Young Royals premiered five years ago (roughly) and currently sits at 7k fics on ao3 and Heated Rivalry premiered five months ago (roughly) and now has over 30k fics. It’s cool, it’s fine. But there’s a global phenomenon and then there’s a global phenomenon.
Meet Jeopardy, the ward (child) of Megatron and Caryatid. I'm still working out their lore, but their family is a hot mess. They're a bit of a mess, too, but that's not surprising. They definitely idolize their parents a little bit, but they are still a teen if that makes sense.
I wrote down their personality, that's under the cut.
Jeopardy is an easily annoyed, strong-willed bot. They are opinionated and outspoken. They say what they want when they want for whatever reason. Jeopardy struggles with emotional regulation, often swept away by whatever they're feeling. They are awkward and a little mean and they care a little too much about just about everything and everyone. They have a strange sense of humor and doesn't understand a lot of sarcasm. They're a decent liar, often doing it for the littlest thing; they're terrified of doing something wrong or getting in trouble. Just like how they have a hard time with sarcasm, they have a hard time telling when someone is lying to them.
For day 2 of @youngroyals-events YR week 2025 the prompt was Before/after (before the show started or after it ended, pre or post-canon). I chose before. A what if almost, maybe Wilmon met earlier without knowing?
2016, Parents day, Hillerska boarding school
He was supposed to walk to the lake. That had at least been his plan when his parents agreed to let him leave while most of the boring small talk and stupid socialising was happening. He had been at Hillerska before so he knew some of its surroundings. But the tug he felt didn’t lead to the lake. Stables then, Wille thought to himself. He had always enjoyed the quiet atmosphere around horses. The comforting rhythmic grinding of strong teeth on hay. The occasional snort. Somehow almost everything in a stable happened rhythmically. Sweeping floors, brushing planes of strong shiny muscles, and intermittent feeding times to allow for the animals' needs to converge with the humans' needs. Yes, the stables would be as nice as looking at the moving body of water. Or throwing rocks in said water. That silent and tiny inner voice trying to say something about how his mom might get annoyed if he smelled too bad when coming back was resolutely hushed and ignored.
It didn’t smell that bad here anyway. The doors were kept open so Wille could just walk in, sauntering through the aisle and reading the plaques on the box stalls. All were empty except one. A brown mare stood there, pretending to be sleeping, but without the hanging lip and she kept twitching her ears so Wilhelm saw that the half-closed eyes were just a front.
“I don’t get it, Sara, why can’t you come with us? Pleeeease?”
Hearing the voices through the open doors from the other side of the stable made Wilhelm hurriedly crouch down in the empty box on the other side of the aisle from the mare’s box stall. As he sat quietly on his hunches, the voices came closer, and he heard a girl answer that first boy that had made him hide.
“Mamma has already talked with Lottie and I get to be here all weekend. Most of the students from the school will be away and that means I get to do so much more than usual. Lottie even said that I might get to take one or two of the horses out for a walk.”
“But Sara… We are going to Laserdome! It is going to be absolutely amazeballs!”
As the girl answered, Wilhelm heard how the two walked through the stable, dropping things off in front of the stall boxes. Clinking with metal on the doors. “And I do not want to, Simon. I wanna be here.” Wille heard how the girl's voice changed in tone. Sounding more subdued and blank. “Also, the others will not wanna have me join. And I can’t bring anyone with me. That leaves the horses. I wanna be here.”
The boy got more serious as he answered her, a soft voice if Wilhelm had ever heard one. “But I wanna have you with us, I like doing things with you. It sucks that Lina has moved and that the others are acting weird. But please? You can’t let the horses be the garlands that camouflage the chains that weigh you down when this trip could be what breaks the shackles that you imposed on yourself!”
“I have no idea what you are talking about Simon.” So Simon was the boy’s name. Simon and Sara. Wille started to feel his left leg tense up, he really needed to move soon but it would be too embarrassing to pop up now and expose his eavesdropping.
“It is from a philosopher. It means that we try to play dress up with the things that actually keep us sort of locked in. Like pretending that we like not going out with friends.” The silence after Simon’s elaboration almost made Wilhelm want to stand up, just to see if there maybe was something he was missing in their conversation. They got so very quiet.
“Anyway, you weirdo. Will you wait here while I go and say goodbye to Lottie?” Somehow the girl sounded so much more subdued now. There had to have been some silent communication happening that he missed. “Or do you wanna come with? Her son was there when I came, you could ask him to tag along tomorrow instead.”
“No thank you. He is not my type. I’ll just sit here.” A scraping sound as if something was pulled on the concrete floor and a thump rattled the wall that Wilhelm leaned his back against. “And I’ll meet you at the side road before the bus comes. I don’t wanna be alone at the bus stop, not when there are all those other people up at the school.”
“Ok.” No chance of getting out from here soon then, Wille thought as he heard the girl’s retreating steps and Simon’s shuffling on the other side of the wall.
-°-
Simon took a big breath in as he thumped his head against the wall behind him while eying the horse across from him. “I do not trust you. Sara said you like to kick your pasture comrades. But she seems to like you. Better than she likes me anyway.” He let out another deep sigh, and leaned forward instead, elbows on knees as he sat on the low stepping stool. “Do you know what I can do to make her feel better maybe? No matter what I say nowadays she only gets quiet, or annoyed and storms off.”
“You are wrong, you know.”
Simon snapped his head up as he heard the sound of someone talking behind him in the empty stable.
“Hello? Who is there? And what would you know about it?”
The voice came from behind him, but for some undetermined reason Simon stayed seated, he only turned around trying to see if there was anyone visible at the ends of the aisle.
“I have a brother. And even though I don’t always show it, or even pretend to dislike it, I like when he goofs around with me. And tries to make me happy.”
“Well, I am the younger one in this case,” Simon stated.
“Oh really? Well then, too bad. Then my point definitely isn’t valid. He hates it when I am kind to him, and he would kill me if I ever tried to make him happy if he is in a mood. Too bad that it only works the other way around. With the older being nice to the younger.”
“Do you think you are funny?”
“Yeah.. maybe a little? Is it working?”
“Working how?”
“Are you feeling better?”
“You know what, I might be. So, where, and who are you? Are you hiding in a box stall munching on hay?”
Simon only heard the silence now. There was a hum from something electrical in the building. That big horse had started to search for something on the ground in her box stall. Maybe there was still some food left from the big load of hay that Sara had given it before she had taken the others outside.
Eventually the voice came back. “I am no one. Just bored and needed some space so my caring brother sent me away. I like horses. They are sometimes easier to hang with than people. At least grown-up people. So I am kind of hiding. I’m not feeling like meeting people today.”
“You really sound like my sister now. I respect your honesty and will not seek you out. Do you want me to be quiet, or even leave?” Simon thought about how Sara sometimes had the need to be left alone. Maybe he had been too pushy with the trip tomorrow. He should talk to her about it again. The boy interrupted his musings with a gentle voice.
“No, that- this is ok. But maybe we can just stay like this? And talk without all the handshaking and stuff. Just being.”
Simon chortled, “Sure, no handshaking. I can manage that. I am guessing that if your older brother sent you here, is he a student at Hillerska? Being up there right now shaking hands and whatnot?”
“He is. I don’t wanna go here though, I wanna have a chance at becoming normal. And safe to say, the people that are up at the school right now, well. They are not.”
“You don’t say.”
“Oh shit. Are you-, have you- is Hillerska like a thing in your family too? Is your sister a student? Sorry, I shouldn’t have made assumptions.”
“Assumptions are ok. Fine, really. I wouldn’t wanna be a student here either. My sister has a thing for horses, and she is only 13. A friend of our mom managed to get her an in here. She is a groom and helps out here when she can during the week. Otherwise, I never would be here. The only people that are here are posh asshats that think they can do whatever just because of money and connections. Did you know that even the crown prince is a student here now? It was like this, whole gossip thing, even at my normal school.”
Simon heard an incomprehensive sound coming from the other side at the same time as a loud pound on the wood behind him made the wall quiver, with a following ouch and a lot of shuffling sounds.
“Yeah, am I right? Like no Anna, the prince will not ride into Bjärstad on a white horse and immediately fall in love with you and make you a princess.”
Now there was a snorting sound instead. Simon smiled to himself, realizing that he really had started to feel better after being down most of the day due to Sara’s moody spirits.
“Silly right? But that is just how some people get when they are or think they are near to meeting celebrities.”
“But you don’t?” The voice carefully and slowly asked.
“Naahhh, I have standards. But hey, if Lucas Till or Andrew Taggart came by, I would maybe look a bit extra. I like pretty guys. And music.”
That resulted in a new stretch of silence. For a few heartbeats, the only sound was the horse moving around inside its stall, rhythmically rubbing something back and forth against its inner confidings.
The change in the voice was almost comical, as it high-pitched squealed out, “I kinda like ‘Closer’. It is a good song.”
“I know right?!” Simon smiled to himself. Glad that his casually coming out hadn’t granted a bigger reaction. He felt good about being able to more and more casually mention it in conversations. “Well. It has been nice to talk with you, mysterious wall boy. I need to meet up with my sister now. I hope you get that chance of being normal. But if you don’t, remember that being awesome doesn’t always equal to normal, just don’t let those shackles weigh you down.” Simon got up and started to walk to the big open doors when he heard the voice once more, louder than previously.
“I heard you said something about that to your sister. I don’t really know what it means, was it something from a philosopher?”
Simon turned around and walked backwards as he answered, “Yeah, he is called Rousseau, you should look him up. I read about him in my normal school.”
“Ok.” Simon heard how the other boy also laughed a little.
“Bye, no one-boy!”
“Bye, Simon, I hope you too get to do what you wanna do. Be amazeballs, or however it was you put it.”
Simon laughed at that as he turned around again and walked out to Sara, who looked at him curiously.
“What has made you all smiley and happy?”
“Nothing. I just got this really good feeling.” He said as he laid an arm around his sister and hugged her, “I think everything is going to work out fine, Sara. You know I love you right? Even if you won’t tag along tomorrow?”
Sara looked at him from the side, her big brown eyes almost tearing up. “I love you too, Simon. Thank you. Now we need to hurry, the bus is coming.”
Wilhelm stood in the opening of the stables as he watched two figures running along the road leading away from him. Feeling an awkward stitch as they disappeared, he figures that maybe it was time to get back to the others, and probably get a snack. That strange feeling he has was surely due to him skipping both breakfast and lunch today. And sitting like a macaroni for half an eternity. But strangely enough, he felt really happy as he moved along the same path as the siblings had earlier. The day had turned out much better than he thought it would and he felt more at ease now, ready to leave the stables and head back to the white buildings up on the hill.
the apple movie script must be so weird. we have two unfit drivers with necks so small they wouldn't handle a fiat panda's braking, one is 60 and was retired. they enter the f1 championship with f2 cars and somehow they both go from a pitlane start to a 1-2 finish
This is my Christmas gift cos I'm laughing because I know someone personally who works for someone who handles the burning company's advertising and apparently just a month or so ago the company didn't have money to pay them so for weeks they weren't doing shit until they got funding again to promote new stuff.
