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teddy06writes · 3 years

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A Night In Las Vegas

requested by this anon: “I had the BEST idea: CC!Quackity came up with the idea of his Las Nevadas character arc after going to Las Vegas and meeting Reader there. Maybe one night the reader decides to go and twitch and finds quackity doing a lore stream and the reader is like: no way, it’s the guy I met in Vegas.”

{I love this concept, sorry it took so long for me to get out}

Quackity x reader

trigger warnings: some swears

premise: after getting ditched by your friends on the last night of your long weekend in vegas you run into a very interesting guy who doesn’t hesitate to befriend you. But what happens months later when he still seems to be running circles in your mind?

{covid don’t exist here, no sir}

{for the sake of the story, readers favorite color is blue, if its not, either pretend it is, or get over it}

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10:34pm

“You can’t just- you can’t kick me out!” You yelled.

Your bestfriend laughed, “Just find somewhere to go for a few hours! Me and Hunter want alone time!”

“A few fucking hours!?! Seriously?!” But your duffle bag had already been thrown at your feet, and the hotel door room was swinging closed, muffled giggles coming from inside.

Groaning, you picked up your bag, where were you supposed to go now?

“Not that I was like- listening in or anything- but damn that sucks.”

You jumped turning to see a man with black hair sticking out of his beanie standing in front of the door diagonal from yours.

“Uh- yeah. Last night in Vegas and I get ditched for a random hook up,” You scoffed, “I should’ve known it would happen.”

“That’s not cool, uh- I’m Alex.” He stepped forward, offering his hand.

Somewhat reluctantly, you shook his hand, “(y/n).”

He nodded, “I was going to head out for a late night wander, find something to do-, preferably away from all the hookups that seem to be happing around us right now. If you want to come.”

You glanced around, “Seriously?”

“Oh- god that did sound kinda creepy didn’t it,” Alex scrubbed a hand over his face, “Sorry- I- you can just forget about this then-”

“No! I mean- You don’t seem like a rapist or anything. I’ll come with.”

He grinned, “Poggers, you can, leave that, in my room, if you want. Just seems like a pain to lug around everywhere.”

You bit your lip, “Leaving my belongings in a strangers room while I go with said stranger to find something interesting to do, sure- why not?”

10:57pm

Somehow, you found yourself wandering out of the hotel lobby, and onto the crowded streets along side Alex.

“So.... whats your favorite color?” He asked as you walked.

You laughed, “What?”

“We’re like, total strangers- it was a question, to get to know you.” He tucked his hands into his pockets.

“Oh, well-” before you could finish your sentence, there was a large amount of gasps and yells from the crowd in front of you.

“What’s going on?” Alex asked quietly.

You craned your neck to look over the crowd, gasping, “The water show! With the fountains outside of Caesar’s Palace!” You grabbed his hand, tugging him with you to push through the crowd, “This was the whole reason I agreed to this trip- but we never got to it!”

You shoved your way through the crowd until you got to the front, pressing against the barrier to watch the fountain display.

“Holy shit.” You heard him mutter from beside you.

You grinned, “It’s impressive right?”

“Imagine the coding it would take to get those things to stay on time.”

11:27pm

After the show had ended, you had kept wandering for a while, up the strip, asking various questions back and forth.

You had found out that he was a Minecraft youtuber and a law student, though you’d had to admit, you weren’t too knowledgeable on either that subject.

Now you were both staring up at the Dave and Busters sign, “This is a good idea right?”

He nodded, “Definitely. Come on, I’d bet I could beat you at skee ball!”

Laughing, you followed him into the building, and up the stairs toward the arcade entrance, “Your on!”

After buying the credit cards for access to the games, you grabbed his hand, dragging him over to the skee ball lanes.

“Lets go!” He shouted, a few minutes later, upon realizing your score was a total of 10 points behind his, “I’m popping off!”

You laughed, “Okay, what game’s next?”

Nearly an hour later, you had both run out of credits, and laughing, made you way up to the prize area.

“Do you think its possible to compile our tickets?” He asked.

“Why?”

You followed his pointing finger to the large stuffed dragons sitting on one shelf.

“We need him.” You said immediately.

After picking out a bright red dragon, you began to argue over the name as you made your way to the counter.

“What about Carl?” You suggested.

He shook his head, “I have a friend named Karl.”

“How ‘bout........ Phil?”

“I also know a Phil.”

“Hmmmm, what about Sebastian?”

“He doesn’t look like a Sebastian!”

You frowned, “Well do you have any ideas then?”

Alex thought for a moment, “Albert.”

You looked down at the dragon, “Albert it is.”

At the counter Alex convinced the reluctant worker to allow you to use both the cards credit totals, and then you went happily on your way out of the building, stopping to take a picture of Albert in front of the sign, which Alex posted to twitter with the comment of, “Look at our son!”

You’d staid mostly out of frame, but he managed to get about half of your side, since you were the one holding Albert.

“Do you think any pf the buffets are still open?” Alex asked.

“I hope so, I’m starving.” You giggled.

~~ 12:06am

The buffet was somewhat deserted, and you and Alex had grabbed seats in one of the corners after getting plates full of food.

Albert sat on the table between you as you talked.

“So it’s roleplay- but in Minecraft?” You asked, barley holding back a laugh.

He nodded, chuckling, “It sounds stupid, I know, but it’s like- huge. Especially since technically I’m getting back into the main lore now, with the whole project: vegas thing.”

“Project Vegas?” You asked.

He nodded again, “My character, he’s been through almost everything that's happened, and everything always ends to blow up in his face, literally sometimes. He’s built contries from the ground up- as stupid as that sounds- but they always fail, but this one won’t fail.

“I’m partnering with another guy on the server to set up a whole economy, he’s making a bank, and I’m making- well I’m making my own Vegas.”

You took a sip of your drink, “What’s it going to be called?”

“I haven’t figured it out yet,” He admitted, “I wanted to just call it Las Vegas but the names already taken.”

With a chuckle you shifted in your seat, “What about....- what about Las Nevada's?”

He laughed, “I like that.”

“Tell me more about this server then, I still don’t understand the story.”

With another chuckle he launched into the story, “Well, it all started when this guy called Wilbur Soot decided he wanted to start a nation....”

~~ 3:18am

“Blue.”

You were back at the hotel now, still with Quackity, sitting out on the balcony of his room. Some how, you had ended up having some slightly deep talk about life and death and a million other things before lapsing into silence, simply watching the blinking lights of the city.

“What?” He asked softly.

“You asked me my favorite color, ten minutes after we met. It’s blue- that's my favorite color.” You shivered against a cold breeze.

Alex shifted minutely closer, “Why?”

You shrugged, “It can be so many things. Deep and dark and mysterious but also light like the summer sky and filled with hope. There’s a million shades from happiness to anger, and to everyone it could mean something else.”

“I like that.” He said quietly.

7:04am

You yawned, rubbing sleep out of your eyes as the car drew closer to the airport.

Alex tapped on the steering wheel in time with the music, quietly humming along.

“Oh, I see my friend, they actually waited for me.” You said as the car pulled up to the curb.

“How considerate.” He chuckled, climbing out of the car.

You followed suit, retrieving your duffle bag from the back seat.

“Well, it was cool knowing you Alex.” You said.

“Likewise.”

Before you started to walk away you remembered, and quickly turned back to where he was standing, pulling Albert out of your bag, “Here, he’s yours. You spent more tickets on him than I did.”

He shook his head, “Keep him. I give you full custody of our son.”

“Oh- okay... bye then.”

You barley made it a few steps before he was quickly catching up to you, grabbing your arm and spinning you to press his lips on yours.

“Good luck with your shitty friends.” He breathed, before hurrying back to his car, leaving you flustered and running to catch up to your friend.

One and A Half Months later

It had been over a month since the Vegas trip, but you still hadn’t gotten Alex out of your head.

You had clicked, on some level, and the late night conversation you had shared seemed to keep you thinking about him.

Now, you scrolled aimlessly through twitter, checking the trending tags until you came across one called “LAS NEVADAS”

Now that piqued your interest, and clicking on it, you found posts of people live tweeting an event- no a live stream. And not just any live stream- a Minecraft stream.

Quickly you opened a new tab, pulling up twitch as fast as you could.

What was the name of his channel? Oh god why did you forget?

Returning to twitter you searched until you found a link, following it to a new twitch tab.

And there he was.

The boy who had been doing laps around your mind was actually there, talking to another character.

“Look Sam, you and me, we could control everything. I need the bank to help fund Las Nevada’s, we can be partners.”

You sat, watching the stream, enthralled.

Once it had ended, you still could hardly believe you found him, quickly following another link back to his twitter and opening a direct message.

Y/n: Um, this is awkward, idk if you remeber this, but we met in vegas, about a month ago, and I had no idea how to find you until the stream today

quackityHQ: uh, hi?

qusckityHQ: proof?

Quickly you sent him the picture you had taken of him with Albert,

y/n: uhhh, bam, proof?

y/n: our son is sitting on my head board right now

quackityHQ: holy shit

#mcyt x reader #quackity x reader #quackityhq x reader #teddy06 writes #teddy06

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scribble-blog · 4 years

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Soulmate AU part 5!!

First • Previous • Here • Next

Tim growled as he kept searching. There were no messages sent from Paris in the last five years in the League’s database. There weren’t any mention of a Hawkmoth, a Ladybug, or a Chat Noir in any news site. As far as he could tell, the girl had been lying to him almost entirely.

Except that she was Damian’s soulmate. And there was no faking the sheer exhaustion in her eyes when she spoke about Paris being besieged for the last four years.

And his gut was telling him to keep looking.

After an hour, and switching his location so he appeared to be operating out of France, he finally found two leads- one, a juvenile blog that had some questionable information interspersed with straight up tabloid trash, and the other an app, which he eagerly downloaded to his phone, waiting.

Finally the app popped up, showing a little Ladybug icon, and he clicked it. LadyBugOut! Sprung to life on his screen, and he perused the small icons. Small and stylized animals, a ladybug, a black cat, a bee, a turtle, a fox, a snake, a dragon, a peacock, and a butterfly. From what he remembered of his chat with Marinette, one of the heroes was Ladybug, so he clicked it.

It showed him a long line of posts, mostly videos. The girl in them was short, with dark blue-black hair and bright blue eyes, and a glaringly red and black spotted suit and mask.

“Salut, Paris! Back again with an update and a few things to address regarding the recent akuma, Lady Silence.”

He flicked to the next one.

“Salut, Paris, I’m here with Reine Abeille today,” the camera moves to another hero in yellow and black, blond hair in a high bun as opposed to Ladybug’s pigtails. “You’ve all sent in quite a few questions, and we wanted to take the time to respond today!”

“Salut, Paris! Just a quick update, I know many of you have been wondering about the recent addition to our team, Viperion.”

“Salut, Paris. I’d like to start this video with a moment of silence and recognition for the 73 lives lost in the recent attack by-“

Tim pauses it. A team of four, possibly more heroes? Perhaps nine to match the icons? A publicly revered and loved hero, to the point where she does question and answers with them. A villain that caused a death toll of seventy three people less than a month ago.

How in the world could they have missed this?

“By Evilutionist. We ask that if you know one of these victims you reach out to them and offer a hand, a hug, or even just a smile as they go about their days.”

He leant back in his chair, bewildered. Lives lost, but still there to be comforted, and going about their lives?

He got up to go find another cup of coffee. He was starting to understand how long his night was going to be.

Before he started watching through the whole long list of posts, he checked the other tabs. The black cat had a map that was currently inactive, but also logs of past maps detailing a red line, a purple line, and a larger area shaded in grey. They were labeled accordingly, Ladybug’s Path, Akuma’s Path, and Area of Attack/Destruction.

There were hundreds of maps logged.

The Bee contained large organized lists of homes and businesses that had registered as safe shelters during akuma attacks, a compilation of helplines and websites where you could learn more about staying safe during an attack, how to stay prepared and aware, and what necessities to keep stocked in cases of longer term akuma attacks.

The Fox seemed open to the public, where they could present their own posts alongside Ladybug’s about good, happy things.

The Turtle was a series of videos and posts about relaxation, meditation, coping, and self-care that could build the emotional strength to resist akumas.

The Dragon was a series of videos featuring another superhero- he assumed it was the Dragon themed one- and Ladybug, demonstrating self defense techniques and other strategies for avoiding, outrunning, fighting, or otherwise protecting yourself from akumas.

The Snake was, to his surprise, just a series of playlists, seemingly cultivated by each hero.

The Peacock held another map, also inactive, until the app chimed loudly. As he watched, a notification popped up, similar to an Emergency Alert System notification, that said in all capitals, AKUMA ATTACK.

He pressed the X on it, and watched as the Black Cat symbol seemed to glow green. He switched back, and the map was now accessible, a purple dot glowing near the Eiffel Tower. It started moving, and the shaded grey filled in around it, following the dot. He turned back to his computer and started searching frantically for some sort of news coverage. After a minute, he found a Facebook profile and opened it, and someone’s livestream was rolling.

He looked back at his phone to see that the red Ladybug dot had appeared near the edge of the grey, closing in on the purple dot. The livestream drew him back. It showed an apartment view of the Seine, and the road of broken detritus that trailed behind the akuma’s path.

“-Quel connard ne passe pas une bonne nuit alors, je suppose, mais honnêtement, cela ne devrait pas être mon problème.” The camera flipped to the face of a tired woman. “J’ai du travail en quatre heures et je ne me suis endormi que trois heures plus tôt, mais un trou du cul supersonique fait voler en éclats les fenêtres de gauche et de droite.” The camera flipped again, showing not the view but the clearly broken window. “Baise ça, mec, j'essaye de DORMIR,”

-some asshole isnt having a good night then, i guess, but honestly that shouldnt be my problem. ive got work in four hours and i only fell asleep three hours ago but some supersonic asshole is shattering windows left and right. fuck this, dude, im trying to SLEEP,

The feed went silent as the akuma lunged back into view down by the water. It was a large red woman, with wires that sprouted from her and trailed along like muscles, enhancing what seemed to be the speakers that her body was made of.

He could see her open her mouth and roar, right as a smaller red figure bounded in, dodging the concentrated sound blast and grabbing something from around her neck and snapping it in half.

The woman on the street reverted in a flash of light to a more normal appearance, and Tim watched awestruck as Ladybug tossed her yo-yo into the air and shouted something.

The wave of light that spread outward was dazzling, lighting up Paris’ night sky. In front of the camera, as the light washed over the holder, their window was suddenly whole and unbroken again. The street beneath was clean.

“Merci, Ladybug,” the tired narrator muttered. “Bonne nuit.”

The camera shut off.

Tim stared, awestruck.

“She fixes it all,” he breathed. “That’s why she was talking about people being alive after they die, they come back to life. She fixes all the damage. It probably destroys most records of the damage as well.”

The app was accessible because of her direct part in making it, he would assume. He saved the video.

Time to get Bruce.

TAGLIST:

@the-fusionist @rebecarojas07 @lowandco @kotaleartzu @resignedcatservant @alenee13 @mystery-5-5 @ladybug-182 @actual-disaster-human @loysydark @rumbelle18 @magic-miraculous @vixen-uchiha @athena452 @mochegato @ash-amg @worlds-tiniest-spook-pastry @thestressmademedoit @sassakitty @doriebell @toodaloo-kangaroo @myazael @theatreandcomicfreak @mer-mel @dahjokester @northernbluetongue @abrx2002 @area51qt @jessigurl-design @renscorpio @cici-schnee @multplelifes @redscarlet95 @razzledazzle247 @rosep16 @emotionalsupportginger @kceedraws @tired-butterfly @kuroko26 @catthhay @moonystars14 @shamefullove @shreky-boi @imanerddealwith @chaosace @captainmac6 @purple-people-eaters-productions @crazylittlemunchkin @weird-pale-blonde-person @bigpicklebananatree

#maribat #daminette #daminette soulmates #soulmate au #fanfic

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abbystanaccount · 3 years

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spontaneous one-shot y’all.... someone requested to me Abby’s reaction when she hears about Owen and Mel being together so I wrote up a little something, I’m very tempted to do a little follow up AU where this snaps Abby to her senses instead of digging herself deeper into that revenge hole, so maybe I’ll do that soon too.

I’ll probably put this on ao3 later, i still haven’t written out their break-up fic lol and I feel like I should put that in the compilation beforehand idk

It was the day after Christmas, Abby hadn’t really celebrated besides gifting trinkets to her closest friends like Manny and Nora. She’d spent the last evening away from people, finally able to read and sleep early in peace while most were off at Christmas parties.

Abby was digging into her post-workout meal when Manny slid into the bench across from her. He hadn’t joined her in the gym that morning which was fine, he was probably hungover. Abby was going to the gym almost every day now. Getting stronger, becoming a better soldier, and finding Joel Miller, those were the only things that mattered to her now.

“Hey, Chica…” greeted Manny. His tone was weird, something was off. Abby made a face and stared at him as she finished chewing.

“What’s up, Manny?”

“Oh, nothing’s really up.”

“You’re a shit liar, Manny. Just spit it out.”

“Okay,” drawled Manny. He seemed nervous, what did he have to be nervous about? “Well I was at the one Christmas party last night with the Crew and some others. We all missed you there, by the way.”

“Hmm,” hummed Abby. It was kinda awkward between her and the Crew right now. She and Owen broke up three months ago. Maybe they could be friends again at some point but Abby could tell how much Owen would tense up when she entered a room, as if being in her presence anymore caused him pain. At least, it’d been that way for the first month. It was maybe slowly getting better when they ran into each other, but she didn’t want to push it.

“So uh, Owen was there. And Mel.”

“Obviously,” brushed off Abby, taking a swig of water.

“And they went together.”

Abby stopped drinking mid-sip. She put her cup down, Manny couldn’t be serious. “What you mean? Like as a couple?”

“Well, yes. Mel said it was kind of like a first date, couple thing. They kissed too, so uh, yeah.”

Abby was stunned. They fucking wouldn’t. Mel was supposed to be her friend and she swoops in for her ex? Couldn’t Owen find literally anyone else? Abby fucking knew something fishy was going when Mel would stop in all the time after Owen got injured from that molotov cocktail.

Suddenly she felt like the whole room was looking at her. Did everyone know? Feeling her face grow hot, Abby abruptly picked up her tray to leave.

“Hey, c’mon Abs,” tried Manny.

“I’m going back to the room, I can’t be here.” Her and Manny had recently moved in together as roommates, she obviously couldn’t stay with Owen anymore. The memories crept back up of her moving out of his room. The boxes she’d packed of her books and belongings. The many sketches and paintings Owen did of her and for her, some of which were hung up on the walls. She was always a little embarrassed whenever Owen drew her because he was starting to get quite good and the paintings were so flattering and mushy.

For her last birthday, one of his gifts to her was a painting of the back of her head and braid with the ocean in the background. It was honestly so beautiful and she loved it at the time, but when Abby was packing up just looking at it made her break into a few tears. She left it behind because she couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.

Abby reached their room, Manny was following close behind, knowing she was upset and wanting to talk her down. She basically slammed the door behind them, she needed to vent.

“Like are you kidding me? Seriously? Him and Mel!”

“Abby, he’s allowed to date other people. You’re not together anymore.”

“Yeah, well he should date some girl I don’t know, not fucking Mel! He knows how feel about her.” It wasn’t like this was completely out of the blue, she’d gathered over the years that Mel kind of liked Owen. Abby could admit it, she would get jealous sometimes when those two were friendly. Mel was also the opposite of what Abby was like, super nice and sweet, petite with dainty features. Meanwhile after her dad died, Abby could barely hold a smile, she could be abrasive, she worked out until she felt she’d collapse. She couldn’t not compare herself sometimes.

Manny tried to talk her through it, “They were already friends so it wasn’t that much of a leap. I mean, Jordan and Leah just started dating too.”

Abby glared at Manny, he was tight with everyone from Salt Lake. “You fucking knew, didn’t you.”

Manny crossed his arms, “Abby, I don’t spread what you say to me in confidence, nor any of my other friends.”

Abby felt tears start to well, she was feeling so betrayed, “But you knew Mel liked him and was going to make a move, didn’t you?”

It was the case, she just knew it. Manny sighed, “I suggested to her that she wait, but she didn’t take my advice. I think Nora said she should. Either way, he needed to move on Abby, guy was miserable. She makes him happy.”

Abby shook her head, there was really no one who understood, who was on her side. This was so fucking pointless. God, she needed to get out on the field and take down some Scars, or maybe pull out some of their teeth back at the FOB.

“Yeah, I bet she told you everything, Manny, and you kept her intentions to fuck your best friend’s ex to yourself. You know what? Why don’t you go check up on Mel and see how Mel’s doing after her fun night out.” Abby was fuming, pacing the room.

Manny could tell this wasn’t going anywhere positive, “Okay Abs, I’m gonna let you cool off. But I swear, I’m here for you, I’m here for all of us. We can talk about it later if you feel like it.”

“Whatever.” Abby went towards the window, she just wanted to be left alone. She heard the door open and shut. As soon as it closed she felt hot tears stream down her cheeks. She knew she really had no one to blame but herself, she pushed him away, she was the one who made the relationship not work.

Maybe she just needed a good cry to come to terms with it, she couldn’t be acting a fool in front of people. She knew the whole WLF was going to talk about this, bring it up and gauge her reactions.

A sudden urge hit her. Abby didn’t keep most of the art and presents Owen got her, but she did have one. Up on her top bunk was a box of various trinkets, she pulled it down, and took out a folder with some papers in it. It was still in there, Owen’s sketch he did of her back in Salt Lake. They’d snuck out, she fallen asleep under a tree and he sketched her sleeping and wrote her a love letter. That’d been the day before everything went to shit, her last happy day.

Abby gripped the top of the page to tear it in half. She almost, almost did. But for her all her new found strength she couldn’t do it. This was more than just some silly drawing.

She stopped, looked at the paper. A rogue tear fell onto the words. Abby wiped her face, she didn’t want to mar it anymore than that. With slightly shaking hands, Abby put the picture back in the folder, back in the box, and tucked it away.

#my fanfic #fanfic #Abby #owen #manny

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brittledame · 4 years

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Pairing: Semi Eita/Reader

Tags: Teen and up audience, Post-timeskip, Canon divergence, Coffee Shops, Meet-cute, Fluff, Musician Semi, University student reader, POV changes

Word Count: 6.6K

Summary: In which a broken coffee machine leads you to meet an attractive musician also inhabiting the only coffee shop near campus open at an ungodly hour. The lack of sleep and the stress of your assignment are eased by the nonsensical tunes the unknown musician struggles to compose a significant song. Unknowingly, you both indirectly help each other through mental roadblocks and inspire him to write a hit song. It wasn't until your next fateful meeting that you were able to thank each other.

Current situation aside, you were usually a diligent student. You preferred to finish an assignment at least a full 24 hours before editing and submitting it, rather than leaving it to the last minute and handing in a half-assed attempt. However, this one particular assignment that had crawled from the bowels of hell was the exception to your characteristic conscientiousness. The assignment had blindsided you, slipping under your radar as other more pressing assignments drew your attention away from it. Much like an ignored weed problem, under your wilful neglect it compiled into an unimaginable mess. There was no possible way for you to get this done without pulling a soul-sucking all-nighter.

Another exception to your quickly spiralling out-of-control life was the fact that your prized coffee marker in all its shiny black plastic glory after five long years has finally turned in its resignation of being used and abused by you. So not only were you frantically rushing this twenty-one-page report due in not even eight hours, your one source of liquid determination is completely off the books.

Standing before the hunk of useless machinery refusing to even turn on, you stood there in silence as you mourned the loss of a good friend and an alright cup of coffee every morning. This did not help your current situation and you knew that you would not make it without some form of caffeine and you refuse to take the final dive into the uni student life and take no-doze tablets.

No, you refuse go that low just yet.

Although they are starting to sound tempting as the harsh wind tugs at your clothing and nips at your skin like you weren’t wearing two layers in the middle of normally warm Spring night to make a trip to the only local coffee shop you knew of open at this ungodly hour of 2 am. A faint orange glow grows steadily larger with each hurried step. You rushed to both get out of the wind and continue the futile act of completing your assignment to a decent enough standard to pass the subject.

The high expectations you entered the semester with had all but been eviscerated at this point. You would be outrageously thankful to pass at this stage in the semester.

As you push through the door, you crush the unwanted thought of your academic score plummeting. Oh well. Que sera, sera.

Glancing around the small and dimly lit establishment, you were surprised to note that it wasn’t deserted. In total, there were three people inside, excluding yourself. Two being workers and the other being a figure sequestered to the distant corner of the small cosy shop.

Behind the counter sat a bored-looking barista scrolling on his phone and a person with a very familiar face wiping down the benches.

“Jin! I didn’t expect to see you at this hour.” You exclaim while walking up to the counter while simultaneously fishing out your purse from your bag.

Said brunette turned at your voice, smiling when he sees that his ears didn’t deceive them.

“Hey! Didn’t expect to see you right now, either.” He grins amiably.

You had to give it to him, even at 2 am, his friendly smile put your stressed heart at ease. That was the true power of one Jin Soekawa, asides from the heavenly caffeinated ambrosia he concocted.

“Yeah, well if my coffee machine didn’t abandon me in my darkest hour, believe me when I say I’d be at home in my pajamas.”

Jin laughs as he rings your total up without question and starts the process of making your usual order. A perk of visiting at least three times a week was getting to know the friendly day baristas. Placing the exact amount of change on the counter, you move down the counter to catch Jin’s words.

“I never took you for a night-owl.” You scoff and shake you head at him, noting the teasing glint in his dark eyes.

“I’m not,” you bemoan, “this is punishment for putting off a big assessment and thinking it wouldn’t take long to finish. And to top it all off, my main source of night-late fuel ditched me.”

Jin nods sympathetically at your whining, not wanting to disturb the other regular shop patron in his also stressed-fueled all-nighter.

“No one with sense would be up at this hour working.” The angry-looking brunette you’ve never seen before mutters loudly.

Jin looks at the male, thick eyebrows furrowed reproachfully. You raise your eyebrow at Jin, wondering if he always had to burn the midnight oil with someone that looked like they were ready to quit and walk out at any second.

“Don’t mind Yunohama, he’s just pissed that he got tricked into the graveyard shift by the manager along with me.”

His cheery tone contrasted greatly to the gloom surrounding Yunohama. Smothering the laugh that wanted to come out at their polar opposite personalities, you instead turn to cough quietly into your hand.

Your gaze locked with chocolate brown irises that even at this distance, you could tell were mesmerising. The male’s eyes widen as he realises he was caught staring at you and quickly turns away and busies himself with the papers littering the table.

Well that was odd.

You stared at the back of his head full of shoulder-length ash-blond hair, waiting for him to turn back around. After a beat, you shrug to yourself and turn back to a busy Jin.

“Do you mind if I grab a seat and start on my work?” You point a thumb over your shoulder, gesturing to the seating area.

Jin nods his head and gives a cheery smile that didn’t fit the sleepy night-time atmosphere.

“Sure! I’ll bring it over when it’s done. It shouldn’t be much longer now.”

Shooting him a thumbs up, you hike the bag strap further up your shoulder and select a table to slowly lose your mind at. You end up choosing one that was about three tables away from the stranger, not wanting to intrude upon his stressed-out vibes. From the short glimpse you caught of his face, he seemed quite attractive. If you weren’t as tired or stressed as you currently were, you might have had the guts to sit closer and sneak subtle glances, but the sword of Damocles currently swung menacingly above your head.

As you walk over, you notice a dark blue Ashton-branded acoustic guitar leaning against the chair on his lap. You also notice him frantically scribbling down on paper, pausing and then staring at the paper like it insulted him. You file this in the back of your mind, saving it for a later time.

You almost felt sorry for the odd guy. If it weren’t for the burden of your laptop holding an unfinished assignment due in exactly seven hours now, you would spare some sympathy. Sighing, you plop yourself in the seat and quietly go about setting yourself up. Logging into your laptop, the not even half-filled word document met your weary gaze. God, even with the smell of coffee and warmth surrounding you, no motivation welled up like you hoped it would. Taking a deep breath, you steel yourself for a long night-slash-morning.

Focused on your work, you failed to notice Jin coming over with your order, sitting it out of the way of your work with a quiet “good luck” . The cup of hot coffee was left forgotten as a decent-sounding ideas flashed through your mind unprompted. It was safe to say that by the time you did notice and started drinking it, it was lukewarm.

Grimacing after taking the first sip, you lean back in your chair and look at the ceiling to give your eyes a break. A soothing tune of random string plucking fills the air. For a brief second, you were confused as to when background music started playing, only to realise it was coming from the hot guy you caught staring at you earlier.

Attracting your attention, you glance over to his table. The guitar was now propped against his lap and lovingly cradled in his arms. The position accentuated his biceps partially concealed by white cotton V-neck tee, not that it stopped your appreciative looks. Fluorescent pink guitar pick in hand, the ash-blond musician continues to strum a few nonsensical tunes that your stress-filled mind failed to name.

As if remembering your existence, he whips his head around to meet your interested gaze. Flustered at finding you already staring at him, the male holds his hands out in a placating gesture.

“I’m so sorry! I should have asked if you were okay with me playing. I mean the baristas said it was okay but that was before you came in…” He rubs awkwardly at the back of his head.

Giving him a friendly smile, you shake your head.

“No, don't apologise. It’s fine.” You assure him. Immediately, the tension drains from his features. Man, the poor guy must have dealt with his fair share of assholes to respond so visibly at the prospect of pissing people off by playing out loud. That had to suck.

“Besides, who am I to deny the arts?” You continue, lazily waving your hand in the air.

He laughs at your unusual response, hands settling back into their designated positions on the instrument. The sound was completely unexpected. You sat there in shock as the rich-sounding rumble rolls through the air. Sure he was good-looking but damn, to have a nice deep voice on top of all that? He was truly blessed. To top it off, he gives you a smile that should be outlawed for how attractive he is.

Damn, awkward music guy was hot.

The belated thought had you flustered. Hiding behind your hand as you brush back hair out of the way, you recompose yourself. Meeting his gaze once again, you notice a twinkle that you didn’t spot before, confirming your initial suspicion of his eyes being mesmerising.

Blinking yourself out of the stupor, you inwardly scold yourself for staring at the poor dude that didn’t come here to get stared at by someone dressed in comfy clothes and a whole collection of lilac bags under their eyes.

Ignoring the questioning look you receive at your odd facial expression you unintentionally made, you turn back to your laptop and dive head-first into the report. It was a nice escape from the embarrassment that wanted to choke you at acting like you’ve never seen an attractive person before.

God your tired self was an embarrassment.

He continues on playing the guitar, now strumming out a soft lingering song that soothed your frazzled mind and weirdly energised you to keep going.

From the very moment that you stepped across the threshold, bringing with you a wisp of chilled air that nipped at his nose, Eita could pick that you were an overworked university student.

Your lilting voice filled his ears as you had a friendly chat with the amicable barista. He ignored the noise as he stared at the blank manuscript paper before him, frustration bubbling within him. This was the seventh attempt at writing the final song for their break-out album in just as many days. An invisible clock hovered over his head as the hours tick by, closer and closer to the deadline their production manager had set.

The other songs came so freely to him - serving as an outlet for the experiences he’s had or heard about from close friends and family. But this last song? It fought against him tooth and nail, refusing to be put on paper. Eita had a vague concept and a tune, but the words evaded him. That was the most frustrating part really, but it happened to the best musicians so it shouldn’t surprise him that writer’s block finally hit him like a truck on a foggy night. Hard and seemingly out of nowhere.

Eita wanted the final song on their first album to be about his last relationship, as conceited as it may sound to some. He found it was the best way to close that messy chapter of his life. It was never fun to be strung along whilst your partner was looking at - loving - another, and yet refusing to let him go. Plus, people love break-up songs and their up-and-coming band needed something to round out the alternative rock songs they usually played.

Fragmented and incomplete thoughts filled his mind as you continued chatting, now with the mean-looking barista joining in. Easily pulling his attention from the anger-inducing blank white space, Eita gets a good look at you now that you're standing closer. Wearing comfy-looking clothes and a tired expression, you looked like the poster child for the average student and yet Eita felt inexplicably drawn towards you like a magnet to its opposing pole.

Unexpectedly, you turn towards him, catching him in the act of checking you out. Eyes clear despite the tired lines etching into your face, lips pulled into a slight smile that had his heart miss a beat. Okay, wow. Maybe he’s been out of the dating scene for far too long to react like that. Breaking the eye contact, Eita whirls back around in his seat and starts messing with the papers spread before him to feign being busy.

A hot blush seared across his cheeks as he mentally groans at his inappropriate behaviour. The cute university student probably thought that he was a creep now, great. While Eita wanted to do nothing but bury his head into his hands and scream until his throat was raw, the blank page laying innocently there taunted him.

God damn it. He hadn’t felt this frustrated and inadequate since high school. No one wanted to revert to their high school selves. Scrubbing at his eyes, all Eita wanted from tonight was a simple song, that was all. Nothing more. Nothing less. Yet it still felt like a herculean task. The picture of his ex with a fake expression of hurt rises to forefront of his mind unbidden.

Ah yes, there were other times he'd experienced this intense frustration. It hurt to walk away from the first real relationship he’d been in, but she was bad for him in a lot of ways that he was blind. That was until his friends lifted the rose-tinted love goggles and pointed out each and every red flag he had missed.

Suddenly, Eita was struck with the perfect words to encompass the maelstrom of emotions within him, namely bitterness and helplessness.

Not wanting the words escape him , Eita captures them with frantic hands. Scared of their ephemeral nature, here one second and gone the next. Those few words grew into a verse, much to Eita’s elation. He still needed a chorus and an outro, but the intro was looking fine and Eita knew not to push his luck.

Reaching for his guitar and pulling a pick from his jean pocket, he gives his prized possession a quick strum. Judging it in-tune, a few warm-up melodies are played as his hands move without much thought.

Looking back at the sheet of paper sitting before him, incomplete but much better than before, he suddenly notices that the sound of your rapid typing in the background has stopped. Panicked at annoying yet another person angry at the world, Eita turns around quick enough to instill the fear of whiplash.

Met with your inquisitive look, he’s glad to see that you’re not frothing with rage like how some of the less-forgiving people get with his playing. After awkwardly apologising, he concludes you’re not mad in the slightest, instead giving him a weird response and shrugging off his disjointed apology.

There was definitely more than meets the eye with you. Even while being obviously exhausted, you were still kind to him, a stranger, while rushing to complete what he can only assume to be an assignment of some sort. From the short conversation, he couldn’t get a proper gauge for your personality, although he somehow just knew that you would have the most fascinating stories to share.

Eita fails to notice your flushed cheeks due to his laughter, instead he was admiring how your eyes wrinkled at the corners as a smile lit up your entire face. It was entirely too cute for him.

Abruptly, you turn away from him and return to your work, eyes fixed on the screen and furiously typing and clicking away across the room. Bewildered at your sudden change in mood, Eita leaves you be. Following your example, Eita turns back to his own business. There was a reason that he was in a deserted coffee shop in the dead of night, or more like morning at this point. He had work to do and a lot of it.

Despite that, he couldn’t help his eyes straying towards your figure as he strums out one of the first songs he learnt on guitar. From the corner of his eye, Eita notices at how the harsh light of your laptop highlights the exhaustion the soft lights of the shop smoothed out. Concerned at how tired your eyes looked, Eita knew that the coffee you sipped at was not doing its job to chase away the threads of tiredness that threatened to pull you under.

His examining looks go unnoticed by you, surprise, surprise. From what he overheard earlier, it’d make sense that a final assessment would take precedence over one’s self-awareness, not that he knew what that felt like. From how exhausted and slightly panicked you looked, he was glad he didn’t submit to his parents pestering, instead filing straight into the work force while he worked on his aspiring music career.

A sudden scene took his mind hostage, not letting him go until he payed it attention. Muses were odd like that, one minute he was daydreaming about his life’s choices and the next he sees you physically deflate in your chair as you hit a mental roadblock as he blows past his.

Hand possessed with words that filtered so fast through his mind, he couldn’t afford to process them as he messily tries to immortalise them onto paper before they leave him forever. Like the opening of flood gates, abstract scenes flash before his mind’s eye, constructing an intricate life for the unknown person before him and likening them to moments in his own life. You looked tired, overworked and under pressure to complete whatever you were toiling over.

Eita vaguely wonders what brought you to this coffee shop at this god forsaken hour. Was your roommate being too loud? Were you working through a bout of insomnia? Maybe you wanted to get some decent coffee while getting ahead in your course?

Whatever the reason, Eita is thankful for the pure happenstance it was for fate to place you before him. Before you showed up, exasperation was clouding his mind and creating minute tremors his hand. It was never a good mindset to have when puzzling together a significant song for both his band and his own closure.

Slowly, the disjointed verses and chords became stanzas and melodies, forming a fully-fleshed out song before his eyes in what seemed like a blink of an eye, but was most likely a few hours. Reading over the words and chords, Eita mentally sings the verses and then hums the chords out loud, checking that it flowed and it wasn’t a chaotic mess like the last iterations turned out to be.

Smiling at the fruits of his labour, Eita mentally pat himself on the back for persevering and not caving into his band mate’s insistent offers of assistance. They were all versatile in this industry and each had multiple roles within their rag-tag group. The least Eita could do was offer to compose the songs for them to play. Writing them was also a good outlet, he found. Since high school, he’d composed a few short jams, not that they would ever see the light if he could help it.

Pushing his joy back to regain focus, his eyes flit over to your hunched over figure. Even after all the hours that have passed, your fingers still tirelessly flew across your keyboard before pausing and correcting a few spelling and grammar mistakes as you go. Sending you a telepathic “good luck”, Eita once again picks up the instrument with the intent of playing what hopefully will be the final version of this song.

Now knowing that you wouldn’t mind his playing, he went ahead without holding back. Eyes following along with the keys written down, fingers plucking and strumming away at the strings. The notes blend together and softly swells and peaks with each repetition of the chorus. While he knew that you didn’t mind his playing, he didn’t want to distract you, so he mouthed the lyrics as he played.

The last chord hung in the air before fading into nothing. There were a few places that could use a few alterations, either a change in pitch or pace, but all in all it was a decent song accounting for the fact that it was written in less than a night. Now all it needed was a name.

Coming up with an appropriate name was always the hardest part of the process, Eita thought. Typically, if an artist wanted their song to be found easily, it was best to name it after the chorus. Scanning over verses and chorus, he pauses over the words ‘honey go home’.

Eita didn’t even have to turn around to know that you were running on fumes. If he had the confidence to strike up a proper conversation, he knew he would voice this sentiment to you. Pushing aside the thought, he writes the potential name in the top margin with a query next to it.

The song itself needed approval by the rest of the group and by their production manager, but he was overall very proud at completing it under the pressure of a dreadfully close deadline and the absence of a muse. That was, until you walked in.

Without even realising it, you served as the catalyst to the intense emotions that Eita felt in that futile relationship.

That wasn't to say that you reminded him of her. From what he could tell, you weren’t like his ex in the slightest. In fact, he was tempted to say from your short interaction and mannerisms that you were the polar opposite to the stiff and stand-offish demeanour his ex possessed. Still, you somehow triggered a part of him that he’d been unknowingly out of touch with since his break up. it was freeing in a sense, a weight lifted off his shoulders.

Calling it a night, Eita begins to pack up his mess of papers and stack dirty coffee mugs. Organising the sheet music into neat piles, he tucked the newly composed song in a sleeve separate to the half-baked songs written earlier on in the night. Throwing the folder and other miscellaneous items into his tote, he briefly wonders about when would be an appropriate time to message the team and notify them of his success. Checking his phone, Eita was not surprised to see that he stayed up so late from how groggy he felt. It definitely feels like almost six in the morning.

Tucking his phone away in his pocket, he grabs the bag and slings his guitar strap over his shoulder. Without even realising it, Eita looks back over to your table. Still in the exact same position, now with a half-empty cup of coffee cooling by your elbow as your emptily stare drills into the word document before you click something and fix whatever mistake you could find. From your unhurried pace, Eita assumed you were in the editing phase of the assignment, close to the end.

He was tempted to walk over to your table, to both say thanks and to get your name. You didn’t know how thankful he was of your presence obliterating his two-week long writer’s block and he wanted to make you aware of it. If he just so happens to offer to thank you over a drink or dinner and you accept, then that'd be a bonus of getting to know you.

As Eita walks towards the exit, he still tosses up whether to approach you or not. As he nears, you sigh heavily and message your temples, signalling that maybe you weren’t in the best of moods to make friendly conversation. That’s alright, Eita thinks as he bypasses your table at the last second. He really didn’t want to be the cause of breaking your focus, especially when you looked so done with life right now.

Like a fool, Eita lets the opportunity slip trough his fingers. Sparing you once last look over his shoulder, he pushes the door open and leaves the shop just as the sun kisses the horizon with her golden rays.

As he makes his way home, in the back of his mind he hopes that you get to go home soon to get some well-deserved rest.

Watching the monster document upload slowly on the café’s slow wifi was torture in and of itself. Sipping the last dredges of the cold coffee, you stare unblinkingly at the loading bar, hoping that it wouldn’t pop up with an error and terminate the upload. If that happened, you were going to scream. And maybe break something. You’re sure Jin wouldn’t mind so much. He knew you would pay for whatever damages you caused in your hysteria.

A small green notification confirms the upload and gives a receipt of your submission. The time stamp was enough for a cold sweat to break out along your skin. Ten minutes longer and it would’ve been late and you would've receive a big fat zero for it. The professor was an asshole to have that stipulation, but you were well and truly too exhausted to be angry at this point.

Shutting down the device, you recline back in the chair and swivel your neck that was stiff from holding it in a weird position for hours on end. God, your whole body was aching from unconsciously holding tension for the entire night.

The faint sunlight filtering through the windows suggest that it was time to pack up and get some much-needed sleep before your class today. Mid-day classes were the best, you cheered. Thankfully you’d be able to get at least a few hours before having to survive the rest of the day. You still had other assignments and module quizzes after all.

After neatly placing all your stuff away, you turn to seek out the attractive musician. At the sight of the empty chair he once inhabited, your heart sinks. You hadn’t even seen him leave, too wrapped up in rushing to submit before the rapidly approaching deadline.

Dismayed at the musician’s absence, you crush the unwarranted thought of being lonelier than you thought to fall for a stranger after a short conversation. If it could even be called a conversation since it was mostly him apologising.

Sighing out loud, you grab your bag and wave at Jin as you stand.

“Thanks for the coffee. You’re a miracle worker I swear.” Your compliment made him smile as he continued to sweep behind the counter.

“Good to hear that you enjoyed my coffee even though they were probably cold when you drank them.”

You chuckle at that and give a good bye as you leave the shop. The trip home was a blur in your mind. You were asleep before your head hit the pillow. As blissful unconsciousness enveloped you, the image of the ash-blond musician pops in your mind.

Eita was torn between cursing ever meeting you or thanking every god that existed. No that was a lie. He definitely didn’t regret meeting you. What he did regret was telling his prying room mate about the unexpected form his muse appeared as, after being asked how he pumped out a song so quickly.

Satori had a field day about his incompetence in asking for a someone's name.

“You have the looks and charisma of a modern day Adonis and yet you are the most awkward person I know when it comes to flirting.”

Eita had no grounds to defend himself. He knew he was hopeless when it came to dating. That was probably why he stayed so long in his last one, knowing how hard it is to put himself back on the dating scene.

“Yeah. I know.” He replied, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. It did nothing to alleviate the headache he felt coming on.

“Have you tried going back there to meet them again?” Satori looked at him questioningly while upside down from where he had his head thrown over the back of the lounge.

Yeah, Eita has tried going back there. All at varying times that he was out and about and had succumbed to the urge to go back there and see if maybe you were there. On his tenth visit there, he was sorely tempted to ask the barista with the thick eyebrows that you spoke to on that fateful night for your name. Common sense was quick to convince him out of that idea, he really didn’t want to come across as a creep.

Satori didn’t have to know all of that, though, so he stayed vague with his answer.

“Yeah I have, but they weren’t there.”

“Well,” Satori dragged the word out for longer then necessary and Eita felt his eyebrow tick in irritation. “Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Like Romeo and Juliet but with less death.”

Shaking his head at the analogy, Eita silently agrees with the flamboyant red-head. Maybe meeting you once was enough of a miracle that he should be thankful for and just accept his star-crossed meeting with you.

Still, he had a lot to thank you for. You served as a catalyst for became the most popular song in their first album, 'Honey Go Home' shooting up in the charts every passing day. Since then, they’ve been booking gigs left and right. Not that you ever knew it, nor would you ever since he hadn’t seen you since that fateful night.

A text from their manager pulls him out of the bittersweet reverie, notifying him of an impromptu meeting to cover the packed schedule for the next month. Running a hand through his hair, he contemplates if he had enough time to get dressed and grab something to eat along the way.

Judging that he could, but it’d be a tight fit, Eita shoots off into his room to chuck on random articles of clothing before heading out. He hears Satori snort at his outfit combination and ignores it in favour of beating the lunch-time rush.

By the time he makes it into the business district, Semi had a handful of minutes to spare to grab lunch before what he assumes is going to be a long meeting. Spotting a takoyaki stall not far from him, he was soon waiting in line with others that were won over by the delicious savoury smells permeating from the stall.

The order turnover was pretty quick, still he eyed the time on his phone’s home screen with worry. His band mates wouldn’t let himself live it down, hell he himself wouldn’t let it go. No one wanted to be that guy holding everyone up from going home to their lives. Generally, they all got along like a house on fire but with their recent schedule, it was hard not to want to spend lost time with friends and family.

Hearing his order called out, he rushed to collect the bag. There was no time to eat it now, so he’s have to eat during it, which wasn’t the worse thing to ever happen. Picking up his pace whilst answering a text, he doesn’t see the person he ends up crashing into, too wrapped up in his own thoughts.

They gasp as he slams against their back and start to tilt forward before he reaches out and pulls them by their shoulder to get back their footing.

“Sorry! Are you okay?” His eyes sweep down the person’s body, ensuring he caused no physical damage. As the person turned around to face him, Eita met the face he'd least expected to see. Taken aback, Eita stared at you in shock as you mimicked him.

It was a humorous twist of fate that he would quite literally come crashing back into your life, after trying to find you for entire week.

It took you a moment to recognise him, trying to place his face to someone you met while his eyes roam your face. Once you do remember, you flushed at the close proximity of your bodies, his hand still clasped on your shoulder.

You both stared at one another as the world passes by, unknowing of the second fortuitous second meeting of the pair. Shock was the predominant emotion reigning inside of Eita, followed by gratefulness.

He suffered a full week of teasing from Satori and his band for acting like a hapless fool in love with some nameless person. There was no way in hell he was going to let you slip through his fingers again without at least getting a name.

“Hey, I know this sounds weird, but can I ask for your name?” He cursed the way his voice cracked at the greeting, wanting to scream at how awkward he was being again.

For whatever reason, it seemed that you were charmed by his latent charisma trumping his stiff question and you respond with your name. Testing it, he says it back to you and you respond with a nod at his pronunciation.

“What’s yours? I can’t keep calling you hot music guy.” You query in kind.

A light blush covers his cheeks at the compliment. He knew he looked good, people never failed to remind him, but it was always an ego boost when someone that made his heart flutter gave a compliment.

“I’m Semi Eita.”

He realises he was still holding your shoulder as they jump up as you silently laugh at his adorable blush. As if you burned him, he snatches away his hand as the blush intensifies. Eita was sure his face was bright red now.

“Well, hi Semi. I’m glad I got to meet you again. I wanted to thank you for playing that night, it really pushed me to keep working.” You glance off to the side, not meeting his surprised expression.

A soft, warm feeling fills him at your words. The power music possessed was a mysterious thing. To know that his playing had such an effect on you was incredible. It was extremely flattering.

“That's funny, because I actually wanted to thank you.” The words pour out of his mouth before his brain could catch up.

A curious look lights up your face and urges him to continue.

“In a round-about way, you inspired me –“ The shrill ring tone of his phone cut off his explanation.

Giving you an apologetic look, he looks at the screen and grimaces when he sees the contact name of his manager paired with the time. He was late already, so what was a few more minutes? He might as well shoot his shot, Eita concludes as he denies the call and meets your beautiful gaze.

Under the sunlight in light clothing for the warm spring-time weather, you looked stunning. The lack of tired lines etching your face and eye-bags soothes his heart, knowing that you got some decent sleep last night. It was weird how he barely knew you and yet he wanted to know if you got some sleep. Eita barely knew you and he craved being able to take care of you on those long nights when you were unable to do so yourself.

“Was that important?” You tilt your head at him and Eita had to refrain himself from visibly showing how much the cute action affected him.

“Ah, yeah, it kind of was,” Came his stilted reply. You bit at your cheek as Eita wanted to bang his head against a wall. What was it with him losing his cool with you around? Usually he was pretty good with small talk, or so he was told. His phone starts ringing again in his hand and he doesn't even bother to look at it.

Time had run out, it was now or never.

“Can I have your number? I’d really like to thank you when I’m not being rushed.” The words rushed out of him in a single breath, the split second of courage proving to be his downfall. As he regained that breath, he realised how fast he spoke. It was highly likely that you might’ve not caught them. Okay, now he was ready to bury himself alive.

R.I.P. Semi Eita.

Cause of death: trying and failing to ask for your number.

You stared at him blankly, mind taking a moment to process the word vomit, unknowingly watching him as he has an internal melt-down. His question suddenly hits you and it takes everything in you to not blush at the thought of a kind and talented musician asking for your number.

“Oh! You want my number?” You ask, pulling out your phone and pointing at it in question.

Relief sweeps away the embarrassment that threatened to surpass all logic and just leg it away from you and forget about ever meeting you entirely.

Not trusting himself, Eita nods. Pulling up a new contact and handing over his phone, you wordlessly do the same. Standing there filling out contact details, his accomplishment didn’t strike him until he thanked you and promised to text you soon after you urged him to get where he was needed.

While it wasn’t exactly the way he envisioned your first proper conversation to go, it did end with your name, number and a promise of a future meet-up. It was hard to keep the grin off of his face as he enters the room filed with unimpressed people. Once he explained his tardiness, the mood turned on its head as they gave him encouraging pats on the back and a few hair-ruffles that he batted away.

The entire time he sat there, his phone felt like a lead weight in his pocket. It took all his self-restraint to not text you right then and there.

In the end, it turned out you were the one to send the first text. If anyone saw the way he reacted to receiving that text as he walked out the building, he would refute any and all claims of him lighting up like a Christmas tree until the day he died.

Unlike asking for your number, it took a while for him to gather the courage to ask you out after a few easy-flowing conversations. With your enthusiastic response, he felt on top of the world.

Eita never made a habit of looking back at the past, arguing there was nothing one could possibly gain from doing so. Although, after the short few months since meeting and consequently dating you, he found himself often looking back to that quite night in the dimly-lit coffee shop. By all means, that stress-filled night should not have lead to him finding his other half. But as Eita had come to learn, even the mundane becomes extraordinary with you by his side.

Notes: I wrote this in a night and had to stop myself from posting it without editing because I have no self-restraint sometimes. Critiques, Comments & Notes are always welcomed!

#semi eita x reader #semi eita #reader-insert #fluff #meet-cute #haikyu!!#Haikyuu!!#haikyuu reader insert #haikyuu!! fic #haikyu!! reader insert #shiratorizawa #I couldn't turn away the idea of running into him in a coffee shop #musician!semi #canon divergence

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hunnybadgerv · 3 years

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@theoriginalladya Okay. So I dug this out of the vault, the dusty corners of the very first OneNote files I used to compile all my fic in back in THE DAY. And I know it is rough. The POV is all over the place. It has not been touched in more than 9 years, maybe more, because I think the date on this file is when I moved it into OneDrive for backup purposes.

But I found it. It does not include the actually dating part of their relationship, just the pause and the end of it. If I recall, there is a "we meet again" moment later, but I could be wrong.

There was a quick little moment where she got to meet the whole Donnelly clan and kept a promise Kevin had made to Kenneth, though that was only ever in the outline. Never fleshed that bit out much. The reason it didn't click in Ken's head was he thought that girl was named Nicky because her brother always called her Nyxy (though I abhor that spelling).

Here's the thing. And it is longer than I ever imagined it could be so I'm dropping a cut in here:

Nyx Shepard had never been anyone's definition of normal, though despite that she'd always fit the definition of by the book even before she'd joined the Alliance Military. On her eighteenth birthday, with her best and (admittedly) only friend in tow Shepard went into the family business. Both her parents had served on Alliance vessels since she before she was born. They were her only family and more often than not, she'd been right there with them through shore leave and transfers, base postings and the like. Her life wasn't measured in the typical human female milestones: she had qualified as a marksman before most girls went on their first date, she was an accomplished hand-to-hand/knife combatant by the time most girls where blushing at getting their first kiss, and when other girls were planning for proms and other frilly dances, Nyx Shepard was learning to manipulate the biotic power exposure to Element Zero had given her with an actual Asari commando.

She always knew what she wanted, knew where she was headed, and had spent her entire life focused on one goal. And one happy morning at 0800 station time, Shepard and the girl she'd been best friends with since the age of ten, Lin Apraxin, walked the quarter mile from the little apartment they'd shared for the last three months while they waited for this day--Induction Day.

The two of them had lived spartanly for the last several months on their own--relatively. Both their parents were financing the little pre-enlistment period the girls spent on Arcturus. But that was all over. They had each come to the Alliance Systems station with one duffel bag full of the necessities and they carried those same bags as they strolled through the station just prior to six a.m. Earth Standard Time. The station was relatively quiet, and likely would be for another hour or two. So the rapid footfalls drew their attention and Nyx rolled her eyes after a quick glance back. "Really?" she asked her friend quietly with more than a hint of exasperation.

Lin laughed brightly. "Looks like you made an impression on him."

"Obviously, the wrong one," Shepard replied tersely.

"Nyxy, baby, wait up." At the word baby she stopped and spun on her heels and glared at him. He smiled. "I know you hate it, but I knew it'd make you stop," Kevin explained as he caught up to her. He set his hands on her shoulders. "Look, I just wanted to say goodbye and remind you to write." He shrugged at her as his thumbs grazed the soft skin at the base of her neck.

"Really?" This was not the behavior she'd expected of him when she found out he was a weapons specialist she had been hoping for detached and entertaining. Instead Kevin Donnelly turned out to be bit of a teddy bear with a romantic streak longer than her leg. She had been hoping for a quick fling that would be comfortable enough for her to be able to jump that last hurdle of adolescence. She hadn't expected his attachment, or her own--which she didn't admit to anyone, especially herself.

"I have no illusions, Nyx." He touched her cheek softly, letting his thumb move along her cheekbone as he gazed into her eyes with a tenderness she didn't want to see. "I know you're going and nothing I can say will change this plan. It's been in the works longer than you've known me. I just want you to know that I'm here for… whatever."

All she could do was smile. He certainly is endearing. She touched his arm and gave him a quick peck. As she took a step back he pulled her toward him. Sliding his hand around her waist, he pressed her body to his as he kissed her--trying to show her all the things he had no idea how to say. Eventually, he ended the slow, deep kiss much sooner than he would have liked and he remained completely aloof to Lin's stifled giggles; he took three steps backward before he turned and walked back up the street in the direction he'd come from. More than once though, he'd glanced back over his shoulder at the sleek blonde he'd just kissed hoping it wouldn't be the last time he saw her.

"Wow," Lin whispered from behind her hand which was covering her mouth. The fringe of her ebony bob danced below her earlobes as she giggled brightly, her grey eyes brimming with mirth. "That was … quite the send off."

Shepard laughed and rolled her blue eyes at her tall friend. If you think that was something, you should have been there last night. She glanced over her shoulder once more and saw him looking back at her. Her smile widened a little. Maybe writing him once and a while wouldn't be too bad.

The girls had met with the recruiter a week earlier, the paperwork was all squared away. They just couldn't ship for boot until April 11th. Nyx felt she was rather blessed that a new training cycle was starting on the say of her 18th birthday. For her, it felt like a galactic confirmation of her lifelong dreams. As she pulled open the front door of the recruitment depot she smiled more widely than she'd anticipated. It was best birthday ever. Her parents were standing across the desk from her recruiting officer, and next to them was Lin's father.

"Daddy," Lin squealed as she darted across the room and jumped into his arms.

Her parents just smiled at her as she quietly crossed toward them. She hugged them both, one arm around each of their necks. Shepard didn't notice it at first, but when she looked at her mother Hannah there were tears glistening in her eyes. "I'm proud of you," she said softly holding Nyx's forehead to her own as she'd done since Nyx was an infant.

"We both are," her father broke in, squeezing her shoulder. Nyx looked at her dad as her mother held her close for just a little longer. "You know I've always been so proud of you."

"I know, Da. And so you know, I'm not doing this for you." Shepard was referring to the fight they'd had several times over the past few years. He would try to convince her she didn't need to do this just because of their family; both his and Hannah's families had long histories of military service and their daughter seemed hell bent from an early age to follow in the footsteps of those who came before. She'd told him she couldn't think of a better purpose for her life than to follow her father's fine example, to which he'd responded that she needed to cut her own path not follow someone else's. Though he'd known her direction since Nyx was a girl, a part of him always hoped that maybe she'd find a career outside the service.

"I know," he nodded. "Write while you're gone, or you mother is going to drive me up the wall, even from across the galaxy."

Hannah smacked him on the shoulder playfully. Nyx laughed, in part in amazement of how her parents had managed to make their family work despite the near-constant separation. "I will."

"And the occasional vid will go a long way in easing your mother's mind, as well," Hannah added. Her daughter nodded and she hugged her tightly one more time.

The Marine across the desk cleared his throat and drew the attention of five pairs of eyes. Lin traded words and hugs with the Shepard's and Nyx traded a handshake with Captain Apraxin. He had been surprised, to say the least, when his daughter announced she was joining the Alliance. He'd been proud, but he had never expected this to be Lin's path. Lin and Nyx had always been incredibly close, often the only two children on the ship at the time. Part of him wondered if his daughter wasn't doing this just to please her best friend. The other part of him wondered if Lin was doing it to appease the ghost of her mother who'd given her life in service to the Alliance. He didn't know which impetus for this action to blame, but it was a lot easier to blame it on Nyx. And the Shepard girl knew it, but chose to ignore it, for her friend's sake.

In the ten weeks of Basic Combat Training, she'd written five letters--two to each of her parents and one to Kevin, though she wasn't sure why she'd sent the latter. After that, her letters were more infrequent, but there was an additional correspondent among them. She and Lin were in the same unit up through zero-gravity certification, but they knew that after they enlisted they'd only have about three months on the same training cycle. Lin found herself back on Arcturus Station, for combat medical training, while Nyx bounced around the Sol system every few months for combat training. Her final phase in assault training landed her an invitation to another nine months of training, Special Operations.

Lin responded to her friend's news with the fully expected glee which she knew Nyx was experiencing. This was the wildest, most out of reach, dream come true and Lin was fully aware of what it meant to her closest friend. The Shepards knew what the chance meant to their daughter, and for the plans she had for herself; they knew it was what she wanted, but had reservations. She was a Marine, and at nineteen, that was all she needed. Kevin, however, was the least understanding, he couldn't fathom her elation.

When she'd arrived on the station he was at the docking bay waiting for her. He detoured her with whispers of range time, which was one of the reasons she'd gone out with him the third time. And that perk of the relationship had paid off for her in training. She'd qualified as marksman on every weapon but a sniper rifle, and that was only because she lacked much experience with that class of weapon. After the range he took her to dinner and then they finally made their way back to his place. Nyx had opted to tell him the news in person, rather than in a letter or a vid. But she hadn't found the right time to tell him.

In his last letter Kevin had extended an open invitation and a desire to see her again. She's found herself open to the idea and agreed. But deep down a part of her knew that whatever they were to one another wasn't likely to withstand her drive to achieve what she desired. Once they arrived at his apartment, they fell back into the pattern they'd developed about five weeks before she left for Basic. She found herself surprised that Kevin still looked at her the same way. Shepard also discovered that she couldn't look at him the same way; he was still the same sweet romantic that he had been but she could see something else when she looked at him--expectations. Not any expectations, but what he wanted or needed from her, and she wasn't sure how to respond. She felt it as she laid there in his arms, listening to his heart beat. She wasn't the same person anymore. He asked her about training and told her what he'd been up to. When she returned to the bedroom with a glass of water she also handed him her acceptance letter, in lue of having to find the words she opted to try this method. Despite the disconnection she was feeling, part of her wanted him to surprise her, accept it, be happy for her. But another part of her knew that wouldn't happen. It was a poignant lesson.

Why did I even come here? She'd asked herself over and over as she watched him pacing at the foot of the bed. The outline of his lean muscles clearly visible in the bluish light that permeated the small one room apartment. He'd slipped his jeans back on though not buttoned them, guess he doesn't feel comfortable pacing in the nude. "Kevin," she said studying him closely.

He held up his hand as he finally stopped. He looked over at her. Nyx was sitting in the middle of his bed, leaning back against his headboard, his sheets loosely draped over her. God, she's distracting. "Why?" it was all he could manage. He wanted her here with him, and he'd told himself when he invited her that it wasn't anything more than a chance to see her and spend a few days with her. He'd just wanted to see her again, see if there was more for them. But then she'd laid there against his chest, smiling at him as she handed him that letter then gleefully told him she was shipping out to train in a specialty with one of the highest mortality rates in the service. All the hopes he didn't even realize he had crashed around them.

She pulled her knees to her chest and leaned forward on them. "It's what I want. What I've always wanted," she admitted. He just stared at her. "Some girls liked dolls. I like guns. Some took dance lessons, I was learning knife technique. Prom," she shook her head, "private biotic training. I told you from the get go who I was, where I was going."

Nyx hadn't expected the movement or the quickness; she found herself in the pillows, looking up at him. The warmth of his body permeating the thin layer between them. Kevin just stared down into her eyes. He knew she was right. By their third date he'd found out why she was on Arcturus and before the first time he brought her back to his place he'd known she was destined for a combat specialty. And the night before she left he'd asked her about her dreams and she'd said SpecOps. Part of him had thought she was kidding, or maybe he just hoped she was kidding.

She didn't dare touch him, not until she knew what he was thinking. The kiss was fevered if a bit unexpected. He'd been hovering over her, but when she touched his back he let his body touch hers again. In the back of her mind she knew it, this would be the last time she'd see him. The hurt in his eyes when she finally looked up at him after he'd finished reading the letter had been damning. But it had to be hard hear a woman to tell you she wanted her training more than she wanted you. Kevin was more understanding than most would be, but he still thought of her as something more than she was.

Three days later she was on a transport back to the Sol system. Special Operations Designation. Nyx read the words over and over on her omnitool. She couldn't know that it was just the first step in a journey that would earn her a coveted commission to N-School after a little more than two years of stellar active duty service.

#Badger Scribbles #Nyx Shepard #Lin Apraxin #Kevin Donnelly #Hannah Shepard #Taranis Shepard #Mass Effect #Really old fiction #That should probably never see the light of day

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andinewton · 4 years

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Three Times There Was Mistletoe... Gavin/MC MLQC

Fandom: MLQC

Pairing: Gavin/MC

Genre: Absolutely fluffy

Summary: Gavin is starring on a live show on Christmas Eve, but mistletoe keeps mysteriously appearing on set.

Authors Note: I am soooo sorry it took me so long to reread this and post, it has honestly been a shitshow of a week (more but who’s counting?) Anyway, I hope it was worth the wait!

Over the last two months you had been compiling pieces on staying safe over the festive season, from not leaving gifts on display in your home and vehicle, to maintaining control of your senses during the many seasonal parties that seemed to invade everyone’s life for one month of the year. Gavin had been a hit, as always, and all that remained this Christmas Eve was to film the live closing segment with the host. The final show would end with the set looking like a cosy living room, the lighting warm and inviting, the tree sparkling enough to brighten the lowest of moods. Both Gavin and the host were wearing suits, adding to the festive atmosphere, and more than one of the staff had mentioned they would gladly find Loveland’s finest officer wearing nothing but a gift bow under their tree the next morning. And you were no exception.

You and Gavin were close friends, but that was all it was, much to your disappointment. You knew that you would rather have this than nothing with him, but how much you liked him was really becoming a bit of a hindrance. You sighed as they carried out a lighting check on Gavin and the host, standing side by side, having already checked it while sitting in the overstuffed chairs either side of the tree, when an elbow landed on your shoulder so suddenly it was enough to make you jump.

‘Doesn’t he look handsome, boss?’ Minor asked, tilting his head to one side as he regarded Gavin.

‘He always looks handsome.’ You replied automatically, before straightening yourself and clearing your throat. ‘But he hates dressing up. I hope he relaxes somewhat before go time.’

‘He’ll be fine.’ Minor waved his hand dismissively. ‘But it looks like they need you.’ He indicated to where Kiki was waving at you from beside Gavin while holding his cuff.

‘No rest and all that.’ You smiled at Minor before stepping onto the set. ‘What’s up, Kiki?’

‘Does this cuff look marked to you?’ She asked, pulling Gavin’s arm towards your face.

‘I can’t see anything.’ You replied. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Maybe take a closer look, with more direct light. When he moves a certain way it’s like there’s a stain.’

‘Okay, let me see. Do you mind, Gavin?’

He cleared his throat as you rested the side of his hand in your palm and moved your face closer. ‘Not at all.’

‘I think it might be part of the material.’ You murmured thoughtfully. ‘Let’s go take a closer look.’ A nearby table held a small spotlight and you directed it downwards to help you look. ‘It seems okay, must just be a trick of the light.’

‘Hey, boss?’ You looked up at the sound of Minor’s voice questioningly, finding him pointing upwards. You frowned and looked up, finding a sprig of mistletoe hung from one of the rigs.

‘Oh!’ You exclaimed, eyes going wide as your cheeks flushed pink.

‘What is…oh.’ Gavin echoed your sentiment as he followed your gaze.

‘It’s just a bit of traditional fun.’ Anna remarked as she passed you.

‘We don’t have time for traditional fun.’ You called after her. ‘We’re live on air in three hours!’

‘Can you rain-check mistletoe?’ Kiki asked Minor loud enough for everyone to hear.

‘No time!’ You yelled, releasing Gavin’s hand and hoping he couldn’t see how red your face was. ‘The sleeve is fine! Places everyone, let’s run it one more time!’

The cast and crew had one last break before air time and you took advantage by finding a quiet corner to sit in. It had been full on all month and you were looking forward to a few days break, but the day wasn’t over yet. After filming was finished and everything closed down the whole crew were going out for drinks, as you would be finished earlier than a normal work day. It was the final thing you had to do before you could go home and climb into your pyjamas.

‘Are you hiding?’

You glanced up to see Gavin offering you a cup of coffee, which you took with a grateful smile. ‘Not hiding, more stealing a few minutes to mentally regroup.’

‘May I?’ He pointed beside you and you budged a little to allow him space on top of the equipment box. ‘I wanted to thank you.’

‘Thank me?’ You frowned. ‘For what?’

‘For convincing me to do this.’ He waved his hand at the studio in general. ‘It’s been more rewarding than I thought it would.’

‘Not all TV people are shallow and vapid.’ You smiled and his eyebrows quickly knitted together.

‘I didn’t think that about you for a second.’

‘No, but as a group it’s easy to see why it would seem that way.’ You blew across the top of your coffee. ‘And if we’re in a thankful place, then I want to give them to you. You’ve really helped us, and me, out and I’m so grateful.’

‘Call it even?’ He smiled slightly.

‘Deal.’ You nodded.

‘Hey, Gavin!’ You both turned to see Minor eating a sandwich some distance away. ‘I’m starting to think you’re doing that on purpose.’ He looked up above you which drew both of your eyes, yet again, to a sprig of mistletoe.

‘Get out of here!’ Gavin yelled at him, and he left, laughing to himself as the tips of Gavin’s ears turned bright red. ‘He can be so annoying.’ He muttered apologetically.

‘He knows his stuff though.’ You shrugged, casting a glance at your watch. ‘I have to get back to it, but thanks for the coffee.’

‘No problem.’ He replied, sighing as he watched you walked away.

‘And we’re out! That’s a wrap!’

Cheers went up as the director confirmed you were off air and a weight seemed to lift from your shoulders. Once everything was finished here you were officially done! You joined everyone in the self-congratulations and began overseeing the packing up.

Gavin quickly removed his tie and stuffed it in his pocket, undoing the top two buttons of his shirt with relief. He hated how restrictive they were. His eyes automatically sought you out, finding you helping the assistant director, and knew you would be busy for a while yet. Should he say goodbye? Wait until you were finished? He decided to wait. It was fairly dark already and he wanted to be sure you had a safe way home.

‘Good work out there, Gavin.’ Minor remarked as he approached him.

‘Thanks.’ He replied, finally tearing his eyes from you.

‘Do you have plans after this?’

Gavin narrowed his eyes. ‘Why? What did you have in mind?’

‘Not much.’ Minor shrugged. ‘We’re all going out for holiday drinks, celebrating the end of work. You should come.’

‘I don’t know.’ Gavin shifted his feet. ‘I’ll have to see.’

‘She’s gonna be there.’ Minor nodded towards you, just marginally, but Gavin knew who he meant. ‘You should escort her.’

‘Me? I mean, I can go with you, but I don’t think she needs an escort.’

‘It’s not if she needs one, but that she might want one.’ Minor leant in conspiratorially. ‘Up to you, though.’ He shrugged again and walked away, pretty sure he had Gavin convinced.

Gavin stood and thought for a moment, watching you laugh at something the assistant director said. No. He would go along, even if it was just to keep an eye on you.

Finally! You thought as you looked at the now empty space. It hadn’t taken too long and now you just had to dismiss the crew.

‘That’s it, everyone! Meet at the bar, first round is on me!’ Another cheer went up and everyone began filing out as you flicked off the lights, which was when you realised Gavin was standing on his own to one side, leaning on the wall with his arms folded. ‘Hey, I didn’t realise you were still here.’ You smiled as you headed over to him, around the chattering crowd as they left.

‘I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye.’ He straightened his stance and unfolded his arms, wanting to be more approachable, not that that had ever stopped you before.

‘I’m glad.’ You smiled up at him. ‘Do you want to come with us?’ You asked hesitantly.

‘I’d like that. If I’m not intruding.’

‘You’re more than welcome.’ You held your hands behind your back for the sake of something to do with them. ‘Everyone deserves tonight though, they’ve worked so hard, and that includes you. This show wouldn’t be the success it has been without Officer Gavin.’

Gavin’s cheeks heated up at your praise but he cleared his throat and tried to shake it off. ‘Are you really buying everyone a drink? Because there’s a lot of people.’

‘They’re worth it. I want them to know how grateful I am to have them on board.’

‘They’re grateful to you too.’ He replied as you edged forward behind everyone else.

‘Hey, Gavin!’ Minor yelled from near the door, and you both looked over. ‘Don’t forget, as you leave!’ Minor tapped a sprig of mistletoe now hanging over the doorway that hadn’t been there before.

Your eyes went wide as you looked down and tried to hide your embarrassment, Gavin rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly as he found the wall very interesting all of a sudden.

‘He’s doing this on purpose.’ Gavin muttered to himself, vowing to take down the mistletoe just as soon as he reached it. He and Minor would be having words later, that was for sure. He looked around to explain, but you were no longer there, having disappeared into the darkness while he wasn’t looking.

You got to the bar a little after everyone else, having busied yourself with absolutely nothing, but needing a little space and time to calm your heavily beating heart and your confused head. You and Gavin had been dancing around one another’s feelings for some time and he showed no sign of making a move. Maybe it was all in your imagination, you thought there was something more between you other than attending the same school and running into danger, but now you were uncertain. Sure, Minor, and half of your staff, had made it clear that they thought all you both needed was a little push, but these mistletoe incidents might have been more of a shove. You would rather have Gavin as a friend than nothing at all and, at this rate, they would alienate him from you entirely. You straightened your hair, hoping it looked alright, before opening the door, a wall of sound and light hitting you hard as you plastered a smile on your face.

‘We thought you got lost.’ Anna remarked as she passed you a glass of wine.

‘I thought about it.’ You replied as she clinked her glass against yours.

‘Oh no, no backing out. Just talk to him. He’s only here because you said you would be, and he’s nursing a glass of coke at the end of the bar like he’s been stood up by his best girl.’ She nodded in Gavin’s direction, just in case you hadn’t noticed him, sitting with one elbow on the bar, his chin on his hand.

‘It’s not like that.’ You rolled your eyes as you made your way across the room towards Gavin, wanting to let him know you were here.

‘Sure it’s not.’ Anna muttered.

‘Hey.’ You said just loud enough to be heard over the raucous sounds of your staff enjoying themselves.

Gavin turned on the stool to face you, smiling softly. He had known you were here but didn’t know if you had been scared off by the antics of your coworkers. He didn’t want you scared off, truth be told he wanted to be closer, he just had to be brave enough to take the next step. He had never considered himself a coward until you came back into his life. ‘All okay?’

‘Yeah, I just had to…uh…check all the doors were locked at the studio.’

‘And were they?’

‘Yep, all ship shape and secure!’ You exclaimed brightly. Ship shape?! You had never used that phrase before in your life! Why did you lose your cool so easily when you were around him? Okay, that was rhetorical, you knew precisely why.

‘Good.’ He laughed. ‘And you’ve got a drink already.’

You nodded. ‘Anna got me as soon as I came through the door. So, cheers.’

‘Cheers.’ He raised his glass to yours and you each took a drink.

An awkward not-quite silence fell over you both as you tried to think of something to say, anything…well, okay, not something awkward but something. Thankfully, Gavin thought of something, and it wasn’t something you would have thought of in a million years.

‘You want to dance?’

You blinked twice before you processed the question, unsure if you had heard him properly, before rapidly blurting a reply to his hopeful expression. ‘Yes! Sure! I’d like that!’

‘Great.’ He got off the stool as you cringed at your overenthusiastic answer. He didn’t seem to notice however, and took your hand, leading you carefully through your exuberant coworkers who had created a makeshift dance floor in the middle of the room by moving some tables aside. He turned and took both of your hands, resting them on his shoulders before placing his own on your waist. ‘Is this okay?’ He asked, and all you could do was nod. ‘Good.’

He started you moving slowly, still in time with the beat yet far too slow for the tempo, but it worked. You danced in silence for two full songs, neither of you seeming to know what to say, as though you were caught in some sort of spell that neither of you wanted to break. The nearness, the heat from your bodies, your hearts fluttering at the heady combination.

‘Heeeeeeey, Gaaavviiiiinnn!!!!’ You both stopped and looked to the sound of the voice, one rosey cheeked and obviously drunk Minor, standing on a table and waving his half empty glass around.

Gavin cleared his throat and fixed Minor with a glare that would normally have had him squirming and apologising, but not with the amount of liquid courage he had so far imbibed. ‘What, Minor?’

‘You wasted all those mistletoes! Why didn’t you kiss her?’

Suddenly you were aware of every eye in the bar on you. It wasn’t quite silent with the background music, but enough to make a difference. Now you were blushing for an entirely different reason. You took your hands from Gavin and took a step back as you looked at your feet. You had wondered as much yourself, but it wasn’t something you would consider forcing Gavin into doing for the sake of tradition if it really made him uncomfortable.

You saw Gavin take a breath in your peripheral vision, you assumed to yell at Minor to mind his own damned business, but his reply had your head shoot up to stare at him. ‘I don’t need mistletoe to kiss the woman I love.’

Before you could open your mouth to ask what Gavin meant, his hand caressed your cheek and tilted your face up to his. You couldn’t have moved even if you wanted to, the gentle look in Gavin’s eyes as his lips approached yours drew you in, and before you knew it your eyes drifted closed expectantly. The kiss was tender and gentle, nothing more than a simple press of lips, but it went on for more heartbeats than you could count. Your pulse pounded loudly in your ears, blotting out everything around you. You had never realised that such a small gesture could fill your every sense, but here you were, completely under the spell that Gavin’s lips had cast upon you.

Gavin finally parted from you, brushing your scorched cheek with his knuckles, his eyes studying you carefully, which was when the sound around you came rushing back in. Whoops and cheers, led by Minor, of course, but it felt like every patron was suddenly invested in the scene before them.

You dropped your head in embarrassment once more, but this time Gavin wrapped an arm around you and pulled you to him protectively. ‘You want to go somewhere quieter we can talk?’

You nodded and Gavin began to lead you towards the exit, while Minor continued to heckle, but not for long. Just as Gavin opened the door a freak wind blew through, knocking Minor’s legs out from under him and sending him tumbling to the floor inelegantly.

The last thing you heard as you left was Minor’s laughing reply.

‘Worth it!’

#mlqc #mlqc fic #mlqc gavin #christmas fluff #minor is a little shit #everyone ships it

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writethehousedown · 4 years

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Wrapping Paper & Mixtapes (Ninex) - astrodrag

AN: Here’s a little Ninex fluff for y'all on day 2!

Christmas was, without a doubt, Nina’s favorite time of the year. She loved the romanticism of it all, from the cheesy Hallmark movies to the adorable photos all her friends were posting with their significant others on Instagram. It truly was the happiest season of all for Nina.

Arguably her favorite part about the holiday season, however, was the gift giving. She loved seeing her friends’ eyes light up as they opened the presents she had picked out for them, loved being able to bring smiles to their faces with her handwritten notes inside cutesy Christmas cards. Sure, she enjoyed getting gifts too, but the holidays were all about giving, and Nina loved embracing the giving spirit.

Each year, Nina took special care to make some element of each gift she gave. Whether it was the gift itself or the card that accompanied it, Nina was the kind of person who had always felt that hand-made gifts were so much more special than something bought from the store. Not only was she making cards from scratch this year, but she was also determined to DIY her own wrapping paper.

After raiding the nearest craft store for markers, glitter, and ribbons, Nina sat down on her living room floor to begin wrapping presents. Who cared t if Christmas was still two weeks away? She had finished her shopping early that year and was eager to start handing presents out before some of her friends went out of town.

Putting Christmas music on for some background noise, she got to work wrapping and decorating presents for each of her friends. She covered Brooke’s in metallic snowflakes and maple leaves, a nod to her Canadian roots. She drew red swirls all over Scarlet’s gift, and practically drowned Plastique’s in silver and gold glitter. Vanessa’s was decorated with brightly colored stripes and a few attempts at free-handing some reindeer, though Nina gave up on that after the third one came out looking like it’d been drawn by a 5 year old.

So maybe drawing reindeer wasn’t a talent of hers, but that didn’t stop her.

She continued her crafting session late into the afternoon, saving one gift for last: Monet’s. When it came to Monet, Nina had known exactly what to get her, but had no idea how she wanted to decorate the wrapping paper. She wanted the other woman to like it - no, love it - so badly that she had shot down almost every idea she’d had. They were all either too childish or didn’t fit Monet’s aesthetic at all. Nina needed something as cool as Monet was, but just couldn’t think of anything cool enough.

The thought occurred to her that maybe she was being unreasonably hard on herself, but she pushed it aside as she continued wracking her brain for ideas. She needed this to be perfect, because this was finally going to be the year she asked Monet out, and the present was a key part of her plan.

For nearly 4 years now, Nina and Monet had been stuck playing some crazy game - flirting nonstop one moment, then pretending nothing had happened the next. It was driving Nina crazy, along with Nina’s friends, who had been eagerly trying to encourage Nina to make a move since the moment they realized what was going on. Every time Nina tried in the past, her nerves had gotten the better of her - but she refused to let that happen this time.

So Nina did the only thing she knew how to do. She compiled a playlist of songs that made her think of Monet or reflected how she felt about her, and burned them onto a CD before delicately labeling the disc “Monet’s Mixtape.” Inside the CD case was a folded up note, explaining the mixtape while rambling about her feelings for Monet in a borderline-too-long letter. At the bottom of the letter, Nina added a line about “call me after you give this a listen, I have something I want to ask you” and neatly signed her name.

The gift itself was perfect, or at least as close to perfect as Nina could accomplish. Now she just needed to come up with a way to decorate the wrapping paper.

She could feel the pressure building, knowing she was going to see Monet for their annual brunch and gift swap “date” the next day. The longer she tried to think about it, the more she felt like nothing would ever be good enough. After sitting on her floor for 30 minutes, staring blankly at her materials, Nina gave up and set about cleaning everything up.

She would figure it out tomorrow, she decided.

Only the next day, Nina woke up late and had to scramble to get ready on time. All she had time to do was throw a giant red sticky bow on top of the wrapping paper, carefully placing the gift into her purse before flying out the door of her apartment.

In retrospect, the bow was probably the best decoration decision she could have made. It was simple and classy, but still brought a smile to Monet’s face when Nina handed her the gift.

Monet let out a soft laugh as she playfully stuck the bow from the gift onto her chest, commenting on how she would wear it like a badge of honor for the rest of the day. Or at least until it fell off, since the damn thing wasn’t very sticky to begin with.

Her eyes lit up as she tore the wrapping paper off and realized what her gift was, causing Nina’s heart to skip a beat. Monet didn’t get a chance to comment on it though, getting a call just before she could say something and having to leave immediately after. She did, however, text Nina a very enthusiastic thank you with several exclamation marks after leaving.

It was three days before Nina got a call from Monet, three days of anxiously waiting for something, anything. But luckily for Nina, when Monet finally called, she didn’t even have to gather up the courage to ask her out, because Monet beat her to it.

#rpdr fanfiction #ninex #nina west #monet x change #fluff #astrodrag #ficmas #day 2: wrapping paper #concrit welcome #submission

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dammitadolfnomorecake · 4 years

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Caramel Skin Under A Purple Rain prt 24

Sitting in the old sun beaten chair in front of Keith’s desert shack, Lance felt at peace. Remaining ignorant of their destination until the last moment, he could hardly believe Keith’s shack was still standing. The front door just as unlocked as it’d been when they’d been blasted into space in Blue. Having arrived late, and not knowing what condition the shack would be in, they’d spent the night in Keith’s ship. Keith driving him crazy as his husband sank down to snuggled into his belly, pressing soft kisses to his stretching skin. Lance hadn’t noticed the small forming stretch marks, giggling at Keith kissing his stomach until he told him why. Nursing his hot chocolate, his eyes were closed as he enjoyed the silence. No Mami. No Krolia. No Veronica. No beeping from medical machinery. No, all he could hear was Keith cursing occasionally as he cleaned up his shack. Being unable to bend his knee, Keith had sent him outside while he cleaned. Lance was supposed to be compiling their shopping list for that afternoon, but being pregnant, sleepy, and annoying the feel of the sun against his skin, he was too relaxed. Out of all the places in the world Keith could have stolen him off to, this was the last on his list, yet now he was here, he couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. Keith loved the desert. He loved the rich and natural colours. The way the reds blended to bold purples and deep browns. The blue, and seemingly endless sky stretched out above them without the slightest cloud cover. Letting his left hand drop over the side of the chair, Kosmo’s tail thumped lightly as he licked at Lance’s fingertips. Humming happily, the mug in his hand started to slip. He didn’t have the energy to bother saving it, there was still a little more than half in it. Keith had fussed about, making sure he had something to sip on while waiting for him. Making the joke “he wouldn’t say no to a hot chocolate”, his poor husband had taken it seriously. Seeing his growing stomach had really brought things home for Keith. Lance was trying his hardest to move past their disastrous mission. Trying his hardest not to let himself show his pain to Keith. He was grateful they were finally alone. Alone where no one was simply going to drop by for a visit unannounced. Hearing the squeaking of the shack’s wooden floor, followed the swing and light bang from the screen door, the mug was lifted from his hand as Keith dropped a kiss on top of his head “I need to do a run into town for cleaning supplies. Do you want to come with me?” Humming softly, the effort to move was to much. People seemed like too much effort... His heart twinged. His instincts didn’t want his husband to leave him behind again. Yet, he didn’t want to be “that husband”. He didn’t want to be too clingy. Not just for his husband, but for himself. There were times in the future where they weren’t going to be in direct line of sight of each other. Plus, Keith said they needed to go food shopping and this was a cleaning supply run “Mmm. I think I’m going to stay here. It’s nice” “Are you sure? You could come for the ride over to town. It’s not that long” Dios. It was tempting. So fucking tempting “That means up and down that quiznakking ramp. I’ll come later when we do a food run. You should take Kosmo with you. He hasn’t eaten in a whole varga. It’s the end of his little world” Keith snorted, leaning back to down nuzzle into Lance’s hair, pressing kisses to the spot as he did. Lance wasn’t the only one who’d loosened up considerably since arriving at the shack. Keith carried himself with the air of one returning home after a short holiday, not someone who only visited maybe once a year. They’d be spending a whole week here, then they were heading to the outpost for another in order to get Marco settled. Keith wasn’t keen on returning to the outpost, yet listened when Lance explained that the time spent their would speed up his pregnancy, leaving him giving birth with time to recover before Hunk and Shay’s wedding. His husband accepting purely because this meant so much to him, and because he’d be by his side so it wasn’t as if Keith was being robbed of time with their developing children “Nah. I’ll leave him here. I won’t be too long. If anything happens then I’ll call you. Do you want me to pick up anything for lunch?” His husband was gently fishing. Lance had already started experiencing strange cravings, but didn’t want to burden Keith with his whims “Whatever you feel like. Don’t get too carried away... and maybe not spicy” Pregnancy farts were potent... He didn’t need to let one rip when he settled down to snuggle his husband once the shack was cleaned up... No one warned you about how gassy pregnancy made you... except his Mami... and that was another conversation he’d never forgot as long as he lived “Alright, babe. I’ll be back soon” Tilting his head back, Lance smiled as Keith kissed him tenderly “Then you’re taking a break. You’re only cleared for light duties. I want to check your foot. I know it was keeping you up last night” His knee had left him miserable and unable to sleep. Rachel landing on his knee has caused it to swell back up again. The site throbbing and tender to movement. Keith had tried to snuggle with him last night, yet certain angles had his husband grimacing with pain and discomfort. The wound it’s self was now a scab on both sides, larger on the bottom than the top and the cause of his husband’s annoyance. The natural movement of the skin pulled on the scab. He really should be on crutches too “I know. I was hoping to have the dining table looking nice so we could eat lunch there... but I ran out of spray and there’s enough dust on their to... I don’t know. I got frustrated and drew a dick in the dust” Lance barked with laughter. Keith was only ever patient with him, for the most part “At least you didn’t try to throw it. A little soapy water with some vinegar will sort that right out” “Vinegar?” “Kills mould. Chemicals aren’t great for the twins” “I didn’t think about that...” Keith frowned down at him, guilt in his words “Don’t. Hey. We’re new at this. There’s all sorts of “do’s and don’t’s”. I didn’t think about it until then either. Go already so you come back” “And you’ll be alright?” Keith had gone from being a “cuddly octopus” to a “constantly questioning his comfort, cuddly octopus”. Hearing his husband enquire over him had been nice once or twice, now it was frustrating, and grating on his nerves “I’ll be fine. This is nice... all this silence and peace is nice. I’m going to nap for a bit. Your babies are taking all my energy” “I can clear...” “Babe. Stop. You’re over compensating. If I’m not ok, I’ll tell you. I’m enjoying the sun. I’ve got Kosmo. I’ve got something to drink. And I’m ok here” “You smell hurt, and I can’t calm down” Whatever these instincts were in both of them, Lance knew his side too well. The desire to monopolise Keith. To protect him. To stand by his side. To take away even the smallest sliver of pain that hued his scent. His husband didn’t want to be on edge, but his instincts were being idiots “It’s my knee, dummy. Of course I smell hurt. But I’m ok. Now go” “You’ll call me...” “If anything happens. I promise. You’re the one I’m worried about. No picking fights or coming back with bruises. And no stabbing anyone” “Says the man who still keeps his knives in boots” Wriggling his bare toes, Lance shrugged “My boots are inside. Your knife is in the back of your jeans. I know you better than you think, dear husband of mine” “It’s not my fault people are idiots” “I know. We’re the kings of all idiots. Or napping. I think I’m going to be the king of napping until you return” Keith stole a soft kiss from his lips. His purple eyes filled with affection “Stay safe. I love you” “I love you, too” Napping in the chair, Lance was out like a light until Keith returned. His husband having gotten carried away while shopping. Carrying their lunch over, Keith passed Lance his burger meal, then settled himself down on the front step of the shack. Opening his burger wrapper, his husband fished out a book that had been tucked up under his arm “What’s that?” Holding the book up, Lance felt a rush of love. The book was on pregnancy, and though not everything in it would apply to him, he felt himself tearing up. Quickly lowering the book, Keith deserted his burger back into the bag it came out of “Did I do something wrong?” Wiping his eyes with the back of his free hand, Lance then quickly shook his head “No. I’m kind of really happy right now. You bought a baby book...” “You got me thinking. We were going to look it up together but then everything happened. I... I asked the woman at the bookstore and she said this was the most popular one... and I um... asked the woman at the store which cleaning products were ok to use... I hope you don’t mind” “I’m crying because you made me happy, you arsehole. I have no idea what I’m doing and now I feel better because you’re trying to learn... Sorry, it’s probably the hormones” Starting to fan his face, Lance felt kind of stupid. Sliding across the step from the far side where he’d been leaning against the post, to the side closer to Lance’s feet, Keith gave him a smile that would melt the hearts of a million kittens “I thought we could take a look at it later? Did they say what they thought the conception date was?” “Around the 27th of April. Earth time” “And what’s it now?” “I don’t know... nearly July? I can’t math between movements and weeks right now” Because he was too fucking happy Keith wasn’t running away from his “dad duties” “I think you’re like 11 weeks... Which would explain why your stomach’s started getting so much bigger faster... 12 weeks is the safe point, isn’t it?” “They say so. But miscarriages and still births can happen right up until the moment you give birth...” “I know... When I was at the shopping centre, I got to thinking how you needed clothes. I mean, I was thinking about it before. It’s another one of the reasons I decided to bring you out here. So we could shop in peace... Then I started thinking about the twins and their needs. Is it too soon to buy cots? I supposed we should wait... but I was thinking if we picked them up now, we could just store them at the outpost... And we really need to talk about that. I know you don’t want to walk away from what you built up. And I know you can’t turn your work brain off. But I was also hoping... I was hoping you’d be open to buying a house here. With me” “Here... as in right here?” Keith loved the desert... “I have my shack here. I mean, we could build something more solid. But I was thinking of maybe near the Garrison. I could see about getting work there as a flight instructor... or something. Krolia probably still wants me to take over Daibazaal, but I want our kids to grow up on Earth... Or at least go to school on Earth. Plus, Mami would never let us get away with not visiting super regularly. And if Curtis and Shiro retire soon, it’d be nice to be near them too” Feeling as if he was becoming too emotional, Lance joked “You just want two free baby sitters” “Yep. You got me. How are we supposed to have date night if we have no one to babysit?” Placing his burger in his lap, Lance tilted his head “Where’s my husband? You look like him... you kind of sound like him... but you’ve written up this whole domestic fantasy... and Keith is never this well planned” “Fuck you. I am so. I’m just... I’m thinking about the babies. I was dreaming about them last night. Except I was pregnant. And it was triplets. And they were cats... And you were my doctor. But we weren’t dating anymore and it was all a secret... and then I had to give birth, but I was horny and I woke up needing to pee” Horny and needing to pee. Lance knew those feelings too well “Alright. You’re definitely Keith. Only Keith would tell me about his weird arse nightmares... Cats... maybe it’s your Galra genes telling you something?” “That you’re going to have a litter of kittens?” Lance snorted, a hand moving to his belly “Do you think they’ll have Galra ears?” Keith looked alarmed “I don’t know... What if they do? What if they have fur...?” “I think I don’t want to think about that... I hope they both look like you... but Krolia and Acxa are pretty... I’m putting them up for adoption if they look like Zarkon” “Don’t say that about our twins” “Why not? Zarkon was an ugly fucker” “Because they’re ours. Now eat your burger...” Keith continued on to grumble about how his children would never be put up for adoption. Lance had made the joke, not thinking about Keith’s past... The happiness of his husband wanting to be part of the pregnancy started crumbling. His thoughts reminding him of how much a stupid fucking idiot he was, for not thinking before opening his mouth. * With the store Keith wanted to take him to being open 24 hours, his husband insisted that he take a nap while he finished up cleaning the kitchen. Seeing Lance had spent most of the afternoon napping after checking Keith’s foot, he was tired of napping alone. Having caught Keith’s eyes on his swell more than once, Lance had made a show of stripping his shirt off to expose his breasts and stomach, then dropping his sweats as he stuck his arse out. Ignoring the pain in his knee, and those stupid bruises that still ran the length of his side, he climbed into Keith’s with a wave of his arse. Laying sideways atop the covers, he let his fingers drift across his belly, fingertips leaving goosebumps across where he traced. Feeling his husband’s eyes roaming across his exposed “You’re doing this on purpose, aren’t you?” “I’ve spent all day napping alone. Besides, you... kind of look like maybe you want to touch me?” Between his legs was starting to get wet, his mind deciding now was the perfect time for his dick to twitch in interest as it started to lengthen and thicken. Rolling onto his back, he left his fingers glide up across his sensitive chest. Brushing his thumb over this right nipple, pain and lust burst from the sensation, a moan escaping his lips as Keith growled. He’d wanted cuddles and now he wanted Keith to bend him in half and ride him until he’d drawn out every drop of cum of him. With a flurry of rustling fabric, Keith stripped deftly. Climbing up, Keith was careful not to move his injured knee as he moved Lance’s left leg out the way. Placing his hands on Lance’s stomach, Keith started mouthing along Lance’s left hip, towards his snail trail. Warmth continued to pool in his stomach as Keith scent reached his nose. His husband smelt of safety. Of those warm bonfires and that raging scent of arousal. Whimpering out a stuttered moan as Keith sucked a possessive hickey above his underwear line, his husband pulled back “Does that hurt? If it hurts...” “No! No... God no...” Still, Keith abandoned his task, instead sliding his hands up to cup Lance’s breasts, kissing his nipples before lifting himself to kiss him deeply. Lance melting into the kiss. He’d wanted this for so long. He’d wanted Keith naked before him. He wanted to see his husband’s smooth skin. To see for himself that he was healed. Massaging and groping Lance’s budding breasts, Lance moaned into kiss, hips bucking clumsily as he grew wetter. His hands coming to Keith’s back, fingertips digging lightly into his husband’s flesh as he tried to draw him closer. Breaking the kiss, Keith moved back to his breasts, sucking and teasing his left nipple as his right hand moved to tug on Lance’s underwear, Lance lifting his hips in the hopes Keith would hurry up already. Biting down, the insides of Lance’s thighs twitched as he whined needily “Keith... Keith please...” Slowly dragging his teeth of Lance’s nipple Keith “You’re so fucking sexy...” “Then hurry up...” Snorting, Keith didn’t hurry up. He took his time to tease as he trailed kisses down his stomach before burying his face in Lance’s crotch, licking at the forming wet spot at the front of Lance’s boxers. Keith groaning he finally started tugging his underwear off “You smell fucking amazing...” Stripped with a little bit of clumsiness due to the brace, his husband nudged him onto his side before raising Lance’s left knee to essentially place him in the recovery position. Dragging his tongue slowly down the cleft of his arse, Lance nearly came as Keith’s tongue ran over his opening, Keith gripping his hip as he hungrily applied himself with his lips and tongue, drawing forth waves of wetness and pleasure. Keith was the only one who’d ever made him feel this way, and for some reason it felt so much better than normal. Gripping the sheets with clenched fists, he rocked in an attempt to gain friction on his neglected dick. He was melting. The pain from his trapped nipple rubbing against the sheet. The throbbing of his dripping dick. The sweet pleasure of his lover’s tongue fucking his needy opening. He was drunk on Keith. Close to orgasm far too soon “Babe... do it... wanna come with you in me” Raising his left leg, Keith kisses the inside of his right thigh before nosing at his balls. The Cuban’s pubes drenched in wet and precum as his husband ran his tongue up the back of his sack and teased at his taint with the tip. Whimpering, Lance scrunched his eyes closed tightly as he fought off coming. He felt incredibly hyper sensitive, confused over how slow Keith was going and teary from being teased “P-please” Swearing softly, Keith slipped out from under his left leg, shimming up to cuddle up behind him “I’m sorry, baby. ‘ didn’t mean to push you so far... you’re just so beautiful” Nipping at his shoulder Keith rutted up against him. His erection smearing wetness between Lance’s thighs. A fear suddenly struck him, an irrational fear that came from not seeing Keith’s face. His scent shifting drastically “Babe? Babe, what’s wrong?” “Can we... I want to see your face” “You’re crying because you want to see my face?” Nodding, it sounded stupid when Keith said it like that “Oh, babe. Here, come here... I love you... I just didn’t want to hurt your leg” “It’s fine... if it’s for you, it’s fine. You can do anything you want to me and it’s fine...” “I’m not doing anything that’s going to hurt you. I love you... we’re having sex because we love each other” “I want to see your face” The position wasn’t great for his busted knee, yet Keith was soft and gentle. His lips and hands gliding across Lance’s caramel skin with practiced ease, lavishing attention across his body. His presence a salve to his aching soul. Each wanton moan brought forth from the drag and thrust of Keith’s ribbed dick. Each jolt of pleasure shorting his brain as he came across his swollen stomach. Each wet slap as Keith chased his pleasure, the feeling of being so perfectly filled. Feeling Keith’s dick starting to swell, a strangled scream of pleasure bubbled up, another orgasm hitting out of nowhere as Keith buried himself as deeply inside as he could. Warmth spreading from his belly to his face as he blushed. Taking Keith’s face in his hands, he brought his husband down for panted sloppy kisses as Keith rode out the waves of pleasure crashing through him. His warmth and pure affectations. His love that had felt hidden behind high walls. All of it had broken down to just the pair of them, alone in Keith’s shack, dozens of kilometres from the nearest person “I love you” “I love you too, babe. Fuck... you’re so beautiful... I could come from staring at this pretty little face of yours” Snorting at his husband, Lance let his arms drop as Keith dropped down to hold him, fingertips drawing some invisible pattern against his sweaty skin “Real romantic there...” “You know it... fuck... I’m ready for round two already. You do this to me. You know that right. I lost my virginity to you, and now I’m hopeless addicted to this arse of yours” “Is that so? I was kind of hoping you liked my arse before...” “Oh. Trust me. Your arse... those long legs of yours... that things you do when you’re looking through the scope of your blaster... the way you move... and these hips of yours...” “I see my razor sharp intellect failed to make your list” “If you were as smart as you thought you were, you never would have settled for someone like me” Lance frowned, propping himself the best he could so he could see Keith’s face “Idiot. You’re the one good thing I have. You’re the one slumming it here. I mean... you’re so fucking hot all I have to do is look at you and I’m wet” “Now I notice you’re not including my intellect either” “That’s because we’re both dumbarses. It’s a fact of life by now” “I’ll give you dumb arse” Rocking his hips Lance moaned at the action. Keith pushing himself up and settling back to gaze down at him. A finger tracing a ribbon of cum as he smirked “More like a numb arse... You have no idea how horny I’ve been” “I think I have some idea... I also think we’re not getting out of bed any time soon” Laughing playfully, Lance raised a hand to shove lightly against Keith’s shoulder “Oh. You think you’re that good?” “You’re not going to be walking straight for a month by the time I’m done with you” “I already can’t walk straight. You’re going to have to do better than that” “Just you wait and see” Naked and cuddling in Keith’s bed, Lance had his good leg wrapped around Keith as he cuddled into his side. Keith’s hand was resting on his belly, the pair sharing soft kisses and touches. Lance couldn’t remember how many times Keith had brought him to orgasm, only that too much pleasure turned to spreading numbness and fatigue. His whole body leaden, relying completely on Keith to initiate the sweet kisses he bestowed each time Lance’s eyes started to droop closed. He didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to enjoy the softness of Keith’s tickling breath. The way his husband’s hair was ruffled from him gripping his mullet. His lips kiss swollen, with drool on the left side of his face. Despite his exhaustion, Keith had fetched a towel to clean him up. Then he’d unleashed his cuddly octopus side, resulting in the simple pleasure of being held by the man he loved for the past hour. Bopping his nose with his finger, Lance’s momentary cross-eyedness caused Keith to chuckle “If you’re sleepy, you should sleep” “I’m fine” “Babe, you’re more asleep than awake” “We were supposed to go food shopping” “That can wait until tomorrow. You need your sleep” “But I’m happy... I don’t want this feeling to go away” Keith kissed him again “I’m happy too. I don’t know what it is about this place, but it makes me feel at peace” “Me too.. it’s nice not worrying, you know?” “I do. Everything started here. At the time, I wouldn’t have believed we’d be back here like that once day” “Do you think we can find the cave again? Where Blue used to be?” “You want to head up there?” “I think it’s time...” Yawning softly, talking had sapped the last of his energy. Settled in Keith’s safe arms, and surrounded by Keith’s scent, sleep came easily. * Lance had decided getting Keith worked up, wasn’t one of his best ideas. He’d been trying to shower under the horrendous water pressure after being woken in the middle of the night by nausea. Feeling flat, fat, starving, sore, and gassy, the last thing he needed was a good morning blow job, then a quickie with Keith fucking between his thighs as Lance squeezed his legs together, agitated by being so damn horny, and annoyed by the fact that his arse was the only part of him the hot water was hitting. If he’d had to survive shitty pressure like this through puberty, he was sure he wouldn’t turned out the “nice and well adjusted” adult he was. Coming between his legs, he very nearly murdered his husband when Keith started peeing. He got it. No one felt human until after that first morning pee... but he didn’t appreciate the smell of pee in the shower, or being peed on like Keith was marking his territory. Grumbling at Keith, his husband laughed it off with kisses. That was the one thing that kept him from being gutted for ignoring basic human etiquette. With no food in the shack, and the prospect of scavenging through the ship for something, Lance bossed Keith into taking shopping on empty stomachs. His crutches and the influx of scents proved to slow and dampen his mood. His anxiety levels sky high as they wandered through the first level of the shopping centre about 15 minutes away from Keith’s shack. They weren’t even in the same state anymore. The journey probably would have taken a few hours by hoverbike, with them having skipped the city by the Garrison completely. Fashioned on an older Earth styled mall, he enjoyed the change from standard space malls and trade moons. Things had naturally changed to accomodate the influx of alien species, but there were just some things that you couldn’t replace or replicate. Like donuts. The moment that sugary cinnamon scent reached them, Lance was hobbling forward as fast as his busted leg allowed. Devastated that he couldn’t use both crutches and munch away on his donuts, Lance forced his spare crutch upon Keith as they took their time exploring the first level of the shopping centre. It was his personal opinion that Keith should have been using a crutch anyway. His foot was still a cause of discomfort, hence, Keith shouldn’t be weight bearing on it. Galra or not, his husband was precious to him. Pregnant or not, he wanted his husband in one piece. Holding up a chocolate dipped sprinkled donut, Keith stole a bite from it, laughing at the look of sheer anguish on Lance’s face “I’m sorry, babe. It was too tempting to not” “You’re getting too cheeky for your own good. I bought these donuts with my own GAC” “And I’ll buy you more before we leave. Is there anywhere in particular you want to go?” He had a few places he wanted to hit up. None of which he’d talked at length with Keith about “We’ll save food shopping for last. Do you guys have cold storage on your ship?” “Not really” “Then we’ll save food shopping for the outpost for after we’ve picked Marco up. If we take him with his, he’s going to want everything. I need clothes for now and later. We need a present for Krolia. A present for Hunk and Shay. Enough food for the week... um... baby things?” Keith let out a sigh “I wanted to surprise you with that. I thought we could look for cots... and stuff. It’s part of the reason I wanted to bring you back to Earth. I wanted you to have... clothes and things you liked you... so you’re comfortable later on... I don’t know if I’m saying this right...” Scratching his nape, Keith had a slight red dusting on his cheeks. Lance’s heart skipping a beat. Holding out the rest of the chocolate donut for Keith, his husband had some nerve being so amazingly amazing so early in the morning. He was just about crying thinking about how so much had changed since the accident. Keith had stepped up more than he could have expected. At the same time he feared that he’d only stepped up because he’d nearly died. That he was trying so hard to make Lance happy not because he loved him, but as some grand apology which when the dust settled would leave them fighting all over again. The little voices reminding him he was a beaten coward who couldn’t face an Earth mall without his husband by his side. His appetite for donuts was ruined by his own mind “Babe? Did I say something wrong?” Taking the box from his hand, while holding the part eaten chocolate covered donut in his mouth, his husband lead him the few steps to the brick wall between storefronts. Caging him from public view, Lance rested his forehead against his husband’s shoulder “That’s it. Slow deep breaths for me” He hadn’t realised that his breathing had grown uneven during the few moments he was lost in his head. Following his husband’s lead, Lance took half a dozen slow and deep breaths before Keith asked “Better?” “Yeah. I’m sorry I didn’t notice... I was in my head” “It’s fine. We’ll take today as slow as you need. Maybe it would have been better to come sooner, and you know... miss the crowds and that” “No. It’s fine. It’s my head being silly... I was really happy that... that you were thinking about the future. Then I got scared that this wouldn’t last...” Letting Keith interpret the words how he wanted, his husband rubbed his cheek up against Lance’s temple “Idiot. Of course it is. All marriages have ups and downs. All I want is you to be happy and the twins to be healthy. And don’t forget, it’s your birthday next month. We need to...” “I don’t celebrate my birthday” Lance was slightly too firm in informing Keith of his lack of birthday. But when your previous birthday was missed due to... everything going to absolutely quiznak... and you can’t even remember if you were drunk, stoned or being raped for the one before it... then before that one you were grieving the loss of the woman you’d loved... and drunk... and possibly stoned... and before that Voltron.... Now he was making himself miserable realising he hadn’t celebrated his birthday as day just about him since his 16th... and he was at the garrison for that one. 8 years of not so great birthdays... That was including the three years of missing birthdays... “Even if I want to celebrate with you?” “It doesn’t hold any special feelings for me anymore” “It’s the first time we’re going to get to celebrate it together, and the last time we can celebrate together before we become parents. I want it to be special” Dios. Why was Keith so quiznakking sweet? His husband wanted to do something together... His once antisocial husband... who’d probably had more than his fair share of unhappy birthdays... He didn’t want the love of his life to suffer because the day was ruined for him “No cake. No candles. No singing. I don’t want a present, instead I want to spend the whole day with you and Kosmo” “There must be something you want...” Now that sweetness was yo-yoing back to annoyance “You. I want you for the whole day. That’s all. No work. No mission. No drama” “That doesn’t seem like much of present” “It’s my birthday. I get to choose. I choose you” “Alright. I still wish you’d let me do more. You’re my husband” “You being by my side is all I need. We should make a start. I’ll follow your lead” “Aren’t you the professional at shopping?” “Not on Earth anymore. It’s not the same as it used to be... Now I’m getting depressed again. Let’s just go?” * Lance’s mood continued to be all over the place. Hitting up the department store, he burst into tears when he saw the baby booties on special, then nearly accidentally took out a poor innocent woman with his crutches when he lost his temper in the maternity section. He was guy. He wanted plain clothes. Not flowery things that looked like he was wearing a bad vase. He didn’t want shirts that dipped down to show his budding cleavage, nor did he want embroidered jeans. It all served to slap him across the face with the fact he wasn’t normal. He wanted long sleeves to cover his self harm scars, but they only had sparkly stuff... And when it came to maternity bras, he ended up sobbing on the floor of the changing rooms while Keith’s was left comforting him. His husband had so desperately wanted this to be a positive thing for them both. Apologies poured from his lips, Keith rubbing his back and kissing his hair. He felt like a freak. It wasn’t like he’d never dressed as a girl before for work. Or to surprise Keith. But looking at his changing body, with his belly standing out, and his breasts clad in a bra that would eventually become a much needed part of his wardrobe, it was all too much on his nerves. Wanting to protect him from himself, Keith grabbed the plainest of the clothes they’d chosen, before they left the change room. Placing his crutches in the shopping trolley, his husband kept an arm around his waist so Lance could hide against him. He felt as if everyone knew, unable to face the few fans that recognised him. Keith smoothly covering for their shopping selection with the fact that Krolia was pregnant. His mood stayed low until Keith nudged him, and Lance realised they were in front of cots. It took Lance all of thirty seconds to fall in love with a beautiful white wooden cot. It was simple and plain, yet that was what made it so beautiful to him. All the others had weird slopey bits he wasn’t sure of, and boasted a range of features that meant nothing to him. Laughing softly, his husband kissed his temple as Lance gripped the top railing, staring at the premade mattress, dressed in soft blue blankets with a white rabbit in the corner “I think we’ve found our cots” “It’s beautiful” Keith nuzzled into temple, pressing another kiss to the spot “You’re beautiful. I can see the love in your eyes” “Do you like it? There’s fancier ones... maybe they’re better...” “Babe, you’re rambling. It’s perfect. You’re perfect. The twins are going to be perfect” Snorting wetly, Lance wiped his nose on his sleeve “I’m sorry I had a melt down” “It’s alright. It’s a lot for you. And I know it is. I can’t imagine how I’d feel being on the other side of this. You’re never repulsive to me. This body is carrying our little miracles and it’s pretty damn amazing” Quiznak he was crying again. Throwing himself on his husband, Keith laughed lightly as he wrapped his arms around him “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that” “I know it gets busy in your head, but I’m your husband. That accident is the single happiest accident I’ve ever had” “Better than finding out you’re gonna be a dad?” “Yeah, because there’s no one else I want to be going through all of this with” “You’re such a quiznakking sap” “I’m your quiznakking sap. So that’s a yes for the cots?” Lance nodded in an almost exaggerated manner “Yes!” “Ok. Ok. You’re gonna have to let me down so I can load the boxes in. We’ll need to grab the matching mattresses too” “And the blankets... We’re gonna have so much to unload at the outpost” “I thought we agreed that we’d raise the twins on Earth” Breaking the embrace and wiping his eyes. The idea of leaving the outpost was too distressing, yet something he knew he needed to face. In consideration for Keith’s wishes, and his own, he’d come up with a compromise “I... was thinking initially we could stay at the outpost. Daehra’s there so there’s medical help if anything goes wrong... and... I want to... I want to spend as much quality family time alone together that we can fit in, before coming back. If I give birth there, I’ll have longer to recover before the wedding... I want to have that us time. I know our friends mean well, but this is fucking hard already... Then... when the time is right, I want to move with you. But for now, can I be selfish?” “I thought you were trying to be polite in telling me that Earth wasn’t going to happen” “You’re their daddy. You have a say in all of this. Your opinion is important to me. We’re a team, right?” Keith was quick to agree, giving him a quick peck on the lips “The best team. Keith and Lance, neck and neck” “You’re such a loser” “I’m your loser” With the cots and mattress boxes filling the trolley, Keith fetched another one. Being the idiots they were, they may have completely gone overboard with onesies and outfits of various sizes... not knowing what they were having didn’t stop Lance. Then there were nappies, bibs, dummies, and tiny tiny shoes that were tiny. Boys could wear pink just as well as girls could. Pink was traditionally a boys colour centuries ago. Plus extra outfits gave them more choice when Keith’s sibling was born. With all the attention being lavished on their unborn children, Lance started feeling as if they were neglecting Kosmo. Their spoilt rotten wolf earning himself a new bed for Keith’s room and ship, and a second for the Telula and the outpost. Plus new bowls, new chew toys, treats, blankets, a new brush, shampoo, conditioner... He may have gotten carried away with his love for his fur son. Keith insisted that Kosmo didn’t need everything he was putting in, Lance choosing to feign deafness as he started pushing the shopping trolley towards the register. His knee was getting worse, and the roller coaster of emotions had taxed him badly enough he was ready for a nap. Food shopping completely forgotten by the rising nausea the bright lights and scents of the store. A cold sweat had broken out across his skin, as if he was clammy with fever. He needed to sit, lest he risk his lightheadedness turning to fainting, and Keith discovered he wasn’t feeling well. Making it out the department store, he should have been home free. Agreeing that they should probably dump everything in the ship, he’d waved Keith off to unload the cots and mattress, while he stayed put. His husband unnecessarily firm in telling him not to move. At the time, Lance had whole heartily agreed to stay sitting, his knee appreciating no longer having to stand him up. Yet, as he sat and waited, his nausea grew. The lights of the shopping centre seemed to grow brighter by the second, his breathing catching in preparation to vomit. It was one of his least graceful moments as he clamped a hand to his mouth, rushing as politely as he could to the nearest toilet. Locking himself in the parents room, he felt guilty for taking up the space as he wasn’t a parent yet. Falling to his knees in front of the toilet, his precious donuts tasted horrible as they came back up. Fear filling him over his vulnerable position. Keith wasn’t there. He was in some random shopping centres bathroom, pregnant and scared that any random stranger would stumble upon his secret. His husband’s scent nearly muted by far too many stranger scents. He couldn’t breathe due to intensity of the pain radiating from his bent knee. Panicking, he hit his comms trying to call Keith as his stomach expelled its weak contents... Out of nowhere he felt himself sliding sideways, vomit running from his drooly mouth as his body seized violently. His seizure only lasted a handful of excruciating long moment, before his body finally fell limp. Each of his muscles burned as like he’d run a marathon, his legs cramped so painfully they felt knotted. His fingers felt as if they’d been twisted in their sockets, yet he was incredibly grateful he hadn’t been standing when it’d hit. Keith loved their twins. If he lost them, there was no way they could come back from that. Keith would tell him until he was blue in the face that he blame him, yet he would. He couldn’t take his medication properly, and now whatever supreme entity out there was laughing at him. Sluggish and slowly, Lance pealed himself off the floor when Keith started knocking. Letting his husband in, he all but collapsed into Keith’s hold, his husband not missing a beat as he carried him over to sit in the nursing chair near the small microwave in the space. Hushing him, Keith’s wonderfully cool palm was placed against his forehead, Lance leaning into the touch “You feel warm” “I don’t feel great” The words had barely been mumbled when he was throwing up again. There wasn’t a lot left to throw up, but it was enough to be mortifying as it landed down Keith’s jacket. Emotionally compromised, he broke down into sobs. His inner instincts instantly fearing Keith was going to strike him for his mistake as he shrunk away from the half-Galra. Gagging and choking, Keith whipped his jacket off, holding it to Lance chin as he threw up mostly spit and drool, the hand not holding the jacket in place wiped at his chin “Let it out. It’s ok” It definitely wasn’t ok. He should be banned from jackets for life. Whimpering as his stomach cramped again, Keith didn't shy from the situation “It’s ok, babe. The jackets machine washable. By this time tomorrow it’ll have been washed, hung out, and brought back in” Being machine washable did help to ease his guilt, but only by a minuscule amount. For some reason Slav and his weird arse calculations popped to mind. When he didn’t throw up further, Keith emptied out one of the bags of shopping and wrapped his jacket there before returning to kneel in front of him “I think it’s time we head home. I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you stand? I don’t want to leave you here alone while I put all this in my ship” “I’ll be ok” “Are you sure? We can take it slow. Plenty of breaks” “No... I just wanna go home...” He was sorry. So fucking sorry. His husband had wanted to spend a fun day shopping, but his head and his anxieties had to be stupid about it “Ok. Then we can snuggle up and watch something?” “Just want to snuggle. Feel gross” “Snuggles it is” With Keith taking almost all his weight, Lance was simply along for the ride. There were a few stores that caught his interest, yet the moment they’d passed them he’d forgotten all about it. Helped up the loading ramp, he skipped making his way up to the cockpit in favour of the cool feeling from the metal floor. He knew Keith was worrying, and that his silence had his husband on edge. He didn’t have the energy to pretend to be fine. All he wanted to do was be away from prying eyes and noisy crowds. He wanted the peace of Keith’s desert shack, and to cuddle his husband as they lay tangled together on the sofa. He’d ruined the whole day for Keith, and now he had the nerve to cling to his husband and seek sympathy as if he was the one who deserved it. Refusing to move from the cargo bay, Keith let him rest there with Kosmo’s new ship bed for a pillow and bucket procured out of nowhere in case he vomited again. Quiznak, he didn’t deserve Keith.

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quicksilversquared · 5 years

Text

Keeping Up With the Ladyblog

A reporter has to adapt and improvise. It's an important skill to learn, especially when one is a reporter who is still in school and can't skip out to film all of the akuma battles without getting grounded. So Alya gets creative and starts using old security camera footage of akuma attacks. It keeps the Ladyblog active and maybe, just maybe, she'll finally get her scoop of a lifetime.

links in the reblog

Initially, setting up the Ladyblog and getting a devoted userbase had been a bit of an uphill battle. Even though Alya had gotten noticed right away with her footage from the first fight, that didn't guarantee her a permanent position as the best-known blog on Paris's superheroes. Not covering a few fights would mean that someone else could sneak in and steal her spot, so that meant that even if she missed a little school here and there (or had to drag her sisters along during a fight), it was worth it. She had to stay on top of all things Ladybug and right then, that meant getting the best coverage of as many fights as she could physically manage and writing up good, thought-provoking articles for when there was a slow day or two.

(Of course, there were other problems that she had to deal with as well. Alya had to put together a functioning site that was user-friendly, could handle the traffic that she was getting, and offered everything that anyone could possibly want from an official superhero blog, because there was no. way. Alya was going to lose traffic just because some other blog had one option or another that she didn't have or because her blog went down from traffic overload at a critical moment. There were some places that she drew the line- she didn't accept fanfiction of the superheroes, because they were real people and therefore it would be weird, and only appropriate art was allowed- but she had to add all sorts of options so that people who visited the Ladyblog would come back over and over again. It was a lot of work and all had to be done fairly quickly, which meant that her homework sometimes got pushed off until later than it should have.)

Alya didn't consider setting up the blog itself to be that big of a problem, though. Software could usually be battered into submission if she worked on it for long enough, and as long as she didn't try any system updates to the Ladyblog when a lot of people were using it, short outages were usually not a big deal. It was the content that was more of a problem, especially now that her parents (and teachers) were on her back about not skipping school just to film attacks.

She just had to get creative.

Originally, Alya had considered trying to use her fame from being the sole moderator of the Ladyblog to see if she could get a get-out-of-class-free card during the attacks. Her teachers could just check her blog to make sure that she wasn't abusing the pass, she figured, and it wasn't as though most of her classes would be that hard to make up. But it didn't take long before Alya realized that that was just a pipe dream. No teacher would just let her go whenever just so she could keep up a blog when there were professional reporters out there as well that could film the attacks just as well (though Alya would argue with that). Besides, she sometimes had to bike across town to try to get footage, and there were times when it took so long that Ladybug and Chat Noir were already done when she got there. Without any footage, it was a waste of her time.

She had to play it smart. She couldn't just take footage from news channels, but what if there was other footage out there, unseen by most of the public? The Ladyblog already used fan submissions. People took pictures and videos of the superheroes all the time, and most didn't have any interest in starting their own superhero blog but were willing enough to share their superhero content online. Alya always spent a chunk of time every day sorting through the submissions and organizing them by akuma for easy reference.

Still, that wasn't quite enough. Alya had to go above and beyond if she didn't want to be replaceable.

Asking Mr. Kubdel about getting security camera footage from the Louvre partway through the year was a stroke of pure genius on her part. Getting it was a combination of luck, her fame as the Ladyblogger, and the fact that she knew Alix.

"They don't have the best angles in the world," Alya told Nino three days after Mr. Kubdel agreed to her request. She had just gotten the footage from all of the security cameras for the time frames of the last few akuma attacks that had gone through the museum, and digging through the video to find clips of the actual fight was taking a while. Some parts she could just fast-forward through, since the superheroes didn't go into that particular room, but she couldn't go too fast or she could miss the superheroes flashing by. "But I can't really complain. No one has any video of any of these fights yet, so this is incredible."

"It was super-nice of Mr. Kubdel to agree to it," Nino said as he watched the video over her shoulder. "Are you- whoop, there goes Chat Noir."

"Am I what?" Alya asked as she marked down the time Chat Noir entered and when he exited. "Ooh, look, that's a cool akuma!"

"It is a pretty cool design," Nino agreed. "Are you going to ask other places if you can get security camera videos from them, too? Like, there's some places that seem to have a lot of akuma fights go through them. School, the Eiffel Tower, the Grand Paris-"

Alya's eyes lit up at the mention of the last place. "Ooh! D'you think I could wrangle some footage of Chloe as Antibug? I kind of want to see some footage of her getting her ass handed to her by Ladybug and Chat Noir."

Nino cringed slightly. "...yeah, I wouldn't phrase it like that when you ask Mr. Bourgeois about it if I were you. He might say no just because of it." He considered that for a second, then added, "Actually, come to think of it, a lot of the akuma that pop up at his hotel tend to be after Chloe, right? So maybe he would say no if most of the footage you get is of Chloe being tormented, no matter how funny you find it. And he's not going to have anything from inside of the guest rooms, just the hallways and dining areas and whatnot."

Alya sniffed. "I'd be professional and include as much of the fight as I could find. Any compilations of Chloe being pursued by angry akumas would be completely unofficial and only posted to an anonymous YouTube account. Which I would then share with you guys, of course."

Nino laughed.

"I think I could persuade him to help, though," Alya decided, going back to the Louvre videos. "He's nice enough when Chloe isn't pushing him around. I'd just have to ask when Chloe isn't there. Maybe I could ask Sabrina's father for help to get footage from other places." She squinted at the screen, then stopped the video for a moment. Nino looked over and saw that it had gone all blurry and pixilated.

He frowned. "Uh, what happened to it? Is the file corrupted?"

"I don't know. It's happened a couple times before on other files, once near the start of this fight and twice again near the end of the first fight I looked at. I don't know what causes it." Alya rewound a little so she could get the last good frame of the superheroes and record the time so she could cut it there. "And... I know I kind of gave up on exposing Ladybug and Chat Noir's identities on the Ladyblog, but I kind of thought that I might catch them detransforming on the security cams. I wasn't going to post that part online, of course, but still..."

"Maybe they're just really good at moving out of the area first," Nino suggested. "That's gotta be tough, actually. I never thought about it. But there's so many cameras in buildings like that nowadays that they have to be super-careful so they don't get seen by others or by cameras!"

"They're bound to slip up sometime," Alya grumbled, opening another file and starting to fast-forward through it. "I really hope I don't miss an attack when I'm working on this. Like, it's gonna be great for my blog to have this footage and all, but it's the live stuff that people like the most."

The first of the spliced-together security camera footage hit the Ladyblog almost a week after Alya got the first batch of raw video. There was an immediate spike of interest, though, as Alya complained to Nino as they waited for Adrien and Marinette to arrive to work on their group project, some people were whining about favoritism getting her the tapes.

"It was just because I asked first," Alya grumbled, scrolling through the comments. "Because I thought of it first. And- oh! I forgot to tell you! Mr. Bourgeois said yes, I just have to figure out the dates and times of old attacks myself and give them to his security people. And I talked to the principal too, and to Sabrina's father. Mr. Damocles said yes, and Sabrina's father said that he would ask his supervisor and also people at Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower about the security cameras at their individual sites." She was grinning now, momentary irritation gone. "It's gonna be a beast going through everything and getting my homework done, but it'll be worth it."

Nino frowned. "Are all of them gonna give you footage from past attacks? Some might discard video once a certain amount of time passes, or they might think that it's too much work to go back that far to get you the files."

Alya shrugged, face dropping slightly. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Still, going through the past stuff I do get plus new stuff is gonna be hard. At least spring break is coming up soon. Ish. Kinda. And then I can really plow through stuff once it's summer."

"You're gonna vanish into your room and never come out again," Nino joked. "You'll get all pale from lack of sun."

"I still gotta go out for livestreaming attacks," Alya reminded him. "And once I don't have homework to do, I don't think it'll take that long to mark and edit stuff. I can get through one per day for sure, maybe more. I can do it while I babysit my sisters, as long as they don't want to go anywhere."

Nino snorted. "Right, and the chances that they won't want to go out to the park or on a walk?" He shook his head at her. "But I can help with the timing stuff, so you can just focus on the splicing things together."

Alya grinned and leaned forward to press a kiss to his lips. "That would be great, Nino! Thank you so much!"

"You'll have to tell me how you want it done sometime before I start, but it really shouldn't be a problem," Nino assured her, grinning as he returned the kiss. "Though maybe we'll have time for you to show me before Adrien and Marinette arrive. Where are they, anyway?"

Alya just shrugged. "Who knows. I texted Marinette ten minutes ago to remind her we would be meeting, but no response yet. She might be in the middle of a project, and if she is, I don't wanna startle her. Last time I called her when she was busy sewing, she got started by her phone ringing and stabbed herself with a pin."

Nino cringed. "Ow. Yeah, I texted Adrien too, but no dice. No idea what he might be doing- oh, wait, here they come. Finally."

"And from the same direction too, hmm? Interesting!" Alya slid her laptop back into her bag and stood up, grinning as she watched Adrien and Marinette approach. "And neither of their houses are in that direction, either."

"We're here to study, not interrogate them," Nino reminded her. "Midterms, remember?"

"Oh, but come on-"

"You can interrogate them after, once we've gotten our studying done," Nino pointed out, grinning. "But I actually want to pass my classes, thank you very much."

There were times when Alya almost regretted starting to post the security camera footage. It was a lot to handle and process, and it ended up cutting into her article-writing time, which, well, she really liked writing those articles. It was one of the things that set the Ladyblog apart. But the old footage was popular, particularly when there was no good news coverage of the fight, and she could always prioritize which fights to edit together and which could maybe be set aside until she had more time.

It was after Alya was first tapped to become Rena Rouge when she realized how great of an idea it had been to start including the security footage from attacks on the Ladyblog. She couldn't cover her own fights- well, not that she was called for many of the akuma attacks, really- but she could still provide that footage, and it wasn't as though she had only started with that kind of footage after she became a superhero, so it wasn't going to raise any suspicion.

Well. Much suspicion, at least. There might be a few people who wondered why she could never cover Rena Rouge's fights, but there had been few enough of them so far that the pattern wouldn't be apparent. And if it continued- which, well, she hoped that it would- then she could always use her much improved video editing skills to "interview" Rena Rouge in person.

She was sure that Ladybug would let her borrow the Miraculous for a little extra time if she mentioned the need to throw people off of her trail. After all, Ladybug was very big on secrecy.

Most of the time, though, Alya loved her stroke of brilliance. It had been worth the security checks to make sure that she could be trusted with the security footage, and she had managed to shore up her views again. Future employers would see that she was focused and willing to put in the work, and well, she had gotten herself a fabulous reputation at the Louvre after she had spotted a shoplifter on the footage and let them know about it right away. It made her feel like a detective of sorts, discovering things that she wouldn't have otherwise.

And, well, summer was coming. Soon, she could get all caught up, and then Alya was sure that it wouldn't be quite so overwhelming.

"I figured it out!"

Nino glanced up at Alya as she slid into the empty spot at the table he was sitting at. From the other side of the table, Adrien and Marinette looked over at the reporter as well.

"What did you figure out?" Marinette asked, gaze immediately going to the tablet Alya was holding. She looked interested and inched closer. "Is it something to do with the Ladyblog?"

"It is!" Alya held up her tablet. "So you know how I've been putting together footage of the akuma fights from security cameras?"

Nino nodded. Both Adrien and Marinette looked puzzled. Alya groaned at them.

"Seriously? Have neither of you looked at the Ladyblog in weeks?! It's my big new thing!"

"I've been busy," they both claimed at once, before shooting each other startled looks. Alya narrowed her eyes at them both.

"Too busy to even glance at the Ladyblog once in a while, even now that school is almost out? Really?"

"I've glanced, but not looked into the archives at all," Marinette corrected herself. Then she frowned. "Wait, what do you mean, security camera footage?"

"Huh, I guess I must not have mentioned it to you before, either," Alya said, looking thoughtful. "Hm. Anyway, I've been contacting people at the Louvre and at the Eiffel Tower and Chloe's dad and Sabrina's dad and the principal to ask if I can get the raw security camera footage from the akuma fights that go through there, and they all said yes! So I've been going through that and splicing together stuff from different cameras to try to get as much of the fight covered as possible."

Now Adrien was frowning, too. "Really? They just happen to know which cameras Ladybug and Chat Noir have gone past?"

Now Nino snorted. "Of course not. They just basically give Alya all the footage from the cameras for the duration of the fight and she- well, we, I've been helping- have to go through and find which cameras Ladybug and Chat Noir went past and when."

For some reason, both Adrien and Marinette now looked deeply alarmed.

"Anyway, we've been noticing some weirdness on some of the clips," Alya told them. "It get corrupted for a bit, mostly near the start of the fight before the superheroes show up or after the akuma's been defeated but sometimes in the middle, too. I've been puzzling over it for the longest time, and I think I've finally figured it out!"

"Really?" Nino asked, interested and finally distracted from his strangely pale friends. "How?"

Alya grinned. "It was some comments on the Ladyblog that finally got me to notice the pattern. The corruption is either before Ladybug and Chat Noir show up or right after they vanish- or, in the middle of the fight, if one of them has to go recharge, then it happens then, too."

Nino blinked, then caught on. "So you're saying that somehow their magic is interfering with the cameras and protecting their secret identities?"

Alya pointed at him. "Exactly! I thought when I started all this that I might accidentally catch them transforming or see someone where they weren't meant to be, but their magic just means that they can't be caught on camera. It kind of makes me wonder if they always have that effect on cameras when they aren't transformed, or if it only pops up when they're about to transform or just detransformed."

Nino was so caught up in thinking about it that he completely missed Adrien and Marinette's identical sighs of relief as they both slumped in their seats. "It's gotta be the latter. Otherwise how would you explain people never getting a good picture of you, if it happened all the time?"

"Maybe Juleka is Ladybug, then," Marinette offered, giggling a little. "Remember, she was convinced that she had some sort of photo curse?"

"And now she's figured out how to manipulate the magic so that she can get normal photos again," Alya joked, sounding serious for a moment before she laughed. "Nah, she can't be, she was akumatized and fought Ladybug and Chat Noir. Remember that?"

Nino shuddered. "How could I forget? I was stuck in a skirt and high heels for ages!"

"I rocked the platforms," Adrien bragged. He grinned at Nino's raised eyebrow. "What? Sure, they were hard at first, but with a little practice..."

Nino just shook his head and groaned. "You would, dude. You must have been hidden, though. I couldn't find you after Reflecta left."

"Yeah, the outfit and the makeup would do that, probably," Adrien pointed out with a laugh. "I mostly decided to stay out of the way. And that fight didn't last that long. Ladybug and Chat Noir defeated her within an hour."

"Okay, fair."

"What would you do if you found something that told you who Ladybug or Chat Noir are?" Marinette asked, pulling the conversation back on track. "I mean, you can't see them transforming or detransforming, but if..."

Alya waved a hand. "Oh, I would destroy the footage as fast as possible. Hopefully I wouldn't recognize them-" though she wasn't certain about the probability of that, considering that Nino had been picked as a temporary superhero, too. What were the chances of that happening if Ladybug at least didn't know them to some extent? Unless of course it was a coincidence since she was the well-known Ladyblogger and Nino had already been out in the middle of the fight before Ladybug grabbed him- "and so it wouldn't matter if I saw them for two seconds."

Adrien looked astonished. "Really? I thought that was your dream, to figure out who they are! Not that I don't support the deleting thing," he added quickly. "That's probably safer for them. But what made you decide to change your mind?"

Well, she had become a superhero herself, for one. She had realized that she didn't really want the city to know her identity, because what if the akumas targeted her family and friends? And then Nino was a superhero, too, and what if people knew that and she became a target? She had figured that if she didn't want the city knowing her secret identity, she should probably extend the same courtesy to Ladybug and Chat Noir. And Heroes Day had proved that even superheroes knowing the secret identity of other superheroes wasn't necessarily safe. But instead of saying any of that, Alya just said "Well, I realized that it wouldn't be safe for them. And I figured that we should probably respect our superheroes' wishes since they've done so much for the city."

Adrien grinned. "That's very mature of you, Alya."

Alya just shrugged. Really, there had been so much more to it than she had let on. He was probably giving her too much credit, considering it had taken her being in the superheroes' shoes to realize what she had. "Yeah, well. I'll get a big scoop someday. I just refuse to have it at the superheroes' expense."

With the start of summer came more free time, and Alya attacked her backlog of footage with gusto. It was slowly shrinking as she and Nino dug into it with occasional help from Adrien or Marinette, deleting the superhero-less footage out and discarding it. It had become a bit of an obsession now that she had plenty of free time, and Alya had finally- finally!- figured out how to have several streams going at once on her screen and how to pause the others and switch to just one when there was footage that she wanted to watch more closely.

It made things go a lot faster, that was for sure. She was getting through a couple akuma attacks per day, and she finally had to start queuing things up so that the Ladyblog wouldn't get overwhelmed. One per day would be good, maybe two if they were short fights. Alya prioritized newer fights, too, knowing that the old ones were interesting but also old news. The newer fights generated more views and more interest, but it wouldn't be long before the next wave of akumas took over public interest.

Still, Alya loved having that old footage. She loved watching Ladybug and Chat Noir facing up against the akuma, and she loved seeing Ladybug's creativity when faced with a strange Lucky Charm. Their teamwork was so strong, and the way that they absorbed the occasional extra teammate and worked in those powers- yeah, it was pretty obvious why they had been chosen to be the city's main superheroes.

She was digging through her folders of akuma fight footage when she spotted a particularly large one. Alya frowned, puzzled- what, had the entire city been involved in the fight?- when she noticed the date. It was from Heroes Day.

"Oh yeah," Alya said eagerly, grinning as she clicked on the folder. This had been one of the battles that she really wanted footage for. All five superheroes at once in the boss battle? Yes please. All of the existing footage of the fight had been filled by possessed people, so it would be great to get literally anything else.

It was going to be difficult to piece together all of the bits of footage that were bound to be all over the city, but hey, it was summer and Alya could probably rope her friends into helping. And hey, if she could get Adrien roped in, he had several computer monitors. He could use all of them at once and have a ridiculous number of feeds going all at once. But Alya was impatient and wanted to get another look at the fight, so she flipped through the camera files until she found a set on the Eiffel Tower. They opened right before a fox-themed supervillain got there- and ugh, Alya immediately found herself annoyed. Another Volpina? Why were there so many people in Paris who seemed to have some sort of design on the Fox Miraculous?

Ugh. She was going to scour the footage to see if she could get a glance at this new Volpina's unakumatized identity. One Fox villain before Rena Rouge had showed up was one thing, but again? Nuh-uh.

Alya watched as once again, chaos descended on Paris. Volpina detransformed- uh, could Hawkmoth recall akumas? Then why had the baby akuma actually happened at all?- and revealed- uh, was that Lila? What was Lila doing in Paris? She had told the class that she was out of the country and wasn't going to be returning yet!

Okay, something was definitely up there. Maybe Marinette was on to something when she said that she didn't trust Lila. Especially when- they had talked to Lila on Heroes' Day, hadn't they? They had video chatted with her as a class. She had said that she was abroad, and it had looked like she was, too.

Strange. Alya was going to have to do some digging there for sure.

On-screen, the red butterflies descended on Paris. Alya winced as she remembered the terror that had reigned. They had been tricked by Volpina's illusions- and wait wait wait. Alya rewound the footage to when Lila detransformed and- oh, she looked disappointed when she was detransformed, as though she knew what she had been doing and had wanted to continue.

Even stranger. Also really, really concerning. Alya was going to put a hold on making any plans with Lila until she figured out what was going on there.

Alya continued watching. Red akumas found their mark, and Hawkmoth emerged, watching over the panic. Red bubbles bloomed into oversized akumas, and then... well, more chaos. There was screaming in the streets as people were turned into akumas and everyone else fled- well, there looked like there was screaming in the streets, at least. The cameras didn't pick up sound, which did take away from the experience, just a bit, but she could imagine what it would have sounded like.

The sheer amount of footage that Alya was getting from just the Eiffel Tower was astounding. She could only imagine how much she was going to get across the city, though the ice appearing now from the re-akumatized Frozer probably took at least a few of the feeds out. If she just played it all one camera at a time, it would be an insanely long video.

She might have to learn how to play several streams at once in a split screen. Hawkmoth would have to be shown at all times, Alya thought, and then she could do flashes of different akumas and also show the superheroes. They would fill the screen when they were doing an intense fight, maybe and-

Oh, Alya had so many ideas for the video already and she had only watched part of four streams so far. The number of akumas and the civilian resistance- which, by the way, amazing- meant that she could really play with angles and video cuts and oh, it was gonna be great.

It was also going to be a whole lot of work. Alya was probably going to spend the entire week picking out clips and then deciding which ones she wanted to use, and then it was going to be another few days of editing.

Hopefully her friends would be willing to help her out. They could blast through mostly-boring feeds in no time and get stuff trimmed down for her to review. Maybe she could even get Max to help her with the split-screen editing stuff, since he understood all of that technical talk.

Smiling widely, Alya turned back to her computer. Most of the footage at the moment was just Hawkmoth standing up on the Eiffel Tower with his two singers- and boy was Alya going to rake him over the coals for that, it was ridiculous- and so she had to wait for Ladybug and Chat Noir to head up like she knew they had. Thankfully the camera on that level wasn't iced over at all, like the ones on the lower levels were. This time, she had a front-row seat (abet at a bad angle) as she saw Lila get akumatized again (and boy was it interesting that Lila didn't look at all alarmed about the butterfly approaching her- she looked eager) and Volpina conjured up a second Hawkmoth while the real one hid.

And boy, was that ever an anxiety-inducing experience, watching Ladybug and Chat Noir approach the decoy while the real Hawkmoth hid down below, ready to surprise them from behind. Somehow Ladybug noticed him creeping up on them- and how, Alya had no idea how, she and Chat Noir seemed a bit distracted by trying to get Hawkmoth to do the right thing by turning over his Miraculous- and then they were fighting. Hawkmoth's cane-sword went down, but he didn't go down with it.

Alya sat up and watched as the three secondary users re-joined the fight just in time. She wondered where they had gone wrong, where they might have messed up and could have done better. The next bit was also the only example they had so far of the mysterious Peacock user's powers, and they needed to know what to expect in case they came into play again.

It wasn't that the Peacock's powers seemed that dangerous, at least not from what they had seen so far. Their team had just been taken off guard, and that gave Hawkmoth enough of a distraction to run off like the coward he was. Alya watched the giant moth vanish after Ladybug hit it, and she wondered if it would have vanished so easily if Ladybug had hit it when Hawkmoth was still there. Had the Peacock backed off as soon as Hawkmoth had retreated?

On one of the streams, the superheroes glanced around, trying to figure out where Hawkmoth had gone. Meanwhile, a Hawkmoth-shaped blob limped- had he been injured? They should have looked for him!- past one of the iced-over cameras, and then slumped down against a wall. Alya leaned forward, eager, as Hawkmoth sat there for a few seconds, likely shaken by the whole run-in.

Was he going to detransform? Had they really caught Hawkmoth on camera, after nearly a year of attacks? The ice on the camera would make it hard to see exactly who it was, but Ladybug's Miraculous Cure was bound to come zipping past any moment now. Was this her big scoop-?

"Ugh, and there's that distortion," Alya complained, flopping back in her chair as the already-fuzzy footage got even worse as a burst of purple lit up the screen. "C'mon, really? Can't his kwami not provide magical protection for him? The dude doesn't deserve it."

Alya sulked at the screen as a rush of red went by, clearing off the ice but doing nothing for the magical distortion. She could make out a bit of a shape on the screen, and colors- red and white- but no details, and static regularly cut across the already blurry picture. The static stayed there for longer than normal, and then the blurry, pixilated shape of civilian Hawkmoth finally got up, heading for the stairs. It was only once he had fully exited the frame that the picture finally snapped back into focus, one last bit of static cutting across the screen before the picture stabilized for good.

"Oh, come on," Alya groaned, flopping back on her bed. "That's so unfair that we were so close, and this freaking arse just- just waltzes out of there? Just walks away down the stairs and off of the tower and- and- ugh!" She slapped her fist down on the bed next to her- and then she froze. "Wait. Wait, wait, wait. He walked off of the Eiffel Tower. There have to be more cameras on the staircase and at the bottom. If he didn't detransform in front of those, would they have gone out, too?"

She didn't know. She had never really tracked other cameras from the area after the fights ended, so she didn't know if they had caught the civilian Ladybug and Chat Noir or not and she wasn't going to go back and look, not now that she knew now how dangerous it could be to have other people knowing a superhero's secret identity.

But now? There was absolutely no downside to finding out Hawkmoth's secret identity. It would be the biggest break of Alya's journalistic career.

Re-energized and laser-focused, Alya clicked back to her files, looking for the other cameras. It took a few tries for her to find the footage from the stair cameras and then she fast-forwarded to close to the end. There was a minute of anxious waiting, where Alya scanned the entire screen in case Hawkmoth had tried climbing down the side of the stairs or something ridiculous like that, and then a pair of feet appeared, headed slowly and almost unsteadily down the stairs. Before the feet could go down any further, though, the footage came to an end.

Alya let out a frustrated snarl and rewound the video a few seconds, pausing it right before it came to an end. Only a pair of perfectly white shoes and the hem of bright red pants came into view.

Those... those pants looked really familiar. Alya frowned as she stared at them. She couldn't quite place them, but maybe Marinette could, if Alya brought the footage over the next time that she went to Marinette's house. But that was stupid, Alya decided after a moment of mulling it over. Maybe they knew someone with pants like that, but there were several million people living in Paris. There was no guarantee that there weren't other people making the same (awful) fashion choices.

"So close," Alya complained aloud, glaring at her screen. If only Mr. Raincomprix had sent footage that was a few seconds longer! Except- oh, that was it! All she had to do was email him and ask for the footage from the lower-level cameras running from maybe a minute before the end of the fight to several minutes after the current end time. That would be sure to get her lots of footage of Hawkmoth, and surely he would be recognizable in some of it.

She had to hope that the footage still existed and it hadn't been written over at all. It would be close- it had been over two months since that battle- but Alya knew that she had gotten older footage from the Eiffel Tower before.

Hopefully that stuff hadn't just been saved for longer because of the akuma attack.

Excited, Alya turned back to her computer. If she was going to file a request for more footage and hoped to get it in a reasonable amount of time, she needed to have all of the information possible- what the camera IDS were, the exact date and times that she wanted were, everything. Just to be sure, Alya checked her other files to see which cameras would be focused on either the place where Hawkmoth detransformed or the stairs that he had gone down, writing the code for every last one down. Once she had that, she folded up the list and stuffed it in her pocket as she raced for the door.

"Alya, remember that you're going to be babysitting the twins in two hours," he mom called out as Alya raced past. "You'll be back by then, right?"

Alya had to bite down the frustrated noise that nearly escaped because even though this was critical, this was huge, it wasn't as though she couldn't wait a little longer to review the footage. And she could review the footage while sitting out at the kitchen counter with her sisters watching a movie in the living room, it would just be harder. "Yeah, I'll be back!"

And hopefully, she would come back with the footage that would change everything.

Officer Raincomprix was all too willing to bring Alya over to the Eiffel Tower to get more of the footage, all without her having to explain anything. He showed her to the people she needed to talk to and then trotted off to deal with a littering teenager while Alya was ushered inside of the office. The staff were all helpful, and soon Alya was leaving with everything she needed, with no questions asked.

She supposed that it was good that all of the adults were so busy, because she didn't exactly want to explain. Really, Ladybug and Chat Noir should be the first ones to know about Hawkmoth's identity.

Alya jogged back towards her family's apartment, memory stick clutched tightly in her hand. On it, she hoped, would be evidence that would show her Hawkmoth's identity. She was nearly back to her building when she ran smack-dab into a very familiar figure.

"Yo, I was just looking for you!" Nino exclaimed, pulling Alya up. He bent back over to grab the memory stick that she had dropped before the passing pedestrians could kick it away and handed it back to her. "I was trying to text you earlier, but I didn't get any response."

Alya winced. "I'm so sorry! I just got really distracted by my video editing. I opened up the folder for Heroes' Day and I got really distracted."

"Oh, that was a crazy fight. I bet there was a ton of footage. Well, until everything got all icy, at least." Nino glanced down at her as they continued down the sidewalk. "So can I ask why you were out? You look out of breath."

"Not out here," Alya warned immediately. She didn't want a passerby overhearing and trying to grab the memory stick to grab the discovery for themselves. "Come inside with me. I can tell you there, and at any rate I have to be back in-" she checked her phone- "fifteen minutes anyway to babysit my sisters."

Nino followed without question, looking interested.

"So did you find something interesting in the footage?" Nino asked curiously. "You must have. Or was there footage missing, was that why you were out?"

"Not quite," Alya told him, grinning. "I needed more footage, yeah, but it wasn't during the middle of the fight. It was at the end, because I almost had Hawkmoth's civilian self on tape."

"You- what?" Nino asked, freezing for a few seconds before jogging up the stairs alongside her again. "You think you have Hawkmoth on tape? I thought that the magic messed with the cameras!"

Alya grinned. "It does. But where he detransformed- he had to go down the stairs, and there's another camera there. Before, I could see his shoes and the hems of his pants, but now I have an extended clip of the video! It should show him coming down the stairs into sight."

Nino looked impressed. "Oh, that is amazing. But what if it's not someone you know? I mean, there's a lot of people in Paris."

"Well, I'll turn the video over to Ladybug and Chat Noir. They can decide if they want to get the police involved. They might recognize the guy, too." Alya was assuming that she wouldn't recognize Hawkmoth, but she supposed that it was a possibility. "Or we could help by asking Max if he can run some sort of face recognition thing, so that they don't have to go to the police. I'm worried that the police might try to take over themselves and end up getting really hurt by underestimating him."

"Yeah, they might try to do that. Freaking adults, thinking that they know better than the actual experts." Nino shook his head, disgusted. "But do you think Max can do that? I mean, I know he's good at computers, but face recognition- that sounds like he would have to tap into files from, like, ID cards or something."

Alya shrugged. She supposed that was true, but Max was crazy smart and also had Markov. She was sure that if she asked, he would try to see what he could do for her.

"So are you gonna look at the footage now?" Nino asked as they reached her floor. "I thought you said that you have babysitting to do."

"I do, but I wanna at least look at the footage first, if I can." Alya pulled out her keys to open the apartment door. "And I was planning on just putting on a movie and some snacks for my sisters so that they stay out of trouble while I work. They should stay out of trouble that way."

Nino gave her a supremely dubious look. "Your sisters, staying out of trouble?"

"I'd still be in the room! And it's not like I would have headphones in or anything."

"...would you like me to stay there while you do your video stuff?"

"That would be amazing," Alya told Nino, leading him into the apartment. She waved to her mom as they headed down the hallway. "But I still have time to get this done before my mom has to leave!"

Nino glanced at the clock on the wall. "Uh, babe, you only have ten minutes."

"Do you really think I can't get this done in ten minutes?" Alya led the way into her room and wriggled her mouse, waking her laptop up. "You know me better than that. I know exactly where to look in the footage."

"And you really think you'll be able to focus on looking after kids once you've seen Hawkmoth's face?"

...Alya had to admit that that was a very good point.

"I can show you the footage leading up to the end while the computer recognizes my memory stick," Alya told Nino as she plugged the new flash drive in. She rewound the footage. "See, here's Hawkmoth escaping- but he didn't go far!"

"That ice on the cameras is annoying," Nino commented as the footage played. "Is all of it like that?"

"A few cameras were spared, I think," Alya told him. "Including the one on the main level, thank goodness. I mean, there's a few blurry spots from where the ice extended onto the lens a little bit, but it's mostly clear."

"Oh, and now it's worse," Nino added. "He detransformed right in front of the camera, holy cow."

"Yeah, I was really hoping that the distortion would go away since he seemed to be hanging around, but no such luck." Alya watched as on-screen, the ice cleared away and Hawkmoth finally got up, heading for the stairs. "So watch here- there's no one besides him and the superheroes on the Tower, right? Well, them and Lila, but that's beside the point. It got evacuated pretty fast, and anyone who didn't get off got akumatized or hit by Dark Cupid. So he's headed for those stairs."

"So whoever comes down is Hawkmoth, right," Nino agreed. Then he paused. "Wait, you said Lila? But she was abroad!"

"Apparently she lied." Alya stopped the tapes right where Hawkmoth's feet appeared on the stairs. "Okay, so the stuff that I got should start about thirty seconds before the end of these, so there's some overlap."

A tension rose in the room as Alya got the new files set up to play. She kept glancing at the clock while things loaded, watching as the time for her to move into the living room ticked closer and closer.

She wouldn't be able to stand it if she had to stop at this point. Even if it was only for a short break while she said good-bye to her mom and got the twins set up with their movie and their snacks, she couldn't. She was so, so close.

This had to work.

"Loaded," Alya announced as soon as the program was ready. "And here we go!"

She and Nino leaned forward as they watched the feed from the stairs on the screen. There were thirty seconds of anxious waiting, and then Hawkmoth's shoes appeared on the stairs. They headed down unevenly, revealing the red pants cuffs once again.

"Oh, he's shaken," Nino murmured, a grin evident in his voice. "Super shaken. Serves the asshole right."

Another step, more of the pants were revealed. They watched in anxious silence as the red pants gave way to a very familiar ivory jacket, then a striped necktie, and then Hawkmoth took one more step down the stairs, head hanging down as he made his way down the Eiffel Tower.

And much to Alya's surprise, she recognized the face that went with those atrocious fashion choices, even at this angle. And from Nino's sharp inhale, she knew that he had, too.

"Well," Nino managed after a minute of trying to find his words. "This is bad."

And with that, Alya could only agree.

#Miraculous Ladybug #My writing #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #in which Alya actually acts like a reporter

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scyllua · 5 years

Text

While chap.203 hasn't stirred that much of a reaction in the Japanese fandom as the previous chapter did, it prompted many fans to emulate Sugimoto's art style. Nothing of this comes as a particular surprise, as the chapter serves as sort of a recap of the events from vol.14 (the Abashiri Prison assault)... and because Sugimoto's drawing talent would be on par with his sniping skills.

The highlights of this chapter have to do with the confirmation of the Russian sniper's identity and goals and the hint at Noda pursuing the plotline regarding the Partisans. It was rather obvious who that Russian sniper was from the very moment he (re)appeared in the manga, but given this is Golden Kamuy and the weird things that have already transpired in the plot made me think it's a very crazy Meiji era the one they are living in, I'd rather wait for the author's clear confirmation on ANY matter before taking anything for granted. Let us not forget that, for starters, I think most of us had already assumed our Russian sniper pretty dead. We can always speculate, however, and this chapter leaves enough room to reflect on a certain other sniper (this one, Japanese and now one-eyed) and how soon (or not) he could make it back to the plot.

I should work on my summaries so they aren't that long. In the meantime and to everyone who had the patience to read my previous chapter post: thank you very much and fear not, for I have no random movie comments to make here! There should be some fan comments, of course, and the usual warnings about mistakes and mistranslations apply as well. Onto the fun of two amateur artists sharing their Ogata fanarts then!

In short, as no further shots are made, Tsukishima believes Sugimoto got to the sniper and Asirpa runs off to meet him. Meanwhile, Sugimoto and the sniper -now confirmed to be Vasily- overcome the language barrier by using the latter's hand-drawn pictures to explain to each other the circumstances in which they crossed paths/met Ogata. Upon the arrival of the rest of the group and after Asirpa recognizes Vasily as probably one of the men who ambushed them in the frontier, Tsukishima explains to him Kiroranke is already dead and they don't know about the current whereabouts of Ogata, their only purpose in Karafuto being finding Asirpa and going back with her. As a rather annoyed Shiraishi complains to Vasily for shooting him, it's revealed he can't speak because of the shot wounds he sustained. As Sugimoto's group resumes their journey, Vasily keeps following them on horseback from a distance. They deduce he's now keen on meeting Ogata again and engaging in another snipers' duel, and that he's sticking around convinced the wildcat will eventually come after them. Questioned by Asirpa, Sugimoto says as long as they're still looking for the Ainu gold, there's always the possibility of Ogata coming back; as per his motivations, Sugimoto adds it might be that Ogata is simply messing with them as opposed to being after an actual goal. In their way back, the group visits Svetlana's parents to hand them a letter she wrote; even though Sugimoto would rather search for Sofia and find out the truth, he understands their primary purpose in Karafuto has been fulfilled already. The chapter ends with Sofia meeting Gansoku and Svetlana in a port city in Russian territory. After exchanging a few hits, Sofia invites Gansoku to come with her, but he turns down the offering, stating he'll travel west with Svetlana. Sofia then states she'll go to Hokkaidou in pursue of their hope... and revenge.

Ever wondered why streets are always so conveniently empty whenever there's a chasing or a shooting going on? I have, even if my question is probably answered in the same question already (because... they're so conveniently empty: easier to describe, draw or animate, and with a minimum of casualties, as well!) In any case, and even though our group seemed to be the only bystanders at the time the shooting began, there's now the usual traffic and activity you'd expect in a town street. In fact, a man in a sled is just walking down the street when, alerted by Koito and Tsukishima not to come that way or otherwise risk being shot, he good-naturally asked what the soldiers are doing. Tsukishima comments it seems as though Sugimoto has already done his magic, ie. he did what he's best at (hint: it isn't sniping or drawing, as we'll see in this chapter), and Asirpa runs off to meet him.

Here follows some good 4 pages of Sugimoto and Vasily proving the language barrier isn't an hindrance when it comes to relatively difficult tasks, such as explaining the events from vol.14 up to that point or how both of them have survived being shot in the head by the same sniper. It turns out Vasily has made enough drawings of Ogata to start his own Pixiv account -putting aside the fact that he's one century ago from that website being created-; actually, Vasily could begin posting full illustration logs, as he even took the care and time to draw the wildcat sporting different expressions, including one smiling. I'm suspecting he might have more study sketches of Ogata in the fiction than author Noda in the real world. This would pose a question for me: just how well could he see Ogata during their snipers' duel? In the extended passage as it was compiled in vol.17, they do spend many hours watching and studying each other... but let us not forget that Ogata's face was obscured in such a way, Vasily couldn't tell for sure where it was him or not. Well, following last chapter's caption at the end, I'm just going to assume here Vasily has nothing short of a photographic memory, sharpened to perfection through his sniping skills, and that he could commit to memory the features of a man he only seemed to have caught fleeting glimpses of partly because the wildcat is unforgettable. Being shot can arise that kind of reaction in people, after all. Going back to the chapter, and given the amount of Ogata portraits he has, Sugimoto asks him whether he's been requested to find him -bounty hunter-style, we may speculate-, but then Vasily uses some of his many (MANY) drawings to explain he went into a showdown with Ogata... and lost. This chapter's title could be translated as "portrait" (似顔絵, nigaoe), though its exact meaning would be more in the lines of a "drawn sketch/picture of a face". Why, yes, a portrait indeed, only that the term in Japanese suggests it isn't as precise as a taken photograph, but a close enough depiction.

I'm always making jokes and complaining about the cast in this manga being so prone to trust in others no matter what terms they might have been on in the past, but I have to admit that being able not to hold grudges, apart from preventing bitterness and anxiety in addition to other negative feelings, also helps greatly when it comes to pace the story forward. Remember how Sugimoto was about to kill Vasily in the best of Friday the 13th traditions (only that less bloody I might presume, given this is still a seinen manga and not a R-rated story), all of this happening in the previous chapter, 7 days ago in real time, 2 pages prior in the manga, like 10 seconds previously in the story's timeline? Well, let's put aside all that negativity for the sake of a couple of souls bonded by the same sniper (different bullet obviously, same rifle and all) sharing an artistic moment.

In addition to their fanboying over Ogata -for the wrong reasons, though, as they'd be both after the wildcat to settle some scores-, Sugimoto and Vasily manage to summarize the manga from vol.14 up to that point, using their respective drawings to explain to each other the events. "Explaining to each other" wouldn't be a wrong statement in this case because they do appear to be understanding the other quite well through the drawings, some gesturing, and the usefulness of somatic language, even though Vasily doesn't seem to know Japanese (as he's puzzled at Sugimoto's questions). When he produces drawings of Kiroranke, Shiraishi and Asirpa, Sugimoto explains to him the latter two aren't related to the Partisans: the bad guy here, no doubt about it, is Ogata, as he emphatically conveys by hitting his portrait with his fist. Now in quite the roll because Vasily is assimilating the ideas very fast (as he also hits Ogata's portrait), Sugimoto then explains he was also shot by the wildcat... and reveals his artistic sense might be on par with his sniping skills. ...and while I'll keep joking about his awful aiming until the day he finally manages to shoot anything down -as opposed to pummel or pierce it with his rifle or affixed bayonet-, I won't make much fun of his artistic capabilities because, I'm afraid, he might draw better than I. As I state in my blog's sidebar, I color manga panels partly because I can't draw a straight... or crooked... line for the love of it.

Sugimoto explains Ogata was in cahoots with Kiroranke -and as well as the readers, he doesn't how for how long-, shot him in the head in Abashiri Prison and then ran away taking Asirpa with him. Unlike their previous exchange, I can deduce Vasily didn't get a single word of any of it, as he mistakes Sugimoto's drawing of himself for a spider. And I must confess it took me some time to realize Sugimoto drew himself being shot: those tendril-like things sticking out of his head -that Vasily takes for a spider's legs, it seems- are meant to show the bullet's trajectory when impacting him. A parenthesis here: Let's just check Sugimoto's drawing of Ogata running away on horseback. I don't pretend to make fun of it, but I still find quite the noteworthy detail that he draws Ogata with an arrow sticking out of his right eye, and not sparing even the lock of hair that frames his face. Or at least, I'm assuming that's a lock of hair on Ogata's head. The caption Sugimoto writes in katakana reads, "Ogata escaped". That scene, may I add, has been a fan favorite -mine included- and a source of inspiration for many works in the Japanese fandom. Some speculative fanworks have to do with the circumstances Ogata runs away, and thus some fans have posed quite the questions, ranging from where he got that horse, to whether it didn't hurt too much to ride it in such conditions as, you might remember, he was wearing a hospital gown only and had no underwear to speak of. If you take a closer look at the panel, however, you'll notice Ogata is carrying a sack when he's riding away, implying he managed to gather his belongings and probably a couple more things for the road, and thus wouldn't be dying on us due to exposure or some painful horse riding to wherever it was he ran away .

Back to our amateur artists (because I'm assuming Vasily's main occupation revolves about being a sniper... with an eidetic memory for faces and some outstanding artistic talent as bonus) and resuming his recapping of the latter half of the manga and unabated by the debatable poor reception his drawing skills might be getting, Sugimoto explains Asirpa involuntarily shot an arrow that hit Ogata in the eye. Here comes a short passage -it's a single panel, in fact- that killed my Japanese pretty dead, so I wouldn't risk a translation of it... though I think, it seems to me, I could grasp that blah blah etc. etc., Sugimoto further and quite lively states Ogata's death would have "stained" Asirpa -meaning, would have dirtied her hands-, and thus he saved the wildcat because he'd do anything in his power to keep everything surrounding her pure for her sake. The actual word in Japanese he uses is 綺麗 (kirei), which you might know as meaning "cute" and "pretty", but it can also be understood in the sense of "clean", "pure" or "neat." Given Sugimoto literally uses 汚い (kitanai), "dirty", "unclean" or "foul" (used as a verb in this case) to describe how Ogata's death would have impacted Asirpa, I'm going with "pure" in my previous sentence. ...I'm aware my explanation of Sugimoto's statement makes it sound as though he's belittling saving Ogata, but I can reassure you that his lines are way more poetic and moving: it's just that my Japanese -and my English, come to that- is just that lacking, sorry about this! The scene is more moving because Asirpa arrives at the precise moment to hear Sugimoto's words, but he doesn't notice her.

The rest of the group arrives and cuts off Sugimoto and Vasily's artistically driven moment of plot exposition, though. And now, please allow me to state that God bless Tsukishima for being himself, acting as the sane man every story needs, accompanying the group in this journey, and knowing Russian, not in that particular order: I'm 100% convinced this manga wouldn't progress half as smoothly as it does weren't he around. And Tsurumi and Koito wouldn't be probably around either if he didn't have that presence of mind and swiftness of action, specifically when projectiles and explosions are involved. After Asirpa says she thinks Vasily was part of the group of men that ambushed them in the frontier, Tsukishima explains to him Kiroranke is already dead and Ogata ran away, his whereabouts unknown to them. Their only purpose in Karafuto was to find Asirpa and go back with her, he adds, and they have nothing to do with the Czar's assassination by the Partisans. Vasily says nothing in the metaphorical sense, as he keeps quiet and seems to accept the explanation. Now, and I've already written above, I've always complained about the GK cast for being this trusty and, let's say, think nothing of the repeated risk of a headshot by accepting in their ranks a traitorous character who left their previous party after shooting a couple people in the head, but I have to admit yet again the characters being this quick to understand, accept and come to terms with practically anything and everything does help move forward the plot. Very much so.

I wrote Vasily said nothing in the metaphorical sense because it's revealed -just as we were speculating- he can't speak due to the shot wounds he sustained during his duel with Ogata. Once outside, Shiraishi complains to him about shooting him; when our Escape King snaps whether he doesn't have anything to say or it's just that Russians don't know how to apologize (he literally asks whether there are no words for apologizing in Russian), Vasily shows him his face, prompting a reaction in Shiraishi that might make readers grateful we aren't shown the state of his lower face. Sugimoto comments at that moment he might not be able to speak due to those wounds. I was also wondering whether Vasily knew or at the very least could grasp a little Japanese. It seems to me he might not after all, as there are some panels throughout the chapter that show him with an interrogation mark -indicating he isn't understanding- when Sugimoto was talking to him. In the above panels as well, Tsukishima seems to be translating Shiraishi's complaints for him.

Just before the group resumes their journey, Shiraishi tells Vasily -in not so kind words- to go back to Russia, but he's shown to keep following them from a distance. Shiraishi ponders whether he doesn't believe Kiroranke is already dead, but Asirpa points out he used the back of Kiro's wanted poster to make some of his drawings, leading her to conclude he isn't interested in the latter anymore. As discussed by the our main protagonist trio, it seems Vasily is sticking to them under the belief they'll eventually cross paths with Ogata; as Sugimoto puts it, given he's still alive, he considers their snipers' duel to be not finished (I suppose a more poetic way to put it would be, "as long as he draws breath, he can keep fighting"). The immortal also thinks there's always the possibility of Ogata coming after them because of the Ainu gold, prompting Asirpa to wonder if that's actually his goal: let us not forget he showed quite the intent to kill her (chap.187) and thus, eliminate the one person who holds the key to solving the tattoo puzzle. A somewhat serious and pensive Sugimoto comments it might be that Ogata... is simply messing or toying around with them. Cue a full-page panel depicting a lynx (in Japanese, an ooyamaneko) crossing the path in the snowy forest. (I should point out I'm assuming it's a lynx because of its ears, making it very similar to the one shown in chap.169, vol.17.)

A not-so-random fan comment here: I always refer to Sugimoto as not being the sharpest knife in the drawer. Actually, I'd say he's the kind to smash the drawer against a wall and use the sharpest fragments of it to cut open whatever it is he might need cut, even if I'm compelled yet again to admit his approach, while not the most strategically planned, tends to work. But he also seems to be quite understanding of others in addition to his natural kindness, and it comes as not much of a surprise then that he could be the person with the better grasp at Ogata's personality. Or the only person who might have any grasp on it at all, in any case. I must say my opinion of Ogata's character pretty much coincides with that of Sugimoto as he stated it in chap.196 and now in this chapter: specifically, that Ogata doesn't have a particular motivation to act as he does (apart from being driven by the most negative and dangerous of his traits, of course). I think his character isn't meant to have any specific motivations or goals other than being chaotic for the sake of it; however, as Noda has given a background to every single recurrent and relevant character in the manga and spares no revelations for some of them no matter how far into the plot we might be (the most recent flashback regarding Koito's past should be an example), I can't discard the possibility of the author having in store some plot twist or equal revelation about Ogata.

Given Sofia is the only one who knows the truth now (I'm assuming here Sugimoto thinks Ogata might have sided with Kiroranke for a reason that lies with the Partisans' intentions), our immortal comments he'd liked to look for her. He's aware, though, that Tsukishima and Koito's mission was to find Asirpa and get back with her to Hokkaido, whereas Tanigaki joined in the entourage for the sake of the girl as well and thus, they should have no reason to pursue other ends at the time. They still stop by the lighthouse to hand Svetlana's letter to her parents, and just as the manga implies they won't be going after more subplots, Asirpa points out Sofia was planning to reunite with her comrades in the continent and then go back to Japan: she wouldn't just run away to Europe after everything that just happened.

Right in cue, Sofia meets Gansoku and Svetlana in a port town in Russia. Just as Gansoku seemed to be involved in yet another cathartic moment pummeling around men who can't put a dent on him, he's challenged by Sofia but refuses, stating he only fights other men. He's quick to change his mind and declare the world does have many surprises in store ("The world is so wide!") after Sofia not only punches him, but manages to get in quite the equal grounds with him. This yet again poses another question for me: given Gansoku is one of the toughest men in this story -in the strictest physical sense at the very least: we can't forget everything Nikaidou has gone through the manga, after all-, how come Sofia can beat him so badly? The obvious answer would be that Sofia happens to be just that tough -or the toughest woman of the Meiji era-, but since this is a Shueisha and a Jump-published manga, I also want to believe she might be using Haki to hit that hard. Just as Nami in One Piece, her blows manage to harm a man's heart and soul.

Before their fight can further escalate (but after Sofia has pulled off the almost obligatory Rip Open my Shirt scene, only that she isn't exactly wearing a shirt and the scene isn't that common when female characters are involved because of censorship), Svetlana intervenes and stops them, saying it'll be quite the problem for her if Sofia kills her bodyguard. Implying here she was at least sure of what the outcome of the fight would have been. The three of them have a talk then and Sofia invites Gansoku to join her, but he turns down the offer and explains both he and Svetlana intend to make their way to the west, to the cities where a larger population means a larger possibility to find stronger people (to beat the **** out of them in more cathartic instances, I'm presuming). As Svetlana asks Sofia where she's planning to go now, she replies that she's going to Hokkaido... for their hope and revenge.

I should note I'm not including any more panels of Sofia in this chapter because I'm assuming Tumblr would flag this entry otherwise. I was never told why they put my blog "under review" when I barely had any posts on it, so my best guess has to with an entry I wrote explaining about the terrorist groups that operated in my country. I made that post partly because to poke some fun at Sugimoto's wielding a hammer and a sickle in chap.145 (vol.15), and how that would have been merited a ban for this manga were some conservative Congressmen in my country to see the panels (the largest terrorist group operating in my country originally followed the Communist ideology). Well, as Sofia begins exchanging blows with Gansoku, she uncovers her torso and her breasts remain visible for the rest of the chapter, even when she's speaking with him and Svetlana in the freezing Russian landscape. Her breasts are so big, they cover part of the chapter's title in the last page... making me suspect Tumblr could flag this entry just because her nipples are equally big.

Some (more) fan comments on this chapter: The story is unfolding as I'd anticipated in a very broad way, as it seems Vasily will stick around with the group for at least some more chapters. While none has proposed an alliance, I don't think any will have any inconvenience cooperating with each other as long as their goals align: even if it's true Sugimoto's group isn't that elated at the possibility of meeting Ogata again, they're obviously expecting to cross paths with him in the future, and extra help is always welcomed. Specially if things come to a sniper against another sniper, I'd say: the manga is hinting at another confrontation between Vasily and Ogata. After all, Noda is a noteworthy narrator and all of his plot elements turn out to be relevant (even those related to food and cultural traditions which could have been seen at first as more trivia-informative to the reader than important to the plot), so I don't think he brought Vasily back to the story for no reason. Or just to show off Vasily's artistic talent, in any case, * ahem *. The plot would still have to take shape, but it seems to me all elements are aligning so that Noda can solve several pending subplots: Vasily's reappearance can tie up with the plot regarding the remaining member of the Partisans trio, Sofia, and also provides the proper scenario for Ogata to make it back to the story. It'd be a viable, solid and swift way to focus in the current open subplots before focusing on the main premise of the Ainu gold in Hokkaido.

I'd just speculate then about how soon the subplots would meet a resolution. I'm wondering whether we'll see the rest of this arc taking place in Karafuto, as Sugimoto's group has already made their way back to its southern region, whereas Sofia is in Russian soil, but making her way to Hokkaido. If Vasily doesn't have any trouble with following them to Hokkaido -given he's already in Japanese soil-, then I see no reason as to why the action might not unfold in the island that is the main stage of this manga, but I'm thinking this arc could wrap up while the group is still in Karafuto. We'd need to see at least one more chapter to see how things progress from this point on; unless Noda suddenly feels like jumping back to Hokkaido and showing us what Hijikata has been up to since vol.18 and whether Tsurumi reunited with his men already, with the arc “introduction“ over and the situation laid out to both the cast and the readers, chap.204 should serve as the starting point for the resolution of the current subplots.

My last fan comment of the entry has to do with Vasily. While I'm happy to see him back in the plot and sticking to the protagonist cast for the time being (and hoping he stays in the plot and with the cast for at least the remainder of this volume), his personality as shown in the current events has caught my attention. I wouldn't say he's that different or plain out-of-character in comparison to his first appearance in vol.17, but it's also true he now acts carefree enough as to join Sugimoto in a fanart-sharing moment, and is more emotional as opposed to his cool-headed demeanor during the ambush in the frontier. And adding to his minor hairstyle change, he also looks more youthful now, even if the only we get to see of his face are his eyes. We'd need to see more of him in upcoming chapters to have a better grasp at his character... but if you'd ask me, I'd say Noda has made some changes to his personality, or rather, is shaping his character in a different, though not drastic, way. Why? Well, it seems to me Vasily would fit our protagonist cast and all the weird things bound to happen in this convulsed Meiji era just fine and even better now; in comparison, the group he first appeared as part of acted colder, more focused and serious. Until we see more of him, I'm just going to assume Noda decided to give his character another direction because Tsukishima was plenty of a sane, serious man for the group. Any more sane men in the same group at the same time and I might begin doubting what happened to this manga.

#golden kamuy #fan talk

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comicteaparty · 4 years

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January 4th-January 10th, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from January 4th, 2020 to January 10th, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

What goals do you have going forward with this new year for your story?

carcarchu

well i basically have the same goal every year which is to cover more ground, i made the mistake of making my first comic be a super long 3 part epic so it feels like it's going to take me years to make it even part way through when i try to make my chapters longer however it generally leads me to feeling burned out so i still have a way to go when it comes to finding the right length per chapter that i can put out consistently

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

In Phantomarine (http://www.phantomarine.com/), this year I finally reach the chapter where all my main characters meet and start interacting - it's where the story truly kicks off. I've spent almost 2 years in setup/exposition mode, and I finally get to exit it properly. I'm so. SO. Excited. And I really want to take my time and do it properly. It's about to get very fun for me, and I hope it will show in the work!

Cronaj

My goals mainly consist of reaching page 100. I'm over 1/4th of the way there, and I believe I can get there before 2021. I also want to reach the introduction of one of the main characters, but I don't think that'll happen this year. This character doesn't appear until the end of Ch. 5, which is somewhere around page 170-180. Am I waiting too long to introduce this character? Absolutely.

eli [a winged tale]

I am almost halfway through Arc 1 and almost at 10% of the story Looking forward to chugging away at it and hope to reach the First Plot Point by the end of the year

kayotics

I guess one of my goals is to reformat chapter 1 for printing (I drew it at the wrong size), and then update chapters 1 & 2 for colors. I’d like to compile the first four chapters into a book, but I’d like all the chapters to be visually similar in color at least.

Tuyetnhi

Gonna try to finish two chapters this year and clean up ch.1 and 2 for printing its gonna be a lot of work but I know it can be managed~

snuffysam

In terms of where the main story will go - Book 3 just started, and Chapter 1 should be finished mid-March. Chapter 2 will be finished early-mid July, maybe even late June? Chapter 3 will be finished sometime in September. And then it's Chapter 4... which won't be finished until like June 2021 lol. But anyway, by the end of the year we'll be introduced to all the important characters of this arc (though we won't have had much time with some of them). Including a character who's so important, I'd almost call them the deuteragonist of the entire comic if not for the fact that they're only showing up 700 pages in, lol.(edited)

Past the actual story aspects - the comic will be celebrating its fourth birthday at the end of February! And, given that the first page of the comic was started on a leap day, it's technically the first birthday the comic has actually had. The upcoming short stories for the year are some of my favorites so far, so that's exciting. I'm also interested to see how the shipping contest & fan-art contest turn out. We'll also be reaching page 750 at some point this year, which is a pretty big milestone.

Deo101

I have a goal for my second comic to get it off of hiatus, and for my main one I would really like to make improvements in the areas I've received critiques! Mostly, I just want to keep making them for another year <3 I don't really have any goals other than to keep on going with it

(also, a preemptive congrats on four years!)(edited)

AntiBunny

Well, having fully reuploaded my archives, I'm letting them update gradually to hopefully attract a new audience over on comic fury. When it catches back up I intend to finish up Chapter 10, and with it book 2. Then I'll finally launch book 3, Coast to Coast, which will allow me to tell more different stories by changing locations.

Kelsey (Kurio)

Hey Vinnie! How goes it?

AntiBunny

Still chugging along.

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

The big goal for Wayfinders off course is first of all to launch! In start February (we will find a date today iiih!!) Then at the end of 2020, if everything goes accordingly we should have produced 7 chapters enough for a book Ah! This is all so exciting

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

Pretty much my goal is to just keep swimming. I hope to complete more chapters this year. I should be able to finish chapter one of my comic, Eryl, unless I have to take a long hiatus (which, honestly, is looking very likely). Ashes is less time intensive than Eryl and the chapters half as long (only 16 pages each; Eryl chapters are usually 30-35 pages), so I’m going to try and finish at least two, if not three chapters before 2021. But honesty, just getting what I can done and continuing to push forward is my biggest goal.

Mei

I only started My Husband is a Cultist last year in April (https://tapas.io/series/MyHusbandisaCultist) and my goal is to reach that first year anniversary and to keep the train rolling for this comic! I initially wanted to have the rest of this arc completed in 2020, but I've decided to be realistic as I will be making a grad film at the same time (yay), so I just plan to do as much as I can, and to at least have Chapter 4 completed before March, and maybe Chapter 5 after that! I have a lot of story I want to tell and it's hard to stay focussed on it, but I'm doing my best, doing a little at a time!

Phin (Heirs of the Veil)

My goals are mainly to become a little quicker and finish the second book in time for the Heirs of the Veils (http://heirsoftheveil.fervorcraft.de/) fourth anniversary next October. Story-wise we want to have all the bits and pieces in place to slowly approach the actual meaty parts of the comic and prepare well enough to finish it in the coming 3 years.

FeatherNotes

Our goal is to have our book fully edited, with help from editors and friends, so we can be more confident in it's true rendition. Im not one to stick to making pages perfect, but there are definitely parts that could use some attention! Other than that, book 4 is on it's way and it's always a main goal to get to print for upcoming cons!

varethane

My goal this year is to get to the end of the first arc of Wychwood! After a year of working on it, I'm roughly halfway there. I'd also like to lern 2 colour better.

Capitania do Azar

This year I hope to get a new book out!! That would be great and also you know, just keep going. If all goes well I can get a chapter out until the end of the year and that'd be cool (but also perhaps a bit too hopeful, since my chapters have started to...get bigger with time..)

SAWHAND

This year my goal is to start posting the comic! And, if it works out, I'd love to get the whole thing thumbnailed out by the end of the year. Fingers crossed!!

DanitheCarutor

My goal is to finish chapter 5 in less than a year. Up until now it's taken a year to finish a chapter thanks to work, chores and the occasional procrastination spell. But in December I quit my depressing job that was a two hour drive away, so I'm hoping to be more productive, even if I get part time work somewhere in town.

twothirty

along with finishing chapter 6 and 7, im also hoping to have all of book 2's script written and edited~

renieplayerone

My goal is id love to get the first chapter or two of kate blast printed

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

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x5red · 5 years

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Sixty fun & fascinating facts about the classic Supergirl (1 / 4)

Great guns! How time flies!

May 2019 will mark sixty years since the pages of Action Comics #252 carried its landmark tale: a crashed rocket ship in a Midvale field, and emerging from within, an enthusiastic young teenager who was destined to become one of Earth’s fiercest champions. That teenager was, of course, Kara Zor-El -- otherwise known as Supergirl..!

To celebrate the classic Kara Zor-El’s sixtieth anniversary, compiled below is part one of a series outlining sixty surprising or unusual facts about the original intrepid Argo City teen who leapt from that crumpled Midvale rocket ship. Covering her original Silver and Bronze Age incarnation, in comics and on screen, each factoid is calculated to intrigue and delight -- hopefully even seasoned Kara fans will find a few morsels of trivia that had previously escaped their attention.

Enjoy...

1. She wasn’t originally known as Kara Zor-El when she debuted in comics.

What’s in a name? Well not a lot, it seems, if you happen to be Kryptionian..!

Although everyone knows Supergirl’s real name is Kara Zor-El, the Maid of Might herself didn’t deem it worthy of a mention until Action Comics #288 (May 1962), three years after her introduction, when she innocently referenced her full moniker during a dream sequence. After that readers would need to wait another fifteen years(!) before she’d mention it again in Superman Family #177 (June 1976). Outside of these rare instances Kara was usually known as Kara of Argo City, or in very early comics simply just as Kara, her birthplace itself not having acquired a name until Action Comics #280 (Sep 1961).

2. 1984′s Supergirl wasn’t actually the first movie headlined by a superhero female.

Many movie buffs will list 1984′s Supergirl as the breakthrough release that finally saw women headline a movie in the superhero genre, but this is far from the truth.

Supergirl’s record is true, but only in the English-speaking world: there had already been numerous superhero movies in non-English markets centred around super-powered female crime fighters, most notably in the Philippines. The most popular Filipino superheroine, Darna, had already racked up no less than eleven movies by 1980, plus one guest appearance in another hero’s movie.

3. She once fell madly in love with a woman.

As incredible as it seems today, the straight-laced DC Comics of the 1960s once okayed a story in which the Maid of Might fell head-over-heels in love with a woman. It happened in Adventure Comics #384 (Sept 1969), and, as you might expect, the story had a few twists and turns before the true nature of Kara’s romance was revealed.

The short version is this: Kara uses computer dating to select a match suitable for a superwoman. The computer picks Volar, a male superhero from the deeply misogynistic planet of Torma (second planet of Star-Sun 447B, in case you want to pay a visit.) Kara travels to Torma and is smitten by Volar, but he seems reluctant to reciprocate her affections. Eventually the plot reveals its twist: due to Torma’s notorious chauvinism, Volar is actually a superheroine forced to masquerade as a superhero. ”I’m heading back to Earth – where I belong!”, exclaims a disappointed Girl of Steel, “I found out Volar was no hit – but a real miss!” (Ho ho!)

4. She’s a self-professed fan of Jazz.

Growing up in both Argo City and Midvale, Kara was probably exposed to a wide range of different musical styles -- but at the end of a long day saving the world, what kind of sounds did she like to relax to? The pages of Daring New Adventures of Supergirl #7 (May 1983) dropped readers a hint when Kara expressed a strong affinity towards Jazz music. Indeed in a later issue of that same series, it is while attending a free Jazz concert with friends in Chicago’s Grant Park that Kara first tangled with the super-villain Reactron (making his comicbook debut.)

5. She once packed in her superhero career to become a socialite and style-icon in Paris.

The mid-60s was an interesting time for DC Comics; a tipping point between the juvenile gimmick-driven hangover of the Golden Age, and the more mature storytelling style of the upcoming Bronze Age, as one generation of artists and writers slowly gave way to the next. Brave and the Bold #63 (Dec 1965) fell squarely into the former category with its outlandish story, Revolt of the Super-Chicks.

The tale begins with a restless Kara feeling unappreciated: the public see her as just a hero in a gaudy costume, ignoring the sophisticated woman inside. Much to the chagrin of Kal-El, Kara abandons her superhero-ing career and heads to the bright lights of Paris to live it up. Kal sends Wonder Woman to Paris to talk some sense into Kara (the first time the pair had shared an adventure, by the way), but Diana is likewise wooed by the socialite lifestyle and joins Kara in her nocturnal revelry. If it hadn’t been for the intervention of the villain Multi-Face, the pair might have still been in Paris now.

6. Producer Ilya Salkind regretted Helen Slater’s casting as Supergirl.

When Ilya Salkind took on the task of co-producing Superman-related movies in the mid 1970s, he’d argued against the wishes of both Warner Bros. and his producer father, Alexander, by suggesting that the title role not go to a Hollywood A-lister. Ilya followed exactly the same logic when it came time to cast 1984′s Supergirl, championing an unknown actor called Helen Slater over more bankable names such as Brooke Shields (favoured by his father.)

In an interview in 2000, however, Ilya seemed to have some regrets, telling Scott Michael Bosco on behalf of Digital Cinema, “[...] frankly, with hindsight I regret it. Brooke Shields would have – not made it a better movie, but perhaps a more commercial one. This I’m convinced. I think there would have been more men seeing the movie.” Commenting on how Slater’s screen presence was more Katherine Hepburn than Sophia Loren, Salkind noted, “What happened, I think, is that we lost a lot of the audience, the male audience. I think it was also because the girl was a little unattainable.”

7. One of her most iconic costumes was originally designed by a fan.

Supergirl has had a number of crime-fighting outfits over the decades, but two particularly stand out as being iconic: Helen Slater’s 1984 movie costume (plus its imitators, such as the post-Crisis Matrix costume and Melissa Benoist’s tv costume), and the 1970s hotpants outfit.

The Girl of Steel’s hotpants attire was a racy number that screamed 70s sexploitation at a volume only Kryptonian lungs could achieve: short shorts, a plunging V neckline, billowing sleeves, and a neck choker, all in the customary red, sky blue, and yellow. The design wasn’t something dreamt up by one of DC’s staff of artists, however. but taken from a sketch submitted by reader John Sposato of Edison, New Jersey. DC had used several fan submitted costume ideas during the early 1970s -- each outfit typically receiving one or two story outings -- but John’s submission was obviously so liked by DC artists that it eventually became her permanent costume for most of the 1970s.

8. She turned Streaky into a Super Cat by accident.

DC in the Silver Age prided itself on being a family-friendly brand, free from the squalor and depravity that had once graced the pages of some of its competitors, causing moral crusaders (armed with books written by Dr. Fredric Wertham) to brand the medium as a threat to the youth of America. Without the use of excessive violence to bring thrills and drama to its superhero comics, DC relied on gimmicks such as Kryptonite. Consequently, by the Silver Age, the stuff was everywhere(!)

With her keen practical mind, Kara decided (much to the condescending amusement of her cousin) to develop an alchemy that would neutralise the harmful effects of this ever burgeoning supply of Kryptonite (Action Comics #261, Feb 1960.) She failed, naturally, but the discarded end-product, labelled X-Kryptonite, ended up accidentally giving a local stray alley-cat super powers. And so Streaky the Super Cat was born -- entirely by accident..!

9. Lena Luthor wasn’t the only female Luthor family member giving her trouble.

The Luthor family has a long history of causing trouble for the Girl of Steel. Not only did Supergirl struggle to keep her secret identity from the telepathic Lena (Thorul) Luthor -- Lex’s little sister -- but Adventure Comics #397 (Sept 1970) saw the introduction of Lex’s scheming niece, Nasthalthia. Nasty, as she was known, joined Stanhope College with a determination to help Uncle Lex flush out which of Stanhope’s students was secretly Supergirl. Suspecting Linda Danvers from the start, Nasty even followed Linda when she graduated and moved to San Francisco to become a TV camerawoman. The pair would play a dangerous cat-and-mouse game throughout many early 1970s Supergirl tales, but Nasty never quite got the proof she needed to unmask the Maid of Might.

10. She was married when she died in Crisis on Infinite Earths.

A story published in Superman Vol. 1 #415 (Jan 1986) saw the Fortress of Solitude infiltrated by a mysterious visitor from a distant planet. Intent on stealing a memento of the recently deceased Kara, the handsome green-skinned thief named Salkor is quickly apprehended by Superman.

Salkor explains how he had found Supergirl drifting unconscious in space some two years previous. He had cured her of Kryptonite sickness, but she had been left with severe amnesia. In the days that followed Salkor and Kara drew close and entered into a quickie marriage, but not long after the marriage he awoke to find Kara missing -- her memory had presumably returned. Over the next two years Salkor slowly traced his bride back to Earth, but tragically he arrived just as news of her death was broadcast around the world.

11. Her creation was part of a strategy to boost DC’s flagging superhero comic sales.

Supergirl wasn’t created on a mere creative whim; the impetus behind her introduction was likely a long-term sales strategy DC Comics had been following since the mid-1950s. According to Gerard Jones in his book Men of Tomorrow, DC knew that the demographics for the Superman radio and television shows revealed a sizeable share of young girl audience members, and that market research showed that girls read their brother’s Superman and Batman comics (second hand!) DC therefore set out to entice young girls into buying their own superhero comics by introducing titles like Superman’s Girlfriend, Lois Lane, and characters like Batwoman and Supergirl. Although some superheroines have been accused of being nothing more than eye-candy for the young male audience, Supergirl was introduced squarely to inspire young girls.

12. She could read your mind.

In Adventure Comics #397 (Sept 1970) Supergirl investigates a mystery girl found in a coma on the Stanhope College campus. As the anonymous patient lies motionless in a hospital bed, the Girl of Steel conveniently remembers that she has the ability to perform Vulcan mind-melds: ”I'll try to delve into her subconscious -- maybe I can learn something”. The trick reveals that the mystery girl was the victim of a black magic cult, causing Supergirl to infiltrate the group undercover (literally!) Strangely, although the Girl of Steel can read other people’s minds, she seemed very poor at reading her own, as she promptly forgets all about her mind-reading abilities after that single issue.

13. She always knew how to be popular.

When Kara from Argo City first landed on Earth, she took it upon herself to pick her own secret identity name. “While you were gone”, she tells her cousin, “I used my super-hearing and heard many Earth girls’ names! I thought of a good one for myself.” The name she chose, of course, was Linda.

It isn’t perhaps a surprise that her super-hearing fixated on that particular name, given that according to names registered with US Social Security, Linda was one of the most popular girls’ names in the 1950s, beginning the decade in the top slot, but dropping two places to third by the time Kara arrived on Earth in 1959. (Kara, by the way, was 935th on the girls list at the time that Ms. Zor-El crashed her rocket ship in Midvale.)

14. Her first appearance on television was in a 1962 comedy sketch, played by Carol Burnett.

In 1962 the Garry Moore Show featured a seven minute sketch lampooning the popular George Reeves Superman TV show -- the comedy gimmick being that instead of the Man of Steel, the sketch’s evildoers were pitted against the Maid of Might, played by comedian Carol Burnett. (A similar spoof by Lucille Ball a few years earlier doesn’t count, btw, as Lucy was playing Superman, not Supergirl.)

The madcap plot sees Carol dashing to and fro, frantically switching back and forth between her everyday clothes and her hero costume, while performing an array of ridiculous feats of strength. It is debatable whether this truly qualifies as a genuine Supergirl appearance, given the obvious Reeves inspiration, but Burnett’s 1962 version does use the Supergirl name and a reasonable facsimile of her 60s costume.

15. Her first proper appearance on television was in an advert, selling underwear!

Even if the 1962 Carol Burnett sketch is ruled out as not being canonical Kara, Supergirl’s late-70s underwear commercial qualifies without a shadow of a doubt. The short advert, for the kids brand Underroos, sees Supergirl, Spider-Woman, Wonder Woman, and even Batgirl, all extolling the virtues of wearing superheroine themed undergarments. Dating from sometime around 1978, the ad seems to be the first authorised on-screen appearance of Supergirl, meaning that the ad’s opening line, “Now Supergirl is on Underoos”, is the first spoken line uttered by any actress playing the Girl of Steel. (It is unknown who the lucky voice artist was.)

That’s all for part one -- hope you enjoyed it..! Check out part two (soon) for another fifteen fascinating factoids.

#supergirl #superhero #comics #dc #dccomics #superheroine #karazorel #kara zor-el #silver age #bronze age #streaky #superman #luthor

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