairs, somehow strands of his long fur have migrated onto the black and gray pants which fill most of Steve's wardrobe.

The vet looks surprised. “Sure, though it’d be a shame. He’s a pretty fine specimen, after all.” He tilts his head, turning thoughtful. “Say, if you don’t really want him for that, I have a friend who’d love to get his hands on a purebred like this. Pay you nicely for it, too, what do you say?”

Steve looks over at Eliot. Despite the standoff the dog is having with a row of bottles on the doctor’s counter, he looks up at Steve with something very human and pleading and familiar in his eyes.

“No, thanks,” Steve finds himself saying, picking Eliot up in one arm. “I think we’ll hang onto him for now.”

Steve is as surprised as Peggy when she comes home Wednesday to find the dog lying politely at the foot of the armchair while Steve sketches. Eliot’s paws are forward, his face relaxed on the carpet between them. Steve had apparently been successful in his mission for the day; the nimbus of tawny fur is gone, trimmed to a more manageable - and, she’ll admit, attractive - level. She can actually see the dog’s eyes clearly now, blinking slow consideration, and his tail puffs up sweetly rather than billowing wildly outward.

“Well, this is quite the change of pace,” Peggy says, keeping her voice pitched low on instinct. Eliot turns to look over at her, but returns to staring peaceably through the window where the tree in the front yard shifts slowly in the breeze.

“Yeah,” Steve says, glancing down with...is that fondness? “He isn’t so bad once you get used to him. Or once he gets used to you. Melinda, the girl at the dog barbershop, said that he probably just needed to figure out how to handle a new place and new people, and that his breed can be a little bossy and vocal.” He pauses. “Also, she said he might have just been hot and annoyed from all that fur.”

“Well, he's at least sensible,” Peggy says, sitting down too. She knows she should go and change, should at least unpack her case, but there’s something comforting about sitting there, just listening to the scratch of Steve’s pencil, the constant sound of Eliot’s breathing. Without her thinking much about it, without even asking if there’s been any update on the prototype, she decides to stay a while with the two of them.

“He’s still not exactly the cutest little thing,” Bucky comments when he comes for a walk with Steve and Eliot on Thursday afternoon. Eliot doesn’t pay him any attention, sniffing busily at the sidewalk in front of himself as he trots along (although Steve knows that he’ll run out of energy pretty soon and slow to a crawl).

“Looks aren’t the only thing that’s important,” Steve points out, moving over so Mr. Sabitini and his grandsons can pass by. “Character plays a big role in things, and Eliot’s got plenty of that; he might be mouthy, but he's pretty intelligent, and considerate too. Yesterday he saw a boy drop his ice cream on the ground and started to nose it back to him.”

Bucky snorts. "Probably trying to sneak a few licks in for himself."

"I don't think so." Steve’s voice is firm, his glare hard.

Bucky stares, then shoves a hand through his hair. “Oh God,” he says. “You’re starting to identify with the mutt. You should have just called him Steve Junior.”

“What? No, I’m—” Steve starts, then shoves him over the curb into the street. “Shut your trap, Barnes.”

“Just calling it like I see it,” Bucky laughs, and he gets back onto the sidewalk only for Steve to shove him over again.

At dinner on Friday evening, Steve tells Peggy about how Eliot has started to just bark a polite little greeting to the squirrels on the lawn, as if welcoming them to the home to which he’s graciously allowed them access, and then asks how the Beckworth case is coming.

“The prosecutor is optimistic, which I consider an accomplishment for him - he’s usually quite doleful. Of course it would be better if we had the prototype in hand, but we have the schematics and the testimony from the assistant…”

“What’s wrong?” he asks, as she trails off.

"Mr. Beckworth is seemingly quite...upset that we have taken custody of his dog. I read the report from his latest interrogation and it was all he spoke about.”

Steve swallows a bite of chicken. “He’s probably pretty worried about his life’s work being trapped inside him.”

Peggy shakes her head. “I don’t think so. I think he’s actually concerned about him. Unless he’s playing some sort of game, I believe he truly loves the creature.”

“Well, he’s actually pretty easy to love,” Steve says. “He just shouldn’t have to put up with criminals.” When he palms and drops a piece of his chicken on the floor for Eliot to sweep up, he tries to think of it as more of a consolation than a bribe. Peggy sees and shakes her head; apparently she’s missed the distinction

Peggy calls to say that she’ll be working late on Saturday, so Steve tells Eliot, “Guess it’s just you and me for dinner tonight, fella.” He thinks of what Bucky or Peggy would say if they heard that, groans, and then shrugs, because they didn’t hear it so who cares?

Eliot whines as Steve goes upstairs and shuts the bedroom door, but the house is definitely furrier than is preferable even after the haircut and the establishment of a daily brushing regimen, and there are some lines they haven’t crossed, at least not yet, so Steve goes to bed alone.

He wakes up alone too, several hours later, wondering for a blink what pulled him from sleep. Then he hears Eliot’s growl from down in the kitchen followed by a yip, as if someone’s kicked him.

For a moment, as he makes his quick, silent way down the stairs, he gropes for his shield, something he hasn’t done in years. But before he can really miss its presence, he hears Peggy say, “I’ll thank you to unhand my dog,” in a way that he can tell means she’s aiming her gun.

“I don’t know who you think you are, lady,” says a voice, “but this is Ned Beckworth’s dog.”

“It was,” Peggy says, perfectly calmly. “But Mr. Beckworth is awaiting trial, as you soon will be as well, and now it’s my dog. Just as this is my house you’re standing in, and my husband coming up behind you, so put Eliot down, if you please.”

Looking from the doorway into the dimness, Steve can only see the backs of the two men who have broken in, moderately sized and wearing black. One of them has Eliot under his arm, a hand over his muzzle even as he tries to wriggle away. When the stranger doesn’t move, Steve says, “She really will shoot you if you don’t let the dog go. She’ll get your leg no problem, even if you’re trying to use him as a shield,” and Eliot is reluctantly and a bit too forcefully released. He takes a minute to regain his footing, nails scrabbling on the linoleum after being dropped to the ground, but before Steve can say a word, the dog has vomited copiously onto his captor’s shoe before skidding over to Peggy and pressing himself against her leg. The prototype, its light still blinking a calm blue, lies in the middle of the puddle.

“Excellent aim, Eliot,” she says dryly, without taking her eye off the now loudly disgusted housebreakers. “But your timing leaves quite a bit to be desired. Steve?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it.”

Between the two of them, they pretty easily subdue their unwanted guests, and wrap up the prototype to deliver to headquarters in the morning. (Peggy says she’ll trust a retrieval team to take care of prisoner transport, but the prototype stays with her from this point forward. Steve, cleaning up the mess on the floor, says she is welcome to it.) Eliot obeys commands for “sit” and “quiet” for only a few seconds at a time before once again starting to dart distractingly around the room, barking. Still, once everyone else has left, he curls easily into Peggy’s lap and allows himself to be petted.

“He acquitted himself well,” she says as Eliot’s tail flips through the air, clearly pleased by her attention to his ears, “even if he isn’t exactly anyone’s picture of heroism.”

“Neither of us exactly was either,” says Steve, “so I think he’ll fit in fine.” He pauses. “Don’t tell Bucky I said that. He'll just start again about me over-identifying.”

She laughs. “I wouldn’t dream of it, even if he might have something of the right of it.”

Eliot barks in what seems to be agreement, but Steve knows for a fact that, if the dog could talk, he’d sell Steve out in a minute if offered a half decent steak.

As Sunday dawns, the three of them are still sitting in the living room, asleep together.

#steggyweek20 #Steggy #Steggy fic #Steve Rogers #Peggy Carter #kinda wild to me tbh how the prompt that should have been 1000% in my wheelhouse left me scrounging for something but here you are!

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moonlightdreamzz · 4 years

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NCT 127 — Their Black S/O Gets Disrespected By Their Friend Because Of Their Race. (Jaehyun, WinWin, Jungwoo, Mark, Haechan)

(Taeil, Johnny, Taeyong, Doyoung, and Yuta Version)

Request:👋🏾 I was wondering if you could do a reaction for 127 on how they’d react after seeing a friend disrespect their s/o for their race??? (or a friend of the s/o disrespects the member for their race, however you see fit) no rush either😘

Jaehyun:

He knew when his friends got drunk, they could get a little rowdy. Truthfully he was having second thoughts about bringing you around them in such a setting, but you were so excited. All week you had been talking about how you couldn’t wait to meet them and let them know you were his soulmate. Allow them to see you weren’t here to play him if they were having those thoughts.

It all started with a sly comment from one of the boys. You were in the bathroom, so his reaction was way different than he would realize it should’ve been.

“She’s so bad.” They said.

“Trust me, I know.”

“She got a nice ass too.”

All he did was punch his friend, clearly disgusted but appalled so much so that he couldn’t move.

“Shut the hell up.” He spoke, but quieted down when he saw you coming back.

The way he looked at you, you knew something was wrong, but it wasn’t what you assumed.

“Well Y/N, I tried to compliment you about how nice you look, but since Jaehyun doesn’t like that, I guess I’ll let you know that you need to take that hair out. It looks old.” He seethes, walking away in drunken anger.

“What did you just say? Come back here, pussy. Say it again.” Jaehyun is aflame. He knew he shouldn’t have brought you here. The fact that you had to hear that made him absolutely sick. He was two seconds away from punching him right in the back of the head before he felt your hands on him.

“Baby, calm down. Calm down.” You shush him, pressing your lips to his shoulder. “Don’t let it get to you.”

He hated this about you. Well, he hated that he couldn’t be like you. He could never ignore the negativity.”

“Come on.” You utter, taking his hand and leading him out.

Winwin:

He didn’t know why he wasn’t worried about you meeting his family. Maybe his love for you truly did blind him. You were just so amazing. The perfect woman and words really couldn’t describe the power you held over him.

As the two of you sat down, you both could sense the awkward air of the dinner table. As your boyfriend talked to his parents you slid him a text.

— You didn’t tell them I was black did you...

— I didn’t think it was something they needed to know. It doesn’t matter.

— I know it doesn’t matter to you baby, but I think it does to them. :(

“Y/N has been really enjoying China.” He speaks up after seeing your last message. He grabs your hand that was hiding from under the table and places your held hands on display for everyone to see.

“And I am so happy to be here right now. Winwin always talks about how much he misses you guys.” You add on, smiling brightly at their dull faces.

“Really? He hasn’t been home in forever.” His mother speaks.

“And don’t think we don’t know what you’re doing. We know how you black people are—always trying to use someone for money so you don’t have to get on welfare back home.”

You choked on your food immediately, unable to hold in your cough. “Woah.” You were able to breathe out. “I’m sorry you’ve been fed false truths about my people.”

“Don’t try and disrespect me in my own house. To be exact, get out.” His mother spits, and you don’t hesitate to take her advice. Mother or not your temper didn’t wait for anyone, and you didn’t want to do anything drastic.

Sicheng was always a well mannered boy who saw his parents as the greatest people he knew. Today, he was very much so proven wrong. “You guys are disgusting. I don’t even know who I’m looking at right now.” His voice shakes as he can’t believe he put you in position to hear words like those. “My girlfriend is African American, and she is beautiful. She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known and I want to marry her. I’m going to marry her.” He says with confidence. “And if you don’t apologize in the next 24 hours know you lost a son.” He finishes before storming out to run after you.

Jungwoo:

Neither of you liked parties. You both knew in the back of your mind that you would much rather be cuddled up on your couch or in your bed watching a movie or making the movie watch you.

It was loud in here, and you knew you shouldn’t have been drinking, but it had been awhile. You also knew Jungwoo had your back. The two of you had been in the corner for the majority of the body party, and for just a few seconds did Jungwoo step away to use the bathroom. A few seconds.

“Damn.” You hear a voice say.

Maybe you shouldn’t have froze. But at the same time, you were praying he wasn’t talking to you. When you feel his hand on your exposed lower back, you immediately back into the corner.

“I have a boyfriend.” You say clearly even through your tipsy state.

“Is he here? I don’t see anybody.” He’s getting closer and you can feel his breath on you. You can’t move. He’s blocking you from doing so. “Look, girls like you kill to be with a guy like me?”

“What do you mean girls like me? You don’t even know me.”

“I know you’re black. And all you black girls are the same. You come to Korea begging for this attention, but when we give it to you, you get all scared.”

You knew you had to defend yourself. You were raised to do so. But Jungwoo got to him first. He pushes the guy on the ground and he’s obviously drunk because he doesn’t even try to fight back. He hit the floor hard too as it grabbed everyone’s attention.

“Baby are you okay?” He questions as he cups your face into his hands, kissing your gently.

“I wanna leave.” You whisper, tears dripping from your cheeks from the fear you didn’t realize you had experienced. “Don’t worry about him just take me home please.”

“Okay okay.” He assures. He so badly wants to beat the shit out of the piece of shit who just ruined your night, but he knows every tone of your voice. He knows you really don’t want him to do anything. You just want him.

Mark:

As bad as it was, you and Mark were eachother’s only friends. He had people who he would communicate with from time to time, but in his eyes, a friend was someone who you trusted with your whole being. You were that person for him and quite frankly he didn’t need anyone else.

Of course he wanted to see his friends in Canada. He hadn’t seen them in too long, and he can remember all the good times. Subways with the boys, school with the boys, they were his boys. Secretly, the two of you met up in Vancouver where SuperM was touring and of course he brought you with him to meet up with his friends. He trusted them enough to not accidentally mention any details of you being there, and he would be sure to remind them 1000x anyway.

Everything was okay. His friends were telling you about all of the crazy things he used to do—say.

“You know it’s crazy. I never would’ve thought Mark would be dating a black girl.” One of them said. It made you uncomfortable, and you unconsciously leaned into your boyfriends hold, but you had hopes that he would clean it up. In some way shape or form, you wanted that to happen.

“Why do you say that?” Mark says in confusion.

“I don’t know. I just feel like you could do better. Like at least get a white girl and secure the bag bro.” He jokes, but Mark isn’t laughing. Your boyfriend was not one to mess with when he was pissed off and it was very clear right now. Especially when it came to you did he not play.

“I promise you that Mark did indeed secure the bag with me, honey.” You chuckle knowing he woke the beast.

“The fact that you just said that dumb shit to me, infront of my girl is proof that I should smack the shit out of you right now. I swear to God.” Mark seethes. He’s standing up now, but you can tell he’s fighting saying so many more things.

“Aye chill, Mark. He was just joking.”

“Is anybody laughing? Because I’m not. She’s not. Apologize.”

“What? For a joke?”

“Apologize.” He says in a low voice.

“I’m—I’m sorry.” He stumbles, and right after is Mark taking your hand and leading you out of the restaurant.

Haechan:

It was obvious that they were trying very hard to impress you. The overly loud rap music. The slang that they were throwing at you in hopes that you would see them in...you didn’t know what. But you didn’t mind. It was better than being rude to you. At the same time though, you couldn’t help but to think that this was Haechan’s idea. That he told them to act a little more seasoned for your arrival.

“Haechan.” You questioned quietely as his friends were rowdy and couldn’t hear you. “Did you tell them to do this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind.” You say, and you can tell he wants to hear more, but doesn’t press on the issue further.

“So Y/N, what’s it like being black?” One of them asks over the loud music. “Like how does it feel?”

“Um...I don’t know. Oppressed.” You dark humor, and your boyfriend laughs, but the guy doesn’t seem impressed.

“This is what I don’t understand about you guys. I mean, even with the black lives matter stuff. I feel like y’all want to be oppressed.”

“Me knowing that as a black woman I’m oppressed does not equal me wanting to be. As people of color we all have our own issues and we would be extremely stupid to try to ignore these factors just because we don’t want it to be that way. Me and my people have targets on our backs whether we like it or not.”

“And you of all people should understand that.” Haechan adds. “You’re sitting here trying to be black and look cool to my girlfriend to then turn around and disrespect her race and try to make her feel invalid for her very valid feelings. Get on the internet or read a damn book you fucking idiot. This isn’t a fairytale. You know what, Iets go baby. Can’t believe this shit.” He spits, standing up promptly.

“Period.” You scoff, slamming the chair into the table on your way out.

“Were you going to ask me did I ask them to act like that?” He questions when you two get outside.

“Yes.” You admit.

“I would never. I promise and I’m so sorry all of the just happened. I’m so so sorry.”

#nct #nct 127 #nct reaction #nct reactions #kpop ambw #kpop poc #poc kpop #ambw kpop #kpop black reader #nct ambw #nct imagine #nct imagines #nct x reader #nct x poc #kpop #nct scenario #nct scenarios

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janaikam · 4 years

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This is my fic for the @kagamizine! I really enjoyed writing this and I absolutely love Kagami. This zine was just amazing as a whole and I’m so glad I got to participate! Thank you @masilvi for organizing! Summary: Kagami's trip with her mother took an unexpected turn when she decided to ditch her tutor and have fun with an interesting pair of siblings.

Seven-year-old Kagami stared out the window, watching as the Parisian landscape passed by in a blur. Kagami wasn’t very happy about her mother’s sudden decision to take a trip to Paris. Especially not so soon after losing her dad.

It had only been two months, but it felt like an eternity to Kagami. Her father had been her best friend. He hadn’t been a typical father, but that’s what she loved about him. While her mother started her own successful business, her father took care of her, and they created so many special memories together.

Her mother, not willing to stay in the same town where her husband passed, moved them to Tokyo. It was quite a culture shock because her home town of Nagoya had been quiet compared to Tokyo’s bustling energy. Kagami personally believed that her mother’s decision to move was more business motivated rather than grief, but she wasn’t about to accuse her of doing something so insensitive.

Honestly, everything was happening so fast that Kagami could hardly comprehend it all. Like this trip to Paris; she knew it was one of her mother’s ploys to cheer her up. So far, it wasn’t working. Despite claiming the trip was for both of them, her mother had been in meetings most of the week.

This left Kagami with her French tutor throughout the whole trip. Kagami thought that the woman was nice enough, but she’d rather hang out with someone she was friends with.

“Kagami, we’re here,” her tutor, Yama-sensei, said as the car came to a stop in front of the Trocadero.

Sighing, Kagami dragged herself out of the car to trail after the tutor around the plaza. She hoped that this trip wouldn’t be as boring as the other excursions they had been on previously.

--------

Kagami was proven wrong. Apparently, Yama-sensei knew a lot about the plaza that they were in.

As Yama-sensei was droning on about when the plaza had been built, Kagami noticed two children running around playing a version of tag by zig-zagging through the columns of the Trocadero.

There were a boy and a girl. The boy had dark brown hair with some bright green highlights. He was wearing dark wash jeans and a dark shirt with some band name on it that she couldn’t make out from where she was standing. The girl had straight dark brown hair and was wearing a dark purple dress with black polka dots all over.

While the girl looked to be about Kagami’s age, the boy seemed to be a bit older. If she had to guess, probably by two years.

Watching the two of them play in the Trocadero made her want to join them and have fun. Even if she didn’t know them, it would be so much better than staying here and listening to her tutor recite facts about some battles from long ago.

As if a light switch were flicked, Kagami thought of an idea to get her tutor off her back and to have some fun of her own.

“Hey, Yama-sensei, what’s the history of that pond?” Kagami pointed towards the little pond area in the opposite direction from the two kids.

As expected, her tutor started walking over spouting off some facts that Kagami didn’t care for. Instead of following her, Kagami snuck off to where the two kids were playing.

“Uh, hi,” Kagami said, shyly walking up to the two kids. The girl noticed her first and waved shyly back at Kagami. The boy, who had still been running around, noticed that his friend wasn’t behind him and turned around and saw Kagami standing there.

“Hi!” he greeted brightly, waving along with the girl. “I’m Luka and this is my sister, Juleka. What’s your name?”

“Kagami! Where did you go?” It seemed that her tutor noticed her absence, and that wasn’t a good thing.

“Could you hide me from her?”

The siblings nodded and gently urged Kagami behind one of the many pillars surrounding the plaza. She ducked down a bit and the siblings covered her body so other people wouldn’t be able to see her.

From her position, she watched as Yama-sensei’s black flats hurriedly walked away from the plaza.

Kagami let out the breath she didn’t know that she was holding. “Thank you, I really appreciate you doing this for me.”

“No problem. So why are you hiding from that woman?” Luka asked, reaching down to help Kagami up.

“She’s my tutor. She’s supposed to be taking me to all the places I wanted to see in Paris, but all we’ve done is gone to all these boring places,” Kagami explained. “I just wanted a little break is all.”

“Well, Jules and I don’t have to be home for another three hours, so we could show you around our little Paris.”

Kagami’s eyes lit up at the prospect. She had been planning on just asking to hang out with the siblings at the Trocadero, but having them show her around the city was something completely unexpected and surprisingly welcome.

“I would love to join you!”

--------

Their first stop was the Pont des Arts. There was a surprisingly large amount of people at the bridge, but Kagami assumed it was just that popular.

On the walk over, Kagami learned that Juleka was very shy and often mumbled her words when she wanted to say something. Luka was able to perfectly understand his sister, but Kagami was still having trouble trying to understand her.

Juleka mumbled something and pointed over to a crowd of people.

“Oh, you’re right, that is Andre!” Luka translated for Kagami.

“Who’s Andre?” Kagami knew a few things about Paris, but Andre was an unfamiliar name.

“He sells the best ice cream in Paris. He’s really famous for his lover’s ice cream. If two people share it together then they’re supposed to be together forever,” Luka explained. “He’s a really nice dude and he sometimes gives us free ice cream just ’cause.”

Luka walked over to the crowd and right up to the front of the cart. Kagami was somewhat surprised at Luka’s forwardness, but when he walked back a minute later with three small ice cream cups, Kagami couldn’t complain.

“Let’s go sit over there.” Luka pointed towards a bench in the middle of the bridge, away from the crowd at Andre’s.

Kagami nodded and followed as Luka led the way.

When they got to the bench, Luka held out the ice creams he had gotten. From what she could tell, her choices were vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Kagami picked up the ice cream that looked like vanilla and Luka passed the strawberry one to Juleka.

Taking the little spoon from the cone, Kagami took a small bit of the ice cream. The sweet flavors of the vanilla filled her mouth and caused her to hum in satisfaction. She noticed that there was a slight orange aftertaste, which made everything all the better.

“This is the best ice cream ever,” Kagami said, quicking grabbing another spoonful to put in her mouth.

“Yup! Andre’s ice cream never fails to amaze.” Luka grinned, taking a bite of his cone.

--------

“Welcome to Place des Vosges Park!” Luka announced as their little party walked through the gates.

“This is where Luka comes to lie in the grass and cry,” Juleka whispered, coming up beside Kagami.

Kagami couldn’t help but giggle at Juleka’s statement as Luka tried to defend himself, but it was too late. She could already imagine the dark-haired boy lying in the grass with tears streaming down his face.

“ANYWAYS, is there anything you would like to do here? There’s a lot that goes on in the park. Sometimes there's a show, and then there's also the playground and the merry-go-round.”

Kagami’s eyes lit up at the mention of the merry-go-round. She had heard so many fun stories from people back home about how the rides were fun and magical. Merry-go-rounds weren’t very popular in Japan, so she always dreamed of the day she would be able to ride on one.

“The merry-go-round!”

Luka and Juleka laughed at her obvious excitement but led her over to it nonetheless.

There wasn’t a long wait for the next ride, and the trio was able to get on without a problem.

There were so many different-looking horses that Kagami had trouble picking one to get on. In the end, she ended up picking a tall white one with a golden mane.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t as tall as the horse, so she had trouble getting on. After her third failed attempt, she turned to go find another horse, but a pair of arms wrapped themselves around her waist and lifted her up onto the horse.

Turning around, Kagami saw that it was Luka who helped her up. He gave her a thumbs up to confirm that she was comfortable and she smiled back.

It didn’t take long for the ride to start up, and it was amazing. From her horse, Kagami was able to see most of the park when it lifted up. She watched as the carousel spun around, making the park slightly blurry.

Letting go of the post on the horse, Kagami held out her hands and closed her eyes. It was so easy for her to imagine herself flying on top of a pegasus and it felt just as magical.

--------

After riding on the merry-go-round, the trio spent a couple more hours playing in the park with some of the other kids.

It was definitely an experience Kagami would never forget. She had never played with kids her age back home, so it was a welcome change of pace.

A girl named Rose was teaching her a hand game when they were interrupted by a soft grumbling coming from Kagami’s stomach. Luka, who had been next to her, smiled softly and lifted himself off of the ground.

“It is getting a little late. We can go grab something to eat and then take you back to your hotel.” Luka reached out his hand to help Kagami up. Luka waved over to Juleka, and she quickly said goodbye to the kids she was playing with.

“It was really nice meeting you!” Kagami waved goodbye to Rose and followed Luka out of the park.

As it turned out, they were just going across the street to a bakery: Tom & Sabine Boulangerie Patisserie.

“They have some of the best pastries in Paris. Trust me,” Luka said, opening the door. And she did. After all, he was right about Andre’s ice cream.

Immediately, the scent of freshly baked bread and sweetness filled her nose. She couldn’t really explain why, but the smell felt like home.

There wasn’t really a line, just one woman with her son. They were just finishing up their order and Kagami was able to get a glance at the boy. He was blonde and looked about her age. When their eyes met, he quickly hid behind his mother’s leg.

His mother just looked down and laughed. She grabbed her order and ushered her son back outside.

“Hello,” the friendly woman behind the counter greeted. “What would you like?”

Luka ordered three croissants for them with various jams while Kagami and Juleka looked at the pastry case. They all looked so good, and she couldn’t help but want to try all of them.

She noticed a young girl behind the glass with a tray of pastries in her arms. She seemed to be filling the case. When the girl caught Kagami’s gaze, she waved and gave Kagami a big smile. Kagami waved back and the girl resumed her task.

“That’s Marinette. She goes to school with me,” Juleka informed Kagami. “She’s really nice.”

Kagami looked back at Marinette, who had finished filling the cabinet, as she walked towards the back of the bakery.

--------

Kagami had yet to eat her pastry as Luka rushed them out of the bakery after paying. It had apparently gotten later than they expected, and Juleka and Luka needed to be home soon.

They wanted to properly send Kagami off, so they decided to walk her to Le Grande Paris. The siblings claimed that it was on their way home. Kagami didn’t buy it, but she let it drop. After all, she wasn’t ready to leave her new friends just yet.

Sadly, the hotel came into view too quickly for Kagami’s liking.

Turning to her new friends, she held back the tears that were forming in her eyes. She was a Tsurugi. She would not cry.

“Thank you for this amazing day. I am so fortunate that I met you two today.” Kagami sniffed and wiped her eyes.

“I think I speak for both of us when I say we’re glad to have made a friend in you today.”

Kagami grabbed Luka and Juleka and pulled them into a hug. It was probably one of the warmest hugs she had had in a long time.

Pulling away, Juleka mumbled something under her breath and Luka nodded. “Juleka says next time you’re in Paris you should try and find us. We live on a houseboat, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find.”

“Until we meet again.” Kagami smiled, slowly backing away into the hotel. She promised herself the next time she was in Paris, she would sneak off to find Juleka and Luka. She wanted to see her first friends again.

#miraculous ladybug #janais fic #janais writing #kagami #luka #juleka #they all children #fluff #kagami zine #fanzine work

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fmdjaeyeol · 3 years

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word counts: 274 + 260 + 276 + 320 + 251 + 261 reward: +5 tracker points

assuming your muse has changed in some way, be it internally or as a result of a change of the external factors around them, how is your muse different? these can be as small as an opinion on a song they hadn’t released previously or as big as a major change in their background.

jaeyeol changed the most out of all my muses admitted. there’s been a couple major switches with them. the biggest one is the change of pronouns that yeol is using (which are they/them/he/him) in addition to the bit of a gender crisis they’re having at the moment. they view of gender was always a bit skewed because of their parents, mostly their dad and all the rather conservative and religious beliefs he has. it took jaeyeol years to accept that they were queer and interesting men/male-presenting people, and still they struggle to admit that out loud even in spaces where they know no one will judge them. honestly i don’t think jaeyeol though much about gender and how they perceived their own gender, and honestly neither did i. it kinda hit me out of nowhere too, so that’s the story that jaeyeol is also getting. for now, they’re still very confused and have no idea what’s going on and the story here is that jaeyeol is testing out new pronouns to get a full idea of how not being perceived as only male makes them feel within space they’re comfortable in and giving everything a good, long Think.

other changes include yeol being a year younger now, it never felt right to have them as a 97 liner tbh so i bumped it down a year and moved the date a couple days back as well. and of course jaeyeol got a faceclaim change. lastly, they are no longer a main vocal, they are now a dance and rap legend ft occasional vocals and honestly i love it for them.

what does your muse think of their company and their group?

in short, jaeyeol likes catalyst overall. the music and lyrics are a bit weird some times but honestly it works for them somehow, and it also fits well with their personal style of dancing, which they’ve been able to bring to the forefront in helping choreograph for songs. the group has allowed them to continue to explore dance styles as they’ve choreographed and tried to figure out things that wouldn’t just work nicely for himself but also all the other members and how they dance. in addition to liking the general concepts and music, they’ve made some friends along the way, which is always nice. in terms of how they feel about gold star, just like every idol probably does, jaeyeol would like to fight them sometimes for the decisions they make or the way they lay out catalyst’s schedule, and their favorite pass time is stressing out their poor manager. though there’s no boiling hatred or anger towards anyone and they’re just vibing. all of this is pretty much the same way jaeyeol felt towards dimensions/unity prior to the restructuring of everything. the only real difference there is that previous jaeyeol was a bit salty they weren’t getting solo schedules and opportunities but that’s different now (maybe because i’m getting better at making claims and establishing what i want to do with my children, maybe not, the world may never know). so yeah, like i said, generally jaeyeol is pleased with catalyst and their success, even if that success isn’t what gold star has initially expected of them.

is your muse on their first contract or their second? if they’ve renewed, what were their feelings around that at the time and what were their hopes for their second contract? if they haven’t renewed, what are their current thoughts on the end of their eventual first contract?

catalyst is still on their first contract, having debuted only in may of 2018. they haven’t been around long enough to move out of their dorms and jaeyeol is still stuck with a roommate and no pet to love on. their first contract renewal isn’t going to be happening until 2025, so both yeol and all the catalyst members have lots of time to think on what they want for their futures. jaeyeol is very appreciative of the fact that it’s still a good few years off because honestly, they have not a clue what their thoughts are on the end of their first contract. it’s weird for them to think that they would have dedicated seven years of their life to catalyst by then, and almost a full decade in total once you factor in the amount of time they spent training prior to debut. the few times that they have thought about this contract ending and them potentially signing onto another seven years spent at gold star has resulted in them going back in forth onw hat they want to do with their lives. on one hand, money is great, but on the other they could potentially have a successful solo career and be doing their own thing. also they’d be thirty-four years old by the time the end of a secret control rolled around to an end and ideally jaeyeol would like to have done the whole settling down, got married, and maybe even had a kid or two by that point. it really isn’t appealing to them to still be bopping around and going woo woo woo woo firetruck at that point.

what are your muse’s goals and motivations?

jaeyeol’s main goals right now are to continue what little bit of a solo career that gold star has let them begin to build. it was just doing some choreography for catalyst but now they’re also being allowed to do modeling projects and expand more outside of the group, which is something that they are firmly enjoying. it’s not that they don’t love catalyst and being a member of the group, but they also like the idea of having an established solo career that is separate from just being an idol so that when catalyst eventually comes to an end sometime in the future, they have something to fall back on and rely on. i guess this is also their motivation in many ways. stability is something that they never really had growing up, which is odd considering that their family was well off in many different ways, but still, they want something more for themselves than the environment they grew up in, which was rather unpleasant. their current goals in relation to that is just continuing to grow and try more things, eventually they want to go on and start choreographing outside of the group and for other groups and maybe even solo songs if the opportunity arrives. in addition to their motivations i mentioned earlier, jaeyeol also just wants to like have something to take pride in and prove to people in their life that were trying to steer them in an entirely different direction where they didn’t want to go, that their happiness was most important and that they could be successful and respected even if they hadn’t gone on to be working a standard desk job or become a doctor or lawyer. they just want to be more than what they thought they could be while growing up and maybe one day be confident enough to speak out more and motivate others to do the same.

what is one conflict, internal or external, that your muse is currently dealing with, has recently dealt with, or will need to deal with in the future?

i touched on this fairly extensively in the first question honestly and explained the one real large ordeal that they are internally dealing with at the moment, and to reiterate, that is their gender and their gender expression. the idea of being anything other than male had never crossed jaeyeol’s mind, let alone potentially questioning their gender to a point of going outside the standard binaries. on top of doing that all in a country where something like that isn’t a widely accepted or supported thing. they thought the only struggle they were going to have like this was their sexual orientation but at least, they were proven wrong. the conflict was brought upon because of me actually and suddenly i realized that i was naturally using gender neutral pronouns to refer to jaeyeol and took it as a sign that my brain was trying to tell me something. so here we are. the idea of jaeyeol questioning their own gender crosssed my mind briefly when i first conjured the image of the muse in my head but it was never any substantial thought, but apparently i had the thought for good reason. and like i also said earlier, they’re testing out the whole option of being non-binary and being perceived as such with those closest to them, including their partner and friends as of right now. though they have no idea where they would be on that spectrum, in terms of whether they feel like they are agender, genderfluid, etc.

if your muse has established career claims, what are their thoughts on their career so far? if they do not, how do they feel about not having individual activities yet? what would they like to do in the future, if anything? if they don’t have ambitions for individual activities, explain why.

jaeyeol is living their absolute best life in their career right now if they were to be straight up asked, even though it isn’t much of a solo career outside of their group in the way that people would probably think about having a solo career like having solo music (which is something they aren’t super interested in honestly). the only things that they really have done on their own is some solo magazine covers because gold star media finally came to their sense and realized that they have that absolute beauty that is jaeyeol jeon and are putting those looks to great use other than being (arguably) catalyst’s center or one of the unofficial center’s of the group. so far there’s only been two but they look forward to doing many, many more in the future when the calls come in asking for them. the other part of their established career claims come from partial choreography claims on a few of catalyst’s tracks, including: firetruck, cherry bomb, simon says, and kick it. the list is short but in my brain they’ve been doing their own dance choreographies to songs on instagram/ social medias as well, those are just some of the real official things they have their name attached to at the moment. both of those paths are ones that they would like to continue on with and hope they get to for a long time. the next step they would like to take is choreographing for other groups or people so they can keep expanding their talents and abilities.

#famedrstask1 #the limitless me | paras.#graphic design is my passion clearly

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arandompostarchive · 3 years

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SALEM - Ch. 6

SAVED WORK

Summary: In all the centuries of your existence, you had never been dragged out of hiding by another god, put in a superhero team and forced to save the universe. But it seems your luck has run out.

Loki was not having any fun.

Three days in a cell, right after finding out you were alive? And this time he didn’t even do anything. Talk about torture.

But here he was. Still just waiting. Before he heard shoes click against the stone, much too fast to be yours, and he was sure there were at least three. He straightened up on his bed, just waiting for them to approach.

“Okay, here’s the deal Reindeer Games,” He heard a man say. “You’re getting out of here if, and only if you help us defeat whatever supposed evil we’re dealing with. Got it.”

He saw his brother standing in the background, smiling at him. He was certain it was you and Thor who got him out of there. He was thankful, though you would be the only one he told this. The Captain was the one leading him out with Thor and the Man of Iron behind him. They lead him down the long hallway into the actual compound. To his slight surprise, they took his cuffs off. Not that he was expecting to help the team with them on, but nonetheless it was surprising the Captain didn’t put up a fight.

He was lead into a small common room, one or two people were up there, likely waiting for him. You weren’t there, which was a slight surprise. The Captain stepped in front of him.

“I hope you understand that even one mistake, one small slip up and you’ll be right back down there. And we’ll make it permanent this time.” Loki sighed in response.

“The only reason I didn’t ‘try anything’ was because I actually want to help for once, did you consider that?” The Captain didn’t respond. “Well, I suppose that’s fair.” He finished before he heard a voice through the room.

“Fury has asked you to meet in the meeting room, he asked that you make it quick.”

The members of the team shared a small glance at each other before the Captain responded. “Okay, call Y/n. We’ll head over there now.” He then turned to Loki. “Someone needs to stay here and show Loki to his room.” That prompted Loki to let out a sigh again. He anticipated doing that a lot.

Eventually the Widow agreed, taking him towards a hall with only a few doors. Each had a small decoration on them, it seemed childish, so he made the assumption that at least one of them was Thor’s. Which was proven right when he saw his brother walk out of the closest room down the hall past him, smiling at Loki. He tried (and failed) to resist rolling his eyes. Since Thor was in this hall, he assumed the next room was yours. He was right. The door had a small pentacle on it, something he noticed you started wearing. So, that left him with the room furthest down the hall.

The Widow, who introduced herself as Natasha even though he had no intention of referring to her that way, was saying something about how he’s staying here and shouldn’t do anything stupid. He was much more focused on your door. Thor had left, probably to go to whatever meeting was going on, but you hadn’t yet.

Did you not want to see him?

Maybe he’s overreacting. You might not be there. You might just be in another room or something. Who’s room?

The Widow said something along the lines of “make yourself comfortable” or “don’t screw this up” whatever it was, he didn’t care much. The room wasn’t as bad as he first thought it would be. A nice couch, a bed. It had a tv on one side, which made him think this room used to belong to someone else, there’s no way the team would let him have the same luxuries they had. They still didn’t like him.

He wasn’t sure exactly how long he was waiting. But he stayed on his chair, listening carefully for any sort of footsteps to signify the meeting had ended and he could actually talk to you. Eventually he heard you. Your footsteps stopped but he didn’t hear a door open or anything. Instead he heard a small knock. With absolutely no hesitation he opened the door to see you standing there, looking fairly distressed.

“Are you alright C-uh Y/n?” You shook your head. He instinctively wrapped his arms around you. He knew the two of you couldn’t just pick up where you left off. But that didn’t mean he didn’t want to.

Your arms wrapped around him. For all of a second he forgot he was going to say something.

“Oh, come in.” He lead you back to the couch in his room where you sat on the opposite side. “What’s going on? Do they not believe me or something?”

“No, they believe you. The woman you were fighting. She sounds like my sister, Ker. And apparently she’s been in California. She keeps painting the phrase “ Doom is rising”, we aren’t even sure what that means.”

To be completely honest, Loki wasn’t sure either. In the time he spent with Ker, she had barely talked. Hadn’t said anything at all. In fact, the only thing she had ever said, was about the world of the punished, a place she called Tartarus, which he still wasn’t sure if that was a person too or if she was just insane.

“No one has told me exactly how long I’ve been gone, but I think I know where I was. Ker kept disappearing though. I managed to get out when she left, but I guess she found me.”

You nodded, “If you know where she took you, we could always go back there?”

He remembered Tartarus, with all the pain and death it was hard to forget. But if doom was rising anywhere, it would probably be from there. He still didn’t want to go back. And how could you blame him?

“I’d rather not. I narrowly escaped as it was, and not before she came chasing after me. Besides, what would we even do there? She doesn’t have anything we want.”

You didn’t seem phased by this. “She knows what’s going on. Always have to do is get there, defeat her, and figure out what’s happening. You narrowly escaped because it was just you. With both of us it’ll be much easier!”

He wasn’t sure. He fought Ker. If it hadn’t been for the interruption, he was certain he would’ve lost. And if he was being honest, if Ker hadn’t disappeared, the Captain would’ve lost too. But in fairness, you were a god. He wasn’t and if Ker is you sister, you’d know her a lot better. He still didn’t think it was worth the risk.

“This is a bad idea. It’s not worth it. Even if we get out of there with exactly what we want, is it really worth it?” Sure he wanted to help, but he wasn’t looking to die along the way. “I mean, this is death were talking about violent death. And I’ve fought death before. It took me, Thor, a Valkyrie and that Hulk thing.” That made you smile. “Oh no. What did I say?” He mumbled. “I really don’t like that look on your face.”

“Loki, you just came up with the perfect plan.” He raised an eyebrow. He was willing to be he really wouldn’t like what came out of your mouth next. “We’ll ask Thor!” He was right.

“No, no. Absolutely not. We are not bringing my brother.”

You sighed, “Loki, three gods could definitely kill death! Besides, she’s more of a spirit anyway.”

“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

“Loki, I’m on the wrong side of almost every myth. I’m always trying to do what I think is right, or what I have to do, and I’m almost always wrong. For once, with this team? I know I’m on the right side. I know how to be a hero. But if you would’ve lost the fight with Ker, I think the three of us could do a lot better.”

He thought about it. He was almost certain you were being dramatic just so he’d agree (in fairness, you were) but you did have an actual point. The three of you would do much better than the two of you.

“Fine. Only because we could an extra hand.” You smiled. Definitely dramatic.

***

You didn’t have much of a plan. Get Thor to go off world with you, have Loki lead the way to wherever he was captured, defeat Ker, come back to the tower before anyone gets too mad about you leaving. Simple.

So, you knocked on Thor’s door, Loki standing next to you. He was insistent that he didn’t like this idea, but he hadn’t made a real effort to stop you yet, so you figured he was at least a tiny bit on board.

“Y/n and Loki? Not that I don’t want to talk with you, but why are you at my door?” Thor said once he opened the door.

You smiled, “Oh, you know. Just wanted to see you is all!” Thor looked a bit confused.

“I just saw you? Not more than 20 minutes ago? You sat next to me?”

“Oh yeah, right. Well, you wouldn’t mind if I ask a favor right?”

Thor looked up at his brother, who only shrugged. You were definitely doing something. He just wasn’t sure what. “What kind of favor are you thinking of?” He almost didn’t want to ask. Normally it ended up being something slightly ridiculous. Like asking him to shock Barnes’ arm and make him think it was Sam. But you seemed a little more serious this time. Just a little.

“We want to hunt down Ker. We kinda need your help. Three gods are better than two, right?”

Thor wasn’t sure. “We can’t chase down death, especially when Fury is already planning on sending a team. You were at the meeting.”

He was right. Fury didn’t think these messages were as big a problem as you did. Doom could mean quite a lot of things and none of them were good. He was going to send a small team. You knew your siblings well. Most of them were not kind of merciful. If she even suspected that whoever Fury sent was there to fight her, she’d kill them. Especially if they were human. It felt like sending troops into battle, but not telling them it’s a suicide mission. In fact, that’s exactly what it was. Not stopping deaths that could be prevented. You tried saying this, but it seemed Fury had already made the decision.

Loki spoke before you could. “Brother, you’ve fought death. You know mercy is hardly in her vocabulary. As much as I don’t like it, we have the best chance of succeeding.”

He was probably right. “I’m sorry, Loki. If we’re going to fight her, we need the team. We should try to convince Fury not to send anyway if you think it’s this important.”

You sighed. “I tried to. That’s the first thing I did.”

Thor shook his head again.

“You really aren’t going to come with us, huh Thor?”

He sighed. “I’m sorry. I know it’s important but… I think we’ve got a better chance with the team.”

You wanted to be mad. Even a tiny bit, but you really couldn’t blame him. He was right. But the rest of the team were mortals. The could take a knife through the chest like you could. Ker didn’t waste time speaking, she never did. She wouldn’t wait for the Captain to finish talking about how she should ‘do the right thing and help’ or even just tell you what was happening. Sure, it was probably one of your dumber ideas, but oh well.

“Fine, but just promise me: don’t tell the team. They shouldn’t know unless they really have to. Just to keep them safe.”

Thor nodded and closed his door. You headed back to Loki’s room and sat down on his couch.

“Okay, I guess we can’t be the ultimate trio. We really could’ve kicked ass.” You said, smirking.

“We can be the ultimate duo and do the same thing.” Loki sat next to you. “We do, however, need an actual plan. I think I can get us back to where Ker was, but what will we go when we get there?”

You smiled. “Hit her hard.”

“No, something that will actually help.”

“Hit her harder?”

“No.”

You looked at him. “Okay, you do better.” He opened his mouth to respond, but you added on before he could. “Something that doesn’t involve stabbing.” His mouth closed for a second.

“Very funny.” In all honest, Loki’s plan had included stabbing, he could figure something out.

“We should get the Tesseract.” He said. You looked a bit confused. “I do actually know where it is, and if we really need it, it’s a quick escape.” He was right.

“Okay then. Step One: Find the Tesseract. Please tell me you hid it on a super peaceful planet?”

He sighed, “Why would I do that if I actually wanted to protect it?”

***

#loki x reader #loki #salem #saved work #fanfic

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t4t-lumpygrab · 3 years

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Sunset

Summary: LSP and Lemongrab can watch the sunset together... As a treat... ao3 / ff.net / DA

It was almost evening in Ooo and the sun was starting to set, casting long shadows from the lemon trees and huts surrounding the Earldom. Lemongrab stood on the balcony overlooking the orchard and watched the sun lower itself below the tops of his trees. Watching this when the hard work of the day was done always brought him a sense of peace and fulfillment.There was no sound other than the rustling of the leaves and the quiet clatter of the lemonjon candies growing on the trees tapping against each other in the breeze. Lemongrab took a deep breath and took it all in. Peace. Tranquility. Quiet. Sil-

“Hey Lemmy!” a voice yelled and something soft and fluffy cannonballed into his stomach.

“O-OH! Mmmm Princess!” Lemongrab struggled to balance himself with the wriggling purple creature clinging onto him, “What aaa… surprise tooo see yoouu…”

“Yeah yeah I know you’re like, totally thrilled and over the moon to see me and all that lump because I’m amazing and beautiful and totally cool and talented and-”

Half an hour later LSP finally reached the end of her list of amazing traits. “-Hot, and um, what else am I? Oh yeah! Humble! Anyway what are you doing pumpkin?” she asked brightly.

Lemongrab frowned at her. “I am aaaa lemon. Not aaaa pumpkin. I had thought it was fairly obvious I mean my name is literally LEMONgrab and everythi-”

“Oh silly, silly, lovely man…” LSP shook her head and affectionately patted his cheek, “pumpkin is just, like, a cute nickname! Like baby and stuff. It doesn’t mean I actually think you’re a pumpkin, or a baby. It means I lumping love yoouuu~”

LSP hugged him and Lemongrab laughed awkwardly “Yes yes yes Iiiii love you too… watermelon…”

She blinked up at him in pure confusion. “Watermelon?”

“You called me a pumpkin.” he explained quickly, “I was, nngh, following your example.”

LSP laughed and grinned. “Lemme guess you’re also gonna start calling me toddler because I called you baby.”

Lemongrab had actually seriously considered doing that, but the dry and sarcastic way she said this planted an inkling of doubt in his head. “...If baby is acceptable why isn’t toddler?” He asked bluntly, “LSP, I adore you, but I cannot understand what you are saying.”

LSP laughed at him again and Lemongrab stopped feeling confused and started to feel upset. “I forgot you weren’t, like, very experienced with romantic stuff.” Lemongrab’s frown deepened.

He let go of her and stroppily went back to his balcony. So that was what she thought of him. It was true that Lemongrab hadn’t actually dated anyone before but that wasn’t his fault- the first earl had been… uh.

Um.

Well, he’d never dated anyone that was for sure.

Which was probably for the best. And the second earl had never had a chance to explore who he was as a person outside of his brother’s toxic influence, let alone meet someone who could love that person. And as for him? He’d lost around a year physically recovering from the explosion and more time overcoming his various traumas. He was still overcoming them. He’d never had a chance to be with someone like this before and while he’d never told LSP this, he was actually pretty insecure about that. Normally he was fine with her mildly teasing him but.. This time it had actually hurt.

He stared out over the trees again but they didn’t bring him any peace. The sun was now properly setting, meaning the sky was flushed pink with the same embarrassment he felt. He looked at the pink and orange clouds and an idea suddenly came to him.

“Mmmmmm myyy gourd…” he grabbed LSP’s hand and dragged her out of the room, down a flight of stairs and into the Earldom stables.

The lemon camel and pegasus looked up at them as Lemongrab almost flung the door off it's hinges.

“Beee seated upon the royal steed, my, um, vegetable.” Lemongrab plonked LSP down on the pegasus' back and jumped on behind her. He patted it's lemon textured flank and yelled "Away!"

The pegasus reared up onto it's back legs, sending a confused LSP sliding into her boyfriend, and bolted out of the stable.

"What the?" LSP spluttered as the trees whizzed past them, "what the lump? What's going on? Where are we lumping going - OH MY GLOB THE WALL!"

The wall that surrounded Castle Lemongrab was looking and they were galloping right into it. Lemongrab reached over her to pat the horse on its neck. LSP bounced up and down slightly as the back muscles shifted from the creature flapping its wings until it carried them both into the air. They harmlessly sailed over the wall and into the sky.

"Oh boy. That was close…" LSP said nervously. She peeked over a beating wing and saw the rapidly disappearing ground. "Oh boy. Oh boy."

Lemongrab was getting better at emotions and he got the feeling LSP was… less than thrilled to be 100 metres off the ground, for some reason. "Princess have you never flown before?" He asked in disbelief.

"N-no." LSP still has her eyes trained on the shrinking trees and the vanishing ground. The higher they went the harder the fall would be if she fell off.

"But I thought… since you can fly you'd be used to these heights."

"I'm still affected by turbulence and like, winds and-and stuff! I can't float at a height like this!" LSP panicked, "if I fall I'll die for real!"

"You won't die." Lemongrab turned her head away to look forward. "Do not look at the ground. Forward only. Yes. Good. And hold on to thee neck." He took her hands and placed them on the horse's neck so she could grip onto it. He kept his hands over hers and leant into her, their arms touching, holding her in place with his own body weight. "I have flown many times and there is no need for fear. It is alright, my eggplant."

"O-okay." LSP blushed. She finally looked at the sky they were riding into. The sunset was a blend of pink and peach and soft brushes of purple. At the very top the night sky was peeking through with tints of dark blue and the sparkle of stars. The sun was still shining from behind the hills and it lit up the clouds as they floated past them.

LSP reached out in wonder to touch one of the fluffy, glowing clouds as they flew past it. They'd entered cloud Kingdom so it was solid enough to stand on but still soft to the touch. Her fingers slid along its fluffy, pillow like surface.

"Wow…" she whispered and Lemongrab grinned to himself.

They burst through the clouds and all of Ooo was laid out before them. All of it bathed in the golden syrupy light of the setting sun. LSP could've never gotten this high up by herself. If it wasn't for Lemongrab, she'd never have seen this.

"It's beautiful." Was all she could say. Lemongrab kissed the top of her head and she smiled, turning almost as pink as the clouds.

“See!" He said triumphantly and smugly. "I can be good at romantic stuff!” Everyone, even him, knew that there was nothing more romantic than watching the sunset together. Maybe now that he'd proven himself to her the teasing would stop.

“I never said you weren’t.” LSP said in confusion.

“But you said I wasn’t experienced…" Lemongrab whined, "and you teased meeee...”

Lemongrab's sudden behaviour finally clicked for her. She hadn't realised she upset him. Lemongrab was a very sensitive person- how could she have been so careless with his feelings?

She reached behind her to touch his face. “Aw. Lemongrab, I didn’t wanna make you feel like you’re not good enough or I don’t like being with you. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing stuff and it’s not your fault if you don’t know something, right?”

She poked his cheek. “Right?”

“Nnngh right.” he grumbled.

“And even if you don’t always know a lot about dating I’ve been with people who were, like, more experienced than you but… they didn’t make me feel as loved as you do." LSP felt his cheek shift under her hand as he smiled. "It’s not the most important thing, and there’s lots of stuff that I love about you. Like you always make me laugh. You’re a really funny guy, you know that right?" She slid back to snuggle into him and he wrapped one arm around her. Lemongrab was always so warm and smelled so nice, and he always tried his best to do nice things for her.

Lemongrab was stronger than anyone she knew. And definitely much stronger than people have him credit for. He'd survived things that gave her nightmares just thinking about them.

But Lemongrab was also a lot more fragile than people assumed he was. She remembered how he'd been on their first date. So anxious and nervous and frightened. He reminded her of the easily startled baby deers she sometimes saw near her camp in the woods: they were both in desperate need of someone to care for them. That's what she was supposed to do.

"But I guess I should make sure I’m not laughing at you so… I’m sorry, I won’t tease you like that again.” she said genuinely and Lemongrab gave her a squeeze to show her she was forgiven.

“See?" She continued, "Even though I’m meant to be the one with the experience or whatever, I still mess things up sometimes. So you really shouldn’t worry about it.”

"It is okay. It is okay, myyy pumpkin." Lemongrab told her.

She turned around to give him a peck on the cheek. "Whatever you say Watermelon."

#lemongrab #adventure time #atime #lumpygrab #lumpy space princess #lsp #my writing #fanfiction #lemonspace #fluffember #fluffember 2020

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catflowerqueen · 3 years

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Okay, I finished Hiveswap 2 in... basically all one go. I will definitely have to do multiple replays to get all the Steam achievements, but that can wait until I do all my actual work and projects. Thoughts and major spoilers below.

Well Hiveswap 2 was certainly interesting! I can see why it took so long to make, and why Friendisms had to come first. That game certainly gives some more background lore to certain situations, though it also kind of… gave me certain character expectations that I feel were left unfulfilled. Like… given it is Alternia, and Doc Scratch admitted to messing around with everyone involved via his whatever-it-was making people more open to befriending the reader, I guess I’m not entirely surprised how certain situations ended up? Just… severely disappointed.

As far as gameplay goes, I think that the item management system was a little better than in part one, and it was cool that you actually got to switch between playing as Joey and playing as Xefros, and that they each had different commentary when you clicked on things. There is also a replayability factor, which is nice. The music was also really cool, especially how you could tell that the same melody was being used in every train car, just changed up a little to better fit the “theme” of the castes present in the cars. And that even held true when it got a lot darker/more depressing during the final quest! I’m also extremely glad that there was a functional hint system, because there were times when I really, really needed it.

But the bee minigame came pretty much out of nowhere, and the formatting for the directions was horrendous because it gave them to you after the game already started. Not in a tutorial fashion, either! Which meant that I couldn’t really read or understand what was actually going on until I’d failed the game two or three times, making the whole thing really tedious. Also… I’m kind of annoyed at how little actually got carried over when you use the “import Act 1 data” function? Like… inventory was the same, and maybe there were some things I missed, but it didn’t keep the name I gave Dammek’s lusus! It didn’t even use the default name for that option, either, or even throw in a line about Xefros telling you what it’s actual name was at some point while you were fleeing, which would at least explain the discrepancy.

Then there was the jade and teal car… and oh boy do I have a lot of complaints against that car. It’s honestly the one I had the most problems with, from both a gameplay and story perspective. For one thing, it dragged on way, way too long—especially for a middle section of the game. It would have worked a lot better as an endgame thing, I think, just in terms of the way games and stories are supposed to ramp up the action as you play, so things get progressively harder as you go. While there was some nice foreshadowing of how depraved the purple caste really is during that section… like the early game foreshadowing for it, it only really works effectively if you know the source material.

I mean. I guess Xefros’ discomfort in general works and gives it more of a wham/gut-punch for those who don’t know the source ahead of time, but… still.

Anyways, the length isn’t my only complaint with that section. The story was very interesting, I’ll admit, but the execution was not very good, especially when it came to the evidence. Now, I know this is apparently a common complaint with Phoenix Wright games, which that section is based on—that there is a specific order and place you need to use specific pieces of evidence, even when logic dictates that there is a far simpler solution to the problem. Like… at one point you need to come up with a motive for Tegiri to be hanging out by the Jade lockers. Considering that the entire trial has to do with the theft of a “forbidden book on rainbow drinkers,” this is something you find out during the evidence collection phase before the trial even begins, and another piece of evidence collected clearly states (or at least implies extremely heavily) that Tegiri is into rainbow drinker stuff, one would think that piece of evidence would be enough for a motive, right? Wrong. Instead, you have to use a broken action figure… and then you STILL use the other piece of evidence to show that he’s into weird romance stuff and would have been interested in reading the book! And that’s not the only time stuff like that happens!

Not to mention the section in the middle where the trial takes recess. The dialogue implies that what’s happening is you’re getting the chance to collect more evidence and statements… but, no, what’s actually happening is that you’re supposed to be taking this time to accuse other people of actually being the culprit by combining two pieces of evidence. The problem is, it doesn’t tell you this is what’s happening, give you any warning that you won’t be able to talk to the people you’re accusing again if you combine the wrong evidence, or let you use any selection screen aside from the evidence ones when it would be extremely helpful to be able to check on the timeline or suspect section again in order to get a refresher on where everyone was. And one of the pieces of evidence is a diary—but once you have it in your possession, you can’t check the relevant entry again! It only says who the diary belongs to and that some of it is censored. And since there is reason to believe that someone else messed with the diary to implicate the owner, it would be very helpful to actually get to explore that further in depth!

I really do hope that this is a case where there are multiple different endings, since the way it left off on my playthrough left an extremely bitter taste in my mouth, especially in regards to Tyzias’s character, who I actually really, really liked in Friendisms! But here… I got the “Scapegoat” achievement (which is why I’m hoping that there are other ways to complete this section), with the end result being that even though we got our client declared innocent, we also got an innocent (or at least, one heavily implied to be innocent afterwards) person declared guilty—in part because our co-counsel did not inform us of the fact that she witnessed evidence being tampered with and, in fact, knew who the true culprit was all along. And while her “Experiment” was deemed a success—and, I suppose, was technically successful within the set rules and did actually follow the whole “innocent until proven guilty” thing—it just highlighted that legislacerators still don’t actually care about justice. She could have, at any point, chimed in about what she saw, but was more interested in “keeping the peace” afterwards than actually getting the true culprit. And, yeah, baby steps and all, but…

I suppose thematically it does work well considering what happens at the end of the game when reaching the purple car, but…

I just thought better of Tyzias, is all. Friendisms implied that she was a real revolutionary for change, and, yes, I know that this wouldn’t be obvious to someone who didn’t play that game and some allowances must be made for that, but… even so, it just seems really out of character, and I don’t think it can all be blamed on forgetting lessons they learned while hanging out with the Reader/those things not actually happening in this continuity, for whatever reason (though, given how Fozzer was acting, and the fact that Chixie brings up the whole “Mask” persona, I’m pretty sure that we can assume they all remember some things that happened… just in a way that’s vague enough that those who played Friendisms can catch the references while those who didn’t won’t be lost on what’s going on)

…And, in hindsight, the whole thing was probably unnecessary to begin with since the book actually got found before the idea off a trial even came up??? I mean, part of that is because Marvus suddenly wandered in and seemed very interesting in holding one, and they didn’t want to upset him, but… yeah, it’s definitely a case of “this all could have been avoided,” especially since the book is apparently only forbidden for the jades to read. But I’m willing to give that one a pass, since trolls are weird and there were various circumstances escalating the situation.

I still think that Tagora had something to do with it, given what we know about his infatuation with Rainbow Drinkers from Friendisms… but that never actually came up in the game? I see where there may have been an opportunity for it, but it wasn’t a very clear-cut one and, at least the direction my playthrough went—would have required the player to actually have done his route in Friendisms.

(EDIT: Apparently there are some different ways to do this trial, according to some things already up on Steam, but they are dependent on some very early choices in the game--which would presumably affect some other choices in later games, and which means that i’m going to have to do many different playthroughs if i want to see everything available--and it still isn’t likely to remove the taint on my feelings towards Tyzias. After all, I’ll know that such capabilities for ruthlessness remain in her character, whether or not they’re actively showing.)

Also, hero-mode Xefros looks a lot older than I thought he was. And apparently joey is old enough to at least be a Freshman in high school??? I thought she was still in middle school!

As for other characters… some I felt were still in-character, some weren’t. Like… for what little we actually saw of Karako’s personality, considering he doesn’t really talk, I thought he was fine… despite being extremely surprised he was actually on the train at all considering his youth and, well, what little personality we saw indicating that he doesn’t really do “civilization” much. But the twins… while they were spot-on amongst themselves (resulting in an extremely chilling and heartbreakingly well-done scene near the ending), they seemed a lot more vicious in regards to their interactions with others. Wanshi apparently developed a real cruel streak in this game, and, ironically, Tirona was actually a whole lot nicer and not actually a suspect of that trial, despite being put on the stand as a witness.

I was also a bit disappointed that there weren’t more of those clever fight scenes we had from Act 1, where there was puzzle solving going on mid-fight—there were only two of them, one being so forgettable that I pretty much only remembered it existed just this second, and only the last one was really clever. There was at least one, maybe two other points where it would have been really cool/creative if Joey could have solved things with dance in a battling format… but her use of her dancing shoes was only plot important at two points in the game—and that first point wasn’t even her doing actual dancing, but, rather, as a buildup for the bee minigame. And then she never even got to use her “bee dance” skills again. At least Xefros finally got to use his bat—but, again, it was only once where it was actually a useful tool. He did get to use psionics more, though.

And there was a plot point with Skylla that was pretty much completely dropped? I mean… they did bring it up as something that was still unsolved right at the end, but… well, hopefully this just means that they’ll actually solve it for real in Act 3, because otherwise there was a perfectly good opportunity for a solution that Joey had in hand, but which didn’t get utilized. The issue is that Skylla’s lusus is apparently sick. One would think that this means that, assuming you carried over from part 1 (and I would assume even if you didn’t because it looks like a lot of the problems would be game-breakingly unsolvable if you didn’t have certain items you would have picked up through a playthrough of part 1. I guess that’s something to test for next time), this would require you to use the bestiary and vet kit, right? Wrong: I tried that and nothing happened. Apparently, the solution is that you promise Skylla you’ll look for medicine further down, and use that as a reason that Marsti should move away from the door so that you can pass by. But there’s never actually an option for you to look for the medication.

…Now that I think about it, though, this would be the prime opportunity for some inadvertent (or intentional, as the case may be) foreshadowing from Act 1. Two opportunities, even, with one being far more obvious than the other. One could be that Joey makes some commentary about knowing exactly what to do, having seen a similar problem in her own “lusus”—her pet dog back home. The other could be that Ladyy isn’t actually sick, but is instead pregnant and having little lusus puppies—which would be a callback to that Puppy Surprise doll from Act 1 where Joey hid her keys.

Still. I don’t like the fact that it never got solved in this part. Also that Vikare didn’t really get to do much (despite how annoying and confusing I myself find him) and that we didn’t get to see Fozzer again on the train even though we got to see several others on the train who we first saw at the station.

I’m also wondering what’s going to happen in part 4? Obviously part 3 is going to be either the party or further attempts to reach the party (and the suddenness of what happened with the ending does lend some more seriousness to the whole “you only have eleven days before everything gets destroyed thing), but… I’d assumed going in that two parts would be dedicated to Joey’s story, and two to Dammek’s, but apparently that’s not the case? If Joey really does get four parts to herself… then what the heck is Dammek’s story going to entail? I mean… those monsters, obviously, and whoever Jude’s “friends” are, but… I don’t know. I feel like it’s going to be hard to top this.

As far as lore goes… apparently the maturation trials are not the same thing as the exile, since Zebruh mentions already having gone through his, yet he is still on Alternia for what is implied to be… at least two sweeps, I think it was? I think he said he went through them at seven, and Chahut is approaching 9 or ten and mentions being only a perigee away from leaving. So that’s interesting. I guess the maturation trials are the equivalent of a career aptitude test or something?

It does make me wonder what happens with the Jades, though. Unless there are more mothergrubs on other planets, what do they even do when they’re off world, since apparently they are specifically tested when they are a lot younger to see who actually is assigned to the caverns vs. just living outside with everyone else. I guess maybe they just get jobs that are slightly more prestigious than olives, but still under teals? That would at least make sense for the ones who weren’t assigned to work in the caverns. Though it does make me wonder about Kanaya a little bit—had there been no game involved, would she still be considered “special” like the jades from Hiveswap given what her lusus was, except that because of said lusus she had to live outside of the caverns? It was, after all, implied that virgin mother grubs and their matriorbs were extremely rare.

Also, considering how full this train was, and the caste segregation going on, I’m wondering why the train from Sollux’s route in Pesterquest was so empty, and how he could apparently just get on any car he wanted. I mean—sure, he ended up in a car that only had an olive on it, but considering they were literally the only other passenger besides reader, that may have just been a coincidence. It can’t have been that there were separate waiting platforms for the different castes, either, since everyone was mingling together in Hiveswap before separating by car. Is it just that everyone was going to the party, but the train otherwise doesn’t get much use, or something like that? Or did it have more to do with whatever the ramifications were for Trizza’s defeat? …Or possibly the fact that the attack on the train at the end just made people still extremely wary about travelling by rail even sweeps after the fact?

There’s probably some more lore I can touch on, but… honestly, the trial section left me so upset that I can’t really put much of that together right now. I think I was going to say something about how the Jades would also be a good source of keeping culture alive between heiresses, since apparently they’re actually charged with doing so… but it’s hard to tell how much of that culture is just jade culture specifically vs. the rest of Alternia. Or even how much of it was actually serious, rather than a thinly veiled reason to let everyone indulge in things like tabloids, celebrity magazines, and rainbow drinker books.

Oh, yeah, and I’m pretty sure that Diemen at one point implied that his hot dog was actually made out of someone specific, though I’m not sure at this point whether that someone was his lusus, or if it was a troll. Either way, if that’s true, then it definitely explains why he is so protective of that specific hot dog.

EDIT: I remembered what the other bit of lore I wanted to discuss was. Well. I mean, it might not be considered “lore” as such, but... it’s interesting that of the two major rebellions we know of, both were headed by bronzebloods--that being the Summoner and Dammek. At least, I assume Dammek is the one heading the current rebellion. I wonder it it’s just a coincidence, or if there is something in bronzeblood nature that makes them more likely to lean towards these sorts of reactions? We know Dammek’s breed of lusus apparently favors strong leaders, and given the blood color would only be seeking out other bronzes (except perhaps when they hit the “my charge just died/got culled” stage and go looking for someone else to adopt, given what is happening with Joey), but presumably the Summoner had the same lusus type as Tavros. I dunno, it’s just interesting to think about.

Anyways... Overall I did really like the game! I loved the tone, despite how depressing it got at times, and Xefros’ and Joey’s developing relationship is amazing. I look forward to part 3. Hopefully it won’t take as long to come out.

#homestuck #hiveswap #spoilers #massive spoilers

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