#Been writing some papers on issues I thought you guys would find relevant

[banana-with-a-bow-tie]

The Bible and Depression

Though one could search Scripture and conceivably define depression in a number of ways, for simplicity’s sake depression will be defined as follows: a strong response of sorrow, discouragement, or lament to a perceived loss, harm, or deficiency in one’s circumstances that hinders one’s ability to handle the realities of daily living. A helpful case study of this definition can be found in 1 Kings 19. After a stunning display of God’s power and victory over paganism, the prophet Elijah was threatened by Queen Jezebel, and he feared for his life, running away, then asking God to take his life because he had had enough and could not endure the isolation any longer (vv. 4, 10). He had experienced a loss and threat of harm in the queen’s rejection of God, and he perceived that her wickedness had been victorious, leaving him helpless as the last faithful follower of God. Therefore, Elijah was discouraged and had no hope of continuing God’s work.

            As with any emotion, the sorrow of depression can have both righteous and unrighteous expressions.

Depression is righteously expressed when the perception is accurate, the loss is something good, and the response is Christlike. Often righteous and unrighteous expressions are mingled together in all these categories. In Elijah’s case, his perception was partially correct. God acknowledged that the journey was too much for him, that he did not have sufficient strength in himself (v. 7). However, his perception was inaccurate because he believed that the completion of God’s purposes terminated on him. God’s power and presence were non-factors to his situation (vv. 10–14). He was not aware of the seven thousand believers God had preserved independently of himself or God’s plans to continue his prophetic ministry in a successor, or the judgment he would bring under new kings (vv. 15–18). Elijah’s perceptions assumed that if he did not see change in the people of Israel according to his expectations after all his efforts, then he must be a failure and all hope was lost.

            The loss Elijah experienced was genuine. He was right to mourn the stubbornness of the people and the martyrdom of his fellow believers. If he showed no grief or sorrow at such evil and tragedy, one might question if he really loved his people or if he was really concerned with the ministry God had assigned him (cf. Jonah 4:2). Godly sorrow acknowledges that the object that was lost was a good gift God had provided, that the individual was thankful for that gift, and that they long to see God make things right again. However, there is another element implied in Elijah’s despair. He contrasts his own faithfulness and zealousness for God with the rebellion of Israel, noting a disparity, that it appears as though he has not received the results his efforts deserve (1 Kgs 19:10). It seems there is a sense in Elijah that he is owed from God Israel’s redemption as the fruits of his faithful labor. This is where good desires can go awry, making them the hope and purpose for one’s being instead of God. While it was right for Elijah to desire Israel’s repentance, his main reason for his zeal needed to be because he found his ultimate satisfaction in the Lord and all His works, regardless of how He decided their results. Depressed sorrow does not lead to righteousness, but death when it is focused on one’s idols (2 Cor 7:10).

            Elijah’s response reflected Christ in that just as Jesus threw himself at the mercy of His Father in the depths of his anguish (Matt 26:39), Elijah in the midst of his distress went to the mountain of God, Mount Horeb or Sinai, the place where God’s Word and presence had first been so powerfully revealed (1 Kgs 19:8). Though he struggled with doubt and discouragement, he never allowed his hardship to hinder his love for God or his dependence upon him. Elijah continued to be obedient to the Lord even when he felt there was nothing left for him to give (vv. 12–19). Nevertheless, Elijah’s sin nature still peered through. His fear of Jezebel led him to despair as the pagans, as one without hope (1 Thess 4:13; cf. Eph 2:12). He had given up on life and saw no way that God’s power and presence could be relevant to his situation (1 Kgs 19:4, 12)

            The primary characteristics of the depressive experience in the inner man are profound weariness, weakness, and weeping. Proverbs 13:12 teaches that living without hope makes the heart sick. David in Psalm 69:2–3 compares his sorrow to drowning with no sure footing, exhausting himself with tears and searching for God’s help and not finding it. The sons of Korah felt powerless and without strength, like a dead man going to the grave (Ps 88:4). The only thing the heart is capable of doing in these times of distress is pouring out tears and groans, often for extended periods of time (Ps 6:6). All this emotional energy is exhausting, using up all of one’s strength so that a person eventually grows numb and has trouble reacting to anything (Ps 38:8).

            Depression fills a person’s mind with many questions such as “Why am I suffering? What is the point of living? Where is God? When will this end?” (Ps 77:7–9). In these questions, the heart is craving understanding and hope but is unable to find them. David is famous for lifting his eyes to the hills to search for his help from the Lord (Ps 121:1), however he often concludes that his eyes have failed him in finding the Lord’s help, that he has strained so long in searching his eyes now grow dim (Ps 119:82; 69:3). When these questions remain unanswered, it has a way of coloring a person’s perspective on life as being pointless. Solomon looked at all his mighty works and despaired because he found no inherent meaning in them. He saw it as pointless to toil and labor on earth when everything ends in death and someone else receives the fruits. When one takes such a view, it is hard to feel motivated to engage in life’s tasks. In the middle of such suffering, the only thing a person can focus on is how to be free from this pain. In Psalm 13, all David can do is question how long he must wrestle with his sorrow and be dominated by his enemies. He is desperately searching for an escape, some point of light that shows him that the pain he is experiencing has an end.

            Such sustained hopelessness in the inner man can have a devastating effect on the outer man. The psalmists use some graphic language to describe depression and suffering’s effects on the body, that their bones are in agony and wasting away (Ps 6:2; 31:10), their strength is draining from them and their hearts melt (Ps 31:10; 38:10; 22:14), and their bodies lose all soundness or stability (Ps 38:3). With such a complete loss of energy and motivation as it is all consumed with enduring grief, often the basic necessities of life go neglected. The psalmist’s grief made him forget to eat his daily bread (Ps 102:4), and the very thought of food was loathsome to Job as it had lost its taste (Job 6:6–7). Job was also plagued with sleepless tossing and turning, even nightmares because of his suffering (7:4, 13–14). Relationships also often go untended or are disrupted by suffering, as Job was abandoned and scorned by all his family and friends (19:13–19), the psalmist felt all alone like a bird on a housetop (Ps 102:7), and David would not interact with any of his attendants in his grief (2 Sam 12:17).

            In the craving for escape from the pain, depressed people will take many different actions to find some way to release their stress. Often this is found in endless weeping and groaning (Ps 6:6). A common godly response is petitioning the Lord through fasting and prayer (Neh 1:4). In modern times, many have turned to self-harm to distract themselves from the pain and desperation, much as Job scraped at his sores (Job 2:8), as well as the prophets of Baal attempting to make their God notice them (1 Kgs 18:28). People will turn to some form of refuge, sometimes in a bottle, sometimes in a person, sometimes in isolation, and sometimes, when no escape can be found, the depressed person will turn to death to end it all rather than continue enduring the sorrow

There are three factors that create the occasion for depression. The first factor is suffering. There is a general groaning and sorrow that all of creation experiences because of sin, longing to be free from the curse of the Fall (Rom 8:22). God’s purpose for the sorrowful emotions expressed in groaning is to make human beings aware of their frailty and the desperation of their condition so they will see their need for Christ to be their comfort, salvation, and rest (Eccl 7:2–3; Matt 11:28). Because of man’s human limitation, sometimes there genuinely is too much suffering for him to bear, and the release of sorrow allows him to take the time he needs to find his rest in God.

The second factor is the actual committing of sin (Ps 38:3). The sorrow of committing sin is twofold. First, the sin itself causes sorrow because rather than fulfilling its promise to satisfy what God cannot, it lays a snare and leads to death (Jas 1:14–15). Second, once the sin is committed, it lays another burden of guilt and shame that taxes the soul (Ps 38:4). This is part of God’s design. Sin is supposed to sting so that people will not desire to commit it again, yet people still love their sin despite how it hurts them, therefore God often gives them over to sin’s destructive nature as judgment (Rom 1:28).

The third factor, intermingled between suffering and sin, is self-centeredness. In 2 Corinthians 4:7–9, Paul argues that the weakness and suffering he and his ministry companions had endured was designed to elevate God’s power and not their own. Because they were not focused on themselves, they were “afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair” (v. 8). Solomon discovered that pursuing whatever his heart desired for its own sake was ultimately vanity and striving after the wind (Eccl 2:9–10). A life focused on self can only bring emptiness and despair, but a life focused on God brings fullness of joy (Ps 16:4, 11).

All three of these factors are occasions, or reasons that could and often should lead someone to respond with depression. However, it is the factor of self-centeredness that will determine how severe the person’s depression will be. When faced with the hardship of life or the conviction of sin, man has two choices. He can either do as Jesus did, submit himself to God who judges justly for his hope, comfort, and endurance (1 Pet 2:23), or he can turn inward and decide for himself what he needs to do to handle these sorrowful circumstances. Jesus compared this choice to building a house on rock or sand. Trusting in the Lord’s Word leads to hope and life in the midst of the storm, whereas trusting in anything else leads to despair and destruction (Matt 7:24–27).

Judas Iscariot is a prime example of this concept. He experienced the first sorrow, hardship in the world, as he was dissatisfied with the Messiah God had sent. The trail Jesus was blazing was not a path Judas could bear to take. Rather than turning to God for help with his discontentment, Judas turned to himself and created his own god, money, which commanded theft and envy. Judas trusted in this god, even though idols multiply sorrows (Ps 16:4), craving more and more, never turning the Lord. The more sin is chosen over God, the more the second sorrow, the burden of sin. is produced, but, convinced that his idol of wealth would save him, Judas continued to reject God in favor of himself. The climax of his efforts to deal with the struggles of his heart was his betrayal of Christ for thirty pieces of silver, but when even this ultimate act of rebellion did not satisfy him, Judas was driven to despair. With the Lord of Glory now dead to him, the only one who could bear the impossibly heavy burden of sin he had created was himself (Matt 27:4). The third sorrow, the isolation of self-centeredness, crushes man under the weight of sin because man is not sufficient in himself to handle the curse in a fallen world.

            The goal in responding to depression must be glorifying God through perseverance according to His Word. Simply trying to remove negative feelings in favor of more pleasant ones will not be sufficient. God never guarantees relief from trials and temptations in this life—just the opposite in fact (John 16:33)—but He does promise the grace, power, and hope to endure and finish the race of life well where the reward will then be received (Heb 12:1–3). Depressed believers must resolve that regardless of how they feel, they will be faithful to obey God’s Word and cling to Him as their hope and comfort. Three strategies for accomplishing that goal include communing personally with God, confessing sin to God, and cultivating relationships for God.

            First, depressed believers must commune personally with God. When people are sorrowful, the flesh often tells them that there is no point in turning to God, that prayer and Bible reading are too much work and not worth the effort since it will not help any way. What depressed individuals really need is to take a self-care day, to lay in bed and not engage with anyone or anything until they have the energy to do so. In reality, refusing to spend time with God is simply cutting suffering people from their source of comfort, neglecting the graces He has provided to help them endure (2 Cor 1:3–4).

Depressed believers actually have a blessing that those without similar struggles cannot possess—they are palpably aware of their own weakness and frailty, therefore they are in the perfect position to experience the power of God’s grace in a unique and intimate way because God’s power is made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9). Those who struggle to get out of bed every morning as they battle the weariness of the world know for a fact that there is no way they are being held together by their own strength but only by the power and kindness of God. This knowledge should drive believers to spend as much time with God in worship and prayer as they can so that they can be confident that His strength is available to them.

Second, depressed believers must confess sin to God. David reveals that when he kept silent about his sin his heart was in turmoil within him, his strength failed him, and his bones became brittle with groaning (Ps 32:3–4). The flesh will assure the individual that continuing in isolation or turning to another idol will eventually bring rest while at the same time arguing that bringing sin into the light will only make them feel worse with guilt and shame. But as seen before, turning to sinful strategies to deal with depression only increases sorrow. The only way to be free from the lies and heartache of sin is to confess it to God who “is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Even if depression is not rooted in the sorrow of sin, believers still must confess what is in their hearts to God. Honest communication with God about what one is thinking and feeling is how one develops intimacy with God and demonstrates trust in Him, casting their cares on Him because they believe He cares for them (1 Pet 5:7). It is also how God begins to wean people off their self-reliance and dependence on idols for comfort. Whatever a person’s situation, they can always go deeper in their dependence on God and turn from their dependence on self.

Third, depressed believers must cultivate relationships for God. Man was not created to live in a vacuum (Gen 2:18). While the flesh says relating with other people will only lead to further exhaustion, Scripture says, “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment” (Prov 18:1). God’s intention for relationships is to be an instrument in His hands to share His comfort (2 Cor 1:4–5). Those who have been comforted by God in their afflictions can comfort the depressed individual, and likewise the depressed individual can share how God’s grace has been comforting them in their depression. Those who serve the flesh serve themselves in all their afflictions, but those committed to God’s glory will have His grace serve others out of their afflictions.

[thatfrenchacademic]

hey! you seem like you're a really good TA (? idk if that's the right term but you seem to have some prof/teacher tasks?) and i was wondering how you got the confidence to do that? i'm basically on your level of education but i wouldn't think i was smart/capable enough to judge other students' writing and stuff, i feel like one of them more than one of the teachers if you get what i mean. do you have any advice?

Hello !

That is such a thoughtful question - and I am sure all postgrads who suddendly have to start teaching feel the same at the beginning. In my opinion, it is a fairly healthy mindset to have, as long as it does not inhibit your own teaching and remain just some healthy awareness that, hey, you are still learning many things yourself.

I am very touched you think I am a good TA - I hope I manage to be a helpful one at least.d I definitely still often wonder "am I qualified to teach this ? To... grade this ? Who am I to say whether this is good work or not?" But here are a few thingsm coming both from my experience so far and my discussions with other TA, which could maybe be of help to you (each developed under the cut)

1. You know more than your students, and that will be enough to help them.

2. Teaching is a two way street : you are not lecturing to them, you are working with them.

2bis : Give constant verbal feedback to your students !

3. Your own experience of being an Undergrad may not be the best point of reference

4. Talk to other TAs ! You all face the same issues !

5. Try out things, and if they do not work, it's fine.

6. Organize your session alternating moments where you take the lead, and moments where students take the lead.

7. Help, My students are not talking !

8. Grading is tough, but we can make it easier.

I hope they will be of help, but no worries, it takes practice, trial and errors, and time will help you figure it out. Do not hesitate to come back here if you have any question or something you want to discuss ! (And tell me how your teaching went, I would love to hear it!)

1. You know more than your students, and that will be enough to help them.

It means you do not have to be an expert in the topic you teach. You may even just be familiar with it. But by virtue of being a postgrad student, you know how to do the reading effectively, you will get very quickly what is important, what to retain from this or that reading. And you just need to know more than your students. Which you absolutely will.

I think being passionate, showing that you are excited about what you are teaching, giving them this energy, this interest, is much much more important than being a full-blown expert in your area.

2. Teaching is a two way street : you are not lecturing to them, you are working with them.

And that is not me being vaguely pseudo-inspiration ; it is something I have learnt and truly realized when I took a course on teaching. There is much literature on this, but the take-away is that especially as a TA, it is helpful if you see your job as working with students. Engage with them, offer them different options to choose from during the session, explain that you are here to support their learning, and give them some space to have some agency over what happens ! Trust them to at least try their best - many are!- and they will trust you in return, and will be more likely to give you some feedback.

2bis : Give constant verbal feedback to your students !

This does not come easy to me, but students NEED to be told when they said something good ! Because if you do not tell them explicitely, how would they know that, hey, this was a pretty cool comment !

But also, be clear when answer or a point raised is not relevant or wrong, because it also guides their understand of the topic. "Ok, I can see why you would say that, but it's actually abit trickier...". "Ah, yes, it is very interesting that you raise it, it is a common misunderstanding and I am glad you are pointing it out, because it is an interesting discussion to have!"

3. Your own experience of being an Undergrad may not be the best point of reference

When I started teaching, I made the mistake of thinking "ok, what sort of TA/tutorial do I wish I had, in Undergrad?", and went with what I know I would have enjoyed. Except I am a passionate nerdy introvert who hated talking to my peers and doing group works, and wanted a TA who was no-bullshit, clear, professional. Most of your students are probably not, and may indeed enjoy group work, or the opportunity to connect with their peers during your tutorial. Most of your students will appreciate a TA who is more forthcoming, friendly, and may crack a joke or two. And it is a weird role to have, it may clash with your personality (it definitely clashes with mine), but it's ok if it takes time to find the right zone for you ! It is absolutely part of the process !

4. Talk to other TAs ! You all face the same issues !

Pooling experience with other TAs is fantastic. Because no matter what issue you are facing, one of them faced it already. How do you teach in the shitty Room 605 where the computer does not work ? How do they deal with students who do not do the readings ? How to they handle lack of motivation from students ? What sort of group work do they organize ? Who sort of online tools do they rely on ? How do they deal with all the emails they get ? And on that note...

5. Try out things, and if they do not work, it's fine.

Do not be afraid to try things. I tend to stay away from "complex" activities which can confuse students, or rely too much on technology. But group work ? There are so many types of group work ! Why stick to just the "think of this question in group of 3 for 5 minutes", when you could do a syndicate, snowballing, 2-minutes essay, fishbowl, think-pair-share, buzz groups...

And sometimes, it will not work. Just... a bad session. And you feel that it's on you, that you did not manage to do your work, that you are a bad teacher... And refer to Point 2. Then, calmly, talk about it with another TA. Explain what you did, and try to get their opinion on it, reflect on it. But it is never all on you.

6. Organize your session alternating moments where you take the lead, and moments where students take the lead.

Teaching is exhausting, learning is exhausting, genuinely, so balance out moments where you do the heavy work, and moments where they do. I like to have a rough session plan with all the activities I have planned, and indicate for each if it is "ME", "STUDENTS", "ALL". And also ensure that your students are given the opportunity to really take an active role, which is way better for learning !

7. Help, my students are not talking :

This will happen. You will ask a question, no one will answer. Big, awkward, heavy silence. You reformulated the question, but clearly it is not working. Here are a few ways I have reacted to it :

- Show of hands 1 : for a quick diagnosis. "Can you raise your hand if you have done the reading for this question ? Just so I know if this is maybe the problem". Encourage the ones who have done the readings to explain it to the others.

- Show of hands 2 : "Ok, there are two ways to answer this question X and Y. Can you raise you hand if you think Y, and lower it if you think X?". Encourage some who picked Y to explain why, then same with X.

- Show of hands 3 : "Ok, let's lower the pressure. Who thinks they kind of have an answer, but is not sure about how to word it, or properly argument it?". Ask whoever raise their hand to start, and pick up yourself from there.

- Switch to think-pair-share : "Ok, how about we think a bit about this on our own for a few minutes, and then you can compare your own answers with your neigbour"

- Collapse the classroom : "Ok, I can see that this is not working. It's ok, can you tell me if it is because the topic is not super interesting, or the reading ? Are the questions not what you expected?"

- End of the session clear-up : [once everything is over] "Ok, so now that the session is over, can I ask you guys why it was difficult for you to talk today ? Just so I can make sure I can come up with questions that are useful to you, next time. If some of you want to stay a few minutes to talk about what you would like to change for the next tutorials, we can talk about it now ; you don't have to, of course"

8. Grading is tough, but we can make it easier.

Especially if you are grading things like essays, we can often feel uneasy, unsure how to grade them, how legitimate we are to grade them, especially with the sheer impact grades can have on students. Ideally, you want to have a list of things that are PLUS POINTS, and perhaps some that are MINUS POINTS, and have those strictly guide your grading, to be fair to all students and assess them similarly. I also found that it is helpful to grade the paper, only the paper. When there is a really, really bad essay where clearly the student barely tried, it's easy to get frustrated, because you did your best, and clearly the student did not care ? But you never actually know what happened. Real examples of students submitting absolutely terrible work include : a student who was grieving her mother, a student who had been in hospital and did not know she could ask for a delay, an adult student whose child had gotten sick the days before, a foreign student with a poor grasp on English... When you are grading the 78th essay of the week, it is easy to forget that each of them is from an individual, and we get to judge the work they do, but not why they did it. Even in your comments and feedback, always be compassionate.

[bxthharmon]

Never Go Home Again, Pt. XIII || JJ Maybank x Reader

Words:2715

Series Warnings: violence / talking about abuse / toxic relationships / talking about nudes sex and sex tapes / drugs / underage drinking

Pt. Warnings: abuse / being a fugitive???

Series Summary: A new girl, a shoebox of old memories, a past she’s trying to forget coincide with a hotheaded, but selfless, boy.  teenagers getting in way over their heads

Pt. Summary: In a desperate attempt to sort everything out, Y/N finds herself in the ones place she least expected to be

A/N: ok ok ok i promise im writing my requests oops anyway love yall send more requests cuz im always bored. Also, yall dont understand how sad i am that this is ending :( BUT started writing another series so lemme know if u wanna get tagged in that <3

Chapters linked in my masterlist.

“masterlist”

“John B, what are we doing at the police station?” JJ asked, breaking the stuffy silence that was consuming the vehicle.

“Somebody’s gotta tell them what happened.” He justified.

“Need me to come in, like, as a witness?” you asked. He shook his head. 

The heavy quiet was broken by Pope, coughing like he’d inhaled chili powder. “Easy there, chief.” JJ reprimanded, and you took the blunt away from your friend. “Alright,” JJ leaned through to John B, “I’m just gonna be real with you right now,” You watched his red cap, “You might end up in the lion’s den, but you don’t go there on purpose. It’s fundamental, just like my old man always told me, you should never, ever trust cops. No matter what the circumstance is.”

“Your old man’s an abusive liar.” Kie countered.

“I agree with JJ.” Pope spoke, and you frowned, holding back the giggle in your lips as he continued, “Fuck the police.”

“You going to the dark side now?” Kie snarked.

“When was the last time the police ever helped us?” He countered.

“Peterkin looked out for me, alright?” John B interrupted, “Or tried to, at least.”

There was a moment of thick quiet before he continued.

“They need to know.”

He looked around, none of you willing to argue as he got out of the car and entered the station. You looked over to JJ, who was determinedly ignoring your stare. You wondered what the fuck was going on because last time you checked, you had been on good terms with him. You sighed, looking out the window and waiting impatiently for John B to return so that the awkward silence would end. You took a hit from the blunt you’d taken from Pope, letting the smoke swirl around in your lungs before gently blowing it out, ignoring the frustrated looks you got from the other three.

Next thing you knew, everyone was shouting and the car was accelerating, the officer trying to open the car door discarded as the shocking adrenaline rush took ahold of the speeding car. Eyes wide, you took another hit from the blunt.

--

“Good news for residents of the Outer Banks, Dominion Power says their underwater transmission line, which will restore power to 95% of the area, should be functional within 24 hours.”

Sirens passed, but in the hazy atmosphere of the car, no one moved, other than to make sure the car didn’t turn. Pope and Kie sat in the front, JJ and John B to your right, seats reclined as you all attempted whatever kind of rest was possible on the worried heat of the day.

“And still no arrest for the shooting death of Sheriff Susan Peterkin. The state police have issued a statement regarding a local person of interest, a juvenile from-”

Kie clicked the radio off, glancing over at the three of you in the back.

“Let’s game this out.” JJ suggested, “Maybe you guys can help, being the smart ones and all, but… who are the cops going to believe? Ward Cameron or us? So the accuser is a big shot developer, kind of lord of the island, got the governor on speed dial kind of person, and the accused…” he looked over to his friend, “is John B, who is pretty much a homeless 16-year-old boy at the moment.”

“Thanks.” came the hoarse voice of the boy across from you.

“Shit.” you muttered, running a hand over your face and sitting up straight for the first time in hours. You twisted so that your back was leaning on the back oh Kie’s seat, and you were facing the three boys.

“Okay, man, Yucatan, alright?” JJ said, swiftly avoiding your arm as you stretched, “I’m saying, that’s the only option, what other option do you have?”

“Enough with the Mexico bullshit.” John B shook his head. “Sarah’s gonna bail me out.”

“She did witness the whole thing.” Kie pointed out.

“So did I?” you reminded, “So what? She’s gonna snitch on her brother for her dick appointment of the week? No offence, bro.”

“It’s not happening.” JJ reiterated, “We’ve gotta get you off the island.”

“The ferry.” Pope said, “It’s the only way.”

“Exit stage left while you still can.” JJ added. “Before the entire island is on lockdown.”

“Get down.” You reminded him softly, and you all ducked. You reached for JJ’s hand, but his simple gesture of pulling it away made you feel embarrassed, unsure of whatever was going on between you. You turned away from him, looking out the window again.

“Sarah’s not a pogue, John B.” Pope reminded.

“Yeah, you can’t stay here, man.”

“Let’s go then.” You muttered, and Pope pulled out, driving carefully to the docks. They were crowded, and you got out before anyone could argue, thankful for even two minutes out of the suffocating atmosphere. You walked to the sign, reading the notice about the ferry closure and ripping the wanted poster off its staples. You walked back to the car, reading it as you reached the vehicle, then passing it through Pope’s window and shaking your head solemnly. You got in next to JJ as they passed the paper around, JJ making a joke.

“Okay, so the whole island’s looking for John B right now.” Pope said.

“Well at least you know how much you’re worth.” You joked, receiving a frustrated look from Kie.

“Congratulations, John B,” JJ smirked, “you’re famous.”

“We gotta get to the HMS. We need small, no running lights-” kie began to reason, but John B cut her off.

“It’s at the Chateau, Kie.”

“And I wonder if the cops have got the entire place staked out.” JJ said, voice dripping with sarcasm, “Let me think. Yeah, no, they definitely have that place locked down.”

“Hey Jay?” you nudged him, an idea forming, “Like, a couple of weeks ago, you mentioned your dad’s boat? The Ghost? Spectre?”

“The Phantom!” JJ and Pope caught on.

“He still got it?” Pope asked.

“Maybe.”

“You could get that right up the coast, no problem.” Pope said.

Bickering followed, and then the sudden realisation that Pope’s car was on the poster. Suddenly, someone was hitting the window and the car wasn’t starting and everyone was shouting. The car lurched forwards, straight into another car, and then took off, driving away as people watched, shocked.

The car sped forwards, crashing around as you all shouted for Pope to stop, his high ass was definitely not fit for driving.

“JB,” you shouted over everyone, “you need to get out.”

Pope braked, all of you thrust forwards with the force of it, and you found yourself pushing John B out of the car while JJ shouted instructions at him.

--

The two field tents were massive, rows of chairs on either side as swarms of people worked, talked, and typed. You wandered around for a minute or so, watching the officers interact, always being pushed back when you tried to talk to anyone. You could feel the eyes of the security team burning into you as you looked for Shoupe. Eventually, you saw him, talking to a taller man in an SBI windbreaker. You walked towards them slowly, finalising your plan in your head.

Shoupe saw you, and stepped aside from the conversation so that he was facing you, the agent turning as well, a frown forming as he took in your scruffy attire and the faint smell of JJ’s weed that was clinging to your clothes. You looked between them, “Uh, Officer Shoupe, I have some info.” You greeted.

“Who are you?” The agent interrupted, looking you over again.

“Um, I’m Y/N Y/L/N, I know John B.” you clarified, and he nodded.

“What have you got for us?” he asked, and you breathed in, and out, pinching yourself slightly.

“I saw everything on the airstrip.”

The SBI agent introduced himself as Bratcher, then they sat you down in one of the tents, letting you explain what you saw, uninterrupted, and asking questions when they saw fit. They told you that your account, while plausible, was a hard one to argue, especially against Ward Cameron, unless you had a second account to back it up.

Sarah Cameron, you thought. Talk to Sarah.

After taking your statement, they left you to sit in the field tent, shivering in the cold breeze and no coat, watching them call your dad, listening out for any relevant information you could gather. 

You could feel their eyes on you, discussing what to do with the information you had for them. An officer, you couldn’t remember her name, had draped a jacket over your shoulders at some point, then led you away while the SBI agent gave a briefing.

You waited at the end of the tent, looking for anything to cease your worry and boredom.

Then you saw her. She looked as lost as you had, trying to work out who to talk to, just like you had a few hours ago. You stepped towards her.

“Sarah?” she turned to you, going to hug you, but an armed officer stepped between you, pulling you apart. “No, she’s my friend!” you struggled towards her, another officer holding her away from you, both of you shouting.

“What’s happening?” Bratcher asked, all of you stopped struggling. 

“This is Sarah Cameron,” you explained, “she was there, like I said.”

He looked between you, and nodded, asking her if she was able to make a statement. They took her away, sitting her down at the other end of the tent, letting her talk. You saw Ward approaching.

“Y/N?” he frowned, and you raised your eyebrows.

“How do you know who I am?”

“Sarah’s mentioned you.” he looked around, “have you seen her?”

“Oh, is she no longer locked away in her room?” He tensed, confusion and anger contorting his features.

“How do you know about that?” 

“Can’t say.” You said, “Not a great parenting strategy, just saying.”

He leapt forwards, a madness in his eyes that you’d never seen before. He grabbed you by the throat, screaming in your face while you clawed at his grip. Within seconds, other bodies were pulling him away. Your panic subsided, and you looked at Bratcher. You could use the situation to your advantage.

“See what I mean?” you yelled, pointing at him as you faced Bratcher, “He’s crazy! I told you, he attacked Big John, he’s the reason this is all happening!”

Bratcher sighed, signalling for his men to take away the older man. “I have to say, Miss Y/L/N, your story is making more sense. Two stories matching perfectly, his temper. But we talked to your father, you’re free to go, we’re almost done with Sarah.”

“What’s going to happen to John B?”

He sighed, “We’ve gotta bring him in, you understand that.”

You nodded, “I hope I shed some truth to the situation.”

You walked away, leaving the jacket on a chair as you passed, sending a reassuring smile to Sarah on your way out, you wandered the streets, finding your way to JJ’s house.

By some kind of miracle, you arrived at the same time as Kie and JJ. He was getting out of the car when he noticed you, and instead of making any move to hug you as normal, he froze.

“Look, JJ,” you sighed. “Why are you mad at me?”

You stood opposite him in his front yard, staring at the way he sighed, an odd mix of relief and defeat adorning his features. “I saw some texts, from Tyler.”

You nodded slowly. “I rejected him, if that’s what upset you. Since I met you, no guys have been the same, you know?”

His eyes pulled in slightly, as if realising that maybe, just maybe, it wasn’t one-sided. “Did you sleep with him?”

“Yeah.” you glanced at the floor, “I don’t really know why. Things were weird between us and I just - I missed my old life. But it was like, the confirmation I needed.”

“What do you mean?”

“I love you.”

His jaw dropped slightly in shock, running you words over in his head, working out whether you were genuine. You began to step back, and before you could think about what had just happened, he was kissing you.

It was urgent, emotive, full of everything that you couldn’t put into words. You broke apart, still slightly shocked at the confession. You looked at his front door.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

He looked to Kie, who was pretending she hadn’t watched, and nodded apprehensively, slipping a hand into yours and leading you to the door. He opened it, leading you through into the mess. You stepped over shoes and bottles as he led you in, calling out for his dad.

You ventured into the living room, seeing his dad passed out on the sofa, a half empty bottle of something on the table next to him. “Dad, I need the keys to the Phantom.” a snore sounded, “Dad?”

You looked down, noticing the sleeping pills and picking them up, showing the bottle to the blond boy next to you. Watching him, you could practically feel the hurt resonating off him, masked by his strong resolution as he looked back at his dad. Noticing the chain around his neck, between you you found a pencil and pin to get the keys with.

You stood a couple of feet behind him as he knelt down, preparing himself.

“Well, I didn’t expect to see you.”

The voice was a murmur, almost soft, and your heart was beating in your throat. You knew what he was capable of.

“You’re back.” 

This time, Luke had more clarity in his voice, and was more awake. He hadn’t noticed you yet.

“Just checkin’ in.” JJ said, backing away as the older man sat up, taking a swig from a beer bottle.

“School out already?” 

“What?” JJ frowned.

“Did you ditch? It’s alright, you can tell me.”

JJ nodded slowly, “Yeah. I hit the break, you know?”

“I hated school too. My boy!” Luke chuckled. You felt intrusive, like you were standing in on a moment that wasn’t yours to see. But the moment felt intimate, hitting you where it hurt as your eyes went glassy. “You know what? Listen, hey.” he stood shakily, “Hey, look, I know I’m hard on you sometimes.” JJ hummed, fear mixing into his pain, “But sometimes I - I see your mother in you, and it gets me a little tweaked, you know?”

You wiped a tear away, the scene before you hurting more than you would like to admit. The man looked at you, and you could see JJ’s shoulders tense.

“You got a girl?” he didn’t look away from you.

“Uh, yeah, Y/N.” JJ looked over at you, worry seeping into his eyes.

“You treat my boy better than I could, okay?” You nodded slowly, more tears slipping down your face.

“Of course.” your voice broke slightly, “I love him.”

“Me too.” His head turned back to his son, “I love you, son.” He pulled JJ in, “Come here, I love you. I love you, son. I love you.”

More than anything, you wanted to call him out. Tell him that if that was true, then he wouldn’t hurt JJ like he did. But whatever this moment was, it wasn’t the right one to do so.

You could hear JJ sniffling, letting his hands find their way onto his father’s back. When he spoke, he sounded like he wanted to be stronger than he felt, his voice thick, pained, struggling. “Love you too, Dad. I’m sorry.”

“Ain’t got nothing to be sorry for.” His father muttered, the sleeping pills pulling him back out of consciousness, slowly as ever. JJ helped him down onto the sofa. “You’re a good boy.” came the murmur.

JJ let out a shaky breath, not sparing you a glance as he pulled the chain from his father’s neck and stepped away. He looked back at you, almost embarrassed to have let you see him in such a vulnerable state. He turned to leave, your voice came out as a hoarse whisper.

“JJ, you don’t always have to be strong, you know that, right?”

Tags: @tangledinsparkles​ @jellyfishbeansontoast​ @lolitstiana​ @ilikealotofpeople-younotsomuch​ @teamnick​ @thoughtsofthestars​ @obxmxybxnk​ @pcterparxer​ @kaelyn-lobrutto24​ @sxcretinhuman​ @alexa-playafricabytoto​ @angvelics​ @badwolf00593​ @coloradogirl07​ @mendesmaybank​ @jiaraendgame​ @5am-cigarette​ @emerald-xcd​ @haharudy​

[zeta-in-de-walls]

Dream’s speedrunning

Hey guys, I don’t usually make posts like this but I’ve kinda been following this drama for a while and felt like discussing it. Heh, Idk. I’m no expert ofc. 

See, I’m a bit dismayed to find I do indeed believe Dream definitely is guilty of cheating in his minecraft speedrunning. I figured I’d explain my thoughts.

For those who are unaware, a couple months ago, Dream did some livestreams where he streamed Minecraft speedrunning in version 1.16. He did six sessions which were all hours long. Over that time he did hundreds of piglin trades to get ender pearls. 242 trades in fact!

 And that’s where the issue comes in, as ender pearl drops from piglins are rare - there’s 4.73% of an ender pearl trade. From this number of trades, you’d expect 242*4.73% = 11.4. That’s the average, obviously there’s bound to be a little deviation but the higher the sample size, the closer you’d expect it to be to the average. 

Dream got 42 ender pearl trades. That is many, many, many standard deviations from the mean. That number is incredibly suspicious and it is effectively impossible for it to be explained by ‘good luck.’ Now you may be thinking that the whole point of world record times is to find that instance where you get astronomically lucky, but this wasn’t just his world record pace run - this was from all the runs in the streams, including the bad ones. It gets worse when the mods also examined Dream’s blaze run luck and found it was also way above the norm. Both of these combined being incredibly fortunate is even more unlikely to happen naturally. And these are two of the most important factors in a minecraft speedrun. 

But wait. What about bias? When speedrunning, you’d stop trading after a successful trade - that would skew the result to be slightly higher, right? True! The speedrunning mods apparently tried to account for that, giving Dream some benefit of the doubt. And, just in case their calculations for Dream were way off they decided to try it on other speedrunners and see if they also get astronomically high luck, suggesting the problem is with their calculations and not with Dream. They examined other speedrunners and not one of them were anything close to Dream’s high odds! 

For comparison, they examined Illumina (and others but Illumina was the luckiest they found) and found he had a string of good luck, such that his odds of getting it legitimately were only 9%. Dream’s luck meanwhile? 0.000000000565% Errr... yeah. And these were using the exact same calculation method. Dream’s numbers are not natural. For that reason, Dream’s records are completely unverifiable as his game must have been tampered with in some way to have achieved such results. 

Now Dream made his response video and got someone else to write a paper on it. Apparently this person used a different formula that gave Dream much more benefit of doubt. And came to the conclusion that Dream’s odds were not 1/7.5 trillion, but 1/10 million. I believe that he also included runs Dream had done earlier in the year - a good month before the six streams where Dream is thought to have been cheating. The obvious answer is that Dream only changed the odds before those six streams, as his odds were normal before then. Remember, they don’t think Dream was always cheating, they think he started cheating with those six streams - that’s why the runs before then are not relevant and in fact damn Dream further in some respects as it makes it more obivous that his game has been tampered with recently - rather than that he’s always had a faulty version of the game with weird luck installed that just so happens to improve the odds of the two things most crucial to speedrunning. So if you add some extra irrelevant data to your sample to skew it, it looks less implausible. 

Now you may think 1/10 million odds can happen. But its just more likely that Dream tampered with the odds and modded the game - its apparently a very easy value to change. Even if you have no experience in mods, you literally change one value -the ‘weight’ of ender pearl drops from piglin trades. It would be equally easy to undo and share files showing no evidence of cheating of cheating to the mod team when requested. Prior to these runs, Dream had complained a lot about the RNG in 1.16 and how it ruined his speedrunning experience. Given how much it frustrated him, the motive for changing the odds to benefit him is there. Instead of owning up to it, he’s digging in his heels which is a shame as anyone would have immediately accepted him changing the odds to make the game more fun to play while streaming. But he’s denying it. 

[completely-zucked]

I've been homeless and immobile for a while, but I'm in danger of losing my accommodation and wheels (again).

Mentally and spiritually, I have been homeless for nearly two decades. I have once again been threatened with eviction because I don't have enough money in my bank account to pay my rent or meet my car repayment and other loans. Each time it happens, things get worse and there's no negotiating.

This time around, though, I might call their bluff, because I was already being driven mad (quite literally) by the restrictions, manipulating and gass-lighting (being called a cold, uncaring self-centred, irrational, illogical, lazy, stupid, narcissistic and paranoid sociopath — enough to make a guy with self-esteem and motivation issues suicidal). What's changed is that now I've been banned from using, cleaning and/or performing any maintenance on any room in the house except my bedroom (including bathrooms and toilets), which was previously one of my responsibilities. I have to use outdoor ones/the old servants' quarters, which doesn't have a door on the bathroom. )I live in the southern hemisphere; it's winter here.) I'm not allowed to hang a curtain or take material to make one, so I use an old chlorine bucket in the passageway/corridor outside as an indicator that I'm in there. I'm not allowed to be out there past 21:00 and am not allowed to move my stuff to the servants' quarters or garage because they are being used as storage space for tools and, occasionally, as a home gym by/for my landlord. I'm also not allowed to use any tools or appliances (including vacuum, cleaners, brushes, brooms, dustpans and cloths), because no maintenance. Everything of mine that I don't keep hidden and locked away has been confiscated. Of that, everything that I bought myself has been discarded or claimed as belonging to my landlord and landlady. (My soap, of all things, was the first casualty, which is what tipped me off and prompted my buying locks for those things I could lock away.) I am also not financially able nor permitted to buy more tools, containers or locks (and replacements for those) since my finances are being scrutinised and my choices, decisions and purchases criticised.

My broom is a paintbrush, my dustpan a plastic shopping bag and my duster a roll of paper towel. My vacuum cleaner is a cardboard tube glued to a Pringles can with a PC fan inside. ... And they wonder why I've taken to doing DIY projects that repurpose recyclable household items ; how irrational of me ... Le sigh.

That means no fridge, kettle, microwave or stove. I also don't get cooked meals. That would be fine on its own if I weren't subject to restrictions. I live off powdered milk, coffee, cereal, peanut butter, marmite, bread, orange squash concentrate, syrup, biscuits and bananas. Sometimes, I skim a couple of tablespoons of yoghurt out of the container when they're not around, or dilute fruit juice with water at a ratio of about 1:3, just to have some variety/luxury. I had some meal replacement shake powder too, just to keep me from starving, but that's gone and I can't afford to replace it. If I ask for more, I'll have to pay it back; they keep track of everything they buy for me (including a bottle of vitamins) that I'll have to pay back if/when I get a job again. I already owe about $220. It was, of course, a big deal when I bought myself twelve beers on special for $9 the day I got paid for the first lot of contract work I'd done in nearly six months since losing my job, despite the guy underpaying me by just over $100 because I hadn't insisted on a written agreement and was in no position to haggle/negotiate; the last time I do favours for friends, especially those who're religious. (The fact that I'm rationing out the beers at one a week and am only on my sixth one next weekend doesn't have any relevance to my landlady, who tried to confiscate a couple with intent to give them to my landlord and made an almighty fuss about how selfish I was being when I said I'd be fine with sacrificing them if either of them had just asked for one, how she'd noticed my ex always bought the wine despite our having agreed on certain divisions of costs when we were together, and a whole lot of other irrelevant bullshit.)

I need help getting out before the end of June, assuming I find a job and somewhere to go by then. Otherwise, I'm quite likely to end up on the street or attempting to off myself again. Currently, I have no job, nowhere to go and not even enough money to buy a cheap bicycle for $175. Even if I take my car to a dealer who'll settle the balance of my loan with the bank, I get nothing for it because it's an old model which I haven't been able to afford to take better care of and is pretty much a lemon four years after I drove it off the showroom floor. (I should have traded it in after two, before the new model came out). That's the best deal I've been offered. The alternative is to either trade it in for something else and extend my loan or take an amount that's less than it's worth and continue paying off a loan for a vehicle I no longer have. Hooray for death by a thousand cuts under Consumer capitalism.

Apparently, it's all my fault for not learning my life lessons, growing the fuck up, sorting my life out and GTFO of the family home a hell of a lot sooner (by at least a decade, nearly two), when the physical abuse by my peers first started in small and subtle ways. I thought that would all be behind me when I left high school, then varsity, then two corporate jobs. But no, I'm the kind of person who attracts bullies and toxic, abusive relationships.

The moral of the story

If I had known what I now know and the lessons I have learned when I was a padawan/young twenty-something, I would have taken my education seriously and applied myself to obtaining both CS and EE degrees instead of a crappy, near-worthless diploma, moved into my own two-room shoebox as a priority and bought a bicycle instead of a car. Anywhere I can't reach by bike probably isn't worth going and a car is an immovable liability/waste of money two years after purchase. At least I would have my own space (which I so desperately crave). At least then, I could be an allegedly horrible, reprehensible and repulsive degenerate of a person all by myself without anybody to hurt or hurt me. I'm fucking done with living with other people for a while. Fuck that noise; I want a thousand days of solitude, even if it's in a corrugated iron shack in an informal settlement. I'm prepared to cook my supper in a three-legged potjie over a wood fire and boil collected rainwater in a cast iron pot while I wait for my orchard and mielies to grow.

Honestly, at this stage, I'm prepared to live on a camp bed with a sleeping bag and a camp chair and folding table in somebody's garage, undercroft or old servants' quarters (as long as there's a plug point and running water) just to be able to get away from here. I just want some space of my own to be myself (horrible or otherwise) again and keep my interaction with people to a minimum while I figure out how to cope with/manage my shitty life situation, get back on my feet and out in the world again without being scrutinised, criticised, judged, condemned, restricted, rejected and ostracised. That shit is literally making me crazy and suicidal. It is not in any way conducive to me so much as thinking of an action plan/way forward, let alone pursuing it. Yet, somehow, I still manage to restrict the time I spend buggering around on social media (still too much), which I apparently need to succeed in the modern world, hunt for jobs, write, make music and try to flog my Patreon to disinterested parties. Oh, and I'm also writing a proposal for a social media site for someone who's attempting to gather funding.

Seeing my shrink for two hours a month (which costs me a month's wages from my part-time weekend job) and the afore-mentioned job is not enough, as much as I love animals.

So if you can spare between ten and twenty-seven dollars a month to help keep me afloat, please subscribe to my Patreon. Your support will be greatly appreciated.

[funknrolll]

Celebrating Prince: discovering a timeless artist and his meaningful and impactful art. Part 3. The legal battle against Warner Bros, The Gold Experience and Emancipation eras.

Hi music lovers, as I anticipated on monday, music addiction is going to celebrate Prince and his amazing and timeless work!! The article will be split into a few little articles. I hope you enjoy this new format and these articles!!

For some reasons I had to repost this article therefore the 4th part will be uploaded tomorrow✨ stay tuned for more✨

As I said yesterday, let me say that I have heard so many things about Prince’s artistry. Some comments came from uneducated people who did not even take a second of their lives to understand, and do research on his art. Hence, I think the time to shed some light on Prince’s art, has come (finally). I hope to help some of those people understand this artist better and to finally appreciate him the way he deserves. We owe Prince big time. Today’s music and musicians  owe Prince everything. Without him, many of the artists we listen to today, WOULD NOT BE EXISTING. As we all know, Prince loved to experiment with music, trying out new music genres, new styles, new harmonies, melodies, rhythms and so on. This is one of the factors that led this legend to create a unique, wide and broad vault. There are so many songs of his that I love so much and that I find relevant for this article. The ones I chose, are going to prove that Prince and his music did not just revolve around sex and sexuality, (even if the artist through his music took the topic to another whole level). Through the article, we will see that Prince was more than all that I mentioned above. He was an extraordinary human being, blessed with so many enormous talents, with a beautiful mind, a uniquely pure soul. A true gift of God. With this in mind, let us start this article.

This is the sequel of the 2 articles I posted yesterday, so in case you guys missed them, check the previous 2 out.

Before I continue with this article, it is important to mention the Prince’s fight against Warner Bros. I know this was a matter so close to his heart and he cared about that. Hence, I think there is the impellent need to explain the situation to spread awareness and to remind the huge efforts Prince made beside his beautiful music. Back in the 90s, the artist’s music was owned by the aforementioned record company, although Prince was the person who composed, wrote, and performed HIS music. The artist was extremely aware of the importance of owning his masters and therefore his music wanted to buy back the rights to his music from Warner Bros, but the company denied that. Therefore, the artist would have had to re-record his music, the same music HE composed, HE wrote and performed. Indeed, as Prince stated in a 1999, Paper interview, “I wanted to buy my masters back from Warner Bros. They said no way. So I'm going to re-record them. All of them. Now you will have two catalogs with pretty much exactly the same music—except mine will be better—and you can either give your money to WB, the big company, or to NPG. You choose.". During this long legal battle, the artist decided to leave Warner Bros and created his own record label The NPG Records. Besides all of that, Prince, during the legal fight with Warner Bros, changed his name into an unpronounceable symbol and started to write the word slave on his face to symbolize the condition of slavery under which many artists had to stay. This battle lasted for about 4 decades. With this Prince was fighting for his artistic freedom, ownership of his work, and his rights. In addition to that, Not only was this huge artist fighting for himself, but also for all the other artists exploited by record companies. The artist formerly known as Prince was not to be silenced. Indeed, many of the works he crafted during the 90s, were an act of protest against record companies. It is extremely important to remind people how this artist gave his contribution and paved the path for other artists to be free and be more aware of this ENORMOUSLY important issue. I briefly summarized and addressed this HUGELY RELEVANT issue, but there would be more to say, and I will write an article about that. I will never stress enough the importance of Prince’s battle against record companies and his music being robbed from him. He has made a big impact and we all should be thankful and grateful to him for being bold enough to speak up about the topic and address this issue. 

Moving back to his music, in 1993 Prince ended the partnership with Warner Bros and started his own record label the NPG Records. Needless to say, as soon as the artist started his label, he began working on his new project, The Gold Experience, that eventually was released in 1995. This timeless gem is the product of Prince’s deep and broad artistic evolution. On this masterpiece, there are 3 songs that I find extremely relevant which are: We March, The Most Beautiful Girl in the world, Billy Jack Bitch, and Gold.  Through its forthright and explicit lyrics, We March is a powerful protest song where the artist speaks up against racism, misogyny, and prejudice.

If this is the same avenue my ancestors fought 2 liberate

 How come I can't buy a piece of it even if my credit's straight?

 If all the water's dirty and I wanna lay the pipe, my dammy

 The river that I drink from, will it be the same as your mammy 

In these lines, the artist is raising his voice against the prejudice of moneylenders.

If this is the same sister that U cannot stop calling a bitch (Bitch)

 If U can't find a better reason 2 call this woman otherwise

 Then don't cry, U made the bed in which U lie

These lines are a protest against misogyny, particularly slurs such as the term bitch which is seldom referred to women. 

Now's the time (now's the time) 2 find a rhyme (Yeah)

 That's got a reason (Yeah) and frees the mind (free your mind)

 From angry thoughts, the racist kind (Yeah)

 If we all wanna a change then come on get in line (Get in line!)

 Next time we march (Whoa)

 We're kickin' down the door

 Next time we march (Hey yeah) (Whoa)

 All is what were marchin' 4

With this bit of the lyrics, Not only is the artist revolting against racism, but it is a warm encouragement to react and change the situation. This song is a total anthem against racism, prejudice, and misogyny, to the point that in 1995 it became the hymn of the Million Men March. Moreover, I think it is urgent to focus on the arrangement of this song. The arrangement is strictly connected to the lyrics to make the song even more vivid.  I picked the music sheet for the piano. I am not going to annoy you with some obnoxious details, and I will try to be brief. I hope to be as clear as possible. The arrangement is presenting a key signature at the beginning of every staff which means the song is arranged in G major.  The key signature designates notes that have to be played higher or lower than the corresponding natural notes, and it is applied through to the end of the piece or up to the next key signature. In this case, after the clef, we can find a sharp sign which means that some notes are raised one semitone above the natural notes. Some other notes have the natural sign near them which means that the sharp key signature is canceled for them, hence these notes are natural. With this said, the question should be, why would Prince arrange the song like this? In my opinion, the artist might have used a key signature to raise some notes and the natural sign to cancel the accidental, for a specific reason. Musically speaking, Prince was an educated genius, hence I am sure he knew exactly what he was doing and why. The artist wanted to create an imbalance between the notes to create the effect of a real and difficult march, almost like climbing a mountain. Perhaps this arrangement might symbolize a difficult march that eventually will lead to the achievement of freedom, respect, equality, acceptance. Therefore, I would say that the connection between the extremely complex arrangement and the lyrics was magistrally crafted. This song is just one of the many examples of how brilliant Prince was.

Furthermore, another song that I love is Billy Jack Bitch. This is another protest song, but the topic is totally different from the previous one. Through these hilarious and sarcastic lyrics, Prince is revolting against a gossip columnist named Cheryl Johnson who was caught being utterly rude. As a matter of fact, the song is so crystal clear that there is no need for further explanations. However, one thing that I noticed in the lyrics Prince managed to mention the initials of the woman. 

Joy - it's in the dictionary

 See "J" Billy Jack Bitch 

The artist could not write the actual initials of the woman, because otherwise he would have been sued. Nonetheless, Prince was so smart that through a phonemic effect (see J) he managed to say the initials of the woman and thus give subtle hints about the woman’s identity. Moreover, what impressed me about the song is the drumline which is in my opinion phenomenal. The striking background vocals also caught my attention because, after some research, I found out that the voice we hear belongs to the rockstar and Prince’s fellow artist Lenny Kravitz’s. Two geniuses in one song are there anything more iconic?

Last but not least, my favorite song on the album is Gold. I love this masterpiece with every cell of my body. The meaning and the message this song is delivering are so POWERFUL!! The deep meaning behind these uplifting lyrics is to be ourselves, be unique, and never follow the mass because “All that glitters ain’t gold”. We should never follow the crowd. Not everything the crowd does is gold, even if it looks like it. We should be ourselves and make a difference. We should take difficult roads and climb the highest mountains to see the top. There would be another method of interpretation. The majestic music video and the scribble slave across Prince’s face might be inferring another significance. Thus, I would assume that this song might be another protest but this time against Warner Bros since Prince was in the legal battle against record label. Indeed, the meaning of the song may apply well to that situation. As a matter of fact, Prince might be inferring that even if contracts with a record company look like gold, in reality, they just glitter that tie the artists to a condition of slavery. Anyways, the arrangement also deserves attention. Indeed, the chorus of the song goes “All that glitters ain’t gold” and in my opinion, the arrangement of the keyboard is extremely peculiar and well related to this bit of the lyrics. First, it is important to say that the keyboard is dominating and I also think it is important to pay attention to its arrangement.  As I could see from the music sheet, the arrangement is characterized by high notes which are raised by the key signature after the clef. Indeed, this song is arranged in D major which means that the arrangement contains 2 sharps and the arrangement is written like this : 

This also means that all the already high notes on the staff are raised one tone. Now you might be asking: what is the point she is trying to make? what does this have to do with Prince? I am aware that the logic behind this might seem odd, but I will get to the point of this. As I said, this song’s composition is characterized by a range of middle-high notes. As Prince was musically educated, I am quite sure that the composition of this masterpiece and its arrangement, have a deep connection with the lyrics. Indeed, I would assume that Prince might have opted for this arrangement to enhance the meaning of this beautiful masterpiece. The chorus of this song goes “all that glitters ain’t gold” and in the music video we can see Prince being “showered” with a rain of golden glitters, therefore this recurring topic might be what connects the lyrics to the arrangement of the song. As a matter of fact, when we think about glitters, especially a rain of glitter we might associate this with a particular sound which most likely might be characterized by some high tinkling sound. This is exactly the effect Prince aimed to create with this magistral arrangement. Those middle-high notes I mentioned have the peculiarity of creating this beautiful effect that is the sound of glitter tinkling, which is even more enhanced by the music video. 

The release of Emancipation marked Prince’s definitive end of the partnership with the record label Warner Bros. It was the artist’s 19th studio album and probably one of my favorites. From the self-explanatory title, it is quite evident that Prince was still fighting against WB for his rights. However, not only is this work featuring protest songs but also some covers and some love songs where the artist expresses his affection for his former wife Mayte Garcia. Through some well thought and precise details, Prince’s personal touch is quite evident in this project. Indeed, this is a triple album and each album is consisting of 12 songs. Each album lasts exactly 60 minutes. Hence, the accuracy and the precision behind this masterpiece are quite impressive. In fact, the artist had an explanation for this, as he explained in several interviews, this was based on his studies of ancient Egypt and Egyptians: “The building of the pyramids and how the pyramids were related to the constellations. They were a message from the Egyptians about how civilization really started."

Among the most significant songs on this masterpiece we can find: The Holy River, Slave, The Love We Make, and the homonymous Emancipation.

The first song mentioned is The Holy River. Through these exceedingly deep lyrics, we can infer that the artist went through a major spiritual shift. More precisely, the Holy River might be a metaphor that might be symbolizing the baptism. Indeed, if my guessing is correct, this metaphor will be perfect with the general meaning of the song as being baptized also means the beginning of a new life, which is what Prince experienced with this major spiritual shift. 

Let's go down 2 the holy river

 If we drown then we'll be delivered

 U can still see the picture upon the wall

 One eye staring at nothing at all

 The other one trying 2 focus through all your tears

 U can try and try but there's nothin' 2 hide

 U can't run from yourself and what's inside

 U got 2 find the answers 2 the questions that U most fear

So over and over U ask your soul

 Why'd U come down 2 a world so cold?

 And the voice inside says 2night the truth will be told 

Also, the chorus of the song is quite eloquent as Prince is providing a detailed explaining of how he went through a dark moment in his life where he was struggling to find answers, where he was afraid to look inside of himself and to find the truth and the answers. 

U surrounded yourself with all the wrong faces

 Spending your time in all the wrong places

 Puttin' your faith in things that only make U cry

 People say they love U when they wanna help

 But how can they when U can't help yourself?

 The more they say they love U, the more U just wanna die

 So here we go again, the self-analysis

 Have another glass of Port and uh... forget this

 The band's playin' at the club 2night and they're bound 2 groove 

Also, these lines are quite eloquent, and I think there is no need for some further explanation. These are practically a description of the troubles he went through and how lonely and hopeless he felt during that time of his life and how he managed to survive. 

There U are, U think U're high

 U can't ask yourself cuz U'd only lie

 If U had a dollar 4 every time U tried

  U can't call nobody cuz they'll tell U straight up

 Come and make love when U really hate 'em

 Relationships based on the physical are over and done

 They're over and done (They're over and done)

 U'd rather have fun

 With only one, with only one

 Only one... one (one) 

Again, in these lines, the artist is describing what he went through. In the last 5 lines, we can notice that a major spiritual shift was occurring and thus the positive change the artist went through Indeed, in the next lines, the artist describes how he started to change after he realized that God was by his side.

And then it hit 'cha like a fist on a wall

 Who gave U life when there was none at all?

 Who gave the sun permission 2 rise up every day? (Ooh, oh yes)

 Let me tell it (Go'n)

 If U ask God 2 love U longer

 Every breath U take will make U stronger

 Keepin' U happy (happy) and proud 2 call His name (Go'n and say it)

 Jesus (Jesus)

  And over and over U ask your soul

 Why'd U come down 2 a world so cold?

 And the voice inside said 2night the truth will be told

 And this time I was listening, hear me 

As a matter of fact, as I mentioned, these lines explain, perfectly a time of transition when the artist was evolving and changing. In the next lines, the artist describes the moments after the spiritual shift took place.

Let's go down 2 the holy river

 If we drown then we'll be delivered (Yes we will)

 If we don't then we'll never see the light (No)

 If U die before U try

 U'll have 2 come back and face the light (Oh yes)

 When U believe it, U got a good reason 2 cry (Oh my, my)

  So I went on down 2 the holy river

 I called my girl and told her I had something 2 give her

 I asked her 2 marry me and she said yes, I cried

 Oh, that night I drowned in her tears and mine

 And.. and instead of a glass of sorrow and wine

 Looking back y'all, I don't miss nothing except the time

 And when I see that picture up on the wall

 The one eye staring at nothing at all

 My eyes trying 2 focus but these are much different tears

 Oh, yes they are 

Like the end of a beautiful story, these last lines, are the conclusion of this masterpiece that closes with a “happy ever after”. Indeed, in these last lines, the artist compares the act of going down to the holy river to facing the light which means a new beginning, a new life. In these last 9 lines, the artist describes the exact moment when he proposed to his girlfriend to marry him. He then reconnects to the beginning of the song where he cried tears of sorrow while at the end of this story he said to be crying “much different tears” which perhaps might be tears of happiness. Moreover, musically speaking, the arrangement of this song is quite homogenous except for the very last bars. After the artist finishes performing the lyrics, he reprises the main harmonies and performs them with a guitar and piano solo, then adding a choir that performs the background vocals with some light head voices that recall the angels singing. These last bars are played in such a manner that reflects the feeling of the artist: joy, love, relief, ultimate happiness. All the emotions a person who has experienced a major spiritual shift will feel. Furthermore, I have also noticed a shift in the instrumental. At the beginning of this masterpiece, the instrumental is “softer” and the sound of the instruments is kept lower. This happens for the first part of the song where Prince describes what he experienced when he was going through a difficult time. Then, after the artist sings these lines: “ Relationships based on the physical are over and done

 They're over and done (They're over and done)

 U'd rather have fun

 With only one, with only one

 Only one... one (one) “ 

it is extremely evident that the instrumental changes. Indeed, Prince turns up the volume of the instruments which are in my opinion, also joyously played, like he is telling his listener “listen to me, this is my story, I Am happy, and you should be too”. 

Another song that I totally love is Slave. This is, in my opinion, such an ingenious masterpiece and we can hear how Prince took inspiration from the whole work songs genre. With the forthright message of the song, Prince was still raising awareness about how record companies exploited artists, hence he wrote this powerful masterpiece, a protest song, to release all his rage and frustration. 

Everybody keeps trying to break my heart

 Everybody except for me

 I just want a chance to play the part

 The part of someone truly free 

From its chorus, this song is extremely eloquent. Prince is basically protesting against his enemies who most likely would be record companies and perhaps, as he mentioned in the 4th line 

“My enemies kept it turning, but now they pound the gavel

 And judging me accordingly, I know, I know”  

 those who judge him for commencing a legal fight against record companies. However, I am quite sure that this masterpiece is a protest song crafted to vent and raise awareness about the condition artists had to stay under for an extremely long time which was treated as slaves. In support of my theory, I would report these lyrics:

Slowly candle burns, where'd they learn hypnosis?

 How'd they keep me under for so long?

 Break the bread I earn, just keep me far from closest

 I need their kind to illustrate what's wrong - what's wrong?

 Well, I'll tell you they just keep trying to break my heart

 They just keep trying to break my heart, ow! 

From the second line, it is quite clear that those who kept the artist under and broke the bread he earned might have been the record companies, particularly Warner Bros, that contractually forced Prince to produce his music and kept a big part of his earnings OF THE MUSIC HE PRODUCED, HIS OWN MUSIC. Another interpretation of this line might be that Warner Bros owned the rights of PRINCE’S MUSIC. Therefore, the artist did not have the rights of his own music which should have been HIS OWN. Moreover, as Prince explained in several interviews when he asked the record company for the rights of HIS MUSIC back, they just said no. This might explain well this line as the record label by not giving him his rights back kept Prince far from emancipating, and hence the artist just left Warner Bros and started his own record company. Moreover, what left me speechless and mesmerized, in total awe about this MASTERPIECE, is the instrumental and the music genre Prince chose to craft this MONUMENTAL PIECE OF ART. Why did Prince choose to give this masterpiece the title of Slave and what music genre could suit well a song with this eloquent title? Obviously, a work song with some soul influences. Indeed, what amazed me is that this masterpiece is crafted as a real work song. To understand this masterpiece better, I need to step back to the work song genre and explain some of their distinctive and relevant peculiarities. Work song is a music genre that was spread around the world (indeed there is more than just one type of work song, they were used all around the world), but focusing on Afro-American work songs, this music genre developed in America during slavery times between the xvii-xix century. This genre had several functions for instance: to coordinate the labor of a group of people working together, which improved the efficiency of the work, and to relieve the boredom of a tedious job, which improves the lives of the workers. Also, work songs were seldom used as an act of protest against the condition of slavery, injustice, and poverty. These songs were frequently sung by a leader followed by a choir. Additionally, to keep the rhythm of those chants, workers generally used their working tools or the stomping of their feet or they even clapped their hands. With this said as I would say that Slave by Prince is part of this music genre. Moreover, as we can hear, the beats of this masterpiece resemble the use of the tools used by slaves to create the rhythmic path to their chants. Another peculiarity that was taken after the music genre just mentioned, is the choir to which Prince was the lead singer. Indeed, the artist performs the main lines while the chorus is performed by the choir. This technique is called call and response which was quite typical in Afro-American work songs. Additionally, the emphatic and emotional and heartfelt performance the artist offered, makes it easy to sympathize with his pain, his rage, and his exhaustion. 

Furthermore, one of my favorite songs on this album is The Love We Make. Such a breathtaking masterpiece. In my opinion, the meaning of this masterpiece is quite hermetic. Indeed, just by reading the lyrics, it might not be clear what Prince meant with those words. However, It is widely believed that this song might have been produced to remember Jonathan Melvoin, Susannah, and Wendy’s brother, who died from heroin overdose. Melvoin was a musical child prodigy who worked with Prince on several projects and he also collaborated with some punk bands. It is believed that this song is dedicated to him for several reasons: the first one is the year he passed away which was 1996, secondly, and most importantly because the artist described the song as “written to speak to the spirit of a friend lost to drugs”. Moreover, in the liner notes to the Emancipation 1996 LP, the song is described as “written for a lost friend”. Hence, for all these reasons, this song is believed to be about Jonathan Melvoin. This is perhaps one of the most powerful and inspiring songs in Prince’s vault, truly breathtaking. With the reassuring yet preaching lyrics the artist was delivering an enlightening message: no matter how difficult life might be, there is still hope and we should all be grateful for the miracle and the gift God gave us. 

Happy is the way 2 meet your burdens 

 No matter how heavy or dark the day 

 Pity on those with no hope 4 2morrow 

 It’s never as bad as it seems until we say 

As I mentioned, specifically in these lines Prince is encouraging the listener to be happy and full of hope no matter what, condemning those who do not have hope in the future as things are never as bad as they seem. 

Precious is the baby with a mother 

 That tells him that his savior is coming soon 

 All that believe will cleanse and purify themselves 

 Put down the needle, put down the spoon 

 Even though these lines are quite hermetic and enigmatic I will attempt to give a proper explanation. The artist is mentioning a baby and his mother, and the mother telling the baby that his savior is coming soon. Hence, as Prince was extremely spiritual and had a great, broad, and keen knowledge of the Bible and the Gospel, I would assume that these two lines are related to the Scriptures. The logic behind this might seem odd, but I will attempt to get to the point with a proper explanation. As Prince was fascinated by the ancient Egyptian world, as it is evident from the set up of the songs on the album, I would assume that these lines are connected to two biblical figures. Honestly, at first, before doing my research, I was going to assume that Prince was alluding to Jesus Christ and the Holy Mary. However, the biblical figures he was hinting to, were instead Moses and his mother Jochebed. For those who are not familiar with the Scripture, Jochebed to avoid the mass slaughter of Hebrew boys, and therefore, her son to be brutally killed, she set her baby adrift in the Nile River, hoping someone would find him and raise him. God so worked that her baby was found by Pharaoh's daughter. Jochebed even became her own son's nurse. Then, God used Moses mightily, to free the Hebrew people from their 400 years of slavery and took them to the Promised Land. Although little is written about Jochebed in the Bible, her story speaks powerfully to mothers of today. Hence, the connection between those two lines of the song and the biblical figures is quite clear. Moreover, as the title of the album is Emancipation and one of the topics of this masterpiece is the artist’s rebellion against Warner Bros, which forced him to work in a condition of slavery, Moses's story who freed Hebrews from slavery and took them to the Promised Land, might apply quite well to Prince’s story who fought to free himself from Warner Bros and start his own record company. Moreover, with the following two lines Prince is suggesting that by believing in God we are purifying and cleansing themselves. As regards to the last line, as I mentioned, is what created the widespread belief that this masterpiece might have been dedicated and inspired by Jonathan Melvoin. In addition to that, on the album, there are not reported the full lyrics of the song, but just one line of it which is precisely “Put down the needle, put down the spoon” and on the bottom line we can find “Written 4 a lost friend.” which hints even more to Jonathan Melvoin. Again, referring to the line I just mentioned, Prince is using another tone to sing these words. Indeed, if we listen to the song attentively, we would hear how the artist was preaching against drug addiction. Furthermore, the next lines, are extremely well related to the previous one. 

Sacred is the prayer that asks 4 nothing, oh 

 While seeking 2 give thanks 4 every breath we take, oh 

 Blessed are we inside this prayer 

 4 in the new world, we will be there 

With these lines, Prince is encouraging the listener to be grateful for the gift of life, giving thanks for every breath we take, praying God without asking him for anything but rather praying him with gratitude for the gift of life. In the last two lines, Prince is basically telling the listener that those who pray God, believe in Him, and have faith in Him, will be blessed with a “new world” which is the Kingdom of Heaven. The last lines of the song are the chorus.

The only love there is, is the love we make {x2} 

 (the only love there is, is the love we make) 

 Only love there is, only love there is 

 The only love there is, is the love we make (yeah) 

 The only love there is, is the love we make 

These lines repeated four times like a beautiful monumental hymn, are used to teach a vital lesson: the only thing that matters is the love we give out, the love we spread while we are alive. That is to say, this is the ultimate purpose of life: to give love and being grateful for the gift of life. Furthermore, as regards the arrangement of this masterpiece, it was crafted in such a way that it allowed the artist to use a preaching tone during the interpretation. This peculiarity in the performance of the song is even more enhanced at the end of the masterpiece. Indeed, when the artist performs the lines that begin with “Sacred is the prayer that asks 4 nothing”, he changed the vocal register from a light chest voice to a powerful head voice which also gives more power to the words he was singing turning them into a real preach. The shift of vocal register in this particular bit of the song is also extremely effective as the artist is singing out loud such an important lesson that MUST be heard by everyone. Perhaps Prince has put so much emphasis on these magistrally written lines because this is the fulcrum of the song that everyone must listen to carefully. Additionally, if we listen to Prince’s voice attentively, we will hear some slight shifts in the intention put in the performance. As regards to the instrumental, the Artist opted for a slow ballad in 4/4. Although the choice of a slow ballad, the song is reinforced by guitar, drums, and piano. Additionally, while I was listening to this masterpiece, I realized that the instrumental is characterized by a progressive raising of the tonality of the song. This way, the instrumental was raised by 2 octaves. This characteristic, besides making this masterpiece even more effective and turning it into a beautiful and inspiring preach, gives the listener the idea of a beautiful climb that gets straight to heaven. Personally, whenever I listen to this masterpiece, I feel like I’m watching a beautiful sunset or hiking in the mountains. Moreover, the arrangement is mostly characterized by music accidentals, which in my opinion are an extremely important part of the composition of the song since without them the song would not be perceived as a powerful preach. 

If you guys would like to purchase your copy of the albums I wrote about in this article (which I recommend, PLEASE DO NOT BOOTLEG PRINCE’S MUSIC), I’ll post the links below here

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G4RYC5D/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=giuliabianchi-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=2a37eabce98ae7fd530fddeff2287ed5&creativeASIN=B07G4RYC5D

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VRFM9YJ/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=giuliabianchi-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=a1e0d017e5a3de4e6b01f3fc5a5f4f3c&creativeASIN=B07VRFM9YJ

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07G4LHQHQ/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=giuliabianchi-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=1da616a288e24d1a38bd64113cbb08a0&creativeASIN=B07G4LHQHQ

This was the third part of a series of articles dedicated to Prince to celebrate his life and most importantly his art. Stay tuned for more. If you have missed the first part feel free to check it out✨ In the meantime stay home, stay safe and healthy. Peace and Love 4 one another. thank you so much for your attention 💜 G  💜

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

The thing I love about Otto, he is the guy who...Peter Parker is supposed to be the everyman, and in a lot of ways he is, but he is always dating the most beautiful women in the world...supermodels, Gwen Stacy...And Otto was the guy, I am not a big fan of the late-90s as an era of Spider-Man. There was a character called Stunner who came along and was this big Amazonian woman with super-strength, who was Otto's partner and love-interest and the big reveal was that she was a virtual reality simulation and the real person was an overweight woman in a virtual reality machine. But when Otto finds out he says, I didn't love you for what you looked like, I loved you for your mind...I can’t remember if she [Aunt May]  saw Betty [Brant] as a bit of a Jezebel because she was older

We er...we really need to unpack this. I already did a post where I cited the above as part of why Christos Gage should never have been allowed to write Spider-Man.

But lets dive deeper into the idiocy of this. 

First of all if nothing else the above quote and panels really do prove beyond doubt that Marvel knew what they were doing when they paired Slott and Gage...well sorta. Gage and Slott’s approaches to Spider-Man fundamentally come from the same place of fundamental misunderstanding and regressive beliefs thus they were perfect to work together. It’s just that Gage is a comparatively more competent writer than Slott and therefore Slott should’ve been HIS understudy and fill-in guy not the other way around.

So let’s dive into the less awful bits first. Like Slott Gage doesn’t know his continuity and is too lazy to even google it.

Let’s put aside how Stan Lee himself  stated Betty Brant is younger  than Peter NOT older, the age difference would’ve been insignificant enough (Peter was a senior in high school when he was dating Betty, that’s stated in the issues) so what is this ‘Jezebel’ crap? The fact his mind would go to that rather than just Aunt May thinking MJ would be a better match is at best eyebrow raising.

Moving on, the crux of his assessment of Otto and Stunner’s relationship is way off the mark. Ignoring the fact that Stunner and the reveals made about her occurred in 1994-1995 (so literally not the LATE 1990s at all), he’s totally distorted the story as it unfolded. As such let me show you some of the relevant pages.

Gage’s assessment of Otto and Stunner’s relationship hinges upon two interconnected ideas.

a) Otto was unaware that her stunning appearance was a facade and

b) That he didn’t care upon finding out

As you can see that is a distortion of what the actual stories conveyed.

Otto was always  aware Stunner’s appearance was a facade because he invented the technology that made it possible in the first place!

Otto also began dating her BEFORE she became Stunner. This does indeed support the idea that for him outer beauty is not that relevant. 

For myself I find this idea debatable for a few reasons. Not only in the above images does he directly refer to Stunner as beautiful and the love of such a beautiful woman makes him happy but in the classic Spec #75 Bill Mantlo implies Otto took a fancy to Felicia due to her being attractive.

I grant you it’s far from impossible to interpret that Otto in fact was referring to Stunner’s personality as beautiful and took a shining to Felicia for reasons beyond her looks. In fact I find that interpretation interesting. But both examples hurt the narrative of Otto being a man who doesn’t care about outer beauty, even before you get to the fact that in Superior he was oggling and actively trying to fucking rape Mary Jane! What exactly about her  ‘inner beauty’ led to him doing this?

Then of course you have his relationship with Aunt May which has been treated as genuinely romantic when it’s very unlikely to be that.

The truth is Doc Ock has been inconsistently written over the decades so pinning down that he’s a man who doesn’t care about a woman’s outer beauty in regards to his feelings for them is extremely iffy.

His dynamic with Stunner and Gage’s assessment is even iffier as the pages detailing his ‘courting’ of her prior to her becoming empowered can definitely be interpreted as him actively manipulating her for his own ends. He needed a test subject for his technology, a technology he was hoping could essentially ensure he’d live beyond the demise of his mortal body and mind (which obviously happened in Superior). Angela was that test subject, he either came across or scouted her out with the explicit intention of having her use his machine. 

Because we only get brief flashes of their relationship it’s unclear if he was 100% decieving and manipulating her (as he was to Anna Maria and Mary Jane) or if he was sincere in his affections, at least on some level. Maybe he even started out manipulating her but grew to genuinely care for her before or after her transformation into Stunner.

My point is it’s not this grand moral victory for Otto that he cared for Angela even though she was overweight.

Which brings me to the most damning thing about Gage’s comments.

According to him Otto is better than Peter because Otto didn’t date supermodels or sexy cat burglars.

Much like all his work with Otto before and during his Superior run, Gage practically wanks off the character.

You see Otto is ‘different. He’s not like ‘those other guys’, or more specifically ‘that Peter Parker guy’. HE doesn’t date supermodels or sexy cat burglars. 

He just keeps the sexy cat burglars as his ‘guests’ that he won’t let leave his lair, will date by deception and attempt to rape the supermodels and will probably manipulate vulnerable overweight women for his own selfish scientific pursuits and date them sincerely once they’ve transformed into wrestling divas.

Of course in reality, romantic and sexual attraction is something none of us can help and we are going to feel about whoever however we’re going to feel, and the harsh truth is a lot (but not all) of the time outer appearences do matter, or at least they do when it comes to initial attractions. Often in healthy relationships they matter less as time goes by, but are rarely totally irrelevant. Nobody, of any sex, gender or sexuality, is shallow for on some level taking looks into account for how they feel about a romantic or sexual partner, at least on some level.

In Peter’s case Gage’s assessment (which synchs up with Slott’s) of him as shallow is so asinine because he clearly doesn’t just care about looks. In fact semi-famously in the classic Romita stories his initial attraction for Mary Jane fades after he (incorrectly, and unfairly) starts to view her as shallow and little more than her looks.

No doubt about it that chicks’s as pretty as a pumpkin seed...and just about as shallow.

ASM #45*

Peter late of course dumps  Black Cat in part because she doesn’t love him for who he is, and only cares about him as Spider-Man. He wants someone who will share a life with him, whom he can connect with. If he was only interested in her because she was sexy why would he do that?

And of course this is to say nothing of the absolute denigration Gage’s comments pay to both MJ and her relationship with Peter.

I’ve felt this way for awhile now but to be blunt, if a writer ever just sums up MJ as a ‘supermodel’ I’m going to presume they either don’t understand her character and/or hold some messed up opinions. Putting aside how MJ hasn’t a model (super or otherwise) for most of her history it’s just messed up that everything else about her is dismissed in favour of pushing that profession and treating it as a summation of who she is as a character.** 

Because whenever creators or characters sum up MJ as a supermodel what they really mean is ‘she’s just a shallow, pretty face’.  Which is so facepalm worthy ironic because the crux of Mary Jane’s entire character since The Death of Gwen Stacy in 1973  has been that people THINK she is just a shallow pretty face but she in fact absolutely isn’t!

And aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall the stuff that is relevant to why she isn’t is literally the reason Spider-Man fell in love with her in the first place. All the guilt, regret, insecurities, bravery, sense of responsibility and inner strength that subverted what we thought we knew about her, that’s the shit that her and Spider-Man’s romance is built upon. 

How the fuck does anyone miss that! It’s not even like you need to read deeply to see it, just read a Wikipedia entry!

It isn’t the crux of Felicia’s character, but the same applies to her. What jackass in this day and age (or indeed since the 1980s) honestly thinks Black Cat is nothing but sex appeal? There is an entire goddam Black Cat ongoing series demonstrating she is more than that! Gage is a goddam relic at this point!

On the flipside of course is poor Anna Maria.

Once upon a time Anna Maria was the best character in Spider-Man. Back in the dark days of 2013 and 2014 when Superior was going strong, MJ was out of the picture and the best Spider-Man books on the stand were about a kid replacing a dead AU Peter Parker and Peter Parker’s clone, Anna Maria was a stand out.

A new character with a personality, likable, a new love interest for ‘Spider-Man’ that on paper made a certain amount of sense even though the circumstances were disgusting. And on top of that she provided a dash of representation that was handled in an appropriate way.

As time went by she gradually devolved as a character and went way off the rails to the point where now she’s being a misogynistic asshole to other women by judging them for their looks. It’s so fucked up because she herself has been judged for her looks, just in a very different way whilst the likes of those ‘shallow’ women she cites have never said a bad word to her or to my knowledge anyone else on the basis of how they were born. 

Good job Gage, this is probably the last time we’re going to see Anna Maria and you’ve fully transitioned me from a guy who kind of wanted her to stick around in some capacity as a regular supporting player for Peter into a guy who would be delighted for her to forgotten and never appear again. 

Fuck Gage.

Fuck Superior

Fuck the entire asinine, mishandled, clusterfuck of an era that outstayed it’s welcome circa December 2012!

*In fairness he does bring up he might just be thinking ill of MJ because he’s upset about other things. See, THAT is a more even handed and on point depiction of Peter Parker being flawed. But Stan Lee being a better writer than Gage or Slott shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone.

**Not to mention ‘supermodel’ shouldn’t even be used as shorthand for ‘shallow person’ in the first place. Are supermodels not people too? Are they incapable of being intelligent or having worth outside of their looks? I mean FFS we live in a world where this (starting at 3:37) really happened:

[shinrasfirst]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE; Mun & Muse - Meme.

fill out & repost ♥

My muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless /

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Are they underrated?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant to the main story?  YES / NO. (I mean? I’m not sure? I hope he will be more important, but as it is, he could have been cut out of Part 1 of the remake.)

Were they relevant to the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG. (Except that he kinda saved him.. I can’t answer these questions, I am so biased.)

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO. (?)

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL. Depends on who you ask, I’d say!

How strictly do you follow canon?

There isn’t much canon to go on, first of all. I am taking what I can get and expand on it. There’s probably some stuff about him that I don’t know, because I am notoriously bad at researching things properly, and also I forget stuff. So.. he’s canon-based as much as possible, but then majorly fleshed out by my own ideas because otherwise he’d be a very two-dimensional character.

SELL YOUR MUSE! Aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutual.

He’s wild and fun and crazy and could make for some interesting threads---

He is actually compatible with a lot of muses because he technically works for Shinra, but then doesn’t seem to give a lot of fucks about his employment status, meaning he can also work with the other side without me having to change his setting much.

He’s gorgeous. Look at him.

He is flirty and easy to smut with.

He has a completely unknown backstory that could be explored c;

Did you see that ass?

Now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?).  

He’s a bit nuts. If you’re looking for a predictable, soft, sweet romance or friendship, he is not your guy.

He'll probably die young. And there shall be angst and pain.

I’ve seen some people really reduce him to a maniac to lives on the road to attack random people. If that’s your idea of Roche then I am sure you wouldn’t be looking for threads with him~

He is tough to write love/romance with. Like proper romance.

He has a completely unknown backstory.. so my version might differ greatly from what you have in mind.

What inspired you to rp your muse?  

I played the Remake and driving on those motorcycles was insane but kind of fun - and then shows up this guy who just drove right into my heart as soon as he popped up on the screen, laughing like a mediocre villain from YuGiOh. I thought that was all it was going to be, but I was thrilled to see that it wasn’t. I just love this character. I rewatched his fight scenes with Cloud a hundred times. He is so.. peculiar. I just couldn’t stop thinking about him, and then I saw a bit more of him on tumblr, fanarts and such, and I wanted to give it a shot :)

What keeps your inspiration going? 

New headcanons about him that pop into my head. Finding other people who love him and talking to them & rping with them! Like with all muses, I tend to love them even more the longer I play them, compared to when I start out, because new stories around them develop, I get a clearer image of their character and backstory in my head, and new plans for their future :) On a more to-the-point level: quotes, poems, music, images, all those things give me inspiration. Also similar characters in other media, or stories that fit Roche and that I can recycle and reform into part of his.

Some more personal questions for the mun.

Give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

Do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO. According to whom? I am alright with the way I write him, or I’d be doing it differently. Would Square Enix think I am doing a good job? Idk. Do other Roche rpers think I am? Idk. Does it matter? As long as there are people who enjoy writing with my version of him, I am doing my job, I think :) There are Roche portrayals I find “better” than mine in some ways, more developed, but I don’t really compare myself in that way. 

Do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO.

Do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO.  

Do you think a lot about your Muse during the day? YES / NO.

Are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO. Yes and now because while I stand to the way I write all my muses, Roche in particular is one I haven’t fully developed yet. There are things about his story I am still unsure about or have no clear ideas for yet. So, I’m not feeling insecure when I write him, but I am not overly confident in throwing him in any situation, because something might come up that’ll require me to think harder that I’d have to while playing.. e.g. Rufus.

Are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO. I’m no Rowling, I’m no Tolkien, I know that. But I think my writing is alright. I try to put some internal thoughts in my replies, describe the scene abit, offer some dialogue if applicable, and move the action forward. I am not writing a book here, I am writing something interactive, so my partner is my main concern aside from telling the story. I do feel like I’m doing an okay job at that, so in that sense I am confident in my writing.

Are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO. I’m not entirely sure what this is referring to, but generally I’d say no. I can deal with most topics, it’s pretty hard to offend me, I’m open to most things, and there are very few issues I feel like they can’t be solve with just talking about them.

Do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?

It depends? I almost never get constructive criticism. What I absolutely accept is things like.. someone correcting mistakes I’ve made in terms of timelines or canon facts, because I am lazy by default and tend to not research something well and just wing it. So it might be that I’ll put some fake news into my threads that I have no problem with if someone corrects - actually, please do, I’ll gladly fix it. (Especially if they’re relevant to your muse.)

If someone dislikes a headcanon of mine or something that is particular to my portrayal of Roche, that’s really not something I aspire to change. I have my ideas of him and everyone else has their own. If a friend came to me and told me a certain headcanon of mine makes no sense because of the canon storyline or whatever, and it sounded valid to me, I’d consider that. That wouldn’t offend me. If someone just told me they dislike an idea I had, that is the kind of criticism I don’t really accept. That’s not criticism to me, that is a personal opinion that we disagree on. It’s not my problem if someone dislikes my portrayal, they don’t have to interact with it. I take no offense in that, unless it’s reported to me in a rude manner.

With regard to my writing? I don’t ask for criticism and I don’t really want it either. I know what areas I have to work on in order to improve, I don’t need anyone to give me pointers there. I have enough of that in my academic papers at university ;) This is a hobby, so I’m trying to have a good time and good plays with others, I’m not trying to win any awards. However, if I post a reply my partners aren’t sure how to work with (e.g. they need more dialogue, or more action) I am absolutely willing to edit it, no problem. Also, not just on tumblr/in the RPC but in general, people are really really REALLY bad at giving constructive criticism. It never ceases to amaze me how much people suck at that. Like I said, I don’t get offended easily, but it makes me laugh sometimes (e.g. after presentations at uni) how horrible the feedback comes across sometimes. And then everyone gets butthurt and I once again marvel at the fact that no lecturer ever gives advice on how to give good feeback. (I guess because a lot of lecturers can’t do it either.)

Do you like questions, which help you explore your character?  

Absolutely! It helps a lot. Sometimes it’s a real challenge, but those are necessary and very welcome while developing a character. Other people often think of things I didn’t even consider, so I welcome it when they come into my askbox with these questions :)

If someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why? 

Maybe? If it was a friend or an rp partner, I’d hear them out for sure. If it was someone I don’t even write with.. maybe not. Like, what’s the point? Clearly I made up my mind about it, so why would you come to me to inform me that you see it differently? Go right ahead, neither one of us writes these games, so both our versions are equally right or wrong. If it’s about something that could lead to an interesting discussion, though? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts.

If someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it?

I'd say some people like chocolate ice cream and some like vanilla. That’s okay. I’m not trying to please everyone on tumblr, I’m here to write what I want to write and if just one other person likes my portrayal, that can be enough for me :) If someone dislikes my portrayal, they’re free not to interact with me.

If someone really hates your character, how do you take it?  

I’ve written more characters that were absolutely despised by a good chunk of the fandoms I was in, than characters who were loved, I think. I couldn’t care less. If someone hates Roche - or any of my muses - that’s their thing and has nothing to do with me. As long as they don’t feel the need to inform me about it or send me hate over it, what’s it to me? I don’t need people to like my favorite characters, it has no influence on how I feel.

But also.. why would you hate Roche? Look at him, he’s amazing :D

Are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?  

Sure. English isn’t my first language, I’m sure I make mistakes all the time. I’m not embarrassed by that, everyone makes mistakes, even people whose first language is English. That being said, don’t go weeding through my posts looking for mistakes, because I won’t go back and fix them in most cases, so it’s really a waste of time~

Do you think you are easy going as a mun?

I think so. I’m pretty relaxed most of the time, and I try to be polite and kind in any situation that comes up. I don’t get offended unless you’re accusing me of something I didn’t do, twist my words, insult my friends, or act like a total brat. Before I start a war with someone, I’ll usually withdraw myself from the situation. I am pro-unfollowing/blocking if I dislike someone. I would never send anon hate or write a call out. I’m not here for that. I think we should all try to be kinder than we feel, we should all show respect for others and tolerate differences, and we should try to treat people the way we want to be treated. Live and let live.

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

Tagged by:  stole it. Tagging: anyone who’d like!

[mervinamoonishere]

Courage

It's valentine's day at Hogwarts. And Rowan is very nervous.

In her hands, she holds what must be the most important piece of paper she has ever had to carry; except for maybe, her potions class notes that she almost forgot to review right before a test so she had to pick them up from class to her dorm and it was stressful and not relevant right now.

She's walking through the corridors with no real path, looking like quite the fool and feeling quite foolish whenever she'd peek through another corridor or an ajar door, or anywhere where a human could fit because truth be told she was looking for a human. A certain fair-haired girl with slanted gold eyes. Sorta hard to miss but Rowan's not a good thrower so she misses every damn time.

Mervina Moon is nowhere to be found. Rowan's been wandering the school like a lost puppy looking for her owner; which is a quite terrible metaphor, Mervina would never treat her like an animal but alas her mind isn't wired correctly today, no time to tire herself in trying to find 'perfect metaphors' for her current situations.

So, she's holding a card on valentine's day and she's searching for somebody. She's confessing feelings for somebody. The somebody is Mervina.

And Merlin's beard, she's nervous! So horribly nervous that the sound of shaking paper is slowly driving her mad but she can't will her hands to stop quivering.

Oh god, why did she think this was a good idea? Well, she's got no clue! Her brain hasn't been quite the same after Mervina's, well, sudden existence; she's lost sense, she's losing focus in class, she's always making tea now! She didn't do that before. She doesn't even like tea that much, it's Mervina that does.

In the middle of the dungeons' main corridor, she halts rather dramatically. She questions, 'Can you blame yourself, Rowan?'

It's sorta hard to not admire Mervina's calm nature, especially when Merula (quite childishly, might she add) confronted her all those years ago and all Merv did was alleviate the situation, to throw water into the fire to try to extinguish it. And right after, in potions class, oh how lost she was! She felt like she didn't understand much with Snape's glare-y attitude (and the whole bulbadox powder incident). All it took was a simple glance at Rowan and Mervina was already on her tail, discussing the techniques and answering all of Rowan's 27 questions - yes she counted - with a smile and patience.

She would always push Rowan behind her with an arm outstretched, protecting her from Merula, Peeves, literally any vaguely menacing magical creature, a falling student that one time (she did feel bad that her first instinct was to push Rowan away rather than helping the poor guy but Rowan just kind had a heart attack for completely platonic reasons).

And in year 3, when Rowan felt so left out and worthless compared to Mervina's new friends, everything fixed itself just as soon as it started because Mervina is ridiculously in tune with emotions, and if it weren't for Mervina's unshed tears, this wouldn't even be happening and not even friends they could be called.

Plus, how could Rowan forget all the stupid stuff Merv does. Mocking Snape right in his class, badly, even making Merula lose her composure. That one time Rowan had her wet hair all over her face, making her look, and she quotes 'Like a bloody Bloody Mary, Rowan! What the fuck, I almost peed myself- Stop laughing!'. That's her personal favorite, she's never forgetting that one.

Their everyday hugs. They're just... perfect. And warm.

Also that time they almost kissed in flying class. That was- yeah. She just lost balance when Merv came to her and they kinda sorta almost bumped heads and kissed. Yeah. That happened.

She's beet red by the time she's close to the courtyard, and she hugs her little card closer to her chest, her heart parkouring all over her ribcage like an emotionally traumatized teenager, with parental issues, that just needs a hobby to get away from their toxic domestic environments. Mervina has her version of rambling and Rowan always listens and she almost tripped on a ridiculously small rock, honestly, she should watch where she's going instead of talking to herself about Mervina and not talk to her about her. 

Ah yes, eloquence.

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

If it had been any other day of the year, she'd be the laugh of the school. Luckily it's valentine's day, so carrying around a bouquet doesn't look as outrageous as it should.

Mervina had thought long and hard about this. Rowan has always been easier to get close to, she's affectionate, caring, and just lovely. Merula is very different. She couldn't even begin to think about giving Merula anything on valentine's day. She settled on just being friendly and hoping she'd get the hint. She's still not sure if she did but she looked embarrassed enough, so. She must've gotten something. 

Now, Rowan, she knew what to get. Flowers were always a favorite of Rowan, being a huge nerd of their meanings and such. It's perfect! She didn't even spend hours researching flower meanings and avoiding roses like the plague since Rowan doesn't like them, losing countless hours and money buying them only to then worry about them rotting when the day did come.

Was it worth it? Well, she doesn't know. The flowers are cute and all but if Rowan doesn't reciprocate her feelings then... what was she going to do?

It didn't help that everybody kept pairing up Merv with her two crushes. With Rowan is 'You guys are so cute!' and with Merula is 'Your chemistry is ridiculous!' and it would worsen whenever they'd hear them; Rowan got so embarrassed Merv feared she was uncomfortable, and Merula got so angry she feared there was no chemistry at all, just hate.

So, it poses the question: 'Does Rowan like her back, or are they just friends? Does she blush because she's flustered or incredibly embarrassed?'

For such a colorful bouquet, Merv did look like a storming cloud walking around the training grounds. She's never felt so lost, not in this sense anyway.

It's just- Rowan's so friendly, always so kind. She's a true friend, through and through. Right from the start, no matter what acclaimed weirdness she always talked about, Rowan's so easy to talk to and so eager. She's smart, stupid smart. Trouble with words? Ask Rowan, she sure will know something. Problem in charms class? Or maybe transfiguration? Well, guess what? Rowan Khanna exists! Thank goodness for that.

Her tie's always messy, no matter how many times she's taught Rowan how to do it. And when she's excited she flails her arms around, her robe sleeves flapping everywhere.

Oh and that time they almost kissed during flying class. Rowan never mentions it. Merv's too cowardly to do it either. It just sits there, like a big smug elephant in the room.

By the time she reaches the courtyard, it's sunset, which is stupidly romantic and as Mervina turns around to leave she spots familiar dark locks.

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

By this time, they're in their fourth year. They're not adults in any way but they're not children either. Still, the moment they even get a glimpse of each other, they hide their presents behind their backs, a comical action, almost cartoonish. Both girls looked like startled stoats, eyes like saucers. Only the birds broke the silence, and the fountain of the courtyard gave a pleasant sound to the atmosphere.

A minute passes and they open their mouths.

"Alright, I have something for you-"

"Fancy seeing you here, because-"

Oops. Not expecting that. How awkward. "Rowan, you can-"

"Please go first-"

They trade sighs before Mervina wears the pants. "We'll both do it on three, 'kay?" With Rowan's nod (albeit she's shaking all over), Merv counts down.

three, two, one

There are sounds of shuffling, neither of the girls really knowing of what since both idiots have their eyes closed. They open their eyes and process what's in front of them. Rowan's little pink card; Mervina's vibrant bouquet. Amidst their stupidness, they flush and laugh their asses off until their bellies ache. Oh, how embarrassing. What was there to worry about? Nothing! All that fussing for nothing.

The gifts switch places. Rowan's card is rosy, with lots of scribbled hearts and scratched out words because Rowan's rambling extends to her writing too; and Mervina's flowers were an odd bunch, but beautiful, with peonies, gilliflowers, buttercups, gerbera daisies, carnations, and sunflowers, Rowan's favorite flower.

Warmth weights on their chests for a while, admiring their presents like rare jewels. (Ugh, lovesick fools.)

With some courage, Rowan stands on her tippy toes and plants a peck on Mervina's cheek. Which was unexpected, and all Merv can do is hide behind her little card, red as a tomato until she breaks out laughing, Rowan not too far behind.

~~~~~~~~~~

Just finished it. This has been sitting on my drafts for a wEEK. Welp enjoy it cause it’s cute

[saundraswriting]

Hercules Chapter Three

SUMMARY:The Case continues with some interviews of the victims families. Morgan and Reid work on the Geological Profile. Reid begins pushing himself hard, and Morgan is the one to calm Reid down. It only works for a little bit when the realization hits the entire team that with the lack of connection and the breakthrough Reid finds, Reid will be the one to solve the case by working himself to death.

WARNINGS: Maybe slight self-harm? Spencer is pushing too hard.

Previous // Next

Hotch and Gideon were on their way to Leonard Davis' home. Mrs. Mary Davis, his mother was their interviewee. "Mrs. Davis, are you home? My name is Aaron Hotchner. I am with the BAU at the FBI. I wanted to ask you a few questions." Hotch said loudly.

"Hold your horses. I'm coming. Haven't I answered enough questions? but come in, come in." Mary held the door open, and only Hotch's years of experience prevented his flinch. Her blonde hair was falling out if its clip, she was dressed in a teal cami and black yoga pants. She had deep bags under her eyes and a half empty bottle of gin in her left hand.

"Hello. I'm Mary. If we could hurry this up, I have a lot to do yet." Mary stood by the sink, took a swift swallow of the gin and dumped the rest down the drain. "Self-medication was okay for a little, but time continues on and so should I"

"He was in the top 15 of his class. He was going to do great things I just knew he would. I was so happy to find out that his meds were working and that he liked them. " Mary's voice was as soft as the wind.

"Medications for what?" Hotch asked?

"Depression. His best friend was his sister. She was killed by a drunk driver when she was 16. He was 13. she had left in a hurry when we were fighting over the divorce announcement. After words I sent Leo to a therapist to help with the issues he was going through. I figured it couldn't hurt, right? Turned out he really liked going. Sorted out a lot of problems that Leo was having at the time. Things looked like there were turning up and then he turned 15. He began reading, psychology, sociology, Buddhism, Hinduism.  He would question me randomly, about my thought on God and the state of the world and Creationism among other things. Please remember I wouldn't have even noticed had I not gone into his room the night he was murdered. I saw the books and I understood. Leo was lost and confused, all I did to help was hand him over to a therapist.  I never forced him to go to church with me, I let him return to therapy seeing it may help him. Then 3 weeks later Leo is found strangled to death." Mary sniffed and rubbed her eyes. "Are we done here? I don't want to talk about Leo anymore. I have several appointments today as well. "

"We don't have any more questions for you.  Thank you for your time, Mary. If you need us please call." Gideon said, handing over his and Hotch's card.

"Good day to you as well." Mary walked them out.

Hotch and Gideon arrived at the station a few minutes after Morgan and JJ returned from their interview with Lucy Basset. They walked into Spencer's cave  where coffee cups littered the table.

"Pretty Boy, got anything?" Morgan asked.

"Yeah, sit please. I talked to Garcia and if this doesn't check out. then we'll move on. First, you guys; what did you find out?" Spencer pointed to the seats round the table.

"Ophelia resents the fact that her dad died. vocally questioned God. Mom is on meds and Ophelia's been running the household since she was 16." Morgan explained.

"Leo was a great student. Was in therapy for the divorce + death of his sister. Leo was researching psychology, sociology, Buddhism, and Hinduism. He was vocal but not drastically so." Gideon explained. Reid's eyebrows rose but wrote the observations in the notes taped to the wall opposite of the maps.

"Ophelia refused to light the candle of her father's shrine Lucy made. Besides that, I am not seeing any family involvement." JJ mentioned.

"Which makes sense considering the amount of violence the victims suffered But it wasn't torture becasue it wasn't for a period of time, the cause of death is the only wound on them. So not a sadist, not family, does that mean we have a run-of-the-mill serial killer whose delusional we need to crack?" Morgan ground out through his teeth, frustrated.

"I may have suspects. It's a long shot but worth a try. Garcia found two people in the 20 Mile radius of the image the relevant sites make that have RR as their initials. I labeled and mapped out the relevant places: Potential kill site based of distance, the dump sites and family homes. When I get the actual kill sites I can narrow it down more-anyway-I feel like I'm missing a link, a piece to the puzzle. The map isn't looking right at all. I did the locations in order from oldest murder to most recent and in crime order so family home to kill site to dump site. It will get more accurate with more information. I know that with the mass of uncertainties that we have right now, this is going to take a while but it is the biggest help we have. Feel free to look in here if you need anything, this map will update as I get information. I will keep working on this. There may be a pattern." Spencer rambled quickly. He gulped out of his coffee cup.

"Sirs and madame, we have the official kill sites now. Forensics gave us a very close locale adn we checked them out to get the exact coordinates. I have them for you Agent Reid." A uniform handed out a list of places to each of the BAU.

"Come here." Reid demanded. The two consulted the map for a few quiet moments and then the purple marks were moved. Reid's key gained a new color: Orange for new information and the black got changed to permanent. The team took the pause to gather their thoughts. Morgan used the table speaker to call Garcia.

"Garcia, any new info on our possible suspects"

"Well, hello, to you too, Chocolate Bar."

"Hey mama. Please give me something good."

"Well you are down to one. Numero dos has been found in jail-GTA. Numero uno is worth a shot." She rattled of an address. Hotch jotted it down and left.

"Pretty Boy, anything else?" Morgan asked.

"No! Damn it, this case is residing on my ability to crunch numbers and find a pattern, on my geological profile. And I can't make rhyme or reason." Spencer ranted. Morgan grabbed Spencer and herded him out of the room.

"Break time. Get some coffee, sit and breathe, Spencer." Morgan began making a cup, pulling hazelnut creamer out of the fridge.

"No, Morgan! I need to get back in that room. This profile. is the only thing going for this case right now. There is no vicitmology, no sexual sadism, we really can't form a normal profile." Reid stated. He sipped at his coffee, eyes widening at the taste.

"Spencer, calm down man. you'll go into a anxiety attack if you keep worrying like this. Listen to me, everything will be fine. Ask a local uniform to get the distances if they can. After that begin your in-depth look at everything. You are fine, you're doing great. Chill out a little." Morgan soothed.

"Morgan, you wouldn't have but hazelnut creamer into my coffee, would you? Thank you, I don't deserve a friend like you. But right now, even the smallest pieces of paper, the smallest connection can help us." Spencer said.

"You can go back in, if you calm down. Promise me?" Morgan pleaded. Spencer nodded and sipped his coffee slowly.

Morgan  stood near Spencer, silent and still as a sentinel. He had a bad feeling about this case and they still had one family to interview.

"Morgan, Reid, I'm gonna visit the Brown's. Garcia said that Tabitha Well's parents are drug addicts won't be any help. They are in rehab and the program forbids visitors." Gideon said. Morgan nodded and helped Spencer stand straight. He was swaying slightly. Spencer yawned deeply. Morgan felt his concern for his friend grow.

"Let's go. We can get started looking at the G.P. Can I have a uniform please?" Morgan said. Matthew stepped forward. The trio walked into the map room.

"We need the exact distances between each point on this map. As soon as possible, please." Spencer paused "And each victim's personal effects. Tell me that you did search their rooms and houses." Spencer said.

"I believe so, at least as much as the families allowed. I'll be right back." Matthew smiled timidly at Spencer before leaving.

"Hey, man. Mr. Matthew is into you. You gonna jump on that?" Morgan teased. The name tasted sickly sweet and tangy on his tongue like new metal.

Spencer sighed and shook his head at Morgan's antics. He appreciate the never-ending support he had gained from the team when he came out as gay months ago. JJ and Garcia had been enjoying it the most though, they spent the evenings at the clubs and bars checking out the men and finding dance partners for the girls.

"I don't do case relationships. You know that. Why aren't you hitting Maddie up? She seems into you." Spencer shot back.

"No. I'm not, uh, feeling it now." Morgan answered. Spencer side-eyed him but didn't push the issue. Morgan exhaled in relief.

"So, I am thinking about the connection between victims will be unorthodox in comparison to a 'normal' serial killer. It will be something in common with the age group. 14-20 year olds- teenagers. Maybe they are in favor of a controversial topic. one of their generation's problems brought them all to the attention of the killer." Spencer rambled, writing under the victims: Atheism.

"Okay, they are high-school to college students from messed up homes all vocal about something their generation is facing. Drugs? Legalization of weed is a big problem, Colorado, Washington and the District of Colombia all legalized recently. Maybe the UnSub didn't want it legalized and saw them using in the open?" Morgan questioned aloud.

"Today, 90% of teenagers don't do drugs-including weed-, smoke tobacco, underage drinking. The majority of people gunning of marijuana legalization believe it is a victimless crime and unlike other substances aren't full of horrible chemicals. So no, that isn't it, I think. Not drugs, not war, not environment...Gay rights?" Spencer looked over at Morgan.

"Back up, boy wonder. Why not war and environment? And why write down Atheism?" Morgan's confusion drew Spencer's gaze once more.

"If our UnSub was against the current War, don't you think that there would have been something majorly different in his behavior? People that make statements dealing with War or politics blow coffee shops up, gas stations, malls. Large, obvious signals. If the victims were on either side, it would have been obvious even for the uniforms here. If it was environmental issues, they would have home set-ups: recycling on a very detailed scale, composting, gardens, homemade snacks, re-purposing of things. So far each victim has dealt with a devastating death close to them. When that happens, people in general turn to God, but each person in this case has turned away from God at some point at some level. A typical problem with many people of this age group is coming out to people that matter and if they will be accepting or rejected. So it could be both but from what I have heard about the families, victims, and their lives none were open or closeted Bisexuals, or Homosexuals. I am heavily leaning towards Atheism. We will know for sure when Matthew comes back with the evidence." Spencer rambled quickly, his words practically attached to one another. Morgan tilted his head and shrugged, agreeing with the young genius.

"Dr. Reid. I have the evidence you requested. Unfortunately we don't have anything to give you for distances. When we looked on G.I.S technology and the ones we used varied, so we validated the coordinates for you to calculate." Matthew explained from the doorway.

"Damn it. That is going to take me a while. Okay-Morgan go outside and sort through the evidence. Use social media of any type, journals, diaries, photos, to see if there is anything relevant or strange. I need to not be bothered while I do these calculations, they are going to be extensive." Spencer ordered, He turned to the map. He stilled, body tightening with a laser-like focus. Morgan chuckled softly and herded Matthew out the door.

"Okay. You heard Spencer. Lets get cracking. He is gonna work himself death on this. We can at least help." Morgan spoke to Matthew and the three other volunteers he had gathered along the way. Everyone grabbed a different tub and began sifting through the journals, pictures, and printed pages from social media.

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

Gideon arrived at the Brown's home. He knocked and patiently waited to be invited in. "Kimberly Brown? My name is Jason Gideon. I am an agent of Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI. I have a few questions for you and you family. I shouldn't be too long." Gideon said entering the well designed home.

"Okay, Agent Gideon. I have a few minutes to talk. Come on in." Kimberly was dressed in a pencil skirt and blue button up shirt.

"I just want to know how Everett was before he died. How was he in school. Did someone close to him die?" Gideon asked. Kimberly grabbed two glasses and filled them with ice and water.

"Everett was a good student. Not the greatest, but he did well with football and baseball pre-seasons, season, and off-seasons. He was the star Quarterback for three years and and the star pitcher for two. He loved it. We were immensely proud. He was working on the final things to be ready for Oregon State University to play football for them and go into business and economics. It was the best thing that happened to us." Kimberly said. Gideon noticed that her tone was rather practiced and empty.

"Who were talking to? Cause that wasn't my brother. He did football for so long becasue you would disown him if he did. He wanted to be a doctor, Pediatrician specifically. He wasn't going to play at OSU. He decided his grades would be more important. Everett loved science. He never made a decision without thinking all the variables through." A male voice from the door said.

"Cameron. Enough." Kimberly snapped harshly.

"He wrote me letters-emails really. I brought them with me. Some were really strange, written in a code or something? I'm not sure. With Mom into fashion design and Dad into the stocks, Everett really didn't have anyone to turn to. So he vented to me. He would even write the first word of the subject line: Ventilation so I knew not even to open those ones. I did sometimes anyway. I go to Columbus for English and History. I am a novelist. I felt that he may not want a response but he deserved to get one." Cameron explained nervously.

"Can we have those? They would be marvelous help. I know he recent death must be difficult but this could help find the murderer." Gideon pointed out. Cameron nodded his consent.

"I can show you his room? I know that the police would have taken things they found relevant, but the BAU is different, isn't it?" Cameron ignored his mother's protests and showed Gideon to Everett's room. The room was tidy, shelves and cube organizers were everywhere. Everything had a place but it seemed that the items didn't return instantly to its place. The room had small stacks of books here and there, probably from the overflowing bookshelf. The clothes were in the hamper, and the walls covered in pictures and collages. "We traveled a lot. Everett believe even if he was a science man, he should be creative with something. called it Art therapy. He did these all himself." Cameron explained.

"I am sorry. We work hard to stop these people but more just slip right through." Gideon looked around and on the desk saw a piece of paper with what looked to be gibberish. He picked it up to look closer.

"That may be true, agent Gideon. but at least you try. Hey, that is what the strange messages looked like." Cameron waved at the paper. Gideon put it in an evidence bag and nodded at Cameron.

"Thanks Cameron. We will keep you posted. If you need anything here's my card. Also at the police station." With that Gideon showed himself out, noticing the two cups from earlier were gone as was Kimberly. He continued to the station.

***********

"Okay, gather round, I've got something." Gideon said upon arrival.

"Me too. And Reid is working and said to not be disturbed. I will fill him in." Morgan said. A shout from the map room had them racing.

"Sorry. I just finished all those distance calculations. I had to do the distance between homes and kill sites, kills sites and dump sites, and homes to dump sites. I also did places last seen when they applied and kill sites. And the distances between the homes of the victims for information. That was 20 intricate equations. I had to validate each coordinate with my info and the police to make sure it was right....and I'm rambling." He cut himself off at Morgan's look.

"What did you find out Reid?" Hotch demanded.

"That it isn't a number compulsion. Each distance is different. And the points aren't making a closed shape, in any order. I rearranged this 6 different times but nothing made sense. I think I am missing a location. Or the homes isn't where they were picked from. Any evidence support home break-ins?" Spencer asked. Hotch shook his head. "So, it isn't the home that are important. That isn't the grab site. I need coffee." Spencer's stomach growled.

"And food maybe?" Morgan commented.

"I will be fine. Give me some more time and coffee and I will have more." Reid said leaving the room.

"Wait, you're a genius but you haven't had a breakthrough? What good are you?" Someone said sardonically. Reid and the rest of the team froze instantly; Reid from terror-that tone brought back awful memories and the team from reacting to Reid's tense body language. JJ and Morgan felt murderous.

"I am a genius, maybe-if an IQ of 187 reading 20,000 words per minute, holding three PhD.s, two bachelor degrees and working on a third is considered genius. But I don't like measuring intelligence with numbers and such. People refer to me as a genius, if that helps. I have just crunched out 120 intricate equations, 20 for each of the 6 different order I have arranged them trying to find a pattern. In my head. From this conversation alone I can tell your life story and I am trying to do the same for someone I have never met and leave me dead people to examine. I think what progress I and my team has made is more than you and your colleagues. Now, I was being nice, pleasant even. If this happens again, I can't guarantee that the two fully-certified murderous looking agents behind me won't do you bodily harm. So do me, you and everyone a favor and sit down and shut up." Spencer sassed. The room was deadly silent. Morgan couldn't (didn't) stop the proud smug look from settling on his face. His Pretty Boy just went Alpha Male on the local bully and Morgan couldn't be happier.

In the quiet Spencer made his coffee and returned to his room. He settled in a chair and rubbed at his temples drinking his coffee. Morgan looked in quickly and returned to JJ. "JJ, can you order some food. I don't know when the last time he ate was. He and us need something, anything. His sugar is getting high, too much sugar in one cup let alone several pots. Gideon, Hotch, I have something to share. Reid needs to hear this as well." the trio commented they'd be there in a minute.

Spencer stood in the middle of the room, hugging himself and trembling. Morgan stepped in close after shutting the door.

"Hey, Spence. You did awesome out there. You went all alpha on him and it rocked his world. Come on, sit down. You are fine. No one is gonna hurt you. I'm right here. He was an asshole and deserved the chewing out you gave him." Morgan sat Reid down and gave him a tight hug, exaggerating his breaths, trying to get Reid to catch on. Reid did, calming down slowly.

Spencer tensed slightly at the beginning of the hug but quickly reveled in the warm, human contact. Morgan and JJ and Garcia may touch him often and Gideon and Hotch less often but no one hugged him like this. He usually got fleeting touches, faint and quick as a butterfly's wing beat. Morgan may touch him the most but only claps on the shoulder, fingertips to a wound's dressing, a  guiding hand on his elbow. No one ever touched him like this; with love and kindness, with the purpose to comfort and share your troubles. 'Isn't that the purpose of hugs in difficult times? To share your burdens with a second pair of shoulders? To share your space with another human, to make the world more bearable?' Spencer thought. He opened his (when did they close?) closed eyes and caught a swirly ray of the sun covering part of Morgan's neck. He knew from tracing Morgan's with his eyes and his own with his fingertips the eight outer swirls and the larger middle one from memory, seeing it this close made Spencer anxious for reasons he didn't know.

Morgan felt Spencer stop trembling but tense up. Morgan only squeezed tighter. He was confused about his reactions to the young genius as of late. He could barely tolerate seeing the look of awe and admiration in Matthew's eye when Spencer spoke in general, the look only got worse with direct communication. Morgan didn't even really understand why he felt so protective of Reid either. He understood as friends you try to protect one another but Morgan was ready to tear the asshole from earlier (Thomas)'s head off so thinking so little of the genius. Morgan wanted to make sure Spence was cared for-eating healthy and sleeping right. He wanted to be the one to administer the human contact he knew Spencer needed. Not just the fleeting touches he gave out but hugs, wonderful hugs that lessened the pressure Reid felt from the world. He wanted to be near Spencer if only to watch him think then so be it. Morgan never felt this way about anyone before. He knew that this was beyond friendship he was feeling but wasn't sure what it was he felt for the Boy Wonder.

"Thank you Morgan. I needed that. I was really scared. I thought he might hit me." Spencer said as they broke apart.

"Do you need any help? I am not sure what I can do but I can sure as hell try." Morgan glanced around and realized that with the case looking the way it was, Spencer would be the one to solve it. He would synthesis the evidence, he would be the one to get the breakthrough, he would be the one ending up overworked, overstressed, malnourished and fatigued.

"No, I've got it. could you get me some...uh...food? Please?" Spencer asked hesitantly. Morgan laughed.

"JJ is already on it. We will give you updates if we get anything. I will be around if you need anything. Just take your time and work you magic. I found something earlier, I was going to tell Hotch and Gideon right now. You keep working. If we need you I'll get you." Morgan left and stepped to the right of the doorway, seeing Hotch and Gideon standing there.

"We believe these texts to Leo, Tabitha, Ophelia, Everett, the emails from Everett to Cameron, the diary of Ophelia are written in a code. We also believe that the note you got from Everett's room was the key. I think he was a recent addition to whatever group uses this code, no one else had a key. We need to use the  key to crack the code. Does anyone want to try?" Morgan asked Hotch and Gideon.

"Neither one of us would be able to do it in a timely manner. We know you are terrible with codes and riddles, Morgan. That leaves Reid and Garcia. JJ is having a rough time with the press right now." Hotch mused.

"Bring it all in here. You know that I am the best and really the only option."Reid called from his room.

"No, Spence, you have enough to do Garcia may have a program she can run." JJ said.

"You have to break the code first and then give it to her or she has to run all her programs on it. I can read 12 languages and am pretty smart I can at least break it quick. Hand it over." Reid strode out, sleeves rolled up and pen spinning in circles. A different persona than when he is calculating something where he has a specific formula and direct end goal, this is thinking-trying one idea to reject it and go to another. He needs to be loose, have no end goal planned.

Spencer began pacing and muttering, spinning his pen and pausing every once and while when a train of thought might lead somewhere. 15 minutes in and he stopped and looked up.

"It's pig latin." He said awestruck. Morgan internally sighed at the tone, it was usually followed by a statistic or random or obscure facts. Morgan wasn't wrong. "The single-page is a cheat sheet for most common transitions between English and Pig Latin. I mean a large number of the population can say they have heard of Pig Latin, smaller percentage say they have heard it, and an even smaller portion say they have ever spoken a word of Pig Latin. This is a great idea. It also means that whoever this correspondence was from or to is smart and manipulative. He had to know and be able to teach these kids Pig Latin, and to get them to use it willingly when talking about this group without brainwashing or violence is no easy feat. If they write in code then no sneaky parents will understand if they accidentally see it. Garcia should be able to help, I can if she can't." Spencer handed back the cheat sheet and return to his lair of maps and used coffee cups.

"Hey, man. None of them were open or closeted Bisexuals or Homosexuals. Leo and Ophelia were openly Pro-gay rights but I don't know about the others." Morgan said to his retreating back. Reid paused and turned.

"Nothing of relevance. So I was wrong. That word is around me more in the case than my life.  But at least we aren't dealing with homophobia or something, those cases are touch and go. So it has to be Atheism. We are dealing with religion." Spencer saw Hotch's mouth open. "No, I don't know what that means, but we have something. We can work with something. Give me some time to think." Reid walked in and shut his door.

"That kid is going to kill himself with this case." Morgan murmured. The others consented their agreement.

Previous // Next

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Okay, The focus of the fic shifts from here. This isn’t a case fic so to speak, it is a soulmate au fic. So be prepared for that. 

[hobiwonder]

Conspicuous (m) |

Genre: Smut, PWP. Sugarmama!Reader, Sugarbaby/little!Jungkook. 

Pairing: reader x jungkook. Reader is older.

Warnings: detailed description of oral sex, intercourse, creampie, cream pie eating, dirty talk, noona kink and just overall badly written porn lolll.

Words: 7.1k

Summary: Pretty docile jungkook falls for a cynical old witch. you kinda like him too i guess.

a/n: so i wrote this a while ago and it was shit but then i edited this slower than a turtle and realised it’s not much better lmao but im kinda trying to move on from hating my writing so here u go :// it is what it is. i hope u guys semi-like this :)) also im a big fat liar and can’t stick to update dates so pls 4give.

It had been a rough day. You had over 4 meetings and a ton of paper work to look over before you signed and made a few deals for your company that had been in the works for months. Signing on new contractors to make your company’s newest tech products hadn’t been an easy feat. Finding honest companies with good work ethic, a spotless track record of their dealings before with other major enterprises was also not an easy task. You were known to be a meticulous worker, settling for nothing but the best when it came to the products your company launched. Finally, after months of designing and drafting the first prototype for the newest series of cameras and mobile phones, your company was about to launch their new line. This project had been your baby for a long, long time.

Some would argue that you hadn’t had to work hard for anything in your life. Inheriting your father’s company at the ripe age of 23 had made you nothing but bitter with the way your life had turned out. You were young and impressionable, and wanted everything from the world. There was nothing that you thought was out of your reach with a billion-dollar inheritance anyway. Yet the possibility of having to take over your father’s entire company due to his sudden and inconveniently timed illness had never crossed your mind. It had been very sudden. One day you had been planning a trip to Paris with your friends and the next day at 8am you had to fly down to Seoul to head the board meeting. By 9pm, you had been voted the new Chief Executive Officer. You had been thrilled at first, trying to make the best of the situation that you were slam dunked into. However, it was hard to keep up the optimistic façade when you had discovered that you were only voted in because the mistrust that your father had built in his own company had lead all the prospective candidates for the job to vote you in. Handing you the position just to ultimately micromanage under the pretence of ‘guiding’ you had seemed a better option to all the other high ranking employees than to trust each other at handling the company by voting on someone from it who probably knew the company inside and out.

Your father was a clever bastard. You hated him, but you had to give it to him for creating such a passively aggressive hostile environment where none of his officials trusted anyone but him. Which ensured that when his demise came, the position that he had held in his own company for decades would be seamlessly passed down to you, without anyone accusing your father of manipulating the rules. Each day passed and the more you held on, just out of spite for your father and the retched men filled workplace that you were in charge of, the more rivals you made out of the men twice your age, greying and still hitting on you despite insisting that they saw you as their ‘own daughter.’ It was infuriating, disturbing and honestly, quite disheartening, when all your dreams of traveling the world, making a name for yourself as a photographer, working with expressionists to runway models to just taking pictures of breathtaking landscapes, had been shattered. Though, there was no point on dwelling. Your father had barely believed in your dreams nor ever payed attention whenever you tried to steer the conversation in the direction of what you wanted to do. To put it simply, if it did not generate revenue – and fast – your father had no interest in your dreams. You had learned that quite young and kept it all to yourself, albeit the longing you felt in the pit of your stomach for someone who would root for you, remained. Someone who would follow and support your journey. But what use is there for that special someone when the dream no longer lived?

That’s what you told yourself each night that your mind would wander to useless thoughts of what could have been and what definitely wasn’t. You were a cynic by nature, but you had tried to defeat that part of yourself once upon a time. No longer did you inhibit these tendencies when they came in so handy being the youngest CEO your company was likely to see. Each decision you had made had been opposed to the maximum. First they were careful, trying not to out their true intentions. When you showed no signs of quitting or budging from your position, all the men had been quite shameless in opposing you as well as their public display of disdain for you. When you worked with the wolves every day, it was hard not to become a pessimist and even harder to not let it suck all emotions out of you until nothing was left but the ever dull numbness that you worked with every day.

Until him. Until he seemingly just showed up in your life one day, looking ever like the lost little boy who was searching for his mother at the fair. Yes, he literally looked too kind, too good to be true. With his too big innocent eyes, slightly pouted lips, eyebrows furrowed charmingly as he held the flyer in his hand, trying to figure out if he was in the right building or not. He’d been chatting with the receptionist when you’d entered the building with your assistant trailing beside you going over the day’s agenda. At first you had barely glanced at him as you approached the reception to pick up some forms that your assistant was supposed to but you figured, why not? You’re passing through anyway. You weren’t a monster, as much as everyone at your company believed you to be. When you really had a good look at him, your heart had skipped several beats, taking in how handsome he really was.

He’d been leaning over the counter pointing something out to Somin, the main receptionist while she shook her head apologetically at him, her face twisting into a pitying expression.

“Sorry darling, we’re looking for professional companies to shoot the commercial. I’m afraid there is nothing we can do.”

“I-I have a portfolio though. Please, would you have your b-boss or anyone really, have a look at it?” He was almost pleading by this point. This made Somin sigh, leaning forward in her seat to give him an eyeful of her breasts. You knew he was getting an eyeful from the smirk on her face and the almost visible battle he was having with himself to not look down at her chest.

“Sweetheart, there is no point okay? Our boss won’t be interested in cute little boys like you with little to no experience with professional campaigns. Personally, I think she’d eat you alive. Why don’t you meet me in a few hours and I can get you some other gigs? I know a lot of people.” You almost gagged at the sugary sweet voice she had put on for him, twirling a strand of her hair.

You almost wanted to fire her but knowing you didn’t have time to deal with that headache, you settled for letting her know you were watching her unprofessional behaviour. Throwing down a pile of papers for her to forward to the relevant departments, you made yourself known, interrupting her flirting when she visibly jumped at your voice.

“Put your tits back in your blouse Somin, before I fire you.”

“I-I, ah, yes ma’am.” She muttered looking down quickly adjusting in her seat as she clicked away on her computer, no doubt trying to look like she wasn’t just hitting on the boy. “I was just letting him know we don-”

“Send him in.”

“Wait, are-”

“Somin, send him in.” You said it slower, to get your point across that you didn’t need her input on any decision you made. Even as frivolous as this one.

Or so you thought.

Jungkook, if possible, had looked even more startled than Somin. Almost doubling over, tripping on his way over when he realised who you were and that you had agreed to meet him.

Turns out, that decision was not frivolous at all. Considering how little time it took you to decide that he was yours and that you would move any mountain in the world you could to see a smile on his face after you let him shoot the magazine cover for your company’s monthly issue. It wasn’t the commercial he was hoping to shoot, despite having an remarkable portfolio. Nonetheless, it was enough to have the sunniest smile you had ever seen on anyone. Most of all, it was sincere. He had been honest, too honest, letting you know that he desperately needed this job. He was two months behind his college tuition and if he didn’t make any payment, he would be kicked out. At first you had contemplated the chances of him lying to you about his backstory to get a gig. After all, the exposure that your company or merely being associated with your company afforded, was enormous. Enough to get anyone started on their feet with the name of your company on their resume. But there was no doubt of his truth. Firstly, his clothes did all the talking. The poor boy was wearing a hoodie a size too small, shoes almost giving away at the stitches but most of all, his eyes. They were the kindest that you had ever come across. They showed the kind of hope in them that you had for yourself six years ago. Even though it was obvious that his situation was in dire need of saving, probably no other option after this, he still held on with stubbornness and tenacity you only wished you had held on to. Not the one where you go months arguing your point just to wear everyone out and get your way to prove yourself. Not just because you could and you were the CEO. But because you believed in yourself. Jungkook believed in himself and his efforts. In the short amount of time you spent with him that morning, you learned more about him than you had learned about yourself in all the 29 years you had been alive.

The rest had been history. It had started out with a job for him and turned into so much more. The first time you had kissed him was when he was shooting the cover page. You never went to any of the magazine shoots unless you were in a featuring story, but your heart had betrayed you when you tried to tell yourself you didn’t really need to see him. He was nothing special to you. That thought process went to shit when your lips had met his and the undeniably soft moan he had let out in surprise of your action. A kiss turned into secret rendezvous in your office when everyone was packing up and leaving while you pressed him into your office desk with your body straddling his, tugging the sweetest moans out of his soft mouth as your hand worked his length. He never asked for more; at first. Just relishing in the moments of tenderness you provided him unlike your cold exterior and dealings with him on a normal basis. But these stolen moments in your office turned into him staying at your place almost every night of the week. At first you told yourself that he was a grown man, you didn’t need to worry if he had dinner or if the heater at his place was working alright. But who were you fooling anyway? One noisy growl from his stomach and you were out of your office, motioning him to follow you. And he did, eyes wide, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

Watching him eat was one of your favourite pass times. He made so much noise, munching his food loudly like a baby that all it did was make you crazy from inside out. Making it harder and harder to keep an emotional distance from him while you kept up this mutually beneficial arrangement. It was hard keeping him at an arm’s length when he was so open and willing to share his heart with you. He was smart, he was diligent in his affection, kind, caring, shy. Utmost importantly, he believed in you, the goodness in you. It made you feel guilty at night when both of you lay in your post coital bliss, him snoring lightly beside you while his head lay on your arm. Guilty that he took even the smallest gestures at such high value, looking at you like you were the centre of his universe when you did so much as buy him a pair of cashmere gloves and scarf in the cold unforgiving months of winter. You knew it wasn’t just because of the money or the things that you would buy for him. You knew this because the first time you transferred him money without him knowing, it wasn’t spent until 3 weeks later when he was actually expecting his pay check. And those 3 weeks, you were stuffed so full with his random displays of affection whenever you were with him. He would make sure to touch you as much as he could whenever he was around. Telling you again and again how wonderful you were every chance he got. Saying how much you inspired him and gave him hope for any future for himself knowing how much stress you were always under. It was almost suffocating as you weren’t used to it all but slowly, you realised you were spoiled. You doubted anything less in the future would satisfy you.

Tonight was no different. Maybe a little different. If anything had changed in the months that you had met Jeon Jungkook, was that you had learned that even big, muscly boys like him, who were no less than men judging solely from the rippling muscles, and by god the best fucking 8 pack you had ever seen, could be just as attention demanding as a 5-year-old. Jungkook was a certified baby boy. He was your baby boy. However, tonight, you didn’t need his needy whinges no matter how much your core complained otherwise. He had gotten home shortly after you, all the while huffing and puffing about his new lecturer and how strict he was with his marking. You had hummed along with his complains while he took off his shoes, throwing his backpack aside and had made his way over to you towards the counter where you’d been standing, looking over some paperwork while you sipped on your freshly brewed coffee.

He had wrapped you into a warm back hug – the boy was all heat, always – resting his head on your shoulder with a pout that could give a toddler a run for his money when he noticed your lack of response to his nuzzling in the crook of your neck, no doubt, trying to get you to reciprocate and coddle him like you usually did to make him feel better. You had warmed up to him, and only for him, a lot. But apparently, not enough for Jungkook.

“Noona,” He whined again, pressing tighter against your back, his taller stature looming over yours when he stands straighter, annoyed at your lack of reaction to his pouting face.

“Hmm… go have dinner, it’s in the fridge.” He made a noise in the back of his throat, much like a whine, poking head in front of your face, trying to block your way of the documents you were currently perusing.

“Jungkook, not now. Eat your dinner or go play overwatch please.” It was apparent that you were done with the conversation. At your stony dismissal, he huffed, but nonetheless, went and sat at the dining table, stabbing his fork in the plate. Clearly showing his annoyance and that he was less than happy with you. At that point, you barely heard anything besides the ringing in your ears and the pounding headache that had a hold of you since this morning. You really needed to have all the paperwork sorted tonight or you would be in deep shit. Jungkook could wait. His brattiness always chose the most inappropriate of times to surface.

He stared at you all the while he stabbed his food to mush before taking a bite. You could almost feel his eyes burning a hole in your forehead. When he was done with his food, he made his way over to the sink, noisily throwing his plate in the dish washer after rinsing it. You knew he wanted to get a rise out of you and he damned well almost did.

“I’m done.” Raising an eyebrow without sparing him a glance, you made a noise of confirmation that your heard him, barely.

“Noona,” you continued to nod to yourself reading over all the terms and conditions of the new contract. Jungkook scoffed, setting his hands on his hips.

“Can you at least look at me?” Slamming your hands down on the counter, you looked at him square in the eyes with a stern face that had the blood rushing to his face, flustered.

“And what Jungkook? Can you please-,” exhaling loudly, “let me finish this? I don’t have time for your whining right now. Go play the new game I bought you and not a peep out of you. Understood?” Your demanding voice had him gulping, knowing the unspoken punishment was just lurking the corner. He was already treading on thin ice. Hoping that sent him the message that you were not to be disturbed, you turned back to your documents.

You continued to ignore him while he muttered to himself, walking over to the couch in your penthouse, turning on the gaming console.

It had been about 3 hours since you had last spoken to Jungkook. He’d played on the Xbox for a while before he’d resorted to watching Netflix on your couch. It had been halfway into Iron Man that you’d stopped hearing his commentary on the movie. You’d finally finished with the paperwork, made sure there were no loose ends and no errors before the big day of the official signing. Giving your limbs a much needed stretch, you yawned, feeling unbelievably tired. Knowing how much you’d neglected Jungkook also didn’t have you feeling so hot. He could hold a grudge for an impressively long amount of time. Lucky for you, you knew just how to make it up to him.

Walking over to the large L shaped couch and his figure curled on it with his hands tucked in between his knees had you feeling weak in yours. He held such an air of innocence even when he simply slept. The unmistakable content look on his gentle face almost had you turning back and letting him nap some more, knowing how frustrated he was before he fell asleep. Smiling, you walked over to the fridge and grabbed a box of banana milk that you always had stacked in your fridge. The boy was a sucker for banana milk. He’d probably give away his bank account details if you gave him enough of it.

You sat beside his sleeping figure, stabbing the straw in to the box and setting it beside you. Putting your hands beside his head, cradling it, you kissed his forehead, whispering his name to shake him out of his slumber. You continued to give him soft eskimo kisses as he groaned and shook his head, too overcome with drowsiness to attempt to shake it away. The chuckle you’d been biting back escaped as you took in the pout that was starting to form once again on his face. There was once a time you thought you hated boys. Then came a period you thought you hated high maintenance boys (you’d been told by your best friend that male versions of you reciprocated that feeling). But here you were with Jungkook. A boy AND very high maintenance.

“Jungkook, wake up darling.” You nuzzled his nose as he finally stretched his arms above his head, peeking at you with an eye open as his handsome face turned into a frown, likely remembering he was mad at you. You grabbed the banana milk and handed it to him, happily taking advantage of his weakness to get in his good graces. His face instantly lit up and all you wanted to do was scream. He was too adorable. Too good and easily pleased for his own benefit.

“You can’t bribe me to like you with this.” He spoke around the straw in his mouth, sipping on it as he sat up slightly, allowing your arms to wrap around his shoulders and pull him into you. You grinned, looking down with your eyes closed before raising them up to his face again.

“I know, babe. I’m sorry I yelled okay? You need to realise when noona is stressed and needs to be left alone.” The seriousness of your tone had him listening carefully to your every word. Sighing he nodded, looking down, most likely understanding your difficult position. He always did. He was too good for you.

“I’m sorry, too. I just was so annoyed at my professor today!” He huffed again, sticking out his bottom lip for good measure.

“How come baby? What happened?” Seeing you interested in wanting to know about his day, Jungkook visibly perked up, eagerly telling you about how hard he worked on his last project and got 85%.

“That’s amazing Jungkook! That’s something to be proud of, considering how much of an ass he sounds like. Cheer up honey.” You kissed his lips softly, keeping it chaste and sweet.  

Of course, Jungkook being Jungkook, he chased after your lips when you pulled away. Eyes half closed as he tried to pull you closer, throwing the empty milk box on the side. You smirked, holding his face between your palms and pushing him back down.

“Behave, baby.” Whining had seemed to become Jungkook’s favourite tonight, as he did just that, pulling you on top of his frame. One of the insanely lust inducing facts that you’d learned about Jungkook was his insatiable sexual appetite. First, he’d seemed to be too reluctant and shy to do so much as slip his tongue in your mouth and all the previous encounters had been initiated by you. Slowly, he’d developed into a man possessed to have his cravings satisfied. Needily rutting against you as he once again buried his face in your neck. He was greedy. But you were more than happy to provide what he desired.

“Noona,” whining breathlessly and you had barely held him for more than a few moments, “need you.”

“What do you need baby?” He knew you liked to drag it out, milk the moment until he was so needy, so beside himself that tears pricked his eyes, begging you for some relief. He also knew you loved it when he was vocal, freely expressing his want with the way he whined and gasped and moaned, composing your favourite melody.

“S-Suck me, noona, please.” He whined low in his throat as you felt the trickle of arousal escape your core, heat travelling downwards and opening your body up to his gluttonous eyes. His shameless demand only spurred you on further. Jungkook had tugged his leg over yours, pushing his hardened length in your stomach, grinding brazenly, hoping you’d show him mercy, just for tonight. You were still biting your lips, looking down at his flushed face and needy, big button eyes fluttering and boring into yours before dipping them down towards your cleavage. He dragged his hands from your waist up, bringing your silk blouse along with him until you stopped them from ascending any further. He was whining again, nuzzling his face in your breasts through your blouse when not granted permission to take off your shirt. This time though, the noise lit a fire deep in your core instead of the chaste affection it incited in a more innocent context. Instead, you reached behind with both of your arms under the shirt, taking off your bra, slowly, making sure to watch Jungkook’s already breathless face and glazed eyes. He looked like he’d been drugged. Knowing it was you and your hands over him satisfied an almost cloying need inside you that was inexplainable. Inexplainable but attainable and only from having him.

You leaned back down after throwing your bra aside. Taking his face in your hands, you took his deep red lips in for another kiss. Thrusting your tongue into his mouth, letting it lead his own, you kissed him fervently enough to set his nerves on ablaze. He was so restless and beside himself that his sensual grinding had turned into desperate rutting of his hips against your damp sex through your panties, skirt ridden up to your waist. You placed your hands on his bottom, slowing down his pace to the sensual grind it was before, making him groan loudly in your mouth. He was young and by no means a virgin, but you often found yourself slowing him down. He was always eager to please and be pleased. The stamina of a bull, you thought bitterly on more than one occasion, knowing how mild paced you’d had sex before compared to your hectic life.

“Slow down baby, noona will give you what you need.” Jungkook moved down towards your chest, ignoring your warning and taking a pebbled nipple into his mouth through your silk blouse. You hissed at the harsh tug of his teeth on your nipple. Apparently Jungkook was in no mood of being obedient.

You almost had to wrestle his hands in to your hold as he sucked on your nipple through the fabric, pleasure flooding your nerves, setting them on fire as he tugged and tugged, slowly suckling afterwards to ease the pain. Your breathing was rough. Jungkook was being brattier than usual, not listening to a word so far. You resigned yourself to just let him be, get it out of his system. He was obviously showing his feelings from your spat earlier, rather than excessively voicing them. He pulled away from one just to switch to the other. The fabric of your blouse now sticking to your nipple, outlining the peak shamelessly. You left his hands beside him, dragging your own down to his hardened length. Jungkook was a very generously endowed man. The fact that his body and his cock didn’t match his face or personality was the hottest thing to you. He had no idea how sexy it was to you that he fucked like a porn star, however, possessed the temperament of a timid mouse. His acquiescent demeanour was your weakness. It only made you want to have him even more. You granted a harsh tug on his cock, halting his movements on your breast, using your hand that was cradling him to your chest to tug his gasping face away from it.

“Enough.” Voice callous, sending shivers down his brawny torso. He whimpered lowly, tugging on his bottom lip. Your hand continued to move on his hard length, lubricated from the excessive pre-cum smeared on the tip. It was messy and you loved messy.

“I want your cock in my mouth.” You purred lowly beside his ear, hearing him gulp. Slowly, you sat up, sliding down his body, Jungkook watching you with dim eyes, pupils dilated, such apparent lust swimming in his irises. Sliding off your silk blouse, you discarded it to the side along with his jeans and underwear in one swoop. You leaned down, eyes level with his own, landing open mouthed kisses to his pelvis, trailing them down to the cherry red head of his leaking cock. He was unbelievably hard and intimidatingly engorged. It made you all the more wet, knowing you’ll get to feel him soon. You began by starting at the base of his shaft with your tongue and working your way up towards the tip. He was trembling. His skin felt scorching and clammy as the temperature seemed to rise around you despite the open plan space.

“Noona, noona!” Jungkook was almost heaving, resisting the urge to pull on your head and shove you down his cock. He wondered if this is what heaven felt like. He’d ask you that question if he wasn’t busy trying not to die because he would rather experience this feeling in this life than wait for the next.

“Yes, baby?” You kept up your licking as he stared at you, pupils blown, his mouth hanging open. “What do you want my darling?”

“I want your mouth noona, please suck me, suck my cock noona, p-please.” He whined shamelessly, moaning loudly when his wish was granted. This is the point where Jungkook lost all his inhibitions and chased your touch without his reticent nature afflicting him. Finally reaching the tip, you were rewarded with a few drops of pre-cum that you licked up with your tongue, quickly swallowing him down. Slowly feeling the veiny warmth of his luscious cock as you moved up and down on it. Working it with your tongue. Jerking it with one hand while the other gently pressed on the underside of his scrotum. All the while desperate moans of ‘noona’ and your name when he got too carried away were sounding the walls of your penthouse. Jungkook had always been vocal and it was your weakness. He was either quiet and reserved or bratty and loud. The later usually in more compromising situations as this one.

You slowly worked your way down the veiny shaft with your tongue and with your other hand holding and slowly jerking his cock.

“F-Fuck! Y-Yes just like that noona, take my cock,” He whimpered loudly, his shirt now discarded on the floor as his torso glistened with a light sheen of perspiration, “I’m gunna cum noona, oh god.” Holding his cock deep in your throat, you finally lifted your head up and off his dick, spitting saliva all over his engorged dick. His desperate pleas for you to finish him off were mostly a catalyst to your already hedonistic desires at this moment. Giving head had never appealed so much to you before Jungkook. In fact, it was almost degrading to you considering your stature to almost all your partners before. Though, it never occurred to you when it came to Jungkook. First you mistook it as pity on the young man but you were soon realising that your interest in foreplay was not merely a phase. There was something more than was you felt on the surface which was becoming harder to ignore. One last time you put your face directly above his cock and took a deep breath, sweat dripping onto the mushroom tip from your forehead you finally sunk down again. Jungkook didn’t think he even had control of his body as he thrust upward, pushing his cock even further down your throat. Pleasurable tears fell down your face as you continued to hold Jungkook's cock in your throat. Finally, barely able to breathe you pulled your head back allowing his cock to escape your mouth as you gasped for air. Threads of saliva trailed down from your mouth to his beautiful cock. Continuing to bob up and down, going deep but not nearly as deep as you had been, your adoration of Jungkook's beautiful cock had him soon ready to explode. Jungkook looked at you in panic, breathing heavily.

“Noona I’m gunna cum! tell me w-where.” He almost pleaded as you sat up slightly away from his cock.

"Come on baby, give it to me," you instructed Jungkook as he jerked his cock, the engorged head only inches from your face.

You opened your mouth and Jungkook aimed, shooting two ropes of cum almost directly into your mouth, some of it landing on your lips and chin. You quickly swallowed, gulping down his warm sticky cum. He looked beautifully wrecked. His skin flushed a deep pink, abs contracting and relaxing as he took deep breaths in. So vulnerable and uncut. Once his orgasm had subsided, he’d wasted no time in sitting up and pulling you into his lap.

“I came so hard noona, you’re so amazing, you’re so beautiful.” His words being pressed into your skin as he held you close to his naked body, hands now working on your skirt and panties, tugging them off.

“Anything for my baby,” You kissed him sweetly as your hand continued down to stroke his hardening cock again, exploring each other's mouths. You pulled away from his lips, caressing his cheek with your free hand.

“Noona is going to fuck you now, okay baby?” Jungkook moaned at your words nuzzling his face into your neck.

“Please, fuck me noona. I-I’m so hard for you.”

Slowly you placed your bare feet up on either side of his hips, then lowered your pussy over his cock. Instantly feeling the electricity of his huge member penetrating your pussy. When you were satisfied that you could get no more of his cock into your pussy, you began to bounce up and down on him, wrapping your arms around his neck and leaning on his shoulder.

Enjoying the feeling of fullness that always comes from having Jungkook’s cock in your pussy. For the first time today Jungkook finally got to properly suck on your breasts. Pushing you back slightly as you continued to bounce up and down, you were thankful for the Pilates classes that kept you in shape. He gently sucked on your nipples, swirling his tongue over the areola of each tit. Sucking and biting each nipple your orgasm soon built up in your core. The combination of being on edge from the events before combined with the stresses of the day had you rushing towards your end faster than usual. So you turned around. Now facing forward, and began to really fuck Jungkook.

You pushed down until you could feel the head of his member nudge your cervical opening and sending a bite of pain up your torso. You stopped for a second leaning back to sweetly talk in Jungkook’s ear, "Baby, thrust upward as hard as you can, okay? Please do it for Noona." You smiled wickedly at him as he suddenly pushed upward as hard as he could, crying out with you. "Oh God, Jungkook!" you cried out loudly as the pain of his thrust hit you. In seconds that pain was replaced by pleasure as his cock penetrated depths of your cunt. "Don't stop," Urging him on as Jungkook had started to slow down his rhythm thinking he hurt you. The overwhelming feelings had you so engrossed in your own little world and only when Jungkook squeezes his hands on your waist you glance down at where you’re both connected.

With Jungkook now penetrating your cunt fully you begin to ride him ferociously, fucking like animals. Your naked bodies made loud smacking sounds as you worked towards the inevitable climax. Sweat once again poured off of your naked body glistening in the light of the living room. You were getting tired with your continued rhythm on his cock and thankfully Jungkook noticed as he kissed up your back helping you maintain it.

“How about I turn you over now? Please,” He kissed your collarbone, “Wanna fuck noona.”

You gave into his pleading, getting off his lap and getting on all fours on the couch as Jungkook rested one knee on the couch and the other foot on the floor, gaining all leverage he needed. You were drunk on each other's bodies and it was evident in the way Jungkook’s eyes were glazed over, never taking them off of you. This was not the usual and the fact that you allowed him to take over only further showed him how past your typical temperament you were.

Having positioned himself on the seat he looked over at you with a mischievous grin on his handsome face. Jungkook stroking his now well lubricated cock, grabbed it with his left hand and guided it to your pussy. As he slowly entered, you let out a muffled groan, adjusting to his size in this position. Somehow, he felt larger and harder as the rigid shaft dragged across your vaginal walls, filling you up inch by inch. And then he began to slowly fuck you, pushing your body forward a bit with every thrust, getting into a rhythm. His cock working your pussy felt unbelievable. With sweat pouring out of your body and dripping on the couch, you felt the rush of you orgasm building as you instructed Jungkook. "Faster baby, please," The more Jungkook gave, the lesser it felt. He was addicting, enchanting and like a true addict, you always wanted more. Jungkook began ploughing into your cunt with reckless abandon. Making shameful smacking sounds as your sweaty bodies collided together and before you knew it, your torso was collapsing on the couch as Jungkook held firmly on to your hips.

“You look so sexy Y/N. You feel so good, fuck.” When you turned your head to the side, eyes sliding back to glance at his face, the view only brought you closer. Jungkook’s eyebrows were furrowed in amazement as his eyes were securely stuck to the view of where your bodies made illicit contact.

“A-Am I doing well Noona? I’ve b-been holding off for you.” You nodded your head as best as you could, knowing he was well aware of his skill but always wanted to hear it from you. And you were more than happy to oblige.

“Yes honey, you’re so good.”

“God, it’s never enough. I wanna fuck you f-forever Noona.” A hiccup to let you know he was choking up which wasn’t so out of the ordinary as what he says next. “P-Please don’t leave me.”

The brokenness his words convey is so honest and sincere it’s like being stamped directly on the surface of your skin. And you’re not given much time to mull it over when Jungkook’s rhythm behind you turns frantic, almost as if he’s also realised his slip up. It for sure makes you forget though. Now needing to cum, you matched his rhythm and pushed back harder, sweat still dripping from your body onto the couch. You felt an incredible rush of pleasure wash over your body listening to Jungkook whine with each thrust, muttering about how perfect you felt on his cock.

“Baby I’m c-cuming,” You moaned in urgency, prompting Jungkook to get impossibly faster.

“Cum for me noona, want you dripping over my cock.”

You barely kept your balance on the seat as your orgasm exploded, your cunt dripping with Jungkook's cock still ploughing into you, the liquid nectar gushing onto the couch below as he helps you climb the bridge of your ecstasy.

Jungkook slowed his rhythm down, knowing you needed a minute but his cock never really stopped gently thrusting your cunt.

He began to pick up his rhythm again hammering your pussy with his thick girth over and over. Your pussy convulsing around his cock in oversensitivity, but you wanted him to cum again. At that moment you didn't care. All you could think about was how good his cock felt inside you and how good his cum was going to feel in you again. Now working harder than ever before, Junngkook's cock kept battering your dripping pussy. The smacking sounds of your flesh louder than ever. "N-noona." you knew that he was telling you he was ready. "In me baby. Cum inside noona’s pussy.” you instructed. Filling you up to the brim. Slowing down as he continued to spurt inside, holding on to your hips as his eyebrows were furrowed, concentrating on milking all his cum from his cock. You waited for him to snap out of his daze as he came to a halt, reluctantly pulling out. You winced slightly as he exited your entrance at the inflamed lips of your pussy. As he slid down to the floor, you took his place on the couch, laying back to give your aching limbs a rest as your vision took time to clear.

What you weren’t prepared for was a tongue snaking its way to your cum-filled pussy, startling you.

"Jungkook." You cried out a little too loud as Jungkook's tongue first began to explore your lips. He began by placing soft kisses all around your pussy lips. Gently using his tongue to massage the outer labia of your cunt. His hands caressing your stomach and then reaching back down to spread your thighs wide.

“You’re so yummy noona, I want to eat all of our cum,” his words making you moan even louder. Jungkook was just as filthy as you and it made you even wetter. Meanwhile, his tongue had begun to work his way into your pussy. Jungkook took his time with your pussy reciprocating the worship that you had shown his cock. His tongue began to work inward further licking all around quickly but not viciously, allowing your pleasure to build. His eyes peaked over in to your own, only his nose visible above your mound. And you can’t help but bring your hands down to cradle his face close to you. There was no mistaking Jungkook’s current position between your legs was obscene, objectively speaking. But somehow, it didn’t feel that way. At least not when he looked at you like you were his life source. It was overwhelming in such an intimate way and you couldn’t tear your eyes away no matter how much your mind screamed at you to put some sort of methodical barrier between you two. And if it wasn’t for his tongue slipping up to your clit, you would have most likely been lost in his twinkling eyes for who knows how long.

“Gently, baby.” You hiss as each swipe of his tongue is like a shock to your core. Once he closes his lips around the bundle of nerves, you let go with a whimper; your climax short but powerful. Jungkook only stopped his licking for a few seconds when you came and was now back to work on your now very wet and cum soaked pussy. After a few minutes of just licking up all your juices, he stopped once you started wincing, having had enough for the day. You caught your breath as you pulled him up beside you, laying his head down on your chest as he draped your body with his own, wrapping his arms around you.

After a few minutes of silence, you heard him say the words that lingered on the tip of your tongue.

“I love you Y/N.”

You simply smiled, stroking his hair, tugging his lips softly on your own, not kissing just resting.

Hoping to buy time and figure out what the fuck to do.

a/n: feedback appreciated, esp the constructive kind. :)))

[lala-the-rebel]

for the prompt thing, "are you drunk?" (the numbers are a bit messed up)

(This went through pretty much a year of editing and idea changing and all that jazz, so here it is in all it’s glory lmao)

Summary: It’s the Sides’ annual Halloween party, and Patton one can hope everything goes off without a hitch, like it does every year. That’s why you plan things ahead of time, right? Unfortunately for him and pretty much everyone else, it does quite the opposite of that.

Word Count: 6,575 (yes there’s a read more since i’m on desktop for once)

Warnings: drinking mentions all throughout, Deceit (he’s a pretty relevant character in this so don’t read if you’re uncomfy with him), lots of cursing from multiple characters (lemme know please if I missed anything)

Writing taglist: @fandersunite

—

As appropriate for the spooky season, the sides decided to host a Halloween party. Well, really, Patton was the one who decided and made everyone go along with it. It was a yearly tradition that they were nowhere near prepared for this year.

The outdoor decorations weren’t even put up yet, which was a shock in itself. It was well-known around the neighborhood that they always went all out on decorating. If they didn’t, there would be a lot of disappointment. So, after much debate, the responsibility was given to Roman and Logan to do that morning. Patton had been in the kitchen, working at double-speed to prepare the refreshments. Virgil had been dreading the party, as he did every year. Yeah, he loved the Halloween aspect of it, but he did not love the social interaction part of it, especially when he had no way of escape. He kept telling himself that things went better than he expected every year, so he shouldn’t have too much to worry about.

He had no idea what to expect this year, though. 

Despite that, he helped out as best as he could, all to hopefully make things easier on Patton. While he went with Roman to get things from the store, Deceit and Logan stayed home to finish decorating. Things almost went smoothly until Patton dropped a bomb on them.

Not only was he leaving to go on the other side of town, but he was leaving Logan in charge of something he had no idea how to run. Even with written instructions, he was still unsure he could do it.

What made him even more unsure was that Patton told him he couldn’t drink. The reason was that he wanted Logan to be aware of anything and everything at all times. Logan understood, but at the same time knew he was gonna be miserable. It was one of the things he enjoyed from the party, and not being able to do it just meant to him that he wasn’t going to have fun.

And when Virgil heard about all of this, he swore that he would make sure Logan would be completely fine. He even got Roman in on it, despite his protests. They knew what would be in store from Patton if they didn’t stop Logan, and there was no way they could hide it from him if they tried. Even if there was, they weren’t going to try it.

They had rushed from the store back home, finding Deceit outside on his own. “Where’s Logan?” Virgil asked as he got out of the car. 

Before the other could answer, Logan bolted out of the front door. “There you guys are! We need to get to work quickly! We have a lot to do and not enough time to do it.”

“So where do we come in?” Virgil retorted. 

“Roman, you’re on refreshments. Finish what’s left and display them. When you’re done, change into your costume.” Roman ran off. “Virgil, you’re on finishing interior decorations. When you’re done, go change.”

“Got it.” He went inside.

“Deceit, you’re on finishing up the lights and then going inside to change. When you’re done, help the other two if they need it.”

“And what will you be doing?” he inquired.

“Finishing up stuff out here. Don’t worry.”

“Shouldn’t I be doing that?”

“It’s what Patton wrote on the paper, so you tell me. Now go!”

Deceit rolled his eyes but complied. He climbed back up on the ladder and got back to work. Logan did the same. Inside, the other two were working on their individual jobs. They couldn’t help but run into each other along the way. Quite literally. 

Virgil was standing on a chair, decorating above the window. “Roman, I swear, if you walk under me one more time I’m gonna choke you with this garland!”

“It’s not my fault! You’re in my working space!”

“Well, can’t you wait until I’m done?! That table isn’t even set up yet. You’re gonna have to take everything off it now.”

Roman sighed. “Damn it.” He started moving things around again, bumping into Virgil. A couple seconds later, something hit the back of his neck. He quickly turned around, frowning. “What was that?!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Virgil answered with a shrug, hiding a smirk.

Roman looked at the ground. There was a candy beside his foot. He picked it up. “A Rolo? Really?”

“I’m telling you, wasn’t me.”

“Oh, so who was it then? Deceit?” He threw the Rolo back at him. Virgil caught it, which pissed Roman off so much that he stomped back to the kitchen. Virgil had to hide a snicker. He ate the Rolo that was fired at him while throwing another. It landed on the counter, unfortunately missing Roman. He tried again, this time hitting Roman in the eye.

“Virgil!”

It became a full blown war between the two of them in a few minutes. It didn’t stop until Logan came in and got hit by one right on the face.

“Logan, I am so, so sorry-”

“It’s fine,” Logan huffed. “Clearly, I’ve seemed to interrupt some important business going on in here.”

“You didn’t interrupt anything,” Virgil assured him. “We were, just, uh, finishing up.”

“Doesn’t look like you’re finished to me,” he said with a glance around the room.

“At least I am,” Roman boasted. He got a Rolo thrown at him as a result. Before he could retaliate, Logan intervened.

“Enough with the throwing the damn Rolos! This isn’t doing what I told you to do, now is it?!” They shook their heads. “I didn’t think so. Now get your asses back to work!”

They did. Logan supervised them along the way, filling in for Virgil when he had to go help Deceit with his costume. Everything was completely ready about ten minutes before the party was supposed to start. Logan was waiting downstairs for all of them to arrive. His costume, if you could call it that, was as minimal as he could make it. He wore a headband with a fake axe attached to it to look like it was stuck in his head and a plain black shirt with the phrase “This is my Halloween costume” on it in white lettering. Patton, of course, chastised him for it, but Logan assured him he had an actual costume prepared that he wouldn’t show off until the day of.

The first of the other three to arrive was Virgil, dressed as Jack Skellington with scarily accurate detail. He slid down the banister, landing on the ground gracefully. Deceit, dressed up as none other than Patton, arrived right after him. He also slid down the banister, landing not so gracefully on the floor face first. Virgil had to sidestep out of the way to avoid being knocked over. He got up almost right away, acting nonchalant. “That didn’t hurt at all.”

“Well, whether it hurt or not, it was a very Patton thing to do.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Too bad he couldn’t have fallen down harder.”

“Well, not everyone is the perfect embodiment of grace like you,” Deceit retorted, “Although, I did happen to see you stumble on a shoe in the living room just a few days ago, so maybe that’s an incorrect statement.”

“That was only because Roman never puts his stupid boots away! He leaves them out so much that all of us trip on them, even Logan!”

They continued bickering until Logan finally had enough and scolded them. “Could you two get along for once in your life?”

“No.”

“The free trial for that just expired.”

The nerd let out a long sigh. “Whatever, that is not the issue here. Where, in the name of Newton, is Roman?”

“Right here!” his voice boomed. All three of them quickly turned their heads to find him at the top of the stairs, showing off his extravagant costume. He was dressed as the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland. The suggestion from Virgil was intended as a joke, but Roman took it very seriously. 

“I thought you weren’t going for the heels because you couldn’t walk in them?” Virgil asked, having noticed them from the way Roman had been posed.

“Practice, emo nightmare,” Roman remarked. “Besides, the outfit isn’t complete without them.” He spun around, making the dress poof out even more than before.

“Stop showboating and get down here,” Logan demanded. Roman scoffed but obliged. “We have more important things to focus on here.”

“More like you do. We’re not the ones Patton put in charge.”

“Well, then I’m dragging you down with me.”

“What?!”

“You- you can’t do that! Can he do that, Virgil?”

“I mean, I don’t think there was anything saying he couldn’t.”

“Hah! Then that proves it!” Logan grinned.

“Oh, no!” Roman protested. “You’re not gonna get away with it that easily!”

“And how do you propose you’re going to stop me?”

Roman thought for a second. “A bet.”

“A bet?”

“Roman, no, you’re not making a bet-”

“I’m in.”

Virgil threw his hands in the air. “Why do I even bother? Tell me, Deceit, should I use my invisibility for good or for evil?”

“Great,” Roman beamed. “So, the bet is that if you don’t drink, let’s say, until Patton gets back, we’ll do whatever you want us to for a whole day.”

“We?” Deceit blurted.

“Oh, no, you’re not getting us in on your little shenanigans, Roman,” Virgil complained. Roman ignored him.

“What else?” Logan asked.

“And if you do drink, then you have to do what we want you to do for a whole day.”

He considered it. “While that is tempting, I feel like we need to, say, up the stakes more.”

“Okay, fine. Throw in twenty bucks.”

“Roman-”

“Fifty.”

“Seventy-five.”

“Roman!” Virgil barked.

“What?”

“You understand that we each have to pay him that?”

“You mean it’s not split up?” Virgil shook his head. “Oh. Fifty it is, then.”

“That’s still not any better!”

“Deal.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I did not agree to any of this!”

“Virgil, please, calm down. Guests are arriving,” Logan stated. He turned away to answer the door. As soon as he did, Virgil gave Roman the dirtiest glare.

“What’d I do?”

“What haven’t you fucking done?” Virgil retorted. “What was the whole point of that shit?”

“Dude, relax. It was a little motivator, if you will, to get him to do what he’s supposed to do so that we don’t have to intervene.”

“So, taking the lazy way out?”

Roman thought for a second. “Well, I guess when you put it that way, yeah.”

Virgil sighed. “Whatever. Let’s just get this stupid party over with.”

“Why, so you can go back to ignoring all of us?” Deceit piped up.

“Not everyone, just you,” Virgil remarked before walking off with a smirk. Roman stifled a laugh while Deceit let out an offended gasp. He then smacked Roman on the arm for laughing, which didn’t phase him much. He continued to giggle as Deceit walked off.

About an hour passed after that. Patton still wasn’t back yet. Virgil was slightly worried, but he didn’t let it get his mood down. He kept to himself in a corner until Deceit came up to him. “Virgil.“

He sighed. "I hid out to escape you guys. Lot of good that did me. What do you want?”

“I, um, have some news. Logan’s kinda drunk.”

“Oh, yeah, funny joke there, Dee. I can tell you’re lying,” he said as he took a swig of his punch.

“I’m not lying.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“Nope. You can ask Roman yourself,” Deceit defended.

“Fine.” He looked around, finding Roman not too far away. “Roman!” The prince turned his head. “Get your ass over here.”

He quickly walked over, or as quickly as one could walk in heels. “Yeah?”

“You’ve seen Logan recently, haven’t you?” Deceit asked.

“Is that what you called me over here for? Of course I’ve seen him. Who do you think told you he was drunk, dipstick?” Roman then realized what he said. His eyes widened as he looked at Virgil. “Oh shit. Virgil didn’t know about that, did he?”

“Not until now. That motherfucker.”

“Woah, hey, calm down, dude. There’s no need to get worked up about it.”

“Yes there is! Logan was told by Patton exactly what rules to follow. We all know the same Logan, don’t we? There’s no reason why he wouldn’t follow them, and if there was, it would have to be something really fucking big.”

“I’ll give you that.”

“But besides that,” Deceit piped in, “why are you so obsessed with the idea anyway?”

Virgil paused. He had a big reason, but he wasn’t going to let them two know what it was. Not anytime soon. “Because, I’m pretty sure none of us want to see Logan get Patton’s wrath, right?” They nodded. “And if he knows that we knew, we would get it too. And we don’t want that, do we?”

“Fair point.”

“But what if, like I said earlier, we just act like we didn’t know about it?” Roman blurted.

“And what if he finds out we faked it?” Virgil countered. “We’ll get it even worse because we were lying about it.”

“But what if he doesn’t find out?” Deceit inquired. “What would he do then?”

Virgil stared coldly at him. “I’m sure he’ll find out eventually. We can’t lie about it forever.”

“Maybe you can’t.”

“Whatever. I just know it’s gonna be bad if we don’t get Logan acting kinda normal before Patton gets back.”

“It won’t be if we provide distraction,“ Roman suggested. Virgil gave him a judgmental glare. "I’ll explain. While you deal with Logan, we’ll keep Patton away from you by any means necessary until everything is okay.”

The emo sighed. “While I may not have the greatest trust in you two, this is the only plan we got. Unless you have something, Dee.”

A pause. “Yes.”

“I’m taking that as a no. Roman’s plan it is then. Now, we’ve gotta find Logan. Hopefully, he isn’t that out of it.”

“Where do you suggest we look?” Roman asked. Before Virgil could answer, Logan’s voice rang loudly throughout the house. “Never mind. I think he answered that for us.”

“Okay, great. We know where he is, but how are we going to deal with him?” Virgil retorted.

“I don’t know. Maybe just sit him down and try to tell him what’s going on and hopefully persuade him to get back to acting normal?”

“Okay. Deceit?”

“We could just try hiding him away from Patton and then lying about why he isn’t out here.”

“And what if he doesn’t believe that?”

Deceit thought for a moment. “I don’t know. I didn’t think I’d get that far.”

Virgil rolled his eyes. “Roman, once again, that was a good suggestion.”

“What was a good suggestion?”

“Oh, nothing, Logan,” Roman replied casually. He then jumped about a foot then and there out of fright. “Logan! Where have you been?”

“I’ve been out having a good time. What about you?” he asked in return, slightly swaying in place. He took a drink out of the cup he was holding. “Roman, you made the punch, didn’t you? It’s really good. You should try it.”

Virgil stared straight at him. “Logan.”

“Yeah?” He wobbled a bit, latching onto Roman to keep his balance.

“Are you drunk?”

“Are you?”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Well, at least now we know for sure,” Roman said in an attempt to lighten the situation.

“I’m not as think as you drunk I am.”

“Yeah, right,” Deceit said with an eyeroll. “I know a lie when I hear one.”

“Here,” Logan blurted, sticking his arm out with the cup in hand. “Taste it. It’s the regular punch, I swear. I’ve only had one cup, no, one sip of the other one.”

Deceit looked at Virgil, then back at the cup. He grabbed it and took a sip. “He’s right,” he lied. He handed the cup back to Logan.

One look from him was all Virgil needed. “Hey, Lo, why don’t we go sit down, okay? We’ll get you something else to drink, if you want.”

“That sounds fun,” he replied, slurring his words. He almost dropped his cup, which would have spilled all over Roman had he not caught it in time. He took the cup from him before leading him over to a chair. As soon as Logan sat down, he stole it back. Roman didn’t even bother with it.

“He is completely wasted,” he said, turning to the other two. Lucky for him, Logan hadn’t been listening. 

“Yeah, no shit,” Virgil barked. He looked at Logan, who was about to drop the cup again. He rushed to take it from him. “I’ll take that. Roman, do you mind getting something else for him?”

“Do I have to? You’ve got legs too, y'know.”

“Roman, really?”

“Fine, I’ll go do it. Sheesh.”

“Don’t even bother now.” Virgil sauntered off to the kitchen. He got a water bottle from the fridge before throwing Logan’s cup away. Except it was actually his own cup, and he didn’t notice until he went to go take a drink. He rolled his eyes at his own stupidity, then glanced down at the other cup. He chugged the rest of the spiked punch in one shot, then threw it away.

When he made his way back to the group, he handed Roman the bottle to give to Logan. He faced away from them to inspect the crowd, which led to Deceit swooping in to stand beside him. Virgil side-eyed him but didn’t say anything.

“You know, I saw you earlier.”

“You see me all the time. Next question.”

Deceit furrowed his brows. “I meant in the kitchen, dumbass.”

Virgil shrugged. “I’m sure everyone else did, dipshit. You’re not special.”

Deceit huffed. “Oh, yeah, well, did they see you drinking?”

“Probably. They also probably saw a lot of other people doing the same thing. Hydration is important.”

The other snarled. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Maybe I do, maybe I don’t. I’m not letting your stupid intimidation tactics get to me. So, you can kindly fuck off now if you’d like.”

Deceit’s mouth hung open in shock. Well, more like offense than shock. “You don’t need to be an asshole about it, damn.”

Virgil finally turned and faced him. “You don’t need to be snitching on me for stupid shit! We’re all on the same side here! There’s no point in it!”

“Am I interrupting something?” Roman piped in. He stood on the other side of Deceit, looking directly at Virgil.

“No, why?”

“Oh, I just came in to report on Logan. He’s doing fine, actually.”

“Is he now?” Virgil asked, glancing behind him. “Damn it, Roman!”

“What’d I do now?” He turned around. “Oh shit!”

“This is just fucking great! We lost him, again!”

“I think he’s just trying to escape,” Deceit suggested.

“No shit. I highly doubt he isn’t aware of the consequences of what he’s doing. He just likes to test fate. And our patience.”

“You got that right,” Roman sighed.

“You two go look for him. I’ll stay here,” Virgil ordered. They nodded and ran off.

At that moment, his phone buzzed in his jacket pocket. It couldn’t have been a worse time.

“This better be good,” he muttered. He turned his phone on, looking at the notification on his lockscreen. A text message. From Patton.

He hesitated to open it. He did it anyways, knowing if he didn’t open it sooner than later, he was in for it.

Patton: Hey there kiddo! I’m about 10 mins away from home now. Everything good? Haven’t heard anything from Logan. 

“Shit.” He had to lie. He had to. And he had to let the other two know, wherever the fuck they were.

Virgil: hey pat. yup things are running smoother than ever. Logan got distracted with some stuff i think but will let him know

Instant reply.

Patton: Good to hear! See ya soon

Virgil: see ya

He quickly shut his phone off and shoved it into his pocket. “Fucking hell.”

Just then, Roman ran up to him, slightly panting. “How can anyone move around in these things? I take one step, and not only am I tired, but I’ve managed to knock three people over in the process.”

“I think they just fake it the whole time,” Virgil remarked. He then noticed Roman’s sudden change in height. “What happened to the heels?”

“I ditched those fuckers. Even with practice, I still can’t walk with them. Much less run.” He got a nod from Virgil. “You okay, Virge? You look more worried than usual.”

“Glad you noticed. Ten minutes and ticking until Patton gets here.”

Roman’s jaw dropped. “You’re joking.”

“Not one fucking bit.”

“Well, hate to make things worse, but we can’t find him.”

“What?! What do you mean you can’t find him?!”

“We searched everywhere we know, and he’s nowhere to be found! Deceit is still looking, but I don’t think he’s gonna have much luck.”

Virgil rubbed his temples and sighed. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

“I do, and I don’t want to.”

“We’re fucking dead meat.”

Just then, Deceit decided to make himself present. He noticed the worried looks on Roman and Virgil’s faces and questioned it. “What happened? Who died?”

“We’re going to if we can’t find Logan in less than ten minutes,” Virgil complained.

“Let me guess, Patton is gonna be back by then.”

“How’d you know?”

“Kinda the obvious answer, don’t you think?” He got a nod from both of them. “Well, you can clearly see I’ve had success with finding Logan. What is your next suggestion, oh wise and humble leader?” he sarcastically aimed at Virgil.

Virgil acknowledged the dig at him with an eyeroll. “Just keep doing what we have been doing. Whoever is closest to the front of the house by the time Patton gets here has to text the other two and tell them, then be a distraction until we find Logan again.”

“I don’t have my phone on me,” Roman announced.

Virgil huffed, “And why the hell is that?”

“Does this dress look like it has pockets on it?” Virgil shook his head. “Yeah, didn’t think so.”

“Then why didn’t you just hold it?”

Deceit sighed, being just loud enough to make them turn their heads to him. “You two are wasting time arguing here!”

“He’s right,” Virgil agreed. “Roman, just keep close to Dee then, since you can’t get your phone.”

“I mean, I could-”

“We don’t have the time! Just go find Logan and stick to the plan!” he demanded. They headed off towards the front of the house while Virgil planned on going towards the back. As he passed by the stairs, a familiar voice sung out his name.

“Virgil!”

He turned his head sharply. “Logan?! What the hell are you doing up there?”

“What the hell are you doing down there?” Logan creatively replied back. He was sitting on the top step.

“You know why. Get down here!”

“No.”

“Logan!”

“Here, catch!” He launched the water bottle given to him earlier down the stairs.

Virgil caught it in his right hand without even flinching. He gritted his teeth as he stared Logan down. “Get your ass down here now, Logan!”

“Make me, bitch!”

“That’s it!” Virgil started stomping up the stairs. As a result, Logan bolted the other way into one of the rooms before Virgil could see him. “Damn it, Logan! We don’t have the time for this!” He threw the water bottle to the floor in his fit of frustration. “Patton is gonna be here any minute now, and if he sees you like this, he’s gonna kill you!”

“I am more sober than I have ever been in my life,” Logan called. Virgil had noticed the sound came from his room. He walked over to the door and stood by it as he talked to Logan on the other side.

“Dude, you’re acting like a complete buffoon. You only do that if you’re drunk or if you’ve met some freaking deadline earlier than planned. I think we both know what the situation is here.”

A pause. Logan answered, sounding serious. “Have I really?”

Virgil laughed. “Were you not aware that you threw a water bottle at me just now? You are so out of it, dude.”

“I didn’t throw it, I handed it to you,” Logan insisted. “Clearly I’m not that out of it.”

“If you insist,” Virgil said with a smirk. More commotion erupted from the crowd below, so he turned to look. Sure enough, Patton had walked through the door.

“Shit!” he muttered to himself. “Logan, let me in!”

“Why?”

“It’s my room, fucker, I’m allowed in there if I want to be.”

“Don’t you have a party to be at, or something?” Logan slurred as he reluctantly opened the door.

“So do you.” Virgil entered and closed the door. His phone went off in his pocket shortly after. As he predicted, it was Deceit telling him what he already knew. He leaned against the door as he pulled it out of his pocket.

Deceit: Our man of the hour is here

Virgil: yeah no shit i could see him

Deceit: Where tf are you

Virgil: take a wild fucking guess

Deceit: Obviously down here next to me

Virgil: yeah we’ll go with that

is the idiot with you

Deceit: Which one

Virgil: lmao you know who

Deceit: I finally got rid of him

We’re all free at last

Virgil: hah I’ll believe it when i see it

Deceit: Fair enough

Any luck on finding Logan

“Who you texting?” Logan asked in a sing-song voice. He was on Virgil’s bed laying upside down with his head hanging over the edge. His headband ended up falling off without him noticing.

Virgil instantly fired back a sarcastic comment. “Your mom.”

“How can you text what doesn’t exist?”

He had to resist laughing. “I was joking, Logan.”

Virgil: possibly 

Deceit: He’s with you isn’t he

Virgil: perhaps

Deceit: Hey giving vague answers is my thing stop that

Virgil: maybe

“I knew that,” Logan insisted. He then decided to roll off the bed, landing hard onto the floor. 

Deceit: Bitch 

Virgil read the message, then looked up from his screen when he heard Logan fall. “You good, Lo?”

His face was smashed into the carpet, muffling his answer. “Absolutely. Hey, did you know your carpet smells nice?”

“Not until now, but thank you for telling me.”

Virgil: you know it

how is roman doing

Deceit: Looks like so far he’s been talking Patton’s ear off

Oh shit they’re coming over by me

Wish me luck

Virgil: nah I’m good

Deceit: Oh fuck off 

He sent that last message and looked up. Patton and Roman had walked up to him, still finishing their own conversation. Roman caught a glance at Deceit looking at him and quickly addressed him. “Hey, Dee, look who’s back!” He noticed the forced smile on Roman’s face. One look at Patton and he would have been a dead giveaway.

He acknowledged Patton with a small wave. “Hey.” He glanced at the other’s costume. “Nice attention to detail. I like it.”

“Oh really? Thank you so much!” Patton said with a grin. He was dressed as Fix-It Felix. “I do have to say you make a very convincing me.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Deceit admitted. “Virgil helped me with most of it.”

“Oh, wow! Speaking of Virgil, where is he, by the way? And Logan? Aren’t they usually out here with you guys?”

Deceit looked over at Roman, whose eyes went wide with fright. Neither of them had thought of an excuse. If Patton caught onto their bullshitting, the whole plan was fucked.

“I’m sure they’re around here somewhere.”

“Have you tried looking?”

“Hey, Patton, how about you go set your stuff down in your room?” Roman interrupted. “You won’t have to carry your things around with you while you go have fun!”

“Roman, I’m sure that’s not necessary-”

“Well, kiddo, if you insist, then I’ll go. Care to join me?” Patton asked.

“Yeah, sure.” Roman had just turned to walk off with Patton when Deceit called him back. He told Patton to wait for him by the stairs, then walked back over. “What?”

Deceit promptly smacked him on the back of the head. “What are you doing?”

“First of all, ow! Second of all, what do you mean what am I doing? What’s wrong with going up there?”

“Did you forget that Logan and Virgil are up there?”

Roman looked at Deceit with the most offended glare he could muster before smacking him back. “Did you forget that you didn’t tell me shit about that?”

“Oh, well then my bad. You had every right to hit me. But that’s not the point here. You have got to keep Patton distracted until they get down here.”

“Well how long is that gonna be?”

Deceit shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if Virgil has actually found him yet, much less got him convinced to act normal.”

“Okay, how about when he does? How are you gonna let me know?”

“I’ll go up there and get you or something. I don’t know yet. Just go before Patton starts suspecting something.” He ushered Roman away with his hands, then quickly got back to texting Virgil.

Deceit: Dude Patton and Roman are heading up your way

Virgil: what

are you joking

fuck me

Deceit: How is Logan doing

Virgil: not much better. what do you suggest I do

Deceit: Continue doing what you can do. Only come down if you know he’s capable of acting normal. Otherwise it’ll be too suspicious 

Virgil: yeah no shit 

Deceit: Moving on. Find me when you get down here because I have to get Roman afterwards

Virgil: why

Deceit: I sacrificed him

Virgil: hallelujah

The emo looked up from his phone at Logan, who was bouncing all over the place in his room. He sighed. “Logan.”

The other was startled at the call of his name and bumped into Virgil’s shelf of CDs as a result. They all fell noisily to the floor.

“Damn it, those were alphabetized,” Virgil whined. “Can you sit still for one minute?”

“Nope.” He walked over to the vanity Virgil had on the other side of his room. It was still littered with the items used for his costume’s make-up. Logan took the chance to start fiddling with them.

Virgil almost didn’t notice it. “Logan, no!”

While he continued dealing with Logan, Patton dealt with Roman. He was acting highly suspicious, insisting that he stayed in his room way longer than what he needed to. Patton had enough of it.

“Roman, what is the matter with you? What’s wrong with leaving?”

“Oh, nothing’s wrong,” Roman lied.

“I don’t believe you. Tell me what’s going on. You’ve been acting suspicious the whole time we have been up here!”

Roman looked down, then back up at Patton. The look on his face made him feel even more guilty for keeping it from him. He had to tell the truth. The sneaking around wasn’t getting him anywhere now. “Okay, fine. I wasn’t gonna say anything, but I can’t keep this stupid charade up anymore. Virgil is hiding out with Logan because Logan’s drunk as hell. We’re trying to hide him from you because we know how much trouble he was gonna be in for it. He keeps running off on us, and now you’re here so it’s adding to the confusion of what to do and where to go and I’m just so damn tired of it-”

“Roman, slow down. Slow down. I know you’re probably stressed out, but it’s okay. You’re fine.”

“They’re gonna get mad over the fact that I ratted them out, Patton, and then what’s gonna happen?” Roman countered.

“I will make sure they don’t,” Patton said sternly. “Now, do you know for sure where Virgil and Logan are at?”

“Deceit just told me they were somewhere up here.”

Patton nodded. “Alright. Come with me, okay?”

“Yeah, okay.”

Patton opened the door to find Deceit on the other side. He immediately gave him a dirty look. “What are you doing?”

“Just making sure everything is okay, you know?” Deceit attempted to assure him.

“I don’t believe you one bit.” Patton pushed past him. “Which room are they in?”

“I don’t know who you’re talking about-”

“I’m not going to ask you again,” Patton demanded, his voice lowering for effect.

“Virgil’s room, I think.”

Patton sped over to the other end of the hallway. He opened the door and walked in without hesitation. The other two followed close behind him.

Virgil was in the middle of lecturing Logan again, stopping once he heard the door open. He turned around and looked at the other three, shock clearly on his face. He failed to come up with an excuse as Patton stared him down.

Logan tried breaking the tension, but just made it worse. “I must be drunk, because I am totally seeing double right now.” He pointed at Patton and Deceit.

Virgil shot a quick glare at him before looking apologetically at Patton. “Patton, I swear I can explain-”

“In the hallway. Now.”

“But-”

“Now, Virgil!”

Virgil gave a reluctant sigh and got up. He skittered past Patton, avoiding eye contact. As soon as he left, Patton turned to Logan. “Hey, Logan, can you stay here for just a couple minutes and not do anything? This is Virgil’s room, and I’m sure he doesn’t want you to mess it up.”

Logan enthusiastically nodded, grinning like a dork. “Sure thing, Patton,” he slurred.

“Good, good.” He feigned a smile until he had latched the door, then gave the other three the dirtiest glare as he turned around.

“Whatever it was we did, we didn’t do it!” Roman blurted.

“Bullshit!” Patton retorted. “I asked you three to do one thing. One thing! And what do you idiots do?! This!” He pointed at the door for emphasis before continuing. “You better have an explanation for this besides being lazy.”

“We weren’t being lazy, Patton,” Virgil defended. “We really did try keeping track of Logan. He kept escaping every chance he got!”

Roman nodded. “That is true. He did it before we even found out he was drunk.” He then laughed to himself. “You’d think he wouldn’t have wanted to lose the bet after acting cocky about it.” He realized what he said right after he said it and slapped a hand over his mouth.

“A bet?” Patton inquired. “What bet? I was never informed of a bet.”

“We didn’t make an actual bet. It was a figure of speech,” Virgil said in an attempt at backpedaling.

Patton raised an eyebrow. “Deceit, was an actual bet made?”

“It was indeed made.”

The stern glare returned to Patton’s face, added with the crossing of his arms.

“Shit,” Roman muttered. “Sorry, Virge.”

“Roman, what was the bet?”

The prince sighed in defeat. “If he didn’t drink, we would each pay him fifty bucks on top of doing whatever he wanted us to do for a day. If he did, he would pay us each that much and do whatever we wanted him to do. But we only made the bet because he was wanting to drag us down with the stupid no drinking rule!”

Virgil glared at Roman before he spoke. “Stop trying to pull the ‘we’ shit! You made the bet all on your own and dragged us two into it! You’re a hypocrite if you’re calling Logan cocky!”

“I did not!”

“Did too!”

“Enough!” Patton scolded yet again. “You’re bickering like children. I want nothing more from you two unless you are spoken to directly. Is that clear?” They nodded. “Deceit, is what Virgil said true?”

“Every bit. Virgil did try his best to stop Roman from making the bet in general, I can confirm that,” he answered.

“I don’t doubt that. Roman, what was your excuse?” Patton asked.

“I…I don’t know,” Roman said with a shrug. “No, wait, I do. It was because Virgil dragged me down with him first!”

“When did I do that?!”

“At the store! When we were talking to Logan!”

Virgil recalled the memory, then instantly scoffed. “Really?! You started all of this shit over that?! Now you’re just being petty!”

Roman was going to answer, but he looked at Patton, keeping in mind what he said before. Patton gave him the nod to continue. “No. I wasn’t. I wasn’t trying to be petty or anything. I was genuinely trying to help in the best way I knew how. I know how much this thing stresses you out, Virgil, so I was only trying to, you know, not make that happen. Lot of good that did me. I’m…sorry about that, Virge. And, Patton, I’m sorry that we didn’t do exactly what we told you to, even though we tried our best otherwise.”

Patton softened his gaze. “I can’t get mad at you guys for trying to fix everything. But I can get mad at you for lying and trying to hide things from me. And for that, at least one of you three will have to sacrifice the rest of your night to take care of Logan. Who’s it gonna be?”

“Not it!” Roman and Deceit blurted at the same time. 

Virgil rolled his eyes and sighed. “Of course.”

“You’ll be fine, kiddo. Besides that, we’ll finish this discussion later,” Patton declared. Not even a second later and he was scolding the other two. “Do not slide down the banister! What have I told you about doing that?!” He gave Virgil a quick wave before rushing down after them.

Virgil had to chuckle. After everything that just went down, he needed it. He turned towards his bedroom door, took a deep breath, and opened it.

Logan was now sitting on the floor. He threw his arms up in the air as he saw Virgil arrive. “You’re back!" 

He smirked to keep from laughing. "Yeah, I am. How’d you get down there?”

“How’d you get up there?” Logan said with a giggle.

“I’m standing up, Lo,” Virgil said with a chuckle. “You haven’t forgotten how that works, have you?”

“Psh, no!”

“If you say so.” Virgil went and sat down next to him. “I’m gonna stay here with you, okay?” Logan only responded with a hum of approval before leaning his head on Virgil’s shoulder. Virgil smiled softly at the gesture.

He didn’t mind staying like that for the rest of the night. He didn’t mind missing out on the party. He didn’t mind being with Logan, secretly because it was what he wanted. Sure, he wasn’t completely aware of everything, but that didn’t mean Virgil wasn’t willing to take care of him.

Maybe he was falling for Logan. It was a weird time to realize that, he would admit, but he figured being there for him at his worst wasn’t a bad thing. If anything, it should have meant something important, right?

That’s what he kept telling himself. It felt right. It was right.

He just hoped Logan felt that same way.

[a-mountain-girl]

alright it’s venting time because I think better when I write and I can’t find anyone irl who I could talk to about all of this.

But before I begin if someone could bring me a gigantic bar of chocolate (milk pls I’m so sick of dark chocolate that’s all “santa” gave me for Christmas like... did mom forget I don’t like dark chocolate?) or a pint of peanut butter, pistachio, or moose tracks ice cream that would help.

Like, I understand that this hasn’t been a bad day necessarily just a bad hour that has since spiraled into a several bad hours and I’m more upset about underlying issues than I am about what happened. So what happened? 

Well it all seems innocuous enough. I went to my senior capstone class and met my classmates (all of whom I know from other classes) and the professor (who I’ve taken a class from before, this is important). We talked about the syllabus and class structure and I exercised an admirable amount of self-control in not excusing myself to go scream in the snow. I really, really wanted to go do that. 

The problems are 1) This is the only professor I have ever given a bad rating and for good reason. I don’t want to spend too much time on this but at first I was thinking “this guy seems pretty chill if a bit annoying” and then when he was talking about his education and specialty I realized... this is That Professor. This is That Guy. This is the one I actually called a dick in the course evaluation. Because I took the required survey of american literature from colonialism to the civil war course from this guy; this was online which made things worse. Now this was supposed to be a LITERATURE course, a SURVEY of LITERATURE. His course design was literally 50% ART, another 30% was dense paragraphs about history (I’m ADHD I absolutely cannot get through gigantic blocks of dry, useless text within a reasonable time frame), another 20% was bits of literature and media that was not relevant to the time period because his big thing was “How are these things influenced or developed from early American literature and/or history?!” Like.... I DON’T KNOW BECAUSE WE HAVEN’T STUDIED IT DIPSHIT! Then to add to it his expectations were that C is Average bullshit like, you’re setting your students up for failure when you set it up like C is the grade you expect to give them and to get an A a student has to go above and beyond like no, if a student meets expectations they should get an A. You’re just an asshole. Then his expectations for regular coursework were buried on a completely different website and never repeated, they also didn’t make sense. They were not clear. And then his idea of “feedback” is to ramble for paragraphs on a tangent and NEVER TELL ME WHY TF HE GAVE ME THE GRADE HE DID! Feedback needs to include an explanation of what the student did right and wrong so they can improve in the future. His rambling along with the lack of clarity in instructions made it impossible to get good, much less consistent grades. I’d try to follow all the instructions, even put in extra effort and get excited and I’d get a poor grade on an assignment in spite of doing everything right according to his incomprehensible instructions and then I’d half-ass a discussion post, turn it in late, and get an A and three paragraphs of this guy rambling excitedly in the comments. Like, it was impossible to figure out what he actually wanted us to do and then I was already mad enough about the lack of focus on what the class was actually supposed to be about and all this led to me throwing in the towel and either half-assing everything or just skipping assignments because I couldn’t care anymore. I have no desire to study under this buffoon’s “guidance” again.

2) One of the classmates is Obnoxious Man, who I will point out isn’t even graduating this spring and therefore really doesn’t need to be in this class and I think he shouldn’t be. I’m uncomfortable enough with the professor but I would be willing to give him a second chance in light of his whole thing about it being “student-led” and it being easier to communicate in person. But Obnoxious Man makes this impossible. The professor wants us sharing and working together all semester. I am not comfortable sharing anything remotely personal such as a reading I find fascinating or working with this man. I will not be giving him any access to me outside of the classroom. He will not be getting my phone number or my email. His vibes are disgusting and I’ve been dealing with boys and men just like him since kindergarten. I don’t care if he hasn’t actually done anything to threaten me, based on previous experience I won’t even take a chance. The second to last guy like this spent weeks harassing me because he wanted me to date him, the last guy would steal my stuff and stalk me. I had to get the school equivalent to a restraining order which he still found every excuse to violate. I can’t do this but I also can’t just drop the class because I, unlike Obnoxious Man, have to graduate this spring. I thought I could tolerate him after last semester but there’s a big difference between having to put up with him in discussion-based classes during half of the week and him having access to me.

3) I was thrown by the actual expectations laid out in the syllabus. I thought I would be doing a whole new, intensive project. I had a great idea and was actually getting excited. Instead we’re supposed to do group projects (see above for issues with that) and a personal project which will be revising an old paper like... when I finish a class I am done. D O N E. I never want to see that crap again. I don’t think I even still have half of that material! There isn’t one of those papers that I want to look at, much less expand! And how is this really challenging? The professor, Mr. Dickhead, went on and on about how important revising is to critical writing yada yada yada but maybe I don’t care?! Maybe I’m only in this degree as preparation for grad school in a different area? I hate writing critical analysis 99% of the time. It’s like pulling teeth. That’s not a great metaphor because I’m now expected to drag all these papers I want to forget about back into the horrible light of day. And I don’t know if these expectations were invented by the department or by the professor so I don’t know who to be mad at or if I could possibly request some sort of independent project.

4) Because of this and some things said by other students in their introductions (all positive things btw) I started into a reactionary spiral of feeling inadequate, childish, stupid, helpless, etc. etc. Like, one of these classmates is a finalist for a Fullbright scholarship which apparently had to be applied to in October and I didn’t know any of this?! Like that stuff is important but nobody tells me things and I don’t know how people know about all these scholarships and awards and programs and stuff that is helpful. It’s hard enough just making it through the day and doing a mediocre job on my assignments. It took me months to get up the courage to ask professors for recommendations. Filling out graduate applications has been hell and I had to tell my advisor yesterday that she’s not finished with the recs because there’s on in her inbox she missed and I still have to submit one more application that I was feeling good about yesterday and now am about ready to give up on. And the writing center isn’t open and I don’t want to be a burden on my advisor and talk to her about any of these issues...

[marvelousbirthdays]

Happy Birthday, sarratorrens

April 13-Sam & Bucky after CW AU: "What did you say?" Platonic soulmates for @sarratorrens

Written by @iamartemisday

When it was all over, from the fighting to the politics to the alien invasions, they finally sat down and talked about it.

“You’re an asshole.” Sam had no interest in dancing around the issue. Good. Neither did Bucky.

“I’m not the one who wouldn’t move his seat.” Bucky eyed Sam’s shoulder, where those fateful words from that fateful car trip had been inked by the universe in silver writing.

Sam adjusted his shirt, even though the words were already covered. “I’m not the one who rips steering wheels out of cars.”

“I said I was sorry.”

“I loved that car.”

“You can buy another one.”

“Would you say that to a mother who lost a child?”

Bucky massaged his forehead. This was worse than trying to stop Steve from jumping out of planes without a parachute. “You know what? Fine. Have it your way.”

He stalked out of the room, not caring in the slightest if Sam watched him go. He definitely didn’t look back.

He didn’t want some dumb platonic soulmate anyway.

**

Two days later, his brand new box of Rice Krispies went missing.

It was Sam. He had no evidence, no witnesses, and no clear motive, but it was absolutely Sam.

When Steve didn’t believe him because Sam was such a stand-up guy who’d never steal, Bucky took matters into his own hands. He picked the lock to Sam’s apartment and walked in to find him at the kitchen table, the offending box of cereal right there in plain view as he enjoyed a crackling bowl.

“That’s mine,” Bucky said, making use of his ‘soldat’ voice as Natasha liked to call it.

Unlike a trainee or Peter Parker, Sam was entirely unmoved. “We’re soulmates. Soulmates share.”

“We’re also human beings. Human beings ask before they take things. Otherwise, their spines get broken.”

“Nobody’s stopping you from having somel.” Sam gestured with his head at the empty seat pulled out as if in wait of him. “Go ahead. I dare you.”

Bucky snatched up his cereal box and knocked the milk carton to the floor for good measure. White liquid spilled everywhere. It would take Sam all morning to clean it up.

For the moment, Bucky was satisfied.

**

He woke up from a nap with a photo stuck to his metal arm. Attached with a kitchen magnet. It was one of those New York skyline magnets they sold at souvenir shops in Times Square. Bucky hated those things.

The photo was of Sam’s hand flipping him off. How childish.

Bucky dropped his pants and Sam’s phone was soon graced with the image of his perfect ass. That’ll show him.

**

Sam’s redwings malfunctioned in a battle against a terrorist cell holding an investment bank hostage. Instead of attacking the bad guys, they staged a mutiny. While Sam batted them away, Bucky dispatched all seven terrorists with ruthless efficiency. Every single one of them was an amateur. They couldn’t even aim right. Why the Avengers had been called when a rookie with a donut in his hand could’ve handled it was beyond him.

The headlines the next day were awesome.

WHITE WOLF DEFEATS TERRORISTS. RESCUES TEAMMATE.

“You still haven’t thanked me for saving your ass,” Bucky grinned at Sam as he dropped another copy of the paper onto his lap (there were seven hundred more stashed away in his closet to wallpaper Sam’s bedroom with later).

Sam had the eyes of a hungry leopard. “What did you do to my babies?”

Bucky gasped. “Are you accusing me of sabotaging your equipment to embarrass you on a mission? I can’t believe you think so little of me.”

“I can’t believe suck my dick,” Sam snapped, crumpling up the paper and throwing it at Bucky’s head. To his credit, he made the shot.

“No can do. After that horrible offense, I don’t even want to be in the same room as you. Goodbye, dear platonic soulmate of mine.”

Bucky departed to a cacophony of bad language.

**

“Hey there! Any superheroes around? I need some new photos for my album.”

It was a curly haired young woman with glasses and a hat. Bucky had never seen her before, so he figured she was one of those new ‘consultants’ Steve was telling him about. They were getting two: a physicist and an administrative assistant. This girl didn’t look like either of those things, but as this was a private lounge no visitors should have access to, he wouldn’t call security just yet.

“Hi,” he said, waving her over. “I’m Bucky, I-”

“I know you!” She skipped over and shook his hand. That was the idea anyway. If she hadn’t grabbed the metal one he’d worry about his shoulder dislocating. “Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier, White Wolf. So many names, dude. You need to consolidate. I’m Darcy Lewis, intern and assistant extraordinaire. You may have heard of me.”

“Vaguely,” Bucky took his arm back as quickly and politely as he could. “I knew you were coming, but-”

“Yeah, this is way more exciting than when I went to New Mexico to be Jane’s assistant.” She flopped down on the couch like this was her own apartment. “Not that New Mexico can’t be fun if you’re in a place like Albuquerque, but we were in a real dust bowl. Actually, a dust bowl would’ve been good. This was like a dust bowl within a dust bowl. I remember this one time I had to charge my phone, and-”

Thirty minutes later

“I say to the guy, ‘I don’t care about your grandmother’s bowel movements, just pay me five bucks so I can go. And then he gave me the money and I bought a new charger, and I could finally charge my phone.” Darcy took the first breath Bucky had seen her take. “And then there was the time I had to get Jane a new battery for her laptop.”

“You know what? I just remembered I have to be somewhere right now.” Bucky shot off the couch like it was on fire. “Somewhere important… but you know, that was a really great story you were telling. I have this buddy, Sam Wilson, and I bet he’d love to hear it.”

“You mean the Falcon?” Darcy’s eyes lit up. “He’s my favorite! No offense.”

“None taken.” He entered Sam’s number into her phone, along with his apartment number and other relevant information.

“I’ll just pop on over and say hi.” She raced out the door, only to poke her head back in seconds later. “Almost forgot. Say cheese!”

Bucky did not say cheese and he didn’t smile. Darcy took the picture anyway.

“Nice,” she said, tapping a few buttons. “Friend me on Facebook. I’ll tag you.”

When she was gone and beautiful silence was restored, Bucky fell on the couch in a dead faint.

‘Have a good time, Sammy,’ he thought evilly.

Bucky went back to his apartment and ate dinner while waiting for the obligatory threatening text message he was sure to receive at any moment. By noon the next day, it still hadn’t come.

A full twenty-four hours after Bucky unleashed the Chatty Cathy horror that was Darcy upon an unsuspecting Sam, his phone finally went off. Sam had sent him a photo. It was of him with Darcy in his lap, kissing his cheek. There was writing on her neck he hadn’t seen before. It looked like the singular ‘no’ on his bicep.

‘Thanks for finding her for me.’

Bucky crushed the phone.

**

‘Just great,’ he thought later on after failing to fix his ruined phone. ‘Now I need to buy a new one and Sam is one up on me. I can’t believe that guy. Here I was trying to make peace with him, and all he wants to do is be a two-year-old kicking sand in my face. Un-fucking-real. Of all the people I have to be destined for. I don’t even want to think about what my romantic soulmate will be like.’

He stepped outside and ran straight into a petite figure, stopping his train of thought. The woman, soft where he was solid, bounced off him like a ping pong ball. She was no bigger than Steve before the serum, and some long-buried protective instincts rose to the surface as he bent over her.

“Jesus, I am so sorry. Let me help you.”

“I’m fine,” she said, pushing the hair out of her eyes. “Should’ve looked where I was going. I always do that.”

She got up using his arm as leverage. Bucky would’ve helped properly, but her words were burning in his brain and on his back. He stared at her like an idiot, like he hadn’t been lectured by his father every day on what to do when this day came. Something about being a gentleman and inviting her to dinner which he had to pay for. Maybe that last part was different with the modern day’s more egalitarian attitude towards dating, but at the very least, he shouldn’t be staring so much. Or at all.

“Sorry,” she said nervously, hands stuffed in her pockets. “I’m Jane Foster, I think you know my friend, Darcy.”

Bucky nodded. “Uh huh…”

Jane bit her lip. “She told me I should come and talk to you. I’m not sure why... actually, did I just say your-”

“Soulmate words,” he said with her. “Yeah, I… I think you did.”

He took Jane’s hand and squeezed it. Not too tight, just enough to feel her warmth. She squeezed right back and suddenly, the day was a little brighter.

**

It became easy to avoid Sam. He just had to spend all his free time with Jane. Getting to know her, learning about her research, taking her on long walks through the park, kissing her in the moonlight, making her cry out his name in ecstasy under the sheets.

He barely thought of Sam for a whole month. If they worked together, they didn’t speak unless it was mission critical. Nobody knew about their secret bond as of yet. Steve chalked the animosity up to stress and never tried playing mediator. For Christmas, Tony gifted them a ‘get-along’ shirt, which was promptly stolen by Jane and used as a sweat rag while she performed maintenance on her weather machines.

It was, shockingly enough, she who breached the topic two days after he and Sam took down a suicide bomber and only got the bomb dismantled with four seconds to go.

“Look, it’s not that simple,” Bucky said, pressing an ice pack to his head. He wasn’t in pain anymore, but with the cold came numbness. He needed some of that right now. “I’ve been trained in a lot of things, but diffusing bombs is not one of them. We got it in the end.”

“Yeah, barely,” Jane said, turning a wrench way harder than she needed to. “If you’d been one second late, we wouldn’t be having this conversation right now. Because you’d be dead. You understand that, right?”

Bucky did realize it, and it really sucked. He never wanted to be one of those guys who complained about ‘nagging girlfriends’, especially when Jane had every reason to be mad at him. He just… really didn’t want to have this conversation.

“What do you want me to do?”

Jane dropped the wrench and took a seat on the table. She was so light, it barely squeaked under her weight.

“Darcy told me you and Sam were arguing the whole time,” she puts a hand on his face, making him meet her gaze. “That’s why you were having problems.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“He’s your partner. And your soulmate.”

“You’re my soulmate.”

“Look, I know romantic and platonic soulmates aren’t the same thing, but they’re not so different either.” Jane wrapped her arms around him, moving from the table to his lap. “Most people don’t even have one soulmate, let alone two. People like us… we’re basically born with an emotional support system already laid out for us, and that’s not something to run away from.”

Bucky furrowed his brow. “Us? You have a platonic mark, too?”

The non-sequitur bugged her. He could tell without her saying anything. She pulled back her hair to show him the words behind her ear. It was such a small space, no wonder he’d never noticed before.

“Man this place is hot as balls. How do you even stand it?” he read, a grin forming. “Darcy, huh?”

Jane giggled. “The first few weeks were the worst. We couldn’t agree on anything. She drove me so nuts I had to sleep on the roof by the firepit.”

That didn’t sound right. Bucky had seen them together a bunch of times (without Sam of course) and those girls couldn’t be closer if they were sisters.

She seemed to read his mind. “We needed time to get where we are now, and I think you can have the same thing with Sam if you try.”

“He won’t try,” Bucky said. “He’s hated me from the start. Not that I blame him. We didn’t meet under the best circumstances.”

“None of that was your fault, Bucky. Sam knows that.”

“Does he?”

“Yes.” Jane touched her forehead to his. “I know I can’t force you to talk to him, but at least think about it. Because deep down, I think you guys do care about each other, or this wouldn’t be hurting you so much.”

“It’s not,” he said, even though lying to her felt worse than a punch to the chest.

“Just promise me you’ll be civil with him. You know, so you don’t get blown up.”

“I promise,” Bucky mumbled. Then he buried his face in the crook of her neck where he could forget all his troubles.

**

Sam was in the lounge, which sucked because it should’ve been empty this time of day.

Bucky was only there because he had no bad guys to fight and Jane wouldn’t be back from her meeting for another half hour. With nothing else to do, he’d hoped to get a nap in and maybe watch some TV. Instead, he found the bane of his existence resting in a recliner (the one Bucky usually sat in of course) reading a book and pretending to be dead to the world.

Which he wasn’t. Bucky knew that because his hands tensed and his breathing sped up as Bucky made a spot for himself on the couch.

The TV was in the corner and the remote within reach. He should’ve turned it on, but he didn’t. He grabbed a magazine off the coffee table. Nobody knew why Tony kept them when nobody ever read them. When asked, he’d only say it was for aesthetic purposes. Whatever that meant.

“So…” he licked his lips. “Nice weather we’re having.”

“Yeah,” said Sam.

“Pretty warm for March. Must be that climate change thing I keep hearing about.”

“Right.”

Bucky rolled his shoulders. Sam scratched his nose. They continued their reading as Bucky found himself on the same sentence six times. Every few seconds, his eyes flicked to Sam, searching for the slightest shift in expression. He soon gave up on the illusion of reading and set the magazine down.

He was ready to just leave, but if he didn’t say his peace, Jane would never let him hear the end of it. Best to get it over with and then go back to their mutual denial of each other’s existence.

Bucky took a breath-

“I’m sorry, okay?”

-and released it. Hard. His chest hurt now. “What did you say?”

Sam groaned like repeating himself was worse than the labors of Hercules. “You heard me. I’m sorry. I’ve been acting like a jerk and being unfair, so I’m sorry. I promise not to do it again.”

Bucky appraised him, his pursed lips and tight posture, like he was reciting lines for a play. “Did Darcy put you up to this?”

“You bet she did.” Sam returned to his book. He appeared to be on the wrong page. “Jane put you up to it?”

“She wants us to make up and get along because that’s what soulmates do. Did you know she and Darcy are platonic?”

“Yeah, I saw the mark.”

Bucky sighed and rubbed his face. “They’re not going to let it go until we make up for real.”

“Eh, they’ll get bored.”

“No we won’t!” Darcy and Jane stuck their heads out from behind the kitchen counter. Jane’s cursed as she realized they were caught and forced Darcy down. “Uh… I mean, pay no attention to the women next to the fridge. Carry on as you were”

Sam rolled his eyes but couldn’t hold back a grin. Neither could Bucky.

“I guess we could try,” he said. “Make a fresh start or some shit.”

“We could also do nothing,” said Sam.

“You could also sleep on that couch for a month,” Darcy snapped. “You, too, Bucky.”

“That’s not up to you, Lewis.”

“Bucky,” Jane said in her rarely used but deadly ‘I’m pissed’ voice. “Couch.”

Sam and Bucky looked at each other. They both knew how this was going to end, no point in delaying it. Bucky curled his fingers, then relaxed them. He held his hand out to Sam. “Hi, I’m Bucky. I’m your platonic soulmate. Nice to meet you.”

Sam looked at his hand like it was covered in mud, then took it anyway. “Sam Wilson. Nice to meet you, too.”

They shook and, somewhere in the back of Bucky’s mind where he never ventured, he was actually kind of glad for the semi-truce. Maybe one day, they really could have a nice friendship the way fate intended. Darcy and Jane certainly thought so. They came out of hiding, Darcy already with her phone out.

“This is gonna be my new Facebook header.” She motioned at Sam. “Come on, Sammy, let’s do this.”

He stood reluctantly and let Bucky put an arm around him.

“Sammy, huh?”

“Shut the hell up.”

They smiled for the camera. The photo proudly adorned Darcy’s page for the next few months. And of course, they’d given each other bunny ears.

[witch-chester]

Put on the Glamor Pt. 2

Mariah directed him to a small house about fourth minutes from the city the deaths had occurred and far from any neighboring eyes. Dean got out and scoped the area. If this was a trap, at least they wouldn’t have to worry about cops getting called from loud crashing.

“Relax, pretty boy.” Mariah said as she walked by. “This isn’t a trap or anything.”

Can she read minds?

“Yeah, But don’t worry I’ve become a master of blocking things out.” She turned and winked at him.

Dean grimaced. “So when we first met?”

“Let’s not get into that.” She unlocked the door and walked in. Dean had purposely drove ahead of Sam and Kit on the off chance it had been a trap. Divide and conquer. Mariah glanced at him and rolled her eyes.

“That will get annoying.”

She laughed. “Yeah. Kit tells me that all the time. Sorry.” She flitted around, turning on lights. The place had a similar feel as the house they had been at before. Warm and comforting. Fewer pictures. And sigils drawn on the walls. Papers and a laptop took over a small square table in what he assumed was meant to be a dinning area.

He walked over to have a look. Newspaper clips of the recent deaths. Photocopies of book pages. And a ton of loose paper with messy cursive writing. He picked some up to try and read it. The paper was snatched out of his hand. “Let’s wait till Kit and your brother show up.”

Dean narrowed his eyes. “Why? You can start filling me in now.”

Mariah shook her head. “Nope. We need to go over some rules first.”

He raised one eye brow. “Rules?”

She looked down and started picking up papers. “Yes. Rules. You two could very well kill us once we tell you what we know. I’m cover our asses.”

“You could kill us too, sweetheart.”

“No I couldn’t.” She looked back at him. “I don’t kill good guys.”

“Yeah, I know. You said that.”

She tilted her head. “So morally I wouldn’t hurt you. You on the other hand don’t see us as good guys. Not yet.”

Before he could respond the door opened. Kit strutted in and went directly to her friend’s side. Sam stayed by the door. “Alright,” Mariah said. “Let’s start.” She sat at on of the chairs and booted up the laptop. Kit did the same, sorting through papers.

Dean sat across from the two women. “You wanted to talk rules.”

Mariah nodded. “First. No iron.”

Dean nodded.

“Second. Trust. If we are gonna work together we can’t worry that you two will try and kill us or leave us behind to take care of things on your own and mess it up.”

Sam chuckled. “Who says we have to work together?”

“If you want our information we work together.”

“We can figure it out on our own.”

“Sam!” Dean snapped. Sam cursed and leaned back against the door. “We won’t double cross you,” Dean promised.

“Ok. Then we should be alright.”

Dean nodded. “So what makes you think it’s a cursed Egyptian object.”

“Not a cursed object,” Kit stated matter of factly. “A vengeful priestess.” Mariah turned her laptop to show him a page on some legend. It was about a priestess of the God Hores. The woman was said to have been extremely beautiful and had caught the eye of the pharaoh’s son. He had tried to force her to become his mistress but she refused. She had fallen in love with her god and had pledged herself only to him. To keep herself out of the hands of the pharaoh’s son, she killed herself and had her heart mummified and her body burned. Her heart was placed in a kinobic jar and buried at the base of a statue of Hores.

“Ok. Still doesn’t explain how this is relevant,” stated Dean.

Kit sighed. “The jar was found buy a private collector on an illegal dig three weeks ago.”

“Since then, not only has there been deaths here. All the members of the dig team and three custom agents have been killed too.” Mariah chimed in. She handed Dean the newspaper clippings. Sam walked over to look at them over him brother’s shoulder. “We think that the priestess didn’t like being disturbed.”

I did sound like it all fit. Since the heart was the only piece still left of the priestess, all they would need to do is burn it and the killings should stop. Sam had the same thought. “So we just find the jar and torch it.”

“Don’t you think we would have done that if we could dumbass?” Kit growled.

Mariah explained. “It’s being kept at a warehouse own by a powerful black market dealer. Tons of security and no way of knowing what container it could been i. It would be to dangerous.”

“Which brings us to the auction you mentioned.” Dean guested.

“Mmhmm. I’ve been posing as an assistant for a black market collector that is interested in the jar among other pieces. At first I was just going to keep up with doing the sale by proxy but it would be more dangerous with only the two of us.”

“If you two helped, Dean can pose as my boss and keep look out and help with distractions while Sam and Kit get the jar and burn the heart.”

“Why is Dean your boss?” Sam asked suspiciously.

Mariah smirked. “You have to much of a goody goody face to be a black market collector.”

Kit snickered. Dean smirked. “Sounds like a good plan. When is the auction?”

“Tomorrow night. We already have what we need. I assume you have black tie attire?”

-x-x-x-x-

The boys didn’t have the proper clothes, but after a very awkward shopping trip, the girls refused to be left behind and Dean insisted on driving,both had suitable tuxedos. When the issue of where the brothers would be staying came up another argument ensued. Finally it was decided that everyone would stay at the house the girls had rented.

Kit had immediately secluded herself in her room once they returned. Mariah tried to be a diligent hostess but Sam’s aggressive attitude had her retreating to the kitchen to make dinner. Once she was out of eye sight, Dean kicked his brother in the leg. “Stop being an ass.”

“What? They are witches. For all we know this could be a trick and they are working with demons to break a seal or something.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “That’s a stretch.”

“Just because you have the hots for Mariah.”

“I do not!”

Sam made a face. “Yeah you do. It’s obvious.”

“Stop. She might hear you.”

“She’s in the other room.”

“Yeah but I don’t know how far her mind reading goes.”

Sam’s jaw dropped. “Mind reading? She has mind reading?”

Dean nodded and sipped the beer Mariah had provided. “Yeah. Thought I had mentioned that.”

Sam rubbed his palms into his eyes. He suddenly felt bad for all the hateful things he’d been thinking. If she had read his mind she had been very good not to react. He had been extremely prejudice. While Kit was also openly hostile at times, it had only been when provoked. Neither one of them had done or said anything to encourage his distrust. Hell, he’d asked his brother to put more faith in Ruby.

“Alright,” he sighed. “I’ll trust them. For now.”

Mariah walked back in. “Foods in the oven. Hope y’all boys like oven fried chicken.”

“Sounds great sweetheart.” Dean assured. He flashed a warm smile and Mariah blushed.

Sam rolled his eyes. Not into her my ass. He saw Mariah’s eyes flashed to him. Her expression questioning. That will be annoying. She smiled and winked. Very annoying.

[gdialex]

Hello, Mr. LOGAN WAGNER. My name is Detective Booth and I’m handling this case. I don’t need to go into details; you know why you’re here, and we already have you down as a suspect in her death. We’ve got witnesses to corroborate and a budding timeline, but we need more information from you directly. Make my day easier and cooperate with me on this, will ya’? I just need you to answer these questions for me. Do me a favor and don’t lie – you’re talking to a trained professional right now, I’ll be able to pick up on certain things whether you realize it or not. Lying will only come back to bite your ass later on. Just some food for thought. Let’s begin.

logan, quite frankly, was already bored of this conversation. he had plans with a girl (( and she was a french exchange student, so it’d a real fucking tragedy if he couldn’t make it )), and he was anxiously glancing at his watch every two minutes. she didn’t seem like the type of girl to reschedule.   

Q: I’m gonna’ start light. I hate interrogators who go straight into the hard stuff, ya’ know? I find it impolite. So, tell me a little about yourself. Give me your full name.

“logan wagner.” he glanced down at his watch and then looked back up at the detective, grinning, “but my friends call me the notorious a.s.s.” booth didn’t look amused, but logan just snorted. that made two of them, buddy.  

Q: Alright. Tell me your date of birth and age.

“october 8th. twenty-one.” he leaned back in the chair and placed his hands behind his head, “but what you should really write down is that i’m a libra. i’ve been told that makes me very happy, and happy people don’t kill people. that’s like legally blonde 101.”  

detective booth squinted at him, “is this a joke to you? you’re being interrogated for murder.”

logan leaned forward onto his forearms and shook his head, face somber, “sir, i never joke when it comes to reese witherspoon.” 

Q: Where did you grow up? What was your home life like? Tell me about your family and your upbringing. Give me your story.

he didn’t really see how his childhood was relevant to morgan’s death, but there were few things he loved more than talking about himself. “i’m what you call...a scientific marvel. my mom was inseminated by some guy i don’t know––make sure you write that part down––and then i was raised by a string of nannies and my grandma. mom popped in from time to time to express her disappointment in all of my life choices, so don’t worry. you know, come to think of it, i think she’d like you. i could give you her number, but be forewarned, she’s kind of a ballbuster.” 

Q: Tell me about the most impactful people in your life. I’m not picky – they can be good or bad impacts.

“kanye west changed my life.” he glanced down at his watch again and tapped his foot against the ground to the beat of the ticking clock in the background. 

“do you have somewhere to be, mr. wagner?”

sighing, logan nodded his head and drummed his fingers on top of the cool metal table, “yes, actually, i was supposed to meet this girl at my place, and she was going to bring chocolate sauce and whipped cream––and we weren’t having ice cream if you catch my drift, so i’m sure you understand why i’d appreciate it if we could hurry this up.”  

detective booth stared at him for a long time before sighing and turning the page in his notebook, and logan couldn’t help but grin. 

Q: What are your goals in life? What would be your ideal final ending? What would help you reach these goals?

booth already looked sorry he asked, and logan supposed that was fair. he didn’t really seem like the kind of guy who had goals, but that was just objectively not true. “don’t laugh ‘cause it’s kind of a sensitive issue for me, but i’ve always wanted to get my name to the top of the scoreboard on the galaga machine at the movie theater. i’m this close, but this little fucker comes in with his babysitter on sundays and steals my spot every time. now, i know what you’re wondering, and the answer is yes, i did sleep with the sitter, but i’m not proud of it. i don’t want to win like that.”    

Q: How would you describe yourself?

“i think scientific marvel just about covered it.” 

Q: What do you do in your free time? What’s your idea of fun? What sports or extracurriculars are you in at Hyland University?

“i’m on the hockey team, but my main passion in life is puppetry.” he paused and tapped the table, “write down that i said that ‘with impish mirth in my eyes’. i don’t want people thinking i’m a serial killer.” 

Q: Do you drink? Smoke? Take drugs of any kind? Answer carefully on this one, kid.

“i dabble in the art of tequila and weed.” he cleared his throat and leaned closer to the camera, “allegedly.” 

Q: Tell me about the relationships in your life. Friendships, romantic, everything in between.

he cracked his knuckles and hummed thoughtfully in the back of his throat, “where to begin, where to begin. i like to refer to myself as a serial short-term monogamist because that sounds better than being a hoe.” tapping his fingers on the table, he shrugged his shoulders slightly, “i have one best friend. eden rose. you’ve probably already interrogated her, and i agree with your assessment: she’s way too good to be hanging around me.”    

Q: What’s the best thing that has ever happened to you? What’s the worst?

he hummed and leaned back in his chair, wishing that he had something to comfortably rest his feet on to completely sell his pose. “best thing? rachel monroe. worst thing?” he paused and pulled a face, “rachel monroe.” 

Q: Let me throw in a fun one, lighten up the mood. Would you rather only be able to tell the truth or only be able to lie?

“i’m a firm believer that lying always solves all your problems.” he cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck, “except for, you know, in a murder investigation.” 

Q: Did you kill Morgan Parrish?

“uh,” logan blinked and stared at the detective, “are you actually serious?” booth didn’t say anything. “no, man, of course not. i didn’t have any reason to kill her.”

Q: Let’s get some background information on this. How do you know Morgan Parrish?

“she’s my cousin. don’t you have a file on her family, my dude? it seems like you guys don’t really know shit about her life––which is weird ‘cause morgan made sure everyone knew everything about her life.”   

Q: Explain the extent of your relationship with her. Was it platonic? Civil? Rocky? Romantic?

“we talked at christmas and easter. that was about it. she kind of cramped my style with her ‘no fucking my friends’ rule––and before you ask, no, i didn’t kill her over it. i just fucked her friends anyway.”

Q: In your own words, describe Morgan Parrish to me.

“a real pain in the ass, but she was my first pick for flag football at thanksgiving. she was ruthless.” 

Q: Would you say your life got better or worse upon meeting Morgan Parrish?

“i mean, i pretty much met her from the day that she was born, so...i guess better because i wasn’t potty-trained yet.”   

Q: What was your favorite thing about her?

“she had really hot friends. have you interrogated bridget flores yet? total smokeshow.”  

Q: What was your least favorite thing about her?

“she told my mom that i was the one that broke her lalique vase just because i spilled hot sauce on her dress. what an asshole, right? i had to miss homecoming because of that stupid vase, and my date was stephanie madsen. stephanie motherfucking madsen. she won homecoming queen, you know, with jason poyfair.” he pulled a face and shook his head, “total bullshit.”  

Q: Where were you the night of her murder?

logan squinted as he tried to recall his whereabouts, but he honestly couldn’t remember what he did yesterday, so it was a bit of a lost cause. “i was probably with a girl. maybe eden. if there was a party that night, then i was definitely there. i’ll check with my receptionist and get back to you.” 

Q: Where were you the day before?

 “i would say class, but that would be a fuckin’ lie. i was probably asleep until three in the afternoon, and then i probably hit up eden for some cookies.” 

Q: Where were you after?

he clenched his jaw and swallowed hard, “i was at a meeting. for hockey. i, uh, i had to leave early.” 

Q: How did you feel about her passing?

 he sighed, finally feeling the agitation of going over his cousin’s death again and again creep into his tone. “i don’t know. what do you think? it fucking sucked. my grandma couldn’t stop crying.” 

Q: What do you think about the way she died? Just as a refresher, Morgan Parrish was drugged, strangled, beaten, and then shot.

logan looked down at his hands and swallowed the bile rising in his throat. he wasn’t sure why, but every time he imagined her corpse, she always looked like she was five years old again. “it was fucked up. what else do you want me to say?”  

Q: Did you make any sort of tribute to her death and put it on social m-

Another interrogator walks into the room. She’s holding a folder with your picture clipped to the front. She opens it in front of Detective Booth and whispers something into his ear. He shoots you a look and then excuses himself from the room. He returns twenty minutes later, features stony. He quickly writes something down on his notepad and then caps the pen.

Q: Change of plans. I’m going to scrap the questions I had prepared and ask you what I see fit. Where were you exactly the night Morgan Parrish died?

logan quickly placed his carefully crafted smirk back onto his face and held out his hand,  “enchanté, mademoiselle. logan, logan wagner, but you can call me james bond––and what might i call a fine lady such as yourself?” 

her stern face didn’t move. “detective. answer the question.” 

he sighed and retracted his hand, “you know what, i’m just going to call you karen. you look like a karen; you have a very karen-esque face. it’s a good thing; karens are hot.”

she tapped her pen against her pad of paper, and logan held up his hands. “jeez, relax, karen. i just wanted to get to know you a little better before we got down to business. i just told detective sunshine that i’m pretty sure i was at a party.”    

Q: Tell me all the details you can remember from that night.

“i don’t really remember anything from any party i’ve been to. i’m a big fan of patron.” 

Q: Were you intoxicated at any point?

“uh ,,, just the entire night.” 

Q: Are there any witnesses able to corroborate your story?

“probably the entire hockey team. greek row, too, if they can manage to remember anything past breakfast.” 

Q: I feel like you’re leaving things out. Tell me all the details you can remember from that night.

logan smirked slightly, “are you asking for the explicit version ‘cause i could come up with something if you’re interested, or we could just create our own version of events.” 

detective karen something held up her hand, “that’s enough, thank you.” 

Q: … are you telling me the truth, kid? We got six other students we’re talking to today – sure would suck for you if one of ‘em was able to prove that something you’re saying is false.

“i’m not really sure, but i believe what i’m saying, and nietzsche says that means it’s the truth, and we all know that philosophers never lie.”  

Q: What was the last thing you said to Morgan?

logan frowned and scratched his cheek, “i...i don’t actually know. probably something stupid.” he kind of wished that he had known at the time. not that he had any idea what he’d say to her if he knew that he’d never see her again, but it probably would’ve been better than whatever bullshit he said at the time. 

Q: Have you ever gotten into a physical altercation with Morgan before?

“past the age of five? no. and i want it on the record that no matter what my grandma says, i won that fight.” 

Q: Have you ever fought verbally with Morgan?

“yeah, ask booth about laliquegate. it’s a real page-turner.” 

Q: Would you say you felt safe around Morgan?

“emotionally? no. physically?” he paused and shrugged his shoulder, “probably not.” 

Q: Do you wish you had never met Morgan?

“i like to focus on the future, karen. for example, what are you doing tonight because i’m a big fan of donuts and being handcuffed.” 

Q: Do you own a gun?

“yes, but it shoots strictly nerf foam, and i only use it in case of emergencies.” 

Q: Have you handled a gun before?

“i just explained that i’m very well-equipped to handle any nerf gun model made after 1997.” 

Q: Do you know someone who owns a gun?

“me, but i got my license to carry from toys r us before they went bankrupt.”  

Q: Have you gotten into physical fights before?

“i’m a lover not a fighter, karen. i thought you knew that about me already.” 

Q: Is there anyone who can prove where you say you were on the night of her death?

“probably eden, but don’t hold me to that. i might’ve been with a girl i don’t remember.” 

Q: Do you think Morgan deserved to die?

“what the fuck? no. people don’t just deserve to die.” he titled his head and paused,  “except maybe chris martin. fuck that guy and his dead fish eyes.”  

Q: Do you wish she was still alive?

“obviously, but despite popular belief, i’m not god.”

Q: Do you miss her?

he shoved away thoughts of a little girl with pigtails and pink dresses that skipped rocks with him in their grandma’s backyard. it was...easier not to have substance, far less painful. “i mean, she was an asshole, but she was family. it’s weird not seeing her at reunions anymore. i guess that’s kind of missing her, right?”

Q: Has your life gotten better or worse since her death?

“honestly, the same. i didn’t really talk to her that much. she was kind of a downer most of the time.” 

Q: If you could bring her back to life, would you?

“again, i’m not actually god.” he grinned and winked at the detective, “but i think i could make an exception for you.”

Q: Are you hiding something from the people of Hyland? From your family? From me?

“i’ll be honest, i haven’t exactly been forthcoming on exactly how much i like one tree hill––but i’m going to come clean now. i think that one tree hill is a gift to mankind, and i cried when nathan told haley that he loved her for the first time.” he paused and shrugged his shoulders,  “twice.” 

Q: Have you been telling the truth this entire time?

“i’m more than a little hurt you don’t trust me after all we’ve been through, karen. deeply hurt, and that’s on you. i hope you think about that for the rest of today and consider how your actions affect other people.” 

Q: Did you kill Morgan Parrish?

“i would not last one day in prison, so no.”