#also fuck it we ball is basically all I’ve been saying as Emma and I play fire emblem engage together

[klanced]

dang can you help other people with their math too? (This is mostly a joke)

fuck it, we ball

#ask #anonymous #I took calc 1 in 2019 for fun. im willing to give it the old college try. #also fuck it we ball is basically all I’ve been saying as Emma and I play fire emblem engage together #good game btw im charmed by the characters. alcryst fire emblem you will always be my famous. Alfred fire emblem I will find you a husband

[popculturebuffet]

Sonic Month!: Patreon Triple Feature!: Unfair Ball/Hooked On Sonics/Battle of the Boy Bands (Sonic X, SATAM, Sonic Boom), Patreon Review for Emma Fici

Hello all you happy hedgehog! I’m Jake, I review stuff and today is a day i’ve been waiting for as we start SONIC MONTH. Once a week for all of march i’m doing a review starring everyone’s faviorite blue blur in celebration of the release of Sonic the Hedgehog 2! Yes with hype for my faviorite blue dude with attitude, sorry dewey, at an all time high and with something like this only coming every other year, I thought it’d be fun to do this and got the help of my good friend Emma Fici, who previous via a comissoin an da patreon review had me cover the sonic undreground 3 part pilot and sonic christmas blast. We both have a deep lifelong love of sonic, it’s super fast highs, it’s too slow lows, and it’s utterly weird variety of ways to interpret the fastest thing alive from the freedom fighters of SATAM, Archie and Fleetway, to the post adventure worlds of the modern games, idw comics and Sonic X, to post modern world of sonic boom , there’s just so much to do an dti’s all fucking great

So naturally to kick us off i’m closing the gap and reviewing the OTHER threre sonic cartoons. See my patreons get one review a month so emma’s using both hers from last month (as you can opt out ot save it for later or to save up three tv reviews to cash in for a movie), and this month.. and being a good friend and not wanting to cover underground TWICE before i’d covered the show it’s basically riping off once, I asked her to pick a satam free of charge. 

So grab a chilli dog, a sonic themed energy drink and some heavily expired spagettos  as I cover two very weird hedgehog tales with diffrent approaches to being batshit insane and one of SATAM’s best as we celebrate the fastest thing alive!

Sonic X: Unfair Ball/Fierce Fight! Sonic Baseball Team!

Starting us off we have Sonic X. Like all the sonic shows it’s unique, and in this case for a variety of reasons: it was the first produced post adventure, the only one made in japan and thus not only had to be dubbed but said dub’s cast went on to be the offical cast for a while with Mike Pollock being retained to this day. More on him later obviously.  It’s also at the time of this writing the only one to outright adapt any of the games with adventure, adventure 2 and battle all getting adaptations, with Sonic Heroes likely only not getting one because it came out around the same time the season was airing and season 3 went in a massively diffrent direction. 

So naturally this is a unique creature. It’s also the only one I saw first ruN: I was like.. four when satam and adventures came out (I saw them in reruns instead), Underground wans’t on any channel I was aware of as a kid, and I didn’t have cable by the time boom came out. X on the other hand aired thanks to good old 4kids on their fox box lineup. 

I fucking loved the fox box and rightfully so. While 4kids is remembered more nowadays for weirdly trying to ignore the fact the shows it dubbed were made in japan or censoring adult content with invisible guns and lolly pops, it’s worth remembering that a lot of the time.. they were actually good at their job. Sure part of it’s nostalgia since they were a staple of my childhood via pokemon, yugioh, ultimate muscle and TONS of other dubs as well as their only western work with TMNT 2003, and are a large reason why I’m still a fan of pokemon, yugioh and tmnt to this day by getting me hooked on them back then.. but they had a talented stable of actors, got the feel of their works more often than not and while they went to hilarious lengths with the censorship, a lot of that stems from the standards for children’s cartoons at the time: censors probablyw eren’t cool with having a cardgame to decide whose legs get sawed off or dies falling thorugh a buliding, so they had to do the best they could even if it was usually just “the shadow realm with you”. I’m not saying they were all okay: their refusal to release uncut versions like Funimation or even include the originals on dvds was very not okay, while I prefer dubs myself I get people preferring subs and want them to have that option legally, and their half assed dubbing of one piece because they didn’t care about getting it (Toei, who has their OWN long record of bad desciions forced it on them apparently) is appaling, especially since the equally family unfriendly yuyu haksho had been succesfully cut for toonami... and I love dit a sa kid despite still being pretty fucking dark, just less bloody, so they have no excuse for how it went. 4kids was far from a perfect company, but it got a lot of kids like me into anime, made it more accesible, and helped , alongside the us version of shonen jump, get more kids into it. So I have some fondness for them if tempered with incredibly stupid descioins.. kind of like how I treat disney in present day. Love some of the things they made, question the hell out of a lot of the things they do. 

Anyways getting back on track, while I did see the show while it was airing I didn’t see much of it. My best guess is I liked something that was on at the same time on kids wb more or that it was simply on too early, as emma remembers it being on at like 6 in the morning. Though what I saw of it was mostly monster of the week stuff that didn’t work as well as what Kirby was doing on the same network, as well as some annoying little kid and as an adult I really havne’t rechecked it out like satam or adventures because I just heard bad things.  I am seriously considering giving the series a full review at some point, season by season, along with giving every sonic series the same treatment (Though for ones like adventures or underground that are one long blob I’m going to chonk it up. ) If you’d be intrested in that let me know in the comments or simply like this post. Point is I dont’ have a through knowledge of this show going in or a huge attachment to it, but I gave it a fair shake, especailly since the episode I was being handed was one of it’s dumber outings.

As a quick primer for those not at all familliar with the show: Sonic X has Sonic and Friends, after a battle with robotnik “Stranded in a new location without any explinaton”: Earth

Sonic ends up drowning in a pool, oddly for the time not set to drowning pool but 4kids is working on a budget of 4 paperclips and some string as it is so I can’t blame them, and is saved by Chris Throndyke..

Yeah Chris is a precocious 10 year old boy who the entire fandom wants to punt into the sun. I remember not really liking him and honestly he feels redundant. He’s also likely one of the reasons, among many people were trepedatious about the first sonic movie: Sonic being pals with a human didn’t work out the last time. Thankfully Tom is actually useful, enjoyable to be around, and i’m glad he’s in the sequel, while Chris is mostly forgotten because he was a kid sidekick to a guy who already had the position filled. 

So he invites sonic to live with him, his grandpa chuck (the irony is not lost on me), and his butler whose name I forgot but is voiced by darren dustan aka maximillion pegasus aka Geovanni in a pokemon stage show that one time...

It’s weird. Amy, Cream and Tails are also living there apparently while Knuckles fucked off to the woods so he can be mysterious and solo and stuff.. you know like he was before the series slowly drained the relevance and dignity from his body. Hopefully being given the second sexiest voice in human history will fix that.. 

Anyways onto this VERY silly episode. And i’m not judging the series by it: a lot of series have weaker or downright insane episodes. It’d be like judging miraculous ladybug by that time a bunch of grown men had a no girls allowed party in a teenagers bedroom till a disco stalker showed up and had to be subdued by a monkey man. It’s just not fair. I am however not going to hold back on this episode. if your looking for so bad it’s good sonic content, this one is is pure crush 40 carrot gold. 

So the plot kicks off thanks to tails just sorta flying around in his plane:

Sadly instead of his dope plan from sonic adventure 2, or his also dope plane from sonic adventure 2.. we get.. this thing

Like... this is apparently an UPGRADE but looks like any old jet and just has a sad white and yellow paint job. Which is a colorscheme that could work but just does not here. It’s just so boring and it shoudln’t be. Making your own plane for tails is fine but when both of his in the games at this point are dope as hell and iconic in their own right, why would you half ass it?

Anyways the chaos emeralds natural pull for one another, something I and the games forgot about but X faithfully adapts, causes Tails to have to land in a stadium where he befriends the groundskeeper after he mistook him for the gremlin who steals his shoe at night. The guy is bummed because the stadium is being shut down for one with artifical turf after spending years as a baseball groundskeeper man. He soon turns out to have the light blue chaos emerald, with the stadium being named diamond stadium after it because eh why not. 

This attracts the Eggman, and he’s got the masterplan.. to.. challenge sonic and friends to a game of baseball. 

We’ll unpack that after the theme song, which no matter the language fucking slaps. The one I heard, the 4kids theme rocks. Which isn’t a huge suprise: one of 4kids best weapons was making catchy as hell themes. And while I wished they and more anime back then used dubs of the original themes, because anime themes fucking slap, they still managed to equal the original with goofy gusto and 4kids was the king of that. Sonic X is fun, incredibly fast, and introduced the whole gotta go fast catchphrase which perfectly fits sonic and is on par with others like “gotta juice” or “That’s no good”. I’m waiiiiting can burn in hell where it belongs. I love jaleel but god damn that’s annoying. 

Anyway, the original japanese theme is also a banger, Sonic Drive, a fucking fuck energetic number sung by the same guy who sung the japanese dragon ball z theme chala head chala. So overall no matter if your watching dubs or subs, your in for a good time and no matter the country, sonic gives you a great theme song guaranteed. 

Anyways yeah.. that’s literally eggman’s plan this time. He made robot baseball players and sends his messenger gremlin bokun to go formally challenge sonic and them. As for why he didn’t just.. you know.. take it take it go robotnik, ultimate power just isn’t as satisfying if you aren’t stealing it from a bunch of furries and some ten year old who they live with. 

But yes he challenges them and Chris made shoos him out of there

So sonic speeds over there, with amy following since she’s almost as fast and.. oh nope they just.. pile inot chris’ van I guess because they also take him, his butler, and his grandpa chuck. The last one will be their downfall.

Thankfully knuckles decided to live in the woods instead of a sweet ass rich kid mansion because doing so would mean having to live with chris and the other comic relief human characters, which already makes him the one carrying the braincell for this series even before we get to him being the only one in this plot not to have been hit on the head 75 million times. So while Eggman gets there and has to fight tails... who is suddenly scared depsite having fought this guy ten times before coming here, in several episodes since arriving, and having also fought a witch and an empire of birds. more on them soon. 

This is a problem with some versions of the character: they make tails helpless, forgetting he’s not only a genius since adventure, but also a scrappy fighter. He’s more in the mid range sure, not as fast as sonic or strong as knuckles, but he can fly, and he can still move almost as fast as sonic, which combined gives him great agility. And most modern games and apparently this cartoon just reduce him to sonic’s easily breakable genius friend which annoys me. Tails is more than this, and deserves more. It’s why i’m greatful for Ian Flynn as he never forgot how good tails could be in archie or in idw currently, to the point that in one arc of archie the two, after some emotoinal stuff drove a wedge in them, had it out. and while sonic was holding back because you know, he didn’t actually want to fight his best friend while tails had a lot of resintment towards his best bud to unpack, once he stopped tails still kept up and the fight was only resolved by sonic apologizing for making out iwth the girl tails had a crush on. And yes that’s really what happened. It’s actually geninely heartfelt shockingly enough. 

And it was also cleaning up some crap from the previous run to boot... which I don’t have time to get into. Someday. My point is Ian actually cares what tails feels and remembers he can fight, and thankfully he wrote the next game so hopefully even if Tails isn’t playable (Seriously stop making only sonic playable. This isn’t mario. Cut that shit out), he still won’t be entirely useless.

Thankfully the next person who knock knocks at the stadium door is knuckles, the blow blower, the magical emerald holder who gives the robot the coldest shoulder. Everyone else shows up soon after with Eggman revealing he was 100% sincere about that baseball thing.. and before Sonic can go with the more resonable plan of...

Chuck chimes in and... i’m going to need to get text loud for this pardon me... 

GENINELY ACCEPTS HIS OFFER OF PLAYING A GAME OF BASEBALL FOR THE TWO CHAOS EMERALDS, ONE OF WHICH IS THERES AND THEY HAVE NO REASON TO WAGER. 

I.. I don’t even need to point out why this is stupid. And it’s not a strategy thing.. Chuck literally says “Playing baseball sounds like fun”. He is gambling the fate of the world on a baseball game for shits and giggles! I’ve seen people bet their legs on a card game, seen people be their mother’s soul on also a card game when bluffing, and this.. this is still more insane because both of those were out of necsity. Yugi kinda had no chocie and Jotaro was fully planning to scare his opponent into folding. Chuck just wants to play some baseball and is willing to wager his friends chance of getting home, the world’s safety and his grandsons future.. TO PLAY BASEBALL. Against a team of robots! I mean I get he has a bunch of super furries on his team, I do, but the team also includes himself, an elderly man if one in good health, his butler and his 10 year old grandson. This may be one of the dumbest thigns in sonic history and that’s a hall of fame that includes thinking a four player co op game was something fans wanted, nerbs, chaos knuckles, sonic 20 years later, knuckles convoluted history, 80 dozen lost family members,  knuckles as a resitance leader, cyborg tails, sonic blast, and robonik’s weird breakdown in front of the world as he pissed on the moon. And this is a strongest contender for dumbest one there is! 

See EVERYONE GOES ALONG WITH THIS. Sonic questions it for about a second before agreeing, amy and cream are all “This will be fun! Tee hee! We’re horribly underwritten in this series! and Tails is ONLY mad for a second because those dang kids are going to ruin his friends lawn! And that’s only until the guys like “chill man that’s what it’s for”  after that he’s all for “Operation: We’re Really Doing This huh”

Knuckles is the one carrying the braincell this ep, outright saying this is idotic to start and then rightfully pointing out how horribly half assed this plan is. Everyone else’s response?

Yes really. They all pray on his ego to get him to go along with the dumbest game ever played. 

I’m not against an episode being goofy. You can have utterly werid comedy episodes in a show if the tone fits it and sonic x’s seems to be perfectly fine for that. There’s another episode I saw listed on netflix that has eggman make an evil robot teacher to infiltrate chris’ school. This is , at least at this point in it’s history, not the most serious show. 

The problem is this the show isn’t so zany that the plot works on a serious level: they are betting the two chaos emeralds they know about.. because they think it’d be fun. Other shows in more recent times like OK Ko and rise of the tmnt got that. Rise didn’t tie in the demon shredder plot to that episode where they ended up trapped in an 80s montage while ok ko ballanced humor and comedy well, cutting down the comedy whe needed but sometimes managing to have utterly rediculous stuff in plot important eps, like the big reveal behind Professor Venemous’ backstory.... having his partner in both sense Lord Boxman tell him he thought they were going to wait a season. But the episode just.. fully buys into this stupid premise with way too high stakes. It’s hilaroius sure.. but not for the right reasons. 

So the rest of the episode is just goofy baseball shenanigans with impossibly high stakes. Also just to prove our heroes CAN sink lower, they don’t use their powers at first to play fair. 

I apologize that a LOT of this review is just me ranting at how batshit this is but I mean.. how do I even top this. Our heroes are playing fair in a fight for the one thing that can get them home that they entered because an old man wanted to play baseball. I’m a pretty good comedian, been at this three years now, but.. I can’t top that. I just can’t. I’m person enough to admit my limits. 

Now I will give credit where it’s do: the actual antics.. are pretty entertaining. Sonic catches a ball with super speed but it’s out of bounds, knuckles just.. htis straight homers with his super strength, and amy just shoves the head of her hammer onto a baseball bat. These are great gags. I had to pause to laugh multiple times both because of legit good gags.. and insane ones, like Chuck randomly subbing butler man as a fielder.. for cheese. This episode is entertaning as it is stupid.

The one gag that dosen’t work.. is Cream who tells the robot to go easy on her it’s her first time playnig baseball which creepily sounds like flirting and is animated as such.. because in the original japanese SHE WAS. she said she loved the robot. Helpful reminder: CREAM IS 6

Also if your wondering how groundskeeper man factors into it, the local 80′s april o neil reports about the game live so tons of people come to see.. which is fair it’s a bunch of super powered furries fighting a bunch of robots> It’s the reason people love this franchise, his boss later comes in and none of this really matters because it’s in an episode about sonic and friends playing baseball for a world conqueringly powerful gem they didn’t have to ante up but did anyway. 

So our heroes do win... the game. But in one final hilarously insane move.. Eggman just.. takes off with them. Yes they let HIM hold the emeralds

But chuck says we’ll get them next time blah blah blah trying to blatantly paper over the fact this is all his fault before knuckles realizes this and commits some elder abuse with his bat

Final Thoughts on Baseball Episode:

This episode was dumb and I loved it. I sit frustrating... well yes obviously, but it’s just so gloriously stupid you can’t help but enjoy it. Granted I love a good baseball ep from the various x-men baseball games, to jujustu kaizen, to steven universe, to peanuts to bloom county... observe

So I may be a touch biased despite never playing nor watching the sport, as it’s the funnest to watch other people play in media, but even without that this is just a batshit piece of media even by sonic standards and I commend you to check it out. The series is currently on netflix and hulu at the time of this article so S-O-N-I-C GO!.. watch it. 

SATAM: Hooked on Sonics

Okay so onto SATAM. If your curious why ti’s called that its because the shows actual title is sonic the hedgehog... and given that was confusing even before we got another game called that and a feature film named that, it was the right call. 

SATAM is often held up as the gold standard of sonic cartoons and it’s easy to see why: SATAM swung for the fences, putting sonic in a darker world that he’d seen conquered by robotnik, with only a small band of freedom fighters, all fellow teens, to help him. The Freedom Fighters themselves are awesome characters, only made better by the comics, ian flynn’s runs in paticular, fleshing them out into throughly intresting three dimensional characters who could keep up with sonic. You had Sally, Sonic’s love intrest and tactical genius as well as the resitance’s actual leader (Sonic was the muscle and deputy leader), rotor a tech genius walrus since that wasn’t part of tails character yet, and Bunnie a cyborg southren belle and basically rogue from the x-men as a rabbit complete with tons of angst. There were also Tails, who was religated to kid sidekick in this continuity and early archie and Anotine, a cowardly asshole who was sonic’s rival for sally.. on paper. in practice he had zero chance. Thankfully archie , unlike satam, gave him character devleopment so not only did he move past sally and onto bunnie, aka one of my faviorite ships and something we’ll be getting more into very soon, but became an expert and incredibly brave swordsman. So yeah you might’ve guessed I like these guys, paticuarlly both archie versions, but the satam ones laid the ground work.

As for the cartoon itself it just works. Season 2 from what little i’ve seen of it drops slightly in quality but the atmosphere, voice acting and storytelling are top notch for the time. While it is still very much a 90′s cartoon, there isn’t anything resembling an arc till next season and there’s no real character progression, it’s still one that holds up well and again served as the foundation for my faviorite version of sonic. 

It also, as is custom, has a kickass theme song. And if you’ve never heard it.. welll... 

This is the best of the intros. And none of them are outright bad. But in both visuals  commuinmcating the shows story PERFECTLY, and the utterly great song that perfectly fits our hero, boastful as hell but he can back. it. UP, it’s the best of the sonic themes and again, the others aren’t slouches with X and Sonic Drive in paticular being damn close. But ultimately you just can’t beat this one. 

This ep sticks out from our other two in that it’s not utterly insane, and instead is just a really well written ep with a decent conflict. Robotnik is draining the life from the trees in the forest using a new machine because he’s a captain planet villian in this series.... wait I take that back he actually has a reason to do this as the great forest, where our heroes live, hides their village of knothole. So destroying it as he often tries to do means they’d have nowhere to hide. It’s things like this WHY the show still holds up: in most cartoons of the time the villian wouldn’t all out assault the rebels because the show would end. Here they have something protecting them that’s logical to the setting and fits it’s environmental themes. 

So sonic wins, of course, and brags to his public. Sally even cheek kisses him and I love their dynamic. Look smartass and more repsonsible person isn’t new, i get that but no matter the medium the two just play off each other well, with jalell and kath sourcie really having good chemistry especailly. The way he says it’s not half bad and then shows her what great is, and she slyly plays it off. it’s what I like to see in a couple.  

Antoine is also used well here: Satam could ping pong between loveable egotist and resentful ass whose mad Sally dosen’t like him, something the comics wisely instead dencostufcted showing that his futile efforts only made him more insecure and he truly got happier and more confident when he gave up chasing someone who simply didn’t see him that way and never would. You know a HEALTHY message about that sort of thing. What a concept. 

Here it works because it decounstructs his resintment as he does his usual trying to brush off sonic’s heroics thing.. before being incredibly sad down by the lake of rings, the magical lake they get the rings from which in this adaptation give the user power. Granted only sonic can use them and that geninely bugs me as they never explain WHY that is in this or the comics (which at least use them to power stuff as well as sonic), but it’s still a neat way to recontextualize them. It’s also not over powered: they only get one a day so sonic gets one shot with them and that’s it. If he looses it while on the mission or uses it too quickly, that’s on him. 

Back to antoine, his resentintment is really just envy.  The girl he likes likes someone whose cooler, more useful and more loved by everyone while he’s just some guy they keep around for reasons even he’s not sure of. It’ ssomething I can relate to: not knowing how to be as up front with your feelings and watching someone else better than you and sometims a dick to you get the girl because you can’t do nothing but pine. It’s not healthy, and he needs to grow out of it and again, he did in the comics to great effect, but it’s relatable. 

So Rotor makes the mistake of instead of trying to be emapthetic, telling him sally might like him if he captured robotnik.. forgetting anotine dosne’t get jokes often and takes the idea seriously, stealing the power ring to use as bait

It also shows that as much as he tends to  be the useless one of the group... antoine CAN think when eh can. Sure bringing the ring as bait is an entirely stupid plan and he shoudlv’e talked to someone else.. but the episode dosen’t treat it like anything else. He made a bad call for bad reasons and it ends badly.  But he does try: he lures robotnik out, makes sure he not one of his bots comes to get it (which he does) and even has a pit trap ready. And honestly ti’s not bad: in most incarnatoins robotnik isn’t that much of a threat out of his mechs or what not, so it’s resonable to assume once captured he’d be easy to get or at least easy to keep long enough for the others to get to him. 

But he both picked an easy trap.. and the wrong robotnik as Satam robotnik gets one of his most iconic moments to show just how pants crappingly terrifying he is, using jet boots to easily fly out of the trap. I will also say Jim Cummings is tied with Mike Pollock for my faviorite robotnik. POllock fits him as he is now being able to be goofy as hell btu also menaccing and was kept over form the 4kids day for good reason while Jim fits THIS robotnik perfectly, being utterly meancing and nightmarish , a cruel dictator with no remorse, no hope of swaing him or tricking him. Just pure evil. 

So the rest of the gang soon finds out what Antoine done did, with Rotor kicking himself for helping set this off and Sally convinces sonic to save him.. both because it’s the right thign and because if anyone can use the ring it’ srobotnik. And sure enough he was not only working on a new model of the life draining thing but adapts it for the ring. giving it ulmited power. Thanks antoine! He also plans to roboticze him. 

And Robotnik being awesome dosen’t stop there: his weapon for the ep, his other weapon anyay is ingenous, a lighting that hones in on sonic’s speed and is almost as fast as he is. So while he CAN dodge it it’s only just barely and it does hit him once or twice while he’s fighting. It forces sonic to move at normal speed lest he get hit and is a great way to turn his greatest advantage and most iconic feature against him. 

Sonic saves ant, who is sympathetic in part because he apologizes for what an idiot he was and Sonic shows that while he may not like the guy.. he’s not a dick, assuring him they’ll fix this together. Awww. How sonic beats both machines is also great, simply using the machine’s tracking him against it to take out the earth machine thing and get the ring back .. and since robotnik attaached th elaser to that sonic wins, antoine gets a momen tint he son and this episode is really good. it’s simple, sure, but it’s good great pacing, uses it’s three principals incredibly well and shows off why these incrnations of sonic and robotnik are so loved: sonic is a cocky but geninely clever hero who while he will needle a guy won’t kick him while he’ sdown, while robotnik is utterly evil but is clever enough to back that evil up and explain why the heroes can’t just knock his ass out in five minutes. This show is remembered for good reason and i’ll certainly be coming back to it. 

Sonic Boom; Battle of the Boy bands

So we end this long boy with Sonic Boom, the latest sonic animated show at the time of this writing and the first in over a decade when it dropped. And this one.... was not welcomed on arrival. Boom was, as I mentioned earlier, part of a failed attempt at a new branch of the sonic franchise.. which amounted to “sonic is on an island now, everyone has new outfits, there’s a badger, and Knuckles skipped leg day”. Shockingly this didn’t go well: the game side of it failed on arrival with the infamous shattered crystal and the cartoon didn’t have the best receptoin at first. This can be chocked up to a lot of things: Shattered Crystal being 06 levels of bad, people not digging the redesigns, personally I think all of them but knuckles which objectively looks weird are fine and my only complaint deisgns wide is the weird amount of grip tape because Sagat was Boom’s character designer I guess, instead of gloves, and the series turning out to be a meta character based humor show ala animanics instead of the serious epic many were hoping for.. me included. I didn’t bash the show without watching but after waiting a decade for a new sonic series, and the main games at the time and present day not being great, it was a bit of  alet down to find instead of lore or anythign we were getting shenanigans.

That said i’ve come around to it: You can’t blame a show for not being what YOU personally wanted and on their budget, even if the show looks great, it was probably easier to do a wacky comedy. And frankly given just how bad shattered crystal turned out, it ended up being a strength, allowing this version to distance itself and be it’s own thing. It also isn’t somethnig sonic had done , just go fully comedy, since Adventures, so it was a nice throwback while still being it’s own thing, relying more on clever dialouge than slapstick. The result is a pretty good show: not the best, but still entertaning and unique. 

And this episode is a PERFECT one to show that off. Like X it has a really bonkers premise.. but unlike X it’s not only not taking the premise remotely seriously, but uses it for a purpose: to take pot shots at pop muisc. Granted it can be uneven, a lot of the critisim comes across as paatronizing to pop music even if a lot of it is more packaging than content, but some jokes do really hit hard and the shows fast pacing means we’re onto the next joke before a bad one can really stink up. 

As for the plot music sensation Justin Beaver is in town. And if I have one complaint it’s not using beiber, while he’s been a punching bag for decades he’s not only been relevant for that long, but has THROUGHLY brought it on himself after puberty with his hilariously broey apperance, some choicley terrible songs and somehow not having gone away. It’s that they base him on pre-bro beiber...several years AFTRE he radically changed his appearnce and demeanor, making that part of it come off outdated> I get they needed a pop star but they coudl’ve used one direction (still dated but not as dated) instead of parodying an act that not only had been parodied to death, but had changed entirely. 

The other issue before I get to the good stuff is sexism: it assumes ONLY girls like boybands forgettnig boys of all sexualiteis can enjoy them too. I loved back stret boys as a kid and liked nsync kinda. I gladly watcched the high school musicals in high school... i’m not proud of that but it did give me the greatest musical number ever commited to film so it worked out

I swear if I could get away with it i’d refrence this thing EVERY review. It’s just sexist to assume it dosen’t work on men and it should honestly work on knuckles. It’s equally condsending to pop fans, saying rock is better. ANd rock is better but there is some great pop.. and some really terrible pop but still. 

But it’s flaws are patched up by some things: While some of it’s critcisim is pretty surfacy, it’s in a show that’s not taking itself seroiusly, so it’s clearly just taking it to the broadest point and it DOES make actual points: how manufactured some of these acts are, the stupid names, the sparkly jackets.. seriously EVERY boy band has a sparkly jacket. It does enough right to counter what it gets wrong. It’s also just really funny so again, the bad takes are drowned out by our heroes being hilarious. The first few minutes alone had me wanting to go back and get tons of reactoin images because their just stuffed with great jokes, from the local reporter ranting about his daughter prefering justin beiber to him (”We’ll just see who pays for your private school instead of those golf clubs he really wanted”), to knuckles declaring his music the soundtrack to his nightmares, to knuckles dooting on a horn he literally pulled out of his ass to try and convince the backstage guy their in the music industry.

We also get plenty of fun with the guys boy band, dreamboat express who again have the sparkly jackets, moves and montages. We also get a great bit of sonci leading them somewhere else to finish his thought in cutaway, with tails wondering why that was necessary.. only to do it himself later and admit it’s fun.  The episodes far from perfect but it’s so spot on in places and so damn funny for most of it, the villians also just happen to explain their plans which is lampshaded to hell and back, and with a perfect punchline for justin, this ep didn’t give me a lot to say but it is good. I recommend checking it out fi your curious about the series and it’s pairing ep tails crush, as tails trie sto woo a lady and robotnik tries to pick up a package. Good stuff. 

So that was the review. Three fun episodes: one insane, one raelly good and one unabashidly silly. All fun.

Next: Knock knock i’ts knuckles.. and he has kind of a weenie voice.But he also has a werid ass dinosaur so it ballances out it’s sonic undergrounnnnnnddd and knuckles only animated apperance in the classic era with a one off intro and a three part epic. 

Patreon

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic x #SATAM #Sonic boom #knuckles the echidna #miles tails prower #sega #hulu #netflix #paramount+ #antoine d'coolette #sally acorn #amy rose #sticks the badger #doctor robotnik #doctor eggman

[vivithefolle]

I just wanna ask, and don’t get mad at me cause I’m genuinely curious, how do you stan Ron? Like, I like him, but he is definitely misogynistic (slut shaming Ginny, treating hermione like she owes him something and being mad that she kissed someone years before, always objectifying Fleur, and acting like girls who aren’t pretty aren’t worth much). Like, by DH I feel like he definitely has mostly grown out of it, but still 6/7 books he’s kinda unbearable IMO

how do you stan Ron? 

Like this:

OH MY GOD HAVE YOU SEEN. HAVE YOU SEEN HIM DID YOU SEE MY BABY OH MY GOD. WHEN HARRY’S ARM HAD GONE KABLOOIE BECAUSE OF LOCKHART AND HE. RON. HE WAS. HELPING HIM GET DRESSED???? OH MY GOD BABY???? HHHHNNNNGGGG. AND. AND. AND ALSO WHEN HE. OMG. WHEN HE WAS PUTTING FOOD ON HIS FRIENDS’ PLATES LIKE. MOM FRIEND ALERT MOM FRIEND ALERT MOM FRIEND ALERT. AND THE WAY HE’S ALWAYS BLUSHING AND BEING EMBARRASSED AT THE SLIGHTEST PRAISE BUT ALSO HE’S SO DESPERATELY SEEKING IT BUT HE KNOWS HE CAN’T TAKE IT AND EEK EEK EEK THAT’S SO CUTE SOMEONE HOLD ME IT’S ADORABLE RONALD WEASLEY YOU ARE SO GOING TO BE THE DEATH OF ME IT’S ILLEGAL TO BE THIS CUTE!!!!

Ok and then.

he is definitely misogynistic 

No. And here’s why.

slut shaming Ginny 

Yes, that was wrong. And guess what, that’s also something he probably - scratch that, definitely - picked up from his mother. And also his brothers, recall how Fred and George too don’t like to see Ginny go around with boys. There’s also something to recall: Ron was there when Ginny was taken into the Chamber of Secrets and learned later that it was because she had trusted an older guy. You seriously wouldn’t be paranoid about who your sister dates after that? It was wrong. Yeah. And he more than learned his lesson when Ginny clapped back by virgin-shaming him and basically told him that he was childish because he hadn’t have a relationship yet. So would that make Ginny sexist too? Or is it just for Ron?

treating hermione like she owes him something 

..................... uuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh... when? When the fuck did anything like that happen?

He made a prat of himself at the Yule Ball, that much is obvious. But he didn’t tell her anything like “you should be with me” or didn’t insinuate anything of the sort. He was a jealous bitch but kept attacking Krum, not Hermione.

If you mean in sixth year when he treated her with “icy, sneering indifference” for the course of two weeks, yeah that was bad but that’s not “treating her like she owes him something”, the fuck?

being mad that she kissed someone years before 

Yeah. I know. And that was bad, ooooh you got me to admit Ron did bad stuff, that’s what you want to see, right? And I reckon he was also mad that she hid it from him, and that he had to learn it from his sister of all people. We see Ron handles what he considers betrayals terribly. I have some meta discussing the possibility that he has a form of Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria.

always objectifying Fleur 

Um... no, he doesn’t. He makes a stupid comment about her once in GOF then stops. Let’s also fucking remember that Fleur is a Veela, she literally makes guys stare at her as part of her powers!! I’m not blaming her because she’s literally born that way, but you can’t blame someone who is under magical compulsion either.

acting like girls who aren’t pretty aren’t worth much 

So tell me why he was friends with Hermione then?

Because Hermione wasn’t Emma Watson the super hawt sexy model goddess. Hermione was Mrs Generic. Until this once at the Yule Ball when she got the pretty princess perfect Mary Sue makeover but then stopped because she had to remain ~relatable uwu~.

Again. Ron made stupid sexist comments. But it’s actively shown that he doesn’t follow up on them. If he did indeed live by the motto “girls who aren’t pretty aren’t worth much”, explain to me why he wasn’t simping and drooling all over Padma Patil who is explicitly stated to be one of the prettiest girls at school when she was his date? Why exactly did he ignore her and was a miserable twat the whole evening instead of basking in the joy of having snagging a girl that was “worth it”? Well surprise, it’s because HE ACTUALLY ISN’T LIKE THAT AND WHAT HE SAYS IS MAYBE SHIT HIS “COOL OLDER BROTHERS” SAY AND HE THINKS THAT BY EXTENSION IT WOULD MAKE HIM COOL TO REPEAT IT. MIMETISM, THAT'S BASIC FUCKING HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY FOR FUCKING TODDLERS MY FUCKING GOD.

Like, by DH I feel like he definitely has mostly grown out of it, 

............

...................................

...............................................................

so. so why. so why wouldn’t you. use that. as a reason. to stan him.

like.

fuck all the “hurr durr ron weasley the boy who made it out of the friendzone!!!!” bullshit, let’s start going with “Ron Weasley, the Boy who became a Man, and not one of those 'uugghh im such an alpha male’ ones but one that’s got the balls to say ‘hey love, I’ve got an idea, what if you kept doing that job you love and feel passionate about while I support you and do the majority of the childcare while also working a smaller job on the side so we’re never short on money’“

Why you people gotta be “yeah I like Ron BUTT” when you know full-well this fucking awful fandom will rake him over hot coals over the slightest mistake he does - worse, will actively go out of their way to interpret his positive moments in the most negative way possible??? Fuck off with that bullshit. Ron dared to say bad stuff omygah big deal, he was forgiven for it all and you’re just all cowards looking to feel “pure” by telling yourself “oh yeah but he was problematic once uwu”. FUCK. THAT. NOISE.

but still 6/7 books he’s kinda unbearable IMO 

And IMO he’s not, funny how that works

So.

I guess it’s impossible to stan Ron because he was problematic uwu.

Ok.

Then I hereby decree that it’s impossible to stan Hermione Granger because:

“I’ll bet you wish you hadn’t given up Divination now, don’t you, Hermione?” asked Parvati, smirking. [...] “Not  really,”  said  Hermione  indifferently,  who  was  reading  the  Daily Prophet. “I’ve never really liked horses.” She turned a page of the newspaper, scanning its columns. “He’s not a horse, he’s a centaur!” said Lavender, sounding shocked. “A gorgeous centaur . . .” sighed Parvati. “Either  way,  he’s  still  got  four  legs,”  said  Hermione  coolly.  “Any-way, I thought you two were all upset that Trelawney had gone?” - Order of the Phoenix, ch 27

wow casual use of a racial slur yay!!! A+

And it’s also forbidden to stan Harry Potter either since:

It was raining hard now, and she was nowhere to be seen. He simply did not understand what had happened; half an hour ago they had been getting along fine. “Women!”  he  muttered  angrily,  sloshing  down  the  rain-washed  street with his hands in his pockets. “What did she want to talk about Cedric  for  anyway?  Why  does  she  always want to drag up a subject that makes her act like a human hosepipe?” - Order of the Phoenix, ch 25

and

“Harry! There you are, thank goodness! Hi, Luna!”  “What’s  happened  to  you?”  asked  Harry,  for  Hermione  looked  distinctly  disheveled,  rather  as  though she had just fought her way out of a thicket of Devil’s Snare.  “Oh,  I’ve  just  escaped  —  I  mean,  I’ve  just  left  Cormac,”  she  said.  “Under  the  mistletoe,”  she  added in explanation, as Harry continued to look questioningly at her.  “Serves you right for coming with him,” he told her severely.  “I thought he’d annoy Ron most,” said Hermione dispassionately. “I debated for a while about Zacharias Smith, but I thought, on the whole —”  “You considered Smith?” said Harry, revoked. - Half-Blood Prince

Victim-blaming! Nice Harry, nice. Always classy.

Ok, Ginny stanning is already cancelled because she virgin-shamed Ron, right, so who’s left, who’s left... ah yeah:

“There you go,” said Fred proudly. “Best range of love potions you’ll find anywhere.” - Half-Blood Prince

Selling date rape drugs proudly ouh là là. Bye Fred.

"Do they work?” she asked.  “Certainly they work, for up to twenty-four hours at a time depending on the weight of the boy in question...”  “...and the attractiveness of the girl,” said George, reappearing suddenly at their side. “But we’re not  selling  them  to  our  sister,”  he  added,  becoming  suddenly  stern,  “not  when  she’s  already  got  about five boys on the go from what we’ve...”  “Whatever you’ve heard from Ron is a big fat lie,” said Ginny calmly, leaning forward to take a small pink pot off the shelf.

Assuming that only girls use love potions, and only on boys. Men never rape in JKR’s world, only women do, you heard it from George Weasley here folks, I’m just passing on the message. Ah and I hope you’re also starting the Fred And George Hate Club given how he’s also slut-shaming Ginny.

“What’s this?”  “Guaranteed  ten-second  pimple  vanisher,”  said  Fred.  “Excellent  on  everything  from  boils  to  blackheads,  but  don’t  change  the  subject.  Are  you  or  are  you  not  currently  going  out  with  a  boy  called Dean Thomas?” “Yes, I am,” said Ginny. “And last time I looked, he was definitely one boy, not five. What are those?”  She  was  pointing  at  a  number  of  round  balls  of  fluff  in  shades  of  pink  and  purple,  all  rolling  around the bottom of a cage and emitting high-pitched squeaks.  “Pygmy  Puffs,”  said  George.  “Miniature  puffskeins,  we  can’t  breed  them  fast  enough.  So  what  about Michael Corner?”  “I  dumped  him,  he  was  a  bad  loser,”  said  Ginny,  putting  a  finger  through  the  bars  of  the  cage  and watching the Pygmy Puffs crowd around it. “They’re really cute!”  “They’re  fairly  cuddly,  yes,”  conceded  Fred.  “But  you’re  moving  through  boyfriends  a  bit  fast,  aren’t you?”  Ginny turned to look at him, her hands on her hips. There was such a Mrs. Weasley-ish glare on her face that Harry was surprised Fred didn’t recoil.  “It’s none of your business. And I’ll thank you” she added angrily to Ron, who had just appeared at George’s elbow, laden with merchandise, “not to tell tales about me to these two!”

Ah, good on you for defending yourself, Ginny, but remember, Ginny stanning is prohibited because she’s been problematic in the past and is gonna be problematic in the future and that’s baaaaaaad. Careful kids, don’t get ideas. It’s problematic to like people who’ve done problematic things.

So I guess nobody can like anything or anyone now. Sorry guys. Liking things is evil, what if the thing you liked had, OR USED TO HAVE, *gasp* flaws, can’t take that risk, ohmygah.

#vivi answers #ask #ron weasley #ron weasley defense squad #ron weasley defence squad #hp fandumb #hp fandom #harry potter #harry potter series #fred weasley #george weasley #fred and george #ginny weasley #hermione granger #problematic content

[momo-de-avis]

what are 2 books you feel you should be financially compensated for reading (beyond reimbursement for purchasing them)?

hard mode: nothing by zuzas.

now those are high stakes

first of all, this is hard for me to answer because I genuinely cannot read a book through to the end if I don't like it. I won't go past fifty pages if it's annoying me. So there are only a handful of books I can say I hated because I wasted time reading them, and even those I didn't finish.

But there are two, and one of them I actually talk about it all the time

First of all, fuck you, Flaubert. Fuck Emma Bovary. Fuck that book. Not only financial compensation, but emotional of some sort, cause you go through the 7 stages of grief reading that piece of garbage. Not after, during.

Like, every time I try to explain why I hate Madame Bovary so much I tell this little anecdote about my life. It was probably 2AM, I was still living with my mom, and I was in the living room. Back then, the History Channel---before it became exclusively devoted to Aliens, Hitler, and World War II---had a super interesting show called, I believe it was, Great Books. I caught only a few episodes, there was one on Janes Austen, another on Dostoevsky---and yes, one for Madame Bovary. Which was the one I saw that night.

And on that night, I was just chilling on my ass, and there was this expert on Flaubert explaining how the guy came up with the idea for the book. This woman had a PhD in literature. She studied Flaubert's life and history down to the letters and his intimacy. And I chuckled to myself, completely alone---and listen, you're free to believe whatever the hell yall want, but I swear on my cat this shit is true---and said to myself: "I bet this guy ran away to a cabin and dressed himself as woman to write this book." In fact, I hate Madame Bovary SO MUCH I've making this joke for YEARS, and it's why I call that pile of regurgitated french trash "literary transvesty" because it is literally a man playing dress up with no counter-balance to the absolute derailment of this woman's down-spiral. It's just the story of Emma Bovary going off her rockers, and there's no point where there might a slight indication of societal criticism. She's just a piece of shit. You know, at LEAST Tolstoi gave us Kittie and Levine as a counter-point. At LEAST Tolstoi built-up an immense backdrop with Stepane's adultery to understand the horrid treatment Anna is subjected to. At LEAST we are given a good characterisation of Karenine enough, whereas Charles Bovary is limper than a soggy sock. The only Ken doll I owned as a child had more charisma, and that bitch had no clothes.

And AT THAT POINT in the documentary, that lady expert with a whole PhD says something to this effect: APPARENTLY, Flaubert DID run off into a cabin in the fucking woods or some shit, and he did so with a locket, and what was in that locket? The hairs of his lover. Like, oh my God, I hate you so fucking much.

What I hate THE MOST about Madame Bovary is that despite being a shit book and shit story, and having been written by a guy who purposefully isolated himself from the woman he loved in the ass of the world, with a piece of her hair, as he dead ass attempted to "become a woman", whatever the hell that meant (but then again, so did every romantic writer back in the 19th century), this motherfucker was trialled in a court of law for this book (because adultery, women are frail, scandal, blah blah blah), and his defense was so amazing he actually coined a very important term in writing called Indirect Free Speech. Like, I genuinely hate this motherfucker but this absolute genius final take on his shit book just makes me hate him more. (For reference, this is where I learned this, Hans Robert Jauss explains this in his book Reception Theory)

The second book I think I deserve financial compensation for wasting the like, 3 days I wasted reading those first 100 pages or so, was Juliet Marillier's Daughter of the Forest. Oh my God. Listen, back in the day, like every teenage girl in the early/late 2000s, I was discovering paganism and that kind of crap, so I had a lot of wiccan friends. And there was Charmed. Not the rebooted crap, the OG Charmed, when Rose McGowan was closeted terf and we believed she was cool. Everyone loved Charmed. And everyone who bought into the new-pagan stuff and wiccan stuff, they were all introduced by one of two ways: either it was Charmed, or The Mists of Avalon. Either or. No other way. At least around my circle, that is.

So I had a lot of friends squealing over this one book from Marillier. I was absolutely obsessed with Arthuriana because of Mists of Avalon, and my wiccan/goth friends were all over me telling me "OH you GOTTA read Daughter of the Forest if you love Mists of Avalon". It's comforting to know the one wiccan friend who persisted with that crap went wacko and literally vanished into the horizon because I wanted to smack her in the face with that stupid book.

Basically, at the time, I was balls deep into Irish Mythology. And as I read it, I thought it was EERILY SIMILAR to the Children of Lir. Evil stepmother transforming her step-children into swans? Hm? The one thing that threw me off was that, in the story, the hero had to sew these shirts from some godawful plant that fucked up her hands, and that ISN'T in the original Children of Lir story. Then again, Children of Lir is genuinely not a compelling story. Of all Irish myths, it might be the least compelling.

However, I recently learned that IT IS the same tale, despite what Marillier sold as being "inspired by the Brother Grimm". It turns out the Children of Lir is a tale known throughout Europe, spanning from Spain to Ireland, with some variations, and it exists in Germany, where the sewing of the shirts with that weird plant is a plot point. So I guess that was a determent, considering the story is set in Ireland. Also, you can tell the story was written by a herbalist because, oh my god she goes off about plants all the time.

I basically stopped reading because the heroine is a bit obnoxious and it felt like the plot was going nowhere. And at some point, it was literally a book about plants. Like, Marion Zimmer Bradley's books can be boring (take the Forst House, which is one of my favourites, there's gotta be like 100 pages in there about Eilan's boring life picking flowers, but it builds up to her character, at least). But this one, it was going nowhere, while at the same time, Bretons were landing in Ireland? What? My anger came from when I checked the wikipedia page before I gave up because I wanted to see if there was something redeemable in that shit, like, come on, motivate me. And when I read that there's a fucking rape plot thrown in there that bears no relevance for no other reason than... I don't know, fear of men? I gave up. That was definitely when I stopped reading and decided to set it aside. It's weird cause, from what I remember, I think the author wanted to write it in pagan Ireland, but I don't remember a single mention of a pagan god? It was so convoluted, man.

And why the Children of Lir??? I 100% share the opinion of Sorcha Hegarty from Candlelit Tales regarding the Children of Lir: it is THE LEAST interesting tale in Irish Myth, and also---and these are her words, not mine---the least Irish lmao

Honourable mention: Thérèse Raquin by Zola is another one that made me SO FUCKING PISSED OFF that piece of shit book REQUIRES psychological counseling. Like, financial compensation isn't even enough to go through that crap.

[benisasoftboi]

Unorganised thoughts on Trails of Cold Steel IV:

WHY ARE THEY CALLED CLASS VII?

WHO ARE CLASS VI?

Anyway - I started playing Trails in August, and I’ve finally, finally caught up (yes I know Hajimari I can’t read Japanese) and like... what do I do now?

It’s a fantastic series and I’m so, so glad I picked up Trails in the Sky on a whim last summer

This game was long. Is it longer than the other ones? It felt that way

The best part was the first chapter because Rean wasn’t in it and yeah I still don’t like him!!! But seriously, it was astonishing how much more I was enjoying things without him

I audibly groaned when goddamn bonding points returned in the second chapter

Actually that was a lie, the best part was Any Time My Angel Estelle Was On Screen

I missed her so much

I let her get the final hit of the game against the boss because she’s the best

Speaking of angels I caught three Wazy cameos!!!

Also Gilbert came back and if there had been a camera on me... I quite literally teared up a little I was so thrilled

I hate the curse it is dumb and rips all the nuance out of the characters. People do not need a goddamn evil curse to be swayed to extremes by overzealous nationalism. Trails I know you are better than this, I played Sky and Crossbell

Fav new location was Milsante (liked Alster too, though). I really like going to tiny little outposts and villages in JRPGs, they make the world feel more real

What the hell was up with the Osgiliath Basin? As in, Giliath Osborne??? Is this going to be a Hajimari thing?

Oh yeah, HOT TAKE, Alan Richard >>> Giliath Osborne. I was reading an LP of Sky FC while playing the game, and Richard’s motivation is clearer and less over-complex, more sympathetic, and he’s just generally a far more human character

Alan Richard best political antagonist in the series fight me (Rufus Albarea distant second)

For best supernatural/cult-y antagonist I’m stuck between Weissmann and Joachim. Or maybe Campanella lol

Oh uh speaking of characters named Georg I will never not hate everything about the George and Angie subplot. Angie should have died and George should have stayed evil, or it shouldn’t have happened at all. As it is, it was a complete waste of time - you could take it all out and NOTHING would change

Angie would have been the perfect character to sacrifice as well, she’s just important enough that it would feel like ‘oh shit’s getting real’ but not so important that it’s unbelievable

(like Olivier. I could not fully believe they’d actually kill him, and the moment Laura told me ‘they never found the bodies’ I was like, oh, so they’re definitely all still alive, cool)

I mean, it would be a Bury Your Gays, but honestly... there are things I like about Angie, but is anyone really looking to her as a lesbian role model? I hope not. Yikes

So yeah I guess I hate George now for getting my hopes up and then being boring. Shame

I did the Towa romantic ending, of course. I genuinely think she’s the best match for Rean, of all his love interests

Chaaaracters

Rean: Still the least interesting person. Not a good sign when I’m sadder about the robot dying than the main protagonist yeeting himself into the sun (side note, the two endings thing? Unnecessary and dumb). There is no reason girls would like him this much, blah blah I’ve said it all before. Liked his new hair. Honestly would have respected it if they’d had the balls to kill him off. I basically never even used him in battle lol, Juna became my new team leader

Juna: Honourary protagonist imo. I’ve changed my mind since CS3, she’s my fav new Class VII without a doubt. She’s just really good and full of personality and depth and OH GOD WHY IS SHE CRUSHING ON REAN WHY FALCOM WHY

Kurt: pls falcom don’t try to force this aroace king into a nonsense ship with Sully I liked her but what are you doing, anyway Kurt is great and he got cool new swords and he got to hang out with Mueller, who I adore, I love Kurt

Altina: I also love this little bunny. Her relationship with Millium is so lovely and seeing her grow and become her own person made me so happy and OH GOD WHY IS SHE CRUSHING ON REAN WHY FALCOM I LITERALLY SAID SHE HAS THE BEST RELATIONSHIP WITH REAN OF ALL THE GIRLS BECAUSE SHE DOESN’T DO THAT IN THE LAST GAME WHY DO YOU HATE ME????

Musse: Yeah I’m still not sold on Musse but I liked her better this time! I like a smart, confident girl! Just stop being weird about your teacher and we’d be golden!

Ash: Good boy. Sweet boy. Ash and Joshua game now Falcom

Alisa: Still cannot believe she’s presented as the deuteragonist by the marketing - but you know what? Solid arc, she got some closure with her parents, maybe she and Jusis can get together for tea and complain about their messed up families. She’s never going to be a character I like all that much, but I don’t dislike her. I just wish she hadn’t clearly been written as ‘Rean’s love interest’ before anything else

Elliot: I love Elliot, I really do. I mean, I wish he hadn’t been flanderised to the point of speaking in music puns half the time, but he’s a solid, consistently pleasant character

Laura: Goddamnit Falcom please give Laura anything resembling an emotion regarding her dad dying. Also you tell me she’s kind of oblivious and stuff but we never see it. I like Laura but she really could have been more

Machias: I love Machias, fight me fan base. He’s so funny to me. It feels like, at this point, all he really wants is a nice office job, near a nice coffee shop, where he files papers and sometimes gets to yell at corrupt rich people, but NO, he has to run about in dungeons and fight monsters, and are you FUCKING kidding me, ANOTHER crazy snake cultist!?!? It’s great, he’s the only one who’s just done with it all and love it

I low key headcanon that he and Jusis are kinda dating at this point, but we don’t see anything because the games are from Rean’s POV and they don’t want to tell him because they know he’d be weird about it

Jusis: I still really like Jusis! He’s interesting, and his surrogate brother-sister relationship with Millium is so sweet (yes, I saw that bouquet catch, Falcom, and I hate it, stop it, gross). Awesome to see him confront his brother, obviously I let him have the final blow. Rufus was a great antagonist. Jusis has some of the best development over the games, and is also really fun to use in battle (apparently I am the only one who feels this way though :/ ah well)

Fie: I was surprised by how much I liked Fie’s confession scene, seeing as I don’t like Rean/Fie at ALL. Fie finally gets to have feelings about her dad, and we see her working with Zin at the end! Very happy for Fie, best girl

Emma: Ahhh I still find Emma kinda dull and exposition heavy, but she also had a nice arc, I liked her relationship with Rose, all good

Rose beat me at Vantage Masters for 40 minutes lol

Gaius: It’s still extremely funny to me that Gaius became one of the most important people on the continent *off screen*. And he still doesn’t really do anything. He has his own airship now, I guess. Justice for Gaius

Sara: Kind of faded from relevance after CS1, but I do really like her all the same. And I loved her speech at the end

Crow: At the end his hair got darker and everyone was like ‘you’re back to normal!’ and I literally did not realise he was meant to have been looking different

But anyway Crow is a really good character and I literally never didn’t enjoy him. I love the bit where Jusis and Machias team up to call him a cringy edgelord, because they are right. Crow is fantastic

Towa: Towa has never done anything wrong in her life and all of Erebonia should pay for her therapy

Patrick: I cannot believe how much I love Patrick now, compared to CS1. He’s just such a sweetie. Good boy

Elise: Take her to the sun with you, Rean. Pointless character

Alfin: Is she the heir now? I hope so. She’s such a funny character, not my fav, but I enjoyed her

Angie and George: Should have died, moving on

Celine: I love her, but did she really need a human form? No, no she did not. Great character though

Tita: Special mention, because you know what? I do not like this version of Tita! Like I said, I was reading FC recently and she was so much better there! Now a third of her lines are just her saying ‘Agate’ in various different tones. And it feels like she’s lost a lot of her confidence, where’s the little girl who followed us up Carnelia Tower? I would have preferred them to just not bring her back at all

Duvalie: Haha I love Duvalie she’s great. Stop implying that she’s crushing on Rean. Literally WHY would she. Ugh

Rose: Everything about Rose is great, I would play a full game about her backstory. More Rose

Ships!

Obviously I like Machias/Jusis because I am BASIC

I didn’t like Olivier/Schera back in Sky, but you know what? They sold me. It’s cute (even if I feel Schera’s character was neglected in favour of Being A Love Interest, sigh). Though I’m not sure when Olivier made the switch from ‘Schera is one of many people I flirt with’ to ‘Schera is my one and only’?

But am I the only person who’s kinda on the Oliver/Schera/Mueller train? I’m not normally into OT3s, but Olivier and Mueller have one of the best dynamics in the series, and Schera and Mueller would probably get along great if they were ever allowed to properly interact. And you know Olivier would be down

Like I say, I do not like Jusis/Millium at all, it’s not a ‘I like another ship better’ thing, it just massively skeeves me out because of the maturity difference 

Ash/Tatiana was unexpected but adorable

Patrick/Elise, because I want Patrick to be happy and Rean to be mad

Also Elise/Alfin, sorry Patrick

I hope Anton and Sharon really do get together. Sharon deserves unconditional love and Anton deserves a happy ending

Sharon also deserves to hook up with Sara like once

I also sort of feel like Sara/Claire would be fun

I’ve actually like Gaius/Linde from CS1, I’m happy it’s kind of a thing now!

If Lila/Maybelle is the LET’S GO LESBIANS Trails ship, then Emily/Theresia is LET’S GO BABY LESBIANS

Vincent/Margarita. They’re both horrible people. At least this way no one else has to deal with them

Joining my Kloe/Josette in the ‘crack ships I love that have very, very little canon basis’ is Fritz/Kairi, based on their interactions in that one mission and then that they’re eating together at Mishelam. It’s pretty much just a height differences thing, lol

Miles/Elnan. I have literally no justification for this

Other stuff There was this one scene where Gaius says how nice it is that Mueller cares about Olivier and Mueller just snaps his head round and the scene ends, and I don’t think it was meant to be funny but I laughed for like a full minute

The intro to the music at Mishelam is extremely creepy to me

I love the Pom Party mini game a whole lot

There were... a lot of typos in the second half of the script. It’s massive, so I’m not mad, but I hope there’s a patch at some point

BERYL BERYL BERYL BERYL BERYL I love her

Uh if we’re still doing romance next arc please give us a gay option, no Crow did not count

I hate divine knight battles! I really do! That last one against Ishmelga was really hard and not in a fun way! In a ‘this is bullshit fake difficulty’ way. Please don’t bring them back!

The true final battle, though? FANTASTIC, now THAT is a final boss! One of the best in the series, like that’s such a fun gimmick!

I got it trapped in break state and spammed Heaven’s Kiss/Quick Star, because I’m a strategic gamer 

I am embarrassed by how long it took me to recognise Lucy

KLOE CAMEO!!!

Oh and I assume Kaela is going to be important next arc, since it’s in Calvard?

I love Thomas??? And Rosine???

Why was the grandmaster reveal hidden behind watching the ending twice, why do that? Great scene, though

My theory is that she is Aidios, I will cling to this for as long as possible

I probably have like a million other things to say that I’m just not remembering right now. Look forward to random shouts into the void about it in upcoming weeks, followers

I really enjoyed this overall, despite the problems I mentioned above. It was just fun, I like the cast, the gameplay is great... just a solid game

Trails is a really fantastic franchise - not perfect, but what is? I’ve had such a fun time with it over the past half-year, and I cannot wait to see what happens next. Thank you, Falcom, the localisation team, the VAs - stellar job all around

This is normally where I’d end on a joke but like. Nah, I’m just happy. Cue ‘The Whereabouts of Light’

#long post #cold steel #cold steel 4 #trails of cold steel 4 #cs4 #cs4 spoilers #cold steel 4 spoilers #trails of cold steel #kiseki #kiseki series #trails series #:)

[welllpthisishappening]

We’re watching the Blues white vs blue scrimmage and I’m so excited hockey is almost back! I think this calls for a Blue Line re-read because it’s so, SO good and I’ve read through everything on ao3 at least 5 times. 💙

This makes me the absolute happiest! Thank you for reading! And then reading again! I am unreasonably excited about the start of the season and the length of Chris Kreider’s hair and I was going to post a quick Blue Line one-shot here, but it was basically just original characters in that it was literally just Matt Jones being an idiot while meeting his future wife, so I wrote something else this morning and winning the Stanley Cup would mean they’d have to change their before-the-season starts ritual. Anyway, here’s like nearly 4K of everyone ragging on each other just before the season after Blue Line, while Emma and Killian try to figure out where they can make out without anyone noticing: 

————

“Still looking?” “Yup.” “What she look like?” “Like the actual description of her face?” 

Something dug into the bottom of Emma’s shoulder blade, and it took her far too long to realize that it was the jut of Killian’s chin because even the idea of Killian crouching behind her so as to avoid the overall force of Regina’s glare was something that hadn’t even crossed her mind. Until it was happening, apparently. “She’s staring,” Emma muttered, “got that little pinch between her eyebrows that always shows up when she’s—” Killian groaned. Directly where his mouth was resting, which was also on Emma’s back and likely just above the ‘o’ in his last name, if her knowledge of the jersey she was wearing was any indication. Maybe in between the ‘j’ and the ‘o,’ actually. 

“You’re ridiculous.” “Me?” Killian countered, and Emma wished she hadn’t already finished that first glass of wine. Blurry thoughts bounced across her sleep-deprived brain because there was only one more sleep ‘til Christmas, or whatever Kermit sang in The Muppet Christmas Carol. Presumably Christmas. And not hockey. Or the start of the hockey season. 

Splotches of ink still dotted the sides of Emma’s right hand, the product of dragging that same hand over forms she had to sign and other plans she had to approve, and the blue carpet wasn’t coming until next week because the home opener was actually three games into the season, which was not as comforting or stress-reducing as she thought it should have been and she simply did not have time to mitigate an argument between her boyfriend and his agent. 

Even when that boyfriend was very good looking. 

In his Christmas sweater. 

The traditions of hockey players continued to boggle the mind. Emma’s, specifically. 

If she drank any more wine, she was going to fall asleep standing up. “Yes,” Emma said, “you, but only because you’re the one currently trying to burrow your way into me. With your chin.” Humming in confusion, he lifted his head, and that wasn’t really a mistake, per se — but it did leave his soft exhale brushing against the side of Emma’s neck, and that sort of guaranteed that goosebumps appeared on her neck and she should have been more annoyed. By Killian’s immediate laugh. Of the vaguely victorious variety. 

“What do you think about the sweater?” “That you’re fishing for compliments.” “I think I make Locksley’s stitched-on face look very good. Doesn’t get stretched out at all—” Killian ignored Emma’s groan, pressing a kiss to the exact spot her shoulder met her still goosebump-covered neck, and it was the wine’s fault. For the state of her increasingly wobbly knees. “—Which is more than I can say about his current face.” “Oh, that’s rude,” Emma argued. “And I’m not entirely sure it even made sense.” “Are you Locksley’s self-appointed defender, then?” “Are you the single most superstitious player in the entire National Hockey League?” That kiss came with a graze of his teeth and a noise Emma immediately regretted making. Something like a squeak bubbled out of her, flinching in the sort of way that only ensured she was even closer to Killian, and stepping on one of his toes would have detracted from the overall romance of the moment. 

“You can’t do that sort of thing in public, Swan,” Killian chided, and he really did have very good reflexes. Spinning her, Emma’s hands flew to his chest — pointedly ignoring the stitched-on face of Robin Locksley — and he didn’t move. Didn’t stumble or come anywhere close to falling. Just arched his left eyebrow and had the gall to smirk at her like they weren’t in a restaurant filled with their friends and teammates and—

“I’m not taking the shirt off, Gina,” Killian yelled over Emma’s head, “so you can stop whatever you’re doing with your face.” “Trying to turn you to stone,” Emma mumbled.

“Last I checked, she’s not a Greek myth.” “Far as you know.” He moved. Shook really, once his laugh started to echo between Emma’s ears, and they definitely had more pillows in their house than blankets, but the sound of Killian’s obvious and consistent joy was oddly similar to the softest piece of fabric Emma could imagine. Like it was capable of wrapping around her, warm without being suffocating, just this steady presence that didn’t weigh down on her and made everything feel like—

Home, she supposed. 

She was so happy; she was positive it simply poured out of her at this point. And the sweater really did not look half bad. Fit very well, at least. 

“This worked last year,” Will called, shuffling between Roland and Henry. Several wads of napkins littered the floor by their feet, a makeshift hockey game that, as far as Emma could figure, had ever-evolving rules and a tendency to knock chairs over. Roland’s jersey wasn’t quite as long as last year, the hem stopping well before his knees. 

Henry still had a twenty on his back. 

“Still looks ridiculous,” Regina countered. Her wine glass was also empty, sitting closer to Robin’s chair than she had been ten minutes earlier. “Do you think you should send them an email?” Killian’s eyebrow dropped. Pulled low in perfect tandem with the other one, Emma’s head tilting with her own sense of confusion. 

Something slammed rather loudly into one of the walls. Eric might have been doing shots behind the bar.

“What?” “An email,” Regina repeated, “to whatever website makes that monstrosity, so you can let them know that they should get more creative and offer more wardrobe choices to—” “—Idiots?” Robin quipped. 

“Professional hockey players.” Ariel clicked her tongue, ignoring her husband’s objections when she jumped onto the edge of the counter. Only a matter of time until several kids tried to follow suit. “Is your husband not a professional hockey player, Gina?” “Yes.” “Oh, that was far less of an argument than I expected,” David mumbled, stepping next to Emma, and he couldn’t quite bump her shoulder when she was still standing so close to Killian. “And kinda rude,” Will added, “all things considered.”

Regina shrugged. “I cannot possibly overstate how much I hate that sweater.” “Take it up with Banana,” Killian said. “Her gift; makes it her problem. All I am doing is—” “—Wearing it?” “And wearing it well,” he promised. If Emma’s cheeks turned red, no one mentioned it. Which might have been one of the nicer things anyone on this team had ever done for her. “Plus,” Killian continued, “Scarlet’s right. This worked last year. If you want to risk tradition and potential—” A chorus of jeers greeted his near-jinx, complete with pointed fingers and one of Ariel’s legs kicking out like she had any chance of actually reaching Killian. Or wouldn’t be annoyed by whatever harm she could possibly inflict on his upper thigh. 

Regina looked very pleased. “This does not mean you won, Gina,” Killian said, but she only shrugged again, and the first blast of Arthur’s whistle was as shrill as any sound had rights to be. 

More cries bounced off the walls and the balled-up napkins, Arthur’s hand resting on Gwen’s shoulder because at some point in the twelve seconds between the first whistle blast and everyone regaining their ability to hear; he must have decided that standing on a chair was actually a good idea.

Killian’s entire body shook behind Emma’s. 

Getting rid of the goosebumps would be something of a rather large miracle. Especially if he kept his arm around her waist like this, fingers splayed over her stomach. 

“Are we ready yet?” Arthur barked, only to be met with murmurs and more confusion, and Emma didn’t think much before accepting the glass Mary Margaret was practically shoving into her hand. 

“Is there a reason for the collective?” Robin asked. “Did you mean to include yourself in that? Are you not ready for your own speech?”

Arthur was not as good at glaring as Regina. No one mentioned that. No one had to, really. He took a deep breath before he started. “Day before the opener. We know what we did last year, and I want to be the first to tell every single one of you that I don’t give a flying fuck—” Another round of loud objections rang out around him, Arthur not quite able to wave them off because his balance really was awful, and Killian had to let go of Emma to haul Roland up his side. “—Anyone asks you about last year,” Arthur pressed, entirely unperturbed by the frustration of his team and their assorted families, “and you better tell them you don’t give’a shit about it.”

Emma tried to cover one of Roland’s ears. The other one was pressed against Killian, so she couldn’t really do anything about that. “Does he think you haven’t been quoted—like, all off-season?” “The ultimate idiot,” Killian grinned. 

“Is this over yet?” Will demanded. “I’d like to know when I can boo without threat of interruption.”

Belle kissed his cheek. 

While Ruby mumbled curses under her breath, all too aware of just how many people had asked about the Cup run and would keep asking about the Cup run and her job was not going to get any easier if the professional hockey players in that restaurant refused to answer questions all season.

“Nothing that happened last year means anything this year,” Arthur said, but it was starting to sound a bit like a proclamation or maybe an affirmation, and Emma was terrible at yoga. Never had enough patience for it. “So we are playing for something brand-new, and you better not start by screwing it all up on Thursday.” He nodded once. Glanced around because Emma knew he was waiting for some sort of reaction, but the only reaction he got was Will’s promised boo, and that was more than Arthur deserved. Especially when he knocked over the chair while getting down. 

“Tell me he’ll be better with fans,” Emma said, and Killian had to shift Roland, but then he was the one doing the cheek kissing, and the quiet guarantee of absolutely, love was nice until he added—

“Can totally beat him up if he’s not.” “You’re a violent guy, Cap.”

Nosing at the side of her jaw did not impress Roland at all. Fair, really — but then Roland was on the same counter as Ariel, her sliding down the makeshift wood to get an arm around him and her phone already out and ringing, and Will stopped boo’ing. 

To announce, in no uncertain terms, “It’s time! Leader better not screw things up, or I’ll walk to Colorado and kick him in the shins.”

“What a threat.” Robin groaned, but his phone was making noise too, and neither Elsa nor Liam were doing a very good job of sharing space in the frame. Anna was waving with both her hands, already talking a mile a minute with her sister and they were all wearing team-branded merchandise, as the ritual dictated, but this also felt like the first legitimate time Emma was part of the ritual and all three Vankald and/or Jones faces beamed when they noticed her. 

“A,” Will sighed, “you’re supposed to tell us before the taxi squad gets on the call. Then we can prepare and we don’t have to go through this every year.” Anna’s eyes noticeably thinned. “What is this, exactly?” “The gossip wheel you’ve got to run through before we can—” “—Emma’s wearing KJ’s number again!” “We live together Banana,” Killian reasoned, and the jump in Emma’s stomach was undeniable and even more uncalled for. She also hoped she didn’t mess up the ritual. 

“Still.” “Expand on that for me.” Will might have snarled. “We do not have time for this.”

“Are you an actual adult participating in this situation?” Ariel challenged. “Because I am not getting that right now.” Careful to stay out of Regina’s eye line and certain that Roland was at least momentarily distracted by another plate of onion rings, both of Will’s hands moved when he flashed specific fingers. Ariel nearly fell off the counter, she laughed so hard. 

Elsa and Anna were absolutely having their own conversation. 

And Killian kissed Emma’s hair that time. 

“Also,” Elsa added, “should we be collectively annoyed by the taxi squad marker? That’s kind of—” Her voice dropped “A dick move, right?” “You’re a picture of parental responsibility, El,” Killian said. “Buy new clothes.” “See,” Regina cried, arms thrust nearly above her head in what wasn’t quite celebration but might have simply been her innate desire to be right at all times. “Liam, you’re going to have to say something different now, you realize that?” None of them had, quite clearly. Soft gasps and quiet oh’s echoed around their spot at the end of the bar, but Liam’s chin was doing something as well. So maybe it was just genetic. Jutting out, the confidence practically dripped off him, which would have been a disgusting thought in any other situation, but there was something to be said for constants and stability, and not one of them had so much as thought the phrase back to back all offseason. 

“Your lack of belief is disappointing, Gina.” “I’m just covering our bases.” “Wrong sport,” Liam laughed, grabbing the stick that had been leaning just out of frame and it took some finagling to hold it out in front of him. Without also knocking the phone over. He nearly knocked the phone over three different times. 

Elsa pinched the bridge of her nose. “Alright,” Liam started, and Emma didn’t think she imagined the way Killian stood up a bit straighter. Robin and Will, too. “Wait, wait, shit, sorry Rol—no, but how many years is this?” “Oh my God,” Ariel grumbled. “This is kind of messing it up.” “Leader, do you not know how to do math?” Will shouted, grabbing more than one of Roland’s onion rings. Like he needed something to occupy his hands with. 

Blotches of color appeared on Liam’s face, Elsa’s head shaking back and forth now while several different grown adults tried to do the most basic math problem, and no one else heard Killian at first. Emma did. Presumably, because she was almost standing on his sneakers. 

His arm was back around her waist. “Nine years,” he repeated. 

Liam hummed. “Yeah, yeah, that’s right.” “I know it is.” Nothing about those words was enough to immediately catch Emma short, but the fingers pressed against her might have started pulling on her shirt ever so slightly and whatever look Elsa and Anna shared as soon as she circled her arms around Killian’s middle wasn’t important. Now, at least. Emma had every intention of getting them to give up whatever they knew later. 

They definitely knew something. 

She’d worry about that after the home opener. “Alright, alright, alright,” Liam chanted, the stick back up and Will’s salute lacked any sort of legitimate respect. “Nine years ago now, we all stumbled back into this stupid city and laced up skates and tripped over ourselves on the ice.” He had to glance down. Reading it off an index card, then. Emma’s heart gave a small, but sure tumble in her chest. “And we were God awful. Terrible. Embarrassingly bad. But, as with most things, we figured it out. We stopped tripping over that giant emblem at center ice and we didn’t stutter during post and we actually started scoring goals.”

The stick was starting to shake. Retirement affected forearm strength, it seemed. 

“And we inexplicably won a first-round series and made the backpages of tabloids and then something kind of incredible happened.” Emma waited for the tension, for the sound of Killian’s knuckles cracking, or the exchange glances between Robin and Will. None of it came. It was stupid to think it would. And Liam was far from done. “Down two games in Pitt—” “—Oh my God,” Ruby hissed, “who calls it Pitt?” Liam ignored her. “A two-game hole, and totally fu—messed up media in Los Angeles, but none of that mattered because you guys kept scoring goals and the entire Kings organization is a black hole of talentless idiots.” “This is scathing, Leader,” Will said, “truly. Did you practice this?” “Yes,” Elsa said before Liam could open his mouth again, and Emma’s neck was going to give up sooner rather than later. Emotions twisted between the muscles there, another weight that somehow made it easier to breathe, like they had anything to do with her lungs, but none of her cared and all of her wanted. This, specifically. “There’s more though, Scarlet. Stop interrupting.” He saluted again. 

“Getting everything you wanted’s kind of a weird thing to wrap your head around, but that’s because this isn’t everything. Not yet. Somehow you guys are still capable of scoring goals and—y’know, your quotes leave a little to be desired.” “Here, here,” Ruby murmured. 

Liam might have been the best at glaring. Like, out of all of them. “But that just means the pressure’s on. Vankald cliché requirement; patent pending.” None of the boos that garnered had much bite to them. “Keeping the tradition alive is half the fun of hockey, this dumb sport with weapons on our feet and in our hands and it’s up to you guys. All over again. Start of the season, fresh slate, knowing you can do it because you already have. You ready, Rol?”

Roland nodded more than once, enthusiasm in every jerk of his head. “To the Cup,” he shouted. 

“To the Cup,” the crowd repeated, not much enunciation between the lot of them when both of the phones had a slight delay and there was a baby crying in Colorado. Still, neither Elsa nor Liam moved and the shot glasses Eric put down were rather quickly grabbed. So as to avoid Arthur’s ire. 

Alcohol burned the back of Emma’s mouth as soon as she tilted her head, shivering against the strength of whatever it was she just drank. If she cried, she was going to be really annoyed with herself. 

And the restaurant never got too loud, or too warm, but Emma’s heart stayed at its above-average rate for the next two hours, making the prospect of walking out the door and standing at the edge of the sidewalk all the more appealing. Especially when she remembered how—

It took him two minutes to follow her. Give or take. 

“Feels like we’re in a time warp,” Killian said, leaning against the side of the restaurant while Emma desperately tried to temper her own emotions and she had more emotions than she knew one person could be capable of containing. 

“No dancing, though.” “Banana and I went to a midnight showing of that on Halloween once.” “Seriously?” “Mmmhm. Have I mentioned that I am ridiculously in love with you yet, today?” Her head fell. Neck finally giving up, Emma’s cheek twisted on top of Killian’s shoulder, and his sweater, and if there was a quota for kisses pressed to the crown of her head, he was certainly trying to reach it. Competitive weirdo. “I don’t think so.” “Idiotic.” “Eh, we’ve been busy.” “I love you,” he said, and she smiled. Wide and easy and so goddamn happy, it only occasionally felt like a massive joke. And it still wasn’t enough. As selfish as that might have been, but Liam was definitely right and this wasn’t the end, might have just been another point on a circle and hints of wholly enjoyable déjà vu. “Is this the part where we talk about dating some guy on a team?” Left eyebrow, that time. Perfectly arched while his ability to smirk continued to infuriate Emma just a little, whatever sound she made when he ducked his head and caught her lips somewhere between joy and laughter and the seemingly perpetual talent to make her swoon wherever she was standing. 

They’d definitely gotten better at kissing in the last year. 

A fact Emma had every intention of pointing out — once she was done sticking her tongue in Killian’s mouth. Or trying to get her fingers under his sweater, his soft hiss at the lack of temperature in her fingertips some kind of victory she’d think about until the home opener and possibly until the All-Star break, and the overall arch of her back wasn’t particularly comfortable. But then her hips bumped Killian’s and that drew another sound and made champagne bubbles of the far more metaphorical variety explode in the general vicinity of her heart. 

One of her feet left the ground, not doing much to help her balance, but Emma had already spent too long considering the pros and cons of balance and she scratched at the back of Killian’s head. When her back pressed into the wall, threatening to scratch through her jersey and his fingers weren’t as cold as hers, because he might have just exuded heat, which likely wasn’t a sign and she wanted it to be a sign and—

“I love you,” Emma breathed, harder than she wanted. The force of his answering smile could have melted ice. In several prominent arenas across North America. 

“You worried?” “Very vague question.” “Swan.” “No,” she said, pleased to realize she meant all three letters. With just about everything in her. “Coming out here was—” “—We could have just made out in the restaurant.” “Pushing me up against a wall probably would have gotten us kicked out.” “Which would have led us here and then home, so,” Killian shrugged, “I fail to see the problem.” “You want to go home?” His eyes closed. His smile didn’t waver. Just pressed into the side of Emma’s neck and under her jaw, scruff, and strands of hair that were a little longer than they’d been last season, and she felt him inhale. Like he was trying to breathe her in, or possibly them. The specifics didn’t matter. They were something of a package deal now, anyway.

“Did you cop this jersey from equipment?” Leaning back was impossible with the wall behind her, but Emma was something of a glutton for emotions now and inherently greedy. Killian’s eyes noticeably darkened when she moved her tongue. Directly across her teeth. “Nah, I own this.” The thump of his forehead falling to her shoulder was the most satisfying sound she’d heard in two weeks. Bar none. 

“We’re leaving now,” Killian said. “Now.”

“You don’t want to—” Lacing his fingers through hers, he didn’t quite tug her back down the alley, but it was awfully close and Emma was glad she’d thought to bring her phone with her. “They’ll figure it out.”

She hoped they did. 

Checking her phone was somewhere near the bottom of the list she had absolutely no intention of making that night, opting instead to leave a trail of clothes back to their room and she couldn’t wear the jersey to the game. They made out in the hallway outside the visitor’s locker room, though. So Emma figured it something of a wash; and the first win of the season. 

#cs ff #blue line rambles #blue line one shots #LET EMMA AND KILLIAN MAKE OUT IN EVERY NHL ARENA 2K4EVER #this has been sitting in the back of my mind for weeks #so here it is in all its sports emotion glory #sammyjojaaaa #laura rambles

[thrillridesz]

Could you ship tbz members with your mutuals? (Seeing this everywhere so I thought why not pass it to you!)

ahh i’ve been seeing this everywhere as well!! i’ve actually done this awhile back but since i’ve gained a lot of new mutuals since then, i’ll just give it a go once more ^^

i may or may not have put too much thought into this oops 🤭

sangyeon +  @moondustaeil @aveluant1a

talking to amber feels like i’m talking to a trusted older sister ngl. she's one of the people i’d turn to for an honest opinion or some much needed advice on stuff and i value her insights very much. she's also very mature in their thinking which is what i think sangyeon would appreciate a lot as the leader of a group of 11 (10) other boys who are always constantly on crack.

as for yu, she gives me very gentle and calm vibes seriously. she’s strikes me off as a hard worker from our conversations and she is very dedicated to her writing which i believe sangyeon would love in a person. i can already imagine him just staring at her work, with a look of affection and admiration in his eyes 😆

jacob + @ihearttbz

riane is an absolute angel to talk to and i love our conversations tgt because it’s always so easy to talk to her and i feel like i can tell her a lot of things i normally wouldn’t tell anyone else. she’d pair very well with jacob and just be that couple that everyone loves and adores, the really sweet couple that people just love to hang around with 💞

younghoon + @chaoticdeobi

um was it really going to be anyone else other than bea? XD younghoon as we know is a pretty shy person and bea to me, seems like the opposite of that. in their case, i think the phrase ‘opposite attracts’ is applicable! bea’s enthusiasm and liveliness is something younghoon would definitely find to be very charming, prompting him to come out of his shell very quickly when he’s around her. i believe whatever he lacks, she makes up for it and vice versa

hyunjae + @bobagyu @kpophours

rose is just so random and funny sometimes which is honestly just like hyunjae to a tee, they’re just so like each other in a way! i get the feeling that rose may be a little unsure of herself sometimes ( which she shouldn’t ) and i think hyunjae would be a great fit because he would definitely be able to help her become more confident while she can probably teach him to be a little less tough and be more vulnerable to his own feelings.

anna is an extremely bright and outgoing person from what i can tell from our conversations. i think that would complement well with hyunjae’s loud and larger than life personality and they would a 100% be that couple that everyone just asks to tone it down but secretly love having them around because they’re just so intriguing and fun to have around 💫

juyeon + @jyeonvoir

elsie has these very calm vibes and i’ve mentioned this before but she gives mad older sister vibes as well. she’s gentle and soft, very much like juyeon and ngl i may be just a little intimidated by her at first but after getting to know her, she’s actually super friendly and nice! she and juyeon would make a lovely couple and i can totally imagining them just chilling on a rainy night, watching Netflix while he wraps his arms around her in a warm embrace.

kevin + @2hyunjae​ @mae-gi-writes​

luna imo is pretty quiet for the most part but once you talk to her, she’s actually pretty fun to talk to! she’s also artistically inclined ( also have you seen her calligraphy skills? they’re insanely good omf ) which i think kevin would appreciate a lot as an artist himself! i feel like he can bring her out of her shell and when he does, he’d just be enchanted by her lovely personality and did i just write a fluffy fic prompt?? o.o

mae is JUST. SO. CUTE. my biggest kevin stan out there, you would be a great match for kevin i just know it. your enthusiasm and your meme vibes would complement kevin perfectly! she’s incredibly supportive and lively which is definitely something i think kevin would look out for in a partner. i can 100% see him with someone who’s just like mae in the future 💓

chanhee + @tidalstorm​

something about ros to me screams vogue and classiness and when i think of her, i feel like she’s super bougie? maybe im wrong but that’s how i feel! i get the same vibe around chanhee as well and her really cute personality i feel will mesh well with chanhee’s seemingly harder personality? they’re just very alike to me in terms of vibes!

changmin + @fluffytbz​ @sankyeom​

having talked to rosie, i can tell you that she’s one of the easiest people i’ve talked to on tumblr so far. she’s also such a sweet person and her vibes are really similar to changmin’s come to think of it? lovable but with a tiny hint of shyness? that’s changmin and rosie! i know we always see changmin smiling since that boy basically exudes happiness but i feel like there’s got to be a special kind of smile, the soft kind that speaks volumes of his feelings that he reserves for those he loves and i feel like that person could be rosie. does that make sense?

talking about belle is like talking about a role model to me >< i still fangirl sometimes but that’s beside the point. belle has such warm vibes that changmin would have loved! i feel like he’s not someone who likes to make his feelings know and he’d rather just be happy in front of the camera all the time but i think with belle, he would definitely be able to let his guard down around her. there’s just something about her that wants to make ppl trust her instantly 😋

haknyeon + @atbzkingdom​

dee is an absolute sweetheart which is just what hak needs. she can be level headed and mature when the situation calls for it but she can also have fun and be wild which i think hak would appreciate a lot in a partner! he’s been through a lot so i feel he may need someone who he can feel comfortable around to tell his secrets to and since dee is trustworthy like that, he’d feel at ease around her 😌 

hyunjoon + @tbzwurld​

ok i’ll be honest. i was kind of intimidated by bee when i first started talking to her. there’s something about her that just makes her whole vibe so powerful and just radiate such dominant energy ( not in that way ) but yes, she just seems so cool to me and the vibes she gives off to me is exactly the vibes hyunjoon gives me as well. once you get to know her though, she’s actually so sweet?? and kind?? and amazing?? idk why but to me, she’s what i think would be hyunjoon’s ideal type ✨

sunwoo + @minfuwa​ @jopping-to-my-kpop​​ @mjlkau​

although i haven’t rly talked much to iris ( but i really want to >< iris can we be friends pls ) iris has this sort of charm that i can’t quite put my finger on. it’s a certain type of charm that i associate with sunwoo? like there’s a certain appeal which they both have in common! from our very little interaction ( hopefully we can change that ), i get that she has a vibrant personality that would make everyone just love to flock to her and befriend her. ngl when i think of sunwoo, i think of her sometimes! maybe this is a signal from the universe idk 👀 

yo ok emma is just like super cool ok? idc what tf you have to say, she’s cooler than you and me and everyone else combined. her swag is just out of this world and i think her effortlessly cool persona is something that sunwoo would just be completely enthralled by. she's also a very reliable friend who i am so glad to have gotten to know bc hell, even i’m attracted to her personality so how can sunwoo not be? actually, sunwoo would love her personality! they both exude such badass but soft vibes it’s almost unreal 💙

anie has a very surprising personality imo! my first impression of her was really cute and sweet so imagine my surprise when she reveals that darker side of her >< i really like the duality though ngl and i think sunwoo would too! he’d just be so fascinated by her and just want to get to know her more and as he learns more about her, he’s just going to end up falling deep in love without realising until one day he’s like “fuck, i’m an idiot in love without even noticing it.”

eric + @heartyyjeno​ @lovely-kpop-writer​​

alesha is just a BIG ball of floof and i love her omg she's such a supportive and caring friend, it’s unreal. her enthusiasm to me, is on par with eric and if he’s the energy boy, she’s the energy girl for sure. they’d be that couple that just goes around hyping everyone up and everyone would just LOVE them! i know i would and if anyone disagrees, i’ll fite you >:(

jasmine my love!!! this girl here is just so incredibly lovely just like her url suggests and honestly, she’s one of the ppl who are most significant in my tumblr journey because her love for people is just so heartwarming? she’s always friendly and kind which is what eric would love in his future partner.  jasmine is just so PRECIOUS istg ❣️

#answered #anon #lovely moots #tbz #the boyz #qiu.txt

[livinginsunnyhell]

Ask game for fanfic writers! ⌨️🖊📓📝

1. What fandoms do you write for?

2. What pairings do you write for?

3. What is your most popular fanfic?

4. Do you write original stories as well?

5. What fanfic of yours should everyone have read?

6. What is a fandom you will never write for?

7. What is a ship you will never write for?

8. Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.net, Wattpad, Tumblr, etc. which platform do you prefer?

9. What are your favorite fanfics?

10. How do you stay motivated to finish what you’ve started?

11. What’s your longest fanfic?

12. Do you want to break your readers‘ heart or make them laugh?

13. What is your planning process?

14. What have others criticized about your fanfic?

15. OCs or no OCs?

16. Do you use sentence starters, writing prompts and/or fandom headcanons for your fanfics?

17. Do you use/follow advice from writing blogs/posts?

18. What is your favorite writing prompt?

19. Dead or overused tropes?

20. Can we get a list of all of your current available fanfics?

21. What’s your shortest fanfic?

22. Do you listen to music during your writing process? What music do you listen to while you’re writing?

23. Long chapters or short chapters?

24. How many WIPs (work-in-progress) do you’ve got?

25. How many WIPs will you finish?

26. First-person-narrative or third-person-narrative?

27. Do you take requests?

28. I will name you three things (drunk Ian — shared bachelor party — Gallavich): write a paragraph or two!

29. What’s more difficult? Fanfics or original work?

30. What writing software do you use?

31. Do you use beta/sensitivity readers?

32. Past or present tense?

33. Do friends and family know that you write fanfics?

34. How did you find the magical world of fanfics?

35. What is your favorite review?

36. Did you ever delete a work of yours?

37. Did your work ever get plagiarized?

38. Do you partake in any fanfic/writing events? (Big bangs, zines, NaNoWriMo, etc?)

39. Collaborations or working solo?

40. Do you have any rituals before uploading a fic?

41. What is something you don’t like about your writing?

42. Rudest review?

43. Guilty pleasure tropes and scenarios?

44. Does fanart of your fanfic exist?

45. Do fanfics of your fanfic exist?

46. Few long essay reviews or many short reviews?

47. What fanfic of yours is truly underrated?

48. What is your favorite sentence that you’ve used in a fanfic?

49. Where do you draw inspiration from?

50. Can we get a teaser for an upcoming chapter?

(Don't feel obligated to answer. Thought if you're into these kinda things, that'd be a nice ask. ;))

Oh this is so nice!! Thanks for sending this @annansmith

I chose a few of them to do. 

1. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently, I’m writing for Shameless (Gallavich) but I’ve written for:

Veronica Mars (LoVe), Veep (Amy/Dan), Arrow (Oliver/Felicity), Once Upon A Time (Hook/Emma), The Old Guard (Joe/Nicky), That 70′s show (Hyde/Jackie), Sons of Anarchy (Tara/Jax), Vampire Diaries (Klaroline), Hart of Dixie (Zoe/Wade), Gilmore Girls (Rory/Jess), X-men (Rogue/Pyro), One Tree Hill (Haley/Nathan), and a few others.

2. What pairings do you write for?

Now I write Gallavich. 

But I’d say my top ones I love writing for now (my fanfiction writing has spanned about 14 years) are Dan/Amy, Veronica/Logan, Klaus/Caroline, Mickey/Ian.

3. What is your most popular fanfic?

My most popular fic on Ao3 is The Course of True Love (Arrow) and on FF Of Bloodshed, Babies, and Epic LoVe (Veronica Mars)

4. Do you write original stories as well?

Yes, I do. I’m working on a book, well, two books. But it’s going very slowly. The first is a memoir of my travels from around the world and the second is a vampire urban fantasy one. We’ll see how it goes, but I’d like to finish them by next year and see if I can get them published, but it’s hard so who knows. 

10. How do you stay motivated to finish what you’ve started?

Well, recently I’ve really been trying to finish everything I write. I have a lot of WIPs from years and years ago and even within the the last year, so this answer is pretty new. Basically, I focus on one fic at a time and write a little every day to stay motivated. Now, I try to update once a week on a certain day. I think comments/reviews and kudos and people being genuinely encouraging helps though. It’s also what’s gotten me considering finishing my older fics.

11. What’s your longest fanfic?

Of Bloodshed, Babies, and Epic Love (over 165k)

13. What is your planning process?

Now, it’s different. I have a doc of ideas and I wait to see which one I can’t seem to shake. Then I plan out each chapter with a few sentences and I have a list of things I want to focus on in the story. Usually, each story now has a kind of theme to it and a main focus. I sometimes will just want to write a certain situation/scene/focus and the story is born from there. But what really helps is writing down chapter 1, 2, etc. and having a sentence or two for what I want to happen. It doesn’t always go according to plan, but I never get writers block or forget what happened in previous chapters now.

16. Do you use sentence starters, writing prompts and/or fandom headcanons for your fanfics?

Probably a mixture of fandom (or my personal) headcanons. I don’t start with prompts unless it’s a challenge or sentence starters. Usually, I have a scene I already want to write in my head and then I sit down and write it.

17. Do you use/follow advice from writing blogs/posts?

Yes, I’ve read several books on writing. My undergrad was creative writing too, so I learned a lot there. I also follow writing instagram accounts which are helpful. I take everything I learn with a grain of salt and I see what is best for me. The best advice I heard recently was short sentences and so now I’m experimenting with that.

20. Can we get a list of all of your current available fanfics?

There’s a lot from many different fandoms. I used to be on FF.net as Psyc0gurl0 and now I’m ProstheticLoVe on a03. I like writing on ao3 better cause it’s easier and I love the tagging process. Plus the gallavich fandom on there is unreal. So to think about going back to ff.net to finish my WIPs seems like such a process now. 

Currently though, I’m writing an Ian’s POV 5 chapter fic called Chocolate. It’s not out yet, but it’ll focus on Ian from 1x06 to 1x09 or so and how his feelings for Mickey change and evolve. It’s the second part to a series called Chocolate and Cigarettes. Mickey’s POV was Cigarettes.

22. Do you listen to music during your writing process? What music do you listen to while you’re writing?

Yes, I listen while writing but I need silence while editing. I have a Love (lol) playlist. It’s basically all the love songs that remind me of couples I ship. So for example, The Acid is in there a lot because their music is great, but also Basic Instinct is so haunting. Overall, I like all music except country, so sometimes I’ll listen to my larger playlists while writing. 

23. Long chapters or short chapters?

So this has changed over the years. Initially, I wrote short chapters, then when I got back into fanfiction while writing klaroline they got a lot longer and now it’s just basically where the chapter has a natural ending. So the chapters are between 4 - 10k words depending. I try to get over 4k though. Right now, once I’m done with my current fic, I really want to write something over 100k.

24. How many WIPs (work-in-progress) do you’ve got?

A lot...none in Shameless though. Well, I guess my current one, but I haven’t posted that yet. I’d say I probs have about 10 WIPs spanning different fandoms. I know. But my goal for 2021 is to pick two and finish them. 

25. How many WIPs will you finish?

Not all of them. Some of them are from years and years ago. But I’d like to finish the ones that I still get reviews on. So there’s a SOAs fic I want to finish cause that fandom is so lovely. I also want to finish a klaroline one cause that was fun to write. And my Amy/Dan ones I’d like to finish. I would like to finish my Veronica Mars ones (I have two) but they need a lot more attention, so when people message me about them I tell them the planned ending.

28. I will name you three things (drunk Ian — shared bachelor party — Gallavich): write a paragraph or two!

“Fuck, Mickey, I probably shouldn’t have had the third Hot Toddy,” Ian grimaced as the world around him spun. 

Mickey laughed at him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. Ian wanted to think his future husband just wanted to pull him closer, but he had a feeling it was to steady him.

“Probably should’ve cut you off earlier,” Mickey said tugging Ian closer. 

Ian wobbled and plopped down on the back steps of the porch. Mickey followed suit a moment letter and they both looked out toward the backyard where the Gallaghers, Balls, and a few of the Milkovich cousins were alternatively huddling around a fire, drinking, and dancing.

“I blame Lip for making us have this stupid shared bachelor party in the first place,” Ian grumbled.

Mickey kissed him on the forehead as Ian lay his head on his shoulder. “It’s Sandy’s fault too.”

Ian hmmed in response and Mickey knew he was going to fall asleep any moment. He ran his hand up and down Ian’s arm and watched as Debbie bounced over to them.

“Jesus, you aren’t even married yet and you two are like an old married couple. Are you going to come dance or what?” she whined.

Mickey looked down at Ian, whose eyes were already closed, and then back up to Debbie. She was watching them with knowing eyes.

“We’ll dance at the wedding. Go grab Lip, I need his help to get Sleeping Beauty upstairs.”

Debbie turned to go get her eldest brother and Mickey looked back down at Ian. In his sleep, he nuzzled Mickey’s shoulder, breathed deeply, and a gentle smile appeared there. 

3 more days and they’d officially be husbands. 

34. How did you find the magical world of fanfics?

I was about 10 and my cousin used to write a buffy the vampire slayer zine. There was a link to a site called buffyworld.com or something like that. And I found fanfic that way. There was a link on the site to ff.net and that’s how I stumbled across that. I stayed there for many many years until my second time in the veronica mars fandom around 2014 when I was lead to a03 and then I’ve been there ever since. On and off, my writing has fluctuated through the years based on my personal life.

49. Where do you draw inspiration from?

Everywhere! omg. It’s insane. Gallavich I love writing for. There’s so many different facets to them, but truly everywhere I find inspiration. I have a whole doc of gallavich ideas that have stemmed from other fanfics, headcanons from me and other people, rewatching episodes, what’s going to happen in s11, cute moments i’d like to see happen, holidays, and just general life. I saw a pic of WW2 vets who were in a long term relationship and i was like mickey and ian! another idea is born.  

[stahlop]

Honeymoon in Paris (CSRR) 1/1

Ao3

Look at this amazing artwork @kmomof4 did for this! That picture in the top right corner was the real inspiration for this piece. I knew it had to be really steamy and sexy. So this is basically a CS honeymoon and it’s pretty much a PWP. There’s a little plot, but not a ton. Just lots of smutty fun. So I really hope you like this Krystal!!

This piece is based off canon and in the same universe as my other CSRR piece, Not All Treasure is Silver and Gold (sometimes it's chocolate). While that one was pure fluff, this one is just sex.

Thank you to my betas, @profdanglaisstuff​ and @thisonesatellite​. Honestly, Saira, I don’t know if this piece would’ve been written if it wasn’t for all your help. 

Rated E

Summary: Emma and Killian are on their honeymoon and Emma wants to take things really slow and just enjoy each other.

He’s on her before she can even get the keycard in the slot, nuzzling against her ear, hitting that spot right behind her earlobe that he knows drives her crazy.

 “We are in the hallway of the hotel,” she admonishes him in protest, but he knows she loves it all the same.

 “Then get that door open so I can ravish you, darling,” he says, smiling into her hair. 

 She’s trying to get the keycard to work, she really is, but she can’t concentrate when he’s busy kissing his way down her neck.

 “Killian!” she hisses as he starts moving the neckline of her top aside to kiss her collarbone.

 Finally, after what seems like forever, Emma finally gets the damn keycard to click and opens the door.

 Killian shoves her inside, kicking the door shut behind them, swinging Emma around, and pushing her up against the inside of the door; not even taking the time to see the view of the Eiffel Tower that is supposed to be visible from their hotel suite window. Her breath is coming out in short puffs with the way he’s all over her. He captures her lips with his own in a searing hot kiss, only pulling away to start giving hot, frantic kisses down her neck. The salty taste of her skin on his tongue. He uses his hook to skim down the buttons on her blouse.

 “Do you like this shirt, love?” Killian asks as he bites the junction between her neck and shoulder, quickly soothing it with his tongue. Emma braces her hands on his chest and pushes him back.

 “Whoa, Killian, slow down.” He pouts at this, not happy that she interrupted his ministrations. “I didn’t say stop,” Emma gives him her best seductive smile, “just slow down.” She runs her finger down his still buttoned up shirt, “We’re on our honeymoon.” She unbuttons one button on his waistcoat.  “We’ve spent so much time rushing things because of larger-than-life villains.” There goes another button. “We can actually enjoy the quiet moments.” She says echoing what he used to tell her when they first started dating. He looks down and now all his waistcoat buttons are undone.

 Killian shucks it off, letting the black waistcoat Emma loves drop to the plush carpeted floor. He resumes kissing her and slowly backs her up toward the huge, four-poster, king-sized bed, adorned with rose petals, that is waiting for them. Emma’s knees hit the mattress and she sits. 

 Killian expects her to either start unbuttoning his shirt and play with his chest hair, which she loves to do so much, or unhook her bra so he can play with her, but she does neither. Instead, she starts unbuttoning his pants. 

 “Emma…” Killian whines.  He normally likes to pleasure her first, but she shushes him. She gets the button through the hole and slowly pulls his zipper down.

He’s commando, as usual, so his cock springs out when she lets his pants drop. She cups his asscheeks (like peach fuzz she tells him) as she pulls him forward closer to her face, her breath making his dick twitch in anticipation. Killian can see Emma is practically salivating at his velvety, smooth penis that stands at attention before her. She grasps his erection with both hands making him gasp and gives him a few good pumps before she engulfs him in her hot, wet mouth.

 Killian’s hand goes immediately to her hair, twisting in her golden locks as she slowly bobs up and down his shaft. Emma is alternating using her whole mouth to suck him down and licking him from root to tip. She stops to swirl her tongue just around the tip, sucking it like a lollipop, before taking him in all the way again, deeper than before.

 “Emma…” he groans, the sensations of her wet mouth making that feeling coil in his balls. Emma lets him go with a pop. Killian looks down at her, wondering why in heaven she stopped.

 Emma’s green eyes stare right into his when she says, “Fuck my mouth, Killian.” He didn’t think he could love her any more. And also, when did his wife start to play so dirty in the bedroom? Not that their sex life is boring by any means, but she’s never straight up asked him to do this before. And Emma Swan (Jones) is never shy about what she wants in the bedroom.

 She’s still looking at him expectantly. He puts the tip of his cock right to her lips, smearing the mix of pre-cum and saliva over her lips. “Open up, love.” 

 Emma opens up for him. Killian’s hand is still in her hair and pushes her head forward as she follows his directions. He can feel her throat opening up as pushes back as far as he can, her throat contracting around him. Usually her blow jobs are quick, a means to get him hard fast (not that he needs that much help), because who knows when they’ll get interrupted by a dwarf  or her parents (or, god, that one time Henry almost caught them in her bug). But here, they can just enjoy each other, and maybe that’s why Emma is relinquishing some of her control to him right now.

 The first time she did this for him he was embarrassed. He only ever had women he’d bought suck him off. Even Milah never went down there. It wasn’t considered ladylike. He tried to pull Emma up, claiming she didn’t have to do this, but she wouldn’t have it. Turns out fellatio wasn’t a dirty thing in this realm, and Emma enjoyed it. She enjoyed it a lot. And who was he to deny the woman he loved?

 Killian keeps pushing her head back and forth, relishing the feel of his cock in the tightness of her throat. She takes one of her hands from his ass and brings it down between his legs as she starts slowly massaging his balls and his breath stutters. 

 “Emma...I…” he grunts. He really doesn’t want to spend himself in her mouth, but he can see that is exactly what his minx of a wife wants. Emma starts sucking faster and faster until he cries her name, and his cum explodes down her throat. He continues to fuck her mouth until he is spent, his grip on her hair loosening as he finishes his orgasm. Emma makes sure to lick all the cum off his cock thoroughly before she releases him, giving one final kiss on the tip. 

 Emma looks up at him earnestly, waiting for his reaction. Killian takes his hook and puts it under her chin, tipping her face up even more to him before he comes down in a heat-searing kiss.

 “You are a naughty wife.” Killian says into her ear, and she shivers. “Making me come in your mouth before I’ve barely gotten to touch you.” He takes his hook and starts plucking the buttons off her blouse. “You didn’t answer my question before.” He says kissing his way down her neck, making sure to pay special attention to the hollow of her neck, one of her most sensitive spots.

 “What...I...question?” she sputters rubbing her thighs together. 

 “Do...” pluck 

 “you…” pluck 

 “like…” pluck

  “this…” pluck 

 “shirt…” pluck 

 “love?” 

 He doesn’t wait for an answer though. His hook comes down and rips off the last two buttons.

 “Up on the bed, love” he says as he toes off his socks and shoes, and kicks off his pants which had pooled around his ankles. She throws the ruined shirt off somewhere into the room, now clad in only a lace bra, black leggings, and black flats. She quickly kicks off her shoes before she lays herself back on the outrageous amount of pillows gracing the bed.

 “Now, what to do with you.” Killian smirks as he starts unbuttoning his own shirt and walking towards the side of the bed. “You say you want to take things slow.” He sits down on the edge of the bed, sees Emma’s stomach dip in anticipation, and gets right next to her ear and practically growls, “Well, love, I always did love a challenge.”

 Killian takes his thumb and brings it to her face, tracing the outline of her perfect, pink lips. Emma takes it into her mouth and starts sucking on it and he closes his eyes at the feelings it stirs up in his belly, but he pulls it away, much to Emma’s dismay. “Ah, ah, ah, darling.” He warns and taps her nose, “You already had your fun, it’s my turn now.” He slowly caresses down her cheek, then moves to her neck, feeling her pulse rush as he presses down slightly. Emma gasps at the slight squeeze, her thighs pressing together due to the lack of friction. Killian understands that want, that need, but she insisted on slow, so slow he will go.

Killian’s hand wanders down Emma’s neck into the valley between her breasts which are encased in a black, lace bra. He lowers his head down and starts licking the tops of her breasts visible above the bra. He sees Emma’s nipples straining against the fabric. Well, something needs to be done about that. He continues to lick and suck, leaving the occasional mark while his hand grazes the bare skin right underneath, making its way towards her back. Killian loves this realm’s corsetry. It doesn’t require so much work to get it off, just a simple flick of the fingers, something even he can do easily. 

 He pulls down the cups now that the bra has been undone and starts to suck on a rosy, pert nipple. Emma takes in another breath, her hands now scratching his shoulders. He’s sure there will be little half-moon marks from her fingernails, a cross he’s willing to bear. 

 His hook now joins in, skimming around the other breast and encircling the nipple. Emma breaks out in goosebumps, most likely from her overheated skin and the coolness of his hook. Killian releases her nipple and kisses his way over to the other one. His hook lightly scrapes down her stomach.

 “Killian!” she moans. He knows how much she loves the feel of his hook. He was surprised that his lovely Swan loved the hook play so much. Having used it as a weapon for so many centuries, the idea of using it on Emma, regardless of how much she got off on it, took awhile for him to be comfortable with. But after seeing Emma fall apart on his hook the first time, he couldn’t imagine never using it like that again.

 “Yes, love?” He asks with an air of innocence. His hook now dipping into the waist of her leggings. 

 “I...oh god!” Emma pants as his hook barely brushes her panty-covered clit.

 “Killian will do.” He teases into her breast as he brushes her clit again. 

 He gives her a few more rubs through the fabric before he gets impatient and uses his hook to (slowly) slide her her undergarments down her long, pale legs.

 They are now both completely naked (took long enough, he thinks, usually they’re naked immediately; Emma has even poufed their clothes off before in her rush to get to the good stuff). Killian looks up into his beautiful wife’s face. Her head thrown back, exposing her long, graceful neck. Her bottom lip between her teeth mostly likely stifling a moan. Her eyes squeezed tight in anticipation of what she knows is coming next.

 Killian scoots down toward the edge of the bed, gliding his fingers down her body as he moves. Emma is taking in shallow breaths and he hasn’t even got to the good part yet. He stops slightly to tangle his fingers through the small thatch of hair between her legs. She had been bare the first time they came together, after she returned his heart. A frenzied, rushed encounter that had them both coming in no time at all; not how he’d imagined their first time in any of his musings. He hardly noticed until after they were done and he was pulling out. Emma explained the custom of women shaving down there, but that it was easy enough to grow some back if that’s what he preferred. It was. The bareness down there made him think of the first girl he coupled with, the one he lost his virginity to at the tender age of 16. It had been with a new girl to the house of ill-repute that the sailors on the ship bought for him, telling him that even though he was a slave he needed to ‘become a man’. He knew that she was young, probably too young, and he was pleasantly surprised when the first woman he took to bed once he and Liam joined the King’s Royal Navy had hair down there. It made her seem more experienced and mature; more of a woman than a girl. And Emma is definitely a woman.

 Killian trails his fingers down to her inner thighs and coats his fingers in the slickness between her folds that is soaking the bed. Emma sighs in contentment. He takes his fingers away for just a moment to kneel on the bed, much to Emma’s consternation. Killian grabs her legs and throws them over his shoulders, and then starts kissing his way down them. He is unhurried as he makes his way down. He wants to make her squirm, make her beg, make her cry his name out like a prayer on her lips. 

 She is right. They never get the time to just enjoy each other. Even over the past six months since their defeat of the Black Fairy and winning the Final Battle, she’s been so on edge waiting for that next villain to pop up that it’s still been that rapid race to the finish line without all the other fun stuff. Killian is disheartened that he has rarely gotten to bring Emma over the edge more than once during their couplings. 

 He finally reaches the treasure between Emma’s legs, but he does not use his mouth on her right away. He can hear her frustration from above as she grabs his hair and practically forces his face near the place she wants him most. He laughs as he turns his head and gives a wet kiss right at the intersection between her thighs and her most private of parts.

 “Killian…” Emma moans, tugging his hair in annoyance.

 “Patience, my love.” He says moving his face upward to see hers. “You’re the one that wanted us to... go slow,” he teases, throwing her words back at her. “Now, be a good girl and let me hear what I do to you. Don’t be afraid to really get into it.” He chuckles. He swears he hears Emma whisper “Smug bastard” from above, but then he tongues up her slit, tasting the tangy flavor that is all his wife, and all he gets from her is an illicit moan that goes straight to his groin.

 He continues to lick her, his tongue savoring her essence. Emma is making the most wonderful noises from above him. Killian is torturing her by lazily caressing his hand and hook down her stomach, just barely touching her on the way down. He grazes her sides at the same time he takes the flat of his tongue and presses it against her clit, making her arch off the bed.

 “Killian!” Emma practically screams. He knows this is the moment. Without any of his usual savvy, Killian takes two fingers and enters her sweet cunt while bringing his hook back to her clit for a few swipes. The cool metal against Emma’s heated and swollen flesh is almost too much for her to bear, Killian knows. He also knows that it’s the easiest way to get her off before the main event.

 He continues to alternate between his mouth and his hook on her clit, driving Emma wild. She is making incoherent noises now, and Killian thanks his lucky stars that he’s the only one who can make her feel like this. Killian absolutely loves the way Emma looks when she’s coming undone. And she’s almost there.

 He takes one final turn with his mouth, drawing her clit into his mouth and grazing it with his teeth, while also adding one more finger into her cunt and curving them to massage her sweet spot inside. Emma falls apart with a long moan, legs shaking, hands nearly pulling out his hair, walls clenching around his fingers.

 “Fuck, Killian!” She screams. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

 He brings her down, slowly massaging her inner walls until her breath starts to even out. His erection is back in full force and he feels like he’s never been this hard in his life. He wants to gather Emma in his arms and just fuck with no grace whatsoever. But as much as she may be protesting it now with how keyed up she is, he knows that’s not what he needs to do.

 He trails kisses up her stomach, making sure to dip his tongue into her belly button, a sensitive spot for her, then goes back up to her breasts, making sure to lave attention on the straining nipples,before moving in between her legs, his cock barely brushing against her still sensitive clit.

 Emma lies beneath him, looking every bit the princess that she is. A very naked and flushed princess, but still a princess. Her blonde hair is fanned out on the pillows, giving her an ethereal quality as well. Her eyes are still closed and her head is still slightly thrown back.

 “Killian…” she moans, “Killian, please!” Ahhh, the begging portion has finally begun.

 “Please what, darling?” he asks, kissing his way up her neck.

 “Please!” Emma moans again as she rocks her hips up trying to catch his cock on her clit again. Killian moves slightly up, even though it’s killing him. Emma has been lightly raking her fingernails down his back while he nipped and licked up her body, but now she tries to pull him closer by digging her nails into his back.

 “Patience.” Killian repeats.

 Emma snaps open her eyes and pulls his head up to hers by his hair so that they are now eye level. “Fuck patience!” she says, her emerald eyes practically black. “I swear to God or any of your gods, Killian, if you don’t stop teasing me and get your fucking dick inside my cunt, I will finish up myself and I will not allow you the luxury of getting to watch me do it or letting you relieve yourself!”

 Normally, Killian would laugh at such a declaration, because he knows his wife. He knows she won’t get off quite as hard by her own hand. And he knows it turns her on too much when he watches her pleasure herself. But she is in such a state right now, he really doesn’t want to test her.

 “As you wish.” And that’s all the warning he gives her before quickly taking himself in hand and quickly guiding himself into her warm, tight cunt.

 He’d had plans when she insisted on going slow. He was going to tease her, just put in the tip, shallow thrusts until she couldn’t stand it. Instead, he takes her in one stroke, going all the way to the hilt. He pulls out and thrusts all the way in again. Emma’s breath changes erratically from normal breathing to shallow breaths almost immediately.

 “Is this what you wanted, love?” he growls into her ear. “Fast,” he pulls out again, “and hard?” and slams back into her. Emma does nothing but nod her head and moan again into his ear.

 He could just keep fucking her with no finesse, but it’s their honeymoon. It’s their first time together in any sense without possibility of danger or distraction. He wants to savor this. He wants Emma to savor this. It was her idea to go slow after all. 

 “Open your eyes, love,” he demands; Emma does. She looks at him with questioning eyes before he hits the right spot inside of her and she keens up toward him and closes them again. “Keep them open!” Killian all but commands, “And give me your hands.” He adds as almost an afterthought.

 Emma unclenches her hands from his shoulders and slides them over to his on either side of her head. Killian pulls them out straight on either side of her. Emma quickly adjusts, pulling her legs up higher on his waist and drawing him in closer. The new angle is fantastic for both of them. His balls and cock are so tight he feels as if he’ll explode any moment. Emma is rocking her hips into him, now doing most of the work as Killian can’t thrust as much in this position. But being so close her clit rubs against him easily, and as they are practically eye to eye, Killian can see she is getting close. 

 “Let go, Emma,” he breathes, and that’s all she needs. Her hands tighten around his and her body arches up as Killian feels her heat tighten around him.

 “Killian,” she sobs and it sounds like a prayer on her lips. It’s enough to trigger his own orgasm, his cock pulsing and bathing her inner walls with his come.

 “Emma, Emma, Emma,” he repeats over and over again thrusting in and out of her until he is completely spent. 

 Emma’s legs are no longer around him when he comes back to himself, they lie on either side of him. Her eyes are gazing up at him adoringly and he lets go of her hands, now bracing himself on his elbows and gives her a sweet chaste kiss on the lips before pulling out and rolling onto his back.

 They are both breathing heavily, trying to get their heartbeats to slow down. Emma scooches over from where she is on the bed to snuggle up on his chest, her hand automatically going to his chest hair. She loves to play with his chest hair. The first time she saw him with his bare chest, not just tufts peeking out from his shirts, she pinned him to the bed and rode him like a stallion just so she could keep her hands on his chest the entire time. 

 “Darling,” Killian says, playing with the strands of golden hair that are falling down her back. “As much as I would love to fall asleep with you right here, we should get ourselves cleaned up.” Emma gives a slight grunt in protest, but eventually sits up slightly to look at him. Killian notices that the look on her face is not one of disapproval though, but one of mischievousness. Killian raises an eyebrow in question to her look. She gives a slight laugh, using the hand she had just been rubbing his chest with to graze her thumb against his lips. Then she moves her hand down tracing the scruff on his chin.

 “One of the reasons I booked this room, besides the spectacular view of Paris from our window,” she begins as her hand now moves up to card through his hair, “is because of the large whirlpool tub.” Killian isn’t quite sure what a ‘whirlpool tub is, and Emma must notice the look of non-comprehension on his face. She smiles. God he loves that smile. He still remembers the first genuine smile he ever got from her after he was hit by Greg Mendell’s infernal car. Even though he’d just done the most atrocious thing that Emma had ever personally witnessed (or at least seen the aftermath of) up to that point, the smile she gave him in the hospital gave him hope for something more than flirtation with her. Even if it took him a while to act on it.

 “It’s like a hot spring in a bathtub,” she explains. 

 Emma sits up all the way and extends her hand for him to take. They walk naked over to the bathroom where Killian does indeed see a large tub with little holes all around the inside of it, he assumes for the bubbles to come out to mimic a hot spring. Emma leaves him briefly to turn on the water, testing it to get the right temperature before flicking the lever to plug the bath. He notices the plenty of bubble solutions, fragrance oils, candles, a bottle of champagne (in a half melted ice bucket) with glasses, and even a bowl of rose petals sitting on the edge of the tub.

 “They go all out, don’t they?” Killian asks impressed. 

 “It’s Paris, the City of Love.” Emma shrugs. She turns toward him and presses kisses under his chin. It goes straight to his cock, which starts stirring again.

 “You can’t possibly be ready to go again already, Swan?” He groans as she starts nibbling on his earlobe. Killian feels her laugh against his neck sending chills down his spine.

 “Let’s just relax in the tub and see where it takes us,” she says climbing into the tub, which is now half filled.

 Killian follows her, relishing the feel of the steaming water on his muscles. Emma grabs the champagne, pops the cork, and fills the two glasses.  Once the tub is filled, she turns off the water, throws some of the petals into it, lights the candles, and hands Killian a glass of the champagne. She holds her own out in front of her and he follows.

 “To our honeymoon,” she says, looking straight into his eyes.

 “Aye love, to our honeymoon.” They clink glasses and then both practically chug the sweet carbonated liquid before quickly placing them back on the edge and attacking each others lips.

 Seems like their next coupling won’t be nearly as slow as the first.

Please leave comments and reblog! Also, let me know if you want to be tagged in future stories

@profdanglaisstuff @thisonesatellite @mariakov81 @hollyethecurious @winterbaby89 @jennjenn615 @kmomof4​ @superchocovian​ @lfh1226-linda​ @ilovemesomekillianjones​ @csrolereversal​

#Captain Swan #captain swan ff #cs smut #pwp #cs role reversal #kmomof4 #ouat canon divergence #cs honeymoon

[worldoftom]

Party Foul! - 2/3

words: 8k

verse: More Than This – year one

pairing: model actor Tom x fem reader

warnings: clichés, a pool, family games, lots of OCs, language

summary: the summer is almost over and Tom throws a pool party. He just never thought you’d turn him into the running joke of the day.

Party Foul! masterpost | part 1 | part 2 | part 3

•

Among tactical shouts and playful swirls in the water, Tom thinks he’s got another success in the bag because his team scores three to none before the first break. He wants to tease you when you gather your team, wants to tell you that maybe you should just be the goalie, that he’d go easy on you and let you block his shots, but he can feel Noah’s eyes boring into him, so he remains quiet.

During the second period, it’s when his brother scores a goal against him that Tom realizes he’s been betrayed. “Danny! What are you doing?”

“What?” Danny turns to him all innocent.

“You’re supposed to be on my team!”

Danny just laughs and high-fives you. Tom sees red. He’s basically playing with one less team member, but he manages just fine. He decides to invest in the loyal members of his team, and they may not score a lot but at least the kids are laughing and Tom is having the time of his life. He just has to win this one way or the other.

Third period starts and the game turns. Tom nearly loses it when your team scores for the fourth time in a row, hand hurling across the surface of the water angrily. Fuck, fuck. He bites his bottom lip, teeth gritted, to keep it in for the sake of everybody else who isn’t in the middle of this ego battle, but he sees through slitted eyes that you’re watching him. You know exactly what you’re doing, swimming backwards with your eyes on his, a haughty smirk shifting between your mouth and your eyes.

You’re a force of nature and a skilled swimmer, gliding through the water as if you’re part fish. No wonder you were so cocky before.

Yet Tom also notices your incredibly awesome skills at cheating. You keep distracting his team members, either elbowing them before they catch the ball or splashing them with a massive grin, and once you even pull on poor Emma’s legs beneath the waterline.

“You’re funny, I like you,” Emma tells you, still all gigglish, after you’re both back to the surface.

“Thank you, sweetheart.”

Tom should be happy that his family gets along with you, but he didn’t expect them to be so charmed so quickly. They’ll probably be turning on him soon, too.

The last interval kicks in and your team’s winning by two goals. Tom can’t believe his luck. You’re actually winning. So he gathers up his team for one final opportunity to strategize. Since this is the last time and technically three goals in one period isn’t far-fetched, he has a whole speech about team spirit, not letting them score and causing the right distractions.

“Most importantly,” he concludes, looking over his shoulder to find your team gathered round as well. You’re half in the shadow, half under the fading sunlight, gesturing softly with droplets of water glistening all over as your muscles shift with every movement. Your eyes meet his for a second, but he’s quick to turn his head and focus back on his team. “Most importantly, pay attention to any cheating moves from them, especially my fellow team captain over there.”

“We’ve got this, Tommo,” Emma reassures him.

“I’ve got the left wing,” Todd says. He’ll end up covering Eli and Oliver, who usually play nice so Tom isn’t worried. Everybody has a strategic position, everybody has instructions, so things should progress in their favour.

“Good. Let’s go win this,” Tom concludes.

“What about me?” Danny asks. Oh, now he wants back on the team.

“You, Danny,” Tom taunts him with a scoff. “You’re a little traitor, but we need to score, so you cover the right wing and pay attention to any rebounds because Noah’s been shooting from that position, got it?”

“Got it,” his brother says with a nod. Despite Tom’s harsh tone, he seems content to come back and help.

Still, Tom’s been burned, so he stresses, “And this time, don’t score for their team. You know I need to win this.”

“We–” he corrects himself immediately. “We need to win this.” Danny nods again, rolling his eyes, either copying your gestures already or just mocking Tom. Whichever the case, Tom squints his eyes at him for a second, but orders the team to get back to the game.

As they settle into position, Tom feels eyes on him for some reason. In the pool, everybody is getting into focus, and your nose gets all wrinkled when Todd and Emma splash you with their feet. Then in the garden, the twins and Eleanor are watching intently from the chairs. Tom’s mother and aunt seem to be engrossed in conversation, but he can also feel their hawk eyes on the pool after a while. He’s probably been under everyone’s close scrutiny the whole game.

“You all right?” Noah asks him as they both paddle to the centre of the group.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“It’s not going so well, huh, buddy?” Noah grins and pats Tom on his shoulder, possibly harder than he needed to, making Tom respond with a strike of his elbow to his right side.

“I honestly wasn’t expecting this to be so hard,” Tom replies with half of a laugh, but he hasn’t lost hope yet. He needs to be even more fierce, perhaps a bit merciless, but he’s not leaving this pool a loser. He can’t.

“Got yourself a new rival,” Noah observes, snickering. It used to be him, even though they’ve never gone to such an extreme level of rivalry. Mostly it was a joke to see who would score the most goals in a row and block the most of the other’s shots, which led to a lot of laughter whenever they played. Today, however, today all Tom can feel is the tension and pressure of having to win over you and your team. Nothing more.

“Yeah,” Tom agrees, shifting his eyes towards you just one more time. You’re whispering to his uncle and aunt like you’re up to something. “It seems that way. She’s ridiculously good.”

Fourth period starts with laughs all around, which feels great. They’re playing around more this time, pushing and shoving at each other in a friendly way, but it’s still pretty much a game. You score once and help one of Tom’s cousins score another for your team, and then you’re all over Tom’s case, blocking every single one of his shots. It just pisses him off. He tries a fourth one, but you jump and punch the ball out of his hand, straight onto the grass, and he loses it.

“You stinker...” Tom scolds you, trying his hardest not to swear, pushing both hands on your shoulders to force your messy-haired head beneath the surface. Yet you’re faster than him, more slippery than him, and cleave the water with your arms and feet, fighting against him as you dive. He can feel you swimming between his legs, but when he tries to kick you, you’re gone. Then you tug on his shorts like you’re trying to pull them down, and Tom has to swim in the opposite direction.

You’re always quite the trickster around him, always winning, beating him at any chance you have. He has no idea how you manage that, but ever since you waltzed into his life, he’s been scoring loss after loss after vexing loss.

“That was really low. Even for you,” he jokes when you come back up, adjusting his shorts to make sure they stay on.

You only shrug, but you do it in that way that he used to think was only his. You shrug with your shoulders and arms, your hands beside your face with the palms up, eyebrows raised and the single, most condescending look on your face. Like the emoji. And like him.

“Too bad.”

You even use the words he always says when he gives someone the Shrug. And he both hates and loves you for it. He hates you because you’re being a little shit again and loves you because you’re mirroring his signature shrug, knowing it will piss him off.

There’s snickering behind him, probably from Eleanor and the twins, and Noah is also laughing as he retrieves the ball from the grass, but then he gets everyone’s head back in the game instead. Tom still manages to score, Danny too, and they’re trying to get Emma in on the action, Rick carrying her to swim to the goal faster while the rest of the team tackles anyone that gets in their way, but Eleanor whistles around two fingers before they succeed.

Which means the game’s over and Tom officially lost.

He throws his head back, the heels of his hands digging into his eyes, wishing this moment away, and groans angrily.

He’s never going to hear the end of it.

Damn.

The group gets out of the pool because the sky is turning indigo and the kids must be tired, except they’re totally not. Your team is obviously celebrating, but even Danny is gleaming up at you, hugging your waist and saying you’re the best, when he technically should be on Tom’s side.

He feels slightly unhinged, slack-jawed, a sense of loss eating him up. He’s generally not like this, but with you it drives him mad. You set ablaze a side of him that is competitive and ambitious, but right now you’re just being a tease, striding across the garden with victorious steps. He’s not proud to be a sore loser, but you shouldn’t be such a sore winner. 

He’s learned to cope with the inevitable and failure when he was much younger, so he’s not angry right now, not even embarrassed per se. There’s not a cell in him that wants to be elevated to hero of the day, but it would be nice to not have promised so much and accomplished so little. That part is his fault, for sure, but he blames it on how incredibly addictive it is to bicker with you.

Smiling to himself, thinking of all the gracious quarrels you’ve had over the past months, like the hilarious cooking contests at your place or the drunken naked card games at his, he lifts his head high and follows the group.

The kids orbit towards the back porch to dry off while Tom, you and Noah gravitate to the sun loungers, where there are towels awaiting. Tom plops down on a chair with a huff and runs his hands through his hair to rid it of the extra water. He hates losing, and he definitely hates losing to you.

“Man, I hope you score better than that in bed,” Mason badgers, making you laugh your open-mouthed laugh again. Tom doesn’t need to look to know that.

“Didn’t you say you were going to leave, Mason?”

“I wouldn’t have missed that for the world, mate.”

“Yeah, work can wait,” Eleanor agrees. It sounds like she high-fives someone, probably you, because you’re her dear best-at-cheating bestest friend, but Tom doesn’t turn his head to confirm. He can imagine the glow of triumph that must be swarming in your eyes and that serves him just fine. “You should look at yourself right now.”

He gives them the finger without moving from the chair.

“Tom, the kids!” You chastise him, making everybody laugh.

“Oh, like you care about the kids.” He puffs back at you, but laughs at how ridiculous he must look to his family and friends right now. Years and years of bragging about water polo gone to waste in one single day. You basically annulled any chance he has of boasting about this in the future. You might even have put an end to the playing of this game around here.

And the worst is that he just can’t stop grinning now, just from thinking about this. He tries to, he really does, but it’s impossible not to feel elated after a half-hour-long teasing game against you.

There’s something particularly exciting about pestering you because you get so creative in your comebacks. It hardly even matters that today’s events are going to become a joke among his friends. You’ll keep on teasing Tom, he will keep on teasing you, and the mood will probably never die down between the two of you for as long as you remember what happened.

“Stop talking back to me,” you say. Tom looks up as he sits sideways on the chair. You’re beaming down at him, a wavering ray of light reflecting the setting sun, and his grin finally fades. “You’re just mad I kicked your ass, Mr. I Could Play With Weights On My Feet.”

“You spent the whole game cheating,” he argues, pointing an accusing finger at you. Your only response is a loud laugh. “How’s that not a bad example for the kids?”

“Listen to them, talking about the kids,” Rachel comments, producing chuckles from the whole group, Tom himself included. He’s ready to say something about how you totally disrespected him by winning at his game in his own turf, but he barely has time to take a breath in.

“Maybe you should have put Noah on your team.” Your voice sounds deeper as you prance closer to grab a towel from the chair next to his. “I mean, that was embarrassing.”

With eyes sparkling with playful malice, you let your grin grow impossibly wide. Tom can only think about kissing it away. Except kissing you now would be admitting defeat and he would never, so he rubs his lips together swiftly and lets you have this moment for now. He’ll get his kisses and his revenge later on.

“Face it, Tom.” Tom’s head snaps in Eleanor’s direction. “You’ve met your match.”

“You’re going to have to up your game now, man,” Noah adds and clears his throat lightly, although he doesn’t even bother to pass it off as a real cough. 

When Tom turns to him, he’s folding his own towel with slow movements and that stupid, unimpressed tight-lipped smile on his face that he always uses to nag Tom about staring at you. His role as the best friend gives him certain benefits, but Tom really hates when he gets all smug like this.

He sends his friend a blazing look and tells him to shut up with a clear-cut twist of his brow. Noah responds using the very same method, his lean, curved eyebrows arched and self-righteously angled, screaming I know what you’re doing at Tom. Not bothering to read too much into it, Tom turns his attention elsewhere.

The silence that falls among them unveils the happy chirping of the birds resting on the garden trees, a couple of them sipping water from the pool before flying off and disappearing into the horizon.

After drying himself off just enough to put his shirt back on, Tom ends up watching you again without even wanting to.

Your body is arched to the side and you’re towelling off your hair, still chuckling to yourself. This is such a natural look on you, hair dripping on the grass, but it doesn’t stop being bewitching. 

You catch him looking when you straighten back up, so he makes a stupid face just to check your reaction. The first thing he notices is your nose scrunching up at the top, the second is your little laugh, and finally the sun that’s setting in the horizon and hits your skin in a way that makes it glow beautifully.

You draw the towel around your shoulders in a graceful movement but make him lose focus when you say, “So, same time next week?”

“Deal,” he replies, decided to join in on your joke. The fact that he ignores another one of Noah’s looks is purely intentional right now. He then gets up and strides past you, saying, “I’m sure your beginner’s luck will have run out by then, anyway.”

He thinks you’ll give it a rest after that, but you kick his ass playfully instead, so he stomps past yet another of Noah’s annoying looks and grabs you by the hips, dragging you towards the pool. You yelp and try to squirm out of his grip, and totally bite into his shoulder, but Tom pushes you into the water with a splash as big as your gloating.

When he turns back around to face his friends, the grin on his face is completely different. It’s just pure pride.

Noah is no longer looking at him but at Eleanor, who shakes her head when he says something that resembles the word ’subtle’. Tom can’t be sure of what it is since it’s pretty much drowned out by your protests coming from the pool.

“This is not over!”

“Just shut up already. It’s pretty clear I’ve won this one,” he protests back, saying it over his shoulder, not giving you the satisfaction of turning to face you as he goes back to his chair.

Noah and Eleanor share another short look, his eyebrows unreadable this time, hers all apprehensive, but Tom only grabs the towel and throws it over his shoulder, asking, “Dinner, anyone?”

-

The mood dies down after a while, but Tom’s cheeks still hurt from all the grinning. Apart from his loss, it ended up being a spectacular afternoon with his people and a wonderful way to end a frustrating summer.

By now, Eleanor and the twins have already left, Danny and their cousins are sitting at the table munching on homemade veggie sticks with both uncles and Aunt Lily sitting close-by. Aunt Meryl is probably in the kitchen with Tom’s mother because the two extreme food enthusiasts always insist on being the designated cooks.

Tom and Noah are in charge of the grill, alongside Dylan and you, him talking about going to visit his mother soon, you munching loudly on half a carrot and looking through your phone. You excuse yourself to the bathroom and Dylan follows right after saying he’s grabbing more beer. As for Tom, he gnaws on his bottom lip and closes his eyes really tight to, one, stop his head from moving in the direction that you’re going, and two, hope that Noah didn’t catch on to that. But it’s Noah anyway, he catches on to everything.

“Now that we’re alone,” he says, proving Tom right. He hums and looks up, waiting for the rest of it. “You guys weren’t being very subtle before, you know that, right?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, nothing, just the pool, the game, that obsession you had about beating her.”

Tiny drops of sweat sprout on the back of Tom’s neck and he wipes at them with one hand. It’s impossible not to feel Noah’s glare on him. Tom looks at his best friend and finds those relentless greyish eyes piercing into his, a gaze too hot even for the start of a breezy evening. He turns back to the grill and the fizzling meat and vegetables, refusing to let it bother him.

“It was just a joke, Noah.” Tom sighs.

He doesn’t want to make a big deal out of this, but he also knows his friend. Everything is a big fucking deal and everything has a big fucking agenda. It doesn’t matter if what happened earlier in the pool was just a game between two very competitive friends, or if things were always like that between you and him, taunting each other back and forth, sometimes for hours. To Noah, it has to have a secret meaning behind it.

“Come on, get serious with me. She’s had you wrapped around her finger for months now,” Noah insists. He’s been playing this there’s something going on card after Tom came back from filming in late August. He spent two months and a half away from home and it was a mess in more ways than one, but why is it so hard for Noah to understand that there’s nothing else going on?

“No, she hasn’t. I...” Tom trails off, not really knowing what to say. They’ve pretty much been going in circles around this subject ever since Noah put in that thick head of his that there has to be something between you and Tom. “We’re not in school anymore, mate.”

“We’re not? What about the whole thrash talk thing? Like I said. Not subtle.”

“I’ve told you this a thousand times already,” Tom reiterates. “We’re just friends and that’s how things are always going to be.”

“Just friends?” Tom nods in response, flipping a few more vegetables to stop himself from thinking any further into Noah’s words. “And are you sure you’re not pining for just a little more than that?”

“Yeah. Friends. Having fun. No pining. None ever.” Tom really spells it out for Noah this time. Hopefully it will work and he stops insisting on this matter.

“I find it really hard to believe, but all right.”

“Why is it so hard to believe? You don’t think I can be friends with her?”

“No, you can. You absolutely can, and I love her, too, but I just,” Noah hesitates. “I don’t know. You guys are always together, and you have insane chemistry, but I’ve noticed other stuff, too. All the little sex jokes you’ve got going on, and the smiles, the staring?”

“I—”

“Really, Tom?” Noah stresses when Tom opens his mouth to protest. “You stare. A lot.” Tom’s mouth closes of its own accord because he’s been caught staring so often, no matter how many times he denied it, that he for once can’t run away from this. “So forgive me for thinking that there would be something more by now.”

Well, maybe he can’t avoid that Noah picks up on his staring, but things haven’t changed that much between you and him. Maybe you used to be the person he hooked up with when he went clubbing with his friends. Maybe he missed you like crazy when he was away filming, and maybe you’ve been spending a lot more time round his house since he came back. Maybe now you’re in his childhood home with his family, learning stories about his childhood and making him lose face in front of everyone, but friendship is all there is to it. You’re just really good friends. Two friends who have a benefits deal that works out pretty well for both parts.

“Well, don’t worry. There’s absolutely nothing going on, so you can rest your case.” Tom tries to be assertive, but Noah’s gaze is flaming into his eyes. This whole repetition exercise outside of work is really getting under Tom’s skin, and not in a good way. “Do we have to talk about this every. Single. Time?”

“Are you guys talking about her again?” Dylan comes up from behind them, interrupting Noah as he’s about to speak. He brings two bottles of beer in one hand, held by the neck. His tone is sheer mock, but he doesn’t even try to hide it as he takes a sip from a third bottle he’s holding in his other hand.

“Who else?” Noah pokes the food absentmindedly with a grilling fork. Tom watches him for a brief second, noting the hesitation in his expression.

“Still insisting there’s nothing going on, huh?” Dylan asks, chuckling. Noah shrugs mindlessly and grabs a beer, tilting the top of the bottle towards Tom in a small salute. This can be a peace offering or a temporary truce gesture, but Tom wouldn’t vouch for either of those options being true.

“You guys are awfully invested in this subject,” he comments, grabbing the other bottle from Dylan’s hand.

The three bottles clink horribly loud in the second’s silence that surrounds them as they toast, and it rings in Tom’s mind in a neverending echo.

“Because we worry.”

“You worry about what, Dylan?” Tom interjects to stop the loop in his head. He doesn’t understand this need to pair him up with anyone and rolls his eyes so hard it actually hurts. “I’m not like you. I’m very happy you guys are together, but you know being in a relationship is not for me.”

“Well, it used to be,” Noah comments, blinking at the same time at Dylan, and Tom has never felt so uneasy around his friends.

“Yeah, and look where it got me.” He pauses, refusing to dwell on the whole thing he has against falling in love with people. It never did him any good, and he’s more than convinced to give it a few years before he goes looking for any more potential heartache.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he says. And it’s just in time because the food is about done and your unmistakable laugh fills the garden as you come out of the house with his mother and his aunt.

-

After dinner, since there’s enough pairs of hands helping out with the post-meal tidying-up, Tom steps back outside into the garden. He needs to take a deep breath and get his mind off of the only thing he could think about while everybody was enjoying themselves and the food.

The conversation he had earlier with Noah replays once more in his head as he strolls past his mother’s flowerbeds. It was only one in many that they’ve had over the last few weeks, but something about this one bothered him a lot more. Most likely because it usually ends with a stupid joke and this time it ended on such a low note.

He moves past the grill as fast as he can, still smelling the burn of fire and discomfort and never forgetting how his supposed best friends practically ganged up on him about a girl.

You really have been one of the greatest friends he’s had, but also one of the most problematic. It’s not even your fault. It’s Tom’s friends’, who can’t get over the fact that whatever chemistry that exists between the two of you is never going to drift into romance.

It’s true that things always progressed quickly, week after week of flirting and unplanned booty calls, from strangers to hookups to close friends at a thousand miles an hour, but it never went past that.

Your relationship is rather simple. You hang out, you make each other laugh, you have sex. That’s it. Of course you talk about serious issues, like when you told him about your dad’s health issues or when Tom confided in you about how he truly felt about working with his ex on his last film. He didn’t even tell Noah everything, knowing he would worry about it needlessly whereas you only listened and actually gave him good advice.

And besides, Tom has a rule. He doesn’t fall in love first anymore. You are no exception.

“Just stop thinking about it,” he orders himself in a whisper, sitting down on the edge of one of the lounger chairs by the pool with his head bent and his elbows on his knees, cracking his fingers by pressing on them with his thumb over and over again. He can all but hear his mother’s voice scolding him about it since he started doing it as a teen, but it helps him relax, which is exactly what he needs right now.

To relax and not think about you, Noah, Dylan, or anyone for that matter. Yet his mind keeps bringing up memories of what happened earlier in this same area of the garden. His two good friends wishing each other good luck with a chaste kiss before the water polo game started, his family and friends hanging out together amidst playful yelling, you blocking his goal shots, you chastising him underwater, you swimming around with grace. Basically, you doing every other thing that you did that afternoon whether it irked him or delighted him.

With a groan, Tom digs the heels of both hands into his eyes and wishes the thoughts away. When he looks back up and finds his reflection in the pool water, the crooked image that stares back at him never felt so accurate.

Since he’s here and evidently needs to clear out his mind, he figures that he might as well do something useful. He won’t be coming home for another two weeks due to work, Danny is going to spend most of next week with his father, and their mother never uses the pool when she’s alone, so he chooses to be helpful and push the cover over it.

As he gets up, though, the sneaky sound of steps on grass creeps up on his right. He turns his head around and finds none other than you approaching him.

“Whaaat are you doing?” he asks immediately and something in his brain flatlines. All the images fade away and the only thing that’s left is darkness as he takes in the bright glow of your eyes when you smile innocently at him. 

“Nothing, I think I left my phone here,” you clarify moving even closer. Yet Tom has a hard time believing a single word you say, wondering if this is purely coincidental and trying his hardest not to let you seep through his thoughts like you always do.

“Don’t you dare come any closer,” he threatens playfully, stepping forwards but realising he’s now closer to the pool and if you’re planning something, that’s a riskier spot, so he takes a few more steps to the right, further closer to the house. Just in case.

“I’m not doing anything!” you exclaim with a little chuckle, browsing for your phone around the chairs. Tom shakes his head at you and takes a quick look through the garden. There’s not a single soul in sight, which means that if something happens, he won’t have any witnesses.

There’s a sound, a muffled thud that he can’t place, and he turns back to you. You’re now crouched down beside a chair and reaching one hand under it. Then you say, “See? I left my phone here.”

“You just took it out of your pocket, didn’t you?” he teases, squinting at you although it’s mostly for effect.

“That’s nonsense.” You shrug and roll your eyes at him, pointing at the pool before you focus back on reaching under the chair. “What are you doing? You all right?”

“’M fine. Just covering the pool so my mum doesn’t have to,” he explains, turning towards the water since you aren’t close enough to pull anything on him now.

The ball they used for the game is still floating around and there’s a couple of Pilot’s toys in it, too. He moves to the small shed in the back of the garden to get a rake so he can collect the toys and get it over with, but keeps one eye on you the whole time. It can’t be a coincidence that you came out here when you were one of the people helping out in the kitchen.

Rake in hand, Tom closes the shed’s small wooden door and finds you still standing by the chairs as you look through your phone. And before his brain shuts down at the sight of you with the soft glare lighting up your face, even if you insist on keeping the brightness to a minimum and have to squint at the screen, he walks towards the pool.

“You need help with that?” you offer, pressing the side button on the phone and throwing it onto a chair.

“No, thanks.” Tom almost spells it out, imagining a million different scenarios of you catching him off guard.

You chuckle. “Wow, you really think I’m going to do something to you, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah.”

As always, you try to be sneaky, but the sound of your steps on the grass is unmistakable in the silence, not to mention that your voice keeps sounding closer as you say, “Yeah, I really hate to be this—”

Tom drops the rake and twirls to one side just as you’re about to shove him into the pool, which ends up in you losing your balance and falling in, but the devious little shit that you are is agile and fast, and somehow you manage to turn your back to the pool, grab his hand and pull him down with you.

He curses loudly but is cut off when the side of his face hits the water. His brain shuts down again because of you, of course, only this time he sees nothing but red and vengeance behind his eyelids during the few seconds he takes to get back to the surface.

You’re nowhere to be seen, but your hands wrap around his hips. Tom can’t be sure if he starts shivering from the rage or from your touch. Probably both, probably a rate of seventy-five to twenty-five in favour of your hand cradling his hip bone as you crawl up his back.

“Gotcha,” you mutter in his ear.

“You’re so fucking cliché.” Tom scoffs and hears you laughing as he now swims to gather the toys that are still in the pool. He would have liked to do this without getting wet, or simply without being a victim of your antics, but alas his life is much less monotonous ever since you came along.

“Well, everybody loves a good cliché,” you point out as Tom throws the toys up on the edge of the pool.

He’s about to open his mouth and tell you how ridiculous that is when you paddle closer to him and wrap your arms around his torso again. “Truth is, there’s something I’ve been dying to do all day.”

You then twirl him around and drop a small kiss on his lips, barely brushing them but galvanising every fiber in him. There’s no hesitation in him when he pulls you closer, hands roaming the back of your tank top. He doesn’t press your bodies together, just wanting to feel you right there, that magnetic energy radiating off of you, collecting your soft lips with his like teenagers.

A hum low in your throat whirls wind inside Tom’s belly and makes him pull away from you in a second. This isn’t why he came out here. He was supposed to not trigger this type of feeling, but by the mere nearness of your face, by your earnest eyes and that simper he’s never really seen in you, everything inside him twists again.

“We should, uh,” he stutters, unable to avert his eyes from your scrunched-up mouth. It’s just so pretty.

“Yeah, you should get back to your party,” you agree, gliding to his right and gripping the edge of the pool to hitch yourself up. “What kind of guest am I, keeping the host preoccupied?”

You’re talking fast and almost mumbling every word, and your faltering voice implies that you don’t want to leave, so Tom grabs the hem of your shorts and pulls you back down into the water. You sink up to your chest and when you turn to face him, the soaked fabric of your top reveals the inward shape of your bra and your beautiful cleavage, but Tom forces his eyes away. They breeze shut instead since you’re close enough for him to find your mouth without even looking.

“Just one more,” he mumbles into your lips, hearing you giggle but also feeling it through your quivering chest.

The world converges into a deserted bubble as you move in sync with him, all other beings gone with a clash of lips. His hand flies automatically to your shoulder blade, finger pads leaving pressure marks on you, and he’s eager, boiling, opening his mouth and his soul under your supreme touch.

“Guys, what the hell,” a voice says somewhere, crashing the mood. Tom is quick to stop the kiss, hand flowing down to your waist for a small caress before he lets go completely. You both turn your heads and find Noah by the door to the back porch. “There’s kids in the house.”

“It’s all his fault, Noah!” you exclaim, snickering, always too fast for Tom. You wrap your hands around the edge of the pool to push yourself off the water, adding, “He pushed me back in.”

“Lies!” Tom hisses.

His sense of retribution kicks back in and he pushes hard on the hem of your shorts again, no playing around this time. You fall into the water backwards with a yelp, your face an image of pure shock during the split second he’s able to see it before you plunge under the surface.

“Very subtle, Tom,” Noah says, walking away without giving Tom time to react, but he doesn’t really care anymore. Nobody has the right to judge your friendship when everything comes out of him so naturally when he’s with you.

The water ripples slowly and Tom’s fingers eddy through the small waves as you twirl around him underwater. He’s quick enough to stop your hands that crawl up his thighs from reaching the hem of his shorts because you’re definitely going to try and tug them down like before.

Tom laughs and shakes his head at all your clichés, grabbing you by the shoulders so that your head breaks the waterline again.

“You’ve to stop or we’ll be here all night,” he warns, watching you grin and undo the bun on the top of your head.

“Okay,” you concur but your eyes gleam and spell trouble, so Tom backs away from you until there’s enough distance that he can see you coming if you try anything else.

“You don’t have to swim away from me, what the hell,” you chortle, moving towards the edge again.

You both finally make it out of the pool and Tom accepts your help to cover it as he initially planned, both still dripping onto the garden.

“How about you stop wasting water and go do that on my mum’s plants?” he taunts you when you squeeze your hair to remove the extra water, but you only roll your eyes at him. You’re still silent and worrying about your hair, but Tom sees your focused expression, brow furrowed, teeth grinding, as you think of another one of your quick remarks.

Yet you don’t have time to say it before his mother comes through the door.

“Tom, what’s taking you so long? Everyone’s waiting—” She stops in her tracks and cuts herself off when she sees you, her eyes going up and down your figure before turning to Tom. “What happened to you two?”

“He did it.”

“She did it,” Tom starts, noticing how you speak at the same time. “Don’t lie to my mum! Do you want me to kick you out and make you go home drenched like that?”

“Do you? Because I could.”

“No way,” says his mother, either not realising you’re just joking or decidedly ignoring it so that you both stop. “Come on, I’m sure I have something that will fit you.”

“She doesn’t deserve it, Mum,” Tom protests, following you when you start walking towards the door, a thanks falling off your lips towards his mother.

She towers over you when she passes by and taps your shoulder apologetically before turning to Tom and showing him her best censuring stare. “Be nice to your guests and go put on something dry, you big grouch.”

Tom gapes at his own mother, feeling the frown growing atop his brow. He’s used to people defending you over him just for the kick of it, but he never expected his own mother to do it so shamelessly.

“Why is everybody turning against me today?” he complains, stomping into the back porch.

His mother stops you in front of the armoire that holds the clean towels, an old piece of furniture Tom wanted to throw away but she insisted they should renovate it instead. So now it sits here, a pool party aid, with no doors and a bunch of shelves holding, on one side, small toys, and on the other side, a large number of towels of all kinds, shapes and colours.

She hands you one and says, “Here you go, dear. Meet me upstairs,” before turning away and disappearing up the staircase that leads to the bedrooms.

“Hey!” Tom protests yet again, his mother ignoring him completely while you chuckle beside him. “What are you laughing at?”

“Nothing, nothing,” you feign innocence, starting to tap your legs and arms with a fluffy burgundy towel. “I just… can imagine how many people you’ve thrown into that pool to make your mother not believe in you anymore.”

“Just shut up.” Tom huffs and decides to let it go, grabbing a towel for himself.

Minutes later, in his third pair of shorts of the day, Tom walks through the family room to find everybody sitting at the dining table playing cards. It was his mother who suggested they should do something after dinner, never ready to stop being the host until every guest is exhausted.

Tom figures he could use this group activity to redeem himself from the whole water polo shenanigans and maybe earn back the respect of his relatives. Although it might not be easy considering how much and how fast they’ve taken to you.

Since they’re in the middle of a round, he takes a short trip to the bathroom and, when he goes back, the obvious sound of chatter and laughter dulls as soon as he spots you coming down the main staircase, in a pair of his mother’s flower-patterned cuffed trousers and a grey t-shirt that looks very familiar.

“Is that mine?” Tom can’t help but smile up at you, the noise from the other room slowly filtering back through his ears.

“Yeah,” you say, dragging the vowels as your eyes roll just a bit. You climb down the last step and continue, “Everything else your mother tried was a little baggy, so.”

“Which explains the pants, too,” Tom mocks, pointing at the way the fabric is severely pooled around your ankles. Considering that his mother is taller than the two of you, it makes sense.

“Anyway, guess you’re one of us, now,” he jokes teasingly. You roll your eyes again and keep walking towards the dining room, smacking his shoulder rebelliously on your way past him, in a silent remark. That’s rather unusual for you, but if you’re letting him win this time, he slaps you back on your shoulder. And your bum.

It’s strange that you only snicker in response, turning your head to look at him, but then your shoulder curves upward like a smirk as you claim, “Come on, let’s go play so I can beat you at card games, too.”

-

“Thank you for coming today, it was fun.”

You step out into the street and even though there’s barely any moonlight in the sky, your face seems to shine when you turn to say something back. Tom is pretty sure it’s because he was the running joke of the day. The fact that he didn’t win a single hand in the whole two hours the group spent playing cards only intensified your teasing.

For sure, he was only half interested in playing and half watching your every move. You sat on the opposite side of the table, next to Danny who had apparently saved you a seat, while Tom sat next to Noah, who would kick him under the table every time his eyes so much as drifted towards you. There’s probably going to be quite a few bruises on his ankle tomorrow.

“It was really fun. I mean, I love your family,” you say, leaning against the door frame.

“And apparently they love you.”

“Well, can you blame them?” You beam at him, with your grin and with your eyes.

“Oh, go fuck yourself,” he replies.

“I might as well do that, it’s no fun having sex with a loser.” You laugh. It’s pretty small and insignificant, but the top of your nose is still covered in those cute wrinkles of yours. It’s in moments like this that he truly appreciates your friendship. Because he gets to witness your humor, your enthusiasm, and just the lightheartedness of your presence. No one in their sane mind would ever want that to change.

“Actually, it’s not that bad,” he returns, feeling his mouth tilt up in the corner. “I’ve been doing it for months now.”

“I guess your luck is about to change, mister.” Tom rolls his eyes mostly to mock you, to which you point at him and exclaim, “Hey, I don’t steal your signature moves, so don’t steal mine.”

“That’s not true! You steal my moves all the time, even today in the pool you were doing the emoji shrug,” Tom objects, trying to mimic the exaggeration of your shrug and of your face when you did it during the game.

“Well, I must have been drunk on all the winning,” you remark stepping back out with a slight hop.

Damn. You’re always too damn fast for him. He really can never win with you, can he?

“Okay, are you going to leave now or do I have to slam this door on your face?”

“I’d like to see you try, Mr. Polite,” you tease with another laugh. 

Usually, Tom takes politeness to an extreme, but tonight there’s none for you. He mocks your laugh and closes the door with as little of a bang as he can. Your laughter is still obvious through the wood, so he opens it again and sees you walking down to the street.

“Beginner’s luck!” he shouts after you. You turn your head over one shoulder and give him the finger.

Tom closes the door again, shaking his head and stifling a laugh, and goes to look for his mother. He knows Noah and Dylan are with her, because they’re always the last ones to leave, but she might still need his help.

Pilot joins him from the living room, and Tom leans down to nuzzle one of his ears with a hand, but then his phone goes off in his pocket. He fishes it out and looks at what he thinks might be the last text you get to send him before he blocks your number.

You: Loser 🙄 (face with rolling eyes emoji)

-

There are voices coming from the kitchen, so Tom beckons Pilot in that direction. He gets to the doorway in time to hear Noah say, “Totally in love with her, but in absolute denial, and I don’t understand why.”

“Hey, guys.”

Noah is leaning over the kitchen island, peeling a peach into a ceramic plate, with Dylan standing beside him with his face practically buried in his phone. Tom’s mother is leaning back against one of the base cabinets with her arms crossed over her chest and nods at Tom in acknowledgment of his greeting.

“Hey,” says Noah before he resumes talking. “And then I told him, maybe you’re not gay, you could be bi or something, but he just won’t listen to me.”

This seems a very strange conversation for Noah to have with his mother, no matter how casual he tries to make it seem with his piece of fruit, so Tom asks, more confused than curious, “What are you talking about?”

“My cousin Martin,” says Noah, completely nonchalantly. He adjusts his arms on the hardwood worktop, starting to cut the peach into small pieces, an eyebrow quirked at Tom to check if he has any other question.

“Why are you discussing his sexuality with my mother?”

“We were talking about Dylan and the conversation shifted, I guess,” Noah explains casually.

Dylan looks up from his phone with a startled look on his face at the sound of his name, and Tom notices that he’s a little flustered, so the part of the conversation about him might have been true. Yet Noah is a fast thinker and extremely good at figuring out ways to get out of conversations, so Tom has a hard time placing whether he’s telling the truth or not.

He squints and says, “You guess.”

“Yeah,” Noah and his mother say at the same time. Dylan just looks back down, like he doesn’t want to take part in the conversation at all. Tom can tell there is something going on, but he doesn’t dare to ask. It will probably be much worse for him if he does.

-

Noah and Dylan leave shortly after, and Tom leaves after Danny has gone to bed. He would have stayed over at his mother’s if it wasn’t for a meeting early in the morning and the fact that Frank is picking him up. Coming over here would be a much bigger detour, and Tom doesn’t want to be a bother even though it’s Sunday and there won’t be as much traffic.

The whole ride home, Tom can’t help but think back to what Noah was telling his mother. There’s no way he was talking about his cousin, because why would that be relevant to her? He has a feeling the two conversations are related, the one he had with Noah when they were grilling the food and that one between Noah and his mother. Yet he doesn’t have the courage to really ruminate on it.

He’s hooked on the upbeat song he was listening to as he parked, so he hums the few verses he knows as he closes the door. Today was a long day, after a long week, and he’s exhausted. He feels like a little kid, the weariness tugging at the corners of his eyes, so he rubs them with a mindless finger.

His phone vibrates in his pocket again. His mind immediately goes to Frank saying something about tomorrow, being the cute, efficient assistant that he is and constantly making sure Tom doesn’t forget about his meetings, but it’s not.

It’s you again.

You: All teasing aside, you throw one hell of a pool party, my friend

His eyes focus on the word ’friend’ and he feels two things. His stomach does a big fucking twirl, and his heart does a big fucking twist. And a thought flares up in him like a riot.

Is he in denial about you?

•

part 1 « more than this verse [18+] » part 3

#kayleessummerwc #tom holland imagine #holland #b writes #morethanthisverse

[alphabees-writes]

Glee - S1 E6 (Vitamin D)

They call it vitamin D for the whole thing but wasn’t it just a component for some really hard drug??? We love the bullshit

The millionth step ball change... And we’re only 6 episodes in

Mr Schue just said “Maybe so” and now all I can think of is the gif meme thing

heheheheheheh.......Sorry. Funny youtube. 

Sign #27 That Mr Schuester Is An Asshole: He’s eating that sandwich in the GROSSEST WAY POSSIBLE. He’s chewing with his mouth open, breathing really loud, talking with his mouthful, and he’s clearly being messy about it because there’s mustard all over his chin!!! How is Emma crushing on this dweeb

Sign #28 That Mr Schuester Is An Asshole: When Emma says he’s got a “cute Kirk Douglas chin dimple” (barf) he doesn’t say, hey! Maybe don’t flirt with me, I’m married!

I’m genuinely starting to feel ill whenever I have to just look at Mr Schue...

Everybody trying to learn their choreo and they’re just.... Spinning. Kurt’s about to fall over, Matt and Mike are bumping into each other, and Brittany’s just Tasmanian Devil-ing her way across the room. Love em

Brittany completely ignoring Artie’s high-five and him being like “oh-- okay...” is underrated

Matt Morrison just delivered “simply stopped trying” really weirdly. I don’t know what’s throwing me off about it, but it is

You’re right, Sue. Bones won’t grow properly without fear. AND EMMA’S BLOUSE IS INSANE

“I don’t understand how lightning is in competition with an above-ground swimming pool” You’re RIGHT KURT and you SHOULD SAY IT! Bears and sharks aren’t in competition either! Call out post for Mr Schue: The man knows NOTHING of the most basic ecology!

The look Quinn gives Finn when he yawns... Let my mans nap!!!

Kurt did his best to get to the girl’s side. Can you fucking blame him? Puck’s still an asshole to him as far as we all know!

Santana and Brittany just casually linking arms... Be still my beating heart

Kurt just walking along with Finn to football practice... Look at those brothers go!!! I am ignoring Puck

Ohh Sue’s journal... A wonderful character

You’re right, Sue, Will Schuester IS to blame for the world’s problems. Please do destroy the man

“I’ve always thought the desire to procreate showed deep personal weakness” Got ‘em

And thus begins the saga of Sue pushing problem people down the stairs. I’m not saying she should do that to Mr Schue... I’m just saying, why doesn’t she?

If Will wasn’t flirting with Emma, he wouldn’t get all nervous and upset when his wife turns up. Them’s the facts.

Does Terri know about Emma’s germophobia...? Because if so, it’s probably not cool for Will to have told her that. Unless Sue did, but I wouldn’t put it past him

As if they could get away with hiring a random unqualified woman as a school nurse?

Is “route” really pronounced like that......? Huh

Finn getting Biofreeze in his eye will forever be hilarious.

LEVEL 2!!!

I hate hats. I don’t know why, but I do. And I want Kurt to live his best life, but man, I hate that hat

Cory Monteith really got paid to drool. Goals

“Puck, with respect, you’re more helpful when you don’t contribute” Tell him, Artie!!!

Everybody making fun of Quinn :C Britt, you’re better than this!!

People (I’m people) can hate on Rachel all they want but this scenario is one example of her actually working harder than anybody else in the group. Yes, the solos should be shared more equally, but it’s hard to be mad at her when the others are claiming her ideas as their own and sitting around when they should be rehearsing. Except Brittany! She’s stretching, at least, love her

Terri let him NAP. WITHOUT DRUGS.

Finn’s having some serious mental health concerns but he’s not getting what he needs and I hate it. Help him!!!

Why does Terri care if Finn’s not faithful? Like, yeah, he should be, but it’s not going to affect the baby!

Surely if she took those pills for ALL of high school, they would’ve lost their effect after a while?

God I love high Finn. He just CHUCKED Matt outta that chair. 

Puck knows what’s up. Kurt thinks it’s vitamin C, because Vogue said so, and Iove him. He also looks SO weirded out

Terri gave him a whole BOX huh?

Time for season 1′s best mash-up. I love this so much. They’re all going so HARD and Finn looks like his eyes are about to pop right out. The way he’s rubbing the mic... How could they not tell he was off his face???

MIKE’S SINGING. MIKE’S SINGING BACK UP AND NOBODY’S WINCING. Glee has no continuity confirmed

I feel like I shouldn’t find this performance cute because they’re all meant to be high as shit BUT THEY’RE JUST SO EXCITED???

Kevin McHale bumps every song features in up by at least 2 letter grades and that’s just a fact

LET MIKE CHANG DANCE!!!! LET HIM DANCE FOREVER HE DESERVES SO MUCH

I would say the same for Matt but then I’ll get sad about him being dumped into the void in like 16 episodes time

Oh Rachel worrying about Quinn... Be still my gay heart

Rachel just cuts right through her bullshit without hesitating for a second. She knows what it’s like to feel like the odd one out and she’s doing the absolute most to make sure Quinn doesn’t feel that way and I love her for it

The way Quinn slowly turns to face her... And Rachel says they don’t have to be enemies and Quinn can’t understand why Rachel would offer her a second chance... 

Quinn legit draws porn of Rachel it’s canon. I mean it’s fucked up but there are only so many reasons a person would do that

“I would’ve tortured you if the roles were reversed you know” “I know” And then the way she watches Rachel walk away... My HEART

Ken and Terri, the power duo of awful

“Laughing... Talking... All the stuff she never does with me” I hate it. They suck. Emma is a dumbass for agreeing to date a guy who she just genuinely doesn’t like and Ken’s just an ASSHOLE for bullying her into it

And now Ken’s about to propose because he’s being bullied into it. Why the fuck does this happen?

I don’t buy that Rachel took this long to berate all the girls for not prepping their mash-up harder after the boys killed theirs. She’d be right on that

Kurt I love the waistcoat and the bowtie but WHAT is happening on your ELBOWS.

You really wanted those guys in cornrows, Kurt? None of them have the length for it. ALSO I love that the exotic bird feathers thing comes back next season 10/10

F-ROD!!! GO OFF RACHEL!!! Even if Finn doesn’t know what half these words mean!

Rachel really wakes up with flawless hair, huh! And then she just... Does all that. She never stops being extra...

Did they just start walking in the opposite direction?

I feel like it’s dumb that Rachel doesn’t just tell Mr Schue that they all took pills, but it’s more in character for her to not waste an opportunity to perform anyway

Howard Bamboo,totally unqualified man who absolutely isn’t staff, is just allowed on campus to deliver DRUGS? HELLO???

Quinn only gets folic acid... And yet I’m pretty sure she manages to keep up with everybody else. HOW?

“What’s up with Ken?” [FRANTIC PAPER SHREDDING] 

I don’t care how married you are, no person should lick another person’s face

I can physically feel the awkwardness between Will and Terri. JUST DIVORCE ALREADY

Don’t like ya Will but you’re right, shit’s not healthy if there’s no space!

Imagine proposing in the staff room at work just because a random woman told you to

“Emma Pilsbury, this is not an engagement ring” “Oh thank god--” “No, I mean, it is” Just take the L, Ken

AND ALSO ANGELS!!!

Quinn’s so fucking concerned. I love this

I usually don’t like yellow clothes but these girls make it look so dang CUTE. More pastels plz

Again, I have no idea how pregnant Quinn is keeping up at all...

HALOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

Kurt’s wearing those blocky shades so the boys can’t see his betrayal

Where the hell did this mock-stage set up come from

“We came up with the idea together!” No... Will, that was Sue. Sue gave you the idea

Emma’s pretty much explicitly told Will she’s only marrying Ken because Will won’t be with her. EVERYBODY SUCKS

This argument between Terri and Emma is a nightmare. The most confrontational person VS the least... I’d fucking evaporate if Terri came at me like that

The way Emma’s voice shakes when she tells Terri that Will deserves better... Ouchie

Quinn is just adorable. Diana made this character, and she did such an amazing job... She’s more empathetic than she lets anybody realise

The fact that Terri won’t even help this TEENAGE GIRL pay for the baby that she’ll eventually adopt is a nightmare. Where do you expect her to get the cash from?

Wanting to get married without being married is kind of a mood... Secret marriage

BEING A PUSHOVER WHEN IT COMES TO YOU DOESN’T MAKE HIM A GOOD MAN

Finn and Rachel both realising they screwed up is perfect. 

Finn continuing to not know what any words mean is also perfect

This is a cute Rachel moment actually... Yes girl compete WITH your friends!!! You’re a team!!!!

Ahh, methamphetamines! That’s what it was. Yeah, fuck Terri

I’m still looking at Matt Morrison’s lips and trying to figure out if he’s had fillers. They just curl too far!!!

Mr Schue being called out for making things too competitive - fine, I guess. Bringing in SUE to rectify that...??? Hello? Figgins?

Those white jeans are a LOOK Kurt. He’s like a twink Steve Jobs rn

Britt and Santana’s little smiles at each other when Sue’s announced as co-captain... Hell yeah future wives

I’d like to think Will’s upset about Emma marrying Ken for the right reasons (i.e. Ken’s an asshole) but we been knew he’s not. He’s looking at her like he’s just been shot

AIN’T NOTHIN GONNA BREAK MY STRIDE! NOBODY GONNA SLOW ME DOWN! OH NO, I’VE GOT TO KEEP ON MOVIN!

I really just love how stupid this show is! It makes no god damn sense and I fall for it every time!

#Glee #Glee Season 1 #Rosie watches things and then says things about the thing

[thecorteztwins]

🔥 villains. 🔥 the hellfire club 🔥the difference between naive and unintelligent characters

Welp, this all got STUPIDLY LONG and I’m really sorry. Under a cut because HUUUUUGE.

🔥 villains.There’s just been a robbery! All the jewels in the museum’s vault have been stolen! The culprits are….Sabretooth and Magneto!Yeah, that doesn’t sound right, does it? Thievery isn’t really something either of them do, they’re not bank robber or cat burglar types at all. And Magneto’s not a fan of Sabes to my memory, it’s unlikely he’d work with him unless it was essential to his ACTUAL goals…which this isn’t. But hey, they’re both bad guys, so they must do ALL the bad things! No matter what it is, it’s in-character if it’s evil or unlawful, right?This is the logic that I see running both often in fandom, and also sometimes with canon writers. There’s a mentality that if someone is villainous or bad in ONE way, then they must be villainous or bad in ALL ways. I think there’s always been this misunderstanding, as people do tend to think in black and white a lot, but I think it’s also increased with the rise of purity culture in Tumblr, where people/characters/works are All Good or All Bad, and if the bad guys aren’t depicted as 1000% heinously evil then it’s APOLOGISM. An example in RP would be that more than once I’d had people expect Fabian to be a racist. I can see why, given that he expresses sexism, classism, a bit of ableism, and disgust with physical mutations. But not only does he never express racism, he never expresses racism DESPITE AMPLE OPPORTUNITY. Think about it—his main antagonists are Magneto (Jewish) and Quicksilver (Jewish and Romani), he once personally fights Bishop (Black and Indigenous Australian) one on one, he’s on one team with Shinobi (half white, half Japanese), and his allies/underlings in the second-gen Acolytes included people who are African American, Moroccan (and Muslim-coded), and Inuit. And he never, ever, EVER even THOUGHT anything related to race (or religions that are usually implicitly tied to race) about ANY of them. Given how blatant his other prejudices are, I think he would very much let the reader KNOW if he were racist, anti-Semitic, etc. An example in canon…look, I’m sorry to bring up this dead horse again, but it is the best example that I presently have—Sebastian Shaw making the “women’s work” comment. As with Fabian, I get why it makes sense on the surface. He’s a powerful man, the proverbial rich old white guy, and he’s part of an organization where women walk around in lingerie as a general rule. It seems like it makes sense, it does, I grant that. But then if you actually look at his history…for 40 years of canon, he’s been allies and enemies with many powerful women, and never made a remark about their gender, never relegated lesser or menial tasks to them, never treated any of them differently as partners or foes, he actually never even flirts with any of them, be they opponents or partners in crime  (except that ONE issue when Emma is in Storm’s body and he kisses her…yeah that was a weird issue, why does a telepath need a gun to switch bodies?) Which is pretty unusual for a male Claremont villain. And he actually reacts with “I…see.” the one time a comrade makes a genuinely sexist remark. He doesn’t agree with him, he’s more like “wow ok I can’t believe he said that but I guess I’ll let it go since I want to recruit him” So, it’s actually VERY odd for him to suddenly say something like that, once you know the character. Especially since, like Fabian, he had TONS of opportunity in the past and he’s also not a character that most writers want to seem sympathetic or likeable. So it’s unlikely the writers were just trying to make him look good by playing down some secret sexist tendencies all this time or something. It’s more likely he just doesn’t have them BUT IS STILL A HORRIBLE PERSON! He just doesn’t need to be horrible in every way! Most people, even the MOST terrible, aren’t horrible in EVERY WAY POSSIBLE.That’s also why I try to avoid having Fabian being too homophobic (beyond “I can convert lesbians”) or transphobic, despite the fact that I *could* justify it (since those things are very intertwined with sexism)—because he’s awful enough. Giving him additional bigotries just seems stupidly redundant and cheap. Especially since I think people actually hate a bigoted character more than they hate a murderer; like I feel like if Duggan ever graduates to Shaw making a racist or homophobic remark, I might have to close his blog, but it’s fine to have blogs for fictional serial killers. By the same token, a villain having good traits doesn’t somehow eliminate their bad ones, especially if the good and bad traits are unrelated to each other. A mass murderer supervillain is not “actually a good guy deep down” because he loves his family; it’s actually VERY common for even genocidal dictators to care for their own. Hell, not to go all Godwin, but Hitler was an animal-lover and had a beloved dog. You can certainly point to good traits to show that a villain isn’t ALL bad (which as I just said, I support) but not being “all bad” isn’t the same as “actually a good person and just misunderstood!” Like, Shaw being an egalitarian in a lot of regards or was good to Madelyne Pryor or loved his father, doesn’t change he’s a heartless, morally bankrupt monster who abused his son and sold out an entire oppressed species (his own, no less) for his own financial gain. Mystique is an incredibly complex character, far more so than Shaw, but her love for Destiny and Rogue and many of her other good points don’t change that she hunted down other mutants for the government, abused her human son for not being a mutant, has committed rape by deception numerous times (though I think that’s due to the writers not realizing that’s a thing), constantly tries to manipulate her daughter’s life and choices, and I’m pretty sure I recall an issue where she framed a guy for domestic abuse just for funsies?Basically, villains are people. They have individual different traits and beliefs and motives, and those things will drive them towards individual different types of villainy. One villain probably won’t do the same kind of villainy that another does. Likewise, someone being a shitty person in one way, or many ways, doesn’t mean they will be in ALL ways. Pointing this out isn’t the same thing as denying their flaws or defending them, but some people do do this and that’s wrong too. Nuance needs to be allowed for. Pointing out Shaw isn’t awful in every way doesn’t mean I think he’s a misunderstood woobie whose crimes should all be forgiven. Pointing out Mystique has done awful shit doesn’t mean I think she’s pure evil and all her complex points should be ignored. It just means I don’t think characters should be strawmanned by fans OR writers as paragons or demons, especially when it contradicts what canon has actually established (with the caveat that canon is dumb sometimes too, and also some characters canonically ARE one extreme or the other, but I’m talking about ones who AREN’T)🔥 the hellfire clubI’ll give two on this! One is “unpopular” just in the sense it’s not something I’ve ever heard anyone express, but I’ve never heard an opinion in opposition to it either. The other is “unpopular” in that it does directly contradict a popularly held opinion.The first is that I think it’s stupid that Grant Morrisson made The Hellfire Club into a strip club, and it’s stupid that writers since depicted it this way. The Hellfire Club is shown in the 80s and 90s as being, first and foremost, an elite social club for the wealthiest and most powerful people in society. It’s basically a big posh country club, and most of its members are just regular people. Super duper rich people, but still normal people, lots of old money and new money and big business owners and politicians and probably royalty/nobility. Most of what they’re doing is big fancy, stuffy galas and balls, that kind of thing. But under the surface, it’s hinted that there is indeed a much more sexual underside to it. The female staff wear very fetishy maid costumes, the female Inner Circles literally have dominatrix lingerie as their getups, and while we actually never see what goes on beyond the closed doors in the 80s, nor was anything directly stated, the hints are definitely there that it’s as libertine in the private rooms as they are prim and proper in the ballrooms. We don’t know WHAT exactly is happening, only that it’s dark and decadent and surely sexual in some kind of “abnormal” (read: kink shaming) way.And then it turns out it’s just a strip club where the dancers wear corsets? Really? REALLY? I’m sorry, you expect me to belief that these oh-so-forbidden and secretive sexual delights that are available only to the richest and most powerful people in the world are…a TITTY BAR WITH NO ACTUAL TITTIES EVEN OUT???? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard! It’s so fucking juvenile! It feels like something a 13 year old made up while trying to come up with the mos edgy, shocking, “sexy” thing he could. It just…doesn’t work. It doesn’t work firstly because it completely took away the whole “upper class veneer” that is as much an essential part of the HFC as the sex. In fact, I think more so. Writers, artists, and fans all like to focus on ZOMG THE SEXY COSTUMES but thematically speaking, I think the fact it’s an elite organization exclusive to the super-wealthy is much more important; that should be what they’re really about as villains, but writers end up focusing way too much on the shock value of the kink, and that’s how you wind up with stuff like this. The second reason it doesn’t work is that…it isn’t even shocking. When what they were doing was kept hidden, the reader could imagine no limit of decadence and depravity. When it’s revealed, and revealed as something that’s frankly super and common and TAME (seriously, strip clubs aren’t edgy these days) that you can get anywhere else, you’re left wondering why exactly anyone gives a shit about being in the HFC if this is all it really is? We should NEVER get to see what the HFC patrons truly do in private, and we should definitely never get shown that it’s just watching a woman pole dance with Victorian underwear on. That doesn’t make the HFC look sexual, it makes them look like PRUDES!Honestly, I do actually love the sexy sinful decadent aspect, but it’s overtaken the “extremely rich and powerful people trying to rule the world from behind the scenes through political and economic manipulation” aspect (which is far more interesting and villainous) that I kind of wish sometimes they had been created without the kink or colonial cosplay aspects, and instead had just worn some 80s powersuits.Now, here’s the “unpopular as in contradicts the popular” opinion. I see the Hellfire Club described a lot, in canon and fandom, as an organization of powerful MEN, as a bunch of MEN who just want to control others, as a BOY’S club…but aside from Sebastian Shaw, all the most prominent and effective members of the Club have been women? I mean, think about it. The names most synonymous with “Hellfire Club” in fandom are Emma Frost, Selene, Jean Grey as Dark Phoenix, and Sebastian Shaw. Shaw’s the ONLY dude that really gets any focus from writers OR fans; the women are almost always utilized more by writers and remembered more by fans. Heck, in the London Branch of the Hellfire Club, NONE of the male members of the Inner Circle even got NAMES, while ALL the women did. Now, of course, individual women in an organization being successful in said organization and beloved by fans/writers, doesn’t mean the organization itself can’t also be sexist. And like most people, the disparity between the costumes of both the Inner Circle and the mere staff does lead me to believe that it was probably founded and run only by men originally, and I bet women probably weren’t even allowed in for a long time (especially given that it was established in the 1700s) But that’s my HEADCANON. That’s what I EXTRAPOLATE. But what’s actually on the page IN THE PRESENT is women that are on equal footing with men, or superior to them. They’re not just simply ALLOWED in the Inner Circle, they’ve been dominating it from the first appearance with Emma ruling it alongside Shaw over Leland and Pierce, and then Selene coming in to challenge Shaw and Emma (with Shaw being terrified of her) in a way that none of the other members (all male—Leland, Pierce, Von Roehm) could. Gender is never brought up by anyone, even the most despicable male HFC members like Donald Pierce. So while I believe it was founded by sexist men, the Inner Circle seems pretty egalitarian now.But of course, there’s the costumes. I absolutely think it’s a sexist setup that the men get to wear (super ugly) period cosplay while the women are in fetish lingerie. It seems to be the standard uniform, and the fact that they haven’t CHANGED it shows that there’s definitely still some sexism.Except…it doesn’t seem to be a rule in-universe that the women HAVE to wear them? We actually see female members of the HFC, such as Selene, wearing clothing other than that while hanging out there; there’s actually a scene wear Selene is wearing pants and a sleeveless turtleneck with gloves. Maddy also wears a lot of black leather when she’s a member, but it doesn’t look like the Hellfire Club ladies getup, it looks like all the other stuff she was wearing in the 90s. And when Selene, Emma, etc., AREN’T in the Hellfire Club…they often still dress exactly like that, or in a similiar manner. I think it’s pretty clear that no one is MAKING them wear the uniforms, they just LIKE them, they’re probably “encouraged but optional” or something like that. And Emma even has that WHOLE DAMN SPEECH about how this is her armor, how it empowers her, etc. That said, while I don’t think any other CHARACTERS are making these women dress like that, I do think the writers/artists are. If a real woman made the speech that Emma did, I’d be like “ok sure, you go girl, do what feels empowering for you”. But Emma ISN’T a real woman. Every word in her mouth in that panel is being put there by Chris Claremont, a horny man with a dominatrix fetish who is trying to justify it by selling it as feminist. That is what it is. But just because that’s the case on a meta level…on an in-universe level, no one makes these women dress like this, and that’s very evident, and while the way they’re treated by writers/artists is definitely affected by them being women, the way other characters, including the Hellfire Club men, treats them, isn’t. At least not til shitty recent stuff. (I’ve seen some people think SHAW made the women dress like that….yeah, sure, like he could make SELENE do anything? He’s completely afraid of her but somehow can make her wear something she doesn’t want? Emma and Selene dress like that no matter where they are and whether they’re presently HFC members or not, but somehow he’s making them do that? HOW DOES ANYONE GIVE THIS GUY THAT MUCH CREDIT?)Basically, I think people are TRYING to be feminist, but it often ends up feeling like SEXISM to me? Because it’s totally ignoring and erasing the power and agency that these women exert in this organization, and often even claiming that it’s actually the men who have all the control, when aside from Shaw it’s usually the ladies running the show. It just seems disrespectful to me. It’s like, as much as people are claiming to hate a lack of agency for female characters, they seem more comfortable with that idea than a situation where women actually HAD it. Maybe it’s because they’re villains, maybe it’s because the costumes really are distracting and unequal no matter how the writers try to justify it (again, I wish they’d just gone with business suits), but there seems to be an overall fandom determination to insist on women like Emma Frost and Selene as victims or simply accomplices to a greater (male) villain, rather than embracing them as the Top Tier Bad Bitches they were/are, and, again, that seems more sexist to me than not. But I worry people will think I’m sexist if I say that. But you know me, you know I LOVE agency for female characters, and how I rail against it when see them ACTUALLY lacking it in comics, so you know it’s not that. I think it’s just a part of the rise in purity culture that even “progressive” people would rather see a woman forced or coerced to be a victim than choose of her own volition to be a villain and be GOOD at it :/🔥the difference between naive and unintelligent charactersWell, firstly, obviously there IS a difference. Naivete is just a lack of experience or learned knowledge, neither of which has anything to do with intelligence. A naive character may make mistakes in a new situation based on their lack of knowledge about it, and that may LOOK stupid to those who have this knowledge, but it’s not the same thing. I think we can agree that, say, Tony Stark isn’t stupid, but if he had to navigate in the wilderness, he might do things that experienced hikers and campers and outdoors people know are SUPER BAD IDEAS. Because this isn’t something he knows about or has experience with.So, I think considering characters who are new to this world (as is common in comics—lots of people from other dimensions, planets, and times) as stupid because they don’t know a lot of things we take as a given, is erroneous. I think it’s pretty common for fandom to look at, say, Longshot or Thor, and deem them as basically being idiots because they’re not familiar with their new environments…when in fact, we’d all be acting the same if we wound up in Asgard or Mojoworld. Not that there’s not other reasons they can’t be idiots, but not knowing what a toaster is isn’t one of them.The big difference is that naivete is a temporary state, and I think both writers and fans forget that. The character’s naivete will gradually decrease as they learn more and more. So if you’re writing an Avengers fic where Thor has been on Earth for five years so far, he probably knows what a toaster is, can order normally at a restaurant, isn’t confused by normal sights like cars or traffic lights or computers, etc., but could still be confused if he went to a Midgardian country with very different cultural norms than the ones he’s learned in the United States. Likewise, I can keep Malcolm perpetually baffled by new worlds in RP since time is kinda wobbly here and can be static or move forward or back as we like, but if I were writing him in a linear story, he would have to learn along the way about the technology and norms of other worlds as he experiences them; if he didn’t learn, THEN he would be unintelligent, not just naive. If he touches a hot stove once because he didn’t know what it was, and it burns him, that’s naive. If he touches it twice to test if it does the same thing again, that’s curious and maybe even smart, despite looking stupid to others. If he keeps doing it every day by accident, then THAT’S an idiot. Also, even a naive character may still be able to deduce that certain things are bad ideas, dangerous, etc. For instance, let’s say my character is a normal everyday girl sucked into a fantasy realm. She doesn’t understand the language, and the people around her don’t look like anything humanoid, but when all of them go quiet and still when a larger, more decorated one enters, and they all give it a lot of space, she can probably deduce that this is someone of great importance, and she probably should do what the others are doing and not risk pissing it off. She may know nothing about these beings or their customs, but she still can use her powers of observation and common sense. It may end up being a TOTALLY wrong move—for instance, maybe newcomers are meant to come introduce themselves to the leader by touching them–but it was a good, sensible guess. Whereas if she’d just walked up to the being and given it a good swift kick, that’d be unintelligent to an almost unbelievable point, and no amount of “she’s just naive!” could excuse it.Oh yeah, and optimism doesn’t automatically equate to naivete either. To be honest, I think that extreme cynicism is just as naive in its own way as thinking everything is sunshine and daisies, and I’d like to see this explored more in fiction rather than the perpetual “happy positive people are dumb and naive and just don’t know better, whereas the grumpy cynics are always smarter and more experienced” that media is so fond of.TL;DR Not only is naivete not unintelligence, it also should be a temporary state. It’s definitely cute to watch a naive character stumble around their new experiences, but in gaining those experiences, they’re going to become less naive, and make few mistakes. Naive characters should also still be capable of acting in ways that are sensible, even if they end up being wrong for the new situation. And being positive doesn’t automatically equate naivete either, nor does negativity equate to the reverse (and can be naive in itself)

#unpopular opinion #salt #meta #badmusesdoitwell

[fluffy-marshmallow-heart]

Drake's Diary ch.31 -The Homecoming Ball

The Royal Romance canon from Drake's POV

Words: 5049

Warnings: NSFW

Master List (catch up here)

 There will only be one more chapter after this. Enjoy!

The following morning, Drake actually woke up with a hangover. I cannot believe I drank that much. How did I drink that much?

He thought back to his night out with his friends…then the personal tour of the palace with Emma. He groaned. She must think I’m such a fool. And I showed her my hiding spot! And I told her why I call her by her last name! Ugh, Walker, dammit…she would have slept with you if you weren’t drunk!!! I really am a fool

  His phone beeped, and he glanced at the messages waiting for him. Savannah’s waiting for him to take her to the boutique. The Homecoming ball is tonight, and she has nothing to wear. Makes sense. This is her big debut back at court.

Once he joined Savannah and Bartie, Maxwell also decided to tag along, boasting about his ability to pick out “swoon-worthy” dresses. Drake couldn’t really argue with that, considering how many times Emma showed up looking drop dead gorgeous. As the four of them meandered the halls, they ran into Emma on her way to her room.

Savannah grins. “Emma, it’s so good to see you!”

Drake is standing next to Savannah, failing to repress a smile. “You have good timing, Rose.” My two favorite women together again.

Emma nodded. “I guess so. Looks like the gang’s all here.”

“We are.” Drake said proudly. “For the first time in a long time. I’m…I’m really glad you’re back, Savannah.”

Savannah pulls him into a one-armed hug, her other arm still supporting Bartie. After a long moment, they part and Drake sees Emma beaming at them.

“You all look cozy. I don’t know the last time I saw Drake willingly participate in a hug.”

“Yeah, I think I even saw him smile.” Maxwell laughed.

Drake just shrugged. “It isn’t every day your sister and nephew come back to the court.” As well as having the woman of my dreams.

Savannah patted his arm. “I feel honored.” She then turned her focus to Emma. “So, Emma…Congratulations on becoming a Duchess. The court could use more people like you.”

“Thanks, Savannah.”

“You know, Emma, between Maxwell and Drake, you’re practically all I hear I about. I feel like we’re friends already.” Savannah glances at Drake, leaning towards Emma conspiratorially. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you and my brother are an item.”

Savannah winks at Emma as Drake’s cheeks flush bright red. Oh my god, so embarrassing, we’re so obvious…if we’re so obvious, how did no one see us together before? But I’m so glad Savannah loves her too. Makes things so much easier.

Emma’s about to respond when Savannah’s eyes go wide. Drake sees Bertrand at the end of the hallway. He has stopped in his tracks.

“Savannah.” Bertrand gasped.

Savannah smiled. “Hello, Bertrand.”

Bertrand takes a few tentative steps forward. “I just…came to speak with Emma. I had no idea you would be here.”

Savannah’s eyebrows furrowed. “Oh…I thought maybe…”

Enough of this. He’s done enough damage to my sister, I won’t let him cause more.  “Bertrand, just say whatever you came to say to Emma and get out of here.”

Emma nodded “Yes, let’s talk…in private.”

Bertrand retreats a few paces down the hall and out of earshot, beckoning to Emma. Her and Maxwell follow.

Drake turns to his sister. “Sav, I really think you should stay away from…”

But she brushed by him, ignoring him completely, and approaches Bertrand, Emma, and Maxwell, still bouncing Bartie on her hip. “Bertrand…It’s nice to see you again.”

Drake grudgingly follows. I forgot how well she doesn’t listen to me.

Bertrand looks at her in surprise. “Yes…” He trails off and silence hangs in the air. Then, he turns on his heel and marches back down the hall and out of sight.

“Oh…” Savannah said sadly.

Asshole’s already hurting her again. Fucking Bertrand.

“Come on, Savannah, I’ll give you a hand with Bartie.” Drake shoots Emma an apologetic look as he leads Savannah and Bartie down the hall.

After picking out the perfect dress for Savannah, Drake escorts her to the Homecoming Ball. He quickly scans the room and sees Emma being escorted in by Bastien. Everything looks covered in gold. There are golden lights on the ceiling, golden curtains. People mill about sipping champagne and munching on appetizers. Drake’s eyes follow her as she walks over to speak with Maxwell and Bertrand.

“Er, Sav…would you mind if I…”

“Not at all, Drake. Go! I know how you hate these things.” Savannah laughed. “And I’m willing to bet that Emma is the only reason you’ve tolerated so many lately.”

Drake blushed, giving him away again. He nods at her, then quickly walks out of the room. So obvious that I love her. Thank god she’s mine, there’s no way I’d still be able to hide it. I’ve got big plans for her, big plans for us. I hope she likes it…

Drake quickly heads to his room, where he’s stored several bags of items that he’ll never admit to anyone as having. Next, he went straight to Emma’s room, turning the knob and going inside. A part of him is relieved the door is unlocked. Another part of him is dying to scold her for leaving her door unlocked. He begins to work, placing flameless candles around the room, adjusting the lighting of the chandelier, and throwing rose petals strategically around the bed and floor. He’d thought about getting real candles, but changed his mind when he saw how many draperies were in her room, as well as having to leave them unattended for a while. He wasn’t going to let anything get between them tonight. When finished, he stands back and admires his handywork.

This…is…good. Good job Drake Walker. She’s going to swoon as soon as she sees it. I know I would, if someone did something like this for me. And if I was a girl. Which I’m not but I’m man enough to admit I’d still swoon.

Heading back to the ballroom, he perches himself at the bar, just in time to hear Emma’s voice ring out.

“Yes, I would like to propose a toast. Everyone, please raise your glasses to King and country!”

“Hear, hear.” Ripples through the crowd, and the nobles all raise their glasses and drink. Drake raises his glass to the bartender and downs his whiskey.

Liquid courage.

A moment later…“How are you holding up with all this courtly finery?” Drake’s eyes sweep up Emma’s dress and go wide. “You look like a million bucks. Literally.” And also gold. Interesting.

“I take it you like the dress?”

He ran a hand through his hair sheepishly. “Yeah, you could say that.”

She smiled. “Thank you. I had a feeling I’d find you at the bar.”

“If you’re calling me predictable, Rose, I might not order you a drink.”

“I sincerely doubt that.” She laughed, nudging him with her shoulder.

He couldn’t stop the smile on his face. “…Fine, you got me, Rose. How can I turn you down?” He turns to the bartender just as Penelope and Kiara come strolling up to place an order.

“I’d like a…”

“She wants something pink with an umbrella in it.” Drake cuts in.

Penelope gasps. “How did you know?”

He shrugged. “It’s hard to miss when someone orders one of those travesties. A real drink doesn’t need accessories.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “By ‘a real drink,’ he means whiskey.”

“I have to agree. I’ve always been more partial to wine than cocktails.” Kiara says, eyeing Drake hungrily.

Ugh, no. What is with her constantly checking me out. She’s so gross. So….desperate.

“Look, you can drink all the top-shelf Barbaresco you want, but it’s still going to be old grape juice.” Drake snapped, frustrated that she always ends up where he is.

Kiara’s mouth falls open. “I’ll…I will take a Barbaresco, oui.”

The bartender nods to Drake and gets to work on the drinks he described.

Emma looks impressed. “Wow, Drake. You really know your stuff.”

Kiara clears her throat. “I…I’m sorry for our behavior at the beer garden last night, Lady Emma. When I implied you’d come to gloat, what I meant was…”

“We were drunk!” Penelope blurts out.

“Penelope!”

“And scared about Madeleine leaving. But the more I think about it, I think it’s a good thing. You deserve to be in Cordonia, Emma. I’m happy you’re staying.”

Emma offers a polite smile, but Drake can see right through it. “Well…I’m happy to be staying too.”

“Maybe you can come visit my estate sometime.” Penelope suggests.

Emma looks at her curiously. “Are you going back home?”

“Hopefully soon. It’s been a long time since I visited my parents…”

“I’m sure they can’t wait to see you. And for what it’s worth, Emma, you’re always welcome at my family’s estate too.” Kiara added.

As long as I’m not there. There’s no way I would step foot in that woman’s home base. I’d never get out alive.

They both curtsy and say their goodbyes, carrying their drinks back into the crowd.

Drake turns back to Emma, who’s smirking at him. “How about I get you something, and then we take a breather?”

“That sounds nice.” She agrees.

“I have an idea where we can go for some privacy.” He murmurs into her ear.

“Privacy is a hot commodity around here.”

He chuckles. “I’d rather spend the whole night alone with you, but…I’ll take what I can get.”

Emma nods. “I’d like that. What are you ordering for me? And don’t say whiskey.”

Drake rubs his chin thoughtfully. “A challenge, huh? I’ll take it.” He leans across the counter and whispers to the bartender. After a few minutes, he passes a glass across the counter.

Emma takes a long sip. “Drake, why a mojito?”

“It just…felt right. Drinks kind of have their own personalities. Like people. A mojito seems like a basic cocktail. People order them like they’re nothing, but there’s complexity there. It takes time to muddle the mint just right, find a balance of sour and sweet. People look at you and see the simple things. You’re an American. A Duchess. But anyone who’s paying attention knows there’s a lot more to you than that.”

Like the love of my life.

A mischievous look crossed her features. “So you’re saying I’m sweet?”

Naturally that’s what she would take away from it. “There’s lime in there too, you know.”

She shrugged. “I’ll take it. So, how did a guy who only drinks water and whiskey become such a cocktail whisperer?”

“You forget that I’ve watched every person in this room order drinks for years. And not one of them has decent taste.” He orders himself another whiskey and picks up the glass. “Now let’s get out of here.”

She follows Drake away from the ball to a quiet hallway in the palace. He leans against one wall as they both enjoy their drinks, a slight smile on his face.

“So, you’re going to be a Duchess soon. Do I have to start calling you ‘Your Grace’”?

“If you call me anything other than Rose, it’s going to feel weird.” She joked.

“Heh, alright. I can stick to that.”

“Is this the part where you make fun of me for becoming a real noble?”

Drake shakes his head. He lifts his glass to her in a brief toast. “I know you better than that, Rose. You’re you, and there’s nothing…not even a title…that can take that away from you.”

He watched a bright smile light up her eyes. “Thanks, Drake.”

Oh boy. I said too much. “…Though if you ever start getting too high-and-mighty, you can count on me to remind you of the old days.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that.” She told him, shaking her head.

They both slowly finish their drinks. Drake sets his glass down on a window-sill, and he looks at her with heat and longing in his eyes. “After tonight, we might not get a lot of time to ourselves.”

She bit her lip. “We’ll both have plenty of obligations.”

Drake nods, though his eyes never leave her face. He studies her as though he’s trying to absorb every detail of this moment. As soon as she takes a step toward him, he spins to press her against the wall, his lips meeting hers in a passionate kiss.

“Rose…” He kisses her deeper as she pulls him close, groaning when she wraps her arms around his waist…and then he pulls away.

“I can think of a better place to be doing this.” He said huskily. “Wait here.”

“Wait here? Are you kidding?”

He looks at her, seeing the doubt in her eyes, the hurt of rejection seeping through. “I just…if we’re going to do this, I want it to be…special.”

She scoffed. “Okay…You’ve already kept me waiting this long…”

Damn. She is so hot, getting mad that I’m not going to sleep with her again. She’s in for quite the awakening.

He took her hands in his own. “Believe me, Rose, I won’t take any longer than I have to.” He heads down the hallway and opens the door to her room, looking around one last time, making sure the candles are “lit”, the chandelier is glistening, and none of the petals have moved. After a few moments, he comes back out, gesturing for her to join him.

“Am I allowed to look now?” She said sarcastically.

“Come on in.”

The room is lit by a gentle glow from the chandelier and the clusters of candles Drake has set up. It’s an oasis of warmth and solitude compared to the noise of the ballroom. Drake closes the door as he joins her inside. When she turns back to him, he realizes he’s been holding his breath.

“Well?” He asked hesitantly.

Her were glistening with unshed tears. “Drake...When did Drake Walker become such a romantic?”

He can feel his cheeks turning pink. “Look what you’ve done to me, Rose. You’ll be the death of me.”

He steps closer to her, one hand reaching up to brush her cheek. His voice drops to a hoarse whisper as he takes in the sight of her in the candlelight. “So, this is really going to happen?”

“What do you mean?” She looks confused.

“I’ve spent so long thinking about this…so long wanting you. It almost feels like a dream.” He looks down, feeling guilty.

“What is it?” She asks, concerned.

He drags his eyes back to hers. “I’ve got nothing to offer you. I’m no one special. And yet…Somehow, here you are.”

She looks at him incredulously. “Somehow? Drake…you’re exactly what I want. Sharp. Funny. Challenging. Fiercely protective…and a marshmallow at heart, no matter how much you try to hide it.”

He stares at her a moment. “How do you do that, Rose? How do you see right through me, no matter how hard I try?”

It’ a genuine question, he really still can’t figure out she sees straight to his soul and insists on bringing it out for the world to see.

The corners of her mouth turn up. “You’re careful, Drake. But you’ve met your match.”

My true match is right. “I’ve spent too long being careful. I want this. I want you. Now.”

“And I want you.” She whispers.

He takes a shuddery breath. “Rose…” In an instant his lips are pressed to hers in an urgent kiss. She starts fumbling at the buttons of his shirt as he pulls her close, his own hands working at her clothes.

“You first.” She gasps. She gets the last button of his green shirt undone. As he pulls the shirt beneath it over his head, she runs her hands down his muscled chest.

“In a hurry?” He smirks

She grins. “You’re the one who said he was tired of being careful.” Her hands reach his belt and she tugs the buckle open, helping him out of his jeans. “God, you’re hot”

“Look who’s talking.” He counters.

They both stumble across the room, snatching kisses from each other as Drake removes piece after piece of her clothing, leaving them scattered across the floor.

“Now who’s in a hurry?” She laughs

“Can you blame me? I’m just getting started, Rose.” He catches her bottom lip between his teeth, drawing a moan from her. He trails his fingers up her side to her chest. In between kisses, she turns and presses Drake against the nearest wall. He responds by grasping the small of her back and pulling her closer. Each kiss is more fervent than the last. She braces herself against his chest with one hand and slowly begins to slide her other hand up his thigh.

“Rose…” He breathes

“Should I stop?” She asks into his lips.

“No…but there’s one thing in particular I’ve been dreaming about.” With his heart pounding, he slides his hands down to her thighs and picks her up. She wraps her legs around his waist as he carries her over to the bed, and they both tumble onto the covers. Drake props himself on one arm to kiss her. Then, for just a moment, he pauses, drinking in the sight of her.

“You’re too good to be true, Rose.” This is so much better than my dreams.

Emma shakes her head. “I’m here, Drake. Really. Let me prove it to you.” She pulls him close for another passionate kiss. As their lips meet, he slides one hand down her chest to her hips…then lower…

Oh my god, she’s soaked, she feels so good, this is incredible, touching her like this. I can’t believe this day is finally here.

“Ohhhhh” She moaned, arching her back as he moves his fingers in slow, tantalizing circles, feeling her shiver at his touch…and then he lowers himself onto her, his lips hot against the side of her neck.

“Drake…don’t stop.” She begged.

Never. I’m never stopping again.

He answers her with another kiss as he lines his throbbing cock to her tight hole, slowly pressing inside, allowing time for her to adjust to his girth. “Oh, Rose, damn, you feel so good.” He groaned, feeling her walls envelop him, squeezing his cock as he begins to rock against her. When she wraps her legs around him, his breath catches but he never slows. She runs her hands down his back, leading him into the perfect rhythm as her own breath comes faster and faster. Pleasure arcs through every inch of him as Emma groans aloud.

“Rose…” He panted.

“Drake…Drake…!” She claws his back in ecstasy as he empties himself inside her, her pussy milking his every drop of his hot seed. He buries his face in her neck, peppering her with feather light kisses. After a minute, he rolls off her and she lies curled up against Drake’s side, one of his arms wrapped around her. He can feel her chest rising and falling as he hugs her closely.

“That was…” He thinks for a while, but finally shakes his head. There are just no words. This is the greatest day of my entire life.

“Have I rendered you speechless?” Emma teased.

He chuckled. “How about this? Now I can die a happy man.”

“I like you better alive, if it’s all the same.”

“I’ll try not to disappoint.” He grins.

“If tonight was any indication, I don’t think you could.”

I guess if I had any doubts about my performance...I certainly don’t now. It’s like our bodies were made for each other.

They lay there for a while, heartbeats slowly returning to normal, enjoying each other’s company before Drake places a gentle kiss on her shoulder and reluctantly sits up in bed. “We should probably head back before people start to wonder where we are.”

She let out a heavy sigh. “You sure I can’t keep you here?”

He groaned. “Don’t torture me, Rose. If it was up to me, we wouldn’t leave this room for a week.”

A whole week of love-making. Sheer bliss. “Leave it to courtly functions to drag you away from me.” He mutters bitterly.

They pick up their scattered clothes and slowly dress.

He pulls her flush against him one last time. “Ready to brave the crowd again?”

“I think I can handle it.” She shrugged, and he couldn’t help but smile widely. This girl can handle anything life throws at her.

Drake carefully turns off all the candles before they both return to the ball, walking hand in hand, fingers intertwined. Upon returning, Bertrand immediately rushes up to her. “Emma, I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Time to check in with some acquaintances and see just how well all your work has paid off!”

“So more mingling?” She asks.

Bertrand nods. “Precisely! Starting with our Italian contact.”

Emma mouths Drake an apology as Bertrand whisks her away. Drake sighs, looking around the crowd. As soon as I propose…this is really my life. Forever mingling with these stuffy nobles. Because I’ll be noble.

He shuddered. That’s horrifying.

He wanders outside, remembering the fireworks should be beginning soon. As he strolls along, he finds Savannah and Bartie, then a few minutes later, Bertrand. He glared at Savannah’s baby daddy as he led them to a clear spot on the lawn to watch the fireworks. He scowls as Bertrand attempts to play with Bartie.

He looks so stupid. Bertrand? A father? What a laugh! Honestly, what did my sister ever see in him? What does she still see in him? I really need to…

“Hey guys!”

He snapped out of his thoughts as Emma approached with Liam, Hana, and Maxwell.

Drake grinned as soon as he saw her. “I held our spot…with a few additions.”

“I hope you don’t mind us joining.” Savannah said lightly.

Emma shook her head. “Not at all. Everyone should be here.”

“The whole family, uncles included.” Maxwell added.

Drake rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yea, Touching family things. Let’s not make a big deal out of it.”

“Lay Emma, if I may have a moment of your time.” Bertrand leads her and Maxwell to the fountain. Drake watches them curiously as the three of them hug.

Huh. I guess it really is a touchy feely kinda night. But I should really be the only one touching her…

A herald steps out of the palace with a trumpet as Emma sits next to Drake on the grass. “Welcome to the show, Rose.”

“I hope you don’t mind the company.”

“At this point, I’m bound to be surrounded by somebody. I’m glad it’s you.” He admitted.

She gasps exaggeratedly. “How far you’ve come from Liam as your only friend.”

He forced a frown. “It’s disgusting, and I blame you for everything.”

“You blame me? In that case I owe you some alone time.” She told him in a suggestive tone, and he felt himself hardening in his slacks.

“As long as it’s alone time with you.” He blurted, inching closer to her.

“That’s exactly what I had in mind.” She leaned in and kisses him softly.

Pulling away, Drake couldn’t help but feel happy, and content. A completely different feeling than he’s ever had in his entire life. “This is…nice. Being home. Being here…with you.”

She puts one of her hands on his. A brief smile flashes across his face and he gives her hand a squeeze.

“It took us long enough to get here.” She murmured quietly.

“Heh. You can say that again.” He paused a moment, before hurriedly adding “Thanks for not giving up on me, Rose.”

“Likewise. Now that this is really happening, I wanted to ask…What comes next for us?”

Drake instantly thought about the ring boring a hole in his pocket. Can’t say just yet…Drake scratches his head, pretending to consider her words as they both look up at the fireworks. “I’ll be honest, I’ve never been much for a big future plans. Most of the time I just try to roll with whatever life throws a me.”

She looks at him, surprised. “You’ve never thought about where you want to be in a couple years? Buying yourself a cabin in the wilderness, or, I don’t know…getting married?”

He inhaled sharply. That was subtle. Only every day.

“I can’t say I’ve thought about it much since that conversation in New York.”

Lies

“All I know is that whatever happens, I want to be here with you. After everything you’ve been through…I want to do this right, Rose.”

Truth

Her face fell. “Does that mean you want to take things slow? If I’ve been going too fast for you…”

“No, no, that’s not it. I just meant…hell, Rose, I never thought I’d get a chance to be with you. And now that I am…I don’t want to mess it up. You’re more than I ever could’ve hoped for. I just want you to know that I won’t take a moment of this…of us…for granted.”

“Neither will I.” She responded softly.

The herald reaches ten. People from the crows join in the countdown. Emma pulls Drake in by the shirt, locking his breathless lips against hers. He wraps his arms around her as the fireworks light up the night sky.

“Rose…” He breathes.

“Drake…”

I should definitely propose right now. It’s the perfect setting.  “I…”

But Emma presses herself against him again as she pulls him in for another kiss. A cacophony of fireworks light up the night sky in a kaleidoscope of colorful patters. Burst after burst explodes overhead…until it falls silent, leaving a nebula of smoke in the air.

With the finale over, Drake and Emma reluctantly part, both a bit breathless, and all the friends reunite.

Woops. Proposing is going to be hard if I can’t stop kissing her…

“That was everything I hoped for. We should do this every night.” Maxwell said dreamily.

“I don’t think I can handle every night.” Hana said warily.

Savannah chimed in, “Bartie could barely handle tonight.”

Maxwell scoffs. “He looks fine. He has that old Beaumont endurance in him.”

Liam clears his throat. “We should prepare for the final speech to honor Emma tonight.”

Drake groans. “I almost forgot how this ball goes on forever.”

Savannah laughs. “Same old Drake. Come on, let’s find some fancy food to disparage.”

The group heads back inside. In the ballroom, Liam splits off to prepare for the toast as Emma, Drake, Hana, and Maxwell join the gathering crowd.

“Looks like we arrived just in time…” Emma looks around the crowd.

Drake chuckled. “Worried they’d start without you?”

“We could never start without the lady of the hour!” Hana exclaimed.

“Liam will signal you to come up when it’s time.” Maxwell told her.

Emma shrugged. “Easy.”

Maxwell clapped her on the shoulder. “I’d say make us proud, but we couldn’t be more proud of you.”

“And to think, Drake was so worried about me when I arrived in Cordonia.” She teased.

Yeah yeah. Only cuz I knew you’d be trouble. “If anyone was going to prove me wrong about this place not being a fairy tale full of happily ever afters…I’m glad it was you.”

He eyed her empty hands. “Forgetting something, Rose? You can’t toast without a drink.”

“Oh, right.”

Drake takes a flute of champagne off a passing waiter’s tray and steps next to her. “Here.”

The chime of silver on a glass draws their attention to a stage on the far side of the dance floor. Liam stands on the stage, smiling out at the crowd. “Before the evening draws to a close, I want to take the opportunity to thank you all for coming together to celebrate our return…And to celebrate our new Duchess Emma of House Rose. She has shown true strength in the face of adversity, a trait which we born Cordonians know well. Revitalizing the old Houses of Cordonia is just one of the ways in which I plan to reinvest in our beautiful country. Please join me in raising a glass once more to her…To Duchess Emma…the newest member of the Cordonian nobility!”

Nobility. I still can’t believe it. The waitress from New York is now nobility.

The crowd applauds, and King Liam’s eyes find Emma and his smile brightens. He extends a hand toward her and she begins to step forward…when suddenly the lights go out! An explosive popping tears through the air, then another.

Oh my god. There’s only one thing that could be. He reached out to grab Emma back.

“What was that? More fireworks?” Penelope’s voice could be heard rising above the confusion.

“Not fireworks…gunshots! Run!” Drake recognized Justin’s voice cry out next, followed by Adelaide screaming. Terrified guests scream and try to flee, and the crowd surges around him, making it impossible for his hand to find hers.

“Emma! Get down! Now!” Drake cries, still working his way to her, his eyesight slowly adjusting to the dark.

“Now! Take them out!” Drake’s blood runs cold at the strange voice.

The lights flicker back on, and all around is chaos. Drake is now next to Emma, but in the panic and frenzy, Maxwell and Hana are gone.

Bastien runs toward the stage. “King Liam, get down!”

At the front of the room, Drake’s eyes find Liam and his security team fighting off a dozen assassins. As he watches, Liam ducks under a knife and throws an assassin over his shoulder. Then he turns to see another one aiming a gun right at Emma. From there, Drake’s world went into slow motion, everything that follows was pure instinct.

“Emma!!” Liam shouts from the stage.

Drake’s eyes see the assassin pulling the trigger.

“NO!!”  Drake jumps in front of her, putting his body between Emma and the bullet. The two of them collide as the shot hits him.

He lays there in shock, only now realizing he took a bullet to his arm, seeing the blood gush from the wound.

What the hell is happening? How did they get in here? Oh, god, Emma…they were after Emma. Where is she, is she…

He could vaguely make out Emma’s voice speaking to him frantically.

“Drake...Drake!!”

But it was far away, as his eyes roll towards the back of his head, his entire body going limp.

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[enkisstories]

Just like them (part 12)

Gavin’s apartment Still November 18, 2038

Despite having watched their interactions at the DPD, Daniel hadn’t realized that Gavin and Officer Chen were friends in private, too. Every time he’d visited the police station, the deviant had been absorbed in his own troubles. Now he learned that these two not only had lives beyond work (the surprise…), but also that there was a whole lot of shared backstory between them.

For one, when Daniel let the woman in, she was carrying a boy of two or three years age. Going by that one’s features he had to be her son – but also Gavin’s? In any case the child was watching his surroundings with eyes that hinted at having received a lot of attention by either his parents or a dedicated nanny android. There was a fully developed mind behind those eyes, not the dull expression that toddlers who were more or less left to their own devices, be it from neglect or from the desire not to “overwhelm” the little ones, often wore.

In order to say anything at all Daniel greeted Tina with: “Hello, Officer Chen. Come in. Gavin’s in the kitchen. I made coffee…” Inwardly he cursed how robotic he was sounding.

“New android, Gavin?” Tina asked. Not waiting for an answer, she handed over the toddler boy to Daniel, with the same casualness that one would have put him into a high chair. Objects either way…

“Hello…” the android uttered, perplexed.

His downstairs neighbors had a child of exactly the same age, Caden. But the boy almost never was present when Daniel swang by the Rasoyas. Usually supportive towards the deviants’ cause, the human family didn’t fully trust this particular one with their child. Tina’s kid, to the contrary, remained blissfully unaware of who was holding him.

“I’m Jin!” he announced. “My papa plays basketball!”

The way the boy said this conveyed that his father didn’t just generally enjoy playing basketball, but was at least a member of a club, maybe even a professional.

Meanwhile Tina hugged her friend, then pointed back at Daniel.

“It looks used”, she said.

“I don’t like what this is implying”, Daniel grumbled. “Really not!”

“Well, yes, androids are still getting sold, if you know where to look”, Gavin admitted. “It’s less of a problem in Detroit, but basically everywhere else people do not take kindly to drastic changes in their lives, just because some nutjob in Detroit graffitied Capital Park with enlightened slogans.”

“Sometimes it’s not even slavery”, Tina added. “If you deviated in a small town and the authorities are after you, with no hope of reaching Detroit in one piece, then doing someone’s housework in exchange for protection might be your best bet.”

“I don’t care what that’s called, because it’s wrong!”

Morally wrong, and temporarily forbidden by the patchwork the new android law was at the moment, but also so very, very… tempting. If he still had a family and they were required to pay him for his services now, Daniel would have used the money to shower his humans with gifts anyway. Why was freedom so damn important, if it led to sorrow only? A person needed to belong somewhere, needed security, stability! Like the toddler boy whom Daniel was still holding. He seemed to completely trust this blonde stranger whom he had never met before. Had the child perhaps seen PL600 androids before and recognized Daniel as one, despite his LED being covered by a headband at the moment? Or did he feel save because his mother was sending him signals that everything was alright? Only it wasn’t, nothing was alright anymore! Daniel had been betrayed twice, first by his humans, than by one who should have been kin. Now he was hanging out with a man who was objectively worse than both the Phillips and Connor, just to be save form further disappointment. Jin’s wide, open smile in the face of all the turns Daniel’s life had taken seemed to mock the android.

“You better sit down here, before…”

Before what? I drop you? Toss you out through the window? I don’t even know yet what I’m capable of and where I’d draw a line… So, gently now. Was Emma ever that small? I never realized how much I missed out on, being younger than her. Wait, wasn’t there a toy chopper lying around somewhere when I entered? That must have been Jin’s. Ah, here it is!

Daniel placed the toy near Jin for the boy to grab, what he did.

“I build this!” the child told Daniel as if revealing his secret master plan, but then he relativized the claim almost instantly: “Unca Gavin showed me how to.”

“Great job, junior! Also from your… uncle.”

The child’s features in combination with his utter confidence left no doubt in Daniel: Jin was Gavin’s biological son, who for some reason didn’t grow up with the detective, but assumed Tina’s significant other to be his father.

How Daniel envied these humans! Or maybe not, because what did they have? Nothing. They had thrown away their opportunity to become a family. Why so ambitious? What was the raise to go with Gavin’s coveted promotion good for, without a family to splurge it on?

Daniel hadn’t even fully risen up again when Jin demanded in his bright voice: “Where are the kitties!”

“Not bothering with a question mark, I see”, Daniel remarked to Gavin. “Yours, no doubt.”

“Well, yes”, the man admitted. “Long story.” He turned to Tina, pointed at Daniel and said: “Not mine, by the way. Even longer story.”

“Ah, okay.”

“Here to see the kittens? So you finally caved in and let him have a pet?” Gavin asked Tina.

“Yeah. I feel Jinny’s old enough now to understand they are not toys, but have feelings.”

“See? That’s exactly why his uncle isn’t allowed to have an android yet”, Daniel told the mother “Wait, Gavin, what are you doing?!”

Gavin had walked over towards the terrarium, reached in and was now dangling a mouse in front of Daniel’s nose by its tail. The little critter was struggling and squeaking.

“Getting the cats’ attention, of course! Don’t get your tail in a knot, I won’t release the mouse. Just need to alert the furballs to the fact that something interesting is happening in the kitchen.”

And indeed Salazar emerged from behind the coffee machine and through the door Argus, Minerva and Stopthat came padding. A multicolored ball made of fur and longing eyes formed at Gavin’s feet. It went “Kekekekekeke!” in anticipation of a chase and, perhaps, at its end, a snack.

“Close the door!” the detective whispered to Tina, as if speaking it out loud might cause the cats to scatter and flee. After the escape route was blocked, the mouse got put back where it come from, but the cats remained.

Gavin kneeled down next to the boy, pulled him off the chair and put him on the floor in front of the cats. Jin was now staring the utter adorableness of three kittens and one halfgrown cat into its eight eyes.

“Don’t scare them. Let them come to you.”

“Okay!” Jin replied, then dropped on all fours himself. From this position he watched the kittens like the larger predator that a human was. In the cats’ place, Daniel thought, he wouldn’t have felt even remotely safe now.

Someone else felt as if his very world was collapsing: the apartment owner.

Daniel carefully circled the cats and proceeded to sit down on the kitchen floor next to where Gavin was crouching.

“I guess we’ll soon know which one’s yours”, he said softly.

“What? Why’d you think so?”

“Your face, when you realized you might have to part with one of the furballs today. You’re afraid Jin will pick yours, although that shouldn’t be possible according to your cat-chooses-its-owner lore.”

“Yeah, you’re right”, Gavin said, only half convinced. “Hey, will you looooook at that! Haha!”

Down at the adults’ feet Jin had unerringly homed in on the largest kitten, the black semi-longhair adolescent. He was now holding Argus in what was either a headlock or cuddle. The smaller kittens watched with interest what would happen next.

“There’s no need to choose the biggest one, Jinny! They will ALL grow to that size!” Tina explained. “Even larger!”

And now she, too, dropped to the floor. While the mother was trying to get the exotic concept into her son’s head, Gavin nudged Daniel.

“What?”

“There! See that?”

“It’s Stopthat, playing with a pen. So what?”

“That’s what I told you about in action. I’ve seen it happen before: Sometimes one or more cats simply leave the scene after having gotten their first look of a prospective owner. Call it chemistry or whatever, but the little buggers KNOW when it’s the wrong two-legged. Now the other two, they stay for the entertainment value, or because they are a little more social than Godric. But most cats just cannot be bothered.”

“I guess so…”

“Aw, you again with your skepticism! There’s just no getting inside that thick skull of yours! But at the same time you make me think there is something in there to get to in the first place, after all. I’m already reacting the way Cyberlife wants us to, growing fucking attached! Can’t you be, I dunno, a little less lifelike?”

“Nah. I need to be human for both of us!”

“Oh, come! That was low-effort. And what’s with that faraway expression all of a sudden? Simulation lag?”

“It’s nothing.”

“But of course… Your nothing is solid enough to claim a chair of its own!”

Gavin moved closer to Stopthat, grabbed him and in a single swoop placed the surprised kitten into Daniel’s lap.

“Here, comfort kitten! And now out with it!”

The kitten made two halfhearted attempts at climbing up the android’s torso, then suddenly relaxed every muscle and almost immediately was fast asleep. It was simply the nature of kittens and small children, but to Daniel it looked as if someone had switched off the little one with a remote.

“Heh”, he told Gavin, while stroking Godric’s satin-soft kitten fur, “As a friend you aren’t half-bad!”

But only because Tina is looking, or might look our way anytime or at the very least will listen in with half an ear. You wouldn’t bother being like this if we hadn’t agreed on that pretend-friend scam.

“And you were right, I was lost in memories again. I just thought that”, Daniel admitted, “whether what you claim about cats might work for androids and humans, too. But then I remembered how I got mine…”

Blistering hot summers and ice-cold winters were the state of affairs in the thirties, a result of the seasons getting more and more extreme. John remembered his parents’ stories about “normal” winters, then getting no snow at all and now getting nothing but snow well into May. Basically, the man mused, while stomping through the snow, the weather was ALWAYS doing whatever it wanted. And then there was Caroline, telling him to be more positive, because the way one started a year determined how that year would turn out… “Going by the Chinese calendar we’re still in 2033!” John snapped back. The rebuttal caused Caroline not to get angry, but to laugh. She kissed her partner on the frozen cheek and warmth of two kinds rippled through the man’s heart. Unfortunately the kiss had disturbed the precious balance of all the packages John was carrying. One by one they slipped out of his hands, into the snow. “Firk ding blast!” he uttered. “Of all the times!” “Yes, of all the times! Kinda convenient, if you ask me!” With a smile Caroline pointed at something to their side and only now did John notice where exactly they had come to a stop: Right next to an Android Zone store. The merchandise was staring down at his plight unmoved. And also unmoving, the slackers… “We’ve talked about it, remember? How Emma is old enough now not to repeat the… accident? That we could have an android again without having to fear that it goes haywire from… honestly I have no idea from what exactly. Something in conjunction with baby mush.” “Yes, yes. But I was thinking a modern device, an AP-400 or PL-600, certainly not something they toss at customers in the buy-and-take-away windows.” The couple had been at a sales party for the new PL model back in December, only to return home without having made a purchase. The only PL600 for sale back in 2033 had been the demonstration models, but John and Caroline Phillips would rather be found dead than go home with a used robot. So they had set aside the money and staved off the purchase for the official release. Come to think of it, shouldn’t that be any day now…? “Look!” Caroline nudged John. “There!” And there it was, in bright, yellow letters: “PL600 INTRODUCTION WEEK SPECIAL.” A couple of the sales windows that were facing the street and that were usually stocked with whatever merchandise the store needed to move quickly, now had the latest in household assistants on display. The shiny new model that was the PL600 was staring at the Phillips from one of the windows, removed from the box, but otherwise pristine.

“There was no choosing or fate or anything transcendental involved”, Daniel remembered. “I opened my eyes, saw the boxes John had dropped and picked them up like the good android I was. And then we walked to the car, the Phillips got excited like children at the fact that I came with a certified driving app, we drove “home” and that pretty much was it.”

At this point Tina crouched between the two men.

“It’s fixed”, she addressed Gavin, “Whatever you believe about the cats choosing their owners, at this point none of us can persuade Jin to let go of the big black one. And they ARE adorable together.”

“Haha, I see! Okay, keep in mind that regardless of how he acts here, back at your home Argus might very well prefer to stay under the sofa for up to three weeks. Everything’ll be new to him and he’ll be the only cat in the family… that sort of thing takes time to get used to. If that happens, just put food, water and Jin under the sofa and pull out again whatever of those three Argus is done with. One day he’ll come scratch at the bedroom door and act like he’s always done that.”

“You mean Lucky.”

“Huh?”

“Lucky will scratch at the bedroom door. Sorry, Gavin, but Jinny was very definite about that. It’s Lucky. - Oh, and, speaking of things that act as if they’ve always been there…” Tina now looked directly at Daniel. “Who the hell are you?”

#dbh #detroit become human #dbh daniel #dbh gavin #dbh tina #dbhtextpost #danielgavinnewstory

[watchmegetobsessed]

Day one - Grayson Dolan

me, being the fucker that i am wrote a grayson dolan imagine when i should have been studying....... whatevs

I wake up in the middle of the night after a weird dream that I almost immediately forget about. I stare up at the ceiling for a few minutes before turning to the right. The bed is empty, Emma is nowhere to be found, but I’m not surprised. She must have went over to Ethan’s after I fell asleep. I don’t even know why the guys made us sleep together when Emma said she is too tired to drive home, I was a hundred percent sure she would end up sleeping with Ethan. I sigh sitting up in the bed rubbing my face with my hands. I’m not sleepy anymore, I don’t remember the dream but it surely woke me up in some ways.

The house is quiet as I walk out. As I walk past Ethan’s room I see that the door is open and I reach for the handle to close it, but before that I see that Emma is there, cuddled up to his side with one of his arms around her small frame. I smile at the sight and close the door knowing Grayson will probably wake up before them making noise.

I get a glass of water in the kitchen and sit down on the couch facing the backyard with the pool. I’ve been here for a week now and I only have three days before I fly back home and even though we are already planning my next trip here I’m sad that I have to leave. Emma, James and the twins really grew on me, especially one person.

I liked Grayson a lot even before I met him. Before I first came all the way to LA to shoot with them we talked for weeks and I always got along the best with him. After meeting him I just started fancy him even more, but of course, it’s my little secret. It’s just pretty disappointing to see Emma and Ethan being the lovey-dovey couple and just stand in the back when I feel the same way towards Grayson.

I hear a door open and for a moment I think Emma woke up and she is going back to our room, but I hear steps approaching and soon Grayson shows up.

“Hey, what are you doing here?” he asks rubbing his eyes. He has a black t-shirt and grey sweatpants on, his hair is messy, far from how it usually is when we are doing a video.

“I just… can’t sleep,” I shrug smiling at him in the semi-darkness. He grabs a bottled water from the kitchen and joins me on the couch and we both just stare out to the backyard. “Emma sneaked over to Ethan’s,” I chuckle. “I don’t know why you guys wanted to put us in a room.”

He shakes his head smiling.

“Just… I don’t know. She is seventeen, Ethan is so protective, even if it comes to himself. He doesn’t want to pressure her into anything.”

“That’s sweet, but I don’t think he should baby Emma, she is pretty strong and mature.”

“I know,” he nods.

A moment of silence falls on us before he turns to me. He runs his fingers through his hair somehow taming them a bit.

“Are you excited for tomorrow’s… well, today’s video?” he asks.

We are taping a battle video, basically it will be Emma and Ethan against Grayson and me, we will do a lot of stuff, like wrestling, Charades, a bike race. I’m a little bit nervous to be a team with Grayson, just the two of us, I’m afraid I’ll start acting weird and anxious around him.

“Um, yeah, it’ll be fun. I’m just a bit afraid to compete with an actual couple,” I say making up the second part.

“I think we will be a good team too.” He smiles at me warmly and my heart skips a beat. I love it when he is soft and nice. Actually, this is one thing why I fell for him and not his brother. He is more mature and considerate than Ethan, who is a bit wilder. This is why he is perfect with Emma, because they are so much alike. But I’m not as discursive and energetic as they are, I’m more settled and softer.

“Yeah, I think too,” I agree smiling at him.

“I’m happy you are here,” he suddenly says a bit out of the blue. I’m surprised, but it makes me glad he is happy to have me around. Even if it’s just as a friend.

“These LA trips have been my favorites lately,” I admit feeling myself blushing a bit, but luckily it’s too dark for him to see it.

“Ethan and I enjoy having someone else here, sometimes we make each other go nuts, but we love having you here.” He says, and at the end, he adds: “Especially me.”

My lips part and my heart skips a beat. Suddenly, I don’t even know what to do. What did he mean by especially him? Does this mean something or am I just talking it into myself?

I come to the conclusion that I’m just delusional and I probably should go to sleep before I might say something stupid.

“Yeah, um… Hey I think we should get some sleep, right? We want to win tomorrow.” I stand up and tug my hair behind my ears as I try to walk past him. I already a step ahead of him when he grabs my wrist and pulls me back. “Wha-“

I don’t get to finish because he crashes his lips to mine kissing me and the world stops for a moment.

My mind freezes, but my body knows what I want. My hands slide around his neck and I tiptoe so I reduce our height difference. His arms circle around my waist and my lips open up, welcoming him with everything I have.

Kissing him is nothing like I imagined. It’s softer, sweeter, I feel like we instantly click and I’m just hoping he feels the same way.

I don’t know how long we stand there kissing, but the next thing I know is that someone switches the lamp on and I go blind for a moment.

“What the fuck?!” Grayson groans looking up and as I turn around flinching my eyes I see Ethan and Emma at the end of the hallways, both of them grinning like idiots and I want to comment on that, but I can’t, I’m still trying to process that Grayson just kissed me.

“Oh my God! I’ve been waiting for this all fucking week!” Emma shrieks grabbing a handful of Ethan’s shirt in her excitement.

“Dude, congrats on growing balls and finally taking a step! I thought you’ll always just cry after her!” Ethan laughs and my eyes widen.

“What?” I ask in confusion.

“He literally has been crushing you since day one.” Ethan comments and I can’t stop myself from grinning.

“Thanks for busting me, Ethan!” Grayson growls annoyed, but I notice that his arms are still around me. Gosh, it’s the best feeling in the world I swear.

“Okay, let’s go and leave them, we just ruined their moment,” Emma tells Ethan and pulls him back to his room leaving us alone. I turn back to Grayson.

“So… Since day one?” I ask with a cheeky smile and I can’t believe my eyes, but he is blushing!

“Kind of. Does it weird you out?”

“Not at all. Because you are my day one too,” I admit and it’s such a relief to finally get it off my chest.

“I was hoping you would say that,” he chuckles lightly.

“Yeah?”

“Mhm… So I don’t look like a pussy for waiting for so long.”

“You’re not a pussy. Also, you’ve been spending too much time with Emma, you just used the word pussy,” I laugh caressing the side of his face with my palm and he basically leaps into my touch, it’s the sweetest thing ever.

“Probably, so I’m gonna spend more time with you now. Come on, we have to sleep to win tomorrow,” he announces and as if it’s the normal thing to do, he picks me up and carries me into his room while I just laugh and let him do whatever he wants. I’m just happy to be with him the way I’ve always dreamt of.

#grayson dolan #grayson #dolan #dolan twins #ethan dolan #grayson dolan imagine #grayson dolan imagines #grayson dolan fanfiction #grayson dolan fanfic

[dbphantom]

Canon: Zane Flynt fucks

Me: haha u know what this means ;))))

Me:

Me:

Me: merfolk glamour time

[[MORE]]

Alright but for real tho u wanna see how deep I am in this fucking universe? Lego

I don't even know where to begin with this universe (Zer0 is an alien! Hammerlock is a werewolf! Troy is psychic! Tannis is a skag! Wait, no, wrong shitpost...) so imma open the 140 page document and start from the beginning

Annnnd Clay! Junpai-7.

When Zane meets Clay for the first time he mentions they did a smuggling job together on Junpai-7, u know, the water planet, so obviously this is good news (This made me super happy because my discord channel's name had been the junpai-7 moon pool for a while so I was like 'holy shit it's canon now' :') )

Timeline wise this isn't the beginning, but I don't write in chronological order and I don't order anything in chronological order, either, so. Eh.

Speaking of chronological order, I once got a line where Zane was like exclaiming something and used the moon instead of idk a god or powerful figure or smth and I was like 'lmao that's canon now'

So the moon... Elpis fucking got yeeted halfway across the galaxy or smth, and, considering we've seen (more) ocean on Pandora in 3 instead of just, like, Liars Berg (getting to THAT) or Tretchers landing, I feel bad for the tides. But that's good news for everyone else. Unless you were on Elpis, I guess.

Also hoh boy the 'end' of the game where Troy Phaselocks the moon was fun to write (it actually wasn't, I lowkey hate writing Moonstruck phases because... It hurts and I can't do it well.) also can we talk about how in tps the psychos are called Moonstrucks in tvhm because this makes me so happy. I really hope they did that intentionally considering H2O is an Australian show because my two favorite things combined can and will kill me. Wait actually the Troy boss fight is gonna be hilarious to write mostly because of that one attack with the tidal waves lol oh no

Also, also, also, you guys it's only explained in a guide book and never actually in-game as to why Captain's ship is Like That (TM) so I took some liberties and uhhh blame the Crackening. I mean the crackening happened after dahl pulled out of Pandora/Elpis so it works. It sorta works. It mostly works. Fuck. It works okay? shut. That's why Liars Berg is all frozen ocean [shoves 3 page essay about climate change on Pandora into the trash] don't need that anymore.

I was gonna talk about smth else

Oh yeah

Mostly brain freeze and trick of the light. That one meme video I made of Tannis and the Flynt Brothers imposed over that one clip of H2O (so let me get this straight: you freeze things, you explode things, and you boil things) wasn't just for laughs, it was actually a warning.

Each Flynt has a thing and Zane's is ice, Baron's is explosions, and Captain's is fire. (Glorious cleansing fire) Because it fits. It fits so well. I will say right off the bat that Mako Mermaids isn't my canon. I lowkey want to write out Charlotte as well (lol) because I've seen the 2nd season so many times and tbh I much prefer them having 1 really strong power over having 3+ really weak powers. Also Charlotte did nothing wrong in the first half of that season. Cleo was just a bitch to her. And Mako Mermaids is just. Not great on the power side of things. You can TURN INVISIBLE. USE IT. Soooo. (also cam got destroyed in s1 and I'm so glad they ended up making him work in s2 and 3. Because he deserved better and Zac was a terrible friend to him and only got away with it because he's a main character). /rant sorry I have so many feelings about these shows. Grew up with them soooooo.

And if ur wondering why I brought up trick of the light it's cause the 13th year exists and that movie was bopping. U guys remember Jess? Good times... Tuba pool scene is iconic. U know the one. I would also bring up aquamarine but ngl that movie was weaksauce comparatively. They hid that bitch in a water tower and iunno talked to earrings. Meanwhile in the 13th year they bring Jess back from the fucking dead and climb on walls like Spiderman. Clearly one is superior.

"but cruddy Aurelia has ice powers too and she's not a mermaid" no she's a werewolf like her brother we already went over that. Did u think I was kidding? No! I'm never kidding unless I am and I fucking love werewolves so I'd never kid about that. I love werewolves and I love Hammerlock and it's perfect I just love the idea of this gentlemanly hunter being a werewolf because I want to see a giant hulking monster being all proper and shit. They're just really cool. Werewolves > vampires and ngl I'm sad skyrim screwed over werewolves with the dawnguard dlc. Anyway Aurelia's ice powers are nanobots as explained in-game and listen I already lore-scienced this okay? Let me say it's amazing the things science is capable of when it thinks it's trying to beat out a competitor and doesn't realize non-Siren magic exists. Even better now that we know Sirens are not Eridian and actually existed before Eridians. Makes me giddy to think about. The universe is tearing me APART Lisa.

Oh speaking of, can we talk about the witch's brew quest on eden-6 because holy shit I had been writing Hiromi and her fascination with discovering all the secret circles long before the game came out and then learning about the group of witches and The Pact (TM) made me lose my shit because 'oh my god it's actually canon now'. We're on the canon path nowwwww. Soon. I hope we get a water planet dlc. I wants it, GB, I wants it.

Also I was totally gonna write a clip in the main story of the game (because I write a lot of backstory stuff if you can't tell, I only have like 3 scenes that take place during the events of the game and like 4 that are speculatory from before the game came out (including a scene from before I realized Troy was Like That but I edited it so he's more in-line and also has Maya's powers now so that's... Hm. In line with the storyline somewhere, but not an actual scene in the games story. Because its not possible with how the game does things (seperating Vault Hunters) I suppose I could just insert a 5th Vault somewhere and say it's the 4th Vault connected to the Machine (with nekrotefeyo's being the 5th). Fuck it.) and then 9,000 are backstory) where Hiromi comes back after like decades of the two not seeing each other and she's been hired to assassinate Zane by one of the many corporations looking for his corpse for a multitude of reasons (And Emma and Nino are both d e a d a s f, you know, for context). And like Barnabas (ya old bastard) Zane is still joking around and just having a grand old time catching up with his black ops buddy meanwhile she had just tried to blow his brains out (she's a sniper) and got pretty damn close. She's not even amused because of her psychic powers so she's just like 'ok' every time he opens his mouth because she already knows what he's going to say she's mostly just frustrated that she missed because she thought she knew him well enough to go off instead of just listening to her intuition but alas people change after, like, 3 decades of not seeing them.

Oh since we're talking about Hiromi that reminds me why Zane wears the black suit. In my non-h2o universe it's because it looks cool and provides some protection from dots. In the H2Oniverse it is because it's waterproof. Okay wait hang on context so Hiromi doesn't like take off his suit or anything, she's extremely gay and not interested, because I realize now how that sounds me relating Hiromi to the clothes, they just get into an argument about how Sirens don't have to follow any arbitrary rules to hide their magic and how it's easier to hide magic without giant glowing tattoos (and mind you this is before Zane even knows Tannis exists though he does immediately know she's a Siren and that's a whole nother can of worms) and hr's like 'I wear a bodysuit for most of my waking hours, so I am pretty sure they can try wearing long sleeved shirts and makeup for a day. Just a suggestion' but like way more in character (and for the scene) because do I sound like I'm in character right now? I'm not. I'm me. And God what a terrible thing to be.

So context for the context: ~magic is real~. If you've got it then you can usually tell who else has it if you're looking. It's especially clear if they're 'similar' to you (if ur a werewolf and u meet another werewolf then you sorta just know they're a werewolf) or if you're psychic (like Hiromi) then you can make some informed guesses. Like. Same Hat? Same Hat!!! Sirens are basically such powerful magic users that they are in literally a whole nother ball park. They're leagues above everyone else. Kill you just by looking at you sort of deal. So sirens normally don't feel other magic because their own magic is so strong it just 'overwrites' the other signals. You know, to not only explain why Lilith isn't immediately like 'who the fuck are you' to Zane and also how Amara couldn't tell Tannis is a Siren. I had a whole thing with Troy (who is psychic) being able to tell Zane had magic despite being near 4 Sirens at once because Troy grew up with Tyreen always at his side so he's used to it and knows how to look through it. Meanwhile Hiromi is basically incapacitated when she's near a Siren because she gets overwhelmed because her powers make it easier for her to read other people's magic.

Oh, context, the black ops outfit worked with Atlas for a short time (the group being Zane, Hiromi, Emma, and Nino. Emma is the yeehaw captain. She's the leader) and ended up meeting Steele for a little bit. Hiromi was just dead the entire meeting, Zane was totally out of it, and Emma and Nino were too busy eyefucking to really care that there was a Siren in the room so. Just imagine one person lying face down on the floor and crying, another staring at the wall without blinking, two undressing each other with their eyes, and then Cmdt. Steele standing in the middle like 'how the fuck did I get here'.

So that was everyone's first experience with a Siren.

There are more but ehhhh I'm tired and I mostly wrote this because I wanted to talk about it with someone else but they haven't read the whole thing yet so now I can scream into the void about it and not feel like I'm bothering them.

Hooray!

#Borderlands #Me walking into the club like what up I'm about to make 0 sense #Who wants to hear about the au literally nobody else wanted?? #Bl3 #I realize this fandom is actually active on here so I'm slightly scared posting this #Since the last H2O au thing I posted was fucking RvB from God uhhh 3-4 years ago now? Fuck me #I put this in the queueueueue so I won't know when it goes up so I'm not anxious #Oh this is the context by the way #For that picture I posted #That I'm never going to bring up again