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arty-shadow-morningstar · 2 months

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A Failed Betrothal (12)

It's been a long time coming.

Nearly Two Years in fact.

[Masterlist] [Ao3]

(PART 1) (PART 2) (PART 3) (PART 4) (PART 5) (PART 6) (PART 7) (PART 8) (PART 9) (PART 10) (PART 11)

--------

Two weeks before...

“So we know that Gabriel Agreste is Hawkmoth and we know what his motivations are for doing this. But you already knew all of this and just needed confirmation. Why haven’t you stopped him yet?” Tim asked, confused at why the Miraculous Team had done nothing about this despite the mounting evidence they had gathered so far.

“We had to be sure. As much as false leads we throw out to cover up our secret identities, he does the same. So it was a clusterfuck to find if he is really Hawkmoth and it had been really hard to gather evidence since he is such a recluse weirdo. And most importantly, this particular plan to defeat Hawkmoth hinges on the fact that Gabriel is Hawkmoth or it wouldn’t work.” Marinette explained.

Chloe frowned, “How come this is the first time I have heard of this plan?”

“It’s just something I thought up when I first suspected Gabriel is Hawkmoth. Also, there was never the right time or the right conditions to carry it out. Mainly because Chat and everyone else made me doubt if he could really be Hawkmoth. Nothing was concrete and it wouldn’t work if I was wrong in my suspicions. I also had other various plans for my other suspects for Hawkmoth.”

“So why does Hawkmoth need to be Gabriel Agreste for this one to work?” Tim asked.

“This plan is tailored specifically for him. Or at least, someone with his mindset and personality. I have met many men like him. Men who are in a high position of power and take it for granted. Men who don't like getting their hands dirty and instead abuse their powers and do everything they can to achieve their goals. They won’t show their faces unless they are certain that they have the complete upper hand. Look at Heroes’ Day and Miracle Queen-”, Chloe winced at the reminder, “-But unlike the others, Gabriel seems more desperate. Desperate to akumatise babies and put his own son in danger for it. Money and fame isn’t much of a problem for him to get. If he wanted world domination, he would have announced it for everyone to know. So why would he need a reality-altering wish that he isn’t willing to risk himself but desperate enough to do this?”

“More power?” Alix ventured.

“Same category as world domination but nice try, Alix. What would a heartless man like Gabriel need a wish for? And be desperate for it. I think he wants to bring someone back from the dead.”

“His late wife, Emilie Agreste.” Tim nodded in understanding but still isn’t getting what Marinette is getting at, “But what does this have to do with the plan?”

“It also means that if we create a situation where there’s a chance he might lose a shot at making his wish forever. He will finally come out of his dark little cocoon and we will have a butterfly net ready for him.”

“Marinette, that pun was terrible.” Chloe said in disgust.

“Yeah. I know. I know. I knew it the moment I heard it. Plagg has been rubbing off on me.”

“How exactly are you going to draw him out?”

“Well, how much is Jason willing to go back into the super-villain business?”

Jason just grinned in reply.

“So any questions?” Marinette asked after finishing her hour-long presentation of her plan to her team, her mother and the Bat vigilantes in the Dupain-Cheng living room. They were seated on either the couch, chairs pulled in from the kitchen or the floor with blankets and cushions. Food and drinks were provided by Tom who was currently working downstairs in the bakery.

“Pixie, no offence, but this plan is insane.” Jason said from his seat on the floor while allowing Chloe to paint his nails.

Alix snorted, “This is Marinette’s usual level of insane. You just have to get used to it.”

“I should have figured that out the moment she said that she would destroy the Lazarus Pits.”

“Are you okay with this, Jason?” Marinette questioned, not knowing if his past as a crime lord was a sore subject or not.

“Hell yeah, I’m in. Getting one over a rich asshole sounds fun.”

“And also because Hawkmoth needs to be stopped.” Tim added.

“That too. But mainly the first one.”

“If everyone is clear on the plan, are we good to go?”

A chorus of yes sounded.

----

A week before….

Marinette as Ladybug and Red Robin discreetly arrived at the roof of TVi news station.

“Nadja Chamack?” She called the reporter who was waiting for them.

“Ladybug. I have been expecting you since you called me. Who’s the new hero?”

“This is Red Robin. He is from the Justice League to help out. We are here because we have a plan to take down Hawkmoth and we need every major news station to report on an attack tomorrow at the Trocadéro square.”

“How do you know that is when Hawkmoth is going to strike?”

“It’s not Hawkmoth that is attacking. We are going to do a fake out that makes it look like some other villain is going for the Miraculous but they are on our side. Red Robin is going to give you some information in order to convince Hawkmoth that they are an actual serious threat. I hope you know that this plan will require your utmost discretion.”

“Oh, I will help you with anything to get back that vile man. It will finally be nice to not worry about my daughter turning into an akuma every time she doesn’t get her way. Although, she has been getting better about it.”

After hashing out a few more details and Red Robin handing over a small list of Red Hood’s past crimes, the two heroes exited via the window.

“One down, a few more to go.” Red Robin said.

They both discreetly stuck to the shadows as they went to the next news station on their list.

Jason looked at the crowd of people that were gathering in the gym that Kagami had rented using her family name.

“Damn, how did you manage to hire this many stunt actors with a tight deadline?” Jason asked, looking at Nathaniel, Kagami and Chloe, who were all transformed.

Chloe smirked in Kagami’s direction. Kagami looked away, her face turning an interesting shade of pink.

“Kagami has a… friend that has connections in the film industry and was more than willing to do anything for her. No questions asked.” Chloe replied with a teasing lilt to her voice.

“Does this friend happen to have a name?” Jason asked as nonchalantly as possible.

“Felix Graham de Vanily.” Nathaniel replied. Kagami shot him a betrayed look.

“Graham de Vanily.” The name vaguely sounded familiar to Jason. “Hey, isn’t that-?”

“Felix is Adrien’s cousin. Their moms are sisters.” Chloe replied. “And he is such an asshole.”

“He’s not that bad.” Kagami defended.

“Only to you. Don’t be fooled by his gentlemanly side, Kagami.” Chloe said.

“Why is he an asshole?” Jason asked, slightly out of curiosity.

“Felix knew for months that Gabriel was Hawkmoth and he also knows that what we are doing is for the sake of the Miraculous Team.” Nathanial explained.

“Aren’t you worried that he would rat us out to Hawkmoth?”

Kagami shook her head. “Felix hates Gabriel. He is more than happy to help in order to see his uncle’s downfall. He would probably come in person if he didn’t have other obligations.”

“Please, the boy was whipped for you. He would have demanded some stupid conditions for us to fulfil in order to get his help. One word from you and he caved like a house of cards and practically did everything for us. For free.” Chloe gestured at all the actors assembled in the gym.

“Enough.” Kagami said, her cheeks as red as her costume. “Where’s Alix?”

A glowing blue portal appeared next to them and Alix appeared.

“Sorry. Sorry. I know that I’m late.” Alix said and she glared at Jason who opened his mouth. “No wonderland jokes.”

“So how’s the timeline?” Jason asked instead.

Alix shook her head. “It’s hard to tell. There are so many different factors that could make it go wrong. I did my best to make sure that the plan goes as smoothly as possible.”

(That consists of one break-in into a school, taking down some assassins with help of Sabine and making sure that a library book was returned on time. The last one was more of a personal errand.)

“There will be a few more akumas this week.” Alix added.

Chloe groaned. “But we have that stupid project to finish.”

“Another friendship assignment by Bustier?” Kagami asked.

“No. Thankfully, it’s Mendeleive so no need to bullshit some inane talk. Truth to be told, I just been writing out the plots of My Little Pony and changing the names for those type of assignments.” Nathaniel answered.

Kagami frowned. "What's My Little Pony?"

"I will send you some clips."

“Enough chit chat. We have work to do. Sooner we finish this, the sooner we can work on our grades.” Chloe said.

Chloe turned to face the crowd and clapped for their attention.

“Hello, as you all know, I am the Bee Hero of the Miraculous Team. I have one question for you all. Who would like to be part of the team to take down Hawkmoth?”

The room was filled with raised hands.

“Great! Here's Ladybug’s insane plan.”

----

24 hours until. ...

“So you have these anti-akuma charms?” Jason asked, holding the ladybug-shaped thing to his eye to examine it.

“Yup.” Marinette answered by making more power-up potions. They might not need them but it would be good to be prepared.

“Why don’t you use them often? Maybe get rid of repeated villains like the pigeon guy.”

“Oh, geez. Why didn’t I think of that?” Marinette replied sarcastically.

“So these things don’t even work.”

“It did work. For a while. But that annoying son of a bitch managed to find a way around it by forcefully overloading it with his creepy vibes.”

“That gotta suck.”

“Yeah, I thought I had found a way to maybe slow down akuma attacks enough, especially tedious ones like Monsieur Pigeon, so I can get a decent night's rest for once but Noooo, They didn’t even last for two weeks.”

“Why are you even giving me this?”

“Because they do work, just not as efficiently as I hoped. To Hawkmoth, it is what the victim’s akuma object is like to us.”

“Explain, Pixie.”

“So we have to find the akuma object in order to purify it, right? Well, Hawkmoth has to find where these anti-akuma charms are hidden and evilise them. And then, he could akumatise the victim. But it buys us time for the victim to calm down and not get akumatized or give us a headstart to power up. It will also help you resist him.”

“You sounded like you had experience.”

“There were a few close calls. And I also got akumatized once so Kagami had to be Ladybug in order to throw Hawkmoth off track.”

“You were akumatized?” Jason sat up in surprise, “Isn’t that like ya know….the worst case scenario?”

“I was a pretty lame one. But at least, I wasn’t wearing an eye-sore like the others. Dame Justice. My power was to change people’s outfits into anything I want or make it into a disaster. It was at most just an inconvenience to my team. I was just upset that I lost the tickets to a pretty big fashion event. Didn’t notice the akuma until it was too late. But I managed to get the earrings off in time so Tikki could get it to Kagami. Later, I did manage to break out of his hold which made him pissed.”

Jason cleared his throat to get her attention, “So back to the anti-akuma charms?”

“Unless he finds out about it, you would be able to resist him. The others have mentioned that with the charm, it was easier for them to be able to resist him from bending them to his will by manipulating your emotions. The charms make it so you can think more clearly and logically. Tim told me that you are pretty pig-headed so plan B is for you to resist being brainwashed by being your delightful stubborn self.”

----

A few hours until….

Marinette fidgeted in place as she watched Tim fiddled with the equipment and checked if the cameras they had set up so he and Oracle could watch the battle from afar, were working. She felt her father’s lumbering presence behind her.

“Papa, I know that it’s you.” She said without turning around her head.

He huffed in annoyance at the failed attempt of sneaking up on his daughter, “How your mother and you do it, I still can’t figure it out.”

( This was a Dupain-Cheng household joke. Tom would try to sneak up on his wife or daughter or both without getting caught. But the mother and daughter would always know. Even Gina was able to catch him during her visits. He only succeeded once on Sabine and got a sprained wrist for his trouble. He proudly wore his wrist brace despite being unable to bake while he wore it. )

“Trade secrets, Papa.” She looked up at him with a mischievous grin.

“Mon chéri, what is troubling you?” Tom asked, picking up his daughter’s mood.

“Nothing. I know that we would win but I just- I just feel like something might go wrong.”

Tom sat down and hugged her, “Anything I can do to help?”

She leaned into the comfort of her father’s embrace. No matter how old she got, her father’s arms made her feel safe. “It’s okay. I think it’s just the nerves. Well, actually…” Marinette sat up and rushed to her bedroom. A minute later, she came back with something in her hand and Tikki followed her.

“Marinette?”

“Tom Dupain, as the Guardian of the Miracle Box, will you guard the Ladybug earrings until Hawkmoth’s defeat?”

“I- Er- what?”

“This is just a precaution. A just-in-case. On the slightest 0.0001% chance that Hawkmoth wins and gets the Black Cat, there is someone I trust protecting the earrings and Tikki. You don’t have to but it will make me feel better.”

“Okay, I will do it. If it helps you feel better, I will make sure no one else gets them.”

Marinette hugged him.

“Do I have to wear them?”

“No. Just keep Tikki company. It will be in the Miracle Box with the other ones.”

“Thank god. I don't want to get my ears pierced.”

-----

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#maribat #ml x dc #daminette #a failed betrothal #build up to the defeat of Hawkmoth #let's see how it goes

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enderwalking · 2 years

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I disappear for one single day to deal with irl stuff and miss your birthday??? Unbelievable, happy belated birthday!!

I get what u mean about aus sometimes just being about the vibes, I think why I'm so hung up on tomoyo in particular (other than my brain being a nightmare that wants No Holes in The Story) is I'm mentally fiddling with a kurogane ctechno's backstory to keep the anarchism in play, so already the role of tomoyo has gotta be a bit different. And because of that my brain wants to figure out All the changes, and what those would mean for c!techno in this au. Rotating him in my head and demanding to know who his catalyst is and all that. Who looked at a violent c!techno in this au and said "we're gonna get you some standards for killing. And also make you a pawn in multiverse chess. Have fun!"

Yuuko cgeorge would definitely be a vibe, and it's easy to make cdream feiwong reed work (the atrocities! The holding onto the past! He would be more than willing), but I think what I like so much about the reverse is where the base motivations lay? Feiwong reed is clinging onto a single person at cost of everything else. Which reads as very similar to c!dream in canon clinging onto a version of the world that no longer exists, but phrase that another way: his base motivation lies in the world being changed in a way he views as negative, and trying to prevent that change/bring it back to its previous state where its already been changed. Which is also what yuuko is doing! It's just that we view yuuko as being in the right because she's. You know. Preventing the collapse of the multiverse. Doing less atrocities. It would be a characterization of c!dream that would borrow a bit more heavily from early days smp I think, but with the pragmatism and bastard energy of current lore. Or maybe not even that, maybe it's just a question of, who does cdream become if his allegiance is no longer happy memories of an 8 person server of friends, but instead the smooth functioning of a multiverse? What is he like if he has different eggs (<- cursed metaphor but whatever it gets the point across)

Also with the whole plot point of feiwong reed being theorized to be like... a fragment of Clow formed entirely from the wish to keep yuuko alive, I think it would be neat to put an earlier days, somewhat kinder and more friendly cdream up against a late days cgeorge who has become so single minded in focus, who cant tolerate the world as it currently exists. To have cdream remembering an early days cgeorge while dealing with the current cgeorge. And yet, the things one could do with cdream and dreamxd if we go the cgeorge is yuuko route...

Oh I figured out my hang up, it's that I can picture a world where cdream chooses the world over cgeorge, especially if cgeorge has become antagonistic to said world, but I struggle to picture a world where cgeorge wouldn't sacrifice the world to keep cdream. However, I also am not a cgeorge or c!dnf scholar, so I'm very open to being told I'm wrong on this bit

yeah trc is especially difficult to cast full aus for considering that there are so many characters that are all so intertwined and it's like, sometimes you just gotta take a character concept and strip it down and run LMAO. like in my ffx au ctubbo's role is most analogous to rikku's role in the game. they are not similar in vibe in the least, but it Works okay i PROMISE.

the thing that is off to me about cgeorge as feiwong is like. cgeorge is so profoundly defined by apathy and inaction? and even in his stream about destroying everything and becoming a god, it's not out of some desperate drive towards an end goal, if anything it's the complete opposite. this is cgeorge essentially throwing in the towel, he's giving up on the entire world but he's also decided to make it the whole world's problem in the process. if his dream hadn't literally handed him the tools for the job, he probably wouldn't have gone on nearly such a rampage; think about how quickly he gave up mining down his statue: "it's such a chore to even destroy myself". that's not to say cgeorge is incapable of fighting for things, but his coping mechanism of choice is not to dig in his heels or press onwards, but instead is to just. give up. disengage. and his constant dreaming just enhances that sense of passiveness.

so yeah i feel like cgeorge in a yuuko-esque role where he's like. trapped in stasis. forced to inaction in some ways. and is trying to fix things to an extent but is limited in his scope just by the nature of his existence? yeah. idk. but also i will confess that some of the finer details of yuuko's stuff does escape me as it has been a Hot Minute since i've reread so i could be bullshitting here LOL. also i think that if cdream had to play multidimensional chess and create a 9000 step plan to ruin lives across the whole of reality all for cgeorge's sake that he would 100% do it in a heartbeat and that arguably you could interpret his actions in canon to be him doing just that, so there's that as well

#asks #trcanon #ALSO TY FOR THE BDAY WISHES SORRY I GOT TO THIS LATE I GOT DISTRACTED BY SHOWING 3L TO MY ROOMMATES

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alirhi · 3 years

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10 Sebastian roles as boyfriends

Because... I'm bored and I feel like it. 😂 Probably some spoilers for, like... everything? So yeah... That.

Putting it under here for easy scrolling:

10: Chase Collins

Who doesn't love a goofball? In the first half of the movie, Chase is basically perfect. He's sweet, funny, not all caught up in his ego, and actually pays attention to what the girls around him are saying, not just to what he wants to hear. If not for the whole... it was all an act to get close to Caleb and try to steal his magic thing, Chase would actually be a damn good high school boyfriend. He's adorable and would be a fun date, but he's also only 18 so best not to start making long-term plans lol. Also, y'know... the whole psycho revenge/power grab thing.

9 Jack Benjamin

Y'all. Y'all. Words cannot describe how much I love Jack. Pretty sure I've made this clear. As a person/character in general, he's absolutely in my Top 3 - not just of Sebastian's characters, but any character ever. ❤ But as a boyfriend? Boy's got baggage. It's what makes me so protective of him, but seeing as how he's trapped in the closet thanks to his overbearing homophobic family and the insane expectations heaped on him, as the show left him, he can't handle an honest relationship. He's too easily influenced by all the wrong people, poor babe.

8 Chris (Destroyer)

On paper, undercover cop sounds cool and exciting, but even if you ignore the fact that he, y'know, dies... Chris got in too deep and kinda lost the mission, so to speak. Best case scenario, you're his sexy partner and in on it all with him and end up on the lam for the rest of your lives. Worst case, this man lies for a living, so can you even trust him? And... yeah. The whole dead thing. Chris is hot af but getting involved with him is a recipe for disaster.

7 Ben

Min and Hathor have mercy, I love Ben! He's smart, he's snarky, he's caring and loyal... he's an absolute disaster. He's another one who seems allergic to honesty, until his lying and avoiding nearly kill his girlfriend. Not exactly relationship goals lol. Everything before totally was, though! Ben's adorable, and I love how he stayed up all night to protect his girlfriend (from a ghost/demon thing... with a baseball bat. I said he was smart, not perfect, okay? XD points for effort lol)

6 Mickey Henry

I. LOVE. MICKEY. Oml I love Mickey. He's a spazz and - even more so than Ben - an absolute disaster of a human being, but I love him. Pros for dating Mickey Henry: he's fun, he's carefree, he'll cook for you even though he's kinda bad at it lol, he loves his son and wants to be a good dad, he wants his partner to be happy and to love life as much as he does. Cons, and the reason he's not higher on the list: He's a pushover; easily influenced by the toxic people in his life, and it gets him into a lot of trouble. Being easily influenced by toxic dumpster fire of a human being Chloe almost lost him the partial custody of his son that he barely even had. He's an absolute sweetheart, but he's a complete man-child, and dating him would often feel more like raising him.

5 Frank "Suffer Buddy"

Come on! You know he and Mickey had to be back-to-back - they're practically the same character! 😂 Frank is Mickey... slightly more grown up. He's still a disaster, but he's respectful of boundaries, he's caring, he's funny in a dry, witty way that I just adore, and hoo lordy that man is a giver! 🥴🥵 Honestly, if he didn't smoke and didn't ditch Daphne in the middle of a party hours away from everything familiar to her surrounded by strangers to go do drugs, I'd call Frank perfect. He listened, he respected her wishes, he tried to keep some distance between them when he found out she'd gone on a date with his best friend (it failed utterly and brought us to the "damn that man's good with his mouth" portion of the movie lmao but still)... I don't have a whole lot of experience with men who actually give a shit, okay? So Frank is like a goddamn unicorn to me lmao. But that drug thing... That keeps him at the bottom of the Top 5 for me. Sorry, bb

4 Bucky

I can already hear everyone on here raging at me for placing Bucky so low on this list, but hear me out: I love this man. I love all four iterations of this man. Flirty 40s Bucky was a doll (fun date, not commitment material). Post-POW camp 40s Bucky had a fire to him that set me on fire. The Winter Soldier can choke me any damn day. Unf. And TFATWS Bucky... Oh, lady above, 2023 Bucky is a gem! He's sweet, snarky, and broken. He feels utterly, wretchedly alone in the world, and everyone around him, including his only friend, is telling him to "man up" and "make amends" for shit that was never his fault to begin with, rather than helping him come to terms with all that he's suffered and all that he's survived. Bucky needs and deserves love. A relationship with him would be so solid, if he found the right person... But it would take a fuck ton of work. He needs someone strong, patient, and more stubborn than he is to prod him until he finds a better therapist and actually opens up, and to keep him on track because even good therapy comes with homework. He does have to "do the work," Sam was right about that much, but he was way off base with what that "work" is. Bucky needs help and understanding, and he would be an amazing boyfriend... if he found someone with the strength to help him weather his nightmares and flashbacks, and help pull him out of this PTSD pit he's been in since 1943.

3 Chris Beck

Big brains turn me on, okay? 😂This man is an astronaut and a surgeon! Yes, please! Come here, you sexy genius! He's smart, he's funny - pretty sure Sebastian is incapable of playing anyone who's not delightfully snarky lol. He's pragmatic when he needs to be but there's also nothing he wouldn't do or risk for the ones he loves. This man is husband material and I cannot be convinced otherwise! So why isn't he #1? Cuz of the whole... spending years in space, thing. Super cool job and I'd be his biggest fan on the ground, but god damn, I would miss him while he's away!

2 TJ Hammond

Look, I'm gender fluid and he's a little bit bi 😂😂😂 Let me have my fantasy, okay? TJ's definitely got a lot of shit to work through, but love brings out the best in him. Before that fucking closeted shitbag broke his heart and stomped on it for good measure, TJ was clean and sober for months, he was happy, he was playing piano again, he was pulling himself together. Not only would he be an amazing boyfriend, but his partner would get the extra joy of getting to watch their love and devotion to him be the thing that saves this beautiful man's life. It's not healthy overall to tie your self worth and will to live to a relationship, but if he found the right person who would be there for him through all of life's shit and stick it out, I think he'd be okay. Even after his lowest point and without the support of his family, TJ still had a dream and he still chased it. He's not just the sweetest person to ever grace our screens, but he's ambitious and business-savvy, too. Keep him off drugs and watch this man take over the world, I'm telling you!

So why is TJ only #2? Well, besides the fact that he's like 99% gay and I have no bits he'd be interested in lmao, there's also the fact that this guy owns my heart:

1 Will Franklyn

And not just because we get to see him wet and mostly naked lol. Will is fucking perfect. I would die for this man... because he's already shown that he would die for his love. He almost fucking did, and they weren't even together yet! He's smart and very aware, he's a writer so we'd get to bond/geek out over books together, he's not all full of himself (self-deprecating humor ftw!) and he's willing to help a total stranger despite actual mortal peril, just because it's the right thing to do. Fierce, intelligent, sassy, strong-willed, and a flawless moral compass? YESYESYESYESYES! Forget boyfriend - let me MARRY this man! 😍🥰

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honey-milk-depresso · 3 years

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Meanie (Azul Ashengrotto x Reader)

SORRY TWST COMMUNTITY TRYING TO GET AS MANY DRAFT ELIMINATED AS POSSIBLE SORRY FOR BLASTING SHIT IN YOUR FACE BUT LIKE HOPE YOU ENJOY PLEASE DON’T KILL ME-

Based on a manga I think you know when you read it-

I suck I know-

Warning: Slight under aged drinking but it’s purely fluff, nothing serious.

Part 1

part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8 (END)

“Sevens, y/n. What do you want?”

“A hang out! At the VIP room!”

“You know how much that’s going to cost you right? You don’t have much on you.”

“Yeah, yeah I know but, I spend it on my friend!”

“You’re paying me.”

“Exactly!”

Azul sighed in irritation. He can never get enough of you, can he?

“Fine.”

“YES!! I’ll bring some things along!”

=====================================================

“You got to be kidding me..”

Lying on the table, there were an assortment of chips, soft drinks, sweet snacks and to top it all off, a bottle of plum wine.

“Y/n, you shouldn’t be drinking. You’re under aged.”

You laughed heartily. “Don’t worry! It’s only once in a while! Besides, I really like plum wine! I’m not drinking it for the sake of looking cool! Ahehehe~!”

He sighed, putting his hat and jacket suit by the table and plopping himself on the couch, leaving him with his white collared shirt with his sleeves rolled up and pants.

He cringed slightly as all the snacks were unhealthy.

“Couldn’t you have bring snacks of healthier options?”

“Azul, you should treat yourself every once in a while. Being healthy is good, but you can eat junk just once! Besides, it’s a happy occasion!”

“You do this at least twice a week.”

“Not at night or with snacks.”

“True..”

He saw you stuff chips in your mouth in one goal, like a rapid animal.

“Geez, y/n eat slowly. You might choke.”

“Awww, does Azul care for me~?”

“I don’t want a dead body filled with chips in the VIP lounge.”

“So mean!!”

He smiled a little. Your outgoing and cheerful attitude annoyed him at times, but he still couldn’t help but smile at how endearing you could be.

“Geez, you eat like it’s the end of your world.”

Ah.

You took out a pack of poker cards and slam it on the table.

“LET’S PLAY!”

“SEVENS, Y/N! JUST PUT IT DOWN LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN AND NOT TREAT YOUR CARDS LIKE A HAMMER-”

“Well geez, sorry.”

You took the cards out and began shuffling them, clearing the snacks to one side and spreading the cards in a circle.

“Alright, the rules are simple: You can’t quit in the middle!”

“Well, obviously.”

You had always bring about weird games to play. Like the time you played with 2 chess boards for no reason. One to play chess and one to play checkers, then if you get to take one chess or checker piece away, you had to do math question on your assignment, both of which you lost, and had to do the homework yourself. So this isn’t new to him. Maybe you’ll pull out your magic history homework.

“Alright just pick a card!”

“I got the twelve of spades.”

“HAH! QUEEN OF HEARTS!!”

“You don’t have to yell.”

“Now, since I have the larger number, I’ll ask you truth or dare!”

“So, truth or dare??”

“Truth.”

“So~ Do you think Idia or Jade is more handsome to you?~”

He nearly spit out the canned grape juice he was drinking.

“W-what type of question is that?!”

“Those are the rules! If you don’t want to answer a question you pick “dare”! And with “dare”, I’ll make you do something and you can’t quit or complain!”

This is the game of the devil, he thought. What is worse? Answering your ridiculous question or doing you ridiculous “dare”?

Screw it. Better answer than do it, right?

“I’ll stick with truth...”

“Okay! So.. Idia or Jade is handsome to you??”

“......Idia..?”

“Oooh, really ? I thought Jade was pretty handsome himself though. Ah well!”

For some reason, he felt a little irritated when you said Jade was handsome.

“Moving along!”

You two pick your cards.

“Hmm~ five of diamonds? I got twelve of clovers!~~”

“Oh goodness..”

How is he having this much of bad luck today? He’s thinking you shuffled the cards in your favor.

A little flustered due to the plum wine, you slurred a little with the next question.

“Truth or dare??”

“Truth.”

“If Idia was a girl, and she’d be the prettiest girl in NRC, and everyone else are girls, where would I be ranked in looks?”

“What?”

“ANSWER MEEEE~”

“Second.”

“H-heh???” Now you were very flustered.

“So I am pretty to you??? Aww you’re so sweet, Azul!!”

“That’s because I can never imagine NRC being a girls’ school.”

“I-”

=====================================================

“Huh??? Aw man I got two of spades!”

“Twelve of hearts.”

“Oh no..”

Well looks like the tables have finally turned.

After answering your many ridiculous dares, it’s finally his turn. By now he can tell you’re very drunk. You weren’t think straight and you were slurring and getting flustered a lot.

“Truth or dare.”

“TRUTH!”

He paused to think for a while on what he wanted to ask you.

“Have you ever had a first kiss?”

“HuH?? WHAT? ”

“Silence fool.”

“MEANIE!!”

“But... No I haven’t. Wonder who would wanna kiss me~~?”

“Your lips would reek plum wine, I don’t think anyone would.”

“HEY AZULLL I THOUGHT WE WERE FREINDSSS!!!”

He smiled.

“I’m just joking.”

=============================================================

“Hehehehe~ Truth or dare??~~”

“...dare.”

He said hesitantly. It’s been what? 9 to 11 rounds already and you only had truths, while you complained all his questions were like job interview questions.

“Ohohoho~ Well then,” you spread your arms open, “carry meee to beddd~~”

He blanked. His face was unreadable.

“Hey! Carry-”

Suddenly, you felt your entire body being lifted from the couch. Azul was carrying you bridal style close to his chest. You felt his steady heartbeat and you couldn’t help but blush at the sudden contact.

He went over to the secret guest bedroom and plopped you down on the bed.

“I’ll make sure you’ll go back to Ramshackle tomorrow. It’s a weekend anyways.”

You buried your face in your hands as you squirmed, giggling.

“Ehehehehe~~ That really surprised me! Thank you, Azul!~~”

“Okay, Azul! Pick a card for me.”

“It’s getting very late.”

“But like what you said tomorrow is the weekend!!!!”

“Still. You should be sleeping.”

“Okay! One last dare! I promise!”

He sighed. “Fine.”

He picked a card.

“What did I get??”

“King of Spades.”

“Oooh~ What did you get???”

He picked a card. “Three clovers.”

“Hmmm~ My turn then! This one would be truth only!”

You paused and he heard the blankets being ruffled as you shifted to a different position.

“If I said.. I was really scared of dying, what would you do?”

He swerved his head to look at you, his eyes scanning you.

You were completely calm that it scared him.

“Nonsense, you aren’t going to die.”

Right?

“Aheheheh~ Well I’m super tired! You should go to sleep too!”

He off the lights, the only light shining now was the lamp beside your bed on the night stand.

“Call me when you wake up. I’ll be in my room.”

“Got it~!”

And he closed the door.

To be continued..

=========================

HEYA FOLKS WANT ME TO DO PART 2??? Just reblog or request I don’t know I-

I died.

#twst #twisted wonderland #twst x reader #azul ashengrotto #azul ashengrotto x reader #twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland azul #twst azul #twst azul x reader #twisted wonderland azul x reader #octavinelle #octavinelle x reader

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shihalyfie · 3 years

Text

Daisuke and Ken’s dynamic, and what Ken does for Daisuke in return

Everyone in the main 02 cast can be said to be a little surface-deceptive in some way, and so, even with Daisuke and Ken as the relationship at the forefront of 02′s story, there’s still more going on behind it than first glance would initially make you suspect. It’s all too easy to just take the surface reading and decide that Daisuke is some kind of saint whom Ken is singularly dependent on for his happiness (which would really be quite the unhealthy relationship), or, worse, shove them into the stereotypical BL tropes just because they’re the two at the front, even though the story practically went out of its way to depict them as unusual characters who don’t fit into those kinds of boxes as easily.

Even though it wasn’t stated outright in words, Ken did a lot for Daisuke in return, and there’s a lot of layers to their relationship to each other both in the series and in going forward after it.

What Daisuke does for Ken

That Daisuke and Ken have very “complementary” personalities goes without saying, but this applies to both their surface demeanors and what lies beneath them. Daisuke has an abrasive surface demeanor and a tendency to get defensive, but isn’t actually very assertive at all; on the other hand, Ken is more polite and ostensibly “soft”, but is significantly more assertive than Daisuke is. This also means that, while it would of course be foolhardy to pretend that Ken could easily shrug off all of his trauma, it’s also conversely reductive to shove the two of them into boxes where Ken is a constant crybaby angsting over everything bad that’s happened to him while Daisuke’s the only ray of sunshine who can get him out of it. A lot of Ken’s strength in the series is self-supplied; he of course does end up needing the others’ support at times, but extreme readings like this really don’t give the kid enough credit for how good he is at gritting his teeth and pushing on without anyone prompting him.

The initial problem, however, is that Ken is too assertive about the wrong things at first. Like, say, in 02 episode 26, when he assertively says that he’s going to...recklessly chuck himself into an exploding reactor! For the third quarter of the series, Ken deliberately tries to keep his distance from others, and is very clear and open about his reasons why: in his mind, it’s his responsibility, and the others shouldn’t have to be involved. He doesn’t want their friendship, he doesn’t even think he deserves their friendship, and here’s Daisuke going “okay, yeah, but that’s stupid, shut up and let us help you.”

Adventure and 02 have a strong thread of driving it home that “doing things on sheer principle eventually becomes pointless when it gets in the way of being practical” -- and Daisuke, being a simple-minded and “straightforward” person who doesn’t overthink things, is basically there to keep Ken’s focus back on the proper picture. Because yeah, Ken can attempt to do things like frame things in terms of whether he “deserves” all of this, or “whose responsibility” this all is -- but the fact of the matter is that Daisuke and his friends want to do something and help instead of being sitting ducks about it, Ken’s practically not going to be able to do this alone, and, well, that’s the base of their first Jogress in 02 episode 26! Ken says outright that his goal is to do something to help, but then decides that “helping” should involve suicidally chucking himself into an exploding reactor, and Daisuke, hearing out Ken’s troubles, reminds him that him dying there won’t actually help the way Ken wants to help, because it won’t leave him alive to do all of the other things he wants to do and will hurt his family even more just when he was starting to repair things with them -- and as much as this extremely suicidal plan might temporarily spare the others from dying in an explosion, Daisuke would have to live with the guilt of letting Ken go off to die like that, so it won’t make him happy either.

So in other words, while Ken’s trying to sort out his complicated feelings of guilt, shame, and sense of responsibility, Daisuke’s there to keep his head on straight and remind him when he’s about to run himself in mental circles. Ken would have easily spent the rest of the series trying to make up for what he did even without Daisuke’s help, because he’s such a strong believer in “the right thing to do”, but his way of going on about it would have involved him staying in isolation out of a perceived sense of responsibility, endangering himself out of a sense of self-sacrifice, drowning himself in self-blame and feelings of regret, and, eventually, not addressing the very gaping hole in his life that he very much needs emotional support from others right now.

One thing particularly interesting about the Japanese version of 02 is that, for nearly the entirety of the second half of the series, Ken only refers to Daisuke as “Motomiya”, which is surprising given the fact that he employs given-name basis with the others quite quickly. Ken eventually does commit to “Daisuke” after the series in almost all post-02 material, and this image fits the two so well that pretty much every doujinshi artist has caught onto it despite it not being there all that much in the actual series, but it really took him a while; what gives? (Daisuke himself committed to “Ken” from surname basis “Ichijouji” starting in 02 episode 39.) Well, the important distinction is that Ken dropped the honorific with him from very early on -- meaning that he did want to approach Daisuke with a little bit of casual bluntness in a way beyond the distant respect he treated the others with, but at the time, going straight to buddy-buddy on given name with no honorific at all would have been a bit too much for him, and it comes off as him almost deliberately giving off a sense of distance. Why?

Ken didn’t have too much of an opinion on each individual kid in the group until 02 episode 8, when he developed a particular hatred for Daisuke for “ruining his pride” and decided to emotionally torture him a bit. Then, come 02 episode 25, this same kid approached him with no sense of grudge whatsoever, and presents him with a completely different way of seeing things: “whatever you did in the past, you’re clearly trying to help now, which means we’re now on the same side, so we should work together.” It’s pragmatic; it’s extremely pragmatic, and it’s not like Daisuke was working off of blind optimism and trust as much as he observed, very practically, that Ken was clearly trying to do better now and that therefore they should work together and make use of it. This kind of thought pattern is completely alien to Ken’s “I deserve/don’t deserve this” mentality at this point of this series, and by all standards of his own logic Daisuke should be one of the people who hates him the most, and yet -- nope!

By the time of their Jogress, Ken of course understands that Daisuke’s trying very hard to communicate with him, and thus they develop a sort of rapport -- but they’re not quite friends yet at the level of truly being “comfortable” with each other, because most of the second half of the series involved circumstances where Daisuke was helping Ken through a very emotionally hard time. It’s only at the point of the Christmas party in 02 episode 38 when Ken can really think about having these kids as real friends in terms of socializing and not just people who are willing to work with him in his penance journey. It’s enough that Ken’s able to admit that he wants the help of Daisuke in 02 episode 44, when beforehand he’d been trying to keep everyone out of what he’d perceived as his business. And, as Ken’s slowly more exposed to Daisuke’s way of life and its influence on the rest of the group around him, he comes to understand that maybe having a “close friend who can support him” isn’t that bad after all, since it’s not like these friends are just being “open-minded” towards him; they really are there to support him and his actual feelings and welfare, not just “cutting him slack” because he’s helping.

And so, with that, once the crisis is resolved and all is said and done, Ken finally truly accepts Daisuke as his friend and moves him up to given-name basis (no honorific!). This is most prominently shown in Diablomon Strikes Back, where their interactions are now removed from the question of Ken’s former actions and his emotional problems, and it turns out, they’re still good friends in the sense that friends are. As in, people who laugh together, hang out together, converse with each other casually; even if they are working together on the same thing for the duration of the movie, it’s not such an emotionally tense situation that you could chalk their interactions up to sheer necessity. With Daisuke’s help, Ken was able to move on from all of his past hangups, and the two of them became able to enjoy the moment of “now” like normal children.

What Ken does for Daisuke

Daisuke may be simple-minded enough to not have deep-seated concerns that eat at him every day, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was a bit socially maladjusted during the early parts of the series. Namely, being really insecure and prone to getting defensive whenever he felt he was being made fun of. Those kinds of things were what was most likely to get Daisuke to “lash out” at others, because he slips into his worst bouts of these whenever he’s lacking in validation.

Daisuke was, undoubtedly, improving over the course of the series, with him slowly starting to become more assertive by the time of 02 episode 20. It’s incorrect to say that Ken was the only person who could truly help him with this; 02 is a series about a group dynamic after all (even if the Jogress pairs are the most instrumental in helping each other), and it would be a pretty unhealthy relationship if one person were so dependent on another to even remotely function. But starting in 02 episode 22, when the crisis is momentarily resolved and everyone’s not sure what to do, Daisuke’s feeling of being third wheeled by Takeru and Hikari shoots up right at the moment everyone’s feeling a bit lacking in purpose. Two episodes later, Miyako immediately stages an intervention to help keep his mind off of things, and she’s arguably even the most comfortable with him at this point in time.

It’s not that Daisuke isn’t improving, nor that his friends aren’t trying to help, but, well...emotionally sensitive as Miyako can be, she’s also a bit all over the place herself and sometimes needs restraining; Hikari may be assertive, but she’s pretty obviously apprehensive about shutting Daisuke down too bluntly, and Takeru being so hard to read and evasive about everything means that Daisuke can’t really tell what he’s thinking or understand his intentions; Iori is younger and is restraining himself, so he still won’t cross certain lines with Daisuke. So as you can see, they’re all doing their best, and they’re not doing a terrible job of it either; hell, the rest of the series involves them maturing into people who can better interact with and support each other, so their own relationships with Daisuke are likely to improve even well after the series ends. It’s just that, especially at this point in the series, there’s definitely room for an extra person to fill a certain niche that’s got a gaping void here, begging for someone who’s assertive and put-together enough to regularly keep Daisuke in check, yet also willing to be properly straightforward with him to the extent that he doesn’t have to feel insecure about their intentions. Hmm, who could that be?

Although “the priority of reaching out to Ken” eventually becomes enough of a distraction that it certainly takes Daisuke’s mind off potentially feeling insecure, as we start to see more “casual” interactions between Daisuke and Ken, we see that Ken actually fills in a lot of the gaps that had been so sorely missing in this group dynamic for a while. Forward-thinking as he is, Daisuke’s simple-minded way of going at things has its drawbacks in that he’s not very smart or good at thinking, but Ken is the opposite, being intellectually analytical and much more thoughtful overall, and since Daisuke is the kind of person who defers to others when they’re better than him at something, Ken being right next to him means that he can give him a hand in making important decisions he can’t by himself. This is especially so in Diablomon Strikes Back, when Ken’s role is largely keeping an eye on Daisuke and making sure he’s not a loose cannon -- something he’s very capable of doing -- but also simply being there as a springboard whom Daisuke can comfortably approach and talk to, since Ken is such a mild-mannered, straightforward person who won’t set off his overly defensive tendencies as easily.

That doesn’t mean that Ken is completely above teasing him, of course -- a lot of post-02 material in fact makes sure you understand that he’s not just some soft-hearted saint and can be quite the snarker when he wants, since his increased comfort level with Daisuke means he’s now able to poke at him here and there, even doing something as mean as dumping all of the Christmas shopping on him (the character songs and other related in-character material lie in questionably canonical territory, but that kind of punchline is not unreasonable to imagine given their respective personalities). But, overall, he sets the right tone for Daisuke to have a friend he’s able to be around regularly and receive support from, and to fill in that niche of his casual interactions so that Daisuke can have some more solid grounding in his life.

It’s also a testament to how much Ken himself had changed in terms of becoming the kind of person who could handle Daisuke like this. When the two of them first “met” in 02 episode 8, while Ken was still fully under the influence of the Dark Seed, even if we were to put the part about him being the Kaiser aside, this sort of person would never be able to become a good friend to Daisuke. This episode had Daisuke put him on a pedestal -- someone he’ll never be able to be as good as, whom he looks up to as an “idol”, much like the way Daisuke has a tendency to instinctively put himself down in uplifting others. Thus, it was a negative relationship for both of them; Ken being put on a pedestal that ultimately made him uncomfortable, and Daisuke contributing to putting him there in the first place, and taking it extra personally when that pedestal was shattered. But then, Daisuke himself (and, ultimately, the rest of the group) became able to treat Ken like the “normal person” he wanted to be, with no pedestals, simply considering him as a friend with his own feelings and needs; as a result, being this sort of “normal person” making friends through his true personality and desire to support others meant paved the way for him becoming the one person who was best equipped to deal with the very difficult-to-handle Daisuke.

Incidentally, in terms of Kizuna: considering how 02 was such a series about everyone becoming people who could fundamentally interact and communicate better with others, it stands to reason that everyone’s relationships with each other would uniformly improve even after the events of 02, and you can see better interactions between everyone that go beyond just the Jogress pairs. Ken’s clearly able to interact with more of the people in the group in a much more casual manner than he did in 02 itself, and it’s made an important point in the drama CD that Daisuke took everyone’s incidental advice to heart, not just Ken’s. However, advertising material still prominently features the two as a pair, and although part of this is of course due to marketing, Ken is also the one who gets the final words in extracting his “promise” from Daisuke in the drama CD; the official website also calls special attention to him being the one to accompany Daisuke on his ramen outings, even though the one depicted in the drama CD and movie was planned to involve everyone in the group. There are multiple indications that Daisuke himself has learned to become somewhat less defensive and prone to insecurity compared to himself in 02, and it seems that this was accomplished via Ken still actively putting himself in a role of checking on him and making sure he feels properly supported in all of this.

#digimon #digimon adventure 02 #motomiya daisuke #ichijouji ken #daisuke motomiya #ken ichijouji #shihameta

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retvenkos · 3 years

Text

No, I am not done talking about aging up the characters of the Grishaverse, thank you very much...

(Spoilers for pretty much all of the Grishaverse!)

I’m going to come right out and say it - I don’t think aging up all of the characters was the smartest move. I think the Grishaverse is compelling, and the characters can be very complex, and part of that leans on the ages of the characters. I’m going to be talking about why I think (at least some) of the characters should have retained their same age, or at the very least, shouldn’t have been quite so aged up.

But first, I understand some reasons as to why they aged up characters, so I’m going to state them outright, to advocate on their behalf (but also, I can try my hand at debunking some of these. For funsies):

1. Mass audiences will be less interested if the main story feels too Y.A. - most adult audiences won’t want to watch that genre.

(This is a very fair argument! However, when comparing Shadow and Bone to other popular (non Y.A.) fantasies, Shadow and Bone is very Y.A. Compare Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings to Shadow and Bone, and you can see how the Y.A. genre permeates the text. There are character moments and story beats that Shadow and Bone utilizes that are characteristic of the Y.A. genre. It was created with that audience and expectation in mind. No matter how hard the show tries to divorce the source material from it’s Y.A. roots, it is still very much a Y.A. story. The second most important plot line is a romance and not the implications of how society created the Darkling and how society Must Be Fixed if we ever want to move on and win the war. Those problems of the wider Grishaverse are better tackled in the Nikolai Duology (which still stumbles), and the Nikolai Duology feels like a different story/genre because it’s tackling something different. Shadow and Bone is an inherently Y.A. story, and really, it is the later books in the Grishaverse that deviate from the tropes and traps of the genre. No matter how you dice it, the original trilogy is very much a Y.A. story. Lean into it, and you might be better able to mess around with the fluidity of the genre, all while your audience knows what the story is, and what will come of it. Alternatively, the writers could have gotten deep into the text and tried to bring up the deeper problems of the story (most of those grey areas) to make it less trope-like, but that would require an almost complete retelling, which we did not get. Too often, Y.A. stories are divorced from the genre when they are adapted, but it’s not done in an organic way that looks at the text itself, and it feels very off when viewing. Just let Shadow and Bone be what it is. If you want a longer rant on this, hmu.)

2. Some very serious things happen to these characters! To write about it is one thing, but to watch a 17 year old Alina be manipulated in this way or to watch a 19 year old Genya be used in this way is dark and very much Not Okay!

(Yes! Watching all of the terrible, terrible things happen is bad enough on it’s own, and when you de-age Alina from 25 to 17 and Genya from 30 to 19, there are some very big consequences! It’s not nearly as inviting or Okay to view! Anyone would be rightly horrified! Especially older audiences! Well, forgive me for being so blunt, but that is part of The Point. Part of what makes all of this so cruel and so unfair is that these characters are young - they are barely no longer children - and that is what heightens the injustice of it all. Alina is a teenager who is tasked with saving the world and freeing an oppressed people! And she doesn’t want to do it! That’s a lot to handle, right? Arguably, by keeping their young ages, you are better breaking out of the Y.A. adaptation trap because you are making a statement about how young these characters are and how unfair all of this is. Y.A. adaptations always age up the characters for palatability, but by keeping them young, you are making it more grungy and more frightening without even changing the source material!)

3. Okay, but adult audiences don’t want to ship teenagers. How will we get them to watch?

(This argument is probably the most sound, and it makes the most sense! Netflix wants to get the widest audience they can - they know teenagers who read the book are going to watch it anyway, so they need to get the older crowd invested. An easy way to get people invested is to get them hooked on a romance plotline. Then you have to watch the show to see how it progresses! It would be hard to do that if adults feel uncomfortable telling 16 year olds to kiss already. Another problem is that Shadow and Bone doesn’t have an adult cast - they have the young ones and that’s about it. Compare that to Game of Thrones (or, if you want me to stop with GOT references, shows like Cobra Kai) where there are 2+ generations - fans have the older group to ship, and the younger group to wish the best for. This is a trap of the Y.A. genre. They are Kids, but they are Not. In the book, this works fine, as their ages aren’t mentioned often. In fact, in the books, they read like competent 25 year olds, except for key moments when they show their age, which usually feels bittersweet (the Six of Crows Duology is much better at this than Shadow and Bone, but I digress). So what do we do? Well, D*rklina fans aren’t going to like this, but I would argue that we keep Alina and Mal aged down, and the story subliminally changes from “the love triangle” to “coming of age while dealing with abusive relationships”. In fact, this is another great way to divorce it from the Y.A. genre, which was already a goal we had in mind.)

✧ *:･ﾟ

Now, let’s move onto character analyses... everyone’s favorite.

In this section, I’m going to break down some main characters from the Shadow and Bone Netflix show (and some upcoming characters, just for the hell of it) and I’m going to advocate for changing their ages. At the end, I’ll give you a rough ballpark estimate for what I think they should have been.

(Also, I just want to address that I loved the actors chosen for the Netflix show, and this is in no way an attack on them. They did great, and they’re performances were amazing. This is me talking about an issue the showrunners made, not the actors.)

Alina Starkov

First, we get to talk about the lovely Alina Starkov. Jessie Mei Li is 25 years old. Her book counterpart is 17. That’s a whopping 8 year difference where a lot of growth happens. Alina Starkov in the books is doing her best for a girl who is told that she is going to save the world. She doesn’t have a lot of experience outside of the orphanage and the army, and so her knowledge of how Grisha are treated is ignorant at best, and malicious at worst. She doesn’t see nearly all of the suffering that is happening in the world, and for the most part, it stays that way. She knows the Fjerdans don’t like them, she knows the Shu are bad too, but she doesn’t really know the extent. She really gets a good look at it in the 3rd book, but for a large part of the series, Alina doesn’t really know what she’s up against, and her age is an easy explanation for her ignorance. A 17 year old growing up in a remote orphanage hasn’t had the greatest education. A 25 year old Alina has less excuses.

(There’s also a lot to be said about how Alina mostly... doesn’t care about the wider issues plaguing Grisha. This is decidedly Bad. I’m going to say this once, and I will say it many times again, but generally, audiences are more okay when a younger character does Bad Things because they reason they’ll learn in time. Thus, for a show, it’s strategically better to make these characters younger. Saying this doesn’t mean I support Alina’s disregard, it just means I recognize how it is utilized in storytelling.)

But why is her ignorance important, you ask? Because, Alina misses a key point of why the Darkling does what he does. To her, his actions of expanding the Fold are very black and white. Even when she’s with him, she refuses to see how it’s justified. Thus, a younger Alina is a little more understandable.

If Netflix was planning on focusing on how the Darklings desires are good but his methods are wrong, keeping Alina aged up is fine because she could be the voice of those concerns. However, I don’t really see that happening, so aging her up seems cheap.

Furthermore, part of the injustice of Alina’s character is that she is a child tasked with saving the world. She is a teenager who is being worshipped as a Saint, and who is going to have to martyr herself for the good of the world. It’s unfair. It’s cruel. Alina being 25 doesn’t somehow change this injustice, but to the average viewer, seeing a 17 year old child dying for the good of Ravka - dying because she’s the only one who can stop the villain - is more emotional and more disturbing. There’s your grit, Netflix. It was already handed to you.

And I know, Ben Barnes (who plays the Darkling) is 39! It would be extremely uncomfortable to watch him fall in love and manipulate Alina! Again, I’m apologizing to the D*rklina shippers, because that is The Point. The Darkling is hundreds (perhaps thousands) of years old. That is why his talk of “eternity” is so compelling. He has felt it. He has lived it. When he tells Alina that he will break her, it should be greatly disturbing! It would change the feeling of the story completely if Alina looks like a teenager. It would be a story about survival - not of romance. And while survival is definitely a Y.A. dystopian or fantasy trope, depending on how it’s handled, it could be markedly different from its predecessors.

However, book Alina is a minor, and that doesn’t sit right with me. Thus, I would make Alina 18, or 19 at the most. She should still very much be a teenager.

Malyen Oretsev

Mal is the next character we get to talk about, and I’m sure you have an idea about what I’m going to say. Archie Renaux is 23 and his book counterpart is 18. That’s only a five year difference, which isn’t that damning, but still leaves some problems.

One thing a lot of people disliked about Mal in the books was his temper and the way he expressed his frustrations. Now, while it’s true that viewers tend to be more forgiving with male characters having bad attitudes, this attitude problem could still be something that viewers will dislike in later seasons. This problem is only larger when you factor in an older age. Already, I expect people to complain about Mal’s temper and his inability to vent his frustrations in a healthy way (avoiding talking to Alina, blowing up, having a sour mood, having violent or explosive tendencies). This is only going to get worse when another argument added is “he is a grown man. He should have learned how to cope by now.” This argument isn’t completely nullified by a younger age, but it is made a little more understandable to the audience. (Again, in no way am I justifying these unhealthy behaviors, nor am I saying it’s okay when younger men do it, I’m just saying that viewers on a whole are more likely to excuse this behavior from a younger man - a sad reality, but a reality nonetheless.)

And as for his tracking ability, which is the best out of everyone in the world, he is gifted primarily because he’s an amplifier. At the end of Ruin and Rising, it’s noted that he can’t track nearly as well as he could because the world doesn’t hum with life in the way it used to. The in-world explanation probably also explains the ease with which he can pick up new skills. Thus, Mal doesn’t need to be aged up for skill reasons.

So, I would make Mal 19-21 in the series. He can be the slightly older than Alina, and everything works out how it should.

The Darkling

This one is going to be really quick - I think the age they made the Darkling was fine. Ben Barnes is 39 and we really don’t get an answer as to how old the Darkling is in the book (although he’s older than 400 years old, because the Fold was created 400 years ago).

It’s worth noting that in the books, the Darkling isn’t described as being much older than (a 17 year old) Alina, but having him be markedly older than Alina was a smart move for subtext, but also for the presence that the Darkling has, and the reverence with which people regard him. The Darkling has power - I can’t imagine a 17 year old boy having the same effect as a grown man.

I have no beef with a 39 year old Darkling. I wouldn’t age him down much more, but I also wouldn’t make him much older, either.

Genya Safin

Genya Safin is another character I feel like should be addressed. Daisy Head is 30 years old. In the books, Genya is 19. Now, Genya’s character is an interesting one, because arguably either age suits her character. Throughout the series she’s shown to be more mature and capable than Alina, and while she places importance on the cliques of the Little Palace (which was poorly shown in the show, imo), she was raised in this environment from very young, and she’s at the bottom of the ranking. Her investment in it is justified. Sadly, I think more viewers would be moved by her story of sexual abuse if she were younger, but what happened is a tragedy and it was wrong no matter how you dice it.

Her age is one of the few I’m neutral on.

However, she and Alina are shown to be very close in the book, and while that doesn’t carry over as easily in the show, I think it would be nice to place her at least a little closer in age to Alina, but still keep her a little older so that she can offer her advice and it doesn’t feel preachy or unearned.

I would place her around 19-26. She has a lot of room for her age, because it’s not vital that she be any specific age.

David Kostyk

I’m very briefly talking about David because Luke Pasqualino is 31 and David in the books is 19-20. I aged down Genya, and since they are love interests, I would like them to be in a little closer range of each other.

However, David is a very gifted Fabrikator - so much so that he changes the war considerably in later books - so I still want him to be older than the average cast.

I would place him around 24-29, and mostly, it would be based around the age of Genya. I wouldn’t want him to be 29 if Genya is 19. That’s just the ballpark range.

Zoya Nazyalensky

The final Shadow and Bone character I’m going to talk about is Zoya because she’s really important later in the Grishaverse. Online, I could not determine exactly what Sujaya Dasgupta’s age is, but the two ages most commonly given are 19 or 21. Zoya in the books is 19-20, so Sujaya is one of the most faithful castings in terms of age.

I think it’s important that Zoya is around the age of Alina. Not only do they have a shared love interest in the form of Nikolai (and the Darkling in the show, which I absolutely hate), but they also have a rivalry for the Darkling’s favor (which isn’t romantic, but about sTATUS), and having her be markedly older than a teenage Alina would be weird, in my opinion.

Furthermore, Zoya’s character is pretty closed off and (dare I say) one-dimensional in the original Shadow and Bone trilogy, so keeping her younger isn’t going to make her any less believable. She’s not particularly wise, so keeping her young won’t be an issue.

Finally, she has a romantic plotline with Mal (even if it doesn’t go anywhere), so we want to keep her within range of Mal’s age, too.

I would place Zoya at 19-22. Thus, I am in agreement with the showrunners!

Nikolai Lantsov

A character that has yet to make an appearance in the show is Nikolai Lantsov, who is stated as being 20-21 in Siege and Storm, and the rest of the Shadow and Bone trilogy. Nikolai hasn’t been casted yet, but I decided to put him here because why not?

Nikolai, interestingly enough, is a character I would like to age up, however, only slightly. Nikolai is a very accomplished character, as anyone who has read the series knows, and while he does have the grooming to be that smart and accomplished, he is able to outsmart the Darkling and other older characters on multiple occasions, and him being so young just seems off. Of course, I understand why he is young - his love interests are, and he certainly has his moments where he’s boyish and unprepared - but these reasons pale in comparison to all of his talents and accomplishments.

Taking all of this into consideration, I would put Nikolai at 23 or 24. It’s a minor age change, and it would really just make him more apt to grow into his role. He’s still young enough to where people can underestimate him, but he’s old enough to justify having such smarts and charm. The only argument I can see going against this is his love story with Alina, seeing as she’s 18/19, but I think there was a lot that went into his pursuit of Alina. At first it was political, but after that, it became about how Alina was someone who challenged him and knew him for all that he was. It was less of a romance and more of a friendship that lended itself to a nice opportunity. It could have been more. It wasn’t. Plus, the age gap isn’t egregious.

Tamar Kir-Bataar and Tolya Yul-Bataar

I’m briefly talking about these twins, because they are originally 18-19 in the Shadow and Bone Trilogy, and I would like them to be older overall. Tamar and Tolya are some of the most competent characters in the Grishaverse, and having them be the same age as Mal and Alina is off, in my mind.

I would like them to be at least Nikolai’s age or older, so 23-27.

✧ *:･ﾟ

Finally, we’re on to the crows....

Kaz Brekker

Ah, yes. The Bastard of the Barrel. His is a character I was actually really glad to see aged up, before watching the show. Afterwards, I have some more complex thoughts. Freddy Carter is 28 years old and Kaz, in the books, is 17.

Kaz in the books is very competent. So much so that he outsmarts everyone he comes up against - characters who are older than him and often have military strategy. Furthermore, he is ruthless. He is probably one of the darkest characters in all of the Grishaverse, and all of that is placed on the shoulders of a 17 year old. To make a comparison, he and Alina are the same age when their stories take place (Shadow and Bone for Alina, and Six of Crows for Kaz). I don’t know a lot of young celebrities to make the comparison, but he’s a teenager. He’s a child. Aging up Kaz in the show was something I was very much on board for. Kaz is a ruthless killer and an expert thief, and making him older was a smart move, imo. A Kaz in his 20′s made more sense.

However, when we meet Kaz in season one of Shadow and Bone, he’s very much in his fledgling state. Not a single plan of his goes as planned. He is foiled at every step, and the most gruesome thing he did in the show wasn’t bad, when you compare it to thing Kaz has canonically done. Rumors say that the Six of Crows arc is going to pick up in season two, and while I hope it doesn’t, I covered that particular argument far more in depth in another post and won’t address it here. Whether or not I think show Kaz is up to snuff, I think they aged him up too much and they depowered him too much.

Part of Kaz’ secret weapon was that he was wicked smart and crazy competent, but people underestimated him because of his age. They figured he didn’t have nearly enough experience to be as ruthless and cunning as he was. They were clearly wrong.

I think that Kaz in his 20′s makes sense, but Kaz in his late 20′s does not. Especially when you factor in the fact that he was so epically unsuccessful in the show, the extent to which they made him older wasn’t doing him any favors. It made him less “Dirtyhands” than he is.

So, final say, I would have made Kaz 20 or 21 in Shadow and Bone. We’re de-aging him so he still has time to grow, but he’s not crazy overpowered at 17. Furthermore, in a perfect world, he has time to age between Shadow and Bone and the events of Six of Crows.

Inej Ghafa

Inej is played by Amita Suman who is 23 years old. In the books, Inej is 16. In an interesting turn of events, I don’t find Inej in the books to be terribly overpowered so much as she is just really talented.

Inej in Six of Crows is hesitant to kill. She’s smart and watchful, and she’s a really great spider. She’s given backstory to explain all of this, and it makes sense. At most, she is mature for her age, but that is also given a pretty damn good reason. She has to be.

The few reasons I could see as to aging up her character is to make it less awkward for the romance between her and Kaz, as well as make the crows group more cohesive in age, with fewer outliers, both of which I am not against.

I would make Inej around 18 or 19 and call it a day.

Jesper Fahey

Jesper is another character that I largely have no problems with. Jesper is played by Kit Young who is 26 years old, and in the books, Jesper is 17.

In the books, Jesper is an extremely talented marksman, but part of that (even if he doesn’t know it or doesn’t want to acknowledge it in the books) is because he is a Grisha Fabrikator and he is using his gifts to bend the bullets he shoots and aims them where they need to go. His character wasn’t particularly overpowered in the books, and as for his personality, in the books he acted the most “teenage-like,” but in the show, he retained his same youthfulness without it seeming out of place, so that isn’t particularly damning.

For Jesper, I don’t mind aging him up or making him younger. Both work.

However, he has a romantic plotline with Wylan (who I will get to eventually), so we wan’t to keep that in mind.

Final say, I would make Jesper 18. He’s the same age as (or slightly younger than) Inej, and that sits well with me.

Matthias Helvar

Oh, boy. If you’ve been on my blog long, you know this is the character that started this whole rant. Because here’s the thing: Matthias is an incredibly complex character. And part of that complexity comes from the fact that Matthias doesn’t know about anything beyond what Fjerda has taught him. He is heavily indoctrinated and heavily ignorant, and his struggle is what makes him such an interesting character.

Matthias is played by Calahan Skogman who is 28 (in my other meta, he was 27, but birthdays, y’know?). In the books, Matthias is 18 when Six of Crows takes place. That’s a whopping 10 year age gap. As you can imagine, so much happens in 10 years time. Now, with Matthias, we’re going to look at his life a little more in depth so that you can really understand how this 10 year gap affects his ignorance.

Matthias’ family were killed by Grisha when he was a child. We don’t know how young, but that doesn’t really matter, because either way it’s traumatic. Soon afterward, he starts training to become a soldier. Now, just when drüskelle are allowed to be fully initiated at Hringkälla is unknown, but I’m guessing the age would be at youngest, 14 (although, it’s probably closer to 16, but I’m not arguing about that right now). Grisha are supposed to be the most dangerous type of person. The Fjerdans are not going to put 12 year olds out there to fight them. So, a roughly 14 year old Matthias is going on expeditions to catch Grisha. When he is 17, Matthias meets Nina. At this point, he has only been a full drüskelle for 3-ish years. Regardless of how many Grisha Matthias has captured, 3 years is a vast difference from his show counterpart, who is 28 and therefore (as a drüskelle since he was 14) has been capturing Grisha for 14 years. In fact, in the show, they give Matthias props for having been the one with the clever ideas for capturing Nina, which shows he has done this often. After that, Matthias spends one year in Hellgate, making in 18 in the books and (eventually) 29 in the show.

So, why was it so important that I detail that for you? Matthias’ change of heart is prompted by Nina, a pretty Grisha. I’m not saying their bond is shallow, but if you are a man who has a nasty past with Grisha and has been hunting them for 14 years, having a pretty Grisha change your mind is a little shallow and a little unbelievable. Even though Nina saved his life, I think it’s a little hard to sell the substantial change of heart he has. On the other hand, if Matthias is 18-19, he’s still a hormonal teenager, and his feelings for Nina prompting some critical thinking makes more sense. Furthermore, Matthias is younger and more impressionable. It would be much easier to change his worldview, if he were younger.

All in all, I would de age Matthias to be 19-20. Slightly older than in the books to allow for Nina to be a little older than her book counterpart (which I’m about to get to.)

Nina Zenik

Almost finished with my rant, we’re talking about Nina. Nina is played by Danielle Galligan who is 28 years old, and in the books, Nina is 17.

Now, Nina Zenik is a capable character. She is a spy. She speaks multiple languages, she’s a talented Grisha, and she’s quite self-assured. All of that advocates for an older Nina, so that she may have time to hone these impressive skills. Furthermore, Nina is the most sexualized of the Crows. I wouldn’t mind her being older, and I’m sure general audiences would be in favor of her not being a teenager.

Nina is also a soldier and she has a very complex storyline in Six of Crows, and later. By all accounts, aging her up is not a bad idea. In fact, I quite like the idea that Nina is older. I agree that she should be aged up, just not to the extent she was.

If this were my world, I would make Nina 20-22. That would make her the oldest out of all of the crows, and I quite like that.

Wylan Van Eck

Wylan has yet to be casted, but he is 16 in the books, and pretty damn smart. He’s not street smart, mind you, but he’s a chemistry nerd and demolitionist, so he’s very competent. He’s still under his father’s thumb, but I don’t take that to mean he has to be young - abuse can affect you well into your life. He’s definitely a character more naive to the realities of the Barrel, but that can easily be played off as “the rich boy is out of depth.”

There’s nothing that explicitly needs him to be younger than an adult, although the argument for making him young amongst the crows is strong and still stands.

He has a love story with Jesper, so we want to keep in mind the fact that Jesper is an adult.

Wylan also has the tricky little storyline of him being tailored into being Kuwei, so in determining his age, we want to keep him in the ballpark of Kuwei. Luckily, he was tailored from a Grisha on parem, so truly, anything is possible.

For his smarts, his competence, and his love story, I think we should age him up.

All in all, I would make Wylan 18. It’s not far from his book counterpart, and I think it makes sense.

Kuwei Yul-Bo

Kuwei is another character who was yet to be casted. He is 16 in Six of Crows, and I would say he is the character who most shows his age. Kuwei may be wicked smart, but he’s a chaos gremlin who doodles in his notebook, pretends to not understand Kerch, and also renames himself to be nhaban - “rising phoenix” in Shu. He doesn’t scheme the way the rest of the crows do, and while this can be explained away by the fact that he’s not a criminal, there still seems to be something hopeful and youthful about his character.

He’s still a boy in mourning over the death of his father, and he’s currently one of the world’s most wanted. In Crooked Kingdom, he’s vibing in a tomb for the majority of the book. Kuwei is honestly such a fun character that I hope gets more complexity in coming Grishaverse content.

Kuwei is very similar to Wylan in that he’s wicked smart (although his dad is a scientist and they have worked together, so there is some in-world explanation) and he has a crush on Jesper (don’t we all?).

Taking this into account, I would make Kuwei 17 or 18.

✧ *:･ﾟ

TL;DR, the characters of the Grishaverse were aged up and I’m a little miffed about it. The reasons for aging them up are to detract from the source material being a Y.A. story, but you cannot separate a story from it’s genre. The story is inherently Y.A. because it uses story beats that are typical of a Y.A. story. It’s not just viewer expectation - the story is Y.A. The ages of the characters in the books are very young in some cases, but in the show they were aged up too much, imo. It detracts from the tragedy of them being young and forced to survive, and it adds very little in most cases.

✧ *:･ﾟ tagging @missumaru

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set-phasers-to-whump · 3 years

Text

something like family

prompt: drugging (from day 26)

whumpee: neal caffrey

fandom: white collar

hi! i’m gonna be honest the last few fics i’ve written have felt super hard to write and i haven’t loved them but this fic was so enjoyable and easy to write and i am very happy with it! these characters are just my absolute faves and i love writing them so much :) i hope you like this! (also this fic is set well into the show, probably some point in s5).

Before Neal even has time to process what’s happening, let alone fight back, he’s being dragged off of the sidewalk and into an alley and someone is pinning him against a brick wall and then stabbing a needle into his arm, right through his suit coat and shirt, and a few seconds pass and then they drop him and he sinks to the ground, less because he can’t hold himself up and more because he hadn’t expected this to be over so quickly.

The person is already gone. His arm hurts, and he briefly entertains the idea that someone had grabbed him off of the street to give him some sort of forcible vaccination, because to be honest, that’s what this feels like. A quick poke in the upper arm, exactly the same as a flu shot or something similar. He doubts that this is the case, but he has no idea what in the hell he has been injected with.

He thinks for a moment. If he’s been drugged (which seems like the most likely option), he has a very limited amount of time to do something before the drug starts to take effect. Now, the most logical thing to do is call 911 and tell them what’s happened. But then they’ll take him outside of his radius and he’ll have to explain to Peter and everybody that no, he hadn’t tried to run away, but rather had been on his way to the hospital because he’d been drugged. That seems like a lot of work, not to mention a lot of stress to put everyone through.

So 911 is out. But there’s always Peter. It’s late evening, which means he’s at home, probably relaxing and enjoying a peaceful night with El. Neal hates the thought of interrupting them, but he’s also starting to feel...something, so he decides to just get going.

Luckily, he knows how to get to the Burkes’ from just about anywhere in the city. A few seconds of orienting himself in his surroundings and he’s got the route completely down in his rapidly-fogging brain.

The walk to their house takes much longer than it usually would. Neal has definitely been drugged. He’s tired and can barely remember what it is he’s supposed to be doing. He can’t focus on anything and he feels kind of detached from the world. Not to mention every other step he’s tripping over something, stumbling all over the sidewalk.

“Hey, mister, you okay?” someone asks, and Neal makes out the blurry shape of a person in front of him.

“‘M good,” he mutters, pushing past them. He just has to get to the Burkes’ house. That’s his goal, and he intends on fulfilling it. He can’t stop and talk to some random stranger on the street about whether or not he’s okay!

The person says something else to him, which Neal can’t understand, and then he’s past them, and the lights from cars and street lamps and houses are blurring and swirling together around him, and it’s kind of nice. Very pretty, he thinks. He feels oddly calm about all this, despite the fact that he is tired and confused and disconnected from just about everything, kind of like he’s floating. Maybe he is, he figures. But he looks down at his feet and sees that they are still on the ground.

And then he’s walking into a newspaper box, too distracted by staring at his feet to notice himself drifting across the pavement. The metal clangs when he hits it, and the sharp edge of the box digs into his skin. He kicks the offending box, mutters that it better watch where it’s going, then continues along his route.

After an eternity of walking, Neal’s blurry eyes land on the familiar shape of the Burkes’ house. It’s almost completely dark outside now, but the house is illuminated by street lamps, and there are lights on inside. It looks warm and inviting, and for the first time that night, Neal hurries up.

Going up the first few stairs feels like it takes no time at all, and then he reaches the top step and catches his foot on the bricks and then he’s falling onto the front stoop, awkwardly sticking out his arms to catch his fall.

His palms sting and his chin hurts and feels damp and he just lies there for a moment, trying to work out what exactly had happened. He can’t remember, but he knows he’s not supposed to be lying face down outside the Burkes’ door, so he staggers to his feet, nearly stumbles backwards down the stairs, catches himself on the railing, and finally reaches out to knock on the door.

Peter and El are settling down on the couch, about to watch a movie, when there’s a knock at the door. They share a glance. It’s 8:30, which isn’t an unreasonable time for someone to stop by, but they’re not expecting any visitors or deliveries.

Peter gets up to answer the knock. The door swings open, revealing none other than Neal Caffrey, eyes unfocused, chin bleeding, clothes rumpled, and generally a mess.

“Hi,” Neal says, with a soft smile. “C’n I come in?” The way he’s speaking is awkward, like he’s having to concentrate very hard to work out what to say and how to say it, and his words are slurring together. Taking this into account, along with his appearance, Peter’d say that his CI has probably been drugged. A thousand questions run through his mind, but Neal is looking at him expectantly, so Peter gestures for him to come inside.

“Who is it, honey?” El asks from the living room. Neal’s face lights up at the sound of her voice, and before Peter can stop him, he’s stumbling (rather quickly, considering his current state) in her direction.

“El! Hi,” Neal greets her, and Peter comes into the room behind him. El stands up from the couch and turns to face the two of them. The smile on her face quickly fades when she takes in Neal’s appearance, and then she’s walking up to him, placing a hand on his cheek, and asking him if he’s okay.

“Now that ‘m here,” is Neal’s reply.

El gives Peter a look. “What happened?” she whispers, and he shrugs.

“I think he’s been drugged,” he whispers back.

Neal looks between the two of them, confusion evident on his face. “What’re you talkin’ about?” he asks, stumbling towards the couch and sinking heavily down onto it.

Peter and El follow him, standing in front of him. “Do you remember what happened before you came here?” Peter asks. Neal’s face scrunches up in concentration, but eventually he shakes his head. “Dunno,” he says. “Walked.”

“Do you remember if someone gave you something? If someone might have drugged you?”

Neal shrugs. “Feel funny,” he replies, and then he doesn’t say anything more. His eyes roam around the living room like he’s taking it in for the very first time, and Peter gets the sense that he’s not going to be getting anything more out of him.

He and El share another look. “We should take him to the hospital, right?” El whispers. “We don’t know what he’s been given, or why.”

Peter nods in agreement. “We’ll take him. Let me call a couple people and let them know where we’re going first.”

Peter steps to the side, phone to his ear, and El crouches down in front of Neal. His hazy-looking eyes find her face, and he smiles at her. At least he’s not scared or upset, El thinks. Whatever drug he’s been given seems to be relaxing him, which she’s grateful for. He’s already clearly confused and disoriented, and he doesn’t need to add fear to the mix.

She gives him a good once-over as Peter explains their current situation to whoever’s on the other end of the phone. The palms of his hands are red and scraped, the toes of his shoes are scuffed, his jacket and shirt are rumpled, and blood is dripping from his chin down his neck and under his collar, staining the fabric red. His expression is unfocused and spacey, but it’s lighter than normal, like a weight has been lifted off of him. That’ll be the drugs, too, El figures, though she wishes that lightness would remain on Neal’s face forever (minus, of course, the confusion and the spaciness).

Peter finishes his call and walks back over to the two of them, placing a hand on El’s shoulder. She looks up at him, getting to her feet.

“We’re good to go,” Peter says quietly. To Neal, he says, “hey, buddy, we’re going to take you to the hospital, okay? We need to make sure you’re not in any kind of danger.”

El expects Neal to resist, to insist that he is staying right here, and she’s more than a little surprised when all he says is, “okay.”

Peter’s surprised, too, because he repeats himself: “we’re going to the hospital, Neal.”

“Okay,” Neal agrees again, and the briefest look of irritation crosses his face, like he can’t believe Peter thinks he hadn’t understood. He staggers to his feet, and would fall forwards onto the coffee table, but El catches him under the elbows and holds him up until he gets reasonably balanced.

Once Neal is no longer in immediate danger of collapsing in the middle of their living room, the three of them slowly and carefully make their way out the front door and to the car. After a brief discussion, Peter takes the driver’s seat, and El and Neal sit in the back, so she can keep an eye on him and Peter can keep both eyes on the road.

Neal sits with his head pressed against the window, watching the lights of the city flash by. His breath is fogging up the glass and one of his hands taps an uneven and uncoordinated rhythm against it. That soft smile is back on his face and the lights bounce off of his skin and he looks completely peaceful, the most relaxed El’s ever seen him while awake. It makes her heart hurt that he has to be drugged to be like this, but she can’t help smiling at him.

They come to a stop at a red light and Peter half-turns in his seat to look into the backseat. His eyes are concerned but gentle, and they meet El’s gaze, and his expression softens - not quite a smile, but almost. “How’s he doing?” he whispers, and El looks to her right and realizes that Neal has fallen asleep, still leaning against the window.

“He’s okay,” she whispers back, and this time Peter does smile, quickly and softly.

The light turns green, then, and they both share another quick look at the sleeping young conman, who, at some point, has stopped being Peter’s CI and become something like family. A second smile passes between them, and doesn’t fade away this time. Someone behind them honks, and they start moving again, making their way steadily towards the hospital.

aaaa thanks so much for reading this! in case you’re curious, neal has been drugged with rohypnol, which apparently can be injected, according to the department of justice. you learn something new every day apparently. anyways i hope you liked this!!!

#summerofwhump #summerofwhump26 #drugging #drugged #white collar #neal caffrey #my writing #i say things #this was such a joy to write honestly #i love writing these characters more than just about anyone i think

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absoluteindulgence · 4 years

Text

AFK (Away From Keyboard)

A/N: My contribution to September’s first Freaky Friday (18+). New icon, who dis? I worked non-stop on this story; hopefully, y’all like it!

Pairings: Mirio Togata x Fem!Reader

Warnings: Smut, Cursing, Quarantine Blues

Word Count: 3.4K

Quarantine hasn't been easy on you. You lost your job due to your line of work not being considered 'essential.' Although bummed about it, because it was a means to an end, you remembered the times you complained about the work and how some other workers didn't treat you fairly. But the realization of being home with your fiance, Mirio, had sparked comfort. Until you found out, he still had to work.

The pain of having to stay home alone while your sunny beau worked 24-Hour shifts every other day, saving lives as he remained one of the most reliable Firemen in Japan. You felt the sadness and loneliness from him not being home for so long. And most days, you stayed in bed, too sad to move around the empty home.

With time, you habitually set a routine, eat, sleep, check social media, then back to sleep. Until you came across a group chat accepting all and any fans of a game you fancied, it had been some time since you played, not having the energy to drag your ass out of the plush, king-size bed. You pondered whether to grab your laptop from your dusty work bag in the corner of your bedroom. Or to make the trip to your living room with your HQ computer.

Of course, you went for the latter. Throwing on your robe, walking to the living room seemed like a long trip, but sitting at the master computer made your nerves settle. Starting up the machine, you fiddle with your phone chatting with your new-found internet friends. After logging in, the rest was history.

You spent so much time online that the days where Mirio was home and not tired that you were too busy gaming to stop—practically ignoring him as he came within close contact of your hunched over body. You became a complete zombie to your favorite game that no longer became your hobby but now your never-ending job.

You clocked in and out, only being away from the screen to rest and use the bathroom. It became a problem that even Mirio could see; he didn't want to press the issue so harshly since he knew how the long hours had affected you, but seeing how less attention he got when home for more than 8-hours became troublesome.

Tonight, Mirio came home earlier than expected, his high energy shone throughout the home, yet you didn't flinch from your spot. Too focused on the glowing screen, to look his direction as he creeps up onto your left side with a delicate, yet tender kiss to your temple.

"Good evening, my love, have you eaten?" His bouncy, upbeat voice knocks you out of your trance.

You look up at him with low energy, replying with a mumble, "No."

"That's too bad, but no worries, I'm gonna order some food. Do you know what you want?" He walks away, fiddling with his phone, taking off his work uniform simultaneously.

You shrug with a monotone groan, your new way of saying that you have no preference. In case Mirio can't hear you, you utter louder, "I don't care."

"Okay, Babe, well, I guess I'll get your usual favorite." His grin is apparent when he speaks, playing off not getting acknowledged the way you used to before finding your obsessed hobby turned job.

You nod without notice and clack away at your keyboard, enamored in the chatroom. You occasionally smile while grabbing for your gaming controller; you're ready to start up another game as your group chat invites you. Happily obliging them, you've been added to the team and play a couple of rounds.

So focused on the game, you didn't hear your blond beau answer the door and walk to the kitchen as he carried two substantial brown paper bags with handles. He deftly set the bags onto the island counter, pulling out each takeout container with the same enthusiasm.

"Hey, Babe, dinner's here!" Your Sunshine called out to you from the kitchen.

Glued to your computer screen, you stammer, "O-okay, Babe, I'm coming."

Lying through your teeth, you sit unfazed by the world around you and only concentrate on what's in front of you. It is a crucial time as you're close to completing the umpteenth goal, your posture struggling as you slouch near the monitor to see better.

The site is genuinely unbecoming and catches Mirio's eye; he comes from behind, hugging you while grabbing onto your wrists. The sudden warmth shocks you but doesn't stop your fingers from shifting. A huff leaves Mirio's breath, tickling your neck's nape as he moves closer to its left side. His large hands grip your controller, nearly covering yours. It's vexatious, to say the least, your quest is near completion with an unbeatable high score.

Even with his hands on yours, you still maneuver the controller, eager to finish. No longer connected to your headset, you feel the sunny man nuzzle his nose close to your ear. A sensitive, weak spot that he's using as a means of leverage. Goosebumps emerge from your neck to your chest down to your arms as you try your best to overlook the familiar sensation.

A slightly annoying groan buzzes out his throat as you feign his attempts to distract you. He applies the slightest pressure to your hands, where you're no longer in control of your joypad movements.

"Since you're not ready to eat yet, I'd thought I'd help you instead." He smiled warmly, yet you felt on edge. "Don't worry, Babe, I got this!"

As you slightly turned to look at him, he portrayed a game face. He seemed confident to beat your current quest, his hands moved as if he knew what to do, so you relaxed. Turning back to the monitor, you watched in the marvel of his hidden gamer skills; he maneuvered so flawlessly that you were shocked. Until he died, on your last life, sending your game character to the loading screen.

"Mirio, what the hell?" You squeal in annoyance, louder than expected. "That was my last life!"

He musters out a roar of laughter that only infuriates you further as you cross your arms with a huff. "Aw baby, I'm sorry. I thought I had it, but it turns out I didn't know the controls that well."

He cuddles you close to his warm chest, still resisting his advances, he snuggles you tighter than his original bear hug. You try to wiggle your way out of his loveable grip as he chuckles at your efforts. He pulls you away from the master computer, using the handles on the rolling game chair you bought together one weekend.

He turns the chair around to survey your irritated, flustered face. "Hey, don't be mad. I just wanted to enjoy the game just like you. I see how enthralled you've been and wanted to see what the hype was about."

You're silent with a bratty pout on your lips, which he doesn't take seriously and plants a brief, loving kiss onto your forehead. He beams as he gets a better look at you: You grabbed one of his firemen in training sweatshirts earlier that day after taking a shower.

"I see that my Sunshine couldn't help but to represent me while I'm away at work." A sneaky grin stretched across his scruffy, blond stubble.

"If I told you I grabbed anything just to get closer to playing my game, would you believe me?"

"No, I wouldn't," He chuckled, "I know how much you miss me when I'm away."

His stare was a tad intense after finishing his reasoning, catching you off guard. Your antics of irritation cracked as you dropped your arms and rested your hands onto your thighs. You couldn't crack a smile; all the days blurred into one as you couldn't fathom being alone at home. That loneliness you ran away from came back to spill all of your secrets.

"You're right." Little droplets of water left your eyes, "I've missed you so much. I know that you're busy saving the world one fire at a time, but since this Quarantine, I've wished for us to be together, not that I wanted you to lose your job. I just wanted us to spend more time."

"I've been suffering in silence, not knowing what to say to you as you asked me if I was okay. I thought I could get better all by myself, and yet nothing was enough." You were sobbing between words, no longer able to keep your composure. "I finally dragged myself out of bed, trying to get comfortable. And I got carried away."

You wiped your eyes of tears, focusing on your breathing as much as possible. Trying not to draw out a panic attack, you felt a warmth come from all over. Mirio held you close to him, undistracted by you sitting in the chair. He exhaled heavily, kissing the side of your face with regard.

"I'm sorry that you held on to all that pain, Sunshine. It was never my intent to make you feel alone." He held onto you tighter, "There's not a minute, no, a second that passes by, that I don't think about you. "

The warmth from his burly arms and chest eased your heart, feeling safe and wanted. Your soon-to-be husband readjusted his hands to lift you out of the gaming chair. With a gentle grip, you were in his arms, cradled close to his chest. The blond looked down at you with a passionate smile, producing your heart to skip a beat. Mirio carried you bridal style until entering the bedroom you shared, considerately laying you down onto the bed. With so much space on the mattress, you wondered why you were the only one laying on it. Glancing upon your love near the footboard, you recognized his exact mood.

"Please, let me show you how much I've missed you." He slowly unbuckled his pants, "I've had so many thoughts about what I wanted to do to you."

His look went from lighthearted to a serene, sensual gaze. It's as if laying you on the bed changed his demeanor, creating a severely lustful tone to the air. Laying on the mattress, you felt yourself go into heat, just staring back at the blond beau. His face colored an incredible hue of pink as he pulled off his shirt, too impatient to keep it on any longer.

You stare in awe as the man of your dreams crawls on top of you. Bunching up the sweatshirt, he pushes the fabric up above your breasts set to litter them and your lips with fleeting kisses, prolonging your divine flesh cavern. Your peaks are between his callous hands as his nose pokes at your abdomen, inhaling their essential fragrance. You giggle under your breath at his prickly stubble tickling your skin.

"I've missed your pillows so much, Sunshine." He muffles, erupting laughter out of you. "Yeah, get all your giggles out now, Baby. Because in a moment, I'm gonna make you holler."

Kisses trace down your body, along your hips; although his kisses feel like a rush, they're thorough in savoring every part his lips touch and occasionally sticking his tongue out to lick the bare sections of your stomach. A gasp gets caught in your throat, and Mirio groans in response. It's evident; your body's pleasure gets handled like a refined, care package.

Reaching the waistband of your generic bottoms, he slid them off with little consideration of the fabric. No protest whatsoever as to his tug at your dainty boyshorts hastened another groan to his lips. His eyes glimmered, looking at your panties, admiring the soft, satin-like material popping out so lovely onto your skin tone.

"It's like you wore all this to taunt me, Sunshine." He chuckled under his breath, "Now you're in for it."

A hastily gentle pull to your panties made for a head-turning transformation, looking at Mirio now between your legs with his slippery, wet tongue on your pink pearl. Your thighs clamped shut onto his head as he feverishly licked at you with no hesitation as if the goal to make you cum was more important than breathing.

Your short breaths turned into loud gasps and moans, echoing the room with a ringing back into your ears. Your audio sent shockwaves through Mirio, pushing him to keep going and not stop until you made a mess around his mouth. Quick licks to your clit hardened your core so tightly you felt your stomach would resemble your blond hero's abs.

"You taste, so divine, my love."

Each word between each lick set out to destroy the sanity within you. The overstimulation drives you over the edge into massive wails as you try to push Mirio's head from between your legs. His grip moves from your hips to your thighs firmly. The warmth of his palms settles your need to keep him from helping you reach paradise.

That doesn't stop the sweat from dripping off your body or your bud from pulsing between his soft, thin lips. Reaching your peak, you clench onto his hair, moaning out his name, "M-mirio!"

Calling out to him made his tongue go into turbo mode. And with no warning, united two fingers into your slippery, silk igloo. A luxurious howl left your lips as you focused on your breathing, no longer holding onto his hair, but your breasts. Pinching at your nipples caused Mirio to look at you with concupiscence. His thick fingers were less than forgiving as you contracted around them and squirmed.

The tension building within your core couldn't manage the pumps advancing in you or that relentless tongue belonging to your sunny beau. Ready to burst, you cry out, "I need to cum!"

Nothing could prepare you for the orgasm you had: with eyes clenched closed and legs spread wide, hands clenched to the bedsheets, you blasted a grand amount of squirt infused cum out of your body.

Mirio's eyes widen as he pulls back to flick your clit back and forth using his right hand, spraying your love juice all over the sheets. Pushing out your last robust grunt before your legs collapse. Your breath hitches in your throat as you attempt to catch your breath.

"Damn, Sunshine, that was amazing." Mirio sits up, looking down at your worn-out body. His attraction for you gets the best of him as he puts his fingers in his mouth while keeping eye contact, "You even taste amazing too."

An arousing shockwave stings through your body as you look back into his beautiful, cerulean eyes. With little energy, you roll your index finger for him to come closer to you. He leaps at the opportunity, mushing his still wet face onto your sweaty one, scattering kisses over your lips and neck. He positions your legs for his love rod to glide into your aching junction in the moment's heat.

"Are you ready, Beauti-"

"-Yes, Mirio, don't make me wait any longer."

Your seductive face said all that your muscular fiance needed to hear. He slid his charmer in painfully slow, observing your hungry gaze, urging him to get harder and bottom you out immediately. Grunting in unison, came right after as you wrapped your legs around his waist. You kissed along his exposed neck, making light nibbles along his right side.

"F-Fuck."

His hips pivot into you, and a light moan fled your mouth as you prepped for his roughhousing. Leniency out the window as the sloshing from your essence screamed 'keep going!' to your blond hunk. So he obliged you: Acting as a home decorator, rearranging your furniture with each thrust. Your brows furrowed from the sensual pressure placed inside as you looked back into his eyes; the smirk on his equally sweaty face was too smug. Your face was always a dead giveaway to how much you enjoyed him; these nights were no different.

"Tell me how much you love when I'm deep inside you, Baby."

"Don't make me say it, Mir-, I'm a-already showing you." The heat was going straight to your head as he put you on the spot. If you could hide your face, you would.

"Oh no, my Sunshine. You don't get to avoid this." He raised his body off your frame, lifted one of your legs to sit up straight on his bulky chest, grinding into your junction with a rapid, rugged motion.

All words escaped you; keeping up the pace was all too hard as he rolled his hips into you, ruthless and playful all at once. The grip on your leg firm with each pump is very calculated and delicate. licking his lips, he asked, "Will you admit it now?"

Tucking in your lips, you shake your head in detest. It was unbelievable, and Mirio knew it; his chuckle echoed through the bedroom, "Okay."

Positioning your legs to point west from his Adonis belt, he maneuvered himself to stay connected to your golden arches. His last straw and ultimate trump card, fucking you from the side as he smiled from above you. The position relative to hitting it from the back, but with enough spine power, you can see your firemen in action. The clutch to your waist always took you for a ride, a prime example of your fiance's strength and control.

Soaked was an understatement as your muffled whines turned into hoarse wails of satisfaction. Just when you thought you lost your voice after the lip service, your ass bouncing off Mirio's skin flute created an orchestrated symphony of lovemaking reverberating through the house. Your neighbors would have to understand; there's no holding in how incredible this sexual bond is.

"I concede, Baby." While holding onto his forearm, you passionately gawk, "You feel so good deep inside of me!"

Self-satisfied, his movement accelerated, "That's what I like to hear, Sunshine."

The harmony of skin slapping, your juicy cream canal is sloshing against his cock, the various moans and grunts you're exchanging, setting you on edge. His eyes have a deep blue gaze, leaking of an overly seductive spirit.

"Fuck, Sunshine, I'm so close. Tell me how bad you want me to pound your pretty pussy, and I will."

"Mirio, please," You grab onto one of his hands, freeing them from the grip on your thigh and placing his thumb into your mouth while sucking it, "Put my fire out."

Ironically igniting him with a trump card of your own, his pace heightened past your comprehension. Once again, your coil wound up, becoming tighter with each thrust, unbearable to endure for another moment and remaining to suck Mirio's thumb in hopes of feeling sweet deserved deliverance. The pounds from Mirio's powerful thighs were likening heavily wooded paddles sure to leave a mark.

A charge of sexual energy swelled between you two as your bodies went into a complete frenzy. The hand on your thigh moved up onto your waist with more intensity placed to your backside and your core getting the brunt of it all. Feeling Mirio expand and twitch inside indicated how close he was, and your coil had just snapped. Mirio pulls out of you, shooting his load all over your ass and thighs.

The warm puddle of white gold spills over to the front of your leg, trickling down your thighs; you watch as your fiance readjusts himself, "Shit, that was a lot. Let me get a cloth."

Less gracefully, he rolls off the king-sized bed disappearing out the room and returning with a stack of baby wipes. The cleanup is gentle and thorough as you smile at him, still savoring your orgasm. He throws them away into a trash bin near his nightstand, noting to flush them later. He crawls behind you, cradling your naked body close to his. You're melting within his embrace, feeling complete comfort.

"You know, Babe," He rubs your thigh soothingly as you quietly hum, "You didn't tell your teammates what happened after you died."

"Well, I can tell them tomorrow, no big deal."

"Well, you're right, but what if I told you, you weren't on mute?"

Your eyes shot open, "What?"

"I'm kidding, Babe! You unplugged your headset, remember?"

"Mirio, my heart just dropped to my ass, please don't scare me like that."

His familiar laugh vibrated through the room, "Sorry, Babe, I couldn't help myself! Are you ready to eat now? We've worked up quite the appetite."

He lazily winked, you giggled and nodded, "I hope you got my favorite!"

"So you heard, nothing I said when I got home, huh?"

"I didn't say that." You try to hide your face, resulting in Mirio tickling you into admitting it.

#mirio x reader #togata mirio x reader #Mirio Togata #bnha mirio #togata mirio imagine #mirio imagine #absoluteindulgence stories

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anightflower · 3 years

Text

Come and Find Me Chapter 5: The Game

Sorry this chapter is a bit short, I am in the midst of finals and final projects. Thank you for sticking by my side, despite the crazy schedule

Spencer Reid x Reader

Masterlist

Warnings: Stalking, Swearing, Violence

Spencer made his way to the counter, a smiling Ava greeted him.

“Spencer! I’m surprised you’re not with (Y/N), not that I’m not happy to see you of course.”

Spencer returned her smile with a slightly nervous one, “She’s still in bed, I thought I would bring her some coffee before I head to the office. I also wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Oh Spencer, if you’re confessing your undying devotion to me now, I’m afraid it’s a bit too late, I have my own sexy superhero boyfriend now.” Ava said, doing her signature eyebrow waggle, causing Spencer to laugh.

“I do have a confession, but it involves (Y/N).” Spencer said, a smile spreading across his face.

Her expression became more serious. “Wait is (Y/N) pregnant?”

“I- no, that’s not what-” Spencer stuttered, Ava let out a giggle out Spencer’s flustered face.

“I want to ask her to move in with me.” Spencer said finally.

“Oh my gosh Spencer, that’s fantastic! And I’m honored that you’re asking me, as (Y/N) was mine first, so it’s only right you ask me permission.” Ava grinned, pressing a hand to her heart.

“Do you think she’ll say yes? I don’t want to rush her, I know we’ve been only dating for 8 months, but it just feels right. I love her so much and I want to wake up to her every morning and kiss her goodnight every night. Besides it will be so much easier because she basically lives at my apartment now and I just want to make it official, you know?” Spencer rambled.

Ava’s face radiated pure joy. “Oh Spence, she’ll definitely say yes! God (Y/N) will be over the moon are you kidding? You two are the cutest fucking thing, oh my god this is so exciting!” She squealed.

“I’m going to ask her when she gets back from Florida, I know her lease is almost up so that will make things a lot easier too. I’ve been looking at different apartments that are slightly bigger because I know she wants an at home office and I’m sure it will be nice to have her own space-”

“Spencer, I am so glad she has you. You make her so happy and treat her so well. I know she’ll be happy with whatever. But beware, her full interior designer will come out if you guys get your own place.” Ava warned teasingly.

“I’m looking forward to it.” Spencer grinned.

________________________________________________________________

His hand shook as he opened the door to his apartment. As he slammed the door shut, he met the worried face of his roommate, who was putting on his jacket to leave.

“You okay man?” His roommate Nick asked, eyes filled with concern.

“Don’t worry about it dude.” The Boy said with an angry shrug making his way to his room.

“Uh, okay dude, if you need anything shoot me a text. I’m meeting up with Ava, I’ll probably stay at her place for a couple days.”

“Cool bro, have fun.” The boy said flatly.

Nick looked like he was about to say something, but he shut his mouth and shrugged.

“Later.” Nick said quietly, grabbing his bag and fleeing out the door.

The Boy didn’t respond. He just stomped into his room, red filling his vision.

The Doctor was going to take you away from him permanently, he could feel it.

Moving in leads to marriage, then kids. How could he have let it get this far? The Boy should have intervened earlier, opened your eyes to the truth.

The Boy let out a scream and punched a whole in the wall. It felt good to let his anger out. He pictured the Doctor in place of the wall, the image brought of that man bloodied and pleading sent pleasurable shivers through him. The Boy made his way to his bed and pulled out a box from underneath it. It was an obvious spot to keep it underneath there, but Nick respected his space, so the boy had not been worried.

He pulled out his pictures of you. Each image lovingly taken of you, images of you getting ready for work, smiling with Ava, and then his favorites, the ones of you sleeping peacefully in your bed. He had to resist reaching out and caressing your face. He knew he couldn’t risk waking you up, it wasn’t time for you to see him yet, but now it was.

The boy had started to calm down, until an image of you kissing Spencer fell out of the pile. Red filled his vision once again. He had purposely taken this picture to remind himself of his goal; being in the Doctor’s place.

He ripped the image to shreds, and threw the box of goods causing your pictures, some of your old coffee cups and Drew’s home videos to fly all over his room. His rage filled him as he flipped his desk. He couldn’t stop himself as he ripped his rooms to shreds, breaking things and tossing various items at the wall in rage.

When his breathing finally returned to normal, the boy grabbed a bag and began packing. He threw in all of his essentials and grabbed the tapes and photos he could of you. He wasn’t coming back here after this. You and him were going to start a new life in Florida, he had already set everything up. He had his own secluded place and sent ahead some of the things he needed ahead.

He would leave tonight and be down in Florida a day before you. He had planned to arrive a day ahead of you so he could get your home ready. He had even made a little room for you to adjust to everything, knowing how this big of a change would affect you. But he knew you would do it once you realized that you two were meant to be.

Joy filled the boy as he looked around his mess of a room, he felt relief at the thought of never seeing this place or the Doctor again. Yet in his happy stupor, he failed to see the photos and tape he had missed to pick up.

________________________________________________________________

Present Day

Reid had reached speeds of nearly 110 as he raced back to the precinct with Emily. SHe had not chastised him for his speeds, too worried about the sorrow in Penelope’s voice and what that could mean.

They raced into the precinct and found Penelope, JJ, and Morgan in the meeting room.

“Hotch and Rossi are still talking to Curtis, but they should be back in 30.” Morgan explained.

“There is no time to wait.” Penelope growled. “I can show this to them once they get here.”

“Any luck at Special Delivery?” Emily asked JJ.

“It shut down 5 weeks ago apparently. So whoever we saw, still had access to a uniform. They probably did it to copy Curtis.” JJ explained, her face solemn.

“Shit.” Emily said, flopping down into a chair.”

“I received this ten minutes ago.” Penelope explained, drawing everyone’s attention to the screen at the front of the room. “Reid, you aren’t going to like this, I’m so sorry.”

Spencer’s blood ran cold as he prepared himself for the worst.

The screen was black for a few seconds and then an automated voice rang out from the speakers. “Ring! Ring!” the deep voice said. “Have you figured it out, Dr. Reid?”

Spencer’s heart stopped as images of you flooded the screen. Photos of you and Spencer flashed across the screen. None of which either of you had taken yourselves, each of these was taken from afar. He felt ill when he saw the ones from outside of your apartment. He nearly vomited when the screen switched to photos of you inside your apartment, peacefully sleeping, completely unaware that a completely crazed man was inches away from you.

“I’ve been to your lectures, Dr. Reid.” A voice narrated from the screen. “I know you’ve studied men like me. It’s very fascinating to hear someone talk about you like they’ve known you since birth, when the two of you haven’t even met once. You took one of my dearest friends away from me. But we adapted, your small victory didn’t stop him from guiding me to my love and taking her from you. Do you think with all your knowledge, all of your cases, all of your team, that you can find her in time?”

A timer appeared on the screen, counting down from a minute.

“What?” Penelope cried out, “That wasn’t there before, how in the hell is it there?” She rushed to her computer and began messing around on the keyboard.

Spencer shot out of his chair and raced over to Penelope’s side. “Penelope, what does this countdown mean?” He asked, panicked.

“I don’t know, I don’t know! It didn’t appear before this. The email didn’t even mention a countdown! I tried to track the email, but it was a throwaway.” Penelope looked ready to cry.

“Spencer, it could mean anything.” Morgan said, trying to calm him down.

“Oh yeah Morgan?” Spencer spat. “Well considering it was showing images of my girlfriend before it, my hopes aren’t too high!”

“Spencer.” JJ snapped, “Yelling isn’t going to solve anything.”

“What if it was Will JJ? Would you be calm?” Spencer growled back at her.

The timer was quickly reaching its end.

“Penelope do something, please.” Spencer begged, his voice breaking.

“I’m trying, I don’t know what to do.” Penelope cried out, horrified at her helplessness.

Tears began to flow down Spencer’s face. The room watched in horrified silence as the timer reached zero.

It was silent for a moment and then Spencer’s phone rang.

He looked down at it to see it was an unknown number. His heart stopped as he realized “Ring! Ring!”

“(Y/N) promised to call me after her meeting, if she had been there, she would have called me now.” Spencer said quietly.

“Spencer, if you answer it, I can try and track the number and centralize the area it could be coming from.” Penelope explained urgently.

Spencer took a deep breath and answered the phone. They all jumped up in shock as a video feed came on at the same time he pressed answer.

His heart swelled with relief, you were alive, you seemed unharmed, but god you looked terrified.

“Penelope, scan the room, see if you can find any recognizable items.” Morgan mumbled quietly.

As Penelope’s keys began clacking a way, a voice that sounded eerily like the one in the video of you smugly said, “Hello Doctor, so nice to finally talk to you. Or have we talked before? You never know, let’s see if that big brain of yours remembers.”

“Who are you?” Spencer hissed into the phone.

“Someone who you’ve taken so much from. My mentor, the woman I love- but luckily this ends now.” The voice purred.

“What do you want?” Spencer tried to keep his voice calm.

“I want to play a game with you Doctor, let’s see if that genius brain of yours is as good as they say. You have 24 hours to find your girl. If you are so smart you’ll be able to find her. But when you don’t, and you won’t, it will prove that you don’t don’t deserve her. That you never deserved her. If you can’t find her in time, you will never see her again.”

______________________________________________________________

TAGLIST

@andiebeaword @haylaansmi @parkastoria @possessedjoker @amronsparty @generaltheoristexpert @sierraraeck @coniumalces @tamedbyafox @anotherr-fine-mess @adoregin @rainsong01 @canyonnmoonn @mggshoe @boxofsparklingmuses @richardpapensmuse @deanlenaz @rainsong01 @goldentournesol @annesauriol @itsametaphorbriansblog @secretpickleprofessordean @shameleswhorehourstm @stepsofthefbi @iifloweringnightsii @mggsprettygirl @bravegirl221 @messyhairday-me @n1ghtsh4d3-67 @abbeypaw7 @findmedontlooseme @hiiwouldlikesomesleepplease @sarcasticsagittarius1998 @ajeff855 @astronomynous

#spencer reid #spencer reid fanfiction #Criminal Minds #Criminal Minds Fanfiction #criminal minds x reader #spencer reid smut #spencer x y/n #spencer reid x reader #Come and Find Me #anightflowerwrites #anightflower writes

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razorblade180 · 3 years

Note

Overall thoughts on V8? Assuming you didn't answer this already.

I meant to do a volume wrap up review but I got incredibly busy and it fell to the waste side. The thing about me judging RWBY I have to come at it from two angles or I won’t feel like I judged it appropriately. There’s the casual, first time seeing the episodes and seeing this through the lens as a casual watcher who probably only sees the episodes once or twice. But then there’s the other side to that coin. I review these episodes, write aus, theorize, check extended lore, listen to the music, etc; that means I have to go back and watch episodes several times for any given reason and that’s when you start noticing the holes or picking up on things you didn’t before.

As a casual watcher, I’d give this an 8/10. There’s plenty of moments where characters do things that got me excited and plot points I wanted explored. This volume actually gave a decent amount of things I wanted for quite some time and some things I didn’t know I needed. Certainly there are things I don’t like in this but I’m open and curious to see where RT takes their storie because it’s their story.

Okay, now as a someone who’s had to deep dive and take a step back multiple times for a variety of reasons. 6.5/10 maybe a 7/10 if I’m being generous. A lot of my problems with this volume are problems that aren’t new to RWBY and that’s just how surface layer portions of arcs are and how a variety of choices/bonds don’t exactly make sense with what we were previously shown, or they only make sense because the writers don’t want introduce other complexities even though they should be there realistically. I’ll give a couple examples of these and yes, I’m aware what I say doesn’t bother everyone but it bothers me.

Qrow was never angry at or brought up Robyn being the reason their airship crashed in the first place because she started the fight; which aids in Clover dying.

Emerald follows Cinder, not Salem. Even if Cinder is working under Salem, why would Emerald be so willingly to complete shift to the side that actively goes against Cinder? There’s been no grand revelation to make Emerald believe Cinder doesn’t give a damn about her. Leaving made sense because she was about to get tortured. Going full turncoat right now doesn’t. No change happened. Emerald always hated being near Salem but adored Cinder no matter the crimes and the show hasn’t done anything to switch that view point.

I’m happy Whitley and Weiss had a touching sibling moment that implies they’re okay and making/made up, but there was never a conversation about the actual problem and thoughts that had them at odds in the first place. Weiss saving his and Willow’s life shouldn’t be the thing that smooths things over. It would’ve been terrible if Weiss do something to save their life. Whitley helping Penny is okay I guess because he really had no reason to contribute but did anyways. Even so, a person doing a morally correct thing doesn’t automatically warrant the conflict between him and Weiss’s resolved.

We got Cinder’s backstory; it didn’t tell us anything about how she eventually came into contact with Salem. Honestly her back story felt more in line of her main goal through the series was an absolute freedom by the means of breaking down the systems that trapped and didn’t give a damn, rather than her quest for power. Yes you can argue gaining power means it’s easier to maintain her freedom to do whatever she wants but I personally think that’s a little off the mark when you gave her a story that involves her trapped by rules and time rather than being too physically weak to gain freedom.

This show has built up that the Schnee family has suffered various types of abuse because of Jacques and uses Weiss as a medium to build towards breaking free from that. Not just overcoming but confronting the abuse by cementing it’s place below you. We don’t really get that. There will never be a moment where the siblings and mother truly get to break out of Jacques grasps emotionally and then put him in his place because he’s dead! Yeah they never have to worry about him again but even last volume they showed Winter still having turmoil and being able to get strung along by him. We don’t even really know how Whitley perceived his father. It feels so lackluster. Then they care to mention how it’s Weiss’s idea to save him like it’s an empowering moment when in actuality, it would be against her character, values of a huntress, and morality to let a person die in cell when you’re the reason they’re in a cell! Letting him die in there would just terrible. I don’t even know why he wasn’t let out in that scene! He’s a coward! He’d follow their orders to save his skin. All he has to do is shut up and walk through a portal.

Ironwood and Oscar both knew they could remove that staff to use it and Atlas wouldn’t drop immediately. Why did nobody have any kind of compromise with one another since there’s nothing stopping them from using the staff for something and then putting it back? They had this morally gray thing going on which I liked but then they decided to make Ironwood go full evil. I’ve never had to say this before but the song he got in V7 and the character they made him be in V8 just don’t connect. I got upset listening to that song recently because I liked that Ironwood.

Clover’s importance. RT tried making a character who had no more than 9 minutes in the series and one meaningful line of dialogue into the cornerstone of a side plot. Clover is such a nothing character. Vine did more than Clover. They try to make him have such a profound impact to the people around him but we never see him bond with his team; Harriet specifically. We get one scene of Clover telling Qrow the kids are fortunate to have Qrow even if he doesn’t think so. First, I doubt Clover knows Qrow decided to get drunk in a ghost town and the kids nearly died and cellar while he did it so that compliment doesn’t hold much weight for me. Second, We see nothing meaningful between the two. V7 has a time skip and just expects viewers to be on board with Clover being this influential change on Qrow without showing anything outside of a witty remark and Clover flexing his semblance. I would’ve bought it more of Qrow almost relapsed and Clover stopped him then had a real meaningful conversation.

Ruby goes against Ironwood only to then want to do a plan that’s aligned to longer term thinking than even his, talks about how everyone should be working together, but then adds a part in her video to actively antagonize and vilify Ironwood. Afterwards, she wonders where everything went wrong and doesn’t think of a plan or do anything to immediately help either kingdom until the final hour between the ultimatum being made, to everything getting destroyed. The inciting incident was disagreeing Mantle should be left in favor of Atlas but the main character didn’t do anything to help Mantle 90% of the season and hindered Atlas’s safety up until the final plan.

Yang is used to be the devil’s advocate in a bunch of situations, but she’s wrong most of the time or her lines just don’t make any sense. They weren’t doing just fine before Atlas. They almost died every step of the way. The team didn’t beat a Leviathan; silver eyes and a robot take credit for that. Why would Blake think less of Yang for wanting to go save people immediately? Blake was never mad at anyone to begin with. Yang consistently calls out people for following orders as if it’s objectively wrong, but is never called out on the fact she hasn’t followed anybody’s orders but her own and added discourse to every situation. I get RT is making her ask questions because that’s what Raven told her to do, but all she’s really doing is picking fights and disobeying every order. Yang states to Ruby they accomplished more than they expected. That’s false, getting Oscar back is correcting a mistake caused by her own plan that she didn’t even complete.

It took 6 volumes before Yang had anything to do with the Summer Rose subplot again and 7 volumes before her and Ruby had a sister to sister conversations; 5 if you wanna count Yang telling Ruby to leave at the end of volume three. The reason I bring this up is because in V8 , they treat their argument as if it’s a big deal but then have every character say it wasn’t that big a deal; but then have two circle back to that conversation later after having neither character discuss to anybody that the argument actually did weigh on them. Yang doesn’t think about Ruby until she sees her again and the closest we get with Ruby is Blake reassuring her that people need her and how Blake admires her. I like that scene but it’s not the same as Ruby actually airing out the specific point that Yang said something that Ruby found hurtful. Vol8 in general people trying to comfort others but nobody ever actually addresses what made them uncomfortable to start with. Except Ren.

This one is a nitpicking but I’ll say it anyways. Penny getting hacked only served as a purpose to go to the vault, a thing Ironwood already wanted them to do. Nobody got her because she was hacked. You can’t even say her getting hacked is the leading factor to her actually dying because Penny became a vulnerable human afterwards that can’t be rebuilt. Pietro was gone, and already stated last volume he doesn’t have the aura to build Penny again. If she died as a robot then it’s still permanent death. No core, no Pietro, and no aura; hacking her was just to create a Hound reveal situation and make them go to the vault on a different set of terms. I’m not exactly upset with this, but I don’t understand why the extra steps. The Hound was hunting her anyways. I would’ve brought some kind of value if she hurt a friend and it caused them to potentially hinder the plan later on or remove them entirely. Penny could’ve rekt Yang and it only adds value to Yang getting one shot later. I don’t know. I’m rambling.

I think I’ve wasted enough people’s time. Honestly, I do like this volume. I’ve enjoyed a bunch of it. But there’s things that legitimately make me think it’s not as good others and makes V7 even worse.

#rwby #rwby volume 8 #ask me stuff

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ticklishfiend · 4 years

Text

Spoiled Afternoon

The Disastrous Life of Saiki K - Saiki, Kaidou, Kuboyasu

a/n: alrighty here’s my saiki k fic i promised LMAO it’s not great as i wrote it kinda quickly but maybe it’ll hold me off until i get bored and maybe make another hehe. anyways!! hope you enjoy! :)

. . .

School days like today felt like absolute bliss to Saiki. It was possibly the most boring day imaginable when it comes to PK High, and he was on top of the world. At this point, the only thing that made him feel even more excited was the prospect of being able to go home alone and have an even more boring afternoon. It was a heavenly thought, really.

“Nendo, you’re not even gonna ask to go get ramen?” Kaidou asked the taller boy next to him as they all strolled home together. “I mean, you ask that like every day, is something wrong?”

“Did I not tell you two? I finally got another job!” Nendo exclaimed, smiling brightly at the boys, Kaidou being beside him and Saiki right behind. “I’m actually headed there right now, guess it just slipped my mind to let my best buds know hehe.”

Yeah, that’s not gonna last very long, Saiki thought. I won’t be surprised if he gets fired before he even arrives.

“That’s great man! Where are you working?” Kaidou asked, before Nendo stopped walking and pointed down a road they don’t usually walk.

“Just some rinky-dink stop-n-go shop down that way. I could show you guys the place if you want!” Nendo smiled widely, his hand gesturing towards a shop down the road that looked...less than friendly. Thugs were gathered outside the door, a fog gathering around the entrance that upon further inspection seems to actually be cigarette smoke.

Kaidou’s face turned sour, his brows furrowing awkwardly as his eyes never left the scary store’s front. “Uhm...I’d love to Nendo, really, but I...I have to study! Yeah, so much homework tonight it’s kinda overwhelming!” Kaidou laughed nervously, a hand scratching the back of his head.

Kaidou, we all have the same classes, surely you don’t think Nendo won’t realize-

“Oh, I understand buddy! Well, you’re free to stop by anytime! My hours are from 3 to 8!” Nendo waved as he started making his way down the road opposite to the other boys. “Bye buddies!”

Oh right. How could I forget Nendo’s raging idiocy?

“Jeez, that was a close one,” Kaidou spoke as the two boys began making their way as far from that road as possible. “I hope Nendo will be okay over there, it seems really rough.”

Nendo’s a pretty big guy, he can fight his own battles if he needs to. Honestly, his surprising athleticism might be the only thing that could help him keep that job, Saiki thought. Thanks to Nendo, I don’t even have to worry about getting food with these morons, I can just go straight home with no distractions or obstacles in my w-

“Oh hey, Kuboyasu!” Kaidou shouted happily, waving his hands toward the purple-haired teen in front of them. What a pain, just another thing to slow me down from my goal. “What are you doing in this alley, I thought your house was down the other way?”

“I was actually looking for you guys. Speaking of which, where’s Nendo?” Kuboyasu asked, looking around the other two boys as if Nendo’s huge frame could be hiding behind them somewhere.

“He got himself a job down that creepy road over there, some scary-looking shop surrounded by a bunch of thugs,” Kaidou shivered just thinking about it. Kuboyasu’s eyes widened like he knew the exact place he was talking about. Saiki read his thoughts only to find out he witnessed some crazy shit there once during his bad-boy phase. Yikes. “Anyways, why were you looking for us?”

Kuboyasu was suddenly transported out of his thoughts and back into the real world. “O-Oh, right!” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a game cartridge. “I bought this game a while back and I heard it’s much more fun if you play multiplayer. It only goes up to three people, but now that Nendo’s at work all three of us could totally play together!”

Great. Why today of all days did Nendo have to start a new job?

Kuboyasu handed the game over to Kaidou for him to look at, the blue-haired boy’s eyes going wide with excitement. “Wait, I’ve heard of this game! Oh my god, we have to play this, it was one of the top rated games last year!”

I’ve heard of this one too. It’s some fighting style game much akin to Mortal Kombat. Why would Kuboyasu even buy this kind of game if he didn’t have anyone to play with? Everyone knows fighting computers is never as fun. Still, I’m not going. I’d much rather sleep the afternoon away.

“My mom doesn’t really let me play many games so I didn’t get to buy it when it came out, so this would be the perfect opportunity for me to play!” Kaidou continued.

Oh, so now you’re gonna pull the mean-mom card to try and get me to play with you guys? Well it’s not gonna work, I’ve been looking forward to this afternoon all day and I’m not gonna let some-

“I’ve got snacks at my house too so you guys won’t go hungry while playing. Oh, Saiki, isn’t your favorite coffee jelly? I’ve got plenty of that in my fridge, you’re free to as much of it as you like!” Kuboyasu smiled in Saiki’s direction.

…

Wow, this coffee jelly is really amazing, who knew Kuboyasu’s mom knew how to make it homemade?!

Saiki smiled contently to himself as he happily ate his first coffee jelly of the day. He was sat on the floor in front of Kuboyasu’s bedroom TV, Kaidou on his right with Kuboyasu on Kaidou’s right.

“That’s such a bummer that your mom doesn’t let you play video games,” Kuboyasu remarked, his hands behind him on the floor to prop himself up.

“Well she does let me play some games, she just likes to make sure it won’t interfere with my grades. Basically I’m only allowed to play anything if my grades are good which...they’re rarely anything great,” Kaidou’s face blushed softly, an embarrassed hand coming up to scratch at his shoulder.

“She won’t get mad at you for being at my house, right?”

“Nah, doubt it, as long as I study when I get home I’ll be good,” Kaidou responded sheepishly.

Kuboyasu smiled, reaching his body forward and grabbing the game from off the ground in front of him. “In that case, you guys ready?”

Kaidou nodded excitedly. Jesus, Kaidou, you look like a little kid on Christmas, calm down.

Kuboyasu pushed his glasses upward before placing the game into the console, grabbing the three controllers on his TV stand and handing two of them to the other boys.

What a pain. I’m only here for the coffee jelly, do I really have to play this game with these two? Saiki thought while sitting down his empty bowl beside him on the floor, reaching out to grab the gaming controller offered to him. I guess I might as well. I don't want to be rude and ask for another bowl.

The game loaded up, each of the boys picking their characters (Kaidou picking his with extreme excitement and enthusiasm as if he’d never played a video game in his life).

Saiki decided to go easy on the boys, especially Kaidou. I could win this game with extreme ease if I wanted to, I basically know all the insides and outs of it at this point. But, Kaidou seems really excited about it. I should let him have this.

Saiki died within the first few minutes of the first match at the hands of Kaidou, Kuboyasu dying mere moments later, leaving Kaidou the winner of that round. The blue-haired teen’s hands shot straight in the air at this, an excited “HA!” leaving his lips. Maybe that stroked his ego a bit too much. Kaidou’s arms remained in the air with pride as the next round began to load up. Kuboyasu just rolled his eyes and jabbed two fingers into the boy’s ribs, making him jolt back in surprise with a yelp. Kuboyasu grinned.

Once their new round finally loaded up completely, one of Kuboyasu’s thoughts caught Saiki’s attention. “I know exactly how I’m gonna win this one. Sure, it’s a dirty way to play, but at least I’m not hurting him.”

Again, Saiki decided to die close to the beginning of the match (again at the hands of Kaidou), but this time with different intent. I’m honestly a little intrigued to see how this plays out, but I don’t want to be caught in the middle of it. As long as I die first, they can hash it out between the two of them, leaving me out of it.

Kaidou’s face was contorted in concentration, his eyes never leaving the screen in front of him as determination to win took over. Saiki noticed Kuboyasu’s eyes slowly beginning to glance at Kuboyasu, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. Finally, Kuboyasu shot out his left hand to Kaidou’s right side, squeezing with intent as his right hand continued to use the controller, now beating Kaidou. Kaidou nearly jumped out of his skin before letting out a loud laugh.

“Wahahait! Stohohop! That’s not fahahair! This is cheheheating!” Kaidou cackled, his right arm shooting down to protect his side while he continued trying to play the game. It was really no use, though, as his eyes were squeezed shut so he couldn’t even see the screen.

“You got a little too cocky last match, it was annoying. Plus, I’ve played this game dozens of times, so this is wayyy more fun for me,” Kuboyasu grinned, his character on screen finally beating Kaidou’s. He didn’t let up, though, now sitting down his controller to tickle both of Kaidou’s sides.

“Nohoho mohohore! I gihihive! I’m sohohorry!” Kaidou howled, flopping his body completely down on the floor and rolling over on his side. Kuboyasu began moving one hand upwards towards Kaidou’s armpit, and the laughing boy underneath him began kicking his legs out. “Nohoho! Not thehere! Plehehease!”

Can it really be this bad? I mean, I know I’ve never been tickled before but Jesus, Kaidou sounds like he’s being murdered, Saiki thought to himself, his eyes not being able to leave the heaping pile of giggles on the floor before him. It’s true, Saiki had never been tickled before. Sure, his parents definitely tried to when he was little, but he would always just teleport away before they got the chance. Plus, he had never really had friends growing up to tickle him, so he was just completely in confusion at how it could really be that bad that it had his classmate on the floor begging for it to stop like that.

Finally, Kuboyasu let up, backing away from the giggling boy to give him some air. The purple-haired teen had a smirk on his face that wouldn’t disappear, a look of almost endearment plastered on.

“That was so unfair, you totally could’ve killed me!” Kaidou whined, finally sitting up but not moving his arms from his abdomen like he was scared it would all happen again if he moved them.

“Relax, I just tickled you, you big baby,” Kuboyasu rolled his eyes with a grin. “Not my fault you’re so ticklish.”

Kaidou was blushing furiously, his arms crossed and face contorted in a childlike pout. Suddenly, Kuboyasu looked up at Saiki curiously, his head cocked to the side.

“Yknow, Saiki, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you laugh before,” he said with a smirk, his gaze wandering down to meet with Kaidou’s.

Saiki’s eyes went wide, a feeling of dread he’d never felt before pooling in his stomach.

No. No no no, no way this is happening. I have to get out of here. I have to do SOMETHING-

Before Saiki had time to come up with an escape plan, Kaidou pounced on top of him, knocking him down to the floor on his back. Kuboyasu scrambled over to where Saiki’s head was lying, looking in his eyes upside-down.

“Kaidou, don’t,” Saiki telepathically warned the grinning boy propped up on his waist. Kaidou’s fingers were already scribbling in the air above Saiki’s torso, and for once the psychic really didn’t know what to do. Kuboyasu very suddenly grabbed onto Saiki’s wrists, pulling them above his head. I don’t want to use my super strength against them, there’s no way this is the way they find out about my abilities. I’ll just let them have their fun. Who knows? Maybe I’m not even ticklish-

Without warning, ten fingers uickly came down onto Saiki’s sides, pinching up and down the torso like it was nothing. Saiki could felt in instantly, and it was one of the most confusing sensations he had ever felt.

His body started to squirm without him even realizing, twisting from side to side like he was trying to get away. He clamped his mouth shut, not wanting to let real laughs out.

“Cmon, Saiki, you know you wanna laugh~” Kaidou teased, his right hand continuing to pinch his side while his left began lightly scritching at his lower stomach through his unfortunately thin school uniform in the most unbearable way.

Giggles were bouncing around in Saiki’s ribcage, but he still tried so hard not laugh. But, once he felt two new hands begin scratching at his underarms, it was all over. Apparently, while Saiki was too focused on Kaidou, Kuboyasu had pinned Saiki’s hands under his knees, now having full access to Saiki’s recently discovered ticklish body.

“NAHAHAHA! STOHOHOHOP!” Saiki pleaded, his eyes squeezed tightly shut, an unfamiliar large smile contorting his face. His head swung from side to side as his legs kicked out from underneath Kaidou, the blue-haired teen absolutely relishing in his friend’s torment.

“Who knew all this time all we had to do to get you to smile was tickle you?” Kuboyasu teased, his fingers trailing down to Saiki’s ribs. Saiki thrashed at the new spot, his pleas getting more desperate.

“Right? I didn’t expect him to be this ticklish either, it’s honestly a real shock,” Kaidou smiled, pinching Saiki’s hips and making the psychic buck underneath him.

After another moment, the two boys relented, climbing off of Saiki’s heaving body and allowing him a breather.

That was insane. I feel bad for judging Kaidou earlier, that was seriously intense. How is that not used as common torture?!

“You good, Saiki? We didn’t go to far, right?” Kuboyasu asked, looking at Saiki who was now sat slightly up, his head down between his knees so his classmates wouldn’t see his unfortunate blush.

Saiki just gave a thumbs up, making the other two boys chuckle.

“Just so you know, I’m totally gonna use this against you when you’re being grumpy,” Kaidou smiled, his hands coming up to form wiggly claws as a threat. Then the boy let out a sudden yelp, twisting away from Kuboyasu who was sat right behind him. “Hey! You already got to tickle me, no more!”

“What?! Kaidou, I didn’t tickle you,” Kuboyasu said seriously.

“Dude, I literally felt it! You can’t say I didn’t feel something I felt!” Kaidou yelled, yet again pouting like a child.

That’s what you get, Kaidou Saiki thought to himself. Tickle me again and it’ll be much worse.

. . .

a/n: ahh! ok that was definitely not my best but i hope you enjoyed anyways! pls like/rb if you enjoyed it lmao, i know im not gonna get many notes from this cause this isn’t a fandom in demand but any feedback would be lovely :))

#tickling #my fic #tickle fic #tickle community #saiki k #ticklish!saiki #ticklish!kaidou #fanfic #the disastrous life of saiki k.

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sokayisaidiot · 3 years

Text

Dream SMP Assumption #8

Today’s topic: Heart or Mind way?

Please DO NOT read if you’re uncomfortable with the themes of death, depression and suicide. It’s a very complicated theme. I did NOT study it and do NOT know some aspects of it. I just go off the things I saw in the smp and made my own theories about it. If you’re even slightly triggered by this, please stop and do NOT try to read it. Please do NOT put yourself in some kind of uncomfortable zone.

Please do not. Thank you

(This is all assumptioning from the fictional world of dream smp)

(Heavy spoilers on the resent events)

(Also just assumptions, when you know something, you can always drop it :))

(This Series is created by another person, that’s just too fuckin lazy to move her butt)

Trigger warning today:

Death

Hints of the betrayals

Okay- what I’ve wanted to say-

is when you like a character, it mostly is because they are relatable. And that’s sad, because when other people are just straight out say this character sucks. Then you just think, “Hey! I feel relatable to them! You just say I suck too!”

Have my Analys why you maybe like your character so much and why you shouldn't shit on others! Because thats just hella rude!

For me, it’s tommy. I find myself in the situation often he is in. Hell, he has two older brother figures and one sarcastic dad figure (for me it’s my mum). As tommy has his deep and undestructable love with the disks, I have my connection to my teddy bears. I mean I’m nearly sixteen now, but when I think going without my teddy somewhere, i will protest and I will beat up people if they try to destroy them. Or for nihachu, being a woman in a world full of men who think they need to guide her, when she is completely able to guide herself! But that doesn’t mean I agree with his/her actions.

It’s important too understand how you act and why you don’t agree with some things!

Other people feel relatable with their favorite character because they make the same decisions. One of My brothers have the same mindset as technoblade. They act the same and make the same desicions. My other brother is the same way with Wilbur.

--------

I will not say here that they all think just in this ONE direction, but how they act in general ways. And this is not any hate against any character, since its actually a analysis and I really feel connected to most of them in some way!

Tommy is a heart person. He thinks with his emotions and that’s why his plan are more improvised and thinks of people first and then the product. Seeing him acting for tubbo and then for the discs. Or him going rescuing Niki and then fighting when he knows he can act out with her being safe. With his emotional way he also makes the brashest decisions. His emotions bring him often into danger and make him a perfect weapon.

Heart people also are

Puffy, with thinking first of the children and even going against a friend and power. Her goal is to destroy something which is planned to be destroyed later, but doing it beforehand since it hurts others. But with her age, she has more knowledge than tommy and CAN act with a plan and not just improvising.

Sapnap is also a heart person. He acts out of emotions and like Tommy, makes many times rash decisions. He likes doing improvised things and jumping into action from a simple order. Not like Dream, who scouts everything out or does one plan after thinking of millions of ways of outcomes.

Phil also thinks with his heart. He just sees children and adopts them. He also carries pain like from when he killed Wilbur. He does make many mind decisions, but most of them come from experience. And with the way he didn’t outright went after the axe of peace, which would have been a logical decision, he didn’t attack Tommy.

Niki is part of the heart people. It’s obvious like we all know. She sees the peoples feelings first and then plans out. When she saw her fox getting killed by sapnap, she let her emotions handle out first. She is also a very forgiving person and a big hearted person. When she is hurt, it will take a long time for her to figure it out. Like she stated, her character has a hard time coping with everything and instead of letting her mind sort it out, she goes against another person. Tommy in this case.

Eret at the start was a mind person, with their decision of seeing something like power first and then the people and also making full fletched and thought plans. But with them deciding to go against Dream (Manberg vs Pogtopia War and losing his crown and later fighting against Dream and protecting Tommy and Tubbo) because of their decision to listen to their heart first. They changed to listen to their hearts, instead of really thinking of their own valuable

Wilbur is through and through a heart person. His emotions made him go insane in the end and the deep emotional bond to Tommy was his unfinished business. He thinks for the country that he makes home for the others and will take his friends dear too him, when they are in danger. He will not hesitate to take a bullet for them or put their safety over his. Looking at, when he stood up to Schlatt, protecting Niki in the process of the crossfire.

Jack Manifold is a very emotional person. He takes things to heart and can't really think with the most logical way. He will remember things you do or did. Like when Tommy killed him and he lost all of his stuff, he was very and is still very angry. He thinks of revenge and the way people forget that he is also pretty young.

For Technoblade, its really seeable that he is a mind person. He barely handles out of emotions. It can be, because he thinks it’s like a weakness, showing his open emotions. He sees his ideals before the heart way. Like how L’Manberg was in the end a big part corrupted. When his emotions gets too much, he will act them out in fletched out plans.

Other mind people are

Dream is PRETTY much the biggest mind person out there with Techno. He thinks through seeing his plans. Like said with how he plans everything through and being always ten steps ahead. His cockiness about his own mind thinking bring his plans to fall. He has a quick thinking pace and also a learn Strats in the moment he fights against his opponent. Which hello? This just screams of a mind, that manipulators take on.

GeorgeNotFound has a clear mindset. He doesn't care about others when its not close people to him, or just doesn't care at all. Hense for all that housebuilding to himself while Pogtopia fought against Manberg. He takes things he feels, makes him more powerful.

Purpled. He thinks through his money. He didn’t question the quest he got and cares about the profit. He has the job of assassin, which just screams of profit and not any heart emotions involved. As a Assassin, you aren't allowed to handle out of emotions. It gives you disadvantage when you show pity against your target.

Badboyhalo sees power now. With the eggplot, he changed from a heart person too a mind person. He sees from the egg a win and got that way manipulated. The egg, which I think possesses him (but thats just me and my crazy thinking mind) Let him make Mind decisions. With who would be good for the Eggpire and who would be dangerous.

Punz has the same way as Purpled. Thinking through the winning situation. He does things when it profits him. He sees a right payment and he will act out on that. Seeing that it is always payment to have him on your side. Or also, when the battle of the lake/tower happened, he choose the winning side, which was obviously Techno and Dream.

Jschlatt is a mind person, Mind you! He saw a way of getting power and he knows how to play it out (not thinking about the drinking part). He saw the threats of Wilbur and Tommy and made the mind decision of exiling them. He thinks of his own profit, without letting his emotions work out.

Tubbo is one of the cases where he has both ways! Surprise! He AINT a “UwU boy”, because he can make brash decisions but thinking in high situations quickly or logically. He makes nukes for gods sake! And with the logical way, he knows when its impossible to win, like when Tommy and him where in Dreams “Hall of Fame”. In Moments he WILL think positively or bring someones else happiness over himself. The discs and Dream Situation! He thinks about his friends and new home, but makes plans on how they can be safe through logic ways.

The people who think both ways

HBomb94 is in there too, because he is really cool. Okay? Good. And the funny thing is, he is kinda both. We saw him, before Doomsday, thinking about the logical way of the situation. In other, when he decided to go away, because he doesn't feel he belongs somewhere, he thinks with his heart, even though, other members respect him AND care about him

Awesamdude is here too because its seeable in the ways where he cares about others and still thinks with a plan. Seeing Tommy’s and Tubbo’s protection and his hotel with a heartfelt decision, as well as trying to help Tommy’s mental state, while still getting his own profit out of it logically, is pretty smart. Props to c!Awesamdude!

Ranboo. He makes decisions like following people first or not choosing sides which is big logically, but his emotions, like being loyal to those who have saved or helped him are heart felt. He doesn't choose sides because he knows that all the sides bring bad conflicts with them and still stays with others for them.

Fundy has both! The Fox can be very hurt or make rash decisions from his heart. But his mind also goes with it, like deciding that he actually liked a big part of Jschlatt’s Plan. He needs a bit of time to calm down of the emotional side, but when he is, he is one of the most clever people on the server, like a fox, you know. Okay, please end me-

Quackity has a more wavering state to heart, but making decisions like taking Jschlatt’s side by the elections and seeing his own profit out of it. After seeing Jschlatts wrong doings how so ever, he did what his heart told him to do and he joined the rebellion.

Ponk has both ways. If he sees profit, he will take the situation. A logical mind set. But also when both Tommy and Tubbo fighting Dream he came with the group to help them, giving Tommy a HUGE FUCKIN AMOUNT of DIAMOND BLOCKS, he makes them a grave out of hearts decision for the soon or already dead people and visits Awesamdude, since they are good friends.

Antfrost who actually has a way of thinking with both heart and mind. When he sees a win situation for him only, he will make it. The whole getting more land to themselves and also the eggplot. But he also makes decisions like letting Niki go when she was their hostage, because he feels it’s wrong.

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I want to hear who you feel relatable too- which character which way? Is it because you act the same, make the same decisions or just are often in the same place? Just comment here!

That’s where I think people will protect their favorite character. Yeah, there are many people who act like Tommy’s character or think like techno’s. Nobody is the same, that’s impossible.

So please don't attack other characters ways of thinking or handling, only if it is something so morally incorrect or wrong (MANIPULATING, KILLING, Hostage situation, total destruction)

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und3rc0ver · 4 years

Text

Exhausted (Some Chilumi cuz why not =D )

Haha computer go clicck clack.

After seeing @restlessfandoming writing some awesome fanfics, me -along with my mediocre vocabulary- thought I'll try to make my own. I found Chilumi cuz of their writing, so I think there's no harm in making my own.

P.s: if u read this, ur writing is superior to mine (@restlessfandoming)

(SPOILERS: Events after 1.1 update)

< Part One >

Why is everyone one here so needy?!?! Can’t I just have a break for one single day!?

Lumine - the hero of Mondstat, was tired, exhausted, and breathless. She hadn’t slept on a comfy bed, ate a decent meal, or even sat down and took a couple of breaths for herself for a good month now.

She’d just finished quest after quest, fight after fight, journey after journey. She couldn’t count how many places she visited today. And while it was heartwarming to hear the people’s thank-you’s and receive their rewards during her treks, it wasn’t enough to swing her out of this coma.

To her, it just felt instinctual. She doesn’t even notice it anymore.

And despite being a tad bit oblivious -and dare I say, stupid- at times, the traveller’s guide, Paimon, was the first to pick up on it.

“Oh god, you look more depressed than Diluc!” She joked; but to some extent, she was right. Lumine just shook those words off like some dust off her shoulder, as she ventured through the busy streets of Liyue.

"I'm fine.." Lumine said.

All of these adventures came at a cost: paid usually by time, energy, and patience. But when all was settled, she still hadn’t met all of the Seven, or even found a clue to find her brother.

The thought would immediately drain any happiness she found in Teyvat.

But of all the people she has met, and all the people she has fought alongside and against, only one really caught Lumine's attention.

The Eleventh Harbinger, Childe.

The flipside of a ruthless harbinger being as protective and supportive to anyone was puzzling her. Even after the Harbinger explained his morals and goals, she simply couldn’t fathom the idea of it.

They did have their share of tussles and disagreements, but when is all said and done, they made up rather quickly.

But one thing was for sure; she saw both sides of this coin, and she was intrigued by it.

Besides, seeing Childe being so energetic and silly with Teucer was pleasing to her. It warmed the traveler’s cold and seemingly hopeless heart.

Ah! She stopped at a vantage point overlooking the busy harbour of Liyue. Peering over a thin wooden fence, resting her elbow and head onto the rail.

“Perhaps he’s like a vigilante: he doesn’t seem to like the Fatui’s ideas, but he still is apart of them.”

Lumine was thinking hard, trying to place the right piece in this puzzle.

"It seems like he calls his shots for good results and benefits of his family." She mumbled to herself quietly. She remained puzzled, leaning on the fence, trying to recall what she knew about the Harbinger.

When he wasn't a merciless warrior, Childe was an energetic, and arrogant person: it was these traits that ultimately won over her trust.

However, it was difficult to think about him positively after he tried -and nearly succeeded- to kill her.

But it was not impossible.

Meanwhile, Paimon wasn’t going to just stand there and let the traveler think on an empty stomach.

“UGH,” she groaned, floating right in front of Lumine to obscure her view. “Can we please get something to eat?”

“Okay,” She responded, pulling out a chicken-mushroom skewer.

But like a picky toddler, she pushed the skewer away.

“Do you think I’m gonna eat this garbage again!??” She said furiously, followed up by a small growl from her stomach. “We’ve eaten the same thing for five days straight! Don’t we have like 800 000+ Mora that we can spend?”

At this point, Lumine was too tired to deal with such a small event like this. Pulling a pouch from her bag, she poured some into her hand, and gave it to her hungry fairy-guide.

“Knock yourself out,” She huffed, facing Liyue’s harbour once again. A ship was docking at one of the city’s ports, full of goods and food to trade and sell: which was what stole the traveller’s attention at the moment. It would take a couple of tugs on Lumine’s dress for her to bat an eye at Paimon.

Lumine sighed,

“Not enough?” She asked, looking to snatch the pouch from the guide’s tiny hands.

“Why don’t you come with Paimon?!?! What if someone tries to steal me?!?”

“You’ll be fine..” Lumine answered, “The Millieth will save you anyways.”

“Come on!!” She wailed, tugging Lumine’s arm this time. “Stop thinking about who you want to marry and get me something to eat!!”

The traveler's eyes twitched.

It was this comment that nearly made Lumine explode. Why? It was clear as day that Lumine was quite fond of the people here. Plus, she had an embarrassing habit of staring at people she liked a lot. Anyone observant could see the signs from a mile away. Unfortunately for her, she was just too tired to be anrgy.

“Okay, okay,” she said sluggishly, stretching her arms and letting out a small yawn. “Where do you want to go?”

“I wanna try the Tigerfish from that Chen guy, people say it’s one of the best foods in Liyue!”

So off they went to find Chen, the street food vendor, which was surprisingly easier than Lumine thought.

After a ten minute wait, they arrived at the front of the line, where they were greeted by Chen’s big wide smile. This could’ve been the time where Lumie could treat herself to a little snack; but, she wasn’t hungry, and opted to stay silent.

For now..

“We’ll take four Grilled Tigerfish, please!” She ordered happily. After all, she wasn’t the one to worry about a single expense.

“Alright!” Chen said joyfully. “That’ll be 1520 Mora, please.”

Reaching into the pouch, she pulled out enough to cover the bill, along with a 150 mora tip.

“Say, Traveller,” He looked at the unenergetic Lumine, confused. “Seem a bit down today. Finding your fame in Teyvat to be overwhelming?”

She just laughed it off, taking the grilled skewers from Chen, and passing it to Paimon.

“Well, not really,” she lied.

Because everyone would want the “Hero of Mondstadt” to help them out.

“Just another busy day, full of commissions from all over the place.”

With the transaction now complete, Lumine began to walk towards the Adventurer's Guild to collect her rewards from all those commissions. But a call from a distance pulled her right back to Chen's food kiosk.

“Here,” he smiled, giving her an extra fresh-skewer.

“But shouldn’t I-”

“It’s on the house for today: I insist,” He said kindly. “Seems like you work hard to keep our city in good shape. Take it as a token of appreciation. “

Although it was a kind gesture, Lumine was skeptical of having it: she felt a bit guilty for practically stealing it.

But, if Paimon sees a good deal, she acts quickly.

“Thanks Chen! See you later!!!” She cheered, grabbing the Grilled skewer for herself.

“Anytime,” He replied. “Safe travels!”

“You too..!” Lumine said awkwardly, dragging herself away from Chen's kiosk.

Though she felt guilty at first, she felt pretty good after that kind gesture from Chen. It almost put a smile on the Traveller’s face.

Almost…

While Lumine was traversing through the busy, and colourful streets of Liyue, Paimon -who was starving for the last three hours- inhaled those fish like a vacuum.

Lumine was totally fine with eating her 10th chicken-mushroom skewer today. After all, she liked the plain dish when cooked right: but like Paimon, she too wanted a different taste.

And she, too, wanted to try Liyue’s Grilled Tigerfish.

With a sudden stop next to the Jade-betting kiosk, Lumine gave in, and sighed.

“Got any.. left..?” She asked hopelessly, knowing full-well that there’s probably none left for her anyway.

“Yeah!” The fairy said, holding two skewers of the grilled fish in her hands. “I knew you wanted to try these! They are reeaaally good!!”

One bite, and Lumine loved it. She gulped them down faster than the wind itself! This was a taste that brightened her day: one that made the girl lick the stick to get some more flavour.

Together, they walked around the busy plaza, arriving at the Adventurer's Guild commission board. Both were a bit curious if there were any newer commissions up-for-grabs.

But their luck ran out, and there were none to be seen. Both a shame, but strangely, a relief for Lumine.

I must’ve finished a lot of them. Should get me a decent reward, and maybe a break-

“Hello, traveler,” An all-familiar voice said, drawing the two’s attention. Of course, Kathyrine, the receptionist of Liyue’s Adventurer's Guild branch, was talking to them.

“I assume you’re here for your rewards for today?”

“Yeah..” She admitted.

“Today you completed 8 commissions in Liyue, correct?”

Just as she asked, Lumine slipped eight papers, all signed by each citizen she’d completed a task for.

“Well, it seems that you’ve come prepared,” Kathyrine chuckled. “Here’s your reward.”

The pouch of Mora seemed quite heavy, which Lumine knew would be 60 000 Mora (since each commission would be worth about 7 500 Mora, depending on what an Adventurer would do). It would be enough to buy her a place to stay for a couple of nights.

“Thanks,” Lumine said, gently shaking the pouch of Mora in her hand.

“Actually,” the receptionist continued, “Someone has been causing a lot of trouble near the Golden house. A couple of our adventurers have gone there and came back severely wounded, with one still in hospitality as we speak.”

“Oh,” was all that came out of Lumine’s mouth. She definetely wasn’t expecting a commission there.

“Sorry, where was it again?” Lumine asked.

“I believe this person would be in or around the Golden House.”

“Okay,”

That certainly rang a bell in the traveler's mind.

“As one of our more… experienced members, would you like to take a look and see what’s happening?”

Of course, Lumine wasn’t the kind to back down. It was this trait of hers that helped her save Mondstadt.

“Will do,” She responded.

And off she went to investigate the Golden House.

* * * * *

“You sure you don't want to come in too?”

“I think it’s better for Paimon to sit this one out.”

Once they reached the enterncenof Teyvat's Mora stash, Paimon decided to disappear into her own little world, leaving Lumine alone once again. But she wouldn’t be alone for long, because the feelings of fatigue, and nausea were slowly creeping towards the traveler. Once she cracked the door open enough for her to slide through, she tip-toed her way inside, trying her best to not reveal her presence. But for today, luck was definetely not on her side.

Out of nowhere, an electro-blade flies right next to her neck, begging to pierce Lumine’s skin. But she did not flinch a single bit. She just looked dead-pan into the eyes of the culprit:

Childe.

“I see you’ve come back for a rematch, eh?” He said slyly, letting his blade de-materialize from his hand.

“And you are here to cause some more trouble?” She countered, slowly walking towards the Harbinger: a deep, serious look at Tartaglia's lifeless eyes.

“I guess you can say that,” He admitted, now twiddling with his water blades. “Some have told me you're a workaholic now. No?”

“What makes you say that?” Lumine questioned, sword in hand.

“I’m a Fatui!” He laughed, gesturing towards the ceiling. “I have eyes and ears everywhere.”

At this moment, something weird was happening to Lumine. She felt nauseous, and tired all of a sudden: that burst of energy from having the Tigerfish was now depleted. She felt like her usual-self, or at least the one she presents to most people that meet her.

But worse.

She felt vomit from her throat, and judging on how relatively lumpy the texture was, it probably was those Chicken-mushroom-skewers she’d eaten for the last ten days.

Despite all of it, she still stood tall in front of the Harbinger, not letting herself give in just yet.

“So,” Tartaglia teased, wielding his signature bow. “Are we just going to stand here and look pretty, or are we going to fight?”

She wanted to say yes: she wanted to beat him convincingly: she wanted to assert her dominance.

But her body held her back.

And when the battle began, she dropped her sword right next to her feet, unable to hold it properly anymore.

“Ah, guess you don’t need a sword to beat me?” He said, his weapon hanging at his side. “I like your confidence, Ojou-chan.”

The name rolled off his tongue in a way that made Lumine flustered.

Still, with little energy left in her, she used Anemo energy to retrieve her weapon, and fought fiercely.

Punch for punch.

Block for block.

Blade for blade.

With his bow, Childe released a horde of arrows right at Lumine, but she effortlessly danced past all of them. Imidietaly, she changed a ball of wind to fire, but a slick move from the Harbinger made Lumine look silly.

It was mezmarizing watching the two go at it.

After a very intense skirmish, the two broke apart from each other, taking a small moment to breathe.

For Childe, he regained his strength to fight once again.

But Lumine had a trick up her sleeve.

And all-or-nothing, last-resort move, she had never tried before.

With the last game of energy left in her, she rushed towards the Harbinger, zooming past everything Childe threw at her.

And when the time was right, she tackled him to the ground, catching him off-guard

Luck seemed to finally be in her favour.

But not for long.

* * * * *

"Uh, boss..?" A mysterious, light voice said, panting heavily.

"What..?" Another voice -a little deeper in tone- replied.

"The Millieth are on the scene as we speak, I just got out of there without being seen."

The deeper voice laughed hysterically.

"Millieth? You pathetic coward. I guess I'll have to find it myself-"

"N-NO WAIT!" The light voice pleaded, "there's no need: I found a pattern on the floor, that may interest you."

The darker voice stood tall, looking down to his inferior.

"And what might that be..?" The darker voice snapped, holding the other by their collar.

"There's-There's a pool on the floor."

The boss dropped his co-worker from his grasp, leaning back in his throne.

"What was it…" He said, aggravated.

A pause came from the co-worker, leaving the boss on the edge of his seat.

"WHAT WAS IT!?!" He screamed furiously.

"B-b-blood and v-vomit, and some water.. sir.." The lighter voice whispered.

The boss smirked, twiddling a small dagger in one hand.

"Blood you say?" He asked curiously, leaning close to hear the other's response.

"Y-yes M'lord!!"

"... Good…"

Idk when I'll write pt.2, but thanks for reading anyways.

#childe #lumine #genshin impact #genshin impact lumine #genshin impact childe #childe x traveler #childe x lumine

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cosplayingwitch · 3 years

Text

"Presentation is Everything"

Part two of "Finding My Way Home" series

Takes place 6-8 months after the last chapter

Prompt: flowers

Pairing: f!reader x Poe Dameron

Summary: Reader has graduated with their masters and had to leave their roommate/best friend/(crush?) behind as they go on to a doctoral program at a different university. Reader is about to present her work at a professional conference and an unexpected surprise calms her down.

Triggers: panic attack, slight stalker-ish behavior, these two being complete idiots, swearing

Tags: @make-me-imagine

It’d been over six months since you’d seen your best friend, Poe Dameron. You were successful enough with your thesis (even while practically teaching a field class for Professor Solo) and graduated with your Masters degree. And with the help of Professor Solo’s recommendation, you'd gotten into your dream school for your PhD.

Which meant moving two states away from your best friend/roommate. Not exactly something you’d wanted to do, but this wasn’t an opportunity you could turn down.

When you’d told Poe, he was very supportive, but still sad about the whole thing. You’d definitely stay in touch, you insisted. There was social media, zoom, all of that.

“Plus we could always meet up somewhere between us!” you told him. “It wouldn’t be more than a couple hours for each of us.”

That didn’t mean you didn’t miss him. His random breaking into song at what could be described as the worst possible times. What he always described as his ‘fact of the day’, which always dissolved into a random string of thoughts. (He still sent you his ‘fact of the day’ via text, but it wasn’t the same without his commentary.)

Remembering the night you spent stargazing, you also realized you missed your chance to tell him how you felt. To outright ask him out on a date. You always rationalized the urge away as not wanting to ruin your friendship, as him probably not feeling the same way as you. Who knows if he was even into girls (or anyone at all). In the many years you’d lived together, he’d never brought someone back to the apartment you shared.

(That’s because he wanted you, your heart shouted at you, you’re an idiot to let that go. But your brain insisted there had to be other reasons.)

Either way, the research you’d done with Professor Solo didn’t just get you into your doctoral program. You’d be presenting at a research conference soon. On your own. (That was a theme with Professor Solo. He’d help you start something, then insist you do the rest of the work.) This was your first time even attending this conference, let alone presenting at one. My god, you thought. How am I supposed to do this? Alone?

This will go down in flames, the voice in your head continued. You’ll fuck it up and ruin your academic reputation. And then never get your doctorate or a job.

When you get to your hotel the day before the conference was set to begin, every worry you’d ever had was spinning through your head. All the ways you could screw up nearly had you in a panic attack. Oh god, you thought, please let me get to my room before I start hyperventilating.

But then, you entered your room to find flowers. Yellow roses with a hint of red. Your favorite.

There was only one person on the planet who knew that. Poe Dameron. But how did he know where to send the flowers? Was he stalking you? The card read:

‘For my friend who I haven’t seen in forever,

My friend who is likely in a panic attack,

My friend who will kill it with her presentation.

You don’t need it, but good luck.’

God, he could write. And it’d been six months and hundreds of miles, but he still knew you well enough to anticipate what you were feeling right now.

In an instant you had your phone out and were calling him.

“Well look who finally called. I guess the flowers did the trick?” Poe answered.

“How did you even know where to send them? I never told you where I was staying! Are you stalking me or something?”

Poe explained, “Well, while you didn’t tell me the hotel you were in, you did tell me every other detail about the conference. And their website had the ‘official hotel’ of the conference, so I figured you’d stay there. The office there wouldn’t say if you were, but did tell me I could get flowers delivered there and he’d make sure they went where they needed to go. I took the chance. Obviously it worked, you called me and I didn’t even leave my name on the card.”

“You could say that. Thanks, by the way. You were right, I’m starting to freak out. I’m presenting my research tomorrow. The stuff I did for my masters. All these other presenters already have their doctorates.” you reason with him. “Maybe I’ll get there someday.”

Poe about exploded through the phone. “MAYBE? MAYBE you’ll get that degree ‘some day’? I did NOT lose my best friend to another university three states away to ‘maybe’ get a degree. You WILL get it. Not tomorrow, but eventually.”

You couldn’t tell if he was angry, joking, or trying to encourage you. A mix of the three? Somehow it did feel like he was trying to give you a pep talk. Break you out of the panic setting in and focus you back on the goal. He knew how much you wanted this and he would never discourage you from going after it.

“Okay then. How about you tell me about what’s going on back home and take my mind off this whole thing.”

Oh god, you thought. You referred to where he was as home. I mean the university, you rationalize, the place where I just lived and studied for six years. Poe’ll probably think that’s the case anyway. You certainly did not mean him.

“Well, you know while you’ve been gone, I went and knocked off another thing on my bucket list. I’m a few weeks away from having my pilot’s license!” Poe stated, which sent you into a small laughing fit. You knew he’d always wanted to, but with his awful driving skills you never thought it’d actually happen.

“Good for you, I guess. Just be careful- I definitely don’t need my best friend dying in a plane crash.”

When you finally got off the phone with Poe, it was late. You’d had room service delivered while you were still talking, him likewise with delivery. In some ways, it was like you were back together again, having dinner on the coffee table while gossiping about the faculty and staff at the university. Who was having an affair, who was being suspected of plagiarism, whatever the next big scandal would be and how the university would cover it up this time.

It was just the thing you needed to make you relax. Your boyfriend best friend supporting you.

You stopped yourself. Not again. Poe was not your boyfriend. He was a friend and nothing more. And you certainly weren’t screwing that up.

Somewhere in the back of your mind, or maybe the bottom of your heart, you couldn’t help but think of him in a romantic way. That maybe your relationship with Poe could evolve into something more. Maybe even hope for that happy ending. After all, he could have just texted you good luck, but he chose to send your favorite flowers and a beautifully written card.

That would count as a romantic overture in your mind. If you were in some kind of cheesy rom-com with him, that is.

Friends. Nothing more. Nothing less. Friends. You remind yourself.

Friends.

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

Poe kept running that conversation over in his mind for days. I was a fucking idiot for sending her flowers, he thought. The note was even worse. Both were definitely something romantic, but he didn’t want you to know that he felt that way about you.

Then you asked about ‘what was going on back home’. Home. Poe asked himself if you meant the university as home, you’d been there for more than six years. Or did you mean him? Your formerly-shared apartment? Was your intention to say you considered the apartment, and him as an extension, as your home?

God, Poe thought. I’m way over thinking it.

But what if she meant that in the same way I meant the flowers? He asked himself. Some kind of idiotic slip of the mind that was only there because of underlying feelings?

Her slip of the tongue wasn’t as bad as his flowers, but it gave him some kind of hope that someday you might actually be a couple, growing your friendship into something more. But he pushed this hope out of his mind as best he could.

After all, they were only friends. Friends only. Nothing more. Nothing less. Just really good friends who know each other's favorite flowers and things that could send them into panic attacks. Friends who lived and studied together for long enough to practically be family.

Home? Just the university they went to. And where he just happened to live, too.

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Author's Note: So I used this type of flower because they are my personal favorite, but then I decided to look up the 'meaning' behind them... I suggest you do the same... (not intentional, but a really nice coincidence for this)

Also, I'll be updating this again next weekend with posts on Saturday and Sunday. Let me know if you want to be tagged in future chapters!

#meras30daywritingchallenge #poe dameron #fan fiction #flowers #idiots in love #poe dameron x female reader

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umbry-fic · 3 years

Text

A Palette Full of You (1)

Summary: Glimpses into Colette and Lloyd's lives as they grow up together, learn who they are, and fall in love with each other.

(Written for Colloyd Week 2021)

Fandom: Tales of Symphonia Characters: Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel, Anna Irving, Kratos Aurion Relationships: Colette Brunel & Lloyd Irving, Colette Brunel/Lloyd Irving Rating: G Chapter: 1 of 6 Word Count: 6218 Mirror Link: AO3 Original Post Date: 09/06/2021

Chapter Title: Castle Invaders!!

Chapter Summary: Colette and Lloyd enjoy a sunny day at the beach as children. A sandcastle is made, but does it continue to stand for long?

(Colloyd Week Day 1: Childhood Friends)

Notes: 1st chapter of my multi-chapter Colloyd week 2021 fic, featuring my headcanon of asexual Colette. It's also a modern AU set in Singapore.

Chapter list Full fic Next chapter

~~~

8-years-old

"Lloyd! The water's here!" Colette called out, setting down the heavy bucket filled with water next to Lloyd. Mission accomplished, and without a single hitch! Mostly. She wasn't going to mention how she nearly spilt all of the water when another girl's arm missed her by a hair's width. Or how her heart was still pounding from the close call. "We can get started with the sandcastle now." Lloyd was so occupied pushing sand into one giant pile that he hadn't even noticed her approach.

Having finally gotten his attention, Lloyd stared at her blankly for a few seconds before seeming to come to his senses. Scrambling to his feet, he began to shovel the pile of sand into the bucket. Overhead, a seagull's cry rent the air, barely audible over the screaming of all the children and adults on the beach that was packed to the brim, the two vastly different in tone. "Thanks, Colette! We might need another bucket of water, though. I don't think this is enough."

"Oh, I can -"

"Nah, I'll get the next one. It would only be fair!" Lloyd grinned a toothy smile at her, prominently displaying the gap from the baby tooth that had merrily vacated his mouth last week. She herself currently had a loose tooth that she absent-mindedly pushed at with her tongue, until she pushed too hard and caused a slight stab of pain. It would likely fall out soon.

"Come on, then! This sandcastle won't build itself alone!" Lloyd said, grabbing her hand with his, rough with the individual granules of sand sticking to it.

Colette giggled and joined him, attempting to lift some of the wet sand from the bucket to start making the base of their castle - only to find that the sand seemed to have solidified into one giant clump that refused to budge from its snug home. Every attempt to separate a tiny handful yielded a sucking sound that seemed to make the sand stick together even more, ever more determined to stay with their granular siblings. With a final huff, she put all her strength behind her arms - only to flop back down onto the beach with nothing in her hands.

"That's - hard!" Lloyd grunted, faced with a similar predicament and having no choice but to give up. The sand would remain in the bucket for the foreseeable future, it seemed. He wiped his hands on his red swimming trunks before offering it to Colette, helping her back up.

"Didn't think the sand would stick together this much," Colette muttered. This was why her father had advised them not to use a bucket, huh? She stole a glance towards the collection of colourful beach umbrellas that was close by, where their parents were taking shelter from the sun. They were sitting on the same striped picnic blanket where breakfast had occurred earlier, having a relaxed conversation over cans of lemonade while keeping a watchful eye on the two of them. Noishe was there too, taking a morning nap by the blanket.

Spotting Colette, her father waved cheerily, before taking another chug from his can.

She and Lloyd had been so excited to finally visit the beach during the March Holidays. They'd been jumping up and down on the car seats, sticking their noses into the window, and chattering non-stop on the journey here, giving Noishe, curled up on Lloyd's lap, no peace to sleep in. Her father, who had been sitting with them in the backseat, had just watched with an exasperated smile, having given up on asking them to calm down when his pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

The two of them would finally get to see the breathtaking ocean they had witnessed multiple times when watching The Little Mermaid, their favourite movie to watch together. Lloyd loved the vibrant ocean and the possibility of an entire unexplored world full of magic under the waves. She liked the colours and the cute designs, and the absolutely beautiful story of true love overcoming all. They’d watched it one time too many, until Flounder and Sebastian easily visited her in her dreams.

Aunt Anna had made clear upon their arrival her two conditions for letting them in the ocean. Firstly, that an adult had to accompany them at all times. Understandable, given the terrifying power of the ocean with its roiling waves, that had only been impressed on her upon actually seeing it with her own eyes. Secondly, and expectedly, that they had to wait an hour after breakfast, the familiar argument of "You have to digest all those cheese sandwiches!" leaving Aunt Anna's mouth.

They might as well make the most of the one hour, so Colette had suggested building a sandcastle to pass the time. It was one of the activities that she thought was a must-do for a first-time beach trip. After all, where else were they going to find all the sand they needed?

Lloyd had happily agreed. She was glad to see him finally perk up after wilting a little at the reminder that he needed to wait - days were much better when they were both smiling, and it wouldn't do for Lloyd to spend his first time at the beach with a frown on his face. So they'd dug up the shovels and the buckets from the car's trunk and set out to make the best sandcastle ever, one that reached the sky! They weren't going to let their lack of experience hinder them!

Perhaps that goal was a tad too ambitious. But that sure wouldn't stop her from trying!

Having made zero progress in getting the sand out of the bucket, Lloyd resorted to upending the bucket and slamming on the bottom with his hands until the sand all came out in a single bucket-shaped mound. Colette spared a worried glance at the plastic bucket, which had let out a groan. She had no clue how sturdy it was. Hopefully, it wouldn't break.

"Come on, Colette, let's do this!"

"Yeah!"

Lloyd knelt to start tamping the sand into shape, and Colette joined him.

"Could you pass the shovel?"

"We're out of water again!"

"How about we try doing this?"

Those were the only words that left their mouths as they worked together, their hands brushing. There was also the occasional peal of laughter that slipped out of either of them at something funny the other had done. Otherwise, they were in perfect sync, without the need to talk. They could just adapt to the other's actions. She remained focussed on her task, tuning out the sounds of life around her and getting her hands covered in sand, until there was even sand under her nails.

The sun continued to get higher on its arc, its rays falling on all the bare skin revealed by her navy blue one-piece swimsuit. It felt like she was roasting alive. Sweat ran down the sides of her face and her throat was dry. A can of cold lemonade sounded really nice now. She was glad, at least, that their parents had insisted they put on sunscreen, and had helped slather the two of them in it from head to toe, Lloyd squirming the whole time. If not for that, she would surely have an excruciating sunburn by now. From what she'd seen of her classmates who had returned from last year's March Holidays with red and peeling skin, she was glad to avoid it.

They made steady progress, bar the few close calls where she nearly flung the shovel into the sandcastle. It slowly took shape with a few more water-gathering trips and repeats of the not very effective bucket-slamming tactic, until finally, it was complete. Even the bucket had survived all the abuse! Colette sat back on her haunches to observe their handiwork, a smile lighting up her face.

Their masterpiece.

Okay, it wasn't a masterpiece. It was nowhere near perfect, or even amazing.

A messy tower stood before her eyes, tapering from a wide base to a thin top. It was tiny at thirty centimetres high. From the middle onwards, the tower slanted to the side, a result of Lloyd pushing just a bit too hard. It resembled the Leaning Tower of Pizza now, but, just like that mysterious tower, their tower was still standing through some unknown magic. Using a random stick he’d picked up off the sand, Lloyd had etched a smiley face with wobbly lines into the side of the tower. He'd stuck the stick into the top to act as a flag, exclaiming that the Disney castle had a flag on top of the main building, so theirs would too! She'd also dug a trench, in which Lloyd had poured the extra seawater remaining in the bucket to create a moat. Now no villain could mount a successful attack on their castle! Not even the Goombas or turtles they stomped every weekend in Super Mario Brothers.

The moat had dried up in seconds as the surrounding sand had absorbed the water, but it was the effort that counted. And it looked cool for a while!

Their castle was pretty average compared to the other ones she could see on the beach, and most definitely was nothing compared to the grand, detailed designs she had seen that one time on TV. But she had fun building it, and it was something she'd made together with Lloyd, so it was worth being proud over. That was all that mattered.

It was nice to imagine their castle standing here for all eternity, even if she knew it wouldn't last once they left. She and Lloyd's castle, powerful and durable, even against the worst of enemies!

"Looks good!" A hand landed on her head, prompting Colette to look up and see Aunt Anna waving a polaroid camera around. She could see her reflection, wide-eyed and smiling, in the sunglasses resting on the bridge of Aunt Anna’s nose. Aunt Anna must really love that pair of sunglasses; she always wore them whenever she was driving her and Lloyd to school in the mornings. To protect her eyes from the sun, and to look stylish while doing so? Who knew.

Aunt Anna had put on a giant sunhat, the brim so wide that it cast a shadow over Colette's face. "Come on, let me take a picture of you two with the sandcastle!" Aunt Anna said, raising the polaroid camera to her eye and miming clicking the button.

After a bunch of poking and prodding from Aunt Anna to get them into the best position, with loud protests from Lloyd’s end, they were finally ready to have their photo taken. For the sandcastle to actually show up in the picture, they had to stand behind it. Lloyd looped his arm around her shoulder, while she gave Lloyd bunny ears with her fingers. She would never give up the opportunity to do so. "Say cheese!" Aunt Anna yelled, raising the polaroid camera with a massive smile and clicking the button, the camera emitting a flash of light that blinded Colette for an instant.

"Can I move now, Mom? And can we finally go swimming? Pleaseeeeee?" Lloyd whined, plopping back down onto the sand before he even received his answer. Colette blinked rapidly, still trying to get rid of the spots in her vision.

"Oh, the pictures are gonna turn out sooooo cute," Aunt Anna muttered, retrieving the printed-out polaroid from the camera and beginning to shake it, waiting for it to develop. She glanced at Lloyd, sulking in the sand, and gave him the thumbs-up. Lloyd perked up immediately and scrambled to his feet to run off, only to stop in his tracks after hearing Aunt Anna's next words. "Wait a moment, would you? Your father is gonna follow you and he's still coming over."

"Dad! Hurry up!" Lloyd yelled, impatiently hopping from one leg to the other as Uncle Kratos leisurely walked over. Noishe, having finally caught up on his beauty sleep, ran over too, barking in excitement. Colette giggled, crouching down and reaching her hand out for Noishe to bump his snout against with every round he made around Lloyd's legs. Would Noishe be joining them in the ocean? It was against the rules to bring dogs into the swimming pool, but there was no such rule here. Maybe Noishe secretly liked water! There was no better chance to find out!

And the more the merrier!

"No going further than the bobbing spheres, okay? And stay close to your father!"

"I know, Mom! I know! You told me this three times already!"

"Just checking," Anna replied cheerfully, ruffling Lloyd's hair and prompting a scowl to pop onto Lloyd’s face.

"You got it too, right?" Her father asked her, having come up behind her.

"Yes, Dad!" Colette replied, getting to her feet and preparing to run down to the ocean. "I promise I'll -"

Unfortunately, Colette didn’t get to finish her sentence. One small step forward and her foot caught instantly against the spare shovel still sticking up in the sand, which had completely escaped her notice. Everyone, even Noishe, stopped what they were doing. All three adults stretched out their arms in a desperate attempt to stop her fall, but they were too far away to have any hope of catching her. Flailing her arms, she fell, the world seeming to go by in slow motion as the tower of golden sand became increasingly larger in her vision.

Until she crashed right through the tower she and Lloyd had spent the last hour crafting, in her unstoppable path to face-planting on the beach. Her hand felt the roughness of tightly-packed sand as that sand exploded in every direction. Closing her eyes against the rain of sand, she threw her arms out to cushion her fall, finally landing on the sand.

The action now over, Colette pushed herself into a sitting position, wincing. No visible wounds anywhere. No blood. No lasting pain. At least the sand was somewhat soft.

Oh no… Heart sinking in her chest, she stared at the mess that had once been a glorious sandcastle, now just a sad misshapen mound of sand. The top of the tower had been scattered everywhere.

She could feel everyone’s eyes on her, an awkward silence arising even as noise continued to surround them. She'd ruined everything with her clumsiness again... She wanted to hide, but there was nowhere to hide out here in the open. Maybe she could dig a hole in the sand and hide forever...

"Colette! Are you alright?" Lloyd’s voice broke the silence, a helping hand offered to her as he stared down in concern.

"Yeah." She took his hand, using her other to try brushing off the grains of sand now sticking to her whole body. There was so much... She'd never get all of it off. She opened her mouth, ready to apologise.

“Come on, there’s no time!” Lloyd interrupted before she could even say anything, tugging on her hand as he had done before. She was being pulled in the direction of the waves, stumbling a little in surprise at the sudden movement. “Our castle was attacked by enemies, and they’ve fled to the water! We need to pursue them! Right?”

Lloyd winked at her, a huge grin on his face. She could read the message in his actions loud and clear: there was no need to apologise. Just get back to the fun!

“Right!” She replied, wiping the hesitance from her expression and replacing it with a smile, worries already forgotten. The ocean would be one solution to all the sand stuck to her skin!

“Race you!” Lloyd yelled, letting go of her hand and abruptly taking off. She cried out indignantly in response, chasing after him as fast as she could, Noishe following hot on their heels with his tongue lolling out of his mouth, ears flapping up and down. Their yells about being first to get in the ocean reached Kratos’ ears, who simply sighed at their familiar antics.

~~~

“Here,” Lloyd said, pressing something small into her palm. He and Colette were both drenched from head to toe from all the swimming and water wars that had occurred. The tips of her hair brushed her shoulders, leaving tiny trails of water behind and causing water droplets to slide down her arms. Not even Noishe had been spared, shaking his matted fur furiously. The water had been colder than she'd expected, but all the running around had helped to combat it. In fact, she was exhausted from all the activity, the smile on her face so wide her cheeks hurt and her throat hoarse from all the screaming and laughter.

Now that they were on dry ground again, they were standing by the picnic blanket, waiting for their parents to return with towels. Whereafter their parents would hold the familiar ritual of smothering them with towels, squeezing each strand of hair dry.

In her hand was a seashell, rough against her skin - not the stereotypical blue ones that were always on the pages of the Chinese textbook whenever the ocean was mentioned, with its fan shape and equally-spaced out ridges - but rather an off-white colour, fantastically curved with little spikes sticking out of it to form a geometric pattern. It had a gaping opening that revealed its pink insides.

“Dad said it's called a conch shell,” Lloyd explained. “Snails hide in them, but this one is empty. I found it just now!”

“Oh, it’s so pretty! I haven’t been able to find any...” She’d been scouring the beach to no success. The most she’d spotted among the sand were tiny fragments of what had once been seashells, smashed to smithereens by the wrath of the ocean.

“Put it against your ear! I tried it, and it really works!”

“The sound of the ocean...?”

Colette lifted the conch shell, aligning the hole with her ear and closing her eyes to listen closely, covering her other ear with her hand. She and Lloyd had read about this many times before - how a shell contained the entire ocean within it.

And it did. It was a strange, mysterious sound - like there was water within the small shell lapping against its walls, somehow, even though that wasn’t the case, for any water would have leaked out of the opening by now. It was almost like she herself was surrounded by the ocean, as the shell in her hand must have been as it was carried by the currents to stop on this beach. What a lonely journey that must have been, alone in the deep darkness.

She opened her eyes to see Lloyd’s smiling face, his hand gently pulling hers away from her ears.

“Did you hear it?”

“Yeah. That was incredible...”

“Well, the shell is for you.” Lloyd gestured, grinning.

“Oh, really?” She gasped. “No, you found it, so it should be yours!”

Colette tried to pass it back to Lloyd, but he refused. He only closed her fingers around the shell with his hand before hopping just out of arm's reach. Infuriating.

“Nah, it’s fine! Keep it! I insist!”

Colette pouted, knowing Lloyd wouldn’t budge on the issue. There were times she wished he wasn’t so stubborn. There was no way she was going to win this.

“I’m sorry I can’t give you one in return… I can try and find one now!” she suggested, already scanning the beach as she took a step forward.

“No need for that!” Lloyd reassured her, returning to her side and grabbing her arm to stop her. “Mom said we aren’t staying here for much longer after we’re done cleaning up. You can just make it up to me some other time.”

“Alright! That’s a promise, then. Thank you for the gift,” Colette said, feeling the ridges of the seashell dig into her skin as she tightened her hold. They had gifted each other little trinkets like these many times before, mostly curious objects they came across whenever they played at the playground. She kept every single gift from Lloyd, just as she would this one. Anything she got from her best friend was precious.

Colette could see the adults walking over in the corner of her vision, holding the aforementioned towels and… Popsicles! Oh, those would be delicious. But it also meant her time at the beach was coming to a close.

Colette knew she wouldn’t ever forget this day. This sunny day, filled with joy, fun and wonder…

~~~

28-years-old

"Remember this one?" Lloyd laughed, pointing to the open scrapbook sitting in his lap. His finger sat on a polaroid that was held in place on the page by 4 pieces of cellophane tape, one of which was crooked, and another of which was starting to peel. Colette tapped her finger on the yellowing polaroid as well, recalling how she had gotten it from Aunt Anna and proceeded to stick it in her sketchbook. Words filled the rest of the page, denoting the events of the day, together with a doodle of a seagull sitting on a giant seashell. If she recalled correctly, this was one of the last pages of her scrapbook before she'd gotten too busy to keep it up. It was fun while it lasted, though, absolutely cramming the border of each page with a horrendous amount of washi tape.

She and Lloyd's happy faces peered up at her from the polaroid, a tiny, not very impressive sandcastle visible in front of them. The weather on that day, a foggy memory but not forgotten, for it could never be truly forgotten, couldn't be any more of a contrast to the rain currently slapping against the windows of their apartment, turning the world outside into pure white as the rain obscured all. The wind howled and caused the window panes to rattle in their housings. The air was chilly, fogging up the windows and further blocking their view of the world outside.

Colette should have been shivering on the bed in her denim shorts, but she was nice and toasty instead, legs covered by a thick blanket. She was resting against the backboard, legs stretched out, hair falling to mid-back in messy tangles. The blanket itself had the sewn pattern of dogs doing various things: jumping over fences, dozing off on clouds, running with bones in their mouths. It was adorable! And most of all, it reminded her of another dog who used to run circles around her feet and snuggle on the blankets with her, but who was no longer with them.

She’d even gone the extra mile and put on socks and a hoodie. Lloyd had taken one look at her and… hadn’t done anything else, because this was normal behaviour from her when she was cold. He’d long since accepted it.

Plus, she was leaning against the ultimate source of warmth! Lloyd, who was also under the blanket, legs pressed snugly against hers. Just as always, he could somehow survive the cold in just jeans and an old T-shirt, showing absolutely no signs of being affected. No shivers, nothing. It was impressive. He took "warm-blooded" to the next level.

Her entire body still felt tingly from the cups of hot coffee that Lloyd had brewed in the kitchen earlier. He’d done hers perfectly without even having to ask, the knowledge of how to do so having long been ingrained in his memory. “Precisely half a teaspoon of sugar and half a cup of milk,” he’d said in a sing-song manner, the warm orange of the kitchen’s ceiling light falling upon him and his gentle smile as she’d stood next to him cutting apples. The rhythmic sound of the knife hitting the cutting board, the clinking of the metal spoon against the side of the porcelain cup, and the thudding of raindrops against the window had been the only sounds filling the kitchen.

They’d drunk the coffee first, backs against the countertop and their eyes meeting across the rims of their cups, his hand finding hers in the little space between them. The hot liquid had slid down their throats with ease, settling warm in their bellies. Having drunk his coffee all at one go as he always did, Lloyd had waited for her to finish. He hadn’t said a single word, preferring to maintain the comfortable silence. The only thing he’d done was rub her fingers with his thumb.

They’d then taken turns popping the apple slices in each other’s mouths, the flesh crunchy when they sank their teeth into it, the sweet juice from the fresh fruit a refreshing contrast from the bitter liquid they’d just consumed. Lloyd, as messy an eater as always, had left little bits of apple at the corner of his mouth like tiny yellow spots that she’d had to brush away with her fingers.

Today was Sunday, the day where they both didn't have work to do, unless they were handling some big project with a pending deadline, and had some time to themselves. Their favourite activities to do on this wonderful day of the week included marathoning Disney movies, playing video games together, and going out to their favourite destinations. They also weren't opposed to just lounging on bed together, or taking some alone time.

But today was also a rainy day. She'd actually been woken up by the first claps of thunder in the early morning. The rain had no business being this heavy after the conclusion of the monsoon season, but Mother Nature was fickle, and they could do nothing but accept their given lot. No going out to the Botanic Gardens as they'd originally planned. The only thing they could do was stay home, unless they wanted to catch a cold on purpose.

It was Lloyd who had found her old scrapbook in a corner of their room while aimlessly wandering around the apartment, the book having gathered a thin layer of dust that made her sneeze when he brought it over. She'd forgotten it was sitting on one of the shelves. He had suggested looking over it, since they had nothing better to do. They had just gone through Frozen, Tangled and The Little Mermaid last week - the plots were still fresh in their minds. More fresh than usual. She could recite the entire script of The Little Mermaid from memory if she needed to.

What better time was there to reminisce than with their second anniversary coming up? What better place to do so than in the bedroom they shared, its corners teeming with keepsakes and memories, absolutely overflowing with their love for each other? Just being in here for a minute was enough to make her heart feel warm.

The framed pictures hanging on the walls and sitting on the nightstand - of them and their parents; of the two of them under a sky full of stars; of them and their friends, laughing and popping bottles of wine, fitted in elegant dresses and stylish suits. There were many more pictures, kept in the various albums lining the bookshelf above the bed, which she occasionally took down to look through on days when she was feeling rather nostalgic. Staring up at her from the pages were contented faces from all throughout time, allowing her to track her progress from days long past to the person she was today.

The Siberian Husky plushie she was currently hugging to her chest. The soft fur felt incredible to the touch, and it was so comforting to just run her hands through the fur, tightening her fingers on tufts of it. Behind those beady black eyes were more, however, a significance that no one else but herself could see. A precious memory of a carnival and the time they were finally honest with each other; a step she had been terrified to take but which she’d mustered up the courage to, in order to join Lloyd at the other end of the open door and grab the encouraging hand he offered her. She had stumbled many times along the way, but Lloyd had steadied her every time. She’d gambled on the chance, but it had all been worth it - for she had managed to find her home in Lloyd, and it had all led to the beautiful life she led today, where she got to see his happiness every day.

The wall painted over with galaxies, swirls of pinks and purples and blues, and a single adorable dog in a spacesuit, which they had hand-painted when they first moved in until they were both splattered with paint and giggling.

And of course, the two matching, nondescript metal bands, one lying atop the other on the nightstand.

"You destroyed the sandcastle not soon after, right?" Lloyd said.

"Hey!" Colette pouted, poking Lloyd's side. "Don't tease me."

Lloyd shifted his body away from her attacking finger, still smiling warmly. "I'm not teasing you. I'm just stating what happened." He turned around and retaliated by poking her on the nose, sending her reeling back in a fit of giggles. "It was fun, though!"

"It was," she agreed, struggling to hold back further laughter, bubbling up within her chest like an uncontrollable fountain. “You gifted me a conch shell afterwards. Remember?”

“Of course I remember, silly. It’s sitting on your shelf right now.”

That it was. She’d kept it all these years, the passage of time causing its colour to fade. In all other aspects, it was perfectly conserved, looking just the same as it had on the day he’d pressed it into her hand. She lifted it up to her ear sometimes, just to listen to the sound of the ocean.

Colette flipped to the next page of the scrapbook, looking over all of the memories contained there. Her childhood had been filled with joy, in no small part due to Lloyd, who took every opportunity he could to make her days fun-filled and exciting as he strived to make her face light up with a smile. There were moments where she was suddenly overwhelmed with a great sense of gratefulness for the fact that, out of an infinite number of possible outcomes, she had met Lloyd when she was young. For she was so incredibly fortunate, more fortunate than most, to have met someone who loved and accepted her for everything that she was.

She placed one hand on his cheek, fingers splayed, and turned his head to face her, his warmth spreading through her cold fingers from that one point of contact. Lloyd leaned automatically into her touch.

“Colette...?” Lloyd whispered, leaning automatically into her touch. His eyes searched hers, as he slowly came to understand what she was about to do. This close, she could make out each individual eyelash, attached to the eyelids that fluttered closed over russet eyes. Most people would conclude Lloyd was plain. Average, even. There’d been people who asked her upfront why she’d chosen to settle for him, when according to their honest opinion, her beauty could have landed her much better. They didn’t understand. She was the one fortunate enough to know his love and the miracle of such an incredible person staying by her side when there were so many things she couldn’t give him. A relationship with any other person would have been easier for him, filled with far less of a need for compromise, but he’d chosen her in the end.

Besides, there was beauty in plainness. The daisies that were ignored in favour of the orchids, the mynahs that were overlooked for the orioles. There was beauty to be found there, in the most ordinary of things, the ones people saw every day and had ceased to notice. It was a beauty she itched to capture.

Lloyd, to her, was the most beautiful of them all, a rare treasure that had somehow landed in her hands.

“Shh,” she whispered in return, eyes fluttering shut as she closed the small distance between them. She pressed her lips against his slowly, trying to push behind this one action - the gift she was currently giving - every ounce of the love and appreciation she felt at the moment, enough to fill her heart to the brim. It’d been a while since she’d done this. Two months, maybe? It was a little overdue, having slipped her mind for a time as it always did, no matter how hard she tried to remember. If not for the reminder that had pinged on her phone this morning and made the issue fresh in her mind again, she might have gone another month. She’d have to give him more soon, as per her end of the compromise they had both agreed upon when they’d first started dating, which had served them well all these years. He'd said before that he was alright with getting nothing at all, but that didn't sit right with her. She didn't think it would be fair for him to be the only person giving something up.

Kisses and anything further were always up to her to initiate, since Lloyd, as he’d told her time and time again, wanted her to be comfortable in everything she did. He’d never forced anything on her, content to wait patiently for her to feel ready, whether it be in an hour, a day, a year, or never, perfectly willing to compose their entire relationship on quiet moments spent together and nothing more. She still occasionally struggled with the idea that he was far more than she could ever deserve, even as he gripped her hand tightly and told her she was worth everything. It was getting better with every day she spent in his loving company, the extensive wounds left on her heart in her younger days by a world that told her she would never be enough slowly starting to heal. There would always be scars, but those would fade one day until they were barely visible, until the twinges of pain could barely be felt.

Lloyd’s lips were a little chapped from the cold, unmoving against hers, still tasting faintly of the sweet apple slices from thirty minutes ago. All in all, a pleasant experience.

After a second of shocked stillness, Lloyd came to life again, a small sigh leaving his lips and brushing against hers. His hand came up to cup her ear, his fingers curling in her hair as he kissed her back with nothing but gentleness, always mindful of her boundaries and never pushing her any further. Of course, he had boundaries too. If he’d decided to pull back, she would have respected it. It was the bare minimum she could do for him.

Thirty seconds passed and she pulled away, though not too far, opening her eyes to stare into his. Their hands remained where they were, connecting the two of them.

“Where did that come from?” His words became butterflies, brushing their soft wings against her lips. He tucked her hair behind her ear, his fingers stroking the skin above her ear with the tenderness he always showed her.

“I just felt like saying thank you.” For everything. For all their years together. For all the love he showed her. For the knowledge that Lloyd would continue to stay in her life, for the rest of her time on this wondrous Earth.

Not that long ago, she would have broken away and covered her face with the plushie that was still in her arms, cheeks flushed and too embarrassed to meet Lloyd’s eyes, preferring that he talk to the plushie instead of her. Much like the first kiss, unconventional as it was, that they had shared. Now she could stare unflinchingly with confidence to witness the happiness that bloomed like the most incredible flower on his face.

“Thank you. For the gift,” Lloyd replied, always seconds away from showing his appreciation.

“Shall we look through the rest?” she asked, removing her hand from his cheek to cover the one he had placed on her face, her fingers slotting in perfectly between his as she smiled sweetly.

Here was her sanctuary, where all she knew was serenity and the warmth of loving and being loved.

“Let’s.”

~~~

“Mm.”

Lloyd froze in the middle of flipping to the next page of the scrapbook, watching Colette with eagle eyes. Had he…

But she didn't seem to have awakened. Not really. She made no other sound, only tightened the hold of her arms around his midriff, her face buried in his side and the rest of her lying on her side on the bed. He'd resorted to holding the scrapbook up in order not to accidentally jolt her out of her peaceful sleep. So far, his arms had not started to hurt yet.

Lloyd heaved a sigh of relief, tucking the entirety of the blanket tightly around her shoulders, leaving himself uncovered. Now, swaddled in the blanket, she resembled a cocoon. Adorable. And also what tended to happen each night, as she ended up stealing the blanket eight nights out of ten.

Satisfied that Colette was soundly asleep, Lloyd returned to perusing the contents of the scrapbook, a small smile playing on his lips.

And silence reigned supreme, interrupted only by quiet breathing and the crinkle of paper.

~~~

Next chapter

#fanfiction #multi chapter #colette brunel #lloyd irving #kratos aurion #anna irving #colloyd #colloydweek2021 #day 1: childhood friends #tales of symphonia

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