#Why does he have to torture us with all the period dramas | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

weebsinstash · 10 months

Note

God devout protector Miguel after the you two incident would be AMAZINGLY AWFUL. Man will full on strap your ass to him in like a baby carrier kind of fashion, you wouldn’t leave his sight, let alone his reach.

And the other spiders would be crossed between being mad jealous but also relived because if anyone can keep you on lock, it would be Miguel.

If you did try and leave again tho I FIRMLY believe man would go full feral, foaming and running on all fours, just to get you again.

But also? He’s totally crying the first time he gets to fuck the real you. Man will swear there’s a diff between you and your dopple.

(Post contains across the spiderverse spoilers for Miguel's backstory/family)

Bruh I keep thinking of tons of ways to torture Miguel/the Reader, why do I have a fetish for writing fucking drama like this is some lifetime movie real housewives levels of drama, and I was thinking of a really specific scene sort of idea. So imagine a big reason YouTwo starts trying to steal your identity, really THE reason, is because YOU didn't realize "the severity of your surroundings" in the sense that you don't realize your spidey sense is going off half the time because a big portion of this community is stalking you, but YouTwo DOES. Like lmao, it's not even, totally out of spite against you that they steal your life either, YouTwo may just also share some of your massive insecurity issues and they see how so much of the Spider Society outright adores you and wants that for themselves, they want to feel important and loved, shit maybe YouTwo is even an anomaly who was never supposed to be a Spider but you were and that furthers their own mental health issues

I really like the idea of like, Reader and Miguel having kind of a slow burn undefined relationship which actually plays a role in exposing YouTwo or. Something lol. Idk I kind of struggle sometimes, tone wise, with writing yandere who are just like outright delusional and not at least partially lucid and, I typically don't go for those "I was drooling at the mouth the second i saw you" characterizations myself (not because I don't like them but, I'm apparently obsessed with "having emotional tension build up")

So, imagine if one point in the past Reader had gotten drunk and Miguel was taking them home because a super drunk and clumsy Spider who can crawl up any surface with super strength could be a potential disaster (did yall know Miguel can lift TEN TONS, that's 20,000 pounds, uh, uh, uh, sir thats actually terrifying i think you could deadass One Punch Man, fucking, Doomfist punch an entire fucking skyscraper) and at some point you just kind of. It's a little earlier on in how you know him and imagine you just kind of very extremely sloppily come onto him, just kind of a "fuck it he's handsome and I'm drunk why not just go for it" moment

you kiss him on the lips, and he just totally freezes and, you know, despite him actually having some developing feelings for you, unhealthy obsessive feelings gradually increasing over time, he's not exactly at the Having Sex With You stage yet, or, perhaps he already is but, you're too drunk for him to be comfortable sleeping with you because He's A Good Catholic Boy And Your First Time Together Must Be Special or, he has to be more drunk too so it feels a little less uhhhhh dubcon-y (I also keep thinking about, as a separate concept separate from YouTwo stuff, what if you both got drunk to the point both of you kind of forget who you slept with last night until Miguel remembers but you don't and he's like "oh shit did I actually remember to use protection or was i too drunk and excited in the heat of the moment" and, oh hey wouldn't you know it, Reader just missed their period, when applicable obviously)

But anyways Miguel just gently rejects your advances and, actually is, emotionally vulnerable for a while, like he respects you enough to explain his reasoning and then some, telling you, hey, it's been kind of a long time since he's, you know, been with someone In That Way, he DID used to have a fiance who had been pregnant when she died, and after losing them both as a canon event, and then losing "them" a second time, his heart is just. Still healing after all this time. And I imagine Reader is embarrassed as fuck but also you're crying but it's actually a good crying because you're like "dude i think its so beautiful that you love them that much that they're still kept close to your heart after all this time" and it actually makes you love and respect him MORE, his strength, his devotion, and the two of you just sit there and talk until you eventually pass out and THIS is a huge moment that furthers his obsession with you because he gently set a boundary where he's technically rejecting you, denying you something you want, and you're basically like "dude that's so fucking badass of you, you're like the strongest man I know, sir its an honor working with a man like you"

For one, imagine the fucking pain if after that experience with you, he winds up eventually having his "first time" with YouTwo and you walk in on it and that like, completely breaks your heart because it's like. Wow fuck we've been coworkers and, weirdly defined not-dating-but-everyone-jokes-we're-married status for like maybe a year and a half even, and he just suddenly, in your perception, replaces you with some... cheap copy? What was wrong with you? What did they have that you don't? Why weren't you good enough 🥺 like I imagine at this plot point Reader is already SEVERELY depressed and you just find a man you, you like genuinely LOVE seemingly replacing you with someone who looks and sounds just like you but somehow YOU aren't good enough. Like. Bro it hurts you so fucking bad, part of me thinks you just go to your apartment and don't come out for like a straight week and that makes you feel even worse because YT is still running around fooling people and not everyone notices your absence so one comes to check on you and it furthers your mental illness that "no one cares about me" when that couldn't be farther from the truth

Absolutely torturing this man with the concept of, you guys never sleep together (yet) but YouTwo just kind of automatically assumes from The Vibes they get from the pair of you that SOMETHING must be going on and, during what I'll call the big confrontation, where YouTwo is cornering you with other Spiders who accuse you of being the fake and they're kicking you out, you weaponize that you know things THEY don't. You're standing there desperately trying to think of how to prove your innocence and you take one look at Miguel and the way he's absolutely glaring you down, almost looking at him in a sort of "wait, I want you to see this" kind of way before you look at YouTwo and fall into a character of your own "so how long have you been sleeping with my man? What, i warm him up for you and you steal my boyfriend?" Or something to that effect, and YouTwo is just kind of like, "oh PUH LEASE, Miguel and I have a much deeper relationship than just the physical, you have no right to talk like you know him" and they sidle up to him rather intimately and meanwhile Miguel's expression just DROPS. He looks to you while you stand there glitching out without your wristwatch and you're looking at him with the biggest saddest fucking boo boo eyes and you just kind of like, solemnly bow your head, "it was an honor working with you, sir" and he's just like OH F U C K, man is RUSHING, he scrambles to try and put his own watch on you but it's too late, there's not enough time, he reaches out to save you and your form disappears from this reality just as he's about to snap the cuff on your wrist

Like deadass it isn't your fault, but, you RE-TRAUMATIZE this man. His wife and unborn child, the replacement family, now YOU, and YOU were totally innocent and this was even more his fault than the first two things, like, he is one more major incident away from becoming an addict or a barely functioning alcoholic by the time you stumble back into his dimension by accident

I imagine he and the other betrayed Spiders deadass put scars on YouTwo's face and body so there can never be any mistaking who they are ever again and they're exiled back to their home dimension (and I mean if they kill themselves Miguel just kind of shrugs like "that was their choice" and also I wonder if that would break canon for that universe and kill everything in it or deadass there would just be another replacement Spider and suddenly everyone is like oh wow YouTwo was a fake anomaly all along)

But gooooodddddd, thinking of both Reader and Miguel after the return. Both of y'all are traumatized and you're basically scared of him now, it's hard for you to trust him or anyone else at all, meanwhile Miguel is DESPERATE to try and make things up to you while you're flinching when he reaches for you. I imagine the man starts being more openly affectionate with you. More hands on your shoulder, a pat on the head, he asks Lyla to watch you while he goes to refill his coffee and gives you a kiss on the temple on his way out, meanwhile Reader is just, you know, probably desperately needing therapy at this point, thinking "do I or don't I trust him", but also still having all of those happy memories with him and everyone else and you're just, even if you wanted to you're too physically weak from being lost in the multiverse for several months to really escape if you wanted to

Deadass think at this point the man would microchip you like a cat. Oh, so Miguel has to worry about fakes of his loved ones showing up now, as if he isnt dealing with 2099 other things right now? He'll show them! He'll microchip your ass so he can track you and confirm your identity at all times! Maybe he'll just microchip everyone! Or he'll put some sort of system feature in all the bracelets where they all have ID numbers and such so no one can pretend they aren't who they say they are! He's not mentally ill, he's just well intentioned, promise :)

While you're recovering from bouncing around all the different universes, healing any fractures or broken bones, overcoming any fevers or infections, he is INVOLVED in your care. He's constantly asking any doctors and medics for updates, and really, he's like a genius geneticist, would he actually be directly involved in administering any of your care? He doesn't like seeing other people give you shots or draw any blood because it hurts you so he insists on doing it. He creates a little nook in his office and on his brooding platform (almost typo'd that as breeding platform, but, I mean, it COULD be) so that he can keep his eyes on you once you've recovered enough to be let out of bed. Miguel just, finally getting an actual chair or bench and he's sitting watching all his monitors in the dark while you're in his lap and he's occasionally gently petting your hair. If he sees anything upsetting he just settles himself closer to your body and it brings him peace like no other and suddenly, yeah he just straight up is toxic codependent on you. He wants to protect and fawn and obsess over you and you're scared and vulnerable and start depending on him for protection again, like imagine if you're actually too scared to try running away because you just spent several months being catapulted between universes and you just need to rest, there's so much danger out there you didn't even comprehend before and, at least here with Miguel, it's safe for you, so, you accidentally kind of feed into all his problems

Could you even FUCKING IMAGINE if a THIRD YOU shows up and they might actually have distinguishing features from you that make it like impossible for you to be mixed up BUT STILL the second you see them you literally begin bawling your eyes out IMMEDIATELY and cling to Miguel, SHAKING, "please don't get rid of me please don't get rid of me please I don't have anywhere to go please please please" and like You3 could be the nicest person ever and not want to fuck up anything in any way and the whole ass Spider Society is just still like "nah fam you gotta go home, there's only room for one of you here" which is ironic coming from a a society where 70% of them are like the exact same person, like gee let me go fetch a coffee with Peter Parker and Peter B Parker and Peni Parker and Peter Porker and Peter Parkedcar like. You see what I mean?

Miguel and Reader sharing living quarters after your return and like, do you think he has a decent living space or do you think like nah he's living in a bachelor pad. He's actually the CEO of Alchemax in his universe so I assume he'd be like absolutely loaded, and he's in a futuristic cyberpunk dystopia so like, presumably he'd have a fully kitted-out penthouse apartment, and yeah while there IS room for you to have your own space and own bedroom, for sleeping, you're REQUIRED to be in the same room or bed as him. The entire place is bugged and wired and he has things meticulously organized so even if there were cameras he would know when you touch things or potentially snoop around. Oh, those papers on his desk were a few centimeters to the left before he went to the bathroom kinda attention to detail

And of course he eventually wants to take your relationship even further and finally be with and hold you, the real you, join his bodies with YOU and not some fake this time, and if it's not outright noncon, maybe you're so traumatized at this point you just decide "at least he thinks I'm me, at least someone still loves me enough like this, at least he's devoted to me even though he's totally crazy" and, you know, participating. He's murmuring all these praises and endearments and you're just so anxious and shy while his hands roam your body and he just totally worships you with lots of kisses and nuzzles and teasing little bites and you're holding onto him and are affectionate with him back, basically cuddling the entire time during sex, like man could have you folded into a mating press and you just, reach and intertwine your fingers and look up at him like 🥺 so insecure and scared because is he going to stop and leave if you mess up? What are you supposed to do? And he can sense your anxiety and gives you plenty of compliments and praise and encouragement while showering you with little smooches

You're lying there post-coitus and he's got his huge muscular arms caged around you as he tucks you into his chest, rubbing his hands over your back, telling you how amazing it was, how you did such a good job, and he basically fucks you the entire night until you can't take it anymore and are passing out in his bed while he's holding you, practically purring until both of you fall asleep as he idly wonders what your ring size is.

#yandere spiderverse #yandere miguel o'hara #miguel o'hara x reader #yandere x reader #yandere stuff #sinprompts

258 notes · View notes

dangermousie · 8 months

Text

Let's meet my favorite kdrama cursed prince - Muhyul as portrayed by Song Il Gook in The Kingdom of the Winds

Or more specifically, this very long-ass post is my attempt to convince people to watch this ridiculously underrated 2008 sageuk.

Why? Is it politics? Complicated families, cursed destinies, battles, or more hurt/comfort than you can want? Nope, none of these. I have my priorities straight and it's official. Muhyul/Yeon is one of my favorite period OTPs.

Take one Cursed Prince (who does not know he is one, and is brought up as a slave), add in one capable Enemy Princess who saves his life, add in ninjas (yes I know ninjas are Japanese but I have no idea what the Korean equivalent term is and I am too lazy to type in secret assassins every time), poisonings, intrigues, and a lot of hurt/comfort and we are set!

Once upon a time, there lived a man named Muhyul. He was only a slave but what he did not know was that he was actually a Prince who was given away by his family at birth because he was cursed to kill his whole family, people he loved, and to top it off, to destroy his country. Despite it all, he was still super-hot.

In the enemy nation of Buyeo, there lived a Princess named Yeon, who was ladylike, kind, a skilled healer....also a deadly ninja.

Point 1: Heal captured slaves from torture. One day they might be the Crown Prince.

Muhyul first sees Yeon after he has been horrendously tortured by Buyeo troops. He opens his eyes to see a heavenly vision quite competently stitching him up, so to speak. It is love at first sight for Muhyul. And who could blame him. He knows that with the director's troubling penchant for h/c, he will need a hottie healer around.

Point 2: "Heal a hottie and he is yours for life"

Muhyul spends some free time drawing her portrait. Without knowing who she is or if he will see her again. If the whole slave/assassin/king thing doesn't work out, he can always make money as an artist.

Point 3: "It's not stalking when he's hot!"

Muhyul is on an undercover mission in the enemy country but he forgets everything when he sees Yeon walking by (btw, he assumes she is just a commoner doctor). I love how he sort of stops thinking of anything else at all.

And then he thinks of her at night...

And lo and behond, their paths cross again when she heals a slave in the house he is staying in.

And he introduces himself to her and she is totally mesmerized. Who can blame her, it's freaking Song Il Gook!

And "rescues" her from evil Byueo soldiers. Only, oooops, they were sent by her family as escort and she is piiiiiiiiissed!

"Why did she slap me, whyyyyyy?"

Still, be happy, boy! Despite it all, she bailed you out of jail for assaulting the Royal Guards :)

Awwww, Muhyul doesn't want to leave...

Point 4: You know what makes anything better? Torture and homicidal angst

Did I mention the part where Yeon's Dad runs an Evil Assassin camp where they experiment on slaves with poisons and torture them? You see where this is going? If you do, then you have the mindset of both the writer of this drama and myself.

Muhyul gets captured by them (after losing the only person he ever regarded as family, but that would drag us into plot and this post is about the shippy):

And tortured for a solid year. If he ever marries Yeon, that might make for an awkward family Thanksgiving. "So, how are you, son?" "Well, I almost regained the use of my arms!"

Anyway, Yeon is visiting Daddy and sees some slave being taken out, after they have tried poisons on him. It's Muhyul, so it's Yeon to the rescue! Man, no wonder he loves her - it's self-preservation on his part!

(this shot here is for troubling reasons)

And then Muhyul is drafted by evil assassins (long plotty reason) with the only alternative more torture. The training is psychotic and gets Muhyul near-broken utterly but as a side benefit, makes him even more hot. If now mildly psychotic. As you can probably figure out by the end of the drama he's so hot he's a supernova

Also, as I posted earlier, gorgeous armored men on their knees looking up at their OTP who is teaching them foreign language (because Yeon is an Evil Assassin trainer for daddy) and thinking of the fact that they are a slave and she is a Princess (which is something he found out only in the ninja camp) is pretty high on the list of my favorite things.

Plus, Yeon takes him out for fresh air and exercise that doesn't involve being hung upside down and being ordered to off oneself. Score! She even makes him smile.

This is hitting the cap limit for continuing in part 2 shortly...

ETA: part 2 here:

(99+) Musings of the Obsessive Kind on Tumblr

And part 3:

(99+) Musings of the Obsessive Kind on Tumblr

#kdrama #song il gook #the kingdom of the winds #choi jung won

19 notes · View notes

lapeaudelamemoire · 5 months

Text

I do not know why but I have been thinking about a lot of self-harming things today, like slitting the side of my throat sharply with a knife and banging my head on something or tearing my torso open with my hands (???) and now I am inordinately angry. I woke up today actually feeling quite grateful and this is. A big difference.

When I sit down to think about it it's not hard to figure out that well there are a lot of things to be angry about actually, and I've been seeing media about fucking straight-up genocide for like over a month now every day so it's not hard to figure out that huh maybe it's all the fucking anger that's not going anywhere and can't seem to go anywhere and

It's been a long time since I've wanted to throw something across the room but it's happening right now.

I'm really thinking about getting an old phone, you know the kind that only does calls and texts, and going back to using an mp3 player. Today I tried listening to a soundtrack to a donghua I just finished watching and every 2 songs there was a fucking ad. I'm going crazy.

I realised sitting in bed is that my problem is I have always had this morbid curiosity and so left to my own devices I wonder and wondered what it would be like to be in other people's shoes, including things like what would it be like to cut off your tongue with scissors like in Oldboy or what would it be like to dig an eye out like in those fucking HK dramas I watched growing up or what would it be like to hold a kettle that's just gone off against your inner thing like in Secretary or what would it be like to be pressed onto a hot metal cylinder with words embossing you or all those fucking Chinese torture things they did, all the fucking period historical dramas with people getting mutilated, so on, and so on. This endless how does it feel? How do they feel? Endless seeing from someone else's frame of mind, trying to put myself into someone else's shoes. Probably also learned from all the car talks with my dad where he told me to try to think about others. Think about my mum. When I was a child and my mum cried in bed next to me and asked if she was a bad mum and I understood how she felt and said no afraid to hurt her. I see and I try to feel them. What is it like. I wonder what it feels like. G-d. No wonder Will Graham was like that.

Angry too because I went to look up provisional psychologist jobs and at least about half of them were about trying to get people 'back to work' out whatever and at least about half of them if not more required you to have an Australian driver's licence and/or access to a car. I don't fucking understand why I need to be able to drive to be a gddamned psychologist.

And then there's the little patch of psoriasis I've developed on my left upper eyelid that I'd also meant to go get some cream from the pharmacy just down the road from me for it but of course I didn't then end up doing it. And when I look it up online it says to reduce my stress levels and I want to laugh.

Because of course me looking at provisional psychologist jobs reminds me too that Oh, some of them don't take international students because of work sponsorship stuff they can't or don't want to do, and then there's also the fucking work hours cap of 48 hours per fortnight that's been put back on now after the COVID lockdowns. So that's tricky and Something Else To Think About. Can I apply to these jobs by myself? How do I juggle all these restrictions? The yearly pay is good but I can't actually work full-time either? etc., etc.

I haven't talked to anyone about how I feel or what's going on. I just work and work on assignments go to the workshops write and send the documents and when I sit down with other people they don't really want to talk about this.

I got in the bath today thinking I'd have a nice soak at least and then my palms started burning again because that's a thing that happens for me now. My eyelid and forehead are scaly and itchy. I don't have much of a reason to go back to Singapore any more and every other moment I am reminded of why. There's all this fucking family stuff suddenly heaving back up like acid and bile in the throat.

Unsurprising that I don't seem to pay much attention to my own needs. Locked door room never leaving the bed clothes strewn in boxes or across the floor. I didn't expect that I would need to relearn how to live again. I guess it'll keep happening, though. And I'll think this again.

#personal #tw mention of self-harm #cw mention of mutilation

1 note · View note

basedkikuenjoyer · 10 months

Text

Moe Violence: or How I Struck the Jidaigeki Goldmine

I lost a close friend recently. A really close one and it was the kind of sudden bolt from the blue that’s really just fate waking up and deciding to kick you in the teeth. He liked old Western movies and was enough of a film buff to know how much back-and-forth there was with samurai cinema. So we had a lot of fun talking about movies. Made me want to finally get through a stack of films I’ve dug up on archive.org. Liking what I like, I think this binge has helped get a lot of clarity on where we started with looking at Lady Snowblood & Red Swallow Oyuki. (Oh...by the way. I plum forgot Snowblood’s auntie/confidant type figure was named Okiku. Always has a basket of yellow mums outside her door)

Started with checking out a trio of films the absolutely wonderful Junko Miyazono did after Red Swallow. Series is called Tales of the Poison Seductress; Hannya Ohyaku, Quick-Draw Okatsu, & Okatsu the Fugitive. They’re all standalone, caution though they’re very violent. SA is a factor too but from what I’ve seen most of the scenes may drag but try to keep it not too graphic. I say that as someone pretty turned off but “losing her virtue” is a threat hanging around frequently in these and there’s a torture element. This is 60s/70s Japanese Grindhouse cinema, the type of thing that inspired gory directors like Quentin Tarantino. It ain’t for everyone and that’s why I wanna gush about it here. What I’m getting more and more though is that pinning our beloved Okiku to one jidaigeki reference is a fool’s errand. My dears, she’s an ode to an entire subgenre!

Let’s not split hairs over the specific category of Toei films and slightly different ones with a female lead. The term I see used is “Pinky Violence.” Pinky coming from having female leads and being very sexually charged affairs. Toei needed to do something to compete with more Western movies making it over, so they opted for shock value and the way they went for it ended up giving us a pretty feminist genre. Not to say these were all jidaigeki which means “period drama.” There were a lot of modern ones I have yet to dive into heavily. Before Lady Snowblood Meiko Kaji gave us a really fun looking 6-part series called Stray Cat Rock for a great example. Machine guns, motorcycles, and LSD. They look awesome and check this aesthetic! I’m in love.

That knowledge does make me think of Nami and the early design with a missing arm. Jojo’s Stone Ocean as well while we’re at it. There’s also a fair number of Yakuza movies that fall sorta in between like the Red Peony Gambler (Hibotan Bakuto) series. It’s all a little nebulous if you want to get into the weeds. There’s a few different styles from a few different studios but make no mistake. These were popular movies in Japan. Big studios like Toei were churning them out as B movies to maintain relevance. Compete with television and Hollywood’s resources.

Know what isn’t nebulous? Yeah...the hallmarks of the genre are big things we see out of Okiku’s role in Wano. The otherwise perfect lady with some little hook that means she isn’t “marriage material.” The whole arc of showing she can kick as much ass as any man but always reminding you of the lady playing the part. A big, big shared element is this core theme of taking down corrupt officials who abuse their power. Urashima the Yokozuna is exactly the type of guy who’d end up a villain in these. Sticking up for humble villagers, looking out for other women and children. Being the collateral damage of “great” men’s ambitions is what we tend to see over traditional fare like say, reinstalling a dynasty. I love the running theme of these being so much more local in scope. And Kiku gets that modern twist of her being trans for the “excuse.” I adore that in contrast to anime trends of needing to make an excuse for the deviance. My dead sister was the favorite, I went silly due to trauma, etc. This trope and trend of subversion is a big reason I love the mistaken bride idea.

The more of these I see, and I’m friggin hooked these days, the more I see little bits and bobs that feel like they may have shaped our beautiful flower of Wano. And others! She’s a little more than a simple homage though. We do see the violence part pretty well for One Piece. Kiku gets the shit beaten out of her on Onigashima and it is gory by this manga’s standards. That’s where the modernization seems to be though. We tone down the sexuality for cute. Which isn’t that off base, the archetype in historical settings typically does have that innocent and sweet side. One Piece just isn’t the type of series you’re going to actually see things like making good on Tama’s intro of fleeing from being sold to the red light district. Even if it didn’t make it in the proper story, Kiku & Izo’s origin does flirt with that kind of content more than the series usually would. Hell, we do get Holdem torturing Tama and the series just fades to black on a similar spot for Tsuru.

Wano made this genre feel familiar already. Snowblood loves it some anachronic storytelling, Red Peony sets up and ends films with a non-diagetic theatrical framing. Ohyaku uses a big simpleton to bust out of a prison camp. Speaking of, can I please get someone whipping a hair stick like a dart? That’s my favorite little signature from the Red Peony. Oryu in those is a fun protagonist played by Junko Fuji. That’s one of the more accessible series, less graphic than One Piece so far, and she plays with gender as a theme more. Proclaims to be a man but we always see deep down she’s still a lady that wishes she could have married the honest merchant’s son. Oh...and almost all of these ladies are total daddy’s girls like Kiku acts towards Kin. That whole series gets its own because there’s eight of them and they’re soooo good.

Eiichiro Oda is a great writer and worldbuilder...but he’s actually pretty derivative. One Piece doesn’t break ground as much as refine the dominant genre when it started, even Rurouni Kenshin was more subversive for shonen. The more I see of these though, the more I see Oda just being this big kid who thought these old movies were so cool and couldn’t wait to rip into his samurai gang. Of course one of em if gonna be a little Junko Miyazono/Meiko Kaji being a fierce strong-willed lady of war. These movies are classic cool!

#one piece #wano arc #okiku #red peony gambler #hibotan bakuto #hannya ohyaku #quick draw okatsu #junko miyazono #junko fuji #inspirations and influences

2 notes · View notes

margielatabiboots · 2 years

Text

pll original sin thoughts

okay so i'm a pll girl forever and i just binged all of the episodes of original sin and here are my thoughts:

faran is everything. she's serving spencer hastings realness, she's giving everything i needed and more and i love her dynamic with noa

tabby's boss is either a great red herring or somehow involved in the drama. i feel like he could be angela's sibling, since it was mentioned that he's the same age as ari aster (36) either way he sucks and i want to know his deal

this twin swap (maybe??) has my head spinning.. as much as i want her to actually be kelly and for kelly to actually have been the sinister twin all along, i feel like the writers could be pulling an alison/courtney swap but at this point it feels way too obvious.

bro WHAT is the deal with mouse??? i know people are saying she's secretly 30 something or she was kidnapped herself, and i'm leaning more towards the second option. if anything, i think maybe she is older but she was maybe kidnapped for period of time and her moms are making her live at the pace it should be at if she wasn't kidnapped if that makes sense.

tabby. my love. i would do anything for that woman. she's wonderful and incredible. at first i was like aw her and chip are so cute but the more i thought about it and after the scene where they were filming the movie and he acted weird, i think he knows a lot more than we think. i'm not ready to say that he's definitely on the A-team or that he was the one who SAed tabby, but he definitely knows a lot more than we think he does.

there's something missing about imogen's past i just know it. idk why i feel that way, but it just feels like there's something that we don't know (unrelated to her pregnancy), and i think that learning the truth behind her death is going to clear up some stuff but as always create more questions

i feel really strongly that this isn't just a single A, this is a team, and i'm curious to learn more about the Y2K survivors club, i feel like that is going to be important and they might have something to do with the bigger picture

none of the male love interests are giving anything... i need a haleb shower scene moment or a spoby scrabble motel moment because right now ash is the only love interest i'm vibing with.

so far, i really like this show and i feel like all of the girls are so interesting characters, they're flawed and that makes them so much more intriguing. i really wasn't expecting to enjoy this as much as i do (lets be real though its pll). one thing i really want is to make sure that there is an overarching mystery, maybe this season we find out that imogen's mom was murdered by A but i want them to keep us hanging on. i miss the torture of waiting LITERAL YEARS to know the answers (except they better be more flushed out than season 7 of PLL because i still lose sleep over that)

#pll #pll original sin #pretty little liars #hbo max #pll os #pretty little liars original sin

18 notes · View notes

x3rrorx · 2 months

Note

This is so predictable when the content drought hits our fandom the bunch of bored whiners crawl out of their shells to bitch about how unavailable our BO fellas are.

How does their need for space make those immature beings think they don't value their fans? I think the most of us were totally spoiled by the online presence of the guys in the past and these people still crave it now. But time passed and things changed completely. Many people may think they don't change but they ain't the same so stop to complain about these unimportant things.

I need to add that the most irritating fact about the "fans" who call N an egomaniac are just the ones who don't give a shit about the rest of the band and it's obvious. There's always a full focus on him. Why so? He doesn't deserve to be their void to scream into every time they feel disappointed with something they aren't able to control.

Ngl, I was happy when guys deleted their socials (although almost all of 'em came back) but anyway, i liked how inapproachable BO themselves became even if for a short period of time. And i was absolutely on cloud nine when they cancelled VIP/meet&greet, - or whatever this one is called, - bc the certain amount of fans were simply unbearable and bought those vips just to have a chance to show it off for their old\new followers here and there. And the doubtful gifts they gave to the guys, let alone questions they asked them while recording them. Every time the short videos from the VIP meetings flooded socials and seriously, it was an absolute torture to watch them. The worst second-hand embarrassment for the fans (not every one, i know, not every one is that cringy) and felt uncomfortable just to watch the guys standing there like 👀🧍🏻👀 while almost every fan was talking to N.

A great big thanks to all of those aspiring concert goers who do it for themselves, who genuinely enjoy shows and share the content online without any bs they want to take off their chests. Unfortunately, there are the unique ones who go after their favourite bands everywhere, buy their merch, constantly support them on social, encourage ppl streaming their records and at the same time, have the audacity to hate on the bands that don't visibly appreciate their effort. Like, who are you doing it for? Noone forces you to do it all. In the end, you do it for yourself. Why so much hate afterwards?

Who are egomaniacs then?

Also, i almost forget: what about a person who had threatened to destroy their merch months before their EU tour but all of a sudden this person appeared at several shows this year? 🎶And no hard feelings, honey, no hate and no drama.🎶 I wouldn't even have know anything if 11 people hadn't brought it up on my tl sev weeks ago.

Now, i see why so many BO fans don't interact with the rest of this fandom and create their own private spaces to have a chance to discuss things without some downright scumbag taking ss of their thoughts and laughing their heads off on another group chat. Fucking carnival jesters.

That was a lot to consume but I agree!

2 notes · View notes

imagine-loki · 3 years

Text

Loki's Daughter

TITLE: Loki's Daughter CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: Chapter 14: Ynatu's Auction House AUTHOR: traveling-classicist ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine Avengers: Endgame AU Loki that gets away with tesseract has been using it to explore the universe. During his adventures, he comes across a little girl with developing but oppressed magical abilities. Intrigued (and subconsciously lonely) Loki keeps her around. RATING: T

AO3 Link: here NOTES/WARNINGS: A little bit of bloody violence in this chapter so be warned if you're squeamish.

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

Kuna watched as Loki paced back and forth in front of her, taking bites out of their last piece of bread. He had one arm bent behind his back, the other holding the bread in front of his face. He stared at the floor as he walked, his eyes occasionally darting from side to side as if reading an invisible page. He muttered to himself and shook his head, turning on his heel and going back the other way.

“So, if the Masters needed to trace back slaves to their families, should they show potential with magic, how would they do that?” Loki asked, his mouth full of another bite of bread.

Kuna stared at him. He had been pacing back and forth all morning, asking her periodic questions about her home-system. She answered what she could, but it did not feel like they were getting anywhere. “Um, well, they could look at the little chip in my back,” she said.

She contorted around, stretching her arms behind her back until she was just touching the area around her shoulder blades. She reached under her shirt. “Here it is!” Her fingers rubbed a small patch of skin behind her left shoulder blade.

Loki dropped his bread in horror. “You have a microchip in you?” He dropped to his knees and felt her back, being careful around the bandaged areas until he found the spot Kuna showed him. He could feel a small, hard, lump just under her shoulder blade, deep below the skin.

“Mmm-hmm,” Kuna nodded. “The auctioneers scan it when we’re being sold to get all our information, like how many masters we’ve had and how old we are and what jobs we can do. I think it says who all of our old masters were and probably our families too.”

“I cannot believe they microchipped you,” Loki said, rubbing it with his finger. “Why didn’t you tell me? Does it hurt?”

“No! And you didn’t ask!” Kuna cried.

“All right but as soon as we’re done, this thing is coming out.”

Kuna pouted, regretting her decision to tell Loki about the chip.

“How do they scan this thing?” Loki asked, replacing Kuna’s shirt.

“With this little scanner gun thingy,” Kuna said. She pantomimed a small, handheld device, measuring it with her hands in the air. “I don’t know what it is. The auctioneers carried it with them... with their whips.” She shuddered at the thought. “I don’t wanna go back there.”

“It will be fine. We just have to steal one of these ‘thingies,’” - Loki copied her gesture - “from one of these auctioneers, scan your chip, and then we can figure out who, or at least where, your parents are. I’m sure they kept that information. Your people sound as paranoid as SHIELD.”

“Who?”

“They’re... never mind. Once we know where to find your parents, we can go to them and force—I mean figure out who cursed you.”

Kuna looked at him flatly. “Are you going to kill them?”

“What?! No! I won’t! I’m not!”

Kuna looked down at the floor in thought.

“If I did that, we wouldn’t get the information we need,” Loki continued.

Kuna did not respond. She folded her hands in her lap, occasionally picking at her palms.

“Listen, darling. You don’t have to see them if you don’t want to. I will handle everything. And I won’t kill them, I promise.”

Kuna nodded, slowly.

“And I will be with you the whole time we’re there.”

“Do you think they ever loved me?” she asked.

Loki sighed. “Mmm. No, probably not.”

Kuna stared at him in shock.

“But my real parents didn’t love me either. So, you’re not alone.”

Kuna went back to picking at her palms.

“But… I love you,” Loki said, bumping her shoulder with his.

She smiled and hugged him. “I love you too.”

***

They arrived on a planet in Kuna’s home-system, in a dark alleyway that smelled putrid and damp. Loki’s nose crinkled at the foul smell, but Kuna took his hand and led him away. The city was closely quartered, with the buildings and houses nearly leaning onto each other across the streets. Stone and wooden buildings were packed together and stacked tall enough to topple over. Loki could see several different styles of architecture in one building alone, seeming to grow younger and more innovative with height.

“Where are we, Kuna?”

“This is called Yaraai. It’s a city where a lot of Freepeople live on the planet, Ynatu.”

“Freepeople,” Loki said.

“People who aren’t slaves but aren’t masters either.”

“How original,” Loki muttered.

He had not had any real direction when teleporting them back to Kuna’s system. He figured any planet in the system would have a slave auction where they could find an auctioneer with a scanner. This planet seemed to be the right place.

People passed by in dirty tunics covered in soot and who knows how many layers of grime. Loki could see at least a few different species of hominid-like beings. Torileena’s markets had not been so densely populated as this city. Loki had been quick to vacate them for the tranquility of Torileena’s massive trees. However, now he was quite interested in this system, despite its rather primitive culture.

A scaly, lizard man with a long tail and yellow eyes with slitted pupils watched them pass by as he leaned against a post. A woman with a copious amount of fur covering her entire body sold some kind of clothing that Loki thought was likely made of her own fur. A human-looking man shouted on a street corner about slave auctions, touting slaves starting at 10000 turans. Loki scoffed in disgust. Kuna’s shoulders slumped.

Kuna suddenly squeezed his hand and started to pull him to the side of the busy street. Loki looked up and found everyone standing against the walls, leaving a clearing through the middle of the street. Kuna tugged harder on his hand, but he ignored her. A man clad in fine robes was walking down the middle of the street towards them, clearly the cause of all the drama, trailed by several people wearing the same shackles he had found Kuna in.

Loki’s eyebrows raised at the sight of one of these masters Kuna was so afraid of.

“Loki! Get out of the way,” Kuna hissed at him, pulling on his arm. Her voice was quivering with fear.

But Loki stood his ground. Taking Kuna’s hand, he marched up the street. The Master stopped some yards ahead, aghast at the pair walking towards him. His slaves bumped into each other at the sudden stop and peeked around either side of him to see what was happening.

Loki walked with purpose, ignoring the gasps and whispers of the people flattened against the walls on either side of them. In truth, he quite liked their looks of shock as they passed.

Unable to free her hand from Loki’s, Kuna kept her head down, trying with all her might to disappear.

“This is preposterous!” the Master said loudly. “Get out of my way, yara.”

“What did he just call me?” Loki asked Kuna.

“It’s a nasty word for Freeperson,” she whispered. “We should move. He has right of way. He’s a Master.”

“I beg your pardon, yara,” Loki said haughtily to the Master. “I am no Freeperson. I am a god. And you’ll get out of my way before I smite you into a grease spot on this dirty street.”

There were gasps. A baby started crying. A man in the crowd fainted. Loki marched on, dragging Kuna with him. The Master took a step out of the way, mouth hanging open. The slaves skittered to the wall, away from Loki. Everyone watched as they passed by. Even the birds stopped chattering to watch.

Kuna was having a panic attack. Her chest heaved as Loki strode on, unfazed.

“I told you, I’d take care of everything,” he said to her.

“You’re crazy!” she breathed. “He could have killed us.”

“Bah, I think he’s a spineless little cockalorum,” Loki said, smiling at her.

Kuna was convinced he had gone truly mad. They approached the man advertising slaves.

“Where is this auction taking place, sir,” Loki asked politely.

“At the auction house, of course!” he replied.

Loki gave a stolid laugh. “Of course. And where might that be?”

“Follow this street til you see the big building.”

“The big building?” Loki asked, raising a brow at the big buildings all around them.

“You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Right,” Loki scoffed.

“Don’t let those fools mark you down for that girl, now!” he called after them.

Kuna gasped and hopped a few steps to catch up with Loki as he walked. She knew the building when she saw it. Tall and black as night. The reliefs on the front showed slaves holding up the pillars of the building. Statues lining the angled roof depicted the first masters that had enslaved evil magic users. They glared down at her, accusingly.

Loki watched all manner of people filing in and out of the front of the giant building. The masters were easily recognizable as the cleanest and most well-dressed. The freepeople, he figured, were those who were dressed dirtily, speaking in hushed tones with masters as they walked by. However, he did not see any slaves.

“Kuna, where are the slaves?”

“Th-they go in the back way,” she whispered. She took his hand and pulled it close to her face almost speaking into it. “It’s much worse back there.”

“I can imagine.”

He knelt down in front of Kuna. “We’ll be quick in there. I know you don’t want to go in there, but we need to find one of those auctioneers and get that scanner.”

Kuna shook her head as he spoke. “I don’t wanna go in there,” she whispered, shaking her head. She felt suddenly foggy, like she was swimming in her own mind.

Loki looked at the auction house. Of course, he knew why she did not want to go in. He could not imagine the torture she had endured in this place. But he did not want to leave her alone either. He didn’t trust any of these people not to swoop in and try to kidnap her.

“I understand,” he said. “Tell you what. We’ll have some fun with it. I’m going to show you a trick I observed in the streets of Asgard more than a few times. It will help us get in and out of there as quickly as possible. We’ll be off this stinky planet before you know it.”

He whispered in her ear their plan. Kuna shook her head in fear, staring at the auction house while Loki explained the trick.

“It’ll be fun,” he said.

“That doesn’t sound like fun at all.”

“Oh, come on. Please?” He put on his most persuasive smile, batting his eyes at her.

Kuna rubbed her arms and looked up at him. She felt confused, suddenly disoriented like her mind did not wish to focus on the task at hand. But Loki’s shining smile reassured her. She sighed, “Okay.”

She pulled up her hood. It slid down over her eyes. Loki chuckled and pushed it back.

“Oh! I almost forgot! I found this tucked away in my pocket. It used to be mine, but I think it’ll fit you.”

He pulled out a small golden crown with two curving horns protruding from the front. Kuna gasped softly and touched it.

“Just like mine.” He patted his brow.

Kuna put the crown on and beamed up at Loki.

“Perfect,” he said.

She took his hand and they walked into the crowded building. They entered into a large room, lit by sparking magic torches. The room was the same black coloured marble as the outside of the building making it dark and foreboding. Stages lined the walls of the room, each with lines of slaves being bought and sold. The echo of men shouting prices and children wailing made Kuna shudder. It was hot and humid in the crowd. Kuna felt like she was suffocating.

“Do you see any of them?” Loki asked over the chatter.

Kuna stared at her feet. She did not want to look up at the stage where slaves were being showed off and bid on and sold in front of them. She could smell blood, surely from a slave with fresh flogging wounds. Other foul smells attacked her nostrils. She pushed her face into Loki’s leg.

“Kuna?”

She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to do the same with her ears. And nose.

“Kuna? Which one’s the auctioneer?”

She shook her head.

“Hey, you there!” someone shouted. “Are you buying or selling?”

A man approached them. Kuna was shaking like a leaf. She stepped behind Loki’s legs, trying to hide herself behind his cape. She made the mistake of looking up at the man. His eyes were stern, and he glared at her when she met his eyes. She quickly looked away. He was shorter than Loki, with blond hair, a round face, and a smell like stale beer.

“She looks like a good chew toy. I own a beast-fighting ring on Honerquin. I’d be interested in buying her if you’re interested in selling,” he continued to Loki.

Loki looked at the man aghast. Kuna hid behind his legs. Her knees shook with fright. The shaking continued all the way up to her teeth. She felt like she would pass out. She stared obediently at the floor.

“I think they’d love her. Squirts like her always get the crowd roaring, if you know what I mean,” the man went on.

“No, I don’t think I do,” Loki said, his voice level.

Kuna was finding it harder and harder to breathe. Her head felt like it was swirling. Loki wouldn’t really sell her, would he? What were they doing here? Why did he bring her here?

The man had started babbling about his fighting ring and all the beasts he had. Kuna wanted to throw up. She wanted to be anywhere else but here. Why did Loki want to be here in this awful place talking to this awful man?

“Well?” the man said, impatiently. “Are you going to sell her or not? I’d offer you a good price.”

“This one’s had enough of this system’s foul beasts, I think,” Loki said, coolly. “However, if you’d point me towards one of those auctioneers, I’d be grateful.”

Kuna let out a little gasp and clutched a handful of his trousers.

“Ha! New here, are you?” he spat at Loki’s feet and harumphed through the crowd towards another stage and began bidding on the slave for sale. A tear tried to escape Kuna’s eye, but she blinked it back as Loki looked down at her.

“Pleasure,” Loki growled, taking Kuna’s hand again. “Come on, we still need to find one of those auctioneers. Have you seen one yet?”

Kuna shook her head without taking her eyes off the ground.

“Hmm.” Loki looked around, scanning the crowd for someone that looked like the ones Kuna had described. “Look, I think there’s one right there. Come on. We’ll be quick.” He grabbed her hand.

Kuna dug her heels in but slid on the marble floor. Loki was much stronger than her. Why did he want to talk to an auctioneer? Did he really want to sell her? Her heart was pounding as they walked straight towards a burly auctioneer. The handle of a whip rapped at his side. She inhaled deeply, her back tinging at the thought of the magic lash he might be able to conjure. Her eyes darted to his other hip; the scanner was held in a small holster and suddenly, she remembered what they had spoken about outside.

“All you have to do is swipe it from him,” Loki had whispered in her ear. “I’ll distract him.”

Kuna had not liked the sound of it at all. She was not sneaky. The auctioneers were ruthless. They would get caught for sure.

“It’s a classic trick. One man distracts the target, the other reaches into his pocket and grabs his coin purse. The target never knows until they’re long gone.”

She glanced up at him. He nodded back at her with a sly grin. Swallowing hard, she let go of Loki’s hand. Loki hit shoulders with the auctioneer. He turned and glared at Loki.

“Oi! Watch where you’re going!” he barked at him, turning to face Loki.

Kuna skirted around his other side as he turned and gingerly reached up, sweeping the scanner off his hip.

“Excuse me,” Loki said, louder than he needed to. “Apologies.”

“Ruddy tourist,” he grumbled, glowering at Loki.

Kuna tucked the scanner under her cloak and kept walking. Loki made an apologetic bow towards the man before walking away. Kuna took Loki’s hand again once they had passed by the burly man. Her heart was pumping with exhilaration. That had not been as bad as she thought it would be. And the auctioneer didn’t even see her!

Loki escorted her towards an exit. They walked down in front of the crowd, in front of the stage. Kuna glanced up and locked eyes with a young girl, a slave, being sold. She gasped as a memory flashed before her eyes. Light in the darkness, tiny hands offering food, and blue eyes. The slave’s blue eyes.

Loki didn’t see. He had his eyes set on the exit.

“Did you get it?” he asked as soon as they were clear. He led her down an alleyway just off the square.

Kuna revealed the scanner from her cloak.

“You did it! Oh, I knew you could, Kuna!”

Loki squeezed her into a hug. A darkness seemed to lift from her mind, and it felt clearer. Her doubts about being sold again melted away in his embrace. He took the scanner and hid it away in his pocket.

“Now, we can get off this dreadful rock,” he said.

“Loki?” Kuna asked, softly.

“Hmm?”

“That girl back there. I know her. She saved me once, I think,” she whispered.

“Saved you?”

“Can we…” She looked back towards the auction house.

Loki looked back. “What?”

“Can we free them? Those slaves?” she shuffled from foot to foot. “I know her,” she repeated.

He sighed and looked down at her. She looked up at him with big pleading eyes, her lips pouting.

He looked at her sternly. “I don’t know where you learned how to do this face thing but it’s not going to work,” he said, folding his arms and trying to look away. Kuna stared at him, her eyes still pleading with him. “Oh, all right. I think I know of a few planets we can teleport them to but that’s it.”

A big smile crossed Kuna’s face.

“Come on, then,” Loki said.

They walked back towards the building. Loki followed Kuna towards a rear entrance. There were carts and wagons with metal cages around them. Loki grimaced at the sight. He could not imagine how horribly these people were treated. A large man approached them and brought his attention back.

“This entrance is for auctioneers and masters only,” he said.

“Bold of you to assume I’m not a master,” Loki huffed.

“Pah, wearing that? Yeah, right. Shove off, yara.”

Loki shrugged, turning as if to leave. Kuna took a few steps back with him. In a swift, sharp movement, Loki turned back, throwing all his weight into his arm and punched the auctioneer square in the face. The man fell flat on his back, knocked out cold, blood gushing from his decimated nose and broken teeth.

“This is fine Asgardian leather, thank you,” Loki said, straightening his armor. “That takes care of him. Come on. Let’s be quick.” He started towards the doorway.

“Loki?”

“Hmm?” Loki stopped short and looked down at Kuna.

“Could I have the real dagger?” Kuna asked, politely.

“I thought you could just look at all those guards in there with those big, pouty eyes. If it worked on me, I’m sure it will work on them.”

Kuna frowned.

“No?” Loki produced the dagger for her. “Fine.”

“I promise I won’t cut off my fingers.”

“Do me a favour and cut off their fingers.”

“Okay!”

He handed her the dagger and they walked into the auction house. This room looked much different than the marble-clad atrium in the front. The floor was covered in straw. Cages were stacked against the walls, crammed full of men, women, and children in chains. Loki covered his mouth and nose at the stench inside. The appearance of two strangers caused a stir in the cages but the slaves remained quiet, with their heads down.

“Oi! What are you doing in here?” a man’s voice rang out. He rushed towards the centre of the room from a door that led out onto a stage. Pulling his whip from his side, he raised it, ready to strike. The slaves in the cages cowered. Even Kuna took a step back, grabbing Loki’s pantleg with one hand and raising her dagger with the other.

Loki held up his hand. A green sheen whisked over the man, and he froze in place.

“Hold on, sir,” Loki said. “We’ve got a tiny warrior-in-training here. If you wouldn’t mind being her practice dummy,” He looked down at Kuna and smiled. “Don’t go easy on him, darling. Go on. Go get him.”

Kuna put on her best warrior face and ran towards him. Loki unfroze the guard and watched Kuna carefully. He would not let anything happen to her, of course, but she deserved to get back at one of these horrendous people after all they had done to her.

The man fired off a blast of magic. Kuna tumbled out of the way. Loki hissed and waved his hand at the man. There was a flash of green and a crack. The man cried out, grabbing his now broken arm. Kuna regained herself. He threw out his good arm for another magical attack, but Kuna slashed at him. His fingers thudded to the floor. He screamed in pain.

Now, with two useless arms, the man stood no chance against little Kuna. She leapt up again and took a stab at his chest. He collapsed on the floor. Kuna turned and looked back at Loki for approval. He smiled at her. The auctioneer lifted his head slightly from the floor behind Kuna. Loki gestured towards him, and Kuna squealed, kicking him in the head. He did not move again.

Kuna skipped back over to Loki, beaming.

“Aww, that’s my little assassin,” he said, warmly, caressing her head. He could see the terror in the eyes of the slaves as they looked at him.

“He’s a fingerless cockalorum!” Kuna said, between breaths.

“That’s right.”

“There’s a control panel over there,” Kuna said, pointing to a standing computer by the doorway to the auction stage.

Loki strode over to it, examining the screen and various buttons. He picked Kuna up.

“Which one?” he said. “You read them. Which one reads, ‘Open’?”

“Mmm,” Kuna looked over the buttons until her eyes landed on a green one with the word ‘OPEN’ written beneath it. “That one!”

"Good job!” Loki said. “Well, go on!”

Kuna smiled and pressed the button. All the cage doors swung open at once, but the slaves did not move. Kuna’s smile disappeared.

“You’re free!” she said. Loki put her down.

“We’re going to lead you somewhere safe. Where you can find new, free lives away from Masters,” Loki explained.

“Quickly!” Kuna said, urging them to come out of the cages. “We won’t hurt you!”

The young girl Kuna had seen earlier stepped out of a cage door. She had red hair and blue eyes; her face speckled with freckles. Kuna nodded at her and smiled. She tiptoed closer, eyes glued to the floor. Kuna held out her hand to the girl and she gingerly took it. Kuna led her towards the back of the room where they had come in. Some of the other slaves began to edge out of the cages, following after them. Loki watched, proudly.

There was a shout from auction stage and heavy footfalls.

“Hey! What’s going on here?” a man bellowed. A whip cracked in the air, making everyone, including Loki, flinch. Slaves darted back into the cages.

Loki wheeled round, ready to fight. As if in slow motion, a silver glint passed his vision on his right side and the man in front of him stopped in his tracks, arm raised for another crack of his whip. The hilt of Kuna’s dagger stuck out of his chest, just below his throat. Loki’s mouth fell open. He turned slowly to see Kuna standing a few feet behind him, hand still extended from the throw. The slave girl cowered behind her. The thud of the man’s body hitting the floor behind him did not change Loki’s expression of shock and fatherly pride.

“I think we should leave,” Kuna said.

“Right,” Loki said. He retrieved her dagger from the auctioneer’s body and hurried the slaves out the back of the room. “Get out of those cages now unless you want to be slaves forever!”

It was dark out now and the streets were practically empty. He opened a portal with the tesseract.

“Quickly, now!” he addressed the slaves. “Go through the portal!”

“Loki!” Kuna cried.

Loki turned round and saw several angry men marching towards them, including the smelly, round-faced man from before.

“That’s them!” he shouted.

“Go!” he yelled at the slaves.

They jumped and started running through the portal. Flashes of magic began to light up the square as the masters and auctioneers let loose upon the slaves.

“Kuna!” Loki called. In a moment, she was beside him. There were still many more slaves left to go through the portal. They needed to fend off the oncoming masters.

Loki looked down at Kuna. “Help them get through the portal,” he ordered. “I’ll take care of this.”

She nodded and went back to the portal to usher the slaves through.

Loki turned on the masters. A flash of green light sent several of them flying back. The masters sent off red lightning-like zaps, sending sparks flying up from the ground around the slaves. Loki blocked them with a warding spell. A small child ran away from the group of slaves, crying and confused. A master conjured a silver whip and cast it towards the child.

Kuna leapt in front of him. The whip snapped tightly around her arm. She winced but turned back to the boy and pushed him back into the group. The master at the other end of the whip yanked hard on Kuna’s arm. She took several jaunted steps forward and pulled back. She pulled out her dagger and tried to cut the whip, but it did not give, even under the sharp blade. More red lightning snapped around her, sending sparks up towards her eyes. She tried to shield her face, but the man pulled on her again.

“Papa!” she cried at Loki.

He whipped around and threw knives at the master holding her. The man fell backwards, and the silvery whip melted off of Kuna’s arm. She ran to Loki. Nearly all the slaves had gone now. Loki was trying to keep his eyes on the remaining masters, who were bearing down on them.

“No!” Kuna cried out and Loki felt her run away from his side. “Let her go!”

She ran towards a master who had the red-haired slave girl in his grasp.

“You’re not going anywhere!” he grunted, struggling with her. She screamed and cried, reaching for the other slaves at the portal entrance.

Loki turned to follow Kuna, but the masters attacked him all at once. He threw another ward to hold them off but could not hold it up and fight them off and go after Kuna all at the same time.

Kuna reached the master and slashed at his leg. He had been struggling with the girl so much, he had not even seen Kuna run up to him. The gash she left on his leg was deep and he collapsed as his leg gave in. Kuna grabbed the girl’s hand but before they could run away, the master wrapped his arm around Kuna’s middle and hoisted her up.

He gasped. “You?” he growled, recognizing her.

Kuna let go of the girl’s hand and shouted at her to run. Thrashing in the man’s arms she got one of her hands free and clawed at him before sinking her teeth into his flesh. She bit down harder and harder, tasting blood in her mouth as the man writhed and swung her around by his arm. Becoming dizzy, she let go and flew back a few feet, rolling across the ground. Sitting up, she spat out the master’s gross blood and flesh. She scrambled to her feet and ran back towards the portal.

The blue-eyed girl stood just outside the it, waiting to see if Kuna was all right. Kuna reached her and started to push her towards the portal, but the girl took Kuna’s arm and started to pull her through as well. She pulled back.

“No! I can’t leave!” she turned to look back at Loki who was ferociously fighting off the masters and their guards. “You go!”

The girl nodded and disappeared through the portal with one last look at Kuna as it closed behind her.

One of the masters held up a cannon-like gun, aiming it right at Kuna. She gasped and tried to roll out of dodge, but the gun fired off. A net flew out of the cannon’s barrel, spreading out like a spider’s web, with round, heavy rocks attached to the ends.

There was nowhere for Kuna to go. The net wrapped around her, tripping her up. She hit the ground hard, white stars flooding her eyes, her arms twisted at odd angles in the net’s grasp. Her dagger had dropped out of her hand when the net hit her and now lay a few, agonizing inches out of reach. She tried desperately to get an arm free of the net to reach for it but saw the ropes start to glow a deep shade of red.

Her body was suddenly wracked with searing, white hot pain as the magic imbued in the ropes attacked her. They began to tighten fast around her. She wriggled and writhed to break free. The masters swooped in; one had his arm outstretched to snatch Kuna up.

Loki leapt over her, standing astride the net.

“That’s mine!” he snarled at them. His fists were glowing a phosphorescent green. Slamming his fist down on the ground, a blinding flash of green light exploded around them, sending out a shockwave that reverberated off the buildings, making them shake and shiver. A blast of magic hit each of the masters, killing them instantly and sending their bodies flying backwards, some hitting walls, others hitting the ground with sickening cracks and pops.

Loki faltered a moment. The explosive spell had caused his head to spin and his vision to blur. Kuna caught the hilt of the dagger with her finger and pulled it towards her. Through the pain, she tried desperately to cut the net.

At that moment, a deafening roar filled the square. Loki jumped and turned to see a fully armored gigagrunt staring him down. The enormous creature that had once chased them off Torileena, was now surrounded by several dozen armored soldiers, holding various weapons. He could see the glow of magic in some of their hands.

“We’re leaving!” he announced, more to himself than anyone else.

He hoisted Kuna up and opened a portal as the gigagrunt charged them down at full speed. Leaping through, he could still hear the pounding feet and angry roars of the monster as the portal closed and they were safe on the other side.

They had teleported to Torileena, its massive trees creaking above them, as tall as skyscrapers. It was quiet and still, their entrance into the forest causing a sudden silence of birds and other lurking creatures. Kuna squirmed in Loki’s lap and whimpered.

“That was close,” Loki muttered. He looked down at Kuna and found that the net was still tightening itself around her.

“Shit!” he cried, and desperately tried to cut the ropes loose.

“It won’t cut!” Kuna choked. She held on to a rope that was tightening dangerously around her throat.

Loki dropped the knife and grabbed two sides of the net and pulled hard. The rope dug into his fingers as the fibres of the rope began to tear under the stress. Finally, it gave way with a fizzling, popping sound as the magic in it was released. He unraveled the ropes from Kuna’s throat and body, tossing them aside.

She jumped up at him and threw her arms around his neck, crying into his hair. He sat back against a tree and hugged her, rubbing her back as she calmed.

“Are you hurt?” he asked, fearing but knowing the answer.

She sniffled and sat back in his lap, rubbing her forearm where the master’s whip had wrapped around it.

“Let me see,” Loki said, gently pushing back her sleeve. She winced as he pushed it passed angry red burns on her arm. “Oh, oh,” he said, softly. “That looks like it hurts.”

Kuna nodded slowly. If she nodded too much her head spun.

Loki looked her over. She had a scrape on her head where she had hit the ground and her face was pocked with black marks from the sparks that the master’s lightning had caused. Her neck was red from the ropes but the thick scars from her old chains seemed to protect her from any lasting damage. A few other superficial cuts and scrapes and a multitude of bruises but nothing broken.

“I think I can hear water,” he said. “Come here, we’ll get you cleaned up.”

He gently lifted her up, carrying her on his hip. She put her arms around his neck and rested her head on his shoulder. They came to a small stream of crystal-clear water babbling over rounded pebbles. Loki knelt down and sat Kuna on a nearby rock. He brought over some water in a bowl he conjured and dabbed a cloth into it.

He cleaned her face first. The sparks did not leave any burns and the scrape was only surface level, but Kuna still winced when the cool cloth touched it.

“I’m sorry, darling,” Loki said. “That didn’t go to plan at all.”

“But they’re safe now, right?”

“Yes, that’s right,” he said.

He took Kuna’s arm and cleaned it. She watched him, keeping her eyes down. He wrapped her arm in some bandages and replaced her sleeve.

“How did you know her? That girl,” Loki asked.

“We were owned by the same Master once. That one that I bit. I remember he had a ziganberry orchard. He made me climb the tall trees to get the ones out of the very top. One time, they made me climb up a dead tree to get some of the last berries out of it. A branch broke and I fell. I squished all the berries I had picked and broke my arm. The Master’s men were so mad at me. They flogged me forever. Then, they locked me up in a barn where they kept bad slaves. I was supposed to stay there for a week without any food or water, so I wouldn’t do it again.”

“So, you wouldn’t fall out of a tree again?”

She nodded. “That girl… I just remembered her eyes. There was a loose brick in the barn, and she would pull it out and push ziganberries through for me. One time, I looked out to see who was there and saw her looking back at me. We never talked. She worked in the Master’s house, I think. I think I would have died if she didn’t give me those berries.”

There was a somber silence around them as Kuna looked at her hands. Loki didn’t know what to say.

“Where did you teleport them to?” she asked after a while.

“It’s a very nice planet that I found in my travels. Pretty secluded and inhabited by very kind and welcoming people. I think they’ll have good lives there,” Loki said. “And all thanks to you,” he added, giving her a soft poke in the chest.

Kuna shook her head, blushing. Loki smiled and picked her up again. “You were very brave, you know. And I’m sure that little girl is very thankful for what you did. She saved you and now you’ve saved her. And, of course, that master has a lovely scar to remember you both by.”

Kuna smiled, abashed.

They walked to the base of a humongous tree. Its massive roots created large, sloping walls as they dug deep into the ground. Loki picked a nice spot to sit and rest. He was completely exhausted by the spell he had used on the masters and the massive jump they had taken with the tesseract. His head ached and he felt dizzy. He would need time to recover before doing anything or going anywhere. Kuna, too, was exhausted, and already nodding off on Loki’s side.

He tried to cast a duplicate to watch over them, but it sparkled and faded away. His shoulders slumped in shame. He didn’t even have to strength to hold up a duplicate.

Pathetic.

Loki let out an exasperated sigh. “Ugh, you again,” he thought.

I never leave.

“Clearly.”

Loki closed his eyes and concentrated hard on making the voice go away. He hated being this exhausted. It made him feel normal and that made him feel vulnerable. Looking down at the snoozing Kuna, his eyelids began to droop as well. He fought against sleep. They were not in a safe place. The last time they had both been here, they had nearly been trampled by a monster. There was no telling what was lurking in the trees. He did not want to wake up in a kapkas mouth or worse, staring down a wild gigagrunt.

He pulled out the scanner Kuna had taken and fiddled with it. Pressing a button on the side, a screen illuminated on the front of the scanner.

SCAN CHIP ID

The words flashed at him. He blinked and looked down at Kuna. He did not want to disturb her. She was peacefully sleeping, curled up next to him.

So soft, the voice hissed.

Loki grunted disapprovingly, folding his arms. He stared into the brush. There was no movement. No wind. It didn’t seem to reach the forest floor like it did the canopy. He looked up towards the towering tops of the trees. He wondered if rain ever reached the ground through the leaf cover above. Surely it had to. There were plants growing down here.

The effort of thought only made him more tired.

Just give in.

“No,” he grumbled firmly, as if saying it aloud would make the voice stop.

Why are we wasting time on this child, anyways?

“What else would you be doing?” Loki scoffed in thought.

Figuring a way out of the mess you’ve made. You know he’ll find us.

“He has his hands full with all that Avengers business. Dead army and all. I think we’ll be fine, thank you.”

Complacency will be your downfall.

“Go away,” Loki muttered through clenched teeth.

He settled in next to Kuna and put his arm around her. He figured resting his eyes for a short while wouldn’t hurt.

#Loki #God of Mischief #Father #Submitted fic #Loki's Daughter #chapter 14 #traveling-classicist

43 notes · View notes

shijiujun · 3 years

Photo

I’m trying to do a nice series compilation of danmeis to read in time for New Year’s maybe! Anyway also just a note that all the images I use are either from the official manhua, donghua, audio dramas OR official artwork as provided by official China bookstores when they do prints (and have obtained permission from artists on Lofter to use their artwork for merch/prints etc.)

- Part of Min’s ‘Why You Should Read’ Series -

Summary:

Yu She (the one in black) and Zhong Wan (the one in green) were close friends for a short period of time when they were younger, but unfortunately their identities and positions placed them on opposite sides of the fight for the throne (for their parents’ generations). Yu She’s family supported the Second Prince and Zhong Wan was taken in by the Sixth Prince’s family when he was younger, but in the end it was the Second Prince who ended up getting to the throne, while the Sixth Prince was accused of treason and died somewhere far away at war after being captured.

Zhong Wan’s only wish was to keep the Sixth Prince’s children - Xuan Rui and a pair of twins, Xuan Yu and Xuan Congxin - safe, and so he moves them to another province and asks the Emperor (the former Second Prince) to demote Xuan Rui’s status to prove that they are no threat to the Emperor, if only to stay alive for another day.

However, their days of hardship have only just begun in their new home, and Zhong Wan decides to namedrop Yu She, whose family is so powerful now, to make sure that other people will not bully his charges. He claims that Yu She loves him and that he was wooing Zhong Wan back in the days they knew each other so that officials and others would treat the children under his care better. A few years pass and Yu She doesn’t expose Zhong Wan. Zhong Wan thinks they can go on like this forever, until the Emperor asks Xuan Rui and the twins to head back to the palace for a visit.

Zhong Wan meets Yu She again, but the boy he knew, who was gentle, a stickler for rules and a proper, well-mannered person who always got embarrassed and irritated when Zhong Wan flirted with or teased him, has changed almost completely. Cue palace conspiracies again, brothers fighting for the throne, scheming consorts etc. XD

Read:

Novel (Online) | Novel (Print) - August 2020 | Novel Translations | Manhua | Audio Drama

Characters:

1. 钟宛 Zhong Wan - Also called Zhong Gui Yuan (归远) and his childhood nickname is 宝宝 (bao bao = baby), something he’s very embarrassed about. He’s a righteous but outgoing, sometimes flirtatious young man who lost his parents when he was very young, and then was taken in by the Sixth Prince and his wife, who married each other for political reasons and weren’t close until Zhong Wan turned up and got them to interact more with each other, helping them to fall in love, and that’s how he got three more siblings - Xuan Rui, Xuan Congxin and Xuan Yu. The prince and his wife doted on him a lot, but he was very aware always that he was not their son, and after the Sixth Prince was accused and died, he took it on himself to keep the other three children alive by any means possible.

He spent a month or so in jail after the Sixth Prince was accused of treason as interrogators attempted to torture him into speaking out against the Sixth Prince, but managed to keep silent. Yu She rescued him by paying an exorbitant bail for him (he wouldn’t know about this until later), and he stayed with Yu She for almost half a year until he ‘ran away’ to take care of his three siblings, so to speak.

He starts to fabricate stories about how Yu She likes him, and was wooing him, but they weren’t exactly fake entirely because he extrapolated from actual events (when he tried to tease/flirt with Yu She so he would let him go) that were actually pretty like flirtatious in nature (the both of them are entirely oblivious).

His priority will always be the safety of the children, but when he returns to the Imperial City and realizes that Yu She has changed, he begins to plot to stay at his side, worried about him (and also to rediscover his feelings for Yu She).

Also has a weak body as he was poisoned when he was 15-16 by someone close to him, faints and gets sick frequently in the novel hahaha (I have a type).

2. 郁赦 Yu She - His courtesy name is Zi You (子宥), which Zhong Wang calls him by. He is the only son of Marquis Yu, and was study mates with Zhong Wan when they were younger. After his parents contributed to the downfall of the Sixth Prince (as they supported the Second Prince) and Zhong Wan ends up imprisoned, Yu She pays A LOT OF MONEY to get him out after Zhong Wan is basically put up for sale to anyone who wants him, to keep him safe from those who want to harm/humiliate him (because Zhong Wan is so handsome/beautiful as well).

He was originally unable to handle Zhong Wan, who keeps teasing him and accusing him of liking him etc., and let Zhong Wan go when he plotted to leave him, understanding that he had a duty to keep the Sixth Prince’s children safe. In the years that Zhong Wan is away, he discovers a secret that causes him to engage in self-destructive behaviour (talking back to the Emperor, ingesting deadly poison etc.), and realizes that his parents are not who he thought they were. He becomes unpredictable, either doing dangerous things, or refusing to do normal things (instead of studying or reading for example, he spends most of his days reading published fanfiction about him and Zhong Wan).

When he first heard of the rumours about him and Zhong Wan, he descends into this spiral of doubt, wondering if what Zhong Wan fabricated was true and if it was his memory that was wrong. He falls sick thinking so hard about the time he spent with Zhong Wan before LMAO, before deciding that he does like Zhong Wan, but until Zhong Wan returned to the city, he never once thought of acting on it.

3. Xuan Rui, Xuan Congxin & Xuan Yu

Xuan Rui is the Sixth Prince’s oldest son and was old enough to be aware of what was going on when his parents died. He’s very timid, paranoid and easily swayed by others, while his younger siblings, six-year old twins Xuan Congxin (left below) and Xuan Yu (right below) were brought up entirely by Zhong Wan, and Congxin in particular is much more mature/steady in personality than her two older brothers, and also knows to always stand on Zhong Wan’s side.

4. Lin Si - Zhong Wan’s childhood friend who was also brought up by the Sixth Prince and his wife. He’s mute, and a bodyguard of sorts, helping Zhong Wan to gather information from the city while he’s away. After Zhong Wan left with the Sixth Prince’s children, Lin Si stays with the current 4th Prince, and also falls in love with him. It’s unrequited until he kisses the prince and then disappears, leaving the prince to look everywhere for him XD It’s hinted that they do end up together.

Other Things I Like in the Novel:

Zhong Wan’s childhood nickname is 宝宝 lmaooooo and Yu She threatens to torture Lin Si (like about to torture him), and Lin Si was like ‘what does he want to know that he would torture me for it’, then finds out that Yu She is about to hurt him to find out what Zhong Wan’s nickname and he’s like wtf??!!!

Yu She has this steward who was bullied by Zhong Wan a lot while he was staying there with them over that half a year, and is also the biggest Yu She/Zhong Wan shipper even though Zhong Wan was really the troublemaker then

When they find out who the person who poisoned Zhong Wan was, Congxin is the first person to step up for Zhong Wan, and turns against the person who poisoned him

Yu She keeps forcing Zhong Wan to read out their fanfiction novels aloud, much to Zhong Wan’s mortification, but after Zhong Wan realizes he likes Yu She for real, he starts being really forward with his want for him, and it is Yu She who gets embarrassed

Yu She is so embarrassed that he schedules days where Zhong Wan can/cannot touch him, and sets limits to the number of times he can kiss him etc. LMAOOOOO in the beginning of their relationship I frickin died

#danmei #danmei recs #当年万里觅封侯 #those years in quest of honor mine #min's why you should read

254 notes · View notes

bffsoobin · 4 years

Text

Love Love

↳beomgyu could be a tough puzzle to solve. You knew that. You knew everything about him. That’s what best friends are for, after all. But why is he so upset over your date with Taehyun?

➤ best friends to lovers, highschool au, fluff, a little bit of angst (jealousy)

Requested?: yes

Word Count: 3,779

A/N: I attempted humor here, hopefully that translated? Also I hope the turning point is good enough shdksnoeun. I rewrote it a lot to try and fit what the request asked for. As always, heed the general warning that I haven’t proof read or edited this. Also I’m tagging the biggest Beomgyu stan I know, the lovely @star-daegyu as they requested!💕

•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:•☾☼☽•:•.•:•.•:•:•:•:•:•:•:••:•.•

“What?” Beomgyu sounded scandalized as you shut the door to your locker.

“You heard me! Don’t make me say it again,” you clutched at the chemistry textbook cradled in your arms. Beomgyu stared down at you with an intensity you hadn’t seen since Mr.Jackson showed a documentary about how climate change was fake. You started walking away but he came with you in perfect lockstep.

“No, say it again. I’m trying to see if my neurons misfired or if you actually just told me that-” he gagged dramatically as the two of you rounded the corner into a different hallway.

“Remind me again why I put up with you?” You grumbled cynically.

“Remind me why you won’t repeat what you just told me at your locker?” Beomgyu wrapped his hands around the straps of his bookbag and stared at you indignantly. Your sneakers squeaked against the tile flooring of your classroom as you entered with Beomgyu in tow. The two of you were always the first students in class after your lunch period and today you had even beaten the teacher. Beomgyu looked around at the empty room and gestured around with his arms spread wide.

“Last chance to tell me before this room starts filling up with our drama hungry classmates!” Before you had thought he was just teasing you to get a rise, but now you could sense an undercurrent of something odd. Jealousy?

“Fine,” you grumbled halfheartedly. “Taehyun asked me out.” You knew that your skin was flushed red as a side effect of the confession. Beomgyu nodded tightly before taking a dramatic lap around the classroom. Once he was back by your side, he plopped down in his desk next to you.

“And you said yes?” He had finally lowered his voice as a throng of classmates filtered through the door. Your heart beat kicked up a notch as you tried to pick apart his tone. You couldn’t help but feel an odd pang in your chest at the idea that he might be jealous that someone else got to you first. You dismissed that quickly; as there was no way you would let yourself fall back into that pining when Taehyun was right in front of you and willing to give you romantic attention.

“Of course I said yes, you know I have a crush on him! Why are you being so weird about this?” you hissed underneath your breath as the room filled steadily with even more post-lunch chatter. Beomgyu’s lips were pulled in an unsettling straight line as he simply nodded at your words. A knot twisted up in your stomach at the thought of your bestfriend being angry over something he knew you were excited about. As your teacher began to talk, the only thing you could focus on was Beomgyu. He was sitting oddly still, carefully angling his body away from you so much that you couldn’t even attempt to read the expression on his face. Of course you were worried; but more than anything you were annoyed as hell. You were used to his dramatics and occasional fits, but this sudden change to childish behavior was totally new and frankly unwarranted. If it weren’t for Mrs. Nielsen’s strict note taking policy you would have put much more effort into telling Beomgyu off during the class period.

The class period passed quickly although the cramp in your hand would surely stick around to be sure you wouldn’t forget about all of the chemistry notes you had taken. Beomgyu remained elusive as the two of you packed up and your pride kept you from asking him if he was okay. He made sure that you couldn’t catch a glimpse of more than just his clothed back as he slung his bookbag back on. Without a word, Beomgyu stood and breezed out of the classroom door. You left the room without him by your side for the first time since you became friends in the 8th grade. A pang of sadness shot through your heart at the realization that you must have done something to really upset him. What had you done to upset him so much that he wouldn’t even say goodbye to you?

Beomgyu wasn’t in your next class with you, but it didn’t stop you from letting thoughts of him totally occupy your mind. It was a twisted type of torture, really, to try and pick apart any of the reasons he would have reacted so horribly to what you saw as a happy moment. You never wanted Beomgyu to be angry with you, and quite frankly you couldn’t even think of the last time the two of you had had a serious fight. Sure, there had been small quarrels over what movie to watch or who got a homework question right, but never anything like this. He’s friends with Taehyun. He was even the one to introduce the two of you at a bonfire over the summer. Was he worried that your new relationship would put a wedge between the two of you? Certainly you could conceptualize that he was worried about having to pick sides after a fight or breakup.

In favor of actually processing some of what your math teacher was currently sprawling on the whiteboard, you decided that you had cracked the code of Beomgyu’s anger. You would confront him on the drive home as soon as the class ended. You would make things right.

As the final bell of the day rang, you rushed to the only working vending machine on the floor and bought a bag of Beomgyu’s favorite candy to use as a peace offering. As you waited in front of the library- as per your daily routine- your heart jumped in your throat at the thought that Beomgyu might not meet up with you. He could very easily charm his way into getting a ride from one of your many classmates just to avoid you some more. The thought brought you to the verge of tears. You couldn’t imagine your life without Beomgyu as your best friend and absolute rock. There was no way you could even deal with him being angry at you when you were ready to apologize. The lump in your throat only widened the longer you waited, shifting from foot to foot as students milled out of the building. You considered texting him but knowing how lazy he could be about answering had you abandoning the idea just as fast.

Finally, you spotted Beomgyu as he breezed through a group of freshmen girls who gawked at him as he passed through. He looked a bit panicked as he approached you, eyes roaming all around the area until he finally spotted you and rushed over.

“Y/N!” He sounded a bit out of breath, which surprised you. “I was worried you were going to leave without me.”

“Of course not, Gyu. I was worried you would pawn someone else into driving you home. I really want to talk to you about earlier,” you paused for a second as the two of you began walking towards the exit. “I got you these, though,” you offered him the bright yellow bag and without even looking his way you could see the smile on his face.

“Do we really have to talk about earlier?” Beomgyu asked through a mouthful of candy. You unlocked your car and threw your backpack into the back seat as he climbed into the passenger seat as if he owned it. Which you guessed he technically did. You fixed him with a glare you knew read as one of annoyance. “I’m over it, I promise,” he pouted, jutting out his bottom lip in a way that would usually make you break. But not today. This was important.

“Yes, we really have to talk about earlier,” you closed the driver’s side door and buckled up as Beomgyu reluctantly clicked his own seat belt into place. With the car in motion, you were grateful for having a valid reason you couldn’t look at him just to see more of his pouting expressions. The radio played a pop song you had heard dozens of times but you and Beomgyu sang along anyway. Admittedly, neither of you were too excited to breach the subject at hand so the distraction was more than welcome. The short ride from the school to your neighborhood was usually seen as a blessing, but not with the looming conversation you were suddenly faced with.

“Okay. This is awkward. I’m gonna go,” Beomgyu chirped, leaning down to scoop up his bookbag from the floor of the car. As soon as his hand grasped the handle of the door, you pressed the lock button. He scoffed. “You can’t be serious, Y/N. Locking me in the car?” You expected him to be pouting, but instead he just looked tired. You huffed out a breath of air.

“Yes, Gyu. I’m locking you in the car so that you can’t run away from me when I’m trying to be serious. I’m not mad at you for being angry earlier. I mean- I was- and then I thought about it and I figured out why you were so upset,” Beomgyu’s face morphed into something close to fear and he opened his mouth to speak. “You don’t want to be caught between Taehyun and I if we date and get in a fight or breakup. I didn’t really think about the fact that you’re also friends with him. I can’t imagine how awkward you must feel about it,” you continued despite his desire to talk. You swallowed hard. “But you need to understand that even though you might feel weird, I still really like him and while I love and value your opinion I’m still going to go out with him.” Beomgyu seemed a little stunned but he nodded anyway.

“Yeah, you’re right,” he pushed his hair away from his forehead, “I’m sorry for getting so upset earlier, but I just don’t want to see you get hurt. I’ve known Taehyun for a while but I’ve known you for even longer and the last thing I want to see is you falling apart because of anything he does.” Your mouth suddenly felt dry.

“What do you mean? Is there something I should be worried about?” You had a feeling that Beomgyu had accidentally let part of his last sentence slip and was now trying to pick up the pieces.

“No! No, Taehyun is great. He’s...he’s a good guy. I was just trying to say that,” he took a deep, shaky breath, “that I don’t know what I would do if you ever came to me hurt over a boy. Any boy. I just love you so much.” He seemed oddly vulnerable even though he had told you that exact phrase so many times before. You hoped he didn’t notice the way your breath stuttered upon hearing him say it so emphatically. There was no way he could know the effect his words had on you. His softened eyes locked onto yours at the feeling of your hand on his shoulder.

“I love you too, Gyu. And I promise you won’t have to be dealing with anything like that. I can handle myself. Now please don’t be so awkward tomorrow. We have a lab and I’d rather not spend the whole period forcing you to speak to me.” Beomgyu’s eyes crinkled into a smile and he reached over to pinch your cheek between his fingers.

“Stoppppp,” you whined loudly, pushing his hand away from you with all of your might. When he finally let go you cupped your cheek in feined upset. “I bought you candy and this is how you repay me?” The sound of the passenger car door unlocking prompted Beomgyu to open the door and hop out into his driveway.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I’ll bring you coffee tomorrow morning to make up for it.” He was bounding up the steps to his house before you could even come up with a witty response, but you drove away with a lightened heart.

----

Your first date with Taehyun took place on a warm Saturday night. He took you stargazing in a field you didn’t even know existed and somehow came up with a playlist full of your favorite music. It was such a perfect night that you even dreamed of it when you crawled into bed later in the evening.

The next day, you practically ran down the street to Beomgyu’s house to spill all of the details. You greeted his parents and easily bounded into the comfort of his bedroom like you had hundreds of times before. He was still sprawled out under his comforter, hair laying in a mess around him when you busted in.

“You’ll never guess how well yesterday went!” you threw yourself next to him on the bed and bounced him slightly. He groaned and finally sat up.

“Oh, that good, huh?” His voice was still heavy with sleep as he pushed a hand through his unruly hair.

“Yes! He picked me up kind of late and I was worried he was going to take me to a movie, which is-”

“The worst first date,” Beomgyu finished for you as he slid out from under his comforter and stretched his limbs.

“Right. But instead he took me to this field I didn’t even know was a thing around here, and he brought snacks and a blanket and we stargazed!” Beomgyu nodded along to your words as he shuffled toward his door.

“I have to pee, I’ll be back and you can keep filling me in,” you pouted a bit at his interruption of your rambling but knew just how small and insistent his bladder could be. He had missed his fair share of plot twists in movies due to chugging his entire slushie during the previews. You watched him leave and mentally kicked yourself for fawning over the way a strand of his hair seemed to be stuck permanently straight upwards. It was time for you to focus on Taehyun, not Beomgyu. He was just your best friend.

He returned promptly, still rubbing sleep out of his eyes in a way that made you coo at him. He cringed in return and plopped back down on his bed. “Continue telling me about Wonder Boy,” he droned. You frowned.

“You seem like you don’t want to hear about it, Gyu. Are you okay?” He was quiet for a moment.

“Just peachy,” despite the edge in his voice you continued, thinking maybe he was just grumpy this morning.

“Somehow he made the perfect playlist. I’m talking all of my favorite songs. It totally surprised me. We never even talked about music. I really want to know how he knew it all,” you sighed dramatically and missed the way Beomgyu rolled his eyes. After a few more seconds of silence, you felt the need to talk again.

“Are you sure you’re alright? I feel like you’re mad about...something,” you couldn’t quite place it but you knew that something was off with him.

“I’m sure. Just hungry.” He offered as he stood and headed for his door once again. Out of instinct you followed him to his kitchen and downed a bowl of cinnamon cereal in a comfortable quiet.

“We should watch some movies off of our list today,” you offered as you washed out your cereal bowls. Beomgyu gave you the first genuine smile of the morning as he agreed and rushed back to his room to turn on his television and retrieve the ever growing list from his desk drawer. When you met him in his room he was already cuddled up in his blankets with the movie queued.

“Come on, slow poke!” You couldn’t hold back a giggle at how adorable he looked all nestled in like a newborn baby as you slid in right next to him and laid your head on his chest. The movie he had picked was entertaining enough, but certainly catered more to Beomgyu’s tastes than yours. For the sake of being the wonderful best friend you knew you were, you tried your best to focus on it. At some point you lost track of which character was which and gave up on actively following.

Your phone vibrated three times in a row and you decided that since you were already lost, there would be no harm in seeing who was texting you. Your heart rate increased twofold as you read Taehyun’s name. Your thumbs hovered over the screen as you tried to figure out how to respond quickly. While there were no strict rules for your movie watching adventure, you knew that Beomgyu would get whiny quickly about phone usage.

Unfortunately, your neurons weren’t firing fast enough for Beomgyu’s liking.

“Y/N,” he whined, “Can you put your phone away? Who are you even texting?” You could feel him craning his neck to see your screen before noticeably freezing under you.

“Of course,” he mumbled, darkness edging back into his tone. You sighed and sat up off of him and fixed him with what you hoped was a convincing glare.

“Of course what? I’m sorry he texted me, but why are you so angry over him? There’s something you aren’t telling me. Just come out with it already! I thought we were past your pouting over Taehyun and I!” Beomgyu’s jaw tightened at your words.

“No, Y/N. We’re not past it. I’m not over the fact that you’re doting over him when he didn’t even plan your date!” Your eyes widened in confusion.

“Of course he planned the date. Don’t be ridiculous,” you waved him off, shaking your head in disbelief of how childish he was being. Beomgyu sat straight up and reached for his phone from his bedside stand.

“Fine, look. Here’s the proof,” he shoved his phone into your hands, “He wanted to take you to a movie. I told him that was an awful idea,” you read along the messages as he spoke and saw that he was telling the truth. “And so I gave him the stargazing idea, because you once told me that would be your ideal date.” You knew he was right. You could recall the game of truth or dare where you told him that.

“Beomgyu,” you breathed, “I told you that two years ago.” Your heart swelled with a sort of pride you didn’t know you were capable of. Beomgyu was unable to hold back the shy smile that cracked onto his face. He cleared his throat loudly.

“And I had to tell him what snacks to get, and the music… that’s my playlist for you,” his voice was much more timid than you had ever heard it. “So I planned the date. I was so jealous that he asked you out, and even more so that you said yes. And then he texted me and had to get my advice and I felt even dumber. I’ve been dying to tell you the truth but you were so happy.” Beomgyu heaved a sigh and clenched his fists. “He took you on the date I’ve wanted to take you on since the day we met. And then you came here and you’ve spent all morning talking about how great it was,” he raked his fingers through his hair, “I can’t keep pretending that I haven’t been burning up inside since you told me you said yes to him.”

Beomgyu’s eyes were shaking just as much as his hands when you placed his phone back into them.

“You’re unbelievable,” your words were slipping out before you had time to filter them, “I can’t believe you didn’t just tell me that you liked me. I’ve spent years trying to drown my feelings for you so that our friendship would stay intact and you’re telling me you’ve been in love with me?”

Beomgyu choked on his own spit. “Wait, you have feelings for me too?” You stared at him with your mouth hanging wide open for a few seconds.

“Well I-” you sputtered, “I’ve always kind of…” he raised an eyebrow at you, “Okay, yes! Yes I have feelings for you. I love you too. Love love,” you threw your hands up in defeat as Beomgyu started to laugh deeply. You gasped at him.

“Why are you laughing? I just confessed to you and you’re laughing? You know what, I’m gonna go.” Both of you knew your words held no weight but Beomgyu grabbed you by the wrist to stop you anyway.

“Nope, too late,” he pulled your body back towards his until you were sitting cross legged right next to him. “I’m laughing,” he began as he laced his fingers with yours, “because it's so stupidly like us to take five years and a third party to get us to confess our feelings.” You knew he was right. The absurdity of the situation just felt like another chapter in your book of blissfully clueless friendship.

“Can I kiss you?” He asked sweetly.

“Did you brush your teeth?” You were half teasing and half serious, “I’m not remembering our first kiss as the time you forgot to brush.” Beomgyu pinched your side in retaliation until you surrendered.

“Of course I brushed, Y/N. I’m not a heathen,” you could tell by his tone that he was bordering on being actually offended. “Now can I please kiss you?” You hummed thoughtfully and inched your face closer to his.

“Since you asked so nicely.” His mouth descended on yours and you discovered that yes, he actually did brush his teeth. The thought made you smile as the two of you pressed your lips impossibly closer until they were red and swollen. You felt a little dazed at the idea that you had just kissed Choi Beomgyu, best friend and secret crush of five years. He leaned in again and you closed your eyes, thinking he was going in for another kiss. Instead you felt a rush of warm air against your skin as he laughed.

“You’re already ready for our second kiss?” He teased as you finally opened your eyes. “I was just reaching behind you for your phone,” he waved the object in front of your face. “We have to come up with a text to let Taehyun down easy.” The sparkle in his eyes told you he was getting way too much entertainment out of the idea.

“You’re the worst, Beomgyu,” you crossed your arms across your chest in defense.

“But you love me,” he said in a singsong voice, “love love.”

914 notes · View notes

aks3raao1 · 3 years

Note

Uhhh, well first there was this torture game involving my family (everyone died in front of my eyes by different methods(Mom: Hand mangled, infected and blood loss; Grandpa: Pecked by a bird, crushed by an aeroplane, Rest killed off screen by drowning in a flooded chamber)) and then I went to Egypt to look for a cure with Shuichi Saihara and Korekiyo and Shuichi was telling me a story about how two rivals became two rivals (which was exactly what had happened in the beginning of the dream where Nagito talked about his love™ for Hajime except he introduced a fan of the spy character (me) and made the spy character a male) which caused me to become wary of him. Then we all reached the Pyramids where there were people cosplaying the gods from the Egyptian Pantheon and Korekiyo began monologuing on The Book Of The Dead (which talked about resurrection due to dream logic apparently). And Shuichi and I became extremely involved in that resurrection drama. Shuichi was also trying to unlock the mystery behind Korekiyo and he is a serial killer who kills girls to send as "friends" to his deceased sister. However there are multiple theories behind what actually happened which Shuichi talks about later on) while I was more interested in the resurrection and the ways to do so.

And then there was an abrupt scene change to my school which had opened after the quarantine (and I was weirdly relieved because I had successfully done something but after the teacher thing, it became apparent that the success wasn't about school) and my mom was somehow alive again but I was shown to be staring at her hands and remembering what had happened (I had memories of the last two incidents) while she was just being normal and called a teacher to ask about me while I shrunk away (#just student things) and our school resembled a church in the middle of a garden type thing. There were white chairs laid out and I remember thinking that they looked like gravestones and shivered and then told mom that I was going inside because I didn't want to think about *that* now.

Our school looked....weird to say the least. They had renovated it so everything felt wrong because the colours were darker and earthy instead of the light ones I was used to and the stairs were all arranged differently as well. I grabbed a friend and we both went to find our class. Instead of two sections, we had four sections now and were very confused where to sit because we hadn't been informed of it prior to this. We sat down in a random section and I began doing my English work (which I had actually been doing when I fell asleep irl) but the time came and went and no one entered the class (Class eight for some reason), so we realised that we had made a mistake and we remembered that we were in ninth and I was like, "Oh fuck, the time is nearer than I thought" and we ran to our actual class where our classmates were. She went and started talking to another friend and I was left alone to find a seat. I saw Makoto Naegi (Protagonist of Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc) who looked extremely nervous for some reason and said in narration,

"All the protagonists have been sent back in time to steer their respective classes away from the Killing Games and prevent the apocalypse before it starts. Will they be able to do it?"

Then the POV went over to Shuichi who had extremely distorted memories from the Killing Game was playing Detective on himself to figure out what they meant. He remembered that he desperately needed to figure out what was going on with Korekiyo, that Tsumugi was important and that Kokichi was dangerous but the other memories were too disjointed for him to figure out.

He tries to get Kokichi who's trying to. Uh, nail Tsumugi to the bulletin board with actual nails and hammers. Shuichi's horrified and believes that Kokichi is the one responsible for his Killing Game due to this kind of malicious attitude (and also because Tsumugi is a damned good actor at playing the victim + she might not be actually planning the Killing Game then) and he tries to actually restrain Kokichi who sees Shuichi and flees while Tsumugi falls to the ground crying. Shuichi runs over to comfort her and thinks of how Kokichi while pranking others never felt malicious at all but now he realises that he could have made a mistake. However it's also implied that he wants to get information about why Kokichi behaved the way he did since he obviously knows more than he lets on.

POV shifts over to Kokichi for a brief moment to show that he's the one with all memories intact but he cannot divulge them for game balance.

Then we see Shuichi who has remembered Korekiyo's case and is devising two theories on it:

a) Korekiyo is a loony delusional serial killer who loves to kill girls and is just using his own sister as an excuse (who he has killed himself too)

b) His sister was a dangerous psychopath (visualised by her turning into a snake and wrapping herself around his body in a sexual manner while he's in pain™) and that she emotionally manipulated him to do this and her ghost didn't abandon him even when he died.

As he's ruminating on this, the POV shifts to Hajime who's talking to Nagito and Chiaki and has a brief flashback to his time as Izuru Kamakura.

Now this is a divergence from actual canon in terms of backstories as we see Hawks grab Izuru and tell him that he will make him feel (in a fatherly found family way) something. A time period elapses where there is a part where Hawks takes Izuru to a fair and is talking about how great chicken nuggets and other chicken dishes are while Izuru emoily licks an ice-cream.

At the end of the time period, Izuru claims that he still can't feel anything and Hawks goes, "Well....I failed then" and flies him to a rooftop. Izuru is confused slightly when Hawks bends over him (no, not sexually, enough sex is enough) and then blood splatters onto Izuru's face and he realises that Hawks is bleeding from a fatal wound and that he had done that to save Izuru from being attacked. Hawks falls down, heavily injured as Izuru sits up and sees Tanizaki who's somehow an assassin here and is flying as well somehow. Izuru asks Hawks why he did this since Izuru could have saved himself too and then Hawks goes, "Because I am a hero", not really expecting Izuru to react much. (Note that chronologically, an apocalypse is going on now and Tanizaki has probably fallen into Despair and Hawks is tryna save the world or whatever). However Izuru does react and starts crying because this is the first time anyone saw him as a person who needs to be saved too.

It's implied that Hawks died here in actual memory but then Hajime pushes forth and invents a part where Hawks actually doesn't die there and instead gets up and fights Tanizaki.

Now Hawks's death was the reason Izuru wanted to save the world (mine was my family, Shuichi's was basically everyone but mostly Korekiyo, Makoto's was everyone), but since Hajime wanted to save everyone, he wanted to save Hawks as well.

However if he saved Hawks, then his reason to save others would vanish in that instant, causing a paradox and things to be reset.

Then I woke up with the message that, "Our traumas along with our happy times influence who we are now".

.............you be waking up to life lessons daily mah dude * finishes popcorn and claps* talk abt inspiring. Other than that, do you need a hug?

#danganronpa #mha #danganronpa x mha #dream #danganronpa dream #bnha #crossover #Hawks #shuichi saihara #kokichi ouma #drv3 korekiyo #izuru kamukura #our traumas along with our happy times influence who we are now

13 notes · View notes

abbydramarambles · 4 years

Text

The REAL Ending CLOY

This is my headcanon and you can’t tell me otherwise. The epilogue in Switzerland is set a few years after the events of that piano concert. They have already found a way to be together more permanently. To me the house doesn’t seem like a vacation house, it seems like a home home.

There is that photo of Se-ri on the bridge, not something one would frame for themselves. RJH definitely lives there. Check out the north Korean coffee kettle and other souvenirs as well. This is the sort of stuff one would have in their home.

The only thing holding RJH to North Korean is his parents, the fact that they could be killed if he were to defect. After they die, he has no reason to stay. We’ve already been shown that he is resourceful and would know exactly how to get out. Not to mention that everything in north Korean runs on money, if you have connections like Se-ri and RJH do....anything is possible. And to me these two people with all their power, well they would find a way.

Dan’s mother travels out of the country a lot as well for business. I think the 2 weeks is the longest trip Se-ri takes while RJH’s parents are alive. It’s not the only trip of the year. I doubt her employees would be saying “you’re going to Switzerland again??” if it was a once a year sort of deal they wouldn’t think she had a man. They even say “it’s lasting a while this time”. Come on who in the world would think it’s a relationship if their boss goes to switzerland for 2 weeks a year. It’s her favorite 2 weeks of the year because of it being uninterrupted time.

Well with her wealth and his determination, and connections via his family, I'm sure they'll find a way eventually, either it is his parents passing away (since it has been about 6 years between him going back to NK and the epilogue meetup), or him somehow getting a long term mentoring position at Switzerland. You’re telling me Dan’s mom a department store owner can swing to Europe anytime, and Se-ri who created a whole scholarship for her man can’t swing something in collaboration with Papa Ri?

I got the impression the student performing his song on stage was a full-time student in Switzerland. RJH is not studying abroad but is teaching NK scholarship winners. Seri has been traveling back and forth a lot but these two weeks are the longest continual time they have together.

When Seri first sees him in Switzerland she asks how dangerous his journey was, and he didn’t answer, just said he got on the wrong train but reached his destination. “Destination” implies a final location to me, not just a two-week stay. For two people who find it torturous to be apart for even a moment, destination would not have been thrown around like that. It could’ve taken his Dad some time to manage the politics to make a permanent teaching position with the National Symphony. He did see his son cry in the car after leaving her. That man is powerful, the 3rd most powerful man in North Korean. A political manipulation genius, a man always one step ahead of the others. He got his son and 5 people in and out of South Korea. You best believe he can make it happen. He’s not going to sit back and leave his only son living without his only dream. Plus RJH was never a flag waving patriotic North Korean anyway. He already expressed that he wanted to stay with SeRi in South Korea, have a child that looks just like her. It’s kdrama script writing 101 to not have your lead character mention a deep desire such as this one unless its foreshadowing or serves a larger purpose. And Park Ji Eun is no noob writer.

Let’s look at the way the show itself references fate and destiny. Regardless of how impossible it may seem, these two always managed to find each other again. Fate is pushing them together and is on their side. I don’t think fate wants them to meet 2 weeks a year. Fate didn’t make them meet in Switzerland, in North Korea, in South Korea, and in Switzerland again for 2 weeks a year for the rest of their lives. I can’t entertain that. A lot of people think that the epilogue on the hill and when she meets him for the first time again in Switzerland with the parachute are the same time frame. I don’t think so. I really do think the piano concert is the ending and the picnic is the epilogue. It’s years from then, when everything has been sorted about how to be together permanently and it’s a window in to happy every after. Just look at their body language and expressions in the last scene, they are totally at peace and seem to have gotten everything they wanted. Even the music radiates peace. Listen to the lyrics of Sigriswil that play as the camera pans out “wandering this strange night, won’t you be here by me? now I hold your hands, with you I’ll be alright...how does it feel, my friend? It’s been a long day and night” THEY ARE NO LONGER WANDERING ALONE THAT IS THE POINT. period. It was a “long day and night, but now I hold your hand” ... how does it finally feel to have your happy ever after....my friend. IT REEKS OF OPTIMISM and closure. In film making the atmosphere says everything about what is unsaid in the script.

You best believe he won’t leave a stone unturned to be with her, see her grow old and live in the house of dreams with their twins. Just the fact that he vocalized this thought in the show leads me to believe that it did indeed happen.

Believe in what the show is telling us to believe. What it’s showing us, not telling us even. That love will always find a way.

Cloy’s ending also reminds me of very heavily of (spoiler) that of “my love from the stars”. It was written by Park Ji-eun, the same writer as CLOY. So yes they are forced to be apart in that show too, but he finds his way back and each time they meet its for longer and longer and its implied that one day it will be forever. If an alien could find a wormhole to make it back to his love interest, north korea isn’t looking too bad. Same thing with her other star crossed lovers show “legend of the blue sea”. The mermaid finds him again against all odds and they live happily ever (plus a baby). Hey I’m just saying that the precedent has been set on how this seperation works through our writers own works. Having seen all of Park Ji Eun I know exactly how she structures her endings. It’s almost always the same. The mermaid made it back, the alien made it back...north korea is where we draw the line? They’re only apart for awhile till they figure it out, and they work hard to do so.

Whatever this image is from TVN left it unaired. They shot something they had to pull back. My crack theory brain says she looks a bit pregnant. Actually, that ain’t even a crack theory, I stand behind it. Son yejin is so slim, and judging by the material of the dress it just wouldn’t fall like that unless they were trying to make her look pregnant. Like LISTEN, just LISTEN to me. They put in the effort to get the actors in these outfits we have never seen before, they even gave seri flowers...whY?? There are no other purely promo shots that didn’t have footage attached. The only ones I can think of are the ones they took in front of a greenscreen for the photoframes inside their house. THIS WAS A REAL SCENE THAT WAS DELETED. South Korean dramas pre-film certain scenes (like the swiss ones) and live film the others to make slight changes to the storyline based on audience reaction. During airing there was quite a lot of political backlash a la north korea.

There are some stills TVN released that weren’t screencaps. But ALL of them were in outfits relating to scenes we have seen, such as this one. It just would make no sense for them to go out of there way to get this image on the jam packed expensive swiss schedule and not just do greenscreen in korea like they did for all the other promo material UNLESS it was a real scene.

So you want more evidence for plot points that indicated the original, unaired, together forever in Switzerland ending?

Let’s look at some details, at one point in Episode 14 when Jeong Hyeok's father is meeting with the bad guy Senior Colonel who tries to use photos of Jeong Hyeok in Korea as a bargaining chip, he says "You should retire quietly. Using your health as an excuse won't raise any suspicions." now whilst this may be a casual reference to him being old and that health issues are plausible, it's also possible Jeong Hyeok's father has had some long term illness they've not mentioned which would add to why it wouldn't raise suspicions.

The main reason I thought of this is it would sort of line up with some other details, in the finale when they're deciding whether to send them back or not, at the NIS briefing they mention how the North has requested keeping it quiet and confidential, they mention "They want the confidentiality term to be five years. They're being sensitive about it because one of them is a high-ranking officers son". Then if we fast forward toward the end when Se-ri is receiving the timed messages, a year passes after her birthday message from Jeong Hyeok, after that scene we see Jeong Hyeok having his farewell meal with the townspeople and preparing to leave after being accepted as a pianist for the National Symphony Orchestra, presumably around the same time as Se-ris birthday given that scene was right before. Se-ri then comes up with her Switzerland Music academy idea probably a few weeks or month or so after she read RJH's text about meeting and then it tells as it's one year later, Se-ri waits but doesn't meet him and returns home, her mum says "It breaks my heart to see you return in disappointment every time" which if that's a correct translation it means it's been more than once by this point. Add up this entire timeline....guess what it comes out to. FIVE YEARS. That’s how long it takes them to sort out a permanent solution for their problem.

When he chooses to defect it will be much easier for him considering he’s making trips to Switzerland already. All he would have to do is walk into a South Korean embassy in Zurich. They have an open door policy for North Koreans, he doesn’t even need to cross the DMZ again.

You want even MORE proof? Okay my friend, I’ll bite. Why are there photos of a couple with children?? Honestly come on I really don’t have to say more.

They had to leave the ending open. Due to the political situation, they couldn’t exactly show RJH, a North Korean, defecting. Pretty sure our buddy Kim Jong-un would not be chill with that. However ridiculous it is, the show had multiple attacks on it while it was running by political parties saying it violated the “national security act”.

The ending was clearly cleverly re-edited to be less explicit so the viewer can read between the lines but the show-runners can protect themselves from lawsuits and public sentiment regarding a sort of maybe illegal situation. If you believe they met for two weeks a year for the rest of their lives, you don’t know RiRi Ri-eally well ;)

#crash landing on you #cloy #yoon se ri #ri jung hyeok #ri jeong hyeok #hyun bin #son ye jin #kdrama #binjin #dooly #riri couple

859 notes · View notes

dangermousie · 2 years

Photo

Someone is having a nervous breakdown. Granted, it’s about the fact that he has a terrible reputation, his life if fucked up (he’s a mole in the eunuch bureau and his adopted uncle is using him to bring down his birth father) and that his job is viewed with disapprobation/is soul-sucking, not the wider moral principle that torturing people for information is bad, but it’s the 13th century so we can only expect so much.

Yes, surprisingly, I’ve restarted A Dream of Splendor, for two reasons: (1) vast quantities of people really really love this drama and I really wanted to understand why and (2) in my previous long post, it’s clear that these characters are written this way deliberately; to fit into a period paradigm and I can be much more OK with characters behaving in ways that don’t make me empathize with them if this is a deliberate choice.

I have watched all 14 eps out and I can see why people like this drama - it is beautifully filmed, solidly acted, written with a purpose (even if the narrative is not one to appeal to my narrative preferences, they clearly put thought into it) and honestly has a cottagecore aesthetic with the tea house and pipas and markets and what not. I don’t think I will ever warm up to the male lead as a human being but he’s a realistic human being who comes across as an actual person not a fictional construct. He and the OTP relationship are very alien to me but in a “this could very well be a thing of 13th century, just not my bag kind of way.” (Side note: no, writing period-authentic people does not automatically mean they feel alien and unconnectable to me so it’s anachronism or bust. The characters in The Story of Minglan or The Advisors’ Alliance feel very of their period to me, but I like and can empathize with some of them. Being in period may make characters harder to relate to but not impossible. If the man’s job was not chief torturer and his OTP seemed to not mind that, I’d probably be a lot more copacetic with the set-up, even if his early insults would not make me swoon and the fact that he never apologized/she didn’t hold a grudge because it became OBE and she saved his life he returned the favor and now they respect and like each other is realistic enough.)

Also, this scene answered a question I had: which is how on earth could this TP ever work out. He’s a (secret) legitimate son of a duke and even if that relationship could never be acknowledged, he’s still an official of some rank. She’s a former slave/performer and now a merchant which is also a low status. She won’t be anyone’s concubine. So what then. But honestly, I can see him deciding to marry her anyway, not because he’s the type to do grand gestures and count the world well lost for love but because it’s clear he views his life as a miserable waste even if for a good cause; he’s sacrificed his integrity and reputation and career prospects to help his uncle do whatever and is miserable; so why can’t he sacrifice the same or more of the same to get a wife he genuinely loves and likes and who he’s happy around? His life is already a wreck derailed from what he actually wanted and is never gonna get back on the original track so why not get some happiness out of it at least.

#cdrama #chen xiao #a dream of splendor

12 notes · View notes

darker-soft-starker · 4 years

Photo

Starker High School AU, Pt 3 (Pt 1, Pt 2, Pt 4, Pt 5)

-----

There were two things in life that Peter was unequivocally certain were true.

Number one was that Monday mornings were a universally despised, unpleasant experience that no weekend could ever ease the pain of having to endure.

And number two: Sit-ups were a specific and profound mechanism of torture that no person should ever be required to engage in, recreationally or mandated.

Of course, it would be just his luck that the two were combined on this very Monday morning.

It was cruel and unusual is what it was, Peter thought, hands curled at his temples as he pushes himself into a sitting position, falling back onto the dewy grass with a thud that steals the breath from his chest.

Bucky, holding his ankles, encourages him to complete his set.

“I can’t,” Peter gasps, his stomach trembling as he pulls himself up again. “I - oh fuck - I hate this. I hate exercise.”

Bucky squeezes his ankles tighter. “C’mon, Parker, only three more. You can do it.”

Peter shakes his head, even as he pulls himself up again with a pained groan.

“No, I can’t. Make it stop.”

“Two more. You got it. Sit-ups are not the boss of you.”

“Yes - ahh - they are!”

“One more!”

Sweat pours down his neck and his muscles protest as he pulls himself up for the last time. He gets probably only most of the way up before his gravity slams to the ground.

Bucky slaps his bare calf encouragingly as Peter stares up into the glaring morning sun, arms splayed out, his chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath. Oh, god. Never again. That was the worst.

Covering his eyes with his quivering arms he wonders if maybe coach will indulge him just this once. Maybe he can stay here until training is over, perhaps curl up into a ball and try to blend in with the grass so that no one sees him or subjects him to any more exercise.

Except Coach Danvers is already yelling at him to get off the ground and get moving.

He smacks his hands over his ears but it’s no use.

“Get up Parker, last warning!”

“Respite!” He yells back pleadingly, curling in tighter upon himself. “Please!”

Her whistle pierces the air.

“Now!”

Coach has been on edge all morning. Her harsh has turned razor edged in the face of their upcoming match against Kingston this Thursday, reminding the team of her expectations, tolerating nothing other than complete dedication.

Which, whatever.

Peter’s dedicated, okay? It’s Monday. He dragged his ass out of bed to be here at an unholy hour, exhausted and bloated from his indulgent weekend, didn’t he?

Erring on the margin of spite towards Danvers and self motivation, which he suspects is her aim, he pushes himself back up. Taking each of Bucky’s ankles in his grip, he starts counting as Bucky begins his set.

Not that he needs the assistance, Bucky proves his strength by ripping through the set like a bull stampeding through a brick wall. He doesn’t even break a sweat. Dude’s crazy athletic.

It’s really not fair.

As he mentally counts the reps, Peter thinks Bucky’s the kind of fit that Peter both hoped and never hoped to be. He’s effortlessly capable at any physical task, but he works hard for it, harder than Peter would ever dream of working, dedicating hours to gym time and conditioning. Bucky’s not even out of breath when he strikes up conversation.

“How was your weekend, PP?”

“S’okay. Played Mario Kart with my Aunt all weekend.”

Bucky grins as his upper half rises to meet his knees. “Oh, party animal. She doing okay?”

“Yeah, she’s good,” Peter grins wryly, taking one of his hands from the other’s ankle to push the sweat-damp hair from his eyes. “Kicked my ass though. She always takes Toad.”

“Switch?”

“Nah, GameCube. How was your weekend?”

“Boring. Parents were home all weekend and wanted some ‘family time’.”

“So, you just watched The Voice all weekend?”

“Yup.”

“Nat sneak in after?”

“Yup. How’d it go with Stark on Friday?” Bucky accepts Peter’s hand as he finishes his set. Peter pulls him up and pats him on the back.

The set off in a jog to complete a lap of the field, Coach yells that only five minutes are left, urging them to pick up speed. Peter’s lungs burn when he speaks.

“It was fine.”

Bucky looks at him dubiously, flyaways whipping at his face.

“Well not like, fine-fine, but no bloodshed. See? All limbs intact.” He holds his arms out mid-sprint.

“Wow, so you’re basically best friends now.”

“No.”

“Did you hold hands and braid each other’s hair?”

Incensed, Peter shoves at Bucky to the sound of his snickering,

“Ew, stop, I just had breakfast. Look, the first experience was painful enough. Can we move on? I really don’t want to talk about it.”

---

“And then he hit on my Aunt,” Peter complains in the showers, soaping up his chest. “Literally right in front of me. Who does that?”

“Did she flirt back?” Bucky asks, dipping his head into the spray.

“What? No. He said he was just trying to get under my skin,” he puts his head beneath his own shower head, the water pleasantly lukewarm against his heated skin. “I mean, what kind of psychopath does that?”

“Yeah, but your aunt is super hot though,” Wilson says to his right. “Stark’s an asshole, but he’s not crazy.”

There is a general murmur of agreement around the showers.

“I’m going to need you all to shut up right now,” Peter warns, turning to point at them all. “Keep my aunts name out of your mouth while you’re washing your balls, alright?”

“You heard him, move on,” Rogers cuts in, offering Peter a sympathetic smile.

He nods gratefully as conversation quickly turns to girls, grades and the upcoming Thanksgiving holidays. There was a reason why Peter was on Roger’s side all these weeks ago, he thinks, observing how the entire team respects his command without query. The guy was just interested in doing the right thing, and that’s pretty cool.

By the time they’re all dried and dressed, the topic is forgotten, much to Peter’s relief. He’s nearly late to first period though, too busy watching Wilson and Barnes smack each other with wet towels and attempting to tame his unruly curls into something resembling neatness. He’s not proud of the amount of gel it takes, but it’s what he’s got to work with.

It’s not that he’s obsessed with his appearance or anything, but he has a routine that he sticks to. Gel and lots of it.

Once, in third grade, Flash pulled one of Peter’s tightly coiled ringlet between his fingers, pulled on it and said oink. Peter still had some lingering baby fat at the time and so, as cruel as children can be, Peter was donned Piggy Parker for a time afterwards. Sometimes Porky Parker. They’re friends now, but the oinking and snuffling that followed him around the playground still haunts him.

Anyway.

On the way to first period Rogers walks alongside him down the hall. They have English together, but usually make their way separately. It kind of weirded Peter out for a moment because while they’re team-mates, they’re not really friends.

“Heard you got paired with Stark for an assignment,” the other boy says, his wry smile caught between amused and sympathetic. “That’s shit luck, Parker.”

“You’re telling me,” Peter agrees, waving to Ned and Betty as they pass. “Dude’s a freakin’ prick.”

Rogers bumps their shoulders together.

“You said it. Want me to have a word with him, get him to back off?”

“Nah,” Peter shakes his head. “I can handle Stark, he’s just some bored rich kid looking for a fight. Besides,” he gives Rogers a once-over, “pretty sure you’re supposed to keep your distance after your last brawl with him.”

“True,” he concedes, clamping Peter’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze as they stop before their room. “But we’re a team, alright? Just say the word and I’ll encourage some sense into him. Promise to be gentle.”

Peter clamps his hands over his heart with a flair of drama, despite being truly touched. “You’re my hero, Captain Rogers.”

Rogers rolls his eyes and shoves him into the classroom.

“Alright, smartass. Let’s go.”

Inside, he smiles sheepishly at Mrs Perez who glowers at them for their lateness and takes his usual seat between Clint and Shuri. He signs a good morning to the former and smiles at the latter, who is staring down at her desk with disdain.

“What’s wrong?” He nudges her chair with his foot to grab her attention.

“The curriculum.” She raises her head and points to the board miserably. It reads Lord of the Flies.

Oh, great. He could use the nap.

Peter smiles sympathetically, opening his nearly full notebook up to a blank page. “How was your weekend?”

“Meh.”

“Meh?”

“Mmm,” She nods, gesturing airily. “You know, eh. Oh, oh! I heard you spent the weekend getting cosy with Stark,” Shuri follows, pretending to search through their textbook. “Wow, that’s a three-sixty, PP. Didn’t know you had it in you.”

“What?” Peter hisses, voice lowering when their teacher looks around as roll-call commences. “That’s not -- ”

“Parker!” Perez yells for roll call.

“Present!”

Shuri snickers as Peter’s hand shoots up.

Lucky for him it’s the last he hears of it.

Kinda.

---

His next class is Bio with MJ who, thankfully, says very little through class. She inspects him with bleary eyes when he enters, nursing a coffee in her hands, always earlier than Peter who has to come from the other side of the school.

Peter’s grateful for the reprieve. When she does speak to him, it’s to borrow a pen or to offer him a sip of her coffee. It’s not a lab class today, only note-taking and listening to their teacher drone on about plant anatomy in the same monotone, so he accepts the bitter black coffee without hesitation.

It’s only then that he ventures to initiate conversation.

“So,” he begins precariously, doodling in his notebook, “how was your weekend?”

She shrugs, appearing more awake than earlier. “It was okay. You?”

“It was okay.”

And that was that, he’s relieved to note, companionable silence falling between again as they turn their attention to their teacher again. It’s not until they’re packing up their books at the end of class that MJ speaks to him again.

“See you at lunch?”

“Yeah, dude. Save us a table?”

“You bet. Oh, and by the way, I heard Stark is gonna be your new step-daddy. Congrats.”

Peter groans.

“How do you -- you know what, no,” he says, pulling his backpack over his shoulders and making a x with his arms. “Nope. No more talking about Stark, he is persona non grata. I’m traumatised enough.”

MJ pushes his glasses up after they slipped precariously down his nose during his declaration. “You’re so dramatic, dude.”

He bumps their shoulders together on the way out of the room and shakes his head.

“Why do people keep saying that?”

---

Ned texts him during recess; Peter is taking an extended break in the bathroom despite not needing to be there, but he’s definitely not hiding, nope. He’s just chilling in the cubicle.

< heard stark spent the weekend < lol wtf < plz verify < actually i don’t want to know < no wait i do tell me < dude

< hello?

----

Traitors, all of them.

He wonders if he should leave this school and start anew elsewhere.

---

Here’s the thing.

As much as Peter loves his friends, he has limits to how long he can spend with them before needing a time out.

They’re his motley crew of village idiots. Some he’s known since first grade, like Ned and Flash, others only since he came to the school and subsequently, the football team.

This school headhunted him because of his academic merit. With his pursuit of scholastic excellence - and the fact that some of his best friends would be attending the school, he applied for and was awarded a scholarship. It was a no-brainer - he had big dreams and even bigger expectations of himself to achieve them and he wanted May to be proud of him.

Which was why when it was suggested that he try out for JV, having exhibited some physicality during gym class, he decided to give it a try. It would look great to have on his applications, he was assured.

So he did. Somehow his wiry frame and years of gymnastics was considered an asset and he was promptly recruited by Coach Danvers. At first he deeply regretted the additional commitment -- the early hours, the soreness, adapting to the internal culture within the team. But he’s persevered and he’s glad that he did.

And for the most part, he copes okay. He can juggle football obligations and after-school activities and the odd tutoring jobs here and there and stay sane, right?

Sort of.

Because as grateful as he was for his broad circle of friends, Peter was still, at heart, an introvert. And right now, his social energy is running on fumes.

It’s because of this - and nothing to do with the relentless questions about Stark - that Peter retreats to the library at lunch that day.

Nestled away in the dusty, back corner, near the collection of old encyclopaedias that nobody reads, are an assortment of bean bags. It’s away from the main area, quiet and disregarded by most. It used to be a thriving recreational area way before Peter’s time, but there wasn’t any maintenance to it over the years. Now the bags are old, terribly lumpy and are speckled with suspicious stains, the fabric is thinning and aged. Most people purposefully avoid the old rec area, which is why Peter likes this spot best. It’s his secret hiding space.

He prepares to disassociate for the next forty minutes by getting comfortable on his favorite bean bag and popping his earphones in.

Next, he retrieves his slightly soggy ham-tomato sandwich from his bag and takes a large bite after unwrapping it. The first burst of tomato hits his tongue at the same time as the music begins.

Ah, to be alone.

Closing his eyes, he allows his body to sink into the bag and for his thoughts to wander freely.

Of course, because his luck is as poor as he is, his seclusion lasts all of three songs before someone else enters into his space. Well it’s not his space, technically, but it should be.

When Peter creaks an eye open to see who is intruding he’s surprised to see Thor perched on the bean-chair opposite him. They catch each others stare and smile.

Well, alone time is overrated.

Maybe his luck isn’t down the drain after all - because this is his opportunity to prove he isn’t a total fumbling loser. He doesn’t know which deity he pleased to be alone in a quiet corner of the library with Thor, but someone up there is clearly looking out for him.

He wants to say something, to strike up a conversation that might make Peter seem cool and only casually interested - something that would make him sound both smart and like, available.

But not too available.

With little success, Peter wracks his brain for the best opening line but frets because he’s ever been cool or collected a day in his life. And great, now he’s just been sitting there smiling for like two whole minutes like an absolute weirdo. Come on, Parker, say something!

Thor acts well before Peter has the chance to say anything, pointing at him, his mouth moving with words Peter can’t hear.

Realising a moment too late that his earphones are still playing music from his phone, Peter hurries to tug them out if his ears, smacking himself in the face in the .

“Sorry, I was --” Peter gestures to his ears, hands shaking, cheeks going hot. God, Thor is talking to him. Him! Peter Parker! “Sorry. What did you say?”

“I said I like your shirt!” Thor replies, way more loudly than what would normally be socially acceptable for a library, but Peter does not care. Thor likes his shirt.

“This?” He asks, gesturing downwards to his shirt where crumbs are dusted at the collar. “You like Nirvana?”

“I do not know Nirvana,” Thor smiles, “but it looks very cool. Peter, right?”

“Uh yeah,” he nods, face positively flaming because again, he knows Peter’s name. Quickly sweeping the crumbs from his shirt, he extends his hand out to the older boy who shakes his hand. Holy shit. Be cool. “I’m Parker -- I mean, Peter. Yes. Nice to be here. I mean, nice to be speaking. To you.”

Even as Peter’s arm is roughly jostled with Thor’s exuberant hand-shaking embarrassment crawls up his neck, and he wants to disintegrate into the bean bag where no one has to witness his persistent, glaring awkwardness. Palms sweating, Peter has to bite his lip to stop himself from commenting on how big Thor’s hands are.

Stop it, he scolds himself, be normal, play it cool.

“Thor, right?” Peter asks, as if he didn’t doodle their initials together in his notebooks. “You were at training last week.”

“Yes, you fell on your face,” Thor nods, gesturing to the yellowed bruising on his jaw, “I saw.”

“Oh, okay, so you saw that! Uhh -- ” Peter waves a hand at his face, laughing nervously. “This? It’s nothing. I’m totally fine.”

“You are clumsy,” Thor states, not unkindly.

“Well, no -- I mean, yes --” Peter tries to come up with an explanation, but falls short. “I’m not always a klutz, promise. Just sometimes.”

“Happens to the best of us. Well, not myself, but you know, generally speaking. In any case, I’m happy to see you’re okay.”

Thor unzips his backpack then and from within it retrieves a truly gargantuan protein shake, followed by a sub wrapped in foil so large it could be the same size as Peter’s forearm. Sneaking a look down at the remainder of his own lunch, his pickings look pretty slim in comparison.

“Sorry,” Thor says. “Just peckish for a snack.”

Peter watches, dazed, as the older boy consumes half his sub in a single bite, washing it down with several mouthfuls of his shake.

A snack.

“You’re fine. Anyway, football isn’t really my forte,” he admits after a moment, drawing his knees up. “I mean, I’m okay at it and I like it, but it’s not really what I’m best at, y’know?”

The blond boy nods, “I’m on the varsity team,” he proclaims, wiping his mouth. “Whatever that means.”

His accent is so thick it takes Peter half a moment to figure out what it was that he said.

He’s not sure if Thor is being serious or not but the one question Peter has is why is he so fucking cute?

A silence follows, albeit not an awkward one. It gives Peter the opportunity to inspect the older boy, nearly a man at his height and stature, of course helped along by the generous distribution of facial hair across his lower face.

“Uh, did you play football back at home?” Peter asks, keen to keep conversation going. “Soccer?”

“Oh yes,” the boy nods. “Soccer, tennis, volleyball. Water polo. Badminton.”

“Wow,” Peter blinks, “that’s a lot of sport. You’re like the whole Olympics here.”

He’s awarded with a lazy grin for that comment. Thor, to his credit, doesn’t appear to be boastful about his physicality, seemingly a result of his passions instead of a product of vanity.

“Close enough, I suppose. What else do you play, besides football?”

“Uhh --”

Oh god. How is he supposed to respond to that when the idea of doing additional sports outside of football is abhorrent? He can’t tell Thor that. Surely he can fake a common interest. Think of something, Parker, think, think.

The first bell rings, saving him from having to provide a potentially humiliating answer, seeing as all how all that could think of was chess, or PC. Both of which are true and accurate, but not exactly something he thinks that would make him appear more attractive or endearing.

Thank god for fifth period.

“To be continued?” Peter asks as he picks up his backpack, just a little hopeful.

There’s an awkward bit of shuffling as they rush to get off the sagging bean chairs, moment filled with odd squeaks of polystyrene as they attempt to stand.

Thor nods and to Peter’s surprise, doesn’t immediately rush to get away from him. There’s an awkward bit of shuffling as they rush to get off the sagging bean chairs with, odd squeaks of polystyrene as they stand. Instead, he accompanies Peter all the way out of the library, walking alongside him into the main hallway where a flurry of students are intersecting to get to their next class, walking alongside him.

Heads turn to watch them as they depart the library and enter the halls. For a moment, as kids part like the red sea to make way for them - for Thor - Peter wonders if this is what it’s like to be famous. Or to be on the arm of someone famous. It certainly feels like it, because even though the revere isn’t for Peter specifically, it seems like the weight of everyone’s awe is on them.

He doesn’t like the attention. But he likes Thor.

To his delight, the older boy follows him to his locker. Embarrassingly, it sticks when Peter tries to open it, as it usually does. He struggles with it for long, humiliating moments before Thor opens it with one hand.

“Thanks,” he says, blush creeping back up his neck. “You’re like, crazy strong, dude.”

Thor flexes and inspects his own bicep, as if seeing it for the first time.

“Perhaps,” he concedes, smiling roguishly. “Back at home I used to lift my brother for weight training.”

“You what?”

“A story for another time,” Thor shakes his head, shuffling closer to be heard over the traffic of students. “Anyway, I should be going. But there was something I have been meaning to ask you, if I may take a moment --”

Peter freezes. Oh my god, this is it, he thinks.

It’s happening.

“-- seeing as you and I have similar interests and we seem compatible, it would please me greatly if you would agree to --”

Heart racing, Peter turns, a fervent yes already on his lips.

It dies when there is a loud call of his name in the hall.

“-- Hey, Parker!”

Whatever Thor was going to say wilts at the interruption, seemingly forgotten as he waves at the intruder. Peter turns to see who called out for him and instantly wishes he didn’t.

Heart dropping to his stomach, he squeezes his eyes shut and sighs.

This is his luck.

Never has he wanted to melt into the floor and die like he does right now as Stark approaches the pair in quick strides.

Hands shoved into his jean pockets, Stark’s wide eyes dart between them inquisitively, a shadow of a smirk crossing his face, disappearing just as quick.

“Well, pardon me. I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” Tony places a hand on his heart and leans on the locker next to Peters. “Thor, barely a pleasure as always.”

“Stark,” Thor nods.

Tony simpers, smile saccharine sweet and gestures to an uneasy Peter.

“I am just so sorry to intrude, but would you mind if I spoke to my husband here? He’s such a slippery one, aren’t you, sweetums?”

Thor looks between them, head going to and fro like a pendulum.

“He’s not my husband,” Peter rushes to assure, acutely pincered between Thor’s confusion and Tony’s mischief. “I mean he is, but it’s for an assignment. We’re not really -- it’s not real. I don’t like him.”

Tony exhales heavily, looking at Thor with dismay. “That’s not what he said in our wedding vows.”

Peter wants to punch him in the throat.

“I understand,” Thor smiles, patting each of them on the shoulder. He dips his chin and catches Peter’s eye. “To be continued?”

“Y-Yeah,” Peter nods enthusiastically, probably too enthusiastically, he thinks, as his aim is to pretend to be cool and disinterested, but he doesn’t even care because maybe not all is lost after all. “To be continued. See you.”

All of the pomp bleeds away from Tony as Thor walks away, his posture turning into a slump against the locker.

The smile drops from Peter’s face. He sends Tony a heated glare as he retrieves from his books, shoving them into his bag.

“What do you want?” he grumbles, slamming his locker shut. “You have the worst timing, you know that?”

“It’s part of my charm,” the other boy shrugs. “What can I say, I’m delightful.”

“You’re deplorable.”

Tony gasps in mock offence. “Deplorable? Good lord, Parker, is that any way to speak to your husband?”

“If the shoe fits,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest. “Look, I have to go to class. Say what you want or move out of the way.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Oh, don’t be like that. C’mon, what were you and He-Man grunting about, hmm? Grr, me big, you tiny?”

“Unless you have a point,” Peter asks, pointing to the main hall, “I’m leaving.”

Tony puts his hands up in surrender, however the glib expression doesn’t quite leave his face. But at that moment Peter doesn’t have it within him to care, he’s not here to entertain him and sooner they get this over with, the better.

“Alright, alright, buzzkill. Come outside, I have to talk to you about the assignment.”

Peter looks at him, perturbed.

“I need a smoke,” he explains, tutting at Peter dispiritedly. “Also, don’t lie, I know it’s your free period.”

He doesn’t wait for Peter to respond, heading straight for the double doors that lead to the courtyard at a sedate enough pace for Peter to follow. Nonetheless he jogs a few paces to catch up after debating whether or not it was a good idea to follow or if he should hide in the boys bathroom.

Again.

It’s fairly chilly out, the wind whipping through his clothes. He wishes he had a scarf or gloves or something, opting to shove his hands into the pocket of his hoodie and hooking the hood over his head.

“How do you know it’s my free period?” he queries loud enough to be heard over the wind.

“Because,” Tony turns to walk backwards, the breeze whistling around them, “it’s also my free period and you always stink up the library so I can’t go there,” he rounds the corner to lead Peter to the shaded area behind the auditorium where a few students are lingering, most of them smoking.

“And you take the best seat. Personally, I think it’s selfish. I can’t possibly sit there after your ass has warmed it.”

Willing himself to not rise to Tony’s level of pettiness, he crosses his arms over his chest as they come to a stop. The wind is at full force now that the surrounding buildings aren’t taking the brunt of it and it is cold as all hell, although Tony’s in a black t-shirt and doesn’t look affected at all, probably because he’s cold-blooded or warmed by hellfire.

Tony cups his hands over his lighter to protect the flame from the breeze, struggling briefly to light his cigarette. Once the end is properly alight, Tony takes a drag while staring at him.

His hand comes to rest at his thigh, smoke rising idly from the cigarette. After a moment, he exhales the smoke in Peters direction.

“Wow. You’re disgusting,” he waves his hand in front of his face to dispel the smell. “Don’t you know second-hand smoke can kill?”

"Yes. Do you want a drag to speed up the process?”

“Don’t be a dick,” he says as Tony seems to find himself funny, offering up the cigarette in jest. Peter has half a mind to snatch it out of his hands and stomp on it. “I know that’s hard for you.”

“I’m joking, okay. I thought the wind would redirect the smoke. My bad.”

Peter rolls his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure. Anyway, the assignment? Still waiting for whatever was so urgent."

Tony takes another drag, flicking ash to the ground before answering.

“I booked an appointment with a realtor for tomorrow after school.”

That has Peter’s curiosity piqued. “Really? Where?”

“LIC. One of the agents has agreed to be a reference so our domestic nightmare can be officially documented. Yay, go team.”

“Yay,” Peter deadpans. “What time?”

“Appointment’s at four-thirty,” Tony retrieves his phone from his pocket and hands it to Peter. “Give me your number and I’ll send you the details.”

Peter accepts it with a grimace. It’s warm from Tony’s body heat. Ugh.

“And now you can say: ‘thank you for being proactive, Tony, you’re so much better than me, Tony’.”

“Thank you for being proactive, Anthony, even if you’re a self-aggrandizing jerk,” Peter mutters, voice getting progressively more sarcastic.

A wide smile blooms on Tony’s face, clearly pleased with himself.

“You’re welcome, Parker.”

He is going to let that one go, Peter decides, feeling magnanimous on spite of the circumstances. He’d never admit it, but he’s kinda surprised by Tony’s apparent initiative, and even genuinely a little grateful that the other boy has arranged this so quickly. Or even that he thought to arrange it at all - field research was one of the highest scoring components on the rubric for this assignment.

Eyes flicking up for a moment, he assesses the other boy. Maybe he’s not as much of a slacker as Peter thought he was.

Tony, slumped against the brick wall, rubs his stomach and burps quietly.

Or maybe he is.

Nevertheless, Peter types in his details and saves his contact in Tony’s phone as Your Better Half.

Peter isn’t too much to look at, he knows, but he’s not the weak link here.

Tony accepts the phone back and wipes the touch screen on his shirt before pocketing it.

“Alright then, meet me after school tomorrow in the parking lot. Don’t be late,” he flicks his cigarette to the ground and steps on it to put it out. Tony bends at the waist then to pick up the stub, clutching it in his fist for later disposal instead of leaving it as litter.

That surprises Peter a little, it’s more thoughtful, conscious a gesture than he would have expected to come from Stark. Not that he’s ever personally seen such behaviour from him, but it wouldn’t be a stretch with his devil-may-care attitude. Would it?

He’s about to make mention of heading back inside when Stark takes two purposeful steps towards Peter, bridging the gap between them.

Peter freezes on the spot, breath caught in his chest as Tony brings them nose-to-nose.

He flicks his eyes down at Tony’s lips when his solemn expression morphs into an impish smile.

“Dude, what -- ?”

While Peter is distracted, Tony’s hands dart out to grip the strings of Peter’s hoodie, tugging them until the hood shrinks around his face.

“Do me a solid and try to wear something that doesn’t make you look like you’re a step away from lining up at a soup kitchen, okay? Y’know, something nice.”

Peter smacks his hands away furiously, letting out a breath he didn’t know he was holding as Tony backs away, snickering.

“You really get off on being a prized piece of shit, don’t you?” he mutters, somewhat self conscious as he tries to correct the hood. “Poor jokes, that’s real nice. Sorry not all of us were born wearing Balenciaga.”

He continues to struggle with it as they move away and head back towards the main building, pushing it off his head altogether.

“Calm down, Charlie Brown, it’s not that deep,” Tony says drily, although his flippant demeanour softens significantly. “I have no doubt that you’d still manage to look like a hobo even if you were loaded, okay. You just have that grubby vibe.” Tony claps his hands together. “So, tomorrow. Meet me in the parking lot. Yes?”

Inside, away from the wind, Peter is still helpless to quell the hurricane that is Tony Stark. He gives him a tired thumbs up.

With that Tony sets off in the opposite direction, leaving Peter to wonder what the hell just happened, and what his life has become these last few days.

“What a jackass,” he says to himself.

Now alone, he rubs his hands up and down his face, fruitlessly attempting to scrub away the memory of Tony close to him, eyes warm with mirth, the heat of his body up close and the smell of nicotine on his breath as he quite literally tugged Peter’s strings. It takes longer than he likes to will the image away and to calm the furious beat of his heart.

Furious; a feeling Peter is becoming progressively more familiar - and uncomfortable with.

Ben used to say that being angry at someone was allowing them to take up space in your head, rent free. He was right, because it never served Peter well to house animosity when acceptance was kinder to his soul and psyche, and to others -- but he can’t help it with this guy. Tony Stark is like an ear worm of the brain. He has this completely obnoxious way of making himself front and centre despite Peter’s best efforts to cast him to the sidelines.

While he’s willing himself to move on his phone vibrates inside his pocket with a new message.

> ur not my better half, loser > why r u like this > nvm i already know lol. > remember, don’t be late 2morrow

Peter, just a little satisfied with himself for getting under Tony’s skin, saves his contact as Tiny Stank and types back quickly, eager to get back to his seat in the library - assuming Stark hasn’t already occupied it - and make the best of his remaining free period.

< whatever helps u sleep at night < also, plz lose my number after this is over

> way ahead of u, princess > say hi to aunt may for me

Ugh, Peter cringes, pocketing his phone without replying.

That guy is the worst.

---

tagging: @bylerboyfriends, @ravens-starker-stuff, @starker-rays, @ironspiderstarker, @muse-of-gods, @notfor-temporaryuse, @tabbycat1220, @sugarfreecult, @rebel13lion39, @plueschpop, @spideravocados, @jellybbunny, @booktrashme, @elfkido, @mycatislickingmybedsheets, @queerghostboyo, @disneyprincessdominatrix

#starker #ironspider #high school au #tony stark x peter parker

237 notes · View notes

thequibblah · 3 years

Note

⭐

anon: omg hi I think I sent in a ~free choice~ directors cut a while back but if you can't think of anything you wanna talk about I would LOVE to hear more about the way you write the Snape/Lily relationship and and the way it breaks apart, and even specific scenes related to it because in this house we are Anti S/nily

i hope this person was you but if not HAHA i will take this opportunity to answer their prompt as a "free choice" if you don't mind!

so. good old.... severus. ahhh.

writing interactions between snape and lily is like, one of the most rewarding challenges of this fic. now.... pitchforks away, my lovelies.... it's such an interesting emotional space to explore on her end, to me. personally i've never had a friendship end over something big and irrevocable, so it's really brand-new water to tread.

what makes it even more fascinating is that because of the setup of CT — starting after the lake incident — snape is less a presence in her life and more an absence she's working around. if i can get boring and pretentious for a sec, this was something i worked on a lot in college creative writing classes — writing about a thing in the past by avoiding it, or touching upon it and flinching away, or approaching it sideways.

now. we none of us have the patience of serious literary fiction readers in our fic HAHAHHA so this is a lot more dialled-back (dialled-forward??). but that was basically the approach to begin with, with these two. and then it was a matter of exploring the trajectory of it — how when the wound is rawest, lily is actually most forgiving and generous towards him, as she's had less time and space away from him/their friendship, and is busy making excuses for him.

(aside: i didn't realise until actually confronted by it that so much of her attitude towards him comes from her attitude towards petunia, a relationship in which she got used to receiving barbs before she gave them back, but the blood tie keeps her from a clean break. with snape there's no blood relation, obviously, but there's a shared sense of history, of childhood, that kind of lives in the same part of lily's brain/heart. so... really, two people who loathe each other overlap quite significantly in lily's emotional landscape.)

re: lily's excuse-making — it doesn't help that the only person who pushes her on snape is james. (her friends all have learned to avoid the subject, as you do when your friend is friends with someone you don't like but you can't say anything until after they're finished, and then you're like omg thank GOD i hated them from the start!!! but of course in this case they couldn't go overboard with that sentiment, lest it come off as "you should've known better/we knew better and you didn't") thanks to the circumstances of the lake incident, some of those messy feelings towards snape are entangled in messy feelings towards james (early on in the story especially), so the resulting conflict is.... bad....

She half-stumbled backwards, as if she’d been slapped. “I don’t need you to remind me,” she hissed. To her embarrassment, tears of frustration sprang to her eyes. But if she’d thought that would make him back off, she was wrong. “Yeah, except you do need the reminder,” said James. “Because you don’t get it yet. He chose them. Not you.” Lily was shaking. “I believe in second chances,” she said, fighting to keep her voice level. “But you really, really test my faith, James.” And without waiting for him to answer, she stormed up the girls’ staircase, wiping at her cheeks.

bad.

lily's true blind spot is, of course, that she's more willing to forgive snape's missteps with her. and of course james has to go and point that out :/

“Let me put it this way. If Sni — if Snape were Mary’s friend and he’d said that to her, wouldn’t you tell Mary she ought to never speak to him again?” Lily shifted uneasily. “Well, sure, but I’ve known him since—” “—you were children, whatever. Say Mary did too. Would that change anything for her?”

so the first time lily is like wait actually fuck this!!! it's because he reminds her, in an argument, about how callous he can be — a callousness which i think she's never liked, but it's easier to forgive sharpness when it's your friend poking fun at people you don't like, and less easy when...

“Yes, do let’s talk about Potter,” she said, dangerously calm now. “Let’s talk about how your mate Mulciber used an Unforgivable Curse on him—” To her absolute shock, Severus scoffed. “It was three bloody seconds—” “Shut up,” Lily said, too stunned to think of something better to say. “Shut up, you don’t seriously think that — that because the two of you have a childish rivalry, he deserves torture?” “That’s not what I said,” he replied, looking mutinous. “I just meant, everyone’s acting like he’s some big survivor — always playing for attention—”

...well, when that.

best/worst impulses aside, lily knows that the true measure of someone is how they treat the people they dislike, not their friends, and in a sense his attitude towards james (and generally other people) in this scene makes her realise what she'd read as inconsideration or insensitivity is in fact...

"...You’re weak-willed and pathetic and you’re — you’re not a good person.”

...so there's that.

as anyone who's read lily's current petunia drama will know, she's got a bit of a problem with letting go. but after her mother's death (and the attached stick to your sister she's all you've got), she manages a weirdly good break from cokeworth — because a lot of her childhood was wrapped up in hogwarts, and in snape (whom she hasn't spent vacation time with in over a year at that point). with neither at hand, she hardly has time to process it/feel homesickness.

but note this, at the start of 7th year:

“Was last year nothing to you?” Her voice had sharpened. “I wasn’t freezing you out to punish you, Severus. I was treating you how I plan on treating you from now on.”

of course lily's just making a point here, but when i wrote that i was like wow she (and i lol) are kind of onto something — snape totally does think this is like, a temporary purgatory period after which she really will come around. and through months of her getting visibly closer to his nemesis, he holds onto that belief — despite what she says. (funnily enough, childhood rose-tinted glasses make them both see what they want to see in each other, in very different ways)

that's why when he hears her say what she says to una in that hogsmeade trip, he immediately comes to his own conclusions. that was another important, interesting thing for me — for other slytherins, "loose ends" are opportunities for cruelty, for punishment, to finish what they've started. (not so for regulus, who's grown up with sadism and is frankly repulsed by the idea of pain for a flimsy cause — best believe there was absolutely a point to him orchestrating an attack on the teacher getting close to his brother. but that's another story.)

not for severus either — his loose end, in his own mind, will always be lily. he senses that something's broken, but he has absolutely no self-awareness about what it is, and his extending an olive branch was more about her coming to his level than him going to hers (aka the way apologies ought to work). he realises, over a year out, that it's up to him to fix it, but it's too late — lily's quite moved on at that point, and her residual emotions towards him are indifference and pity.

if only snape had known to leave it there!

looping full circle back to the lake incident, then, the argument in 41 is once again very personal — but rather than him pushing her away, it's him trying to get her close again. and now, stressed about all the bs in the world but also with all the petunia-related learn-to-let-go stuff fresh in her mind, lily is absolutely in the right state of mind to recognise when she's wrongly judged someone. this calls for scorched earth, she realises, or she'll never be able to shake him and move on for good.

and so what started with severus telling her that she's special, that there's a place in a new world for her, ends sort of the same way.... and the break that began with his casual, almost unintentional cruelty, ends with her very deliberate cruelty. as a bonus, she's ready now to use the one thing he's always wielded like a shield in their arguments — james, how the marauders are, etc. etc. — against him, and genuinely mean it.

(she might regret that soon. but not the way you'd think!)

#i don't know if this is even an answer or me just talking #thedoctorsayswho #ask me #director's cuts

12 notes · View notes

p-artsypants · 3 years

Text

I’ll Handle This (7)

I really just want to say thanks. I love this fandom, and I love this story…just the overwhelming excitement for this fic makes me so so happy. Everything that happens is really just me saying ‘whatever, I want to see this’. Does it make sense? Not always. Is everyone completely in character? Maybe. Am I having a blast? Absolutely!

Thank you for all the comments and kudos!

And sorry for the wait. Wedding planning!

In Which Gabriel is Serenaded

(Ao3 | FF.net)

—

Day three, Adrien awoke on the pillow. He was used to it now, officially. How scary a thought!

Plagg had laid out his outfit, thankfully so Adrien could approve, or at least warm up to the idea.

It was one of the shirts that Marinette had Frankensteined together from the pieces they had found. Absolutely gaudy, atrocious, and a pain to look at. Stripes, polka dots, plaid, little patterns of flowers, all saturated as far top right of the Hue/Sat scale as possible.

It would make his father cry. It would set the media into a frenzy. It was glorious, and that scared Adrien.

It scared him that he was starting to come around. He was starting to enjoy this reckless abandon. It was cathartic to watch his world shift and change into something more chaotic, and yet somehow pleasant. Organized Chaos.

Plagg came out of the bathroom, devoid of mohawks or any other bizarre hairstyle he could have done. His hair was just swept to the side, combed, but not gelled, into place.

The perfect amount of wild.

“You don’t have to wake up when I do.” Plagg stated. “I’ll just drop you in my pocket.”

“It’s alright,” Adrien assured, yawning. “I’m used to waking up this early.”

Plagg dressed quickly, and just as he slid into his moccasins, the room glowed red, and heavy bars slammed shut over the windows.

Both Adrien and Plagg jolted in surprise, Adrien falling into panic.

Plagg just scooped him up, and held him to his chest. “Hey kid, it’s alright. You can phase through things. You can escape if you need too.”

This helped calm him down slightly, if ever so minutely. Plagg tucked him into his pocket, and confidently walked downstairs.

Gabriel and Nathalie were waiting for him in the foyer.

“What's the deal, old man?” Plagg asked, bluntly. “Akuma attack?”

“No,” replied Gabriel, his head held high. “You’re grounded. No school. No friends. Nothing.”

Plagg scoffed. “I’m under literal house arrest?! Come on! I have a sleepover at Nino’s tonight!”

“Did you ask if you could attend this sleepover?”

“No. You were going to say no anyways. Better to beg forgiveness then ask permission and all that.”

“Well, that really solidifies my decision to ground you then. You clearly show a clear lack of critical and mature thinking.”

“Ah, a pompous way of calling me stupid, hmm?”

Gabriel frowned harder, a line forming at the corner of his mouth. “I am not calling you stupid. I just don’t see you making good decisions.”

“Gabriel, before this, I wasn’t making any decisions. Everything I did was according to your will. How can you be mad at me at being bad at something I have no practice doing?”

Gabriel’s eye twitched. “First, do not call me by my first name. Second, I have already made up my mind. If I say you’re grounded, then you’re grounded. Deal with it.”

Oh that was not a good answer. He may have well just said, ‘because I say so.’

And Plagg would not stand for it. He wasn’t standing for it anyway, but he’d at least be willing to bargain with Gabriel if he was offering some excuse about safety for his well being or something.

This was just a power trip.

“Fine,” Plagg smiled maliciously. “Lock me in. But you’re locked in with me. And you’re going to hate it.”

“I don’t have time to entertain you, Adrien, go to your room.”

As a kwami who spent most days in Adrien’s bag, Plagg consumed a lot of media. A pair of headphones, an external battery, and a phone that connected to the school’s wifi, Plagg had days to binge all the things that Adrien was interested in.

And some things that Adrien didn’t care about, like historical dramas, documentaries, and recently, musicals. Especially for time periods that he had witnessed and experienced. He wasn’t omnipotent, so seeing what the humans had thought was important during these periods was fascinating.

But I digress.

The point was that Plagg had a song stuck in his head from a musical and the perfect opportunity to use it had just presented itself.

Gabriel had deemed the conversation over and started to walk back to his office.

“Close every door to me,” Plagg sang, in Adrien’s sweet voice.

Gabriel halted, but did not turn around.

“Hide all the world from me.” Plagg took a step towards him, still singing softly. “Bar all the windows and shut out the light.”

Gabriel turned, raising an eyebrow. “If you think serenading me is going to make me change my—“

But Plagg cut him off, raising his voice slightly, “Do what you want with me, hate me and laugh at me.”

Gabriel just stared, and listened.

“Darken my daytime and torture my night…” Plagg came closer, singing with feeling, trying to convey, even for an instance, a flicker of the emotions that Adrien had.

“If my life were important I would ask ‘will I live or die?’ but I know the answers lie far from this world.”

This was horrifying to Gabriel, apparently, as he protested. “Of course your life is important! Why do you think I—“

“Close every door to me, keep those I love from me. Children of Israel are never alone.”

“Children of—what? We’re not even Jewish. What are you singing about?”

“For I know I shall find my own peace of mind. For I have been promised a land of my own.”

Confused, Gabriel just scoffed and started back to his office. Plagg stayed hot on his heels.

“Close every door to me, hide all the world from me.”

Even Gabriel saw the irony of slamming the office door in Adrien’s face, so he resisted, and let his son continue to serenade him into his office.

“Bar all the windows and shut out the light.”

Gabriel stood at his workstation, determined to ignore his son’s weird emotional outburst, and opened his recent project.

“Just give me a number instead of my name. Forget all about me and let me decay.”

Plagg fought the smile of victory when Gabriel hunched his shoulders. Was that guilt on his face? Perhaps Gabriel wasn’t as shallow as Plagg had thought and lyrics like this would get through to him.

“I do not matter, I'm only one person. Destroy me completely, then throw me away.”

And Gabriel sat, staring with his wide gray eyes. His full attention on his son.

“If my life were important I would ask ‘will I live or die?’ But I know the answers lie far from this world.”

Plagg pounded his fists on the workspace, crying out the words with passion, actually making Gabriel jump.

“Close every door to me! Keep those I love from me!” He leapt up on a coffee table, putting his entire body, his very soul into this performance. “Children of Israel are never alone!”

Gabriel couldn’t move. Why couldn’t he move?

“For we know we shall find our own peace of mind! For we have been promised a land of our own!” He held out that final note, letting it hang in the air, as Gabriel continued to stare, mouth slightly open.

Truth me told, Plagg was just intending to annoy him to freedom, but had the song choice done more? Did Gabriel finally understand?

“Well,” Gabriel adjusted his glasses. “That was...certainly something. If I knew you could sing like that, I would have tried to find a use for it. Never mind, I’ll add it to your resume now.”

No. It seemed that Gabriel was as stubborn and obtuse as ever.

“Close every door to me,” Plagg began again.

“No no no,” Gabriel spoke over him. “One performance is more than enough.”

“Hide all the world from me.”

“Adrien!”

“Darken my daytime, and torture my night.”

Gabriel groaned, and made an effort to ignore Plagg again. A real effort this time, with no eye contact and no facial expression. When that didn’t work, he moved from his workstation and went to grab Adrien. But Plagg evaded him, continuing to sing, with every grasp.

How many times did he cycle through the song? His throat hurt, as every time he reached the climax, he belted out the notes with passion.

It would be surprising if no one outside could hear him.

He climbed up on a table. “If my life were important I would ask will I live or die—“

“Enough! Shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!” Gabriel shouted. “I can’t take this anymore!” He bolted over to the security control panel, and shut off the lock down. The bars on the windows disappeared.

“Go...please, just go.” Gabriel said desperately.

“Cool, thanks dad!” Plagg said cheerfully, skipping out of the room.

Gabriel collapsed onto his workstation.

Whatever tricks Adrien had learned, whatever manipulation guru he had visited, he was good. Very very good. It would take a while to get him back under his thumb. And he might need to resort to more drastic measures.

What was more drastic than putting the house into lockdown? He’d need a little while to contemplate that.

—

Plagg had missed several morning classes thanks to Gabriel’s stunt, but his friends heaved a relaxed sigh when he arrived.

“Hey hey hey!” He sang, coming in the door. “What’s happening, party people?”

“Mr. Agreste!” Miss Mendeleev barked. “You better have a good excuse for being tardy!”

“A great excuse! My dad shut the house down to ground me, and I had to annoy him with Broadway until he opened up. He was a lot more patient than I expected.”

“Are you serious?” Miss Mendeleev asked.

“Madam, do you really think that my father, fashion mogul, would allow me to leave the house like this?” He gestured to his mismatched outfit.

“Point taken. You may take your seat.”

Plagg shot a thumbs up to his friends.

—

After school, the group of four piled into Nino’s family car and headed over to his house.

“I’m so excited! My first sleepover!” The excitement was genuine, as this truly was Plagg’s first sleepover. Of course, his whole life had consisted in sleeping in different places that weren’t his home (the Miracle Box) but the concept of going to a friends house to eat food and gossip all night long was novel and exciting.

“What curfew do you girls have?” Mrs. Lahiffe asked.

“I have until 11,” beamed Alya.

“I have to leave at 9,” Marinette pouted. “I have to help my parents in the bakery tomorrow.”

It was also Ladybug’s solo patrol tonight, Plagg noted to himself. Kind of a saving grace, since Chat certainly wasn’t going to be on it.

“I’ll be sure to count you both for dinner then!” Mrs. Lahiffe chirped.

Adrien had been to Nino’s house a handful of times, all under the pretense of working on homework of course. And it wasn’t a house either, it was an apartment, like most residences in Paris. It was warm, not always clean, and the smell of their cat’s litter was just a hint in the air.

Major Tom was a right good cat. An old gray tabby, who was far too wise for his own good. Plagg had met this family member in person, since the cat was still pretty curious in his age.

As soon as the group of friends entered the apartment, Major Tom stretched and trotted toward them, toward Plagg, and rubbed against his leg.

“Hi Tommy,” Plagg smiled, an inside joke passing between them.

“I swear,” said Nino with defeat. “Major Tom likes you more than anyone else in this house...and you’ve barely met him.”

Plagg just shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a pussy magnet.”

“DUDE! My mom is right there!”

Mrs. Lahiffe was not amused, but the furious giggling from behind him made it all worth it, he supposed.

“Sorry mom, Adrien’s going through a rebellious streak. He doesn’t usually make jokes like that.”

“Yeah, sorry, Uh...I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity.”

Mrs. Lahiffe shook her head. “I noticed your outfit was rather...daring. Is that from your father’s new collection?”

“Nope! This is a Marinette original!”

Marinette smacked him in the arm. “I told you not to associate me with that abomination!” She turned to Mrs. Lahiffe and quickly clarified, “He designed it and I carried out the deed.”

“Oh you kids are so funny!” She laughed. “Well, you didn’t come over to entertain me! Go have fun, I’ll get pizza around 6?”

“Thanks mom!”

“Thanks Mrs. Lahiffe!”

On the way to Nino’s room, he asked. “What movie do you guys want to watch tonight?”

Plagg grinned, “Have you ever seen Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat?”

—

Chapter is kind of short, but I have delayed it long enough, and sleepover shenanigans need their own chapter.

The song Plagg sang was ‘Close Every Door’ from Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.

#ml #miraculous ladybug #adrien agreste #adrienette #chat noir #I'll handle this #fanfiction

43 notes · View notes