#like the scene in nope where they show you all the people getting eaten

[cemeterything]

one of my worst personal habits is that whenever i get any kind of warning for horror/explicit content i always build it up in my mind as way more graphic than it actually is so when i finally check out the thing i was warned about for real i'm pretty much always like "wait that's it???"

#🐉 #like i can still be scared or horrified or disturbed sometimes but its rarely as extreme as i expect it to be #like the scene in nope where they show you all the people getting eaten #yeah its unpleasant but i was expecting something far more gory and disgusting #and i feel like if id gone in completely blind i wouldve been more shocked and horrified rather than kinda relieved

[etherealbelphie]

The Things Humans Come Up With (Ft. Beelzebub and GN!MC)

Warnings: Romantic relationships implied

Word count: 0.7k

A/N: Hi :D It's been a while, Character AI sort of took over my life, but I'm back now! There was this one scene from Obey Me! where the boys were absolutely baffled by human technology (like an ice cream maker), so that's kind of where the idea for this story came from. I hope you like it :D

I don't think this story requires many warnings, but if I should add one please let me know!

-Ethereal ^J^

Story below, please don't claim as your own!

Using your spatula, you carefully lifted up the bread to check the color. Nope, not quite ready yet. You put the lid back over the pan, opting to check your phone while you waited for your grilled cheese to finish cooking. You were idly scrolling through Devilgram when you caught something moving out of the corner of your eye. You glanced up, seeing Beel standing sheepishly in the doorway.

"Whatever you're cooking smells really good..." He started, shyly fidgeting with his hands.

"Thanks!" You told him

He took a few uncertain steps, and you swear you could hear his stomach growling. "I haven't eaten since Fangol practice..."

"No?" You asked. You knew what he was hinting at, but it was hard not to tease him on the rare occasion he was shy.

“Y-Yeah…and…dinner isn’t for a while…”

“No, it isn’t,” you agreed.

"Your food smells really yummy..." He gave you a pitiful look as his stomach growled, much noisier this time.

You smiled internally, finally giving in. "Beel, did you want me to make you some too?"

He lit up immediately, nodding. "Yes, please!

You smiled, nodding as you pulled out a few more slices of bread and set to work.

"What are you making, anyways?" Beel asked, coming over to lean against the counter.

"They're grilled cheeses," you answered.

"What are those?"

You nearly dropped the bread in your hand. "You don't know what a grilled cheese is?!"

Beel shook his head. "We don't have those here. It's a human food, I'm guessing?"

Man, culture shock still hit you hard sometimes.

"Yeah. It's like a cheese sandwich, but the bread is crispy, and the cheese is melted. You can put things like meat or eggs in them, too, but that's more of a panini at that point."

"Can you make those too?" Beel asked.

"Not today, but next time it's my turn to make breakfast, okay?"

He nodded enthusiastically and watched as you began to fry up his sandwiches. "You humans always come up with the neatest things," Beel commented.

“Yeah?” You asked.

"Yeah! Like, I heard you guys have a thing that turns food into drinks!"

"A...a what?" You asked.

"Yeah! Like, the thing where you put fruits into the cup with milk, and the magic turns it into a drink!"

"The...Oh, you mean a blender!" You exclaimed.

"Yeah, a blender!" He repeated, as if trying to commit it to memory. "And what's that thing called where there are little cages at the end that spin around really fast?"

"Uh..."

"I've seen them use it on human cooking shows," Beel explained patiently. "You plug it in, then sometimes the little cages spin too fast and goop ends up everywhere."

"Oh!" You snapped your fingers. "That's called an electric whisk. Sometimes people call it a beater.”

"I will say, I don't really like the thing that makes the bread stale."

"The toaster?" You guessed, and felt oddly proud when he nodded.

"Yeah, it just makes it super dry. I'll eat it if I get hungry enough, but it's not my favorite."

"I can't believe you don't like toast," you said. "What did you put on it?"

He paused. "...What?"

"What did you put on the toast after you toasted it?"

"...You're supposed to put something on it?"

“I mean, yeah.”

“…Like what?” He asked.

“I dunno, butter usually? Any spreadable condiment, really.”

“…That makes sense,” Beel admitted. “I’ll have to try that next time.”

You giggled, nodding. “Maybe, yeah.”

You plated all the sandwiches and sliced them each in half, then motioned for Beel to join you.

You didn’t have to ask him twice; he took his seat and grabbed one of the sandwiches.

He took a bite, and his eyes widened. “Mmph!” He exclaimed. “I’mph sho goom!”

You laughed. “What?”

He swallowed, smiling. “It’s so good!” He repeated. He reached for another slice, then suddenly snapped his fingers. “I know!” He exclaimed, grinning at you.

“Know…know what?” You asked.

“I know the best thing that humans have ever come up with,” Beel explained.

“Oh, yeah?” You laughed. “Is it grilled cheeses, because I don’t know if I’d ag-“

“It’s you,” he interrupted.

“A-Ah…” You blushed, staring at the table. He could be so dang sweet sometimes.  When you looked up, you caught him smirking at you for a split second.

He knew exactly what he was doing.

#obey me #obey me fanfiction #obey me romantic #obey me beel #obey me beelzebub #obey me beelzebub x mc #obey me mc #obey me main character #obey me beel x mc #obey me beelzebub x main character

[lutawolf]

Love In The Air Ep 1 Review/Running Commentary.

"Not Just Rain but a Raging Storm"

Let me pre-face this by saying that I've read the books. I won't give book spoilers but if at some point I feel like the book might have given a better insight into the character, I will share that. I also want to point out because I think it will be important, that Mame (the author) has a No Kink. This is not to be confused with a nonconsensual kink. A No Kink is almost hardwired into a bratty submissive. They essentially either want the No to rile up their Dom or they really like to be talked into doing something they are saying no to. Example "No we can't do that here, we are in public" but they really want to do it here in public, they just want their Dom to convince them of it. Again, this is not a nonconsensual kink. There's a massive difference between "No, fuck off." and "Nope. Convince me." and even "No. Make me."

Rain is just an ordinary university student whose world is about to be turned upside down. When he has car trouble, his savoir comes along to help but Payu then acts completely different in their next meeting. His savior quickly turns into a cunning wolf, out to eat him.

Let's Begin!

I know a lot of people said they didn't like the long intro but I did. It's not slow, there is constant movement and I felt it matched the pace of the show. For me, I was in high anticipation so it built it more.

Then we get to the true beginning where they meet at the broken down car in the rain. Poor little gay boy who didn't know he was gay, it's a trope but I'm here for it. There is just something about a gasp and "oh your handsome" that makes me clap my hands.

We quickly jump from that scene to meeting Rain's best friend Sky. No, that's not cliché at all but hey, I see the appeal. Sky is a smart-ass who comes off as a pain in the ass but when push comes to shove he has Rain's back. What more can you ask for right? Then enters Ple, Rain's no chance in hell love interest. Because she is interested in the shining star P' Payu whom apparently everyone knows about but Rain. Immediate jealousy ensues. Totally cliché and I'm loving it. I also have to take a moment to applaud a moment they added with Ple who called out Rain. Rain in his jealousy asked if Ple's brother was gay, it came off totally homophobic though he didn't mean it to but hell yea because she called him on it. 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽 She should also be commended for not punching Rain, to quote @suga4mycoffee, he's a dumbass and I wanna pinch his cheeks. Which cheeks? Inquiring minds want to know.

Rain is eating with a bunch of his school mates when he finally gets to meet the mysterious P' Payu. It's none other than his motorcycle riding savior.... Who doesn't remember his ass.

Omg! Whyyyyy do I have second hand embarrassment! I'm in my fucking thirties! But poor little gay boy is coming off desperate and doesn't even realize it. His car is once again having issues. P' Payu comes to the rescue but he's different then last time. He accuses rain of trying to seduce him! Which it kinda does have that vibe but no Rain is just pathetic I swear.

P' Payu calls a tow truck and takes Rain back to his place. Where he was almost eaten by the big bad wolf. Was anyone surprised?? Okay, it's cliche but fuck the chemistry got me fanning myself. Warning ⚠️ the No kink is very much activated.

Rain barely escapes with his virginity. He does though and vows to get back at P' Payu! Sky has a beautiful time mocking his bestie, which I respect because I'm that type of asshole too.

Ahhh! Payu is truly a wolf. He fixed Rain's car himself. Smart! Now Rain will be indebted to him. I truly love bad boys.

Okay, so there are a lot of cliques and the storyline is still a mystery. However, we've got interesting and well fleshed out characters. Their flawed and yet relatable. And the mother fucking chemistry! I'm really looking forward to the next episode.

Gif credit goes to @x-exo-l dedicated to @lannathel

#love in the air #payurain #if I could stop being shadow banned that would be great #streaming iqiyi #no kink #my beloved coconuts #coconuts mafia

[imthepunchlord]

i see the wave of nope posts. did you watch the movie? I rmb liking the movie and would love to hear about your thoughts if you did watch them. on that note, any horror movie recs? 👀

I did watch Nope, it's one of the few horror films I wanted to watch, and I was waiting for my sister and dad to be available to watch it with me, which was last night.

And it was good. It is definitely my sort of horror film, where it is a horror movie, but that horror isn't in the forefront. It's like a roller coaster, where it will go through the horror scenes, but then move on to focus on something else. And for me who isn't a big fan of horror, that is just how I like it. I can do with feeling scared or dread in segments, but I don't want to sit through a whole film feeling that.

It's actually why a lot of Mike Flanagan's shows I can watch and look forward to them, they are horror shows and have horror elements, but it's not the forefront, it's the people and the setting.

Which is the same for Nope, it being more about the people, the struggles of working with Hollywood, while also dealing with that dangerous mystery. Which, for anyone who hasn't watched it yet but wants to, spoilers ahead.

The idea that the UFO being a living creature and sucking up living beings is interesting, and they wound up having a very interesting design in the end, kinda jellyfish vibes, which is fitting as jellyfish are terrifying. Like, if it ever came to it, I'd rather swim near a great white shark than a jeyllyfish. So it becoming something like a jellyfish was fitting in terms of visuals and quality of terrifying for me. I also really liked the detail of it spitting up blood, cause you see it spitting up metal, and blood has iron in it, so makes sense it can't digest blood.

And oh man, getting that scene of the people inside of it, getting to see them being swallowed up and gradually digested, I think that scared and shook me the most in the whole film. Even though you couldn't see in full detail what was happening to them, I had to look away. It's one of the two scenes that genuinely scared me, and it was so haunting that when JJ flies around, you can still hearing all those people screaming. And it clicks for you then that when you hear it in the distance and it sounds like people screaming, that tells you that it had eaten more people. And man, that scene stuck with me enough that when I went to bed, I had to fight my thoughts from circling back to it cause I didn't want to risk dreaming about it.

The other aspect that scared me in this film was when they circled back to Gordy. Chimps are terrifying, I hope to never get near one cause I know how brutal they can be. And this is one of the few movies that addresses it, and Hollywood's relationship with using animals. So, yeah, Gordy was terrifying, and I felt for Jupe in those scenes. I can just imagine how terrifying it is to be there, getting to see what this chimp did to the people you work with, an animal you didn't think could hurt a fly. And well... And man, it also hits the last terrifying effect of Gordy when you got to see his surviving co star and what Gordy had done to her.

Yeah, Gordy and seeing the inside of JJ were the two most terrifying aspects of this movie for me.

I do love though that this movie made me laugh, OJ was great as a lead, I loved the scene of him in the car, and peeking out to see JJ above and he just closed the door with a "Nope". And gosh, he's a brave man. Em was a lot of fun, and I really liked Angel, and I'm glad all of them survived. Also, Lucky was well named, cause damn, that is one lucky horse. The only one to not get swallowed with every encounter with JJ. Kudos Lucky.

As for horror recs, I don't have a lot for you cause I don't go out of my way to watch horror. And most recs I have are most likely already seen, but I'll share my small list just in case.

Anything made by Mike Flanagan is good.

Jurassic Park, and for World, the most horror of it was Battle at Big Rock (you can watch on Youtube, it's scary), and s3 of Camp Cretaceous.

Alien and Aliens was really good.

Primal has some scary episodes, be aware though that it's a very gore heavy show.

And of course Stranger Things has some good horror elements to it.

And... at this time, I can't think of anything else I've watched that really counts as horror or has horror elements. Out of all genres it is the one I watch the least.

#ask Punchie #nope

[unexpectedstormy]

Mother

Here you go, a random scene from my LU modern AU I call Temple AU starring Warriors and Linkle. (1,012 words)

******

Someone knocked on the door. Time started to get up from his seat but Warriors motioned him off.

“I’m already up,” he said putting the margarine down that he’d just grabbed from the fridge.

“I bet it’s the cops,” Wind said. “One of y’all is getting arrested.”

“It’s not me,” Hyrule said quickly. “Unless the Zora Mart has cameras in the parking lot.”

“They don’t,” Wild said. “I’ve checked. Pass the corn, Sky.”

“Ugh. What did you guys do in the—” Sky started.

“What are you doing here?!” Warriors exclaimed down the hall at the doorway.

“Is that any way to greet your sister after sixteen years?” A female voice snapped back.

“How did you even find me??”

“Why should you care? You’re the one whose been ghosting me! Now let me in.” The woman didn’t wait and pushed past Warriors.

“Hey! You can’t just show up and push your way in here!”

“I can and I will.”

“Who’s the lady friend?” Wind nudged Four who shrugged.

“Aren’t you going to introduce me?” Linkle snapped.

“Guys, this is my sister Linkle,” Warriors sighed.

“Twin. Twin sister,” Linkle said and bowed. “A pleasure to meet you all! I’ve seen so much about you on the news!”

There were several groans from around the dining table.

“All good things I hope?” Twilight asked through his teeth knowing the answer.

“Nope!” Linkle cheerily replied. The groans continued.

“If you’re his twin sister, how come we’ve never heard of you?” Wind asked. “Ow! Four! Don’t hit me!”

“No, no, he’s got a valid question,” Linkle said. “Why have you been straight up ignoring me? Pretending I don’t exist?”

“Sister! Good to see you! What have you been up to all these years?” Warriors said with obviously faked elation. “Not in front of them!” He muttered which everyone heard but politely ignored. “We’ll get into that later!”

“Would you like some dinner?” Time offered.

“I would love some dinner! I didn’t even have lunch because I gave all my cash to the homeless man who showed me how to get to the train station and then my card declined when I tried to buy a hot dog because my bank thought my card had been stolen.”

“Oh! That, uh, sounds like quite the day,” Time said pulling an extra stool up to the table. Sky filled a plate with the barbequed goat and roasted potatoes they were having and handed it to her.

“Oh it was! But now I’m here having dinner with my long lost bro and his buddies!”

“So… how’s it going? What are you up to these days?” Warriors asked. “What brings you to Castletown? Last I heard, you were living in the woods with a, um, a witch.”

“You are totally right!” Linkle said with a mouthful of goat, then finished chewing and swallowing before continuing. “As you know, I spent most of my childhood and young adulthood apprenticed to Grandmother learning cottage witchcraft and apothecary science and honing my skills as an expert archer, until she ran out of things to teach me and got too old to teach anyways. Then I got a job as a cuckoo shepherd on a local farm—actually, funny story, I was knocking on the door of a random farm cuz I got lost and was trying to ask for directions but they thought I was the new farmhand and instead gave me a job minding cuckoos. I was too embarrassed to correct the mixup and the real person they actually hired never showed so it all worked out in the end. I needed a way to make real people money anyways. So I've been doing that for a couple of years."

“So what brings you here?”

“Grandmother died.”

“Oh! I’m sorry.”

“And I lost my job. The cuckoos got eaten by a flock of juvenile lizalfos. While I was away performing the Last Rites ceremony for Grandmother.”

“Damn. That’s tough.”

“Yeah. But don’t worry, that was months ago. Grandmother has appeared to me twice since then. She’s doing great in the afterlife. And she was the one who told me where to find you.”

“I don’t know how I feel about that…” Warriors said, dreading the direction this conversation was going.

“So, uh, big brother, if you don’t mind…” Linkle started.

“Oh here we go,” Warriors muttered and steeled himself.

“I’d like to give you intel on the Yiga Clan’s movements in the Gerudo Higlands.”

“Uh… what?”

“And I’d like to stay with you at your place for a bit. Just until I can get my apothecary shop open.”

“Can we… can we go back for a second? Did you say the Gerudo Highlands? I thought you were living in Akkala.”

“I was until I wasn’t. Grief’s a funny thing you know? I don’t even remember how I got there! Anyways. While I was on my way back from Kema Kosassa—”

“Best to save that conversation for later,” Time interrupted.

“So what do you say Wars? Can your sister stay with you?” Sky asked. Warriors couldn’t tell in Sky was teasing him or being genuine.

“Wars? Is that what you’re going by nowadays?” Linkle interrupted. “That’s not a very nice name. Is it because you got kicked out of the military in the middle of the war and you feel bad so you—”

“Linkle,” Time put his hand up.

“Oops. Sorry. That was rude wasn’t it? Sorry. Still getting’ the hang of this whole social skills thing. When you live on your own with only an old lady and some cuckoos for company for sixteen years those sorts of lifeskills tend to backslide, don’t they?”

“Fine. You can stay with me.” Warriors relented.

“Oh goodie! Yay! I’m so glad that—” Linkle bubbled.

“For one night,” Warriors cut her off. “Then we find you a hotel or something.”

“Wars. Come on. It’s your sister!” Hyrule objected.

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that… I’m used to living a certain way in my own space, and… I barely know you…”

“We’re complete strangers aren’t we?” Linkle said.

“Yeah. Pretty much.”

“Not for long we won’t be! There’s so much to get caught up on!”

“Great. Welcome Linkle. Who wants dessert?” Legend asked.

“Ooh! I do!” Linkle cried excitedly, accidentally flinging barbeque sauce on Time’s face with her wildly flailing fork.

“Great. Yeah. Dessert.” Warriors murmured. Sky put a hand on his shoulder supportively.

“We’ll help,” he mouthed to Warriors.

“Thanks,” Warriors mouthed back.

#linked universe #lu warriors #lu linkle #modern au #Linkle has no social skills #she is a darling sweetheart #but also slightly unhinged #I love her so much #ask game

[wack-ashimself]

'Nope' is proof that Jordan Peele is the new M. Night Shyamalan. Spoilers (duh).

Is it good?

Sure. Better than 'Us' (just cuz that movie took a while to get anywhere good, and fairly, so does this one)...

But mostly cuz of that ONE big hook/twist.

What's the hook in this? <MAIN TWIST spoilers!!!>

The alien spaceship is actually a giant alien that eats everything organic.

The build up to that reveal and everything following were worth it (tho the side story of the ape going crazy and killing people seemed...redundant. A few more flashbacks to his dad telling him he can't tame wild animals/apex predators would have worked a lot better for the metaphor).

And I'm not gonna give anymore away cuz even tho the hook is a big pull, how terrifying that is (a flying being could suck you up and eat you at anytime) and how it's played out...actually scared me a little. It's hard to scare me. I always thought aliens could be evil/do evil, but to do the worst thing all they would have to do is...make you feel powerless (no technology can save you) and eat you alive. I mean, that alone is one of the darkest scenarios I could imagine: being digested alive. And, boy, does this movie cover that*...honestly, I think they could have been even more graphic. But then it would be a horror more than sci fi thriller.

Great twists and turns. I was pleasantly surprised more than once. And that is rare these days. So don't gloss over that.

I heard 'it didn't live up to the hype' but I think it did. People went in expecting a typical alien monster movie, and they got...one BIG alien. The OG.

Nope: 7.7/10. Worth the watch, but the build up and side stories didn't add all that much.

ps-fav part? There were so many. Top 3 (but these are SUPER 'omfg I didn't see that coming' spoilers.)

3-The whole TRUE history of the first film being a black jockey riding a horse, and all the nods in that direction. I knew of it, but I like how they incorporated that entire theme thru the movie, AND IT WORKS fluidly.

2-This is cuz his last two movies were downers in the end mostly, I thought for SURE he was going to kill off the brother to save the sister. NOPE. They BOTH lived. I was for sure thinking he was going to be a martyr. Only thing that bugs me is the monster sucked up bigger things from further so HOW he actually survived is....bull shit. No logical explanation. lol But I'm glad he did.

1-my fav part of the movie? The big twist was good, but...when the director they hired to film the alien monster (on a special non electrical video camera), out of no where loses his marbles, and films himself getting eaten. It makes SENSE for the character (he was looking to film the impossible and he, IMO, thinks he found GOD), but he KNEW it eats people. So....that's some fucked up shit.

*technically (off screen) this movie does something which is still forever taboo in shows & movies: they killed off young kids. I think even some babies. So in the scene when blood is raining...

#nope #jordan peele #alien #aliens #spoiler #spoilers

[nerdgirlriot]

and now some fractured thoughts about Nope, which I thoroughly enjoyed and has, I think, cemented Jordan Peele as one of my favorite moviemakers working today:

This is a meaty movie, not as cut and dry about its commentary as Get Out and Us. I think I'll need to watch it again to completely codify what I think.

There's a lot of talk about Peele making the movie about spectacle, about visions that we cannot look away from and the consequences of our gawking curiosity. It's also about what we see and what we bury. Keke Palmer's Em talks about how the first "movie" features an anonymous black man, but the name of the white man who took the footage is well known.

It also seems to be about how humanity exploits nature and tries to tame things that they don't understand.

The Gordy's Home incident is very fucked up and I find it fascinating that Ricky took that very very terrifying trauma, internalized it and sort of embraced it because he didn't know what else to do. The fame and the acceptance becomes a coping mechanism because he has no other recourse to keep relevant besides making it a part of himself. So he buys the Hayward ranch horses to FEED THEM TO THE ALIEN CREATURE AND CHARGES MONEY FOR THE PRIVILEGE OF WATCHING THIS HAPPEN WTHAT THE ACTUAL FUCKITY FUCK.

also the scene that actually showed all the people stuck in the alien thing's gullet and how their screams are amplified so when the alien's nearby you can't help but look up in its direction and yeah...jesus christ...

Ricky was weirdly proud of that SNL sketch, though waxing poetic about late '90s era SNL is just...so fucked up. Being oddly detailed about Chris Kattan as the chimp...it's just so weird..

OJ. Just...OJ, who gets the best iteration of the "Nope" line in the movie.

THAT FUCKING AKIRA SLIDE HOLY SHIT

also that the alien is obviously influenced by the Angels from Evangelion, especially when Jean Jacket is in its final form

also when Jean Jacket screams, like really screams, it totally reminded me of when all the Angels in Evangelion scream before they die

having Fry's Electronics be central to the plot is pretty dope. Of course it's the one with the crashed UFO outside

I also love how the movie pays homage to the predominently Black history of cowboys. A series of photographs of a black man on a horse is the first moving image. but damn Daniel Kaluuya riding that horse is one of the most epic things I've ever seen. He's every bit a fucking hero.

I low key love that a TMZ guy went out to the ranch to ambush the siblings and ask them about the incident at the tourist trap where everyone got eaten by the alien thing. And ain't it funny how Logan Paul got roasted for saying he didn't think Nope was good, and how he completely missed the point the movie was making about dudes EXACTLY LIKE HIM WHO MAKE MONEY OUT OF THE CLICKS THEY GENERATE AND THE EYEBALLS THEY ATTRACT.

This is very much Jordan Peele riffing on Spielberg, there are elements of ET, Close Encounters, and even Jaws.

I know these aren't in any order but they're just ideas that I just thought of, just now.

#these things i think #nope #nope movie #spoilers #nope spoilers

[soullistrations]

had a GENUINELY unsettling dream last night

tw for like. chimps. and body mutilation.

so i was like. dating this really rich guy? I don't remember how it started but i do remember going to visit his house for the first time and my whole family and also one of my students was visiting with me. and the front of this guy's house was this enormous greenhouse with a big glass door, and a wide stone path with tons and tons of trees on either side. he was like, 'come see my chimps! they're great!' but then he peeked in and was like, 'okay, they're all out of their cages, but it's fine, i"ll just get their handler to go put them away.' and then he walks away and leaves the glass door to the greenhouse OPEN

and i'm like 'what the fuck dude' and all my family are standing around, and there's this like. dread just permeating the whole thing and i can't take my eyes off the door because what if the chimps come out and attack everyone? yes that scene in nope WAS scarring for me, thank you for asking by the way.

so then my student is like 'ill handle this' and goes in there and starts yelling at them to go back in their cages and we're yelling at her to GET OUT OF THERE and she turns to us and we're like NO DON'T TURN YOUR BACK ON THEM WALK BACKWARD idk it was a lot of conflicting 'how to deal with wild animal info scrambled in my brain but long story short, the chimps start chasing us and we're running and there's like screaming and shit and it's a lot and i think there was like a sidebar documentary thing where someone was like showing clips of chimpanzees ripping people's faces and cheeks and lips off and then 'we now return to scheduled programming'

and then the guy that i was on a date with? shows up again and is like 'here's a side door, let's go to my protected kitchen thing they can't get us there' so we go in the side door and we're definitely missing some people and also his kitchen is laid out SO fucking weird

first of all it's a sunken kitchen but the stairs are like these u-shaped nesting stairs that you have to pull out, and there's this big gap in the middle of the stairs that goes STRAIGHT down to the ground, so you better step on either side of the u or take a plunge. and my dad was at the bottom of the stairs sitting on a stool that was also u shaped with a little nesting footrest and he was nursing his foot and i was like 'i'll get you some ice for that'

and so i go to the kitchen and the guy's got a separate fridge just to store chik-fil-a stuff, and another one that is ALL charcuterie supplies, and another one that is all beverages, so i'm looking for the ice and people keep coming up to me--servants or family members or whatever--and saying, 'so what do you think of the house? how's the date going?' and in my brain i'm like 'we're hiding out in a panic room because murderous chimpanzees have taken over the rest of the house and also this guy can't even boycott chik-fil-a' but for some reason the guy is ALWAYS hovering nearby in earshot so i just kind of grit my teeth and go 'it's fine. i love cheese, this charcuterie fridge is great' because if i insult him what if he kicks me out and chimps rip my face off?

so anyway i finally locate the ice and take it over to my dad, who has taken off his shoe to reveal that he caught his big toe on the corner of one of those u-shaped stairs on the way here, and rather than slow down and get eaten by chimps, in his panic he wrenched his leg away hard enough to rip his own big toe off, and he's showing me the gaping wound that used to be his big toe when i finally woke up and was like FUCK this i am NOT going back to bed

#this blog was once a dream journal and sometimes it still is #this one was NOT FUN y'all what the actual fuck brain

[olivieraa]

just watched Nope

hella Evangelion vibes

but yeah its a movie I couldn’t exactly figure out the message of by the end so has to look at explanation vids on youtube

I get it now lol

quite clever

but I wasn’t a full fan bc

I dont know the word but there’s a couple of things that, idk... squick me out? like, make me feel kinda sick and I dont like seeing them

I hate excessiveness (for example, a good dude punching a bad dude and youre like YAY but then the punching keeps happening and then you’re like “ok that dude defo unconscious or dead at this point” and that excessive violence just doesnt do it for me, in, like, anything I see. I got a glimpse of a show called Invincible a few months ago and the scene I happened to see was a scene like that. between a father and son. made me so uncomfortable and I’ll never forget it. like to be punching so much his teeth are completely knocked out and he keeps going.

and then the other thing that squicks me out is what this movie did. I don’t know the wooooooord but. I guess I get uncomfortable and humans, especially in a group but not specifically, being nothing other than disposable. like a character, with no lines, getting killed in quite a gruesome way. I’m thinking Jurassic World or War of the Worlds (all these world movies apparently). 

there’s a scene (heavy spoiler) where a bunch of spectators just there to see a show, mostly old people and kids, get sucked up into the creature and die painfully and all you hear are tortured screams.

so excessive violence and gruesome moments of like someone being eaten or squashed or slowly burned to death don’t bode well with me.

so the movie was good for the plot but I gotta opt out when that shit happens oTL

#nope spoilers

[ao3komorii]

Tangling with the Lifeguard (Pool Party Sett/Reader)

The Pool Party Sett story is done! I’ve gone with a beach!AU sort of setting where league races exist in a modern-day beach sort of place. Also sorry to any MF or Syndra mains, they don’t really come out the best in this xD Hope you enjoy, and as always, there is a smut warning for the end!

---

The sun was shining high in the sky, crystalline waters lapping against the shore as beachgoers took advantage of the perfect summer day. Taking in the scene from your place in the shade of a tree on the border between the beach and parking lot, you let a smile grace your lips as you mused on just how much this place seemed to not change, even after so many years.

The last time you had set foot on this beach, you had been twelve years old, full of excitement and unaware of the harsh realities of the adult world. Your parents had brought you here for that summer, now thirteen years ago, the beautiful beach an unforgettable experience. You had left after that summer with treasured memories, and a new friend, that same friend the very reason why you had returned to Port Navori beach after so long.

Taliyah had been the same age as you, with fairly lax parents who let her roam the beach by herself, even as the small twelve-year-old she had been. You had bonded instantly, spending almost every day together, and keeping in touch through letters, and later emails and text messages.

You had long said that you had wanted to come back and visit the lively beach town, but the timing hadn’t been right, not until this year.

You were done all your schooling, and had quit your high-stress, low-pay job, and as Taliyah had said on your last phone call, you had no reason not to visit. Her parents had been travelling the world since they retired, so you would have her house all to yourselves.

In your absence, Taliyah had become a fairly accomplished surfer in the local scene, working at an ice cream shop on the beach to support her expensive pursuits. She had been so insistent that you couldn’t find yourself able to refuse her offer; work in the ice cream shop with her in the day, and then spend the rest of your time catching up with each other. You had missed your friend dearly, and had accepted the offer without a second thought.

And now here you were, waiting at the beach’s edge for Taliyah to show up. She had told you to dress for the beach, sounding casual as was her usual, so you had worn a swimsuit with a short, flowy shoulderless dress on overtop. Unwilling to look like a lobster by day’s end, you had carefully layered yourself with sunscreen, and now all you needed was for your friend to get here already. Just when you were about to get out your phone to text her, an excited call of your name had you re-stowing the phone in your bag and looking back to see your friend bounding across the parking lot towards you.

Taliyah, dressed in a two-piece water suit and carrying a tropical-flower-print surfboard, came to a stop before you, leaning her surfboard against a tree to free her arms to tackle you in a hug.

“You’re finally here!” she grinned, surprising you with the strength of her hug. “We’re gonna have so much fun!”

“So what’s first?” you asked as you pulled back from the hug.

Taliyah hummed. “I guess I’ll show you the shop.”

You followed her onto the beach, recognizing the small bright blue building from the pictures she had sent you before. Taliyah took you around the back, fishing a key out of her pocket before unlocking the door and leading you into the small room.

There were large tubs of ice cream in the middle of the room, the walls lined with containers of various toppings and machines. On the back wall from you were two windows, glossy menus pasted to the doors that would display out when they were opened. Upon walking closer to the menu signs, you noticed something.

“Hey, it says we open at nine, but it’s ten-thirty…”

“It’s fine,” Taliyah replied with a shrug. “The owners are pretty chill. If anyone complains, I’ll just tell them I had to train the new employee.”

You playfully rolled your eyes. Sometimes you really envied Taliyah’s ability to be so carefree. Her calm energy was a big help for you, having got advice from her on numerous occasions over the years.

Taliyah came over to where you were, eyes flitting boredly to the menu boards before turning her attention back to you. “So I’m thinking we get you taking orders while I make them.”

“Works for me,” you agreed. It certainly sounded easier than figuring out what a poro float was supposed to be. You never knew ice cream stands had such fancy options now, used to the simple menus of ice cream cones and bars back at the shops in your hometown.

You were about to open the order windows when you were stopped by a rustling noise from the back of the store. You turned to see Taliyah digging in a cardboard box in the back corner, pulling out some folded-up fabric that was the same sky blue as the stand.

“Didn’t think you’d get away without an embarrassing uniform, did you?” Taliyah teased, tossing some of her fabric pile your way.

You caught the bundle, unfolding it to find an apron with Poro Palace Frozen Treats in pink bubble letters, little white fuzzy animals dotting the apron. There was an accompanying blue visor hat that looked like something out of a kid’s store. You reluctantly slipped both items of clothing on, looking back to find that Taliyah had done the same.

“Stylish, huh?” she smirked, striking a modelesque pose.

“We look like we work at an amusement park, Tali,” you laughed.

“Feels like it sometimes with all the annoying kids that come by,” she replied. “Okay, you can open it up now.”

Taliyah settled herself down in a chair in front of the section of ice cream tubs, and you reluctantly turned to unlatch and open the windows, unsure of exactly what you were getting yourself into.

The small room lit up with the outside sunlight streaming in from your window to outside, the immediate glare of the sun making you wish you had worn sunglasses.

Almost immediately, the masses were upon you. You noticed a woman with several children in tow who perked up as she laid eyes on you, striding over to you with her children right behind her, pushing each other as they scrambled to be the first one to get over to you.

You heard Taliyah groan behind you. “Get the pen ready. They always have the most annoying orders.”

You rose an eyebrow, but picked up the pen and notepad that sat beside the cash register as the woman came to a stop before you.

“You know, I’ve been waiting for an hour already. You young girls don’t know how hard it is for mothers,” the woman complained, not letting you get a word in edgewise. “Alright, tell her what you want.”

“I want a brownie sundae!” a small boy with blue hair who clearly intended to make full use of his outdoor voice shouted. “But with cotton candy ice cream and pop rocks and I want only blue candies!”

“Uh…” The kid was talking too fast for you to write, but luckily Taliyah had your back, a got it ringing out from behind you.

You weren’t sure how you had managed to get their orders out before they melted, messing up their total several times before Taliyah had to come and help you out. With a last snide look and a fistful of blue napkins, the mother and her little terrors left the stand at last.

“She’s the worst,” Taliyah said, bringing your weary gaze her way as she cleaned off an ice cream scoop. “I accidentally put one red candy in that kid’s sundae once and he screamed until I remade the whole thing!”

You winced. “Feels like we got off easy today.”

“Yeah,” Taliyah agreed. “Helps that they order the same thing every time, so I’ve got some practice.”

“Are they all this bad?” you asked, turning away from the window after seeing no potential customers nearby.

“Not all of them,” she replied with a strained smile. “I swear the heat just brings the jerk out in some of the people here.”

Speaking of jerks… your conversation was interrupted by an impatient-sounding throat clearing noise from behind you. You whirled around to see a redheaded woman with heart-shaped sunglasses and a revealing swimsuit leaning against your counter. She was staring at you like you were gum she had stepped in, flipping some hair over her shoulder when she knew she had your attention.

“Five cherry snowballs,” she said, dropping a few coins on your counter, some of which bounced and hit the floor. “To the red umbrella, thanks ice cream girl.”

Without any further interaction, she turned on her heel and strutted away, hips swinging as she went, leaving you wondering what had just happened.

You slowly turned back to face Taliyah again. “Um, do we usually deliver?”

“Nope,” she answered. “Not to people like that anyways.”

“But…” you protested weakly. You knew Taliyah got away with a lot here, but you didn’t want her to lose her job because some rude girl complained to her bosses. “I’ll just take them over and next time I’ll just say we don’t deliver.”

“Still tempted to put rocks in their snowballs,” Taliyah joked as she set about piling the scoops of red ice.

Soon you had a tray with five cherry syrup-coated piles of shaved ice in little plastic bowls with accompanying little plastic spoons stuck in the side of the dishes.

“I’ll be right back,” you said, heading past Taliyah to the back door, opening it to find yourself back out in the mid-morning heat.

The sand still felt uncomfortably hot underfoot, even with your flip flops on. With how hot it was out, these would have to be delivered as soon as possible to not be a puddle by the time they were eaten. Your only problem was that you had no idea where to go.

The redhead had said that she would be at the red umbrella, but of course nothing at this ice cream stand would be that easy. Standing just outside the hut, you were treated to a veritable rainbow of colored beach umbrellas. You counted at least ten red ones scattered across the beach, none particularly standing out to you. You didn’t have many options, and were forced to go with the most tedious one; checking every red umbrella until you found the girl and her group.

The first umbrella had been a bust, as had the next five. The sixth had led to a sweaty old man who told you that you were just in time to help him sunscreen his back. By the time you had hurriedly fled from that creep, it had been about five minutes of searching, the snowballs on your tray looking considerably droopier than they had been when you had left the shop.

You stared down at the tray of melting treats, unsure of what to do now. Should you go back and have Taliyah remake the snowballs? Try a few more umbrellas and hope you got lucky? You really hadn’t been anticipating this much stress when you had agreed to work here with Taliyah for the summer.

You frowned at the now-more-water-than-ice treats, your decision made. You couldn’t serve these, not as melted as they were. You would go back and help remake them and see if Taliyah had any insight as to which red umbrella was the right one. You turned around to head back to the stand, only to trip on your overheating flip flops and fall forward with a cry.

You had closed your eyes with a flinch as you fell, but opened them with a start as you heard a grunt from right in front of you. Looking up from your position in the burning sand, you felt like your heart was going to stop in your chest.

Standing before you was the most attractive guy you had ever laid eyes on, with fire red hair and a pair of black animal ears that looked soft to the touch. He was dressed in a tight pair of swim shorts, a lightweight red jacket tied around his waist. He had a flower lei around his neck, but that was the only thing that he wore on his top half, his insanely-well-built torso on full display, a torso you realized with horror was currently splattered with red syrup and shaved ice.

You looked from the hot guy to the ground, the sand around you speckled with plastic cups, spoons and napkins, your tray turned upside down in the sand. You slowly risked a gaze back up, only to see the guy staring down at you from behind his pink-tinted sunglasses as a clump of ice fell from his stomach to the sand just in front of your hands.

Embarrassment forced you to spring up, grabbing some stray napkins from the ground and dabbing them against the mess of syrup and ice on the man’s abdomen.

“I’m so sorry, I–” You looked up from your apologizing to see the man silently staring at you, your hand freezing in place as you realized that you were basically feeling this guy up through the napkins, the realization making your cheeks burn with shame and embarrassment.

“I’m really sorry!” you cried out, pulling your hands back. He still hadn’t said anything, and you realized that you couldn’t just stand here like an idiot, your flight instinct kicking in as you reached down to grab your tray before moving around the man and fleeing in the direction of the ice cream stand.

“Hey, wait!”

The man tried to grab your arm as you passed, but you were faster in your embarrassment-fueled retreat, and soon the hot stranger was far behind you. You didn’t stop running until you were back at the shop, the empty sand-logged tray clutched tightly to your chest, your heartbeat pounding in your ears as you shut the door, making eye contact with a confused Taliyah.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asked, getting up to approach you when you didn’t respond. “Talk to me. What happened? If that snob said anything to you–”

“No, no, she didn’t,” you replied weakly, sinking to the floor with your back against the door. “I didn’t even get to her.”

“Then what happened?” she pressed, bringing you a glass of water and prying the tray from your hands at last.

She ushered you to your feet and down into her chair, taking a seat on one of the counters. You took a deep breath, taking a sip of the water before recounting the events of the past ten minutes to Taliyah, who listened silently.

“…I didn’t know what to do, so I just ran,” you finished, setting your water down to bury your face in your hands.

“It’s no big deal,” Taliyah replied gently. “Everyone has embarrassed themselves in front of someone. Remember that time I tripped over my board in front of that group of tourists?”

“I covered him in cherry syrup, Tali,” you groaned. “I don’t think I’m cut out for this.”

“It’s your first day,” she stressed. “You’re bound to mess some things up.”

She stood up, returning to the shaved ice machine. “Now how about we remake those snowballs and then I’ll–”

Taliyah had frozen in place, a plastic cup in her hand as she stared straight ahead.

“Tali?” you questioned, standing up. “Are you–”

“That guy you dumped the snowballs on,” she quickly interrupted. “Did he have majorly cut abs and animal ears?”

“Uh, why?” You felt a jolt of fear shoot up your spine as you followed her gaze to see the man from earlier currently approaching the shop, well-defined abdomen now minus the sticky mess you had spilt all over him. “Oh god, it’s him!”

You and Taliyah exchange wide-eyed glances before you dove down out of sight, hiding behind the tubs of ice cream like they were a fortress.

“Please get rid of him!” you begged. “I’ll do whatever you want, I just can’t face him!”

You heard Taliyah sigh. “Fine, but this means you’re coming stone hunting with me tonight.”

You agreed immediately, even if the prospect wasn’t overwhelmingly appealing. Taliyah was always eager to add to her collection of shiny stones, but was so picky that it often took hours to find just one stone that met her standards. But right now you were so desperate that you would have promised her anything just to make the angry hot guy go away.

From your position behind the ice cream tubs, you could only hear Taliyah’s voice clearly, the general noise of the beach preventing you from hearing what the furry-eared man was saying. You wanted to peek out from your hiding spot, but found yourself chickening out. You really didn’t need him catching sight of you and making Taliyah’s job even harder.

You had gotten so in your own head with panic that you had completely tuned out of your surroundings until a hand waved in front of your face and you realized Taliyah was crouching in front of you, calling your name.

“You okay?” she asked worriedly.

“Is he gone?” you replied quietly.

“Yeah, he’s gone,” she confirmed, standing up and grabbing your forearms to pull you up with her. “Now help me remake those snowballs and then I’ll fill you in.”

You bit your lip as you scooped shaved ice into a row of plastic cups as Taliyah readied the cherry syrup. Soon you had five pristine-looking snowballs on your slightly-sandy tray, the sight of them bringing you back to your moment of collision with the cute guy.

The tray was snatched from your field of vision by Taliyah, who headed over to the rear door. “Be back in a few. Try not to freak out too much while I’m gone.”

And then the door was closed and you were left alone. Looking over at the order window, you decided that you were probably safer to just resume your position behind the ice cream tubs, unwilling to risk being out in the open in case the guy decided to come back.

While she was gone, you couldn’t help but fret over exactly what had been said between your best friend and the mysterious hot guy. She didn’t seem to be upset, so clearly their conversation hadn’t been that intense. Or maybe it had; Taliyah was a fairly relaxed person, so it would be difficult for a random angry customer to really get to her. But that didn’t quite make sense either; if he had yelled at her, you would have heard it over the noise of the beachgoers. All you were doing was overthinking yourself to death, exactly what Taliyah had told you not to do.

And it was there you remained until Taliyah returned, closing the door behind her and placing the serving tray in the sink before she turned her attention to you at last.

“Calm down, it’s fine… I think,” she said.

“You think?”

“Well he didn’t seem mad,” she explained. “He asked if a girl that looked like you worked here and I said you went home sick. Said he’d come back another time.”

“Another–” Oh god. Was he really so angry that he was willing to come back just for the chance to yell at you?

“I can see you freaking out,” Taliyah scolded. “Don’t. You’re fine. Musclehead or not, he’s not going to kill you just because you spilled shaved ice on him.”

She was probably right; hot shirtless guys on the beach likely had more important things to do than yelling at clumsy ice cream shop workers. By tomorrow, he would probably forget you ever existed, and you could go back to enjoying your time working alongside your best friend.

 The rock collecting that night had been long and boring, at least for you. Taliyah hadn’t found any rocks she liked enough to take home, only ending the search after she had found some sea glass that she had deemed acceptable to add to her collection. You could only hope that you wouldn’t owe her any more favors any time soon, unsure if you could survive another late night rock hunt.

The next morning, you entered the shop alongside Taliyah, who put her bag down and began to set up the day’s supplies. Considering it was ten minutes past opening time and Taliyah had insisted that she didn’t need help setting up, you decided that you might as well just open the order window for the day, hoping that mom and her group of demon kids wouldn’t be waiting out there, only to unlatch the widows and see something arguably worse.

The window had only been open a peek, but it was enough for you to see the large figure of the man from yesterday standing ten feet or so from your shop, his back facing you as he stared out at the beach. In your brief glimpse, you also noticed that the jacket wrapped around his waist had a white plus sign in a circle as well as the word lifeguard in white blocky letters above it. Oh god, of course you had gone and pissed off a lifeguard on your first day here.

You shut the barely-open windows with a too-loud slam that made you wince before you quickly locked them again and rushed over to Taliyah.

“Tali, he’s here again!” you hissed.

“Huh?” she replied, pausing her task of refilling a container of sprinkles. “Muscle guy?”

You nodded frantically and Taliyah frowned, putting the sprinkles down and approaching the order window herself. You watched as she opened the window ever so slightly, peering out for a few seconds before closing it back up.

“Well… can’t say I was expecting him to actually come back,” she said evenly.

“What do I even do?” you asked, staring at the order windows like they would burst open at any second and reveal you to the clearly-determined lifeguard. “He’s a lifeguard, Tali! What if he bans me from the beach?”

She rolled her eyes in response. “He can’t just ban you from the beach. Lifeguards don’t have that much power. If they did, I would’ve been banned a long time ago for all the times I’ve surfed after hours.”

“Then what does he want with me?” you asked, looking away from the window.

Taliyah shrugged. “You’d have to ask him that.”

“But what if I… don’t?” you replied weakly. “He’ll give up eventually, right?”

“I mean, maybe?” she said. “But it might be easier to deal with him now and get it over with.”

You saw her point, but it wasn’t her that was being pursued by a tall, muscly lifeguard with a vengeance!

Taliyah clearly caught the reluctance on your face and sighed. “Fine, I’ll switch with you for today. Now let’s go over how to make the basic stuff before we open.”

True to her word, Taliyah had allowed you to hide in the back making orders, telling the lifeguard guy that you were off today. You watched him walk away from behind the shaved ice machine, hoping that your ordeal was finally over, but your hopes were quickly dashed the next day as you went to open the store again, only to see the same broad back facing you from just outside the shop.

Taliyah had reluctantly agreed to switch again that day, and the day after. But by day four, even the promise of helping her scavenge for rocks again wouldn’t get her to agree to switch.

You closed the window again, turning to Taliyah with pleading eyes, but she was having none of it.

“It’s been four days,” she said, arms crossed. “Clearly he’s not giving up. You should just see what he wants.”

“But…” The thought still terrified you. You knew you deserved to be yelled at for what you had done, but it was made that much worse by the fact that the subject of your plight was just about the hottest guy you had ever seen.

Taliyah shook her head at you. “Okay, but I’m not doing orders again today, so if you want to keep hiding from him, we’ll have to move onto plan B.”

Plan B, as it turned out, was a mascot suit of sorts; three fluffy poros stacked on top of each other like a snowman. A poro each made up your upper and lower body, the last poro being the head of the costume. You looked incredibly awkward, the arms and legs of the costume hairy and tipped with little brown claws. You were momentarily stunned by the sheer lengths you were going to just to avoid this guy, but you were already in the costume, so you reasoned that you might as well follow through with it now.

Taliyah put the costume’s head on you and your world was plunged largely into darkness, minus the mesh one-way view out of the top poro’s eyes. You were helped to the back door, some fliers for the store shoved into your hands.

Taliyah helped you walk out front, and you were pretty quickly swarmed by kids. You couldn’t see the lifeguard guy, but the relief that coursed through you was short-lived, swallowed by the immediate explosion of business brought on by your costume.

One thing you hadn’t considered in your haste was the heat. You weren’t sure if it was the costume or if today was hotter than usual, but very quickly you found yourself becoming a sweaty mess under the weight of the dense, furry costume.

The longer you were in the costume, the worse you felt, but you were determined to stick this out. So you handed out fliers and posed for photos with children while Taliyah ran the stand.

You wished that you could wipe the sweat from your face, but you weren’t sure if you could even reach up to remove the costume’s head yourself due to the awkward shape of the costume. So you endured the ever-increasing heat, only feeling wearier as the time ticked by.

You waved goodbye to a group of kids as they left with their ice cream cones, the sweltering heat really bearing down on you. As you went to turn and head back to the stand to ask Taliyah to help get the head off, a wave of dizziness crashed over you. You took one step towards the stand, and then another, and then it all went dark as you felt yourself falling forward, too weak to stop your descent to the ground.

 You woke up with a heavy head, feeling foggy with confusion. The last thing you remembered, you had been heading back to the stand…

Immediately, you realized that you weren’t at the ice cream stand, and you weren’t wearing the poro suit, or even your beach dress. Sitting up in the cot you laid in, you found that you were wearing only your swimsuit.

As you sat up, a blue ice pack that you hadn’t realized was there fell from your forehead and into your lap. Picking it up, the pack only feeling slightly cold, you turned to look around the room, still unsure what exactly was going on.

You were in a room of some sort, guessing it was afternoon by the minute amount of light filtering into the room, even through the closed curtains. There was a fan gently whirring above your head, but otherwise the room was silent.

There was another cot beside yours, and a table nearby with a few red first aid kits stacked on it, some bandages messily spilling out of one of them. There was a sign pulled over the door, the side facing you reading come on in, we’re open.

You got up from the bed, shuddering with disgust when you noticed just how sweaty your whole body was. The bed squeaked as you got up from it, your knees hitting a bedside table between the cots that you hadn’t noticed had been there. On the small table was a glass of water, as well as a white fan that was emblazoned with what looked to be a group of cats waterskiing.

You picked up the fan, letting out a small laugh at the silly-looking cartoon cats on the fan. It looked like something you could win at a carnival booth.

“If you can laugh, then I guess you’re feelin’ alright.”

A deep voice from behind you made you jump, fingers fumbling the fan, which fell onto the floor with a clatter that was only made louder in the quiet room. You turned to look behind you, only to fall off the cot in shock when you saw the very lifeguard you had been trying so hard to avoid standing in the doorway of a small office you hadn’t noticed was there.

“Hey, careful!” He quickly crossed the room to squat down in front of you, taking your elbow and helping you back up onto the cot. You were too stunned to resist and found yourself falling into his chest as a wave of dizziness hit you.

“You okay?” he asked, and you tried to nod, but your head was spinning too much to focus. “Hey, hold still.”

He placed his hands on your shoulders, keeping you steady against him until you were able to regain your focus. When he was satisfied with your condition, he pulled back, releasing your shoulders and instead reaching out for the glass of water on the table next to you.

“Drink,” he instructed, handing you the cup before standing up. “I’ll be right back.”

He stared at you for a moment before finally turning back and heading into the office at the back of the room.

You watched him go, feeling on edge, but complied, bringing the glass up to your lips and taking a long drink. The last thing you wanted to do was give this guy more reason to be upset with you. You were surprised at just how refreshing the water felt, and you had soon downed the entire glass, placing it back on the table when you were done.

“Alright, lay back down,” the lifeguard instructed as he returned.

“What?” you replied. What was he going to do to you? How had you even got here? Where was Taliyah?

He stopped before you, furrowing his eyebrows as he looked down at your shaky, terrified form. “Are you–”

“I’m sorry!” you exclaimed, bowing your head. “I didn’t mean to spill the snowballs on you! If you need to yell at me, go ahead. I’m sorry I didn’t just come out sooner and–”

It had occurred to you mid-ramble that he had yet to say anything, and you cut off your babbling, slowly looking up to find him staring at you with what you could only describe as a bewildered look on his face.

He blinked. “Is that why–”

“I’m so sorry!” you interrupted, bowing your head again. “If you want to ban me from the beach, I get it!”

“Ban ya from the beach?” he replied with a bark of laughter. “The only thing I wanted to do was get your number.”

“My… what?” You had to be hallucinating. There was no way he had just said that.

“Lay down first,” he spoke sternly, and you complied, still feeling stunned by his words.

Once you were laid down, he picked something up from the bed, which you recognized as another ice pack. He placed it on your forehead, the cool pack immediately flooding you with a feeling of relief. Closing your eyes, you let out a tired sigh, suddenly feeling fatigued.

“Get some rest, princess. We’ll talk when you’re up again.”

You took his advice, the cooling from the ice pack lulling you back to sleep, your eyelids too heavy to keep open.

When you woke up again, you felt infinitely better, your head clearer and body feeling less overheated. The ice pack on your forehead was room temperature, and it was now dark outside. There was a light illuminating your left side as you sat up in bed, turning to see the office in the back with its light on.

The cot squeaked under you, which was responded to by the squeak of a chair from inside the office, the red-haired lifeguard emerging from the office and approaching your bedside.

“Feelin’ any better?” he asked, and you nodded, biting your lip nervously. “Got you some more water.”

You looked over to the bedside table to see the water cup refilled and took hold of it, grateful to have something to focus on other than the intimidatingly muscular man before you.

You drank the entire glass before you forced yourself to finally address the situation before you. “Um… why am I here?”

“You passed out,” he replied bluntly, taking a seat on the cot next to yours. “Overheated yourself in that rat costume.”

“They’re not rats, they’re poros,” you replied, unsure of what to say.

He let out a huff of laughter. “Poros that important to you that you’re willin’ to fry yourself for ‘em?”

“No, that was…” you trailed off. Well, you might as well just admit it. If he had gone out of his way to care for you after you had passed out like an idiot, then he deserved the truth. “I was avoiding you. I was scared you were going to yell at me. My friend didn’t want to keep covering for me at the window so I decided to wear that stupid poro costume.”

“So that’s what that was about,” he replied. “And here I thought you were avoidin’ me ‘cuz you weren’t interested. Gave up on gettin’ your number and then got news that someone passed out from heat stroke.”

You were still having a hard time comprehending the asking for your number part, so you instead chose to focus on the other half. “Heat stroke?”

“Not sure what you expected, wearin’ that costume in this heat,” he said. “Can’t say nobody’s ever been afraid of me before, but giving themself heat stroke just to avoid me is a new one.”

He sounded somewhat self-deprecating, and you immediately felt bad. You had clearly misjudged him, and realized that he hadn’t even mentioned the snowball incident himself.

You forced yourself to meet his eyes, even with as awkward as you were currently felt. “I’m sorry for giving you so much trouble, and for spilling snowballs all over you. I’m just really sorry.”

He laughed. “Ain’t nothin’ for you to apologize for. I’ve had worse get on me since I started workin’ here, and usually it ain’t from a cute girl.”

You tensed in your seat, tearing your gaze from his to look down at your feet, your cheeks feeling warm.

“Hey, don’t go overheatin’ yourself again,” he scolded, standing up from the bed. “If you’re not interested, that’s fine, but I think it’s best if I take ya home. Don’t need your friend yellin’ at me again if you pass out on the way back.”

As much as you wanted to deny his assertion of you being not interested, you couldn’t muster up the courage, so you instead quietly accepted his offer of help. You would have to ask Taliyah what he had meant when you got back.

It was surprisingly cold on the beach at night, the icy breeze sending shivers along your skin. You stared out at the dark ocean waves, entranced by the water crashing against the sand, when your focus was broken by some soft fabric being laid over your shoulders.

You turned to look over your shoulder to see Sett just behind you on the steps of the lifeguard office, the jacket that was usually around his waist now laying on your shoulders.

He caught your curious look and raised an eyebrow. “You nearly cooked yourself to death today, I ain’t about to let you freeze yourself to death now.”

“Thanks,” you replied quietly, reaching a hand up to keep the jacket around your shoulders.

Your feet met the soft sand as you followed Sett towards the parking lot. The beach was totally empty, an odd contrast to how things were in the daytime. It felt weird to actually see the shape of the landscape unobscured by giant beach umbrellas and a sea of bodies. You only looked away from the empty scene when you realized that you had left the sand, and Sett was staring expectantly at you.

“…what?” you asked, getting the feeling that he had said something that you had missed.

“Which way?” he repeated with a quick glance at the street ahead of you.

“Oh right,” you replied. “My friend lives on Sandstone Way.”

Sett’s ears perked up. “By that tacky souvenir shop?”

“Yeah,” you laughed. “Right by there.”

You giggled at Sett’s assessment; you had noticed the eye-hurtingly brightly painted store when Taliyah had walked you to her house from the train station. She had rolled her eyes at the store as you surveyed the display of t-shirts with embarrassing designs on them, stating that sometimes they got some good rocks in, but it wasn’t worth the amount of tourists always asking for directions when she was walking around the neighborhood.

Looking over at Sett out of the corner of your eye, you were struggling to think of anything to say. He was dressed in just his sandals and shorts, his sunglasses forgone and giving you a clear look at his golden eyes that seemed to glow in the dark.

“So this your first summer here?” Sett asked, breaking the brief silence as you walked side by side. “I know I’d remember you if I’d seen ya before.”

“I was here for a summer when I was a kid,” you answered. “But everything looks so different now. Maybe I just saw this place differently when I was a kid.”

“Nah,” he dismissed. “It never used to be this busy here. Tourists bring money to this place, but it means it’s always loud around here.”

The conversation was slowly helping you feel more comfortable with the intimidatingly handsome lifeguard. You felt dumb for putting so much energy into avoiding him.

“So have you always lived here?” you asked.

“Born and raised,” he answered with a grin that you couldn’t help but feel looked a little sad. “Ma used to work at the boating shop… and the laundromat… and the candy store.”

“All at the same time?” you asked incredulously.

Sett shrugged. “Didn’t have much of a choice. Pa ran off on us when I was a kid, and it wasn’t like anyone would hire a fatherless runt to work for them.”

“Sounds like it was hard,” you replied. “Did you ever find out where he went?”

“For his sake, I’d better not,” Sett sneered. “I heard ma cry missin’ that scumbag more times than I can count. There ain’t a family here for that bastard to come back to.”

“How is your mom doing?” you asked as you turned onto Sandstone Way, passing by the tacky tourist shop, the flashy paint on the walls too bright even at night.

“She’s doin’ good,” he answered, finally looking happy with a satisfied smile. “Got her to quit her jobs when I started workin’ enough to pay the bills.”

“You’re a good son,” you complimented him. “She’s lucky to have you.”

You smiled at him, coming to a stop before Taliyah’s house. “Well, this is me. Thanks for walking me back.”

“Take care of yourself,” he said. “I don’t wanna see you passin’ out again.”

“I’ll try not to,” you replied. “No more poro costumes for me.”

“On that topic,” he purred, leaning closer to you. “You never gave me an answer.”

“An answer?” you squeaked, flustered by his sudden closeness.

“I’ve been tryin’ to get your number for days now,” he replied, and you did your best to supress a shiver from running up your spine. Was this real life?

You wet your lips with your tongue nervously, unable to miss how Sett’s sharp eyes watched the movement.

“I, um, I don’t have my phone on me,” you said, immediately realizing how dumb you sounded. You didn’t need your phone on you to tell him your number! You hastily made to amend your statement. “…but if you come by the stand tomorrow, I’ll give it to you!”

“Oh?” Sett’s grin was wide, gold eyes flashing dangerously. “I s’pose I could find some time to stop by. See you then, sweetheart.”

Sett turned to walk away, but you stopped him with a call of his name. “Wait, your jacket–”

“Keep it for the night,” Sett replied. “I’ll get it from you tomorrow.”

You reluctantly agreed, stunned silent by his bold flirting, his jacket sitting warm on your shoulders as you watched him walk away. You stared at his broad back until he was out of sight, only then turning to head inside, knowing Taliyah would be waiting.

 The next morning she was still on you as you spent some extra time getting ready.

“I still can’t believe he gave you his jacket,” she teased with a grin. “I mean, I figured he was probably into you, but–”

“You what?” you replied as you paused styling your hair.

“I kept telling you to talk to him,” she replied. “No guy like that is going to wait outside your work for days in a row just to yell at you for spilling ice on him. But I didn’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

“I just feel so stupid giving myself heat stroke just go avoid him,” you lamented.

“Yeah,” Taliyah frowned. “If I had realized it was that hot out, I never would’ve let you go out in that thing.”

“It’s my own fault for being so dumb,” you insisted.

“But hey, it all worked out, didn’t it?” Taliyah grinned as she slipped on her water shoes. “You’ve got a hot lifeguard coming to visit you at work today.”

“Don’t remind me. I’m still super nervous,” you said, adjusting your beach dress over your most flattering swimsuit.

“You’ll be fine,” Taliyah replied. “He’s clearly super into you. You should’ve seen him when you passed out yesterday.”

“What?” You had been so tired last night that you had only told her the basics before crashing for the night, completely forgetting to ask her what had happened yesterday.

“Someone got him when you collapsed,” she told you. “You should’ve seen his face when he pulled off the poro head and saw it was you inside the costume! I tried to come with, but he told me he’d handle it. I maaay have threatened his life if anything happened to you, but just a little.”

You laughed. So that’s what Sett had been referring to.

Taliyah came up from behind you as you stared at your appearance in the mirror, resting her chin on your shoulder and meeting your eyes in the mirror. “Relax, you look great. Fuzzy ear boy isn’t gonna know what hit him!”

“Fuzzy ear–” you sputtered, laughing at Taliyah’s choice of words. “I guess his ears do look pretty fuzzy.”

“Well if he lets you pet them, tell me how soft they are!” she teased, pulling back from you to grab her bag. “Now let’s go. You’ve got a boy to meet!”

You somehow felt even more nervous today than you had the few days you had spent avoiding Sett. You were still having a hard time wrapping your head around the fact that a guy that looked like he had walked straight out of a fireman’s calendar was coming to your little beachfront ice cream stand for the sole purpose of getting your phone number. And his jacket, which was folded neatly on the countertop beside you.

You weren’t exactly sure when he was going to come. Usually, he would be there waiting outside in the morning before you opened, but all you had opened up to today was a sparsely-populated beachfront, no handsome lifeguards to be seen. By two in the afternoon, your anxiety had begun to get the better of you.

“Stop pacing,” Taliyah scolded you. “He’ll be here.”

“But what if he decided not to?” you said, taking a deep breath to try and calm yourself down. “What if this was just a joke?”

“Then I’ll go kick his butt,” she responded plainly. “He’ll come. Relax.”

You were about to reply, when a ding of the service bell at the order window had you spinning around, ready to take an order, only for the words to die on your lips when you laid eyes on the well-muscled lifeguard with the fuzzy black ears just outside the order window, sending a grin your way.

“Here to pick up my order,” he said, leaning an arm against the window.

“Your… order?” you replied, too entranced by his appearance to properly make use of your brain.

“A pretty girl promised me her number if I came by,” he replied, looking down at you through his sunglasses.

“I… right… I…” You turned back quickly to see Taliyah staring expectantly at you, mouthing the word number at you. Right.

With slightly shaky hands, you reached for the small notepad at the front counter, taking that and a pen in hand and trying not to focus on the fact that Sett was watching you as you began to write.

Double-checking that the number was right, you handed the paper to him, your fingers touching as he took it from you. Remembering about your other promise, you reached over to grab the lifeguard jacket from the counter beside you. You went to hand him his jacket, surprised when he didn’t take it from you.

“What time do you get off?” he asked, and you answered a quiet six. “Give it back to me then.”

With a short wave and a grin, Sett made a show of stowing the phone number in his pocket before sauntering off and leaving you standing there slack-jawed.

“See? Was that so hard?” Taliyah called from her seat at the ice machine. “Now you just have to keep it together for your date.”

“I don’t know if I can,” you said, leaning back against the counter.

“You did last night, didn’t you?” she countered. “He’s just a guy. A really hot guy, but still. Don’t freak yourself out. You deserve a nice guy. It’s just a bonus that he has more abs than spiders have legs!”

You let out an amused huff. Taliyah was right, as she always was. You needed to get over yourself and let yourself have a good time tonight.”

But for now, you had customers to deal with. You and Taliyah let out a shared groan as you saw the nightmare mom and her army of brats heading towards you. You both returned to your posts, hoping their overly-complicated orders would be right on the first try this time.

 Taliyah let out a yawn, stretching her arms high above her head before beginning the process of cleaning up for the day. After the last customer left, you hastily closed the order window, not wanting to give anyone the chance to come and beg about how it was only five minutes past closing and they’ve been wanting a banana split all day. You had learned your lesson from that mistake on day two.

Once the order windows were closed and locked, you joined Taliyah at the side counter, helping to return all the different containers of toppings to their rightful places. You found your hands moving slower, your nerves slowing you down in order to prolong the inevitable.

Taliyah eventually got tired of your pitiful attempt at stalling for time and gently removed the container of blue sprinkles from your grasp. “Just go, I’ll finish up here.”

“Are you sure?” you asked, and Taliyah sent you an unimpressed look. “Okay, fine, I’m going, I’m going.”

“I hope you know I expect all the details later!” she grinned as you made your way to the door, hesitating with your hand on the door handle for only a moment before opening the door.

It was mercifully less warm outside today than it had been yesterday, not to mention that you were also minus a heavy mascot costume. Yesterday hadn’t ended too badly for you, but you would still prefer to not end today in a hospital if you exacerbated your current heat-sensitive state.

You weren’t sure if you preferred if Sett was already there, or if you got there first to wait for him; neither option seemed to abate your nerves. But of course, the lifeguard was prompt as always, leaning against one of the beams that held up the awning above the order window.

You didn’t think you had been making much noise walking along the sand, but he seemed to hear you, turning to face you with a grin as you approached.

“Ready?” he asked as you came to a stop before him, tucking some of your hair behind your ear in an effort to keep your cool.

“Yeah,” you answered, impressed that your voice hadn’t come out squeaky with how nervous you were.

“Good,” he replied, before his grin turned teasing. “Was half expectin’ ya to come on our date in that rat costume.”

“Poro!” you corrected again, trying not to get flustered by his mention of this being a date. You weren’t sure what else it would be, but you couldn’t help the butterflies that fluttered in your stomach when he had acknowledged the obvious.

He surprised you by taking your hand, pulling you along with him as you tried desperately not to stumble and fall into the sand.

The beach crowd was beginning to thin out, people heading home or to one of the many beachfront restaurants nearby. Watching as a kid packed up his sand toys, you wondered if one of those restaurants was where you were headed as well. Sett hadn’t told you anything about what the plan was, and you found yourself curious when he led you to the bright white lifeguard office.

At first, you had thought that maybe he had forgotten something, at least until you followed him into the small building to see what looked to be the table that had previously held all the first aid kits, now decked out in a soft-looking purple picnic blanket. On top of the makeshift picnic table was a spread of various tasty-looking finger foods, the scene completed by two chairs pulled up to the table, cushions with a starfish pattern placed on the seats.

You were perhaps too dumbfounded by the sight, as you snapped out of it to Sett calling your name, looking over at him to see him looking surprisingly tense. You should probably say something, you realized.

“It looks great,” you said, meaning every word as you looked over the table. “Are those cabbage rolls?”

“Ma helped me make ‘em,” Sett explained, looking bashful for the first time since you had met him as he raised an arm to scratch at the back of his neck. “Helped me with all of this, actually. Never done anythin’ like this before.”

“You mean a picnic?” you asked curiously.

Sett chuckled. “Picnics. Dates. Not a lotta women ‘round here who wanted anythin’ to do with a fatherless half-breed.”

You had a hard time believing that; you had noticed several mothers checking him out as they packed their family’s stuff to leave the beach. But the hint of something sad in his eyes made you reconsider. You had no memory of seeing someone like him that summer you had spent here, but it wasn’t like that was a surprise to you. You and Taliyah had been in your own little world at that time, only ever spending time with each other.

“Well I’m excited to try your cooking,” you said, figuring a change of subject was for the best.

Sett grinned as he sat down. “Should be decent. Haven’t poisoned anyone since high school.”

Your eyes widened, hand freezing on its path to grab a cabbage roll, startled eyes darting to his.

Sett let out a bark of laughter at your alarmed face. “Relax. Wouldn’t poison ya. Maybe those kids that keep swimmin’ into the boating zone, but not you.”

“Thanks… I think?” you replied, biting your lip as you stared down at the cabbage rolls, weighing your options.

“Wasn’t real poison anyways,” he scoffed, taking some rolls from himself. “Not my fault sugar and salt look the same.”

You laughed, grabbing some food for yourself at last. “I suppose they kinda do.”

“Ma didn’t wanna hurt my feelings, but I knew when I tried some myself,” he explained.

“It was nice of her to try,” you offered.

“Too nice,” he said. “Ma is always too nice. Never said anythin’ bad about my old man, even after what he did. Had to work three jobs for years because of that bastard, but not a word.”

“Well I’m sure she’s glad she has you,” you commented. “Even if you give her food poisoning sometimes.”

“Once,” he corrected, taking a bite. “Learned my lesson the first time.”

You followed his lead, finding the food to be entirely poison-free, and actually the best home-cooked meal you had eaten in a long time. The conversation moved to swapping work stories, and you were unsurprised to find out that the mother and her the demon children had been a thorn in Sett’s side as well.

“They really buried sleeping sunbathers in sand?”

“Five times in a day one time,” Sett grouchily confirmed. “Last time Braum went to handle it. Said I would bury those little assholes under the sand if I had to go yell at them one more time.”

You sympathized with his pain. You felt lucky that you had only experienced the tip of the annoyingness iceberg with that group of little terrors.

“Braum?” you inquired as you both left the lifeguard office, the beach now fully dark.

“Fellow lifeguard,” he answered, nonchalantly taking your hand in his as you made your way off the beach. “Bald, giant moustache, even bigger than me. Better at the whole gentle-but-firm thing than I am.”

“Oh, I think I’ve seen him before. He comes by for poro pops sometimes,” you said, mind drawing a picture of the surprisingly friendly man in the small purple swim bottoms with a weakness for poro-shaped ice pops. “So are you the head lifeguard then?”

Sett considered your question. “Guess I am the boss of ‘em. All of the other lifeguards are always comin’ at me with problems to solve. The extra pay doesn’t hurt either if I wanna keep momma from feelin’ like she has to work.”

“Say thank you to her from me for the dinner. It was really good,” you said as you passed by the familiar tacky souvenir shop.

“She’ll be happy to hear it,” he replied with a soft smile that made your heart thump in your chest. “I know she wishes she had more to cook for than just me.”

You both came to a stop before Taliyah’s house, and you sneakily glanced over just to make sure Taliyah wasn’t peeking out from a window, which she wasn’t. You turned your focus back to Sett, only to find him closer than he had just been. How was he so good at sneaking up on you?

A large hand came up to cup your jaw, thumb brushing against your cheek, and your face was tilted up towards Sett’s. You were glad it was dark out, because otherwise you knew your reddening cheeks would be obvious.

“Still afraid of me?” he asked, voice low, lips so close to yours that you could make out a small scar that crossed over his bottom lip.

“No,” you answered, making no move to pull away as you stared up into his eyes. “Not unless I was about to taste your high school cooking.”

“Smart,” he replied with a smirk. “But I’m talkin’ about right now, because if you don’t turn and run into that house, I’m gonna kiss you.”

Your bag almost tumbled from your grasp, but you held fast as you stared at Sett, whose own had already become half-lidded. You had no words to describe how much you didn’t want to run right now, so you didn’t use any, instead angling your face further upwards, trying to make your willingness abundantly clear.

With a grin, he leaned down and kissed you.

Pulling back slightly, he dove back in, his other hand coming to your waist to pull you against him. You happily leant into him, your hands on his firm chest.

When he pulled back again, you opened your eyes at last, feeling almost as dizzy as right before you had passed out from heat stroke.

Sett looked content, and you were only hoping you looked half as composed as he did right now. He leaned back in to give you one more peck before pulling back from you entirely, the cold from the air outside immediately apparent as soon as you were minus his warm hands against your skin.

“Think I’ll stop by tomorrow,” he said. “Been cravin’ a cherry snowball for some reason lately.”

 Sett was a man of his word, you learned, though you were less happy to see him the next day when he asked if he could order a cherry snowball served like last time, and then laughed as you had proceeded to sputter like a broken machine.

His visits became daily, sometimes bringing Braum with him, who continued to surprise you with the sheer amount of poro pops he was able to consume in one sitting. Quite a few nights a week, you had found yourself all around Port Navori with the half-Vastayan lifeguard. You were surprised at how supportive Taliyah was being, considering you had originally come here to spend time with her.

“Gives me more time to surf,” she answered with a shrug when you had asked her. “And maybe that boyfriend of yours can convince you to stay here after the summer is over.”

“Boyfriend?” you yelped, and Taliyah raised an eyebrow.

“You aren’t? I thought he would have made it official by now. It’s been over two weeks… have you guys even done it?”

“Taliyah!” you scolded her, switching back to professional mode as a group of people approached the stand.

As you helped prepare their orders, you couldn’t help but think about what she had said. You and Sett had kissed quite a lot actually, but he had yet to do more than that. But it was far too embarrassing a subject for you to have the confidence to broach, so you had resolved yourself to just be content with things as they were.

It was just your luck that right then was when Sett had decided to make his daily visit to the stand, approaching the counter as the other group left.

Taliyah apparently wasn’t done pestering you for the day as she sped to meet him at the counter before you could get there yourself.

“Hey!” she greeted Sett with a sly smile as you stood frozen behind her, nervous about her motivations. “You’re on your break, right?”

Sett raised an eyebrow. “What about it?”

“Well,” she said, in the voice you knew meant that she wanted something. “There’s a surfing contest I entered, and it’s almost my turn and it won’t even take that long and–”

“Tali!” you interrupted, rushing over to the counter.

“All I need is an hour,” Taliyah insisted, before pulling you beside her at the counter. “And she needs some help while I’m gone since lunchtime is when most of the people come by.”

“I’m fine, I–”

“I’m in,” Sett cut in, eyeing you with almost palpable smugness.

“Awesome!” Taliyah replied, immediately shucking her apron and hat onto the floor in her haste to get out the door. “Have fun, see you after I win!”

“Taliyah!”

Your call of her name fell on deaf ears as she already had her board and was out the door, leaving you standing at the counter with Sett still leaning against the counter.

Sett reached up to pull his sunglasses off, tucking them into his packet, his golden eyes fully uncovered and sparkling with mischief, the sight alone making you feel weary.

“Well? You gonna invite me in?” he asked. “Not sure I’d fit through the window.”

You scrambled to meet him at the back door, not wanting him to try and get into the shop through the order window that was less wide than he was. It was a strange feeling to open the back door of the shop to a guy that was almost too tall for the doorway, and another thing entirely to try and corral him into behaving as you tried to keep the ice cream stand functioning while Taliyah was gone.

“Aren’t lifeguards supposed to set a good example for others?” you huffed, wiping ice from your apron. At least he hadn’t made things truly equal and put cherry syrup on the ball of shaved ice he had pressed against your neck.

“Not when I’m off the clock,” he answered. “Besides, it’s my once in a lifetime chance to see what workin’ one of these is like.”

It would definitely be only one time if you had anything to say about it. If the almost-hour with him here had taught you anything, it was that Sett was not cut out to work in an ice cream shop.

The scoops of ice cream he doled out were easily twice the size of the ones Taliyah did, which made for happy customers, but a less happy bottom line if he was here for more than an hour. He was also lacking Taliyah’s patience, and you were forced to sideline him when an especially picky middle-aged woman came by who insisted you remake her smoothie four times until it had an acceptable pH level. The woman’s complaints had miraculously stopped the moment Sett had approached the window himself, becoming so invested in flirting with the handsome lifeguard that she had snatched her next smoothie attempt from you without complaint, not even glancing your way as she batted her eyes at him, only leaving when he excused himself with an excuse of needing to make more orders.

You approached Sett to check on him and found yourself pulled down into his lap as he leaned back in the chair.

Huffing, he pulled you against him, nuzzling against your neck. “Don’t know how you deal with that. Couldn’t pay me to make her damn smoothie one more time.”

“You get used to it,” you replied. “Don’t you deal with worse as a lifeguard?”

“Yeah,” he grunted. “But nothin’ sayin’ I gotta be nice when I deal with ‘em.”

“That’s true,” you laughed.

“If anyone complains, they can go somewhere else. Ain’t another beach within a hundred miles as well-run as this one,” he bragged, kissing at your neck.

As much as you were enjoying his sudden affection, you knew time was running low until Taliyah would return. You made to pull back to tell Sett that, but were instead pulled into a kiss that took you a few breathless moments to find the strength to escape.

“This Friday,” he murmured, face inches from yours. “There’s a party at the pool. You should come with me.”

You had heard about the exclusive pool parties on this beach from Taliyah, but hadn’t expected to ever get an invite. The pool, which was at the far end of the beach from the ice cream stand, was as exclusive as it got. Gated with walls so high that you couldn’t see in, it was the membership-only place to be for all of the elite in the beach town of Port Navori.

“Is that… okay?” you asked hesitantly.

“Why wouldn’t it be?” he countered, and you didn’t really have an answer. “It’ll be fine. Come. Have some people I wanna introduce ya to.”

The door burst open at the same time as you nodded your agreement, revealing Taliyah clutching both her dripping board as well as a shiny blue ribbon.

“You won?” you asked, trying to disentangle yourself from Sett, who reluctantly let you up.

“Easily!” Taliyah gloated. “Nobody else stood a chance. So how were things here?”

“The money ain’t worth the drama of this place,” Sett griped.

Taliyah laughed. “Smoothie lady come back with a vengeance?”

“I’ll take kids buryin’ sunbathers up to their ears over this any day,” he replied with a grimace, standing up and stretching.

At his mention of ears, Taliyah had brought both hands up to her own head about where Sett’s were on his head, and you quickly waved at her to cut it out before he saw. Thankfully she did, but you could tell that you were going to get asked if you had pet his ears yet as soon as his fuzzy ears were out of earshot.

“I’ll text ya the time when I know it,” Sett said, giving you a quick kiss on the head and a two-fingered salute to Taliyah before heading out the back door.

“So?” Taliyah asked, pulling the chair up to the ice cream station after she had stashed her prize ribbon in her bag. “Are they as soft as they look?”

“I didn’t pet them,” you answered.

“It’s been over two weeks!” she complained. “Has he at least asked you to be his girlfriend yet?”

You shook your head. “He did invite me to a pool party with him on Friday at that fancy pool.”

“Really?” Taliyah responded, eyes wide. “You have to tell me what it’s like! I mean, I’ve seen satellite photos, but it’s not the same…”

“I’ll probably be too nervous to remember any of it,” you grumbled.

“This is your chance!” Taliyah encouraged. “By Friday it’ll be three weeks. You need to ask him if he sees you as his girlfriend or not.”

You reeled back, waves of anticipatory anxiety rolling over you. “I don’t want to scare him off. What if this is just casual to him and I’m too dumb to see it?”

“Then you’ll know,” she replied. “I know you. It’ll eat you up if you put this much energy into a guy without knowing how he feels about you. So ask. If he says no, then at least you’ll have an entire store’s worth of ice cream to drown yourself in after!”

Taliyah was right. She was always right. You knew that you couldn’t keep whatever this was up without knowing where you stood with him. The more time you spent with Sett, the more you wanted, and if he intended to keep things casual, you would rather know sooner so you could make an informed decision.

So that would be the plan then. Go to the party, have a good time (and get some photos of the pool for Taliyah) and then ask Sett about the state of your relationship. Sounded easy in theory. You could only hope you could muster up the courage to go through with the plan when the time came.

 After hearing that the party was to start at four, Taliyah had gone all out, closing the stand at two so she could help you get ready to impress the snobs. You hadn’t put up too much of a fight, happy to have her help and her company, as your nerves only climbed higher the closer it got to four o’clock.

“You’ll be fine,” Taliyah said as she styled your hair. “You’ll only feel worse if you don’t get an answer from him. And with how good you’ll look at the party, he won’t be able to say no!”

“Thanks, Tali,” you replied gratefully. “I promise I’ll get you a bunch of photos of the pool. And whatever else you want.”

“What I want is for you to stay here for good,” she said. “So really I’m just doing myself a favor by helping you. This place has been a hundred times more bearable since you’ve been here, and I want it to stay that way.”

“Still,” you persisted. “I feel bad that you’re going to so much trouble. If you want anything, just let me know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Taliyah dismissed with a wave of her hand. “You should get going, don’t wanna be late to the fancy pool party.”

She practically shoved you out the door, and then you were alone, walking down the mostly-empty sidewalk. As you walked along the street, you couldn’t help but dwell on the possibilities. What would happen at the party? What would Sett say?

If he told you that he wasn’t looking for anything serious, what would you do? It was hard to have an answer for until you were in the moment, since a lot of it would depend on what Sett’s answer would be.

You walked through the parking lot, and then onto the beach, passing by kids building sandcastles and games of beach volleyball as you walked towards the end of the beach where the pool was. As you made your way to the fancier end of the beach, you began to notice the differences that marked the split between here and the side of the beach that you were usually on.

The shops on this side of the beach were much fancier, the sand littered with designer beach chairs and umbrellas. It was crazy just how different two ends of one beach could be.

The pool was noticeable from a great distance, or at least the wall white walls that surrounded it were. At least you weren’t going to get lost and miss the party entirely.

You approached the pristine white stairs that led from the beach up to the pool entrance, equal parts excited and apprehensive. The entrance was an open doorway, covered by a deep blue curtain and guarded by a muscled bouncer in white. The sight alone was intimidating; why hadn’t you just asked Sett to meet you beforehand?

You plastered a reluctant smile on your face before approaching the man. “Hi, I–”

“Name,” he interrupted, not looking up from his clipboard, sunglasses too dark for you to see his eyes.

Well it wasn’t like you hadn’t expected some level of standoffishness from the elite side of the beach. Keeping your smile up, you told him your name, waiting the prerequisite few moments for him to leaf through the list.

He seemed to have found what he was looking for, as his hand with the clipboard went to his side and he moved over to the curtain, pulling it to one side to allow you to enter. He had said nothing further, but seemed to be staring in your direction, so you took that as your cue and walked towards the now-open entryway and into the pool.

The entryway led into a hallway with pristine white walls, soft lighting hanging overhead. You could begin to hear chatter as you got closer to the end of the hallway, exiting into an explosion of sight and sound.

The pool was huge, and there seemed to be an intricate gold pattern on the tiles at the bottom. The pool was surrounded by lounge chairs and umbrellas, tropical foliage bordering the inner walls around the pool.

There were people all over, in and out of the pool. There was also a bar in the center which seemed to be very popular, as many people were carrying around intricate-looking cocktails.

More than the scenery or the people, your eyes were scanning the area for Sett. You checked your phone again to make sure, finding that it was the time he had told you to be here for. Maybe he was just running late or…

Your rising concern was broken up by the tap of designer wedges on the granite heading your way. You looked up from your phone to see two girls heading towards you, one of which you realized you had seen before.

The stuck-up redhead that had been the reason you had been out on the beach to spill the snowball on Sett in the first place was striding towards you, not a hair out of place underneath her likely-expensive sun hat. At her side was a lilac-haired woman in a swimsuit with a plunging neckline that was color blocked with various shades of purple. Together they made quite a striking pair, but your previous encounter with the redhead had you wishing that Sett would get here soon to save you from the impending conversation.

“Look, Sarah,” the purple-haired one sneered as they came to a stop before you. “So eager to pretend she’s one of us that she rushed right over.”

You took a step back, but that only seemed to embolden them.

Sarah lowered her sunglasses, staring at you like you were in her way. “Sad when they don’t know their place, Syndra.”

“Sett invited me here,” you replied defensively.

The women exchanged a pointed look before Sarah raised an eyebrow at you, a hand on her hip. “You ever think about why that was?”

“What?” you replied, unsure of what she was getting at.

“She doesn’t get it,” Syndra said with a cruel undertone in her voice that unnerved you.

“Look around,” Sarah said sharply. “Really look. Do half the people here look like they belong?”

You looked around, not sure what you were supposed to be seeing. A man with a hook-nose sat at the pool bar, flanked by women in skimpy bikinis. A humanoid form that seemed to be made of water conversed poolside with a large purple man in a ratty straw hat who was holding a ukulele. What were you supposed to be noticing?

“Sett is too nice to break it to you, so the job falls to me,” Sarah said with a smirk. “This is our annual loser fest. Charity case race. Bring-a-freak-to-work-day.”

“Pig party,” Syndra supplied.

“Yeah, pig party,” Sarah repeated, noticing your confused look. “Don’t know what that is? Poor thing.”

“I don’t–”

“It’s pretty simple,” Sarah interrupted. “We take half the summer to find the biggest freak we can, and then we bring them all together and crown a winner, and by the looks of you, Sett is really going for the top prize.”

You gasped, eyes wide, suddenly feeling like you were going to be sick.

“Aw, you really thought he liked you, huh?” Syndra mocked with fake sweetness.

“He didn’t… he never…” you stammered, clutching your bag to your chest.

“Well duh,” Sarah replied haughtily. “He wanted to win. Do you tell a pig when it’s about to become bacon?”

“What is meaning of this?” Braum accused, storming up to your group. “I have not heard of such a thing!”

“Need-to-know, Braum,” Syndra dismissed.

“And you didn’t need to know,” Sarah added.

You felt numb. This whole time… is that why Sett wouldn’t ask you to be his girlfriend? Why he never did more than kiss you? All this time, he had just seen you as a prize pig for an ugly date contest? It all made sense now, why he had been so desperate to get your number. He had never liked you… it had all been one sick joke. You should’ve known; nobody as attractive as Sett would ever see you as anything but a freak. And was too cowardly to come and tell you the truth to your face.

“Look, she’s crying,” Syndra taunted. “Don’t cry! Soon you’ll be queen pig!”

You couldn’t do this. You couldn’t stay here with all these people who saw you as less than human as your heart was breaking into pieces. You were so, so stupid, now wanting nothing more than to cry in peace. So you did, turning and running as fast as your legs would take you out of this awful place.

“Bye, piggy! We’ll ship you the ribbon!”

You heard Braum shout your name, as well as the cruel laughter of the women, but you didn’t stop running. Not when you got to the beach, nor the parking lot or the tacky souvenir shop, the sayings on the gaudy shirts too blurry to read through your tears. Your feet didn’t stop until you were at the doorstep to Taliyah’s home, out of breath, tears running down your cheeks.

The door opened, Taliyah’s face appearing in the doorway. “Hey, did you forget– wait, what happened?”

 “Settrigh, stay still!”

Sett frowned, but did as his momma requested, allowing her to tie the ends of his hair after she had finished arranging it. He loved his ma dearly, but he really didn’t have time for her to redo his hair ten times right now.

It was getting way too close to the start time he had given you, and with how nervous of a person you were, he had intended to be on time, but that was before his mother had discovered the reason why he was cutting their visit short today.

Ma was aware that he had been seeing someone, had been ever since Sett had needed help making food for their first date.

“You do intend to let me meet her, Settrigh?” she asked, stepping back once she had fixed his hair to her satisfaction.

“Yes, ma,” he answered, standing up from the chair.

He wasn’t exactly surprised by his momma’s eagerness, considering this was the first girl he had ever dated, let alone considered introducing to her. This world was shallow; he had learned that early in life, which may be why he found himself so drawn to a girl who had put her all into having nothing to do with him. You broke up the monotony in this busy beach town and gave him something to look forward to other than seeing his ma for the first time in a long time.

Sett knew he was working on a time limit. You had mentioned that you had planned on only visiting Port Navori for the summer, and the summer was half over already, which meant his chances to convince you to stay were also halved, which is where tonight came in.

He had been taking things slow, not wanting to come on too strong and scare you off like he had watched happen to many a beachfront pick-up artist. He had been unwilling to rush things and lose you, but the slip of the calendar into August had forced his hand.

He would be lying if he said he wasn’t a bit apprehensive as to how today would end. How would you take him asking you to be girlfriend? He could only hope that he hadn’t misread you entirely.

He didn’t go to the pool parties often, but it seemed like a good way for him to introduce you to his friends, as they didn’t often all gather outside of those parties. He knew you would likely feel out of place, but Braum would be there, and he intended to stick by your side the entire time. And then after the party, if things went well, then maybe he would end the night with you as his girlfriend, but the party would be the first step.

As he left his ma’s house, he found his mind turning to the party. If you were wearing that red swimsuit you had worn last week, then it was going to be a difficult night for his self-control. His desire to take things slow had really taken a hit then, his only saving grace being ma’s lecture on being a gentleman pounding in his head as he tried not to look at how your chest was half-busting out of your top as you leaned over to pick a thread off of his glove. You were really too hot for your own good, which made him all the more eager to see you.

He knew he was running late, the party having started at least ten minutes earlier. It wasn’t his style to be late, but he was also pretty helpless to defy his ma. He only hoped that you hadn’t given up on him and left.

He took the shortest route possible, which included a short trek through some bushes that left him more leafy than he would’ve liked, but it was all forgotten when he spotted the stairs that led up to the pool entrance.

He was able to bypass the doorman who was only half as big as he was and seemed to be wary of interacting with him, stepping out of the way as Sett approached. He pushed past the curtain, hurried steps heading down the hallway. You hadn’t been waiting outside, so clearly you had been able to get in. He tried to fight back the excited grin that wanted to take over his face, but it was a losing battle as he entered the pool area, eyes immediately scanning the area for you.

“Your cruelty is unimaginable!” Braum’s booming voice carried easily through the air. “That girl has done nothing to be deserving of such treatment!”

What had Braum so worked up? Generally he was an easy guy to get along with, easily Sett’s most tolerable co-lifeguard. Not much phased him, which was a little concerning. But Sett had other priorities, the most important being locating you.

You weren’t in the pool, and didn’t seem to be sitting in any of the chairs. Maybe you had gone to the bathroom and would be right back–

“Well how else was she supposed to know Sett is too good for her? She clearly wasn’t going to see reality without a little help.”

Sett’s ears perked up, his attention snagged by the mention of his name, but especially by the latter half of the sentence. He turned around to see Sarah Fortune with Syndra at her side, who had her arms crossed and looked bored. In front of them was Braum, looking more irate than Sett had ever seen him.

“What’s this about?” Sett asked in a warning tone as he approached, the fur of his ears standing on end, leaving him feeling like he wasn’t going to like where this was headed.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Sarah dismissed, flipping her hair behind her shoulder with a flick of her head. “We just showed a daydreaming little clout chaser the way out.”

Sett’s eyebrow rose. “A what?”

“Your ice cream girl,” Braum cut in. “These two have told her that this is a party for pigs. They have told her that you intend to bring her here to win ugly contest, and then she had run off.”

“What?” Sett growled dangerously, but the two women remained nonplussed.

“We did you a favor,” Syndra stressed. “If we get a reputation of letting just anyone in, then we’ll lose all status as members of the ruling class of the food chain. So we decided to throw this little pig party to make you come back to your senses.”

“You’re one of us, Sett,” Sarah added. “This pool doesn’t have room for little nobodies who don’t know their place.”

“Rather be a nobody than whatever the hell this is,” Sett snarled angrily, the full knowledge of the truth turning his bad feeling to a mix of simmering fury at the two women, and worry for you. He hated himself for being late and allowing this to happen to you. “Save your concern and don’t talk to me again.”

“But we were–” Syndra started, but Sett wasn’t in the mood.

“If you even look at her again, you’ll have me to deal with. And unlike that girl you just bullied outta here, I ain’t so nice.”

With that, Sett turned on his heel and stormed towards the exit to go do his best to fix this mess.

Braum quickly followed behind him. “My friend, I am sorry I could not stop them in time.”

“Ain’t your fault,” Sett replied. “Wish I’d have known. Gotta go see if she’ll even talk to me at this point.”

“I wish you luck,” Braum said as exited the hallway and emerged out into the sunny late afternoon.

Sett parted from Braum, taking the stairs two at a time as he surveyed the area, trying to see if he could catch sight of you. He quickly crossed the sand, making a beeline for the ice cream stand, even if it seemed like a longshot. He passed by a group of kids throwing sand on an older man sleeping on a towel, but ignored it and kept going. If anything was on fire, Braum could put it out. Sett’s sole focus right now was finding you and hoping you’d let him explain himself.

His chest felt heavy with anger and regret. How could he have let this happen? He hadn’t realized how cruel those women could be, and it had led to them making you believe he thought you were some freak he was using for convenience, which could not be farther from the truth.

Seeing those two talk about you like you were a pariah had brought him right back to when he was younger, to what he had endured at the hands of people just like Syndra and Sarah. People who had ostracized him, did their best to make him feel like he didn’t have a place here. Sett-the-beast-boy-bastard; the words had haunted him for a long time.

He had grown tough in response to the years of bullying, but you hadn’t. This was your first exposure to how awful this place could be. He and ma had dealt with it for years after pa ran off; he had nearly gotten expelled from school after a particularly bad fight with a kid that had made one too many nasty comments about his ma to his face.

Sett stopped, letting out a frustrated sigh as he saw the large closed sign on the front windows of the ice cream shop. So that was a bust. Without giving the store a second look, he continued on towards the rocks and then up to the parking lot.

There was only one other place to try. Chest tight, Sett followed the same path he had the night of your first date, the same path he took every time he walked you home. The walk there was one long blur, his feet unable to stop moving until the familiar house was in sight. Without a moment’s hesitation, Sett approached the front door, rapping his knuckles against the wood. When no answer came, he tried again, and after a few moments, the door opened to reveal Taliyah, who glared once she caught sight of him.

“What do you want?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Is she here? I need to talk to her,” Sett said, urgency bleeding into his voice.

Taliyah sighed, stepping outside and closing the door behind her. “You’re lucky I’m even talking to you after this. You don’t deserve to talk to her if that’s how you let your friends treat her.”

“They ain’t my friends,” Sett argued. “If I’d have known they were gonna pull that shit–”

A sly smile lifted the corner of Taliyah’s lips. “Good answer. If you had said anything else, then I’d be slamming the door in your face right about now.”

“Then can I–”

“Talk to her?” Taliyah interrupted. “Nope. Not a good idea.”

Sett’s face must have taken on a darker quality, because Taliyah retreated back a step, raising her hands in the air in mock surrender. “Relax, tough guy. I didn’t mean it like that. But she’s a little too upset to talk to you right now.”

The information only made Sett feel worse. He wanted so badly to talk to you, to do what he had wanted to do before this mess had happened and make you his girlfriend. You had never felt farther away than you did right now.

“Give me some time to calm her down. I can get her to be at the pier at seven, then the rest is up to you,” she said, levelling him with a stern look. “I know this wasn’t your fault. That’s the only reason I’m giving you a chance. She really likes you, so try not to make her feel any worse than she already does. Bye.”

And then Taliyah was gone, retreating back into the house and leaving Sett standing on the doorstep.

 “Brought you some water,” Taliyah announced as she entered the room, glass in hand.

“Who was at the door?” you asked.

She shrugged. “Someone looking for my dad. Told them he’s not here.”

You nodded. It was probably too much to hope that it would be Sett. You winced as you thought his name. You hated how much you wanted to see him, someone who had used you to win some popular kid ugly date contest.

So it had all been a lie then? All the things he had told you about his life, his family? Every time he had kissed you, was he picturing kissing one of those girls instead? Is this really what popular people did for fun? You felt stupid for falling for it, for falling for him. You were so stupid.

With some prompting from Taliyah, you took a sip of the water. After she had made sure you had drank the whole glass, she sat down next to you, taking the glass from you and setting it down on the bedside table.

“I should have known,” you croaked.

“Known that popular girls are bitchy? Maybe,” she responded.

“That it was too good to be true,” you corrected.

“You’re acting like you’re eighty,” she scolded. “There are other guys out there. Ones who don’t have shitty friends.”

“Yeah, I know,” you replied. “But I really liked him. And I didn’t even get to pet his stupid fuzzy ears.”

“Well if you’re joking, then you must be doing okay,” she said. “How about we go do something to take your mind off of things?”

You frowned, and she rolled her eyes. “Not right this second. I’ll give you until six-thirty to get yourself ready to go.”

Taliyah got up off the bed and headed towards the door. “I’m not gonna let your night be ruined because of a couple of snobs.”

She closed the door, leaving you alone with your thoughts again. You laid back on the bed, intent on taking some time before you got ready to just veg out. As much as the notion of going out didn’t excite you right now, it was probably better than being a mopey mess all night. There would be other guys; it was just a shame that you had liked this one so much.

Two hours later, you were walking down the street with Taliyah. Your getting ready to go had consisted of washing your face of all the smeared makeup from your crying, brushing your hair into a semi-decent state and then watching dumb cat videos on your phone until you felt like you didn’t want to crawl in a hole and die.

Taliyah had assured you that you didn’t look bad, which you might have believed if you hadn’t seen yourself in the mirror as you were leaving, but at this point you were beyond caring about how you looked right now.

Taliyah had refused to tell you where she was taking you, and so you were forced to follow her down the familiar path towards the beach, unsure of where it was you were being led. Part of you was worried that you might run into Sett, but then the more rational side of you took over; he was likely back at that pool, partying it up with those girls and lamenting that you had run off before he could win his ugly date prize. It was crazy to realize just how flawed your judgment had been.

You had expected to be walking onto the beach, as it was where you two usually spent most of your time, but Taliyah didn’t go to the parking lot, instead heading towards the rockier section of the beach. You hadn’t been over here before, only vaguely aware of the area as a prime fishing location, bait shops and the like lining the street across from this part of the beachfront.

She took you past the fishing spots, down to near the end of the beach, where there was a small pier that went about thirty feet out into the sea. Like most of the beach at this time on a weekday, the pier was empty, most of the fishermen also having headed out with their day’s catches.

Taliyah led you down the pier to the small bench at the end of it, pushing you to sit down. When she didn’t do the same, you looked up at her, confused.

“I’ll be right back,” she said. “I’m gonna go grab something to help cheer you up. You just enjoy the view for a bit.”

You decided to follow her advice, staring out at the water. There wasn’t much to see other than some boats in the far distance and some buoys bobbing in the water that marked the swimming section from the boating section.

It was kind of nice in a way, the calm waters helping you to relax as you watched the waves roll in and out. You stayed like that for a while as you allowed yourself to zone out until you began to wonder how much time had passed. Pulling out your phone, you saw that it had been almost twenty minutes, and yet there was no sign of Taliyah as you looked around.

You had assumed that she went to get you two some food, which likely was still the case. Some of the places here tended to have rather large dinnertime crowds, so a twenty minute plus wait wasn’t exactly unusual. You had no idea where she had gone, so all you could do was wait. If she wasn’t back by seven, you would just text her and ask what was up.

You let yourself be taken in again by the rolling waves as you continued to wait, trying to recall what kinds of restaurants there were on the beachfront. It couldn’t be that fish and chips place; Taliyah had spent a full half hour last week complaining about how stale their food was. Or the taco place, since it had been closed for renovations for the past week. You had been trying to think of a third option when your concentration was broken by someone taking a seat next to you on the bench.

You looked over, expecting to see Taliyah back with some food, but instead nearly jolted off of the bench when next to you was the very man you were out here trying to forget.

Just seeing him when you were feeling so pathetic sent a jolt of you weren’t sure what up your spine, your flight instincts screaming at you as you made to stand up, only to be stopped by a firm grip on your wrist.

“I know you don’t wanna see my face right now,” Sett said. “But I can explain.”

“Explain what?” you replied meekly. “Those girls explained enough.”

“I haven’t,” he insisted. “Just listen for a minute. Then you can leave, or punch me, whatever you want.”

You took a look around, still not seeing Taliyah anywhere. You weren’t sure what he could have to say that would make much of a difference, but you sat back down, and he let go of your wrist.

You turned reluctantly to face Sett, waiting for him to talk first.

“Never told ‘em to do somethin’ like that,” he said gruffly. “Didn’t even know about it ‘til I got there and you weren’t there.”

“But they said…” you started, taking a breath to keep yourself calm as you prepared to recount the hurtful words. “They said you were only spending time with me so you could win their whole ugly date contest.”

Sett’s eyes narrowed, the skin of his knuckles tightening on his curling fists. “First I’ve heard of it. Ain’t no way you’d ever place in an ugly contest anyways.”

His words threw you. “Wait, so you don’t think I’m ugly?”

He snorted, a grin playing at his lips. “Well I was plannin’ on askin’ you to be my girlfriend after the party, so nah, I don’t think you’re ugly.”

“You–” you gasped, pulse skyrocketing. This was not how you expected this conversation to go. You were half convinced you were experiencing auditory hallucinations until Sett reached over, pulling you into his side.

“This is my fault,” he spoke lowly. “If I hadn’t been late, I’d have been there to stop that from happening.”

“What happened when you got there?” you asked quietly.

“Braum told me what happened, then those two tried tellin’ me they did it for my sake,” he growled. “I thought I was used to seein’ through bullies from how I grew up. Doesn’t matter now, they won’t be botherin’ you anymore unless they wanna find out why momma says I got her temper.”

“Why were you late anyways?” you asked.

He groaned, leaning his head back against the bench. Even with the sun mostly set, you could clearly see a pink tone to his cheeks.

“What is it?” you pressed, curious about why the intimidating lifeguard was suddenly being so shy.

He let out a long sigh, finally meeting your eyes. “Ma was doin’ my hair.”

You looked him over, realizing that his hair did seem to be tied differently today. The only thing that looked the same was his ears, just as fluffy as they always looked. You could almost hear Taliyah’s voice screaming in your head to pet them. Speaking of Taliyah…

“Taliyah!” you gasped, trying to extract yourself from Sett’s grip, but failing. If Taliyah was to come and see you here with the guy she had taken you out to forget about… “My friend, she’ll be back any second and–”

Sett laughed, and you were immediately left with the feeling that you were missing something.

“She ain’t comin’ back,” he said amusedly. “I’ve got you all to myself for the night… if that’s what you want.”

“Taliyah set me up?” you breathed, not having suspected a thing.

“I asked her to,” Sett explained. “Wasn’t about to let you go ‘cuz of some shallow assholes.”

Taliyah was much sneakier than you had given her credit for, you realized, but you couldn’t bring yourself to mind right now. Though that didn’t mean you weren’t hungry, your previous stress melting away and removing the only distraction from your empty stomach.

“So,” you hummed. “Are you still going to ask me to be your girlfriend?”

You still had no idea what would happen by the end of the summer, but you really wanted this. You wanted him.

“Yeah, was plannin’ on it.”

 You had thought about it all the way back to Sett’s house. Was it really for the best to go back to your city when the summer was over? Back to your parents’ house to find an equally demanding and unfulfilling job?

The more you thought about it, the more you wanted to stay. Taliyah was here, Sett was here, and other than your brief nasty encounter at the pool earlier, this summer had been the best one you’d had in a long time.

Sett seemed intent on giving you more reasons to stay as he was on you pretty much as soon as you entered his house. You had been standing in the entryway, looking at a picture of what must have been Sett and his mother when he caught you off guard, picking you up from behind.

You yelped, turning your head back to face him just in time for him to dart forward to snatch a kiss.

“You’ll have time to look around later,” he said as he walked down the hall, nudging a door open with his shoulder and then taking you into what looked to be his bedroom.

Once again, you were scarcely granted a look around before Sett had overtaken your attention yet again. You were swiftly carried over and deposited on the bed, Sett eagerly caging your body down against the sheets with his own.

“I wanted to go slow,” he said against your ear. “Didn’t wanna mess things up. But that’s not what you want, is it?”

“No,” you gasped as he snaked a hand under your dress, and then under your swimsuit bottoms. “I… I want…”

“This?” he inquired, thumb brushing against your clit, causing you to jolt against him with a breathy moan. “Waited a long time to hear that.”

Seeking more room to work, Sett pulled back to reach down and pull down your swimsuit bottoms, tossing them to the side. You watched with reddening cheeks as he returned his attention to you, head disappearing under your dress next.

His first lick against your pussy felt back-archingly good, but you didn’t have a lot of room to move with Sett’s hands holding your lower half in place. His tongue felt slightly rough, bringing pricks of pleasure-pain along its path.

Closing your eyes tight, you tried not to squirm, but it was difficult as Sett’s tongue prodded inside you before moving back to sucking at your clit. It felt good, almost too good, but you found yourself wanting more than his mouth against you.

“Sett,” you moaned. “Please…”

You weren’t sure if he got the message until you reached down to grasp at one of his hands. He pulled back from you, wiping one forearm against the wet lower half of his face as he sat back. His position on his knees on the bed allowed you a good look at the decently-sized bulge in the front of his tight swim shorts.

Sett caught your eyes, reaching one hand down to cup his cock through his shorts. “All you, sweetheart. Still think I think you’re ugly?”

You somehow managed to shake your head, speechless from his ardent display of his body. Sett seemed to bask in just how speechless he had made you, a sexy grin overtaking his face as he stared down at you.

“Couldn’t ask for more than this,” he said. “But if you want more…”

He was such a tease. With a burning face, you relented.

“Could you just put it in me please?” you asked, too shy to make eye contact.

“Can do,” he replied, and you could easily hear the smug satisfaction in his voice.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Sett stood up from the bed to pull his shorts off, wincing slightly when he pulled the tight fabric over his painfully-hard cock. Tossing the shorts to the floor, his attention quickly returned to you.

Giving his cock a few slow strokes, he watched you sit up on the bed. Feeling a burst in confidence from his display, you reached down to the hem of your dress’ skirt before pulling it up and off your body, Sett’s hungry gold eyes unable to look away from you as you moved onto your swimsuit top.

Once your top was off, Sett struck, pulling you towards him. Sitting at the edge of the bed, he pulled you onto his lap, reaching around to your front to cup your breasts as his mouth went straight to your neck. His hands were warm against the sensitive skin of your breasts, rolling your nipples under his thumbs as his teeth scraped against a sensitive spot on your neck.

You felt his hard cock under you and shifted yourself against it, Sett letting out a deep groan in response. You could feel how wet you were, but this wasn’t enough. You needed to fuck him, needed this building tension to come to a satisfying end for you both.

You turned in his lap, looping your arms around his neck and leaning down to kiss him. Sett was happy to meet tongues with you, one hand resting on your ass until you pulled back from the kiss.

You met eyes with Sett, who began to help you lift yourself up, lining up his cock with his other hand. When he brought you back down onto him, you both sighed as you were fully seated on his cock at last.

“Nothin’ else would feel as good as you,” Sett groaned as he began to help you move and up and then back down onto him. “Never wanted any girl as bad as I want you.”

You were much less coherent, moaning out his name as your hands grasped against his chest. With a further burst of confidence, you reached a hand up to his ear, running your fingers along the fur and enjoying the resulting groan, the next upward thrust of his hips hitting even better into you. Maybe you would leave this out at Taliyah’s interrogation later.

“There,” you moaned as he shifted you in his lap, his cock hitting even deeper inside you. “Right there, Sett.”

“You’re so tight,” he groaned, pulling you down into a rough kiss as he held you close, thrusting up into you as you eagerly moved along with him, needing to make this gorgeous man under you cum.

Sett came first, stilling for a moment before pulling you slightly back to put a finger to your clit, letting you cling to him as you followed him over the edge.

Once you had both come back down from the clouds, you were set back gently on the bed so Sett could run off to grab a cloth to clean you up with. You watched him leave the room, still having a hard time comprehending just how you had ended up this situation.

You definitely had some phone calls to make tomorrow. Your parents would be surprised, but you would probably focus on the Taliyah part rather than the new boyfriend part of your reasoning. Taliyah would be overjoyed for sure; you’d have to thank her for her meddling when you saw her.

As Sett returned, you realized something.

“Wait, is your mom home?” you asked in horror. You hadn’t made any effort to be quiet during sex, forgetting about his mother until he re-entered the room.

Sett laughed at your mortified face. “I don’t live with ma, so no.”

“Oh god,” you breathed in relief. “I was worried I was too…”

“She ain’t here,” he replied as he joined you on the bed, handing you the cloth he had grabbed. “You can be as loud as you want.”

You dropped the cloth, burying your head in your hands, Sett’s amused laughter ringing in your ears as you tried to content with just what you had signed yourself up for.

#xreader #readerinsert #league of legends #league of legends x reader #lol x reader #league of legends sett #sett #pool party sett #sett x reader #smut #pool party sett x reader

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

Top 5 Best Executed Deaths

A few weeks ago, I did a list talking about the Top 5 Character Deaths That Made Me Side-Eye the Writers and I thought it was only fair that I talk about some of the character deaths that I thought were actually done well. So consider this like a companion to that list. 

Like I said in that T5F, this is TWDG, a game series all about people surviving in a world overrun by zombies. Naturally, characters are going to die. Some of these characters get pretty shitty deaths that only happened to fill a quota, some had effort and thought put into them and how they were going to effect the story and remaining characters. These are deaths that served their purpose, progressed the story, or are an understandable conclusion to a character’s arc. 

Do keep in mind that when I say that I enjoy the way these were done/handled/portrayed/whatever, this isn’t me taking joy outta watching these deaths play out. Hell, I kinda hate most of the deaths on this list, but just because I don’t want this character to die or I wish they stuck around longer doesn’t mean I can’t recognize when it’s executed well, y’know? 

5. Larry and the meat locker incident

So.... Larry’s an asshole, y’know? He made it on another T5F because he sucks. No one likes Larry. 

He treats Lee like garbage, treats his own daughter terribly, and is overall just a piece of shit. That being said, he played his role well. He did what he needed to do which was be a antagonistic character within the group who posed a threat to Lee by threatening to expose his past. He creates a lot of tension within the group, he puts all this pressure on Lilly, you can’t even attempt to show any kindness to him because he doesn’t care about anyone but himself and Lilly. 

That being said.... his death scene is pretty good. Y’know, you play through ep2 for the first time and you’ve just discovered that these people are cannibals and they have you locked in a fucking meat locker so they can butcher you later, and Larry is freakin’ the fuck out because he’s pissed. Lilly is sick in the corner, Kenny is desperately trying to find a way out because they have his family, and Clementine is terrified, and Lee is just waking up. 

You go over and try to calm Larry down because he’s pounding at the door and this dude.... this bastard has the gall to be like “Fuck you, you must really hate me! I’m plannin’ on bein’ around waaaaaay after you’re dead! I’ll be the one to put you down!”

Then he has a heart attack. 

And you’re stuck in this meat locker with him. You don’t know if he’s alive or not-- Kenny immediately deems him dead, Lilly is desperately trying to resuscitate him, and they’re both yelling at you. You gotta decide if you’re gonna help Lilly try to bring him back, or if you’re gonna help Kenny make sure he doesn’t turn. 

Not matter what you do, Kenny smashes Larry’s head in with a damn saltlick because I guess he missed the opening of the episode where they remind you that your actions have consequences. 

Larry’s death has lasting effects on your relationships with both Lilly and Kenny, though more so Kenny since no matter what, Lilly loses it a little and ends up murdering Carley/Doug and leaving the group. But boy, Kenny will never forget the time you didn’t wanna play hero with him and smash a guys head in right in front of his daughter. 

It’s a damn good scene, I gotta hand it to ‘em. I hate Larry and I can’t say I miss him, but I can definitely see both sides of the argument on what to do there. Plus it’s... I dunno, a creative death? and I kinda like that? No one else is out here getting their heads done in with a saltlick, y’know? 

Anyway, Larry sucks but his death? Well done. 

4.  Minerva and the tragic showdown on the bridge

Oh man, I really am digging my own grave with the Minnie crowd lately, huh? Ah well, I’m sure it’s fine. 

Listen...okay, look. I have a lot of feelings about the bridge scene. On one hand, I hate it. On the other hand, I kind of love it? 

Like, does it piss me off that Tenn dies here because I trust AJ? Yep. Do I still wish they had maybe put Lilly here so that she could actually do her job as a villain? Sure. Does it upset me that AJ ends up shooting his best friend in order to save Louis? Totally. Does it annoy me that Minerva just won’t fucking die even though I shot her and the walkers keep nom noming her? Absolutely. 

That being said, I can’t pretend that Minerva’s death isn’t pretty great.... which I know will upset the Minnie crowd who always talk about how it’s bullshit she died here and she deserved a redemption arc... but lemme explain. 

Looking at the game itself, the text and story progression, Minerva was never going to get that. She was never set up as someone we were gonna “fix” or as someone who would have a change of heart and switch to our side. From the moment we meet her, she’s too far gone. The delta have their claws sunk deep within her, they brainwashed her, forced her to murder her own sister, and she has completely given up. She never expresses any desire to go back to the school. Nope, the delta is her home now. Her family. And it’s tragic. She and Sophie proof of what would happen to the Ericson crew if the delta go ahold of them-- “which twin will you be?” y’know? 

She fucks us over instead of actually helping us, we escape, the boat explodes, but Minerva doesn’t go down with the boat. Nope, she makes it to land and well... she fucking loses it. She sees her delta family get taken out by walkers and she goes nuts with her gun and gets half of her face chewed off by a walker.

So yeah..... she’s dead. Almost. They try to act like we’re supposed to believe that she’s really dead after she gets surrounded by walkers and throws the grenade at Clementine and all that but c’mon.... unless I see a body or a walker version, I don’t believe shit. 

Which brings me to the bridge.... there’s a lot of dread building up to Minerva’s final appearance, and you just hear her singing the damn song and bringing a bunch of walkers with her. Not to mention that she already looks dead. She looks like a walker who can talk, and not gonna lie, I like it. It’s freaky and sad and fucked up and adds so much to her character at this point. I mean, she’s here to kill Tenn so that they can all be a family again. She’s smiling and relieved that she’s dying and boy she just can’t wait to take Tenn with her and it’s not great.

She’s here to die and to take someone down with her, and she’s not leaving until she does. Hell, if she can take Clementine out, that’s just a bonus at this point. 

ALSO can’t forget that if AJ does shoot and kill Tenn, Minerva is still alive as she’s being eaten by walkers and she looks so damn happy as she reaches out and says, “Yes, come with me...” 

Like..... it’s so fucked, and I hate that I love it. From a storytelling standpoint, it’s a fitting death to conclude Minerva’s character and it impacts everyone there in more ways than one. 

3. Duck and incredible emotional impact

Oh, Duck... poor, poor Duck. 

This one has stuck with me and I hate it. I was never one of those players who hated Duck from the beginning. It’s interesting to go back and see how people reacted to him in the first couple episodes because a lot of them didn’t like him. They found Duck to be annoying, loud, stupid, and would even wonder “yeesh, when can I kill this kid?” 

Which is yikes but not gonna get into that right now. 

But from my understanding, Telltale got wind of this and knowing they were gonna kill him off, were like “Okay, y’all dumb, so here--” and they added in that little segment with Detective Duck where he helps Lee figure out what’s been going on with the stole meds. It’s a cute scene where we get to hang out with Duck and he proves that he’s not stupid, he’s just... y’know, a child. 

Then the motor inn gets attacked, shit goes down after they escape, and it’s revealed that Duck was bitten. 

Oh man, let me tell you about emotional impact both on the characters and the player because wow. 

Duck’s death is slow, drawn out...and since it’s early in the series, there’s a lot of denial, mostly from Kenny. They find the train and Kenny fixates on it because to him, if he gets it working and they can just get away, Duck can recover. Duck isn’t like the others, he’s just a little sick and everyone is making a big fuss about it. 

Then you have Katjaa, who starts out in that denial stage but she moves into acceptance a lot quicker than Kenny does and well.... that might be because she made up her mind about what she was going to do, which that is a whole other layer of fucking despair to this situation. 

They also do something that I like with Kenny by adding that depth of him believing he had something like this coming after what happened at Hershel’s farm. Y’know, when he grabbed Duck and took off, leaving Shawn to die? Yeah that. 

He’s been so adamant about protecting his family to the point where he doesn’t have anything for the rest of the group, aside from Lee if he helps kill Larry. He did what he could to keep his wife and child safe and in the end, it didn’t matter. Duck still got bit, and now everything is shit. 

Then when you thought it couldn’t hurt even more, you find Katjaa dead in the woods and you still have to take care of Duck, whether you have Lee shoot him or have Kenny do it, or even just leave him to turn. Either way.... Duck’s death is just one big ol’ despairing oof.

It’s really good, guys. The music, dialogue, scenery, the pain....They really nailed Duck’s death in such an emotional way and it doesn’t just end there. This sticks with Kenny all the way through S2 and changes him as a character. It impacted Clementine and Lee greatly because this kickstarted Chuck telling them that Clem would end up just like Duck if things didn’t change. 

S1 just... knew how to kill off its characters... well, for the most part. 

2. Marlon and the death that had to happen whether we like it or not

Sigh.... okay. 

So... Marlon. Lemme tell you some things about Marlon’s death. 

First, I hate it. Nothing new there. If you know anything about me, you know that I am vocal in my desire for the Marlon redemption arc, for the “Marlon lives” AU’s and the “Marlon lives longer but dies differently” AU’s. I like Marlon as a character, I find him to be a fascinating character study. Ray Chase’s performance as Marlon brings so much personality and I love it.  So naturally, I wanted more of him in TFS. 

Here’s the thing. I may want all of those things, I may take a lot of joy from discussing these ideas with you guys and coming up with different scenarios,  theories, AU’s about him, and I’ll always be the first one to be like “I hate that Marlon dies in ep1, I wish AJ hadn’t shot him! Woulda liked for him to stick around longer!” 

But with the story TFS is trying to tell, Marlon has to die. AJ has to shoot him. I don’t like it, you don’t like it, no one likes it.... but that’s just how it is. 

Marlon is presented to us as this chill and genuine guy trying to keep his group safe and together. He feels the pressure of being responsible for all the lives in this school and that’s a lot to put on a teen growing up in the apocalypse. 

Then we learn that hey, the twins didn’t die. No, last year they ran into Abel and Marlon made a deal with him where he traded the twins in order to save himself, Brody, and the rest of the school. He wanted to plan a rescue mission, but he was too scared, so he and Brody kept it to themselves. They made up a story about the twins dying and moved on, but that continued to weigh down on them. 

Then Abel comes back, Brody freaks out, tells Clementine the truth, and Marlon hits her so hard that it kills her. 

And it gets worse. 

You go through the whole confrontation with Marlon trying to cover his ass and blame Clementine for Brody’s murder, he’s waving AJ’s gun around and threatening to shoot Clem while everyone is gathered around watching. It’s raining, it’s super dramatic and tense and I love it. 

In the end, Marlon gives up and he just wants to leave. Let him become a bad memory, he’ll never come back, just let him go. 

Then AJ shoots him in the head unprompted. He just.... he just does it and then wonders why everyone is looking at him like he’s a murder baby. 

Marlon’s death is crucial, not just to kickstart the plot but also for AJ’s character arc. His death affects everyone in that school. It makes Clementine question herself and if she’s raising AJ right, it breaks Louis’ heart, it pisses off Mitch, it sets Violet off on her bullshit. Everyone is hurting and confused because they don’t know what to do. Marlon is dead and AJ, this tiny toddler, was the one who pulled the trigger. 

From the beginning, we’re told that AJ is always listening, watching, and what we do will affect him for better or worse.... and maybe you don’t think much when you tell him to always aim for them head, but when he says exactly what you taught him after murdering Marlon...? Yeah, you’re sitting there like “Well, fuck.” 

But if this didn’t happen, if AJ didn’t kill Marlon, then.... there’s not a lot left. Sure the raiders are still coming, but AJ no longer has to go through what he has to or realize how much he hurt everyone. He’s no longer on that path that made him such an interesting and layered character. 

Sure, you coulda made him shoot someone else, but the fact that it was Marlon is what made it impactful.

Ugh, it’s good and I hate it. I hate it so much. 

1. Lee and the death that broke all our hearts

.......Just-

-y’know?

What else is there to say?

Well, alright, I’ll explain. 

We play as Lee in S1, we go on this whole journey with him and develop him as a character, establish relationships, and care for Clementine. He’s a great character. I did a list on why he’s great, too, if you wanna check that out but all you really need to know is that we all loved Lee.

Lee’s got a lot of baggage, given that he was on his way to prison for murdering the dude who was sleeping with his wife. But then the apocalypse happened and he got a second chance to do some good... or I guess bad? if you do a scumbag Lee run? 

Anyway-- no matter what, he cares for Clementine and it’s nice to see them bond over the course of the season... so when shit hits the fan and Clementine gets kidnapped by the Stranger, we’re just as upset as Lee is.

Then Lee gets bit.... and we realize that even though he’s our playable protagonist, he was never safe either. He gets bit and I can still remember the feeling of like... a bowling ball dropping in my stomach and my heart hurting because no... no, no, not Lee. I basically became Kenny like “No, he’s different! Lee isn’t gonna die! Being bit doesn’t mean death!” and while that is technically true.... had to face it: Lee’s going to die by the end of the season. 

Ep5 of S1 is a whole journey... We’re dealing with trying to save Clementine while seeing Lee get worse and worse-- he’s passing out, he’s growing paler and slower and it’s hard to watch. You maybe get a little bit of hope if you decide to cut his arm off, but that’s just... it’s too late for that. 

Not only is he fighting this, but then you got Ben who gets impaled and Kenny “dies” putting him outta his misery and Lee’s powerless to do anything. So great, that sucks. 

But at least he’s got Christa and Omid.... until they get separated at the Marsh House and Lee’s gotta get through a herd of them by himself. 

This slow burn is so good. His condition gets progressively worse but he’s so determined to get to Clem that it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t have time to think about what is inevitably going to happen to him, even if the player does. 

And just.... the final scene... y’know, the actual death scene? 

It’s so good. It’s a beautiful, emotional punch in the face. Like, way to end your game like this... Lee is trapped her with Clementine and he can’t walk, he can’t get up no matter how much Clementine begs him to try, he just- he can’t. He knows it’s all over for him and so he has her handcuff him to this heater so that no matter what, he can’t hurt her and just.... their final moments together where Lee is minutes away from death but is struggling to tell her as much as he can and I’m crying.

Then of course, the final choice-- Do you shoot Lee, or do you leave him to turn?

Both ending hurt my soul, but they’re both great in different ways. Shooting him is so heartbreaking... seeing little Clem sobbing as she points the gun at him and closes her eyes, then it cuts to black as the shot rings out and you hear Lee’s final breath....

BUT THEN YOU HAVE THE LEAVE HIM ENDING WHICH-

Lee manages to tell her more when you choose not to shoot him, but just watching Clementine get to the door and her little “don’t go” before Lee closes his eyes and falls over limp... falls over dead, I just--

Ouch... I am applauding this through my ugly sobs. 

It’s the best death in the series. It has everything and then some- emotional impact, works to progress the story and characters, amazing dialogue and performances.... It still gets me to this day. 

---

Honorable Mentions

-Mark’s death technically happens off screen, but I mean, c’mon... Mark wasn’t the most compelling character, but everyone remembers what happened to him. Everyone remembers walker Mark. What happened to him showed us just how fucked the St Johns were and it’s excellent.  -Brody’s death is pretty good, too.  -Abel’s death is an interesting one. He’s a garbage can, but they managed to humanize him just a bit by the way he hands his soon-to-be demise.  -Badger when Conrad kills him. It’s super good.  -I’m looking over this list now and it’s kinda funny that not a single S2 death made it here... it’s almost like all the character death that happened there was because a quota needed to be filled and who cares about complex character development when you got Kenny and nothing really matters I guess... ugh. The best deaths would probably be Carver, and Kenny when you shoot him but they’re not good enough to be in a top 5 so.... good job.

---

So... that was fun. What do you guys think? Do you agree with my choices or nah? Do you have a favorite death I didn’t list that you thought was well executed? Let me know, I’m curious. 

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

---

Next week’s T5F

#twdg t5f #twdg clementine #twdg aj #twdg louis #twdg lee #twdg violet #twdg tenn #twdg minerva #twdg lilly #twdg larry #twdg kenny #twdg katjaa #twdg duck #twdg marlon #twdg brody #twdg mitch #twdg #twdg abel #twdg carver #twdg badger #twdg conrad

[itsclydebitches]

Some of my friends in the RWBY FNDM actually said people don’t forgive their friends for betraying them (Jaune killing Penny) but will forgive strangers betraying them (Em killing Penny). Uh…NO. Being close and attached to someone leads to bias. People are more willing to see someone they don’t know as evil for hurting them BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW THAT PERSON. They said this as an excuse to why RWBY will be pissed at Jaune. NOPE! (1/2)

I think it can go either way depending on the person, or in this case the character. People aren't so uniform that they'll have a single, predictable response to someone's actions depending on whether they're in the "friend" or "stranger" category, to say nothing of the complexities of figuring out when one moves from one category to the other. (Is Ozpin the beloved and respected headmaster they look up to, or a virtual stranger whose age and power makes him someone the group never would have seriously connected with? The fandom is divided.) But that connection (or lack thereof) can go in either direction. It might make it easier to forgive them, or it might make it seemingly impossible. I've been replaying Witcher's Blood & Wine where Anna Henrietta is so relieved to have her sister back that she's blind to the horrors she's committed - love make forgiveness an inevitability. I'm also rewatching Criminal Minds where Reid is furious with JJ for keeping Prentiss' secret from him, specifically because they're so close and JJ was the one to comfort him over Prentiss' "death" - love makes forgiveness that much harder. And it's the same with strangers. If someone you're less close to commits a horrible act, you might respond with pure disgust because who are they to you? Nobody. They're defined only by that one action. Or, their distance might make it easier to forgive them once you have gotten to know them a bit, simply because the action didn't, at the time, feel personal. You know the version of them now, the one that "counts," the one you're emotionally attached to. I don't think it's an either/or situation here, where there's a correct answer of "Yes characters will get angry if they're close to the person in question" or "No characters will be less angry if they're close to them." It depends on the individual, the action, the circumstances, the state of mind of the person trying to grant forgiveness, and a hundred other, smaller factors. If Yang did something horrible, would Blake be less willing to forgive her because they're so close, or more willing because they are? That depends on a whole range of things from "What exactly did Yang do?" to "Has Blake eaten and slept and generally not been stressed out of her mind lately, making her less likely to lash out?" It, to be blunt, comes down to good, nuanced writing.

Which is why the Jaune situation is... complicated. And sadly, RWBY doesn't do well with complicated. Free of the rest of Volume 8, my mind says the group has to be mad. How can they not? Even if Jaune had a 100% solid reason for killing Penny with no possible way to blame him - which, let's be frank, he doesn't. The guy has a healing semblance and just took her word that it was useless - it's not in our nature to approach a tragedy with that level of logical maturity (especially not after the crazy level of trauma that's been going on: Salem, battles, falling to their "deaths."). You don't have a friend admit they killed another friend and immediately go, "Oh yeah. Makes sense. Had to be done. No worries!" and move on with your life. You at least start with some anger, whether it's rational or not, deserved or not. People harbor anger over deaths that we know, realistically, are not the fault of another person involved, we resent people who survived over others even though we know they had no control over it, and we even hate ourselves for hating that person, because we know it's not fair and we're feeling it anyway. If we have all that complexity tied up in deaths that are unambiguously not the fault of the person in question... what do you do with the guy who straight up agreed to an assisted suicide? Gave up on healing or retreat? Was the one to drag his sword across Penny's throat? The fandom recognized that scene as something intensely complicated, made worse by ineffectual writing. We knew, the second it had finished, that Jaune was not an easily categorized innocent here who should be treated solely as a victim of horrible circumstances. There's a very good reason why the fandom went, "What the fuck, Jaune" because this entire situation is so. messed. up. I'm not saying all this to paint Jaune as some irredeemable monster or anything, but rather to highlight that there should be a huge range of emotions coming off of this action. Whether we the audience or the characters decide what he did was the right thing or not, Jaune's actions are still objectively horrifying. He killed Penny. Was it necessary? Given RWBY's shoddy writing, idk, but that's not the point for an initial reaction. The point is, "How would you respond if you found out Friend A helped Friend B commit suicide, right after you'd worked so hard to keep Friend B alive, after she'd already come back from the dead?" The answer should be, "Uh, not well. Not well at all."

But this is RWBY. There should have been a range of emotions to Jinn's vision in Volume 6, but there wasn't. There should have been a range of emotions to Penny's resurrection, but there wasn't. There should have been a more persuasive reason for Jaune to kill Penny, a better job of stripping away other options, but there wasn't. Arguably, Penny shouldn't have died at all, not after being brought back, getting the Maiden powers, being made human... but she was. This situation is already a mess but then, as you say, anon, we have Emerald on top of it all. I mentioned above that it's "Free of the rest of Volume 8" that the group should be mad at Jaune, but obviously that's not how the story goes. I can't separate Emerald from the rest of this and yeah, it looks ridiculous for the group to have a long arc of hating Jaune after they forgave Emerald in, what? An hour? We can talk about that context all we want, but at the end of the day, Emerald's actions were too horrific to shrug off as they were and Jaune's action is also too horrific to shrug off. RWBY has, once again, backed itself into a corner. What the story actually needed was for Emerald to get a full redemption arc, allowing the group to process, grapple with, and learn to forgive her past actions through apologies and new actions to demonstrate growth, so that they could then later do a modified version of that with Jaune, one tailored to his character, their characters, and this new situation. The story needs the group to be mad at both of them because both did things that would generate different types of anger. But because Emerald was granted laughter almost immediately upon arriving at the mansion, yeah, it would read as absurd for the group to go through a whole arc of learning how to forgive Jaune... even though Jaune's actions arguably do need some kind of forgiveness arc. The situation is screwed either way. If the group forgives him quickly it's, "Really? He killed Penny and that's it? No one is going to struggle with that? That's absurd!" and if the group doesn't quickly forgive him it's, "Really? You'll insta-forgive the woman who has been trying to kill you for years, but won't grant the same thing to your friend who only took that action with good intentions? That's absurd!" And if the focus is on Jaune being mad at himself, we're right back to where we were in Volume 4: Jaune mourning a redhead in his life and getting too much focus. I really don't think there's a good solution here, which (as my more recent posts speak to), we're seeing more and more as the series goes on. The more material we get and the more shoddily that material is written, the more we're going to see future situations where we go, "I don't like any of the writing options here, because of something that happened in a previous volume." RWBY has created a situation where the group very much deserves to be angry - or at the very least conflicted - over Jaune's actions, but because it's following on the heels of Hazel, Emerald, and their own horrific choices across Volume 7 and 8, any anger will feel hollow, hypocritical. But isn't that what we're left with? We've been here since the beginning of Volume 7 when Ruby repeated Ozpin's secrets and the story never acknowledged that either she's as bad as he is, or he's not as bad as they believed. We've been watching a show built on that hollow hypocrisy for at least two years (longer, really) and it's just getting worse the more the story introduces sensitive material and then doesn't appropriately follow up on it.

#suicide tw #death tw #rwby #rwde #mymetas

[certainempatheticturkeymuffin]

So....

I finally got my Four Swords manga and read the entire thing in one sitting.

I have a few notes.

Red is a dumbass and I love him.

That whole hugging scene with Red and Blue came a little out of nowhere, but it was funny.

Red is an arsonist and I love him.

Green totally has the hots for Zelda.

I don't know why but Vio is my favorite.

Red is close in second though

Blue got fucking EATEN by the fucking Big Poe

And Red fucking saved him by being an arsonist

TWICE

Green is definitely the straight one, you can tell.

Shadow is dramatic as fuck

Vio is also dramatic as fuck

Shadow has a fucking DRAGON

Shadow literally destroyed Hyrule Castle and Castletown in a day. He's technically up there with Calamity Ganon

Shadow tricked Link into freeing Vaati!

My take was that Shadow was being heavily mistreated by Ganon and Vaati, which laid down some abuse subtext and....holy fuck that was sad. Maybe it's just 'cause my family was abusive that I got that read, but wow.

Shadow needs to be protected.

I love Shadow he needs to be given the good fucking things in life.

In the LU could he technically be brought back by one of Wild's blood moons? I read a fic about that. Does he count as a monster though? Then again, the blood moon enhances your cooking, so really I don't see why it can't give Shadow his physical form back.

Shadow deserves good things.

He just wanted attention and a family.

He killed himself to kill Vaati....I mean, I knew that before hand, but seeing it with my own two eyes....fuck

Shadow is a troll and I love him

He and Vio were just messing with Blue and Red lmao

Blue learned patience by being frozen in ice until Red decided to set him on fire, which, how long was that really? It was stated that they only left Vio alone for a day, so it must've only been a few hours. Must've felt like an eternity though.

I feel like Red and Blue were the main characters for most of the middle really.

I'm not complaining, their dynamic is hilarious and I love them

But I wanted to see Green and Vio interact with them more y'know.

I feel like Vio only really interacted with Shadow

And even then he was kinda lying the entire time.

Oh Hylia, Shadow's face when he realized Vio was going to smash the mirror.

That was just betrayal on so many levels

And he had just opened up about thinking Vio was the only one he could really trust.

After that I honestly feel it was dickish to just kill him.

And then he lives

Zelda is a top tier fucking Queen(tm)

She had no obligations to comfort someone who had kidnapped her and yelled at her

But she did and it was super sweet

THEN THE FUCKING SENTIENT CLOUD

I didn't know the clouds were sentient and honestly I'm still having a crisis over it

And in the beginning I thought Shadow just straight up killed Link's dad and I was like "oh damn okay this is darker than I expected"

But nope the fucker is still alive.

I feel like the knights of Hyrule were kind of a deus ex machina

And the final show down with Ganon was underwhelming

Vaati is a bitch

I think Red was the highlight of this story

And the fucking art style, because damn the expressions were funny

And I'm glad they implemented the subtle ways to tell them apart, like the textures of the tunics, the color of the shirt under the tunic(Green's is black) the light and dark eyebrows, and the eyes themselves.

Tingle was unexpected and I wanted him to go away like Green and Vio did

Honestly I still don't understand why people love Tingle, he annoys me.

Back to the actually good characters-THEY FUCKING LITERALLY TURNED A LITTLE GIRL INTO A DOLL

Her fucking doll(Rosie?) was creepy as fuck!

That trick was absolutely CREEPY AS FUCK

And I like how the four just wreck the bastard with toy weapons

And they keep them as real weapons when they leave

Like, how does that work lmao

Red set a fucking forest on fire

Red is an arsonist

Red is brilliant and I love him

Vio is an asshole and I love him

Just playing up how "Oh yeah Green is dead" and fucking messing with Red and Blue

I noticed Shadow is super touchy-feely with Vio and he's probably touch starved which makes sense.

Okay so Shadow wasn't dead, technically, is he still alive if all he can do is wave from Link's shadow and stuff?

It seems like a bad ending for Shadow.

In the LU, does this mean that Four just fucking stole the Four Sword and killed Vaati? Or did Zelda find some other way to seal him, 'cuz like, I'm pretty sure Four has the four sword in LU right????

So many plotholes but if this means I get more arsonist Red content, then I'm down.

Also, Shadow is gay af for Vio

Like, my gaydar was off the charts

YOU DON'T JUST GIVE A BRO THIS LOOK

70. And, like, Vio, you JUST fucking killed Shadow, don't give me this shit

71. This art is super gay, you can't deny that, they are literally fucking wrapped around each other

72. And Shadow wanted to fucking rule the world WITH Vio, like, DAMN he's thirsty 73. If it were me, I'd still prefer ultimate authority 74. Just in case y'know 75. And Shadow was so ready to spill his secrets 76. And he was so fucking heartbroken when he saw Vio with the sledgehammer 77. Like fuck Vidow is definitely my top pairing. 78. And Green and Zelda, the token straights 79. And we can't forget Red and Blue 80. Like Red was hardcore flirting with Blue, you can't change my mind. 81. Zelda was so fucking confused when she saw that there were four Links, and it was cute and hilarious 82. I normally don't like Zelda, but she was so cute and sweet that I really couldn't help it. 83. Also that chad drawing of a past Link that split into four was funny 84. It was just so fucking out of place 85. They literally only rescued two of the six mages, so are the other four still trapped or were they released when Vaati and Shadow "died"? 86. The knights of Hyrule had to save the four, so are they technically the weakest Link? 87. Fuck I made a pun 88. I fucking hate myself 89. Blue was probably my least favorite of the cast, but that was probably because he reminds me of my sister 90. Y'know, the sister that hits me, yells at me, and calls me names? 91. It just rubs me the wrong way. 92. But aside from that, he was great. 93. A bit of a cocky asshole, but great. 94. And Link's dad just thinking he sees his son's dead body and Shadow just yeeting him into the dark realm. 95. Damn Shadow was an asshole 96. Vaati was even worse though, trying to get Link's father to kill his four sons. 97. That would've sucked. 98. Link hiding behind Zelda's chair was funny 99. Green and Zelda with the childhood friends turned lovers aspect would be cute 100. I like how a fairy just pops up out of no where in the middle of the book

I think that's it?

I love this book and it'll probably be the only one I ever reread.

If you didn't know, I hate rereading content unless I find it or a certain part of it worth reading through again. Which is to say, one, maybe two, fanfics(oneshots technically), and maybe this manga. So yeah, quite an exclusive club.

I don't regret this purchase!

#four swords #legend of zelda #vidow #blue x red #zelink #zelda x green #commenting on a book #does this count as a book review? #fuck it #book review #book chat #gushing #some LU discussion #tags are hard #manga #manga commentary #no regrets

[thr-333]

Mismatch- Part 8

Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020

Meeting your Dad! Again!

First< Previous> Next

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“She’s ok,” Marinette informs Marion, rechecking her bruised forehead.

“Already called the cops and ambulance,” Marion bounces a crying baby in his arms, humming a random tune.

Marinette nods, she doesn't try to move the lady. She leaves her to check that the goon who attacked the mother was still securely tied up, even if they were unconscious. The baby's cries calm, replaced by giggling as Marion makes faces. Marinette smiles at the scene. Hearing the quiet touch down of feet behind her she pivots coming face to face with the Batman.

“Who are you,” He demands in his usual growling voice.

“We-”

“Shush!” Marion hisses as the baby starts to wail again.

Marinette rolls her eyes, trying not to feel nervous that Marion told the Batman off.

“We’re just passing through the city, and decided to help out a bit,” Marinette explains, as Marion walks up to stand next to her.

Marinette checks the entrance to the alley. More out of habit than actual concern. Someone she assumes to be Robin by the costume was blocking the way out. As If Marion was going to make a break for it holding a baby.

“This city-”

“Uh! No, no, no, I need that to stay on thank you,” Marion interrupts him, trying to gently stop the baby from pulling down his mask while holding both up.

Marinette can practically feel the irritation rolling off Robin. Batman surprisingly seemed to be perfectly fine with being interrupted, likely because the baby was very cute. Marion manages to keep his mask up, holding the baby down and away from his face now.

“Um… sorry…. Please continue,” Marinette turns back to Batman. Marion bouncing the upset baby, trying to make up for his lost toy.

“This city is dangerous, it already has plenty of protectors, you aren’t needed here,” Batman looms over them, as if just his presence would make them instantly agree and send them packing.

“Really? Then where were these ‘protectors’ five minutes ago?” Marion snaps, the tension in the air sets Marinette on edge all to aware of negative emotions, “If it wasn't for us these two would be dead,”

“We had our eyes on the situation,” Robin speaks up for the first time.

“While we were doing something about it,” She had lean't not to let anyone discredit you in her early time as Ladybug. Marinette meets Batman's glare, channeling her inner Ladybug to do so. “Even if you could have saved them, it doesn't change the fact we did , also-”

“No, no- wait these are dirty, ah!” Marion exclaims, all eyes turning to him. Marinette watches in disbelief as he completely ruins the moment trying to wrestle his gloved hand away from the baby’s open mouth.

“Could you maybe not?” Marinette hisses to him. He breaks free pulling his hands away from the reaching baby, who starts to sniffle.

“These gloves have touched the buildings, alley floor and punched that guy, which by the looks of it is the dirties of all, I am not about to let this little one get anywhere near those germs,” Marion finishes, pulling off his gloves with his teeth. Giving the baby his fingers to happily chew on.

“You are such a mother!” Marinette hisses, snatching the glove he couldn’t put down with his hands full.

“Thank you,” Marion says once he is free to. Marinette isn’t sure if he meant the insult or taking the glove, probably both. He turns to Batman, as serious as a person being eaten by a six month old can be. “Look, the point is we helped people tonight and isn’t that what matters?”

“Not if-” The sound of sirens in the distance interrupts Batman again, “Let’s discuss this on the roof,”

With that both Batman and Robin deploy their grappling hooks and are gone in a matter of seconds.

“I guess we follow them?” Marinette turns to Marion, “They’re rather confident we won’t just leave, aren’t they?”

“They could catch us easily,” Marion shrugs, “You follow, I’ll drop this little trouble maker off,”

“If you insist,” Marinette leaves him before the vehicles park outside the alley, scaling the building.

“Your friends not joining us?” Batman asks as soon as she flips onto the roof.

“What was he meant to do?” Marinette tries not to seem out of breath, this was easier with a yo-yo, and magic powers, “Leave the baby on the floor?”

Batman doesn't say anything. They peer over the edge of the building, watching as the cops and medics show up. The cops seem cautious of Marion, but don’t do anything as he holds the baby. Marion ignores them talking to the medics instead as the check over the mother. Marion follows them out of the alley. He tries to hand off the baby to one of the medics but it starts crying loudly enough that they can hear it from the roof. Marion takes back the baby, calming it down in a matter of seconds.

“I think this could take awhile,” Marinette informs the company, still keeping an eye on the people below.

“Then I’ll ask you again,” Batman turns to her, “Who are you?”

“Like names?” Marinette asks, getting a curt nod, “Don’t have any, can’t decide,”

“You don’t have codenames?” Robin scoffed, Marinette wasn’t sure she liked his tone.

“We get by just fine without any,” Marinette watches as Marion starts talking with an officer, as the other pushes the goon into the car.

“You are completely unprofessional,” Robin spits out, thats it.

“Oh excuse me, I wasn’t aware there was a hiring facility for vigilantes, whats their motto, ‘vigilantes: we took the law into our own hands and beat people up in dark alleyways, but if you aren't named after a flying animal you are being unprofessional!” Marinette may be a little overtired and jet lagged at this point. Especially since she thinks she heard a laugh somewhere.

“I have formal training,” Robin seethes, “And at least I’m wearing armour,”

“Good for you, you know, I have both those things, just try and shoot me, see what happens, cause I guarantee I- both of us are covered on both accounts,” Marinette challenges, glancing down at the street to see Marion still talking with the officers. She throws in for good measure “You’d think with all your ‘training’ you’d be able to tell,”

With the way Robins glaring, Marinette is sure he’s going to take up her challenge. Good. If that's the only way to get through to them so be it.

“That’s enough,” Batman breaks through the tension, “We will discuss this further when the other one is here,”

Marinette looks down at ‘the other one’ just as the mother starts to wake up. She looks around panicked. Marion rushes to her side still holding the baby. She cries in relief taking the baby from him. Marinette watches as Marion rubs his neck, a gesture she knew as him being embarrassed over praise. With a wave over his shoulder he leaves, scaling up the building like Marinette did.

“I gave the police my statement, since the woman may be concussed, she seems ok but- wow it's chilly up here,” Marion cuts himself off coming to stand next to Marinette

“Your armour isn’t insulated?” Robin sneers, with a pointed look at Marinette.

“Not what I meant, but thanks for clearing that up,” Marion takes in the way Marinette bristles at the comment.

She hands back his glove, still glowering.

“As I was saying earlier,” Batman tries to redirect the conversation, as Marion wipes dribble off his fingers before slipping his glove back on. “Gotham is dangerous, there is no need to put yourselves at risk,”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Marion smiles down at the Mother still holding her baby tightly, “We want to help while we're here, what's wrong with that?”

“You wont be helping anyone if you get yourselves killed,” Robin warns.

“We can handle back alley thugs,” Marinette addresses Robin with a scowl.

“And what happens when it's not, when you run into an actual villain?” Batman asks, the sounds of the car and ambulance leaving in the background.

“We can handle them too,” Marinette says a touch proud, with the confidence that Ladybug always carries.

“You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” The severity to Batman's tone makes his words feel heavy despite being so cliche.

“That's pretty standard at this point,” Marion shrugs, “We’ve learnt on the job,”

“Even so, I won't allow you to risk your lives,” Batman decides, the twins exchange a glance of disbelief.

“You won't allow us?” Marinette asks, “What makes you think we care?”

He seems taken aback, Marinette continues before he can answer.

“The fact of the matter is, we are vigilantes, just like you, if you agree or not we are going to help people,” Marinette preaches, not letting him protest, “Your approval doesn't matter to us,”

Marinette walks past them, followed by Marion. They are about to reach the opposite side of the building when a man dressed in blue and black emerges from the shadows. Nightwing, Marinette recognises the costume, the only costume he's had ever had as far as she's concerned. Nope, she definitely had never found any other horrendous costumes when researching for her designs, nope.

“How long have you been there?” Marion startles, getting a friendly smile, the first friendly smile of the night(baby not withstanding).

“I’ve been listening for a while,” He tells them, “I know you want to help, but we are able to protect just fine Gotham, there's no reason for you to take unnecessary risks, even if you are capable,”

“Even so I-we cannot stand by and do nothing,” Marinette calmly declares, he being the first one to not act like they were clueless idiots, “Not when we are able to help people, and bring a smile to them,"

Nightwing doesn't respond but its clear he has no intention of letting them pass. He doesnt stop them as they walk away to the left side of the building, only to be stopped by Red Robin.

“Oh no, by all means don’t come out all at once or anything, please,” Marion snaps, turning on his heels not even waiting for his speech. Marinette shrugs and follows.

“You should listen!” Red Robin calls, Marinette has to stop Marion from flipping him the bird.

They strike an interesting balance. It was times like this she wondered if the miraculous affected their behaviour, or if it was because of their behaviour that they received their miraculous. They walked to the right side of the building and were predictably stopped once again, this time by Red Hood.

“How many of you are there!?” Marion shouts, Red Hood chuckles. Marion’s anger is only slightly offset by the sound.

“Here? Just me left,” His mirth turns serious “This job ain't all fun and games,”

“For fuck sake! Don’t you think I know that!?” Marion swears, letting Marinette know his patience had finally snapped, “I’ve watched people die, a lot of people, all because I wasn’t good enough! Well now I am and I’ll be damned if I waste that and let more people die when I can do something about it!”

Marinette cringes. She knew Marion still carried the guilt from his earlier days as Chat Noir. The ladybugs always brought people back, but that doesn't change what happened. Marion goes around Red Hood, no one stopping them this time. They jump over to the next roof, getting far away as quickly as possible.

“You ok?” Marinette asks, after they had gone a decent distance.

“Yeah, you?” Marion doesn't quite meet her eye, “I’m sorry for leaving you alone,”

“Don’t worry about it,” Marinette tells him, “Any of it,”

Marion nods, but they both know he will. They continue on with their patrol, less light hearted than usual, memories flashing through their heads.

“We’re being followed,” Marion glances at the direction of their pursuer.

“Ignore them, it’s probably just Robin or something,” Marinette decides, walking in the opposite direction.

They continue on their patrol, going later than they would like because of their follower. It was worth it when they came across another situation in a diffrent alley. ‘What's with this city and alleys?’ Marinette wonders dropping down. They both quickly defuse the situation. Marinette can feel a gaze from above and gives in. When they climb back up from the alley she snaps.

“Are you planning to let us go home tonight, or just keep stalking us?” Marinette asks the empty space.

“Wasn’t planning to, just wanted to see what you could do,” Red Hood walks out from the shadows, Marinette makes sure Marion isn't melting. He is.

“And?”

“You’re completely unprepared,” He shrugs, face hidden by his helmet.

“Great, more lectures,” Marinette turns to walk away.

“No it's not,” Red Hood insists, making her pause, “I can tell you have skill, but you don’t have the tech you need or the support, what are you planning on just walking around the city every night waiting for crime to wall in your lap?”

“This is Gotham,” Marinette accepts the responsibility of leading the conversation. Marion being able to do little more than stutter, probably realising he shouted at his crush about how he weak he is.

“Even so, if you want to help people there are better, more effective, ways to do it,”

“I know, but we don’t exactly have many other options,” Besides transforming, but that was off the table.

“That’s why we’re offering help,” He told them, “Do you want to work with us?”

“What? Why?” Marinette runs the conversation through her head. Wondering when that became an option.

“Why do I want you to? Because you yelled at Batman, and that's hilarious,” Red Hood was probably smiling under his hood, “The others probably just don’t want you to get hurt or something, although Bat's is always looking for new kids to adopt”

“Hm,” Marinette hums, she had to carefully consider their options.

They couldn’t risk revealing any of their identities. However it was also probably a good idea not to piss them all off more. They could use some new gear but they didn’t necessarily need it. The main purpose was to be able to protect their class and friends, now that the Gotham vigilantes knew they were around suddenly showing up wouldn’t be suspicious. They really could get by without the help, it would put too much at risk. Any way you sliced it the answer was-

“Yes!” Marion blurts out, before Marinette can say the opposite.

“What?” Marinette hisses, of course that's when he recovered his ability to speak.

“Great, meet at this location tomorrow night, all the details are on here,” he hands Marion a piece of paper and Marinette swears he internally combusts as their(gloved) fingers brush.

With that Red Hood disappears leaving behind the shell shocked twins, both for very different reasons.

“Why! Why did you say yes!” Marinette practically screeches, turning Marion to face her and shaking him out of his stupor.

“It’s Red Hood! Red! Hood! He asked us personally! We have to do it!” Marion shakes her right back.

“No we don’t!” Marinette yells, breaking away from his grip, shaking her head at the lovestruck look, “Did you actually consider what you were agreeing to? How much did your crush affect this decision?!”

“100%!”

#pop star au #miraculous #miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fic #bio dad bruce wayne #Bio Dad Bruce Wayne Month 2020 #Mismatch #badass marinette #Marinette #marinette is mdc #twins au #vigilante au #biodad au #bio! dadbrucewaynemonth2020 #b!dbwm2020 #Maribat #mlb #salt #but like lightly salted #maybe #class trip #class trip au #class salt #Lila salt #lila lies

[makeste]

Hi! Just wanted to say I love your metas and reactions ❤️❤️ Also I wanted to drop this tweet here (I'm afraid Tumblr will eat this ask if I include the whole link bc it happened to me a few times already, so I'm only leaving the most important part of the link): trkano_ status 1360988525374492680

Also because I'm paranoid I switched slashes to spaces so it for sure doesn't get eaten :')

So, I wanted to ask - do you think Caleb's translation could, like, become confusing to the actual plot/characters later on? I mean, Hori definitely shows his story to be different than Caleb tries to present it to the readers as and I'm curious if it could cause a disonance of sorts in a "why do you act this way now when you said this and that earlier???" way. Like, apparently in the volume release Shouto says to Endeavor (Idr which scene it was sorry) "You're a rotten number one. You were just in the right place at the right time - that's all." instead of the previous (correct afaik) which was (*drumrolls*) "I'm here to use you for my own reasons.", which also openly contradicts what Shouto said after the battle with the High-end, that while Enji is terrible father, Endeavor is quite inspiring hero. With how misleading the translation of chapter 301 is, I'm curious if it'll get better (someone will tell Caleb to be more profesional maybe) or worse. Until now it was more of nuances but the clarification tweet I linked surprised me a lot. So yeah, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it if you feel like sharing :)

hello! first of all, thank you! I'll go ahead and post the direct link here: link. (tumblr absolutely does delete asks with links for spam reasons though so I get the paranoia, lol.)

I think this thread makes some good points regarding Rei’s tone in particular, and they were things I was noticing too when I read Viz’s translation yesterday. however, I don’t want to start piling on Caleb, because he’s already dealt with a ton of undue harassment over this sort of thing to the point where he had to lock his twitter, and that sort of thing really bothers me. my personal rule of fandom is that real people always take priority over fictional characters in a story. period. there’s absolutely no justification for sending personal attacks to real live people simply because of their opinions on fictional characters. fictional characters don’t have feelings. they can’t be hurt. but the people receiving death threats from overzealous fans on the internet absolutely can be. so yeah, I think a lot of people absolutely have their priorities way out of line in that regard, and so for me it’s almost not worth getting into this debate at all because it’s already escalated way too far.

and then the other thing is that Caleb has frequently inferred that he doesn’t have editorial control over the final translations that get approved, and that there’s an entire team of editors who have the ability to make changes to his work, sometimes without notifying him. moreover, because he works with these people and in some cases works for these people, he can’t exactly call them out on twitter unless he wants to risk his job. in particular, he all but confirmed that the “you’re a rotten number one...” translation was one of these cases. not only that, but he didn’t even know about the change until it started making the rounds on the internet and he started getting harassed about it. so yeah, that’s pretty shitty. I can only imagine what it’s like to have someone change your work without telling you and then publish it with your name still attached to it, and to only find out because people start spamming you with death threats on your personal fan twitter. like, geez.

so regarding the translation nuances in this latest chapter, I don’t really know! Caleb seems to be aware of the latest discourse but hasn’t addressed it, again hinting that he’s not really free to do so:

does that prove that these translations aren’t his? nope. is it possible that some of the other editors -- perhaps ones who are less familiar with the characters and more concerned with punching up the dialogue, and who don’t care if the localization is completely accurate -- changed some of his wording around? absolutely. is it something we can do anything about either way? probably not, unfortunately.

I guess to sum my feelings up, this is why I like to read multiple translations myself, and I’m glad that this fandom has so many knowledgeable people who are able to provide those. unfortunately, not everyone is going to bother reading different translations of the same thing each week, and so if one of the translations happens to be off (which goes both ways incidentally, because there are people who only read the leaks and not the official version), those people might wind up with a slightly inaccurate view of some parts of the story. which sucks, but is also not the end of the world. and honestly, given how blown out of proportion this weekly “look what Caleb did now” witch hunt has gotten (and I’m not calling you out in particular here, anon, but more referring to the discourse on twitter which has really spun out of control), more than ever my current instinct is to just to read all the translations I can, pick the ones that seem right/make the most sense to me, and shrug the rest of it off.

#bnha 301 #caleb cook #todoroki rei #todoroki shouto #todoroki enji #endeavor #bnha #boku no hero academia #bnha spoilers #mha spoilers #bnha manga spoilers #makeste reads bnha #asks #anon asks

[aethersea]

you know what, I never do these things, but actually I’ve decided I would like to get to know people better! I would like to partake of the mortifying ordeal! I would like to talk about myself for a bit!

ok for the next...let’s say five days I will answer any of these things that people tag me in, or any random personal questions you plop in my ask box. I don’t have an ask meme on hand but just....pick one you’ve seen recently, or make up questions of your own, and I’ll answer. (the answer might be ‘nope that’s private’ but I will answer.) (@ the anon who asked for book recs - I see you, I’ve been thinking of books all day, I’m going to give you SUCH a long answer, I hope you don’t regret your choices bc it WILL be full of gushing)

alright, let’s go!

🌻 Tag 9 people you want to get to know better

Tagged by @booksandchainmail​

Last Song: I’m currently listening to “Falcon in the Dive” from the Scarlet Pimpernel musical on loop. I watched one or two Scarlet Pimpernel movies when I was just barely too young to fully get what was going on, and the story’s held an odd but deep-seated place in my heart ever since. A few years ago I found out there’s a musical and most of the songs are pretty stellar (go listen to “Madame Guillotine” if you like big ensemble broadway numbers, it’s a banger, the bit where he cries out for God has been running through my mind on and off for a few days now haha not like that’s topical or anything), so every once in a while I spend a few days listening to them a lot.

Sometime last year I read the actual book, and got super into the whole concept of the Scarlet Pimpernel for a while. I plotted out Pimpernel aus for several fandoms, I read the entire wikipedia article, and I went looking for bootlegs of the musical. I didn’t find one, but I did find a full radioplay-style recording of the script, complete with full musical numbers, and listened to it like a podcast.

Reader, I was so disappointed. The play adds some scenes, bc a lot of the dramatic tension of the novel comes from internal conflict and that doesn’t stage super well, and the very first scene of this play – a play written in the NINETIES – features our dashing hero rescuing some aristocrats from a French prison, and then saying to the person in the next cell, who begs for rescue but is not an aristocrat, “We have enough of your kind in England.”

Enough! of your KIND! What in the merry frickety HECK my dudes!! The book has some rather unfortunate™ takes but it is from 1905, it’s regrettable but sadly to be expected. This play is from 1997. It has NO excuse. This scene wasn’t even in the book! What! the heck!

I was so disheartened that I lost my excitement for the play, and a couple songs later I stopped listening. It occurred to me just a few days ago that you could actually stage that ironically, with the person in the cell giving the audience a “can you believe this” look, and then the rest of the play could feature assorted non-aristocratic ensemble members constantly looking at the audience like they’re on The Office. And hey, maybe that’s what they did, or something similar – maybe that was never meant to be taken as a cleanly heroic stance, and the play deals with it in a complex way. It’s possible. I wouldn’t know. Kinda doubt it though, based on song lyrics.

Favorite Color: red, probably

Last Movie: I watched that new lesbian christmas movie with my family for christmas, the one with kirsten stewart and the guy from schitt’s creek. it’s very sweet and good and kinda sad, and I really enjoyed it. it also incidentally has the best gay best friend trope in probably anything ever, bc it’s not a trope (I didn’t realize until several hours after watching that it technically fits), it’s just a guy who is the protagonist’s best friend, and they’re just all gay, and then when he Gives Relationship Advice as a gay best friend always does, it’s advice about how to deal with your partner’s hangups around coming out.

actually every part of the gay best friend trope becomes better when they’re just best friends who are both gay. the big dramatic gestures (in this case, driving some ungodly distance in the snow on no notice) go from “haha how kooky” to “queer man will do anything he needs to to rescue his queer friend from an isolating & potentially triggering situation”. the relationship advice isn’t “honey you deserve some self-respect, treat yourself”, it’s a deeply sincere reminder of the vulnerability that is shared across almost everyone’s queer experience, and look I could ramble about this for a long time before reaching a coherent point but I’m INTO IT, okay? I’m into it.

Last Show: you want me to remember what show I last finished???? impossible, cannot be done, it was a long time ago and the adhd has eaten everything that happened before last week. here, instead I’ll tell you about another movie I watched, late at night with my mom in cozy companionship just a couple days ago. it’s called Quigley Down Under and it’s about a cowboy who goes to Australia and kills a bunch of racists, 10/10 would watch again. it’s from 1990 but it feels much older, with the music choices and the cinematography of a 70s Western. the cowboy is great, honorable and fearless and kind, but the breakaway star of this movie for me is the woman who attaches herself to his side and refuses to leave. her name is Cora, and she’s crazy, in the sense that she’s not altogether tethered to reality, but this never for a second diminishes her agency. she’s fierce and clever and compassionate, and she basically never does anything she doesn’t want to in the whole movie. her arc is about overcoming trauma by taking charge of her own fear and facing it head-on, she is never belittled or dismissed by the narrative or the protagonist, and look she’s just so cool. I love her. she’s so vibrantly alive. her story could probably have been handled with a bit more nuance, but honestly for the 90s it’s pretty great. I’m no expert, but I found nothing objectionable in it, just a bit of heavy-handedness.

anyway the theme of the movie is that racism is evil and racists deserve to be shot, and this too could have been handled better (not a single aboriginal character speaks a single line of english in this movie), but it follows through on that message in every way, while still being a fun kinda campy cowboy movie. overall a very good time.

Currently Watching: started showing my sister Hilda the other day, and she’s liking it! I love that show, it’s so incredibly cute. can’t wait to see season 2

Currently Reading: lmao I wish. lately the brain has firmly rejected all attempts to read anything of any length. currently pending, bc I was halfway through them when my brain stalled out, are tano’s fic What Does Kill You Can Make You Stronger, Too, a Toby Daye book - I think it was The Brightest Fell, I got like half a chapter in and haven’t picked it up in over a month, the Locked Tomb series, and probably a few other things too. ooh! also a book called Making Sex by thomas laqueur, which is my fancy academic reading that I’ve been doing in short bursts for the past year or two when I feel fancy and academic. it’s about the development of the concept of biological sex and of gender in Western society, and it’s fascinating. has among other things introduced me to the idea that until quite recently, fathers were a matter of faith. the mother? yeah, you can watch the baby pop out, we all know who the mother is. but the father? how can you know? how can you really know? we have paternity tests these days, but for all of human history up until now, we've just had to take fatherhood on faith. (not to mention we didn’t even know what fathers were contributing to the production of a fetus. clearly it was something, since you can’t get pregnant without a penis getting involved, but we have literally not known what until the past few decades. and that is wild. it has colored ALL of human history, all of our conceptions of society and family and kinship and gender, all of it, and it hadn’t even occurred to me until it was spelled out for me in this book, and it’s just......wow.

Salty, sweet or savory: for christmas my sister and I made seven different types of cookie, most of them involving chocolate somehow.

Craving: no bc I ate so many cookies. unless sleep counts. or maybe pringles, it’s been many moons since last I had a potato chip and I miss them.

Coffee or Tea: no thank you

Tagging: @coloursisee, @krchy-tuna, @sam-j-squirrel, @xzienne, @mirandatam, @viciousmaukeries, @sepulchritude, @elidyce, and @navigatorsnorth bc it’s been a while since we’ve talked, and I’m super hyped that you’re married now. v happy for you!

#finx rambles #finx has friends on the internet #be sure to tag me if you do this so I can go read it! #also you don't have to yammer on as much as I do #I'm just Like This you know #hmm perhaps I should readmore this actually #hmmmmmmm #I think I will use the excuse that it is 6 am to not do that #on account of how surely there are not many people up #and anyway this isn't meant for reblogging; you will only have to deal with this post once