#(also i never finished the show. actually like genuinely i just missed a whole portion of it. so if they fuck up Beaste at some point I hav

[cescalr]

Oooh, definitely glee for the fandom asks! <3

Always with the hornets' nests with these ones, I see! Though i don't think there's a fandom out there that isn't in some way a hornets' nest once it gets large enough... hm. Alright. I'm just gonna be as honest as i can be about this, and tag accordingly.

Glee:

my favourite female character: augh. argh. ouph. so difficult. so hard. Since I'm working off of half-remembered show and half recently-rewatched show... its a tossup. Mercedes, Santana, Quinn. Probably Mercedes. She did nothing wrong ever in her entire life <3 well okay maybe except that one time she smashed kurt's car windows (but it was a banger song, though). Can't say Santana because of the Biphobia TM and other things like excessive use of bigotry-based insults, and Quinn. Oh god girl. Cheating is not cool! Funnily enough! So I find them really interesting but 'favourite' is hard to say. Mercedes. Mercedes for sure <3

my favourite male character: Blaine sam blaine sam blaine sam yes. I am imitating ripping petals off of flowers and coming to a conclusion based on which is the last name i said. So I guess that means Sam! But really this is a tie.

my favourite book/season/etc: Mannnnn idk. I don't like shows for seasons as-a-whole. Also i could not tell you what happened in any given season if you held a gun to my head. I'm not good at that. The only shows i know 'seasons' of are Buffy and Teen Wolf because i've watched them like 100000000000 times (exaggeration) for various reasons (mostly fanfiction research).

my favourite episode (if its a tv show): I can tell you my LEAST favourite episode (blame it on the alcohol, thank you Kurt king of biphobia! this is a persona foible it's not the worst episode in the show. by far. by far. it's kind of an average one. I'm just angry at it.) BUT er. Favourite? Idk. Genuinely some of the earlier Kurt-centric stuff was really well done (his convo with Burt... <3) and the Quinn giving birth accompanied by bohemian rhapsody was obviously iconic, but if I'll be honest I couldn't name any episodes of this show (other than That One previously stated, anyway). And yeah most of the time they were named after song titles and No i don't remember those song titles either. I'm just so bad at this. My memory is that of a goldfish's being haphazardly bounced around on a sieve.

my favourite cast member: it would be really funny if I said Demi Lovato [she counts!] but the truth is N/A: i don't know these people !!! They are strangers!! (i don't. follow celebrities. at all. I couldn't even name most of them. They're just people doing a job and their lives are irrelevant to me beyond their ability to perform that job well. I do not need to know where they live and what coffee they drink. Stalker shit tbh. I'm kind of a very private person myself, so rpf-adjacent stuff just... creeps me out. I've never watched a single cast interview in my lifetime and I'm not about to start!)

my favourite ship: Difficult to say! Grave and obvious lie. Blam. It's blam. Quintana is a close runner up though Santana really needs to stop dating people who cheat on the regular (I'll accept Quinn has grown enough not to do this by the time a Quintana coupling would be viable - and satisfying in terms of character arcs - narratively speaking).

a character I’d die defending: Blaine Anderson did something wrong for sure but like Kurt did it first so shrugs. Cancels out. Bad for each other! Case closed!

a character I just can’t sympathize with: genuinely don't remember if I had one of those the first time around because I was like 10 and just didn't pay attention if I didn't care, but Terri and her racist self take that 'prize' this time, alongside the obvious predator in the room [original choir teacher. Sandy? I forget his name immediately after hearing it. He doesn't deserve to be remembered]. Also JBI is just.... a yikes character all around. I mean, he's a blatant stereotype for one, in a the people who wrote this person don't like jews kind of way. Unfortunately common stereotype too, for the era, so not only is he that, he's also lazy. Just a one-note pervert who's the butt of various antisemitic 'jokes' you've heard from era-peer shows a million times over, tired and awful and a sour reminder of bigotry that continues to this day. Really regrettable character who's lack of redeeming qualities was probably purposeful. (I know Rachel and tina are also jewish, but this comes up very rarely and mostly only when santana needs to say something kind of fucked up, as is her modus operandi, for 'comic relief'. Tina's jewish-ness wasn't even canon for several seasons, because she didn't have a surname or a family or anything resembling complex character depth for several seasons. The one time I really remember Rachel's religion being important was when she was pressuring Kurt into believing in some kind of god, which??? don't do that. Bad example. Trying to guilt trip a friend into faith sucks. I take back what i said earlier Mercedes did that too. Boo. Girls try again that was a bad showing all around. Though i have no idea why Kurt went the acupuncture route as his 'secular' option but i think that has to do a lot with the writers doing literally no research ever once in their lives (you can tell they don't by the way they write the football segments of the show, which make no sense according to football fans who watch Glee, of which there are numerous because real life isn't like fiction where you can only like music or sports. Most of the kids in my school year were doing the most of everything ever if they were the 'popular' ones - we do that differently; popularity isn't really based on who know know; for some bizzare reason literally everyone knew who I was? Even people I'd never spoken to?? - but more about like... how much you can do, I guess. Overachievers, but I'm not saying that negatively; these people were generally - generally - very nice, and surprisingly chill for people who had no spare time whatsoever. I'm not entirely sure when they slept; A* across the board, at least one sport, at least one instrument, several extracurriculars, parties every weekend, dozens of friends and an s.o. . Eh? Way too much going on. Scary lifestyle! Impressive burnout rate, probably. Er. Tangent! Back to the scheduled programming).) There's uhhhh there's a lot of bad characters on the show, but i'd say Sandy and Terri and her equally but more loudly racist sister are truly completely irredeemable ones. Like they're not interesting or anything, they're just there to be narrative annoyances (which, in the case of Sandy specifically, is insane. Arrest that man!!! He has actively sexually assaulted minors!!!).

a character I grew to love: difficult to say because I tend to just make an opinion and stick to it. Also i don't remember who i liked at first and who i didn't, this show came out when i was eight. I didn't watch it until I was a little older than that, of course, but I frankly have spotty memory until my late teens, so! I'm not sure!! Quinn, probably. Pink-hair-era Quinn helped me understand her more, and seeing the moments of kindness hidden behind practical cruelty, when you understand her family and situation, makes things make a lot more sense. It takes a lot to get me to sympathise with a cheater, but I can see where Quinn was getting all turned around in her head about life because of her upbringing and socialisation, not to mention the profoundly negative impact cheerios had on her mentally and that the school's culture in general was not exactly a breeding ground for empathy and optimism.

my anti otp: can you tell (klaine). I don't dislike Kurt!!! Please let him have a fun chillaxed boyfriend in new york with his vogue friends. But also please stop attempting to control other people's diets thank you!! Thank you!! I'm of mixed feelings. Blaine and Kurt both did at least one bad, relationship-ending thing, and proved over and over again that they just weren't on the same wavelength in regards to life goals and ways of living it. They can't even share the same living space, which is kind of required for a functional marriage. I don't know, it just seems like they settled for their first proper, serious boyfriend even if that's not really the best match, and I... wish they'd just got to see more of life first, you know? They got married at like 20! Or something! I'm 23, I cannot imagine getting married at 20. That's a baby. Let them live first!

(same for Santana and Brittney, imo. I also don't really like them together because Santana and Brittney have very different ideas regarding monogamy, which is just never going to go down well in the long run. If your girl cheats on you like twenty times and tells you to your face its not cheating in her view of things, but you think it is, break up with her because you'll just make each other miserable. Brittney sort of seems incapable of feeling guilt but if she were, this kind of moral pressure would be Not Good, and obviously Santana isn't comfortable with the idea and doesn't have to be!! Just move on!!! Find other people!!!! Don't marry your first girlfriend if you've broken up like ten times this is simple!!!! Please!!!! But Klaine wins out over Brittana because - in my opinion, glee fandom please do not persecute me, I am known for this specific thing - I see... interactions that verge on abusive between Klaine that I don't see in Brittana. So. Oof? Ex; use of public perception to disguise attack; deliberately hurting Blaine in a stage-combat fencing match (you are not meant to make actual contact in these) and thus using Blaine's own dislike of making his difficulties common knowledge against him in order to 'punish' him. This is no good! Don't do this!!.[Also just to err vaguepost about a comment.... that is. not. what i would call passive aggressive. Physically attacking someone with a sword - no matter the type of sword, fencing foils hurt just as much, they're just not stab-you sharp... er, these days - is just straight-up aggressive.]).

Note that negative things stick in the mind better than positive ones; on a rewatch I may well alter my opinion!

But also I'm really, really stubborn. So it's not likely. Klaine.

[faksyan]

ocelot?

Ask game

When I saw that you asked about Ocelot. barking biting this guy occupies such a big portion of my thoughts.

First impression

If we're talking VERY first the gay guy Venom splashes in the rain with. kinda awesome that he does that. (I saw the model swap of the Quiet cutscene with no context and then thought it's the original for years).

If it's about the proper introduction to the series I started with mgs3 and lost my shit at the meow. I do that now too. Together with the hand gesture and the 'I've been waiting for this' he does at the waterfall. He's a dipshit for how he treated Eva even if it was for show. I didn't see him being a triple agent coming and thought that was cool.

Impression now

I have. so many thoughts about Revolver Adam Adamska (not a real name) Shalashaska Ocelot. fuck this guy. I hate him. he makes me so sad I want to cry. want to punch him in the face. make him a nice cup of tea and let him sleep. feed him to the bears.

He was raised to be a weapon, and yet he is a creature of emotion and love that exists hand in hand with violence. He was never meant to be a person but all that he cares about are people's real names and his comrades (that aren't actually that, he's a triple agent) that Volgin kills, and animal and plants facts. He loves westerns and made them his whole personality for decades and decades. He talked to guy once and then almost burned the world down for him. A lot of times.

I find it so interesting that in v he says he plays up the idea of himself being a sadist and enjoying torture to some extent. I think the Huey interrogations show a lot of how he actually likes doing his work, which has an accent on efficiency and not blood and guts. It's simultaneously cruel and merciful, and it saves time and lives that he can use for something else. I could go on and on about this guy honestly, there are so many fascinating things about him.

Favorite moment

What isn't honestly. The meow. The revolver spin. He tried to poke Snake in his missing fucking eye?? The way he dresses in mgs1&2. also

"It doesn’t feel right to shoot an unarmed man…but I’ll get over it." Slay.

Idea for a story

Let's see I have so many of those. The idea of Ocelot inheriting some of Sorrow's powers is really fun, I was thinking about writing about him using it for a mission with Kaz where they have to dig a dead guy up and interrogate him to get some info.

Unpopular opinion

His feelings towards bb have never been reciprocated, he has never tried to act on them, and is fine with that. him in v is the closest we ever get to seeing him being his genuine self. There is not enough information about how his hypnosis works but that's an interpretation of it that I really like. Also people seem to be really hung up on the fact that he is ""canonically"" gay when he isn't canonically anything. so I guess my unpopular opinion is not necessarily viewing him as specifically gay idk.

Favorite relationship

sigh. ocelhira. horrible terrible predictable I know. I have a big ass wall of text about them in my notes I need to finish. even the ship stuff aside, the things they were hypothetically up to during the nine year coma must have been insane. and after that? What about FOXHOUND? Or Kaz's death? So much could've happened during all of it aghhh. Even during events of v, we get so little of them together in it. Also Ocelot is a loser and has no other friends lol look at that guy. Him and Eva before mgs4 are such a cool duo though, a shame we didn't get to see any of their dynamic in that time period, or during the Patriots.

Favorite headcanon

He's on aroace spectrum. also stupidly in love with kaz miller and the reasoning for why and what and how is entirely in my head and hopefully in text at some point, it makes sense I promise. I just like when characters are in love even though I am so bad at understanding what that entails but so is he so that's fine. Their dynamic is really interesting to me.

[ascalonianlightbringer]

I finished the "Missing Sister" arc! It was only a single mission and pretty straightforward, but idk, I didn't find it anticlimactic or anything.

So, last time, Gwen gathered information from Tervelan's former messengers and found that a) Minister Arton is likely innocent and b) the survivors would likely be held by a nearby gang who trade in/keep human slaves.

In this episode, "Liberation," Logan shows up to help her "investigate" the bandit camp. They briefly talk over who the real mastermind of the whole plot must be. Gwen concludes that it's got to be someone with "money, power, and ambition," which unfortunately describes a large portion of the Ministry.

Logan, a bit confusingly, remarks that the plot weakened the Seraph, pushed public opinion against the queen, and "almost worked." I mean ... it did work, unless the mastermind was hoping for an even greater impact than it had. But I get the impression that it's only piece in the larger maneuvering.

Gwen: "I want to see if these bandits have any answers, and, if Dwayna is smiling on us, find my sister."

<3

I like the reference to Dwayna, too!

Outside the cut scene, Logan makes a melancholy remark about people turning on each other instead of working together—"if we can't trust each other, we can't possibly face the dragons." True, though some people have some pretty solid reasons for not trusting each other. For one, the Ministry folk are Just That Sketchy. Gwen points out that there are always villains, and that's why heroes need to step up, which he seems to find comforting. He assures her that her deeds for Kryta won't be forgotten.

There's not a lot of subtlety in the mission objectives. In the next part, Gwen and Logan stroll in and attack the bandits. It's not a difficult fight (least of all with Logan along). They do manage to question one bandit about who was behind it at all; she says it was (gasp!) Minister Caudecus, but gloated we'd never prove it and died.

Well, no surprise there.

Afterwards, there are a handful of clearly battered prisoners in the remains of Seraph armor (one may or may not have lost an eye). Their conversation is kind of quietly horrifying.

I think this would be particularly difficult for Gwen (rather than my aristocratic human, Althea) to hear, given my headcanon that she and Deborah fought over Deborah joining the Seraph and were estranged before this happened. And then, to make the pain even sharper, it's immediately followed by the second prisoner assuring Gwen that Deborah always said her family wouldn't forget her. So despite everything (including torture, apparently!!), Deborah held out faith that Gwen would come through for her. ;_; but also <333

Anyway, the last prisoner is a slender blonde woman in worn clothes. Deborah!

Deborah is coughing and unsure if she's dreaming or not at the sight of Gwen. Logan assures her that she's safe now and asks for her account of what happened. Deborah basically recaps what they already knew between coughs and Gwen tells her the nightmare is over and they're going back to Divinity's Reach together. Deborah thanks Gwen and Logan and insists they're both heroes. Logan, however, gives all the credit to Gwen.

It's possible to talk to Deborah afterwards, though only briefly, with the usual personality options. The ferocity option seemed the most appropriate for Gwen: "It's all right, Deb. I'm here now. Those bandits will never threaten you again." Logan will also talk a little, though only to say the Seraph will look after the injured soldiers and give them a hero's welcome in DR. Gwen replies, "We'll never forget what you did for us today."

So that's "Missing Sister"! Despite a certain amount of predictability, I think it's genuinely heartwarming, the villains are suitably loathsome, and the consequences of what happened were actually pretty severe.

I wish there was more continuity with the storylines—Deborah's in pretty bad shape at this point and I've always wondered how she gets from here to my vague memory of encountering her much later. But I understand that bringing her into the other storylines would be a pain when some PCs don't have a Deborah backstory, and at least there's a possibility of meeting her again.

My only gripes with "Liberation" itself are pretty limited. The use of ethnicity to generate Deborah's appearance doesn't really follow from the greater diversity of GW2—Ascalonian NPCs can look like any RL ethnicity in GW2, but Ascalonian Deborah is automatically a light-skinned white person like in GW1.

Also, your family's ethnic/cultural background has zero effect on anything other than Deborah's appearance, despite it seeming like it'd be a pertinent a lot of times. Like when Charr refer to Adelbern as "your king," it seems like a Canthan PC would be ??????? Meanwhile, I recall that in Ebonhawke, you're basically forced to act like you have no cultural ties to them and are a neutral party, even though Ascalonian PCs are very unlikely to be neutral about it. I know it'd probably be a pain to incorporate, but I do wish it were a bigger deal. I'd honestly prefer a more consequential cultural option in character creation instead of the social class option, for as much fun as I'm having with the street origin—I just think the human cultures are richer and more interesting.

Nevertheless, "Missing Sister" is definitely my favorite of the backstories and I really enjoyed revisiting it and seeing Deborah again. And it's also fun to headcanon what the consequences might be for Gwen and Deborah and their differences before Gwen gets caught up in the Order storyline.

[shinsorokiri]

S/O Loses Memory and Quirk

Todoroki, Bakugou, and Kirishima HCs

Genre: Angst

Warnings: Language, violence, mentions of stab wounds and blood, a panic attack, spoiler for Bakugou’s hero name, sad bois

A/N: So I had two requests that mentioned these three with this concept and I just finished all of them and I’m so proud that I wanted to post these ones before the other two for Denki and All Might were finished but I’ll get those out as soon as possible. I cried writing Bakugou’s, so... there’s that HAHA please enjoy!

Here’s the first one with Shinsou, Aizawa, Hawks, and Dabi!

Todoroki Shouto | Shouto

Shouto knows you’re a strong woman and that he doesn’t need to constantly be there to protect you

But he does prefer to be there if something bad is happening 

The only problem is that you two went to two different agencies after graduating 

And in doing so were on opposite sides of the city

Now he always knew when something was happening on your hero route because I mean

He actually needs to in case something bad happens since it’s his JOB

But he also just really wants to be there for you if you really need it

There hasn’t been a time like that, though

So imagine his utter shock and genuine fear when that time came

He was told to go to where you were patrolling because you’d been attacked and wound up in the hospital 

You know the scene with the flame tear? Yeah that but times ten

He goes on patrol like a good little hero

But boy oh BOY did he just want to go to the hospital

You’d never lost a fight before

Not even against him

Your quirk was literally the most powerful quirk he’s ever seen and I mean like, yeah, sure, he might be biased but STILL you were really powerful

So what kind of villain could hurt you so bad you had to go to the hospital???

Luckily, he only had an hour left of patrolling 

And as soon as that hour was up

Mans bolted

He was OFF

He ran into that hospital 

And he politely asked where your room was

Because although he’s PANICKING he still is a little socially awkward sweetie and he doesn’t wanna be a dick to anyone and be labeled similar to his father no no NO

But as soon as he got the number he was sprinting man

He was so worried

All patrol he was quieter than usual

And he was ridiculously anxious the whole time

His palms were sweaty

He felt like he could throw up at any second

And right now

He thought his heart was about to beat out of his chest

He carefully opens the door

You might be sleeping, he has to be considerate

And sure enough he sees your unconscious form laying in a hospital bed

It looked like you had some broken bones, and multiple bruises and cuts which means someone must have beat the shit out of you

Lovely

That’s what he needed to see

Definitely 

Mans doesn’t show emotion that much

But when it comes to you and since it was just you and him in the room

He broke down crying

He couldn’t help it

He grabbed your hand

And just sat there crying

Poor guy can’t lose you

You were the best thing that ever happened to him 🥺

You showed him that it was okay to feel things and express those things and let people in

He let you in and he couldn’t let you go now

He was a genuine mess for the next couple of weeks

Because you weren’t waking up

He went against what Midoriya said and asked around about what happened to you

And what he heard was horrific

Apparently the villain snuck up on you

And hit you in a few different places

And then you fell down

And then you couldn’t access your quirk

And that’s why you were in the hospital 

He didn’t want to think about the part that happened after you were virtually defenseless

Around his friends he was spacier than usual

He wasn’t really retaining information

And his agency let him take more days off than usual because they knew he was Going Through It

And luckily on one of those days you woke up

He was next to you as per usual 

Holding your hand

Playing with your fingers like he always does when he gets anxious

He missed being able to do that in social situations 

Or when you two were cuddling at night and he was thinking about something that was stressing him out and he would start to fiddle with your hand and you would ask him what’s wrong

He missed you

So when he felt your hand start to move by itself

He basically gave himself whiplash with how fast he looked from your hand to your face

Sure enough

Your eyes were open

And you were looking at him

“(Y/n)…”

He whispered your name as not to scare you

You could have a concussion or mild amnesia

He has already considered everything that could be wrong with you

Because he overthinks a lot

And he was nervous about this

And there was one thing he had in the back of his mind

That would probably be the worst case scenario

And much to his fears

That was confirmed to be what was going on almost immediately

“Todoroki?”

He just stares for a moment

You hadn’t called him Todoroki since… well, a long time now

Probably back in your UA days

The two of you began dating in your second year though so

It’s been a while

“You look… older..?”

He clears his throat

Nodding

“Yes. Well… I am 20 years old now. I would hope I look older.”

“Wait, what?”

Oh shit.

He just confused you. 

Damnit, Shouto. 

“Uhh… well, um. You see…”

“Todoroki what is going on? And why are you holding my hand like that?”

He freezes

He was still playing with your fingers

And it wasn’t that you didn’t want him to

You were just genuinely confused

He knew that

“Before I say anything else that could be detrimental to your mental health, maybe you should ring your nurse.”

You do as he says

And the nurses and a doctor come rushing into your room

They do some evaluations

And sure enough

Your memory has been completely wiped

As has the access to the portion of your brain that allows you to control your quirk

The doctor explains to Todoroki that he’s unsure of how this happened

Bu Todoroki knows it has to be that villain

Whatever that villain did did this to you

And Todoroki isn’t one to show emotions

But boy oh BOY was he riled up right now

He lowkey accidentally caught something on fire

And then to fix it lowkey on purpose just turned it into a block of ice

Even though Endeavor is the worst man on the planet

Mans is persistent on shit that’s for sure

And that’s like

The only trait Shouto got from that literal dumpster fire of a father

And he wasn’t about to let the piece of shit that hurt you get away with it

Of course, when it comes to you as a person he’s very patient

Very understanding

Respects boundaries 

But he will not REST

Until the motherfucker who did this to you gets caught by him

And he will find them.

Bakugou Katsuki | DynaMight

OH BOY HERE WE GO

So Bakugou was already very protective over you

I mean that’s expected though

It’s

It’s literally Bakugou

So mans has tabs on you at all times

You don’t know how he does it tbh

He jokes

Yes, Bakugou can joke

He jokes about having a sixth sense when it comes to you

He just gets this feeling about you

If you’re sad? He knows

Happy? He knows

In danger? MANS KNOWS

And I guess he also has a GPS built into his brain???

He just

He knows

Probably because he cares extremely deeply about you

Like really fucking deeply

You’re the best thing that has ever happened to him

Ever since high school

First day

When you weren’t intimidated by him

There was just something special about you

And even though it took until after graduation and you almost DYING on a mission for him to finally accept that he can FEEL THINGS

He officially asked you to be his girlfriend

I say officially because, well

Y’all have basically been dating since like 

Second year of high school

Even though it wasn’t official

It was obvious

He was whipped

He still is

He’s known you for five years

You’ve been officially dating for two of those years

You were unofficially dating for four

You were the most important thing in his life

You even surpassed becoming the number one hero somehow

Though he will NEVER admit that

EVER

It took him a while to realize it 

But the thought of living without you?

Scared him more than any villain ever could

And that is why

Mans is all dressed up

Lookin nice

Took a day off of patrol at his agency because tonight is a special night

Of course, you don’t know anything

As it should be

He didn’t tell a soul that he was planning on proposing tonight

Okay… maybe that is a lie

He told Kirishima when he got blackout drunk with the boys one night

Long story, don’t ask how it happened, even the boys don’t know

And Kirishima then proceeded to tell everyone of his other friends 

So they all knew

But they also all knew to keep it a FUCKING SECRET unless they wanted blown up

But boy oh boy they were excited to see the pictures and the ring and the everything

But I digress

Bakugou is in the house the two of you purchased a while back

It was very much off the damn grid

For ~safety~ 

And he’s very much just messing with how he looks

He has to look perfect because he knows you’re about to 

And he can’t be proposing to you unless he’s on your level

When suddenly

He gets a

Feeling

But it isn’t the warm feeling he gets when you’re happy

Or the doopy one he gets when you’re sad

Or the wave of exhaustion he feels when you’re tired

Or the tingly feeling he gets when you’re mad

No

It’s the feeling where his spine tenses

And his blood goes cold

And his heart drops to the floor

The one he only felt one other time

The time you almost died

He was out of that house so fast

He didn’t even care if he looked all nice

You were in danger

He blasted his way through the city

Saying he was frantic is an understatement

He was FERAL

He got to where you were just in time to see you get slammed into the concrete by some piece of shit villain

You were unconscious

And you weren’t moving

He saw red

He didn’t even remember blasting over to the villain and punching them in the face

But he did that

And he did it HARD

Of course the villain was like OH FUCK

THIS IS THE NUMBER TWO HERO

I DIDN’T THINK HE’D ACTUALLY GET HERE THIS FAST

Because obviously the villain knew who you were

That’s why you were targeted 

Breaking Bakugou’s spirit is needed if villains want to become more fearful and powerful

The villain starts sprinting away

And before Bakugou can catch them

He hears an ambulance siren

He suddenly forgets all about the villain because he whips around to see you getting loaded onto a gurney

Paramedics are doing everything they can to keep you alive at this point

He’s horrified to say the least

You’re the love of his life

The last time he saw you like this is when he accepted it

Seeing you like this again just makes him realize it even deeper somehow

He runs to the ambulance

But the paramedics tell him he needs to go to the hospital separately because you’re badly injured and they need to perform some procedures on the way to the hospital to keep you alive

He doesn’t even realize he’s crying until his eyes start to sting

He wants to tell the paramedics to fuck off

Don’t they realize this is supposed to be one of the best days of yours and his lives?

But he can’t 

Because before he can

They’re gone

He chases after you though

He needs to be by your side right now

He needs to know that you will be okay

He needs you to be okay

So imagine how nerve-wracking it is for him to learn that you were in surgery

He waited in the waiting room all day long

This incident happened around one in the afternoon

and it was now one in the morning

He was just sitting in the hospital waiting room

Looking down at the little box in his hand

Crying

Which is a sight for anyone who sees him

The ring he bought for you is the only thing he can focus on

He doesn’t even notice the non-stop buzzing in his pocket coming from his and your friends wondering if the two of you are okay because the footage of the fight cut out right before Bakugou punched the villain

They all thought you were both hurt pretty badly

I mean after your quirk was seemingly taken from you…

The only thing that snaps him out of his trance

Is when the doctor comes out and says his name

His head snaps up so fast

He approaches the doctor just as fast

He knows he should expect the worst

But he can’t help but keep repeating that you’re okay

That everything will be fine because you are okay

They fixed you up

You’ll come home all happy

He’ll propose to you in the living room at this point

Today will be fixed

Instead

He hears that although you’re stable

You have what appears to be brain damage

“What kind of fucking brain damage?”

“She has severe amnesia which means that-”

“How severe?”

“Well… according to her brain scan and the fact that she said the year was two and a half years ago, I’m afraid it’s significantly severe.”

Two and a half years

Two and a half years?!

He just stares at the doctor

If you think it’s two and a half years ago

That means he hasn’t asked you out yet

That means in your mind

You’re still in high school

About to graduate

This cannot be happening

There is not way this is happening

“Can I see her?”

His voice sounds foreign to him

The doctor nods

Leading him to your room

He puts the ring back in his pocket out of instinct

And when he enters your room

He wants nothing more than for you to yell something like PSYCH

GOT YOU BLASTY BITCH

HAHAHA

But he’s just met with a your mouth opening wide and eye getting big

“Bakugou?! You’re so dressed up!”

Bakugou

Why didn’t he let you call him Katsuki sooner

Why didn’t he ask you out before two years ago

Why wasn’t he there to save you

“W-Woah… Bakugou, you don’t have to cry this isn’t my first hospital stay… wait, when did you get an undercut?”

He just walks towards you

“You also look… older… is this seriously what you look like when you clean up?”

He watches as your expression falters for a moment

“Wait… are you like… going on a date or something?”

Good to know you still have feelings for him at least

He just nods

And you try to hide the disappointment on your face

“Oh… well, you better tell me all about it when we get back to the dorms.”

Your fake enthusiasm is killing him

What killing him even more though is that the doctors didn’t tell you what was going on

So he’ll tell you instead

“Actually,”

Damnit

His voice is wavering

This is new for him

He clears his throat

“I’m not… I’m not going on a date anymore. I had one but… things didn’t turn out as planned.”

“Oh?”

He almost smiles at the sudden mood shift you had

How can you still be perky like that sitting in a hospital bed

“Yeah… because, um. It was a date with you…”

“…Oh…?”

“You got hurt pretty bad, angel…”

He explains everything to you

Well 

As much as he can

And he also finds out about your quirk

And how it’s just

Gone

You have to stay in the hospital tonight for further testing tomorrow

And you insist that he goes home

But he says it isn’t home if you’re not there

He stays in the chair right next to your bed

Watching you as you sleep

He knows you believe him

He knows that you have feeling for him

But he’s broken, truly

Not only was he not your hero today

He didn’t save you

He doesn’t know if you’ll ever remember any of those years with him

Any of your firsts

And that makes him ache

He pulls out your ring again

And just looks at it

The only light in the room is the moonlight peaking in through the window

And in that moment

He swears to himself

And to you

That the villain who did this

Is going to pay

Kirishima Eijirou | Red Riot

Eijirou has always been your rock

Figuratively and literally

He’s there for you through everything

And I mean everything

The two of you have been next door neighbors since you were kids

And he literally always had a crush on you

Of course the feelings were mutual

But neither you nor shark boy knew that

Until y’all got to high school

And Bakugou was very

Annoyed

About the two of you pining for each other

Mina was beyond annoyed 

She went to middle school with you two

So when Bakugou finally just

Screamed at the two of you to just shut the fuck up with the flirting and date already

Mina deadass jumped out of her seat at lunch and screamed thank you at the top of her lungs

Of course the two of you were as red as his hair

Which, yes

You did help him pick out the exact shade and helped dye as well

His hands were stained red because he accidentally only bought one pair of gloves and it wouldn’t have been manly to make you help without gloves on

But I digress

The two of you started dating shortly after that

And when I tell you that you were the couple everyone would look at and be all “awwwww”

I MEAN IT

And y’all are just in high school

Granted, it’s your final year and the two of you are both interning and are already confirmed to become sidekicks and Fatgum’s Agency

So y’all do be a little mature

But still

You started dating freshman year

And you’re going strong still

Of course

And words cannot describe how relieved he is that the two of you are at the same agency

Because if anything ever went bad he would be there to save you

And you would be there to save him

But literally nothing could prepare him for what was about to happen to you

It was a normal patrol

The two of you were together

Talking about graduation next week

And how the two of you were excited to move out of the dorms and into the apartment you had picked

And how you would finally be able to adopt the little mutt that the two of you love from the shelter

When out of no where

A villain popped down off of a building

Right behind you

And did something weird to you

They hit you meticulously and in specific places

Before Kirishima could even process what was going on

You were on the ground

Of course

You raised an arm

Ready to fight and use your quirk

But nothing happened

You tried again

Nothing

You and Kirishima make eye contact and he can feel the fear radiating off of you

Now he was worried

Very worried

But you knew how to fight

And he was there, too

So this wouldn’t end too bad

UNTIL THERE WAS A FUCKING EXPLOSION IN THE BUILDING THE VILLAIN JUST POPPED OUT OF

You were already back on your feet

Ready to fight this motherfucker

“Go help the people inside, Red Riot. I can handle this one.”

“But-”

“GO!”

He goes

Reluctantly

But he does know you can hold your own

Even if that villain temporarily blocked your quirk

He hardens

Turning his headpiece into a filtering mask (a great addition he thought of so he could run into burning buildings while hardened to save people and not take damage to his lungs in the process)

And luckily

There were only three people inside

So he grabs them and runs out

Easy

And he’s expecting to be met with you handcuffing the bad guy

But instead

He’s met with you getting the life beat out of you

Literally

You’re on the ground

The villain pulled out swords while he was gone

And it was obvious you were down and weren’t gettingup

But the villain just wasn’t letting up

Kirishima’s legs work before his brain

He runs over to the villain and lands a punch to their face

Which causes them to stumble backwards

Before they throw the swords at a random citizen who is observing

He immediately runs to the citizen, deflecting the swords

But the villain ran off in the mean time

Like they disappeared without a trace

But honestly

Even if they were still there

Kirishima would have run to you regardless

He immediately kneels down

“(Y/n)?! (Y/n), can you hear me?!”

He ditched the hero names this time

You weren’t responding

You were out cold

He starts panicking

Like

Full on hyperventilating

You looked bad

You were pierced by the villains swords in your side

Blood was everywhere

Your breathing was shallow

Regardless of the genuine panic attack he was going through right now

He somehow managed to control his breathing so you wouldn’t bleed out on the ground

He needed to help you

He picks you up

Instantly starting to sprint to the ambulances beginning to pull up

As soon as the paramedics see the state you’re in they get you off of him

And speed off to the hospital

Kirishima is left alone 

Staring at his hands 

Which were dyed red with your blood

All he could see was your face laughing at him because he forgot to get two pairs of gloves the first time you helped him dye his hair

…He didn’t like red all that much right now

After what feels like hours

But was really like two minutes

Tamaki shows up

Because he heard there was something going on

And as soon as he sees Kirishima on the ground and sobbing

He knows something bad has happened to you

He quickly gets him out of there

And back to the agency

Where Kirishima accidentally sees a replay of the fight on television

And he sees that you were fighting the villain just fine

But they were so nimble and fast 

And all they did was hit the nape of your neck and then the side of your temple

And you collapsed

Tamaki turned the television off before the full fight was shown

But the damage was done

Kirishima was back on the ground

Tamaki tries to comfort him

But Kirishima is out of commission

“I couldn’t save her, Tamaki! I wasn’t there!”

“…C-Come on, Kirishima… w-we should… go to the hospital…”

Tamaki is trying so hard to get him to calm down 

But to no avail

So eventually he just drags him out and to his car

He speeds to the hospital

And Kirishima doesn’t even wait for the car to slow down to run inside

He has to wait to see you

Since you were punctured 

But he was willing to wait

And wait he did 

For four days

Of course after you were done with your surgery he was allowed in your room

But it was a matter of waiting for you to wake up

He was always with you

He only went home to shower

He slept at the hospital

He needed to be with you

So when you finally woke up

He cried tears of happiness for the first time in days

“(Y/n), thank god you’re awake.”

“Eiji? What happened…?”

“There was a villain attack and they knocked you out and-”

“Why don’t you look 15?”

“What?”

“You look… older… and your hair is longer.”

“…What? You were the one who encouraged me to grow it out…”

“I… I was?”

He stares at you for a moment

His happy tears turning into ones of fear

Before hitting the call nurse button and asking you a question

“(Y/n) what grade are we in?”

“We’re freshmen at UA High School.”

No. 

No, no, no, no, no

Before he could answer the doctor and nurses came in the room

They started asking you a bunch of questions

To which you answered the best you could

But it was obvious that you were convinced it was two years ago

The doctors took you off to do scans of your brain

This can’t be happening

You think it’s two years ago

Two years

So much has happened within those two years

The two of you have done so much

Just

Imagine how devastated he is when he hears your memory is just gone

And your quirk with it

You were a hero

Your quirk can’t be gone

“Eiji… please don’t cry, it’ll be okay.”

“I can’t help it, pebble. I wasn’t there to save you and now… now you don’t remember everything we’ve done. And… and your quirk… you’re the best hero I know, and now…”

“Eijirou, I promise you it will be okay. As long as you’ll be with me, like you always are, I will be fine.”

He doesn’t say anything

He just looks at his hand holding yours

At least you still remember he asked you to be his girlfriend

But he is deadset on finding the villain who did this to you

“I will get you out of this.”

“Ei…”

“I will fix this. I promise you. I will save you. I need to.”

[gladerwolfstarkimagines]

Not just a soft princess - Azula x female reader imagine: Part Three

Your relationship with Azula develops but a reality check makes you question if you are wise to trust the princess of the fire nation...

Part one here

Part two here

Part four here

Part five here

Part six here

Your POV

Since the day Azula stood up to Ozai for you things changed. You supposed word got out Azula was protecting you that’s why people started treating you better but it could also be due to Azula’s presence herself. After that night you saw a lot more of her and you weren’t complaining. She attended your lessons more frequently and even took over some portions of them herself. You got more freedom granted to you and when you were with Azula you didn’t even need a guard anymore. Thanks to the clause Azula placed in the contract there was no reason to force you and Zuko together and so you no longer dreaded all the formal occasions. Instead you were free to do as you wished at such events and that often included Azula. You found her presence comforting but also enjoyable. She was witty and clever, making you laugh with her deductions and well timed quips. You liked the proud blush that would fill her cheeks when she made you laugh and the only thing better was when she’d laugh at one of your own jokes. The way her mouth upturned into her signature smirk, how her shoulders would shake lightly and then she’d realise you were admiring her and be unable to meet your eyes for a few seconds. You’d never seen a sight so beautiful and were convinced there wasn’t anyone as beautiful as Azula, ever. You realised you’d developed more than a fondness for her when you found yourself thinking about her when she wasn’t around. The realisation made you nervous but also excited for one reason in particular. You were pretty sure the fire princess liked you too.

You were thinking about Azula as you dressed for the party that night. You had been at the fire nation for 2 months now and the constant feeling of dread and uncertainty was now more of a memory. You still missed home but it was no longer painful being here, you were adapting. That thought in mind you frowned when your maid asked you what dress you would like to wear tonight. There were dozens of beautiful options but they were all green given Ozai’s desire to make you up as a earth kingdom doll. You were sick of the colour green now and wanted to wear any other colour at this point. You’d noticed Azula constantly wore red and it always looked flattering. You couldn’t tell if that was because of Azula herself or if red was simply a flattering colour but the fire nation certainly did fashion better than the earth nation and if you were forced to live here you thought you should benefit from that. "Are there any red dresses?" you asked and the maid looked at you "red?". "Yes...i just thought as i’m part of the fire nation now maybe i could show it?". The maid smiled 'that sounds lovely princess y/n, i’ll go find one right away".

Azula’s POV

Azula stared out of the window as her father complained about some nobleman. Typically Azula would hang on her father’s every word and rush to assure him he was superior to everyone but lately her mind had been elsewhere...well it’d been on you more accurately. The truth was Azula had greatly enjoyed her time with you and found herself looking forward to the next chance she’d get to interact with you. Sure she’d had her friends Mai and Ty lee growing up but she’d never had someone she could relate to or feel solidarity with. With you Azula felt that. She’d always figured she was the exception to the typical princess role but you had made her see that was incorrect. You were smart and outspoken, you weren’t intimidated by the fire nation anymore and it showed. Your confidence seemed to grow each day and while it clearly bothered her father Azula relished in it. Despite the nation you were from, she couldn’t help but root for you and it had nothing to do with the fact your fate was tied to hers. It was because she genuinely liked and cared for you, something she’d never expected to happen. 

Azula was ironically pulled out of her thoughts about you because of you.

"What is she doing?" Ozai snapped and Azula was so distracted she didn’t turn around for a few seconds. When she did her breath was knocked out of her. Her eyes were drawn to you immediately and they widened as a smile formed on her face. You were wearing her favourite shade of red and you looked amazing. The dress was simple and so was your hair and makeup but that seemed to make the effect all the more impactful, Azula remembered when she saw you back in Ba Sing Sei and how then you’d been dressed simply but still managed to look amazing. You didn’t need to dress up a diamond, it was beautiful no matter what adorned it. Azula was biased but saw this as a good sign, you had donned their colours, surely this showed your willingness to cooperate? 

Her father didn’t agree. "I ordered all the maids to give her green clothing only! What use is she to us if you cannot identify her as earth kingdom royalty at a glance". Azula thought the emphasis on colour scheme a tad ridiculous but tried to appease her father "i think it is only for one night, this is good though. It seems she is showing loyalty to us". Ozai scoffed "as she should given all we’ve done for her, less of a prisoner and more of a honoured guest considering we’re housing and educating her for free". "She will get us the whole of the earth empire". "So you keep saying but so far all she has brought is Ba Sing Sei". Azula’s eye twitched. Ba Sing Sei was the biggest victory for the war in decades and was the brightest piece of the earth empire. For her father to disregard that was ludicrously idiotic but Azula knew he was just in a strop. He knew your use he was just annoyed he couldn’t exploit every drop of it at once and she was more determined than ever to prevent him for ever being able to do that to you.

Your POV

"You must've been dreadfully bored to make such a bold statement" a silky voice called and you didn’t even have to turn to know who it belonged to. Azula always found you sooner or later but she was definitely getting quicker. When you looked at Azula confused by her comment she gestured to your outfit "the dress, I can’t imagine what provoked you to don our colours". You laughed smiling "i thought a change would be nice, plus if this is to be my home now i thought showing some loyalty to it couldn’t hurt, but given your father’s reaction...". Azula almost scoffed but caught herself. "He was anxious but i made him see it correctly, that this a symbol of unity. How you were proclaiming your support and love for the fire nation simply by wearing a colour...a very subtle but effective political statement”. You smiled "yes but honestly? I’m just sick to death of the colour green". That thought never occurred to Azula and it caught her off guard making her laugh aloud. Something the princess had never done at a formal event. She caught herself quickly but blushed to see you were beaming at her reaction. "I’ve seen you wear it so successfully i thought i would try" you smiled and Azula looked at you surprised. "I...i am flattered". Azula’s slight blush deepened making you more confident and so you stepped back from her and opened your arms "so what’s the verdict? Did i pass in red?". Azula glanced over you very quickly her blush still very evident as she purposefully avoided looking you in the eye "you know you did, the colour suits you rather well, especially with your skin tone...." Azula trailed off before coughing "so yes you passed". You blushed smiling too "i would wear it more but i do not know if that is wise". Azula shook her head "i think green is safer". You nodded your head but felt deflated "i thought as much". "It’s lucky you look good in that colour too then i suppose" Azula commented suddenly and you looked at her in shock. "Maybe it is simply all colours?" she suggested "that wouldn't surprise me". "It wouldn't?" you asked and Azula shook her head "not at all princess". You looked away first, flustered and now blushing too and Azula grinned widely.

Mai and Zuko’s POV

Mai and Zuko watched you and discussed your show quietly. Zuko was worried what this would provoke from his father and Mai was worried Ozai would like seeing you in red. They were discussing which outcome was most likely when Azula approached you. They carried on talking when they noticed Azula laugh. An actual genuine unprovoked laugh. The couple went silent and Zuko spoke first after a delay "did my sister just....". "Burst out laughing? Yes". "When has she ever...". "Never" Mai finished "i’ve only seen her laugh when somebody falls or says something stupid". Zuko nodded "what on earth did y/n sat to her?”. Mai narrowed her eyes wondering just that too. "Could Azula...are they friends?" Zuko asked watching you two talk and Mai paused "Azula did keep her promise to protect her and she did add that marriage clause to her contract risking your father’s wrath". "But Azula never likes anyone" Zuko frowned "especially enough to put her neck on the line". "She must really like y/n then" Mai frowned as Azula suddenly blushed. Her and Zuko watched the two of you both blushing vividly, glancing at each other excitedly and they both inhaled. "She really really likes y/n" Zuko gaped and Mai nodded "and y/n her it appears .

Azula’s POV

Azula knew she had secured your place theoretically but she still worried you were physically vulnerable. She knew you were a skilled earth bender but you didn’t know how sneaky fire nation fighting was. The earth nation was upfront in their attacks but the fire nation was a fan of knives in the back and so Azula thought it wise to prepare you. So she invited you to join her for an hour a day to train.

Your POV

When Azula first invited you to spar with her your initial thought was suspicion. Why would the fire nation want to train you physically? However that was quickly overshadowed by excitement as Azula assured you that you’d be alone and that she just wanted to show you some basics. You’d seen Azula fight and were more than eager to receive tips from her. Not to mention it would make the seemingly never ending days go faster. You arrived at the sparring yard before the agreed time to find Azula already there. "You’re early" she commented dismissing your guards and you frowned "i apologise i thought the walk would take longer". "Do not apologise being early or on time are the only two acceptable options". You smiled getting the feeling Azula was early for everything and your smile lingered as the princess had you warm up. After your cardio Azula started showing you forms. Basic crucial ones first like how to avoid a knife strike or block a blow. She made it look so easy but was also a very good teacher. By the end of your third session you were able to successfully block Azula at her fastest pace and you were thrilled. Azula had been springing surprise attacks at you all session and even once she declared the session over she attacked you once again. You didn’t even register it but instead your body reacted and blocked her using perfect form. Azula looked at you impressed and a smile broke your face "i didn’t even think about it I just blocked you! I did it Azula!". Azula smirked at your endearing excitement "yes well done". "You are a very good teacher, i am a slow learner but you helped me master that in three days!". "It is only one of many forms" Azula replied "we still have many more to go before you are truly a master or i a good teacher". "Of course but this is a good first step is it not?" you asked. Azula would’ve said no. She was always hard on herself and didn’t believe in small victories but your smile was infectious and so she agreed "yes, you did well".

Azula’s POV

As your hand to hand combat improved Azula turned her attention to your bending. She was more than excited to have you display your bending again and not just because she found it enjoyable to watch. She also knew you’d been strictly forbidden from bending ever since you’d stepped foot in the fire nation. She figured it might make you more comfortable to be able to bend again and so she quickly worked it into your curriculum. She was impressed again as soon as she saw you bend. Earth was the element of strength and you were very skilled in that aspect. Azula would catch herself admiring your back and arms as your muscles tensed before she’d catch and scold herself for being unprofessional.

It soon became tradition that at the end of every session you and Azula would spar using your bending and it was the favourite part for both of you, You were both in your element (no pun intended) and Azula could get caught up in the feeling easily. Sometimes too much...

The two of you were sparring and it was going as it always did. You would stubbornly hold territory and refuse to move while Azula would flit around attempting to dislodge your stance. It took a while for either of you to wear the other down and so when Azula saw you starting to grow tired she got excited. She attacked your left side with a flurry of attacks coaxing you into exposing your other side to attacks. Azula knew you’d block the attack with your quick reflexes but when she finally saw you neglect your right side defences she acted. Azula reached out for your exposed arm directing a whip of fire straight for it. She smiled as you noticed and went to block it when you lost your footing. The floor was littered with debris from all your rocks that Azula had shattered and a piece had wormed it’s way directly between your feet. You stumbled over the rock your defence forgotten as you tried to regain your balance and Azula’s fire sped at you. Azula tried to yell but it was no use as her fire hit you knocking you over, a trail of smoke following. 

Your POV

“Y/n” you heard Azula yell as the blast hit you. You had been knocked flat on the floor but managed to sit up. You arm had took the brunt of the attack and you clutched your arm tightly into your side as it pulsed in pain. Azula appeared by your side and stared at your arm horrified. The moment you saw her worried look you tried to play it off and smile. "I’m fine" you assured her but Azula shook her head "no you’re not, come here". You glanced down at your arm but held it out to her.

Azula inspected the burn and frowned. It wasn’t serious, the skin would be healed in a few weeks and it shouldn’t cause you too much pain in the meantime but it would scar. “It’s not too bad but it needs dressing...come on”. Azula soaked your arm and apologised as you winced. She carefully dried it and applied a cooling balm onto it. You flinched and she frowned “does it hurt?”. “Yes but that feels nice, it feels cold”. Azula nodded. She waited for the gel to soak in before bandaging your arm carefully. “We’re lucky it was just your arm...if you’d fallen and my fire hit you somewhere else...” Azula paused “I should’ve been more careful”. “It wasn’t your fault, it was just an accident” you tried but Azula shook her head “fire benders aren’t allowed accidents, accidents get people killed”. You watched Azula’s concentrated tense face and wished you could ease the guilt she seemed to feel. Azula finished bandaging your arm and tucked the bandages away expertly, you watched amazed as her fingers worked softly and swiftly. For the first time you noticed there were many small scars from burns and cuts along her fingers and you watched her face closely. The princess was immaculate but on closer inspection, you could see the small scars and flaws of any person. It didn’t surprise you Azula kept hers hidden, she seemed like the type to tightly guard her weaknesses and you frowned wondering if she’d been told to do that as a child. From how faded some of the scar were you were guessing she had and it made you angry. Azula was a powerful force of nature but she was still a human with flaws. Not despite those flaws but because of them you viewed her as the most beautiful and intelligent woman you’d ever known and you wanted her to know that.

"Finished" Azula declared and then looked up to see you staring at her. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked. In response you blinked and leant across the table to kiss her. Azula jumped pulling away as soon as you touched her and you jumped back too, upset and horrified you’d read her signals wrong. "You shouldn’t do that" Azula said and you blinked "i’m sorry i just thought...we’ve been flirting and I thought you might like me...". "No i meant here" Azula said cutting you off "we shouldn’t do that here but other places...". You paused and slowly smiled at Azula’s tone "other places....so you do like me?". Azula shushed you "not here too many ears come on" and held a hand out to you "but yes" she whispered as you took her hand. You smiled at her and Azula’s cheeks turned a shade of pink as she shot her eyes away from you. Azula led you through the palace confidently and to the royal gardens. You frowned figuring this was an open space with many prying eyes and ears but Azula just smiled more "as a child i learnt all the best places to hide are in here". "You had need of many hiding places?" you asked as Azula led you into the maze. She nodded "this was my mothers favourite place and so the last place she'd think to look for me when she wanted to yell at me, i hid right under her nose and avoided detection". Azula led you deep into the maze before she stopped suddenly "here".  A large hedge stood before you and you frowned “Azula it’s...” but Azula just smiled “watch”. She pressed her hands under the left side and pushed the bush to the side. It moved aside easily and Azula stepped through. You followed and found yourself behind large grass sculptures. They perfectly obscured you and gave you a small secluded area. You were still admiring how the hedge just bounced back hiding your entrance perfectly when you realised Azula was close behind you staring at you. Suddenly she couldn’t wait any longer and she kissed you. You laughed at her eagerness but kissed her back. As you were taller Azula wrapped her arms around your neck to be able to reach you easier. You rested your hands on her waist and smirked as Azula almost made you lose your balance in her excitement. You were thoroughly enjoying the kiss when Azula broke it and shot away from you "come on we have to keep moving" she laughed and tugged you out of your hidden area. “Why?” you asked and Azula smiled “you only go undetected as long as you keep moving so that’s what we’ll do”. Azula tugged you into another perfectly hidden alcove and brought her lips to your again before pulling away again just as you were slipping into it. Azula smirked at you exasperated look and you got the feeling she was toying with you. So in the third hiding spot Azula brought you too as soon as she had hidden your entrance you trapped her against it. Being taller had it’s advantages and you gripped Azula’s waist while hovering over her “No more running princess”. Azula grinned and happily accepted her fate.

You liked these hiding places in the garden and apparently so did Azula. She leant against your arms the most content you’d ever seen her. You could see why she loved it here. You could hear other people in the gardens but it felt so wonderfully private. The weather was beautiful and you laid down looking at the sun. “This is one thing I have grown to love about the fire nation, the weather...it’s so nice and warm here” you smiled. “Well it is summer” Azula smirked leaning on her forearms to look down at you “but it is beautiful, wait until you see the festival for the summer solstice. The sky stays light all night and the streets are lit with lanterns everywhere, the whole city glows and all night you just bask in the beauty” Azula sighed “I can’t wait to show it you all”. “Yeah?” you asked and Azula nodded “it’s beautiful even in winter too! We don’t get snow but it gets colder meaning there’s fires on every street corner. They even make a hot chocolate with fire flakes that you have to try” Azula told you “we can take a trip into town and get one....and the restaurants serve festive dishes that are spiced to perfection we will see it all” Azula declared and you smiled. “That sounds amazing”. Azula smiled up at you before leaning further into you.

A while later with a large sigh Azula sat up moving off you “I have to go...my father requested to see me and Zuko, it must be important...if it wasn’t there’s no way I’d go” she told you and you smiled “I know, it’s fine i’ll find someway to manage without you”. Azula smirked “I know Mai and Ty lee were going shopping, you could always tag along with them...they’re not as good company as me of course but it may distract you until i’m done”. “Until you’re done?”. Azula nodded “how about I come join you when i’m finished?”. You nodded your head “sounds perfect” and kissed her softly. Azula smiled and lingered with you as long as she could before pulling back “come on”. She stood up swiftly before helping you up. You walked out of the gardens together and Azula stopped at one path “Ty lee and Mai will be that way, you should hurry so you catch them”. You nodded “have fun at your meeting” and with a purposeful brush against her hurried away. You noticed Azula stayed long enough to watch you walk away before she rushed off for the meeting and smirked, she was definitely going to be late for that.

You came around the corner abruptly and both Mai and Ty lee jumped. “Y/n” Ty lee said surprised “are you okay princess?”. You nodded “I was actually looking for you both, I was wondering if i could accompany you into town? Azula mentioned you were going and suggested you wouldn’t mind”. “Of course we don’t” Ty lee cried and Mai shot her a look. You glanced at Mai who paused before sighing “of course you can come princess”. You smiled “thanks” and went to walk out of the open door but Mai held out her arm “are you forgetting something? A royal can’t leave the palace without a quadrant of guards and a royal precession”. “But she’s not fire nation does she really have to?” Ty lee asked and Mai sighed “you know she does” and turned to call the nearest servant.

It was easy to forget everything the fire nation stood for while you were running around the gardens with Azula but it had a way of reminding you. Mai and Ty lee were not permitted in the royal procession with you and had to walk behind you. The fire nation guards cleared the way through the streets mercilessly and you could see why Mai hadn’t wanted you to come. The citizens were either excited to see you and got beaten back or had been pushed forwards accidentally and suffered the same fate. When you finally reached your destination you felt so malevolent and cruel as the towns people stared but dared not come close. You’d never left the palace in the earth kingdom but there were often parties when normal people could come and they never hesitated to approach or touch you, here you bet the guards would have their hands if they tried. “Y/n?” Ty lee asked as you stared at the guards *controlling* the crowd. “Are you okay?” Ty lee asked and you paused before nodding “i’m fine” and you followed her inside.

Everywhere you went caused a fuss and you felt like you stuck out like a sore thumb. Ty lee wanted to go clothes shopping with Mai but because none of the shops sold green clothes you couldn’t join in. Every time you left a store you had to get back into your stupid cart even if the store was simply down the street. Each store you went into ignored Ty lee and Mai and only focused on you being the royal. You hated all the special treatment you received. You didn’t deserve it and you didn’t want it but there was no escaping it. This was the fire nation.

“What’s wrong y/n?” Ty lee asked “ you’ve barely touched your food” she said noticing how you were just pushing it around. You frowned “I just feel like i ruined your day, everywhere I go I causes a scene, it must be so annoying”. Ty lee shook her head “you haven’t ruined anything we’re used to it”. “How?” you asked and Mai fixed you with a look “you’re not the first royal we’ve travelled with, Azula and Zuko have the same rules but they revel in it a lot more than you”. “They enjoy it?” you asked shocked. “Well not so much Zuko” Mai admitted “but Azula does, she says it reminds people of their position....beneath her”. Mai’s disgusted tone wasn’t lost on you but it did make you think. You didn’t doubt Mai was being truthful, you’d seen first hand how Azula could act but recently you’d started forgetting. You realised with a crashing taste of reality that Azula was probably only like she was with you, with everyone else...who knows how cruel she was. You stared down at your hands feeling guilty for your morning activities with her. What on earth had you been doing sneaking around with the princess that conquered your city. Azula had taken over your home and sent your uncle into exile. The only reason you were here was because she liked you, if you hadn’t have appealed to her would you be exiled too or worse? These thoughts worried you and you couldn’t help but feel like a hypocrite. You’d personally sworn to detest the fire nation but had fallen for the princess? You couldn’t allow that and so you decided to call whatever this was off with Azula. As soon as she joined you.

However Azula never made it to the cafe. When you returned to the palace in the evening there was still no word from her and you weren’t sure if you were relieved or not. The evening pressed on when suddenly there was a knock at your door. You opened it to find Azula smiling widely. “I know I missed this afternoon but I have a good reason!” she waved some servants into your room and you watched confused as they started packing your belongings. “Azula what on earth....”. “We don’t have time!” she said excitedly “we’re leaving tonight! Mai, Ty lee and Zuko have to come too but it will still be great y/n”. “What will be...where are we going?”. “Ember Islands” Azula smiled.

[musicanddancingthroughlife]

I Lived

I finished it! So this is really all I had planned for this particular au, though I might include a bonus chapter or oneshot or whatever, depending on how you guys feel about this. It’s not really my favorite, and I’m realizing that a lot of my fics have a lot of holes in them but whatever, it’s good practice still haha. Anyway, this is the sequel to “I Died,” which should actually be probably the last story I posted on here. It’s been a very long time since I posted anything fic-wise, and for that I apologize! This guy’s a little longer to make up for that!

In other news, my life has finally got to a point where it’s calmed down and I have real time to be writing, so now all I need to push through is my motivation issues, which I can make no promises for, but I do promise I’m working hard to overcome it and make this more of a daily habit so that we can have more fanfics! Anyway, hope you enjoy the story!

-----------------------------------------

So. Apparently sharing it now was not okay. What was he supposed to do when even Pidge was crying? Seriously, it had been so easy to cheer her up when they were in space, but no matter what he tried to say to convince her he was fine, she just kept tearing up again.

And sure, Lance had known that his friends cared, that they genuinely liked him and probably wouldn’t be happy if he died, but he really thought that had been more because. He was necessary.

He was a paladin, even if it did seem a little too much like he was a spare. Even spares were useful! Voltron was able to continue even after Keith left to find answers about his past, and Lance was half the reason that was possible! So obviously, he was useful.

But with that logic, the way that they all seemed upset and devastated so long after the fact didn’t make sense. And Lance appreciated it, he did. But it also… Just didn’t matter anymore. Obviously he’s fine, and he’s living life. And yet….

“Why didn’t Allura say anything?” Keith demanded again. Although it was probably the fourth or fifth time he had done so, Shiro just gave the same response.

“Keith, we don’t know how it affected her, too, maybe she was too shocked to say anything. From the sounds of it, that could’ve been her. It’s fair to assume she didn’t know how to handle it.”

“Or maybe she forgot,” Hunk muttered mutinously. Keith nodded quickly in agreement. Lance gaped.

“Who the hell are you and what happened to Hunk?” he asked. Hunk glared back, and it was so unexpected that Lance nearly flinched back before remembering this was his oldest friend. They may not have seen much of each other in the last year, but there was still no one that Lance trusted more.

“Lance, none of that is okay. You were really struggling, and the fact that Allura knew about even a portion of that and didn’t say anything to the rest of us…”

“It’s irresponsible. Even if she couldn’t personally handle it, she should’ve told us so we could’ve stepped up in her place. Instead, she left you alone to suffer. That’s not how a leader should behave.” Shiro glanced at Keith, and ran his knuckles against the back of Lance’s neck. Lance startled at the action, but before he could speak up, he felt Keith’s hands settle on his shoulders, kneading and massaging at the muscles there. He couldn’t tell if it was a tactic to show support, or if it was meant to relax him, but truthfully? Keith’s and Shiro’s hands were warm and it felt like it had been ages since Lance had been touched so deliberately. So even though he wanted to speak up and ask what they were doing or why, he instead felt himself melt further in his chair, brain turning to mush at the warmth soaking through his jacket.

Keith spoke up before Lance could fight the fuzzy feelings invading his brain. “Did Allura ever bring it up to you again? While you were… dating?”

Lance ignored the hesitation, far too used to it (and he tried to ignore the pang in his chest at the disbelief that always colored questions or comments on their relationship). “Ummm… We didn’t really… get a chance to?”

Keith’s hands stopped froze. “What?”

“I mean, it just never came up.”

“You almost died, and it never came up while you were together?”

“Hey! We were busy, we were all distracted back then…”

Hunk spoke up, “Didn’t we literally play Coran’s game like. Not even a week later?”

“Wait, you guys had time to play board games but Allura couldn’t talk to Lance about his death?” Even Shiro looked guilty at that, which just wasn’t fair!

“Come on, Keith, they didn’t know!”

“And you!” Lance tried not to shiver when those fierce, fiery eyes were focused on him. “Why didn’t you say something about it?”

“I thought they knew,” even as he said it Lance knew it was feeble and weak. Ugh and now Pidge and Hunk were tearing up again.

“And what, you assumed we just didn’t care?”

“We were busy! I told you that already, we were already distracted!”

“Pidge and I were playing with robots!” Hunk roared. Lance had been half standing by that point, but as soon as Hunk stood he found himself all but slamming himself back into his seat. He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen his friend look so imposing. Honestly, it was probably never. It was really hard to get Hunk this heated. “And there is nothing that should be more important than my friends, than my family. And I thought that’s what we were out there.” He glared at everyone, as if daring them to contradict him. Predictably, no one did.

“Okay, but that doesn’t answer why Allura never said anything, what happened there? What did you guys do when you were together?”

Lance shifted uncomfortably, moving as if to stand again, but Keith’s hands grew firm again, continuing to hold him in place.

When the silence stretched on, Shiro finally murmured a quiet, “Lance.”

“She was hung up on Lotor. I think.”

No one said anything for a minute. “You think?” Pidge finally ventured.

“I mean, she was distracted with the war and everything else that was going on, the magic, Haggar, all of it. But I know that she was spending lots of time with him planning missions and everything.”

“She was ignoring you,” Hunk realized.

“No, she wasn’t!” Lance protested immediately. “Lotor just had better ideas and strategies, so she didn’t really… want my help.”

Hunk looked like he wanted to continue that argument, but Keith spoke first.

“Okay, but like, what about when you guys had down time? What did you do to relax and just spend time together? Outside of battle planning?”

Lance wracked his brain, but couldn’t think of anything other than Monsters and Manna that might count, but did it count? It was in a group setting… “You’re one to talk, Mullet, did you ever willingly leave the training rooms?” His voice broke, and Lance winced.

Rather than rise to the bait, Keith simply moved to stroking against the nape of Lance’s neck. Shiro’s hands felt a little tight around the base of his skull, but rather than being uncomfortable, Lance found it comforting. They were still there. They weren’t ignoring the situation. As painful as it was, it was nice to have all of this in the open. Lance relented.

“We played that game with everyone. Coran and Shiro and everyone.”

Another pause and then, “Lance…”

“That’s it, okay? I can’t remember anything else we did, except for maybe dinner with my family. We talked a bit when it was the two of us, but… It never seemed like I had all of her attention. There was never a chance to talk about what happened.”

“Lance,” Keith started, but he was interrupted. Lance’s phone was ringing again, and this time Lance was ready to take it. He shrugged off the hands that had been holding him steady, and stood so quickly his chair toppled. He moved a short distance away, ignoring how his friends’ concerned eyes followed.

 Shiro and Keith were heartbroken. How could they have known that their friend had been suffering so much for so long? Especially this friend? They had had such hopes for this reunion, had spent hours across weeks discussing how they might invite Lance to travel with them, how they would reveal their feelings for him. Instead, they find that not only are they not even worthy of his attention (what kind of friends or lovers wouldn’t notice something like that???), but that their plans were now going to take a lot more work to prove successful.

Because they weren’t going to give up. If anything else, this proved to them that Lance needed someone who could and would take the time for them, who would work to make him happy and make him feel loved and wanted.

And if their small talk about Lance’s death and relationship with Allura hadn’t proved that to them, then this phone call would.

Keith couldn’t keep himself from glaring over in Lance’s direction. Shiro’s hand had snuck into his own. Every time Keith snarled or growled at the conversation he could overhear, Shiro’s hand would squeeze just that little bit tighter. It was a nice sentiment, but Keith was done. He tugged Shiro over to the other end of the table, leaving Pidge and Hunk to fall into their own conversation.

“He’s not happy here, Shiro.”

Shiro gave Keith a disappointed look. “You can’t decide that for him, Keith.”

Keith growled, “I’m not, okay? He’s on the phone with his sister or mom or something and from the sounds of it, Lance has really been missing space and the missions and us.”

At that, Shiro perked up. “He’s been missing us? Really?”

Keith blushed. “Well, he’s been missing the team at least. And we’re on the team, so…”

Shiro chuckled, but Keith could see that the back of his neck was flushed, too. “Not exactly what I meant or what we wanted, but all right. So you think he would say yes if we asked?”

Keith thought for a minute, which Shiro appreciated. This was too important to ruin by rushing it.

“I think there’s a very good choice he will.”

 After the phone call ended, it took Lance a few minutes to regain control of himself. He hadn’t realized his whole family had been so aware of the fact that Lance had debated asking to go to space again. He’d been going back and forth on the whole thing for a while, because yes he missed his friends and the adventures, but really, would his friends even need him? What help would he be, what could he offer them? Nothing, plus he felt it was wrong of him to spend all of the war missing Earth and his family, but then ditch them just because now he missed space. He’d thought that maybe he would use this dinner to gauge if he could still fit with the team, but now he wasn’t sure where he stood with them. Were they mad that he had (inadvertently) kept secrets from them? Were they going to be worried that he would be a liability? Or would they love to have him back because they’d missed him? Well, probably not the last one, but maybe…

Lance sighed and used his sleeve to carefully wipe away the tears from his face, hoping desperately that his eyes weren’t so puffy that everyone would know he had been crying. But when he turned to rejoin his friends, he could tell that they knew anyway. The sympathy and concern in their eyes made his own water again. He gave them a wobbly smile.

“Lance?”

Lance rubbed his mouth, then tried to subtly swipe at his eyes again, “Yeah?”

“I know that we… we failed you. And honestly, I’m not sure that I could forgive that in your place, but we were wondering…” Keith faltered, looking to Shiro for help. Pidge and Hunk watched on in curiosity.

“Would you come with us this time?” Shiro asked smoothly.

Lance stared. “What?” he felt numb. Before he could even formulate another thought, Hunk gasped in excitement.

“Yes, Lance you should totally come out with them! Pidge and I are going out again, too, and we were going to meet them on one of the planets the Blade is working with right now, it would be so fun to have everyone together again and --!” Hunk broke off with a yelp. Pidge must’ve kicked Hunk to get him to stop rambling. Hunk glared at her halfheartedly.

No way in hell was one of his real life heroes actually asking him to come with them on a space mission. Sure, he’d completed several missions by now, but this wasn’t even just a personal hero! It was one of his crushes! And his other crush was asking the same thing? In what universe would something like that happen to Lance? Was this just because it was a group thing? In that case, he should say no, shouldn’t he? He’d spent all of the war being a 7th wheel, was he really now considering putting himself in that position again? Before his thoughts could spiral anymore, Shiro took his hand, settling himself in the chair next to his own.

“We’ve missed you, very much. And even though we don’t really travel in a group much anymore, Keith and I would love to have you come with us.”

“But… why?”

“Why not?” Keith asked.

“Well, what would you want me to do? I can’t do the tech stuff, or the engineering stuff, and Keith plays such a big role as is…”

Shiro shook his head. “We just want you, Lance. We’ve missed you. You make missions more fun, you always forced us to take breaks, you always knew when we needed a laugh or when we needed to talk, and you made sure you were there to help us with that. We don’t need you to do or be anything more than who you are. And if you really feel like you want to do more, we would love to have your help in planning the missions. You’ve always been good at strategizing, even if most of us weren’t able to see or acknowledge that at the time.”

Lance hesitated still, “What about Allura? Shouldn’t you be asking her about this first?”

Keith snarled, but when Lance jerked at the sound, his voice softened. “Let us worry about that. She’s actually been trying to plan her maternity leave for her baby, so she was going to be taking a step back, and she hadn’t decided on how long yet. Besides, Shiro is the captain of Atlas, not Allura.”

Shiro nodded, eyes warm.

And even though this was something Lance had been dreaming of, he still wasn’t sure that he was ready for it. It felt daunting, almost like… Almost like driving a mecha lion through a wormhole with a group of people he barely knew. It felt like a beginning, an adventure.

And who was Lance to turn down adventure?

[popculturebuffet]

Lilo and Stitch Crossovers: “Morpholomew” (American Dragon Long): Stop Trying to Make Am Drag a Thing (Commisson Done For WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! And welcome to a brand new retrospective/story arc/thing from yours truly, comissoned directly by WeirdKev27. If you’d like to comission your own review or set of reviews like this one, it’s 5 bucks. Just contact me via my ask box or direct messages on this very blog or my discord technicolormuk#6550.

With Shadow Into Light in the books, Kev decided he wanted to comission something not duck related and a bit smaller as a buffer before the next big arc, ALL of three arcs from season 2 of Ducktales, and decided to go with something he suggested to be a while back as a possible future retrospective: The Lilo and Stitch Crossover episodes! 

That’s right for the next three weeks, with TWO reviews this week since I had a spot open up and Kev paid for this one in full and way in advance, we’ll be taking a trip to Hawaii to visit everyone’s faviorte little girl, her best friend/pet/killing machine as they try to find homes for his 625 cousins. 

I loved Lilo and Stitch when I was a kid: Disney admitely got their hooks in me on that one with their cool prequel comics in disney adventures. These comics set up the movie, showing Jumba creating Stitch and the events leading up to both getting captured. The movie did not disapoint with cool character designs, a drop dead gorgeous recreation of Hawaii, and a really heartfelt, heartbreaking and heartpumping story of loss, family, and ving rahmes voicing one of the few heroic child services workers i’ve seen in a medium, a refreshing change of pace. The film is a masterpiece and I really do need to watch it again sometime. 

Given the series was a huge hit and that thsi was before the big lull in the late 2000′s and early 2010′s where Disney refused to make any tv shows based on their movies, a series followed, given a lead in by the direct to video movie Stitch.

The movie set up the basic premise; 624 capsules containing Jumba’s previous experiments, cousins as Stitch calls them, ended up raining over Kauai, awakening when dropped into water or any other liquid. Lilo and Stitch, with help from Jumba, his live in boyfriend Pleakley, her tought but fair sister Nani, and her boyfriend David, who dosen’t show up as much as i’d like but is my boy so he gets a mention here. But anyways our heroes try to reform the various engines of distructoin who all have unique powers and find them their one place they truly belong. 

So yes the show was a Mons-type show clearly captalizing off pokemon.. but the slice of life setting as opposed to the shonen style of most shows following in pokemon’s wake, gave it it’s own unique feel: while our heroes did fight, it was more about shenanigans, adventures and what not with these unique creatures and the purpose is very heartflet: Lilo simply wants to give these guys the same kind of love and support she’s given Stitch and a chance to do good. 

Opposing them is Gantu, the shark bounty hunter from the first film who, now out of a job, is working for Dr. Hamstervile, an imprisoned sceintest and a character I really don’t like that much as he’s not funny or a genuine threat or both and feels like a waste of time. Thankfully he’s not the focus and Gantu is instead partnered with 625, my faviorite Lilo and Stitch character. 625, as the name suggests, is stitch’s immediate prototype.. but unlike Stitch is too lazy and peaceful to be a real threat and isn’t even really a villian despite being on Gantu’s side. He’s busy making samwitches, his calling to the point when he gets a name in the finale movie it’s naturally Ruben, and snarking at gantu. He’s sadly not in this one but hopefully it’s JUST this one. 

As you can tell I liked this show a LOT at the time. I haven’t watched it since, mostly because disney scarely replayed it after it’s run, but it was vibrant, fun and intresting and a nicely laidback and creative take. The fact I came into the franchise with the comics and thus 625, who was introduced there in fact, and had a hunger to know more about the other experiments certainly helped. It was great fun. 

But while I grew up with the show and the four shows it teamed up with, i’ve never seen these episodes before these reviews. I wondered why for years as I caught the tail end of the kim possible one and saw images ocasionally, but never saw them. 

Turns out it’s because in general Season 2 got screwed over. While Season 1 was pushed out the door fast and aired at a rapid pace Season 2.. was portioned out over several years, and the Recess crossover one, the last one aired and the last one i’ll be covering never even got to Disney channel, only airing on ABC kids, DIsney’s saturday morning block at the time I rarely watched. I did watch it’s predecessor one saturday morning though. Good stuff. 

Since I couldn’t find any making of stuff for why these episodes happened, my best guess is DIsney wanted some cross promotion, and the shows used were chosen because they were the most popular at the time and honestly all 4 represent some of disney’s best, with Recess being in heavy reruns at the time, hence i’ts conclusion despite the show being finished before Lilo And Stitch the movie came out, let alone the series. 

So yeah i’m taking this ride for the first time.. but I was happy to. While Kev pays for a lot of my work, I still have to accept the idea.. and this was a great one. It allows me to cover 5 amazing series and gage how much people would want to see reviews of said series on this blog in one fell swoop.

So to kick us off we have American Dragon: Jake Long, a series I waited forever to come to Disney + as I loved it at the time, badly need to rewatch it (Been busy ), and find it genuinely great: It’s a great teen superhero story about the magical protector of new york, with a charming lead, a great setting and horrifcally great villians in the violently racist magic creature hunting huntsclan.. and their top agent who happens to be jake’s love intrest Rose. It’s really excellent and i’m glad it’s now widely avaliable for all to see. I will say ahead that all four shows in this crossover arc are excellent, and were fine choices for this. 

So what happens when an action comedy about a hip hop teenage dragon meets a slice of life show about aliens? Find out under the cut. 

So we open at a fancy hotel where Lilo’s bringing lunch to her sister Nani when she runs into.. Keoni Jameson. 

The second I remembered this kid all the hate just came flooding back, coursing through my veigns. Just pure liquid hatred for this little perosnalitiless little punk. Keoni is Lilo’s crush and local “stupid white audience stand in”. He has no real personality other than “generic cool kid” and “likes skating”, and just sucks the air out of the room anytime he’s in an episode. Keoni is part of a recurring problem in cartoons across the ages, one that’s slowly going away: the bland love intrest. Intorducing a character whose only traits are being cool for the lead to fawn over with usually no intent of either getting the two togehter or just ending it. IT’s annoying, it was in a good chunk of my childhood, I wish it’d stop. I cannot tell you how many shows used this trope. There were exceptions, American Dragon Jake Long actually used it well by not only making Rose a fleshed out character..  but making her jake’s nemisis in their other lives, and thus making things increidbly difficult on both once the truth comes out, with Jake grappling with if he can trust her or not and Rose grappling with the slow relization eveyrthing she was taught her whole life was wrong.

And again I have seen GOOD storylines using this as a tool: Dipper and Wendy ended with her having been aware teh whole time, but simply not knowing how to let him down given the age gap, and Regular Show rebounded the best from it: it turned the stop and start relatoinshpi of Mordecai and Margret’s relationship into a character flaw for him, openly explored it.. and ended up having him work past it and actually date her for a bit. Before she moved away, he got an even better love interest, then they destoryed the relationship in the worst way posisble and I wil lbe getting to that at some point. Some point. 

So yeah even at the time it was done better, hindsight haas only made it worse and it made watching the first few minutes tough because I had to keep pasuing because I hate him so damn much. He just adds NOTHING to the show and is a blank yanwing void from which no good came out of and I was terrified he’d be in the rest of the episode. Thankfully while he drives the plot he’s only in this scene.. but it’s still one more scene than both 625 and Pleakly got. yeah both are missing, as is nani. 

I did uncover one fun fact that made things a bit easier though: The crew ALSO hated Keoni. No really. Disney forced the character on them as they wanted an audience surrogate, and this abomination is what popped out. They DID NOT want him here and likely only used him as mcuh as they did because Disney forced it on them. And Disney would NOT learn from this as Star Vs got saddled with Alphonso and Ferguson soley because of network mandate. The two aren’t TERRIBLE characters but they aren’t great and feel as tacked on as they were. And part of this does fall on the crew: you CAN twist a stupid mandate like this to work well: Joe Murray was asked to add “A female character with a hook”, as in some sort of dumb gimmick to Rocko. He used those words, meant to create a superfical girl power cardboard cutout.. and created the wonderful Dr. Hutchenson, a bright cheery doctor, the series best sidecharacter.. and someone with a hook hand. But I won’t go too hard on them: they probably didn’t have as much room to manuver and the fact Keoni was sitll being shoved into episodes in season 2 tells me they likely had a set number of episodes he had to show up. I’m suprised they didn’t demand they have characters ask “Where’s Keonie?” any time he wasn’t in an episode. He was unecessary and it comes across with a massive chunk of unforutnate implications: that they didn’t think a series with a mostly hawaiann cast would work, that they wanted at least one other “nice” white character to offset myrtle instead of having the only major white character be a bully and antagonist, and that they thought tehir mostly white audience coudln’t enjoy a series without a white character, which as someone who was in the target demo at the time, I call bullshit on. As I said I hated him then, I hate him now and his involvement is the worst aspect of this episode. 

So after Lilo fawns over him for a bit we find out this chonk of wood’s purpose in the episode: to set up the plot. There’s a massive Skate Competition coming to town with the prize being a really cool skateboard.  This plot point itself.. I don’t mind. Jake is a skater, it’s part of his character and one of the things he loves doing in what minsicule spare time he has. And while it was a common trope at the time having a character skateboard really dosen’t harm most works. We’ve gotten great characters like Jake, Jackie Lynn Thomas, Branwen and Ronnie Anne Santiago out of it, and it feels like natural parts of the character, and frankly An Extremley Goofy Movie wouldn’t be NEARLY as awesome without having skateboarding bizzarley attached to the plot via the college x-games. Granted somtimes you get Rocket Power out of the deal but that’s the price you pay for the good stuff. I only regret it’s involved because Keoni has to be there and I had to pause multiple times to get through his scene. He’s just a sampler platter of terrible decisions made in 2000′s cartoons and he irritates me more than this guy. 

And anyone whose read my Loud House reviews can tell you that is a high bar to clear. 

So naturally Lilo wants to enter the Hawiann X-Games to get the board for Keoni. Though I will give the writers credit for having Stitch voice their thoughts and the audiences thoughts by having him take Keoni’s picture and throw it in the garbage. Where he belongs. 

Lilo’s not great at it as they practice.. and said practice naturally ends up waking up a new experiment, 316.. who i’m just going to go ahead and call Morpholomew. Stitch eventually catches him though like many of the experiments he’s not actively malevelolent and is easy enough to get home. 

Jumba gets to his schitck of breaking down what the experiment of the week does: In this case Morpholomew is  a shapeshifter though he has a VERY intresting twist on those powers: while he can naturally morph himself into anything he’s seen or has a picture of, he can do the same to anyone he touches. It dosen’t effect their voices, but otherwise it’s a perfect recreation. 

So Lilo instead of finding him a home right away.. decides to wait until after the compettition because we need him for the plot. 

So at the Skateboard Competittion Lilo tries to enter, but finds she’s too young.. but since she has a picture of Keoni, which is a nice way to use her photo hobby from the movie for plot reasons and thus dosen’t feel like an ass pull. Why Keoni’s not in town to skate is as his dad left because it’d be too crowded.. even though the event is at the resort he owns. 

So while Lilo commits identtity theft, our guest star appears. He’s cool, he’s hot like a frozen son, he’s young and fast he’s the chosen one, people i’m not braggin, i’ts the American Dragon. Jake is here for two reasons: the first is that Grandpa Long got reports of magical creatures out in the open, so naturally they need to look into that. It’s a clever way to get him, along with Grandpa, Fu, Trixie and Spud, over to Hawaii. The Dragon Council would defintely be suspcious hearing about this, and my guess to why they hadn’t sent another dragon over is they simply dont’ have one on the islands. As for why the Huntsclan didn’t get involved in any way, it’s simply too public for them.  With the magical community in new york, they don’t have to worry about exposure because neither side wants it, so neither side can out the other. Here with a bunch of creatures out in the open it runs the risk of the Hunstclan being dragged into the light.. and given the populace dosne’t care about the “magical creatures” alongside them, it would make them look like the monsters they are. 

Spud and Trixie tagging along also makes sense besides “they needed them for the plot”: While they’d obviously want to come to Hawaii, the skate competition is likely Jake’s cover for why he’s there, as well as one for why it’s just him and grandpa going with a couple of his friends so they don’t have to deal with manuvering around jake’s dad. That sad them never TELLING jake’s Dad is it’s own can of worms as it feels cruel, made things harder for jake and there was no real reason not to. At worst he’d want Jake to stop for his own saftey but given ther’es an active threat in  the huntsclan for the first season and a half, NOT helping people would be the right thing and I feel he’s a sensible enough man to understand eventually. 

And it’s stuff like this that already makes this crossover really work for me: they don’t really have to strain to get Jake over there or tell the audience heavily, the blanks fill in themslves. Or I am but that’s because it’s my job and I love doin it. 

So everyone goes off to their corners; Jake to do a few practice runs, Foo Dog to bet on his friend because of course, Trixie and Spud to go to the beach (even though Spud’s terrified of sharks so I question why Trixie needs him for this), and in a delightfully adorable subplot, finds a lady to woo: local fruit stand vendoer and crankly old lady Mrs. Hasagawa. 

I am here for this subplot: While Grandpa not focusing on the mission is weird for him that’s the entire point.. and their just really cute together. He’s smitten with her entirely because he sees her chewing out one of the people running the contest for making her sign too small. And he performs one hell of a romantic gesture by, while everyone’s back is turned, using his dragon fire to make an add for her on the skate ramp itself, and they have a lovely montage of their time together.. which also weirdly includes grandpa using his dragon fire on stage inf ront of everyone which makes no sense for his charcter but is so cute and does feature david I really don’t care. The writers of Lilo and Stitch probably weren’t deeply familiar with the show and likely just wanted a fun gag. Could be wrong there but it’s cute. He continues to act grossly out of character by trying to avoid going home at the end.. but again I find it simply because he’s in love, they have genuine chemstiry and I like to think they stayed in touch and he retired out there at some point once Jake was old enough to handle things himself. This may not be a ship I expected to support going in but I will die for it going out. 

So back to the main plot, Lilo uses Keoni’s body to imitate him which... she’s only loosely called out on and realizes is bad by the end only because she gets stuck in another body. And that’s not even getting into the fact she BREAKS UP WITH KEONI’S GIRLFRIEND. Yes really.. she just does that to get her out of the way. She comes around and realizes she was wrong and tries to fix it which would be fine.. if hte episode didn’t try to cop it out by revealing “Oh she’s not his girlfriend, she’s just someone who keeps telling people that”. It just feels lazy and dumb and a way to keep Lilo’s crush on Keoni for reasons I DO. NOT. GET. But the identity theft is just brushed aside by everyone: Keoni never finds out, and Jake just brushes it off. The real issue is more her trying to bribe keoni into likng her which while something kids need to learn is not the only thing she did wrong here. It feels like they didn’t think all the implications out here and it hampers the episode

Speaking of which as Gantu captures Jake, he sees him transform into dragon mode and assumes he’s the experiment, Jake’s charactization is pretty shallow.  And why yes it DOES feel weird writing sentences about a character with the same name thank you for asking. I wasn’t expecting a deep character piece or anything: This is a guest spot, the writers here are not the same normal ones for American Dragon. That’s fine. The problem.. is that they clearly did not get Jake. Grandpa being partly out of character is half the joke, Trixie actually gets a really nice moment towards the end, and Spud.. is eh. But out of them Jake just feels like a basic character description: He likes hip hop, he likes skateboards, he calls himself Am Drag despite that sounding like a good name for a drag act but a terrible name to shorten your title, he fights.. that’s it. 

While jake is all of that in the main series, he’s also a kind young man who while sometimes irresponsible does the right thing when the chips are down.  He’s someone weighed down by a responsiblity he didn’t ask for, often makes his life more difficult and often finds himself in trouble because his mother and grandfather won’t bother to tell his dad he’s a dragon. Yes that part still bothers me, and I don’t see why we couldn’t just have a superhero show where both parents know. But regardless this just dosen’t feel like Jake , like they just watched the intro and that was it. Jake feels more like a plot device in his own crossover. 

That being said there is some good stuff: The minute Jake realizes some Sci Fi stuff is going on instead of hte normal magic stuff he tells him “The am drag’s show isn’t about sci fi” a nice meta bit and then breaks out. Meanwhile Lilo takes on his form.. and ends up stuck after badly botching her run again, as Gantu finds the real shapeshifter. 

We get the best stretch of the episode from here though: Lilo awkardly tries to play jake and like jake we get a nice meta nod to how diffrent their show is as she’s worried about his belief in magical creatures.. and is startled out of her charade when Foo Dog talks, a really nice bit especially since it’s tame compared to the weirdness he deals with. Spud and Trixie have questions... only for Jake to show up and his agressive behavior leads to the best bit of the episode: Jake Vs Stitch. The catlyst is understandable: jake has no idea why Lilo’s taken his identity and Sttich is just protecting his best friend from harm. The animation is fluid, the fight is fun and quick and uses both’s powers stellarl. Whle “two heroes get into a misunderstanding and then fight” is a well worn cliche at this point, it’s moments like this that show why: you get to see two heroes who in this case never have interacted before or sense, duke it out, why each is special and it’s fun to watch. 

Lilo breaks it up, and admits to the whole thing.. including the whole give Keani the board stuff. While Jake and Spud, being awkard with girls and a loveable moron don’t see the problem with that Trixie gets a moment to shine. As far as I can remember she really didn’t get much on the show proper so it was a nice suprise to see her mentor lilo her, telling her trying to give someone gifts to love you is not okay, she should just be herself all that good stuff. It’s a nice character stuff and tha’ts the kind of character interaction this episode needed more of. 

With the misunderstandings washed away our heroes team up and storm gantu’s ship leading to another great sequence as Stitch rides on Jake’s back while the two keep him busy and Lilo gets turned back, Trixie complimenting her dress “Thanks I have 10 just like it at home”. It’s such a sweet and genuine moment” They head back out and gantu semeingly grabs morpholmew from where they hide.. only to find out when he gets back it’s spud, our adorable little blob monster transforming Gantu into a bunny and our heroes leaving. How does Gantu get out of being a bunny?

But it’s a nice enough gag. So we end the episode. We get another nice gag as grandpa had himself and his lady transformed to try and avoid going home, and Jake is fine with having lost out on the board what matters is he made a friend. Sadly we did not get a followup in ADJL., but spud does name our experiment, Morpholomew. 

We end on Morph getting his home: a costume shop where he gets paid in fried chicken, he was shown to enjoy it throughtout the episode and changes people into things. It’s a nice little button to the episode and one of the funnest parts of the show was figuring out where the experiment would end up at the end. 

Final Thoughts:

This episode is a really mixed bag. There is some good character interactions, two tremendous fight scens and Trixie gets a chance to shine for once if only for a scene or two, and the clashing genres end up making for some great jokes> The shows do go well together as while Lilo and Stitch is more laid back both have slice of life elements. And hasgawa X Grandpa is just oto cute for words. 

The episode is held back by Jake and Lilo’s lackluster characterizatons: Jake is simply the theme song as a character, which in theory is awesome because that theme song slaps but in practice is pretty lame, and Lilo is selfish and irresponsible even for her in a way that dosen’t feel at all convincing. It drags down what’s otherwise a fun crossover and Morpholomew is truly a unique and wonderful experiment. Still if you like either show it’s worth a watch even if you have to suffer through Keoni for it. It’s worth it.. I just wish it was better and hopefully the next 3 will keep the good parts but take out the bad. Granted this was produced last so I could be wrong, but here’s hoping.  Oh this episode also featured Miranda Cosgrove as the girl who claims to be Keoni’s girlfriend. This is also Keoni’s last episode meaning I do NOT have to worry about accidently running into him. Thank fucking christ. 

Next Time On American Dragon Jake Long: Jake’s dad drags him and his friends on a camping trip and Jake ends up encountering the Jersey Devil. Now all they need is a sexy lady devil cake to lure it out... what it worked for the Cake Boss. And yes that happened, Allison Pregler did an episode on that episode. Check it out. 

Next Time On Lilo and Stitch Crossovers: It’s the family, the family, proud familllyyy as the Prouds take a vacation at Peakly and Jumbas bed but not breakfast and we get some kind of squirrel demon for our experiment of the week. We also get Wizard Kelly appearing...

See you at the next rainbow. 

[shewantedtobeasecretgirl]

12. Granny Out of Control a.k.a. headless chickens, Gene Simmons’ girlfriend and Rapunzel

In the previous chapters: Judy and Stone act after their embarrassing encounter in the shower as if it hadn’t even happened; they implicitly agree on not telling Mike that his one-night stand was just the consequence of Judy’s revenge-fueled rumors about Stone’s sexual preferences. Ed loses his voice so the show has to be canceled, Jeff offers to give guitar lessons to Judy instead in his spare time. Granny buys a metal magazine to learn more about Seattle-based rock bands; the picture of Pearl Jam makes her think the perfect match for Judy isn’t Jeff but Stone. Krisha picks Effie up in the city to tell her that Kelly Curtis and Susan Silver have plans with her as a photographer; she also gives her the list of codenames the band and crew members use at hotels. Effie also joins her when she feeds Stone’s unsociable cat, Red who is incompatible with all girls who try to approach him.

 „I don’t know, man… Are you sure you saw them?”

“Don’t piss me off, Schmitty, of course I’m sure. I know whom and what I saw.” I mumble as I put the flashlight back between my teeth. I can’t believe I’m doing this. Not only makes he me do this stupid act, he even drives me crazy with this weak-minded questioning in the meantime. The guy obviously watches too much TV. Especially detective shows about drug cartels.

“But let’s go over it again. Maybe you were wrong or misunderstood the situation or…”

I sigh, and take the flashlight out of my mouth only to direct the blinding ray of light in his face.

“Okay, but this is the last time. And I’m only willing to tell it again because I have nothing better to do and because technically, I can’t do anything else until we finish this. Open the bag and hold it.”

“Yes sir... so you went having a shower…”

“Not that it matters if I went showering or shitting but yes, I went to the restroom.”

“And you opened the door…” he goes on with the storytelling like a small child who already knows his favorite bedtime story by heart.

“And there were they, standing at the sinks…”

“Stop. Are you sure it was them?”

“Of course I am, I could recognize Judy and Stone from miles!”

“Are you 100 % sure?”

“No, I’m only 99 % sure because there’s a very small chance that they both have doppelgangers right in this town but let’s say I’m very likely to have seen them.” I confirm while I start portioning the green leaves into the plastic bag Schmitty is holding.

“And they were…”

“…basically naked.”

“Basically?” he asks like he’d never heard the word before.

“Yes, basically.”

“How do you mean “basically”?”

“What? I’m fucking around here with sharing my weed with you and you’re already high? Unbelievable…”

“No-no-no, seriously, man, you didn’t say “naked”, you said “basically naked”. Define the difference. It’s important.” he flails fussily.

“Stop shaking the bag, it’s difficult enough to do this only with one hand. So, uh, they weren’t completely naked, they both were wearing a towel…”

“The same towel or…?”

“Hah, interesting idea, but no, they both had their own towel on. But I assume none of them was wearing any underwear…”

“That’d be normal, I mean, after showering… but that’s the weakest point in your theory, them having a shower at the same time… it sounds so unreal.”

“Yeah, I thought the same until I found the only logical reason.”

“What? That you only dreamed the whole thing? Or that it was just an intense trip due to the shrooms Mike gave you?”

“I know it sounds unbelievable but at this point, I’m pretty much convinced they did it on purpose.” I close the bag and throw it at Schmitty who hides it immediately in the inner pocket of his jacket and pats himself on the chest satisfied.

“Thanks. But I can’t follow your thinking, Scully. Why’d they secretly meet in the shower?”

“I don’t want to shock you but… I think they had sex right before. I almost entered but then I glanced them and they were almost naked, both giggling and Judy was groping Stone and… I backed out, I was so surprised, I didn’t even know what to do…”

“But they hate each other.” Schmitty protests shaking his head.

“And? Since when can’t people who hate each other have sex with each other?”

“Man, this is too much to me, Stone has Amber at home, Judy is like a nun, they can’t stand each other so obviously, they have sex??? Bullshit, that’s all I can say. I don’t know what you saw but it definitely couldn’t be a post-coital scene.”

“Look, I don’t understand the exact reasons either but…”

“I’ve always been told that as soon as we start touring, girls will try to drag me in the tour bus all the time but I imagined it somehow different…”

We both freeze at the hearing of Stone’s smug giggling and our surprise only grows when we recognize the voice that belongs to his companion.

“Sorry for ruining your wet rock star dreams but it’s impossible here to talk to someone face-to-face, even the walls have ears in this crew.”

Schmitty and I exchange a meaningful look and to his nod, I turn the flashlight on the lowest level. Walls might not have ears here but this bunk bed curtain we’re hiding behind definitely does. Even four, to be exact.

“So what’s the purpose of this conspired, hyper-secret meeting, Camden? I’m hungry so let’s get over with this as fast as possible!”

Hungry, yeah, I can imagine. So you prefer quickies, Stoney?

“I just wanted to talk about yesterday.”

Schmitty stares at me with popped eyes, even his jaws drop of shock.

“Ha. So you were thinking about it?”

“Yes but not the way you think. I’m not gonna tell you tirades about how much I regretted it or stuff because I didn’t. I only want to ask if you talked to Scully about it?”

Schmitty grabs my forearm, digging his nails into it, his other hand is shaking uncontrollably.

“No and I don’t know why I should force it, I mean it happened, it’s embarrassing enough for both of us so let’s draw a veil over it.”

“It’s embarrassing for both of us? Do you really think I give a damn about that? I mean, okay, I lost control, which doesn’t happens really often to me but who cares, I can handle the consequences. You feeling embarrassed, now that’s the last thing I care about. But have you already thought about the feelings of your friend at least for one single second?”

We both furrow our eyebrows and her words probably found their marks since Stone doesn’t answer, which makes Judy go on with the pep talk.

“Okay, neither of us is going to say a word since we both have selfish interest in keeping it in secret but if Scully shoots his mouth off and he finds out about what happened… just think into it, it’d ruin his self-esteem. I mean, it’s inevitable that it turns out later but the best strategy is discretion. Now, it’d be too fresh for him, let’s wait until he forgets about this little… intermezzo.”

Schmitty covers his still opened mouth in complete horror and even I start feeling uncomfortable now that my intuition is basically confirmed.

“So, would you finally promise to talk to Scully?”

“Dunno… I’ll consider it.”

“Jesus Christ, Gossard, would it hurt not to piss me off once in a lifetime?”

“To answer your question, yes, it would but this time it’s not about you, Miss Fussy. I was just thinking that we should let it slide since after all, it’s not as a big deal as you think.”

You fuck her and then try to ditch her? Come on Stone, I thought you were better than this.

“I mean, you make such a fuss but I don’t think Scully would let it slip, he’s probably already forgotten about the whole scene. And if I came up with it, he’d just start overthinking it; when he knows he has to shut his mouth, he becomes gossipy all the more.”

Ha, thanks Stoney but just for the record, I don’t gossip, I just process things by discussing them with other people, see also at “coping mechanisms”…

“It’s you who’s overthinking it. Just stop protesting and do what I ask you. I even use the word “please”.”

“Fuck, okay, I’ll see what I can do, just leave me finally alone with this. Can I ask you something too?”

“It depends…”

“Could we stay here for ten… fifteen minutes? You know, it’s about my reputation…”

“Fuck off, Gossard!!!”

We both exhale with a deep sigh when we hear them leaving the bus.

“Holy. Shit.”

“Holy. Fucking. Shit. Dude, you were right!”

“Of course I was right, I always am, you just never believe me.“

“But… damn… I didn’t see that coming… Gahhh.” Schmitty facepalms, rubbing his forehead worried.

“I’m surprised, though, I thought they didn’t notice me.”

“Apparently, they did. Jesus, I doubt there’s something serious between them but now that I heard it with my own ears, it all makes sense! They hook up, they are both embarrassed since they are enemies, plus the Amber-factor… and poor Jeff, he has a massive crush on Judy and she knows it, maybe she tries to have two irons in the fire… So she convinced him to keep the fling in secret not to ruin her chances at Jeff… She looks so innocent and now she turns out to be an actual snake… Do you think Karrie knows about it?” he jabbers staring desperately in front of himself.

“Whoa, stop, dude, are you insane? She’s not a bitch, they just made a mistake and she freaked out. Her worrying about Jeff sounded genuine, after all, Stone is no perspective for her, he’s got that… he’s got Amber, whatever she is for him. And I don’t think Karrie knows anything, even if she does, she’ll pretend she doesn’t.”

“But this changes everything! Jeff is our friend too and I don’t want to lie to him.”

“Trust me, he’ll never ask “And tell me Schmitty, have Judy and Stone had sex?”, so you don’t have to.”

“You’re making fun of me but you know too how dangerous information these are so you’d better have a good idea what are we going to do know.”

“I’ll tell you, Schmitty: we’re gonna act casual. Just watch me.”

***

„There’s no chance I could reach that string. Just… no. I don’t have that muscle, I’m done.” I moan as I desperately try to stretch my pinky finger to play the next chord following Jeff’s instructions.

“Hey, relax, just reach a bit further, you’ve almost got it.” he chuckles and makes an insecure move to help me out but he changes his mind in the last moment and pretends he only wanted to scratch his arm. And I pretend not to have noticed it.

“No, it’s impossible, I can’t twist my wrist that much. I don’t have freakishly long fingers like Stone, it’s enough.” I give up and put the guitar aside. We’ve been practicing for like one hour, I played him my still rudimentary sounding song idea, of course without telling him what exactly it was. He improvised a bass line to it on his acoustic bass guitar, his fingers are still running back and forth over the strings despite the fact I stopped playing. When I was a kid, Grandpa would tell me that if you cut the head of a chicken, it can still run around for a few seconds before collapsing, maybe it’s a similar phenomenon. Or maybe it’s like when a freight train hits a car and it pushes the vehicle in front of itself for miles before stopping. Headless chickens and train wrecks, why am I thinking about stuff like these while hanging out with a nice guy?

“I’m sure you can do it if you practice it. Look, my fingers aren’t long either.” he raises his palm. Is he expecting me to measure mine to his by placing them together? Could we rather just draw them around and compare the drawings like small children? Okay, he’s got strong, manly hands, that’s not bad at all. But how can he stuff those thick fingers between the strings? And those jewelries, God, they are terrible. Would he mind if I asked him to put them off?

“No, I can’t. I’m not good at these moves, I’ve already tried to play the violin, it didn’t go well. It went awful.” I protest, rather to overtalk my racing thoughts than to argue with him. I hope he’s not going to ask me about the details, I don’t feel like telling him that story at all.

“Okay, it was you who asked me for help, so…” he shrugs with a half smile, his fingers are still nerve-wrackingly torturing the instrument.

“Actually it was you who offered to help so…”

“Fair enough. I don’t want to force it so… if you want to finish all your future performances by saying “sorry, now comes the chord which is incompatible with my wrist so go the fuck home” – then okay, I don’t care.” he puts down the guitar. I try to decode the expression on his face, is he disappointed or just casual or…?

“How do you do that?” I ask quickly, I can’t bear that look.

“What?”

“This… everything…” I flail helplessly.

“I don’t know… I think I got bored with doing nothing and wanted to try something new and I realized I could do everything instead of nothing.” he leans back with a challenging smirk.

“Geez, you spend too much time with Stone.” I roll my eyes. “I mean… I played you something and you immediately knew what to do with it. Your head is full of ideas and variations, can you hear the harmonies instinctively or…?”

“I don’t know… when I hear a melody, I start hearing the other parts in my head… but sometimes I just mess around and try different things to check if they can work as a song or as an idea that I can use later. I try to keep my ears fresh, I fight against crafting only bass lines in my head, that’s why I pick up the guitar from time to time. You know, if a bass player never leaves his comfort zone, after a while, he’ll tend to operate only with the same five or five notes, it’s like a tunnel vision… or tunnel hearing…” he ends his explanation with a shrug and a lopsided smile, as far as I’ve observed, he does that pretty often.

“That’s amazing… I envy you so much. I’ve been studying and playing music for as long as I can remember but I’ve never felt that… sense of liberty? I practiced my ass off, I learned everything I could, at Juilliard, we basically dissected classical musical pieces into single notes and… I developed some weird perfectionism in the meantime, I know how good music is supposed to be composed but… I myself just can’t do it. I was so busy with studying other people’s works that I couldn’t develop the ability to create something, it’s like… my knowledge paralyzed my creativity… Or that’s just what I keep telling myself because I1m not willing to accept the fact that writing music is a gift you can’t just earn by practicing and learning…”

“Maybe you’re right.” he shrugs again and his reaction somehow hits me hard; I don’t know why, though. “I think I’ve already mentioned you that I took piano lessons but I hated it. I found literally nothing intriguing in it, it was boring, I’ve never been into Beethoven or some shit like that.”

“What?” I frown. I didn’t expect him to like the same things I do but… could he just show at least a little interest in what I like? I even talked about art and skateboarding with him. Okay, he doesn’t owe me anything, we’re not dating and all but if he ever wants something from me… okay, he probably doesn’t, it was obviously just a stupid gossip.

“Hey, I didn’t mean to trash your music, it’s just not for me, I appreciate it but I don’t like it. I’m just a Montanan jerk, did you forget?”

“You’re not a jerk, don’t say that… I’m just… nothing, forget it.”

“No, if you want to say something, don’t swallow it. Did I hurt you?”

“You didn’t… I’ve just spent my entire life playing classical music so I can’t imagine how someone is able not to like it at all.”

“Same here with sports.”

“God, I hate sports!” I exclaim and I immediately begin to laugh realizing I’m not better than him either.

“You see? But speaking of your music studies, there’s one thing I’ve always wanted to ask.”

“No.”

“No what? Am I not allowed to ask the question?”

“No is the answer to the question.”

“But I haven’t even…”

“Trust me, it’s no.”

“If you say so…”

“I’m just kidding. Most people attack me when they learn I’m a musician asking if I’d sing or play something for them, it’s so annoying, it’s like the “grunge question’ of classical musicians…”

“Okay, I get it.” he smiles. “But that’s not what I was about to ask.”

“Thank God. So, I guess you don’t want me to teach you reading sheet music either, because that’s usually the second question, which is usually asked by people with no musical hearing at all...”

“No, it’s more of a… personal one.” he hesitates squinting at me for the final permission.

“Hit me.”

“Why are you here?”

“Here? Like, here and now, with you or…?”

“No, I mean, why are you here, with the band? You graduated from one of the most prestigious music schools on Earth, you could conduct top choirs or whatever… and you’re here, loading our shitty van every single night, smelling sweat and cigarette smoke, spending days in a tour bus with beer drinking ugly dudes… Why? I guess Juilliard graduates can pick whatever job offer they want so...”

“I’m here for the money.” I answer without thinking and it immediately sounds false. Am I? Really? “I came here for the money, I don’t deny it, I had no job and however terrified I was, something told me I had to take this opportunity.”

“But… as a classical musician trained at Juilliard… why this job? I just can’t get it.”

“Well… I’ve known for a very long time that the music of baroque era is in which I’m the most interested. It’s, you know, a passion to me, it’s like punk was to you. And if you want to be really good at it, you have to go to the place where it comes from. Here in the States, you can basically hear nothing that was written before Mozart.”

“Europe?”

“Exactly. So in my senior year, I applied for a scholarship of the music academy in Leipzig.”

“And…?”

“And I won it.”

“So you studied in Europe too?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“Because my father died a few months before I graduated and the small firm he ran died with him… it was a very complicated period so I asked the academy if I could postpone it by one year.”

He’s chewing his lower lip and speaks up only after digesting for a few seconds what he’s just heard.

“And they refused your application?”

“No, they sent me a kind acceptation letter in which they cited their scholarship regulation that said postponement is allowed once. So I moved back to Seattle and started teaching.”

“Oh. I guess something came up one year later too.”

“Well yeah, my sister’s almost dying, that came up.”

He exhales with a deep sigh, I have the feeling he already knew all the details, he just couldn’t do the math. Maybe Karrie told him our family saga. I don’t mind, though, I don’t feel like telling him those stories either…

“Well, that’s a lot… but it also sounds like… you gave up your dreams.”

Now it’s me who can’t do anything else but shrug.

“Maybe… or maybe, it was just a warning from the universe. I’m not religious but I do believe that everything happens with a reason, maybe you can’t find it out ever because it’s something bigger than you or your shitty little life. My family needed me and they still do, or at least they need my two hands I can make money with so… plus, I’ve always been terrified of performing. I have worst stage fright, I doubt I would be able to conduct in the spotlight of the world’s biggest concert halls… anyways… have you ever heard about famous, female conductors?”

“Normally, I’d say you’re a coward and you should follow your dreams but I understand the family factor, of course. And I don’t want to act like a hypocrite either, I could have looked for another graphic design program too when mine was canceled in Missula.”

“But changed your dream instead.”

“Exactly. And maybe that’s what you should do too if universe or God or Buddha or the spirit of Johann Sebastian Bach is trying to message you that you picked the wrong dream.”

“Are you trying to say I should switch my brain to believe loading shitty vans and smelling Scully’s and Schmitty’s stinky feet is my real dream?” I giggle.

“If that’s your way, than go for it, girl!” he plays the overly enthusiastic motivational trainer. We crack up but none of us is laughing heartfelt. His face finds finally rest in a genuine, encouraging smile. “Let’s raise our glasses to the new dreams!”

We both reach our hands to clink our imaginary glasses.

“To the new dreams!”

***

I’ve been on the road with them for days and nothing. Not a single move or a sound that’d confirm we’re following the right traces. And I’m thirsty. So thirsty. But they are so envious, I know they are hiding spare water in their stupid spacesuits or what but they claim they have nothing to share. Sure. I would never drink recycled pee, anyway. But those two moons look pretty cool, the night sky compensates me for every inconvenience I’ve experienced since we started chasing that gross sandworm… everything for the melange…

However important my mission is, it gets interrupted by three quick, impatient knocks on the door.

“You’ve been shitting in there for forty-two minutes! I know you’ve finished and you’re just reading! I have to pee! Get the fuck out of there! Why do you have to do this all the time?”

Maybe because this is the only place where I can have some progress with my current reading undisturbed? I reluctantly close the hardcover volume of Frank Herbert’s Dune and glance lazily at my wristwatch.

“First of all, it’s been only forty minutes. Second, it’s shorter than a blink of an eye, if you measure it in cosmic time. Not even applicable.”

“Okay, I can use astronomical metaphors too. My bladder is a red giant that is about to explode so…”

“I’m coming, I’m coming, geez, urinary incontinence? You should see a urologist.” I remark opening the door. He basically tosses me out of is his way and almost slams it on my nose.

“It’s rather you who should see a doctor, fuck, Stone, what did you eat? Uuugh, I’m dying.” I hear his muffled indignation.

I lie down on my bed and stuff the pillow under my nape. I turn the pages back and forth for a few times until find the place where I was before Mike kicked me out. So, back to those goddamn pervert Fremen fuckers…

I barely manage to read a few lines, when Mike comes back and throws himself on his bed, unmuting the TV that is showing underdressed ladies caressing their own body and telling their erotic fantasies in seductive voice. I clear my throat. No reaction. I do it again, this time longer and louder. Nothing.

“Sorry, am I bothering?” I ask sharply but our guitarist seems to be completely immersed in the curves. “Okay, busted. I know you only went to the toilet to jerk off. You only watch Playboy TV and noname porn channels, you really need to get laid.”

“Done, last night. Remember?” he answers slowly and mindlessly, his eyes are still glued to the screen.

“No, because I wasn’t there, thank God.”

“You’re just envious because you have to practice celibacy, otherwise Amber would cut your balls off.”

I squint at the girls over my book.

“Not that I feel tempted. Jesus, I’m sick of these… udders…”

“Hey, watch your mouth! Those ladies deserve more respect! Especially her!” he points at the blonde, blue-eyed, busty woman on the screen who is dropping her lingerie standing at a bath tub.

“Why, who is she?” I look back at the text in front of me, not that I understand a word of it. Since I receive no answer I turn my head towards Mike only to see he sat up in the meantime and stares at me offended. “What? I have no idea.”

“That’s Shannon Tweed!!!” he flails outraged.

“… who is…?”

“Who is a goddess, Playmate of the Year in 1982 and last but not least, the girlfriend of Gene Simmons!”

“Oh. So she’s old as dirt.” I summarize laconically.

“Stone, what’s wrong with you? What’s wrong with her? What’s wrong with big boobs? I thought you liked them… I mean, you are the guy who’s entitled to do anything with Seattle’s most spectacular pair of bosoms so…”

“Hey, you’re talking about my girlfriend!” I grunt.

“I’m talking about your girlfriend’s tits!”

“Exactly, that’s it! Don’t talk about my girlfriend’s tits! Anyway, how do you know what they look like?”

“Hey, first, I’m only talking about them. It’s called freedom of speech, First Amendment…”

“What the fuck, parts of the Constitution are printed now on beer tags or did I miss something?”

“…second, it is very difficult not to know what they look like, they basically poke your eyes out!”

“Only talking, ‘course.”

“Certain female anatomical features attract men’s eyes, it’s in our genetic code. Don’t even try to make me believe those features had nothing to do with you ending up with her. Wait!” he exclaims with a finger snapping. “Oh, I get it already. You miss her! That’s why you can’t stand the playmates on TV! But you could have said, it’s not a shame…”

“Dr. ‘Cready, expert of constitutional law and anatomy, psychotherapist. I’ve just said I don’t feel tempted…”

“Because those boobs” he points at the screen “are forbidden fruit and remind you of those boobs in Seattle.”

“You’re pointing in the wrong direction, Michael. You’re pointing at boobs in Indiana.”

“Whatever. You miss her, admit it. My boobies are over the ocean, my boobies are over the sea…”

“Stop!”

“My boobies are over the ocean so bring back my boobies to me…”

“Shut the fuck up!”

“BRING BAAACK, BRING BAAACK, BRING BACK MY BOOBIES TO ME, TO MEEEE!”

“I’m only saying that even huge breasts can be boring after a while.” I overshout his off-key singing.

Mike suddenly stops singing and just blinks at me completely frozen.

“You mean… you want to leave Amber?”

“Jesus, what did I do to deserve this?” I bury my face in my hands. “I mean… imagine your favorite food!”

“But that’s… risotto…?”

“Perfect!”

“But risotto doesn’t look like boobs!”

“Jesus, of course not, just imagine it!”

“Okay. Mmmh, it looks delicious. I can even feel its smell.” he moans with closed eyes.

“So you want to eat risotto now, right?”

“Oh yeah, I want it more than anything.”

“And if you could… or had to eat risotto every single day, would you feel the same?”

“Uhm, probably… not.” he opens his eyes.

“And here we are. If you’re in the position where you can play with huge breasts every day, it’s not such a big deal anymore.”

“Hm, makes sense…” he lies back. “But wait!” he sits up quickly again.

“What?”

“In that case, risotto wouldn’t be my favorite food anymore.”

“Yeah, probably…”

Congrats Sherlock. I drop my book on the nightstand, by now, I basically gave up all hope for finishing the chapter I was reading.

“But that means that you prefer small boobs now!”

“I didn’t say that but obviously, smaller tits have their appeal too. And there are girls who would look ridiculous with big breasts.”

My mind begins to wander involuntarily… Yeah, Amber is a bombshell and she drives me crazy whenever she’s around but I’ve always had a thing for more fragile looking girls…

“Who are you thinking about?” Mike asks greedily like a curious puppy.

“Jesus, no one.” I scoff frowning. “I mean, very slim girls look better with… proportionate breasts, you know, like small apples…”

I catch myself cupping my hands, what the hell, am I honking imaginable tits in the air? Okay, I have to talk to Eric to fly Amber here, I’m going to put an end to this, I’m pathetic.

“Say an example!”

What? I don’t know whom I was thinking about, I don’t even know if I was thinking about an existing person, maybe I was just fantasizing about freaky phantom breasts, I couldn’t even see them, it was just a desirable cleavage… and round hips… and shapely thighs…

“I can’t!”

“Just say an example, I don’t know, someone famous who looks like that, or someone who we both know…”

“Kylie Minogue?” I groan in agony. Hopefully I satisfied Mike’s need for a new protagonist for his erotic dreams because he only nods with an appreciative pout.

The ringing of the phone on the bedside between us interrupts our intellectual conversation and we both stare at the device surprised and confused for a few seconds, it’s usually us who call family members and friends, not the other way around. Finally, I decide to pick up.

“It’s Stone.”

“…” No one answers but I can hear some indistinct noises coming from the other end of the line.

“Hello… who’s that? Wo am I talking to?” I ask, and Mike pulls closer to the speaker of the receiver too.

“Ah… excuse me… I must have dialed the wrong number… you’re obviously not the Notre Dame Hunchbach…” an old female voice answers.

What the hell? Is this a prank call? Old people make phone pranks too?

“Who?” I mouth to Mike who mouths “Judy” as a response. Ah, yes. She also chose a codename, not that anyone is interested in her. “You’re talking to Dr. Hugh Jeego, but who am I talking to?”

“Ah, you must be Mr. Gossard. I’m Mrs. Albertson, Judy’s grandma.”

I almost drop the receiver.

“Ugh… uhm… hi, Mrs. Albertson, it’s nice to meet you… I mean, even if not in person but… I guess you wanted to call Judy so…” I make an attempt to finish this awkward intermezzo but she cuts me off.

“Actually, I am glad that I can talk with my Judy’s new colleague, this job is so different in comparison to what she worked earlier, you know, she taught in a school…”

“Yeah, I know…”

“…and now she’s with a rock band, and there are so many rumors about musicians, they drink and do drugs and…”

“We… we don’t drink… that much… not before shows…” I answer and Mike nods approvingly opening a beer can with a loud fizz. “… and we prefer herbs…”

“And mushrooms…” Mike adds.

“Shut up, you ruin everything!” I hiss between my teeth while I cover the microphone with my palm.

“Who was that?”

“It was… it was Mike, our lead guitarist.”

“Ah, Mr. McCready!”

Mike pats his chest proudly.

“Exactly, Mr. McCready…” I flip him the bird.

“I hope my Judy takes care of herself, she tends to become obsessed with work, she even forgets to eat… does she eat properly?”

“I’ve… I’ve seen her eating… so I guess she does…” I try to reassure her but I’m afraid I don’t sound very convincing; after all, the eating habits of Miss Smarty Pants don’t belong to my main interests.

“I wish she ate more, she’s so skinny, isn’t she?”

“She is… I mean, she’s slim. But like… not too slim. Her body is proportionate… I mean, physically, anatomically… her shape is feminine…  and when I say “feminine” I mean she’s not malnourished…” I babble and the small apple tits appear in front of my eyes again, Jesus, I’ve started losing my sanity… For some reason, Mike feels necessary to grab the receiver and yell a gratuitous, cheesy tirade into it.

“My learned colleague is trying to say that she’s a very pretty young lady, with all the respect, of course. She’s the most virtuous girl I know, she behaves well, you can be proud of her, Mrs. Albertson.”

Yes, Mrs. Albertson, exactly, your grandchild behaves well, she brought condoms only enough for a whole fuckin’ football team, safety first… I snatch the receiver out of Mike’s hand and lift it back to my ear but before I could finally get rid of the old lady, the TV catches my attention. While we were listening to the phone call, the harmless playmate fantasies ended and the channel started airing hardcore porn. And either was the petting part very short or it didn’t even exist since the “characters” are pretty much in the middle of things and before we could react anything to avoid the disaster, the actress starts screaming rhythmically.

“What was that noise? Are women with you too?” the old woman inquires suspiciously.

“Turn down the volume, for fuck’s sake!!!” I scream-whisper to Mike.

“No, we’re alone, Mrs. Albertson… we’re just watching TV… Murder She Wrote, someone is being killed!” Mike improvises aggressively poking the remote. “It’s not working…” he groans with a miserable expression.

“Oh, I like that show… which episode? Maybe I turn on the TV to watch it too...”

If you knew… In the meantime the man starts moaning too so the obvious noises grow even louder.

“Oh, the murderer is being killed too!” I try to win some time for Mike, I admit, it wasn’t the most creative lie I’ve ever said…

“I’m saying it’s not working, it must be contact failure or low battery…” he explains beating the remote against his palm at full strength, creating a counterpart to the sound of the bodies snapping against each other on the screen.

“It’s the episode about the slasher.” I maintain the conversation and then address Mike again. “Then use the power button on the TV device or throw it the fuck out of the window, I don’t care, just do something!!!”

“Ah, great idea!” his face lights up and finally, he walks to the TV and turns it off. I swear, I thought for a second he was going to choose the window version, like Keith Moon. I’m sure he was considering it but found the box too heavy.

“It’s over…“ I transmit to Mrs. Albertson.

“It ended with a cliffhanger, what a shame…” Mike remarks and I can barely suppress my snorts.

“I hope for a happy ending…” I grin, Mike presses his pillow against his face, while the poor lady obviously doesn’t even know what to say. After a few seconds of silent, body-shaking laughter, he rearranges his face muscles and takes the receiver away from me.

“It was a pleasure to meet to you, Mrs. Albertson. Judy is a great girl and as far as we know, Effie too, please, hug her for us. I hope we can meet you in person too, when we get back.”

“I admit, I’m relieved, I want you to know I think you are just darling guys. And now, I call the Notre Dame Hunchbach, as I intended to. Goodnight, Mr. Gossard, Mr. McCready.”

“Goodnight, Mrs. Albertson.” we sing in unison.

After I hang up the phone, we stare at each other silently for long moments, before we burst out laughing hysterically.

***

Great. She’s late. She promised she’d be waiting for me at the bar counter at 9 p.m. I’m doing the third circle in this goddamn place and she’s nowhere to be found. Okay, RCKNDY is actually my favorite place and I was happy when Krisha offered to meet me here to unveil Kelly’s and Susan’s “great idea” about which I only know at this moment that it concerns my photos. The cigarette smoke irritates my throat and some unknown band is in the middle of sound check on the stage, the indistinct guitar noises and the female lead singer’s instructions blast at random moments from the speakers causing me mild heart attack every single time and making the crowd members overyell them. Despite the early hour, the place is packed; I can barely struggle through the mass of flannel-wearing guys and girls. Early hour… what am I talking… now that my lifestyle converges on clinical death, both metaphorically and literally, I usually spend my evenings in front of the TV wearing my pajamas. It’s good Krisha picked this day, Mom is working at that new side job again so I didn’t have to make anything up to prevent her from asking suspicious questions.

I visited the restroom to kill some time but it just made me frustrated all the more since I involuntarily became the audience of a bunch of girls, one of them was gushing about the kissing skills of her current crush… gah, I can’t believe I turned into this sour bitch, just because I’ll end up as a spinster, she’s entitled to have some fun…

Almost fifteen minutes have passed by and she still hasn’t shown up yet. I can’t hang out with Victor either, he’s helping with putting the finishing touches at the sound check. I guess I have to wait then. I pick a bar stool and try to decipher the list of beverages on the wall.

“What can I get for you?” a red-haired bartender girl asks. Her question catches me off-guard, since my good old answer “beer” hasn’t been an option for a while and I didn’t have enough time to consider the alternatives. She’s chewing gum with a bored face, reminding me of a ruminant… a hot ruminant.

“Uhm… I… ugh, I haven’t…” I jabber and she reacts with an impatient eyeroll, the countless bracelets are clinking around her wrist as she runs her fingers through her red mane.

“I’d like to have a virgin mojito.” I utter the first thing that comes to mind. She acknowledges my choice with a scornful scoff… Yeah, in case I haven’t felt embarrassed enough yet, she makes obvious that she’s the sexy and cool femme fatale and I’m a straight-edge cripple in a boring, worn, brown jacket.

“Hey, here you are!” someone grabs my shoulders.

“Me? I’ve been waiting for you for like… hours?” I frown while Krisha settles down on the bar stool next to me and places her beer on the counter.

“Gosh, sorry!” her eyes pop as she checks her wristwatch. “I arrived too early and went to the executive office to meet a few friends.” she points at some people talking in front of a door that probably belongs to the office rooms. “That’s Alex, he runs this place, he’s a good friend of Stone, by the way. And that girl next to him works here too, she’s the girlfriend of Regan.”

I observe the girl she’s talking about, she has a nice, bright smile. Fantastic. Krisha knows everyone here… and I have no idea who these people are, and by the way, I’m nobody.

“Regan?” I furrow my eyebrows. “It’s a unique name, I swear I’ve heard it but I can’t place it…”

“He’s also an old friend of mine. And of Stone of course. You might know his name because he played in Malfunkshun with Andy. I mean Andy Wood.”

“Wood.” we say the name at once. “Of course I know his name, I didn’t grow up in a cave…” I explain, maybe in a sharper tone than intended.

“Oookay… “ she raises both hands defensively. “Actually, Regan almost became the drummer of Mother Love Bone, until they replaced him with Greg Gilmore. They made Stone fire him, I was thinking “okay, that’s it, he’s gonna hate us forever” but somehow, he managed to convince him by using logical reasons. If you ever want to fire a drummer, just call him because he���s your guy.” she nods meaningfully and takes a sip of her beer.

“Based on my sister’s opinion, drummers probably leave the band willingly, after having spent some time with him.” I remark dryly. “Thank you.” I reach for my drink and slide the money towards the phlegmatic redhead. I suppress a smile when I see her realizing with disappointed face that I spared the tip. What was she thinking, seriously?

“Oh yes, I forgot your sister and you sew Stone-shaped voodoo dolls in your spare time. By the way, Regan has played with a guy called Shawn for a few years, he’s a huge talent. The dude is a Prince-freak, which is somehow odd in a city where you can’t make a single step without stomping on a distortion pedal but he’s an awesome singer. AND they are planning to jam with Stone as soon as he gets back. I can give you the address of their rehearsal room in case you want to assassinate him…”

“No, thanks, I already know where he lives so…”

“Right!” she slaps herself in the forehead.

“Anyway, can I finally learn why we’re here?”

“Soon. We’re waiting for someone… I’m going to introduce you to someone… who has a job offer for you!”

“Wow… let me guess… healthcare branch has discovered me and they want me to be the face of some firm’s dialyzer portfolio?” I squint at her as I loudly slurp my cocktail.

“Damn, you nailed it!” she bangs her fist against the counter. “Anyway, I’m not going to tell you anything until she arrives, you need to be punished for the self-deprecating joke.”

“Spank me…” I mumble but my retort stays unnoticed since Krisha stares in an indefinite direction next to me sending an enthusiastic wave towards someone.

“Look, Jer is here too.” she points at the target of her smile and I follow her gaze only to recognize Jerry Cantrell… he’s wearing black jeans and a black leather jacket with a white tee.

“Wait… didn’t… didn’t you mention… I mean, you dated, didn’t you?” I ask confused, trying to form coherent sentences. It’s not going well.

“Yeah, we did.” she wiggles her eyebrows.

“But exes are supposed to hate each other…” I try not to turn around too obviously, so I remove a non-existing hair from the shoulder part of my jacket. While he’s slowly walking through the crowd, I notice he’s holding hands with a long, brown-haired girl. She has a perfect body and she’s probably completely aware of it since the tight leather pants highlight every curves of her. Sure, a 10/10 chick for a 10/10 guy, that’s how world has always worked… His hair is let down… I catch myself smiling, Dad insisted on calling him Rapunzel…

“It was just a summer fling and we realized after a few dates that we weren’t made for each other. So no one got hurt.” she shrugs. “Anyway, we share the building with the management of Alice in Chains so we knew we would run into each other all the time. The music scene of this city it’s like a big, incestuous family so…”

We both crack up.

“Oh no…” she sighs annoyed, staring over me again. I don’t know what’s going on in her head but it must have to do something with another twenty-eight people I’ve never met. “DON’T TURN AROUND!” she yells at me when I try to check the cause of her reaction.

“Why, what’s…?”

“It’s too late, I guess she’s already noticed us… or hasn’t she? Bow your head…” she leans on the counter, letting her hair cover her face.

“What the fuck?”

“I said bow your head… avoid eye contact… shit, I don’t have the nerves for this right now…”

“Krisha? Oh my god, it’s you, I haven’t seen you for ages!” I hear a powerful female voice from behind my back.

“Oh, hi Amber, it’s nice to see you!” Krisha groans with a painful smile, lifting her head and letting herself be pulled in a half-embrace resigned. I have to bite my lips to prevent myself from giggling since she sends a cross-eyed grimace to me over the girl’s shoulder. So she must be Stone’s Amber.

“Hey, are you here with your little friend?”

And that must be me. I involuntarily straighten up as much as I can but despite the high bar stool, I’m still shorter than her in her heels. I wonder if Red peed into these ones too… Now that I’m checking her out properly, I realize somehow she doesn’t belong here. Mini dress, heels, perfect makeup… That’d be Stone’s type?

“Uhm, this is Effie, she’s the sister of the band’s new monitor engineer…”

“Ah, Julie, you see, I know everything…” she knocks on his temple with her index finger a few times. “I’m Stoney’s girlfriend.” she grabs my hand and shakes it aggressively. I don’t correct her, I just exchange a quick look with Krisha, her eyes confirm that it wouldn’t make sense anyway.

“And… are you going to stay for the gig too?” Krisha nods towards the stage after a few moments of awkward silence.

“Oh, no, I’m going partying with my girls, I just checked in, I wanted to say hi to Alex and ask him for a favor. We’re organizing a grunge-themed fashion show and this place would be a perfect place for it.”

“A what?”

Krisha’s face radiates shock and disgust at the same time.

“You know, this grunge thing is blowing up, the firm is about to launch a collection, you know, flannel shirts, jackets, shorts with leggings, so we’re looking for a grungy place to present it…” she explains with huge hand moves. As she begins to explain the details of her brilliant idea, I get immediately distracted. Not only because my mind is desperately trying to ignore this nonsense but because I spot Leather Pants Chick at the same sport were Alex and his colleague were standing a few minutes ago. Only a few seconds pass by until her partner arrives too, he immediately pulls her closer by her hips as he leans against the wall… they engage into a make-out session without hesitation. Jerry digs his fingers into her hair and as things are getting more intense, his hands slowly wander along her back until they reach and firmly grab their destination…

I swear it wasn’t so hot in here when I arrived, I can feel my face is burning, I’m sweating like I was in hell… Yeah, being forced to watch a hot guy smooching with a girl who isn’t you but in exchange, is much prettier than you, that’s how I imagine the first circle of hell. I can barely peel myself out of my jacket, my elbow gets stuck when Amber grabs its sleeve. I’m still a little dazed-off and stare at her expressionlessly while I’m trying to pick up the threads of conversation.

“...exactly like this one, thrift clothes are so trendy now, where did you get this one?”

She shakes the sleeve of my jacket impatiently, making me realize that’s what she’s talking about. Should I tell her the truth? That it’s not from a thrift shop, that it’s original, that Judy and I pooled the money we earned at our summer jobs together and made an agreement about taking turns on wearing it six years ago?

“I can’t… can’t remember…” I manage an effortless answer.

“You have a great taste, we three should do a thrift store tour together.” she rants on.

“Totally.” Krisha tries to seem enthusiastic but she rather reminds me of a snarling serial killer.

“Okay, I have to go, oh my god, I’m late and I haven’t even talked to Alex. We could hang out in the city next week, call me, Krish! And bring your new friend too!” she winks at me. “See you, later girls!” she finally leaves us alone, the quick tapping of heels echoes in my head even after she has disappeared behind the office door. Krisha grabs her glass and drinks its content for one sip.

“Ah, I feel much better now.” she sighs. “I’m afraid my phone is about to die. I may not be able to make phone calls for a while.”

I snort into my drink.

“I must say, she’s not the girl I’d imagine as Stone’s girlfriend.”

“Trust me, she’s not the girl whom anyone would imagine as his girlfriend. But seeing them together is always like a free circus ticket, it’s pretty funny, especially when you have coke and popcorn too.”

“Sooo… where’s the mysterious person who we’re waiting for?” I look around, although I have no clue what physical characteristics I should look for, I don’t even know if we’re talking about a man or a woman. As my gaze slowly wanders around the room, I admit to myself unwillingly, that I exactly know what I’m looking for. Long, blonde hair, black leather jacket and a white shirt. The realization makes me blush, I feel like in those good old high school days, trying to casually encounter my current crush who doesn’t even know I exist. Why am I like this all the time? Why? I’m such an idiot…

“Okay, I check Alex’s office, maybe we misunderstood each other and she went in without me noticing her. And I’m sure Alex needs some spiritual support too, the recovery will be tough for him. Do you wanna come?”

“No, I… I’d rather wait here.” I answer quickly, flushing, I’m stupid, stupid, stupid… “So it’s a she?” I shout after Krisha but she just waves me off laughing.

So… what was I thinking? I could have join her and meet her cool friends but I chose to drink here alone, not that I don’t feel lonely enough. And I ran out of drink in the meantime too… I want to procrastinate the next round until the other, friendlier bartender shows up again but unfortunately, the red-haired demon spots my empty glass and elbows on the counter opposite me with a challenging, patronizing smile.

“May I bring you a next lemonade?”

I’m about to snap back but a pleasant male voice over my head makes me change my mind.

“One more of this, whatever it is. And the lady is my guest.”

[elsanna-shenanigans]

April Contest Submission #30: Break Me Off

Words: ca. 3,000 Setting: mAU Lemon: no CW: none

“Can I try yours?”

Elsa’s head snapped up from the book she was reading to look to her left. Her baby sister was looking expectantly, her small hand outstretched and waiting expectantly, fingers wiggling in a grabby motion.

“Sure,” she answered with a smile, and passed her barely started dark chocolate KitKat on to Anna. “I don’t think you’ll like it though.”

Anna ignored that statement and immediately put the candy bar in her ‘some teeth missing transition period’ mouth, and bit off a sizable chunk. She chewed for a few seconds before her chocolate-covered lips twisted in a grimace, and she threw the KitKat back in Elsa’s lap.

“Ewww,” she said once she finally swallowed the bite (she at least had the decency to not spit it out like she used to a few years ago, something Elsa could bet would drive their father nuts if she did it in the new car), then gave Elsa the dirtiest look ever. “It’s so bitter! Why are you doing this to yourself…”

The last words were said with an overly-dramatic flair as Anna put her hand up to her forehead and pretended to faint like an old-timey movie lady on an ottoman. Which would work much better if she wasn’t stopped by the seat belt.

“It’s not that bitter to me.” Elsa shrugged as she picked up the discarded KitKat and continued to eat it as if nothing ever mattered. “You just still have a baby palate,” she said around a mouthful.

Anna blew her a raspberry, and her gaze dropped to Elsa’s book. “Whatcha reading anyway?”

Elsa swallowed the KitKat. “Harry Potter.” She flipped the cover to show it to Anna, who immediately started tracing and mouthing the letters of the title. “The fifth part comes out next week, so I wanted to re-read it before then.”

“Can you read it to me?”

“Later,” she lowered her voice and glanced in the rear-view mirror at their father’s concentrated face. It wasn’t the best idea to read–and have Anna interrupt with her loud comments–while he was driving. “When we’re settled at the hotel, I’ll read some to you.”

+++

“Hey,” Anna whispered, leaning over the wide armrest so she could reach Elsa’s ear. “You wanna try a bite of mine?”

She offered her the obnoxiously white KitKat, and Elsa immediately took it, as if its glow-in-the-dark properties could be seen by the row behind them. Without thinking much, she chomped down on the half-eaten candy bar. The overwhelming sweetness exploded in her mouth and seemed to coat her tongue with a thick, fatty film.

“You like it?” Anna whispered again, absolutely disinterested in the screen, her eyes locked square on Elsa’s face. “It’s kinda sweet, but I think I dig the white chocolate.”

Fighting through the nausea, Elsa finally managed to push the saccharine mush down her throat. “It’s absolutely disgusting,” she whispered back, then chuckled at Anna’s betrayed face. “I can see why you’d like it.”

Anna opened her mouth to say something (presumably snarky, she was hitting that age) in return, but an angry shhh came up from behind them. Elsa glanced at the people sitting in the back row and mouthed a sorry.

She turned back to the screen and tried to catch up on what she’d missed from the movie. So far The Goblet of Fire was proving to be worse than the previous parts, but she still wanted to know how they managed to work out the lake task of the Triwizard–

When Anna opened her mouth again just a few seconds later, Elsa stuck the white chocolate KitKat in it.

+++

“Hey, tradition!” Anna screamed suddenly as Elsa unwrapped her finals-study-motivation KitKat, almost making her drop it. “Lemme try!”

Elsa blinked. This was just the dark chocolate variety, one that she was sure she’d already let Anna try at some point in her life.

“You already–” But before she could finish, Anna’s shark jaws locked around the still barely unwrapped candy bar in Elsa’s hand with a loud crunch.

She munched for a moment, a thoughtful look on her face as she was considering the flavor. It quickly gave way to a disgusted scowl.

“Ew,” she said with a fake gag. “It’s as bad as I remembered.”

So Elsa did let her try it before. She rolled her eyes and half-heartedly swatted Anna away.

With a devious snicker and a hurried good luck with the exam!, Anna skipped out of the room and left her alone to study.

Elsa shook her head and finally returned her attention to her long-awaited snack award.

For some reason, the sight of Anna’s glitter lip gloss on the dark chocolate made her stomach twist.

+++

KitKats turned out to be the best way to go through her finals that year, and the next semester, and the next next semester, putting in the required fuel, feeling of accomplishment and the calories missing from not having time to eat proper meals.

It was also one of her little pleasures to find and test new flavors, especially those not available locally. It was Anna’s little pleasure to never say she wanted to order some for herself, and instead take bites off of Elsa’s, ‘just in case I don’t like it and don’t wanna finish!’

And over time it was one of Elsa’s little pleasures to look at the print of Anna’s lips on the chocolate and tenderly place hers on top to match the shape.

That little pleasure turned into a major curse when she realized she was daydreaming about placing her lips on Anna’s directly.

From then on, she would only buy the 4 finger breakable Kits.

+++

“I don’t really like this one,” Anna said around a mouthful of the Ruby cocoa KitKat. “It looks super cute, but it just tastes kinda waxy.”

Elsa shrugged. “Honestly, it’s just like the regular, but pink.”

“No, it’s different.” There was no point arguing with Anna on that. While Elsa preferred to try out new flavors, Anna has always been a hardcore true fan and real connoisseur of the regular Kit, so all she could do was to believe the expert. The currently pouting, cutely irritated expert. “Do you wanna finish mine?”

Elsa’s blood froze.

The whole point of the 4 finger Kits (which she personally considered inferior as the ratio of chocolate to wafer was just not quite on par with the single stick) was to not kiss Anna by proxy. Is what she came to call it.

But Anna was holding out the pink KitKat with a darker pink lip gloss outline in her direction, looking at her expectantly.

“N-no, I’m fine,” she answered a little too quickly and in a little too nervous of a voice. “I don’t really like it either,” she lied.

Anna’s brows furrowed. “I thought you said it tastes like the regular to you.”

Elsa could feel herself sweat. Damn, the stupid act of sharing a KitKat, something they’ve done since they were little kids was making her sweat.

Probably precisely because they’ve been doing this since they were little kids. Growing up together. Being sisters. Who should not want to kiss each other, yet there Elsa was, looking away from Anna’s perfect cupid bow glossy lips like a teenager (which she was definitely not anymore, on the final stretch to obtaining her bachelor degree) in love.

Her own lower lip felt numb from biting down on it. Fuck, she was in love.

“Yeah, but you’re right,” she said, mouth dry. She was in love and she was just now realizing this because of a stupid Ruby KitKat. “It is waxy.” Stupidly good Ruby KitKat that she was going to deny herself because her sister’s lips touched it and she would burn in hell if hers did too. “Just toss it out.”

Anna’s face looked like she just told her she actually was planning to vote on Trump for the pure fun of it, but she didn’t say anything.

+++

“Hey, I’m just about to head out– oh is that a new one?”

Elsa almost dropped the half eaten candy bar on the floor. She was not expecting Anna to come in her room any time soon, and like the true disgusting goblin she was, she decided to partake in her secret stash of imported KitKats.

Her dirty little secret stash of single stick KitKats that she couldn’t find in 4 finger format, and thus could not ever, ever let Anna know about because even if she ordered two pieces of each kind Anna would refuse to try an entire bar on her own.

‘I mean, what’s the fun in that? Half of the joy of KitKats is sharing!’

Not really seeing any way out of that, Elsa admitted defeat. “…Yes.”

“Oh, cool!” Anna bounced over excitedly to drop down on the bed next to her. “Oooh, white chocolate and peach? So fancy! Is it from Japan? It looks about the size of the Japanese ones I saw online…”

Her pure, genuine excitement only made Elsa feel even worse about hiding in her room like Gollum with his ring. Then, right as she was reaching for Elsa’s KitKat, Anna’s face and hand suddenly dropped.

“Wait…”

Elsa gulped.

“…you… you were going to eat it without me, weren’t you?”

She focused on the pattern of her carpet.

“Oh my god, Elsa! You stinker!” Anna sounded full-on betrayed, and Elsa could honestly not blame her for that. “I thought KitKats were our thing!”

Elsa blushed, for many different reasons. “I-it’s not like that,” she started explaining herself, fully aware of how pathetic she sounded. “It’s just cause you never want a full KitKat of a new flavor and I couldn’t find them in the sharing format–”

“So? I didn’t know we were suddenly only allowed to share the break-apart ones.”

Elsa sighed. Right, to Anna it didn’t make any sense, because Anna was a normal person who didn’t fantasize about kissing her sister. Or flustered about indirectly kissing her. “I-it’s just easier to portion…”

“I’m pretty good at portioning a bite, thank you very much.” She still sounded a little miffed, but she did smile towards the end– right before her eyes turned very round and glistening. “Did you eat many without me?”

Holy shit, she was looking like the pleading emoji and Elsa was at her wit’s end. “No!” she denied quickly and truthfully. “I-I bought more, but this was the first one I was going to try…”

Anna crossed her arms.

“Aaand now that you know about it I guess there’s no point hiding,” Elsa continued sheepishly. “I’ll uh– I’ll go to the kitchen and cut you off a piece.”

She stood up quickly, holding the KitKat like a relay sprinter holds the baton, clinging on for dear life with the prospect of glory and escaping the rivals, or in this case escaping her sister before she could–

“Wait.” Anna’s hand was on her wrist and Elsa almost yelped. The rivals outran her and the finish line was nowhere in sight as she fell on her knees, defeated, and only metaphorically speaking as in real life she was just standing stiff in her place. “What? Just let me take a bite, it’s easier–”

“N-no,” she interrupted quickly, trying to pry the wrist away from Anna’s surprisingly strong grip. “Cause, uh– umm, that way I can make sure to cut in the middle and give you a fair share.”

Yes, that was a splendid save.

“I just want a bite, I’m not sure if I would like a whole half.” And a gloriously crushing response from the opponent. “Just let me–”

Her peach pink lip gloss would look amazingly fitting on the white chocolate and peach KitKat. Or on Elsa’s lips. Applied with her lips. On her lips. Kissing–

“No!” She yanked her hand away. Anna’s eyebrows shot up in shock, and Elsa realized she yelled that very loudly, even though she was mostly responding to her own dirty little secret thoughts. “I mean– I don’t wanna…”

What? What was she supposed to say to get out of this? There was literally no logical reason she could not be wanting to simply share the KitKat like they used to for so many years, aside from the obvious plague that was currently rotting her mind, but she could not tell Anna that–

“…are you disgusted by me?”

She said it in such a small voice, looking up from where she was sitting on Elsa’s bed with hands folded neatly in her lap, her big teal eyes glazed with a sheet of tears and Elsa’s heart broke into a thousand shards.

“Oh god, no!” Her hands moved on their own to grab Anna and pull her into a hug, but she stopped herself on the way, now with her hands awkwardly hovering at Anna’s eye level. “Why… no, I’m so sorry you would even think that, I–”

“Then what is it, Elsa?”

Fuck. Fuckity fuck shit fuck what was she–

“Just say it,” she damn near sobbed. “Out loud.”

“Your lip gloss,” she said in a flat voice, grasping at straws to not lie, but also not tell the truths. “It stays on the KitKat when you bite it.”

Anna’s eyes went wider. “You don’t like my lip gloss?”

Why the fuck was she sounding this hurt by the idea? “No, I–”

“I thought you said it looks good…”

“It does!” She could clearly feel herself getting flustered. “I like it, and it looks very good on your li– on you. Really good.” God, was she sounding as borderline creepy to Anna as she did to herself? “B-but it leaves a– a stencil of your lips on the…”

She trailed off, not really sure how to get out of the corner she just talked herself into.

Anna gave her a puzzled look. “So you don’t like… my lips?”

“No!” Jesus why was communication so difficult and why was the room so hot and why was Anna looking at her like this? “I love them. Like! I like them. I like. Them. Your lips. Like them.”

If Anna got up and called the ambulance right now because ‘my sister is having a stroke!’ Elsa would find it completely justified.

“Ookay…” Anna said slowly, not reaching for the phone, and instead continuing to try to read Elsa’s face (but what she could potentially read was that inside Elsa’s head there was a wind-up monkey puppet playing the cymbal, and nothing much beside that.) “So what is the problem?”

Elsa mumbled in response.

“I’m sorry?”

“It feels like we’re kissing,” she said weakly, absolutely giving up on her hopes and dreams in that instance. “When I bite the KitKat.”

Anna blinked at her. “That’s it?”

Elsa nodded.

“I mean, that’s all?”

It was Elsa’s turn to wear a confused expression.

“You’ve been getting only breakable KitKats for a year just so you could share with me without feeling like this?”

Elsa nodded again, albeit cautiously. She had no idea where Anna was going with this.

“And denying yourself flavors that don’t exist in that format so that I wouldn’t feel left out?”

Nod again.

“I’m sorry.”

Record scratch. “What? No, why are you sorry?”

“Because you were feeling uncomfortable because of me?”

“No, I– I didn’t want you to feel uncomfortable knowing I want to kiss you.”

Wait, no– oh no no no no holy fuck no backtrack backtrack backtrack–

Her stomach sunk. There was no way to backtrack.

Red alert, escape the room.

Anna caught her hips before she could dash for the door and spun her around to face her again, this time meeting her at eye level. She reached for Elsa’s hand–which was currently hanging limply at her side, and still holding the goddamned half-eaten KitKat–and clasped it gently in hers, then brought it up until it was between them, right in front of Elsa’s mouth.

The scent of peach and white chocolate hit her before her brain registered the development.

“Bite,” Anna said softly, but with demand. “And hold.”

Elsa’s mouth opened on its own as her sister pushed the KitKat in, and obediently she clamped her teeth down on it–just enough to break the chocolate layer, but not all the way through.

She stood there patiently with the candy bar sticking out of her mouth, watching Anna remove the remaining wrapper as if her body was not hers to steer, as if she was just a passive observer as her mind was struggling to pick the pieces of what her sister was doing without going for what she really wanted Anna to be doing in her heart of hearts.

Once the wrapper was off, Anna climbed on her tiptoes and– Elsa could swear she saw her smirk right before the free end of the KitKat disappeared in Anna’s mouth, slowly, until their lips finally touched.

Their lips touched.

She was kissing her sister.

She was kissing her sister around a fucking candy bar.

And in just a few heartbeats she heard the tell-tale, trademark KitKat crunch as Anna’s teeth broke through the wafer, and with a final brush of her glossed lips she was off, leaving behind only a chunk of white chocolate and peach mousse in Elsa’s numb, speechless mouth.

“It looks good on you too,” Anna said with her mouth still full and gaze dashing between Elsa’s lips and eyes. “Bet it would be even better without the melted chocolate.” She swallowed down her bite, and let out a satisfied hum. “Mm, I like this one. Funny how the flavors work together so well… chew, Elsa.”

She brought her hand up to Elsa’s chin and pressed on it, and Elsa mechanically picked up the chewing motion, earning a delighted smile from her sister.

Anna glanced down at her watch. “Well, I gotta go. The sea and beach won’t run away, but my friends just might if I keep them waiting any longer.” She placed a soft, sticky kiss on Elsa’s boiling hot cheek. “But I’m really looking forward to trying the other flavors you got.”

With a wink, she pushed past her and out the door, leaving Elsa to deal with the lump (of KitKat) in her throat.

[mediaevalmusereads]

A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby. By Vanessa Riley. New York: Zebra, 2020.

Rating: 2/5 stars

Genre: historical romance

Part of a Series? Yes, Rogues and Remarkable Women #1

Summary:   When headstrong West Indian heiress Patience Jordan questioned her English husband's mysterious suicide, she lost everything: her newborn son, Lionel, her fortune—and her freedom. Falsely imprisoned, she risks her life to be near her child—until The Widow's Grace gets her hired as her own son’s nanny. But working for his unsuspecting new guardian, Busick Strathmore, Duke of Repington, has perils of its own. Especially when Patience discovers his military strictness belies an ex-rake of unswerving honor—and unexpected passion . . . A wounded military hero, Busick is determined to resolve his dead cousin’s dangerous financial dealings for Lionel’s sake. But his investigation is a minor skirmish compared to dealing with the forthright, courageous, and alluring Patience. Somehow, she's breaking his rules, and sweeping past his defenses. Soon, between formidable enemies and obstacles, they form a fragile trust—but will it be enough to save the future they long to dare together?

***Full review under the cut.***

Content Warnings: racism, blood, violence, allusions to suicide, imprisonment, and non-voluntary institutionalization

Overview: I first learned of Vanessa Riley while reading an article about women of color and historical romance, so when I finished a rather confusing (and depressing?) read, I decided to see which of Riley’s books my library had on offer. This novel originally caught my eye because of the marketing: a multi-cultural regency romance? Seems like just the thing I’m looking for! Unfortunately, the writing style just didn’t gel with me, so for that reason, I can’t give this book more than 2 stars.

Writing: While I can respect the easy-to-digest prose style of most romances, Riley’s style didn’t work for me for a number of reasons. First, I found the use of the first person jarring. If you know me, then you’ll know that first person narration feels unnatural to me (unless the book is self-conscious about the way perspective is being used). But I also found the first person strange because Riley’s book alternates between Patience’s POV (which is in first person) and Busick’s POV (which is in third person). While the shift in POV was a nice delineation between the two characters’ perspectives, I ultimately had some trouble losing myself in the story because there was such a marked shift. I found myself preferring Busick’s chapters over Patience’s because I found it easier to let the prose just kind of wash over me.

Riley’s prose style is also a bit too reliant on dialogue and rhetorical questions for my taste. A large portion of this book involves characters talking to one another, which would be fine except I felt like Riley used dialogue in order to tell readers things rather than show them. The dialogue would repeat certain ideas or events over and over again, and the flow of the conversations didn’t feel natural, as topics would change abruptly or characters would speak in ways that didn’t feel genuine. I did like moments when Patience and Busick would have a little tit-for-tat; Riley is strongest when writing Patience's witty comebacks to Busick’s insistence on military order.

But because there was so much dialogue, there wasn’t much room for anything else, and I felt like Riley wasn’t quite sure of how to create suspense without dialogue. As a result, there are a lot of rhetorical questions; “Was she a spy?” “Did he have some secret in his past?” and the like. I feel like these types of questions popped up every other page, and part of the reason they were relied on so much may have been because Riley had a tendency to tell rather than show. Riley would point blank tell us what her characters were thinking or feeling, as well as what actions they were taking, and as a result, the narrative (and characters) felt flat.

Structurally, I also think the book could have used some tweaking. Early on, I felt like Riley was using a lot of expositional dialogue to dump a lot of info on the reader, and Patience’s internal monologue would make allusions to characters or events in ways that felt awkward and/or not relevant in the moment. I even had some trouble determining what exactly was going on at first because the book starts out with an exciting scene, and the circumstances that created that scene were unclear (unless you read the book summary first). To help with this, it would have been beneficial to get some kind of prologue, and if Riley didn’t want a prologue that depicts Patience being separated from her son or being victimized by the antagonist, then maybe we can see her escaping Bedlam or joining the Widow’s Grace - anything to give the book the space to establish a setting.

Plot: This book primarily follows our heroine, Patience Jordan, as she tries to regain custody of her son, Lionel. Following her husband, Colin’s, suicide, his uncle Markham seized control of their estate at Hamlin and claimed guardianship over Lionel. The reason? To gain access to Patience’s father’s money. To cover up the truth, Markham had Patience committed to Bedlam, so now, Patience must find evidence that Markham fabricated this insidious plot - evidence that she thinks is contained in some legal documents hidden within the family home.

However, Lionel’s legal guardian is not Markham, but Busick Strathmore, Colin’s cousin. Wanting to do right by his family, Busick seizes control of Hamlin and establishes himself as Lionel’s adoptive father. Not sure if Busick can be trusted, Patience gets herself hired as a wet nurse for Lionel, and uses her knowledge of the house to look for the legal documents that will prove Markham’s guilt, thus preventing her from being separated from Lionel again.

On paper, this plot looked really intriguing, but in practice, not a whole lot happened. Most of our time is spent reading the dialogue between Patience and various other characters, and we don’t actually get to see much of her snooping around, risking getting caught, and so on. Events didn’t seem to build on one another, so I mostly felt like I was getting character snapshots rather than an actual narrative.

There’s also something of a side plot where a mysterious “ghost” causes some minor trouble around the house. Personally, I think this plot could have been more centralized; if Riley had gone full Gothic romance (I’m thinking Jane Eyre because Jane gets hired to care for a child and Thornfield is spooky), I think this book would have been a delight. But the existing tone is a little too light, so it didn’t quite achieve the desired effect.

I also think that the whole Widow’s Grace stuff removed a lot of agency from Patience. While I liked that Patience had friends - especially friends in high places that could wield social influence to help her - having an organized, underground band of women was a little much for me. I would have preferred to see Patience concoct plans and discover information on her own, rather than having the Widow’s Grace act as the architect.

Characters: Patience, our heroine, is fairly likeable in that she’s brave, determined, and fiercely loyal to the people she cares about. I really enjoyed following her as she tried to search for her legal papers, outsmart Busick, and bring her companions along for the ride. I also liked that she had a lot of complex emotions surrounding her husband’s death; while the marriage wasn’t happy (and she has a lot of feelings about being treated as an Other), she also feels guilty about potentially contributing to her husband’s depression and wonders what she is going to tell her son about his father. I liked seeing her try to work through all these emotions, all while remaining focused on her goals.

Busick, our hero, is also fairly complex, but my appreciation for his complexity is dampened by some of the cheesiness that surrounds his military outlook on life. Busick is a former soldier who is working through his feelings about being injured in battle. Two years before the story begins, Busick loses his leg and must either use a prosthetic or a wheelchair, and he has a lot of issues with the perceptions surrounding his disability. As a result, he tries to hide the fact that he’s missing a leg; he never uses his wheelchair (except when alone) and plays it off like his leg just isn’t healing right. This kind of internalized ableism could have been really interesting to read about, especially since there was an opportunity for Busick to learn more about his value as something other than a soldier. However, Busick’s desperate desire to be useful to the war effort came off as fairly ridiculous; not only does he bring soldiers into his home and conduct drills in his yard (wouldn’t that be done at a camp or base?) but he tries to put Lionel on a strict military-style schedule and requires people to witness him as he rides a horse around the lawn (to prove his strength?). His past as a notorious rake isn’t really utilized effectively either; while we get allusions to his amorous activities, I didn’t really see how it was relevant. Did the military give him more discipline and now he’s reformed? Does he find himself slipping back into his old ways now that he can no longer fight on the battlefield? How does this situation with Patience and Lionel challenge all that? I think I would have liked to see Busick grow a little more, maybe by having him use his guardianship of Hamlin and Lionel as a way to “prove” that he’s changed from rake to responsible, disciplined adult (and his disability threatens that by making him seem incapable, so he has to deal with that as well). And while there were some hints at those kinds of things, they really weren’t central to his story.

Side characters were fairly enjoyable in that they had sweet relationships with the heroine or hero. I particularly enjoyed the relationship Patience had with Jemina - her fellow inmate at Bedlam who suffers from amnesia. I appreciated that Riley didn’t make Jemina seem “crazy,” but instead, she was a capable woman who demonstrates genuine affection and concern for her friend. I also liked that Busick had a similar support in Gantry, a viscount who is helping Busick with Hamlin (and with self-acceptance?) while also struggling with his own family issues. Lady Shrewsbury, the head of the Widow’s Grace, was interesting for the role she played in using her social power to get Patience into Hamlin, but otherwise, I didn’t really like the idea of the Widow’s Grace (because it removes some agency that could have been given to Patience instead).

Markham, our antagonist, is barely present, so I don’t really have many thoughts on him. While his actions were sneaky and abhorrent, and I appreciated that Riley didn’t use him to showcase a bunch of on-page misery, I also thought he was underutilized.

Romance: I hate to say it, but I think Patience and Busick lacked chemistry. I couldn’t quite see how each character enriched each other’s emotional lives; Patience seemed to like Busick because he was fatherly towards Lionel and because he was kind, while Busick seemed to like Patience because she was pretty and defiant. I wish Riley had done a little more to make them feel made for one another; maybe Patience challenges Busick’s rigid outlook on life and shows him that he has value beyond just being a soldier. Maybe Busick shows Patience that she matters as a person - something that was lacking in her marriage to Colin - or that she doesn’t have to take on all her burdens herself. There were hints of some of these things, but because of the writing style, I thought we were told rather than shown that the two characters had feelings for one another.

I also think the romance lacked heat and longing. While not every romance has to be sexy and steamy, I do think that there should be some element of longing that plays out in how the characters interact physically. One place where Riley actually does this pretty well is when Patience discusses how well she works with Busick while taking care of Lionel at night - the two hand him over to one another and move around the room as if doing a “dance,” and they brush against one another and smell each other’s scent. But other than that, it felt like I was smacked in the face with statements like “I noticed his mouth and wondered what it would be like to kiss it” or “Didn’t you notice? He follows you with his eyes!” I personally like these physical moments to be a little more subtle and for them to build on one another without the author having to spell out what they mean for me.

TL;DR: A Duke, the Lady, and a Baby has an intriguing premise and good characters, but ultimately lacks a strong plot, gripping prose style, or steamy romantic chemistry. Most of what holds this book back is the overuse of dialogue and rhetorical questions to create suspense, as well as the tendency to tell not show. While I would love to rate this book higher, the prose just isn’t there.

[writingwithadinosaur]

“Did It Hurt?” - Oneshot

“Did It Hurt?” - Oneshot

My Masterlist - Here

My Tag List - Here

Lucifer Morningstar x Reader

Word Count: 2,262

Key: Y/N = Your Name, H/C = Your Hair Color, E/C = Your Eye Color

Warnings: Cursing, Talk about violence

Summary: Lucifer finally tells you the truth about his scars.

Author’s Note: I’ve been wanting to do Lucifer fics for awhile, and this idea slowly worked its way out of my brain. It is not beta-read, but I hope you enjoy it! I may already have a few ideas for more stories in this fandom. <3 

If you would like to be tagged in any of my future pieces, check out my tag list above and let me know! And as always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

<3

- DreaSaurusREX

~~~~~~~~

Lucifer had come home from working a case with Detective Decker a few minutes ago. He had dirt all over him and his suit when he came in. Not wanting to know the specifics, you just told him to go shower while you finished up. He nodded, gave you a kiss, and was off. 

While preparing dinner for you and your boyfriend, you had to pinch yourself and make sure that your life was real. You were living in Los Angeles, dating Lucifer Morningstar who despite his reputation, treated you extremely well, and you felt safe. Who would have thought that that would even be a possibility for you?

In the midst of you zoning out, Lucifer had come out in some pajama bottoms and snuck his arms around your waist, hugging you from behind. 

“Hello there, beautiful.” After the initial jump, you lightly smacked his arm before turning around in his arms to face him.

“Well hell-looo there!” You couldn’t help the smirk as you found Lucifer shirtless, which was always a nice surprise. He chuckled as he leaned down to kiss your forehead. He also reached behind you and stuck his finger in the dish you were working on, bringing it to his lips as you yet again smack his arm.

“Hey! Luci!”

“Whatever that is, it is delicious, love.” You couldn’t stay even pretend mad at him for long. Laughing you just shake your head and go back to cooking. 

“Thank you, babe.” He places another kiss to the side of your head. You watch him walk away and make his way to the other side of the counter, grabbing something from the expansive collection of alcohol to go with dinner. While you couldn’t help admiring him, your eyes land on the two large and curved scars on his shoulders, the only scars you’ve ever seen on him.

You had seen the scars on his shoulders before. They were kind of hard to miss. And you were happy that he was comfortable enough around you to not hide them. But you still had no idea how he got them. You knew it was something that he didn’t want to talk about because you had asked him multiple times in the past, but you would be lying if you said that you weren’t curious and a little bit worried.

“You know, one day you are going to tell me the truth about those scars.” Lucifer turned to you with his eyebrow quirked up in a challenging manner.

“How do you know I haven’t already told you the truth?”

“Impossible.” You shake your head with a smile as you take the pan off the stovetop and reach for some plates.

 “Oh really?” Lucifer brought his chosen liquor to his seat on the other side of the counter, pouring himself and you a glass.

“Yes! Because every time I’ve asked, you’ve said something different! And none of those stories seem to be real.”

You finish plating dinner and turn to give Lucifer his portion, expecting to see a smirk or some sort of look that says “Well, I guess you’ll never know.” But instead, you see him looking into his drink, his face showing a mix of worry and uneasiness. Sliding the plate in front of him, you try to break his gaze from the cup. 

“You know I’m still going to love you no matter what happened to cause those, right?” Without looking up, his tone got a bit more serious with a twinge of what sounded like pain.

“Don’t make promises you are unsure of, dear.”

“Then tell me what happened and put my promise to the test.” You reach for your glass and take a sip, loving the taste but not able to relish in it because your worry for Lucifer takes precedence. 

You can see him mulling something over in his head. He eventually just runs his hands over his face and sighs out a shuddered breath. You move around the counter and hop up on it, you get close enough to put your hand on his cheek and make him look at you. It broke your heart to see whatever trauma that those scars left in his eyes.

“Hey. If it makes you this upset, you don’t have to tell me. I want to know, but if it's going to hurt you, I don’t--”

 “I am Lucifer.” His eyes were closed but pointed down towards the counter. The confused chuckled that escaped you was uncontrolled.  

“We’ve been dating for awhile now, I think I know your name pretty well, ba--”

“No.” He took your hand from his cheek and from your lap and held them in both of his hands. “I am Lucifer Morningstar, Bealezbub, Mephistopheles, the prince of darkness, the Devil! I am…” He finally looked you in the eye, “the Devil.”

You sat there next to him, looking into his eyes to see if there were any indications that this was a joke. But you saw that he truly believed that he was the Devil. And surprisingly it made sense to you. Everything about him pointed towards that being true, but you hadn’t seen any sort of proof other than the genuine reactions he is showing right now as he tells you.

“Okay… Um… I’m not saying that I don’t believe you, but--”

“You don’t believe me.” His hands, which are still holding yours, drop slightly as he looks away dejectedly. You squeeze them and make him look at you.

“I’m saying that I need some proof. As much as I love you and I know you wouldn’t lie to me, I am just asking if there is anything you can show me.”

Lucifer’s leg begins to bounce with anxiety as he thinks about his next course of action. He knew that telling you would lead to this, he was just scared of the possible fear and rejection. He truly loved you, which is something he never thought was possible. He didn’t want to lose you. But he had to be honest with you. 

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, focusing on his arm. You watch his face, looking for any sign that this is going to far for him. When he meets your gaze again, his normally dark eyes are now a vicious red color. 

You flinched and you saw that it hurt Lucifer. You didn’t know what you expected, but it definitely wasn’t that. 

His eyes looked down at his arm. Following his gaze, you see that his skin was now more red. His veins looked like they were glowing under his skin. 

“Oh my god!” You couldn’t help the shock as you dropped his hands and covered your gasp. 

You took a moment to look at it as he reached for his glass and took a larger than normal drink. Your body moved faster than your brain as you held out a hand to him. Lucifer was confused, but you slowly reached out more until you were delicately holding his arm. It was warmer than a normal human, but not scalding. He let you move it, watching you look at the different shades of red of his true skin. 

After a few minutes of looking at his arm, your gaze goes back to his eyes. As soon as you make eye contact, he takes a visibly nervous breath in and holds it, trying to figure out what you were thinking. He closed his eyes and quickly made his skin and eye color back to “normal.” 

“Okay. So the stuff that I ignored in church growing up is--”

“Real. Well,” Lucifer tilts his head side to side. “most of it at least.”

Your brain exploded with questions. All of them were out of curiosity. There was no fear or overwhelming nature to any of them. 

“Okay… So the whole heaven and hell thing. That’s real?”

 Lucifer spent the next half hour patiently listening to all of your questions and answering them the best he could while the two of you ate. He got more and more comfortable the more he talked about it and saw that you were accepting them, accepting him.

“So what does all of this have to do with the scars on your back?” Your voice was a bit softer, knowing that this wasn’t going to be the easiest thing for him to answer. Lucifer’s change in demeanor said that you were right. 

“The short version? I had wings. But when I left Hell and came here, I wanted to leave that all behind. So I…” He shifted in his seat, slightly rolling his left shoulder as if he still felt the weight of his wings, “I cut them off.”

You really weren’t sure how to respond. You understood the reasoning behind it, but you had no idea what that felt like. You had no way to relate to it or know how to try and help Lucifer feel better about the situation. All you could do was softly say, “I’m sorry.” Which got a chuckle out of Lucifer.

“Why in the world are you apologizing, dear? It's not like you had any part in it.”

“I know, but I just can’t imagine all of the frustration and sadness that went into a choice so painful.”

Lucifer knew how empathetic you could be, it was one of the reasons you were so appealing to him. You fell silent as you drank the last of your drink, Lucifer turned to completely face you.

“ I will say that you’re not reacting quite like how I thought you would. Usually when people find out about celestial beings being real, they go insane or end up too overwhelmed to handle it. But you. You are very... quiet.” 

Lucifer needed to know how you felt about him and his true self. He was preparing himself for heartbreak, for you to get up, say something along the lines of “this is too much,” and then leave him.

Before he could think more negative thoughts, you spoke up.

“I’m just trying to fully absorb that God and angels and demons are real and that I’m actually in love with the Devil. It may take awhile, bu--”

“So you do still love me?” You meet Lucifer’s eyes. He looks so hopeful and shocked, but still too cautious and nervous to let himself feel the happiness of what you just said. You turn to face him completely now, taking his once red head in yours. 

“Yes. It's going to take a hot minute to really solidify all of this new stuff in my brain. And I’m definitely going to still be surprised if you ever go all demon eyes on me. But yes. I love you, Lucifer Morningstar.”

A very shuddered exhale leaves the now thankful smile on his face. You stand up and close the distance between the two of you, standing between his legs as he sits on the bar stool. He doesn’t wrap his arms around your waist until yours are around his neck. He is gentle with his embrace, burying his head in your neck. You can feel a tear or two hit the sensitive skin by your collar bone. 

You both stay like this for a minute or two. When you pull away a little bit, you take his face in both of your hands and lean in for a gentle kiss. Lucifer pulls you in closer, needed to feel all of this as validation. Letting it sink in that you do truly accept and love him for him.

You’re the one to break away one Lucifer seemed to relax and slowly go back to being his normal self. You sit back down and reach for the bottle on the counter, but Lucifer is already pouring you another drink. Smiling, you take the last bite of food that you have on your plate as a silent laugh leaves your nostrils. Lucifer notices.

“Laughing at my vulnerability now are we?”

“Oh god no! I just thought of one more question.”

“For now.”

“Yes, for now. I’m sure there will be others that pop into my head as time goes on.”

“Alright, what is your question?”

“Did it hurt?” You tried to be serious. Lucifer’s expression changed as if to say “isn’t it obvious?”

“What? When I cut off my wings? Yes! It's as if you were cutting off your arms, but a bit smaller, and on--.”

“No, no-- Not that, although that sounds awful. I meant…” You lean in a bit, Lucifer’s brow raises. “Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” 

You had lost it. Your uncontrollable laughter echoed through the penthouse, and while the noise made Lucifer’s heart happy, he groaned in annoyance at the awful pickup line. He put his head in one hand, pointing the other to the elevator on the other side of the room.

“Get out.”

You knew he didn’t mean it, but you played along and stood up. Before you could get to paces away, a familiar hand grabbed yours and pulled you back towards him. You found your place between his legs, both your hands and his automatically find their familiar places, as if nothing had changed. 

Lucifer pulled you in closer and flashed his red eyes, making you jerk in his grasp. You both laughed and you lightly smacked his shoulder. 

“Rude.” 

“C’mon, love. It's a little funny.” He says through his trademark devilish smile as you both lean in for a kiss, ending the night better than he could have dreamed of.

[girlsgonemildblog]

The Girlies are Pressed - The Bachelor, Season 25, Week 4 Recap

Image from abc.com

The episode begins with Matt still coping with Sarah having left. I’ve been thinking about it for the last week, and Matt begging Sarah to stay even after he knew the situation with her father was actually pretty selfish of him.

We then cut to all the girls sitting around and talking about Sarah, the majority of them talking shit. Victoria says of her, “the trash took itself out,” which prompts Katie to tell her to shut up. She then tells all the girls off for talking about someone who is not there to defend themself, which is mostly met with condescending giggles.

Because of Sarah’s antics, the day portion of the group date must have been canceled because the second group date of last week (they cut these episodes so strangely) is only a cocktail party. With a temporary lapse in drama, Matt can actually talk with the girls and seems to be making connections with them. He talks to Chelsea (pictured below) about her having grown up as a black girl in a predominantly white community, the complicated relationship that created for her with her own hair, and her decision to shave her head. As a mixed-race man himself, Matt connects with the story and gives her the rose.

Image from abc.com

Back at the ranch, Victoria confronts Katie about telling her to shut-up and demands an apology for not being allowed to call people trash behind their backs. Katie, while remaining composed and mature, laughs in her face and stands her ground. It is becoming abundantly clear that Victoria is used to being able to intimidate people, and also that Katie is not someone who is easily intimidated.

The next night, the girls go to the cocktail party and discuss how nice it is to not have drama in the house - how naive! Matt and Kit seem to be clicking, as he comments on how he loves spending time with her. Then, as Victoria is sitting down with Matt, she gets interrupted by none other than Chris Harrison. The producer’s choice to make Victoria the one who got interrupted is why they are truly the best to ever do it.

Chris informs Matt that there will be five new girls joining the other contestants, and never has a man looked more scared and overwhelmed than Matt did at that moment. I honestly would’ve respected it if he had just been like, “no thanks. I’m struggling to remember the names of the women already here, I do not need to learn more.” The first woman that Matt meets is Brittany.

Image from abc.com

Brittany introduces herself by “making up for lost time,” grabbing Matt’s face and sticking her tongue down his throat. The girls who were watching from the window did NOT like that.

Another new girl, Catalina, is Miss Puerto Rico Universe because we must always have at least one beauty queen per season.

Image from abc.com

She walks in wearing her sash and a tiara she actually earned and didn’t buy at Party Palace, which destroys any shred of decency Victoria had left in her body. Victoria tells Catalina that she is the “real” queen of the house. (Actually, Catalina is really a beauty queen; you’re just an insecure slob, Victoria.) Then Victoria SNATCHES THE CROWN OFF CATALINA’S HEAD. I gasped. Loudly. You do not touch another girl’s crown. In an effort to get Victoria to give the tiara back, one of the girls tells her that the tiara doesn’t match her outfit. Victoria agrees and then puts the tiara out of Catalina’s reach on the table, instead of handing it back to her as any normal person would have. Catalina proves the statement “she is beauty, she is grace” and doesn’t so much as bat an eye through the whole exchange. (I know she isn’t Miss United States, just let me have this.) The rest of the cocktail party ensues, and the original girls (“OGs” as they have unfortunately dubbed themselves) freak out that the new girls want to meet Matt.

During the rose ceremony, Anna spirals because she still has not spoken to Matt. She also displays the craziest crazy eyes I have ever seen, and I feel comfortable saying that because I, too, can have crazy eyes.

Somehow, she stays another week. The girls who get sent home are Khaylah from North Carolina (hand up, I called that one wrong), Kaili, who I swear I had never seen before, and one of the new girls, Kim.

Photo from Twitter

The first group date of the new week is an obstacle course, which leads to some funny (and some bitchy) moments. Magi gets stranded in the lake while failing to paddle a giant pumpkin across, and Chris Harrison had to confirm on Twitter that a producer finally went to help her.

Photo from Twitter

The course also involved dressing as a squirrel and finding an acorn with your name on it in a pile of leaves, and Anna hides newcomer Brittany’s because she knows people from back home who don���t like her. Mari “wins” the race, but it is not clear what the actual prize is.

At the night portion, Anna finally gets her chance to speak with Matt and has absolutely nothing to say. She blames this on being distracted by Brittany waiting in her peripheral vision. Mad that her time (which she was not at all using effectively) has been interrupted, Anna complains to Victoria and then tells her that she has heard rumors that Brittany is an escort and “entertains men for money.” The only evidence Anna has to back this up is that Brittany “knows rich men.”  Let the slut-shaming commence.

It made me sick to see women tearing each other down and calling Brittany a slut, a whore, and a disgusting mixture of the two, “slore.” I, of course, support sex workers and genuinely believe that that line of work needs to be destigmatized. To make matters worse, the rumor appears to be completely untrue. I genuinely think that crazy-eyed Anna mentally snapped and came up with this bullshit on the spot just to try to “ruin” Brittany’s life. The truly terrible part is that it will work, to some extent. While many people online are not believing the rumor and are saying it’s wrong to slut-shame whether it is true or not, not everyone in the world is so kind. Lies like this follow women for the rest of their lives, especially when made on national TV.

The group date rose goes to Bri, but because of the slut-shaming drama, the audience didn’t even see her and Matt speak.

The next day Anna tells Brittany the horrible things she said about her, admits that they were horrible, apologizes, but does not explain why she would say something so horrible. Nothing is resolved.

Image from abc.com

The one-on-one date goes to one of the new girls, Michelle, and she and Matt fall head-over-heels in love, and the show is basically a wrap at this point. The two embark on the world’s most romantic scavenger hunt. They start with zip-lining (I would’ve quit the show at this point), then pop balloons with questions to help them get to know each other and say they want three kids at the exact same time. Finally, they ride (and make-out) in a hot air balloon. The other girls watch them through binoculars from their balcony.

During the night portion, Michelle tells Matt about being a teacher during 2020 and helping her students cope with everything that happened. She relates this to his charity helping underprivileged kids. She then begins to quote Maya Angelou, and Matt finishes the sentence, as it is his personal favorite quote. These two just might make me believe in soulmates. She, of course, gets the rose.

Image from Twitter

The second group date is a literal boxing match. The girls go out to the woods (why are they in the woods?) to be trained by boxing champion Mia St. John. They only get a couple of matches into the fights, though, because Serana P gets punched in the face, and Matt doesn’t want to see one of the girls he actually likes get hurt.

At night, we see Matt and Rachel speaking, and he asks her what she needs from him to know he wants her to stay. That’s a great sign for their relationship.

We get a cutaway to Anna and Victoria back at the house, calling the other women stupid bitches and dumb whores. They are literal demons, and they need to go.

Katie, who is on the group date, comes to the same conclusion and decides that she needs to make Matt aware of the situation. She finds him talking to a group of producers, who leave to give them time to talk. She tells him that there are bullies living in the house and that some of the women are starting “life-ruining” rumors. She does not name names, which some people online were celebrating as mature, but I think it allows for a lot of finger-pointing and false accusations. Matt declares that he will address it the next day, and the episode once again ends on a cliffhanger. I am cautiously optimistic that this indicates Victoria and Anna will be leaving the house next week. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!

[ficsandcatsandficsandcats]

request: jaskier x reader enemies to lovers in which the reader is not a jealous asshole lmao

Fandom: The WitcherPairing: Jaskier x ReaderWord Count: 3,273Rating: TTaglist: @heroics-and-heartbreak @whatevermonkey @mynamesoundslikesherlock @magic-multicolored-miracle @writingstudent @mlleecrivaine @coffee-and-stories @ultracolorfulnerdcollection @astouract @your-not-invisible-to-me @kemmastan @mycat-is-mylove @amirahiddleston a/n: Hey! I am a sucker for an academic rivalry and that’s the way I approached this. It’s really long but I hope you enjoy!

You took a deep breath before entering the classroom, plastering on a serene, professional smile. There were more students present than usual which only rankled further, knowing they had come here to see him instead of your usual classes. He wasn’t there yet (typical) but you were grateful. Walking in to see so-called Professor Pankratz beating you to your own class would have been more than you could bear. Then again, he was never on time for class when you were students so luck had been on your side.

“Good morning class, so nice to see that so many of you have recovered for your many ailments and just in time for a presentation for our guest lecturer,” you said. The students chuckled sheepishly and you fixed them with an accusatory look that melted into a smile and a head shake. They were just kids. It hadn’t been terribly long ago you were in their shoes and there were many times you wished you could have jut run off and avoided your responsibilities like others you’d known. Right on cue, the door opened and in strode Julian Pankratz or – as he was known now – Jaskier.

He looked practically the same as he had back then. Chestnut hair shorter and roguishly swept to the side but the same hue, golden highlights catching in the sun that streamed through the large windows. Smile quirked into the exact same cocky little grin, sky blue eyes sparkling with amusement, always on the lookout for a good time. His clothing choices had become more ornate but the same good quality they’d always been, him and all the other nobility thinking nothing of the clothes they wore or the fact that a single doublet would pay for a semester of classes. As he caught your eye a familiar look of smugness came over his features and you bristled. You’d always been academic rivals. You didn’t usually care about someone being smarter than you, most were anyway, but someone who swanned into Oxenfurt Academy, resting on his family’s laurels and roving around missing classes yet still somehow managing to give you a run for your title as Valedictorian was another matter. On the rare occasions he did deign to show up to class he’d usually be half-hungover, lacking all supplies, and yet teacher’s stopped calling on him to make an example because he’d always know the answer. Good answers, too. So no, you didn’t hate Julian because he was smart or handsome or well-liked or even because he was your fiercest competition in school. You hated him because he was all of these things and didn’t work for any of it and didn’t seem to appreciate its value. This position you held as a professor at a university that had been an impossible sounding dream for a child who grew up in poverty meant everything to you. But for Julian, it was just another honor bestowed on him. Hell, he was invited to teach today.

“Ah, Julian, right off time,” you said dryly.

“Professor Pankratz I think it is, Y/N,” he replied. You bristled and bit back a litany of oaths.

“As I was telling the students, Julian, you are here today to provide a guest lecture and if anyone has questions-” two dozen arms shot up in the sky eagerly, “They will wait under after the lesson.”

The arms retracted glumly but the students lit up as you stepped aside, giving the bard a space at the podium.

“Thank you, Y/N. You know, your professor and I go way back. We were school chums just like you. She’s always been incredibly smart. I mean, the record may show that she never could quite top me but she still gave me a good run,” he winked at you as he said the words and then gave you a wicked smile, like a child who knew they were being bad in public and didn’t care what would happen when they got home. You kept the same serene smile on your face like a mask and you spent the next hour and a half of his talk imagining the different ways you would use the historical tools of torture display in the history wing to wipe that smug smile off of his face.

—–

After the lecture (which was exceptional, damn it) Julian suggested the question and answer portion be done outside because it was “such a lovely day” and you “probably wanted to review your notes over his lecture to include in the class’s curricula” and they poured out of your class leaving you in blessed silence. You had to admit you appreciated the extra time to prepare for tomorrow’s class. You finished grading and even had time to clean the chalkboard thoroughly. You were gazing at it in admiration of a job well done when a voice popped up by the open door.

“Admit it, that was brilliant.”

Suddenly your good mood vanished. You cut Jaskier a sharp glance from the corner of your eye.

“The students aren’t here anymore Julian you don’t need to stick around,” you said coolly.

“Oh I know,” he replied, moving into the room further, “I thought I’d ask an old friend for a drink. Catch up properly since I’m in town.”

You scoffed and shook your head, turning to face him.

“We’re not friends, Julian. We never were and I don’t see why we would be now,” you said bluntly. He smiled at your words, not an unpleasant or false one, a genuine, nostalgic smile.

“Gods I’ve missed the way you never put up with my shit,” he said. You blinked at him in surprise.

“What?”

“Everyone else was impressed by the Pankratz name and my other, admittedly many, charms but you always saw through it. I think that’s why I tried to impress you so much. Hell, maybe it’s why I’m still trying,” he said.

“I thought you hated me, you were always a prick. And don’t try that stupid ‘boys torment girls they like’ bullshit with me because that’s bollocks at best and dangerous at worst,” you argued. He smirked.

“Oh no, you were a bitch. You kind of still are. But I’ve grown to develop an affection for bitches.”

“Get fucked, Pankratz.”

“Ooh not as eloquent as you were back in the day. What was it you called me that one time? As stupid as an ox and half as useful?” he quoted. You smiled in appreciation of your younger self’s burn.

“Come have a drink with me,” he offered again. Despite yourself, you were curious about what Julian had been up to. Sure you heard the rumors and the songs and knew he was a celebrity. But you also knew that the stories you heard about people rarely matched the truth and perhaps with enough ale and the right questions you’d get somewhere close to that.

“You’re paying,” you said, taking up your purse and getting out the key to lock the classroom.

“But of course,” Jaskier said in faux surprise, “What kind of a gentleman would I be if I didn’t treat the lady to drinks?”

For the sake of peace, you bit your tongue.

—–

“Alright,” Jaskier said once you’d both ordered your drinks, “Let’s get this out of the way. Ask me about Geralt.”

“The witcher?” you asked. Jaskier nodded, a weary nod that suggested he’d had this talk many, many times before. “I don’t really have any questions.”

Jaskier eyed you suspiciously, disbelief plain on his face but you weren’t kidding. You knew about witchers, had read many different accounts from believe who head varying levels of respect and fear towards them, but you didn’t really concern yourself with them. As far as you could tell their primary trade was killing monsters and you weren’t one so you doubted you’d have any dealings with them.

“People usually want to know what he’s like, if he has horns, does he eat babies, etc.,” Jaskier explained.

“Well those people sound… ill-informed,” you said tactfully, “I do have questions though. Not about Geralt, about you.”

“Me?” Jaskier sounded surprised.

“Of course. A classmate goes off and becomes a renowned bard and you don’t think I’m going to have questions?” you asked.

“You never showed much interest in my life or affairs before.”

“I didn’t have to hear about some new rumor about you every day from students before. Well, actually I guess I did. But there were fewer rumors of immortality and frankly based on how you look I’m starting to think those might be right,” you said, taking a sip of your mead and giving him an assessing look. He laughed and took a drink from his ale.

“Not as far as I know, no,” he said.

“But the rest is true, then? Touring the country, the bard with his pet witcher, wooing and rutting around the countryside with great aplomb?”

Jaskier smiled ruefully as he looked down into his drink, thinking about the portrait you painted of him, that had been painted while he was off. He could lie and tell you it was true but he had a feeling you’d know. As he’d said, you always saw through his bullshit.

“Quite the opposite, really. True my songs are well loved and I have successfully reformed many opinions about Geralt, if not witchers on the whole, but I am more often treated as the “pet” of Geralt. The human that follows him around. It’s… not entirely wrong but it’s also horseshit, you know?”

You were surprised by the vulnerability. This wasn’t the proud, blustering Julian of a decade ago. He was still there but there was also a maturity to him. It was deeply unsettling.

“That must be hard for you. You never did like standing in another’s shadow,” you said.

“I have little experience doing so. You understand,” he volleyed. You glowered at him as you took another drink. Yes, some things were still the same.

“And adventuring? How is that suiting you? You a natural at that as you were everything else?” you asked, a bit of bitterness slipping into your tone.

“Gods no,” he said laughing, “No I am… well, I’m better than I was, but I’ve also nearly died more times than I can count so that doesn’t speak to a great amount of skill.”

You felt a little guilty about how validating it was to hear Jaskier state that there was finally something even he couldn’t fake his way through.

“That must be very difficult,” you said, working to keep the satisfaction out of your voice, “Finding the one thing is this world you aren’t naturally adept at without any effort or work.”

“I worked, Y/N,” Jaskier replied, frowning at the implication, “I wrote the same papers you did.”

“Yes, but yours were written 15 minutes before class or turned into an improvised ballad performed on the spot and mine were toiled over for hours in the library and edited mercilessly. We are not the same,” you argued.

“Do you want me to apologize for being naturally talented?” he asked. You scoffed and shook your head, fighting the urge to throw the remaining contents of your cup in his smug face.

“No, Julian, I want you to appreciate that you’re talented. I want you to stop acting like you’re somehow superior and I want you to stop getting everything you want handed to you because you’re from a titled family and famous and never had to really worry about taking care of yourself,” you snapped.

“You think people took care of me?” he replied incredulously, “Y/N my family didn’t give a shit about me. Hell, I don’t know if they even realized I was gone when I went to school. Even the people around me at the university, I knew they didn’t give a shit, they wouldn’t have my back or stick around if I wasn’t constantly making myself useful to them. And you think that’s somehow different now? The witcher barely tolerates my presence some days and I have to work hard to find ways to be useful because I know that if I stop, even for a moment, he will be gone too.”

After he finished he kicked himself for saying it, waiting for a look of pity from you as you listened to him complain. Or contempt because even he knew that it could be worse. But you just nodded slightly, a look of understanding dawning on your face.

“Well. You’re still an ass,” you said, taking a sip of your drink. A wide smile broke out over Jaskier’s face and you couldn’t help but return it. He had that effect on people. For once it didn’t seem self-serving, though, just genuine happiness.

“So is that what you’re doing with me?” you asked, serious again, “Trying to find a way to be useful or charm me so you’ll have a contact back in Oxenfurt?”

“When you put it that way I sound so self-serving,” he scoffed, “No, Y/N. Frankly I don’t need you as a contact. I was invited to lecture here and I seriously doubt you were the one did that.”

You didn’t say anything, glancing awkwardly down at your glass.

“Wait… no… surely not,” Jaskier squinted at you suspiciously and you heaved a great sigh.

“Fine, alright I did. But only because very begrudgingly I have to admit you know what you’re talking about and this segment is hard for students if they don’t care about what they’re studying and nothing makes students care like hearing it from someone new and exciting and oh for the gods’ sake if you don’t stop grinning at me like that I will kick you,” you snapped. Jaskier didn’t heed your warnings, the grin overtaking his face and this time you could resist the pull to smile back. You crossed your arms in front of you in a huff, waiting for him to throw it back in your face, to make some snide remark about proof that he’s smarter than you after all.

“Thank you,” he said after a beat of silence. There was sincerity in his eyes, also unsettling, but also not a bad look on him. “I enjoyed it. I’ve missed the school, really.”

“I suppose it wasn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened in my classroom. Granted, someone was murdered there a few hundred years ago so the bar is pretty high for that honor,” you sighed. The rest of your evening passed quickly as you shared anecdotes and laughter. Before you knew it the tavern was closing and you were told to get a room or get out. Jaskier had shot you a suggestive smile but you’d rolled your eyes and told him he could walk you home.

“You know this is going to sound silly but I think… Well, I wish maybe we’d been friends in school,” you admitted, lips loosened by the mead and the newfound sense of comradery with the man walking at your side. He laughed, the sound turning to mist in the cool night air, and grinned at you.

“No, I don’t think so,” he said. Your face fell and you began to feel embarrassed.

“No, not because of you!” he explained quickly, “But I wasn’t really the sort of person I think you’d have liked back then. I mean, clearly, because you’ve harbored such a long hatred of me.”

“Hatred is a strong word,” you lied, “But you’re probably right. I could be a bit stuck up myself.”

“I’m glad that we’ve reconnected, though. Or I suppose, connected for the first time,” Jaskier said. You arrived at home sooner than you’d expected and you lingered at the door.

“How long are you in town?” you asked.

“I leave tomorrow.”

“Oh… with, uh, what’s his name?”

Jaskier beamed at you as though you’d just given him the finest compliment in his life. And in a way, you had. For once he wasn’t the one whose name was ignored and forgotten.

“Geralt. And yes, I told him I’d meet up with him. Onto the next adventure,” he explained. He was excited by the disappointment in your eyes, almost as excited as the fact that you weren’t yet going inside, perhaps even considering offering him an invite.

“If you want to come back sometime, to lecture and maybe get another drink with an old…” your voice trailed off as you tried to decide what to call what you were now.

“Colleague?”

“Friend?”

“Yes, alright, friend,” you assented, earning yet another wide, beaming smile from Jaskier, “I’d like that. If you have time. I know you’re very busy and important.”

You said the words sarcastically and Jaskier nodded and sighed heavily.

“It’s true, the world needs its songs. But I would be happy to come back again. And see you. And do my part to enlighten the youths of the world. And see you.”

“You said that twice.”

“I meant it doubly much.”

“Doubly much? That can’t be good grammar.”

“Gods, do you ever turn off?” he huffed in amused exasperation.

“Never, it’s one of my charms,” you replied, smirking. Jaskier moved closer and you were reminded of how tall he was. And broad. And handsome.

“I have half a mind to kiss that smirk right off your face,” he murmured, the pale blue eyes caressing them with his gaze.

“You have a half a mind period,” you sassed, a defensive reaction that struck when you were nervous. Most men were turned away by it, and you couldn’t blame them. But sparring was an old game for the two of you and Jaskier smiled, chuckling darkly before saying,

“Alright now you’re gonna get it.”

His lips brushed against yours, featherlight and teasing, and then swept back, a little firmer, capturing your mouth and pressing in closer, one arm wrapping around your waist and pressing you against the door as he slid his tongue through your slightly parted mouth. You sighed into the kiss and he gave a soft moan in return as your tongue found his, entangling and learning the warmth of each other’s mouths, the brush of teeth against lip, the taste of mead and ale blending in a heady mixture. By the time Jaskier pulled back you were both panting slightly. You swallowed hard and looked up into his eyes.

“Are you going to invite me in?” he asked, peppering your jawline with kisses. Your eyes squeezed shut and you licked your lips, summoning your will to be sensible.

“No,” you replied. His kisses stop and he pulled back to look at you, unabashedly surprised.

“No?”

“No,” you answered, “Go on your journeys, Julian Pankratz or Jaskier de Lettenhove or whoever you are or shall be. Go and then return to me. If you can do that, well… Perhaps.”

“I may die,” he intoned dramatically, though he made no move to continue his seduction, taking your words to heart.

“Then there shall be two great tragedies that day,” you answered in a tone that was just as dramatic, “That you have died, and that you never knew the pleasures of my body.”

He laughed, throwing his head back and then leaning in to plant another kiss on your lips.

“You’re a minx. But alright, it’s a date,” he said. You bit your bottom lip, fighting back an argument that it could only really be a date if they both declared it to be and really they had just agreed to meet up as friends but sometimes even you had to admit there was a time and place for being pedantic.

“It’s a date.”

[hotel-japanifornia]

What’s your feelings on godot i do feel sorry for him and i don’t hate him but he was a huge prick to Phoenix

Godot is a rather complex character. I like him as a character in general, however the fandom does seem to misunderstand who he is and what his motives are, even his fans.

When we first meet Godot chronologically, we meet him as the defense lawyer, Diego Armando. Diego is honestly pretty charming, he’s smooth, he’s confident, he’s cool, and I like the way he plays off of Mia. I personally never found the “kitten” nickname sexist nor do I understand why it would even be considered that way. It’s never said once that Diego doesn’t think Mia is lesser for her gender. In fact, in their first conversation during the case, this is said:

Armando:No, no, no… You’ve got it all wrong! Today, YOU’RE the finest! After all, it took an amazing amount of guts to take this case! Imagine… An escaped death row convict for a first client!

If anything, I think the whole kitten thing is probably just his nickname for rookies in general, and not necessarily women. I’ve seen people think it’s his way of flirting with her, and that’s possible too, just not necessarily how I see it. Anyways, at the end of the case, Mia beats herself up because she thinks that she was the reason her client died and Diego gives her this piece of advice:

Armando:Don’t you get it? You can’t cry yet. The only time a lawyer can cry is when it’s all over.

Mia:M-Mr. Armando…

It’s honestly a good piece of advice, and I love how Mia takes inspiration from that quote and uses it towards Phoenix even if it’s said in a different way:

“The toughest of times are when lawyers have to put on their biggest smiles.”

It’s not exactly the same as what Diego said, sure, but it does have the same meaning. In that way at least, you can see the impact he must have left on Mia. Regarding the two’s relationship for a moment, I do think they had just started dating when Diego was poisoned. It does explain why Grossberg calls Diego Mia’s boyfriend, but I digress.

When we meet him in 3-2 and 3-3, it’s obvious he dislikes Phoenix but we don’t know why yet. Honestly, Godot is probably one of my favorite parts of 3-2: he’s mysterious and confident, but he also has some goofy moments like when he refers to himself as a legendary prosecutor because he’s never lost a case but he’s also never won one either. I don’t know that it was intended to be funny but it’s always made me snicker a little. He comes off as being a jerk sure but so did Edgeworth and Franziska, and like them, we learn more about Godot and his motivations later on.

Godot in 3-3 is why I can never agree that T&T has a filler case. For one, in 3-3, you learn about Godot’s inability to see red on white when he fails to notice the ketchup on Maggey’s apron. It’s an extremely subtle moment, but it’s given quite a bit of focus so the player could then assume that that unique feature will be important later on. Godot is still mysterious and a jerk but I love the way that he handles Furio and willingly admits to being the one who summoned him to court. Like Nick said after the fact:

(T… Too cool…) 

Not only that, but he does manage to have a somewhat nice moment with Phoenix at the end of the case after throwing coffee at him:

Godot:Well done… Trite. I saved my 17th cup of coffee just for you. Savor it… While you watch your caged prey. 

While we don’t learn that much more about Godot than we did in 3-2; what we do learn about him plays a very important role in a case later on. 3-3 isn’t directly involved with the Feys at all, but it does have some importance to the overall plot of the game.

We meet Armando in 3-4 which is the first playable case chronologically in the trilogy’s timeline. Right off the bat, we notice he looks similar to Godot, the two even have a similar suit to each other, just different colors and have a similar hairstyle. I’m not entirely sure how many people guessed that Godot and Diego Armando were the same person right away but I think people might have at least thought the two were related at least (I’ve even seen people think that Godot and Diego were identical twins!). As for me, I kinda had a feeling since the two look alike and have the same love for the hot, bitter lady known as coffee.

Godot is extremely important to 3-5. If it wasn’t for him forming a plan to save Maya with Misty and Iris, Maya would be dead. Thing is, I don’t agree that Godot is entirely to blame for not going to the police and bringing the plot to them or just burning the note the whole way through. If the latter had happened, Pearl would have told Morgan she couldn’t find it and Morgan would definitely suspect that something was going on and possibly even relay the plan to Pearl herself. The former happening is unlikely because of reasons that I will go into a bit deeper. Another problem lies in that Misty also shares some of the blame herself but this post isn’t about her so I won’t go deep into it. 

We don’t see Godot until the second investigation period when Dusky Bridge has been rebuilt and Phoenix enters the Inner Temple, desperate to find Maya. It’s there that we learn why Godot hates Phoenix so much. Godot blames Phoenix for the murder of Mia Fey. He states that since Phoenix was there at the time, he should have protected her and by failing to do so, he in a sense, killed her. And because Maya is missing at the time, he goes further and says that Phoenix killed Maya indirectly by failing to protect her when she needed it most.

Personally, I find this conversation to be more Godot venting out his frustrations on Phoenix. Think about it, the guy spent 5 years in a coma because a psycho killer poisoned his coffee. He wakes up and he finds out that his girlfriend was murdered while he was in a coma. He feels mad at himself for not being able to protect Mia and thus sought to protect Maya as a way to make amends. While it seems like a weird conversation and just another example of Godot being a douche during one’s first time going through the case; a replay of the case after finishing it helps shed new light on the conversation the two have. 

We also learn more about Godot’s inability to see red on white during that same encounter in greater detail. He says that his eyes are messed up and that mask is the only way he can see. Although it’s not much, it is something. 

During the first trial portion of the last trial day, Godot starts acting rather strangely. When he learns that there was writing in red on the stone lantern in the Inner Temple Garden, he starts freaking out. Not only that but he actually helps calm Phoenix down when he freaks out over Dahlia’s suggestion that Maya jumped into the Eagle River from the Inner Temple side, and tells him that would be impossible to do.

Eventually, after Dahlia has been exorcised from Maya’s body, the Judge attempts to hand down his verdict. Godot immediately objects and says that they still don’t know who killed Misty, and the only person who can testify about that is Maya Fey. Some people have called this move callous and insensitive to the state that Maya is in, but it really isn’t. Godot could have simply let the Judge hand his verdict down and get away with his crime. But he doesn’t, he requests that they summon the one person that could incriminate him. Also, he does show a fair bit of empathy towards Maya in this exchange of dialogue towards her before her first testimony:

Godot:Straighten up this moment, young lady!

Maya:Huh…?

Godot:Pick your head up and speak clearly. There’s always time for crying later.

Maya:B-But I…

Godot:Your mother was killed right in front of your eyes! There’s nothing you can do to change that fact.

Maya:…!

Godot:But there’s something you can do… You can finish this. You’ve been watching the whole thing right? You’ve seen the witnesses come out and you’ve seen us squeeze the truth out of them. Now it’s your turn. …Let’s hear your testimony. On the night of the crime… what exactly did you see happen!?

It’s pretty obvious during Maya’s testimony that she’s willing to protect the identity of whoever killed her mother, even to the point that she begs Phoenix not to reveal his identity and even suggests that she thought it was a man for other reasons than the three red glowing lights. We also get to hear about this one cute little story about an interaction between him and Pearl in which he actually comforted her and gave her coffee. That’s pretty sweet…and kinda dangerous.

Still, it’s quite obvious upon cross-examining Maya that Godot is the killer, so why is she covering up for the man who killed her mother to the point that she’d be found guilty otherwise? Godot did save Maya’s life in the process of killing Misty who was channeling Dahlia at the time and would have killed her if Godot hadn’t intervened. Maya is plenty aware of this and it is in character for her to do something like that.

We also learn through Godot’s self-reflection that he knows that he could have killed Pearl instead of Misty that night and that Misty’s murder was out of a fit of rage against the ghost of the woman who ruined his life. He also goes on to say that he’s not really sure that him saving Maya’s life was out of a genuine will to protect her, and even tells her that if he genuinely wanted to help Maya, he should have gone to Phoenix instead. Despite this, Maya genuinely believes that he wanted to save her life and so does Phoenix even despite the way Godot had treated him up to that point.

Godot is an extremely gray character and it’s really interesting to study him as a character, who he is and what his intentions were. I don’t think he truthfully wanted to kill anyone that night in the Inner Temple Garden, all he wanted to do was protect Maya the way he wanted to protect Mia. He was never willing to actually kill anybody and even helped Phoenix catch him in the end. Iris and Misty both played a role in this plan too and made their own share of screw-ups so I don’t understand why people shift so much of the blame for it onto Godot?

Honestly though, I think that the whole black-white morality lens that people typically view characters through doesn’t really work with characters like Godot. Godot is not a good guy but he’s not a cookie cutter bad guy like some of the culprits in this series seem to be and that’s what makes him so intriguing to me. He’s not my favorite character, but I can see why someone may say he’s their favorite.

[what-a-messsss]

1x10 rewatch

Ok, let’s get back to Walt Longmire: Disaster Boi of S1 and finish this season off with a...something.  Pleading look to the heavens, maybe?  

How do I keep forgetting that Lizzie is a thing, even after our decision to find her some nice Smitten Cowboy to be with?  Holy hell, but why are you still keeping your dead wife’s ashes in the kitchen?  At least you kept Lucian in your fucking truck.  In a coffee can.  What is with you and breakfast beverages??  We all know you need lots of therapy, but this seems like a kind of niche issue.

“Trust me, you don’t, uh, you don’t want that tea.”  Buddy.  

Poor Lizzie.  She really is so nice.  And he’s such a fucking disaster.  “You seem weird,” she says, in reaction to him going bug eyed from having to convince her not to drink his dead wife without her realizing that’s what he was doing.  Sweetie, you have no idea.  And she really does like him.  

This is.  So.  Gloriously awkward.  And Lizzie’s there in her bare feet.  And all we need is for Branch to show up and we’ll have a full house, and aaaaahahaha, Walt is so trying to freeze time with the power of his brain.  Staring off into the Not Here place with his mouth pressed just so...  Awwwww, suffer.

I had forgotten that Ferg was the one who actually did the body work on the Bronco!  Even did the paint work, because that old truck has never looked so good.  I know Omar loaned Walt his truck while the Bronco was “in the shop,” but I like that the writers gave Ferg the skills to do that.

“If anybody... has something they want to say, I suggest you think twice about it.”  We don’t need to say anything; we’re too busy laughing at you.

Oof, and then Lizzie hearing Martha’s voice still on the message greeting.  She’s really quite a good actress.  Lizzie isn’t a terribly subtle character generally, but she gives her these really fine microexpressions that give you occasional glimpses that there is more going on under the surface, and she’s not just an open book.  : (  Making me actually like her and feel bad, not just cringe when she comes on.  Dang iiiiiiiit.

Ok, that does NOT look like Sharpie.  I’m sorry, but that looks like a paint pen or lipstick more than it looks like a Shapie on the dead kid’s forehead.  Even if it were one of the jumbo Sharpies, they don’t write like that, they aren’t that colour on skin, and the thickness of the lines are all off.  Which is not really relevant, but it buuuuugs meeeee.  Pedantic little shit that I am.

Ope, Branch is basically past the angst about Walt not liking him and straight into just giving him nothing but attitude.  Which, while I can hardly blame anyone for giving Walt shit, does get old pretty fast.

Walt, you are So Bad at talking to people, even when it’s for the damn job!  Yeah, it’s fine to have Ferg fill Vic in, but at least acknowledge that she’s there, damn.  Honestly it would have been good for both Vic and Ferg for Walt to tell her to follow Ferg’s lead on this one.  He knows the case, the local history, the players, the situation, and probably more about archery than her, and she could stand to take the reminder that working 5 years in big city homicide still doesn’t make her the senior deputy and that she needs to be ok learning from even Ferg.  Shit, I keep finding more and more reasons to be annoyed at Walt.  Is he even really that good of a sheriff?  I’m shaking the ol’ Magic 8 Ball here, and signs point to frickin’ NO.  Ugh.

Five HUNDRED dollars says that he didn’t check with Mathias before going on the Rez for official police business again.  Jackass.

Can’t really blame Viho for being super bitter.  And Ayasha is so sweet.  This whole family dynamic is so well done.

Aw, Ferg is so excited about the gum wrapper.  “Still minty!”  How are you such a sparklebunny?  Bless.

Detective Falessssss.  His opening line is so great, but uuuuuuuhg, he’s as bad as Walt with his singlemindedness about the case.  

“Talk to Ruby.  She runs my life.”  She runs the department, bucko, and you’d be lost without her!  Lost, I say!  But you treat her like your personal social secretary, and that’s crap.

In Fales’ dubious defense, you were just super weird about that whole encounter.  

Omar!  You creepy little lecherous jackass.  Why am I still fond of you?  It’s really rather galling that I enjoy your character at all, but I doooo.  Thank gods he has the beard now; cleanshaven was just wigging me out.  “Vickie’s never shot before--”  “That is the second-to-last time you will ever call me that.”  And I chortle myself to distraction to the point that I have to rewind to catch the lines that I missed.  With her horrible plans when she gets drunk (I’m still cringing at that flashback of her with Travis) and her obvious thing for older men, I’m honestly kind of surprised she didn’t end up having a deeply regretted something with Omar at some point.  They do have good chemistry in an antagonistic way.  And he does so enjoy tugging her pigtails.  ...ew.  Why is my brain like this?  

“A little bit of practice, even a girl can make that shot.”  Aaaaaaand we’re back to kick him in the nuts.  Not that we ever really left there.  Such a butthead.

Boy oh boy, it sure is great the tone that all these shitty rich white people take saying “Indian.”

“That is what a normal person would do in your situation.”  Henryyyyyy, I love you so much.  Why can’t we spend more time with him in the early seasons?  Why are you drinking a Rainier?  Nooooo, please have better taste in beer than your boyfriend!  You have expensive tastes in bourbon, why can’t you have decent taste in beeeer?

Walt, what is the point of practicing darts when you are FIVE FEET from the board?  Seriously, you’re supposed to be like...  (a google later)  7 feet 9.25 inches away!  That’s...  That’s an oddly specific measurement.  Wtf.  No quickly apparent reason for that specific measure.  Resisting the pull of this particular rabbit hole to continue the ep.  

Aaaah, that’s right, this is still when Walt thinks that Henry may have killed the guy for him.  And BestDad Henry talked to Cady after the blow up about Branch, and he is a wonderful human being.  “It’s really none of your concern.”  Hoooooow dare you.  It is clearly a function of being bffs with that butthead that Henry just smiles (somewhat bitterly) at this instead of tripping him into the bar or shoving his head into the cigarette machine.  (Is that a cigarette machine?  Wtf is that thing with the yellow lit up portion towards the top? [14:05])  

“What a rich inner life you must lead.  From time to time, you should consider sharing some of it with the rest of us.”  The sass!  Swoon.  Henry.  Marry me.  

“I’ve got other problems.”  Buddy, you are other problems.

I wonder how many people/places Ruby just has on speed dial so that she can zoom through her list of “Where the hell is Walt now” to get in touch with him.

Aaaaand we’re back to Branch getting a bit big for his britches.  Whee.  Better fight about it like Big Boys.  Ffs.  “Go ahead.  Give me your best shot.”  ::Pat Benatar starts playing in the background::  Oh holy shit, I wish so damn much that I had any know-how about making vids.  I would be beyond amused by a spoofy hate vid of Walt and Branch being assholes to “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”  Ooo, oo, or “Hit Me Baby One More Time!”  Aaaahahaha, these fucking losers and their fragile masculinity.  Get rekt.

Children.  Childreeeeen.  Stop it, or you can’t go to Timmy’s birthday party next week.

The irony of Vic being the one who is actually calling them on their shit and getting to do their damn jobs.  Well shit, they actually have a warrant this time.  Will wonders never cease.

Damn, Viho is smart.  Politically savy, pointing out the election coming up.  He’s got the wrong end of the stick this time, but the fact that he’s seen these angles and considered a bunch of things about the consequences already is telling about how smart he is.

Ruby is so pleased to see Henry.  She sounds tired (dealing with Walt and Branch and the sheer volume of bs that is accumulating in that office, no wonder) but still fond.  And the look she gives him.  I love her so much.  She puts up with so much.  And I love Henry continually calling Walt and the department on their shit and just being a dedicated activist for his community.

Fuck right off, Branch.  “Woah.  I know you’re Walt’s friend, Henry, but you don’t have any particular rights here.”  You are sliding into being a full on trashbag of a human being so fast, Brancheroo.  Reminding a young man of his rights and helping him avoid getting railroaded by your biased ass isn’t a bad thing, you rusty wingnut.

Ok, it might not be Glasses!Henry, but cowboy boots!Henry with the glow of righteousness upon him is also quite A Look.

Aaaaahahaha, for once Vic’s unholy yelling saves the day.  Being able to shout over a mass of raucous teens is usually reserved for teachers, camp counselors, and stage managers.  Looool and using detention as the threat.  And then jail.  Heeeh.

This is soooo weeeeeird: I’m starting to genuinely like Lizzie.  She just showed up and I remembered that it’s for dropping off that present, and then Vic is such a butt about it, and this poor lady is just trying to date a guy that she really likes and even gave him about 5 different outs that morning and he pointedly didn’t take any of them and dammit, Lizzie deserves better, too.  Fuck, Walt, you are such a disaster zone.  And Vic is a whole other disaster area that’s looking to, uhhhh, share a border.  Yike.

The present is definitely more Lizzie than it is Walt, with the wrapping and everything, but it’s still a sweet impulse.  AND THEN VIC, who told Walt how many times that he should call her?? gets all up in her business?  Poor Lizzie trying to figure out what the fuck this has to do with Vic or how it is even on the same planet as any of her business.  She does have some issues from her previous marriage, but she owns them.  And her BS meter is actually pretty finely tuned.  Sure picks up on Vic’s awkward boner for Walt in no time flat.  Not that it’s particularly well hidden, damn.

This kid is a rapist and a murderer and The Bad Guy, but at the same time, he is a high school kid, chances are he’s a minor, and Walt is talking to him alone in his office without any parent, much less a lawyer.  What the fuck.  

“Because Ayasha Roundstone told me so,” is a good line, solidly so.  And Walt’s all in The Righteous Hand of Justice mode or whatever, with the gravelly voice and standing over the kid, staring him down.  Effective.  (But where are that kid’s parents?)  Ah, that’s right, his dad is taking a shot at whatshisnoodle to make it look like he’s the killer.

Awww, Cady.  Honey, how long have you been waiting for you FailDad to show up?  Fuck.  Right.  This was how she found out that Martha was murdered.  He lies to her so much.  He manipulates her so much.  He passes all of this off on it being Martha’s wish, but he even acknowledges that Cady had a right to know and he chose not to tell her.  He denies Cady her own agency again and again.  He makes decisions for her without ever giving her a chance to choose for herself, and punishes her when she makes a choice that he doesn’t agree with.

It’s not “protecting” her from the pain.  “Protecting you from the pain,” is not a father’s job; it’s to teach their child how to manage it, help them live through it, and how to grow past it.  You’re damaging her.  Into the suuuuuuun, Walt!  Into the fucking SUN.

But fuuuuuuuuuuuck, her delivery of that same line, “Well, let me relieve you of that burden,” is sooo good.  You done fucked up, buster.  And you just keep fucking up.  I would say in new and exciting ways, but it’s generally in the SAME DAMN WAYS, dammit Walt.

This flashback is really difficult.  

They’re right about that technically being kidnapping, too.  Wyoming  § 6-2-201 specifically includes defining kidnapping as unlawfully confining another person, with the intent to “facilitate the commission of a felony; or Inflict bodily injury on or to terrorize the victim or another,” with unlawful confinement defined as “accomplished (i)  By force, threat or deception; or (ii)  Without the consent of a parent, guardian or other person responsible for the general supervision of an individual who is under the age of fourteen (14) or who is adjudicated incompetent.”  Meaning that not only could Walt charge Jake with the kidnapping of Rich, but also probably of Ayasha, since she was ruled an unreliable witness and would more than likely be legally considered a “mentally incompetent person” according to the states’ legal definitions.  

Not... that I have the Wyoming State Criminal Code downloaded on my computer.  >_> Certainly haven’t skimmed about 80% of it trying to figure out what charges would most make sense to be levied against Jacob at the end so that I don’t have to deal with him going in to a Federal prison on RICO charges.  <_<  Or what Cady probably should have been charged with after that mess with Tate and Catori.  Nnnnnnope.  Sure don’t, didn’t, haven’t. o_o

This is about the only time I can remember there being a legitimate reason for Walt not to have backup.  Since they’re off checking other locations.  Also, damn, that was some classic Old West quickdraw shit, Walt!  Noice!

“Why did you stop me?”  Because you have to testify, you little shit.  HE is not terribly bright.

Ooooooo, somehow I forgot that it was Branch who went to Jacob.  But that makes total sense; I can’t really see Jacob seeking Branch out, but once he walks himself into his office, Jacob will certainly play those new cards for all they’re worth.  Ooooooooo, and the Hotamétaneo’o headdress!  I’d forgotten about Branch seeing it, too!  Nice call back and foreshadowing to finish off S1!

“You will not find a chili cheeseburger of this caliber anywhere in Colorado.”  And now it’s 4:30 in the morning and I want a chili cheeseburger.  Thanks, babe.   Some daaaaaay, I will figure out which is my favourite Henry, but it is not this day, because godsdaaaaamn, the red checked shirt with that vessssst, is *chef kiss* a wonderful thing.   And the director knoooooows it = that pan down Henry’s back as he turns after saying, “I said nothing,” for noooo reason other than to have Henry’s ass on screen.  Seriously.  He says his line, it pans down, we get a primo shot of his jeans, and then it cuts away.  Solely a pan for Henry Butt.  Who directed this, and where do I send the fruit basket?  Dang, it was Nelson McCormick, and this was the only ep of Longmire he directed.  Huh.  In S1, there’s only one repeat director, who did eps 1, 3, and 7.  Interesting.

Focus, kid.  You are less than 3 minutes from the end and you’ve had it paused for over 5 minutes to wander around IMDb.  No wonder it takes you three flipping hours to watch one of these episodes.  What a mess, indeed.

“We all process grief in our own way.”  Buddy.  You have not processed.  You are a human <BUFFERING> screen.  You’re a walking loading symbol.  Walt, he gives you some basic vital statistics on the guy, but...  You haven’t even asked who it was.  Walt, you are so bad at this.  Fffffffff---  And there’s season 1.  lawd.

[macklives]

homestuck recap

i hated this so fucking much bc my 2 am bitch-ass didnt want to read a recap thats probably longer than any slowburn out there

anyways here it is

also, uhhH sorry im using this as a end of session discussion bc that shit gets explained in her as well. and im not writing up more recaps of a recap so this is where im done for the day. (by done for the day i mean last nights session, im still doing a liveblog soon. i just wrote this yesterday)

also that this is long

you dont have to read it, theres nothing of importance

ive been coping with humor to get me through it

neato.

have fun with what i suffered through:

why was “beta” the only thing unhighlighted?

like did i miss a page???

OH its the beta version of HS thats why

damn its like 5 pages and thats it

mmh

well youll all be happy to know im clicking every single one of these links again bc i like looking back like ahh i remember that. good times. also in case i forgot some shit existed.

do you think andrew had fun writing this? or was he like “fuck”

thats a lot of fucking package talk. good thing im not confused as of now and remember it pretty clearly. of else, this early on in the recap, id be screwed.

god remember when i did an analysis on each item and what it did

i feel as if i have the technology engrained inside my head right now

cruxite, alchemeter, all that jazz

flashbacks are starting up already

yeah, that was the good part in homestuck where i knew 100% that i probably would continue on this liveblog in its entirety, ngl

that one explosion scene. bc it kept me going.

OH W A IT SHIT

i just realized how the intermission spades probably fucking foreshadowed the whole jack revolts thing and gains the ring, which was also technically JOHNS fault considering he slashed up the doll in the first place

my god, i guess thats the only good aspect of the recap. looking back at things and realizing the missing pieces.

oh that makes sense for the whole “this prototyping had no effect on the enemies, since he was already in the medium” i didnt actually think about that

little did rose know where that would get her right now

oh yeah

there’s still the whole entire lab terminal thing and how mom basically knows the place exists. i guess we’re still venturing onto that and itll come up later when we find out how mom knows SO MUCH about the game.

still think shes some weird spy or secret agent

i kinda love her ngl

anyways, theres literally no reason for skaia to produce a cloning machine. so technically, they only sent the meteors in, right? so who put the cloning machine in if not mom?

oh yeah that impact was nerve wrecking asf

and still at this point in the comic i called dave fuckboy red

huh, how times change

i hated reading that whole paragraph ngl, the frustration just kicked me in the boobs again

yeah nobody else got tornadoes, huh?

OH that makes also much more sense

bc she did prototyped them before she entered the medium.

i gotcha

man one of my favorite edits i made, rose hitting that meteor with a bat

are you

telling me

the exiles structures they arrived on were in the form of the items the kids used to enter the medium?

THE EGG

THAT EXPLAINS “EGG”

of course it was 413 years ago. that was never explained. simply vague “many years in the future....” but i expected no less from this

man serenity is the most wholesome character in hs no doubt

damn thought andy here was really gonna spoil us jade’s planet

okay cool, im glad i now have the layout to the whole “their stations went to the coordinates of the home button” shindig

man i honestly dont know what else to say besides “yeah cool recap” when i already pretty much know what went down? ofc im looking into each link and shit and adding in things when i see fit, but otherwise its just me going “ah good times” yknow

the whole meteor thing kinda makes sense now?

we’re still missing a few pieces of info but we’re getting there, folks

oh yeah that reveal

god jade and dave have it in the shits for parents huh

bro isnt the best and jade has a fucking dog

who lowkey

is doing better than bro

who knew a fucking dog is a better guardian than bro lmfao

dreambot = terminator. im telling you.

sorry im still on that idea and it will never leave unless i have the actual proof in front of me that its not going to become a thing. meaning, ive finished hs and theres still no terminator dreambot or either andrew himself gives me a canon letter with “the robot is not arnold, mackenzie, pls just let it be”

why is the entire game session highlighted

i swear to god if this is like to a second recap or smth of the whole game session i may fucking CRY

okay thank god its just a design of the skaia layout

which is honestly cool

idk why its blurry tho but i can at least see the layout now. which is honestly how i pictured it anyways.

yeah, john did make a huge impact in his friends’ life and i find that so fucking touching

yep. got that. everything loops around. cool.

especially when the trolls come in. god we havent even gotten to that recap portion yet, we havent even gotten to the INTERMISSION

pls can this be the halfway point to the recap

AT LEAST

so they were exiled after the whole jack: ascend thing, right? considering theyre way in the future. man no fucking wonder.

speaking of jack

man that whole dad and jack interaction was gold, ngl

OH THAT EXPLAINS THE RING THEN

and wow, andrew’s really giving us the best female content huh. andrew is the true god of equality and diversity.

also hey, i didnt realize that wow. so PM tricked the queen in showing the parking ticket to be able to take the present from jack. she’s a smart cookie, that one..

she and PM basically snitched on jack and it was the best thing that has happened to me so far

oh yeah okay

but why did AR panic over bec? bc thats something we havent learned yet, right?

anyways

exile town, the only town which should exist. facts. i dont make the rules.

noice

i love PM being queen. like.. thats canon now. shes an actual queen.

yeah that was a fun game and the consorts were cute

fuck yeah the dick head

hate them even more now that i know john was killed because of them

anyways, i wonder what dick move dave’s denizen did? maybe thats why its filled with lava bc the denizen was like “fuck it. make the land red. kill them all”

UH WHAT

WHAT

OH MY GOD HOW DID I JUST FORGET NANNAS LETTER LIKE THAT LMFAO

THEIR TITLES WERE THERE THE WHOLE TIME!

so i still dont know what they mean but i can gather it has something to do with the game giving them abilities. considering dave is the “knight of time” and he can go back in time. whack.

which means john can either control someones breathing or simply wind. and rose is... like that one girl in the winx club who does the sun shit. bc whenever i think of light powers, i think of stella.

and jade is space. witch of space.

nice

i have no idea what that means ngl

okay finally

we’re at the trolls

maybe this recap will end soon

i remember when i thought they were internet bullies

yesss

someone asked if i basically knew the trolls were on a different veil than the kids, so not presently with them, and i know lol. i was making a joke before btw. jsyk. dont think im incompetent to forget these things when sometimes i choose to forget it so i can add in a joke

it be like that, i annoy many

then again, pls dont assume im trying to say im not incompetent bc im also a fucking dumbass and DO forget shit and i have no excuse

imagine being so bored on the meteor, your last resort is speaking to aliens

ngl me if i was ever trapped on a meteor and could potentially do that

nah ik its bc its their only hope at helping with their session or whatever tf CG said to john. but there was BOUND to be a conference meeting between them like “okay guys. humans. that needs to be sorted out” and you just hear CG screaming in the background

i cant wait to meet them honestly bc im growing on all 4 of the ones we’ve seen already. and on top of that, i know what they look like and i know theyre not THAT bad, just a little on the crayy zee side sometimes

but theyre trying

OH MY GOD

I GET IT

FUCK

DOES THAT MEAN THE INTERMISSION IS *APART* OF THE MAIN FUCKING STORY??

AND SPADES IS WV FOR THE TROLLS

GOD D A M N

wow

i didnt expect that. but maybe the signs were there and i was just willingly choosing to ignore it or smth bc “haha couldnt be, right”

flashbacks to how i thought the trolls were humans

anyways, i guess he got his revenge on the kids version of “snowman” ie the black queen. but really

he did not have to do that. he could have cut off the finger and fled. but he decided “nah, lets implode her” so the loml is dead and all i got was a catchy song

i knew they were different types of “bullies” but now i just have to replace bullies with uhh

trolling strategies

anyways, this is cute. i love how they’ve come to be friends through mutual frustration. good part in the comic.

i wonder why it explodes

more importantly

....

terminator time?

this was my favourite sequences of dialogues in the whole entirety of homestuck. that is to say the back and forth thing that the kids went through to become a sort of wingman for the other.

absolutely gold.

all except AT’s rap.

GC was the only smart one with the linear shit

anyways fuck he still has to kill the denizen now but apparently its hard to beat for a sleeping dick head so

that will be fun for the future

john will probably need to kill A LOT of imps to get there

yeah rose is a badass bc she slayed that thing with needles of all things

OH and the white queen was the cursive

damn did AR ever do the whole guide process to a kid yet? maybe he will with dave, idk

oHHH

i fucking SEE

thats why he said DNA

to use it and replace all the life forms in the ocean

fucking neat wow

man that sounded sarcastic but im genuinely impressed bc all i got was bullshit as i read jaspersprites log

so thats the secret. it was “meow” bc that somehow translates to the genetic code she needs then. and that code apparently took fucking years to write as well. sick. whack. oh man.

derse is very pretty, ngl

and wow shit

“dave had already been awake in his tower all along without realizing it” how tf does someone just

do that, awake in both places at once

i didnt even fucking realize that fact as i read that pesterlog wow

ah yes, around the time things got confusing

okay so the capsule makes sense bc at first i didnt know it was a fucking time capsule so i got confused as to how it just apparated the game lmfao

the more you know i guess *twinkle*

i find that a neat concept tho

like the whole whatever you prototype affects the imps and shit

yeah so that whole “he had no advice” basically impacted his future

no shit dave wanted to reset things bc he probably thought he caused some sort of bad butterfly effect and killed his best friend

fuck calsprite thats all im gonna say

i read that first sentence and i think i got an aneurysm

and then everything else just made me sad again

i mean good thing he fucking did amirite?

we got pain at first but now we got cool shit like idk

fucking DAVESPRITE

damn idk how that works

will rose have like two minds now? or will this be some steven universe fusion shit?

“and understood their meaning” course well i fucking didnt so could you pls elaborate, rose?

okay but then what the fuck did he use that was inside the fucking box

bc i thought he used his knife?

im only every going to refer him as that now, thank you andrew

alright okay..

god that was a lot

i dont know what will happen once i click on those links but i am going to see that for myself bc i refuse to add ANYTHING ELSE