#sorry if you get a version with typos they should all be corrected by now. i unfortunately have adhd and made this in two days | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

damnable-bell · 1 year

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Please, dear friend, write your Minho Manifesto (Minhonifesto)!

Bulb, you are an absolute gem. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about my number one boy (and thank you @shojojidais for encouragement, ilu Maryam).

This post got way out of hand. I'll put the basic text below, but the full version with detailed footnotes and an index of all the YouTube videos I linked is on Google Docs, if anyone would like to see it.

Sorry for my inevitable typos.

Now, without further ado...

Choi Minho: An Appreciation

Who is Choi Minho?

Choi Minho was born on December 9th, 1991. In May 2008, he debuted as a member of the boyband SHINee, meaning that Minho has been in our lives for almost 15 wonderful years now. His official position in SHINee is main rapper and visual (i.e., the face of the group), but these days he sings about as often as he raps. (His voice is especially lovely when he gets to sing in his natural range, which he almost never gets to do with SHINee, sob sob).

Minho originally hoped to become a soccer player, but his father, the soccer coach Choi Yun-kyum, denied him, saying he hoped Minho would pursue a less difficult career. Unfortunately for Coach Choi (but perhaps fortunately for us), Minho was just born too pretty to do something more normal. At age 14, he was scouted by SM Entertainment while visiting a ski resort with his family, and the rest is history.

Why I love him

He is a true genius of hard work

In spite of the fact that he more or less stumbled into being an idol, Minho has always given 100 percent of himself to SHINee—in fact, Minho always gives 100 percent of himself to everything, whether it’s singing, rapping, dancing, acting, speaking English, sports, or drag. He hasn’t always been good at everything he does, but part of what makes Minho such a special person is his endless capacity for growth.

(When will Goddess Choi Minjung return from war? It's been eight years...)

Here’s what he had to say about being criticized for his acting in To the Beautiful You (2012):

Even from my point of view, I more than deserved those criticisms. I struggled a lot in my first lead role in ‘To The Beautiful You,’ but looking back, it is because of that past that I have confidence now, so I definitely don’t consider it a taint on my history … Back then, I just stubbornly thought that I just have to do well. At a young age, I was in a leading role and I needed to lead the drama by paying attention to the people and situation around me, but I wasn’t able to. A lead isn’t someone who just acts well on his own, but leads the entire drama. I should have paid more attention to the other things, but I focused too much on myself, and it resulted in me just awkwardly standing out. But I learned a lot from that, and it was ‘medicine’ for me. To be honest, being criticized so much was a huge lesson for me. It’s a lie if I say that I am not scared of being criticized for doing badly. But I think it’s something that I should put up with. It’s only right to acknowledge what I’m lacking and correct it. Of course, everyone wants to do well from the start. But I don’t think I’m gifted that much so I need a lot of experience.

Similarly, on writing his own raps for SHINee:

At first I was very bad at it. But if I didn't do it then it would be detrimental to me as well as to the members so I thought that I should really try to do it properly. It's true that when you put in effort your skills change. I thought, there isn't anything that can’t be done if a person really tries…

What makes Minho’s growth doubly impressive to me is that he’s not a naturally confident person. On the contrary, he’s painfully self-aware and takes deeply failure to heart:

After filming Dream Team, on days I won I would be in a really good mood, and on days I lost I would keep thinking about it. It's the same as when I make a mistake on stage. When I mess up on one step on stage, I feel hateful towards myself. I grow angry. Wondering why I did that that during that step. I think it's because my competitiveness is so strong. But that doesn't mean I enjoy competing. Instead, if there is a competition I tend to avoid it. Because if one wins, the other loses. Because any person, no matter who it is, dislikes losing.

When Minho first debuted, most people immediately clocked him as the weakest member of SHINee—and he knew it. He couldn’t rap (his infamously terrible rap on “The SHINee World”—which he really wants you to know he did not write—is legendary both in the fandom and beyond), he couldn’t act, and while he was never the worst dancer in the group, he didn’t stand out much either.

It also didn’t help that SM saddled him with the part of the ‘cool, silent type,’ when his real personality is goofy, warm, and sentimental—not to mention teasing, nagging, nurturing, full of natural aegyo, and loud. Variety is usually a place where K-Pop ‘visuals’ get to prove their worth, but in SHINee’s early variety appearances, Minho was just sort of...there.

In his own words,

Looking back, I went through a slump during my early debut days. I first thought, “Why did I debut?” I couldn’t dance or sing, and I couldn’t say anything in variety shows. Before debut, I was good at talking and confident, but standing in front of the public as a celebrity isn’t an easy job. (161208 SHINee’s Choi Minho - Media Interview (3))

Now, it’s never made sense to me that anyone could praise SHINee’s live stages out of one side of their mouth and trash Minho’s performance skills out of the other—there’s just no room in their choreo for any member of the group to be lagging significantly behind the others.

These days, I would be shocked to find anyone who doesn’t see Minho as an integral part of SHINee. But it’s worth taking a minute to acknowledge what a dynamic, well-rounded performer he’s become in his own right. I was so happy when I saw other people calling Minho’s rap in “Atlantis” the best part of the song, 1) because IT FUCKING IS, and 2) it made me realize just how many great rap moments Minho has had going back years. The Story of Light alone is full of them (have you guys listened to “Retro” yet today?), but there are so many older favorites, too (it’s actually pissing me off that the previous video I linked doesn’t include Minho’s part in “One Minute Back,” so here it is).

Minho hasn’t just become a strong idol-rapper (he’s never going to be on the front cover of XXL Magazine or whatever, but that’s fine, because it’s not his job); he’s also grown into a strong vocalist, a damn good dancer, and an excellent variety idol and MC (he is seriously so funny, you guys). As an actor, he’s worked hard to earn genuine praise from audiences and critics while accepting relatively ‘risky’ parts (he played a delinquent in the indie drama Derailed—where he smoked! and swore! and got beaten up by Ma Dong-seok!—as well as a gay character in the drama Yumi’s Cells). He’s also an underrated lyricist, with more than 40 songwriting credits throughout SHINee’s discography.

Last but certainly not least, Minho has (flaming) charisma and stage presence for days, as well as an astonishing ability to ‘commit to the bit’ that’s elevated many a goofy SHINee performance (my current favorite example is this performance of “Girls Girls Girls” at SHINee World III in Seoul—notice how many of the comments mention that Minho was obviously feeling himself in that bathrobe!).

Since he finished his mandatory military service, Minho has been branching out with more of his own solo activities, including a radio show, Best Choice (again: he is so funny, you guys!), and a forthcoming solo album, Chase. He seems to have become comfortable in his own skin in a way that we should all hope to be in our early thirties. As a fan, I consider it a privilege to have watched him blossom into a better, more confident version of himself. He is a true genius of hard work, and I could not be more excited for his solo.

He has the biggest heart

I love Minho because Minho has so much love to give. He’s the kind of person who leaves notes telling his friends he loves them while they’re asleep. He once saved all the SHINee members’ names in his phone under “My Lovely ___.” He writes the longest dedications of anyone in the group. He’s thoughtful and dedicated and has a lot of feelings (though by his own admission, he tends to hide them, so that he can continue to give strength to others). He is, for lack of a better word, all ooey-gooey inside, with a sentimental streak a mile wide.

Minho always goes the extra mile to support the other members of SHINee. SHINee’s leader, Onew, once called him the group’s “heart aid”:

Whatever happens, he is by our side and calls out to us. Minho is really a person who becomes our strength in any situation … It’s not only with me, even with other members, he is our heart aid and is a very important existence to all of us (2014)

When the other members cry onstage, Minho is often the first to comfort them. Who could forget the iconic photo of Minho hugging an inconsolable Jonghyun to his bosom after SHINee’s first music show win for “Juliette,” or all the many times he comforted Jonghyun—always the crybaby of the group—onstage thereafter?

Here are just a few more examples of Minho showing his support for the other members of SHINee:

Hiding away his emergency money to buy a birthday present for Key, even though they hated each other at the time

Surprising Jonghyun on his birthday at Jonghyun’s radio show, Blue Night (150409)

Flying to Japan to attend the second day of Taemin’s Tokyo concert in 2018 (181125), then flying back to Korea to attend Key’s concert showcase the very next day (181126)

Surprising Jonghyun at Jonghyun’s X-Inspiration concert in 2016 (161204, or click through to “…and Minho” on this Omona post for all the cute fan accounts)

Surprising Jonghyun on the last day of Blue Night—and bringing lots of tissues, because he knew Jonghyun would cry (170402). (The part of this video everyone remembers is the part where Minho tells Jonghyun that he brought the softest box tissues “because Jonghyun-hyung’s skin is precious,” but really, every second of it just radiates compassion and care. We should all be so lucky to have a friend like Minho.).

Surprising Jonghyun at Jonghyun’s The Story concert—and bringing throat drops, because he knew Jonghyun’s throat might be sore. Look how happy and proud he was when they left!

Fuck it, here are two whole threads of Minho showing up for Jonghyun’s concerts. Don’t miss the one where he’s showing Jonghyun off to the camera like a work of art.

While he was in the military, he sent food trucks to Taemin to support Taemin’s comeback (200907)

Minho to Onew in 2020: “But I love having you as company. I love your lame jokes. Just keep making your jokes. It’s just that you need moral support” (201116)

On the day he was discharged , Minho went straight from the military to see Taemin backstage at Inkigayo, without even changing out of his marine uniform. I’ve saved the best for last, so if you only click on one link in this post, please, please make it this one: [탬로그6v6📹] TAEMIN 태민 #샤이니isBack 201119

I should add that Minho doesn’t do all this stuff because he’s not booked and busy himself. He’s constantly filming, doing photoshoots, and randomly upstaging Melania Trump. Supporting the other members isn’t something he does just because he has the time; it’s something he works at consciously.

When SHINee went on Blue Night in 2016, Minho described how he transfers his support to the busiest member depending on the season:

Jonghyun: Then Minho-ssi, which member do you feel the most attached to? Minho: Out of the four? I think it changes with the season. Jonghyun: Who is it in the recent season? Minho: In the recent season, it’s Jonghyun-hyung. It’s because he’s the busiest. He needs to prepare for the concert. I think I try to take more care of the member who’s the busiest. Jonghyun: Then Key has been very busy until recently because of Drinking Solo. Key, did you feel that Minho was taking care of you? Did you feel it, Key? Minho’s love? Key: No, not at all. Jonghyun: He must have just thought about it a lot in his mind. (Ha.) Key: But he really is surprising. I think his day is a little longer than other people’s. I don’t know how he can watch them all [referring to the members’ activities]. Jonghyun: It’s a great thing. It means he has a lot of affection. Key: It’s not that I don’t watch it on purpose. When I turn on TV and find that our member is on by chance, I would watch it then. But to watch something intentionally…it means it’s a plan. Jonghyun: Minho watches everything, all the members’ schedules.

I’ve been a fan of SHINee for a long time—long enough to remember a time when the members didn’t all get along as famously as they do now—and I really believe that they wouldn’t have made it nearly this far if not for Minho holding them together.

I thought about saying something here like, “Minho’s strength is giving strength to others,” but I don’t think that would be giving nearly enough credit. What I most admire about Minho isn’t just that he gives strength to others, but that his love for other people becomes his strength—that it enables him to do the impossible and find that extra hour in the day.

This is all very sweet just by itself, but it becomes even more impressive when you consider—and here is where I start to get into a little bit of conjecture—how easily Minho could have given in to jealousy and resentment.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are 16 or 17 years old, you’ve just made your entertainment industry debut, and you’re surrounded by people whom everyone agrees are more talented than you. This isn’t the first time you’ve been overlooked; at home, you have a brother whom everyone agrees is smarter, more popular, and better-looking, and your own parents joke that maybe he should have debuted instead of you. People on the internet write articles calling you “useless” and “a black hole of talent” (I’m not going to link these!).

I think a lot of people in that situation would have grown to resent their peers. Instead, Minho doubled down on his support for the other members. There is something truly egoless, I think, in how hard he works to care for those around him. Whatever his own insecurities are or might have been, he doesn’t seem to have ever let them get in the way of all the love he has to give.

Of course, Minho doesn’t just show his tender heart in his interactions with the other SHINee members. He’s also endlessly kind to fans. Some of my favorite examples:

When he was a guest on My Last 48 Hours in 2018, the three things he chose to do in his hypothetical last 48 hours were: 1) spend time with family, 2) spend time with SHINee, and 3) spend time with fans. Since there was no time to organize a fanmeet, the producers found just one fan for him to surprise. She started to cry, he got kind of choked up at her crying...it was all too cute for words.

From the letter he wrote to Shawols (SHINee fans) while he was in the military: “As part of the engineering battalion, I’ve received air transportation training. You guys might not know much about it, so to put it simply, our training consists of falling from a plane or a helicopter with a parachute! … I was able to get closer to the sky during training. It was really pretty, and it was great, because I felt like I was looking at you guys.”

...OK, one more quote from the same letter: “I’m reading each and every letter from our SHINee world and I’m treasuring them … Giving your hearts to someone is like giving them your everything, receiving the heart of someone is like receiving all of them and sharing everything with them. I’m really happy that that person is you guys.”

Just the sheer number of times it’s been confirmed he actually reads his fan letters

His Kiseki stage. All of it. It’s maybe the purest expression of Minho to date (his solo stages prior to this were all, like, hip-thrusting to Usher with his shirt off—which, like, fine, I’m not complaining, but the baseball uniform is so much more his style). Every time I rewatch it, I’m just blown away by his sincerity. You can hear it in his voice. Also, I’ll say it: better than the original.

Recently he confessed that he watches fan reaction videos when he can’t sleep (Minhooooo!)

He once spent $21,000 to gift the 800 fans who came to his birthday fanmeet with sweatshirts from his endorsement line (171209). Insane thing to do. When the time comes to eat the rich, I will have no choice but to spare him.

If you’ve never been sucked into the K-Pop Vortex, I know what you’re probably thinking: being kind to fans is part of his job, it doesn’t actually mean anything. And you’re right, it is a part of his job—a part he’s very good at! K-Pop is a fantasy, and entering into a space where you feel seen and appreciated as a fan is a part of that fantasy.

But as a veteran K-Pop Enjoyer, I can tell you that just because something is ‘performative’ doesn’t mean it doesn’t also come from the heart. I also feel that SHINee have worked hard throughout their careers to be true to themselves in public—and to create spaces where they could be closer to fans on their own terms. So it would actually be really unfair to them, I think, to continually insist, against all available evidence, that everything they say and do is somehow calculated. I don’t have any trouble understanding that being an idol is a job, and there are no doubt days when they would rather do anything than talk to fans. But if Minho says that hearing from fans is a part of the job he generally enjoys—and that he cares about us, whether on a personal level or solely in the abstract—I’m inclined to believe him?

I’m cynical about many things, especially in K-Pop, but I just don’t have it in me to be cynical about Minho or SHINee.

I mean, just look at this:

I love him to pieces, and he’s improved a ton, but I’m still not sure he’s that good an actor.

Miscellaneous reasons

I’ve always felt that the extent to which Minho is openly adored by his industry juniors and seniors, as well as by his non-celebrity friends, speaks for itself. His friendship with TVXQ’s Changmin is especially cute (they even had a dating scandal together!).

He’s famously close with SNSD (so much so that Korean netizens nicknamed him “A male idol that people don't get suspicious when he's close to female idols”) and was even the first person to congratulate Taeyeon on the release of “I Call You” in 2020.

He is unfailingly gentle with children—one of only, like, two members who had any business taking care of a toddler on SHINee’s Hello Baby in 2010

He majored in film at Konkuk University and recently said that his “favorite Netflix show” is The Irishman. He also apparently liked Hirokazu Kore’eda’s Our Little Sister? With teasers for his solo album leaning in a moody, ‘90s neo-noir direction, many are speculating that a new cinephile Minho era may be upon us (and by “many” I mean “me”).

He knows how to laugh at himself

Never has been Minho been cuter than while walking through the London Underground on SHINee’s One Fine Day in 2013.

In conclusion,

#shinee #minho #if the thought of reading 3000+ words about a pop idol embarrasses you haha DON'T click on this #minho is known for his passion and as his fan i feel it's only right that i should try to match him #ever since i found out about the two weeks during tsol promotions when he didn't get any fan letters before music shows #while onew taemin and key did #i've gone slightly feral #minhoooooo #i should have been there for you!#someone ask about my favorite shinee songs next pleaseee #*

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therealvinelle · 3 years

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Ok I'm embarrassed to admit this, but I'm just now copying your Norwegian Bella AU into a text translator, and if you don't already have 50 people in your inbox demanding a translation then shame on ALL OF US because this is glorious! And while Google Translate does have a certain charm (it translated "piper hun ut" as "she beeps") I'm curious to see how you'd put it in English.

Troquantary is referring to this post. In which Bella doesn't speak English.

Fun fact, you're the only one who's gone into my inbox to request this. I was so sad, had the translation half-written and everything, but I was too proud to beg. So thank you, Troquantary, for popping this ask.

As for the dictionary fuckups, sounds about right. I made a few typos, too, that made Google Translate suffer even more. (Such as managing to mix up "henne" (her) and "hendene" (hands), resulting in Aro patting Bella instead of clapping his hands. Poor Google.)

Also, there are a few cultural references and language things that would be lost in the translation, in an attempt to keep them I included notes clarifying things.

Some things, like Aro and Carlisle's very old man way of speaking, are easier said than done to translate, you'll have to bear with me there.

Additional notes are that I added a few things to this version, many of them because translating is hard, but a few because while translating I thought "oh you know what would be much funnier-" and then wrote that.

Alright, without further ado:

When Renée left Charlie she did not go to Florida, she went to Oslo. And she went all in to make her daughter a true Norwegian, hiring Norwegian nannies and making sure never to speak English around the child. Since transatlantic flights are expensive, little Bella Swan rarely got to visit her father, and as such she never did learn what should have been her native language.

She quickly forgot what English she did have in favor of Norwegian, with the exception of words like “Yes”, “No”, and “I’m Bella”.

The few trips she took to visit her father were all the more awkward than in canon since she couldn’t play with the Black kids. Let not the blame fall upon Charlie: he took Norwegian classes and speaks conversational Norwegian. He can’t speak to Renée, because her Norwenglish is incomprehensible even to Norwegians, but he can communicate with Bella.

Not that he’s had a lot of chances to do so.

Bella makes it to seventeen years old, she’s in second grade at Handels* and is a major outsider among the preps there, and then Renée marries a handsome skier**. Together they shall travel the continent all winter to participate in as many skiing races as they can, and in the summer they’ll take gigs at Hurtigruta to see the coast.

*“Handels” is the nickname for an Oslo high school infamous for its pupils being rich and beautiful blonds who are going to be CEOs when they grow up.

**Skiing as a sport is huge in Norway

***Hurtigruta is a famous ferry that travels across the Norwegian West coast

Bella, who sucks at skiing and is too young to work at Hurtigruten, takes the hint.

With dread in her stomach and dictionary in hand she goes to her father in America.

Where she doesn’t speak the language.

Faen.

Charlie gives her a car, and I wish this meta was set in the present because I could have joked about electric cars and the automat only driver’s license*, but Twilight is set in 2005 so I can’t. The car part proceeds without drama.

*An increasing number of Norwegian youth take the driver’s license for automatic cars only, and we’re the country in the world with the highest percentage of electric car purchases.

School is worse than in canon, because she is now a thousand times more sensational than if she was merely the new student. She is from another country! All of Forks keels over with excitement.

To make matters even worse, our girl doesn’t understand a word of what people are saying.

She is too awkward to let them know she doesn’t know English. It’d become a thing, and they might think she’s dumb. To be fair, it’s not good that she’s been through primary, secondary, and now a year and a half of high school and still sucks at English.

So she nods, smiles, mumbles “Hi, I’m Bella” to the new faces, and blushes heavily when anybody says anything.

People assume she’s shy. That’s a bit boring, but oh well.

She has her biology class with the redhead hottie she noticed during lunch. She watched him and his family, they were fascinatingly pretty, but she doesn’t know anything more about them. Sure would have been great if she could have asked the tiny girl (was it Jess?) about them.

Biology proceeds as in canon - Edward badly wants to eat the delicious girl, but fortunately doesn’t.

She runs into him in the office when he tries to switch to another biology lesson, but she has no idea what he’s saying so she only has the suspicion that this somehow concerns her. Which is still uncomfortable, but Bella is probably the problem here. The hottie surely can’t be.

He’s missing from school for a week, Bella finds that weird.

He returns, and to her great horror he starts talking to her.

“Hello”, he says.

Bella dies inside. He’s too handsome!

"I'm Edward Cullen," he continues, and ok, she got that. The hottie is called Edward, that’s good to know. She’s not sure she caught that last name, though, Köln?

He says something else, it’s gibberish to Bella even though she’s concentrating, and at the end there he says “Bella Swan”.

She gulps.

"I'm Bella Swan," she confirms and nods. That should be correct. God, she hopes it’s correct.

He smiles a crooked, boyish smile. She’s awed. She didn’t think it was possible to be so beautiful.

He says something else.

Bella didn’t catch it.

She blushes even harder, she hasn’t been more embarrassed in her life. Here he is, the most handsome guy in all the world, and she has nothing to say to him. Literally, they don’t speak the same language.

She should tell him.

It’s one thing to chicken out of telling the town she doesn’t speak English, but there’s something different about Edward Cullen. He deserves the truth.

But...

He’s the most beautiful person she has seen in her life. He is American, too, so the odds of him knowing Norwegian are microscopical. If he finds out she doesn’t understand a word he says he’ll stop talking to her, and selfish as she is she doesn’t want that.

So with a slightly guilty conscience (but not enough to fess up) she contributes to the conversation with enough words and smiles to pull through. "Yes", "No", "Thank you", and "That's nice".

He is surprised by several of these answers, but instead of giving her odd looks and losing interest he grows more invested in the conversation.

Class ends.

The next day the near accident happens, and he saves her. She is stunned - dear god, did he just pick up a whole car? After teleporting across the parking lot..?

Soon she’s in the ER, and more than a little bit stressed about that fact since she knows the Americans have a terrible healthcare system.

She hopes Charlie has an insurance.

An insanely beautiful man walks into the ER, and Bella is shocked. He is just as handsome as Edward and Edward’s lunch friends!

He introduces himself as Carlisle Cullen, and Bella can only assume this is someone’s older brother. Possibly related to the blonde girl.

He smiles at her, says something, and she answers, "I'm Bella Swan."

He frowns.

That must have been the wrong answer, then.

His hands return to investigating her scalp, and to her great surprise he switches to perfect Norwegian, "kjenner De* noe ubehag når jeg holder her?" Do you feel any discomfort when I touch here?

*De is the Norwegian polite pronoun for “you”. Du = thou = the French tu, and De = you = the French vous. These polite pronouns went out of use in the 1980’s, save for when addressing royal persons, and would be considered antiquated in 2005.

He hurries to add, "Norsk lærte jeg i... fjor sommer. Det var et nettkurs." I learned Norwegian… last year. Online class.

"Hvilket da?" Which one? Bella asks, because Charlie needs to hear about this. The doctor has beautiful, if slightly outdated, pronunciation.

The doctor’s smile turns uncertain. She gets the feeling there’s something he doesn’t want to say. "Husker ikke," I don’t remember, sier han etter en litt vel lang pause.

That’s a shame. And weird.

"De hadde hellet med Dem i dag, som ikke ble truffet av den bilen." You were lucky today, not getting hit by that car. he then says, noticeably changing the subject.

"Det var ikke hell, det var Edward," It wasn’t luck, it was Edward, she replies sharply.

The doctor definitely looks uncomfortable.

She continues, "Han krysset skolegården på et blunk, og plukket opp hele bilen. Jeg så det," He crossed the schoolyard in a moment, and picked up the whole car. I saw it,

The doctor laughs. "Om han kunne det hadde nok gymkarakteren hans vært meget bedre. Nei, frøken Swan*, jeg beklager å si at det høres ut som at De er litt omtåket. Det er helt normalt ved hjernerystelse." If he could do that, his PE grade would be a lot better. No, Miss Swan, I’m sorry to say you seem confused. That’s normal with concussions.

*Addressing a young woman as “frøken” is even more outdated than using polite pronouns.

Why does Bella get the feeling he’s lying?

She’s discharged.

We’ll jump ahead to her trip to La Push - that trip uneventful, since Jacob knows she doesn’t speak English. They stick their hands in their pockets and stare at the sea.

The next day she’s shanghaied to Port Angeles, because apparently she said “Yes” at the wrong time when talking to Jessica (Turns out Jess’s name was Jessica!) and accidentally said yes to a day trip to Port Angeles.

Like in canon she wanders away from the others, and as in canon she is nearly gang raped. And again as in canon she is saved at the last moment by Edward.

He buys her dinner, and she can’t believe her own luck- and misfortune. A date with the most handsome guy on the planet (hence the luck) and she can’t say a word to him (hence the misfortune)!

He says things to her, lends her his jacket, and really this is it for Bella, she’s peaked, life can’t get better than this.

(That’s a lie, it would be better if she spoke English.)

He’s so amazing.

She’s gotten pretty good at navigating conversations with him, so she nods and aha’s her way through.

In his car on the way home the tone takes a more serious turn.

He asks her about something, and it’s a serious question, that much she’s gathered. She answers in the confirmative.

He is silent.

Did she say anything wrong?

(Edward, on his end, just asked if she knows what he is. She said yes, so calmly, not even a trace of fear in her.)

A few days later he takes her out on a walk in the woods.

He shows her a meadow in the woods, and when he steps into it he lights up in the sunlight.

Bella is in shock.

She knew there was something different about him, but- holy cow. This guy isn’t human.

Is she dating a god?

She stumbles into the clearing after him, and they spend a day together where he says things, and she can barely hear any of it (nevermind understand it) because she’s so distracted by how pretty he is.

The next day he takes her to a house in the middle of nowhere. She doesn’t want to guess that this can be where he lives. Surely gods don’t live in houses?

He shows her inside the house, and introduces her for Dr. Cullen and a lady with a name she doesn’t catch.

Bit weird that these two are acting like a couple of parents, they’re far too young and divine for that.

Edward shows her around in an old-fashioned office, and she doesn’t know what to make of i when she sees a painting of Carlisle. Edward launches into a long story when he sees her watching it, unfortunately she doesn’t catch any dates or artist names. At one point she heard the word “suicide”, though, and that’s not good.

She doesn’t get much out of the story.

The baseball game doesn’t happen because Bella didn’t pick up on what Edward wanted and didn’t realize she was being invited to a thing. They spend the afternoon watching a movie instead.

The relationship continues, impeded slightly by communication problems, but she’s mostly able to cover those up.

Until her birthday comes around.

She gets a papercut.

Jasper lunges at her. Edward throws her into a glass table, and then everyone is leaving.

Carlisle is kind enough to switch to Norwegian when he’s stitching up her arm, perhaps remembering the last time she was his patient. "Jasper har ikke vært på dietten vår så veldig lenge." Jasper hasn’t been on our diet for very long.

"Diett?"she asks. She’s never seen Edward eat anything. She wasn’t clear on what the Cullens ate, honestly she thought they were above such things. She was thinking maybe photosynthesis. The knowledge that they apparently eat food astounds her, but diets?

"Dyreblod istedenfor menneskeblod," Animal blood in stead of human blood, Carlisle clarifies.

Whachasay?

Carlisle gives a slight smile. “Jaspers liv som vampyr fikk en brutal start." Jasper’s life as a vampire got off to a brutal start.

...

Vampire?!

Bella’s missed something here.

Oh dear lord, oh fy faen, she has missed something.

“Åja”, uh huh, is all she can say, and suddenly she’s very aware of the fact that she’s sitting there with a bleeding arm.

And Carlisle.

Who is a vampire.

Over the course of the following conversation Bella makes a host of discoveries.

Edward has been a vampire this whole time, and he’s a telepathic vampire. Whether Bella should be a vampire too or not has been a matter of hot debate, but due to religious reasons Edward doesn’t want that.

Carlisle also brings up how Edward died of the Spanish flu.

"Jeg var under den oppfatning at Edward fortalte deg bakhistorien min?" I was under the impression Edward told you my back story? Carlisle asks at one point, and Bella just has to ask very nicely if he’d be so kind as to repeat it.

Turns out the guy is nearly four hundred years old.

Jaha.

Jahahaha jaa ha.

That’s… a lot.

She wanders out of the house in shock, and hardly notices Edward’s strange behavior over the next couple of days.

One day he picks her up at school, and takes her behind the house.

That works out.

He’s a vampire, but he never hurt her. He is endlessly beautiful, perhaps easier to love now that she knows he’s not a god. He’s her Edward, and that’s suddenly easier now that she knows.

They can still be together.

But now that she knows this about him, it’s about time he knows something about her as well.

It’s time to finally be honest with him.

So when he opens his mouth, she opens her mouth as well, but she doesn’t get any further than to “Edward-” before he launches into a monologue.

She’ll have to wait until he’s done before saying her piece. It’s a bit embarrassing, but it doesn’t seem like he intends to stop talking anyway.

And what he’s saying seems to be serious, so it’s probably best to let him finish.

Edward concludes his monologue by kissing her forehead. Then he disappears.

Where did he go?

A big unsure, Bella goes back to the house. She’ll just have to wait until he gets back.

She doesn’t know what to think when Charlie returns from work and tells her the Cullens have all left.

Oh, god.

Edward must have found out she doesn’t speak English.

She made a mockery of him.

He has every right to leave.

Knowing this doesn’t make it any easier to live with.

Bella sinks into a depression.

The hallucinations begin, as in canon, though Hallusinward speaks Norwegian. Thank god for small mercies.

The friendship with Jacob (dictionary in hand) blooms, as someone has to help her see those hallucinations.

The cliff diving happens, and Alice shows up. Bella’s not sure what this is about, but she has gotten good enough at English to know that something bad happened, and Alice wants them to do something.

She’s a bit surprised to find herself on a plane to Italy, though.

Alice tells her to “Run to Edward” and ok, she got that, actually.

So she saves Edward.

After that she’s taken into the sewer, which turns out to house dozens of vampires.

Bella, Edward, and Alice are received in some kind of hall, where an unusual vampire has quite a bit to say. She understands some of what he’s saying, at least the part about “la tua cantante”. She knows a bit about Italian, see, so she knows that he’s talking about a song now.

She wishes she knew the context.

At one point he takes her hand, and appears fascinated by it. She wonders if he’s a palmreader. Not very vampirey, but what does she know.

He asks her a question.

"Yes," she says.

Saying yes has gotten her this far, after all.

But when he lights up and claps his hands together, and Edward and Alice stare at her in shock and betrayal, she knows she must have said the wrong thing.

The two are dismissed from the room before Bella can do or say anything, she’s just listening to Edward make a racket outside in the hallway.

Not good.

The unusual vampire brings her further down in his sewer palace to a basement, and she is given comfortable clothes to wear.

This is getting terrifying.

The vampire leans towards her - and she chickens out.

"Jeg snakker ikke engelsk!" she squeaks. "Non habla ingles!" I don’t speak English.

Han stanser, og ser forvirret ut. "Que- Hva behager*?" I beg your pardon? spør han etter et øyeblikk.

*A very formal, and slightly outdated (you can use it, but people will think you’re putting on airs. And they will be right) way of saying “excuse me?”

Sobbing, Bella tells him the whole story, from how she didn’t want to be the weird kid in school to how she’s now somehow in Italy without knowing why nor what she just agreed to.

When she’s done the vampire starts laughing.

"Dette forklarer jo en hel del," This explains quite a bit, ler han. "Men, kjære Bella, jeg er redd det ikke endrer noe." But, my dear Bella, I’m afraid it changes nothing.

He tells her that she has agreed to serve him and his army of undead warriors into eternity.

Well fuck.

"Du skal få slippe det, når du ikke visste hva du samtykket til - men skjebnen din forblir den samme. Loven er loven." You’re released from that promise, as you didn’t know what you agreed to - but your fate remains the same. The law is the law.

After a moment of silence, during which she looks terrified, he hurries to add, "Vi har en lov. Du må bli en av oss." We have a law. You must become one of us.

A law that Bella Swan has to become a vampire?

People are finally speaking Norwegian, and Bella is still lost. And it’s too embarrassing to keep pestering this poor, polite man with questions.

So she nods.

He gives her a glittering smile, and bites her.

When she wakes, Aro offers her an English course. A language course that, naturally, leads to her staying in Volterra. Why not learn a few more languages while we’re at it, dearest Bella?

Some time later Edward breaks into Volterra to save his Rapunzel, only to barely recognize her now that she’s a vampire who says things. Lots of things, she talks all the time now. WHAT DID ARO DO TO HER.

Too mortified to admit that she never spoke English, Bella claims she’s been brainwashed.

Aro is having too much fun to correct her, and the whole sad affair sets off a regrettable flood of rumors.

#troquantary #norwegian things #bella swan #twilight #twilight meta #twilight renaissance #evighetens kyss #evighetens kyss meta #evighetens kyss renessanse

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killianglyndon · 3 years

Text

Reunion (tbb ep.16 fix-it fic)

Pairing: Crosshair x Medic! Female Reader

Warning: tbb ep.16 spoilers, mentioned of killing people, inhibitor chip?, some kissing, grammar mistakes, typo (cause i didn’t proof read lol. im too tired to do that.)

A/N: anyway, i was so mad and sad about tbb finale, so i decided to write a fix-it fic. That doesn’t mean I hate the episode, this is just my version of story. im not really good at writing so...haha. that’s why im a gifmaker, also my main language is not English, so there would have some typos and grammar mistakes.

Word count: 1.6k

read on ao3

You and The Bad Batch were on the way to save Hunter. You knew this would be a trap, but you couldn’t help but think of a certain sniper, your lover.

You and the batch didn’t understand what had happened to him at first, his brother, your love. The way he called you and the batch traitor, the way he raised his gun to you, and the way he talked. This wasn’t him, this was not the crosshair you know.

Then, it turned out that the kaminoans had implanted inhibitor chips in every clone to make clones blindly follow orders, even killing the jedi.

“Good soldiers follow orders” This line kept echoing in your head after you heard Crosshair say it. This, this was not the crosshair you know.

***

“You and omega wait here” Echo told you and omega.

“No, we should stick together!” Omega protested.

You put a hand on Omega’s shoulder, trying to calm her.

“No, echo’s right” Wrecker agreed with him.

“Stay out of sight, if things go south we’ll send you a signal. Go back to the ship and contact Rex.” Echo added, looking at you and omega.

You gave him a nod and pulled Omega back to your side before watching them ascend to the training room.

You know how much Hunter meant to Omega, the way they interacted, and the way they cared for each other. You understood why the young girl looked up to him.

“Omega, I’m sure they’ll get Hunter back.” You reassured her.

“I know, and Crosshair.” She looked at you with her bright eyes.

You were a little shocked when she mentioned him. All this time, you tried so hard to suppress your feelings for him, your love for him. The batch knew that you missed him, they could tell. The way you stared into his empty bed, and the nights that you cried until you were too tired and the tears were dried.

“Yeah, and Crosshair…” You smiled sadly at the young girl.

***

When you and Omega joined the batch in the training room, you, Omega, and AZI stayed in one of the gun towers. That was when you saw him, your Crosshair. Hunter and he were tackling each other while Tech, Echo, and Wrecker were shooting the droids.

“I believe you may have activated a few too many droids.” AZI said to Omega and you.

“ We can see that, AZI.” Omega raised her bow, aiming for the nearest droid to Hunter and Crosshair. Meanwhile, you used your blaster to shoot some of the droids near the others.

***

After clearing out all the droids, you, Omega, and AZI joined the others on the ground. You walked closer to Crosshair and Hunter.

You could see that Crosshair was shocked to see you, the coldness in his eyes, mixing up with a tiny bit of shock.

The big scar on the right side of his head was horrifying, did the empire did this to him? Your heart almost broke into million pieces, seeing the love of your life like this.

“Crosshair…” Your voice almost sounded like a whisper.

For a moment, you see the real Crosshair, your Crosshair. But soon replaced by the coldness and aloofness.

“Crosshair, forget the empire. This isn’t you, it’s the inhibitor chip.” Hunter tried to talk some senses into him.

“Wrong.” Crosshair stared back at Hunter. “I had my chip removed a long time ago.” He added.

All of you looked shocked, Tech and Wrecker looked at each other, speechless. Hunter almost looked hurt.

“Since when?” Hunter asked.

“Does it matter?”

“Yes”

No. No. This is not Crosshair. The Crosshair you know would never do this.

“Cross, the empire lied about many things, what if they lied to you?” You asked, trying to hold back your tears.

“This is who I am.”

Crosshair tried to raise his rifle, but Hunter was faster. He stunned him before Crosshair’s attempt.

***

“Hunter, three Venators are descending on the city. We need to leave, now.” Tech stated.

“Wrecker, grab Crosshair. He’s coming with us.” Hunter grabbed Crosshair’s rifle and backpack, while you went to picked up Crosshair’s helmet.

You saw Omega gave Hunter a nod before walking away. Hunter caught you staring at him, so you gave a sad smile to him in return.

“He’s coming home with us.” Hunter said.

***

You and The Batch finally made it to Nala Se’s lab, Tech and Echo were currently trying to figure out a plan. After Crosshair and Hunter’s intense conversation, you saw him walking to the window and taking a seat to rest.

“AZI, come with me, I need your help on something.” You asked.

AZI followed you to Crosshair, you took a seat beside him.

“Crosshair…”

“What do you want?” He asked coldly.

“AZI is a medical droid, he can scan you to check if you still have the chip.”

“Indeed, I helped CT-5555 removed his and CT-5385’s chip according to my memory database.” AZI said.

“Fine.” Crosshair agreed reluctantly.

“CT-9904, this scan only takes a few seconds” AZI said before scanning Crosshair.

To be honest, you knew he still had the chip, you hoped he still had the chip. Cause there was no way, no way the Crosshair you knew would be like this.

“The scan is completed.” AZI said.

“So..?” You asked.

“CT-9904 still has his chip, the chip’s effect was weakened due to the injury from ion engine.” AZI answered.

You felt almost relieved?

The Batch heard it and rushed to you, “He still has...his chip?” Hunter asked, sounded a little guilty.

Echo, Tech, Omega, and Wrecker looked at each other, surprised by this unexpected news as well.

“That would be correct.”AZI replied.

“Could you remove it, AZI?” Omega asked, she wanted his brother back as much as any of you did.

“Yes. I’m capable of removing CT-9904’s inhibitor chip.”

“Do it.” Hunter said.

You stayed next to Crosshair while AZI removed his chip. The surgery was faster than you think, you hold Crosshair’s hand during the whole surgery, and you still holding it now.

“CT-9904’s chip has been removed. He should be awake in any minutes.” AZI stated.

You felt his hand pressing yours, “Crosshair?”

“I...I…”

“Hey, you’re okay now. We removed your chip.” You reassured him.

Crosshair looked away from you, his eyes filled with guilt, confusion, anger, sadness.

“Don’t you hate me?” He asked. “All those things I had done…”

Your hand reached out to stroke his face, “No. Never. I know it’s the chip, Cross. It’s not your fault.” You smiled at him. “I love you, always and forever.”

Crosshair put his hand on your face, wiping away the tears falling down your face. “ But I shot at you, I tried to kill you… I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry…”

“Shhh, I forgive you, Cross. All of it. I’m sorry we didn’t come to save you earlier…”

Crosshair sat up and pulled you into a hug, you melted into his touch, inhaling his scent. Your Crosshair was finally back to you, this is real. The sleepless night without him, the loneliness, the emptiness, the desperation, were all gone. Crosshair was back to you, alive.

“I love you too, cyare.” He said it back.

He pulled away a little so he could kiss you on the lips, his hand trailed to your nape, kissing you with force. You and Crosshair clung on to each other so hard, afraid you would lose each other again. That was when you heard Hunter cleared his throat, you two finally pulled away from each other.

“I know you two miss each other but this lab is about to collapse. and this is not very…” Hunter said and eyed Omega.

“Right, sorry about that.” You answered, then looked at Crosshair whose arm was still wrapped around you. “Cross.” You nudged him.

“Fine.” He gave up and retreated his arm.

“I see Crosshair still has his severe and unyielding personality.” Tech stated.

“This is called missing someone, Tech.” Crosshair said and pulled out one toothpick to throw it at him.

“Ha! He’s back!” Wrecker exclaimed and playfully punched Crosshair’s shoulder.

Crosshair pretended to show an annoyed face, but deep down you knew he missed his brothers.

“Listen, Crosshair. I’m sorry. We should have come for you earlier.” Hunter said. “I was trying to keep the rest of the squad safe, but you are one of us. I’m sorry.”

Crosshair didn’t say anything, just stood up and walk toward Hunter. For a moment you thought he was going to punch him, but instead, Crosshair extended his hand to Hunter.

Hunter looked at Crosshair’s hand then his eyes, he reached out his hand to shake Crosshair’s.

“We need to leave fast, the structure could not hold much longer.” AZI chimed in.

***

All of you finally made it to the platform, for once the Kamino is sunny.

Omega stared at the Tipoca City, which was all destroyed. “It’s… all gone.”

You looked at that direction, the place all clones called home was all gone. The Batch and you took a few seconds to process this, to accept the fact.

“We should leave before Empire’s scouts show up.” Tech said.

“You coming with us?” Wrecker asked, looking at Crosshair.

“Yeah.” Crosshair said and took out a toothpick, putting it into his mouth.

Hunter nodded at him before walking to the ship with the others.

You still stood next to Crosshair, “You ready?” you asked.

“Yeah.” He gave you a little smile then intertwined his hand with yours, leading you to the Marauder.

You didn’t know what the future would be, but one thing was sure. Crosshair would be right beside you, always and forever.

tagging: @ahsoka1 @kavecika @starwarschicken @itsjml @ct-1994 @loth-wolffe-main @theiirs @thefeatherofhope @ahs0ka-tan0 @mallr4ts @kriffclone

#the bad batch #clone trooper crosshair x reader #crosshair x you #crosshair x reader #commander crosshair x reader #the bad batch x reader #bad batch crosshair x reader #star wars #tbb spoilers #crosshair #crosshair bad batch #mywriting

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wowbright · 2 years

Text

Fic: Best Birthday Ever

Tan Hands and Tan Lines Sophisticated Word Challenge 2021: yodel

Words: ~5300 words

Rating: Teen and up

Summary: Elder Hummel makes Blaine’s birthday a day worth celebrating.

I’m belatedly going through the prompts for The Tan Hands and Tan Lines Summer Event 2021 to flesh out my Mormon!Klaine universe. This one takes place after Sneaky, which i posted yesterday.

My Mormon!Klaine Masterpost

Notes: (1) Do consecrated oil vials in the shape of bullets actually exist? Why yes, they do. (2) If you're familiar with the date of every general conference for the past ten years, then you might figure out that I fudged with the dates here—because this is fiction, and I can do that! (3) So … I don’t actually get through the whole birthday here. Does that count as leaving it on a cliffhanger? Again? Sorry. It just felt like I done everything I could do with “yodel.” I *am* planning to continue it. (4) If you have any questions or typo corrections, feel free to use my ask box!

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Blaine blinked slowly awake as the alarm blared somewhere on the edge of his consciousness. Above him, he could see a distant light blinking as it traveled across the inky morning sky.

A satellite. In outer space. But he wasn't in outer space. He was in a bed in Ingolstadt. In the apartment he shared with his new companion. Elder Hummel. Whose real name was Kurt. And who was somehow more amazing and fascinating than any of Blaine’s previous amazing and fascinating companions.

Blaine turned over to see if Kurt—Elder Hummel—was awake. He must be. How could he sleep through this obnoxious screeching alarm?

Elder Hummel’s bed was empty, and Blaine felt the sink of disappointment in his chest. It was kind of fun to watch Elder Hummel fuss and grumble at the morning alarm. Not in a Schadenfreude kind of way, but because he was a cute grumbler. During the day, Elder Hummel kept himself encased in a wall of propriety. He was considered and deliberate in his actions. But first thing in the morning, he was a more primal version of himself. He let his id surface—complaining about the noise, insisting that alarm clocks were a crime against humanity, whining that he should be able to sleep in for just five more minutes, muttering “Das ist sinloss, das ist blöd” over and over—until he was awake enough to suppress it.

Blaine could hear his companion moving around in the kitchen and got a faint whiff of cinnamon. Blaine vaguely remembered Elder Hummel getting up out of bed last night—something about warm milk?—and later returning. Blaine should have gotten up to make sure Elder Hummel was okay, but he'd been so tired. Moving to a new district was always exhausting.

Well, he could check now.

Blaine sprung out of bed, took a pitstop to relieve his bladder, and entered the living room to find Elder Hummel sitting on the loveseat in a long-sleeved t-shirt and running tights, his Scriptures open in his lap.

“Good morning,” Elder Hummel said, looking up. He crooked an eyebrow. “Or should I say ‘happy birthday’?”

Oh. Oh. That was right. Today was Blaine’s birthday. He wasn't just an adult now. He was an adult, plus one year. Which made him a real adult. But— “How did you know?”

“I have my ways.” Elder Hummel set his book on the end table and leaned inquisitively toward Blaine. “Is there a particular reason you didn't tell me? Do you hate birthdays? Are you secretly a Jehovah's Witness?”

Blaine squirmed under Elder Hummel's gaze. Not on the outside, but on the inside, just behind his belly button. It felt pleasant. “No. I just … didn't want to make a deal out of it, since I just transferred and all. I didn't want you to feel compelled to, I don't know … go out of your way to do something. I don't want to be any trouble.”

Elder Hummel rolled his eyes and stood up. “Birthdays are not trouble. So—” He clapped his hands. “Do you want to go for a run like we were scheduled to do, or would you like your first present?”

Wait. What? Blaine felt his face heating up. He wasn't sure if it was embarrassment or pleasure. “You didn’t have to—”

“No. But I wanted to.”

Blaine’s ears went hot. Was there smoke coming out of them? “That's sweet of you.”

“You don't know that. You haven't seen it yet,” Elder Hummel said, completely stone-faced.

Blaine let out a huff of laughter. Elder Hummel was so delightfully frustrating. When he looked at Blaine with those piercing blue eyes and that expression of absolute resolve, he made Blaine feel like he was going to crumble into a pile of diamond dust, or something equally and wonderfully improbable.

Blaine looked away. “Run first. Then I can build up the anticipation.”

“I don't want you to build it up so much that you're disappointed.”

“I won't be,” Blaine parried back. “Everything you come up with is amazing.”

“Now I'm really worried.”

Blaine rolled his eyes back at Elder Hummel. It wasn’t an expression he used often, but it felt like the appropriate one in the moment. But just in case it wasn’t, he spun on his socked feet and headed back to the bedroom to change into his running clothes before his senior companion could call him out on it—silently giggling to himself all the while.

The air was fresh, and Blaine felt so alive. He was reminded of a line from one of Elder Nelson’s conference talks a few years before: “Anyone who studies the workings of the human body has surely ‘seen God moving in his majesty and power.’” Blaine was a marvelous work of God’s, and so was Elder Hummel running along beside him, his legs long and strong and his skin glowing with the warm colors of sunrise.

“I have to warn you,” Elder Hummel said with an easy, relaxed cadence, as if they were on a leisurely Sunday stroll and not pressing their way up an incline. “Your present isn't really a present so much as an experience.”

Oh! Blaine loved experiences. He’d always wished his dad would give him experiences for his birthday, like cooking together or singing karaoke or going out to the theater, instead of computers and cars and other things he didn’t need. Already, the simple fact that Elder Hummel was thinking about Blaine’s happiness felt more meaningful than most of the gifts he’d gotten in previous years.

All around them, the town was like a birthday cake, the way it was bathed in orange-yellow light. Tiny birds whose names Blaine didn't know were singing in the trees, as if to celebrate this day with him.

“This is the experience, isn't it?” Blaine said excitedly. “Going for a run with you.” It was a fabulous present. Ingenious, really.

“No. This isn’t it.” Elder Hummel smiled slightly, and that was a birthday present too. “What do you usually do for your birthday, anyway? Any interesting Anderson traditions I should know about?”

Blaine thought about this. It had been a few years since his birthday hadn't been overshadowed by general conference, but even then, he didn't think there was anything particularly unique about the way his family did things: presents, a birthday cake, and a blessing from his dad for the next year. Often the blessing didn't come on Blaine’s birthday—on his thirteenth and fourteenth and sixteenth, his dad had been on business trips or conducting business in another stake, so he’d blessed Blaine on his return.

Honestly, by the time Blaine’s sixteenth rolled around, he had come to terms his father’s absence and almost relished in it. It meant he could create the birthday he wanted for himself. He invited Tina and the other kids from the Asian students club over for dinner, and his mom taught them all how to make sinigang “the right way.” Tina and a couple of the other girls treated everyone to their attempt at a cassava cake, and Mom withheld her criticism for the evening even though it really was quite terrible. Desert wasn’t a total wash, though. Thanks to Cooper, there was plenty of ube ice cream.

It was a lovely birthday memory, tainted only by the next day, when Blaine’s dad drove up in a new Audi and proclaimed that it was his birthday present. “Gosh. Thanks, Dad,” Blaine said, not quite understanding why the main emotion he felt when seeing the gift was resentment. He was sixteen. He was going for his driver’s license in a week. Most kids would have been thrilled to be in his position. “But you didn’t have to. We already have three cars.”

“Sure, I did,” his dad answered. “I’ve got to make up somehow for not being here on the actual day.”

Blaine wondered if this was his dad’s way of telling him that, in his heart, he’d wanted to be there. That he would have preferred to be there every day, as much as Blaine’s mother was. But he couldn't, regardless of what he wanted. Because that was not the role God had carved out for fathers.

Somehow, that made it even worse.

“No traditions that I can think of,” Blaine said. “Other than the usual cake and stuff. What about your family?”

“Carvel.”

“What’s Carvel?”

“You don’t have Carvel in Arizona? It's this ice cream chain that makes stupid cartoon character desserts out of mediocre soft ice cream. We started getting them on my first birthday after my mom died. My dad tried to bake a cake and almost burned the house down. My aunt came to the rescue with a Carvel ice cream cake, and I was so excited about it because I’d been whining for my parents to get me one for years. But alas, that was the day of my innocence was shattered and I learned that just because the local TV station plays ads for something every fifteen minutes does not mean that it is a gourmet delight.” Elder Hummel shrugged—because apparently he could run and shrug at the same time. “But it’s a good memory, anyway. I mean, yes, I missed my mom and everyone including me was trying too hard to act like things were normal, but then … we started to enjoy ourselves. My aunt—she should have been a stand-up comedian specializing in grief. She made the whole thing hilarious. And she’s brought me a Carvel ice cream treat every year since.”

“Wait. So she thinks you like them?”

“Oh, not exactly. I made my disappointment pretty obvious on my birthday. But … I guess my aunt and I have a weird sense of shared humor? Because that birthday was sort of awful, and the cake was disappointing, but … I don’t know. Those Carvel characters are so ridiculous and tacky that it’s hard not to love them. And clearly my initial disappointment in Fudgie the Whale had more to do with my mom not being there than with the actual cake. I mean, they're not gourmet, but I do love me some sugar.”

Blaine knew he shouldn’t compare his family to other families, but he felt jealous. Since his grandmother had died, he didn't have any local relatives who understood him enough to share inside jokes with. “That’s sweet that you have that with your aunt.”

“Did you mean to say ‘weird’?”

“No, I did not mean to say ‘weird’.”

Elder Hummel studied him momentarily before turning his face back toward the path in front of them. “Anyway, aren't we supposed to be talking about you and your birthday, birthday boy?”

“I like listening to your stories. They’re my birthday treat.”

Elder Hummel let out a huff of laughter. “You’re something else, you know that, Elder Anderson?”

Blaine felt warm inside, the way he sometimes did in sacrament meeting, when the music and prayers and sense of community all came together to form a perfect reminder of God’s love.

“Okay, so, your first present,” Elder Hummel said when they returned to the apartment, tying an apron on over his running clothes with an authoritative air. “You tell me what you want for breakfast and I make it while you do whatever you want, within reason. Omelette? Crepes? A savory souffle? I mean, I guess I could make oatmeal or cold cereal, if you'd rather have that.”

“You don’t have to—”

“We really need to delete that phrase from your vocabulary for the rest of the day. Now, what would you like?”

Okay. If Elder Hummel honestly wanted to do this, and it really wasn't a hassle, and he would enjoy making all of the things equally … “I've never had crepes. Are they good?”

“‘Are they good?’” Elder Hummel repeated back in a mock offended tone. “Well, I guess you're just going to have to find that out for yourself, aren't you?”

A few minutes later, Elder Hummel was at the stove, pouring a thin layer of batter into a skillet, and Blaine was watching intently from the kitchen table, his elbow on its surface and his chin resting comfortably on the fleshy part his palm.

“Don’t you have other things you'd rather be doing?” Elder Hummel asked. “Like taking a decadently long shower or taking a nap or … eh. I guess there really aren't that many ways for missionaries to indulge themselves on their birthdays.”

Blaine did need a shower. But not yet. Because, once he took his shower, he'd have to put his garments on, and he kind of liked not wearing them for a little bit. Plus— “I like watching you.”

Elder Hummel glanced at Blaine, frowning as if he were a particularly challenging crossword clue, then looked back at the pan. “I'm no Julia Child. I haven't even been narrating the process to you.”

“Well, you could,” Blaine said. Watching Elder Hummel at work was interesting enough, but learning from him would take it to a whole new level.

“Oh, fine. Since it's your birthday.”

At first, Elder Hummel’s narration of his process was simple and straightforward. But somewhere along the line, it turned into an actual Julia Child impression that was, frankly, terrible, and yet also spot-on and hilarious. Blaine laughed so hard he thought he might pee himself, and by the time the first savory crepe hit the table—filled with cheese and tomatoes and tiny slices of onion—Blaine was wiping tears from his eyes.

“Oh, gosh,” Blaine panted. “This is the best birthday ever.”

“I hope you're exaggerating,” said Elder Hummel, turning back to the stove. “It’s been pretty low-key so far.”

“Well, my last two birthdays fell on general conference weekend,” Blaine said. It was only after the words were out of his mouth that he heard how complaining and ungrateful they might sound to Elder Hummel, who was so upright and perfect in his faith and would probably thrill to have his birthday fall on conference weekend. “Don't get me wrong. General conference is edifying and—”

Elder Hummel lifted a hand in a “stop” gesture. “You don't have to explain to me. I know I’m a little hard-nosed, but it's not easy to sit all day listening to talks, no matter how inspired. Honestly? I like that we can't watch it all live here because of the time difference. I get more out of it when the talks are spread out.”

Another layer of the onion that was Elder Hummel had been pulled back.

Blaine sliced into the crepe and lifted the first bite to his mouth with his fork. He let it linger on his tongue. It was— “Oh my gosh, Elder Hummel! This is incredible. You could give Julia Child a run for her money.”

Elder Hummel turned and raised an eyebrow at Blaine. “Have you ever actually tasted anything cooked by Julia Child?”

“Have you?”

“Touché.”

Blaine ate his crepe slowly, closing his eyes as he chewed so that he could truly savor the flavors and textures.

Yes, his was so much better than sitting in front of the TV all day with extended family. General conference had gotten more and more uncomfortable every year. Some of his family members seemed to get the opposite message from the talks from what he got. If a talk emphasized loving people just as they were, by the time his family had dissected it, it had turned into “the way you love Muslims is by converting them” and “the way you love undocumented immigrants is by sending them home” and “the way you love gay people is by showing them that their way of living is an abomination and will lead them to misery.”

And then there was Blaine’s grandfather. The patriarch of the family. He had always been a difficult, unbending man, strict with his children and their offspring. But Blaine had noticed it getting even worse since his grandmother died, and in the past couple years, senility began encroaching into the mix.

“When are they gonna have you give a talk, John? You're a Seventy now,” Blaine’s grandad had asked his dad on his eighteenth birthday, opening a huge can of awkward that everyone in the family had to pretend hadn't been opened and hadn't been awkward.

“I'm an Area Seventy, Dad. I’m not a general authority.”

“Yeah, but soon, right? And you’ve had your calling and election made sure?”

There were no audible gasps in the room. To gasp would be to admit that the grand patriarch of them all had made a massive faux pas. Because it might be okay that his grandfather had dropped hints about his own second anointing with vague discussions of “an important meeting Jeannie and I had at the temple with Elder So-and-So” and “a spiritual experience to sacred to share,” but to actually talk about these things openly in front of the entire family? That wasn’t just gauche. It was forbidden. Nobody was supposed to know about the second annointing except for the members who got it—the only reason Blaine even knew what his grandfather was referencing was because Cooper had told him about it the Sunday their parents had mysteriously gone to the Mesa Temple—which was supposed to be closed on Sundays—and then Blaine confirmed it on the internet. The brethren said not to trust anything you read on the internet, and Blaine hadn't. He'd gone down a rabbit hole of checking and double-checking sources and citations, and at the end of it he learned that his grandfather and grandmother and apparently now his own parents had participated in a secret ordinance guaranteeing them a spot in the celestial kingdom.

It felt wrong to Blaine. Not that he didn't want his predecessors to go to heaven. But how could such a thing be guaranteed before a person even died? His dad had continued to commit plenty of sins after that weird weekend, as far as Blaine was concerned—because emotionally neglecting your own child and prioritizing an expensive house and cars over relationships were sins, weren’t they? Would he not even have to repent now? Could he just go on being a distant jerk to Blaine for the rest of his life and get rewarded for it, anyway?

And what was the point of an ordinance that parents had to hide from their own children, anyway? Did the church really need to put more obstacles in the way of having the kind of relationship with his parents where he could talk freely about them with anything? It would never happen now.

Cooper didn’t have satisfying answers for Blaine, and Blaine couldn't come up with any. So he'd shelved his questions, and when going through the temple for his endowment revived them, he'd shoved them back with the same explanation he'd gotten for everything else in the temple: It was confusing and strange on the surface, but with time and spiritual maturity, Blaine would gain insight according to his faith.

“And now a sweet one,” Elder Hummel said, setting down a beautiful crepe filled with whipped cream and strawberries. Powdered sugar was sprinkled over the top, along with tiny slivers of candied lemon peel.

“Where did these come from?” Blaine said, picking up a piece of lemon peel and dropping it on his tongue. It was heavenly, the perfect combination of sour and sweet.

“I have my sources,” Elder Hummel said coyly. He sat down with his own plate of crepes, which looked equally as delicious as Blaine’s but were a little more haphazard in their arrangement—the crepes were ragged on the edges, and the fillings oozed sloppily out of the seams.

And it dawned on Blaine: Elder Hummel hadn't made Blaine’s crepes stunning out of a compulsion to make everything stunning. Because Elder Hummel’s crepes weren’t picture perfect, and yet there he was, diving into them with glee.

No. Elder Hummel had made Blaine’s crepes stunning because they were for a special occasion. They were for Blaine’s birthday.

Elder Hummel had it done it for Blaine’s sake, and no other reason.

Blaine blinked back tears.

“Are you crying again?” Elder Hummel set down his fork, a concerned expression on his face.

“It’s fine. It’s, like … residual from your Julia Child impression, I think.”

Elder Hummel smirked. “Well, then. I better improve my Julia Child impression if it makes you that upset.”

Blaine had the sudden, overwhelming urge to pinch Elder Hummel. Not hard. Just a teasing one, to let him know that he got the joke and it was terrible.

Instead, he smiled and took another bite of perfect strawberry crepe, made just for him.

“Where are we going?” Blaine asked. They appeared to be in a semi-industrial area of Ingolstadt near the river. It had been a quick bike ride from their last morning appointment, but not exactly a good place to have lunch.

“If I told you that, it wouldn't be a surprise.”

They parked their bikes next to a metal-sided building that looked like a warehouse. Elder Hummel opened the door into a small, non-descript lobby, and then another door, and—

It took Blaine a few moments to comprehend what he was seeing. There was a wooden platform. On it were people in stretch pants straight out of a Lululemon ad, dancing some odd little jig that looked sort of German but also had footwork that reminded Blaine of Irish dance. In front of the stage, a tall blonde woman in a track suit was barking commands at the dancers through a bullhorn. Nearby, a gaggle of musicians played along with accordions, clarinets, multiple types of horns, a fiddle, and some skin drums.

Suddenly, the music quieted and the dancers parted like the Red Sea. Two singers emerged from their midst, a young man and a young woman, and they were … yodeling?

The large room filled with eery notes that vaulted from low to high and back to low again in a mesmerizing loop. On each turn of the musical wheel, notes were added and changed, scaling up up up and down down down in dizzying extremes.

“Oh my gosh!” whispered Blaine, holding the tips of his fingers up to his mouth to keep from squealing too loudly. “They’re yodeling!”

“They are indeed,” said Elder Hummel with a frown.

Blaine was pretty sure the frown was just for show. “I didn't know you could yodel in a duet.”

“The McCarthys can.”

“Wait. McCarthy. That's not a German name.”

“It’s not. Remember last week when we went around to check on inactive-but-friendly member families? They're one of the ones who weren't home. They’ve developed this weird hybrid German-Irish yodeling technique. Apparently they're very famous on the folk circuit and touring constantly. Hence the inactivity. Anyway, when I found out it was your birthday today, I got an idea. And they were open to it.”

“You're so awesome,” Blaine said, giving Elder Hummel’s forearm a squeeze before he could remember not to. Apparently it was OK, though, because Elder Hummel didn't flinch. “And they’re good.”

“I wouldn't know. I'm not a yodeler.”

“You don't have to be a yodeler to tell they sound awesome. Do you know how long I've been wanting to hear somebody yodel?”

Elder Hummel lifted an eyebrow. “Really? I don't think I've heard of that particular goal being on any other missionary’s bucket list before.”

“It’s been on my list ever since I saw Julie Andrews doing ‘The Lonely Goatherd’ in Sound of Music.”

“Well, then. I'm glad I accidentally read your mind.”

Elder Hummel led Blaine to some chairs closer to the stage, but still far away enough to stay out of bullhorn woman's way. He pulled out two sandwiches from his bag and handed once to Blaine, along with a small bottle of lemon cola. “Sorry, it's not cold,” said Elder Hummel.

“That doesn’t matter. It’s—" Blaine had too many feelings to put into words. Elder Hummel had really pulled out all the stops today. “It’s perfect.”

The McCarthys were not a young married couple, as had been Blaine’s first impression. They were twins, one very tall and one very short, with clear German accents that were only slightly Bavarian-tinged and not Irishy sounding at all.

“Elder Anderson, meet the McCarthy twins,” Elder Hummel said when the sister and brother team descended from the stage for a break.

Blaine eagerly shook hands with each of them. “You two have blown my mind. I didn't know yodeling could sound so modern and relevant, you know? Not that I know anything about yodeling, but—I mean, it just. Wow. And what's this about Ireland having a yodeling tradition?”

“Well,” said the sister, who was short and cute with her brown hair pulled back in a swinging ponytail, “not yodeling exactly. Ireland has an a cappella tradition called sean-nós that works really well with yodeling. Our dad was touring European folk festivals as a sean-nós singer when he met our mom, who was raised south of here and was touring as a yodeler, and the rest is history.”

“That's fascinating, Sister McCarthy.”

“Oh. Call me Madison. And my brother—” She gestured at the tall, handsome man beside her. “He’s Mason.”

Blaine shook their hands again as he repeated their names. It was a slightly awkward thing to do, but he'd learned it was a good way to set unfamiliar names into his memory. But— “Those don't sound German or Irish.”

“They're not,” Mason said, his thick curls swaying slightly as he shook his head. They were similar to Blaine’s, but not nearly as tamped down by gel. Blaine glanced over toward Elder Hummel to see what his companion thought of the curls, but it was hard to tell whether the interest written on Elder Hummel’s face had been inspired by Mason’s good looks or was instead born out of politeness. “Our mom lived in the United States for a few years growing up, and you know how Doctrine & Covenants says that the U.S. Constitution was established by God? Our parents decided to name all of us after delegates to the U.S. Constitutional Convention.”

“There’s more of you?”

“Well, not other twins, but—” Madison turned around toward the stage where the dancers were re-rehearsing the previous song with even fancier footwork, and began pointing to different ones. “Franklin, Morris, Ellsworth—everyone calls her Elli—” Her finger trailed down toward the band. “And Martin and Carroll!”

“They’re all your siblings?” Blaine asked stupidly. He'd known Mormon families that big in the U.S., but never in Germany.

“Yup!” Madison said cheerfully. “It was mom and dad’s dream to have a family that could be a self-sustaining entertainment troupe. Like The Osmonds!”

Okay. Was that a little … creepy? Or was it inspiring? Blaine wished he had a family that emphasized doing fun, artistic things together, and not just church stuff.

“Unless you meant to ask if we have any other siblings?” asked Mason. He continued without waiting for an answer. “We also have a brother, Randolph, and sister, Gerry, who never really got into music or dance, so he went into accounting and she’s a doctor. But the rest of us got the crazy artist gene.”

So the family allowed for different temperaments. That was good. That was— Blaine caught himself. He shouldn't be judging the dynamics of other people’s families and comparing them to his own. Blaine had chosen his family before he was born, when he’d been waiting for a body in the spirit world. He had chosen his mom and dad to raise him. He had chosen them knowing that he could very well spend most of his childhood on his own, with no other siblings in the house and a father busy with more important things.

On this side of the veil, Blaine could see why Blaine had chosen his mother, even if she could be difficult and strict sometimes. But his father? Blaine had considered this a lot, and finally came to the conclusion that he must have admired his dad's devotion to the church. He must have seen it as an iron rod that would guide him through life. Premortal Blaine knew how precarious things would be on the other side of the veil, how easy it would be to forget the truths he had learned before entering mortal life. So he chose someone who would enforce those truths on him. Who would keep him from straying.

And that must have been a good enough reason to accept the rest of his father's family, as well.

“Okay,” said Elder Hummel as they pedaled down Jahnstraße. “What’s the most memorable birthday present you ever got?”

“That’s easy,” said Blaine. “Yodeling.”

“Doesn't count. It hasn't entered your long-term memory yet.”

“Oh, fine.” Blaine scanned his memory, but the first present that popped in his head was … maybe not the best one. He’d opened it on his eighteenth birthday during a break in general conference. His dad had accompanied it with a note that said, In anticipation of your ordination into the Melchizedek priesthood and an ominous-sounding scripture quote: Wherefore, he will preserve the righteous by his power, even if it so be that the fulness of his wrath must come, and the righteous be preserved, even unto the destruction of their enemies by fire.—1 Nephi 22:17

Blaine had opened the small jewelry box expecting another CTR ring, or maybe a tie pin of the Iron Rod. When he saw what was inside, he was confused: a brightly polished rifle cartridge, its brass case gleaming threateningly in the living room light.

It took an aunt leaning over his shoulder and exclaiming, “Well, that’s a unique consecrated oil vial!” for Blaine to see the chain attached to the bullet.

“Oh!” Blaine said. “How unique.”

“Made from a real 223 Remington shell!” his granddad said proudly.

Blaine couldn't decide whether his grandfather had picked the present out in a lucid moment or a senile one. They’d gone hunting together a few times when he’d been younger, but Blaine had never liked it. Philosophically, he wasn’t opposed to killing for food, but he didn’t enjoy it. His granddad did, though. Not just for food, but for trophies, too. He was the kind of guy who believed that nature was there to be conquered, that God had given men dominion over all other creatures to do with as they wished.

Blaine thanked his granddad for the gift. But he would never, ever put consecrated oil inside something meant to cause death.

Yeah. That memorable present was definitely out. Blaine searched further. “When my mom said I could keep Buttercup.”

“Your cat?”

“Yeah. The first of many. Poor mom didn’t know what she was getting into. Though … the actual birthday present was a cat tower, all wrapped up in ribbons that of course Buttercup tried to eat. When I walked in from school and saw it in the living room, I started crying. It’s the first time I can remember crying out of joy.”

In middle school health class, Blaine’s physical education teacher had told the boys it got harder to cry once you hit puberty—something about testosterone blocking the water works. And maybe that was a little true. Blaine didn’t cry over bumped knees or twisted ankles as easily as he had when he was younger. But emotional things—he felt them more deeply. When he was little, he’d never understood why the men in his ward got all choked up and teary when they bore their testimony. But in that moment when he knew that Buttercup was staying with him, he got it. Sometimes the love you felt inside was so big, it spilled out through your eyes.

#mormon!klaine #wowbright writes fic #spaceorphan's sophisticated challenge: yodel #klaine fic #gay mormon fic #thatl #my thatl #not sure if i'm frontloading Blaine's backstory too much in here #but oh well #there's fluff and feels too!#and an appearance by the McCarthy twins!

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peterxwade24 · 3 years

Text

Safety Found in Red Sleeves

Chapter 5

Here is the long awaited Chapter 5. Also, due to my own desire, all of the temporary heroes will have suits fashioned after outfits from “Avatar: the Last Airbender”.

Con trai means “son” while Con gài means “daughter”, or at least that’s what the website I found them on says. (the website is www.vietnamesepod101.com if you’re wondering)

Also, I made a typo in chapter 2/3 with Marc’s pronouns but since then, I’ve changed it. I hope you all will continue to receive this fic with the same enthusiasm you have thus far.

Jason danced around his kitchen with Damian on his hip, his sisters sitting on some of the kitchen counters. Bobby Day’s “Rockin’ Robin” poured into the kitchen from his bluetooth speaker.

Tim wandered into the kitchen, one hand rubbing at his eye and the other on the wall, and ran into Steph’s legs. “‘ephanie?”

“Hey Tim.” Steph gently pushed Tim in the direction of the fridge and laughed as she watched him stumble to the fridge.

Jason ruffled Tim’s hair as he walked passed and smiled. “Good morning Timbers.”

“Good morning Uncle Tim.” Damian murmured from where his head was resting against his dad’s shoulder.

“Wha-?” Tim turned to look at the pair. “When did-?”

“Just went through yesterday.” Jason smiled. “Don’t worry too much.”

Tim nodded and got his glass of water before returning to the girls and settling between them. “Have you told Dick yet?”

Jason shook his head and opened the oven door to peek at the muffins he was baking. “No. But he, Wally and the kids are supposed to come over for lunch today.”

---

Jason carefully pried the sleeping form of his son off of his hip and passed him to Roy with a smile before looking at his brother. “So, Dickiebird, how are you holding up?”

Dick shrugged, playing with Mar’i’s hair to distract himself, before smiling. “I’m fine.” He glanced over at Wally for a moment. “Wally and I have been helping each other with this single parent thing.”

Wally smiled before turning to watch Jai and Iris chase each other around the dining room table. “Dick’s a great help with those two, they always have so much energy.”

Jason chuckled and shook his head. “Of course they have so much energy, look at who their father is.” Jason was about to say something when someone knocked on the door. “Give me just a moment.”

Wally and Dick sent him a pair of thumbs up as he stood up and walked towards the door.

Jason opened the door and simply raised an eyebrow. “What can I help you with Mr. Wayne?”

“There’s a French class coming to Gotham. They’re staying in one of the company hotels in the heart of the city. You and your brothers had best be on your best behaviour since Dick is the tour guide for their tours through the company buildings and you’re the acting bodyguard for their tours around the city.”

Jason rolled his eyes. “Hey Dickiebird! I didn’t know you signed up to give some tours to some hoity toity French kids.”

“I didn’t know I signed up to give some tours either.” Dick leaned on the wall next to the door. “When did either of us sign up to help you?”

Bruce sighed and looked at his two oldest sons. “Don’t do it for me. Do it for Alfred, he would like it if any of you came around.”

“Mmm, no can do B. My son is the child of a rogue and the grandchild of a rogue, my sister is the child of a rogue, my sisters are children of rogues, my brothers and I associate with rogues. Alfred is more than welcome to come around. You can give him my address and then forget it.”

Dick nodded and slung an arm around Jason’s shoulders. “When is the French class supposed to be here?”

“They’re flying in on Saturday but don’t start their tours until the following Monday to allow for them to get used to the time change.

---

Jason nervously tapped his foot on the floor, hoping and praying to whatever deity came to mind first a certain god of destruction that everything would turn out alright. He took a deep breath, shook out his hands and knocked on the door to the apartment.

The door opened and Selina appeared, dishevelled hair and shirt falling down her arm. Selina was sleepily rubbing at her eye with the other hand still held the door, just open enough she could see whomever was at her door but not open enough that anyone could see into her apartment.

“Aunt Selina?” Jason whispered while praying again to the deity. “Do you remember me? I’m-”

Selina let go of the door to wrap her arms around Jason, pulling the much taller boy against her chest. “Oh Jason. Why didn’t you come to me immediately after you breached city limits?” She pulled back just enough to hesitantly trace her fingers over the scars that marred his otherwise conventionally handsome face. “My poor bird. My poor, poor, little bird.”

“Aunt Selina. I’m fine now. Dick and Tim have sided with me against Bruce. I know how much you care for him and I understand if you’re taking his side, I just, I needed to see my Aunt Selina one last time.”

“Jason Peter Todd. I’m not the Joker. My one goal in life isn’t to be the Bat’s one and only. The day he brought Dick on the scene I decided then and there that you all weren’t his birds. You were mine. And cats are just as likely to attack bats as they are birds.” Selina’s fingers paused on top of a set of three very faint white-silver scars just under his jawline. “I am sorry that I ever caused you pain my little bird.”

---

Jason nervously straightened things around his apartment, Damian, Roy and Lian sat on the couch watching his mad dash around the apartment while Stephanie and Cass sat on a pair of counters with Tim standing between them. Dick, Wally, Mar’i, Jay and Iris were nervously looking out the window as Jason continued to clean.

Dick, Wally, Mar’i, Jay and Iris suddenly scrambled away from the window to sit down around Damian, Roy and Lian.

A few minutes after they sat down, a firm knock came at the door. Jason brushed the dust off of his shirt and approached the door. Jason opened the door and smiled. “Hi Aunt Selina. Hi Grandpa Alfred.”

Alfred smiled at Jason and glanced down at the covered dish in his hands. “I made my key lime pie.”

Selina simply chuckled. “Little bird. At this point, I’m your mom. Just call me Mom.”

-*-*-*

Thana looked at her friends, Chloé steadfast in her loyalty, Nino firm in his friendship, and Kim unshakable in his protection, and smiled. “I love you guys so much. You are my family.”

Chloé smiled and wrapped her arms around Thana. “We love you too.”

Nino and Kim joined their hug, the four friends uniting in their found family and solidifying their bonds. “You’re our family too Thana.”

---

Desgracia watched as Marc took a deep breath before looking at Kaalki. “Kaalki, full gallop.”

Marc was encased in a pale brown light. When the light disappeared, they stood in a loose-fitting gray bodysuit with brown knee-high boots with dark orange-red bands around the top of the boots and around the ankles, dark red wrist gauntlets covered in orange horseshoes with dark golden yellow bands around the top and bottom of the gauntlets. Over the gray bodysuit, they had a dark red tunic which crossed over their chest which was hemmed in a red-orange. The bottom half of their face was obscured by the turtleneck of their gray bodysuit while they had a dark orange-red domino mask with light gray eye lenses. The domino mask had a thin golden yellow outline, akin to glasses, while their hair had reddened. While their hair had previously been pitch black, it was now a dark chestnut that had lengthened to resemble Sesshomaru’s.

“What’s your name?” Desgracia’s eye lenses were blue-green and flicked over his suit in vague interest.

“Ma-”

Desgracia’s eye lenses darkened to green and hissed. “Hero name. We don’t use names in the field.” A gruff voice repeating the same words to a much younger version of her older brother sounded in her head.

“Oh, uh, um.” Marc frowned and tapped their chin in thought.

“Well, you’re using the Horse Miraculous so it should be something horse related. Poulain, because you’re new at this so you’re like a foal.”

“Poulain rouge.” Marc smiled and shook out their shoulders. “Poulain rouge because my hair is more red now.”

“Welcome to the team Poulain rouge.” Desgracia smiled and leaned over to ruffle their hair.

“Thanks.”

---

Thana sat under the stairs which lead to the second floor of the school, sketching an outfit for a client when another person tripped over her legs. She glanced up to see it was Marc before looking back down at her sketch.

“Sorry. I didn’t-” Marc started before Thana cut them off.

“Would you wear this?” Thana pushed her sketchbook towards them and tapped her fingers on her leg.

Marc looked over the sketch and nodded. “Yeah. Looks good. Who’s it for?”

“A client. Hey, you’re good at writing, right?” Thana looked at them and seemed to be imploring them to answer.

“Yeah?”

“Could you look over my website and figure out what’s wrong with it?” Thana smiled. “You can come over to Chlo’s to look over it. Well, Chlo’s or Kim’s.”

Marc nodded. “Sure.”

---

Thana and Marc followed after Kim as he walked into his home.

“Mẹ! Mèo con and our friend came over, I hope that’s okay.” Kim called as they entered the house. Kim and Thana toed off their shoes on instinct while Marc just copied their movements.

“Con trai. Con gài.” Kim’s Mẹ wrapped the two up in a hug before pressing kisses to their foreheads. “Ni hao. I’m Kim’s mom, and Marinette,” Kim’s Mẹ noticed how she flinched at the use of the name and corrected herself, “Thana has practically become my daughter.”

“My name is Marc Anciel.” Marc shook Kim’s Mẹ’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you ma’am.”

“None of that ma’am stuff. Just call me Mẹ, those two do.” Kim’s Mẹ was, arguably, a very attractive woman. She had short black hair and warm caramel brown eyes and she was just a few centimeters shorter than Kim. “Come on in.”

The three teens smiled at the woman before they went back to Kim’s room. Thana pulled up her website and moved out of the desk chair to allow Marc to look it over.

Marc looked over the website while Kim and Thana did their homework. “Are you sure you want the whole webpage to be gunmetal gray? You could mix it up with the background being light purple so the gray stands out.”

Thana nodded and let out a quiet “huh”. “Hey Marc? Do you care if I hug you?”

Marc’s eyes widened and they smiled shyly. “Sure.”

Thana wrapped her arms around Marc. “Thank you so much.”

---

Desgracia looked over the field, making sure each of her teammates weren’t being overwhelmed with this Akuma’s minions, when she saw the Akuma gunning for Poulain rouge.

Desgracia lept from the rooftop, landing on her toes in front of Poulain rouge and glared at the Akuma. She twirled her baton in her hand, keeping it low enough to not hit Poulain, before she looked back over her shoulder at Poulain. “Go get Monsieur Punaise. Tell him to hurry.”

Poulain nodded, turned around and ran to get their fearless leader who had one fear and it was Desgracia.

By the time Poulain returned with Monsieur Punaise, the Akuma was barely holding on. Monsieur Punaise called for his Lucky Charm, a plane ticket (specifically one for the flight they were taking soon), before deakumatizing the Akuma and throwing the Lucky Charm in the air with a call of “Miraculous Monsieur Punaise”.

Desgracia wrapped an arm around Poulain’s waist before jumping away, leaving her more even tempered teammates to assist the Akuma victim.

Desgracia landed on a rooftop and put Poulain down on the rooftop. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. He didn’t get close enough to take a swipe at me.” Poulain rouge chuckled and shook their head. “Don’t worry about me. Are you okay?”

“Poulain. I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. All damage dealt in the battle was rendered useless and disappeared when Monsieur Punaise cast his final charm.” Desgracia cupped Poulain’s face in her hands. “You have to be on guard at all times in battle. I won’t always be here. You need to trust your teammates to protect you in battle.”

Trâu landed on the rooftop and chuckled. “Desi, you can’t just kidnap our Foal.”

Desgracia turned her green eyes on him, however after assessing him as no threat her eye lenses turned back into their normal blue. “Trâu. I didn’t kidnap them. I just needed to ensure that they were fine.”

Taglist

@southamericangothamite @maribat-is-lifeblood @mystery-5-5 @our-preciousss @mochegato @chocolatecatstheron @throneoffirebreathingbitchqueen @2confused-2doanything @wannajointhecrabcult @dreamykitty25 @tomanyfandomsonmymind @moonlightstar64 @justafanwarrior @mialuvscats @pheony1882 @pepelachanel @moongoddesskiana @abrx2002 @ladybug-182 @greatcatblaze @thatonecroc @vixen-uchiha @superbwhispersconnoisseur @lilkymilky @susiej1118 @thatonecroc

#maribat #ml crossover #mlb crossover #ml x dc #mlb x dc #Safety Found in Red Sleeves #SFIRS #horse!marc #nonbinary!marc #we'll see the other's suits next chapter... i promise? or at least we should. I just have to figure out what they look like

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kura5 · 3 years

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This update is focused on adding nametags, stealth AI, weapon balancing, and a ton of bugs that were reported via our discord. Thanks to everyone that gave feedback! It helps make the game the best it can be.

Bug Fixes

Huntresses should no longer get stuck on couches

Fixed a few loose bugs where characters would get teleported to the void in the 2nd dungeon

Fixed the Noir level bat dialogue softlock

Fixed the aqueducts gate skip

Fixed Otenko Panel related softlocks

Disabled the cloud shader effect for Linux versions since the shader seems broken if you're not using Vulkan (I have no idea why)

...And a bunch of other misc fixes and tweaks too granular to list here

Adjustments

Added name tags to dialogue!

Locked doors are now color coded to their corresponding key

Adjusted the numbers on weapons: spread is now more viable, Hoop Frame is less OP. (I'm sorry Hoop Fans)

Raven Emil should now be immune to water damage (Like a duck)

Adjusted how prices work: though for now non perishables you get from chests are more valuable than ones dropped from enemies

Adjusted boundaries on the beach map.... again...

Set a global hearing range for all enemies so that knocking feels more consistent

Slimes and Mimics can now activate weight panels

You can now freeze puddles and huntress lanterns with the frost lens (But not Garmr)

Adjusted enemy AI so that overall stealth behavior feels more consistent with the GBA games (Specifically Shinbok)

Corrected various typos

Some cutscene adjustments were made to Von Linnell and La Lupe's dungeon area

#kura5 #update #patch

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ajoy3fanfics · 3 years

Text

Soup for the soul

The car that killed me must have been going 20 over the limit, if not more. It didn’t help that the weather was not ideal- a fine shimmer of rain, overcast skies. A less than perfect condition for a walk, certainly so for someone without an umbrella. I had given it to my neighbor, a young girl of 10, out on an errand for her ma. The air felt charged, like the skies would open at any moment and pour down on me. I know I looked both ways before I ran across the street- would never have stepped foot on the black tar without doing so. That was the last thing I remembered, as the back of my head hit the pavement. Thick, warm blood oozed out, outlining my frame as it dribbled down. I struggled to keep my eyes open. The clouds really did look like they were opening-

I sat up abruptly, rubbing the back of my head. It hurt- at least, it should hurt. I had to squint against the brightness of my new surroundings. White- blinding, pearlescent tones everywhere. Good glittered from any tangible object- tables, chairs- all spread out. The room seemed to go on forever.

I knew the car hit me. Knew that I should be in dire need of medical assistance, but as I carded my fingers through my black curls, they came back dry.

“This must be heaven.” I say it low, a whisper. That must be his table. A seat at his table! I knew then that I had made it. My hard work, dedication to the good book, kind deeds, selfless acts- all of it saved my soul. I always pictured pearly gates, angels in feathered wings waiting to judge me as I dropped in. I quickly turned, hoping to see any sign of Gabriel.

No one. Not a being. Not a soul. Was this purgatory? Forced to wait in limbo?

Finally, I heard footsteps . It may have been minutes, could have been days- but the relief I felt when I saw the robbed figure walk towards me was the same. “Wait!” I called. “I’m ready to be judged!”

The angel turned my way, a bundle of vegetables in his arms. The orange of the carrots was a stark contrast to the environment, yellow potatoes were round, cleaned of all dirt.

“You’re ready?” He asked incredulously, “but you have nothing prepared.”

I lunged towards him, eager to plead my case. “Look in the book angel, you’ll see how good my soul is-“

“-soup.” He corrected.

“Soul.” I repeated slowly, feeling very unsure of this angel. “My soul is good!” At that, the angel let out a tired sigh.

“Don’t tell me humans are still reading that outdated version.” It was more to himself than to me. “That book has a typo.”

“Excuse me?” I could feel my panic rising, and suddenly I wondered if I was actually in heaven. I thought I was supposed to feel an overwhelming sense of calm, not confusion.

“We’re looking for good soup, not good souls.” He explained.

“Soup.” I managed to repeat, astounded. “Soup?! What on earth would you need soup for?!”

“Exactly!” He exclaimed, “you have it on earth, but not here. We’re looking to create a fully sustainable paradise. The basics are good soil knowledge, solitary care of animals- all things that seemed to be commonplace until recently. You lot seem to be growing in numbers with less usable skills. Tell me, do you know how to till land?” He let loose the vegetables in favor of grabbing my hands to inspect them. The carrots and potatoes floated, waiting to be collected.

I shook my head no. “Of course not. You know how to cook? At the very least, if food were provided, you could chip in and assist in the kitchens?”

I shook my head no again, completely bewildered. “I always ordered out.”

“And what did you do, before you came here?” Talk about holier than thou.

“I worked in advertising.” I said, swallowing the lump in my throat.

“What good would that do us here? ‘Heavens pretty great’ I think we got the message covered by now.”

“So I’m going to hell because I can’t cook?” I felt my anger rising. “I lived a good life!”

“Fantastic.” The angel said, “A good life should fill everyone's bellies. I’ll just let the farmers know that they can put down their plows, you’re good life will keep us fed.”

“But- But I followed the rules-”

“Of a typo.” He nodded his head, as if he understood my point.

“How was I to know that?!” I was yelling now, desperate.

“We have sent several signs to remediate the error. We are no longer taking beings based on the mistake. Enough time has passed-”

“What signs? Where have the signs been that I needed good soup to get into heaven?”

“Chicken soup for the soul? Soulfood? Ever hear of Hell's Kitchen?”

My jaw was slack, I tried in vain to close it several times. “You’re telling me I should have figured out that God wanted me to make soup, based on Hell’s Kitchen?”

The angel smiled. “Gordon is doing the Lord's work.”

“This isn’t right.” I looked around at the tables, the angel with an armful of raw food. “I thought heaven was supposed to be a place of peace, you know, ease? Why? Why the focus on food? I thought this was our reward for a lifetime of work?”

“This is a reward. Unlimited food to be harvested, never a famine. You can work but never feel tired. No ailments, never hunger.. Your needs being met, a full belly and a lifetime with those you are about are not reward enough?”

“No, I-”

“Leave it to humans to attach their own ideals to heaven, make it about them and their wants. Sorry to break it to you, but paradise requires give and take. It's a collective. We all have to pitch in to keep it going. We're a community here.” The way he said it made it sound like the decision was already made, book or no book.

“I can do other things, I can- I can clean! Or- or…- I can learn! Teach me angel!” I begged. “I can’t go to hell because I ordered take out.”

“Just go back.” He waved. “Too much time has passed for you to return to your body. Just reincarnate.” He waved over to the left, and suddenly a sign appeared, an arrow pointing down.

“You expect me to jump off the side of- whatever this is- and just… start again?”

“Exactly.” He shrugged. “Maybe pick up some gardening skills while you’re down there too.”

I walked to the edge- there was suddenly an edge- and looked down.

“How do I know this won’t really kill me?” I asked, eyeing him suspiciously.

The angel turned, leaving me at the precipice alone. As he walked, he called over his shoulder, “It's a leap of faith.”

The weather wasn’t ideal on the day that I died. The clouds had looked like they would open up at any moment and release the rain. I wondered if I would still go through the storm on the way down.

I found this prompt on @writing-prompt-s, and thought it would be fun to write! I hope this doesn't offend anyone- that is not my intention. I don’t typically share the short stories I write outside of my fandoms, but since I used their prompt, I wanted to share :)

#short story #the people you meet in heaven #typos #writing prompt #writing-prompt-s #soulfood #chicken soup for the soul #something to pass the time #hope this doesn't offend anyone!

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jasperunbound · 4 years

Text

“My First Friend”

A translation of the DQXI:S voice drama track featuring Hendrik and Jasper when they were young kids.

Courtesy of @kamyuris / @suba_rashii on Twitter, who gave me permission to repost the translation here! Consider checking out her Dragon Quest and Dragon Ball Z fanart, and dropping her a thanks for taking the time to provide this English transcript. Read below, or here on Google Docs. (Note that the version below is slightly different, I made some corrections for typos and other minor grammar adjustments.)

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

One winter morning, two young apprentices walk out of the snow-covered Heliodor Castle. They head down to the warm abode of an ever-waiting mother. The two lonely boys, Hendrik and Jasper… what awaits them at the end of their secret little adventure?

－My First Friend－

Hendrik: Father! Please, open the door! I’m scared!

Father: ...Hendrik. Do not open the door until dawn breaks. As a knight's child, you know not to go against your superior. Now, think of me as such.

Hendrik: Why… why!? What about mother? Sisters… where?

Father: Hendrik! There is no time! Listen to me!

Hendrik: [sniffling] ...Yes.

Father: Hendrik… my son. Whatever happens after this, do not despair. Whatever happens tonight is inevitable. Never forget, your father fought for a bright future for you. Hendrik, you must survive!

Hendrik: Father… please wait! Father… Father!

Hendrik: FATHER!

Apprentice A: Shut up, Hendrik!

Hendrik: S-sorry! That… dream again…

"...Just like today, it rained heavily that night. The kingdom of Zwaardsrust had been destroyed by a horde of monsters overnight. My father had hid me in the basement of the church, and I was later found by the King of Heliodor when they came to inspect. I… was the only one who survived within my family. Then, I was taken in as a knight apprentice at Heliodor Castle.

...It has been a while since that nightmare, but I‘d grown afraid of the night’s fall up till this day. I still remember that dark, wet basement, and then the fires when I left that basement…"

Hendrik: The child of a knight should not be crying at a time like this…!

(If I cry again, they will hate me more. Especially that mean one…)

Jasper: Again and again, night after night… you are so noisy that we cannot sleep! You are a survivor of that Zwaardsrust thing, right? If you’re really the son of a Drustinian knight, then surely everyone from there is a crybaby like you!

"Jasper… he is a blonde-haired apprentice knight. I couldn’t sleep ever since arriving at the castle, and he said such mean words to me. I am fine with insults directed at me. But I could never tolerate insults about Zwaardsrust…"

"And then…"

Hendrik: ...Take it back… take it back right now!

Jasper: What are you－

Hendrik: Take it back!

Commander: You two! Stop it right now!

"Since then, every time I saw Jasper's face, I would end up fighting with him. Someone who doesn’t care for others would not make a good knight… But I do wonder if a day would come where I would patch things up with Jasper…"

Commander: Jasper, Hendrik. Are you two ready?

...Begin!!

Jasper: Hmph.

Hendrik: Tch…!

Jasper: Hah!

Hendrik: Agh!

Commander: Match! The winner is Jasper!

Hendrik: Darn it! 49 wins, 49 losses…

Jasper: ...Wrong. This is my 50th win. Do you not know how to count right?

Hendrik: Tch…

Jasper: Hm…

Hendrik: Someday… someday I will defeat you, Jasper!

Commander! Please, instruct me!

Commander: That'll mark the end of training this morning! We will now move on to the cleaning of the area! As usual, the top apprentice will be exempted from cleaning! Today's Number One… Jasper!

Apprentices: Oooh...!!

Apprentice A: He's been in first place for ten days in a row now…

Apprentice B: He is a prodigy, after all…

Commander: Enough talking, get to cleaning now!

Apprentices: Yes, Sir!

Hendrik: Phew!

Apprentice A: That Jasper guy, I don't like him at all! He doesn't even work that hard, and he came in after us! We had the skills and education for it!

Apprentice B: Yeah, cannot help but feel like he makes us look like complete fools.

Apprentice A: Prodigies who step foot into this castle get all the luck, huh!

Apprentice B: ...Well, I heard something interesting the other day. A rumour about him.

Apprentice A: What is it?

Apprentice B: I heard it from one of the King's maids, but Jasper came to the castle… because he was abandoned by his parents.

Apprentice A: Abandoned!?

Apprentice B: Shh! Don't yell!

Apprentice A: ...Really?

Apprentice B: Yeah. Rumour has it that he came from a noble home, but they couldn't hold up. He doesn't have a dad. So his mother left him alone here in the castle.

Apprentice A: Aw… that's so saaad.

Hendrik: Hey!

Apprentice A: ...Huh? What do you want?

Hendrik: Spreading bad rumours about others is unbefitting of a knight!

...Right?

Apprentice A: Aw, here comes the good boy Hendrik.

Apprentice B: Ooh, the Drustinian knight's son is so serious!

A and B: Hahaha!

Hendrik: Jasper is－ ...he is not a good guy, but you should not be saying things behind his back!

Apprentice A: ...Hey, Hendrik, who do you think you're talking to?

Apprentice B: You want to scrap with us?

Hendrik: Y-yeah! Both of you, come!

"That's enough, Hendrik!"

Apprentice A: J-Jasper…

Jasper: You guys did good today. Say… did you see my book anywhere?

Apprentice B: Book… Ah, I saw it on top of the bench…

Jasper: Oh, you are right. Thank you.

Jasper: I will study even harder… And then I will－

Hendrik: Jasper!

Jasper: Do not follow me!

Hendrik: Wait!

Apprentice A: Oi, Hendrik! We're not done talking to you!

Hendrik: Don’t get in my way!

[SPLASH!]

Apprentice A: Agh, so cold!

Apprentice B: What do you think you are doing!?

Hendrik: Take this water and reflect on it!

Hendrik: Jasper! Wait, Jasper!

Jasper: What do you want?

Hendrik: I… That, earlier…

Jasper: ...It doesn’t concern you.

Hendrik: But－...

Jasper: [sighing] Look at this.

Hendrik: …A letter?

Jasper: ...From my mother. She said that she’s sick, so she cannot take me back home yet.

Hendrik: Jasper, I…

Jasper: My mother－! My mother promised me that she will come pick me up once she’s all better and I became a good knight!

...She has not abandoned me!!

Hendrik: …Sorry.

Jasper: Give it back to me. I'm going.

"That was the first day Jasper and I did not quarrel."

"After that, he kept trying to avoid me. He would not look me in the eye and we didn’t talk, and a year passed without noticing… Then came what I thought would be a long winter break."

Knight A: The year is finally over.

Knight B: Ah, we can go home after all this while…

Knight A: Be careful on your way back, there's a lot of snow this year.

Knight B: Yeah, you too.

Minister: Hear ye, hear ye! Now commences the King's Speech!

Carnelian: My subjects, you have gathered well today. This year, due to everyone's diligence, the prosperity and peace of Heliodorians stand ever stronger! Though it is a short vacation, please, return to your homes and get your much deserved rest. We will see you again once the new year starts!

Knights: Long Live the King! Long Live the King!

Commander: Jasper, Hendrik. You two are the only remaining apprentices in the castle now. What you want to do is up to you… Don’t be fighting over everything now.

Hendrik: Yes. Have a great new year ahead.

[Silence between the boys.]

Hendrik: A-ah! Look, Jasper! There is so much snow! It is rare for it to be snowing this much in Heliodor, right?

Jasper: Yeah.

[More silence.]

Hendrik: Everyone is going home, isn't that nice?

Jasper: …

Hendrik: ...Jasper, are you not going home?

Jasper: ...My mother's sickness got worse. I cannot go home and touch her or I'll get it too… that is what the King…

Hendrik: I see…

Hendrik: ...Say, Jasper. Don't you want to get out of here and see your mother?

Jasper: What are you saying? Didn’t I just say that the King said I cannot?

Hendrik: You are so stubborn! If we leave and come back before dinner, we will be alright.

Jasper: But… the King said…

Hendrik: Yeah, the King's always right! Just as expected, the King! Wonderful! But… I think if she's really sick, you should see her. Maybe she will feel better when she sees her son's face after so long.

Jasper: But－

Hendrik: Jasper, do you want to see your mother or not!?

Jasper: ...I do.

Hendrik: Alright! That’s the way to go! Come on!

Hendrik: Wow! It’s been so long since we went into town! Jasper, do you know how to make snowballs?

Jasper: When we told the gatekeeper we wanted to go outside to see the King, he immediately let us through… is the castle's security that thin? Is the castle going to be alright?

Hendrik: Hey, hey, do not say things like that! Everyone is looking forward to the new year, I don’t think anyone is going to do bad things!

Jasper: But we are doing something bad, aren’t we?

Hendrik: Ah, yeah! Haha, you're right!

Jasper: [sigh] ...Is it really a good idea to listen to this guy and disobey the King?

Hendrik: Huh? Did you say something?

Jasper: Nothing.

Hendrik: We have to go through the shopping district to get to your house, right?

Jasper: Uh huh.

Hendrik: Then, which way do we go? Left? Right? Hey, Jasper… Jasper? Hey!

Hendrik: Jasper? What happened? You walked off suddenly.

Jasper: This shop…

Hendrik: The general shop? Did something catch your eye?

Jasper: I saw that brooch… the one that looks like a flower.

Hendrik: Which one?

Hendrik: ...Woah! That is really pretty! The glass is shining all kinds of colours…

Jasper: I want to give it to my mother…

Hendrik: Oh! That is a great idea, Jasper!

Jasper: ...But I cannot.

Hendrik: Huh? Why?

Jasper: Do you have money?

Hendrik: I don't.

Jasper: Me neither.

[Silence.]

Hendrik: W-well, Jasper, it is too early to give up now! My father said that you cannot buy someone's feelings with money! So we should get a sincere gift from your heart for your mother!

Jasper: ...Really?

Hendrik: Yeah! My father would never lie!

Jasper: ...But what should I get her?

Hendrik: Hmm… What do you think would make your mother really happy?

Jasper: ...She likes flowers. She used to grow a lot of flowers in the garden.

Hendrik: ...Flowers, huh?

Jasper: But it’s snowing now, so that is going to be hard…

Hendrik: Wait… ice! That’s it! Ice!

Jasper: Ice? What is this all of a sudden?

Hendrik: We could get some ice as a gift! But not just any ice… Ice with flower petals in it!

Jasper: Ice with… petals?

Hendrik: Yeah! One time my older sister had a cold, so I went to pick a flower for her so she would get well quickly. But all the flowers were wilted since it was cold like today, so I took some of the ice petals that I found in town.

Jasper: Did she like it?

Hendrik: She loved it! It was like a jewel. We got really sad when it started melting, so I promised her... that I will find another next winter…

Jasper: ...Hendrik.

Hendrik: I promised…

Jasper: What happened to her…?

Hendrik: ...When Zwaardsrust was attacked that night, my whole family died.

Jasper: ...I didn’t know that.

Hendrik: ...That is alright. Even until now I think and cry about wanting to see my family and be with them… every day. But my father told me to live, and I was saved. So I have to live. If I am here, someday I will be needed by someone.

Jasper: ...I wonder if that will happen to me too. If someone needs me…

Hendrik: Hahaha! What are you saying? Now is that time! Your mother is waiting for you to come home!

Jasper: ...You are right.

Hendrik: Yeah! That is right!

Jasper: ...Hendrik, will you help me look for these ice petals?

Hendrik: Of course I will! Why don't you tell me where ice tends to form here! I am not too familiar with this place.

Jasper: Okay! We’re going to find it before the sun sets!

Hendrik: Yeah!

Hendrik: Jasper! Did you find anything?

Jasper: No… I haven’t.

"Jasper and I ran around the central town trying to look for these ice petals. The town was much bigger and more maze-like than I thought."

Hendrik: Let’s search around this pond!

Jasper: Hendrik, be careful!

Hendrik: Waah!

[Splash!]

Hendrik: So cold!

Jasper: You idiot! Watch where you're going－ ah!

[Splash!]

"Time passed, and before I knew, the sun was starting to set. It was starting to get colder, and snow began to fall."

Jasper: This is bad… it’s snowing.

Hendrik: Not yet… we cannot give up yet! If we look really hard, we’ll find it for sure!

Jasper: The fountain… let’s look for it at the fountain in the middle of town.

"We kept going and never gave up. Then…"

Hendrik: Ah! Jasper! Jasper, look!

Jasper: Did you find it!?

Hendrik: Over there, look!

Jasper: Where!?

Hendrik & Jasper: WE FOUND IT!

Jasper: We did it! We did it!

Hendrik: Jasper, this is great!

Jasper: Wow, it is even prettier than the brooch!

Hendrik: Yeah! This will make the perfect gift!

Hendrik & Jasper: WE DID IT! Hahahaha!!

Jasper: Ah… ahem! Ice is a weird gift, but this is not so bad.

Hendrik: Wow… you're really lying to yourself.

Jasper: Sh-shut up! A knight should not be laughing so loud and should be dignified at all times.

Hendrik: Saying such a thing while we're soaking wet does not make you look cool! Ahahaha!

Jasper: ...Hendrik.

Hendrik: I’m kidding! Don’t give me that face.

Jasper: No, it isn’t that… I have always been mean to you. That time when you stood up against those guys who were saying bad things about me… thank you. And I’m really sorry about what I said about Drustinians being crybabies…

Hendrik: Hey, enough about that… we’re friends now, are we not?

Jasper: ...Friends?

Hendrik: ...Aren’t we?

Jasper: …

Hendrik: Did… did I do something wrong?

Jasper: ...Yeah. We are friends.

Hendrik: Hahaha! Yeah! Friends! We're friends!

Jasper: Sh-shut up, you’re so loud! Saying things like that, so embarrassing!

Hendrik: Ahaha!

Jasper: ...Heh.

Hendrik & Jasper: Hahahaha!

Hendrik: Phew… Now then! Since we found the ice, let us go to your mother's place! We’ll get there before the day ends if we make a move now!

Jasper: ...Mm.

Hendrik: ...What is wrong? We're getting there soon.

Jasper: I feel like there is something off all of a sudden. Would she really like it....?

Hendrik: Hmph!

[Hendrik hits Jasper.]

Jasper: Ow!! Why did you do that!?

Hendrik: We’ve gotten all the way here, do not say things like that! Do not worry! Let us hurry before the ice melts, Jasper!

Jasper : ...Yeah! You’re right.

Hendrik: Jasper, are we there yet?

Jasper: As soon as we get out of this street. Keep walking.

Hendrik: Yeah, yeah… by the way, I do not really feel that cold anymore. Haha! Jasper, there’s snow on your head.

Jasper: Be a little more patient, will you? We have warm dumplings and the maids always give me a blanket. I think she’d be upset that I snuck out of the castle… but if I ask my mother, she will always make me warm cocoa. Drinking it always warms you up.

Hendrik: Really!? Wow, I can barely wait now! Hurry, Jasper!

Jasper: Hey! Don't run down the street!

Hendrik: It’s right around the corner, isn't it? Whoever reaches first wins!

Jasper: You fool! I will be the first one to see my mother, of course! That’s right, if you go through this corner, then here’s my－...

Jasper: ...Huh?

Hendrik: ...Jasper, is this your home…? There is… nothing here.

Jasper: ...That is impossible.

Hendrik: Ah… ah, that’s right, you have not been home in a while! Maybe you got the wrong home.

Jasper: ...Yeah, that might be it. But… my house…

Old Man: Hey, you two. What are you doing here?

Jasper: Ah…

Old Man: ...Are you picking something up from here?

Jasper: N-no, I… I am returning home.

Old Man: I see…

Old Man: If that's the case, you should go quick. The noblewoman who lived here died of an illness.

Hendrik: ...Died?

Old Man: Yes… It happened a few years ago. Her maid and doctor were afraid of her illness, and no one was left to take care of her. She soon died alone, calling the name of her son who had been living away from her at the castle. What a sad story…

[Footsteps－the boys walking back to the castle.]

Hendrik: [sobbing]

Jasper: ...Why are you crying? This has nothing to do with you.

Hendrik: [sob] Because… because you’re not crying.

Jasper: ...Huh?

Hendrik: That is the saddest thing I have heard… and you are not crying, so… I cry.

Jasper: ...Why?

Hendrik: Because… we’re friends.

Jasper: What…? Stop saying such silly things－

Jasper: Ugh… [wailing]

Jasper: Mother… MOTHER!

"Jasper and I cried as we made our way back to the castle. It fell quiet as the snow absorbed our wails. I did not know how long it took us to get back, but we were tired from crying, and our voices were hoarse. It was night time when we reached the castle. In front of the large gate, there was a torch that gradually grew bigger as it approached us… it was the King who was there to bring us back in…."

Carnelian: Hendrik… Jasper…

Hendrik: ...Your Majesty.

Jasper: Please… forgive us.

Hendrik: Sorry.

Carnelian: Let me see your faces… I believe I must apologise to the both of you. Did you go and see your mother, Jasper?

Jasper: ...Yes.

Carnelian: …When I took you into the castle, your mother told me. She did not have much longer to live. She did not want her death to be a distraction to you. You were about to be all alone in this world, because she had to go.

Jasper: ...Yes.

Carnelian: She told me that until you grew up into a knight, her death must be kept secret from you.

Jasper: Mother…

Carnelian: ...I must apologise, Jasper. It must have hurt you just as it pains me to do so.

Jasper: … [sob]

Carnelian: And you, Hendrik… you really did your best for your friend, didn't you?

"The King hugged us both and stayed until we stopped crying. The warm feeling felt like when my father took me into his arms, just like I remember it to be."

"Jasper was called by the King into another room to talk about whether he would want to stay in the castle, or go live with a distant relative. I went back to the apprentices' dorm, and went to lay down. Even though I was exhausted, I could not sleep as it was too dark, and the moon did not shine."

Hendrik: That dream again…

"Hey, Hendrik… are you awake?"

Hendrik: Jasper… is everything okay?

Jasper: Hmph. Nothing to worry about.

Hendrik: ...Have you made your decision?

Jasper: ...I don’t have a place to return home to anymore. Neither do you. So I will fulfill my mother's wishes and become a knight for this country.

Hendrik: ...I see.

Jasper: ...Hm. I see that you are all wrapped up like a dumpling again. Could it be that it is too dark again and you cannot sleep?

Hendrik: How noisy… leave me alone.

Jasper: If you cannot sleep at night, you are going to be all groggy and vulnerable in the morning… so…

Hendrik: ...So?

Jasper: Let’s read a book together.

Hendrik: Huh?

Jasper: ...Do not think that I'm doing it voluntarily, I am not! I do not want to do this! The King made me do it, so here I am! Move!

Hendrik: ...The King, huh?

Jasper: Y-yeah! The King!

Hendrik: Heh… Hahaha!

Jasper: Wh-what? You're weird.

Hendrik: Jasper… thanks.

Jasper: Hmph! If you don't sleep, I am going to ignore the King, so sleep!

Hendrik: Haha! You are right. Looks like… I will finally be able to sleep well tonight.

Hendrik: So what are we going to read?

Jasper: "The Hero of Heliodor".

Hendrik: Huuuh? But that is so boring! Do you not have anything more fun? I don’t like hero stories.

Jasper: So you want something more kiddy? You are really childish, you know?

Hendrik: What did you say!?

[Both laugh.]

－End.－

#dragon quest #dragon quest xi #dq11 #hendrik #jasper #Warning: It is sad

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rrrawrf-writes · 4 years

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lordy lordy loo it’s been a hot minute since i’ve made an original post, i forgot where the button was

so. some of you may have seen the stuff running around about violetvineyard and mvcreates, some of you may not have. i’m just gonna lay out my experiences here, now that other people are talking about it and now that the server has been deleted. i’m gonna try to present a fair and nuanced version; i’m not gonna include screenshots (right now) bc i’m lazy, mostly.

there are several other people who are putting up way better breakdowns than i am. i just figured i might as well toss mine onto the pile bc why not? but if you’re hoping to hear from me a story about how i’ve been wronged, per se, you won’t find much of one, because i played mainly a spectator role, and never had much trouble there. i will have a vague, lukewarm defense of some of the people involved that other people may not agree with, but again, this is all just the whole VV deal from my point of view.

@nuwuhorizons (i haven’t said how dang much i lOVE your url) and @sapiencenotes have very good receipts and breakdowns. if you want a more in-depth (and dramatic, forgive me for using the word, i’m not trying to downplay this), check them out. @time-to-write-and-suffer also has some great stuff on their blog about all of this.

all righty. so. i joined VV not right at the beginning, but soon after it was started. there was an application process, i got accepted, i was looking for a community to help me start writing more. (it didn’t help, but that’s not their fault, that’s mine.) the person who owned the server was called mina, and on tumblr, mina’s url was mvcreates. mina is a nonbinary Muslim woman of color, a professional who i believe works at harvad and deals a lot with things like infectious diseases, iirc. she was doing a whole lot of work when the pandemic came around, and so the past few months wasn’t quite as active as she had been at the start, both on the server and tumblr.

the very first time mina came on my radar, before i joined vv, was because she had corrected someone’s typo on a post, and it stirred up a minor drama about “don’t give unsolicited criticism” and “is pointing out minor errors like that okay” and blahblahblah. i ran across that on a friend’s dash, and also ran across the promo for vv from that friend’s dash, as well, and joined bc y not.

everything was p cool for a while. it was nice to meet some new people and some of my mutuals on there. mina seemed like a fun person. she was about a year, year and a half, maybe, older than i am. the first things that kind of started rubbing me wrong at the start was how she would kind of dismiss suggestions for the server than i and a friend had, and how she kept bringing up her age - she would often say things like “well i wouldn’t do that but i’m an Old(TM) so maybe i just don’t get it” and i can’t really explain why that bothered me. i think it felt dismissive, like Younger Folks Don’t Know How Things Should Work. also, like. she kept bringing it up. as if it meant something, as if plenty of us on that server weren’t actually around her age. there was a convo on vaccinations where i wanted to make the point that a lot of anti-vaxxers should be educated instead of ridiculed and shamed, but i never really got to making that point bc she jumped in very sharply and explained that anti-vaxxers all come from a class of people who are generally educated. i didn’t bother saying anything else.

at the start, it was tiny little things like that. i chalked it up to her personality and mine just not quite matching up. i sat down a lot and examined my own internal biases, bc i knew something was bugging me, but i couldn’t tell if it was legitimate, or if i was jealous and petty, or if i was being discriminatory towards her identity. i still wonder that a lot; i want to be careful that i’m examining her actions here, and not the person who made those actions.

because the other thing that bothered me was that she was perfect at pretty much everything. she was a decent, if not good, writer, from what i read. i thought her “art”/edits were neat, even if sometimes i looked at them going “that just looks like an edit, not your own art, but u kno, edits are art too, so i’m not gonna say anything.” she had a lot of motivation, a lot of ambition. soon, this kind of transferred over into me feeling like she acted like she had to be perfect at everything. i think this is probably one of the more “lisa is just being petty” things, rather than a judgement on her character, but she seemed to flaunt her own skills and accomplishments a lot. not that no one is allowed to brag sometimes! but it was just another layer of “this bothers me.”

then there was the hero worship.

people in the server loved mina. i liked her. i had no problems with her, even if there were a few things i was a little “ehhhh” about. vv got pretty big, pretty quickly, and i assume there was a decent amount of turnover and people who just joined to lurk or sometimes share things in the promos channel or elsewhere. but the most active folks just. they adored mina with every fiber of their being. mina could do no wrong. no one ever called her out on anything; everything she did was hailed as fantastic and wonderful. and honestly, for the most part, it wasn’t like she was doing crappy stuff. some of the praise was well-deserved, imo, but it just bordered on embarrassing for some of these people, how much they just worshipped the ground she walked on.

and she didn’t really like, discourage it. like, at the start, i think i remember her being more modest, but in general, she just let it go, and so did i, bc like. i aint that kinda jerk.

the stated purpose of violetvineyard was to have a community that valued reciprocity. reciprocity was mina’s biggest thing. there was a channel for people to post their stuff on, so the rest of us could browse and read and reblog. i, admittedly, didn’t do as much of that as i wish i did, but part of it was because i do have a life outside of the internet, a memory and attention span the size of a gnat, and because like. 90% of the stuff that people put in the promos channel were things like edits, writeblr intros, wip intros, etc etc, when all i wanted was to just read some actual writing. but that’s neither here nor there. what got hilarious to me, though, was whenever mina’s fervent admirers would talk about how mina was, quote, a pillar of the community. how vv was doing something No Other Writeblr Group Had Done Before. how Important and Special this server was.

folks. i’ve been on here for several years now. we don’t have a community. we have a bunch of little cliques who reblog from their friends and complain about people not reblogging them. noah fence, but come on. vv got pretty dang big, but it was still a small corner of a small section of tumblr. like. sorry, all y’all, but them’s the breaks.

also, this was hilarious to me bc there are several big writeblrs who have been running around long before mina and vv showed up. yet, according to these people in the server, mina had Single-handedly Brought Hope To This Desolate Wasteland.

in the end, vv became just another little clique whose members reblogged from their friends. i don’t want to devalue the good that did come out of vv. a lot of the picture being painted rn was that the majority of the server were scary dog-piling people. the majority of the server were just writeblrs looking to promo their stuff and talk about their writing. unfortunately, few bad apples, bad rep, negatives outshine positives, etc etc. but i think it did do some good re: exposure for a few folks, even tho it didn’t turn into what it could have been.

another one of the things that was a minor irritant to me was that they eventually started archiving the vent channel, which was probably the most-used channel. that didn’t sit right to me, but as always, i was a coward had nothing to say about it, so i didn’t. the reason given was that there were often things in the vent channel that people might regret being there, so it was periodically archived and a fresh channel started.

so i’m rambling a lot about stuff that’s probably boring and inconsequential. that’s 90% of this whole vv thing, tho, you need to understand that.

the biggest thing that bothered me about mina, i think, came about from the constant hero worship from her adoring fans. and i know there’s a whole argument to be said about expecting labor from people with marginalized identities, which is an argument i agree with - don’t expect someone of a minority group to educate you or to face trauma or to shut down bigots, etc etc. but by now, mina had a lot of followers in general, and in specific, she had quite a few people who would defend her at every single perceived slight.

she made a lot of those fun writeblr reblog games, like “send me a fruit that says this about my writing.” those were cool, i’ll admit that. but she was super into “you have to send an ask to the person you reblog from, RECIPROCITY!!!!!!!!!!!” and seemed to struggle with the fact that sometimes, people don’t follow her established rules on her posts for these games. she’d complain about it every single time that happened in the vent channel, which, again, that’s fine? that’s what vents are for, it’s annoying to not get cool fun asks when you do these games, but also, that’s life for you. she could depend on her fans to send her plenty of asks, whereas the much smaller blogs who reblogged these games would probably get f-all, half the time. if you’ve gone through nuwuhorizons or one of the other blogs i mentioned earlier, you’ll have run across the incident where mina’s friends harrassed an 11 year old for not doing her ask game right.

an eleven year old.

and this is my biggest grief with mina. she only stopped her friends from dogpiling people... once? maybe twice? that i remember. and not only that, but there were SEVERAL occasions where she would get on the vent channel, complain about someone who had said something wrong on one of her posts (and sometimes, again, these were legitimate!), and then ask if someone in the server wanted to reply to them. reasons for such ranged from “i’m too busy rn” to “they would probably listen more to a white person than me.”

again. this, on occasion, is not necessarily a bad thing. we cannot expect labor and response from minorities. my issue was that she kept doing this. and sometimes it was fine, just someone who would drop a note on the post or send a polite anon. but this, to me, the whole asking someone else to fight your battles for you? that really bothered me. mina is a grown adult. either ignore it, like the rest of us chumps, or deal with it yourself. having friends support you is not a bad thing - if i was attacked on tumblr and my friends jumped in to defend me, i’m cool with that. but i wouldn’t ask them to, and then not do anything myself.

to me, this attitude just encourages dogpiling. this felt like she was taking advantage of the people admiring her so whole-heartedly, and using them to deal with minor grievances. (again, i don’t want to downplay some of the actual racism and xenophobia she experienced on this website, because there was some pretty sketchy stuff that did need someone else stepping in to object to. but then there was “ugh this person asked me what program i use to make my music and i don’t want to answer them bc that’s rude,” and stuff of that caliber. like, mina, you built yourself a pretty big following here on tumblr, you don’t get to complain when people are trying to ask you questions and engage with you when you set yourself up as a knowledgeable person on a subject.)

i’m going to mention @gingerly-writing because she already made a post on the subject, but there was an instance where we were in the vent channel and watched a lot of mina’s friends send anons and reblogs of a hurtful nature to one person. eventually, ginger stepped in to say “hey, i don’t think we need to keep doing this, they are a minor,” and after she did so, i also jumped in, saying something along the lines of, “yeah, i’ve seen this kind of stuff blow up in another server and end in a really regrettable situation where no one was happy, can we stop.” both ginger and i received a private message from the mods (individually) saying that we shouldn’t police the chat, etc etc. not during that message, but on the vent channel, another mod jumped in to say that the people dogpiling the blogger were also minors. as if that makes it okay, and isn’t actually extremely worrying in its own right.

after that, i pretty much took a stance of “all right then i just won’t say anything at all.” i stuck around vv because i hated myself actually really liked a few of the others in the server, including a couple of the mods who are actually really cool people, not all the vv mods are sketch, and because honestly? i lowkey knew that vv was going to crash and burn sometime, and i wanted to be there to watch what happened. due to the pandemic, and her line of work, mina became less active, and the whole server died down a bit.

then someone reblogged one of mina’s ‘art’ posts and accused her of tracing. mina’s admirers immediately jumped into action. nuwuhorizons has it pretty well documented on their blog. there was nothing in the server about it, except one of the others said “oh man i saw that and it pissed me off,” there was some minor chat, and then i woke up and wanted to know what had happened, and was told “don’t worry about it.”

so, naturally, bc the only thing i thirst for is water and Drama(TM), i went looking for it.

found it on some of mina’s friend’s blogs, where i found who had reblogged and said mina was tracing, and followed those reblog chains, where several of mina’s followers attacked the accuser and made fun of their name and age and defended mina, pulling out progress videos and stuff of mina’s work. the accuser was trans and still a teenager, even if technically an adult, so that made things a lot worse. mina eventually posted something explaining that she was pencil tracing and had a very cheery, false-positive tone to the whole thing.

things sorta ended at that, but then maybe the same day, or the day after, user hyba made that big ol post about the Big Scary Tumblr Mirror Website Copying All Your Good, Hard Work. mina and her friends jumped on this. they threw it in the server and talked about things like intellectual property rights and “i don’t like how this makes me feel :(” and from there, went in to how tumblr was a terrible garbage site and then mina and most of the mod team decided that it was time to pack up VV and leave tumblr completely.

pretty much everyone i know were mina’s besties have vanished off tumblr. mina made an announcement that VV was “migrating” off tumblr and discord(???) and dropped another application to join the great vv migration. i did not apply bc i just have too freaking much going on in my life and needed to get out of this for the sake of my own mental health. it was tempting as hell, tho, i will say that.

a couple things about this - at the time, mina is also having some pretty bad things going on in her family. she was very vague on the details, but i think that really contributed to wanting to leave; on top of the pandemic and everything else, she was probably heckin stressed. but also like. she never called out her followers for attacking her accuser. she never made any sort of post talking about it. she never told her friends on the server “hey don’t do that.” she never took accountability for it, or, honestly, for anything else she or her friends have done that didn’t feel too good. the mirror sites aren’t really a big deal.

after the server was archived, it was left up a couple days so everyone could grab contact info, etc. during this time, i was checking the ‘violetvineyard’ tag and saw someone post “what happened to mvcreates they haven’t answered my application to vv,’ and i responded with “oh, the server closed down bc of the copy cat sites.”

the same day, i got a tumblr DM from one of the former mods asking me not to give away any details about vv leaving tumblr. it was very politely worded and everything, but it was still just like

okay? vv is over? why are you asking me not to say anything. and it wasn’t like i was even spilling any hot goss, i was just repeating the excuse (and i do mean excuse) mina gave us.

anyway, that mod is off tumblr, too, as far as i know, or else they stealthin. which is fine, u do u, buddy.

uhh conclusion time, i guess? i have a few scattered screenshots of things, but i’m not posting em bc i’m lazy and also running late for a thing. but really, for me, i didn’t have a whole lot of beef with mina or pretty much any of the other folks on vv. i thought that mina and her friends were a bit too eager for blood, and that really bothered me. i’m annoyed they shut down vv completely, because it could actually have been something great. if mina wanted off writeblr, i wish she had given the whole network over to people interested in running it; instead, what was a good thing for a lot of people is now completely gone, with no existing framework for people to build on. sure, anyone can go make their own network/family for writeblr, but now it’s just going to splinter into a bunch of different, smaller groups, and we’re all back to square one.

but whatever. i didn’t get to see the server go down in flames, instead it just ended with a hasty retreat and a few whimpers, and quite honestly i wished my staying in had paid off.

i do want to reiterate - there were quite a few people in vv who i think are great, and this does include some of the mods themselves.

i’ve also gotten a couple messages from a few other folks who had been in vv who have their own real, real sketch stories, which are making me rethink how i feel about mina and her friends, and all the good credit i gave them. i just wanted to present this bc it’s my blog and i do what i want, fight me.

and if anyone wants to chat about vv, hit me up. i keep things as private as you want them to be, and i love love love talking about this nonsense. Give Me The Deets.

#violetvineyard #vv drama #long post #sorry not sorry #i just wanted to give a touch more balanced view on vv #i have a few other things i could talk about but none are really worth the effort

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thoschei-rights · 4 years

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Season 12 but The Master kept pretending to be O??

Basically self-indulgent Thoschei with a twist.

lots of typos bc?? i aint got time to go correct stuff yet? I will later??

So Spyfall is resolved, The Kasaavin are banished back to their realm and the Fam and Doctor are clueless as to the true mastermind, Barton taking the fall while the Master continues to pose ad O, having decided he’s enjoying the game of tricking her too much.

Perhaps among their texts they’ve grown close, or perhaps the brief time together in the outback led to events?? ;) But either way, he changes his mind mid plan and continues to act human.

Since he never leaves the message or has the confrontation in Paris, the doctor remains unaware of Gallifrey’s destruction. The fam wait off on asking their questions since she isn’t off with them.

Orphan 55 happens, and while the fam go do their shit, O stays with the Doctor bc admit it, she was like oh ;-; when everyone went to explore. My poor baby. So they hang out together before everything goes to shit, how cute?? Things get resolved, but with the revelation of one of earth’s potential fates, and the potential that the doctor lied about knowing, the fam decide to ask to know more about her. She shares what she believes its true at the time, being born on gallifrey and being a timelord, O looms in the background looking awkward bc he knows none of that is true and he feels horrible keeping the truth from her, it makes him as bad as the rest of the time lords- but he is selfish and he doesn’t want to stop what he’s doing, he’s started to really enjoy her company, its everything he’s ever wanted, every star.

And then it’s ruined when Yaz asks to see her own planet. Blissfully unaware of its destruction, she takes them, and so they’re right there with her when she sees, opens the doors to the rubble, the dying flames- and oh god. The fam are horrified, she’s horrified, O has to fake it, while being utterly glad those nasties are dead- maybe he gets to sneakily comfort hug her??? like she’s trying not to tear up even after that whole shit show of the confession dial, it was her home??so yeah he’s like hugging her but he’s so angry bc they dont deserve her tears??

The doctor is off after that, and the fam know why, and none of their words of comfort do much, because sure they’ve just witnessed the death of earth too but that is just one timeline, can be completely avoided, while gallifrey is gone forever, and she believes she’s once more the last of her kind. it hurts.

they visit tesla all the same, and when that big ass scorpion looking alien (bc im sorry i didnt like the episode and i’ve forgotten her name so....) mentions dead planets, she can feel the fam stiffen, as though the doctor is gonna blow at any minute, but she keeps calm, tries to bury the rage, but O can tell, can tell by the way her arms shake, hands clenched into fists in her pockets- and it hurts him to see her like this- the longer he spends around her, pretending to be someone he’s not, he’s just realizing more and more what a dumbass he is and that he’s still as in love with her now than he was all those years ago in the academy- none of the truth will change that-

and then boom the shit show with the judoon occurs and suddenly O is confused af because that Lee guy could ONLY have been him. Who else on gallifrey was stupid enough to hide out with the doctor, marry them and die for them?? him because he’s a dumbass? but he’s a dumbass who definitely doesnt remember this memories?? which theoretically in the doctors timeline should have been sometime after the division? or during? he’s not sure? but to his knowledge he shouldn’t have been alive at this stage? and now he’s not sure what the fuck HIS own life is too? did they take his memories from him too? has he lost part of his life? suddenly the truth doesnt seem as known as he thought- so while the doctor is reeling from the information of Ruth being her somehow? O is having his own mental crisis because what the fuck did they do to him too? what is he missing??

praxeus continues as similar as it did originally, O is only the tiniest impressed at Yaz, ever since Spyfall he’d sensed she was the human with the most potential to not be utterly worthless so he’s glad at least one of the doctors latest pets seems to have some initiative?? but yeah i dont wanna change much about praxeus? its not important- except the doctor saying she’s a romantic and the master wants that? wait what- he’s conflicted about his own thoughts? he wanted to break her, destroy her with the truth? but he also just wants to wrap her in his arms? make everything as okay as he can? what the fuck is even happening with him? jsut your usual ‘im a mess’ vibes lmao

when can you hear me? rolls around, it happens in a similar way, i dont wanna get to into it because i dont wanna think too much...the episode was weird, it was just weird-- i cant?? although maybe bc that zellin and the lady whose name i forgot...but they were immortal right?? maybe their species is the doctors species?? huh? huh? think about that- but don’t think too hard bc i hate that theory and i’m gonna pretend i never had that thought- lets just ignore can you hear me even though the end made me cry for yaz bc lol relatable sis, relatable. do whatever you want for this bit fam, idc.

Anyyyyyway. the bit I’m waiting for... Villa Diodati ;) O is ready to smack Byron round the face, fingers itching towards the tce everytime he tries to flirt with the doctor. the lone cyberman appears and wopdie doo earth is going to be destroyed and the doctor is about to do something stupid, thinking there is no other way? the master is like um lol change of plans i dont want the cybermen to win, look how in pain my baby theta is?? i gotta help?? oof? and idk, his patience is like nope all gone? and he whips out his TCE on the lone cyberman and boom. crisis averted? except now the doctor is looking at him in horror and shock and- she realizes who he is then and there, and normally he’d made a big drama out of his, throw in some words, a speech about how easy it was to deceive her, how he destroyed gallifrey- about how he was under her nose this whole time- but he doesn’t, instead he meets her gaze and can barely manage to whisper an “im sorry” and wow shit i wasn’t gonna write that version, i was gonna have feral confrontation but now im stanning a sad master who just needs a hug and some therapy because nothing makes sense, he thought he had everything figured out but he doesnt and he just wANTS HIS FRIEND BACK uiferkghlujkfaghjfkgladhfajkg; i m fine

i dont know what i wanna do after this point? it could go a lot of different ways?? but thoschei rights bitches. could go angst confrontation and then she abandons him in whatever century that was set bc wow i studied frankenstein in school but i couldnt tell you what century the author is from bc im dumb? 18th? maybe idk that seems likely? or 19th? but anyway yeah or maybe she’s just relieved someone else is alive? or is she shouting for answers or?? i dunno.... but woop ???

wow this turned into a big mess but hopefully you can kinda see where i wanna head with things? after this he’d probably show her the truth? i dunno how that’d go down, but he’d be there with her?? But anyway, this idea is free for anyone to write, but holla us a link and I'll give yall a free promo at the end of this post!!

Versions of this that yall Lovelies have blessed us with:

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thepointoftheneedle · 4 years

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I thought I’d make my life harder by making all my drabbles into little updates on my other fics. So this is for the PROM/GRADUATION prompt and it’s my version of Betty and Jug from Dazed With Moonlight It’s 100 words...but they wouldn’t let me go without writing the other prompts which are below the break...

“Sorry Betts. I can’t.” He looked upset. He ran his long fingers through his hair.

“But I don’t understand why. What’s the problem?” She’d been looking forward to it so much, beautiful dress, hot boyfriend.

“It’s in the fucking gym.”

“Look I know sports, coordination, is a problem. You were a cat for sixty years. It’ll take some adjustment.”

“The centre circle,” he mumbled, ashamed.

At last she understood. When a cat sees a circle they are compelled to stand in it, powerless to move.

“It’s a good thing I’m in charge of decorations then,” she grinned, googling drop cloths.

Two Truths And A Lie

She sat on the bed, papers, files, books, post-its strewn around her, her hair scraped into a ponytail so tight that it made his head ache in sympathy. “You need to take a break Betts. You can’t do five AP classes, run the Blue and Gold and learn all there is to know about casting in the same year. No-one could.”

“And compile the yearbook and chair the prom committee and try to seduce my tease of a boyfriend.”

“I told you. Nothing will give me greater pleasure than to deflower you in a very thorough way once you’re a legal adult with a high school diploma. I’m eighty Betts. It’s creepy by any measure but an octogenarian sexing a high schooler is just so wrong.”

“The cat years don’t count. If we just count human years you’re what? Nineteen?”

“Nineteen in October.”

“Next month? What date? We’ll have a huge party, I’ll organise it. I could bake a cake.”

“Betts, stop. You can’t take on any more. Anyway I’d rather not make it a whole thing. It just reminds me that I’m way too old for you. Double feature, popcorn, you in a low cut top is all I need to be perfectly content. Now, I’m going to give you an hour to wrap all this up and then we’re going to Pop’s for milkshakes. No arguments.”

When they arrived Archie and Veronica were already in a booth, Veronica laughing and Archie looking frustrated. “What’s up?” asked Jug looking from one to the other.

“We’re playing two truths and a lie. Archie just lost because he didn’t believe that my sister is a PI in Florida.”

“You’ve never once mentioned a sister in the eight months we’ve been dating. How can you suddenly have a sister?” Archie wailed.

“OK Betty, your turn,” Veronica laughed.

“Umm, OK. Jughead’s eighty years old, I’m a witch and he’s upset with me because I won’t throw him a birthday party.”

“No Betty. Two truths and a lie. And you have to make it hard to guess. Honestly, haven’t you ever played this game before? Torombolo, do you want me to organise the soiree for your cumpleaños?”

_______________________________________________________________________

Chatroom

Betty knocked “Shave and a haircut” at the trailer door and Jug called “It’s open Betts” and closed the lid of his laptop as she came in. “Not more cat porn Jug?”

“It’s not porn. Lots of people like cat videos. I will not be shamed.”

“You know I was into you when you were a cat, so kink same not kink shame. But here’s your girl trying so hard to get into your jeans and you’re drooling over pretty kitties online.”

“Hey, I wasn’t even watching cat vids. I was chatting to some of the guys. Just gets a bit irritating when they keep making typos but I know it’s tough with paws. And Silas has to really jump on the keys, Nana Blossom can’t help him at all.”

“What, you talk to other familiars online? Like a chatroom? Is there a witch one?”

“I guess. Agnes wasn’t all that into keeping in touch with other witches and she never really got into tech stuff so I don’t know. You want I should ask the guys?”

“Yeah, I’d really like witch pals to vent with. Ask them next time. For now I want you to pay attention to me. Shall I play with a ball of yarn to get you interested or shall I just take off my top?”

“You, Cooper, are a witch.”

“Correct,” she smiled, unbuttoning her blouse.

#bughead drabble challenge #bughead fanfiction #dazed with moonlight

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monst · 4 years

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Omg omg omg. Pls. Feed us league of villains with their s/o’s wild ass family on thanksgiving. I’m sorry i need this in my life and you seemed like the best Person in the world to write this. I give you my soul. I give it to you. Take it.

Lol thank you for your soul but, I really don’t know where to store it……

It’s a Mad house!

LOV Members that make an appearance – Shigaraki, Dabi, Toga, Spinner, Kurogiri, Twice, Compress, and You!!

Warnings: Pure ridiculousness, suggestive comments?, cursing but you guys know that. And crude/dark jokes. - Also, I know you wanted the LOV with their s/o but it wasn’t specific. Which members did you want? All of them? Including those that were arrested? (Or died…) New faces in the PLF? Also, it’s kinda thanksgiving today I really would have liked more time to do this, so I hope you don’t mind If I tweak your request a bit since I don’t want to put out tomorrow or ignore it. Basically it’s rushed... (Pls forgive me for the mistakes and typos I wrote most of this on my phone since my laptop died,…)

Inviting the league over to your place for thanksgiving.

You had been in the league for a while now. A strong competent member who always prioritized the mission. Just like a few of the other members you had joined the league under the impression that they were carrying out Stain’s vision. You quickly found out that that wasn’t the case. You could have left but the days spent in the dingy pub surrounded by them grew on you and, you couldn’t imagine your life without them anymore.

The league was more than just a job, or you listening to your rat boss. They were family now, especially with what you all had been through. Now that wasn't to say that you had no blood relatives but, it was nothing as tight nit as your relationship with the league. However, out of common courtesy you would visit them during the holidays.

Thanksgiving was one of said holidays. And when you had asked Shiragaki for the day off he wasn't exactly pleased. He made it clear that he didn't want you to go and stated his resentment of the holiday. Until you had invited him over….. You really didn't want to hear your family complain about you not going and Shiragaki had finally agreed after your invitation. It was the lesser evil right???

Wrong. Shiragaki blabbed to everyone while you guys were hanging in the bar the Wednesday before Turkey day. "Kurogiri. Attend to all that needs to be done tomorrow." And, when asked why; he had the smuggest of grins on his face "I was invited to a Thanksgiving dinner. Unlike you (Name) and I have plans."

They were the words to start a war. Toga immediately coming up to you to complain about how you hadn't invited her and how unfair it was. Spinners eyes squinted at you in contempt and Dabi was unfiltered as always. "Tryna get brownie points huh? (Name) sure 'Thanksgiving dinner' if you guys wanted to fuck tomorrow you could have used a better excuse. Your obviously lying doll as if you'd have-" He was cut off by one of the more rational members. "Your jealousy is rolling off in waves." Compress cut off.

Sadly it only got worse. "Why is it a problem if we weren't invited? Your such an asshole why him?" Twice had interjected. The bar was so loud you actually feared heroes would be called and the league would be arrested. That would be a shitty way to lose to the heroes. Arguing about Thanksgiving no less……

Finally the most respected member spoke. Kurogiri easily diffused the situation and you don't know how but it ended with you inviting them all over….. It was gonna be a blast! You tried convincing yourself drowning down another shot. Maybe if you drank enough you'd get alcohol poisoning and be exempted from attending….

When you arrived at your family's apartment you were received normally. "Got any cash kiddo?" "Did you finally get a man?" "You look like shit what have you been doing?" "Wanna smoke a blunt later?" And your personal favorite "Why are you dressed like a cheap whore? All were doing is eating and making sure your uncle doesn't get wasted and feel up the neighbor again."

The table was already set. All the food spread out hazardously on the table some plates threatening to soil the floor with a swan dive. Still there was no sign of any of your friends. You hoped they wouldn't come but as luck would have it just as you were about to sit a sharp knock echoed on the door. "Is that Karl?" "No you idiot he was arrested last week for arson. (Name) here invited friends as if we needed any more mouths to feed." You could almost cry.

When the door was finally opened your impatient boss's face was the first thing you saw. You couldn't help the smile on your face. He had actually made an effort in presenting himself. Kurogiri was with him and you thanked the world for allowing Kurogiri life since he was smart enough not to come empty handed. The smile was immediately wiped off your face when you noticed how your uncle was eyeing Shiragaki. Lord if that man spoke you had no doubt that Shiragaki would level the place. So you rushed to introduce them. "Hey! Thanks for coming! Guys this is my boss! You know the very distinguished, powerful, lots of money type boss." You hissed with narrowed eyes hoping they got the message.

Your aunt sure did. "What a handsome mist man. Is this your son? He's ...quite the looker!" She wasted no time in pulling her shirt lower to show her cleavage winking at a mifted Kurogiri. Polite as ever he corrected her saying that Shiragaki was his ward and the original boss of the 'company' he also gave them the very expensive bottles of liquor he had brought in.

You quickly received an elbow to your ribs once they were seated. Your aunt narrowed her eyes down at you whispering advice to you harshly about how you should seduce your boss….

You couldn't help but roll your eyes. Jolting when the door was knocked again…. There stood a well dressed Dabi, Toga and Spinner. This time your male cousin spoke. "Why the fuck do you look like a shitty version of Sally from the nightmare before Christmas." You paled fearing that he'd burn your favorite cuz to a crisp. All was silent until Shiragaki snorted prompting everyone to laugh. Your cousin rolled his eyes at his mother's awful cackle. Awkward chuckles left you. You felt cold sweat start to form. How the hell were you to survive the rest of the dinner???

Your female cousin eyed Toga down a scowl on her face. She upturned her nose when the blond sat across from her. Toga stroked the silverware on the table and you felt sweat trickle down your forehead. This family dinner was going to end in a mascare. "Oh (Name) never mentioned they had such a cute cousin." Toga beamed at the girl. You shot your female cousin 'the look's and she rolled her eyes and placed a fake smile on her face allowing you to breathe easy as Toga stopped her knife stroking.

"So fucked up Sally what happened to you." Your unfiltered cousin asked. The smirk on Dabi's face was giving you anxiety and you caught a break as Spinner interrupted with a simple two word answer. "Fire accident." Dabi just rolled his eyes wrinkling his nose in disgust as your aunt flirted with Kurogiri. Sadly dinner didn't go smoothly since your uncle decided to open the hole that was his mouth.

“I’ve heard lizards have to dicks that true? Bet ya it’s really good when your with the ladies. If they wanna be with ya since your face-” He was cut off by you slamming down your hand on the table. You sent him a heated glare making him roll his eyes and pipe down. That was when you looked to the side and noticed your female cousin eyeing Dabi…. Then he made a gross hand gesture… the finger in the ring one…….

Was it too late to quit the league? Sadly you didn’t get to entertain the thought because hopefully for the last time the door was being knocked on. You had to get away so you opened the door to a well Dressed Mr. Compress and Twice. Before you could greet them your aunt zoned in on Mr. Compress and quickly shoved you away making Twice jump back in horror.

“(Name) you never told me you had such nice rich friends.” She cooed latching onto his arm to sit him on her side so she was sandwiched between Kurogiri and him. You sent Twice an apologetic glance. When you all FINALLY sat down to eat things were a bit more tame. Until comments on the food were thrown around.

“Is the food to your liking Tomura?” Kurogiri asked. Your boss just nodded not bothering to answer. Hell he didn’t care at all that your family consisted of a bunch of loons he was getting food. It was getting to be a bit scarce due to the restriction of their budget. Shiragaki came for one thing and one thing only; the food.

“This is really good! Tastes like shit!” Twice had chimed in prompting an argument. It consisted of how your uncle was a shit cook who mashed the potatoes wrong to how it was your aunt who made the turkey. Kurogiri and Mr. Compress only shared an amused look as she boasted about herself. Both knowing that she was obviously mistaken on their wealth.

You shot Dabi a look when he had excused himself to use the bathroom. It also wasn’t long before your female cousin had said she was going to go check on him…. That was thirty minutes ago……

Toga entertained herself by watching you suffer. Every time a family member of yours did or said something embarrassing she’d look to you and laugh. Your expressions were so funny. Especially when your aunt kept insinuating you hook up with Shigaraki the heir.. “I wish Big sis Magne was still here. She would have loved this!”

Your male cousin took a quick interest in Spinner after an interesting chat while you had dinner. They both sat on the couch as Spinner explained the process of molting. You sent him a teasing grin when he moved closer to Spinner in fascination. “Okay so I know you’ve got to dicks and, you molt but are you also affected by the temperature?” Needless to say Spinner was quite content with the attention.

You sat with Toga who was now glued to her phone since everything had seemed to calm down. You were both surprised and relieved. You had expected things to be much worse. With a full stomach you moved from Toga’s side to sit next to a full and sleepy Shigaraki. “So… how as it?” You asked. “The food wasn’t terrible. You get together with them every holiday right?” You nodded. “Good, because you're also inviting me for Christmas.”

Watching the league play nice with your family was oddly filling. Your blood relatives getting along with your other ‘family’. Well that was what this holiday was about right? Getting together with friends and family and making the most of- Your train of thought was cut off as silence filled the room. Your uncle was halfway out the door, you knew he was heading to the neighbors apartment obviously drunk but- “Fuck! Uncle! Where the hell are your clothes!!!”

It’s still thanksgiving for some of you so

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

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persephonescat · 4 years

Text

Birds and Other Supernatural Phenomenons

Hiiii! This is… long. Probably the longest chapter I’m going to have, but it’s all only one scene and I just couldn’t cut it in half. Thank you for your comments! They make my whole week! Some of you pointed out a few mistakes in the last chapter, I hope it’s all good now! ^^ And please tell me if there are any weird sentences or typos or anything. Multiple people told me that the last chapter’s storm came very suddenly, so I re-read the sixth chapter and as it turns out, the sentence about the weather was lost in the editing. It all looked very dark and moody in my head, so I didn’t notice there was no description of it. Thank you for telling me, I’m definitely going to correct that.

(I think we should call this fic BaOSP in the future when we’re just talking about it in the comments or on Discord or just in general, bc this title is really long… The title and the tags will stay the same of course, it’s just that from now on, BaOSP is the official (???) shortened version of it.)

Damian meets Marinette, I REPEAT, DAMIAN MEETS MARINETTE.

Ch. 1 Previous Masterpost AO3

________________

Ch. 8: Lord Annoyance

It was Monday night and Damian Wayne already hated the week.

Tim finally passed out on Saturday and did nothing but sleep all weekend, so on one hand, now he was capable of speaking in full sentences. On the other hand, all of his sentences were about the process of etching and nobody knew why, so it wasn’t any less problematic.

Dick came home with several holes in his shoe and refused to speak about it.

Jason didn’t eat anything but pork for a week straight and this morning he swore to go vegetarian.

Bruce was in the process of finding new hobbies - Tim said it was midlife crisis, Jason said the old man was finally going crazy and Cass was out of town, so she just yelled at them via video chat. Barbara and Steph laughing their asses off every time the topic came up didn’t help either, but after seeing the anvil in the living room while going to get breakfast, Damian was starting to agree with Jason.

On top of it all, some idiot under the name of Dark Nomad killed a chicken, painted obscene pictures on the walls of one of Bruce’s apartments with its blood, then for some reason, they stole some garden interior and part of the fence. Just fantastic.

And guess who had to track him down and arrest him? Robin. Because his family was a bunch of freaking sadists.

On top of it all, when he finally arrived on the rooftop where the petty villain was spotted two days in a row, the idiot wasn’t alone.

Robin landed quietly, hid behind a metal staircase leading the upper parts of the building and stopped to listen to the conversation going down between the two shadowy forms. He was already planning revenge in the back of his mind - it would’ve been ridiculously easy to poison at least two out of his three brothers. Not too badly but enough for them to have an unpleasant couple of days.

“Did you manage to sleep during the day, or should I be worried about you suddenly falling down from here because of exhaustion?” one of the forms asked flatly, a young girl sitting on the edge of the roof. She looked tiny compared to the Nomad sitting beside her, but she didn’t seem to be afraid at all. Her body language was taunting and open, her dark hair shimmered in the light coming from the streets below as she turned her head towards the boy. She had a slight French accent.

“Nah, I had double English in the afternoon, so I’m good,” the Nomad said, playing with a stray thread on his hoodie. “You?”

“I slept on the bus…” the girl started, trailing off. She tilted her head, concentrating on something. “Could you give me a minute?” she asked, standing up. For a moment, Damian felt relieved. She was already leaving.

Then she turned towards him.

She could’ve just heard something. She could’ve just checked out the area. It could’ve been a coincidence, but she was staring right at him, even though he was sure he wasn’t visible in the dark.

She walked towards his hiding place with no hesitation or fear. He was standing there motionlessly as she got closer. He studied her form, looking for weapons and weak points. She was wearing a warm cardigan with jeans and dark boots. He eyed her scarf and gloves suspiciously. It wasn’t that cold, but he didn’t see anything hidden in them.

Her red lipstick matched her scarf, her hair was tied into a loose braid coming forward at the side of her neck, dancing gracefully when a light breeze caught it. Her body language was still way too open and she foolishly grabbed the railing of the staircase before peeking behind it, leaving her torso even more vulnerable.

If he was ever planning on confronting her, he would’ve changed his mind after that. She was clearly harmless when it came to physical combat.

What the hell was she doing here, then?

“Can I help you?” she asked, looking at where his mask covered his eyes. Her voice was toneless and her accent was gone. Robin wondered if he was just imagining it earlier. Maybe he was too deep in his thoughts to pay attention.

It happened a lot nowadays. Him, getting lost in his thoughts and not paying attention. At first, it annoyed him - and scared the living daylight out of him, not as if he was about to tell that to anyone. Now he knew it was part of being human. It meant he was getting healthier, as Alfred put it. Making mistakes was part of life and he wanted to have a life, right?

Yes, he did.

Sometimes he looked at Bruce and his sorry brothers and realized that he already had a one. It made him feel weird. Happy, probably, but it was a new kind of happy. It made him want to smile at the most random times and help Alfred with chores. It made him have this… desire to go after Bruce when he disappeared to his garden to calm down, to bring home some donuts for Dick every time he passed that shop he liked, to take Jason to Disneyland on his birthday, to make Cass smile more often, to pull up the security footages from the Cave on his computer, so he could check on Tim without him knowing.

It was terrifying and he wouldn’t have changed it for anything in the world.

“Robin?” the girl asked impatiently. Damn, he zoned out. He cleared his throat, trying to find the right thing to say.

“Errm… do you realize you are sitting with a criminal?” Good job, Damian, your brothers would be proud. Why not ask her her favorite color too, maybe that will help. He was prepared to hear Jason’s amused words through the comms, but surprisingly, his brother stayed quiet.

“Are you concerned about my safety?” The girl narrowed her eyes.

He straightened his back and cleared his mind.

“Actually, I’m here to arrest the Dark Nomad,” he told her, trying to sound professional. Not as if it mattered anymore.

“Why?”

“Damaging private property, theft, and vandalism.”

“Could you elaborate? Picking flowers in a park could be considered all three of those.” Her voice was mocking now.

Damian stared at her. She was at least a head shorter than him, with no weapons. He was Robin. She was either incredibly dangerous or very stupid, and he had a hard time believing in the first scenario.

“He killed an animal, draw obscene pictures on the street with its blood, did damage that’s repairing will take hundreds of dollars, stole garden interior… should I continue?”

“When did he do all that?” the girl asked. She didn’t seem surprised at all.

“Why would I tell you?” frowned Robin. “I’m here to arrest him, that’s the only important thing.” Harmless or not, she was getting annoying.

“Well, you can’t legally make arrests given that you’re not a police officer, which means that you have absolutely no reason to be here. You might as well go home,” she explained simply. Her voice was toneless again, she spoke as if she was just stating facts, - which she did, after all.

Damian’s blood was starting to boil. Did the psychopaths roaming this city have a right to murder people? No. Did they have any right to hurt civilians? No. Was any of the things they did legal? No.

Who was this kid to come and tell him about rights, when his family seemed to be the only ones protecting them?

The girl was looking at him as if she was staring into his soul, then suddenly, she smirked.

“Not as if that would stop you,” she said, and Robin looked at her quizzically. “But I have a feeling that you’re after the wrong guy, so if you told me when he did all that, it would clear a few things.”

He was lost. What did this girl want? She was too weird to be stupid. She let the railing go now and was standing with her arms at her sides, her head slightly tilted.

“Today, between two and three AM,” he told her finally, curious about her reaction.

She stared right into his eyes, even though his mask was hiding them and said, “He was with me.”

Robin didn’t see anything about her body language betraying her, but she must’ve noticed he didn’t believe her because she continued.

“We were talking about Tamás Vekerdy and Bruno Bettelheim. They’re psychologists who often write about children. He arrived around midnight, and when he left it was already past five in the morning, so there is no way he could’ve done anything unless he has an evil twin.”

He scoffed angrily. When he spoke again, he was hissing the words from behind his clenched teeth.

“These things don’t take long. He might’ve just slipped away for a few minutes and came back, unless of course if you were in the same position for five hours.” He might’ve also growled a little. He was standing only inches from her now, looming over her.

“That’s not too hard to check, your Highness.” She cocked her head and held his gaze fearlessly. “Where did all this happen?”

He was about to bite back but he stopped abruptly.

Okay, so he might’ve been a little wrong. If the girl was telling the truth, the guy should’ve disappeared for at least one and a half hours to get to the scene from here. Not as if that meant anything, she could’ve easily lied. He just didn’t notice it.

A voice saved him from having to answer.

“Marinette? Is everything okay?” The Dark Nomad was walking towards them. When he noticed Robin, a terrified expression took over his confused one. He was about to go and stand between the girl and the vigilante when she lifted her arm to stop him, not moving her gaze away from Robin. The Nomad looked like a caged animal but didn’t try to fight her.

“Lord Annoyance here states that last night, you cloned yourself between The Book of Diaries and NurtureShock, and went to draw booties and steal a bunch of garden gnomes.”

The Nomad opened his mouth to say something but Robin beat him to it.

“Okay, so first of all, it wasn’t just "booties” and they were drawn with blood, which makes it considerably worse.“ Jason, who was listening to everything he said trough the comms the whole time, chose that moment to burst out laughing. He did his best to ignore him.

"Second of all, a lot of things were stolen, not just…” yep, that sentence was a bad idea, “Garden gnomes.”

“Why do you think he did it in the first place?” the girl, - Marinette cut back.

“It was private property. There was a camera.”

“Whose?”

He took a second to consider the possible fallback of the answer. The existence of Bruce Wayne wasn’t a secret. Neither was the fact that he owned multiple buildings around the city. Maybe it was going to scare the villain enough that he confesses.

“Bruce Wayne’s,” he said finally. The girl’s undisturbed expression made him feel uneasy. “Have you heard of him?”

“Oh, you mean that’s who the big ass tower in the middle of the city is named after? I thought it was the ship name of watery rain or way of pain or something.” Her words were dripping from sarcasm.

‘Who are you talking to? What did they say?’ asked Jason like an excited child but Damian once again ignored him.

“Well, I’m sorry, but his alibi is pretty shaky, you know. Villains can be very convincing here, in case you didn’t notice.” He didn’t think this guy could convince anyone, but it was possible.

“Yeah, his ski mask really makes me shake in fear,” Marinette said flatly.

The villain finally got a chance to say something but his moment didn’t last long.

“It’s not a-”

“Yes, it is. Shut up.” Marinette pinched the bridge of her nose. “He is wearing a hoodie and a mask ever since… birth, probably. How did anyone recognize him?”

“He left his signature,” Robin told her. He wasn’t even angry anymore, he was just very annoyed.

Marinette froze. She almost seemed to forget about Robin as she finally broke eye contact and turned around.

“You… have a signature?” she asked the Dark Nomad, who was still standing behind her, ready to jump at any moment.

He opened and closed his mouth a few times. It reminded Robin of a distressed duck.

“Kinda,” he said quietly.

“Why would you do that?” asked Marinette, gesticulating wildly.

“It’s part of the aesthetic, okay?” he explained with a hurt expression.

“Hey, I’m accusing you of a crime here!” reminded them Robin. This was taking way longer than he wanted it to.

Marinette once again turned to him, let out a deep breath and arranged her face into a more professional expression.

Finally.

“Right,” she started seriously. She gave him a second to compose himself, then continued. “Boobs.”

The Dark Nomad snorted, but Marinette just gave him an unimpressed look and let out an exasperated sigh.

“Okay, so tell Mr. Wayne, that he should be looking for another idiot because I was looking after this one at the time.”

Before he could answer, he heard Jason’s voice in his ear.

'There is a robbery going down at Chucko’s. I’m going in.’

Damian cursed quietly.

“Don’t. Wait for me. I’ll be there in two,” he told him, placing his fingers on the comm so the two people standing in front of him knew he wasn’t speaking to them.

“I have to go,” he told them quickly, then took off before they could do as much as blink.

***

Marinette ran after the vigilante but stopped at the edge of the roof. She saw a dark form jumping over rooftops. After a few seconds, it disappeared and relief rushed over her body.

She was way too tired to think about how she just got into an argument with one of Gotham’s heroes.

She closed her eyes and turned to go back to her room. She needed to sleep. A lot.

“You’re kinda terrifying when you’re sleep-deprived, did you know that?” said Jeremy, coming out from behind the metal staircase.

“I always am,” answered Marinette, still not opening her eyes.

“Do you mean terrifying or sleep-deprived?” asked Jeremy confusedly.

Marinette gave him a small wave, then climbed back to the hotel without a word.

________________

*Quiet chanting* comments, comments, comments

*Chanting intensifies* comMEnts, COMments, coMMENTS

*Thunder*

*The flattering of wings and the sounds of scared birds*

*Chanting* COMMENTS, COMMENTS, COMMENTS, COMMENTS

Ch. 1 Previous Masterpost AO3

Tag list: (You want to get on the tag list? Send a comment! You should be on the tag list but you aren’t? Send a comment! You would like to discuss world peace and/or brownies? Send a comment!)

@northernbluetongue @vgirl-10123 @theatreandcomicfreak @interobanginyourmom @crazylittlemunchkin @zerotosiki @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @my-name-is-michell @shreky-boi@coltaire @7-sage-7 @kris-pines04 @winter-gardenflower

#Birds and Other Supernatural Phenomenons #Lord Annoyance #maribat #marinette x damian #marinette dupain-cheng #damian x marinette #damari #damiette #daminette #damian wayne #batman #dcu #writerblr #fanfiction #mlb

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sparklyicecube · 4 years

Text

Houseki No Gift Exchange - A Gamer’s Christmas

To: @diisuke

From: @sparklyicecube

Merry Christmas~

“A Rutile, nice! Here Phos, take it. You could use a boost.”

“Nah, I know you’ve been eyeing that gem for your collection anyway.”

“Phos. You have 13hp left.”

“But Moony, it’s a Rutile though, I know you wanted to get at least one of these~"

“Fine! I’ll take it.”

“Yes, take it! I know you want it.”

“It is a really amazing item though; it can heal your hp and it’s super valuable…”

“Exactly, so take it!”

“I will!”

“Phosphophylitte! Are you flirting with your Moony-chan again?” Antarcticite’s voice rang out from beyond Phos’s headset.

Phos went red from the comment, even though Moonwalkerpatrol and them decided to date they had not gotten used to it all. Antarcticite leaned down and pulled the mic of the headset to their own mouth, pressing their ear to the side of the headset.

“Hello Moonwalkerpatrol, as much as I enjoy seeing Phos spend time with other, respectable people, they do have an exam tomorrow and they need to sleep.”

“Oh, no problem, I have an exam tomorrow too. Phos watch out-! “

Antarc and Phos watched the screen flash as Phos got killed by a stray monster.

“I told you to take the Rutile.” Came Cinnabar’s amused voice. “Goodnight Phos, sweet dreams.”

(Houseki No Kuni Gift Exchange!)

“I’m going to ask to meet them today, we can meet up in real life!” Phos was skipping down the pavement on the way to school, Antarc following close behind.

“No gaming in class.” Reminded Antarcticite.

“Haiiiiiiiii.”

As they entered the classroom through the back door Phos saw Cinnabar look up at them, through their bright red hair their eyes made eye contact, Phos hid behind Antarc, hiding from Cinnabar in way any onlookers would describe as comedic.

The class was still incomplete, and students were openly talking, gossiping and laughing, Cinnabar was vaguely aware of dying in the game they were playing.

“I told you Phos hates me.” Bort looked up from the notebook they were writing in at Cinnabar’s statement.

“They don’t hate you Cinnabar,” Cinnabar looked dejectedly at their own notebook, “They’re just scared of you.” Cinnabar slumped slightly lower.

“Way to go in making me feel better.” No one in class had anything against Cinnabar, they just weren’t close to them, no one but Phos it seemed.

Bort put down their pen, a slightly guilty expression on their face. “Look, Phos just doesn’t know you well enough, which is fair since no one really does, but maybe if you make more of an effort to talk to them, they’ll like you more?”

Cinnabar thought for a while, then took their phone and opened an app, a game to be precise. “You know this game?”

Bort leaned over to look at the game. “Yeah, of course I have, you play it all the time in chemistry.”

“Well, this is the mobile version, at home I play it on my PC, but either way, I’m dating this- “

“You’re dating?!” Bort wasn’t loud enough for the whole school to hear but it certainly was loud enough for most of the class to turn around. “Sorry. They’re a real person right?”

“Yes to both, I mean, I think so. We act like we’re dating, and we say we love each other before we go offline, and we send virtual kisses, but we’ve never really said we were dating? I mean except that one time but I’m not sure whether it was a joke. Anyway. I’m 99% sure I know who I’m dating.”

“You know they could be scamming you, or catfishing you, or trying to kill you…”

“Okay one, you are paranoid, and two, look at their username!” Cinnabar pointed to the username that read: Phos3.5.

Bort slowly looked at Cinnabar, then at Phos who was sitting nearer the front trying to balance a pencil on the back of their pinkie finger, back to the username, they let out a small chuckle.

“This is funny to you isn’t it.”

“I don’t know it just seems like a cheesy drama, either way if you’ve managed to date Phos in the game you definitely can date in real life, right? I mean I don’t get your taste but if you guys are already dating it won’t be that hard. Find out whether they are really the same person though, otherwise it’ll be awkward.”

“I- “Cinnabar got cut short by their chemistry teacher coming in, Bort immediately switched focus to the material and the lesson while Cinnabar took out their phone to text the number that Phos gave them a while ago.

Moonwalkerpatrol: Hi 😊

Phos3.5: Hiii!!! 😊😊😊

Phos3.5: What’s up?

Moonwalkerpatrol: Nothing, just wanted to see how you were doing

Phos3.5: Im doing fine!!! Class is boring though…

Find out whether they are the same person.

Moonwalkerpatrol: What class are you having?

Phos3.5: Chemistry I think?

Moonwalkerpatrol: You think?

Cinnabar looked up and stretched their neck to look at Phos, who was, in fact, typing under the table.

“Cinnabar, you seem excited, could you tell me the last step of crystallisation?” Cinnabar immediately shrunk back, looking at the board in hope that it would offer some sort of help.

“I-in an experiment for salt? O-or for gemstones?”

“In an experiment to obtain salt.”

Cinnabar stuttered for a bit when Bort subtly slid over their notes. “Uh, turning off the heat and letting the rest of the water evaporate naturally.”

“Correct.” Cinnabar shrunk back into their seat, face burning after a having to speak in front of the whole class, sinking their head into their arms.

*Ping* *Ping* *Ping* *Ping*

Cinnabar looked up at their phone, which was dinging quietly with notifications. If that new fighting game that they downloaded was the culprit then it could be deleted, it wasn’t that interesting. It wasn’t, indeed, the new fighting game, instead they were looking at 35 new messages from Phos3.5.

Phos3.5: MOONY

Phos3.5: Are you there?

Phos3.5: R u ok?

Phos3.5: Where are you?

Phos3.5: Answer me I’m getting worried

Phos3.5: You could see my messages then you couldn’t, are you ok?

Moonwalkerpatrol: Srry

Phos3.5: OMG are you okay???

Moonwalkerpatrol: I’m okay, just contemplating why I’m alive

Phos3.5: ☹

Phos3.5: Is it smth I said?

Phos3.5: Im sorry

Phos3.5: I love you tho

Moonwalkerpatrol: I’m sorry, it’s not your fault!

Phos3.5: You’re alive cus you’re an amazing person

Phos3.5: And you probably are an amazing person in real life too

Phos3.5: You’re great at gaming but you’re also really good in making me feel good

Phos3.5: And you’re probably really pretty too

Phos3.5: But even if you aren’t you’re beautiful inside and I know that for a fact.

Cinnabar stared at the texts that had overwhelmingly positive compliments that were flowing in unprompted and unconditionally.

Moonwalkerpatrol: Sorry… just thinking of stuff and got distracted so I didn’t see your messages

Phos3.5: Haha, there was some poor kid who got picked on by Sensei to say the answer, I would’ve helped them but I didn’t really know the answer either…

Moonwalkerpatrol: …I feel sorry for them

Phos3.5: Yeah… they’re sorta scary but they are sorta pretty too. I’m sure you’re pretty too tho

Cinnabar mentally processed the fact that Phos called their real self pretty, giving them the confidence that spurred them to text their next message.

Moonwalkerpatrol: About real life tho, do you want to meet up sometime? Like, in real life?

Phos stared at their phone in awe, with wide, wavering eyes, ignoring the teacher entirely.

Phos3.5: AAAAAAA I was thinking the same thing!!!

Phos3.5: Wait that wasn’t a typo right? You don’t mean the Ruby Stadium on level 5 right?

Phos3.5: Or the Shackle Ruins that we usually meet at

Moonwalkerpatrol: Nope

Moonwalkerpatrol: Uh actually

Cinnabar took a deep breath, ironic as they were texting and not speaking.

Moonwalkerpatrol: I go to a school called Gakuen Houseki, we could meet at the gates at some point?

Phos3.5: OMG!

Phos3.5: I GO THERE TOO!

Phos3.5: THIS IS AMAZING!

The bell rang, signalling the end of this period and the start of the next one, Bort was flipping through their notes trying to memorise as much as possible. Antarc lightly smacked Phos.

“What?” Phos questioned, still on a high.

“Class, as you – should – already know we have an exam today. Books aside, pencil cases out and phones away, I’m looking at you Phos.” Phos reluctantly put their phone away as the class plunged into a concentrated area of fear and concentration.

(Houseki No Kuni Gift Exchange!)

“So, they go to our school, and they want to meet you.” Antarcticite confirmed, walking back home after school.

“Yep! We just have to decide on a date.”

“Where are you guys going to go?”

Phos hm’d for a while, staring up at the sky. “I don’t know, maybe… the Waffle House?”

“Not the place I’d go for my first date, but I won’t judge.” Phos reddened at the statement, only really registering the ‘meet up’ aspect and not considering that it might be their first legitimate date.

Once they got home Phos rushed to the computer and started it up.

“Hi Moony-kun,” chimed Phos as they connected their headsets.

“Hi Phos. How was your exam?”

“I’m pretty sure I bombed it, you?”

“I don’t pay attention in Biology so...”

“You had a Bio test too? Do you have Alexandrite sensei too?”

“Yeah, that sensei is tough, they give tests all the time.”

“So, when do we meet? Wednesday?”

Cinnabar considered this, it was Monday, but the Waffle House Cinnabar was thinking of going to only served their favourite dish on Sunday.

“Sunday maybe? I want to take you somewhere, but the best dish is only served on Sunday.”

“I have somewhere I wanna take you too! We’ll take turns then.”

The game started and they both turned from discussing their Sunday plans to screaming strategy.

(Houseki No Kuni Gift Exchange!)

The days went by a little too slowly, Phos was sprawled on the grass tearing apart flowers while Antarc was trying to help teach them the homework, inside the classroom was a very different atmosphere.

“Cinnabar, are you okay?” Jade looked at them in concern, Cinnabar was killing zombies on their phone, letting off some steam.

“Yeah, it was just a dumb argument anyway.” Cinnabar mumbled.

“Well… Dia is crying in the janitor’s closet right now and refuses to come out so I was wondering whether you were okay. It’s okay to not be okay.”

Cinnabar suddenly felt the world’s eyes on them, like in a click of the switch, or the reality of Jade’s words just crashing into them like a bullet train. If Cinnabar were to be honest with themselves, they legitimately did not feel bad about the argument, it was dumb, they should apologise, and they felt slightly ashamed for running their mouth like that, but not hurt. That scared them. Now Dia, one of the softest, kindest students in the class was off crying in the closet because of something that they did. It should hurt. Cinnabar should be feeling sadness, or anger, but all they’re feeling is guilt. This overwhelming guilt and a gnawing voice that tells them that everything they touch crumbles and dies, is stained or shattered.

Cinnabar noticed a soft *ping* from their phone.

Phos3.5: Heyyyyyy

Phos3.5: Im bored

Phos3.5: You’re not in class right

Cinnabar thought about it, about seeing Phos and knowing and being with them in person, not just behind a screen or from across the classroom. Phos was pure, innocent and kind. They wouldn’t want someone like them anyway.

Moonwalkerpatrol: Actually, I’ve been thinking that this isn’t really sustainable.

Phos3.5: Busting out the big words? Haha

Moonwalkerpatrol: Phos, I think it’s best if we don’t see each other on Sunday. This wasn’t going to work out anyway.

Phos3.5: I don’t get it, are you cancelling our date?

Cinnabar bit their tongue at the word ‘date’, forcing tears back into their eyes.

Moonwalkerpatrol: Not just the date, I think we should break up.

Phos stared at the words in disbelief, everything was going fine, they didn’t have a fight or anything! Moonwalker couldn’t just… they couldn’t just leave like that.

Phos3.5: But why?

Phos3.5: What happened?

Phos3.5: We can work this out, talking is always the best, keeping everything inside isn’t going to help.

Phos3.5: Moonwalker?

Cinnabar couldn’t bear to look at the messages, turning off their phone and packing their things.

“Cinnabar!” Cinnabar spun around, trying to break the grip that Bort had on their arm, “It’s only lunch time, you aren’t going home are you?” Cinnabar bit back tears, forcing them to stay in their eyes and not drip down.

“And if I am? You can’t stop me.”

“Look, Dia is sensitive and cracks easily, but that doesn’t mean you can just run away from it.”

“This isn’t about Dia okay? Let me go!”

“No, I can report you to the teacher for trying to skip class and they’ll have record of it, do you want a black mark?”

“Oh, now you’re threatening me?” Cinnabar felt a trickle slowly make its way down their cheek. “Just leave me alone.”

Bort sighed and let go. Cinnabar didn’t bolt or run, just sat down and put their head in their arms.

“It’s okay to talk about it you know. I’m really bad with people but I won’t judge.” When Cinnabar turned their head slightly to peer at Bort the other had sat down and was looking at them with almost reassuring eyes, their words echoed Phos’s too much to ignore. Phos.

“I-I broke up with Phos.” Bort looked taken aback.

“Before or after the fight?”

“After. It’s just, whenever I do anything it just hurts everyone around me: Dia, you – I don’t want Phos to be the next one.” Cinnabar rested their cheek on their arms, eyes almost but not quite closed.

“Well firstly, it’s going to take a lot more than being a bit angry to hurt me, so I can be taken off your list of victims thank you very much.” Bort paused, sensing that it might not have been the best thing to start with. “But secondly, you have been nothing but kind to Phos. You’re a bit rough on the edges but it isn’t a guarantee that they’ll get hurt because you’re there, if that was true you would’ve hurt them by now from how long you tell me you’ve been together.”

“Phos deserves better than me.”

“I would actually argue that you could do better than Phos.” Cinnabar glared at Bort, who managed to get the point. “Either way, aren’t you hurting them way more by dumping them?”

Cinnabar felt like the world was sucking out their soul, slowly reeling it into the darkness.

“It’s better that I hurt them now rather than have them be hurt by me many times in the future.”

(Houseki No Kuni Gift Exchange!)

Phos was crying, while Antarc hugged them, seething with rage but trying their best to have a reassuring, comforting aura. They bit back insults towards Moonwalker as they knew it wouldn’t make Phos feel any better, but they sit were angry that anyone would hurt Phos like that.

“I-I don’t know *sniff* why they would do that. I- *sniff* I didn’t say anything wrong, did I?” Antarc handed them a tissue.

“You didn’t do anything wrong Phosphophylitte, in no way was it your fault.” Antarc bit back the unsaid ‘It was Moonwalker’s fault’. “Come on now, wipe your tears and toughen up. We can learn from this that unexpected things can happen, even if they are unpleasant. We can’t fight it; all we can do is stand up afterwards. So get up, that’s it.” Antarc helped Phos get on their feet, still blowing into the tissue. The warning bell rang, Antarc shouldered Phos’s things for them.

Cinnabar watched them walk into the class, Phos with red eyes and sniffing and Dia being quiet and down. They buried their head in their hands.

Antarc scanned the classroom, for once not paying attention to the lesson as much. There was only one class having a Biology test on Monday and that was their class, if Moonwalkerpatrol was from their school (which most likely they were telling the truth as they could chat with Phos about a particular teacher) then they would be in this class. Antarc heard Moonwalkerpatrol’s voice before, they could remember hearing something similar in one of their classes, but they couldn’t remember who…

“Could Bort’s group present next?” Bort nudged Cinnabar, who was the other member in the group.

“Is Cinnabar okay?” The teacher looked mildly concerned.

“They just,” Bort hesitated, “Didn’t get much sleep last night.”

Cinnabar sat up, “I’m fine,” they said quietly.

The two got to the front of the class and presented, Cinnabar said the information they needed to, in as loud a voice as they could since the teacher interrupted them several times to say they needed to be louder. The entire class’s eyes were on them, they could feel it. They could feel the stares, the whispers, Cinnabar glanced towards Phos, who was staring at them with slightly narrowed eyes, Cinnabar broke eye contact and looked away guiltily. That made them feel worse. The other groups did their presentations, they had another class, and finally the bell rang to signal the end of the day.

“Phos, you walk home first okay? I have something to do first.” Antarc said after class.

“Oh, okay.”

Antarc walked to the back of the classroom where Cinnabar sat.

“Hey.” Cinnabar jerked their head up, looking Antarcticite in the eye, that was another reason they knew it was Phos, because they were sure it was Antarc’s voice through the headset sometimes as well. They averted their eyes to their notebook. “You’re Moonwalkerpatrol aren’t you.”

Cinnbar nodded, with only the barest of movement to indicate confirmation.

“Are you trying to pick on Cinnabar?” Came Bort’s voice, with Bort glaring at Antarc, the two locked in a fierce battle with knives and swords and saws clashing.

“Cinnabar just dumped Phos over text with no indication why after they were the one to ask them to meet in real life. If that doesn’t sound like asshole material, I don’t know what will!”

“Cinnabar might seem like an ice queen, but they can’t be because you obviously claim that throne. They feel really bad about it, and literally only did that because they are an insecure person who for some reason doesn’t think they’re good enough for someone as lame as Phos!”

Cinnabar was surprised that Bort was standing up for them but with every word from either of their mouths they sunk lower into their chair, wishing they could disappear, wishing they could go away, wishing-

“SHUT UP! Both of you!”

Cinnabar looked up to see none other than Phosphophylitte them self, arms straight out beside them after stomping their foot.

“Phos, I thought you went back.”

“Well after I figured out who Moonwalkerpatrol was, did you really think I’d go? Antarc, I get that you care about me, and that you’re angry but this has nothing, nothing to do with you.” Phos grabbed Cinnabar’s hand, who was still in shock, and pulled them out of the classroom.

(Houseki No Kuni Gift Exchange!)

Cinnabar breathed out, with their breath appearing as a misty steam in the cold, winter air. They were still holding onto Phos’s hand, which wasn’t pulling at theirs anymore, there was no point for their hands to be linked except for the fact that it never felt right for them to let go. The silence was rather comforting, there was a hint of frost on the pavement and a cooling breeze. Cinnabar felt Phos shiver.

“Are you okay?” Cinnabar realised that Phos’s hand was cold and stopped.

“I’m fine, just a bit cold, I didn’t bring my jacket…” Cinnabar considered this, they hadn’t brought a jacket either, but something caught their eye.

“C’mon, let’s go inside.”

Both stepped into the Waffle House, the warmth washing over them.

“Ah, I have some money in my pocket, let’s get something.” Cinnabar hadn’t used their lunch money; they had decided to skip today, and lunch had been a bit hectic.

After both were seated with warm wraps and a milkshake, Phos decided to break the silence.

“I’ll pay you back.” They blurted, after having taken a bite and feeling a bit warmer.

“You really don’t need to; they don’t cost much anyway. Besides, I owe you.”

Phos put down their wrap. “Moony-kun, you don’t owe me anything, you know that right? Yes, I was upset, but not with you, just the fact that I didn’t know why. I understand now, and I still love you just as much.”

“Ah, see that, right there. You forgave me so easily. I don’t deserve that.”

“Yes, you do. That isn’t arguable. Now eat your wrap, it’s going cold and you look underweight.”

Cinnabar obediently bit into the wrap, it was genuinely delicious and filled Cinnabar with a warmth that coursed through their body.

“When did you become so responsible?”

“What do you mean? I’ve always been more mature than my age.” They both laughed, Phos trying to drink the milkshake and getting whipped cream on the side of their mouth due to not being able to stay still.

“There you go, being soooo grown up.” Cinnabar said, using their thumb to wipe the whipped cream off, then promptly licking it off their thumb.

Phos gasped, “Moony-chan! - Cinnabar - that was an indirect kiss!”

“Well firstly, you can still call me Moony if you want to but my name is Cinnabar so you can call me whatever you like. Secondly,” Cinnabar leaned closer to Phos, “Aren’t we dating already?”

Phos turned as red as well, a Cinnabar, and made a failed attempt at hiding behind their wrap.

“So we are dating again. Good.” Phos lowered their wrap and looked at Cinnabar, “I’m really glad that Moonwalkerpatrol turned out to be you, you look prettier than your avatar in the game, and Aurora is pretty sexy.”

Cinnabar stared at Phos with their mouth agape, slowly flushing red. “You-you- when did you get smooth?!” Phos laughed at that and they continued chatting and talking as the clock moved its hands.

“I was planning on taking you here, they only have the blueberry delight waffle on Sunday,” mentioned Cinnabar.

“Same! For the exact same reasons! I guess if we went out on Sunday, we’d wouldn’t know what to do after Waffle House.

Just then the bells at the door dinged as it was opened, the two looked up as the shop had been fairly quiet. The two who came in were none other than Antarcticite and Bortz, bickering while holding twice the number of bags they should have been.

“Why would they come to the Waffle House?!”

“Well maybe not everyone is an ice queen and has warm blood running through their veins and so need some warmth!”

“That makes no sense, if your point is that humans are warm blooded creatures then that proves my point that your body can regulate its own body temperature.”

Antarc spotted Phos and Cinnabar, who were watching in amusement.

“There you are! You left and walked all the way here without your bag, money or even your jacket!”

“I’m fine, Cinnabar paid for the wraps and we talked things out. Everything is okay now.”

Bort and Antarc shared a look that wasn’t of pure hatred, and after putting the bags on the seats they both bowed.

“I’m sorry I got mad at you and yelled without knowing what happened.”

“I’m sorry for calling you lame and for yelling back without watching my tongue.”

Phos and Cinnabar looked at each other in pure amazement, then started to whisper to each other.

“I’m sure Antarcticite was the one who got Bort to do it, Bort has a ton of pride.”

“You clearly don’t know Antarc because when they think what they did was right they will never apologise.”

Phos noticed Bort and Antarc standing there awkwardly and pulled away, clearing their throat.

“Ahem. Cinnabar, should we accept their humble apology?”

“I believe we should.”

Bort sighed in relief. “Can we please get something to eat, those waffles are smelling really good right now.”

Antarc grabbed their wallet, “Yeah sure.”

(Houseki No Kuni Gift Exchange!)

“Hi Cinnabar~ Ready for Christmas break?”

“Yep! Ready to be done with school and finally try out that new action game.”

“You mean you haven’t tried it yet?”

Cinnabar looked at Phos in amusement. “We had like, four tests in the past week, where did you find time?” Cinnabar chuckled as Phos sputtered.

“Hi Cinnabar, hi Phos.”

“Good morning Dia,” Cinnabar greeted, Phos just waving as a reply.

“Where’s Antarc by the way?” asked Cinnabar.

“Something about making sure that the term-end project was the highest quality, they slept over at Bort’s place.” Phos grinned, “Isn’t a ‘class project’ the oldest excuse in the book for hanging out with someone?”

Cinnabar shrugged, “Hey, knowing those two they probably spent all that time actually doing the project.”

Right on cue Bort and Antarc arrived, panda-eyed and bickering as usual.

“Oh Phos, good to see you made it to school on time, hi Cinnabar.” Cinnabar waved and Phos greeted them back.

“Remember the rules,” reminded Bort.

“No flirting at the desk. We weren’t flirting though,” Cinnabar defended.

“Yeah, we were just wondering if you guys managed to complete your project.”

Bort and Antarc looked at each other, “Well we did, at 5am.”

“Who was it who wanted to add the history of it on top of everything?”

The two started bickering yet again, with Phos just shaking their head in mock disapproval and Cinnabar laughing.

“Those two just go into their own world don’t they.”

“Yep. Hey I came up with an experiment!”

“You and experiments. What is it?”

“Experiments are the only fun part of science okay? Anyway,” Phos took Cinnabar’s neck in their hands and they both kissed, deep and long with the warmness seeping in, enveloping both of them in a cosy feeling. When they were devoid of oxygen they broke apart, gasping for breath, simultaneously turning around to check for reactions.

“Aaaaaaand they’re still bickering.”

“If they didn’t notice that then they are definitely whipped.”

“Phos?”

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

“I love you even more.”

#housekinoexchange #cinnaphos #phosphophylitte #cinnabar #hnk #Antarcticite #Bortz #bort #I stayed up until midnight writing this #sorry there's a lot of angst but I added as much fluff as I could!#implied antarcbort

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