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mischief-lies-and-stories · 10 months

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Loki Ships

All right, I think it’s time to jump into the inevitable, since ships can make or break whether or not some people care what I have to say, and I get it. I considered including them in my pinned post, but that was already way too long.

I ship Loki with a lot of people. The first time I heard the term fandom bicycle, a friend was using it to refer to Loki, and I took it to heart (and probably also a challenge). As I said in my pinned post, though, I mostly ship Loki with guys, since his canon women love interests are often kind of shitty to him. This doesn’t deter me from the potential of shipping him with women (I acknowledge and celebrate that he’s bi/pan, after all) but the women that he’s around tend to be assholes to him, so the men kind of have to pick up the slack. (Is the assholery deserved? Yeah, sometimes. But I also like the idea of people being soft with him. And I think he deserves that sometimes, too.)

So I’m going to explain a little bit about the ship in general, why I ship it personally, and the canon likelihood of it, whether or not it’s likely to become canon in comics or the MCU or both or neither. Also spoilers for Where Mischief Lies, The Defenders (1983), The Defenders (2021), and Defenders: Beyond.

Thorki: Might as well start with my most divisive ship, though if you read my Loki playlist post, you’ll already know I ship this. I believe this is the first person I came to ship with Loki. This is obviously Thor and Loki, and I get it. I do. I am not here to defend my questionable taste at all. I am not here to make the flimsy arguments people sometimes make for this ship, like that he’s adopted so “they aren’t really siblings, so it’s not really incest.” I think that’s damn rude to people who are adopted and have adoptive siblings. Frankly, these are fictional characters who are fictionally siblings and I know the difference between fiction and reality. Am I supportive of IRL incest? Not particularly, no. But Loki and Thor are not real (and thank God for that; Loki would annoy the hell out of me). So I’m not here to defend it. I just think that they have a lot of chemistry, and a lot of romantic and sexual tension. Especially in Thor: Ragnarok. Like towards the end, they have this whole conversation about how Loki belongs on Sakaar, how he can flourish there and rule over Sakaar and it would be the ideal place for him. And both of them (at least verbally) agree that this is the case. And then Thor leaves him basically seizing from electric shock on the floor of a hangar. And then the next time we see Loki, he has come back to Asgard anyway, to help Thor save the people. And if that’s not love (familial, romantic, whatever), I don’t know what is.

Canon Likelihood…….Unlikely.

Not even possible, it’s never going to happen. In the comics, not a chance. In the MCU, not a chance. Marvel’s never going to make incest happen, especially not with Disney as their parent company. And frankly, I don’t want them to. I don’t trust them to do this right or be sensitive about it. They will never not be able to spin it as some shocking joke no matter how serious they pretend to be about it, if they ever were to do it. And with the level of backlash that would happen because of it, it wouldn’t be worth it. So I’m just content to read and write fanfic and look at fanart. I don’t need it to be canon and it’s never going to be canon and that’s okay. Sometimes that’s okay.

Theoki: Theo Bell (from Loki: Where Mischief Lies) and Loki. Theo Bell (as I’ve said previously) is gay, very snarky and is a good match personality-wise for Loki in the novel, he walks with a cane as a result of becoming disabled due to a homophobic attack, and he works essentially for Odin on Midgard (but Odin really only calls on him and his coworkers when he really needs something, like when he needs something for his younger son to do when he exiles him to Earth). This is speed-run Enemies-to-Lovers. They don’t like each other at first, mostly because Loki does not want to be there. And Theo’s basically like ‘You don’t want to be here, got it. You’re here, though, so let’s deal with this.’ And then pretty quickly Loki’s like, ‘Oh shit. He’s hot…Oh shit. He’s smart… Oh shit. Do I like him?….Oh shit. His freckles are like stars.’ (He thinks the last sentence almost exactly, it’s wild.) So I think it’s very cute and I don’t think they got enough time together.

Canon likelihood…….Depends on your definition of canon.

Did they kiss? Spoiler alert: Yes. Are they together? Well, uh, about that… So this book is supposed to serve as a prequel to the events in the MCU. Do you see Theo anywhere in the MCU? There’s your answer. (Which sounds like I’m implying something different, so you should still read this book, because you don’t know what’s going to happen.) So at this point, at this time, is it likely that this relationship is going to come back and be 100% canon? No. Not likely. But in my opinion, how I define canon, has this ship been canonized? I generally define canon as requited affection that’s acted upon, so Yes, this was a canon ship to me. (Still hoping my unlikely Loki theories are true, though, so this ship can come back and be present tense canon.) I wish this could be an established relationship right now, but given the circumstances of the events of the story and the purpose the story is supposed to serve in the MCU, it’s not possible.

Lokius: Loki and Mobius, from the tv series. I was resistant to this for a little while. Mostly I was finding Owen Wilson in the MCU in general and interacting with Loki hard to believe. It was weird to me and I could not unsee Owen Wilson for a chunk of the show, and that’s partially what was preventing me from shipping it. But the tie fixing scene, while it wasn’t what got me to ship it, it did make me go Oh, fuck. This is going to end with me shipping this. And then I continued to resist it for a few episodes, and then it hit me, and now I’ve been bitten by the Lokius bug. I don’t remember precisely what was the turning point for me, but it was late. I think it was probably “You could be whoever, whatever you want to be. Even someone good.” I think they’re perfect together. I think it’s an interesting dynamic, because Mobius knows him so well. But at the beginning, he knows Loki from this clinical standpoint. He knows how Loki’s story is supposed to go and his personality, from studying versions of him, but he doesn’t know him. And then spending the show getting to know Loki himself. I think they neglected somewhat to show this on a nuanced level in the show itself, but the working relationship and budding friendship between Loki and Mobius is what ultimately gets Mobius to realize that the TVA is kind of crap and needs to be shut down because the TVA doesn’t know everything. Because he gets to know Loki as a person, that he’s not just a story or the predetermined events that have been laid out in the timeline by some higher power, just because that’s how Kang has decided that’s how he wants Loki’s life to go (or something to that effect). I think there’s something inherently interesting about taking how you understand someone from a general, macro level and thinking you know everything about that person, and then getting to know someone on a more personal and intimate basis. At the risk of perpetuating a sort of racist rewrite of historical events, it’s kind of reminiscent of Disney’s Pocahontas in a way. Where you have these assumptions about a person or group of people based on what you’ve been told by your superiors, but by getting to know a particular individual in that group, you change your preconceived notions about that person. And then taking it a step further into a romantic level.

Canon likelihood…….Likely

I think they fucked up in season one. And I think they know they fucked up. I’m sorry if people ship the other thing (I’m trying not to type the ship name so it doesn’t come up in searches and people think I tagged my hate.), this is not the place for you. I think they fucked up where they were like “Look, we’re so progressive! Here’s two bisexual characters.” And then they were like “No homo. Here’s some selfcest instead.” And obviously Loki can have a girlfriend and I’d be fine with that, but making that woman love interest a variant, essentially just an alternate version of him? That feels like they only let Loki say “A bit of both,” so they could pat themselves on the back. They didn’t want to act on that. But the only woman who makes any sense to pair him with, with whom he has the most interaction with in the series…is himself. But they went with that anyway.

So the level of likelihood is either one, they realized they fucked up and now they’re going to fix it. Or two, (and I don’t think they have enough foresight for this) they knew they fucked up before they even aired it, and are like “This is the journey that Loki is on. He will eventually break away from himself, and fall in love with somebody who is not himself.” Or three, not understand what bisexuality is and be like “We need equal! He kissed a girl and now he’s gotta kiss a guy!” [Which implies there are only two genders, but they don’t even know what genderfluidity is, so I’m not confident they have any understanding of the diversity of gender identity either.] So I think it’s likely (especially the last option, unfortunately, given their track record with representation). I’m not sure they’re going to do it well, but I think it’s possible. I think they’ve set it up well for this to be canon. I think there’s some romcom story beats that are already present in season one, despite their decision to go with a different ship. It’s just a matter of how much they’re willing to break out of this mold of heteronormativity.

Frostiron: Tony Stark and Loki. I like this because I am partial to Enemies to Lovers tropes. I think the fandom has done a really good job of taking like two minutes of onscreen interaction and making an entire ship out of it. I think they have a lot of things in common, which can help them bond. They both have daddy issues, they’re both kind of spoiled, and a little self-centered, which can cause some conflict that will eventually be resolved. And they both have quite a bit of trauma that’s ultimately caused by the same big purple asshole, so that can also bring them closer together. I have a lot of feelings about them, which has caused me to write a six-part series about them and their relationship and how they can relate to each other. (I’ve attempted a few times to write a seventh part, so we’ll see if that ever sees the light of day, but they have certainly not relinquished their hold on me.)

Canon Likelihood…….Not likely.

Absolutely not likely, not a chance. Comics, no. MCU, no. In the MCU they had like a two-minute interaction and that was it. It was cute, they were snarking at each other, Tony offered him a drink, but that was about it. In the comics, they have a little bit more interactions but it’s still very limited. The most I know about their interactions in the comics that are not antagonistic comes from (I believe) The God Who Fell to Earth, and there’s still not a whole lot. There is some explicit dialogue of Tony respecting Loki’s pronouns, so that’s chill. Tony knows that Loki’s genderfluid, so I like that. But again, that’s about it. Ultimately, the places were Tony and Loki have the most interaction are in Avengers Academy, the mobile game, and I don’t believe there are romance options for anybody in that game (I didn’t play that game for very long, so I don’t remember much; there was too much multitasking and it was stressing me out). And in the animated tv show Avengers Assemble, and even there it was only like an episode or two. (And in later seasons, Tony isn’t even in much of the show, let alone Loki.) So I don’t think it’s likely we’ll ever see a canon frostiron, unless we get like an episode (or issue) of What If that’s like, “What If…Tony Stark was gay” or something, but that’s both unlikely and I can think of several characters more likely to be Tony’s What If boyfriend before Loki.

Cloudki: This is a ship name I made up on the spot, because no one else knows who this character is. (And that hurts me, deeply.) Cloud has a fraught history in the comics, and ultimately, it’s not much of a history at all, they’re in maybe three stories since their debut in 1983. Cloud is basically the personification of a cloud nebula (hence why they’re called Cloud), and they’re genderfluid! Primarily because, when they made their debut in the eighties, they crash landed to earth and then their essence combined with the dying souls of this straight couple whose car they crashed into. And the essence of the star lost their memory and decided to take on the couple’s likeness and sort of absorb their souls so they could survive on earth. And the comic, while weirdly progressive for the time, was still published in the eighties. So you have to get past the Comics Code Authority or whatever it’s called (which is basically censoring anything it considers remotely queer), and also it’s the eighties and the author was cis and (I’m pretty sure) straight. And I’ve read articles that said he had a friend who was a transwoman, so he was able to get some help maybe (if he asked her). But at the same time, if she’s a transwoman she’s not genderfluid, so it’s not exactly the same thing. So while it’s done surprisingly more sensitively than expected, there is still a lot of transphobia directed at this sweet summer child. And they don’t know any better so they kind of adjust to this shit, so it’s rough.

So that’s Cloud’s debut. It sucks, and we don’t talk about it. But Cloud comes back a few decades later in The Defenders (this is a new run; they also debuted in The Defenders). When last we left them, Cloud had figured out they were a nebula, and people were being kinda shitty to them on earth, so they were like Fuck this, I’m supposed to be a star, good-bye. And so for the last few decades they’ve been in space as their true self. So they get summoned by Dr. Strange to help the Defenders solve a mystery through the cosmos. (Cosmos as in I don’t get this part. So in the comics, the cosmos are like eras of existence in the universe. I think most events take place in like the twelfth or thirteenth cosmos. The Defenders travel backwards through the cosmos through this story.) In the middle of one of the battles, they’re like “Hey, by the way, I would like to go by they/them pronouns.” (Because up until this point they’ve been going by she/her pronouns.) And everyone else is like “Yeah, sure.” And then no one messes up for the rest of the book. Because Al Ewing is the best. And then like halfway through the book, they get to one of the cosmos where the emphasis is like beauty and imagination and color or something. And Cloud is like “I’m going to stay here. This is a good place for me.” And they transform their body into one that they choose, one that is no longer resembling the guy or the girl whose souls they absorbed. And Cloud’s living their best life in this cosmos. And that’s the last we see of Cloud in this book. (And I almost stopped reading the book at this point, because I read Defenders: Beyond first because Loki’s in it, met Cloud, and then read The Defenders, which comes first, just for Cloud because Loki isn’t in this one.)

Then in Defenders: Beyond, Dr. Strange has to call the Defenders together again. But he only calls a few of the original Defenders and the rest are new people. And one of the people he calls is Loki. And this is right where Loki: Agent of Asgard ended. (And thank God for that, because whoever took over for Loki between AoA and DB fucked him up. I don’t know who that was or what that run was or if it was just Thor, because I never read it, but I’m upset by that author and the new Loki that trashed all of his character development. Because Al Ewing did some great things. Okay moving on.) Frankly, I don’t know what the fuck is going on in this book. We’re still traveling through the cosmos, but I’m very confused. I only read this for Loki and then I met Cloud and read Defenders. So they’re going through the cosmos and they get rescued (Loki especially) by the members of the imagination cosmos, and one of the members of the imagination cosmos is still Cloud. This is similar to MCU Frostiron, because Cloud and Loki have a very important conversation towards the end, but that’s about the extent of their interaction.

My reason for shipping these two (since this post is long as fuck, as usual), because I know nothing about Cloud and Cloud is known by nobody but I would die for Cloud I love them so much, is that they’re both genderfluid. And I think gf4gf is a great pairing honestly (I’m not super interested in a relationship myself anymore, but I think the only partner I’d want at this point would also be genderfluid, so I’m projecting a tad). And I think they would be great for each other and I love it. I think Cloud could really help the present Loki come back to himself and deal with these memories that AoA Loki wiped from him so that he could be this stupid Loki that doesn’t have any of the character development, that at the eleventh hour of this book (I think) regained all his memories and now has to deal with it all and defend the cosmos. And also, where the hell is Verity? Ya know? Like, does he remember Verity? How much did he forget? So I think Cloud would be a good help to rehabilitate him and then they fall in love.

Canon likelihood…….Not completely unlikely, things have to happen.

I’m not gonna straight up say unlikely, because things happen in comics all the time. And comics go back and fold in on themselves and change things all the time. So I’m gonna say probably not likely, but maybe. Here are the things that are gonna have to happen in order for this to take place: One, Cloud needs to come back. I think the last time they showed up was in Defenders: Beyond, and that came out last year. Preferably, Al Ewing needs to write Cloud, because Al Ewing is the best and I love him. Two, Loki from Agent of Asgard needs to come back. Loki as it is needs to regain his memories and become the perfect version of himself again. Preferably written by Al Ewing, because Al Ewing is the best and I love him. Three, Cloud and Loki need to be in the same comic at some point. They’re two completely different characters, drawn together by the ties of fate and tarot cards that, for some reason, Dr. Strange has. And also the cosmos (because he didn’t draw Cloud’s tarot in Defenders: Beyond). Therefore, it’s difficult to get them back together, because Cloud isn’t even in this cosmos right now, let alone on the planet, and Loki doesn’t even remember meeting them. Four, Cloud has to have some romantic capabilities. I don’t know what their romantic capabilities are. In their original run, they tried to fall in love with Moondragon, and then also with some other guy (I don’t remember his name). That dude was transphobic as fuck. Moondragon, the second she found out Cloud was genderfluid, became transphobic as fuck, because it was the eighties, and neither of these characters were gay yet. So did that turn Cloud off to romance forever? That was also before Cloud realized they were a cloud nebula; did Cloud realizing that they are technically supposed to be an insentient celestial being turn Cloud off to romance forever? I don’t know. Five, even if Cloud has some capacity of romantic inclination, Cloud and Loki have to be attracted to each other. They have the tiniest of interactions ever, so who’s to say? Certainly not me, except in my fanfictions, which I haven’t written yet, because I don’t know enough about Cloud. So possibly, but unlikely. And that makes me sad.

This is the only ship, besides Lokius, where if it doesn’t become canon, I’m going to be a Victorian heroine wasting away on my fainting couch, because I’m very disappointed.

#loki #loki where mischief lies spoilers #the defenders spoilers #defenders: beyond spoilers #al ewing #thorki #lokius #theoki #theo/loki #thor/loki #cloud/loki #mobius/loki #frostiron #tony/loki

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avenger-hawk · 3 years

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“fiction harms real ppl, my friend was hurt because of it” is a dumbass argument that only 12yo first world anglosaxons who never had 1 single experience in life (and by experience I mean going out of the house without mommy) could use.

Let me tell you my experience with fiction and being hurt.

When I was very active with my blog, writing essays against the ending and so on, I became friends with one blogger. I also had a boyfriend who didn’t pay much attention to me so I felt neglected and turned to tumblr, and more specifically, to this person, because she gave me attention and she seemed to care. We both shipped Ita/sasu so we roleplayed it, it was fun.

We also rped smut, which was fun too. We were both 18+ anyway and we also kinda talked about real life stuff. Only, I talked, she was vague on purpose, to keep me curious about her. I had a weird feeling, like she was lying to me, but I didn’t do anything thinking that ppl have the right to say or not say stuff about them, including their gender and sexual orientation.

Until I realized that she was hiding behind the Itachi character, behaving in a controlling way with me as well, manipulating me to give her all my attention online, trying to make me argue with other online friends, which she succeeded with the bad ones but she didn’t with the important ones, and even trying to make me avoid ppl in real life, because no one understood me as well as her, no one was good for me as much as her.

She also became very inappropriate, insulting me using sexual stuff, calling me sl*t for having online friends, and this was the least gross thing she said, cause some I don’t even want to mention, but they were really disgusting insults, sexist and perverted at the same time. And you guys know I’m sharp tongued so I didn’t stay silent, but she learned stuff about me so she was not only gross, she also knew where it hurt the most.

She also used fiction a lot, like, if I talked to friends I wasn’t worthy or Rping Sasuke because Sas only cares about Itachi, Sas is pure and I was a bad person, or she used other naruto characters to ‘represent’ online friends, like, she reblogged some Karin as an insult, to say ‘you’re pervert like her’, or she reblogged some Orochimaru to represent some online person who was bad, and so on. It seems very stupid actually, but I assure you that when I was friends with her, and we exchanged messages the whole day, it got to me and it hurt.

I mentioned this other times, because emotional manipulation is a crazy thing, but in this case I wanted to highlight the fictional aspect. Because in all this, we both shipped Itasasu, we both liked Itachi and Sasuke and we Rped them.

Soooo, when she harassed me in a real cyberbullying way, was it because she was so into Itachi’s character that she behaved badly? Was it kishi’s fault from writing such character? Was it the inn scene that inspired her? Was it some fanfic writer’s fault for inspiring her with their fics about manipulative Itachi? Was it some fanart?

Or was she a creepy bitch who used fiction, specifically the character of Itachi, to justify her shitty behavior?

Don’t blame fiction for not being able to control yourselves if you have mental problems, or if you can’t filter out stuff because you’re too young but also curious about things that you can’t handle.

Leave ppl alone, ffs.

And you guys, don’t let others tell you what to like and dislike in fiction. And block the hell out of everyone who’s like this. Cause it feels like I’m the only one speaking out for these things, while most ppl are sheepishly tolerating it. Which makes these ppl stronger, cause for example, in the past they hated on IS because it was incest, ok, then they extended it to shiita, they had a problem with kakashi/genin sas (not my thing tbh) and then with Kakashi/shippuuden sas, now with hokage nar and akatsuki sas. see the problem? they raise the bar of moral judgement, and there will be NOTHING left unless what they decide.

#itasasu #kakasasu #I fucking hate this fandom tbh and I hate that ppl are believing those dumbasses more and more #fanon and fandom stuff #meet the creeper

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microsuedemouse · 3 years

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5, 11, 14 for the salty ask game! ☆

I forgot to answer these sooner oooooops

I love these asks though lmao okay

5 - Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

hmmmm I feel like it's likely but I'm not coming up with any specific examples? I can say for sure that certain really volatile/discourse-y fandoms have made it hard for me to enjoy ship stuff in general at times. also Certain Fandom Attitudes have definitely made me very self-conscious about my ships, especially - in a bizarro-world kind of twist - m/f ones? like. it's weird but some fandoms seem to foster communities that get so attached to certain same-gender ships that having an m/f ship is like painting a target on your forehead. it's ridiculous, esp for a person who is... not straight herself...

((also, to be super clear: I'm talking about fans who are rabid for non-canon same-gender ships. shipping a canonically gay character in a 'het' ship is obviously weird as fuck, to say the least, and not a thing I support lmao.))

no wait I thought of one it's a bit obscure oops but. Karma/Nagisa in Assassination Classroom. I like Karma with Okuda more anyway but Karma and Nagisa are definitely extremely shippable! the problem here is that the fandom loves to depict Nagisa (a male character, for the record) in girls' clothes or otherwise being emasculated/feminised somehow, and they especially love to do it in the context of Karma/Nagisa ship stuff. and while I'm not against people who love to depict characters crossdressing or whatever - that's good stuff, it's fun - the story very clearly shows us that Nagisa hates being seen as girlish. he has long hair and is made to wear girls' outfits a few times in-canon, and it makes him miserable, which we eventually learn is bc his mom desperately wanted a daughter and now she makes him grow out his hair/try on dresses/etc. while she fantasises about having a daughter instead of a son. SO YEAH depicting Nagisa in skirts/dresses or otherwise forcing him into feminine roles just seems like a really shitty thing to do? and its prevalence in fandom put me off Karma/Nagisa content altogether. I enjoy their not-entirely-straight dynamic in-canon but I staunchly avoid fanart/fic about them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

11 - Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

OH HMMMM. I'm trying to think of some older examples bc I literally don't pay enough attention to most fandoms anymore even to know which characters are actively unpopular lol. but honestly I'm wracking my brain and not coming up with anything??

14 - Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

l o l uhhhh

I mean I'm. SUPER choosy with what aspects of fandom I engage with at all at this point, largely because of how discourse-y and straight-up catty certain fandoms got while I was more active in them. so most of my unpopular opinions are very much in a bubble now, separated from Fandom At Large, like... ships I don't care for, or story decisions I didn't like, or whatever. and I don't even usually know they're unpopular.

the last truly contentious opinion I had and aired for a fandom was years ago with Camp Camp, when I took a stand on camper/counselor shipping. for those who don't know wtf I'm on about: a major ship in the CC fandom was (is? idk anymore) between a ten-year-old boy and a man who's in his early to mid-twenties (canonically 23 or 24 iirc?). and for some reason the fandom was increasingly divided on whether or not this was okay. there were people who were okay with it even if they didn't ship it, and there were people who were not okay with it. I came down emphatically on the latter side, if that's not obvious! I do not support shipping children with adults.

aaaaanyway yeah the fandom devolved into such a cesspit of discourse and pettiness and people being horrible to each other that I basically just dipped lol. it was sucking up so much energy just to passively read those posts when I didn't have to! and that was when I officially settled into my now-firm stance of engaging with fandom only by talking to a few select (sane) friends, occasionally reading fanfic that I like, and even more occasionally throwing my own fanfic over the fence for people to read if they are brave enough to step into the Fandom Yard.

HOO BOY I TALK SO MUCH MY APOLOGIES also lol Izu I'm sorry these are great questions I just didn't have very good answers lmao

it's been like a day and a half but if anybody else wants to ask me any salty fandom questions they're right here. (also I'll reblog them again in a sec.) I swear I have real answers

#survey #fandom

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killian-whump · 3 years

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Salty asks #1 and #5 for OUAT

Okay! :D Thanks for sending me some :D

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Ohh... I don’t really “get” Fr*zen Jewel. I mean, the characters never met in canon, and I can’t think of any way they would meet in canon, so... I don’t know. It just seems weird to me, I guess. I know it’s become a thing now, and I even enjoy it when it’s in an AU story. I don’t dislike it or anything. It’s just weird to me, I guess because my mind just would’ve never put them too together on its own, but someone’s mind out there DID and then a bunch of other people were like “YES” and that just confuses me XD

I also don’t get Sw*nfire. I mean, canon pretty much showed us a bunch of ways that Neal was a subpar boyfriend, purposely even juxtaposing him with Killian to show how Killian was more honorable and better boyfriend material... but I guess some people like going for the less palatable choice? Like, if someone offered them a five star Creme Brulee or a stepped-on Twinkie, I guess they’d just be like “I don’t know, man, the Creme Brulee is just too appetizing, I don’t really deserve something that good, I’ll just take the Twinkie.” And then he even died in canon, so it’s like “Could you step on the Twinkie again for me, tho” and I just don’t get it at all.

Okay! Next is.... #5!

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

YES. Okay, actually, the all caps response is due to another show’s fandom, an anime actually, where I RPed as my favorite character and was in a community with someone who was a great RPer and RPed the other half of the ship and OMG IT WAS SO FUN until the other RPer decided to take over the community from the secret anonymous owners (who just wanted to RP with everybody without everyone trying to “make points with the mods” so kept their identities secret) and send them hate mail and fake applications and all kinds of other shitty shit that ended up making it impossible to accept new members or even RUN the fucking place... and OH YEAH, the “super secret mods” were me and my freaking MOM, which was the other reason we wanted to keep it secret, so that wouldn’t make things weird, but ANYWAY this person was literally SUCH an asshole that they ruined their character for me for good and ISTG, like 20 years later I’m still like “Yeah, fuck those guys” about the pairing/characters.

ANYWAY, what were we talking about? Once?

Yeah, I have to admit that the fandom kinda ruined CS for me quite a bit. I still like it. It’s still my “OTP” for original recipe Killian... but the Jen-centric CSers who went on the attack for/about S7 just ruined Jen’s face for me. Like, literally her face, and a bunch of the best CS scenes, too, because they’d go attacking fans, or Colin, or Colin’s coworkers, or the show’s accounts or whoever with their CS/Jen icons and it got to the point where I’d see a Jen/CS icon and be like “Oh, for fuck’s sake” because most of the time it was one of those yahoos. Mind you, it’s gotten better since they quit their bullshit, but the negative connotations I have for certain things (Jen and the wedding mostly) still linger. I can still enjoy CS fanfics and fanart/scenes where I can separate Jen from Emma well enough to look past it... but it’s made it a lot harder for me to enjoy the ship.

Also, S6 in general was a sore spot for me, because I feel like Killian played second fiddle to Emma the whole season, and it wasn’t the equal-partners ship I got into in the first place. And the people who did all of the above shit were a lot of the same people who were very Emma-centric about the ship all along, and the same ones who had attacked people like me who were more Killian-centric and/or didn’t care for CS’s storylines in S6. I mean, I lost count of how many times CSers attacked me for not shipping them right, even though they’ve been my OUAT OTP the whole damn time. It blows my mind. Like, we ship the same damn thing, why are you attacking me and trying to “blacklist” me from the ship’s fandom? Freaking nutters, I tell you. Crazy people.

Anyway, SIDE NOTE: People do their faves a complete disservice when they use their face as an icon and run around getting into fights and attacking people. I mean, they’re literally just asking for people to associate their fave’s face with their own shitty behavior and that ain’t cool. I almost went from liking Lana to hating her during the whole CS vs SQ thing, just from the people who assumed that because I like Killian/Colin I had a vested interest in that war and came out swinging at me. Ship wars are stupid. Ship and let ship, I say, but if you’re going to start fights everywhere, at least don’t use your fave’s face for an icon.

#fandom #fandom drama #ships #searchingwardrobes #kw ask box

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starlightshore · 4 years

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im kinda want to get into this sort of thing so is it okay to ask u a few questions? if not just delete this, but here goes? would u reccomend game maker studio 2, and how hard is it to use in ur opinion? and is there anything u wish u knew at the beginning of making ur fangame?

aw anon you’re so sweet! don’t worry about asking about this, its really exciting to make games and trying new things! i would not say i’m an expert, and i wouldn’t even say i know gml like. at all. i just understand a how the code is used, but now what the code itself is or what to type exactly. like, i understand the theory more so than actually doing it. which is, eh, fine? i’m getting by, and i’m still learning. i’ve only been using gms 2 for 2 months now.

also, i’m using a fangame engine! i feel its kinda like cheating lmao, but its just meant to be a framework to build your own thing off of. and i still need to learn gms2 to use it, and i plan on doing more advanced and complicated things (ie: changing how battles even work structurally.) so. i’m not good at gsm2 yet, but uh, really once you understand coding its not any harder than i’d imagine w/ other professional game engines. compared to unity, i like this better because it seems built on the idea of making 2d sprite games. its SO much more simpler and the userface (while. i’m not a fan of how it has its workspace but whatever) is simple and easy to grasp.

i can’t say for certain if i recommend game maker. its very pricey and doesn’t go on sale often. (big sales i mean, it goes on 15% somewhat frequently) i really, really recommend doing your research first.

so here i talk about what game engines i’ve used over the last year. (also i hear Godot is good!)

at the end of that post i said this: “TLDR; figure out what kind of game and story you want to tell/make. i could of saved a year’s worth of work if i just sat myself down and realized i wanted to make a completely new fangame separate from my old blog stuff. and that i wanted to make an rpg specifically.“

and so! past me has good advice. figure out the scope and what story do you want to tell. with AL, I know it has 2 chapters, and rn i’m only concentrating on chapter 1. chp 1 has 7 nights and one area where you fight enemies. its very story/character driven and is more so like. a deconstruction of the rpg genre than an actual rpg game. (i know that the word deconstruction is over used as hell, but it is what this is.)

it builds off the themes of the original, while focusing on things that i want to focus on and develop. ut, at it’s heart, is about stories and grief, i’m just taking it to a different extreme and angle.

uh, anyway, i really wish i knew what i wanted to make and understood the source material more and what i wanted to make. i’ve. thought really really hard over what UT means, what message toby was trying to convey, how he did it and what I thought about it. understanding what YOU want from and for your project is the most important thing. WHY do you want to make this? WHAT do you want people to feel and think about when playing? or even, after playing? it doesn’t have to be super deep either.

so, figure out what you what to make, and then you can work on the how. really plan your story, but honestly i wouldn’t recommend planning it in super big details right off. also, super helpful to have a friend help you brainstorm and plot check things for you. (shout out to my friend the sniffer

anyway, don’t plan things TOO detailed because things are GOING to change no matter how well you plan! just try to get get an outline done, then rewrite it 5 more times and then MAYBE you’ll be ready to tackle a more detailed version. then write it 5 more times. i can’t stress enough how important planning is, and how you shouldn’t expect everything to work out even on draft 10! things will work, and when they do, draft 10 is going to look like bad awful nonsense cause you’re at draft 20 now and everything is much more coherent and better. games aren’t written or consumed all at once on the fly. its not a piece of fanart, a fanfic, a comic. its not updated more than once. its out, and then its just out. plan for it.

and real quick, don’t worry about art assets! depending on how you do the art, that’s most likely going to change and its going to be polished LAST. i could go more into how you should think of art when game developing, but thats another topic. just. honestly use shitty art assets and worry about it later.

kris’ place holder sprite for deltarune ^ it don’t need to be pretty, it needs to be practical.

second advice: start SMALL!!! i feel i should of done this, and frankly i probably will have to sit down and do this lmao, basically, you should make boring small games to learn the basics. I know, i know, nobody really wants to recreate asteroid when you got big ideas of making stories and animations u wanna make. but like. you really need to figure out how the program works and how the code works in theory and practice.

ok so like, think of coding like this. i got this from a skillshare video series, so uh. i’m going to retell this but in a shittier and likely less nuanced way. sorry

ok so imagine. you’re telling this guy who is trying to get to Gary’s house. now, Gary’s house is just down the road, few houses down, now, you can tell this guy that and he’ll likely find the house just fine. but if you’re telling a robot it’s not going to understand what “down the road” means. what road? how long? it needs instructions that are simple and work in a language it understands.

so you tell the robot “go down two houses, stop at sign until x seconds pass, turn right, go forward 1 house, turn ect. stop at house, ring doorbell. IF Gary answers, go inside; ELSE: do not go inside, wait;

so this what i mean by understanding the theory behind the code rather than the code itself. yes there’s complexities and differences in each language, but they’re ALL based on the same concepts. different program languages are less like different speech languages, but rather different dialects of the same. (uh, like us english vs uk english) its just different rules and “spellings” of the same core concepts.

next advice: don’t be afraid to ask for help! but also! do so within reason! if people are OPEN for helping, be sure do so in the right environment and within what time works for them. compensate people for the time and effort if you can. ALWAYS try to figure out the solution yourself first. often with coding, it can be a simple solution that you could of thought of yourself if you took the initiative to. google is your friend, youtube is your friend! (ok, youtube isn’t, but in this case! yes!) the answer might not always be easy to find, and its perfectly fine to look for help but its good to at least try on your own first!

speaking of which! LEARN LEARN LEARN! be ready to devote A LOT of time to watching and reading about game development. this goes to every game making program, not just gms2. i watch. so many videos on gms. i rec having the video play at 1.5x or 2x speed to cut down time. obvs you still need to retain the information, so speed might be not a good idea then. and its REALLY GOOD to pause and type out the code and follow along. but its also good to just understand the concepts, and theres no harm in rewatching once you’ve understood it better at a different speed.

things WILL click and work out for you, and its going to be a very time consuming and long journey to get there. i LOVE making this game and telling this story but I also had no idea what i was getting into! and i probably will have more advice once i’m further in, (i’ve only used gms 2 for 2 months!) but thats the best i can say for now! i hope you pursue your dreams and start making things!!! you can do it!!!

the best time to start is yesterday, the second best time is right now! even if you put a little effort into it everyday, you’ll build up progress and you can learn SO MUCH over time and theres this whole world of possibilities out there! the world NEEDS your story and your perspective, and i think creating it in anyway you can is necessary for humanity! your work will mean something to someone someday, and i am so excited for you to start your journey!

#i know u probs meant gms2 specifically but this got a little out of hand lmao #long post #personal stuff #sams replies #Anonymous

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fanficsforheartandsoul · 4 years

Text

Rambling

I’m currently with my neighbors of our holiday house and they have good wifi, so I’m just dropping shit like crazy :P Here’s another thing.

Warning it’s speech to text, so might be a little hard to read sorry. I didn’t know if I have the time to correct it before we leave. Sooo uhh, bear with it...

About being part of a Fandom and Writing Fanfics in general

There’s something that I do that I don’t know if others are also doing; I enjoy re-reading my old stories and that’s mostly because I often forget what I was writing about or what I wrote in general. And when I read my stories again I feel so proud that I wrote something like that – I mean it depends on the fanfiction of course, because some of them are obviously garbage, but even if I cringe I can still see the progress that I made, I mean if I feel bad about something that I wrote that means I made progress, I succeeded in becoming better and this really motivates me to make more, to do more, to draw more, to write more.

It’s always really enjoyable seeing my progress and like I said I often forget what I had written and then I re-read it again and then I’m like omg this is something that I imagined, that I brought to life! – even though it also belongs to the original author of course – but it’s like that’s what I made! I did this! And I’m feeling super proud! And I don’t know… For people who are depressed or have anxiety or are self-conscious it’s really helpful to see “oh I made progress”. And as a really lazy person and as a lazy person who feels bad about being lazy I really like feel uhh… Doing something that I like and then seeing the progress that I made in my writing or drawing style or something like that in general makes me really happy because I realize Oh no, I wasn’t just being lazy, I wasn’t just staying in my room all the time, laying on my bed with my phone in my hand. No, I also created this, I wrote this, I progressed! I’m writing better stories now, my English has become better, or whatever.

As an example and elaborating something else now:

What I really like about being part of a fandom is that, like when you’re emotionally invested, it makes it soo much better. I get motivated to write more stories. For example in a story that I wrote a month ago or so, I wrote in the first few sentences – which means really at the beginning!! I wrote: “Emotions are prohibited.” As in Jedi are not allowed to have emotions. Which is bullshit. And I realize that now. Of course, I could’ve noticed that too if I researched some more, read more Wookiepedia sites or whatever, but that’s not the point.

The point is. I now cringe when I read this story. Because I know I progressed. I got better. And although I definitely messed up that sentence, I still like my fanfic. Mainly, because it’s supposed to be comforting – which I think it really is, at least for me – but because I still see the “me”-part in it. Like, I know that these sentences have come out of my brain. I constructed them. I imagined them. The reaction, the looks, the feelings. It’s like weaving a carpet. Every string is handled by your hands. You do the shit – sorry I can’t weave lol, dunno how it works – but you touch and make everything work together. And the carpet you weave may be shitty but it’s still usable. Someone else might enjoy that raggedy carpet. You might enjoy it while nobody else does but that doesn’t matter. It’s your carpet. Love, you created this motherfucking carpet!!! Be proud of yourself, dammit!

But anyways…

I just see the progress and therefore I know that being part of a fandom, writing fanfiction, drawing fanart or in general, working or handling things that you love or stories that you like, is just super helpful in like getting mentally better, or having a stable mental health. It’s just something that I think is really important and not a lot of people realize that yet. Liking fanfiction isn’t just being “obsessed with characters” or “fangirling over hot people”. It’s about being happy, doing or reading things that make me happy, make me relate to stuff or being comforted.

#sorry needed to get that out #being positive right now #star wars #stuff #just rambling #bear with me

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storiesofsass · 4 years

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I’m gonna say some shit like “I don’t care but...” I DO care because you’re being an asshole for no reason other than to stroke your ego. You can attempt to throw a pity party and say some shit about your past or about how difficult life is for you, but listen here, that doesn’t excuse your shitty attitude and lack of respect for people in this fandom. You can sit behind your “I’m a troll uwu” bullshit Shitting on positivity because you want everyone to feel just as shitty and dusty as you

My attitude is fine. At the most, I reblog shit posts and read smut. My smugness is few and far in between. And I’m not the one using anon.

Since I’m sure this is the person who posted about Luci being a fed and all that.

I use fandom and my trolls as an escape. I’m already bombarded by all the shitty things that are happening outside.

What you posted wasn’t positivity. It’s was a sad pitiful attempt of bringing politics into fandom spaces when there’s no good reason for it to be there.

If it was positivity, I wouldn’t have said anything. Hell, I would have even reblogged it.

If it’s someone pissed because I pointed out that all the guys would probably kill you for looking in another persons direction if they felt like it?

They are demons, what did you expect. Healthy relationships and sunshine and rainbows?

Is it crack? Is that what you smoke? You smoke crack?

This game doesn’t even try to hide how possessive they are lmao.

Also, I have lots of respect for people in this fandom and those who know me do know that.

Posted a Belphie fanfic recently? I’ve already read it. No exceptions.

Made some nice fanart? I have slacked off on my reblogs but I try my best.

Trying to pretend you have the moral high ground in a game about fucking demons or pulling politics into fandoms? I’m gonna be the asshole. The latter is disrespectful to real people and issues at worst and just cringy at best.

As I said, I enjoy being the asshole and the blog title is a solid warning about me. I’m pretty obvious and it’s on you if you take the bait.

Also my ‘Pity parties’ are actually me making fun of other Tumblr users who do the same to deflect on their shitty behaviour and gain sympathy points.

Glad to know it’s written so well that people are taking it seriously.

Anyway, stan Belphegor.

#Niko is being annoying agian #I should really use this tag more

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bastilledna · 4 years

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Hey! I hope ur doing as well as you can 💕 anyway, this is super weird ask (but with everything going on esp rn) like I used to think that meeting celebs and having them notice me etc was a main reason making me valid which I know now is dumb af and most of them show that they’re actually rly shitty but I guess I wanted someone to actually tell me in your opinion the things that matter more to you than being bothered w stuff like this

(so sorry for taking so long on this! tumblr kept glitching and I didn't wanna mess with it for fear of losing the ask forever)

oh!! hi!! 💕 you're so kind!

ah this is cool. yeah, I totally understand that. I didn't really have a sense of identity (still don't really) so I would make my whole sense of self about the fandoms I was a part of. and... obviously that's not very healthy.

I'm not an expert but here are my ideas, maybe they can help!

what do you like to do? hobbies are obviously a really good thing to have but it's way easier said than done. (at least in my experience.) still. did you make fanart? fanfiction? edits or animations or something else? try doing those things or similar things (like instead of fanfics, writing your own original works) simply because you enjoy them!

why did you like the celebs/creators? what did they do? if it's an actor, you could read into the history of acting or the movie industry. (the movie industry is actually fascinating.) if it's a band, you could read about the history of their genre, or an instrument, or learn an instrument yourself!

connections with people. you connect with others through shared interests. your friendship isn't ALL about the fandom, though! listening to each other, supporting your creativity, having fun, etc. are all great things.

I don't really know what you mean by "valid" but basically, try not to let your interests/fandoms become your identity. don't call yourself "[fandom] trash!" simply enjoy the things you watch/read/listen to/etc. just say you love the content.

empathy is always good. try to put yourself in the celeb's shoes. you know you can't interact with every person. you know you're just a person doing a fun thing or doing your job. you're trying your best to do what's right, but you're human. you don't know everything. you make mistakes and learn from them.

things that matter more in life than celebs and fandom culture... hobbies! creativity! friends! self-improvement! self-love! helping people! the satisfaction of completing a difficult task!

you're a whole human being without a celebrity acknowledging you. celebrities are just people who got a lot of attention. they don't inherently have more value, or give you more value. the compliments and support from your family and/or friends, aka the people who truly know you and have seen you grow and learn and succeed, are way more valuable.

hope you're doing well, and I hope you and your loved ones are safe and as healthy as they can be. 💕

#ask #anon #celebrity culture #stan culture

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bazzledazzled · 6 years

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Have you seen that fanart of beauxbatons!Lance and Durmstrang!Keith? You could write about them meeting during the Triwizard Tournament... Maybe even attending the Yule Ball?

anon u have answered my prayers all i have been reading is harry potter fanfic I AM READY AND I LOVE THIS IDEA AND I CAN’T BELIEVE I HAVENT THOUGHT OF IT YET????? Anyways here we go this is gonna be great.

Also lance with glasses fite me

also i feel like i should have a warning about this but there’s langst which means basically boggart lance is telling lance that he’s terrible and ye (like the squip!)

This turned out way longer than expected so here’s a 10k word fic!

I am going to kill this boy, Keith thought to himself as his eyes narrowed at the Beauxbatons boy. The names had just been drawn for the Triwizard Tournament, and Keith was a whirlwind of emotions.

For one, there was the fact that of all the people from Durmstrang including his adopted brother, Shiro, he was the idiot chosen to compete. He was the one chosen to be put in the spotlight when he barely even wanted to be at the stupid Tournament, even as a spectator. And now everyone was giving him attention, including a painfully cute brown haired boy with glasses and the most dazzling smile that would make anyone swoon.

Except the brown haired boy wasn’t making Keith swoon at this very moment, because the brown haired boy decided to be annoying and actually talk to Keith, even though they were competing against each other.

“So….. you nervous?” The boy asks, casually seating himself beside Keith. They were supposed to attend a meeting after the drawing to discuss rules and stuff for this years tournament. The brown haired boy named something stupid that started with an “L” was from Beauxbatons, the Hogwarts girl named something that Keith couldn’t remember who was wearing a Slytherin tie, and Keith, representing his own school, Durmstrang.

“No,” Keith says, brushing the other boy off, ending his sentence with a definitive end to tell the boy to go away. The boy did not go away.

“I’m nervous. I mean, I guess I’m not super nervous because I’ve seen this happen before and I’m pretty sure I could handle the different challenges, but it’s exciting, isn’t it?” There’s an excited smile on his face, one that could’ve been contagious if Keith wasn’t so angry at him for interrupting his brooding session.

“I guess.”

“You guess? Wow you Durmstrangs are lame, am I right Ravenclaw?” The Ravenclaw girl seems caught off-guard as she looks up, eyes wide before nodding in agreement, definitely not knowing what he just said.

“Are not!” Keith says, not sure why he’s getting defensive. He himself has said that Durmstrang is lame, but it hurt coming from someone else’s mouth. Especially from a Beauxbaton who had horrible taste.

“Mmkay,” the boy says with a sly smile. Keith wanted to punch him.

“You Beauxbatons are to pretentious,” Keith says with an eyeroll. The boy raises an eyebrow. “And the Durmstrangs aren’t?” Keith looks at him with an “are you being serious?” expression.

“What! You were all flashy and stuff when you came in.”

“And you weren’t?!” Keith says, still confused as to where the boy was going with this.

“Yeah but we did it in a cool way.”

“So did we!”

“Nuh uh!”

“Yeah huh!” The Sytherin girl bangs her book on the table, causing both of the boys shut up.

“I am trying to read,” she says, exasperated. He wrinkles his nose.

“Since when do people read?”

“Since forever??” The brown haired boy rolls his eyes.

“That’s lame.”

“Beauxbatons is lame,” the girl shoots back. The boy looks offended.

“HAH! See?”

“You two are getting taken down.” The girl just rolls her eyes, turning back to her book. Keith tries to come up with a witty reply, but not before the headmasters of the three schools come in.

“Congradulations! You three are the champions for this years Triwizard Tournament! Lance Mcclain will be competing for the Beauxbatons,” –Lance gives a charming smile– “Katie Holt will be representing Hogwarts–” “It’s Pidge,” the Slytherin girl pitches in, not looking up from her book. “And from our very own Durmstrang, Keith Kogane!” There was the sound of crickets. The headmaster of Durmstrang takes a deep breath.

“Your first trial will be held next week, which should give you plenty of time to prepare.” The headmasters go on about rules and make sure they know that the games are dangerous and that they accept the conciquences, and basically reading over the terms and conditions everyone usually skips over to get to the good stuff. The Beauxbatons boy– Lance– couldn’t seem to sit still as he went from tapping his foot, to tapping his fingers, to fidgeting with his hair. It started to irritate Keith to the point where he wasn’t paying attention, just glaring at Lance.

“Any questions?” There were none.

“Great! We’ll see you next week for the tournament.” They leave the room, leaving the three of them to assume that they were dismissed. Pidge didn’t even skip a beat, definitely seeming to get some time to herself before she was pushed into various interviews with flashing cameras and annoying fans. Keith was about to do the same, but not before Lance grabbed his elbow. Keith turned in both surprise and annoyance. Lance was lucky he had such a pretty face, or else Keith might’ve broken his nose.

“May the best man win,” he said with a smirk, holding his hand out. Keith hesitated before shaking it.

“Good luck losing.” Keith walked out of the room, the tiniest of smiles on his lips.

The first challenge was… moderate. At least for Keith.

Lance on the other hand… struggled.

The task was simple. They were to walk into the arena where a boggart was waiting for them. The boggart would morph into their greatest fear and they would yell “ridiculous!” and it would be gone.

Except it didn’t end there. Because as soon as you got rid of one boggart, two more would take it’s place. And you would keep doing that again and again, until you were surrounded by hundreds of boggarts, all portraying your biggest fear, which is something that Lance never wanted to become public.

Lance stepped into the arena, heading for the closet, his head held high. He opened the door boggart walked out of that closet, taking the form of Lance, except it was some form of a twisted Lance, with glowing yellow eyes and fangs.

It wasn’t scary or frightening in the way a spider was. It wasn’t stupid like Pidge’s where the boggart turned into one of her teachers saying she was failing every class except lunch. But Lance knew, as soon as the creature opened its mouth, the monster was supposed to represent his insecurities.

You’re a coward. You don’t even belong here. Filthy mud-blood.

Lance gulped, the spell on the tip of his tongue. It wouldn’t come out.

Your parents would disown you if they knew who you really were. All your friends are faking it. They don’t care about you. No one does. You can’t even care about yourself.

Lance squeezes his eyes shut, hearing the words echo and bounce around inside his head. They were always there, at the back of his mind whenever he talked to a friend or he didn’t tell his family that he was actually a wizard instead of just going to some fancy private school he got a scholarship for. Or when he found himself daydreaming about a black haired boy, knowing that he was out of his league and the boy was probably straight anyways.

You’re selfish. Everyone hates you. The world would be better off without you.

Lance takes a deep breath. He can feel the tears welling inside him, and he knows everyone is watching. This is supposed to be a test of strength, a chance to prove that he isn’t some shitty wizard who everyone thought cheated the system to get into the Triwizard Tournament even though he didn’t. But standing there, facing the bogart, he started to wonder if the whole thing was a mistake.

“Ridiculous!” He cries, summoning all his energy, every single pent up emotion inside him as he looked the bogart in the eyes, telling himself one thing over and over. I am enough.

There was something different about the way his wand cast the spell than when he cast it before. For a moment he thought it was because he did something wrong and the spell was backfireing as a blue light started to glow from the wand. As it got brighter, to the point where it was blinding, Lance started to worry he might blow himself and the rest of the spectators up. Some Triwizard Tournament that would be. He could already see the headlines of the boy who ruined everything.

And then.. something amazing happened. It was almost as if he cast a patronus charm, which didn’t make sense. The light danced in the air with no distinct shape. It saw the bogart, darting for it and causing it to disappear. Like before when Pidge did it, two more took its place, but before Lance could even raise his wand to get rid of them, the light darted through them, and they were gone just like the first. There were gasps from the crowd and Lance gaped in amazement as the spell took out bogarts faster than his eye could catch. It only faded when the biggest one of all appeared, towering over Lance in all its glory. Lance gulped, facing it, trying to tap into the same energy from earlier.

As the bogart took form, Lance realized instead of being a large version of himself, similar to the ones before, it was shrinking, taking the form of a large mass of people, all of which he recognized. All of them were shouting insults as they surrounded him.

His family was there, his sisters and brothers and niece and nephew. His mom and dad too, both barely looking at him, telling him he was a disgrace to his family. He turned away, only to bump into his friends, shouting insults at him. Allura told him that he was a thorn in her side for years, and how she wanted to get rid of him, but he kept coming back. Hunk told him he never did everything right and that he would never be taken seriously as long as he had Lance for a friend. Tears pooled in Lance’s eyes as he turned away from them, wrapping his arms around himself.

There were teachers there too. The told him he was failing, said that he was barely even a wizard considering how bad he was at magic. They said he was probably more of a muggle and never had a spot in Beauxbatons to begin with. Classmates taunted him, calling him crude names, chanting “mud-blood” as they grinned viciously. Lance curled in on himself, not sure what to do.

“What’s taking him so long?” Pidge says inside the tent, fiddling with some muggle device. Keith leaned against the wall, practicing spells and ignoring her.

“You’re just mad because you failed.” Pidge shoots him a glare, but Keith doesn’t give her the satisfaction of even looking at her.

“I did better than he is if he’s taking this long.” Suddenly shouts Keith assumed to be the crowd at first, grew louder and more vicious. It startled the two champions and they shared a look.

“That doesn’t sound good….” They rush out of the tent, looking around, trying to figure out what is going around.

The arena was filled with people. All of them were shouting angrily, at a specific person who Keith could only guess was Lance. The crowd was completely quiet, some of them turning away from the scene, feeling bad for the boy at the center of the chaos. The judges were talking amongst themselves, not yet sure if they should call it. Keith takes a look at Pidge and Pidge looks at him before he darts into the arena. He hears Pidge call his name, but he doesn’t listen.

Inside the arena is madness. People were yelling and screaming and throwing things. They were trying to push their way through the crowd to get to the center, all of their words negative. None of the words were directed at him, but Keith could feel his self-esteem lowering, making him feel weak inside. He couldn’t imagine what it was like for Lance. He pulls out his wand, casting spells to get people out of his way. He needs to get to the center. From there, he doesn’t know what he’ll do. He doesn’t even know what Lance is facing since he was supposed to go last.

He makes it to the center and sees Lance. The poor Beauxbatons boy is on the ground, curled up into a ball as tears stream down his face. A boiling hot anger suddenly fills Keith, one that he’s experienced many times before. He didn’t care if they all signed up for this, nobody should be put through this much emotional trauma.

“Lance!” Keith calls as people try to shove him back. Lance doesn’t move.

“LANCE!” Keith calls again. Lance grits his teeth.

“LANCE!” Keith emerges from the crowd, looking down at Lance, who looks up at him, hatred shinning through his expression.

“I just met you how can you already hate me?” Keith frowns, bending down to Lance.

“C’mon. Your trial’s over.” Lance looks up at him, his chin wobbling. Keith immediately feels a sort of protectiveness for this boy. He was battling too many monsters, many of which Keith found himself battling as well.

“Shove off, Kogane.” Keith huffs, grabbing Lance’s arm roughly and pulling him up. Lance pulls away, his shoulders hunched.

Someone jumps out at them, their expression vicious as they spit out words, calling Lance things like “mud-blood” and other even worse variations. Without thinking, Keith throws himself in front of Lance as if he could protect Lance from the person’s hurtful words.

Then something interesting happens. The crowd merges together in one large form, the image flickering and stretching. Keith furrows his brow in confusion

It starts to take form, glimmering black hair styled like Keith’s and bright, glowing yellow eyes with purple irises. The creatures fingers elongated into talons coated in blood and even around it’s mouth Keith could see traces of it. There was a wicked grin on its face and its clothes were in tatters. Keith recognized it immediately. He recalled a Defense Against the Dark Arts class from years before when they first learned about Bogarts. He was faced with this same monster, his greatest fear.

He was scared he would turn into this monster.

He grabs his wand, ignoring the fears rooted deep in his stomach as he shouted “RIDICULOUS!”

The air was still. The bogart was gone. Behind him, Keith heard Lance sniffle. Everyone was looking at him with disbelief, including the Beauxbatons boy.

“Why would he do that!?” Lance says exasperatedly as he talks to his friend, Hunk. Hunk was from Hogwarts and an old friend of Lance’s. Their families were close and Hunk was surprised learn that Lance too was a wizard. They usually didn’t talk much over the school year considering they went to different schools, but they hung out almost all the time over the summer, telling school secrets about Hogwarts and Beauxbatons that they thought the other might find funny.

Hunk shrugs, obviously tired of this conversation. This is the third time Lance has talked about it since the competition. “Why don’t you ask him.” Lance gave him a repulsed look.

“I can’t ask mullet why he saved me.”

“Awww you have nicknames for each other.”

“No we don’t! We barely even know each other.”

“Just because you don’t know him doesn’t mean you don’t like him.”

“Wh-what?” Lance says, his cheeks reddening. Hunk laughs.

“Look Keith probably saved you because he felt bad for you. I would’ve done the same.” Lance crosses his arms and sticks out his lip.

“I didn’t need saving.” Hunk sighs, knowing that Lance was probably embarrassed that he wasn’t able to handle a simple bogart.

“Did you prepare for the next task.” Lance groans.

“No.”

“Do you know what it’s going to be.”

“I don’t know! They gave us a vague clue.”

“Clues are supposed to be vague.” Lance huffs, hitting his head on the table.

“What is it? Maybe I can help.”

“They said something about looking through the history of Triwizard Tournaments.” Hunk furrowed his brow.

“Why?” Lance shrugs.

“If I had to guess, they ran out of ideas and they’re stealing one from a previous one.”

“Did they say anything else?”

“They said it would jump out from history, that there was something about the tournament that was different than the others.” A lightbulb goes off in Hunk’s head.

“We should head to the library.”

Keith just wanted to have a quiet study session for the tests he had to take, was that too much to ask? It didn’t seem like much and, for the most part, people kept to themselves in the library because that’s what people do at libraries.

Lance Mcclain seems to have not gotten the hint.

“What are you doing here Kogane?” Lance says, looking at Keith with narrowed eyes. Keith looks up at him, a bored expression on his face.

“Some of us actually go to school her,” Keith says, turning back to his textbooks. Lance huffs, siting beside Keith.

“Do you want something or are you just here to make sure I fail potions?” Lance glares at him, getting more annoyed when he sees that Keith just ignores him. Lance puts his hand over Keith’s textbook, forcing him to look into the Beauxbaton boy’s blue eyes. He’s aware of how close they are and how cute Lance is… for a Beauxbaton. Too bad Lance hates him, Keith might have even dated him.

“What do you want, Mcclain?” Lance’s jaw is set. He looks like a boy on a mission.

“Why did you help me?” Keith bites his lip, trying to actually figure out why he did it. He shrugs.

“I felt bad for you,” he says, grabbing his textbook and scooting away from Lance. Lance grabs his arm.

“I didn’t need saving,” Lance says, pratically choking on emotion. Keith puts his books down, turning back to Lance, concern in his eyes. Lance’s face flushed with embarrassment as he let go of Keith’s arm.

“I just… I’m not stupid, alright?”

“I didn’t say that you were?” Keith furrows his brow in confusion.

“The cup picked me for a reason this isn’t some mistake.” Lance clenches his fists, barely even looking at Keith.

“Are you… okay?”

“No.” Lance slumps against him, crossing his arms. It catches Keith off-guard, considering he’s not the most affectionate person, but a look into Lance’s eyes tells Keith that he needs something to ground him.

“Um….” Keith doesn’t know what he should do. In his head he’s going into a gay panic.

“I’ll show them,” Lance says determinedly to himself. Keith doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. “I’m going to place first in the next challenge. I’m going to win.”

“Hey Lance!” A voice calls. There’s a chorus of “shhh”s directed at a boy in a yellow Hufflepuff tie, he apologizes, running towards Keith and Lance. Lance jumps away from Keith, perking up slightly. Hunk takes the seat next to Lance, making Keith even more annoyed. Really he just wanted to study, not have a party with his rival and said rival’s friend.

“What’s up?” The Hufflepuff flips through a book that seems to be full of old records. Keith can’t help but be slightly interested. He leans over Lance’s shoulder. Lance turns to him, a smirk on his face.

“You trying to cheat, mullet?” Keith turns bright red. He moves away from Lance.

“I wasn’t– I was just–” Lance looks thoughtful.

“Tell you what…” Both Keith and the Hufflepuff boy raise an eyebrow.

“I’ll help you in the next challenge.” Keith’s eyebrows seem to raise even more.

“Okay?”

“I mean, it’s the least I can do after… the incident that shall not be named.”

“Okay??” Lance nods, satisfied, and turns back to Hunk.

“Go on.”

“Do you remember Harry Potter’s Triwizard Tournament?”

The weeks leading up to the second trial were… interesting to say the least. Lance was dead set on repaying Keith after the first trial, which meant that he followed him. Everywhere.

Keith wanted to complain but… he began to enjoy Lance’s company. Because they were visiting, students from Beauxbatons and Hogwarts weren’t required to go to classes like the rest of the Durmstrang students, but they were highly encouraged to go to these classes and experience new “cultures.”

Lance claimed that he didn’t have a choice, but Keith knew that he secretly loved accompanying Keith to his classes, helping him figure out potions and listening to Keith laugh as Lance messed up a charm. But Lance was determined to do his hardest in everything, as if he had to prove something. Sometimes he failed, sometimes he embarrassed himself miserably, but he still kept trying, and Keith found it almost admirable.

Despite being sort of kind of friends now, they still held onto some rivalish qualities, probably because everyone kept fitting them into those roles. They were going head to head in the Triwizard Tournament still, and Keith and Lance weren’t shy to go into a not so friendly competition during Transfiguration, much to their teacher’s annoyance.

That’s probably why the media was always buzzing about them.

There were tons of articles, some of them ridiculously sappy about how it’s beautiful to see their friendship blossom even though they’re from different schools. There were debates about Keith saving Lance, some people even saying that Keith should be disqualified. Some say Lance should be disqualified because he accepted Keith’s help. Some people, deep on the internet, suggested that Keith and Lance’s friendship is something more. Maybe it always has.

Except Keith and Lance were too busy for the internet, between planning how to get through the second challenge, brewing potions to help them breathe underwater, and Lance pretty much tutoring Keith in potions, there was no room in between classes to casually surf the internet. Maybe if they saw these speculations, it would’ve drawn them apart with repulsion, feeling uncomfortable with this development. Or maybe it would’ve made them realize what they really wanted.

“Scared mullet?” Lance says with a smirk, looking over at Keith as they stood over by the Lake, getting ready for the competition. Keith scowled.

“Stop calling me that.” Lance sticks his face in front of Keith’s, a mischivious grin on his face. The slightest blush crosses Keith’s face.

“Why?”

“Because my name is Keith,” Keith says, crossing his arms. Lance’s playful energy was contagious and that’s probably what Keith liked the most about him.

“You’re the one who chose to have bad hair!” Lance says defensively. Keith gasps, touching his hair.

“You take that back!”

“Seriously who cuts their hair like that!” Lance says. Keith pouts.

“You’re jealous.” Lance rolls his eyes.

“It wouldn’t be so bad if you just…” Lance digs through his pockets, looking for something. He frowns.

“Hold on.” He runs over to someone Keith supposes must be a friend who’s standing a few feet away in Beauxbaton robes holding a flag with Lance’s face on it.

“Yo Allura you got a hairtie?” Lance calls. The girl– Allura– furrows her brow.

“Yeah why?”

“My buddy Keith needs it,” Lance says, pointing over at Keith. Keith’s face goes red as he buries his head in his hands, wondering why he still let Lance do these things to him.

Lance runs back over, hairtie in hand.

“Turn around,” he orders. Keith huffs, doing as told, his face still red. Lance runs Keith’s hair through his hands, untangling any knots. He gathers his hair, pulling it up and tying the elastic around it. He turns Keith around, smiling and brushing his bangs out of his eyes and behind his ears. Lance smiles.

“You have eyes,” Lance says dorkily. Keith starts to snort, erupting into giggles and leaning on Lance slightly, the purest of expressions on his face. The smallest of blushes passes across Lance’s face and a thought flitters through his head.

Oh god help me.

Pidge, Keith, and Lance stood side by side, looking over the lake, their stomachs filled with anxiety. They all knew that they would have to find something at the bottom of the lake, thanks to them all being friends with Hunk, who was having a hard time choosing one person to root for, but they had no idea what they were actually looking for. The books from the library full of records had certain words blacked out, giving the competitors a vague idea of what the actual challenge would be.

Then, there was a loud whistle, and the second trial began.

Pidge shoved some sort of plant in her mouth, jumping in without hesitation. Lance chugged a bottle of a blue liquid that looked like water, sputtering at the taste before jumping in. Keith, since him and Lance worked on the potion together, not only for Keith’s potions project but also for this competition, did the same.

Being submerged in water was an… odd feeling. For a long moment, Keith floated, the potion taking a little longer to take effect, unlike Lance who was already halfway to the bottom.

Then he felt something pull at his feet. He looked down, gasping in shock, fumbling for his wand to cast a stupefy on whatever it was.

But there was nothing there. It was the potion, starting to take effect. Keith remembered what Lance told him, how it not only allowed you to breath underwater, but it made your body mass heavier, allowing you to sink all the way to the bottom of the ocean at a rather quick pace. It was a complex spell, one that Keith had struggled with greatly, but he got an A on the assignment and it didn’t seem to have any after effects.

When Keith got to the bottom, he saw what the “treasure” was. There was three people floating in the water, tied there with seaweed. Mermaids flocked around them.

The first person looked a lot like Pidge. In fact, it was eerie how close they resembled each other. Keith knew for a fact that it had to have been Pidge’s brother or something.

The second person was a girl. She had hair cut to about her shoulders and glasses that sat askew on her face. Her features vaguely resembled Lance, which obviously could only mean that it was Lance’s sister. Keith recalled Lance talking about her and the rest of his siblings.

The third was someone Keith knew. He didn’t have to guess to know that this was his treasure.

He would recognize his brother anywhere.

His feet touched the ground and he ran to Shiro, his jaw set. It was an odd, running in water. What was weirder was, even though Keith could see the fish swimming around him, it didn’t feel like he was running anywhere underwater. It almost felt like he was on dry land.

The mermaids didn’t stop him as he passed them. Lance was already there, tearing at the seaweed for his sister. He turned to Keith, flashing one of his dorky smiles. Keith rolled his eyes, smiling slightly as he used his wand to to cut the rope. He grabs Shiro, turning back to Lance. Above them they saw Pidge, looking angry at the fact that they beat her here. Lance pulled out a second potion from his pocket, this one more sludgy and red. Keith did the same. They looked at each other before, emptying the bottle.

Pidge got to the bottom, letting her brother free. That’s when the potion started to take effect as Keith and Lance started to rise back to the surface. As they rose, Keith started to notice the effects of the other potion start to wear off. He found it more difficult to breathe and he saw Lance seem to have the same problem. But it didn’t matter. He could see the sun above him, feeling the warmth. Lance was a good deal ahead of him, but he didn’t think anything of it.

Until he realized he wasn’t moving at all. Lance kept going up and up and up, but he stayed right there. He started to gasp for air, trying franticly to swim back up to the surface. But it wasn’t working. He felt himself inhale water and his eyes widened with panic. He tried to call out for Lance, but Lance didn’t seem to hear. Pidge swam by him and he felt the truth sink in on him.

He messed up the potion. He was going to die down here.

Lance felt like he was on top of the world. After the first challenge, he was sure the goblet made a mistake. The first challenge was supposed to be the easiest, and he couldn’t even face a bogart.

But this? This was almost too easy. He always loved potions so as soon as he heard about the challenge he knew exactly what potion he needed to make. He didn’t need the weeks to prepare it. He could’ve done it that day and had it done by dinner. But he knew that Keith struggled with potions and decided to take things slow, taking his time to explain to Keith why things worked a certain way and how to be careful with the measurements. Still, Keith struggled. The poor boy always looked so defeated when the potion blew up in his face, saying that Lance should stop trying to help him it wasn’t going to work.

But Lance didn’t give up. He wasn’t going to give up.

He can see the surface, he’s almost close enough to touch the surface and feel the cool air. He grins, looking down to share a smile with Keith, who was no doubt behind him.

Except Keith wasn’t behind him. Lance started to panic, looking around wildly. He saw Pidge come up behind him, her brow drawn. But Keith wasn’t there.

Lance pulled out his wand, casting the spell to momentarily stop the effects of the potion, just for a little bit. The world stilled and he looked down for the black haired boy in a red coat. Far bellow he spotted him. He thought about how much time he had before the spell wore off and he would be forced to float back to the top. He could cast the spell again and again, but he could feel it already starting to wear him down. He took a deep breath, hoping beyond hope that those stupid swim lessons would be useful. He let go of Veronica, letting her float to the top. God she would be so angry when she woke up. Lance still has forgotten to mention the whole wizard thing to her.

He started to swim towards Keith, kicking his legs as hard as he could. He swam past Pidge, who looked at him with confusion, but didn’t stop. She was here to win, Lance knew this. He was too, but he couldn’t leave Keith down there. What if something bad happened.

After what felt like hours but only was probably twenty minutes, Lance reached Keith. He was franticly kicking his legs, but Lance could tell he was losing energy. He had a death grip on his “treasure” and tears seemed to be pooling at his eyes. He was blue and looked on the verge of passing Lance cursed, pulling his wand back out and swimming up to Keith, grabbing his hands. Bubbles escaped from Keith’s mouth as he looked at him with surprise. Lance takes a deep breath, trying to stay calm even through Keith’s panic. He had to, or else something terrible might happened.

He remembered the charm, saying it in his head and pointing the wand up between them. A bubble swelled up between them, spreading wider and wider until it encompassed both of their heads, the bubble full of fresh air. Keith gasped, drinking up the air, his skin turning back to its normal color.

“You good?” Lance says, touching Keith’s shoulder. Keith gulps and nods, not able to form words. Lance smiled warmly, releasing the hold of the previous spell, causing them to rise up. Thankfully, whatever was causing Keith to stay stationary seemed to disappear as Lance’s potion took over him.

They surface both of them gasping as they swim to shore. Lance sees Pidge wrapped in a towel, standing next to her brother and shivering. He also saw Veronica, standing next to them, looking bewildered, but also relieved to see Lance.

Lance helps Keith stand. Keith seems to be a little weak from almost drowning. Behind them, the guy that Keith was saving, called out.

“Keith!” He runs up to him, hugging him tight. Lance smiles, walking over to his sister. She proceeded to look at him, soaking wet in his blue swim trunks. And then, miraculously, she starts to laugh.

“What?” Lance says, blushing.

“All this time I knew you were hiding a secret from us and all along its because you were going to some elite school because your a nerd.” Lance stumbles over his words, but Veronica just smiles, enveloping him in a hug. Lance smiles, glad to see his sister.

He looks back at Keith, who’s staring at him, his expression a mix of awe and confusion. Lance just laughs.

After the tournament, the three champions are ushered into a room, still dripping wet for interviews. It was obvious that they were excited to get the latest scoop, considering everyone saw Veronica surface without Lance and Lance later surface with Keith and Shiro. Everyone knew that it would add to the tale of Keith Kogane and Lance Mcclain, Friends or Lovers?

Before they started prepping them for interviews, the three discussed the events of the tournament quietly amongst themselves.

“That task wasn’t that hard…” Pidge says, obviously taking pride in the fact that she came in first place. Lance pursed his lips, nodding in agreement but also looking at Keith out of the corner of his eye, who had his blanket wrapped around him tightly. Keith didn’t say a word, frowning.

“Congrats on getting first, Pidge?” Lance says with a warm smile.

“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Pidge finally bursts. Keith and Lance incline their heads towards her.

“Lance… I saw you ahead of me. You could’ve won this and got in first place instead of making us all tied. So why didn’t you win?” Lance bites his lip. Keith looks at him too, a curious expression on his face.

“Well I… I saw that Keith was struggling…” Keith looks away blushing. He swore he saw Pidge smirk.

“So you decided to sacrifice your win to save the damsel in distress?”

“Well… yeah.” Pidge just smiles, looking like she knows something.

“I see.” They call for Lance for his interview. He grins and walks into the room, obviously enjoying the attention. Pidge turns to Keith.

“You like him.” Keith turns bright red, mumbling incoherent nothings.

“That’s ridiculous,” he says finally. Pidge raises an eyebrow.

“He’s from Beauxbatons.” Pidge’s eyebrow arches further.

“We’re rivals.” Pidge bursts out laughing.

“WHAT!” Keith says defensively. She snorts.

“Some rivals you are.” Keith plays with the sleeves of his jacket.

“I mean I guess we’re friends, but we’re competing against each other. Plus, Lance couldn’t like me back.”

“So you admit you like him.” Keith squeaks, his face as red as a tomato.

“What? No I-I was– I meant– I–” Pidge puts her hand over his mouth. He gives her a panicked expression.

“Look. I know Lance.”

“You do?”

“Yes he’s Hunk’s friend god have you been paying attention?”

“Oh yes that answered all my questions. Thank you,” Keith says sarcastically. Pidge laughs.

“Oh I like you.”

“What’s your point, Pidge?”

“I know Lance. I also know that he flirts with literally any girl he sees comma but the ones he really likes he gets all flustered and does a weird thing with his hands.”

“ I don’t understand what this has to do with anythi–”

“When he likes someone he tries to spend every waking hour with them and will do anything for them.”

“So?”. Pidge huffs.

“So I’m saying that he’s the same with you!” Keith scoffs.

“No he’s not. He’s just being Lance.” Pidge groans.

“Wow you’re about as thick as he is.”

“HEY! Lance is really smart, I’ll have you know,” Keith says defensively, maybe a small part of his tone is dreamy. Pidge rubs her brow.

“I’m too ace for this.” Lance walks back out into the waiting room, a nervous smile on his face. Keith feels his heartbeat quicken and he scratches his neck in an attempt to hide his blush. He didn’t know if it worked as Lance walked up to him.

“How did it go?” Keith asks. Lance purses his lips, fidgeting with his hand a little. Pidge gives Keith a look.

“It went good! They asked some personal stuff about… nevermind.” Maybe it was wishful thinking, but Keith swore he saw Lance blush the slightest bit. But the moment was gone.

“Kogane!” The lady called. Keith takes a deep breath, walking into the room.

The room is just a normal classroom, set up for an interview. Two chairs sit across from each other, one occupied by a lady with curly hair and glasses. Keith gulped, sitting down across from her.

“Hello Mr. Kogane,” she says, smiling warmly.

“H-hi,” Keith says, pulling at the sleeves of his jacket.

“So. This challenge was a lot harder for you, wasn’t it.” Keith gulped and nodded.

“Yes.”

“Do you care to explain what happened?” Keith dug his nails into his palm.

“I don’t know. I made my potion wrong and I couldn’t get to the surface so Lance saved me.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Do you know why he did that? Rumor has it he would’ve won if he hadn’t gone back for you.” Keith curled and uncurled his fists.

“I don’t know. It was probably payback for the first challenge.” She hummed.

“That’s not how Lance tells it.”

“How does Lance tell it?” Keith growls. The reporter flips to a new piece of paper.

“Next question. How did you feel when you saw Lance come back for you.” Keith didn’t know what this had to do anything.

“I don’t know. I was happy that I could breathe.”

“In the metaphorical sense?” Keith raised an eyebrow.

“No? He spelled a bubble around us so we could breath.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Did you say anything to him in this… bubble?”

“I couldn’t breathe?” Keith doesn’t know where she’s going with this.

“Next question. How do you feel about Lance Mcclain? Do you think your relationship has evolved?”

“Well… yeah.” The lady leans forward slightly. Keith coughs, his cheeks reddening. “Well I mean–” Keith coughs. “We’re closer friends now and stuff. And he’s really smart and helps me with my potions…”

“Is she trying to make a move on him?” Lance says, face pressed up against the glass of the classroom door. Pidge groans, playing Zelda on a DS.

“She’s not, Lance. And if she was then that would be creepy and wrong.” Lance frowns.

“She’s too close.” Pidge huffs, stepping on the tips of her toes to look in with Lance. She rolls her eyes.

“They’re literally a meter away from each other.” Lance huffs.

“He’s blushing.” Pidge groans, slinking against the floor.

“Keith’s always blushing.”

“Yeah but…”

“Lance.”

“I mean….”

“Lance.”

“What if…”

“LANCE!” Lance turns to the Pidge. She pushes up her round glasses.

“Keith is fine he’s just nervous.” Lance sighs, sinking to the ground.

“I know I just….”

“What?” Pidge sits next to him. Lance frowns, seeming conflicted.

“I just know how shaken up I was after the first challenge and how answering their questions made it worse and… you didn’t see him down there, Pidge.” Pidge sighs.

“Keith will be fine. If he’s not I’m sure he’ll deck her.” Lance laughs a little.

“Yeah.” Lance looks down into his lap, his features soft.

“Hunk was right, you got it bad.”

“What?!” Lance says, jumping. “I swear if Hunk told you–” Pidge rolled her eyes.

“It’s obvious Lance. He didn’t need to tell me anything.” Lance threads his fingers through his hair, sighing.

“It is?”

“The only person that doesn’t seem to know is Keith.” Lance huffs, resting his chin on his hand.

“What should I do, Pidge?” Pidge coughs.

“Are you seriously asking me for relationship advice?” Lance glares.

“Just ask him to the Yule Ball or something. That’s coming up soon.” Lance chews his lip.

“Maybe….” The door behind them opens, causing both of them to yelp, scrambling up. Keith frowned at them.

“Why were you sitting by the door?”

“It was Lance’s idea,” Pidge says with a shrug, heading into the room, closing the door tightly behind her. Lance starts to fidget with his jacket and Keith scratches his neck.

“So….” Keith says, coughing. Lance bites the inside of his cheek.

“Want to go find something to eat?” Keith grins.

“Sure.”

“Who’s Keith talking to?” Lance says, leaning into Hunk, a frown on his face. Hunk follows his line of sight.

“Acxa. Why?” Lance raises an eyebrow.

“Who’s she?”

“A Gryffindor girl. She’s friends with Allura’s ex. But don’t worry, she’s cool.” Lance chews his lip, glimpsing back at them. He knew what flirting looked like.

“Do you think she’ll ask him to the Yule Ball?” Hunk shrugs, taking a bite of his food.

“Pidge has heard rumors about it. They might be true.” Lance looks back at them. Keith has a frustratingly cute expression on his face as his brows draw with confusion, tilting his head curiously. Sometimes Lance swore he was like a puppy mixed with a cat and it made Lance’s stomach flip. He sighs, resting his chin on his hand.

“Wow. Pidge was right.” Lance squeaks, jumping and turning away from Keith.

“Right about what?” Lance says nervously.

“That that Durmstrang boy is going to be the death of you.”

“N-no he’s not!”

“Lance you’re looking at him again.” Lance sighs dreamily.

“He’s so pretty.” Hunk rolls his eyes.

“Tell me again why you haven’t asked him to the Yule Ball yet?” Lance huffs.

“Because Hunk.” Hunk raises an eyebrow.

“”Because… I don’t know. It would be weird, wouldn’t it?”

“No?”

“But it’s Keith, Hunk.” Hunk just laughs, shaking his head. Above them they hear a chirping sound. Everyone in the room cranes their heads up at the noise as dozens of birds flood the room, all of them with letters tied around their ankles. They swooped down, landing at tables where students recognized a family owl and took the letter, reading it to themselves with smiles and frowns. Another round of owls came in, dropping in the daily newspapers. Lance picks one up, casually flipping to the article on the Triwizard Tournament.

There’s a picture of the three of them, all drenched from head to toe. Pidge was grinning wildly, her eyes dancing with excitement. Meanwhile, Keith was shivering, wrapping himself tighter in blankets. Lance was beside him, looking slightly concerned for his friend as he offered Keith his blanket. Lance skipped over the picture to the article.

“Yesterday the three Champions of this year’s Triwizard Tournament completed their second challenge. Katie “Pidge” Holt from the Slytherin house at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry came in first place, saving her brother, Matt from the bottom of the lake. Next to come up was a bewildered muggle by the name of Veronica who is our second champion’s sister. However, Lance could not be seen, causing anxiety to build up within the stands of the arena, wondering what could possibly have happened to the Beauxbatons boy. There was still no sign of the Durmstrang boy or his treasure.

“Just as the officiators began to organize a team to look for the two boys, they shot out of the water, arm and arm, both of them holding tightly onto Takashi Shirogane, Keith Kogane’s adopted brother. The audience cheered, rising up in the stands as Keith and Lance tied for second place, causing a three way tie between the three champions. They were all–” Hunk kept poking Lance’s shoulder and it was really starting to dampen his reading ability. He huffs, getting slightly annoyed, and turns to Hunk.

“What?!” Hunk chews his lip.

“Uh dude…” Hunk points to a picture later on in the article. It was of before the match where Lance was helping Keith with his hair. They were facing each other, both of them blushing, looking soulfully into each other’s eyes. Lance gulps as he reads the headline.

“Rivals… or Star-Crossed Lovers?” Lance looks over at Hunk, a nervous expression on his face. He quickly turns back to the article, pratically inhaling the words on the page with a frantic energy.

“One cannot deny that since the first trial in the tournament there has been a spark between the two boys of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons. As some may recall, Keith Kogane came to Lance Mcclain’s aid when he couldn’t muster the courage to face his greatest fear. Since then, the two boys have been almost inseparable. Sources say that it was because Mcclain felt indebted to Kogane after he saved him and was bent on helping the Durmstrang in any way he could.

“But one cannot deny the energy these boys give off. Hidden deep within there is a passion that most anyone can see, and it has only been strengthened since the second trial. The two boys have become a popular… so to say… ship amongst fanatics of the Triwizard Tournament. And they no doubt are gobbling up this exclusive interview with Lance Mcclain:”

“Whatcha reading?” Keith says from over Lance’s shoulder, scaring Lance senseless. Without hesitation, Lance takes the article and shoves it in his glass of milk, looking up at Keith.

“Just enjoying my breakfast!” He says, laughing nervously. Keith squints at him, sitting down beside him. He reaches for the pitches of orange juice, his hand brushing Lance’s in the process. Lance goes bright red.

“Okay but seriously, what were you reading?” Keith says, staring at him from over his orange juice.

“Nothing.” Keith frowns. Lance can feel everyone looking at him now. They no doubt read the article, read about all the embarising ways Lance gushed about Keith during his interview in ways he didn’t mean to. If he could do anything to change that moment, he would in a heartbeat.

“What did Acxa talk to you about?” Hunk asks, bless him. Keith shrugs, stabbing his egg and frowning.

“She asked me to go to the Yule Ball with her.” Oh no oh no my life is over I failed bury me now–

“What did you say?” Hunk says, looking at Lance nervously. He could tell that Lance seemed on the verge of a breakdown. He made a mental note of the best escape route for his friend.

Keith continues to frown, stabbing his eggs, looking at Lance through his lashes.

“I said no,” Keith mumbles. Lance gasps, standing up.

“You what?” Keith seems to shrink in on himself a little, thrown off by Lance’s outbreak. Lance immediately feels horrible as he sits back down.

“Sorry, sorry I… what do you mean you said no?” He says in a much gentler voice, leaning slightly towards Keith. Keith shrugs, holding his gaze.

“I just… said no?”

“But she’s so your type!” Keith almost snorts. In fact he does… a little.

“I just…” Keith pushes his bangs out of his eyes, not meeting Lance’s gaze.

“I was just hoping someone else would ask me,” He says, a bright blush spreading across his cheeks. Lance gapes at him.

“Who is it?” he says, a little too quickly. Keith chews his lip.

“C’mon you can tell me.” Lance says, smiling and bumping his shoulder with Lance’s. Keith blushes, smiling a little.

“You’re going to have to wait, loverboy.” Lance’s heart pounds in his chest and in that moment, he wants to do nothing more than kiss Keith and tell him how he feels. But, the mullet boy’s heart is taken by another.

“You coming with me to Charms?” Keith says, gathering his stuff to get going. Lance smirks.

“How else can I beat you into a pulp with my fancy spellwork.” Keith laughs a snorty kind of laughter that makes Lance’s heart flutter.

It was a day before the Yule Ball and Lance still hasn’t asked Keith to go with him.

At this point Lance wasn’t sure why he was worried. Everyone Keith hung out with seemed to have a date, so it wasn’t like one of them could be Keith’s-mysterious-crush-that-he-was-hoping-would-ask-him. But Lance still couldn’t help but feel a lump in his throat every time he tried to ask Keith to go with him.

In the end, he said it the night before the actual dance and made a complete and entire fool of himself.

They were up in Keith’s dorm, lying next to each other on his bed with books propped open, their eyelids drooping.

“Why did your professor assign you a test on the day of the dance anyway?” Lance says with a yawn. Keith sighs, face planting into a textbook.

“Because my potions teacher enjoys watching me suffer.” Lance sighs, pulling the textbook away from Keith, who pulled his head up in surprise, turning to Lance. Only when Lance put away the textbooks did Lance realize their noses were almost touching.

“What are you doing?” Keith says, looking confused. Lance huffs.

“You’re way too tired for this and we have the Yule Ball tomorrow you need to get some sleep.” Keith groans, rubbing his eyes and sitting up. Lance does the same.

“Do you have a date to the ball yet?” he asks curiously. Lance feels his heart pound in his chest, wondering if this was the moment. He takes a deep breath, telling himself to chill out. He leans back, relaxed.

“No. All the girls are too shy to ask this guy,” he says cheesily, pointing finger guns at Keith. It was a lie, a bunch of girls asked him, but he said he had his heart set on someone else. And he did, if he would just work up the courage to ask the boy in front of him. He just needed to say those eight words. Will you go to the dance with me?

“What about you? That lucky lady ask you yet?” Keith frowns, playing with a loose string on the bed.

“No.” Lance tapped his fingers against his leg.

“Great. So neither of us have dates.”

“I guess…” Lance laughs.

“God that’s going to be so embarrassing.” Keith furrows his brow, confused.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re the champions and we don’t have dates.” Keith doesn’t look at him as he continues to mess with the blanket.

“So?” Lance chews his bottom lip, his face heating. God, how is he supposed to say this? Its a good think Keith is distracted.

“So I mean… It will be kind of embarrassing… won’t it? Being the center of attention without a date?” Keith shrugs. Lance knows that Keith probably doesn’t care, but he needs an excuse, something to hide under if Keith lashes out at him.

“What are you saying, Lance?” Keith says, looking tired. Man, he should really go to sleep. Lance threads and unthreads his fingers together.

“Well you know… maybe we can both go together? Since we don’t have dates…” Keith was suddenly wide awake now. His eyes fly open as he turns to Lance, who’s trying to hide his blush. Did he just…. was he playing a trick on him? Keith drew his brows together. Lance started to panic.

“Is this some sort of joke?” Keith murmured, not looking into Lance’s eyes. Lance scrambled up, his heart pounding.

“Sorry I’m sorry Keith I….” he starts to grab his bags, running his fingers through his hair, getting that look in his eye. It was the same look he had in the arena when facing the bogart. Keith wanted to reach out but he was too frozen. His heart was pounding, Lance’s words ringing in his ears.

“I shouldn’t have…” Lance was rambling like he did when he was upset. It was funny how much they’ve gotten to know each other within the span of this competition and Keith wanted nothing more than to go to that dance with Lance Mcclain.

But by the time he finally opened his mouth to tell him yes, yes I want to go to the dance with you, Lance was rushing out the door, rubbing tears from his eyes. Keith stood up to chase after him, opening the door and running down the stairs into his common room. He emerged into the hall, but by that point, Lance was gone and all of Keith’s opportunities went down the drain.

“HaveyouseenLance?” Keith said the next morning to Hunk and Pidge, completely ignoring the other three girls sitting at the table. They seemed startled by his appearance, but Keith didn’t care. He didn’t sleep at all the night before and every time he laid down he tossed and turned. Eventually he snuck out to try and find Lance, but he ended up getting caught and sent back to his dorm.

“Wow Keith so polite of you to say hi to our friends Allura, Shay, and Romelle,” Pidge says sarcastically. Keith glares.

“Where’s Lance?” Hunk raises an eyebrow.

“He’s not with you?”

“Why would he be with me!” Keith runs his hands through his hair, sitting down.

“You guys were studying together last night where did he go after that?” Keith whimpers.

“I don’t know. He stormed off and–”

“Wait. He stormed off?” one of the girls, Allura, pitches in. Keith nods worriedly.

“Dude what did you do?” Pidge says. Keith buries his head in his arms.

“He asked me to the Yule Ball.” Everyone at the table gasps.

“Keith I swear if you said no–”

“I didn’t say anything but he started freaking out and I just…” Everyone is leaning close to him.

“Did you tell him?” Pidge asks. Keith shakes his head.

“I thought it was a joke! I didn’t think he would actually ask me!” Pidge shakes her head sadly.

“Do you ever read the Daily Prophet?” Romelle says. Keith looks up at her, an angry look on his face. Pidge shoves a paper in his face. He looks down at the article.

There’s a big picture of him and Lance, standing close together just before the second challenge. The headline read, “Rivals… or Star-Crossed Lovers?” Keith raised an eyebrow.

“What’s this?”

“Lance’s interview. You haven’t seen it?” Keith shakes his head, starting to read intently.

“R: So Mcclain, would you care to explain to us what happened in this round of competition?

L: Well, this part of the competition was always meant to help repay Kogane for helping me in… the first challenge. I felt bad and I wanted to help him as much as I could so we worked together to create our potions to help us. We started swimming up together, but I noticed that Keith was no longer next to me.

R: So you gave up a win to help him?

L: Yes.

R: Why?

L: I… well I don’t know. It only seemed fair considering he lost a significant amount of points for helping me.

R: You still could’ve swam for the surface and got him help. You didn’t have to be his knight in shinning armor. So why did you save him yourself?

L: I didn’t think of that….

R: No, you didn’t.

R: Would you have done it differently?

L: No. I would’ve risked everything to save him– I mean, I don’t want to see a fellow competitor get hurt. He would’ve drowned.

R: I see… and what are your opinions of Keith? You two have gotten extremely close during this competition.

L: We have. Keith has been amazing, the kind of friend I never knew I needed. He’s a bit temperamental, but once you get through his shell he has so many admirable traits and he’s so handsome….

R: Would you ever see Kogane as more than a friend?

L: Ye–NO! NO not at all that’s not what this is. We’re just friends, sometimes rivals. We would never– he would never– we don’t like each other in that way

R: Maybe he doesn’t, but how about you, Mcclain?

L: *no comment*”

“This isn’t real this had to have been forged. Lance would never say this.”

“He saw the article and tried to burn every copy of the Daily Prophet so you wouldn’t see it.” Keith frowns.

“Because it makes him look bad.” Pidge rolls her eyes.

“You need to go talk to Lance.”

“I don’t know where he is.” Pidge huffs.

“C’mon.”

Keith knocked tentatively on the door Pidge said was Lance’s. They had a little house set up with rooms for each of the students and Keith was sure he was going to get lost, but Pidge managed to find their way.

“Yes?” A voice called, cracking towards the end of the word. Keith felt his heart splinter. He was aware of some people around him whispering about his appearance saying things like “the Durmstrang boy” and “Lance” and “Klance.” He ignored them.

“It’s Keith,” Keith says. Keith hears sniffles from inside.

“Can I come in?” There’s no answer. Keith takes a deep breath, opening the door.

The room was actually really neat. So neat that it made Keith felt bad about the times he brought Lance into his dorm which was utter chaos. But everything seemed to have a place, down to the pencils on the desk.

“Wow your room is so neat…” Lance rubs his eyes. They’re red and puffy.

“I organize when I’m upset…” Keith walks over to Lance’s bed, sitting next to him. Lance pulls his knees to his chest. Keith bites his lip, trying to figure out what to say.

“You look tired,” Lance says, frowning. Keith yawns.

“Maybe I didn’t sleep.” Lance looks appalled.

“Keith! You need to take care of yourself! You have a test today that’s it your skipping first and second block.” Keith smiled a little.

“What about you, Lance?” he says softly. Lance seems a bit surprised.

“What about me?” Keith frowns.

“Look Lance about last night–” Lance presses a finger to Keith’s lips. Keith looks at him with surprise.

“Keith look. I shouldn’t have asked it just made things awkward I’m sorry.”

“Lance listen to me–”

“Keith you don’t need to apologize. I understand you don’t feel the same way.” Keith grabs Lance’s hands, twining his fingers through Lance’s, his face red.

“Look I… I’m glad you asked.” Lance searches Keith’s face, looking confused. Keith shies away from him, seeming super flustered,

“Keith what–” Keith looks up at him.

“I said no to Acxa because I was waiting for you to ask me.” Lance gapes at him.

“No.. Keith just… Please don’t do this to make me feel better that’s so much worse–”

“Lance I’m not–”

“Keith really its okay if you don’t like me–” Keith has never been good with words. He knew that there was no way to tell Lance the way he felt. So he fists his hands in Lance’s shirt, pulling him close. He hesitates for a moment, their lips centimeters apart. Then, Keith kisses him.

Lance pulls away, a surprised look on his face. Keith looks at him with those eyes, those purple eyes with unreadable emotions that Lance finally understands. He kisses Keith again, his heart pounding, not sure if this was real and not caring.

When they break they look at each other for a long moment… then burst out into giggles, laying down on the bed, Keith’s legs hanging off the end and Lance’s propped against the wall. Lance looks back at Keith and Keith looks back at Lance, both of them smiling.

“So…” Keith says, grinning dorkily. Lance loved that grin. “Wanna go to the Yule Ball with me?”

Allura helped Lance get ready for the dance because, well, he was a bi disaster.

“Do you think he’ll like it?” Lance says, frowning down at his suit. Allura rolls her eyes.

“You know blue looks good on you Lance. It matches your eyes.” Lance huffs.

“I know I just… I want to make a good impression. This is our first… I guess date?” Allura just smiles.

“That boy is over the moon for you. I’m sure you could wear a trash bag and he would think your the hottest guy in the room.”

“Do I look good, Lura?” Lance says for the last time with a sigh. She smiles.

“Yes Lance, you look great.”

“Shiro where’s my tieeeeee.” Keith groans, running his hands through his hair. His outfit was almost complete, he just needed find his freaking tie.

Shiro decided that it would be a good idea to help Keith get ready for the Yule Ball for unknown reasons. He kept going on and on about how him and his boyfriend, Adam, met at a school event similar to this one. He was such a romantic it made Keith gag, although he wasn’t any better. He kept stressing, trying to make everything perfect.

“Keith. You’re wearing your tie,” Shiro says with a bored expression. Keith looks down.

“Oh.”

“You okay?” Keith bites his lip.

“What if he decides he doesn’t like me?”

“He’s not going to do that Keith.”

“What if he backs out? What if I get stood up?”

“Keith calm down.”

“What if–” Shiro grabs his shoulders.

“Lance fell in love with you, he wants to go to this dance with you.” Keith huffs.

“Alright…” Shrio smiles.

“Just be yourself. He loves that.” Keith sighs and nods.

“Do I look okay?”

“You look perfect.

As instructed, Lance, Keith, and Pidge arrived early to go over the procedures for how they were to handle the Yule Ball. They arrived at their given time, much to to the headmasters surprise. He frowned when he saw them.

“No one got dates?” Lance coughs.

“Uh we’re together….” He takes Keith’s hand. The headmaster smiles a bit.

“My brother said he’ll dance with me.”

“Okay then. I trust you all know how this works?” Pidge nods, Keith and Lance shake their heads. He takes a deep breath.

“It is tradition that the Champions walk out once everyone has settled and do the first dance.” Keith stiffens.

“Something wrong?” Lance whispers, his brows drawn in concern.

“I can’t dance,” Keith says nervously. Lance laughs.

“No one can.” Keith pouts. They go over a few more things. People start to trickle in, mingling amongst themselves.

“You know… you look amazing tonight,” Lance says, playing with Keith’s ponytail as they wait for their cue. Keith blushes brightly.

“S-so do you!” he says defensively. Lance laughs.

“Thank you.” Keith wraps his arm around Lance, snuggling close to him. Lance felt his heart thud in his chest.

“I bet I can dance better than you,” Keith mumbles. Lance snorts.

“You’re on Kogane.”

Lance felt like he was flying. Everything about the night was perfect, and it didn’t matter that he was about to face the third trial soon. All that matters was he was sitting here, in the warm and inviting dorm of Keith Kogane, explaining what a cell phone was and how Keith needed to get one immediately. Keith seemed confused.

“Where do the messages go?” Lance laughs.

“They come to me, silly.” Keith gets that adorable, quizzical expression on his face.

“But how do they get there?”

“You’re questioning actual muggle technology proven with science but not the entirety of magic.” Keith shrugs.

“I’ve always lived around magic. I guess I never thought about it.” Lance sighs, leaning against Keith.

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“For just… being the most amazing person I ever met.” Keith turns to Lance, a flustered smile on his face.

“It’s only fair. You’re the most extraordinary person I ever met.” Lance blushes, burying his face in Keith’s shoulder.

“Keiiithhhhh who taught you how to flirt?” Keith laughs.

“If I recall, you did. When trying to help me get the guy I was holding out on to take me to the dance. Which was you.”

“I do recall that…”

“Remember that time I made you blush so hard you had to physically walk out of the room?”

“IN MY DEFENSE– I was not prepared for you to be that good.” Keith laughs softly.

“I just can’t believe you didn’t figure out that I liked you.” Lance huffs.

“To be fair, you didn’t figure it out either even when it was all in a nice interview tied with a bow.”

“You got me there.”

THE END

#klance #keith kogane #lance mcclain #voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #keith x lance #lance x keith #laith #candy writes #klancemonth2018 #hogwarts au #klance hogwarts au

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hpfangirl13 · 5 years

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Shipping Questions Challenge

I saw some other people answering these questions so I figured I would. This is basically everything ever about my shipping history.

Talk about the first ship you ever had.

My first ship was Bellamort. I was 11 and was in the process of reading Harry Potter for the first time. Something about them both intrigued me and despite Voldemort supposedly not being able to love, I always felt like he had a soft spot for Bellatrix. After Cursed Child, turns out I was right. ;)

Talk about three of the most important ships throughout your life.

Bellamort is definitely one of them because they were my first ship, not to mention the first fanfic I ever read was about them. Jamko is probably the biggest one because ever since I saw them for the first time, I have been obsessed with them. They made me feel like no other ship ever did. The night they became canon was the best night of my life, hands down. Joe and Mika from Morning Joe are probably my third because they gave me the same effect Jamko did. I was obsessed with them the moment I saw them. Something about the way they interacted on screen made me love them. Now they’re married so woohoo!

What’s your current OTP?

Thomas Magnum and Juliet Higgins from the new Magnum P.I. They are my latest obsession and I love their will they/won’t they relationship. “Day of the Viper”, the newest episode, was huge for their relationship development. They’re completely adorable.

What’s your current NOTP?

Erin and Anthony from Blue Bloods. I love them both individually and working together as a team but I can’t stand that people are shipping them romantically. He’s more like an uncle to her, he’s just WAYYY too old for her.

Do you have any poly ships?

No. I’m not into that stuff.

How do you feel about love triangles?

Not into these either. They’re pointless and we usually already know who’s going to end up with who anyway.

How do you feel about RPF?

I ship a lot of real people and celebrities. I think it’s fine as long as people don’t get creepy about it.

Have you ever shipped yourself with a character?

Nope.

Do you have many ships that never got together at all?

The only one I can think of off the top of my head would be Captain America and Black Widow. They vibed all through Winter Soldier, but Marvel had to kill their potential relationship so that she and Hulk could be a thing. I’m still holding on to hope for them in Endgame though. I also have a lot of ships that are currently in the will they/won’t they phase.

Do you ship any characters that have never met?

No. I can’t ship people who I haven’t seen together.

Talk about your favorite first kiss.

Jamko’s first kiss back in season 4 of Blue Bloods. It was a little awkward but my 13-year-old self was losing her shit. I also had to wait a week after that episode aired to watch the episode. The struggle of having a flip phone and being on vacation was real.

Have you ever been disappointed when your ship finally got together?

YES. Jamko has been a complete mess all season 9. I’m not sure what the writers are trying to do with them, but they’ve completely killed their chemistry. I thought this season was going to be iconic, but it’s honestly been such a letdown. I wanted them together, but not with this sappy writing.

Has a ship ever broken your heart?

Jamko is kinda breaking my heart because they’ve been so out of character.

How do you feel about will they/won’t they?

It’s the best kind of ship tbh. There’s nothing better than the week to week anticipation of wondering if that week will be the week they finally happen or make progress. I love a good slow burn. You can’t say you’ve truly shipped something unless you’ve shed tears and felt pain because of the frustration of waiting.

Have you ever “shipped at first sight”?

Definitely. When you know you know. I fell in love with Jamko the minute I saw them.

Talk about a ship you initially disliked.

Initially, I hated Reylo. When Force Awakens came out I was 100% a Finn/Rey shipper. I thought her and Kylo were gross. But that all changed in The Last Jedi. Their “force Skyping” converted me. I love a good AU Reylo fic.

Talk about a pairing you’ve stopped shipping romantically.

I guess I would have to say Finn/Rey. He’s with Rose now, and as dumb as that ship is, I honestly think Rey and Kylo have more of a connection now. I also used to be really into Weller/Jane from Blindspot, but that pairing and show are shitty now.

Talk about a moment which made you question an entire ship.

This season when Jamie and Eddie were playing mini golf and Jamie revealed that he had proposed there, I was baffled. I simply don’t want to believe that he proposed to her there right after she saved him from being shot. Seriously, who thought that was a good idea?

Have you ever shipped something despite yourself?

There are a few ships that I kind of don’t advertise that I’m in to. Joe and Mika and Bellamort would be a few examples.

Talk about a ship you feel alone in shipping.

I feel like I’m the only person who ships Joe and Mika. I feel like everyone hates their politics and judges them because of what they talk about on their show. Also, they’re like 50-year-old news anchors and most of my friends think I’m pretty weird for liking them anyway. There’s probably someone out there who likes them as much as I do, I just haven’t found them yet.

Is there a ship you just don’t get, but have nothing against?

I guess Samar and Aram from Blacklist. They’re ok I guess, but I don’t really ship them. I don’t have anything against them though.

Which of your ships have the best chemistry?

Currently? Higgins and Magnum no question. But Ellick, Slibbs, and WonderBat are some of my other favorite matches in terms of overall chemistry.

Which of your ships deserve better writing?

JAMKO JAMKO JAMKO JAMKO JAMKO

Do you mostly ship canon pairings?

Many of the ships I have have become canon since I started shipping them. I find myself beginning to ship people, and then they get together down the road. There’s honestly nothing that I ship that I believe has no chance of getting together.

Have you ever shipped a pairing before you even started watching the show/movie simply because of gifs and graphics or similar?

Yes. This is what prompted me to start watching the new Magnum P.I.

Have you noticed a pattern in your shipping? Is there a romantic dynamic you’re more drawn to?

Yes. I love pairings where both people are very strong and independent, but unstoppable together. I pretty much exclusively watch crime dramas, so I especially love police and military couples. If they have obvious sexual tension, I’ll probably be drawn to them.

Is there a ship you’ve shipped for most of your life?

I guess my longest ship would be Bellamort, which I started shipping when I was 11. I’m 18 now, but 7 years is a pretty good amount of time. I’ve also shipped Jamko for 6 years now.

Does shipping come easily to you?

It’s like breathing.

Do you need to ship something to really enjoy a movie/book/tv show/comic?

This depends. In some cases, yes. But I love The Blacklist and I haven’t really shipped anyone on that show.

Name a couple of fandoms in which you have no ships.

I think Blacklist is kind of it… although I may be putting my Keenler hat back on soon.

Talk about one of your favorite headcanons for a ship you love.

The “sharing a bed in a hotel” headcanon is an all-time favorite of mine.

Name your favorite fan artist(s).

To be honest, I don’t really know any fan artists by name.

Share your favorite fanmix for your OTP.

For Jamko, the entire “The Block” album by New Kids on the Block. It’s not exactly a fanmix, but it’s a perfect album for them. I have made my own playlist for Magnum/Higgins recently:

“Juliet”- LMNT, “We Went as Far as We Felt Like Going”- Pussycat Dolls, “Big Time”- Big Time Rush, “7 rings”- Ariana Grande, “CRZY”- Kehlani

Do you create fanmixes/gif sets/fanart/fic/fanvids and so on for your ships?

Sadly no. I don’t have the talent or time.

Do you have a favorite trope and/or AU for your OTP?

Not really. I have to be in a certain mood to read AU fics anyway.

Do you like and use ship names?

I love them and use them frequently, as illustrated by this post.

Is there a fictional relationship you’d really want for yourself?

I live vicariously through Eddie Janko. In middle school, I literally tried to act and dress like her. So that should tell you whose relationship I wish I could be in.

If you could change one thing about your OTP, what would that be?

How Jamko has been written this season. Go back to season 9 episode 1 and start over.

18 notes · View notes

runningwolf62 · 5 years

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SURPRISE IT’S UPDATE TIME! It’s so bizarre being writing this at the same time Larry is because there’s like this weird overlap, we’re like ships passing in the night he’s finally caught up to my time and now is about to pass me.

Anyway, there’s some lovely art in here and a reference to a blog that actually exists, @ask-potoo-firestar. Art belongs to @lavendersongs, thank you for your amazing contribution to the Warrior Cats fandom and for giving me permission to include references to it in this fanfic.

Beep.

Larry curls up deeper under his blankets.

Beep.

He covers his head with his pillow.

Beep.

Fine, he’ll crawl out of his nest and see what had happened, maybe Nick was in trouble again, that Godot guy seemed to have a grudge against him for something.

u ok?

Only Nick texts like that.

haven’t seen u in few days

u alive?

Larry almost fires something back before thinking better of it, Nick had far too many people around him die to joke about that.

Yeah I’m fine, and you usually don’t see me for awhile.

yeah but u had a rough time

Larry hesitates before deciding to just call Nick. The phone rings a few times before Nick answers.

“Hey Larry,” he greets him, Larry can hear voices in the background, he thinks one is Maya, the other is young and high so probably Pearl.

“Hey Nick,” Larry runs a hand over his jaw, aw gross he’d ended up with that scraggly beard, he never looked good with that, he needed to go shave, “you in a crisis?”

“No?” Nick has the gall to sound offended, “I do not only call you during crisises!”

“Mmm might wanna check you phone bill there Nicky Boy,” Larry teases him, his voice is rough, he should haul himself out of bed and start putting himself back together.

“You want to talk about having a crisis you sound like you’ve been on a bender,” Nick fires back, Larry frowned and groused at him.

“Don’t be an ass Nick, I’ve been taking a week off, chilling and relaxing before I remake myself! You called while I’m still in the cocoon man!”

“That metaphor started strong but you took it somewhere very weird,” Nick replies, Larry laughs roughly.

“Alright, alright, you’re the one who texted me,” Larry points out, wrapping his blanket around him like a cloak to hide his shame from the world and stay warm from the chillier October day. He crossed to his laptop to open his resume, he’d need to update it and he might as well do that while chatting with Nick rather than sit around feeling shitty about it.

He chats with Nick, and Maya and Pearl when they demand a chance to chat with him. He interrogate Nick, or tries, but he doesn’t know what’s up with Godot either, other than he’s got one hell of a caffeine addiction, came out of nowhere and claims to be from hell.

Given half the stories Larry’s heard about Nick’s cases he’s tempted to believe it.

“Maybe you ought to have an exorcism performed,” he teases, he’s on speaker phone now and he’s sure they can hear him typing away as he adds his latest job to the long master list of jobs he’s held, “Maya, Pearl, can you do that?”

“I’d have to exorcise the entire Prosocution’s office!” Maya bemoans, Larry grins as she outlines everything she’d need to do to Nick.

“Maybe you should, it sounds like it has a few too many demons over there even before this guy,” Larry muses, saving his resume and opening Fanfiction.net. His stomach drops and his jokes trail off. There’s several messages from XxWolfDragonxX. Shit, he’d just dropped off the map after talking to the guy daily.

He immediately types a response, assuring the guy some stuff just came up, he got fired from work, etc. but he’s doing alright. He misses a question Nick asked him until he repeats his name.

“Larry.”

“Sorry, what?” He tosses the message to WolfDragon off, his friend is probably off work it’s well after six for him.

“I asked what were you typing?”

Larry glances at his messages and then at his minimized programs. “My resume.”

He refreshed FF.net and got a message from WolfDragon.

Man it’s fine, life happens! It’s just good to hear from you again. I’m sorry for all the shit that keeps happening to you.

Again I’m so sorry, and yeah, it’s just been that kind of year.

Do you have a discord? I have something to show you but I don’t think ff.net will send it.

Oh? Uh yeah actually, one second let me find my ID number.

It takes him longer than he should be tosses the information to Wolfdragon. After a moment he gets a friend request on Discord, from a XxWolfDrgonxX surprising absolutely no one. The avatar is a gray anime wolf with yellow eyes snarling, which also doesn’t surprise Larry though he wonders where it’s from.

However he’s still on the phone with Nick, so he accepts it and turns away from the computer, “so what are you all up to asides from calling me?” He hears Pearl giggle and Maya’s voice in the background, they’re moving away, “how are they Nick?”

“They’re good,” Nick sounds happy and Larry can’t help but hurt even as he’s happy for him.

“We’re probably going to do a few things today before they have to head back,” Nick’s chair creaks audibly, “do you have plans for Halloween?”

“Uh, not really?”

“Do you want to come over to the office and hand out candy with me?”

“People come to your office for candy?”

“Surprisingly yes,” Nick sounds equally baffled by this fact, “so, are you in?”

“Do you want me to bring anything?” Larry asks, glancing at his Discord occasionally, where he can see WolfDragon typing. “Beer, Soda, popcorn and terrible horror movies?”

“Popcorn and let’s go with lighthearted movies,” Nick suggests, and Larry wonders if Pearl will be there. He’ll bring soda then, just in case. That or Nick’s gotten to be more of a scaredy-cat since their last Halloween movie festival.

“Have you seen that one cartoon thing that everyone raves about?” Larry’s seen so much art for it for Inktober so he needs to actually sit down and watch the show obviously is what that means.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, I’ll find it, it’s some kids show but everyone who’s seen it loved it,” Larry sends a quick message to WolfDragon while Nick talks.

You sure are dedicated to your brand.

It’s who I am

Furry.

WHAT IN GOD’S NAME IS THAT?!?

That’s Potoo Firestar you fool

I want to hate it but I’m laughing too hard, it’s amazing.

“Larry are you okay?” Nick asks, and Larry can’t answer, he’s wheezing at the damn Potoo Firestar, he cannot believe WolfDragon got his discord just to send him this, and that it’s somehow made him feel so much better.

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine,” he wheezes, and clicks the link that WolfDragon sends him to this person’s blog, “just saw something funny.”

He hops off the phone with Nick promising to see him on Halloween and bring candy and popcorn and the cartoon he’s seen everyone drawing if he could just remember the name.

He spends the next hour teasing WolfDragon on Discord for his avatar and username, all the while scrolling through this blog, which WolfDragon has dubbed “the only pure Warrior Cats blog”.

It doesn’t take long for him to agree though he does have a few questions.

So I miss all the discourse but I also miss blogs like this?

Listen man, some people are still stuck in the can cats be gay discourse?

Seriously?

Yeah, like sure the Erins just made a mistake making some tortoiseshell cats toms. OR they made several trans icons.

I can’t believe Tigerstar was transphobic.

Firestar made the first call out post

“OP is literally a Transphobe and murderer but go off I guess.”

Scourge: *goes the fuck off *

Listen, he wear dog teeth on his collar he can do what he likes, I’m not gonna be the guy to try and stop him.

Oh you do know they made Scourge and Firestar half-brothers right?

THEY WHAT

Yeah they have the same Dad

Oh shit I’d heard that theory but I thought it was just a fan theory

Nah they confirmed it. Also Tallstar was super gay for him

Like canonly gay or the fandom has shipping goggles glued on

Like so canonly gay that the publisher calls them good friends

What?

One of the authors says Tallstar’s heart always belonged to his Jake, but the publishers say they’re just good friends

What’s better than this, guys being dudes.

You’d probably like Tallstar’s Revenge actually, there’s a lot of your fic in it

Seriously?

Yeah man, like leaving the Clans to discover yourself the themes of forgiveness and parents and family there’s a lot of good stuff in there

I guess I’ll have to read it then.

Yeah, that blog I linked you even did fanart of Jake and Tallstar

Oh my god.

Did you find it?

Not yet, but I’m looking.

FOUND IT!

THAT’S IT

Okay that is gay.

Much like my fic.

Now I gotta man.

He did just lose his job but Larry’s got some money saved from his last paycheck and the commissions. What the hell. He makes a note to buy Tallstar’s Revenge next time he’s at the book store, and gets up.

Thanks for this.

Of course!

Is this the best way to contact you, or should I howl out the window?

Haha

FF.net or Discord works I’ll probably review your fics on FF.net still but we can chat here

Larry grins and tells him he hopes he has a good evening. He needs to clean himself up and try and rejoin society.

He showers, shaves, and pulls himself together. He also draws Wolf as a Potoo and sends that back to WolfDragon which is obviously loved, if the fact he turns his avatar into it was any indication.

Larry spends Halloween crashing on Nick’s couch, Maya and Nick fighting over candy while he snags some and occasionally slips a piece or two to Pearl. The kid’s clever and smiles shyly at him every time he does so.

They do settle down to watch the cartoon though Maya grumbles at points about how she wanted to watch the Steel Samurai Halloween Special.

They enjoy Over the Garden Wall though, even if it sends the girls diving to hide behind Nick at one point from the Beast. He lets Nick comfort, while he cleans up some of the trash into the popcorn bowl which he sets to the side, making sure it will not be grabbed by mistake by someone hurrying to give candy to trick-or-treaters.

He’s honestly astonished at the number that turn up at the office, until Nick says he thinks Mia used to hand the candy out, which makes sense. It’s tradition now. And Nick must’ve gotten paid because he’s got the good candy and he’s letting kids take handfuls.

He doesn’t touch that stuff only the bag Nick bought for them to share and the stuff he traded Pearl for because she didn’t like nuts in her candy. Said they got stuck in her teeth which Larry felt was a valid reason to not like them.

He tells himself that means they have protein as he pops a handful in his mouth. While Nick’s busy with some teens at the door and Maya’s tucking Pearl in on the couch he sends a message to WolfDragon.

Happy Halloween.

Technically it’s November, and I didn’t grow up in America

Spoilsport.

WHY ARE YOU AWAKE?

Work

Work can suck my dick, it’s what- oh

It’s six in the morning

You’re going to work

Yup

Listen, I don’t need your sass

It’s not sass I just woke up Writer boy

Don’t you sass Wolfman

Tell me you at least watched terrible werewolf movies in my honor

I did not.

Watched kids cartoons instead.

Warrior Cats Authors

There was an actual child in the room!

Ah what’s being introduced to fear at a young age?

Trauma I believe, and the kid’s had enough of that

You’re a good guy you know that, don’t let people tell you otherwise

“Texting a girlfriend?” Maya’s teasing voice made him jump, she wasn’t peering over his shoulder yet but she might’ve been. She might’ve seen the teasing and… no, she was looking at his face.

“Nah, just a friend,” he shoves his phone back into his pocket, she and Nick are both staring at him intensely now, he’s not sure why but they are.

He swears he sees Nick counting to three but he’s not sure why that happens either. He and Maya share a look, and Larry feels himself tense more.

He looks to Nick, whose eyes pierce him as he looks at Larry, “I thought you said you were taking a break from dating.”

“I am!” Larry insists, careful to keep his voice low, glancing to Pearl because however much they want to interrogate him he knows they’ll kill him if he wakes her.

Nick and Maya look confused again but it’s not his fault they can’t accept that he’s just friends with some people. He’s not even into guys anyway!

He shakes his head and grins at them, “glad to hear you think I have that much game though Nick.”

Maya smothers a laugh, while the edge flows out of Nick’s eyes and a smile takes its place, “you keep getting girls to date you somehow.”

“It’s that I have an artist’s soul,” Larry pulls himself up and rests his hand over his chest, grinning at the two of them.

“I went to art school too you know,” Nick points out, relaxing and smiling.

“And who taught you all those tricks for backgrounds?” Larry fires back, he’s always been the better artist for backgrounds and forms, Nick just had more practice with human anatomy. Nick huffs and shakes his head.

“I showed you how to draw men’s jawlines, ‘cause you only paid attention when the model was female-”

“Nick I’ve accepted my heterosexuality and horndog ways will be my downfall,” he fires back which obviously takes his friend by surprise, Maya too, “hey, I can have some self-awareness you know.” He glances over at Maya, “Nick, Edgey and I are allowed the common sense of one person but we have to share and Edgey came back and took it all from Nick.”

“Excuse me?” Nick looks so genuinely offended and Larry laughs, shoulders shaking.

“You took some back, TSA wouldn’t let him take it all with him.”

Maya’s grinning and apparently not taking sides as he and Nick begin to playfully jab at each other about who has more common sense, and it’s nice to be able to talk about Edgey again without Nick’s anger, to have him laugh as he talks and recounts stories from elementary school to Maya is worth the few bits of his dirty laundry that Nick airs.

They end up on the other couch, Maya curled up on Nick’s one side, Larry on the other; with jackets draped over themselves as make shift blankets.

“Larry?”

“Yeah Nick?”

“Who were you texting earlier,” Nick’s not judgmental now but he is obviously curious, maybe hoping that in his exhaustion Larry will let something slip.

And he does.

“He’s a guy I met online, we talk about like books and stuff. You wouldn’t understand, you nerdy lawyer.”

Nick laughs softly as Larry slumps against him, “that so?”

“It is,” Larry lays his head back against Nick’s shoulder, “very so.”

They wake up in various states of aching and trying to hide it, all of them trying to deny they’re getting old while Pearl buzzes around the office. Larry wonders briefly if she’s gotten into the Halloween candy for breakfast.

He checks his phone and there’s a few messages from WolfDragon.

You still there?

Don’t eat too much candy, aren’t you doing NaNoWriMo this year?

Larry only barely manages not to curse in front of Pearl as he realizes that he’s going to have to write his first 1667 words with one hell of a crick in his neck.

#Ace Attorney #Potoo Firestar is a gift and you can quote me on that #Larry Writes Warrior Cats

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