#I could just scream because of how much I really dislike my dads attitude sometimes

[pagingevilspawn]

Would you please write a fic about alex and jo help their daughter with her homework, they would be kinds cute help them study

cross my heart, hope to die, please stick this pencil in my eye

there’s a reason this took me forever. reason number one, two, and three; proofs. i was unable to write this because of proofs. i got this ask and LIKE A CHILD decided that i wanted to make my fictional characters suffer as much as i did. so once i was done with proofs, i had to write something about proofs, which made me exhausted because i hate even talking about proofs

that made no sense, but here’s this thing that i made. lots of it was my real life monologue, screaming at my computer bc of fucking proofs. enjoy. (also, let’s appreciate the fact that i updated three whole days in a row)

(also, another installment of the “payton loves evan peters too much” series, where i name jolex babies after his AHS characters)

Alex Karev sat in the drivers side of his SUV, making a right onto the upcoming street as he listened to the song playing on the radio. He drummed his fingers along the steering wheel absentmindedly, pulling up to the curbside of James Madison Middle School, waiting patiently in his seat until he heard the five minute warning bell ring.

When the loud bell goes off, he exits the car and makes his way to the other side, learning against the door so his kids would know it was him. Too many parent’s owned black range rovers, and the last thing Alex needed was for either one of his kids to climb into the back seat of some stranger's car. 

He didn’t need to wait long for children to start piling out of the school in large crowds. Middle school was so different from elementary, for his kids at least. He remembers when they would come sprinting out of the building as if their lives depended on it, but now they just casually strolled, no matter how much they liked or disliked school. 

A few minutes later he catches sight of his daughter, who’s eyes light up when she sees him. He wasn’t supposed to pick them up today, the nanny was. But he had gotten off of work early and had insisted with Jo that he be the one to pick up the kids. It was a task he wished he got to do more often. 

“Hey.” his daughter greets him with a smile on her face. He steps aside and lets her enter the side door, where she flops her black backpack on the floor and settles into the seat, pulling out her phone and begins to start scrolling through it. 

“Dad!” he hears another voice exclaim, quickly tracing it to his son, who was currently running to the car, backpack bouncing up and down behind him. The sixth grader moved across the property quickly, greeting his dad with a fist bump before sliding into the back seat.

He closes both of his kids doors before making his way into the driver's side, revving up the car’s engine before he drives down the long block, whatever music his daughter decided on playing through the radio. 

Alex winces when the music begins to blare through the car, “Brynn, turn that crap down would you?”

Brynn’s face looks scandalized. “It’s not crap. It’s art.” she emphasizes, turning it up even louder and screaming the words. (Poor Brynn couldn’t sing, and she knew it)

“I came in like a wreeckingggg ballll I never hit so harddd in loveeee all i wanted was to break your walls all you ever did wre-e-e-ck meee.” she yells, using her phone as a microphone, hair flying around wildly as she moved up and down, side to side in her seat.  

Alex rolls his eyes, unable to hide the smile on his lips. His wife and daughter were too much alike sometimes. He turns the knob himself, sending his daughter a look, silently telling her not to do it again. 

“I think it’s crap. Just like how I think you sound like a dying cat whenever you sing.” his son pipes in from the back, a signature Karev smirk plastered on his lips as he keeps his gaze locked on his phone. 

“Shut up Rory,” she sneers, “Nobody likes you.” 

Rory fakes a laugh, looking back to his phone, and then to the scenery outside his window. They passed house after house until they finally reached their destination, John Quincy Adams Elementary School.

“Wait here,” Alex instructs the two kids, who murmurs their we know’s, more focused on the devices in their hand to the words coming out of his mouth. 

He makes his way to the ‘log cabin’ that sat at the front of the school, giving a friendly smile to the woman sitting at the sign out table, a crappy fold out plastic table that had definitely seen better days. “Faye and Bridgette Karev.” 

The woman slides the forms across the table, handing him a pen. “Sign here and here. I’ll go get them right now.” She stands up from her seat and heads inside to tell the two girls that their father had arrived.

Alex sprawls his messy signature onto the page, huffing before leaning up against the gate. His girls could take anywhere from thirty seconds to five minutes to pack up their things. Luckily today didn’t seem to be the latter, because before he knew it, the two youngest Karev’s came bouncing towards him. 

“Daddy!” “Daddy!” 

The seven year olds gave him a large hug, showing him matching toothless smiles. When Jo and him found out that she was pregnant for a third time, they were overjoyed. They had always wanted more than two kids, but hadn’t really been actively trying. They were excited to expand their family of four into a family of five. When they discovered that she was not carrying not one, but two babies, they were shocked. Jo wasn’t expecting to get pregnant at thirty-nine, much less with twins. Brynn was seven at the time, and Rory was five, so they were worried about how their kids would react when they found out two new babies would be joining the Karev household. 

Rory --surprisingly-- took the news really well. He was excited with the fact that he could have baby brothers. (Oh well. Alex Karev only seemed to make girls, Rory being the one exception.) 

Brynn was a bit more reluctant. She had heard from her friends at school how much babies cried and stole all the attention. She loved both her parent’s equally, but she was a Daddy’s girl through and through. The thought of losing both of her parent’s focus was terrifying. What if her Daddy called her new siblings names like Bug or Princess? Those were her names, and her names only. She couldn’t let the new babies steal her names. 

It took a while, but after multiple long talks and countless acts of reassurance, but Brynn eventually came around to the idea. Before they knew it, Brynn was just as excited for the upcoming babies as they were. Jo was worried throughout her whole pregnancy. Since she was almost forty, she was now considered to have a geriatric pregnancy. Just the word ‘geriatric’ did nothing to soothe any woman’s nerves, but add that to the fact that Jo was a surgeon and knew all the risks of pregnancy, and she was practically a mess the first few months. As it turned out, the twins ended up being her easiest pregnancy, since Brynn decided to make her entrance into the world four weeks early and while she was carrying Rory she had the occasional spotting that terrified her to her core every time, worried that she was miscarrying. 

The twins ended up being born at thirty-five weeks, perfectly healthy. The only thing that gave Jo any trouble at all was the severe morning sickness, which turned out to be all day sickness. 

But in the end it was way more than worth it. Faye was pretty much Jo reincarnated, just like Brynn. Every aspect about her was exactly like her mom. Her hair, her eyes, her face shape, chin. The only thing that she inherited was the Karev crooked grin, which all of their children had. (She didn’t even have a big Karev head when she was born!) 

Bridgette on the other hand, was all Alex, except for the eye color. Between her potty mouth, sassy attitude, and overall appearance, she was the female mini evil-spawn. 

The Evil Spawn Jr, title belonged to Rory, who was basically the male version of Bridgette. Same spunk, same mischievous smirk. Jo was always telling him that she didn’t know what she did to deserve three devil’s in her house. Alex always found that one really funny. 

“You guys got everything?” he questions the two, who nod their heads up and down enthusiastically, skipping to the car and greeting their siblings. 

He drives the twenty-five minutes back to his house, the twins chattering about in the back seat. 

“And then Julie showed her her math problems, and I tried to tell her they were wrong, but she just wouldn’t listen!”

“Tommy was sooo annoying. I kept telling him to stop making noises with his pencil, but he just rolled it back and forth so many times!”

Alex laughs under his breath, listening partially to the twins’s conversation. They sounded exactly like how Cristina and Mer used to rant about completely different things to each other, so it never failed to make him think back to the ‘olden days’ as he and Meredith liked to call them. 

If someone were to tell cocky, intern Alex that he would be happily married to the love of his life for (legally) fifteen years, father of four kids, and lived in a house that literally had a white picket fence on the outside of it, he would’ve sent them to a long term psychiatric care facility, because there was no way he would ever have that life. (A life he always secretly wanted, tucked into the very tiniest corner of his brain so it could never venture farther than a fleeting thought here or there). 

“--We’re here,” he calls out, shutting off the engine as he parks in the driveway, the kids unbuckling their seatbelts and scrambling out of the car, eager to escape the confines of the vehicle and enjoy the peace of their rooms. 

Once all five were inside, he watched as the four children parted ways. “Faye, Bridge, you have thirty minutes of reading down here. Ror, you have that history test you need to study for, and Brynn, you know what you need to do.” he says, his two oldest tromping up the stairs as the twins take their place in the living room on separate seats, already engrossed in the books they needed to read as part of their daily homework assignments. 

Alex lets out a tired sigh as he flops onto the couch, more than tempted to grab the remote from the side table and flick on ESPN, but knew that he couldn’t. As much as the girls loved reading, they got distracted from books really easily. Loud horns, cheers, and buzzers wouldn’t be the way to go if he wanted any work to get done. Instead, he plucks the iPad from the coffee table, picking up where he left off that morning with an online medical article.

Before he knew it, Faye and Bridgette’s timer had rung out and they started on their math homework on the kitchen island, something that they finished with ease. Another trait Alex was grateful the children inherited from Jo, her smarts. (Specifically in math)

“Ugh!” he hears a loud exclaim from upstairs, causing him to look up from the device in his hands and glance towards the steps, half expecting an angry looking Brynn to come storming out at any moment. He huffs, focusing his attention back to the iPad in hand when no mini Jo comes down. 

“No! There are no other ways!”

Another loud groan of frustration. 

“Son of a butthead! There are NO more ways! None! I don't know how the frick to prove that the freakin angle is congruent!”

Alex debates ignoring it and letting his daughter figure it out on his own, that is until he hears something hit a wall. He quickly makes his way up the stairs and to Brynn’s bedroom, standing in the doorway for a few seconds, trying to observe the scene. 

Brynn’s normally pristine room had books scattered on the ground, blankets thrown to the side, and an open notebooks posed at an awkward angle on the floor. 

Well, at least he knew what hit the wall.  

Brynn sat on her bed, literally glaring at her computer screen, partially debating whether or not to throw the expensive device across the room. She didn’t break eye contact, as if she was in a staring contest. Alex wanted to laugh, but he knew a deathly glare would be sent his way if he did. 

He knocks on the wood door, sending a questioning glance Brynn’s way as she finally breaks her stare with the inanimate object. “Everything okay?”

The brunette huffs loudly, bouncing back onto the bed as she lets out a groan. 

“I hate proofs.” she turns her head to look at her dad, Jo’s signature puppy dog face plastered on her features. He couldn’t help but chuckle. It was crazy how much Brynn looked like Jo. Add that onto the fact that she too shared a love for flannels and jeans, she was pretty much what he imagined a fourteen year old Jo to look like. When he first found out that Brynn was going to be a girl, he said to Jo, ‘I’m gonna need a gun.’ 

Luckily, that never happened, partially because of the fact that Alex hated guns and Brynn had yet to have a boyfriend. He was more than thankful for that. Especially since he’d seen couples at Brynn’s school canoodling in what they thought was private, even though they were in full view of everyone. He’d be fine with his not-so-little little girl dating when she was twenty-five, no earlier. Any man before that would not be very fortunate. 

“I’ll help,” Alex says, taking a spot next to her and Brynn begins to show he dad the problems on her screen, going on about how she was struggling to figure it out. 

Shouldn’t be too hard, right?

____

Jo Karev was thrilled when Bailey offered to take over her service for the rest of the day. Her husband had gotten off early, and Bailey knew how much of a struggle it was to spend quality time with family as a surgeon. 

She thanked Bailey so many times she lost count, all while boasting a large smile. She couldn’t remember the last time both she and Alex had been home before five o’clock. All she wanted was to go home, snuggle with her babies, and spend time with her husband. Well, her babies weren’t technically babies anymore, Brynn was fourteen, Rory was nearly twelve, and the twins were seven, but nevertheless, they would always be her babies. (Who cared if Rory was five foot three and already almost as tall as her? He was still such a mommy’s boy.)

She drove home with a smile on her face, humming along to the songs on the radio. She was so happy. She wanted to take her kids in her arms, and watch action movies on the couch while they pigged out on pizza together. 

When she pulls up in the drive she practically bounces up the steps to the house, swinging open the door and dropping her coat carelessly onto the rack. She hadn’t texted Alex to let him know she was coming home early, in hopes to make it a joyful surprise. 

Her heart stopped momentarily at the sound of yelling coming from upstairs. Arguments between Brynn and Alex were few and far between, but when they did happen, they were nasty. Alex always felt like crap for days afterward and Brynn stayed quiet, both at home and at school. 

“Do the reflexive property again!”

“Dad we already did that!”

“Well do it again!”

“Why?!”

“Do you see any other way to do it?”

“How is that going to help!”

“It just is!”

“Dad, we've done the reflexive property five times now!”

“You think I don’t know that!”

“Say that segment DA is congruent to AD.”

“But-”

“There are literally no other fucking ways to do it! It’s fucking shit! Thats what it is!”

“You act as if I didn’t already freakin know that!”

A loud groan. 

“What the fuck even is this one! We’ve managed to do three of them already. Try proving the triangles congruent now. Push random ones, like Side-Angle-Side.” 

“This is crap! ‘You don’t have enough proof to show that the blah blah blah.’ Stupid freaking thing! Freaking worthless!”

Jo is unable to suppress her giggle, clasping a hand over her mouth, trying not to make too much noise. It was a relief to know that the current screaming match going on wasn’t an argument. 

“They’ve been at that for an hour and a half now.” she hears her son pipe in, drawing her attention to where he sat on the couch. 

Jo sets her bag down on the table, greeting her son with a large hug, “Hi bubs.” she mumbles into his hair, feeling his arms wrap back around her. In private, Rory was the biggest cuddler, touchy-feely person you’d ever met, but in front of his friends he tried way too hard to show he was ‘too cool’ for hugging his mom, so Jo took in these moments and held them close to her heart.

“An hour and a half huh?” she chuckles, running a hand through her son’s gelled hair. 

Rory snickers, hazel eyes shining with mischief, “Yeah, dad won’t stop cursing and Tissy just keeps screaming alongside him,” he sits back onto the couch. “I’m surprised neither one of them had lost their voice yet.” he smirks his crooked Karev smirk, focusing his attention on the TV where he had opened up netflix, where he was currently binging Bates Motel. The name ‘Tissy’ came from when he was younger and couldn’t for the life of him say either Brynn nor Sissy. It seemed to have stuck all these years, and he was the only one who ever called his older sister that, even ten years later.

She sees him cringe, “I never called you mother right?” he asks, eyes not leaving the screen, where a certain Norman Bates is practically spooning his own mother in the bed, claiming that he couldn’t sleep. 

Jo snorts, ruffling his hair fondly, “Definitely not. And if you ever do, you’re dead Ror, hear me?”

Rory rolls his eyes playfully, giving his mom a grin. “I won’t. Promise.”

Jo heads up the stairs, the loud yells continuing to echo through the halls, which she chooses to ignore. 

“Dad for the fiftieth freaking time-”

“--What’s going on here?” Jo questions, causing both her husband and daughter to break away their concentration from the computer screen. 

Brynn’s face lights up at the sight of her mom standing in the doorway, more than thankful to have someone who actually knew stuff help her with her math. “Mom!” she exclaims, getting up from her place on the bed to give her mother a hug. 

“Hey baby. Care to explain to me why the second I walk through the door I'm greeted with screaming?” She questions, eyebrows raised as she sees Alex sheepishly avoid eye contact, suddenly finding the pictures that hung on the wall very interesting. 

Brynn smirks, “Well, Dad sucks at math so-”

“--Hey!” Alex interrupts, crossing his arms over his chest. “I haven’t done this crap in like thirty years!” He defends himself.

Jo rolls her eyes and smiles of her own gracing her lips as she reaches the bed and takes a look at the problems on the computer. “Proofs?” she asks from confirmation, earning a nod from her husband and daughter. 

She hums, “Given: segment CA bisects angle BAD and segment CA bisects BCD. Prove: triangle ABC is congruent to triangle ADC.” she murmurs to herself.

The brunette laughs when she sees the fact that the pair had put down some form of the ‘reflexive property’ not one, not two, but seven times.

She grins triumphantly as she remembers how to do the problem, the skills seemingly coming back to her after years of them being dormant. “Next statement is angle BCA is congruent to DCA because…” she scrolls through the possible options the box provided, smirking when she found the right one. “An angle bisector divides an angle into two congruent angles.”  

She watches as an angle pops up on the screen, only encouraging her to continue, “Then… angle DAC is congruent to angle BAC because an angle bisector divides an angle into two congruent angles.” 

Another angle comes up. 

“Finally,” she smirks, glancing to the side of for a brief second to take in the draw dropped stares of the two behind her. Brynn was a whiz at math like her mom, but proofs was something she’d been struggling with since they’d started learning them yesterday. Geometry was no joke. Her and her dad had already gotten almost all of the problems done, but it had taken so long to do a few measly problems that they’d lost track of just how long they'd been sitting in the room, arguing back and forth over different possibilities to try. 

“Triangle ABC is congruent to triangle ADC, reason being Angle-Side-Angle.” 

She grins, wiping her hands together as she hits the submit button, a large green check with a correct! floating on the screen, going over the ways to solve the problem. 

Alex glares at her. He’d been working on these fucking proofs for so long now, and Jo just comes in and completes it in less than a minute?

“I hate you.” he gruffs, still glaring at both his wife and the computer. 

Jo giggles, leaning over and pecking her husband’s lips. “Love you too.” 

She begins to walk out of the room, stopping and calling out over her shoulder as she reaches the doorway, “Now you just need to make sure the twins did their homework!”

[behappyitsemmalie]

My Outer Banks character opinions that no one asked for...

So I’m just doing major characters in this post and will do another post with minor characters... again no one asked for this😅 but just want to get my thoughts out and I enjoy reading other peoples thoughts so why not😊

John B- first of all let’s just get this out of the way... 10/10 would marry this floppy haired, half open buttoned up shirt, surfer boy of my dreams. ANYWAY. Now that that’s out of the way... sweet little John B. Obviously had some character flaws. He was impulsive and could be pretty careless and even a little selfish but he was a good guy who cared about his friends. He did take responsibility at the end when he apologized and told his friends he’s sorry he put them in danger by leading them down this whole treasure hunting rabbit hole so we know he cares, I just feel like he has tunnel vision sometimes, even if the tunnel is leading somewhere dangerous. I completely understand that he had a lot going on in his head but damn he needed to sit down sometimes. You’re 16 dude! And also his dad leaving him those clues so that John B could find the gold even tho this whole mission was incredibly dangerous, I truly don't know how I feel about that. I won't get too much into shipping because I'm planning on making another post for just that but I will say I did start to get super annoyed when it seemed like 70% of his brain suddenly got preoccupied with Sarah... but more on that later. 

Kie- I will be super honest! At first I wasn't sure I was going to like Kie. I was afraid she was going to be on of those 16 year old self righteous characters whose every other word out of her mouth is ‘the patriarchy.’ But I love her. She’s my sweet angel who doesn't take any shit from anyone and just wants to surf with her boys, despite what her parents or anyone else says. She can have a bit of an attitude but so can I so no one is without faults. I do wish we got to learn a little more about her back story. We got to hear a little more like when she and Sarah were talking on the boat and when she was talking to her mom before Midsummers. But I want to know a little more of her family life, how she became friends with the boys since they grew up on the cut and she’s technically a kook. Hopefully in season 2! 

JJ- I, like what seems like the rest of the fandom, have adopted JJ as my son. I love him and would gladly take a bullet for this sweet sweet boy who deserves nothing but good things and lots of hugs. In the very beginning, I was pretty convinced he was just going to be that dopey sidekick best friend. Then he got the gun and I was like ‘Jesus he’s going to be the reckless character that just gets them into more trouble by being stupid and bringing that gun everywhere.’ I never disliked him. I just had mixed feelings. But as the show went on, we grew to know JJ and better understand why he was the way that he was. Every scene between JJ and his dad was so horrible to watch. But that being said, huge shoutout to Rudy for his acting skills! The range on this boy is insane! He had some of the funniest lines of the whole season but was also the character that made me cry the most. Bravo my sweet boy. Characters that have this trash homelife where they are pretty much never shown love, but that have the biggest heart of their friend group are my absolute favorite and I always adopt them, so I'm not surprised... 

Pope- Now... it’s not that I didn’t like Pope, I just feel like his character was both underrated and underused by the writers. I get the feeling they really just knew they needed that ‘voice of reason friend.’ That role was sometimes occupied by Kie, but even she sometimes was too down for an adventure to speak up when they were about to do something stupid. And maybe it’s just me but I feel like we didn’t really learn much about his character outside of just him being smart and having a scholarship. And I HATED when he ran out of his interview! Like I get it, he wanted to help his friends and maybe it’s the ‘mom-friend’ part of me but damn he could have waited another 15 minutes for his interview to be over! Then he went all wacko and started hitting his dad and screaming at Kie and acting like a JJ clone. It seemed a little sudden and get that his emotions were probably bubbling pretty close to the surface at this point, but that just seemed wild. But I am interested in learning more about him and his character in season 2 now that I'm pretty sure his scholarship is down the drain.

Sarah- Didn’t like her at first. I'll just say it. It almost seemed like they were setting her up to just be that annoying rich girl who’s bored with her own life so she inserts herself into the Pogue’s hunt. Plus she was with that asshole Topper in the beginning and it seemed like her and John B only ever communicated when he was around working for her dad. She definitely grew on me as the season went on. I really connected with her when she was telling John B that she pushes people away because she’s scared they won't like the real her. I reallyyyyyyyy felt that whole ‘leave before you get left’ vibe on a personal level. And another acting shoutout to Madelyn because you could genuinely feel the confusion and hurt that Sarah felt in the last couple episodes when finding out everything her dad did and who he really was and watching her own brother shoot and kill a cop without any remorse. I wish we could have seen her connect with the Core4 a little more though. We only ever really saw her with John B. She of course had some parts with Kie but I feel like they really are just tolerating each other at this point. And I don't think we ever saw her have a scene with JJ or Pope! I just wanted her inserted into the group a little more since it obviously seems like she is going to be taking a Kie approach to ditching the kooks and hanging out with the pogues more and she doesn't seem to be growing any connection with them at all. And that probably won't be fixed next season since it’s presumably just her and John B in the Bahamas. 

Ok this is long. Props if you read this far tho! lol Do you guys agree or what are your thoughts!? I'm going to do another post with minor characters and another for ships (romantic and platonic)! 

[insane-control-room]

Do You Know?

Scout doesn't have much respect for people who drink too much, but a little comment hits off a conversation.

(ao3 link here)

Scout liked to think he was, and looked, and acted, unique. He liked to feel special, to feel important and helpful. Out of his siblings, he was the runt, and out of his mercenary pals, he was the youngest and also, again, the runt. Despite it all, he still felt happy where he was, hurting people before they could know what hit them, whether it be a shotgun bullet to the chest or a bat to the face. He took pride in his work, flanking and blasting away, snatching and shoving, jumping so fast it seemed he glided on air. He did his job, and did it hella well.

And he did not like the time that he was not doing it.

Like mess hall.

For one thing, the eating area was loud, almost painfully so. It reminded him of his crowded Boston lunch table, trying to get a bite of food to eat, his brothers devouring it before he could, and his mother trying to make up for it by giving him half of a sandwich or an apple, but it never filled him much, he feeling hungry all the time. It also reminded him of school, where he struggled to do anything, his teachers always bypassing him in favor of smarter students. It made him angry, but more upset? Frustrated. It made him frustrated to always be overlooked. 

And left behind, by everyone and everything; his brothers, his team, his troop, his father. So he learned to run ahead of the pack. He was the one to slam in and leave with a bang. He was the rough one of the group, the one that caused problems for the other side, and even sometimes for his own team. The only person that tolerated him was Miss Pauling, and that was only when she was around. He felt rather lonely, but he ran ahead of it, not letting his loneliness catch up to him. He ran fast, and he ran often. He ran to and away, and into the fray. The adrenaline kept him good, rough, and tough company. That was the way it was and always would be. He did not need anyone or anything.

He was the best of the best, top of the line, Scout master extraordinaire, Jeremy [REDACTED], and his good for nothing father did not matter, never did, never would.

Or, so he thought.

He wished he was not around that night, he wished he had gone jogging with Sniper or chatted with Medic, or just relaxed and listened to Engi’s music. He wished he was not there the night Demo and Spy had gone out for drinks, and he especially wished he was not around for the aftermath. Seeing Spy come in and leaning heavily on Demo, both smelling of expensive sherry, vodka, and Pinot Noir, Scout lifted his chin and turned away from them both in disgust. Though he was a rough and tough lad from messy streets, those same streets gave him standards, and those that drank on the battlefield for fun lost some of his respect, which, despite what people believed, he had a lot of. He could respect people, just as he respected Sniper and… um… Medic, and Heavy. The reason why he hated drinking was the cost and toll it had on a person, and how badly it lowered their chances of survival. Also, Miss Pauling had told him that she was of the same opinion, and it made him feel good to be verified. Scout personally disliked the idea of inebriation, why would anyone remove their clarity willingly when they could die at a moment’s notice? Why would someone waste their life for a little bit of buzz or good feeling? It just was not worth it to him. He trusted Demo to hold his alcohol, and yes, Spy knew what he was doing, but it still felt very wrong to him, a primal gut feeling. In his life, rather short so far, he learned to trust that instinct, and seeing Spy in a drunken good mood set off that fire screaming something was terribly wrong. He sucked in a breath, and let it out, just like Medic taught him, to calm down. 

The mess hall was quiet, for once, and for once, Scout wished it was not. Demo crashed into his room to sleep (quite literally), and Spy chuckled, waving him off before his gray blue eyes swept over to Scout. Scout pretended not to notice, burying his nose in the picture based novel Miss Pauling had gotten for him, Cugo Habret. He loved the storyline and mystery, and the big print in the written parts made it much easier for him to read it. Miss Pauling was the best.

He felt Spy’s eyes on him, and he shuddered. Couldn’t the guy just go to bed or go to his room or just leave him alone?

No. Instead, Spy sauntered over to him, sitting beside him in an armchair. Scout went through the motions of curling up a little more and putting his face in his book, but his eyes were trained on Spy. Spy, who was looking at him with a… strange expression, and was that a smile, not a smirk? Scout could not tell from the corner of his eye, and frankly, either would just make his skin crawl with the anxiety of it.

“You look like her,” Spy softly spoke, his cheek in hand, studying Scout with semishut eyes. “You got her attitude, too. Spunky, street smart, the works.”

“Uh, hey, Spy, pal,” Scout made it seem like he just noticed him as he processed the words. “Didn’t notice ya sneak up on me. Hey, the hell are you talking about?”

“I know very well that you saw me,” Spy curtly corrected him. “You should know better than play dumb with me, Jeremy.”

“I ain’t playin’ dumb,” Scout defended himself. “I really don’t know what you’re yammerin’ on about. Look like who? Got whose attitude?”

“Your mother’s.”

At first, Scout was going to brush it off as a snappy joke, one that fit Spy’s personality very well. But something clicked, and it hit him in the chest harder than a flyby baseball.

“Well, bonne nuit, Scout.”

He got up and left to his room, Scout staring after him with a slack jaw.

Then he jumped up and ran to Spy, his hands flying to the other man’s chest to stop him. 

“Wait, wait, what do you know about my Ma?”

Spy, even in his drunkenness, could hear the desperate plea in Scout’s voice.

“Do… do you know where she is?”

Scout’s voice broke.

“C’mon Spy, you gotta help me, I’ve been spending so much to look for her, I need to know that she’s safe, please… Spy. I’m not good at lookin’ for people, I’m good at runnin’ from people looking for me. Do you know where my Ma is?”

“She is safe,” Spy coldly told the young man, watching relief flood his face, then worry. Spy spoke again before Scout could, his mouth already open. “I can assure you, she is fine.”

“Oh thank god,” Scout muttered under his breath, trusting the intelligence. “Thank you, man. It means a lot to me. To know she’s safe and ok. That’s why I got this job, bein’ a merc, you know.”

Spy did know, so he just nodded. 

“Thanks again, Spy. You have a good night,” Scout smiled at him. Spy rose an eyebrow, and asked, “Aren’t you going to sleep yourself?”

“Nah, I didn’t run today. Too much energy.”

“Hmph. And what about tomorrow? What will you do when we are under attack?”

Scout shrugged. 

“Ain’t the first time I went without sleep, Spy.” He folded his arms and grinned. “That surprised you, didn’t it? Guess I’m more elusive than I thought.”

“Oh, be quiet,” Spy ordered him, but it was a bark without bite. “Just because I don’t keep my eye on your schedules doesn’t mean that I don’t know more about you than you do.”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Scout smiled. “You have a lovely night, Mr. Spy. I’m gonna see if Medic is up, or maybe look at the stars with Engi. I’ll see when I get to it.”

Spy rolled his eyes and turned back to enter his room, when Scout suddenly spoke again.

“If you know my Ma…” he shifted uncomfortably, both men’s backs to one another. “Do you know my Pop? Like, who he was? Where he is, if he’s still alive?”

“Your father?”

“Yeah. My brothers all tell me that I had a different dad than them. That their dad died a year before I was born.”

“I do not know him.”

“Oh. Well, that’s ok.” Scout tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. “Makes sense. Still, thanks for the info on my Ma, Spy. G'night.”

Scout saluted, and left. Spy sat alone in his smoking room, foot tapping, then took out his booklet, flipping through it, stopping on a page.

An old photograph with a baby in a grinning man’s arms peered at him. He smiled softly, touching the baby’s face through the waxy paper.

[amoralto]

MOJO: Paul McCartney – the MOJO interview. (May, 2003)

(Note: Finally, finally finished typing this up after @sweating-cobwebs requested the full interview what seems like ages ago. Quotes from this and the Yoko interview from the same issue - which I’ll probably type up in full later as well - can be found under the #2003 tag.)

-

In troubled times, Paul McCartney and Yoko Ono remained undaunted and have found peace – with themselves and each other. Johnny Black met Macca in London.

by Johnny Black

When Sir Paul McCartney’s dark blue Mercedes drives into Docklands Arena and pulls up at the side of the stage, the 60-year-old man who climbs out looks sprightly, even jaunty. He throws his elegant grey jacket over one shoulder, as he proffers a broad smile to everyone he greets. There’s a ripple effect as he moves away from the vehicle, a small knot of his employees drifting along with him. Press officer, catering manager, sound man, security personnel… and they each have a little something they need him to do if and when he has a moment.

He appears to be taking it all on board, seems to placate them all, and by the time he pauses about 30 feet in front of the stage, the knot has dissolved and they’re all heading back to their appointed posts.

The figure briefly watches his mainly American band as they jam cheerfully around the distinctive chord progression of Walk Don’t Run by The Ventures, then joins them on the stage, immediately changing the mood as he leads them into Shakin’ All Over, the first truly great pre-Beatles British rock track. Given how much we seem to love speculating about McCartney’s motives, it would be easy to interpret this as a statement of intent – the British boss asserting his personality over his yankee staff – but it’s also undeniably a great track to warm-up on, and he seems to relish playing it. Up there on that stage, bashing away in front of an audience of less than 20 onlookers, he seems just as happy as he would be if he were basking in the approval of 20,000.

It’s March 14, 2003, and for the next few days the 12,000-capacity Arena – a far cry from the Liverpudlian sitting rooms where The Beatles first knocked their live sets together – is serving as McCartney’s rehearsal hall in the run up to a major European tour.

McCartney’s personal fortune was recently estimated at £620 million by People magazine. In the last year alone, he raked in £120m, of which £65m came from US tour receipts and album sales. But money, as he once famously pointed out, can’t buy love. And love, in the words of another Beatles’ classic, is all you need. In the enduringly poignant country music standard A Satisfied Mind, written in 1955 by Red Hayes and Jack Rhodes, such sentiments are explored more fully in the lines, “Money can’t buy back your youth when you’re old, or a friend when you’re lonely, or a heart that’s grown cold.”

Looked at in that light, just how wealthy is Paul McCartney? Here’s a man, adored by millions, disliked by millions, whose young life was shattered on October 31, 1956 when his mother, Mary, died of cancer in the Northern Hospital, Liverpool. The following year, he befriended John Lennon, only to re-live his own grief over again when Lennon’s mother, Julia, died in 1958.

With George Harrison and Ringo Starr, he and Lennon formed the most successful band the world has ever seen, then watched helplessly as it was destroyed by drugs and greed, turning their friendship to dust along the way. After years of acrimony, he and Lennon had just begun healing their wounds and rebuilding their friendship when Lennon was stolen away from him again by the bullets from Mark Chapman’s gun.

The other major relationship that had brought stability into McCartney’s life was his lasting marriage to Linda Eastman, but that was also taken from him too soon when she died from cancer in April 1998, aged just 56. And it was cancer again that claimed the life of George Harrison on November 29, 2001.

To what extent can £620m heal the scars left by those assaults on McCartney’s famously cheery – and oft derided – bonhomie? The answer, as any fule kno, is that it can’t. So what is it that keeps those legendary thumbs aloft? It has to be more than just the buzz of playing Shakin’ All Over with a band half your age.

When, after an hour and a half, the first rehearsal is over, MOJO is pulled into Macca’s wake by press officer Geoff Baker. At the end of a walk through bare and stark backstage corridors, we arrive at the inner sanctum, a dressing room converted into something not unlike a Persian boudoir, complete with velvet cushions, exotic drapes, dishes groaning with fresh fruit and the smell of incense perfuming the air.

Sitting opposite him across a low table, there’s very little feeling of being in the presence of greatness. He wears his celebrity comfortably – like a favourite old shirt. He is perfectly polite, knows how to put a stranger at ease with an amusing aside but, above all, the passage of the years has made him even more gentlemanly. In the flesh, his boyish demeanour compensates for the lines and wrinkles that have come with age. Look into his face at close quarters and what you see are his eyes, still twinkling. Somewhere behind that twinkle, however, there’s a mind like a steel trap. You don’t get to where McCartney has got without one.

What would be a typical day in your life, like when you’re not working?

I tend to be the one who gets up to make breakfast. You’d die for my breakfast. It’s my Zen thing. I cut up all these lovely exotic things, normally in this order: I cut up a melon, a papaya, some kiwis, bananas, peach, and I make a fruit plate and it looks a bit like a mandala when I’ve done it – there’s all sorts of reasons why but it just have developed into this. We’ll also have tea, bagels, humous – quite a big, fancy breakfast. Then it’s a walk in the park with the dog, or if I’m in the country it might be a horse ride.

Later in the day, I like going to the pictures. We’ve got a great local cinema… Normally I’ll go with Heather, but I went to see Lord Of The Rings on my own. Loved it, whacking great film.

You can go to the cinema without being hassled?

Yeah. I do everything without being hassled. It’s actually been one of my pleasures. I actually like getting on the Tube, getting on the bus. I’ll do it if I’m walking and I see a bus going my way, I’ll just jump on. I did it in the 60s. George’s dad was a bus driver and he could never believe I’d do that. People can’t believe it. I had a guy in the street the other day, he was really worried that I was out on my own with no security. I said, “Gerraway.” I’ve always done that. I used to sometimes walk to Beatles concerts, and you’d get a screaming mass of girls and I’d say, “Come on, girls, calm down.” I’d do the big brother thing. I’m very comfortable with that. If not a movie, we’ll watch TV or a DVD in the evening ��� I usually try to see Who Wants To Be A Millionaire and Blind Date.

Most of us watch Millionaire because we’d like to be one, but that can’t be the appeal for you…

I want them to be millionaires. Actually Heather wants us to go on as a couple. It was funny because we met Chris Tarrant (the show’s presenter) the other night and Heather, in her keenness, said, “We should come on the Celebrity Millionaire show,” … which is for charity, so it’s a good thing… she said, “I know all the answers Paul doesn’t know and he knows all the ones I don’t know.” Chris said, “No, you shouldn’t come on. You’d be terrible.” He just completely took the piss, which was hilarious, because you’d expect him to be really keen.

Somewhere in the evening I’ll have a drink, and get to bed maybe about 11. Is that early? And then I’ll go to sleep and snore. Apparently I snore, but not a lot.

A brace of young women arrive bearing a tray laden with Paul’s lunch – chunky raisin scones, toast and a major pot of tea. Immediately he’s on his feet, exchanging pecks on the cheek, addressing them both by name, inquiring after their well-being. He points at the various delights on the tray to indicate that MOJO is welcome to partake.

Your band on this tour is noticeably young and energetic. How did you find them?

My keyboard player Wix has been with me for years, but I was going to make a record (Driving Rain) in America with David Kahne. He rang me about 10 days before the first session and said, “Do you think you might want to play live in the studio?” So I said, “Yeah, maybe.” So he said, “Should I get a couple of musicians in case you do?” I said, “OK, if you like.” I just left it very sort of casual.

So he thought about some people he admired. He’d never worked with Abe (Laboriel Jr, drummer) but he admired his work. He’d worked with Rusty (Anderson, guitarist). So he told me he’d got these people with great attitudes and who were great players and who could sing.

So I came in on the Monday morning, met the guys, and immediately started making the album, basically live. And that was it. Then, when we did the Superbowl, we needed one more guitarist for that so I asked David, “Do you know anybody?” And he said, “Yeah, this guy Brian Ray.” And he seemed to fit in great.

What do you think people expect from you when they come to a show?

I’m trying to keep a balance, proportionate, between Beatles stuff, Wings stuff and solo stuff. I don’t want it to just be a Beatles show, but I don’t mind giving an audience my most popular stuff. If I go to see David Gray, I’d like to hear him do Babylon because I like that song. And I’d be pretty disappointed if Coldplay didn’t do Yellow, you know?

We still have to rehearse to stay fresh, we’re making some changes to the screens and the lights (at these rehearsals), and I am adding a couple of songs to the set, so it’ll be a slightly longer show.

You were always the one in The Beatles who would turn up at a pub and sing songs. You did it during Magical Mystery Tour and you did it in 1968 on the way back from recording Thingumybob with the Black Dyke Mills Band.

I’d been up in Bradford with (Apple press officer) Derek Taylor, and we were just driving back to London, and we all got bored, someone wanted a pee, so we stopped in a little town called Harrold. And I think when we got to the pub it was shut but we got it to open up and we had a drink and there was a piano there so I sat down and played Let It Be.

Is that as much fun for you as playing in Earl’s Court or wherever?

Yeah. It is. It’s just a different kind of fun. I really do like it. If there’s a piano around it would be very difficult for me to just sit and watch it. It seems to me, in my naivety, that it’s something you approach and tinkle, to see if it’s in tune. It’s not a great desire to perform, I don’t think. I think it’s more that I like music, I like piano… but guitar is best.

Your first instrument was a trumpet. Was that something you wanted, or was it foisted on you by a well-meaning parent?

At the time, I think I must have sort of coveted a trumpet. My dad was a trumpet player and I did like it but when I realised I couldn’t sing and play the trumpet at the same time, I asked him and he said he didn’t mind me trading it in for a guitar. I thought he might be a bit insulted, but he didn’t mind.

The head of another aide pops round the door. It seems the BBC has arrived to show Paul a DVD of a commercial he’s done for the Corporation. Then there’s more rehearsal to be done but maybe we can reconvene later. Not for the first time, McCartney is ushered politely out of reach.

Docklands Arena, soon to be ripped down and replaced with more commercially viable properties, is virtually devoid of character. Fortunately, the stage show devised for this tour offers no end of distraction for the senses. As well as serried ranks of lights of very sort known to man, and some ear-splitting pyrotechnics in Live And Let Die, there are over 30 giant video screens forming a semi-circle around one humongous mother-screen which can be raised up and down as required on worryingly noisy pulleys.

“All our fuckin’ technology and it sounds like a building site,” wails the sound man. He’s consoled by a crew member who’s seen it all before – Gerry Stickells, the legendary Hendrix roadie tempted out of retirement for this tour at McCartney’s personal request.

When he returns to the Arena floor after watching the BBC DVD, he notices that the text on the mother-screen – via which audience members can text each other from their mobiles – is smaller than it used to be. He calls over the lighting director and suggest that “maybe… it might be better if… don’t you think?” Moments later, with the text size already increased, Macca is onstage running the band through the entire show – not that they seem to need it. The set runs almost faultlessly, synchronised with the lights and screens to such an extent that even the ‘Na Na Na’ audience participation section of Hey Jude is rehearsed in real time, with Paul exhorting the imaginary throng – “OK, just the ladies now… fantastic… now just the guys…”

He’s on-stage, performing with more energy than at any time since the heyday of The Beatles, for almost three hours in all, but he comes off at the end barely out breath, and we repair once more to the inner sanctum.

It’s interesting that you use the on-stage screens during Lady Madonna as a gallery of feminist icons…

They actually had Madonna among the visuals, but I thought that was too obvious. So they asked what I’d like to replace Madonna with and I said, “The Queen Mother.” This was two weeks before she died, so when we started touring ti looked like we’d put her in as a tribute.

I didn’t notice Yoko Ono either. Are you two still feuding?

I know that’s the public perception of it, but I do not have a bad relationship with her. We’re not enemies, me and Yoko. We send each other Christmas cards and everything. She’s more like a distant relative.

But you are tussling over the credits to the Lennon-McCartney songs…

There’s no tussle at all, but if, on my songs, like Hey Jude or Yesterday, which John openly acknowledged, particularly in the Playboy interview, that he had nothing whatsoever to do with… John actually made a list for the Playboy thing showing which songs were his and which were mine. I would be quite happy if, on one of the songs, it would be allowed, for my name to just come first. But I’m really not fussed. It’s not anywhere near as big an issue as it looks. It gets played up in the press. It’s a hot little story. And it makes me look stupid. “Why the fuck does he want that?” It’s actually just a very little request.

More importantly for me, it’s Trades Descriptions. It’s so complex and I hate to go on about it but, for example, I was reading a book, an anthology of poetry, and one of the poems in it was Blackbird, which is my lyric. And it said by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. Now John had nothing to do with those words, especially once they’ve been extracted from the music and put into a poetry book. I think it’s fair enough to put Blackbird in a poetry book by Paul McCartney. Give Peace A Chance… take my name off it. It was a great, great anthem of John’s.

It’s sort of a mild request I made to Yoko and it’s sort of been turned down. If she’d have said yeah, the publishing company could probably have sorted it out.

Do you think it matters more to other people than it does to you?

I don’t think anyone gives a shit.

But Alistair Taylor, who worked for you at NEMS and Apple for many years, told me he was very upset that you would want to change the credits. He says it was agreed at an early meeting that it should be Lennon-McCartney, and you agreed to that…

Well, number one, Alistair was not in the meeting where I agreed it. It’s all very nice these guys having these opinions, but here’s what I say and this is the truth. There was a meeting with me, John and Brian, in Hilly House, above a carpet shop in Albemarle Street. We went in and they said, “We’re going to call it Lennon-McCartney.” I said, “Well, OK, fair enough, but it would be good to have it occasionally McCartney-Lennon, wouldn’t it, just for fairness for me?”

And they said, swear to God, hand on heart, but there was nobody else in the room and they’re both dead, so there’s no way of me proving this, except I believe it, I was there, and nobody else who talks about it was there, and they said, “We can change it as we go along. And we can change it any time we want out of fairness.”

This was why, many years later, when the Anthology came about, I and Linda, who had just been diagnosed with cancer, rang Yoko, and said, “Could we just, on Yesterday, could we just switch that one track?” That was the original request. It was just for that one song. And Linda, God bless her, spent quite a bit of time ringing Yoko and that was the start of it all.

And now, I must just be resigned, because it doesn’t really matter, except from the point of view of this Blackbird credit. There is an unfairness there, I think. But it’s an unfairness I’m willing to live with. I don’t mind, and I do think it has rebounded on me a bit because people want to know, “What the fuck does he think he’s doing?” I’ve had letters from people saying, “Paul, you’re doing yourself no favours. I was a big fan of yours but this terrible thing of trying to ruin John’s reputation…” I’m not trying to ruin John’s reputation.

When Yoko was interviewed by MOJO, she said it wasn’t all black during the making of the White Album. There was some lighter moments. Is that how you recall it?

That’s absolutely true, yeah. We’d never have got an album made if it was as black as it was painted. It’s a good album. I remember we presented John and Yoko with an inscribed teapot, and that was a fun time. Unfortunately, because The Beatles were splitting up, the only thing anybody wanted to know about was the split.

It wasn’t all black, even then. We were all pretty friendly, and the times when we weren’t friendly was quite a small proportion of the overall thing. Unfortunately, that’s what gets remembered because it was the most significant proportion because it ended up in a divorce, as it were. In a divorce court, you don’t say, “Oh, she was really great. She’s actually fabulous, and I’m sorry we’re getting a divorce.” That’s what happened to us. Because of the circumstances we had to talk about all the shit.

I think because the Beatles had been by and large a happy, successful thing… four lads getting out of Liverpool, getting out of the working class money trap and doing well… that had all been an up vibe and then with drugs and stuff towards the end of the ’60s it was all taking a bit of a dip. The drugs weren’t working, nobody was giggling anyore, and the word ‘heavy’ came into the vocabulary.

Because all of that was going on it did get nasty. The thing with me having to sue the other guys. I wanted to sue Allen Klein but I couldn’t, so the only way to get out of everything for me and them was for me to sue them, and that was unconscionable, that was something I would never have thought of doing.

It was unfortunate because, in suing the other guys, not only did I get their backs up for a number of years, but the public perception was of me being the guy who sued The Beatles. I held off doing it for months, but it was pointed out to me that the only other option was to go with Klein. So I did it but, luckily, all things must pass, and it did pass. In the end, the others were glad I’d done it. There wouldn’t be Apple now. But it was a very ugly period, and ugly things I had to do to make it work.

You still seem very interested in politics, supporting the campaign to get ride of landmines. But the Wings single, Give Ireland Back To The Irish, was a very direct political statement.

See, I thought we were Irish. So it was a home problem for me… McCartney… Liverpool being the capital of Ireland… it was like a very personal take on it. What if there were Irish soldiers on the streets of Hendon or Speke? Would you like it? That was my take on it.

As evening falls over Docklands, McCartney is whisked off home to dinner with Heather, leaving a promise that if MOJO returns on Monday, a little more interview time will somehow be squeezed into a hectic day. Over the intervening weekend, his Radio 2 commercial, a radically reworked version of Band On The Run, begins airing, along with a short TV film about its making.

When we reconvene at the Arena on Monday morning, the ambience has changed. A troupe of dancers – including a young woman bent on squeezing herself into a tiny Perspex box – is rehearsing backstage; two insurance brokers have arrived to check out the pyrotechnics; the MOJO photography crew, rpomised first access to Macca, is anxious; and there’s an entirely new set to be rehearsed.

As before, Macca opts to take to the stage first. A guitar tech hands him a jumbo acoustic and they lanunch into For No One, followed by Things We Said Today, C-Moon, Honey Don’t… this is the Coliseum set. The band is still unfamiliar with several of the tracks so Macca strums through I’ve Just Seen A Face yelling out the chords as he proceeds. As Geoff Baker strolls past, MOJO inquires whether McCartney will perform Mull of Kintyre when the tour hits Glasgow. “Absoutely not,” says Baker. “We’re frantically seaching for a pipe band at this very moment for an entirely different reason.”

Up on the stage, McCartney says, “OK lads, let’s try Cor Blimey Luv!” and they thunder into Can’t Buy Me Love. Come lunchtime, he is unexpectedly taken off for a meeting in central London, but promises MOJO a swift return.

Two hours later, precisely as predicted, McCartney reappears.

A couple of the post-Beatles songs like Coming Up and Let Me Roll It seems to me to be much more powerful than the originals. Is this how you really intended them to be in the first place?

No. It’s an evolution caused by playing with this band. The parts are already there. What I like about this band is that I don’t really have to tell them. What I’ve done on this whole tour, this band, this new thing, is I’ve let everyone be, let them do their thing, and then if I don’t like it, I’ve reined it in a bit.

Rather than me dictating how to play it, I figure my dictatorial moments have happened – I wrote those songs and I did the original records, so now I don’t feel the band has to stick note-for-note to the original arrangements. It’s also a bit of a louder band than I’ve had before, a bigger sound, so that adds to it.

I know that Rusty is working on his own CD at the moment, but there’s presumably no chance in this band of the other members being allowed to contribute their own songs on the set?

I’ve had to take on the role of boss ever since Wings. It wasn’t like The Beatles any more. Denny Laine, for example, had the reputation of having done Go Now, so you might want to do that, but really the promoters and the audience tended to want to hear my stuff.

At your level of success, you’re effectively the head of a small company. How do you know whether the people are saying that what you do is great because it is great, or just because you’re the boss?

It’s almost impossible, but I think I’ve been at it long enough now to suss… I actually see people telling me, “That’s a great idea!” but I prefer people to speak their minds. So in this kind of team, they’re not just sycophants. They’re more likely to be people who’ll say, “Yeah, that’s a good idea but what if we did this?” And I’ll go, “Wow! Shit! That’s a great idea.”

Do you take to the role of boss easily?

I used to be frightened of it when I was younger because I thought, “We all hate bosses, don’t we?” But I had to get over it because with Apple, we suddenly had this company losing a lot of money we’d earned so I then had to actually tell people what to do – I’m talking about secretaries and staff, The Beatles was still a democratic thing, but we all became bosses then.

That was a strange moment for you, when you had to take over the business side as well as the creative…

We all had to do it, and that had all its famous problems associated with it. After that I had to decide how I would do it in my solo career, which is when I put MPL together. Very small beginnings, one little room in some film production offices, and at that point I really did become the boss. I had a secretary and everything, and then that thing grew, so yeah, I’ve got more and more comfortable with it. I don’t think I’m a very hard boss, but I kick ass when things go wrong.

Do you think your continued success over 40 years – which seems to include a fair number of younger fans – is a bit odd? It’s as if, in the ’60s, Al Jolson or Rudy Vallée had still been pulling in huge crowds.

I think our thing was stuff that goes for all generations. I’m singing things now that I wrote years ago and thinking, “Shit, that’s still appropriate.” Doing Calico Skies, for example, talking about “crazy soldiers, weapons of war”… and look at what’s going on around us right now.

I certainly don’t think it’s any reflection of the state of contemporary music. I think music right now is really great. I’m not an expert, because I’m not a kid buying it, but I always check out people who are said to be good. I’ll see somebody getting a Grammy and I don’t know them, so I’ll check that out.

For instance, I’d heard Eminem on the radio and I thought, “Clever. Good lyrics, good ideas.” So I just went to see 8 Mile and it’s a great little rock ’n’ roll film, like an Elvis film. I enjoyed it and I came out like when I was a kid, that feelgood thing coming out of a movie like you’re walking a bit taller.

What are the eternal verities of a great song?

It’s an indefinable magic chemistry which can come many, many ways. Starting at the top… it’s often a great title. It’s often great words, or great melodies, or great chords or a great sound… but the best ones have got them all.

And there’s always a magic moment. Send In The Clowns, for example, has that line about, “Isn’t it queer… oh, they’re here.” Or in The Drugs Don’t Work. I remember hearing that record, the acoustic coming on, but when he hits that line, it’s like, “Fucking hell, that has to be said.” It hadn’t been said before.

If I had to plump for one single element, it would be melody, because not all songs have got words. I can be moved by a great melody on its own.

Many artists adopt personas. Is that what happened with The Beatles?

We didn’t think that was what we were about. We felt more like a little group of students. It was more an art thing we thought we were doing. We were just (adopts exaggerated Liverpool accent) John, Paul, George and Ringo, you know? I think one of the great things about The Beatles, apart from the fact that we were damn good, was that we were very honest – that could be one of the things that has lasted. Also, we were artists. Our artistic development found a home in people’s hearts and they were able to follow it. Yellow Submarine is a kid’s thing; A Day In The Life is more grown up, so it was an interesting body of work.

It’s also a body of work that has haunted him ever since. Despite multi-platinum hits and a wealth of superlative tracks in his post-Beatles output, Lennon-McCartney remains the standard by which all contemporary songwriters, including him, are judged. John’s untimely death put him on a pedestal, moving him effectively beyond criticism, while McCartney got on with the job of living in the shadow of their unwieldy legacy. It must have been galling, for example, to release his acclaimed solo album Flaming Pie in 1997, while knowing full well that it would never match the sales of, or reap the critical plaudits heaped on The Beatles’ Anthology, a compilation of outtakes, backing tracks and rarities, which had been released two years earlier.

Nor did his renaissance man dabblings in classical composition, poetry and painting do much to revive public interest. But then, on June 11, 2002, Sir Paul McCartney married his ex-model girlfriend Heather Mills, in St Salvator’s Church, Castle Leslie, Glaslough, Ireland. Since then, although things haven’t gone exactly smoothly, it seems as if his life is more firmly back on track.

This is a man who obviously likes to be married, enjoys stability and finds pleasure in domesticity’s little routines, presumably to balance the whirlwind of activity that follows every move he makes outside of his front door. Watching him deliever the line, “Oh that magic feeling, nowhere to go” on the stage at Docklands, it suddenly seemed to rank among his most heartfelt.

Following the muted response from critics and public alike to his Driving Rain album of 2001, he makes no attempt to hide the fact that he’s revelling in the acclaim for and success of this tour in America, which has outstripped all expectations. For this 60-year-old knight of the realm to be the biggest-grossing US live act of 2002 – seeing off not just arch-rivals The Rolling Stones but also the young bucks – is clearly a source of immense personal satisfaction.

But who is he really? Bastion of the establishment? Rock idol? Contented hubby? Multi-talented renaissance man? Avant-garde pop genius? All of the aforementioned and more? Or just an old dopehead with a good head for a nice tune?

Over the years, you’ve been busted for marijuana in Scotland, England, Barbados, Japan, Scandinavia… you could probably get in the Guinness Book Of Records for being busted in most countries. Did anybody mention this in the process of making you a Sir?

No, nobody comes and says anything like that. You can be a terrible person and still be a Sir. It must be that way, because they gave it to me. The worst thing about being busted is that you go on computer records. So every time I go to America, they see my name on the database and they know I’ve been busted a lot, but I think they’ve sort of forgiven me. It’s like, “That was his wild youth but he’s all right now.” So they always let me through, but the drug busts, I have had to go and sit with the aliens in Customs, once or twice. It’s a bit embarrasing. That stuff never comes off your records.

What’s the most useful thing about being a Sir?

I can’t think of many useful things about it. George Martin says it gets you a good table in a restaurant, but I get a good table anyway. I ring up and ask for a table for 8.30 and if they say, “Sorry, there’s no tables left,” I will say, “This is Paul McCartney here.” Then you hear a bit of scuffling and suddenly a table becomes free. I don’t actually like doing that, but I will if I’m desperate. But I never say, “This is Sir Paul McCartney.” I never call myself that. I see it as being like a school prize. You don’t really go for it, but get it because of what you are. Like the art prize or the maths prize. It’s nice to get it because it’s an honour, a recognition of what you’ve done, but it doesn’t do you much good. For me, the best thing about getting it was that it was popular. A lot of people said, “Oh yes, he deserved that.” That was important to me.

How about Sir Mick Jagger?

Who cares? I think it’s cool. I don’t think it makes you anything. I think you are ‘it’ already and it’s a prize for being that thing. And Mick is Mick so that’s fine. I can think of people who should get them… like Eric Clapton. He’s a prime candidate. Sir Eric Clapton has a ring to it.

At your level of success, you’re effectively a company. How many people do you employ all told?

Normally, we carry about 140. When you’re in school or college, you’re a scruffy little bastard writing essays all the time, hoping one day that you’ll be a lawyer, a judge, a journalist, rocker, head of a company, your dreams are all there and I’ve actually got my visualisation. I feel very lucjy. I’m really aware that it’s not just me… I’ve had a phenomenal amount of luck.

Heather said, a few months back, that marrying you had brought her a lot of unhappiness. How do you, as a couple, cope with that?

I’d like to help her with it, and I hate to say this, but it’s more how does she deal with it, you know? I think the shock for Heather was that she’d been “Great model who overcomes accident and now she does a lot of work for charity and disabled people.” The minute she married me, it was, “Who does she think she is?” It’s really quite unfair, but she’s a sitting target. I think it did give her a lot of grief. The most grief, the worst thing about it, was that it actually affected the charities she was working for. People actually stopped donating because of what they read in the newspapers, which was largely untrue. They did a lot of silly things. There was a photo of Heather and I at Stella’s fashion show, and it looked like Heather was doing two peace signs with her fingers and some journalist said, “Oh, she’s copying Linda.” And actually, on closer inspection, it was my hands. But who cares? They’re just having a go. I mean, who gives a shit who gives a V sign?

They also claimed she was doing a cookbook when she wasn’t. We get asked to give a recipe to an Amnesty cookbook or a vegetarian society cookbook, so you do that and it comes out as she’s doing a cookbook. It’s changed a bit since the Parky show. A lot of people like that show, and she changed a lot of people’s minds. In fact, we were walking the dog in Regent’s Park this morning and somebody came up and said, “That was really good on the Parky show!” The main point she made that people appreciated was that with this sort of arbitrary press sniping, it doesn’t affect her so much as it affects the charity, and the disabled people who might have got a leg if there’d been the money raised.

Somebody in one of the papers even said she was under investigation for her charity work, and that completely undermines what she’s trying to achieve. It turned out not to be true but, as you know, the apology appears on page 10 where no one sees it three weeks after all the damage has been done. The same thing happened in the early days with Linda but, as Parky said on the show, it comes with the territory – marrying this guy. It’s not so much me, though, it’s just fame. The same thing happens if you marry Tom Cruise, or Michael Douglas. You get a load of shit. You may have married him because you love him, but now you’re a sitting target.

I noticed that George’s death elicited a very different reaction among my friends than John’s did. John’s was horrible because it was sudden and unexpected and he was young. But I think George’s death reminded my entire generation of our own mortality. It’s as if we measure our own lives alongside the lives of artists we loved. Did you get any sense of that?

To me, of course, it was more of a personal thing. Privately, I felt the same way about both of them. I had lost a dear friend who I would never see again. But when John died, because of the shock, during that day I was asked what I felt about John’s death and all I could stumble across was, “It’s a drag.” I couldn’t gather my thoughts. We were just in shock. I was just shouting stuff about the guy who’d shot John.

I was very lucky that my relationship with John had been healed. It had been vicious, but were phoning each other, talking about kids, baking bread, cats, being a husband – all the simple shit that really means a lot to me. That was the consolation before the terrible shock.

With George’s death, because we knew it was happening, I was able to be more considered in my reaction. I was able to go and hold his hand… but the bottom line is that I will see that man no more, and that’s a little bit horrific for me. When you lose someone dear you just wish someone could magic it all back again. And maybe there is some way, who knows, in the great beyond.

After all he’s been through, McCartney seems more at peace with himself than at any time since John’s death. He is keenly aware that, in the public perception, such actions as seeking to change the credits on Lennon-McCartney songs have tarnished his image, but he also knows that one of the greatest tricks of surviving immense fame is learning to recognise that you have an image, realising that your image isn’t you, and stepping away from it in order to get on with real life.

The punchline of that old song, A Satisfied Mind, is that, “It’s so hard to find one rich man in 10 with a satisfied mind.” There’s no telling how long it might last but it would seem that, for the moment, Paul McCartney is that one rich man.

Coming Up

While suffering a near-nervous breakdown during the Fabs’ prolonged disintegration, McCartney quietly worked on an ill-fated side-project that many now agree ranks among his best solo work. Chris Ingham basks in the understated glory of 1970’s McCartney.

Autumn of 1969, Paul McCartney was in a strange place. Feeling redundant following John Lennon’s announcement in an August meeting at Apple that he was leaving The Beatles, McCartney retreated to his farm in Scotland to drink, stay up, lie in and suffer what he would call “almost a nervous breakdown”.

At the same time, in the company of Linda, his bride of six months, step-daughter Heather and brand new baby daughter Mary, he also began to enjoy the ‘glow’ of being in a new family. By the time they returned to his St John’s Wood house for the winter, McCartney was sufficiently energised to do a little work from home. Plugging one microphone directly into a Studer multitrack with no VU monitoring or mixing desk, he overdubbed himself on drums, guitar, bass and keyboards, polishing his DIY recordings at Abbey Road (where he booked in as Billy Martin) and Morgan Studios, Willesden.

The resulting album McCartney – released in April 1970 simultaneously as The Beatles’ split became public knowledge – was almost universally received as a bit of a non-event. Modest, rough-hewn, semi-improvised, it was the unshaven opposite of The Beatles’ pristine work on Abbey Road which had appeared only eight months before.

Yet, over 30 years on, it holds up as a funky home-brew of a record, groovily lo-fi in a way that wouldn’t be fashionable for a couple of decades. The primitive experimentalism and bluesy jams that were for years dismissed as semi-distracted indulgence now sound, well, rather cool. The drumming is rudimentary but deep, the guitar playing bluesy and distinctive (and much admired by Paul Weller for one), the sound is warm and present, “very analogue” as McCartney recognises now.

And as an expression of where he was at – ‘home, family, love’ – it is as vivid as anything he ever did. The informal paeans to his new wife – The Lovely Linda, Oo You – are respectively radiant with natural affection and earthy passion while the majestic Maybe I’m Amazed confirmed that, when he felt like it, his ability to shape inspiration with unmatched pop craft was secure.

Elsewhere, if lovers of McCartney’s straightforward pop are short-changed – the delightful Every Night and Junk notwithstanding – it’s because he just felt like recording other things; the ethereal sound made by wine glasses (Glasses), a dusted-off Silver Beatles instrumental (Hot As Sun), or a rather compelling chant-and-percussion sound painting of an African tribe (Kreen-Akrore). It’s the very wilfulness of McCartney – the organic sound of an artist learning how to express himself in whatever way he pleases – that gives the album a “realness” that somehow appeals more with the passage of time.

As Paul wrote in 1970 to journalist Penny Valentine, who had spoken for many by expressing her disappointment with the record, “even at this moment it is growing on you.” It still is.

Timeless melody

A purveyor of silly songs? No, a compositional genius…

Peter Buck, R.E.M.: Ram is an amazing record. Ram On? That’s like something off Pet Sounds. The Back Seat Of My Car is amazing. Wings’ Wild Life is really cool. It just sounds like he was in the biggest band of all time, he goes, “Hey we just got a drummer, let’s make a record this week, without any songs!” Dear Friend is one of my favourite songs he ever wrote, which is probably about John. I love that song. I actually recorded it with the Minus 5. Needless to say, the stuff he did with The Beatles was pretty decent too. The thing that boggles my mind is that when they broke up, nobody was 30, and George was 26. He was 26?! Jeez.

Brendan Benson: It’s his genuine fascination for music and music theory, him as a composer, explorer and experimenter, especially his post-Beatles work. He’s a great arranger, the way he puts his songs together. Band On The Run is his masterpiece. It works on so many different level: it’s a simple pop record, yet the way he ties in the melodies throughout makes it something more. It’s a work of genius, so huge and epic yet never outstaying its welcome. He tears at the heartstrings with his mix of mellow, dark and pleasing sounds. There’s never anything harsh or abrasive, just super moody songs, full of melancholic nostalgia.

Andy Partridge, XTC: He’s so fab because he’s so ludicrously melodic and he’s not afraid to be soppy. It takes a lot of guts to do that. My favourite song? It’s Getting Better is so fantastically optimistic, with this great convoluted construction, twisting around. And that bass playing –it’s actually just like his singing, piping and flute-like. And Hello/Goodbye, those opening chords reach in like a ray of sunshine. Again, it’s ferociously optimistic. You know you’re going to have a good experience. It’s not this fake seriousness you get now. He’s never had a problem restricting himself to one thing – he can rock out, be avant-garde, do children’s music, pop for the teens… it’s preposterous that he’s seen as the second-best Beatle – I think the whole thing was an equally jewelled tug of love between them. Although I do wonder why you never see McCartney and Angela Lansbury in the same room.

Gladys Knight: For me it was when Paul took control of the group that The Beatles were at their best. He’s so gifted at writing words and I always choose songs for their lyrical content. I must have worn the grooves off Let It Be. I’d get up in the morning playing it, go to bed playing it, cook to it, clean up to it. The title track was just a song that touched my spirit and that’s why I decided to cover it, because it touched my soul.

Tom McRae: The man is a genius for melody. The second side of Abbey Road – particularly Golden Slumbers/Carry That Weight is one of the greatest Beatles’ moments and Paul’s shining moment. It goes from this brilliant beautiful ballad, his voice so lush and romantic, to turning, in a split second, into a raucous rock number; the best of both sides of his art all in the space of one song. It’s so emotive and there’s a challenging simplicity in his melody and lyrics.

Ben Kweller: The first album I ever fell in love with was Let It Be. I was eight and listened to it non-stop. Paul’s lyrics are so focused on the subject matter and the emotion he brings to the songs is so sincere and honest. Those massive piano ballads like The Long And Winding Road just make me swell up inside. His voice is so pure and beautiful and his musicianship is often overlooked. He reinvented bass playing and excelled at the guitar, piano and drums.

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

Episode 90: Restaurant Wars

“Thanks for calling Fish Stew Pizza, we do fries now.”

After a streak of episodes about neglect, mourning, disability, consent, and harassment, I think I’m ready for a goofy one.

Restaurant Wars is the stupidest episode of Steven Universe, and I don’t say that with an ounce of ill will. I do say this with the knowledge that Say Uncle exists: non-canon goofs are what they are, but this story takes place in continuity so it is official that Steven once saved the boardwalk by turning his house into a restaurant and making better food than two food professionals. That will never again be a thing that didn’t happen in his life.

From the start, there’s no attempt to hide the silliness. The conflict begins with Fryman and Kofi screaming “RESTAURANT WAR” at each other and cutting to black. The episode is presented in a series of titled vignettes and never stops treating the Fryman/Pizza feud as seriously as a...

...I can’t even finish that sentence, the principal characters here are named Mr. Fryman and Kofi Pizza. We don’t even know Fryman’s first name, and Kofi’s last name is the word “pizza” and he runs a pizza shop. This is so, so, so dumb. I love it.

A huge strength of this series is its ability to balance depth with humor, the big term serialization with the normal daily life of a magical kid. It sometimes swings hard at plotty episodes, but rarely does it swing this far in the opposite direction. I’m not talking about Restaurant Wars being a townie episode, because plenty of townie episodes affect the overall plot and develop important characters. Steven’s connection to humanity is critical to his status as a child of two worlds, so while alien stuff might be cooler, there will always be a place for the mundane in the actual plot. 

This is a matter of tone, and Restaurant Wars is the tonal opposite of a plot-heavy story that expands the characters and lore. Uncle Grandpa and Log Date 7 15 2 and Kindergarten Kid have a similar devotion to comedy, but we still get arcs for the characters within them. Nobody grows in Restaurant Wars. The conflict’s resolution is about returning to the status quo we saw at the beginning of the episode, not moving forward or learning critical information. The single consequence is that Ronaldo gets dumped by a girlfriend we didn’t even know he had until moments before it happens, which is just deliciously cruel. 

This might actually be my favorite Ronaldo episode, if I’m including episodes featuring him on top of episodes where he’s the focus: it’s not that I revel in watching him suffer (not fully, anyway), but Zachary Steel is really good at making that suffering funny, from his livid “Do you know how much BLOGGING I haven’t been able to do!?” to lasting despair after his surprisingly real girlfriend breaks up with him. It’s a welcome change of pace from his smug buffoonery, and it’s such a surprising and mean joke for the episode to end without throwing him a single bone. This subplot alone is worth the price of admission.

The breakup, like everything else in the episode, borrows its tone from the cheesiest anime melodrama anyone could ask for. There may be a reference to a more specific show, but I’m frankly not huge on slice of life anime, and despite how much I love writing about Steven Universe I draw a line at doing extensive research about friggin’ Restaurant Wars. Regardless, we get the drawn-out gasps, the kabuki emoting, the dramatic camera flashes, the works. It’s not just anime stuff—the vignette titles evoke the sort of Ken Burns parody you’d see in a show like Community, let nobody say Lamar Abrams and Katie Mitroff don’t have eclectic comedy tastes—but even a casual like me can see the Japanese influence here.

This is the sort of episode that only works every once in a while, because it’s so much compared to the general mood of the series. I understand anyone who dislikes Restaurant Wars, because it’s really different and nothing happens and it’s unbelievably stupid. But dammit, I can’t stay mad at it. Its timing is perfect, in the middle of a stretch of Beach City episodes that have been varying levels of stressful. It’s not interrupting anything or wasting your time for a second by pretending to be anything it’s not. The crew just wanted to tell a stupid story about grown men feuding over who gets to make what food, and that’s okay.

It helps that we get a better look at Fryman and Kofi, two adults that Steven understandably doesn’t hang out with very often. We already know Kofi has a temper, but Fryman until now has been defined by his gruff acceptance of how weird the world around him is, and it’s fantastic to see him revved up. My favorite joke of the episode has Steven explain that Fryman’s supposed to do fries by acknowledging his name and absurd hair, only for Fryman to not realize his hair is shaped like fries. These ridiculous names and his ridiculous character design already exist, so they might as well be used for a ridiculous story.

To be clear, this better look doesn’t actually mean much for their characters, because in a normal episode I doubt Kofi would try branding people with an iron. Again, this isn’t an story about growing, so at best we understand by the end of it that these two take their jobs seriously, but that’s something we already knew. Perhaps it would be funnier to use more established characters for something this zany, but I think we benefit from the flexibility that comes with relative blank slates: Restaurant Wars was never going to be believable, but it would be even less believable if people we knew acted this out of character. 

Their kids get a nice amount of focus as well. I love finally seeing Jenny and Kiki hang out with Ronaldo and Peedee, even in this situation. I get why they wouldn’t normally interact, as Peedee is an anxious kid and Ronaldo is Ronaldo, but these are neighboring families that each have two siblings who work in their dads’ food shops. Add in the fact that both families seem to have single fathers (although Jenny and Kiki are lucky enough to have the world’s greatest Gunga) and the Frymans and Pizzas have a lot in common. 

Unlike their parents, we get grounded character moments here that show these four probably have some history together. The highlight is Jenny stage whispering her doubt about Ronaldo’s girlfriend to Peedee, who immediately agrees; these are people who are able to stand the guy enough to hang out with him, but know he’s usually full of it. Jenny gets a sweet moment supporting Kiki, and Kiki’s people-pleasing attitude might be “helpful” here, but her focus on the needs of others above her own will be addressed in our very next episode.

There’s really nothing else to talk about in an outing like Restaurant Wars, but I have two stray thoughts for this stray episode. First, I’m glad it happened after Greg got rich, because even if it’s not mentioned it at least adds some realism into the conversion of Steven’s home. Second, I’m baffled by the pairing of the mundane pizza bagel with the revolutionary fries filled with ketchup, but I’m not exactly gonna be taken out of the moment by a strange plot point here. I’m glad I live in a world where this episode exists. But I'll also be glad to get back to the actual show. 

We’re the one, we’re the ONE! TWO! THREE! FOUR!

This is by no means a favorite, and it’s not an episode I’m ever gonna rewatch outside of a binge or for reviewing purposes, but come on. It’s not hurting anybody.

Top Fifteen

Steven and the Stevens

Hit the Diamond

Mirror Gem

Lion 3: Straight to Video

Alone Together

The Return

Jailbreak

The Answer

Sworn to the Sword

Rose’s Scabbard

Mr. Greg

Coach Steven

Giant Woman

Beach City Drift

Winter Forecast

Love ‘em

Laser Light Cannon

Bubble Buddies

Tiger Millionaire

Lion 2: The Movie

Rose’s Room

An Indirect Kiss

Ocean Gem

Space Race

Garnet’s Universe

Warp Tour

The Test

Future Vision

On the Run

Maximum Capacity

Marble Madness

Political Power

Full Disclosure

Joy Ride

Keeping It Together

We Need to Talk

Chille Tid

Cry for Help

Keystone Motel

Catch and Release

When It Rains

Back to the Barn

Steven’s Birthday

It Could’ve Been Great

Message Received

Log Date 7 15 2

Same Old World

The New Lars

Like ‘em

Gem Glow

Frybo

Arcade Mania

So Many Birthdays

Lars and the Cool Kids

Onion Trade

Steven the Sword Fighter

Beach Party

Monster Buddies

Keep Beach City Weird

Watermelon Steven

The Message

Open Book

Story for Steven

Shirt Club

Love Letters

Reformed

Rising Tides, Crashing Tides

Onion Friend

Historical Friction

Friend Ship

Nightmare Hospital

Too Far

Barn Mates

Steven Floats

Drop Beat Dad

Too Short to Ride

Restaurant Wars

Enh

Cheeseburger Backpack

Together Breakfast

Cat Fingers

Serious Steven

Steven’s Lion

Joking Victim

Secret Team

Say Uncle

Super Watermelon Island

Gem Drill

No Thanks!

     5. Horror Club      4. Fusion Cuisine      3. House Guest      2. Sadie’s Song      1. Island Adventure

[dodolostinhell]

Harry Potter and the cursed child - the play, my opinion (+Scorbus)

(This is super long (3.5k words), but I marked the different topics in case you want to read about something specifically!)

I went to London two weeks ago and guess what: I was lucky enough to get tickets for the play!

I just wanted to share my thoughts on the play. Please note that this are my very subjective thoughts on the play and someone else who was in the same room as me could have thought something completely else about it. Also note that I am one of the very few people out there on the HP fandom who liked reading the Skript. So my opinion on the play may differ (although I highly doubt that anyone would dislike the actual play)

I LOVED IT. I loved it so much. I was shaking after part one and crying after part two. It was all too much to handle for my little heart. I hope I can somehow share my experience through sharing it here.

I want to start with some general thoughts and opinions and get more detailed later, where I want to talk more about the actors/characters and some of the relationships, ending with Scorpius and Albus‘s relationship in the play (spoiler: it was so gay). I won’t talk about the plot. Because that is obviously the same.

The theater was beautiful. The set and everything around it was so lovely. I actually had pretty good seets in the middle, looking down on the stage (I was in like the first balcony/dress circle). I could see the whole stage perfectly. I loved how they expended the set for some scenes, so it actually felt like you were in the middle of the action. You could feel the energy of the play way better that way. For example when the dementors flew through the air or at the end, when Voldemort steps from stage into the crowd and the other actors are looking at us, while reacting to Harry’s parents death.

The special effects were amazing! They were made so well and it really gave the play the magic it needed. Of course it’s different than a movie (or a book, where you see it perfectly in your head), but it didn’t matter. It worked brilliantly and made my mouth drop several times. Stuff like Draco and Harry‘s Duell looked very impressive and filled the whole room with energy and tension. I won’t be spoil how they did it, but I‘ll just say that they used light a lot and fire. Just one thing that I absolutely adored, that I need to talk about, is the effect while time-turning: when time settles lights were moved that way, that it seemed like the wall was moving like water or a wave. Like getting bigger and smaller in smooth movements. It looked so good.

The other normal props were okay. Sometimes I had hoped for more. For example the train scenes, where they just build seats with suitcases. But things like the moving stairs on the other hand looked really cool. But in general nothing special about it.

The costumes looked very good for the most part. (Exception is Ginny, more in her segment.). I don’t know why they changed the school uniform, but it looked really nice. Although you sometimes couldn’t see the house colors very well. I loved the school uniform in the Voldemort AU. It looked very elegant and reminded me of Draco in his sixth year. It also suited Scorpius so well. They also changed the wands of the people we already know. I don’t know the reason for that but it isn’t like you could see them very well anyway. I really like the wands of the next gen, whose we didn’t know. They look so pretty.

The actor‘s performances were brilliant! They gave those lines so much life and made the story appear very different a lot of times. They were the people who made it a whole different experience to reading the Skript. I think this would make it way more appealing to the people who didn’t like the Skript, because I think some lines work very differently played out by actors in comparison to reading them.

Now I will go into more detail about actors, relationships etc. (Things that always matter the most to me).

Let‘s just start with Harry Potter played by Jamie Ballard. I liked it. He is an amazing actor and portrayed Harry‘s feelings very well. Especially the scene where he watched his parents die was very impressive. The way he broke down really hit me. That scream at the end was nerve wracking and you could feel all the hurt inside him coming out.

Also the very controversial line „i wish you weren’t my son“ was delivered so well. It really came out of a place of frustration. You noticed throughout the whole scene how much he is struggling with being a good father for Albus and the hurt he is feeling when Albus rejects him: it all build up to that moment, where it all was too much.

I love how Jamie brought Harry‘s trauma to life. You could really see how Harry wasn’t able to get closure with his past.

Next is Hermione, played by Nicola Alexis. She was brilliant! It was 100% Hermione and she did a perfect job. All her mannerisms were on point and it really felt like Hermione. I loved how she interacted with Harry, in a kind of motherly way, but still as a friend. Especially when they were joking around. She had a really nice energy about her and can’t say enough how great she was (and I really don’t get how people were mad that she’s black. It didn’t matter at all and didn’t make her any less of a perfect Hermione.)

And the last one of the golden trio: Ron, played by Thomas Aldridge. He was a comedy figure throughout the whole play to lighten it up a bit. Thomas did a good job though. He was very funny and portrayed Ron’s strange humor and mannerisms really well. It still didn’t feel like Ron to me. I can’t really explain why, but I couldn’t quite see him as Ron. But his performance was still great.

My queen Ginny, played by Susie Traylling. She was a really cool mum. She was cool and badass just like she’s supposed to be. The only issue I had was her outfit: it was so ugly. She wore a horrendous long skirt and a weird wooly sweater. It just wasn’t Ginny at all.

Also sometimes she was softer, especially to Harry, and that never really felt right. Somehow there missed that sarcastic tone or something that alsways comes with her, but she was just this super caring and kind person in those scenes. She should have needed a bit more self esteem in those. But in general Susie did a good job (and it way better than movie Ginny, although that isn’t very hard).

And Harry and Ginny’s relationship kind of works. I liked there chemistry and how Ginny is kind of the boss of the family (because of course she is).

Rose, played by Helen Aluko. She gave Rose a very different touch to what I expected her to be. She’s energetic, has a shit load of self esteem and has quite some attitude but that becomes quite nice to the end of the play. At the start she’s just as irritating as I imagined her to be but by the end in her fourth year, she becomes kind of sarcastic and likes to joke around in here very own way, playing a lot with her attitude. I really liked her by the end, which I couldn’t in the Skript. Helen makes Rose appear so different to what I imagined her to be like are at the end, but I love it.

Young Harry by Tommy Bard was adorable. A brilliant performance for such an young actor. He really felt like Harry to me and he did an excellent job.

My boy Draco, played by James Howard. He was so sassy and I loved it. I was sceptical at first, because he seemed kind of arrogant, but you soon notice that it is a mask to protect himself and his son. After a while you could see the fear and emotions inside him. I liked how he gave Draco that three dimensional touch that he really needs. The only thing that irritated me a bit was his deep voice, I felt like didn’t suit Draco, but James’s performance absolutely made up for that.

Delphi played by Eve Ponsonby. She looked so good (I was kind of irritated at the beginning and than I realized how good Tom Riddle looked and it made sense). I loved her clothing style with ripped pants and a black jeans jacket. Also her colored light blonde hair with blue tips looked so cool. It just was very weird when she suddenly wore that jacket out of black feathers after her reveal. It made her flying around a bit too dramatic.

It came to a surprise to me that I really liked Delphi. She was someone I would like to spend time with myself (without the whole daughter of Voldemort thingy). She really felt like a energetic, self-confident young women, who’s very passionate. Also her revealed selve was very cool! Eve’s performance was brilliant. She was very evil but you could still sympathize with her at the same time. You saw how much she loved her father and how badly she wanted to see her dad. Not just as a partner in crime, but also as an orphan, who misses her father.

She’s also kind of the biggest Scorbus shipper (she absolutely knew that at least Scorpius has a huge crush on Albus) and the biggest cock block of all time (more about that later in the Scorbus segment).

I also loved how they hinted on Delphi being bad. In the way she talkes sometimes I could sense there was something shady going on. Or another example would be at the beginning in Harry’s house with Amos Diggory. You can see her carefully grabbing her wand when she sees Harry, but than deciding against it and leaving her wand in her pocket.

Hagrid was the only Performance I didn’t like at all. His costume was great, but everything else wasn’t Hagrid. He was too naive and wasn’t kind or empathetic (at least it didn’t feel like it).

Snape wasn’t very good either. He looked like Snape and killed Alan Rickman’s way of talking but his personality wasn’t right. He was purely a fanfic Snape and that isn’t how Snape really is: He’s an asshole and that doesn’t change in an AU. But instead he wasn’t mean at all. Instead more reserved.

Professor McGonagall played by Sandy McDade was brilliant. It was perfect. 100% McGonagall. She was sarcastic, sassy and so done throughout the play. She didn’t want anything to do with Harry’s shit. I loved how different her dynamic was towards her former students and her students now. And it was hilarious how she still had authority over the golden trio (+Draco) although two of them have super high positions in the Ministry (Hermione his the fucking minister of magic and still she’s intimidated by McGonagall. Genius)

Moaning Myrtle played by April Hughes. She was brilliant. My absolute favorite performance. It was absolutely perfect. Nicely uncomfortable but still funny. And the way she moved: so perfect! Aaand she changed her lines: Harry is canonly bi!

Let me explain: Myrtle is talking to Albus and Scorpius. While she talks it is obvious she sees their dads in them. She says so explicitly. They start talking about Cedric. She says it was such a shame that the pretty one had to die. She listened to so many people crushing on him. So many Girls and some boys. While she says that she looks more into Scorpius’s direction, but when she says “and boys” she turns to Albus, definitely thinking about Harry, and telling Albus (and us) that way, that Harry used to have a crush on Cedric. I was so happy about it.

Now finally the protagonists!

Albus Potter was played by Joe Idris-Roberts. I liked it a lot. Joe gave Albus so much personality I had a hard time finding in the Skript. He made him three dimensional and he really felt like a teen who is going through a lot.

My cinnamon roll Scorpius Malfoy played by Jonathan Case. Damn he looked good (the blonde hair suits him so well. He looked so handsome and adorable). It was perfect. Quirky, nerdy, socially awkward, enthusiastic, insecure, funny. Absolutely brilliant. I didn’t think I could love Scorpius more, but Jonathan did it. His mannerisms were brilliant and really portrayed his quirkiness. The way he presented the lines were creative, fitted perfectly and made them even greater as they were. Also so many layers to his presentation. There was never a scene were he was one dimensional and there always was something more going on with Scorpius. I loved just watching him and interpreting his performance and what Jonathan tried to show subtextually.

Now relationships! I touched some already but I wanted to talk about them a bit more.

I’ll start with Harry and Albus’s relationship. I touched this a bit in Harry’s segment already. They truely felt like father and son who have a very troubled relationship. You can see how they love eachother but they struggle to understand eachother. Especially with Albus being in the middle of puberty where you already have enough trouble understanding yourself. Until Godrics Hollow there is so much tension. When Harry decides that he must just be an authority to Albus and separates him from Scorpius really broke my heart and you could see how Harry didn’t know better and was frustrated. There was so much to it and so many unspoken words were between them. It worked brilliantly and they portrayed their relationship great.

I adored the shift in Scorpius and Draco’s relationship. You always saw how much they cared for eachother. But they didn’t know how to approach eachother. In Godrics Hollow everything turns and they have a adorable father-son relationship. You could see them in the background talking, both smiling at eachother. It warmed my heart.

Delphi’s relationship with Albus and Scorpius before here reveal was also very interesting. She actually was very nice to them, although she could get a bit too enthusiastic. Delphi saw that Albus and Scorpius need eachother to be stronger and therefore actually is a good friend to them and brings them back together. It’s also really clever how she separates them at the same time. While Scorpius and Albus are still together, she slowly loosens their relationship by making Scorpius very jealous. You could see how Scorpius dislikes her more and more the more the relationship between her and Albus grows. She’s excellent with people and therefore exactly knows how to play with those two so they do what she wants. Yes she looses at the end, but that’s because she didn’t manage to loosen Scorpius and Albus’s relationship after all.

So before I can get more into detail on what she did with the two I need to get started mit Scorbus!

Scorpius and Albus need and adore eachother. Their friendship helps them to get through some tough emotional stuff. But throughout the play I got the feeling that there was more. They both feel more than friendship for eachother and they truely love eachother. They don’t know that from the other and they try to hide it, but I saw something there.

It starts with the touchiness. There are loads of casual touches. More than I ever see with any of my friends. They need to be close to eachother.

And then there are Scorpius’s looks. Gosh that boy can look at Albus, it’s incredible. Almost all the time, when Albus isn’t looking at him, Scorpius looks at him with love and desire. The scene where it is the most obvious was when Delphi was Training Albus and Scorpius was getting closer to them to watched what going on. There was so much jealousy and hurt in his eyes. He was not only afraid he would loose his friend and be replaced, but also that Albus would have a crush on Delphi. Delphi sensed that of course and used this.

Another example is right before Delphi’s reveal. Scorpius and Albus sit very close next to eachother on the stairs at the owlery, talking what to do with the time-turner. Not only they sit very close and there’s lot’s of casual touching, they both make eyes at eachother. It seems like Scorpius isn’t even trying to hide what he is feeling, smiling so openly, warmly and loving at Albus. Albus is doing a better job at hiding it, but there also is some pain in his eyes, as if he is looking at Scorpius as if he will never be able to have him that way.

Then comes Delphi into the same scene. She goes and sit right between the two and separates them that way. You can see how Albus is looking apologetic into Scorpius’s direction, who is looking hurt and jealous. That look really made me sad. Delphi than changes from being the biggest cock block ever to being a shipper and ties Scorpius and Albus together on their hands, so they basically sit on top of eachother.

And finally the last scene Albus and Scorpius have together. In the Skript this scene made me very angry, because suddenly Scorpius needed to be straight again and have a crush on Rose, but the live performance changes it completely and is almost proof that there is more going on. The actors definitely didn’t care about Scorose and went full on Scorbus.

The scene takes place an a staircase. They stand in front of eachother, while Scorpius stands two stairs further down. Because of the hight difference it first seems like they don’t stand that close, but actually they stand pretty close to eachother. They talk about how they can’t believe Scorpius has asked Rose out. Scorpius genuinely didn’t look like he could believe it. As if he didn’t want to but now he was crazy enough to actually do it. Albus looks kind of sad when he says it. A little disappointed.

Scorpius starts rambling on how Rose and him will have a beautiful future together, but although his words should be hopeful, they came across as an act. As if his heart wasn’t at it. They both try not to look at eachother, because they have a sad look in their eyes. As if they were both hiding their true feelings.

Than Rose shows up. She greets Scorpius with Scorpius King with a sarcastic tone to it. She runs away laughing after that. In the Skript it sounded she actually liked Scorpius, but in the play she was just making fun of him. When Rose is pretending like she likes Scorpius for this few seconds, Scorpius looks shocked. I could practically see “oh no what have I done” going through his head. Albus also looked shocked. He never wished that Scorpius’s crush would be returned.

When they realize it was just a joke, they loosen up. And Scorpius hugs Albus. By far the most passionate hug of all. Especially because Scorpius is standing a little lower makes the hug even more adorable. Than Albus says he thought they agreed they didn’t hug. That made me thinking, why they would discuss that in the first hand. My idea is, that they are both scared that their crush would come out and they can hide it better, when they aren’t intimate that way. And then Scorpius says, that he thought they would do this in this new version he had in mind. This confuses me until the day of today, because this is an actual line in the Skript were Scorbus apparently isn’t a thing. But the only thing “a new version of us” could mean is in a romantic way. Everyone I spoke with agreed with me and were just as confused as me. I just believe that Scorbus is canon and that these two oblivious boys have huge crushes on eachother. That’s at least what the play told me.

I hope I could kind of share my experience and this didn’t end up being way too long for anyone to read. I can just say that I loved the play and I can absolutely recommend it to everyone. It was worth every pound.

[writing-in-the-impala]

Hey Darling: Part 7

Pairing: Rob Benedict x Reader 

Series Summary: You’re new to conventions but its okay because you meet some pretty amazing people, including Rob Benedict.

Warnings: Angst, fluff, I’m just here to play with your emotions basically, swearing

Word Count: 2190

A/N: Have yet another chapter I feel like this is around a half way point for this fic. enjoy, also don’t forget feedback is really appreciated because I want to make my fics better.

Part 6 | Hey Darling Masterlist

  You arrived at the convention late in the evening on Friday, you decided to check the group chat to see what's going on, the girls were recording videos of drunk greenroom baseball, you decided to go and join everyone. When you walked in everyone welcomed you, you couldn't help to notice that Rob wasn't in the room. Not too long after you arrived Rob and Rich walked back into the greenroom with bags of alcohol. "We bought more booze!" They announced and everyone cheered. Rob said hi to you as if nothing ever happened and it was a good night, you were friends? Maybe more acquaintances. But luckily you guys were fine.

Saturday went by smoothly, you spent lunch with Kim, Ruth and Rob, talking like normal. "No Rob you're wrong. It was 'no I am your father' he never says Luke." You said.

"I agree with Y/N on this one." Kim backed you up.

"Fine I'll check on YouTube." Rob said pulling out his phone to check who was quoting star wars correctly.

"Y/N your photo ops start in five minutes we need to go." Your handler said.

"Okay, but we're gonna finish this discussion later." You said standing up and leaving.

"Yeah okay, enjoy the ops." Rob said as you walked away.

"Thanks bye." You replied leaving the room.

After the photo ops you had a panel you went backstage and not too long after Rob and Rich were introducing you.

"Okay before we let Y/N get on with the panel I have a question for everyone is it Luke I am your father or no I am your father?" Rob said making you laugh shaking your head. Most people cheered for what the first option and Rob was happy he had won. "Ha! Told you." He said making you laugh.

"Not so quickly let's play a clip of it shall we?" You said pulling up the video on YouTube and it turned out you were right. You started to celebrate with a little dance and jump around stage and Rob pouted. You were happy to be able to do bits like that with him again. Your panel went by smoothly and after the panel you had some free time where you could chill, you were sitting talking with Rob about something when all of a sudden Rich came up to your face with his phone. "What the-" you started before he shouted "Dickchat!" And Rob laughed, "finally he's doing it to someone else." Rob said and Rich went up to him with the phone.

"What did you say?" Rich said putting the phone in Rob's face.

"I- I said t-t-that I love Dickchat." he said with a grin before you and Rob bursted out laughing.

The rest of the convention day went by quickly and you were excited to go to the bar after SNS. You were all sitting on a large booth, Rob was opposite you and Kim was next to you as you sat on the edge. You were just chatting away when someone poked your shoulder. "Y/N?" The person said and you looked at them to see your old buddy Max.

"Max! Oh my god." You nearly screamed jumping up to hug him. "Sorry," you apologised. "Anyway guys do you mind if my friend sits with us? If you want of course." You said and everyone agreed, you introduced Max to everybody and he simply said "I'm sorry I'll probably forget all you names when I have a couple drinks." Making even laugh, Max always was a people pleaser.

"So what are you doing in Chicago?" Max asked you.

"Oh we're all working." You answered taking a swig of your beer.

"I need to get into acting if all you do is drink." He said and you and Kim laughed as everyone else was having their own conversions.

"So what do you do?" Kim asked.

" He's a musician." You said and Max playfully slapped you.

"I'm not." He said.

"You are."

"I'm not I'm a tour manager, I'm right now managing Green Day." Max explained.

"Wow that impressive." Kim said amazed.

"Yeah and he's a musician." You said dreamily.

"I'm not." Max said looking at you accusingly. "She just thinks I am." He added.

"Why does she think that?" Rob asked after silently listening to the conversation.

"Because he plays live music at clubs, he's amazing." You said.

"I'm not amazing." Max said.

"True Robbie's better but you're a close second." You said making Rob blush slightly but he was still disliking this interaction and your extremely flirty attitude towards this new guy.

"You play?" Max asked Rob with a genuine smile.

"Yeah, I'm in a band Louden Swain." Rob said trying to look laid back but you could see he was uncomfortable around Max.

"That's cool, where do you guys play?" Max asked.

"Oh at conventions, sometimes at random venues around the US mostly and some places around LA my other band the Station Breaks recently played at the attic sounds." He said taking a drink of his beer.

"Awesome I play there a lot actually." Max said.

"Funny I never met you." Rob said looking down sort of spitefully.

"Yeah well I haven't seen this girl in like what four months and we're practically neighbours." Max said putting an arm around you.

"Really?" Rob questioned lifting an eyebrow.

"Yeah he lives on the same street, oh how's Jessie?" You questioned Max about his long term boyfriend.

"We broke up." Max said  looking down sadly.

"Aw baby are you okay?" You asked hugging Max.

"Yeah, ate loads of ice cream watched some Rom Coms and read some books while crying so now I'm better." Max said and you laughed slightly.

"Should've called me up I was doing the same thing." You said before smashing a hand over your mouth.

"Really? Did you get back with-"

"Oh no, oh god no, I started dating someone new," you said glancing to Rob who was intensely gazing at you and Max. "Um, yeah it was great for some time and then I fucked it up and spent like a week at work just crying in my trailer over a good book." You said and Max gave you a hug.

"This is why we need to stay in touch more." He said and you nodded, the conversation soon changed and the beers changed to shots.

"We will, we will rock you

We will we will rock you." You, Kim, Max and Matt sang along to the music. You were looking straight at Rob smiling to him and he was smiling back as he applauded the four of you.

"Oooo." You said as you heard the next song come on. "Max it's our song." You said and everyone looked at the two of you.

"Well then we have to sing along." He said making everyone laugh.

"When I'm telling a story And you find it boring your thinking of something to say You'll go along with and then drop it And you Humiliate me, in front of our friends."

You start in the middle of the first verse, laughing after the verse.

Then I'll use that voice what you find annoyin' And say something like "Intelligent input darlin' why don't you just have another beer then?"

Everyone was smiling including Rob who you were looking at.

"Then you call me a bitch"

Then you did something stupid on "you" you pointed to Rob but luckily no one but Rob really noticed it.

" and everyone we're with will be embarrassed, And I won't give a shit"

You rolled your eyes along with the words using gestures as if you and Max were performing the song.

"You said I must eat so many lemons, Cause I am so bitter I said "I'd rather be with your friends mate, Cause they are much fitter"

You pointed to Max for the "you" when for the "friends" you  pointed around the group with smirk and Kim just said "yep I'm fitter." Making everyone laugh.

"Yes it was childish And you got aggressive And I must admit that I was a bit scared, But it gives me thrills to wind you up."

Now you were looking at Rob again who decided it was enough. Max had a arm around you and it was frustrating Rob.

"My fingertips are holding onto the Cracks in our foundations, And I know that I should let go, But I can't."

"Sorry to interrupt but I'm going to the hotel bye everyone." Rob said standing up and getting out as fast as possible.

"He has a nice ass." Max said watching Rob walk away.

"Back off he's hers." Kim said to Max.

"You like him?" Max asked.

"I love him but got drunk and cheated and now he's walking away in a strop I'm sorry but I'm going to follow him I'll talk to you later Max okay? Bye everyone." You said standing up and following Rob.

"Rob!" You shouted once you were outside but he just kept walking so you began running after him. "Rob!" You shouted again. "Robert Patrick Benedict!" You shouted and he stopped.

"You know my middle name?" He questioned.

"Of course I know your middle name Rob, I know your mom's name is Vivian, your dad was a dick and your older sister is called Amy and your brothers name is called  Matt and apparently he's ridiculously tall, you love the Bachelor and when you met Eddie Vedder you asked someone to ask him for a cigarette but Eddie heard you and handed you a cigarette, funny thing you don't smoke. You told me all this Rob, I know you."

"I can't believe you remember that." He said with his hands in his pockets looking down at his shoes.

"Of course I do, why did you storm out and leave?" You asked him and he looked up.

"God damn Y/N do you think I like watching you flirt with Max? Of course I left."

"Me? Flirting with- wait a second is that why you're in a mood? I would never date Max." You said slightly laughing at the absurd suggestion, I mean Max kept talking about hot guys in the bar and about his ex boyfriend plus he checked Rob out.

"Oh I'm sorry of course you wouldn't date Mr green day tour manager, oh and he's a musician isn't that great, he's also hot and young I mean jackpot." Rob said angrily.

"Yeah he's pretty dreamy I don't understand why you aren't dating him yet I mean even when you were leaving he said you have a hot ass."

"Wait what?" Rob said confused.

"He's gay! Like full on we went to pride last year together I can show you the photos of him kissing a guy while wearing rainbow everything gay." You said breathing out a deep sigh and Rob started to chuckle shaking his head.

"Wow so you think I have a chance?" Rob asked and you playfully slapped his arm. "I'll take that as a no." He said with a smile.

"Rob?" You didn't really know what you were about to say.

"Hm?" He questioned.

"Can we talk? About us?" You questioned quietly looking down at your feet. Rob bought a hand up to the back of his neck and rubbed it with a sigh.

"Y/N..." He said with a sigh.

"Okay I get it you don't want to talk about this, let's go back to being fake friends." You said lifting your hands up in defeat.

"You think I'm faking it? Y/N I love spending time with you, you make me laugh more than anyone else, I'm not faking our friendship."

"Then do you want to go back to my room and watch a movie, as friends?" You asked hopefully.

"Definitely." He said and the two of you walked back to the hotel. So you went back to your room with Rob to watch a movie as friends, you decided it wasn't weird to lay in together watching a movie as friends so you did, the next morning you woke up cuddled up against Rob who's arm was around you as he slept, you began to move and get your phone off the night stand to check the time accidentally waking Rob up in the process.

"Morning." He said with a sexy morning voice that made you crazy but you had to act casual.

"Shit! It's nearly 9 o'clock we have to be downstairs soon." You said in panic. "Oh yeah and good morning." You added in a more calmly making Rob chuckle.

"You're so cute when you're rushing, good night." Rob said pulling the covers back up and closing his eyes again.

"Benedict you have to get out of bed." You said pulling the covers off and ignoring his comment.

"Five more minutes." He said pulling the covers back up.

"No." You said taking the covers completely off him and dragging them to the bathroom with you.

"Ugh, fine." You heard from the other side of the door. "I'll see you downstairs Y/N, bye." He shouted so you heard him.

"Bye." You shouted back as you began to brush your teeth.

Part 8

Big thanks to @mr-robenedict for creating these gifs for me

People who wish they woke up in a bed next to Rob : @waywardswain @supernatural-everyday @winchestergirl-13 @perksofbeingafangirl26 @natasha-cole @girl-next-door-writes @itsfunnierin-enochian

[one-more-for-the-sky]

[01/12/18, Friday]

its day 11 it started out rocky again due alarm problems. what the hell! it's been ringing at 850! im supposed to be out the door by 850 or sooner but 850 is definitely the latest i can leave the house that i could speed into work. but mom needed me to come home anyway (yeah i work for my mom. its good work and i take it seriously and anyone who wants to look down on me for it can suck it; i'm doing the best i can right now with all the coliding mental stuff. i'll talk about later on in this entry) John left some of his notes on a certain issue one of our clients is having at the house and i picked them up. kind of lucky there. we loligagged a little. i took out our new pet bunny. she's surprisingly very cuddly for a bunny. i have no prior bunny experiences mind you but still. not what i expected from a large rodent. or any rodent or smaller than a cat like animal. my gliders are certainly not that well behaved though i don't expect it either, energetic and lithe creatures that they are. still she is more endearing than i anticipated. i still am not very fond of rabbits but this one is okay. we chatted for a minute about my baby sister's room. and i was off with the notes and to grab john some water and get gas (not in that order). fridays are my favorite because its a slow day and people generally dont bother me much.

the last bits of yesterday where kind of exhausting and i find myself really challenged by the excuitive function disorder i have. i kept thinking about where i want to put this or that and thought to myself, just do it! but ultimately didn't. i rewarded myself too early. to my credit, i was exhausted. but still. today i will try to work first THEN reward myself. it is a habit of mine and it enables my EFD (excuitive function disorder). so basicly i just played a lot of video games yesterday.

i just feel jittery and unfocused for right now. hopefully it will change.

the house is a mess of laundry. i am sensing a much needed "20 minutes of cleaning" (read: 120 minutes of cleaning) from mom which is a chance for attitude from everyone. not excited. so when i get home, i'll definitly clean first. i think i'll start with tiding up the dinning room because that's really how you can tell if the house is in dire straits. If the dinning room is messy then it is time for a family cleaning session. i didn't even make the mess. i would agree to cleaning the kitchen or do the laundry but nothing else, but that's not going to fly, really. i should either start in the music room or the dinning room... Probably the dinning because you see it when you walk in and its the most visible eye sore, and then the dinning and move to the kitcheny part the den, the den i'll leave to vannah and mom. savannah's stuff is littered across the floor and even for me, its agrovating to look at. but i have to remind myself that my baby sister is probably worse of than me when it comes to EFD and adhd. there is definitly going to be a fight about that, i can feel it. i hope im wrong though.

mom suggested i log what i end up eating. at the time, i was offended by the suggestion. sounds silly but you have to keep in mind the historical obsession about my weight and food intake my mother has expressed over the years, sense i was small and still very impressionable. i still don't really know what to make of it, all the dietary routine changes i was mad to go though and shamed for. i was 13! 14! 15! I was young and still growing. i was in an important part of my developing as a person and myself worth, and what did i learn? that im too thick. i didn't really think i was at the time, but how can i say no to the person driving me around and im not in charge of my destination? it was wholy unfair... im not really saying that this is the root of all my self-esteam issues but it didn't help. not only did my peers see me as imperfect and flawed, so did my family. its hard to think about. i try to forget. so therefore the suggestion of working out, of listing what i eat or anything else by mom is offensive initially. in hindsight, yeah it a good idea. i just hate to admit it because of the implications.

speaking of my peers, my social/educational/school experience in childhood? fucking. awful. about the time i was in 3rd grade i really started to notice people didn't like me much. i can't remember much else than that. i know i wasn't a popular person in 1st or 2nd grade and i'm not even going to count kindergarden, but 3rd grade is where most of my memory begins. my teacher didn't even like me then. said i was a trouble maker and a bad person. not to me, but she made the mistake of saying that to my mother. why did she say that? because i decided i was going to clean up the class room. she said i was a manipulitive little trouble maker for cleaning her class room. this is were my earliest descriminations against me and my adhd and learning disablities really begins and i remember it. forget about my peers for a moment; my teacher hated me for reasons i didn't even know or understand. i wasn't even that hyperactive like some with adhd, but i did have an issue with attention and being a little disruptive with my best friend. at the time, pokemon was the new wild thing and i was utterly obsessed my friend was too, but that was my doing. instead of paying attention, we were playing. i was just a kid being a kid. when it came to start doing the standardized state testing, no one explicitly stated how important these tests were. i seem to remember someone saying that they were just practice and didn't count towards a grade and i thought oh okay, so its okay to mess up. so much so, i chrismas treed the whole thing. the whole goddamn thing, i just put in random bubbles just because i wanted it done and out of the way of whatever. well. that was the catalyst to a lot of issues i had from then on. without the consent of my mother or any discussion to anyone, they placed me and my friend in a "special ed" class, where you basically just colored stuff and glued stuff together and what not. i was in this class for half of a year before our parents found out and were enraged. upon finding out, they rained hot fiery war upon the school, they tried to cover it by saying how worried they were, that weren't sure i could even read. they didn't do any testing. they didn't ask me or my mother anything. long story short, that's a lot of school i missed. it put me behind in reading for years until i was in 7th grade. from there i struggled because of the things i missed out on because a teacher didn't like the disabled child they were responcible for. i think about that a lot. i think about all the late nights being screamed at because i wasn't doing well and struggled in elementry school things. i remember certain things my mom did that i dont really wish to describe, but while school was a battle sometimes going home was worse. it wasn't always like that, but if mom was in a mood, it went there.

my peers were really no better. a throughout, i was very much picked on because i really liked certain things, and they were my hyperfixations. and i was weird and my teeth were wrong. some of my favorite things ive been called when in elementry school: a cockroach, r-slur, someone said they humped me (they didn't but it was still humiliating), called me useless, made fun of my teeth, made fun of me because i made eye contact with people by saying i had a crush on anyone i looked in the eye (it mortified me as a kid because i definitely did not like any of those assholes, i still struggle with this), i was told that 9/11 was my fault, people tried to cut my hair, people stole from me, spat on me.... it was rough. i'm going to stop talking about it for now.

mom, if you're reading this, then you're probably thinking wow, is this really all i think about? or wow i guess im just a terrible awful mom (or some reverse guilt trippin thing you tend to do to try and make me feel bad for validating myself and addressing what you do that hurts me, even though you're the adult and primarily in control of our relationship) or also wondering why i never talk like this about my father. my father doesn't know me. i am my dad's only child and all he knows about me is that im gay, what i went to college for, and basic likes and dislikes. beyond that, my dad doesn't know me. maybe its the same for my sisters and everyone else but im my dad's only child. i have no competition with him for attention.

i've also have been thinking about myself growing up and my relationship with my sisters. full disclosure: i was not as nice to my sister sabrina as i am today. i was mean. i acknowledge it and think about it all the time. i mean, i was no more a kid myself, but i wasn't nice at all. i didn't even think nicely of her. and worse, i was nicer to savannah than i was her, and im sure that killed her a bit. mom would talk, beg, for me to be nicer. i wasn't like her abusive sister, but it felt like i was taking notes. in part, i blame society and media for what learned about being a sibling. most media i saw and consumed growing up, siblings hated each other, were mean to each other and competed against one another for attention, even in cartoons, that's what i picked up on, and internalized, obviously. my parents obviously didn't do anything to reassure me of that not happening, but i can shoulder some of the responsibility. i have to keep reminding myself, and others that i was just only 8 or 9 or 10 when my sister was born and i already had all these thoughts in my head but by the time i was 13-14-15, it starts to  be a combined effort of me and my parents and upon 16-17-18, i made little to no move to change my ways. i sincerely regret it now. after college and being apart from my family for so long and learning powerful lessons on what stands against the grains of time the strongest, family - particularly my sisters - became the centerpiece of my life. in college i met some interesting people, but the most notable thing i remember hearing from some of them, was how much they hated their siblings, younger or older or otherwise. just hated them for whatever reason. im not sure what exactly i thought, except that i was tired of listening to people act like this and that i had sounded like this too. and after failing some classes and being abandoned by friends, i realized the most important connection i could make was to my siblings. from the moment i decided to stop bad-mouthing them, i embraced them, their quirks, and loved them with everything i had. i still get aggravated with them ofc bc yaknow, nothings perfect, but they were perfect as they were. all i wanted and still want to do is spend time with them. i constantly think on how i was when i was growing up, especially for my little sister sabrina. i wasn't kind, as if the i didn't even know the word. i apologize a lot for it. every so often, i take her aside to talk to her about it. im still afraid to full acknowledge just how much damage i might've caused, but its still my responsibility to make it right and to mend it. sabrina, bless her, tells me not to worry, that she understands, that she doesn't remember a lot, except for a few things that make me cringe at myself. i apologize a lot. even now i am still sorry. i hope i am making up for it. i hope she doesn't grow to resent me, as i likely deserve. i love her so much i just want her to be happy and fulfilled and safe. i hate myself for how i was.

and i worry. a lot. its not exactly the same, theres a lot of different aspects to their dynamics, but i sometimes see myself in how sabrina acts towards savannah and it worries me. savannah is a lot less forgiving. a lot closer to bina's age and therefore harder to impress later on should sabrina change her tune. they both go at it though. savannah gives as much sabrina does, and especially so that she's 13 and moody as 13 year old typically are. all the same, i feel like the example i led has won out to the example i try to lead now and it frightens me. i want all 3 of us to be close. for all we've suffered together, to be alone in the world once our parents are gone frightens the shit out of me. more than anything, i want us to remain close. all three of us. i worry a lot about our relationship with each other...

anyway, so yeah i'm currently living with and working for my parents. i do take the work seriously even if doesn't look it and im proud of my (few) acomplishments. and living with them has its ups and downs. it feels good on hand to start from the ground up on how to like. live. how to be a person. or something. sorry i know i was going to go into this, but the previous topic got me down a little. i'm changing the subject.

my desk came in early, and im excited to put it together. can't wait really.

eh. i'm bumbed. will consider the listing of foods i eat.

peace.

[nickireadstfc]

The Raven King, Chapter 11 – WHAT THE FUCK

In which Thanksgiving happens.

Sounds good? No, it doesn’t. But it’s time for Nicki to read The Raven King.

I was not Ready.

I was a sweet, sweet summer child.

WHAT THE SHIT JUST HAPPENED.

I WAS NOT THE FUCK READY.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT’S BEEN FOUR HOURS SINCE READING AND I STILL CAN’T FUCKING D E A L WITH THIS.

Alright. Hold up, hold up.

I will get to the absolute FUCKERY that is this TRAINWRECK OF A CHAPTER in a minute.

But first – shopping.

           Kevin stopped sniping about the road trip when he realized he could get something out of it.

They go to Exites, which is kind of dream candy land for people with Exy boners, to get Neil a few new racquets, just because they can.

To be honest, I skimmed through most of this bit in order to get to the fuckery that was promised to me at Nicky’s house.

TLDR; Kevin is buying Neil heavier racquets in order to fulfil his quest of becoming Surpreme Exy Master. What else is new.

Also, how do you pronounce “Exites”? Exits? Exit-ee-s? Exités? Wtf is this word.

There’s one bit that got my attention, though: A prime fucking Andreil Moment for the books, right there in between the racks of Exy racquets – how fitting, considering the Hot Bod Meets Racquet Incident from when they met.

           “Here’s a real question: how have you survived this long when you’re so violently self-destructive?”

Hooo boy, it’s Real Talk Time.

           He wondered why no one else had caught on, or if people noticed and just didn’t care enough to say it. (…) The focus was on what a danger he was. People talked about his trial and how it saved them from Andrew. No one said what they were doing to save Andrew from himself.

But Neil :’)))))))) noticed :’)))))))) and cares :’)))))))))) ma BOYS

           “When they finally take your medicine away, who are you going to hurt, really?”

           Andrew laughed. “I’m remembering why I don’t like you.”

           “I’m surprised you forgot.”

           “I didn’t,” Andrew said. “I just got distracted for a moment there.”

Mhmm, distracted by what exactly, mon ami.

           Andrew put a hand over Neil’s mouth to shut him up and said, “Liar. But that’s what makes you interesting. It’s also what makes you dangerous. I should know better by now. Maybe I’m not as smart as I thought I was. Should I be disappointed or amused?”

Seriously, all later drama aside, let’s not forget what a fucking Andreil chapter this is. Like. AM I READING THIS SHIT WITH MY OWN TWO EYES.

           The answer was there, right out of reach, close enough Neil could feel it, but too far for him to make sense of. Maybe Andrew felt it too, because even in his drugged haze he knew to shut up. The smile he flashed Neil mocked them both at that near-miss.

For real AM I HALLUCINATING THIS TO GIVE ME SOMETHING NICE TO MAKE UP FOR MY INEVITABLE BREAKDOWN LATER OR???

And then Kevin and Important Exy Business comes in to ruin the moment. Shame.

They get Neil’s racquets, they pay about the price of a nice sports car for them (“If Coach has a problem with the number he can take it up with me, but he should know how expensive I am by now.”, jfc Kevin chill it with the Extra will you), and then they are finally going to the Hemmick’s place.

           From the outside, the house looked perfect. The lawn and vibrant green and neatly trimmed, the cars in the driveway were new and clean, and the house was a pale blue with dark shutters.

Meaning: There are at least three bodies hidden in our basement.

           Andrew gave [the racquet] an experimental twirl, judging the weight of it, then propped it against his shoulder and started for the other cars. (…)

           “He’s got a really shiny car for a minister,” Andrew said. “I’m going to humble it.”

Bahahaha. I actually had to laugh at that. Please do.

Nicky does not agree with me, however, and takes the racquet from him, leaving it in the entrance hall of his parents’ house.

Speaking of: PARENTS.

Nicky’s mum can’t even tell her own nephews apart, which is just honestly a great fucking start.

           “Hello, Maria. How very, very nice to see you again, I’m sure. Very interesting, you letting us back in your house and all. I thought you were going to file a restraining order against me. What happened, did you lose your nerve?”

For some reason, I dislike Andrew’s sass as much as I like Neil’s. His drugged sass, that is – nothing against a good Minyard one-liner. But I still find his mock-cheery, vicious friendliness more uncomfortable and at times even annoying than anything else.

And Nicky’s dad?

About as cool a dude as an uptight bigoted Christian minister can get.

Which is to say - not fucking cool.

           Even across the room Neil could see the tense set to his shoulders (…) Neil hoped that Luther was uncomfortable because he intended to relax old prejudices.

I will bet you literally any amount that he fucking does not.

           “Are you religious?”

           “No,” Neil said. (…)

           “Why not?”

           “I’d rather not get into it,” Neil said. “I don’t want to start a fight.”

           “That’s a first,” Andrew said with a laugh.

I was about so say the same damn thing. Like – Neil “Attitude Problem” Josten, Neil “Attitude Problem” Josten, Neil “Attitude Problem” Josten – doesn’t want to start a fight?

It follows the most awkward meal I’ve encountered in a long time – polite conversation, forced as shit, with pauses in between and exactly no one enjoying themselves.

Then –

           “You’re going back to Germany?” Maria shot her husband a startled look.

           Nicky’s jaw tightened, but he looked his mother in the eye when he said, “Yes. Erik’s career is there. I wouldn’t ask him to leave just for me, and I wouldn’t want him to, anyway. I loved living in Germany. It’s an amazing place. You should visit us sometime.”

Nicky my boy I am so proud of you. I am seriously so proud right in this very moment.

Looking your mom, who has basically kicked you out for being who you are, right in the eye and refusing to be anything other than who you are takes serious, serious guts. <3

           “We cannot condone sin,” Maria said.

           “You don’t have to love the sin,” Nicky said, “but you’re supposed to forgive and love the sinner. Isn’t that what faith is about?”

           “Faith is about following our Lord’s creed,” Luther said.

My eyes are rolling so far back in my skull they actually hurt.

WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE LIKE THIS.

           “We have committed to repairing this family.” (…)

           “Enlighten us,” Andrew said. (…) “If the first step isn’t tolerance, where does a pair of bigots begin in fixing a mess like this?”

           Luther met Andrew’s stare with a calm one of his own. “With reparations for past mistakes. That is why you are here.”

With these cryptic words, Luther and Andrew disappear into the kitchen after dinner for some Fun Talk Times, of which we hear exactly nothing. Then, Luther comes back – Andrew doesn’t.

And when Neil inquires after what’s taking Andrew so long – that is when I start understanding why everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, has warned me about this chapter.

           “In fact, I think it’s promising he has been gone this long. He’ll come back when he’s finished speaking with Drake.”

           Neil’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”

SAME, NEIL.

FUCKING WHAT.

           “This dinner was not originally our idea,” Luther said. “One of Andrew’s former foster brothers came to us for help. They parted on unfriendly terms years ago, and it’s been so long since they last spoke he’s afraid their relationship is irreparably damaged. It made us think of our own familial problems and we were inspired to reach out again.”

This was the moment I started gripping my book so tight I almost ripped it, and did not let go until the chapter was over.

Neil gets his massive racquet, gets Aaron, and gets the fuck up the stairs to find Andrew.

And Andrew he finds.

I’m not quoting anything graphic here because we all fucking know what happens and I don’t wanna make anyone read that again but WHAT THE FUCK.

WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCK WHAT THE FUCVK

At first I’d just thought they’d had a fight, shared a few punches, and then it HIT ME and I was SCREAMING, I HAVE NOT STOPPED SCREAMING FOR FOUR HOURS NOW WHAT THE F U C K.

And if all that wasn’t enough –

           Neil saw too much blood and too much skin. He knew what he was seeing, knew what this meant, but couldn’t believe it yet. That didn’t stop him from leaping at Drake.

           Aaron was faster.

AARON. FUCKING AARON.

WHAT ARE YOU THE FUCK DOING WHAT HAVE YOU DONE OH MY G O D.

THIS BOOK JUST WENT FROM ‘EDGY AND ANGSTY WITH A DASH OF IMPLIED VIOLENCE’ TO ‘ACTUALLY ILLEGALY VIOLENT AS IN FUCKING M U R D E R’ IN THE SPAN OF THREE PAGES.

WHAT

THE

FUCK

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

          Andrew wore only his shirt as he lay facedown on the mattress. He was covered in blood and a hundred shadows that would darken to terrible bruises. He held onto the headboard like he was glued to it, and he was laughing.

Cue the moment my heart fucking broke.

           “Got quiet all of a sudden,” Andrew said, sounding surprised. (…) “Oh, oh, that’s unpleasant. I am not a fan of this at all.” (…) Andrew’s grin was wide and savage as he mocked his own pain.

Andrew. Andrew. ANDREW.

I cannot even put my feelings into words, just – ANDREW.

           The strangled noise Aaron made was his best attempt at Andrew’s name. Andrew, who’d barely acknowledged Aaron’s existence in the entire time Neil had known them, looked immediately to his brother. (…)

           “Andrew,” Aaron said, desperate and frightened. He held onto Andrew like he thought Andrew would disappear if he let go.

AARON. Andrew. Aaron. AARON AND ANDREW.

This is the first time I see them as brothers, not just as two people who happen to look the same. They didn’t even look the same in my head before.

Now they do, and I can picture them clear as day, sitting on a blood-splattered bed, two identical small blonde figures clinging onto each other as if their lives depend on it.

Don’t ask me if I am fucking okay. Don’t.

           Andrew touched Aaron’s temple where he himself was injured as if he expected to find an identical injury there. “Did he touch you?”

HOW IS THAT YOUR MAIN PRIORITY RIGHT NOW.

I have a very, very clear idea of how that is his main priority right now. And I am NOT FCUKING LIKING IT WHAT THE SHITS.

Oh, look – the rest of the family is here.

You know what’s also here?

The fucking pinpoint moment I start going from ‘I guess I like Andrew he has cool moments and he’s an interesting character’ to ‘I LOVE THIS MURDER MANIAC KITTEN MORE THAN MYSELF AND I WANT TO PROTECT HIM ALWAYS’

           “Don’t ask what. You know better. (…) Or do you still think this is a big misunderstanding? Go on, tell me again how I’m too unbalanced to understand normal brotherly love and affection. Tell me this is natural.”

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME.

IS THAT WHAT HAPPENED, PLEASE TELL ME YOU ARE FUCKING KIDDING ME, WHAT THE FUCK.

           “Speaking of misunderstandings, am I remembering this wrong, or didn’t you promise me you would talk to Cass? You told me she wasn’t going to foster any more children after me, but apparently she’s had six more since I left juvie. (…) How many do you think were in her house when Drake was home between deployments?”

NO

NO FUCK NO, IS THIS FOR REAL WHAT!!!!!!!!! THE SHIT!!!!!!!!!!

           “Now you let him into your house,” Andrew said. “You put him under the same roof as your son, as my brother. After everything I did to keep them away from each other?”

This is decidedly NOT GOING INTO A DIRECTION I’M LIKING.

They didn’t know. They didn’t know about all this shit, nobody knew, this has happened so many times before, and nobody knew, and the only person who did know, the only person Andrew opened up to, told him he had misunderstood being raped.

I am going to be fucking sick.

           Andrew peeled his armbands off one at a time and dropped them into Neil’s lap.

           He said something, but Neil didn’t hear him. The pale shade of scarred skin was too familiar and too startling for him not to react.

Sorry to disappoint – I’d love to be all shocked about this, except I’ve seen a billion pieces of fanart with his scars, and I also kinda had the idea myself already.

Not shocked does not mean not emotional, however. ANDREW.

A N D R E W.

The chapter is over. They’re waiting for the police and the ambulance, and the chapter is done, and I had to stuff my arm into my mouth so many times to keep me from screaming.

I have never loved Andrew more than in this very minute. Never. I am now sold on this character.

He could probably bench-press me with his attitude alone and definitely does not need my protection, but I will still protect the absolute everloving fuck out of him.

I need a moment. Or fifty.

Nicki out.

[saegusakin]

Roquill Misc. Child Headcanons

eeooookay so this is mostly going to be headcanons about my personal fankiddo for roquill, lucille ‘lucy’ meredith quill, so just a fair warning 

alright so i’ve mentioned lucy before in my last headcanons post, she’s rocket’s daughter, he carried her to term, she’s a cute little girl with brown hair just like quill and little raccoon ears and a tail like rocket, though ultimately she looks more human than anything, she could be mistaken for human apart from the ears and tail

she’s a snarky little shit who has all the charm of quill and all the inner thoughts of ‘wow, people are dumb’ of rocket, probably rocket’s temper at times too but that’s all okay they all know how to handle it

her codename is bandit because ofc she has a mask just like quill does, except optimized for her ears, and it has a black stripe across the eye part too, sometimes star-bandit to connect her to both of her dads, she’s happy either way tho

the next part is going to be about baby lucy

okay so after the c-section delivery rocket is exhausted but his protective instincts definitely take over and he immediately wants to hold her and if he wasn’t so worn out at the moment he’d curl around her too, she’s his baby, gotta keep her warm and happy

when they get back to the milano they have to have lucy share a room with groot bc not that many rooms, tho groot just ends up wandering into mantis’ room at some point and sleeping there because of the occasional times lucy wakes up and cries

she’s a pretty happy baby, tho, she’s got a pretty smile just like her dad, quill loves her to no end && the minute people they know before see her and have a ??? reaction, quill is immediately on ‘HAVE YOU MET MY DAUGHTER?? SHES AWESOME I LOVE HER SHE’S CUTE AND ONE DAY SHE’LL TOTALLY KICK ASS TOO she bites sometimes tho so don’t touch her unless she touches you first’

just imagine quill just finding this mug that says ‘best dad in the galaxy’ and whoops his now that’s his title anyone who claims otherwise can fight him unless it’s rocket in which case they share there’s also that one post circling around tumblr where the dads and kids have matching shirts, there’s this one pair that has the dad wearing a shirt that says ‘THE ORIGINAL’ and the kid wearing a shirt that says ‘THE REMIX’ and you can bet anything that quill would immediately get both of those He Loves His Kid

rocket is a bit more subtle about it but he loves his little girl more than anything too and immediately nods nods nods every time quill says she’ll kick ass one day with a big smirk he’s the one that constantly wants to hold her and just hug her and he more often than not has the internal struggle of ‘I HAVE A GUN DO I HOLD THE GUN or do i hold my little girl my precious treasure gotta protect gotta hug her’, he hardly trusts anyone else with holding her apart from quill bc ‘no, no, shes mine and pete’s, she’s our cutie and no one else needs to worry it’s ok’ it’s adorable tho he’s very snuggly and his ears tend to twitch happily a lot and he likes kissing her on the top of her head, which makes her giggle she’s also one of the few things that can immediately calm him down from an anger spell which is great he purrs a lot around her too he’s super happy

lucy loves all of her family honestly tho but she loves her dads the most. and groot. of course.

anything that makes lucy cry tho is a Threat and rocket is the first to retaliate against any threats and he will tear someone apart if they even make her sniffle a little bit, and if some jackass got the brilliant idea to try to hurt her in any way, quill might actually kill that person before rocket could because crying? that could be an accident, she can calm down it’s ok i’m good at getting her to smile again anyway. threats? hi yes i’m going to kill you and spread your body parts across several different star systems so you can’t even get a proper burial, asshat, and i might not bother to kill you before i rip you apart. she is protected by a strong family and her dads are the most protective of all

she usually goes to sleep listening to the same music all her family does and quill loves that bc it’s like what his mom did for him it makes him tear up a bit if he thinks about it too much so now both quills are immediately just a bit comforted by the tunes it’s a thing in the family

her first word is gun. rocket is the one to first hear it while she’s just crawling around on the floor and he’s trying to work on weapons at the same time, she just looks up and with a small pause says ‘gun’ and he’s a mix of !! SHE SPEAKS and PFFFHAHAHA OFC SHE’S LIKE ME AFTER ALL and a bit later rocket just. brings her over to everyone. she says ‘gun’ again and he just. grins. quill cracks up. lucy learns to say the words gun, bomb, and prison fairly early in life. there is at least one time when they’re considering taking a contract from someone shady, they accidentally bring her along, rocket’s holding her, she clearly dislikes the person immediately so she looks them dead in the eyes with a hard frown and says ‘prison’ and rocket has to barely contain himself from laughing too hard, they end up not doing it based entirely on lucy shaking her head repeatedly and going ‘prison prison prison’

related mildly: there is probably at least some point where they hit a rough patch flying and lucy is shaken and she promptly screams ‘SON OF A BITCH’ and rocket and quill immediately start cackling and they have to focus on flying and quill just barely shouts back ‘LUCY DON’T SAY THAT DAD SAYS NO’  she still says it at least once in polite company and quill and rocket still end up wheezing with laughter

also the prosthetics thing probably transfers lucy looks at someone’s prosthetic arm, points at it ‘need it.’ rocket just goes SNRRK and is just ‘wELL,, SHE’S RIGHT YOU KNOW--SNRRK--SHE’S RIGHT WE NEeD IT’ while lucy giggles

as she gets older she gets a lot of quill’s confident attitude, she’s very headstrong and heroic but she’s super-stubborn too and has little temperamental fits, she’s a mix of rocket and quill after all. given the opportunity too when she reaches the age where she understands it all she can and will flirt with almost anyone, she is a master of the fingerguns too there is probably at least once when she hits on a girl and just ‘Hey if you ever wanna meet up with a badass space hero....call me, alright? I’m available.’ she winks with the biggest grin, gives the fingerguns, and moonwalks away and her first thought while leaving is SHIT I SHOULDA WINKED WITH THE OTHER EYE?? 

not that rocket would ever really trust someone with her to begin with, he is the dad that sits at the front entrance polishing a rifle if anyone dares to hit on her, she can easily walk up and take it away but then he’ll just pull out a machete and start polishing that instead, this process is infinite because rocket is very good at being protective and has a lot of weapons

unlike her dads who are totally flashy, showy, lucy picks up a pretty good talent in, of all things, sniping, which is most likely found out when a target is running away, and suddenly everyone hears a ‘BANG’ and the target falls over, dead the guardians just look around at each other like ‘did you shoot that? no’ up until they all pause and then slowly look at lucy, who stands there with a sniper rifle, her mask on, and just quietly mumbles ‘....that was what I was supposed to do, right’ rocket nearly tackles her in a hug, laughing, THAT’S HIS GIRL

she’s still very show-off-y, but if she gets serious that’s when she tries to go ONE SHOT, ONE KILL, and she’s successful a good amount of the time, but there are times that she’s not the best like when everyone’s not even sure where a head is to shoot at she’s not too great a close-quarters combat either but she can make do if she needs to, she’s best at holding it on the back lines and maybe sometimes creatively getting in closer on improvisation and planning (sometimes) it’s just that it’s a strong possibility some guy could fall over, dead, headshot, and she just walks up, her special earphones on her ears and everyone can just faintly hear do you remember~ the twenty-first night of september~ 

she never has any formal schooling but she’s fairly smart anyway, rocket made sure of that, but she knows how to pilot spacecraft pretty well and is pretty great at social cues, which is all she needs to get by along with her weapons training, she slowly learns how to build stuff too after a while, this stuff is in her dna but it takes a bit to bring it out

lucy miiiiight have celestial power in her dna very faintly, but it’s unlikely it’d ever be fully triggered, the most it does for her is give her the ability to take far more punishment than above-average much like her dad, she can breathe in space a bit longer than normal humans could and it takes a lot to knock her out

she probably also still instinctively bites at anyone who tries to touch her by surprise, her teeth aren’t sharp or anything but she will bite she can’t help it

she’s also a pretty good dancer because of course she is

i might add more stuff later but i think this is good for now

[hawk-eye-kazunari]

Hi Takao! (This is a lot btw sorry if it's too much) 1,2,3,5,6,7,8,9,11,12,13,20,24,26,27,28,29,30,31,33,34,45,46,47,48,62,63,70,71,73,74,78,79,80,81,83,85,86,87,89,90,91,97,106,110,111,113,115,117,127,135,147,168,169,171,175,180,181,182,183,185,193,196,198,199,204,208 and 213 (sorry if it's a lot)

Sorry for answering this so late! It took a while to answer everything. (Sorry if I forgot to answer anything.)1 - How are you?I'm good. What about you?2 - Post a picture of yourself.Ah, pictures don't load on here. I'll post is separately.3 - Do you ever wish you were someone else?Nope! If I was someone else, I wouldn't be with Shin-chan, and he'd be all alone.5 - How old are you?I am 16, nearly 17!6 - Age you get mistaken for?20-something. They mistake me for a reckless college student.7 - Your zodiac/horoscope and if you think it fits your personality.Not really. It says Scorpios (me!) get jealous and violent easily.8 - What did you do on your last birthday?I ate an entire cake.9 - What is one thing you would like to accomplish before your next birthday?I would like to come out to my parents (still haven't done that).11 - Have you ever dyed your hair?Nope!12 - What is your eye color?It's this gold color. Really pretty.13 - If you could change your eyes color, would you?Pfft, no! I love my eye color!20 - Left or right handed?Right handed. It gets complicated when Shin-chan sits on the /inside/ of a booth, or on my right side.24 - Do you have any pets?No. But I do want a cuddle buddy.26 - Something you're working on right now:Right now I'm working on answering this ask.27 - Do you have any "rules" about food?What kind of rules?28 - Where are you from?Japan. 😎29 - What would you say is your best quality?My cheerfulness!30 - What do you think you're really good at?Making Shin-chan smile.31 - What do you think you're really bad at?Keeping him smiling.33 - Are you a bad person?I don't... think so?34 - Are you nice to everyone?I try to be.45 - Is your life anything like it was 2 years ago?No. And boy am I glad.46 - Do you replay things that have happened in your head?Sometimes. Unintentionally. Especially a few events that's happened recently. 😖😖😖47 - Have you ever had an imaginary friend?No. Strange, am I right?48 - Say 10 facts about your room:1.) It is sooo cluttered. 2.) But the floor is clear. 3.) My bed is huge and takes up a lot of my room. 4.) I have, like, three bookshelves all filled. Only one of them has actual books. 5.) I have a desk dedicated to studying with Shin-chan (although we usually just study on the bed) 6.) I have, like, an entire shrine dedicated to Shin-chan. Don't tell him though. It's hiding in the closet. 7.) There's one corner in my room specifically for screaming. 8.) I have a secret crop top collection in my top drawer. 9.) It has a black carpet. 10.) It is very comfortable.62 - Describe yourself in one word/sentence:I am a happy fool.63 - A quote you try to live by:"People who enjoy life are winners." - by Yours Truly70 - What is your favorite thing to do?Hang out with Shin-chan and collect trading cards.71 - What's your favorite color?Green or orange. 😉😉73 - What's your favorite movie?Don't have one.74 - What are your favorite books?Too many favorites~78 - What is your favorite type of food?Korean. It's so good!79 - Your favorite ice cream?Chocolate!80 - What's your favorite animal?Cats.81 - Dogs or cats?Heheh. Cats.83 - What is your favorite flower?THE FLAME LILY! It's so cool!85 - What is your favorite season?Fall!86 - What are the top five places you wish you could go before you die?Hm. I don't really mind as long as I'm with Shin-chan!87 - What are four things you can't live without and why?1.) SHIN-CHAN! He's is the love of my life! 2.) My family. I love them! Also I literally wouldn't be here if my mom and dad hadn't... yeah. 3.) BASKETBALL! That's what connected Shin-chan and I! 4.) Food and water. I'd die without it.89 - What's your favorite television show?There are waayyyy too many favorites to choose. But I did really like 'Jessica Jones', an American one. Although, I would not recommend children watching it.90 - Favorite places to shop at?Down at Nakano Broadway, there's a lot of shops I like.91 - Say 2 facts about your favorite things:He is tall. And extremely huggable.97 - There is.... no 97.106 - Would you ever smile at a stranger?Yes. Why wouldn't I?110 - Who is your most loyal friend?Shin-chan.111 - Is there anyone you can tell EVERYTHING to?Shin-chan. And my mom.113 - Something you've lied about?Being cheered up by people's words about the "lustful" situation. I'm fine now, though!115 - Say 5 facts about your best friend:90% leg. Extremely awkward. Likes to show affection through actions rather than words. Heart of gold! Tsundere.117 - Story of your first kiss?Me and Shin-chan just finished talking over the date ditch situation and he was going to kiss my cheek but I turned my head and we kissed. He was a blushing, stuttering mess. It was so cute!127 - What is the first thing you noticed in someone?Their eyes. Or their smile.135 - Say 1 fact about the person you like:He has very nimble fingers.147 - Is there a boy/girl who you would do absolutely everything for?Shiiin-chaaan.168 - The last time you felt jealous and why?Uhhh, a few weeks ago, when Shin-chan was practicing his full court shots.169 - What is your definition of cheating?Going behind your lover's back and getting with someone else without permission.171 - Do you forgive betrayal?Sometimes. I mean, if you mean cheating? I'd let them explain. Although I probably wouldn't forgive it.175 - A description of the person you dislike the most:He's a brunet, and very short. Blue eyes, annoying. Sour attitude, abusive, violent.180 - Share a relationship story:Oh, yikes. Um, my only other relationship wasn't that good, and you guys know almost everything about me and Shin-chan's relationship, so... I'll just tell you about my last one. My ex boyfriend and I were out on a date, at some restaurant. He was being rude to me, and so when he was using the bathroom, the waitress came y and asked if I was okay. Of course, I said yes because I didn't want her to freak out and she just shook her head. When he came back, she was carrying a pitcher of tea and spilled it all over him. He got so angry, and was about to hit her before the owner of the store came out and ordered him to leave. My ex rolled his eyes and held out his hand for me to grab, telling me that we're going. I refused, and he went to grab my wrist and drag me out, but then the waitress and the owner stopped him and forced him out. Then they said that my meal was on the house. My ex wasn't happy when I saw him the next day.181 - How often do you listen to music?Everyday! Music helps sooth me.182 - What kind of music do you like?I like pop as well as hip hop, classical, and the music used for belly dancing.183 - Do you like to dance?Yes! I love dancing! Especially with my sister.185 - Have you heard a song that reminds you of someone today?No, sadly.193 - You're in a tattoo parlor about to get inked. What are you getting done?Maybe a basketball at the base of my spine or on the inside of my wrist. That'd be cool.196 - You're given $10,000... under one condition: you cannot keep the money for yourself. Who do you give it to?Uh, I'd give my mother $5,000 so she can have a little bit of spending money. And then I'd put the rest into my sister's college fund.198 - If you were an element on the Periodic table, what would you be?I don't know the periodic table, but whichever is the shiniest because I shine so bright.199 - If you had to delete one year of your life completely, which one would it be?The year I dated a jerk.204 - Halloween costume idea?I want to be the Spiderman to Shin-chan's Deadpool or vice versa. Whichever works.208 - 5 things within touching distance:1.) My bookbag. 2.) Shin-chan. 3.) A basketball. 4.) My cellphone. 5.) A box of candy.213 - If you met me, what would you do?I'd hug you! You're so awesome.

[iloveshippingkitty]

Prinxiety - Camisado

Okay so this is inspired by the P!ATD song of the same name Human College AU

Trigger Warning: ABUSE (PARENTAL ABUSE OF CHILD), HOSPITALS, BLOOD, BEING PHYSICALLY SICK

IF ANY OF THOSE WILL UPSET OR TRIGGER YOU DON'T READ PLEASE

The IV and your hospital bed, this was no accident, this was a therapeutic chain of events. -

Roman sat by his grandmother talking to her, she had had a fall but was okay. Only a twisted ankle but she was old enough that they made sure she was okay with each fall.

His grandmother, Julie, was great company and they talked about college.

“How is your thesis going, Prince? Good?” Julie asked and Roman nodded, the nickname he wore like a badge came from his grandma distracted from the actual question, “Is that a lie?”

“Yes.. I have slept 4 hours in 2 days.”

“I wish you’d get more. But when does your thesis have to be in?”

“Two weeks.” “You’ll be around for Pumpkin Pie after and then we can have your special hot chocolate.” Julie said. This wasn’t a request.

“Yes I will.” He confirmed thinking fondly on special hot chocolate (hot chocolate with Magic Stars and whiskey in to help him sleep). Then he saw someone get rushed down the hall on a gurney, a guy he thought he knew.

“Anyway, Prince, how’s that friend of yours?” Julie decided to distract a morbidly curious Roman from checking out whoever it was.

“Which, grandma? I do have more than one.” Roman looked back at her with a slight snark to his look, knowing exactly what she was doing and not quite minding but in her hastiness had been vague.

“You know, that Jason boy.”

“You know that isn’t his actual name don’t you? It’s a nickname to do with Heathers.” Prince laughed. Someone regularly nicknamed as Anxiety (and not so often nicknamed JD/Jason from Heathers) was what he would class as frenemy in his college. They had a thing for competing to be heard when they had opposing opinions which what he later found out was quite a surprise to other people. They had only ever known Anxiety to be fairly quiet but with a quick wit. Roman liked that he made Anxiety come out of himself a bit more even if it annoyed him that the guy went on an entire rant of why optimism was ‘dangerous’. And annoyed him even more that he caught and called Roman out on the fact he was looking at him a lot and blushing during an argument. Not like he liked him like that. No. Not at all.

“Oh, what is his name then, sweetheart?”

“… Actually I don’t know. We all call him Anx for Anxiety.” He responds to which Julie gives him a pointed look, “What? We don’t know his name. It’s what he introduces himself as. He really sets himself up for pessimism. You know what he said in a debate against me the other day? That optimism is ‘dangerous’. I mean can you believe it. He has so much he could feel good about. People would kill for hair like his. He’s born with a talent for picking up stuff, he’s witty, people don’t dislike him by any means and he’d have more friends if he only spoke a little more.” 

Julie’s pointed look intensifies but as he doesn’t notice she realises the poor Roman must have quite the crush. Unaware to his own ranting and her attitude, she laughed.

That’s when he finally looked at her, “He’s right you know, Prince. Optimism, while definitely necessary, can be dangerous. You don’t know his home life, sweetheart. You were incredibly lucky to be born into a family that you never even had to come out to, that we’ve all been lucky enough to not struggle through losses and diseases more than our family can take. And even when my Alan died, rest his soul, he died quickly and peacefully. And I know you know that but I think you sometimes forget that not everyone will have all those things. His family may not be nice, he may be or have been ill. Felt loss to such an extent that it takes his initial optimism and crushes it. Because sometimes life does that to people.” 

Roman had known his fair share of difficulties but a great support network he had always been lucky to have. He had not thought of those things before and his heart went out to Anxiety, suddenly curious to know his actual name …also whereabouts to see if he was okay.

The distraction although slightly upsetting to Roman had worked ….up until the screaming started.

Down the corridor, 4 doors down across from them, loud screaming started instantaneously, echoing.

A code and a name was said over the tannoy and more professionals made their way into the room and sitting up straight, he gave a wide-eyed look to Julie. Julie, knowing his chivalrous side had felt the call to someone so distraught and wanted to fix it. That’s all he wanted to do. She put a soft hand on his and knowing what it meant he sat back more relaxed, even if a little forced.

A minute or so later the screaming stops and a further 5 minutes after that Julie nudged him to urge him to go see who it was. The look she gave he knew he was to follow the rules of “be quick, non-intrusive and at least attempt to keep to himself”. Quietly he gave her a soft smile and walked away down the corridor to look through the door window. There sat a half-laying, shaken, head over a disposable sick-bowl was undoubtedly Anxiety. Roman had seen him earlier that day, he swore he could feel his heart breaking as he realised it had been him screaming.

He nearly walked in then remembered how worried his grandma would be if he didn’t go back and tell her why he was going to be a while so off he headed back.

“It’s Anxiety, grandma, he’s here. He was the one screaming. I have to make sure he’s okay.” He quickly told her and with a nod each he headed back then knocked on the door, wanting to enter but not wanting to intrude.

Anxiety looks up and it takes a moment for Roman to recognise him. His face is swollen on one side, he’s bleeding a lot from a few different cuts and his fear is evident upon his face until he recognises the knocker. Then he lets tears fall and indicates him to come in.

“Suppose there’s no hiding this is there.” Anxiety groans, his words slurred. Then he realises the tears are of shame. Whatever has happened to Anxiety, it happens to him on a regular basis. Enough that rather than his worry being about his own health, he worries that Roman will tell the others almost like he’d tell them and.laugh. To that Roman’s heart drops into his stomach.

“No, Anx. No there’s not.” He replies solemnly. There’s something about Roman’s tone that makes Anx look up. He can tell even without his saying so that Roman won’t tell people, there was just no more hiding it from him. This was backed up by him asking, “How? Who? What? Why? When? Where? …. Okay, no.. I’m back with my brain. Who did this and where can I find and vanquish them?”

“Okay, I don’t think anyone has used the word vanquish since the 19th Century.” Anxiety barked out a laugh seeped with pain then continued, “It’s pretty obvious how, if it’s not evident I got beat to a pulp with anything in reach I think he’d take a second stab at it. As for why, it’s because he had a ‘woman of the night’ around which I obviously knew nothing of and so when I showed up at home he wanted to teach me a lesson. Which is ironic considering he’s beat me for going to college too so there seems to be no end to the madness. But honestly? I think it’s cos when mum died my dad had had nothing to do with us and would rather it had stayed that way. Now that I know what he’s like, me too.”

Prince felt figuratively sick to his stomach. Anxiety was literally sick.

The initial worry for Anxiety had not only been correct but the reality of it all was far worse. He wanted to hold the poor guy until everything was okay again. But he couldn’t. He felt helpless. Then with a moment of maturity he realised there was no point worrying how he could be of help without asking Anxiety exactly what he needed.

This is when Anxiety’s face conveyed only horror and he shifted back whilst sat in the bed. It made him look more like a terrified child than a worried young man.

“What’s up?”

“He doesn’t know where I am, does he?” He finally uttered.

Prince gawped like a fish.

“He does, he does. He’s going to come up and finish me off. Please Roman. Keep me safe.” Anxiety grasps his hand and stares him in the eyes.

While trying to calm him down, a nurse walks in, looks over them and walks to another patient. Roman can feel his skin crawl from the look but he can’t tell if the nurse is judging them or is analysing Anx. Both make him feel uneasy.

Brushing his thumb on the top of Anxiety’s hand seems to help him feel calmer. Then the nurse finishes with a patient and the day collapses in on itself.

“Due to your medical insurance running out, you are going to be transferred. Expect your bill within 30 days.” They say apathetically.

Roman can’t help himself.

“WHAT?!” He shouts. To which Anxiety tenses and he realises what he’s done wrong and turns to him.and apologises, “I’m sorry. I won’t be loud again.”

“It’s fine, I want to shout too. But my ribs are broken, thanks dad, and I don’t know how much damage it will do.” Anx smiles softly then adds, “so quoting Professor Lin, ‘indoor voices please’.“

They quietly laugh at that. They turn to find the nurse having left. The worry seeped from Anx and he gave Roman’s hand a small squeeze. At that he looked back at Anxiety meeting each others eyes. He could drown and stay stuck in his amber eyes.

“So…”

“I can’t afford another hospital bill.”

Roman thought on it all a moment, “…Mum’s a surgery GP so if you want you can stay at mine until we can find you an apartment.”

“You mean till I feel better?”

“…No. Not really. I mean, until you get an apartment. I’m not letting that guy back into your life.” Roman said, knowingly.

“I wouldn’t want to take your space,” replies Anxiety, looking at their hands instead.

“You wouldn’t.” He defends then pauses and thinks about how and why he may feel like that, “I mean if you feel like that we can find elsewhere or a friend is moving out the flatshare so you could always join. If you want?”

“Really? You wouldn’t hate it?”

“Hate it? I’d love it, Anx.”

With that, Roman tries to help him up. Unfortunately with the hospital gown it shows all the scars on his back, arms and legs. His heart went out to Anx and he tried his best to be gentle. As Anx tried to stand he could feel the pain radiating over his ribs and his mind flew back to his dad. The big bald man standing over him, surrounded by glass, in the fetal position, with his big boots stomping on the side of his torso. Again. And again. And again.

“Anx?” Prince asked softly. Half way up Anx had stopped in a daze. Then flinched a few times and he knew he would have to bring Anx out of it. Anx could hear him but he couldn’t find the ways to respond “Anx, look at me.”

When he knew Anx was trying but couldnt do it he brought hisself down to be eye to eye.

Roman put a hand through the young man’s soft hair, pushing it away from his eyes as he told him, “I will protect you. I promise. I promise I will. You’re amazing and brilliant and the highlight of my day but you need someone to take your fights. And we can do this together. I promise.”

Very slowly Anx’s eyes stopped glazing over and he looked more with it and after processing what was said he blushed and without a word rested his forehead on Roman’s and hummed. Finally, he spoke, “You’re like a knight.”

“Excuse me, I’m quite obviously a prince. A disney prince at that.”

“Haha, fine, Princey.. Wait, I’m the highlight of your day?”

Roman blushed deeply, “I mean, yeah. I.. Uh.. Think you’re great.”

Anxiety actually laughed, “I think you’re great too.. Princey.”

“Lets get you dressed and discharged shall we? Then we can talk about how great you think I am.” Prince finally remembered where they were and very slowly and a few winces involved, they stood properly. “So, how great do you think I am?”

“You haven’t got any confidence problems, do you, Roman?”

“The cutest guy I know told me he thinks I’m great, how could I possibly have a problem with that?” They smile at each other then Roman goes to tell his grandma that he’s taking Anx home to which she winks as Anx gets the clothes from the bedside table and goes to the bathroom to change.

Meeting him out in the hall, Anx leans on Roman and intertwines their hands once more as they head out.

[charlieism]

Holding Hands

Hey friends! Here is a Prinxiety oneshot I wrote on Valentines day. If you read it I hope you think it’s good and that you enjoy it :) You can also find it on Wattpad and AO3.

Anxiety was screaming.

So was Prince.

WHAT HAD MORALITY DONE? IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE VALERIE THAT HE WAS USING TO SHOW THE OTHERS HOW TO GET A VALENTINE'S DATE!

NOT PRINCEY!

NOW THEY WERE HOLDING HANDS!

Anxiety hadn't even realised at first! He'd just assumed Dad had teleported Valerie over to him, it hadn't even clicked that it was Prince's hand he was holding until he realised that he was holding a hand that was slightly too big and slightly too rough to be Valerie's. And when he looked up at Prince, Prince just looked stunned. And then looked back at Anxiety, and they realised what was happening. And Prince started screaming. So Anxiety did too, once he got over the initial shock.

Anxiety was vaguely aware of Logic congratulating Morality, who seemed blissfully unaware of the chaos he had caused.

Evil.

Anxiety was still screaming. He looked from Dad to Prince to Dad to Prince, then realised they were still holding hands. He wrenched his hand out of Prince's hand, who recoiled like he'd been hit. They both flung a look of horror and barely concealed disgust at each other, before simultaneously rounding on Morality.

"Dad! How could you?" Prince wailed. Dad continued playing pat-a-cake with Valerie.

"How could I what, kiddo?" He asked cheerfully.

"For one thing, teleport me! I didn't even know you could do that! How does that even work? How do you teleport another person?" Prince exclaimed. "And secondly, make me hold hands with- with- with Anxiety!" He moaned. Anxiety shook his head vigorously in agreement. For all his mocking and teasing and flirting, Anxiety did not want to be near Prince. Enemies, remember? He just did that stuff to see Prince stammer or falter.

Hey, it worked sometimes!

Morality finally broke away from the clapping game, looking amused. Anxiety was outraged, this wasn't funny!

"But why not? You two are obviously perfect for each other." Anxiety choked on air and Prince stumbled over his own feet.

"E- excuse me?" He cried.

"What? No we aren't! What- why would you even think that?" Anxiety was bewildered; how the heck had Morality come up with that idea? However Logic cleared his throat.

"It's quite obvious, actually, although perhaps you two are incognizant of it." Dad blinked. Anxiety faltered and frowned.

"Uh, what?" Prince asked. Logic sighed.

"Nevermind. But the evidence is all there! It's a reasonable conclusion to come to, actually."

"What evidence? Anxiety and I are the least compatible personalities, I don't understand your reasoning."

"I second that." Anxiety spoke up.

"Would you like some examples? Because I can provide them." Logic snipped. "Take in the fact that yes, you two do often argue about everything, but you also come to an agreement and no argument is left to continue. Of course one could say that that's what all friend do, but you two are supposed to be enemies, correct?" Logic explained. Anxiety sneered.

"That doesn't prove anything." He said scornfully.

"I agree. With that sentence. And the statement it was trying to make." Prince said warily.

"There's also the flirting that we have to deal with. From both sides." Logic said dryly, and continued before Anxiety could protest. "And honestly, you two can't seem to get past the fact that you believe you are opposites and therefore should not interact to actually see that you are constantly interacting." Logic sounded 100% done, and it made Anxiety wonder how long he'd wanted to say that. Dad clucked his tongue.

"Also you two just look so cute together. Aw!" Morality was getting all heart eyed thinking about it.

Disgusting.

Anxiety glanced at Prince, who in turn gazed at him. They both looked each other up and down and wrinkled their noses. The silence in the room grew thick and heavy, settling on shoulders and dragging them down, until it felt like you could cut the air with a knife. Finally Prince jerked a thumb at the corpse of the weird dragon-witch-hybrid thing that was just lying on the floor.

"I, uh, should probably dispose of that now." The others nodded and Prince bit his lip before turning around and gingerly placing his foot on the monster's leg. A moment later they both faded from sight.

"You know, it is Valentine's day. You two would just be so perfect together." Dad sighed. Anxiety rolled his eyes.

"Anxi, seriously. It is painstakingly obvious to Morality and I that you two are basically in love already. Just ask him out!" Logic snapped. Anxiety frowned at him.

"You think Prince likes me?" Anxiety snorted, then backtracked. "Wait, no, you think I like Prince?" Logic raised an unimpressed eyebrow.

"No. I know you like Prince. And he likes you back so can you please get it over with and become boyfriends. Thank you." Logic turned to walk away, and Anxiety could hear him muttering under his breath.

"Goodness, it's like we're 12 year old girls, I am above this." He told himself indignantly, and Anxiety snorted. Logic scowled at him and grabbed Dad's arm.

"Come on, Morality, let's go." Dad smiled at Logic and nodded.

"Okay!" Then he turned to Anxiety. "Best of luck with Prince, although you won't need it. You'll be fine! Oh, gosh, I just love this all so much. They're so cute! Oh my goodness." Morality sighed happily, making Logic groan, and then they were gone, leaving Anxiety standing alone with his thoughts.

It was utterly ridiculous. Completely absurd. Bizarre, ludicrous, preposterous, laughable, all of that. Dad and Logic didn't know what they were talking about.

...

Did they?

Logic was rarely ever wrong, and Dad never got so passionate over something he wasn't sure about. Of course Logic was so unbelievably wrong when it came to Valentine's earlier. In fact they both had been hilariously mistaken. They were probably wrong this time, too. But it made Anxiety think.

Did he really hate Prince? No, of course not. He'd always known that; it was more like extreme dislike. The royal boy had his moments, Anxiety couldn't deny it. He wasn't all bad, although he could be much better. But maybe, like Logic had said, maybe that was just what he trained himself to think? To automatically reject the idea of Prince Sanders because they were polar opposites, and therefore couldn't be together? At all? It was possible. Like, Thomas was literally conditioned to shut the closet door before he went to sleep in fear of the demigorgon, of which probably didn't exist. Probably. So maybe, if he got past the immediate block of don't like Prince, too bright and cheerful and optimistic, maybe he would find something else? Found he... felt something else? Ugh, he sounded so whiny. It couldn't be true, and even if he did, there was no way Prince would ever feel the same way.

Right?

After all, hundreds of Fanders shipped them together, which was still weird, how did they even come up with that? And then there was Thomas, completely unafraid to approach the topic of, what were they all calling it, Prinxiety? Apparently even Thomas was kind of on board with it (although Anxiety thought that was kind of strange because they were both just sides of Thomas' personality, so he was basically shipping himself. Or whatever.) And now Dad and Logic. Could this many people really be wrong? Could they all see something that Prince and Anxiety were too ignorant, t̶o̶o̶ ̶a̶f̶r̶a̶i̶d̶, to see? Anxiety sank back into Thomas' mind to have a long think about everything.

Anxiety didn't know how long it had been, with just him and his tornado of swirling thoughts, but he'd come to a conclusion. Maybe he did like Prince. A little. Although Prince's never ending optimism, his abundance of joy and cheer, his fanciful imagination, wild ideas and often arrogant attitude could be annoying, they could also be endearing or refreshing. (Except for maybe the arrogance. Anxiety still thought Prince could tone that down a bit.) And yes, although the personalities technically all look the same... they don't. Anxiety didn't find Logic or Morality cute. They just seemed different. Prince was, well, hot. Anxiety wasn't gonna lie, the royal boy was charming. And maybe Anxiety, although it was immensely difficult to admit, maybe Anxiety had the tiniest of crushes on him. Anxiety couldn't explain it. Maybe it was just because Prince was so different to himself, it was like every time he had a conversation with Prince he got a new outlook on the world. And it was Valentine's day. Although if Prince said no, Anxiety would probably die of embarrassment, he made up his mind to go find him and possibly ask him out on a date.

It took a while, but eventually he found where Prince was. It was a place deep in the mind, a place where Anxiety had never been before, but he could feel that Prince was this way. All the personalities were connected, because they were essentially the same person. So if Anxiety concentrated hard enough, he could something faint leading him in the direction of Prince. The area Anxiety had wandered into was dark, shadows everywhere but where Anxiety stepped foot, the darkness cold and unforgiving. Anxiety had burrowed down as far as possible in his big black hoodie, the hood pulled right over his head. He was extremely anxious right now, all possible and impossible scenarios running through his head as he tried to see through the dark. Why was Prince here? What was this place? Gosh, Anxiety couldn't even see where he was going. He'd been wandering for ages through the shadows. He could be right about to step off a cliff and he wouldn't even k-

"ANXIETY! STOP!" Prince's voice boomed all around him, and Anxiety flinched violently, stumbling backwards and falling in fright. The shadows separated around him. After the heavy, impenetrable silence he had grown accustomed, to the sudden noise was a shock. Anxiety just sat on the hard ground in a daze for a few minutes, hand over his heart as he tried to steady his breathing. Soon, when he regained all his senses, Anxiety looked around and became aware of something that was glowing faintly making his way towards him.

It looked like it had a humanoid shape as it rushed in his direction. Anxiety suddenly realised it was Prince that shone in the darkness, running towards Anxiety. Anxiety tried to stand up on unsteady legs as Prince got closer. He was standing with his arms wrapped around his waist, as if he was holding himself together, when Prince reached him.

"Anxiety!" Prince immediately gasped, reached out to snag Anxiety's soft hoodie. "What are you doing here? Are you alright? You scared me!" Prince rushed. Anxiety was wide eyed with surprise.

"Um, I came here to find you. I'm fine? And what do you mean I scared you? You scared me!" Anxiety said defensively. Instead of Prince snapping back, as Anxiety had expected, he only looked apologetic, with a hint of fear laced in his expression.

"My apologies, Anxiety, but it was all I could do to stop you. You were about to walk off The Edge." Prince told Anxiety in a hushed time.

"What do you mean, walk off the edge?" He frowned at Prince, who bit his lip. "And why are you glowing?" Sure enough, Prince was still surrounded by a soft golden light that reached out in dim, sparkling beams, and disintegrated the shadows.

"I glow whenever I come here, so I can see where I'm going. I don't know how, it just happens. But Anxiety, you must be careful when you come here!"

"Why?"

"Because Anxiety we're on the edge of Forgetting." Prince seemed deadly serious, and suddenly Anxiety was afraid.

"What?"

"Forgetting. It's a big, endless chasm in Thomas' mind were all things that are forgotten fall into. If you fall in, Anxiety, you'll be forgotten, and there's no coming back. Why are you even here? It's extremely dangerous!" Anxiety gulped.

"Uh.. how far away from the edge was I?" He whispered. Prince shuffled away by only two steps and extended his arm. The faint golden glow was enough to illuminate a sudden drop, where the darkness seemed solid and absolute, impossible to see through or break, and endless, timeless sea of pitch black. Cold seemed to emanate from the chasm, making goosebumps rise on Anxiety's skin. He had been only a few steps away from his doom. It made Anxiety dizzy.

"Oh my goodness... wait, Princey, why were you here?" Anxiety questioned, stepping away from the fall. Prince moved with him.

"I was disposing of the corpse of the Dragon Witch, as I do with all monsters I fight. I push them in here, and they are gone." Anxiety stared at him.

"You come to this place every time you fight a monster? I don't- I don't even like it once! I want to leave! But you keep coming back? That's... actually pretty brave. And stupid. But, yeah, brave." Anxiety stuttered nervously, remembering that he didn't want to offend Prince. And it was the truth; the neverending darkness and danger of this place made Anxiety want to leave as quick as possible and never come back. But suddenly Prince smiled.

His smile was huge, full of delight, and it seemed to light up the shadows. Prince's eyes twinkled happily.

"You think I'm brave? Thank you! I always knew I was courageous, but to hear it from someone else is... a great feeling. Thank you, Anxiety. I do concede, though, it was brave of you to venture here in search of me. May I ask why you did?" Prince's joy and honesty kind of floored Anxiety for a second.

"Oh, uh, yeah, well... you were gone for a while, and... I just, uh, wanted to see if you were okay?"

"You... came to check on me? That's sweet. But we should get out of here." Then Prince grabbed Anxiety's hand, who flinched violently, and teleported them out of there.

When they appeared they were in the lounge, and Anxiety immediately tried to disentangle he and Prince's hands. Was it his imagination, or did Prince look disappointed when they let go? Anxiety kind of regretted it, holding Prince's hand was almost nice, considering he'd only done it briefly twice. But Anxiety suddenly realised that me might never get to again if he didn't tell Prince how he felt. What could go wrong?

Oh, so, so many things could go wrong, and every single one of them was flitting through Anxiety's mind as he tried to prepare himself to tell Prince. He could feel that he was already blushing, and he just knew he would stutter and probably chicken out, end up insulting Prince, who would then in turn hate him. Or just flat out laugh at him and deny him. Ugh, why was this so hard? It was Valentine's day, he had to do it today! If he did it tomorrow it would be stupid. This wasn't going to work!

Anxiety could feel Prince watching him worriedly as he debated in his mind just flat out telling Prince that he had a crush on him, but Anxiety knew he was crumbling to himself. He couldn't do it. He was too scared, too nervous, too anxious. Eventually he just looked at the floor. He almost wanted to cry. Why did everything have to be so hard, why couldn't he just ask? Why did he have to ruin everything? Anxiety always ruined everything.

But if Anxiety always ruined everything, then it was as if Prince always fixed it.

"Anxiety? What's the matter? Anxiety? Anxi? Are you okay?" Prince was asking concernedly. Anxiety shook his head, but said,

"I'm fine. Don't worry about it, Princey." Then there was a warm hand on his shoulder and a hand tilting his chin up so Prince could look him in the eyes- and suddenly Anxiety was blushing again.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm fine, you don't always have to try to save the day, Prince Charming." Anxiety snapped scathingly, trying to divert the embarrassment he was feeling. Then he realised he'd been mean again. "Sorry." He muttered. When Anxiety looked back at Prince, though, he seemed pleased.

"It's alright, I know I don't have to try to save the day but I want to! It's rewarding and fun. And as for the nickname, well, I am quite charming." Prince threw a wink at Anxiety, who scowled halfheartedly.

"Yeah yeah, whatever." Prince just smiled.

"Anyway, since you seem fine again, I'm going to ask you something." Anxiety frowned at him.

"Yes...?" He asked tentatively, and Prince's face grew serious.

"What is troubling you? What is making your life difficult?" He asked. That sounded familiar for some reason.

"Uh... why do you want to know?" Anxiety asked slowly, cautiously. Prince's face hardened into a mask of determination.

"So I can kill it!"

"Um, what?!" Anxiety was stunned, and Prince looked genuinely confused.

"What do you mean, what?" He asked.

"What as in why would you kill whatever's bothering me?" Anxiety asked incredulously. "Last time you said that, which was just a few hours ago, you killed a dragon witch thing for Valerie and then married her. Therefore I'm assuming you don't mean the same thing. So what do you mean?" Prince looked thoughtful for a second.

"I mean to kill the thing that is bothering you.. because how else am I to win your heart?" Anxiety choked on air.

* * *

"What?!" Anxiety screeched. Had he heard that right? Was he dreaming? What was going on? Prince just looked mildly offended.

"I figure that you still hold some animosity towards me, and I intend to slay whatever is troubling you so that you may overlook our previous arguments and allow me to win your heart!" He proclaimed proudly. Anxiety could only stare at him, dumbfounded. Prince noticed and sighed.

"I've been thinking, Anxiety. So many people, oh what's the term, ship us? Including everyone we know. And I have found, deep inside myself, that I do not hate you. Rather I am in... like with you." Prince worded carefully. Anxiety had to be dreaming; how was this actually happening?!

"I- I don't- you are?" Anxiety stuttered, still disbelieving. Prince nodded gravely.

"I am. And I realise that you may not currently feel the same way, which is why I implore you to tell me what it is I must destroy to win you over." Anxiety couldn't believe it.

"You- You're not going to try to marry me straight away, are you?" Anxiety asked nervously. Prince shook his head.

"No, it seems to sudden in this case. Unless you want me to. In which case of course!" He smiled, and Anxiety hurriedly shook his head.

"Nope, no, no marriage, no thanks." He rushed to say. Prince was graceful enough to not even look disappointed.

"Very well then. But seriously, Anxi, what do I have to kill?" Anxiety sighed.

"Why do you think you have to kill anything?" He asked, kind of frustrated. Anxiety didn't like grand gestures, they made him, well, anxious. But he couldn't bring himself to be angry; not when his crush was admitting to liking him back on my goodness. However Prince seemed confused.

"But... I have to slay whatever is troubling you? How else am I to win your heart and take you on a date?" He sounded genuinely puzzled and Anxiety sighed.

"Oh, Princey." He murmured, facepalming. "You could just, oh I don't know, actually ask me out?" Prince looked shocked, like the idea had never occurs to him. I'm hindsight, Anxiety reckoned it probably never had.

"That... would work?" He asked tentatively. Anxiety nodded at him.

"Yeah, Pretty Boy, it would." Prince was evidently delighted, a bright smile creeping over his face.

"Then of course! Anxiety, it seems fitting that on this blessed day, the day of love, Valentine's Day, that I should finally profess my, uh, like for you, and politely ask to take you out for dinner some time. Do you accept?" Prince just had to go make it all dramatic and stuff. But somehow Anxiety didn't really mind, in fact it was kind of sweet. Hen Anxiety realised it was the first time he'd ever seen Prince look nervous, and his heart melted a little bit.

"Yes, of course I will you dork. I, um, feel the same. I'm case you didn't get that." Prince was elated, smiling so wide and so hard it was almost blinding, and Anxiety found himself smiling back at him.

The moment was interrupted a moment later when Misleading Compliment tire through the room, screeching something that sounded vaguely like 'adorable Valentine's love!' And then something at Anxiety. Within a second he had run back out, so quick he was a blur. Prince and Anxiety both had to freeze for a second and process that before Anxiety inspected what Compliment had thrown at him. Prince peeled over, trying to see what was making Anxiety smirk, and was rewarded when Anxiety thrust it towards him.

"Be my Valentine?" Anxiety asked, grinning but blushing under all that white foundation. Prince gently took the red card and opened it up; it was decorated with pale pink hearts and swirly, looping white words spelling out be my valentine?

It was basic. It was cheesy. It was adorable and Prince loved it! He clutched it tightly to his chest and positively beamed.

"Of course I'll be your Valentine!" He exclaimed, stepping forward and quickly drawing Anxiety into a brief hug, which he didn't really resist. Then Dad and Logic burst into the room.

"I knew it!" Logic shouted victoriously. Dad was just staring wide eyes at them, eyes flickering from their smiling faces to their now linked hands. Suddenly he swooned and started tilting. Prince and Anxiety recoiled in shock, and Logic darted back to catch him.

"Morality? Dad, are you okay?" He asked worriedly. Dad blinked heavily for a second, before springing up and running over to hug Anxiety and Prince.

"You're just! Both! So! Cute!" He yelled in joy. "Oh my goodness, I'm so happy you two are a couple now. You're so perfect together! And on Valentine's Day too, oh how romantic!" He cooed, and were those tears in his eyes?

Anxiety chuckled a little in disbelief, and Prince smiled at him. When Anxiety looked up and met his sparkling eyes he smiled back, and yeah, maybe Dad was right. Maybe everyone was right.

Maybe they were perfect together.

Finish

I hope you liked this oneshot!!!

[todokori-kun]

(Random but I think your reply was a little later than normal? Was it the internet again? Anyway it’s nice to be talking with you again queen :D

Also just in case you didn’t get the other messages I sent (I sent them a few days ago so I guess tumblr ate them again), I was basically trying to say that the CP aesthetics are gorgeous and that I found the real Hamilton’s last letter to Eliza and was wondering if you’d like to see it too if you haven’t already. I think I was also trying to ask if you got the new pics I sent you)

EXCUSE me how is it even possible to not be impressed with Hamilton (ok, ok, so I guess you’d be pretty unimpressed with Alex after Say No To This…but ELIZA. ANGELICA. AND PEGGY. WASHINGMACHINE. And of course the entire hecking cast is awesome). At least they acknowledged the Frenchfryette…

(jk, jk, we all have different tastes so I guess even Hamilton might not be the right thing for some people ^^)

HE AIMS HIS PISTOL AT THE SKY-

“WAIT!”

(Burr. You should know by now that the whole ‘talk less, smile more’ and ‘wait for it’ theme doesn’t really work out for you most of the time. It’s certainly not gonna stop a bullet you already fired ;-;)

According to my parents I was a really bubbly, well-mannered kid who never whined or threw tantrums…but, BUT, I was as much of an airhead then as I am now, and I ended up causing a lot of trouble XD Other than the bathroom flooding incident, once when I was tiny my mom left me playing in the hall while she was making dinner. When she came to check on me I’d turned one of the walls into a piece of modern art (like Carnage Kabuto did to Genos, only better/worse). With permanent markers.

And once when I was even younger, mom woke up to a strange sound coming from outside the bedroom, and she realized I wasn’t in bed with her. She found me in the living room, plucking the rocks out of a plant pot and rolling them across the floor like marbles.

I also remember that I had a habit of doodling all over my arms and legs and cutting up my pajamas to make them look 'cool’. Literally any time I rolled up my pants you’d see giant, brightly colored marker lines/dots/swirls all over my legs, and all of my pajama shirts and pants were starting to fall apart because I kept snipping at them (I remember grabbing my craft scissors and hiding behind the sofa to redesign my clothes in peace without my parents seeing and being all “Evans, those are for cutting PAPER, not your clothes” lol).

I was a weird kid.

You’re right- at the place where they finally got the thing out, I think the doctor just had me lie down and got it out with pincers(?). No pain, no blood, it was over pretty quickly. I do think I remember being told that the heel of the shoe had gotten buried in the inside of my nose, though, and that was why it was so difficult to get out…

As for the nosebleed, idek. I remember some people holding this blue, rubbery pump-thing to my nose and trying to get the shoe out with that??? And then blood just suddenly started pouring from my nose? LOL it didn’t hurt, though, and there’s always the chance that it had nothing to do with the shoe. I got a lot of random nosebleeds as a kid, I’d literally just get up in the middle of the night, decide I needed to go wipe my nose because it felt runny, then turn on the light to see blood plastered all over my nose and around my mouth…I probably looked like something out of a horror movie XD

I RELATE TO THAT. There are still a few toys I’m super attached to even if I don’t play with them anymore, and I get sorta…upset?…when people touch them the wrong way (also my dad keeps talking about how we need to throw some of the old dolls away soon and I haaate it ;-;).

Yeah, that particular kid (let’s call her Friend A) is a bit of a brat lol. She smacks her own mother when she’s upset and screams her head off whenever she doesn’t get her way. It’s pretty uncomfortable to watch because her mom never really does anything about it…

(also, some context for the kicking: the boy she kicked (let’s call him Friend B) has been friends with my little sister for a few years now so they’re closer with each other than they are with Friend A. But Friend A got upset about that and came to the grown ups to tell on them; everyone tried to calm her down and suggested that maybe she should try asking them nicely, but she ended up throwing a tantrum. So Friend B’s grandma jokingly said that if Friend B kept being rude to her she could just fight back, give him a punch (she was laughing while saying it, so even to a kid it should have been pretty obvious she was joking).

After we found out what Friend A had done and tried to talk to her about it, she was like 'his grandma told me I could so I did it.’ and refused to apologize.)

OH NO. IS THIS ANOTHER ONE OF THE DREADFUL FANDOMS WHERE YOUR OTP NEVER, eVEr, HAPPENS?! That settles it, I’m never watching or reading Fairy Tail 0.0

Well, sure, most mangas have at least one hiatus at some point…but HxH is on a whole different level. The hiatuses are LEGENDARY.

just imagine what would happen if a manga artist tried to keep up with Ishida’s TG schedule (one chapter every single week except on holidays). An artist who apparently has no assistants. An older artist who has health problems. Tbh you can’t really be upset with HxH for the hiatuses…but it’s still a really, REALLY long wait whenever it happens, and sometimes it goes right back on hiatus barely a few months after the last hiatus ended ;-; I’m lucky I joined the fandom so late (and right after the hiatus ended, too! :D) but I can’t be sure when it’s going to happen again..

Ok, ok, so in case you haven’t searched what Feitan looks like he is LITERALLY Levi. The narrow eyes. The murderous stare of disinterest. The hair.

Then there’s absolute loyalty to a leader. Levi ->Erwin, Feitan-> Chrollo (Chrollo=manipulative spider thief who actually managed to troll HISOKA, of all people). Feitan is also one of the stronger characters as far as I know, and he’s just as blunt and rude and Levi. And he’s a thief; Levi used to be a thug.

Also, also- Levi=160cm. Feitan= 155cm.

Feitan is Evil Levi. Actually, maybe Thug Levi could have turned out like Feitan if he never met Erwin…that’s a scary thought 0.0

(as for Hisoka and Saitama, well. Hisoka realizes that even his Nen (his special power), Bungee Gum, has absolutely no affect on Saitama. He proceeds to Schwing. Very hard.)

(I doubt I’ll ever be over Old Man Fu because Iiked him a lot ;-;)

Saitama is my fav tbh, though Genos comes close..and from what I know about Metal Bat, he’s also a really cool dude. (Also I love Amai Mask/Sweet mask. I love to hate on him.) I like Sonic, but I can’t take him seriously most of the time because he feels like a parody of Sasuke from Naruto (also I keep thinking of Sonic the Hedgehog lol)…his smile is adorable though :3

I’m neutral towards Tatsumaki because her powers are super cool and I like her design but her attitude is a bit annoying to me. Still, I think I read that she’s gotten more development and backstory in the manga/webcomic, so I’ll wait until I can catch up with canon :)

OH NO. Apparently Bert’s death can still hurt me even after all that’s happened since then (also AoT’s new chapter hit me straight in the Annie/Bertl feels. I guess it’s basically one-sided canon now).

YES. I’m seriously so hyped for Ragnarok. I’m just as hyped for the fanfic as I am for the actual movie. And the FANDOM. Can’t wait to see what tumblr’s gonna be like when the Loki fans realize their king has returned XD

I can’t drop TG because there are too many things I want to see/know (like the whole deal with Kimi and Kanou, what’s going to happen with the whole Human vs. Ghoul thing in the end, what’s going to happen to the Touken kid, if Kaneki will live, if Shuu will ever actually get angry at Kaneki, the OEK’s true identity, Eto’s return…). And SPOILERS FOR NEW CHAPTER

after this chapter I definitely can’t stop until we see how Urie gets out of this situation (plus I sense character development/backstory/reveal time, which is always cool). Maybe I should be scared for Urie but I’m still not that worried. Death cliffhangers in TG almost never come true, and like I said, Urie just CAN’T die now when his character arc is nowhere near finished.

But I totally get your frustration, queen.

I’m probably gonna play it tomorrow :D I’ll let you know when I do!

Yep, I know what happens in his bad end. I don’t want play it XD

I did play Fritz’s bad end a few days ago, though. WHY DID YOU HAVE TO SAY GOODBYE VARG

I ship Queen Luna with too many people and I don’t even care

(DON’T YOU DARE WRITE MORE FRITZ HCs THOUGH, PLEASE. HAVE MERCY. IT’S TOO FLUFFY FOR ME TO HANDLE)

Also: I have a game to recommend! :D If you haven’t played it already, The Blind Griffin by Asphodel Quartet is awesome. I downloaded it from Itch.io :) it’s set in America, in the 1920s. The MC is looking for a job and happens to stumble into a speakeasy run by magicians.

Review so far:

pros:

-great MC! She has a fun personality- not the flat heroine most Otome games have, but not a super cold Ice Queen type either. I really liked her.

-Diverse cast! From the main cast there’s the MC, who’s Chinese-American, Vivienne, who’s African-American, Alexei, who’s Russian, Giovanni, who’s Italian, and Emilio, who’s Spanish. Then Marie, who’s transgender, and her gender identity is handled very well! Also a lot of different body types and facial features.

-Lovable characters. I didn’t expect to like everyone so much but there is literally nobody in the main cast that I dislike. I thought I wouldn’t enjoy Giovanni’s route after I played Alex’s and decided he was my fav, but turns out I was wrong. Gio was great too.

-everything is quite realistic and fits well with the setting. There’s even a glossary for slang.

-Art and music are gorgeous

-several different endings! I’ve only played the romance routes so far but I think there’s a friendship ending as well as a sad ending for each character. The romances were really sweet so I can’t wait to see what happens with the other routes!

Cons:

-it was made for NaNoReNo, so the story does feel a little rushed because of the time limit and the game is really short ;-; it feels like there should have been more but they just didn’t have time to finish the story.

-not a lot of choices.

And random note: do you know, I actually wanted to make an Otome Game myself a while back. I had some plot, choices, routes and characters all planned out and even downloaded a program to try and teach myself how to make a game…but then I realized I suck at it and it was just too much for me to handle on my own XD I’ve been working on the ideas I had for that game though- mostly the characters, I’ve thought of a lot of Love Interests ;) maybe someday I could actually make this work as a collab with someone else when I’m older…for now I think I might try writing down the script and drawing some more concept art for the characters because I have too many ideas and I need to let them out LOL

I’M ALIVE. The internet was absolute shit, yay. Sorry about the long wait OTL

Aaah, right, I got those, I just noticed them after posting ^^;;; They were buried in the asks from my other blogs ^^:::: Thanks a lot about the aesthetic compliments! I’m glad you liked them! I definitely enjoyed making them ^^ And wow, the feels ;-; Best of Wives and Best of Women.

The drawings you sent me are gorgeous!! Dead Fish Eyes Family tho XD

The thing is, from the start, even before we reached My Shot, they were like ‘meh’. But I still forced them to listen anyway muhahahahaha HOW COULD THEY NOT LIKE THE SCHUYLER SISTERS? THE ABSOLUTE QUEENS??? I am disappointed in them T^T

I STRIKE HIM RIGHT BETWEEN HIS RIBS I WALK TOWARDS HIM, BUT I AM USHERED AWAY THEY ROW HIM BACK ACROSS THE HUDSON I GET A DRINK

((I’m writing those lyrics while listening to one of the most happy songs I know XD))

I’m guessing Burr needed a real life lesson about bullets and their negative effects on humans, especially if they’re fired at someone else. Welp, hopefully he knows now.

We were opposite as kids XD My parents once decided to make a small experiment. They told me to sit down and stay like that for as long as I could. Then, they started measuring how long it took me to start fidgeting, then how long until I stood up and ran somewhere. Barely a minute before fidgeting, a bit more than 3 until I stood up and ran away. I wasn’t joking when I said everyone thought I had ADHD.

Thankfully, I knew the consequences of drawing on walls well enough from my sister’s example (I still remember how mad my mom was when she found out she’d been writing an walls) to do anything, but for some reason, I always broke everything I touched. I was not to be trusted with the dishes and if anyone got me a snow globe (which was surprisingly often), it wouldn’t last a month unless it was placed on the highest shelf, out of my reach. Even then, I would still manage to break it sooner or later.

((Random, but my playlist is on shuffle and just played 98% of my Christmas songs, one after other. I am slightly worried XD (even tho I sang along)))

I didn’t do it to my clothes, but I had a knack for redesigning barbie clothes/hairstyles/makeup. And my sister would usually help, despite being 6 years older XD She was always so artistic, she even sewed some clothes for them! They were actually pretty good, despite her being 10-12 yo.

To be honest, I’m fascinated. I am genuinely fascinated. Partly at the fact that the shoe managed to get buried in the inside of your nose, partly at how much fuss you went through to get it out XD  I think I would’ve cried regardless of pain or not, had I gotten a nosebleed as a kid. I just couldn’t stand blood (still can’t tbh)

I’m slowly running out of space on my shelves, because I keep adding new books there, and yet I never move any of the trinkets or toys that are there. My mom keeps insisting we at least move some stuff to the basement, not throw it out, but I never give in XD I mean, I’m very happy with how the whole thing looks right now, and it would be empty without the stuff. For some reason, I have no problems with dolls now, but plush toys and small figurines are what get to me… For example, horses have always been among my favourite animals, so I have a shitton of horse toys, and they honestly take up a lot of space, and yet I feel like I’d be betraying my hobby (horse riding) by throwing them away ;-; Until I have no more space for books, I’m not moving anything XD (unfortunately, that’s gonna be very soon, even now I always have to move stuff around a lot to fit them in)

Wow. Well, I’m gonna be a stiff and say ‘Kids these days…’ Im only halfway joking. I went to visit my old elementary school last year and, boy, did the first years (7yo) annoy me. Now, I was a brat, but I wasn’t a brat with a smartphone who didn’t socialise with others at all. And my old teacher told me stories of their parents… I’m slowly changing my mind about wanting to be a chemistry professor in the future XD I think imma just be a researcher. Thing is, parents aren’t strict enough. True, my mom was a bit too strict, but one of the girls I went to elementary school has parents who always let her do anything she wanted, and even when they grounded her, they’d ‘un-ground’ her half an hour later. And guess how she turned out! Today, she smokes (cigarets and weed), goes out at least 4 times a week and gets wasted every time, I don’t even want to start on her grades and, most of all, she’s an ungrateful brat who’s used to getting everything she wants. Life’s gonna be fun for her. 

YES, YES IT IS. I mean, in the last chapter, almost all of them were heavily implied, one of them even had an actual love confession a few chapters back, but nothing was said in the last chap, except for this:

WHAT’S THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN??? THIS IS MY 2nd ULTIMATE OTP IN THE SHOW; WHAT THE FUUUUU

AND THEN THERE WAS ANOTHER ONE, WHERE BOTH OF THEM DIED IN THE MANGA, BUT THEY WERE THERE IN THE LAST CHAP, APPARENTLY AS REINCARNATIONS??

BUT MY OTP. THE SHIP I CARED ABOUT SINCE DAY 1. THE ONE I SHIPPED FOR AS LONG AS I’VE BEEN READING THE MANGA (which is, admittedly, quite long, I’d say more than a year and a half) IT WAS THE MOST ??? ONE.  OKay, here’s the story: He’s originally a bad guy, but he was manipulated, so he repented of his sins, did some good shit and was still locked in a prison. Then, there was  a huge war arc and he was freaking helpful and did a lot of good stuff, so now, in the end, he was pardoned. AND THE LAST CHAP; HERE’S WHAT WE FIND OUT: HE WAS PARDONED; AND EVER SINCE,  SHE’D BEEN DOING HER HAIR EVERY DAY (implying she’s happy or seeing him, I guess???) AAAAA I’m lowkey debating posting the entire last chap here for you to read, even without context, just so you can see how much it’s only implication and nothing real (;_;)

Ouch… Well, I’ll have to think about it then ^^

Tbh I can’t imagine Levi with Feitan’s hair. It’s too messy XD

Ahahahahahah Idk if I’ll ever get over Schwing, despite not watching/reading the manga…  Schwing.

I think most of Metal Bat’s personality comes through in the manga, because he has a few omake in the manga, where he goes to strenuous lengths to protect/keep his sister pure. It’s adorable, really. His sis is a bit of a brat tho. Amai mask. I can not stand that guy. 

Oh yes, the beautiful, murderous smile. You can practically hear the panties dropping.

I still have 15ish chaps till I’m caught up w the manga, but both she and her sis have very… interesting personalities XD Im pretty sure she’s like that on purpose, though, to bring more humour into the manga (as if it needed that XD)

AoT Will keep hurting me as long as it can. Basically, until I either drop it or until it ends. 

Oh, you don’t think they’ve realised yet? From the amount of gifs I’ve seen, I’d say the fangirls are very well informed XD 

Oh joy… Please keep me updated XD And come screaming if Urie does die, cause I gotta read that for myself XDDD

OYAOYAOYA SO HAVE YOU PERHAPS STARTED WALTZ??

Ahah, I warned you… I still wanna cry when I think of Varg. #stillnotoverit

huehuehueheuhueheuheuheuehueheuheuheuehuehueheue ill spare you for now. no telling what comes in the future tho~

Alrighty, i’ll check it out ^^ it seems interesting enough!

Oh, yeah, I forgot to add, but I’m trying to start a love live dance cover group here in Zagreb! It’s harder than you think =3= It seems like I’m the only one who likes the show. Hopefully, I manage to find people ^^