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honey-baby-blossom · 2 years

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peachy! - eddie munson

part one | part two | part three

summary | you wait anxiously for your study session with your ex-best friend and freak of Hawkins, Eddie Munson, but a walk down memory lane makes it even more complicated

warnings | angst, assault, bruises, mutual pining, bullying, anxiety, crying

word count | 4.3k

notes | okayokay this one took longer than I had planned but it's like twice as long as the first one which is great since that one blew up and people have been asking for the next part!! also I'm starting a taglist, message or comment if you want to be added to it!

Even after the two decades of the same beeping noise waking you up each morning, a jolt ran through your chest as the sound rang out in the silence. Your eyes flew open in the dark as you smacked the plastic until it went quiet. You’d always been a deep sleeper, your parents joking that it would take a 9.0 magnitude earthquake to wake you up on your own. Even then, however, you’d still wake in a jolt, as if you’d been shot with a shock of electricity.

Your feet dragged across the soft carpet towards the bathroom and twitched in reaction to the freezing tile. Mornings were always slow and routine like this, your eyes squinting at the light as you entered the tile bathroom and open, ready for the day as you exited. You tugged on the same pair of jeans from yesterday and padded over to your dresser.

Your fingers danced across your shirts, trying to find one that seemed to call to you for the day. You ran through everything you'd be doing and made sure the potential shirt would be up for it all. You froze for a moment, thoughts lingering on the one task you'd almost forgotten: tutoring Eddie Munson after school.

Without thinking you reached toward the back of your drawer for the black and white baseball t-shirt with the logo you helped design. You'd stopped wearing it a long time ago, brushing the entire era of its use out of your mind. It would make Eddie smile, you thought. But you couldn't give off the wrong impression. He can't know you think of him when he's not forcing his presence into your life.

It was finally starting to feel comfortably mundane opening up the library early each morning at the school you'd called home for so many years. It was awkward to still live life in a place you couldn't wait to escape, but it helped that you could simply stay in your favorite part of the whole experience: the Hawkins High School Library. You still felt excitement at being able to help run it with the authority you had been dying for as a student. Eventually, the aide before you got another job at another school and you begged for the position. The pay wasn't much, but it was definitely good enough for now.

The day felt long just like usual, but you tried to use all the empty hours planning and preparing for your tutoring session with Eddie. Part of you was looking forward to it, filled with the jittery excitement that took you back to your senior year, but the rest had been overtaken by rational thought and bitterness. It was better- no, smarter to stay professional with your former best friend. No feelings, no expectations. Just a book report.

Despite your conscious effort, the whole ordeal clogged the front of your mind the entire day. You shelved books and wondered if he'd have you read to him again like you used to. You organized catalogs and hoped he wouldn't ask you how college was coming along. You sharpened pencils until they could be used for surgery while anxiously wondering if maybe today he wore his Hellfire shirt and that maybe you should have worn yours then you could be matching, but would he even want to match with you? Would he care? It's been two years why would he still-

"Peachy-pie!" his voice called over the low groan of the library doors. You jumped in your seat slightly, surprised at the noise, but more at the person behind them. You took in his presence and frowned slightly, glancing over to the clock.

"I thought we said after school?" you asked, eyebrows still furrowed in confusion. Eddie gave you a lopsided half-smile and strode behind the counter towards you.

"We did," he nodded, glancing over at the doors once before slipping onto the floor with his legs crossed in front of him. He smiled sweetly up at you, his neck craning to see you clearly since his back was pressed firmly against the wood cabinet next to you.

"Then why are you-"

"Have you learned to keep a secret yet, or are you still a human megaphone?" he asked, his large eyes staring up into yours. You stammered and frowned, but he waved his hand and shook his head as soon as you started. "Doesn't matter. Anyways, I pissed off Jason Carver again and I'd rather spend lunch in here rather than pretending that I could win a fight."

You smiled and stared down at him for a moment. He tilted his head slightly, letting his bangs fall into his eyes.

"Against Jason alone or with all his buddies?" you asked playfully, turning in your chair slightly.

"All his buddies," Eddie answered, nodding once with confidence.

"Then yeah, no. You couldn't win," you said, turning back to your work. Eddie raised his eyebrows and twisted up onto his knees so that the top of his head met your shoulder.

"But alone?" he questioned, his eyes filled with childlike curiosity. You smiled harder and hummed for a moment in thought.

"Maybe not win, but you'd definitely do some damage. At least show him that you're not one to mess with," you said.

"I thought the leather and devil horns did that for me."

"Sort of, but to Jason that just makes you... I don't quite know the word," you said, biting your lip as you frowned. Eddie watched you work, letting his chin rest against the desk.

"A freak," he finished, his voice softer. You shook your head quickly and let your hands pause against the stacks of paper.

"No. Well, sure, to him, maybe. But just a target, I guess. Someone who he thinks should be taught a lesson," you said, going back to sorting the paper in front of you.

Eddie nodded his head slightly and stayed quiet, watching you work. A voice in the back of your head told you to scold him for being behind the counter. Be professional, it hissed. But you ignored it, thinking that you'd let any regular student hide from someone like Jason Carver with you.

"Like old times again," Eddie mumbled, his speech garbled slightly as his head rested its weight against his chin on the desk. You looked down at him quickly, eyebrows furrowed in curiosity.

"What is?" you asked. He tilted his head to look up at you better, letting his cheek press against the wood instead.

"This. Spending lunch on your right. Talking like we used to," he said, gazing up at you with those wide brown eyes. Your cheeks flushed and you turned away, but you still felt those eyes on you. "I really started to think you hated me. Thought you'd started calling me a freak with everybody else."

"I could never hate you, Eddie," you said, eyebrows furrowing deeper.

"You forgot about me then. That's the only other explanation for where the last two years went," he said, his voice deeper than before in seriousness.

"It's not either of those," you said quickly, blinking a few times and shaking your head as you looked down at him. He frowned back at you, but still didn't raise his head.

"But it is something?" he said, deep brown eyes widening. You opened your mouth to speak, but shut it quickly and shook your head, turning back to your work.

"I graduated, Eddie. Our lives just... changed, is all," you shrugged. Eddie stayed quiet for a moment, his eyes still on you. In the thick silence, the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. He stood slowly, chewing on his lip.

"You suck at lying, you know that?" he said, standing over you. You sucked in a breath and turned to look up at him defensively. "I'll be over at your place around four, 'kay Peach? Pencil and everything."

He mustered a small smile before turning to leave, his long legs moving swiftly under him as he went.

-Two Years Earlier-

The gym was built in the center of Hawkins High School and was obnoxiously large. You couldn't help but roll your eyes as you walked inside, following close behind Eddie in the crowd of seniors. He glanced behind him to make sure you were still there, close enough to touch. You looked back at him, holding eye contact for a moment before looking away bashfully simultaneously.

He'd been looking at you that way a lot recently, like out of everyone and everything in the whole world, you were the only thing he wanted to see. Granted, it was mutual. You practically couldn't function without Eddie by your side. But despite the pink cheeks and stolen glances shared between the two of you, neither one had made a move, silently waiting for something to give the last push.

Eddie stepped up onto the bleachers easily, his long legs carrying him higher than most of the other students, including you. You let out a soft grunt as you took the first large step, fighting to keep your balance as people tried to push past you. Just as you raised your foot to step up the next one, a faceless thug bumped your shoulder, knocking your weight forward. You gasped hard enough to make your throat burn as you reached out to catch yourself.

Eddie caught you first, grabbing your elbow firmly with one large hand while pushing the assailant away from you with the other. Your hands held onto his bicep tightly, pressing into the thin fabric of his shirt.

"You okay?" he asked, his voice raised over the loud hum of the crowd. You nodded quickly, keeping your hands around his arm as you followed him back up the steps. Slowly, your hands slid down from the thick muscle of his bicep to his elbow, to his wrist, until your hand was wrapped securely in his. Your hands were cold against his, a detail that made him smile. You always complained about being freezing in this hellhole of a school.

You tried to focus on your surroundings instead of the boy's rough palm and metal rings pressed against your soft, chilly flesh. For a moment, you imagined what it would be like to hold his hand like this all the time. Or have it against your cheek...your thigh...your neck, even.

You blinked a few times and sucked in a breath, squeezing Eddie's hand once before pulling away casually as you found your seat next to him. He wasn't as quick to lose contact as you were, letting his hand linger on your shoulder or your elbow as he looked around the gym and sat down.

“Watch out, Sweetheart! Your man’s on the move!” he called, smile lines creasing into his cheeks as he pointed at your former crush dribbling a ball across the court. You rolled your eyes and smacked his chest with the back of your hand. He chuckled and subtly scooted a little closer to you so that his entire left side was pressed against yours.

It was embarrassing now to imagine yourself being so in love with someone like Steve Harrington. Sure, he was cute enough, but there wasn’t much future for a boy like him. For someone else, maybe, but not for you. You didn’t want the white picket fence and two point five children like everyone else. You wanted drama and variety and excitement. Someone to keep you on your toes... Like Eddie.

“Did you hear that Wheeler girl dumped him?” you asked, leaning closer to the boy so that he could hear. He turned to you with wide eyes, the sly smile that was always on his lips wider than before.

“She dumped him?” he asked, his dark eyes shining with excitement. You couldn’t help but laugh with him, his joy was just so contagious.

“Keep it in your pants, Munson,” you chuckled with a nod.

Usually, you ignored the Hawkins pep rallies. It was loud and fake and a total waste of perfectly good (and quiet) study time. But with Eddie, it could actually be fun. Maybe not in the same way as it was for everyone else, in that it was completely lacking any school spirit. It was really just an hour-long comedy show where you could both point and laugh at all the silliness of your midwestern high school.

It was cathartic, really, especially for Eddie. A way to safely get back at all of the jocks and preps that loved to whisper and point at him when they thought he wasn’t looking. His hair was officially considered Long by now, his bangs grown out and his curly mullet extending down a little past his shoulders. Paired with the new patches on his denim vest and the newly official Hellfire Club shirt, he was openly very different.

You could tell the feedback was starting to get to him, his smile dimming every time the word “freak” was tossed around the lunchroom. But he was still your Eddie. He still made jokes and tried to brush it all off. Still, it hurt your heart to watch your best friend try and choose between living a peaceful life or living an honest one.

As the event came to a close, you felt Eddie start to get antsy next to you. All of the cheering and commotion was starting to get to him, you guessed. Once the bell rang, he was instantly on his feet, hand wrapped around your elbow. You pulled your discarded sweater back into your arms and started to stand, but you felt Eddie’s hand pull you up hard.

“Ow, Eds what the-” you started, frowning up at him.

“We gotta go,” he mumbled in your ear urgently, nudging the back of your knee with his. You blinked and tried to weave through the crowd, following his order the best that you could.

You felt his brown locks hitting your shoulder as he whipped his head back and forth, looking around nervously. His chest was pressed to your back, his arms almost covering yours protectively.

“Eddie, what’s going on?” you asked impatiently, glancing at him behind as you stepped carefully down the stairs. He let out an irritated huff and wrapped his arm securely around your waist and led you down the bleacher steps faster than before. He was more aggressive than you were at moving through the crowd and, in a matter of moments, had you out of the gym and tucked carefully in the hallway next to the water fountains.

“I think people are starting to get an idea about us,” he said, jaw clenching anxiously. The breath rushed from your chest as you looked up at him, your eyes wide. You put his words next to his actions and felt your heart sink down to the bottom of your stomach. You fought to keep your thoughts in your head and not bleeding onto your expression and sucked in a breath.

“Which you don’t want,” you said, your voice dangerously monotone. Eddie’s frown deepened slightly as he shook his head.

“It’s not that- I-I just don’t want you...You know how they see me,” he stuttered, trying to find the words that he desperately didn’t want to be true. You nodded and fought the lump back in your throat.

“No, I get it,” you said softly, turning away from him slightly. He caught your elbow with his thick hand, pulling you back instantly.

“Don’t do that,” he snapped, his voice low and pained. You stared up at him, your eyes locked with his as you both tried to understand the other person’s logic.

“I’m not doing anything, Eddie. You’re the one dragging me out of the gym just because you're scared someone is gonna think you like me,” you said, your top lip twitching upward slightly. Eddie shook his head quickly, his frown deepening.

“You don’t understand-”

“I think I do, Eds,” you sighed, pulling your arm out of his grip and starting back down the hallway. You were grateful that your brain washed all of your sadness into anger, it was easier to manage. Less embarrassing at least.

You turned the corner of the hall and heard a sharp whistle in your direction, your eyes already rolling in disgust. “Eddie, I’m done having this conversation.”

Three boys took up the spot where you assumed Eddie would be. Jocks. Probably on the baseball team. If you had to guess their names, you’d say “Bad”, “Fucking”, and, finally, “News”.

“Can I help you with something?” you asked defensively, your eyebrows furrowing. The one on the left smiled at you and you instantly felt bad for treating Eddie so harshly. He knew how to handle these situations better than you did.

“Yeah, actually! We were just curious to find out when you, ya know, started the whole...Devil Worship thing?” the center boy asked, his eyes shining with mischief and sinisterness. You stared back at him, face twisted between confusion and anger. “Or- I’m sorry- is it Beelzebub?”

You’d forgotten that you had the option of running, or maybe you just knew how futile it would be. No matter the reason, you stayed planted in the center of the hall as the three boys began circling you menacingly.

“Asmodeus, maybe?” the other asked, chuckling.

“You boys sure do know a lot of famous demons,” you mumbled, looking away from their faces the best you could. The center boy stopped in front of you, squaring his shoulders parallel to yours.

He wasn’t all that tall, definitely not taller than Eddie, but he made up for it with muscle. His arms looked like tree trunks, a product of years of batting for the Hawkins baseball team. He stomped his foot towards you quickly, bringing his fist up to punch you. You flinched and fell back, waiting for the blow that never came. Their laughter was uproarious and made bile rise into your throat.

“Poor little freak!”

“No, no, man. He’s the freak. She’s our little freakette.”

You hated the feeling of tears inching closer and closer to your waterline. You hated that your tailbone hurt from catching your fall. You hated that you didn’t just stay with Eddie like he wanted you to. Everything about this moment, you absolutely hated.

“Don’t fucking call her that,” a voice called out, stabbing lowly into the laughter. A tear dripped down your cheek as you recognized the voice paired with the curly-headed silhouette.

“Speak of the devil,” one boy smirked, turning towards him.

“Literally!”

“Yeah? Wanna take that bet?” Eddie spit, his jaw clenched tightly. You stared up at him from your place on the ground, but his eyes didn’t even glance to meet yours. You weren’t sure if you even wanted them to. They were darker than usual. Wide and pitch black with anger.

“Who knew the way to get you to fight back was mess with your little pet?” the middle one said, his thin lips pulled into a tight smirk.

“Who knew you had so much of a goddamn death wish to even try it?” Eddie shot back, his voice low and thick with resentment.

The boys each narrowed their eyes at the other, fists clenching at their sides. You sucked in a quick breath as they took hurried steps toward each other, Eddie growling deep within his throat.

Everything was a mess of fists and shouting as they collided. You couldn’t focus on either one of them long enough to figure out who was winning but guessing by the grunts of pain that you sadly recognized, you didn’t think it was Eddie.

You rushed to your feet as fast as you could, wheezing slightly at the pain in your lower back. You locked your eyes on the assailant and shot yourself as best you could towards his back, wrapping your thin arms around his neck. You had a short moment of pride, you successfully jumped on someone’s back and sabotaged his next hit. But it quickly ended with the blunt impact of his elbow against your cheekbone.

You fell off his back and hit the floor hard, your body dropping like a sack of bricks. You swore he knocked a chunk out of your face, like the place he hit was now a gaping hole in your cheek. The breath sprinted out of your chest and your eyes shook in their sockets from the pain.

You heard Eddie yell louder than you’ve ever heard him but couldn’t quite make out the words. Your hands shook as you reached up to cradle the side of your face weakly. A few more blows landed between the boys before you felt arms scooping you up off the ground and jogging away. You winced at how tight he was squeezing but could tell it was just Eddie not wanting to drop you and not the death grip of an angry baseball player.

“Is my face still there?” you asked, your eyes opening slightly to see Eddie’s freshly cut lip and bruised cheek. You’d never seen him look so panicked, so scared. But even in the intensity of the moment, he breathed out a gentle laugh and glanced down at you.

“Yeah. Still there,” he huffed, slowing his steps to a stop so that he could set your feet down onto the sidewalk. You opened your eyes fully and looked up at the boy to find him just covered in blood and sweat. You let out a short laugh but immediately winced and grabbed at your cheek.

Eddie stayed quiet as he led you back to his van, his hand against the small of your back to keep you steady. He slid the side door open and locked his arm solid in front of you to use as a handle to jump inside.

Your tailbone burned as you took your seat on the right, waiting patiently for him to join you. A few seconds later, he was hopping into his seat next to you, stuffing his key into the ignition. The tape from earlier blasted from the speakers just for Eddie to smack his entire hand against the radio to turn it off.

You sat next to him in silence, both of you trying to catch your breath. Your chest felt heavy on top of every other body part that ached within. Eddie’s breathing was uneven and heavy, like it was getting stuck in his throat for every inhale. He sounded like he might cry, which only made tears shoot to your waterline and quickly drip down your cheeks.

You were able to stay as quiet as possible for as long as you could before you had to take that telltale sniff which made Eddie’s head whip to your direction, wide eyed and panicked.

“Sweetheart, hey. Hey, it’s okay. Everything’s fine,” he murmured, leaning over from his seat to pull you closer to him.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” you whispered, burying the good side of your face into his shoulder.

“No, I was being dumb. I-I should have just told you what was up from the beginning,” he sighed, rubbing your back gently.

“I didn’t realize things were getting this bad,” you sniffed, leaning back to look over him. He shrugged and looked back at you, scanning the growing mark just under your eye.

“Me neither. Goddamn, you bruise like a peach,” he said, chuckling lightly as he reached up to tilt your chin so he could get a better look.

“You should see the other guy,” you smiled, cutting your eyes at him from the side. He laughed softly and brushed his thumb over the mark as gently as he could.

“My poor peachy girl,” he smiled, licking his lip.

“Careful, Eds. That’s what got us into this mess,” you said softly, looking down at your lap. “Me being ‘your girl.’”

“You’ve always been my girl. And you always will be. I got us into this,” he said back, his hand still holding onto your cheek. You stayed quiet for a moment, not daring to look up into his big, brown eyes.

“But earlier...You didn’t want anyone to think...” you mumbled, taking another pathetic sniff. He tilted your jaw up to look at him finally, his large eyes filled with affectionate concern.

“I didn’t want anyone to treat you like they treat me. It had nothing to do with you or how I want us to be,” he said, his words genuine and thick with honesty. You swallowed and watched him with wide eyes.

“And how do you want us to be?” you asked quietly, chest tightening. Eddie looked back at you for another moment, thinking of the words to accurately describe the depth of his answer.

“I... I want us to be...like this. For as long as humanly possible. Just me and my peachy girl,” he said slowly, his thumb brushing against the bottom of your lip. You stared back at him, heart blossoming into your throat. He flashed a gentle smile, and you dragged him into a tight hug, letting his arms wrap around your waist to tug you into his lap.

“Me, too, Eds,” you murmured, letting your head rest against his shoulder. He squeezed you tighter for a moment and let his fingertips brush up and down your spine gently.

“I think I’ll start calling you that,” he said, leaning back to look up at you for a moment, a soft smile painted across his lips. “Peachy.”

taglist: @bxnnywriting message me if you want to be added to this series' taglist!

#eddie munson x female reader #eddie munson fanfic #eddie munson x reader #eddie munson smut #eddie munson #eddie munson fluff #stranger things 4 #stranger things #stranger things spoilers #stranger things x reader #peachy!

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alluringjae · 3 years

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until dawn - ljn

part I | part II

⤑ summary: basic number one rule of the museum is not to touch the art. but no one told jeno that falling for one of them isn’t allowed either.

⤑ pairing: jeno x female reader

⤑ word count: 14k

⤑ genre: fluff, humor, angst | broke architecture major!jeno, historical figure!reader, college!au

⤑ warnings: jaemin mentions onlyfans as a joke, references to actual historical figures (some try to flirt with jeno lol) and literature, explicit language

⤑ author’s note: wow, i’ve had this idea for almost two years! this one was inspired by one of my favorite childhood movies, night at the museum. it definitely required a lot of research and brainstorming, and finally i brought it to life! it was so fun to play around with the characters, and even if majority of them are real people, this is all still fiction.

i also wanna mention one of my moots, marge for enlightening me about her life as an architecture major.

⤑ taglist: @renjunniehome (dm me if you want to be added)

⤑ leave me some feedback, constructive criticism or hellos!

Dormitory rent was another thing to worry about aside from the inflated university tuition per semester. Although he’s lucky to have his parents backing him up already on it, paying the monthly rent for his dorm was the remaining objective on Jeno’s list.

Plus, money for food. The man was a heavy eater, following the whole “gym is life” mantra.

Splitting it already with two of his dorm mates turned best friends, Renjun and Jaemin, his plate felt lighter. But the question still lies: where on earth was he going to get the money?

He’s practically checked out every available part-timing job in university and anywhere near campus. Barista at the same café Jaemin works at, teaching assistant for an art school for kids, convenience store cashier, library assistant, all taken in a heartbeat. The burden of his friends paying his debt these past months took a toll on him, almost to the point he almost considered making an Onlyfans.

“Yah, just find something else! Part-timers are in demand right now!” Renjun intensely closed his laptop before his older friend gets any suggestive thoughts.

“I mean, you didn’t work out your body to look the way it is for nothing.” Jaemin pitched otherwise, lifting the front back up. “When do you want to start filming? Loads of chicks would dig a piece of you!”

The contradicting opinions of his friends were like the devil and angel debating on his shoulders. Useless, he gave this worry a rest and returned to drawing new plates. A common thing when you’re an architecture major. Those deadlines were nearing. Looks like he’ll pull another all-nighter again.

Good thing most of his classes were late in the morning until 6 pm.

As if someone from above heard his petition, Jeno saw a help wanted sign posted on the bulletin board outside of the university museum. He initially went there to document some artwork and architecture models from Greek and Roman times, further analyzing how they’re still apparent in modern buildings.

The sign explained the need for one part-timer from any college to cover the night shift of the museum due to the current night guard’s full semester absence. He only had to come in 3x a week, choosing his days since he was still a student. Even the pay was above average, considering that most part-timers never go beyond midnight. Jeno would, on the other hand, always staying for his projects or gaming with the boys. Drinking sometimes during late-night Fridays with his entire college crew.

The pay would leave him a load of extra cash for himself, thus he sent an application to the museum office right before he left. A week later, while he was out with the boys, he got a text from the office that they wanted to meet him again for a final interview first thing on Monday.

Perhaps it was having architecture as his course and a healthy physique that landed him the part-timer position. Mainly, the latter because guards required strong endurance and fighting skills when worse comes to worst. It would start at 9 pm until 6 am the following day, and there was a designated uniform of it too. Blue blazer with matching trousers, white dress top, and loafers.

Aside from the typical museum etiquette the head director instructed him about, there was an unofficial list of tips written on paper given from the night guard on leave when the director handed you over his box of office-related things.

Only read at the night guard office once you’re the remaining staff left.

He did as he was told like an obedient son, flipping the succeeding page.

To my temporary replacement,

This part-timing job is nothing regular than the other jobs. You’ll witness things as you’ve never imagined them to be, almost like witchcraft. You’ll be lost and maybe frightened, or that’s how I felt the first time because no one led me through it all those years ago. Lucky for you, I made this small guide on how to properly take care of the place that the other staff doesn’t know about.

Before you proceed, I request you take a 5-minute stroll around the lobby first to understand what I’m talking about. After such, go back to the office or somewhere quiet then browse through the guide as quickly as you could.

Art is timeless here, so they need to be taken care of.

Good luck!

Park Sanghoon

Night Guard on Leave

Nothing could’ve prepared Jeno for what’s to come once he unlocked the office door. They say that art brings so much color to our life, allowing us to feel all sorts of emotions in a glimpse. But no one ever interpreted art to be literally alive and walking in the halls.

Behold, random wax figures and marble sculptures that he’s seen in the past roamed the hallways, as well as the paintings were interacting with each other side by side. Even the standee of a puppy from the entrance played fetch with one of those sculptures. He swore he looked like Hermes the messenger god from his arrow headpiece and sandals.

It made more sense why the guard on leave explained his feelings during the first day because it resembled Jeno’s. But unlike that guard, Jeno sucked it up. No one ever does well on the first day, even if others say otherwise. The first day was a learning experience, so he collected his thoughts even though the goosebumps triggered his body during that one rotation.

There was an indoor garden, already locked by the day guard earlier. The only room without any art piece, where students lounge to study the plants or relax in nature.

The sculptures section ahead, showcasing various fictional figures specifically from Greek mythology, chattered away about family drama and beliefs. The sculptures of Hades and Zeus, according to their title plate, argued relentlessly about power while Athena always intervened by shouting or even throwing arrows or daggers to any of the lightbulbs there.

That was one rule in the guide, but Jeno didn’t know yet until he came inside the room and swerved the attention of the arguing duo.

“Well, what do we have here?” Zeus, in the center, straightened his posture on his throne to present himself in a more regal way. “Are you perhaps the temporary replacement of Sir Sanghoon?”

“Sir Sanghoon’s stand-in is rather good looking, don’t you think?” Hera mused, stepping down from her throne beside Zeus to take a closer look at the taller male. Her cold fingers trailed his jaw until his chest, where his heart was beating intensely. She even pinched his toned bicep, mouthing wow.

“Truly handsome you are, my dear. So full of life, please introduce yourself to us.”

While Jeno introduced himself to everyone in that room, he answered any sorts of questions they had for him too. From his age, educational background, hobbies, Aphrodite just had to ask him if he had a girlfriend because he was that handsome.

“Nope, I’m single. With my degree in architecture, the requirements are so heavy I can’t even try dating.”

Mentioning his degree excited the gods, telling him how their people created and designed all these temples to house them and perform rituals. They loved it so much. This was a copy-paste of what Jeno learned from his history classes, and for a first, he’s hearing the perspective of the Greek gods.

Mind-boggling that he hasn’t fully freaked out yet. That’s what Athena anticipated when Sanghoon told her about his short leave, putting her in charge of everyone for the meantime while the replacement settled down.

The college museum was built during the late 70s as a gift from one of the alumni. It was for the purpose to preserve history and educate college students outside the classroom. The Greek mythology exhibit was the oldest one, making Athena have more seniority. Over her stay, she’s seen every new guard lose their senses during the first night. Some not even returning for a second night. She got used to every outcome, and so far, only 8 people lasted after the first night. A couple of students in the 70s and 80s, Sanghoon in the 90s, and now Jeno was one of them.

“Jeno, aren’t you terrified by us? You just got a job in a museum that comes to life every night, and it’s not a normal thing.”

“Well, I’m still shaken up about it. But it’s my first night, and it’s when I learn everything about the place from head to toe. Plus, I really need the money.”

“Money for what? But you’re young, a student even!”

“Yes, I am. However, I do pay for the rent in my dorm. So, this job is like my first big responsibility, and I want to perform well.”

Athena commended his sense of authority, capable of leading himself. She noticed how well-spoken and poised he is, respecting and listening to everything the gods and goddesses said even if they were nonsense. She never liked to compromise with her power, taking a while to like Sanghoon back in the day. Though Jeno looked like a natural leader on his first night. If he could take care of himself well, he’s skilled to take care of the rest in the museum as well.

Plus she had full control on the nights he won’t be there, especially the weekend.

With his potential, Athena mentored him the entire night about the gist of the entire museum. Every upcoming leader needs an intelligent mentor, right? She was naturally gifted with worthy leadership skills, managing Jeno like her own child.

Athena explained how the museum came to life, which was through a royal golden plate from the Oriental room. It was a gift from a popular sorceress in China to an affluent family from the Han dynasty, who wished them a long life after she was saved from invaders due to them. The plate preserved over time, becoming an artifact. Its power remained immortal, mutating to bring life wherever it goes. In this case, the museum since its arrival in the late 70s as well.

“That’s why the Oriental room must be locked always so no one could touch or break the plate.”

After she ordered Jeno to lock the mentioned room, alongside the Foreign Art Exhibit Room which he checked out for his class, she led him to the best view of the entire museum. Center of the second floor, where stairs were on both sides. Jeno marveled at the vivacious atmosphere, witnessing actual art living, breathing, and enjoying themselves.

“Unreal, right?” She leaned in the railing, scanning through the chatty paintings.

Jeno also leaned down, deep in thought and wonder. “Absolutely, Athena. How come no one knows about this? Art coming to life? It’ll invite more students to the museum.”

“That goes against a golden rule as a night guard in this museum.” She replied bluntly. “The life that goes on inside this museum at night must remain a secret to the public.”

Jeno predicted this kind of response, having watched too many films where anything supernatural mustn’t be revealed. Although he liked the advantage of knowing something this powerful, he’d never abuse it.

Athena’s intellect was beyond the world, seamlessly reading Jeno’s expression and what he was thinking. He had good intentions even if he’s a bit mischievous. She needed to keep a keen eye on him, but for now, he needed to explore on his own.

“Anyways, Sanghoon still left out some other details. So if you have any questions, I’ll be at my exhibit trying to shut my father and my uncle up again.”

“Can you not use any weapons to do so?”

“Can’t make any promises, Jeno.” She slyly cracked her knuckles and neck as if she was fighting another battle.

Jeno was silently left with himself, finally browsing through Sanghoon’s guide while seated in one of the museum benches.

It consisted of 25 rules, wherein the first two rules consisted of locking up. One, for the doors and gates of the museum, so no art piece could escape. If they do, they will turn into dust when the sun is out according to Athena. Two, locking the Oriental and Foreign Art Rooms, which was already done.

Rule #5: Let Mochi the puppy from the lobby tag along with you; feed him treats if you have any.

On cue, the little guy barked from the corridor and raced to his side. Jeno carried him, babying him for a little and letting him lick his face a few times before putting him back down. He’s surely going to the pet store first thing in the morning with the museum allowance the director gave him.

Since he was on the second floor, he read and followed the rules that fit in before returning downstairs. On the other side of the floor were the wax figures exhibitions: one for prominent men in history while the other for prominent women. Well, more people to get acquainted with.

It’s the exchange of gasps and profanities he received when he chose the latter room. Seeing their faces, these were women he’s learned in school and online. Now in the (fake) flesh. Except for one girl he’s never heard of, unbothered in her corner sketching her life away in a sketchpad. But before he could check who she was, a suggestive touch on his arm distracted him.

“My, oh my, Hera wasn’t lying when she said that the new night guard was a fine specimen.” By her dark blue eyeshadow and eyeliner with the snake-like crown, Cleopatra studied him like he was one of the most renowned art pieces. Even patting his chest, abdomen, and arms with both her hand, Jeno caught a suggestive glint in her eyes and a smirk across her red lips.

Rule #13: Reject Cleopatra’s seductive advances at all costs.

“Goodness, Cleopatra. It’s only his first night, and you’re scaring him.” With her accent, round eyes, and a chic formal outfit, she carried a posh aura while unhesitatingly scolding the Queen of the Nile.

“Come on now, Diana. He’s stunning, who wouldn’t go after him?” If no one knew her, you’re not reading up on your world history. She’s said to have been a lovely and intelligent woman, gone so soon. Jeno definitely understood why after she detached Cleopatra’s raging hands off him.

Rule #14: Treat Princess Diana and Hera like your own parent.

“Your highness.” Jeno nodded at her out of respect, only making her chuckle uncontrollably.

“No need to address me like that, love. Now, come here.” She widened her arms for Jeno, hugging him amiably. He sensed her motherly warmth, accepting such a gesture. “You remind me so much of my youngest son, Harry. Welcome to the night shift of the museum, love.”

Similar to the Greek mythology exhibit, he introduced himself and responded to any questions that the women wax figures may have. Good for him, they weren’t crossing any borders and kept him at ease.

“A student like you working at night to pay rent?” Katherine Johnson, an African-American NASA mathematician whose calculations led to the success of a lot of famous spaceflights, cannot believe her ears. Students must only focus on school, nothing else. “What about your studies, boy?”

Rule #15: Engage in academic discussions with Katherine Johnson whenever you can.

“Most of my classes are in the afternoon, Miss Katherine. So I’ll sleep in the entire morning later and study during my breaks.”

“Mr. Jeno, what do you like to do outside of work?” Anne Frank, a German-Dutch teenager whose revolutionary diary that documented her life in hiding from the Nazis gained popularity worldwide after publication dreamily asked from her section of the exhibit. Her life was robbed of greatness merely because of her religion and war.

Rule #16: Bring delicious food or gifts to Anne Frank.

“Well, I like to bike with my friends, exercise, and draw whatever comes into mind!”

Everyone he’s met so far acquired pleasure in knowing about who he was and his passion for architecture, ridding the “freaking out” phase Athena assumed he had. Yet not everyone in this exhibit bothered to give him a shot.

Jeno’s attention from Anne talking about her crush towards Peter van Daan, a teenage boy who lived with her, switched to the section beside her, where an unacquainted figure was zealously sketching as if something was due to the following day. It reflected how he’d look when he’s cramming one of his plates due to first thing in the morning. While he properly excused himself, he quietly gazed at the way this woman scrunched her eyebrows when she erased something then drew it again. She was someone he’s never seen or heard before, reading the information plate in front of him about her.

(Y/N) (Y/L/N), Explorer and Author. (1854-1900)

Wealthy women in the Victorian Era only served one purpose in society: marry a man from a prestigious family, have his children and join whatever interests they have. However, for (Y/N), she wasn’t going to conform to those standards.

Born into the affluent house of (Y/L/N), she was the youngest of 8 children. She was said to be the kindest and sweetest sibling out of everyone, not capable of hurting anyone or anything. She said it herself that she can’t throw away a dying flower because it’s too painful. While 5 of her older brothers were sent to school, she stayed at home with her 2 older sisters Cecilia and Amelia where she learned how to play the piano and take voice lessons from impressive teachers. Due to the huge age gaps between them (12 and 8 respectively), she never felt close with them. She was only closest to the 6th and 7th siblings, her twin brothers Benjamin and Liam whom she only had a 2-year gap. She was also best friends with one of the scullery maids her age, Lily, because she found her amusing that than the boring rich girls her mother forced to interact with.

The moment it bothered her that she wanted to live a more meaningful life was when Amelia got married. She was 12 years old at the time, and it left her as the last unwed daughter in the family. Badly did she want to revolt, which she gradually did. Instead of practicing piano, she’d sneak in to read every book in her father’s office. She secretly studied the notes of her older brothers from school and even dressed as a boy numerously thanks to Benjamin and Liam to join their classes or field trips.

This was her routine up until the age of 18 when she stomped her foot down and expressed to her parents that she wasn’t going to let Victorian society dictate her. The night before her parents were bound to send her to her great aunt’s home down South to sort her out, she successfully snuck out her house thanks to Lily, Benjamin, and Liam. It’s another good thing that she saved a lot of money for that moment.

Off she went across Europe first, then sailed to America and even parts of Asia. Initially under the name Lilibe, coined from picking the first two letters of her brothers and best friend, she documented her days and nights through her journals and sketches. Over time, she sent them to her brothers for publication. It started the franchise, “The Adventures of the Young and Free Lilibe”. There are 10 books under it.

She learned French, Spanish, Mandarin, Japanese, and Korean by herself as she made friends from those places. It was rare of someone like her to be fluent in Oriental languages, surprising locals every time she spoke to them. She was the only explorer to vividly describe life in different Asian lands in English, talking about their history and culture. With her accurate drawings of diverse citizens and their daily lives, it educated a lot of those living back home in Europe about them rather than speaking lowly of them.

In Seoul did she stayed the longest until her death from pneumonia at the young age of 46.

In her posthumous work, Finding Me, did she reveal her real identity, dedicating it to her parents whom she apologized and expressed her love for them despite everything that occurred between them. She talked about the last years of her life in Seoul, how locals were so nice and inviting to her, and how she adopted kids instead of having her own through the years.

“It’s not because I never found love in men. It’s more like I found love in doing things I’m passionate about. Traveling, learning new cultures, it outweighed the human need of romance.”

Due to her thrill in taking risks and embarking on wondrous adventures, it brought inspiration to a lot of young girls pressured to marry at that time to pursue what they really want.

A remarkable background you had, Jeno contemplated. How come no one discussed her in his classes?

You kept brushing the bangs of your hair back as it fell repeatedly. But you got irritated instantly because it sabotaged your drive, you brought out a hairpin from her desk and attached it on both sides. But when you shifted your angle of focus, the corner of your eye locked with Jeno’s attentive gaze.

He didn’t flinch, even he should’ve. He wasn’t one to linger his look on anyone’s physical appearances, but your story and the passion on your face as you sketched mesmerized him. He was charmed, to say the least.

“Uhm, hello there?” You broke the silence due to your uneasiness about it. What’s his deal?

Jeno bowed, reintroducing himself to you. As soon as his presence settled in the room when Cleopatra attempted to hit on him, you could’ve cared less. Though this man was a first for you, a first in a long time as all guards would feel intimidated by you during the first night. Even your sharp tongue didn’t faze him. “Staring is rude, sir. Didn’t your mother teach you manners?”

“She did,” He wandered through the exterior of your section, by the fence that separated you and him. Not breaking eye contact, his eyes turned into moon crescents as he smirked with trouble. “Though she also told me to appreciate the art too.”

Snorts noisily exhaled from Cleopatra, who took the center section of the exhibit, succeeded by Princess Diana’s whispered gasps and Katherine’s side-eyeing Anne beside her while she taught her math. That was an odd way a guard conversed with you, but Jeno was merely doing what the rules stated. Partly, he was impressed with his cheesy pick-up line, partly embarrassed because he’s never spoken like this to anyone.

Rule #17: Act playfully around (Y/N) (Y/L/N) to break the tension; she’s a harsh one.

There was irony between the information he read about your life versus the wax model. Even when you faced sexism and ran away according to your history, never were you impolite to anyone in your life. You couldn’t even kill a lurking fly when it roams around your food! It showed Jeno a possibility that as much as you’re just a wax version of someone famous in the past, maybe the external environment around you had a heavy influence too.

“You fool!” His confidence exasperated you, urging you to persistently throw balls of paper with your failed sketches at him. No one dared to talk to you like that, most especially a night guard. “Take that for your comment!”

If you thought he’d scram away and act repentant, you were proven wrong. His reflexes were parallel to a spider, capturing every single paper ball without fail. Up and down his body went, one arm held on to them and no more were left on your part. Never a single defeat during the first meeting in years, but that seemed to alter now.

“Give up already, Ms. (Y/L/N)?” Jeno remarked vibrantly as he discarded your mess in the trash bin behind him. If he managed to get everyone to like him tonight, he wanted to make sure to have you onboard too.

Whatever agenda he had, you weren’t up for it. You’d treat him the same way you usually treated Sanghoon for the past 20 something years: cold and ignorant. From your stool, you left your comfortable position to come face to face with this man. He better be grateful for that barrier in between you, or else you would’ve caused mayhem.

“Never in your wildest dreams, Mr. Lee.” Your mouth gave a half-smile, clenching on the bars to liberate your annoyance. Before you could fend back, that’s when Princess Diana intervened between your heated dialogue.

“Oh heavens, children!” She stood by the barrier, mostly to protect the newbie Jeno with her body. “(Y/N), he just wanted to know you. Must you be so cross?”

This Princess Diana embodied all the traits the real one had: soft-spoken, intelligent, and protective. She’s gotten so used to your gradual temper, staying on standby whenever anyone tried to mess with you. Even if it was harmless, you could get so mean!

“Diana, he was mocking me! Saying such a sleazy phrase as if to amuse me, ha! Not a chance, I hate people like that.”

“Not us women though; you just despise men in general.”

“And you’re absolutely right!” With a smug smile, you greedily rejoiced. “Anyways, escort this disgrace out. I’m not in the mood to get angry when I have a lot of inspiration on mind right now.”

While you resumed your sketching to let go of that extra steam, Jeno was left with Diana who apologized on your behalf. Your pride was too high to do that, and as the motherly figure among them, she always took care of things in your exhibit.

“I’m so sorry for that, Jeno. She’s not really like this, but I know how much you tried your best. It was quite a fresh spectacle honestly.”

Whatever was responsible for your abrasiveness, Jeno yearned to know. He couldn’t understand who you were yet even knowing your life story. All he wanted was to get along with everyone. It was the key to successfully maintain his job for the next 6 months.

“How can I make her come around then?”

A demanding question that no one had a solid answer to. Diana recalled how much Sanghoon didn’t let your dislike for him get to him, maintaining a respectful boundary in between each other after his past attempts. Though with Jeno, observing how he riled you up and your focus entirely on him, she hasn’t seen anything like it since the 80s.

There was something in Jeno that may just get you to warm up and return to your kind nature.

“Aside from acting playful, as Sanghoon recommended, I can think of two ways, love.” By the doors of her exhibit, where Jeno was already waltzing the corridor to visit other rooms, she suggested smartly. “One, argue back to her opinions. She hates whenever anyone tries to get her way, but boy, you’re just as wise as her. No one was brave enough to peeve on her until you came.”

“How about the second way?”

“Do your research, love. Aside from libraries, you have those small technology devices that allow you to search up anything.” She tousled Jeno’s brown locks as if it were her actual son’s. Some habits just don’t die when you do.

“Brush up on your history, Jeno. Not only will it help you with (Y/N), but it’ll serve purposefully with the other art pieces here.”

Boy, he was ready to crash in his bed for a few hours after all those interactions. His introverted nature required to be revitalized.

Towards the last hours of his shift, the art pieces who’ve strolled in the first floor lessened his plate by not leaving any major clutter behind. As if she listened to him, Athena didn’t break any lightbulbs too.

His main highlight would be meeting the men of the historical male section, who flaunted a more humorous ambiance. Freddie Mercury from Queen insisted he drink a glass of his wine and to bring more wine next time, which he denied since it would against Sanghoon’s rules. King Sejong the Great and Martin Luther King Jr. argued back and forth over the most random things (pineapple on pizza specifically), while Steve Jobs mediated whenever one crossed the line. Meanwhile, William Shakespeare was too preoccupied in his writing and speaking to himself about his books, wondering how to improve them.

During one of his breaks today, he multitasked drawing a new plate with his research on every art piece to know them better. He started with the exhibit of sculptures of the Greek gods and goddesses, which were Zeus, Hera, Hades, Athena, Hermes, Aphrodite, Poseidon, Artemis, Dionysus, and Circe. They weren’t the complete roster because the rest were in other museums across the globe, as said by Athena before sunrise. The majority of them he knew what they were in charge of, but the rest were foggy to his knowledge. Typing away and jotting notes down, he started downloading his favorite jazz songs too.

Rule # 4: Play jazz music to the paintings on the first floor so they can relax and dance within their frames.

Circe is a minor goddess, the daughter of the sun god Helios. She’s recognized for her versatility in incantations and herbs, capable of transforming people into animals. From Jeno’s perspective, she’s mostly within her space with her journals and magic wand, trying new spells or combinations of herbs. For the latter, he had to keep a closer eye on.

Rule #9: Don’t let Circe, god of potions, into the Oriental Room to get plants and herbs.

He discovered that Dionysus is the god of wine, happiness, and theatre. That’s why every god in the exhibit had full wine glasses during their gathering. It also added up why Freddie Mercury always comes to him when his bottles run empty, though he mustn’t go overboard.

Rule #18: Make sure Freddie Mercury doesn’t get too drunk from the wine of Dionysus; he might make numerous scenes if he does.

After his lone studying session, he took a short trip to the pet and convenience stores to buy food. He got a dumbfounded look from Jaemin back in the dorm room, who was studying for one of his quizzes in Biology in a couple of hours.

“Woah what’s with this stash? Is it for yourself or something?”

“The museum surprisingly has a lot of tasks needed to be done at night. And no, not from my wallet but the allowance they gave me before you get a heart attack.” Jeno plopped on his solo bed, covering his face with a pillow.

“Thank God.” A relaxed sigh escaped Jaemin’s lips, taking back his balled-up fists meant for his roommate. “I think I would’ve stormed that boring museum if they made your broke ass spend a cent.”

“Boring?” Jeno removed the cushion hastily, eyeing his busy and coffee-high roommate. The scent of black coffee from his mug spread in the room, assuming that this upcoming test was testing his roommate’s patience again.

Not even trying to look at Jeno while reviewing his handwritten notes, Jaemin continued giving his opinion. “Museum culture is dead, Jeno. Not everyone has the time to roam around one, plus people can always look up the artifacts online these days.”

People were entitled to their own opinions on numerous things, though Jeno begged to differ with his roommate’s. Especially after witnessing the magic of the night shift, you shouldn’t merely judge a book by its cover. In this case, you shouldn’t judge an artwork or art piece merely on its history and legacy.

Maybe because his roommate was in the science department, he thought this way. A lot of art students regularly visit the museum both for fun and for their classes, and Jeno was one of them. Though he was too sleepy to explain his side, he let it slide for now and snoozed throughout the late afternoon.

An hour before the start of his shift, Jeno promenaded the emptying museum to inspect anything else he might’ve missed out on from last night. There were two areas according to his rotation, both in the first floor.

One was the Diorama Room. Divided into 4 sections, highlighting some of the well-known ancient civilizations in world history. Ancient Egypt and Ancient China to your left, Ancient Rome and Ancient Maya to your right. They acted as if they were the actual people during those times, giving Jeno a laugh when they cracked jokes in between. Such tiny figures, yet the rule for them said otherwise.

Rule # 7: The small figurines in the Diorama Room are feisty, so make sure they don’t fight with one another again.

The remaining room left was the Theater Room. He’s never been here, though his art friends have for film festivals held by the university.

The interior of it was set to look like an actual cinema place you’d see in a mall. There was a mini lobby with a few posters of iconic films over the years. Singin’ in the Rain, Back to the Future, Titanic, those were some framed and hung on the wall. There were two other doors there: one leading to the chairs and the other where the movie projector was. The latter room was pretty riveting, wherein you can choose to watch old short films through an 88mm film projector or switch to a cd player for the newer releases.

Back to those posters, they weren’t an exception to the magic and a simple rule was left for Jeno to do.

Rule # 10: Chatter with the movie posters in the lobby of the Theater Room; they love meeting new faces.

Since there wasn’t anyone checking out the Art Rooms on the second floor, he closed them. Though as he was about to lock the Oriental Room, the ravishing plants around the royal plant appealed his interest. Said to hold magical properties from his research, Jeno was reminded of another rule to keep in mind for later.

Rule # 3: The fake flowers in the Oriental Room come to life too at night, so when no one is lurking, water it diligently.

Instead of lounging at Sanghoon’s office first, he brought his important items to the front desk of the lobby and continued sketching his plate. He wanted to watch the art come back alive with his two eyes. Usually, he’d have coffee when he does his work, but due to another crucial rule in the guide, he’d rather not take the risk.

Rule # 6: The lobby room can get rowdy, so keep any drinks away from important items.

On the dot, the cries and yawns from the art pieces around him reverberated. Closing his sketchpad, his night guard mode was on. Connecting his laptop on the aux cord of the museum speakers, he tapped play on his playlist of jazz music that’ll last for the entire shift duration. As the first notes flooded the entire vicinity, sounds of joy left the lips of each painting. Some were humming, dancing, and even singing along.

“You can never go wrong with Frank Sinatra!”

“This Jeno lad really did the heavens’ work quick!”

Having the sense of accomplishment on his sleeve, the small barks of his fluffy pal reached closer to him. As he kneeled to find him, he was only taken by surprise as Mochi excitedly jumped on him. Tumbling over, Jeno chuckled innocently as Mochi licked his face numerously. This puppy was friendly, easily liking everyone at first sight. He wasn’t as choosy like Daegal, the puppy of his friend Chenle studying Business Management.

Once he composed himself and cradling the dog like his own, he fed him a dog treat from the desk.

“Good boy, Mochi!” He rubbed his fur while the puppy happily munched on it, ready to fulfill more of his duties.

He skipped the Greek mythology exhibit since Athena was doing a good job not letting anyone go overboard with their powers, though he’ll check in again in a few hours. He met the posters of the theater room, who were celebrities he grew up watching on tv. Sanghoon was right; they were the kinder group in the entire museum because they were more laidback.

On to the second floor, all the female wax figures lounged by the male section due to another lecture from Shakespeare. Although the guide informed him that most of the time it could get boring, this lecture was more stimulating. On his platform, he elaborated with conviction the lines of one of his famous books, Romeo and Juliet. A must-read book back in his high school days, there’s no way Jeno could’ve missed that out.

From the looks of it, Jeno perceived that Shakespeare was performing spoken word poetry due to him reading only Romeo’s lines while Cleopatra read Juliet’s beside him. This kind of show was one of the sources of entertainment to these figures, so Jeno leaned by the side of the door to listen. After all, the famous author of it was a few feet away. Cleopatra channeled such a naïve character to her ability, absentmindedly saying as she clutched her chest.

“O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father and refuse thy name; Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, And I'll no longer be a Capulet.”

“Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?”

“'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What's in a name? That which we call a rose-”

The flow of an engaged Cleopatra was abrupted by the loud yell from Shakespeare in front, specifically to an amused Jeno. “Jeno, my boy! Welcome back!”

Such an announcement diverted everyone’s attention to the back, some running to Jeno to give their respective greetings. It’s rare for everyone to feel at ease with a new guard, taking them weeks to approach them due to the intimidation. Though Jeno’s bright presence felt welcoming, so they accepted it. Perhaps it’s because of his youth, it reminded them of theirs too.

Shakespeare highly requested (or forced) Jeno to take his part as Romeo, intrigued to watch someone younger read his lines. Since most of the male wax figures were aged, it never satisfied Shakespeare so he jumped on this opportunity as quickly as he could. With the roaring cheers from the other figures, Jeno might as well give it a try. It wasn’t like his friends were here to clown him like they usually would if he did something humiliating.

Jeno shockingly liked this activity as he wasn’t much of a performer on stage, but someone who does the behind-the-scenes of it. He realized as he read the lines from the book Shakespeare asked him to follow along with why people held university-wide spoken word shows a few times per semester. He was no actor, but it’s delightful to have tried it at least once in his life.

“O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?” As if the edge of the platform was the balcony of Juliet (or Cleopatra rather), he knelt as he ardently spoke his lines. He’s emphasizing this rush of uncontrollable desire for her, rambling whatever he would do to get the girl.

“What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?” Cleopatra questioned from her chair, inching closer to the young boy. Even outside character will she attempt to charm Jeno, but Jeno was quick to catch it and kept his distance.

“The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.”

“I gave thee mine before thou didst request it, and yet I would it were to give again.”

“Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?”

“But to be frank, and give it thee again. And yet I wish but for the thing I have. My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.”

Everyone was condensed by their top-notch acting, as if this was the actual play unfolding before them. Jeno wasn’t so sure how he got himself in character without preparation, yet he felt what his character felt. He comprehended the material a lot better now than when he was still in high school.

However, there was always that one killjoy to ruin the heartfelt mood.

“How dumb is it to say that you’re in love after the first glance?” You opposed, putting the spotlight on you. This book was said to be a classic in literature, but as you matured physically and mentally, you could no longer agree with it. “Isn’t love the same thing that killed Romeo and Juliet in the end?”

Remembering what Princess Diana told him, he wasn’t going to let this pass. He wanted to give a piece of his mind too, caring less if the show must be paused. “Love is an emotion we don’t ask to feel. It’ll come to us when we least expect it, even when the timing of it can be crucial.”

“Of all the people Juliet could’ve gone for, it just had to be the enemy.” In all the years you’ve been brought to life, no one dared to test your opinions because they were aware of your intelligence, from the streets to the books. When someone bark, you’d bite back. Hard. “With all due respect, I love your works, Shakespeare. Yet the fate you’ve given these two at a young age was grave, could’ve you given them a better outcome or another character to love instead?”

“Giving them extra characters to love won’t address the horrific life fact that love can be dangerous. Regardless of what status you’re in, you can’t stop the attraction towards someone. The heart wants what it wants.” Jeno pressed his hand to his chest, pumping it a bit. Unknown to you and him, the audience found more entertainment in your argument. Anne, who was munching on the popcorn Jeno gave her earlier, passed the snack to Katherine who just couldn’t stop watching.

If this man wanted a challenge, you’re all ears. Who was he to compete with you? Was he not intelligent to know who you are?

“So are you insinuating that we just go with the flow? Be a slave to our emotions too and let them dictate our next motives?”

“Slave is such a strong word to use, (Y/N). But it’s not like we can’t choose who want to love because we actually can. In this case, Romeo chose Juliet and vice versa.”

“But what happens if the person you choose doesn’t choose you in return?”

“At least you tried your best, right? It’ll hurt like hell though, but it won’t last forever.” From his kneeling position, Jeno strutted his way with confidence. Trying not to let it mess with you, your extreme stare at him as if they’ll shoot lasers. Inches away from you, Jeno declared. “Love always has risks, that’s a given. Romeo and Juliet still tried and followed their hearts despite the downfall. But it was a needed downfall to get the message across.”

“No one would be that foolish to risk their lives for love though, right? Life is so precious, why would they do such a thing?”

“Even if they knew what their lives were without each other, they still preferred living a life where they were both in the picture. Therefore, they tried all they could that time because the regret of not doing anything at all carries a heavier burden.”

Whenever anyone argued with you, their debating points they spat back would further piss you off because most of the time, it never made sense. Back when this rude man told you to go home and be a wife in your earlier years of exploring, you civilly told him to fuck off, kicking his balls because he cornered you in an alley. For the first time, a man who tried to challenge you actually made sense. Was it because he lived in a modern time, where minds were more open? Because of the amount of sexism you faced in the past, you’ve turned a blind eye to the current period.

But your high pride maintained, not submitting into anything he said. “I still think it’s stupid to risk your life for love. There’s no such thing as having only one true love anyways, and you have to be alive to see it.”

“Fair point, but again, the feeling of regret and carrying it your entire life doesn’t fade easily. It’ll make you reflect on the what-ifs, and it’s heart-wrenching.” Jeno digressed, walking around you in circles. He’s intentionally trying to drive you mad, but he could care less. He wanted someone to put you in your place and open your mindset. “The question stands: would you rather try and go for it even knowing its risks or regret not even trying for the rest of your existence? Quite ironic for me to ask you that, don’t you think?”

Past the information board, Jeno researched more of your life history online. Your whole life was grounded on risks, from breaking the standards of your society, leaving your family and home country, to fending yourself from disrespectful men. Rather than living the original life expected from you, you chose not to because it didn’t make you happy. Such a risktaker he knew you are, but with the topic of love, he wondered why you were on a fence with it. Though some records stated you’ve had rendezvouses with a few men in your journeys, love was never in the equation. The single life was what you chose and you were more than satisfied, plus your adopted kids filled that supposed void anyways.

This man may have studied your history, but so much he still doesn’t know. Information that never made the books because you chose not to write or tell anyone about it. Aside from the discomfort growing in your chest, everyone else felt the awkward tension when you were lost for words.

Never been defeated in an argument, until tonight. Your mind lost its drive and willpower.

“Touché, Lee Jeno.” Indeed, his name you’re acquainted with. Numerously passed around in your exhibit, mostly from the lips of Cleopatra, who’d fantasize all the graphic things she would do to him. Too much information, least of your interest. “Please excuse me. I’d like to work on my sketches to ease my mind.”

As you quietly exited the room, an all too familiar sculpture leaned against the railings overseeing one side of the museum. Just like you, she hated accepting defeat or compromises. She always rooted for you to win. With a faint chuckle, “Facing a loss for the first time, I see.”

“Don’t even lecture me about it, Athena. I’m still fired up, and I need to relax.”

“Jeno is a different breed, isn’t he?” She stuck to your side, strolling wherever your feet led you.

“Different as in he’s a man? Yes. What else is there to it?”

“Men these days aren’t as trashy as those back in the day though. Shouldn’t you give him a chance?”

“Last time I did, it destroyed my heart. I’m not allowing myself to let men in even as a friend, Athena.”

She knew exactly what you were referring to, not touching on it further. No way will you let heartbreak or disappointment from men bother you. Even Sanghoon’s sweet company took a while to tolerate. You really needed to sketch this out on your pad right now, excusing yourself from Athena’s presence. Isolation wasn’t new to you; it’s what’s protecting your entire being. Immortal as you are, you had to recover from the past pain so the next decades won’t feel as brash.

You hoped to return to your old self when you were a fresh new figure in the 70s. So naïve, only proud of your accomplishments, and purely happy.

While Jeno continued to finish his scene in respect to Shakespeare, he received a standing ovation for his mini-show. Cleopatra didn’t expect such talent from him, growing fonder of the younger male. Whether she seduces him or not, he was never afraid to try new things and she liked that about him.

“Bravo, love!” Princess Diana praised, clapping at him.

Although Jeno appreciated all this positive attention, his thoughts bounced back to your and your stance on love. The debate earlier was just out of being playful, interested to hear your opinions. Though, he’s worried that he might’ve offended you. It may have been time to finally witness something like that, but then again, he was sure he touched something personal to you. No matter how you tried to fight it off, your eyes can’t lie. Staring down at him, there was pain beneath it. Your eyebrows scrunched to the center, thinking deeply yet remained utterly speechless.

A win he didn’t feel good about.

“It’s time she encountered something new in the years she’s been here. Give her some space tonight, then try again to reach out to her. Kindly this time; I’m not in the mood for another brawl that could end up like the Greek gods’ past fights downstairs.”

These clever words shared by Katherine loitered his mind for the rest of the night, eventually going back to finishing his current plate since everyone was behaving well. As great it is to get the approval of the majority, he tried brainstorming ways to make you like him too.

He understood the whole “men are trash” concept in today’s modern society, but if he could prove it wrong to at least one person, it would be you. Whatever is holding you back, he only hoped that you’d let it go. Questionably unsure as to why he was so persevering, he concluded that it was so he could perform his job better as the night guard. Set higher standards than Sanghoon even.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Weeks passed, and his attempts continued to be unsuccessful.

The capability for you to ignore his efforts remained strong, whether he was pestering you over small things or debating with you again about anything. Life, books, morals, the two of you always head butt each other. Anything good he did, you searched for a flaw in it. Whatever acts he’s tried and continued trying, not one flinch from you ever.

Even if that’s his state with you, his job no longer felt stressful nor strenuous. He’d try to sleep more on days he was off-duty. Although the fatigue of staying beyond his usual sleeping time was inevitable, he compromised to take a nap lasting an hour or two when the art pieces weren’t acting frisky.

Plus, there have been multiple times they adapted to any alterations so his physical well-being wouldn’t fall sick. Per order of Princess Diana and Hera, who by instinct became his motherly figures here, only wanting what’s best for the kids.

He became accustomed to everything that went on at night, discovering things on his own without Sanghoon’s guide. Anne talked about how much she missed biking in her neighborhood, so one night, Jeno snuck his bike inside and let her use it around the first floor. With proper monitoring so none of the paintings would be unbothered or pieces wouldn’t tumble.

Hermes the messenger god was fluent in every language possible, so every so often, Jeno would freely speak to him in Korean because sometimes he felt he could explode by the amount of English he used every night. Bilingual things, you know. He knew you were multilingual too, but for obvious reasons, he couldn’t converse with you.

Because Jeno was heavily favored, that should’ve been enough to push through his night shifts before the end of the semester. In addition to that, the hourly rate was above the average of whatever Jaemin or Renjun was earning. For the past 2 months, Jeno paid upfront first, even paying back all his debts. It almost made Renjun want to switch jobs with him.

“Trust me, Renjun. You don’t want it, being the lowkey scaredy cat you are.”

Work no longer felt like work, and that’s what everyone aspired to feel. Nevertheless, he tended to worry over you mid-shift, glancing at you from his side view. Sketching, reading, and writing were your default actions. No matter how many times he said to himself not to let your dislike for him affect him, it’d always backfire.

Why were you so cold?

What made you lose your fire from all the research he did about your lively personality?

When morning arrived and he gathered his stuff, you’d be the last thing he’ll check on. Frozen in your standing pose, smiling as you held a book and a pencil, he detected how fake it was. Bystanders would only assume your happiness was from your achievements, though Jeno’s gut firmly pried that something grand overpowered that happiness. And definitely, not in a good way.

Out of all the art pieces, he investigated on you the most. Skimming through every material in the library, endless searching on the net, even asking professors from the History department thanks to Renjun, he did whatever he could. People may already think he was obsessed with who you are, but only little did they know.

Another plate was done and submitted, and he promised himself to look you up one last time before surrendering. For someone who’s rarely given up on a challenge, this one was really out of his control. Maybe he should follow Sanghoon’s footsteps now.

You lived centuries before him, and there’s limited material of you left. Rather than learning of your adventures again, he dug through what things you liked over your life. Maybe by giving one of them, it’ll lessen the tension from a 100 to 99. Maybe you preferred gifts over words, he’ll never know until he tried.

Boom.

According to one of your journal entries, there’s a fond liking you’ve acquired for lavender roses from Benjamin and Liam when they visited you in Paris in secret because of how much you missed them. It went both ways, praying your family ties could be recovered.

It’s a good thing he needed to refill his stock of items for the art pieces so he could pass by the flower store a few blocks away from his dorm. That night, without further words, he graciously offered you a fresh lavender rose in between your new sketching session.

“I may not know exactly why you’re spiritless around me, but with this rose, I hope we could work something out.”

Your frigid face of disdain, keeping your chin high and squinting your eyes with judgment, began to crumble down. Of all things as a peace offering, he gave you that? Then again, it’s not like he knew that an item you liked so much became something you’ve grown to hate and why so. No history books could teach him that.

Vulnerability was a normal thing, yet feared by many. Once one uncovered your weak spot, they could harm you. You still couldn’t trust Jeno fully, not willing to show your helplessness nor were you ever going to tell him. Hidden from his knowledge, everyone else including Sanghoon were familiarized as to why this kind of flower tormented you.

You sprinted like thunder out the exhibit room to wherever it’s private to control your senses. You may not have a physical heart, but your emotions were just as actual as a human’s. You needed to regulate your panting breath. In the past decades, you’ve not shed a singular tear but the cycle broke when they streamed out your miserable eyes like a flowing river. Quiet sobs, an empty corner near the fire exit was where your wobbly legs faltered, the painful memories of the past replayed in your head. Once beautiful, but now an agonizing reminder of what could’ve been.

Katherine, Cleopatra, and Anne were swift on their feet to hunt you down, anxious of what you may do next. Seeing or the mention of these flowers still affected you despairingly. Sanghoon must’ve forgotten to write them down, or perhaps he didn’t know either about this fact during all the years he’s worked there.

It’s one of the biggest secrets of his museum. By the clueless face Jeno had with his eyebrows raised, mouth, and small eyes slightly open, he repeatedly asked what he did wrong and adding that he never meant to harm you. Indeed, they knew that yet what occurred involved a secret in the list of museum secrets. Confidential only between art pieces according to Athena, none of the male wax figures spoke a word, only pitying the boy.

“I wasn’t here yet that time, but they said that it was once beautiful, but now it’s a rough period.” With hesitation, Princess Diana chose to reveal it to rid Jeno’s misery. She didn’t mind having to argue about it with Athena later on, as this may further affect the two of you later on.

“A long time ago in the early ‘80s, there was a night guard around your age named Junmyeon. Also, a college student, trying to make ends meet. He did it for 3 years until he graduated. Though within his stay, not only was he such a delight to everyone, he broke a golden rule in the guide. I believe you do know the guide much more now, Jeno?”

“Yes, I do, Princess Diana. Memorized it even, but which one specifically?” Jeno’s desperate eyes pleaded, only hoping for the best and to fix what he messed up.

“You can form friendships with the art pieces, but nothing more.” Princess Diana replied bitterly. “Junmyeon was an aspiring painter, a different path from his business-oriented family. He was seen as the black sheep. She resonated with him, sharing the burden and lifting it by doing whatever fun they could in the museum. In time, they both fell in love with each other; they were each other’s first loves.”

“Why must something beautiful like love be broken? It’s not like you can control it. That golden rule makes no sense.”

“It does, unfortunately. Wax figures like me cannot age, while humans like you can. None of them could accept the reality, always pushing it away. Until Junmyeon’s last week in university, he broke it off with her unexpectedly. From there, (Y/N) was heartbroken for decades. With heartbreak, giving the cold shoulder and bitterness followed. Then with the lavender rose you gave that she used to love became a flower that she associated with Junmyeon too because he gave her one almost every night for those past 3 years.”

Things finally added up, and the guilt in Jeno’s gut expanded. His major lightbulb moment was a major failure.

“Has Junmyeon ever returned to try and win her back?”

“Well, there was one time he did come back for an art exhibition for his paintings in the 2000s. I was already here, then he had a woman around his shoulder with an adolescent boy holding his hand. He roamed around our exhibit and kept gawking at (Y/N). We may be asleep, but we remember the conversations exchanged in the room. So, his son then asked him if he knew who she was.”

“What did he respond?” Jeno attentively listened, on the edge of such a hurtful tale.

“He knew her name, praising her for historical achievements. However, nothing as a former friend or lover. From what I predict, he ingested one of Circe’s potions.”

“But I thought Circe isn’t allowed to make potions for actual consumption. She’s not even allowed to enter the Oriental Art Room.” Jeno pointed out, overwhelmed at the puzzling past. Princess Diana was mindful that she had to stop spreading too much information, so she had to end her discussion with the lost boy.

“There are a lot of secrets about this museum, Jeno. Unfortunately, I cannot reveal to you to protect our peace.”

With due respect, Jeno quit his follow-up questions and concerns. The only thing he wished to do was mend his relationship with you. As vague as to where you even stood in the first place, he unintentionally crossed a line due to his selfish intention to befriend you.

“What can I do now, Princess Diana? You know I’d never push her buttons like that, even if I’m a whimsical person.”

“Oh, my boy.” Princess Diana soothed, holding both her hand on his sweaty palm and cupping his cheek. “For the meantime, give her space. No taunting for a while, and just observe her from a distance. Though do not fret the slightest; I’m sure she’ll be okay again.”

During that interval, you were hunched on the wall, bawling and weeping like the wound was brand new again. While Katherine and Anne stood by your side, on the lookout for anyone who’d be spying on you, Cleopatra knelt in front of you as your infinite tears gushed down.

“My dear,” She tried to wipe some of them while holding your hand. “It’s been years, and Jeno didn’t know a single thing. He didn’t mean to do it.”

“I don’t care, Cleopatra! He should’ve stopped trying to socialize with me because I won’t ever live down my experience with Junmyeon.”

“As if crying like this will bring Junmyeon back to your life,” Cleopatra exclaimed, holding in her temper. Acquainted with heartbreak, it’s awful that it changed you entirely, but you should’ve found a way to heal. Throughout your attitude change, it’s mostly you in pain, not those you inflict it to. “My dear, I love you a lot. But this Jeno boy is different, and you know it.”

“He’s still a nightguard, for Christ’s sake, Cleopatra.”

“You shouldn’t generalize that all night guards are bad just because of one encounter that occurred at the wrong time.” Brushing some strands stuck by your wet visage, she professed to you bluntly. “You’re never going to know how good Jeno is unless you slowly open up again, (Y/N). Not forcing you the slightest, but healing started once you’ve acknowledged the past and move on from it.”

“But I’m scared, Cleopatra.” You restlessly admitted, hunching even more against the wall. Your poor, metaphorical heart could only take so much. You barely expressed sorrow towards others as you always held a strong exterior, only letting it out alone. Not holding back anymore, Cleopatra brought you in for a hug. The last time she did that was the first night after Junmyeon left, calming your intensified emotions so you wouldn’t do anything dumb that night. No violence, just pure sorrow.

“My dear, it’s alright.” She whispered while stroking your back upwards. “But you’re a risktaker; that’s how people remember you. Now, you must challenge yourself to move on from things that didn’t work out. Because once you do, it’ll put your heart and mind at ease.”

“Do you think I’ll be okay again?”

“Yes, you will be, my dear. You are not alone, and never will be.”

Acting like the dutiful son he always was, Jeno distanced from you.

He still cracked jokes, chatted with the art pieces, and followed the rules, yet never did he utter anything to you. You’ve proudly anticipated it since day one, not wanting him up in your business or teasing you ever. But this time, it felt odd.

On nights he didn’t report, you’ve unconsciously wondered what he may have been up to. A job like this at his age was just as Sanghoon once said: nothing in the regular.

Was he with his friends?

Was he resting well?

From the moment you chose to let go of your limitations and old thoughts, it included your grudge against past guards. Asking for forgiveness to Sanghoon when he returns was on the top of your list, however, that’ll take a while to happen. In the start, you’re baffled as to why he no longer picked on you like every night he’s been present. Somehow, it became a habit you’ve gotten used to, having so many comebacks planned to fend yourself. But you didn’t want to concede to it, maintaining what was left of your pride since that breakdown.

While on the subject, you suspected if anyone told him anything that night because that also indicated the last time he reached out to you. By anything, it would be your unwritten past with Junmyeon. A part of yourself in the museum that you didn’t want to disperse like rapid-fire again. It would be the last thing you wanted Jeno to know.

To your misfortune, Princess Diana came clean due to your growing concern over it. Although your attitude changed and people got used to it, you could only blame yourself that you were responsible for Jeno’s change.

“All he wanted was to understand and enlighten us with his likable presence. Then with you, you were his challenge because of your high walls. Out of everyone, he tried to learn everything about you. From my observation, whenever he has a goal, he’s determined to achieve it.”

“But I’m trying to be better now, Diana. Why did he stop?”

“He may have determination, but he knows where the boundaries lie.” Princess Diana patted the side of your arm, giving you a half-grin. “It hurt him when he hurt you, even if it was accidental. So he opted to give you space; that way, you could catch a breather and he wouldn’t harm you anymore. It was what you wanted from the start anyways, right?”

A hard pill to swallow, though it was a fact. It’s just that now, you’re slowly willing to release yourself from the dark. It’s been decades, and more to come. Nothing can move on unless you do.

“Where is he, Princess Diana?”

Just as she predicted right on the edge, Diana completed the grin on her face and led you to the entrance of your exhibit. She may be younger than you, but you’re reverted in your twenties while she remained in her mid-thirties. Gaping the wide museum from the railing, starting from the painting exhibit in the lobby to across the other side of the museum, Diana spotted the black hair of the boy in the Foreign Art Room.

“Over there.”

Observing where her eyes focused, you caught a glimpse of a recognizable side profile. The owner’s eyes were completely taken by whatever he was drawing on the fold-up desk he brought out from the storage room. By the tedious action of his right hand going up and down, you’ve gotten so used to his part-time identity as the night guard to entirely dismiss his current status as a university student.

Architecture specifically as he first introduced himself to you. The same path your oldest brother, Christopher, worked in. The look of tenacity Jeno presented as his eyebrows continuously scrunched, his crescent orbs hastily spied his work for any unnecessary details and his veiny hands brushed his already messy hair, you were profoundly reminded of Christopher when he was designing his possible future house. You were 8 years old, and he was 22, who just got married. He explained how many floors it’ll have, what rooms to put and what extra furniture he’ll place to make it feel more at home.

Seeing how exceptional his art skills were, you started to sketch like him. With flowers first, it turned into bedrooms and sceneries of your neighborhood. You felt your shoulders rise in accomplishment when you were able to accurately draw people. As much as you credited Benjamin and Liam the most in your works, it’ll only be within yourself to know that you also held a soft spot for Christopher.

Excusing yourself to Princess Diana, you bravely yet quietly ventured into the Foreign Art Room. Hiding first from one of the cement columns, you resumed watching him sketch. Instead of a pencil, he used a black pen with a tip as thin as a pencil. Your assumptions would be it was for a class, basing it on him informing everybody earlier that he’ll be inactive for the remaining hours of his shift to focus on his midterm requirements. That must be difficult to balance, yet he still does everything expected from him. Maybe the second cup of iced coffee beside him stimulated his bones and mind, letting his imagination free.

Through the limited space, you tiptoed whilst holding the side of the column to make up his work. There were 2 and a half rectangular shapes stacked on top of each other, the third one he was still tracing. A sign encrypted with tiny written words you couldn’t decipher, the beauty and modernity of Jeno’s plate cannot go unappreciated.

“That’s absolutely beautiful.”

Sweet words you didn’t think would bounce back in the room, Jeno’s pace ceased whilst you hid again. Art pieces capable of walking weren’t allowed here, he locked the door even beforehand! Or he thought as he was rushing to get his work done because one of his terror professors moved up the deadline to tomorrow morning. Not even 25% finished, he petitioned for everyone’s cooperation just for tonight.

He used up his 2 days of not having the night shift for other projects, and not wanting to ruin his perfect attendance, he proceeded to show up.

The voices from the foreign paintings around him hushed for him out of respect. So possibly someone snuck in, his head looking around for intruders. But only did he quit it when he saw your blurry reflection leaning against the column. The glass windows slightly mirror back what it sees, without you knowing that.

Not to mention, the small bit of your lilac dress was left out. Of all people, it was you?

“Do my eyes deceive me or is Miss (Y/N) (Y/L/N) inside when she’s not allowed so?”

To break the killing tension, he tested the waves with an innocent taunt. Never did you reach out to him, so least to say he was entertained whilst keeping his distance.

Fixing your proud stance, you responded in a low baritone voice you used to persuade numerous men in her adventures. “Uhm no, I don’t know who she is.”

As intelligent as you were, Jeno was a few steps farther than you this time. Educated about the risky ways you’d get around and one of them was changing the pitch of your voice, he heartily laughed at your unsuccessful attempt.

“Okay don’t lie, (Y/N). I can see a trail of your dress and your cloak. Oh, your reflection too.”

Damn, you peeked a little to realize that he was correct. Hauling your dress back in to readjust your outfit, you pushed your hair back before appearing to him. Though when you did such, you didn’t suppose that he was practically beside you the entire time. Bumping into his towering stance of 5’10 while the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled up, your proud posture loosened up. He even discarded his blazer. A few more inches, he could’ve cornered you on the column if you didn’t take another step back.

Has he always been this tall or were you so used to your boots having high heels under? Oh wait, maybe because you wore flats this time because it’s making your toes sore. Your head bowed from struggling to maintain eye contact with him, your palms caressing your cheeks that suddenly heated up. Clearing your throat, you straightened your back again like nothing happened.

Jeno thought otherwise, shrugging his shoulders as he chuckled. He’s never seen you get shy, not that it was a bad thing either. The temptation to play around it more was there, but he was running out of time for his assignment.

“Come in. I’ll let you off the hook this time.” His arms opened up, allowing you access to such a wonderful exhibit. Paintings from different European periods, miniature versions of famous infrastructures inside glass containers, and replicas of Greek columns in the front entrance, no wonder it’s important to protect them all.

“Are you sure?” Watching him return to his spot, which was a bench in the center of the exhibit with a table in front, it didn’t process that you were gawking at his toned back. His broad shoulders and the evident muscles in his arms while he stretched, your eyes were speedy to look away when he tried to take a glance at you.

“I don’t think the paintings here and I mind.” Sitting down again, he tapped the vacant space beside him. “Feel free to watch me draw if you want to.”

Settling by his side, he recommenced where he left off. Now with a closer view of his piece, it did look like a building as you thought. He was sketching the remaining outline of the 3rd floor of this hypothetical place, continuously checking his ruler to monitor if the lines were consistent. Able to pick up on the words of the sign beside the building, you wowed with one hand on your lips.

“You’re redrawing Seoul National University Museum of Art?”

“One of my plate assignments was to visualize a renovation of a certain place, so I chose the museum.”

“Why so?”

“Well,” Jeno shook his pen so the ink could come out. “This entire place comes to life with the royal plate, so I think we should expand the space and bring in more art pieces to life if we add another extra floor. A rooftop area for visitors and events would be fun. And definitely, we should modernize the exterior and interior a bit because it looks outdated personally. That’s also what my friends think too.”

Noticing the minor details of his plate whilst removing any unnecessary pens so it wouldn’t smudge, “Huh, I quite agree with you.”

For the first time since his night shift, you, (Y/N) (Y/L/N), came into an agreement with him. He became so accustomed to clashing opinions that now, you had no contrasting points to make at all. A good change perhaps was what he’s witnessing.

“Woah, who are you agreeing with me and where’s (Y/N)?” He creased his brows whilst locking eye contact with you. This time, you didn’t wince away and just nudged him on his shoulder to get back to work.

“Hush, Jeno. Isn’t that due later? Get to work, I’ll roam around here for the meantime.”

After decades in this museum, you’re enlightened with the foreign paintings in which some you’ve heard of in your younger years and some that were created beyond your time. The Birth of Venus, Liberty Leading the People, Girl with a Pearl Earring, there’s an advantage of learning about their stories that humans couldn’t interpret. Logical that this section must be off-limits because these pieces were extra special, yet there’s so much more than what meets the eye.

There’s peace in silence while you wandered around, though it doesn’t hinder only at the art. Jeno hasn’t uttered a word since he got back to drawing, and once you asked him what’s doing now, still no answer back. Odd, he’s constantly awa-

Oh, my. You must’ve jinxed it.

Your eyes laid on Jeno leaning forward on his desk with his arms serving as his pillow, resting his head sideways. Soft snores and minimal movement in his upper body to shake the growing cold temperature of the room, he was sleeping like a log.

Putting into perspective, he hasn’t acquired enough rest specifically this past 2 weeks. The endless number of plates due making him work extra during his shift rather than sleeping in the slightest, exhaustion must be an understatement. Coffee no longer pushed him to his maximum for this week even.

But this was the path he chose, and it’ll have its challenges. Still, if you could relieve the stress in any way, you would. This would be one of the ways to repay for all the rudeness you’ve passed on him. Scurrying to his side, placing the plate on the side with his other things. You returned the caps of his open pens so they don’t spill. They must be expensive, recalling how Jeno shared the cons of being an architecture major to Princess Diana. One was the pens needed for sketching, and any tiny damages to them meant buying them again.

With his watch on clear display, he only had 2 hours left until his shift was done. Then, 4 hours until his plate assignment was done, and his current plate was far from done.

The blunt impulse to wake him up slithered your mind, though his calm state deflected your duty. As if you were on board a ship again for your explorations, you paid attention to the view with a relaxed mindset.

Lee Jeno specifically was the view.

His coffee-stained lips were parted and his sharp nose breathing in and out at a relaxing pace, he must be dreaming a happy moment the way half his lips curved into a smile. If he’s resting well, then you too would be calm.

Because of your past disinterest in him, only at this moment did you observe how sharp his jawline was and the cuts on his arms he sought refuge in. No matter how many times you tried to deny Hera’s compliments of him on the side, you couldn’t.

Lee Jeno embodied attractive features; both physical and emotional.

Back to his plate, it’ll put him at a disadvantage if he submitted the way it looked before he passed out. But you remembered all those extra details he mentioned and wanted to add to this project. Being an explorer, you documented all your ventures through words or drawings. You’re fast to adjust to anything new too.

For all the good he’s done for everyone, he only deserved some help in return.

Your version of help was sketching the remaining details of this plate, using other pens for more emphasis. It’s a risk also, but no way could you turn a blind eye on Jeno this time.

Around 5:30 am, Jeno’s eyes blinked open due to a brightening light from the outside. Stretching his limbs, he finds a velvet cloak wrapped around him like a blanket. But before he could question it, he pulled his arm in to see the time on his watch.

“Fuck!” He cursed, realizing that his so-called 10-minute snooze break aborted.

“Oh my, you’re awake!” From his frazzled state, there you were. So put together yet active, some strands of your hair falling down your face even with your hair up in a ponytail. “How was your sleep?”

This whole time he could’ve been woken up, yet you chose not to. You’re aware of his deadline, yet you let him rest entirely. He could’ve burst out in stress, yet he didn’t. You and he may have started on the wrong foot, yet it’s impossible of you to do such an evil thing. He’ll just have to tolerate the outcome later today.

“Refreshing. I really needed it.” Packing his things in his bag and closing the table, you trailed along as he exited with you. Locking up, he has 30 minutes left to accomplish the cleaning. A long good morning indeed.

But his worry of that vanished when you admitted that you had it all covered.

“Everyone helped out in cleaning, plus there are no damages made either.” From your hand, you returned one of his keys that was on his guard blazer. “I double-checked the Oriental Room and locked the doors again.”

“Why are you suddenly so nice to me, (Y/N)?” He questioned with confusion, wearing his blazer again and patting away any creases. He placed your cloak over you again like a true gentleman.

Without a word, you simply invited him to walk you back to your exhibit as parts of the sun began to rise. As you returned to your section, your fellow figures readying themselves to pose again,

“It’s my way to apologize for my very rude first impression and the succeeding moments after. I was too cooped up in my past that I was too afraid to let humans in again, night guards in particular.” You admitted, removing your cloak and placing behind your chair like always. “I’m so sorry, Jeno. Everyone was right about you and your kind heart.”

“About time.” Cleopatra’s sultry voice cut in, laying on her day bed.

Before you had the chance to flip off, Jeno mediated swiftly. With a gentle smile, “No worries about it. I’m just happy you’re okay, after all you’ve been through.”

“Can we start over then?”

“Absolutely.” With his free hand, he brought it out. No matter what kind of introductions, shaking one’s hand was the best way to start a friendship. “Good evening. I’m Lee Jeno, the new museum night guard.”

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N), explorer and author.” Sighing at his humor, you still replied by shaking his hand. “And I believe you’re mistaken, Lee Jeno. It’s a good morning.”

Seconds after, you imitated your typical pose and smile. Only now, the latter was more genuine. Finally, a fresh start to end your agony.

Once the sun fully revealed itself, every figure including yourself froze back to sleep. Something Jeno wished to catch up on if it weren’t for his damn plate. He was so screwed, already contemplating his next steps if he does fail this class. The possibility of getting delayed in all aspects, he dreaded it already.

Heading back to his dorm, where both his roommates completely passed out from soju on the couch, he sat by his work desk and turned on his night lamp for more light since the sun wasn’t strong enough yet.

With another cup of coffee, he cracked the joints of his knuckles and laid out his pens. He had 2 hours left to submit this plate, and at most he should accomplish 50% of his initial plan. However, he didn’t anticipate such a gorgeous outcome when he brought out his plate.

Picture perfect of every detail he desired, even adding a rooftop area with that he’d love to have if ever the museum does go under renovation one day. Rather than setting the plate during the day, it was at night as the skies were dark and bright specks of yellow inside the building symbolized light.

So much for wasting coffee, he’ll just give it to Jaemin when he wakes up later. Below the final product, a note written in cursive was stuck on it.

I knew you wanted to get this specific plate done, but you mustn’t compromise your sleep for it. It’s your inhumane professor’s fault!

To make up for my faults, I wanted to help you out. I paid extra attention to the details you spoke highly about, so I only hoped that I interpreted it correctly. It’s risky, but as someone who researched so much about me, would you be surprised that I did such a thing?

PS: Get back to sleep. I’m quite sure your desk is laid out the same way in the Foreign Art Room.

Respectfully,

(Y/N)

Turning off his lamp, Jeno jumped the covers of his bed to continue his lost sleep. Without an ounce of care that he hasn’t changed into cleaner clothes, he’s relieved that he won’t flunk his class.

Most of all, he’s relieved that you’ve melted the ice in you and allowed kindness to come in. Jeno may never understand how hard that must’ve been for you, yet he raved you for it.

“Oh, (Y/N) (Y/L/N). Surprise is an understatement when it comes to you.”

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bluesylveon2 · 3 years

Text

How to Confess to a Guy

Summary: Levi and Hange have a crush on one another for years. It is now time for someone to step up and confess!

Disclaimer: Attack on Titan is a manga/anime series written by Hajime Isayama and published by Kondasha

A/N: @levihanweek Thank you for hosting the Levihan Eggschange event! I enjoyed participating in it.

To my giftee, I hope you find your gift and enjoy it. I hope the clues I gave you helped as well. Enjoy! :)

Camp Paradis is a 7-week, 400-acre summer camp for teenagers hidden deep in the woods of Washington state. Founded in the 1950s by the Fritz family, it is run by Dot Pixis, a man famous for his many achievements when he was a camper many years ago. It is known for offering a variety of activities for each camper. Some activities included fishing, sailing, swimming, paddle boarding, and more!

The camp had a small lake with 12 cabins surrounding it. Each cabin had three campers and one counselor. Each camp counselor was typically seniors and college students. Additionally, there was an even bigger lake, Lake Maria, where the camp's rival, Camp Marley, resided across. Camp Marley was also 7 weeks but had 500 acres, and it was by Theo Magath.

No two counselors in Camp Paradis are alike. Each counselor is unique. For example, Erwin Smith, the counselor for Ursus cabin, is greatly admired by his campers because of his dedication and leadership quality. He is the counselor who typically leads his cabin to victory every year at the Paradis games that occur at the last week of camp.

On the other hand, Levi Ackerman, the counselor for Vulpes cabin, was known as very strict with his campers. Other campers from other cabins note how it always smells like detergent, and his campers clean the cabin often.

(They are in the woods, for crying out loud! How did he manage to bring all of the cleaning supplies? This remained a mystery to everyone except in the Vulpes cabin.)

Just like any other teenage-related camp, the campers always spread rumors to relieve their boredom. Some of which have not been debunked.

Rumor 1: Bigfoot is hidden somewhere deep in the woods that has yet to be found. There were occasional sightings near the camp in the previous years. Dot Pixis himself almost caught him one day but failed. Anyone who can find and capture Bigfoot can earn a generous reward from Pixis. Eren and his friends actually tried to look for it but ran into his older half-brother, Zeke, instead (he kind of looked like one in the dark). He and his friends did not realize they walked all the way to Camp Marley.

Rumor 2: Someone went to Camp Marley to serenade Annie Leonhart when she was outside playing the piano. Annie refused to reveal who, yet she blushed every time someone from Camp Marley asked. Someone (*cough Ymir) had an idea who. Some campers claimed to see Ymir often tease Armin after the rumors started. It is possible the Armin did it.

Rumor 3: Levi Ackerman likes Hange Zoe from Strix cabin and vice versa. Actually, it seemed more like a fact than a rumor to everyone except them.

Let's look at the evidence:

Evidence 1: Levi always takes care of Hange when she forgets to take care of herself. It typically ranges from, but not limited to: making sure she eats, jumping into any time she is at risk for injury without a second thought, tending to her wounds when she does get hurt, forcing her to bathe (Connie accidentally walked into it once. He vowed to constantly check on Levi and Hange's whereabouts before he gets killed by Levi's death glare), and "accidentally" eliminating any suitors Hange may have.

(He does not actually kill them or anything. That is against camp rules. There was one time when Zeke Yeager went to Camp Paradis to confess his feelings to Hange. He actually almost made it to her cabin but a random shoe "accidentally" hit him on the head, causing him to stumble and fall into the lake. No one knows how he fell, but Hange walked out to see what was going on. She saw Levi drinking tea nearby, while mysteriously missing a shoe, and went to him. Apparently, she did not see Zeke at all, so Zeke had to get help from Pieck, who was hiding nearby)

Evidence 2: Hange rants to Levi about her latest research back home. Hange can talk anyone into sleeping with the amount of research she does. Yet, Levi stays up to listen. It could be because of his insomnia, but he never gets tired of listening to her rants. Other campers note that he at least looks interested every time Hange rants.

Evidence 3: The one incident last year when Hange was jealous and did not talk to Levi for half of the camp duration. There was a rumor going around that Levi was dating Petra, counselor of Lynx cabin. As a result, Hange hung out with Moblit, counselor of Lupus cabin, more that year instead. Hange claimed it was to give the couple space, but only her closest friends could tell something was up.

For instance, Eren was hiking on another expedition to find Bigfoot when he ran into Hange, kicking down a tree in anger. Eren immediately ran back to camp in hopes that Hange did not notice him and broke his bones. He was actually intimidated by her for a week.

(In reality, Hange was so sure Levi was going to confess to her that year. Additionally, Levi was jealous of how Hange spent time with Moblit more. Not everyone in camp could tell except for his campers Eren, Jean, and Connie. They could feel the chills running down their spines every time Levi was in the cabin with them, and it was summer.)

Evidence 4: Levi was always by Hange's side. Anyone in the camp can tell you that Levi is at least nearby Hange unless it is for very personal reasons (except bathing). He mainly stayed close to her after last year's incident when he literally kicked down her door and cleared the misunderstandings.

(In reality, Levi and Petra were not dating. Petra had confided to Levi about dating advice (for a reason he is unaware of, except everyone in the camp *cough Hange *cough). In the end, Levi remained single and had to fix the Strix cabin's door. On the bright side, Petra started dating Oluo Bozado from Meles cabin.)

Neither party had ever confessed to one another despite all the evidence proving that they have feelings for one another. Now that both Levi and Hange are about to graduate high school, it was the perfect time to confess before they go their separate ways because of their careers.

However, life is very unexpected, and when you add Hange to the mix…

Well, anything goes.

---

"This is it," Hange said to herself as she got everything ready in her canoe. She was prepared to sail across the lake towards Levi's cabin.

Both cabins were situated on different sides of the lake. The camp was designed so one half was for boys and the other half was for girls. It was a very dumb inconvenience for Hange.

Hange scoffed as she sat down on the canoe and began rowing. "Why couldn't our cabins be placed next to each other. It would give me less work to do." The only guy and girl cabins next to each other were Petra's cabin and Mike's cabin.

Hange decided that today was the day she will confess to Levi. They have been in an awkward "does he/she like me? does he/she not?" for years now, and none of them confessed at all. There are even rumors about it, for crying out loud!

The two had met three years ago when Hange and Levi were campers at Camp Paradis. It was really unexpected. Hange was ready to get down in the dirt during the activities and often kept some insects to study. On the other hand, Levi was a clean freak and a prodigy at the camp activities. It became sort of like a friendly competition between the two, and then they suddenly started hanging out more. They have known each other for years. She even calls herself his best friend.

(She never realized how recently Levi would scowl every time she claimed to be his best friend. To him, she was much more than that.)

Overall, Hange would look forward to seeing Levi again every summer.

It has been four years of dancing around whatever they have that Hange now dared herself to confess before the summer ends, and they leave for college. It is better to do something and get rejected (which she hopes does not happen) than do nothing.

Hange stopped rowing when she got close enough that Levi has to hear her. She could make out his figure sitting on the front steps of his cabin with Mike, Erwin, and Furlan.

She sets the oar to the side, takes a deep breath, and presses play on the small radio she took from Rico's cabin. The beginning notes of the song plays in the air.

You can do this

Hange began to sing the first line.

---

Minutes before

Mike, Erwin, and Furlan were talking about who knows what, not Levi was not paying attention anyway. His mind was preoccupied with a certain eccentric girl he knew.

She was very secretive lately. Sometimes she would freak out whenever Levi approached her, and he has not seen her all day. He even planned on confessing to her after dinner. It seemed as if Hange was preoccupied with something.

Levi would not even get to say one word before Hange ran off, claiming she is busy and cannot be disturbed.

Levi scowled at the thought. Hange would usually tell him beforehand if she is busy, but her saying nothing? Something is definitely up, but she wants to not tell him then it was fine by him (or so he says).

Furlan, who noticed Levi's brooding, smirked. "Hey Levi, are you thinking about Hange again?"

Mike and Erwin stopped talking and smirked as well.

Levi rolled his eyes. "I was not thinking about Hange. At all." He said in a serious tone.

"Mhmm," Furlan replied. He shifted in his spot and gave Levi a smug look. He was not convinced.

"Don't hide it, Levi," Mike added. "We all know how you go goo-goo eyes every time Hange enters the room. You are always checking up on her too."

"I don't make goo-goo eyes at Hange," Levi deadpanned with a monotone voice. "I only check up on her because it is a miracle she can see those dirty her glasses she wears."

Erwin's smirk never faded away as he lightly elbows Furlan on the side. "He always calls her by two nicknames, Furlan. He gives anyone more than one nickname too. They might not sound endearing, but he rarely calls Hange by her name."

"Can you imagine what Levi is thinking now?" Furlan laughed. He turned around from his spot, so he back faced Levi, hugged himself, and started making fake kissing noises.

"Oh, Hange! I don't want to be just friends with you. I will marry you, and we're going to have 100 bab-"

Levi slapped Furlan on the head. He stood up the moment Furlan spoke. Mike and Erwin were in the background howling with laughter.

"Cut the crap, Furlan," Levi said and made his way back to his spot on the steps.

"Ok, ok. You win, Levi." Furlan rubbed the back of his head where Levi had slapped him. Luckily for him, Levi did not hit him too hard, and it did not hurt that badly. He goes back to talking to Mike and Erwin about other counselors about other rumors they heard. He will tease Levi again later.

Meanwhile, Levi rolled his eyes at his friend's childishness and began to think about the subject of his earlier torment. It was already almost dinner time, and he has not seen Hange all day. He was hoping she would at least appear for dinner, or else he would have to drag her to the dining hall by force.

Levi was busy with his thoughts and staring at his feet to notice anything around him. He was too busy to focus on the music playing, and the girl he (does not) have a crush on making her way over from across the lake.

"Uhh, Levi?" Furlan spoke while looking at the lake. Levi ignored him; instead, he was too busy thinking about Hange to notice she was heading towards him at that very moment.

Mike and Erwin turned to face what Furlan was staring at. Their jaws dropped.

On Lake Sina was the one and only Hange Zoe making her way towards Levi's cabin on a canoe while singing the song "We Belong" by Pat Benatar so loud that everyone in the camp could hear her. She also wore shorts and a camp T-shirt. She did not wear a life jacket.

Talk about romantic.

"Levi!" Mike said urgently and shook his shoulder.

"What?" Levi turned to Mike. He was irritated by his friends messing with him about his crush (yes, he will admit it but not out loud to his nosy friends).

What else did they need now? They could always bother someone else.

Levi noticed where Mike was pointing to and was about to turn in said direction until he heard a voice coming from somewhere behind him.

"Well, it seems like you won't die a virgin after all, huh, shortass? Who knew?"

Levi knew that voice. His cousin, Mikasa, from Cervidae cabin, Levi had the pleasure (not) of watching over at this camp. It was a good thing he did not have to deal with her and her obvious crush on Eren Jaeger. He did feel bad for Rico because she had to deal with that gloomy brat in her cabin.

Levi turned around to face his cousin. She was standing a few feet away from him with a few of her friends that he recognized. The tall, brunette one with her hair in a ponytail, Sasha, also from Cervidae cabin, was eating a sandwich (she probably got it from the camp across the lake). She must have raided Camp Marley recently.

(They have a chef there who can apparently make really delicious food. Levi only knew because Hange planned on kidnapping him one time just to try some).

Mikasa's other friend, Historia, the short blonde-haired girl from Lynx cabin, smiled pleasantly at Levi.

"What are you talking about, brat?" he glared at Mikasa.

Historia giggled and pointed in the direction of the lake. "Over by the lake. Can't you hear Hange singing? I knew she could sing, but wow! I wonder if she is singing to a lucky guy? That would be so adorable!"

Levi's eyes widen in surprise. He tuned out Historia's gushing when it hit him.

That means…Hange...oh no.

He turned his head to find that Hange was indeed singing and making her way towards his direction.

His direction!

Erwin and Mike noticed the blush on Levi's face and smirked. Furlan clamped his hand on Levi's shoulder like a proud dad. Levi could hear the smirk in Furlan's voice that he would love to punch away if it weren't for Hange.

"I wonder who the guy is too, Historia. He is indeed a lucky guy."

Levi shook Furlan off and started heading towards Hange.

Hange noticed Levi coming closer and stops rowing. She dropped her oar off to the side.

"Hey! Levi!" She yelled out loud while waving her arms around.

She did not have to yell so loudly, though. The sound traveled perfectly from her mouth and into Levi's ear within seconds because of the lake.

He began speed walking towards Hange.

There was a voice in the background yelling something about how Hange was doing great so far. It sounded like Nifa, but Levi was too busy to check. He needed to get to Hange first.

Levi watched as Hange accidentally drops her oar into the lake when she moved back to row some more. Hange, scrambling to retrieve it, said an "I got it!" in her normal voice until she accidentally tripped and fell into the lake.

She was not wearing a life jacket on either.

Levi stopped speed walking and ran towards Hange. Once he was close to the lake, and without thinking, he took off his shirt and dove into the lake to save Hange.

---

Also a few minutes ago

"I know Hange is a smart girl and all, but wouldn't it have been easier to just walk around the lake to confess to Levi?" Nanaba asked aloud as she took a sip from her water bottle. Some sweat dripped down her brow from being out in the sun all day.

Nanaba sat on the steps of her cabin (Alces) while her campers was out and about. Her cabin was next to Hange's, and she even helped Hange prepare before her big love confession.

Rico, who walked by earlier to see why Nanaba was staring at the lake, sighed from Nanaba's right. "Love does weird things to you, Nanaba. Remember when Mike confessed to you last year? I wonder why do people from this camp confess while using the lakes, though?" She questioned while recalling that one rumor and how Mike confessed to Nanaba by bringing her to a picnic near Lake Maria.

Nanaba laughed and turned to Rico while wiggling her eyebrows. She grinned like the Cheshire Cat. "So when are you going to get a canoe across the lake and confess to Ian?" she said while gesturing to Hange, who was still singing to Levi.

Rico blushed and elbowed Nanaba's side. "Shut up! I do not like Ian like that! Mind your own business!" She turned away from Nanaba and crossed her arms in front of her chest. Her face was still red.

Nanaba turned back to watch Hange sing and rests her chin on the palm of her hand. Her elbow was resting on her thigh. "Mhmm. Go tell yourself that."

"I think it's a cute idea. It would be very boring and tiresome to walk around the lake just to confess. Serenading on the lake is much more unique." Nifa, counselor of Tamias cabin, piped up from Nanaba's left. She had heard Hange's singing nearby and was curious about what was going on. She sat next to Nanaba. It seemed like Nanaba knew what was going on.

Ah. It seemed that Nifa also joined in on the watch party, Nanaba thought. Now a good chunk of the camp was curious about Hange's business.

The trio watched as Hange rowed closer to Levi. This time, some of the campers from the other cabins watched Hange from Levi's side. They did not stand close but a far distance instead. They were curious about what was going on and did not want to get too close to suffer from Levi's wrath.

They all watched as Levi stood up from his spot and began speed walking towards the lake. Meanwhile, Hange continued to sing her song.

Nifa brought her hands up to her face and cupped them around her mouth to amplify her voice.

"You're doing great, sweetie!"

Hange was doing great. Indeed, she was almost at her destination. All she had to do was pick up the oar and go back to rowing…

Until she accidentally dropped her oar, causing Levi to start running towards her.

They could not hear what Hange said, but they could assume she was trying to reassure Levi that she was ok and to retrieve the oar...until she misstepped and fell into the lake.

Oops.

Nanaba and Rico turned to Nifa with a shocked look. Nifa held her hands up in innocence.

"I swear. I did not mean or intend for all of that to happen."

"We have to help Hange!" Nanaba yelled. Both she and Rico stood up to try to help Hange but stopped by Nifa, grabbing the back of their shirts.

"What are you doing, Nifa?" Nanaba said with irritation. Nifa did not say anything but nodded her head towards the lake. She lets go of their shirts after they brought their attention to the lake too.

The girls watched as Levi took his shirt off and dove into the lake to save Hange.

Problem solved.

"Doesn't Levi know that Hange is a good swimmer?" Nifa asked from behind Nanaba.

Rico scoffed. "You tell me. I always have to train for the swimming competitions, but I can never beat her." Rico always dreaded when her cabin was put up against Hange’s. She usually placed at either second or third place. No one could outswim Hange, not even Levi.

They watched as Levi grabbed Hange, threw her over his shoulder, and made his way back to his cabin. The onlookers made a path for him because they were too scared to focus on Levi.

The girls sighed with relief. This was practically a typical day at Camp Paradis.

Nanaba turned to Rico and Nifa. "Anyone up for a snack at the dining hall?"

After everything they just saw, Rico and Nifa both nodded in agreement.

---

"Is the cabin empty?" Hange asked from behind the bathroom door. It has been an hour since the incident. Levi had dragged her into his cabin, and he threw her into his bathroom. He also gave her some of his extra set of clothes and demanded that she took a bath before she gets sick.

Each cabin has two bathrooms, so each camper only had to share with one person. Levi shoved Hange into his/Eren's bathroom while he took a shower in Jean/Connie's. Hange freshened up and clean, stood stationary behind the bathroom door. She practically smelled like Levi. From the soap, she used to the clothes she wore. They all smelled like the definition of clean.

"Yes." That was all Levi replied with a slightly irritated tone in his voice.

Hange groaned from behind the door and rested her forehead on the hardwood. That was the voice Levi would use when he was ready to lecture her. She leaned her head back and placed her hand on the doorknob. She took a deep breath as she opened the door and met Levi's expecting face. His eyebrows were furrowed slightly, he had his arms crossed over his chest, and he looked a bit irritated.

(Hange was thankful that he was dressed similarly to her and she did not walk out to see him shirtless)

She walked towards Levi, sitting on his bed. Each cabin is big enough for each camper to have a total of four beds. Each footstep was like a walk of shame for Hange. Yet, Levi did not say a word. He spoke up the moment she sat down next to him on the bed. The bed shifted down slightly from the extra weight.

"Hange, what were you thinking? You did not have a life jacket on, and you fell in the middle of the lake. You scared a lot of the camp and me. Be careful next time you pull something like that," He said while facing her, concern laced in his voice.

Hange rubbed the back of her neck nervously. She looked up to meet Levi's steel-gray eyes.

"I'm sorry I worried everyone, Levi. I will be more considerate next time. Although…"

Hange began to chuckle to herself at the memory of Levi umping in to save her.

"You know I'm a good swimmer, right?" She placed her hand on Levi's shoulder and shook it slightly. "I would have made it back just fine-"

She stopped shaking his shoulder and sets it down on her lap. "I appreciate you umping in to save me, though." She said with a grin.

Suddenly, Hange raised her hands and leaned forward. She wrapped both of her arms around Levi's midsection and pulled him close to her body for a hug. She rested her head on his shoulder.

"Thank you, Levi."

Levi prayed that Hange could not feel his heart pounding against his chest or see him blush. His crush was close to him, for crying out loud!

He moved his arms to hug Hange back. He could feel nervousness rising up in his body along with his rapid heartbeat. This is it. He will confess to Hange now, and it does not matter if he gets rejected or not. She had to know, even if the song she sang was for someone else.

Levi leaned back from Hange, but he maintained the hug. Their faces were only a few inches away from each other.

"Hange, I have something to tell you. I need you to hear me out for a few minutes."

Hange nodded in agreement. "Ok…" she said with some uncertainness. She was unsure what he was going to say, and he gave her the most serious look on his face. He stared deeply into her amber-brown eyes.

"I appreciate you."

Huh?

Hange tilted her head in confusion. "Come again, Levi."

Levi looked away and sighs. Ok. That was not a rejection. He just has to change tactics to get it to Hange and hopefully not make it sound awkward. Levi had no experience with him confessing before. Other girls had confessed to him, but it was with material stuff. He wanted to use words for his confession.

Levi looked up again and stared into Hange's eyes again. "I want to dedicate my heart to you." Ok, now that sounded a bit too much.

Levi continued speaking anyway before he could change tactics again.

"I just want to say that I like you, Hange." He said sincerely. "I like listening to you talk, your personality, and your humor. I want you to at least be aware before we go to college and if the song from earlier is not for me."

Levi stared at Hange's face and attempted to read her emotions. Her eyes widened with shock, and her mouth was open in a small o. She stayed that way for a few minutes until the shock became full-on laughter.

Hange was laughing at him.

She let go of Levi and threw her head back. Her face was full of delight.

Usually, Levi would not mind listening to her laugh, even if it was at him. It was one of his favorite sounds to her, not that she needed to know that.

However, this is different from before. Levi frowned but did not make a move to stand up. He needed an explanation for this.

Hange turned back to Levi after she calmed down a bit. "Levi." She said. Her voice had some laughter evident in her voice. Here comes the rejection.

"The song was for you."

What?

Levi only blinked in response. Hange began to swing her legs a bit and placed her hands on her lap. "I wanted to confess to you today, and I thought what serenade you from the lake." She explained.

"I guess I was too excited to miss some necessities. Sorry about that, by the way."

She leaned forward to grab Levi's right hand. Levi made no move to remove it, so she interlocks their fingers together.

"But you beat me to it, huh, Levi?" She chuckled while staring down fondly at their hands.

Levi stared at their hands as well. He could not believe this. They were going to confess to each other on the same day.

Suddenly, Levi leaned forward to rest his head on Hange's shoulder. "Will you be my girlfriend, Hange?"

Hange turned to Levi in shock. Levi moves his head to meet her eyes. The eyes he adores.

Hange smiled at him. Her eyes glowed with happiness. "Yes." That was enough for Levi.

He let go of Hange's hand and placed it on the back of her head. He grasped her hair a bit but not rough at all.

Hange watched as Levi leaned closer.

And closer.

Until they were a few centimeters apart. The cabin was quiet except for their breathing. Both of their breaths fanned each other's faces.

"What are you doing, Levi?" Hange asked with a hint of curiosity. She made no move to pull away, so Levi took it as a sign to explain his motives.

"Can I kiss you?"

Hange blinked a few times before nodding her head to give Levi an ok.

Levi closed the gap between the two. It was a short and sweet kiss. There heat or desire to move their relationship up to another base.

They leaned back from the kiss with a happy look on their faces. Hange had a goofy grin while Levi smiled at her. It was rare to see Levi smile, and Hange was delighted to be a source for it.

"That was my first kiss," Hange confessed.

"Mine too." Levi chuckled. His hand was still gripping Hange's hair. He kept his grip as he elated back on the bed, bringing Hange down with him.

"Levi!" Hange exclaimed and sat up on her elbows. Who knew Levi was so bold?

"What if the other campers see us?" She said with some nervousness.

Levi rolled his eyes and lightly flicked Hange's forehead. "We are not having sex. I'm just tired, and I want to take a nap with my girlfriend."

He smirked. "Besides, I sent my campers over to Furlan's cabin. They won't come back until we have to go to bed."

Hange looked at him suspiciously while rubbing her forehead from earlier. "You promise?"

Levi nodded his head. "I promise."

Hange let out a small yawn. It has been a long day. She moved so she can lay her body to the spot next to Levi. Meanwhile, Levi turned over to face his nightstand, so he can set his alarm for them to wake up before dinner. He then picked up the blanket and placed it over both of their bodies. They were both facing the wall.

"Sleep well, Hange." He spooned her from behind and placed a small kiss on the back of her neck.

Hange smiled before getting comfortable in Levi's arms. "Goodnight, Levi."

The two spent a few minutes in silence and tranquility. Levi was happy to spend some quality time with his dream girl.

“Hey, Levi. Use that dedicate your heart line for when you propose.” He can hear the smugness in Hange’s voice.

He lightly kicked her on the shin. “Go to sleep.”

Hange could not see it, but Levi had a small smile on his face as he drifted off to sleep.

---

"I KNEW IT!!!" Nanaba yelled while standing up and pointing at the new couple walking into the dining hall holding hands. Erwin and Mike were startled by the sudden outburst. Furlan was smirking victoriously. His friend, Isabel, rolled her eyes at Furlan's smirk.

(Petra, Nifa, Moblit, and Rico were sitting at another table noticed the couple at the doorway. Nifa and Petra squealed in delight while Rico and Moblit smiled. The other girls from Hange's cabin squealed as well since they secretly shipped her with Levi).

Levi and Hange stopped walking. Hange started laughing behind her free hand, and Levi gave Nanaba an annoyed look.

Everyone stopped eating to turn to the source of the sound. Nanaba, noticing the multiple stares, rubs the back of her head nervously and laughs. "Sorry about that, go back to eating."

Furlan smirked as Levi and Hange passed by the usual table to get some food. He turned to Isabel sitting next to him. He stuck his hand out to her and moved his fingers in pay-up motion. "Pay up, Isabel. I won the bet."

Isabel stuck out her tongue at him. "If only Levi-Bro waited until the end of the summer. I would have won 50 bucks," she said while reluctantly handing Furlan 50 dollars.

Furlan hummed in content and pocketed the money in his shorts pocket. "Appreciate the business, Izzy. Now, are you willing to put down money for when Levi and Hange get married?" He said and held his hand out for a handshake to seal the agreement.

Isabel smirked and shook Furlan's hand in agreement. "You're on, Furlan. We'll discuss this later." She turned away from Furlan and smiles at the couple coming to their table. "The new couple is coming here now."

"Hi everyone!" Hange beamed after sitting down across from Furlan. Levi sat between Hange and Nanaba.

Everyone at the table said hi in reply.

Erwin pushed his finish tray slightly on the table in front of him and turned to Hange. "Congratulations, Hange and Levi. I hope the two of you have a happy relationship."

Nanaba and Mike smiled as well. "Congrats, Levi," said Nanaba.

"Congrats, Hange," said Mike.

"I knew you could do it. Levi-Bro! You have had a crush on Hange since forever!" Isabel exaggerated the word forever.

Levi blushed, and Furlan smirked. He turned to Hange. "Say, Hange. How many kids-"

"Don't even finish that sentence, Furlan." Levi threatened, yet his face was still red from blushing. He did not want Furlan to bring up the conversation about children from earlier today.

Hange laughed from the interaction and leaned down to kiss Levi on the cheek. "Don't worry about him, Furlan." She leaned down towards his ear.

"We can discuss the number of children we would have later." She winked at him and went back to eating as if nothing happened between the two. Meanwhile, Levi opened his mouth slightly in shock. He did not expect that out of Hange! Mike, Erwin, and Furlan chuckled at this.

Nanaba (who luckily did not hear Hange) still noticed Levi's shock. "Levi, close your mouth before some flies get in." she lectured to him in a motherly tone. This broke Levi out of his shock, and he goes back to focus on eating.

Everyone continued talking and sharing any recent stories they had. Suddenly, Hange slammed her hands down on the table, shocking everyone at the table. She turned to face Levi.

"Levi! Where is Mikasa? We need to tell her about us!" She exclaimed and shook Levi's shoulders.

Oh, right. Hange would want to tell Mikasa about her new relationship since she saw Mikasa as family. Plus, they will most likely be an actual family in the future. Levi raised his hands up to grab Hange's and set it down on her lap. "Stop, Hange. She's probably eating with Eren and Armin. We can tell her later."

Erwin raised his eyebrows in confusion. "Actually, Levi. I haven't seen Mikasa ever since she showed up with Sasha and Historia. Isabel put her utensils down and joined in on the conversation.

"I saw her with Eren and Armin an hour before dinner. They were sitting together deep in a conversation…"

Levi looked up to scan his eyes across the dining hall. He noticed Armin's blonde hair sitting at his regular table with his friends. He sat at a table with Jean, Connie, Sasha, Ymir, and Historia. He noted how Armin noticed his stare and looked away as if he was scared of him.

Mikasa and Eren were nowhere in sight.

---

Bonus:

"Be careful, Eren!"

Mikasa said while raising her voice slightly. She did not want to yell, or else she might alert anyone in the forest.

"I'll be fine, Mikasa," he assured her. "I can feel it! Bigfoot is nearby." He said with excitement.

"This is the last time, Eren. We are already missing dinner, and who knows if Armin can stall for us any longer. Levi is going hunt us down. Plus, I don't want to end up in Camp Marley again."

Mikasa and Eren only had a few snacks on them. Mikasa managed to slip into her cabin to grab some from Sasha's secret stash. Sasha and Historia were busy watching the chaos at the lake.

"I promise, Mikasa. Thank you for coming with me. I don't think I can do this alone." He turned back to Mikasa with a big grin. He was also recalling the time he was searching in the forest to find Bigfoot and ran into an angry Hange instead,

Mikasa smiled in return, and the two continued their search to find Bigfoot.

Meanwhile, the two did not realize that they passed a figure watching them from a reasonable distance away behind a tree. Its eyes watched as the two humans continued their search. It slipped away sneakily into the darkness. It went away from Camp Paradis and towards the forest near Camp Marley instead.

---

Some quick notes:

I kinda based this fic off of one scene from Pitch Perfect 2 and other summer camp-related movies I watched (I don't have much knowledge of summer camp 😭)

Cabin names are based on scientific names of different animals

I hc Hange being good at swimming. Let's face it. If she can swim down a river while carrying a 65 kg man, and miraculously not get any gunshot wounds (not counting a spike in adrenaline to live); I'm sure Hange is a good swimmer.

#levihaneggschange2021 #levihan #levihan fanfiction #attack on titan #shingeki no kyojin #levihan eggschange

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verfound · 3 years

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WIPWed: Festering Folder Edition: Legally Blonde AU

@mintaka14 asked about the Legally Blonde AU, which the Disco witnessed the birth of and was briefly mentioned in the notes for "Move Like Jagged". So. Yeah. This is the latest crack AU I've been working on. 😂

See, for my last project for those unit classes I had to take for work, I was talking about different reasons conflict can pop up in your kitchen and how to deal with them. And one of the ways to deal with conflict is by staying positive - you can't control what other people do/what happens, but you can control how you react to it. And that got "Positive" from the Legally Blonde musical in my head, which got me thinking who would be who in a LB AU, and...it all just ran away from me so hard. We have a Plunny Adoption channel in the Disco, and I dropped it there because I did not want another WIP, and the next thing I knew I was 1700 words into the Bend & Snap scene and no one else had adopted the plunny come on guys. 😂

So. Yeah. This is happening. I'm maybe a third of the way through the outline with about three scenes fully written out. 😂

The setup: Marinette is an aspiring fashion designer in her senior year at UCLA. Her life is all set up: she's going to graduate and marry her perfect boyfriend Adrien Agreste, who's on his way to becoming a lawyer and future president of the United States. Everything's perfect until he suddenly dumps her, claiming he needs someone more serious. He moves back out East to start at Harvard in the fall, where he's now dating childhood friend and fellow Snobby Harvard Girl Kagami Tsurugi. Marinette realizes that if she's gonna get her man back, she's got to be someone serious, too - someone lawerly! Someone who wears black when nobody's dead! So Marinette follows him out to Harvard, where she's...let's face it. The laughing stock of the school. But with a little determination (and the help of her super sweet TA Luka Couffaine, who's convinced she's not as Dumb as the others paint her) she's going to show everyone she belongs there - and win her Adrien back in the process!

So Marinette's Elle, Adrien is Warner, Kagami is Vivian, and Luka is Emmett. I'm putting Gabriel as Callahan, with the idea that part of the pressure on Adrien is that his father is this super successful lawyer & professor at Harvard who's expecting him to follow in his footsteps. (Also there's a line in the finale of the musical that says "Warner quit / Says he makes more modeling anyhow!", so while he's at UCLA I have Adrien modeling on the side and he totally goes back to it. 😂) Mylène is Paulette and Ivan is Kyle (the UPS guy). Rose and Alya are Marinette's Delta Nu sisters/best friends, and Juleka is still Luka's sister; Rose and Alya come out and the end to cheer Marinette on at the final trial, where Rose and Juleka meet.

Jagged is Brooke. He's being accused of murdering Bob Roth, his former label owner. He's innocent, but he refuses to give Gabriel his alibi (he was...getting...botox). He was Marinette's neighbor back in LA, and she designed his favorite leather jacket - so he freaks when Marinette walks in with his Estranged Son as part of his legal team. Luka and Jagged have a...tenuous relationship. Jagged is Luka's father, and Luka used to love music/want to be a rocker. He toured with Jagged for a year or two when he was younger as his opening act, but it really disillusioned Luka to the Music Scene. So he ended up pursuing law (thinking he could get into the legal side of things, and Anarka's always in and out of jail anyway so she'll need a good lawyer?), and finds out he's good at it & really enjoys it? It wasn't the career he thought he'd have, but he's happy.

I'm still kicking stuff around & writing the outline, but that's the bare-bones. 😂 And as much as I love the LB movie, the musical is one of my favorites. There's...guh ok I'm not gonna start gushing on how perfect the musical is bc we'll be here all day. 😂 But it is absolutely perfect, and this AU is going to be a blend of the movie and the musical.

Case in point: the song "Take It Like A Man", where Elle repays Emmett by giving him a makeover. It's the scene where Emmett realizes he's fallen in love with Elle and absolutely adorable ("God, I love shopping for guys - watching them change right before my eyes!" "...stop watching me change.").

As for a scene y'all haven't seen yet...I think you've seen a handful of sentences from this one? It's all new for Tumblr, but I think I shared a few sentences on the Disco. 😂

“Hey, Luka, what are you doing tonight?”

Luka looked up, his eyebrows lifting at the smile Marinette was giving him. Her chin was propped in her hand, her eyes looking over him like…well, a little like she was undressing him, if he was honest, and he wasn’t entirely sure how he felt about that.

“Er…prepping for tomorrow?” he hazarded. “Big day in court? Opening statements? Have to make sure we’re ready so my dad doesn’t swing.”

She rolled her eyes, and then she rolled her chair over to his. He jumped when she laid her hands over his.

“You’re ready,” she said. She squeezed his hand, and he swallowed thickly as she continued to look at him like that. Why did his throat suddenly feel so dry? “Can we go somewhere? I…I want to do something. To thank you. For…everything, really. Please?”

“You don’t need to thank me, Marinette,” he said, wondering what exactly she had in mind. Maybe dinner? He was getting kind of hungry, and he’d be lying if he said he wouldn’t mind spending more time with her away from the law books…

“I do, though, Luka,” she said earnestly, squeezing his hand again. “You…you’re the only one who’s believed in me this entire time. You’ve done so much to help me, and…I just wanted to do something for you, too.” She took his hand and held it to her chest, pouting her lips and batting her eyes at him, and when had the heat kicked in? It was almost May – it shouldn’t be so hot in the old, draft library! “Please?”

“I…um…ok?” he finally squawked out. He cleared his throat when she hit him full-force with her mega-watt smile, hoping his face wasn’t as red as it felt as she squeezed his hand tighter. She gave an excited little squeal-giggle-bounce that had him smiling fondly. “What…what did you have in mind?”

“Well,” she said, releasing his hand and turning towards the table. She began gathering the files they’d scattered over the surface, tidying up. “You know I used to want to be a designer – you’ve heard Jagged go off about that coat.”

“His little frock star,” Luka snickered, and she gave him an exasperated little smile.

“If I had the time, I’d love to design you something,” she said, tapping the folders against the table to straighten them, She turned to him, hands on her hips. “But given we need you ready by tomorrow, that’s not possible. So, Luka Couffaine, I am going to give you…a makeover.”

That…was definitely not what he’d been expecting.

“Er…thanks?” he asked, because by the little hitch in his voice he was definitely asking, because he was definitely confused. A…makeover? But…why? Her expression fell a little, and he coughed as he reached up to loosen his tie. “I mean…it’s just…I didn’t think I needed one?”

And I was kind of hoping you’d suggest dinner?

“Luka,” she sighed, still exasperated. She grabbed his hands and hauled him to his feet before dragging him over to the fireplace. She gestured to the mirror sitting above the mantle, where he could clearly see his…ok, yeah, he looked a little disheveled, but they’d been in the library all day! He was expected to look rumpled! “Look at yourself.”

“I am,” he said, trying not to sound offended. She smoothed her hands over his shoulders, trying (unsuccessfully) to even out the wrinkles in his shirt. He tried to ignore the shiver that wanted to race up his spine at her touch. Focus, Couffaine, he thought. She sighed, turning him towards her, eyeing his clothes rather critically.

“Luka, you know I adore you,” she said, and he tried to ignore the way that made his stomach flutter, “but look at you. This is a high-profile, celebrity case. It’s going to be televised, and you’re going to show up looking like your only suit came from a Goodwill?”

“Hey,” he protested, weakly. He could feel the heat rising on his cheeks again. He looked at the floor and rubbed the back of his neck. “I have two suits, thank you very much, and only one came from Goodwill.”

He glanced up at her to find she had lifted one of those perfectly sculpted brows at him, and he grinned sheepishly before adding: “…the other came from Salvation Army.”

“Luka!” she laughed, squeezing his arms, and his grin warmed into a smile. He liked making her laugh like that. He… “That’s my point, you dork!”

Her laughter petered off, and she started fiddling with his tie. He glanced down at his outfit and tried to see her point, but he honestly thought he looked fine? Rumpled, sure, but that wasn’t anything a good tumble in the dryer or some ironing couldn’t fix. The gray slacks weren’t bad, and the white dress shirt with the thin, dark blue check matched his dark blue tie. Sure, his shoes were a little scuffed, but no one was going to be looking at his shoes. Marinette sighed again, and he looked back up at her.

“Luka, do you remember what I told you I did? Back at UCLA?” she asked. He nodded.

“You had a 4.0 in fashion merchandising,” he said, making her smile. “You wanted to design clothes.”

“So let’s just say this is something I’m actually good at,” she teased, and he frowned as he reached up to lay a hand over one of hers. He squeezed, making her look up at him.

“Hey…you’re good at this, Marinette,” he said. Her smile said she didn’t believe him, so he squeezed her hand tighter. “I mean it, Marinette. I may have helped you study, but all of this was you. You got Agreste’s internship all on your own. You went from the bottom to top of your class on your own. You put the work in, Marinette. You’re so incredibly smart, and you’ve got this…this…gift. You see things others don’t. You aregood at this.”

He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting, but it certainly wasn’t for Marinette to throw herself at him in a bone-crushing hug. He stood there for a moment, dazed, but before he could move or think or respond she was already pulling away and wiping at misty eyes. She smiled up at him, and he wondered if it would be ok if he hugged her again. He kind of felt cheated out of the last one.

“Thank you, Luka,” she said, shaking her head to clear it. “Ugh, ok, but seriously! This is what I was originally good at – so let me shine, ok? Look. You’re good at this, too. You’re such a talented lawyer, and if Agreste gives you half the chance you’re going to blow them away in court – but no one’s going to be thinking about how brilliant you are if you show up looking like a bum. Luka, it’s…it’s me showing up to a costume party dressed like a bunny!”

He blinked at her, remembering all too well that night he’d bumped into her at the bookstore and she was dressed in nothing more than a one piece, bunny ears, and tail.

“The look is half the fight,” she said, taking his hands in her own. “Don’t give them a reason to judge you just because your shoes are old. Please? Let me buy you a suit. Let me do this for you, Luka.”

He still didn’t get it – not really, if he was perfectly honest – but when she looked at him like that…

“…ok,” he said, and the smile and second hug she gave him made it all worth it.

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popculturebuffet · 4 years

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The Loud House Reviews: Schooled!

Season 5, and regular coverage begin! The loud house finally moves into a new year chronologically: Lincoln and Co move up to Middle School but find themselves seperated when LIncoln accidently signs up for the wrong class and ends up with a mean teacher and frienemy chandler, and then ends up commuting to a Canadian school instead. The Canada part is more believable than a middle school not having multiple teachers for multiple subjects frankly but more ranting on that later. Meanwhile in order to get Lori moves on to college only to find every dorm is a comedic set piece, and Lynn Sr and Rita try to get Lily ready for pre school by potty training her. Finally in all this chaos Leni ends up attending pre school. Again still more believable than the single class thing. Ramblings about well guess, how amazing it is the show has lasted this long in this day and age, my thoughts on Lynn Jr being kind a obnoxious. 50% chad and my lessened hatred for rusty. Which again I assure you is more believable than the single class nonsense. Back to School, under the cut.

Welcome readers new and old to regular coverage of The Loud House! Couple of reasons for that. The first is, like amphibia, so I don’t fall behind as I tend to procastinate and let episodes of shows pile up, and i’m tired of it. The second is that I feel we need more Loud House content on this site that’s not loudcest, people shipping sam and lincoln soley to try and get back at the show for having a gay couple, and some weird stuff I can’t quite unwrap because i’m old. And keep in mind I understand 50% chad just fine.. look at him.

So yeah I have a feeling young or old, i’m not the only one scared to go int here and hopefully I can give ya’ll something fun to look forward to or worth sifting through it.

Now i’ve covered the show before.. 4 times in fact, having covered Brave the last dance as a one off way back and having covered ALL THREE SALUNA episodes during pride month. So check those out if you want my previous thoughts on the show as a whole, my faviorite character and her special lady, and me ranting about rusty/.. and we’ll get to him. But i’ve got a lot to talk about, some of it not directly about the episode so pitter pat er let’s get at eer. The first thing I want to talk about is.. how big an occasion the show is. It’s not only at 5 seasons but it recently got renewed for a 6th and still has a movie on the way.. as I hope so does rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles.. please don’t let that movie have been canceled, that show went from okay to leaving me wanting more of my mad dogs... but yeah getting back on track they’ve offically reached...

And that’s.. incredibly rare ESPECIALLY for nick. I mean yes spongebob will never die, and the fairly oddparents died way after it should’ve, but for the most part nick is a giant tire fire of dickheads when it comes to running a network. They have an absolutley ghastly habit of canceling a show as soon as possible, and if they already commissioned season 2 shuttling it to sister network nicktoons to die a quite death. They expect every show to become an overnight sucess, or else and it’s a freaking disgusting practice. And it’s still going: I mean just to bookend it, around the same time loud house started, we got the utter classic Harvey Beaks. The show had a sizeable audiences and what kids I showed it to loved it but because it wasn’t doing spongebob numbers Nick shuttled it to nicktoons then yelled at it’s creator for daring to be upset they you know.. moved his show to their designated graveyard without telling him and ended the show without giving them notice to change the ending. The final episode still WORKS as a final episode, but it wasn’t INTENDED to end on a bittersweet note and I blanme that on nick. The bookend part comes from the fact that about a month before this Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turltes ended it’s run.. on Nicktoons, with no fanfare and like Harvey fans likely only knowing thanks to scheduling, had it’s final season cut in half so they had to rush the pacing of the final few episodes to wrap up as much as they could, AND the cancelation reason was the always reliably stupid “low toy sales” excuse. The odds of a show surviving on nick, nevermind thriving are very slim and even outside the nightmare factory that is my once beloved childhood network, most animated shows last around 3 seasons. Disney channel usually cuts htem off around 4, and cartoon network around 3 if their that nice, with utter classic OK KO being one of the latest victims of the cancelation bug, and steven unvierse only got a 6th season after essentially being canceled and having to rush the ending, only THEN getting to go back and fill in the cracks with Future and the Movie. And unlike fellow network loved show that’s gone on for a while, Teen Titans Go, the Loud House is still a pretty good show. It has it’s bumps, we’ll talk about some of them here and i’ve talked about em before, especially the “”With the casagrandes mini” which could’ve easily hurt said show but thankfully didn’t. It’s grown, going from being about the one boy among ten girls to being about all 11 kids, AND their parents and making earnest attempts to make once hated characters like Lori and Lola fully fleshed out.. it’s been more 50 50 with lynn, but more on that later. My point is the show’s tried to evolve, to grow out of having a simple status quo and actually let things change and it’s refreshing when a lot of comedy shows refuse to. The show CAN be hit ore miss in quality, but hte misses have become less cruel and the hits have become that much more impactful.

Not only that but the show surivived the seeming impossible of it’s creator being revealed to be a sexual harassing creepy asshole who hopefully gets his dick sanded off for all eternity when he invetibly ends up in hell or whatevers next. Screw him but good on Nick for firing him swiftly, one of the few times in the last few years i could really say that about them and not be sarcastic, and good on the crew for carrying on easily without him.

My point is.. it’s nice to not be attending another show’s funeral. After rise and then venture bros, it’s NICE to have a show surivive and carry on and decide NOT to rest at this stage and stay in it’s comfort zone but shake things up a bit. It’s nice in this stinkhole of a year to have something to celebrate, and yes i’m aware a back to school specail is ill timed, for obvious reasons, but it was likely in production long before covid and I can’t fault the writers for wanting to give kids an escape, nor for doing the quarntine special earlier to help them talk through it. So congrats loud house you earned it. Now that’s out of the way, the not resting thing.. the thing that has me covering the show, and had me exxcited for this episode.. is that they decided to shake things up a lot by moving all the kids up an age and moving Lori up to college. And what makes this work.. is this wasn’t something they just sprung on the audience. it would’ve worked with that after 4 years of the same age and general stuff.. but season 3 started setting it up with Lincoln and Clyde’s middle school visit and Lori’s college interview, both things i’ll likely cover ventually, while Season 4, after the mini series, had most Lori episodes focus on getting her ready for it: From her senior year, to Leni realizing she’d be gone and being panicky over it, to her working to get a car, which she rides off in this episode. The show dedicated one of it’s few arcs, and probably the only non-romantic one outside of Ronnie Anne and Bobby moving to their spinoff, to this.

They were all in on this and there was no turning back, and shaking up the status quo like this is a risk as some viewers fear change and run from it like cowards> Me.. I loved it. I loved the idea of taking Lincoln to a new school, giving him and his friends new stuff to do and new challenges to face, having Lori move away, have Luna learn to drive, have Lisa enter kindergarten, Lily say more etc. And there’s even things I didn’t think of that two upcoming episode synposis suprised me with: birthday episodes, though it’d be best to spread them out but i’m hoping strife of the party isn’t the only one, and the power vacum: Can Leni take over for Lori.. should she? Should Luna or Luaan try instead. Do they even want to? it’s all good questions. It’s a simple but small change that helps change up the show for the better, opens up new avenues while not salting the earth for the old as demonstrated by half of the upcoming episdoes for the next two weeks being ones that could’ve been done at any point in the show.

So yeah my hype was at maxium, helped by the fact I love one hour specials of shows: “Change Your Mind” “Reign Storm”, all three ducktales have done so far with “Let’s Get Dangeorus” likely adding to that list.. it’s usually a great time for shows to go all out, show waht they got and tell deeper stories. So the big question all this has been leading up to: what did loud house, 5 seasons in,k with a clean slate and tone sof potetial do with their premiere? Well let’s take a look shall we? This episode is divided into 4 plots, one of which is really a plot inside a plot but still technically 4, all centered around school starting: Lincoln and Co have their first day of middle school, Lori is moving to college after all that setup, and Lily is finally old enough for daycare. And Lynn Sr is having a slow motion breakdown at first, he gets out of it quickly, because understandably he’s feeling mealcholy about not only having all his kids in school but having his first leave him. Sure he still has a full hosue but it’s still rough having one of the few constants in your life , a chaotic life at that go. So each one focuses on one of them. THe fourht if your curious has Leni accidently end up in Lily’s pre school and is comedy gold. More on that in a minute. This is actually one of the episodes problems as only Lincoln’s plot and Lori’s plot feel like they naturally dovetail, while Lily’s plot feels like an eleven minute episode that was bootstrapped to this one either to get her into daycare faster or to pad it out to an hour along with parts of the Lincoln plot. It’s till not a BAD episode, but it dosen’t feel quite as cohesive as it should, or as big in scope being an hour long, with most of the loud kids outside the four with plots not getting more than a cameo, though Lisa gets to be the best part of LIly’s plot, and Lynn.. we’ll get to her. It’s not great. I do GET why they did this, as trying to focus on ALL of them at once is nigh impossible and it let the stories breathe better, but it still feels weird that none of them have a reaction to lori being gone and frankly I think the stronger story would be to have had lily potty train LAST season, and then focus this on Lori leaving, the family adjusting, and have Lincoln’s middle school woes be the b plot. Now granted we have a full season to rumninate on her absence, and how it effects the others, so it’s not the hugest lost, but i feels like a waste of the extra time to just pile three episodes into one when a half hour could’ve done the same and saved you two half hours for later. It’s not terrible, but it could’ve been better. Now i’m done moping about the special as a whole for a second let’s break down each plot one at a time.

The A-Plot: Lincoln Took off to Canada the Other Dayyyyyyyyy The plot is very simple and the adds and summary sadly telegraphed it.. which didn’t help because it’s very clear from the episode Lincoln getting sent to canada is a wacky twist and not supposed to be in the adds. I mean I can’t blame them it’s in half the episode, but it still would’ve been funnier if they kept it as a suprise. And yes if you didn’t know about this episode LIncoln gets sent to canada which is somehow not too weird for the show. So Lincoln and Co are starting high school. And now’s as good a review as any to TALK about Lincoln’s supporting cast. I did a bit during my review of Brave the Last Dance but feel it’s a good time to talk about them again update opinons and what not. I do feel like they sometimes blend into each other a bit much and shine best when one of them is given the spotlight to play off the others instead of all playing a supporitng role. It’s why I like “Pasture Bedtime” and “brave the last dance” so much: They let the characters breathe while still giving one some extra focus. As for each indivdiually.

Clyde as I said there i’ve come around on: Early on how tolerable he was was a coin flip: he could be an adorable, somewhat awkard, sheltered kid but one eager to help his friend with his various schemes, as he is now only with a love of baking which is even better. But he could ALSO be a creepy little bugger who either had a freaking anime nose bleed and fainted when Lori was around, or tried to break her and Bobby up, Bobby who is not only the nicest character on BOTH shows in general but was extra nice to Clyde despite all this. Granted I think my boy was too dense to realize Clyde was being a one man asshole parade, but still. It dosen’t help that with Savino’s later ousting for doing the same shit but as a grown ass man. Thankfully he has done a complete recovery and the Lori bit was thankfully dropped and with Bobby gone, he couldn’t hurt my baby boy anymore, so they moved on to other parts of him. Plus I love his dad’s not just for the obvious being gay dads but for being good characters in their own right.

Stella is easily my favorite of the group, i’ve gone on about her before and Haley Tju does a wonderful job with her, and she feels a bit more three dimensional than the rest of the non-clyde members of the group. Not fully, but still a bit more than the one trait they get and hopefully like our next one up and clyde, she actually gets to start showing up outside of lincoln’s friend squad team episodes.

Liam is easily my second faviorite. I”m aware he’s not the most complex boy: He’s a farmer, and he knows how to tame animals.. that’s about what he’s used for.. but he’s a sweet enoguh kid he makes it work. And frankly said trait works for him because shockingly, out of all of lincoln’s non clyde friends he’s shown up the MOST in stories not involving Lincoln, and even in one of those lately not involving hte rest of his friends. No really, he popped up in racing hearts in season 3, and Senior Moment and Snoops On Last season. It’s not a TON of episodes overall but compared to the rest of them it’s very noticable and I love it. More please.

Moving on to the ones i’ve bitched about... Zach. Yeah.. my thoughts can best be summed up as this.

I mean.. Lincoln’s friends, even the more cheerful ones are capable of feeling defeat and pesimsim, if you want one to downtalk people you have rusty, and “has a tatoo , likes antqiues and belives in cryptids” aren’t really great quirks. If they did more with them or used them OUTSIDE of his episodes sure, but otherwise .. why is he here other than not wanting to explain his absence? Sure he plays off rusty.. but Stella could easily do his role as that and even then they don’t use him for that enough to really justify being him around. Either have a point with him or quitely write him out.. Star Vs, for all it’s flaws, leanred this as far back as season 2 with alphonso and ferguson, AND when people qutestioned where they are actually brought them back to properly write them off and gave them closure in the episode they gave the rest of the echo creek cast the same. Just pick one. And if you want him to knock rusty down a peg fine, just do so. And now Rusty.. my old nemisis.... and things have changed. Do I still LIKE Rusty? nope. Just.. nope. I don’t. He’s still a skeezy little idiot.. but I realized that unlike LIam he at least has a purpose in the group: He’s the Micheal Kelso. Granted UNLIKE kelso, they don’t go the extra mile and have his friends poke fun at him, but this isn’t that kind of friendship, and with Lynn now around more and Chandler now likely going to be the same, there’s more opprotunites for someone outside the group to rightfully insult the little moron. And if their not going to.. I realized I could. I realized I ENJOY insulting him, taking the piss out of his unjusitfied ego, and just having fun making fun fo the little goober. And more than that.. I realized he DOES have redeeming qualities. He’s a genuinely good friend, he loves his friends dearly and has no trouble showing affection despite his misplaced swagger. I may mock the kid, and I will again.. but he’s not a bad person and will likely grow out of being a dipweasel, just not on screen. I realized having a deep abiding hatred of him just wasn’t good for me when simply mocking him constantly does the trick. There are other, more important things to get pissed about. Rusty isn’t that important. But he is good joke fodder and unlike the show with Zach I refuse to pass up an opportunity.

But yeah now that’s out of the way, the basic setup here infuraties me. It’s for mildly stupid reasons, but ones i’m going to go to bat for: Lincoln dosen’t get into the same class as his friends. As in their still treating this like elementary school and having everyone in the same class for every subject. That.. that’s not how middle school works. that’s not how any of this works. They don’t lump groups of the same kids into one tract of classes, even electives like cooking or forced ones like PE, which thanks to my autisim I was allowed to attend a diffrent kind of PE that wasn’t an utter fucking nightmare. And you may say “Well Jake your a near 30 blobby shell of a man and things change” which is accurate but they haven’t changed that much. Girl Meets World was only 6 years ago. And while they DID have Cory as the only real teacher they USED, he was still shown to be their history teacher and it was lampshaded sometimes how he wasn’t their only class. And yes I know a lot can change in 6 years, the hellscape we’re in proves that, but just simply ASKING my middle schooler nephew if this is still how that works.. and yup it is. Now it could be diffrent by region, but for the most part the conseus seems to be on diffrent teachers for diffrent subjects. And again as Girl Meets World shows, it’s not THAT complicated. Just have one teacher you use for everything or have a home room. Why do this, why. Just why exactly. Why. You barely used actually in school classes for plots anyway and mostly did stuff around the edges like crushes or lunch or dodge ball. Speaking of which where is Girl Jordan. Where IS she? Anyways, my point is this, especailly as a ned’s declassified school surivvial guide on this very network,f fan really annoys me and takes me out of things.. And the thing is they COULD’VE still done this plot just had the gang all adjust, not just lincoln, to not being in the same class togehter. Have them have to do various classes WITHOUT having each other to rely on. You could even have chandler and mr. bohlmer show up. But the way they do this just..d osen’t really make sense and just feels lazy. And if there were good jokes i’d be fine with his but their aren’t. IT’s just a mean teacher and Lincoln being picked on by a moron for the first half while his friends struggle to function without him. It’s just sad and not in the well written, well thought out way. Then we get to “This needs to be an hour” portion of the plot as again the above could’ve EASILY worked for the full hour but because they instead went with this, they had to think of something else... and went with something bonkers that at the very least is entertaining: Lincoln, after convincing his teacher for a transfer, which I did like as he uses his head: He sees his teacher wants something diffrent for lunch and paper airplaners her a cupon for his dad’s restraunt then talks himself into an off campus lunch to talk her into a new class.. and winds up transfered to canada as she well meaningly did so he can’t get out of. And while I thought this was just wacky exageration having him commute.. turns out .. nope. While I don’t know if any school would actually have a student commute to Canada rather than jsut stay there turns out Royal Woods is in michigan and Michigan is across a lake from Ontario.. so yeah.. they did their geography research but not their middle school one. Weird ain’t it? Anywho, I ended up liking this portion... and not just because it has canada gooses, which means i can use this.

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And if you have a problem with Letterkenny you got a problem with me and I suggest you let that one marinate. But yeah we get an ENTIRE number playing into canadian stereotypes and it’s clear this show is rather than using them for a cheap laugh just exagerating things for fun and a slight nudge to canadians, who I clearly love. It feels less like “oh ha ha canada” and more like if the great white north was stretched over 15 minutes but still worked.

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It’s just good fun. And they also again have an entire musical number full of canadian sterotypes and expressing love of this great country which I hope to visit some day.. and possibly live if this country countinues to get worse. It just feels nice and more creative than the first half. It’s still not FANTASTIC, but it works somehow and Ic an’t explain why. Eventually LIncoln tries to get kicked out, fails then plans to blow the hockey game for everyone and calls on his friends to help, sending them all to canada wh ere they get lost in the wilderness. There is a funny bit where Stella’s gps literally freezes over and zach acidently smashes it as well as Rusty’s “Moustache” one pathetic hair because why should his moustache be anything else freezes off. and given even with me being less vitrolic his suffering is my catnip I enjoyed it. We also get a cute sequence of them runing the ice and rusty failing at anything because of course he does, while Liam both tames a moose and slathers them in grease to swim across because of COURSE he does. Of course he does. IT’s just a refreshing jolt of energy after the first half. But we do get a really damn good scene after htey fail.. besides the fact Rusty’s head is frozen, which would be funny even if it wasnt’ happenign to rusty, that just makes it go from chuckle worthy to giant uncomfortable laugh worthy, where Lincoln gives up: They’ll still be firends and he’ll still come visit but it’s best he just adapt to his new life instead of try and fight so hard against it and he’s starting to enjoy canada. It’s a well acted and sad scene that ends with a huge hug from clyde and another bit we’ll get to in a second. But because having LIncoln in canada would be hard to maintain for a few seasons, and because as degrassi shows me the odds of him getting nearly beaten to death, caught in school shooting, stabbed in a parking lot or ending up in a kevin smith film which back then was a treat but now is a coin flip, are very high. Seriously he dosen’t want to end up in moose jaws, he instead gets banned from canada for three years for refusing maple syurp... which is also fucking hilarious just for it’s sheer rediculousness. Who dosen’t love canadian maple syrup? So the ballance is restored, Liam has moose now, and Lincoln actually gets the trailer heat turned down because he asked.. this plot was not very good as I made clear and drags the specail down and it’s in part because there were other joke and character opprotunites iwth ACTUAL middle school and instead it just comes off as another episode of “Smack lincoln around because tha’ts funny right” and wastes good opprotunity. It’s not all terrible, the canada jokes worked becuase they felt like they were in good fun and more a loving jab at canada instead of just using stereotypes for sterotypes sake, and given the loud sisters started as basic character achtypes it fits the shows tone. So canada part good the rest a huge disapointment. Also before we move onto Lori: Lynn.. was utterly terrible this episode. The girl one, obviously. Lynn Sr is usually a delight. Yeahhh while I don’t hate her like some do, I do find her to be REALLY hit and miss: she’s either an enjoyable additon to the episode, an intresting lead.. or an obnoxious nightmare who makes everyone around her suffer and is used for gross out gags.. which if nothing else it’s good their using a girl for it but it dosen’t make it actually funny? And here she’s Hall Monitor and a giant terror to everyone INCLUDING THE PRINCIPAL and it feels like a waste.. other episodes have had her be lincoln’s mentor when it comes to his shift to middle school and when the time comes where that would be utterly useful... she’s instead just a jackass because they coudln’t think of something better to do with her and it’s another disapointment. The B-Plot: Lori Loud and the Infinite Comic Set Pieces This plot was better but likely would’ve worked better in a shorter episode to me if i’m being honest, but it’s grown on me the more i’ve thought about it.. plus it has Bobby!

I haven’t really had a chance to mention it since most Loud Houses i’ve covered are after his exit and he only really shows up in lori episodes and I haven’t covered the Casagrandes yet.. but I love this idiot. He’s sweet, charming, kind, a good boyfriend, a good big brother, and a caring individual. Sure he’s dumb as a box of hammers, but he’s a good kid and post season 1 he and lori have good chemstiry. And he was easily one of hte biggest draws to the spinoff for me which has fleshed him out nicely with his work at the Mercado, showing he is good at something. He’s just a great character and i’m glad to see him back on the mothership, even if he doesn’t do much and at most just keeps coming back to help Lori move at a moment’s notice. But it feels less like her being selfish and more like him being selfless: Sure she’s asking a lot.. but he probably gets that moving away from home and into a strage place is hard for his lady and just wants to help her be happy and settle in. Because he’s the best.

As for why Lori keeps moving part of it is the fact that the dorms at fair way are insane comic set pieces and I am here for it. She starts out at the silent dorm, which just.. no. No on that no. Then moves to the driving range dorm which is exactly what it sounds like and is a hilarious hurricane of balls. “Sigh” Archer if you would.

And the sand trap dorm, which just has a giant bunch of sand in the closets for some reeason.. presumibly to keep darth vader away. And yes I get it’s supposed to mimic a sandtrap but theni t should be all around like the other dorms. It’s goofy, it’s dumb.. and I can’t help but laugh at it and the fact that Fairway apparently is so intense about golf they train students via having them live on certain hazards like this was an anime... and I would totally watch a spinoff about lori that was her undergoing anime golf battles. And I hate golf. Plus put bobby in there.. he can be on two shows. Make it a diffrent world but with dragon ball z golf battles. But eventually Lori comes crying home after breaking down, like any college student living away i’m told.. and that’s where the dovetail I mention comes into play. Lori overhears lincoln’s pep talk and decides to go back and face the exesntial nightmare that is her dorm life, giving her brother a sincre hug and thanking him for uknowingly helping her. It’s a really sweet moment. It’s why her plot works for me.. it has the emotinal weight that feels lacking from the main plot. It’s a bit repetitive, but frankly that’s the show’s bread and butter at this point and i’ts more a case of which repettition works better sometimes. That one moment saves the plot form being unwatchable and Lori moves into the water hazard floor of the dorms, and is finally ready. And while at first I thought the exagerated dorms lowered the punch of things.. it really dosen’t. From what i’ve heard Dorm life isn’t easy, and being away from home is even harder. My mentally anxious self would’ve broken down within days. Their just taking it up twenty notches because loud house. The real issue is lori being homesick, which I do feel could’ve been handled better, but for what hit is it’s okay. Not as good as it couldv’e been but still better than the a-plot. But it’s a nice bit of character stuff: it shows usually in control Lori out of her element and trying to adapt and hopefully we’ll see more of her this season in that context. And more of bobby, may he reign forever. Okay one more.

The C and D plots: Leni and Lily Go to Preschool This one won’t take long, thank god. Lily goes to preschool, the loud parents, after some empty nest.. enjoy having the house to themselves for the first time in years. They actually have TIME with no kids and just the two of them to goof off and, presumibly off screen, boink like rabbits.. granted that’s how they clearly usually do it given they have 11 kids but still. But Lily gets sent home for popping herself, and they have to teach her to go it’s eh aside from a few bits. As I said Lisa is the best part of this as Lynn Sr and Rita yank her out of school, with Lisa responding to Cheryls worries abotu her missing school with a dry “I think i’ll be fine without finger painting”. The resolution, or at least the start of it, is genuinelly clever. Turns out Lily KNOWS how to use the potty, she just dosen’t want to go to school yet, and the Loud Parents.. actually take this well, confronting her with it but gently, understanding she may not want to leave the nest and letting her stay.

Meanwhile Leni ends up in preschool in the shuffle of not having Lori around to guide her one brain cell. Which is honestly hilarious and her outfit for the episode is fucking dope.. I honestly wish she’d wear her hair in a ponytail more often and the jacket is nice. I wish this was her new outfit.. like they could make it green so she’s not stepping on Lola wearing pink, but it’s a nice change of pace. But yeah it’s hilarious, especially since neither she nor the actual professionals notice and it has a nice bit of subtext on tumblr noted: She may be regressing, or simply enjoying little girl school because she misses her big sister and it’s easier than navigating a scary world without her best frined. To dig into it a bit myself we’ve seen in previous episodes that Lori is her rock, who she goes to when she has a problem in her solo episodes, who she relies on. Sure they fight over a closet but they depend on each other. We saw how worried Leni was about loosing her last season, and now she’s lost her and dosen’t know what to do without her. It’ll be intresting to see more of. Or it’s because while she’s a capable young woman she’s also as dumb as a box of hammers like her future brother in law> you make the call. Eventually Leni gets sent back, and bemoans missing all the fun of preschool.. which gets Lily to go as she gets a trampoline, and the nest is finally empty.. also Leni goes back for a few more bounces. Yeah I love this kid. She’s sweet, kind, and hilariously moranic and voiced by LIliana Mumy who along with Carols is easliy part of my stable of voice actors. So yeah the family’s moving on, etc etc, and this review is finally over. Final Thoughts: This episode was okay. It reaks of wasted potetial, but it’s a fine enough one hour, it jsut couldv’e been MORE with such a long run time and the lily and leni bits would’ve fit better in a seperate episode. It’s not TERRIBLE but it’s just an okay start to the season and a waste of good stories and good laughs in places. Still the show’s had worse, it’s just okay overall. Not TERRIBLE but it could’ve been FANTASTIC. Next week Leni deals with the lori power vaccum and Lincoln and Clyde snoop on the neighbors. Until then you can find other loud house reviews on my blog, hit me up iwth an ask for suggetsions or a dm to comission an episode you want to see me cover and until then, GO TEAM VENTURE. Play us out servo

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supercasey · 4 years

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Nomad of Nowhere Modern+Twins AU Notes/Ideas

Can y’all tell I got bored and can’t stop thinking about this sort of AU? Prepare for some serious bullshit. (Putting this under a cut because I’m merciful)

((El Rey is gonna be called Adrian in this AU, as I saw someone on Tumblr (emery-night) suggest it as a possible name awhile back, and since one of my brother's middle names is Adrian, I had to.))

Benjamin, Annabeth, and Adrian are all polyam, but they're not exactly the most “picture perfect” polyam relationship; they all tend to argue quite a bit, but at the end of the day, they all still care very deeply for each other.

Ben and Adrian went to college together, and were roommates through all four years they went; they started dating/hooking up about halfway through freshman year.

Annabeth: Oh my god, they were roommates.

After their fourth year of college ended, Adrian had to go back home to run his father's business, which meant he couldn't date Ben anymore, as his dad was extremely homophobic. Ben was heartbroken, but understood that Adrian didn't want to end things either, so he accepted it and moved on with his life, making sure to keep in touch with Adrian through social media and by calling/texting him every so often.

About two years later, Benjamin ran into Annabeth for the first time. Anna was working on her family's farm at the time, but once she fell for the city boy, she packed her bags and ran off to start a new life with him.

They had the twins within their first year of marriage, which was… chaotic, to say the fucking least. Thankfully they managed well enough, but it was still somewhat of an ordeal to get through together. ((Thankfully in this AU, Ben isn’t running from any bounty hunters/his ex, so he doesn’t ever lash out at Anna and lose her.))

Nearly five years after the twins were born, Adrian just kinda… showed up on their doorstep, looking frazzled and freaked the fuck out. They of course let him come inside, and after finding out that he had been cut off upon his father discovering he was gay, the couple let him stay with them from then on.

Pretty soon, the trio was officially polyam, both Adrian and Anna dating Ben, but not each other. They’re both really good friends, though! Ben loves his husband and wife so fucking much.

Since he grew up in such a privileged environment, Adrian really struggles with getting used to living like his partners (they aren’t necessarily poor, but they aren’t rich either), but he settles soon enough into working at an office building, where he constantly is climbing the corporate ladder and becoming quite the businessman.

Annabeth settled really quickly into her job as an architect, and works on designing houses in an office building about an hour away from the family house (which she and Ben built together right before they got married, adding another floor after Adrian moved in with them).

Benjamin, surprisingly enough, is a stay at home dad, and after all the kids reach school age, he starts doing part-time handyman jobs around town. Primarily though, he's still mostly a stay at home dad, and does a lot of the housework.

Adrian can't cook for S H I T. He set the oven in his and Ben's dorm on fire no less than three times, and also accidentally blew up the microwave at one point. After he moves in, Ben is quick to ban him from any sort of cooking; Adrian doesn't even bother arguing with him over it.

Anna can cook a little. She's usually pretty tuckered out after work, so she rarely cooks dinner, but when she does it's a stew that's fucking incredible.

Ben is a monster in the kitchen, having learned how to cook at a very young age, and he takes great pride in cooking nice meals for the family almost every night.

Both Ben and Anna were really worried the twins wouldn’t like Adrian, but he gets along with them really well, especially since he came into their lives so really early on; when they’re about seven, Skout asks who Adrian is to her parents, and after being told he’s in love with Pappy and best friends with Mama, she starts referring to Adrian as Daddy/Dad, Hunter doing the same through sign language/writing note to him. Adrian cries from happiness.

Also, because I love her, and because I honestly think Ben would never obey the “have as few kids as possible” rule most wizard's follow in the Twins AU, when the twins are about six or seven, their parents have another kid; a little girl they name Melinda.

(Truth be told, Ben and El Rey aren't 100% certain who fathered her, but they always say it was the other guy who did it. Anna doesn't really care, so long as they both treat her youngest daughter well, which they of course do!)

Melinda is a bit of a terror as a young child, and is constantly pestering her older siblings. Skout and her get along better once Skout hits high school age (before then, they argue constantly), but before that Hunter and Melinda are super close. After Melinda hits 13-14 though, they don’t quite have a “falling out”, but she gets her own friends at school and doesn’t want to hang out with Hunter as much anymore; this devastates Hunter, but he’s so freaking glad she has friends that he’s never going to tell her that.

Okay, onto the twins:

Hunter and Skout are practically glued to the fucking hip all throughout their early childhood; Hunter follows his sister around because no one wants to try communicating with the mute kid, and Skout loves hanging out with her brother despite other kids being weirded out by him.

Skout used to be a total tomboy/rebel as a preteen. Seriously, she was constantly in and out of the principal's office, mainly because she got into fights protecting her bro.

By the time Toth moves to town at the very start of 9th grade and meets her, Skout is almost a completely different person by then, having gotten more invested in reading/school than getting into fights.

The first time Toth sees some ex-bullies from Skout's middle school run for their lives upon seeing who Toth thought was just a sweet, innocent redhead who loves reading, Toth knows she's in love.

Toth does NOT like Hunter at first, mostly because the first time she met him, he refused to let her borrow a pencil and she took that to mean he was an asshole; truth is, he only had the one, but had trouble communicating that to her at the time, resulting in her not quite “bullying” him, but… okay, she bullied him, but after getting with Skout, she lays off and even apologizes to him for being so mean.

Toth and Hunter eventually start getting along after Toth and Skout get together, but Hunter definitely teases/messes with her on occasion because he thinks it's funny. Toth is mostly neutral to this and figures it's justified payback for how she used to treat him.

Where Skout has Toth as a friend at school (and I guess that total asshole “Red Manuel” or whatever the fuck he’s calling himself who constantly pesters them both), Hunter is friends with a trio of kids nicknamed “The Three Amigos.”

The three amigos (Null, Santi, and Jethro) have all known each other since kindergarten. Null got to go to school early due to his intelligence (the kid is insanely fucking smart), while Jethro and Santi are the same age, and they all became friends because their moms all know each other and made them hang out a lot as young kids.

The school's mascot is the “Dandy Lion” and Red Manuel is the dumbass who agreed to wear the suit for school events. He thinks it makes him a celebrity; it definitely doesn't.

Omg, I almost fucking forgot about Don Paragon.

Don Paragon considers himself to be a theatre star of some kind, because he literally only got the lead part once in a middle school play, and he has yet to stop bragging about it.

Don's also a huge fucking bully, and has been harassing both Hunter and Skout since elementary school; he's actually one of the people Skout beat the crap out of back when she didn’t care about holding back, so he low-key fears her, but he'll pick on Hunter whenever he can catch him alone; luckily, Hunter doesn't end up alone very often, thanks to the three amigos, as well as Toth shadowing him when Skout asks her to keep an eye on Hunter in order to keep him safe.

(On another note, about halfway through high school, Don Paragon challenges Hunter to a fight after school, and of course everyone comes out to see this shit. Don shows up first with a switchblade, and everyone’s scared he’s gonna fuck Hunter up, but then Hunter shows up with a fucking pitchfork. Needless to say, Don backed down and Hunter was now known as “the guy who brought a pitchfork to a knife fight” instead of just being the mute kid.)

Hunter and the three amigos are considered to be outcast's at school, but none of them are particularly bothered by this; they all can often be found chilling together during lunch, passing around a notebook so Hunter can talk to them easier. By senior year, the three amigos have all fully learned sign language, which they use not only to talk with Hunter, but get away with joking around in class with each other.

Before then though, Null was the only one who knew sign language, and became friends with Hunter first. Through this, Null invited Hunter to their friend group, but despite them all obviously being friends, other kids at school still mostly referred to them as “The Three Amigos + Hunter”; this annoys Null to no end, but Hunter swears he doesn't mind (he does, but he’ll never admit it).

The four of them eventually form a band that plays primarily at school dances and weekend parties. The band was almost called The Three Amigos, but Null insisted they name themselves something else in order to include Hunter. Santi came up with calling themselves “The Nomads of Nowhere”, which sticks. Hunter plays guitar (Adrian taught him how), Jethro plays keyboard, Santi plays drums, and Null sings.

Hunter is constantly being followed by animals of some kind, so instead of creating Critters, he attracts animals to himself (mainly stray cats, which he feeds daily).

The family has a few pets of their own: a black cat named Nomad (Hunter's therapy cat), a brown tabby cat named Critter (Ben found it as a kitten and gave it to Skout when Hunter got his cat), and a black Labrador named El Rey (Adrian's dog that he's had since he was a young teenager… no one knows how it's still alive, not even Adrian).

Post-high school headcanons for everyone:

After the twins graduate, Skout goes to a university in their state with Toth, who she's still dating. Hunter, in the meantime, goes to community college for awhile, and still lives at home, later moving out to live with the three amigos.

Toth proposes to Skout during their sophomore year, but they don't officially get married until after they both graduate. Everyone in Skout’s family sobs (Melinda’s her maid of honor) and Toth’s family is also cheering like mad. The after party is more or less a fucking rave, and the cops almost get called because they’re all so goddamn loud.

Skout becomes a biologist, but still constantly visits the library she worked at in college. Her specialty lies in forest preservation, and later on she starts working in a national park.

Toth becomes a historian, specializing in old weapons and war strategy. She also has a degree in psychology, but she doesn’t really do much with it tbh (other than mess with Red, who after getting his act together, becomes one of her closest friends).

Hunter becomes a musician, and as a side gig works as a sort of “cat whisperer” to make extra money and tell people they’re dumbasses who shouldn’t own cats.

The Nomads of Nowhere actually stick together for a long time after high school, and become a semi-popular indie band. After a few years though, they disband so Jethro and Santi can do their own things, so Hunter and Null form a two-man band called “The Dreaded Nomads.” After that, their music gets a lot more popular, but they’re still considered indie.

Oh yeah, almost forgot; Hunter and Null started dating in secret early on in high school. They mostly kept it a secret because they were both self-conscious about being judged by their peers, but they came out by going to their junior homecoming dance together. Everyone (except Skout and Melinda, who Hunter had already told) were surprised, but of course Hunter’s parents were all supportive. Null’s folks were… not, but at least he then got the chance to live with Santi’s family!

After high school, Hunter and Null are still going strong, and while neither of them are really comfortable with getting officially married for personal reasons, they plan on staying together for the rest of their lives. Also after high school, Null’s still no contact with his family for the most part (save for his mom), but Hunter’s family accepts him with open arms!

Santi and Jethro were dating since fucking middle school, and literally no one is surprised when they get hitched the day after graduation; if they have a kid and they’re a boy, they’re naming him Null Jr and Null will be secretly touched but act mad.

That’s all I’ve got for now! I might add more later, but feel free to add your own headcanons/ideas if you’d like to!

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traumantic-a · 4 years

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HOW TO INTERACT WITH JORDAN ( A PLOTTING CHEAT-SHEET )

so, you want to write your muse against jordan, but you have no idea what to do? have no fear! plotting can be pretty daunting—I know I always blank on ideas the second I go to approach someone about something, or I’m always afraid I’ll suggest something that’s overdone or that the mun isn’t particularly interested in. hence, this guide! keep in mind everything here is just a suggestion, so if you have ideas that don’t really fit what I’ve put in this guide, that is fine! throw them my way! and happy plotting!

MEET JORDAN RILEY ( aka a really quick character cheat sheet )

she’s a college student. specifically, she’s currently in her junior year as a graphic design student and is also a resident assistant, because it’s the only way she could afford to continue to attend school ( #justcollegethings ). like many students, her preferred study method is coffee and tears, and thinking too far into the future freaks her out, so she copes by screaming inwardly and pushing on even though she needs to relax ( whatever that means ).

she’s also a resident assistant. and surprisingly, taking the job wasn’t all about the money, though that was a big motivator. jordan genuinely enjoys the position; not so much the paperwork and having to enforce rules all the time, but getting to decorate her floor, help freshmen navigate campus life and academics, and plan fun programs and activities for them is something that makes her feel a sense of accomplishment. of course, the perks of having a room and bathroom all to herself make it extra nice.

she’s very involved. if she’s not working on projects, she’s designing layouts for one of the student-run magazines; if she’s not doing that, she’s hosting a radio show with one of her friends; if she’s not doing that, she’s at improv practice; if she’s not there, she’s probably stress crying in the shower, tbh. either way, she likes keeping busy whenever she can; sometimes to a fault.

she hates talking about ‘it.’ not the movie; no, she enjoyed both chapters, even if she hasn’t made her way through the brick that is the novel yet. no, she hates talking about her past traumas, she absolutely hates talking about the whole rothfield murders fiasco and the fact that she was a target because she spoke up about being assaulted, which is understandable, because all of that is shitty. she’s trying to move on from it all; she wishes the rest of the world would, too.

PRE-ESTABLISHED RELATIONSHIPS ( aka a starting point for fleshing out dynamics )

be a resident in her building. this one is especially great if your muse is a college student; rothfield university is a big school and there are roughly six thousand students living on campus; 250 of those students live in williams hall, split across four floors. while williams hall tends to have a mix of underclassmen and skews heavily toward having primarily incoming freshmen reside there, it isn’t unusual for juniors or seniors to stay in the building because it’s cheaper than trying to rent an apartment on their own, and they don’t have to pay for a parking pass that they rarely use because there’s never any place to park. jordan has to keep in contact with the residents living on her floor, do regular academic and wellness checks, etc.; but beyond that, she genuinely wants to help them adjust to campus and college life, and likes being a mentor.

be a fellow art student/classmate. technically jordan’s major of study falls under the college of communication and information, but she’s on track to learn a bachelor’s of fine arts in graphic design, and she spends a lot of her time in the art building attending studio classes and pouring over projects. she�� has other courses she has to take to fill requirements for her core classes and the like ( such as art history, algebra, sociology, etc.); if your muse is a college student, why not make them a classmate of jordan’s? especially if they’re in different majors but happen to be taking all the same ‘core’ classes; it’s always great having a note-sharing buddy, if nothing else.

be involved in a club/organization with jordan. she’s an illustrator for a student-run general interest magazine, she has a radio show, and she’s in an improv group, and usually auditions for productions through the school of theater and dance whenever she has the time. make your muse a member of the editorial team on the magazine, or a blogger, or a fellow DJ, or someone who enjoys performing; I’m sure they’ll cross paths with jordan somehow, some way!

be one of her professors/mentors. chances are there’s a bullshit course your muse could teach if they don’t fit in ‘traditional’ courses of study like history, economics, etc.; my university offered two different courses on glass blowing; there’s no limit to what can be taught on a college campus to fill credit hour requirements. jordan’s degree of study requires a lot of liberal arts credits and she’s definitely the type to take a course on analyzing tone and message in zombie movies because, what else is she going to do with $800 dollars in grant money? she’s a good student, and tries not to skip classes, and will usually keep quiet in the back if she’s not up to participating. she also attends office hours when she’s not grasping something, and if she likes a class she took because of the professor, she usually tries to take more of their classes.

work at/in rothfield in some capacity. be another resident assistant, work at the coffee shop frequented by students, be part of campus security, be an event coordinator with campus, be that one lady who walks her three rescue dogs on campus every evening; there’s really no limit here ( the lady with rescue dogs was a thing at my school and I ended up befriending her, and she turned out to be the dean of the women’s studies department and is generally the coolest person I know, ANYWAY ); if any of this appeals to you, hit me up and we’ll flesh out the details.

be a townie. whether your muse is a student who graduated and never left rothfield or is a born-and-bred local that can spin a yarn about the history of campus, or just likes showing up at house parties for the hell of it, this is another great way to cross paths with jordan and strike up a friendship.

THINGS I WANT TO EXPLORE ( aka a living document of my wishlist tag )

jordan opening up to someone. jordan’s assault and the trial from her high school years were pretty well-publicized; while her name was never printed in the news stories surrounding the case, it’s not hard to put the pieces together when people find out where she’s from. this only becomes more apparent after the rothfield murders that take place over spring break 2019; being the ‘sole survivor’ of a revenge-murder rampage takes its toll in some unusual ways. it takes time for the trauma of the murders to fully sink in for jordan; initially, she’s relieved that her abuser is dead and gone and she never has to see him again, but that relief is short-lived. it doesn’t change the fact that she hasn’t fully healed from her past traumas and that she needs to be more vocal about her feelings and emotions; she needs a support system, especially considering her family is hours away and the only other person she’s confided in outside of her parents and sister goes to school in another state. I’d love to develop some close friendships where jordan feels comfortable opening up to others she knows she can trust and lean on when she’s having bad days; likewise, she’d do the same for those she loves dearly. she’s loyal at her core and if she trusts you, she will always be there for you.

more to be added as ideas come to me

THINGS I’M NOT INTERESTED IN ( aka...... it’s pretty self-explanatory )

your character ‘fixing’ jordan. through love, through friendship, through whatever; while all of the above can definitely help people dealing with trauma heal, it is not the sole, solitary thing that will get the job done. jordan will never rely on one person to be the sole thing that makes her happy and makes her feel whole again; it’s not realistic and it’s a harmful cliche that I don’t wish to perpetuate here. she absolutely needs friends she can trust, and she is capable of being in a loving relationship, but those are not going to automatically fix all her problems.

toxic ships. I don’t really feel the need to go super in-depth with this; while I’m not opposed to exploring shitty or toxic friendships or relationships, because those do happen, I’m not interested in doing so in the sense of “they’re toxic because they care!” again; very harmful cliches and stereotypes that I do not wish to perpetuate here. if I explore anything like this it’ll likely be with close rp partners I’ve had for a while and know I can trust.

fetishizing/‘fixing’ demisexual people. it’s a spectrum, folks; jordan needs an emotional connection with someone deep enough before she feels comfortable with intimacy. I’m not interested in anyone being the ‘exception’ to this for obvious reasons. if you come to me with anything related to your muse ‘fixing’ jordan’s demisexuality ( which existed before her trauma and was amplified by it, both of which are valid ), I will hard block�� you.

FINAL THOUGHTS so, I didn’t intend for this to get as long as it did; as far as the last section goes, a lot of that is common sense, but I’ve included it anyway because I’ve had similar experiences on blogs before with people coming to me with plot ideas that were inherently toxic and glorified to be something bigger/better, and felt it would be best to address what I’m not comfortable with and why directly out of the gate. keep in mind that all of this is a guideline, and if you have ideas that expand outside of what I’ve placed here, I’d love to hear them! don’t hesitate to approach me to plot, especially if you want to expand on anything I’ve listed in this cheat sheet. <3

#PSA.#WISHLIST.#ask to tag /

9 notes · View notes

fisherfurbearer · 5 years

Note

I would absolutely live to hear about Future Plans and heritage fruits! My partners and I are looking at buying a house by the end of the year and I'm so excited at the prospect of a back yard to fill with food plants and gardening and everything! So I'd love to know more about someone else's plans!!

mmMMMMMMMMMMMMMM YOU OPENED THE CAN OF WORMS THE WORMS ARE OPEN THEY ARE EVERYWHERE NOW!!!! OHHHHHHH JEEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOTHING CAN STOP THIS!!!!

MMMMMM. I LOVE. DOMESTIC CROPS AND ANIMALS. SO MUCH.

SPECIFICALLY “heritage” varieties. The pre-industrial/commercial varieties that people lived on for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years, or even the stuff younger than that, it’s just...so!! Good!!!

You didn’t QUITE ask for this but this is where I’m going with it. I LOVE. LOVE. LOVE. The HISTORY of our domesticated crops (specifically fruits and vegetables, but mostly Tree Fruits!!!! But I’m also suuuuper partial to heirloom sweet potatoes/normal potatoes even though I don’t like the taste of sweet potatoes, they’re just SO FRICKING COOL and I want to learn more about other vegetables too) and animals is just....HOOOOO!!!!

Locally adapted,, perfect little....NUGGETS that just...perfectly fit their own SPECIFIC LITTLE NICHES...no matter WHERE you live, no matter HOW much space you have, no matter HOW good or bad your soil, NO MATTER WHAT, there is ALWAYS something to grow or raise, and we can thank so, so much of that to the incredible variety of heritage crops/animals (and methods of agriculture) out there. Mild, cold, hot! Lots of space, little space, no space!! Fertile, barren!! Every condition in every color and shape and flavor and size and ahhhhhhh!!!!! AHHHH!!!!

Hold onto your butts because this is one Hell of a Mega Ramble okay, there is so much to talk about here, oh man.

Some background, which you can skip if you want...!!! It’s a LOT and it get’s VERY NEGATIVE but also VERY GOOD AND HOPEFUL, it’s a real big story and it’s My Story and gives a lot of insight into Why I’m Like This but it’s okay to skip for sure!! Anyway:

I’ve been researching (i.e. writing literally 1.5-2k+ words nearly every single day) for literally 7 years now about all of my various Passions and Plans in life. Obviously breaks were taken due to Sad Times but no matter what I did, no matter what happened, I’d always come back to my dumb awful stupid notes. I have notes on my current laptop, my old harddrive, my SO’s laptop, my stepdad’s laptop, my SO’s OLD gaming laptop, my old netbook, my OLD OLD netbook, every phone I’ve had in the past 7 years (which has been like uhh...five? I have bad luck with phones..) and COUNTLESS pieces of paper and cheap composition books.

To call it research, it seems to silly. Writing these words here, to you strangers on the internet, I CANNOT EXPRESS TO YOU how VITAL these notes are to my VERY EXISTANCE.

I have been researching and writing and talking to folks and asking questions and LIVING AND BREATHING this stuff for LITERALLY, LITERALLY HUNDREDS AND HUNDREDS if not ALMOST A THOUSAND OR MORE HOURS at this point!!!! If we were to actually SOMEHOW backtrack all the way to late 8th grade/freshman year when I first started dipping my toes into reptiles and fell in love with my first jumping spider that landed on my arm after I read Darren Shan’s Cirque Du Freak, after being so fascinated by the intelligent giant magic tarantula in the first book, and gathered ALL of my notes from then to NOW (I’m 21 now, if I was in college, I’d be graduating next May) it would EASILY surpass that. For YEARS in high school my family thought I was always playing games on my laptop, but really from the moment I got home to the moment I went to bed, I was watching lets plays with one side of the screen and reading, reading, reading, and writing, writing, writing with the other. For HOURS. Every. Single. Day.

Hell, this has been my most recent “Renaissance” of writing, after The Big Realization of earlier this year (I’ll get to that), and this is AFTER I went on a horrible depressed/manic rampage and deleted like 80% of my notes (that would have been from...hmm. This is what I didn’t delete, what Jessie recovered, and what I’ve added...so March to Early September, when Jessie switched my notes to a new program (I lost a lot of notes from lack of autosaving so now they’re on our nextcloud so I can’t lose them...but I’m too stubborn to use it still) and this is still like. A lot.

Keep in mind the average 10-11 kb file is 1500-1700 words for me. My biggest files (only of the ones I still have, on this laptop) are 40-60 kb. (Also these are Big Secrets that I don’t ever show anyone but Jessie, who I’ve been with now for almost 7 years, so this is pretty dang important to me and a big thing to be revealing.)

Current folder I’m usually saving to:

Nextcloud I don’t bother to use usually but probably should use:

Again, this is ONLY on my newest laptop, and this DOESN’T include the files I deleted a few months ago, nor the files I lost from February-early April after Jessie updated my computer and wiped my files, and I still have a BUTTLOAD left on my old harddrive from last year, but we never moved it up and I don’t feel a need to. (I’ve learned so much. So. Much. In the past year. I think I’ve matured a lot and really become more...Me. But I’ll get to that.)

Also doesn’t include the SEVERAL notebooks I’ve filled front to back this year (cheap $0.50 ones from work...I’ve blown through a couple biggish ones and I think 2-3 little quarter-size memo books) and all the receipt papers I have crammed into my work uniform...

But anyway why is this important? It really helps iron in just how HUGE this is to me. My future “Plans” aren’t just...it’s really important to me. Okay? I am but a humble stranger on the internet and my life and everyone elses’ respective lives are infinitely more complex than we can ever dare imagine one anothers’ existences to be, but just trust me when I say that I’m not pulling this from nowhere, this shit isn’t some sort of “fad” to me, this has been a long, long series of events and realizations and heartbreaks and so, so much pain that have finally led to everything kinda falling into place sometime this year where it hit me.

You see...all of my research topics followed a pattern. It went, in my rough memory, something like this.

It started with reptiles. Lots of reptiles. So many reptiles. I was so naive and young then and my sources sucked and I was very much a novice who dreamed of owning all sorts of cool reptiles when I got older, and of getting a gecko when I went to college. That was how it started and it went downhill from there. I branched off into gardening (I wanted and still want a blue tongue skink and had thoughts about how I’d grow a garden for vegetables and squashes and stuff for the skink and feeder insects) and THAT grew into this whole THING about raised bed gardening, square foot gardening, then into permaculture, which planted the seed for many things to come...and now I’ve ALWAYS LOVED BIRDS,, but when I learned that keeping CHICKENS was a thing (thank you Jennifer (Nambroth)!!!!!!!!!! Our emails back and forth are still saved forever, our talks about chickens changed my life and way of thinking Forever!!!) and I researched that, then I’d jump back to reptiles again, and back to chickens, then more reptiles, then chickens and QUAIL, or OTHER poultry,, and so on and so on. This beautiful fluid branching path that would always rebound on itself and I’d drop some topics, gain new ones, revisit old ones, learn what I liked, what I didn’t like, what were brief interests, and what were there to stay.

Some topics (chickens, new caledonian geckos, antaresia pythons, tarantulas, gardening...) would always come back. No matter what I did...they came back. As I grew as a person, I started to figure out what was important to me (CONSERVATION, animal welfare, reptile/invertebrate enrichment, vivarium design, combining art with animals, and did I mention CONSERVATION? and combating climate change/The World but that came later.) and while some of those points didn’t show up in my research until later...like my obsession with native wildlife/plants and domestic species...it never went away.

And as I grew older, outside of my research life went on, and I really went through A Lot in these seven years. Undiagnosed anxiety/depression all through high school, practically living in the guidance office junior/senior year, dealing with an emotionally abusive and animal abuser teacher for many years, living with my emotionally abusive/narcissistic mother, and eventually going to an amazing art college and having both the best and worst time of my life (Hahah!! Almost straight As and skipped a writing class with my amazing scores and was top of my class, Dean’s list first semester, in the Visionary Women’s Honors society, worked in the admissions office and did lots of cool things, but hahaha also really wanted to die and was Destroying Myself) and trying to get help while keeping it a secret from my mom...lo and behold of course she eventually found out about the Depression when I had to go inpatient near the end of my second semester, and she. HA, I can’t even cry about this anymore. She literally disowned me (took all my money, sold my car, cut me off of health insurance, made me pay my own hospital bills, refused to do my FAFSA for college anymore, dropped all support, and later when I had to come home because I relapsed again and the college made me go on a medical leave of absense, she threatened to kick me out and call the police [hilariously enough though the house was owned by my stepdad, not her, so she couldn’t do anything. Also I never did anything to her and she was just crazy and made up excuses. But yeah not fun trying to walk to work and being threatened over the phone that she was going to have me dragged out of work by the cops and not to come home, hahaha!!!!!! But then also when I did live with my neighbor for a few days she was apparently so distraught?? Haha what a weird person!!!! I haven’t seen her for three years now and it’s been the best thing that ever happened to me. Don’t mourn for me, it’s SO Much better now. Speaking of, she was a PETA-hugging ARA nutjob and if she knew what I was planning on doing she would’ve disowned me either way!!!!!!), and of course fighting to be able to move out and rent an apartment with my SO (I hate the word boyfriend. It’s been 7 years come January 11th, and we’ve been through so fucking much. And she [my mom...] and other people always made fun of him being my BOYFRIEND that that word is tainted for me...so Significant Other it is) and then being forced to live alone there for a couple months,, and then even after that, the fights with his family, the car accident in November, my mom ruining all chances of me going to college (keep in mind I had after leaving college, spent the next TWO AND A HALF FUCKING YEARS OF MY LIFE trying to make it so I COULD go back, spent all of my time, energy, hope, eVERY OUNCE OF MY BEING trying to do so,,, and she manipulated me and then lied to me and made it so I couldn’t), my rebounding depression, my Intensifying Aggression (terrifying. Developed when I was in college...I guess it’s some kind of rapid bipolar disorder, maybe triggered by me going on antidepressants in college, they said. But it was so long ago and they never knew the full story for a proper diagnosis anyway. But it’s gotten manageable and We’re Coping), the housefire on Christmas, moving Once Again to the new place and being told I can’t bring my 15 year old cat (he’s with my stepdad still now but it’s not okay.), the rats have to be in the basement, and oh yeah if you want to attend college again loans will be nearly 13% interest hahaha!!! and then finally just straight up breaking down in February and not leaving bed for DAYS and nearly committing suicide, just the real worst time ever, and my former therapist/psychiatrist place weren’t responding (turns out they discharged me!! haha kinda hard to make appointments WHEN YOU DON’T PICK UP THE PHONE and we DIDN’T GET THE NOTICE IN THE MAIL because our HOUSE WAS CONDEMNED and my mail was being sent to my STEPDADS an hour away!!!!!!!! Also really hard to talk to you when you BLOCK OUR FUCKING NUMBER and HANG UP ever time we fucking call haha!!!!!! Literally on the verge of suicide and not on my anxiety meds for MONTHS but hey sure that works too guys!!!!) which really didn’t help, and yeah it was really just the pits! Just the absolute pits, the Very Worst.

Now at this point I don’t remember exactly when/what changed, but SOMETHING did.

Leading up to February, I wanna say it was about October that I started getting kinda weirdly depressed, and I started REALLY tanking after the fire. After the fire, I had to move back to my stepdads within the night, and had to live without Jessie again and commute really far and keep the tarantulas a secret and in general be very alone and very sad. I started wearing down and it was getting so hard to just...enjoy. Anything. Even just taking care of the pets became difficult, and doing art or researching was impossible. I just...didn’t care anymore. I stopped caring.

On top of that, my climate grief and general feelings of Despair were at an all time high, and I just didn’t. Fucking. CARE. What happened next.

I spent YEARS of my life WEARING MYSELF TO THE BONE trying to get into college, the get back into college, to just try to do this thing that I was supposed to do, my ONE hope of having a career and a future that I probably wouldn’t even be happy with (I was an illustration major. I liked drawing. It’s what I was best at. But looking back, I wouldn’t have been happy doing it for a living. And Moore [no that’s not what my blog is named for, it just also happens to be my last name] was a great college but it just...wasn’t worth $30k a year with no cosigner for loans, even AFTER my scholarships) and my body and mind were wearing down and no matter what I did I didn’t care about myself, my animals, my partner, my life, nothing. I can’t explain how terrifying that is. Of all the time in my life, I think this was the worst. On top of my life problems, it must be said again that my climate grief and Misery regarding the state of our country and the world was also at an all-time-high, and I just felt...POWERLESS. Powerless and empty and uncaring and dead inside. I really wanted to just...drive off a bridge or eat a ton of pills (which I did do a couple times, don’t do that. Please. It’s NOT worth it.) and just stop Existing.

But then something just...changed.

I don’t know what it was, exactly. But I got SOMETHING back. SOMETHING “clicked”.

I’m crying a bit now. It’s so stupid to say, but I truly believe this is what saved my life. Realizing my purpose in life. That everything fell into place and finally made sense.

I’m going to be a bit more concise here but...basically...many of my passions and smaller aspects of myself all fell into place, so PERFECTLY.

It hit me that...ah jeez.

I will digress one more second. For those of you who don’t know, I have two Eurydactylodes geckos, named Vladimir (E. vieiliardi) and Estragon (E. agricolae). They are named for my favorite drama that we read in AP English, Waiting for Godot. It’s an aburdist theater play about two men who wait under a tree for someone (we don’t know who, just that his name is Godot) and that’s about it. Everyone had a lot of different things to say about that weird little book, but my take on it was that it’s supposed to be what happens to two men when they lack a “purpose” in life. Existentialism, and all that. They sit there and sit there and completely lose themselves just WAITING for this guy that they don’t even remember, they don’t even know why they’re there, and they do nothing to try and change that. The difference between existentialism and absurdism, however, is that absurdism specifically discusses this idea of a Chaotic Universe, this Lack of Meaning, this pointless quest of humanity to seek value and meaning in a universe without reason. It’s a fruitless effort, it’s Absurd! But the beauty of absurdism, this tiny idea that stayed with me in the goofy names of my geckos (I chose the names because I thought the play was amusing and I loved the characters’ relationship, which is Quite Gay and so Loving and Charming it warms my heart, and I loved that they called each other “Didi” and “Gogo”) and really held true to my own life. I DO NOT believe that THIS is why this change happened for me, but it’s ironic, no?

Back to Absurdism, Absurdism says... “here is this meaningless, Chaotic, RIDICULOUS universe. There is NO reason for ANYTHING, there NEVER will be, you DO NOT MATTER, you DO NOT HAVE A PLACE HERE. There is NO POINT to anything. So fuck it, and try to find one anyway.”

My original therapist did not understand why I found this so wonderful and inspiring. It’s so rebellious and selfish, I LOVE IT. To embrace the Absurd is to take the bull by the horns and flip it upside down! It’s to stare all of this dreadful pointlessness in the Void, and when it says “Why bother? Why care about these insignificant invertebrates? These ridiculous reptiles? These ABSURD apples???” and flip the bird both hands and say “BECAUSE I WANT TO, BECAUSE I SAID SO, BECAUSE I AM HUMAN, AND I CAN!!!” It’s...also more than that, it’s this long, defiant lifelong journey, this stupid, ridiculous journey of fumbling about trying to find one’s place in a cruel, vast world, and finding oneself in that journey.

I love people. I love the ABSURDITY of humanity, of people, of myself, of others. A Huge part of my Future Plans has to do with People, and Community, and Changing my little patch of the world. It’s not much in the grand scheme of things, but I know it can make a difference to someone and myself and that’s what matters.

Anyway back to the Clickening.

Around that time I had a moment like that. It was as if something in my mind was screaming at me, listen. You are here, and you have always been here to love animals, to love life, to make art, to tell stories with your art, to raise little sheeps.

And like that, it started Something.

I agreed to go to a local doctor, and was put on antidepressants. I’ve been on them since late February. I also got accommodations for work, so I have two excused absenses due to mental illness each month, which was good, because they tried to fire me 4 times now and they haven’t succeeded yet. (I’m DAMN GOOD at what I do, I’m just Sad and Unlucky and Dumb, but I’m doing a lot better now!!) I started taking all of the things I learned in the past many years and what I’ve learned about myself as a person (I won’t talk about it here but I’ve always struggled with my Identity [not gender wise, just...with my mental health and my mood disorder, it’s really hard to know What is ME and What’s The Illness) and it all started falling into place. My needle felting, my love for animals, conserving native wildlife AND heritage breeds with restoration grazing and positive impact forestry, utilizing my Overwhelming Charisma (in person I swear I’m quite a good talker! Way better than my typing here!) for education, outreach, and farmers market sales, my love for life and my fellow human beings and my plans to work hard to help feed my local communities and encourage sustainable agriculture and the dismantlemant of capitalism Love of our native wilds and backyards alike (I also have Big Thoughts about getting native peoples input as well, but I need to research that more and actually talk to people, but that would be in future years!!), and so, so many things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That started in late February/early March now, and since then I’ve still had Really bad times, but I’d say in the past mmmmm...probably since late July? I think yeah since about then things have really taken great turns. I’ve Matured a lot, really embraced who I am and what I want to do, and while I KNOW my plans are going to keep changing over time (tentative goal is to look for/buy our property in 2025!! That gives us 5 years post-graduation to settle down and see how things go, where Jessie will be working, where we’ll be living, how my mind changes, all of that!!) but I KNOW in my BONES in my SOUL that this is what I have always been meant to do. To raise things, grow things, and to Care.

ANYWAY WOW HAHAHA YOU SURE DIDN’T ASK FOR ALL THAT BUT THERE YA GO THERE’S THE BACKSTORY, THE FIRST HALF OF THE WORMS!!!!!!

TL;DR: I’m a sad sap who is now slightly less sad and has Big Plans that were 7 years+ in the making and I want to take all my Big Thoughts about exotic welfare (well, reptiles and spiders mostly, but sure) and also apply it to DOMESTIC welfare and Make a Dang Difference!!!!

Okay now I’ve become very burnt out, I’ve been writing for like two hours now? So this part will sadly be shorter, but I will definitely write more about it again if you or anyone else has questions or actually wants to hear about it.

Basically...the amount of These Plans that I am willing to let you folks know, is uhh...oh jeez where do I even begin, haha...

Well it started small plans (early years of research, when I used to think a small greenhouse was Super Wild and Crazy) but nah bruh we goin’ full hog, literally. My plans are to get a decent sized property, still in my state, and have a HUGE focus on Sustainability and Positive Grazing/Management! That means rotational grazing to IMPROVE soils!!! Thinning the woodlot and clearing brush for the HEALTH of the forest!!! Reintroducing blight-resistant american chestnuts to restore our forests and support a healthy wildlife population!!!! Using both honeybees AND cultivated native bees [did you know that’s a thing???? You can buy native bee cocoons, like raised humanely, and raise them for pollinating plants!! Like Orchards!!] and grazing pastured pigs and chickens under orchard trees, while also providing BUTTLOADS of native flowers and domestic tree blossoms for native pollinators!! All that great stuff.

My biggest focuses would be raising practical heritage livestock for sustainable agriculture and conserving heritage fruit trees, with a focus on apples and pears. I also want to grow a lot of mutually beneficial/low-impact perennial resources...think honey, maple syrup, nut trees, stuff like that! And I want to graze on pastures with native grasses and locality-specific wildflowers (check out Ernst Seeds, especially if you live in/near PA like I do!! Wow it’s so frickin’ cool) and focus on northern european short-tailed sheep (finnsheep, gotland, icelandic, leader, shetland, and soay) and small landrace American hogs (american guinea hog, ossabaw island hog) and the more recent but so full of potential idaho pasture pig. I also want to raise icelandic landrace chickens for utility (parasite/pest management, composting), conservation, and eggs. I also want to raise rabbits (silver fox crosses for meat, and french angora crosses for fiber! I have a dream of producing high quality tri color angora for spinners...three colors on one animal, and I want them to be especially great for fiber artists who want to raise their own fiber animals but don’t have a ton of space) and I have BIG orchard plans...SO MANY ORCHARD PLANS, HHHHHOOO YES....SO GOOD...also COPPICE WITH STANDARDS and FORESTRY and HOO YES!!!!! I LOVE SOME GOOD OL FORESTRY!!!

I think the best way to describe my current plans standings is that it seperates into a couple different “zones”, for my Current Ideas. This has taken months and so many countless hours of thinking, researching, and ironing out, and I’ve made so much headway in just this past week, but basically imagine this...

It’s mostly split into two pastures, the orchard, and the woodlot.

PASTURE 1

Pasture 1 would be the largest, where we would rotationally graze two primary groups of ruminants. Polled NES-T sheep (finnsheep/gotland) and horned sheep (icelandic/leader) with dairy cows (dutch belted) as well. Dutch belted for milk and specifically cheese production, and they would be grazed in front with the icelandics to help take care of the taller grasses that the sheep would avoid, and help keep the sheep a bit safer. All would be guarded by livestock guardian dogs. Group #1 of the icelandic chickens would be grazed behind them, to help break up manure and disrupt parasite cycles.

Pasture itself would be mostly a big bluestem/little bluestem/indian grass/switchgrass mix, with a good variety of livestock-safe wildflowers (small portion being nitrogen-fixers like tick trefoils and pasture pea) and seed-producing flowers for birds (wild birds and our birds!). Would be rotationally grazed 1-2 days at a time (avg. 3-4 days total) with a 21-35+ day rest period. Polled NES-T sheep would be moved to “silvopasture” (copse with standards, a portion of the woodlot, with coppiced trees for fuelwood/timber interspersed with standard-sized mast producting trees [would double as nut and persimmon orchard, and hog foraging in fall/winter!!!]) in the summer to help them deal with the heat. Summer would be the best time, as it’s after the spring predator pressure and before the acorns fall, which could be bad for them if they ingest too many. Rams and hogs would otherwise graze this land with much longer rest periods otherwise (more like 30-45 days or so).

PASTURE 2

Smaller pasture with similar planting, arranged ‘paddock paradise’ style for a small group of icelandic horses (SO GOOD, and useful!! Little horse hooves are much kinder to the forest than a UTV, and herding on horseback is less stressful for the livestock) and rotationally grazed shetland and soay sheep. Pretty simple, but important. Would also contain Icelandic chicken group #2.

ORCHARD

Worthy of a novel all on it’s own. I want to grow semi-dwarf heritage fruit trees with the fruit drop type synced to the rotation of pastured hogs (idaho pasture pig, american guinea hog, ossabaw island hog) and group #3 of icelandic chickens. Hogs would be in orchard spring-fall, and in the copse with standards fall-early winter. Hogs and chickens would be moved to a holding area during rainy times to help preserve the orchard floor and during winter, where we would also have a large waste management/composting set up for them to root and turn to their hearts content. Should be a lot warmer than the outside in the winter too, and I plan on it being in a high tunnel/hoop house so its covered.

I am ALL ABOUT pairing livestock with crops and encouraging multi-purpose acreage in general, so this is definitely one of my FAVORITE plans so far, and every time I revisit it, it gets better. I also want to raise BEES (honeybees, mason bees, leafcutter bees!!!) for honey and pollination. I also want to plant BUTT-TONS of native flowers and goodies for pollinators, as well as lots of seed producing plants and sunflowers for the chickens to forage for by themselves. These would be some happy livestock, for sure.

WOODLOT

Another huge part of the plan is that I want at LEAST 1/3-1/2 of the property to be Woods. Only a small fraction of the Woods would be managed for livestock foraging and more frequent harvesting (still looking at a good 7-10 year coppice cycle though for trees) and the rest would still be tended to, with the help of the local forestry folks, but it would be preserved for wildlife and low-impact timber and nut/fruit/sap collection.

The VAST MAJORITY of the farm would be multi-purpose acreage for both livestock AND wildlife benefit (and people too of course) and I truly, truly believe and KNOW it can be done. In fact it HAS been done, IS being done, in so many different ways by so many different people in different times, and I know that I want to be a part of it and I can make a difference and use my weird passions for Good and make a dang difference.

Ohhh jeez I’m real sorry I didn’t quite answer your question though but I hope this gives a little insight into what I mean?? And if anyone has Specific questions after reading this (if you make it to the bottom, bless your cotton socks, I’m so proud and also distressed) I can definitely answer them a bit better than this. And hopefully much less...whatever this is, haha!!

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katieskarlette · 4 years

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Voices of Azeroth

I’ll be watching this panel on the Blizzcon livestream and blogging as it goes, so check back for updates. :)

[Edit: Panel’s over. Done editing.]

-------

Our host is senior casting and voice director Andrea Toyias. She says the first voice actor’s panel at Blizzcon was tiny and only had like 150 seats, and now it’s on the biggest stage with a ton of people in the audience. I also know it wasn’t included on the livestream until just a couple years ago, which was always a bummer because it’s one of my absolute favorites.

Our panel includes:

Cinematic director Mark Messenger, writer Christie Golden, lead narrative designer Steve Danuser, Patty Mattson (Sylvanas), Josh Keaton (Anduin), and Andrew Morgado (Varok Saurfang).

None of whom look anything like their characters, by the way. LOL)

[Do not interact with this post if you’re going to make personal attacks against any of the above.]

They start out talking about how the collaborative process behind story development, and how they decide what story beats should be in cinematics vs in the game engine. They go through and think about how each character would react to the situation and decide which one to focus on.

Christie Golden says sometimes things that work well on paper end up not working at the storyboard stage, and vice versa. She also mentions Campbell’s Hero Journey, and how elements of that keep popping up.

Mark Messenger says originally the Old Soldier cinematic was going to have Zekhan saying that his father died being the turning point that softened Saurfang, but they decided Saurfang was too “crusty” to be that moved by it, so they extended the scene by having Saurfang be like “so what?”

Alas, they didn’t bring footage, but Mark and the other story people will LARP in the parking lot with foam armor and stuff to help block out the cinematics. I posted some pictures of similar, indoor shenanigans from last year’s Blizzcon, and it’s always fascinating and hilarious. Mark says he hurts himself fairly often doing that.

[suicide tw for next paragraph]

Andrew talks about voicing Saurfang, and how he came in toward the end of the character’s journey. “I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought I’d show up, make some noises with my face, and go home.” They did hours of improv and discussion, delving into their characters’ motivations. He and Zekhan did a scene where Andrew was on a bridge, ready to jump, and Valance (sp? Zekhan’s actor, who couldn’t be at the panel) was a jogger who came by and tried to talk him down. They ended up in tears.

The cinematic with Anduin and Saurfang in the Stockades was a low point for Anduin, who was desperate for something to help his people, and freeing Saurfang was a last resort gamble.

Josh has played WoW since vanilla and sometimes he logs in and wanders around Stormwind and goes “This is all mine! That’s my auction house!” LOL

He had his arm in a brace from surgery when he recorded the Stockades scene, which added another layer of vulnerability to his performance.

Metzen is watching the livestream, and Andrea led the audience in a cheer for him. Aww!

Andrew says he and Metzen filmed Safe Haven (the Nagrand cinematic) on a gritty foley stage with fake weapons around. Since this was his first Blizzard job, he wasn’t familiar with Metzen, which actually worked to his advantage because he was able to connect on a personal level without being starstruck.

We get to see a cool behind-the-scenes video of Andrew and Chris ad-libbing Saurfang and Thrall as practice in the studio, just an hour or so after meeting. They’re arguing about whether Thrall belongs in Nagrand with his family or with the Horde. There’s a lot of bleeped out profanity and screaming. It’s raw and visceral and freaking amazing.

Saurfang called Zekhan “some f***ing kid” who “took off his own f***ing armor and followed me” onto the battlefield in front of Undercity when he tried to get himself killed. Thrall: “That didn’t happen.” Saurfang: “It did!” Thrall: “Was he a troll?” Saurfang: “What do you think?”

LMAO!

Moving on, they asked Patty to come down and improv roleplay to see what her insight into the character of Sylvanas brought to the table. She was pacing around with toy weapons, totally in character.

Sylvanas whispering to Saurfang “I trusted you” was her idea from that session. Patty said, “For her that’s a big step. She didn’t trust anybody other than Nathanos.”

When asked how she goes from a nice human to a raging undead elf, she says that darkness is in everyone and all it takes is the right circumstances for it to come out. Channeling your own inner trauma can be really draining, and it’s hard to put it away after a recording session.

The panel will close out with a live reenactment of some BFA cinematics.

“Lost Honor” is first. Steve reads Genn’s lines in the beginning. Christie reads the script’s stage directions. Andrew is sitting on the floor, glowering at Josh just like Saurfang was. OMG he just tipped over a chair as he roared about giving everything for the Horde. Nice! He’s doing the snorty, heavy orc breathing, too. That was awesome!

“Reckoning” is next. Terran (sp?) Gregory is standing in as Thrall (appropriately enough, he’s wearing a shirt with a snarling orc on it). Marc reads the script’s stage directions.

“Sylvanas Windrunner, I challenge Mak’gora!” got a big cheer, as did Patty coming out on stage to do her first line.

Andrew took off his outer shirt for the action sequence. He and Patty act out a brief combat sequence, leaving him on his hands and knees. He gets back up, and they fight (with imaginary weapons) some more.

“The Horde is nothing!” got applause and “Woo”s from the crowd. So did “You are all nothing.”

Andrew did a great job of dying, earning a bit of laughter from the audience as he flopped down on his back.

OMG they’re actually picking him up to carry his body offstage. Christie and Andrea have poles to stamp out a rhythm on the stage as they go.

That was epic!

They came back out to take bows.

Last thing: bloopers of Thrall and Saurfang:

“I will do it. It is my DENSITY!”

Thrall saying “Let’s go have a beer.”

“This is ridiculous. Let these f***king idiots figure it out.”

Saurfang: “Sylvanas, I retract. Have a great day. Nice to see you. Everybody, goodbye.”

Saurfang: “You know, Thrall, sometimes...I should have just let those two [bleeps] annihilate you and your family back at your farm.”

“Six miles I walked through f***ing wheat. I’m gluten-free, you didn’t [bleeping] know that!”

LOL!

#Blizzcon with KS #warcraft voice actors

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brancadoodles · 5 years

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Hey you two! Thank you for messaging me! Sorry if I won’t answer you two individually, it’s just that you two bring similar points I’d like to use to say even more stuff bc I can’t shut up, apparently.

Lady with Caribbean family whose dad plays Overwatch: that’s so cool, i tried to show my mom how to play too (she chose Mei, because chubby) but didn’t have a lot of time to try. I hope your dad is happy with Baptiste!! He seems like a very Dad character, being a defender and a healer! DAD MATERIAL Y’ALL!! THE DAD ROSTER IS GROWING!

For starters, I just wanted to make clear to everyone that I’m not a black woman - far from it, in fact - and I’m not Caribbean nor do I have many connections to the region. So any black person, especially black women, and MOST ESPECIALLY Caribbean people/people from Caribbean descent, has a deeper knowledge of what I said in that take and I do not intend to take away any place of speech. I just thought it was convenient to at least introduce my thoughts from the position of someone who clearly remembers the 2010 Haiti earthquake (many of your were too young then) and who knows game development to a higher extent than most of the OW community. Also, before I got crazy with the gamer community acting mega entitled over stuff - more on that later.

That said, I gotta say a few things under the cut:

Fans - especially fans from demographics that have little or bad representation in mainstream games - have the right to want a character that represents their image, culture, and values, and that celebrates them. But no one is entitled to such characters when the game is made and controlled by a private capitalist company. The SJW (a word I’ll use as a shorthand for people who defend diversity and respect in the community bc I personally love the idea of us being warriors) OW community is usually pretty understanding, but there are many corners that seem to demand the addition of x or y type of character in the main cast. And Blizzard is not a pizzeria: they try to cater to general cries of the community, within viable time, but game development is a freaking complicated business with lots of flaws and variables.

For instance: the Overwatch creative team at the beginning was, in its majority, male and American white. Michael Chu is of Asian descent, and I know through stories that Blizzard has many female employees and is quite accepting and chill, but it’s still a major multiplayer US-centric Triple A game, and they wanted to cater to what is perceived to be the biggest public for those: young-ish white males. That ties in with their earnestness to try and make a diverse game with a diverse and respectful cast, but their probable lack of understanding of what exactly the public wanted at the moment - or in the next year, because - and I’ll make it bold to drill this into your minds - it takes from 6 months to one year to develop a new character from scratch until they’re added to the cast. Fucking understand this once and for all - game pipelines are very complicated. Again, this is not a pizza place - they have a lot of testing and planning to do and changing the pipeline to add one character before the other is unhealthy for the production.

Therefore, what sparked the creation of Baptiste was, with almost all certainty, the claims for black Mercy as shown in the Overwatch Artbook released around mid-2018. I can’t affirm what they were thinking when they discarded that concept in favor of barbie angel Mercy (ilu blondie), but my guess is that they thought it tied better with both the Valkyrie and the Guardian Angel concepts they were developing, as well as adding a woman of “conventional European beauty” (uuugh) so girls would be represented without rippling the waters too much - remember, she was a release hero, and they had no idea how well Overwatch would fare then. BUT when the community said they would WELCOME a black man as a nurturing support figure (*cough* dad), they reimagined "Angelo” as Baptiste.

Could they have released black Mercy boy back in 2016? Maybe, but 2016 isn’t 2018, and Mercy was developed way farther back than this. They wanted the game to work first, and they probably thought a lot of what they did was already super diverse (and it was).

Which brings us to a very important and often ignored point: Brands aren’t friends. Blizzard, as much as its team tries to be inclusive, is a privately owned company and Activision-Blizzard just laid off 800 workers this month alone. Corporations, as they are conceptualized and existing in the neoliberal panorama of the 2010′s, are billion-dollar socioeconomic psychopaths. That doesn’t mean that Jeff and the OW team is inherently bad or seeking profit - honestly, game workers don’t make that much money in comparison to the administrative positions, and Jeff is very much just a designer -, but it does mean that they are held by the company straps to generate enough capital to keep the machine running, PLUS profit for the execs.

Add to that the fact that the senior members of the OW team have started working in the 1900′s/2000′s, when gAMeR CuLTuRe was being sedimented, and so a lot of the previous concepts of what should be done in a big budget game to appease to the “main audience” are still at play in their minds: simply put, they aren’t millennials, and our culture changes a lot from one year to another. When they release Baptiste, the community is already claiming for a black woman stranger than ever, but remember that it wasn’t THAT blatant in July last year before Hammond (who was a passion project in the works for 4 years) and Ashe (who was an original character for the short film the team fell in love with and decided to add) - it kinda started picking up after Moira and esp Brigitte.

Does that leave them out of the hook? No, of course not. Keep complaining. They’ve already proved they were listening with Baptiste here. I seriously believe that one of the next 3 releases will be a black woman like we are all asking, because they’re seeing that’s something the audience wants. Black people are historically entitled to fair and plentiful representation all around, especially in mainstream media, but it’ll hardly happen in current capitalist culture unless it’s proven to be profitable. No company serves its community, it serves itself using the community - the value said community draws from it is what us, consumers, consider important, but no brand is required to be loyal to us. It could be that Jeff and Michael are begging to the producers to let them add a black woman from the start, and the producers say their hands are tied because their research say black women don’t play games and players don’t care - we’ll never know. We can only tell Blizzard “Hey, Baptiste is really great, big leap you made here, next time black woman okay? We need a black woman.”

(To be completely fair, they should hire black women to the creative team just as is, and make the team even more diverse (I may be wrong but I don’t see a lot black people, not even a lot of Latino people, when the team is seen). Making diverse people part of the team doesn’t mean we’ll get so-and-so character, but it adds a flavor that American white males in their 30s and 40s don’t have. But that’s another discussion for another day)

Now, to wrap this up, a message for gamers who say “you’re complaining too much there’s no diversity are you blind half the cast is non-white” oh yea and ALL NONWHITE PEOPLE ARE THE SAME RIGHT???? WE ALL THE SAME. I’M BRAZILIAN I NECESSARILY AM FROM RIO AND PLAY FOOTBALL (it’s football) AND SAMBA. BLACK MEN ARE THE SAME AS BLACK WOMEN AND BLACK PEOPLE ARE ALL THE SAME EVERYWHERE. YES. OF COURSE. THAT’S HOW DIVERSITY WORKS THAT’S PRETTY MUCH THA go get a Viper shot up your ass in Capture the Flag it’s not my place to educate you on capital D Diversity, because diversity means there are a lot of takes in play. Diversity isn’t “nonwhite”, like white is a default. IT ISN’T.

So yea now I’m off to draw shippy art of Baptiste with everyone and family art too my God I love him so much you have no idea.

Also, brands aren’t friends, destroy the establishment, be aggressive but respectful, and the best fans are the ones who want the property getting better and make it better through their own creativity. Peace.

#baptiste #overwatch #meta #games #video games #ow #raposabranca #not art #WOW THAT GOT LONG #i'm not saying anything anymore about this #i'm gonna be super evasive from now on #i absolutely understand if u dont read this i wouldnt

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neveriayan-blog · 5 years

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The Next Chapter 1: Kiss to Win

(Spring. Rex visits Noah at the college fair.)

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Noah was a crazy guy.

As in a non-skilled, untrained, non-official Providence agent who still rushed head-long into battles as Rex's sidekick –kind-of way.

Okay, okay, so to be fair, in the six years Rex had known him, he had to admit Noah Nixon had some mad skills at table tennis, basketball, console games, and was a natural with a machine gun.

They've come a long way from those days of fighting EVOs, and tackling the Consortium and other crazy wackos who tapped into advanced machine warfare.

But over the last three years Noah had been in college, Rex found himself surprised by the new things he learned about his best bud.

Like A: Noah –at about five foot ten –has added 'the shortest basketball star to ever dominate his college' to his resume, since the rest of the players were all over six foot like Rex.

B: He has accumulated fans of nearly everyone on campus since his debut as Romeo in his end-of-year drama assessment during his freshman year.

And C: He's the number-one guy on campus whom girls want to kiss.

The long line of female fans at Noah's kissing booth was utterly ridiculous, especially since they each had to pay five bucks for a peck. Although Rex never went to college, and so didn't know about the different social ladders, he was pretty sure that there were ladies of all social statuses eyeing for his lips.

From the regular, average chicks or plus sized ones in simple skirts or jeans and plain tops, to athletic ones in their sneakers, or cute, petite types, and even the mega bombshells –Noah was like the bachelor of every girl's dream.

Someone should really make it illegal to cheat girls out of a kiss, even if it was for fund raising for the school. It really wasn't fair since Noah was obviously getting the better end of the deal. Or maybe Rex just thought that way because he was just jealous. It annoyed him that he never got any kisses for rewards even though he had saved countless of girls –much less get paid.

Here Rex Salazar, the world's greatest hero, who'd saved the world time and time again, entered the campus compounds without a single note of fanfare. One would think the Master Nanite Controller, who'd miraculously deactivated Nanites world over, would be recognized without his trademark nanite builds.

But no, without them, he was just another ordinary guy who couldn't compare to Noah. Jeez, at least it would have been great if Rex's handsome looks could command at least some attention.

When Noah told him about the kissing booth Rex gallantly decided not to crash in with his full nanite sleekness. Hence, he'd opted for a less flashy entrance, ditching his hover-bike outside the campus entrance, before coming in like a regular guy. But seeing Noah now with a throng of free kisses, he was starting to see green, and wondered if he should have dropped in on the middle of the fair with his jet pack instead.

Rex had trouble keeping his face expressionless as he closed the remaining yards across the large quadrangle where the campus fair was held. He weaved in between knots of people grouped together in front of other booths that held less interesting activities.

There were classic games like ring toss, shooting bottles, spin-a-wheel –all designed to leech the money out of people's pockets since those set ups were probably rigged such that the visitor would never win no matter how many times they try.

Still, the visitors, who looked around his age –probably most of them being college students themselves – seemed game to try. Animated chanter and cheers filled the place, with everyone lively and looking like they were having fun.

"You're late, Rex!" Noah yelled when Rex was a few steps from him and waved him over to his booth, where his next words were gobbled up by the lips of his newest customer.

Rex made a face at the garish red lipstick slobbered over Noah's face when he was released five seconds later.

"You're missing all the action," Noah added and was about to clean his lips with the Kleenex next to him, when he was attacked on the lips by the same girl.

She was a brunette. Prettier than the average girl, she would have looked compatible with Noah, except that she was acting like one freaky, possessive chick –and Rex didn't want that for Noah, as much as it was amusing to watch.

Noah clearly had the short end of the stick in this case –the girl looked like she was sucking the life out of him, fisting Noah's golden hair in a painful grip.

"Hey! No hogging!" a pissed-off girl behind yelled, prompting another to also protest.

By the time Despo Chick released Noah. He was blue in the face and looked like he needed proper CPR.

Noah stepped back and coughed, probably because he was choking on her saliva, and gave a bland smile.

"Well, that kind of invigorating action I can do without," Rex taunted with a mean smirk. Arms folded across his chest he leaned at the side of the booth.

Noah stared icy daggers with his cerulean blue orbs and wiped the lipstick off his mouth.

"Oh, Noah! My Romeo, another one!" the desperate girl exclaimed before smacking another five on the booth and lunged forward for Noah.

Rex would have gladly thrashed her if she was an out of control EVO. But since she was just one of another case of Noah's fans obsessed with him after his epic portrayal as Romeo in his school's drama performance, Rex just grinned at his buddy's misery.

After all, popularity came at a price.

Besides, it was just too damn funny.

But when the girls behind grabbed Despo Chick's arm and started shouting, Rex quickly stepped in between them before a catfight broke out.

"Hey-Hey, ladies. I know Noah's a stud, but let's play nice and share him, alright?" Rex tried to calm them down.

"Please, Noah is my dream man! I've waited all year to do this! This is his senior year, too –my last chance!" Despo chick exclaimed.

Rex didn't want to resort to unorthodox means of control, but there was nothing else he could do unless he wanted to cause a scene by physically stopping her.

Much to his surprise however, Noah laughed lightly and quirked a brow, saying, "Okay then, but you have to promise to let me breathe."

Then Noah leaned over to kiss her again.

Rex shook his head and chuckled. Despite acting like the resident flirt, Noah was actually really sweet. Well, to girls, at least.

Half a minute later, Noah pulls away, but Rex could tell that Despo Chick was still unrelenting.

So Rex did a little trick he learned since the time he discovered he'd the Omega-1 Nanite inside him.

Not being the scientist his older brother was, Rex didn't know how it was possible, but he discovered if he focused and thought really hard, he could get nanites to listen to him. It was as if the invisible, electromagnetic channels were completely open to him, making it easier to 'talk' to the nanites inside people's bodies. If he concentrated hard enough he could possess a limited amount of control over them.

Just like how he jolted 'awake' just enough nanites inside the girl and ordered them to influence the electrochemical signals in her brain to control her motor movement.

And just like that, she was abruptly turning around and she'd be miles away before the nanites would automatically shut down, snapping out of her semi-trance, and she realizes that she had been walking away against her will.

It sounded daunting, but Rex did have limitations on his abilities, and how much influence he had over other people's nanites. If there were too much static or electromagnetic interference, he wouldn't be able to connect with nanites from other bodies without direct contact. And even without such interference, he had to be standing close by, within a few steps, in order to do so.

Hence this ability fell short whenever he was in a room plugged with a phone or an internet router or anywhere that has strong wireless signals. The open grounds were generally clearer from these types of interference, which was why he could influence Despo Chick's nanites without much difficulty.

Unfortunately, it also readily gave him a shitty headache –influencing three or five people, whether through direct contact or standing close by, was just about his limit before his brains start to pound like a sledgehammer going through it.

Also, he found his abilities weren't strong enough to affect EVOs like the Consortium. He tried several occasions when they battled, but it would seem that as they had conscious control over their active nanites, they could overpower Rex's commands, which stands to reason since Rex had not been able to cure them either.

Noah gave a bland smile at Despo Girl's exit, and then speared Rex with a glare, showing his distaste at what the EVO had done. Rex knew Noah would recognize the telling signs of when he used his nanite influence. Rex rarely did it, even in battle, but Noah had witnessed it a few times before on harmless occasions.

In the few instances when Noah seriously expressed his outright dislike were about Rex's newfound abilities. Rex understood why. It was terrible to control someone against their will, like those inhibitor collars* that were placed on EVOs back when Black Knight was in charge of Providence.

Besides, Rex was not about to turn into a control freak.

He used it, only and if, it were absolutely necessary. And Rex knew Noah trusted him not to abuse his powers. Still, neither of them liked it when he did.

At least for this time, Rex was sure Noah didn't think he went completely overboard, since he didn't say anything when the girl appeared to take a sudden about turn and leave.

So Rex merely forced a smile and whispered, "You're welcome," before the next girl ungraciously elbowed Rex out of the way.

"Hey, jeez, not like Noah's the only stud around here. What about me?" Rex grumbled under his breath in annoyance.

Noah must have heard him because he gave Rex that cocky smile of his, with one corner upturned in a devilish manner, which he always does when he wanted to challenge Rex.

"Oh, jealous pal? It's not your fault that you're not born a star like me."

"No," Rex made a face, "but I was engineered to be one. Bet the girls will go ga-ga when they see my true superhero form."

"Oh yeah? You wanna bet?" Noah pushed again, in that infuriating manner that drove Rex's adrenaline in a jumping frenzy, sparking him to take on whatever stupid challenge there was, like a blind bee to honey.

Since the first time Rex met him, Noah could always egg him on and rile him into competing with him. What the contest was meant to prove didn't really matter –simply winning was.

Rex could write a list of all the stupid things they've competed over that would stretch across a whole city block.

When they were sixteen, it was normal for them to get in on ridiculous challenges, or at least, Holiday was patient enough to look the other way when they took their contest within Providence Headquarters. But now, being closer to twenty-one, and therefore no longer privileged with given the blind eye like in their younger days, Holiday scolded them more often than not that they were being downright immature.

"C'mon Rex, what's with the stalling? Not confident enough? Why don't you just admit that I'm the hotter guy between the two of us?" Noah pushed again in his cocky tone and that did it.

"Like hell I will! You're sooo on, Noah. The one that gets the most kisses wins!" Rex gave his own swaggering bite before he sent millions of his nanites buzzling into action, constructing a three-tiered platform beneath his feet to raise him to a more attention-grabbing spotlight.

The unveiling of his powers brought in the right effect of fanatic shrieks, gasps, oohs and ahhs. Finally, they recognized him as the nanite-wielding hero.

"Hey! That's cheating! I don't have a freaking stage!" Noah protested.

"Well then, you need to get an upgrade, like me," Rex taunted.

He'd come a long way from the weapons he was limited to creating back in his teens. Since being perfectly in sync with his Omega-1 Nanite, he gradually learnt to generate a variety of other useful constructs and components.

"Hello ladies, the Nanite Master, Rex Salazar, is on the grounds. So step right up for a kiss for the same amount as your resident superstar, Noah Nixon!" Rex announced dramatically through a loudspeaker he quickly generated with his hand.

The stampede and rush of females scampering to line up in front of Rex was glorifying, especially since he stole some of Noah's fans over.

Rex snickered as he heard Noah's loud humph of annoyance.

"Whatever Rex, I had a head start. Game finishes at the end of the fair at five."

Rex gave a thumbs up to agree with the rules and was convinced that this was going to be his best day ever, until his lips started hurting three hours later from all the brutal sucking and nibbling.

Rex had tasted every flavor there was of food the girls had eaten before and the unpleasant combination left in his mouth was almost nauseating. By then, the charm of getting free kisses from hordes of girls faded away.

At times like these, Rex pondered in chagrin at what possessed him to take up Noah's stupid challenge. He was actually starting to dread the line that seemed to never end.

The afternoon sun beat down on them didn't help either. Rex was sorely parched, but he didn't want to waste time getting a drink since Noah didn't take a break either.

A sideways glance at Noah also confirmed he was also feeling the abuse. Noah was slouching against the side of the booth now, with his lips all red and puffy. He probably had it worse since he'd started earlier and there was still almost two hours left.

But they both stubbornly wanted to win –they were similar in that way, among many others, which was why they'd such a tight friendship. Stupid contest or not, Noah wasn't going to give up, so neither was Rex.

Then, a commotion at the end of Noah's line caught Rex's attention.

A couple of guys, four of them, were crowding Noah's fan, shoving her –no correction, him –around. They looked cool and pretty sporty, dressed in jeans and hoodies emblazoned with the school's emblem. But they behaved like typical, rude, arrogant jocks the way that they harassed the poor, skinny twig who looked like he'd easily snap into two if they pushed him around any harder.

"What's this? A guy queuing up for a kiss with Noah? You damn fag, get outta here. Noah isn't gonna kiss a disgusting freak like you," one of them taunted cruelly.

Pushing aside his surprise that even guys wanted to kiss Noah, Rex shook his head, irked that in this day and age, such prejudice still exists.

It was as if some people needed to find an excuse to bully someone now that they'd no EVO targets to hold prejudice against.

Rex stepped down from his stage just as he saw Noah already striding over.

"Hey guys, c'mon, give him a break," Noah stepped between the poor guy and the jocks.

One of them gave Noah a look of disdain.

"What? Don't tell me, you're gonna humor this fag?"

Noah shrugged. "A little kiss ain't gonna hurt anybody."

The goons chortled.

"Oh hear, hear, looks like all-star Romeo boy is switching lanes. Better ditch the line ladies," another sneered.

Rex wasn't amused by the sarcasm dripping from the guy's words and quickly moved towards them.

Noah on the other hand, remained cool and unruffled.

He merely slung an arm over the guy's neck and gave a lopsided smirk.

"Haven't you heard? Gays are secretly all the rage for those ladies who are 'In'"

At that, Noah did the craziest thing Rex had ever seen him do –he kissed the guy fellow full on the lips.

The bullies flinched as if scalded; crying out that it was gross and what not. Then they quickly retreated as if Noah was a contagious infection that they didn't want to catch.

Rex was rooted to the ground a few feet away, jaws dropped open in shock. I didn't just see my best friend kiss another guy, Rex chanted to himself mentally. But fact was he did, and he didn't know what to make of it.

After Noah was done giving the lucky guy his kiss, he must have caught Rex's perplexed expression because he bit his lips in the way he did when he was nervous.

"Rex," Noah paused, sounding a little shaky and ran his fingers through his hair, which was all the clue Rex needed to tell that Noah was bothered –worried about how Rex would see him, maybe even scared that Rex would be weirded out.

Rex quickly shook himself out of his flabbergasted shock and gave Noah a thumbs-up.

"Yo, Noah, that was cool man! But I should have known you'd beat me to standing up for this guy. Trying to steal more limelight from me, eh?"

Noah immediately looked relieved, with a proud smile replacing his nervous one.

"What can I say? Can't stop myself from saving anyone in distress. You showed me that," Noah gave his snappy comeback and they fist bumped before going right back into the competition.

As if Noah was spot on after all, his queue suddenly increased in numbers, of girls as well as guys. It was almost a mirror image of the girls, except in guy versions. They looked like a range of different stereotypes –the bespectacled, buttoned shirt geeks, the brawny health nuts, the scrawny twigs and their opposites, and he'll be damned –even a few whom he recognized from their incredible, towering height, were members from Noah's basketball team.

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"Are you sure you don't want any of this three-combo-taco of lip-smacking awesomeness?"

Rex gurgled for the tenth time that evening, to get rid of the horrid aftertaste of a thousand kisses from all sorts of girls, before answering.

"No thanks, I've had enough of lip-smacking for today."

"Dude, did all that kissing mess up your brain? We're talking dinner here. And three types of juicy meat," Noah tried again as he came up behind Rex in the bathroom and made a show of slowly peeling back the wrapper.

It had rained earlier, before the fair closed, and Rex and Noah got caught in it. So they went back to Noah's dorm room to dry off, but not before Noah dragged him to the café at the East Block to get the tacos they both absolutely loved.

Noah had already wolfed down his share before they reached his room. But it seemed like too much kissing had a negative effect on Rex, making him feel utterly sick to his gut.

Rex pretended to gag. The act wasn't so hard to pull off.

"Actually, yes, it did. I've enough kissing to last me a lifetime. Now, c'mon. Hurry up and finish it, so we can have a few rounds of 'Monkey Kong versus Killer Whale' before the game."

"What's the rush? My Xbox isn't going to run away."

Rex made a face.

As part of the school fair, there was going to be a friendly basketball match tonight with another campus that was Noah's top rival. In between Providence missions, and the few hundred miles distance between Providence Headquarters and Noah's dorms at the campus, Rex couldn't hang out with his buddy as often as he liked.

He was excited to watch Noah at his best in a basketball tournament. It was almost as invigorating as their one-on-one with each other. Besides that, he was also itching to have some fun playing video games with Noah.

He had his own console back at headquarters, but Bobo was too tough an opponent. That monkey has agile fingers at the joystick and controls, and beat Rex so many times that he'd given up.

"Besides, we haven't even compared our stats yet," Noah folded his arms across his still wet clothing and cocked a brow.

Rex groaned internally, forgetting how persistent Noah could be. He walked past Noah out the bathroom and toweled his hair dry.

"It rained twenty minutes before closing time. Did it still count?"

"Hell yeah! Of course, it does!" Noah exclaimed as he followed after Rex.

Rex helped himself to one of Noah's shirts in his closet and threw it at Noah's face.

"Better get changed first before you catch a cold."

Then Rex threw Noah fresh pants. Noah caught both in with one arm, but looked kinda comical juggling them with his other hand still holding the taco.

"C'mon Rex, how many did you score?" Noah bugged as he abandoned the taco on the counter against one wall and stripped his wet shirt.

Rex had no clue.

Since Noah did that wonderful stint with the gay guy, Rex barely noticed the rest of the girls kissing him after that –he practically lost count and stopped counting.

All that captured his attention were the number of guys who queued up at Noah's line and how Noah looked completely cool with it, comfortable even, with them wrapping their arms around his shoulders and neck, stuck to his lips like glue in what seemed like forever.

Not that there was anything wrong, but if Rex had to be completely honest with himself, he did find it kinda weird. Like, if Rex suddenly kissed Claire, Noah's ex-girlfriend, kind-of weird.

Noah wouldn't shut up if Rex didn't have a number, so he gave a rough estimate.

Noah gave an exaggerated look of despair.

"No, no! How could this be? Have I lost my charm? I'm two kisses behind you!"

Rex chuckled at his lucky guess, not like it was really important anyway. He was feeling pretty sick, and wouldn't have cared even if he lost, though he wouldn't admit it to Noah.

"Okay no, wait," Noah dropped one fist into this other palms in realization, "I did kiss that obsessed girl another two times before you made her take a hike. So yes!" Noah pushed two fists in the air like he won some big game, "Now, at least we're equal." Noah had that joking, smug look with twinkling eyes; looking every bit like he enjoyed the game just like every single time whenever he bested Rex at a competition.

It was dumb really, and annoyed the hell out of Rex, but at the same time, it was kinda fun, goofy, and cool, in a weird, comradely game kind-of way.

Rex loved these games, even if they were silly. And even if he currently felt like shit at the end of it. At least Noah had a good time –it made Rex feel like he'd fun too.

And just like that, without much thought, or comprehension on what he was doing except to wipe that smirk off Noah's face and get one up on him in this contest, Rex closed the three steps between them and pressed his lips onto Noah's.

A slight flinch and a tiny hitch of breath told Rex that Noah was completely caught by surprise. But Noah was not repulsed by Rex's sudden action, instead, started to lean in deeper, tilting his head just a teeny fraction so their lips melded into each other's grooves better.

Rex ended up being the one stunned and he pulled back a hair's length, breathing deeply.

Noah stared at him, eyes wide with an unfathomable gaze, shaky breath hot against Rex's swollen and sensitive lips.

Rex sort of jumped over the couch, suddenly seized by the desire to flee, as if he could erase his mind off the crazy thing he just did.

Why did he kiss his best friend?

His mind was scattered, and then he remembered.

"Hah! I win. I stole that kiss from you, so score one for me," Rex threw over his shoulder, and busied himself by plugging in Noah's Xbox, mentally calming down his insides that suddenly seemed to go haywire.

Rex expected some witty comeback or mock, enraged insult but there was none.

Noah was dead silent –scarily quiet. It unnerved Rex and suddenly he regretted his stupid move.

Just as he turned around, mind scrambling for some lame joke to ease the sudden tension, Noah had disappeared into the bathroom, shutting the door with a resounding thud.

Great. Smooth move, Rex.

Rex started getting jittery. Was Noah going to hate him now? Because they kissed? But Noah seemed cool kissing those fifteen other guys. Or maybe it was some line they'd crossed, which they shouldn't have as buddies.

He couldn't dwell on it, as his providence communicator tucked over his ear, beeped.

"Rex, come in," Six's voice came through the device.

"Yea, I hear ya, Six."

"Strafield County. A dairy farm owner has reported on his cows rolling over, sick. Our GPS shows you're the nearest to the location so we need you to go over for investigation."

Tch. What bad timing. Rex was going to have to miss Noah's game… again.

"Woah Six, you should know I'm no vet. How about Holiday, or one of her assistants?"

"A few of the cows show signs of abnormalities. We don't know how quickly it would escalate, so you had better get over there. Pronto."

There was urgency to Six's tone, and Rex couldn't ignore it.

"Right, got it. Send me the coordinates, and I'll be there in thirty."

"Noah," Rex called out, "I gotta go-"

Noah flung the door open before Rex could finish, towel wrapped round his hips.

"Providence?" Noah lifted a brow.

"Yeah, sorry man," Rex grimaced, feeling bad for ditching their plans. Noah never complained; which was probably why Noah was still his best friend outside of Providence. "This time, we're losing cows at the farm. Six says I'm the closest, so he's sending me to check it out."

"No sweat, Rex. Saving our supply of juicy beef is more important. I need my protein to shoot hoops," Noah shot him a smile and gave him a thumb's up.

Rex grinned, relieved that the apparent weirdness between them had disappeared. Perhaps he was even over-thinking it.

"Now, that's the irony, saving the food… to save our food."

Rex joked and returned the thumb's up before he ran and jumped out the window, sending a zillion of his nanites into constructing his turbine wings.

In a flash, the propellers roared into life, spinning at full blasts and giving him lift before he hit the ground. Then he was off, zipping ahead a few hundred miles away.

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Footnotes:

*inhibitor collars:

Shown in season three; an upgraded version of the original collar used by Providence that used to limit EVOs from unleashing their full power. The new ones commissioned by Black Knight were able to brainwash EVOs.

#noex #generator rex #noah nixon #rex salazar

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