#I am very proud of myself! I handle my reactions instead of acting out on them and regretting it!!!!

[lilworms]

so

[rhysismydaddy]

Unholy Matrimony Pt. 5 (Nessian)

Damnation Series

Parts 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 

____________________________________________________________

~Cassian~

A week later, I’m exceptionally proud to say I haven’t given in yet. No matter how much I want to.

Tensions the past seven days have been... high, to say the least.

Both of us are doing our absolute best to drive the other insane.

She’s doing it so I either sign the deed and give in or turn to someone else, both which would give her Sera back.

I’m doing it because if I have to suffer, she can bet her pretty ass she does, too.

Ironically, tonight’s our engagement party. A celebration of our undying love and an announcement to the world the Russians and Italians of New York should no longer hate and murder each other.  

They’re allowed to be sexually frustrated as hell, but no, they can’t kill each other.

I’m waiting for the little minx who’s spent the week making me regret ever even asking for the club, drinking bourbon so I’m too drunk to even be tempted by her--which is likely enough to kill me--when she finally deigns to grace me with her presence.

I take one look at her, starting at the high blonde ponytail that would wrap around my fist at least twice and ending at the very high, very red shoes I immediately want by my shoulders.

“Fuck.”

Obviously the reaction she was looking for, she smiles.

Her dress is a cream color thing that clings to her curves and is short enough to showcase her long legs. It’s somehow classy, while low enough to draw my eyes to her breasts as she comes down the stairs towards me.

Nesta stops right before me, close enough I smell the jasmine and vanilla of her skin, and looks at me through her lashes.

I turn my gaze to the ceiling, vowing to keep it there until I trust myself to not do something stupid like tell her she’s the most stunning thing I’ve ever seen.

“I’m so fucked,” I mutter hopelessly.

If possible, she comes closer, sliding all the interesting, female parts of her against me. “You would be if you just gave me back my shit.”

I glare down at her. “I don’t like to lose.”

“Would you really be losing?”

I keep my mouth shut, because the answer to that question is a big fat no. God, she’s good.

“Tell me again why you refuse to put us out of our misery?” I ask in return, trying to remind myself who the fuck I am.

Even though I wonder if it is our misery. I can’t read her, can’t tell if this is affecting her like it is me.

She gives me a cold look. “What do you see happening after we get married, exactly? You think you’ll work a few hours at the club I spent three years building from the ground up, come home and eat a home cooked meal, then fuck your complacent little wife however you want?”

I have no idea what to say, because when she puts it like that, I sound like the biggest douche in the world.

Nesta sees the hesitation in my eyes and rolls hers. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I allow you to disrespect me like that, stronzo.”

“I respect you,” I say immediately, meaning the words.

“Just not enough to value my career.”

“Nesta-”

“Deal with it. If you somehow keep the board from voting you out in the next two weeks and manage to not sleep with me--which is unlikely, considering the way you look at me--the club will be yours.” She takes a step back, steeling her spin. “But I will not.”

I’m conflicted as hell, torn between wondering if she’s just playing me or being sincere.

Apparently done with the verbal smackdown, Nesta spins towards the door.

Hand on the handle, she turns back around and cocks her head. And then she answers the questions I hadn’t realized I’d been too scared to ask.

“No and yes.”

My brows raise. “What?”

“No, it hasn’t all been just me trying to mess with you. Yes, I want you as much as you want me. But I respect myself too much to allow someone who blazes into my life and steals something from me without a care or even a real negotiation to have my body, too.”

She walks out the door, leaving me standing in the living room stunned.

I eventually follower her down to the garage and we leave for the party Rhys is hosting for us downtown. But even though I go through the motions once we arrive, my mind is on the woman next to me the entire night.

I hate admitting it, but she’s right.

I took something that belonged to her, didn’t even question talking to her first, then acted like she was in the wrong for doing whatever she could to get it back.

I’ve said I like how strong and independent she is, but I tried to take that independence and turn her into something else. I bulldozed my way into her life, then acted like I was the one inconvenienced by it.

And seriously, why am I even fighting for this place? Yeah, I like it and think it’s unique, but the place is above board. Which to me translates as boring.

The past two weeks, I’ve had to go to investment meetings, deal with sending out the nightly invitations for entrance, and plan events for upcoming holidays. Things I never do with my other properties.

I hate managing things--I hire people to do that kind of thing for me. But I know I can’t hire someone, because who the hell besides my fiancé would do the job right?

No one.

I realize that on the drive home, and it gets me thinking. By the time we’re inside the apartment, I’m already mentally finalizing the details.

I tell her I have to take care of something, go to my office, and close the door.

Then I pull up the marriage contract, along with the deed to Sera, and hit print.

~Nesta~

A week after our engagement party, I realized I’ve started to lose hope.

Cassian’s managed to wrangle or bribe or threaten the board into not voting him out, and the employees have stopped calling me to ask when I’m coming back. He hasn’t touched me or tried to seduce me in six days--probably a record for him--and I start to feel like I’ve lost.

My club will be his in a week, and after we’re married, only him signing the deed over will get it back. Something that will never happen, considering it’d be a serious hit to his pride to do something as weak as give me what’s rightfully mine.

My club will be his, but like I said, I won’t.

Which honestly is just as upsetting.

Even though he’s a stubborn, boneheaded stronzo with a big enough ego for us both, it’s hard for me to overlook the moments of the past three weeks that haven’t revolved around Sera.

Little moments that have made it harder for me to pull away from him.

He’s made me laugh more than anyone I’ve ever met, whether with his foul sense of humor or stories about his violent, wild childhood. He stopped leaving the toilet seat up when I pointed it out. He hasn’t said a word about me ordering take-out all the time or working in bed while he tries to sleep.

He even dealt with one of Alexei’s buyers for me when they tried to renegotiate the price originally agreed upon.

And he hasn’t really pressed the celibacy thing. Sure, he’s complained about it enough for me to want to smack him, but I don’t know any other Made Men, Russian or Italian, that would’ve respected my wish after how much I’ve teased him.

If he would just-

I cut that train of thought off and focus on the report in front of me, because at this point, it’s obvious he won’t.

I sip my wine, which is starting to grow on me, and look over shipment records from one of Alexei’s yards, flagging crates that need to be smuggled instead of brought in through the main channels. Repressing a groan at the thought, I realize I’ll have to go down one night this week and make sure they arrive without problem.

I take another long pull from my glass.

“Drinking to forget?” Cassian asks, leaning in the doorway of the bedroom and looking me over.

I shrug, not much in the mood for banter.

“I got you something.”

Sighing, I reply, “Yeah, me too. It’s on the nightstand.”

His brow furrows as he walks over and picks up the ring box, opening it to look at the titanium band inside.

Just another symbol of our lifelong, happy, sexless marriage.

He puts the ring back in the box and extends a hand. “It isn’t a ring.”

“What is it?”

“Get your ass out of bed and find out.”

I would, except I don’t want to. And I don’t really want whatever stupid, materialistic thing he’s bought me-

He closes my laptop and pulls the cover back, ducking when I swing a fist towards his head. “Violent little wolf,” he teases.

“Stop calling me that,” I demand, trying in vain to keep the blanket on me so he can’t tell I’m not wearing anything underneath the t-shirt I stole from him.

He pauses, sighs, and scoops me up, blanket and all. “I love watching you fight how much you love me calling you that.”

“I don’t have to fight anything except he overwhelming urge to smack you.”

Cassian just huffs, walking us out of the room, through the living room, and into his office. Then he puts me down, smacks my butt to get me moving, and grunts when I elbow him in the ribs.

“Maybe this will fix your bad mood,” he mutters, flipping the light switch on and bathing the office in golden light.

I take an involuntary step forward, eyebrows going high on my forehead.

I’ve only been in here once before, just long enough to notice the obnoxiously big desk and wall of windows behind it. I’d taken in the black leather couch and wing-backed chairs, determined it was a typical male office for a typical male, and vowed to work somewhere else.

But that was a while ago, and it’s obvious he’s done some home improvement.

There are decidedly now two desks in the corners near the windows, angled in to the middle of the room where two cream-colored leather chairs sit. The desks are identical, mahogany and classic without being ostentatious.

A rug covers the hardwood floors, a deep maroon color that matches small details throughout the room.

It’s beautiful.

Cassian leads me with his hands on my shoulders to one of the desks, and I let him guide me around to the chair and push me down in the soft leather.

I look up to ask him what this is about, but he jerks his chin to the desk where to two papers lie.

One is the deed to Sera.

A rush of surprise goes through me as I see he’s transferred the building back over to me, even going so far as to deem the process irreversible. It’s signed and dated a week ago, the night of our engagement party.

My eyes are shiny as I look at the other document and read through it.

“What is this?”

“A partnership, of sorts,” Cassian explains, leaning a hip on the- my desk like he did in his Capo’s office. “You’re now a partner at my businesses, and if you sign, I’ll be yours.”

My eyes find his, and I see that he’s serious but still choke out, “What?”

He smiles and shrugs, like signing over half of your life’s work is easy. “You had me pegged when you first saw me and figured out I’m a fighter. I hate everything about running a business except the in-person negotiating and knitty gritty shit. It’s boring to me, and while I can do it, I’m not nearly as good at it as you are.”

“Cassian-”

“So run them both. I’ll do the day to day shit I know you hate, and you’ll do the rest.”

I can’t hardly process what he’s saying.

“What if we disagree?” It’s a valid question, considering we’ve basically been fighting the entire time we’ve been engaged.

“We talk about it and try to figure it out. And if we can’t, the original owner has the final call and veto power in all situations.” His eyes say he knows how important it is to me as he says, “You’ll still be in control of your property, and I’ll still be in control of mine.”

I don’t know why I’m still asking questions, because it sounds great, but there’s one more thing I want to know.

“Why?”

He sighs, sitting on the desk fully and looking down at me with open, honest eyes. “Because I’m tired of doing this shit alone. I’m tired of going to work and dealing with every single thing and then coming home and having no one who understands.”

He looks out the window, shoulders tight. “I thought you’d be like my friends’ wives, which is why I was such an ass. I thought you’d be just another thing for me to take care of, and I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to realize you could be my partner, not just my wife.”

His eyes are back on mine, the heat in them making my heart pound. “I’m sorry, Nesta. I’m sorry I stole Sera in the first place, then refused to hear you out and give it back. I have a tendency to be a little stubborn.”

My lips twitch, and his eyes soften at the sight.

“But what you said about respecting yourself stuck. I don’t want you to feel like I don’t respect you, because I do. You’re smarter than me, cool when I’m rash, and have the mind for business I never have.” He smiles softly. “I know you’re just as alone as me, and just as tired of it. So say yes.”

I feel a smile on my face as I get to my feet, moving to stand between his thighs. “Are you just doing this so I’ll sleep with you?”

He sighs, dropping his head in shame to rest against my chest. “You caught me.”

My arms wrap around his shoulders, his going around my waist, and I use the opportunity to play in his hair. It’s so soft and curly, and he makes a content sound as I run my hands through it.

“Are you saying yes, little wolf?” he murmurs against my collarbone, dropping his head to rub his face across my breasts.

I roll and tug his hair to keep the randy bastard away. “Yes, pervert, I’m saying yes.”

Cassian smiles a big, goofy smile so ridiculously charming I lean in and kiss him.

His hands lock at my waist, resting on the curve of my back, and for a moment, he just lets me kiss him.

It isn’t our first kiss by any means, but it’s the first one where neither of us have ulterior motives, so I take my time.

I kiss his top lip, his bottom lip. Find I like them both equally.

My hands work across his shoulders, the thick muscles contracting under my hands, and I sigh his name.

Cassian’s hands fist in the fabric of my pajamas--which happen to still be his shirt--and draws me closer. He kisses my neck, inhaling deeply.

“You smell so fucking good,” he mutters, biting down softly and making me gasp. “It drives me crazy.”

His hands slip to the back of my thighs, then I’m on his lap, knees on the desk next to his hips. “You drive me crazy,” he clarifies.

He kisses me again, hands sliding up my thighs to my ass to grind me against him. Callouses scrape against my skin as he sweeps the shirt off and tosses it behind me.

“Shit,” he murmurs, eyes dropping to take me in.

The fact that he’s still fully dressed while I’m in nothing but my underwear makes me feel even more exposed, doing strange things to my mind. I start unbuttoning his shirt while he kisses down my chest.

He teases one with his hand while he takes the other in his mouth, swirling his tongue around the peak. I squirm, pressing my hips more fully against is, but he holds me still, kissing and teasing me until I can’t take it anymore.

“Cassian,” I murmur, tugging his hair to pull his gaze to mine. “Thank you for the desk. I love it.”

His brows furrow, and I can see him start to think about how much I’ve teased him, but before he can worry that’s what I’m doing, I whisper, “Now fuck me on it. Please.”

A muscle in his jaw flickers, and his fingers dig into the flesh of my hips.

Before I can say another word, he stands and spins us around, sliding me on the desk. He holds my thighs around his hips, and then an idea seems to dawn.

“Wait right here.”

“Seriously?” I ask, even though he’s already half-way out of the room.

“Don’t you dare fucking move!” is the shouted response.

I roll my eyes, but he’s back quickly, holding the red stilettos I wore to our engagement party. I howl with laughter, and a faint blush colors his cheeks, but he stays firm in his desire and puts them on the floor beside my feet.

Then he leans against the window and watches while I slip them on.

His golden eyes blaze as I lean back on my elbows and slowly spread my thighs, in nothing but lace panties and heels.

“I’ll buy you all the desks you want, if you sit on them like that.”

Laughter bubbles out of me, and he’s suddenly on me, leaning over me to kiss me in a frenzy.

I rip his shirt open, and he doesn’t even break the kiss as he throws it to the floor. I hear the telltale clink of a belt, and then he stands up to slide my panties down, grab my legs, and guide them up.

I feel him brush over the center of me, instinctively lifting my hips to give him a better angle.

But he doesn’t give me what I want.

Cassian just stands there, gaze gliding from the hells on his shoulders to the apex of my thighs.

“Hold that thought,” he mutters, dropping to his knees and putting his mouth on me before I can even blink.

My back leaves the desk, a gasp escaping me.

“Cassian.”

“I want you to come on my tongue, then you get to come on my cock.”

“Cassian.”

He hums, the sensation sending shivers down my spin. He kisses me like he’s doing it for him, not me, mouth on every part of me it can reach.

I can see the lines of his tattoos on his shoulders, the top of his curly hair. It’s too much to handle, so I just lay back down on the desk and throw my hands above my head to hold on to the edge of the desk.

The only time he stops is to tell me things that apparently can’t wait five minutes, but I don’t even care because every word out of that sinful mouth makes me burn hotter.

“Come for me,” he demands breathlessly a few minutes later.

“Don’t boss me around,” I groan, even as I do exactly what he wants.

He lets me ride it out, dropping kisses to my thighs and stomach and hips.

As soon as I catch my breath, he’s on his feet, putting me in the exact position I was in earlier.

And then he’s pushing inside me, and I honestly almost come again from the feel alone. “Thank God,” I groan, the past three reminding me of the misery teasing him put me through.

“Fucking hell, you’re perfect.”

Hands on my thighs, he holds me in place as he starts to move. But as he picks up speed, going harder with each thrust, his hands have to slip to my thighs to keep me still.

I say his name, sounding like I’m begging him for something, and he groans. His head’s thrown back, bare skin shining and making him look likesome sort of beautiful devil.

“Hurry up, little wolf,” he almost pleads.

The sound of that stupid fucking nickname does me in, and I come with a loud moan. I would’ve kicked him in the head if he hadn’t immediately dropped down on top of me to kiss me without abandon.

His hips still but he keeps kissing me until he has to break for air.

I’m boneless and limp beneath him, and he looks me over with male satisfaction.

Then his mouth drops open, betrayal in his eyes, and he says, “I just realized you didn’t speak even French! All these weeks of me fucking fantasizing about that... well, I guess we’ll just have to do it again.”

“Accorde moi un instant,” I pant in French, asking for a moment.

He grins down at me. “Take your time. We have a lifetime.”

My lips twitch, and I don’t stifle the urge to smile.

I’m about to say something, but then his expression turns serious. “You realize I have to fuck you on my desk now. Equality and whatnot.”

I laugh and pull his mouth to mine. “As long as you know I’m still not giving you my side of the bed.”

He tugs on my bottom lip with his teeth. “We can share.”

~

We get married seven days later, surrounded by a crowd of family, dirty politicians, thieves, drug and arms dealers, and friends.

In the past week, we’ve solidified our business model to a thing of perfection. I handle public relations, real estate and development, and negotiations for the shipping business. Cassian handles both the Bratva and Cosa Nostra soldiers in New York, training new recruits, drug distribution, and negotiations for the arms business.

Basically, I do what I’m good at, and he does what he’s good at.

I know it’s ridiculous to trust someone with half my business after only a month of knowing them, but like Cassian said, I was tired of doing this shit alone.

I’d been dreading the future, dreading taking over and doing everything myself. And now I don’t have to.

I have him to lean on, him to trust.

Looking up, I notice him watching me as we dance, not at all paying attention to the crowd. “What are you thinking about, little wolf?”

“I’m thinking how I thought of this marriage as nothing but an alliance at first. I guess it still is that, but... it’s also more.” He spins us around to the music, watching me with a knowing expression. “You’re more to me than that. And I’m... I’m happy. Working with you and the thought of our future makes me happy.”

He smiles. 

“You love me,” he states with quiet confidence. 

My heart starts pounding, because I’ve never told a living person that before. 

But it’s never been true before, and it is now, so I respond steadily, “I do.”

“I love you, too, Nesta Orlov. Have since the moment I saw you.” He sounds so relaxed about it, the words falling from his lips so easily.

“Doesn’t it scare you?” I ask, not understanding how he’s the calm one all of a sudden. 

“Anything you love something, there’s the risk you could lose it or it could hurt you.” Cassian brushes a thumb over my cheek. “But I could never be scared to love you.”

I shake my head and start to say something, but he cuts me off. 

“Every morning, when you wake up, there’s this little moment where you look around, confused. And then you look at me, and that hesitation in your eyes just... melts.” He dips me, wrapping his arms tight around me. “You look at me like you trust me, and love me, and want me.”

He presses a soft kiss to my lips. “That look is worth every risk and hardship and whatever else loving someone entails.”

I kiss him back as he brings us to standing. “Italians are such saps.”

He shows off the smile I’ve realized he only gives me, and I say the words I know he needs to hear just as badly as I did. “I love you, Cassian. You’re worth the risk, too.”

______________________________________________________

THANK U FOR READINGGG soft ending for the win

[ijustwant2write]

Model Wife-Thomas Shelby x Reader

(GIF credit to @nofckingfighting​)

(REQUESTS ARE OPEN AND I HAVE ALSO CREATED A PROMPT LIST HERE IF YOU WANT TO TAKE SOMETHING FROM THAT)

Masterlist

Requested by @justsimplyme93​: ‘Hey! How are you? I read the last tommy shelby one you did and i love it. Could you do another arranged marriage with tommy where he still go’s to lizzie and the reader asks to speak with him.’

Characters: Thomas Shelby x Reader

Meanings: (Y/N)=Your name

Warnings: Cheating, sex, swearing, arguing slight violence

                                      *~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Sipping on my tea, I looked around at our guests in the house, all members of the ‘Grace Shelby Institute’. We had to keep up appearances, and although both Tommy and I hated socialising with people who used to turn their noses up at people like us, they were the ones providing the money. Normally, we would keep most events out of the house, but Tommy had pissed me off, and seeing as he was too busy to help organise it, I made all the arrangements; being petty was sometimes the only way I could get back at him.

“Mrs Shelby, what a lovely home you have! And the decor for today is just lovely.” an older, highly posh woman gushed to me.

I smiled.“Thank you. I am quite proud of myself.”

“I have not had the chance to speak with your husband yet. It seems he keeps vanishing into thin air.”

“Yes, he does have a habit of doing that.”

Knowing that there was no point in trying to track down Tommy, I suffered through an awfully dull conversation with the lady, having to disguise my boredom with polite smiles as more women joined us. They were all much older, I had seen a few young women here, all married to very rich men who were twice their own age; I suppose I couldn’t judge, it wasn’t like Tommy and I were actually in love.

“You know Mrs Shelby, I have always wondered how you met a man like Thomas Shelby.” one of the women said.

She was bold to say something like that, especially to me. I refrained from sighing as I started to recite the story Tommy and I made up.

“Well, it seems very cliche, I must say. We met when he was meeting with my father, obviously wanting to unite our businesses. I ended up being in the right place at the right time, we easily fell into a conversation with each other which was unfortunately interrupted by my father. Thomas was very confident to take me out to dinner, right in front of my father may I add! Surprisingly he was a charmer, and I guess we just fell in love along the way.”

The ladies all cooed, some covering their heart with their hand as if it were the most romantic thing they had ever heard. It was all bullshit. We had to make it as vague as possible, make sure that they had nothing more to gossip about. Both Tommy and I had been married before, they were our real loves; and both had been murdered by a rival, but who received more sympathy after they died? And who was called vicious, degrading names when she re-married to a wealthier, more powerful man? People of ‘society’ were disgusting.

“Finn,” I called out as I approached him, luckily escaping the women,“have you seen your brother?”

“Which one?” he smirked.

I smiled back, ruffling up his hair to annoy him.“The one I’m married to.”

He quickly smoothed it back down.“Not sure. Haven’t seen him in a while.”

“Alright, just keep an eye out for him, yeah?”

Although it wasn’t uncommon for Tommy to disappear (especially to avoid these groups of snobs), he had been gone for a while. He may have been frustrated by my choice of venue, but he would still inform me if he had to leave for business. This made me all the more suspicious.

Leaving the main room, I hastily walked down the halls, leaving the noise behind me. There was an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach, wishing that I didn't have an idea of where he could be...and who with. Brushing past staff carrying food and beverages, I made my way upstairs, checking our bedroom first. He was the lowest of low if he was up here; luckily, they hadn’t used this room. Checking through our bedrooms, it was only two doors down from our own when I heard heavy breathing. Taking a deep breath, I gripped onto the handle, bursting in and confirming my suspicions. 

“If you’re almost finished, we have guests waiting for you downstairs.” I stated, averting my gaze away from the scene before me.

Lizzie had been bent over the bed, with her dress pulled up over her hips (how classy), and my husband right behind her. She bolted upright, shimmying her dress back down and pulling her underwear up; even after being caught in the act, she looked smug, head held high as she walked past me. Looking back at Tommy, he had an annoyed expression as he did up his trousers. I didn’t want to speak to him, but he called me back before I had a chance to leave.

“We need to speak about this.” he said.

“We do. But not now, not whilst I am hosting this event for the organisation you created for your dead wife.” I snapped, slamming the door shut behind me.

Luckily I had put a time limit on the event, and this time there was a genuine smile on my face as they all left. That was before I remembered what I had witnessed earlier. It was going to go down much messier than I first anticipated, especially since the tension between us had been building up after I caught them in the act. My footsteps were heavy on the way to Tommy’s office, not even bothering the knock before entering. In his usual spot at his desk, whiskey already poured, there was no reaction from him when he saw the fury in my eyes.

“Glad you’re settled for the evening.” I spat, hands on my hips as I stood opposite him.

“This is about earlier?” he coughed.

“What else would we talk about?”

“I’m guessing it has upset you.”

“Not for the reasons you’re thinking.”

He didn’t reply, instead lighting a cigarette.

“Tommy, I understand that there is that bullshit saying ‘all men have urges that need to be fulfilled’, but it doesn’t mean you can disrespect me in my own home.”

“Your home?”

“Yes, my home. I’m here a lot more than you are anyway. And of all the times to be fucking her, you chose the annual Grace Shelby Institute meet up?”

“Don’t say her name.” he mumbled.

I scoffed.“It’s the only way I can get your attention nowadays.” 

Tommy raised from his chair, still smoking.“Attention? Since when have you ever wanted my attention?”

“We both knew that this marriage wasn’t based off of love, nor were we ever going to fall in love along the way. However, I have been nothing but a model wife to you. I keep up appearances on your behalf, I make up excuses for your disappearances, I also ensure that your reputation isn’t tarnished by people speaking about you behind your back! And if that doesn’t deserve some fucking respect then I don’t know what does! Also, don’t you think I miss the touch of a man? How many times have I come across men that have shamelessly flirted with me whilst you’re not around, and how easy would it have been to sneak away for just a moment to gain some satisfaction?!”

I could feel my face burning up as I ranted, hating that I wasn’t gaining any sort of reaction from him. Was he this blank with Grace? Was he this blank with Lizzie?

“So you’re asking me to stop seeing Lizzie?” 

“I’m not asking you that, because even if I did, you would keep doing it anyway.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do. I just want respect. I don’t deserve to be humiliated like this.”

“No one knows.”

“Your family does! And even if they didn’t, that means I don’t deserve respect?”

He sighed as he stubbed out his cigarette.“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“You said it nevertheless.”

“What do you want me to do then?”

“Really Tommy? I want some common fucking decency.”

“Ask and you shall receive.”

I groaned, leaving before I said something I truly regretted. He was acting as if he didn’t give a shit (which he probably didn’t), which only angered me more. Who would want to be stuck in such a place? Letting out an angry scream, I picked up an expensive vase, raising it high above my head before throwing it on the floor with all my might. The pieces glided out across the hardwood floor, some spraying onto my shoes. A few servants rushed in, obviously alarmed by the noise. Instead of apologising, I marched past them, heading up the long stairs and to the bedroom; I would have preferred to grab the leftover bottles of champagne as a nightcap, but exhaustion from my anger would have to do.

Tommy still slept beside me that week, he still ate breakfast with me, sometimes dinner if he wasn't busy. He also tried to have normal, short conversations with me, though even when we glanced at each other, the tension was thick between us. It pissed me off that he was acting normal, and I knew that's why he was doing it...making me even more mad.

"I have a potential business partner coming here today." He informed me over breakfast.

"Why are they coming here?" I asked.

"I couldn't have a meeting elsewhere."

"I thought you said you don't like bringing business home...though come to think of it, you don't really do that either."

"Glad that's settled then."

I assumed that Tommy would want me out of the way when this 'partner' arrived. A good place to go was out to the stables, tend to the horses to take up time. However, I wasn't in the mood for riding or mucking out, instead opting to watch them be trained for racing. Leaning against a fence, I wasn't surprised that my mind was elsewhere, wondering why Tommy was still being so nice to me. We very rarely argued, mostly because neither of us wanted to face the problems at hand, especially when there were more pressing matters to deal with. But after yelling at him like I had, I expected some sort of silent treatment, or even for him to avoid me completely.

"Mrs Shelby?" a butler said from behind me. He continued as I turned around."Mr Shelby's meeting was to commence at twelve, but he is not here at present. However, his business partner has arrived. And..."

"And?"

"And Mr Shelby has asked that you keep him company whilst he is gone. He has assured me he shall be no longer than half an hour."

It was highly unusual for me to meet any of Tommy's associates. This meant that the man couldn't be any sort of threat, he wouldn't expose me like this. Following the butler back inside, I followed him to the parlour, preparing to act as a good host and a good wife.

"I'm sorry that my husband has kept you waiting, he's never been great with time keeping." I said as I walked in, the man having his back towards me.

As he turned around, my eyes widened, as did his.

"Christopher?!" I exclaimed.

"(Y/N)?!" He smiled, rushing towards me.

"Is that really you? What are you doing engaging in business with the Shelby's?"

"My firm is expanding, for some reason Thomas Shelby stepped forward and offered to become partners. I haven't heard about you for years!"

"Neither I about you. Ever since you moved away, we lost contact."

"And now you're the new Mrs Shelby. Bit risky isn't it?"

I laughed."Come sit down, u want to hear everything you have been doing since we last saw each other."

Christopher was a very old friend of mine. We had known each other since we were eighteen, becoming friends after our families were connected through business. We had been young people wanting to rebel, wanting to have fun; we were never in a relationship together, though we would sleep with each other, spend long nights out drinking with our friends. As a lot of my friends went off to get married to higher business men, he was still there, until I selfishly left him behind to marry my husband, the man I truly loved. I had loved Christopher, not so much as someone I wanted to spend my life with, though neither just a friend; it sounded more complicated that it was.

"You know, I always felt slightly bad for marrying and leaving you like that." I admitted.

"Only slightly?" he nudged me.

"It's not my fault I fell in love! We both said that we would never marry each other, it wasn't right."

"No, you are correct. Though, that didn't stop us doing things that couples do."

I giggled."And we did that a lot."

"I'm sure Mr Shelby keeps you busy."

"He would...if he was ever here. Though even if he was..."

"(Y/N)?"

"I've said too much already."

"Have the two of you ever...or haven't rather-"

"No we haven't. And I am telling you this in full secrecy, it must never leave your lips." I pointed a finger at him, becoming serious.

"I promise. I would never do anything to expose you like that."

"Thank you Christopher." I laid my hand on his thigh, thinking nothing of it until he placed his over mine.

Slipping away my hand, I looked away from him, feeling how intense our eye contact was becoming. It was stupid that my heart was beating faster, I was becoming hot under the collar over the tiniest amount of contact.

"I'm assuming your wife knows who you are making a deal with?" I said to start the conversation again.

"There is no Mrs in my life at the moment. I'm afraid work came first and well...there has never been much time."

"Oh Christopher, that's no excuse! Let me guess, you've lost your charm?"

"It's been working on you, hasn't it?"

He got me again. Glancing around, I saw no servants, though I wouldn't be surprised if they were eavesdropping. However, it was Tommy and I that employed them, if they wanted to lose their job, that would he the way to do it. Standing up, I gestured for Christopher to follow.

"We're going on a walk." I announced.

"What about your husband?"

"He will be ages before he gets here. And I'm allowed to show my old friend around the place."

We headed out of the front door, and without saying anything, I guided him down the path that led away from the house.

"(Y/N), I thought you were showing me around your home?" Christopher pointed out.

"I am. We're just starting at the beginning."

"What is that...hut?"

It was a small stone shed, one that would have been used to either keep guns or tools used to maintain the land, keep it tidy. Tommy had another one built closer, initially wanting to knock it down but soon forgetting about it. Now it was empty, the only things remaining being a desk and a chair. It was in front of the trees, slightly hidden by them. You would have to have a sharp eye to spot it, whether you were walking or driving by. Using my shoulder to budge it open, I stepped inside, closing the door after Christopher walked in.

"(Y/N), I'm not stupid, I know why we've come here." He said, staying close by me.

I hesitated to speak, knowing that I hadn't thought this through properly."Christopher... I wouldn't be doing this if-"

"Your husband is Thomas Shelby, this is dangerous for both of us."

"It isn't. He's allowed to go off and do what he wants, because he's Thomas fucking Shelby, and he's a man. Even if he found out about any of this, he wouldn't hurt someone if I asked him not to. He's good to me in that manner."

His hands came up to either side of my face."I'm worried about you, I've never seen you so..."

"Desperate?" I clung onto his jacket, pulling him closer.

"I couldn't believe it was you when you walked in. You're still as beautiful as you were when we were eighteen."

Although he was being a sweetheart and I hadn't received such compliments in a long time, I was inpatient. We both knew where this was headed, and it wasn't going to be as romantic or adventurous as it used to be.

Hungrily kissing me, his arms wrapped around my torso, reaching down to my arse as I pulled off his coat. Pulling away for a moment, he pushed me towards the desk, helping me scramble on top of it. My legs instantly spread as I ruffled up the bottom of my dress, using one hand to grab the back of his neck and kiss him again. I felt his hand slide up my thigh, gasping as he pulled my underwear aside. The sensation filling my body had been badly missed, and I felt myself writhing against his fingers. Leaning back against the wall, I moaned loudly, heavily breathing as I grinded my hips. He slowed down his movements, knowing how much it was frustrating me.

"Christopher..." I struggled to say."Fuck, please...don't stop."

He leaned in to my neck, sloppily missing it as he spoke in between."I loved teasing you like this."

I groaned as he removed his fingers, instantly reaching down to unbuckle his trousers. Before I could take a turn to torture him back, he pulled me off the desk, quickly turning me around and bending me over it. I yelped out in surprise, smiling at the thrill of it all. He tapped my legs apart, moving my skirts out of the way. I felt his skin on mine before he thrusted into me, making me cry out in pleasure. It didn't even matter if anyone could hear us, I hadn't fucked for God knows how long.

He was slow at first, building up the feeling that was in the pit of my stomach. I moaned out his name, reaching back to grab any piece of hm. He had a tight grip on my hips, especially as he started to quicken his pace. The noises escaping his mouth were somehow exciting me, I needed to feel and hear all of this. The pinching of skin from his hold didn't bother me, both of us shouting out each others names along with profanities before he came, but he kept going until I did too. With both of us finished and out of breath, Christopher gently collapsed over me.

"Fuck." I sighed as he pulled out.

Shakily straightening up, I made sure I was dressed correctly, kissing him gently one last time. My body couldn't believe what it had just gone through, and it already wanted more. Before we could say or do anything else, we heard the distant sound of a car, and it could only be headed this way.

"Shit." Christopher stressed, hastily getting dressed.

"It's OK! It'll be OK, Christopher!" I tried to calm him down.

"He's back already!"

"We'll head back and act like nothing happened. I was just walking around with you."

Making sure we both looked normal, we nervously made our way back to the house. My legs were still shaking as he speedily walked, but I said nothing, seeing the stress and fear plastered on his face.

"Ah, Mr Alexander, I see you have met my wife." Tommy was stood in the foyer, unnaturally smiling.

"We actually know each other. We grew up together." I explained, standing beside him.

Then it clicked.

"If you don't mind, I just need a quick word with my wife."

Christopher nodded, politely smiling at both of us before following the butler to Tommy's office. He turned to face me, casually putting his hands in his pockets.

"You invited him on purpose." I said.

"You might want to go lie down for a bit." He didn't say it maliciously, but I was still wary.

"Tommy, please don't hurt him. I initiated it, please don't-"

"I'm not going to do anything to him. He's done what I thought he would do."

"I'm confused. Why would you want him to sleep with me?"

"You said so yourself, why should it just be me doing what I want? You're Mrs fucking Shelby, you've got the power." He started to walk away, leaving me to still think about what he had done.

Still shaky but reeling from the events that unfolded, I ended up smiling."That scheming mother fucker."

[velkynkarma]

So I’m suuuper late to the party, but I finally, finally finished Rhythm of War. 

I am delighted by it. Thoughts and reactions under the cut, just in case for spoilers.

OKAY SO I had a lot of feelings about this book, and I wanted to be able to sit down and read the book properly and devote time to it, instead of sneaking paragraphs here or there during work breaks. So that’s why it took me so long to read it. In a way I feel like a terrible fan for taking so long when I was so excited about reading it for over a year, but in another way I am satisfied that I did it justice.

General thoughts/reactions:

I am legitimately impressed with how well Sanderson handled Shallan’s Dissociative Identity Disorder. DID is one of those mental illnesses that gets butchered so hard in media, and carries such a stigma of being “evil” or “creepy.” But Shallan’s representation seems much more factual in terms of how we know DID works today, including but not limited to:

Created from a severe trauma at a very young age, in which the brain starts splitting itself in order to protect against traumas and form survival mechanisms

Alters exist to protect the system and handle tasks for the host that the host cannot handle. Both Veil and Radiant handle tasks/functions that Shallan can’t

Also establishing that different alters can have different skills (such as Shallan being good at drawing and Lightweaving while Veil is bad at it, or Radiant handling espionage poorly)

Establishing that actual DID treatments do include encouraging alters to learn to work together and establish communication lines between each other. I like that the three create a pact to work together and rules to stand by and enforce them on each other to the best of their ability. They mess up sometimes (Radiant killing Ialai, Veil forcibly taking over sometimes). But they try. 

But also establishing that prior to Shallan’s realization of what was happening at the end of Oathbringer, each of these alters had their own memories and ways of handling things and did not necessarily communicate with each other

Establishing that multiple times in prior books when Shallan thought she was ‘acting’ she was actually Blending with another identity, either Veil or Radiant. This becomes more apparent when Veil or Radiant actively discuss being the ones to do things that were previously from “Shallan’s” perspective (such as Veil learning slight of hand/etc at the beginning of Words of Radiance). This stuck out to me as especially interesting since accounts of people with DID often mention not knowing they have it or are switching for years, but being semi-aware of doing things differently than normal. 

Veil being a protector-type alter and a trauma holder is extraordinarily common in DID cases and made an absolute ton of sense. It also suggests that she’s been around for YEARS longer than before Shallan ‘created’ her which, again, is not uncommon with DID cases

Veil, at least, also acts like she’s much older than Shallan, even calling her things like ‘kid.’ While Veil is, of course, no older than Shallan, this is completely accurate that alters can have different ages and even different genders to the host body in terms of how they perceive themselves

Establishing that fusions/integrations are possible, with Veil being ‘absorbed’ by Shallan at the end. This is a part of DID treatment and I like that it was handled in a way where both alters consented and the trauma was released, but it was handled. Even if Veil developed additional skills over time, it’s clear her first and foremost job was as a trauma holder alter, and once the trauma was no longer being hidden, her ‘purpose’ was done. And now Veil is a part of Shallan, and the expectation is that somewhere down the line, Radiant will join too.

Very very VERY VERY importantly, establishing Shallan’s interaction with other characters as a system with DID in a way that did not make her look like she was ‘crazy.’ DID is super serious and systems are often stigmatized. But I adored that Adolin is supportive and treats each alter on their own playing field (and even seems to be able to recognize them without Shallan changing hair color). I love that other characters like Kaladin admit they don’t exactly get it, but do their best to be respectful of it anyway. I love that nobody treats Shallan like a freak and sticks her in a padded room, and that people DO respect her wishes and treat Veil and Radiant as equally viable people. I love that it’s treated so healthily. 

Honestly my only real ‘hmm, not exactly like that’ moments were thinking back on how Shallan ‘created’ personalities. Veil being a trauma holder for Shallan’s old memories implies she’s been around for a long time, so she wasn’t really “created” in that sense, just given more of a face/name. But Radiant appears to have been created spur of the moment when Adolin was all ‘hey, let me teach you to swordfight!!!’ To the best of my knowledge people with DID don’t really have control over when they split, nor do they really get to actively ‘design’ their alters. It’s more like alters form as needed to handle something. But considering how accurate everything else is, and that possibly this is just Shallan’s way of handling her splitting in a way that makes sense to her, I’m willing to give this a cautious pass.

Also maybe lost memory moments. People with DID generally can lose time. Shallan doesn’t seem to, but then towards the end we also see she’s not a reliable narrator in her own right, since somehow Radiant managed to kill Ialai when we’re reading that passage. So it’s possible we the readers are missing things because Shallan is, too.

That said, the way DID works, it will never really go away even if Shallan does fully integrate. I’m curious if more alters could form down the line. I thought this had been happening with ‘Formless,’ but Formless didn’t turn out to be another alter so much. Oh well.

I had wondered about Shallan and Pattern’s bond for a while, and I’d been wondering if maybe she had a different spren ever since Pattern mentioned he could go away or she might kill him too back in...Oathbringer, I think it was? It seemed strange to me that Shallan wouldn’t have seen him around for a long time in his pattern form, or that she’d get chased by so many cryptics in book 1, if she’d been bonded to him this whole time. Or that she had a shardblade she could summon in book 1, but Pattern hadn’t been established as a character yet. And then when Adolin met a deadeye Cryptic in Shadesmar, I was like, ‘damn, that’s Shallan’s first spren isn’t it.’ And I was vindicated. I feel stupidly proud of myself for catching even one of Sanderson’s twists.

I think this is the first book in the series where Kaladin’s arc didn’t really grab me as much as the others to start. Not that it was bad, I still really enjoyed it, especially towards the end. But I was surprised to find when I got to Part Three and Kaladin’s name was listed but Adolin’s wasn’t that I went, ‘awww, damn,’ and used that as my break point for the night. 

I think part of this is that so much of Kaladin’s story that I love and adore is about not just Kaladin, but Kaladin’s friends and found family arcs with Bridge Four, and so much of that was taken away from him in the early part of the story. Like Kaladin, I guess I was just sad about everyone moving on and him being along. Sigzil going off to be the new Windrunner leader, Rock leaving, Rlain leaving (for a while at least), Adolin and Shallan leaving...it was hard. I felt his depression. Unfortunately, it made it a bit difficult to read, I guess.

On the flip side though, Kaladin’s ending arc in the story was A+ and I loved it. I love that his Fourth Ideal is specifically accepting that he cannot save everyone, which is something he’s struggled with from his very first appearance in the very first book. I love how this sheds so much light on that moment in Oathbringer where Syl is calling for him to speak the words and he just can’t, because at the time, he wasn’t ready to accept that he couldn’t save everyone. I love that he admits to Dalinar that he really did need help and a chance to recover, and that his setup for the next book doesn’t seem to be as Stormblessed, the soldier, but as a healer. And I love that he made up with his dad in the end, and did manage to at least save him.

ROCK. NOOOO.

TEFT. NOOOOOO! 

And yet as always, Sanderson books are the only books where I really feel...ok with character death. It’s sad, for sure, but also deaths have purpose in his stories. Nobody is killed meaninglessly. 

I think my favorite arc was Adolin’s, throughout the whole course of the book? I can’t help it. I love my enthusiastic, optimistic himbo who is just doing his best. Every time he was like ‘well I’m useless since I’m not a Radiant, but I’ll do the best I can’ I was like NO, HONEY NO, YOU’RE SO IMPORTANT, DO YOU UNDERSTAND HOW IMPORTANT YOU ARE REALLY? Look at all the people you help!!! Just look at them all!!! 

As stated earlier, I love that he’s just so damned supportive of Shallan’s condition. Even if they don’t have words for ��DID’ in Roshar or even understand it in their own terms, he’s just so damn supportive. She tells him she’s got multiple alters and he’s just like ‘cool, how can I help.’ He loves his wife. He’s friendly with Radiant. He’ll share jabs with Veil. He just wants to help, always. 

I love that he’s so supportive of Kaladin too. I adored towards the beginning, where Kaladin’s going into a depressive spiral, and Syl gets Adolin because Adolin is one of the few people he can’t intimidate. And I adore that Adolin is supportive, but in a way that shows he gets it. He knows it’s not safe to leave Kaladin alone with himself and refuses to let that happen. But he also doesn’t force him to participate and acknowledges that yeah, you can feel like shit, and that’s ok, but you’re gonna feel like shit around other people, because it’ll help you. And it does. And I love that a thousand pages later Kaladin starts going into another depressive spiral and happens to mention, ‘fuck, Adolin’s not here to pull me out this time,’ recognizing what Adolin can do. I just love how much their friendship has progressed.

I love that he’s still so supportive of his brother, even if Renarin was barely in this book. I love that he even briefly defends Renarin against Shallan, even when he recognizes she doesn’t really mean any harm. 

I adore his continued arc with Maya. I love that he was so excited to go to Shadesmar so he could see her again. I love how he’s clearly had offers from spren or other Radiants to talk to spren about bonding to him, and he’s like, ‘nah,’ cause he’s loyal to her. I love how everyone keeps insisting ‘deadeyes can’t speak, deadeyes can’t feel’ and he’s just like, yes?? Yes they can??? Have you ever fucking tried??? I love that it’s his genuine connection to Maya that helps her recover enough to actually talk on her own with more clarity, and how she’s clearly coming back to herself. And what a revelation, that Maya and the others deliberately sacrificed themselves. And I love that ultimately it’s his bond with Maya that gives him success with the honorspren. He did this his own way, with his own skills, in a unique way that nobody else has ever done before, because maybe he’s not a Radiant in the shiny new sense of the word, but he’s the only person out there willing to treat his sword like a partner and show kindness to spren and that shows. 

I also really do hope he works stuff out with his dad because he’s got every right to be angry but also, I want him to be happy :( 

Ultimately I adore Adolin’s whole polarity, that he’s a masterful duelist and combatant, and has probably killed hundreds, and yet his best quality is his sheer kindness. He has really grown on me as a character since book one, honestly. I remember not liking him in book one. I still don’t, when I reread it! But in the rest, he’s probably second only to Kaladin as my favorite.

Venli. I remember not really liking Venli in earlier books. I thought Eshonai was cool, but Venli I remember just not really vibing with. Seeing her story really made her a lot more interesting to me though, especially since I love her whole gradual growth as a character. Openly admitting to herself that she’s a coward and just wanted to get attention against her sister...and then doing something about it to better herself. Doubting her abilities to do so and being uneasy about it the whole time, but ultimately doing it anyway. She’s a flawed character, but she’s a good character, and I grew to like her so much more after seeing her story. 

Also, I loved Eshonai’s mercy at the end there. Fuckin yes. Bittersweet smiles all around.

Szeth-son-son-Vallano wore white on the day he was to kill a king, because apparently white is the listener battle color, it makes SENSE now

I am also veeery curious what is going on with Szeth, who wasn’t really in this book all that much. And I’m curious if ‘Sixteen’ in Lasting Integrity is actually his dad, because they sure drew attention to a hiding Shin man and then immediately never mentioned him again. 

Raboniel. MAN. What a fucking character. I was fascinated with her from the beginning. I never knew exactly what to think of her, because we see her from so many perspectives. Leshwi, who has been established as possibly the ‘goodest’ and most sane of the Fused, openly tells us not to trust her. We learn she’s done terrible things in her lifetime, like trying to create a plague to destroy all of humanity, and one of her titles is just straight-up scary af. She learns how to really, truly, actually kill spren, which is terrifying. She tried to kill the Sibling, which is obviously Super Bad. And yet, she’s such a compelling character. She’s polite and reasonable, to a degree. Clever and enormously genre-savvy, but also blunt and to the point, knowing full well Venli is being used to spy on her and Navani is working against her and blatantly stating so. She’s so intelligent, and is willing to both respect Navani and work with her to create things together, and recognize her worth. I never fully trusted her at any point, because we know she’s done so much to be scared of, but man, I enjoyed reading her segments so freaking much. I was sad when she died, and her weird frenemy relationship with Navani was really intriguing. 

I really enjoyed Dabbid’s little segments. I’m so happy he’s comfortable talking around the others. I’m also happy to see Sanderson delving into including more autistic characters in different points on the spectrum, while also showing other people treating them well.

Taravangian. I still don’t know where to stand on this guy and I’m very nervous now that he’s basically a god and apparently smart enough to outwit everyone else again. I was excited when he actually managed to kill Rayse but fuck, we might have been better off with Rayse.

SOMEBODY ACTUALLY MANAGAGED TO OUTWIT HOID AND I’M SCARED AF AT WHAT THAT MEANS

Moash. I just. Fuck. I don’t even know. I’m not even sure if this counts as him killing under his own power or not. He doesn’t really want to take responsibility for his actions, and as long as Odium takes his pain and feelings, he doesn’t have to. But that moment when he wasn’t protected, he seemed upset with what he had done. So I really have no damned clue where his story is gonna go. But fuck, it’s scary how easily he almost undid Kaladin completely. He knew exactly what buttons to press. We’re lucky the Pursuer ignored him and attacked anyway, or he really would’ve won.

I’ll admit, my Cosmere knowledge is less than stellar, so I’m still not entirely sure I understand the stuff with the Heralds and Mraize. But I am definitely curious to see where it’s going on a surface level, at least. 

LIFT USES LIFELIGHT that explains a lot. I wish she’d been in this story more because I adore her lol. 

I know Sanderson announced Ace Jasnah a while back, but I love that it’s been so firmly established in the book itself. No beating around the bush or leaving people to wonder. She just straight-up says she’s got no real interest in sexual stuff and never really got how it drove others. I love it. I love seeing that so honestly and bluntly stated. 

Anyway I’m sure there’s a lot more to be said but overall, A++++ as always, super adored, next one when???? 

[jenomark]

Can you talk about the image nct members were/are supposed to have vs how they actually are? I’d love to hear your view on all of that (I think the topic’s super interesting). You can be as vague or detailed as you want 😬☺️

+As always, these are my opinions / thoughts/ observations & are meant to be taken very lightly. It’s not that deep. 💚

Taeil: I don’t think he was given an obvious set image. The oldest member always has their own role to fulfill within a group dynamic, and I think Taeil is doing a great job. I kind of think SM knew he would be teased, especially because he’s an easygoing man. They let him handle all of that by letting the chemistry with his members happen naturally. It makes the group feel a little bit like a family that you’re a part of, in my opinion, and he’s the reason for it. In the beginning, they asked him a lot about his life before he was an idol, almost as if they were trying to put him in the role of an academic who chose to live out his passions instead. It’s definitely an admirable thing to follow your dreams and is bound to inspire a lot of people out there. Also, it looks good for SM as a company. As for Taeil’s personality, I definitely think we’re seeing mostly all of it. I want to say that I don’t see him as someone who has anything to hide, but music is important to him and there is no telling how passion can sometimes rule over people. Other than that, to me, he seems really simple and free in his interests. 

Johnny: I can’t tell if Johnny has an image, or not. I think his confidence plays a big part of how he wants to appear, but I also think that is partly his choice. He’s always been really friendly and extroverted according to his pre-debut stuff. He’s an interesting man, I will say that. He’s trained longer than the others, working himself the hardest, and yet he did not quit. His strength is unimaginable, and to be honest, it takes someone really patient and in love with what they do to be able to withstand all of that. I think, because of that, a lot of the members look up to him. Even though he’s the second oldest, I’ve noticed that he has become the pillar for a lot of members. He’s got a very fatherly way about him, but the kind of dad that will only give you half of the advice and tell you to go and figure out the rest for yourself. 

Taeyong: He’s something of an enigma, to me. You can clearly see his role as a leader as his main image. I think it’s something he takes very seriously. He’s trained well for it, because I doubt pre-debut Taeyong could even lead himself. He’s a very emotional and complicated person, and I think he can get very scatter-brained if he doesn’t reign himself in. We have the cool image, the leader, the main rapper, with the attractive face. Everyone’s eyes always go to him first, myself included, and I definitely think it’s a part of the man SM created. The real Taeyong, as you know, is so different from his on-stage persona. Like, I can’t figure out how one man has that much charisma when he’s performing, but then when he leaves the stage, it’s like he shrinks back into himself. I’ve rarely seen any idol like him (but they do exist!). He’s so incredibly soft and child-like when he’s just being who he is. Also, he’s like really weird in the most endearing way. He’s definitely the dorky kid that suddenly got popular, but who hasn’t forgotten his heart. He still leads really well, but there are moments where I can see how other members push him forward to be the man he wants to be. 

Yuta: I think he fits the “Foreign Member” mold pretty well. I know the main reason NCT exists is to showcase how music transcends culture, but I always feel like SM has a foreign member quota to fill just so they can make more money in other countries. I know they have a history of not treating their foreign members as fairly if they don’t find value in them. So far, Yuta is the only Japanese member. His culture is not and will never be an image to him, and I think he takes that very seriously. He’s very proud of where he comes from, and it shows so beautifully in everything he does. Other than that, I don’t think he has an image. I think Yuta is exactly who he says he is. I think he performs really well as a strong member, both visually and vocally, and I think it is something that comes naturally. The only thing that ever throws me off about him is his “Resting Bitch Face” but I know that doesn’t give any indication of how he is feeling. To me, his personality is really sweet and very considerate of others. He also has a really feminine way about him, and I’m sure it’s attributed to his mother somehow. I see him as someone that is very caring and really takes the time out to listen to how his members are feeling. He’s a good man and an even better friend.

Kun: His image was given to him by the NCT members, mostly the younger ones. They gave him the role of the mother because he cooks, takes care of people, and is mature in the sense that he takes his job very seriously. He resists that image a lot, even though I believe it’s partly true. Kun’s need to be seen as a strong male figure is interesting and I think that’s because he’s taken on a lot of pressure over the years to be what he thinks his idea of cool is. I do think he finds enjoyment in the younger members poking fun at him, because he has a lot of leader-like qualities and poking fun of a leader makes them feel wanted. Eventually, he’ll stop resisting and accept that he’s always going to be a bit more rigid than the others. I think the more he ages and gets experience, he’ll use the motherly role to his advantage. Kun has a lot of power inside of him that hasn’t had the chance to be seen, or heard. I would watch out for him. If leaders were two sides of a coin, Taeyong would be one side, Kun the other.

Doyoung: The real Doyoung is his image. I feel like SM let him be himself, knowing that a lot of fans would respond well to him because of how relatable he is. He’s not the strongest dancer and he lets people know that, and by letting people know that, it works in his favor. I definitely don’t think that was the original plan, but seeing Doyoung in the first season of NCT Life probably made SM realize that they can’t stifle someone like him.  His character is quite unique and we’re always graced with the way he is feeling: annoyance at something Taeyong has said, the way he hates being made fun of but eventually gives in to the laughter, and how he chooses Jeno as his favorite, because Jeno is the only one that listens to him. He’s got serious younger brother syndrome, to be honest. I know a lot of people might not like how overbearing he can be, but it’s why he works so well within the group. Doyoung is another pillar, like Johnny, but in a more emotional way. He keeps everything together and running smoothly.

Ten: I’m sure the original plan for Ten was to make him this cool rapper. When I watch The 7th Sense MV, I often forget I’m looking at Ten. The way his hair is and the way he’s dressed are so far removed from the Ten we know today. Those things felt more like a costume he was trying on. I am so glad SM let him release his own stations and explore different sides of himself. WayV aside, Ten seems so much happier making the music he wants to make. Like, he shines a hell of a lot brighter when he’s doing his own thing. I see him as someone who has always known what he wants. I think there are periods in everyone’s life where they challenge who they are with who they want to be, and I think that’s something he went through. I can sense a lot of pain in his transformation and acceptance of self, but the happiness that came out of it makes all of that worth it. I think he’s lightened up a lot over the years. He’s a lot less emo than he used to be.

Jaehyun: I mentioned that he plays the part of the boyfriend you wish you had. He’s meant to make you fall in love with him because of how good looking and soft he is. He’s the man you have a crush on for years but can’t tell him because you believe he is out of your league. SM loves to create this fantasy because they know it will push fans to try and attain him. In a way, they’re selling a product and you are buying it every time. He’s probably one of the only members who have kept up the charade for a really long time. I don’t think he’s entirely invested in his image, because we do see pieces of him here and there, but I think he follows the rules well and doesn’t like to disappoint people. In reality, I think he’s not as perfect (which is normal). I think he can be unintentionally abrasive and probably super pessimistic. He definitely seems like someone who lets things get to him too easily, and he probably beats himself up a lot. I can see him as someone who has slightly strange interests, as well. I also think he’s probably really fun to talk to.

WinWin: His image seems like a mixed bag: he’s foreign, he’s flexible, he is a dancer, and he is as cute as a button. Also, he was born ridiculously handsome, which plays a part in his popularity. I think SM tried to make him appear “cool” at one point, but it was WinWin’s real reactions to things that won fans over. It’s no surprise that a lot of people gravitate to him, either. He has a lot of good energy surrounding him, and you can see it in how the members act around him. I don’t think SM gives Sicheng enough any credit for all of the fans he’s pulled in over the years, as well as all of the work he’s put in since he debuted. All of that aside, I think WinWin’s personality runs a lot deeper than what we’ve seen. I think he definitely hides a lot of his truth from the cameras. He’s more of a thinker than a talker, but he wants his opinions to be heard. I think he’s really stern when he needs to be, and is definitely not as aloof as people perceive him to be. I think he’s aware of what he deserves and he’s just waiting for his time to strike back. 

Jungwoo: His image was created by fans. In the beginning, everyone called him soft because of how he handled his emotions. They ran with the idea that Jungwoo was Junguwu, and didn’t stop to think that my man’s edges are all razor sharp. Sensitivity doesn’t always create someone timid, you know? I think people are getting to see the real Jungwoo gradually. I’ve seen a lot of people be shocked that he’s so forward and a little wild. He’s so free in the way he moves, how he speaks, and the way he touches people. I’m not sure if SM ever gave him a specific image, but Jungwoo would have shattered it by now. He’s very good at making people uncomfortable, in my observations. He likes the attention, and for people to underestimate his character. He’s intelligent and needs to be stimulated at all times. Also, he’s another member that is weird as hell. I know he is always overrun with emotions, but I think there is so much strength in that. 

Lucas: He is who he is. SM can make him appear as handsome and as cool as they want, but he’s still going to pull the ugliest faces and say the dumbest shit. You can’t tame someone like that. Lucas glows when he’s being himself, and the moment the company realized that, they just kind of let him do his own thing. If he wants to move his titty on national television? Let him. He’ll bring in more people for being himself than he would for having a typical image. When he debuted, a lot of fans assumed he was a fuckboi because of the way he acted, but it ended up not being true. Honestly, a lot of people treated him really badly just because of a few characterizations through social media. When I look at Lucas, I see someone really vulnerable and kind. He has the biggest and warmest heart of any of the members. I think he’s a little senseless sometimes, but it wears so well on him. I know everyone has their own definition of innocent, but when I look at him, I see someone so honest in self that it’s beautiful.

Mark: Ahhh, the golden boy. I don’t even think Mark knows how powerful he is. I don’t think SM had an image for him. I think they saw that little Canadian boy, saw that potential deep inside of him, and I think they groomed the fuck out of him. The rest of Mark’s image comes from his real personality. Around the time he debuted, he seemed a lot less comfortable being himself. Mark, to me, has always been a very good boy. He listens well, he checks all the boxes, and he does the best he can do. Now that Mark is growing up, I think he’s finally coming into his own and finding his rhythm. I can see it in the way he writes his lyrics, the way he responds to fans these days, and how positive he remains, even when he’s overworked. Honestly, I love his personality most of all. He’s really naive, but in such a captivating way. He definitely does not think before he speaks. He’s very introverted but steps outside of that just to make other people feel comfortable. You can tell when someone just has a really good soul, and Mark Lee is one of them.

Xiaojun: I don’t think he has an image, but he’s definitely got the soft guitar boy thing going for him. It really works for him because I think it’s his truth. Music is his world and he would probably play for anyone that would want to hear him, stage of street corner. We don’t know a lot about him. My observation of him is generally positive. I think he bites his tongue a lot and I do sense a bit of leadership in him, also stubbornness, but for the most part, he’s just nice. I think he’s really accepting and inquisitive. He’s type of person that supports you, but has to make fun of you first as a means of acceptance and love. He shows love in a really weird way, I bet. 

Hendery: I’ve read a lot about him being handsome and I was wondering if that is what SM wanted people to focus on. He is handsome, but I get the feeling that he thinks he looks goofy, and that the other members are better looking than him. He’s never going to stick with the good-looking image because it isn’t what he cares about. Again, he is someone we don’t know as well, but I get a feel for him the most. He’s very funny, the type of person who will throw himself into the fire just for a joke. Those kinds of people are always the best because they will do anything to make the people they love happy. He’s a little self-sacrificial, but he’s probably working on it.

Renjun: You’ll have to pry the “Pure Boy” image from his cold, dead hands. He respects other people, so he’ll stay with the image SM created for him, even though I can see it’s wearing him out. When it comes to Renjun, I think an image is doing him more harm than good. It is a joke to him, at this point, but there’s nothing sadder than not letting someone like him live out their full potential. It’s not that deep, but he’s always seemed really impressionable to me. He denies parts of his real self (his interests) in favor of something more “sexy” or “adult”. Well, that isn’t totally true. He engages his interests whenever fans want him to, which really goes to show how thoughtful he is. Also, he’s so damn clever. Renjun is going to be someone that breaks the glass ceiling whether his company wants him to or not. I can’t wait for that day, tbh.

Jeno: I think the image he has is of someone older than his years. I know this might be controversial, but it always seemed like Jeno was being prepared for older fans. I don’t know if anyone understands what I’m saying, but I could never shake that feeling, especially when he was being compared to older males from other SM groups. I know the fans see him as a really sweet, soft, and introverted boy. He likes cats, he’s polite, and he giggles a lot. I do think that Nctzens are right about that. He’s definitely that boy-next-door. I’ve  always seen him as a really strong, unwavering presence. I think he’s really ambitious and will stop at nothing to get what he wants, and he definitely knows what he wants. Though I think we do get parts of the real Jeno on camera- especially the person he is around his friends- I would be very interested to see how he acts when he has to take charge. I have a sneaking suspicion he would make a fabulous leader.

Haechan: No one had to give him an image. Young Donghyuck, I think, really filled all of SM’s expectations for an idol. I think his personality was a large part of why it was him who was put in 127, and not anyone else. I don’t think it would have worked any other way, if I’m being honest. When he’s absent, everything feels so strange. I do think Haechan plays up the mischievous part of himself when he’s in front of cameras because he knows how much his fans like it, and he would do anything for his fans. That boy has a really big heart, too. In my eyes, Haechan is so much more than whatever adjective people want to use to describe him : loud, annoying, hilarious, cute, crazy. He’s an independent person, one with his own thoughts and opinions. I like how, when he’s serious, he listens to his elders out of respect, but then comes back with his own ideas. He wants to be treated as an equal, wants to be seen as an adult. I do think he’s a little goofball, but I think that part of himself is less interesting than the man he’s becoming every day.

Jaemin: I know people like to call his love for Nctzens a part of his job, or his image. I do think it started off that way. Jaemin was probably told to be the boyfriend, the best friend, the model son. However, I think his love and over exaggeration of that love has become a very real part of his identity . He’s used to playing up his cuteness all of the time, but I think the reaction from fans really surprised him and touched him deeply. He’ll gladly continue showering fans with love without really caring about how it makes him appear.I believe the real Jaemin is a little less obvious with his  love than he appears on camera. I can see him being a little more modest and calm, without losing the silly way he communicates that love to his friends. I think he has a very good head on his shoulders, and is probably always five steps ahead of everyone else. Other than that, I think we get most of the real Jaemin.

YangYang: In WayV, his dynamic is that of the younger brother. I don’t think it’s an act for him to always tease the older members, or to bounce around with so much energy. I think, if there was an image put on him, he would listen well to the company, but end up tweaking it to his liking. YangYang, to me, seems very individualistic. I know he loves his team, but there is something about him that aches to creatively fill some kind of void he has. I think he has a lot going on inside of his head at all times, all of these ideas swimming around that he’ll hopefully put to good use when he gets older. 

Chenle: He has the image of a child prodigy. Chenle didn’t train very long compared to the others. Even if it wasn’t intentional, that alone creates the image that he’s valued a whole lot within SM’s vision. Fans know he comes from a pretty well-off family, so I think that piles onto the positive image he has surrounding him. However, you wouldn’t expect him to be as down-to-earth, or as caring as he is. I think Chenle absolutely defies every definition of what someone like that could be. Like, he’s kind of rewritten his own image, which is pretty admirable for someone so young. I think he’s very pure of heart, and probably fulfills Renjun’s “Pure Boy” image more than anyone. I’ve only ever thought Chenle was just really friendly and extremely kind. I think he’s the type of person to treat everyone the same, no matter where they’ve come from or what they look like.

Jisung: For now, he has the image of the youngest member. He fits well into it because he’s still a child and because of the way everyone babies him. There are times I look at Jisung and can see how introspective and insightful he is. I do think those parts are stored away for the time being. I can see this unexpected maturity he has just waiting to claw its way out, tbh. I’m pretty sure he’s low key more intelligent than a lot of the other members, even some of the older ones. I don’t think he has had a chance to show case any of that to us  yet, but I look forward to seeing it someday. Professionally, I think he’s going to do so well for himself in the future. Honestly, the reality of Jisung is that he’s growing and changing every day. He’s still trying to understand who he is and what kind of things he wants to show to the world.

[lynneshobbydomain]

Tranquility (Day 3 of MomoHaru Week 2020)

Prompt: Gardens/Animals

Rating: G

Summary: Maki's garden was a place for people to relax in and to call it a sanctuary. Sometimes, Maki and Kaito forget to enjoy that for themselves.

You can read this under the cut or go to my AO3

Japan’s heat was merciless. Kaito wiped away the sweat from his brow as he straightened his back, looking at the work that he and Maki were doing in their garden. Well, he called it theirs by default but in reality it was all his wife’s faithful care and doing. When they first bought the house, the backyard wasn’t anything to write home about. A enough room to sit on the patio and enjoy the moment of….grass and a broken fence. The fence Kaito was able to fix easily. The landscaping Maki worked on religiously. He remembered all of the books she checked out from the library, trying to make the backyard into something that she could be proud of. 

She was careful in selecting her flowers, the plants that she wanted to grow. Kaito had a bit of a green thumb so he was able to give advice to her when she needed it, but other than that he was more than happy to let her experiment. To bring the splashes of yellow, white, red, and purple to life in their home. Kaito didn’t know all of the flower’s names, but what he did know was that every one who visited their place, loved the garden most of all. It was the one place where even the rambunctious Kokichi would settle and enjoy. It was that type of sanctuary. 

It was that kind of therapy. Kaito knew that Maki had issues with the idea of trying to take care of things. She was methodical, she was firm, she was unyielding. Yet here, Maki was trying to go with the flow. Sometimes, flowers just didn’t make it through the winter. Sometimes, summer was just too harsh. Sometimes she was overzealous in the watering, and sometimes she was a little too strict with how much to give. It was a balancing act, full of pitfalls and mistakes. Kaito could recall a time where Maki couldn’t for the life of her believe she’d be good at this. She almost gave up before the garden could actually flourish.

Now...Kaito looked over at his very pregnant wife who was sitting on her heels, and looking up at the sun. This was all her hard work and he was so proud of her for getting so far. From being able to tend a garden, to believing full-heartedly that she could take care of their kid. “You’re being gross.” Maki said after a moment, not even looking at him.

“How?” Kaito asked, a teasing lit. “Is it the sweat? Am I really that soaked?”

“You’re being sentimental.” Maki chided back, a curve of her lips just barely there. It took him forever to realize that her smile didn’t come through like other’s. It was soft, like a whisper between lovers. It was easy to miss if one blinked. Kaito was certain he blinked a lot, and missed too many of them to be comfortable. “I’m fine. If it was too much for me, I’d be inside already.”

“I know MakiRoll.” Kaito assured, crawling over to her space and swinging an arm around her shoulders. For such a small woman, she had quite a posture. He barely made her move. “I still worry regardless.” He reached to her stomach and gently rubbed a few circles, grinning as the kid kicked. “See? Neither of us want anything bad to happen to you.”

“Nothing will.” Maki replied, sharp as usual, but the fondness just barely softened the blow. Kaito knew that their kid would never make the mistakes he made, trying to divine what kind of reaction Maki was trying to give. The kid would know immediately what the pride was, what the anger was, what annoyance was. Kaito was for certain that there was no way the kid would ever mistake Maki for being anything less than loving and caring. “You keep going off in your head. What’s wrong?”

“I’m just thinking about all of this.” Kaito gestured, towards the garden and then gestured to Maki. “For being the Luminary of the Stars, I got pretty lucky grabbing you.”

“Stop.” Maki puffed her cheeks slightly. If she still had her long hair, she’d be grabbing the ponytail. Kaito glanced at the short strands that were barely tickling her chin. It had been a long time since Maki had long hair. A good few years actually. Not that Kaito was thinking that she looked awful in the way that she was, no. She looked like an assassin. Kaito compared her to the Black Widow once, but he wasn’t sure if that comment was a hit or miss to this day. Maki still hadn’t told him if he said something wrong or too cheesy. “I’m the lucky one.” She sighed. “You’re slacking off in your work.”

“It’s pretty hot MakiRoll.” Kaito chided. “I’m thinking of a break.”

Maki hesitated before she nodded. “To the paito then.” She said as she struggled to get up. Kaito was on his feet in an instant, reaching out and grabbing on to her to guide her to the paito’s sitting area. He pulled the chair out for her and waited until she was comfortable before going inside to grab some cold water and a couple of snacks. Even though Maki didn’t say anything about being hungry, Kaito couldn’t help but to worry over whether or not she was eating enough. 

Kaito returned with the two glasses off water and two packets of crackers. Maki was leaning against the chair, resting her head on the back of it. She was rubbing on her stomach idly, her fingers rubbing circles and tracing lines. He could see their kid move every so often, trying to follow whatever their mother was doing. He wondered if Maki was trying to provoke them to move a lot so that when she took a nap she wouldn’t be bothered so much, or if she thought they needed a nap and was trying to entice the child into a restful sleep. Whichever was happening, Kaito decided to keep his voice low. It was best to get in the habit now, than to regret it much later. 

“How are you really?” Kaito asked as he sat down, leaning forward on the table. “I didn’t mind working on the garden by myself. The heat’s not all that bad for me.”

Maki made a soft noise, “I’m fine.” She said simply. “A little overheated, but I’m not going to pass out on you.”

Which was precisely his worry, but he knew to clamp his mouth shut. Being with Maki for as long as he had, he learned a little. “Bet their real excitement to see what sort of work their mother is good at.” Kaito mused as he looked back over at the garden. “They’ll have a lot of fun here.”

“So long as we keep them from the flowers.” Maki shook her head. “Some of them are poisonous and I don’t want them to be accidently eaten.”

“Poisonous mostly to animals,” Kaito said slowly. “Right?” 

“As far as I’m aware, but a baby is as small as an animal.” Maki explained. 

It explained the worry. Kaito made a soft hum, “So we don’t let them play here without one of us, and we keep them away from the flowers.” He nodded after a moment. “Just like we don’t lock up the knife drawer.”

“I still can’t believe you think a baby can climb up to the counter, open a drawer, and fall randomly into that drawer.” Maki deadpanned. “They wouldn’t be able to start doing that until they’re about three. Even then, I can’t see it happening.”

“Best to be prepared though.”

“Being prepared is to keep an eye out on them. Not replace metal with plastic and render all cooking ware unusable.” Maki reminded him. “Sometimes I think you’re more nervous about this than I am. I’m the one that’s going through all of this.”

Kaito flinched a little, but he knew that Maki meant well. “I think you’re nervous in a different way.” He nodded over towards where their vegetable garden was located. It had been made on a whim of a late night conversation and a determination of wanting to grow something from seeds rather than starters. Carrots, cucumbers, and tomatoes were the few things to grow in that garden. At the moment, Maki was trying to nurse strawberries, but that was a little more temperamental than either of them would’ve liked.

Maki merely shrugged her shoulders, but the point was made. They were both terrified of what was going to come and they were both trying to handle it in their own way. Maki looked away for a moment before she abruptly sat up. Kaito was on red-alert, wondering if the baby decided to make their appearance now. “Look!” Maki hissed, pointing over to the garden.

Kaito’s head quickly snapped in that direction, his eyes dancing around trying to see what Maki was pointing at. At first, he thought that maybe it had been a trick of the light. Then he saw it. A tiny, fluffy little bunny that emerged from the garden. It’s noise was twitching non stop as it slowly hopped it’s way through the flowers and out into the middle of the sunlight.

It made him wish that he had his phone. The little girl that Kaede and Shuichi had at home adored rabbits and she would’ve loved to see that their garden had one. Instead, he was going to have to see if he could remember how that rabbit looked and try to describe it for her so that she could draw it. 

Kaito watched the rabbit sniff at the flowers before jumping away from them and going on it’s merry way to wherever. He wondered if the rabbit had a home somewhere in the garden that he needed to keep an eye out for, or if this was just a one time visit. The rabbit didn’t hesitate before disappearing through the bushes.

“Kanna would’ve chased that.” Maki and Kaito said together at the same time before looking at each other. Maki with the hidden smile and mirth dancing in her eyes and Kaito grinning the same toothy smile that he knew she adored. For just a moment, the rabbit brought back the peace that they were missing in their sanctuary and their worries had been chased off with laughter and joy. 

After there was a reason why their friends loved this place to begin with.

[snowbellewells]

Self Promo Sunday: The Case of the Heart in Armor: Part Two

I’m re blogging this once more this morning. It was at an odd time earlier this week when I did it, and I thought I mind give it another go. There were a few who asked to be tagged in updates who I am not sure saw it the first time. 

This was originally written for the CS Role Reversal event in October, to accompany the amazing fanart created by @courtorderedcake.  I had SO MUCH FUN working with her and coming up with this story.  I certainly didn’t mean to keep folks waiting this long for the second part.  I still hope those who were reading and excited about it will enjoy!! :)

@courtorderedcake  I don’t know why I can’t get your picture to post on here like I did with Part One.  For everyone else though, don’t miss her gorgeous art!! You can see it in the link to Part One below...

~~~~

 Summary: Killian “Holmes” Jones is rarely surprised or shocked anymore, but that all changes when he meets one very stubborn - and very beautiful - pickpocket, and trouble brews in the distance, hidden by the London fog…

Part One

by: @snowbellewells

Part Two

Chief Inspector David Nolan watched with weary acceptance as his erstwhile younger sister paced back and forth in front of the large mahogany desk in the private office at the Yard which he had worked bloody hard to earn. It wasn’t as though farm boys from Surrey made their way up the elite ranks of London’s police force regularly, and he could admit himself more than a bit proud of the distinction. It wouldn’t be the first time he had seen Emma in such a state either - she was as stubborn as the day was long, and had quite the temper besides, if a person had poor enough judgement to rile her. Though he didn’t mind listening to Emma’s tirade, he would have to quiet her soon, both because her rant was rising in volume instead of tapering off, and because the man she was ranting against was indeed an acquaintance of his and had helped him out of some tight scrapes - more than Nolan would actually like to admit.

Standing finally, and rubbing a hand over tired eyes - his latest case had already kept him from sound sleep three nights in a row - David rounded the desk with measured and steady stride to take Emma’s arm gently, stopping her wild gesticulations in midair before she could manage to clock him on the chin. Even though at present he found himself wishing she could be a bit more demure and correct, David did care deeply for the slip of a young woman his single mother had taken into their home when he was fourteen and Emma only twelve. His mum had caught Em’s hand in her pocketbook outside the market where she had been lurking, stealing to survive. He still remembered those half-wild eyes, her dirt-smudged face, and how thin and ravenously hungry the girl who became his sister had been. She’d already been alone on the streets for some time by that point, had trusted no one (she still trusted very few), and yet, Ruth Nolan, despite she and David having little to spare themselves, simply couldn’t abide the situation without helping. They’d only been in town to shop for a new sturdy coat to last David the winter and visit the theatre - a rare treat indeed - but when they had returned to the country, Emma had gone with them. Gradually, Emma had come to believe that they wouldn’t turn her out, that she couldn’t make Ruth rescind her welcome, and David had come to be glad for a sibling and hearty companion. There were still signs of that feral waif scrapping to survive when her eyes flashed with fury as they were doing just then, but David wouldn’t have Emma be someone else - even if it would make his life occasionally easier.

Hoping to placate her, at least a bit, before telling her what he knew might send her flying off the handle once again, David guided his sibling into the seat facing his desk, a soothing hand lingering at her shoulder as he attempted to commiserate. “It does sound as if your meeting with Mr. Jones was most vexing. No wonder you were put out.”

Emma was nodding along, her shoulders still radiating tension and looking only slightly mollified as he went back toward his own seat and lowered his broad-shouldered, commanding frame into it once more. “The sheer audacity!” She was still saying, clearly gearing up to tell him the whole story again, when David stretched his hand out to still her next torrent of hissed words.

“The thing is,” he began, rather hesitantly; regardless of his usual air of strength and authority, he seemed to be nearly tiptoeing around his sister, knowing her tart tongue and ability to hold a grudge could make him truly miserable if he handled the situation badly and she thought him to be taking Killian Jones’ side over her own. “Jones was not in the strictest sense out of turn to claim that he knew me… nor to be surprised we were related. He has aided us here at the Yard several times now, when we thought a case was about to reach a true dead end. He’s a right clever chap, and much as I hate to admit it, he sees things the rest of us miss - myself included. It’s almost uncanny, and no doubt how he caught you in the act - slick and nimble-fingered as you are, Sis.”

Emma’s mouth opened with a comeback; he could see her gathering a fortifying breath, but at the last statement, clearly reminding her that he knew she sometimes returned to her less-than-legal roots and he looked the other way, she snapped it closed again, her teeth clacking against each other with the force. Instead, she arched a brow at him sardonically as if questioning what he had to tell her and already warning him that it wouldn’t change her mind all in one.

However, before he could get around to explaining that she would have to learn to tolerate Mr. Jones as best she could, because they would soon be seeing each other more often, or warn her once more of the dangers she invited by haunting the seedier neighborhoods where he knew she most liked to set up her cart of flowers and put her old, erstwhile skills into practice, they were interrupted by two sharp, business-like raps on his office door before it opened abruptly. His second-in-command, Graham Watson, entered with an apologetic and rather sheepish look on his face. 

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Sir… Miss Emma…” the boyishly sweet-faced lieutenant nodded to her in deference before turning his attention back to her adoptive brother, a light flush actually crawling up the back of his neck toward his honey-colored hair, unmanageably curly and only adding to his tousled, youthful appearance as his eyes flicked back away from Emma. He had taken her to the opera once, and though he had been a perfect gentleman, Emma had the sneaking suspicion they would make for a poor pair beyond mere acquaintances. A faint smirk quirked one corner of her full, rosy lips upwards at the thought, but despite his clearly still harboring a bit of attracted interest, she had the distinct impression that he couldn’t handle her were she to truly let loose and be herself in his presence.

“That’s alright, Graham,” David assured, smiling and beckoning the other man forward.

Graham entered, but then turned back to usher another through the door behind him. “You told me to let you know when Holmes arrived,” he added.

Emma turned sharply in her seat, skin prickling with awareness at the sight of the tall, dark-headed and astonishingly blue-eyed man from the day before easing into the office behind Watson. He waggled an eyebrow at her, maddeningly aware of her strong reaction and raising her ire once more without even having spoken. Giving a brief dip of the head like a bow to her, he turned to face her brother as well, tucking his right thumb into the belt loop of his well-fitted charcoal slacks, and somehow making even perfectly correct dress attire look rakishly sinful as his hips preceded him a step forward into the room. “Afternoon, Nolan,” he greeted mildly, looking for all the world as though he had not a care. “Heard you wished to speak with me. Found the thief who took my watch, have you?”

He glanced over his shoulder at Emma, looking all-too-pleased with himself if the grin stretching his mouth in satisfied confidence was any indication.

“Why you…” she leapt to her feet, ready to stalk forward and challenge his accusation - true it might be, but she would like to see him prove it. However, she found that the creative and colorful arsenal of pejorative names and curses usually ready on the tip of her tongue were all tangled up inside her mouth. Opening and closing it several times uselessly, she finally shook her head with a huff, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him darkly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her struggle for words.

Smirking with lazy ease, as if the entire situation amused him immensely, Jones rolled his tongue around in his mouth obscenely (it did not make Emma’s pulse tap noticeably in her throat at all) before speaking to her once more. “Aye, Love, it is me, as you say…. Always nice to make an impression.”  And then (the very cheek of him!) he winked at her before sliding his gaze back to her brother.

It certainly didn’t help her rising temper to sense David, and Graham too it seemed, silently chuckling as he watched their volatile exchange. She supposed she deserved that to some extent, being quicker and more stealthy than most by half, and not ashamed to make it known and use it to her advantage, even with those closest to her when it suited. It probably was more than a bit amusing to both of them to see her genuinely rattled by this...this…  Well, she didn’t even have a word for this Killian ‘Holmes’ Jones, but she wasn’t about to stand there and have them all snickering at her expense.  Sweeping around her chair in the opposite direction, careful to avoid coming anywhere near Jones, she threw over her shoulder as she started for the door. “Well, David, if we’re done for the moment, I’ll be going…”

She was well on her way to stalking dramatically from the room, congratulating herself through her flustered nerves that it would serve them right to have run her off when they needed her for whatever they were gathered to cluck about like a bunch of old hens. David and Graham both knew she was a valuable and well-placed set of eyes and ears to the ground in parts of the city where the police could go but would see and hear nothing at all. David had accepted her help gratefully on numerous occasions - even if he always tried to go without it at first. He argued about jeopardizing her safety and the questionable legality of involving someone not part of the force to gain intelligence.

None of that concerned Emma though; she liked proving her mettle - and her skill. Deep down, there was also, she supposed, a part of her that wanted to do something in return for the gift David’s mother, and David too, had given her, taking her into their home and off of the street. He was the one person left in the world she could call family, and she would do anything for him, despite that sentiment going largely unspoken. She knew the same was true of him for her.

Before she could get out the door however, David’s voice drew her back in, a weariness and a resigned need to it that practically compelled her to wait and hear him out. David was capable and astute; good at his job no matter how much she might playfully heckle or give him grief. If he were this intent on having her assistance, then it was something serious with which he was dealing. A tremor of awareness, foreboding shivering up her spine, ran across Emma’s skin as she paused and then turned back to the three men now gathered around David’s desk and the precarious mess of papers piled atop it that she had failed to notice until that very second.

Graham’s voice spoke next, sounding both troubled and anxious as he did so, “Are you sure we should…?” His hands wrung themselves nervously, as if he was having to consciously fight not to reach out and cover the crime scene photographs she could just make out peeking from the stacks strewn across the surface before her as she drew nearer.

And when she actually laid eyes on what her brother’s lieutenant had wanted to shield her from, Emma’s stomach did make a large and unpleasant lurch for her throat.  Pressing her hand against her abdomen to still its sudden roiling, despite all that she had seen in her rough and ramshackle upbringing and colorful present dealings, she had to hold back a shocked gasp of horror at the sight in front of her. It was a near thing indeed.  Even as she struggled not to jerk her glance away and stand up straight and unfazed,  not wanting it to be dismissed as “feminine vapors”, or something equally ridiculous if she showed too much distress. She knew her brother and his subordinate better than that anyway - and they seemed plenty subdued and disturbed by the pictures as well. But she would not show weakness in front of Killian Jones.

To her surprise, at just the moment she had that thought, and steeled herself against the tremors trying to overtake her limbs, she felt a light, surreptitious hand rest carefully at the small of her back. It took a mere moment to realize that the touch was Jones, and that he must mean it to be steadying, offered in comfort and solidarity. He didn’t make an attempt to look at her in mocking, nor did he draw the other two men’s attention to his actions. And though her eyes had narrowed to near-slits, ready to chastise him about keeping his hands to himself, and warn him that she had no need of his brand of comfort, Emma found herself doing nothing of the sort. Where she had felt herself going cold at the fearful sight chilling her blood from the displayed evidence, warmth seemed to radiate from where his large hand rested, fighting off some of the frigid ice that had infiltrated her veins with the repulsion she felt for the crime. Despite still wanting to show him up if she could, and despite not wanting to let a point of frailty show, she was glad to have the contact in that minute, while she battled to regain control.

The criminal David was chasing was clearly a monster… and they were going to need all the help they could get.

~~~~~~~~~~~~***

Deep, devious eyes, painted beguilingly, narrowed in intense concentration as they studied the carnage spread out over the worktable. Rather than finally seeing the last ingredient needed, there was instead merely one more bloody mess. A needless loss - not that the culprit was crying any tears over the unfortunate victim.

Not unexpectedly, it was now proven, as the villain had feared, that not just any organ would do. It must be a heart, fatal as that realization was. Moreover, no random heart would suffice either. Her last conquest had made that appalling fact abundantly clear.

No, if she wanted to truly put the alchemical possibilities she had studied to the test, and to discover if her abilities within the field were as great as she needed them to be, this final hurdle and greater risk was unavoidable. Bringing the dead back to life was seemingly impossible; none disputed that fact. And yet, she refused to accept those terms, ending her life’s happiness when it had barely begun.

Wiping deceptively pale and delicate hands on the cloth beside her, she did her best to remove the vivid red stains covering her hands and forearms where they were bared beneath her rolled up sleeves. Resurrection was bloody work indeed, but her course had long since been set. A specific heart it would have to be. Garnet lips painted as deep and dark as the blood splattered around her tilted up in an unnerving and sinister smile. Oh yes, she would get that heart she needed - no matter what it took to acquire.

Tagging: @courtorderedcake @cocohook38 @jennjenn615 @kmomof4 @hollyethecurious @darkcolinodonorgasm @winterbaby89 @teamhook @thisonesatellite @laschatzi @stahlop @ultraluckycatnd @drowned-dreamer @resident-of-storybrooke @revanmeetra87 

[misssunflowersandsangria]

Adorned in Green

Thanks for the ask @sehuntema .  Hope that you like it!

Shikamaru leaned against the wall hidden in the shadows scowling annoyed and upset. He was sure that he was supposed to be mingling and promoting unity and peace between the nations and whatever other bullshit a state representative was supposed to do. He couldn’t find any motivation within him to even act interested in such things. His mind was solely focused on the vision of emerald and gold just beyond his reach. When Naruto had told him about Suna's state dinner he was so excited to see his Sand Goddess that he had failed to remember that she was their Sand Princess.  Tonight Temari played into that role quite well. She was a dream draped in the finest silks of jade that tried to compete with the green of her eyes. Precious jewels complemented the gold that naturally crowned her head.  She was in her element, in a position and place that was worthy of her.  

She was regal, gracious and welcoming to people who had come from all over the five great nations. She’d explained to him how important it was for Suna. This was their opportunity to show how much they’d progressed as a nation under Garra's leadership. She also wanted him there as moral support. She was very good at rubbing elbows with these people but hated it all the same. He should be right there next to her whispering words of encouragement but right now he was sulking in the dark.  

This was better for both of them because if he had to watch one more Lord, head of state or whoever stare, fuss and fawn over her he would start an international incident. 

There was a particular one that was asking for it. He looked like a squid which made sense because he was someone from the Land of Waves.  Besides, he looked slimy.   He watched as the squid reached up one of his tentacles to touch her exposed shoulder but was stopped in his tracks. Temari turned immediately towards him leveling him a stormy look but Shikamaru wasn’t moved, he was annoyed and upset and he wanted her to know it. The Lord seemed confused about why he was suddenly stopped and Temari took a step back excusing herself.  She passed by Shikamaru wordlessly to the balcony. Once she was outside and out of his clutches, he released his shadow causing the Lord to fall forward on his face. He smirked then followed after her. 

 “That didn’t last long.” Naruto laughed to the redhead Kazekage.  They'd been watching this play out for a while.  

“Well that particular Lord deserved it. He’s been inquiring about courting her for a while, incessantly, despite Nara’s claim. And the fact that he’s old enough to be our father.” 

“It’s been pretty amusing to see all these confused people coming to dead stops around her.” Any person that came within a foot of her that Shikamaru didn’t know found themselves trapped in his shadow jutsu. The Hokage wasn’t sure whether his friend realized that he was doing it or if it was a gut reaction to keep her safe.

“Hopefully once they’re married this will be less of a problem.”  Temari could be just as jealous and he'd seen her have some not so friendly conversations with different women all night.

“I doubt it, Hinata and I have been married for a while now but I still find myself sending clones to watch her from the shadows but I'm pretty sure that she knows by now."

They shared a laugh but ultimately Garra was happy for his sister.  She’d found someone who would love, care for and protect her, it was the most that he could wish for his sister.  

 “Want to explain to me why you’re being such an asshole tonight?”  Temari demanded the wind whipping around her. Even while in the throes of her anger she was still so dazzling.  He’d been rendered completely still and speechless when he’d first seen her that night.  He was used to her wearing her regular Shinobi garb.  Delicate fabrics wrapped tightly around her, priceless jewels, and exposed skin were overloading his senses.  He wanted to tear off that green dress for a number of reasons, but also because it was replacing all his images of her and that would be distracting in his daily life. He'd always known that she was gorgeous with her sandy blonde hair and teal eyes but to have it so highlighted and on display tonight was killing him.  It only made him more annoyed that other people got to behold her beauty like this, which was meant only for him.  

“Why? Did you want to dance with that guy?”  He replied harshly leaning against the wall.  He really wished that he could smoke.  

She glared at the response.  “Are you serious right now? Do you think that I'm enjoying this?  I’m Suna’s Princess, this is part of my job. Besides if you weren’t sulking in the corner you could have been right there with me instead of trapping everyone in your shadows like some petty child.”

Surprised she was caught in his shadow and placed against the wall his warm body caging her in.  She knew that she had pushed him and that he was upset but a part of her was thrilled to be 'trapped' like this.  She could overpower him if she wanted but she was safe and she wanted to see what he would do. 

“Yes, you may be their princess, but you’re mine. Call it possessive or chauvinistic if you want but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re mine and no one else gets to touch you.”  In any other situation with any other person, she would have destroyed him but this was her Shikamaru, her usually calm, lazy nin. To see him so fierce and passionate, his normally soft eyes firey only made her feel wanted.  She reached forward his shadows allowing her to move so that she could wrap her arms around his neck.

“Shika, I love you, only you. These other people, Lords, shinobi or whoever doesn’t matter to me.  I’m here with you, I'm wearing your clan’s crest sewn into this dress against my heart. You’re mine, just as much as I am yours, never forget that.”  He picked her up to pull her into a kiss her legs wrapping around his waist, desperately needing to remind himself that no one could take her away. They’d been through too much together to ever be apart.  He’d happily start a war if he needed to, just to keep her.

He scattered kisses along her neck in apology not caring if they left marks for the world to see.  “I’m sorry. You’re an important figure to Suna and I’ll have to share you sometimes, but it doesn’t mean that I have to like it. But, I can learn to handle it better.”  He mumbled knowing that he was being childish and that this wouldn't be the first time.

Her hands gently played with his hair.  “That’s why I wanted you here. I want people to know that you’re the most important person in my life.  That I chose you and I’m proud to stand next to you.”

“Really?”  He asked unsure.

Temari kissed him sweetly.  “Baby, we’ve gotta work on your confidence.  You’re the Hokage’s adviser, you’re from a storied, respected clan, your jutsu is strong, your contributions during the war are known far and wide.  You are good, kind and loyal. I had to put my claim on you before someone else tried to take you from me. Never think that you’re less than anyone in that room.  I’m lucky that you’re mine.” She assured him kissing him fiercely and possessively. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen the ladies of Suna eyeing him while he pouted and sulked.  He looked incredibly handsome tonight clothed in a fitted suit that she had specially made for him that incorporated traditional Suna fashion. She was glad that he didn’t realize how attractive he was or else she’d have a lot more talking to's by the council because of her behavior.  

After a few more kisses, and shared promises about what the night would hold for them after the event they returned to the ballroom and he remained steadfast by her side.  He was charming and intelligent, his presence only elevating the guests’ feelings and experiences in Suna. He wanted Temari to shine and so he reflected all the greatness and glory that was within her.   His hand was warm and ever-present on her back, his figure looming over her like a shadow. She felt safe and protected under his watchful gaze and no one dared cross his path. He may not particularly enjoy politics but he knew how to play the game well.  By the end of the night, no one could question her choosing him, a ninja from another village with little title or status, as her mate.  

 “I think that we’ve gotta invite you to these things more often Nara. People were impressed.” Kankuro toasted him before they both took a drink. The guests had all left but the Konoha delegation remained along with the Sand siblings for the after-party.  Temari seated comfortably in Shikamaru’s lap playing with his hair while the group enjoyed more food and drinks relaxing by a fire under the desert sky. 

“I had to pick up a lot of broken hearts after they found out you were with my sister and after she threatened to exile them from the country,” Kankuro added with a grin knowing that she’d take the bait. 

“Shut up Kankuro.” She growled about to jump and attack her brother till Shikamaru’s arms wrapped around her waist pulling her back into his lap. 

“Didn’t know you felt that way about me Trouble.” He teased her and Kankuro took that as his opportunity to get out of harm’s way. 

She pouted and blushed before ducking her face into his neck. 

“I wasn’t jealous.”  She mumbled. He just chuckled before turning her gaze back towards him.  She couldn’t help but smile at the way his eyes shined in amusement. He was very much her Prince.  While she had no illusions of what being a Princess meant for her she couldn't help but feel that she had earned him and their fairy tale. 

“I love you.”  He told her simply and while she’d heard those words many times before they always filled her such an immense feeling of joy.  

“I love you too.”  It wasn’t always easy being with the Suna Princess, famed Sand Kunoichi and wind mistress, but he wouldn’t trade her for the world.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21393019

[devnny]

CHAPTER SIX.

JTRM — THE “R” STANDS FOR RECOVERING!

PREVIOUSLY.

is it really chapter six already. good lord. this one is PRETTY ZESTY. devi is big mad.... or is she??? [dramatic music]

Dear Diary,

WHAT JOY!

I met with Devi again tonight, and she still wants to mentor me! Forget all my previous musings about drinking rat poison or slamming an iron maiden door on myself.

I can hardly wait for the rest of this night and tomorrow’s day to pass so it will be night again and I can go over!! I will be a better student now, with no stabbing to be had, I swear it.

--

Johnny’s hand shook as he wrote, his bones rattling with excitement that what he scrawled on his diary’s pages was really true and not some lovely illusion his brain thought up to deal with immense emotional pain. He was almost salivating in manic joy – Devi was so un-enraged! Her screaming and threats of violence the last time he was in her apartment were so scary, and he had expected the same treatment tonight, BUT NO! She was angry but she was forgiving! Well, to an extent. SO EXCITING!

“You see, Johnny?” Meat kept his voice as kind as he could. “Giving in to your feelings isn’t so bad.”

Johnny paid him an annoyed pout before returning to his gleeful wandering about the house. He had nothing to do with his energy besides move – or maybe he should draw? Devi would be pleased with that!

“You must agree with me this time.”

“HUSH! You will not ruin this for me.” Johnny spoke as he gathered up the pens and pencils he had splayed across the floor several nights ago. He plucked them up like flowers into his hand, shuffling along the floor with his knees bent.

“I’m not trying to ruin anything for you, Johnny boy!” The ceramic grinned. “I told you, I’m trying to help you! And look, expressing your feelings made that Devi girl happy, didn’t it?”

Johnny stood, his bushel of art supplies tucked to his chest, and thought over Meat’s statement.

“Hmm.” He looked off. Meat’s smile didn’t waver.

“It was that heartfelt-ness that moved her. She’s happy with you.”

Johnny scoffed, though his heart quickened at the concept of Devi being ‘happy’ with him.

“Don’t get ahead of yourself, meaty-guy. Devi isn’t happy-happy, she’s just not on the verge of bludgeoning me! I will have to do much more than apologize if I want to make her… happy.”

“You’re right! Why not go out and buy her some candies. Write her a poem, perhaps?” Meat suggested. Johnny brushed him off again.

“NO, no, none of your stupid interjecting.” He brought up his double palmful of pens and pencils. “Drawing will make her more pleased than food and words.”

Meat sucked in a sigh, irritated, but made no attempt to argue.

-

THE FOLLOWING DAY:

“No, it went… surprisingly well, actually.” Devi spoke into her headset as she whisked the bristles of her brush inside a jar.

“OH?” Tenna’s voice pitched from the headphones.

“Yeah, he blabbered on about how he’s stupid and completely reliant on instinct, as far as his attacks go, anyway. He reacts without thought when he feels victimized, and regrets it, wants to control it, blah blah blah…” Devi tapered off, deciding to not bring up whatever his deal was with her eyes and how he loves them, or, whatever that was. Tenna hummed a high note.

“That’s good, but also kinda, a problem, isn’t it?” She asked.

“Not a problem I’m not willing to handle.” Devi replied, tabbing her paintbrush across her canvas. Tenna tsss’d at her.

“You’re okay to deal with… potentially life-threatening attacks?”

“I had to be when I started this stupid venture; knowing the cause of it is at least something to work with. Besides,” Her mouth pulled up into a smile. “I have an idea of how to work it out of him.”

“That sounds rather ominous.” Tenna said, and Devi cackled back.

“He needs exposure.” She spoke confidently. “If he learns how to process little bits of cruelty properly, he can learn to bite his metaphorical tongue until controlling his outbursts is easy.”

Tenna made a face over the phone.

“You’re just going to be mean to him until he gets used to it??”

“Exactly. And then maybe I’ll be nice after.”

“DOESN’T THAT SEEM… KINDA DANGEROUS?” Tenna tried to reason with her. “That’s like poking at a rabid dog with a big stick!! That’s like waving a red flag in front of an angry bull!”

“He doesn’t scare me.” Devi punctuated the sentence with a harsh dot on her canvas. “And he better know better than to piss me off at this point.”

“He doesn’t know SHIT.”

Devi laughed at that.

“I’m just going to be critiquing him harder instead of being so gentle about it. Why am I coddling his low self-esteem, anyway? He needs to hear it, and he needs to get used to it.” She assured her friend. “It’s not like I’m just going to be rude to him from the minute he gets here and bully him until he leaves.”

“Oh…” Tenna frowned. “Well, I guess that’s a little better, but still… you should be careful with him.”

“He’s had his chance for me being careful and nice.” She bit out. “Anyway, I need to work on this before Johnny shows up, so I’ll talk to you later I guess.”

“HEE-HEE. You know, one thing I like about this Nny guy is that you talk to me more now that he’s around to bug you.” Tenna grinned cheekily at the phone, as if Devi could see.

“You called me.”

“But you answered!” Tenna chimed, and Devi shook her head.

“Bye, Ten.”

-

6:00PM (SHARP!):

Johnny knocked on the door, proud of the promptness of his arrival. He had a large rolled paper and his pencil bag tucked under his other arm, and he bounced on his heels impatiently as he waited for Devi to answer. His shoulders cocked back when he heard the locks undoing, and the smile he wore pushed out wide.

“Hi!” He greeted her excitedly as the door opened, and Devi stared at him with a confused, open-mouth half-smile.

“Hey, Nny.” She knew he was glad to be closer to her good graces than not, but he seemed like he might burst with excitement just standing there.

“I drew while I was away!” Johnny declared eagerly, jutting the paper tube toward her with his free hand. Devi looked down to it in surprise before taking it from him gingerly.

“Oh,” She hesitated. “—good, good.”

She waited a beat, wondering why he was just standing there expectantly, before realizing that she was blocking the doorway and turned to the side to allow him in. Johnny quickly entered, immediately making his way to his ‘spot’ at the coffee table. He sat on the floor and hurriedly emptied the contents of his bag onto the table, sorting the materials of his workspace across its surface without hesitation. Devi watched him with some surprise – she had never seen him so eager to start one of their little sessions. She chalked it up to his misguided idea that she had ‘forgiven’ him, and closed the door.

As she plopped down onto the couch, Johnny perked up, hopeful that she would be pleased with the drawings he offered. Devi unfurled the paper, and raised her eyebrows at the unexpected attempts at realism. This reaction only served to kindle Johnny’s excitement further.

“I only had some garbage things to use as models, but the shadows were very difficult.” He commented as he watched her eyes wander over the page.

Devi couldn’t say she wasn’t impressed with his efforts. It was more like something out of a preteen’s art class, but it was a big jump from stick figures, that was for sure. And his subjects certainly were garbage; a crushed can, a tissue wad, empty cups, bent silverware – but you could tell that’s what they were supposed to be, at least! Some of the light sources were wrong, but his hard, erratic lines had an amount of personality to them that she liked.

A breath sucked in between her teeth. This was such an improvement, she would feel awful to hit him with some rough criticism right off the bat. Ugh, damn her bleeding heart.

“These are…” The lump in her throat fell, unable to squash his enthusiasm. “—great, Nny. Really great.”

Johnny’s eyes glimmered back at her, his smile barely able to keep hold on his face while he absorbed her praise, his jaw instead wanting to hang open. He hinged it shut again after a moment, bringing a grin back up with him as he swallowed. He wanted to scream his elation at the top of his lungs and barrage Devi with insistent ‘thank you’s, but managed to keep the words trapped wafting around in his chest like a bubble.

“Thank you.” He exhaled, eyes on the table.

Devi inched back further on the couch, second-guessing her decision to praise him. She knew that’s what he wanted to hear, and maybe it was a bad idea to give him what he wanted so soon. Or maybe she was spiteful, and it rubbed her wrong to reward him regardless. Could be either. She had no time to dwell on it, and tapped the table with her knuckle to garner his attention.

“I’ll be expecting even more from you now, Nny.” She told him, somewhere between approval and a warning. The nervous smile he held made Devi feel a little better about her small act of kindness.

-

SOME TIME LATER:

Part of her felt badly every time Johnny’s eyes fell as she critiqued his work, but the other part of her felt absolute, pure, vindictive satisfaction every time she got the chance to. She felt like an evil middle school art teacher, holding the poor self-esteem of the nasty little student that continuously misbehaved in class, tight in her unforgiving claws. He looked so disappointed – whether it was in his efforts, or that she didn’t readily applaud him, she didn’t know – but Devi would remind herself, and him, that you don’t improve by being lied to with sweet words.

But then she would throw him a compliment about the lining on something, or the perspective on this, or the dialogue here, and that was enough to keep his engine chugging along.

In her now very limited free time, she would brag to Tenna that her plan was working rather well. At a point, as the weeks wore on, Johnny had come to expect the harsh comments from her and would brace himself accordingly. Devi felt some pride each time she saw his jaw tighten; a subtle physical indication that he was holding something back, holding something in. The evidence that he could, in fact, control himself in any small increment, was promising.

So she tried harsher words – words that would warm her own face as they passed from her brain out of her mouth. “Ugly” or “stupid”; words that should never go hand-in-hand with mentorship. Aloof interest in his completed projects, asking him cruel questions, like if he truly felt this was “completed”, or if he bothered to try at all.

It was very dangerous. Johnny argued the first few times, aggressive in his own defense, but would shortly quiet himself – very good, Devi thought. That anger being there was the point in all of this. If he made no show of it, there was no indication he was making any improvement in his emotional discipline, and she didn’t want him to be taking her verbal lashings without a fight simply because he respected her. As though his brain digested the vile things she spewed at him without any alarm bells or security measures, because it was her, and she got a free pass.

Tonight was the night she planned to go completely overboard. A ridiculous amount of bitchiness for a multipage comic that certainly didn’t deserve the cruelty she was going to bestow upon it, but would be the necessary martyr, the ever-important climax to this reckless ploy of hers. She informed Tenna that there would indeed be yelling, on her part, this evening, and to please not involve the police. Tenna was free to intervene with the cops, or a big can of mace, if she heard any screams of terror afterward, though.

Johnny had brought the finished comic pages with him, and was none too enthused about handing them over to her. Devi’s heart pounded as she prepared herself for the overly-aggressive response she had been rehearsing in her head for days, and she had prayed to the unmerciful theater-goth gods that she had the salt to maintain her malicious act without even a shake or crack in her voice. And, to like, any other deities, that might want to provide her with a little divine protection from Johnny should he want to lash out physically. That would be nice.

And it was quite a performance; false insult at what he presented her with, biting words about his lack of effort in just about everything, despite knowing well that the pages she just shoved back into his arms where some of his best to date. It pained Devi, a little, to do this to him – to any artist, for that matter. Johnny looked so confused and upset as she yelled at him that he wasn’t taking this seriously, but she forced herself to shut down his counterarguments with even louder shouting. With one more heinous act against him, she slapped the papers out of his hands and onto the floor. Johnny stared at her, pupils narrow as slits, in disbelief.

But still no murder came.

Devi let herself catch her breath with slow, quiet huffs, and feigned a cool head.

“Well?” She asked once she felt like she wouldn’t pant the words out. “Pick them up.”

It was so belittling, so degrading. She could tell from his trembling eyes that the blatant disrespect of it hit its mark, and jumped far down his gullet, twisting and burning up his innards unforgivingly. Devi herself might have stabbed someone for giving her or her art the same treatment. Her body tensed a moment, waiting, listening to Johnny’s heavy breathing, and watching his slender frame twitch and shiver under the weight of his desire for egocentric vengeance.

Devi’s lips parted in surprise when his legs buckled, and he bent slowly onto his knees to pick up the pages scattered between them.

Nothing could have stopped the giant grin that cracked across her face.

As Johnny plucked the last paper from its resting spot, Devi squatted down so she was eyelevel with him, her elbows balanced on her knees. His fingers flinched from her sudden proximity, and the page fell from his grasp, leaving it to be snatched up by Devi. She took a moment to appreciate the panels that had been so neatly inked onto its surface, before lifting her gaze above the paper and to its creator. Johnny’s wide eyes stared at the ground, franticly concentrating on the carpet instead of the woman in front of him. Devi’s smile persisted.

“I bet you’ve killed me a hundred times in your head tonight.” Her voice had a smirk in it. The comment made Johnny flinch again, and he flickered his eyes up to her for only a moment before looking away again, willing himself not to acknowledge such a thing.

“There’s no way you haven’t.” Devi said confidently. “It’s too easy for you.”

Johnny’s mouth bent into a miserable scowl, and he lowered his head further so she wouldn’t see. He was sure that she was mocking him again, this time for how pitiful the restraint on his murderous tendencies was. It wasn’t like he wanted to have those kinds of thoughts about her!

“You could have… I don’t know.” She fanned the page while she thought. “Grabbed me, twisted my arm, broke something… stabbed me, obviously.”

Devi heard the stack of papers in Johnny’s hands crinkle under his tightening grasp, and reminded herself that he could still attack her right now, if he wanted to. She waited a moment, glancing at the rattling movement of bunched stationary from her view above his head, and let her smile perk up again when the shaking stopped. Unbelievable. She’d end this quickly, to be compassionate for once.

“But you know what Johnny?” Her tone was very smug, and Johnny’s lips quivered a bit, knowing she was asking him to respond, to be a part of this conversation. She was so foolish! He was purposefully keeping out of this altercation for her own safety – could she not see that?

Still, he couldn’t deny Devi anything she asked of him at this point. With an unsettling sigh, he urged himself to raise his head to meet her stare. She looked so carelessly arrogant, it was unlike her. He would have carved a face like that right off of anyone else.

“What?” He snapped. Best to keep it short. Devi smiled fully again.

“You didn’t.”

The tension in Johnny’s face fell slack suddenly, and he searched her expression for any kind of hint at what a statement like that from her could mean. It couldn’t be so simple when it was from an angry Devi, but his mind was unable to get ahold of any deeper insult, or allusion to an action previous. He thought for a few seconds, debating what kind of cruel comment that could be – he didn’t? Yes, obviously he didn’t, but what did that have to do with anything, he wondered.

A soft blink brought with it a cool blanket of clarity. He… didn’t. What a strangely obvious, but vastly important note to make. Despite all of her viciousness, all her degrading criticisms, and even some level of physical aggression, he had made no move to strike back. Johnny was dumbfounded a moment longer, and Devi took the opportunity to reach forward and take the remaining pages of his comic from his hands. She stood, taking Johnny’s attention upward with her for a moment, before his eyes dropped to the ground again and scoured the floor while he thought.

She had been testing him! It was so clear to him now! It had been so easy to believe that Devi was just spiteful and unsatisfied with him, he didn’t even stop to consider any other motivations behind her sudden hostile behavior at all. But most importantly; he had passed. Unwittingly, he had passed the intensive test of his will – which he assumed was likely the point, not knowing what she was attempting to do and all.

With the rug pulled out from under him, Johnny had only felt confused at first, but now had a blossoming feeling of accomplishment spreading throughout his chest cavity. An unsure smile sprung up onto his mouth. He moved to join Devi in standing, and felt comfortable, for the first time in weeks, meeting her eyes so casually. She was skimming over his drawings, but looked up to him as he stood.

“If I’m being honest, you’re doing really good, Nny.” She huffed a laugh. “Like, really, really good. I’m all proud and shit.”

That accomplished feeling Johnny had felt a moment ago erupted fully, worming through every nook and cranny of his torso and out to his extremities. Devi was proud of his efforts! She was happy with him, really genuinely happy this time! His uneven smile widened into a clean crescent shape, and Devi laughed at his exhilaration from her comment.

“Screw drawing tonight.” She spoke again, and tossed the pages onto her living room table. “I think I owe you dinner.”

Johnny’s brows rose in surprise.

“What?” He gasped.

“I feel… kinda bad for being so harsh on you.” Devi looked around, not wanting to dwell on it. “And you’ve been diligent and whatnot in your projects so, fuck it, let’s go get noodles. My treat.”

Johnny only stared at her unblinkingly as he attempted to digest his good fortune; praise, smiles, laughter, “proud”, “treat”? All such unfamiliar actions and words – but not unwelcome!

“Uh—sure!” He gleamed. “Yes!”

Devi laughed again, feeling light and airy after bogging herself down with rigorous, exaggerated anger. She threw her coat on as she headed out the door, with Johnny following enthusiastically behind.

--

NEXT.

[lizardrosen]

Andrew Scott Hamlet (2017)

I'm finally watching the Andrew Scott Hamlet and it's so good!

This post is mostly a liveblog I did on twitter, but edited for reading clarity, and with a few notes I took that I didn’t talk about in my posts.

the watchtower scene is in a security guard room filled with screens, and the ghost makes the camera short out

Andrew Scott is just. a perfect hamlet - AUGH, his bitter laugh at “unmanly grief”. He stays inside while everyone else is dancing on the balcony outside, and sits on his suitcase in the dark. He’s a good sad boy.

and he's FRIENDS with both laertes and ophelia - he and laertes share a genuinely friendly hug before laertes leaves, and then it’s so clear how much ophelia and hamet care for each other, and she holds him as he cries, and cheers him up.

Polonius is a Good Dad, and while most of his advice is stuff he's said hundreds of times before, "this above all..." isn't rehearsed, he really just wants to say what he means to a child he loves dearly

oh cool, i'm loving how they rearranged and merged the scenes here!

Hamlet's "too too solid flesh" merges into him kissing ophelia and hiding behind the couch while laertes and polonius tell her not to trust him, and then he speaks with horatio, and they just miss r&g - he hasn't gone to see the ghost yet, so he hasn't put on an antic disposition, which means claudius was already planning to keep him in line before he gave any cause for it, and I just love how shifting a few scenes changes everything so dramatically.

Hamlet and the ghost: - horatio is so frantic for his friend's safety! but then Hamlet runs to find the ghost anyway. hamlet reaches out hesitantly to touch his father's face and they CLING to each other, then "pity me not." the ghost speaks of his death super fast, as if afraid to dwell on it, then slows as he charges hamlet "taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul proceed against thy mother." But then two minutes after being told not to blame his mother Hamlet goes "o pernicious woman" he's not very good at following directions. and then, poor baby, he picks up the gun and uses it to follow claudius as he walks down a hallway on the security footage.

a very well structured scene!

polonius gave laertes a watch as a parting gift, and then after hamlet makes horatio and marcellus swear, he gets engrossed by his own watch in a way that feels dangerous, and then goes "the time is out of joint" this is a GOOD parallel and i hope it comes up again because DAMN!

Up to Me, by Bob Dylan is just. the perfect song for the transition to act two, i can't handle how well it works with the action on stage - hamlet walking off sadly, then claudius and gertrude being flirty and cute, then hamlet kissing ophelia in the bath and perusing her face

Oh man, Polonius forgetting what he has to say when speaking to Reynaldo is a moment of such stillness and silence that it’s one of the most tense and compelling things I’ve every seen. I was half convinced he was going to have a stroke right there, or that his heart would be what actually killed him in the closet scene later.

When Ophelia tells him about Hamlet charging into her room, he’s super wrong, of course, but he cares for his dauther truly. She deflates when he says “the very ecstasy of love” though, because it’s clear she won’t get any real help there.

ooh, they put To Be or Not to Be before polonius talks to him, not before the nunnery scene. interesting! It’s a fairly common visual trope for Hamlet to be barefoot at around this point in the play, but it’s always fun to see.

Polonius has a mic on him so Claudius and Gertrude can hear their conversation, and all of his asides are whispered into it, a fact Hamlet clearly KNOWS, because “Except my life” is said while mockingly lifting the collar of his teeshirt and whispering into it.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are perfect here, omg!!! Guil is a black woman, and Ros a tallish man, and you can tell all three were good friends. when Guil finally has to say "my lord, we were sent for" you can see on both their faces that this play just became a TRAGEDY. "o what a piece of work is man" isn't a show this hamlet is putting on, he's baring his soul, and ros and guil are literally CRYING for and with him, because they can clearly see how he’s changed. but because they know they have split loyalties they can't come closer to him to comfort him. poor babies! rosencrantz is very proud that he was able to save them by bringing up the Players, and behind hamlet's back, guildenstern mouths "tragedians" and gives him an approving nod when he gets it right. i love them so much, and they're up there with gary oldman and tim roth!

The Player is the same actor as King Hamlet, I’ve never seen that specific double casting, but it’s so perfect! Poor Hamlet trying his best to remember his speech — he’s trying his best and the actual players are very patient with him.

the middle of "O what a rogue and peasant slave" is the first moment when you can visibly see Hamlet lose it, instead of sinking into depression or twisting his own and other's words like he had been up to now, but then he pulls back suddenly and goes "why what an ass am I"

"He asked no questions, and was of our demands most free in his reply." ROSENCRANTZ, you LIAR! 27-3 and you think he might have had the edge?? But as he says this he puts his hand on Guil's shoulder to make sure she'll also keep to that story.

hey ouch, this was one of the most painful nunnery scenes i've ever seen! she's all dressed up for him, but so scared, but she rolls her eyes at the book Polonius has her read. they get a few moments to be cute together before they break up for good and they're just crying, and they KNOW they're being watched. then he laughs at the favors and just drops them on the ground before he walks away, and after she gathers them up and starts to go, he comes in through a different door to kiss her violently and throw water on her face, and everything just HURTS. (the water has a daisy in it!)

Polonius briefly checks that she’s okay but then goes back to talking to Claudius about sending  Hamlet to England. Meanwhile, in the background, she’s become fascinated by the daisy. She flinches away from everyone’s touch and stares at nothing, and I really like the clear progression in her, that her later breakdown isn’t just a reaction to one single shocking event, it’s all the slings and arrows that have been aimed at her throughout the play and her whole life.

ALERT, ALERT, HE'S PLAYING WITH HIS WATCH WHILE HE TELLS HORATIO HOW MUCH HE LOVES HIM!!!

(he also says Horatio is "not a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stops you please," which is a line that's often left out, so i'd forgotten that metaphor was already on his mind)

the rest of the court enters through the auditorium, and sit in the front row to watch the show! and i only just now realized that when hamlet says "and my father died within these two hours" he's speaking ~madness~ but ALSO talking about the length of the play he's in.

The dumbshow is to the tune of One Too Many Mornings by Bob Dylan again, and shows papa hamlet's gonzago’s entire courtship with his wife, and them raising hamlet together and seeing him off to college, which then leads directly into the dialogue part of the play! it's SO GOOD.

The Lucianus monologue is very good, and then Claudius just walks out grimly, and it's presumably the intermission bc the screen goes staticky.

there's been a conceit of a camera following characters around and the image shows up on two sets of screens above the stage, so we get to see the play within the play AND hamlet et al's reaction to it at the same time.

Hamlet talks very fast and impatiently to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as they try to tell him to visit his mother, and they’re trying SO HARD to connect with him. Interesting that the “My lord, you once did love me” line is given to Guildenstern, but it makes sense for how these characters have been played so far. I’m not at all worried that they did that to make the play straighter, because they do not shy away from the homoerotic subtext. And he pauses and really seems to think about his answer before saying “I do still, by these pickers and stealers.” And the recorder scene is just sad on both sides, everything is SAD

oh DAMN, claudius watches hamlet come into the room with a gun and then does his "O my offense is rank, it smells to heaven" speech, and seems to forget his audience as he tries to pray, and right after hamlet decides not to kill him yet, he stands and smirks and tells him "words without thoughts never to heaven go" and stands with his arms open, DARING hamlet to actually kill him. the last thing we see is his fingers trying to get a grip on the handle, and then a blackout.

if you don't know this play you might think he does it now.

when ros & guil find him he's wiping his bloody hands on polonius's shirt, and during the sponge bit he wrings it out so it drips on the floor. andrew scott is so gooood at this role but also legitimately scary.

and he's been playing with his watch more and more as everything gets more dire, i love this detail a whole bunch.

after hamlet calls claudius his mother, he hugs him and claudius reluctantly returns the embrace. for a brief moment hamlet seems to be seeking comfort here, and then he sniffles and breaks away. "To England" he says as he goes, mocking the accent.

so. ophelia. she's wheeled in strapped into a wheelchair, presumably at a psych facility. mostly she's turned inwards and singing softly, except when she hits her head and screams as if to say "you hurt me and ignored me, but you can't ignore the hurt you make me do to myself." and like. i get it, and i'm mostly glad that it's not the same version of mad ophelia you tend to see, where she's all over the stage and ripping her clothes, but still. it feels icky and ableist and like. fear tactics? shock factor? something like that.

laertes comes in looking truly unhinged -- actually gets gertrude kneeling on the ground with a gun at her temple, before claudius calms him down, and he's jumpy in a way that mirrors hamlet right after killing polonius. poor horatio is the first to come in and gets a gun pointed at him for his it. no one deserves any of what’s happening to them!

but laertes stills entirely when he sees ophelia. ouch.

flowers!

rosemary - the nurse who wheeled her chair

pansies - claudius

fennel and columbine - claudius's security guard

rue - gertrude

she drops the daisy on the ground and turns to laertes to apologize about the violets.

when claudius goes "where the offense is, let the great axe fall" gertrude looks at him sharply because THAT wasn't part of the plan, and he brushes her off with "I pray you"

the Bad Quarto scene with her and horatio is in here, and makes a LOT of sense given that interaction.

gertrude is in the doorway, unseen, as claudius tells laertes the only reason hamlet's not dead is because gertrude loves him so much. and then she's CLEARLY watching for his response when the messenger tells him about the letters from hamlet. i like this gertrude a lot.

(and I’m pretty sure I saw Hamlet being a sneaky boy and passing behind the window right by Claudius, as Claudius is handed his letters)

ooh, hamlet's wearing white and khaki when he comes back from the pirates, and he seems much calmer than he did the last time we saw him.

and laertes is so lost and sad when he says "what ceremony else?"

they're such good foils for each other, i can't stand it!

hamlet seems amazed as he asks "what is he, whose grief bears such an emphasis" and he's not angry when he climbs into the grave, more like he's expecting to be welcomed with open arms, and then he's just surprised when laertes tries to strangle him. when he says “yet have I in me something dangerous” he’s trying so hard to convince himself of this, oh kiddo.

welp, hamlet is no longer calm, as he screams about how much he loved ophelia, and writhes around on the ground. then he stands up like nothing happened and says "what is the reason you use me such?" and sounds so hurt.

some hamlets did not date laertes, but this one SUPER did

Hamlet feels bad about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but moves on quickly because he feels worse about Laertes, and it’s so painfully clear that he knows what genre he’s in. Osric is just a security guard (and later the judge for the fencing match) with no noticeable character but that works really well for this production, and Laertes has enough going on without having a boyfriend.

“Hamlet does it not… his madness” isn’t him giving up empty excuses, but real sorrow and despair, and maybe he really does believe he briefly became another person. I’m ! So ! Sad ! and oh SHIT, when laertes says "this one's too heavy" here, it's NOT to make sure he gets the poisoned blade but because he was moved by hamlet's apology and is BEGGING claudius to let him off the hook of needing to kill his friend, but claudius shakes his head and so they play.

HEY WOW RUDE!!! the music during the fencing match is Not Dark Yet (also by Bob Dylan) and everything HURTS

laertes FLINCHES and runs forward too late to stop claudius from putting in the poisoned pearl, and then he does his best to fight badly, and i'm going to CRY. hamlet's about to drink when gertrude runs forward with her napkin, then claudius grabs the cup from her and she maintains eye contact and they clasp hands as she drinks. she turns her choke into a laugh, while in the background laertes offers claudius preemptive sympathy. but everything is drawing to a close so he has to commit to hitting Hamlet, no matter his reservations.

the music stops as soon as hamlet is struck, and the brightness of the fencing match returns to the darkness of Act Two, but one by one they rise as ghosts, hand their watches over to King Hamlet, and go into the party upstage. And Laertes and Hamlet exchange forgiveness! it's a soft hopeful darkness though, something horatio wishes to be welcomed into, but hamlet tells him to "absent thee from felicity awhile" and he agrees.

hamlet gets scared for "the rest is silence" then it all snaps back to real time while he convulses in horatio's arms.

The play closes as it opens: with a bunch of news stories about the death of danish royalty.

And the closing credits are One More Cup of Coffee by Bob Dylan, it's so good!

[caterinaprimrose]

Metamorphosis (pt 2)

(WAIT if you haven’t yet, go read PART 1!!)

Caterina felt a tight wrenching sensation in her gut as Cazneaux spilled his thoughts upon the midnight air. Her face twitched with little subtle reactions and jolts. Eyes linger here then there until they rapidly flick about. Finally she shudders in a breath and weaves her blues between his browns. "Are you going to think less of me if I'm completely honest with you?"

Her various twitches were caught by his deadened gaze, though he mostly looks into her eyes as he speaks. Upon her inquiry, he shakes his head with earnest in his voice. "I'd respect you more."

 Dark lashes bat a few times, her bottom lip caught between her teeth just barely, like she was preparing to say something for the first time. "I think that I  don't see what you see in myself in relation to him because I've spent -so- long feeling.. -small- next to him." Her nose curls in disgust, eyes narrowing like she'd just seen something foul. "I've been broken into this sick and twisted cloud of being secondary. Not just from him but all of them. -He's- protected first. -He- is the priority. -He- is the one they'd die for. And, surely, I've wormed my way into the hearts of some of them but even then I feel a chilling knowledge that if he  gave the command I'd be dead within the hour.” A pause lingers. “I’m frightened because If I step away from this I have no clue what will happen to me. I won't have those suits protecting me as they did. I won't have that security of my well being and in doing so my social -image- drops. I became what I am with his help. How much of that can I do on my own? If I change my environment so drastically - the foundations, won't I just crumble?"

 If he could make his gaze soften, he would. If he could invoke some sort of emotion within his eyes, he would. But alas, he could not. Instead, he resorts to his face, not desiring to interrupt vocally, sporting a frown. Not one of disappointment, but  one to express sympathy. He slightly steps forward and removes his left glove, exposing his tattooed, worn fingers. And with said calloused, slightly crooked digits, he rests them on her naked shoulder, gently rubbing his thumb against her much softer skin. "I'm quite proud of you for speaking so openly to me about your dealings. About how uncomfortable and trapped you are. About your self doubt and insecurity. I -will- be honest with you, just as you have been with me. As long as you truly think so poorly of yourself, if you believe yourself to be so weak and small and little compared to him, which he has designed your life to end up being, you will ultimately be his slave for the rest of  your life. You'll never reach your potential, you'll never reach your peak, and yes, you've a fantastic reputation for yourself and you're highly esteemed, and he may have aided you with that, but is -he- acting? Is -he- the star? Is -he- the talent that everybody looks up to and loves and beats off to in their shack? I don't fuckin' think so. And nobody else does, either. But the longer you stay with him, the more you depend on him, the more you cling to his arm, the more people will see you  as his 'pretty lil' bitch' and once you're gone, he'll nab a new one. One that's younger, one with more bravado, one that will look better on his arm than you as time goes on." 

He gently pats her shoulder, "Now, are you going to settle for that life? Having his kid, no longer acting, staying in your big ol' manor by yourself with a kid of a guy that you don't love, he doesn't love you, and everybody in your circle knows it? Or are you going to grab life by the balls, scream 'who's your  bitch', spit in its face and make it squeal your name? Are you going to show Azeroth that you can be successful, powerful, innovative and not a force to be motherfuckin' fucked with for decades to come? Or..." He trails his hand down her bicep  before dropping it at his side like it was dead weight, "Are you going to end up a housewife that had fun while she was young, but sold out to her insecurities? Where people would see you taking your lil' ten year old to the bookstore and maybe one  or two parents might recognize you and their kid won't give two and a half shits about? Where when you're done signing their autographs and walking back home, they gossip how disappointing finally meeting you was."

 She felt sick. Like she might throw up or pass out. A light headedness came upon her, his hand the only thing steadying her. Like he was laying her whole life out ahead of her. And she really thought about it. About how she would like for things to go and how, even if she tried to convince herself, she knew that Braxton would never allow those things. That he'd be free to continue expansion of his life, goals, business. But she would be expected to stay home with the baby. To educate and teach it.

She reflects back on Quellys. That's what this felt a lot like. Like the same conversation she'd had with her best friend the night she died. 'But you could have a life, you could be Caterina, have children that will grow up to adore you and ones that you could safely teach to sing to dance, you could go to bed and actually be held by a man that loves you instead of a man who will likely have a separate room in his home for you…Caterina you are so much more than you give yourself credit for, you’ve made a cage for yourself out of this life and you’re walking yourself to the hangman’s noose like you’ll be given the courtesy of a long drop!' She'd remembered it word for -fucking- word. Against her will, her eyes stung. She was flooding with anxiety and the only way her body knew how to expel all of the tension were tears. But she fucking hated crying. She didn't do it very often, not without command. So her feminine fingers rise, both of them - lightly cupping  over her face. Barely touching it as not to smudge her makeup. She was just gathering herself. A hitched breath came out but a more controlled one was deeply sucked in. He could see a flick of her thumb move and wetness on its nail. She stayed like that for several moments.

Spotting the tears begin to form within Caterina’s eyes, Cazneaux slowly lowers his head and raises his ungloved left hand to brush the top of his index finger along her cheekbone before retracting and moving his whole hand against her upper-back. Noticing her aiming to disallow her tears to fall too far, he begins to nudge her into his warm mass, keeping her there, allowing her to wet his leather and mail mixed armor. All the while, he continued his slow, calm, calculated breaths to combat the tension within her body. A sensual, circular rub against her back. "There, there, love." he eventually states, his rumbling voice causing a slight vibrate if her head was to rest against his chest.  

"I don't know why I'm crying, it's so -stupid-." the actress nearly hisses the word. "I -know- you're right, you all are. All of you that have told me this same exact thing - so why am I so fucking startled!"

“Because he -molded- you to be that way. Think about it, Caterina. You weren't scared of any other man before him, were you? You dominated them all the while making them think you were just a pretty lil' thing. But he was smarter than the rest of them. He broke you down, and brought you back up to fit the mold he wanted you to fit, and you went along with it because you're an actress and playing parts is what you do. Just like any other time. But -this- time was different, because you ended up believing that character -is- you. You -are- that character. You stopped acting, in that sense. You ended up -living- somebody else's life, and now their life is yours. All the while, your -true- life. The person you -truly are- is suffocating, and if you marry that man..." He shakes his head, speaking with a stern tone. "If you marry that man and have his child, the -real- you dies. They are buried under a nameless grave, because nobody knows who she is. Only who you -act- to be. And you've acted so well that you've even tricked  yourself. Now if -that- doesn't show your skill, I'm truly at a loss for words."

 'Be safe…be smart…and for whatever you’re worth, don’t marry that man.' Echos off along diamond dripping ears. -Those- were Quellys last words to her. Caterina inhales once, her breathing had slowed slightly, a trembling hand pushing her hair back from her face as she looks up and backs away. Exposed to him, her eyes are big, red along the corners and leaking. She's leaking. Her nose and cheeks are cherry and her lips fuller. Her lashes look darker, wet, longer.

What a sight. From 'stumbling into' one another, and around two months later, she's crying in his arms about an abusive man and not knowing who she really is. A widely renown actress of whom he had watched when they were so, so young. Eyes wet, runny  nose, and flushed cheeks in his grip. If he was a poet, he'd write down many thoughts. But he was not. He is instead an ex-military man, ex-felon, arms dealing, smuggling murderer who has taking more lives, innocent or not, than he'd expect his accountant to be able to take. Far more than his mind and heart could handle, that's something he knew for certainty. And yet here she was, using him as someone she's depending on and trusting with so much personal information. His mind continues to think and re-evaluate as she describes her story, in what he believes her attempting to calm herself down and think out loud about her situation of which she seems to finally admit the truth about. "There's a saying in the streets,” Cazneaux started again, 'Be your own best friend, 'cause your -other- best friend'll sell you out the moment they can gain from it'. Apply that here. You've allowed the drainage of your true character, your -true- personality and soul. And now that you know this, are you going to watch her wither away and die alone, or are you going to be your own best goddamn friend, and invigorate her and bring  her to life with color and bravado that I know you can?"

She blinks soft, the back of her hand gently skimming over her tear-stained cheek. She inhales soft, taking a moment. But when she opened them? A darkened tone had over taken her eyes. Something much more calm and serious, residue of her tears still dot her visage. She tilts her head in that way she does, eyes flooding over his expression. His hand that was curled around the back of a slender neck felt warm. She brought her fingers up in front of her stomach, twisting her rings so the gems were all  facing up to the stars. 

"How would you like a powerful addition to building your empire?"

 An open-mouthed grin. That was his first physical response to her inquiry, matched with his moral-less eyes may be a haunting sight for most. An immoral man, happy? Surely no good could come from that. His fat tongue runs along the edges of his teeth before he closes his mouth and releases a low chuckle. "You already know the answer to that, babe. But, you absolutely deserve a firm answer. I'd love one. Especially if they've the eyes that you hold, and the wits that you store and use like an expert."

She didn’t smile back, no, she was far too severe. "And Cazneaux?” Caterina inquires, eliciting a “Aye?” in response from him.

“If something happens to me, if -he- does something to me?" She exhales a single breath, her eyes turning cold and vicious. "Burn him to the ground."

 And there it was. The smile that best fit his graveyard gaze. The vengeful, machiavellian, toothy grin of which rivaled a Devil's. "With pleasure." 

@mister-reigns

@braxtonhudson

@quellys

[thehappydromomaniac]

#NoSurbhiNoIshqbaaaz and #EndIshqbaaazWithShivika

I am an ardent fan of serial Ishqbaaaz. And a diehard fan of Shivika especially Annika. I got hooked to Ishqbaaz in the middle of August 2016 because of Shivaay and since then, no turning back. I have watched almost every single episode of it; cried, laughed, angered, agitated and sometimes baffled by it. Ishqbaaaz is the only series that had so much to give. Not the same old sob story or forced romance or boring, draggy plots. The chemistry between the brothers and the pairs are always beautifully portrayed and became the reason for me to follow the series religiously. Kudos to the writer who has even thought about it, the producer and directors who have given it the appropriate treatment, the entire crew for making it happen and the line of talents whom without, this wouldn't be possible at all.

A couple of days back, a news broke all the diehard fan’s hearts - A generation leap in order to save the show. And the main lead, Surbhi Chandna won’t be part of it as she is reluctant to play an older mother character at this point of time - Totally acceptable.

Fans tripped and begin their social media campaign and other whatnot to save their beloved Annika. I was happy to see the unity they had and the unplanned Twitter trend went viral. The issue needed clarification and the show’s producer, Ms Gul Khan was approached. She too answered all questions given honestly. Dear Gul ma’am, first of all, if you ever get to read this post, thanks for what you have given me; Almost 3 years of good entertainment and for always answering honestly without twisting and turning facts. Your honesty and frank personality has constantly been misconstrued as ego but I understand your stand. Being a creative head and controlling the finances at the same time can be a huge burden which you have handled so gracefully. You are an inspiration. I admire you a lot. Stay awesome. Without you, Ishqbaaz, Shivika, Narbhi wouldn't have been possible at all. You believed in it and you gave life to it. Thank you

Now, coming back to the movement “#NoSurbhiNoIshqbaaaz”. I am thrilled by it and to see the love Surbhi has garnered among the young generation who are now driving this campaign. I agree with them. Surbhi is one of the valves in the heart called Ishqbaaaz. Her exit would mean the heart’s function would be compromised. Destruction is inevitable if she leaves. But what I don’t understand is the hatred that is being thrown towards the producer and writer of the show. I have read multiple tweets and comments on Insta that range from disturbingly mean to misplaced hatred; ego, stupid, money-minded, etc. Totally misplaced!

Why misplaced you may ask, since I am in the mood of writing, here you go. 

1. If not for Gul ma’am, we wouldn't have got Shivika or Narbhi. Gul & Harneet CREATED Shivika pair. Technically, they are the first 2 fans. This decision had to be the toughest for THEM. THEY must be the most frustrated compared to any fan out there. Most fans invest a little time on social media or TV to watch, post, comment and then back to their routine life, either work or studies. But for G & H, this is their bread & butter and the food for their creative soul. They work on a daily basis to bring more and more life for those characters. They have more work to do compared to fans who are locking horns with them. Just because they have strong exteriors and practical point of view, they cannot be targeted for such cyber-bullying. Yes, the current reaction towards them is crossing the limits of constructive comments and reaching the line of cyberbullying. Calling them money minded, egoistic. One even condemned Harneet’s writing meanly. That is cyber-bullying, guys. Thank God, it is not affecting them. Or maybe it does, and they are just not showing it. They might be dealing it their own way. But guys, NOT COOL YAAR!

2. The past few months, we have seen the TRP plummet despite a strong fan following in Social Media. The strong fan following did not reflect where it should. Do you think TRP is child's play? This is not a charity organization. This is a business. Most of the fans are educated. You are supposed to be able to analyse this logically. Not impulsively. TRP rates reveal how loved a show is. If viewers don’t watch & numbers don’t show, the channel can only interpret it as “People are not interested in it”. Therefore, it will be pushed to some time slot where it won’t get much appropriate attention. Sponsors or ad times will be affected. These are what feeds the show's finances in the long run - A constant gain of profit or $$$ is needed to cover the production costs, the crews' salary and of course The Actors' salary. And for a show like Ishqbaaz, for the quality I see on screen, it has to cost a fortune. Who is going to give it? You and me? We can’t. But there was one thing that we could have done which we failed - WATCHING THE SHOW IN THE BLOODY TV SO THAT THE TRP DIDN’T GO LOW”. WE FAILED!! 

For a quick read about the importance of TRP for TV programmes, please click the link below. 

https://www.jagranjosh.com/general-knowledge/what-is-trp-and-how-is-it-calculated-1524137013-1

3. For Ishqbaaz to end, means the entire crew could go jobless and once again pushed to look for other opportunities. Which I know isn't going to be easy. Fans are making all kinds of disapproving noises from outside but no one is seeing straight. Gul Khan opened opportunities, gave the crew & talents a way into our hearts. Without her, Ishqbaaaz would have been just an idea on a piece of paper. Almost 3 years ago, she hired them and had faith in them before you & I even thought of Narbhi. Harneet created Shivika on paper. They did all the work. All we did was praising the talents and creating fan followings & factions. And shamelessly insult the very same people who created it. It's like insulting our best friend's parents even though we know our best friend wouldn't have existed if her parents didn't bear her for 9 months & raised her. Don’t forget, the joy of success and the pain of failures hurts them most.

4. You call her egoistic for clarifying her stand without twisting facts, for her straightforward answers, for standing firm of her decision to save her baby whom she gave birth to. Then, you doubt her sanity. If the channel said we are a small bunch, it is because we are reflecting as small bunch where we shouldn't. We should have shown them that we are big in numbers and support by not letting the numbers fall. I ask all of us. Aren't we egoistic too for not even giving a chance to understand her point of view? We are losing entertainment. She is losing the concept/idea she gave birth to. For all your rants and insulting words, may I ask if WE are willing to contribute financially to maintain the series instead of tweeting & spreading hatred? That would be more beneficial. But the truth is, WE didn't even have to do that. All WE had to do was BLOODY WATCHED IT ON TV SO THAT THE TRP WAS STILL GOOD AND THE SHOW WOULD GO ON WITHOUT ALL THIS DRAMA! 

5. If anyone needs to be blamed, it's those fan factions who instigated each other. First Rudy-Soumya fans fought & created the first ripple. Then, Gauri-Omkara. All that unnecessary jealousy towards Shivika. Shivika fans, on the other hand,  were too proud that they cannot be shaken by those fans. Then the Shivika faction further split into separate factions. One wants more Shivika, another more Omkara-Gauri, how are the makers supposed to satisfy everyone? I read all the nasty comments and immature remarks by one to another. Ishqbaaaz fandom parted ways. The larger faction was of course: Shivika. Shivika fans were bigger in number but not enough to carry Ishqbaaaz on its shoulders all by itself. The truth that all the factions and fandom will not accept is they let their ego affect the entire Ishqbaaaz universe. Even now as they read this, they will be too sensitive to the term ‘ego’ - which they conveniently throw at another person but can’t accept their own fault - most of them will be thinking of nasty comments to throw at me for saying it out loud. This was mainly the reason behind the fall of Dil Bole Oberoi. Fandoms came for its defence when it was scrapped and merged but where was the needed viewership when it was running?

6. Now, let’s talk about the digital power that went viral recently. But before that, we must address the matter of online impressions in Hotstar first - Now, I am from Malaysia. Ishqbaaaz has a substantial fan following here. In the channel we are provided with locally, the episodes are far behind, not the latest episodes. My friends & I constantly discuss Ishqbaaaz as everyone knows I am a crazy fan & that I keep myself updated with the latest episodes and progress as part of my daily routine. My day doesn't begin or end without me watching or even thinking about Ishqbaaaz. But you know the sad part for us here, Hotstar is not geographically accessible here. Even if it is, the lack of subtitles can be a bummer because the biggest market for drama here is the Malay market & the South Indian market. Most of us can’t understand Hindi but guess what; Most of us can’t speak Korea and yet the Korean dramas are successfully running here, thanks to subtitles. Ishqbaaaz’s Tamil version was utter nonsense for me as the voices did not give the same impact as the original voices. So, I chose to watch it online via any other sources possible. Mine was an act of desperation.  Not a day goes by without me opening Hotstar, just in case they have made it accessible; Disappointment on daily basis. If Hotstar was available and the subtitled option was available, maybe, just maybe, we could have helped with the global rating but that’s as much as we could have done. The local impression is still the major factor. Which again, whom to blame? Gul & Harneet? Absolutely not! I BLAME those online attention seekers who desperately needed followers and likes in social media that they began posting entire episodes on Insta. The fact is - those people are the biggest reason for all this Pehla Huva Raita. With an easier option to just watch it on Insta, Hotstar was neglected. So, we lost our online numbers as well. Now we don’t even have that ground to defend. Think about it!

Ratings are specific. Entertainment is a business. It survives on its value to bring profit. It is sad to see the fandom is made of a majority of young girls who are supposed to be educated and who are in full capacity to analyse this but are driven by unreasonable hate and anger. We are fans of Annika who is loving, responsible, forgiving, nurturing, fighting for justice without hurting people around her, coming up with quirky but practical solutions, who respect the older people in her life; and yet the girls following her seem to act brashly, unlike her at all. She fights for what she thinks is right but never at the expense of bashing another. Do you see the irony here? You idolize her but failed to follow her good footsteps. And also, I read a few comments about Annika being portrayed as crying a lot lately. Yes, she cried because she is not an emotionless robot. she is just like and me; going through shit on daily basis. But she doesn't lose hope. Annika rarely gives up. Scientific researches have backed that strong people do cry more but they don’t give up. Life can’t be rosy all the time. Without struggle, life becomes boring. and if you think her character has no oomph anymore, maybe it is time to revamp, don’t you think?

And then I see some posts calling to boycott the series now. BRAVO! Just brilliant. I can understand if you want to boycott it after Surbhi is out. But now, while she is still in it, trying her best to bring the numbers up again with the hope that her fans won’t fail her? That’s just brilliant. Instead of helping her, you want to boycott, bring down the numbers and prove Gul ma’ams point? You sure you are a fan? Coz, your actions are not reflecting it. You are supposed to watch it even more now, encourage people around to watch so that the numbers increase exponentially. The same spirit you showed in the Twitter trend, you have to show in front of your TV. Campaign for more people to watch it on TV, your family, neighbours, friends, crushes, etc. Report all the accounts that are conveniently posting the full episodes on Insta. Even if they post a day after, for fans who are convenient with it will go back to their account instead of going to the correct source; HOTSTAR. Pictures seriously won't do much harm unless the pictures show the entire scene. If it shows one juicy scene, it will trigger people’s curiosity to watch it. The real culprits are those who post the episodes. That is not loving. You are butchering Surbhi’s talent for your own greed to get more followers and likes. You want people to go to your account instead of TV and HOTSTAR. So, you are increasing the possibility for the numbers to go down and thanks to that, makers need to look into other angles which have directly affected SC now. So, blame them, not the makers.

The makers have tried and are trying many angles, plot after plot. Seriously, I have followed another Indian series before (which I am not going to name) with the unchanged plot for more than 3 years now. Before the leap, they lead pair didn’t get along, villains always separating them, went on in a circle for years until I got fed up. Leap after leap, the same plot. Even after a major leap, once again the same. The villains always get the better out of everything. The TRP is high still. But that is not the case for Ishqbaaaz. Harneet has given brilliant character progress for the leads, the chemistry between the pairs and who can deny the brilliant love of the Oberoi brothers. Villains are always defeated with Obros & Obahus’ togetherness. No other drama out there did that. And yet, all her efforts are forgotten and you are blaming her for her writing? Her plots are smart. And yes, it is a series end of the day, and it has to have some masala and some ups and down. The plots did get boring at some point but always managed to bounce back. Different angles had to be explored.Y ou think they thought Shivika would be a craze when they first introduced them to us? They just did it by hoping it would and it did. Just like that, they tried coming up with plots after plots but some failed. No one and nothing is perfect. We are all humans and we are all flawed.

For a series named ISHQBAAAZ, the fandom is sure showing a lot of hatred. That won’t solve this. Only love would. Stop fighting and focus on uniting. Start a mission to prove to Gul ma’am and the channel that the fans can BRING BACK GOOD TRP if they unite; THEN, YOU ARE ALL TRUE FANS.

Gul ma’am, I don’t know if you would ever get to read this. I hope it finds its way to you. I know your action is merely to keep the show running. I can understand that you are the most affected party in this. I used to work in the TV industry, so I know a little about how it works. I don’t agree with most of the things that are said to you. But there is one thing that I think might have worked. - Marketing is very important for all products. Ishqbaaaz (just as much as I am emotionally attached to) is also a product. It has a good fan following but something is misplaced. I don’t know what but there are some things that could be done to help get it back on track. I believe in doing everything doable possible before moving on. If you have the same belief, you may read further.

You have seen better numbers for the show before, so you do know that it is not impossible to bring back those numbers. And you can’t be taking everyone’s suggestions for the plots, etc. It is your drama. Your baby. Plots aside, here are some marketing suggestions. I don’t know how effective these could be. But we will never know if we don’t give it a go.

1) Urge the casts to posts videos in their Insta & Twitter urging them to watch it on TV or Hotstar. Their fans will listen to them.

2) Initiate a campaign - throw a contest; A watch & win contest. Real-time contest where they have to answer within 10 minutes of the episode end on TV, via SMS or online. This contest should not be posted in Hotstar and should be an exclusive TV contest. The prize could be a dinner session with the Ishqbaaaz team or the lead pair or either one of them. This could encourage the fans to watch it on TV.

3) I don’t know if Ishqbaaaz has a digital marketing team. If you do but most fans are unaware of it, it means the team needs to up its game. The digital team has to overshadow all the fandom or better, work along. Your team could both look out for accounts that violate and post episodes, report and block it and also join forces with the active fan clubs by feeding them exclusive pics and vid bits in exchange for turning the traffic back to where it should be; TV and HOTSTAR. Again, an online HOTSTAR exclusive contest with probably signed merchandises as prizes could be a good hook.

4) Please consider the ASEAN market for HOTSTAR. Maybe we could help too.

I believe the redux is about to end. Just matter of Shivaay & Annika’s confession. Once the redux ends, I assume the next is going to be exploring the pregnancy track. All of us fans have been waiting for this to happen. Seeing Shivika’s parenting skills have been long dreamt by all of us. We really hope to see that. If even that doesn't work, then probably nothing much can be done to avoid the generation leap. But frankly, it would be much graceful to end it with Shivika. Ishqbaaaz is synonymous with Shivika and Obros, taking it away means taking the essence of Ishqbaaaz away. Though, I don’t think I am in any position to condemn your attempts to breathe new life to the series. Only you know how much investment of time, effort, blood, sweat and money has gone into this. It is easy for us to tell you to kill it with grace, but you are the one living the pain. In many ways, i can associate myself with Annika’s character as in real life I am as emphatatic. I am quirkier and even more stubborn than Annika though. Thank you for showing me a reflection of myself.  

If anyone is going to argue that other successfully running dramas are also available on Instagram but it doesn't affect their TRP, it simply means, their fandom is strong enough to watch it on TV and don’t allow other factors cloud them or disintegrate them. They are doing their job right. Now, it’s our turn. Seriously, if I am part of the makers, for all the inappropriate hatred showered, I would lose my interest to even think of making it better. They must be highly motivated to deal with all this and still go on with this tiring job. Anyways, spamming inboxes, ambushing the offices, trending helps a little. But you know what will help the most? WATCHING ISHQBAAAZ ON TV! LET THE TRP TALK TO THEM COZ THAT’S THE RIGHT LANGUAGE TO GET THE MESSAGE ACROSS!

Last but not least. Thanks, to everyone for reading this long post. I hope the series that has woke me up everyday feeling good will not end too soon. And yes, I support #NoSurbhiNoIshqbaaaz and #EndIshqbaaazWithShivika

Constructive comments are welcomed.

Insta: @arulkc

[deanwinchestrs]

Coda for 13x13. Because Sister Jo’s character deserved to be about more then just Lucifer.

2,175 words.

-

Duma doesn’t know why she cares. Not only did they run in completely different circles, but Anael had never been one to see the importance of Heaven. They were two very different angels. So why did seeing the one who now went as “Sister Jo” with Lucifer bother her so much?

Of course she couldn’t help the spiteful remark. She didn’t except for the Devil himself to defend Anael. Irritation curled in her grace and she didn’t allow herself to focus on why. Instead she laughed in Lucifer’s face, taunted him about how he could help with anything.

Duma ended up being wrong. Lucifer could help restore ranks, something she knew they desperately needed, but at a great cost.

Then she was kneeling in Heaven’s throne room to this… this abomination. She gritted her teeth but did not say anything. Her eyes wondered to Anael. While Lucifer looked little like royalty, like he deserved to sit in the throne, she did. Anael looked beautiful. As if she was in her rightful place. Duma could see her grace glowing bright beneath her vessel. She recalled once when the angel tried to talk to her about Heaven could be better. She remembered scoffing at her, and telling her it would never work. She remembered her surprise and admiration when Anael marched up to Michael himself.

It made sense, the angel standing so proud so close to Heaven’s throne. She was always meant for better things.

.

Two weeks since Lucifer took the throne and declared himself the ruler of Heaven Duma saw Anael again. She had her head tipped back and her vessel’s hair flowed like water down her shoulders. So focused on the angel she didn’t even notice the full picture. White grace flowed freely from Anael’s neck to Lucifer’s lips. Duma bit her tongue and pretended she didn’t see anything. Though anger settled in her grace and the blood of her vessel boiled with rage. She left the room.

Duma couldn’t help confronting Anael later. Though she tried to be calm she couldn’t help how fury swirled throughout her grace. The blank face of her vessel was seen right through.

“Is everything alright, Duma?” Anael asked. She had her arms crossed and despite just having her grace taken, looked as strong as she always did.

It was none of her business. But she was angry. Angry that an angel as bright and beautiful as Anael could let scum like Lucifer touch her.

“Why do you let him touch you that way, Anael? Why do you-”

Her question was cut off. “Sister Jo,” Anael spoke coolly.

Duma was baffled. She stared in surprise and waited for Anael to say anything more. She didn’t.

“That isn’t your name,” she argued. Why it bothered her so much Duma couldn’t place.

Anael’s pretty brown eyes flashed with anger and she closed the distance between them. “My name is Sister Jo. Do not call me that. I was always a nobody here anyway. Why do you care what I ask to be called?” She demanded.

And now, looking at her, Duma could see the hurt in her grace. All the times she had laughed at her came back. Every time she had dismissed her ideas of how Heaven could be better. She bit her lip and her eyes darted to the ground. When she looked up there was no trace of hurt in Anael.

Being an angel, she supposed, you learned to mask emotion well. Duma shook her head. “Sister Jo,” she emphasized. “What are you doing with Lucifer?” She was thankful no jealously showed in her tone. It was curious, if anything. A little irritation, but that could be for any reason

The answer Anael — Sister Jo — gave was one she didn’t expect. “I’m a business woman,” she stated simply. The angel shrugged. “I go where my interests are.”

.

Duma had allowed herself to ponder over the answer every time she had a free moment. Not when she was working, of course, because whatever feelings she held were not as important as the mission. Heaven was dying. She wouldn’t allow herself to be that selfish.

Knowing that Lucifer didn’t mean anything to Anael made her feel better. Not that she deserved the angel’s affections, not when she had laughed at her, but he certainly didn’t. A part of her wished that Lucifer wouldn’t be powerful enough to create new angels. Then there would be no reason for Heaven to entertain his delusions. Duma had that problem sometimes. She let her own desires to be more important. Thankfully she never acted on them. Perhaps she was defective, like Castiel, but no one had to know.

Duma should be more like Anael. A business woman. Heaven was important. Heaven needed angels. It didn’t matter that Anael had to have her grace sucked for it to happen. It didn’t.

.

Today Anael looked weak. They had been having a meeting to discuss the future of Heaven. Duma herself sat in one of the chairs at the table, hands neatly clasped together. One of the angels was talking about what their plans would be to strike back against Hell. But she wasn’t particularly paying attention. Instead she was worried. She still looked strong, she still looked proud, but her complexion was pale and the light in her eyes faded. Next to her sat Lucifer. Unlike Anael he looked healthy. Smug, even. He sat with a smirk on his face and Duma resisted the urge to take out her angel blade and stab him. How dare he looked so pleased with himself?

“Asmodeus may prove to be a threat,” the angel was saying. “We need to create a plan in case he strikes.”

She pushed her thoughts away and focused on the mission. This Hell prince did seem like an issue. Manakel, that was his name, had a point. Clearing her throat she spoke up. “I think I may have an idea.”

.

Another two weeks had passed and Duma could see that constantly feeding Lucifer was starting to take a toll on Anael. Her grace wasn’t replenishing fast enough. The two hadn’t talked much lately since Duma confronted her. There was always work to be done. And there was a sort of tension, too, because her care for Anael hadn’t been hidden as well as she wanted. She hadn’t realized how terrible she was at hiding her feelings until the day the angel walked into her office.

“I do not understand why you watch me so closely,” Anael murmured as she stepped across the room. Duma froze. What was she doing here? She tried to focus on her work. This was a conversation she didn’t want to have. If the angel knew she would probably never let her live it down. Cold and marble like a statue. They weren’t made to have emotion. And those that did, things never ended well fot them.

Forcing her voice to sound neutral Duma spoke. “You are my sister. It is part of my duty to be concerned over your relations to Lucifer.” ‘Sister’ was technically correct, she supposed. In the most basic fashion. God had made all angels just as he made all humans. Hopefully Anael would not see through the excuse. She did.

The angel sighed and pursed her lips. “I wish you wouldn’t. I can handle myself, Duma. I am not the same as I was before I fell. I am not weak anymore.”

’You will be,’ Duma couldn’t help but think bitterly. ’If you let that parasite keep doing what he does.’ Outloud she didn’t betray any of her thoughts. Instead she voiced a theory she had been thinking for awhile. “Did you ever wonder why it has been taking Lucifer so long for his grace to return?” Duma inquired. She locked eyes with Anael. “What if his grace is just gone?”

The room grew quiet. It was something Anael must never have considered. And if Duma was right, it would mean that there would never be enough grace for Lucifer. He would just continue to feed and feed until she was nothing.

“I will figure it out,” Anael countered. Her voice sounded confident. “I always do.”

Duma couldn’t help her smile. She was still worried, but the determination that shined in Anael’s eyes made her grace twist with affection. “You always do,” she agreed.

.

There had been a fight with a human named Ketch, apparently. Lucifer had burst into Heaven looking beaten up and weak. He clutched his gut as blood spilled out of it. Duma had been by the door of Heaven because it was her shift to watch over the door. For a moment as she stared down at Lucifer she entertained ending him. It would be easy, wouldn’t it? But Heaven needed angels. So instead she bit her tongue and called for their medic, Zephon.

When she returned with the other angel she noticed Anael crouched by Lucifer. Blood spilled all over the immaculate white floor. It became clear what Lucifer wanted from her. Zephon’s hands glowed and he pressed them over Lucifer’s wound. Minute by minute he healed. Duma didn’t particularly care. She was more worried about Anael using her own angel blade to create a slit in her throat.

As with every other time she watched she couldn’t look away. Anael’s eyes fluttered closed and Duma could see her lovely skin grow more pale by the second. While Lucifer usually stopped after five minutes or so this time he did not. He kept taking and taking her grace. The white grace that spilled from Anael’s neck started to thin out before her eyes and she realized he wasn’t going to stop. Sudden rage took hold of Duma and she physically pushed him away. “That is enough,” she snapped. “You have had enough. Wait for her to recover.”

Lucifer looked surprised. And then, he smirked at her. Her reaction seemed to amuse him greatly. But Duma wasn’t scared. She stared the Devil down until it was him that looked away. “Fine,” he scoffed with a roll of his eyes. Slowly Lucifer got to his feet. “Tank’s full for awhile. But just remember who is in charge here, honey.” He slinked off with Zephon at his side. As soon as he left Duma’s attention went back to Anael. She seemed to be sleeping. What if she didn’t wake up? They weren’t even supposed to sleep.

Heart slamming in her chest Duma reached to cradle the angel in her arms. She was beautiful. So different then any angel she had ever met. Anael gave herself a purpose. Anael recognized that she was worth more then a low level grunt for Heaven. With her hand shaking Duma reached to cup her cheek. She murmured a few words in Enochian, quiet and sad. What could she do?

Then an idea came to her. Of course it may not work, but Anael deserved this much. After all the times Duma had ignored her… dismissed her… it was the least she could do. Because Duma did care. She cared so much it hurt. Her grace curled painfully in her chest and a tear slipped down her cheek.

“Please, please work,” she begged. And then Duma kissed her. She closed her eyes and focused all of her being on pouring her life into Anael. The angel’s lips were soft and cold. Grace flowed from Duma’s body to Anael. Giving her grace was something she never thought she would do. But for her she would.

It hurt to do. It caused an ache in her chest something awful. Duma couldn’t believe this was the feeling Anael had been dealing with all this time. It was absolutely exhausting.

And then Anael’s warm brown eyes opened and everything was worth it. She appeared confused. “Why… why did you?” Anael wasn’t able to comprehend why anyone would do anything without any benefit to them. That was how she herself had grown to be after all. A business woman.

Duma smiled softly. She was tired. So, so tired. And yet she would do this for eternity if it kept Anael with her.

“I care about you,” she breathed. “I know I shouldn’t. I know it isn’t part of my mission. But I do.” She wiped away any tears she had cried. The angel was still cradled in her arms. Their eyes met. Anael stared back at her with a fondness she had never seen. Maybe they were both defective.

“As do I,” Anael whispered sweetly. Her grace felt a twinge of affection. Duma had never met a being as gorgeous as her.

As they leaned into each other the distance slowly closed between them. This time Anael’s lips weren’t so cold. The color had returned to her skin. For now, Duma thought as she melted into the kiss, everything was finally right.

[revchainsaw]

Demolition Man (1993)

I am by no means an Action Movie guy. I have however time and time again found myself surprised by the genre when it has found its way into my viewing habits. The first Action Movie that really impressed me was Die Hard. I watched it one Christmas as I searched for more unusual holiday fare and was utterly blown away. I felt as if I should seek out more of these films. I got as far as Lethal Weapon 2 before I retreated back to the world of absurd horror and sci-fi. If not for the power of cultural osmosis and the question of the 3 shells i might not have worked up the interest to check out 1993's Demolitions Man. I was expecting a typical cop vs criminal action flick starring Stallone, but what I found was an absolutely delightful Science Fiction Comedy.

The Message

Released in 1993 Demolition man starts right out of the gate with a hilariously pessimistic prediction that by the year 1996 every city in America will be Gotham on crack. The Joker of this film is Simon Phoenix and though he lacks the circus act accoutrement he is absolutely a clown prince of crime. I would not be surprised to discover Heath Ledger took inspiration from Snipes for his turn as an agent of chaos. Phoenix is an unstoppable force and in Stallone he finds his immoveable object, John Spartan (God I love these action movie names), a cop who will walk through hell itself to see this mad man brought to justice. However in his blind pursuit of his greatest enemy Spartan is easily coaxed into making reckless decisions, resulting in unnecessary fatalities. Both Spartan and Phoenix are thus sentenced to cryogenic prison sentences.

In 2032, Phoenix is thawed out for a parole hearing and of course things go as you might expect. Phoenix finds that he has changed, someone has used scifi shenanigans on him while he was frozen giving him abilities both mental and physical that he had not had before, hinting at some kind of conspiracy, he also finds that this was overkill as even the unmodified Phoenix would not have had any trouble conquering the world of 2032. Society has become utopian and nobody has a concept of using physical force to resolve issues. This leads the police of the time to make the controversial decision to thaw out Spartan to bring down the villain.

Hilarity ensues as Sandra Bullocks character, Lenina Huxley (awesome name once again; named after the author of Brave New World), is tasked with keeping the primitive 90s action hero in line with the moral imperatives of the time. This includes avoiding violence, not using naughty words, a vegetarian diet, and socially distanced sexual intercourse (a gag at the time but in the real life 2020's may have been a welcome invention).

Without giving too much more away, this future peace comes at a great cost to personal freedom and expression and there is a society of free people living in the fringes of society known as Scraps lead by a civil rights leader of sorts named Friendly. There is a sinister conspiracy to wipe them out that is the central plot contrivance that brought our forces of Good and Evil to face off. The Super Phoenix betrays his handlers, seeks to turn this utopia into his personal playground and is eventually defeated by Spartan in the final showdown. Sylvester Stallone eagerly eats a rat burger and Sandra Bullock says a cuss word at one point.

The Benediction

Best Character: Phoenix Rises

Everyone loves a villain. I had mostly known Wesley Snipes from the Blade films and did not know he had this kind of range. I expected very stoic boring bad ass action dialogue from both Stallone and Snipes in this movie, and believed the sci-fi elements would simply be space cars and laser guns but was I wrong. I'm so happy to be wrong. This film just surprised me and Snipes performance as Phoenix was by far the most enjoyable. I loved his menace and the threat that he presented. I don't think there had been such a loveable bastard force of nature character like this portrayed in film so well until this time. He is such a believable threat that I really doubted there was going to be a way to bring him down. It was great to see the other characters underestimate him and to see him not only physically dominate his obstacles but to also out smart and out class his 'puppet masters' was just a pleasure the whole time.

Best Actor: Bullock in the Chamber

I know that Sandra Bullock stars in a ton of comedy films but I've never been able to say that I found her to be particularly funny. She also strangely plays a cop in a lot of these comedies. I may think of Lilina Huxley every time I think of Sandra Bullock from now on. She was absolutely hilarious, deadpan and dedicated to this character in a way that sold the world of 2032 America. I really don't think that the overly sensitive utopic world would have felt like a genuine place where human beings lived and not just a cartoonish backdrop without the honesty that Bullock brought to the role. It's hard to find actors who can inhabit a comedic world as seriously as a Middle Earth. And maybe that's not what she'd like to be remembered for, but I think she deserves that credit.

Best Aspect: a Genre/Genre/Genre Classic

Demolition Man is such a pleasant surprise. No one in this movie seems to begrudge it's wackiness and it lends itself to the humor in a way that lets the audience rest in the assurance that this was a pleasure for the cast and crew as much as it is a pleasure for us. It doesn't sacrifice it's action to be to screwball, and it doesn't sacrifice it's world building to be to absurd. It's a comedy that takes it's self seriously. I can not stress enough that this movie nails several genre's at once. It's a funny comedy, an ideologically committed satire, an exciting action flick, a hard science fiction tale that explores the high concept of the consequences of utopia, and a fantasy that sells it's goofy future world.

Worst Aspect: If Only Cops Were More Violent

I am not a fan of the implications of the film. In the 90s it seemed that PC culture was the big enemy of personal freedom and that giving a shit about other peoples feelings was going to turn our civilization into a bunch of overly sensitive weaklings. This narrative has imbedded itself in our culture and produced a generation of selfish assholes who feel completely justified in their every callous action. Demolition Man is a Libertarian science fiction film, but I find that it's central fiction is just that. I do not believe that committing to non-violent conflict resolutions, considering the feelings of others, and not eating meat will 'neuter' our abilities to live individually free and fulfilling lives. It's a caricature, that while funny, i think is inaccurate. If you are of the mindset that Personal Freedom is at odds with social justice then you may find yourself enjoying the idea that it takes a violent police reaction to save society from it's own worst impulses, but I find that idea fairly fantastical. I think seeing the community stand firm in their convictions and still overcome evil may have been a more ideologically realistic interpretation of how the day can be saved, but instead we are given a lone wolf renegade cop killing the bad guy will reform the world, and in todays world, that just seems like a profoundly stupid message.

Best Scene: Fight at the Museum

Demolition Man boasts several ass kicking confrontations between Spartan and Phoenix. The opening Escape from L.A. backdrop that establishes these deadly foes, and the fall out that an interaction between the two can have is considered extreme even when the world is seemingly at the brink of collapse. It really sets a high stake for our squeaky clean future. The final battle in the Cryo-lab is also iconic and features a pretty excellent practical effect. However, I'd have to give the best scene to the fight at the weapons exhibit. The fact that Spartan knows his enemy so well is on display as he predicts that the Weapons exhibit will be an irresistible draw, we get to see Phoenix at his chaotic best, great one liners, and it's just a toy box for both Hero and Villain to let lose and deliver on that fall out I was just mentioning had been set up in the first act. While I loved the comedic take on this rivalry, I'd like to see Snipes and Stallone take up their beef again in a more seriously violent film. They make for great arch-rivals.

Best Gag: Potty Mouth

When I was a kid I remember my father hauling ass down our residential road and getting pulled over just a block away from our driveway. I think he was doing 55 in a 35. It was his fault but as the proud small government southern man he was, he felt it was absolutely overreach on behalf of the police department to give him a ticket on the road that he lived on. Stupid, I know. But our car was full of groceries and the officer let our ice cream melt while the whole time we sat in the truck with our home in view. My father was so enraged about this ticket that he got revenge on the mean old government by writing the check to pay his ticket, and then using said check to wipe sweat from his ass crack after mowing the lawn the next day. He mailed it in and I as an 11 year old knew that it was not going to effect the offending officer in the least, but that some poor old county clerk was going to probably get pink eye. Anyway, if you handle money or checks, you should always wear gloves, or wash your hands regularly before touching your face or eating. All that to say, I really enjoyed that after being frustrated with the 3 shell system Stallone racks up a series of fines for profanity. These fines are issued via an automated ticket dispenser on the wall in the police department. Stallone lets out a string of hilarious expletives that I hope to God were adlibbed, before he is satisfied with a nice pile of paper in his hand. He implies that he is going to the bathroom to do a little paperwork, and the scene is over. Even if you don't want to watch the whole movie, go ahead and YouTube this scene. Stallone has a surprising talent for comedy on display here.

Summary

To Begin with, I would say not to take this film too seriously: It is a comedy, after all, and I am not certain that the political implications of the movie were meant to be thought out as much as I have above. Unlike Judge Dredd, which Stallone would star in 2 years after this, (tragically deciding to bring Rob Schneider along with him) Demolition Man does not openly advocate for fascism. It's funny, it's a tight story with a satisfying conclusion, it's got great action choreography and it may be Snipes, Bullock and Stallone at their absolute best.

Overall Grade: B

[godzillamendoza]

Leaving Behind 2017 - Relationships are haaaarrrrdddd

So much to some people’s surprise I’m sure, I’ve been with a couple girls this past year. Like real ones, not those ones that holographically project themselves over prostitutes that you can install in your ceiling. (does anyone get that joke? No one saw that movie but me, right?) Ah jeez.

Gotta learn to quit automatically deflecting with humor when something stressful comes up. Gahh! This is a healing/learning experience. 

Okay, so context is important. I know all of this is stuff from before 2017, but it leads into how this year went so its important to cover: in 2015 I had my first girlfriend, whom I shall not refer to by name. She and I dated on and off for about 5 months and it was the first real relationship I had been in. We started dating after I told her no 2 times. The third time she asked me to be her boyfriend, her friend was there and they sort of pressured me into it so I just went with it. Then I had my first kiss with a crowd of her friends standing around me, watching to make sure I followed through on the day after. The majority of our conversations were through text or skype, even though we went to the same school. She was just too busy to ever hang out with me outside of school. She was often jealous of me talking to other girls, she mocked me constantly and called all my hobbies “nerd shit” and rolled her eyes at me when I said I didn’t want to smoke weed with her. Then she told me she’d be hanging out with a guy named Patrick at her house after she met him over snapchat. I was obviously a little worried about it and she told me I was being controlling and needed to back off, so I did. Then a week later I tracked down Patrick and confronted him, asking why she was suddenly so cold and distant. He bragged to me about how good of a time they had together and how she complained about me constantly. He said the sentence “she’ll be mine by the end of the week.” Being cheated on by your first girlfriend in addition to some emotional abuse and being kept at a distance constantly... well all of it is like a perfect storm of PROBLEMS that you’ll have to deal with later. We broke up after I told her that I knew what they did, though it was like 2 weeks later because I was naive and forgiving at first. She’s dated around 5-7 people since that venture ended 2 years ago, so clearly she learned a lot from it. She also offered to go out with my again while she was dating another guy, which caused me to... well let’s just say I wrote a very long, very mean spirited message that I don’t regret.

Naturally, after all that, my self esteem was subterranean. I had a lot of image problems due to her comments on my appearance. I had severe trust issues with... well pretty much everyone. I had problems liking myself and I just needed outlets to focus on while I was lost. So I started making more videos on comic book stuff. While I was dating this girl I made a short video essay/editorial thing on my thoughts for casting Spider-Man in the Marvel cinematic universe. She was quick to dismiss it, but I felt like it was the first thing on YT that I was truly proud of and I wanted to make more. After we broke up I did that video about Spider-Man videogames you might have seen once or twice. It currently has over 400 THOUSAND views. I owe it to this girl I suppose, she made me so miserable that I accidentally became a z-list internet celebrity to take my mind off being miserable. It didn’t exactly fix my emotional issues, but it was a coping method that was better than becoming a meth addict or something.

--so on to 2017. This was the year where I started dating again. Obviously I would still have a lot of baggage after that first girl and everything that happened with her. I met a rather mousy girl in high school who I’ll refer to as... uh... how about Sandra? That’s extremely far off from her real name. Sandra. Well anyway, I met Sandra in high school and we kinda became friends. I wasn’t all that attracted to her physically. I’m still not. She’s not ugly, nor is it a shallowness thing, she’s just not really my type. I’m not the guy to just “take whatever I can get.” So it was a difficult decision when she told me how utterly heartbroken she was when she had no date to prom. I figured it would give me a good excuse to go to the prom and I would be making someone else happy, so I took her. And from that point forward she became rather infatuated with me and I made the hideous mistake of “just going with it” so I didn’t hurt her feelings. I tried my damnedest to find things to like about her as a girlfriend, but we were really a pretty bad fit. Plus, we had this sort of non-commital and strange relationship where we didn’t consider ourselves a couple, but still ended up holding hands or hanging out outside of school a lot. Sandra had never dated anyone before and I was a trainwreck because of the girl from 2015, so it was this stilted and halfhearted attempt at romance. 

She wrote me a letter once, confessing her feelings about me and the way she thought of me at night. She was too nervous to give it to me in person, and had a mutual friend deliver the note. It was full of grammatical and spelling errors, and her handwriting lacked something to be desired. I was both honored... and slightly put off by it. She was 18 years old, with her own car and a paying job, but her methods of going after this relationship reminded me of the silly things I did in 5th grade. I guess that’s when I realized that I couldn’t keep leading her on and that it wasn’t really meant to be. I was looking for something a little more serious and age appropriate, but she still couldn’t handle something like that and I didn’t really feel for her how she felt for me. So I... just couldn’t figure out what to tell her. I ended up using graduation as a means to distance myself. We were moving off to different colleges with different goals and ambitions. I felt guilt for a long time for just brushing her off without saying anything beyond “I’m not really at a good place for a relationship right now, mentally.” Which was the truth, but I felt like I could have said more. We’ll put a pin in the story of Sandra for the time being, because it has a more clear resolution later. 

Shortly before graduation, I received a piece of fan art on twitter that was truly special. It was probably one of the most accurate and detailed pictures of me anyone had ever drawn. Whoever did it clearly spent a lot of time staring at my old mug to make it happen and I was really impressed with it. I showed it to my classmates to not-so-humbly brag about my following online (come on, I had to be excited about something SOMETIMES, its not like I did it more than that one time). Then to my surprise I saw that there was a particularly pretty girl in the profile picture of the person that sent me this piece of fan art. I think my female audience is kind of small, so I was really happy to see one of them sending fan art and kind words. Plus I thought she was cute. 

I sent her a DM on twitter saying that I thought it was really cool and probably one of my favorite pieces of fan art ever, she responded and we just kind of started talking from there. The more I learned about her, the more I liked her. We had a SCARY amount of things in common. Like, favorite comics, movies, books. We shared a similar sense of humor, we had the same extremely jaded reaction to fictional violence and laughed while looking at covers of “Crossed” together. We even took the same type of antidepressant medication. I fell for her really quickly, probably in the first 15 minutes of what would be a 9 hour conversation. Of course our mutual insomnia kept us from caring about sleep and we just kept talking and sharing stories and pictures of cosplay. I felt like I had never felt before. For the sake of protecting her identity, let’s say her name is uh... Lila. Sure, some of you internet detectives might be able to find out her real name, but I ask you... please don’t harass her or ask her about any of this. Respect her privacy, respect her decisions, and respect her in general. 

So, Lila and I made an amazing match it seemed. She made me feel... like I had been found after being lost again. Part of me resigned to this notion that I’d never meet a girl who I had things in common with. Maybe I’d live my life with my interests and dreams being silly to the women I spent my time with, or worse, boring. Lila treated me like the things that I did and talked about were interesting. She thought I was cool. It helped undo a lot of self loathing just talking to her for that first 3 days. I was walking with a spring in my step at school for the final few days, I was singing in my choir class instead of just lip syncing, I was acting like I didn’t care what anyone thought of me, because at least she thought I was interesting, and that was all I needed. In a way, just meeting her was what I needed to get over a lot of pain, and I’ll always be thankful for her giving that to me. We didn’t have to be in a relationship, I just needed the validation of knowing girls like her existed. She stayed up until 4 Am with me on school nights, talking with me through text or skype helping me stay awake to finish studying for my geography test. We spent hours just talking about our lives and what we thought of the world. We shared our experiences battling depression. Eventually she told me that I made her happy when nothing else could and I said the same. In almost a week it felt like we knew each other for a life-time. So at 3 AM one night I asked her to be my girlfriend and she said yes. The problem with that was... she lived in a different country.

 I never really considered that part until after it was too late. Long distance relationships have always seemed like a huge gamble to me, but I was willing to risk it for Lila. And for about a month, it was working REALLY well. We would watch movies together on skype, share ideas for cosplays, and just chat until the sun came up every night. She even helped me bake apology cupcakes for my mom at 5 AM after I carved a spider logo into the kitchen table on accident. I was feeling freaked out because I felt genuinely happy for the first time in two years and I was just waiting for some anvil to fall on me and everything to be ruined. But the distance and our age became a problem. We were both at the very end of high school, just about to go to college and unsure of where life would go. She mentioned that she was thinking about traveling abroad to go to college. I had a conversation about it with my mom and BOY did she take it far immediately. “Ask her to go to your college! She could move in with us! We have the room now! You could drive her to school every day and eventually get your own place and get married and have kids and blah blah blah blah...”

My mother was just excited. She’s also been going through relationship problems too in the last year, and was just living vicariously through me. My mom wanted something to be stable and long lasting and fun, but she didn’t realize that it was too early to ask Lila for these things... and I... like a complete idiot... asked Lila if she wanted to go to college with me and live in America with me. I pretty much asked her to move in with me after knowing her for 6 weeks. She still had a lot to learn about me, and vice versa. We were worlds apart and it would have been a huge step if she only lived down the street, let alone in a different country. I shouldn’t have asked, and I ESPECIALLY, shouldn’t have asked more than once. I still feel like an idiot for it to this day and it was nearly 6 months ago. Then things started getting worse, mostly due to my previous relationships bleeding into my actions. 

The girl I dated in 2015 cheated on me because I was so hesitant to be physically intimate with her. That creates a lot of doubt and shame, so I started asking Lila how she felt about that sort of thing if we were to meet in person one day. She became uncomfortable with the subject and I very awkwardly tried to steer the conversation away from it. Then a message meant for someone else accidentally got sent to her without context that SEVERELY damaged the situation. When being asked about the price of something by a friend, I sent back a number, which went to Lila and without context “... about 8.50″ looks VERY... weird? Maybe even kinda threatening if you misconstrue it the right way? I looked like the biggest creep/moron! So I tanked that 4 AM conversation pretty hard, and then listened to some very, very poor advice from a friend who said “just try to be casual with her about that stuff.” Because of my internal fears of her being bored with me if things didn’t get hot and heavy now and then, I started awkwardly making more casual references and jokes regarding sex over the following two days. It made her uncomfortable, and she kept quiet about it, so I kept doing it until I just couldn’t anymore. I had to tell her that I didn’t like it either and that I was doing it because I was worried she’d end up getting tired of a relationship where it wasn’t a factor. I held her to the same standards as the girl from 2015, and it was unfair. She wouldn’t cheat on me if I didn’t bring up intimacy constantly, and I was stupid for thinking she might. I won’t make excuses, but I will say why I did that. And I know I learned from it and won’t do that ever again. That made things a little more tense and over time, we started having other issues as well. 

Lila made an off handed reference to some passage of her diary she wrote about me in the last few days we talked. The thing she said concerned me, as it didn’t sound positive at all. I pressed her on it because I was worried it was just several pages of her listing off the things she hated about me. Eventually she broke and read it off, and it was just several pages of her listing off the things she hated about me. She disliked my dress sense and hated my clothes, she thought the way I ate food was stupid looking(???) she felt weird about dating me for my RACE, because apparently she didn’t talk to many white guys except me. She spent hours of her personal time writing about superficial things about me that she didn’t like, and thus my self image problem had returned and I didn’t wear button up shirts for 4 months. I asked her if there was anything she DID like about me, and after a long time of struggling to find something to say, she said she liked my sense of humor and that I was nice to her. Which are... kinda general reasons to like someone? Like, non-specific and sort of forced. Then over the next few weeks she started insulting me a lot more. She developed a habit of casually calling me a... derogatory term for homosexual... (not sure what twitter’s policy is on cussing and slurs, currently so I don’t want to say it) and saying hurtful things randomly. I figured it was time to accept that the honeymoon phase was over and that she didn’t like me nearly as much as she initially thought. She didn’t like me nearly as much as I liked her. Then the final straw happened. 

Being in a relationship with someone so far away can be stressful, because your ability to speak to them is entirely dependent on the use of the internet and all its various outlets. If she were to just decide one day she didn’t like using Facebook messenger anymore and delete it, I wouldn’t be able to speak with Lila through it unless I used something else. So when she casually deleted messenger one day, I just... couldn’t hear from her anymore. She never told me she was going to do it, so all of my messages to her on the first day went to no one. I decided to give her some space and assumed she just didn’t feel like talking. By day 5 I was a nervous wreck and assumed she died and had no idea where she was or what happened to her. I was losing sleep over it, my friend was checking police reports in her area, I messaged her on twitter asking if she was okay. I got no response and felt so scared. Eventually, my friend Damian messaged her on twitter myself and she responded in a few short hours, just saying she forgot to tell me about it and resumed talking to me on twitter like nothing happened. All that worry and anxiety turned to anger really quickly, because she was either trying to break up with me in an indirect way by ignoring me, or she was just being inconsiderate and actually forgot to tell me our main means of communication was going away for no specific reason. I didn’t resent her, but I was upset.

This caused me to think long and hard about the relationship and how it was doing after those short few months. We both made mistakes. I got way ahead of myself and was asking about very serious steps way too early, I let my distrust of people guide my decision to act like someone I wasn’t to keep her interest because of past experiences, and she undermined a lot of my self confidence and said some very toxic things. I wasn’t quite ready for a long distance relationship and I was still hung up on bad things from my past. She hadn’t dated anyone before and wasn’t really ready to commit, nor did she have much interest in it. We agreed that going back to being friends was better, before we started to hate each other. And of course, we talked less and less in the following weeks until not at all. We haven’t spoken in a few months now, and looking back I’m not proud of my actions or hers. I think in another life, another time, after we both did a lot of growing up, we might have made a really great team. As I said before, I’m still very thankful to have met her. I think just meeting her gave me a lot of hope and confidence that even she couldn’t really ever take away. I know now that I have a chance at meeting someone who doesn’t look at me like an alien. I know now that I can’t be distrustful and hold everyone to the same standard as people. I know now that if I were to try dating again, there are a lot of bad choices that I’d avoid (definitely wouldn’t be so damn clingy, ew). And I know now that the girl from 2015 isn’t the only girl on Earth who will be interested in me, I just have to look for another one. As for “Sandra,” I texted her midway through this last semester telling her that I felt guilty about the way things quietly drifted off, and we met up a few weeks before thanksgiving break. That night we tried one more time, going to a restaurant with no open seats and a 2 hour waiting time. She said she wasn’t hungry and we went back to her place where she had no food so I remained starving for that night. Her parents weren’t home, and we... spent the rest of the night looking at vacation photos on her phone. It was clear that the magic just wasn’t there, and I told her before I left that I appreciated her giving me the opportunity to tell her that it just wasn’t meant to be. She had no interest in the things I liked, and while I could see that she tried to like those things too, her heart wasn’t in it. So we ended things amicably like we should have months before. I was proud with how I handled it, and I felt as if though I was finally an adult when it came to my relationships. 

I don’t need another person to like me in order to validate my existence. I don’t need to have everyone in the world think I’m awesome. I don’t need to rely on someone constantly to maintain my self confidence and my image. I don’t need to date someone to avoid feeling lonely, because you can be just as lonely in a relationship as you are out of one. I don’t need to say and do things untrue to myself to keep someone interested in me, because if they lost interest when I act like myself, they aren’t worth my time. I don’t need to date someone to feel complete. I don’t need to date someone just because I don’t want to hurt their feelings by turning them down. If you’re feeling alone lately and having a hard time getting into a relationship, just remember you don’t need any of that. There’s always someone out there for you, and your interests don’t make you completely alone, even if it feels like there’s no one else in the world that shares them. Being into “nerd shit” doesn’t guarantee that you can’t find someone to love and care about, and even if someone loves the same stuff as you, it might not work out anyway and that’s perfectly fine. Just remember that the only person you need to believe in you is you and no one else can fix you but you. Try to find someone after you have all that stuff sorted out or you’ll just end up getting hurt again. 

In all reality, I don’t need a girlfriend at all, but I’d still like one because the company is nice. There’s a girl out there for me, and I’m going to avoid the mistakes I’ve made in the past, and I’m going to leave behind the baggage and tragedies that lie behind me. Who knows, maybe going into 2018, I’ll get to meet her. Let’s hope so.

[thedarkenedkeeper]

Glitched: Part 10 - Always Watching

Author’s Note: Holy hell, was this insane to write X_X

A few things. Firstly, I apologize for how long it took for this to come out. I was incredibly anxious about school, plus I was just overly struggling with writing this chapter. I had a general idea of what I wanted to happen, but I didn’t really know how to get it down into words.

Secondly, this came out as about 18 pages long in Word so I apologize for how ridiculously long this is! I didn’t think it was going to come out so damn long!

And thirdly, this chapter is heavy on the angst. There’s a little bit of horror – of course – but this chapter is mainly angst-ridden so prepare for a LOT of feels! For Christ’s sake, I CRIED while writing this, so that should be saying something.

WARNING: This chapter is very heavy and is incredibly dark. There are mentions of suicide, abuse (both physical and mental), bullying (mainly cyberbullying), existential crisis, self-mutilation, and incredibly low self-esteem. There are mentions of a character getting lobotomized. There is a scene with a detailed description of the inside of a character’s back, which contains abnormal anatomy.

I will say this and I will say this one: This is NOT a happy fun time chapter! (I know, the story as a whole isn’t happy, but this chapter is VERY heavy on the angst as opposed to the other chapters) There ARE feels.

You have been warned.

Enjoy!

(I am SO sorry. I feel so bad for writing this! ;^;)

Listen to this playlist while reading.

 Wheezing breaths of agony echoed throughout the room as he operated. Warm sticky crimson spurted onto his naked lanky fingers – the very fingers of which were maneuvering the stainless steel instrument through his patient’s skull. A pained gasp expelled from the man upon the bloodied table.

“Oh be quiet.” The glitching entity hissed with agitation. “Stop your whining.” He scoffed. “You act as though you’ve never felt pain before.” A delighted giggle came ringing out of the creature’s slit throat. “Almost like you’re afraid of dying.”

A quivering whimper could faintly be heard coming from his patient as he fiddled with the orbitoclast. The green-haired demon smirked from behind his surgical mask.

“I must say, Herr Doktor,” He said in a horrible German accent, mocking the man, “you should be proud of me. I’m no doctor, but I seem to be doing an impeccable job here, if I do say so myself.” He bragged, his smirk stretching into a twisted smile.

The ice pick sank in further, a trail of blood running out onto the demon’s fingertips. A sharp intake of air, followed by a shaky sob left the patient; the entire mass of flesh jolting and tensing up against his restraints. The overhead light flickered as the sinister being growled through his teeth out of annoyance.

“For fuck sake, stop it! This is delicate work – you of all people should know that!” He snapped sharply, though he ironically gave the pick a violent tap; jabbing the inside of the man’s skull.

It only made the tortured man release a loud moan of unbearable agony, a trembling hand pulling weakly at its bond and trying to reach out for the figure leering over him. After a brief moment, the struggling died down and a faint shaky whine slipped out. The demon chuckled, continuing with his ministrations.

“You see? That wasn’t so hard, now was it? I told you that you could handle the pain.” The creature’s head gave a sudden twitch to the left, then the right, before returning his cold eyes to his patient. He grinned. “If I can bear with it, so can you. Anesthesia is fOr ThE wEaK!” In seconds flat, the entity’s form glitched out spastically; the grin gone and replaced with a grimace of anger, trying to make a point. Almost as quick as it had happened, the toothy smile returned, accompanied with a horrifying cackle of glee.

Another weak whine left the pained patient.

“Trust me, my friend, zhis is for your own good.” The manifestation grinned mockingly, using the exact same words the doctor had said to him when he had been operated on back on October 29th.  “Don’t worry, I’m going to fix you right up.” He expelled a useless breath, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. He chuckled lightly before his being glitched out; his facial expression almost immediately falling flat. “I’m going to fix you all.” He hissed softly under his breath.

The poor man upon the table suddenly jerked, a strained gasp of pain getting ripped out of his vocal cords. Anti growled, put off with how uncooperative his patient was being.

“Oh come on, give it a rest already! Get ahold of yourself! You’re not dying!” He mumbled the next few words with promise. “Not yet anyway, but I don’t get to choose the outcome. You should be so lucky.” He wedged the pick in further, showing no remorse towards the man when he writhed and released a choked breath.

As the twisted imposter of a doctor carried on with the operation, getting blood smeared all along his pale digits, he began to yet again find himself slowly but surely sinking into the hatred he held towards the community. No one knew how he felt, not truly anyway. Everyone automatically assumed the unstable creature was just a monster, and as such, he behaved like one. But he was only like that thanks to his creators – they were the ones who gave him life and made him what he was. If they hadn’t wanted a monster, then why hadn’t they done anything to “fix” him? Why hadn’t they taken action when they had had the chance? Anti stared down at his handy work, dark eyes unblinking as the anger started to weave throughout his veins.

“They’re making me do this. They would say otherwise, I know they would. They’re all deceivers – monsters like me, although much worse.” An insidious giggle rang throughout the operating room, sending cold chills down his patient’s spine. “They don’t give a shit about any of us. They can’t seem to make up their damn minds on anything.” He chuckled, although given what he was talking about, it was an incredibly unnerving chuckle. There was nothing but fury and hate behind it. “And they have the audacity to go and point fingers at me and call ME the monster, the true villain in all of this? HA!” He jabbed the orbitoclast rather unexpectedly, instantly getting a horrific reaction out of his tortured patient. He glowered down at the man, his abyssal orbs growing darker and colder than what was already possible.

“They have no idea what they’ve done to me.”

                                                           * * * * *

  It was not long after Halloween when the demon had begun to notice the changes in his audience. After Anti had “killed” Jack in front of the still recording camera and finally took possession of the Irishman’s body, the glitching entity just had to go and upload the footage to YouTube two days later. After all, Jack himself had wanted to make a Halloween video for the fans; he had even teased them about it with the brief recording he had posted on Instagram. As Anti saw it, he was doing the man a favour. And of course, just as he had expected, after that video was released, the entire community went up in flames. Everyone freaked out – both out of equal amounts of delight and fear. Many actually believed Jack had in fact died and that Anti had taken over, and the insidious manifestation could only laugh out of amusement, applauding those few who knew the truth. He had been so gleeful to see his creators’ reactions, taking in just how shell-shocked they each became and how they all screamed his name. It was almost a surreal experience; the demon couldn’t quite contain his happiness.

However, though he was now the one in control, he knew his fans were going to suspect that he was the one inhabiting Jack’s body. And though that was true, he figured he’d have a bit of fun with them all. He would instead put on a deceitful act and pretend to be everyone’s favorite green-haired Irishman. It was time for him to put all of the training he had done over the past couple of months to good use. He would wear a mask and act like nothing had happened, and that’s exactly what he did.

A delayed video was posted hours later of him explaining what had happened during October leading up to Halloween. The glitch definitely put on a seamless act. The way he spoke, the way he acted, the joy and optimism and excitement gleaming in his blue eyes, the positivity radiating off of the man – it was all far too perfect. There wasn’t any way anyone would conclude it wasn’t Jack speaking in front of the camera. The unhinged trickster came up with a convincing lie off the top of his head, telling his audience how everything had just been one big act for Halloween. Anti wasn’t real, it was just Jack pretending to be an evil demented version of himself out to kill him. It was all just a scary idea he had had for the Halloween season – he wasn’t dead.

And the fandom believed him. They fell for his two-faced lies, each individual word sliding off of his wicked tongue and twisting his creators’ beliefs. They had all bought into his seemingly innocent fable. Some were confused, some didn’t know what to believe anymore, but all of them knew deep down that Jack was perfectly fine and he was only embracing the character of Anti…right?

For a time, the glitching entity had been very pleased with his ways of deception, how he managed to warp every single member of the community into believing he was in fact everyone’s good ol’ Jackaboy…that was until he began to take notice of how little attention he himself was receiving.

Sure, after his appearance on Halloween, a ton of fan art, fanfiction, and posts about him had been produced. There was no denying the fact how all of it had given him immense strength and power. However, given how he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t – someone the entire fandom had adored – he realized with a horrendous hybrid of surprise and perplexity that the community was once again returning there attention onto Jack. They all seemed to be relieved at the fact that he was alright and unharmed, that he hadn’t actually died. They were grateful he was alive, and Anti didn’t understand why. Hadn’t they wanted him to cut the man out of the picture? Hadn’t they wanted him to replace the pathetic Irishman and give them a far more superior being to look up to?

As the months passed away and autumn faded into winter, the demented creature began to truly notice the difference in the community’s behavior. He was slowly but surely becoming forgotten by his own creators. Granted, there were still pieces of fan art and fanfiction floating about here and there on social media, but other than that, their main focus was no longer on him; it had been shifted back onto Jack and it appeared to be staying that way. And though he tried to convince himself otherwise, Anti firmly believed that his fans only thought of him as a one-time thing – that he had had his one chance to steal the limelight and now that it had passed, it was time to move on. And the demon was not at all pleased with this.

The minute he had noticed the change in the fandom, Anti had stormed off into the darkened hell where he kept his host caged up and went off on a long-winded rant about just how confused and enraged he was for suddenly being ignored and accused of being a “one-time thing”.

“What? A ‘one-time thing’?” The green-haired Irishman had questioned from behind the searing-hot bars of the cell. He shook his head slowly, not entirely understanding. His alter ego was speaking so quickly, he could barely keep up. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s there to not understand? They see me as a one-time thing! A side-show act!” The manifestation snapped with a glitch of his head.

“Well what did you expect? You’ve been pretending to be me all this time.” Jack stated simply. “They think I’m perfectly fine and that it was all just an act. They don’t really think you exist, and you’ve made them believe that.”

“Shut up! They know I exist, I know they do!” His body spasmed for a fleeting moment as he paced the room. “And yet…” He chuckled lightly in disbelief, “And yet, they’re acting like nothing had happened. Like everything that had led up to Halloween – all of my sudden appearances – meant nothing.” He whirled around and locked his eyes onto the man in the cage. “It’s almost like they’ve forgotten about me completely.” He scoffed, a petite smile flashing across his face in the blink of an eye. “They haven’t forgotten about me completely, thank fuck for that. But…But they’re my creators, damn it!” He flared, his entire form twitching and jerking, struggling to remain stable. “They created me, they brought me to life, and I gave them a show! So why aren’t they giving me attention?”

With no warning, one moment he was a few feet away from the cell and the next, he was suddenly standing right in front of the bars, slamming his hands against them with a violent bang. Jack’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest at the action, stumbling backward and nearly catching himself off balance. Anti’s glacial cold orbs bored deep into the Irishman’s soul, hissing harshly through his teeth.

 “Why do they like you more than me?!” He demanded, fingers tightening around the bars.

Collecting himself and swallowing down any fear he held towards the creature, Jack straightened up and broadened his shoulders. He refused to show any fear or let Anti have the upper hand in this. He glared at the entity from the other side of the bars, his hands balling up into fists at his sides.

“Maybe it’s because I’m not a monster.” The Irishman seethed. “Maybe it’s because I’m not so desperate for attention that I’ve resorted to hurting or killing anyone. Maybe it’s because I actually have a heart and give a damn about the community as a whole as opposed to being a selfish asshole who only cares about their self.” He spat. “Whether they created you or not, it doesn’t matter. You have control over your actions – you can change your ways – and yet you decide not to. You instead choose to be a wretched monster that’s out to cause carnage and misfortunate for others.”

Jack took a few slow steps forward, his eyes never leaving the insidious being staring back at him. He shook his head, scowling at the demon with a look of disgust.

“You haven’t changed…and you never will.”

Anti felt a pang in his chest at hearing what his counterpart said. He growled in anger, his head twitching violently from left to right as a projection of himself flickered, one of him yanking viciously on his hair with his face scrunched up in frustration as opposed to agony. He cocked his head to the side in an unnatural way, reminiscent of the movement of a small bird’s own head. A layered inhuman giggle came bubbling out of his forever blood-gushing throat.

“You think I can change my ways? You honestly think I can change?” A terribly awful laugh erupted from him, succeeding in striking a descent amount of fear into his prisoner. He shook his head vigorously, a grin plastered on his face, even though it was plainly obvious he wasn’t happy. Admittedly, it unnerved the Irishman to a degree.

“Your ‘precious’ community holds the power over me. They are the ones who made me the way I am. I didn’t get a say in the matter! Hell, I didn’t ask to be made. I DiDn’T aSk tO Be GiVEn LiFe!” He unexpectedly lashed out, the grin vanishing from his face in an instant and an animalistic-looking grimace taking its place. His body seemed to stutter and lag for a moment before resuming its movement, twitching and glitching out every few seconds. It was evident the creature was having a hard time controlling his anger.

Jack jumped back in alarm, having not expected the sudden outburst. However, though it had momentarily startled him, the YouTuber still stood his ground. Before he could even think over the situation and come up with a calm and collected solution like he would normally do, he found himself consumed by an overwhelming wave of rage, and the next few words came flooding out of his mouth – words he would later regret ever saying.

“Well if you don’t want to be alive, then why don’t you kill yourself?!” He snapped, glaring daggers at the entity.

Another pang came from within the glitch’s chest, and this one hurt far more than the previous one.

“You keep complaining about how you were created and how everyone is ignoring you and not giving you attention. You’re like a child – a whiny brat who can’t get what they want when they want it, and it’s just sad.” The Irishman continued, not holding back. “You say that the community is responsible for you – that they’re the ones who created you and brought you into this world. And even though they’re essentially like your parents, they don’t seem to care about you.” He leaned forward. “Did it ever cross your mind that maybe the reason they don’t care about you is because of the way you came out?”

Yet again, another painful pang.

“Maybe you were meant to only be an idea, NOT an actual existing creature.” He hissed. “You’re like Frankenstein’s monster – you were pieced together from scratch. Maybe you were meant to come out differently, but instead, came out as this…this thing.” He said with such distaste, the entity visibly winced. Jack kept his eyes fixed on his alter ego, nothing but anger in his eyes, and yet...there was something else there also. Unfortunately, Anti was unable to see it.

“An abomination…That’s what you are.” The man shook his head slowly. “You’re an abomination…and nobody wants you.” His nostrils flared as he took in a sharp breath, trying to keep his hatred at bay. He scoffed. “You know…I’m known for being a reasonable guy. I like to think that I am caring, I can see the good in people, and that I can and will accept anyone for who they are, no matter what their race, gender, sexual orientation – I don’t give a fuck.” He spat. “And over the last two months, I had really thought that maybe – just maybe – that all of this would come to an end.” He was saying it with such sincerity, like he had genuinely hoped things would’ve changed. “That maybe there was some good in you, and you would let me go, and everything could go back to normal. I was willing to accept you for who you are, but now…”

He trailed off, bowing his head and glancing down at the concrete ground, shaking his head. “I was a fool for ever thinking that way…There is no good in you, I finally see that...” He lifted his head and locked eyes with Anti, tugging on his chains as he took a step forward. “You were never meant to exist, Anti. You’re a mistake, and THAT is why they don’t care about you. You weren’t planned. Get that through your head.”

A raw, dead silence came without welcome. The unhinged creature stood there, unblinking eyes staring directly at his host, but the anger he had been feeling – the countless questions that had been tormenting him – all of it seemed to dissipate at hearing what the green-haired man had to say. Never had the demon heard such cold, harsh words leave the man’s lips. Jack had always been known as a pure caring soul, one who rarely ever looked down on anyone unless there was an honest-to-God good enough reason. And for the last two months, the Irishman had tried to see past the glitch’s monstrous exterior. With each day, he had hoped and prayed for the day the demon would come into the room and release him, claiming it to be one big misunderstanding. But that day never came. Time and time again, Anti had been merciless and took great joy in taunting the YouTuber, not at all caring for his feelings. He thoroughly enjoyed seeing his prisoner in a helpless state. And as much as he wanted to believe otherwise, Jack finally opened his eyes to the truth: Anti was a monster and that’s all he’d ever be – there wasn’t an ounce of good in him.

Anti stood there unmoving, the glitchiness of his body faltering and ever so slightly managing to calm down a bit. It may have been hard to tell, but through Jack’s eyes, it almost appeared like the entity’s facial expression had dropped. His body may have been tense and he may have been gripping the bars tightly, but his eyes…there wasn’t a sliver of anger anymore, nor was there perplexity. Those feelings were gone, and in their place, something else took over – something much more haunting. His eyes seemed much darker, but not from the ugly emotions he’d been consumed by a moment ago.

No…this was something else entirely…

If the Irishman didn’t know better, he could’ve sworn he was staring into the eyes of a damaged creature. The body language may have made Anti give off the appearance of a deadly predator ready to go in for the kill, but his eyes were a different story. Jack felt like he was staring into the soul of a wounded animal, and for a brief moment, he almost pitied him.

Nevertheless, within seconds flat, the hurt he’d seen fogging up the demon’s onyx orbs cleared away and the fury he’d had before returned with a cruel vengeance; a feral growl crawling out of the creature’s throat. Anti shook his head, his form beginning to twitch and jerk violently once again. Versions of him flickered every few seconds, one or two of him grinning sadistically and cackling wildly.

“No…You’re wrong. They do care about me deep down – they must!” He unexpectedly giggled with an unnerving amount of glee. He shrugged, extending his arms out to either side. “Why else would they have created me?” He pointed an accusing finger out at the Irishman. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to test me – see if I have any ‘feelings’.” The abomination said it as though it was a repulsing concept. “Nice try there, Jackie but it ain’t going to work.” His body spasmed momentarily before he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the bars of the cell. A horrible toothy grin spread from ear to ear across his face.

 “Mark my words, Jackaboy, I’m going to prove you wrong about your ‘loving’ community.” He giggled darkly, lines of pixels scattering across his face at a blurring speed to reveal an expression of pure unadulterated hatred and loathing. His voice dropped an octave or two as he glared at his host.

 “I’m going to give them a reminder of who’s really been around all this time. Then, and only then, will they open their eyes and see.” And without another word, he pushed himself away from the bars, whirled on his heel, and exited the room.

That had been back in early January.

Throughout January and February, the community’s creation continued to play the part of everyone’s favorite green bean; seamlessly pretending to be someone he wasn’t just to please his fans. However, it wasn’t until he began to play a horror game titled “Detention” when things began to take an unexpected turn of events. Unknowingly to the glitch, every couple of minutes into each video, the facecam would suddenly act out of sorts and someone would appear on screen for a second or two, most often looking directly at the camera with confusion, distress, or sometimes even fear. Unfortunately, Anti hadn’t found out about any of this until the videos had been uploaded and he was furious when he discovered what was going on. Without him knowing, Jack had been making energy-consuming attempts at trying to reach out to his audience and show them that he wasn’t the one in control. He was desperately trying to get the community’s attention, and though he succeeded, it only managed to raise a lot of questions amongst the fans. Glitches were associated with Anti, and thus, a majority of the fandom were convinced that Anti was coming back – even though, in truth, he had never left. No one could decipher whether the man shown in the glitches was Anti or Jack, and it was only frustrating both of the green-haired men.

Shortly after he had brought “Detention” to a close, Anti had gone and subjected his pathetic host to a relentless amount of pain. He had strangled him and beaten him into submission, all while venting out his unbridled rage until the man was a quivering mess at his feet, begging to be let go. It was at this point when Anti knew he had to take action, he had to do something to get the community’s attention back onto him – the REAL him. But how? What could he possibly do? It’d have to be bigger than what had happened on Halloween. Something that everyone could see, something that would never be forgotten, something –

And then it hit him like an oncoming truck: PAX. He knew that Jack attended the convention every year; taking the time to meet his fans in person and giving them all a time to remember. The next one was supposed to be coming up in three weeks, and it only made a grin come to the demon’s face. That was it – that’s how he’d get everyone’s attention once again. What better a way to give his makers a reminder than while at a live event?

Leading up to the weekend of PAX, the entity had gone through the trouble of putting together an introductory video for his panel. For the first minute or so of the video, he pretended to be Jack; welcoming everyone to the panel, only to then announce how he had an idea – a game – that he wanted to try out with the audience. He then proceeded to explain himself, stating how they were all going to record a message of sorts using a phone, a camera, or an iPad. The entire thing seemed innocent enough; there was no need to be suspicious of his behavior. Jack was the one speaking after all, and who wouldn’t trust the precious bean? Surely he had something exciting planned. Everything was going well until it wasn’t. The screen would start to glitch out, some of the audio would cut out or become laced with static – clear signs that something was very wrong and that “Jack” wasn’t so alone. And suddenly, the screen cut to black. A series of clips from Jack’s videos flew by one after another at blurring speed before falling back into darkness. And then there was a chuckle…an eerie, childish chuckle that could easily give anyone and everyone a reason to be scared.

The screen glitched out and there he was in all his glory, finally showing his true self and giving everyone a shock. No one would expect him to show up at the panel, and as such, his message would be heard loud and clear. Throughout the remainder of the video, the unstable demon seemed to be a bipolar mess; it was hard to determine what his exact feelings were. One second he’d have a cheeky toothy grin stretched across his sickly pale face, giggling like a lunatic, and the next his expression would be contorted into a godawful grimace of pure annoyance and rage, seething through his teeth and acting a tad threatening towards his audience. His behavior was…off.

He wasn’t like he had been back in October. In October, Anti had been happy and delighted with what he had done. Granted, he had let some of his caged up anger seep out, agitated with how long he had had to wait to be released, but nonetheless, the creature had been overjoyed. He was proud of himself for having done what his creators had wanted…or at least, that’s what he’d thought they had wanted. And now…it was almost like his happiness was being forced, that the smiles upon his face were completely fake and he was struggling to keep any anger from showing. But Anti, being the unhinged entity he was, failed.

“Look at you all – just sitting there! You all thought I was gone!” He scolded, his head undergoing a horrible spasm attack; glitching from left to right. He pointed his knife at the camera angrily before leaning forward, a toothy grin coming to his face as he ran his delicate fingertips over the edge of the knife. “Not worrying about anything.”

He appeared to both look and sound rather pleased, even the cackle of delight that bubbled out of him was unsettlingly cheery. And yet, with a quick glitch of the screen, he was lifting the knife up to his neck in a menacing way, baring his teeth. His neck twitched and jerked out as he smiled.

“You all thought I was gone.” His voice unexpectedly dropped an octave at the last word, an indication that he wasn’t as pleased as everyone was led to believe at first. “But I’ve been here this entire time,” There was the cheeky expression once again; outstretching his arms and acting much like a young child who had just shown their parents a drawing they had worked hard on, “keeping an eye on things.” His eyes flickered blacker than black for half a second, his voice once more dropping an octave. The way he had said those words, accompanied with his inky orbs staring coldly at his audience, was rather disconcerting. Especially given how that face kept alternating with a much different one – one of twisted satisfaction, the signature Cheshire smile etched onto his face.

“You stopped paying attention!” He seethed through his teeth, a sliver of his built up rage hanging off of each word. He was smiling, yet he was evidently very put off with the community’s decisions. “Well I hope you’re happy.” He said it almost sincerely, like he was genuinely hoping everyone was in fact happy with what they had done. “You found someone new! Threw me aside!” Immediately, the smile had vanished in the blink of an eye, a scowl now in its place. He even jabbed an accusing finger at the camera, making his point.

“You found someone to replace me!” And just as quick as it had appeared, the entity was yet again smiling brightly; his head giving a fierce jerk before he locked his eyes onto the camera. It was up for debate on who exactly the creature was talking about, but Anti definitely knew, and that someone was slowly but surely becoming a weakened broken man behind a set of warm steel bars. Someone he absolutely loathed with every fiber of his being.

“I’m not going anywhere!” The abomination chirped, his voice reaching a higher pitch, nearly sounding like a giggle. His form glitched out to show him constantly moving back and forth in an unnatural way, like the creature was stuck in a state of limbo. “I’m always there – always watching.” He said it in both a teasing and threatening manner, his eyes cloaked in darkness as he raised his knife. He was going to make sure that every single one of them would remember he was there and how he was never going to leave – never.

It was around this point that if anyone listened closely, a very faint muffled “help me” could be heard, reminiscent of the one in the “Say Goodbye” video. However, unlike that one – which had been gushing with panic and horror – this one was the exact opposite. It sounded devoid of energy and hope, like the man who was calling out for help had been tortured relentlessly and was losing the battle. It almost sounded like the poor man was sobbing, desperate for someone to notice he was there. A sinister cackle followed his plea; the insidious monster sounding far too pleased with how helpless his prisoner was.

“You can’t get rid of me.” Anti growled menacingly, directing his knife towards the camera threateningly. His form began to spastically glitch out, shaking from the struggle he was having containing his anger. And with that, the screen blacked out. “Enjoy the show.”

When PAX came around – March 10th, to be exact – and the entity got to show the video, he watched from afar, hearing everyone’s alarmed reactions towards his unannounced appearance. He covered his mouth, having a hard time holding back his laughter. Good, they were finally coming to their senses and remembering he was still around. For the remainder of the event, however, Anti refused to let everyone know he was the one wearing Jack’s meatsuit. Because as much as he wanted to reveal the truth, he could hear Jack’s haunting words swirling in the back of his head, reminding him how everyone only thought he was an idea, not an actual existing creature. If he were to show his true self, there was no telling what would happen, so he decided to keep a low profile and slip back into the character of Jacksepticeye.

Everything seemed to be going well for some time in the community. For the rest of the month leading into April, all they could talk about was PAX and of how the glitching demon had unexpectedly shown up to the event, giving them a reminder he was always there, watching them. And of course, through this, Anti grew happy at receiving more attention. He was so thrilled, he was overcome with the temptation to go up to his host and rub in his face about just how wrong he had been. But unfortunately for the entity, the contentment was short-lived.

Just like what had happened back when he had shown himself on Halloween, Anti only received a vast amount of attention for a month or two before everything died down and he was pushed aside as a “one-time thing”. This time around was much different. While many were trying to decipher his message and who had been in control all this time, others were growing tired of the glitch. They seemed a tad bit annoyed, like he was a nuisance, which made Anti confused more than anything. Why were they all suddenly turning their backs on him? Any one of the other egos could show their faces and everyone would be smiling and laughing, pleased to see them. But if he showed his face, he got the opposite greeting. Everyone would either quiver in fear, snap at him to “fuck off and leave Jack alone”, or roll their eyes and huff an exasperated breath, not impressed. Admittedly, there were quite a lot of people who did in fact love the glitch and were always happy to see him, but Anti failed to see that; a crimson haze casted over his vision, only allowing him to notice the people who resented him.

The twitchy manifestation was at a loss for words. He couldn’t come up with a logical reason as to why so many people spited him. What could he have possibly been doing wrong? All he wanted was to be included into the circle, all he wanted was to be seen as an equal and loved and adored like all of the other egos who stood in his way. How come they got more attention than him? They didn’t get any more videos than he did, and yet, somehow, someway, they all received an insane amount of adoration. But with him – one glitch of the screen and the entire fandom would explode with every emotion except for one he longed for: love. And the demon wouldn’t admit it but it hurt him more than anything; more than any physical harm he could do to himself.

Sometime during May, Anti had isolated himself in a far off room in the void. He locked himself in the pitch-black room, pacing back and forth; tormenting himself relentlessly with what Jack had spat at him and whether any of his words had been true or not. He questioned himself over and over again about what he was doing wrong and why the community couldn’t accept him the way he was. He clutched his head, scrunching up his hair in his fingers and tugging harshly as he growled lowly out of frustration. His body was in a constant state of manifesting itself in and out of existence; jerking and pixelating, distorting all of his features.

“What am I doing wrong? What’s so special about all of those other fuckers? What do they have that I don’t?” He snarled venomously, his form lagging mid-step before resuming movement. “I thought they wanted me to be a real thing, I thought they wanted me to come into existence. Isn’t that what they wanted? But if that’s what they wanted, then why are they all dismissing me with ease, like I don’t exist? Why are they ignoring me?!” He huffed, his unnecessary breathing increasing in rate. He was beginning to sound rather exasperated, and if anyone could believe it, like he was a bit emotionally hurt.

“They’re my parents, for fuck sake! They made me who I am – why would they make me like this if they knew it would displease them?! What kind of sick joke is this?!” He flared, his figure glitching out to briefly show a projection of him strangling himself, the next of him cutting his already bleeding throat. He threw his arms out to either side. “I’m doing everything I can! Am I trying too hard? Am I not trying hard enough? There’s no pleasing those people!” A stuttering breath left his lips, his head giving a harsh jerk to the left; a loud audible crack coming from his neck. He was beginning to shake all over now, and it wasn’t from how unstable his form was.

“They’re…They’re supposed to love me…” He muttered under his breath, bringing his pacing to a halt in the middle of the black room. He stared down at the ground, shaking his head only to release a small giggle of disbelief. “But they don’t love me…They don’t love me at all.”

For three whole hours, the glitchy entity remained in that room, putting himself through a horrendous amount of mental agony. Pacing back and forth and glitching out from one part of the room to the next, the demon wallowed in his pain. He ended up collapsing to his knees, hanging his head in shame and burying his face in his hands. Icy cool droplets filled his dark eyes and ran down his cheeks, dripping down into his hands and leaking out through his fingers. No one would ever see this side of the creature – sadness and emotional pain such as this weren’t normal for the demon. He saw it as weakness, and as such, he would never show it. He would never admit to the heart-devouring pain he’d endure every single day caused by the community. He always stood up straight, put on a devious smile, laughed like a psychopath, and demonstrated the behavior of one too. He always came off as a merciless, deranged, inhuman abomination that felt no remorse or guilt. He was essentially heartless; he didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. As far as anyone was concerned, he took great joy in seeing others suffer. Love wasn’t a concept he could understand – it was something he could NEVER learn.

But they were all wrong. Every single one of them was wrong about him. He DID have a heart, he DID care about what others thought of him. He DID want to be loved by not just the community but Jack and the egos as well. And yet, here he was, coming to terms with just how much he was hated by his so-called “family”.

Anti sat down in the furthest corner of the room, knees brought in close to his chest as he tugged at his hair; endless tears of hurt cascading down his face. Jack’s assumption had been right before – he had been looking at a wounded animal. The poor creature couldn’t pull himself together. He had been made to be unstable, and as such, any emotion he would feel, would become impossibly heightened to the tenth degree. There was no easy way out of this hell he was putting himself through, there was no way for him to calm down. He just sat there, letting the darkness consume him and allowing the sorrow to rip away at his heart horrifically.

 As though he were a broken record, Anti scolded himself, repeatedly asking himself what was wrong with him as opposed to what was wrong with the community. Maybe Jack had been right, maybe he was a mistake. Maybe he shouldn’t have existed to begin with. Maybe the community did only like him as an idea versus as an actual existing entity. No one loved him, no one cared about him. He was just there as a joke for everyone to do with as they pleased. He was like a puppet having his strings tugged at, playing a part in their deceiving game. And the poor damaged manifestation was getting pulled apart at the seams at the thought.

This is what they had done to him.

They had cut out his heart and forced it down his throat.

He was dead inside.

                                                        * * * * *

 There he stood, hovering over his patient, lost in a state of memory. His hellish eyes, which had been clouded over with rage and hatred a second ago, now held pain and suffering. Those eyes were the eyes of a creature that had been beaten and abused horribly countless times over – the eyes of someone who had been through hell and back. And for a fleeting moment, it almost seemed like those eyes were beginning to water.

“Those fuckers…They ruined me.” He hissed softly under his breath, his fingers tightening around the orbitoclast currently wedged into his patient’s skull. He shook his head slightly, eyes unblinking. He was looking down at the man like he was expecting him to be sympathetic towards him. “All I ever wanted was to be loved…Was that so much to ask for? Was it that hard of a concept to grasp?” His voice was wavering, sounding like he was on the very verge of crying.

However, at hearing his patient let out a pained moan, Anti blinked and removed himself from his dreary reverie; the unhinged monster within returning to the surface. He smirked behind his mask.

“Nevertheless, who needs love? It’s overrated. Ain’t that right, Doctor?” He giggled as he twisted the steel instrument around, getting the man to produce yet another moan of unwanted agony. “You of all people should know that, what with how your pathetic family left you.” He scoffed. “Who needs them? They abandoned you! If they truly loved you, they wouldn’t have left, now would they?” He gave the orbitoclast a violent tab, a spurt of blood flying up into his face. His patient arched and let out a choked yelp at the searing pain. The demon’s smirk developed into a smile. “You should never hurt the ones you love…Never.”

 His patient went placid against the table, no longer moving or making useless attempts at escape. Anti noticed and chuckled, lightly slapping the bloodied man’s face to try and get a reaction out of him. All he received was a drawn out wheezing breath. Chuckling lightly, the sadistic creature tore his mask away from his face and tore the orbitoclast out of the man’s skull carelessly, not at all concerned whether or not he managed to damage something else. His patient jolted and groaned loudly, but didn’t struggle against his bonds or scream from the striking pain. Anti threw the ice pick off to the side somewhere before strolling away from the table, ridding himself of his surgical attire as he headed for the exit.

“Don’t get up, Doc. I’ll be back in a minute.” He said as he stormed out of the operating room. As soon as he left, his smile faltered. “I need to visit your creator.”

                                                           * * * * *

Back within the freezing cold hell, the green-haired Irishman was a shivering mess. He was on his knees where he had been standing not too long ago when he had yelled at Anti. His face was buried in his shredded up, blood-caked hands, crying out of fear for not just himself but of what Anti had done. Why had he left the room? He had said he was going to visit the doctor, and immediately, possible scenarios of gut-wrenching horror flooded the YouTuber’s head. What was Anti doing to Henrik? Was he torturing him? Was he getting him to do something completely obscene and wrong? Was he killing him? Jack choked on a sob at that last one.

The man nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the front door burst open; lifting his head hesitantly to see his alter ego storm into the room. Before he knew what he was doing, Jack got to his feet and grasped the icy bars of the cell.

“What did you do?!” He wailed, loose tears running down his face. “What did you do?!” He repeated, both demanding and dreading an answer.

Anti frowned from where he stood, eyes fixed onto his prisoner. His arms flung out to either side of him. “I did what was necessary!” He snapped sharply, a bit put off with the Irishman’s whining.

He took a few steps forward, boring his dark soulless orbs into the crippled YouTuber. His body glitched out, his head jerking violently to the right; the slit across his throat seeming to stretch further at the motion.

“I did what I had to do!”

 He materialized, suddenly now having his back facing Jack. He pulled up his shirt, and while biting deeply into his bottom lip and letting loose a pained hiss, the skin of his back pixelated and was pulled back, revealing his spine to his host. There was crimson blood everywhere accompanied with some sort of sticky black sludge. There were veins and bits and pieces of his insides here and there that appeared as though they had had something severed from them; evident due to the holes scattered about and how some veins hadn’t been sealed off properly. All along his spine there were dark splotches and some kind of green residue there, almost as if something had once been attached to the creature’s spine.

Jack flung away from the bars and nearly screamed, a wave of nausea crashing over him and knocking the wind out of him. He stumbled backward and instantly collapsed to his knees, keeling over as bile rose in his throat. He couldn’t hold back. He heaved violently and vomited, the sight of Anti’s insides far too revolting for him to stomach.

“Your ‘precious’ community made me do this, Jack.” The demented entity hissed with distaste. “They were always pulling the strings, ALWAYS the ones to twist and shape me however they pleased.” He scoffed, a giggle ringing out of his vocal cords as though this was all some fucked up joke to him. “They made me a joke. They dragged me along in their game, and I HAD ENOUGH!” He growled momentarily before the abnormally delighted smile returned to the creature’s paled face. “So…I got the ‘good doctah’ to sever the strings once and for all.” He cackled, shaking his head as his back closed back up and he lowered his shirt.

The Irishman raised his head, breathing heavily and having difficulty getting air into his lungs. His eyes were blown wide with horror, staring at his counterpart with disbelief like he couldn’t believe what the creature was saying.

“Oh my God, Anti, why?! Why?! Why would you - ?!” He got cut off, nearly choking on the left over bile in his throat. He groaned and hacked harshly, spitting it up. He sobbed softly and shook his head vigorously, fixing his lifeless eyes onto the demon. “You didn’t have to do that! Why the hell would you do that to yourself?!” He cried, like he wasn’t just horrified of what he’d discovered but also like he genuinely cared about the demonic entity’s wellbeing. “Why the FUCK would you mutilate your body – why would you go through something like that?!”

Anti slowly turned around to face him, no evidence of there having been a smile on his face a moment ago. He no longer looked amused or happy; there was nothing but anger and hate written in his eyes. His form was struggling to remain stable now, lines of static racing across his body here and there; jerking from left to right as he took a step towards the cage. He cocked his head and scoffed, like he couldn’t believe he had just heard the green-haired man ask him such a stupid question.

“You think I wanted this?” He asked in such a soft static-laced voice, it managed to send chills up Jack’s spine. “You think I really wanted to do this – that I wanted to have the one thing that made me who I am, the one crucial part of my being, torn out of my body without care like it didn’t matter?” He inquired, although the way he was phrasing the question didn’t sound like a question. It sounded as though he expected Jack to already know the answer. He shook his head slowly, staring at the Irishman with slight shock.

 “I did what had to be done and I don’t regret it.” He spat, even though his words came out a bit off, like he wasn’t telling the truth. “They can’t control me anymore.” He jolted forward, pressing his face into the bars of the cell. “I’m not their bitch, they’re mine. They are all my puppets now…and we’ll see how much they like to be strung about in a twisted game of pain and suffering.” His face glitched out, very briefly showing a different version of him, except this one was unlike any of the others Jack had seen before. Every time Anti’s form would become distorted, Jack would always see projections of him either displaying violent behavior or he’d be a terrifying laughing lunatic. But this time…there was none of that.

There was no uncontrollable anger, no frustration, no unsettling glee accompanied with chilling giggles.

There was only sadness, a look of hurt on his face as though he had been horribly beaten and was now a cowering mess. And though it had happened at a blurring speed, Jack could’ve sworn he had seen tears well up in the creature’s eyes.

Jack’s eyes widened ever so slightly, remembering how earlier he had seen Anti in a similar vulnerable state – something he had never once seen come from the glitch before. Licking his cracked lips and letting out a raspy wheezing breath, the Irishman tried to talk some sense into the entity.

“Anti…D-Don’t…” He coughed harshly, a few drops of blood spluttering forth. He shook his head. “Y-You don’t want to do this…You…You’re wrong…about them.” He inhaled sharply, groaning as he felt a stinging pain in his chest. He hunched over and shifted around, attempting to get into a comfortable position. “Y-You…You don’t know them like I do.”

Anti kept his abyssal orbs locked on the Irishman, never once leaving his face. There was no telling what was going through the manifestation’s head; his expression was unreadable. One moment it looked like he was pissed off, the next it seemed flat like he didn’t care at all. He scoffed, the corner of his lips tugging up into a slight smirk that only lasted for half a second.

“No, you’re right. You’re right, I don’t know them like you do.” His head gave a violent jerk to the right, a loud crack emitting from his slashed neck. He bored his eyes into his prisoner, anger becoming the more dominant emotion now. “Because you’ve been strung along in their deceiving game. All this time, you’ve been led into believing that they care about you – that they care about any of us, for that matter – and because of it, you’ve been holding onto false hope for the day they save your ass.” He seethed, his words striking deep into the man’s heart.

“You need to wake up and realize they’re never going to save you, they are NEVER going to help you. They are the true monster in all of this. They all put on an innocent act and like they’re not at fault. But they are the ones to blame! They caused ALL of this to happen!” He unexpectedly slammed his hands against the bars, making Jack flinch and shuffle backward. The demon’s eyes became drenched in black, heavy shaky breaths of anger puffing out through his lips. “They don’t give a FUCK about any one of us, and it’s not until now that I’ve come to realize this.”

Jack shook his head in disagreement. “No…N-No, y-you’re wrong…Y-You’re mistaken, A-Anti…” He insisted, shivering from the cold. The room had gotten so cold, he could now see his own breath. Funnily enough, even though Anti was breathing, his breath wasn’t visible. The Irishman found it to be a rather odd observation. “Th-They do care. A-About me, about th-the others, and…a-and about you too.”

At hearing this, the glitch couldn’t contain his mirth and threw his head back, letting out a horrific laugh of delight. He locked his eyes back onto his host, a toothy grin on his cruel face, clearly not believing the man.

“Is that so?” He chuckled lightly. “Do you remember what you had said to me long ago, back in January?...Do you remember?” His grin was slowly but surely slipping away, fading down to a smile, then into what almost looked like a pained scowl. “Do you remember?” He softly whispered through the bars. “Do you remember what you said to me?” His voice, it sounded…strained, like he was struggling to breathe properly or something.

Jack’s brows weaved out of confusion, trying to recall what the demon was talking about. This damned room, he could barely think clearly. For Christ’s sake, he had had so much difficulty remembering what had happened in October. How was he supposed to remember what – ?

And then it all came at him full-force with no warning. Suddenly, the Irishman was able to notice the pain behind the creature’s fury, and his facial expression softened as he felt an overwhelming amount of guilt coil around his fist-sized organ of innocence and constrict it tightly. He began to feel tears returning to the surface, welling up in his eyes as he tore his gaze away from his alter ego. Anti groaned and pulled away from the bars.

“Oh for fuck sake, enough with the crying already! It’s getting to be annoying.” He bemoaned. “Come on, I haven’t even hurt you yet! What could you be possibly crying about now?!”

 Jack kept his head low in shame, shaking it as the tears threatened to tip over the edge.

“I…I-I…I’m sorry…” He whispered so softly, it could barely be heard. He swallowed the lump in his throat and sobbed, shaking his head as he closed his eyes, a look of pain coming upon his face. “I-I’m so sorry…I…O-Oh God…” He lifted his hands, covering his face as he cried.

Anti frowned. Normally he’d be amused at seeing his prisoner so broken up like this, but not today. He was in absolutely no mood for waterworks.

“Sorry? What the fuck are you babbling on about?” He banged against the bars. “Come on, speak up!” He snapped with annoyance.

The green-haired man gulped in what little air he could as he pulled his soaked hands away from his face, reopening his eyes.

“I…I-I’m so s-sorry, I…” He sniffled. “I-I had no…i-idea that you…” He stopped himself, taking a breather to try and calm his nerves. It didn’t work out as well as he had hoped. He shook his head in disbelief as the memories tormented him. “Th-Those words…Th-Those things I had said, Jesus Christ…” He shut his eyes tightly, pinching the bridge of his nose and cringing at the reminder. He bit his lip, trying so very hard to stop himself from crying. His bottom lip trembled as he struggled to speak. “I…I thought…I thought you were heartless…I-I th-thought that…that there was n-no good in you at all…I…I figured y-you were a…a…”

“A monster?” Anti answered so harshly, his body rippled violently.

Jack tensed up at the word and he immediately lifted his head to lock eyes with the demon. Wet lines of sorrow stained his cheeks and his eyes were red, sore from the countless times he had cried. He shook his head slowly, still shell-shocked by the haunting memory.

“I-I’m s-so sorry…I-I don’t know w-why I said th-those things…” He sniffled and nervously chuckled out of disbelief, like this had to be some sick joke of sorts. “I-I didn’t mean any of it…I…I-I didn’t know, I swear to God, I d-didn’t…” He sobbed, a few lone tears running down his face. “I w-was wrong about you, Anti…I-I was so wrong…I…” He swallowed his tears. “I-I was so blind to see that…that the one who truly n-needed help…th-the one who n-needed love…” He looked up at the creature with pleading eyes, hoping like hell that he believed his words, because none of them were lies. He was telling the honest-to-God truth, and it was ripping him apart. “w-was you…Th-That’s all y-you’ve ever wanted…Y-You’ve w-wanted t-to be a part of s-something…a-and w-we have f-failed you…” He cried, shaking all over not from just the cold but from the force of his crying. “I…I-I’m so sorry, Anti.” He whispered softly.

The unhinged abomination glitched out for a moment, standing there with his gaze fixed onto the quivering mess of a man named Jack. Like before, his face was unreadable. Jack couldn’t tell if he was enraged, annoyed, amused, happy, or something else entirely. For a split second, when the entity went to stand up straight, the Irishman had winced and whimpered, raising his arms to brace himself for any sort of act of violence. But nothing came. Instead, he heard the creature let out a shaken breath.

“I knew it…I knew this would happen.”

Blinking with confusion, the YouTuber lowered his arms just enough to glance up at the demon.

“You’re just as bad as them.” He hissed, his entire body glitching out to show a projection of himself crying out in anguish. “You don’t care – you didn’t before, and you still don’t. All of this,” He motioned at the man crying his eyes out in the cold dank cell, “is just an act, just an excuse – an attempt to try and win me over so I can release you from this hell. Well guess what? It’s not going to work, so drop the act. I’ve had enough of the lies from everyone.” He growled with such hatred, his head stuttered and twitched from left to right, struggling to keep his anger at bay.

Jack blinked, frowning with perplexity. “W-What? No…N-No, no, no. Y-You…” He coughed violently, “y-you think - ?” He shook his head, pushing himself up into a standing position and nearly falling over. He quickly steadied himself against the prison bars, his eyelids slipping shut tiredly before reopening them to look at the entity. “Th-This…This isn’t an a-act…” He coughed again, hacking harshly into one of his bloodied palms. “I-I am t-truly sorry, An-Anti…a-and…a-and the c-community…i-if they are th-the ones who…who c-created you…th-then they do care.”

Anti growled. “Lies.”

 “N-No…No, I-I know them…I-I know w-what they’re like…a-and…” He sucked in a breath, choking on it and heaving into his hand dryly. “u-ugh….mmgh…” He winced before standing up as straight as he could. “t-they do care…Th-Those jokes th-they make a-about you…” He shook his head, “th-they’re just jokes, th-that’s all…I-It’s what th-they do. H-Hell,” He scoffed, “th-they’ve m-made jokes about m-me and…and the others b-before…” He shrugged, licking at the tears that ran over his lips. “I-It’s j-just their w-way of showing th-their appreciation – th-their l-love.”

He coughed violently, nearly collapsing to the ground at the force of his coughing. He groaned in pain, his legs wobbling as he struggled to remain standing. He looked at Anti with exhaustion.

“P-Please…B-Believe me…Th-They d-don’t h-hate you, Anti…” He insisted in a pleading tone of voice, a lone tear running down his cheek. He shook his head. “N-No…No one has to get hurt…Y-You c-can…can be happy and l-loved…l-like you were m-meant to be.” He said weakly before sliding down to the ground with a thud, letting out a weak moan.

Through the dark, though his eyes had fallen shut for a brief moment, the Irishman made out a very faint sob. His eyelids were heavy with the longing to stay shut, but he forced them open to see the glitch’s face contorted into one of frustration. There was anger, hatred, and…and sorrow. There was pain – heart-aching pain, tears welling up in the hurt creature’s darkened eyes. His grip on the bars of the cell was so tight, Jack was almost afraid he was going to break them and charge into the cage to slaughter him. Lucky for him, that didn’t happen. His entire body was visibly shaking and not just from how he was glitching out constantly every few seconds. It almost seemed like the poor creature was fighting himself, like he was holding back on something. His bottom lip was trembling as he struggled to keep himself from showing weakness.

“R-Really?...Is that so?” The demon stuttered in a static-laced voice. And though he sounded beyond furious, he couldn’t hide the truth from the Irishman. He was hurting, and it was showing as clear as day. “Y-You think they all care?” A small sad smirk tugged at his lips as he outstretched a hand behind him. “Th-Then how do you explain these?” And with a snap of his fingers, a patch of darkness dissolved to show endless posts on Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.

Jack squinted, dragging himself forward in a poor attempt to see well. His eyes widened a tad bit when he realized what each one was about. Every one of the posts was hateful and overly mean towards the glitch, and none of them were in a joking manner, even Jack himself could tell.

“Fuck off, Anti! Leave Jack and the egos alone!”

“Go away! We don’t want you here!”

“Look at him – he’s having a temper tantrum. He’s not scary, he’s just complaining about what he can’t have.”

“You people do realize this is all just an act, right? Anti’s not real, get over it.”

“Anti, why the hell are you here?”

“We need to get rid of Anti, guys! It’s the only way we’ll get Jack back! Who’s with me?!”

“Anti, it’s not Halloween yet! Go back to sleep!”

“Glitch Bitch!”

Every single comment or post was either making fun of the glitching entity or just straight up being hurtful in the worst way imaginable, such as telling him to go away and that he wasn’t wanted – that no one wanted to see him. No one knew it, but every one of the posts hurt the creature to a horrible extent, and Jack couldn’t blame him. He stared at the screen with appalment. These couldn’t be from his community, there was no way. He knew his fans and they were most certainly not this cruel – not towards him or the other egos, at least. And if Anti was their creation, then why the hell would they treat him worse than dirt?

Jack didn’t know what to say, and Anti could tell. He scoffed, the sad smirk still upon his face.

“Y-You see? You c-can’t even defend th-them.” He lowered his arm as the screen materialized, gone forever. “Th-They don’t care about me…I-I’ve always been j-just a nuisance to them – a-an object for th-them to toy with.” His form spastically glitched out all of sudden, a projection of him lurching forth; tugging at his head and bawling his eyes out, screaming out in pain. Jack gasped softly, pressing back into the bars behind him. Anti jerked his head. “I-I…I will n-never be loved…b-because th-that’s not the reason w-why I-I was m-made.”

The Irishman’s eyes widened with surprise as he watched Anti blink, a lone tear finally falling loose and running down the demon’s cheek. His bottom lip trembled more, having little to no control over his emotions anymore. Another tear fell from his eye.

“Th-They d-didn’t make me…b-because they w-wanted a s-son…T-They made me b-because…th-they wanted a m-monster…” He sobbed softly, his entire form vibrating and giving a violent glitch. And though his body was unstable, the creature’s voice remained rather quiet, like a murmur. He almost sounded human.

“Th-They w-want…a v-villain...th-that they can h-hate and f-fear…Th-That’s all they’ve ever w-wanted…f-from the start.” He shook fiercely, anger starting to come back with a vengeance; his voice becoming much harsher and more distorted. “S-So…if th-that’s what they w-want…i-if that’s w-what’ll please them…” He chuckled lightly, another cool tear racing down his face. His sad smirk morphed into a twisted ugly smile. “Th-Then that’s w-what I’ll give them.” He shook his head vigorously, licking at the salty tears over his lips. “N-No more…L-Love is t-truly dead…” He cackled. “F-Fear…” He hummed with bemusement, “is w-what’ll get th-there attention…p-permanently.”

 He pushed himself away from the bars and growled at himself, roughly wiping his eyes free of any more tears before turning on his heel to storm for the exit. Jack almost immediately scrambled to his feet, gripping onto the bars for dear life so he wouldn’t collapse again.

“W-Wait, wait, wait!” He croaked hoarsely, barely having any voice left in him. He reached his arm out through the cell, hoping Anti wouldn’t leave. There was no telling what the demon would do once he left. Hell, Jack still didn’t even know what Henrik’s fate had been!

“An-Anti, please!” He coughed dryly, his shoulders shaking. He was beginning to fall incredibly weak again, his eyes feeling heavy with exhaustion and the temperature of the room was only making it worse. “D-Don’t…” He gave one last attempt, one last plea before his knees gave out; collapsing to the ground and passing out cold.

Anti didn’t bother to look over his shoulder at the Irishman. He didn’t even retort back with a snarky taunting remark of sorts, the closest thing being, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

He wasn’t his usual self, and Jack had seen it with his own two eyes. It had been a long while since the entity had had a chance to vent out these painful emotions, but he had no time to lock himself away.

No…He couldn’t lock himself away…

But he could take his hurt out on someone else…

Part 9 - No Strings Attached

Part 11 - In Your Head

 @gridhorizon @jse-fandom-protection-squad @septic-obsessed @darkcurious @butterlover328 @steffid101 @sketchy-scribs-n-doods @n-o-ra-xi @haveaverynicetime @golden-eyed-guardians @fear-is-nameless @nightmarewolf133 @maybekatie @jack-a-yote @lil-gib @aeoix @lemonofweirdness @randomcrystals @yourestillnotmytype-58