#like woah...to be big. to have a low voice. to be gay. wow...

[ali-dance]

AAAAAAAGH

#every day i am tormented by existence #i am sick of the concept of living #i want to be a guy but i haaaate masculinity #i want to be pretty or whatever but i hate the idea of femininity #dbshsjd #someone called me a woman casually todah and i have still not recovered disgusting do not hfhfbfv #all bc i said men dont deserve to have names....it was a joke #ewwwwwwwwwwwwww #god #monique? i have things to sah but idk what they are #personal #my gay coworker is giving me gender envy thats what it is #like woah...to be big. to have a low voice. to be gay. wow...

[boop-le-snoot]

masterpost ☀️ main masterlist ☀️ taglist

previously on...

Chapter 5. We have stucky, we have stevesambucky friendship, we have a new place to live and strange being a good guy because tony definitely ranted at him. Also, we're beginning the creepy part of the plot. I have decided that sam will be one of the main platonic characters in this story because I love sam.

fun fact: I used to be a creepypasta writer! Going back to my roots here, hehe.

Things had stated changing, for better or worse, much sooner than I had been prepared for - but was anyone, ever, really ready for the next big step? Certainly not me - the view that greeted me after I'd finished my shift at Jeremy's was peculiar and unexpected, so I froze, eyebrows high at the two super-soldiers parked, once again, illegally, right in front of the entrance door.

"Hi, doll," Bucky was reclined against his boyfriend comfortably, his bike standing a pace behind Steve's, who nodded companionably, a sheepish grin on his face.

"G'day," I nodded, eyeing them warily. "I think I know where this is going..."

"No, no, nothing like that," both men frantically waved their hands around, Steve coming up close to approach me slowly. "You're not in trouble. I came out here to say thanks," giving a sappy look to the grouch that was his boyfriend, Steve reached into his pocket and handed me a slip of paper. "Just, uh..."

"Those are our phone numbers. Don't hesitate to give either one of us a call if someone bothers you," Bucky took over the stammering blonde, shaking his head at the soft blush that blossomed on the good captain's face. The brunette wrapped an arm around Steve's shoulders with a shy smile of his own. "Or if you, I don't know, need someone to carry your groceries or something," he snorted. "The punk wouldn't leave it alone until we came out personally to thank you, the sap."

The laughter bubbled up from my chest as I grabbed and pocketed the paper, throughly amused and at the endearing gesture. "Sure, thanks."

"And, uh," Bucky's eyes briefly looked to the side. "We'd appreciate if you keep the status of our relationship to yourself for now. We're not, like, officially out yet."

I froze in place, mouth falling open. Surely they were aware that anybody with a functional pair of eyes could see that they were much more than 'good, lifelong friends'. "No problem, guys. Lemme know if anyone gives you shit about it though, this place," I gestured to the café behind me, "is strictly paparazzi and homophobe-free."

Steve's grin grew even more genuine. "Yeah, we heard all about it from Tony and Stephen. Said 'twas the only place they go these days."

I wasn't aware of that. "It's the paps, isn't it?" I remembered Tony's remarks.

Bucky shook his head, the metals of his prosthetic arm whirring as it recalibrated. "Not only. The public hasn't had the best reaction to a man goin' out with a man," the brunette looked away to the side, where Steve's face had fallen considerably. "And Tony's an eccentric rich man. We're jus' two soldiers. The US Army won't be too happy if we... Came out," both men were crestfallen yet determined.

I had a hunch nothing would be able to separate the two - seeing as not even seventy-odd years and brainwashing and ice couldn't keep the captain and his sarge apart, I doubted that a few government weasels could successfully do the job. Even so, it was unpleasant, to say the least, to see them deny themselves something that technically was perfectly fine in the 21st century.

I chewed on my lip, gathering my wits. "I've clocked out, I can tell you this as a friend- as a person. You don't owe the army jack shit. They do not own you, you are your own person that they experimented their German knockoff steroids on. Respectfully, fuck that shit." I firmly stated my opinion, figuring that there should have been at least someone that told Steve that he is more than his star-spangled uniform and giant metal frisbee.

The blonde scrunched his eyebrows together, fingers gripping onto his belt until the knuckles went white, the hard line of his jaw set firm.

Bucky laugh took me by surprise. "Agreed, doll. I'm too old to be hiding in back alleys and shit," he clapped on his boyfriend's shoulder. "Although I'm happy enough with just not going to prison for bein' in love with this idiot."

"Jerk," Steve's responding pout was downright adorable now that I knew the circumstances surrounding their relationship.

Which wasn't exactly surprising. As a barista, I knew my fair share about my regulars' love lives, their jobs, their kids. The tea was almost always piping hot. "Bye, boys," I smiled at them warmly, throwing a glance at the time, adjusting the strap of my bag for comfort. "Stay outta trouble!"

Steve scrambled for his bike, having noticed my pointed gesture. "Sorry, didn't mean to hold you back. There, I have a spare helmet," he gestured behind him. "I'll give you a ride."

"There's no way in Hell I'm getting on that death trap!" I shouted cheerfully, walking briskly towards my second job, hiding a laugh in the warmth of my scarf as two very offended motorcycle-loving gay fossils sped past me, making truly incredible amounts of noise. Good for them.

Odette was content to let me rummage around the bodega without showing herself more than necessary, taking her appointments and doing- well, witch stuff, I guess, only coming out to poke at the various jars for ingredients.

"Star, I have a proposition for you," right before closing time, Odette's voice filled out the store with its low drawl. "A good friend of mine owns an apartment building, not far from here actually, and one tenant recently moved out. It's a safe space for those who are different," she enunciated the last word, fixing it with a pointed stare. "She's not overly fond of total strangers coming to live there. The rent is reduced and the apartment itself is slightly bigger and more fashionable than yours..."

"Where's the catch?" I found myself interrupting her. I wouldn't lie: the reduced rent and increased size of the apartment did interest me, as well as the probability of a kinder, more involved landlord. My current one was - not the best, but such was life in the NYC.

"There are a few rules to follow, rules that might seem strange at first but they'll make sense in time. And your neighbors might be also a little... Unusual," Odette carefully studied my face for any signs of displeasure.

I sighed.

And then I sighed some more as I was signing my new lease in a few days' time, having spoken with Porter, my new landlord, and his boyfriend who had claws and fangs- after so much time spent around Odette's, I didn't even blink. The couple liked me enough to extend a secure but flexible offer and some furniture to choose from the attic where they kept the spares.

I quite liked the large, vintage couch I placed next to the wide bow windows in the living room. The floors were hardboard and well-kept, the walls a nice, homely shade of green and Porter didn't mind any new holes in them that might arise from hanging up decorations. I scheduled a thrift crawl at the next possible opportunity, happy with the "good employee" bonus Odette had given me after I sealed the deal.

My stuff was boxed up, a sleepless night and a call to a begrudging Jeremy to have a couple of days off to move; I was, thankfully, not late on my schedule and all that I had left was to rent a car to move the boxes of my things and the few pieces of furniture I had decided to keep - my haul in Porter's attic had been incredibly rewarding and my new apartment had all the basics to make it look like a warm, inviting bohemian home in a while.

My phone rang suddenly, startling interruption to the romcom I was watching as I ate my last lunch in my old apartment. "Hello?" I answered the number without looking.

"Hi, doll," Bucky's voice rang out cheerful. "A little witch told me you were moving. I thought you might need a hand?"

I blanked momentarily, the thought of enlisting two very busy super-soldiers to haul ten boxes and two endtables worth of stuff not having crossed my mind at all. "Is this the moment when you stop by my house just to unattach and put your prosthetic arm somewhere and leave?" I asked, hearing distinctive snickering - several more people were with him.

The cheer in his voice blossomed into a full belly laugh. "You're funny," he teased me. "And thanks for the idea. But no, I have a room full of men that have nothing better to do but get on my nerves. Might as well make 'em useful," his accented drawl thickened the more we spoke. Muted cheers rang out in the background.

"Uh, sure," who was I to look a gift horse in the mouth? I rattled off my address and warned them I didn't have a car, after which Bucky assured me it will be taken care of. The last remaining knick-knacks packed away, I went down to take out the trash, and returned to four people standing in front of my apartment building, all except one unrecognisable in their civilian clothes. "Hello," I waved at them, side-eyeing the tallest, grumpiest man of the bunch.

Stephen Strange was there, looking around curiously, hands in the pockets of his plain grey hoodie. I had already forgotten how normal he looked without his robes, and, frankly speaking, I preferred him like that. His title and the attire that came with it were quite intimidating.

"Hey there," a dark-skinned man who I recognised to be the Falcon, raised his hand. I had not met him yet. "I'm Sam, Sam Wilson. You must be the Star we're helping?" His quick once-over and the tilt to his lips; the ease with which he flirted had me brandishing smirks of my own. I led them all upstairs, Stephen's silence being just so loud. Sam, however, had no such reservations. "So, you're a witch, right?" Wow, subtlety was his middle name.

"Yes, I'll show you my broomstick," I deadpanned, wiggling my eyebrows at him with a grim look.

"Woah woah," Sam raised his hands as the three men behind us snickered loudly. "What happened to 'how are you? let's have dinner sometime'?"

I did my best imitation of an evil cackle as I let them through my front door. The four newcomers looked around my nearly empty apartment with muted interest before zeroing in on the pile of things in the corner: a few pieces of furniture and nearly taped boxes. Should be a walk in the park for four men.

A hand on my arm pulled me from the stupor of observing Sam, Bucky and Steve act like a well-oiled trio, bantering and teasing each other as they discussed how to best move the things.

"Look," Stephen Strange had all the appearance of a chastised puppy. "I wanted to apologize for my behaviour that day. I was out of line," the low notes in his voice made the appearance of the apology being somewhat reluctant. Tony probably put him to it after our little burger run.

Irregardless, I wasn't looking to make any enemies. "Me too, I was under stress - not that I'm using it as an excuse," to give where it's due, I nodded at the sorcerer, immediately awestruck by the easy, boyish smile that stretched on his lips.

"You are strong," he added. "If you would like to learn our ways, we would welcome you." There was a spark in his eyes, something belonging to man that respected and collected knowledge. My own respect for him grew immensely just from that one thing.

"I'll think about it," I offered amicably, however, I still leaned heavily towards a negative answer to that particular proposition. I liked my current way of life.

Strange's grin made a momentary second appearance, until Sam's voice rang loudly: "Fire in the hole, Wizard-man," causing the former to groan loudly and look at me.

"Think about your new place for a second," he spoke, briefly touching out fingertips. As soon as that was over, a golden circle with my new living room on the other side of it appeared quietly, Strange's hands immediately going back into his pockets after that. I sighed and pointed the men into it, stepping in a second after. The sorcerer wasn't far behind. "You could learn that, too, you know," he added wryly, having seen my look of mild envy directed at him.

"I think I'll be good with having the 'pissed off the sorcerer Supreme and lived' pass for now," I retorted with an eyeroll, turning around to stare him down.

He had the decency to look somewhat sheepish, at least. "I'm not like my predecessor," his words were chosen carefully. "And, to be honest, I have no clue as to why your... Boss is so hostile towards me- us," Strange looked around the room before unceremoniously beelining for the couch and plopping down on it.

"Not to be a gossip," I started, slightly intrigued. "But Odette and some lady she called ancient had mad beef," I slipped into casual language easily, trying to recall the details of Odette's, quite often jumbled, stories. "Sounded almost like territorial disputes," I shrugged. "And the apprentices Odette took on before me found themselves in all kinds of compromising situations," I chewed on my lip. "Like the Arctic."

Strange rubbed his face with a noisy groan, large hands doing nothing to mask the resignation and slight embarrassment.

I focused on the thin, red scars on his hands - they had to have been something serious, the way slight tremors betrayed the deteriorating state of the nerves in his fingers. I frowned, quickly averting my gaze before he could catch me ogling him. The fact thag Stephen kept his hands in his pockets or covered by gloves at all times didn't go over my head.

He muttered something to himself, something that sounded like he was often forced to clean up his predecessor's mess. "I see," was the only thing he'd offered me, looking slightly pitiful and apologetic.

"Well," I started, noting the last of my stuff was about to be in its rightful place, "as long as you don't toss me into the ocean, I think we can coexist peacefully."

"Tony would kill me if I'd tried," Stephen groused.

"Probably," I agreed. "Considering the fact he hit on me, for you, it would make one hell of a lover's quarrel," my hand pointed towards the kitchen as Steve and Sam carried in the boxes aptly labeled "kitchen", looking around a place to put them down.

"Tony did what now?" Stephen's tone dropped, a wry smirk decorating his lips as he eyed me through his lashes.

"Don't ask me," I raised my palms, feeling my eyes widen. "He's chaos personified and Satan only knows what he's got on his mind."

That squeezed a laugh out of the tall man, followed by a fond, sappy smile as he looked out of my large, panoramic window, probably thinking of Tony himself. There was no doubt, Stephen Strange was utterly and throughly head over heels in love with Tony Stark. Good for them, good for them.

"A-and that's it," Bucky walked in, wiping his hands on a kitchen towel I'd provided them earlier. "I took some liberties and assembled the furniture, Steve is stacking the dishes as we speak," the brunette noisily plopped down next to me, arm carelessly thrown behind me on the back of the couch.

"Oh, um," I stammered, unused to such random gestures of kindness. "Thanks a lot, you saved me a day's worth of time and a backache," I smiled, scooting over to make some room for Sam.

"No problem, not like we had anything better to do than argue which part of the Lord of the Rings is the best," Wilson rolled his eyes, elbowing Bucky none-too-gently.

Bucky elbowed back, thus starting a horsing war between the two, causing me to scoot closer to Stephen as I attempted to avoid any flailing limbs; the sorcerer and I shared an identical, perplexed sigh as to how two grown men could easily bait each other into such juvenile behaviour.

Whatever. It was kind of endearing.

Steve emerged from the kitchen dusty but smiling, having heard the commotion, and quickly herded his guys into a semblance of decent behaviour before all of three of them left, leaving me and Stephen to go back to my old apartment and give the keys to it to the guard. That was done, too, and a portal from an alley behind my old building straight into my living room had me and Strange awkwardly hovering, saying out goodbyes and waving to each other as the golden circle rapidly shrunk in size and disappeared, golden sparks scattering across my living room carpet for a short second before they fizzled out, too.

I used the brief moment of respite to find the small piece of paper containing the rules Porter had insisted I read and take seriously; figuring it might be a good idea to give them a read before beginning to unpack, I popped open a bottle of soda, holding the itemized list written in neat cursive to my face.

The further I read, the further my eyebrows rose:

"1. Keep your door locked at all times.

2. If a person knocks on your door claiming to be the mail man, do not open the door under any circumstances. You are free to ignore the knocking - it only lasts a minute or so. After the person has left, you may open the door and check for any packages.

3. If Samantha from 3B visits you and asks you to babysit, you may do so at your personal discretion. Her twins are a handful and their daily habits are not for the ones with a weak stomach, however, they mean nothin ill and will not harm you in any way.

4. Do not use the elevator between the hours of 1 and 4 AM.

5. There are no apartments under number "7". If someone claiming to be from those apartments knocks on your door and requests entry, come up with a polite excuse to decline and send me a text message. I will take care of it.

6. There is no garden on the premises of this building. If a man approaches you, claiming to be a gardener, don't interact with him and simply walk away. He will leave you alone.

7. You may meet a girl in a polka-dot dress playing in the hallways or in the stairwell. This is Lucy. Always be polite to Lucy - you won't like what will happen if you're rude to her. She does not talk but she knows limited ASL and may request to visit you. Allow her in ONLY if you have fresh meat in your fridge (beef or mutton, preferably bloody). You might want to avoid seeing her eat, however, it might be very beneficial to make friends with Lucy. She knows a lot of things.

8. If, when taking the stairs, you encounter inconsistent numeration of the floors, such as floor 2 followed by floor 5 and etc, simply walk a flight back. It will sort itself out. The building is old and sometimes it gets confused.

Important notice: these rules apply to your guests as well. Please make sure to introduce and educate them on these matters. We will help as much as we can should a situation arise but ultimately, there are fates far worse than an untimely, however swift, death.

- Porter and Lance."

A slow, creeping dread began to gnaw at my nape, curling on like a cold snake deep in chest. As if laughing at me, the warm, welcoming embrace of the green walls and the toothy, wide smiles my landlords had given me encouraged my recently found sense of adventure, all of it mixing into a cacophony of exhilaration and unease, equally steadily driving my running brain insane.

I sighed again, immediately going to the box containing my altar and the rest of the protective items. So much for peace.

Taglist: @couldntbedamned @mikariell95 @letsby @sleep-i-ness @toomanyrobins @mostly-marvel-musings @persephonehemingway @schemefrenzy @lillsxd @bluecrazedandbeautiful @slothspaghettiwrites @xoxabs88xox

#practical alchemy #bun writes #tony stark x reader x stephen strange #stephen strange x reader x tony stark #ironstrange x reader #stephen strange x reader #tony stark x reader #stephen strange x y/n #tony stark x y/n #Stephen Strange x you #tony stark x you

[dappercritter]

Random She-Ra Season 5 Thoughts: THE FINAL RAMBLING

Yep. I finally got all my crazy absurd thoughts about this gay adventure-romance-drama cartoon summarized into one incoherent yet fun to read computer document/article! ...four months after the show itself ended. Oh well, no one’s perfect. Anyways, there are a whole lot more insane observations than ever before, so I had to put it below a link so this thing didn’t back up my blog or any of yours. Hope you enjoy reading through these as much I enjoyed spouting them for no discernible reason other than I felt like it!

-I feel that since is the last season, I ought to talk about an important part of the show that I’ve been putting off: the animation. It’s… okay. It’s definitely smoother than what the original 80’s show and it’s brother series (heheh) looked like, but at the same time it still seems to suffer from similar limitations which causes some distracting moments of stiffness. But other than that, it’s pretty good. It’s no Titmouse or Studio Mir but it looks good and it gets the job done.

         -After all, let’s not forget: “Imperfection is beautiful!”

-Even when things are at their lowest, Adora is a jock with a heart of gold.

-Horde Prime and the Galactic Horde’s aesthetic feels like a mixture of Catholicism, Scientology, Heaven’s Gate, and modern Microsoft, and honestly, that just makes him creepier.

-Speaking of Horde Prime, he didn’t waste any time with destroying Bright Moon. …apparently.

-Furthermore, on the topic of his giant holographic messages, WAS THAT A FREAKING MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE MOVIE REFERENCE?!

-Boy, Glimmer and Catra sure got along quickly! It’s almost like they magically understand each other because they both assumed leadership roles and screwed up big time! …I guess.

         -Either that or this season is going to be a speedrun.

-Wow, the Rebellion sure got used to having a once-thought-dead king as well as a known enemy general/abuser running around their camp awful fast, didn’t they?

-Mara’s got a spaceship, a cyber girlfriend, a magic grandma, a dragon, a tragic backstory, AND a force ghost?! Dang, even in death, the girl’s got it all. No wonder everyone likes her!

-(*me looking at the TV rating at the start of episode*) “Why is language in there? Is there surprise cuss words or something in this season?” (*sees Horde Prime seize control of a clone for the first time*) “HOLY FREAKING SH—oh that’s why.”

-Applause to the crew for making the “dinner with Prime” scene for making a meal between a sparkly princess, a catgirl, and alien cult leader feel even more uncomfortable than it had a right to.

-(*me throughout the season whenever a clone was onscreen*) Is that Hordak? Is that him? Is that him? Is that him right there? Oh it is—oh no wait. … Is that h—

-Extra applause for having Glimmer learn from her grey-area wetwipe phase and refusing to sell out her friends again whilst telling the imperialist cult leader where to stick it.

-I would pay a sizeable portion of my life savings to hear what a Scorpia and Swift Wind duet would sound like.

         -In fact, I’d double it if it was just Scorpia singing.

         -Ah what the heck. I would triple it for an entire She-Ra musical!

-As happy as I am to see to see Entrapta interacting with the other princesses again, I have to say that their big reunion left me with some mixed feelings. Here’s a quick rundown:

         -Entrapta, a grown autistic woman, being led around on a leash by non-neurodivergent teenagers—again: that’s bad.

         -The Princesses confronting Entrapta about joining the Horde: that’s good!

         -The Princesses blaming all their problems with the Horde bots on Entrapta’s actions and her hyper fixations alone: that’s bad.

         -Entrapta explaining herself, admitting that she regrets her mistakes, and getting the Princesses to understand that she thinks and communicates differently, but in spite of that, she really does want help find Glimmer: that’s good!

         -Entrapta never gets to call out the Princesses for how poorly they treated her: that’s bad.

         -Entrapta saves the day and goes to space: that’s good!

         -Scorpia and Entrapta still haven’t interacted even though the former is with the Rebellion in the first place because she went to look for her because she is her best friend: …can I go home now?

-How nice! Michah finally got to shapeshift!

         -And he’s rocking that She-Ra outfit to boot!

-So is Darla a back up of Light Hope or do they just run on the same operating system and have the same voice?

-I could watch an entire season of Adora, Bow, and Entrapta going on space adventure in a rundown ship with their custom-made spacesuits, tbh.

-Is anyone else weirded out that Catra’s younger self looked at her in her flashback(?).

         -Actually what WAS happening there, anyhow?

-(*watching Bow’s spacewalk to save Glimmer*) “Is that a Gravity reference?” asked the man who never saw Gravity.

-Speaking of spacewalks, how did Glimmer survive those precious few seconds in space? Does the teleporter teleport a breathable atmosphere too?

         -Also, Catra, WHY did you think it would be a good idea to teleport Glimmer into space? I know you had a plan and the ship was right there but… Ah, never mind.

-Not that I’m complaining but Glimmer’s apology to the rest of the friend squad for her HORRIBLE plan last season went… surprisingly quickly.

-You know as cool as The Star Siblings are, being a quirky band of space-travelling siblings with cool powers and some trans rep to boot, I only have one small problem with them: weren’t there already Star Sisters on Etheria back in season 1?

         -That doesn’t sound right, but I don’t know enough about Masters of the Universe characters to dispute it.

-Entrapta confirmed pan, objectum, AND horny on main. Dang girl, you’re gonna have fun whether you got Hordak back or not…

-“The Velvet Glove” is both a menacing and stupid name for a decadent overlord’s mothership.

         -Wait, it’s from the 80’s canon? Oh. That kind of explains it, actually.

-Goshdangit, I wanted Catra to face punishment for her crimes, but I didn’t think that would involve going to evil alien conversion therapy!

         -Nor did I want her to die! For a second. Actually, since it obviously wasn’t going to last I was… weirdly okay with that part???

-Horde Prime seems awfully okay with Catradora. I mean he’s still super creepy and manipulative about it, but also oddly progressive for an evil brainwashing cult leader.

-(*Adora transforms into a She-Ra through seer will*) First of all, called it. Second of all, WOAH MAMA now that’s a glow up!

-Wrong Hordak did not have to be a thing, and yet, I’m glad that he is.

-Hordak remembers the LUVD crystal and Entrapta… Hordak remembers Entrap—! It’s happening! Oh my gosh, it’s happening! Everybody stay calm!

-Wow, Entrapta didn’t have to be so forgiving of Catra for everything she’s done to her but she did. Only I’m not sure if that was Entrapta taking the high road or the low road.

         -Or which road the crew took for that matter.

-I remember when I thought those “Chipped AUs” floating around here on tumblr were just something the fans came up with and that chipping people was not an actual despicable thing Prime does in canon. I miss those days.

-I know it’s not the same as before or the original design, but True She-Ra’s designs and powers? I think they slappin’.

-Hooray, Adora and Catra are finally making up! And it only took four and half seasons worth of communication failures, toxic villainous behaviour, and physical violence for Catra to snap out of it!

         -…We can go back to Entrapdak now, right?

-Poor Elberon. First they unknowingly adopt a double agent then get invaded by the Horde and now they’re getting brainwashed and chipped by the Galactic Horde. They might be a cute village, but they got some pretty lousy security.

-You know it’s cute that Micah is doing his best to be friends with Frosta and get back in touch with his dad-side, but look I can’t be the only one worried about how the local King is a less proactive leader than the princesses or the known war criminal/abuser, right?

-“The Perils of Peekablue” or as I like to call it, “You Thought ‘Boys Night Out’ Caught You Emotionally Off-guard? Hah! Watch This.”

-You know I didn’t think Scorpfuma would be a thing aside that one moment of flirting near the end of season 4, but they really pushed for it to be a thing! This is… actually pretty great! Perfuma’s not perfect, and I would have appreciated giving them a little more time to bond and form some real chemistry, but at least she reciprocates Scorpia’s sweetness instead of rebuffing it in increasingly aggressive fashion.

-I’m not sure what’s more concerning: that Mermista set a boat on fire, that it’s worded like she had a fling as part of some experimental phase, or that Sea Hawk is turned on by this.

-Peekablue might not be real, (I think?) but he is one dapper dude! Female-to-male redesigns could learn a thing or two from him.

-It involved them getting stung and seizuring, but that was a heck of a way to reintroduce Double Trouble! I swear I got watching them cycle through their transformations in some sort of physical reaction.

         -Or maybe that was just me worrying about their wellbeing…

-Okay, I get the Chips are huge, and actually rather clever threat, but how do these characters get chipped in the first place? I get there are chipped people who spread the chips throught the population but where do they get those from???

         -Do one of those Horde Prime drones just sneak behind someone, slap a chip on their nape then hand them a whole bagfull and say, “Beep boop beep, Horde Prime’s Light, blah blah blah. Alright have fun, kiddo”?

         -Or is it some sort of Alien: Covenant deal where they’re just floating around and Lord help you if one sticks to you?

-HOLY CRAP THEY ACTUALLY GOT SCORPIA TO SING! AND SHE WAS GREAT!

         -Oh shoot. Guess I owe the crew twice my life savings now…

-Entrapdak might be what got me into this show, but it’s Double Trouble that kept me around, so you can imagine how happy I was to see them make their grand reappearance!

-Conversly, you can imagine my disappointment when they just disappeared until the finale.

         -And on that note: HOW DID YOU GUYS LOSE DOUBLE TROUBLE?!

                  -You forgot to cherish them, didn’t you?

-So, Scorpia sacrifices herself just after finding a new girlfriend and gaining some newfound confidence, Mermista and Sea Hawk are split up,and Double Trouble didn’t join the main cast. Why can’t you just have fun like a normal cartoon, show?

-Gosh, I love me some shifting title cards!

-Is it just me or did they sneak in some more Annihilation references on Krytis?

         (-Said the guy who was too chicken to watch the movie and just read about it and watched a few clips online.)

-(*audibly sighs*) FINE. I guess I like Catradora now. Are you happy now, SPOP Crew? ARE YOU?!

-Hooray, Catra’s got a emotional support animal! And they’re a shapeshifting magic alien cat. Those are the best kind!

-Is it weird that I knew that weird glowing stuff on Krytis was just magic all along, or was it just not hidden very well. Anyways, I like Krytis. I like that we got to see a truly alien world with its own form of magic.

-Plus, we got a logical advancement of the magic versus science subtheme with magic being Horde Prime’s weakness! Neato!

-Getting back on the “which is worse?” wagon for a second, I don’t know what feels less right: that Wrong Hordak’s big revelation and his resolution to free himself and his brothers and friends from Horde Prime’s control is played humorously, or that Real Hordak should be the one having this moment.

-That bit with Castaspella and Shadow Weaver where she tells Casta about Etheria being a living thing with inherent magical property, or whatever, while we got a peaceful shot of some boar creatures sleeping was actually kind of nice. It would have been nicer though if it wasn’t part of a power hungry abuser’s obvious scheme. If only there was a kindly old witch lady character who was in touch with nature and knew just what to say when someone was feeling downOH WAIT.

-Furthermore… Why did Shadow Weaver and Castaspella need to have romantic tension?

-Seriously though, where’s our Madame Razz quota this season? Where’s my supportive magic grandma timelord at, yo?

-Yup, they speedran this season.

-I’m actually really disappointed we didn’t see more of an intergalactic new rebellion rising up to fight Horde Prime’s forces across the universe. Especially if it meant we got to see more Star Sibling action!

-Again, I adore Wrong Hordak but I keep wondering what was keeping the crew from just bringing in Original Flavour Hordak. (You know, aside from teasing us Entrapdak fans and trying to distract us with a loveable new character in the meantime.) I mean he could have done the whole infiltrating the clone squads and tricking them bit, too.

         -Heck, he could have done the wink, too!

-I’d gleefully point out Loo-Kee’s cameo this season but apparently, they already made some several seasons ago. That’s what I get for not rewatching the 80’s show and training my eyes first.

-(*sees Erelandians*) Are those freaking Toads and Toadettes?

-So, what’s keeping them from just hitting Spinerella’s chip again? Besides emotional baggage and gale force winds, I mean.

-Perfuma coming out of a cave scared out of her wits, demanding to know who’s there, clinging to her friends as soon as they come back, and balling her eyes out is a big, BIG mood.

-Frosta absolutely decking Catra in the face was nestled somewhere between cathartic and excessive.

         -Netossa spraying her with a bottle of water on the other hand…

-Oh, so Greyskull was the name of a Rebel Squad! I think. Meh, the important thing is we got an explanation and it still sounds cool.

-Leave it to a couple of dads to make a secret message out of a dad joke.

-You know I made fun of Light Hope for being creepy, but I swear that avatar from the Spire is even creepier. I don’t know if it’s her face—those dang blank eyes, man—or just that it she’s less animated than the real thing, but it just felt… off.

-Aww, Noelle made Netossa’s princess weakness illustrations! So cute!

-Forget episodes that deserves Emmys, Keston John deserves one for voicing Hordak, Horde Prime, all the clones, and several minor villains and giving each and every single one a distinct voice! Where my king’s respect, eh?

-Yes, Catra you had a small disagreement with Hordak. …Over sending his girlfriend and your “friend” to DIE IN A LITERAL LIVING HELL.

         -Sorry, I just had to get that out of my system.

-Why does Perfuma get pressured to get angry and go wild when Entrapta’s the one who’s had it the worst out of all them? Why can’t my gamer girl go berserk, dammit!?

-Okay, but really, how do these fricking chips work??? Are they parasite devices who store Horde Prime’s Baptizing Dew then slowly pump it into their host’s bodies? Do they have their own nervous systems? Are they technorganic? Also, how and why do we need to make these chips are bigger threat then they need to be?

-Horde Prime showing up on Hordak’s throne in grand Killing Joke style and casually throwing shades at his brother’s overblown attempts to impress him is pretty awesome, but it feels strangely underdeveloped. Hordak’s not there to have his hard work insulted and we never got to see Adora have any similar encounter with Hordak here before, so unless you look at it from the perspective of someone who has been here before in the Horde story like Catra it lacks the dramatic weight it should have had.

-Scorpia resisting the chip to save her new friends was pretty great, though.

-I swear, when they got to the scene where Adora and the others figured out that Shadow Weaver was grooming her so she could use her to get to the Heart of Etheria, I was mouthing “You B***H” through the whole thing.

-They really brought back Etherian deep magic just so they had something to make Micah threatening. …okay.

-Okay, the rest of “Failsafe” messed me up, so here’s a rundown on all the other messy thoughts I had while the show ripped my heart and ground it to dog food:

         -Entrapta and Hordak reuniting: Yay!

         -Swift Wind yanking her away before she can get through to him: Boo.

         -Catra encouraging Adora to try and take care of herself for a change: Yay!

         -Adora hurts Catra and she runs away: Boo.

         -Adora finally calling out Shadow Weaver on what an utterly horrible person she is: Yay!

         -Adora resolves to risk sacrificing herself to save the world: Bo—okay, seriously, was all this suffering really necessary, show?

-I know I mentioned in my previous She-Ra random thoughts that I supported Glimmadora, but I am okay with Catradora and Glimbow ending up canon. The only problem I have is how rushed they feel—moreso with Glimbow. With Catradora, the crew had an entire season to make it work again and they took it. Glimbow it feels like they were down to the last few episodes and went, “Oh right, we were gonna do something with these two!” then did their darndest to fit in some chemistry in between all the other stuff going down.

-As ominous as it was, the music where Horde Prime starts hacking Etheria honestly SLAPS.

-Okay, I know everyone is magic or something, but I am legit surprised getting electrocuted in water didn’t kill the heroes right then and there.

-Sea Hawk tries to flirt with his girl even as she’s trying to kill him. Truly, he is a man of taste.

-What do you know, Shadow Weaver can only do good when she’s (canonically!) punch drunk.

-You know a whole lot of this could have been avoided if Holo-Mara was Adora’s mentor instead of Light Hope.

-When I think about it, it was actually really clever to make Horde Prime the final villain for Adora to face: a domineering decadent man who’s been in power forever against a humble emotionally vulnerable compassionate young woman.

         -Not to mention the divide between cult-like oppression and progressive freedom. Or something.

-Holy crap, did the First Ones get a great freaking a Great Old One for a guard dog?!

-So, you guys seriously didn’t bring Angella back to reunite with her family OR mention her all season after the impact her death had on everyone all last season until Glimmer needs a power-up at the last possible minute and then you never bring her up again. That is absolutely a dick move in bird culture.

-Entrapta’s hacker sticker gives me life. Gamer girl gremlin princess forever!

-On the one hand, I’m disappointed that Adora and Catra don’t get to have an awesome couple battle against the security monster and win. On the other hand, Shadow Weaver is finally dead. YAY!

         -With apologies to the writers and especially Lorraine Toussaint. She did splendidly bringing this character to life and even if I hated Shadow Weaver, I adored the effort she put into making her one of the most emotionally complex villains I’ve ever seen.

-Words cannot, will not, and will never describe the pure joy that I experienced when I first saw Hordak’s big scene: standing up to and disowning his tyrant brother, saving Entrapta, declaring his love to her (albeit in a nicely lowkey fashion), and then throwing Horde Prime to his apparent doom Disney style with Entrapta cheering him with sheer glee. GOSH, it was everything I could have hoped for from this season!

         -Now if only they kept the deleted scene where they got a moment to themselves before Prime body-jacked him again like the creepy sonuvabich he is.

-Horde Prime just wouldn’t be a religious villain if he didn’t tell everyone to burn.

         -Bonus points for actually trying to burn the frigging planet.

-Aside from the idea of Adora switching to wearing a She-Ra themed dress everywhere in the future, the future vision was really quite sweet, and seeing Prime step in to ruin it made it all the more impactful.

-Can I just say that it’s absolutely wonderful that the show, for all it’s flaws, said  “**** senseless heroic sacrifices”?

-BREAKING: Lesbian cat finally makes up with her jock ex, has a canon kiss so pure it saves the world!

         -In other news, Catradora fans are still spoiled rotten.

-Wow, look at all those character comebacks they skipped through! Look, there’s the chefs from Dryl, Double Trouble, Huntara, the Horde Trio, Imp, Madame Razz—are you kidding me?!

-Grumbling aside, I actually find the idea of the Horde Trio and Imp getting involved in a G-rated science-fantasy version of the first Hangover movie quite amusing.

-Oh dang, they pulled a Castle in the Sky with the Velvet Glove!

-As nice as it was to see Aodra save Hordak from Horde Prime and destroy the latter through exorcism via sheer compassion, I’m rather disappointed we never got to see She-Ra go full Metal Gear Solid Rising: Revengence on any creepy old cult leaders.

         -Yeah, it would have gone against the “love conquers all” set up, but love takes on many forms, does it not? So, why can it not manifest as cleaving your mortal enemies with extreme prejudice to save your loved ones?

-Furthermore, in addition to Holo-Mara being a better mentor, Hordak raising Adora instead Shadow Weaver could have prevented a lot of similar problems. Maybe. Possibly.

         -Eh whatever, he has a lifetime’s worth of fanfiction to make up for it.

-ENTRAPDAK IS CANON, ALL IS RIGHT WITH THE WORLD.

-And so is Catradora and Glimbow! That’s nice, too.

-Aww, how sweet of them to skip through Catra and Scorpia, and Glimmer and Micah’s big reunions! It’s not like we’ve been waiting forever for this stuff or anything. HahahahAHAHAHDHAHAHFHAFHKSADJHFKAJHDfine.

-And so it all ends with everyone either friends, in love, or both, as heroes decide to make up for it all with a grandiose sequel promising more exciting space adventures we probably won’t see! HOORAY!

-All snarky ranting aside, I actually really enjoyed the finale. It was exciting, heartwarming, and above all it ended on happy, hopeful note without leaving too many frustrating questions unanswered. (*glares with utmost contempt at Voltron and Star vs. The Forces of Evil*)

-You know, this wasn’t bad for a final season, but I think this might have worked better as two seasons. Not in Netflix’s cheap “split a regular 13-episode season in two 6-7 episode long seasons” strategy, but I mean two full seasons with their own storylines leading up to the grand finale:

         -First, one that starts out with Horde Prime’s arrival the downfall of Etheria, focuses on the space adventures, ends with their return to Etheria and gives the characters time to recuperate from season 4.

         -Then, we have one final season that focuses on the Best Friend Squad’s Return to Etheria, Horde Prime’s plan, gives everyone more time to properly reconcile before ¾ of the entire cast gets chipped, sets up a new Rebellion made up of Princess Alliance and former Etherian Horde members, maybe even set up a proper Hordak redemption arc or something, and then our big happy ending.

-On a mostly unrelated note, I also feel that the whole show could have turned out even better if it had been either a dedicated science-fantasy war drama with some levity (like the good Star Wars shows or Avatar: The Last Airbender) or a lighthearted yet empowering slice-of-life action-adventure romcom (i.e. basically a well-made remake of the original show in the style of Adventure Time and Parks and Rec or something).

-My final random thought for this whole thing: we really could have used a triumphant end credits song or something. Aside from obviously recommending Fabulous Secret Powers, I would have also recommended the original 4 Non Blondes “What’s Going On,” a reprise of “Warriors,” Gorillaz’s “We Got the Power,” or (my favourite) Talking Head’s “(Nothing But) Flowers” since the ending scenes remind me of it.

Thanks again to the crew for giving me something to live for and/or complain about!

Now, let’s hope the He-Man reboots do as well...

#spop #she-ra and the princesses of power #spop s5 #spop spoilers #she-ra #entrapdak #catradora #adora #catra #entrapta #hordak #bow #glimmer #horde prime #double trouble #shadow weaver #perfuma #scorfuma #scorpia #glimbow #king micah #castaspella #spinnerella #netossa #frosta #mermista #sea hawk #madame razz #mara #light hope

[marvinswriting]

not a liability

part two bbys part one here!

"Janis?"

I look up from where I sat in Damian's hands. We were watching a movie after a long emotionally draining week.

At least for me.

I didn't tell Damian about what Cady said. What Cady did.

There was a huge bruise but I tried not to think about it. 

I was clinging onto the hope that Cady was still in there. She still wanted to be our friend.

"A lot happened this week, huh," Damian said softly, pausing the movie.

I nod. Damian may not know about what Cady did to me, but he knows everything else Cady did. The art show, the burn book, maybe she pushed Regina in front of a bus, that one's unclear.

After what she said to me about tinies, I wouldn't be surprised. 

You were always so weak and fragile. I didn’t want the responsibility of that. You tinies can be such a liability.

Oh god, she probably did push Regina. 

Holy fuck.

"You okay, Jan?" Damian's fingers curl over me, while normally a protective sign from him- my mind flashes back to Cady. The way she curled her fingers dauntingly. Almost as a warning. A reminder that she could hurt me at any minute.

So could Damian.

No.

I push the thought out of my head. Damian wouldn't. 

Damian doesn’t want you around.

It's not true. It can't be. And even if it was- he wouldn't hurt me. Right?

"I'm fine." I say, trying to ignore the fact that Damian could decide he hates me at any moment and just drop me. Literally.

"You've been kinda quiet all week. I understand the art show and what Cady said was a low blow but something tells me that this isn't about the art show."

Fucking soulmate intuition. Just let me throw a pity party without worrying Damian. For once?!

"I'm fine." I say with a shrug. Damian can tell when I'm lying. I don't know why I try.

"Janis."

"Damian."

Damian sighs and I feel a little guilty. He was just trying to help. I had to go and be a little bitch.

No wonder he finds me annoying. 

Damian’s gonna get sick of you eventually. Where’s poor space dyke gonna go then?

There's nowhere for me to go. Damian is my best friend. My only friend now. 

I carefully get up and hug his thumb, because it's the closest I can get to a proper hug as a small, annoying, tiny. "M' sorry."

Damian smiles. "I'm not mad. I just want you to talk to me, love."

"Okay." I step away from his fingers, still feeling uneasy. "So-"

What if he tells me I'm being dramatic? What if he sides with Cady? What if-

"Jan," Damian's voice cuts me out of my inner panic. "Don't get lost in that head of yours."

"Right, okay so like- it's not that big of a deal. I'm kinda just- overthinking a lot like I always do." 

I have a bad habit of ambling around when stressed. A lot of times I'd walk back and forth the length of the art room table jus trying to tell poor Damian a story. 

"Janis you're gonna get dizzy walking circles like that. Just sit down and tell me what's wrong."

I wave my hand. "No- it's really nothing. Just letting the little things get to me again. You know how it is. It's really nothing."

Damian looks equally confused and worried. 

"It's not that bad." I insist to him. Another lie. "It was just another hallway experience I don't know why it's gotten to me-" because it was Cady "I mean, they weren't even right." But they could be. Maybe Damian did hate me. I mean- acting like this right now definitely isn't helping my I'm not annoying case.

Cady hates me. Cady thought I was a nuisance. I knew her for under five months. I've known Damian for four years. He's dealt with a lot more of me.

I wouldn't be surprised if he felt the same way. According to everyone else, he did.

I break away from Damian's gaze, walking around again. "It's nothing." I mumble. 

"Janis please sit down before you fall-" The familiar sensation of Damian's thumb pinning me down knocked me over. 

Right on the bruise.

The pain hit first.

Then the memories of Cady doing the same thing.

Fuck.

It felt like Monday again. Cady pinning me down, crushing my chest, making it so I couldn't breathe. She didn't care. She took joy in it. 

It hurt.

Fuck fuck fuck.

I cry out, trying to shove away Damian's thumb. Just like Cady's, it doesn't move.

"Janis! What the-"

"Please!" I push again and Damian must take the hint because he lifts his thumb, repositioning his hands so I'm being loosely cupped.

"Janis, what's wrong?" Great, now I've got Damian panicked.

It felt like I can't breathe. Like I was back on Monday and Cady's finger was pushing down on me. But it wasn't. She wasn't here. It was Damian. Damian wouldn't intentionally-

But he-

No.

He didn't know.

"Janis?!" 

I realize I'm crying. I lot. Not like silent tears either. My chest heaves as big tears roll down my face. Damian is staring down at me- wide eyed. "What did I do wrong? I'm so sorry! I-"

"It's not your fault," I say quickly, pushing myself back into a standing position. "I'm sorry- I just- I wasn't ready and I-"

"I've done that before- why did you freak out this time?" 

I rub the tears off my face with my jacket sleeve, my other hand held over my chest where the bruise was. 

"Monday," I say slowly. "When I said I left early-"

Damian is watching me intently, trying to figure out what he did wrong. I feel guilty. This is why everyone hates me. 

"I didn't actually." I pause, waiting for Damian to interject or yell at me for lying. He doesn't. "I took the tiny bus home because I just needed time alone after-" I take a breath. "I ran into Cady."

"Oh, Janis. I'm sorry. I know you didn't want to talk to her yet."

I shrug. "She didn't let me do much talking." 

"Please stop being vague, I'm starting to get nervous."

"She was with Gretchen and Karen and-" I hug my jacket tighter around me, sitting back down on Damian's hands. "She sounded just like Regina just bigger and scarier. She was plastic, Damian. Cold hard plastic. And she picked me up and-"

"Woah, wait. Did she ask first?!"

I sigh. "You're not gonna like this story, Damian. Just don't interrupt me."

"That means she didn't ask, huh." Damian remarks, but falls silent after.

"She picked me up," I continue. "And started saying all of these mean things. The typical space dyke insults, right? But they hurt more because I though Cady was our friend. And then she-" My chest tightens just at the memories of Monday. "She used her thumb, to pin me down, as you do but- a lot harder. I couldn't breathe. She didn't care. I thought she was gonna kill me."

 Damian's breath hitches. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to like- upset you when I- earlier I just- god Janis you should have told me."

I look down, feeling guilty. "I didn't want to worry you."

"Jan, I'm always gonna worry about you. But it's because I care. Are you okay?"

I rub away the tears at my eyes. "There's a big bruise but, it's like," My voice trails off.

Damian's face falls slightly. "When I pushed you down earlier, I didn't hit it, right?"

"It wasn't bad." I mumble. Wow, I'm really just throwing lie after lie today.

"Janis. I'm so sorry." Damian whispers. "If I had known I wouldn’t have-”

“But there was no was for you too have known. I should have told you it happened. I'm sorry."

"She really is plastic. Huh?" Damian asked softly.

"Until further notice." I sink down, leaning into Damian's hand.

Damian draws his hands close to his chest. "That's okay. We still have each other, right?"

"Yeah."

bonus:

Damian: take off your shirt  Janis: WOAH man, I'm big ✨ lesbian ✨ you know I love you but we're both gay and that just won't w-  Damian: just let me see the bruise  Janis: oh

@realmisspolarbear @musicallygt @smallsoysauce @sourishlemons

#tiny janis #giant damian #bc i love themmmm #g/t mean girls #g/t #g/t writing

[h-hart]

Troublemaker

((Hiiii, so sorry for the very very VERY late fic hahaha. So, anyways here’s Haven’s story!! And part one of a hilarious and fun rp I did with @itssara-oc​ a while ago! Thanks Ana hahah! Anyways, this is not really edited!! And sorry this isn’t very well-written coz it’s been a while and I don’t remember what exactly H was thinking during the rp LOL))

Gosh, how do people wear high heel shoes????????

I groan as I walk, more like stumble, into the garden. Sighing, I take a deep breath of fresh air.

Finally.

Finally, I’m in a place where there are no cameras. No guards. Nobody. Finally, maybe I can be myself.

I growl as I struggle to pull at the straps of my heels only to break them. I sigh in relief as the shoes fall from my feet. Picking them up, I throw the heels far away into some bush.

“Ow!” Some girl scre- wait what!? There is a girl?! I turn around swiftly too see a girl lying on the floor with the shoe next to her.

“oh shit.” I mutter as I look at her then back at the palace and back at her, contemplating whether I should make a run for it or check on the girl. Deciding on the latter, I sigh and say to myself. “Dude, what part of ‘don’t get into any trouble’ do you not understand?”

I walk to Sara and adjust the face mask I’m wearing and hold up two fingers in front of her, looking at her expectantly.

“Huh?” The girl says in confusion, but I refuse to speak. I hate that high-pitched squeaky voice and my throat is already hurting from using that voice for a few days. She tilts her head and does the same, holding two fingers up. “Peace?”

Seriously????

I frown as I try to stifle a laugh. This girl is quite cute. I shake my head to clear myself of the thoughts and finally speak in that ugly fake voice of mine. “if you know that’s peace then i guess you know i have two fingers up.” I offer my hand to her. “Sorry!”

Her face reddens. “Oh, so that's why you had two fingers up…” She looks at my hand hesitating but takes it anyway. I help her up and she frowns as she looks at my er feet. “Wait...you threw those heels?! I...I know they are probably uncomfortable but you didn't need to throw them” She touches her head, wincing. “Also...are you sick? Do you have a cold?”

“Uncomfortable. yes. bad voice. Mask.” I say, trying to speak as little words as possible. I look at her head, concerned. I did hit her with a shoe.  “you alright?” I ask, as I peer at her head, trying to examine the damage.

The girl continues to stare at me, tilting her head in curiosity. I look away, trying to hide my face from her. Which is honestly annoying because I have always been confident with my looks, I never had to cover them, but… I sigh again. “I-I'm okay.” She whispers before wincing and her face reddens again. I really hope she’s blushing from embarrassment and not dying from I don’t know, getting hit by a shoe. “Okay maybe I am not that okay... “ She mutters before looking around. “We should probably find somewhere else to be. I'm sure guards will round and find their way here. Then you'll explain everything, mask.” She shakes her head, and takes my hand. Woah, a bold girl. I smirk but then the reality of the situation hits me again and I sober up immediately, trying to focus on everything but her hand as she leads me away. Dude, calm down. You’ve held the hand of a million girls before.

Wait, did she just call me mask?

“Haven. i’m haven. not mask.” I tell her in my ugly ass voice.

“I figured that wasn't your name. But something is telling me that mask may have a pretty big meaning if you mentioned it. Haven. Well…” The dark haired girl glances back to look at me with a small smile. “I am Sara.”

I try to search my memory to see if I can remember any information about this selected, but then I roll my eyes when I remember I was too busy checking them out to remember their province or last name or well… name. Realizing that I haven’t said anything to this girl’s introduction, I end up whispering,

“hello sara”

She probably didn’t hear though, as she whispers, “I don't really know the palace that well and the only place I know that will give us privacy is my room.”

Her- what?! Woah woah woah, wait wow. I’m in a selected’s room!!!!!!

“sorry for the mess.” She mumbles as she all but drags me into her room. I shake my head as I look around it. It honestly is not messy at all as the only thing out of place are the notebooks sprawled on the desk. “First of all, I have a first aid kit so let me just see if I'm good and take some tylenol or something.” She says, all business-like as she heads to the restroom to look for pills. “Then...I'll hear you out...Haven.”

“There’s nothing to-” I begin to say but then I realize she probably can’t hear me. Sighing, I decide to do some exploring as I touch one of the notebooks on her desk.

Because in all honesty, I’ve never been in a girl’s room and had time or light to explore and check out their room, I’m usually… preoccupied.

“Sorry again. I usually make sure to put everything away an-” I hear Sara from behind me, she pauses and her voice drops down into a whisper. “You didn't look at it, right?”

I snatch my hand away immediately and shake my head. I turn around to face Sara and notice the bump.

“Oh.” She says as she smiles in relief. “Sorry, it's just…” She shakes her head. “Nothing. It's nothing.” Without a word, I take the first aid kit from her hands and motions her to sit before opening the kit up to find the stuff needed to treat her bump. “This may hurt.”

It is then I realize I forgot to use my stupidy voice, hopefully, she hit her head too badly to notice.

Okay, that was mean. I take it back.

She sits down immediately, face red again for being sensitive. I try to ignore as she stares at me with those big brown eyes. “Okay”

I hum a bit as I finish treating the bump and look at it proudly. I look down at the girl and realize how close we are and immediately pull away. Clearing my throat, I point to the ointment. “Every day.” Deciding I’ve stayed here long enough, I make a move to go back to my own room, but then I feel her hand around my wrist.

“Wait.” She says, I go still as I feel her getting up from the bed and getting closer. I close my eyes. “You know...You're pretty bad at hiding the fact you are not Haven.”

Fuck. I will my legs to move, but they’re frozen.

“Your voice is too low and it’s obviously not because you're sick. You are pretty well built. You suck at wearing heels. And then you had to mention a mask. That was your mistake so who are you? I'm not an idiot. No wonder you avoided everyone like the plague. Now that I think of it...you skipped the make over as well!” She continues.

The air is silent as we both take in what she’s accusing me off.

So this is how my life ends. That weird dude Arin is going to get me killed.

After what seemed like ages, I finally open my mouth and speak in that stupid fake voice of mine.

“I’m a sick Haven.” I say, and then in my attempt to escape, my mask moves and my nose pops out. I grunt as I turn away from her and try to leave her room. Suddenly, the big rooms in the palace seem almost catastrophic.

“Don't try now. And stop, you're gonna end up hurting yourself and me. You sound like a dying cat.” I feel her glaring at my back as she tightens her grip around my arm, I try not to stiffen as I know she will feel muscles there. She pulls at my arm. “If you try to leave I'll call the guards and that won't look good for anyone.” She tugs harder as I stand my ground, refusing to move. “I have brothers so I'm decently strong.” If we weren’t in the palace and we weren’t both selected, I would’ve laughed at this situation as she huffs in annoyance. “I won't say a word if that's what you're worried about.”

Can I trust her?

I contemplate trying to pull my arm away from her grip but I know if I do it again, we’ll both end up on the floor and while any other day, I won’t mind being on the ground with a hot girl like Sara- well, not today. So I look around trying to find a new escape route instead. Suddenly I see the notebook Sara didn’t want me to read and start to reach for it.

“why is it hard to tell me the obvious truth?” She says with a glare that I ignore. As my finger grazes the notebook, her eyes widen and she uses her hand to stop me from reaching, and tugs on my arm. Hard. I groan in frustration. This girl sure is annoying and unlike those I’ve dealt with before. I flail my arms, trying to get away, not sure how to fight off a girl as I’ve most certainly, never had to do that before.

And then

And then my mask is pulled off.

“Shit.” is all I can say as I stare at the girl in front of me in shock. The room is silent for a second and everything comes back alive again and I begin to put my mask back on. Sara, however, beats me to it. She reaches and takes off the other half of the mask quickly, jumping a bit to do so because of our height difference.

“What the-”

“I-” I pause as I try to think of what to say. “Just so you know, I don’t like the prince. we’re not gay. I mean, i dont know if he’s gay. I’m not. I like girls. I-” I stop again as I realize I’m babbling. And I never babble, Haven does. But not me. I sigh again and pull off my wig and pins and shake my head to reveal my dark curls, knowing that there is no use lying. “So yeah... I’m a guy…”

Sara blinks several times and I glimpse a smile forming on her lips, before she covers her face. “O-kay. I believe you.” She giggles. “I mean if you and the prince were gay it shouldn't be my business and I don't have a say in that. Love is love. I won't tell anyone if that's what you're afraid of. I just...okay so where is the real haven and why are you here? Not that it isn't welcome but this is a selection and they were looking for females only. How were you able to even get here without being suspicious?”

I sigh as I try to process all the questions she throws onto me.

I cock my head to the side and look at the girl in front of me. “Haven’s my sister. She’s... she’s in love with a guy who’s a five and we’re fours and” I pause to sigh as i run my hand through my hair. “obviously our parents didn’t approve. And because she’s stubborn and impulsive, she randomly decided to apply for the selection to prove a point that ‘even if the prince asks me to marry him, I’ll still choose Angelo’. Angelo’s her guy. And of course, because life is a joke, she gets selected! And she finally realizes what she has done and starts panicking because she doesn’t want to come at all. We told her to just come and go after the first day but she’s so scared that Angelo will pull some sacrificial shit and go away or something so that she won’t have to live a life of a five... or our parents may do something while she’s away... long story short…” I trail off and gesture around me. “I pulled the sacrificial shit and mulaned my way in to save her.” I laugh drily. “And as to how I got here. Well, good thing Haven and I have similar eyes. Makeup and a wig helped. And I dismissed my maids and well skipped everything and tried not to talk to anyone…”

Sara looks at me as she listens to my story and as I finish, she looks down. “Until you threw the heels and met me.” She says quietly, hugging herself. Her voice quivers as she says, “y-you're such a great brother. And I could've ruined the whole thing. I could've made things worse.” She looks back up at me. “I'm sorry. I'm glad you're here instead of Haven. She really is lucky to have you as a brother.”

Deciding to lighten up the situation, I wave hand to dismiss her praise. “nahh, i did it only so she would change her account description to ‘I love my brother’” I tell her with a gentle smile and then I notice she looks… sad? “Wait. Why do you look sad? Are you crying?” I pause as I try to think of a way to cheer her up. “Okay this is not what I imagined when a girl pulls me into her room and locks us in it.” I tell her with a smirk.

“Well,” Her cheeks still pink as she wraps her arms around my neck and whispers. “What did you imagine would happen?” Before I can react, she raises an eyebrow as she starts to pull away, smirking, “Because I never imagined pulling a guy dressed up as a girl into my room and locking us together.”

I roll my eyes. “I’m Hardin, by the way. I imagined....” I pause for a dramatic effect. “Well, I can’t tell you coz I’m afraid your head is going to explode from all the blushing if I did.” I wink at her and I stand up. “And I also did not imagine my face to be full of makeup.” I look in the direction of her restroom. “Anything I can borrow? Not sure if I can continue this conversation looking like this.”

She ends up lending me some face stuff as I try to wash away the makeup. I also drastically want to get out of my dress and so we ended up going to my room so I can change back into more comfortable.

And as I get changed in my own bathroom, my mind goes to the girl sitting out there in my room. And for some reason, I feel a bit nervous.

But Hardin Hart has never been nervous because of a girl.

What’s happening to me?

#side fic #haven #hardin #sara #selection oc #the selection

[jasonxavier]

Solidarity

Karolina confines in Gert.

She called Gert. She had to, she needed someone. Everything was getting to be too much. Her mom’s a murderer, she… has a superpower and everything with Nico-… She just needed someone to talk to…

After they’d hung out after school a few days ago, Karolina had begun to think of Gert as a friend again, little by little, and she didn’t even think twice about calling her.

Gert picks up on the third ring, and after Karolina asks a quiet “Can you come over?” she promised to ‘…be there in ten.’

“Hey, rainbow,” Gert greets her when she opens the door and Karolina can’t hide her surprise as she stumbles back a step, leaning heavily into the door,  

“E-excuse me?” “Uh, your lights…” Gert explains as she gestures awkwardly to her arms, “You light up, changing different colors, you literally shoot colored light from your arms… any of that ringing a bell?”

“Oh, yeah, right,” Karolina mumbles and her ears grow red in embarrassment. They’re surrounded silence a moment later and as it grows awkward, Gert shifts on her feet and a few sharp ‘clinks’ ring through the air. A pack of Heineken dangles unnoticed in her left hand.

“You brought beer,” Karoline states, moving aside to open the door wider, letting Gert in,

“Yeah, uh, you sounded like you needed some on the phone.” She nods at that, trailing after Gert as they make their way to her room.

“What, did you raid your parent’s liquor cabinet or something?”

“No, they keep it open. They always say that it’s better to experiment with drugs at home and supervised than somewhere else,”

Karolina nods at her words before stepping forward to enter her bedroom door.

“Woah, what happened to your room?” Gert just about exclaims as the destroyed state of her pictures and the contents of her desk come into full view.

“Oh yeah. I broke some stuff, it’s not a big deal.” She shrugs before kneeling, moving to pick up the binders and strewn pieces of paper that had fallen out of them and littered themselves around her floor, brushing wayward pieces of glass off of them as she goes along.

“Wow, you’ve got some anger under that smiley exterior,” Gert says as she sets the beer down next to Karolina’s bed before kneeling beside her,

“Yeah, just because I’m blonde and religious doesn’t mean I’m not capable of feeling more than one complex emotions.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Gert mutters teasingly, her words holding no malice.

They work together quietly, efficiently picking up the papers and the larger shards of glass and depositing them on her desk.

They stand together, admiring their handiwork when Gert points at her previously neat wall of pictures, asking

“What are you going to do about those?”

“We’ve got some extra picture frames in the basement, actually.”

“What’re the odds that your basement has a murder dungeon, too?” Karolina rolls her eyes, exiting her room, and moving to grab the broom from the kitchen before re-emerging in her doorway. Gert walks over and takes the broom from her wordlessly, beginning to sweep up the glass.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

The basement of her house was the most cluttered part of it by far. There were enough boxes down there to hide the gray of the walls behind them. There used to be enough dust residing on the cardboard that when she was younger, she almost died from an asthma attack from being down there for only a minute or two. It was better now, thankfully, an air purifier made by Wizard Co. ran perpetually down there but still, even in the present, her throat closed up a little in the confined space.

She’d ventures around a stack of boxes before she found ones labeled ‘Living Room’. It’s crazy that they’ve kept all of this stuff even though they’d been living in that house all of Karolina’s life. The tape sealing the box together come off easily, it’s adhesive long since withered away.

A small smile forms on her face at the first thing she sees; an old photo of her grandfather. Her fingertips ghost atop it. He looked practically ethereal as he basked in the warm glow of the sun near the Santa Monica Pier. It was one of her favorite memories, one of the only memories of her grandpa that she still remembered.

They’d sat together in the sand and he explained to her the importance of a smile, how the small gesture of smiling at a stranger could give them a reprieve from their hardships, a small reprieve of the storm of their day into a bright clear sky, if only for a moment. One of the philosophies of the Church of Gibborim that she would soon come to know.

The memory makes lacks its usual loving glow, instead, it makes her heart heavier, placing bitterness and sorrow in the place where warmth used to reside whenever she thought about the practices of her church… Whenever she thought of her grandfather she’d used to think about the love and light of the Church of Gibborim provided her but now… Now she can only wonder how much of that her family actually believed. Believed in.

As she looked around her basement that she knew held so much family history that there almost wasn’t enough space to keep it all, Karolina felt nothing but sadness and revulsion as she regarded it all.

Gibborim paraphernalia disguised as family heirlooms and treasures items litter the house, masking the disingenuity of it all behind religious practices Karolina doesn’t even know her Mother actually believes -that she doesn’t even know if she believes anymore.

After all, how can you preach daily about the spreading happiness and sharing smiles when one of the last smiles one of you followers may form very well might be the last they ever get to bring into this word.

Her stomach roils painfully at the thought.

Everything she’s been taught might as well have been a lie. It feels so cold. Sterile. Impersonal. And it’s then that Karolina realized that she has more color and warmth in her left arm than in her whole house.

Karolina finds herself wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible. She places the picture back down, finding the empty frames she’d been looking for in the next box over and as she climbs back up the stairs and into her houses back room, she feels like she can breathe a little easier. For more reason than one.

“We’re not going to be able to drink those here, my dad likes to pop in to check on me and they’re definitely not going to be happy that this.”  Karolina reminds Gert as she gets handed a picture frame, placing it in its previous spot on her wall.

“Yeah, well, our parents have murderous tendencies, are you really that worried about what they approve of right now.”

“Not my dad.” She interjects sharply and Gert raises her eyebrows in question.

“What?”

“My dad’s not a part of it,” Karolina states resolutely, her voice strong.

“How do you know?” Gert asks and Karolina can’t help but release a small chuckle.

“Have you seen him? My mom’s the head of the church, my dad hasn’t even officially gone ultra-”

“Is that even a real thing or is it a code for... You know.” She shrugs,

“I don’t know but… I just know that he’s not. I have faith in him. That he believes the things my mother preaches.”

“Do you still believe the things your mom preaches?” She doesn’t answer.

They park on the far side of the beach parking lot, Gert’s car stalls under a blanket of shadow as a low rush of warm air coaxes itself through the car’s vents, cutting through the slight chill of the night.

Gert reaches into the back seat and grabs the pack of beer, resting it on the middle console as she slips one out and hands one to Karolina. After the time it took to clean her room and drive in the heated car to the beach, the beer’s warmer than what Karolina would call desirable but with the anticipation of the alcohol releasing the tension on her shoulders… she can’t complain.

They sit in silence together, comfortable and content in each other’s calming presence, watching together as the waves lap lazily against the shore.

It took her a little longer than expected to get used to the bitter taste, she’d have to admit, but when she finds herself more relaxed than she’d been in the three days prior, she can’t find it in herself to care.

It took Karolina almost draining all of her beer to make the thought come into her head: ‘Come out.’ She’s been thinking that more and more lately. It whispers to her in the night when she finds herself fixated the female characters on whatever sitcom is playing and screaming full force whenever Nico comes near her.

She doesn’t really know what comes over her this time, though. Maybe the combined efforts of the alcohol and the betrayal she feels from her mother takes a toll on her awareness… But for some reason, it makes her think that everything will be okay.

“So uh,” She begins, breaking the silence for the first time that night.

“You believe in fighting for social justice and… equality for all and all that, right?”

“Within reason, yeah.”

“Within reason?” She questions, not being able to help it as she tenses up a bit.

“Yeah. You’re not going to see me defending the rights of a neo-nazi, that’s for sure.” She explains and Karolina nods, hiding her sigh of relief in another sip of beer.

They’re silent after that just sitting together as they take in the sea air, lost in their own thoughts. When their first beers are finished, Gert grabs two more, before handing one to Karolina, barely making a sound. She finds her gaze hyperfocused on the alcohol sloshing inside the glass bottle and only after she takes one courage-fueled swig, does her mouth open to spill what she’s wanted too for a while.

“I’m gay.” She blurts out and Gert chokes mid-sip. She begins coughing violently and Karolina reaches out a hand, firmly patting her back until it dies down. Gert’s eyes are wide, watery from the coughs and her voice sounds strained when she speaks up.

“Wait, you’re not into Chase?” She asks and Karolina visibly retracts, shaking her head vehemently.

“No. Definitely not. I-I uh,” She takes a deep breath. Steeling herself, steadying herself. She contemplates stopping at that as the suddenly more and more familiar feeling of fear rests lowly in her stomach but the confused look Gert’s giving her isn’t one of disgust, but one of curiosity and it’s that look that gives her the strength to continue.

“I’m a lesbian.” Karolina finds herself enveloped in a tight hug a moment later and she has to tilt her beer away so it doesn’t spill all over the seat. The position’s a little awkward but it gets the point across and the moment is nothing less than perfect. When Gert pulls back, her smile is the most genuine she’s ever seen it and it’s almost enough to bring Karolina to tears.

“Thanks for trusting me enough to tell me,” Gert says and Karolina smiles shyly down at her beer, sighing deeply as the anxiety she was feeling a moment earlier leaves her body.

“So,” Gert says, taking Karolina’s silence as a prompt to continue.

“How’d you figure out that you were a lesbian?”Gert asks and her casual acceptance makes Karolina feel warmer than the buzz that the alcohol is giving her.

“Well, I’ve been trying to ignore it but recently that hasn’t been working out the best for me,” she jokes a bit before her smile grows somber.

“And I have the biggest crush on this girl but I think she’s strai-”

“Nico?” Gert cuts her off, smiling as the look on Karolina’s face confirms her suspicion. “Yeah,” Karolina frowns at her, “How’d you know?”

“I saw the way you two interacted at the coffee house after our mission to save Alex.” She explains, “I don’t know, I assumed that you guys just… really bonded before Molly and I got there… I guess it was a wildly different type of bonding than what I was assuming, though.” She teases. Karolina takes another helpless swig.

“No, nothing like that. When we were back at Alex’s I saw Nico and Alex kissing so… I’d say her heart’s unobtainable at the moment.”

“Oh, man, I know how that feels,” Gert mutters. Karolina looks at her expectantly, prompting her to continue and “Chase,” is all Gert offers to her.

“Oh,” Karolina breathes out. “Oh.” She says again. Gert nods.

“And you may not be into Chase but he’s definitely into you.” She huffs out, sighing into another sip from her bottle. Karoline nods understanding.

“Is that why you’ve been acting a little…”

“Bitchy?” Gert supplies and the giggle Karolina releases turns into a drunken hiccup.

“You said it.”

“I’m really sorry about that, actually…” Gert apologizes,

“I’m not used to being jealous,” Karolina nods at her words, tilting her glass towards Gert’s own and they clink against each other in a mock toast.

“Yeah,” she breathes out. “Neither am I.”

#can i tag this as deanoru?? fuck it imma do it #deanoru #gert & karolina #my brotp #runaways #runaways fanfiction #jxw

[noikracs]

Summary: Reiji has been missing for seven years since he was eight after being kidnapped and suddenly his parents find out where he’s been

Sugai and Tajima quickly made their way outside to see the villain in front of them, who called himself Trojan.

His quirk was hiding in the shadows and he could blend into them fairly well, but he was at a disadvantage consisting Tajima had a quirk that emitted light.

“Stand down, Trojan!” yelled Sugai, his eyes narrowed.

Trojan only gave a cocky smile. “You think you can beat me? I almost beat Endeavor so what makes you think two rich gay boys can do anything to me?”

Before Sugai could do anything, another hero stabbed the villain, a large neon blue tendril impailng his hip.

“Y-you! Who a-are you?” he coughed out, before the tendril aggressively sheathed back.

Trojan lied on the ground, glaring at the hero who stabbed him, coughing up bits of blood.

The hero’s eyes narrowed as he grumbled, “So you don’t remember me? That’s a shame. Because I remember you. You were the one who took me away from my parents. Controlled my mind so I don’t even remember them. Heroes aren’t about revenge, and I won’t kill you. But I will get a bit of satisfaction,” he darkly said.

“Reiji?” suddenly asked one of the other heroes, it belonging to Tajima, his chocolate brown eyes wide.

Sugai looked just as shocked before the hero looked back at them, his eyes slits.

He grumbled, “How do you know my name?” His eyes showed anger yet deep down both of his parents knew he was scared.

“You... you are our son,” said Sugai, his voice wavering.

Trojan was nearly knocked out at this point, until Tajima nearly growled, “This was the bastard who took you away from us?”

For a moment, the shorter man looked like he was going to kill the villain before Sugai held him in place.

“I... I don’t know what to say,” said a nervous Reiji, before slowly walking towards them.

Reiji muttered, “If you are my parents, prove it.”

Instantly Sugai said, “You were taken from us when you were eight, and you were born in April.” His voice was no longer wavering.

“I want,” he paused for a moment before mumbling, more clearly, “I want any sort of proof. Like... some kind of certificate or paper. Even a picture!” He got a bit happy thinking about it, but he wouldn’t admit it, not now at least.

Tajima nodded instantly before he caught a glimpse at his hero costume, which was a low budget one, but a hero costume nonetheless.

Then he noticed he had no right arm.

“Do you have any people you are living with?” asked Sugai, as Tajima couldn’t help but keep staring at it.

Reiji shook his head. “No. I live by myself,” he mumbled.

The surgeon felt sick to his stomach before saying gently, “But your only fifteen. You’ve been living alone this whole time?” More and more he felt his heart break.

“It’s no biggie. I’ve managed to make it by with my quirk,” he said, before showing off his neon tendrils.

Tajima swallowed before asking, “Is your- your arm missing?”

That’s when Sugai noticed it as well- he’d been far too focused on just seeing his son again he failed to see that.

“Bad things happen,” Reiji muttered, shrugging it off. “Besides, I don’t need it when I have these,” he said, showing one of his tendrils again.

Tajima slowly walked up to Reiji, feeling against his shoulder before asking, his voice breaking, “How d-did this happen?”

The boy sighed. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” he said, looking grim.

“Have you ever thought of a prosthetic?” asked Sugai, as he tried to smile a bit, but it was so hard.

Reiji shrugged once again, a nonchalant look, but he still looked sad.

Awkwardly, Tajima clapped his hands together before saying, “Why don’t we go now? The cops will be here soon and I’ll call them later.”

Reiji nodded, right behind Sugai.

“Woah! Your house is so big!” Reiji marveled, his eyes practically stars.

Sugai chuckled. “It is,” he simply said, a fond smile on his face, and his eyes showing a bit of glee.

The house was bigger than anything the boy has ever seen, at least when it comes to houses- and he wasn’t exaggerating either.

“So, you want that proof now?” asked Tajima, giving a smile.

Reiji smiled back. “Now I don’t even care about the proof!” He was joking, which made both parents happy.

It was Sugai who suddenly asked, concerned, “When was the last time you ate?” And to that, Reiji looked clueless.

“Uh... maybe a few days ago. I think I had a loaf of bread because I found a dollar on the ground,” he said honestly, but looked embarrassed.

Tajima sprinted to the kitchen like his life depended on it, before grabbing a whole plate of leftovers- most of it being chicken.

The boy’s eyes turned into stars again as he started munching like a starved dog, eating all the leftovers quickly by stuffing them in his mouth with his left hand, his only hand.

“So... are you a hero?” asked Sugai, scratching his chin, trying to act calm, but in reality he was freaking out.

Reiji gulped down a few more scraps before shrugging. “Kind of. I mean, I’d like to consider myself that.”

He graciously gave the plate back to Tajima, mumbling a small but sweet thanks as the man only patted his head, affection in his eyes.

“You are heroes too, right?” asked Reiji once Tajima returned.

Sugai nodded. “Yes. I’m also a surgeon and Tajima is an inventor, so that’s why I’m persistent into looking for a prosthetic for you.”

Giving a small, bashful blush, Reiji murmured, “You don’t have to do that for me, you know,” but clearly, he really did want one.

“Oh please,” said Sugai, talking with his hands, “I want to, okay?” he asked, as Reiji hesitantly nodded.

Tajima gave a large smile before exclaiming, “We’re gonna give you the best prosthetic anyone’s ever seen!”

Before Reiji could ask again if they were sure, Sugai suddenly grabbed something from Tajima before showing him.

“This was you when you were eight. We have more evidence if you still feel weary about this, but this was what we felt like we should show you first,” said Sugai, kneeling down to his son.

Reiji nearly felt tears fall as he gently picked the photo from the man.

Both Sugai and Tajima sat next to the boy, not rushing him to find any words to say. Honestly, they didn’t know what quite to say either.

Though both of them desperately wanted to just coddle their boy, but they knew he might not be comfortable with that.

And it was Tajima who wanted to destroy the man who kidnapped him- and he swore, he was.

“W-wow, I- I-” Reiji was cut off as a flow of tears ran down his face like a waterfall.

Sugai smiled gently before carefully wiping the boy’s tears, not saying anything, just letting him cry.

Though both of them were surprised when he hugged them both tightly.

“Oh baby,” Tajima cooed as his voice cracked a little, before gently yet quickly bringing his arms over the boy. His boy.

Sugai almost cried, but tried to keep it in for his son, he didn’t want to make him regret hugging them, he would never forgive himself if that happened.

When Reiji pulled back, his face was red and puffy, but he was smiling, and smiling brightly at that.

“I’m s-so sorry I forgot you,” he cried suddenly, his smile disappearing before crying again, “They dr-drugged me and I didn’t know w-what to do.” His eyes were bloodshot by now.

Tajima instantly cupped a hand over the boy’s cheek before whispering, “Do you think we’re mad at you for that? You did nothing wrong.”

Nodding, Sugai said the exact same thing right after, his hand curled in Reiji’s dirty yet silky hair.

“This m-means you’ll k-keep me, right?” asked Reiji, trying to avoid eye contact, too awkward to ask straightforwardly.

Tajima almost cried as well before instantly nodding, cooing, “Miele, we were thinking about keeping you right when we found out you were our son. We love you and nothing could ever change that.”

Warmly, Reiji smiled, feeling like love was just being openly thrown at him- and he loved it.

“Why don’t we get you a shower, get your prosthetic, and get you to bed. You can sleep with us if you like, unless you are uncomfortable with it,” offered Sugai, a gentle smile.

Reiji nodded, still feeling iffy about the prosthetic thing, but at the same time he wanted to try one on.

The boy came downstairs, Tajima helping him walk since he had a simple limp, as he said Sugai was in the lab, so they went down.

“Love,” called Tajima, “We’re here!”

Sugai walked toward before smiling and carefully wrapping an arm around the boy before asking, “What do you want it to look like?”

Nervously, Reiji just shrugged, not knowing what to say.

“Is there any color you like?” asked Tajima, trying to get something out of the boy- anything.

Reiji fiddled with his fingers before mumbling, “I like the c-color blue. It kinda matches my hero costume.”

With a nod, Sugai started using a piece of tech into engineering, which Reiji was absolutely marveled at.

“I thought you were a surgeon,” said Reiji, seeing at how quick the man worked on the prosthetic.

Sugai chuckled. “I am. But I am also skilled in this and have been doing it all my life.”

Continuing to watch, it took a good thirty minutes to finish from the template before he smiled at his handiwork.

“I like that design,” said Tajima, giving the man a wink as he blushed.

Sugai fitted it onto Reiji’s shoulder as it looked like it was apart of him.

The boy only gasped. “It’s so cool!” As Tajima chuckled at that, Sugai smiling as well.

“Now, is there any extra design you’d like on it?” asked Tajima, giving his husband a glance.

Reiji mumbled, “Can you add some black to it?”

Nodding, Sugai used a bit of paint, before letting it dry over a small fan and then putting it back on Reiji, only to smile at his handiwork once again.

“Can you move it?” asked Tajima, as the boy started doing so, before smiling in amazement.

Reiji exclaimed, “I love it so much! Thank you! You guys are the best!” He brought the two in for another hug as the two eagerly returned it.

Smiling, Sugai shrugged. “Anything for my kid,” he said, his tone light and a bit playful- something that isn’t often brought out in the man.

“Tomorrow, can we work on my hero costume? If you’ll let me,” mumbled a nervous Reiji.

Tajima wanted to ban hero things to keep the boy safe, but it was Sugai who fondly nodded.

Giving yet another smile, he said, “Of course, kiddo. Now where do you want to sleep?” he asked before taking the prosthetic off, Reiji already knowing it would still need some work.

“Um... can I s-still sleep with you guys? If the offer still stands,” he said, smiling nervously.

Tajima chuckled before nodding, before exclaiming, “We can make pillow forts!”

Scoffing but smiling, Sugai said, “I suppose so. You in, Reiji?” he asked, looking at the boy.

“Of course,” said Reiji.

A new life, a new start, a new home.

[quandongcrumble]

This is a modern Thedas AU where my sweet and cheerful Warden, Alim Surana, works at a tea shop. Featuring my other Wardens Marta Brosca, Oriana Tabris and Gethin Mahariel, Red’s @s-hylor Aedan Cousland, and any and all of the NPCs I’ve picked and chosen to fill up the story. It’s supposed to be cute and sweet and light. Let’s see if I can keep it that way.

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

The jingle of the brass bell above the door announces what Alim hopes will be the last customer of the day. He shuts off the water and wipes his hands dry on his gingham apron, and leaves the kitchen through the creaky swinging door.

“Hi, welcome to Camellia’s. How are you today?”

He flicks his hair out of his eyes and leans over the counter a little, grinning. His bracelets pool around his skinny wrists with a soft clack of plastic and wood.

The taller of the two humans, a lean man with shoulders like woah, dark red hair, and the palest blue green eyes – like sea glass – returns his grin. “Um, don’t suppose you sell coffee?”

“No chance,” Alim says. His face falls, so Alim hastens to add, “the coffee from Josephine’s next door is amazing, and I have no problem with you bringing a takeaway cup back here if your friend is staying to drink my tea.”

The man’s grin returns, this time shy and uncertain. “No, that’s alright. I’ll try a tea.”

“What would you like?” Alim glances between the tall man and his so far silent companion, trying to guess their tastes. “Will you share a pot, or would you like two different drinks?”

“Um,” the tall human says again, and looks to his friend for the answer.

His friend is only slightly shorter, and just as broad through the shoulders. He’s equally thick through his barrel chest, and a slight soft belly strains the front of his Bull’s Chargers tee shirt. His skin is a light brown that could possibly be a tan, but Alim suspects is more likely the result of genetics. He looks just as awkward as the tall red-head, though a little less shy.

“Let’s share,” the second man says. “You like black tea, right?”

“Can I make a suggestion?” Alim says. “We have a very lovely spiced Tevinter tea that you might like. It’s best brewed strong, and with plenty of honey, and goes nicely with the date pastries on display there.”

“That sounds nice,” the taller man says.

Alim gestures to the multitude of empty tables. “Take a seat, and I’ll bring it over to you.”

It doesn’t take long to get the pot of tea and the pastries ready, and Alim carries everything over to them on a silver tray. The two men are sitting on the same side of the table, talking in low voices. Alim thinks they might be holding hands.

He returns to the kitchen to continue his dishes, and stops for a moment to send a quick message to Leliana.

Help! About 400 lbs of beefcake just walked in here and I’m torn between ogling because wow or squeeing because I think they’re on a date with each other.

His phone buzzes as soon as he locks it, and he opens it up hoping for a response. Not Leliana, just another message on what Marta affectionately refers to as his ‘ho-stagram’ account. Probable that weird elf ear fetishist who can’t take a hint and makes a new account every time Alim blocks him. He doesn’t bother checking. As long as his dry spell has been, he has a date tonight with a good friend, a couple bottles of wine, and a mindless action tv-show.

The bell jingles again and he leaves his phone next to the sink to check it out.

“Speak of the devil, or rather, message her,” he greets Leliana warmly.

The human woman laughs and comes up to the counter, taking a sneaky glance at the two men happily enjoying their tea at the table in the back. “Pure beef indeed,” she quips. “They looks cute together.”

“Won’t Oriana get jealous if she catches you looking?” Alim teases.

“Please! She’d be looking along with me. Benefits of a bisexual girlfriend.”

“What brings you in?”

“Running an errand for Ori. She’s after some of that amazing anti-nausea tea you make. Valora has terrible morning sickness and Ori thought your tea might help.”

“Proper medicine might help more,” Alim says.

“She’s on proper medicine,” Leliana says. “But apparently that tea you made when Shianni had an ear infection works better.”

“I’m sure it’s just, what do you call it? Psychosomatic? Placebo effect?” Alim pulls canisters down off the shelf and starts measuring out scoops of dried herbs into a bowl.

“Whatever works,” Leliana says. “I’ll get some of your hangover tea too.”

Alim measures out the nausea blend, humming happily, and pours it into a paper bag. Then he fetches a clean bowl and starts on his favourite hangover tea.

“You know it’s just Seheron green tea, lavender and elfroot, right?” Alim says.

Leliana shrugs. “I tried to make my own once. Didn’t work as well.”

“Probably needed a better green tea,” Alim says. He hands over both bags, neatly labelled in his best chicken scratch, and tells her the price.

“Thank you,” Leliana says. She hoists herself up so she can lean over the counter and kiss him on the cheek. “You’re magical.”

Alim kisses her cheek in return. “Now we both know that’s not true. See you Saturday?”

“Saturday,” Leliana confirms. She gives him a last wave as she heads out the door.

“Your girlfriend?”

The shorter of the two beefcakes has approached the counter while he was distracted with Leliana.

“Just a good friend,” Alim says. “She’s in a happy relationship, and I’m gay and – tragically – single. What can I get you?”

Shorter beefcake laughs. “We’d like another couple of those spiced teas to takeaway if we could.”

Alim grins. “Thought you’d like that one. I’ll make up two to go. You want to settle the bill?”

“Yes please.” He hands over bills and Alim hands him his change. “I’m sure we’ll be back soon. We’ve both just started with Duncan at the Warden Joinery.”

“Oh?” Alim starts the tea steeping. “I know Duncan. Do you mind dropping off a parcel for him? I know he gets these awful migraines and I have a new tisane for him to try.”

“Tis-what-now?”

“Tisane. It’s a fancy word for tea without any tea leaves in it,” Alim says. He digs under the counter for a couple of extra canisters. “We’re supposed to call it that here.”

“Learn something new everyday.”

Alim scoops, measures and crushes, and hands the resulting mixture in a labeled paper bag over to the beefcake. “No charge. I just want to know how he finds it.”

Taller beefcake approaches the counter, and Alim quickly pours their tea, adds the honey, and snaps the lids onto the takeaway cups.

“So do we just tell Duncan the tea is from a short red-headed elf?” Taller beefcake asks.

Alim laughs. “My name is Alim.”

“I’m Aedan,” taller beefcake says, “and this is Alistair.”

“How weird that we all have ‘A’ names,” Alim says. Wow, way to be as dorky as possible.

Aedan gives him a polite chuckle. “Well, see you around, Alim.”

“Bye,” Alim says. He watches them walk out and briefly contemplated flipping the sign to ‘Closed’ even though he technically has another eight minutes, but Elegant would have his head if she caught him. Instead be buses Alistair and Aedan’s table and takes their dishes to the kitchen to wash. He keeps an ear out, but the bell above the door doesn’t chime again, and precisely seven and a half minutes later he skips over to the front door, flips the sign, and twists the lock.

Freedom.

Amaranthine isn’t nearly as big as, say, Highever or Denerim, but it still takes him a good half hour to cycle from the historic market district where Camellia’s is to his run down flat on the edge of the industrial docks. It’s not close enough to the beach to have an ocean view, but it’s cheap enough that he can afford it, and – most importantly – he gets to live alone. Too many years of boarding school means he’s had his fill of house mates and people in his space.

He stows his bicycle in the shared garage on the ground floor, then clatters up the stairs to his flat. There’s no lift – the place is old, though not quite old enough to count as historic – but four flights isn’t that much. His flat is tiny. If it were newer, it would probably be called a studio and feature white, square-edged furniture and hardwood floors. Instead the furniture is whatever he could buy second hand or steal off the footpath on hard-rubbish day, and the floor is beige and green linoleum, but it’s neat and it’s quiet and it’s his. Best of all, it gets a lot of afternoon sun, so all the plants on his kitchen counters and window sills are flourishing in shocks of silver and green.

Alim checks the time on his phone. He has about an hour before Marta shows up with the wine, and he’d better take a shower and make some food in that time. He pauses long enough to take advantage of the gorgeous late afternoon light and snap a half-dressed photo of himself in his oversized mirror to upload to his Instagram. It’s a good one – he’s almost completely silhouetted against the light, but you can just see that he’s wearing nothing but a shirt, shrugged off of his shoulders enough that the angle of one delicate shoulder blade is visible. Artsy.

He has a handful of notifications on the photo by the time he gets out of the shower. He pauses, wearing nothing but his towel, to check them.

One, from Freddy, is just the crude use of an eggplant emoji. Alim grins. He misses Freddy. Maybe he should see what a train ticket to Montsimmard would cost. It would be nice to visit him.

His phone pings a Snapchat notification from Gethin Mahariel, which means either Gethin is in town, or has climbed to the top of a ridiculous tall tree somewhere in the Brecilian Forest to get phone reception. Knowing his friend, the second is probably more likely.

The snap is a copy of his Instagram photo with a sloppily drawn circle around the stubby little cactus just visible on the left edge, and the text “everything is a dildo if you’re brave enough”.

Alim laughs so hard he snorts, then takes a quick snap of his horrified face and sends it back with the text “GETHIN NO!!”

Two seconds later her receives a reply snap. Gethin is indeed clinging to the top of a tree, grinning like an idiot into his camera. The caption simply reads “GETHIN YES!”

Alim sighs and drops his phone onto his bed. He rummages for clothes, settling on a Sera Bee tee shirt from her concert in Denerim, and a plain black kilt worn soft with so many washes. He might be forced to wear trousers by Elegant’s safety rules at Camellia’s, but he’ll be damned if he’ll wear the horrid things on his own time. It takes all of two minutes to tidy up his shoebox-sized flat and spread another blanket on top of his bed. It’s something Leliana’s girlfriend Ori gave him for his birthday, a crocheted monstrosity covered in frolicking nugs. It’s his favourite.

He’s just putting the finishing touches on dinner, a Nevarran dish with a lot of chickpeas, when someone knocks on his door.

“If that’s you Marta, come in,” he calls out. “If it’s a burglar, go away.”

Marta’s laughing as she comes through the door. “Yeah, because burglars will totally just walk off.”

“You never know,” Alim says. “They might think I sound scary.”

“You scare no one, Toothpick,” Marta says.

Marta Brosca is broad, even for a dwarf, and muscled like a power lifter. Dressed as she is in jeans and a tee with the sleeves ripped off, her arm muscles are even more apparent. She waves the two bottles of wine dangling from one hand as she closes and locks the door, an easy grin on her round face.

“Your hair!” Alim blurts out.

The last time he’d seen her, her hair had been acid green and styled in a mohawk. Now it’s gone, buzzed back to a quarter-inch long stripe of her natural brown.

“The bleach fried it,” she says. “It’s okay, I’ll grow it out again. I’m thinking blue this time.”

“You look shorter now,” he teases.

“Losing six inches of hair will do that,” she says. She follows the comment with a sniff, then pulls a face. “Why don’t you ever cook normal food?”

“Because Fereldan food is boring and I couldn’t find any deep mushrooms at the market.”

“Nothing wrong with boring,” Marta grumbles, but she fills her bowl to the brim all the same while Alim finds some glasses for their wine.

They sit on his bed, it being the only real piece of furniture in the place with a view of the TV, with their backs propped against the wall and their meals in their laps. The head and foot of the bed – solid timber – are just wide enough for their wine glasses to perch on. Alim turns on the TV and calls up the Netflix menu. It’s technically Ori’s family’s account, but her father is generous enough to let her friends use it.

“More Hard in Hightown?” Alim says.

Marta hums around a mouthful of food. “There’s that new horror film they shot at Montsimmard University,” she says once she’s swallowed. “We could see if we can spot your Freddy in the extras.”

“Is that the one with the evil mage as the villain? No thanks.”

“Aw, why not?”

Alim sighs. “I don’t know. Blame that documentary Morrigan made us watch. I just don’t like seeing mages as villains anymore. Besides, I like to think I would have been a mage if the Inquisitor hadn’t cut the world off from the Fade entirely back in the Dragon Age.”

“You just think that because your fancy Chantry boarding school was in the old mage tower.”

“That and, I don’t know…” he pauses, stuffing food in his mouth to give himself a chance to think. Marta’s only been his friend since he moved to Amaranthine a couple of years ago, but in that time they’ve gotten close, and he trusts her not to make too much fun of his fantasies. “I’ve been having these really vivid dreams lately, about walking through a muddled landscape towards a black city. In the dream, I can make fire and ice and electricity with my thoughts as easy as snapping my fingers.”

“You always have vivid dreams,” Marta says. “There’s the one where you could fly, the one with the griffon hatchlings, the one where you fucked Duncan’s business partner—”

“Hey! You’ve seen Blackwall. You’d want to fuck him too if you were into guys.”

“What makes this dream so different?”

“I don’t know. It feels more real. I can control what I’m doing, sort of. Not like real lucid dreaming, but about halfway to it or something.”

“Weird,” Marta says. “Well, more Hard in Hightown it is, then.”

#my fic #dao sort of #dragon age au #male surana #female brosca #male cousland #tea shop au #tea witch au #there's no magic in this modern thedas #until suddenly there is #idk what i'm doing but i wanted to share it anyway

[marvinswriting]

scary damian scary damian scary damian scary d-

prompt: the title speaks for itself lmaooo thank you bear for dealing with me sending you every other paragraph to make sure i got the energy of the fic right orignal g/t mg

I shoved my phone into my pocket, approaching the tiny pick up zone. I felt bad pulling Damian out of class but I'd feel worse if I passed the fuck out from exhaustion and got him worried.

Nothing telling my teacher I'm going to the nurse won't fix. 

I walked through the tiny halls, the unfinished ceilings and led beams hanging down. The occasional light flicker really setting in the horror genre feel. I tried not to concentrate on the hallway decor too much, it hurt more than anything. The half-assed drywall with bulletin boards hung occasionally. There were tiny lockers that went largely unused and some vending machines that haven't been refilled since I was a freshman. 

I yawn, approaching the tiny pick up zone. 

As expected, the hallways are quiet. The occasional student walks past but nobody pays me mind. I liked it better that way anyway.

I slumped against the wall, letting my head fall forward. I was exhausted. Don't know why. I actually got sleep last night. Can too much sleep make you more tired? Oh well. Gonna get more.

More footsteps pass the tiny pick up zone, but these ones pause before backtracking. I look up to see Shane Omen. 

Because who else?

I lower my head again, too tired to deal with this. 

"Yo, space dyke." Shane doesn't seem to happy to not get a reaction out of me. "I'm talking to you."

"Sure you are." I feel like I should be running, but my brain is sluggish and I don't feel any fight or flight kicking in. When I would normally be up on my feet, creating as much distance between us as possible, I'm just trying not to fall asleep.

I have enough energy left in my brain to know being unconscious around a giant, especially Shane Omen, isn't the smartest idea.

"Space Dyke." There's a hand reaching for me.

That makes me flinch backward but- its too late at this point. 

Is it bad to call this interaction familiar at this point?

Because it was.

I made a noise of surprise as Shane grabbed me off the platform roughly. My hands weren't pinned at my side this time, as I fruitlessly tried to push his fingers off of.

They wrapped around my entire body even pinning my legs together. 

"Shane, please!"

"Are all tinies as rude as you? Never respond when they're being talked to?"

"Shane-" 

I was not in the mood. My body felt as though it would shut down at any second and this interaction was frankly sending me into overdrive. My brain was panicking, trying to stay awake, trying to find the strength to fight back, trying to find energy where there was none. 

"I always find it amusing. You tinies are so big and bad with giants. But when you're alone- look what happens." Shane's fist tightens.

"Where's you giant, huh? Isn't that something you freaks do? You try and twist our words positively? Embrace it? Hate to break it to you, it doesn't seem to be working. You're still a pathetic annoyance."

Shane's right. Where is Damian?

"I could drop you right now," Shane says, and my blood runs cold. "It'd be ruled as an accident. They don't check the cameras about these things. You're just a tiny. You freaks fall off ledges all the time. Your name would be in the school newspaper this month and then never spoken about again."

Shane's grip loosens and while it's normally a welcoming sign, I struggle to find purchase, grabbing at his fingers, not wanting to fall.

"Shane, please."

"Please what?"

“Please, get your hands off my tiny."

Both Shane and I turn to the new voice. I could cry in relief. There stood Damian walking down the halls. He looked pissed but I knew him long enough to see he was as scared as I felt. 

Damian never said 'my tiny'. I called him my giant, sure, and he knew I was his tiny, but he always said despite it being embraced among tinies, he felt like he was taking ownership of a valuable life. Which was totally valid and I understood, but to hear him say it now put a smile on my face, despite the situation I was in.

The smile didn't last long as Shane's fingers once again tightened painfully around my body.

"And why should I?"

Damian was in front of us now. Shane wasn't short, but he wasn't tall. Damian was tall. He glared down at Shane. 

Holy shit.

None of my giant friends were fighters. Yeah, Cady has verbally chewed out some people, Gretchen has paid jocks to beat up others, but none of our giants were physical. But right now? Damian looked fully ready to throw hands.  

"Please hand me Janis." He held out his hand expectantly and for a second I thought Shane was just gonna comply. His grip loosens and his hand moved forward slightly before pausing. "No."

Shane said it with the authority of the girls on TikTok who bully people in the comments, saying no and throwing a heart emoji after.

"I'm sorry?" Damian's voice was low. Like the night Cady threw the part, but this time he wasn't trying to hide his anger or keep calm. "I heard what you said. About dropping her? Yeah, I think it's clear I'm not gonna let you do that. What you said counts as a threat by the way. If Janis wanted to report you, they'd check the cameras and you'd get into some serious trouble."

Shane seems metaphorically cornered for a second. Only a second.

God, I'm so fucking tired. I just want to be in Damian's pocket, where it's warm and safe and I can sleep, god damnit.

I can't tell if it's the total exhaustion or Shane's tight grip on me but my vision feels like its fogging up-

Oh my god, I can't breathe. 

How fucking tired do you have to be to notice you're not breathing?!

I let out a very incoherent plea and both giants look down at me.

"You're hurting her."

"Am I?"

"Knock it off dude. Let her go that's not funny."

"Let her go you say?"

The fingers wrapped around me are suddenly gone as I let out a gasp of surprise and for air. Shane Omen fucking dropped me. Wow.

I didn't fall far before landing on another hand. I knew it was coming but that didn't make me any more prepared as I land with an ungracious thump.

I'm not held by Damian for long as he gently places me on the tiny pick up zone. As much as I love Damian, I'm grateful to be back on solid ground as I stumble backwards leaning against the wall. 

"What the fuck is your problem, Shane." Damian isn't bothering to hide his anger at this point. 

Shane takes a step back, his hands going up in defense. "Chill dude. It's just a tiny. I don't understand why you get so upset. You're like the only one who gives a shit about space d-"

Shane didn't get to finish his sentence as Damian suddenly swings his arm, fist connecting with jaw.

I jump back, out of surprise more than anything.

Holy fuck.

I suddenly felt a lot more awake and in tune with the situation going on in front of me.

Damian never got violent. He was always the teddy bear friend. But this teddy bear had one good right hook. Where did he fucking learn that?

My illusion of big scary Shane Omen is broken as Damian towers over him, Shane bending over, hand on jaw. If anything, it's Damian who looks scary right now.

That's something I never thought I'd say. 

Damian shakes his fist out like he's trying to flick away the pain. "Don't ever talk about Janis like that again. If you or any of your friends use that nickname again, I'll-"

"We won't!" Shane is quick to reassure. "Swear on it, dude. Uh- Damian. We- we won't."

Damian doesn't seem convinced at this as he continues to glare at Shane. Shane turns to me and I instinctively flinch back. He raises his hand in defense. 

"Sorry- Janis."

 I don't think I've ever heard Shane call me Janis before? It's always been space dyke. Woah.

"I'm," Shane points behind him, skittishly. "I'm gonna go now, so-" He doesn't finish his sentence, just turns and speed walks down the halls. 

The second he's out of slight, the pressed lips and stiff posture fade and Damian looks a lot more- well, Damian.

"Are you okay?" His voice is back to a hushed concern. I jump regardless.

"I'm fine. Now." I say slowly. My brain feels like it's rebooting from what I've witnessed. It needs time to let the files load.

Damian punched somebody. 

Damian punched Shane Omen.

Shane Omen was scared of Damian.

Damian Hubbard the dude who wouldn't hurt a fly if he was paid to, punched Shane. Omen. 

And it was equally a mix of badass and scary.

I never thought I would call Damian scary. He hates being viewed as scary. And for the most part, he's not. But that? That was scary even if it wasn't directed to me.

"Janis?" 

My head snaps up. Damian looks nothing like he did thirty seconds ago. Now he stood timidly, like he was afraid to move and set me off. "I know you don't like yelling. I'm sorry."

I nod. "Thank you for coming when you did."

I pushed down all uneasiness I had. It frankly made me feel guilty. It was just Damian. He wouldn't hurt me. I didn't think he'd hurt Shane Omen either but-

No.

It's Damian.

"You really had Shane ready to piss his pants," I say lightheartedly. "It was tits, dude."

Damian chuckled nervously. "I just saw him holding you and I got so nervous and I-"

"Hey hey hey-" I rush to the edge of the platform. "I'm here right now. I'm okay."

Yeah, it was pretty scary watching Damian tower over his peers aggressively. But it was also badass. And if Cady did the same I'd be gay. But the Damian I'm seeing right now? That's my best friend who would never hurt me. That's my platonic soulmate who goes out of his way to keep me safe. 

Which he was doing earlier, just in a new way. 

Damian scoops me up, holding me to his chest. I can feel his heartbeat slightly faster than normal. 

He was as worried as I was.

Just being held by Damian and the familiarity of being safe was all I needed for the exhaustion to set in again.

"I'm gonna fall asleep." I mumble. 

Damian laughs. "That is why you called me to pick you up, right?"

"Yeah," I say sleepily.

Damian shifts me into the familiar chest pocket and there's some rustling as I assume he puts on the whit pin before we're off. 

There's a couple of things we should talk about. Like him punching Shane Omen for starts. Or Damian calling me his tiny for the first time. But right now it's nap time.

Back to Damian's English where I can fall asleep without worry of Shane. Not that I think I'll be worrying about Shane for a while.

bear told me i write shane omen well and i guess that just means i make a good fucking villain lmao- also was damian at least a little in character? i tried. @realmisspolarbear @musicallygt @smallsoysauce

#g/t mean girls #tiny janis #giant shane #giant damian #GIANT S C A R Y PROTECTIVE DAMIAN #HELL YEAH