#aaaand i am gonna ignore those and start a whole new one

[smallandsundry]

beatrice's outfits this season were so good

#warrior nun #warrior nun season 2 #wn #warrior nun beatrice #what even is beatrice's last name #absolutely losing my mind about avatrice happening #i have like four half finished drawings #aaaand i am gonna ignore those and start a whole new one #sometimes i draw stuff

[onlyhereforangst]

WWR

i mean i only had three weeks to get it done so naturally i’m finishing it three days before the next ep airs, would you expect anything less?

Ok we start off hot with a subtly jealous Nick scene and I love it. Ellie is like stunned that such a thing even exists “a covid crush” because lets be honest, she probably has no eyes for anyone else at this point - even if it’s been a YEAR (well 10ish months) a whole ass YEAR since the jail cell scene and can I just tell you I am mad about that. Why they do us dirty and skip a whole dang year?? Why can’t we quick flash forward every couple of months?? I mean I know it has felt like an entire year has gone by in a week, RIP 2020 no one will miss you, but like I wanted to see it 😩 and I better get at least some kind of explanation for whatever the F has gone down between these two from “well what are we gonna to about that as we stand 5 inches apart” to now. I demand this explanation. 

Anyways, back on track here - Nick is jealllllllous BUT different kind of jealous for this man because for once he’s not all dark and broody about it. He’s over here willingly, *willingly* bringing up said jealousy aaaand he’s smiling about it (!!!) because despite them still not being together (where’s the Gibbs’ headslap when you actually need it amiright) he’s not worried about this crush. He knows her feelings and his so it’s like yeah I’m a little jealous but also I’m gooood, I got this one in the bag 😏 (also can I just say I need Ellie to show him he does not in fact ‘have this in the bag’ if he’s gonna act like a little shit and push her away). 

This whole thing about babysitting and not wanting to take care of other living beings is very very very interesting considering they both loved taking care of Charlie (Cody, I blame this on pregnancy brain thank you @thekeyboardninja) in the end AND EVEN TALKED ABOUT PARENTING EVENTUALLY. So like, where did we backtrack??? Excuse me who allowed you to do such things. I’m feeling like they likely backtracked (this was s16 after all) because once again, the dust settled after their super close vulnerable moment and they went and hid behind those stupid walls they both have and somehow convinced themselves that being alone was better for them. IT’S A LIE YALL IT’S A LIE. You being together and taking care of each other is exactly what you need and it’ll be perfect and amazing and just DO IT ALREADY 😭

The team moment with Jimmy is so 🥺 and throughout the episode. I’m not going to touch on that stuff much because this is ellick focused but also because I truly do not need to sob again (even if I called Breena dying from covid like months ago and knew exactly what was coming with all of it but you know, I still cry, it’s fine, I’m fine). 

Ellie knowing Gibbs uses a weighted blanket and Nick doubting her is just comical to me 😂 mini side note before we get into how they have a thiiiiiing and it’s called always getting dibs on the elevator in tandem for months and McGee HOW CAN YOU NOT TELL. These two are so in sync even if they are still spectacularly failing at talking this out & taking that next step. Also months of Gibbs riding down the elevator with just those two…….the third wheeling must be slowly killing the old dude, give him a break you two. 

Tell me why these two have the exact same stance in the bullpen- could you be more obvious?? You rubbing off on each other. And then the walking up to the barbershop scene I caaaan’t. Ellie is SO flirty. Like so flirty. Who is this new Ellie and why do I love her so much. But Nick gives it right back too and her little giggle with shoulder shrug is just perfect. She’s fiiiiinally letting herself *feel* more and let it be out in the open and it’s just so great. I love seeing this character development for her 🥺 walls coming down, being more forward with her flirting and feelings and it’s all I’ve ever needed. Also we’re gonna take a small detour into Nick’s pants I mean the notebook he casually stashes in the front of his jeans like it doesn’t make a person look RIGHT. THERE. Don’t ask me why it’s hot, I don’t know the answers to the universe, it just is. We knoooooow Ellie is loving it’s location there, she wouldn’t mind flirtatiously taking it out at the next stop to “check” where they needed to go. You know, just helping a partner out- don’t worry Nick she’s got it handled 😏😏🔥🔥 Ok back from our detour, when Nick asks if she’s got him and she answers so quickly and almost with the undercurrent of “of course I do how is that even a question I’ll protect you until the day I die” (yes this is what she says), I love. 

Ok since when does Nick like puzzles and how does Ellie know this??? He was most certainly NOT a puzzle kind of guy when he first joined the team so are you telling me that maybe Ellie and her nerdiness (come on there’s no way she doesn’t love puzzles) got Nick into puzzles??? Also also also does everyone remember that time in covid lockdown where literally everyone and their mother did five thousand puzzles because we couldn’t leave our houses? Soooooo is this a nod to Ellie & Nick spending some time together doing puzzles (at presumably Ellie’s apartment because she’d be the one to have said puzzles) and turns out Nick loves them even more than she did???? Is this what you’re making me read in between the lines NCIS? Because I am most certainly ok with this. 

Ooooooooh-kay this 8pm thing for Nick. SO many possibilities. It’s been confirmed it wasn’t Ellie (which I won’t lie was my immediate wish) via Steven Binder on twitter (which I also won’t lie, my angst heart loves it’s something else). My take is it’s something (not another girl though) personal- I would *love* if it was therapy or some type of personal development thing. I think he realizes over the past year he has involuntarily retreated emotionally from Ellie even if outwardly it doesn’t show (no personal space and continued flirting). I think he *knows* he’s doing it emotionally and yet can’t figure out how to stop himself from doing it- like on the outside of his body watching him make a dumb mistake but unable to change a damn thing. SO I feel like whatever this 8pm thing is will play into that. It’ll somehow be related to Nick diving deeper into himself and trying to get more in touch with the parts of himself he loves to ignore/hide/push down. That could be therapy, a self-help class, getting in touch with family (but I don’t think he would feel the need to get secretive about this. i mean he already brought up Lucia to this dude, why would he all of a sudden be ashamed of a dinner/meeting with his mom or dad or something? i just don’t buy that). But anyways back to the point- it’s something Nick feels the need to hide in shame because that’s how he’s been conditioned as an undercover agent who feels the need to be tough and strong for everyone and being vulnerable is WAY too scary (helloooooo enneagram 8 nice to meet you I’m also an enneagram 8 Nick isn’t it fun). 

I don’t know why them talking so casually on the phone, while Nick is getting ready for the day no less is so damn pleasing to me. The simple domesticity of it all because it’s totally something one would do with their spouse is just 🥰🥰 And then their little freaking smiles can THEY NOT. Ellie you like glazed donuts?? Is this some kind of hint? Innuendo? Just a glaringly obvious chance to flirt and you don’t give a rat’s ass you’re in the middle of the bullpen with Gibbs’ listening to your conversation so you’ll take that chance anyways because you’re head over heels for this guy? Either way Nick’s little smirk oof. I think he takes it as all three of those things and he’s *perfectly* ok with it. UNTIL until, there’s always an until with you Nicholas god damn. Ellie nervously asking about NIck’s apartment 🥺 she may be head over heels but she’s still a little shy and unsure. She thought that jail cell moment would break things through for them and yet she’s- not to quote Taylor swift or anything because why on earth would I do that- right where you left her. WHY NICHOLAS WHY. Since we know Ellie has seen and is very familiar with the inner workings of Nick’s apartment come 16x10, I presume he moved, and it sounds like recently. From the looks of this new place it’s niiiiice. For someone who doesn’t like a lot of things (see s14 when he joins team I don’t remember the exact ep sorry) - he sure managed to settle into that apartment quite nicely. It’s furnished well, it’s homey for DC. And if he’s moved into it since after the jail cell, letting Ellie in is likely a big step in his eyes. But we know this has got to be a weird shift for Ellie. Seemingly so comfortable in each others’ spaces and now she hasn’t even been invited over?? Yeah you smell something fishy girl just like I do. Even if Nick has a cute ass smirk at the end of his little charade to hang up the phone. Wipe that smirk off your face sir you owe us I mean Ellie an explanation and a visit to your apartment. SHE WANTS TO BE YOUR HOUSEGUEST. SHE WANTS TO BE IN YOUR HOUSE. SHE WANTS TO BE IN YOUR PANTS WHILE IN THAT HOUSE. JUST LET HER ALREADY. Ok I’m done, moving on. 

Ok the guys opening the doors dramatically to let the one (1) woman on the team make a super badASS entrance is just 🔥🔥🔥 yes love it. 

Excuse me why does Ellie feel the need to completely turn her body from the rest of the team/bullpen to be 100% faced on Nick. Body language don’t lie bitch I see you. And Nick stealing a glance at Ellie before having to answer McGee’s question about roommates…..interesting, very interesting sir. You thinking about how she’s going to react to some rando being in your apartment AND staying the night before she has?? You thinking about making her a permanent roommate?? But of course he turns to quick humor for a hot sec because this is Nick and then shockingly, like actually shockingly (is this that personal development, soul-searching, deep dive into emotional wonderland rubbing off on him??? Is it working is this foreshadowing???) he goes and gets deep on ‘em. And McGee calls him on it and I love it, I really think this is some foreshadowing here. I think we’re seeing some of the work Nick is doing on himself, getting himself ready for as serious as a relationship as he knows it’ll be with Ellie, paying off. He’s thinking about ~*emotional*~ consequences to actions and OOF yes. The growth, I live for the fucking growth. “It’s not easy to get through the tough transitions on your own” you say as you literally tried to do that for actual YEARS until you met this team. Until you met Ellie. Until you realized that emotional fallout was a real thing and you my friend are a terrible victim to it. Because guess what- exhibit A is right here about to ask you to dinner and you gonna turn her down. You quite literally tried to get through a tough transition (re: Ellie’s kidnapping & the two bombs) by yourself. That dust settled and you immediately emotionally retreated, not physically- emotionally. You went back to what you always knew, the lone wolf on your own, endure the tough transition. And yes you’ve been doing some work on yourself, but now- now you realize it. You can’t do work on yourself alone. You can’t go through this shit alone. You need your support system- your person. But that thought truly terrifies you. You’ve realized it but are you ready to act on it? Not quite yet. You might be close, but you still can’t bring yourself to be honest with her yet. When Ellie nervously asks Nick if he wants to grab a bite you can feel her start to (it’s probably been there quite a while but she’s tried to ignore the feeling of him emotionally shutting her out and pushing her away but the houseguest thing brought it back full force) really worry about where they stood. She won’t completely admit it to herself because she knows what was said in the jail cell wasn’t a lie or a dramatization for either of them, but that worry that’s been creeping in like a vine is taking hold. Nick saying “there’s something I need to take care of” hmmmmm I feel like this is SO vague. And probably purposely done so by the writers but I just - if it was solely him bringing the dude back to his daughter’s why wouldn’t he just tell Ellie that? What would be the harm in her knowing this? She’s aware you’ve bonded so why would he not just say that? I feel like there was definitely something else he thought he would go do after it. With all the talk of tough transitions and then his obviously pre-made plans to drop this guy off, I just feel like there was some other task he had planned before McGee called him. And him discussing the reset button (I’ll get to this) just kind of solidifies that for me. He’d been doing a LOT of reflection that day and he had something more major planned, I just wish I knew what 😩 Ok back to Ellie’s response, she’s honestly shocked and a little confused at his ominously vague answer. And I’d wager a tiny bit of hurt is in that expression too. All those vines of worry taking hold? Yeah, that’s why. They even just tightened and made her speechless for a second. The emotional withdrawal she feared was being confirmed in front of her very eyes. Because (at least on our screens) the last time Nick turned down a bite to eat with her? Oh yeah, he was dating fucking Elena. (Once again, I don’t think he’s got another girl but y’all this is the parallel Ellie could easily draw seeing as it was only a few months ago, supposedly.) And he even looks almost guilty about turning her down, like he knows it’s probably hurting her (and their relationship) but he can’t help it. He hates that he’s doing it and the words coming from his mouth (good lord it’s like the end of 17x07 with overprotective/you’re like a sister to me all over again) but he can’t stop it. And then my heart breaks for Ellie when she tries to put on a brave, strong face that claims she isn’t bothered by his rejection yet we all knoooooow 😭😭😭 He gives her a small little “night” and she’s just standing there wondering where the hell she went wrong with this, how she read them all wrong. 

Ahhhhh the glorious reset button, ya love to see it. When he claims he has the opposite problem you can see his faraway look in his eye. You know *exactly* what, or better yet who, he’s thinking about in that moment. He knows he has to stop avoiding his emotional growth with Ellie. He knows he has to stop hitting the reset button the second things between them get real. And I think he’s known this for a while now but is finally, finally coming to grips with taking real steps forward. Taking steps to embrace the vulnerability he’s terrified of. Finally putting that reset button away 🥺

Ellie knowing Nick has one tie is just another swoon moment. Yes I could get dirty with that (see my tags on previous gifsets for proof) but like, also this is so real of them? They know so damn much about each other it’s insane. She may not have even been in his apartment yet but she knows he owns one tie. Like- come on. Nick you think you’re emotionally distant from this woman but my god it’s the opposite. You two are so intertwined you don’t even realize it as you chuckle and try once again to avoid thinking about that reset button. And then Jimmy goes and reads that letter and I sob. Yes I sobbed. Like I said not getting into this part because my pregnancy hormones can’t handle this (I’m barely rewatching this part with audio ok). But Jimmy’s words voiced over a shot of ellick…take my heart why don’t you. “To hear a laugh, and know that your life would change for ever” like come ON. First, Jimmy you slay me and second, all I can picture is Ellie chuckling with Nick in the bullpen showing him the clicker settings and Nick loving it. Nick your life would be changed forever in that moment I hope you knew. Ellie, pulling her arm around Nick’s for strength, support, I just-. Despite the turmoil she’s been going through, the doubts and the worry that’s crept in- she still feels it. She still feels love for this man and knows her life was changed forever when she met him. No matter how long she tried to deny it, she knows. And that little piece of her that desperately clings to Nick getting his head out of his ass and opening up emotionally to her, that piece decides to break that sliver of personal space and lean on him for support. She needs to touch him- the man who she can’t picture losing like Jimmy lost Breena. She needs to feel him still there, even if he hasn’t completely realized his life changed forever because of her- she has. Gripping his arm for the comfort it gives in knowing he’s still by her side, his hand brushing hers as an involuntary “I’ve got you” (even a reset button pusher like Nick can’t help his reflexes). The gravity of the fragility of life weighing heavily on them both, they hold each other. They’ve got each other. And good god is that poetry we just need them to actually fucking TALK ABOUT IT 😩😭

I don’t know if I even have side notes but I do appreciate NCIS paying homage to the utter grief this pandemic has been. Jimmy being the one to lose a loved one was quite honestly the perfect scenario to me. It shows just how cruel this pandemic has been, ripping even the most optimistic, happy people down to their knees in grief. It’s something that shouldn’t be glossed over and I do hope they continue to have this arc of struggling with grief throughout the season. I think it is so relatable and refreshing to see played out legitimately on the screen. I don’t want happy, go-lucky stale content. I want something real and something tangible. Yes I love my mindless entertainment, but it’s also nice to see *real* drama on a TV drama. At least, that’s my opinion 🤷🏻‍♀️ I’d apologize but isn’t that why you’re reading this to begin with? 😘😘

#ellick #ncis #wwr #18x07 #torres x bishop

[xhanisai]

Wo Ai Ni !

AO3 / FFN

Summary:  

 Plagg thought that having his holder moon and squeal about Ladybug this and Ladybug that was utter hell. . He should have realised from day one that it was absolutely nothing compared to his babbling adoration for the heroine's civilian identity and now, his waxing poetry for the raven haired girl as he finally shattered the whole 'She's just a friend' delusion and accepted his feelings for her.

A/N: I am sick and tired of all the work I've been doing for finals and honestly need my break. Anyways, here's a sweet, fluffy fic to get the stress out of my system and hopefully make your day a bit better :) The fic's title is inspired by Hitomi Takahashi's song: Wo Ai Ni (which most of you would find familiar as ending 14 for Gintama) Aaaand special thanks to @Word_Devourer for giving me the idea for the operation's name and thanks to @gale-of-the-nomads for giving me the push to write this~ Takes place after Party Crasher/ Trouble Fête, enjoy! ~(x)~ . . . Plagg thought that having his holder moon and squeal about Ladybug this and Ladybug that was utter hell. . He should have realised from day one that it was absolutely nothing compared to his babbling adoration for the heroine's civilian identity and now, his waxing poetry for the raven haired girl as he finally shattered the whole 'She's just a friend' delusion and accepted his feelings for her. Mm-hmm, there are no words in the french vocabulary that could even describe half the agony that Plagg's enduring right now, right this second as Adrien floated around in his room, hugging the gift that Marinette gave him earlier on at school with a disgustingly hopeless grin plastered on his stupid blushy face. 'Is it too late to go back to napping for a few more centuries or so? Cos I am way too old to be dealing with this fuckery again.' Plagg scowled, feline eyes almost like slits as he slouched on his pillow. He didn't even get a chance to take a bite out of his beloved Camembert! Why was he always the one stuck with the lovesick kittens again...? "-and our hands touched when she gave me the gloves! TOUCHED! I am never washing my hands again~" Adrien wiggled on the spot, nuzzling the soft present against his cheek and hungrily memorised the delectable vanilla scent that lingered on it. "Oh Plagg...did ya see the way she smiled at me? That soft, pretty, beautiful smile? Her lips so glossy and kissable AND mon dieu! I was tempted to just gather her up in my arms and kiss the living daylights out of her!" The blonde teen let out another high pitched squeal that sounded quite close to a kitten's meow and flopped on the bed, his weight causing Plagg and his pillow to bounce up and send the yowling kwami flying. Plagg. Had. ENOUGH. Darting towards the boy's face, fur sticking up making him look like a fuzzy ball, Plagg grabbed Adrien's collar and yelled. "CAN YOU JUST SHUT UP AND GO ASK HER OUT ALREADY!?" The force of the little God's voice caused Adrien's fringe to blow back comically, surprising the teen in which he merely blinked back like a kitten. After realising what he's done, an apology was quick to make way on Plagg's tongue for snapping like that only to disintegrate immediately when Adrien's reaction turned into one of a typical, shoujou, love struck schoolgirl. "I can't just ask Marinette out! She's too amazing...too cool...so awesome...oh man I love her so much! I have to get cooler and be at least half as wonderful as her before I could even dream of asking her out." Adrien was blind to Plagg rolling his eyes like it's the end of the world and kept on rambling, gloves pressed to his lips. "Besides, she doesn't even love me that way...she's always so jumpy around me..." Just as Plagg was about to scold him for being so self-deprecating and maybe give a boost of encouragement, Adrien suddenly shot up from the bed with his fists pumped up in newly found determination. "Which is why I should get better at wooing her! I'm gonna call the boys and come up with a plan to get Marinette to fall in love with me! It will be called: Operation Marry-Nette. What do you think?" Adrien looked genuinely proud of his plan like he's just won the lottery and Plagg couldn't help but sigh endearingly at him. Maybe for the last time, just for him, just for Adrien, Plagg will humour his holder through their terrible love schemes. Who knows? It could be quite entertaining and finally end this tiring love square that has lost its charm many months ago. "You were never this obsessed when you were claiming about how Ladybug and you were meant to be. Were your feelings not deep enough for her?" The kwami settled back on his pillow, stroking his wedge of cheese and glanced at Adrien through his peripheral vision who looked sheepish for a split second. "Don't get me wrong, I do love Ladybug still- but because she's my bestest friend and I admire her so much. It's just not as romantic anymore and a guy can only pursue for so long before it starts to grate on the pursued. I must have annoyed her quite a bit..." "Just a bit~?" "...okay a lot. I deserved all those bops to the head by her yo-yo and I already did apologise to her for being so obnoxious. Anyways, the point is that even though Ladybug is amazing...Marinette is Marinette. Marinette was always there for everyone, there for me. It's like my feelings have been building up for her throughout the whole time and my feelings for Ladybug was the dam. The dam's now broken and all my pent up love for Marinette is flooding all over the place...and I don't regret it one bit." Adrien hugged the gloves again with his standard, warm smile that the God always spotted when Marinette was nearby. "It wasn't easy, keeping those feelings away to avoid feeling guilty about loving another girl. Now, I don't have to worry about that. I can love Marinette all I want...if she wants to have me." Plagg rolled his eyes fondly this time, cuddling into the crook of the boy's shoulder with a fanged grin. He couldn't wait to see the delight and happiness when his chosen finds out that he's been in love with one girl all along and that his feelings were absolutely mutual. ~(x)~ "Oh! A-A-Adrien!?" "M-M-Marinette! You there- I mean hey there! Hahah...longtimenosee-" Not too far away, Alya and Nino watched the scene before them with exasperation as Marinette and Adrien started their daily stammering ritual for the umpteenth time. The model being the new addition. Sure, the first few times watching the two of them become a flustered mess when coming across one another was an entertaining prospect. Now it was absolutely painful seeing the two beloved idiots so stupidly in love with one another, blinding them from the fact that it's in fact requited. And what answers were they given when they attempted to convince said idiots that they should ask each other out? "Ah! Alya-aaa! You know I can't do that yet. Adrien still sees me as a friend so don't get my hopes up. But that doesn't mean operation secret garden is finished. I will get him to fall in love with me!" "Nino!? How many times do I have to tell you? Marinette's more interested in my clothes than in me! She's yet to fall for my suave, meow-tastic self~ Also, operation Marry-Nette is now a go-go. You, Agent Best Man have to make sure that the rose petals are ready as soon as she steps into the art room." Needless to say, Adrien's scheme failed catastrophically. So bad that not even the nerdy model took the opportunity to make a pun about it since they ended up jamming the large fans for a 'wind' effect with the rose petals and thus causing a fire. All the boys from the class ended up with a week's worth of detention much to their dismay and the girls' curiousities. Did Lahiffe even need to mention how Agreste begged for them to keep their shenanigans in helping him woo the girl he loves a secret? Despite the fact that the whole school pretty much caught on? So that's how the bespectacled couple felt like they've aged for like a decade or so thanks to their oblivious best friends who were still exchanging word soup and frazzled gestures. "-no no! You're beautiful- not that you're not beautiful everyday! Oh- erm- agh-" Adrien bit his tongue by reflex and shoved his hands inside the pockets of the designer hoodie he threw on this morning. His cheeks matched the Asian girl in front of him in a raspberry tinted flush. "YOU THANKS! I mean...thank you..." Marinette took a deep sigh before determination settled on her face. She gently clutched one of Adrien's sleeves, letting her dainty fingers brush against the back of his hand and smiled sweetly. "You're beautiful too," She flashed a toothy grin and then immediately speed walked away, leaving behind her gaping friends. A high pitched kettle like sound escaped from Adrien's throat and then he immediately shoved his hood over his head and used the drawstrings to fasten the hole in order to hide his discombobulated face. Alya and Nino carried on gaping as the usually cool model chanted 'Mon Dieu' over and over again, clutching his fabric covered face and wiggling on the spot. "Either things will get much more interesting or we're about to hit the peak of idiot one's and idiot two's stupidity." Alix quipped from the background, joined by a mutter of agreement from the other students. "Oh Marinette just hurry up and marry me already~" Adrien swooned, ignorant to the chuckling crowd as he was still stuck in his bubble. The bubble was mercilessly popped by Kubdel. "THEN GO PROPOSE TO HER ALREADY LOVER BOY!" This snapped Adrien out of his daze in an instant, prompting a feminine squeal from him and his body launching up in the air like a scaredy-cat. Heaving, he clutched Nino who was the closest to him and glared at the short girl before scoffing and scurrying away. His hand covered his face in embarrassment throughout the whole time as the students in the vicinity guffawed at him. Adrien decided that he was going to hide his face for eternity and avoid everyone who's not Nino. Representing the Gabriel brand be damned! ~(x)~ Adrien.Exe has stopped working. No, really. His soul pretty much abandoned his jelly like body and his brain has turned to mush. 'Adrien Agreste has unfortunately stopped working for the time being. Please leave a message after the meow.' Was the only comprehensible sentence that ran through the teen's mind. Marinette was sleeping on him. Sleeping on him! Again!!! Her soft, pretty, serene face hid in the crook of his neck, causing him to inhale the lingering bakery scent of vanilla and strawberries every time he dared to breathe. One of her hands latched onto the front of his shirt adorably, knuckles against his chest and Adrien could swear that the erratic beating of his heart would disturb her slumber. Yet, by some miracle he remained calm and cool on the outside despite his inner turmoil. Inhaling sharply, Adrien willed for his heart to calm down as he bravely rested a hand on the girl's waist before allowing his cheek to lean against Marinette's smooth, silky locks. He took this as an opportunity to study her up close. Marinette had her hair loose today. The long, petal thin strands fanned just below her shoulder and her fringe tickled his neck pleasantly. Her long lashes created a subtle, curved shadow on her cheek bones and had Adrien been an ordinary boy, he would have missed the expertly applied concealer below her eyes. She seemed to get more and more exhausted everyday. His poor princess... "I wish I could just hold you in my arms and keep you safe and happy forever..." He mumbled into her hair, placing his free hand on top of Marinette's which was still grasping his shirt and squeezed gently. Gathering what's remaining of his courage, Adrien puckered his lips and pecked her head, face flaming throughout the whole time. It lasted no more than a moment. Yet it was a moment that Adrien will cherish for the next few decades to come. CLICK. Reflex kicked in rapidly and by muscle memory, Adrien shielded Marinette's body with his, wrapping his arms around her and was quick to flash a dangerous glare at the intruder that dared to make an appearance. The sight of a cheeky Alya and the rest of the cooing girl group, all waving their phones and giggling on the spot drained his wrath and replaced it with shyness. "How much did you see!?" Adrien rasped, unconsciously holding Cheng closer to him, not realising that she was starting to stir. "All of it~ but don't worry Sunshine, we won't tell or show her a single thing." Alya winked slyly, wriggling her phone for emphasis. "It's just going to be in our collection for the amazing album we'll be showing you on yours and Mar's wedding day," Adrien stumbled on his words next, ears and cheeks redder than Nathaniel's hair before hiding his face in Marinette's locks as the girls snickered louder. Thoughts of Marinette in various wedding dresses, floating down the aisle with a loving smile on her face, slipping a ring on his finger as she recited her vows, leaning up as he leaned down to kiss her, all ricocheted within his mind without mercy. It was then that the boy noticed that Marinette was fidgeting in her sleep and panic started to settle in his body. "You evil people...you're waking her up." He hissed tiredly but without any venom and made soft shushing sounds to lull the designer back to sleep. The girls had other ideas however and without wasting a second, they made their moves in sonic speed. Juleka was the first to strike, lifting Marinette up bridal style whilst Rose firmly pushed Adrien back against the library's beanbag in a more comfortable way before the tall girl gently placed the snoozing girl on the boy's lap. Alix and Alya struck next, positioning Adrien's and Marinette's arms so that it looked like the former was cradling the girl protectively against him and the latter snuggling up to him with her arms around his neck.   Throughout the whole time, Mylène recorded the entire endeavour with a happy hum. "You should have involved us in Operation Marry-Nette. Look how much more successful we were in a matter of minutes compared to the painful weeks you guys went through with your schemes. I still can't believe that one of them involved you acting out a stunt in order to impress her only for you to fail terribly and bruise your ribs. You should never listen to Kim." The chubby girl smiled, grin only widening as Adrien's blush deepened when Marinette cuddled closer to him in her sleep. The raven haired girl's lips were brushing against his collarbones. It took everything for him to not combust. "Nino blabbed didn't he?" The blonde teen accused. "My babe is terrible at keeping anything from me, boo. But to be fair, it was super obvious from the start. Don't be mad at us~?" Alya pressed her phone against her lips, batting her eyes cutely, prompting the boy to roll his eyes and look away but the way he squeezed Marinette closer to him didn't go unseen. "...m'kay...just send me the pics afterwards please?" Adrien's question was answered with a cheer from the girls. . Nino on the other hand was chased around the school by Adrien with his sabre for ratting out the plans to Alya. "Bro! I'm sorry! PLEASE STOP TRYING TO STAB ME- SOMEONE HELP!" "You broke the bro-code Lahiffe! Now you must suffer the consequences!" "BRO!!??!!" ~(x)~ "...Are you okay Chat Noir?" As soon as Marinette placed a tentative hand on the hero's shoulder, he leapt up as high as his namesakes before quickly composing himself with an awkward laugh. "Kine...I MEAN- FINE! I'm fine...hahah..." Chat's faux ears plastered themselves against his unruly locks as he gripped his tail in front of him with both hands. He internally thanked the Gods (more reliable than Plagg at the very least) that his hair was covering his human ears otherwise Mari would have seen that they were as red as Ladybug's suit. The heroine in disguise raised a brow in worry, lips pursed with confusion. The silly boy has been acting very odd for the past few months. In fact his behaviour right now was starting to resemble a certain blonde sweetheart in her class- 'No! Snap out of it Marinette. Don't start comparing them both again!' The girl warned herself in her mind, shooting down the blush that tried to fight its way to her cheeks and then plastered on a polite smile. "Thank you for saving me and sorry for being in the way. I was trying to get away from the akuma, honest." Marinette fibbed, hoping that her partner would simply tease her with a few puns before vaulting away. Instead, the black cat stammered incoherently. "Oh hahah! N-N-No! You weren't in the way. You can never be in the way, it's never too much of a big deal- NOT THAT I'M SAYING YOU'RE NOT A BIG DEAL! You are one heck of a deal haha- oh the akuma is going that way. Stay safe pretty girl whose name I don't know- IMEANGOODBYE! ADIOS! Gahhhhhh..." Snapping his jaw shut, Chat Noir zoomed away with his staff in hand, hitting himself on the head repeatedly as he muttered 'Stupide!' over and over again. Marinette was left blinking owlishly at the boy's strange antics. The familiar feelings that has been gnawing on her mind for the past half year or so simply grew, causing her to nibble on the tip of her thumb. Yet, she couldn't identify what it was for the life of her and it was driving her insane. "Tikki, first Adrien has started to act like me when I'm around. Now Chat Noir? Have I done something to offend them both?" Marinette pouted at her kwami cutely which elicited a giggle from the tiny Goddess. "Oh no, no no no. I think they've fallen for you Marinette- isn't that exciting? The two boys you love? Flailing around you because you make them so shy and nervous? I can't wait to see how this plays out!" The knowing smile that Tikki had on annoyed Marinette. "What do you mean 'the two boys I love'? I'm not in love with Chat Noir! And them loving me? Impossible. Chat Noir loves Ladybug and Adrien hasn't shown any interest in me other than being 'just a friend'." The face that the little Ladybug wore was drier than the Sahara desert. "Marinette. Are you really going to argue with a being that has existed before time itself about this?" The designer only stared back stubbornly before answering. "Tikki, transformer-moi!" "You know I'm ri-iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight-" Was the last thing Tikki managed to say before encasing Marinette into her standard suit. Ladybug snorted, hands on hips as she tried her best to ignore everything that has happened prior. "Liking Chat Noir as well doesn't make this any easier dammit..." ~(x)~ Adrien tripped over his shoes and fell on his face as he was too preoccupied in watching Marinette (with a dopey smile etched on his lips) chatter with Marc and Nathaniel. He was rewarded with the love of his life helping him back up on his face and cupping his face tenderly as she worried over him and checked for any injuries. Chat Noir pestered Ladybug over and over again about allowing Marinette the mouse miraculous once more or even letting her try a different one as he tenaciously believed that she would make an excellent part time hero like Rena Rouge and Carapace. The silly cat ended up receiving a playful chop to the head and a 'I'll think about it' from his Lady. He never noticed how she was oddly flustered as he was too busy doing victorious acrobatics and dances during the rest of patrol. A student from the nearby lycée took interest in Marinette after seeing her a few dozen times since he was a local at the Dupain-Cheng bakery. His attempt in asking her out however was sabotaged by a group of peculiarly dressed, short 'tourists' asking for directions to the nearest Parisian attraction in their painfully broken and accented English. The boy missed his chance to seek her out when she skipped out of his sight with Alya and co and then gave up entirely as Marinette ended up going off on a heated rant about how she was getting sick and tired of strangers going up to her and asking her out when she's never really acknowledged them. He missed the way the supposed tourists removed the disguises from their faces, revealing Adrien, Nino, Kim, Max and Ivan as they 'Ho ho ho'd away. During his patrol, Chat Noir spotted Marinette conversing with both Luka and Kagami near La Seine, the latter two sporting a fond look towards the short designer. Fonder than usual...Noir didn't like it at all. It didn't help that he knew that the musician harboured some feelings for Marinette and the fencer has mentioned numerous times how cute Marinette was. So, with his usual dramatic flair, Chat vaulted towards them, staff slamming between Marinette and the other two friends and then slid down to their level. His body slightly shielded Dupain-Cheng from Couffaine's and Tsurugi's view as he exchanged pleasantries with a slight bite to it. The trio happily conversed back instead, sending guilt down Chat Noir's spine for acting a bit bratty in the beginning. The guilt transformed into second hand embarrassment as Luka and Kagami admitted that they started to casually date and was asking Marinette for advice on where to go for a proper date to make it official. There was no need for the green cat to make its appearance to start with! ~(x)~ Marinette gave Chat Noir a pleasant kiss on the cheek, thanking him for escorting her home and her warm smile never wavered when he went through his customary babbles. The kitten ultimately gave up speaking, gathering back what's left of his dignity and grasped Mari's fingers, kissing the knuckles chastely before saluting and leaping away. The heroine in disguise let out a happy smile, a soft blush flared in her cheeks as she leaned against the top of the balcony and perched the side of her head with her fist. A few stars twinkled in the dark, clear sky and the breeze was soothing enough to clear one's mind. "Oh Adrien, you poor kitten...now what am I gonna do with you?" Marinette's quiet giggles were joined by her kwami who flew out of her purse and nuzzled her holder's cheek. "Told you he's in love with you. You owe me those tasty triple chocolate chunky cookies with your Maman's special tea." "Oh well. A deal's a deal. I still can't believe he's my Chaton- no, wait. I can believe it. Who else would be my silly, dorky, wonderful partner? Did you see how jealous he looked when he saw me with Luka and Kagami? And I thought I was bad! Hahah!" "At least he didn't get them akumatised like he got Theo once." Tikki chimed. "Oooh! Can you believe that he wrote 'Adrien Dupain-Cheng' on your notebook a few times without realising it wasn't his? And then proceeded to steal it for a day so that he could get rid of the pages he's written on? Plagg almost choked on his cheese laughing about it!" "If he hadn't missed that one page, I'd have never known why he stole it in the first place. Makes that time I borrowed his phone for the day to delete the voicemail seem minor in comparison." "He has a folder in his phone dedicated to pictures of you and another folder dedicated to you and him! His current lock screen is of him and you~! So cute~!" "We're both so horribly obsessed with each other. How is that cute- hey! Stop laughing!" "And his name for the operation to make you notice him; absolutely adorable~" "Pfft. I'll give him that. It's not too bad." A comfortable silence settled between them as they happily stargazed. For once, Marinette didn't feel exhausted or being pulled apart in numerous directions. Figuring out that her crime-fighting, pun loving partner was none other than the shy, sweet boy who sat in front of her in class soothed her heart and eased her mind. Accepting that he was head over heels for her to the point where he turned into a nervous, stammering, hot mess did nothing but fill Marinette with giddiness and perhaps be less harsh on herself when she was in his shoes. He fell for her twice. Twice! Just like she did! How could she not be floating on cloud nine after that? For once, her hectic life ever since she received the magical earrings has hit a calm and Marinette couldn't wait to see what adventures would follow next as she and Adrien would face them on unmasked, without anymore secrets. Speaking of secrets. "Hey Tikki? When should I come clean to him? There's no way that I could keep this hushed. I have a feeling that Maître Fu is aware of everything too with how I've seen him lurking left and right with that stupid knowing smile you both always seem to have on. So it should be alright, right?" "Since the Guardian has given you and your partner more freedom with your secret identities now, it's up to you when you want to tell Adrien everything. Bu-uuuuut...I kind of want to see him confess to you. Maybe figure it out himself. It's more fun that way, no?" Tikki's grin widened at Marinette's rosy cheeks, the former looking away bashfully, eyes sparkling with joy. "Do you think he'll figure it out?" "Plagg told me that he figured it out the day Mme. Mendeleiev got akumatised but ended up having to scrap that idea when he saw that illusion you created to throw him off. Adrien was so sure that Ladybug was you and seemed pretty down when you disproved that theory." 'So he did know it was me...' Marinette thought with awe, recalling how much happier and excited Chat Noir was during the battle, thinking that his Lady was his Princesse. "I'll give him a couple of days to confess or figure out my identity. Otherwise I'll just grab him by the collar and smooch his stupid face like no tomorrow." Tikki kissed Marinette's cheek in response, delighted with the girl's answer as they made way back into her room. ~(x)~ This was it. He was going to confess. Adrien has had enough of the way Marinette's lips would taunt him with the way they glistened under the lights and he couldn't escape the sweet scent that wafted from her every time she moved. It was so much more easier to deal with her when she was flighty and shy! Now? She was so much more sure of herself, bold, coy, dare he say...flirty. It went from squeezing his fingers to reassure him to smoothly kissing his cheeks as a thank you for whenever he's helped her out or did something she thought was 'adorable'. The tight hugs, the hair ruffles, the lip biting, the cheeky smirk that eased its way to her face whenever someone mistook them as a couple and the lack of denial or correction she gave in response. If he didn't confess at the end of the day, he was going to explode! With the help of the founding members of Operation Marry-Nette along with the new members, they have arranged a successful scenario. One that was working way too smoothly compared to the previous hundred or more plans that went haywire in an instant so Adrien kept a look out for anything strange or bizarre. Knowing his lack of luck, Le Papillon would strike now. Luckily, this didn't seem to be the case as he found Marinette waiting for him by the Arc de Triomphe. The place where he asked her to meet him. "Marinette! Hey!" Adrien jogged towards her, mentally patting himself on the back for not stammering. That thought process was quickly wiped away when he realised what she was wearing and how beautiful she looked. Dupain-Cheng was decked up in a simple but stylish red blouse with a high waist, short black skirt. Following her long legs were black tights and black ankle boots that had a red ribbon on the zippers. Her hair was kept up in space buns, also adorned by red ribbons, making her sky blue eyes pop. Lastly, her lips were glossed in a cherry red tint. The urge to kiss them increased by ten folds and all the words that Adrien has taken months upon months to plan and say turned into goop. 'What the fuck!? This isn't fair. This is so not fair. Why the hell did she have to dress up so prettily and look all cute and innocent now of all times? Why now!? Fuck! It should be illegal to be this beautiful! Damn you!' "Hey there Handsome! You said that you needed to tell me something?" Marinette peeked below her dark lashes and fiddled with the gold necklace that adorned her neck. A necklace that he gifted her a few weeks ago. She was going to be the death of him. "...Adrien? Are you okay?" Her hands reached up to cup his red cheeks only to be intercepted by his in an iron grip. "Adrien?" The boy squinted his eyes shut, blush never leaving and finally blurted out his feelings: "Wǒ ài nǐ!" . 'I love you!' . . . A few seconds of silence went by. The sounds of the chattering crowd in the background faded into nothing as all the boy could hear was the harsh pounding of his heart. Fearing the worst, Adrien refused to open his eyes and his ears and cheeks burned with both shyness and embarrassment. Dread began to build up in his heart when he felt Marinette wriggle her hands out of his grip and his shoulders sagged, awaiting the rejection that was clear to follow. His spiralling thoughts were halted by the contact of Marinette's fingers brushing his cheeks, slipping through his hair before getting tugged down sharply so that his lips crashed into hers. Adrien's eyes snapped open for a split second in surprise as a shocked mewl escaped his throat but then the warmth and softness that was Marinette's lips took over and he couldn't help but shut his eyes again. Without missing a beat, he wrapped his arms around her, pressing her small frame tightly against his and he couldn't help but smile into the kiss. Before Adrien could deepen the kiss, Marinette parted much to his dismay but her lips still brushed against his. He got an eyeful of her cheeks turning as rosy as his and her lips darkened into a kiss bruised state. An image that burned into his mind pleasantly. "So...d-does that mean you love me too?" Adrien couldn't help but whisper, lips tingling as they brushed against hers. "Silly Chaton. In China, we don't outright say that! But...wǒ zhǐ shǔ yú nǐ." "My Lady!? Mmph-" The boy was silenced with another kiss and this time, Marinette's words played in repeat over and over again in his mind. Wǒ zhǐ shǔ yú nǐ: I only belong to you. . . . ~(x)~ A/N: I'll proof read tomorrow. N I G H T. And Ramadan Mubarak~

#my writing #my fanfiction #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug and chat noir #ml fanfic #ml fanfiction #marinette dupain cheng #adrien agreste #adrinette #adrienette #marichat #identity reveal #lukagami #djwifi #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #plagg #tikki #romance #humour #hot mess adrien agreste #so sweet it will rot you inside out

[witchykpop]

Cat Piss: Solar/Moon fanfic

This is an old fanfic i unearthed while cleaning out my google drive.about Moonbyul & Solar. Basically they’re small business rivals. I am unsure if I even posted this anywhere, like on a previous blog or what not, but i decided to post and share it here. its about 5 pages, so its a bit short, but a fun read.

Enjoy!

Solar walked through the flowers towards the door, flipping the sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed’, closing the shop up early. One small step for Solar, one giant leap for Solar-kind. And if it doesn’t work, Solar thought mischievously, maybe I can find a way to shut down her cafe.

With a click of a key and a woosh of a door, a heavenly aroma reached Solar’s nose. As her lights flickered on, she made her way through the jungle of flowers, taking chairs off tables and humming a classical tune. Once she reached the counter, she made her way behind it and into the back room where she kept her gardening tools. Today, all she needed was her watering can. After filling it up, she made her first trip to the nearest flowers. Naturally, she had to return to behind the counter to continually refill her watering can as she continued her rounds, coming ever closer towards the front entryway--but she didn’t mind. She loved her flowers, and if these continuous trips between the flower pots and their water source meant that they would stay alive and vibrant, she couldn’t give two shits about it work it entailed. Eventually, she made it to the flowers by the door. Once she finished watering them, she flipped the sign on the door so that “Open” faced outward. 

She’d been opening earlier these days, trying to get more customers. Ever since the cat cafe opened across the street, fewer people came to her own floral cafe. Speak of the devil, Solar thought- the owner was walking towards their own cafe door now, stopping briefly to remove a keychain from her handbag. Solar curled her lip into a snarl. How dare that woman open a cafe RIGHT ACROSS from hers and steal all her business! The cats weren’t even that cute. She didn’t understand, especially because initially, she assumed there had to be a large amount of loyal customers that she had, in addition to ones that didn’t go to the enemy cafe by default because of allergies. Alas, it seemed no one in their small town was allergic to cats because everyone seemed to be going to to cat cafe nowadays. Even those few customers who still attended her own shop, she would hear rave about the cafe across the street. Everyone but Solar seemed to love it. She hadn’t even been to the enemy cafe, but she didn’t need to know that she despised it--whether out of spite or not, she didn’t care.

Seeing that new owner so early in the morning soiled her previously sunny disposition. Solar was convinced she was opening her store earlier to steal what customers she got at this time of day. She didn’t realize she was staring until the woman across the street awkwardly waved at her in her doorway. Huffing and blushing, Solar turned away and marched deeper into her store to put on a pot of water. 

Solar didn’t get very many customers that day, but that was okay with her because she was plotting what she was going to say when she finally confronted that evil store owner. 

The only customers that made an impact and managed to cheer her up for a short while were Hwasa and Wheein. They were close friends of hers and had been there for her and her shop for many, many years. The dynamic duo came every day around tea time to spend it with each other when they got off of work. Solar could see how in love they secretly were with each other, but neither one seemed willing to admit it. 

“The park is blooming right now, Solar! You should really close up early today and come see it with us sometime. I know you’d enjoy it!” Wheein exclaimed brightly.

Hwasa giggled at her cuteness and turned to Solar, “Yeah, really you should! You’ve seemed tense these days- I think some wild flowers would cheer you up!”

Solar shook her head, her blond hair billowing around her. “You guys know I can’t--not with that no-good enemy cafe stealing all my customers. I need to stay open as much as possible so that  I can attract more customers and keep my bills paid.”

Wheein rolled her eyes, “I bet you haven’t even talked to the owner have you?”

“No, why would I talk to the enemy? You haven’t, have you?” Solar threw back in a huff.

“Actually,” Hwasa butt in, “We have. We tried out the food this past Saturday.” 

Solar shot glares at the two. “What?” Hwasa protested, gesturing at Wheein with a faux-accusatory finger. “This one can’t help but try to pet every cat she sees. We just couldn’t ignore this latest opportunity!”

“Plus, we wanted to scope out the competition for you!” Wheein interjected. Solar’s glare softened for a moment.

“...Aaaand it just so happens ‘the competition’ is really cute and definitely your type!” Solar’s blush matched the fire in her eyes at this moment.

  “I KNEW IT! I KNEW IT! You’re just trying to find a way to get me to forget about the business I’m losing to her! Besides, she’s not my type!” Solar threw her hands around in frustration and marched towards the counter.

Hwasa’s words stopped her in her tracks, “So you have seen her before? Were you spying?” She teased.

Solar whipped around, “Yes but only to confirm my suspicions!”

Wheein held back a laugh, “What suspicions?”

“That, uh, that she’s, um, a, a- NO GOOD  uh, CAT PISS LICKER who, uh, STEALS OTHER PEOPLE’S CUSTOMERS for, uh, FUN WITHOUT SHAME!” Solar screeched. Wheein and Hwasa could not contain their giggles any longer. “STOP LAUGHING AT ME!”

Hwasa just managed to compose herself as Wheein giggles and managed to snort out, “Sorry, it’s just- your insult was amazingly unreal”.

“Okay, whatever,” Solar muttered through gritted teeth, and with that, she continued with her day of work... or lack thereof. Only two more customers visited her shop that evening.

As she was closing shop, it just so happened that the enemy boss was doing so as well. A wave of frustration that had been building up the whole day washed over her, and she stormed across the street, paying no heed to traffic, only to the shopkeeper who was the source of her sour mood. Solar took in her wide eyes and spat, “I know what you’re doing!” She jabbed a finger into her soft chest, “You’re purposefully having the same shop times as me to steal all my customers! Well, I. am. NOT. having it missy!” She jabbed her finger once more before marching down the street. She heard her nemesis mutter a “What the hell…?” Before she turned the corner, making her way home.

Moonbyul typically never let anything bother her. Somehow though, that cute little flower cafe owner from across the street bothered her--not quite her, but her words. Moonbyul was in no way trying to steal her customers; she was just trying to make a decent living in the town she recently moved to, nothing more.

She sighed as she stepped through her apartment door, putting groceries immediately down inside and returning to the hallway, closing her door--she needed some fresh air to think. Making her way to the stairs down the hall, Moonbyul climbed the stairs to the roof of the building. 

She was not alone on the roof. Unbeknownst to Moonbyul, her rooftop sanctuary had been invaded by her cute-yet-intimidating business rival.

 Moonbyul walked towards the edge and surveyed the view, not realizing she had company until a pouty, disapproving voice spoke out behind her.

“Owner of Cat Piss Cafe, you better not be planning to jump- just because you realized your numerous wrongdoings and can’t live with the guilt of stealing my customers,” said the flower girl as she walked up behind her.

Moonbyul turned around, startled and confused, seeing the flower cafe owner before her eyes, who continued to speak, “Live another day- oh, and how about not be open when I am. I appreciate the attempt as a form of flattery, but that’s not what I want out of you.”

“What exactly do you want out of me, then?” Moonbyul interjected.

Flower Girl blinked. “Wait- what do you mean?”

Moonbyul kept up her questioning. “Did you follow me home?”

Flower Girl recovered. “I should ask you the same question!”

With that, Flower Girl stalked towards the roof access door and left without a trace.

As soon as she left, four things clicked in Moonbyul’s mind:

She’s really quite salty.

Flower Girl is quite cute, even with that sour face.

She thought, or hoped, Moonbyul was really gonna jump to her death.

They shared the same apartment complex (What a coincidence).

Moonbyul shook her head and in that moment, formed a plan to get to know this wild flower- for her own safety, of course.

The next day, Solar noticed the Cat Piss Shop was still closed, and it was already noon. Due to this blessing, she had received tons more customers; she was both elated and exhausted, having grown accustomed to less customers. A few hours later, it was a half hour to closing, and the customers in the shop had dwindled to none, finishing their drinks and perusing the flora on the way out. She took advantage of this ounce of rest to start cleaning the shop, starting with the counter. While she wasn’t looking, she heard the bell ring, signaling that another human had decided to visit her cafe.

Solar hadn’t lifted her head to look because she was scrubbing a particularly dirty spot on the counter--a certain couple had spilled their drink earlier and she was only now properly cleaning it up. She, however, snapped her head up at  the voice of her customer as it reached her ears, “So, what’s your favorite flower?” The sight of the cat lady before her made her recoil back and almost hiss like the very cats she despised (she didn’t because then she might be associated with this despicable cat lady).

Solar, shocked at the sudden and unanticipated appearance of her competition, was just able to think of a snappy response, “Well…. It changes from time to time… Currently, my favorite are chrysanthemums because… they’re beautiful and they are a symbol of death, which is what your status almost was yesterday… if I hadn’t stepped in”.

Moonbyul’s face was oddly still as she processed what Solar said, then laughter overcame her body and she curled over, chortling. 

“What?” Solar asked confused, “Why are you laughing?”

“It’s just that..” Moonbyul sucked in breath and composed herself, smoothing herself, “Even though I know you’re trying to be awful to me because you feel threatened, you’re still awfully cute. It’s really amazing.”

Solar was offended. “Um, excuse you, I do not feel threatened. All I do is speak truth and facts,” she spat hotly.

A smirk graced Moonbyul’s face as she slid closer, placing a forearm on the counter and leaning in. “Well… if you’re not threatened… Care to go on a date with me?”

In that instance, Solar’s mind short-circuited, and she jerked back in surprise. Of all the things for a customer-stealing, competitive, cat loving “You smell like cat piss! Well, not you, your cafe, but-”.

Moonbyul leaned back, “I’ll take that as a yes,” she chuckled. “I’ll be waiting outside your store for you so that you can compose yourself.” She turned her back and walked into the flower  jungle, the bell at the door signalling that Solar was once again, alone now.

It was now Solar’s turn to say, “What the hell…?”

Huh.

She never even got her name.

That was weird.

Screw it, why not? 

The End

#solar/moon #moon/solar #mamamoo #moonbyul #solar #fanfic #mamamoo fanfic #kpop #writing

[nokikissa]

Whooooooooo did it, beat the story of borderlands 3 now. It took me 42 hours but I think I got still like some of those fight wave of enemies arena things I could do but I’ll look into that later, I did all the crew challenges and side mission outside of those type of things.

Story and character wise it was a bit of a mixed bag, there were a lot of things I like and couple things I really didn’t like, but all in all I had fun, the gameplay was excellent, and most likely I will play it again, to co-op with buddies or to try out different vault hunters.

Putting more in-depth thoughts about some story and character things under the cut, extreme major spoiler warning as I’ll be talking about like big plot moments and such.

I quite like most of the new characters they introduced in this, I’ve only played Fl4k and loved them, but from everything I’ve seen I feel like I’ll love the other new vault hunters as well. The Calypso twins were delightful villains, very entertaining but also like I couldn’t wait to get to kill them lmao. And then there’s like Ava, I loved her and her relationship with Maya that was good stuff. And Wainwright I quite liked as well, and I was very happy that Hammerlock finally has a boyfriend and is in a good relationship. And also Lorelei and Clay were both good too, tho I probably like Lorelei more of those haha.

How it handled some old characters tho.... That’s a bit mixed. Like I liked a lot of them: Lilith, Eliie, Tannis, Maya, Zer0, Sir Hammerlock.... Even Rhys! They got Rhys down surprisingly well in my opinion! Obviously he was bit more comedic and doofy but like it was still reminiscent of how Rhys acted in like comedic moments of tales, I could recognize where they got his personality from and so on, it was fine!

...Which makes it even more baffling that they fucked up Vaughn so completely that with Vaughn it feels like the writer maybe got a super vague description of the character at best which had been passed down through multiple people twisting it around like a game of broken telephone. I just don’t understand where they pulled some character traits for him at all.... During the game I tried my best to ignore his existence, which worked well for a long while until the game made you go back to pandora and made him story relevant again, god every time he spoke my reaction was like “please shut up...”

But. I knew that was coming. The Commander Lilith DLC and promotional pics and so on made it clear ahead of time that I would not like Borderlands 3 Vaughn. I had had time to go through the stages of grief and resign to being all well I’m gonna be one of those salty tales fans and keep on drawing content of like tales Vaughn and ignore the rest of the canon for him.

So anyway I was really liking the story during like the Promethea Atlas Vs. Maliwan Arc actually, Rhys and Zer0 and their interactions were fun, Katagawa was an enjoyable villain as well, I just hope the fandom don’t make him annoying to me... So yeah that arc was good and fun.... and then the Promethea Vault happened. I am still a bit on the fence about how I feel about Maya getting killed off. On one hand, I did not see that coming and it did get an emotional “Nooo D:” reaction out of me, which well I’ve seen games with similar character getting killed off scenes that are supposed to be a big deal but my reaction is just like “ok”, like Borderlands 2 with Roland for example. But like yeah I didn’t want her to die, and it feels like kind of a waste cos let’s face it in 2 she didn’t have that much personality since the game didn’t do voice lines for the vault hunters reacting to the story etc. So now she was finally getting to be her own character I feel like aaaand then she dies. :/

And then we moved on to the Eden 6 arc and initially I was excited all Oh get to meet Hammerlock’s Boyfriend! But soon my excitement soured............

So Aurelia’s evil now huh.... And like cartoonishly evil...... Man I hate what they did with Aurelia in this game, it really smashed my good mood coming from the promethea arc to this.... Like in pre-sequel sure she kept claiming herself to be evil and a bitch and so on, but yet when Jack did like actually horrible shit she did not agree with those, she felt bad about Felicity’s fate and didn’t agree with Jack killing the scientist, she even objected when Jack was killing off all claptraps! But nah here’s she’s evil, murdering people left and right and also fucked Troy Calypso cos idk she evil now  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Like god............ I really didn’t expect Aurelia of all the characters whose portrayal I’d be having this much issues but here we are... I guess I’m more pissed about it atm cos as I said with Vaughn I knew what was coming, but with Aurelia I kinda feel Bait and switched by the promotional material cos in all of those that I saw they showed like both the Hammerlocks and Wainwright standing next to each other so you know I was expecting her to be an ally, like maybe she and Alistair had started to tolerate each other and so on but NOPE! Go kill this character you like! Thanks a lot gearbox...

That’s the major issues I had with characters I suppose, Tho it is a bit disappointed Maya and Zer0 were only vault hunters from 2 that showed up. Would’ve been fun to get more personality for more of them. I did find some echo logs involving Krieg at one point which were interesting, aaaand according to like the sort of background filler assets Axton does porn now lmao. Also hmm where were Athena and Janey? Fiona and Sasha? So many characters missing... I know they’ve said probably more characters show up in dlcs, but still. Story wise kinda funny tho, like did Lilith contact the vault hunters from 2 for help at all? Were all of them like “sry I’m busy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ “??

Also one weird bit about the Eden 6 arc, it felt kiiinda out of place for borderlands that there were npcs being all “Oh man I sure love the Jakobs family they treat me well”, borderlands has sorta been all “the gun corporation suck” beforehand... I suppose the Promethea arc was bit too pro corporation in some way, but with that at least mostly the npc I saw were like “Rhys says he’s trying to do good with atlas... hm we shall see how that’ll pan out...” suspicion, but with the Jakob there were characters being all oh Jakobs is so great such good corporation :)

At the end side of the game you could get sooo much lore about like sirens which I loved, translating the eridian artifact things like clarified on like how sirens come to be and all which is great! According to that siren in her life can choose who specifically inherits her powers after she dies, or “release her powers into the unknown” which when described kinda gave me the impression that it’ll pass those onto some baby that’s born at some point, which yay clarification on the whole are sirens born as sirens or do they get their powers later: answer is both!

And it appears that Angel decided to pass her powers onto Tannis before she died? Which is interesting. And aw Maya chose Ava to inherit her powers.

That ending tho..... uhhh isn’t Elpis an inhabited place? How did that whole thing affect the people living on elpis lmao....?

And god that ending credits song, it is fitting but I just can’t take it seriously asfsfdggs...

i guess I’ll now move onto talking about the gameplay....

The gameplay was great. Same old Borderlands gameplay except with some improvements making it better, and that is exactly what I wanted from the game.

I especially love the way the guns are now and how much variety there is between the manufacturers, and even within them! Like previously I rarely liked to use shotguns in borderlands games, but in this one I fell in love specifically with the Maliwan Shockwave shotguns, and when one I had started to be too low leveled I desperately tried looking for new one everywhere lol.

And also Atlas gun’s smart bullet gimmick is so good especially now that I played on console, I know I joked about that before the game came out I’m sorry Rhys lol.

I really enjoyed the environments in the game, the planets looked cool and unique, and the maps were interesting. And god some of them are so huge! Which does cause some issue tho... They are weirdly stingy with ammo vending machines. In previous games they usually had ammo vending machines before like boss fight rooms, but in this one nope! Most of the time they only have those in like beginning of the map or like where fast travel points are? That’s annoying... And another issue is that the maps are big and sorta maze-like at times, so even though you have the mission marker in the mini map, I still needed to constantly open the map to see how to get to it, you can’t just go straight in the direction of the mission marker.

Gotta say, I was bit disappointed that we only visited Athenas to get Maya, I was hoping we’d return there cos the planet was very pretty but nope....

Fl4k’s gameplay was really fun, I got the skill that lets fl4ks pet heal you and man that skill is a lifesaver, there were some boss fights I survived purely because of Mr Chew keeping me alive by reviving me lol.

I did encounter few glitched that caused me to have to restart the game cos some mission objective got stuck somewhere and I couldn’t advance, that was a bit annoying. But it was only very few and like well into the game, compared to the hours I played it feels like a pretty good track record for playing a game right on it’s release haha.

So uh yeah. In summary again: Extremely fun gameplay, mixed bag story and characters. Had fun, will play again.

#lol enjoy my +1700 word thoughts on the game #pointless text post is pointless #bl3 spoilers #i really mean the spoilers thing for real yo #borderlands 3

[writingamongtheroses-archive]

Showtime, Chapter 8

Lights Out

"Aaaand done!"

Liza stepped back from the speakers, grinning proudly. She and Bun watched as she flicked the switch. Treasure Cove erupted in sound. "Yar har har! Welcome crew, to Captain Bun's Treasure Cove! Load your token in and let the adventure begin!" She chuckled at the recorded voice lines, watching Bun grin.

It was the second night of Liza's new project. After she finished cleaning up the office with Bun's help, she had set to work. "Okay, stripped wires are fixed..." Liza said, checking that off her list as she turned it off. She grunted when her scarf fell in her face- she hated this scarf, it always came undone too easily. "I'll have to stop by the hardware store to see if I can find some better rope." She finished redoing her scarf to make a grabby motion. "Hand me that broom, will ya?"

Bun handed over the broom. "What are ye gonna do, lass?"

"Sweep! It's really dusty in here." True to her word, Liza started sweeping. "I mean, does the cleaning crew even clean? This whole place looks..." She looked around, trying to find a word that wasn't insulting to the animatronics.

"Nothing like how it used to?" She nodded. The depressed tone was back in Bun. "Aye, I know what you mean lass." The rabbit sat on a nearby box. "I remember how it used to be. Children would come, laughing and playing. They would win tokens while enjoying their food and listening to the Captain and Kitpup. It was bright and it was beautiful."

Liza had stopped sweeping. "I wish I could remember it."

"Ye don't?"

She shook her head. "The first thing I remember...is waking up in the hospital. The doctors told me I have retrograde amnesia." She didn't notice Doll wince.

"Wha?"

"Memory loss caused by an injury. They told me I was in a really bad accident- they had to sew parts of my brain back into my head and replace part of my skull with this fake skull stuff. There was also a bit of a brain bleed..." Liza made a face at the dust pile she had made. "Seriously, have they never cleaned here-?"

The lights went out.

"The ovens!" Kitty yelled from the kitchen.

"NOT US! I don't think..." Liza grumbled, trying to stumble out of Treasure Trove. She heard Bun move before a fake fur-covered hand wrapped around her wrist. If she focused, she could feel the metal under it. She made a conscious effort to not focus on that. Bun led her down the hallway, opening a door.

Her eyes had adjusted enough to see Kitty pulling what looked like a pizza out of an oven that was still glowing. Liza looked around, wondering if she would hear the lullaby...she shook her head. No. Because of Puppet, Ted couldn't hunt her down.

"-the generators."

She blinked at Kitty's voice. "What? Sorry, just trying to get my bearings." Liza attempted a sheepish grin before something plastic was stuffed in her hand. She turned on the flashlight, making sure to shine it on the floor.

"I need you to turn the generators back on," Kitty repeated slowly as if talking to a small child. She gestured to the pizzas. "Bun will help me with this." The rabbit nodded.

The generators, right. "Those would be..." Liza asked with a tiny wince. "Where exactly?" Something niggled at her brain, saying You know this.

"Oh, sorry! They're on the south side of the building. You can get to them by leaving the back way I think? We're not allowed outside, and I really don't want to upset Ted more than he already is." Kitty winced, matching her own.

Was this a trap?

It felt like a trap.

"...so I can leave? It's okay?"

"Yep!" Kitty chirped, turning to her ovens as Liza headed out of the kitchen. "As long as you come back." Liza paled at the tone, speeding up. "Be careful!" she heard before the kitchen doors shut. She sounded friendly, so she decided to leave that alone.

Liza opened and closed the door behind her, humming the lullaby absentmindedly. The flashlight bobbed in front of her as she walked. She turned the corner, training the light on the wall. She could see that the light outside was still on, so there must've been another circuit box for outside lighting. But why just the front?

Something clicked.

She froze, feeling Doll's fingers clench on her shoulders.

There was nothing but silence as she stood there. The crescent moon shone down on her while crickets chirped. She could see fireflies dancing around. While the flashlight was helpful, it just cast shadows and shapes of the thin forest sitting on the edge of the back parking lot. Nothing but underbrush and trees.

There was another noise and Liza ran.

By the time she stumbled across the fenced area, her feet hurt and any other noise was drowned out by the blood rush in her ears. The door was open. Annoyance washed out the fear when Liza realized why she lost power so fast.

There was a gauge.

"You aren't supposed to be here," Liza said to it as she started poking. Sure, it could save a few pennies, but it also seriously messed with the restaurant's electricity. She could remember Rafael raging whenever he found something like this on his latest repair project. She ended up wedging the flashlight in her shoulder to stick her arm half under the generator, but she flipped a switch. She was awarded a crunch of machinery as it rumbled to life. She unlatched the timer, examining it in curiosity. She ended up sticking it in her pocket- it looked homemade. She was honestly curious about why it was made and how it worked.

She headed up to the side door, intent on saving time. She regretted it when she heard another noise. It sounded closer this time. She paused in the doorway, taking a breath and turning to the night's darkness. "Hello?" She called out, wincing at her volume as Doll gripped her shoulders tight. "Is...there someone there?"

"Who are you talking to?"

Liza let out a shriek, swinging out. Rex dodged easily, grabbing her collar and hauling her into the safety of the restaurant in one smooth motion. His brow raised as she peered outside. After a minute of silence, she straightened. "Did you hear something outside?" she asked.

"Other than you sulking around? Not a thing."

"I wasn't sulking around, I was turning the power on." she snapped. "You're welcome."

"I didn't ask you to turn on the power, Elizabeth," Rex said. She glared at him, but the motion was half-hearted. "You seem jumpy."

There was a testy "I'm fine." Liza stuck her hands in her pockets for something to do with her hands. She probably needed to take another pill soon- her thoughts veered off when her hand brushed against something. "Actually, one more question." She pulled out the gauge, showing it to the dog. "This look familiar?"

"Uh...no. What is it?" Rex was telling the truth- he sounded confused.

"It's a gauge," Liza said, sticking it back in her pocket. "It cuts off the power to whatever it's hooked onto. It was set up to run from midnight to 6." She started walking to the kitchen, intent on telling Kitty she could use the oven again.

The dog followed, staring at her with narrowed eyes. "That's why this place runs out of power at night? Ted said it was because the pizzeria needed to save money."

Liza shook her head. "What it does is seriously mess with the restaurant's electricity and make us miserable."

"It wastes money," Doll said with a nod. "I remember...someone telling the construction company to not do something like that."

"Yeah, exactly!"

Rex let out some type of hiss. "Kitty's gonna have a fit. She hates not being able to bake. You should tell Ted."

She screeched to a stop. "W-What?"

"He's the boss. He should know somebody's been rigging stuff around here." She felt sweat roll down as she tried to give some excuse so she didn't have to talk to the animatronic who would take any excuse he had to stuff her... "Are you scared?"

Liza felt her hackles rise. "No! Look, I'll tell him tomorrow. I wanna take a look at this, see what I can find out!" She said when a frown appeared on Rex's face. "It looks homemade, so someone went to the trouble of making this!"

"Oh, you're scared."

"I am not! Look, I'm not trying to keep stuff from him-"

"What makes you think I won't tell him? In fact, I'll bet he'll be even more annoyed when I had to tell him."

Liza opened her mouth. She stopped when she recognized the tone. She sighed, staring at the ceiling and mentally wondering why me? "What do you want?" There was a chuckle and Rex nodded in a gesture that said: "Follow me."

She followed him, stiffening when they entered the dining hall. There was no sign of Ted, which made her relax. The dog made a beeline for Kitty's guitar, sitting on-stage and waiting for its owner. "You sound pretty competent with electronic stuff, right? At least, you didn't screw up with the generator. I guess you can't be too useless."

"Geez, thanks," Liza said with a roll of her eyes. She stopped when she took in the clearly broken lavender guitar. "What did Kitty do?"

"It wasn't her, it was some clueless cleaner." Rex held it out. "Tech doesn't work on us, so she can't get it fixed. You fix it and I won't tattle to Ted." Liza took it, considering the damage. Both age and the incident had caused clear damage.

"Deal."

"Good girl."

Liza rolled her eyes. She ignored the sarcasm to instead focus on the bigger issue. "Seriously, they don't work on you at all?" Rex winced, giving her his answer.

She only had the tools she could scrounge up. Rex was was surprisingly helpful, running to get the tools she needed. His clear desire to help his twin was a little refreshing. Liza couldn't help but wonder why the twins didn't act like this. The guitar was oversized for Kitty, meaning she didn't need any fine tools. Doll draped herself over Rex as they watched her in the working groove.

Half the issue was some pressure points where the guitar had been smashed. She would need to find a new casing. But, she told Rex, if Kitty was careful and didn't put too much pressure on certain areas, it would hold up. He nodded eagerly and she couldn't resist a smile at the cuteness.

"Kitty really needs to clean this more," she said when she took a rag to the inside. Much like when she swept Treasure Trove, she made a face at the dust she pulled out.

"She does!"

"The inside."

His ears flattened against his head. "Oh."

"But if nobody's working on you, I guess you guys won't know how to take care of your instruments." Tio Rafael was going to throw a fit six ways from Sunday when she told him. "I'll leave Kitty with some cleaning stuff. Tell her that if she keeps the dust out of here, it'll last longer!"

"Okay!"

Finally, she sighed. "Done!" Rex took it, batting Doll out of his lap, and played a few notes. Liza let out a weary smile at the noise, stretching in her spot. She froze when she heard music coming from down the hall.

"What are you still doing here?"

Liza scrambled to her feet when she saw Ted glaring at her. "I don't, it's only-" Exhaustion made her trip over her tongue. She glanced at the clock and paled, suddenly much more awake. "It's seven?!"

"Go on and get!"

"I'm going, I'm-" She fell with a grunt. Sitting up, Liza glanced behind her.

"Well?" The bear demanded.

"I'm stuck," she said, a little too calmly for the present situation. Ted took a look. The edge of her scarf had started to get loose and had gotten stuck under a floorboard that had been sticking up for ages. Liza stood and grabbed her scarf to try and yank it free.

"Just take off the scarf!"

"No!"

"Maybe you should just-" Rex said, moving to help her.

A tad bit of hysteria struck her. "I said NO!" she screamed, giving one hard yank.

Several things followed.

There was a very loud RIP! She staggered back at the sudden freedom, her foot catching on the end of the stage. There were several cries of "LIZA!" when she fell. She groaned when her shock cleared, looking up.

Ted stared back. Then his eyes moved up and she realized that her head was bared. Liza scrambled out of the bridal carry, falling on her butt with a grunt. She snatched her scarf off the stage where it must've fallen and wrapped it, a little too tight, around her scars. All the animatronics were staring at her. "I'm going," she said finally, pushing past Ted to disappear into the office. She came out a minute later with her stuff and disappeared into the early morning.

"She's not too bad nowadays," Rex said, handing Kitty her guitar. She squealed quietly. "I mean, she really was influenced by-"

"Not a word," he said. Rex shrugged as Ted stalked out of the room. He ignored the little girl that replaced his reflection.

"Blaming yourself for what happened to Elijah will not make the past heal." Of course, he would wander by here. The Puppet was still working at the crossword, considering the boxes. Instead of the calavera paint their creator had carefully done, it had a face full of tears and a red chin. "We need to get to work. Your twin has already warmed up to her."

"Would've preferred someone else, anybody else. Instead, you chose another night guard." Ted looked around the office. The kids' pictures were dulled with age. He chose to stare at one in particular. "You chose her."

"Time is running out."

"Hasn't she suffered enough?"

"We needed someone."

Ted nodded at the awful truth, turning to take his place on-stage. The Puppet huffed, disappearing into the box.

On the wall, a picture of a girl in yellow, standing next to her bear, stood staring.

#wip #heartbeat #heartbeat series #writblr #writeblr

[staticscreenwriting]

Heaven can wait - Billy Hargrove

Synopsis: Love letters, mothers, valentine’s day aaaand everyone’s favorite song to sing along to when drunk and emotional. 

A/N: I wrote this for @moonstruckhargrove ‘s Valentine’s Day writing challenge. I had the “love letter” prompt. What I only realized when I was done though, was that I mostly ignore the “it has to be centered around Valentine’s Day” rule. Vday is mentioned so I hope this still counts. Enjoy.

[additional note: I am German. Sometimes I get the tense wrong or make mistakes. I am useless when it comes to punctuation. Go easy on me, please.]

Heaven can wait we're only watching the skies. Hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.  

February fucking sucks. That’s the underlying truth of it all. It’s grey and dark and cold and miserable. Christmas has come and gone and the novelty of snow has worn off by the time January 12th rolls around.

Hawkins Indiana might look like a scene straight from some cheesy Hallmark greeting card but it sure doesn’t feel like it.

(Y/N) pulls her coat tighter around herself as she steps out of Hawkins High and into the harsh winter wind. The sound of crunching snow beneath her boots that brought her joy just a month earlier, now only serves to remind her that summer is so many months away.

To say she’s sick of it might just be the understatement of the century.

There’s a great bustling of people on the school grounds. They’re hanging up banners and bows and hearts made of paper and entirely too much glitter glue. It’s like middle school but worse. Because back in middle school, Valentine’s day was this cutesy tradition that was over the top cheesy and ridiculous but in the end it was just for shits and giggles anyway.

High School is a whole different story. Valentine’s Day is serious business at Hawkins High. Various committees had formed and organized all kinds of things for the big day. You can buy chocolates for your crush and have it sent to them in class. They set up a wall that students can pin their teenage love confessions to. They even organized a fucking dance for the night of Valentine’s Day.

And now it’s not like (Y/N) hates the day or the couples or the shameless commercialization of love. It’s just — a lot.

Additionally, it makes her aware just how awfully single she is and how the one guy she truly wants really only sees her as a friend. And you don’t date friends.

There’s countless movies where the main characters start out as best friends then fall in love and then live happily ever after. But that’s not reality is it ? (Y/N) parents started out as the best of friends then fell in love somewhere along the line. They got married in spring, had little (Y/N) then lived and loved until their friendship was sucked into the big black void of everyday life. Now dad lives in a bachelor pad in some high rise in Indianapolis and fucks his secretary and mom takes antidepressants as if they were tic-tacs.

They don’t show that in the movies, do they ?

So actually ever confessing her feelings for her best friend is an absolute no-go.

Speak of the devil.

Billy is leaning against his car looking like a young god, unbothered by the perpetual teenage disillusion with the future.

Like the world is his and he knows it.

“ You’re gonna get hypothermia one of these days ? “ (Y/N) approaches him and points towards his half-unbuttoned shirt.

Billy might just be the most stubborn person (Y/N) knows. He simply refuses to buy winter clothes. “ I’m not gonna stay here anyway “ is what he always says and sure, that might be the case, but he’s here now and he’s freezing his ass off. Yet he’d rather freeze than admit it and cave and buy himself a freaking winter coat.

“ I have a great immune system “ Billy replies, a smirk pulling at the edge of his lips.

A smirk that makes (Y/N)’s heart beat just a little faster.

“ Oh do you ? That why you been sneezing all day ? “

“ Shut up “ Billy replies then takes a last drag from his cigarette and throws it to the ground.

“ You got somewhere to be today ? “ He asks (Y/N), eyebrows furrowed. There’s a certain edge to his voice that immediately tells her that something is wrong. There’s something on his mind he wants to talk about. Something weighing on his shoulders.

“ Nope. Why ? “

He just nods towards the Camaro and mumbles a “ get in “ before opening his car door and slumping down on the driver’s seat.

So it’s one of those days. Where he doesn’t talk, at least not yet. (Y/N)’s learned that asking questions just makes him talk even less. He will open up, eventually. It’s just that opening up feels like admitting defeat to him. Feels like showing weakness.

It’s not and (Y/N) is trying her best to make sure he knows this. That he can allow himself to be vulnerable with her of all people. Because despite it all, she’s his best friend.

The drive is mostly silent except for the sound of Billy’s beloved Metallica tape playing through the car radio. He looks tense. His hands are gripping the steering wheel tightly and there’s a serious look on his face. It makes (Y/N) nervous. Makes her fear that a Goodbye is closer than expected. That maybe his dad is taking him away again. Somewhere else. Somewhere new. She knows there’s an end to their friendship eventually. An expiry date. All he wants is to go back to California and though she’s his best friend, (Y/N) doesn’t think she’s worth enough to make him stay. Or at least wait. To wait until she’s figured out which way to go after graduation. To see if maybe her path could lead her west. Could lead he towards California. Towards the sun. Towards the beach. Towards Billy.

Now that idea doesn’t sound all that bad to her. But would he even want her to come ?

Billy parks the car at the edge of the quarry. It’s kind of their place. Unofficially of course. But they come here whenever they need to vent. Whenever things get too bad. Whenever Neil adds another bruise to Billy’s skin. Whenever things at (Y/N)’s home feel like suffocating her.

“ Sooo … “ (Y/N) speaks up after a moment.

“ I gotta show you something “  

“ Okay ? “

For a moment Billy fumbles around in the pocket of his leather jacket, before he pulls out a very crumpled piece of paper.

“ So uh — Neil thought it was time to get rid of some of mom’s things that we still had and, you know him. Asshole didn’t wanna deal with any of it so he put all the boxes into my room. Most of it was clothes and shit that I don’t want to keep either but as I went through a box of records she left with us, I found a bunch of letters “ Billy starts to explain. His voice is laced with emotion. There’s anger and sadness and utter confusion.

It’s always hard for him to talk about his mother. When they started to become friends, (Y/N) has honestly thought she was dead, the way Billy didn’t talk about her at all. Just mentioned his mom every once in a while. It took one of Carol’s parties and a bottle of Tequila for him to come clean about the fact that his mom didn’t die, she left.

Every once in a while, when he has a really good or a really bad day, he tells (Y/N) little snippets of what his life used to be like. Back before his mom left. When he still had a proper family. And every time (Y/N) can tell just how hard it still weights on his heart.

“ Letters ? “

“ Mm-mh. Letters from my mom to a man. Some dude named Michael. Letters she never sent. Fucking love letters. “

There was never a doubt in (Y/N)’s mind, that Billy adores his mother. Not the woman who left but the one he got to know before. Whenever he talks about her it’s with love and fond memories. He seems different now though. Unsure if he really properly knew his mother to begin with.

“ She talks about how much she loves him. How she wishes she could be there with him. She mentions me too. Says I’m too young to understand. Too young to do it by myself. Fucking hell she was unhappy even when I was just a baby. I — I thought that things used to be good at one point but apparently it was shit from the start. “

(Y/N) honestly doesn’t know what to say. She wants to hold him and tell him that his mother doesn’t know the person she decided to leave behind. That it’s her loss. That she is never going to see the wonderful boy he grew up to be. The one that means so much to (Y/N). The one she loves so dearly.

Only friends don’t say that, do they ?

“ There’s tons of letters. The first one goes all the way back to when I was just 2 months old. Last one was written just days before she left. I — I wonder if she went there. I wonder if she had enough and decided she wanted to be with this guy. I wonder when she decided I was old enough to leave behind. “

He’s caught somewhere between pure rage and utter sadness. It takes over his mind like a tidal wave. Like suddenly everything he ever thought he knew is full on bullshit. His head is filled with so many what-ifs. All his happy childhood memories, where they really all that happy if his mom wished she could’ve been somewhere else ?

“ You think she might be there ? “ (Y/N) asks, wondering if she should be saying anything at all.

“ I was asking myself that question too. She must’ve gone there, right ? In all these letters she keeps talking about how all she wants is to be with this dude. It only makes sense, right ? “

“ Right. “

(Y/N) carefully considers the next words. She’s about to propose an idea that could potentially change everything. Good or bad.

But maybe some things are worth it.

“ Do you wanna go ? “

“ Go where ? “

“ Go see her in — “ (Y/N) takes the letter from his hand and reads the address out loud “ Pensacola Florida “

Billy combs his fingers through his blonde locks and lets out a sigh. “ That’s like a 10 hour drive. And for what ? “

“ Closure ? “

There’s a million different ways this could go and they’re all flashing in front of Billy’s eyes at that moment. He’s been thinking about this moment ever since his mom left and now that he finally has an idea of where she might be, he’s terrified.

“ Would you come ? “ he asks it almost timidly. As if there’s any chance she’s gonna say no. As if she wouldn’t follow him to the end of the earth and further.

“ Billy, you’re my best friend I’d come anywhere you want me to “

“ Yeah, yeah. You’re are. “ And for a moment he hesitates as if he wants to say so much more. Only he doesn’t dare speak those words.

“ So, Florida ? “

Billy takes her hand in his and squeezes it for a moment. His hands are warm and rough and (Y/N) wonders what they’d feel like touching other parts of her body. Then she scolds herself for it because friends don’t think stuff like that. Do they ?

“ Florida! “

- OOO -

The camaro is filled with the smell of cream soda and beef jerky. But really, that’s the smell of a good road trip.

Before they embarked on their epic adventure, Billy insisted they stock up on all the snacks and drinks anyone could ever consume on a 10 hour drive.

The radio is playing softly in the background as the two teens laugh and bicker about god and the world.

Hearing Billy laugh, like actually genuinely laugh, is something (Y/N) thinks she’ll never get enough of. He’s got the most radiant smile, the most infectious laugh. It’s a downright shame the world doesn’t give him more reasons to do it. And if we’re being real honest here, (Y/N) takes a little pride in being the one that can get the laughs and smiles from him.

“ So what did you tell your parents ? “ Billy asks then follows it up with a “ Twizzler please “

(Y/N) pulls a twizzler out of the package and holds it out towards Billy’s mouth, basically feeding the sweet treat to him.

“ Ah you know, It’s my weekend with dad so mom thinks I’m there. Dad thinks I’m at the Valentine’s Day dance. It’s no big deal, really “

“ Sorry about that by the way “ Billy mumbles around the bit of his Twizzler.

“ ‘bout what ? “

“ Making you miss the dance. “

(Y/N) scoffs. As is she was gonna go to the dance anyway. Going to prom with your friends was one thing but going to a Valentine’s Day dance by yourself was just sad.

“ Oh yeah because being single at the Valentine’s Day dance is totally something I was looking forward to. “

“ Ah, I’m sure you could’ve found some guy to take you. “

“ But it’s a Valentine’s Day dance, Billy. You don’t want some guy to take you. You want the guy. “

Billy raises his eyebrow in question before taking a sip from his cream soda.

“ So what’s the guy like then ? “ he asks.

You. (Y/N) thinks. But she knows that even if anything were to ever happen between them, Billy isn’t the type of guy to shoq up to school dances. He’s not one for big dramatic gestures. He’s just Billy. And that’s enough.

And anyway, a road trip to Florida fueled by cream soda and twizzlers sounds way more exciting than some school dance anyway.

“ Billy Idol “

“ What ? Really ? “

“ Oh yeah. He’s hot, he makes great music and he’s got the whole bad boy thing going for him”.

Billy shakes his head in disbelief though (Y/N) can just make out the hint of a smile pulling at the corner of his lips. Billy doesn’t smile a lot but when he does oh god it’s marvelous.

“ That all it takes ? Some bleached hair and a leather jacket ? “

“ And really tight leather pants “

“ Of course, can’t forget those “.

A silence settles upon the two. Thick with words unspoken. By now the snow has vanished from the surroundings and (Y/N) can’t help but feel somehow liberated.

Like she’s escaped the winter and the cold and the miserable truth that with the actual spring comes their graduation and with that the end of her time with Billy. It’s like she gets the warmth and the sun and the joy without the heartbreak.

Maybe this is what they need, she thinks, one last adventure before the inevitably have to say goodbye.

“ Can we go to the beach ? “ (Y/N) asks, images flooding her head of burying her feet in the warm sand and forgetting about the grey cloud above her hometown for just a moment.

“ Yeah. Yeah we can “

(Y/N) takes another sip of her drink “ Can we also go to Disney World ?“

Billy doesn’t answer but he smiles. A full on smile. It doesn’t stretch upon his entire face but it’s big enough to earn itself the title of a proper smile. And that’s all she needs, really. This is better than any ride at any theme park could ever be.

- OOO -

The setting sun casts the sky in vibrant shades of pink and orange. It’s like a picture from a postcard and though (Y/N)’s seen many sunsets in her life, she knows this one is her favorite. There’s something magical about it.

They’re parked on the edge of a gas station parking lot. Being on the road for hours after a rather stressful day at school, they’re both exhausted and decided it’s best to rest for the night.

Billy is finishing a bag of beef jerky as (Y/N) switches through the different radio stations looking for something to listen to. Looking for a station that’s playing anything but the Flashdance soundtrack.

“ Let us die young or let us live forever

We don't have the power, but we never say never

Sitting in a sandpit, life is a short trip

The music's for the sad man”

“ Oh my god I love this song “ (Y/N) exclaims as the words to Forever Young echo through the Camaro.

“ I hate this song “

“ Oh come oooon now. It’s catchy. “

Billy only rolls his eyes “catchy doesn’t mean good”.

“ No but catchy means I get to sing along “

And she does. At the very top of her lungs. She belts out the words to the chorus like her life depends on it. There’s so much joy on her face though, that Billy can’t even be mad. In fact, he finds himself admiring her and her unwavering love for life. The way she just lets go and allows herself to be goofy and ridiculous. He wishes he could let go and just — be.

“ FOREEEEEVER YOUUUUUUNG I WANT TO BEEE FOREEEEEEVER YOUNG. Come on Billy. I know you want to sing along “.

“ I don’t sing. “

“ Nah. Bullshit. You’re just embarrassed. I bet you can’t sing “

“ Neither can you “

“ I know. So what ? It’s just us, right ? Just you and I. Who cares ? “

And really, who does care ? Maybe this trip was his awakening. Maybe he can let go when it is just the two of them. Him and (Y/N). (Y/N) who is honest but never judges him unfairly. Who lets him be the person he is. Always. Who never tries to change him. Not even the bad parts. Not even the really shitty parts he wants to change himself.

So he let’s go. For the first time in a long time. And not in the way of getting blackout drunk. But in letting himself be ridiculous. Be a dumb teenager singing along to a dumb song. He lets himself be goofy. Allows himself to be, well — young.

“ So many dreams swinging out of the blue. We let them come truuuue ! “

“ Hah ! I knew it! You even know the words !”

And when he catches the pure and unfiltered happiness in (Y/N)’s eyes and the huge smile spreading across her face, he thinks maybe this isn’t so bad. Maybe it’s worth it.

So he grabs her hand and their voices mix as the belt along to the chorus.

“ Forever young, I want to be forever young. Do you really want to live forever, forever and ever ? “

It’s like magic caught in moment. Like love caught inside a ‘79 Chevrolet Camaro. And Billy never wants it to end.

- OOO -

The outside world is only illuminated by the distant glow of the gas station’s neon signs as (Y/N) wakes up in the back of the Camaro. Billy had generously offered her the more comfortable sleeping space while he closed his eyes still sitting in the driver’s seat which, (Y/N) notices, is now deserted.

She spots him leaned against the front of the car, cigarette in hand. The magic from earlier is gone and has made room for all the anxiety of what’s to come once they reach their destination.

Slowly (Y/N) climbs out of the car and stands next to Billy.

“ You alright ? “

He doesn’t say anything for a moment, just takes a drag and blows the cigarette smoke into the nightair.

“ I honestly have no fucking clue anymore “ Billy scoffs, letting his tongue wet his lips in unease.

(Y/N) notices a can of beer in the hand that isn’t holding onto the cigarette.

“ Have you been drinking ? No judgement or anything just if you did I can drive tomorrow morning “.

Billy shakes his head “ Nah. I uh — I thought it would help settle my nerves but it doesn’t. Only had a sip. I just — I’m terrified, (Y/N) “

It’s unusual for Billy to tell anyone how he feels so (Y/N) knows this is special. That this really means something. That this situation must weight so heavy on his heart.

“ I’ve been imagining this day for so long. Since the moment she left really. And now that it’s actually happening I don’t know how to feel. I have — I have no idea how to react when we find her. If we even find her. Who knows she might not even be there. Do I talk to her ? What do I tell her ? I don’t know anything anymore. I just — she’s my mom and she just left “

There’s a sniffle, then another one and another. And just like that Billy comes undone right in front of (Y/N). His face shows pure agony. Deep sadness. Absolute confusion. All at once. There’s anger and pain and heartache. If she could she’d take it all from him and live with his pain if it meant he never had to feel it again.

But she can’t.

So she does the one thing she can do. Show him she’s there with him every step of the way. The good, the bad and most of all the ugly.

She softly leans her head against Billy’s shoulder as he drops the cigarette stump into the can of beer gone stale by now. His arm finds its way around (Y/N)’s shoulder who promptly links her fingers with his.

Even with all the misery and heartache and angst, a little of the magic comes back suddenly. With soft touches and hearts filled with love for the other.

“ Florida is nice “ (Y/N) says as the both watch the sun slowly rising above the horizon.

“ California is better “ Billy replies “ You’d like it “.

“ You should show me one day. I uh — I applied to some colleges on the west coast so … “

Billy looks down towards the girl cuddled into his arms and it’s like a spark ignites deep inside his heart. And it sounds like some absolute pussy shit. Like something Harrington would probably write in one of his cheesy letters to the Wheeler girl. But it’s true.

No matter how much he tries to deny it, the future absolutely scares him. But a future with (Y/N) doesn’t sound so bad. It sounds comforting. It sounds like something he’d very much want.

“ Would you want to go ? “

“ To California ? “

Billy nods.

“ Yeah obviously “.

“ With me ? “

It’s (Y/N)’s turn to nod now. She wants to say so much. Mostly that she loves him and that she wants nothing more than to go about this life with him. But she doesn’t because some things mean too much to say them out loud, even if there’s nothing you’d rather do.

“ I’d like that too. Very much “ he tells her “ You’re pretty much the only person I don’t get sick of. And I — that’s pretty neat “.

Billy Hargrove has never told anyone that he loves them. He thinks this is as close as he’s ever come before.

As he looks down at her, illuminated by the sunrise and the pink neon sign advertising 70ct slushies, Billy thinks she looks phenomenal in pink. He thinks she’s probably the prettiest sight he’s ever seen.

And he wants to kiss her, so badly. With every fiber of his being. But this isn’t the time or the place. She deserves better than kissing this version of him. The tired, anxiety stricken mess.

So he’s going to wait. Even if it goes against everything in him.

“ You ready to get back on the road ? “ he asks instead and prays to every higher power that he hasn’t just wasted his chance.

(Y/N) nods again and the magic is gone.

- OOO -

There’s a pale blue house at the end of a cul-de-sac. It has a big front yard with a swing set and a white picket fence surrounding the property. Ther mailbox is white and splattered with the same blue paint of the house. In bold black letters it tells everyone that this house belongs to the Stone-Hargrove household.

Billy and (Y/N) sit in the Camaro, parked just across the street from the house and observe it closely. No one is home right now, that much is obvious. The lights are off and no one’s been seen through the big front window yet. There’s no cars in the driveway and everything is quiet.

“ Should we leave ? “ Billy asks and nervously wipes his sweaty hands on his jeans.

“ Do you want to leave ? “

He thinks for a moment then shakes his head.

“ Then we won’t leave.”

While Billy doesn’t dare take his eyes off the house, (Y/N) reads through the letters Billy has handed to her. They’re all varying in sizes and shape. Some of the love confessions are written down neatly on stationary paper with little flowers around the edges. Some are hastily scribbled onto napkins or the back of some promotional flyers. They all have something in common though, they were never sent.

As she reads through them, (Y/N) can’t help but imagine the woman writing them all those years ago. A woman who seemed all but happy in her situation. A woman who so desperately wanted to give her heart to the little boy she had put into this world. Only her heart was never her’s to give away. It already belonged to the man in Florida.

She mentions Billy several times and it really does sound like she loves him. Only not enough. (Y/N) thinks that maybe life isn’t that easy. That it isn’t entirely black and white. That some women aren’t born mothers. That you can try and try and do your best but hat maybe some aren’t meant to be moms.

And yet she can’t help but feel a little resentment towards her. For breaking Billy’s heart.

(Y/N) gets shaken from her daydream as she hears Billy’s breath hitch. She looks at him, then follows his glance towards the house.

There’s a white Jeep Wagoneer pulling into the driveway. A man gets out, salt and pepper hair and smile on his face. He looks kind. Like he’s jumped right out of a 70’s tv family. Your poster-child for the perfect suburban dad.

He’s followed by a woman and at that point Billy’s breath speeds up a little. There’s no doubt in either of the teen’s minds that this is her. She has the same dark blonde hair as Billy. The same smile. Only she seems to show it far more often. She opens the backdoor of the car and a kid jumps out. A girl about Max’s age, maybe younger.

That’s the exact moment Billy’s heart sinks.

She looks just like a girl version of him when he was that age. It’s like looking into a damn mirror they’re so similar. Only they aren’t are they ? Because she’s happy and smiling and driving around a perfect suburban neighbourhood with her mom and dad and they’re smiling and they’re happy and the love each other. And she doesn’t have to ask herself every single fucking night why she wasn’t good enough for her mom to stay. And she doesn’t have to fear coming home to a dad who hates her guts. No she doesn’t.

Billy did. Billy does.

And for a moment he feels resentment cursing through him. Until he feels the soft touch of (Y/N)’s hand against his as she gently pulls his hand off the steering wheel and links her fingers with his.

It’s not the kids fault. Billy has to remind himself. And this woman ? She may have given birth to him but she wasn’t his mother. This was a different woman living a different life. A life that didn’t involve him. A life separate from him. From all the memories they made.

“ That’s not my mom “ he says so timidly, so softly, (Y/N) almost doesn't hear.

“ My mom made me blueberry pancakes on sunday mornings and sang along to Elvis on the radio. “ he continues and sighs deeply. “ My mom took me to Chuck E. Cheese’s every first friday of the month. She told my bedtime stories about dragons and heroes. She built a birdhouse with me for the blackbirds that always hung around in our garden. She took me to the beach whenever possible and helped me find the coolest seashells. This isn’t my mom. My mom loved me and she stopped being my mom when she didn’t. “

And then he turns to (Y/N) and there’s tears in his eyes and she so desperately wants to tell him she loves him but maybe this isn’t the right moment. He deserves better. He deserves an I love you that doesn’t come in a moment of sadness. He deserves an I love you that comes with a moment of magic.

“ My mom loved me. She did. I know this and that’s enough. “ Billy says and smiles. (Y/N)wonders if he says those words to her or if they’re meant for himself. In the end, it doesn’t matter.

“ Let’s go to the beach “ Billy suggests and squeezes (Y/N) hand.

“ Yeah, let’s “

- OOO -

(Y/N) stands by the shore, boots long forgotten by the car as her feet are buried in the warm wet sand. The crashing of waves sends a calm through her. There’s no one but them at this small patch of beach. The sand isn’t perfectly white and the water isn’t crystal clear but it’s perfect. She’s missed the warmth and the sun. It feels good to be here, even better now that Billy has voiced that he’d like for her to come with him to California.

Maybe this can be a weekly thing soon. Them hanging out by the beach, away from the cold and the misery and the heartbreak.

Billy takes a last drag from his cigarette before he pushes himself off the car and walks towards (Y/N).

She looks phenomenal against the backdrop of the ocean. It’s his two favorite things in one place. He thinks that maybe this trip meant so much more than they had initially planned. It made him realize what actually matters to him.

If (Y/N) thinks he’s good enough then there might just be some truth to it. Because she’s entirely too good for him and yet she chooses to drive halfway across the country with him over a Highschool Dance.

He softly touches her hand and pulls her towards the car. Brushing off as she rises her eyebrows in confusion.

“ I’m sorry I made you miss the dance so uh — I think I owe you one “ Billy says. (Y/N) is sure she can just make out a slight blush settling on his cheeks.

“ Billy wha— “

He lifts up a finger as a sign for her to wait, then leans into the car and presses play on the radio, turning the volume all the way up.

Chicago’s “You’re the inspiration” sounds through the air and (Y/N) can’t keep herself from laughing.

“ Didn’t take you for someone who listens to that kind of music “ she jokes and grants Billy a teasing smirk.

“ Ah you know “ Billy says and shrugs “ the girls like it “.

“ Oh really ? “

“ Mmh “ Billy replies then pulls (Y/N) closer settling his hands on her hips as she wraps hers around his neck in return.

“ You’re just a big softy on the inside, huh ? I knew it !”

Billy smiles for a moment then grows serious again. He clears his throat once, twice, then speaks up again. There’s the force of a storm hidden in his eyes. And warmth. And love.

“ Look I — I gotta tell you something. And please don’t interrupt me because if I don’t do this now I’ll get the jitters and never say it. “

The words leaving his lips send (Y/N) heart beating faster.

“ I’m in love with you, (Y/N). I love you. I have to tell you this because the whole thing with my mother’s letters just made me realize that I don’t want to live my life constantly regretting not telling you how much you mean to me. I don’t want to settle for someone I don’t want just because I was too chicken shit to admit my feelings to you. And I know you think that friends falling in love can never last and I know that your parents’ failed marriage has you cynical and I know that this might not be forever but it is now and I honestly can’t see me loving anyone else. I don’t want to regret a single moment not spent with you. And I sure as hell don’t want my future children to feel like my heart is someplace else. I love you, (Y/N). I think you’re by far the coolest person of all time and also your ass is almost as great as mine. I thought you should know. “

There’s no fireworks or butterflies. Nothing fundamentally changes as he speaks those words and yet it feels different. Better. Like there’s a weight lifted and they can finally breathe again.

“ You think I’m cool ? “ (Y/N) asks. There’s a smile on her face that makes Billy’s heart stop and beat faster all at once.

“ That’s what you took from my monologue right now ? That’s it ? “

“ Billy ? “

“ Hmm ? “

“ I love you too. Happy Valentine’s Day. “

It’s all she says but it’s enough. Because he’s enough. For her. And maybe even for himself.

If there ever was a moment to kiss her it’s now. He thinks this is what she deserves. A beach and a love song and a sunset. Magic in a moment.

It’s slow and the air around them practically sizzles with electricity as they move closer. Every sense is registering what’s happening. Billy closes his eyes and feels her soft skin under his hands. He can smell the salty ocean air in her hair.

It’s but a whisper of a touch at first. When her lips meet his and, fuck does it sound cheesy, but feels like so much more than any other kiss ever did. Because she’s his girl.

And she doesn’t taste of cotton candy and miracles but coca cola and twizzlers and he still loves kissing her.

She’s soft and warm and she feels like home. Like a home he never knew he needed but now realizes he wants so desperately. And it’s not California or Hawkins or any other god forsaken place. It’s a person and a feeling and a lifetime of ordinary moments sprinkled with those few magical ones.

“ I wanna be forever young with you, Billy Hargrove “ (Y/N) whispers against his lips. She wonders if that makes sense.

To Billy it makes perfect sense.

- OOO -

They’re almost back in Hawkins, when (Y/N) pretty much forces Billy to pull off at the gas station to stock up on more sodas. That and she really has to pee.

Music is softly playing through the radio as Billy’s eyes fall onto a piece of paper placed on the passenger seat. He noticed (Y/N) had been writing something down during the last hour or so of their ride but hasn’t really paid any thought to what it might be.

Now that the opportunity presents itself though, he can’t help but feel curious. And yes it might be a little bit of an invasion of privacy but it’s literally right there next to him and it’s not like she’s tried to hide it or anything.

So with one last look out the window, he opens the folded piece of paper and begins to read.

“ Dear Mrs. Stone or Hargrove or Stone-Hargrove,

my name is (Y/N) and I’m a 18 year old Highschool student at Hawkins High. You don’t know me and honestly that’s fine, this isn’t about me. This is about Billy. The son you left behind all those years ago. I’m not going to judge you or tell you that you were wrong in doing so (even though you were). I have never been in a position like yours. I am, however, gonna tell you about the boy you abandoned, because he’s phenomenal. 

To begin with, he’s absolutely beautiful. Breathtakingly handsome. That comes with an ego, sure. But it makes him charming. So very charming. He’s smart too, even though he won’t admit it. I know he regularly steals books from my bookshelf only to replace them days later once he devoured them. I know this but I don’t mention it because I know it’s something he wants to keep to himself. I fear there’s a part of him that thinks he needs to be the best at something or he isn’t allowed to take pride in it. I think it’s his dad’s fault (Neil is still an asshole by the way).

Billy has a plethora of faults and issues but for every bad personality trait there’s 10 more that I love about him. He’s so genuinely human, faults and all. He’s not trying to be someone else just for the sake of fitting in. I think you broke his heart when you left but he’s trying so hard to hold it together. For his sake and mine.

Billy has a great taste in music. He’s funny. Genuinely funny. And fiercely protective.

It takes a lot to make him open up but once he does, my god it’s worth it. There’s so much love in him it’s breathtaking. It’s all consuming.

I wish you had taken the time to get to know the person he is, then again maybe he wouldn’t be the Billy he is now if it weren’t for you breaking his heart. Maybe he wouldn’t be my Billy.

Bottom line is, Billy Hargrove is so many things, but he’s not defined by the mistakes of his parents and their inability to love him the way he deserves.

This is my love letter to the boy who owns my heart and the boy you chose to leave behind to find yours.

Regards,

(Y/N)”

And it’s then, that Billy realizes she’s right. That when spring comes around and he’s free to leave his father’s home, that he won’t be defined by another person’s choice anymore. That he gets to decide who he is. That he gets to be goofy and ridiculous and silly. That he gets to make mistakes without having to fear repercussions.

That he gets to love.

That he gets to be loved in return.

As he glances out the window again he catches sight of (Y/N) walking back towards the car and as their eyes meet, she smiles that smile that makes his entire world seem just a little brighter.

And looking at her now, he can’t wait for their future to begin.

February fucking sucks. That’s the underlying truth of it all. It’s grey and dark and cold and miserable. But february too will pass and make room for march then april. For spring and warmth and a future that’s uncertain in so many ways. But a future he knows for sure, will be filled with love.

#billy hargrove imagine #billy hargrove fanfic #billy hargrove fanfiction #stranger things imagines #stranger things imagine #stranger things fanfiction #stranger things fanfic #moonstruckhargrovevday

[fanfic-inator795]

RotTMNT Oneshot: So, Two Mutants Are Waiting For a Bus-

(Also on AO3 if you feel like leaving a kudos/comment)

Plot:  They may have had completely different lives, but they still met the same fate. As someone who had managed to just recently find his way to the brighter side of living life as a mutant, Bullhop decides to give a bit of advice to the worm man sitting next to him, whether he wants it or not.

((Another fic I've been wanting to write for a while. Gotta love those character parallels ^v^ Enjoy!))

The night he mutated, Stanley hadn’t managed to grab much from his apartment in his panic. He’d already knocked over several trash cans and mailboxes on the way there, alarming people enough to start screaming for police. The sirens in the distance didn’t exactly lower his anxiety levels either. So, he just grabbed some clothes and undergarments from his dresser, not caring if they would still fit him, some leftovers and cans of food, and his spare change jar. He knew none of it wouldn’t last him very long, but at least it was something.

This time, however, packing his belongings had been much less stressful. ...Mostly because he didn’t have as much. Donatello had given him a homemade smartphone at the beginning of Bullhop Appreciation Day, and using that along with some money the turtles had scrounge up for him, he bought a bus ticket that would take him on a seventy-two hour drive straight to Etobicoke. Afterwards, he grabbed a few things from his tent before digging up a couple more coats and blankets (as well as a new hat and some shoes) from various dumpsters. He had smiled when he was able to find ones that just barely managed to fit his new physique, calling it a lucky break, or perhaps fate itself providing a sign that he was on the right path.

With everything he cared to take with him folded up and placed in a tote bag (save for one thing, which he kept hidden under his coat), Stanley - or Bullhop, as he was enjoying being called now - made his way to the bus station, managing to get there without knocking too much over. Though, he did accidentally dent one car but he left a note so, it was probably fine.

Sighing, Bullhop sat down on the bench, making sure to adjust his hat so it hid his horns. He still had about half an hour to wait, and since he wanted to save his phone battery for the trip, he resigned himself to just sitting and waiting. There were things he wanted to think about anyway, like how he was going pitch his ‘mutant ballet’ idea. What would his first show be? Maybe some sort of mutant version of Swan Lake? That could be a crowd pleaser! Or maybe-

The sudden coo of a bird followed by a loud yelp was enough to bring Bullhop out of his brief brainstorming session. “Oh for the love of-! How many of you am I going to have to barbeque before you feather-brains learn to take! A! HINT!” He turned just in time to blinded by a bright light.

Bullhop cringed, quickly covering his eyes. The pigeon screeched, flapping away as the smell of smoke filled the night air. “And STAY AWAY! You pest!” a man shouted after it. Daring to risk a peek, Bullhop slowly moved his hands away from his face.

Standing just outside of the station’s light, Bullhop could see a small figure - REALLY small! - with what looked like a big head and an even bigger fist that was still glowing slightly. “Whoa… That’s some bird zapper you’ve got there.”

The figure scoffed. “It does more than just zap birds, moron.”

“Oh… So, I guess the bird zapping is a bonus then? Heh…” Even in the dark, Bullhop could tell the small man was scowling back at his awkward smile. “Sorry… You okay?”

“I’ll be fine ,” the man insisted as he started walking - no, crawling towards the bus stop bench, dragging his giant fist behind him, “Once I get back to my apartment and get some shuteye…” Yet another awful day had come and gone for him… First his latest plan for destroying his teenage enemies was deemed a failure by his teammates, all of them refusing to even give it a chance. Then his so-called allies simply talked over him during their brainstorming session (because apparently their plans were sooooo much better!), leaving him rejected and aggravated once again. For the cherry on the horrible day sundae, he had begun craving his favorite Chinatown restaurant late in the afternoon, deciding he deserved a bit of a treat. Unfortunately, the place didn’t deliver, nor was it near any bus stops. He was ignored by taxis, and by the time he traveled through the various obstacles of New York, the restaurant was closed.

‘And now,’ he thought to himself, ‘I have to make small-talk with this bozo. Great. Juuuust great…’ As he got closer, Bullhop couldn’t help but gape a bit at the sight of him. Even after seeing plenty of mutants at Big Mama’s gala, he was still a bit shocked by something so drastic.

The man in front of him was a worm. A literal worm! With a purple jacket and poofy, well coiffed blonde hair that seemed sort of familiar, but Bullhop couldn’t quite place it. The worm narrowed his green eyes. “And what are you looking at, kid?”

“N-Nothing!” Bullhop replied, quickly looking away, “Just, uh… So, you uh… You got mutated too, eh?”

“Gee, what was your first clue?” the worm retorted as he crouched down slightly. With one mighty jump, he was able to hop onto bench. He also squished himself in the process, thanks to the giant fist, which Bullhop could now see was in actuality a metal gauntlet.  But the worm recovered before Bullhop could even offer to help get it off him.

“Right… Well, uh- Just, hang in there, buddy.”

“...” The worm turned to give him an incredulous stare. Bullhop winced. Okay, yep, definitely poor choice of words. “‘Hang in there’? HANG IN THERE?! Are you serious?! We’re both mutated freaks and all you can say is ‘hang in there’?!”

“I’m sorry!” Bullhop said quickly, holding his hands up in defense. The worm didn’t raise his gauntlet, but he sure looked like he wanted to use it. “I-I just meant, I know what it’s like to have rough days, a-and what it’s like to suddenly get turned into a mutant! But it gets better, I promise!”

The worm scoffed, looking away. “You have no idea what you’re talking about, kid… And even if you did, I highly doubt our problems are the same. You got mutated into a huge, strong, muscular bull! And what did I get? I got turned into, into-!” He stopped, gritting his teeth. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. None of it will matter! Not once I get my revenge for what they did to me!”

“Look, I- Wait, ‘they’? And, revenge?” Did he really mean-?

“And when I, Warren Stone, DO finally get my revenge, I’ll be praised as a hero by all the other freaks in this city!” Warren shouted, grinning wickedly, “And then it’ll be those teenage mutant ninja turtles that’ll have their names forgotten!”

“Wait wait WAIT!” Bullhop shouted, waving his hands, “You’ve got it all wrong! The Turtles aren’t the bad guys here, they-” He blinked. “...Wait, you’re Warren Stone? I was wondering what happened to you, but I just thought you retired or-”

“SEE?!” Warren screamed suddenly, making the bull flinch once more (and this time, nearly taking the whole back of the bench down with him). “This is what I mean?! I’ve been FORGOTTEN! Disgraced! Turned into a WORM that no one can even recognize! AND IT’S ALL THOSE STINKIN’ TURTLES’ FAULT!!!”

The worm’s voiced echoed through the nearly empty bus station. A worker behind the ticket counter glanced up from her magazine and a homeless gentleman a few benches back stirred a bit, but other than that, it would seem his only audience was the shocked bull sitting beside him.

“...You’re wrong,” Bullhop began, “And, I know that’s not what you want to hear right now but, I’m also not gonna just sit here and let you insult my friends.”

Warren raised an eyebrow. “Friends?! But they’re the ones who-!”

“It wasn’t their fault!” Bullhop insisted, “The things that mutated us are the mosquitos! And one night, a whole bunch of them showed up to my hotel! Er, well, not really my hotel but… But it felt like mine in a way, you know.” Smiling softly, Bullhop reached into his coat and took out his Bellhop of the Month plaque. It was one of two things, the other being his tattered uniform, that he had decided to keep from his old life. Just because he was starting fresh didn’t mean he had to leave everything behind.

Warren stretched up a bit to get a good look at the plaque. “...That’s a really bad picture,” he stated.

“I wasn’t ready for the flash. Anyway, the Turtles showed up and tried to catch all the mosquitoes before they could bite anyone, and- well…”

“Aaaand they screwed up,” Warren finished for him, his expression now flat, “Because they’re idiots.”

Bullhop scowled. “Hey, they may not be the brightest guys, or even the most observant, but they’re not idiots. And they really did try to do their job, it just wasn’t enough. But, because of their mistake, my life was changed forever. I went from being the best bellhop in town to being a big, clumsy bull that couldn’t even take two steps without tripping all over himself or wrecking something.”

But despite this unfortunate fact, he still smiled as he thought about the past couple weeks. “But then, weeks later, the Turtles found me again, and they… They wanted to help me. To make up for their mistake, and to help me get back up on my feet. And they were so nice, without wanting anything in return! They let me stay with them, gave me food, introduced me this really cool dance game which, somehow, gave me both great dance skills AND confidence! And I was someone who had NEVER danced before! But now, well, I don’t want to brag but-” Seeing the glare Warren was giving him, Bullhop decided to just get to his point.

“Yeah, they sorta messed up my life but, but they also cared enough to help me find a new one! And now I’m going back home to Canada! I’m going to dance and find my own stage and, heh, and just not care if I end up stumbling all over it! Because I’m happy now, even as a bull, and I’m sure if you just-” Warren growled, suddenly turning away again. “...A-And I’m sure if you just asked them, they’d help you find a new life too? And, um, help you become happy with… being a mutant?” Bullhop winced again. Not exactly the most inspiring way to end a speech, and he didn’t need to see the worm’s face to know it.

“Wow,” Warren said quietly after a moment, scoffing, “You really don’t know anything, do you, kid? I don’t want another life, I want my life! My OLD life! You were some nobody working in a hotel, I was a somebody! The face of a city! The guy who brought people the news! The handsomest newscaster on local tv! You’ve never won an award like that! You’ve never been on tv or been famous enough to be recognized on the street! You DEFINITELY don’t know what it’s like to suddenly only be a few inches tall! You-! You-!” His tiny body was practically shaking with rage. “You’re not even from this country so what do you know?!”

“WHOA! Okay,” Bullhop said, glaring fully at the worm now, “Are you REALLY going to go there?”

“Ugh, fine, that last bit was rude, even for a New Yorker,” Warren grumbled. He rubbed his eyes, forcing his anger down somewhat. “But the rest of my points still stand. We might have both lost everything in our lives, but I had a lot harder to fall. So you don’t get to tell me that it’s all going to be okay, not when you and I have clearly had different experiences when it comes to this whole mutant thing.” His glare deepened. “And as for your friends… Hmph, those turtles can try to make up for their ‘mistakes’ all they want, but they’re still a menace. And I’m still going to be the one to take them out once and for all.”

“...Have you ever considered podcasts?”

Warren blinked. “Excuse me?”

“Podcasts,” Bullhop repeated, “I mean, I know it’s hard for you to get a job on tv now but, with a podcast, no one would know you were a worm, if that’s what you wanted. And if you didn’t mind people knowing, you could make that part of your gimmick. Help you stand out, you know?”

Warren just gave him another flat stare. “I used to be on tv. Podcasts are beneath me.”

“I dunno,” Bullhop shrugged, “A lot of podcasters get pretty famous.” A cold silence fell between them. One of the old lights above flickered as an oozesquito bumped into it. Bullhop watched it, not too worried. You couldn’t get mutated twice, right? The thing looked like it was at the end of its life anyway, just bumping into a bright, harsh light over and over.

Warren watched it too. Thinking about it, he did recall the feeling of something pinching that fateful day… But those turtles had still been around too. They had to be related to the oozesquitos somehow, they just had to! Maybe the purple one created them or, or maybe they released them onto the city as a prank and only started trying to wrangle them up when they got bored with the results. Whatever the reason, it had to be something. It just had to be!

Still, he wondered as he watched the bug above, out of all the millions of people in the city, why did it have to bite him? Why did it have to change him?

“I get why you hate them,” Bullhop started again, “I hated them too… But they really are good guys trying their best. And I mean, they are younger than both of us so… I feel like we could cut them a bit of slack. Teenagers don’t really deserve to get destroyed for dumb teen mistakes, even ones as big as this.” He paused for a moment as a thought crossed his mind. “So what did they say?”

“What?” Warren asked, looking back up at him.

“When you told them that they were responsible to what happened to you. What did they say?”

Warren huffed. “Those punks don’t listen when I threaten them and explain my plans. I’m lucky if I can even get them to remember my name!”

Bullhop blinked slowly. “...So they don’t know.”

“...If they don’t listen to threats and screaming,” Warren countered, glaring once again - though by this point, he hardly had any energy left to make it effective, “What makes you think they’ll listen if I tell them that they’re the reason I’m like this and that they should ‘be good guys’ and help me find my new purpose or whatever?”

The bull shrugged. “You never know if you don’t try, and maybe if they saw you less as an enemy-”

“ Greatest enemy.”

“-Greatest enemy and more as just a fellow mutant that need help, they wouldn’t ignore you.”

“I highly doubt that,” he sneered. It was just as Warren thought, this guy had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. And even if he was right, Warren was certainly not about to go crawling to his enemies and beg for their help.

His life was sad enough as is.

Speaking of which- His empty stomach growled as he placed a hand on it. Warren took a moment to think. He was pretty sure he still had some leftovers in his fridge, though he couldn’t remember how old they were. Maybe if he could sneak into his landlord’s office and grab some of his bread-

“Here.” “Huh?” Suddenly, a package of turkey jerky was placed in front of him. “I know it’s not the greatest but uh, I figured I probably shouldn’t eat beef jerky anymore,” he heard Bullhop explain. He had been saving it for the bus ride, hoping to make it stretch till their first rest stop but- “You can have some if you want. And uh, I’ve got some cheese-flavored potato chips too.”

Warren was silent for a moment. “You can keep the jerky,” he finally replied, “But I’ll take some of the chips.” Bullhop handed him the entire bag.

It wasn’t long before the bus Bullhop had been waiting for came rolling towards them. “By the way,” he said, a pleasant smile back on his face, “The name’s Stanley, but my friends call me Bullhop. If you’re ever heading up north for whatever reason and need a place to stay, call me up, eh?”

“...Seriously? Bullhop?” Warren shook his head. “And you used to be a bellhop. Just… Wow.”

“Hey, it works.” And if it really was going to be his new name for the rest of his life… Well, Stanley was just fine with that.

The air became a bit smokey once again as the old bus pulled up. Warren watched as Bullhop boarded, tripping on the steps and nearly taking the whole door off. It almost made him chuckle.

“Good luck, kid,” he mumbled, “You’re going to need it…”

Once it was clear no one else was going to board, the bus drove away, leaving Warren all alone once more. His eyes glanced back up at the light, but found no oozesquito. Instead it was lying flat on its back, dead on the ground with the bright green ooze within it now dark.

Warren narrowed his eyes as his tiny hands crumbled up the chip bag. It didn’t matter if he had lost everything… He would make sure to repay those annoying turtles in full. Ruin their lives before destroying them slowly and painfully. Maybe it wouldn’t turn him back into a handsome human newscaster and give him back his fans, but it would still be satisfying. It would still be a victory of sorts, and that would be enough.

The Bullhops of the city could let themselves become content with their new freakish lives, but Warren Stone was going to fight! He clenched his mystically-enhanced fist tightly, smirking at the burning power he felt within it. He focused on its power and warmth, which allowed him to also ignore the chilly evening wind that was starting to come in..

Yes… Bullhop may have found his own path with dance games and trips back home, but this. THIS was Warren’s path, he was sure of it. It was his new purpose in life, and he was going to reach his victory and destroy his reptilian foes, one way or another…

THE END

#rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #warren stone #bullhop #fanfiction #oneshot #my writing #once again I'm that person in the fandom that writes about the minor characters it would seem. lol

[italicwatches]

Comic Girls - Episode 01

Oh, fuck it. I was gonna watch this sooner or later, and while I have a lot of options on the board, I really want some craft anime right now, and I’ve got a good action/slice-of-life back and forth rhythm going too. So anyways let’s watch some girls make manga and probably have plausibly deniable romantic feelings towards each other. It’s Comic Girls, episode 01! Here we GO!

-We begin, at…A crosswalk, in Fukushima, on a quiet day. A small pink-haired moeblob sits in a car, being driven along, until a cherry blossom hits her cheek. She is very pink and very moeblob. …And then she learns that her latest manga submission did badly, when the editor gives her a call. How badly, you might ask?

-She’s bottom of the pack. The readers hate the art, the plot, the writing, and think the author can’t write high school girls worth jack shit. So our moeblob, having gotten dropped off from the car, just straight up collapses. Alas, poor Kaos-sensei, who cannot write high school girls despite being a high school girl.

-I’m not entirely sure how she ends up at the steps of a shrine, with a small army of stray cats coming to comfort her. The editor can tell this girl has potential, but god, she needs such thicker skin if she is ever going to survive…And there’s only one way to get her through a crucible without her cracking.

-Hard cut to some other girl getting a similar offer. Why yes, it’s an all-female manga artist dorm. This girl, a very free and loose blonde who…I think…Is she eating three parfaits at once? So suffice it to say she thinks this possibility over long and hashe’ll do it!

-Then we have two more girls…Who are also high school aged.

-Really.

-I just…Like, you’re putting them all in their own dorm. The entire point is they’re all working professionals, or trying to break into the industry. Considering I’ve seen about three different uniforms, I’m pretty sure we’re not going to spend any time actually going to anyone’s school.

-So what purpose does making them high schoolers serve at this point?! Ohhh my god just take me back to anime about working adults in an industry. New Game was total fluff but at least it wasn’t trying to have its schoolgirl cake and eat it too.

-Sorry, sorry, back to the show. These girls are further along the path, with one just getting serialized, and the other still deep in the grind by the sounds of it. Also they’re already tenants at the dorm.

-…So the moeblob’s a secret pervert.

-Okay that’s not entirely fair. We cut to Kaos that night, and she has tons of slightly ecchi heroine figurines in her room, and is getting all “mweeheehee” about being in an all-female manga artist dorm. Now let’s peer into her mental image of what it’ll be like! Yeah she could never survive in a stylish environment like that. Let’s try again the next morning! What if they’re all super intense serious artists? She’d crack there, too. But maybe they’re all a bunch of impassioned nerd rookies like her? A bunch of rookies all getting rejection letters every day would just be depressing.

-…Aaaand she just missed her train because she was lost in her own head. Alas, poor Kaos.

-And that’s how she ends up hauling her schoolbag, with her laptop in it, and her Rintiq tablet, down the road the old fashioned way. Wait, a Rintiq? Jesus, she has a totally-not-Cintiq? Did she just splurge All The Holiday Money, or do her parents believe in her dream that much? Like, shit, I thought I was super lucky when I got my entry-level DSLR at her age, and that was like half to a third of the price and was at a time when we were making money hand over fist.

-Oh and it’s at the top of a hill, too. Or perhaps I should say, she started at the bottom of several hills. But eventually, she makes it…And sees the landlady…And has a panic. Especially when she’s seen as a small tiny grade schooler and not the serious high school girl she insists she is. And the landlady just, isn’t, hearing it. …You know, I almost made a joke at the start about our moeblob not knowing how high school girls act because she was only in middle school.

-Also it turns out that the dorm is going to get a top-to-bottom remodeling in about a year, so there’s a timer. This iteration of the dorm isn’t long for this world something something high school experience cherry blossoms SYMBOLISM

-Anyways the blonde from before is Kaos’s new roommate and she gives zero fucks. And Kaos did not expect to be sharing her room with anyone. Meet Koyume, who has already gotten out the snacks and the paper and the pencils and really what else do you need? So Kaos’s real name is Moeta Kaoruko. …I’m sticking with Kaos. You need all the help to sound cool that you can get. Oh and Kaos gets all teary-eyed.

-“I’m sorry! Do you not like donuts?” Look if this kid doesn’t like donuts I am OUT.

-No she just doesn’t know how to handle being treated like a cute little moeblob. …How are you not used to it. Look at you. You’re 3 feet tall and your hair is pink with overly elaborate cross-pattern decorations in it. There’s no way.

-Eventually things calm down and we see the core problem Kaos is facing. In short, she lacks good anatomical studies. And if she tries to use her own body…Well, 3 foot tall moeblob. Great for bubbly comedy. Bad when you’re trying to draw a stylish, gorgeous high school girl, the kind of girl who could get scouted for a modeling job. She just ended up looking like a Mario Bros. movie goomba.

-Contrast Koyume’s problem, which is that she’s great at drawing cute girls, but terrible at drawing handsome boys. And she’s a shoujo romance artist. …So that’s not great. She just has no experience with guys to draw on… I mean, there’s an easy solution to that, Koyume. It’s called yuri and it’s the hottest new trend. You take a girl, and you have her fall in love… With a girl. (Or sometimes a bear.)

-But yeah both of them got pegged hard for their limitations by their editors, and so ended up here, and Kaos’s panic has Koyume panicking and soon they’re both just holding each other and sobbing. HEY! No crying in the dorm!

-Actually they meet the two senpais from before. And cling desperately to these two who Made It. So here’s Irokawa Ruki, the purple haired one who just got her porn serialized, and Katsuki Tsubasa, who has blue hair and is an intense shonen manga artist. Did I say porn? Yeah Ruki draws ecchi and freaks out about this tiny infant baby hearing such things. Kaos is not handling being treated like a mascot very well…Which is when Ruki gets ideas of what could be done putting the kid in a costume. Terrible, terrible ideas.

-Ignore her. So what has you two freaking out? Koyume got a debut and freaked out about not getting popular enough to survive…Stop, stop right there. The goal is not to be the best, or at the top of the charts. The goal is to get to keep drawing manga. You did well enough to debut. You have enough potential that your editor thought coming here was worth doing. Buckle down, work hard, and prove them right! The only way to achieve your ideal is to draw, draw, draw, with passion and fire! I knew there was a reason to like Tsubasa. And now, off they go.

-To their room, where Ruki is all trying to convince herself not to do things to that sweet innocent moeblob, and Tsubasa’s got inking to do. But she’s also really intrigued by firing up some rookies, even if they’re technically the same age.

-And soon that first night calms, and settles. Food is prepared, Kaos gets some time in the bath, and she’s left able to slowly process her doubts…Until the landlady reveals that the kitchen opens RIGHT to the bath so she can just summon everyone to food. Kaos has a panic.

-Episode 01: “I Got the Worst Results on the Survey!?”

-Okay, cut to time for bed! Koyume is gushy about Tsubasa being so strong and manly. Again, yuri. Kaos is already thinking of how Ruki seems like everything Kaos wants to be. Experienced, cool, stylish, curvy, attractive, makes her feel funny in her girl parts…(Wait, what was that last one? Stylish. Uh huh, sure thing.)

-Also they both get to thinking about what a real serialized pro’s room might look like…And that’s how they end up going over to see Ruki and Tsubasa’s workspace. It’s…Well, I mean, it’s a room. And Tsubasa is busy working to meet her deadlines, as Ruki gets ready to give one last push, putting her hair up and stuff…Which is when our rookies remember the whole porn thing and go looking for Ruki’s stash. Ah HA, what’s this lewd cosplay school uniform?!

-Her, her actual uniform.

-And all these rabbits?! Kaos knows rabbits mate like, like rabbits! Ruki, just, just like rabbits, you guys. Koyume wants to know where’s the perverted research material for drawing perverted manga?! Kaos counters that Koyume shouldn’t judge, maybe Ruki is just such a good pervert she can draw right out of her darkest fantasies without inspiration material!

-Ruki would like out of this now please.

-In fact, Kaos bets that under those baggy clothes, Ruki is super busty! Wait how did we even…Koyume wants to find out for herself and get a feel! And that’s how she goes for Ruki’s chest and finds it surprisingly padded and Kaos starts drawing the scene in front of her for lack of other ideas. How did we even get here. But the girls are finally made to apologize…

-And Ruki’s life story comes out. She sent in a manga about cute animals aimed at hitting the kid’s market. But her drawings of the human protagonist were so unintentionally erotic that she ended up getting sent to their 18+ division instead of their sad-onion division and serialized under the pen name Big Boobies <3 Himeko. She’d quit or start over, but now she has fans looking up to her, and their heartfelt admiration make her keep pushing. Big Boobies <3 Himeko-sensei, you’re really cool!

-Of course, with all of that, Tsubasa is behind the clock, and so soon everyone’s pitching in to try and do what they can to help…And so Tsubasa gives the rookies the tones to do, a classic grunt-labor job. Except she’s so deep into the weeds that she’s not unhooking what things like “unleash the dark energy” mean for her standard approach. Good news, Koyume knows what to do. Bad knows, Kaos doesn’t.

-But it’s because Koyume has fallen in love with Tsubasa’s manly manly charm. Anyways, thus begins the raw grind to get this chapter DONE. Koyume is doing really well, and is swiftly lost in Tsubasa’s praise. While Kaos is quietly freaking out because she’s going way slower. Not only is she less experienced, but Kaos learned digitally, and so dealing with all the analog tools is a whole new process for her. Aaaand that’s how she ends up messing up the panel. Oh god, oh god, get the white ou—THAT JUST DRIPPED AT THE WRONG SPOT

-…Kid you’re freaking out. Back up. Back up and breathe. Kaos falls into despair…But okay, this can all be fixed. Tsubasa just gets FULL SERIOUS, which also lets out a little bit of her old chuuni side. When she needs to totally concentrate, she inevitably ends up in cosplay of the characters. Whether that means we’ll be seeing more costumes, or if eyepatch and cape is just her Concentration Outfit, remains to be seen.

-Either way, Koyume is incredibly attracted to this serious stern look, as Tsubasa quickly fixes the lifework and gives Kaos a quick pick-me-up for her hard efforts. Koyume wants that kind of praiiiiise. …Oh god look at the clock. It’s time to get EVEN MORE SERIOUS!

-How do you get more serious than cosplay? First, by wielding the legendary three-pen style, like Manganora Zoro-sensei. Then, by TAKING OFF THE COSPLAY! Wait but then…

-Alright back to the grind. Kaos pushes hard, and is also starting to see…Just how far she might come if she stays here with these pros…Also she makes another mistake and Tsubasa has to fix it. Apologize when the chapter’s submitted, not before!

-And eventually, eventually, with the sun ready to rise, it’s DONE. Tsubasa flips through, confirms, and promptly lays down on the ground to collapse into unconsciousness. There’s a ton of passionate, intensity and yet kindness in this girl…It’s no wonder she’s able to draw shonen manga like she does…While Kaos here is just, so nervous, and awkward, and full of doubt, and she’ll never have any friends…

-Stop, stop right there. The dark inner thoughts are coming out. Also Koyume already considers you a friend. Ruki just needs more time to get to know Kaos, and Tsubasa is mumbling stuff about comrades in her sleep. The point is, you’ve got people on your side, rookie.

-Eventually, everyone’s just done, strewn out around the floor and trying to catch a few precious hours of sleep…

-Until that afternoon, when Kaos can confirm to her editor that she’s making new friends and feels like she’s making real progress! That’s good, that’s good. …What’s not good is your latest manuscript which is just not up to snuff to be put into the magazine as a one-off. Sorry kid.

-Credits!

…That got more dense than planned. And I didn’t even spend time detailing processes! We’ll see if things loosen up now that I’m not having to introduce everyone next time, in episode TWO of Comic Girls. Wait for it!

#where I watch #recap #anime #comic girls

[amynchan]

Concerning my post from the other day:

TL;DR:  Sorry for pissing you all off and assuming you had no idea what you were getting yourselves into.

That being said, I do have more to say, but if you were just looking for my apology and wanna bow out, I’m putting it under a read more so you can skip it more easily.

I’m not gonna lie, I was really ticked off by a bit of the response to what I had to say.  My point of view was that Thomas was attempting to turn a stereotype on its head, a ‘don’t judge a book by it’s cover’ kind of deal and y’all blew it out of the water.  Before you call me an idiot for thinking that, here’s what I saw:

me: *opens new ml comic*

me: *immediately closes ml comic*

What went through my head was “...you didn’t even read the comic?  You saw this and got pissed off?  I mean, I can get it, but sheesh, not even a chance at seeing what he was trying to do or if this was intentional...”

Next reblog was an image that said Fucking Yikes in pretty font

What went through my head was “...aaaand now it’s a bandwagon.  Great.  Oh well, mob mentality...  I don’t think they’ll take it too far.”

Next was a gif of a woman who looked utterly disgusted.

Which, fine.  I kind of got the idea that based on these three images, everyone was immediately choosing to boycott the whole comic without seeing where he was going with it.  Which, hello, screams kinda dumb to me, but whatever.  It’s your cause and you’ll fight for it how you want.  Maybe some of you even read the comic, who knows.  Best not deal with it since my opinion’s probably gonna get people pissed off at me.

hold up… this is the OFFICIAL comic book?

????????????

what in the actual racist hell?? i saw a thumbnail of this on youtube and just assumed it was some alt-right trolling nonsense, not that it was aN ACTUAL SANCTIONED RELEASE????

who would i go to if i wanted to complain about this?

My thoughts:  Hey, look, someone’s questioning this and deciding to take matters into their own hands.  Maybe they’ll read the comic and if they find something they still dissent with, they’ll take it up with the right people.  If not, then cool.  Either way, hope this ends up ok.

Next comes a snapshot of the infamous conversation between fan and Thomas Austruc

My thoughts:  ...what the hell did you just do.  You just completely messed up any credibility/validity you ever had!  Did you go in there for a debate at all?  Did you think about his side of events before expressing your own?  Did you have a defense, an offense, or even anything to defend against this very obvious question!!?

Simultaneously:  Thomas has a point.  If they haven’t read it, they don’t know the context, don’t know what he was going for, and they kind of landed themselves flat on their face with their ignorance.

Also:  ...*face palms*  You guys...  just lost....  everything...

“good to know he really cares” I say as I roll my eyes

My thoughts:  You guys cannot be freaking serious.

This is the same guy who wanted to include all sorts of diversity in ML, who worked hard for that and you guys were all for that, but after this and his (very freaking PREDICTABLE!!!) question, y’all instantly turn your burners on high and flame the hell outta him.  I mean, what the hell?

But it doesn’t end there.

Because I made a stand for what I thought--something I just don’t do because I know people hate my way of thinking because it’s different and I still work through it myself sometimes--I got mixed feedback.

I’ll start with the good stuff.  I got a single solitary ask, telling me that I was being unfair to the people who were offended.  That they had valid concerns, but I wasn’t told what those were.  I thought that those valid concerns were more of the same of what I had been talking about, so that’s what I went with.  Spoiler:  without clarification, people will just keep going on the same branch.

So that happened, and to the questioner’s credit, she was extremely straightforward and polite.  A combo I rarely see, so good on her.

I actually didn’t see her response until my 15 minute break at work (which happened a few hours later), so I didn’t have the chance to respond, and I’m quite frankly glad I was.  Because it ticked me off.  It ticked me off because there were pieces of information that I didn’t know, and Thomas sure as hell wouldn’t know based on the fact that someone with NO BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE OF THE COMIC went to argue with him about it.

Instead of “Hey, I haven’t read this comic, but I saw these pictures and am super offended!”, we could have had a discourse like “Hey, I read your comic and while I get your intention, your execution of this idea came off as really offensive.”  It’s a night and day difference!  We have one who is about to be schooled and we have one who is ready to do schooling!  Like..  what the heck, guys!?  Debate teams don’t just wake up and debate, debate teams gear up for a fight, anticipate counter arguments, and then employ them!  And that’s how they win a freaking debate!

Another thing that ticked me off was the complete disregard of one of my own points (the “wait and see” tactic), because she thought it was kinda stupid, citing an adult literally beating a child as an example.  Yeah, that would be instantaneous, but I’ve been in too many situations where I’ve been burned, burned others, or set literally everything on fire because I didn’t ‘wait and see’.  I’ve gotten in trouble, accidentally ruined relationships, and burned bridges so fast because of it that now it’s just common sense to wait and see.  So that was more of a personal (yet unintentional, I’m sure) insult.  That argument just went out the window for me based on recent events and personal experience.

The only objective argument I found was the explanation of “Ghetto Blaster” (which I’d assumed to be another stereotype to be subverted) as well as the addition of the beanie and dollar sign necklace, neither of which I’d placed as out-of-place.  I’d figured it was part of a warm welcome, like ‘make her feel like she’s at home’ kinda thing.  But the objective points made about those, how they were out of place and too much, were valid points towards their argument.  And that is the ONLY reason why I was able to take a breath and try to see it from a perspective I literally knew nothing about.

The slap about Thomas failing the test, though, ticked me off.  Because in terms of debate, so did the fans.  His question was valid from the point of view I was coming from, as well as his response.  Once you arm yourself with more information and context, then argue with him on a level playing field.  Doing so before is just an insult.  You’re assuming that you hold all the cards and that you know everything when you obviously don’t. You don’t have all the evidence, you don’t have the shots.  All you’ve got is three images you saw online that you initially assumed were fake and your righteous anger.  Lemme tell you from experience that emotion is a poor ally in a debate.  It has more holes than swiss cheese.

Another fan expanded on the points of clothing, which also helped me to see it more from that angle.  So thank you to them as well.

But I didn’t get any of this until someone STOPPED TO EXPLAIN!  Even if they were taking shots at my belief system and how I view and interact with the world, an explanation is better than just saying ‘you’re wrong hurr durr you stupid white girl’, which does happen sometimes.

Additionally, one of my friends who shall remain unnamed came and talked with me for about fifteen minutes while I was still in my raging zone.  She assured me that no one was actually attacking me or how I thought and that they were simply trying to express their point of view.  While it still doesn’t feel like it, it is with her help that I have taken this period of time to calm down and attempt to convey my side of the story (which, if you’ve even read to this point, good on you!  Have a cookie!  *gives cookie*)

Now, if you did click this thing and decided it was waaaaay too long, here’s the gist of it:

Y’all did not make it seem as though you knew what you were talking about at all, faced off with the literal head of ML with zero preparation, and only when I made my stand did you guys actually pull up evidence, explanations (both objective and seriously subjective), and make a solid argument.  While I know my ideas were not what ticked you guys off, I’m still seriously disappointed in the whole execution of this.  You guys could have made a serious impact and difference if you had argued this out with him rationally like how you’ve been trying to convince me.

Now, make no mistake, I am sorry that I pissed you guys off and I’m sorry that I made the assumption that you guys were flying off the handle on the basis of three images (which I had thought were promotional).  But please, for the love of all things holy and divine, think before you talk to someone with power about it.  Prepare your offense, your defense, and your points.  Make sure they’re valid and as objective as possible so that way you're making a difference and not just making noise that people will ignore all over again.

Also, to the person who told me I was ‘still confused’, that’s actually a really sucky thing to say.  More like ‘does this help clear up any questions’ or ‘is there anything else that we can clear up?’ would work, but telling me that I’m still confused is just calling me an idiot and I do take slight offense to that.  I am trying, but you don’t get to tell me when I stop being confused.  That’s my call since it’s my brain.  And these are my opinions, which I have reasons for and have just explained to all of you.  Just because they are different to yours does not mean that I’m ‘still confused’.

#long post #under tag #explanation #but feel free to ignore if you wanna ignore drama

[meepface]

these questions seem very therapeutic and i have been havin a week so im gonna do em, please ignore me

1. What can you do today that you were not capable of a year ago?

say no to people!! post selfies and not feel ashamed of myself for doing so!! stand up for myself without immediately crying!! 

2. What has been on your mind most lately?

well this week i’ve been in kind of a negative headspace so i have sorta thought about how much easier dying would be than dealing with any of my problems, but i have also thought about how much i don’t actually wanna kill myself also so i’ve been feelin sorta trapped between ‘mannnn if i would just fucking do it’ vs ‘but i don’t wanna my mom would be sad’, so that’s a real fun time!

3. Right now at this moment; What do you want right now?

i wanna feel myself again honestly. i’ve felt super weird n distant from who i used to be and who i wanna be and i feel like im just floatin. i feel super dissociative and i don’t feel genuine in how i behave anymore like idek myself. another super fun time!

4. In order of importance, How would you rank: Money, Happiness, Love, Health and Fame?

love (not strictly the romantic kind), happiness, health, money, fame

5. What would best describe the way you have spent your time in the last month?

feel like i’ve been wastin a lot of time bein super unhappy. buuuuut i spent a lot of time with people i love last month so that was good. kinda mixed, neutral feelings about it

6. What is the #1 motive in your life now?

to learn how to live for myself more

7. In one sentence, who are you?

i would say i am an extreeeeemely sensitive and compassionate person who’s always tryin to do the right thing and make a few people laugh when i can

8. What do you want to be known for?

being good and kind and gentle and positive

9. If you had to move 3000 miles away, what would you miss most?

my family, my dogs, my girlfriend, my friends, my grandma, this local restaurant that has amazing pancakes, my university bc i really like it there, the general atmosphere of downtown Austin, my therapist, my bedroom. in no particular order

10. In one year from today, how do you think your life will be different?

hopefully i’m taking care of myself well, am happy in my current situation and if i’m not i am actively working to do what i need to do to fix that, maybe i’ll have finally gotten another job and have moved out possibly. who knows. just hope im doin well

11. Who makes you feel good about yourself?

my friend Stein, my mom, my girlfriend, my therapist, a few of my internet friends

12. What are the top 3 qualities you look for in a friend?

someone who makes me laugh, someone who is a good listener, someone extremely supportive and non-judgmental

13. What has fear of failure stopped you from doing?

joining a club and being more social in college, getting another job, moving out, making videos, volunteering at this abuse center i’d really love to volunteer at

14. What is something you have always wanted since you were a kid?

a golden retriever

15. What stands between you and something you want?

fear of change

16. What do you do when nothing else seems to make you happy?

i find something to calm me down and distract me, like a game or something i can play so i stop thinking too much. also talking to someone helps but whenever i’m not in the mood to talk i try to do something to distract myself, or go to sleep if it’s a good time to

17. What do you need to spend more time doing?

being with friends and family, writing

18. When did you first realize that life was short?

i mean i had a few near-death experiences as a kid but none of em i was like “wow i could’ve died and that would’ve been the end” bc i didn’t really process them like that when i was that young. one of first times that i can remember feeling really deeply anxious about how short life really is is when i saw a bad car wreck just last year that had just happened and (TW ahead) i saw a person dead on the road with his head smashed. that was so scarring for me and now wrecks make me uncomfortable and i used to drive kinda recklessly as a dumb suicidal thing but now i would never ever drive the way i used to. another time i can think of is when a girl in my grade who i had actually been close friends with all throughout middle school up until freshman year died in a car wreck and our whole school was devastated

19. What issues do you continually refuse to confront?

honestly i want to confront and fix or work on all of my issues lmao so

20. What is something a lot of people do that you disagree with?

there’s a lot of homophobic and transphobic people in the small Texas town that i work in and a lot of em say super offensive things really casually and i hate it so much. also a lot of people enjoy jolly ranchers which i will never understand

21. What is a common misconception people have about you?

i’m shy, i’m straight, i’m lazy, i don’t work hard

22. What is something no one can take away from you?

no one could pull me away from my mom tbh that bitch knows everything and no one can tell me not to tell her what they tell me bc she’s gonna know in the next hour

23. What is something you would hate to go without for a day?

ummm chicken probably. it’s all i eat

24. When you look into the past what do you miss the most?

how cheerful and happy i was in 2015 and some of 2016!!!!!! the fuck happened!!!!

25. What memory from the past year makes you smile the most?

hmmm probably the times my gf and i spent hours making out n stuff in parking lots bc we finally got over our fear of havin our first kiss w each other and went all out

26. What is the number one change you need to make in your life within the next twelve months?

hmmm don’t wanna share it but i know in my head the answer to this

27. If not now, then when?

when i’m ready and when i know for sure that it’s what i want. because right now i don’t know what i want with my life but i just know that right now i am not happy. baby steps

28. What have you done that you are truly proud of?

i gained soooooo much confidence after graduating high school. came out to everyone, told my mom i wanted to finally try to go to therapy which has been a blessing for me

29. What is something new you have recently learned about yourself?

i’ve learned where my dependency issue that i used to have super bad stemmed from. i’m kinda growin from that though. i still have residual anxieties that were caused by it but nothin i can’t work through

30. What do you want to remember forever?

hmm. probably that one quote that’s like “anything that costs your peace is too expensive”. either that orrrrr that one scene in the office where Jim gets drunk and crashes his bike into the bushes

31. What could society do without?

religion (yikes yikes yikes) (don’t hate me, just hear me out) - this doesn’t mean the spirituality of it but like..... the whole rules and order part of it. the ancient outdated books and everything being taken so literally in today’s world. everyone could have their own takes and believe in their own things and they can just be without feeling like they either have to go to church or celebrate a religious holiday or be a certain way bc ‘god’, whoever they may be, wants them to. idk i like to believe there’s a higher power that just represents love, in its purest form, and that’s it. that’s all you gotta know about them. there’s no rules to that, you just do with that what you will, learn from that what you can. does this make sense at all 

32. What is the one thing right now, that you are totally sure of?

right now i am totally sure that i shouldn’t have started doing this survey bc i am exhausted and i have work in the morning but i’m definitely gonna finish it

33. If you had the opportunity to get a message across to a large group of people, what would you say?

be kinder and gentler, thank you

34. What is something that you said you would never do, but have since done?

this is uhhh super emo but i didn’t think i’d live this long and here the fuck i am

35. What is something you changed your mind about when you grew older?

my feelings about The Gays, since i grew up to be one and when i was little i was terrrrified of that idea. i didn’t care if other people were but when it came to me i was like noooo way jose. also? the concept of marriage? i’ve become super apathetic towards it. i don’t care if i end up married or not anymore, i will commit to someone for life regardless and i don’t need a ceremony and anything official to prove that. buuuuut that being said, if my future partner wants to be married, i’m 200% there and i’m already starting to think about our wedding color scheme. man. idk if i’d rather wear a suit or a dress at my wedding

36. What didn't last forever, but was still worth your while?

hmmm maybe my current therapy stuff?? i know one day i’m gonna stop going to therapy but man have i learned a lot and man have i grown. i truly think everyone needs to go to therapy at least once in their life, you learn things that are valuable in every aspect of life

37. If you could go back and time and tell the younger version of yourself something, what would you tell?

you’re not stupid, you’re allowed to make mistakes, maaaybe ask for the braces that aren’t clear bc those just made your teeth look massive and you hated yourself while they were on and you can’t look at pictures with them even years later. aaaand they made you super insecure about your mouth and smile even years down the line so, please dodge that bullet if ya can. also you’re super gay!

38. If you knew you were dying in the next 60 seconds, what would your last words be?

finally

39. When it is all said and done, would you have said more then you've done or vice versa?

hmm i’ve probably said a lot more than i’ve done, which i wanna change. if i’m understanding this question right

40. What question do you often ask yourself?

what do you want? what do you need? which of the two is more important?

#this was as expected.... very therapeutic #i recommend answerin these #helps u figure urself out #anywho #like if ya read #about me #long post

[queen-scribbles]

I'd be very curious to see what you come up with for T. An obscure AU - for Tavi/Aloth!

I’m v dangerous with AUs because I start dreaming up ideas and I can’t stop. xD But most of them aren’t technically obscure(Mass Effect, AtLA, etc) soooo

Stargate: Atlantis it is. :DDD (close second: Pushing Daisies)

(disclaimer: it’s been a couple years since I last watched SG:A, so i may be fuzzy on lore). Also, this is not minific. it’s 1700 words, this sucker’s a full on fic. Might cross post it to AO3.

This was shit, it was all shit.

Tavi dove behind a boulder, her back slamming into the hard comfort of stone as a blast winged off the top of her hiding place. She tried to catch her breath and took a moment to check the power pack in her pistol. 53% Straining her ears for any sound of her Hunters, she contemplated the risks of swapping out now versus later, possibly under much more dire circumstances. The Wraith had apparently gotten tired of her eluding them and had herded her to a planet with next to no decent cover and far too many open spaces. Ideal for the hunters, not the prey. Especially when the prey had started hunting back.

“Shit,” she muttered under her breath, and swapped out the power packs. After the new one clicked into place, she slid the old one into a slot on her belt to recharge. It wasn’t worth the risk to wait. Especially since gods only knew when she’d next find cover, and she could hear the soft crunching footsteps of several big someones trying to walk quietly on gravelly terrain. Tavi took a deep breath, settled her grip on the pistol’s hilt, and waited, counting steps until the trio of Hunters were mere feet from her hiding place. With one final deep breath, she pushed herself to her feet, pivoting to rain hellfire on the Wraith hunting her.

Apparently no one had warned this particular trio just how dangerous their quarry was. She took them completely by surprise, the first blast of her pistol taking off the whole side of the first Wraith’s head. He fell with a shrieking groan and twitched for a second or two before going still, black blood soaking the dusty ground.

His partners recovered quickly, one of them getting off a lucky–or skilled–shot that hit the heel of her hand and threw her pistol out of her grasp and out of reach. Tavi hissed an obscenity and let out a wordless scream of rage as she reached for her salvage blade. Even as her fingers curled around the hilt, one of the Wraith lurched forward, howling in pain as the echo of something unfamiliar but unmistakably weaponry hung in the air.

Tavi took advantage of the distraction–and unexpected help–and dove for her pistol instead. A pair of energy blasts pocked the ground inches from her outstretched arm, but she ignored them. Her fingers closed around the pistol grip and she swung around and fired. She didn’t have time to aim, but then, this gun you didn’t really need to aim. She blew a hole in the second Wraith’s chest as the third was riddled with shots from her unexpected back-up.

Finally feeling the pain in her wrist, Tavi switched the gun to her other hand as she scrabbled back to her feet and turned her attention to the newcomers. They weren’t Wraith, that much was obvious–though the shortest of the three was pale enough he could probably pass with hair dye and a helmet to hide those piercing blue eyes–but not all kith could be trusted. Some worshiped the Wraith, some were too worried about their own skins, and she hadn’t survived this long by being naive.

“Who’re you?” she demanded of the apparent leader, a scruffy blond holding a rifle. He was aiming it at the ground, but his finger still lightly rested on the trigger. They weren’t idiots, whoever they were.

“Teylecg,” he said, dipping his head in a nod of greeting. “But you can call me Edér. This is Corfiser-” a nod toward the shorter man, who she couldn’t help but notice hadn’t even drawn a weapon- “and Pallegina.” A nod toward the woman who stood on his other side, feathers interspersed in her short dark hair and trailing around her eyes, loosely holding a long-barreled pistol. “And you?”

“Tavi.” She shook hair back out of her eyes. “What’re you doin’ here?”

“They are part of an expedition inhabiting the city of Atlantis,” Pallegina spoke up, holstering her weapon. “And I am an ally of theirs. We are exploring, looking for resources and more allies. What about you?”

“Runnin’,” Tavi replied with a dark grin, letting her gun hang loosely at her side. “Just runnin’. S’all I got left.”

“Wanna join us?”  Edér drawled. He slung his rifle to rest across his back and gave her a warm, slightly crooked, smile. “Can’t promise how good the pay’ll be, but you could stop runnin’, we could help each other.”

She felt an extra edge creep into her smile as she shook her head. “ ‘Preciate the offer, but that’s prob’ly not a good idea.”

Edér didn’t push, didn’t even ask her reasons, which was a bit of a surprise. “Suit yourself. Can we at least help ya with your hand?”

Tavi glanced down at the raw energy burn across her wrist and the heel of her hand. it stung pretty bad, and on a dustball planet that was pretty much all dirt and rocks with no real civilization to speak of, it would be wise to avoid infection or the Wraith wouldn’t have to kill her. “Sure. Go right ahead.” She slipped her pistol into its holster but left the strap undone.

“Alright, then,”  Edér said, stepping to the side. “Corfiser, you’re up. We’ll make sure no one crashes the party ‘til you’re done.” He and Pallegina pulled out their weapons and took up guard positions.

“Greatly appreciated,” Corfiser said dryly. “You realize I’m hardly the best at this, yes?”

“Yeah, but since Doc decided not to come this trip, you’re the best we’ve got,” Edér rejoined, not taking his eyes off their surroundings. “Which means you’re up.”

Tavi instinctively flinched, fingers twitching toward her gun, as Corfiser unslung his knapsack and reached inside it. “Sorry,” she muttered when he gave her a Really? look as he pulled out a medical kit. “Old habits an’ all.”

“I understand,” he said, hint of a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth. He motioned for her to sit on a nearby flat rock and she obliged. “Still, it must be tiring, never trusting anyone.”

“It is,” she admitted, folding her legs up crisscross and holding out her hand, resting her arm against her knee. He sat next to her and unzipped the kit. “Lonely sometimes, too.”

“Then why do it?” he asked, pulling out the necessary supplies.

Tavi laughed cynically, huffed a loose wisp of hair back toward her ragged ponytail. “Like I told your boss, Corfiser-”

“Aloth will do,” he cut her off. He unscrewed the lid of the small bottle he held and trickled a bit of the clear liquid inside over her wound. It stung. A lot.

Tavi yelped and almost jerked her hand free of his grasp. He was stronger than he looked and managed to hold her still, but just barely. “What in the Four Hells is that?!”

“It’s a disinfectant,” Aloth said calmly, watching the clear liquid dribble from her wound down over his fingers. “There’s a lot of dirt and dust on this planet; do you want this to get infected?”

“No,” she grumbled, forcing herself to relax in his loose grip.

“Then hold still.”

“It hurts.”

“That’s how you know it’s working,” he explained patiently, with just a little wry humor in his voice.

Tavi snorted a laugh. “Anyway. Like I told your boss, Aloth, us joining forces, prob’ly not a good idea.”

“Why not?” Aloth probed, gently pressing a soft white square of fabric over her wound and binding it in place with the long roll of gauze. “Seems ideal to me; you’re clearly skilled-” he nodded toward the knife tucked in her belt- “and we could protect you from… whatever you’re running from.”

She grinned sardonically and started ticking points off on the fingers of her good hand. “I can take care of myself, I get into plenty of trouble on my own, I don’t need t’ be worryin’ about other people, aaaand rather than bein’ protected I’d prob’ly get all of ya killed.”

He finished tying off the bandages and gave her a skeptical look. “I rather doubt that.”

Tavi raised an eyebrow. “Rather doubt that? You sound like an educated big-city type.”

Aloth shrugged, unperturbed by her friendly needling. “Perhaps I am.”

“Well, city slicker, doubt it all ya want. Won’t make it less true.” She flexed her fingers, then her wrist, to test the injury’s range of motion. “Good job.”

“Thank you.” He didn’t let go of her hand, instead looking at her intently. “We can take you somewhere the Wraith–or whoever’s hunting you–won’t find you.”

Tavi let out a cynical bark of laughter. “I rather doubt that.”

Aloth barely twitched an eyebrow at her reversal of his skepticism. “Why?”

In answer, she pulled aside the neckline of her tank top until he could see the knot of scar tissue perched along the top edge of her left shoulder blade. “They got a tracker in me. The Wraith use me as huntin’ practice. To keep their skills sharp.” She flashed a dark smile. “Less I kill ‘em first, of course.” She sighed. “I come with you, they’ll follow. Kill me, you, your friends, an’ everyone on your expedition, like as not.”

His brow knit together in a frown as he examined the scar. “Can’t you dig it out?”

“Yes, thanks, the thought never occurred to me,” she snarked, letting go of her shirt.  “It’s dug into my nervous system or somethin’. Every time I try, m’arm goes numb for a day or two.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Aloth deadpanned as he packed up the medical kit. He paused, biting his lip in thought. “What if we could get it out?”

“If you could, city slicker, I’d likely come with ya,” Tavi acknowledged, grinning. “Feel like you’d be fun to have around. But how would we go about it?”

He smirked. “I’ve got a couple ideas….”

She raised an eyebrow and held up her bandaged wrist. “Gonna hurt as bad as this?”

“Oh, much worse,” Aloth said glibly, which made her laugh.

“Fantastic.” Eh, can’t see the harm… “So, what are these ideas?”

#queens fic #otp: third time's the charm #tavi illani #aloth corfiser #it's not v shippy #buuuut it's just the first meeting #that's not shippy even in canon

[scenarios-on-ice]

“…I’m sorry, what?”

Time to move on to a new song

“LUNA

If only you had heard the shit he said about you, I doubt you would have let it slide, and I was not about to! I came to ask you for advice, this is my very first duel…they don’t exactly cover this subject in fandom school…”

(Yes I know this is actually worse than One Last Time)

You know somebody is a cinnamon roll when you know literally nothing about them but then you read a comment they make on a manga or a random tweet of theirs and you automatically go “awww how adorable”. Ishida is apparently one of those ‘Looks like a cinnamon roll but could actually kill you’ types.

I don’t watch the AoT anime anymore because I don’t really like how it handles the characters (namely Mikasa, Annie and Eren; plus there wasn’t much of a point in watching it since it never advanced beyond the Female Titan arc until now) but I saw S2’s trailer and it does look amazing! The animation is as beautiful as ever :) maybe I’ll give it a chance if I have the time!

So…here’s more TG/Ham angst ^^ I have no idea how to make AMVs or MMVs but for some reason I decided it would be fun to write this little plan for a Wait for It MMV for TG. Here’s a snippet of the mess I ended up creating (the lyrics are in italics and everything in parentheses is the scene/panel I would like to appear during that lyric):

Love doesn’t discriminate

(Nishiki & Kimi or Yoshimura & Ukina)

Between the sinners

(Kureo Mado)

And the saints

(Hinami)

It takes

(the scene with Mado’s wedding ring)

And it takes

(Tsukiyama lying on the rooftop after Kaneki leaves him)

And it takes

(Kurona reaching out for Nashiro before Juuzou kills her)

And we keep loving anyway

(Kanae falling with Shuu)

We laugh

(Yoriko & Touka)

And we cry

(Akira crying after Amon and Takizawa’s ‘deaths’)

And we break

(Mutsuki comforting Urie in the auction arc)

And we make our mistakes

(Touka lashing out at Kaneki on the bridge in the first series)

I might regret sending this because it’s so messy XD Sorry just ignore it

Aww, thank you! I love anaylzing characters and scenes when I’m not too lazy to do so.

It’s interesting to compare characters too, how they can be similar and different at the same time- character relationships are also a lot of fun to analyze.

Speaking of that, though…

SPOILERS AND RAMBLING ABOUT TG’S RECENT CHAPTERS; BEWARE

(So, we got that Amon/Kaneki convo.

Amon: “The people you thought you lost…your friends and acquaintances…what if they somehow returned to you? How would that make you feel?”

Kaneki: “It’d be frightening. Because I’ll have forgotten their names.”

Maybe I’m being weird but I seem to recall the White Suits telling Miza that they followed Naki because no matter how thick he seems, he never forgets a friend and he has never forgotten the names of the people he fought with (he keeps apologizing to the dead members of his group every night). Kaneki’s statement that he’s 'forgotten’ the names of his lost loved ones seems to contrast with Naki’s behavior. Don’t know if this was on purpose or not but if it was, that would be cool.

We also got a Touka/Akira convo, which was really interesting.

Touka and Akira reached a tentative sort-of beginning of an understanding through their less-than-ideal fathers: When Akira claimed she was never ashamed or remorseful for the ghouls she hunted and that she was proud of her father’s legacy, Touka asked Akira if she’d never considered how things might have been if Kureo Mado hadn’t been so bent on revenge. She then admitted that she wasn’t proud of her own father either; that she’d resented him for being so obsessed with avenging her mother and that she’d been angry with herself for being unable to comfort him or make him stay with her or Ayato.

Judging from Akira’s expression and the way she said 'don’t you dare’, she probably did think of 'what if father hadn’t…’ before.

I also like how things are being represented. While Akira still has a long way to go compared to people like Kaneki, Touka, Nishiki, Hinami, or even Amon and Shuu, she’s not shown as being entirely in the wrong here. An interesting scene is when Touka leads Akira outside and shows her three young children playing together; Akira’s confused for a moment before Touka tells her that the children are ghouls.

Akira remarks that no matter if they’ve been orphaned, no matter the trauma they’ve gone through, these children are still going to grow up to hunt and devour humans and that is just a fact of life that can’t be helped. Later on, when Touka convinces the children to give Akira a hug, their first instincts are to remark that she(Akira) smells nice and that they’re getting hungry.

It’s a completely innocent statement with no harmful intention behind it, but it reminds us once again that peace isn’t going to be easy and that in different circumstances, Akira would be food to these children. Or they would be her victims.

Hinami also met Akira. Those two haven’t talked yet but they’ve hugged…?

Last note:

Furuta’s got his hands on Rize.

Y.

Did Shachi take her. That might explain it since he died at Arima’s hands so the CCG could have gotten Rize after that. If that’s the case…

Shachi, you’re a good dad but leaving her with Yomo might, MIGHT have been better for everybody in the long run.

Except Furuta, but nobody cares about him.)

OMG THE COLORS ARE SO PRETTY I’ve got to watch that now, if only for the visuals (I mean, I’m sure it’s got good characters and/or a sound plot too, I just think the art is lovely)

Thanks :D I’ve heard of Boku no Hero Academia too, time to look up the plot for that one…

I think the problem with me is that I usually join the most mainstream fandoms because I like to have a lot of fics to read and a lot of people with different opinions to discuss things with. That’s kind of why I dropped out of the Vocaloid and Evillious Chronicles fandoms…

Anyway, I’ll try to check out all your recs! Thank you again!

"Okay, Evans, my sweet cinnamon roll, here’s what you’re gonna do. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO ENTER THAT DUEL AT ALL, YA HEAR ME??”

Yes, it is much, much worse.

Yeah, he does seem like one of those hahah Honestly, for some reason my favorite 'cinnamon roll types’ are 'looks like he could kill you, but is actually a cinnamon roll’ and 'looks like a cinnamon roll, but could actually kill you’. Aaaand, I’m gonna take a wild quess and say that you’re either a cinnamon roll who’s actually a cinnaom roll or a cinnamon roll who could actually kill you.

Ah, I remember spoiling the basement thing to you (really sorry again ^^;;)! And, to be completely honest, I’m not sure how much you’d like what’s currently going on in the manga :/ It kinda seems like Isayama took the 'easy way out’ of the whole 'let’s explain titans’ thing… not to mention it’s become as complicated as TG:Re, if not more ;-; But, hey, Armin, my sweet cinnamon roll, is still alive, so it’s comething!

That’s actually a very good idea! I’ve fooled around with making amvs before, so if you want, I can attempt to make this when I have time! It really does sound like it could break your heart if done properly. I take my earlier assumption back. You’re definitely a cinnamon roll who’d actually kill, because you kill my feelings on a regular basis :)))

Yeeah, I also love making up theories/headcanons about characters, but I’ll never get as detailed as you. As I said, I usually keep away from complicated things, like potential character pasts, I keep to the lighthearted things ^^;;

Whaaaaaat?? Kaneki forgot names of all the dead people?? When Naki, Naki who’s kind of an idiot (but actually a really good person), never forgot a single name?? I’m starting to dislike Kaneki more and more… I mean, it started after the Tsukiyama extermination mission, to be honest, but this is just… Ishida is E V I L Also, I think it might’ve been done to create a contrast to Naki, since Ishida is quite big on hidden meanings.

Excuse me while I go cry in the corner. WHY IS ISHIDA SO HELLBENT ON KILLING OUR FEELINGS WITH A CHAINSAW OR SOMETHING?! I mean, Akira’s no closer to forgiving ghouls, it would seem (from what you’ve written, at least). And Furuta has Rize. Ooooh boy, I wonder how that’ll develop. Can’t be good anyway. But, hey, Hinami and Akira hugged, so that’s something.

Yup, Love Live has lots of nice colours and it’s a really cheerful anime, so it might serve as a break after TG hahah And the sequel, Love Live! Sunshine!! is even better, if you ask me, but that’s probably because one of my favorite characters of all times appeares there ^^;; Also, the songs are pretty good as well, in my opinion. They can have really weird titles, though, like 'Happy Party Train’ or 'Storm in Lover’ or 'Cutie Panther’. But they really are good songs ^^;;

My friend, who recommended BnHA to me said at one point 'but beware, it gets really dark’. Now, it’s impossible he was talking about the manga since he refuses to read it (in general) and the second season wasn’t out yet, so he was obviously talking about the first season. So I’m like 'okay, I’ll prepare myself’ And I watch the anime… and there’s not even a d of the dark in there. Apparently, TG and AoT have greatly altered my viewing of the term 'dark anime’, since I’ll find a lot of things not dark, even though other people will find it very dark.

Ah, that makes sense! When I watch an anime that’s not 'in’, I’ll usually be a tiny bit depressed over not having anyone to talk to about it, since everyone’s forgotten about it :/ So I understand your reasoning ^^

One last thing, you’ll never believe when I typed this reply! Hint: we’re geographically closer than ever! Because I, the biggest weeb of all times, am flying to Japan! And I typed this in the plane huehuehue

#tokyo ghoul anon #evans #submission