#like perhaps the only person to ever actually almost match my energy in a romantic sense. there was [redacted] i guess but he didnt love me

[kallulovesu]

Heyooo :) can you do headcannons for a platonic yandere allies ?? Am aroace so that's the kind that floats my boat, also do you ever feel tired of writing ?? Like .. ur so productive, it's awsome but like .. I hope ur doing it cuz u have energy not cuz you have followers waiting 😬 take care Plz ❤❤🥺

For the anon that asked that yandere reader ask, thx u inspired this ask ur idea is rad :3

(A/N:) ahh thank you for the worry anon, but it’s no problem really!💞 I wouldn’t be making as much content if I wasn’t having any fun, since it’ll probably end up feeling more like chore...and I hate doing chores 😭

That one protective friend that makes sure to check up on you every second (but it’s turned up to the extreme and downright becomes unhealthy in some cases)™

It was ironic to him. Out everyone that he had gotten to know over all these years— hell, perhaps even Arthur; you were the only one he felt like understood him the most. Not many seemed to notice what was going on beneath the surface of his facade, which was why he appreciated you being there. You still liked him despite the many flaws that he had, and tried your best being with him even if it became downright tiring. Alfred would be heavily dependent on you because of this, often going to you to cheer him up— or before he was going to make a rash choice.

So it was only natural that he couldn’t see himself being without you.

You were like a best friend to him; Alfred would even go as far as to say that he felt a familial connection between the two of you. So the deep desire to protect you was normal, wasn’t it? Even when he felt himself worrying for your well-being at even the slightest approach of a stranger, it was just his instinct telling him that there was something wrong. It wasn’t anything unhealthy. Thus, would usually drag you away from anyone that he found to be suspicious; even those he was already familiar with. This would probably result in a lot of arguments, with him trying to say what was ‘best for you’ and with you denying that you needed this much...protection. You swore that it almost felt like he was just isolating you from the others, to have you purely depend on him for whatever reason you couldn’t make up.

Alfred can’t handle being apart from you— nonetheless the idea of you being angry with him, or even hating him . It truly didn’t matter if the reason was rather ridiculous or not, the idea of you hating him just...made his stomach churn uncomfortably. You were his best buddy, and basically one of the only ones he could trust with his inner worries; and the risk of it all being taken away from him because of a silly, childish mistake was all it took to send the poor boy into a state of panic. Please don’t leave him, he’d do anything to keep you there with him. Begging, gifting— you name it.

Arthur didn’t completely seem to realize his feelings at first, confusing it with romantic attraction for a little while— before quickly seeming to realize that it was all purely platonic. He did feel a bit protective of you, maybe even possessive...but it had nothing to do with romance, nor lust. It was just him wanting to have someone beside him, someone that he could call a friend. And someone that would never leave his side.

It won’t be hard to notice how...bad his communication skills were; with him often saying things that he didn’t really mean and slightly setting you off. Arthur is stubborn, so it may take some time (and slight teasing at how much he hesitated) for him to actually apologize. You’ll probably get used to it after a while, since he’s one big tsundere.

Saying this out loud was an absolute no-no for this man— but you being around Arthur was often enough to make him the slightest bit happier. It felt a bit lonely at times, especially with less and less people being around him these past few years. So having you as a friend almost felt like a breath of fresh air.

He’s very critical of those you choose to be around with, often analyzing even the smallest of things so he can determine if they’re actually worth being around you. Which more often than not ends up... not being the case. Arthur will tell you to stay away from them; saying that they were suspicious, and probably had something bad in mind. He’ll resort to isolating you if you were to disobey him, trying to take as much of your attention— and perhaps even kidnapping you if the extreme were to happen. You were his one and only best friend, and he had to make sure you were safe. Always.

Totally the big brother type...well, he usually proclaims himself as being one, so it isn’t that much of a surprise.

Francis will make sure to absolutely pamper you with his attention; hanging out with you, sending letters whenever he was too busy...and simply sending gifts from France. He simply couldn’t let you go off feeling unloved!

He adores talking about you; usually going off on a mindless ramble whenever someone even mentions your name, like a proud father showing off his child. Others will usually compare him to one due to how much he adores talking about you— or simply the way that he treats you. Which would quickly be disregarded with a: “oh, I’m no father! They’re just such a nice little friend to have around, who wouldn’t want to praise such a delicate person?”

On a second note....he actually did feel like a father figure to you. Huh.

Francis will often suggest helping you out with your love life, perhaps even gushing over cute guys together that you found on a random dating app— before quickly realizing that he didn’t really want this. Those silly moments were fun and all, but having you talk with someone that could just be out to use you made him a bit angry...and paranoid, mainly the latter. He will make sure that anyone that even so much dares to get close you first gets his approval first. The feeling of a broken heart was all too familiar to him, and he didn’t want you to experience such a thing.

This may result in him checking up on you...an awful lot, making sure that those around you were only the best of the best and wouldn’t end up being bad influence to you. Yes, he truly was like a father.

A sibling-like person in his life that he didn’t feel insecure against and acknowledged him as his own person? Fuck yes!!

Jokes aside— Matthew really does care deeply for you. Perhaps it was due to the Canadian barely having those that he could...truly call close friends, so having you around almost felt like a blessing. Unlike Francis, he won’t really show you off or talk about you much, especially around his brother. The American had already stolen enough from him, so why would he let something like that happen again?

He’s extremely wary of anyone that even so much tries to make a move on you. It’s just...you were someone that he held extremely dear; and having you potentially getting hurt due to some lowlife that managed to slip into your life would absolutely break his heart. Matthew didn’t want to fail in protecting you, he would never forgive himself if something like that were to happen.

Losing you is something that he wishes to avoid completely. He’ll even go as far as kidnapping you if it came down to it, Matthew just couldn’t see himself living happily without you by his side.

Yao likes cute things...and you’re a cute friend, so it’s a perfect match!

But seriously, he thinks that you’re absolutely adorable. Whether it be because of your personality— or your appearance, it really doesn’t end up mattering in the end. You’re his cute little friend, and that’s all that matters!

He’ll often treat you with more, yet gentler care than most of the others around him. He knew that you were well capable of taking care of yourself; but he just couldn’t help but see you as something fragile, something that he had to protect. So you can already imagine how frustrated he gets when someone treats you with even the slightest bit of disrespect— Yao will often confront them immediately, while you awkwardly have to sit back and watch it all. Almost feeling pity for the person that had to endure your friend’s seemingly never-ending complaints.

Oh, he probably doesn’t quite realize how he comes off as a father at times; seeing how much he’ll scold you for the smallest mistakes (while making sure to correct you of course!) and how he usually made decisions for you, making it hard to refuse his gestures due to his pushy nature. But it’ll probably become a normal thing for the two of you as time progresses, since it’s just...how Yao was, you assumed.

His controlling behavior will also reflect on how he treats your personal life. Yao is very selective of who he lets you be around with, so he’ll often look at your acquaintances and friends with a very critical eye, immediately expressing his distaste in them if they were even to do the smallest thing wrong. “Such a brute isn’t worth being around, (y/n).” Yao will warn you to stay away from them, but won’t bring it up any further if you decide to do what he says. If you don’t then...well, he had special friends to help him out with his dirtier work.

Yao might consider kidnapping you if this behavior keeps on repeating, but won’t feel compelled to actually do it unless something bad were to happen.

Ivan will always try his best to be there for you! While it most likely won’t quite work with him being a rather busy person; a country, nonetheless, but he’ll do his upmost best. It was extremely hard for Ivan to make friends that...weren’t scared of him or secretly disliked him, so having you was such a relief!

Being his only friend, he’ll make sure to be absolutely devoted to you— perhaps in a way that wasn’t too healthy in a friendship, and would often be looked down upon by those looking at your relationship from an outsider’s perspective. But could one truly blame him? Ever since he was born it felt like everyone around him were either toying with him, or were utterly terrified of the boy expect for his two sisters. It was lonely...so it isn’t hard to imagine how overjoyed he was once having you in his life; someone that didn’t display the usual fright whenever he approached them, nor did you look like you were out to hurt him.

Ivan appreciated you a lot.

It wasn’t hard to imagine that you’d most likely become the target of a few other countries, your connection with Ivan wasn’t extremely hidden from the outside world... (from how much he’d senselessly mutter things about you when daydreaming, and the many times he stuck by your side) and so, others would take it to their advantage. Those like Alfred will probably try convince you to leave Ivan’s side, spewing terrifying stories of the man to try and stir up something inside of you so you could leave him. It was mainly for your own safety, yes. But it was also to make the Russian weaker. It was obvious that he was depending on you heavily, and losing you would...god forbid if that would ever happen. Ivan would completely lose himself, perhaps even snapping completely.

So don’t hesitate to tell Ivan if someone was bothering you! Ivan will make sure to get rid of the little parasite from your life in an instant, giving them a short warning whenever the two come across each other...and making sure that he got his point across! It’s better to ignore their sudden disappearance after that day, since someone like them wasn’t worth lingering in your mind.

#help me why do I always write america this dramatically #dilf France? 😲 #CANADAS PART IS SO SHORT IM SORRYYYY #yandere #Yandere hetalia #hetalia x reader #Yandere allies #Yandere aph america #Yandere aph france #Yandere aph england #Yandere aph canada #Yandere aph China #yandere aph Russia #platonic yandere #platonic Yandere hetalia

[chudleycanonficfest]

Day 26, Post #1 by @cheesyficwriter

Title: The Greatest Chapter 

Author: cheesyficwriter

Pairing: Harry/Ginny

Prompt: Moving in together

Rating: T

Trigger Warnings: None

Prompt: Moving in together 

  The Greatest Chapter

At age 10, I had the most embarrassing schoolgirl crush on Harry Potter. I'd see him and run in the opposite direction, painting the perfect image of me as a young girl who lacked the confidence needed to formulate words — any words — around someone I liked. 

Before getting to know Harry for who he really was, I was so infatuated with the idea of the Boy-Who-Lived. I wanted so desperately to be going to Hogwarts with Ron before I was old enough, knowing that Harry Potter would be there too. 

The way Harry took on a basilisk to save my life during my first year did nothing but solidify my growing feelings for him. My crush never really went away but instead transformed into a casual friendship based upon our shared experience in the Chamber of Secrets, a friendship that I was willing to accept at the time because I just wanted to be around him. 

As we grew up, I started to relax more in his presence. We gained a mutual respect for one another, exchanging laughs in the Great Hall and sharing in-jokes during Christmases at the Burrow. Those little moments, in between all of the chaos and turmoil of what used to be, helped me learn a few things about Harry that I wouldn’t have discovered otherwise — not even on the front page of The Daily Prophet.  

When I was younger, I admired Harry because I was under the impression that he possessed traits that I didn’t. I never imagined that I could be as brave, or courageous, or charismatic as he was to me. What surprised me the most about our developing friendship at Hogwarts was that there were far more similarities between us than differences. We shared the same wicked sense of humor — that I like to say I inherited from my plethora of brothers — yet could still hold my own during quick-witted battles, and I often found myself looking at Harry whenever something made me laugh, just to see if he was laughing, too. My stomach always spiraled when, more often than not, I found him looking back at me. We used our shared humor to our advantage, and I was thankful for that small respite in the midst of so much darkness. 

We shared the same values, both of us realizing the importance of family, friends, and love above everything else. It’s what we fought for every day, even when it seemed like we were too young to really know what love was. 

As our friendship continued, my romantic feelings for Harry were buried deep down in a place where I was once convinced they would stay. I decided to throw all of my energy into school, developing my skills as a witch, thus growing the confidence I needed along the way to put myself out there with other, more available boys. 

For years, we were caught up in our own lives, and it shocked me more than anyone to have captured Harry’s attention when I least expected it. From the first moment he kissed me, I never hesitated. All of those feelings I had attempted to bury came rushing back to the surface, like revealing a galleon that I had stashed at the bottom of my trunk. 

I will never forget those few stolen weeks we had together when I was 15 and he was 16. He described it as something out of someone else’s life, and at the time, I had thought that was all we would ever be. Time was fleeting, and there wasn’t enough of it. 

Harry had no choice but to dedicate his life to fighting for the wizarding world, and I was always determined to be right there beside him, up until the point where I couldn’t. I was smart enough to understand why he didn’t ask me to come with him. It was his mission. His, Ron’s, and Hermione’s. I didn’t often miss the times the three of them carried on by themselves, engaging in secret conversation and disappearing without the faintest clue of their whereabouts until much later. 

On that fateful day that Harry broke things off, I already knew what he was so desperately trying to convey to me. If I were to have accompanied him on the Horcrux hunt, it would’ve been me he was worried about instead of finding the pieces of Voldemort’s soul that were crucial to defeating him. 

That notion — although tragic in a sense — gave me more pleasure than the feeling of scoring an impossible goal during a Quidditch match. 

Regardless, Harry was never far from my mind those long months that he was gone. My childhood crush seemed silly at that point because I had gained so much more than a fleeting romance. 

As time passed, and Harry and I found our way back to each other after Voldemort's defeat, it took us a minute to catch our bearings and resume our relationship that we had put on an indefinite pause. 

It hadn’t always been easy dating him. In fact, dealing with the fame that Harry carried around with him from being a war hero had been a lot harder than I ever anticipated. But it was always unspoken that we managed, despite what any publishings had to say about us. 

I came to love him, not for being Harry Potter, but for who he truly was. His heart. His courage.  

As I stood reflecting on my relationship with Harry in the drawing room of 12 Grimmauld Place, I was overcome with emotion. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, but it was the one we were destined to have, and that made every hardship worth it. 

The room housed a large window overlooking the street, a charming — albeit dusty — fireplace, and ornate fixtures. For a person who just moved in, I felt like the house itself could have been in worse shape. Harry did an exceptional job keeping the place organized, especially for someone who, up until just a few days ago, lived there by himself. 

That’s not to say I hadn’t already spent plenty of nights at Grimmauld Place over the last couple of years. In fact, I probably spent more nights there than I did at the Burrow once I returned home from my final year at Hogwarts. 

It was during those nights that I discovered just a fraction of the pain Harry went through. He’d always been intensely emotional, and so many nights I spent shaking him from his residual nightmares of the trauma he went through, despite the wizarding world being in a much better place. I comforted him the best I could in those moments, determined to make it clear to him that I’m never letting go — not this time. 

I smiled to myself as I took a seat on the piano bench, observing the peeling paint from one of the large, cracked walls. We had a lot of work to do, but moving in together was a proper next step for us. 

"Gin? Are you home?" Harry’s voice carried through the dusty walls. 

Before I could respond, Harry was already standing in the open archway, head tilted to the side with curiosity etched across his face. “Were you just staring at a blank wall?”

I crossed my arms, determined not to let him know about my extensive reflection into our past. “So what if I was, Potter?”

He looked as if he wanted to question my retort further but instead joined me at the piano, bumping his shoulder with mine. 

“It’s a lot of fun coming home to you,” he admitted, the rich, melodic sound of the piano filling the open space from his fingertips pressing against one of the keys. 

“You know that’s practically how we were before, right? When was the last time we spent a night apart?”

Harry shrugged, and it was clear he never really thought about it. “Dunno, but it was one night too many, I reckon.”

I sighed, wanting to ask a question that had been weighing on my heart. “Do you find it odd that we’ve never really argued? I mean, even when you broke up with me-”

“Why must we go back to that?” Harry interrupted, a pained look crossing his face. 

I gave him a playful pat on the arm. I wanted our past to be something positive we could look back on and didn’t fancy dwelling on the shit times. 

“Shush. I’m just saying, even though it hurt a lot to not know where you were for almost a year, I always understood your decision. You had to go.”

Harry’s eyebrows knitted together, clearly still trying to work out the point of the conversation. “Where are you going with this?”

“I just-I can’t believe I’m saying this,” I rubbed my temple to ease my stressed-out mind. “I’m actually worried that we will never fight.”

“Oh, we’ll fight.”

I turned towards Harry, who was too busy fiddling with the piano keys to even look at me. He responded straight away, like he didn’t even have to think about it. “How can you be so certain?”

Harry snorted. “I’ve witnessed you get all hot-headed when you disagree with other people.” He sent me a dazzling grin, reaching out to trail his fingers through my stray ginger strands that hung loose from my ponytail. “You’ve got that fiery red hair. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Hey!”

“In fact,” Harry smirked with a mischievous glint in his eyes, “I think you’re the most problematic person I know, Ginevra.”

Harry yelped when I pinched his forearm. “You prat.”

He chuckled, wrapping an arm around my shoulders to pull me closer. “In all seriousness, though, we’re going to be fine.”

I stared at him in awe but leaned into him. “You are so sure of yourself.”

He grabbed my shoulders, pivoting our bodies so that we were facing each other on the bench. “You wanna know how sure I am?”

Before I could respond or even react, he kissed me full on the mouth. He growled as our kiss intensified, and all at once, our positions shifted as I felt a sharp pain in my back from my body making contact with the piano keys with a resounding trill. I was left dizzy and breathless, snogging Harry as a wave of happiness resonated through me. 

When he pulled away, his fierce emerald eyes locked on mine set my mind ablaze. “Does that answer your question?”

I decided his question didn’t require a verbal response, so I simply attached my hand to the nape of his neck before dragging his face back to mine. We didn’t talk much for a while after that. 

I knew, perhaps more than anyone else, how much Harry desired moving forward from the past. I’m ready, too, to start the greatest chapter of our lives.

#chudleycanonficfest2021 #HP fest #hp canon pairings #canon fest romantic #submission #hinny #harry x ginny

[iceshard1011]

Before the world fell at our feet

Ships: platonic Moxiety, pre-romantic Anxceit (but really it's up to interpretation)

Characters: Virgil, Patton, Janus, Logan is there briefly

Also on Ao3!

Fic below the cut.

Some convoluted exchange of 'Ding Dong Ditch' except they talk about their feelings and try to resolve inner turmoil and maybe reach some sort of reconciliation. Not too hastily, though. They still hate each other, of course. Of course.

The silence of the hallway shattered with a flurry of tentative knocks against dark-painted wood.

“You haven’t been answering your phone, kiddo,” called a soft, almost shy voice. “I was wondering if you were doing okay, since... you know, things have been... tough, lately.” The room inside stayed quiet, no matter how carefully he listened. “I was hoping... you could come out for some food? We could bake together, if you’d like. It’s...” He laughed. It was mirthless and sad. “It’s sure been a while since we got to do that, yeah?”

Silence. Not even rustling sheets or a frustrated sigh.

He leaned back, trying not to look too obviously hurt — as if Virgil could see through his door. The wood was slightly chipped. He wondered when that had happened. Recently? Or had it been there for longer than he wanted to know?

He rubbed the back of his neck, pondering. What could he do? Virgil clearly didn’t want to talk to him... and he couldn’t be blamed, really.

“I just... thought it might make you feel a little better,” he tried. Virgil might not even be in there — there was no proof he was even listening. It was stupid to be doing this.

“I’ve seen you’ve been hanging out with Roman a lot more recently,” he went on. “That’s…” Unexpected. “Good. It’s so good, kiddo. You both did so well talking to Nico. I know Roman appreciates what you did.”

He trailed a finger down a small jagged crack in the purple paint.

“I wish I could have seen it in person,” he murmured truthfully. Wish I could have been the one who caused it. Wish I could have been the one you risked everything for.

But no — that was bad. Bad and selfish, and he couldn’t be like that. Thomas was trying to fix that about him, but people didn’t change easily, especially after years of a practiced notion. Life just didn't work like that.

“I only heard about the way your eyeshadow changed colour from the others,” he continued softly. “I bet you were just the prettiest thing in the world.”

He half expected to hear a huff or the shuffle of material as Virgil tried to work off his embarrassment. He didn’t hear the slightest hint of movement.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and his voice broke. He clenched his fists, trying not to stain the floor with salty droplets. “I’m so... sorry, for everything, Virgil. For hurting you. For doing all the wrong things by you. For not being who you needed me to be, when you needed it the most.”

Against his will, his stinging eyes blurred further and spots on the carpet grew darker beneath him. “I’m sorry.”

He waited.

Nothing.

This was pointless. There was nothing on the other side of that door except silence and emptiness.

You told yourself not to get your hopes up, he thought, pulling back.

“I’ll... get out of your hair. I’m sorry for bothering you.”

The hallway remained still apart from the downtrodden shuffling footsteps slowly retreating.

Inside the bedroom, the embodiment of anxiety bit his lip so hard he tasted iron.

A few days later, Virgil crept out of his room for the first time in weeks, driven by his grumbling stomach and the ache in his chest. He rubbed the sleeves of his hoodie between his fingers in a repetitive, patterned motion. His breathing matched the movement. It became more forced as he descended the stairs. The kitchen was quiet, but not empty.

Virgil swallowed. No backing out now.

“Hey, Pat,” he said slowly. Patton looked up from where he was making pancakes at the stove. His face lit up, but from the way he wrung his hands together, Virgil could tell that he was restraining himself.

“Good morning, Virge,” he said. His voice was soft. It didn’t match the way his eyes shone with delight. “How are you feeling?”

“Better,” said Virgil. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I just... wanted to apologise.”

Patton’s eyes blew wide. “Um... For what?”

That caught Virgil off-guard. Why was Patton avoiding it? Usually he was open to anyone trying to talk about their thoughts. Had Virgil done something wrong? Had he made a mistake hiding from him? He shuffled in place.

“Don't make me, like... say it,” he grumbled.

Patton looked baffled, but pleasantly so. He smiled and shook his head. “Say what, kid — uh —”

“For ignoring you last night,” Virgil said, interrupting before Patton could stammer too much.

Patton blinked, tilting his head like a dog. “Last night...?”

Virgil frowned. “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to —”

“Oh, no, of course not!” Patton said, shaking his head and raising his hands. “I just got a little confused! I’m more than happy to — Oh! Good morning, Logan!”

Virgil resisted the urge to glance over his shoulder. All he got from the others now, aside from Patton, was awkward silences and loaded glares. It was doubtful that his anxiety would take kindly to one of Logan's indifferent silences this early in the morning.

“Good morning.” Logan’s response was cold... but it was a response, at least. The logical side came into Virgil’s view as he moved into the kitchen and brewed himself a mug of coffee without another word.

Patton turned back to Virgil, hands outstretched. “Virgil —”

“It’s fine,” Virgil said. Patton’s face flashed with hurt, and Virgil’s chest tinged painfully. He met Patton’s gaze meaningfully. “Really.”

Patton noticeably relaxed. He smiled, and it looked natural, and continued to make breakfast. Virgil shuffled down on his seat, listening to Patton’s pitiful attempt to converse with Logan, and tried not to cringe.

Virgil stood in front of a closed bedroom door and hated the queasy feeling in his stomach.

“Look, if this is how you felt the other night, my bad. I feel awkward as fuck.” Virgil was too scared to pause. If he paused, there was no doubt he would start overthinking, and then he’d back out, and then maybe he’d regret it. Virgil was so sick of regretting things. “And uh. Just for the record, you got the cardigan wrong. Again. So maybe just… stop trying.”

He noticed with a jolt that he was digging his fingernails into his wrists. He pried his arms apart and forced the words through his throat. “You’ve already got Thomas and Patton backing you. You can stop acting like a cheesy cartoon villain and just start trying to get the rest of our good wishes.” He realised how wrong that felt to say, and moved to cover up: “Not mine, though. Sorry, not sorry. That’s not happening for a while. Ever, actually. Don’t hold your breath.”

Virgil grinded his teeth, trying not to wince at himself. “I still hate you, is my point. But you make Patton happy, and... I guess you look after Thomas, in your own way.”

He looked at the ground. He thought of comforting smiles that spread warmth across his chest like wildfire. He thought about his anxiety being unconsciously battled into submission each time he was welcomed into each room he crept carefully into.

He thought about calming tactics and kind eyes and gentle voices and grey turning into patched purple. “I’m... definitely in no position to judge someone for that sort of shit.”

Virgil shook his head, trying to clear his mind. He had a point. Get to the point.

“Look, my point is that — fuck you, fuck this whole situation. You’re still a pretentious asshole.” He frowned. “But... stop pretending to be someone you’re not. It’s getting tedious.”

As he talked, he wondered if he imagined the shuffle on the other side of the door, like someone trying to muffle noise. He pushed the thought away.

Get to the point, part of his mind urged again. Be brave. Be brave, damnit.

“Every one of Thomas’ sides deserves to be themselves without fear or judgement,” he said finally, spilling the words from his mouth like hot coffee he’d swallowed too fast. He took a breath, like it had taken energy to finally say it, and registered the deafening silence swirling heavily around him.

That’s all I got.

It didn’t feel like a microphone-dropping statement, or something that he thought the embodiment of deceit really wanted to hear. But he’d said it, and he’d meant it, and he thought that maybe that was enough.

He slipped away, fleeing back to his room, because he would never be anything more than a coward.

But if the next morning saw Virgil wandering downstairs to find Patton and Janus winding around each other as they made breakfast, he might've been rubbing at his cheeks to clear the exhaustion from his eyes, or perhaps cover up the smallest remnants of purple sparkles.

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #janus sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #anxceit #(but don't tell them that) #hurt/comfort #angst with a happy ending #they actually talk about their feelings #sort of #cross posted on ao3

[mst3kproject]

Battle of the Worlds

Several times on this blog I've featured movies that have more than one title.  In almost every case, the new titles were better than the original one, and this is not an exception.  Battle of the Worlds is fairly bland, but it tells you that you're going to be seeing a movie about some kind of space-based conflict, without giving away the details.  The Italian title was Il Pianeta degli Uomini Spenti, which is a fucking spoiler.

An earlier draft of this review contained a couple of jokes about the classically phallic 60's spacecraft in the movie, but I went back and took those out.  Bezos has really set a whole new standard for Giant Dong Rockets and I can no longer accept anything less.

A group of astronomers have just discovered a rogue planet, which they have dubbed the Outsider, is entering our solar system. Everybody is worried about it hitting Earth except for nasty old misanthrope Professor Benson, who says it'll be a near miss.  As it turns out, nobody's exactly right – the Outsider doesn't hit us, but it doesn't just pass by, either.  Instead, it settles into orbit, and when humanity attempts to explore it, it responds by sending out squadrons of flying saucers to blow our rockets out of its sky!  After one of these crashes on Earth, Benson is able to learn how to deactivate the Outsider’s defences and land on it, where humanity can finally confront its inhabitants... or can we?

Well, if you speak Italian, you already know the answer, because this is The Planet of Extinguished Men. The aliens are all long dead and their spaceship has been following its programming for millions of years without them, including the part telling it to destroy the Earth.  Bummer.

I actually have quite a bit to say about this movie.  It centres around some interesting musings about human emotion and curiosity, though it never comes to any solid conclusions.  As a movie, unfortunately, it's not very well-made.  This is a story in which the world as we know it nearly comes to an end more than once, and yet very little seems to happen in it.

The opening sequence is terribly clumsy and does very little to place you within this world.  We start off with two characters kissing and being excited about starting a new life together, but we have no idea at this point who they are or why they want to leave this place. When the Outsider is discovered, the scientists beat around the bush and try to keep it a secret, even from the audience.  Only Benson is willing to be upfront about it.  This does establish him as a realist while making his colleagues seem spineless, which is what the movie wants, but it's also terribly frustrating for the viewer.

Later there's a sequence in which a craft attempting to land on Mars is nearly destroyed by the gravity of the Outsider, and some quick thinking saves the astronauts' lives, but this is directed like the battle sequences in Invasion of the Neptune Men. We have no idea where any of these craft or planets are in relation to one another, and have to rely on characters sitting at desks to tell us what's happening.  Even worse, we never see the chaos the looming end of the world wreaks on society.  Astronauts who have recently returned to Earth note that they've heard there have been suicides and riots as people fear the Outsider will impact our planet, but we never see any of this.

The movie does a little better later, when the Outsider's close approach causes disastrous tidal forces... these are represented by black and white footage of floods and volcanic eruptions tinted red to try to make it match the rest of the colour film.  As always, this fails, but at least they tried. Other special effects are equally pathetic.  There are the inevitable plastic model kit rockets with their flame exhaust that rises in what's supposed to be a zero-gravity vacuum.  The 'flying saucers' the Outsider launches to defend itself look like nothing so much as giant fried eggs.

The Outsider itself is particularly sad to look at.  They have a model they use for it in a few shots, but this is about on a par with the original MST3K spaghetti ball.  In other shots, the Outsider is represented by a photograph of the Moon.  Absolutely no attempt is made to disguise it, and so of course the effect is a dismal failure because everybody knows what the goddamn Moon looks like. They couldn't even, I don't know, turn it upside-down or something?

On the other hand, the inside of the Outsider is actually pretty cool.  The sets aren't exactly believable, but you can see what they were going for.  Upon entering the caverns, the explorers find themselves in a series of tunnels full of strange red tubes and textures that look more organic than geological. Entering the Outsider is like wandering around within a living organism.  My favourite part of this is that absolutely nothing we see here is comprehensible.  Professor Benson, the genius, claims to be able to figure out what's going on, but his declarations seem arbitrary and nothing we're looking at makes visual sense.  Even the aliens don't look like anything in particular.  Were it not for Benson, we would not recognize them as living (or dead) creatures.

Like First Spaceship on Venus, Battle of the Worlds is much more interested in its ideas than in anything else, including what is supposedly its plot.  The characters are important mostly as the embodiment of those ideas, rather than as people in themselves, and the ideas the movie wants to study are about logic and emotion and how they affect human priorities.

The character of Dr. Fred Steele finds himself facing the potential end of the world, and decides that the most important thing to him in this situation is the love between him and his fiancee, Eve Barnett. Professor Benson, on the other hand, thinks the most important thing is to understand the threat they're facing.  Partly this is so that humanity can save itself from destruction, but knowledge for its own sake is also important.  In between these two men is Eve herself, who thinks love and science are both important and tries to find some middle ground between the two.  This is difficult for her, because Benson wants her to stay at the observatory and assist him, while Fred wants her to leave with him so they can get married.  When Eve tries to convince Fred to stay with her, both men see this as her having chosen Benson, and it poisons the relationships between all three parties.  Only with Benson dead are Eve and Fred able to strike a balance again.

But the movie doesn't want us to think that there is no middle ground.  The movie's other romantic couple are the two scientists from the Mars Base, Bob and Cathy.  They got married because they were both lonely and a psychological evaluation suggested that they had compatible personalities.  As the story progresses, however, they find that they have indeed fallen in love and want a future together that would include things like children – but this is ultimately denied to them, as Cathy is crushed by falling debris while exploring the Outsider.

Benson dies when insists on staying aboard the Outsider to try to decode its computers despite the fact that the military is about to destroy the entire object.  As the others escape, Fred intones the movie's beauty killed the beast line: “poor Benson, if they opened his chest they'd find a formula where his heart should be.”  And yet Benson died happy – as the Outsider explodes he is triumphant in his ability to understand its secrets, and laughing at the foolishness and cowardice of his fellow man.  It is the survivors who are miserable, mourning the loss of Benson himself as well as of Cathy, whose death was entirely meaningless.

I'm not sure what the movie is trying to tell us about these different approaches to life.  It seems to present them as ultimately incompatible, that attempts to give logic and emotion equal weight can only end in tears.  Only Benson, who was unswerving in his devotion to science, is ultimately satisfied. Perhaps the take-home message is that whatever your principles are, happiness lies in following them to their conclusion.

There's a second message, too, in different approaches to science itself. Modern physicists will often describe themselves as either theoretical or experimental... the two fields do compliment each other, but they often take place in different rooms, and one will be seen as leading the way for the other.  The search for the Higgs Boson was theory-led: people were pretty sure it existed, they just had to find it.  A great deal of astrophysics, however, is result-led: what we see tells us that there are things going on, like dark matter and dark energy, that we know nothing about, and the theorists must do their best to figure it out.

For most of his life, Benson has been a theorist.  He sits in his greenhouse chalking on the floors, spinning theories out of other people's results or out of pure mathematics.  Until the arrival of the Outsider, he had no interest in going out and exploring or experimenting.  But it quickly becomes clear to him that he cannot understand the Outsider through pure theory, as his calculations cannot account for the decisions of its makers.  In order to know it, he must see it for himself, so he grandly announces his intention to leave his 'den'.  Nobody ever asks him if it was worth it, but his maniacal smile at the moment of his death suggests that it was.

Battle of the Worlds had potential to be a really interesting movie, but ultimate the way its shot and edited make it mainly a very dull one.  Like its own characters, it fails to find the balance it needed.

#mst3k #reviews #episodes that never were #battle of the worlds #60s

[anonthenullifier]

Hiii!!! I just finished reading your Snapshots fic on ao3 and they're all amazing!!! I love how you write the family dynamics between the kids and wanda/vision, they're all vv sweet and I'm here for it!! Do u think tommy and billy ever did a parent trap kind of switch for some reason?

Thank you so much! 😁 This was a fun ask and I hope you enjoy! 

***

The sizzle of butter in the skillet provides a lively accompaniment to Wanda’s aggravation about the morning’s latest headline - one claiming that Tony Stark was personally responsible for the matchmaking that brought Vision and his lovely, currently scarlet eyed, wife together. It’s a claim not without some merit, if not for Tony’s involvement in Ultron’s creation and then in Vision’s own birth, he never would have been alive to fall so deeply in love with Wanda; however, as with most claims involving Tony it is also inherently hyperbolic. Had the billionaire actually been involved in Vision’s romantic pursuits, there is a very high probability that Wanda would have run the other direction.

“And you know what else it said?”

Vision scoops the pancake batter carefully into the buttered skillet as he responds, “What?”

“That he’s the reason Billy and Tommy want to be Avengers.” The only reason Wanda’s tea does not spill over the edge as she gesticulates out her anger is because she has wrapped it in a sheen of red. “Him!”

Grandiose sense of self worth is a rather glaring fault in the Stark family, a symptom Vision thankfully bypassed, no doubt due to the humble yet confident influence of Dr. Cho. “It is an unfair and misleading statement,” this diffuses her ire enough for her to take a sip of tea, “all that truly matters,” momentarily he turns from the stove to wrap his fingers around her upper arms and stare intently into her eyes, “is that we continue encouraging our sons to be their best selves, even if our work is never publicly acknowledged.”

Finally her face softens, the disdain etched into the lines of her forehead smoothing out with the roll of her eyes, “Fine.” Vision lays a peck to her forehead before turning back to rescue the almost burnt pancakes, “but wouldn’t it be nice if someone praised us for once?”

“It would.”

“Morning mom, dad.”

“Good morning Bil…” Vision’s mouth stops mid-greeting, brain a bit frenzied at the mixed signals he is receiving. The voice that just greeted him registers as Billy and yet the boy in front of him is sporting Tommy’s signature snowy hair and athletic clothing. “Um…”

“Tommy,” Wanda’s acknowledgement of their son should clarify everything, yet he can sense an odd amusement in the way she says the name, “why don’t you sit down, your father’s almost done with breakfast.”

To further add to the confusion of the moment, Tommy merely flashes them a grin (no snarky comment nor demands for it to cook faster) and then slides into Billy’s seat at the table.

Wanda’s hand comes to rest on Vision’s back, her voice low and a bit giddy, “This is going to be entertaining.”

“What is?”

“Just wait…” No further information is provided other than a wink.

Vision attempts to shove his curiosity and need to ask for more clarity down, instead channeling all of his energy into the pancakes and not burning them. Success at this repression endeavor is fleeting, the moment he turns to put the plate on the table, he cannot help but ask a question. “Where is your brother?” A glance up confirms it is three minutes past their usual breakfast time. Billy, like Vision, believes in punctuality and that being five minutes early is on time and being on time is late. For him to be late by normative standards is concerning. “It is unlike him to be late.”

Tommy chokes on his orange juice, eyes a tad wild as he twists around to look at the clock. “Um, I’ll go-“

“Good morning everyone!” Billy waltzes in with a cheery grin, his overall presence gregarious and brash, neither a word typically associated with him. His unusual mood  is highlighted all the more by  the uncharacteristically sloppy way his sweater is buttoned. “I’m famished.” A sentiment rarely shared by Billy.

Vision is torn between staring at his sons and seeking out Wanda’s reaction to whatever is happening in their kitchen. “Tommy,” his brother's name is overly enunciated, and the question, “Why are you in my seat?” asked with annoyance.

“Oh, sorry,” Tommy apologizes quickly, a first for sure, and then slides over to his normal chair.

This is, for want of a better word, weird.

Wanda, somehow, is making everyday small talk with their sons but Vision doesn’t process what is said, too focused on studying his children and the bevy of possibilities for why they seem so off. The initial fear is that they are Skrulls or some other shape shifting creature, a possibility they have sadly lived through before, not with the boys but on a mission with the Avengers. A vitals and physiology scan disconfirms this hypothesis (thankfully), the two bodies across the table are his sons. Despite this Tommy is eating at a snail’s pace, knife and fork working with precise movements to portion out perfect sized bites while Billy is going fast and loose with his fork, each bite different from the last. It also seems like Billy’s hair is a slightly different shade than usual, a tinge of cinnamon in his typically chestnut hair. Perhaps they have wandered into the multiverse yet again, though Wanda is his Wanda, he is certain of that and she seems to be more amused than concerned. Which means there must be a logical explanation.

Vision decides perhaps listening to the conversation at the table will better aid him. “Are you ready for the big math test today?” This is directed at Tommy, a pre-algebra exam Vision has spent several nights helping him study for.

Contrary to the numerous breakdowns that informed Vision that his son was going to fail so why bother trying, this morning Tommy seems...optimistic. “Yeah, dad’s prepared me well,” and overtly gracious.

“And Billy,” Wanda nudges Vision’s foot as she talks, always a sign he needs to get out of his head and pay attention, “today’s the mile run in gym, right?”

“Yep,” Billy answers while shoving a pancake into his mouth, continuing to talk while he chews, “gonna beat my record for sure.” This comment, and the smarmy confidence behind it, sets a new hypothesis into motion.  

Vision runs a second vitals scan, this time focusing on heart rate and brain waves. The results are surprising yet informative, but just to be sure, he recalibrates his sensors, scans again, and re-analyzes it, not wanting to make an erroneous conclusion if his sensors were off. The results match his last scan and the oddities suddenly make sense. Finally figured it out? He turns towards Wanda, her face set with impish victory typically reserved for when she bests him at training. A dip of his chin affirms her telepathic comment though his own mood is nowhere near as bubbly as hers because despite knowing the truth now, it does not actually alleviate any of his concern, in fact it breeds several other pathways of uncertainty. Follow my lead.  

The devious undertone of his wife’s comment transforms into an innocent smile as she addresses their sons. “Well boys,” both of their sons look up, “since it’s such a big day, we should celebrate later.” A shared look occurs between Billy and Tommy, one that Vision can’t quite label appropriately, a mix of excitement, bafflement, and victory.

‘Billy’ prods for more, his fork tapping the plate at roughly 200 clinks per minute. “Like what?”

Wanda is so natural at uncovering their lies that Vision can only sit back in awe at the way she effortlessly teases out the truth, “I need to meet with Strange later today, so Billy you can come along and we can ask if he’s finally willing to start training you to be a sorcerer.”

The current Tommy stares mouth agape at the offer, while the current Billy seems unimpressed, “Oh, um yeah, that’d be cool.”

“And Tommy,” Wanda reaches out to grab Vision’s hand, a gesture that is blissfully common but is right now no doubt meant to really drive home the offer, “Your father was going to do some speed trials this afternoon, maybe he can call the school so you can leave a period early and join him.” Vision was not going to do this but he withholds that knowledge so he doesn’t hinder his wife’s plan.

Tommy and Billy turn towards each other, no verbal words exchanged but Vision can easily recognize one of their telepathic conversations—bodies tense, their faces fluttering through a range of emotions, and eyebrows moving in emphasis of whatever comments they’re making. They break and ‘Tommy’ addresses the offer, “Billy has gym in 8th period.”

“Which is why he and I are going to meet with Stephen after school.” Wanda takes a deliberately long sip of her tea to let the information really settle in.

Their tactics switch to the other offer.“Isn’t uh truancy a pretty big deal, you know, if I,” ‘Billy’ catches himself, “Tommy were to leave early.

Vision decides he should aid in some way, voice matter of fact as he responds, “I do believe Tommy has a free period at that time. Plus,” thankfully this next part is not a lie or else Vision would feel guilty saying it, “I have to attend the PTA meeting tonight so we cannot wait until school is out if we would like to get a full session of training in.”

Another deep, very animated mental conversation occurs across the table, one that leads to an exaggerated roll of his wife’s eyes. “What if…”

Wanda cuts off the next suggestion, clearly done with the game, “Just accept that you’ve been caught.”

The two faces across from them are polar opposite, one shining with defiance and the other defeat. With a sigh, Tommy’s white hair darkens into chestnut, the real Billy slouching deep into his chair. His brother is not amused, “Are you really breaking that easily?”

Vision checks the time, noting their bus will arrive in less than 10 minutes. “Boys,” there are several things he wants to say, from questioning Tommy’s brown hair to why they thought they’d get away with it, but he decides those can wait, “perhaps instead of our planned celebrations tonight, we have a discussion on the harms of deception.”

Tommy, the real one, executes a perfect Maximoff eye roll, never one to appreciate the life lesson evenings that correspond with poor behavior. “It was just a joke.”

“I do not find it humorous.” And Vision does not, a deep despair blossoming in his chest at what his sons have attempted and what it means for how their sons view them, whether they think they are not loved enough nor noticed enough to be recognized by their own parents. “You intended to utilize this...joke for personal gain.”

Wanda cuts in, hand coming to rest on Vision’s thigh with a light, reassuring squeeze. “Why don’t you both change. The bus will be here soon. We’ll talk more tonight.” Muttered yes, mom s are lost in the scraping of their chairs against the wooden floor. “Tommy.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you dye your hair?”

“Yep,” Tommy runs his hand through his darkened locks, “the box called it chili chocolate.”

Wanda smirks, finding this far more endearing than Vision. “Just promise to use it responsibly.”

A not fully convincing salute goes along with Tommy’s, “Roger that,” and then he runs off in a blur.

“Wanda,” Vision waits until she looks at him, a bit unnerved that she does not seem to show any of the same concern for what just happened. “Are you not troubled at their flagrant disregard for honesty?”

Her eyebrows arch up, lips pursed the way they are whenever he has misassessed human nature and she needs to find a way to gently talk him through it. “It’s kind of a twin rite of passage.”

This is not forthcoming nor satisfying. “Did you and Pietro do this as well?”

“Once or twice.” His confusion must be evident, her lips curving up into a reminiscent mischief. “We weren’t good at it, especially once we were older. But you have to try.”

“Do you?”

A nod confirms the apparent necessity of such an experiment, though no further explanation is provided for Vision to comprehend why it is required. “You’ve never seen the Parent Trap, have you?”

“I have not.”

Scarlet energy entangles itself around the dishes at the table, floating them into the sink and away from their responsibility for now. “Come on,” Wanda stands and tugs on Vision’s hand, drawing him up out of his seat and then leading him into the living room. As she lightly pushes him to sit in the couch, a rush of feet, a banging door and a quick bye! marks the start of the school day, leaving them alone until this afternoon. “Want to watch a movie?”

“I suppose,” he wraps his arm around her shoulders after she sits next to him, pulling her closer and relishing the comfort of her head on his chest, “if it provides adequate research to understanding this cultural necessity of deceit, then yes.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Vision considers the comment a touch longer than needed, just enough for her to look up at him in anticipation, “if it means a day spent with you,” he kisses her deeply, mirroring the soft curve of her lips as he pulls away,”then it is still a yes.”

“Good.” The tv turns on and his education begins.

#Scarlet vision #wandavision #wanda jackson #vision #billy kaplan #tommy shepherd #the maximoffs #ask anon #replies #mine

[ethelphantom]

Always Been The Missing Piece

This is, uh, a sequel to the Maribat Secret Santa thing I wrote for @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry because Ailelie over at Ao3 gave me a good idea in the comments for an identity reveal fic because obviously they don't know the other isn't a civilian. So. Uh. I am planning at least one more sequel after this because I was given a perfect idea for BartAdrien identity reveal on the Maribat discord server and I need to write that too. Just, don't expect it to turn as long as either of these. And seriously, you really should read this only after Like You Could Be Family, because I seriously doubt this will make much sense without, but it's not like I will be able to actually stop you so....

(Also how the hell did I get to 13k? This has got to be the longest one-shot I've ever written please help me I have a problem)

Ao3 || First part | Third part

This is Maribat -- Don’t like; don’t read.

___________

“I don’t think disowning him is even necessary to make him my brother, and it seems there’s a chance we might become family regardless of whether this Bruce adopts me or not.”

Tim stared at the words written permanently on his wrist, rubbing the skin as though to see if they would smudge and leave. They did not. He had never truly thought of even getting a soulmate when he was young.

(Well, obviously he’d thought about it, rather often too. It was just that he always thought he wasn’t going to get one — either because his parents didn’t have one and he would surely be just like them, and then later, once he became Robin and later Red Robin, he thought that even if it wasn’t going to be because of his parents, then he wouldn’t get a soulmate because he wasn’t going to make it alive to 18.)

But, as all things that had anything to do with Fate always did, it didn’t go as he thought. After all, Fate was never quite so simple.

As it turned out, he made it to 18 and got a soulmark.

There was someone in the world Fate thought was the perfect match for him.

Then he for the longest time believed he would meet them while he was in the vigilante business because if his soulmate was a civilian, what would he even do? There was always a high chance of death because of what he did on a nightly basis, and it was certain he would have to disappear on multiple nights and occasions just to be Red Robin — no way he was going to give that up. That meant, that if he had a civilian romantic soulmate, they might accuse him of cheating, and then his life could be ruined because he was the damn CEO of Waye Enterprises and thus in the public eye all of the time. The words written on his wristed also sounded both like they could be romantic or platonic soulmates, since usually soulmates considered one another family of some sorts automatically — it didn’t necessarily mean his soulmate was speaking about one of his brothers becoming their brother-in-law. They all knew there was a chance Bruce would adopt his soulmate one day (no matter what they said about that being unnecessary.)

Then he actually met his soulmate.

He met Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

A sweet young woman almost his age, perhaps around a year younger than him (turns out he was right when she told him of herself later before he managed to go and search her up), with black hair the shade of midnight sky, her eyes blue as Morning Glories. She was kind, thoughtful, great at baking (she could so some pastries better than Alfred could, and that said a lot about her skills), and she shared Tim’s love of coffee (Dick had been horrified when he found her pouring energy drinks into extra strong black coffee after the first night she spent at the manor).

She was also MDC, Tim’s all-time favourite designer, and it was suddenly much easier to commission her when she could just show him the designs in person and talk about them — why she wanted this thing here and that thing somewhere else. Tim was also much more eager to pay her a whole lot more than what she ever asked for, even if that was partly because Marinette was trying her hardest to lower her prices for him.

Yeah no, that didn’t work with him at all — she was fantastic at what she did and he’d be damned if he let her do the work underpaid.

She never pushed his boundaries too far, only enough to have him open up a little, but because she never made him feel uncomfortable or like she was trying to use him, it was fine; He was horrible at opening up himself and wouldn’t have done it without her. It was clear she knew what was alright and what was not — most of the time anyway. And even when she did push his boundaries too far, it was because she tried to show her appreciation to him or got too excited, and when he or someone else pointed it out to her (because she was bad at noticing it herself), she immediately stopped doing the thing and apologised over and over because she never meant to violate his boundaries.

And then she made sure to never overstep it again unless he gave her the explicit permission to do so.

That told him more about her than many other things did or even could.

She was also intelligent, sassy and sarcastic when she wanted to be, had a strong sense of justice and he knew for a fact she knew how to fight and well. She’d mentioned having done martial arts for quite some time and because she made a complaint about having nearly no opponents on her level, Jason asked her if she wanted to try and spar with him. She agreed and won two out of three matches, and though there was a chance he was just holding back (unlikely, considering how much Jason had talked about it on patrol that night), Damian had challenged her after that and they came to a tie. Twice. Damian then won the last round, probably when he finally stopped underestimating her and holding back. There was no way she wasn’t good.

Marinette always tried to help people in need if she could and wouldn’t take no for an answer when she decided that a person beaten to a bloody pulp was in no condition to walk home, especially not alone. If she had to pay for the taxi to get them home, well, she did, never expecting anyone to pay back.

She was absolutely perfect, if you asked Tim.

The problem was, she was a civilian regardless of how well she fought or how intelligent she was. He could never risk her safety by being in a close relationship with her in case someone found out his identity and decided to use her against him. Wouldn’t be the first time that happened in vigilante business. It had given him enough of a heart attack to be with her while in civvies and get caught by the Riddler because of course he had to be there and there was nothing Tim could do to help her himself — the small and young CEO was not supposed to be able to punch a guy’s teeth in.

And then she’d gone and insulted his fashion taste. Tim agreed, definitely, that green and purple three-piece suit was atrocious, but it was a horrible idea if you were a civilian because the Riddler was extremely sensitive about his fashion choices and a villain and he had hardly any rules as to what he did and to whom, unlike some of the Rogues. Marinette didn’t even have any protective gear against him.

So yeah.

An almost-heart attack.

Turns out, she solved all of his riddles rather quickly, some of them with Tim once the Riddler noticed him, and in the end they all got out safely and unharmed.

At least half of the credit of that definitely went to Marinette.

The best course of action would either be to tell her, or cut ties with her, make her hate him or anything that got her out of the danger zone that came with being in a close relationship with him.

The second option was definitely not what he wanted.

And that was what led him to here, sitting at the table in the apartment he used (especially) when he needed an escape from his dear but way too invasive family with Kon and Bart.

“It’s just, I don’t know what to do! I like her, I really do, but I can hardly pursue a relationship with a civilian. I might endanger her life! We’ve seen that happen with enough many of us. Someone figures out our identity, kidnaps a loved one and puts them at risk. Or sees us too close to a civilian while in the suit and decides they’ll put the loved one at risk anyway. I can’t risk my soulmate’s life for something like that, she doesn’t deserve it,” Tim exclaimed, groaning as his head hit the table. Thank heavens Bart had pulled the plate from under him just in time before his forehead would have ended up in his food.

(Though it was likely he was going to lose half of his food to Bart as well, it was likely he was going to eat Tim’s food while Tim wasn’t there to protect it. Asshole friends and all that.)

Sure, Kon and Bart would have probably had fun watching him ruin his looks (and hair, especially his hair) because of the tomato sauce and spaghetti he somehow had not managed to burn, but maybe they were pitying him enough for his soulmate problems to not just let it  happen for this one time. That, and he’d gotten injured in their latest fight and he would not honestly be surprised if they blamed themselves for it at least a little — that was what Tim kept doing if any of his teammates got injured when he was there and even theoretically could have helped.

“Tell her?” Bart suggested, shrugging as he filled his mouth with the spaghetti. From Tim’s plate. Oh well. Telling him to stop would probably not really help and it’s not like Tim couldn’t just steal Kon’s food later. Bart continued speaking as soon as his mouth was empty. “I don’t see why not. If she’s as amazing as you make her out to be, I can’t see a reason why you shouldn’t tell her. I’m gonna tell Adrien, by the way.”

“Do you have any idea when you’re going to do it?”

“Nope, but not yet ‘cause I don’t think it’s fair or appropriate since Paris just declared their heroes dead ‘cause they haven’t made any appearances — but that’s not to say they don’t know where the bodies are, perhaps they’re just protecting them? — in quite the while, but I will soon enough. Wouldn’t be fair to him to keep it a secret, right?” he chuckled and chewed on his (Tim’s) food.

Oh yeah. Paris’ heroes, the ones that were apparently dead. The heroes they had thought didn’t actually exist and were just a make-believe story to entertain people until Paris held a public memorial for them because they were nowhere to be found and told the people they just hadn’t found their corpses, but maybe that was just to protect their identities. The reminder they hadn’t helped them with their villain felt like a punch in the gut to Tim now, even if he hadn’t been the one to make the decision to not help.

He shook the thoughts away. This was not the time for blaming himself or anyone else for it, he could very well do that later.

“Kon?”

“I agree with Bart. If you think she’s good for you, I think it’s better if you just told her. It’s not like you would want to just cut ties with her to protect her and hurt the both of you at the process. It would definitely be like you, but I know you don’t want to do that to the one person meant for you.”

Tim sighed and stole his plate back. It was significantly emptier than it had been two minutes ago. Damn Bart. As a last-ditch effort, he stole Kon’s plate and scooped some of his food to his own plate, ignoring the rather offended look on Kon’s face. His fault, he hadn’t protected Tim’s food from Bart. Besides, Tim needed to eat something proper, after all. It might have been a little too long since the last time he ate more than an energy bar… so probably around three days since.

No wonder he was the smallest of them.

Munching on his food, he sunk back into his thoughts while Bart and Kon chatted animatedly, the few words he picked up indicating the conversation was about soulmates and Adrien in particular.

It had been a few weeks since he and Bart met their soulmates, but both of them were definitely interested in them — likely romantically, but only time would tell for sure. Marinette was amazing and sweet and Adrien must have been the only one as much of a sunshine child as Bart was, though according to Marinette, he could be a little shit when he felt like it. Then Bart and Kon had overheard Marinette discussing Adrien’s father with someone and turns out, Bart was ready to run to Paris and kick the man’s ass himself, regardless of whether he was in prison for being a supervillain and terrorising the city for years or not. Not that Tim would have stopped him. After all, Stephanie too had decided to ruin his father’s plans when it turned out he’d become a villain.

...That was something Adrien could probably bond over with Stephanie at some point. Maybe they’d found the “my dad’s a supervillain and I had nothing to do with it” club.

(“The list of bad dads just grows and grows,” Tim swore he’d heard Bart say afterwards with a suspicious grin on his face. Tim wouldn’t disagree with him though, he could name quite the number of them himself as well, one of them being his very own father.)

Then Marinette had heard Bart declare war on Gabriel Agreste and immediately told him she was joining — according to her, he didn’t have a choice in the matter because she really wanted to kick his ass again.

(Again? When had she managed to do it in the first place?)

So yeah. Having a civilian soulmate was difficult.

Then again… What if he made her a vigilante? She did possess all of the necessary qualities and even more to become a good vigilante that he could think of. Perhaps he should ask her if she’d like to do that. After all, she was now family, both Bruce and Dick had declared so (rather clearly and Dick loudly), accompanied by Alfred’s nods, Jason’s approving humming (and the way he started treating her better than he did most of the family), Cass’ silent approval visible in her smile as she looked at Marinette, and a little reluctant Damian as well.

It wouldn’t matter she didn’t have any superpowers like some people did — none of the family did, and they were all great at what they did, even if Gotham was nearly impossible to save at this point anymore. She was already good at martial arts, knew how to take care of herself (if it didn’t mean her inability to eat when she was supposed to or her reluctance to go to sleep (nightmares, perhaps?), but she knew how to defend herself and others.) She would make a good vigilante, especially with some special and personalised training. Now he only needed it approved by the rest of the family because she could and would put two and two together and realise all of them were involved with the vigilante business if he came clean to her as one.

Actually, that sounded like a good idea.

Then his phone chimed on the coffee table in the living room and he all but ran there, injuries be damned.

“Hey, careful there, you wouldn’t want us to tell Alfred you need new stitches,” Kon called after him before turning to Bart. “How much do you want to bet that was Marinette messaging him right there?”

“Nope, not betting anything when we both know full well it was Mari. There’s no one else he’d practically dive out of the table for and leave his food unguarded with us. Speaking of...”

“Bart! Do not even think about eating my food while I’m gone! It better be still there untouched when I come back, or so help me god I will kick your ass back to the next millennium!”

Bart just snickered.

God, why was he even friends with Bart?

Oh yeah, because he didn’t know how to live on without him (or Kon) anymore anyway.

⬷۵⤐

Marinette paced around her room in the Manor, panic clearly showing on her face. Adrien sat on the bed placed near the wall, leaning to it, seemingly unconcerned. He was mostly waiting for Marinette to calm down enough to stay still and just listen for a second in between her freak outs.

Thank kwamii for the fact they had gotten Wayzz to secure the room and create a shell in which they could talk without needing to worry whether someone heard them or not. No one would. They were safe.

...They also wouldn’t disturb anyone with it since it was way past midnight already.

“But this ruins everything!” Marinette exclaimed, finally standing in one place long enough for Adrien to decide paying attention to her would be worth it. Or, could be worth it.

Adrien rested his chin on his palm, tilting his head. “Now, Buginette, I love you and all,  but this is getting ridiculous, utterly ridiculous (“Don’t you dare sound like Chloé right now, Adrien!”) Are you sure you need to panic about all this? As far as I see it, you could just, I don’t know, tell him. Gabriel isn’t a threat anymore, and even if he was, we aren’t in Paris,” he said, and plopped down on the bed, propping one leg on his knee. Plagg seated himself on Adrien’s head, ready to take a nap, while Tikki had nestled on Marinette’s shoulder. It was amazing how she was so used to Marinette freaking out that she could just stay calm on even a pacing Marinette.

“I know I could tell him because Gabriel is behind bars, and I should tell Tim because otherwise it won’t be fair to him and I like him, probably romantically soon, and I can’t let myself pursue a romantic relationship with anyone that doesn’t know because it’s too much to keep a secret, but I have no idea how to! What if I scare him off because right now it looks like the both of us are staying here in Gotham — or at least the States — and knowing the two of us, we won’t be able to just quit hero work either! Speaking of which, we have to design ourselves new suits because Paris just declared us dead like a week ago. Not Marinette and Adrien, obviously, but Chat Noir and Ladybug. Understandable, we just disappeared after the fight with Papillon and there’s no way anyone would believe him if he said he didn’t hurt us so why would they believe he didn’t also kill us and—”

“Nette, please, try to breathe and calm down. It’s not that serious of a situation,” Adrien tried but Marinette had resumed pacing around and it was clear as day she was freaking out. It was also clear she wasn’t listening to a word he said anymore, and barely even paid attention to the fact she wasn’t, in fact, alone in the room in general. He sighed and stood up, grabbing his best friend by the shoulders. Plagg shrieked before he shut his mouth because of his holder’s sudden movement.

Now that had her stop and concentrate her attention on him again.

“I know it’s difficult for you to reveal your identity to anyone, including me even long after I realised my behaviour was a big no-no and apologised to you, and that’s fine. It just means you’re being responsible. But. This is your soulmate we’re talking about. There are so many reasons why you should tell him and you know that if you don’t, whatever relationship you might end up in with Tim might go horribly wrong if all the while you’re keeping a secret such as this from him.” Adrien took a deep breath and looked Marinette directly in the eyes. “I am well aware you like him like, a lot, so there’s no way you’d want to risk losing him in either way — by putting him in danger or by having him tell he can’t take you disappearing on him all the time anymore.”

Damnit. Adrien was right. Marinette hated it when Adrien was right. Mostly, because usually when Adrien was right and even she had to admit it because it was so obvious, it meant that the kwamii also agreed with him. And well. When Tikki, the literal miniature goddess of creation, said something should be done, her word was final. She had no way out of this, now did she?

“Nope!” said Tikki from next to her ear.

Oh. She’d said that out loud. For crying out loud.

But yeah, she truly did like Tim, a lot. He was smart, could banter with her rather easily without ever making her uncomfortable by doing so, was never put off by sarcasm (which was, unfortunately, quite rare nowadays and that meant she found it rather refreshing), and he was kind. Also, he had a huge sweet-tooth and mostly a good taste which meant she could freely bake a lot and Tim would likely enjoy any and all of it. She could use him to test new recipes, too.

She also liked his appearance — a lot. His looks were definitely nothing to scoff at. His hair was black and silky, and his eyes were so enchantingly blue (as were many of his brothers’ and Conner’s, if she was being honest, but his were her favourites) and she couldn't help but just drown in them. He genuinely liked her designs (he says he loves them, her mind not so helpfully reminded her, because that made it even better and even harder to let go of him if the need be), he wasn’t pretending to do so because they were soulmates. Tim also had such great ideas for new clothing sometimes — he had been a massive help with the design for her latest dress that she was planning on making for the up-coming Wayne Gala where he (and the rest of the family) had invited her.

Yeah, and Tim knew how to paint nails a little too well. Marinette was certainly going to use that little fact to her advantage and have him do her nails at some point.

Marinette also truly enjoyed spending time with his family and him. All of them respected her at least on some level (gave her the basic respect Jagged had taught everyone was supposed to give her automatically unless she actually did something to warrant them to lose said respect) and didn't try to have her bake or design clothes for them or have her do their chores they were supposed to do because they wanted a little more time to themselves — especially not for free. Never for free. And, even if they did ask her to do something for them (usually it was Jay or Dick doing so), they never failed to remind her she could say no and that depending on what they asked her to do they’d compensate it to her as soon as possible in whatever form she wanted — whether that be money or new fabric or favours or them helping her the next time she baked something.

They didn’t take her for granted, and that was freeing.

She was genuinely happy to spend time with them. Their presence, especially Tim’s, was comforting to her, with him it was safe for her to just be herself.

Yeah, she was too far gone for one Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne and definitely did not want to lose him. She could only hope she was someone Tim could be himself with as well.

Honestly, her biggest problem with all and any of this was that Tim was a civilian and in case someone found out he was close to her, it would be no good for him to know. If the threat was magical, there was no way he could fight it off even if he was anything like his brothers when it came to fighting (she just didn’t know, but she did suspect he was). She herself could get out of problematic situations rather easily, but there was no telling just how bad situation could get until Tim would no longer have any way to get away. She figured he had to have at least some kind of basic training because so many in his family seemed to know martial arts, he lived in Gotham and was a CEO, but she had no idea to what extent he could protect himself.

And indeed, because the miraculous considered her an adult now and she no longer had a time limit after she used her special ability (whatever it was depending on the miraculous), it meant there was no way she would even consider stopping. Of course, she still tried not to push too far after she did use that ability as to not exhaust the kwami she was using too much and she’d made it her point to wear multiple miraculouses at once at all times so even if she had to detransform to let one kwami rest, she wouldn’t need to stop fighting right away or wait until they recharged.

In a city like Gotham where she could be needed, this all meant she could not stop being a hero. (Though, she knew that Batman wasn’t known for being too fond of magic users, or metas, whatever it was they called them, so she would need to have him somehow accept her presence or prepare to fight him and perhaps also all of his team that seemed to actually be his family — especially Robin seemed to still be a little child, younger than her when she received her miraculous.) Not since they had seemed to decide they were going nowhere from there, most of all not Paris.  

They were never going to return, they really didn’t want to do so, what with the entire city being full of traumatic memories to them. Maybe they’d visit Kagami and Luka and her parents, maybe his aunt and cousin, but otherwise, no. Besides, their soulmates were both here, they had hardly any people they had good relationships with in Paris anymore because they’d both eventually stood up to their class, Gabriel was in prison — which, in turn, meant that the majority of Paris blamed Papillon’s actions on Adrien at least on some level. It didn’t matter to them that he had said that no, he had nothing to do with his father’s actions, and that his father actually abused him and he was glad to be finally free from him.

It wasn’t like they didn’t have a list of excuses to stay.

(Marinette wasn’t going to admit it any time soon, but she had an actual list of the excuses to stay written down in case someone asked her and her brain wouldn’t agree on cooperating at that time. It was also partly in case she ended up mentioning there were many, many, many reasons for them to stay and someone asked for a list; This way she could literally provide them with one. It was both on multiple papers and notebooks and on her phone — after all, back-up copies were very useful.)

Yet another reason as to why she should tell Tim — even though her Miraculous Cure healed and restored almost anything, it had mostly stopped working on her as it drew its energy from both her and Tikki, and now she was full of scars. Sure, it mostly healed the biggest injuries so she was rarely limping or bleeding long, and they never became devastating, but well. It still wasn’t any good that she had to keep covering some of the scars behind layers of makeup or hide them under clothing. Thank kwami Adrien had yet to report the same was happening to him.

There was no way Tim wouldn’t discover the scars’ existence at some point, regardless of whether their soulbond was romantic or platonic (although she certainly hoped it was romantic), so it would be far better to just come clean about it before he eventually found out about them on his own anyway.

So yeah.

She also had a long list of very good reasons to tell Tim.

The problem here was, she had no idea how.

She could hardly just walk up to him and blurt out she was Ladybug when it had just been announced that Ladybug (and Chat Noir at that, but it was up to Adrien to decide whether he wanted to tell his identity to anyone aside from Bart — he likely wanted to tell him) were dead, she would have to come up with a better plan to that. A lot better plan.

But perhaps… perhaps if she presented him with a miraculous and asked him to fight alongside her and Adrien… Maybe Bart could be there as well if Adrien considered it a good idea?

“Hey, Adrien, what do you think? Would Tim be a good miraculous user? And how about Bart?” she asked. Fiddling with the mouse necklace she was wearing, Marinette turned to look at Adrien who had, at some point, left from her side. Mullo was sleeping somewhere inside her hood.  “They both seem like people that would like to help others if they could — I mean, Tim already tries as a CEO and I simply don’t know Bart that well yet — but I don’t know. I want to hear your opinion on this as well because even if I am now the guardian and could technically just do whatever the hell I wanted, you’re still my partner in crime… fighting, and since some of my previous choices weren’t too good…”

Yeah, she did mean Alya and Nino. Also others, but those she’d trusted the most, so…

“Are you seriously asking me if I’d like to have both our soulmates by our side if— no, when we are fighting possibly magic-based crime in Gotham or elsewhere in the States?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. She nodded slowly. Adrien arched an eyebrow as he looked at her like she had made the stupidest question he had ever heard in his life before. “Duh, obviously, of course I want them there. Bart would be good. He’s so fast already — no, seriously, I swear, he’s quicker at doing things than Plagg is at eating camembert —, he’s a quick thinker and okay, he’s a little impulsive, but most of the time his ideas haven’t been that horrible, so a miraculous could probably enhance all of it in a good way.”

“And Tim’s got a good sense of justice and he’s one of the smartest people I’ve met. He’d be great at any strategic positions and— you know, I think he could work either the snake or the dragon miraculous really well.”

Adrien nodded enthusiastically. “Now you’re talking my language. Mayhaps the fox miraculous would be good for Bart, he’d get to be creative and I’m sure if he got up to any mischief, Trixx would only be more than happy to help. Or maybe the horse— actually, no, forget about that, I don’t think that’s a good idea because he might get the idea to send us all to anywhere in the world because it seemed like a good idea to him for all of two seconds and that’s the one thing that would make everything really problematic.” Adrien sunk into his thought for a moment, tapping his nose with his finger absent-mindedly as he tried to think of something else. Then his eyes brightened as he came up with an idea.

“Oh, the turtle! He’s quick so it wouldn’t take him long to protect those in need of it, and maybe in some moments when he’s too impulsive, Wayzz could be there as a voice of reason and common sense in his head. I don’t actually mind his impulsiveness at all but sometimes all of us could use a Wayzz to help us slow down a little.”

Wayzz himself looked torn between agreeing, and strongly disagreeing and escaping before Adrien could convince Marinette to give him to Bart.

“I’m seriously considering this now. I have no idea how to give them one, though. It isn’t as simple as it would have been in Papillon’s Paris — we don’t have a Miraculous threat here and no one knows us. I mean, they’ve probably heard of the deceased Ladybug and Chat Noir, but not the ones we’re going to become. We can hardly just swing up to them and be like “hey have you ever wanted to be a hero? Well, here’s a miraculous that will transform you into a magical superhero with the help of jewellery and a god like in some anime—” God damn it Adrien, now I consider transforming into LB the same kind of thing as your anime’s girls with objects to make them magically transform.”

“They’re magical girls, actually. And well, I have to say, we kind of are magical girls, you know. Magical transformation, magic, magic provided superpowers, magical healing, double lives, way too obvious costumes for anyone to not figure out our identity yet none of them do it anyway… Oh, and we have specific words to transform us along with magical accessories or jewellery and we have a literal transformation choreography! Clearly magical girls!”

“Magical girls, then, whatever. Never compare us to them again.”

Adrien just snickered.

“Ugh, shut up, will you?”

“Of course. But yeah, you’re right, we can’t just appear behind their windows and give them a miraculous. That would be just stupid and irresponsible, now wouldn’t it?”

“Why do you sound so sarcastic?”

“That might be because I kind of am.”

“Go away.”

She had no idea how she could still stand Adrien. Why was he her best friend again?

Oh yeah.

Because he was the one who had stood right there by her side through thick and thin.

That’s why.

⬷۵⤐

“So. Let me get this straight—”

“In this family?”

“Shut up, Jaybird. So, what you’re saying is, you want to reveal us all to your girlfriend because you don’t want to keep secrets this big from her?”

Tim sighed and ran a hand down his face, exasperated. Hadn’t he just explained this? “No, Dick, first of all, she’s not my girlfriend — at least yet. What I’m asking is if it’s okay to everyone I tell her I’m Red Robin and get her to start training so she can become a vigilante as well. She’d be good at it. I don’t want to keep my identity from her in case we do start dating because then what if she thinks I’m cheating on her or up to some other not-good stuff when I keep sneaking out in the middle of the night and can’t even tell her what for.”

“And why do you want her to be a vigilante? You know it’s dangerous.”

“Then why is any of us doing it? It would anyway be her choice. Besides, if she was fighting beside me, she wouldn’t even need to worry about me that much because she could technically probably see me and not have to stay at home, you know? I know I can see there’s something in her that reminds me a lot of most of us, the need to fight for justice and for those in need of help because no one else does either. I can see the crave to fight in her.”

Dick sighed and tilted his head, his expression hard as steel. “You really thought this through, didn’t you?”

“Obviously. And as to why I’m asking you is because she’s actually smart and would definitely put two and two together when I tell her I’m Red Robin; The likeliness of Robin, Red Robin, Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl, Red Hood — yes, Jason, you too, have you seen the giant red bat on your chest you insist on wearing even though you claim to detest us half the time because we all can see it —, Black Bat, the Signal and the rest of us being close with each other, if not family, is quite high. Basically, she would most likely connect you all to the vigilantes running around.”

Bruce crossed his arms over his chest and shot him the Batdad-Look™, and if he hadn’t been so determined to get them to agree, it would have probably made him a… little too nervous to keep on talking. Alas, it wasn’t going to make him stop because he really, really wanted Marinette to fight beside him and if it meant he needed to bear with Bruce’s Batdad-Looks™, then so be it. He was not about to go down without first putting up a fight.

Tim couldn’t even explain how grateful he was for the fact Bruce stayed quiet despite the expression on his face. It helped his situation a little.

Instead, it did not help that he could feel Cass’ eyes on his back. She was sitting on the ground a small distance away from them, probably reading all of them like they were open books. He decided to ignore it for now — there was really nothing else he could do.

“And you know she’s a good fighter — you saw her spar with Jason! You saw how she fought against Damian who actually, officially challenged her, like she were equal. He doesn’t do that too often. We all also know neither of them wasn’t holding back too much on second matched anymore, if at all in the in the third one. She only lost once they stopped holding back and even then she put up a good fight — the matches weren’t over in minutes. Like, we’ve all gotten training from at least the Bat himself, likely from many others too. She has not. That makes it an impressive feat. With training, she could probably be one of the best of us!”

Steph lifted her hands above her head as to surrender and to draw attention to herself. “Alright, I’m cool with it. Timmy’s passionate about his cause and also I like Mari. It could be fun to have her in the team.”

Thank goodness, at least someone was on his side.

Dick’s phone chimes and he looks at the message, groaning when he reads it. “Babs told me to tell you all that she also says yes, that she trusts Marinette with all of this if others are fine with it as well,” he says slowly, before he puts his phone away. It’s strange seeing him not cheerful, but Tim can’t afford to care about it too much now .

Another voice spoke up softly. “I think… Marinette makes a good fighter,” Cass said from her spot, resting her body weight on her arms with the flats of her palms on the ground. She seemed thoughtful. Her words carried a meaning all of them understood, even if she didn’t say it out loud — she liked her too and wanted her in, but that she too would like Marinette to get some training first before letting her out.

Just in case.

They knew she wanted to lose people just as much as the rest of them — which meant, she didn't want to lose any more people she cared about.

Then, a sigh. “Yeah, gotta agree. Could be nice to have her on our side, she’s fun. And Timber’s right, she does seem like she’s achin’ to go fight a bitch. It’d be better if we made sure she’s got the necessary skills and stuff, and I’d rather not have to fight her because one of us considers her an enemy or because she thinks that of us. Girl’s got some mad skills. Also, B, if you think about it for a second longer, I’m sure you’d realise that if there’s a chance she is going out anyway, I’m sure you’d prefer she followed your rules, too, right?”

Tim… wasn’t sure when the last time he’d been grateful for Jason’s input had last occurred, but he was certainly ready to let Jason do whatever the hell he wanted with criminals during their next patrol together, that’s how grateful he was. Yes, even if it meant Jason shooting them in the fucking kneecaps.

“Yes, but she’s still—”

“She’s what, Grayson? She put up a respectable fight even thought she’s still clearly inferior to me, but I do not doubt she could do the same in the field. Her skills most certainly require improvement and bettering, and she needs to fine her techniques if she wants to hold her own out there without getting killed, but I’m certain she’s more than capable of getting to Todd’s level with guidance.”

Okay, wow. Damian was defending Marinette. He definitely needed to tell this to her — he was sure she’s appreciate hearing the little demon of the family respected her enough to speak up against Dick and his father, the only ones of them he’d ever openly admitted held his respect, even if he didn’t necessarily word it as “I respect you” or “you have my respect.” It seemed Marinette got the honor of being the third one, and she had been family for all of some weeks. She’d even gotten him to use the word “respectable” when talking about her.

She got him admitting to all of them, all of them, that he thought she was good and worth his respect. Now that was something.

So, Tim also appreciated him speaking up. This tiny (alright so he may not have been that tiny anymore and there’s a chance Damian was now taller than Tim, but who cared, he would always be tiny to Tim) teenager was still the only biological child of Bruce and also one of the hardest of them to impress, so if he said something of this sort about anyone (the last time it was something about Jon but Tim hadn’t cared enough to remember what it actually was about anymore), everyone would at least listen to him before simply jumping to decisions.

So yeah. If there ever was a time Tim wanted nothing more than to take his little brother out and let him find a few new animals to keep as pets, even if they weren’t good as pets, it was now. It certainly was now.

“I’m siding with Tim here — don’t give me that look, Dick, the ones already sided with him are scarier and more dangerous than you and Bruce together, so even if I didn’t agree, his side would be the wiser choice—”, Duke starts, shrugging, though there was a clear smile on his face. “But like, Marinette’s nice, like actually nice, and if she’s going to become family anyway, I don’t see why we couldn’t have her in this as well. Tim has a good point — several good points, actually, so the logic is also on his side.”

Yeah, Tim certainly couldn’t hide his smile any longer. Only Dick and Bruce were yet to say yes. Maybe he could actually do this.

Of course, he was not going to go through with any of this if all of them didn’t agree. He could risk his own identity to his soulmate, but there was no way he was going to force anyone else to do so for anyone, least of all for someone that wasn’t literally linked to them by their very soul. He would never compromise all of them for one person.

“Okay, fine. It seems everyone else is saying yes, so I guess I’m outvoted here. I just want every one of you to stay safe, you know? I don’t want this to end up being the reason any of you gets hurt.”

Yes, Tim knew that. Regardless of how annoying Dick managed to get a lot of the time, or how frustratingly stubborn he always was, or how his attitude was irritatingly similar to Bruce’s even when their personalities weren’t even remotely similar most of the time (that one was probably causation of Bruce taking care of Dick for like a decade), there was never any doubt his love or concern for any of them wasn’t genuine. That much was more than obvious.

He managed to give Dick a small smile, hoping it would convey he was grateful he finally said yes.

Now there was only one left to convince.

The most difficult of them (if you didn’t count Damian in, anyway) to convert.

Bruce was stubborn as hell when he wanted to, but seeing as he was stubborn even if he wasn’t trying to be, this could either be easy or the most difficult thing Tim had ever done. It had taken him a while to convince Bruce to make him Robin, but back then all he was trying was to have him take himself in and train him; Back then Tim wasn’t planning on telling his identity to someone who didn’t know yet, someone who could figure out the rest of them as well, and then have her trained to become one of them. Tim knew it, it was a lot to ask, but he wanted to do it anyway. It was important to him, alright?

Tim turned to look at Bruce. “Well? How is it?” He placed his hands on his hips and tilted his head, waiting for an answer. Any answer, really.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, Tim. What if something happens to her? Or what if something happens to you? Or any of your siblings?”

“But what if something happens to her because I didn’t tell her? And besides, something could happen to any of us at any given time, given what we all do on nightly basis. We could have also just not done it, but we are doing it anyway and like hell is any of us going to just quit. Out world is full of what-ifs, we cannot help them, and I’ll be damned if I let them make me lose the one person actually made for me, the one person that I was tailored to.”

“With all due respect, Master Bruce, I must say, you have told your identity — even if only subtly hinted at it with a very specific set of words so that it’s enough for them to make the connection — so many times that I think you can hardly be against this. None of them were even your soulmate. Need I remind you of who everyone knew or found out without ever even becoming one of us? At least Master Tim is planning on bringing her in on all of this and planning to have her properly trained,” Alfred said, appearing in the doorway behind Bruce.

So sure, Cass and Damian knew exactly how to seemingly just appear and reappear without anyone noticing as though they could teleport, sure, Commissioner Gordon always complained about Batman doing it, and sure, the rest of them knew how to blend in with the shadows (they just didn’t always do it), but Alfred also seemed to possess this skill — better than most of them, anyway. Tim had absolutely no idea how, but he wasn’t about to complain.

Besides, it was Alfred, so it wasn’t surprising. Honestly, was there anything the man couldn’t do?

But the thing is, Alfred was also right. He had let Rachel Dawes find out. He let commissioner Gordon find out. Mr. Fox knew because Bruce had asked for help and equipment he then used as Batman while he was being Bruce Wayne — now that right there had never even seen subtle hinting. A whole lot of other people knew as well, though many had found out on their own — such as Tim, while some found out because of other, not so lovely circumstances, like Selina.

So, all in all, Bruce was the worst of them to say anything about it. True, he was mostly protective of them, always thinking up the worst-case scenarios about everything, something Tim himself did as well because that was the easiest way to make sure they were prepared for absolutely anything and everything, but Tim trusted Marinette. He wanted to trust her, just like Bruce had trusted some people. And in any case, he’d rather trust than live his life in suspicion of most people, like some people he knew did. Like Bruce.

Bruce opened his mouth to say something, but as nothing came out, he just closed it again. A defeated sigh slipped past his lips and he let go of the tensity in his shoulders, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Fine, I can see when I’ve lost. I want to meet her soon after you tell her, maybe right away after it, though, regardless of whether she makes the connection or not. I would prefer if all of you were here then,” he said, motioning at all of them before he placed his hand on Tim’s shoulder. “And that you—” he cast a pointed look at Tim, “—tell us when you are going to do it. I trust that you understand what you’re doing. I do not want to find out Ms. Dupain-Cheng is a danger to any of you, but especially you.”

“Of course. I take full responsibility of her and her training—”

“No you won’t. I’ll do that, although I do expect you to be there for her and to be a major help. I’m still your father and I don’t care if you’re already 19, because I’m not letting my children be that much of adults just yet.”

“Hey!”

Bruce just smiled (a tense smile, one that was half-forced on his face) and left all of them (except Cass whom Tim couldn’t see anywhere anymore) behind, gaping.

“Did he just—”

“Oh my god he totally did!”

“Please tell me someone recorded B calling himself a father and calling us his children.”

Tim had a vague suspicion that Cass had indeed recorded it, was going to send it to all of them, and then, depending on the reactions to it, would send a voice message of her laughing to their group chat.

Well, that definitely went better than he thought.

⬷۵⤐

“You know, I’m glad I have you as my soulmate,” Marinette began around a week later as they were sitting in the living room of the Wayne Manor. She snuggled closer to him and Tim wrapped an arm around her, comfortable and relaxed for the first time in a few days. “I’ve known you for not that long, but I already know I don’t want to lose you.”

She reached for his hand and took it in her own. Tim squeezed her hand back.

“Me neither.” Tim saw this as an opening — after all, most, if not all, of his reasons to tell Marinette who he was and all his plans about how exactly he should do it were born from the idea that he didn’t want to lose her. And so, he stood up, still holding her hand, and pressed a light kiss on it. “I need to show you something important. Will you follow me?”

A soft laughed escaped from Marinette as she replied, smiling, “Always, to the ends of the world.”

Marinette let herself be pulled up to her feet and led through the endless dark hallways of the manor. He quickly shot a message (“I’m prepared to do it, I’m taking her down now. Be there in five”) to the group chat before putting his phone away. When it vibrates in his pocket, he first looked at Marinette as though to make sure it was fine with her if he checked and possibly answered — after all, he knew it wasn’t too urgent or they would have called, and as far as Marinette was aware, this was supposed to be their time together to get to know each other better and all, not time for either of them to spend talking to other people via phone —, the corners of his lips turning upwards at her when she nodded with a smile on her face.

It seemed smiles liked to creep up on his face a lot more now that Marinette was around.

The message was from Jason, and Tim rolled his eyes fondly at it.

I thought you were supposed to tell her instead of fighting her, babybird.

shut up jason

You know pwefectly well what taking her down means int his case

Oh yes, I most definitely do.

It’s just so much fun reminding you of the existence of double meanings you either use to insult people or forget about completely.

But yeah, we’ll be ready.

“One of your brothers?”

“Yep. Jason is being a cumberworld.”

“And him being a cumberworld definitely makes you grin and roll your eyes as though he merely made a stupid joke and you, unfortunately, thought it rather amusing. Got it.”

“Wait. You actually know what it means?”

“Duh, obviously. After listening to you and your family for a while, it seemed like a good idea to do some research on different English insults so they wouldn’t fly by me all the time.”

Tim snorted. Of course. Only Marinette would. Only her. Everyone else outside of their family seemed to give up on trying to understand after a little while, but noooo, this girl decided she was going to spend extra time doing some research just to be able to understand — that, and also most likely to be able to laugh at them. She definitely fit in just fine.

It didn’t take them too long after that to get to the main study in the manor that Tim had earlier told her was Bruce’s and told her not to go in. Maybe that was why Marinette now looked quite nervous and anxious as he unlocked the door and pushed it open, motioning for her to go in.

“Are you sure we can go in here? Mr Wayne— I mean, Bruce, isn’t going to get mad at us? And you aren’t about to kill me, right?” she laughed, trying to mask her nervousness with humour, but walked in anyway. She relaxed a little and the tensity in her shoulders slipped away the slightest bit as Tim shook his head as no.

He walked to the grandfather clock in the room and let go of Marinette’s hand in order to be able to turn the hands of the clock. The clock hit 10:48 (Tim had always thought there was no one more grim than the Batman but then he actually met Bruce Wayne and found out you needed to turn the clock to show the time Bruce’s parents had been murdered, and was just like that forced to change his view on the matter) and the panel unlocked, opening the door hidden from view behind the clock.

Marinette’s jaw dropped open. This was most certainly not what she had been expecting, that much was sure.

“Well then, my fair lady, shall we enter?” he asked, grinning at Marinette’s flabbergasted expression even as she walked closer and tried to figure out where the entrance would take them.

She could keep trying; he was not about to tell her just yet.

The elevator took them down and soon enough, they were in the cave. He stepped out of the doors and waited for Marinette to follow him.

“...Where are we?” she asked, her voice a little strained.

“Uh.”

“Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne, where in the world exactly did you take me?”

It seemed actually telling her turned out a little more difficult than he thought. Well, no use crying now — he couldn’t just brush off all of this like he hadn’t just taken his soulmate down to the Batcave either.

“Alright. So, this might come as a shock and for the love of all that’s still holy and sacred in this world please do not freak out. I just decided I needed to tell you this before we consider pursuing any relationship on a deeper and closer level than what we have now, regardless of in what sense it would be.

Marinette nodded slowly, encouraging him to go on even as she seemed suspicious (and anxious) about what was going on. Perhaps that was a good thing since they were in Gotham, in the city where you never knew who the person in front of you was or what they did in their free time (or at night).

Tim took a deep breath before dropping the bomb on her. “I am Red Robin, one of the vigilantes of Gotham.”

At his declaration, her jaw dropped. Again. “You— I— What?”

“I’m Red Robin,” he repeated and pulled out the domino mask he had taken with him and slipped into his pocket, putting it on his face. Thank heavens for Marinette and her need to give him big pockets whenever he commissioned her (and there was any reason to put pockets to said commissioned clothing) because of that one offhand comment complaining about too small pockets some of his clothes had. He scratched his chin awkwardly before realising what he was doing and pulled his hand down, pressing his nails to his skin to keep himself from bringing it up again. “I was also thinking, you’d make a good vigilante if that’s what you wanted to do. Obviously, I would need to train you first to make sure you’d be ready for Gotham’s streets, but I thought it could help you not to worry about me if you saw me in action and actually had the chance to help me if necessary?”

That… wasn’t supposed to come out as a question. Why did it come out as one?

But Marinette’s silence was worrying him. It would be understandable not to get an answer now, but he knew her well enough by now to know that she would be mindlessly rambling at this point if it were merely shock she was experiencing.

“You… You aren’t a villain or planning on becoming one, right? Because even if you were my soulmate, that would mean I’d have to take you down.” Almost certain he could feel Dick’s pointed (and amused, definitely amused) look on his back, he added, “I’m not about to go down the Batman-Catwoman route with this.”

That startled Marinette out of her shock and as she stared him dead in the eye, she blurted out, “Spots on!”

Tim could have almost sworn he heard an exasperated and quiet “Marinette, why couldn't you just tell him like we agreed?” as bright pink light enveloped her and soon revealed that in her place there stood a young woman in a red suit with black spots.

And a spotted mask.

Which made it a ladybug suit.

Or the Ladybug suit.

On his soulmate that came from Paris.

Paris’ Ladybug…

“Oh my god. You’re Ladybug. My soulmate is Ladybug. This is a thing now, apparently. Aren’t you supposed to be dead? Actually, no, I’ve seen enough people that were resurrected, it wouldn’t even be that surprising. How were you—”

Ladybug’s shoulders lifted to her ears and she smiled sheepishly. “Hi? I’m not a villain as you can see?”

It was Tim’s turn to simply stare at Marinette. He— he was not expecting this turn of events. He sighed and waved his hand a little in a “come here” gesture, knowing they were there and that they’d seen her transform anyway. That would mean there was no secret identity problem anymore as her identity wasn’t really a secret anymore, per se. Besides, since she was a hero already, they could very well just introduce themselves to her already.

He had to admit, this was absolutely wonderful as it meant she fit in perfectly — it was as though she had always been the missing piece of the puzzle that was his life and family.

Of course, though he was expecting fate to be a jerk and give him a civilian soulmate, Fate instead decided to cut him some slack and just give him someone that could actually keep up with him and the family he wasn’t going to get rid of anyway, no matter what he tried or wanted (not that he wanted to get rid of them most of the time).

But well. A soulmate was supposed to suit you perfectly, so maybe it wasn’t that surprising.

Ladybug didn’t seem to notice his family approaching them as she kept on rambling and tried to explain herself. “I’m also not dead and never was. Chat Noir isn’t dead either though he has died multiple times during akuma attacks and was resurrected by my Miraculous Cure. Paris just happens to have a tendency to get overdramatic and jump to conclusions, and Chaton and I decided we didn’t want the Ladyblogger on our backs any longer. Neither of us is too fond of her, especially not after the phenomenon that is Lila Rossi,” she said, sighing as she cocked her hip. Ladybug shook her head and turned her eyes to the side. It seemed the name meant a lot, just not in any good way. “Wait. If you’re Red Robin, then—”

“Hiii!”

Aaandd it seemed that Dick had taken that as his cue to make his presence known. How lovely.

Ladybug turned to Dick and then back to Tim, arching an eyebrow. “Since you’re Red Robin, I’m going to go ahead and suppose this is your family. Am I right?”

“Yeah, unfortunately.”

“They’re not going to try and fight me or drive me out of your city for having powers, right?”

Batgirl cuffed him upside the head as she skipped to them, walked past Tim and then looked Ladybug up and down before nodding approvingly. “Definitely approve, though that suit… Am I seriously supposed to believe you’re our sweet, wonderful, talented fashion designer? Also no, even if B-Man or Dickiebird over there tried, Timmers, Damian and I would fight for you. You’re staying because I like you. We all like you.”

Ladybug flushed lightly at the compliments and the otherwise sweet words, but to her credit, her voice didn’t even waver when she replied (unlike usually), “I just haven’t had the energy and time to change it yet. It’s magic, can’t change it that easily.”

“Oh, okay. Well, try and see if you can recognise all of us!”

Ladybug bit her lip and looked at each and every one of them separately, her calculating eyes feeling like they could see right through all of them. She walked between them and around them, a sly grin appearing on her face.

“Well, Bats here is probably Mr Wayne. He’s the oldest of all and I strongly doubt any of you could be doing what you are if he didn’t know — unless, of course, it was Alfred, and I don’t doubt Alfred’s skills at all, but I’m pretty sure that back when Robin wasn’t there yet, someone needed to look after Batman and I honestly think only Alfred could have that much power on him. So. Mr Wayne.”

Batman took off his cowl, indeed revealing Bruce himself.

As she moved on to Nightwing, she winked and laughed with an “I did do my homework on the flight here. Seriously, did you think I wouldn’t?” Then she turned to look Nightwing in the eye (or, would have looked him in the eye if not for his domino. “I’m going to say Dick. I’ve been watching you all while I’ve been here — in both forms, it seems —, and I doubt any of you could pull some of the moves, or the attitude, Nightwing does, except for Dick. Don’t give me that look, you did jump from the balcony at some point last week, landing safely on the ground after showing off and doing like a million spins and somersaults.”

Tim laughed. “Dick, I told you, someone else besides me was going to recognise you for your somersaults one day.”

“You too?”

“Oh yeah, I worked out Dick’s, Bruce’s and then Jason’s original identities because of Dick’s quadruple-somersault when I was a kid. Nightwing’s identity wasn’t difficult either since, well, it was obviously the previous Robin.”

“Of course you would.”

Then she turned to Oracle in her wheelchair. “Anyway. I know you’re Barbara, and I’m so glad to see you here too, but I’m nor sure about you alias,” she said, her voice clearly apologetic for the fact.

“It’s alright,” Barbara comforted her and gave her a smile, “I wasn’t expecting you to know it. I’m Oracle, it’s nice to meet you. I’ll probably get you on the comms at some point as well because managing things is what I do now. The woman in the chair, if you will,” she continued, making Marinette chuckle. Tim loved the sound.

“Then the big bad Red Helmet over there is Jason — no, seriously, Jay, why in the world are you the Red Hood if you aren’t even wearing one?” she asked, her face twisting as she looked at him. God, Tim loved this girl, she would happily stab any of their fashion sense with a smile on her face, and honestly, the helmet was horrible. Her words earned her snickers from all around the room. She was obviously pleased with herself as Jason took off his mask and gaped at her, offended.

She didn’t even pay him attention too much, continuing on with her list. “The scowling Robin over there is definitely Damian, only he could pull off those expression with a hint of Bat in them, and the current Batgirl is obviously Stephanie. Duke is the Signal — that was your name, right? Oh, and Cass, you’re Black Bat, aren’t you?” At Cass’ nod and her revealing her face, Marinette let out a sigh of relief. “You’re one of the only ones here with an acceptable suit.”

Ladybug transformed back into Marinette, a small creature appearing from her… earrings? before hiding inside her jacket. Tim decided to ignore it, maybe it was nothing. Marinette turned around, spinning on her heel to face Bruce. “Like, I know you need protection because there’s no magic to do so, but you could have protection with suits that looked less ridiculous and atrocious than this,” she said, motioning at their clothing. “That actually goes to most of you. I especially hope there’s a really good reason and a story behind Robin’s colours, because otherwise I will not possibly be able to understand why anyone would go around as a vigilante in colours this bright.”

“There is a reason behind the color choices,” Dick said disturbingly quietly from where he was standing. “They were my family’s colors.”

Marinette winced lightly — she too knew what had happened to them on that fateful night. “Alright. That’s a good reason, even if they’re still horrible colour choices. That would make you the first Robin, right?” Dick nodded. “It’s understandable for you to want to use your family’s colours.” Her solemn tone indicated she accepted Dick’s reason for it completely, telling them all she felt bad for saying they were horrible but knew she wouldn’t back off — and they wouldn’t blame her for that either —, and they all knew she was going to leave arguing and pressing for explanations away completely. Her limitless capability of empathy was admirable.

Then she turned back to Tim. “Is that offer about training still on the table? I’d love to take it if so. I could probably win any of you as Ladybug because magic and a goddess in my pocket, also known as Tikki— Oh, actually! Tikki, come on out, come say hi to Tim!”

A small red, ladybug-like creature flew from under her jacket to Tim, smiling brightly. He immediately recognised it as the fairy he’s seen earlier. “Hi! I’m Tikki, the goddess — or as we like to call ourselves, the kwami — of creation. It’s lovely to finally meet my holder’s soulmate!”

“It’s, uh, nice to meet you as well, I guess? I take it you’re the one that helps Marinette transform,” Tim said, a little confused by the flying, speaking creature.

“Yup, I’m an ancient being, older than anything and everything else, so while she’s not the only one I’ve helped — the history is full of Ladybugs —, she’s my current holder. Remember that if you hurt her, while Adrien can do a lot of destruction and damage —” there seemed to be a double meaning behind those words but he just couldn’t figure out what it was. “—I will be the one you actually want to look out for!”

Tikki’s words were single handedly the single most terrifying thing Tim had ever heard, and it did not help at all that she was smiling all through it, her voice gentle and kind, her entire demeanour bright even when she was threatening him. He didn’t even want to know what a goddess of creation could do as retaliation.

“If I hurt her, I’d let you do whatever you wanted,” Tim finally heard himself say. Those words were surprisingly true and ran deep, he realised. It… should honestly have been alarming. It was not.

“Good, you understood quickly. This one’s good, let’s keep him.” Tikki patted his head — and such a weird image it must have been, a creature maybe the size of his hand patting his head —, bringing Tim comfort for some reason. He had absolutely no idea how she managed it, being terrifying and so sweet and safe at the same time. He could totally see where Marinette got it from. “Also, some of you have definitely been in close — too close — touch with the Lazarus Pit, this place reeks of it. Marinette, tell me, why haven’t we already taken Plagg with us to the Lazarus Pit and gotten rid of it for good?”

Marinette shrugged, unaware of what was happening in the background behind her — Jason gaping, Bruce in shock, Damian just staring at them like he had seen a ghost, which was a rather disturbing picture because sometimes it seemed the boy could get fazed by nothing. The rest looked just confused. Maybe he should just leave them be and try to focus on Marinette and Tikki right now. “Jeez, Tikki, I have no idea. Maybe, maybe it’s because this has got to be the first time I hear about them and honestly, it should be more disturbing than it is that I, for some reason I don’t want to know, actually know what you’re talking about. Is that a guardian thing?”

Tikki nodded before speaking. “Well, we have to do it at some point. Let’s take the cat with us as well, I’m sure he’d prefer not to be left alone if we’re taking Plagg with us anyway. For now, though, I’m sure we can talk about it later.”

Tim shook his head, trying to concentrate. “Yeah, the offer is still on the table. I’d be happy to train you. You’d also get training from the Bat himself if you wanted — he actually insisted on it before this,” he laughed. “But yeah, I’ll be there anyway. Fun soulmate bonding and all that, right? Fighting, training and sparring until we can no longer stand on our own two feet, that’s all anyone could ever want,” he mused, odd warmth filling his chest as Marinette chuckled at his comment.

“Yes, you get it. Finally someone gets it — looking at you, Chat. Having said that, I do have to tell you it’s a little awkward and a huge coincidence you happened to ask me if I wanted to become a vigilante, as I was kind of going to ask you the same.”

“Huh?”

“You just beat me to revealing your identity and asking. I was wondering if you’d like to try using a miraculous, you know? It’s so much fun unless you’re trying to save an entire city that’s flooding and your partner is not doing what he’s supposed to and you have maybe five minutes left after you use your special ability but other than that, it’s great. I know you sometimes get even magical threats here, and I’m sure you’d rather be able to deal with them yourself instead of having to get the magic users not from here involved every single time since it’s your city. Also, since I’m not going to quit being Ladybug, and I will be out there doing my thing, I’d like to have my soulmate in the team sometimes as well, by my side. Obviously, you can refuse, but like, I could see you being a good snake. Sass would like you.”

Tikki nodded, clearly agreeing with Marinette. He knew better than to ask if they realised what sass meant, or to tell them that he was already familiar with sass, since it was probable this Sass was one of the Kwamies. Kwamiis. Kwamii? He had no idea.

Then she turned around to face the others whose attention — all of it — went immediately to her when she focused hers at them. “It could also be fun to see how any of you work with a miraculous once I get to know you better and know which kwamii would fit to each of you — I do have quite many of them travelling with me, after all,” she said, and the smile playing on her lips was easy to hear from her words. Come the next words (and the jab at most of them), Tim also knew for sure there was a mischievous glint dancing in her eyes. “That, and the kwamii come up with alright costumes most of the time even if you have no idea how to design a good one yourself. The suits are much safer than yours, too, because again, magic . And god-given powers, quite literally.”

The little fairy — kwami, wasn’t it? ... she. Something. — settled herself on Marinette’s head while Marinette took out a small box from her purse, opening it. A bright light with a yellowish or orange hue appeared in front of her as another one of the kwamii took form. Marinette put on a necklace that looked like a fox’s tail, which honestly looked logical as it resembled the kwami as well — if they had something to do with each other, that is.

“Heya Marinette! What is it today? Ooohhh, there are more people to mess with today! The cat isn’t here, I see… Wait, is this the soulmate thing you and Chat discussed? Is one of them your soulmate? Do I actually get to meet him before any of the others do?” The fox looking kwami seemed excited and it was a little bothersome to realise how much the kwami reminded him of Bart. They would probably get along, if they ever got the chance to meet. Probably not.

“Well, Tikki met him already, but yes, you’ll get to gloat about this to Plagg, Wayzz, Mullo, Longg and the others. Except for Duusu, that’s forbidden. She’s not in a good enough mental state for that yet. But anyway, Trixx, Tim is my soulmate, the one that’s probably standing right behind me right now unless he actually somehow managed to stay still even in the presence of something new he doesn’t understand just yet,” she said and pulled out two cookies, handing one to each kwamii present. Tim flushed as he realised she knew exactly where he was and why he was there.

Marinette didn’t pay any attention to any of them anymore, only the kwami in front of her.

“Besides, you complained about not having gotten to patrol in a long while last night and as it seems they don’t hate the idea of a miraculous user here, yet anyway — not that it would stop me, honestly, you guys need to get out and be used sometimes and as the guardian, it’s kind of my responsibility —, they might even let me patrol with them and thus give you a chance to go around. Chaton and Plagg won’t be there, though, and I’m not going to tell him about them, so keep your mouth shut. I know you love knowing things others don’t, but you don’t get to tell them because then you won’t be able to keep the knowledge of more heroes to yourself, and I’d honestly rather have Chat and Plagg only know I’ve told my soulmate now so he’s free to tell his. Also, they—”, she pointed at his family, “—Get to keep their secrets, so there’s that too.”

It felt a little too familiar to hear Marinette call someone Chaton, and it irritated Tim to no ends to know that he knew the one Marinette had called Chaton earlier by name, but yet could still only connect it to Chat Noir and Chat Noir only.

Trixx flew around Tim’s head a few times until deciding on landing on top of it. The kwami started to eat the cookie, still there on top of his head, damnit, leaving cookie crumbles in his hair. “Hello there, Marinette’s soulmate! You seem rather interesting. Are you going to be trying to use one of us? It’s going to be so much fun seeing what kind of a hero you could become with our help!”

But, just as Tim was about to answer, an alarm went off in the cave. They all knew it was a villain attack, and soon all of them got notifications of said attack to their phones, computers, tablets, clocks, anything they had promised to carry around everywhere for this specific thing. Tim groaned and ran a hand down his face.

Not now, we don’t have time for this.

Even so, Tim ran off to put on his suit. There was a big chance Marinette would be coming along since she was, apparently, already used to villains (even if quite different from theirs), and he wanted to be there to see it.

At least Trixx let him leave without following.

⬷۵⤐

Marinette watched in wonder as everyone got a move on the second the alarm went off. It was so different from Paris. She hoped the civilians had more basic common sense than Parisians did, too, and would try to escape the danger zone instead of trying to get into it.

Barbara went to get a small piece of technology before wheeling to her. She took Marinette’s hand and pressed it on her palm. “Here. This is a comm. I want you to wear it when you’re out in the field at all times so you’ll be able to contact everyone, me included, at any time you need. They can also contact you if they’re in need of help or something. That, and I’ll be able to locate you at any point I want or need to, so yes, you have to use it,” she told her, but Marinette gave it back. Under Barbara’s rather scary and very unimpressed glare, she decided to give in. After all, she was — even bound to a wheelchair — one of the scariest of them. She was also one of Marinette’s favourites in the family and would probably admit this to any of them at any given time, so she reasoned that played a part in her decision as well.

“Fine, I’ll take it, but I need to transform first or it will disappear, though I’m pretty sure I could actually connect my own, safer communicator to yours,” she said before stepping back. “You might want to close your eyes, the light can be blinding. Tikki, spots on!”

Once the bright light went away, she got ready to unify Trixx and Tikki together. It would take her a lot of energy, but the stealth abilities Trixx came with were useful, as were the illusions, especially in a city such as Gotham, and Tikki, well, Marinette knew how to work with her the best, and the Miraculous Cure Tikki provided was the best thing ever since it could repair anything and everything if she was involved in it with the miraculous (and better yet, no one would need to pay for said repairs.) “Tikki, Trixx, unify!”

“Alright, I’m done now. I can take the comm now if you so insist,” she said, opening her palm and waiting for Barbara to hand it to her again. “You can call me Lady Vixen for now until I come up with a better name, Oracle.”

Oracle smiled at her and dropped the comm on Lady Vixen’s palm. She put it on, adjusting it until it no longer felt uncomfortable in her ear. Red Robin had just finished suiting up by then as well, and with a grin on his face, he stepped to her side. He brushed over her wrist with his fingers and she did the same to him, because even with their suits covering up the skin of their wrists, it made them more comfortable, more at ease, more focused. Happier. They turned to look at the rest of the family, waiting for the go-ahead since she still needed one from at least Batman.

After Batman nodded to her and smiled (which honestly was not a smile and looked more like a grimace, like seriously, Mr Wayne needed some help with how to smile), Nightwing gave her a bright smile (like, an actual smile, unlike Batman’s) and said, “Welcome to the team!”

She didn't reply, she knew she didn’t need to, and decided that swinging off with her soulmate was going to be enough.

Yeah, she was happy to be a part of the team, a part of the family.

Especially if her soulmate was going to be there for her and stay at her side through all of it.

____

@the-navistar-carol @kris-pines04 @thethirdwheelfriend @daminett4life

#Timari #timinette #tim x marinette #maribat #tim drake #marinette dupain cheng #Bartadrien #ml x dc #dc #ML #miraculous ladybug #soulmates #fanfic #fanfiction #ethel's writing

[cesium--133]

Siblings by Chance, Chaotic by Nature

@taiyuu-high-oct Bonus Round! Featuring special guests: Bumu Ana, Inoue Kokoro, Sugiyama Rikoinu, Sugiyama Tsubame, and Fujinuma Ozen

Kokoro wasn't someone who was particularly easy to startle. But when an angel drops out of the sky with a duffel bag big enough to carry a grown man, then one is instinctually obligated to jump back. Laramie Angelica Spellman, who preferred to be called Ames, knew how to make an entrance.

"Hey Kokoro! You heading to see that cousin of yours? The one with the holes?" Kokoro blanched a bit upon hearing Hiraku called 'the one with the holes.' Not the worst nickname, not inaccurate either, but it wasn't exactly orthodox. Kokoro replied after recovering from her initial shock. 

"Uh yeah, you going to see your sister?" She asked, mostly to be polite. The American nodded 

"Oh yeah, Lyrimon and Tsu both. And Lori's breaking in later too, and Riko is already here, which means it's almost a family reunion." She said. Somehow, while she was talking, she had begun to glide in the direction of the dorms of their guest students. Not walk, glide. Kokoro had followed, she was going that way anyway, she might as well. 

"Well that sounds nice." Then she paused, "So. . .Lori-kun is breaking in?" Kokoro asked, slightly afraid of the answer. To her dismay, Laramie nodded once in the firm manner of someone who knew what the inevitable was. 

"Yup. I told her I wasn't helping her too, so we'll just have to see what she comes up with."

"Well its sure to be. . . Spectacular."

"Almost definitely."

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

Ana wasn't expecting a call. She was just walking to class when her phone rang. Caller ID identified it as Lorelei Sirenica Spellman. The girl who turned most of the general studies class into a rave and somehow got everyone's phone number during an intense rendition of the ghost busters theme song. Ana picked up.

"Hello?" She asked

"Hellooooo, Bumu! Remember me? Laramie's slightly more fabulous sister?"

Ana giggled a little. Lorelei was too extravagant for words. "Oh hey, what's up?"

"I'm actually calling to see if you can do me an eensy-weensy favor."

"Alright, well what is it?"

"Would you mind going to the front gate and claiming me as your guest? I don't want Ames to know I'm here just yet."

"Oh, sure. Are you planning to surprise her and your other siblings here?"

"Most definitely! So you'll do it?"

"Yeah sure, why not?"

"Oooooh, thank you so much! I'll see you at the gate then?"

"I'll see you at the gate. Bye!"

"Byee~!"

The call ended, and Ana made a quick detour to the front gate, where one drink laden Lorelei was standing. One small conversation with the gate keeper later, the gate was open, and the first thing that happened was Ana was assaulted by a drink.

An enthusiastic Lori, buzzing with energy, holding a jumbo sized tray of drinks that seemed incredibly specific, gave Ana an iced coffee, her favorite. She took the drink.

"Wow, what's this for?" The student asked, staring down at the drink in her hand.

"Gratitude! I couldn't ask you to let me in without treating you to a little something! It's your favorite right?"

"Uh, yeah, but how'd you-"

"Theme songs are very potent, and Ghostbusters just happens to be an informative song. The 2 hour nap is so worth it."

"Huh. Well that was really nice of you, thanks!"

"No problemo! Now if you'll excuse me, I have a bed that needs to be filled with shaving cream"

Ana watched her go, skipping off across the grounds to wreak havoc. She took a sip of the iced coffee and smiled. It was delicious. "Americans." She thought privately to herself "are so weird."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

For Riko, this day was even. Not good, not bad, perfectly balanced. It was great that he got to see Tsuki, and it was great that the Spellman family seemed to be taking good care of her, but quite frankly, Lyrimon was the most confusing person he had ever met.

The first time Riko had met the youngest of the other triplets, she had a set of mangled gills, some very awful mutation that seemed diverse enough to be painful, and they hadn't talked very much. Now she was. . . Well, blue, an octoped, and only had one working eye. The left one was sealed up and a little oozy. Riko had spent a good 5 minutes staring, until she turned to him and started talking. Well, it was less talking and more of a collection of curses and a vague idea of asking him about the weather.

If it was possible, the simple proximity to those filthy words were enough to peel back his flesh from his skull. 

But at least they weren't talking much. Mainly, Tsuki and Riko spoke with each other, sitting in the grass in the shade of a tree on a hill. Riko and Tsuki side by side leaning against the tree, and Lyrimon sprawled out on her stomach in front of them, arms tangling in all sorts of positions to accommodate each other and providing a crook for her to tuck her face into. 

Then Riko mentioned Laramie, about how she stress baked 3 dozen cinnamon rolls and was probably going to bring them here, and Lyrimon decided to open her mouth again 

"Did she fucking stress bake them because of fucking us. Did she hear about the damned villain attack?" Lyrimon asked, lazily opening her only good eye to fix Riko with the most intensely unconcerned state he had ever seen. She wasn't even trying, and she might as well have a laser gaze quirk. Riko thought about it for a bit.

"Uh yeah, she did disappear as soon as it came on the news." 

Lyrimon scoffed. "Oh no, then there will not be fucking 3 dozen. There will be at least six damned dozen. Sure as eggs are fucking eggs." Then, having dropped the truth bomb of the century, she slid her eyelid closed again and might as well have gone to sleep. Riko looked at Tsuki. Tsuki looked at Riko. "Well I guess that's a good thing, right? More baked treats?"

He did not know how wrong he was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

"So, uh, what's in the duffel?" Kokoro asked, as she and Laramie made their way up onto the porch. She was referring to the absolutely massive duffel bag Laramie carried around like it was nothing. Laramie explained.

"Oh I made cinnamon rolls. A lot of cinnamon rolls. And the biggest eater I know is my own sister. I once saw her drag an entire raw salmon onto shore and eat it. Bones and all."

Kokoro paused for a bit "Wow. She sounds . . . Interesting."

"Oh, a lot worse than interesting." And with that, Laramie kicked the door open and hauled the duffel bag into the common room. She pulled the bag onto the widest table she could find, and opened it up. The smell was intoxicating. Sugar, plain and simple, laced with delicate touches of cinnamon, and caramel. It wafted through the air, and Laramie placed a sign that she somehow already had next to it. It read "Stress eat to your heart's content. -Laramie Angelica Spellman (Lyrimon's sister)"

Within moments, a couple curious people filed in. Laramie smiled "Go for it." And then turned around and left. "Well, I have a bed that needs to get filled with shaving cream, see ya." And with that, she glided straight out the door. Kokoro paused, as did anyone else who heard the remark. "Shaving cream?" She asked nobody. She thought to herself. “Americans are pretty strange.” Then she saw Hiraku and decided to put that thought on hold to go tackle her comparatively tiny cousin.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Lorelei was decidedly against full frontal assaults. She preferred figuring out her opponents, matching their heartbeats to the rhythm of a song that would reduce their defenses to cool props. But when she saw a tall, teal haired girl who looked like they never smiled and somehow fit all the gay midnight ramblings her youngest triplet never seemed to realize were gay, she simply had to take action.

The first thing she did was of course, put down her drinks, setting them down on a low wall. Then she got down to business, checking her stance, the environment around her, and everything she knew about one Ozen Fujinuma. Allergic to her sister, known for being monotonous and unfeeling, enjoys quite a bit of anime and Miku. So Lorelei latched onto the Miku part of her database, and began to sing. Senbonzakura to be specific.

Lorelei could practically see the girl stop and prick her ears. Unfortunately for Ozen, Senbonzakura tended to incite any sort of romantic feelings previously experienced, creating feelings of warmth, sluggishness, and general crushy-wushy-uwu-feelings. Which was perhaps one feeling Ozen had gotten to know quite well.

She turned around "Spellma?-aktpht"

Ozen had just got a faceful of shaving cream, and had been knocked over. There was now one Lorelei situated cross legged on top of her stomach, menacingly holding a can of shaving cream and wearing what was possibly the widest, most maniacal grin known to mankind.

"So, you're the tall asshole who's allergic to my sister."

"Uh-"

"I have heard quite frankly too much about you. My sister’s got a lot of respect for your tall ass and I’m here to figure out why, got that?”

“Who is your-"

"Lyrimon. Come on, how many people could you possibly be allergic to?"

"Then you're . . . Lorelei?"

"The one and fucking only. You know who I am, that's a good sign. You just might survive this. I've got high hopes for you, Ozen"

"Wait wh-"

"LET THE QUESTIONNAIRE BEGIN!" Now she is standing on top of Ozen.

"Shake Shack or In and Out? Where are your parents from? Where were you born? What is your opinion of public transportation? Do you believe in magic? What sort of songs do you usually listen to? Have you ever seen a live musical in person? How familiar are you with American culture? Describe yourself with a color and a word. Do you have any interest in the green movement? How good are you with mechanics? How are you in a pressure situation involving bodily chaos? What's your stand on cursing? And finally, do you believe in love at first sight?"

That torrent of questions was punctuated by Lorelei leaning down just a little, blotting out the sun with her braided head of hair. She raised an eyebrow at her captive "well?"

Ozen blinked then began to answer. "I don't know what a Shake Shack is, so In and Out I guess? My mom is from the US, my ma is from here. I was born in Japan. Public transportation is fine. I believe there are things science cannot yet explain. I like Idol music, and I have not seen a musical in person. I am part American, the bay area, so I know a bit. Uh, teal immovable. I believe that sustainable energy and caring for the planet is essential to our survival as a species. I'm okay with machines I guess. Uh, having just been in a pressure situation involving bodily chaos, I can say I do quite well under them. Cursing is fine and no." Ozen answered honestly. 

She was not afraid of this person, not on her own, but this was her Allergens triplet sister. They came out of the same womb. For all intents and purposes, she should also be allergic to this other Spellman. But she wasn't. And Lorelei seemed to know that. In fact, every line on her face screamed 'I know something painfully obvious you haven't figured out yet' in the form of a wide, only slightly malicious shit eating grin.

“Hm. Ya know what, good enough.” Lorelei stepped off of Ozen “hey, if you see Laramie, tell her ‘It doesn’t rain in LA’ when you see her, just so she knows you’ve already been interrogated.” and without giving Ozen a chance to ask what the fuck just happened, she skipped off. Scooping her tray of drinks off a low wall where she left it and promptly disappeared. 

Ozen blinked. Not quite sure if what had just happened actually happened. Perhaps it was a vivid hallucination. Lyrimon did say something about how both her sisters were good at making people see things differently. “Triplets are very weird.” she thought to herself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Laramie was walking out of the dorm building, when she ducked. A good move as her middle sister sailed right over her head, tumbling to the ground. Laramie straightened up “Nice try, but after what happened last week, I’ve started ducking.” she said, offering her sister her hand. Lorelei took it, hauling herself up and grinning 

“Well then, I’ll have to come up with something new!”

“I’m sure you will.”

“Oh! By the way, I brought drinks!” she handed Laramie a taro bubble tea. Her face lit up “Hey, thanks! You didn’t have to, man”

“You can’t crash a house party without a gift”

“This isn’t a house party”

“Hell, I know.”

They looked at each other and burst into giggles. Eventually, their laughter died down and Laramie said “Come on, we should go find Mon.” Lorelei agreed and without any sort of warning or preamble, they linked arms, simply able to tell that this is what should happen. Laramie shot into the air, pulling Lorelei up to the sky with her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Lyrimon blinked her eye open and rolled to the side suddenly. Tsu and Riko looked over, Riko asking “Hey wha-” but was abruptly cut off when Lorelei dropped out of the tree right in the spot Lyrimon used to be lying.

Unfortunately, Lyrimon over shot, and she started rolling and rolling and rolling down the hill. Shouting curses all the way down. But her sister was cut from the same dumb-ass cloth, and also started rolling. Riko shot up, worried, and immediately fell over. Tsu, not wanting to be left out, also decided to start rolling down the hill. Soon, there were 4 teenagers rolling down a sunny knoll like a bunch of pencils being tossed down an incline.

Of course, they had to stop eventually, the forces of inertia, gravity, and friction dictated it. They ended up in a scattered clump, completely silent, just breathing after that dizzying ride. The only one of them with flight capabilities landed next to the group “You’re all insane.” she said, breaking the silence.

That did it, they all burst into giggles, even Laramie. She was holding the drink tray her sister had brought over. What had been 5 drinks was now three drinks. One for Ana, and one for Ames. What remained was a bottle of sparkling water, a chocolate milk (A fancy one, not nesquik) and a bottle of apple juice.

They cooled down, sipping drinks and chatting aimlessly. Eventually, Lorelei explained The Plan, which was lengthy and a lot of effort. Lyrimon stopped her eventually, while Laramie cut down The Plan to something doable. Conspiratorial laughter floated through the sky. A storm was coming to UA and that storm was L. Spellman.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

The next day was a terrible day to be a teacher. Furniture was glued to ceilings, sticky notes covered entire walls, people got stuck to chairs, Eraserhead was faced with a sea of markers, all stood upright on their ends to create a tiny forest on the floor of his office, the 1B class of the UA hero course dorm was covered in pink polka dots, and there was shaving cream everywhere.

It was a day of opening doors only to pull them right off their hinges to find that the bolts in the hinges had been put in a small box labelled “put it back together if ya want.” It was a day of classes being postponed to locate the pranks and to neutralize them. It was a day when 5 siblings, if not by blood than by title, smiled like the Mona Lisa. It was a day when Ozen found her bed filled with shaving cream, the first of many days when Ozen would find her bed filled with shaving cream.

#taiyuu #taiyuu high #taiyuu oct #lyrimon #Lyrimon Draconia Spellman #sugiyama tsubame #tsu #ozen the immovable #ozen #ozen fujinuma #ana bumu #kokoro inoue #rikoinu sugiyama

[danetobelieve]

Coffee’s For Closers || Winn and Winston

When: brunchtime on Saturday 27/06/2020 Who: @packsbeforesnacks & @danetobelieve Where: Coffee Plus Summary: Winn and Winston have coffee and Winston recommends a memory magician Warnings: none

Winn was an interesting dude. Winston knew that he was a werewolf, despite the fact that they weren’t sure that they had ever had the pleasure of meeting Winn in person. However, both Rio and Ricky seemed to have relatively high opinions of Winn and Winston knew that wasn’t all Ricky had of him. So when they’d asked about the coffee date, Winston hadn’t been opposed to it. Getting to know someone who was important to their friends, no, their family, was a meaningful enough goal. Pulling their car up in front of Coffee Plus, Winston heard it shudder to a halt and wondered how long it was before it fell apart entirely. Their main method of transportation was hardly their priority right now. Spotting Winn easily, they waved. “I need like a triple shot or something,” it had been a late night, “but it’s good to see you and finally meet in person.”

Winn had more than enough energy to go around — coffee was little more than a bitter drink to him, his joe of choice sweet, flavorful, cloying, and somethings… a little bit chocolate-y. As a treat. But it was neutral territory, and Winn, worried he’d offended Winston somehow, wanted neutral. Winston was important to Ricky and Rio and Blanche. It was wild that they hadn’t met yet, if Winn was bein’ honest with himself, but that was, probably, more on Winn than anything else. Before he’d left town, he’d been… a hermit. Hell, only a couple of folks had known where he’d even lived. He nodded at Winston as they approached, smile bright and sunny in the already-hazy June afternoon. “Nice to see you, bro. Let’s get you caffeinated. For all I care, you can get twenty shots. My treat, let’s make those baristas work.” If it hadn’t been slow, Winn never would’ve suggested that, but he wanted to make a good impression. Money could do some talkin’.

“Twenty shots would be excessive,” Winston replied absentmindedly. Slipping their hands into their jacket pocket they followed Winn into the coffee shop. There weren’t lots of people in here and as things went for a weekend Winston was surprised to see that. Perhaps people had decided to enjoy the delights of the carnival over the attractions of caffeine. “Can I get a triple shot latte please?” Winston had to admit that they should probably just get more sleep than drink more coffee but it was always hard to prioritise sleep when there was so much going on constantly. They were constantly trying to work out so much about the world that they had only just discovered. But now they had to take a break, but hopefully it would be worth it. “You gone to the carnival yet?” 

“Ha, maybe!” Winn said, following them into the shop and smiling at the plain order. Winn wasn’t playin’ around, though, especially not if he was payin’. “Can I get the largest latte, with an extra doppio, double pump vanilla if y’all have it. oat milk if y’all have it, and… hm, do y’all have those little chocolate shavings? Only a little, but those would be great. Ah, and whatever food my friend here wants. Y’all got bagels? Plain bagel and cream cheese.” Winn slid two twenties across the counter at the barista. “And I know that’s a pain, so keep the change, okay?” He scanned Coffee Plus for a corner table and, finding one, slung his jacket over one of the chairs before returning to the bar. “No, actually! Haven’t had a chance. But, uh, was thinkin’ about askin’ someone there, actually. You been?”

Stood there silently, Winston glanced at the menu briefly before shaking their head. “I’m good, thanks for the offer, the latte is fine.” It was always the same coffee order for Winston. The strength usually varied but a straight latte was what they’d been drinking since high school and they didn’t plan to make any changes in the near future. Waiting patiently for their coffee, Winston glanced around the shop looking for any familiar faces. You never knew with coffee plus. Not noticing anyone though, Winston turned their attention back to Winn as he returned. “Got someone specific in mind?” Winston couldn’t help being nosey. “Yeah, a couple of times with various friends. Though this is the first year I’ve ever actually gone. I don’t know why but I just never got around to it before. But it’s cool. Weird. But aren’t all carnivals? Definitely not entirely mundane either.” 

“Suit yourself!” Winn said happily, taking a big bite out of the bagel one of the baristas handed him. “I have kinda… a big appetite. You live with Ricks, though, so you’re probably used to it.” He tilted his head at that, not really having considered that they had lived there while Winn had been… around, briefly. “Did you— I mean, did you know we were casual? Ricky and I?” Their drinks came, and Winn took a tentative sip of his, not willing to burn his overly sensitive tongue on anything. Never knew when you’d need to lick somethin’. Or someone. Winn made his way over to the table, chatting as he slid out his chair. “I do,” he said, evenly. “But he’s not, like, out, really. Just… figured the whole thing out, so you’ll understand if I’m gonna pass on droppin’ names. It would be our first date. Wanted to go on the Fourth. Still have to ask ‘m, ‘course, but we’re basically just dancin’ around each other at this point. Not that,” he paused, taking a sip out of his concoction, “you’d know anythin’ about dancin’ around someone?” There was a teasing edge to his voice, but it was gentle — Winn had learned a lesson about prying, even if he’d still say he hadn’t been tryin’ to pry. “By not mundane, do you mean…”

Taking a long sip of their coffee, Winston sighed contentedly at the familiar buzz of sugar and caffeine pumping through their body. There wasn’t anything quite like the first coffee of the day. Even if it was the middle of the afternoon and Winston had spent far too much time asleep this morning. But it was the weekend right? So it wasn’t really like it mattered. “Yeah, I always wondered if that was because of your hobby or because you guys are gym nuts.” Winston hoped that Winn caught their drift when they said hobby. “I guessed, it's cool, if you guys can make it work then good for you, I definitely could not make the friends with benefits casual situation work.” Winston wasn’t sure that anyone could make it work, but they were ready to be proved wrong. Slipping opposite Winn, Winston tucked their conversed feet beneath their chair and leaned back in it. “Of course, good for both of you, I hope that you have a good time. My advice would be not to get drunk and take them to your friends opening night at a rave, but then again it worked out okay for me so...” Winston wasn’t so prideful that they couldn’t enjoy some good natured ribbing. Glancing around to make sure there wasn’t anyone in ear shot, Winston dropped their voice. “I mean about as mundane as three leprechauns in a trench coat trying to take out a bank loan.” 

“Aw, man, I mean, even before my hobby, I really ate a lot, yeah. But now I have, y’know, a wolf of an appetite.” Winn winked, that joke never failing to make him laugh. “We, uh… couldn’t. It’s chill, we’re fine, but we called it off, sort of, and then there was a one-off when Ricky’s… cold let up?” Winston would understand, right? No way they didn’t know about the chest, especially if they were involved whatsoever in the almost-apocalypse. Winn should ask about that, sometime. He’d been, blissfully, ignorant. But now that, he hoped, there was no chance of it going wrong again… “But, uh, Ricky and I wouldn’t have been good for each other, long term. We both want… different things, I think. I’m not sure what Ricky actually wants, but I know what I do. Or, at least, I do most of the time? Ricky’s great, it’s all good!” He laughed, eager to move on from this subject — didn’t want it gettin’ back to Ricky, or for Winston to think Winn wasn’t mindin’ his business. And things were fine, between them. Noah was in the picture, now, and Winn — like, look, the sex was great, but Winn needed more. No one would guess it, but he was… a romantic, at heart. Past the weed and innuendo and werewolf bullshit. “Ha, thanks,” Winn said, trying to slip around the mention of the rave entirely. He said he would stay out, so he would, but, well. “You’re good, right? With all of that?” Winn cocked his head. “I know it’s none of my business! Just… askin’. And,” he dropped his voice to match Winston’s, “was it… literally three leprechauns in a trench coat? ‘Cause I can take demons, but I draw the fuckin’ line at leprechauns.”

At least Winn seemed to have caught onto the game of charades that they were all but playing as they discussed Ricky. Winston was well aware of exactly what the cold was. “Ah, yes, the cold that lasted for nearly a month, I’m sure he was glad for the … reprieve.” Winston knew that Ricky wasn’t really … didn’t really … they weren’t sure how to put it but they knew that dating wasn’t currently on the table. Ricky felt that there was too much else to work on and Winston could understand and truly respect that sentiment. “I get it, sometimes you meet someone who you like but you know it doesn’t work and so you make the good and mature decision to take some separation over devastating each other emotionally and stunting your growth for however many years. Seems like a smart move.” Winston took another sip of their coffee, the bitter drink rolling over them as they considered what to say next. “We’re good, we’ve talked, we’re making it work our way. It’s just going to take time and be slow, but that’s good for us, it’s good to take this slow especially considering Rio’s … situation.” Winston didn’t know how read into it all Winn was and wasn’t about to out their friend, boyfriend? They weren’t sure what to call Rio. Raising an eyebrow as the conversation continued, Winston shrugged. “No fae that I was aware of, the last time I ran into leprechauns they tried to beat me to death for stealing some of their gold whilst sleepwalking, but yeah, I’d take demons over them any day.” 

Winn laughed a little at Winston’s description of, what, emotional maturity? “Yeah, uh, that about sums it up? Though, seems a little real, bro.” He cocked his head. “Bro, like, okay? I can swap to… buddy?” The last thing Winn wanted to do was to offend Winston, even unintentionally. Stayin’ in their good graces was goin’ to make his life waaaaaaay easier in the long term, especially assumin’ all of their friends were, like, the same as Winn’s. “I’m glad that y’all made the decision that’s right for y’all. Rootin’ for you crazy kids.” Winn winked, trying to let Winston know that he was mostly kiddin’ about the kid quip. No real telling how hold they were, far as Winn was concerned, twenty to thirty was a blur of bad decisions and folks only really changed their hair, not their entire… everything. But, y’know, maybe he was lettin’ personal experience get in the way. Then Winston mentioned leprechauns, and Winn barely resisted bangin’ his head on the table. “Is there anything that exists and doesn’t immediately want to kick ass?” ‘Course, Winn remembered the yeth hound he’d encountered with Rio, but the rest of the supernatural world seemed dicedly… murdery. That was why hunters existed, after all. Protectin’ the Average Joe Coffee from, like, a shark with razor blade fins. Or somethin’. “How are you, uh, otherwise?” he hedged, trying to break some of the (imagined?) tension.

“Sometimes it’s better to be honest then act like something isn’t something that it is,” Winston replied. They’d learned the hard way that denial got people hurt. Maybe not always physically. “Bro, buddy, dude, dudebro, guy,” Winston shrugged gently, “gendered nicknames like that don’t really worry me too much, I use them for a lot of people anyway, but if it ever bothers me then you’ll be the first to know.” Winston stopped themselves from saying promise or something along those lines, even if Winn wasn’t fae it was probably a good idea to get into practice of not making unnecessary promises. Raising an eyebrow gently, Winston smiled a little at the thought of what they were actually doing with Rio. It was crazy, a rollercoaster that they were really not ready for, but you couldn’t stop Winston from riding this ride. It was worth it for Rio. Laughing, Winston shrugged. “Baku, Veggie Lambs are two that come to mind, otherwise it does kind of feel like everything wants to take a piece out of you.” Taking another mouthful of coffee, Winston glanced at Winn for a moment. “I’m doing well, honestly it’s nice to know the world isn’t ending because of a demon squid monster.” Lying wasn’t a strong suit for Winston, but they’d been in denial about their wellbeing for a while now. Bea’s death, Celeste’s death, the amount of overtime work was demanding with all these missing people’s cases, the resurrection and murder. Not to mention all of the more normal (and that wasn’t saying much) parts of everyday life that were stressful. “Kind of hoping things calm down a bit…” they shrugged, running a thumb along the edge of the table. “How about you? Keeping well in White Crest?”

“Honesty can be hard,” Winn said, “but worth it, more often than not.” He wasn’t about to sit here and pretend that honesty hadn’t helped him heal his wounded heart more in the past month than in the almost five years before. “Alright, bro. Just let me know. And if you and Rio ever need anything… well, just call me up. You know I’ve got the cash to burn.” He shrugged, amicably. It wasn’t that he enjoyed showing off — or being a sugar daddy, as Ariana so often hearin’ more about, ugh, Squidward (right?), but he wasn’t a former-future-counselor for nothin’. And it seemed rude to shut down an entire avenue of conversation. “That must have been hard; you deserve a break to relax and enjoy yourself.” Winn chugged the rest of his cooling, sugary put it — but there was really nothin’ Winn wanted more than to redistribute his granpa’s ‘legacy’ into folks that might actually use it for somethin’ good. Winn had bought a fuckin’ house and still had more paper than he knew what to do with. He decided to let the conversation of harmless creatures drop entirely. Maybe it was hangin’ around Adam too much, but Winn could hold the danger with the beauty, now. Sure, some things didn’t want to kill him. Some things were just scared. But that didn’t mean he had to rollover and bear his belly at ‘em. “So… You were involved with the whole… apocalypse thing?” Winn would be lyin’ if he said he was interested in drink, savoring the tingle of sugar as it coated his throat. Maybe the caffeine would kick in; maybe Winn wouldn’t think about how much sleep he had lost lately. “I am and I’m not,” he said, honestly. “I don’t know if Rio has told you — wouldn’t blame him if he’d told you everything — but I’m goin’ through some supernatural shit of my own, right now.” A chomp of the bagel, regret that he didn’t have any water. Why had he finished his drink so early? Oh, right, because: “I can’t... remember everything, anymore.” He gave a half-laugh, willing to leave it, awkwardly, there, if Winston didn’t want to broach the subject.

“My parents had a cheesy saying, ‘honesty is the best policy’”, Winston smirked gently at the thought, “like I said, cheesy as fuck, but usually right.” Winston swallowed at the offer of cash. The thought of the money that Lydia had given them literally sitting gaining value in a savings account. “Thanks for the offer, if there’s ever a need then I’ll come calling but really we both live rent free with Ricky, so it’s not like we’re ever really in that much need. Yeah, I was involved, me and Rio met through… the way me and Rio became really good friends allows us to get a lot of research done too and we’ve been working on a lot of it for a while, fortunately I was only involved in the theoretical side of it, the actual practical applications were much more… tricky I hear.” Shrugging gently, Winston wondered if Winn had an inkling of just how badly Winston really needed a break to relax and enjoy themselves, but more than that they would just like to be able to leave White Crest to its own devices for a week without worrying that one of their friends might be dead when they got back. But as the conversation turned to Winn, Winston found themselves back in a position that they couldn’t help but savour. Being able to help someone. “Really?” Winston paused, “Honestly, Rio and I don’t really talk about you, no offence but I don’t really know you so you don’t come up in conversation so no— I mean I didn’t know, but… I could try and help, maybe?” Winston paused, adjusting their glasses. “You can’t remember everything anymore, do you think it’s supernatural or is this like Winston get me to a fucking doctor sorta situation?” 

“Nothing that a doctor can fix, unfortunately,” Winn said with a sad smile. His nightmare from a few nights ago had slipped to the back of his mind, but he found himself thinking about it. About waking up in a cold sweat, knowing that he hadn’t left his bed, but thinking… thinking that the wolf had gotten out, somehow, that Winn wouldn’t know if the wolf could get out. His decision-making was all out of whack. For every good thing in his life, like telling Noah, there was something… bad. Something stupid. That man, the one who’d reminded him a little of Noah, the way that Winn had tried to let himself forget, but had shouted at him to leave after it all. Winn was no stranger to bad decisions, but this was the first time in his life where it felt like those bad decisions were comin’ from hidin’ from somethin’ he couldn’t explain. The Full Moon comin’ up… Well, Winn was worried about what he might do. His dad had already offered his services on wolf-sitting duty, keeping Winn chained up in the cellar, but… “I, uh, two years.” He held up two fingers, immediately feeling a bit silly. “I can’t remember them. Thought it was, y’know, hobby-related, but think it might be more… mystical? Magical? I don’t know jack shit about all that, though. Two of the, uh, mages,” his voice went up, unused to the word outside of bad movies, “I know aren’t my biggest fans, and the other one… Well, it doesn’t seem like memory is somethin’ she has a ton of experience with. And I’d like to keep my brain in my skull, if you catch my drift.” He stood, stretching for a second. “I’m going to go get some water, let you process all of that, real quick?” When he returned, after chugging an entire cup at the counter (sorry, barista), he searched Winston’s eyes for any sort of answer.

The news that Winn dropped onto Winston’s lap was the kind of news that you sometimes get when you’re getting a check up at the doctor’s. Completely unexpected, really not good in any way, and completely changes your perception of something or someone or anything along those lines. “Okay, so I guess I’ve got questions. You said hobby related; I know what that means and first of all are you absolutely certain that can’t account for that? Two years of your life just gone is a long time and if someone has taken that from you… well I’m really not an expert in…” Winston glanced over their shoulder, the coffee shop had been emptying out for a little while now as the day dragged on and Winston was pleased to discover that they were relatively alone, “… mental magic isn’t my forte. Honestly, traditional magic I’m incredibly mediocre and inexperienced at, where I excel in is like tech and stuff like that, thinking on my feet I can do fine, but I don’t have the experience to be a true expert on this.” Winston chewed on their bottom lip and pulled their glasses off of their face, vigorously scrubbing a finger smudge from one of the lenses they returned them to their face before they spoke once more. “First of all what are you trying to achieve here, do you want the memories back? Do you want to find out what happened and why they took them? Is it an all of the above situation?” Winston sat back in their chair. “I guess the other thing is that you should know the risks that this can have. I can show you what fucking with mental magic gets you if you want, because it’s risky, when we did it… it was worth it, but there was a cost that I paid. There always is with magic. Even when you don’t expect one it is still there. It’s not that the magic is insidious, it's just that the brain is very… complicated and magic is infinitely more complicated, if everything isn’t perfect then things can go wrong and even when they are perfect there can be unforeseen consequences…” Winston looked at the cold dregs of their drink. “If you decide that despite all of that you still want to look into a magical solution, then I… and this is a big might, but I might have a guy who could help.”

Winn took a sip of the water, considering. “Rio has been workin’ his ass off on tryin’ to make sure that it isn’t hobby-related. Given his… bein’ a fan, of the hobby, he’s tryin’ to learn the rules of the game on the fly. But we’re both pretty sure that this isn’t a hobby… accident.” This metaphor was gettin’ complicated. He cocked his head when Winston mentioned that mental magic wasn’t their forte, and then when they implied — well, outright said — that they had some knowledge of ‘traditional’ magic. “I wonder if there’s a way to bridge the two,” Winn said finally. “I mean, what’s that line in Thor? Magic is just technology we don’t understand? Don’t know how applicable it is, but…” Winn shrugged, an easy smile. He listened patiently as Winston worked through the situation, foot tapping gently on the floor towards the end. “I have to know. I, uh— Look, I’m worried that if I don’t figure it out, I might… lose control of my love for the hobby. I almost did, once. Blanche,” he paused, trying to figure out how to phrase this, “threw me into a tree?” Time to cut the metaphor. He spoke in hushed tones, even though no one was hearin’ this. “I shifted, we were sparrin’, a misunderstandin’ went down, and thwing. Tree. I… don’t remember anything after that, ‘cept comin’ to and stoppin’ the big guy from hurting her. I won’t let that happen again, Winston. I owe it to her, to all of them, to figure this out. And if that… if the consequences hurt me, at least… at least they won’t be hurt, you know?” He leaned back in his chair, musin’ aloud. “I’ll pay the tab,” he said, obviously not talkin’ about the coffee bill. “Whatever it takes. Whatever the cost. So… Hit me.”

“Okay, we can assume it is magically related for now,” Winston conceded now that they were satisfied that there wasn’t anything else going on there. Raising an eyebrow gently, Winston shrugged. “I think the line in Thor is inspired by Arthur C. Clarke’s first law, which is that if we are to sufficiently advanced technology it will be indistinguishable from magic, which is already kind of true, look at light bulbs. Take that back a thousand years and it would seem like magic to a rando…” Winston shrugged again, “... either way unless there’s a technological application here, I wouldn’t want to get involved, recent events have meant that I’m not as sure of my magic as I once was and until I get that under control I don’t want to be messing around in your head either, I’d probably make it worse.” Raising an eyebrow gently, Winston nodded. “I know, I got your cheque when you ran, but you’ve got to try and cut yourself some slack, you were bitten not born right? From what I’ve heard it takes a bit more work to maintain control for someone like you. Either way, this doesn’t necessarily guarantee you control. Two years back might help or who knows maybe it’ll make it worse. I don’t think you should pin your hopes on your memory being fixed unless you have guarantees and with this sort of magic you can’t have guarantees.” Raising an eyebrow gently, Winston shrugged. “I don’t charge for helping…” they took a deep breath before continuing perhaps a little optimistically, “... friends, I can’t speak for my contact, but you can take up the matter of invoicing for services rendered with him.” 

“Arthur C. Clarke,” Winn said, absolutely not knowing who that was. “But I get whatcha mean? I mean, hell, way back when, bein’ biracial, or gay, would’ve seemed like magic too. Or worse. Thank fuck most folks are over that shit.” He smiled, knowing — well, assumin’ — maybe Winston understood one or both of those things. He wasn’t in the practice of assumin’, ‘course, but it was nice to have folks in his… friend circle (?), who got that on some level. “Thing is,” he started, “I do have control. Great control. I’ve been like this for almost a decade, now and, bro, I’m mellow.” He winked, wondering if they would understand his… heights of mellowness. “I know it could make things worse, but…” Winn sighed, running a hand through his ungelled hair. “It’s a part of me. If someone did it to me, I want to know why. If I did it to myself…” He trailed off. “I appreciate you warnin’ me, Winston. That’s what a good, y’know, friend,” he smiled brightly, “does. If there’s anything I can do for you, y’know, don’t hesitate to ask?” Winn stood up, stretching again, and held out his arms. “Uh, I’m kind of a hugger, and you’re doin’ me a big favor, so… bring it in. If you’re comfortable with that. If we’re friends now, you get hugs. So… c’mere.”

“Uh, sure, something like that.” Winston hadn’t really given any of it all that much thought. It was a while since they’d really considered anything outside of White Crest and honestly sometimes it was easy to forget that there was a whole world out there. “Okay, sure, I get it. I’ll make the connection and let you know, if they can’t help you then I expect they’ll either know someone who can or have some suggestion about the next steps.” Darwin was resourceful, that much had always been clear. “Fingers crossed that this helps then…” Winston couldn’t imagine what Winn was experiencing. Losing their name to Regan had been enough to convince them to help though, as soon as they realised it was to do with losing something like that, it was a no brainer. “Of course, if I ever need someone of your particular skill set then you’ll be the first to know. Probably.” Rising, Winston nodded. “I can do a hug.” 

#wickedswriting #thnks fr th mmrs #para #chatzy para #chatzy #p: winn

[findsilver]

What do you think about Revolver and its songs in detail?

I really love Revolver, though I have to admit I don’t listen to all the songs with the same frequency, but that’s really a matter of preference. As a whole, it definitely has plenty of gems that I love with an intense passion. Rubber Soul and then Revolver are both very interesting to me in terms of sounds, because they’re two of their transition albums, I’d say, from their moptop era tunes to the psychedelia inspired experiments. You get a bit of both worlds, with the catchy songs that vibe more with the youthful songs that really made them famous in the first place, and then some more experimental songs that feature the awaited sitars, for instance. Plus, the cover designed by Klaus Voormann is really quite iconic, isn’t it? As for songs, let me go through them one by one.

Taxman. There we have a George’s song! Honestly, I really love it, not just because it’s quite catchy, but because of the message it carries. There we have the very usual for George sardonic view on the taxes, which honestly was just as accurate then, as it is now, and I personally vibe with it on spiritual level.

Eleanor Rigby.  Honestly, one of my favourite songs ever. The message of it are really quite depressing, but perhaps that’s why I vibe with it so much. Plus, the melody is exquisite, and the violin slaps in such a poignant way that it could hit me in the face and I’d thank it. You really can’t tell there were some misunderstandings concerning this song, because it came out as an eternal hit in my heart.

I’m Only Sleeping.  Another one that’s one of my faves. It’s a joy to listen to and a joy to play as well. A relatable little tune done by Mr. Lennon when struggling with life in general, which is perhaps why I vibe with it the way I do. There are times I want to put it on to my family, but then I remember they don’t really speak English.

Love You To.  Here we have another one of George’s, including one of the biggest loves of his life: the sitar. Honestly, I don’t listen to that song that often, but it really goes hard in terms of the India vibes, as well as George just being horny. Which, there’s a lot of that in their songs.

Here, There and Everywhere.  Another one of my faves ever. Honestly probably the most romantic song Paul has ever written. It flows so nicely, it’s beautiful. I’m almost intimidated to sing it on my own because to match his energy feels almost impossible. The music is amazing, but I think the lyrics really make it. Both clever and quite simple, and very romantic.

Yellow Submarine.  Eternal fave. Honestly, I will always remain biased in favour of this song. It was the first Beatle song I knew and loved, even before I was actually aware it WAS a Beatles song. It’s also the first song I learned on the guitar. My grandpa used to have an illegal cassette with the song on it. It’s catchy, it’s fun, it has Ringo on vocals. You almost can’t tell it’s about drugs.

She Said She Said.  While I don’t tend to listen to this song very often, I still think it’s a pretty good song. It’s one of the first entering the era of acid, actually inspired by a conversation John had during his second trip. It’s the only song in the Beatles catalogue which Paul did not take part in recording. Supposedly there was an argument about the arrangement, but it was also during a time Paul still refused to drop acid with the rest of them and got bullied for it, so take from it what you like.

Good Day Sunshine.  It’s another song I don’t really listen to often, but I think it’s pretty nice. Has the very familiar Paul sort of groove to it which I absolutely enjoy, especially when you consider that few tracks before, there was Paul slapping with Eleanor Rigby. It’s like on one side you have the emo phase, and on the other someone discovering the hippie movement.

And Your Birth Can Sing.  I also don’t listen to that song very often either, but it’s definitely a nice one by John. There’s a bunch of explanations where the inspiration came from, and I enjoy them, but usually when thinking about this song specifically, my mind goes straight to their recording outtakes, and John and Paul losing it while recording.

For No One.  I really do love that song. I actually didn’t listen to it a lot before I made an edit for it some time ago, but now I have a lot of sentiment for it. The melody is really nice, I enjoy its bass lines, but I think the lyrics in particular really make it for me. They’re poignant and just really lovely.

Doctor Robert.  Honestly don’t listen to it often, but it’s not only catchy, but also really accurate to our trying times. I mean, there was literally a warning right above the lyrics when I googled it to remember which one it was just now. But honestly, I don’t know what it is about it, but I can really believe that John wrote it.

I Want To Tell You.  Another George one. Honestly, I actually really like this one and it’s really just so obviously a George song, in a good way. George just being apologetic while also sounding really groovy is really a specific sort of aesthetic. Definitely an underappreciated song from their catalogue.

Got To Get You Into My Life.  Honestly a classic. Absolutely groovy, the way Paul can groove. Plus, trust Paul to write the catchiest song, with absolutely amazing vocals, and later admit it’s about pot. I mean, honestly we could divide the Beatle songs into horny songs, drug songs, love songs and heartbreak songs, and we’d have their entire catalogue ready.

Tomorrow Never Knows.  Another one edging on experimental music inspired by tripping on acid. I suppose it’s one of those early ones that makes all those mustache type old men assign big brain energy to John, especially since it was somewhat influenced by literature. But honestly, I really like it because it’s one of those earlier experiments with psychedelic genre that was so prevalent in culture in general at the time. I don’t mind if it came from tripping.

#ahh there we go #i think i didn't miss anything but yep #revolver #the beatles #Anonymous

[thebeautyoffandoms]

Hello there! I was wondering if I can get a male romantic Demon Slayer matchup?

Appearance and style:

I'm a female, 5ft and 110lbs. I have short black hair and dark brown eyes. I'm slightly on the chubby side as well. I'm in between pale and light brown skinned. I'm a pure Filipino and I have prescription glasses. I've often been called a "soft girl" but I really don't have a certain styles. My clothes are often t-shirts, off-shoulders, (of multiple color and style) and any type jeans. Hoodies and jackets are a must in winter season.

Personality:

I'm often described as a chaotic motherly type of person. I love to tease others but it's not often. I can be loud and obnoxious at times but I prefer to stay quiet. Though with people I am close with I'm just naturally loud. I can also be such a flirt if I wanted too but I only reserve those skills when needed. Like when I'm trying to make my friends fluster or when someone flirts with me, I flirt back My patience is very long and I don't get annoyed easily. Affection and words are my love language. I tend to get just a tad bit grumpy when I don't get affection. I'm a really observant person, so I'm able to pick up emotional cues, habits, and body language. I use that to check on people I care about. I try to act tough and strong so I would be a role model, since I'm the oldest child. I also tend to suppress my emotions and even fake them just so no one would be burden of me. I do share them if I trust you enough. I can also be really insecure about my abilities and looks.

Flaws and strengths:

I can be really insecure and really clingy. My insecurities tend to refer to my looks but most of the time on how I acr. Not only that, I can also be moody, especially on that time of the month. I overthink things a lot. I sometimes even wonder if my friends actually are my friends. You know, all that trust issues (but honestly I don't think I have trust issues I just overthink things a lot ). I'm not afraid of material things or the supernatural. I'm afraid of being judged and left alone or abandoned. I hate the feeling the loneliness.

But I do give good advice, that's what alot of people tell me. My optimism and energy almost always lifts the mood up. I'm great with talking to people. May it be comforting them, persuading, I can do that. I'm also quite good at reading people. Especially if they are close to me and I've been through things alot with them.

Random facts:

I usually listen to pop or ballad but I like almost all types of music. Songs like IDK you yet by Alexander23 or This is gospel by Panic at the disco are some of my favorite. My star sign is Cancer. I don't really believe it but I love learning about it. I'm an INFP-T (The dreamer) and my Hogwarts house is Ravenclaw! I love learning and doing new things. Science is my favorite subject, specifically Biology/Zoology. I sing and write stories as a hobby.

Thanks~ 💕

Hello!! You’re so welcome, and thank you for requesting! I hope you like it!! <3

For you, I feel like Inosuke Hashibira would make a lovely match!!

While it may not seem all that like it, I feel like Inosuke would be able to relate to you in a few ways. He’s never had much when it comes to people who were there for him, so I feel like Inosuke has a fear of abandonment. While he covers it up with his tough, loud exterior, I do think there’s the part of him that worries about being left behind; like you, he also doesn’t fear much material or supernatural-wise. If he’s to find out you’re similar, while he may be poor at it (depending on how you see his methods) he will do his best to reassure you that he won’t leave. Though it may simply consist of bone-crushing hugs, rough headpats, resting his head on yours heavily, and shouting, it comes from his heart. I also feel like Inosuke would be attracted to a motherly girl, since he’s never really had that kind of person in his life. As for clinginess, Inosuke would be fine with that! Now, it may take him a bit to get used to it, but never think in that time that he doesn’t like it. He just doesn’t understand why a girl wrapping her arms around him makes his mouth feel dry and face go warm. After getting advice from Tanjiro and Zenitsu, Inosuke will begin to show you just as much affection back. While your words of affection may still throw him off, he’ll also try his best to return them. It’ll definitely be a… work-in-progress for a long while though, because the boar boy is not best with words. Goodness knows your patience will come in very handy. Inosuke is, as you know, the type of person who had to learn to think before acting. It’s not something that happens overnight, so you’ll be dealing with a very energetic, chaotic boy. He will appreciate your ability to read body language, as he probably struggles to put how he’s feeling to words. And, as for when you suppress your feelings, Inosuke heavily relies on his ability to detect changes. If he notices something even slightly off about you, he won’t hesitate to give you a big hug and pester you to tell him what’s wrong. Though, if it makes you uncomfortable, he’ll try to back off a bit. However, he will continue to insist that you talk to him until you give in. If you ever begin to feel insecure, especially about your looks, be prepared for Inosuke to start loudly going off. He’ll shout to you about how perfect he sees you as, and about how you need to appreciate your beautiful body, and how you’re perfect. While it may be a chaotic, and perhaps not completely ideal, way of encouragement, it clearly comes from the bottom of his heart. Please! Teach him how to write!! He will be so thankful, and honestly like a puppy the entire time. If you enjoy writing things like stories, please read them to him as well! He’ll be amazed at your skills, and praise you endlessly. Even more so if you’re to sing for him. Those are several ways to get him to become quiet and calmer. He’ll also really enjoy if you told him things you know about biology and zoology! He actually may know a thing or two, and would excitedly tell you the cool fact he knew. If you would, praise him for it, and his grin will grow even wider.

<3

#matchup #demon slayer matchup #demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #kny #inosuke hashibira #the great inosuke-samaaaaaaaa

[oflovetruth]

Sehun’s first love,

A semblance of hope had washed over the otherwise hopeless romantic. The taste of bitter espresso taking over his senses, and his bleary vision had barely made up his surroundings. Blinking out his sleepiness, he forced himself to grab whatever bits of food that he had from last night. Takeout. Ah. Great. No wonder, he cannot seem to achieve the body of his dreams. Hand tapping on the centre of his stomach, and blindly blaming himself for wasting such effort on junk food. He grabbed the folded box, and he had unraveled the cold noodles that lied inside. Groaning, quietly, to himself, he threw the soggy noodles into a microwave safe bowl, and threw it inside to heat. Whilst he would wait for it, he had hurried his way to change out of his sleeping attire; which consisted of a thin shirt and sweats.. topped with Bambi socks. Not the most intimidating person to consider. Rummaging through his closet, eyes staring daggers for something new to wear, and he had hit jackpot. A pair of dress pants topped with a button down? Ah, what else is possible? He took the clothing, and laid it first on the bed. Swiftly yet cautiously as to not ruin the recently ironed shirt, he had changed into it, and he could hear the ringing of his microwave—muffled by the subtle shut of his bedroom door. Jumping up and down, trying to shovel his way into it. Has he gained weight? He does not particularly remember the last he had weighed himself. Hurrying his way to eat his makeshift breakfast, and nearly burning his tongue in the process. He will definitely buy himself on the way back from campus. Ah. Yes. His social life had barely lived up to the expectations of his parents. His stomach had felt sick, and he was certain it was more so his worries than the hours old food. At last, taking a leap onto changing his socks, and switching them with a new pair of plain ones to match his mundane outfit. Eyeing himself in the mirror, he fixed the few unorthodox strands of hair back into place. Grabbing his bag from the floor, he had already fixed his schedule into it, and he smiled upon the start of a new day. Luckily, his apartment had only been a few minutes walk from campus, and never had to worry too much about sleeping in; he had always been an early bird. Smelling the fresh scent of rain mixed with the city fumes—it was quite the odd mixture, although Sehun was quite fond of it. It reminded him of home, and nothing brings him great happiness than home. Seeing familiar faces as he had gotten closer to campus, he could almost pick up on a few gossips, and he was not too fond of that. He hated it when people would speak behind others’ back, and have great pleasure in doing so. Perhaps, it is the mere fact of majoring in Psychology that opened up his eyes to the reality of the human mind, and how crooked it can be—in the search of endorphins. He would hear the cacophony only accumulate as his way towards the university buildings lessened. The incessant gossiping had only irked him, at this point. In the midst of his wavering state, he could pick up a familiar face in the distance, and his former stoic face began to slowly merge up into a warm smile. Jongin. His best friend. What a sight for sore eyes, no? He would often pretend to duck his head down, and scan the newsfeed that clogged up his phone’s screen. His eyes would dilate upon the numerous scholars that piled up, and his excitement to devour all the new information and knowledge; his heart could only handle so much—bump. He had accidentally bumped himself against his friend, instead of actually saying hello. A giggle had erupted out of the gentle and soothing one. “My bad!” He spoke, his hand patting over his friend’s chest, and he locked eyes with him for a brief second. “You need to give your eyes a bit of a break...I’m surprised you don’t need glasses yes, Tokki..” His friend voiced with concern, ushering for him to follow. Sehun nodded his head ever so slowly; humming in response before his excitement piled up before his very eyes. “Well! You see.. I just cannot seem to ignore the new scholars I could use in order to build the perfect research,” He mused, his tongue tapping the roof of his mouth, and it sure was reminiscent of that black coffee from earlier. “You know? I often think you’re too dedicated that you just lost your energy..” His friend voiced with concern, his brows furrowed, and his lip jutted out in a subtle pout. Sehun could see where he had been voicing those concerns, and he heedlessly brushed it off as something trivial. “I am on top of everything, nonetheless,” He said with a bold tone—his eyes squinting into a soft smile. “Anyway, I will see you after class!” He quietly spoke, his hands waving towards him friend—nearly dropping his book, and he squeaked. Sighing at himself; due to his idiosyncratic behaviour. Walking up the stairs, preferably, he enjoyed the architecture that was put into this school. It was quite old, which he liked, and it reminded him of numerous books he had read about this particular university. It feels utterly rewarding to be inside of it. Staring at his phone, he was making his way to his ethics class. He did not particularly believe this class to be hard, albeit the material was a lot to remember. The ninety minutes period had passed quicker than expected. Sehun was quite intrigued by how fixated and attentive, he was. Jotting down notes, inquiring his curiosities and doubts, and thanking his lecturer before leaving the class hall. He was the embodiment of a slacker’s nightmare. He did not bother, though. He was feeling the brink of hunger eat at him; it was not a pleasant feeling. Surely, he would hold his bag over the centre of his stomach—trying to compensate for the pain that lingered a little further than anticipated. Well, that is not precisely the perfect way to phrase it. “Something... easy to digest and quick..” His mind had immediately rushed to the convenience store just outside of campus. Right, right. He could never forget the late nights, whenever he would visit the shop, and the lady would recognise his face. He was a regular, if one had to be precise. That was the initial plan after his class; although he was fast-walking his way down the hall. Making a beeline for the exit of the building—till his eyes had captured a sight he was not expecting. It is almost as if time was still. It stopped. His eyes were once slanted downwards due to his lethargic state, yet now they grew wider—the background had became a blur. She became the centre of his attention; the cynosure. Her beauty is immaculate. She had a smile that stretched across her angelic features, and his heart nearly drummed out his lungs out of his rib cage. He must have looked absolutely insane. No, no, he probably is lost. He could not take his eyes off her. The way she had headed her way towards the exit, and the way her digits held onto the hem of her translucent sleeves; chiffon. The gentle colour of warmth, the clementine perfume—the saccharine sense of it all. Sehun had to make a move, and he had to make it quick.

Little did he know that angel was nothing but the nightmarish devil; awaiting the very purity of men to come forth, and reap them off all their innocence. His perceptions were meddling—they were messy. His eyes felt as if they were being gorged out with a frigid spoon. He could feel his head pounding, his body trembling with tremors ceasing to pause, and his voice had been caught in his throat. There she was. Stood high. A lavish dress that she draped over her curvaceous figure, and a wine-red lipstick encapsulated her very full lips. Sehun could not take his eyes off her. She was his, yet he felt as if she owned him. Sitting upright, he rubbed his eyes, and as he was about to inquire the woman about her sleep—she had placed the tip of her index finger over his lips. “Shh..” Her honeyed voice would speak; his heart shaken with the urge to only obey her. Her hands would traverse over his physique, his eyes following her, and once clothed—now bare. He felt as if it was moving far too quickly for his liking. “No—Aerinnie... not now,” He would say with an apologetic smile spread across his face. “I feel tired, yeah?” He felt as if he had to surge his excuses out. She was a fine lady, there was no denying that. All it took was a scintilla of doubt to wash over their relationship, and cause it to lose its once stable foundation. Once she would stay over, now he could barely catch her phone not busy. It felt odd. It felt wrong. He could not force himself to divulge into her business, although he felt that it is only fair that he knew—he was not asking for much, right? Soon, Sehun’s doubts began to accumulate by the second, and understandably, they were welcomed with facts that broke his heart atom by atom. He had never seen the angel claw at his skin, scream to his face, and eye him with disdain in her heart. It did not feel right. This is not the woman he had fallen for. Something must be wrong.. not till he had been faced with the mere factor; she voiced it. It took all of him to not cry on the spot. Three months into the honeymoon phase, the true colours began to finally appear—display itself before the man. Sehun had an idea of something such as this to happen, yet he did not expect it too soon. She would look at him across the table, boredom risen in her expressions, and Sehun tried his best to build any sort of excitement into the conversation. She felt far away. She would take a sip of her wine before he could finish his sentences. Futile. He almost felt as if he was not supposed to be here, and that tore at his heartstrings. The date felt mundane. Idle. Wrong. He had never eaten as quickly as he did, and neither had he paid as quickly as he did. Watching her stand, and hurry towards the exit. Her heels cracking down the marble floors of the - ridiculously - expensive restaurant that he had reserved for the both of them; a failure. He had to step up his pace in order to keep up with her, and he had to finally confront her. It felt as if he was talking to a wall. Where was the love that she had showed him? Was it all a plan to simply come for him? Sehun had a lot rushing through his mind, his lips momentarily quivering, and he stood before the woman who had taken his heart... and clearly, had the black intent of stomping on it with her stilettos; tearing it apart with a cold smile across her face. “Sehunnie~” She would say, her hands finding solace onto the man’s shoulders, and her eyes—they batted their lashes—lips morphed into a smile that Sehun could not recognise. Her voice felt as if the entire world had stopped, whenever she would speak. Sehun, only gulped, and looked back at the ethereal woman. “You’re a smart man... you know?” She would muse. Hands taking business in playing with his collar—ever the hairs at the back of his head. Sehun reacted to it all. He was ridden with anxiety, and this had only increased it; she knew. “But you’re so credulous,” She would shove at the fabric, nearly ruining the ironed suit. Causing Sehun to gasp in reciprocal—unbeknownst to him, just how much he would resent this holy ground they stood before. “You make me want to hit you—you’re so fuckin lame,” Her tone was not honeyed, anymore. Honey had turned into poison. Sehun could barely keep his breathing in a stable state; labouring. “I don’t fucking love you, did you really for that, petit prince~?” The woman said; eyes full of malice. Sehun, during this, could barely manoeuvre his body. He felt as if he was caught in her web, and there was no escape—to be exact—she gave him no escape. “I only want you for your dick. You’re nothing to me,” She would cackle between her words, causing eavesdropping people to chuckle under their breaths; humiliating the man before her. “You—you’re messing with me,” Sehun managed to crack out. He could feel the heartstrings being pulled at every corner of his body. It cannot be right. She must have drank too much. “Ah~ right, right.. I do love you.” She would press a chaste kiss to his lips. It felt bitter. It felt wrong. Sehun hardly managed to reciprocate the kiss; yet he did. Walking back home with her had felt odd. Unheard of. Raw. Wrong. It all felt too wrong.. almost as if there was truth to that joke. It left him ruminating during that night. He could not sleep properly, and his eyes only bared the tiredness of the sleep deprived state; coffee could not hinder him from nearly collapsing on the hard floors of the classroom hall. What a shame. He had seen her face during class. She looked peaceful, but far too occupied with her phone.. she was... smiling. She had not shown that smile to him in quite awhile—two months—and it was only fair to contemplate, right? Luxurious gifts, her hair tied with high end fashion houses, and her attire had began to completely differ from before. His angel was not his angel, anymore. Sehun felt a bile form in his throat, and it felt as if it was tightening. He knew it was only purely caused by his mental state, but he could not stomach seeing her act so differently—hostile—to him; yet watch others with the same smile that she used to give him. What did he do wrong? He had been with her during her pregnancy scare—before they had dated—he had been there with her, when her parents quarrelled about whom should stay in their place. He had always been that ear that listened, yet he was oscillating with his emotions trying to rationalise the entirety of this situation. Had he been short on something? He had always sent her long messages about how much he appreciates her, and she would only send him a heart. It did hurt—seeing his efforts disappear—and hers nonexistent. Trying to walk his way towards her, nevertheless she had disappeared like a ghost. It slowly had became the typical for him. He had pulled himself away from his excessive emotional messages, his attempts at calling her to ensure that she was okay, and finally, he had stopped looking for her in the crowd of students in the halls—it made no sense. Why search for somebody that could not even bat an eye your direction? Their dates had started to get more boring and fruitless. Their meetings at his place had been nothing but watching a movie—with her texting on her phone—and him just forcing a smile to look at her. When will this nightmare end? When will she stop hiding away from him? What had happened? Despite her cold behaviour, Sehun had still understood. He did not want to hurt her more than she was already hurting.. right? He was too selfless for his own well being. Had he not realised how she had always been disappearing for a few days, and only coming to him to kiss and make out? As far things go, that was as far as Sehun could go. Intimacy was something he considered sacred. Intense. Emotional. He could not perform any act, when she had displayed such detachment from him. It did not feel right, and he most certainly was not going to allow her to do anything. Taking a sip from his mug, he watched as she smiled down on her phone. She was always full of euphoria with that device in her hands, although so sullen and sulky whenever it was away. Was he that boring? He was beginning to question himself; nothing will fancy his thoughts other than a little music. Playing a precise track on his vinyl player; smiling as the music filled the room, and created a less tense atmosphere. He jumped his way beside her, his arms hugging around her waist, and his chin perched over her collarbones. For once, she had laughed due to his actions, and he felt as if he had won the world—at that current moment—till it came tumbling down the very second it had risen. His chest had felt so heavy. He had briefly captured a sight of whom she was texting, and his heart began to tear itself apart. He tried to pretend he did not see it.. he tried.. He could not stomach it. No. His stomach felt far too sick. Getting off the couch, he had to hurry his way to the bathroom, and the sounds of his throat coaxing the bile of his disgust to - at last - leave his body in the form of nothing but vomit. His eyes soaked with tears, his body shuddered with the force, and he had felt absolutely dizzy. Flushing the toilet, he was shrouded with his own countless fears circling around him. As if he was a joke.

As if he was nothing. As if she had won, and broke his heart. He was shocked to see her still on the couch, and did not even lift a muscle to come check on him. He could not bear it, anymore. This had gotten out of control, and Sehun needed to set the record straight. He felt a sense of power yet weakness merged into one as he slammed his hands on the table. He thought the sound was loud, thus jumping himself. The woman had only - barely - turned her eyes his direction. Boredom encasing her features, and he wanted to be swallowed whole by the earth. “Aerin,” He spoke, a hoarse voice, and he surely looked pitiful. Aerin, on the other hand, did not dare to even react with a semblance of sympathy. “What?” She inquired; voice low as if she was irked to be called during her fun hours with whomever she was texting. Sehun could not keep this relationship going, if he had do to all the work to keep it stable. “What are you doing—? Why don’t you ever smile at me, anymore? What have I ever done to cause you so much harm?” Sehun’s words had rued the day they spoke. The lady opposing him had sat upright, and clasped her hands together. Crossing her legs, and staring at him with her sharp eyes. She knew how to flip him under her will, and she was aware of it. “What are you talking about, Sehunnie~?” “When have I ever changed?” “What do you mean like before?” She had cornered him with questions that had him doubting, if he should have ever started this conversation with her. She knew how to play her cards, and she played them right. She would stand up, propel to him, and that prompted that same vicious smile during that date night. He knew what this had meant, and her hands had only reached to his throat. Her long nails grazing over his jugular vein. Words so cold that they left him shivering. “Would you die for me?” She would whisper, beside the shell of his ear. Straddling his thighs, she sat, and she proceeded to reprimand him for ever opening his mouth. “You.. you don’t get it,” Sehun uttered out with lips shut tight by a kiss so violent. He had pushed her off him with an instinctive reaction. His eyes shooting wide—hurrying towards her, and apologising, if he had hurt her. His shove was not violent, yet he was more concerned about her than the well of himself. “I’m fine, fucker,” She cursed out. Her anger had began to increment, and Sehun was growing afraid. He had not known what to do, stepping aside—back—he felt weak. “You’re so fucking pathetic. How do you even live life like this?” Sehun shuddered. He was not weak. He was weak for her. He allowed himself to open his heart for her, but— “in case your stupid eyes didn’t notice, yes, I’m having a fucking affair since you won’t ever fuck me,” There it was. His heart had been stabbed. Penetrated. Protruding blood. Tears trickling down his visage, and the woman had only smiled wider. Walking towards him till he was pressed against the wall. “You’re not a real man. You don’t know how to treat a lady right, either~I bet you’re fucking gay.” Was the last thing before she had left him in his apartment. Hurt. Lost. Confused. Emotional turmoil. The emptied bottles of various alcohols had spread across the coffee table, and Sehun knew better than to cope with substances. He did not know what to do. He could not call his best friend. He felt absolutely useless, and nothing had made sense to him. Was he truly less of a man for not wanting to make love so quickly into a relationship? He was doubting his well state—he had to call Jongin, before he succumb to worse tactics of dealing with the heartbreak. “Hello?” A kind voice came through the speakers of his phone. Sehun could not reply. He could barely see anything, without it doubling in size or silhouette. His head pounded, he stenches of alcohol, and his hair was a mess that could not be tamed. “Hello?!” The voice had grown concern. Jongin had been clearly affected by the silence coming from Sehun’s end, and whatever it is—there was a shuffling sound on Jongin’s end. Sehun could not tell what it was. “I’m coming over, Tokki. Stay still.” The call had ended. Sehun sunk himself against the counter, and his knees grew wobbly. He could barely stand, and he was ruminating over what Aerin said. She is openly saying that she was cheating on him. Openly. She had no heart or care for how he would react about it. He saw that text that mocked his inexperience, and how his kisses must have been like kissing a wall. Those comments have hurt a little more than they should. Every time that he remembers her face when she said that, he would want to down another glass—but he was stopped by the sound of the door unlocking. It must be Jongin. It must be the only person that could understand how he had felt—without peer pressuring him into anything. Almost as if light had cascaded itself down into his rather dark and grim status. Sehun’s eyes were heavy, the doubling of Jongin’s figure had confused him, and he had to lean his body against the counters—trying to balance himself. “Sehun!” A voice called out. It did not feel close. It felt far. Was he perceiving the world a little too late? What was happening to him? “Y..Yes,” He managed to say with tears shuffling down his already damp face—a touch had supported his body. His eyes blinking out the blur, and his breath stenches of alcohol. He hated how pathetic and pitiful he must have looked. “Here, here,” The same voice had said; more clear now with the close proximity. Sehun tried to clear his conscience, yet it only whispered to him about the lost fragments of his love for that woman. The woman who revealed her filthy behaviours, yet had the very same audacity to leave him. He did not understand—but he was drunk. Too drunk to make sense of the world. “Jongin..?” Sehun quietly said. His body now laid down on the couch, his hand reaching to gently caress the man’s face—staring at him—he could not make up his features. His eyes were squinted and puffy—bloodshot—he swallowed thickly. “I.. I feel like.. I died...and..” He could not continue. The pounding headache had completely taken over him. Jongin had frowned. It was not easy to see Sehun like this. Getting off the edge of the couch, he had fished for a glass to pour water into. Perhaps, that could clear the man’s mind a little bit more. “Take your time, love... it will be okay,” Jongin said with a serious tone cowering his usual kind one into the backseat. Sehun’s hand had laid over his temple; feeling the sweat form tremendously. He only felt weaker. Prone to breakage, and slowly accepting that fact; the quicker he would recover from this pain. Jongin did not want to fall victim to his anger. He was aware of how much it does take to break Sehun like this. What had happened? He was growing so insanely worried, and his anger fuelled up his desire to break something—but he resisted. Placing the glass down on the coffee table, he slipped his hand under Sehun’s nape, and slowly eased him to sit up. Smiling briefly, trying to bring some warmth into the man’s stoic expression—hollow eyes—even. “Here. Drink some water, I will keep your pill by your bed, okay? I am staying over,” Jongin said as he handed Sehun the glass of water, and did not let go of it; the tremors that rushed through Sehun’s body were quite violent. Sehun’s eyes would stare back at the man’s, his body reacting to the cold glass in a frenzy—and he was glad that Jongin had kept his grip on the glass. Inhaling through his nose, he slowly began to take a sip—it turned into a gulp—and he was chugging it down in no less than a nanosecond. Feeling that rush of cold liquid rush through his body, and give him a new sense of refreshment—Sehun was certain that he needed that a little more than anything. “Thank you,” He endeavoured a small smile towards his friend, his hand reaching to pat on his shoulders, and he shortly sunk into the couch. How did home feel so suffocating? Why did he feel as if he did not belong, here—? He lived here. It did not feel real to him. Being pulled out of his daze, he did not particularly appreciate it. “Sehun. What happened? You called me, and said absolutely nothing,” Jongin’s voice had broken the unsettling silence between the pair, and Sehun nearly was startled into a flinch—yet he remained still. Almost as if his body could not react, anymore. He felt as if was not here—anymore. “She.. cheated,” The taste of alcohol has enticed the nausea into his body, once more, and he could not handle it. “She ... voluntarily did it, unapologetically... she ..” It became too real. It was not a stupid nightmare, anymore. It was reality, and his friend deserved to know. “She.. left me after patronising me about it..” His throat dried up. He would try to fiddle with the empty glass, and his eyes would wander. He did not want to think about this, yet thinking about it is all that he did. Lost in a paradox, and caught in a dilemma. He loves her. Well, he must learn to unlove her. He cannot love somebody who had strife in their heart. “I.. I cannot—“ Tears sprout out of his ducts, and they felt so painful. He cried so much that his eyes could - languidly - handle the torment it brought to them. “Sehun—take your time, I’m listening,” Jongin had seated himself beside him. Scooting closer, and pulling his body against him. His palms would rub the length of his spine, and his eyes would watch his friend’s reactions. Jongin had so much hate in his heart for Sehun’s girlfriend, yet he was halted in his thoughts by Sehun��s words.

“I cannot hate her,” He uttered. “She was good to me.. for the most of it, I think..” He was perplexed. “She ... she was mine at the wrong time. I wanted her heart.. her deepest secrets... what makes her laugh.. what she liked to eat the most,” He knew it all. He even knew what time of the day is her favourite, yet she remembered nothing about him. “Yet she only loved me for my body—resorting me to nothing. Nothing but flesh and bones. Nothing but a walking reminder that she is dating a decently looking guy, and that breaks me. I loved her for her, but she loved what I could not offer,” Sehun tried to hold back, but Jongin encouraged him to let it all out. “And she can not afford to talk to me, anymore. It’s final.” And with that, Sehun had closed off the windows to his heart. A strong, concrete, thick wall had gathered around his heart in his slumber, and he knew what to do in the morning. Submerged under the thick waters of anxiety and blinded by love, he had forgotten how the pull was drowning him, further. He was magnetised by her. She was a force. She took him. Her effect on him was astronomical. She was the pinnacle of perfection, and immaculate heart—but things do not prove to be what they are. Perfection is not... perfect. Flaws brought him to open his eyes. Catharsis had found its way to him. He had cleansed himself off her pain. No. He was not weak for being more careful. No. He is not weak for closing the doors of love on the potential lovers in the near future—he wanted to be ready. Clawing their way into his reveries, he was lost. Unable to fixate himself during the lectures, and he caught a sight of her. A sickening smile on her face, and her voice absolutely deafening; heedless, he was longing for one more conversation. He noticed her fleeing, he noticed the fleeting glances, and he noticed the notifications on his phone going off. As if she had thought that she could pull onto his heartstrings, and leave with closure. Sehun had been always a compassionate man, and he would not resort to anything that could - possibly - hurt another. There was no footing to be lost. He stood high, before her, his energy utterly different than the night before. “Ms. Go,” The dapper one had said. His voice holding a hefty, potent, and confident flair to it. Understandably, Aerin was taken off guard. Her doe eyes widening, and she chewed on the tips of her acrylic nails—meekly, she answered. “Yes..?” Oh, how the tables have turned. Sehun did not entertain the conversation too much. He wanted it - over - the second it had commenced. “It is over,” He said. Watching as she swiftly responded. “As if that was not obvious, fucker,” Trying to regain her status as the superior in the conversation—but it was in vain. Sehun’s visage remained stoic. Cold. Almost as if all the light that was erupting onto his moonlit skin had dissipated into nothingness. “Keep your filthy language, I will not participate in that low level,” The man riposted. His eyes falling to the necklace that he had bought her, her donned in it, and he grew that bitter taste on his tongue. Not now. “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say, virgin—what the fuck do you want from me?” The lady had grew angrier by the second. Sehun’s reactions remained stagnant. “I want you to understand that I loved you for you. I never cared about your social status, your looks, or your actions—I never wanted it to be superficial. I wanted to love every inch of you, yet you tore every inch of me,” Sehun’s words had appeared to have had an effect on her; resulting in her silence. “I thought of our future together—I loved you. I wanted to go on more dates, I wanted to know more about you—yet you suddenly lost all your interest in me the very moment I had rejected you; that night you stayed over,” Sehun stepped a little closer, his towering height had finally inflicted its effect. “And I accepted that. I thought... maybe, she needed more time to adjust to me not being very comfortable with intimacy so quickly—you said how much you loved my mind, but your hands have always been adjacent to my hips—you do not even know what my favourite drink is, you do not even know what my last name is—do you?” Aerin looked puzzled. The Sehun before her was not the same subservient man that she used to stomp on. She had tried numerous tactics to guilt him, yet he had never been this way. She emotionally blackened him. He had completely changed, and she was scared. All it took was infidelity? Her cherubic lips were tucked into her mouth. She chewed, chewed, and chewed. Slowly, blood seeped out, and she could not speak. “Look.. what you made me do..” His former lover had said; rummaging for her tissues, and trying to escape this confrontation. Sehun did not let her. She needed to hear it all. Sehun needed her to know exactly what damages she had caused, and he quickly said. “I made you do nothing,” He quickly responded. His eyes pitying the red that matched her already smudged lipstick. “What about the time you shoved me? What about the time you emotionally blackmailed me in order to bruise your skin..? Thinking that I was too weak to give you hickeys.. thinking I was nothing, if I did not perform any carnal activities with you—does it not count?” She shook her head—she could not accept the fact that she had hurt him. She did it on purpose, yet she could not deal with not being the victim. “You made me bleed! Look at my lips!” Sehun’s eyes, for the first time, they rolled to the back of his skull. “Aerin. Thank you for being the reason of the birth of my resilience. Farewell.” Sehun had turned on his heel, and ignored the grip that tightened onto the sleeve of his suit jacket. Not looking back. He continued forward, and his eyes never scanned that beautiful face with those doe eyes, ever again. Love has been a topic long forgotten since that day. He had dreamt of the idea of love, but the mere mention of succumbing himself into the abyss of being controlled, manipulated, and questioning his worth did not seem appealing. He wanted to ready himself for the one. For the one that will light fire in his heart, and for the one that would hold him tight. Let him see what it truly felt like for his efforts to be reciprocated. Love is blind—and his heart desired for that connection. That experience had taught Sehun a lot. He never resorted to alcohol ever again. He had learnt to keep himself positive, and to reconcile his emotions better. He had wanted to give the world kindness, and offer the world a hand that will hold. An ear that listens, and a heart that understood. Taking the path to become a therapist appeared immaculate, and the insatiable appetite for knowledge had proceeded his studies. Thank you, Go Aerin... I, now, understand myself better.

#solo #trigger warnings apply

[miguel-manbemel]

Aspects & Fanfics Ep. 29: A Side is Born Part 4: The Labyrinth

New part of this weekly-serialized story from this fanfic inspired on Sanders Sides, by Thomas Sanders, Joan S. and the Foster Dawg Team. The Sides get moving to rescue Roman and Virgil’s son from the Dark Master. The story is slowly approaching the end, but we have still something to go through before we get there. I just realized the story has become really romantic in the last few episodes, but there’s no epic story with some romance here and there, I guess. I hope you enjoy this part and see you next week in the finale of this serialized story. Until next week.

SYNOPSIS: The gang gets moving to rescue Chris from the Dark Master. They need to get to the Mind Palace Center before it’s too late, or they’ll lose him for good. But before they can get there, they’re gonna need special help, from the original Light Master that lies within Thomas, who will lead them to their final task, the labyrinth that surrounds the Mind Palace Center, full of dangers they’ll have to defeat, in less than one hour.

WARNINGS: Romantic prinxiety, romantic logicality, romantic anxceit. Some implied innuendo. Off-screen violence not directly featured, but implied.

EPISODE INDEX

[The gang is in the royal carriage. For some reason, it goes fast, but not as fast as other times]

THOMAS: This is the Dark Master’s doing, I’m sure. He’s been messing with the car.

VIRGIL: If he thinks this is gonna stop us…

REMUS: Well, you can use the extra time to bring me up to date, Roman. What happened after I left Thomas’ living room?

ROMAN: Oh, yes, of course. You see, after you left, Chris started growing at great speed. As I wanted Roland and Ira to see him before he was an adult, we went to the castle, where he completed his growth.

REMUS: So now Chris is an adult? But the last time I saw him he was still a baby! Wow, I know they say they grow fast, but this is ridiculous, even for me!

ROMAN: Just when he became an adult, the Dark Master appeared, locked him in a black bubble and took him away. Before he did that, he did something to Patton.

REMUS: To Patton?

ROMAN: It seems he was holding captive some of Patton’s memories of the past, specifically… that the Dark Master is Virgil’s other father.

REMUS: What? And Patton looked so naive and innocent! I thought I was the one with a taste for wild relationships, but this kitty-boy has defeated me in my own ground with this!

ROMAN: It all started long ago when Thomas was still in the womb. That’s when the Mind Palace started forming, and the first three entities that appeared there were the Light Master, the Dark Master and the Master Side, Patton. Patton took care of classifying everything that came from the outside as good or bad and sent it to the Masters so that they could process it, thus making the Realms and the Mind Palace bigger. When Patton started feeling lonely, the Dark Master, who was already longing for power, took advantage of that, seduced him and made him fall for him, and as a result Patton got pregnant with the Dark Master’s son, Virgil.

REMUS: This telenovela is more interesting than a greatest moments special episode of “Jackass”! Keep going.

ROMAN: After Virgil was born, the Dark Master tried to convince Patton to join him in his plans of overthrowing the Light Master and conquering the whole Mind Palace for himself, but he refused. As such, he stole Patton’s son, turned him into a Dark Side and sent him to the Dark Realm to use him in his plans when he was old and strong enough. Then, he started wiping Patton’s memories, but the Light Master arrived on time and banished the Dark Master to the Dark Realm, never allowing him to come back again.

REMUS: So that’s why the Dark Master was stuck in the Dark Realm at first.

ROMAN: He had already stolen a portion of Patton’s memories, so he woke up with the personality we’ve known of him for so long, with no recollection of Virgil’s existence other than his obsession with being a dad for anyone he ever met and befriended. The Light Master, knowing that a battle against the Dark Master and Virgil together could be fatal for Thomas, fused with the Mind Palace itself to be a match for them. As such, he ceased to exist as an independent entity and became a part of Thomas. And that’s all he told us. You arrived just as he finished this story.

REMUS: Okay, gotcha. Well, the Dark Master will regret taking my nephew, I can tell you that. Now, what is the plan?

ROMAN: Plan? Um…

REMUS: [serious] Because you’ve devised a plan against the Dark Master, right? Not even I would dare to attack him thoughtlessly, he’s too dangerous.

ROMAN: Yes… a plan… well…

REMUS: You are jumping right into the lion’s dent and you don’t have a plan of action!? [sighs] Why am I not surprised?

[intro sequence]

THOMAS: Well, Remus usually has crazy, unhelpful ideas…

REMUS: Thanks, I love you too, Thomas.

THOMAS: …but this one is actually sound. Once we get to the Dark Master what can we do to force him to release Chris?

REMUS: I say off with his head!

LOGAN: Impossible. If the Dark Master dies, Thomas will die too, and with him, all of us. Besides, he’s so low he’d try to use Chris as a shield or hostage.

ROMAN: And besides, we already tried and failed twice. He always comes back, like mosquitoes in the summer, and each bite of his is itchier than the previous one.

THOMAS: What I don’t understand is… I thought the Dark Master was trapped in Sandersia after our repeated attacks. How is he going to get out of here, back to the Mind Palace?

PATTON: He’s gonna use Chris, of course. It’s his grandson and therefore they share some dark energy. He can very well take some energy off of Chris to regenerate himself. If he does that, he’ll be free to go wherever he wants, no longer affected by the restrictions imposed by the original Light Master.

VIRGIL: Oh, great, so now he’s gonna be as dangerous as he was in the Dark Realm, but now there’s nowhere we can escape from him. Sweet, just what we needed.

PATTON: It wouldn’t be a permanent solution for him, though. Eventually, the restrictions imposed on him would return into effect and he would be trapped again in the Dark Realm. But I’m sure he has a plan to avoid that. He wouldn’t have taken your son just to escape Sandersia and then be trapped again somewhere else.

VIRGIL: What could it be? I bet Chris will be involved in that plan, but how?

LOGAN: Applying logic, if the Dark Master can absorb the memories from a victim, like he almost did to Patton, he would try to do the same with Chris. Wiping his memories out of him, he could manipulate him like a puppet to follow his plans. I guess that’s what he planned to do with you, Virgil, but you ran away before you got to be useful for him. It’s just a guess, though, and I could be wrong. Who knows what happens in the Dark Master’s mind, after all.

VIRGIL: Yeah… I don’t understand why he didn’t take me instead. I’m much stronger than Chris and would have been of more use for him. He’s only a one-day-old child, despite having the shape of a 30-something adult.

LOGAN: That’s exactly the reason why he didn’t get you, Virgil. Now, you are too strong for him to be easily manipulated, and I guess he doesn’t trust you to give yourself up on your own free will. Chris, on the other hand, is, figuratively, like a white canvas, too young and inexperienced to resist him.

VIRGIL: [angry and distressed] Logan, would you like to stop being right for a change?

LOGAN: [confused] What? I…

VIRGIL: [groans in frustration, then with a voice of remorse] It’s okay, I’m sorry, Logan. It’s just that it’s too distressing to hear that so directly. But avoiding the truth is not only dangerous, but also stupid and useless. I apologize.

LOGAN: That’s okay. I’m sorry if I hurt you in any way.

ROMAN: Guys, we’re reaching the door to my room.

VIRGIL: It was time!

[the carriage stops and the gang rushes to the door to Roman’s room. Roman puts a face of huge shock upon seeing his room]

ROMAN: What… in the world… has happened to my room!?

[there’s a huge mess in the room. All the furniture is scattered everywhere, the paintings on the wall are broken and there are burnt holes on the walls as if a huge battle had happened there]

PATTON: What could have possibly happened here?

VIRGIL: [pointing at something on the floor, with a face of horror] Guys, look!

[Virgil kneels down to grab something, then shows it to the others. Its a sword, broken in half, a piece of a shield and a shred of magenta fabric]

VIRGIL: This is Chris’ sword, and this seems to be a fragment of his shield and a piece of his cape! [yelling, distressed] What has that son of a b… [bleep] done to my son!

PATTON: Relax, kiddo. He needs him, he would never destroy him.

VIRGIL: Then how do you explain this, dad?

PATTON: Perhaps the bubble that held him got weaker or the Dark Master had to lift it for some reason. Maybe he had to remove the bubble to recharge himself out of Chris’ energy, and Chris took this chance to attack the Dark Master. He was still carrying his sword and shield when he was imprisoned, remember? [noticing something on the floor as well, he shows a smirk] He was probably not strong enough, but I guess he let him have it. Look at this.

[Patton kneels down and picks something up. It’s a huge singed thread of fabric from the black cloak the Dark Master was wearing, from the upper part, it seems, as it has a piece of the hood and the shoulder]

PATTON: Roman, Virgil, you both should be proud of your son. He’s a valiant prince, and he’s not gonna let himself get carried away like a lamb. If he sees a chance to fight, he’s gonna take it.

VIRGIL: But now Chris is wounded, who knows how serious!

PATTON: So is the Dark Master, and that could give us a chance. Virgil, I know, as Vigilance you always expect the worse, but try to see things my way. If you grab to the positive things we find, you could grab more strength to fight. And this is something really positive, you don’t know how much.

VIRGIL: I try, but it’s not easy.

ROMAN: What do you mean it could give us a chance, Patton?

PATTON: Well, there’s one thing I was too ashamed to confess earlier, not only because some details are better kept private, but also because I didn’t want to hurt Logan’s feelings disclosing intimate details from a past relationship. But there’s one tiny detail that is important that I disclose to you. When the Dark Master and I were… together, I had a chance to examine his body, and I noticed a dark spot on his skin, right here…

[Patton points at his own chest, between the neck and the left shoulder, but a little lower]

LOGAN: That’s where the pectoralis minor muscle lies, approximately.

PATTON: I don’t know, but there it was, an irregular purple spot, the size of an apricot. When I touched that spot, he groaned in pain and asked me not touch that spot ever again. It’s certainly a weak point for him, something we can use against him. If a gentle, sweet caress in that spot like mine caused him that pain, imagine what would happen if we punched, hit or even stabbed him there.

ROMAN: It’s a good thing that he returned your memories back to you. I bet he didn’t remember you had that piece of information in them.

PATTON: And see this piece of fabric. See that silver garment. It’s from that part of the cloak that covered exactly that part of the chest. Something has guided Chris’ hand to hit him right in his weakest spot. I don’t know if it was a coincidence or someone we don’t know helped him but that’s our chance for victory. I’m sure the Dark Master will not be 100% powerful if he has to endure the pain he’s surely going through.

ROMAN: Okay, so we hit him with something there, but do you think he won’t be protecting that spot with his life? Especially if he’s already been wounded?

PATTON: Perhaps. We’ll know when we get here.

LOGAN: Patton, can I speak to you for a second in private? There’s something I need to tell you that doesn’t stop distracting me, and I want to let it go before it can be a cause for trouble.

PATTON: Sure.

[Patton and Logan move a few steps away. They try to speak in a low voice, but Thomas and the others can’t help hearing them still]

LOGAN: Were you serious about… about not wanting to hurt my feelings?

PATTON: Of course I was, I would never want to hurt you. You mean too much for me. Why do you ask?

LOGAN: It’s just that… I thought…

PATTON: What?

LOGAN: I thought after you recovered your memories, you had stopped loving me.

PATTON: [horrified] Why on Earth would you think that!?

LOGAN: Well, you said it yourself, that I had fallen in love with a lie. I thought you were implying that your love was a lie and you didn’t love me anymore.

PATTON: No, Logan. I said that I thought that I wasn’t worthy of any love. I never said I didn’t love you. Listen, I’m still the same, only that with some extra information on my mind that makes me slightly more mature than before. But my feelings for you haven’t changed a bit. That has always been and forever will be real. And it’s very real that I have loved you from the very first moment I put my eyes on you, and I also knew you always loved me to some extent, but you were so in denial of having feelings at all that you didn’t even notice. I’m the one that was afraid that you wouldn’t love me anymore when you knew the truth, and that’s what I meant when I said that.

LOGAN: [letting go a nervous faint smile of relief and joy] So you still love me… for real?

[Patton kisses Logan]

PATTON: Does that answer your question, you fool?

[Logan hugs Patton with a wide smile of joy and happiness, the first time he ever smiled like that. The others look from a distance. They’ve heard everything, of course, but they don’t want to spoil the moment for them]

VIRGIL: [sighs] I can’t wait to hug my son like that when we rescue him.

ROMAN: That moment will come sooner than we think, you’ll see.

THOMAS: [to Logan and Patton] Okay, guys. I’m happy that you have resolved your misunderstandings, but time is short.

PATTON: You’re right. Let’s get moving.

THOMAS: But Patton, where exactly do we need to go and how do we get there?

PATTON: It’s not gonna be an easy path, Thomas. I haven’t been there since the Light Master sent me to my room 30 years ago. To be honest, I don’t know if I’ll be able to get us there. From the moment Virgil was born, I lost part of my energy to bring him to life, and as a result I turned into a normal Side.

VIRGIL: I’m so sorry, dad.

PATTON: It’s okay, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. I gave up to that life, but look all that you’ve given me in return, kiddo. My life is blessed by your presence everyday… But as I was saying, I don’t know if I have the capacity to enter the Mind Palace Center anymore… [face of realization] Wait a minute.

THOMAS: What?

PATTON: I may not be able to get us there, but you are, Thomas!

THOMAS: Me?

PATTON: Of course! The Light Master is within you, so you can get us there!

THOMAS: But how?

PATTON: First enter in Light Master mode, and I’ll do the rest.

THOMAS: Wow… You know what? I like seeing you leading the team for a change. Okay, here we go. Now that I’m not hindered by exhaustion, it’s gonna be a lot easier than yesterday.

[Thomas closes his eyes. It only takes him a few seconds till he opens them again and they’ve turned light-blue]

PATTON: Good, now take my hand.

[Thomas holds Patton’s hand]

THOMAS: I’m feeling a strange tingling sensation all over my body…

PATTON: Don’t speak, please. Concentrate. And if you feel something weird inside, just get carried away. It won’t harm you, I promise. Trust me.

THOMAS: [a little unsettled] Okay…

[Patton closes his eyes while holding Thomas’ hand. Thomas has a little spasm as if he had felt a shiver. After some time, his expression changes and his eyes start glowing in blue]

HONESTY: What… what is happening here?

DECEIT: This is new.

THOMAS: [with a warm gesture and a strange voice that sounds strong but gentle at the same time] Patton… I’m so happy to speak to you again.

PATTON: And I’m glad to speak to you again, Light Master. It’s been so long.

LIGHT MASTER: Too long, indeed. I’m sorry I had to leave you all alone in the Mind Palace, but I didn’t have a choice.

PATTON: I know, Light Master. Now that I’ve got my memories back, I fully understand.

LIGHT MASTER: [noticing the other Sides] And look at how much company you’ve gathered over the years. So many Sides with so many different purposes. Nice to meet you all.

LOGAN: Nice… to meet you, Light Master? I’m confused…

PATTON: It’s okay, Logan. You see, with my memories fully restored, I remembered that I can allow the Light Master to take control of Thomas’ body for short amounts of time. [to the Light Master] I’m sorry I can’t make it permanent, but this is Thomas’ body after all.

LIGHT MASTER: It’s okay. As a part of Thomas, I have always been sentient of everything he’s seen, heard or felt in his lifetime and I’ll always be. I may not be in control but it doesn’t matter. What really matters is that Thomas is doing fine and that, with his rights and wrongs, he’s a good human being.

PATTON: So, if you’ve seen everything, you know what’s just happened, right?

LIGHT MASTER: Yes, I’m aware. Your mission is really dangerous, but it’s mandatory for you to succeed or the equilibrium would be broken and Thomas as you know him would cease to exist. There’s something you must know, though, and it will not be pleasant to hear. Virgil?

VIRGIL: Yes?

LIGHT MASTER: There was one reason for the Dark Master to take your son. It wasn’t only to regenerate himself. He wants to take control of your son’s whole body, to form an entity strong enough to defeat me, just as he had originally planned to do with you. And he has already started the process. If you don’t stop it before it’s too late, your son will be lost forever.

VIRGIL: Oh, no!

PATTON: How can we do this? I know we must go the Mind Palace Center, and that you can get us there, but afterwards, it’s gonna be a hell, I can feel it.

LIGHT MASTER: Don’t despair. As I told you, I’ll always be with you as part of Thomas. I trust that he’ll be able to handle the situation with my help, and so should you. There are many tasks in this journey. Some of you, like Virgil when he overcame his grief, have already faced them. Others have their tasks ahead of them. Don’t lose your hope and you’ll be triumphant. And Virgil…

VIRGIL: Yes?

LIGHT MASTER: It was an honor for me to be present at your birth, as a godfather of sorts. You are the only good thing that came out of that mess 30 years ago and I want you to make it count, starting today. You’re gonna rescue your son and you’re gonna make a happy family of Sides. Just stay strong and you’ll do it.

VIRGIL: I’ll try. No, I will.

LIGHT MASTER: That’s the spirit. Well, I think it’s time for me to take you there. One final warning, the Dark Master has placed a labyrinth around the Mind Palace Center, to try and slow you down, and it will try by sending some of you, the ones with pending accounts of some kind, to bubble dream scenarios to face them, scenarios from which you won’t be able to get out until you face and move on from these pending accounts. I know that it’s a mission that will delay you a lot, but I can’t send you beyond that labyrinth. You’ll have to cross it by foot and conquer your demons.

ROMAN: We will conquer anything if need be. How much time do we have before the point of no return for Chris.

LIGHT MASTER: You have one hour before it’s too late… What are you doing?

ROMAN: [tapping on his phone] I’m setting a countdown on my phone to know how much time we have left. I’m tired of sand clocks and other obsolete stuff, you know?

LIGHT MASTER: Okay… Now, this is important: when you’re in the labyrinth and get on a crossroad, don’t spread out, no matter how tempting that option gets to be. If someone gets lost and away from the others, he’ll never get out of the labyrinth. And you need to reach the Mind Palace Center all together to be a match for the Dark Master. Thomas. I know you can’t speak right now but you can hear me. I trust that you’ll have the courage and the will to guide them through this ordeal. You can do it, if you work with them as a team. Because all of you are the foundation itself of this Mind Palace and nothing here is stronger than all of your strengths combined. If you work together, nothing, not even the Dark Master, can stop you. Good luck. Now, everybody, come closer to me and hold my hand, like Patton is doing. I’ll lead the way. Goodbye. Until we meet again.

PATTON: Goodbye, my dearest friend…

[all the Sides grab Thomas’ hand. He looks up and they all start rising up, disappearing from the higher edge of the screen instead of sinking down as usual. Then they rise up in front of a gate on a huge wall. Thomas’ eyes stop glowing and turn back to brown]

THOMAS: Wow…

DECEIT: Thomas, are you okay?

THOMAS: I’m better than ever. It was such a pleasant sensation, even when I couldn’t control my body.

VIRGIL: I think I know what you mean. The Light Master’s presence was so invigorating, so inspiring. It filled me with hope when I thought I had lost it for good.

PATTON: Yes, that’s the effect he has on people. Maybe that’s why you’re so inspiring for so many people, Thomas. He’s part of you after all. But only a part, most of your charm is provided by yourself.

THOMAS: You play a good part if not all the part of that charm too, you all are me, remember? But let’s get cracking. We’ve got a labyrinth to cross and only one hour left.

[the gang crosses the gate and enters the labyrinth. Then they start walking and walking. Every corridor looks exactly the same as the previous one. It’s five minutes later when they start getting confused]

DECEIT: Guys, don’t you have the feeling we’re walking in circles?

VIRGIL: I’m starting to have that feeling too.

PATTON: But how could we be sure of that?

ROMAN: I’ve got the solution.

[Roman invokes a briefcase]

DECEIT: What is that?

ROMAN: It’s my theatrical makeup briefcase. I never get out of my room without it.

DECEIT: And what are you planning to do, making an extreme makeover to the bricks around us?

ROMAN: Very funny… but actually you’re not too far off.

DECEIT: What?

ROMAN: [opens the briefcase] I’ve got all this selection of lipsticks with all the colors you could ever imagine, and some that don’t even exist in the real world.

THOMAS: Yeah, wow…

ROMAN: Each of you, grab one and draw some kind of mark on each wall we’re going through. If after some walking we see the mark again, we can confirm we’re going in circles.

VIRGIL: Brilliant.

ROMAN: I know.

[everyone grabs one lipstick. Roman then summons away the briefcase and they keep on walking. Every few steps, some of them draws a symbol on a brick around them. After a couple of minutes, they start finding the same drawings]

THOMAS: So, it was true! We’ve lost ten minutes by walking on circles!

PATTON: But how could that be? If we’re walking on circles, we should have seen the front gate at some point and we didn’t!

VIRGIL: Deceit? Are you okay?

[everyone looks at Deceit, he’s looking right at a wall, apparently not hearing Virgil]

THOMAS: Dee, whats wrong with you?

[Deceit doesn’t answer. Remus waves his hand over Deceit’s face and he doesn’t react. Then he slaps him in the face. Not even that works. He’s about to hit him with his mace when Thomas starts yelling]

THOMAS: Whoa, whoa, whoa! We want to wake him up, not to send him into a coma!

REMUS: [putting the mace away, with a face of disappointment] Okay, if you say so…

THOMAS: Logan, you’re our Side doctor, can you check him out?

LOGAN: Okay. Let me see…

[as usual, Logan puts his hand on Deceit’s chest and starts shaking for a while, then takes his hand off]

LOGAN: He’s living in a dream-scenario. Just as the Light Master said, something here has disconnected him from reality, if we can call the Mind Palace reality. It’s as if he was somewhere else in spirit.

ROMAN: Like an out of body experience?

LOGAN: Kind of. Roman, can you summon one of your orbs but connect it to another Side instead of yourself?

ROMAN: Sure, that’s easy.

[Roman grabs Deceit’s hand]

ROMAN: Wow, his hand is cold as ice.

[Roman rises the other hand and a yellow orb appears]

ROMAN: There we go. Now we can see what is going on with Deceit through this orb.

[the orb turns on and they see Deceit in the same place where they are. He’s looking at a door that isn’t there in reality]

DECEIT: Guys, where are you? I think I found a door. Where have you gone, don’t leave me behind! The Light Master said we couldn’t spread out!

[the door opens. Virgil crosses it]

DECEIT: Oh, there you are Virgil. I was beginning to worry.

ORB-VIRGIL: Don’t be afraid. I’m here for you, and I always will be.

DECEIT: Are you… okay? You sound strange.

VIRGIL: [yelling at the orb on the verge of hysteria] Of course he sounds strange! That’s not me, Deceit!

ROMAN: Look out, it’s a crystal ball, you’re gonna crack it!

REMUS: The other time he did the same with my crystal ball. Why does Virgil always get overexcited when he looks at our balls? Wow, that didn’t come out as intended… [smirks] and I love it.

ORB-VIRGIL: What do you mean, my dear Dee? I’m totally fine. Don’t you agree? You always thought I was… fine.

DECEIT: Well… it’s not the time for that now, we have a rescue to do, remember?

ORB-VIRGIL: I know, but since we’re running on circles, I figured we should try to… relax. That’s what you’ve always wanted, right?

DECEIT: You… you’re confusing me.

[the Virgil from the orb approaches Deceit and tries to kiss him. Deceit steps back]

DECEIT: Whoa, what the f…! What are you doing!?

ORB-VIRGIL: Just what you’ve always wanted. Because you still want it, right? I know you want it.

DECEIT: No, I don’t!

ORB-VIRGIL: [provocative smirk] Once a liar… always a liar. You can’t fool me, my little snake. I can see in your eyes that you want this as much as I do.

[the Virgil from the orb approaches Deceit again. This time he manages to kiss him. For a brief second, Deceit gets carried away and kisses him back, but then he opens his eyes and pushes the fake Virgil away]

DECEIT: Step back! This has to be an illusion! It has to be! You’re not the real Virgil! I know him! He would never betray Roman like this, and certainly he wouldn’t waste time making out with me when his son is endangered!

[Virgil changes his gesture to a mocking evil giggle]

ORB-VIRGIL: You’re very observant, little snake. However there’s one thing I said that was true. You really wanted to do this, didn’t you? [mocking voice] Did you like it?

DECEIT: [makes a pause, then with a face of regret] Maybe so. A part of me would have wished for this to be real. Virgil still is and forever will be the only one I’ll ever love. [Remus shows a face of hurt when he hears this] But before anything else, I’m his friend. That’s the only way he sees me and if he sees me like that I’m gonna do my best to be the best friend he could ever ask for. And even if it took me time to think so, Roman is my friend too, I would never do that to him. Also, with Chris’ arrival, now he has a family that I’m not willing to disturb. I could never look at the others in the face if I was the cause of breaking this family apart! So go away, whoever you are! You can’t fool me anymore!

[the Virgil from the orb disappears with a high-pitch demonic giggle. Then the orb turns off and Deceit turns back to life. The door that until then was only visible in the orb appears before them for real]

DECEIT: Oof… my head… Why is my face so itchy?

REMUS: My bad…

VIRGIL: Are you okay, Dee?

DECEIT: I think so… [Virgil hugs Deceit] What is this for?

VIRGIL: Thank you so much, dear friend. Now I know I can always count on you.

ROMAN: Thank you. You are a good friend.

DECEIT: Wait, did you see…?

VIRGIL: Yes.

PATTON: And we’re so proud of you.

DECEIT: [blushing] Stop it, please, you know I always know how to respond to compliments. Drat, here I am, telling the truth again out of nervousness… shoot!

THOMAS: Well, thanks to Deceit completing his task, a new door has opened for us.

LOGAN: It seems some of us will have to go through these tasks to advance through the labyrinth. Roman, how many orbs can you create at the same time?

DECEIT: So that’s how you saw it all…

ROMAN: I can create one for each of us.

LOGAN: Then do it. We don’t know who’s already faced his task and who hasn’t. We’re gonna need these orbs and you may not be available at some point to make them.

ROMAN: Okay…

[Roman creates one orb for each of the others except Thomas]

THOMAS: Why not me?

ROMAN: You’re a human being, Thomas, I can’t create an orb for you. The whole Mind Palace is your orb, in fact, and it’s too much to condense in one tiny crystal ball.

THOMAS: Okay…

ROMAN: Well, now that we’re all ready… the rest of the labyrinth awaits us. Let’s go.

[Roman opens the door. They all cross it. When the last one crosses it, it closes and disappears. A sign reading “To be concluded, guys, gals and non binary pals” appears]

[end card]

[The Dark Master and Chris are in the Mind Palace Center. Chris is tied to some pedestal and the Dark Master is watching from a screen what the gang has just accomplished in the labyrinth]

DARK MASTER: Well, these fools surely have some guts, I must admit it. But it won’t do them any good, anyway. This has already started and by the time they get here, if they ever get here, it will be too late for them to save you.

CHRIS: That’s what you think. [mocking voice] How is that wound under your shoulder? Did you like it? Release me now and I’ll make you another one on the other shoulder to match!

DARK MASTER: When I’m done with you, you won’t be so insolent. You are lucky that this wound is buying you some time. The process would have been much faster if I wasn’t wounded. But it will be worse for you anyway. You’ll have one full hour, 45 minutes now, to suffer, while your senses slowly get more and more numb, until you’re ready to be my vessel. Then they won’t have anything to save and I’ll be too powerful to be stopped.

CHRIS: Dream on. My parents and their friends will ruin your plans. I know I can trust them my life and they will oblige.

DARK MASTER: We’ll see. It’s only 45 minutes left, boy. Start counting…

[the Dark Master giggles evilly. Chris looks at the screen]

CHRIS: Dad, father, guys… I know you’ll get here on time… but please, hurry up. I don’t know how much I can resist…

#thomas sanders #virgil sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #logan sanders #deceit sanders #remus sanders #sanders sides #sanders sides fic #sanders sides fanfic #fanfic #fic #prinxiety #romantic prinxiety #logicality #romantic logicality #anxceit #romantic anxceit #fanfiction #sanders sides fanfiction #aspects and fanfics

[green-writes-sanderssides]

Unnecessary Miracles are the Best Kind

Summary: Virgil has a surprise in store for Roman, and it appears everyone is in on it.

Pairings: Prinxiety

Warnings: Small mentions of Sympathetic Deceit, but otherwise nothing! Pure fluff bois!

    Ping!

Stormcloud ⚡💜 at 6:15 PM

You have 45 minutes to get ready

You at 6:16 PM

For what??

Stormcloud ⚡💜 at 6:16 PM

Dress formally

You at 6:16 PM

-_- what are you planning?

You at 6:18 PM

Dress or suit?

Stormcloud ⚡💜 at 6:19 PM

Whichever, just something nice and easy to walk in

    Oh, this was exciting.

    Virgil was not so much for surprises in their relationship. With his anxiety, most things were planned far ahead of time. In fact, it was rare for Virgil to be the one to plan anything in general.

    Not that Roman was complaining; Virgil’s plans and surprises came in the small things he’s learned to love so much in the past five years. He would wake up to the smell of eggs and bacon or, even better, freshly baked cinnamon rolls made just for him. After a day of questing, he would find his room clean and organized, sometimes with a purple sticky note on his desk to remind him to eat. “Acts of service” was definitely one of Virgil’s main love languages, and Roman falls in love with him a little more with each small deed done.

    However, Roman has always been known to be much more extravagant when it comes to love of any kind, and especially romantic love. That’s where compromise comes in with their relationship. The creative side still gets to be dramatic and romantic, but it’s adjusted for Virgil’s liking. He might leave a bouquet of roses by Anxiety’s door with a loving note, or play a song on the ukelele for him in the safety of Roman’s own room. Public displays of affection were mostly controlled by Virgil, though Patton and Logan have aided Roman in certain surprises. The point is, they found a balance that worked for them.

    So whatever this is was quite uncalled for, and Roman was very excited.

    Just as he began to look for something to wear, another ping came from his phone.

Stormcloud ⚡💜 at 6:23 PM

I mean you look nice in everything so

You at 6:24 PM

You think flattery will get me to get ready faster? Because if so you’re right

    Roman decided a suit would be better for this occasion. He has only started experimenting with dresses recently, and while he absolutely adores them, he is not always quite as confident in them yet as he would like to be. The last thing he wants is to ruin Virgil’s plans with his own insecurities.

    A warm feeling struck him as he spotted the dark red suit in the back of his walk-in closet. It was the outfit he conjured to match Virgil’s own dark purple and black suit - in Roman’s own personal opinion, red and purple go very well together. Even if the darker side doesn’t choose that specific outfit, the rest of Roman’s formal wear choices may be a bit too flashy for whatever Virgil had planned.

    After a while of doing his hair (and maybe a bit of makeup, he couldn’t help himself), he heard a knock at his door and excitedly rushed to open it. Instead of his expected boyfriend, however, Logan and Patton stood at the doorway.

    Before Roman could question the two, Logan cleared his throat. He kept a tall and serious footing, but it appeared he was fighting back a smile. “Not to worry, we aren’t here to interrupt your plans.”

    “We’re here to take you to them!” Patton, on the other hand, was bouncing on his heels with excitement. Clearly the two knew much more than Roman did, and he wasn’t sure if that was scaring or exciting him.

    Patton dragged Roman across the commons to a hall not frequently visited anymore, leading to rooms like the mind palace they made long ago. But where they stopped at - marvelous golden doors, with patterns of snakes and roses designed in - was one he hadn’t visited in quite some time. “Deceit’s ballroom?”

    “Deceit has temporarily signed off ownership of the ballroom to you and Virgil for the next- well, Virgil will explain. Hold out your hand.” When Roman complied, albeit skeptically, Logan pulled out a necklace hiding under his shirt with a golden key attached to it and placed it in the romantic side’s hand. “The key to the ballroom. I highly suggest you don’t lose it.”

    Logan walked away without another word. Patton, before following, warmly grabbed Roman’s hands. “Have fun, Kiddo. Virgil’s been working real hard on this for months, I’m sure you’ll love it.”

    Months? What in the world could su amor have planned in there that took him so long to plan? And all for Roman, too? He was absolutely swooning!

    As he inserted the golden key into the door, he noted that his hands were ever-so-subtly shaking. All this excitement was really getting to him- perhaps he should have eaten something first? Oh, he was stalling, it’s too late for that now. He has his lovely boyfriend waiting for him with a lovely surprise, after all.

    The sight before him when he opened the doors nearly makes him squeal in delight.

    The ballroom itself had been redecorated to an almost unrecognizable point. Windows were covered with red and purple curtains, making the room a bit darker. In any other situation, it would have caused a creepy feeling to fill the room, yet in context it seemed to give a smaller, homey feeling. He could see in the dark corners even more accents of their two colors, lining the walls in simple patterns that just made it feel like them. The floor itself was a dark red carpet with elegant violet and gold swirls, replacing the typical shiny golden floor Deceit had. It was the perfect mix of the fanciness and dramatics of Roman, and the pleasant safety of Virgil.

    And there was Virgil, in the center of it all.

    Dim golden light surrounded him, perfectly highlighting his best features. His hair must have been freshly dyed just today, the purple brightening the highlights in his outfit. He stood tall in the black and violet suit Roman predicted he would be wearing, but a red rose boutonniere somehow both stood out and brought everything together.

    As he stepped closer to his boyfriend, he noted he was definitely nervous; he was holding one of his hands behind his back while the other one was fiddling around with something in his pocket, perhaps one of the fidget cubes Patton gave him. Despite that, he kept a smile on his face along with kind eyes- oh, his eyes. He didn’t have his typical eyeshadow on and instead had perfectly done winged eyeliner, and the way the light was reflecting into that honey brown was marvelous. Even after five years of dating, It took all his power not to kiss him right then and there.

    “I knew you’d wear that suit,” Virgil had such a fond tone in his voice, Roman wanted to sweep that boy off his feet right now.

    “Guess we know each other too well,” Roman laughed. As he spoke, though, Virgil brought out a purple rose boutonniere and began pinning it to the romantic side’s jacket. “Love, you have absolutely outdone yourself, but what is all this about?”

    Instead of answering, Virgil stepped back and presented his hand to Roman. “Dance with me?”

    Oh, if Roman thought he was swooning before, he doesn’t even know what he’s feeling now. He gladly takes the hand of his boyfriend, his other arm instinctually moving to Virgil’s side to guide him. Virgil, however, has other plans, moving Roman’s hand to his shoulder as he instead places his on Roman’s hip.

    “I thought you didn’t know how to dance.” As they start gently moving their feet, a quiet song wafts through the room. It takes no time at all for him to recognize it as a piano cover of A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes.

    “Logan’s been teaching me,” The darker side leads them with seemingly no effort at all, though Roman can still see the hints of nervousness in the way he speaks. Their movements are perfectly aligned to the soft piano sounds of Disney in their ears.

    “Logan can dance?!” he makes a faux gasp of surprise, making Virgil let out a chuckle and remove the tenseness in his shoulders. “How dare he withhold this information from me? I am going to have to demand he dances with me after this!”

    His love giggles adorably, unable to hide it in his sleeve like he usually does. “Actually, you’ll have a chance to do that at a later date.” The way Virgil phrased that is… suspicious, to say the least, but Roman drops it for now.

    They dance in silence for the rest of the song, fond looks in both of their eyes as they focus on the movement of their feet. Just a few years ago, a moment like this would be surrounded in an awkward energy for them, but they’ve mostly grown past awkwardness. Or maybe they’ve just gotten so used to it, it’s not even noticeable anymore. However, he can feel Virgil’s own anxiousness increasing, which is particularly worrying, but maybe also exciting? Maybe, just perhaps, there’s a bit more to this lovely night than a dance?

    His suspicions are confirmed as the song changes to I See the Light and Virgil nervously clears his throat.

    “Roman, the last five year’s have been… well, better than any time in my life, which I guess that’s not much to live up to. But, really, it’s way more than I ever could have asked for or dreamed of. You…” Virgil’s eyes drifted to the ground, as he tended to do during serious or intimate conversations. Roman used to take offense of the lack of eye contact, but he’s grown much more understanding of his boyfriend’s anxiety. Plus, how could he have even a pinch of anger when Virgil is being so open?

    “You once said a long time ago that I make you guys better, but you’ve now made me better. I got out of bed more and cleaned myself up for you. I learned to let go sometimes because of you. I learned how to be a bit less critical to both myself and others. You taught me how to do all that, but you never tried to change me. Somehow, somewhere along the way, you started loving me for me, and sometimes I still don’t know why, but you always do your best to remind me.”

    “Oh, Virgil…” Roman was just about tearing up from Virgil’s words alone, having to stop the swaying back and forth they were currently doing. “Can I kiss you?”

    The anxious side chuckled in response. “Not yet, sorry.” Suddenly, the music faded out into silence. The air was tense, not in a scary way but in a something big is about to happen way. “I wanted to do something for you, something to show you I feel the same way. But I wanted it to be bigger than anything you’ve done for me, and there was only one thing I could think of.”

    Roman laughed with fondness at the declaration. “Love, while I’m sure whatever you have planned is absolutely marvelous, there is no way you have anything that could beat the physical embodiment of romance at his own game.” Even if it did top all of Roman’s past gestures, he could always find something new to-

    “What about a ring?”

    “Wait, what?” Does he mean…?

    Virgil breathed in deeply, fumbling with whatever’s in his pocket once again. “I know we never really talked about this, and it’s pretty ridiculous really to even do this, but-” the anxious side shook his head, as if to clear his thoughts.

    Roman’s hands immediately went to his face when Virgil dropped down on one knee, pulling out a red velvet box. Inside contained a simple golden band.

    “Will you marry m-”

    “Yes.”

    “Ro, I didn’t even finish-”

    Without any other thought, Roman immediately tackled Virgil to the ground and began kissing anywhere on his face he could reach. “Yes, yes, a million times yes!”

    Virgil giggled at the attention, water droplets starting to prick at his eyes. Roman, on the other hand, already had tears streaming down his face the moment Virgil brought out the box. Did he care? Hell no, because Virgil Sanders was his fiance now. Soon enough, he would get to call him his husband.

    “Virgil, my starlight, you’ve done it. You’ve officially bested me. There is nothing I can do to top what you just did.”

    He laughed once again, and Roman doesn’t think it’s even possible for his heart to be any warmer. “Well, there’s always the vows to look forward to.” The darker side scrambled up to his feet, offering a hand to help Roman up as well.

    Once they were up, the romantic side immediately wrapped his arms around Virgil, not even bothering to clear the tears on his face. “Can I kiss you now, my love?”

    Virgil responded with a laugh, leaning in to kiss Roman himself.

    When they break apart, Roman can’t help but groan at a realization. “Oh, I am not looking forward to telling Thomas about this. Remember when we told him about our relationship and went into an existential crisis?”

    “Don’t worry, he already knows. He was the first person I asked permission to do thi-”

    Quite suddenly, a squeal was heard as a certain side came barreling towards them, arms stretched out for hugs. Behind Patton, Logan walked along with a smile on his face.

    Guess it’s time to celebrate, huh?

#sanders sides #tsart #prinxiety #virgil sanders #roman sanders #fanfic

[simstationdance]

@jeebie-sims​ asked: for the headcanon meme: Daniel Pleasant, Johnny Smith, and Mortimer Goth

ok so i apparently had a lot to say about these three, especially johnny and mortimer because they are favorites of mine. i was also inspired by the pictures u put in your answers to the shipping asks, so i decided to pair a few pictures with my answers.

i would’ve answered this as a regular ask, but for some reason, applying a read more to an ask applies it to the ‘question’ part of the post and not the actual body of the post where it should be, and not actually truncating the post at all. i couldn’t fix it no matter what i tried and eventually i gave up. tumblr is a Functional Website.

answers under the cut because i’m a turbo nerd who wrote way too much. i hope you enjoy it nonetheless

(headcanon ask meme)

Daniel Pleasant

Sexuality Headcanon: straight

Gender Headcanon: man

A ship I have with said character: daniel x marriage counseling. no, really.

ok but in all seriousness, it’s obvious that dan and mary sue really really need to work their shit out and i don’t think they could do it easily, if at all. if nothing else, they’d stay together for their public image I MEAN their kids whom they clearly love sooo muuuch 

(meanwhile i’m certain angela and lilith - especially lilith - would rather their parents divorced because the tension in the house is so fucking thick you could cut it with a knife, and that’s not a healthy environment to grow up in)

i don’t really ship him with anybody, to be honest. i know he’s with kaylynn on the side but i don’t personally see her sticking around, especially in the aftermath of a destroyed marriage.

unless he actually gets his shit together, i can’t imagine him being able to fully commit to a relationship, as evidenced by his abysmal relationship with his own wife.

A BROTP I have with said character: hmmm. maybe dan and don would be friends? i mean, they’re both cheaters, and they’d become social pariahs for it, but they’d be in it together, at least. meanwhile, their respective marital exes can get together to actually have a happy relationship.

for all i know, don might’ve actually convinced dan to take the plunge into debauchery in the first place. like he was like “don’t you miss when you were a carefree bachelor, dan?” and dan’s like “yeah man i miss that life” because its obvious he’s going thru a mid life crisis, so don basically encourages him - wittingly or not - to cheat on his wife. and they’re probably unaware that they’re both dating the maid.

oh fuck. now that i think about it this makes perfect sense.

A NOTP I have with said character: i guess daniel and mary sue? like, it’s an obvious answer but i literally almost always expose him as a cheater to her when i play the pleasants lmao their relationship really does not stand a chance.

A random headcanon: daniel usually prefers peace and quiet, so the constant arguing between his daughters - mixed with his poor relationship with his wife and the secret he keeps from her at the start of the game - makes it very hard for him to want to be around his own family.

instead of taking more initiative to take control of his domestic life, daniel instead opts to run from his problems. because he’s a Bastard. he envies his sister for having a healthier marriage than he does, unaware (or unwilling to entertain the thought) that perhaps jennifer and john have their own problems too.

General Opinion over said character: daniel is an absolute wet moldy rag of a man and his soap-opera-esque suffering amuses me.

Mortimer Goth

Sexuality Headcanon: pansexual.

Gender Headcanon: man

A ship I have with said character: i mean, the obvious answer would be mortimer x bella 5evr. they really are, or... were, a lovely couple. back in the sims 1 days, they were the ‘adorably eccentric’ goth family.

his wife had her strange magic, and he had his weird science, and together they were a power couple to end all power couples. but the thing is, i don’t imagine their relationship was built to last.  mortimer had far more ‘energy’ than bella did, and although they were a match, it was often difficult for her to keep up with him and his... mortimerisms. obviously bella had her quirks, but mortimer was something else. people often wondered how they managed to work together.

and as for his relationship with dina in the sims 2... well, the way i see it is, after bella’s disappearance, mortimer was utterly distraught. dina came to introduce herself and perhaps comfort him, since she was bella’s former sister in law, and in his weakness, things slowly escalated.

but even in his old age, mortimer is a highly intelligent and intuitive man who, i think, could read just about anyone like a book. if dina was just a run of the mill gold digger, he would’ve dropped her like a rock because he’s smarter than that. therefore, i’m almost certain that their relationship goes deeper than dina being interested in his wealth.

A BROTP I have with said character: this might seem odd, but mortimer and bonehilda in both the sims 1 and the sims 2. listen, i know she doesn’t appear in the sims 2... officially. but that doesn’t stop me from modding her into the game. and i have done exactly that.

the best part about acquiring the skeleton maid was that mortimer finally had somebody to ramble endlessly to about his latest ideas, the things that kept him up at night, but he didn’t want to bother bella while she was trying to sleep.

previously, he’d get an idea and would enthusiastically slams the door open like “BELLA I JUST HAD AN AMAZING IDEA!!!” and bella, laying in bed, would say “it’s the middle of the night and i have a golf tournament in the morning, dear.” and at that, mortimer would back out and slowly and quietly close the door.

so while bonehilda was tidying up the house, he would be essentially pacing around and talking to himself. thinking aloud helped him keep his thoughts in order - he has so many of them - and she would dutifully listen to his every word.

unfortunately he eventually had to retire the maid, she would frequently emerge from her coffin at inopportune times while bella was entertaining guests and they’d run out screaming.

bella also got tired of her drinking her cocktails and leaving puddles everywhere.

A NOTP I have with said character: i’d make jokes about it but i probably wouldn’t ship him with his skeleton maid. other than that i can’t think of any.

A random headcanon: mortimer is the very definition of mad scientist. open the page in the dictionary and you will find his picture.

being a knowledge sim, i feel like mortimer would do anything in the pursuit of knowledge, because he’s perpetually overwhelmed with curiosity and a desire to understand everything about the world, even if that often drives him to doing strange and, perhaps, unethical things in the name of science...

his curiosity led him to his chosen field in the first place. he was a bit of an amateur scientist even before then. as he rose through the ranks in his career and gained more notoriety for his scientific pursuits, he also took quite a lot of heat - some of his more bizarre experiments caused a great deal of scandals in his younger years.

he always managed to get back in the public’s favor, and he eventually got the last laugh against the press because he retired with a huge fortune.

General Opinion over said character: i’ve never been able to put my finger on it, but something about mortimer has always, ALWAYS felt extremely shady to me... and that’s what makes him interesting.

Johnny Smith

Sexuality Headcanon: bi

Gender Headcanon: man

A ship I have with said character: johnny x ophelia is cute, but johnny x ripp is also cute. you know what’s even cuter? all three of them together. they are so wholesome and good.

in my experience with strangetown (both in my current project and in an abandoned uberhood i did a while back), ripp usually has no romantic interest in ophelia and 100% interest in johnny, just on his own. their lack of feelings for each other, however, doesn’t stop them from both being with johnny, if they ever decided to do so. the only thing stopping them is their own personal convictions and... fear. as is the standard for these kinds of relationships, it would take a A Lot Of Work.

i’m sure johnny really loves them both, just in different ways. i see him as being the very physically affectionate friend who gives hugs out like candy and they both love him for it because they’re both touch starved as fuck. (that’s what you get when you have olive specter and buzz grunt as parental figures)

even tho it’s his first, the progression of his relationship with ophelia feels very natural to him. meanwhile, the idea of him and ripp together has never crossed his mind, not because he wouldn’t be interested, but because... um, well, he has a girlfriend, so... imagining himself with people other than his girlfriend would be weeeeird, you know? yeah...

he might also be a little oblivious, so that’s probably why he hasn’t picked up on ripp being weird around him yet. so ripp’s watching johnny be affectionate with ophelia like “god i wish that were me” and then johnny’s like “ripp are you ok” and ripp is like “haha yeah bro i’m great!!! :’)”

he’s always there for ophelia, and if ripp were willing to open up to johnny more often, he’d do the same for him.

A BROTP I have with said character: johnny!!! and!!! ripp!!!

whenever ripp is at johnny’s house, Which Is Often, they usually play SSX 3 together. johnny is better at it than ripp is, but at least ripp can beat him at darts on the dartboard on the back porch. they’re equally matched when it comes to playing pool, however.

they also really like to make dumb jokes at each other, including dumb puns and other such groan-inducing jokes read from vintage joke books and candy wrappers.

A NOTP I have with said character: hm... i can’t think of any because i don’t really ship him with anyone other than his two friends.

i could say johnny and tank but honestly that would be a total lie because i can imagine plenty of reasons to ship them, oddly enough. i don’t, but i can see why some do.

A random headcanon: johnny has basically spent his entire life surrounded by people - family, friends, etc. - to the point where being totally alone actually scares him quite a lot. he’s a popularity sim after all.

and, as unhealthy as it is, he really feels like its’ his responsibility to bring balance to ripp and ophelia’s lives by being the fun cheerful affectionate buddy, who always tries to lend an ear and a shoulder to cry on. he’s a little scared that if he didn’t hold them together at their worst, then they’d fall apart.

it’s a lot of work and he loses sleep from it sometimes because holding other people together is Actually! Very! Stressful! but he dreams of being a hero on a white horse and all, so if he has to, he will be the hero they need. he doesn’t want them to worry about him, he doesn’t want them to feel like they’re burdening him, so he never tells them that.

General Opinion over said character: 

#|| ask #jeebie-sims #daniel pleasant #johnny smith #mortimer goth #tumblr was like 'u dont get to make ur post look fancy' #i put a weird amt of effort into this for a sims headcanon post #why? bc i felt like it

[worddevdealswithml]

Failed Step 1 (And 2 (And 3))

Chapter 22:

‘Dear Chloe,

I apologize for not responding to your Christmas gift in time. It was only because you flaunt your wealth so blatantly that you leave nothing for other people to give you.  While I could not find anything suitable, I offer you this, in the hopes that my intent at least may be clear.

Perhaps you will use this to purchase something to match your bitter, blackened heart.

-Tsurugi, Kagami’

“It’s utterly ridiculous,” said Chloe, for the 5th time that day. “Honestly, the idea that anyone could even imagine I’d feel like that about her!  I-  Ridiculous!”

She idly spun the bracelet that Chloe had given her; Chloe had a seemingly endless supply of energy when it came to vigorously denying any romantic affiliation with Kagami, and Sabrina had realized about 20 minutes in that what Chloe was actually after was somebody in the same room to vigorously deny at.

“Ridiculous,” she agreed, wondering if Chloe would notice if she pulled out her phone.

“And the idea that someone would react to all of my insults by falling in love with me?  Hah!  As if.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m a very loveable person, but when I make someone my enemy, they stay my enemy.  Look at Dupain-Cheng!  We’ve been fighting for years now, and does she show any signs of falling in love with me?  No! No, she, doesn’t.”

Sabrina, if she’d thought Chloe would have listened, might have suggested that Chloe had never made her animosity towards Kagami especially public, and that was why people had drawn different conclusions.

Similarly, if she’d been particularly…  confident, she’d have pointed out to Chloe that denying that you were intimidated by how strong and collected someone was… Well…  Suffice to say that Chloe had made similar statements about Ladybug after the whole ‘Miraculer’ fiasco.

Sabrina sighed, as Chloe looped back to muttered comments about what exactly she thought about the time Kagami had something something something…

It had been a long few months for Sabrina; Chloe had always had a penchant for drawing conversations back to being about whoever she was angry at, and she hadn’t been able to keep her mind away from Kagami for so long that Sabrina, by now, was almost hopeful that Chloe would fall in love with her, if only so she could get some peace and quiet.

Sabrina wondered, vaguely, if Chloe actually knew what being in love felt like.  Had she ever been in love?  Or did she think she’d been in love, when in fact she hadn’t, and…

Sabrina was familiar, of course, and there had been plenty of times in her life when the idea of Chloe actually having fallen in love with someone else would have crushed her.  Right now… Well, she probably wasn’t going to get Akumatized over it.  That was probably about as good as she could ask for.

Sabrina sighed.

She knew that she was the only person Chloe could talk to about this, but…

“-which means she must have thought she had some chance dancing against me; can you imagine being that arrogant?”

“I really can’t,” said Sabrina, as her mind wandered.

“Not just against me, but on TV?  She should have been running away!”

Sabrina spun the bracelet, watching the colors blur.

“Absolutely ridiculous,” she mildly agreed.  “I’m sure you’ll-

There was a knock at the door.

They looked up, and after a second, Sabrina had the presence of mind to snag the bracelet before it spun off the table.

“Yes?” said Chloe, audibly annoyed.

“Miss Chloe?” said Jean, poking his head around the door, “a message has arrived for you.  I had assumed you would want it brought up.”

Chloe scoffed.

“Obviously.  Bring it here.”

As Jean stepped lightly over, Sabrina was struck by a sudden premonition that she could guess, if not the contents of the letter, then its sender.

Chloe snapped the paper out of his hand, flipped it to the back, and…

Sabrina had been right.

Surprise, then excitement, with just a tinge of a blush, and then immediately covered by anger.

“So Kagami’s sending you letters again?” she said.

Chloe snapped to face her.

“What?”

“Oh!  Sorry, I thought it was her.”

“I…  Obviously. Who else is so cowardly that they’d send me a letter rather than saying what they wanted to say face to face?”

“Mmm…” said Sabrina, knowing better than to offer an answer.

There was a long second, as Chloe stared down at the envelope.

Then… She very slowly reached down, and put it in her pocket, with a motion that to Sabrina’s untrained eye, could have been the embarrassment one might have treated an unexpected love letter with.

There was a long, awkward silence.

“So…” said Sabrina, eventually, “I don’t suppose you came up with another villain for Jean to play, over winter break?”

--

‘Dear Chloe,

I apologize for not responding to your Christmas gift in time. It was only because you flaunt your wealth so blatantly that you leave nothing for other people to give you.  While I could not find anything suitable, I offer you this, in the hopes that my intent at least may be clear.

Perhaps you will use this to purchase something to match your bitter, blackened heart.

-Tsurugi, Kagami’

 Enclosed, there was a gift card for what appeared to be a coffee shop.

Lying in her bed, Chloe ran a finger along the edge of the card.

Kagami had sent this to her.

Some time in the past few days, Kagami had decided that what she really ought to spend a few minutes on was stopping in somewhere, and getting a gift card.

She had to have been planning it, too…  That line sounded premeditated.

For an instant, Chloe could imagine Kagami looking down at the card, and giving that tiny, triumphant grin, as she concluded that she’d found just the thing to annoy her.  Her finger twitched as she ran it across the smooth, plastic face of the card.  There was something hot, bubbling up in her stomach.

Anger.

It… It had to be anger.  Nothing else made sense.

That was why the whole situation turned her whole body warm.

That was why the idea of going back to school tomorrow made her twitchy and anxious. She just… didn’t like waiting, before a fight.

That had to be it.

It had to be.

#ML #Miraculous Ladybug #ML Fanfic #Miraculous Fanfic #Failed Step 1 #Chloe Bourgeois #Kagami Tsurugi #sabrina raincomprix

[benbarnesfrustration]

The End Justifies the Means

**A Logan Delos x Reader one-shot**

Summary: Logan and reader explore a section of The Raj, an Indian-themed park.

Rated: M/Explicit for smut and language. Smutty smut smut. 18+ only.

AN: I actually adapted this from an old story I wrote for a previous muse. I thought it would suit Logan nicely. Enjoy!

**gif by @benbarnestongue**

Holy hell, were all the bugs the size of airplanes in this place?

Another insect buzzed in your ear, and you swatted it away in irritation.  “Fuck,” you panted. “I swear, if another bug tries to eat my face, I’m going to scream.”  

You could hear Logan chuckle even though he was several paces ahead of you.  “This is called ‘broadening one’s horizons darlin.”  He paused and looked back at you; his dark hair only just beginning to wilt around the edges from the sweat that was beginning to appear at his hairline and neck.  “And I thought you were the adventurous type.”  He flashed you one of his trademarked adorable grins, and you scowled.

“I’m all for adventure, but this…is…ridiculous…”  you swatted another bug.  It seemed the more you perspired, the more insects swarmed you.  “How much longer is it?”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Logan called back to you. “Well.  It won’t be much farther, and this little hike came very highly recommended. Quit complaining,” he added, laughing.

You sighed, and steeled yourself.  Yes, you were a city girl, born and raised in New York.  That didn’t mean you were completely oblivious to the great outdoors, of which you loved and were well acquainted.  You had been on plenty of hiking and camping trips.  But this was The Raj; a theme park modeled after Imperial India.  It was an entirely different ballgame. First of all; the heat was insane.  It wasn’t so bad when you were lounging under patio umbrellas sipping exotic drinks.  But out here in the jungle, with the humidity slowly evaporating your energy, and those god forsaken insects trying to suck your blood…

“Logan,” you called out, trying to diminish the irritation in your voice.  He was, after all, clearly having the time of his life.  As uncomfortable as you were, you didn’t want to ruin that for him.  He paused again, and looked back at you.  “Can I have a swig from that canteen of yours?”  He smiled and backtracked the short distance to where you were standing.  You had a small moment to reflect on how out of balance you were just then; he with the backpack and the air of the adventurer, and your sorry self with the ridiculous banana wrapped around the top of your head to help keep the sweat and insects at bay; flushed and sweating buckets.  He was from the real world just like you were; so how did he do it? How did he blend with the parks so easily?

“Ah, thank you,” you smiled at him gratefully, as you gulped the cool water. You fixed him with a playful glare.  “This better be worth it, mister.”

He smirked at you.  “I think you’ll be pleased.” He turned and started to walk again, calling over his shoulder, “we’ll be there before too long. Hurry up!”

You bit off a few internal expletives, and soldiered on.  You were on a small trail on what could easily be described as pure jungle, about a two miles from your hotel.  You took this trip because you had so desperately needed time away. Both of you had been run completely ragged with work.  You had agreed to clear two weeks just for you, and here you were.  A romantic getaway in The Raj; sipping rum drinks and getting massages and fucking on 800 thread count sheets.  So why were you huffing and puffing through the jungle?  Well, Logan was excited about it, so you agreed. After all, who could refuse Logan when he was excited about something?

You walked and gave it your best effort; doing your best not to trip over any roots.  After about another twenty minutes, just when you were about to ask for some more water, Logan stopped abruptly, holding up his hand to signal for you to do the same.  He trotted forward a few paces as if to check on something, and then quickly doubled back to you, smiling.

“It’s just up ahead,” he grinned, taking your hand.  The two of you walked a short distance and around a small bend in the trail.  When you rounded the corner, you were completely gobsmacked by the sight before you.  You gasped as the visage revealed itself.

Before you stood the most beautiful waterfall you had ever seen.  It wasn’t particularly large, but what made it so breathtaking was the intimacy of the place.  The waterfall fell perhaps fifty feet at most, but was surrounded by vines, rocks, and incredibly lovely flowers.  The pool at its base was a nearly perfect basin, and everything about it was lush, vibrant, and yours. The place was quite literally, all yours.  For the entire two plus miles you had walked, you didn’t see another person.  

You felt Logan’s arm around you and looked up at him.  He was positively glowing with pride, looking down at you.  “Do you like it?”

“Oh Logan,” you said.  “Logan, I just– I’m sorry I whined so much on the way over.  This was worth it…this is amazing.”  

He grinned, and wrapped his arms around you.  “I wanted to take you someplace really special.  Not a restaurant or anything; someplace really amazing.  So I asked the best guy I could think of– the bartender at the hotel.”

You laughed.  “Well of course they would know all the best places.”

He laughed with you.  “Well, apparently, yes!  Not only that, but he assured me that nobody would bother us if we came back here today.  So…here we are.”  

You looked back at the incredible vista before you, then back up to his handsome face.  “You did well, babe. I feel like an ass for complaining so much on the way here.”  

He stepped back a few paces, unshouldering his pack.  He let it fall to the ground with a soft thump. His dark eyes gleamed as he looked at you.  “I figured you wouldn’t like the means, “he smirked at you, “but had counted on the ending to make it all worthwhile.”

Your heartbeat sped up just a little.  “Whatever do you mean, Logan?” you smirked playfully back at him.

He stepped toward you, wrapping his arms around you again.  “But darlin, doesn’t the end always justify the means?”  

Before you could answer, his lips were on yours, catching you off guard.  You grabbed the back of his head and answered his kiss, pressing your lips into his forcefully.  You opened your mouths to each other, and your tongues danced and probed, gaining passion.  

Before the moment could get any more heated, he broke off, suddenly.  

“Not yet.  Let’s refresh ourselves.  Feel like getting wet?”  He cocked his right eyebrow at you questioningly.  You smiled, all the blood rushing to your extremities.  

“Well, as it happens, I am awfully hot…”  you smiled knowingly at him.  You stepped back and pulled your top over your head in one quick motion.  Logan watched, drinking you in.  He ran his tongue along his lips briefly, and stepped to you, grabbing the waistband of your shorts.  You stepped back, smiling impishly.

“Uh uh, you first.”  You pointed at his chest.  He smiled resignedly and pulled his shirt over his head much in the same way you did.  You took a moment to appreciate his chiseled form before he resumed his previous ministrations.  “Now. my turn,” he said hungrily.

He quickly unbuttoned your shorts and unzipped the fly before pushing them down a little roughly.  You stepped out of them, revealing nothing but black panties which matched your bra.  He reached around you and unhooked your bra with ease.  Again, he paused to survey you.  He reached one hand up to cup a breast, and kneaded it softly before you stepped back and, more breathlessly this time, said, “nope, you still have too many clothes on.”

He chuckled devilishly and allowed you to unbutton and unzip his pants.  Down they went, and he was left in nothing more than dark blue boxer briefs.  You took a moment to appreciate his incredibly beautiful form.  He was tall and chiseled like a dark angel, with his intense eyes and almost black hair.  You could see the shape of his impressive manhood straining through the relatively thin material of his briefs.  Never, ever would you tire of looking at him. And here he was, with you, looking at you the same way.

Fueled by your happiness and desire, you pulled off your panties in one quick motion, and turned toward the waterfall’s pool.  “Come on, catch me,” you panted, as you ran toward the edge and dove into the pool.  You had only just surfaced when you heard the answering splash.  You swam toward the waterfall, grabbing onto a small rock just near the point where the falls connected with the pool.  You turned. gasping, laughing, and saw him pop out of the water just in front of you.  You laughed again and grabbed his head, and his arms grabbed your waist from under the water.  You both laughed as you grasped each other; completely invigorated by the cool water.

He kissed you again.  You never thought that you could ever kiss more passionately than you ever had, because you had definitely had your moments.  But this time, maybe– just maybe, you had outdone the others.  You wrapped your legs around his waist and lifted yourself out of the water to give yourself better leverage, and deeply, passionately, you poured all the love you felt for him into that kiss.  His tongue probed your lips, and your mouth opened to his.  You explored his mouth with your tongue, as his hand gripped the back of your head, fingers tangled in your hair.  You enjoyed this passionate exchange for several moments, before he broke away, and suddenly grabbed you, lifting you from the water.

He moved to the edge and set you on the little rock that you had swam to; the one near the spot where the falls met the pool.  As he stood, he was able to rise out of the water in front of you.  You looked at him, gasping.

“Tell me how much you want me,” he said, as he spread your legs apart and began to tease at your entrance with his fingers.  “Tell me.”

“Oh my god Logan…”  You gasped. “I want you. I want you inside of me. Please.”

“Tell me more,” he growled, and he slipped a finger inside you.  You were so wet.

“Logan…I love it when you make me come…” you moaned.

He inserted another finger, and probed your depths whilst rubbing your clit with his thumb.  His mouth was on yours again, and he caught your bottom lip in his teeth, sucking, biting.  He hooked his fingers, hitting your inner g-spot, and you cried out.  “Logan, please…”

Your back was arched and your head thrown back in ecstasy, so you were not entirely prepared when you felt his mouth on you, replacing his thumb on your clit with his tongue.  You cried out again, as he sucked and licked, all while he inserted another finger, driving you into a frenzy.  You grabbed fistfulls of his hair and screamed as he brought you to a mind-blowing climax; wave after wave hitting you, making your body shiver.

After you subsided, he lifted his head and winked at you.  “It’s a good thing we have this place all to ourselves.  Did I ever tell you how loud you are?”

“It’s your fault,” you panted, lying back along the rock wall, the spray of the waterfall enveloping you.  He chuckled. You fixed him with a look.  “Now now, we’re not finished yet, are we?”

You slid off the rock and pushed him, turning him so that he was against the rocks where you had just been. His cock was standing just above the waterline, at full attention.

“Allow me,” you said, and you bent to the task.  He let out a small, “ Mmm,” as you put your lips on the head of his cock.  You put your other hand at the base of his impressive shaft, massaging up and down as you sucked.  You took his length the best you could; the head bumping the back of your throat before you drew it out again.  He moaned as you pulled and sucked, increasing your pace until he was gasping for breath.  “Oh my god,” he panted, and you felt his balls twitch as his climax neared.  Suddenly, you withdrew, and with an impish look, quickly turned and swam off, leaving him standing there in hip deep water; chest heaving.

“Where…where you…” was all he could manage between pants, and you looked back at him, grinning mischievously.  “Did you think this game was over?  Catch me!”  You giggled and submerged, swimming toward the other side of the pool.  You came up at the other side, in a place that was covered with vines and other vegetation.  You were beginning to contemplate whether you should get out of the water when Logan was on you, half-laughing and half-growling.  

“Got you, you fuckin tease,” he laughed, as he lifted you out onto the edge of the pool.  He stood up, matching your height.  His eyes glittered as he pushed you back and spread your legs, exposing you.  You propped yourself up on your elbows and watched as he gripped the head of his dick and positioned it at your entrance, which was swollen with arousal.  Once properly placed, he put his hands on the rocks on either side of you, and pushed his full length into you.  You both gasped as his cock filled you, stretching you, and he withdrew almost completely before shoving himself back in.  You forced your head up to look at him as he began thrusting steadily, and his eyes lifted to meet yours.  You locked eyes as he pumped; fucking you, rocking your hips, and you cried out in ecstasy.  “Logan, oh god! Yes!”  Your hips bucked as he slammed you, your skin slapping audibly at the contact.  You raked your nails down his back as he pounded into you, and you felt your climax building.  “Don’t stop!” You cried, and he thrust again and again and again, your orgasm arriving full-force, blackening your vision. Waves of pleasure overcame you, and he moaned, “Oh babe, I’m gonna….oh god” He tensed up as his own climax hit him, and he spurted his seed into your depths.

He lay on top of you, limbs completely spent.  You panted together, and you twined your fingers in his hair.  After a short while, you sat up, and cradled his head against your breast, stroking his face.

“My god woman” he breathed, and lifted his head to meet your eyes.  “You’re amazing.”  He chuckled softly. “Didn’t I tell you the end would justify the means?”

#logan delos x reader #westworld fanfiction #logan fic #ben barnes character #smut