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edorazzi · 2 years

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Once again, it’s the post everyone’s been waiting for! Reviewing Part 1 of the Miraculous Season 4 finale.

This is a followup to my reviews of the “Felix” episode and “Gabriel Agreste”, so if you haven’t read those then you might like to! They’re not required but do contain my thoughts/opinions/screaming/crying about the Felix storyline up to this point.

I haven’t watched “Strike Back”/Part 2 yet so be gentle with me.

Sorry this one took such a long time, I just wasn’t emotionally ready for this journey (and caught Covid in the middle of editing). But hopefully everyone else is up to date and ready to watch me suffer, so I’ll throw the rest under a cut and let’s get going! ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

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So to kick off, here are my pregame thoughts. Like previous episodes I went on total content lockdown once the finale aired so I’m only aware of a few spoilery things which slipped the net:

Felix gets hold of a Miraculous. Not sure how, why or which one; just that it’s orange. Also something about the Peacock brooch.

Whatever happens in this has radically changed the fandom’s opinion of Felix and not for the better.

Lila is featured somehow.

So I really have no clue where this is going. I recall Lila was working with Gabriel to control Adrien and seemed to ally with Chloe at the end of “Penalteam”; but Felix dislikes Chloe and outright hates his uncle - who he’s aware is Shadow Moth! - so I can’t see him joining this squad of villains.

I’ve talked about this before but at the end of the “Felix” episode I got the impression Felix really does like Adrien, he was just seething over feeling abandoned at his dad’s funeral (and trying to grab the family ring at the same time). In “Gabriel Agreste” the boys seemed on good terms, so I assume they consider that score settled and anything Felix is scheming from this point on is directed more at Uncle Gabe.

On the other hand, Felix’s relationship with the heroes isn’t great. In his debut episode he really messed around with them, appealed to Hawk Moth directly and looked genuinely hurt when Chat accused him of having no friends. However, they seemed fine in “Gabriel Agreste” when Felix was again in need of rescuing; and I can imagine him harbouring a long-term grudge like he had against Adrien but to sabotage the heroes in a way that benefits Shadow Moth/Uncle Gabe? Ehh. Unless Lila is finally staging an uprising and trying to take over as the big villain? MAYBE.

(And I will say - I think there was a HUGE difference in the writing quality of the previous two episodes. “Felix” was just a “fuck you” to PV fans, an incoherent mess which outrageously villainised this new character instead of telling a real story; while “Gabriel Agreste” was much more solid and portrayed Felix as an intelligent/morally grey figure. Like Chloe’s character assassination in “Miracle Queen”, I think Felix’s attitude in the Finale will heavily depend on which episode this draws more from.)

On my magic third hand, how about the increasing speculation of Felix and Adrien being Sentimonsters, or at least ‘more than human’ in some way? I wasn’t buying into the theory at first but at this point I’d believe it. Mostly because I’m genuinely nervous they’re going to “unalive” Felix; if they’ll basically kill Sentibug onscreen when she was a really sweet character then what makes Felix (the most hated one of all!) any safer??

I’m writing this all before going into the episode, obviously. Maybe all my speculation is useless and it’s just “Miracle Queen” Round 2 where they mess up an interesting morally grey character for no reason. Guess I’ll stop avoiding this and go see. :/

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- Alright, I’m going in. Seeing a bunch of the heroes together is nice; I heartily disapprove of “Kuro Neko” downgrading Chat from ‘partner’ to ‘basic bitch backup’ but this isn’t the place to talk about that (OR IS IT?). There’s also nobody in this group I actively dislike Vesperia.

- How come Roi Singe and Carapace get a bro fistbump but not Chat? Are they EVER going to resolve the plot point of Nino revealing his identity to Adrien in “Rocketear”? He did apologise for beating Chat up in the street but have things been frosty since then or what? :/

- Everyone splits up before they detransform, and Ladybug won’t let Chat go with her to collect their Miraculous(eses) because she doesn’t trust him with their identities. And yeah, I’m glad Chat is going off about this, we’re like 10 seconds in and I’M MAD TOO. Ladybug let Viperion learn who Chat was without his consent (which could have led to a Luka/Adrien friendship arc but this series continues to starve me of the most basic sustenance!! >:0), and I’m glad Luka knows because someone has to keep an eye on both these magic idiots, but SHE CAN’T TRUST CHAT WITH WAY LESS VITAL INFO? GIRL...

- Also, doesn’t he at least know who Ryuko and Pigella are? Maybe he can’t admit knowing Carapace but I’m sure Chat was there for both Kagami and Rose getting their Miraculous. She could let him help a little! :(

- “Cat Noir will always be a holder like any other...” / “Yep!” LADYBUG. WHAT ON EARTH. Kissing him on the cheek and calling him your “favourite” does NOT make up for that!!! >:0

- I’m also gonna go down that road and say kissing Chat is a really messy thing to do right now. He clearly interpreted that as something romantic and haven’t we established a million times that Ladybug does not want that relationship with him? :/

One thing I want to talk about here is how “Glaciator 2″ includes a scene where Chat admits that he’s been ‘acting up’ out of desperation to maintain the relationship he has with Ladybug, but he’s so inexperienced with affection that he always ends up acting flirty or romantic and just makes her more frustrated with him.

I think Adrien (as an isolated, socially awkward celebrity heartthrob) has genuine problems knowing how to express platonic love - look at his failed relationship with Kagami! - and yes it’s his own job to deal with that but this kind of thing isn’t helping! What he needs is Ladybug trusting him with more responsibility as a partner to show she values him, not giving out misleading kisses to soften his rejection as a teammate.

Does that make sense? I do think Ladybug’s trying to be nice but this feels cruel to Chat after everything else this season. Where is Felix.

- CAN YOU BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT RENA WHEN I WAS GETTING MAD ABOUT LADYBUG TRUSTING VIPERION OVER CHAT. THE WHOLE SENTIBUBBLER/SCARABELLA MESS WHERE CHAT WASN’T ALLOWED TO BE IN THE LOOP ON ANYTHING, AND THEN GOT BLAMED FOR BEING DIFFICULT TO WORK WITH. OH MY GOD.

- Anyway, Rena Furtive makes sure the coast is clear as Ladybug reclaims the Miraculous from each holder. They do a synchronised dive into an alleyway and detransform amid some cute banter and a plan to go to the movies. This is really pushing the concept of Rena being Ladybug’s ideal partner and it’s making me feel super bad for Chat right now, especially when Rena does what I think is an imitation of him bowing to “Mademoiselle Ladybug”. Maybe it’s a coincidence but it’s very suspect when she’s currently filling Chat’s role as Ladybug’s trusted aide. It’s not funny if you’re punching down, ladies.

- I do apologise for being so nitpicky. I’m way too high strung for regular episode content. Just show me what Felix did and get it over with! >:0

- Cut to Gabriel in his butterfly cave.

Side note: I’m watching a TV series with my family (“Temple”) about a guy who’s keeping his comatose wife in a secret basement, trying to find a cure for her illness while lying to everyone else that she’s dead, and the LOOKS I received when I said it’s the same plot as Miraculous Ladybug. They know I draw a lot of stuff for this sparkly baby show but I’m not even sure they knew it had a plot. They just know I like the catboy. :/

- Ol’ Gabe starts monologuing to his unconscious wife as per usual, mainly about what an embarrassment he’s been this season; but this time he ends up sobbing over the coffin and cracking the glass by beating on it with his fist. Can’t help thinking that the “I am not worthy of our LOVE!” stage already came when he started throwing Adrien around in Season 1; how many akuma has this man unleashed on his own son??

- Gabe reels back in terror when he realises the damage - huge props to the voice acting here, it’s very good! - and immediately shuts the safety doors on the coffin and bolts outta there like a kid who just chipped mom’s best plate. If you put it back in the cupboard right away it’s like it didn’t happen!!

- ...And goes straight to throw a fit in Nathalie’s room, apparently. I know she loves this trainwreck of a man, but 1) why, and 2) is she getting paid extra for this? Adrien comes to cry in here too but at least he brought sandwiches. These emotionally damaged people just bust into her room whenever they want and Gabriel doesn’t even have snacks.

- NATHALIE, I’M SORRY, BUT PRETENDING GABRIEL HAS NEVER MADE MISTAKES IS SO FUNNY. MY BRAIN IS JUST FLASHING THROUGH ALL THE TIMES HE’S MESSED UP LIKE A COMEDY MONTAGE. The worst mistake was letting Felix into his house, not once but multiple times! And where is the little bastard anyway? :/

- Gabriel rushes to Nathalie’s aid when she starts coughing, looks despondent as she assures him she knew the risk she was taking with the Peacock Miraculous; then leaps up with a maniacal laugh as he realises LADYBUG NEVER TAKES RISKS and bolts out of the room still cackling. THE WHIPLASH HERE IS INCREDIBLE. GUESS NATHALIE’S GETTING HER OWN DINNER.

- Our regularly scheduled stop at the Butterfly Lair! But this time it’s all tinted red as Shadow Moth cooks up his plan to FORCE Ladybug to take enough risks that she eventually makes a mistake. I see we’re out of solid villainous plans and moving into Codename: Kids Next Door territory; this is something Knightbrace would do to increase traffic to his dental practice.

- I do like how Shadow Moth sifts through all the voices of people in Paris experiencing negative emotions; I think(?) it’s the first time they’ve illustrated exactly how he chooses his victims and confirmed that he only knows what he can hear; a nice dive into an otherwise staple sequence. :D

- He settles on a child who isn’t allowed to ride their bike without a helmet or training wheels. Classic Gabriel Agreste, here to start fights with children before getting dunked on by other children! Speaking of, where is Felix. It’s just occurred to me that I don’t even know if he’s in Part 1 of this finale. I better not be suffering through this for no reason. :/

- New child character! Frog Boy and his generic backgrounder parents! He’s zooming around at the zoo and wishing for sweet sweet adrenaline, the kind you only get on the razor edge of death. I guess not all characters need stories based around their visual theme but why is this child a frog when his story is (presumably) about taking risks? Why not a tiger? Are frogs particularly fearless bastards?

- So Shadow Moth’s plan is to remove everyone’s sense of fear, meaning the citizens of Paris will start taking risks and doing dangerous things. I’m reminded of “Simpleman” where he made everyone incapable of complex decision-making and the fallout was huge. But what kind of risks are we talking about; is Marinette going to fearlessly confess to Adrien or is someone getting hit by a car?

Now I’m theorising Felix gets a Miraculous because he’s already a sociopathic little bastard who knows no fear; and as such is the only one Ladybug and Chat Noir can trust to act level-headedly in this situation. I’m under the impression he steals this Miraculous though. Hmm.

- Frog Boy’s transformation just gives him a bigger hoodie and a very slow pedal bike, and an annoying song to top it off. No flames or spikes on the wheels? Underwhelming but the less I remember him the better, I guess. A megaphone on his bike spits out glowing orbs which zap everyone they find, including Alya (and her whole family), Marinette and Adrien. So that’s our three main protags compromised! There’s a mark left on each of their necks which I’m sure will be used to tell apart two suspiciously identical blond boys at some point.

- Adrien wakes up first! I appreciate that they scraped together enough leftovers from the budget to give him pajamas; four seasons in and we’re FINALLY allowed to see more of his fashion model closet. It’s taken equally as long for Marinette to get a blanket, she was sleeping on top of her sheets every night until recently! Alya isn’t allowed to sleep at all and Nino doesn’t even have a house (or parents), it just costs way too much. :/

- Nathalie video calls Adrien with his morning schedule, and I’m pleased to see the return of the Chinese lessons! They haven’t done much with that since Season 1, but between this and the Shanghai Special it’s becoming relevant to Adrien’s character again and that’s nice.

- “But first and foremost, the breakfast for two that my father’s been promising me for MONTHS!” SWEETHEART. OH NO. This breaks my heart because I already know Gabe’s going to cancel, I feel it in my bones. Please let Adrien tell his dad to get bent; the fear is gone, right?

- Okay, so Gabriel is deigning to set eyes on Adrien today, but in the study to discuss work instead of at breakfast. This old man can’t talk and eat at the same time, in the room literally JUST across the hall??

- I bet Gabriel’s invited Felix, hasn’t he. Is this ‘new project’ a twin fashion shoot thing? I don’t know why he’d let Felix in the house after what happened previously but maybe Uncle Gabe thinks he’s really got a grip on things this time. Either that or it’s a romantic photoshoot scheduled with Lila, and the test of the akuma’s powers is whether Adrien has the confidence to tell her to back off or not. I’m sorry for all these projections, I’m just trying to second guess this episode before it can get me first.

- PLAGG DECLARES THAT HE FOR ONE WOULD LOVE TO HAVE BREAKFAST WITH ADRIEN. That’s so sweet. This feels like a holdover from “Kuro Neko” where Plagg has realised just how emotionally vulnerable Adrien is - especially now Ladybug is pulling away from their partnership - and has really pitched in with supporting him! I love how their relationship is developing. :’)

- Oh I see, the frog-shaped Risk marks get activated when Frog Boy (who has apparently been out cycling around Paris ALL NIGHT) passes within earshot singing his annoying song. I guess that explains why there’s no widespread chaos yet. I’m sure we’ll be having MANY “well well, if it isn’t the consequences of my actions” moments if it comes and goes in waves!

- With a burst of fearlessness Adrien FLIPS OUT, HURLS his neatly-pressed shirt across the room, and yells that he’s fed up of being a model and just wants Gabriel to be a dad to him! SWEETIE, ME TOO! He stalks off in determination to “GO TALK TO HIM” and Plagg can’t stop him. I KNOW THIS IS GONNA GO SO BADLY BUT IT’S WHAT I’VE ALWAYS WANTED FOR ADRIEN, YOU GO HONEY!!!

- ADRIEN BURSTS INTO THE STUDY IN HIS PAJAMAS, ENRAGED, IN FRONT OF GABRIEL AND HIS COLLEAGUES. I’M IN TEARS.

- Lila is also here (so no Felix yet), and is either wearing all white or they forgot to texture her outfit. It’s happened before; never 4get Alix going a whole episode with grey hair because they just forgot to colour her model properly. Does anyone remember that Season 1 episode where Max’s hair and glasses ran away from the akuma without him?

- Gabriel shoots Adrien down and he immediately subdues and leaves. I guess the wave of fearlessness has passed but BABY NO, YOU WERE GONNA GET HIM! Even Plagg is encouraging him to give it another try! :’0

- “Rebellions are like cheese soufflés: just because they sometimes collapse doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try again!” is my new favourite line from this show. It’s so uniquely baffling. I want it on my wall like a Live Laugh Love sign.

- Poor Adrien is stuck doing this romantic photoshoot with Lila, I guess. Is this all before school or did Gabriel pull him out of classes for this? Did they have a lot of time set aside for that breakfast they were supposed to have together? Has Adrien even HAD breakfast? LET ADRIEN EAT 2K22. >:0

- OOH, Adrien calls Lila out pretty viciously when she begins lying to him! Specifically claiming this photoshoot is nearly as romantic as a Hollywood movie she starred in. And that wasn’t even a “sure, Jan”, he went for the throat. Is he being affected by the akuma again or is this a holdover from last season where Adrien really told Lila where to shove it? I’m betting on the latter since he isn’t interrupting the shoot to yell at his dad like we know he wants.

- GABRIEL’S PLANNING TO SEND ADRIEN OFF FOR MONTHS ON AN INTERNATIONAL PHOTOSHOOT WITH LILA. MY GOD. Can’t blame him honestly; sucks for Adrien (who can’t even bring himself to argue, sweetheart!) but Gabriel’s the one trashing the city on a regular basis and making the Surprised Pikachu face when his son gets caught up in it! I’m amazed Adrien hasn’t been in a Swiss boarding school since Season 1.

- “At the end of the ad, using CG, they will meld together to become the perfume bottle. Two souls, one mind, one heart.” Several concerns. I’m VERY nervous about this Sentimonster thing. Not to keep bringing Felix up before he’s even got here but is this about the cousins somehow, or is Ol’ Gabe just monologuing blithely about missing his wife again? I’m not overlooking that camera angle of Emilie’s portrait right behind Gabriel’s shoulder as he stares at Adrien, either. Hashtag symbolism.

- GUESS ADRIEN’S OUTTA HERE. SORRY BABY. Marinette’s apparently watched this news clip 22 times and is FREAKING OUT.

At least Adrien gets to attend school one last time, that’s slightly better than nothing but isn’t the “adrenaline or death” akuma still on the loose? Is Gabriel just counting on this not being the incident which gets his son killed before he can ship him off to safety? :/

- Ah, we’re back to the strategic wheelie bins so Marinette can get around the school courtyard unseen! That’s a nice callback. And of course, despite Lila doing literally nothing this season until the previous episode, she’s suddenly commanding the class again and Mari can’t get near any of her friends. I sure hope Alya isn’t on Lila’s side any more, now she’s all in with Miraculous business can’t Mari explain what happened with Volpina? :/

- Nice to see Adrien with the guys too! I like that they’ve been pushing that friendship group a little more recently when we get so much of the Girl Squad already. I’m half sad to hear Adrien would be missing Nino’s birthday if this travel plan goes ahead (after all the trouble and property damage Nino went to for HIS birthday! :’0) but between episodes like “Rocketear” and “Penalteam” Nino’s been such an ass to him lately that I don’t know where they stand as best buddies. I’m still frustrated they haven’t addressed that! >:’0

- I will say, there’s no way this storyline will actually end with Adrien and Lila going on a months-long trip, so I’m not taking any of this very seriously. Season 4 has been better at updating the status quo but that’s way too big a change. It’s terrible that I expect them to kill Felix onscreen before sending Adrien off for an unspecified amount of time but here we are. :’)

- I’M GLAD MARINETTE’S NOTICED HOW UNHAPPY ADRIEN LOOKS. I thought she was just going to focus on Lila “stealing him away” or whatever but this is a good use of her infatuation. She’s literally the only classmate paying attention to his feelings right now! I’m more surprised a public photo of Adrien going “:(” hasn’t been analysed more closely but I gotta maintain my suspension of disbelief here. Mari loves him.

- Also, I’ll be really disappointed if this particular shot (shown above) isn’t a rehash of that Season 1 scene where Marinette shuts her locker and Adrien is right behind the door. It’s set up exactly the same way, please, that would be so funny--

- I expect nothing and I’m still disappointed.

- Anyway, Frog Boy chooses this moment to cycle past the school and Marinette’s Risk mark lights up, cementing her urge to confess her love before Adrien leaves FOREVER (or at least long enough to fall in love with Lila)! >:0

Where are this kid’s parents, by the way? They initially let him go because of his akuma power, but if people return to normal when he’s out of hearing range (and still recall what they did in their fits of fearlessness), shouldn’t they be looking for him? Calling the police to report their toddler missing??

- So is this, like... a class fencing lesson? Like the class soccer outing in “Penalteam”? I really wish they’d give these kids some sports kits, I know animation is expensive but they’re never dressed properly.

- Just like the soccer game, Lila fakes a complex and obscure medical condition to get out of this activity; but it backfires when Marinette (who arrives late after angsting in the locker rooms) gets to be Adrien’s partner and their teacher won’t let Lila step back in for safety reasons. Get rekt LOL.

- MARINETTE’S ABOUT TO CONFESS AND ADRIEN GETS NUTTED IN THE FACE WITH A BALL. GUESS THEY’RE NOT FENCING. I don’t know why I didn’t pick up on that when Lila was benched for “ball-ophobia” (there are no balls in fencing! >:0) but that was completely unexpected and SO funny. Is someone trying to get Adrien out of this modeling trip by smashing his face in?!

- IT WAS NINO!! HE’S CELEBRATING HIS STRIKE (I guess this is dodgeball?), ALYA’S LOOKING ON IN HORROR AND I’M CRYING WITH LAUGHTER. I DON’T KNOW IF HE’S BEING A GOOD FRIEND OR A DICK RIGHT NOW.

- Oh yeah, okay, they are playing dodgeball! Adrien gets smashed in the face and goes to the ‘dungeon’ behind the opposing team. Is this a metaphor for the way Gabriel treats him under the impression he’s keeping his son safe? And why is this the second episode in a ROW where nobody will explain team sports to this poor boy? :(

- Also I see Nathaniel didn’t get out of this one. Marc can save him from soccer workshops but not this!

- Alya tags Marinette WAY more gently to send her to the ‘dungeon’ with Adrien! A very generous move. I appreciate that it was just a little bump on the arm while Nino nearly fucking ended Adrien’s modeling career; as Certified Best Friends they’re both doing what needs to be done! :D

- Adrien and Mari have a little talk. It starts out awkward as they don’t know what to say, then gets really awkward when Adrien’s Risk mark flares up and he starts kicking off about how much he hates everything! The photoshoots, dumb ads, his celebrity status and now being expected to just drop everything and go do all this with Lila!! >:0 I REALLY enjoy his speech here; Adrien’s given hints in the past that he doesn’t enjoy the things Gabriel demands from him but this is the first time he’s been so open about it. Yet again the voice acting here is awesome!

- Marinette says she understands how Adrien feels; probably referring to all the pressure of the Miraculous Guardian stuff. Which would be less of a problem if she’d TRUST CHAT NOIR once in a while (or at least build a healthy Alya-Luka support system in the meantime!) but I digress. Adrien seizes the moment and holds her hand! :D

- Lila is getting SO mad. Does she really think she can win Adrien at this point, or are appearances all that matter and she just wants people to think Adrien’s into her via these situations Gabriel engineers? Adrien and Marinette’s emotional exchange continues, and it looks like Mari is about to confess her feelings when LILA BARGES IN AND DRAGS ADRIEN AWAY. SORRY KIDS, NOT TODAY.

- Everyone crowding in to say goodbye to Adrien is so cute! Albeit very frustrating that nobody is reading his emotions properly. His tutor lifting him up in a hug is adorable, between his dead mom and his emotionally constipated father (and Nathalie not being paid enough to actually touch him) have we EVER seen an adult hold Adrien like this?! I think he sees this as Adrien’s chance to escape - implying he’s noticed Adrien is unhappy at home - when tragically it’s the opposite and Gabriel is just locking him down harder! :’(

- So even Chloe is standing by and fine with all this? I know she and Lila got chummy in the previous episode but she wants Adrien too, right? And we’ve seen proof she genuinely cares about him. This would be a great moment for her to ally with Marinette for Adrien’s sake but I guess Chloe doesn’t get to have positive development any more. I’m sure Felix’s interesting character arc will be joining hers in the garbage soon.

- Oh, I see how it is. I should have waited two seconds for Chloe to hip-check Marinette across the street when she was just about to confess (AGAIN). Is she serious about being able to come visit Adrien whenever she wants, is that her agreement with Lila? They’re basically planning to hold Adrien prisoner between them? Jesus Christ.

- Adrien even tries to check on Marinette before he goes! GORILLA, HOW COULD YOU DRAG HIM AWAY. YOU NEVER SPOKE TO HIM BUT ADRIEN ASSUMED YOU WERE HIS FRIEND.

- Alya does come to assist Marinette while she’s lying wasted on the sidewalk, thank goodness. Is this another metaphor for the Rena/Ladybug/Chat triangle? Too bad it’s over Chloe’s nonsense; I want to know if Alya’s suspicious of Lila! >:0

- Marinette calls an emergency meeting with Nino, Rose, Kim and Alya. It’s not lost on me that this is the same group from the opening scene, minus Luka and Kagami who go to different schools. I wonder where Juleka’s got to?

- I enjoy Nino thoughtfully chewing on his juice box while Marinette lays out her wild Veggietales plan. Time is of the essence but she’s already wasted enough to make little cucumber glasses for the “Alya” juice box?? The life of an artist I guess, gotta put in the extra effort. :/

- Okay, I love this whole sequence with the panning camera as Mari explains she’s trying to save Adrien instead of hinder him; it’s an emotional speech (again, great voice acting!) and way more cinematic than the usual static shots!

- And of course the others don’t get it. Nino thinks Adrien deserves to travel (after his dodgeball assault plan failed, I guess); Alya thinks Marinette is overreacting to Lila’s involvement so I guess we know where she stands on this issue; Rose thinks this is Adrien’s dream for some reason; and Kim can’t fathom why anyone WOULDN’T want to be an international model. Again, why isn’t Juleka here? Isn’t it her dream to be a fashion model? She’d have more to say about this than Kim!

- “If (Adrien) didn’t wanna model any more, he woulda told ME! He’s my best bud!” NINO, I DON’T KNOW HOW TO BREAK THIS TO YOU, BUT THERE’S A CHAT-NOIR-SHAPED DENT IN A VAN OUT THERE WHICH IMPLIES YOU GUYS AREN’T REALLY BESTIES THESE DAYS.

- I was gonna say “why isn’t Marinette calling Luka? After Wishmaker he’s clearly the best choice to help Adrien!”, but it’s occurred to me that maybe that’s why Juleka isn’t here. Is the houseboat Mari’s next stop when her classmates won’t help? :0

- OOOH, OKAY! Alya gives a firm no, and in a flash of confidence Mari basically tells the whole table to go screw themselves and leaves to fix this herself! BETTER BE HEADING TO LUKA’S.

- Chaos is erupting all around Marinette as she strides down the street WITHOUT FEAR. This is more what I expected from this akuma! Spontaneous love confessions and other emotional outbursts are embarrassing but not exactly beneficial to Shadow Moth, I want to see Kim catching fifteen different diseases from trying to swim the length of the Seine! >:0

- Back at the Agreste mansion and Adrien is despondent. His final bids for freedom have been struck down, his bags are packed and--

- FELIX?

- MY BOY IS HERE, OH MY GOD. MY SON. I’m sure this is the only moment of genuine joy I’ll get in this entire finale but I adore him on SIGHT. He’s just chilling on top of Adrien’s suitcases, wearing Adrien’s clothes and messing with one of Adrien’s basketballs like a cat with yarn. How did he get in??

- Whichever way he broke in here, and whatever horrible nonsense he’s about to start, I appreciate that they kept his neater hairstyle this time. The “Felix” episode was terrible anyway but even worse since they just used Adrien’s character model for most of it. This time you can actually tell it’s our horrible little boy!

- I am so nervous to go beyond this point, honestly. This is such a nice scene. The music is soft, Felix is framed pleasantly in the afternoon sun, and I could just quit watching here and believe he’s shown up to take this bullet for Adrien because he knows how much it would mean to his cousin. WOULDN’T THAT BE NICE.

- AND IT’S RUINED. The music shifts and Felix leers at Adrien with a menacing “Hi there, my favourite cousin. :)”. WHAT’S ADRIEN DONE TO HIM THIS TIME. DIDN’T THEY MAKE UP? Is Felix the kind of guy who just decides he’s freshly mad about something that happened years ago?!

- LOVE Adrien’s first question being “HOW DID YOU GET IN”, which is basically confirmation Felix isn’t allowed in their house any more. Did the “Gabriel Agreste” episode just not happen? I’d understand these hostile attitudes if this only took place after “Felix”, but how have they instantly started off on the wrong foot?

Maybe it’s like Lilo and Stitch, where Adrien’s prayed for a nice and peaceful solution to his problems and here comes Felix as the most chaotic thing possible. The universe sent “the nicest angel it has” but stocks were low.

- I’m sure this will escalate into something nasty, but for now I adore Felix’s dramatic impression of Adrien as a helpless maiden, and Adrien’s annoyed insistence that that’s NOT how he talks. Felix trying to cause trouble and Adrien gently slapping it down every time is the dynamic I crave between these two. I know I won’t get it but I crave it. :(

- I also like the detail of Felix brushing his hair from neat to messy and back again when imitating Adrien. It makes his impressions funnier and (like I said before) is less of a cop-out than just using Adrien’s character model the whole time.

Adrien tiredly pacing around the room with no time for Felix’s nonsense is great; he’s got more important things going on and doesn’t have the energy to deal with his twin cousin lounging around like a supervillain.

- Also, do you think... are these suitcases a reference to Castle Vanily? Surely not. Felix just gives off that indulgent, catlike energy of sitting atop piles of things (which do not belong to him) like a dragon on gold, and I got there before the series did. Hmm.

- Alright, I KNOW Felix has nefarious intentions by claiming he’s here to “save” his cousin (unless he’s literally incapable of saying anything nice in a non-sinister way, which would be very funny), but I appreciate that he picked up on Adrien being upset from one single press photo on the internet. No one else but Marinette noticed and she’s literally obsessed with Adrien, while Felix has seen him all of twice since they were kids!

- Is it significant that Felix puts so much emphasis on describing Adrien’s “SUPER-cool, SUPER-nice friends”? Hmm.

- Another reference to Felix living in London. I already suspect he won’t be in the London Special (if he even survives this finale) since that’ll likely be a backdoor pilot for the Miss Rose series, but I’m very fond of these little nuggets of info nonetheless. :’)

- “Freedom is something you make, Adrien.” Ooooh, that line gives me shivers! I don’t know if we’ll get any more of Felix’s backstory at this stage but I’m REALLY curious about what’s going on with him. He’s so weird and edgy for a 14 year old, but it sounds like he had a breakdown alone at his dad’s funeral last year so maybe he’s earned that baggage.

- So Felix’s plan is to swap identities with Adrien like they did when they were kids; dressing Adrien up in his clothes so he can chill elsewhere while Felix fights his case and tells Gabriel where to shove it. He implies there may be a “hidden side” of Ol’ Gabe which Adrien hasn’t seen yet. I’m thinking it’s the side which tried to murder Felix in the study last time he visited! :V

- I HIGHLY doubt this is actually to help Adrien. I adore Felix shamelessly but I don’t trust him an inch. Is this a plot to distract Gabriel while Felix gets into the study again, this time undetected?

- Adrien’s Risk mark flares up at just the right (or wrong!) time, and he thinks Felix is on to something! Oh noooo. We’ve seen the kind of carnage that comes with Felix dressed as Adrien, but what about Adrien doing “whatever he wants” dressed as Felix? An untapped market of chaos. Is this all gonna go off the rails and Ladybug will give a Miraculous to the wrong guy?

- THE MESS BEGINS. “Adrien” approaches Gorilla in the courtyard for help carrying his bags, and “Felix” sneaks out the front doors while he’s distracted. This naming will be a little confusing but I’m sure you guys get it.

- Back upstairs, “Adrien” takes a moment to swipe Nathalie’s work tablet under the guise of helping close her suitcase, which she is too weak to do. I’m noticing she has a Risk mark too and I’m sure that’ll be relevant. So this IS a plot for Felix to dig deeper into Gabriel’s business, colour me completely unsurprised!

- Also, does this indicate Nathalie is going on this trip with Adrien? Bedridden Nathalie who needs an Avengers-style exosuit to move around the house?? Nathalie who was on the verge of death at the beginning of this very episode??? GABRIEL.

- Speaking of Ol’ Gabe, he catches “Adrien” at the door and... doesn’t seem to recognise him as Felix. Which is EXTREMELY funny, because at the beginning of this arc he made a huge fuss about the cousins pulling this prank when they were toddlers. “I won’t be fooled a second time!” he said, and has now been fooled a second time.

- Back downstairs, “Adrien” checks the coast is clear before ducking into the Forbidden Study. And he... apparently has a high-tech monocle which can scan the room and locate points of interest?

- No, seriously, what on Earth is this thing. Where did Felix get this? How does a teenager just whip out a piece of Phantom Thief technology, and why did he need it when he already had a hunch something was up with Emilie’s portrait? Is this another Magic Kaitou reference, like his magician tricks from the first episode?

- He has a codebreaking device too, which must be pretty complex if it can crack Gabriel’s top secret safe in a house with a ridiculous level of security. How did he get any of this past boarder control? DOES FELIX’S MOM KNOW WHERE HE IS.

- It’s an x-ray monocle and everything. OKAY, KAITO KUROBA.

- Ah, ALRIGHT. So Felix got the safe open and discovered what look to be the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous(es), but I’m guessing these aren’t the real deals. I think Miraculous lose their camouflage when they’re renounced instead of just removed (like Marinette losing her earrings in the Shanghai Special vs Adrien giving up his ring in “Kuro Neko”), and we saw Uncle Gabe putting the Peacock brooch away at the end of the previous episode while scheming up a “surprise” for Felix’s next visit. THIS IS A TRAP.

- Either that or the Peacock Miraculous is still damaged and will just outright kill him. I can’t believe how expectant I am that Felix is going to die; I just feel like if they’ll do it to Sentibug they’ll do it to him. :/

- So Felix takes the Miraculous(es), and manages to reset the whole system including security cameras exactly the way he found it. Even if this kid is evil you’ve got to respect how capable he is compared to literally every other character in this show. But his Phantom Thief monocle picked up more of Gabe’s fingerprints on the painting; is he going to figure out how to get to the butterfly lair or Emilie’s capsule? Are we finally going to see how that whole system works?! I’M LOSING IT.

- UH OH, HE WENT DOWN THE TUBE BUT LEFT HIS BAG BEHIND. Guess you can’t plan for everything. Felix was ready for a heist, not his uncle’s fucked-up carnival funhouse slides!

Yet again I wish this wasn’t all done using Adrien’s character model, but at least there’s a better setup for it this time.

- Upstairs, Gabriel takes off his wedding ring while talking about this being his “riskiest plan yet”. What does that mean, dude.

- OH SHIT, FELIX FOUND EMILIE’S CAPSULE. I guess this is my moment of truth about his characterisation this episode; he seemed really fond of his aunt (or at least her portrait) in “Gabriel Agreste” so will he give a shit or are we playing by “Miracle Queen” rules? I really have no idea if Gabe intended this to happen or not, what on Earth is the fallout going to be?!

- HE JUST TURNED TAIL AND RAN. IT GOT TOO REAL TOO FAST. Like I’m sorry, I know this was a really tense moment and huge for all characters involved, but I love this whole spy movie setup leading to Felix just BOLTING at the sight of his dead aunt in his uncle’s basement. HE FIGURED OUT GABE WAS SHADOW MOTH AND STILL DUG DEEPER, BUT THE FRIDGE WITH EMILIE’S CORPSE IN IT WAS THE LINE. GOOD LUCK ADRIEN, YOU’RE ON YOUR OWN.

- Back upstairs, Gabriel puts his wedding band on Nathalie’s ring finger as a memento “in case something goes wrong”. Buddy, this is on the line with Ladybug kissing Chat Noir on the cheek earlier, you can’t maintain that platonic boundary you’ve been complaining about for this whole arc?! PUT IT ON LITERALLY ANY OTHER FINGER, GOOD LORD.

- “I’m trusting you with my wife’s ring. And my son.” WORST PROPOSAL EVER. At least Adrien won’t take much work; just leaving him alone will be better than the nonsense Gabe’s been pulling with him for the whole series. Except “Adrien” is currently Felix and having a heart attack in the study. Uncle Gabe warned you not to dig any deeper, honey, it’s your own fault!!!

- FELIX DITCHES THE MONOCLE AND KICKS IT SOMEWHERE DISCREET IN THE STUDY. IT’S SHOWN HIM TOO MUCH. I’d say “why wouldn’t he just put it back in his bag where he got it from, which he’s currently holding?” but 1) I refuse to put the burden of common sense on my special boy; and 2) the kid just saw a corpse which looks exactly like his mom. He’s handling this pretty well all things considered.

- I CAN’T HANDLE HOW GABRIEL BURSTS INTO THE STUDY AND FELIX INSTANTLY SAVES HIS ASS BY SNAPPING BACK TO THE “PRETEND TO BE ADRIEN AND TELL UNCLE HE DOESN’T WANT TO GO ON THE TRIP” PLAN. LIKE THAT HORROR SHOW DOWNSTAIRS DIDN’T HAPPEN. I don’t know if this is equal to or better than his immaculate “Oh I just wanted to get to know you, Uncle! :3″ save from the previous episode; this boy’s core talent is recovering from heart attacks in record time! >:0

- Okay, THIS is interesting. Gabriel tries to tell “Adrien” he won’t stand for this rebellion, but falters at the look in “Adrien’s” eyes and itches at the place his wedding ring should be - a habit we last saw in (I think) “Megaleech” when he banished the real Adrien upstairs for being defiant. Nathalie glances at Gabriel, adjusts her glasses with the ring visible on her hand, and tells “Adrien” it’s “time to go”. And “Adrien” just flinches wide-eyed and agrees?! BUT THIS IS FELIX.

OKAY. SIDEBAR. I HAVE THREE THEORIES HERE.

The first (and weakest) is that Felix is just obeying in order to get everyone out of the study, because every second they linger in here increases the risk of his Spy Kids mission being discovered - especially since he’s taken things from the safe and his Phantom Thief monocle is lying on the floor in easy sight. He got what he needed here and Adrien can fend for himself.

The second (and strongest) is that this is about the family rings again - now Felix knows Emilie is here he also knows there’s a second ring to be had, so he needs to stick close to Nathalie and the best way is by taking over this trip Adrien’s supposed to be going on, especially if Gabriel isn’t going to be there.

The third, returning to the Sentimonster theory, is that the ring actually did something to Felix. Maybe Gabriel just fidgets with it as comfort when he has to make tough calls with Adrien, but maybe it really does affect the fight Adrien has in him and forces him to be obedient, and if that’s the case then it might affect Felix too. I’m drawn back to “freedom is something you make” and how much trouble Felix went through to get hold of the first ring when Adrien has never touched this one. HMM.

- Full disclosure, it was very late so I went to bed after that scene. Couldn’t take any more excitement. Now I’m back for the last five minutes and HI MARINETTE, I NEARLY FORGOT ABOUT YOU. I really appreciate this arc being Agreste-centric; I’ve talked about it before but it’s refreshing for Mari to take a spectator position instead of getting crowbarred into the Adrien/Gabriel/Felix nonsense.

- ANYWAY. Marinette is back and with less than half an hour to save Adrien! We’re returning to the fairytale analogy from “Gabriel Agreste” and Mari’s taken two and a half hours to figure out that Adrien needs to be rescued by a knight, whatever that means. She’s also kept copies of those illustrations Nathaniel drew which is a cute bit of continuity.

- My brain wandered away from me for a second, and when Marinette says “The knight will be LLLLL--” I REALLY THOUGHT SHE WAS GONNA SAY LUKA, LIKE SHE GOT HIM IN ON THIS SOMEHOW. But nope, just Ladybug. There goes my OT3 dream. :( Her reasoning is “Nobody listens to Marinette, but EVERYONE listens to Ladybug!” which is actually very true, especially when Lila is around. If she’s willing to use Ladybug for environmental activism she can save Adrien too!

- Tikki starts the “you mustn’t use your powers to solve personal problems!” lecture, but I’m not taking any moral guidance from the Galette cake monster. Mari should totally do this. At any rate her Risk mark flares up again; she vetoes all Kwami concerns and forces Tikki to transform her! I’m sure this can only end well.

- Now we’re with Adrien, sitting on a park bench dressed as Felix. At least I get to see Felix’s character model in SOME form today. It’s like a glimpse into some alternate universe where Felix remained the deuteragonist instead of... whatever this is now. Sigh.

- Plagg is excited about Adrien’s newfound freedom, though he was VERY critical of Felix in the first part of this arc so it’s interesting he doesn’t suspect any mischief here. Though maybe Felix was serious about getting Adrien out of this mess; like yeah it’s an excuse to go raid his uncle’s stuff again but no harm no foul? I do believe he likes his cousin. Hmm.

- Adrien doesn’t want to risk taking advantage of this freedom (or isn’t in the right headspace to do anything except sit nervously) because he’s just waiting for Felix to call him. Kagami calls first and starts RAGING down the phone about not saying no to his dad. I guess this makes three people who noticed Adrien was unhappy about this situation! She asks how long he’s going to stay Gabriel’s “puppet”, and yet again I’m nervous about that choice of words. Is Felix okay right now?

- Uh oh, Kagami brought up their relationship. I don’t condone what happened there (and still think it’s a sign of Adrien having issues expressing platonic affection) but can Adrien get a break today? Everyone’s dunking on him. Though I think Kagami’s realised how unhealthy it was; she points out how between herself, Gabriel and Felix (and Ladybug) there’s always someone telling Adrien what to do. I’m getting increasingly concerned about this Sentimonster thing.

- Kagami yells some more, apologises for the harsh truths and hangs up, and Plagg just goes “wooooooow”. ME TOO BUDDY. KAGAMI IS GREAT.

- Adrien’s Risk mark flares up and he thinks Kagami is right, he should have stood up to his father a LONG time ago!! He texts Felix to stop the plan because he’s coming to confront Gabriel his damn SELF. All well and good but IS FELIX OKAY THOUGH.

- Felix (still dressed as Adrien) receives the text, reads it with narrowed eyes, then deletes it and gets into the car. Oh man.

- Both Adrien (in Felix’s clothes) and Ladybug see the car leaving. Adrien says “I should have known, he tricked me again!”, but like-- to what end? The car is heading to the station for an international trip Adrien doesn’t want to go on, right? Does he just assume Felix is tricking him even if he can’t figure out why this is bad? What is the plan here. He dashes off home with the intent of talking to Gabriel.

- Ladybug arrives at the station and sees “Adrien” and Lila about to board the train. Her Risk mark flares up and gives her the confidence to JUMP DOWN THERE IN FULL COSTUME AND TELL ADRIEN SHE “NEEDS” HIM. GIRL. IS SHE GOING TO SAVE FACE BY MAKING THIS A MIRACULOUS THING??

- Oh no, okay, she saved face with “Adrien Agreste is a national treasure and if he leaves Paris everyone will get akumatized from grief, so TURN AROUND RIGHT NOW AND TELL GABRIEL AGRESTE WHERE TO SHOVE IT”. Which is fair actually. “Adrien” says he doesn’t have the confidence because, unlike Ladybug, he’s “not a superhero”. This is like the third time Felix has used the word “super” today; is he actively gunning for a Miraculous after all?

- “ADRIEN” GETS ON THE TRAIN AND IT LEAVES. LADYBUG COLLAPSES IN GRIEF. DUDE WHAT IS GOING ON. I guess Felix doesn’t have to pay for his own ticket back home to London but I have no clue how to read his character right now; girl HELP--

- THE REAL ADRIEN BUSTS INTO THE MANSION. Does he have a door and gate key? I get the impression he’s not allowed to come and go as he pleases. Maybe Gabriel just didn’t lock up after all the capable household staff left. What does he MEAN he left the front door open for three days after Nathalie went on this trip, YES you have to close it yourself--!!

- Back on the train. Lila and “Adrien” take their seats. “Adrien” overhears Nathalie calling Gabriel to report his son is safe (lol no he isn’t).

- Gabriel answers his phone FROM THE TOP OF THE EIFFEL TOWER, WHERE HE TRANSFORMS INTO SHADOW MOTH IN BROAD DAYLIGHT, READY TO CAUSE WIDESPREAD CHAOS WITH A SENTIMONSTER.

- This is all very unnerving, but what I’m getting is that GABRIEL DEFINITELY DID NOT LOCK UP HIS HOUSE. THE REAL ADRIEN JUST WALKED IN THERE OFF THE STREET. If Felix had waited like 3 hours he could have wandered in and explored the place totally uninterrupted, but I guess hindsight is 20/20 (and maybe he’s more interested in the ring?). :/

- Shadow Moth creates Ultron. Between this and Nathalie’s Avengers exosuit he’s definitely been watching too many of his son’s movies.

- Ultron (or “Strikeback”, I guess?) begins stomping through the streets; and fearless Parisians start approaching/waving at/trying to take selfies with it. Which is honestly par for the course and I’m surprised the superheroes are only dealing with this NOW; if the influx of akuma haven’t destroyed the tourist economy they’ve just boosted it!

- Marinette has returned to the station roof and detransformed to lament about Adrien. Tikki tries to comfort her by describing Adrien simply going on a “voyage”, but Mari’s Risk mark flares up at the key word. IS SHE GONNA USE THE HORSE MIRACULOUS ON THE STARTRAIN AGAIN. “No magic portals” is the kind of sign you’d see in the train carriage and wonder what happened more than once to make it necessary.

- TIKKI IS NOT ON BOARD BUT MARINETTE IS THE CONDUCTOR OF THIS TRAIN. She didn’t even feed Tikki before re-transforming; I guess there’s no need to replenish her energy if she didn’t use Lucky Charm but isn’t it polite to provide a snack?!

- Back at the Agreste mansion, Adrien ventures into the study. Is he gonna find Felix’s Phantom Thief monocle and use it to discover Gabriel’s secrets too??

- Oooh YES. His Risk mark flares up at just the right time to deter him from stepping back out of the room and he spots the monocle; but the sound of Ultron stomping through the city distracts him!

AND THEN THE EPISODE ABRUPTLY ENDS. SHEESH, OKAY, BYE.

---

ALRIGHT, SO. GOODNESS. MY THOUGHTS SO FAR.

Realistically I know the “Adrien leaves Paris forever on an international photoshoot with Lila” thing isn’t going to happen, so I’m not too engaged with that (and only focused on it so much because I was nervous about whatever mess was about to happen with Felix, lmao); but as usual the Felix stuff is very interesting. I assume he’s going to do something horrible in the next episode which is why everyone’s been ominously telling me to “have fun :)”.

HOWEVER. This ring stuff. You guys know I wasn't totally buying the Sentimonster theory back in my "Gabriel Agreste" episode review, but with Felix's submissive reaction to Nathalie - especially right after challenging Gabriel for Adrien's freedom, and Gabriel's fumbling response as he went for a ring which wasn't there - I'm VERY suspicious of what's going on.

At this stage, I think Felix really DID intend to help Adrien out (as a fair trade for being able to get into Uncle Gabe's office again), but he wasn't prepared for how much he'd discover, AND the family ring had some kind of effect which led to him obeying Nathalie and deleting Adrien's text. Is it just because he wants to steal the ring for keepsies, like before, or does it have some other connection more deeply related to Adrien being Gabriel's "puppet"? Is this related to the "surprise" Gabriel planned for Felix's next visit which I'm sure involves the decoy Miraculous items? And where is Amilie in all this??

Can’t wait to see what happens in the next episode (which I’m planning to post a second review of sometime soon), I’m sure I’ll hate it! :D

#i cannot express how much of a nightmare the tumblr post editor is. apologies if this posts all messed up because idk WHAT it'll do next #anyway ENJOY WHATEVER THIS IS. a month late but i know you guys love me :V #josie talks about things #felix graham de vanily #felix agreste #miraculous ladybug

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star-lemonade · 2 years

Text

Stray Kids as Demigods

After I read the fics by @neo-shitty I kept thinking about this, so the other day I talked with @ninamidnightscribbles about this and here is what I think. Feel free to share your thoughts too <3

I based this more on Percy Jackson lore than actual mythology XD

Warnings: a bit of angst?

Genre: pjo au, imagines

Rating: T

word count: 1k

Chan

Chan is a cute sunny boy who naturally winds up in leadership positions. This is partially due to his levelheaded personality and good people skills but the fact that he is the son of the big guy helps too. Will often unconsciously give people static shocks and will literally sparkle when excited Please don’t tell him good news next to something flammable. Thank you.

He seems confident in his abilities but is secretly afraid of failure and the consequences that could arise from him making mistakes. In the past, good people have been injured because he was too reckless and these events still play in his head whenever a monster threatens his friends.

Minho

People are always baffled by Minho’s reflexes. They are so good it's almost as if he knows in advance what will happen and while he says it’s just that, good reflexes, other children of Apollo have been known to be blessed with the gift of precognition. One thing he doesn’t deny though is that if he is feeling nasty he will make you speak in rhymes all day and annoy the hell out of everyone with it. Casually good with a bow. Hawkeye who? I only know Minho. He will do trick shots when he is bored, sending his arrows to ricochet off walls just to hit a point next to him. You can tell when he is embarrassed because he will start glowing like a lightbulb.

Changbin

Changbin makes most people uncomfortable but they often don’t know why, it was hard to tell unless you knew who his dad was. If you need someone to move the earth for you, both literally and figuratively, Changbin is your guy. He often seems standoffish, almost antisocial with his dry, dark humor and general lack of interest in other people, but don’t be fooled. If someone is in his inner circle he is the most loyal friend they can have. When he is truly angry and not playing it up, the earth trembles under his feet. Accidentally caused a strong earthquake when his best friend got injured by a monster. These days he stays away from the battlefield but even in the world of humans the dangers. As the son of Pluto, the riches just don't stop coming his way and with it come all the sharks that what to profit too.

Duty is important to him and Changbin never breaks a promise. If you have his word, then you can be sure that he will keep it.

Hyunjin

Hyunjin is the man you call when you need someone to retrieve intel about anyone. As a Child of Aphrodite Hyunjin can charm anyone into doing almost everything for him. People are wrapped around his finger and they don't even know it. He dislikes fighting but if it comes down to it he uses a rapier or a dagger to fend off attackers. Hyunjin loves to change his appearance, so one day you will see him with short black hair, the next he has shoulder-length blond hair. Although he likes abilities he also dislikes how people often reduce him to his looks and charm. Hyunjin seems like a social butterfly but actually chooses his friends carefully.

Jisung

Jisung is afraid of his powers and rarely uses them so most people don't even know who his mom is. They think he is a child of Hermes, with his good sense of humor and general versatility, one could think so but things do not quite add up. He always knows where he has to go when he is at a crossroads and sees well in the dark. Sometimes he even summons torches out of thin air. Jisung says he just always has one on his person but when he doesn’t even have a bag with him this sounds pretty suspicious. Stray cats and dogs are drawn to him because they can feel the presence of their Mistress Hecate in her son Jisung.

Felix

You can always tell when Felix is around because even that person who is always cold has to take off their jacket. Where ever Felix is, there is also summer. Some say he doesn’t even know what cold feels like. This is of course ridiculous, he has drunk some cold drinks and eaten ice cream. Snow, however, is a different thing. As a Son of Notus, the god of the south wind and god of summer, Felix brings sunshine and warmth with him everywhere he goes. Strictly speaking, he doesn’t have to wear a knitted sweater in winter but it looks so cute on him that he does it anyway. Felix doesn’t like the dark and avoids going too far up north in winter.

Seungmin

He is very smart and uses his head to get out of dangerous situations, exactly the kind of son that his mom wants. A bit unusual however are his weapons of choice, a sword or a bat. For Seungmin there is something very satisfying about the way the heavy bat swings that make him prefer it over more delicate weapons. It needs more skill to handle than more think. Due to its weight, it’s not as fast as a sword so the perfect timing is important. When in danger he can also talk his way out but is often hindered by being too logical. "Why would you do that? That makes no sense!"

Like most children of Athena, Seungmin has a problem keeping his superiority complex in check and this has almost cost his friends their lives in the past. He is working on it.

Jeongin

If you need to find Jeongin, a party is the best place to start. He likes to be out there partying with the crowd, but usually, he is just vibing in the corner, drinking with some friends he has met there. Partying with Jeongin is the best, booze all night, laughing chants, and the feeling that you will never have to do anything else, however careful not to get on his bad side. His father Dionysus may be the god of wine and parties but that is not all. Jeongin can be short-tempered and hold grudges. When he is angry his eyes burn with purple fire and whoever is on the receiving end of his stare will be overcome with madness.

Addition thoughts:

- Chan was kind of hard to place because he could fit a bunch of gods. He is very good at swimming so Poseidon/Neptune would also be a good fit. On the other hand, when I read the fics mentioned above that feature him as a son of Zeus and I thought man, that fits so well too. Chan who can fly and summon lighting?? YES! Where do I sign?? However, I think Jupiter would be the better fit bc Chan is pretty disciplined which is more in line with the roman aspect.

- Chan as a son of Hypnos. The man should have the power to make himself fall asleep whenever XD Someone should be a child of Hypnos but it did not really fit.

- Nina suggested Felix as Son of Helios but since he has faded in the PJO universe I came up with something else.

- I'm still a bit obsessed with Jeongin in Cheese MV where he acts a bit unhinged. Like he is smiling but it is too cheerful. He also often gives me that head empty vibe, not dumb but rather choosing not to think if that makes sense. That's why I think Jeongin as a son of Dionysus is a good fit.

Taglist: @binzuli @maja-theloser1 @lilfoxybitch @jeansbabycake @seo-thicc-bin @womiew @jojoskz @d1n0s4urus-69 @cece5 @screechingstay @kittykatvenom

#stayhavennet #wkcnet #noonasinnetwork #ficscafe #Stray Kids fanfic #Stray Kids fics #kpop fanfic #star writing #queue for the lemonade stand #stray kids #stray kids imagines

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fireemblems24 · 2 years

Note

25, 26, 27 and let's just throw in 30 as well for the heck of it!

25. Character(s) you think is underated, and why?

Gilbert. From what people have said, everyone hates this guy because he's a "dead-beat dad." I personally think it's a good thing our culture really looks down on family abandonment, but that's such an over simplified look at his character. He's so well written and complicated and messy but not evil. I'm a sucker for parent character who are human rather than just support or sad-backstory fodder. I'm betting other characters get a lot more sympathy than he does too.

26. Character(s) you started out disliking but ended up really liking, and why?

Felix. I liked him because he was a hot sword boy, but then saw his supports and he was so mean to literally EVERYONE and at times really cruel. But haha, now he's in my top 5 favorites. My favorite thing about him is how he changes per route when no one else does. It really helped me understand his actions and learn he's just absolutely clueless about social and emotional intelligence and the more he barks, the more he's actually just really stressed and worried about that person. Seeing him devolve outside of AM is really heartbreaking too, and I've heard even his supports are super different pending the route.

27. Character(s) you started out liking but ended up disliking, and why?

This really hurts to say but, Ferdinand. He's just so disappointing. His one-sided rivalry with Edelgard makes him look really pathetic, especially since the end of that "arc" is him just accepting she's better than him (per his Byleth support). It seemed like he got set up to be more important - like Lorenz or Felix - but ends up adding nothing of value to any scene he's in. He got two chances to shine and just blathers away in both with empty lines. That's a problem in general (most of the times student lines are pretty throw-away), but he's so judgemental about other people's values and leadership skills without having any strong convictions he actually sticks to.

30. Are there any things you dislike about your favourite character(s)? If so what are they?

Oh, definitely.

Dimitri is way to dependent on Byleth. I enjoy their relationship and like the idea of it being romantic and more guide-like, but it annoys me that I'm really supposed to believe all that change in behavior is dependent on Byleth being there or not.

Dedue. No, Dedue's perfect. In all seriousness, I think he enables Dimitri too much. Dedue has his own issues, and it's not everyone's job to play Dimitri's babysitter, but telling Felix "I'd kill kids if he asked!" attitude is . . . not good and I kind of wish we saw him wrestle with this a bit more.

I dislike how Felix isn't called out more for his abusive behavior. I wish he'd apologize a bit more rather than putting the onus on the other character all the time to play nice with him.

A lot of Marianne's supports are repetitive. It holds back her characterization. She's a really heart-warming character and she deserves the world and it sucks so many of her supports just show the same side of her character over and over.

Ingrid's Duscur issue really needed more to work it all out. I don't have a problem with characters who have pretty serious flaws, but if they wanted to make Ingrid racist, I wish that got a bit more attention. She has her Dedue support, but that's really it.

Seteth sucks as a leading man in SS. I love him - a lot - but Claude, Edelgard, and Dimitri carry that role so much better than he does. I think it's because he literally never breaks out of his straight-man/mission report mode and we don't see how sweet he is in supports or him get flustered or anything.

Dorothea really looks hypocritical in CF. Oh, war sucks, oh all the poor children dying, oh, Edie, you and Byleth are soooo cute lolol. Come on, Dorothea, you can't have it both ways.

Manuela is so petty sometimes. Sometimes it's hilarious, but other times it seems downright mean like when she hoped F!Byleth will stay single forever just because she's having issues.

Mercedes is so passive at times. She's got this secret savage side, but I wish she let a few more people hear it. I've also seen her Jeritza support by now and it's awful. How much she puts herself down and it's never really rectified.

Sylvain and his women issues are written weirdly. The game wants us to feel oh so sorry for him that his rich, handsome, noble self gets attention from shallow women - but like everyone has that issue in his position. It's played up too much, and we never actually see any women in the entire game treat him badly. The "resolution" is also a little messy.

Ok. I have more favorites, but I need to stop lol. 10 is enough.

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izayoichan · 3 years

Note

For the 100 OC Questions:

Flynn: 91-100

Fannar: 81-90

Chris: 31-40

Hayle: 51-60

Hayden: 61-70

Vy: 71-80

Lucas: 21-30

River: 41-50

Brooke: 1-10

Meadow: 1-20

A few questions for almost everyone XD

This will be LONG, so under a line.. because LONG!!

Flynn:

91. Do other characters respect your OC, if so, is it out of fear? Or do they respect your OC because they like them?

Some respect him, most do and it's mostly from him being who he is. A friendly guy that's generally nice to everyone. Flynn is simply a very likable fellow.

92. If they were given minutes to live, what would they do? Who would they want to see and say?

The one person Flynn would go to see is his dad, and he'd probably tell him that he loves him and to not take blame for anything that has happened, and to care for the rest of his family. Then he would just hug him until his time was up. His dad is the most important person in the world for Flynn

93. How do they deal with stress?

He tends to go for a run, or talk to someone about what stresses him if he can. Most often this person is Brooke, or later Emil.

94. Do they have a more submissive or dominate personality type?

I think he is a bit of a mix, but like his mom, leaning on the submissive.

95. Do they have a pet?

Atm not really, he has Emil as a familiar, and the family has two pets in Lobo and Felix that he kinda considers his as well without either really being his.

96. Do they have a stash of weapons?

Nope, no stash!

97. Where do they live? Who do they live with?

They live in Brindleton bay with their entire family. It's a lot of people, but he likes that in a way. Even though sometimes some alone time is good too.

98. How do they calm themselves down?

Watching movies, working at the shelter, or just talking to their dad. His dad is his biggest source of calm.

99. Are they co-dependent?

In some ways yes, but also not. He is a very independent person, but he is also used to living very close to family and friends. So he would be a bit lost without them all I think. College should be interesting ;)

100. Are they a day, or night person?

Day person, definitely.

Fannar:

81. Do they have any tattoos? If so, are they significant?

Is it bad that I don't really remember? I don't think I gave them any, but I also have a bad memory.. so maybe, but they're not significant, just something they would have done for fun.

82. Are they good at mental math?

Very, they have that after their dad.

83. Do they get along with others?

Yep, he does, he also has a bit of a tendency to get fans along the way somehow. He doesn't exactly like that part as much though.

84. Are they lazy?

Generally no, but they also can be. They do like to not do anything but slack on occasion ;)

85. Are they self-motivated?

They tend to be more motivated by others, but when needed, they can motivate themselves, so I guess a bit of both?

86. How do they cope with anger?

He isn't a very angry type of person, but when he gets angry he copes fairly well with it. He has always been told being angry is okay, and a valid way to feel.

87. Have they ever been in a situation where they were helpless?

When they saw Emil attacking their mom, and then their twin stepping in and eventually making it his familiar. He felt awfully helpless then and it was not a feeling he liked.

88. Are they organized or messy?

Their fairly organized, better than most teens.

89. Can they remember a lot of information at once?

Yeah, they have a dragon's memory, and they are pretty good at remembering a lot of information at once.

90. What is their occupation?

Currently, they are to be College Student.

Yvreon/Vy:

71. Who do they dislike?

Mages.. hunters.. yeah.. that's their main dislikes.. Death to an extent.. Jael mostly for breaking the Heartlight.

72. What is their motto?

I think to help, and just be helpful in general. Or learn, as much as he can.

73. Do they have any markings on their body?

They have quite a lot of scars, from being attacked by hunters. They also have a heart-shaped scar on their chest, from sharing their heart with their husband Hayden.

74. Have they ever been abused?

Sadly, yes, both by the first humans they encountered, hunters who wanted their heart, and also to an extent the mages at RoM who wanted to experiment on him.

75. What is their biggest fear?

To lose Hayden.

76. What are their goals?

Healing people, helping people. He would love to get his Heartlight back if it was possible so that Hayden would be well, or better. Learning as much as he can, and of course, acquire many shiny things and books!

77. How do they go about achieving their goals?

He works at a hospital, where he helps as many as he can. And the money he earns often go-to books and shiny trinkets as he knows he is well cared for at home money-wise.

78. Do they have a fight or flight response?

Depend's on son the situation. If Hayden or his family is close, he will fight with all his might. If he is alone, it would be flight, to come home and protect those he loves.

79. Is there someone in their life that they care about more than themselves?

Their kids and Hayden.

80. How would they fare in a zombie apocalypse?

Fairly well I think, they are a dragon after all ;)

Hayden:

61. Are they comfortable being in a crowded room?

Yeah, he doesn't really mind. He prefers quiet, but a crowded room doesn't bother him much.

62. How do they relax?

Lying in bed watching movies, preferably using Vy as a bed, as that is the best and most comfortable thing he knows. Oddly helping the kids with math is also relaxing to him.

63. Have they ever harmed anyone and regretted it? Verbally or physically?

The sharing of the Heartlight with Vy, hurts Vy when he feels bad. Or well it did when it was connected. He was never comfortable with that, and it always made him feel bad. Even if Vy told him it was fine.

64. Do they like to dance?

Yes!

65. How do they get around their environment? Examples - horses, bike, vehicle

They have been carried a lot.. other than that, he mostly gets flown by a dragon or uses a portal.

66. What is their pet peeve(s)?

People who mistreat animals, he hates it, and he will call you out on it.

67. Do they have a disability?

Yes, they were born with one. They were born with two magic types that fight each other. Ice and Fire, where the fire side is slightly stronger and was damaging him. He quickly gets tired, and after the loss of his twin, and the breaking of the Heartlight, he has once again gotten worse.

68. How do they react to getting flowers?

He would be surprised, but thankful. He likes flowers but prefers them alive in the ground.

69. Would they ever wear a flower crown?

Yes, especially if made by the kids or given by Vy.

70. Do they like themselves?

Somedays yes, most days.. not really. He tends, still, to feel he is everyone's burden.

Hayle:

51. Do they like science?

Yep, he finds it fascinating!

52. Are they more emotional or logical?

They used to be more logical.. now they're more emotional, and perhaps a mix of both. The mix makes him a very good dad and grandad.

53. How do they deal with their emotions?

Depends on the emotion. Most he talks with Chris about.. Anger on the other hand still gets handled by hitting things, hard. Preferably a boxing bag.

54. How do they cope with sadness?

Often with anger.. by hitting things because being sad makes him angry. But also with talking to his husband, or his family. Sometimes though, destroying an old house into dust is needed.

55. What is something they care about?

His family.

56. Would they die for anyone/anything?

As above.

57. What do they do when they are happy?

Smile a lot, dance with their husband, laugh, and cook!

58. How would they come across to other characters? Examples- messy, lazy, childish, caring, etc.

Caring, very much like a dad friend, that type of person that feels like a dad when you talk with them.

59. Do they have a phrase they use over and over?

Hmh... not really no.

60. In a crowded room are they in the corners, sides, or in the middle?

All of the above depends on the crowd and why they are there.

River:

41. How was their childhood?

Not the best, their dad only saw them as a mage and pushed for him to be the strongest, while his mom kinda tried to make him into his dad after his dad dies. He had an awful relationship with his mother by the time he was a teenager.

42. Are they close with anyone who is going to screw them over?

Nope.

43. How do they adapt to different situations? Do they adapt at all?

It depends a lot on the situation. As a Sage, he adapts to whatever is needed of him. As a Vet, he adapts to what is needed of him there. And for his son, he tries to adapt to being the parents the kid needs.

44. How do they speak? Examples - Are they soft-spoken, hot heated, vulgar, etc.

They have a fairly soft way of speaking, a caring one. But it can also be brunt, harsh and aggravating to many.

45. Are they opposed to violence?

On a general basis.. yes, for occasions, they're fine with it.

46. When is their birthday?

I don't think it has ever been mentioned, I think Mahv will have to say, if not, I guess it is time I give him a date for it!

47. Are they quick to judge?

In general, yes, but he is trying to be better after he misjudged Rylan so badly when they met.

48. Do they have anything they are trying to hide from others?

Mostly how bad they still feel after the death of their husband. How guilty they still feel and so on.

49. Do they act differently around different people?

Yes. He can be loving and caring to some, while asshole to someone else.

50. Do they enjoy the arts?

Yes, especially music.

Chris:

31. How do they overcome obstacles?

By thinking things true, finding the best way past it most of the time. On occasion, he pulls the reaper card though.

32. When faced with a difficult decision do they get stronger or break?

They get stronger. They have a breaking point, but it takes a lot for him to hit it. 15 years away from his family was close to his breaking point, and both Jael and Kieran knew it.

33. Do they have any special powers?

He is a reaper..he has quite a lot. For instance, he is one of very few reapers that can kill a god.

34. How do they change throughout the story?

Well, Chris was a bit of a loner.. so they changed to become someone's lover, a dad, a family man, and someone who often wishes he could be home a lot more than he can.

35. Do they have any friends? If so, are they close-knit?

He has one, Nat, with whom he is very close. Kieran is more the boss than his friend. There is also Mark, who's after him to finding love, they have slipped a bit apart, both having a life outside of work. His best friend is of course his husband.

36. How is their family life?

Busy, especially with his work being on top of it all. But he would not trade it for the world!

37. Are they likable?

Yes, it's a good trait to have when you ferry souls over to the next step.

38. Are they the hero, or anti-hero?

He wouldn't consider himself either, but to some, I guess he is the hero

39. Do they make questionable choices?

Not all too many most were perhaps made before he died 😎

40. How do they become who they are?

They did something questionable and stupid and died. Luckily for them, they also said yes to becoming a reaper and that's why this story even exists.

Lucas:

21. What are their hobbies?

Singing, which is also his job.. he is also a pretty decent kitty bed by now if that qualifies as a hobby.

22. What are their ticks?

Hmh... not sure he has any, probably just fiddling with his fingers when he is nervous if that counts?

23. Do they like children?

Yes, mostly, unless they cling to him and want a photo.. although that more teenage girls. 😂 But in general, yes he likes children, he grew up with quite a lot of them around.

24. How do they react to being around wild animals?

With fascination and awe.

25. If they were given the task to prank someone, who would it be, what would they do, and would the prank work?

It would likely be a bandmate, and it would probably be putting something they hate in their drink. As she isn't the type to prank someone, he would probably fail miserably.

26. Do they have any survival skills?

Yep, they can make fire with two twigs, and they can play music to make some busking money if needed.

27. Are they more book smart or street smart?

Street smart, he likes books, but he grew up in an orphanage, so he learned street smarts along the way.

28. How do they get out of a difficult situation?

Would depend on the situation, he can pay his way out of it, or he can try and run of course. He isn't a fighter so he would rather try and avoid stuff like that.

29. Do they use their body, mind, personality, or force to get what they want?

They don't really do that much.. but to work at the shelter, he used his personality and what he knew they would have to say yes to.

30. What music do they enjoy?

Absolutely everything! If it's music, he likes it. Although everything for its situation. Its not always that black metal fits what you're doing.

Meadow:

11. Do they have a romantic interest?

Yep, and you will soon see who that is.. soonish anyway.

12. How do they cope with struggles?

Fairly well really. They work their way through it, although often they can be a bit snarky when it happens. It's just their way of dealing with it.

13. Do they have anyone they can lean on?

Her half-brother River, his family, her dad, and her mom. Unlike River, she is quite close to her mom, and their relationship is much better.

14. How do they react to someone dying?

If it's someone she cares about, she would like most people be sad. If it's not, then it's more.. eh, shit happens!

15. Can you name 5 personality traits they have?

Friendly, Hardworking, Ambitious, Romantic, Proper

16. How did they become a character?

It was Mahv's idea to have River have a little sister, then she kinda became the kid's mom friend and person outside the family to talk to.

17. Do they get along with others?

Yes and no. She has a way of being that alienates some, but if you see through it, you find a sweet person who is easy to get along with really.

18. What flaws do they have?

They can be a bit hot-headed, snappy, and abrasive when put in a situation they don't expect. She also expects a lot of herself, like becoming the first sage potion maker!

19. How do they influence the story?

She becomes a bit of an icebreaker between River and his mom when they are re introduced. As well as becoming a very good friend to the current kids in the story, the one they go and talk to when things are meh, and parents aren't an option.

20. What do they look like?

Sneaky I know.

Brooke:

1. How do they present themselves to others?

Very straight forwards really, they are nicely dressed and well behaved in general.

2. Do they like animals?

Yes, they love them, specially horses. Sadly animals don't seem to love her back for unknown reason to her.

3. How do they dress?

Nice clean clothing? Nothing special, and never high fashion.

4. How many languages do they know?

Quite a few actually. She speaks Simlish (English), Japanese, Chinese, French, Italian, German and Spanish.

5. How big is their family?

Not big at all, its basically only her and her parents.

6. What is their purpose in the story?

Now that is a secret still. But it will be shown eventually, and she does have a purpose yep! Her purpose has even changed several time over already.

7. Do they know how to fight?

Yes in her own way. (Cryptic, I know, but you will see one day)

8. What is their back story?

There isn't that much. She has grown up with her parents, they have always been strict but quite fair. As long as she follows their rules and guidance, she is fairly free to do what she wants. Their not overly happy with Flynn as her boyfriend, and think she could have done better, but they have accepted it.

9. Why is their name, their name?

Because random name generator made it so!

10. Do they have any nick names?

Not really, Brooke is short enough on its own. Closest is Flynn calling her his Brooke I think.

AAaaand that is that.. thank you for asking, I hope you enjoy!

#100 you say #yes #happy birthday again #figured today was the right day #dandylion240 #my head is now tired #that was a lot of thinking #and pondering #and answering

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delta-roseblr · 3 years

Text

Ficlet for your reading pleasure

Look at me posting a prompt (that really wasn’t a direct prompt but lets not focus on that) in the first time in a while! I’m proud of me!

Hope you enjoy!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Where is this place again?" Felix asked as he made what felt like his one-hundredth right turn. They were going in circles, not that Felix was going to admit that. All the streets just looked too similar, and Felix wasn't familiar enough with Nashville to have any idea where he was going.

"It's off Church," Kyle answered as he sat forward in the backseat of Felix's jeep so Felix could see him in his rearview mirror. He and pretty much nothing else. He kept fucking talking about Church Street like Felix knew where the fuck that was. If it was Burlington, Felix could have drawn a map of Church Street from god-damned memory, but he really knew next to fucking nothing about Nashville. He had told Kyle multiple times, but he still just kept talking about fucking Church Street. Kyle held his arm out in the space between the driver and front passenger seat and gestured at the darkened street in front of them as he added, "I think you go two more blocks and then take a left."

"It's three blocks, and you need to take a right if we want to find parking," Dean declared from the passenger's seat as he looked up from his phone. The fact that it had taken this long for Dean to chime in was surprising. Dean had actually pitched a fit when Felix had said he would be the one driving that night. Since Leonard thought Felix was studying at Kyle's and had no idea Dean was home from college yet, and he definitely didn't know they were going to a gay bar, it made the most sense. Also, Felix would never say it to Dean because he loved his car so much, but the old Honda was just filled with the weirdest mix of unpleasant smells, and even after the engine was rebuilt, it still made strange fucking noises like it was ready to fucking die. Felix appreciated Dean's car, especially when it was the only car they had access to, but now Felix had his jeep. His jeep was an old piece of shit, too, but it just wasn't quite as old or quite as shitty as Dean's POS.

From the corner of his eye, Felix saw Dean slip his phone into the pocket of his jeans before bringing his full attention to the road. "And I won't point out how much easier this would have been if you had just let me drive," he commented.

It was dark, but the streetlights lit up the inside of the cab, and Felix could see the little satisfied smirk playing on Dean's lips. He thought he had won something which should have been annoying, but it was just kind of cute. Dean had really been away for too long.

They came to a stop at a streetlight, and Felix took advantage of the moment. He turned to look at his boyfriend. He was all blond hair and warm skin as always. "Dean," he said his name sweetly but also with a warning, "Unless you've figured out how to suck your own dick, you should probably stop fucking talking."

"I retract my previous statement," Dean stated seriously. Of course, it was Dean, and he was just as bold as he always was, so he reached out and brought a hand to rest on Felix's thigh. It wasn't so high, but it was high enough to up Felix's heartbeat a little. "Your driving and understanding of the city of Nashville is amazing, and I really can't complain," he stated with a bright smile.

"You two are so cute," Kyle faked cooed from the backseat before adding (mockingly), "I think I'm going to puke."

Eventually, they found the bar, found a place to park, and then made their way to the bar. It might have just been because Felix was comparing it to Burlington but getting into the place was beyond easy.

Once inside, they found a pretty thin crowd, but Felix didn't expect much more for the time of year. They had managed to hit that sweet spot where most of the younger people that came to the club were probably already tangled up in family holiday stuff, but most of the college kids hadn't returned home yet.

They were just a few feet into the place when they all collectively decided to stop and look around. To be honest, it was pretty much what Felix expected for a gay bar on the outskirts of Nashville, so it was pretty much par for the course, but other people clearly felt differently.

"This isn't….what I had been expecting," Kyle admitted sounding more disappointed with each word.

"What were you expecting?" Felix questioned. He sounded annoyed, which was because absolutely was, and yeah, he knew that made him an asshole, but this had been Kyle's idea. Not only had it been Kyle's idea, but Kyle had asked Dean after Felix had said no. He didn't go as far as to ask Dean behind Felix's back at least and asked Dean about it right in front of Felix. Much to Felix's surprise, his boyfriend that had also expressed a dislike of bars, immediately said yes. Felix was fucking shit at telling Dean no, so he was fucking stuck going, and both he and Kyle knew it. So Felix didn't care if the place was a little on the dingy side. He didn't care that the lighting managed to be both too bright and too dark at the same time. Felix didn't even care that the music playing overhead sounded more like static than anything else. He expected Kyle to be his typically overly excited self. "Pride flags and a rainbow-colored bar?"

"I was expecting to get ID'd at the door," Dean admitted. His voice was carefully neutral, and one look Felix found his expression matched his tone, but his eyes were scanning the room critically. Felix knew Dean well enough to know that this place was dive bar enough to bring up some daddy issues, not that Dean would say anything or suggest they leave. No, Dean would suffer silently.

"This is supposed to be an under 21 bar," Kyle informed quickly and matter-of-factly. Felix was half surprised Kyle didn't start reading the place's description from the website from memory. Felix was sure he could have because Kyle had been internet stalked the place for a while. Apparently, the website painted a different picture than what reality had to provide, and the shock was clear on Kyle's face. "And I don't know what I was expecting really," Kyle offered, and to his credit, he was obviously trying to hide his disappointment, and he mostly succeeded with his neutral tone. It was his face that gave him away. "I at least expected half the people here to be around our age."

"Yeah," Felix agreed with an unnecessary look around the place. "For a bar that is supposed to include people under 21, a lot of the people here look to be over forty," he pointed out. Really, it would have been impossible not to notice even if the place was hopping, but since it was moderately busy at the moment, so it stood out. Felix saw more guys that looked like they might hang out with his dad instead of kids around his age. He guessed divorced middle-aged men embracing the gayness they had been suppressing for years needed to get out too, but it was weird that they were choosing an under-21 bar when Nashville has several more traditional gay bars.

For the briefest of moments, Felix had a little bit of hope that the difference between Kyle's expectations and reality would be enough to make Kyle want to leave. They could get pizza or something. That hope died almost the moment it was born. It was almost like someone snapped their fingers, and Kyle got over his disappointment and shifted back to being excited, even if it was a bit more tempered now.

Kyle turned to him with a fucking smile on his face and asked, "Do we find a table?"

"I guess," Felix conceded with a sigh. He wasn't surprised, but he was disappointed that he wasn't going to get to escape. "Dean?" he questioned and got no reply. "Dean!?"

He looked to Dean just in time to see him looking up from his phone with a confused and bewildered expression. "Sorry, what?"

"We are going to find a table if you can look away from your phone," Felix informed with mostly fake annoyance.

"Yeah, sorry I was trying to translate this text message from Nico," Dean explained, which made sense even before he added, "For a guy that speaks several languages he can't spell in any of them" He shifted his phone so he was holding it in one hand and moved to put it in his back pocket before commenting, "But we should definitely find a table."

Felix would have fucking sworn he felt every ounce of positive drain from Kyle, so it wasn't a fucking surprise that when Felix looked at the guy, he looked tense, and his expression was carefully stony. "So Will is bringing the boyfriend?" he asked in a painfully neutral tone.

"Oh no," Felix exclaimed. He wasn't buying Kyle's attempts at neutrally, mainly because they were shitty attempts. If anyone could understand having an inconvenient, inappropriate crush, Felix liked Kyle too much to watch him continue to do this to himself. Felix had grown to think of Will in a somewhat positive way which was a journey, but he still didn't think of him as much in the way of dating material. Still, that wasn't why he was so bothered by the fact that Kyle couldn't let that crush go. It was never going to fucking happen, which was why it bothered Felix. Will was the most unavailable person on the fucking planet. He and Nico were practically fucking married, for fuck sake. Even if that wasn't the case, Will came with a load of baggage in the way of demigod shit. Kyle, of course, didn't know about that, but Felix fucking did, and he didn't think Kyle needed or would want any of that fucking drama. Fuck had Felix been trying to get Kyle to see the fucking light and shift his interest to someone more appropriate, even if at times it felt like he was banging his head against a wall. Felix didn't have any fucking desire to once again go through all that shit with Kyle, so he just shook his head insistently as he stated, "We're not doing that tonight."

"What!?!" Kyle questioned, but he sounded too outraged for Felix to believe for one second that he didn't know exactly what Felix was talking about, "I asked a question."

"No, you're starting to pine over a self-absorbed ass," Felix summarized indigently. In truth, Felix knew now that Will was pretty far from self-absorbed. Still, he did come with abandonment issues from like a dozen siblings dying in battles and a need for attention that came from having a fuck ton of siblings because Apollo is a fucking whore of a god. Calling Will self-absorbed was just easier, and maybe it was a little be of a reflex still. "Have some self-respect and standards."

Kyle huffed and rolled his eyes dramatically. "A smart, funny, attractive, blond, soccer play," Kyle declared with a heavily sarcastic tone. "No way you could get that attraction," he made a show of looking pointed toward Felix before turning and smiling toward Dean, "Oh, hi Dean! I forgot you were right there."

"That is totally different, and I resent the comparison," Felix growled as he pointed his finger aggressively toward Kyle, "There are plenty of age-appropriate guys around here. We will find you a better one that is available." So plenty might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but the point remained valid. "Now, let's go find a fucking table, so I can see if this bartender won't look too hard at my fake ID."

Surprisingly, the argument or discussion or whatever ended there, at least for the moment. They made their way through the bar's crowd with ease and found a large table that wasn't so far away from the bar that getting drinks would be annoying but not so close that they had to be worried about being overheard by the bartender. They still had the leering older men wondering the place to deal with, but Felix got a general impression that there was no escaping that.

There was some discussion about not wanting to lose their table even though Felix thought the likelihood of that was slim. Kyle suggested waiting until Will arrived (and made no mention of Nico) so there would be someone to watch their table. Felix wasn't exactly sure what Kyle was thinking with that one, but in the end, it didn't matter because Dean reminded him that he didn't have a fake ID so he could stay at the table while Felix bought his drink. Dean suggesting Felix buy anything was a surprise but not a bad one.

"How don't you have a fake ID?" Kyle ended up asking Dean with bewilderment, "You're in college."

Felix had asked the same question the first time Dean mentioned he didn't have a fake ID, although Felix's shock had been he had been in high school without one. The general feel of the question was the same, though. Of course, when Felix had first brought it up, he and Dean weren't dating yet, so he didn't know the details of Dean's home life. Now that he had that knowledge, it all made sense, but at the time, it seemed absurd.

Dean's response to Kyle was almost identical to the reaction Felix had gotten almost two years earlier. He shrugged casually as he replied, "I've never needed one."

Kyle sputtered for a second before reiterating, "But you're in college."

Dean's only reply was to shrug again. Dean wasn't going to explain that he always had unfettered access to alcohol if he wanted it, so something like a fake ID didn't make sense to him. He certainly wasn't going to waste his money on one.

"All the people he hangs out with are older," Felix interjected so they could move on. He patted Dean on the shoulder, ignoring the fact that he had to get up on his toes a little to do it so and gave him a sarcastic smile, "Don't worry, I've got you covered, College Boy."

Dean smirked back at him as he replied dryly, "My hero."

One playful eye roll, and then Felix was off to the bar with Kyle in tow. Considering the place wasn't that crowded, the bar itself was pretty busy. Felix blamed all the old dudes for that. Whatever the reason, he and Kyle ended up standing at the bar waiting for the bartender to notice their existence for a while.

As they waited, Felix pulled on his wallet and dug through the variety of cards and other random shit he had shoved in there to find his fake ID slide behind a stack of used gift cards. It wasn't the most obvious spot to keep it, but it wasn't exactly well hidden either. He was surprised his dad hadn't found it by now. After Leonard had found out about Dean, he had search everything Felix own on more than one occasion.

"Won't the out-of-state ID draw more attention?" Kyle asked as he leaned over Felix's shoulder.

"Don't know," Felix admitted with a shrug as he looked down at the fake Vermont license, "But I guess we'll see." Honestly, if anything was going to be a problem, according to the ID, Felix was almost twenty-six years old. Hopefully, the bartender wasn't too good at mental math because there was no way Felix looked that old.

Felix actually got a little worried when the bartender finally made his way toward them because the guy looked annoyed, but then it became clear that some middle-aged dude was trying to hit on the guy from the other end of the bar. As soon as he was away from that, he cheered right up, took their drink orders, barely looked at their ID's and started on their drinks.

Felix had ordered two beers for himself and Dean while Kyle had ordered some mixed drink, so Felix was handed his beers first and headed back to the table while Kyle remained behind. When he got back to the table, he found that Will and Nico had arrived, and they had apparently brought a third.

"Hey, Cecil," Felix greeted as he deposited one beer in front of Dean before taking a seat. "Wasn't expecting to see you."

Felix liked Cecil, at least for the little he actually interacted with the guy when he was at camp. He was glad he was there if for no other reason then it made it so it wouldn't be two couples and Kyle the whole night. Still, the guy hanging out at a gay bar seemed at least slightly risky if he was still trying to keep quiet about actually being gay thing, not that Felix was going to mention that.

Cecil shrugged, and he might have even had something to say, but Dean interrupted him by tapping Felix's shoulder and catching his attention before Cecil got a chance. "Where's Kyle?" he asked as he looked over Felix's head as if he was still looking.

"Waiting for his drink."

"And you left him!?!" Will questioned with absolute shock.

That was the type of reaction that had made Felix not like Will at first. Okay, it was one of the many things that had made Felix not like Will at first. The guy could just be so dramatic and over the fucking top about small shit. And yeah, Felix now sort of got why but that didn't make it any less annoying at the moment.

"He's a big fucking boy," Felix assured dismissively, "He can take care of himself."

Felix picked up his beer and took a long sip before turning back to Cecil, "What brings you to boring as fuck Tennessee."

"Hey!" Dean protested.

Felix didn't bother to turn to look at Dean, but he did reach out and patted his cheek dismissively. "I love you, but I hate this boring as fuck state, accept it."

Cecil chuckled at their interaction. Felix guessed, even though that was pretty much par for the course for them. "Will and Nico invited me to Thanksgiving," he explained.

"Cool," Felix replied with a nod even though he wasn't sure about that. Camp Half-Blood had pretty good food, and Felix would imagine that they put out an impressive spread for the holidays. Maybe it was depressing to hang out when many campers were away for the school year to spend with their families. Everyone needed a change of scenery every once and a while. At least he wouldn't be missing out on some damn good food because Dean's aunt was a fucking incredible cook.

A surprisingly loud buzzing sound began coming from his pocket, and Felix pulled out his phone, half-convinced it would be a message from his dad saying he had to go home because that would be a very fucking Leonard thing to do. Luckily, it was just a text message from Kyle, even though Felix couldn't think of why Kyle would have to text him when they were literally in the same fucking place.

OMG, come to the bar, NOW!

Felix had no fucking clue what that was about, but he didn't see how he got out of it, so he guessed he was going to have to go back to the bar. "Um, alright," he declared with a heavy sigh as he shoved his phone back into his pocket. "I'll be right back," he informed before hopping off his seat.

He only had to walk about halfway back to the bar to find Kyle standing with his drink in hand, half-hidden behind a wall craning his neck as he stared in the direction of their table. Felix had to admit that wasn't what he had been expecting, and he had no fucking idea what it meant.

"Alright, you got a drink, so now I'm confused," He admitted as he pointed to the drink in Kyle's hand, "Why did I have to come over here?"

Kyle looked at Felix for maybe a second before glancing first at his drink, and then he was back to trying to see their table through the crowd. "Who's the mysterious handsome with Will?" he asked instead of acknowledging Felix's question at all.

Felix looked back toward their table with confusion. He seriously didn't know who the fuck Kyle was talking about. "You've met Nico before," he reminded because that was the only thing that made sense even though it only barely did.

Kyle turned and glared at Felix like he was an absolute idiot. "You are such a fucking ass," he responded with more contempt than Felix had ever heard from Kyle before. "I have zero interest in Will's punk rock underwear model boyfriend, thank you very much."

Every once in and while, Kyle would insist that he wasn't bothered by the fact that Will was dating someone and that he was totally over his crush, and then there were moments like this where it was painfully apparent that neither of those things was true. Felix felt bad for Kyle and was impressed that he managed to make "underwear model" sound like an insult.

Kyle didn't want Felix's sympathy, and he wouldn't appreciate him pointing out that Will and Nico were a great couple either. So Felix just rolled his eyes as he commented sarcastically, "And you're not bitter at all."

Kyle just ignored him and huffed, "The cute guy with the curls."

"Who?" Felix questioned before looking back toward the table again. There was only one person there with curls, but Kyle couldn't have been talking about him, right? "Cecil?"

"That's even a cute name!" Kyle cooed.

What the fuck was happening? Felix thought to himself.

"No, it fucking isn't," Felix replied with absolute bewilderment. Felix liked Cecil but considering the guy wasn't a ninety-year-old man. His name didn't fit him at all. And since when did anyone comment on another person's name being cute?

Kyle glared at him again, which was really starting to feel like a weird turnaround in their friendship. "Who is he?" Kyle questioned. He didn't wait for Felix to answer. Instead, Kyle turned, so he looked back at the table again as he continued to ask questions. "Is he single? Is he gay?" Kyle's eyes lit up, and he turned to look at Felix again, "Please tell me he's gay!"

Of all the things Felix had expected to happen that night, he could honestly say Kyle finding a new crush, at first sight, wasn't one of them. He didn't know how he felt about it either. He was all for Kyle moving on from the idea of Will because that was never going to happen, and Kyle was a cool enough guy and deserved to be happy, but another fucking demigod, really? That was not something Kyle wanted to get dragged into. The guy was fucking attracted to trouble, and he didn't even fucking know it. The worse thing about it, Felix knew exactly why Kyle shouldn't get his hopes up, but he couldn't say shit about it.

"Oh my god," Felix groaned and rolled his eyes, "You are fucking hopeless." Hopefully, Kyle would take that statement to mean that Cecil was straight and would just let it go. "Come on, I'll introduce you," he stated and waved for him to follow.

They walked back to the table. At some point, Kyle ended up a few steps behind him like he was fucking hiding or something, which was especially dumb because Kyle was the same height as Dean, so he was at least a head taller than Felix.

"Hey, what did we miss?" Felix questioned as he went right back to his seat next to Dean. That, of course, was the moment he realized that the only empty chair left was between himself and Cecil. That was inconvenient but not nearly as annoying as Kyle sharply poking him in the back the moment Felix had sat down. The point was taken, so Felix gestured to Kyle to do the whole introduction thing. "Oh yeah, this is Kyle," Felix then gestured around the table without much enthusiasm as he continued, "You've met Nico and know Will, and that's Will's friend Cecil."

"Hey," Kyle greeted with a bit of wave and a smile. Of course, he seemed to look at Will and Cecil and completely ignored Nico's very existence. Baby steps, Felix guessed.

There were waves and a few greetings. Nico might have seemed a little less enthused, which was kind of funny. Felix remembered hearing some vague story about Nico putting a skeleton in some guy's bed because he showed an interest in Will. Maybe that was what Kyle needed.

"Again, sorry we took so long," Will offered, apparently unaware of Nico's subtle disapproval of Kyle's presence. "We had kind of a hard time finding a place to park."

"They were arguing about Will's driving and kept driving past parking spots," Cecil informed with a smirk.

It was an amusing thought. Felix had never really seen the two bicker before. Usually, they were too busy being all over each other to do things like that. Felix didn't get to enjoy his amusement long because Kyle had to chime in. "These two did that too!" he exclaimed with far too much excitement as he pointed at Dean and Felix. The pointing especially seemed unnecessary, considering it was obvious who he was talking about.

Nico smirked slightly in a way Felix guessed was sort of mysterious. He didn't see it personally, but that didn't really matter. "That doesn't surprise me," he commented knowingly.

"We don't bicker…like….at all," Felix defended, and it was the truth. He and Dean could easily break into lively debates over absolutely meaningless shit, and Felix was pretty sure most of the time they both dug down on their side to drag it out, but that wasn't bickering. Hell, at times, that was practically fucking foreplay. Felix couldn't see how it could be mistaken for actual fighting.

"Oh, I know," Nico admitted, "It's just in my limited experience Dean's driving is…interesting."

"Bad," Will interjected, "Dean's driving is bad."

"You didn't complain when I drove you to school every day," Dean commented even though he didn't have the heat behind his words for them to have any real impact.

Nico seemed to ignore Dean and Will's little exchange and focused his attention on Felix as he continued, "And you have a tendency to be….vocal."

Felix really didn't know how to take that. If it were anyone else, he would have probably taken offense, but with Nico, he just couldn't. Nico wasn't the type to sling insults, or at least that Felix was aware. So he was at a complete loss, and if it had been a year earlier, Felix would have covered his bewilderment with some comment that would have come out way more hostile than he meant it to be, but Felix was really fucking trying to be better than that. Instead, he tried to make a joke out of it by turning to Dean with a fake look of outrage and questioning, "Did your cousin just call me a screamer?"

"I don't think so," Dean replied, although he didn't sound as certain as he probably should have, "But I could see how it could sound that way."

"Well, are you?" Kyle questioned with a laugh in his voice and a smirk on his face before Felix could even think of something else to say.

Felix wasn't overly loud in bed. Of that, Felix was sure. Actually, Dean was louder, at least when he bottomed, and even then, Felix wouldn't call Dean a screamer. There was no way Felix was explaining any of that to Kyle, and Kyle knew it. That was probably why he asked, to get a bit of a rise out of him.

Felix responded with a glare that, in reality, didn't have as much heat behind it as it would have it was anyone else that asked.

Dean missed the memo about not answering questions about their sex life because he gave it a moment's thought before answering, "Not normally."

Felix actually wouldn't have cared if he could have been classified as a screamer. All that would mean was he was vocal while enjoying sex. Sex was amazing, so why shouldn't he be vocal about it? Also, he knew he loved it when Dean got loud during sex because it usually meant he was losing his damn mind from the fucking pleasure, and that was sexy as fuck. That didn't stop him from giving Dean a 'What the hell man?' look. If nothing else, it gave Felix something to tease Dean about later, which was always fun.

Nico chuckled, and it was hard to tell if it was from amusement or nerves. It could have been both. "I just meant you don't seem to be shy about giving your opinion," he offered.

It was really fucking hard to take anything Nico said as offensive, but Felix was pretty sure if anyone else said that to him, he would have been bothered. "I guess," he muttered in reluctant agreement.

"Yeah, that's very true," Dean agreed, maybe a little more enthusiastically than was really warranted, at least in Felix's opinion, "Also, irrelevant because I wasn't the one driving."

"Oh," Nico exclaimed with obvious surprise, "I retract my previous statement then. What were you arguing about then?"

"Parking," Felix answered.

Kyle hissed like he had something to say about that, but Felix shot him a look because he really didn't need Kyle offering his opinion on the matter. That was enough for Kyle to think better of it. "Well, parking was definitely part of it."

Dean was smart enough to remain silent on the topic, and Kyle already seemed to be distracted by making eyes at Cecil (and Cecil seemed more into that than Felix would have liked). Felix guessed it was better than Kyle just spending the night openly ogling Will, so he let it go for the moment being.

Nico was quick to offer a change of topic. "Is someone going to come to take our order?" he asked as he looked around expectant.

Considering what Nico looked like and what he did for a living, Felix imagined he usually didn't even have to order a drink at a bar. People probably just brought him drinks in hopes that he would acknowledge their existence. Nico did seem like a down-to-earth guy, so Felix figured he wouldn't expect something like that, but he was probably just used to that sort of thing.

"This isn't Gladiators," Will reminded, "I think we have to go to the bar."

Not entirely surprising, Nico looked confused by the idea, which confirmed what Felix had suspected. He was a smart guy, so Felix was pretty sure he would figure it out. Besides, there was still a chance someone would present him with a drink in the hopes of getting a chance to bang an underwear model before he ever made it to the bar.

"The bartender barely looks at your ID, so it isn't a big deal," Kyle assured.

Good for him, Felix thought. He could tell Kyle was trying to be nice even though he disliked Nico at least a little for the simple fact that Will and Nico were dating.

"Perfect," Cecil declared as he pulled a wallet out of his pocket and dropped it on the table before moving to another pocket and producing another wallet. Cecil made at least half a dozen wallets from various places on his person appear in a matter of thirty seconds. "Let's see what I have to work with."

Cecil started flipping through the wallets in front of them in a way that made it very clear that he had some experience with that sort of thing. That reminded Felix that Cecil was the child of Hermes, and Hermes is the god of thieves. He wasn't sure if he should be horrified or amused by what he was seeing.

The look on Kyle's face was definitely tipping it more into the amusing category. He was clearly fluctuating between absolute shock and confusion, and his expressions were so extremely exaggerated it reminded Felix of a cartoon.

To Kyle's credit, he didn't stay silent, but that wasn't surprising. Kyle usually didn't have a problem speaking his mind. "Um…." Kyle hummed and then pointed toward the pile of wallets on the table, "Are all of those your wallets?"

Kyle continued to flip through the wallets, pulling out IDs and credit cards as he did. "Well, I mean, they are in my possession now," he offered. Pausing briefly after tossing one of the IDs aside, and looked up just a little in Kyle's direction. Felix thought he saw the smallest of flirtatious smiles spread across Cecil's face directed toward Kyle, but that couldn't have the case. "And you know what they say about that," he offered.

So stolen. That was pretty much what Felix had figured. Even if he didn't know Cecil was the demigod child of the god of thieves, it was more than evident. Will apparently wasn't so quick on the uptake because he sounded genuinely outraged when he shouted disapprovingly, "Cecil!"

"You know I can pay for everything, right?" Nico offered without clearly as much shock and outrage in his voice.

"That isn't the point," Cecil returned as he tossed the last of the wallets aside. He looked up and seemed to talk more to Will than anyone else even though he had a captive audience in Kyle from its looks. "It's about the challenge, and the guys around here are not much of a challenge."

"It's a gay bar," Felix reminded as he tried to contain a laugh, "Most guys are expecting a little fucking groping." That wasn't true for Felix, at least not in the sense of a stranger. Now Dean was another fucking story, and hopefully, that was how the night would end. But there were plenty of guys in the bar, and Felix had his money on the vast majority looking to hook up.

Next to him, Felix heard Dean laugh. "He isn't wrong," he admitted.

Cecil just shrugged unapologetically, "That doesn't mean they shouldn't mind their wallets."

Felix was fucking flashing forward to when Will and Nico had kids because the look of disappointment and disapproval on Will's face reminded Felix of disapproving parent. "That isn't a valid excuse for pickpocketing strangers," Will reprimanded.

"Don't worry, no one noticed," Cecil assured like that was the problem, the getting caught part and not the actual pickpocketing part. Felix almost laughed at Cecil's bravado. The thing was, Felix's dad thought he was studying at Kyle's, and if he found out Felix was really at a gay bar with Dean, Felix would be grounded for a fucking eternity. So if Cecil got caught pickpocketing people, that could present some problems. Cecil clearly didn't see the issue as he smiled brightly. "I'm very good," he stated with confidence.

Will's brain had apparently broke at some point because his only response was to stare at Cecil slack-jawed. Felix would think since Will and Cecil had been friends for a while, Will wouldn't have been so surprised. He got the feeling this was pretty standard for Cecil. Nico at least didn't seem overly surprised or worried about it. If anything, he seemed sort of amused by the whole thing, but it could be hard to tell with Nico.

"I'm going to get a drink," Nico declared as he hopped down from his chair. He looked between Will and Cecil briefly before asking, "Do you both just want a beer?"

"Sure," Cecil replied as he started to tuck away the various wallets he had collected into his pockets, "Thanks, Nico."

"Um, I guess," Will muttered uncertainly. Felix was pretty sure Will was just still too distracted by Cecil's kleptomania because it was seriously out of his character for him not to jump up to follow Nico around immediately.

You would think that Will simply refraining from following Nico around like a lovesick puppy would have been enough for Kyle but not. At least some part of his horny teenage brain viewed Nico as competition or at the very least as something close to an advisory which was just incredibly stupid, to say the least. Kyle decided that was the moment to get what seemed like it was meant as a dig. "Do you even have a fake ID?" Kyle asked Nico with almost a disgusting amount of doubt.

"No," Nico replied, "But I don't foresee that being a problem."

No one in their right fucking mind would look at Nico and believe he was twenty-one; of that, Felix was fucking sure. That didn't mean he didn't think Nico was probably right about his lack of an ID not being a problem. Not only was Nico good-looking, which seemed to go a pretty far way, but he also had a 'Don't fuck with me or else' vibe that was pretty fucking hard to argue with. Felix would bet the bartender wouldn't even bother to ask Nico for an ID.

Kyle at least had the common sense not to push the topic further, which satisfied Nico greatly if the glint in his eye and the slight grin that spread across his face was any indication. It wasn't an over-the-top expression by any means because it was fucking Nico. Felix was pretty sure the guy didn't know how to do over the top, or at least that kind of over the top. Even subtle, it was noticeable enough

It probably didn't help that after giving Kyle a few seconds of his victory face, Will decided to jump into the conversation in full lovesick puppy mode. Felix got that Will was oblivious to Kyle's lingering crush on him even though he had been told on multiple occasions, but how he missed the little exchange between Kyle and Nico, Felix didn't fucking understand. He had most definitely missed it never the less.

"Do you want me to come with you?" Will asked Nico.

"I'm sure I can handle it on my own," Nico replied with a shrug, "But if you want to, I could use the extra pair of hands."

That was all Will needed to hear. He hopped out of his chair like a tiger from Winnie the Pooh or some shit. "Be right back," he declared quickly before trotting after Nico as he headed toward the bar.

They watched the two walk-offs for a few seconds before they were lost to the crowd. "Oh, codependence," Felix commented dryly in hopes of cutting off any of Kyle's potential pouting. "I'm so glad that isn't a family trait because I'm pretty sure I would murder you," he added with a humorless smile directed at Dean.

Felix wasn't actually all that worried about that sort of thing. He and Dean were pretty independent, so neither would take on the relationship's lost puppy role. Sure, between texting and phone calls, they probably talked for hours most days, and Dean had been trying to talk Felix into applying to Berkeley so they could be at the same school, but that was just….different.

Next to him, Felix heard Kyle snicker at that comment. He was fucking loud about it, so Felix wouldn't have been surprised if half the fucking bar heard. Felix couldn't help but turn to look at him, and the amused fucking grin on his face was just even more fucking confusion.

What the fuck did I miss?

Felix probably should have just let it go but hated feeling like everyone knew something he didn't. "What?" he asked as he stared at Kyle critically.

"Nothing," Kyle assured, but he sounded far too amused to be even remotely believed. Before Felix could push any further, Kyle had already turned his attention to Cecil and changed the subject. "Um, so Cecil, what brings you to Tennessee?" Kyle asked with a smile. He was clearly trying to be friendly, but it was over the top, so Felix found it awkward. It was also pretty out of character for Kyle. It was an interesting development, to say the least.

"Oh, Will invited me to Thanksgiving," Cecil answered with a bit of a shrug, "And Nico insisted. Saying no to Nico seems kind of …."

"Dangerous?" Felix offered without even thinking about it. Nico was actually really nice, but he was also scary as fuck. Felix wouldn't want to tell him no either.

Dean was less than a second behind with an equally valid suggestion, "Terrifying?"

"Yeah," Cecil agreed with a laugh, "Pretty much."

"So, you had no choice," Felix summed up. He paused to sip at his beer before adding, "Only legitimate reason to come to Tennessee."

"Hey!" Dean immediately protested, "I honestly don't know how to take that."

Felix looked at Dean to find him staring back, looking genuinely outraged. Maybe that should have made Felix feel at least a little guilty because of that, but honestly, he found it a little funny. He didn't actually laugh, but it was a close call. "You should be fine with it," he retorted. "I can hate the state I met you in and still love you," Felix explained matter-of-factly before taking another sip of his beer.

Dean's reaction was precisely what Felix had hoped for. He grinned from ear to ear. "You love me? Really?" Dean leaned over and made a real fucking show of kissing Felix on the cheek, "Because I definitely love you."

It wasn't like Felix wasn't used to Dean being affectionate. He wasn't used to Dean being so openly affectionate in such a large crowd, but around friends was normal enough. He still blushed at it, which officially killed any chance he had to even try to play it cool. That didn't mean he wasn't going to try, but it did mean he knew going in it wouldn't work.

"God, you've had like two sips of beer," Felix grumbled under his breath even as his cheeks continued to burn, "You can't be like this already."

"So," Cecil point at them while looking at Kyle, "They are just as bad as Will and Nico?"

"Um," Kyle hummed, still being a bit awkward about the whole thing, "I'm more used to these two, but yeah, they're pretty cutesy."

Felix swallowed down the urge to argue that by taking a large sip of his drink. Dean got kind of cutesy when he had a few drinks in him, but otherwise, they weren't like that at all. Besides the few affectionate gestures, they acted just like they did when they were just friends. He even got Kyle to admit that he claimed that didn't mean they weren't cutesy a few times. It wasn't worth arguing about, Felix was sure, so once he swallowed his drink, he went to change the topic. "Alright, Cee," Felix declared, "Why did Will drag to this great state for the great food holiday?" The state of Tennessee might have sucked by Will's mom was a fucking fantastic cook. In Felix's opinion, her cooking rivaled the food at Camp Half-Blood, so at least Cecil was in for a treat.

"Sympathy, I guess," Cecil replied with a shrug, "He's making a bigger deal over the breakup than either me or Lou are."

Felix opened his mouth to say without even thinking about the fact that he would be outing Cecil. Luckily Dean saved him from accidentally spilling the beans before Felix got a chance. "You guys broke up?" Dean questioned with great disappointment in his voice, "Sorry to hear that."

"It's cool," Cecil assured a little awkwardly before adding, "We are better friends."

Felix guessed that was one way to put it, considering that Cecil was gay. He guessed Cecil had finally worked up the nerve to end his fake relationship but not enough to tell people he was gay. Felix wasn't judging, but he figured pretending to be upset about a breakup would get old fucking fast.

"That's a positive attitude to have," Kyle chimed in, and suddenly the awkward energy he had just a few moments before was gone, and Kyle seemed way too excited to hear about Cecil's break.

Felix liked Kyle, but the boy was beyond fucking obvious. How anyone thought he was straight, Felix would never fucking understand. He also had horrible taste in guys. First, he spends years drooling over Will, and now he was getting hot and bothered over Cecil. Sure, Cecil was an improvement but still.

Cecil sort of smiled at Kyle, and it struck Felix that this might be a problem. Luckily Nico and Will decided that was the moment to reappear, drinks in hand, and they interrupted the whole thing before either Kyle or Cecil could attempt any awkward flirting that Felix would have to stop.

"We are back," Nico declared as he placed his drink on the table before pushing himself up into his chair.

"And we have drinks," Will declared from half a step behind Nico, holding up the two beers he was carrying as proof. He placed one beer in front of his seat before placing the other squarely in front of Cecil. "There was actually a guy about to send you a drink," Will told Cecil as he took his seat. He waved his hand in what Felix was sure was met to be a reassuring gesture as he added, "Don't worry, I told him you were straight."

Felix had to physically bite his tongue to stop himself from calling Will a cock block which made him wonder if this was going to be a problem. They were in a fucking gay bar, and Cecil wasn't a horrible-looking guy. If Will was going to keep help his friend out by explaining Cecil was straight, Felix didn't know if he would be able to take it. He was going to slip up and say something he shouldn't and outing Cecil like a fucking asshole.

Maybe he just had a lot of practice because he had to lie about all the demigod stuff, but Cecil did an impressive job of hiding any disappointment or frustration he might have been feeling. "Thanks," he replied. He wasn't exactly enthusiastic, but he didn't sound annoyed either.

"Um…..," Kyle hummed, which matched the confused look he was wearing quite well. His one finger in the air to signal he had a question was a bit much but to each their own.

"Lou is short for Lou Ellen," Dean offered quickly.

Kyle, unlike Cecil, did not school his emotions at all. The guy visibly deflated as he tried to cover (poorly) by saying, "Oh, that's an interesting name."

Felix had to admit that he did feel a little bad. Kyle was a cool enough guy, and he really shouldn't have to wait until college to date. But, at the same time, it really was for the best. Kyle did not need all that crazy demigod shit in his life. It was better for him just to think Cecil was straight than for Felix to have to play interference all night.

#Delix #Solangelo #other OCs

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starrosefics-archive · 4 years

Text

The Fan Cafe- 1

Summary: For their university business class, Marinette partners with Felix and Marc to create the Fan Cafe, a cafe serving fanfic-inspired brews and teas. As well as the stress of managing a business and her heart being pulled in three directions, Marinette also has to deal with Ladybug issues when a new Butterfly rolls into Paris and Adrien Agreste reappears.

(This idea was started by this video. There is Ice Art in this (lovely ship created by @lenoreofraven) and the Felix in this is inspired by @nobodyfamousposts‘s Felix Culpa.)

“So, your project is what?”

“A fanfic cafe,” Marinette answered, handing Alya a roll of fabric. “Marc got the idea while we were brainstorming. They spend a lot of time during quarantine reading fanfic and they knew a bunch of other people did too.”

“Right.” Her best friend nodded, watching as Marinette tacked a sketch onto the wall. “So, how will this work?”

“Each person will order a drink that’s named after some common AU- Earl Grey’s serving as the canon tea- and the extra flavors will serve as tropes.” Marinette’s business class was what this project was for and she had been lucky enough to end up with Marc and Felix. “They can also order desserts to go along with.”

Alya grinned, eyes bright. “So, someone could order a superhero au with a dash of friends to lovers with a sinammon bun?” Marinette rolled her eyes, making the other girl laugh. “C’mon, that’s great!”

“I was just wondering what superhero you were thinking about.” she scolded lightly.

“I wasn’t thinking about Ladybug!”

“I didn’t say who.”

The redhead bit her lip. “I know. I’m sorry.” That Instagram post had gotten a lot of hate, especially when Chat Noir had been replaced. Alya had taken it down soon after. “It’s just…” Marinette paused, waiting for her friend to speak. “Never mind. So, these are for the uniforms?”

“Yep. Marc wanted something that reflected fluff and angst and Felix wanted to be professional.” Alya opened her mouth, but Marinette beat her to the punch. “Don’t,” she said, allowing a bit of spine to seep through. “I’m not going to make Felix like Adrien.” The two winced as soon as she said it.

Adrien was a heavy topic altogether. Marinette had often found herself trapped in a spiral of wondering after it all, trying to find if there had been some way to get through to Chat, avoid having to pull the plug on Emilie Agreste and send Gabriel Agreste to jail, get the Butterfly back, avoid Adrien dropping off the face of the Earth entirely… She shook her head, determined to focus.

“Anyway! C’mon, what do you think…”

-_-

Bright and early the next day, Marinette and Alya met Marc and Luka outside the building.

Luka, recently returned from his tour abroad with Jagged Stone, had immediately volunteered to help out at the cafe. The trio had agreed, especially when he got Kagami to agree to help. Marinette couldn’t help but smile at the building.

Felix had paid, out of pocket despite his project partners’ pleas, to have the small building completely cleaned and decorated. Now, a sign proclaiming the Fan Cafe was done in pink and navy, matching the inside and the uniforms Marinette had made. Marc had done their part by dragging out their dad’s old but still working jukebox to play music and creating Draw Your Squad posters to hang on the walls.

“This place looks great!” Alya said, looking around. She had her phone out, scanning around to videotape the entire setup. “So, how long is the cafe going to be around?”

“Starting Friday, it will go until April.” Felix said as he walked in. Kagami walked in behind him. “Our grade depends on how high our ratings are and how much money we make in the end. So, thank you Cesaire for the advertisement. Apologies for the wait.”

“The limo got stuck in traffic.” Kagami explained.

“You’re welcome!” When Felix had first joined their class in lycee, Alya had been fully prepared to go to war. However, she had learned that he was mostly bark unless you made him mad. And he was willing to go easy on her because of his dislike of upsetting Marinette. “The Ladyblog’s gonna love this.”

He stared before turning to Marinette. “So, how are the uniforms coming? If you need more-”

“I’ve got it. They’re almost done.” She smiled at him- one of the sweet ones that always made him flush and look away. “Thank you though. Anyway!” Marinette clapped her hands together. “Last minute before the last minute preps!”

They set to work under her guidance, Alya recording every minute.

Behind the counter, Luka and Kagami studied what flavors served which tropes and which drink was which AU. Felix, rolling his sleeves up, set to work in making sure the jukebox would work and that the cash register was plugged in. Marc cleaned and watered the flowers that Marinette had planted in the window. Marinette herself made sure they had all the machines and ingredients needed for their wares, making sure to write everything down.

After an hour, the group rejoined.

“That was great!” Alya said, turning off the camera. “I’ll upload this, and you guys will have a full house!”

“That’s our hope!” Marc said with a cheerful grin. “Now, what next-”

A loud BOOM rocked the cafe, sending everyone to the ground. A moment later, loud cackling filled the air.

“Now...” Alya pulled her phone back out. Her grin was wide, eyes sparkling in clear adrenaline-filled delight. “Now I go record. Because that...”

Marinette’s heart sank as she finished her friend’s sentence.

“That was an akuma.”

#the fan cafe #miraculous ladybug #ml #ice art #marinette dupain cheng #alya cesaire #felix #luka couffaine #kagami tsurugi #marc anciel #i wouldn't be surprised if alya was an adrenaline junkie?

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hubbie22 · 4 years

Text

tears ricochet part two

A/N: If you’d like to be tagged, please let me know! Thanks for reading.

“Well, where is she going to stay? I have more than enough room.” Freddie starts to talk about the late night wine fests, the sleepovers, and parties.

“What about one week with you, one week with Deaky and Veronica, and one week with us?” Brian says trying to come up with a compromise.

“We sound like divorced parents passing around our child.”

“Well, she can’t stay alone!” Brian seems frazzled as he always does. “Chrissie is adamant on that.”

“I think we all are, at least the six of us.” Deaky’s words cut Roger, cause he knows he’s excluded from this conversation.

“Where will you go?” It’s a legitimate question.

“You don’t have to worry about me, not anymore.” She says, as she holds Felix in her arms. He’s a happy baby, and he seems to like anything that gives him attention. And Liv hands it out to him in spades. This was the compromise, he did what she asked. He didn’t come alone, he came with Felix in tow. While that certainly wasn’t alone, it wasn’t what she meant. She wondered if Roger’s girlfriend knows he brought their son to see his ex. And if she knew, did she care? Or maybe she pitied Liv, that seemed to be the prevailing emotion she always recieved.

“Shouldn’t smoke with him in the room, Rog.” Liv scolds him, “And you shouldn’t worry about me.”

“Always worry ‘bout you.” He says as he takes a drag of his cigarette. It was preconditioned into the very fiber of his being to worry about her. Even if he tried to push it away, it always came flooding back.

Somehow Liv ended up with Freddie at Garden Lodge, at least until she was on her feet again. Or that was the promise they made to her.

“It’s like one big slumber party!” Freddie says pulling out silk robes from the Chanel bags. Freddie hands her a rose gold colored one, and he puts on a blood red one. The rose gold fabric pools around her feet, its luxurious.

“Freddie this is beautiful.” She says feeling the silk against her skin.

He looks at her with a playful light in his eyes, “All ways the best for us, dear.” It felt odd to be included in the word us, again. The last time she had been part of an us, was when the other part of it was Roger. She pushes him out of her head, he can’t occupy that space anymore. Just like he can’t occupy the other part of us in her life anymore.

“Manicure and pedicures this way!” Freddie says, he must sense her sadness. Because he tops her off with more wine, as she sinks her feet into the small tub of water.

They are in the middle of getting facials, being pampered for the tenth night in a row, “This really is a never ending slumber party.”

“What a great song idea!” He darts off with a blood red silk robe, leaving her alone with a multitude of cats. She picks up the orange tabby, who nestles into her embrace. She brings him up the stairs to the bedroom, and she can hear the pitter patter of little paws following her. She lays on the California king, looking up at the great white canopy above her. She can hear him singing from the other side of the house. It reminded her of the old times.when they were a penniless band, and not a household name.

“Like this!” Brian says as Roger bites back. “That’s not it! It’s slow!” They had been at the studio for the better part of 96 hours. Liv watched them, she hadn’t been spotted yet.

“I don’t like it!” Freddie says with a biting ferocity. “It’s so blasé!” They couldn’t achieve the correct sound for the song, and it was driving them mad. Which of course, lack of sleep didn’t aid in driving them mad either. But, she wouldn’t tell them that.

“I’m playing it how I always play it, Fred!” Brian seems to be cracking under the pressure, which is typical. She rolls her eyes, as she snaps a candid photo of Brian’s reaction.

“What do you think, Liv?” Deaky asks her.

She turns her head ready to answer, letting her camera fall against her chest as it was secured by a strap, only for Roger to answer for her. “Livie listens to only sad songs!” He goes on, “ She thinks the whole of it should be slow. For god sakes, she listens to sad American country music on repeat. If I hear that damn twang of “Your Cheatin Heart” one more time!”

“How dare you disrespect the late and great, Hank Williams, Rog.” She looks at him, “That man was a legend in a cowboy hat!”

Roger rolls his eyes, “All he does is stand there and sing sad country songs about his lost love in his country twang.”

“It’s called talent.”

“I know, I have it.” Roger says with a smirk on his face.

“What’s wrong with American country? What’s wrong with the sad songs they sing? I find it quite lovely, very telling of the human experience.” Brian asks, but he’s ignored.

She snorts, “Also, didn’t know your name was Liv, now?”

“ ‘S how I see it, just telling it how I see it.”

Hank Williams voice blares through the house, “Your Cheatin Heart” reverberates off the walls of Garden Lodge. Even those five years she spent comatose, did nothing to diminish her love for the American country star. Deaky chuckles at the thought, as she closes the front door.

“Liv?” Deaky shouts when the song dies down, and she yells from wherever she is. He walks to where the sound of voice came from. She’s dancing, her bare feet agaisnt the marble floor, to a sad country song. It’s a new one, George Jones if he’s not mistaken. A small smile is on his lips, as he noticed that Liv hasn’t changed. If anything it’s like she’s been frozen in time. She’s twirling around to the sounds of “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” in her white eyelet sundress. She hasn’t changed, it was like she was frozen in time. He had seen this scene at Liv and Rog’s flat and the Surrey Mansion. But the scenery around her changed, if this was five years earlier she would be dancing with Roger. But now, she danced with Freddie’s cats.

“Deaks!” She says clearly winded from her little dance party.

It causes Deaks to laugh, “Sorry to break up your dance party, but I was looking for Fred.”

She grimaces, “He’s with that evil bloke, Paul.” Liv and Paul didn’t like each other in 1975, and time didn’t faze that dislike from either parties. “Said he’d be back soon.” She answers his next question before he can even ask it.

He looks around, “Eaten yet?”

“No.”

“Come on, let’s get something.”

They end up at a little diner around the corner, one that they used to visit when Freddie only dreamed of owning Garden Lodge. She orders a burger and a strawberry milkshake, and he follows suit substituting the milkshake for chocolate.

“You haven’t changed, still blaring that horrendous country music.”

She rolls her eyes as she bites into her burger, “It reminds me of my dad.” Deaky didn’t know that, and he winces as she continues. “He was an American from the great state of Alabama,” She says the state with a fake southern drawl, “He came over here during the War. Survived that, and married the nurse that took care of him in the hospital.” She has a small smile that dies on her lips, “Only to die of cancer, when I was five.” She plays with the straw in her milkshake, “All I had of him were his Hank Williams records, kinda turned me into country music. We used to dance around the kitchen to it. I guess I found comfort in it. And I just never stopped finding comfort in it, makes me feel like he’s still here.”

“I’m sorry about your dad.”

She shrugs her shoulders, “It’s just another sad story in a long line of sad stories.”

The only sounds that can be heard is the chatter of the waitresses and the clinging of pots and pans.

“After your accident, we had some rocky times between the band. And I remember Roger would blare Hank Williams, when he was getting ready to go on stage.” Deaky looks at her, really looks at her and he sees how her eyes light up at the revelation. “Said it was his way of feeling like you were there, even when you weren’t.”

“Took my coma for him to appreciate my musical taste.” She deadpans. And the rest of the meal is spent in silence.

Her brows knitting in confusion, as they are walking back to to the Come to think of it those records at Freddie’s aren’t dad’s. I don’t even know where dad’s records are anymore. The last of dad just gone.”

The sounds of a country drawl lull him out of his sleep. He opens the door to his dressing room, head peaking out to find the source of the music. His feet take him to Roger’s dressing room. He opens the door to find what he least expected to find, Roger head in his hands as “I Saw the Light,” drifts off the cement block walls of the arena dressing rooms. Roger wasn’t a religious man, but Deaky knew this song wasn’t being played for religious purposes. It reminded Roger of someone, and with it the memories of her singing it. Those memories comforted him, when he couldn’t be at her beside. Maybe in a way, it was akin to a religious experience for him.

For two years, Hank Williams lulled him to sleep on couches across the world’s arenas. Until, that day when Roger decides to put it behind him. Deaky finds the Hank Williams records in the trash bin of the arena, he notices a pretty redhead knock on Roger’s dressing room door. Deaky takes the records from the trash, and he notices how old they are. And the intials etched on the cover OLH, it takes all of him not to march in Roger’s dressing room and drag him out by his hair. But, instead he takes the records with him. Closing the door to his dressing room, he slips the record out. He puts it on the player, when he walks to the couch he notices a note fell out the cover. He unfolds the note, finding a tear stained letter.

Dearest O,

I don’t want to write this, actually put it off until I could. But I can’t anymore. Soon, it’s just going to be just you and your mama. You have to be a big girl for your daddy, now. No tears, no fear, just be brave. I need you to be good for your mamma, she needs you. Do what she says, even if you don’t want too, which I know you never want to do what she says. I know you think she’s hard on you, she only is hard on you cause she loves you. And she just wants the best for you, she wants your life to be easier than ours was. Just remember everytime you listen to one of these Hank Williams albums, I’m right there with you. Singing along, while dancing around with kitchen with you. I’ll always be with you. I’ll be the wind that carries the leaves that dance around you in the fall, the sunshine that warms you up, I’ll be everywhere you are, where ever you are, there I’ll be. I love you, O. I’ll love you until the sea meets the sky.

Deaky folds the letter back up, placing it snuggly in the cover. The next thing he knows the phone is in his hand, and he’s waking Veronica up at 2 am to speak to his children. When they leave the arena the next hour, he put the records in his bags. He notices Roger has his sunglasses on, and his arm draped around the same redhead from earlier. And so begins the revolving door of groupies, until Roger meets a dark haired girl that reminds him of someone else.

“I have them.” Deaky says as they reach Garden Lodge.

“Why would you have them?”

He can’t tell her the truth, that Roger throw them away in some arena trash can in the States. So he covers it with a lie, he has to save her from the truth that Roger threw away the last of her dad so he could put her in the rearview mirror. “You let me borrow them before the accident.”

“Oh!” She still looks puzzled, knowing damn well she wouldn’t let anyone touch those records. But whatever Deaky isn’t telling her, she decides it best she doesn’t uncover it. “Can I have them back?”

“Of course, I was keeping them safe for you.” And that wasn’t a lie, it was a truth. Those records were locked in safe in his house, so the kids couldn’t destroy them.

The next day, Deaky is back with at Freddie’s with the records in hand. He notices Roger’s car is in the drive. He opens the front door to hear Liv laugh, and the sounds of a Felix stringing together some sound. He walks into the living room to find Roger and Freddie sitting in chair facing opposite each other, while Liv is on a pallet on the floor playing with Felix and Jimmy, Brian’s son. And the second Liv notices Deaky has arrived, her eyes zero in on what he’s holding. She leaves Felix laying on the pallet, but Jimmy is running after her. “Daddy’s records!” She sounds like a little girl. And as Deaky puts them in her hands, Roger’s eyes are as wide as saucers. Liv darts out of the living room, Jimmy hot in her heels, as she’s explaining to him about Hank Williams. The two year old is enamored with her, as she scoops him up. She’s running up the stairs to her room, focused on showing Jimmy the her dad’s records. Once Liv is out of earshot, Deaky decides it’s time to face the truth.

“Luckily I fished them out, knew she’d want them.” Deaky doesn’t skip a beat, as he situates himself on the couch. “Throwing out her dead dad’s records, that’s low.”

Freddie looks at Roger, “Was this during-”

“Yeah.” Roger interrupts him, as he bends down to pick up his son.

“He didn’t know what he was doing.” Freddie says defending Roger’s actions from three years ago. As if they could be defended, as if it was something so simple.

“Who didn’t know what they were doing?” Brian asks as he comes from the kitchen, three cups of tea in hand. He hands two cups to Freddie, one for him and one for Liv. He sits a cup beside Roger’s chair, and the other beside the spot he was occupying. He turns to Deaky, “Hello, John! Tea?” Deaky responds with a nod at Brian. Brian is back in a second, handing the cup to Deaky before taking a seat. Brian of course doesn’t let his question go, “Who didn’t know what they were doing?”

“Apparently Roger, didn’t know what he was doing when he threw away Liv’s dead dad’s records on tour in America.” Deaky’s words cut like a knife, and every word was meant to kill. “Of course Rog and Fred think it’s okay he did that, right?” Deaky looks at them, “Because of the cocaine?”

Brian looks at Roger, “What the fuck?!” Brian looks disgusted, “And you blame it on the drugs?”

“I went back for them the next day,” Roger looks like he’s on the verge of crying, “When I realized what I did-”

Freddie steps in, “He told me, after I punched him in the face. We went to the arena and turned every trash can inside out. But it was too late, they were gone.” Freddie is pleading, “We tried, Roger tried. He was just in a bad place.”

“And that makes it alright?” Deaky snorts.

“Please don’t tell her.” It’s all Roger can say, he can’t let her find that out. He can’t. And he knows Freddie won’t let it happen. Because Freddie was with him that night, when he smashed his drum set and destroyed everything in his hotel room.

“He won’t.” Freddie says finitely, turning to Deaky. “Will you, John?”

“No.” Deaky looks at Roger and Freddie. “But not because you asked me to, but because Liv doesn’t need you to break her heart a second time.” Deaky looks at Felix, “She can handle that fact that you moved on, that you settled down. She can be happy for you.” Deaky gulps his tea down. “But she won’t forgive you when she finds out, that you threw out something out of hers that was the last thing she had of her dad.”

“Thank you.” Roger says quietly. Freddie mouths a thank you to Deaky but he doesn’t say a word. And Brian seems like he is trying to process the information.

“You got it Jimmy!” Liv has the record player in her hands, and Jimmy is carrying the records. She sets up the record player in the hallway. She puts on the record, and Hank Williams voice floats through Garden Logde. And the three of them, with Felix in Rogers arms watch as Liv and Jimmy fight a fit of giggles as they dance.

“I did it cause I remember what that looked like.” Deaky says pointing to Liv twirling Jimmy around in her arms. “Maybe that morning you woke up, you remembered it too.”

#roger taylor imagine #roger taylor x reader #queen imagines #roger taylor x y/n #roger taylor angst #ben hardy! roger taylor #ben hardy as roger taylor #ben hardy x reader #queen fanfiction #roger taylor

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msbluebell · 5 years

Note

what about a "you start war, you face consequences AU"? At the end of BE Route, Edelgard thinks have achieved her goal. But everything go wrong! First, Claude, who has survived, becomes the king of Almyra and declare war to her to the Empire . And he's VERY powerful. Also some former nobles of Alliance and Kingdom don't accept the reunification and start a rebellion with the former knights of Seiros . The peace wil not happen any soon and a lot of people die or suffer or join the rebellion 1-2

2-2. Finally, Felix has survived and becomes the feral guy and decides to avenge Dimitri (his best friend), Rodrigue (his dad) and Sylvain (his lover) by killing the black eagles one by one and nobody (even Byleth) can stop him, no matter what they do. And Byleth has not the power of Sothis anymore. They can only watch everything falling apart, while being powerless. They can only watch their friends die by Felix's hands, Claude taking back the Alliance AND the Kingdom, ect...

This is actually what would have most likely happened if the Black Eagle Route didn’t have an Deus Ex Machina ending and the Crests and God powers didn’t disappear for no reason. I have made no secret of the fact that Black Eagles is my least favorite Route (yes, I’m including Church Route in this), and the lack of actually having to reform and change the system thanks to magical convenience is one of the reasons.

Nobles will not give up their crest fixation just because Edelgard hates crests. And without crest disappearing, it is unlikely they will take to Edelgard’s reforms. She may end up turning her own allies against her. Especially ones that don’t believe in her cause and just gave up because they didn’t want to be killed.

Also, it is a very, very, very dumb move to spare Claude in the Black Eagles Route. No matter what, he is a political opponent that proved he’s 1) very manipulative 2) very good at thinking on his feet and gathering resources. He should have died just to eliminate the potential for later rebellious uprisings, even if Byleth and Edelgard didn’t know anything about his ties to Almyra. Looking objectively at Claude’s goals and the ending of Black Eagles Route, yeah, he still has a dream of uniting Fodlan and Almyra. And unlike Fodlan, Almyra isn’t suffering from being war torn for five years. There IS a chance he’d come in take over, especially if any of his friends died in the battle.

Point is, Black Eagles Route has a lot of potential for mess if the crests don’t vanish (which I am so fixated on. The CHURCH didn’t make the crests, so why did they disappear? I interpret Byleth’s powers disappearing because they choose to relinquish them, which is a slap in the face to Sothis btw Byleth, but why did the CRESTS disappear when the Church fell? They had nothing to do with their creation! Ugh.)

(Black Eagles, much as I dislike their Route based on their actions and lack of self-awareness, still deserved a better written ending.)

But I’m ranting. Let’s get on to the prompt with Consequences AU:

I’ve spoken in another post about how Byleth, as I interpret them, more accidentally sided with the Black Eagles than anything. It would be the same in this AU, accidentally burning their bridges when they saved Edelgard in the tomb. Then they were forced to see the path through to the end because they couldn’t go back to anyone else, and they DID disagree with Rhea and distrust the Church, so maybe Edelgard is right...?

It was foolish to hope, in hindsight.

Rhea going mad was something that they expected, but they didn’t think their own actions would be the breaking point that drove her to such insanity. And they can’t erase the image of Dimitri kneeling in the rain as an axe meets his flesh. So many of their students died...but that was just...pitiful.

Edelgard assures him that it was for a better future, that all the death and sacrifice now will mean less suffering later.

But it’s hard to look at the people suffering in the NOW and think it’s better for the future. It’s like Edelgard is so fixated on the world that will be she forgot to take care of the world they’re in, or maybe she didn’t, and the people around her just don’t seem as real to her as the people in the future she’s envisioned.

Byleth’s first clue that everything was going wrong should have been their hair and eye color returning to it’s original state.

Sothis and they...the both of them have always been one, whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing. They are a single entity that was separated and then made whole again. But now there is an emptiness inside of them, and the emotions they’ve developed are fast fading again. They’re becoming numb once again as they lose the part of themselves that was her, and they don’t understand why.

Soon, they even stop caring.

Edelgard insisted that it was a wonderful sign. That they pointed their blades towards the heavens and won, so her path must be the righteous path.

Byleth no longer cares enough to correct her.

Their students, the Black Eagles, frown more when they speak now. Byleth has lost their emotions, so the fondness is ebbing away again. They’re distressed as they lose their teacher, and Byleth tries to pretend they care until even that seems pointless.

They follow Edelgard because they know that’s what they decided to do, not because they care. They’re too muted now, and even guilt is slipping away as time erodes more and more of Sothis from their very being.

Then the murders start to happen.

It starts when Dorathea was found outside of the Opera House. Her body had been cut down by the singular strike of a sword, left to rot in the street by an unknown assassin. The Black Eagles mourn, and Edelgard swears justice will be paid. The guards are doubled in the city and the hunt is on.

It doesn’t keep Fernidand from dying later. His entire platoon was killed, a mix of sword wounds and Reason magic leaving behind a field of corpses. Witnesses say it was a pale, dark haired, man. Just one. With an unused lance tied to his back. Something about revenge, the witnesses say. For a father, a best friend, a brother, a sister, and a lover.

A year goes by and the guards get lazy again. It seems the assassin had reached their goal or died in the process.

Until Almyra declares war.

Byleth gives their advice as it is sought, but no longer cares enough to see to the personal welfare of the troops themselves. It’s...demoralizing, to say the least.

Then Berneddeta dies in her room, a knife left behind, the signal of House Gautier’s crest carved into the hilt of the blade. A warning.

There are no Gautiers left, though, they were all killed, so it can only be Felix, Byleth explains to Edelgard, because there is no one else left to avenge House Gautier, and Felix was a childhood friend of both Dimitri, who is dead, Ingrid, who died defending Dimitri, and Sylvain, who also died in that battle.

Edelgard puts a bounty on his head.

But her troops are too spread thin with Almyra’s sudden and unrelenting assault. With another war on the horizon, many nobles that don’t care for Edelgard or were taken over surrender to Almyra without hesitation. Fodlan is once again halved, and with it Edelgard’s forces.

Then Lindhardt is killed by Felix, this time with a note: “I’m coming for you Edelgard.”

Claude, it seems, is the leader of the Almyran forces, and declares quite happily that he’s going to make Fodlan a part of his country. His smile doesn’t reach his eyes when he says it though, and he’s barely holding back heavy disgust.

Byleth can’t help but think of how foolish they are when they have sentiment.

Byleth also advises Edelgard to surrender.

“Not you.” Edelgard begs, knuckles gripped against the table, “Of all people, you cannot abandon me.”

But the Byleth she wants is long gone. Or, actually, they never existed. But if if they had her dream killed them until nothing but a numb shell was left behind. Byleth, as the are, is under no illusions of what they are now. A walking corpse, with all that made them human faded into the back with a sleeping Goddess that was once themselves.

Casper, who swore he wouldn’t let another one of his friends die, falls next. Felix, it seemed, has sided with Claude and is now leading the lands that was formally Faerghus. The people of the Alliance and Fearghus help rebel, throwing riots so large that they cannot be suppressed.

Petra is gone shortly after, taken by riots.

“FOR GOOD KING DIMITRI!” Cry out the people of Faerghus as they flood the streets of Fhiridad. Imperial soldiers are pushed back by people not even wearing armor, such is their numbers, and when actual soldiers come Faerghus is no longer a Dukedom of the Empire.

“FOR THE NOBLE CAUSE!” Cry the people of the Alliance as they’re lead by those still left of the Golden Deer. Hilda’s older brother has taken the helm and lead them to victory.

When they finally take Enbarr Byleth isn’t fighting. They don’t care, and watch from Edelgard’s side as they march her palace. They warn her to surrender, but she claims she’ll die first.

Felix walks in, and cuts down Hubert. Claude walks in behind him, hands on his hips, looking up at Edelgard and Byleth with a cold smile, “Did you get what you wanted?”

“I don’t want things.” Byleth answers, emotionless, “I haven’t since the power Sothis gave faded away, and I was left incomplete again.”

“Sounds awful, hope all this was worth that.” Claude answers as Edelgard’s eyes widen in horror.

“Perhaps if I could still feel, that would hurt.” Byleth answers him, “But I can only remember what emotions felt like, the experience is lost to me now.”

“...wow, that almost makes killing you feel like I’m being merciful.” Claude remarks as Felix glares from beside him, “Teach, why did you DO this to yourself?”

“I had meant to take Edelgard prisoner.” Byleth confesses, “I was simply run out and had nowhere else to go. Helping her seemed like the logical choice at the time, but it’s strange, I can’t see the logic in it now.”

Claude originally meant to take Byleth prisoner, if they could somehow be captured. Interrogate them and whatnot, allow their former students to air their grievances before they were executed for treachery.

Not that just feels too cruel when Byleth was apparently already killed long ago.

So, when the final battle ends, Claude tells Felix to end Byleth.

Byleth never even lifts their sword.

#fe3h #fe16 #byleth eisner #sothis #edelgard von fresberg #felix hugo fraldarius #claude von reigen #Black Eagles #Black Eagles Route #Consequences AU #asks

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sassyduckqueen · 5 years

Text

30 Days of Lukanette - Mermaid (1/3)

This is it. The beginning of the end. Get your tissues, hold on and get ready for this ride because this is how it's gonna go down. Party Crasher, Felix and Songbird are all happening after these Cat Blanc events. To work with the themes, I have rearranged them again! This is now the order that they will be in: Mermaid, Soulmates (Cat Blanc!!), Reincarnation, Witches & Cats (Felix), Songbird and finally Vigilante (Party Crasher? Maybe? Seriously, trying to think how to do this one without Master Fu). Like my version of Loveater and Miracle Queen, this next three chapters will all be set one after the other. Good luck.

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"Hey, Marinette! Hey, Luka!" Kim grinned as he waved over at them. Luka waved back as Marinette grinned before she grabbed his hand and rushed over. "Didn't think you two were into swimming?"

"We're not so much but the pool can be really fun and relaxing," Luka smiled as Marinette nodded.

"Yeah. I'm not very good at swimming but I've improved since I took up lessons," She smiled. Luka looked at her.

"I could always show you two how to swim!" Kim grinned proudly. "I've got a spare time til Ondine turns up. She's my girlfriend and swimming partner! She's so fun and super cool! Hey, why don't you two join us after swimming? We're gonna grab food afterwards!"

"We wouldn't want to intrude," Marinette gasped as Luka nodded.

"You wouldn't be!" He grinned, proudly. "Here she is now! I'll ask her! Hey! Ondine!"

"Hey, Kim," She gasped as she ran over. "Are you ready for tonight? I was able to get us a table at Bouillon Chartier for tonight,"

"Amazing! Hey are you cool if my friends Luka and Marinette joined us?" He asked, making her frown.

"I don't know if we'll be able to change the table to accommodate for four people and I was hoping it would just be us two...." She mumbled, looking down.

"Hey! Don't worry about us two!" Luka grinned as Marinette nodded.

"Yeah! You two go have fun and enjoy yourselves!" She grinned, causing Ondine to smile.

"Oh thank you," She gasped before grabbing Kim's hand and diving into the pool. Luka and Marinette both smiled before sitting at the pool edge and relaxing. Luka looked up at the celing and smiled to himself.

"You ok?"

"Yeah. Just remembering the last time we were here. Hey, will we get ice cream after this?" He asked, grinning. She laughed softly.

"If you want," She smiled as he looked at her. She blushed lightly as her eyes landed on his lips before she blushed and looked away. "Um..."

"Mari," He stated, sweetly, causing her to look at him again before he leaned in and placed a gentle kiss on her mouth. She blushed heavily as she wasn't expecting it.

"W-what was that for?"

"A thank you... my life has improved so much since you came into it... I'm even thinking about rejoining school..." He admitted, making her raise an eyebrow.

"Why did you leave in the first place?" She asked. He sighed softly, knowing she would ask eventually. "You don't have to tell-"

"I was getting bullied," He admitted, causing her to be a little surprised. "Both me and Juleka were. She got it worst then me. It's why she is the way she is now. All shy and scared. She found a solution to stop it. She made herself invisible but it's like she can't stop... but me... in a way, I got the worst of it. I got beaten up on a daily basic and called every name under the sun. When I tried to tell the teachers, the kids responsible made me look like I was lying and emotionally blackmailed me. They often used Juleka as a way to hurt me even more. They threatened to hurt her if I told anyone. Because I was a child, I believed them. That's why I took a dislike to Lila. She reminded me of the bullies I had to face when I went to school,"

"I'm so sorry that happened, Luka," Marinette gasped. She had seen him hurt and depressed but the only word she could describe the way he looked was right now was broken.

"It got worst as the years when by. As you know I was diagnosed with depression at 10 years old. Well, my school didn't believe me or my mum despite the medical records and when my bullies found it, it just made everything worst. Anyway, after three years, I finally broke. My mum had just gone through a divorce with my dad and the bullies thought they could try and use it to hurt me more then they already did but it didn't work out for them. I ended up just completely lashing out. I broke one of their noses and put the ringleader in hospital with broken ribs. I didn't mean to kick him that hard but I just had enough and all the times he had shoved me in a locker or punched me in the face.... they just flooded my mine and I kept kicking him before I finally stopped and suffered a full blown panic attack..." Luka mumbled as he looked down. "I know I should have been the bigger person... but they said it was my fault that my dad had left... that he couldn't stand having a son like me..."

"Luka..." Marinette sighed as she hugged him. He hugged back before he pulled away.

"I was expelled from that school and when it came to finding a new one, I begged my mum not to let me go and to home school me instead..." He sighed. "She promised to if I promised to learn how to control my anger and depression. Hence why I meditate,"

"Oh, Luka," Marinette gasped, taking his hands and looking at him with a look of pure admiration. "You're amazing and brave. It's no wonder why Master Fu chose you,"

"Marinette..." He felt touched by her words but as usual, he wasn't sure how to say so. So he wrapped his arms around her and brought her into a hug, which she happily returned. He nuzzled his face in her neck as she placed her cheek against his shoulder. "Thank you,"

"For what?"

"Everything..."

"Luka..." She mumbled before they both heard shouting. They separated and looked over as Ondine looked heartbroken at Kim.

"You forgot!" She gasped. "It's our one year anniversary and you forgot!"

"I'm really sorry, Ondine. I've had a lot on my mind," Kim gasped as she ran into the girl's locker room in tears. Kim sighed as Marinette and Luka got up and walked over. "Oh, hey... I take it you heard that..."

"Yeah..." Luka mumbled as Marinette frowned.

"I'm gonna go check on her," She stated before heading inside the girl's locker room. Luka looked over at Kim.

"What happened?"

"I'm an idiot. That's what happened. I completely forgot today was the one year anniversary of our relationship. She had gone to all this trouble to get a table at one of the fancies restrantants in Paris and even got me a sighed swimming cap and I forgot. I asked what the cap was for and she told me. I thought she was joking at first so I was like no way and she was like yes, it is and then I had to admit I forgot..." Kim sighed. Luka gently placed his hand on his shoulder and smiled.

"I'm sure you two can work it out," He stated as Marinette rushed out the girl's locker room. As soon as she did, the level of the pool began to rise. "That's not good,"

"Kim, get to the roof now!" Marinette ordered. Kim didn't need telling twice as he legged it out of the room. Marinette grabbed Luka's hand but the water suddeny washed over them, seperating them. Luka panicked as he looked around for her before swimming his way to the top. He swam across towards the boys' locker room before taking a deep breathe and diving underneath. He swam over to his locker and noticed it was already open and his bag was gone. He swam up and out of the room before looking around.

"Sass?" He gasped before swimming over to the fire exit. He dived back under and swam through the now open door. He noticed his shoe floating and grabbed it before swimming towards the roof. He finally caught up with where the water was rising and saw his other shoe. He picked it up as he got out of the water and ran up. "Sass?!"

"Luka?" He heard the little snake gasp. He rushed over and saw Sass trying to get his bag to the dry part with Tikki, who had Marinette's bag. "As soon as the water appeared, I grabbed Tikki and headed this way. Sorry, I dropped your shoes,"

"It's fine," Luka gasped, grabbing his bag and taking out the power up cakes.

"Luka, where's-" Tikki hiccuped red bubbles but he knew what she meant. He gently patted the little Kwami.

"I'm gonna go find her. Get to the roof top ok?" He smiled softly before He took out the green one and threw it to Sass. "Sass, power up!"

"Aqua Sass!" The little snake declared as he transformed.

"Aqua Sass! Scales Slither!" Luka declared before transforming into Aqua Viperion. He dived into the water as Tikki floated to the roof and swam back into the pool area. He looked around for Marinette before noticing her float near the bottom of the pool. Her eyes were closed and she wasn't moving. He swam over to her and grabbed her around the waist before swimming as fast as he could to the rooftop. He broke the surface and swam over to the doorway before laying her down on the floor. Tikki gasped as she saw them and floated over. Marinette was completely still and she wasn't breathing. She seemed to have a cut on the side of her head. Panic rose in him but he took a deep breath, calming himself before he pressed against her chest softly before he pinched her nose and took a deep breathe before placing his mouth over hers and pushed the breathe into her. She suddenly gasped, causing him to pull away before she coughed up water.

"Marinette!" He gasped, moving her hair as she coughed and looked at him.

"You're ok," She gasped, hugging him. He hugged back. "Ondine got reakumatized. She can-"

She coughed before shaking her head.

"Go find her before she hurts someone else. I'll catch up in a moment," She declared. He frowned but nodded before getting back up and diving into the water. He swam around.

"I didn't think snakes could swim," The familiar voice of Ondine made him turn around. Only she looked more like a mermaid now.

"Well, there are such thing as water snakes," He grinned. "So a little fish told me you're upset about your boyfriend forgetting your on-"

"Shut up!" She screamed before diving at him. He dodged at her.

"Look, I get it-"

"He doesn't care!" She screamed. "He forgot!"

"People have a lot of things going on their lives that can make them forget the important things but I'm sure he didn't do it on purpose. I'm sure he loves you,"

"What do you know about love?!" She screamed, trying to hit him with her tail.

"A lot more then you'd think," He replied as Ladybug and Cat joined him. He swam over to them. "Think we'll need a rest point, Aquabug?"

"Should be fine, Viper,"

"Do I get a cute nickname too?" Cat purred, making him laugh.

"Sure, Catfish," He grinned before three of them charged at the mermaid. Despite her been in her element, it didn't take them long to defeat her. With the help of a lucky charm in the form of a fishing net, they captured her and freed her akuma before Ladybug used the miraculous bugs to restore everything back to normal. With Paris no longer submerged, Luka detransformed on the roof, away from prying eyes and ran back down into the swimming pool, where Kim and Ondine were making up. He rushed over as he saw Marinette and hugged her. Even though, he had saved her and fought by her side in the water, seeing her unconscious at the bottom of the pool still freaked him out. for one thing, it reminded him she was a normal human but it also made him think about his dreams. She hugged him back and rested her head against his chest. "You really scared me,"

"I'm sorry, Luka. I didn't expect that wave to happen," She mumbled, looking up at him before whispering. "Thank you for saving me,"

"I told you I will always have your back," He smiled softly, looking at her deep in the eyes. A blush came across her face as she looked back. All she could see in his eyes was a look of true love. He really loved her and was willing to protect her. She smiled softly as she moved closer to him.

"Thank you," She smiled. "I have your back too,"

He smiled and wrapped his arm around her small frame as Kim and Ondine walked over.

"Are you two ok now?"

"Y-yeah," Ondine replied.

"I'm taking her out tomorrow night to make up for it," Kim smiled. "But I'm really sorry we interrupted your date,"

"Date?" Marinette gasped. "O-oh... we're not on a d-date? We're j-just hanging out...."

Luka frowned but he didn't fail to notice the small, sad look Marinette put aside as she mumbled something.

"You're not a couple?" Ondine asked. "Kim and I thought you were. We're so sorry,"

"It's fine. Me and Marinette... are taking it kind of slow..." Luka smiled softly before looking at her with soft eyes. "I'd wait for an eternity for her,"

"Luka..." Marinette gasped, blushing.

"Well, I think you make a cute couple!" Ondine gasped, making Marinette blush more. "We're better go anyway! Again, sorry for the trouble!"

"Bye!" Marinette waved along with Luka before turning around and facing him once there were alone. "You're really ok with taking this all slow?"

"Of course," He smiled softly.

"But... what if-"

"Marinette, your happiness is the most important thing to me," He smiled softly, looking at her. "You know how I feel about you but I don't expect you to love me back. I've said before and I'll say it again. That choice belongs to you. I won't lie because I would love for you to be my girlfriend but if you chose not to be, I will never hate you for it. I promise you here and now that I will always respect your choice regardless of how it affects me and that I will always value you as a person and a friend and if you decide I'm the one for you then I will try my best to make you happy but if you decide I'm not then that's cool too,"

"Thank you, Luka," She smiled, hugging him. "I like taking it slow with you. I like getting to know you,"

"I like getting to know you too," He smiled softly. "Shall we get changed and go get some ice cream?"

"Sounds good to me,"

~The Next Day~

"We were happy," Cat stated as he walked over. His eyes were cold and blue. "I was happy..."

"Cat.... please... tell me what happened!" Ladybug gasped as she stared at him with Ryuko was ready to attack if she had to but Bunnyx was no where to be seen. Viperion, on the other hand, was looking around. The whole of Paris had been flooded. Everything was submerged, apart from the building they were stood on now. He looked around and frowned to himself as he saw the moon in the sky. Only it was partly destroyed. "

'That's what caused the flood,' He thought to himself as he turned his attention back to Cat, who was looking down.

"I made a mistake and I lost it all but now you're here, I can fix it," He mumbled before looking at her. "Just give me your miraculous, Mi'lady and I can fix all of this! No more hawkmoth! No more pain! Just me and you together forever!"

Viperion instantly moved in front of Ladybug as Cat looked at her with an insane and almost hungry look. Ladybug looked absolutely broken and Ryuko looked mad but not as angry as Cat looked right now.

"You're always getting in my way!" He snarled. "You slithered into our team and stole mi'lady from right beneath my nose!"

"I never stole her because she was never yours to begin with or mine!" He shouted back. "Ladybug is her own person! Her choices are hers! Not ours!"

"Shut up!" He screamed before flying a white ball at Viperion, only for Ladybug to push him out the way and get hit by it. Viperion screamed as he tried to catch her, only to see her cold, dead eyes before she turned into stone. "Mi'lady!! Look at what you've done!"

Viperion didn't say a thing as he held her. Tears rolled down his face as his bracelet beeped. He looked up as Ryuko dives at him, only to be turned to stone too. Cat keeps walking towards him as he seemed determined to hurt him. Bunnyx suddenly dives out of a burrow but Cat is too fast for her and pretty soon, she joins Ladybug and Ryuko.

"Look at what you've done!" Cat snarled. "I had a chance to fix it and now they're all dead! Everyone is dead because of you!"

"No... I didn't do this! Cat, listen to me! Hawkm-"

"Hawkmoth is dead!" He snarled as Viperion detransformed into Luka. For a minute, Cat seemed shocked but then he narrows his steel blue eyes and a deep growl comes from his throat. He doesn't try to destroy him. Instead, he just smirks and the bright light forms again....

Luka woke up in a cold sweat as he came back from his nightmare. It seemed to have gone into more detail then the last time. He felt like every time he had one, it was bringing him closer and closer to the event that caused this. He wasn't sure what it was but it must have been bad for him to be getting these dreams. He got up and headed to the bathroom. He splashed his face with water and shakily looked in the mirror. He looked tired and drained. He sighed and dried his face before heading back to his room. He paced up and down it's length as Sass watched him.

"Luka?"

"I'm trying to think," He mumbled. "What could possible have caused Cat to turn into that... thing? It must of been something devastating to him because the cat I know. He would not end up like that. Hawkmoth must of done something... and the moon... it was split in half, Sass... god, this is so bad... and I don't know what to do. Why am I having these dreams?!"

"You are sensitive and a good match for me,"

"I wish I wasn't right now. I just... She dies.. Marinette dies! They all die and I don't think it's just my friends... Sass, the moon controls the ocean and Paris was completely submerged in water so what happened to the rest of the world?! Is everyone dead? Oh, god... Juleka... Mum.... Rose... all the friends I've made! They're all gonna-gonna... d-die..." Luka felt his breathing hitch as he started to realize that everyone he ever loved would be dead. He gripped his chest as he started to hyperventilate. Sass floated over and gently placed his hand on his shoulder.

"Breathe, Luka. Copy me," He stated in a calm voice. "Breathe in!"

He inhaled and Luka copied.

"Breath out!" He released the breathe. Luka did the same. "In!"

They took another deep breathe.

"And Out!" They released that breathe together, repeating the action til Luka could breathe again. He sank down into his floor as he finally let the tears roll down his face. The despair he felt knowing that everyone would die, that Cat would be driven mad to the point of destroying the earth and feeling hopeless to save it. It was almost too much but Luka knew he had to calm down. If he didn't, an akuma could come for him and that was the last thing he wanted to happen. Especially with it been Adrien's birthday today. He had been very surprised when he had gotten an invite to his party. All the celebrities were going but apparently, Adrien had convinced his father to let some of his friends go and he apparently considered Luka a friend, even though they didn't hang out that often. However, he did like Adrien and didn't want him to have a bad birthday so he decided to go. it helped that Marinette would be there, along with their other friends. He kept taking deep breathes before finally calming down. "You good?"

"I'm good, Sass," He smiled softly. "Thank you,"

The little snake hugged himself against Luka's cheek.

"Good. I don't want you to be akumatized," He smiled before sitting on his knee. Luka patted his head softly.

"Me Neither, Sass,"

#luka couffaine #lukanette #syren #miraculous ladybug #team miraculous #water forms #aqua sass returns #Aqua Viperion #underthesea #nightmares #cat blanc #cat noir #viperion #ladybug #miraculous #miraclous ladybug #the beginning of the end #kind of #Pro LukaMari

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lady-byleth · 5 years

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I re-play to Blue Lions Route and I don't think that Felix doesn't care/hates his father, he seems pretty upset when Rodrigue dies. The whole A support with Dimitri is "Listen Dimitri, you better to not waste my father's sacrifice!" or something like that. But Poor Felix. In BL route? He loses his dad. In GD? He loses Dimitri and blames himself for that. In Eldelgard Route? He ruins everything who were dear to him in the other routes and I'm pretty sure that he will never forgive himself.

Felix's relationship to Rodrigue is...complicated

The resentment is real, his roster entry even states that his dislikes include his father, but I personally feel like that is a similar defense mechanism to his violent rejection of Dimitri

Because similar to Dimitri Rodrigue crushed Felix's trust in him. Instead of consoling him and being there for him when Glenn died, Rodrigue made his sacrifice into something that all knights should be proud of. To Felix that probably sounded like had Glenn not died he'd have been more upset about it than he was at his death

It probably sounded to Felix like his own father wanted him to die for someone else to be a real knight

Rodrigue admits to Byleth that that was a stupid thing to say to Felix and is grateful when Byleth takes Felix's side in the situation so he obviously loves his son but he also knows he's lost Felix trust and that it's incredibly hard to get that back once lost

But Rodrigue is still Felix's father and the man dies the same way Glenn did: to protect Dimitri.

But at this point in time Felix has been at war for a while, has seen fighting and the Kingdom fall apart, so he's probably in a different place mentally and understands why a knight would throw himself between his liege and an enemy

So while he still resents the man, Felix isn't quite sure what to think of him anymore. This war probably puts Glenn's death into a whole new light too, especially when it becomes clear that only Dimitri - who is throwing himself away - can still turn the situation around and unite the people against Edelgard

So while he still thinks that being willing to die at the drop of a hat is dumb as hell he also sees the necessity behind it under certain circumstances

His feelings are in complete turmoil about his old man. Rodrigue tries for years to mend their relationship, which he blocked, and then the man goes off and dies the same way Glenn did and Felix is wondering if things could've been different if he had been more open to conversation

He probably doesn't like his father the way I do mine but by the end of Azure Moon he doesn't hate him anymore and might even respect him a little

But yeah, out of all the characters, Felix is among the ones who lose the most in this war

#fire emblem three houses #felix hugo fraldarius #rodrigue achille fraldarius #three houses spoilers

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astro-b-o-y-d · 4 years

Text

Once again it’s time to talk about something that annoys me. And by something, I mean Gyro Gearloose and maybe explaining my full thoughts on why I dislike him as much as I do.

This post is all over the place and I can already hear Gyro fans trying to convince me otherwise, but this is just how I feel and after spending a month or two TRYING to get my feelings in order about him, I don’t think anything’s going to change my mind until we see more episodes.

----

Let’s just say that first things first, I went into DT17 fully prepared to hate Mark Beaks. I knew about how awful he was from the get-go, I had heard that he was just such an asshole. How a lot of folks in the fandom were happy to drag his ass for being a racist prick to Fenton.

And I did hate him. A lot. And he is a racist prick. There’s no arguments there.

So I was so distracted by Mark and how obnoxious he was, that Gyro as a whole kind of got swept under the rug. I hadn’t heard much from the fandom about him (or at least, I paid little attention), other than the occasional ‘Yeah I like him’, so I didn’t form much of an opinion.

But after Astro Boyd sparked a burning hatred inside me for the man, despite him earning at least one (only one) right by the end, I was like “Maybe I’m being unfair. I mean, a lot of people seem to like him, so maybe I should rewatch the show to see if I’m missing something. Maybe he really is just kind of misunderstood. I mean, yes, he was clearly wrong in this episode but he did learn his lesson. Maybe I am missing what makes this character fun.”

So I rewatched Ducktales to give Gyro another chance. Admittedly I did go into it kind of sour at him to begin with but I tried to keep an open mind.

And...he’s terrible.

He was always terrible.

Not just in personality but he is so AWFUL to Fenton, to the point where I’m surprised by people not pointing out how absolutely dehumanizing he is to Fenton at times. Like wow, he might not be as outright as Mark is, but he is just AWFUL to Fenton. I’m less surprised by his behavior in AstroBoyd after my rewatch because that’s how he ALWAYS was to people he saw as lesser than him.

Now, I understand liking awful characters. As I’ve stated hundreds of times, I would be a HYPOCRITE to judge. I love the Director from RvB, I love Felix from RvB, I love Daniel Camp Camp. Heck, in an odd way, I kind of enjoy seeing Mark Beaks on screen (at least when he’s nowhere near Fenton) because while he is a terrible person, at least there’s some entertainment to be had from his obnoxious-whiny-rich-white-boy personality.

But like....why does Mark get dragged for treating Fenton like shit, and I SEE people dragging him, but I didn’t see as much of that with Gyro.

All the posts I’ve seen are like “Oh I love Gyro” “Oh I love his development” “Oh he’s such a good character” and....again, no judgement there. I don’t think his character in itself is bad and I recognize growth that some people might connect with.

But it’s just baffling. To see so many people after AstroBoyd completely ignore what a horrible person he was and even go so far as to think he’s even CLOSE to being a good parent for Boyd after one hug (I had to outright block ‘Boyd G*arloose’ as a tag because every time I see that man being all happy-cutesy Dad Mode with my favorite character in the show, my stomach twists so painfully), when he still has two-and-a-half seasons of horrible behavior still under his belt, while happily dragging Mark for his shit behavior.

Now do I think Gyro is as bad as Mark? Absolutely not. Unlike Mark, he at least has the potential to recognize when he is wrong. He can recognize that he has, in fact, been a VERY toxic person to a lot of people in his life. In fact, that’s one thing I do like about his character.

However, him recognizing this fact now does not excuse the damage he’s already done, nor does it make me any less sour that it took two-and-a-half seasons of him treating Fenton like garbage, 3/4s of an episode dehumanizing a little neurodivergent robot child (yeah reminder that Boyd is a CHILD and Gyro is a GROWN ADULT, that’s even more infuriating) and nearly SHUTTING HIM DOWN WITH NO REMORSE. YEAH, CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT WOULD’VE HAPPENED IF HUEY HADN’T BEEN THERE??? Boyd would probably be DEAD if Huey hadn’t been like “Hey, Gyro, maybe look closer at these memories?”.

He is on the right track. But he has only taken a step in the right direction, and I’m not about to praise him for taking that step after he spent a mile stepping on others. If you want to, that’s awesome and I hope you have fun. But I need more steps from him before the sour feelings about him dissipate.

And don’t even talk to me about how ‘people handle trauma in different ways’ regarding his behavior in AstroBoyd. Like excuse me, trauma or not, you don’t treat people like that and you don’t treat CHILDREN, especially not NEURODIVERGENT CHILDREN like that. He’s well within his rights to be scared of Boyd after what happened, but the absolutely MALICE in his tone and behavior towards him was inexcusable.

#Hayley Speaks #Gyro Hate Club #Long Post #Also I kind of want a reference for if/when people ask me why I don't like Gyro #So I can just be like 'here's a link'#Also I'm really REALLY not looking for a debate about him #Like seriously #I'm just trying to piece together my thoughts #Also to anyone who's like 'WELL YEAH HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AWFUL UNTIL THIS POINT'#...Okay?#So?#He was supposed to be unlikable and it worked #I do not like him #I don't know what that changes

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arcxnumvitae · 4 years

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FE3H

Send me a fandom and I will tell you my:

Uhhh yeah some Three Houses spoilers here too

Favorite character: I know it seems like Dimitri’s a given choice but he’s one of many! Him, Claude, Marianne, and Bernadetta are my top faves. Felix’s angry ass too. Seteth is up there for looking at all of these damaged noble kids with awful parents and going “I’m your dad now.” Linhardt might be getting up there. Maybe Hubert.

Least Favorite character: Any kind of villain is kinda cheating and honestly, all of the student/playable characters are given so much of that good three dimensional fleshed out juice that it’s hard to wholly dislike them. Even ones I started out disliking, like Hilda and Lorenz, won me over later with their supports and reasoning for the way they are. I feel like it’s also cheating to say Edelgard since I haven’t finished her route to fully understand her at her best (as I like to operate with full knowledge from every angle before making final judgements), but from what I’ve seen of her from the Golden Deer and Blue Lion route…aha…hm…ehhhhh…I’m also a wimp so who knows if I’ll ever get around to finishing her route. I happen to like my Dima with his head attached thank you very much.

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): The obvious ones: Dimitri and Byleth, Claude and Byleth, Felix and Sylvain. Ones I haven’t talked much about (I’m going over five but do you see how many characters there are. Too many.) Marianne and Hilda. Lorenz and Marianne. Gilbert and not being an absolute fuck of a dad (a shame this doesn’t happen unless Annette gets a paired ending with him). Lorenz and Lysithea’s really cute too. Mercedes and Dedue is very sweet.

Character I find most attractive: Dimitri and Claude. Seteth and his Raw Dilf energy. All of the ladies’ timeskips designs, I never shut up about them. They peaked with those designs.

Character I would marry: Dimitri and Claude. Seteth. See the trend here?

Character I would be best friends with: Hm. Ones I would like to be friends with? Mercedes is sweet and bakes sweets, her. Ashe is a good boy, him. I love the characters but I feel like a lot of them I would not want to actually have to deal with

a random thought: As much as I would love for a route where I didn’t have to kill students I love from a different house (outside of the recruiting feature), I understand why there isn’t a golden route like that and am glad they stuck with not making one. Adds so much weight to the narrative to know without a doubt that there is no “right” choice and that no matter what you do people will die. Save for Claude being a baller and being the only lord who can survive every single route, look at him go.

An unpopular opinion: I’m honestly kinda sad the way each route single-handedly unites the entirety of Fodlan and erases the three nations of the Empire, Kingdom, and Alliance under– well, it gets route-specific here. But basically, in Golden Deer route the church is abolished and the mc becomes the ruler of all of Fodlan. I could talk about how I feel like suddenly giving a random nobody with the esteemed background of former mercenary and professor the title of Supreme Monarch Over All is Kinda Dumb writing-wise but that’d take long. In Blue Lions the mc becomes archbishop of the church and Dimitri the Supreme King, not as dumb but still ehhh. Black Eagles I believe has Edelgard disbanding the church and Supreme Leader-ing with the intent to…not do it later? Pass it on…? Gosh, sorry, I’m trying to figure out how to properly explain what I don’t like about the fate of Fodlan in these endings without it being too long. Basically, I feel like the celebratory theme of “we united the countries into one kinda forcibly through war so peace can reign for now yay!” is a bit eh. Mostly forcibly conquering and integrating what were already peaceful countries (again, kinda varies between routes) and then painting it as “the only good option for Fodlan” rubs me wrong. Not to mention just looking at logistics how on earth is this supposed to work? No modern technology, only one or two main rulers, and this land is huge. Hire overseers to take care of parts of the nation to delegate your work? That’s not much different than before. Not to mention, only Dimitri’s ending I believe stating how he worked to put systems in place to give the common population more political power, otherwise we still have this conflict of nobles making decisions without much say from their charges. Argh, I feel like I’m getting scattered about this I’ll just stop here.

My Canon OTP: Welcome to Three Houses where nothing is canon and your ships do matter! But yeah, nothing’s “canon”, if they can get a paired ending then they can get a paired ending and that’s about as canon as it gets.

My Non-canon OTP: Uh, I feel like I mentioned my favorite ships already anyways? I like Dimitri and Byleth but it’s hard to call that the OTP above all other ships I like.

Most Badass Character: You’ve gotten to the Blue Lions timeskip. It’s just you and a mentally unstable bloodthirsty Dimitri surrounded by a lot of bandits with no support. “This is going to be rough to last until the other students get here” you think to yourself and then send Dimitri to attack an enemy. “I’ll comply,” he states simply, runs up, gets a crit, yells, “OUT OF MY WAY’ and then does nearly 200 damage on one poor bandit. You have an awakening. His strength stat is out of this world, either he tanks damage or nearly consistently dodges entirely. His crit rate is unimaginable. I’m not kidding when I say a viable strategy is just to throw post timeskip Dimtri into a horde of enemies and let him do all of the work. And man, do I love watching that man work.

Most Epic Villain: The villains in 3H were…underwhelming and kinda one note. Edelgard classifies more an as anti-hero than anything technically. I feel like I should say Nemesis just on the fact that his final boss map is fun and God-Shattering Star is……wow…….man….phew. Even if I feel Nemesis is kinda a weak villain anyways ahhhhh. Maybe I’d have gone with Rhea if I finished my BE route but can she wholly be classified as a villain either…?

Pairing I am not a fan of: Uhhh, I feel like it’s a given but even post-timeskip when they’re adults I’m still not fond of the professors having paired endings with the former students. Not a fan. Rhea and Byleth, which yes is a pairing that can happen, I’m not fond of for various reasons. Uhhh, other than that I’m honestly fine with a lot of the student pairing that I can remember, although I side-eye Ingrid and Dedue. I hear that Hubert and Petra’s paired ending is bad and I don’t like any of Bernadetta’s canon endings that have her retreating further into seclusion but that doesn’t mean I don’t like any of her ships that have that. I don’t know where else to put this but a thing I love is that there are m/f pairings with platonic endings. That’s nice. Good change of pace, let them be good friends.

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): hahahahaha Dedue, baby, you deserved more with how you were handled and the whole Duscur thing being swept to the side.

Favourite Friendship: One thing I love is the platonic relationships too. Ferdinand and Lorenz gossiping and chatting over tea. The Faerghus childhood quartet (Dimitri, Felix, Sylvain, and Ingrid). Hilda and Claude if you ship them as friends are great. Dimitri and Mercedes is also incredibly sweet.

Character I most identify with: There’s a reason I love Marianne and Bernadetta so much.

Character I wish I could be: Uhhhh, geez. Hm. Byleth? Just to get to interact with everyone and not have to deal with their sucky backstories because everyone’s families suck so much. There’s so much wrong with Fodlan, my gosh

#shctteredillusions #{Answers #no proofreading just going to let the stream of consciousness typing go through

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eggphcbe · 5 years

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About my muse (mobile)

[bio updated: 04/25/2020]

Name: Felix Huxley

Age: 5

Gender: Male (he/him)(?)

Species: Human

Height: 3'6’’

Birthday: May 31

Zodiac: Gemini

Alignment: Somewhere between lawful neutral and lawful evil

Likes: Applesoft, his family, order, structure, business associates, praise, approval, doing anything he needs to achieve his goals

Dislikes: Teddy, being touched, spiders, tight spaces, being humiliated, things going wrong, disobedience

Qualities: Business savvy, possess a lot of money, can read, cunning, selfish, ambitious, confident, under a lot of stress, imposing, irritable, haughty, good at following his father’s orders, academically intelligent, not emotionally aware, has alexithymia

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cw: mentions of emotional abuse and child abuse

Kindergarten is a violent video game with a Groundhog Day-esque style of gameplay. It features many manipulative, messed up schoolchildren and staff. The protagonist repeats the same day, trying not to get killed as he does missions for different people in order to get to the bottom of his new school’s secrets. The game is gory and the children tend to talk about mature subjects such as drugs, alcoholism, murder, and can tend to be all around nasty to each other save for a few of the nicer characters. Felix is not one of the latter characters, for the most part.

Felix is a non playable character who appears in the game Kindergarten 2. He is the identical twin brother of Theodore (Ted, but Felix tends to call him Teddy instead), and the two brothers are both wealthy heirs to their family’s company, Applesoft. He is more aloof and insensitive than his brother is, tends to think in terms of business, and can be particularly ruthless and cold when it benefits him. He is the more academically intelligent one out of the two, due to the fact he goes to the "smart class" during morning time rather than the "regular/stupid class". He is the golden child in the Huxley family, and his father strongly prefers Felix over Ted.

He and his father are implied and shown in the game to not care for Ted at all. Felix plans to kill Ted just because he is too naive and unfit to inherit their father’s company, and he wants to be the sole heir anyway. He is also shown to dislike, berate, and ignore Ted and Ted’s wants and needs. He is very dismissive and unsupportive of his brother, often calling him stupid, insulting him (calls him “mediocre”, “a disgrace to their family’s name”, “fat”, “imbecile”) and even continues to call him a “failure,” saying that “father will never love you like he loves me” even as he’s trapped in a hole with spiders in the alternate ‘Cain’s Not Able’ mission.

That alternate mission also shows just how little Felix pays attention to his own brother. Not even the sarcastic attitude Ted suddenly has for the rest of the day is enough to tip Felix off that something might have caused him to act differently than he normally does. He doesn't notice it or question it at all, too focused on the task of killing his inferior twin. At the end of the normal mission, he doesn't mention Ted at all while talking to the protagonist, whereas Theodore will briefly talk about how sad it was for him to find out his brother didn't love him after all, before giving the strange chemical to the protagonist.

Felix exhibits abusive, controlling behaviour over his brother throughout the game. Ted is shown to refuse talking to the protagonist, just because Felix said so. And Ted doesn't take off his tie during recess despite the heat, just because Felix told him that "a professional should always look his best". There are often times where Felix will interrupt Ted when he's talking, telling him to shut up while also insulting him, and dismiss anything his brother says as being unimportant, accusing him of "stepping out of line". Most of this is, of course, inexcusable, but it is also incredibly likely that it is learned behaviour from their father since their dad clearly doesn't like Ted either.

Most of the way Felix acts and speaks to people seems to mimic that of a businessman much older than a kid his age. He also seems to use British slang a lot as well, telling people to "bugger off". He has a habit of speaking in a very posh manner, and uses big words such as calling people "vagabond" or "rapscallions". It also seems that he is very snobbish and particular about not socializing with anyone outside his wealthy social circle. He calls the protagonist a "street urchin" and refuses to speak or play with him on multiple occasions, and will gloat about how someone as poor as the protagonist wouldn't stand a chance beating him at Monstermon with Felix's prestigious and blue deck. When the protagonist does win, Felix doesn't seem to take it well and resorts to giving the kid one of his Monstermon cards to keep quiet about his loss, proceeding to act as if he won afterwards.

It is also very likely by the way Felix doesn't handle rejection or things going wrong, like when he loses at Monstermon or blames Ted for not catching the ball in dodgeball, that he puts a lot of pressure on himself to do everything perfectly. Being the favourite child in the Huxley family, it is completely plausible. He always does as father asks him to, always on his best behaviour to appease his father. After all, he would never want to end up like Teddy. Imperfect, and useless. Felix has a strong desire to do anything it takes to benefit his family's company, and anything to gain the approval and praise of his father to keep his status as the golden child. The successful one. The smart, important, revered twin. He would do anything. And if that includes killing off his less desirable brother? Then so be it.

#about #links for mobile users #|| Upcoming Developments || Blog updates.

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theonceoverthinker · 6 years

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OUAT 3X09 - Save Henry

It’s time to save Henry...or everyone, save Henry!

See what I did there? Stealthy pun. I can do those on occasion.

Anyway, under the cut you go for the semi-smart stuff, unless you want to save yourself!

Press Release

While Henry’s life hangs in the balance, the race is on to stop Pan from gaining full magical powers from the heart of the truest believer. Meanwhile, in Storybrooke of the past, Regina decides to fill a void in her life and, with Mr. Gold’s help, sets out to adopt a baby.

Main Thoughts - Characters/Stories/Themes and Their Effectiveness

Past

Wow, Loving Lana’s acting in this first scene with Archie. She’s so muted and given how Regina’s usually up there in the extra squad, it’s so noticable. She looks while not unhealthy, still sickly in a way because of how miserable and lonely she is. It’s a fantastic way of showing just how badly her life needed love and how much of a change for the better Henry was for it. (Not to beat a dead horse, but THIS is the kind of acting a lack of a heart should grant one, Graham!)

Pre-redemption post-childhood Regina flashbacks tend to fight an uphill battle of making Regina sympathetic while also not turning their backs on the fact that she was a legit villain, and this one, like the best of them, handles that concept well! Regina does some bad and illegal things. She casts a curse, chews out basically every Storybrooke character she interacts with, and has Sidney steal Emma’s medical records. But this flashback isn’t about those things. It’s a story about how love started the trajectory of Regina’s redemption.

That’s where the focus is on and appropriately so.

Watching that story is adorable. It’s the first time we see Regina soften to someone immediately and in such a loving way. We see the struggle Regina went through to acclimate herself to motherhood. Look, I’m the daughter of a single mother and I was a bit of a problem child myself: This shit hit home.

The ending story of the segment even shows post-early early signs of her redemption by just showing how Henry’s happiness takes precedence over an ensurement of the safety of her vengeance.

“Sometimes, being a good parent can mean having the strength to give him up.” This line is so important. I like how someone in the real world gives this extra level of validation to the “your best chance” mantra of the series. OUAT has some questionable morals and questionable redemptions. I feel comfortable saying that while I do really enjoy the redemptions we see throughout the series, that statement applies to pretty much everyone in the main cast. Someone (I think @justmilah) put it best at the convention: They’re a bunch of people who probably don’t deserve happy endings but are given them anyways.

Now where am I going with this?

The one message that was always spot on was “your best chance” (Or rather, the giving up line). Parents should put their children first. To give it that real world validation, even if it doesn’t happen in the scene in question, was such a good idea. It’s not that I care about legality in this series.

Present

”You have everything and yet you claim to know what I feel?” I was really torn about how I felt about that line. On one hand, I’ve talked a fair amount about how I dislike Regina’s “woe is me” thing, Emma having a lot of people in her life does nothing to move Henry from being her number one priority, and I don’t think comparing pain is conducive to anything. However, the scene with the Lost Boys where Emma brings up this conversation is a fantastic point for her character and her reaching the Lost Boys with that idea of unexpected love and family is incredibly effective.

Regret vs. Remorse. I think the difference between these two camps is so important, both for this scene and Regina’s legacy. Even as far into the future as Regina’s Good Queen coronation, those vines never would’ve stood a chance against Regina. Regina grew to feel remorse for her actions. That was quintessential to her redemption. If she didn’t, Regina may not have garnered the fandom that she has today nor deserved the happiness she found. BUT, Regina’s path, for as evil as it was, did lead her to Henry, and that is something she’d never go back on. He was the encounter she needed to happen in order to redeem herself and more to that, she loves him. Meeting and getting to know her son was worth it all to her and I get frustrated seeing this line get occasionally misconstrued to saying that Regina regrets nothing because she got something she wanted, like Henry was just a salt shaker on a shelf when the actual situation is nothing like that.

And it makes for a truly badass moment that simultaneously doesn’t take away from her redemption. That was really hard to do, and without going too heavy handed with it, the scene by the tree worked out flawlessly!

Insights - Stream of Consciousness

-Those establishing shots set the perfect mood of panic and urgency just before the curse hits.

-”He would’ve understood.” He was begging you not to kill him! XD

-Rumple is such a little shit and I love it. Like, if Regina’s gonna come and gloat, he’s gonna make sure she doesn’t get to celebrate her victory and push every button he can while he still has the chance. And all without leaving his cell!

-I just had a thought. So, as soon as Regina says she’s going to kill baby Emma, Rumple starts talking about the hole in her heart. And Regina and her guards just BARELY miss Emma. Was Rumple stalling to ensure that Emma got away?

- @ussjellyfish, I finally get what you were talking about with Regina’s love of paperwork! Her desk more loaded with paperwork than Smash Bros is loaded with characters and death!

-”What are you feeling?” “Nothing.” The subtle honesty of that line hits me HARD!

-”A child. That can provide so much meaning.” Archie, one shouldn’t have or adopt a child in order to solely give their lives meaning.

-”I need a child, Gold and I need your help.” “Well I’m flattered, but uninterested.” “Not like THAT.” One of my FAVORITE exchanges in the series! XD

-”Well, a mother of some sort.” Even cursed, Rumple is out for fucking BLOOD! -”When you become a parent, you must put your child first.” So Rumple is cursed during this scene, but one has to wonder what exactly, if anything, is his relationship to Bae under the curse. Are they estranged or is he straight-up dead? I use the dead angle in my Golden Hook fanfic, but I’m curious to hear other thoughts.

-Fun fact: If Emma yields a sword, that sword can hurt the unhurtable in exactly the way she wants to! (See also: Season 6)

-Rumple went to fucking bank for you, Regina! Like, not a single flaw!

-Damn! Amazing acting on Lana’s part again! Like, the SECOND she sees baby Henry, she falls in love with him. The gasp, the way her eyes bulge, the softness of her form! It’s amazing!

-Gotta HAND it to Killian! His hook is really doing a good job of keeping Felix in place!

-Awww! Beverly Elliott!!! She just makes me smile!!! <3

-I love how Regina just knows that Mary Margaret is the best person to stick her baby with! <3

-”Well, as long as your plan holds together, she will.” FUCK MACHISMO ISLAND.

-Baby Henry’s reaction to Gold’s shop is EVERYONE’S initial reaction to this little shop of horrors!

-”My memory’s not what it used to be.” *Sighs* Fucking Rumple. I love you.

-”Oh you really know nothing of what I’m talking about.” I love how even when Rumple actually is cursed, even with Regina’s confidence in the opening, she doesn’t buy that it actually happened for a second.

-”Look at what motherhood has done to you.” I love how Rumple’s line (This one and the ones that preceded it) is basically praising the makeup department and Lana’s acting! That’s actually so adorable and deserved on the writer’s parts! <3

-Okay, everyone’s wash of relief upon seeing Henry wake up genuinely had me choked up. The smiles on everyone’s faces and the deep breaths and the music...I think I need a minute *Sobs into eternity*

-”Young sir.” And letting him stay in the captain’s quarters?! Killian, you fucking adorable softie!

-Okay, now THAT’S the Archie who doles out great advice!

-”A glorious curse.” Regina, I love you! XD

-”Too much pizza.” I love the implication of this line that Henry DID have pizza before his trip to New York, but it wasn’t REAL pizza. XD

-Damn, the Jolly Roger’s captain’s quarters are so fucking fancy!

-”I’m sorry it had to come to this, Henry.” No you’re not, you little bitch!

-*Neal and Rumple hug* Sorry, I think I’ve got something in my eye...TEARS! Like, that entire resolution got me choked up.

-*Pan fails at taking Henry’s heart* Yeah! Suck on that, you little bitch!

-”You raised him well.” Awww! Golden Queen contrast!

-Stupid thing to point out, but after all of that hullabaloo in “Dark Hollow,” why were we using the fucking lighter?

-”A hero, a villain, a pirate.” I love how David doesn’t classify Killian as a villain despite being fairly justified in it! Captain Charming FTW!

-”You have a dad now. Now and for forever.” I’M NOT CRYING! YOU’RE CRYING! “I’ll never leave you. Okay, buddy?” THAT JUST MADE IT WORSE!!!!! AND IT’S NOT EVEN BEING SAID TO HENRY!

Arcs - How Are These Storylines Progressing?

The Mission to Save Henry - There’s such a good feeling of payoff here! Everyone’s working together, communicating, and making risks for each other. David and Emma’s conversation towards the end of the episode about how they all accomplished this is just a testament to how far they’ve come.

Regina’s Redemption - What else is there to say? Regina’s redemption was such a big part of this episode and I already talked in length about why! Well, I guess I want to say that this arc is where Regina really takes her form. She knows she’s done bad and she’s still pretty selfish in a lot of respects, but love pushes her to new emotional heights that neither she nor the audience ever expected!

Emma Accepting Her Parents - Just look at the relief on Emma’s face when she hugs her parents who can both go home with her! <3

Rumple Finding Bae - We finally get to see a big reconciliation between Rumple and Neal! I really liked it, but that having been said, I wish there was more to it than simply “You saved Henry, now I forgive you.” Call me angsty, but that slow rebuilding of their relationship was really great. The fact that they have so far to go is part of what made “Nasty Habits” the fantastic experience that it was. To see it all over so soon after that makes me wish for more. That said, one can make a case that they haven’t fully reconciled AND that at the time they wrote this, Neal was on the chopping block and that resolution with Rumple was best off happening here for that reason.

Favorite Dynamic

Regal Believer. Who else could it be? Just...I love these two! Now, part of me feels bad because Henry plays a much more passive role in this episode than he does in other cases where Regal Believer’s won. In the past, he’s just a baby and in the present, he only has one or two scenes where he talks to anyone. But Henry’s effect on Regina just by the sheer fact that he exists is so much in and of itself. Just by being Henry, he inspires Regina to be her best self.

Writer

Christine Boylan and Daniel Thomsen come off of “Good Form” to write today’s episode! And you know that I loved it. “Solid” is the word of the day here. There’s so much that has to be resolved here and it’s paced so well that one would be surprised by all that was accomplished! Like, Henry is “saved,” Emma recruits the Lost Boys, Rumple is recovered and reconciles with Bae, we see Regina and Henry’s origins, and we see the plan to escape Neverland enacted. That’s a lot for forty four minutes! But the writing and pacing make it feel so natural and while fast-paced, never rushed.

Rating

Golden Apple. What a fantastic episode! It’s beautiful, emotional, tightly written, and has some solid character work! It’s just enjoyable as hell!

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I’m all caught up...with last week’s entries! Still three left to go, but I’ve got this!

Thank you all for reading and to the fine folks at @watchingfairytales!

Next time, we relocate from Neverland...to The New Neverland. See you guys then!

Season 3 Total (86/220)

Writer’s Scores: Adam and Eddy (19/60) Kalinda Vazquez (17/40) Andrew Chambliss (17/50) Jane Espenson (10/30) David Goodman (20/40) Robert Hull (20/40) Christine Boylan (20/20)* Daniel Thomsen (20/30)

* Indicates that their work for the season is complete

Operation Rewatch Archives

#ouat #once upon a time #watching fairytales #ouat 3x09 #jenna watches ouat

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