Because you’ve been asking for it… here’s the song from Season 2 Episode 4. It features the lovely Kristen DiMercurio on vocals. It’s about a boatwoman.
there was only one bed trope for mc + one nxx boy at a time? wheres the challenge in that? what if theres only one bed trope and All Five Of Them are in attendance
how it happens
a series of unfortunate events leads to there being only one bed. the team have to for some reason investigate a several days long event being held at a hotel somewhere, their room bookings get Monumentally Fucked due to all the other bookings happening at the hotel thanks to the event, and when the team arrives they are told that they only have one room. hotel staff says theres no other rooms and the team dont want to make a fuss about it because theyre trying to be lowkey here so they roll with the punches and get to work and they all largely forget about it until the first night rolls around and theyre like
mc: …
vyn: …
artem: …
marius: …
luke: …
they have all just noticed there is only one bed
there are FIVE OF THEM
sleeping arrangement negotiations night 1
all four of the boys IMMEDIATELY say that mc should take the bed because of course, of course they do. and mc is like THAT DOESNT SEEM FAIR!!! and also this is a queen size bed, somebody else can fit here. but nobody is gonna let her not sleep on it and also none of the boys want to overstep boundaries, so if shes on the bed, itll Only Be Her. the boys do not let her argue against them so she admits defeat and takes the bed and then shes like…. “how are you guys going to sleep, then?”
in the room, there is also a little sofa and an armchair. luke volunteers to just sleep on the floor and marius isnt gonna lie, he wants the sofa, but also he immediately cannot resist being a shithead and says “artem is old, he needs the back support.” and artem is like “UNPROVOKED?????” and vyn is just happy to make marius face the consequences of his words and says “artem, take the sofa. and marius, following your logic, since i’m second oldest, i’ll take the armchair.” and marius is like “WAIT….”
luke: you can join me on the floor? theres still some space next to me
marius: >:((((( fine >:(((((
and they all go to sleep
mc sleeps perfectly fine the whole night. artem wakes up with a sore leg because hes Tall and the sofa wasnt long enough for his legs so he had to sleep kinda curled up. vyn wakes up with one hell of a crick in his neck, thanks to sleeping in a chair. luke wakes up feeling fine, hes slept in worse places before, but marius is gone? what? where did marius go????
marius woke up in the middle of the night feeling a little bit like he was going to combust because guess what, luke pearce is a sleep cuddler, and marius woke up to luke just Sprawled Over Him. EXTREMELY FLUSTERED, marius leaves the floor and goes to sleep in
the tub in the bathroom
the other 4 quietly go into the bathroom, looking at marius curled up with a blanket and a pillow in the tub, still asleep
luke: wouldnt it be kind of funny if we switched on the shower to wake him up?
mc: dont you dare
marius wakes up while theyre all there and hes like WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU ALL DOING HERE, WHY IS MY SLEEPING A SPECTATOR SPORT???? and then they all scramble to get to work for the day
sleeping arrangements night 2
mc does NOT want to take the bed tonight because as they were working today, she noticed that artem, vyn, and marius have been not so subtly stretching out their respective body parts that ACHE. so shes like “boys, i understand youre all very chivalrous, but i can survive a night not on a bed.” and she uses the same voice she uses in court. THAT! IS! ALL! the other four have been defeated and then they play rock paper scissors for who gets the bed that night while mc watches them and settles onto the sofa.
luke opts out from the rock paper scissors tournament altogether. and vyn wins. artem and marius begin to battle it out for the armchair when mc is like. “guys. another person can fit on the bed.”
artem: …
marius: …
artem: i’d really just rather take the floor
marius: i’d go back to the fucking bathtub
vyn: im wounded
marius, squinting: no you arent
vyn: :)
vyn gets the whole bed to himself. artem wins the armchair. marius is on the floor with luke again and this time marius builds a pillow divider between them and when marius explains why luke is like “SORRY, SORRY, I MOVE A LOT IN MY SLEEP” and marius is like “YEAH, I NOTICED”
they all go to sleep. since mc isnt too tall, she actually sleeps pretty fine on the sofa. artem wakes up and when he stretches his neck it cracks like a glowstick. vyn slept like an angel. luke managed to, in his sleep, bust through the pillow wall and is sprawled over marius once again. marius didnt wake up this time tho, and so mc, vyn, and artem kinda sleepily look at both of them. mc is trying very, very hard tamping down on the urge to get her phone and snap a picture.
she doesnt get the chance tho because because marius wakes up and sees them all and realizes the Position and hes like DONT YOU GUYS HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO
but thanks to his sudden movement and loud words, luke is woken up and immediately on high alert and he instinctively punches the closest thing
which happens to be. marius
the team rotate their sleeping arrangements as the rest of the nights go by, and by the time the job is done and they all head back to their respective homes, Everybody Is Hurting From Somewhere, thanks to where/how they slept. thats team building!!!!
It’s funny the way you can know a book so well that you practically have every line memorized, and yet not really think about what it means until something jogs you.
It seems to me that a lot of people have a tendency to view Tolkein’s work, Lord of the Rings particularly, through the lens of the inspired works that came after it rather than for itself. There’s a lot of things that most people don’t seem to get about what Tolkein was trying to do with this story. Primary among this is that guys, Tolkein was hella pacifist.
Here’s what I was thinking about today:
Towards the end of Sam and Frodo’s journey through Mordor (I won’t blame you if you don’t remember this part; it was awfully difficult to read, and deliberately so) Sam is trying to convince Frodo to put on an orc disguise, consisting of black-painted chainmail and an orc short-sword, to better sneak around orc-controlled country. Frodo protests, saying basically that he just hasn’t got the stamina to carry all that extra weight around; they agree that at this point, speed is more important than subterfuge, and ditch all the equipment down the nearest crack in the ground. Frodo has a line here, something to the effect of: “There; I’ll be an orc no more.”
But this line isn’t just about a disguise.
The thing about orcs in Lord of the Rings is that they are not and were never meant to be a race unto themselves, the way many later fantasy worlds have them as a race. Rather, they are Elves and Men that the Dark Lord has corrupted; and in the segments where we see the orcs up close (during Merry and Pippin’s captivity,) we see what form that corruption takes. An orc is not a creature, the way a giant spider or a warg is a creature; an orc is a person who has become so degraded by destruction and desensitized to violence that it is all they know. It’s very important to know, I think, that Tolkein based the dialogue of the orcs off of his own experience as a soldier in the trenches.
Frodo, throughout the books to this point, has never exactly been a great warrior; that was never the point of his character. He always preferred to hide or run from confrontations rather than fight, which is wise given that he’s smaller and weaker than just about anybody else. I don’t believe he ever succeeds in killing anything, but he does on a few occasions try; he fights the Wraith King on Weathertop, and he stabs the troll in the foot in the battle in Moria.
But this scene marks the last time in the books that Frodo even attempts to use violence. Even when Gollum attacks him for the Ring a few pages later, after Frodo pushes him off he doesn’t take the opportunity to kill him, instead just warning him off trying again. In the Scouring of the Shire epilogue, while Merry and Pippin are leading an army of hobbits Frodo doesn’t even have a weapon. His only role in the battle is, basically, talking the angry Hobbits down from massacring their prisoners. (The others even call him out on this; Merry says something to the effect of ‘You won’t cleanse the Shire by being stern and sad, Frodo.’)
From this scene until the end of the book, even until the end of his life, Frodo carries no weapon and makes no move of violence on any other living being. He’s not just throwing away a shitty orc disguise; he is forswearing violence and death. He will no longer be a slave to hate and destruction. He’ll be an orc no more.
This is fastest I’ve ever churned out a comic, and it was fueled by needing to see Emmet ride on top of a train thats on fire. Fandom said Emmet gets to be unhinged, and i said “say less” lmaoo
Theo: has a paranoid mental break bc he once indirectly clicked on an article in the public school library that mentioned art theft and one of the paintings peripherally written about was TGF, only to erase the browser history and shut down the computer immediately after, returning home in a cold sweat
Boris: has been googling “bird picture” “old bird painting” “how much money for old art” “art theft” “how museums buy art” “how 2 sell art” “jail years steal art” “goldfish painting” “wt so special abt bird art” for months on Theo’s iPhone
After being grilled by his brothers, Minato went to his room and quite literally crashed on the bed. Even without an expression, you could tell he was tired. Minato was use to being asked tons of questions by the two because of the school hopping and all, but this time however, was more tiring. Every time he mentioned an amazing feature of his new friend, he expressed how amazing it was through his face. He wasn’t quite sure what was so different about Ren that made him want to express his feelings on his face.
Bzzt
Minato lifted his phone to face to see the message, coincidentally from Ren.
Ren: Hey, I just wanted to text you to see if I had the right numbers.
Minato: Well, you got it right ding ding.
Ren: Wow, you’re way more sarcastic when you text.
Minato: Nah, I just wasn’t being sarcastic to you today. I wasn’t in the mood.
Ren: After losing the marker right? It’s seems precious to you. If you don’t mind me asking, why is it so precious?
Minato paused for a moment. He wasn’t sure what to do. He’s never told the story to anyone other than Jun and Tatsuya. Then again, he’s never made a proper friend before.
Ren: Ah, sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I was just curious. You don’t have to tell me.
Minato: No, it’s fine. The marker was a gift from my mom for my birthday. She had it specially made for me. It costs a fortune, but she got it for me. She and my dad died a week later in a car crash. That marker is a memory of my parents but more so my mom. My dad was rarely home, so I never really got to know him.
There was a long pause after he sent the message. Minato internally panicked, but calmed down when Ren finally responded.
Ren: Wow. That’s rough. Do you live with relatives now?
Minato: No. My relatives really didn’t want to deal with my ‘problems’, so they sent me to some people they know. Don’t worry though. Jun and Tatsuya are very nice. They even treat me like their little brother, so it’s not terrible.
Ren: Your problems? You mean the fact that you use a sketchbook to express your emotions?
Minato: Yeah. They didn’t want a weird child to be apart of their family.
Ren: I don’t think it’s weird.
Minato stared at his screen for a whole minute. He almost thought he was dreaming. Someone understands and doesn’t think he’s weird.
Minato: It’s nice to hear that from someone other than Jun and Tatsuya. Not many people understand.
Ren: It’s really not that weird. You could say I have a similar problem.
The blue haired boy was now confused. This boy with perfect skin that rivals a porcelain doll’s has a similar problem.
Minato: Oh, and I realized we live pretty close to each other. You wanna walk to school together.
Ren: Sure, but just so you know I have to make a detour for something. If you don’t mind, I’d be glad to walk to school with you.
Minato expression changed. He was glad that he’s able to walk with his new friend. He’s also glad that he’s no longer lonely at school.
Minato: I don’t mind. It’s getting late. Good night Ren.
Ren: Night Minato.
The cardboard kid shut his phone off and got ready for bed. He was excited for tomorrow.
~~~Next Day~~~
Minato got up early that morning grabbing his bag and sketchbook and left sort of excited. And trust me when I say Jun was holding back the urge to hug the boy when he saw him excited. Although no expression was involved, Jun was pleasantly surprised when Minato was out of bed and happy.
Minato left and walked to Le Blanc, where Ren was already waiting outside.
“Hey Minato.” The bespectacled boy greeted. Though, his greeting was ignored by other teen when Minato saw Ren’s face. Ren had a mask on covering his face, from his chin to the bridge of his nose.
Minato flipped open to the confuse face, which seemed to become a common expression when he was with Ren.
“Ah, the mask. Don’t worry, nothing’s wrong. It- I’ll explain when we get to my detour stop.”
Minato flipped through to his resting face and then the boys took off to this place Ren needed to go to. Their destination was a small apartment close to the train station they just got off at. Ren rang the bell and out came a tall, blue haired boy. His hair was similar to Minato, if not for the fact it was more well kept.
“Ah, Ren I was wondering when you would get here, and who is this sketchbook friend of yours.”
“This is Minato. We’re walking together today. And Minato this is my friend Yusuke.”
Yusuke stared at the boy for a while before speaking again. “Well come in. I already have the makeup prepped, so you’ll be out in no time.”
Meanwhile, Minato was very confused. Ren’s mask, this stranger, and the talk about makeup. As they entered the apartment, the first thing Minato noticed was the vast amount of paintings. They ranged from different colors, emotions, and styles. They soon reach a small living room with a coffee table scattered with brushes. Yusuke motioned for Minato to sit on the couch while the other two went to sit on the stools. As Ren sat down, he put down his bag and removed his mask.
Minato’s eyes widened when he saw Ren’s face. When they first met, Minato thought Ren was a perfect porcelain doll. A beautiful man with an unflawed face, but what he saw now was a site. Ren’s face was scattered with scars. A few on each of his cheeks and a really noticeable one on his chin. Yusuke immediately got to work applying the makeup to cover up the scars.
“So, Minato, do you like to draw?” This question came from the makeup artist working on Ren.
“Yeah, it’s relaxing for me. I mostly draw expressions to use, but sometimes I draw random things.”
“I suppose you use those drawings of expressions to express your emotions because your face can’t.”
As if answering his question, Minato flipped to a page with a surprised face on it. “How did you know?”
“Oh, it was a simple guess.” The artist paused to change brushes. “I’m an artist myself, so I kind of understand those kinds of things, and to be honest the faces I’ve seen are pretty cute.”
Minato immediately switched to flustered. He’s never really gotten compliments from anyone for the faces he’s drawn. Then again, he’s never met an artist before either.
“And finished. Alright Ren, we’re good to go.” Minato looked at Ren once again. As if Yusuke had healing powers, all the scars were no longer there.
“Thanks Yusuke. I really appreciate it.”
The two left the artist’s humble abode and headed towards school. Minato, as much as he didn’t want to pry, wanted to know about the scars. Before he could open his mouth however, Ren spoke first.
“I guess I owe you an explanation for the scars. I did say I would tell you.”
The cardboard boy listened as the porcelain boy spoke.
“Back in my hometown, I was out taking a walk and I saw this woman being assaulted by this drunk man. I tried to help her, but this man had a blade and he marked up my face and arms pretty badly. Luckily a police car drove by and stopped the man before he could do more damage. Most of the wounds healed, but some of them left scars. The man did get arrested, but my parents decided to send me out here for a while to recover. They thought being there would trigger memories of that night.”
Minato didn’t really know how to react. He thought he had it bad with all the bullying and school hopping, but Ren’s story was something else.
“You don’t have to worry Minato. I’m fine now, just self conscious about my scars that’s all.”
After a moment of silence, the blue haired teen finally responded. “I don’t think you’re scars look that bad. They kind of look nice and give you personality.”
Minato internally screamed at himself. Did he really just say that? Thank God Minato had his sketchbook over his face, otherwise Ren would’ve seen how red it was. Instead of receiving the response he thought he was going to get, all Minato received was a chuckle from Ren. God, Minato didn’t know such a small chuckle could make his cheeks flare.
“You really think that way about my scars. Maybe one day I’ll go to school without makeup, but when I do, I want you to promise me something.”
“What?”
They both stopped and stared at each other. Ren smiled and finished. “I want you to spend that day without your sketchbook.”
Minato didn’t expect this from anyone other than Tatsuya or Jun. Really, he didn’t think Ren cared about his expression problem.
“I don’t know why, but I have the feeling you can express your emotions on your face if you tried. You’ve mentioned when we were drinking coffee that sometimes it happens, sometimes doesn’t. I think you could control that and actually express yourself.”
Faith. There were only four other people who believed he could express himself. His mom, his dad, Tatsuya, and Jun. Not many people thought he could do it. Nobody really had faith, but the teen had finally met someone who believed in him. A tear almost came out, but right now he didn’t want it.
“Deal. I’ll do it.”
Ren smiled and it made the other’s heart flutter. Minato didn’t know why or how this happened, but one things for sure. He was glad he met the boy with the porcelain face.
Yeah, so in this Fic all the palace bosses, not including Sae, are not pricks to my Phantom Thief children. Shido’s in jail, where he belongs, Kamoshida’s actually a decent person, and Madarame and Kaneshiro were Thanos snapped out of existence. Also Yusuke is financially stable and lives in a nice apartment, and Morgana is a nice cat, happily living with Sojiro and Futaba. I feel terrible for scarring Ren Shido deserves to burn in the firery pits of hell but all is good now because he has cinnamon roll to heal him. ☺️
Kumi Yamashita-Origami. Creased Japanese paper, single light source, shadow, 366x366x1cm (2011)
[ID: photo of different colored squares of paper on a white surface; they are creased in a way so the shadow cast by each paper looks like a profile of a face. the second image is a photo of one individual creased paper, which is blue. /end ID]
