#(every time he's threatened to kill her she's flirted outrageously with him)

[softersinned-arc]

"Hm. Pity. What's-his-name kept his pantry well-stocked. I told him I was going to help myself to the coffee, but I don't think he'll mind terribly if I take the tea, too. Is that rude?"

Astoria picks up her cup of tea and her novel and she walks through the house until she's at the living room. It's not her style—too formal, too neat—but the couch, at least, looks comfortable, and she's been eyeing that armchair since she came in. She drops into the armchair without preamble, her legs thrown over one arm and her back against the other, and she lets her feet swing back and forth in time with a song that's been stuck in her head for ages. "Do you listen to the radio? What's the one that goes bada-ba-ba-badada...?"

She should be frightened. The piece of her that still has anything resembling common sense programmed into her certainly is. Either she's drunk on her own power or she's seen enough that real threats just don't faze her any longer, and either option is a dangerous one. Astoria yawns, and she opens the book to where she'd left off, though she doesn't bother returning her attention to the words. "Of course it's a game, sweet thing. I can't imagine what else would bring you here. Because if it's business rather than the pleasure of the hunt I'm going to be much angrier than I already am. You don't get to line your pockets by stealing from mine. And if it's a game, you really should start keeping score, or I'm going to win for sure. And it's no fun if there's no challenge."

A sip of tea, now, the water kept at just the right temperature by the pale glow of her palm against the mug. "As for how this ends, I'm imagining it's one of us dead or maimed. And just between you and me, I'm willing to take my chances. Sit, love. Have a cup of tea. I couldn't tell you where he went even if I wanted to—you think I let him give me any information?" She smiles, eyes a shade too bright, and she shows too many teeth. "Besides, I think we're long overdue for a talk. Don't you?"

She waves a lazy hand toward the kitchen and the water starts to bubble again. After a beat, she extends it to him. "Astoria Grim. I don't believe we've been formally introduced. I'm a Leo. I can tolerate long walks on the beach, but I hate sand in my shoes. I prefer a drive down an empty highway with the music on." She tips her head back to look at him again, and she offers him a sympathetic smile, though her eyes are dancing with mischief. "And I'm a cat person, sorry to say. Will it bother you if I smoke in here?"

But she doesn't wait for an answer, and she wiggles to fish the pack of cigarettes and her lighter out of her pocket. She is, however, polite enough to offer him one before she puts them away. "And you can tell me what the fuck you're still doing here. Had some trouble with werewolves a few months back; figured you were here to handle that. Really, I should have been more proactive before this. That's on me. But pack enforcers rarely do things like leave trails of senseless gore behind them. So like I said, I'm hoping it's for pleasure, because if it's for business that means that I'm going to have to deal with another of you assholes when I finally convince you to maybe try another town. Or am I totally wrong?"

Messy was precisely what Kakashi excelled at. He often tore through one job to the next, taking his assignments in stride. there had been a time when he was more careful, when there was a little more nuance to his craft... but after he realized there was a supernatural clean-up crew, he cared a little less about keeping a low profile. A reputation of corpses torn to pieces followed at his heel & he was digging himself a bottomless grave to share with them. There was a certain brutality to his work; a beastliness to the way he killed. He would be slow to admit how hard it was to control himself when he turned, but his work spoke for itself. It felt as though he was stacking more bodies than he could count. It shouldn't have been surprising when somebody picked up on it. Worked against it. Some evils in their world could not go unanswered.

Honestly, it was infuriating; he could fail only so many assignments before his superiors started asking questions. Before they began to sniff around behind the scenes. He'd already been issued a warning about his productivity & what his continued failure may mean. It had driven him to be careful while digging into his latest assignment. a shapeshifter, a highly valued target, was at the top of his current kill list. usually, they had a very distinct, very rancid smell... the absence of it should have notified him immediately, but he was too wrapped up in his plans to connect the dots. This had to go right, after all.

" It's not a game. " Despite the way his mind races, his words are cool. The woman before him was not a priority - it wasn't often he was asked to hunt a witch. They were too close to human, they lacked any of the valuable parts someone like Kakashi may have. If he were to attack her, there would be no cleanup crew; no secondary team to scrape her remains up & take them to another location. It would ultimately become his problem to keep her death from falling back on him. That was all assuming he could kill her, as he often did. The next words spill from his lips like a criminal charge, " I don't keep score. "

" You have to know this isn't going to end well. " a thinly veiled threat, dancing on the edge of his accusation. He takes in a deep breath, the most prominent response to his racing thoughts. It's time to think decisively; she obviously didn't like what he was doing. But he had to do it. It wasn't like he could afford to keep missing his marks, losing a shapeshifter like this was a major blow.

" If you tell me where the shapeshifter is, we can let this rest. " He ignores her offer; this wasn't a social call, it was supposed to be a quick in & out. He glances around, looking for any potential traps. It was hard telling how long she had been set up in the house, & what sort of confrontation she was looking for. Usually, anyone who interfered stayed out of his direct path; but she seemed to be an exception to the presumption. Maybe a bluff would do the trick, " We can walk away. No bloodshed. No tea. "

[goddess-of-green]

omg just found your account and i'm in love hey, could you do akatsuki headcannons of them being jealous cause u r talking to another member in a flirty way, hope that makes sense. xx

Warnings: Fem!Reader, language, suggestive themes

• Tobi

◊ Let me tell you, Deidara is on thin fucking ice

◊ He is constantly flirting with you and when you remind him that you're with Tobi he just scoffs and keeps flirting like you're joking

◊ Tobi is very protective and even though he trusts you he gets jealous and insecure very easily

◊ He probably wouldn't directly confront Deidara about it but he would do subtle things to make it apparent that you are Tobi's cute lover, not Deidara's

◊ He would come up behind you and pull you close, chirping about how much he loves you, and how much you love him, while Deidara rolls his eyes

◊ Please just hug him and reassure him that you love him, it makes him melt every time

◊ "Tobi just gets...worried Y/N-Chan...He- I love you..."

• Pain

◊ Pain is majorly territorial

◊ He will threaten anyone if he even suspects that they have intentions

◊ He will attack someone if they continuously flirt with you but he tries not to if it's an Akatsuki member

◊ That being said, when Zetsu keeps flirting with you he gets mad

◊ Generally dislikes PDA but he will resort to it if Zetsu doesn't let up

◊ He'd pull you into his lap or use terms of endearment in front of everyone

◊ "As my goddess, you shall always stay by my side. I will not let anyone get in the way of that."

• Itachi

◊ He's so insecure

◊ Itachi would be very possessive but would repress it

◊ He would subtly threaten someone, or remind them who you belong to if their flirting starts to get out of hand

◊ Itachi tries very hard not to say anything, but he will seek your attention if you've been giving someone else a lot of your time

◊ Deidara flirts with you constantly, and you're pretty sure it's just because he hates Itachi

◊ Itachi will just eerily stare at him over you shoulder until he stops

◊ "Love...stay with me for a while, please."

• Kisame

◊ He is soo possessive

◊ He trusts you 100%, but he's still paranoid you may leave him for someone else

◊ He's super passive aggressive when someone tries to flirt with you

◊ Generally his appearance alone is enough to scare off anyone that wants you but there are exceptions

◊ Tobi doesn't outright flirt with you but he compliments you constantly and tries to get very close to you, too close for Kisame's liking

◊ Kisame will lurk and give you lots of affection so that Tobi knows your his, he is also not above marking you

◊ "You're mine, sweetheart. I want everyone to know that."

• Kakuzu

◊ This man, will beat some ass

◊ If anyone even looks at his darling the wrong way, they are toast

◊ He won't do PDA, like ever, but he will scare people off in other ways

◊ Is not above killing someone if they get too close to you

◊ Kakuzu trusts you...but not anyone else

◊ Don't make fun of him for getting jealous, just run your fingers through his hair and tell him how strong he is, that will cool him down much faster

◊ "If anyone even dares to touch you...I will have their heart."

• Sasori

◊ He'd make someone a puppet if they said the wrong thing to you

◊ He'll openly threaten anyone that gets too close to you

◊ Depending on who is flirting with you, he'll respond with varying degrees of aggression but he'll never ignore it

◊ Kakuzu shows interest in you and it pisses Sasori off

◊ Sasori and Kakuzu have had a lot of passive aggressive stand-offs, but neither of them are savage enough to just start fighting over a girl in front of the entire Akatsuki

◊ You are a work of art and like in a museum, no one is allowed to touch the exhibit

◊ "I simply cannot allow these imbeciles to disrespect you with their dirty words."

• Deidara

◊ He will never admit it but he is slightly insecure

◊ Tobi always flirts with you just to mess with him

◊ He knows you would never even think of leaving him for Tobi but it still pisses him off

◊ If you respond positively to Tobi's flirting, -like giggling or even just letting him continue to flirt with you- then Deidara will get mad

◊ He'll tell you how much of an idiot that Tobi is and how you shouldn't even waste your time in his presence and, and-

◊ You just need to kiss him and make sure he knows you'd never leave him, especially not for someone like Tobi

◊ "You are art, un. Art that no else is allowed to admire but me."

• Hidan

◊ Arguably the worst of all the Akatsuki in regards to jealousy

◊ He's not insecure and he doesn't think for even a second that you'd leave him but it pisses him the fuck off when anyone even tries to flirt with you

◊ He will throw down, he doesn't give a damn who's flirting with you

◊ Hidan respects you a lot, but he can be objectifying and possessive sometimes

◊ It's actually because he respects you that he wants you to himself so much

◊ He'll do anything to get someone away from you and assert his dominance, including kissing you in front of them, attacking them, hell, he'd even fuck you in front of them to get the point across

◊ "You're fucking mine okay? I won't let anyone else have you."

• Konan

◊ Konan is a bit insecure that you'd leave her, poor baby has baggage

◊ She wouldn't necessarily get jealous very easily, but she would get insecure if you were giving someone else a lot of your time and were spending more time away from her

◊ If someone is openly saying lewd things about your or being pushy, that's when Konan starts to get upset

◊ She has no problem with putting them in their place or simply pulling you close and making your relationship apparent

◊ Like Pain, Konan isn't really one for PDA, but she will certainly do it if it means others will keep their hands to themselves, we're looking at you, Hidan

◊ Overall, Konan's fairly passive as far as jealousy goes, but you should still take the time to make sure she knows you love her, she appreciates it

◊ "I get...worried, darling. What if someone tries to take you from me?"

• Zetsu

◊ Zetsu is a little complicated with jealousy, but both sides agree that you are theirs, and no one has a right to touch you but them

◊ If someone keeps flirting with you, he can generally scare them off by just being there, especially if he makes it clear that you are his

◊ PDA is definitely not his thing but he'll lean in and give you kiss just so that everyone knows who you belong to

◊ Black Zetsu is literally outraged when anyone tries anything with you, and he will 100% try to at least maim them

◊ White Zetsu is much more laid back but unlike Black Zetsu he gets insecure, he sometimes worries that you would rather have a human lover, which plants other insecurities in his head that he's not good enough for you

◊ How aggressively he reacts essentially depends on who and how much they're flirting with you, but no matter who it is, they are not safe

◊ "You are mine. And I am yours."

[zenmastercharles]

To Fight A Class

Marinette had been different ever since Lila Rossi came back from her trip to Achu. Her falsified trip to Achu. Lila lied about almost everything, and Marinette’s class ate it up like chocolate. Marinette tried to call Lila out on her lies, however, Lila used every word Marinette spoke and turned it against the bluenette. And her class believed her! Even to the point where they stopped being her friends.

Lila made up tales about how Marinette would confront her in the bathroom and threaten her, send her mean texts (which she backed up with fake text screenshots), and she even lied about Marinette physically attacking her when she was alone. However, Lila decided to kick Marinette when she was already down. 

Lila created a fake text number and texted another fake number posing as Marinette and her cousin. Lila, using Marinette’s identity, ranted about how stupid her class was, how she was playing them from the start, going into extensive detail about how their dreams would never become true and how dumb they all were. After Lila showed the class this fake conversation, they decided to confront her. They berated her when she got to the classroom. 

Marinette denied everything, and this made the entire class angry. It made Alix so mad she actually hit Marinette, resulting in a suspension for both girls. Marinette was sad about losing all of her friends. And was almost akumatized 6 times in a single month, only being saved because of Tikki and Plagg fighting off the akumas. Marinette was now a social pariah. Her former friends started to bully her, trip her up, pour liquids on her sketchbook, and even berated her from time to time.

They truly believed that Marinette was a bully, and that hurt her. It hurt her so bad. Adrien still told her to take the moral high ground, that Lila’s lies weren’t hurting anybody, and let Lila realize that her lies are bad on her own. Adrien didn’t realize that Marinette’s lies were hurting her. One time, Marinette yelled at Lila about her lies, and a yelling battle broke out between Marinette and most of her class, Adrien standing by. 

Afterwards, Adrien came up to her and actually berated her and said he was disappointed in her. Marinette berated him back, said something along the lines of ‘I can’t believe I used to like you’, and told him to talk to her when he’s found a way to remove to stupid stick from his ass. Adrien still didn’t realize that he had no right to be disappointed in her, and still tried to talk to her. He eventually gave up, and said to Plagg, word for word, that Marinette was now ‘unsaveable’. It was that moment when Plagg started to change his opinion on his holder.

Things weren’t getting better in her superhero form either. Chat Noir had become even more flirting. To the point where Ladybug occasionally berated him for being so flirty and not concentrating on the battle. One time, when Ladybug berated him in the middle of a fight, Chat decided to be petty. Chat left the fight, leaving Ladybug to fight all by herself. Plagg pleaded with Adrien to go back into the fight, but Adrien thought it would be okay, right?

Wrong, the villain almost killed Marinette’s parents. After that, Ladybug and Chat Noir’s relationship became distant. Chat Noir continued to be flirty, but Ladybug acted like he didn’t exist. One day, during a fight, Chat Noir turned up the flirt and wasn’t even helping Ladybug. After the akuma was defeated, Ladybug berated him and told him to stop acting like this. This was all recorded. The media exploded in outrage and conflict. On one side, people were acting lenient and defending Chat, and the other side was full-on roasting him. This saddened Adrien, who acted like he was the victim here. It was at that moment where Plagg decided that Adrien Agreste was no longer worthy to be his holder. Marinette had been at an all time low in both of her lives.

And guess what? BUSTIER STILL EXPECTED HER TO BE AN EXAMPLE. Whenever there was an altercation, Ms. Bustier spat out some random bullshit about being a good example for the students, and being a good class representative. Marinette was still obligated to plan fundraisers, school trips, and events. She couldn’t take it anymore, and considered taking her own life. Instead, she quit being class representative and moved to Ms. Mendeliev’s class. Ms. Bustier tried to convince her to stay, but the class was adamant that they didn’t need a bully like her as their class representative. That was indeed false.

Max was the smartest kid in the class, just barely getting above Marinette, so they elected him to class president. They planned a bake sale fundraiser, and thought of everything, except the fact that Marinette always baked 70% of all the baked goods. They were convinced that they didn’t need her, so they just bought a bunch of baked goods. Some of them tried to buy from Marinette’s bakery, and were promptly told to leave. 

So, their fundraiser started, and was garbage. Most of the customers at the bake sale didn’t like what the class had brought and thought they were wildly overpriced for being store bought. Lila lied and said hers was homemade. In the end, they raised just 50 dollars. The class was kind of low about this, but were still convinced that Marinette was a bully that was unwanted and unneeded. Speaking of the blue-haired designer.

When she switched to Ms. Mendeliev’s class, the class was worried. They knew Lila lied and had turned the entire class into sheep, and thought Marinette was some sort of spy. But when they learned the full story, they comforted her. However, there were 5 students in the class who were absolutely furious about how Marinette’s old class had betrayed her. Aurore Beauréal, Roman Reyes, Mireille Caquet, Marc Anciel, and Jeanne Lémery. 

These 5 students walked up to the Akuma Class during lunchtime and absolutely laid into them about how they’ve treated Marinette. Of course, they defend themselves and Lila busts out the crocodile tears. This ends in a physical dispute between Jeanne and Alix, which ended with another suspension. Marinette’s new friends started to mold her into the helpful, confident, and kind girl she was before Lila told all those fibs about her. 

She brought pastries in for everyone, even Ms. Mendeliev, and Ms. Mendeliev soon grew to be her favorite teacher. Her new best friends were still furious and wanted to take the Akuma Class down. HARD. Marinette denied this action because she didn’t want to be involved with them again, but when she saw Mylene make a friendship charm for Lila, she quickly agreed and revealed that she had a trump card named  Chloé Bourgeois.

Over the time where Lila was taking over the class, Chloe knew she was lying. She even called her out on it once. That was obviously a mistake. Lila spread even more lies about Chloe being mean to her. She said that Chloe paid people to wreck her windows and even wrecked her windows as “proof”. This caused the class to exile Chloe as well, which Chloe didn’t care about.

But what Chloe did care about was that Lila took Sabrina away from her. The class knew that Chloe was a bully, so it wasn’t hard for them to believe that Chloe did it. Sabrina started slightly threatening her by saying things like ‘People don’t want bullies as friends’ and ‘You can’t use your money to threaten people’. When the class confronted her about being mean to Lila, she didn’t want to take it anymore and went to leave.

She noticed Sabrina didn’t come with her. She called to Sabrina, who simply said ‘I don’t want to be friends with a bully.’ This broke Chloe’s heart and caused her to be akumatized into the Princess Dignity, who tried her best to get to Lila and force her to reveal her lies. Ladybug considered letting her hit Lila with her Blasts of Truth, but eventually overcame it and defeated Princess Dignity. Marinette heard about it and went to go look for Chloe.

She found her crying in an alleyway, where she thought no one would see her. Marinette consoled the blond, who tried to deny any feelings at first, but she eventually caved. She told Marinette about everything, and even admitted she had started liking Sabrina as more than a friend. Marinette and Chloe actually bonded over this, eventually losing hope that their crushes will ever come out of the darkness. (Marinette’s being Adrien, Chloe’s being Sabrina.)

After Marinette introduced Chloe to her new friends and told her about their plan, the blond was all in. Chloe put on an act and apologized to the class. They accepted the apology, Lila actually hugged Chloe, and Ms. Bustier was so proud that she gave Chloe a present. The group had a plan, a rather unnecessarily complicated one, but a plan it was. 

They basically turned their fingers into metaphorical shovels and digged up dirt on everyone in that class, including the teacher. What they got was a gold mine of dirt.

They created a 40 minute video demonstrating all of Lila’s lies being disproved, and for the other half was recordings about the Akuma Class talking bad about each other and even some secrets that they had mentioned to themselves thinking they were alone. Her friends were ready to post it everywhere, but Marinette wanted to give them one last chance.

Her birthday was coming up and she was planning a party. She was going to invite her class. If they said yes, she would go small. If they said no, she would go BIG. When Roman passed out the invitation slips, the entire Akuma Class walked up to her table, insulted her, ripped all of their invitation slips and half, and threw them on Marinette’s table.

Marinette shed a single tear, before releasing a convoluting smirk. Any smirk Chloe gave would pale in comparison to the smugness in Marinette’s smirk. A smirk that made Lila Rossi a bit scared. Marinette replied with a simple, “Alright. Your loss.” They could hear the uncaringness in her voice. They expected begging, crying, and apologies. Not uncaringness. 

Two months later, the Akuma Class walked into school, confused. Everyone was talking about a party hosted by Marinette. They were suspicious and checked Marinette’s social media accounts and saw that 67 pictures were taken and posted by Marinette on the night of her birthday. She had met so many celebrities. Mostly because Jagged Stone was her step-uncle, but she had some connections of her own.

She had designed dresses for Taylor Swift, Gigi Hadid, Billie Eilish (i probably spelled that wrong), and many other artists and models under the identity of MDC. No one knew that it was her, except for her new friends of course, who she told a bit after they became friends. Marientte decided to reveal herself, and people were shocked that it was just a 14 year old girl.

Especially the Avengers, who she had handsewn suits and dresses for once. This was Marinette’s plan, to make her friends regret not showing up and meeting celebrities. However, thanks to a light good luck charm placed on Marinette by Tikki, her plan took an unexpected turn for the better.

Each of the class’s Idols showed up, Lois Lane (Alya’s Idol), Marshmallow (Nino’s Idol), Tony Hawk (Alix’s Idol), Daisy Ridley (Adrien’s Idol), and so many more. Nathaniel was especially hurt when his favorite idol showed up in the picture reel. When Marinette returned, the class berated her once more about how she should have invited them and how some of them could have met their idols and gotten sponsorships.

She then reminds them that she did invite them. They remembered what they did and looked a bit less confident. They still tried to retort and say that she should have told them that she was inviting their idols. She says that she didn’t, that Jagged invited them, they were still mad, but not as mad as they would be at the end of the day. Just as school was about to end, a video was sent to everyone’s phones in Francois Dupont, even some outside of school.

The first 20 minutes were discrediting every lie Lila told. Lila tried to refute it when she saw it, but there was no way to discredit cold hard evidence. The next 20 minutes were revealing secrets, insults, and lies that the class had kept from each other way before Lila even showed her face. Nino stealing from his competition, Alix cheating in multiple races, Kim insulting a lot of his classmates and cheating, Max not even being the one who built Markov, Mylene shown not to be happy in her relationship with Ivan and even ranting about the poor brute, Alya being racist to a dude who had happened to see Ladybug detransform and wouldn’t tell her anything, and so much more. The only ones who had no dirt to dig up were Ivan, Juleka, and Rose, who were relieved.

However, then something unexpected popped up on everyone’s phone screens. A little 6 minute video revealing Adrien to be Chat Noir, posted by Jeanne with the permission from Marinette. It also showed how hostile and petty Chat Noir had been to Ladybug all because she wouldn’t date him. This made people hate Adrien and Gabriel even berated his son for ruining his reputation. 

Adrien was about to go take it out on Marinette, but didn’t expect to be swarmed by a bunch of Kwamis. They stole his ring off of him and flew off, with Plagg stating that Adrien was no longer fit to be Chat Noir before following the rest of the Kwamis. This made Adrien extremely sad, but instead of Hawkmoth akumatized him first, he turned Adrien to the side of evil. Hawkmoth revealed himself as Gabriel and managed to convince Adrien to become evil. He gave him the fixed Peacock Miraculous and Adrien became a recurring villain to Ladybug. However, Ladybug had a new team.

Ladybug decided to give Miraculouses to the friends she knew would always be on her side. She gave Roman the Cat Miraculous, Aurore the Rooster Miraculous, Mirelle the Mouse Miraculous, Kagami the Dragon Miraculous, Luka the Snake Miraculous, and Jeanne the Ox Miraculous. She even gave Chloe the Horse Miraculous so that she wouldn’t have to worry about the secret identity thing again. After a few months of Adrien terrorizing the city as Feather Rouge, they finally defeated him, they threw his ass in jail along with his father and his assistant. 

Her class, after seeing the video, started fighting amongst themselves, eventually escalating to an every man for himself brawl in the classroom. Every student in the class was suspended, but with the video, they had enough expenses expelled. They all decided to blame Lila AND Marinette for this. They went to confront Marinette, even though they all hated each other. Only to meet a badass, angry,  pizza stick weilding Chinese mother who told them to fuck off (she didn’t say “fuck off” literally, but they could tell that they should by her tone of voice). 

They eventually got to Marinette, and tried to berate her again. However, her real friends were there to defend her and scare her former friends off. Marinette thanked them and was grateful to have real friends.

(This is the first fic I’ve ever written. I wrote it in like an hour. I was rushing. I’m sorry if it’s bad.)

[jmbringitonworld]

Fransweek 2022, Day 6: Favourite Trope

As Frisk slowly drifted back into consciousness, she realised three things. One, she was sitting upright in a chair. Two, she was securely strapped to said chair. And three, she was not alone.

With a sigh of mild exasperation, she turned towards the other presence in the dark room.

“Sans, what is it this time?”

The monster in question beamed brightly at her, a doting, lovesick expression on his face, his cheeks tinted blue and his eyelights little blue hearts, faintly tinged purple.

“MWEH HEH HEH! I’M GLAD YOU’RE FINALLY AWAKE, MY LOVE, I MISSED LOOKING INTO YOUR BEAUTIFUL EYES,” Sans gushed happily.

Frisk levelled a flat look at him, her now crimson eyes narrowed in irritation. Sensing her obvious impatience, Sans cleared his non-existent throat.

“I’VE BROUGHT YOU HERE TO KEEP YOU SAFE FROM ALL OF THOSE DESPICABLE INTERLOPERS SEEKING TO TEAR US APART!”

Frisk looked distinctly unimpressed at his explanation.

“This is about that waitress yesterday, isn’t it?” she guessed.

Sans bristled in anger at the mention, his expression full of outraged loathing. Frisk sighed again, looking mildly annoyed at this entire situation.

“Sans, we’ve been over this, you bonehead,” she said, her tone as dry as her expression. “She only flirted with me as part of her job. All serving staff are trained to be affable and flirt with customers, to sucker them into tipping them better. She wasn’t serious or anything. There’s absolutely no need to feel threatened.”

Sans wasn’t appeased in the slightest by her words. He clenched his gloved fists, and grit his teeth as his eyelights narrowed in aggravation.

“YOU DON’T KNOW THAT FOR SURE! I SAW THE LOOK ON HER FACE. THE DESIRE. SHE HARBOURED INAPROPRIATE FEELINGS FOR YOU. I’M CERTAIN SHE HAD ROMANTIC DESIGNS ON YOU! AND THAT IS UNACCEPTABLE, YOU ARE MY SOULMATE! I’VE WAITED FOR YOU MY ENTIRE LIFE. AND NOW THAT I’VE FOUND YOU, NOW THAT WE’RE FINALLY TOGETHER, I WON’T ALLOW ANYONE ELSE TO TAKE YOU FROM ME. I’LL KILL ANYONE WHO TRIES.”

He growled threateningly at that last part, his eye sockets dark and empty. Frisk sniffed dispassionately, her face impassive, utterly unconcerned by her boyfriend’s indignation or his dark vow.

“No one’s going to take me away from you, my silly mate,” she huffed, her tone betraying her annoyance. “You said so yourself, we’re soulmates. Two people tied together by fate, destined to be the perfect partners. We were literally made for each other.”

Sans crossed his arms, seemingly mollified by her easy acceptance of their relationship, his expression more petulant than murderous, now.

“EXACTLY, BELOVED! YOU AND I ARE BOUND BY FATE ITSELF, AND ALL MONSTERS CHERISH AND RESPECT THAT SACRED BOND. WE’D NEVER FLIRT WITH SOMEONE ELSE’S DESTINED SOULMATE! BUT HUMANS AREN’T AS IN TUNE WITH THEIR SOULS AS WE MONSTERS ARE; YOU CAN’T FEEL THE BOND LIKE WE CAN. SO EVERY TIME A HUMAN TRIES TO GET CLOSE TO YOU, COMPLETELY DISREGARDING OUR PRECIOUS BOND, THEY’RE A THREAT TO OUR HAPPINESS. AND I WON’T TOLERATE ANY THREATS.”

Frisk’s stony expression didn’t budge in the slightest at Sans’s impassioned speech. If she could, she would’ve flicked his forehead. Or stabbed him. Perhaps it was for the best that her arms and hands were tied firmly (but still comfortably) to her chair.

“Sans, my charming, little fool,” Sans quailed slightly at her frosty tone and her neutral face of displeasure. “Do you really think a mere human could ever get between us? Do you honestly believe that I would ever, for a moment, even consider choosing some pathetic, loathsome waste of space of a person, over my loyal, devoted, caring, considerate, excessively affectionate boyfriend?”

Sans all but melted at her words, his ire having completely abandoned him. He smiled delightedly, if a little bashfully, at her, his eyelights back to being enamoured hearts. Frisk ignored his change of mood and continued briskly on.

“If you do, then you’re as much a fool as your idiot brother,” she deadpanned. “And do you know why I will always pick you, over everyone else? It’s not because we’re soulmates, not because of some pre-determined bond I can’t feel. It’s because I love you. Despite everything, I’ve fallen for you, for better or worse. And that love is worth more to me than anything else in the universe. No matter what, I will always choose my love for you. So, regardless of whether or not we’re soulmates, I’ll always be with you. If anything, I’m glad we’re soulmates because it means I can be reasonably certain your own feelings for me won’t waver.”

“NEVER!” Sans rushed to reassure her. “I LOVE YOU TOO, FRISK, AND THAT WILL NEVER CHANGE! I PROMISE! I WILL SWEAR MY UNDYING LOVE FOR YOU IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE WORLD, IF YOU WISH. AND ONCE OUR SOULS ARE PROPERLY BONDED, YOU WILL NEVER BE IN DOUBT OF MY FEELINGS FOR YOU!”

“Stop right there,” Frisk frowned at him. “You are not proposing to me whilst holding me captive, tied to a chair.”

Sans gasped, slapping his gloved hands to his mouth.

“OH NO, OF COURSE NOT! SUCH A MOMENTOUS OCCASION DESERVES ONLY THE MOST ROMANTIC OF CIRCUMSTANCES! I’VE MADE SURE TO PLAN FOR IT EXTREMELY WELL. I AM CERTAIN YOU’LL BE SUITABLY IMPRESSED BY MY EFFORTS. OH WOWZERS, I CAN’T WAIT!”

Frisk’s cold look softened against her will, at her mate’s giddy, excited look, and she failed to suppress the faint smile tugging at her lips. She could never seem to hold onto her icy stoicism in the face of Sans’s genuine and sincere love for her. And his joy was altogether too infectious. Given how difficult it was for her to show her emotions, she’d always, quietly, admired how easily Sans wore his heart on his sleeve. He expressed his feelings so freely, while she could barely muster a smile. No wonder he’d managed to win her heart so quickly, despite her initial resistance. Still, she made an effort to appear unaffected, as she shot him an imperious look.

“And Sans?”

“YES, MY LOVE?”

“If anyone does try to come between us? I’ll be the one to handle them, got that? We both know that I’m more than capable of, and willing to deal with anyone stupid enough to stand in my way.”

Even while tied down to a chair and unable to move, Frisk’s threatening aura was fiercer and more dangerous than Sans’s had been, as her eyes glowed an ominous red, her dark look promising unspeakable violence on her foes. Sans only sighed lovingly at her, a tender, besotted look on his skull.

“OF COURSE, MY LOVE.”

“Good. Now untie me before I kick your ass.”

“MWEH HEH HEH! ANYTHING FOR YOU, MY DARLING LOVE.”

________________________________________________

I don't have a favourite trope, so I picked two that I'm really fond of, in the right circumstances: yanderes, and soulmates. I love yanderes, so long as they'd never actually hurt the object of their affections/obsession, and so long as the latter is either completely, blissfully clueless to the yandere's darker nature, or they're okay with it (or at least, begrudgingly accepting). I also love soulmates, so long as that bond is what brings a couple together, but not what keeps them together. There has to be more to a relationship than mere destiny (even if that's what first made them get together).

So with that, I present to you: Yandere Swap!Sans x Kuudere Swap!Frisk. They're both very different from my normal Underswap Sans and Frisk, so they're practically from a different AU. This Frisk is the least emotive and empathetic of all of my Frisks, and is almost sociopathic. She sees Sans's obsession and possessiveness as a cute quirk, and a minor nuisance at worst, and, quite frankly, she’s a boss bitch who’s more than capable of handling her bonehead. And while Sans may be willing to burn the world down for his beloved (and Frisk wouldn’t even bat an eye, honestly), he would never hurt her.

Honestly, I find these two weirdoes too funny for me to take this seriously, so uh, sorry about the humour 😅

Thank you to @fransweek for the prompts. It's been fun (and stressful) coming up with and writing drabbles for all of them.

Day 1 / Day 2 / Day 3 / Day 4 / Day 5 / Day 6 / Day 7

[kurowrites]

Wangxian prompt: the burial mounds make wei wuxian forget who he is. He only just have vague memories of wens hurting him, so he still kills them. He kills people he dislikes, and protects and is a little possessive of the ones he does like(he likes the angry purple one, the nice soup lady) he is especially possessive of the pretty one in white. He is completely all over him.

Why do you guys insist on sending me terrible things??

Wei Wuxian wakes up in a dark place, but he doesn’t remember where he is or what he’s doing here. In fact, he doesn’t remember who he is. He looks at himself as well as he can in the dark, and he thinks he looks emaciated. His arms are too thin, the knuckles on his hands strangely prominent. He’s also dirty. He wonders if he’s homeless.

There is nothing much to be found in the place where he woke up, so he moves on. He feels extremely hungry, a gnawing sensation in his stomach, and if he doesn’t get food soon... Luckily, he comes across a village and someone is nice enough to give him some food. He talks a little with the people curious enough to come close to him, and tries to find out if they know where he possibly came from. But no one seems to know anything. They only tell him stories about the cultivators who have been getting more and more aggressive recently, threatening the villagers.

That strikes Wei Wuxian as weird. Aren’t cultivators supposed to protect people? He’s not sure he can actually do something, but as thanks for the food, he promises the villagers to look into that and see if there’s something he can help with.

So he kind of wanders around a little and comes across this little group of cultivators. Wei Wuxian has no idea who they are, but one of the men starts screaming as soon as he sees him. Something about this man irks him immediately. They probably know each other? But they definitely don’t like each other. When the man pulls his sword on Wei Wuxian, he sees red. He doesn’t really understand what he’s doing, but once he’s regained his senses, all the cultivators are dead. Well. At least the problem with the villagers is solved, he guesses.

He wanders around for a while, helping villagers with all kinds of odd jobs in exchange for food and a place to sleep. And one day, while he’s residing in another small village, a man comes to find him, all dressed in white. The man must know him, because he looks at Wei Wuxian with a strange expression on his face and calls him ‘Wei Ying’ with an odd tone in his voice.

Wei Wuxian has no idea who this man is, but he’s... something. There is something very alluring about him. Wei Wuxian thinks he might want to kiss this man if he got the chance. Just because he’s curious. So he flirts with him outrageously, and he can’t tell if he’s going to get punched the next moment, but the man only gives him a slight glare and blushes a little. Which is cute, kind of. Also it seems that this cultivator is not like the ones before, and he doesn’t have to kill him. Which is also nice.

Though the man in white doesn’t really speak much, he makes an effort to ask Wei Wuxian all kinds of things. He seems to know a lot about who Wei Wuxian used to be, but it’s not like Wei Wuxian remembers any of that. It feels strange, talking about all these things he’s apparently forgotten, so he simply makes jokes to distract from the topic and on one memorable occasion steals that kiss he’s kind of wanted every since they met.

The man seems to want to bring him somewhere, but honestly, he can’t trust that. He woke alone and with amnesia in the wilderness. If he’d had any friends, they wouldn’t let that happen to him, no?

After a while, an angry grape-coloured man and a pretty young lady find them. The man in white - Wei Wuxian has trouble remembering that his name is Lan Zhan - seems to have expected them. Both of them talk to him a lot, but none of it makes sense. The pretty lady says they are siblings, but obviously they are nothing alike. He likes her though, because she gives him very good food and also spoils him a little whenever the angry grape isn’t looking.

He doesn’t know what to make of the angry grape, if he’s honest. The man seems constantly annoyed with him, but he also doesn’t leave him alone. So he does the only thing he knows how to do: tease him and annoy him out of asking the same questions over and over again, questions he cannot answer. But as with Lan Zhan, angry grape tries to drag him back to 'their' home, too.

It's all very confusing. He thinks about sneaking out at night and setting out on his own again, just so he can breathe again.

When he tries to do it, though, Lan Zhan catches him in time. Still, Wei Wuxian is unwilling to give up on his plan now. So he's dismissively like "well, give me a reason to stay" and then tries to pass Lan Zhan by, because there ISN'T.

The next thing he knows, he's enthusiastically making out with Lan Zhan.

Well, he thinks as he licks his lips. That's certainly an incentive.

(He eventually remembers his siblings and Lan Zhan. But he never really manages to remember what happened while he was gone. Just sometimes, he wakes up at night, screaming, and Lan Zhan has to take him in his arms and tell him that everything is okay.)

[diaryofabeautyfiend]

Small Time Witch (33)

3 am. The darkest part of the night full of quiet longing. The day slips away to a new dawn and time is reborn.

On the eve of your hearing you sat in such darkness having a drink or seven. Your husband asleep in your childhood bed in the room you shared with Bethany. You stared into oblivion trying to come to terms with the gravity of what was facing you. The UN and SHIELD were going to decide if you were a threat. And, if you were, what would they do to you.

Odin already put up the funds to repair the damage you caused. He tried to be diplomatic with the World Security Council. Promised you wouldn’t step a toe onto Midgard without a proper escort and a heads up that you were on the way. They didn’t bite. They wouldn’t would they?

They only wanted an arrangement that worked for them. A tit for tat but more tit for them than tat for you. Essentially, you work for them when they say and they won’t lock you up for the remainder of your life.

Loki wanted to just leave. They threatened to find you. He laughed in their faces and said he’d like to see them try. He vowed to unleash hell as many of the universe’s armies were loyal to you. They didn’t take kindly to his threats. Had Steve not stepped in, you’d both be in a cage.

This is what you wanted wasn’t it? Your Clyde to his Bonnie. Eternal outlaws. He didn’t want that anymore. He wanted a sweet little house and a quiet life with babies in his arms. You were starting to think that was a good idea. To settle.

You had a few more tricks up your sleeve though. Mobius stepped in briefly promising if things went wrong he would handle it. You didn’t know what that meant. Oddly you trusted him. He had been true to his word thus far and brutally honest. Things may be playing out exactly how they were meant to play out. You did ask if he gave you Loki just because he knew you’d lose him again. He assured you the two of you were inseparable. That at least gave you solace.

The other worry on your mind was your last visit with the team of doctors Steve set up. They examined poked prodded and drew blood for five days. You weren’t riddled with cancer. Your body was in top shape. That was, as long as you held the stones. You wouldn’t die if you let them go. You just wouldn’t heal. Your body had been through hell. You would live a feeble existence. They’re suggestion was to learn to live with them.

The only stone you agreed to expel was the power stone. It was determined by Loki, the Professor and Agatha that the power stone in particular was doing the most damage. It was reluctant to let you go but they finally got it out. It’s currently in the Professor’s vault where only he and you have access. Just in case.

Agatha had also been helping you uncover the truth about the Kale’s and their plot to destroy your coven. She believed Fury sent them so he could take you for himself. When you told her about his plan to kill Franklin, that all but solidified things. They were not top priority at the moment. Even if they were to attack, you had enough fire power now to defend yourselves. They also lost the element of surprise. Once you had proof, you would bring them in front of the witches council and let them deal with them. For now, your family was safe.

You poured another drink and finally you were starting to feel the tendrils of liquor take hold. You stared into the room bathed in obsidian. It stared back. It flirted with you. Begged you to embrace it. To let it take you. These days the darkness was the only lover you knew. You reached out to it but Loki pulled you back.

You had not heard his feet gently padding across the hardwood. Had not noticed his weight lean on the top of the wingback chair. You smiled at the darkness offering a weak sorry when you felt his lips on the top of your head.

“Let’s take a walk” he whispered as he pried the bottle from your hands. As you did most nights, you walked to the spot where your cottage should be. He laid out a blanket and wrapped another around the two of you. His emotions were normally all over the place. Panic and worry mixed with pain and fear. Always though, his love for you was ever prominent. This night he simply felt calm.

“I’m starting to see your vision of a life with less bullshit.” You snuggled against him to keep warm.

A smiled curled the corner of his lips, “I knew you would come around eventually.”

“If we get through this, I may even rethink the part about children. The doctors told me I was all good in there. Maybe too good.”

He laughed and kissed your hair, “Sounds divine. Perhaps we can just move your mother to Asgard with us. I know it would pain her to have her grandchildren so far away.”

“She’d never leave Helen and the girls. We can’t come back here. That’s clear now.”

“No. Whatever happens tomorrow, darling, I suggest you say your goodbyes. Not a chance we’ll stay behind.”

You nodded. “I know. I guess I just hope against hope that they’ll reconsider Odin’s proposal.” You both knew that wouldn’t happen.

Loki massaged your shoulders applying just the right amount of pressure to turn you into putty. “I’m sorry it’s come to this, Y/N.”

“Me too. I just want everything to be over.” You sunk further into his chest letting your eyes close.

*******************************************

On the morning of the hearing the house was bustling. All of the girls ran around getting ready for the big day. Even though this was your hearing the entire coven would be on trial. Helene and Agatha tried to prepare you for anything. “Keep your composure.” Helene kept warning. That would be the the theme for the day. Composure. Stiff upper lip. Take your lumps with dignity and grace.

The girls all went ahead of you. Loki and your mother stayed behind. She tried to get you to eat something. Your stomach was in knots. You couldn’t possibly keep anything down. She held your hand while you sat on the porch waiting for your transport. When the agents arrived she had to look away when they shackled your hands and feet. They loaded you into the back of the armored van. She held your eyes through the slit in the window. You were being brave. She was not. When they pulled away she broke down.

“I’m never going to see her again am I?” she asked Loki.

“Asgard is beautiful this time of year. You are free to visit anytime.” He gave her a small smile and patted her on the back.

“Take care of her. Please.”

“I intend to.”

They drove to the facility in silence. When they parked Thor was waiting for them. “Heimdall is at the ready.” he informed Loki.

“Good. Give her a moment to say goodbye to her mother then call him.”

The room was large and crowded. The Avengers were all seated behind you. Some of the X-men filtered in as well. The guards stood a little taller when Magneto sat next to the Professor. Your case would set a precedent for how all mutant and enhanced persons were treated from there on out. You were concerned that, if things didn’t go your way, Magneto would start something. That would all but solidify the monstrous view the government had of mutants.

Secretary Ross sat in front of you with various other generals and senators. The World Security Council was watching from a large monitor. They hammered you with question after question about Thanos and Malekith. They asked the same questions over and over. Nothing you could say was good enough. You started to get antsy. They already made their decision. Nothing you could say would free you. You sat alone and squirming for two hours before they called for lunch.

You stayed seated waiting for an agent to escort you back to the holding area. Loki sat behind you willing you to turn around. When you finally did tears were in your eyes.

“Oh, Pet. Please don’t cry.”

“They’ve already decided. We should....” Before you could finish your sentence Mobius M. Mobius came strolling in with his briefcase.

“Escape? Like they don’t have that collar wired with explosives. Mobius M. Mobius.” He introduced himself to Loki.

“This wasn’t plan was it?” Your voice broke as he rifled around is case.

“Nope.” He pulled out a lock picking kit and pushed your head down to get a better look at the collar.

“What the fuck are you doing?!” Loki whispered outraged.

“Oh. Don’t worry about them. I’ve frozen this whole room.” When Loki looked around he saw the guards standing completely still. The room was silent. “Ok, kid. Hold still.” Before Loki could spring into action your collar slipped from your neck. “That was close.” Mobius chuckled.

You stood up and shook your shackles off your wrists and ankles. “Thanks!”

“You’re welcome. Now dry your tears and let’s get out of here. You too, your highness.” You walked through the building seeing everyone frozen in the hallways and even on the street. Loki held your hand protectively. “We just have to get to the jump point and you can call for Heimdall. Thor is already there waiting.”

“Why are you helping us?” Loki was flustered. He gripped your hand and pulled you toward him. “Y/N who is this? Why is he helping us?”

“Lok...” You tried to find a way to explain but Mobius cut you off.

“It’s ok, Y/N. I am Mobius M. Mobius. I am in upper management in the TVA. I’m helping you because she’s needed. In fact, both of you are. Time is kind of fucked because of you two. Every time she gets it back on track something comes busting in and ruining it. In case it wasn’t clear, she’s not supposed to be a prisoner on Earth.” He urged you forward and you ran to a clear space to call for Heimdall. “Go! I’ll be in touch.” He threw you a communicator and sent you on your way.

When you reached the Bifrost, Thor was waiting. “You’re lucky you two made it. They were going to call for Y/N’s execution.” Your heart was in your throat.

“Y/N you are not to step foot on Midgard again. Do you understand? Thor will sort this out after the smoke clears.” Odin was not a fan of dealing with the hot headed little Midgardians. He dismissed you but didn’t punish you. You were punishing yourself enough.

*******************************************

After a few weeks Thor returned to Midgard to play the diplomat. He stayed for a few days. You assumed to be with Jane. When he returned, the news was not good. You were all summoned to Odin’s office off of the throne room.

“They want Y/N to return to Midgard immediately. They are taking our refusal to hand her over as an act of hostility.” Thor’s voice was quiet and tinged with anger. “I don’t have to tell you, little sister, how difficult a position I am in.”

“You’d turn her over?!” Loki was on his feet. You took his hand and guided him back to his seat.

“No. He won’t turn me over. They are pressuring him. Probably pressuring my family and friends too.”

“Tensions are high, brother. Every mutant on earth is being punished for her crimes.”

“What do they want from her?” Odin was outraged.

“The same thing you do, Father. They want to use me as a weapon. No one is going to mess with Asgard as long as I’m here right? Earth wants the same protection. They want me to handle their biggest messes. They are backing me into a corner. Thor, I need you to bring Charles Xavier and Max Eisenhardt to Asgard. The sooner the better.”

You excused yourself and Loki followed you. “Darling, let’s just disappear for a while.”

“They won’t let up. I have to make this right. I’m going to get in touch with Mobius. Maybe he can guide me in the right direction.”

“I don’t trust him.”

“Honey, you don’t trust anyone but me. I need to know if we’re on the right path.”

“The right path to what?!” He grabbed your hands wanting so badly to shake some sense into you.

“To ending this. To settling down.” You wrapped your arms around his waist and inhaled his scent. “I’m so tired, Lok. You were right before. I loved our life in our cottage. I thought I fixed it all when I ended Thanos. But you were right. There would always be something.”

“There are some things I don’t enjoy being right about.” He nuzzled your hair. “Let’s go have a cup of tea and we’ll call Mobius.”

Loki made your tea with valerian root chamomile sweet rose hips and lavender. You were passed out within thirty minutes. He took your communicator and pressed the one and only button that would contact Mobius. He thought it would work like a phone. Instead he was dropped into an office that looked like the DMV. A young man stared at him expressionless.

“Welcome to the TVA. I’m Craig. How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Mobius.”

“Is he expecting you? I’m just kidding. He knew you were coming. This way.”

Craig led Loki down a long hallway to an elevator that seemed to go on forever. When it finally stopped, Craig did not step off but pointed at a table and chairs in the corner, “Wait there.”

There was music playing over the speaker. Someone coughed in the distance though he was alone in the room. This is it. This is where I die. He thought. After an agonizing ten minutes Mobius burst in.

“Sorry to keep you waiting.” he sat down arranging an enormous mound of paperwork. “You would think with all the power we possess we could automate this process. Anyway. What can I do for you?”

“What do you want with my wife?”

“Boy you don’t mince words. Easy. Time is broken. It needs to be fixed.” He held up a device for Loki to illustrate what had been happening. “See this long line here? That’s time not a straight line but close right? All these branches are timelines that happened because she and others decided to mess with it.”

“Others? What others?”

“Steve Rogers for one. When she took off with you and the tesseract she gave Steve the bright idea to go back to the 40’s and live on with Peggy Carter. That wasn’t supposed to happen. It needs to be corrected.”

“Let me handle it. She’s tired. She’s done enough. If you take care of what’s happening on Earth, I’ll set it all right.”

Mobius eyed him up for several minutes. He ran through possibilities and outcomes. Weighed each option carefully. Loki would be the best option to fix things but also the most likely to make it worse. In the end, he decided sending only one of you on this mission was probably the best bet. He can handle one of you easily. Both of you together is asking for chaos.

“Fine. Consider Earth handled. Keep her on Asgard. Do not let her interfere. I’ll be in touch with the rest. She’ll have to handle Rogers though.”

“Handle him?” Loki was tired of Mobius using you for his personal assassin. You were far too trusting. “If you mean to kill him...”

“Jeez. No. She just has to stop him before he runs off with Peggy. Loki, she’s not immortal you know? Those stones will burn her out eventually. She’ll lose at some point.”

His brows knitted together with worry, “Then I suppose I have to hurry.”

In a blink, he was back in your bedroom. You were still sleeping soundly. He brushed your hair out of your face. You smiled in your sleep and leaned in to him. It would all be over soon.

[squirrelwrangler]

The Fandoms of Princess Findis (7)

Part 7, Part 6, Part 5, Part 4, Part Three, Part Two, Part One

  The monster of a fic started back in 2017, celebrating my self-indulgent love of creating crossover fusions, in-jokes, and worldbuilding. Princess Findis is an author, and her latest creation is Voltron. (Uilon is Best Boy)

...

Heledir studied the older woman’s face, the familiar blue eyes and wide nose, the high cheekbones and tiny chin. There were fine lines around those eyes, a crease around the brows that had existed before but had not seemed as pronounced. Heledir knew her face as well as he did the face of his own mother and sister. Even if he had an imperfect memory like that of mortal men that allowed details to fade over time, he would know every line of her face, the exact shade of dark blue of her irises, the turn of her eyelids, the slope of her nose in profile. She had not been static, any more than Valinor had, in the years between Heledir leaving for Middle-earth and his rebirth, but there was a soothing continuity of her face and the informal posture that she relaxed into when alone with him, as if nothing had changed between their last session but the style of her dress. Princess Findis did not have the beauty of her mother or younger sister. A throaty laugh that was rarer to summon, a low-pitched voice, a guarded heart that was too easily mistaken for haughtiness. A loneliness that she had grown into like a trellis for her soul - the pain of that childhood lingered in those hairline creases around her eyes. Even with practice, Heledir doubted that his pen would ever faithfully recreate that face.

“If you said anything insipid, I will whack you,” Findis threatened. 

The bait was too tempting. “Oh, but your sparkling eyes are as blue as the sapphire that you wear, Princess.”

“Insufferable. Disappear for another six centuries, return to me only when you have replaced your personality.” 

“Why are my dearest friends so cruel to me?” Heledir wailed. “Edrahil is equally mean to me.”

“Because we have known you since you were toddling after your mother in Arafinwë’s wings of the palace, before he moved to the little palace on the outskirts of the city and the secondary residence at Alqualondë.” Findis pursed her lips. “And Edrahil is a natural scold.”

“Stars above, he is!”

They laughed at the expense of the former steward of Nargothrond, and only when the mirth was spent did the pair return to final character to outline.

“Our pilot-knight of water,” Findis said. “The other leg, the other flavor of support. His adaptability. He who tries to excel in the strengths of others and does not see his own. An excellent archer, empathetic to others but hides from himself in a delusion of unearned confidence. Flirts outrageously. His pursuit of the princess will be the lighthearted running gag, and he shall fall prey to every attractive henchwoman and bystander.”

“Basing this on someone?” Heledir asked. 

Findis’s quick answer killed his grin.

“Yes.” 

Mindful of the seriousness of Findis’s abrupt answer, Heledir asked who.

“Uilon, my childhood friend. The second of Eärwen’s older brothers. You would have known him from the family visits, but he was not as close to his sister as Elentulwë. Uilon was the tall one with narrow eyes who loved to joke around.”

“He was the son of Olwë who was given a father-name to honor Elu Singollo, wasn’t he?”

Findis nodded. “His death during the Kinslaying was seen by the Teleri as the clearest omen that any talk from the Exiles about a motivation to save their left-behind kin was the self-serving lies that they knew it to be.”

“We did,” Heledir stammered, “we did help.”

Findis tilted her head, mouth flat and blue eyes softening to dispassion instead of enraged disgust. “Some of you, yes. Some of my kin. But no resident of Alqualondë was the least surprised at the accounts that Lady Elwing shared of the second and third acts of Kinslaying.”

“I did not know that you and Uilon were close,” Heledir said.

Findis laughed. “He proposed to me, you know.”

“What!”

Forcing giggles into her hand, Findis basked in Heledir’s outrage. “A terrible flirt, I told you. And we were of similar age and social background. As if my third and fourth decade was not awkward enough, though he was not pushy. Just persistent. And the compliments were a nurturing novelty, even if I doubted their sincerity. His feelings for me came from the infatuation of wanting to be in love bolstered by our mutual friendship, and this was before I knew that my heart would not turn in desire for marriage with anyone else.”

“Was he disappointed?” Heledir asked.

Findis shrugged. “Once he understood that my rejection was not a rejection of him. That I was like Ulmo, that I sought no spouse. Uilon handled rejection gracefully, I think because he always anticipated it. The shadow of impressive siblings. And confidence in his ability to read other people and how comforting and loyal he was as a friend.” Findis laughed a final time, soft and short. “Uilon spent most of the conversation reassuring me of my own heart and allaying my fears that I had disappointed everyone. He was the one most overjoyed when Eärwen began courting my brother, you know. Mastermind behind their first year of dating. In some ways,” Findis began to say, staring at Heledir, then restarted her sentence. “He has returned from the Halls, and the three of us must have an outing together soon, for he is wonderfully funny, and your sense of humor is compatible. So alike, the two of you. My sister would say that I have a type. When you next plan to visit Edrahil and Maiwë, we shall call on him.”

“I remember his visit,” Heledir said, smiling. “Was he a terrible artist or just trying to amuse his nephews?”

“Uilon? By the stars, no. Did he really attempt one of his famous landscapes again?”

“It was …a young child with finger paints could do better. The rainbow was a ..creative touch.”

“Lalwen framed his portrait of her favorite horse. That’s what the brown blob in her music room is.”

“I always thought that was one of Aunt Nerdanel’s strange abstract studies, one of those incomprehensible representations of a quality of sound. Some deeply philosophical statement that only a Vanya studying the intricacies of the Song would understand.”

“Nope. Uilon’s best effort at portraying Lalwen’s prize jumper.”

Heledir winced. “The ..thing had nine legs. Maybe, if those were supposed to be legs.”

Findis sighed. “I would ask you to give him pointers, but no amount of instruction could rehabilitate that drawing…talent. I dared him to show Fëanor his painting method once, just to see the temper tantrum. I think what most offended him was that Uilon had a keen eye and could understand diagrams and complicated tools. Uilon designed the improvements for the stern-mounted rudder that the Falmari ships use.”

“Quick at poetry, too, wasn’t he?”

“Had King Olwë’s taste for wretched puns.”

Heledir smirked. “I am astonished that you have not conscripted him into your writing endeavors as well. He could cover your deficits as a lyricist.”

“Never interested,” Findis said. “I can drag him to watch dances and plays, but he refuses to engage beyond. Pleads boredom. After his re-embodiment, he did go with me to the premiere of  Ahyaro’s latest comedy.”

“Which one?”

“The two friends that swap the same epessë and the tangle of misunderstandings when all their acquaintances converge. I adapted the premise to include the returning Noldor and arriving Sindar and new names and chances of unwitting duplication, but the central dilemma of the two young women thinking that the same man has both proposed to them is retained.” 

“The clever wordplay one. It had the mark of Ahyaro’s style, so I knew it was not yours.”

Findis’s flat look skewered Heledir.

“Peace, Sweet Lady!”

[teamsarawatshusband]

Word Of Honor - 1st watch insta thoughts - Episode 7

Here's my name overview, in case you're new to this: Zhou Zi Shu = Baby Zi Shu/ Zhou Xu lord guy/alcoholic tanned tragic hero lord guy; Wen Ke Xing = Smirky Xing/Smirky fan guy/Kissy Xing Gu Xiang = Purple Girl/my Purple Love/my Purple Queen Smirklord is my personal ship name for Zhou Zi Shu and Wen Ke Xing.

Also, here are the previous episodes.

Before we get started, just FYI, I went back to have a look at the red masked ghost guys gang scene with nuts guy in episode 1, and it’s finally confirmed that it's 100% Kissy Xing, because, now that i've been hearing his laughter for some eps, I can't not recognize it. Actually, he’s not just part of the ghost gang, he’s their boss. :O

Okay, so that is settled.

Let’s move on to episode 7:

Luo Mansion. What is that? Where is that? Who are these people? There's one with a joker grin, and several with weirdly upturned eyebrows and darkened lips. Are they from the ghost gang?

And why is everything red, is this a wedding?

There's a white haired woman with long golden fingernails and she's referred to as tragicomic ghost.

Oh it IS a wedding. Something tells me this might not be a voluntary one... Maybe it's the amount of gagged people in cages who don't look joyful.

Is the gagged guy who's gonna get married unconscious magenta leader guy from when that other ghost lady dropped her face?

He's getting married to a memorial tablet? What?

Ah, back to more familiar people in familiar circumstances. Baby Zi Shu is drinking alcohol. Now this I recognize.

But he can't get more because somebody bought all the remaining bottles. Should I say that this has Kissy Xing written all over it?

Ooooh, the kid is there!!! With a-hole-uncle Shen and uncle Zhao. And the kid notices Baby Zi Shu right away, and thinks it's his master. He's better at recognizing people than I am, but he's mislead by Baby Zi Shu's lack of tan and scar. That's a shame. But he clearly misses his daaaaads! Awwwww.

Side note: I cannot stress enough how much I need to focus on not misspelling Baby Zi Shu’s name. I’ve typed Zi Shi, Zu Shi, Zu Shu, Zhu Si, Zhi Shu already... and now I almost typed “Baby Sushi”, because my brain is WEIRD. In case it happens in the future and I miss it, you have been warned. Maybe I should just go with Baby Sushi, because that one would be easiest to remember. I should also change my tumblr handle to “face-blind-and-name-stupid”.

Meh, back to the ghost gang wedding ceremony.

Whoever speaks dies. That would have been a good rule to know in advance, I guess.

So what's this list of the unfaithful? Is it like Santa's naughty and nice list?

Everybody who is unfaithful gets killed by white haired gold finger girl. Got it. Everybody who speaks gets killed too. This seems like such a shady set of rules, I bet more people get killed just for fun.

Ooooh, it's celebrity death match. But with friends of the groom.

I feel like this guy who says that the ghost folks never break a promise, while being a jerk, might be telling the truth.

:O WTH? Did a-hole-uncle Shen just seriously call our kid useless??? He just assumes that our kid is a liar??? The audacity!!! I feel so outraged on the entire fandom’s behalf.

Huh, the kid is eavesdropping on all of it. I feel so bad for him to having to hear this, but at the same time, I feel so proud of his spying nature. He's already picked up some of his adopted dads' talents.

Back to the wedding deathmatch. A red wedding indeed. Everybody's dead.

Two guys talking at Youyang sect, alright, whoever that is, I forgot. But, they have nice dragon decor. Ah the younger guy is the leader of Window of Heaven while the older guy with the mustache is the 5 lakes final boss. Top boss, I mean. I might be playing too many computer games, sorry. Anyway, so Youyang is 5 lakes, also confirmed by the pleated skirt soldiers around. K, k.

So, pretty heaven's window leader guy wants to get the scoop on the glazed armor situation.

Whoa, did mustache final boss guy just really say glazed armor is just a rumor? Does he think people are stupid? Even I know that it's not. Tsk. He makes Window of Heaven sound like a super power spy agency.

Everybody is after our poor kid. Ooooooooh, Baby Sushi is following the uncles plus kid through the bamboo woods. Nice. He won't let the kid get harmed, I'm sure.

There's a girl kid who looks kind of like TopTap (if you're familiar with Thai TV shows).

She seems nice, but... looks like they're just trying to get our kid out of the way to discuss stuff. Pfff, they always complain about him not knowing stuff, but how is he supposed to when he's constantly left out?

"The martial arts world won't be peaceful anymore" LOL, whut? It hasn't been peaceful from the start of the series. What is 5 lakes final boss guy even trying to say?

:O what? Baby Sushi wants to genuinely leave the kid there and thinks he's safe there?

Oh, he's onto the spy situation and Window of Heaven being involved. Cool, cool.

Aaaaand spontaneously kills a spy guy, k.

Wheeeeeeee Kissy Xing is back. Has also been following around. Nice nice.

Ah, the dead guy was from the scorpion gang. And both Baby Sushi and Kissy Xing know. Oh, so Window of Heaven is an assassin organization. Alright, the more you know. Okay!

He's so daring, talking about how everybody is after the glazed armor while wearing a piece of it openly over his clothes. And he keeps hinting at how much he knows about Baby Sushi but never outright says it.

It's always the same with those two. Kissy Xing points out how good a person he is and then flirts with Baby Sushi who then gives him the cold shoulder.

LOL, I love how the subtitles really translate EVERYTHING. A random note of Tofu Pudding, not plot relevant at all, but BAM in your FACE!

(joking aside: I am so grateful for all the subs and translations. Whoever is doing this stuff, you guys will always be my heroes. <3 )

Oh, somebody looked at them, and Baby Sushi recognized him? And Kissy Xing is like a marching band, stomping onto the scene, parading around with banners that say "Look at this glazed armor!" lol.

Ooooooh, Kissy Xing is in cahoots with the merchant lady. He's planned something. This is exciting. Seems like he's trying to set all parties up against each other: 5 lakes, scorpions, window of heaven and whoever else wants to participate.

Okay, so he let that spy guy steal his piece of glass on purpose, right? And it must be one of the fakes, I assume.

Oh, the heroes conference... I remember the name, but what was that again? Was it a 5 lakes thing? Anyway, Baby Sushi and Kissy Xing are gonna be there on uncle Zhao's invitation, alright.

See, when Kissy Xing calls the kid dumb, it kinda doesn't feel offensive to me. I don't know. It just doesn't. It's like somebody affectionately calling their pet dumb or something.

Waaah, there's another beautiful tree. Please don't burn it down this time.

There's some morse code thing going on with lots of people that I don't know. Everybody's drumming on stuff and passing along messages.

:O my Purple Queen. The love of my life. There she is. ahhhhhhhh. <3

She's also drumming on stuff, but I'm not sure it's code with her, might also just be frustration, lol.

There's a bunch of drunk guys and they're requesting the traditional DJ guy to put on some song that probably has explicit content or something, because he doesn't wanna play it.

:O they snatched his daughter from DJ guy! Right under the eyes of my Purple Queen. Ooooh, she's gonna clean up that place, lol.

Yup.

Yeah you show them! Heh.

Oh, she's got herself a fanboy. Who is he?

She still keeps drumming away on the dishes with her chopsticks. Hmm, maybe it is a code after all.

LOL, they're having this awkward conversation about double standards for guys and girls, and my Purple Queen is not having it. She is the best.

Not gonna lie, every time the series cuts back to smirklord, I get all excited.

Ok, Baby Sushi places some... nut or whatever on his chopsticks obviously some code, Kissy Xing watches and looks confused. Oh, and he almost gave away that he doesn't understand the code.

LOL, what is happening? Kissy Xing looks so pissed at my Purple Queen making friends with her fanboy.

Seriously, does he have some sort of beef with fanboy guy? LOL, won't even let the poor guy finish his meal. A+ in cockblocking.

Awwwww, and my Queen still gets it. Pinpointing smirklord in one sentence. Baby Sushi brings out Kissy Xing's humanity. And now he looks sad. It must be true.

Ahaha, "I will pay. A Xu, where is your wallet?" Comedic genius.

Oh, what a clever way to bring the subject to the "thief" guy. Man, Kissy Xing is GOOOOOOD at this. And Baby Sushi is so amused that he admits to knowing thief guy too.

My queen doesn't recognize Baby Sushi. Whaaaaat? I would have expected her to feel the sparks. Oh, wait, no, she does get it. Hehe. And Kissy Xing instantly has to praise his crush's appearance and beauty. Everything's alright again in the world.

LOL, the way she goes right in to touch him. No inhibition. No etiquette. And Baby Sushi is so surprised that he lets her, lol.

Ahaha, Kissy Xing has to stop her from touching his baby. Awww

XD, I can't deal with this. He even flat out asks why he's not allowed to touch.

And Baby Sushi replies with a compliment to my Queen and a rebuff for Kissy Xing. It's funny, but I do feel a little bad for Kissy Xing. He did not deserve that.

LOL, waiter guy wins quote of the day, "Can you all pay first? Then you can touch whomever you want, however you want." This episode is gold, man. Also, I'm all for the touching. Yes, touch each other. Go go.

Heh, nice. Baby Sushi threatens that the money is a loan and he'll expect interest. And Kissy Xing does not seem sad about owing him at all but goes and buys even more food. After all, owing Baby Sushi gives him reason to stay in touch, doesn't it?

Aww, why do they always end on smirklord scenes? I want more. :(

Okay, this was a really nice episode. I can't wait to continue.

What I learned: The ghost gang enjoys torturing people. Kissy Xing is definitely nuts guy (well not learned from this episode, but I still learned it). I need the kid to return to his dads because I miss their interaction, as does he. There's a famous  thief wandering around and he stole Kissy Xing's fake Glazed Armor. The Heroes Conference is coming up.

Goals for future epsidoes: still to figure out how Kissy Xing and Baby Sushi know each other, understand the purpose and connections of the ghost gang and why Kissy Xing is part of them. Also, just generally, get to watch more smirklord interactions. ;)

[skekiss]

The Dark Crystal | Skeksis Love Headcanons [PART 1]

skekSo the Emperor

If SkekSo is interested, you’ll know. As Emperor -- eloquent and powerful, so used to lording over the other skeksis, he’ll have no difficulty in admitting, nor announcing his feelings. The epitome of opulence and extravagance, SkekSo will use his position of power to ensure you are to fall into his claws. And once you’re there, he’ll make sure you stay there. Though never affectionate publicly, no hints of romantic gesture on the surface before the other Lords -- they’ll know too, from the way SkekSo makes them treat you. They best howl at your jokes, pause when you speak and do as you ask, if they know what is good for them.

Privately, he’s all about the hands, petting, stroking, touching -- and that’s not always gentle either, sometimes harsh, sometimes hot, sometimes cold, SkekSo is a very controlled, deliberate balance of both.  

skekZok the Ritual-Master

A relationship with SkekZod would forever remain a secret to the rest of the skeksis Lords.  Quiet meetings at dusk, disguised as seeking advice or council. Sneaking around the castle to meet in secret. Passing glances, subtle touches -- this relationship would remain entirely unknown to all but SkekZok and his love interest. Most of the allure would from this aspect of secrecy, and as SkekZod is so powerful -- his influence so great among the court -- although you’d rarely get to meet with him, or ever openly be together, you’d come to see how the strings are always pulled, some way in your favour.  

skekUng the Garthim-Master

SkekUng is all about the grand gesture, he’s powerful, confident and bold. He’s the most physically powerful out of the skeksis and he knows it. Out of all the Lords of the Crystal, he’s the one who’ll pursue his love interest most obviously -- maybe sometimes a little threateningly, though not intentionally so. He’ll be less possessive than the others -- because like they’d ever dare to encroach or approach you when SkekUng is the one who has claimed you as his own. Though he won’t hold your hand, he’ll have no qualms in carrying you around on his shoulders and show off his strength. He’ll fight whoever (or whatever) threatens you without question or hesitation. Despite this, and very aware of his power, size & physicality, SkekUng is incredibly cautious with how he touches his love interest -- and so he does it very rarely -- careful not to hurt them or crush them. He’ll be a lingering hand on your shoulder, a hulking mass at your side.  (You also get shotgun on the Garthim every time.)

skekSil the Chamberlain

It would be wrong to say that SkekSil doesn’t seek out attention from his love interest -- because he does -- but he does it in a way that is often detrimental to his cause. Instead of pursuing, he pesters, instead of appealing to his love interest, he annoys and lingers. To be the object of SkekSil’s affections is to be bombarded with his presence. He acts suspiciously though, which doesn’t help.

He draws you away from other skeksis, makes sure to hold your attention until they have passed, even if he has nothing really to say. He stays close, but less like he’s interested, and more like a spy. And when the love interest finally realises SkekSil’s actual intentions beneath the sly-seeming exterior, and they’re finally ready to return his affection, SkekSil proceeds to ignore them completely. Now that the feeling is mutual, SkekSil withdraws completely.  He can’t allow for vulnerability.

skekTek the Scientist

SkekTek won’t outwardly pursue a love interest, no matter his feelings.  As he is often sneered at, even by his own kind, the love interest would need to show the slightest intrigue in what he does so he can find a common thread of interest (and confidence) to engage with them personally. When that happens though -- it’s an avalanche of info-dumping, long nightly conversations, hours and hours spent in his laboratory and menagerie, he will pull you into his world entirely -- sometimes it’s a little suffocating, but he means no harm at all.  SkekTek is very rarely physically affectionate, his way of showing his affections mostly comes from getting his love interest to engage and enjoy everything he does, as often as possible. But there are those few moments where he can be stopped, by a quick peck on nose, or a touch of his hand -- flustering him completely -- all the while a Podling is drained to soup in the chair.  

skekNa the Slave-Master

SkekNa is a skeksis of very little words -- and so, his actions for the most part, speak for him. Probably the most possessive of the skeksis, SkekNa is forceful and dominant in his pursuit of a love interest. SkekNa is rough and blunt, with little build up or warning in demanding what he wants. That said, his cruelty doesn’t extend to you -- though SkekNa is outwardly malicious and frightening, he tries to temper this as much as possible in the private presence of his love interest. He is conflicted -- a lot of barking and snapping -- but with perseverance and practice, attempts to quell his ferociousness, but only for you.

Bonus:

skekSa the Mariner

SkekSa, the skeksis most free of the castle, would be quick to whirlwind you onto high seas adventure, stealing you away to accompany her on her travels. Though you’re basically her prisoner -- as she has forgotten to consider your own desires with this -- she’d openly brandish her chivalry and protectiveness of you. No one is getting passed SkekSa when it comes to you. SkekSa is the most openly affectionate, of all of the skeksis -- she’ll hold you and flirt outrageously (the only one who can skillfully do this) -- play with your hair, stare at you intently as you speak. She’s also very physical and obvious in her advances -- until some of the other sly tactics of the other skeksis -- she’ll dance with you, hold you, nuzzle you and of course, kill for you. SkekSa will openly announce you are together, because she’s proud -- but also a tad possessive in her own right too.

skekMal the Hunter

Utterly baffled by his own wants and desires in regards to a love interest, SkekMal is feral, primal and unaware of any kind of romantic etiquette at all. And at first he’s not even remotely interested -- well maybe, he’s just a little curious... And true to his title, he isn’t deterred from the hunt. It starts with gory trophies at your door, on your pillow, in your shoes -- and your bedroom becomes a shrine of the macabre. Wanting his love interest’s attention, he’ll reach out a wavering hand, clipping you with his talons, little nicks and scratches. He’ll follow his love interest everywhere -- and for places he can’t follow, he waits silently outside, staring and guarding.

He chases away other skeksis in his love interest’s presence, incredibly and alarmingly possessive and wild. He is furiously jealous and violent -- you find you to tame him a little first. It takes a while. And some scolding -- of which he responds in kind with passive, desperate attempts for forgiveness. More gifts (no matter how disgusting) hooking his maw over the pages of the book you’re reading and demanding that they pay him mind. And only in complete privacy, soft nudges and head bumps.

[shannaraisles]

Honor Among Thieves - Chapter 2

Lorna Lennox busted out of Kinloch Hold, survived the Blight, and just wanted to stay out of the Chantry’s clutches for life. Now she’s the Herald of Andraste, and people keep trying to kill her. Worst of all, the bodyguard Leliana found for her is all kinds of tempting. Is there really honor among rogues and thieves?

[Read on AO3]

Chapter Two

Ten years spent looking over her shoulder had trained instincts into Lorna that she could not readily explain; new senses that told her when she was in danger, when she was hidden, when she was treading a dangerous line. One of those senses jangled as the dawn rose over Haven, interrupting her sleep with a warning.

I am not alone.

Lessons from the elves who had taught her to present herself as a rogue in Gwaren had her shift subtly where she lay, still seeming lost to sleep, innocently bracing herself for motion should that danger come closer. Her ears strained for sound, picking up the slow calmness of breathing, the subtle creak of leather armor, the faintest clink of sheathed metal. She focused on those sounds, bringing to mind the layout of the cabin she had been gifted here in Haven, placing the intruder within that picture in her mind. She could even smell that leather.

Despite knowing she was being watched, she decided to stir a little, to see what this intruder would do. Drawing in a lazy breath, she let her eyes flutter a little, threatening full waking, and heard the gentle thud of boots on wood as her unseen companion moved toward the bed.

In a rush of motion, she threw herself up and onto her feet, snatching one of her daggers up from its resting place as she whirled toward the shape of the person approaching her bed. She brought the dagger around, her free hand reaching out to push the reaching arm out of her way ... or at least, that was the plan. What actually happened was that she found her dagger knocked out of her hand, her push evaded with graceful ease, her body lifted up off the floor, and her back hitting the mattress with the stranger's body atop hers, all in the space of a few heartbeats.

"Well, now," a smooth Antivan voice murmured above her as she tried to clear her whirling vision. "Is this the welcome I can expect every morning?"

What will you give me, little mage?

With the breath knocked from her, Lorna forced her eyes to focus on the man lying on top of her. And there he was ... the elf who had allowed her to save herself from the Circle a decade before; older, but no less handsome for that, ash-blonde hair a beautiful compliment to the dark tan of his skin, flowing black lines decorating his left cheek, and amber eyes alive with suggestive humor gazing back at her. Zevran Arainai was no less arresting a sight now to her older eyes than he had been to the idealistic gaze of her youth.

"I am quite the sight, am I not?" he said. "Had I known the Herald of Andraste was such a beauty, I might have hurried here sooner."

She rolled her eyes at the obvious flattery.

"Are you expecting that line to work on me?"

Zevran chuckled.

"In truth? No." At least he was honest. "But I was also not expecting you to attack me upon waking. You are quite the fierce one."

"I had to be," she countered. "Someone made me promise to survive in exchange for a favor."

"He must have been quite memorable to have turned you from a little mage to a fierce fighter," was his response. "Yet still lovely to look upon."

"Get off me, you'll get a better view," she growled, trying hard not to respond to the outrageous flirting he was spilling over her.

"Do you promise not to stab me if I do?"

"What'll it cost me?"

That sinful smile crept across his face, making the dark lines of the flowing tattoo seem to rise and fall like the waves on the sea.

"Ah, a temptress, too," he teased, gently easing back from her and onto his feet. "We shall make quite the pair, you and I."

Pushing herself up onto her feet, she smoothed out her shirt, glad she had never got into the habit of sleeping in anything but her full clothing. That little interaction could have been a lot more embarrassing.

"Look, you're here to keep me alive," she reminded him, turning to pull on her own leather coat. "I get it. You don't have to play up the flattery with me. We're stuck together no matter what."

Zevran frowned just a little.

"It is not flattery when the truth is spoken," he told her, and for the first time, she felt as though he was actually being honest with her. It didn't help, especially when he continued. "You may have cut your hair and chosen a blunter way of approaching life, but there is beauty in you, little mage."

"I'm not a child," Lorna snapped, bristling at the "little".

In the silence that followed, she glanced at him suspiciously, and this time, there was no stopping the blush that darkened her cheeks when she found him looking her over with a gaze that was most certainly not meant for a child. Even when his eyes met hers, there was no shame in him for having been caught.

"No," he said in a thoughtful tone. "No, querida, you are a beautiful woman. I cannot promise to be less than truthful to you."

She sighed, rubbing her fingers over her brow for a moment.

"Just ... tone it down a little?" she suggested. "These idiots are really playing up the Herald of Andraste angle."

"Ah, and you must be as innocent as the Bride herself, yes?"

Despite herself, she growled under her breath.

"Apparently so," was her rather curt answer.

Zevran was still watching her as she settled her belts at her hips and sheathed her daggers. It was unsettling to be the focus of such unwavering attention; more so when she acknowledged that she might have been carrying a small flame for him for the last ten years, even without knowing his name or even who he was.

"This, I understand," he said finally. "I am your shadow, your bodyguard, your protector. No one will get past me, querida, you have my word."

"The word of an assassin?"

She raised a brow, unsurprised when he laughed.

"You have the look of a rogue," he pointed out. "A true rogue, no less. You have heard them say there is no honor among thieves, yes? An assassin may be thought of as a thief of life, yet there is a code. Your life is mine, querida. I will protect it."

Now it was Lorna's turn to frown. She didn't like the implication of that turn of phrase - that her life was not her own, that she was some sort of possession to be locked away and kept safe until her owner chose to release her. And yet a part of her knew he did not mean it that way.

"What does that word mean, querida?" she asked, rolling her shoulders as she walked toward the door.

"I think I will let you discover that for yourself," Zevran answered, falling into step at her elbow. "This is, after all, just the beginning."

But the beginning of what, she wondered, stepping out into the snowy bite of Haven's early morning. He was cool and calm, sultry and warm, all kinds of tempting in all the wrong ways. He would protect her life, she knew. It was up to her to protect her heart.

[sclfmastery]

Okay so if this blog is moving forward still as a two-Master blog (which I think it still is, I just need to keep digesting stuff...) then I need to make a list of differences between Simm and  Dhawan, since they already have so many similarities.  Some of these are facts observed in canon, others headcanons. ALIGNMENT Both Simm and Dhawan are Neutral Evil masquerading as Chaotic. “A little chaos can be a wonderful thing,” Dhawan tells Barton, and “a little” is key there.  When gloating over a victory, when essentially preening for the Doctor, both engage in erratic acts of sadistic play (Simm gassing the whole British Cabinet as Saxon, while wearing a gas mask and giving his victims a thumbs-up; Simm clapping joyously after the Toclafane kill the fictitious American President; Simm shouting “DINNER TIME!” as he eats people’s life forces in End of Time; Simm taunting Cyberman Bill Potts; Dhawan exclaiming he’s had fun on Barton’s jet; Dhawan in a tophat shrink-killing people at a science fair in Victorian London; and so on). But for all those cases of giddy play, both primarily engage in long-cons that use ALL TOOLS at their disposal (be it Toclafane, transphobic and sexist slurs they don’t really ascribe to,  mysterious alien gateways, a ship colony living under a black hole, or N*zis) with an impartial and cold indifference, entirely Machiavellian, uncaring about the fate of any collateral in the way, to reach their own personal goal. Neutral Evil.  

EMOTIONAL RANGE

Simm is more steadily manic, threatening, accusatory and snide.  He is always loud, outrageous, obnoxious, sanguine and optimistic, flirtatious and lusty and passionate, dynamic and charismatic.  His humors are terrifying, and his furies burn “like a whole screaming world on fire” (Missy’s apt words), but they are also fairly constant, even when he plays at/pretends “insanity.”  Dhawan is another story entirely, and this to me is their biggest difference aside apparent motive (below):  Dhawan acts like someone with an exceptionally developed intellect, but an exceptionally under-developed emotional range. He seems capable of only three very pure emotions, which almost exist like primary colors: yellow giddiness/mania, red fury, and blue reticence/melancholy.  They switch on a dime, for little apparent reason.  This is what makes him more frightening than Simm, in many ways.  Mid-sentence he will break from breezy small talk into screaming, roaring, snarling tirade.  He is also far more physically violent than Simm: not that Simm isn’t capable of this, but more than once in a rage, Dhawan grabs, shoves, and tries to strangle the Doctor, and in those moments he seems helpless to that rage, controlled BY it (a bitter irony given his moniker).  He seems to be of two minds: an almost rueful, gentle intellect, and a beast. 

APPARENT MOTIVE Simm’s entire apparent motive is to be autonomous of all other beings, and free to do his own bidding.  This, even at the expense of friendship, even with the Doctor, if the Doctor poses the ultimatum “change to be the type of good person I prescribe, or else.” This is the reason why he found Missy’s time in the Vault so disturbing: not that she was physically mistreated or truly trapped, but rather, that she was willing to conform to the Doctor’s highly absolutist notions of ethics, and suppress her own personality for his sake.  To him, this was a profound act of self-deprivation and self-betrayal.  He still struggles to find the balance between loving the Doctor and abiding by his own honor code. The fandom easily misinterprets this philosophy as “unevolved” and “selfish,” and indeed, sometimes Simm does deplorable, disgusting, unnecessarily vicious things to ensure his independence.  But it is actually, on another level, a profound act of self-respect. 

Dhawan on the other hand seems to have entirely disposed of the idea of autonomy.  He admits and even revels in the idea that he’s doing all the horrible things he does to catch the Doctor’s attention, to preen before his lifelong  best friend and crush, to obtain an equal footing with her in infamy/notoriety, because “notoriety isn’t as good as fame, but it’s heaps better than obscurity” (Neil Gaiman) and after all their canonical history of explosive romance, rapport and strife, there’s no point in feigning pride. he might as well flirt with her in the open, ask her to say his name sexually in the open, he might as well KNEEL WITH HER ON HER LEVEL  in the open.  There’s no need to fake not needing her anymore.  Even though he strives to kill her, his life is empty without her.  He remembers being Simm, and he remembers “get out of the way.” He doesn’t regret “get out of the way” or rushing into that Timelock.  

In a way, Dhawan’s motive is the externalization of Simm’s unconscious motive.  Every Master does what they do for the Doctor’s attention, to prove themselves worthy of the Doctor’s regard. Every Master, and Missy, is a farce on their own claim to “controlling everything,” because they can’t control their own hearts. Because their locus of control is truly external, and pivots around the Doctor’s good opinion. And that’s why they are always furious.  Because they don’t understand how to get the Doctor to approve of them, without  betraying themselves. Dhawan is the natural next step of Simm and Missy in that he embodies the conflict Simm and Missy had with each other in the Doctor Falls, but within ONE body.  

It’s desperately sad, tbh.  TREATMENT OF THE DOCTOR’S COMPANIONS Simm, more shrewdly, seems to believe that hurting the Doctor’s friends is the most efficient way to hurt the Doctor.  He enjoys watching the fruits of his labors slowly unfold. Dhawan on the other hand is so impatient to get to his goal (after, in fairness, working on it many years at a time) that he would rather separate the Docto from their companions as quickly as possible. this ties in closely to the above issue of motives: Simm, though he secretly desperately misses his best friend, is more comfortable being alone, and Dhawan clings to the Doctor and wants his plans to succeed specifically to catch the Doctor’s attention. The quicker the pesky companions are eliminated, the better.  The upside of this is he’s not as likely to play with his food before eating it, as Simm is.  Look at the Joneses, and Bill Potts.  

VULNERABILITY FACTOR Dhawan’s emotional duality also makes his vulnerability more readily apparent, more obvious, than Simm’s, but that doesn’t mean he is actually more vulnerable.  Both of these Masters are particularly pariah-esque, both of them feel misunderstood by homeland and former friends.  Both are exceptionally emotionally volatile. Simm, however, is far better at guising his hurt as snideness and as anger.  He may be hemorrhaging inside, but he knows how to deflect that with apparent cruelty.  Dhawan gives up far more quickly. He cries openly, more than once an episode; indeed he’s an “angry crier.”  He sulks and broods and romantically dons the air of a jilted lover.  He doesn’t care if the Doctor sees him looking pathetic. He even uses it to his advantage.  Simm, contrariwise, and frequently to his own detriment, would rather die than be seen desperate ( “I’d rather die than beg you” is an actual line he speaks to the Doctor).  He is far prouder. 

SOCIAL SKILLS Simm’s neurodivergency is more obvious when he socializes (unless he has actively donned a disguise, like Harold Saxon or Razor, and is skillfully playing a role).  Even when he is being charismatic and charming, he has difficulty turning off his eruptive energy.  Dhawan is capable of completely masking his personality for impressive periods of time, and seeming entirely innocuous, even placated and serene.  

WEAPONRY AND TARDIS  Simm still uses his laser screwdriver.  Dhawan uses his old tissue-compression weaponry.  Both Masters have a Type 45 TARDIS with intense red interior lights.  Simm’s TARDIS is immaculately kept, with a greenhouse full of orchids he’s grown, and a bathroom that’s also a pristine lagoon with a waterfall for showers. It also contains countless workshops and a massive Victorian-Era library.  Dhawan’s TARDIS maintains its wooden house in the Victoria Desert appearance; it’s a pig sty of surprisingly mundane table lamps, messy paper stacks, desks and tables, a modest kitchen, and a transparent holo-computer inverted pyramid Console.  For sentimental reasons, he hasn’t been able to change it from the appearance it held when the Doctor visited it.  

SEXUAL ORIENTATION/POSITIONS

Simm is a panromantic demisexual who prefers the Power Bottom role in the bedroom.  Dhawan is a panromantic bisexual who prefers to Top.  Both are nonbinary, but Simm is more comfortable embracing genderfluidity (so far) than Dhawan.  

APPEARANCE

Although one chooses to appear like a mid-thirties-forties blond white man, and the other like an early-thirties dark-haired brown man, both Simm and Dhawan utilize the trope of apparent innocence, boyishness, to their strategic advantage.  Simm looks like a chubby-cheeked puckish little boy, and Dhawan looks like a big brown eyed puppy.  Both can cover remarkable ground, and literally get away with murder, because of looking so innocuous.  

[vagrantblvrd]

I would love anything Turnfreewood!

Lol, I was sorting my music collection when I had the perfect idea for your prompt, friend!

Vaguely noir-ish AU inspired by some songs from the game Contrast?

Private detective Ryan who used to be a cop before he left the police force.

Something, something, something shady business going on with corrupt cops and the like and idealistic idiot that he was he tried to expose it? But the baddies found out what he was doing and went after his partner, got them killed.

And Ryan, he’s not overly idealistic or anything, but he’s young, right. Got a real good look at how high the corrutption he was trying to expose went. How far-reaching, and in case he hadn’t realized that for himself he gets some visitors not long afterward.

Nice. Friendly. Letting him know if he kept pushing things his family might meet with some trouble of their own. (Ryan can’t be everywhere, you know? Can’t be on guard 24/7 to look out for the people closest to him - RIP his partner, btw - and so on.

The usual.

So Ryan.

He hates it, but they have a point, don’t they.

He’s just this little idiot in over his head and tells his family and friends some story about being forced to face his mortality while he was bleeding out in that alley with his partner. Waiting for backup that got there too late to do his partner any good, almost too late to save him and he lost the taste for being a cop.

Quits the force and leaves town (runs away) and kicks around for a little bit, gets all bitter and cynical and such and has these ~adventures that land him in, idk. Achievement City or Los Santos or somewhere.

(This feeling in the back of his head that things aren’t over, and he’ll have to face up to it sooner or later but that’s a future problem and why not try to forget about it for now?)

The kind of adventures where someone jokes he should become a private investigator because he’s more or less been solving crimes/cases in those adventures of his?

Supposed to be a joke, but it’s not like Ryan’s got anything else going on in his life at the moment, so private investigator it is!

Leases a little office somewhere and somehow manages to pull in enough business to pay the bills and tuck some away towards his savings. (Has to dip into said savings every so often for repairs/medical bills/whatever caused by cases and all that.)

And then one day someone walks into his office with a case. Something to do with a dead relative and a missing will. Or maybe it’s someone being blakmailed and someone mentioned Ryan as being both reliable and discreet and all that good stuff. (That, Ryan suspects, or no one would miss him/be all that bothered/surprised he got in over his head on one of his cases.)

Whichever it is, he’s in enough trouble financial-wise the money he’s being offered is too good to pass up, or worse? The client mentions the name of someone Ryan owes big-time who sent the client his direction with the expectation Ryan would know better than to say no.

SO.

Ryan takes the case and does all this Private Investigating.

Goes to his usual contacts and snitches around the city. Trustworthy and reliable ones and ones he can trust to look out for their own best interests and bribe/threaten them for what information he can get out of them. (And then figure out what’s true and bold-faced lies and working from there.)

Gets followed by Suspicious Sorts. Offered money to drop the case and send his client looking elsewhere for help and all that.

Gets into a back alley scuffle where he doesn’t quite come out on top but doesn’t leave with his tail between his legs either.

Goes to ground for a bit while he puzzles over what he knows, maybe goes to see his buddy in the police department here, and boy is Geoff ever not thrilled to see him.

“Seems like the only time I see you around is when you need something, Haywood,”

And Ryan being all scruffy and charming at him until Geoff sighs and tells him to go find Jack who will be able to give him what they’re allowed to without crossing any lines with ethics and the whatnot.

Jack is just as not-thrilled to see Ryan - goes all “What’s with the black eye?” the same way Geoff did and sighs as he hands over the files Ryan asks for. Tells him he’s an idiot and that Geoff and Jack didn’t see him, haven’t seen him in weeks. (And for fuck’s sake, don’t get killed idiot. the paperwork’s a bitch.)

Ryan all lol as he takes the files home with him and goes over them there. Just as confused about what the hell he’s gotten himself into this time, but!

There’s this one clue that has him sighing because he knows someone who knows someone who might - might - help.

Just has to do a little begging first.

SO.

He goes down to this little bar Meg runs with live singers and performers and all that? Trevor at the piano who flirts outrageously with Alfredo who’s one of the bouncers along with Jeremy.

Lindsay’s there doing whatever it is Lindsay feels like most days as far as Ryan can figure out? Michael’s a bartender/bouncer/whatever along with Fiona, and every once in a while one or both of them end up on stage because reasons?

All that.

Meg performs a few times a week, sings and dances or whatever else and sometimes Ryan heads there when he’s not working on a case because it’s one of the few places in town he’s actually welcome with open arms and all that.

Mariel handles most of the business side of things and Tyler is in charge of security and the like? (Something???)

Anyway.

Odds are good there are more things going on there than what the public sees - Meg and the others know way too much about what goes on in the city to explain otherwise - but Ryan’s never asked, (Learned better than that a long time ago.)

The first time he goes there during his current case Meg’s rehearsing on stage.

Middle of the afternoon and the place is closed to customers, but Ryan’s got a standing invitation to come by anytime he feels like it and everything. Good friends with Meg and the main players there and on good terms with everyone else.

Ryan walks in just as Meg starts singing this song, smiles when she looks over and catches his eye because they’ve got this Complicated relationship going on, you know?

On and off again and no hurt feelings (well, anymore, but all the grief she gives him is definitely deserved, okay.)

When she finishes the song she shoos everyone else working to deal with bar business and whatnot and takes Ryan over to a corner booth to talk business because he’s got the look he gets when he’s on a case.

When he fills her in on what he’s been up to the last few days she just. Gives him this look because fucking Christ, Ryan’s an idiot?

Getting all tangled up in Serious Business and such and oh, honey. That black eye looks awful.

Some flirting and concern and Meg despairing of Ryan and his life choices before she gives in and tells him what she can, promises to ask around for him, and oh, hey.

Maybe go see Gavin and what he can dig up for Ryan?

Which.

Yikes, because Gavin is part of this Complicated relationship Ryan has with Meg?

Part of this on again off again relationship the three of them ever quite manage to make work - timing’s always off and all that - but the times it does work are pretty great?

Just.

He’s good with Meg at the moment, but Gavin’s still kind ticked at him?

Something, something, something Ryan on a case and getting Gavin involved and the kind of shenanigans that almost got Gavin killed? Unpleasant reminder Ryan’s not infallible, that he got his old partner killed and oh, God, because he clearly didn’t learn his lesson if he’s putting Gavin - ad Meg - in the line of fire?

So he does what he thinks he has to to drive Gavin away and leaves things between them on a bad note. Meg saw what he was doing and stopped Ryan before he could try it with her too, but she warned him he was making a mistake and that he better apologize to Gavin make it up to Gavin or Ryan would regret it?

So of course he doesn’t, and Meg is just. Not angry, just disappointed and while Gavin figured out why Ryan did what he did, he’s not forgiven him for it. (Yet.)

ANYWAY.

Complicated because Ryan’s an idiot and Meg and Gavin are definitely aware of that fact, yes, Waiting for Ryan to get his shit together and figure out what he wants.

(In the meantime they’re..not-quite in a relationship? Like. Showing up as one another’s plus one at functions and seeing movies or going out to dinner together and such but aren’t Officially Dating, because waiting on their idiot and all.)

Ryan goes off to see Gavin who’s like. Freelance photographer or hacker or something, and they argue and bicker. Are about to move on to bantering, like maybe they’re ready to start dealing with their idiot issues when the guys who have been trying to intimidate Ryan into dropping his case make a move.

The whole fight in a dark alley/street and running from the baddies to end up back at Meg’s bar after closing time.

She’s just.

SIGH at these idiots and sits them down at that back corner booth to path themselves up/talk and goes to give them privacy as she deals with…other stuff? IDK.

Ryan and Gavin are patching one another up and don’t realize Meg’s finished up in her office and is playing a song over at the piano as tjhey talk and Ryan apologizes to Gavin.

But when they do, they look over and Meg’s got this little grin on her face because ridiculous and then like.

Smooches, probably?

More shenanigans that involve at least one (1) gunfight and a kidnapping or two (Gavin, of course and he’s super not thrilled at always being the damsel in distress, but Meg thinks it’s hilarious.)

A car chase and/or cat and mouse scene in an abandoned warehouse and Ryan solving his case to the relief/delight of his client and Ryan being like Jesus Christ, why does he keep doing this to himself? because he’s all bruised and battered and his car is probably a complete loss as far as the insurance company is concerned.

In the end he breaks even financially, but he’s made up with Gavin and has a date that Friday night with him and Meg and hey, things could have gone worse???

(That whole bit about his Tragic Backstory RE his former career as a cop definitely comes back to bite him in the ass in a future adventure, too. Wacky, zany adventures with many life-threatening moments and close calls with Meg and Gavin and good guys putting the bad guys in their places and more smooches before the credits roll. Or…something, yes.)

[ouidamforeman]

Underrated Gallifrey things

When Leela tells Torvald she’s gonna dangle his entrails in front of his dying eyes and he just goes “That’s...really horrible” in mildly surprised disgust

Romana’s pre-recorded “calm down” speeches in Square One, especially the one that was obviously written to be played when Narvin inevitably started a fight

The fact that Romana and Brax had clearly sat down together to plan the initial events of Square One out. I imagine them laughing their asses off at forcing Narvin to be a diplomat and then Romana going “God I’m a bitch” after deciding Leela was going to be his personally chosen exotic dancer.

K9 saying “spellbound intimacy”

“It must be a blessed relief having a Time Lord after you, they do only like to watch,” which imo is one of the best lines in the series

K9 has apparently been trained in dance instruction

“You should not be afraid of your feelings, K9.”

That chaotic period after the Civil War when everyone is arguing about and forgetting each other’s titles while the planet is literally about to be invaded and Narvin is there in the background just exasperatedly threatening to shoot people

When Romana and Brax are talking about avoiding “Gallifreyan grandstanding” in Square One and Romana’s next scene is her loudly and dramatically announcing “FAREWELL! I MUST LEAVE YOU NOW!” to a room full of other heads of state

That time Romana was almost assasinated with a magic necklace

That time the alternate Narvin pretended he and Romana were married and Romana tried to play along

Narvin being horrifically wounded and dying from blood loss but still managing to complain about Romana and Leela every time he’s lucid

Lady Trey flirting with Narvin, Leela, and her previous self in back-to-back scenes

Ace calling Narvin “Narv” and him being genuinely outraged by this

In series 4 when Leela is the first person to decide Narvin is their friend now and Romana is like “Ahhaha yeah okay”

Narvin being obviously completely freaked out throughout all of Annihilation

That scene in Enemy Lines where Narvin can’t speak in full sentences for a while so he just sputters several incomplete lines of dialogue while his friends watch him suffer

Narvin being called a forest sprite

Romana’s “Commander Cretin” line in A Blind Eye

Narvin: “Be careful you’ll break it!” Romana: “I’ll break you in a minute.”

“Madam, the Alps are in the other direction”

Series one Brax just being mildly delighted by everything like some kind of amoral fae

The time Narvin spent an entire episode doing nothing but being sleep deprived and talking shit

Valyes: “Narvin! It’s you! I thought you were an alien come to kill me.” Narvin: “Understandable sir we all have days like that”

I know we mention it a lot but I still feel like the series 3 five year mid-sentence cliffhanger leading into the absurd series 4 shippy fanfic-tier daydream sequence isn’t talked about enough. Like this is a thing that actually happened and I think about that daily.

[thecloserkin]

book review: Mira Grant, Feed (2010)

Genre: Sci-Fi

Is it the main pairing: Yes

Is it canon: No

Is it explicit: No

Is it endgame: Yes

Is it shippable: Hell to the yes

Bottom line: Creepily Codependent Siblings Survive the Zombie Apocalypse! They are adopted but the way they refer to each other as “my brother” and “my sister” when they could have used given names instead? I am here for it. While tight plotting is not one of this book’s strengths, you should slog through the infodumps to the ending which packs one hydrogen bomb of an emotional wallop.

This is the first book in the “Newsflash” trilogy about a pair of journalists, Georgia and Shaun Mason, who begin by blogging out of their parents’ basement and end by uncovering a vast governmental conspiracy subtended by various alphabet-soup agencies. The zombie apocalypse itself happened 23 years ago, and it happened the way these things invariably happen: Scientists try to cure cancer/the common cold, unleash freak virus on humanity, cue end of the world as we know it. Georgia and Shaun are the paradigmic products of this remade world: They, like many children born in and around the chaos of the outbreak, were orphans. On their adoption papers their birthdays are given as the same day—an arbitrary made-up date, but it makes them twins even if George is def a few months older. She acts older too, acting as the business brains of their fledgling journalistic operation while Shaun’s job is to “poke dead things with sticks” and look good while doing it. There is a performative aspect to Shaun’s mugging for the camera and flirting with anything in a skirt. He’s doing it because outrageous behavior garners them more hits, obviously, but he’s also doing it for George who gets a kick out of watching him charm the pants off people. She is bemused but not remotely threatened. George is all-business all the time, emotionally guarded and wary of physical contact, and one time when someone tried to hug her Shaun smoothly stepped up to intercept the hug to spare her the discomfort of enduring it. I SCREAMED. Note that George doesn’t mind being touched if it’s Shaun doing it:

I shuddered. Shaun caught the gesture and put a hand at the small of my back, steadying me. I flashed him a smile.

Shaun put a hand on my knee, steadying me, and I covered it with my own.

These small moments of tenderness punctuate an endearingly banterful sibling rapport. This is them reacting to the news of their big break—they’ve been tapped to cover the presidential campaign of an idealistic Wyoming senator:

Shaun was sure we’d get it. I was sure we wouldn’t. Now, staring at the monitor, Shaun said, “George?” “Yeah?” “You owe me twenty bucks.”

This is George shooing Shaun out of her room so she can change her clothes:

I pointed to the door. “Get out. There’s about to be nudity, and you’ll just complicate things.” “Finally, adult content! Should I turn the webcams on?”

This is big sister Georgia mocking Shaun for his youthful indiscretions:

”Remember how pissed you got when we had to do all that reading about the Rising back in sixth grade? I thought you were going to get us both expelled.”

In conclusion I love them sfm they are perfect.

As an aside, the people tagging this book “horror” on Goodreads have either not read the book (which is legit, TBR piles are a thing) or don’t understand what horror is? It’s like they saw the word “zombies” and just auto-completed the genre. What defines horror is not blood, gore, or violence but the fear and loss of agency engendered by that violence. That’s why so many horror film protagonists are women, who experience loss of agency in large and small ways on a daily basis and must learn to survive in the face of it; it’s cathartic to watch them take back control. The point of this digression is that THIS IS NOT A HORROR NOVEL. It’s not about that kind of fear!!! This is a political thriller so buckle in kids we’re going for a ride.

Twenty-three years ago during the outbreak, Georgia and Shaun’s parents lost their eight-year-old biological son. He was bitten by the neighbors’ dog. This was before it was widely understood that the virus could jump between mammalian species, and that anything surpassing the 40 pound threshold was susceptible to its effects. The dog weighed over 40 pounds. The Masons, who were award-winning reporters in their own right, dealt with their grief by channeling their emotional resources into chasing the news ratings. They continued to be phenomenally successful journalists as well as shitty parents to Shaun and Georgia, whom they seem to have adopted entirely for publicity purposes. The narrative invites us to draw the comparison between George and Shaun, who have chosen to pursue this career out of a thirst for THE TRUTH, and their parents who have less lofty motivations. Not to put too fine a point on it but their parents are mercenary motherfuckers. These kids survived their childhood by building an emotional bunker that they never learned to climb out of. This line from the very first chapter is so telling because they’re out in the field and Shaun is being chased by a zombie right?:

I screamed, images of my inevitable future as an only child filling my mind.

When Shaun’s in mortal peril, Georgia doesn’t think of him as “the center of my universe”— which he is—she thinks of the void that would result in the loss of her brother. That’s how they fit together, that’s what they are to each other, and all the other stuff is layered on top of the shared trauma of their childhood. Ffs they even have a ritual for administering each other’s blood tests—you know that thing at wedding toasts where the bride and groom loop their arms together and tip the champagne flute into the other’s mouth? Like that:

Moving with synchronicity born of long practice, we broke the biohazard seals and popped the plastic lids off our testing units

So the protocol for taking blood tests, which everyone has to do all day long to prove they’re not infected, is to come into the foyer/antechamber/vestibule one at a time and once you test clean you proceed into the building while the next person cycles into the chamber. That way, if anyone is found to be infected, they can be isolated. Georgia and Shaun have never once complied with this rule:

Our next-door-neighbor used to call Child Protective Services every six months because our folks wouldn’t stop us from coming in together. But what’s the point of life if you can’t take risks now and then, like coming into the damn house with your brother?

Implying that if one of them ever got bitten by a zombie the other one would rather spend the rest of their short life trapped in a garage with the shambling corpse of their sibling than die in their sleep at a ripe old age. Talk about ride or die.

I said before that this presidential campaign, this is their big break as much as it is the candidate’s. Up till now George and Shaun have been blogging under the umbrella of news aggregation entities (sort of like how BuzzFeed and HuffPost and Medium are populated by user-generated content that isn’t necessarily making the content creator an appreciable pile of money), but now they’ve finally landed the story that will let them strike out on their own. One of the sharpest things about this book is how it depicts journalism as a job, and a tough one to do right. Nashville does the same thing for the music industry, and as over-the-top as that show is, it shows you the nuts and bolts of success in a profession where practitioners are supposedly driven by “passion” alone. Here the distribution of labor is skewed pretty heavily towards George:

I get the administrative junk that Shaun’s too much of a jerk and Buffy’s too much of a flake to deal with.

Buffy is their business partner and some kind of auteur hacker + tech whiz. Shaun is the public face of their media brand. But make no mistake, George is the heart and soul and brains of this operation. You see her business acumen in drive-by observations like “Replacing that much equipment would kill our operating budget for months,” or when she talks about i n s u r a n c e. And George talks about insurance a lot. She mentions how a certain camera covered in zombie body fluids is an insurance write-off, how being present in designated high-risk zones during certain times of day can triple your insurance premium, how a certain treatment for her chronic vision condition isn’t covered by health insurance. I … just wanna point out that the human race has survived a flippin’ zombie apocalypse, but the United States remains wedded to private for-profit health insurance where who and what are “covered” remains a game of Russian roulette?!! Whoever said it was “easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” was onto something. This society is functioning cohesively enough that elections are a thing (thus, nation-states are still a thing). If you want to tell me our fragmented, inefficient, fee-for service model of paying for medical care that routinely bankrupts & kills our citizens has weathered the end of civlization and emerged intact from its ashes, you better look me dead in the eye and bring receipts.

What’s really impressive about Georgia is she’ll rattle off exactly what kind of activities (those forbidden by her journalistic licensing) will invalidate her life insurance if she’s stupid enough to get killed while doing them. From which I surmise that she and Shaun are both covered by pretty hefty policies of which they are each other’s sole beneficiary. Which makes sense, they’re in a dangerous line of work, but I feel like it’s a poor investment since whoever was left behind would be doing their damnedest to climb into the grave next to their sibling lol.

Another little requirement of the household insurance—since we leave safe zones all the time in order to do our jobs, we have to be able to prove we’ve been properly sterilized, and that means logged computer verification of our sterilizations.

George is talking about the AI that is apparently located in her showerhead that douses her with a bleach & antiseptic compound when she comes back from being in the field?? That sounds painful but what concerns me is the breathtaking scope of the Internet of Things’ penetration into her life. The AI is in the bathroom. It knows exactly where she’s been bc ofc her GPS location can be tracked via her phone, and it’s merrily sending packets of information off to …. somewhere, where it will doubtless be aggregated with all the data collected about George from other sources, and combed for patterns to predict future behavior. That’s how surveillance capitalism works. if this sounds chillingly familiar it’s because it’s already happening, it’s what the tech giants are already doing—gobbling up as much data about as many people in as many contexts as possible—and leveraging that data for profit. Privacy is a joke. George is not unaware of this, but what choice does she have? It’s either install the damn AI in her showerhead or get her parents’ homeowners’ insurance policy cancelled for being too “high risk.”

I want to circle back to George’s chronic medical condition for a sec. She’s got a disability—what’s a called a “reservoir condition” where the virus takes up residence in a body organ, in her case the retina—meaning essentially that she has zombie vision; she can see ridiculously well in low light situations but direct sunlight will blind her. She has to wear shades even indoors and is literally incapable of crying since her tear ducts are inoperative. So there’s a testy situation where a federal agent tries to get her to take off her sunglasses so he can verify her identity with a retinal scan right? And because they’re standing outside this is obviously a recipe for permanent blindness, quite aside from the fact you wouldn’t be able to get a valid scan anyway due to the virus over-dilating George pupils. But instead of checking George’s files, where her disability & its effects are prominently listed, this grunt insists on making her remove her glasses because Procedure. It’s a pretty tense moment. Shaun goes ballistic. He doesn’t physically threaten the dude, or insult his mom or anything. No, Shaun understands that he needs to make this pencil-pusher more afraid of the consequences of taking George’s glasses than of Not Following Procedure. And it works. YEET.

On the campaign trail the Senator’s aides arrange for sex-segregated hotel rooms but Shaun and George are having none of it:

On the few occasions when I’ve tried sleeping without Shaun in the next room, well, let’s just say that I can go a long way on a six-pack of Coke.

The ostensible reason the sleeping arrangements need to be reshuffled is, Buffy can’t sleep without a nightlight and George’s eyes can’t tolerate a nightlight. Clearly the real reason is George and Shaun are c l i n g y and codependent as FUCK. One night after a zombie attack and the long grueling hours of cleanup/decontamination that followed it, they actually climb into the same bed—I guess this room only had a double instead of two singles?? The scene the next morning, the two of them having predictably overslept:

“Fuck a duck, Buffy, what are you trying to do, blind her?” … Shaun, clad only in his boxer shorts, staring at an unrepentant Buffy.

So Shaun’s beef with Buffy is not that she barged in on them while they were asleep & half-naked but that she opened the curtains, thereby triggering a painful migraine for George’s sensitive eyes. Buffy explains she didn’t shake them awake because they both sleep armed, lmao. George’s disability and Shaun’s practiced ability to help her maneuver around it (like a trusty prosthetic, he’s an extension of herself) serves to highlight how in this partnership they are one unit and they know each other inside out. This is them after their close shave with the dunce who tried to take George’s glasses:

“Fuck you, too,” I muttered as Shaun got his arm around me and hoisted me away from the barn. “You kiss our mother with that mouth?” “Our mother and you both, dickhead. Give me my sunglasses.”

And this is George waking up in their hotel room, eyes squeezed shut against the glare of multiple computer screens:

He touched my hand with the tips of his fingers before he pressed my sunglasses against my palm.

This is absurdly, spine-tinglingly intimate. First he touches her hand with the tip of his fingers, the most fleeting of touches to let her know it’s him, and then he presses the glasses into her palm to restore her agency so she can, you know, open her eyes. And that earlier scene with him guiding her by the elbow in broad daylight!!! I’M NOT CRYING YOU’RE CRYING

Sometimes I can hardly believe that George and Shaun are twenty-three years old. When I was twenty-three I … was not adulting half so well as these kids. But then, giving their barbarous upbringing, that’s not surprising; my parents loved and nurtured me. When I look at George and Shaun and the successful business they’ve built and the professional relationships they’ve cultivated and their expertise and their bravery I just feel this proud parental glow you know?

I want to say a word about Senator Ryman before we move onto spoiler territory. There’s a big controversy initially about whether the Senator is “genuine” or not (spoiler alert: he is). But what does that even mean, genuine? He’s a good egg, sure, but what are his policies, none of which are explored in depth except his support for horse farms??? I’m not kidding. In a world where any animal weighing over 40 pounds is a zombie outbreak waiting to happen, it’s a controversial position to say people should be able to keep pets in residential zones. Here is how George describes our Candidate:

He’s like a big, friendly Boy Scout who just woke up one day and decided to become the President of the United States of America.

I see two major problems with this: One, they say “Personnel is Policy” so who the hell is he planning to appoint to key Cabinet positions and can he trust them to pursue rather than undermine his objectives (and does he even have a deep enough bench of people to draw on)? Two, the Boy Scouts of America are not exactly, er, unproblematic, and while it’s safe to say our faves are always problematic, I think “Boy Scout” is shorthand here for “no skeletons in his closet,” which again puts the focus squarely on his personal qualities rather than what policies he espouses. It’s great that he hasn’t cheated on his wife or his taxes. But morality and ethics are not the same thing:

Morals are how you treat people you know. Ethics are how you treat people you don’t know. Your morality is what makes you a good spouse/friend … Your ethics are what makes you a good politician … Morality dictates that you take care of your family, friends and even acquaintances first … For a large society—a society where you can’t know everyone—to work, ethics must come before morality, or ethics and morality must have a great deal of overlap. By acting morally, you must be able to act ethically.

I think we can all agree that this does not describe how our society is currently constituted, and it doesn’t describe George and Shaun’s America either. So this narrow fixation on whether individual candidates are “genuine” or corrupt imo kinda misses the point. George says:

I haven’t even been able to find proof that his campaign received funding from the tobacco companies, and everyone’s campaign receives funding from the tobacco companies.

I don’t want to undersell how important it is the guy is not taking tobacco money. But is he also eschewing Wall Street money, Big Pharma money, defense contractor money? How could George possibly have time to investigate all this dark money if she is supposed to be covering the actual campaign? Seems like it would be a lot easier to reform the campaign finance laws than to vet every single single candidate’s funding sources.

I think one reason the Senator is long on identity & personal charisma and short on policy is that he’s up against an opponent whose base of support is millenarian-fundamentalist “the Rapture is here, we’re all going to hell”:

it was either Ryman’s brand of “we should all get along while we’re here,” or Tate’s hellfire and damnation.

If that is the main faultline in society, I guess half the voters don’t really wanna hear how a given politician is planning to make a material difference in their lives, since they’ve already got eyes on the prize aka the next life.

So there you have it. George and Shaun are scrappy independent muckrakers digging for the truth. Time and again their allegiance to that holy grail overrides their concern for trivial aims like idk personal safety. There’s a vast, shady conspiracy afoot, and as our heroes get closer to it they start getting shot at. They lose comrades. None of this deters them because they are after THE TRUTH. Oh wait there is in fact one thing George values more than the truth:

”You’re more interested in your brother than figuring out the truth?” “Shaun’s the only thing that concerns me more than the truth does.”

And later:

The sight of him was enough to make my heart beat faster and my throat get tight. I knew he was wearing Kevlar underneath his clothes, but Kevlar wouldn’t protect him from a headshot.

Her first concern is always, always, for him.

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

George gets infected. That’s the denouement. George is infected and Shaun has to shoot her before she turns all the way. Every single person who makes it to this scene is just bawling by the end of it:

His lips brushed the top of my head as he bent forward and pressed them to my hair. I wanted to yell at him to get away from me, but I didn’t. The barrel of the gun remained a cool, constant pressure on the back of my neck. When I turned, when I stopped being me, he would end it. He loved me enough to end it. Has any girl ever been luckier than I am?

The reassuring pressure of the gun on the base of her neck??? Has there been a more romantic moment in cinematic history??? I THINK NOT. Shaun is a crack shot—he’s the kind of guy who caresses his guns, names them after pretty women, causes his sister to grouse about digging through a suitcaseful of his weaponry to find her clothes—and yet here he is using his gun to kill the woman he loves most in the world.

It was supposed to be Shaun. They both took it as a given that Shaun would be the one to die first. Now he has to find a reason to continue living other than the obvious (vengeance). Stay tuned for the next installment, narrated by Shaun!

[sunsetbeachsoap]

Interview: Life's a Sunset Beach

She was going to be the next Elizabeth Taylor. These days Lesley- Anne Down takes work where she finds it - right now, it's in the best daytime soap opera since `Crossroads'.

Deborah Ross @deborahross

Monday 30 November 1998 01:02

So, here she is, then, Lesley-Anne Down, once "Britain's Most Beautiful Teenager" and once, of course, the flighty, ravishing, utterly captivating Miss Georgina Worsley in Upstairs, Downstairs. I can still see her now, in her little sparkling bugle dress, with those big sparkling eyes, flirting outrageously with someone jolly handsome in the Eaton Place drawing room, while, downstairs, Mrs Bridges was bellowing: "RUBY! ROO- BEEEEE! YOU COME AND HELP ME WITH THIS MILK PUDDING NOW, MY GIRL!" The part quickly transformed her into the nation's, and the tabloids', absolute darling. She may even have been Elizabeth Hurley before there was any Elizabeth Hurley. The prototype, if you like. And very, very big things were predicted for her. "The next Elizabeth Taylor," declared the Daily Mail in 1973. But today? Today she is not a great big movie star. Instead, she is Olivia Richards in the American daytime soap Sunset Beach.

Now, let's see, how best to give you a little thumbnail-sketch of Olivia? OK. Here goes. Olivia used to have a drink problem, and also used to be married to Gregory Richards, played by a cracking actor who can do lines, and facial expressions, but singularly fails to ever tie the two in together. Olivia has a baby son, Tres, unbeknown to her grown-up daughter, Caitlin, who is a graduate (cum laude) of The American School of Dramatic Hair Tossing - they are all, actually, very good at tossing, but Caitlin's the best - and who thinks Tres came from a prostitute. Caitlin certainly doesn't think Tres could be her brother, or might even be her half-brother, because Olivia once had an affair with Cole, who suffers under the weight of a great deal of hair gel and thus looks permanently perplexed, and who is now married to Caitlin, while Gregory is now married to Annie, who has lips like dinghies and who drugged Olivia and stole Tres in the first place before Olivia found out and Gregory divorced her, because he thought Tres died as a result of her drinking. And that's about it. I think. Tragically, Sunset Beach is only on here at 10.20am on Channel 5 which means that, for a busy, professional, go-getting high-brow like me, I only ever get to see it daily.

Now, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking: "Look what Lesley- Anne has come to!" And: "Where did it all go pear-shaped!"Well, if that's the case, and I suspect it is, then I can only say you are mad. Sunset Beach is, almost certainly, the best thing on telly at the moment. Indeed, for anyone who has had, say, a Crossroads-shaped hole in their lives ever since Crossroads was axed, then Sunset Beach is just the ticket, and possibly more so. The plots are ludicrous, the acting is appalling and, as for the dialogue! Well, take Olivia to her ex, Gregory, while they are stuck in a lift, and he's coming on to her, because he's unknowingly been doped with Viagra, and she finds herself succumbing: "LOVE [breath] ME [breath] GREGORY [long breath]. LOVE [breath] ME!" It's all you could ever hope for, frankly, and no Benny in his silly bobble hat, which has to be a plus.

I say all this to Lesley-Anne. She is not offended in the least. She has, she says, never considered herself an artiste in any way. Do you think you can act, even? "God, no. Absolutely not. But if someone pays me to do something, I will do it to the best of my ability, and on Mars if necessary." How would you describe what you do in Sunset Beach? "Technique. Just full-blown technique! Although it's very hard work, darling. We average four scenes an hour. We don't rehearse. It's brush your hair, then boom- boom-boom, you're doing it." So, in short, it's a matter of trying not to fall over the props, then waiting for the truck to come round with your wages? "It is certainly much better paid than Upstairs, Downstairs ever was!" She says she now takes her jobs where she can find them. She once did a season in Dallas as PR Stephanie Rogers. "Why? Because they offered me a quarter of a million dollars for seven days' work over 10 weeks. What do you think I am, darling? STUPID?" Still, she agrees that "Who shot JR?" might be up there with "Is Amy Turtle a Russian spy?" as one of the greatest soap storylines ever. "Was she a Russian spy?" she asks. I say she got off in the end, but frankly, I always had my doubts. There always looked like room for a kalashnikov under her pinny, to me. "I see," says Lesley-Anne. "Hmmm."

Although she now lives in the very Hello! territory that is Malibu - "Jane Seymour lives round the corner. Her kids came trick or treating the other night" - she is over here for a few days, so we meet in her London hotel suite. We are joined, at various times, by Lesley-Anne's younger sister, Angela, Lesley-Anne's husband, Donnie, and her and Donnie's eight-month-old son, George, who seems to have black teeth ("We think the housekeeper is feeding him juice"), plus a succession of chambermaids who knock then come in to say: "Hiya, Olivia. I just wanted to say hiya, and maybe I could have a photo, Olivia?" "Maybe a little later, sweetie," says Lesley-Anne, who isn't even very good at acting friendly sometimes. Later, she complains: "This has been going on endlessly. In fact, when I first arrived here a few days ago, I went out in the evening. I was knackered, I looked awful, I wore a big hat - but still everyone in the street was shouting, `Ohhhh, Olivia'. And `Ohhh, Sunset Beach'. I don't understand it. It is such a silly little show."

Nonsense, I protest. It's a terrific show. In particular, I love the strange kind of time warp that goes on, so that a character knocks on a door, then 139 episodes later someone finally answers it. I like the fact that there are only ever two camera angles. I like the fact it makes Santa Barbara look slick. I like... "Oh, stop," pleads Lesley-Anne. Her sister Angela interrupts to say she thinks Lesley-Anne is a better actress than she thinks she is. "You were very good in Hanover Street with Harrison Ford," she insists.

"But that was such romantic drivel, darling!" Lesley-Anne cries.

"Trouble is, that film didn't know whether it wanted to be a war story or a love story," says Donnie.

"Ag-ga-ga-ga-goo," goes George, through his spooky, rotten teeth.

I say that, aside from anything else, she did do truly great cleavage in the American mini-series North and South. She can at least feel proud of that. She says: "That wasn't cleavage! That was my spare tyre being pushed up!" Lesley-Anne is possibly rather bonkers. But, still, she can be quite bright and funny at times.

She is now 44, but is still very fine looking, with the huge green, sparkling eyes, and great bones and everything, although she might be a bit over- made-up. You know, lots of black round the eyes and lashes so mascara- ed they look crunchy. She has so far resisted plastic surgery, "but only because Donnie won't let me". "Roy Orbison died on the table getting a face-lift," retorts Donnie. "It is a life-threatening operation."

Donnie, her third husband, is a cameraman whom she met on the set of North and South. Lesley-Anne seems to have spent much of her life going from one bloke to another, actually. First it was Bruce Robinson, the actor who turned writer (The Killing Fields) then writer-director (Withnail and I, How to Get Ahead in Advertising) and with whom she lived with for 10 years from the age of 15. Next it was an Argentine, Henrique Gabriel, an assistant director whom she met in Egypt on a film set, and whom she married on a whim, but left after 18 months for William Friedkin. She married Friedkin, the director of The French Connection and The Exorcist, and together they had a son, Jack. But when Jack was two, Lesley-Anne met Don, and upped it again. Lesley-Anne and Friedkin then fought a custody battle for Jack in a case which even her own lawyer, Marvin Mitchelson, described as "the nastiest, most vicious, custody case this town has ever seen". Friedkin said Lesley-Anne was an alcoholic, promiscuous coke fiend. She said he had threatened to kill her on more than one occasion, and had used a stun gun in front of Jack. After spending a million dollars each, they eventually agreed to a pre-trial settlement and joint custody, but only after Lesley-Anne had been vetted by a team of shrinks.

She says the shrinks ultimately declared her "a super-intelligent woman" which, she adds, "was very funny, because I lied to them every step of the way. They did these Rorschach tests on me. You know, the ink-blots. And they'd say, what does this one look like? I wasn't about to say it looks like two women having it off, was I? So I said, `Ohhh, it's a beautiful butterfly."' What did they conclude about you emotionally? "That I'm a complete hysteric!" And she might be, although perhaps not dangerously so. Certainly, she doesn't seem entirely whole somehow. I think she is intelligent, yes, but am not sure she's entirely all there.

She was born in Wandsworth, south London. Her father, James, apparently a very dashing-looking man, was caretaker of the local Territorial Army Centre. Her mother, Isobel, stayed at home to bring up the two girls, although did a bit of cleaning on the side when things got tight. Lesley- Anne, however, craved a more colourful life. "I had these cousins in LA, who'd send us care packages of clothes they'd grown out of - the most amazingly beautiful dresses that were totally alien to, say, going to Clark's for another pair of lace-ups in black, black or black. So I always had this desire, and image of myself, leading this fantasy life."

She started modelling at 10, was drinking gin and orange and clubbing at 12, started appearing nude in films at 14, and was living with Bruce at 15. I ask her if she thinks her childhood finished too early. She says. "I don't think it ever started!" What do you mean? "I just never felt like a child. I always had this desire to be a grown-up. I never had friends. I never felt I belonged. I was always happiest on my own, inventing things, finding secret places. If I'd also mutilated small animals, I think I'd have the perfect psychological profile of a serial killer." Did you ever, for example, have birthday parties? "Perhaps once. Although, then again, I might just be jealously appropriating someone else's." Did you like school? "Hated it. In particular, I hated Miss Harden, the maths teacher, who had hairy armpits and never wore long sleeves."

The trouble with Lesley-Anne, perhaps, is that she focused for so long on achieving things outwardly, via her own admittedly fabulous looks, that something within her just shrivelled and died. When, later, I ask her what attracted her to Friedkin, she says: "Money, talent, power." And you find those things attractive? "I did then. I'd met men with one or other of those things but, until Bill, I'd never met a man with all three." And the combination was lethal? "Lethal is the right word. That man was MERCURY IN MY BLOOD!" She can seem quite hysterical at times, yes.

Her first modelling assignment was for school uniforms, then it was bonnets, then it was a commercial in Barbados for an American soap powder - "and I thought, this is the life". She hooked up with Bruce at a party thrown by Ava Gardner. "He walked into the room in a white coat. I was in love. I didn't have a comb, so I ran into the lavatory and used Ava's toothbrush on my hair and lashes." He assumed she was at least 18. He, nearly 30 then, wasn't best pleased to find out she was only 15. "He called up all his friends, and said: `What am I going to do?' He went though a difficult time. My parents called him all sorts of names. Bruce would pack my bags and send me back to mum and dad. `I want to be with you,' I would scream. "

He proposed to her just the once, when she was 16. "But I said no. I didn't believe in marriage then." He never proposed again, although they stayed together until she was 24. She doesn't see him now. "He's become such a hermit, hasn't he? He lives in place near Wales that begins with H." Hereford? "Yes, that's it. He has so much to play for, but just tucks himself away." Perhaps he just doesn't want the whole LA shebang? "Oh. yes. Perhaps."

She says she is happy now, with Donnie and George. She doesn't mind that she never really achieved anything after Upstairs, Downstairs apart from a number of lacklustre films culminating in Death Wish V with Charles Bronson. "I'm happy to have survived, to still be here," she says. She has, yes, had her run-ins with drink and drugs but never, she insists, excessively so, and certainly not now. She adds that it's now time for her afternoon nap. "I'm very tired, darling." Bye, Olivia, I say. And I hope you get out of that stuck elevator shortly. "Oh stop!" she pleads again.

[buzzdixonwriter]

Compare & Contrast: Carousel vs Guys And Dolls

A dear departed friend of mine loved Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II’s Carousel, and he was far from the only person to do so.

Ever since it opened in 1945, Carousel has been a perennial favorite, revived countless times on Broadway and regional theaters, adapted into a film, and chockablock with memorable numbers and well crafted scenes.  “If I Loved You,” “June Is Bustin’ Out All Over,” and the big hit from the show, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” have been covered by thousands of artists and are in repertoires all over the world.

I can understand the fondness for the songs, and the admiration for the quality of the writing, but Carousel itself as a story?

This is one of the vilest pieces of crap penned.

Based on the play Liliom by the Hungarian playwright and poet Ferenc Molnár, Carousel is the story of Billy Bigelow, a self-destructive idiot who diminishes the lives of those around him simply by existing.

Molnár’s original play doesn’t dodge that bullet, and it ends with the protagonist being led off to eternal punishment while his dim-witted widow waxes nostalgic over him, despite the fact he abused her, never supported her, and left her in the lurch to bear and raise their daughter after he was killed in botched robbery.

Given a chance to redeem himself by performing one good deed for his daughter, Liliom (Hungarian for “lily” but also slang for a street thug) botches even that simple task and so gets dragged off to the fate he well deserves, the fate he quite deliberately and exquisitely fashioned for himself over the course of the play.

Small wonder those who adapted it to stage and screen typically sought a means of mitigating Liliom’s fate, to give one last ray of hope instead of following the story through to its grim but wholly logical conclusion.

Of all the adaptations that tinkered with Liliom, Carousel is by far the most egregious. It explicitly endorses spouse and child abuse as acts of endearment, Billy Bigelow (the Americanized Liliom) being a prideful, arrogantly ignorant sociopath who cares only for himself, and despite the vain promise of “You’ll never walk alone,” his daughter and wife are compelled to suffer all their lives for his sins and shortcomings.

He brings his daughter a star from heaven which even in the context of the story doesn’t mean anything; it’s just a gaudy trinket that can be and ultimately is ignored.

Geeze, a Marvel movie would at least see the kid get some superpowers out of the deal…

And if such a thing is possible, the 1956 film adaptation is even worse than the stage play:   It begins with Billy in heaven, gainfully employed polishing stars, no need to either account or atone for his earthly behavior.  His return to Earth is just to help his daughter out, not redeem his terrible behavior with a single good act, and in that context he’s more trouble than he’s worth.

One’s tempted to call Billy Bigelow a worthless sac of human excrement, but that’s not accurate: Excrement has use as a fertilizer.

Billy Bigelow is a 55-gallon drum of toxic waste, poisoning all it comes in contact with.

The key plot elements of the stage play are this:   Billy Bigelow, carousel barker, gets fired by his jealous boss, Mrs. Mullin, when she sees him flirting with young mill worker Julie Jordan.  Julie loses her job as well because of her infatuation with Billy, and the two marry impetuously.  

A month later and he’s still found no work due to his refusal to return as Mrs. Mullin’s barker or take any other job that requires him to answer to a boss.  He’s drunk and abusive, and while the stage play raises the issue that Julie should leave, it just as quickly subsumes it with Julie’s "he's your feller and you love him" attitude.

When a disreputable pal, Jigger, suggests they rob Julie’s old boss, Billy first refuses (though he doesn’t warn anyone of Jigger’s criminal intent), but when he learns Julie’s pregnant, launches into the most odious song in the show:  “Soliloquy”

“Soliloquy” is a schmaltz fest that most people choose to hear as a loving father doting over his unborn child.

It’s not.

It’s a sociopath’s love song to himself.

Billy Bigelow does not care what is truly best for his son, he only cares about vicariously enjoying success through the boy, and not through the boy’s own efforts and desires but by shaping him into a mirror image of his father, a toy for him to manipulate and play with.

Almost all the careers he imagines for the boy are the kind of low level manual labor jobs that he’s only fit for, the exceptions being carnival barker and President of the United States (which he disdains).

“Bill, my boy Bill I will see that he is named after me, I will. My boy, Bill! He'll be tall And tough as a tree, will Bill! Like a tree he'll grow With his head held high And his feet planted firm on the ground And you won't see nobody dare to try To boss or toss him around! No pot-bellied, baggy-eyed bully Will boss him around.”

He even fantasizes about teaching his unborn son how to seduce girls…then realizes to his horror that his “son” maybe be a daughter.

“My little girl Pink and white As peaches and cream is she My little girl Is half again as bright As girls are meant to be! Dozens of boys pursue her Many a likely lad does what he can to woo her From her faithful dad She has a few Pink and white young fellers of two or three But my little girl Gets hungry every night and she comes home to me!”

That’s pretty damn sick.

Bigelow, perfectly willing to raise a proto-rapist male, doesn’t want the shame of having a victim for a daughter, and thinking the only way he can protect her is by buying her a higher station in life, decides to help Jigger rob Julie’s ex-boss.

Even there he’s a punk, not willing to do anything directly to threaten the old man, but perfectly willing to share in the proceeds of Jigger’s crime.  (He’s also an idiot insofar has he had a nasty confrontation with the intended victim about a month earlier and apparently presumes the old man won’t remember him.)

But he’s not done destroying himself and Julie’s future and the future of their unborn child yet: While waiting in ambush, he and Jigger gamble, betting their anticipated shares of the loot.

Billy loses all his shares!

There is no point to him participating in the robbery.

There is no reason to help Jigger any further except arrogant pride.

They attempt to rob the old man, the old man draws a gun, Jigger flees, and Billy, rather than face the consequences, takes the coward’s way out and kills himself.

His daughter grows up being scorned and taunted by other children for having a father who was a stupid brute and a thief and a suicide, and as cruel as that is, who’s fault is it but Billy’s?

It was his choices that put her in that predicament, his pride, his arrogance, his lack of character and courage and imagination.

And Carousel celebrates this; it doesn’t pity Billy but rather feels sorry for him.

This is the difference:  Pity can recognize the suffering of another person yet still recognize that person’s responsibility in bringing tragedy upon themselves; feeling sorry for someone negates the harm they have inflicted on others.

Billy deserves nothing. Julie deserves nothing -- she enabled this tragedy.

Only the daughter deserves sympathy and a second chance, Carousel’s climax is arbitrarily tacked on to give a fake happy ending and is as phony as a three dollar bill printed on a Xerox machine running low on toner.

Liliom and Carousel are tragedies, but only Liliom has the courage and clear vision to recognize it.

Compare and contrast with Guys And Dolls, the 1950 Damon Runyon musical by Frank Loesser, Jo Swerling, and Abe Burrows.

Like Carousel, it’s a crowd pleaser:   Plenty of great scenes, lots of great numbers like “A Bushel And A Peck”, “Adelaide’s Lament”, “Luck Be A Lady”, “Sue Me”, “Sit Down (You’re Rocking The Boat)”, and “Guys And Dolls” itself.

It’s got a better structure than Carousel:   A common convention in Broadway musicals is to have a main couple that the show focuses on and a supporting couple to offer a counterpoint to the main action.

One could eliminate the supporting couple in Carousel and, while the show would be diminished, it would not change the story of Billy and Julie.

But Guys And Dolls thoroughly integrates the stories of Sky Masterson and Sergeant Sarah Brown with that of Nathan Detroit and Adelaide:  Remove either couple and the entire show collapses.

And of special interest is this:   While Sky and Nathan are gamblers and by association at least peripheral members of the underworld, they are also men of personal integrity (Nathan less so than Sky, granted, but it’s still there).

Nathan is trying to stage “the oldest established permanent floating crap game in New York” in the face of intense police scrutiny not for his personal benefit alone, but so he provide for his crew and so he can finally marry Adelaide, the show girl he’s been engaged to for 14 years.

Sky is riding on top of the world, a superstar among gamblers, a man who doesn’t need anything…

…yet at the same time is acutely aware of a large vacuum in his heart.

The story’s hilarious, with all sorts of outrageous characters and plot twists, but it rings far truer than Carousel because for all their flaws, the characters are trying to better themselves not for their own good but so they can better the lives of others.

This is a crucial difference between them and Billy Bigelow.  The characters of Guys And Dolls may be foolish on occasion, but they ain’t dumb, they know the score, and more importantly, they know themselves.

The show’s songs are rich with self-awareness, and while the characters take risks -- they’re gamblers, after all -- they aren’t stupid self-destructive risks that will harm others.

Sky and Nathan, in fact, demonstrate a willingness to sacrifice themselves for others, and accept the consequences for their own actions.

More importantly, they are willing to change in order to better help the women they love, and that change comes without regret but rather with (again!) the self-awareness that their happiness is intrinsically wrapped up in the happiness of the person they love.

No song better sums it up than “Guys And Dolls” itself:

“When you see a guy reach for stars in the sky You can bet that he's doing it for some doll. When you spot a John waiting out in the rain Chances are he's insane as only a John can be for a Jane. When you meet a gent paying all kinds of rent For a flat that could flatten the Taj Mahal. Call it sad, call it funny. But it's better than even money That the guy's only doing it for some doll.”

The song closes with as direct a repudiation of Billy Bigelow as we could hope for:

“When a lazy slob takes a goody steady job, And he smells from Vitalis and Barbasol. Call it dumb, call it clever Ah, but you can get odds forever That the guy's only doing it for some doll!”

 © Buzz Dixon