#I could seriously wax poetic about this conversation for days

[jemmo]

those 2 eps made me cry a lot. a lot more than i have to this show before, and a lot more than i was ever expecting to. especially hyungjun and minsung’s conversation. just… god. i think the realisation that minsung had when hyungjun said that to him, it was a lot, I could feel it, and it’s so difficult and hard to process and maybe hit a bit too close to home, but it is a realisation i was hoping minsung would have. and i can’t help but applaud how forward and to the point hyungjun was this whole episode, and grateful he made minsung have this realisation. not just in their complex situation but in any relationship really, you cannot be a bystander, you cannot just sit and wait, you can’t let it all be out of your hands. you are part of this, and you don’t just have the ability to do something, you have to, it’s necessary, it’s important and you have to see that. minsung sat back, he wanted to weigh his options and think, see how he felt about these people, and I’m not saying he was completely inactive, but it does feel like he sat back and let these people come to him. he made his initial attraction clear to both, but after that, it was like he was just letting things happen to him, letting it play out and see how he feels. he didn’t play an active role, he didn’t have any agency in the situation when he should have. and i know there’s pressure when there’s multiple people involved, you don’t want to make a move on one and give everyone a wrong idea that the decision is made, but when you look from hyungjun’s perspective, after a date that went so well, after growing close, someone you didn’t expect and didn’t even realise thought that way comes in this strong. it’s not that he wanted minsung to chose him, it’s not that he wanted him to reject hyungjin either. but when you’ve become close and someone interrupts, all you can do is let that person know nothings changed, you still feel the same. and hyungjun did that, at least tried to without burdening minsung or letting his shock and frustration get the best of him, but minsung didn’t. it’s this implication that this is the dynamic, this is how it just is, hyungjun the chaser and minsung the one being chased, but that’s not how actual relationships work, and I’m glad hyungjun didn’t feel bad saying hey, when this all went down, i just wanted some assurance from you. I wanted to know that you still liked me, not just carrying on something you said before and keeping that faith, I was waiting for you to come to me, I want you to come to me if you feel that way inclined. this isn’t just a situation where I’ll pursue you and then you’ll pick me and done, no, it has to feel like there’s some effort returned, it has to feel equal. hyungjun already feels dumb in this situation bc he didn’t see hyungjin’s feelings and mistook them for support, so now he’s going to doubt everything he thought, including how minsung actually feels about him. and he’s right, he shouldn’t feel bad about wanting more, a box of cookies can’t just be enough, and when he’s doubtful of his feelings, it’s no wonder he closes off, he protects himself, bc he doesn’t want to be messed with.

and man it rips through minsung like a tidal wave, seeing that all this time, not just with hyungjun but maybe even with hyungjin, he could’ve done more. he called hyungjin multiple times and apart from that seemed to make no advances, it’s only now hyungjin is pushing that it’s become a thing, but he’s the one that realised his feelings later. minsung started this, but wasn’t putting in the effort to keep it going. and with hyungjun, he was always waiting for him to open up, for him to make his feelings clear. I don’t know if it’s self preservation, he said he’s never cried bc of relationship, it gives me the impression he’s very used to behaving this way, but hyungjun is the shock to the system he needs to realise that he shouldn’t just sit around and wait, he can’t. he can open up, he can share his feelings, he can push things forward. there’s no rule anywhere that says he’s the one that should be waiting, and him waiting with the expectation that hyungjun will come to him, and feeling hurt when hyungjun doesn’t, doesn’t enter his chat or feels cold or off with him, all you have to do is realise hyungjun could be, and is, feeling that exact same way. he’s waiting for minsung to come to him, and feels hurt when he doesn’t, when he doesn’t give him reassurance and goes off with hyungjin. it’s a misunderstanding based in the fact that minsung is holding the power here and isn’t using it, instead waiting for others to take control when he needs to do that himself. and I’m so glad hyungjun expressed this bc it speaks to how their relationship feels like it’s grounded in something more real. it’s not like with hyungjin where he just pursues and flirts and minsung sits and receives it, there’s an expectation of equality, that feelings have to be mutual, and actively reciprocated, that there has to be a back and forth, a dialogue, a balance. and I liked that sungho went to talk to minsung at the end and they both got emotional, bc they’re the two that share this experience, and sungho is like this walking proof that minsung isn’t stuck, he has the agency to decide and he has to make that decision, while for sungho it’s like looking back at that past him that felt so conflicted and stressed. all the conversations got to me in these eps, but I think this one hit them the hardest, bc I do think there is a lot of feelings there, you don’t get this upset, you don’t feel this deeply, if you don’t have feelings. it’s all stemming from this frustration of liking someone and not knowing how to convey it, feeling like something always gets stuck, the lines cross, it misses the target, bc you don’t know what the dynamic is yet, you don’t know what the thing is, what the words or actions will be that will convey those feelings and make them understand. they both make moves and get confused and doubtful over the smallest things and that can only happen when you care that much and feel that deeply that you look and read into every small thing and action and change in behaviour looking for some meaning. it’s like… painfully beautiful to watch, and it makes you root for them so much bc you want them to reach that place where they finally stand on level ground and see each other.

[1nm806]

At any given time you could climb up to the roofs of Manhattan and find assorted newsies up there, I think.

Jack and Crutchie get up there and Jack rambles on about cowboys and seeing the big wide world and Crutchie smiles and listens and knows that his brother is all talk. Jack wouldn't really leave New York, not unless he got to take everyone with him. Jack's waxes poetic about this place he's never been too, and Crutchie joins in the daydreaming, knowing neither of them are taking it seriously. It's like make believe to them.

Davey and Les is always the former chasing down the latter, who is "too young to be somewhere this high up", but they end up chatting up there anyway sometimes. About Les' fears of going back to school without his new friends, about whether the newsies will still welcome them if they don't work with them, about whether they'll even remember them. Davey, of course, says that they're silly things to worry about. The Jacobs family made an impression on the newsies, and it'd be ridiculous to think they'd forget the pair of them. He doesn't say that he has the same fears.

Jack and Davey is mostly silent, with the occasional worry spoken softly between them, shot down by the other with words of kindness and the underlying tone of "you're being stupid to say that, course that's not true". Once Davey asked Jack if he really would leave to Santa Fe without them, and was content when he received the answer of: "Not without you. Not without any of you."

Race and Jack talk loudly into the night, bickering and playing cards and seeing if they can throw things at targets they set up back when they first became friends. Very few serious conversations have happened with them, but there were a couple of ones about relationships or worries they didn't think they could say to the others. The odd tear-filled conversation about sexuality is overshadowed by the constant talking over each other and teasing. But it doesn't go unappreciated.

The rare times that Spot is up there with anyone, it's normally Racer. Race who talks and talks and occasionally pauses to let the other add commentary. The pair of them make fun of Jack, and talk about issues going on within their boroughs. It's not a special place for them, but the lodging house is loud, and Spot always makes his way up to the roof of it whenever he visits for a while - just to get away from it all. Race follows him up there after a while, then keeps him company with chatter and hand-holding until Davey inevitably joins them and he can go back down to play more card games.

Davey and Spot exclusively end up there when they're both already too exhausted from socialisation to continue it. They sit in almost complete silence, drinking in the sounds and sights of NYC, until one of them eventually regains their voice and asks the other how things are going. They discuss important meeting topics and whether or not this next challenger will dethrone Spot (the younger boy is confident in his abilities, but checks with Davey's logical mind whenever he can). Davey asks him about Jack, and about the history of the bad blood between Manhattan and Brooklyn. And, now he thinks about it, Brooklyn and everyone. Spot nods along and explains in an incredibly biased way the reasons, and in turn asks Davey about his school - about his lessons, classmates, "anything interestin been said there lately?".

Jack and Spot used to go up there. Back when the latter liked the Manhattan leader. He still tries to spend time with Brooklyn's leader, but more often than not it ends in awkward silences, snide comments and the shorter boy announcing his leave about 2 minutes in. Then one day, Jack manages to catch the other boy when he's talking to Davey. He joins them, and Davey - after a few minutes - says something about needing to get Les home and leaves. It's completely silent, the wind's blowing, and goddamn it Jack's sure the other boy will just leave as well. But he doesn't. It's the only time Spot opens his mouth and says what he means to the Manhattan newsie - and he's still not sure why he did. He tells the other that him leaving the strike was a betrayal that cut him so deep he considered cutting all ties with the borough. He says that Jack hadn't left just the strikers, but friends and family, and that he'd left it all on Davey and him to sort out the mess as leaders. It's the only time he ever says to Jack that he thought they were family. And he makes it clear that he's unsure if they can ever be again. They're up on the roof for hours, long enough that the sun sets and rises. It ends with them both going off about their days, and if both leaders were seen and heard in tears that night, well. That's neither here nor there.

[sunshinemarauder]

what would you do?

what would you do? (AO3)

written for @thegobletofweasleys's Jily Week 2023 day one (it's still technically july 31st where I am, I swear)! fluff/angst day, because this fandom needs a laugh every now and then. gifted to the lovely lovely @kay-elle-cee <3 playlist here!

James has always thought that Lily Evans looks exceptionally breathtaking when she’s angry.

It’s the sort of thought that he keeps shamefully locked-away in a crevice of his mind with all his other foolish Evans-induced blatherings. He wouldn’t dare say it aloud in front of his own mates, let alone Evans herself. After all, he hardly needs to hand her more reasons to dislike him. The post-OWLs incident sends a miserable shiver down his spine every time he recalls it.

Right now, the intensity in Lily’s bright green eyes, staring him down with enough force to bore a hole through his Quidditch gear, reminds him of the fiery expressions she’d worn that were precursors to all their fights last year. 

They would all begin this way: he, a bumbling prat desperate for her attention, would say something thoughtless to garner a reaction from her. Evans, prouder than a Hippogriff and sharper than a Basilisk fang, would take the bait immediately, eyes flashing with affront, and volley a creative insult his way. James would comfort himself with the thought that she never seemed to mean her insults seriously; every so often he'd catch her hiding a smile as they parted, and sometimes he could coax the occasional laugh out of her.  

But since the beginning of their sixth year, things have been different between him and Lily Evans. They’re friendly, sort of, and rarely argue these days, but it’s tenuous. Fracturable. He inevitably seems to screw up every normal conversation they have and leave an awkward tension in his wake.

Today, as Lily stares him down with an intensity he hasn't seen from her in months, James hasn't a clue what he said to garner such a strong reaction from her. 

He had been heading to the Quidditch locker room for a quick shower post-practice when Evans — an occasional spectator at their team drills, thanks to her friendship with the Gryffindor Beater, Marlene — had fallen into step with him. He immediately straightened to his full height, hyper-aware of her presence beside him. 

James, as always, is desperate to impress her.

Thankfully, she hadn't seemed to notice his apprehension. She struck up a conversation about their assignments, which soon devolved into James waxing poetic on NEWT-level Transfiguration theorems. It marked the longest civil conversation he’d had with Lily Evans in ages, and he’d thought it was going swimmingly — he was just starting to tell her about tutoring younger kids in remedial Transfiguration essentials — when she abruptly stopped walking, placed her hands on her hips, and fixed him with that fiery, indignant look he’s come to both yearn for and shrink from over the years.

Now, James gulps. Shit. What had he done now? 

“You know, Potter,” Evans begins innocuously, but her eyes flash in his direction and James knows he’s in seriously deep water. “Sometimes I have no idea what to make of you.” 

James stares blankly. 

“You can be such a prat, you know, when you go around hexing people for the fun of it and acting like you’re the king of the castle. Sometimes I want to—” and here she starts getting agitated, her pale cheeks reddening rapidly: “—to shove your head down a toilet and leave you there until all that arrogance seeps out of your stupidly large skull.” 

His heart drops instantly. He’s only half-aware that the rest of the team is long-gone into the showers, and that it’s been only him and Evans for several minutes now. 

He thinks: arrogant, bullying toe-rag.  

“But sometimes,” Lily continues in a way that he can’t describe in any way other than heated, and then says: “Sometimes I want to cut off all your air circulation.” 

That’s typical, James thinks, picturing her hands locked around his throat, staring him down with that scorching stare as he slowly perishes. 

Then: “With my mouth on your mouth.” 

His brain flatlines. 

continue reading

[disco-tea]

OK BUT LISTEN HEAR ME OUT

You’ve Got Mail Spuffy AU. And it’s set towards the beginning of S5/in between seasons and they’re still in their “we hate each other’s guts we’re enemies” phase. Well anyway, Spike has discovered the internet and he thought it was neat and chat rooms were fun and there are places he could post poetry without the risk of public humiliation because there’s always somebody there posting worse poetry than him or he could go and find places to talk about literature or literally any of his interests and talk about it without judgment and he likes it because there’s no perceptions attached. He’s not expected to be anything. He’s just a screen name.

So anyway, somehow Buffy finds herself in the chatrooms and she gets to talking to this random screen name and they get along really well. They start talking frequently and it progresses from there. They talk about everything and nothing. They never share any names or personal info but they end up talking about their deepest personal struggles. Their fears their pains their interests. They give each other advice and share little things about their days/lives. And of course this is frickin William, so he’s caught feelings and the longer he talks to her, the more he’s waxing poetic and writing these really long beautiful paragraphs. And Buffy loves that and she’s seriously starting to love him. She loves him because he’s so sweet and funny but there’s also this wry side that loves to tease her. And he loves her because she’s so witty and smart (even though she tries to claim she’s not) and can give it right back to him and also he gets the distinct feeling she’s far sadder and lonelier than anybody in her life realizes. And they just really love talking, because they genuinely get along and feel like they can be themselves.

But of course, neither of them knows who it really is and you get the absolute ridiculous contrast of them arguing and wishing death upon one another in real life but having these deep and intimate conversations later on and they literally regularly complain to each other about each other. And as it progresses, they eventually figure out they live in the same place and agree to meet at a specific table at the Bronze. Well of course, Spike gets there and gets the shock of his life and unlife when he sees Buffy sitting there. He doesn’t approach at first cuz he’s too busy having a full-blown meltdown because it’s all clicking into place. He’s been talking to the freaking Slayer for months. He loves the bloody Slayer. And of course this is the moment that one particular memory of Drusilla in South America comes back to haunt him. He’s loved her all along. Even before he started talking to her.

She’s everywhere, he can’t escape her, she’s haunting him.

He thinks about just leaving because this is a whole can of worms he’s not ready to deal with. Not ready to face. He’s going to leave, but he stops because she looks genuinely upset and sad and keeps constantly looking around. Fidgeting. He suddenly feels awful, because he’s late and she probably thinks she’s been stood up.

He ends up going over to talk to her, but as himself, not as the person she’s waiting to meet, and as expected, she immediately gets annoyed and defensive as soon as she sees him. Tells him to leave but he doesn’t and he eventually pries/annoys her enough that she tells him she’s waiting for someone. Someone who’s nothing like him, and that gets him on the defensive. He says some things, she says some things, and I think it spirals from there and they get into one of their arguments that is not so very different from the FFL one with a mix of everything that was said in Crush and the gist is, “it would never be you, you wouldn’t understand, you’re incapable of love. Go away.”

And then he leaves, knowing that she hates him and he hates her far less than he ever could’ve imagined. And he knows that he can never tell her who he actually is because if she knew really knew who he was, she wouldn’t like him anymore and he’d lose one of the most genuine connections/friendships he’s ever had.

He emails her and tells her he’s sorry he didn’t show and that he can’t explain but he’s more sorry than she’ll ever know. And Buffy thinks that maybe it’s for the better, because she genuinely cares about him and he seems like such a good guy and she wouldn’t want to pull him into her world anyway. So that’s how it goes on. They keep talking and Spike tries to keep his distance. But of course, this is S5 and there’s a hell god on the loose and Spike has accidentally pack bonded with Buffy’s little sister and she needs his help, Buffy needs his help because he’s the only one strong enough to stand a chance against Glory. And against his better judgment, Spike ends up becoming more and more entangled with her life. And through it all, he still emails her. She talks about her problems, her grief over her mom, her fears and her sadness.

And as it all progresses, Spike slowly learns how to talk to Buffy in real life. He starts trying to be better, to do good, to do right, to be the person she simultaneously thinks he is and tells him he could never be. They grow closer and he almost becomes her friend outside of emails. If only because they’re in the thick of it now and the threat of Glory is closer than ever. Sometimes he asks about her friend that she was waiting for, asked if they ever did meet just because he wants to hear her talk about him, talk about him like he’s somebody she could love.

And I think as the season gears up for its climax, Spike accidentally slips up somewhere along the way and Buffy starts to realize that he might just be her dear friend who lives in her inbox. There’s a part of her that wants to immediately think the worst of him, that it’s a sick joke to hurt her because he can’t actually hurt her. But he let himself be tortured by a hell god to keep her and Dawn safe and Buffy is suddenly struck with the terrifying realization that he might actually love her. But he can’t, can he? He’s a monster. He’s a killer. He can’t love without a soul. And yet…she has the emails. Emails of the most loving and beautiful words she’s ever received. Her whole worldview is rocked. She’s terrified.

And in the very last episodes, there’s this tension. The tension of how they both know but aren’t willing to let the other know that they do. But maybe Buffy does say something, or hints at it. Or confronts him a bit about his feelings for her. Maybe their conversation on the stairs goes much the same “I know you’ll never love me, I know that I’m a monster,” but there’s a few additional things that’s maybe something like this.

Something like Spike wishing there was a world where they could’ve met differently. Where she wasn’t Buffy the Vampire Slayer and he wasn’t William the Bloody. Maybe they could’ve just…met. As people rather than enemies. Buffy doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t contradict him either. She wishes that too.

Buffy still dies on the tower.

Spike writes to her all the same, knowing he’ll never get a reply.

Except Buffy does come back.

There are 147 messages in her inbox.

[aoitrinity]

Why Do I Have to Feel Like a Fucking Conspiracy Theorist -- OR -- How I Find a Semblance of Peace on Sunday Night

I’m also going to start this out with a GIANT DISCLAIMER.

I am about to theorize about what may have happened to the SPN finale. I have absolutely no insider knowledge. I am merely speculating here based on the panels and a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr posts that I have been reading over the last few days. If you are not in a good place to read such things, TURN BACK PLEASE. Go take care of yourself and your mental health. You and your feelings are valid and deserve to be handled gently right now.

Additionally, if you are here to give me shit for being unhappy with the ending, please walk away as well. I am here to reach out and share my feelings with people who might be struggling to make sense of something that upset some of us in very deep-seated ways. I am not here to bother you or critique you or tell you that you’re lesser because you liked the ending. If you felt it was good, then go enjoy it.

Long-ass post beneath the cut, everyone.

Alrighty folks...I debated whether or not to do this because I have been spiraling down the hell that is the SPN finale since Thursday. The travesty of what happened to our show--to this beloved show that seemed to have been so perfectly and precisely written for at least four years that it had basically already paved its own tarmac on which to land its plane and we all thought we knew exactly what we were going to get. And then we didn’t. We had a nigh Cas-less and entirely Eileen-less ending. We had no goodbye between Cas and Jack. We had Dean dying young after finally finding his freedom, only to ascend to heaven with no one but Bobby. We had the weird, weird, weird incest-y death scene. We had the bridge crane shot thing because...sure. You do you, Robert Singer.

It was so terrible, so truly awful, and I couldn’t seem to square any of it with anything we had known going in. I tossed and turned and cried and didn’t eat or sleep all weekend. I spent hours just reloading tumblr and twitter, going to the Misha panel, reading and reading and listening and trying to figure out what the fucking hell is going on because I needed to know exactly where to direct my anger. And after a fuckton of talking with @winchester-reload, I think we have at least a very plausible theory about what happened here--I’m laying it out below as much for my own peace of mind as anything else, because otherwise all of these thoughts are going to continue to spin around in my head for weeks and I won’t be able to do jack shit.

Now to start off, unfortunately I do think Dean was slated to die from the beginning of this season. I don’t know WHY they thought that was the best way to go, and I wish they had listened to Jensen on this one. Part of me wonders if it was an order from on high based on the discussion between Becky and Chuck earlier this season--the writers knew it wasn’t a great choice, but they were trying to signal to us that we should feel free to write our own endings to the story because they’d be better (I can wax poetic on the signs of why many of the writers probably wanted Dean to live, but that’s another post). I’m not defending that choice by any means, just laying it out there that I think they didn’t necessarily all want to kill Dean like they did.

However, what I THINK I can explain now is what happened with Misha and why we got so jerked around with Cas’s story. Consider what we know (I can’t immediately source all of it, but I did my best):

At the end of episode 15x19, Lucifer has been returned to the Empty after being killed AGAIN. He talks with Cas. Maybe harasses him a bit about Dean, idk. But then...Jack shows up. New God Jack. And he picks up Cas and pulls him out of the Empty, leaving Lucifer behind, because seriously. Fuck that guy (also leaving behind his abusive father is character growth for Jack, so yay for that).

-Misha was contracted to film 15 episodes this season. He was only in 14.

-Misha told Michael Sheen he had to go back to film 1.5 episodes after the shutdown in March. (Starts at 6:13)

-Misha was in Vancouver during filming of the finale.

-Mark P said at Darklight Con that the last scene he filmed was with Alex and Misha (and Mark P was only in episode 19).

-Misha implied that he was present for various filming moments, including Dean’s death (start at 35:15), and said that it felt like a “mini-reunion.”

-Various sources have mentioned that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale.

-After episode 18, Stands tweeted a fan who was angered and hurt by Cas's death that they could talk about the “bury the gays” issue after the finale aired.

-In episode 19 we know there were takes of the parking lot scene where the only thing fans observing could hear was Dean yelling “CAS” at Chuck (fuck I can’t find this one right now, but it’s definitely out there)

-Also in episode 19, we had a very strange, awkward montage at the end of the episode.

-In episode 20, we know there were a FUCKTON of missing scenes

-We also had no opening montage, but three other separate montages.

-Carry on My Wayward Son was played TWICE, back-to-back at the end of the episode.

-Episode 20 was shorter than normal and had surprisingly little dialogue. The pacing was VERY strange.

-The cast and crew has been almost completely silent about the finale since it came out. When they have spoken, it has been with an awkward excuse of “Uh...COVID?”

-Samantha Ferris has specifically noted that, despite the Harvelle’s being back in play and a big heaven reunion having been planned pre-COVID, neither she nor Chad Lindberg received any such invitation to return.

-Cas and Dean POP Funko figures were pictured together in a replica of Harvelle’s in 15x04.

NOW with all of this in mind (and I’m probably missing some stuff too because there is so much--feel free to add on to that list), please bear with me because here is what I think we were SUPPOSED to get POST-COVID (after it was determined that the reunion couldn’t happen because of the virus):

In episode 20, we start with our NORMAL OPENING MONTAGE, like always. It traces everything that happened during the season. We are reminded of Cas. The confession. Rowena. Eileen. Jack. Billie, God, the Empty, all of it. 

Things then follow along in the episode where they did up until Dean dies and wakes up in heaven. After his conversation with Bobby, he drives off to find Cas (who, in the script, was listed as “Jimmy Novak” in order to protect against script leaks--who wouldn’t want to do their best to avoid spoilers about the finale with the wrapping of a fifteen-year show?). He does indeed find Cas. We get Dean’s end of the confession. Hell, maybe we even get a kiss. And then Dean sets up his new heaven home in the recreated Harvelle’s. Maybe Cas even fucking moves in. 

Years pass. We get Sam having his life on Earth (still can’t explain why they cut Eileen and couldn’t even have Sam signing vaguely to the blurry brunette in the background; if anyone wants to take that on, go for it). Eventually, Cas tells Dean that it’s almost Sam’s time. Dean takes Baby and goes to meet Sam at the bridge. The cover of Carry on My Wayward Son plays during this much shorter sequence. End of episode.

But that’s not what we got. Instead, much of what I just wrote about was excised from the episode. The remnants were stitched together after shooting had been wrapped. Filler was added in the form of montages and long, unnecessary extra shots to get the episode to something approaching a reasonable length. 

But why? Why would they spend all that time and money and quarantining on Misha, only to almost completely cut him out of the finale? I struggled with why the fuck the CW would want this mammoth show to go down as the greatest queerbait in TV history when they had the chance to do something truly beautiful and monumental with it? It couldn’t just be sheer homophobia, right? Well, I think that factored into it, my friends, but here is where my head is at right now.

It was about cold, hard cash.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment: Supernatural is going off of the air. Supernatural, the CW’s cash cow for fifteen years. Sure there is still money to be made on blu-rays and merchandise and cons...but they need people watching their shows. They need that sweet advertising revenue. And you know what show they have about to premiere? A show that could, potentially, bring with it a chunk of that SPN revenue?

Walker.

And if any of you know anything about the original Walker Texas Ranger, you know that the show was predominantly a show about a very heterosexual white man being very excessively heterosexual. And for SOME REASON over the years, many of the execs at the CW still seem to think that this show, Supernatural, is really attractive to a lot of middle-American white men...whom they desperately want to watch this new show with this guy from Supernatural that they already know.

Now here’s where COVID fucked us. I think Destiel was greenlit by TPTB, at least in SOME form, before COVID. But then the pandemic happened, and they panicked. They got the cut of the last two episodes and watched them in their original, probably queer form. And then, the execs at CW looked at the economy. They looked at their cash cow, about to make its journey to the great beyond. And they looked at this new little calf Walker that they were so desperately worried about. And they made a choice.

They decided that it would be too risky to take the step with Destiel. They were worried about frightening off their ever-so-valuable hetero male demographic with the possibility that a traditionally masculine man in his 40s could be in love with another man in an overt way. It was homophobia mixed with greed, spun up by fear for their revenues because of COVID.

So they called in Singer, possibly Dabb, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they went straight to Singer. They told them that Destiel had to go: executive orders. And the only way to make it go in a way that removed any trace of what had been there was to rewrite what happened to Cas and cut him out from the last two episodes entirely. It was too late to reshoot anything. They had to just cut and stitch and fill with bullshit montages. 

They removed the scene at the end of 19, probably because Cas and Lucifer discussed Dean. All that was left of Misha there was his voice on that fake phone call. They may have cut other things too, but I would bet my life that they cut a scene from the end of the episode and replaced it with that very strange montage. Then they moved onto 20. They cut out every scene with Cas. And left in only two platonic mentions of him, neither made by Dean. They tried to imply that Cas might show up in Dean’s heaven at some point, but that was as far as the editors could go in the time they had. They filled in with montages, awkwardly long shots, anything they could do to fill all of those missing scenes.

And they even had to take the opening montage, because literally everything in it pointed to Cas being there at the end of it all. They wouldn’t be able to leave out his scenes, they were too critical to the season. They couldn’t cut his confession without raising eyebrows. So they cut the whole thing and moved “Carry On My Wayward Son” to one of the newly-added driving montages at the end. Which is why we awkwardly had both songs play back-to-back--again, such a strange choice unless they were out of options and couldn’t exactly buy rights to a new track or compose anything else.

And so we were left with the shadow of the finale that we deserved, that Cas and Dean deserved. We were left without resolution or happiness or words. Bobo told us the most important thing about happiness is just “saying it” and our characters were silenced without anyone ever knowing the truth.

I think the writers might have known and been given the new party line that “Misha never filmed, he couldn’t, sorry, it was COVID, no one’s fault!” But I don’t think most of the cast even knew it had happened until they watched the finale on Thursday with us (though they might have been confused why the bit from 15x19 was sliced, they could reasonably have assumed it was a time thing and also BL episodes don’t make sense anyway). Why do I say that?

Well, first of all, Misha started sending out a bunch of excited texts to fans with some old BTS pictures about an hour before the show started airing on EST. He also wanted his children to see the episode, his YOUNG children. Why would he show them such a traumatic episode if their Dad wasn’t in it? What if it was because he wanted them to witness what was going to be a monumental moment in queer television history that their DAD got to be a part of? And then that was all dashed.

Which is why I think the cast and crew went almost completely radio silent the next day. I don’t think they knew. And based on how they have been acting on social media since then, I think many of them are absolutely furious, but they have been silenced because of NDAs, because they want to find work again in a cutthroat industry, because they don’t want to bring down the hellfire of Warner Brothers Entertainment upon themselves. So the most we have gotten is a little acknowledgement from the MERCHANDISING COMPANY trying to validate our pain (god bless Shirts, she is a LIFESAVER) and a response to my salty tweet about keeping good stuff in the closet from Adam Williams (the VFX coordinator) that seemed to acknowledge the validity of my complaint.

Then there was a scramble behind the scenes, I would bet my life. Talking points were fed to the boys who had panels today, to CE, to all the cast and crew:

Toe the party line. Misha never filmed. This was always about COVID. Do not mention Destiel. Do not mention Dean’s feelings for Cas. Do not promote the Castiel Project or anything that validates the idea that this was anything less than a superb ending.

And that is why we have heard so little from the cast on this front, and what we have heard has been muddled and contradictory. That is why the writers are saying nothing. That is why we have been left adrift.

Now before I close this out, I do want to say that I really, genuinely do not think this was on the writers at all. I feel like they tried to give us the best ending that they could, in a writers room that we know is notorious for splitting along party lines about the overall story (BL and Singer, who have always been about the brothers and their man-pain vs. Dabb and the rest who always seemed to want more for them and for Cas). I think they did everything in their power to at least end with Dean and Cas happy together. If they could give us nothing else, they wanted to give us that. And then the network took it from them. From us. From everyone.

For the sake of fucking money. 

And the WORST PART OF IT ALL, for me, is that in the wake of this disaster, the fans have been left to try and figure out what happened. We have had to wade through a mire of conflicting information in the midst of all of our collective anger and grief over this garbage ending of a show many of us have loved and even relied on for YEARS, all the while wondering if we’re just fucking crazy, if we have all fallen collectively into the hole of conspiracy theories. That hurts ESPECIALLY badly because we have taken so many hits over the years from other groups on social media saying we were crazy for seeing things that weren’t there (especially Destiel), for writing meta and analyzing tropes and believing the evidence of our eyes and ears. The network has made us relive that entire nightmare WHILE processing our grief for a show we wanted so badly to celebrate and which instead we now have to mourn.

So again guys, I cannot prove that this is exactly what happened at all; this is simply my idea of what may have happened. But right now, it’s the most sense I can make from this mess, and to be honest, the act of typing it out has helped me enormously in my processing of it all. I feel like I can see more clearly, like I know where to target my outrage and where to direct empathy. I feel like just fucking maybe, I might be able to do my job tomorrow without bursting into tears at random moments. 

I really hope that this post has helped some of you to, in some small way, process this too. We get through this the way that Misha told us at his panel this morning, the way the writers have told us to do all season long...we throw out the story God gave us and we make it better. We write our characters the happy endings they deserve. 

We save them.

One last thing--if you have not already, please consider channeling your rage into a donation to one of the five causes our fandom has put together to pay tribute to our beloved show and to mourn the ending it should have had:

-The Castiel Project

-Dean Winchester is Love

-Sam Winchester Project

-The National Association of the Deaf

-The Jack Kline Project

[canary3d-obsessed]

Restless Rewatch: The Untamed Episode 13, second part

(Masterpost) (Other Canary Distractions) 

Warning: Spoilers for All 50 Episodes!

This Fucking Turtle

The rock that Wei Wuxian and Wen Chao are standing on starts to move, because of course it does. It’s a tortoise shell, sort of. There are some problems with this ostensible tortoise. 

First, Murder Turtle a tortoise is technically a turtle don't @ me doesn't look anything like a turtle. I try really hard not to project my western mythologies onto Chinese works, but god dang this thing looks like the Loch Ness monster.

Second, its shell wobbles a bit, but there's no indication that the creature can move around the cave until much later. During an extended fight with several tasty cultivators, it stays put and just moves its head around.  

The immobility problem aside, it's not a terrible monster. After the hell dog, I'm relieved to have a normal CGI beastie where some things are done really pretty well. Its eyes and skin are particularly good.

What's not good are the teeth. When Murder Turtle closes its mouth, its long pointy upper teeth have nowhere to go, so they pierce its lower jaw and just sink in there. No wonder it's pissed off.

Its relationship with its shell is...well, let's save that for the next episode.

Irons in the Fire

Meanwhile,  Wang Lingjiao (Wen Chao's girlfriend) decides she's in the mood for barbequed MianMian, so she grabs a hot iron to burn her face.

Wei Wuxian to the rescue! He shoots three arrows at once and hits all three of his targets, in a move that he'll repeat with even more arrows at a later date.

Wang Lingjiao decides to throw the iron at MianMian, who decides not to duck, while Wei Wuxian leaps into the path of the iron and gets deeply burned on the chest through his clothing. This is absolutely definitely how time, things flying through the air, and branding irons work.

(more after the cut)

Jiang Cheng and Wen Zhuliu start fighting again. These two can't quit each other, almost like they have a date with destiny in their future.  Jiang Cheng shows off his purple bloomers while he and Wen Zhuliu try to outspin each other.

Camera operator: Why you gotta take it out on me?

Wen It’s Time To Say Goodbye

The Wens decide to dip, heading up the rock face and cutting the ropes behind them, which would be super inconvenient if several of the cultivators didn't know how to literally fly.

But they also put a bunch of rocks in the hole, while Wen Qing begs them not to do it.

Down at the bottom of the cave, everyone sits and chats, while Murder Turtle wishes it had legs so it could chase them. Oh wait, it does have legs, it just isn't ready to get out of the bath yet

Call the Waaambulance

MianMian is crying over all the nonsense the writers have put her through in this episode, and Wei Wuxian tries to cheer her up by talking to her like she's a toddler. On the plus side, he'll be a great dad for a toddler one day.

Jin Zixuan: I'm used to women crying around me, is that not typical?

Lan Wangji has got no time for cheering up crying girls, and starts heading back to the turtle bath, because he has figured out how they can escape. 

He and Wei Wuxian show off their mind reading abilities, where Lan Wangji explains absolutely nothing and Wei Wuxian perfectly understands him. See also: “Fortunately.” 

Rather than try to swim for it, the other cultivators want to hang around and wait to be rescued, or just generally feel like staying put and whining. 

Wei Wuxian takes charge through sheer force of personality, and makes Jiang Cheng go find the way out while he himself distracts Murder Turtle with fire.

Wei Wuxian can make talismans without 1. ink 2. a brush or 3. paper. He just needs his flesh and his unusually sharp incisors. He's so far ahead of everyone around him; how is a dude this talented ever going to be anyone's right hand man? He’s already on track to creating a new talisman-based school of cultivation, even if he never gets around to the whole necromancy thing.  

Swimming in the Pool, Swimming is Cool

The main group of cultivators go swimming while Wei Wuxian lights fires to keep the tortoise's attention. For some reason he just stands there when it's about to eat him...maybe he's mesmerized? Lan Wangji flings him out of harm’s way and gets his already-busted leg chomped on. 

Wei Wuxian pulls Lan Wangji to safety and tells the other cultivators to get going. Jiang Cheng doesn't want to, but Jin Zixuan convinces him.

For fans of homoerotic screen caps, this episode is a gold mine.

Murder turtle suddenly remembers he has legs, but Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji instantly find a room he can’t fit into, so they’re okay for the night.

Owie Owie Owie

Now we have an extended hurt/comfort session with our wounded heroes. Lan Wangji is bleeding, so Wei Wuxian...puts a splint made of sticks directly onto his unbandaged lacerations, and ties it with his pristine headband, which will remain pristine. Then he puts medicine on the lacerations.

This seems like a situation where the script said "broken leg" and the makeup department said "MOAR BLOOD" and nobody changed the direction to the actors. In any case, the sticks seem to help and bandages are not mentioned.

What is mentioned, of course, is the dreaded stale blood, which plagues many a c-drama hero, and has to be driven out through strong emotion. This is totally how the human circulatory system works. To be fair, there is probably a perfectly reasonable underlying concept in Chinese medicine that has been exaggerated for dramatic effect, so that every possible ailment or injury results in vomiting blood, sometimes sexily.

Wei Wuxian clears up the blood problem super quickly by offering to show Lan Wangji his dick, not to put too fine a point on it. Alas, he retracts the offer once the crisis has passed.

Once they settle down, Lan Wangji takes the opportunity to put some medicine on Wei Wuxian's burned tit, and to chide him for letting himself get injured. It's like he doesn't even know him. 

Wei Wuxian: I had no choice, because I am psychologically driven to sacrifice myself for other people at every opportunity. Get used to it, cupcake.

Wei Wuxian points out that MianMian is pretty and that it would be bad for her to have a mark on her face. Lan Wangji points out, not quite in so many words, that Wei Wuxian is pretty and now HE has a permanent mark. Before Lan Wangji ever got to see his bare chest, too.

Wei Wuxian says it's cool for men to have marks on their bodies. Preferably hickeys and rope burns, but scars are okay too. 

Lan Wangji: you're going to love my future body mods, then.

Then Wei Wuxian waxes poetic about having a pretty girl remember your heroism, and Lan Wangji gets jealous and cranky. Wei Wuxian misinterprets this, but not unreasonably, considering that Lan Wangji was putting his own body between MianMian and harm not all that long ago.

After some extended eye fucking followed by laughing and saying "no homo" for the censors, the conversation moves to a more serious place. 

Wei Wuxian engages in a little WangXian meta analysis, noting that Lan Wangji can tease him now, and is talking to him slightly more. Falling for a high-spirited, popular extrovert has been hard on Lan Wangji, but Wei Wuxian is also struggling with falling for a nearly-silent, crushingly-shy introvert. Wei Wuxian really does find Lan Wangji boring on one level, at the same time as finding him utterly compelling on other levels. 

Wei Wuxian starts to say something about the Lans and stops himself with this charming gesture. I've seen it here and there in c-dramas and I assume it's a thing in China. It's a perfect way for a hyperactive talker to say "I'm shutting up now" without using even more words to say it.

Lan Wangji finally, FINALLY tells Wei Wuxian - briefly - what happened to his home. Wei Wuxian, in one of those moments of empathy that they have more and more often as time goes on, asks about his loved ones, and forgoes any other questions.

Lan Wangji tells him that Lan Qiren is seriously injured and Lan Xichen is missing. Wei Wuxian is extremely concerned about one of these people.

When Lan Wangji falls asleep at 9pm on the button, Wei Wuxian tenderly covers him in his own robe, offering physical comfort in place of the emotional comfort Lan Wangji won’t let anybody give him. 

Then Wei Wuxian gazes at him like a lovestruck dope, before settling down beside him for the night. 

Soundtrack: Peter Gabriel, I Go Swimming

[boop-le-snoot]

PARTY FAVOURS I CHAPTER 32

💖 first time reader click here 💖

Summary: Stephen Strange being a grown-up. Reader being a grown-up. Kind of. Revenge plot starts now - don't be like the mercenary, don't threaten reader's family. Avengers being good.. bros? Good found family idk. More smut + plot coming soon.

The silence hung awkwardly over us. Stephen wasn't the one to wax poetics, usually, and I wasn't in the mood to do anything but curl up somewhere warm, chug a bottle of liquor and fall asleep. Sleep is like death without the committment and after my little outburst, I inwardly prayed and begged for the ground to open up and swallow me whole. Instead, I was directed to sit and drink my tea by the sorcerer, who, by the way, was beginning to look like a kicked puppy.

It was starting to become unbearable. "I'm listening," I finally croaked out, shocked at how raspy my voice sounded. As if someone had forced me to choke on some nails - and I felt like it, too. My hands were shaking, all but spilling the hot tea onto them.

"Princess..." His mouth did the thing when he was worried, lips pursed, their corners upturned. "What we did was not... Right, you were drugged without your consent. I am sure Tony feels the same way."

My eyebrows rose, words bubbling up to the surface as I fought the urge to simply start calling Stephen some strong names. Had he been blind the whole time I flirted with him, had he not seen both me and Tony ogling him when we thought nobody could see? Every time I joked about the sexual tension between them - you know what they say, every joke has a little bit of truth in it.

Or maybe the sorcerer had used the incident as a convenient excuse for our little fuck-fest to be a one-time thing? I expected more, I won't lie, but I wouldn't put it above him. I knew all too well that some men tended to simply... Avoid.

I was angry, probably rightfully so, but it was not the time for me to comfort an adult man. My own life was going to shit, I had no mental energy to unburden his baseless guilt. It was selfish and it made me feel even more like shit, but it was as if someone had flipped a switch inside of me. I just didn't care about someone's heartbreak. I needed to solve another problem, a much bigger than a man that couldn't make up his mind.

I had to find that damn mercenary. It was the only real threat hanging over our heads; unlike any mission that I've seen the team go on before, they had thrown all the forces into catching the man that had gotten into their safe space, their home. That threatened to take what they thought as theirs. Long gone were the days of comfortable domesticity.

"Okay," I replied, nodding curtly. "I wanted it, if it helps any. I thought you were attractive the first day I saw you." I spoke bluntly, beginning to feel like myself more and more with each word that I spoke. "And again, no strings have to be attached. I'm sure Tony will understand it too, it's not his first rodeo."

Stephen's head shot up from where he was examining his clasped hands, to study me with furrowed brows. Cloaky moved where it was wrapped around me, attracting the sorcerer's attention - I, unfortunately, did not understand the Cloak's sign language and what it told Stephen remained a mystery to me. I was just delighted to be out of the cold and and wet clothes.

"I think you misunderstood me," Stephen eyed me with surprise. "I want more, but..." He trailed off, unsure. "I don't know. I'm surprised Banner hasn't gone green on me yet. I'm a doctor, I should have known..."

So, he was pulling a me and wallowing in pity. Is this really how pathetic I looked when I used to mope around the house earlier? No wonder my mother thinks I'm a baby. "Stephen, I'm really not in the mood to listen to bullshit. I wanted it, you wanted it, great, we can move on. Because with everything that has happened to me, I really have no energy to convince you I like you even while sober when you're sabotaging yourself." Sure, I might have ripped off the motivational speech from a self-help book my mother used to have laying around. My patience was wearing thinner with each second. "There, I said it. I like you, my boyfriends like you, you're welcome to the club if you decide to believe the fact that I am telling the truth." And if he wouldn't, well, I could get over it. I was planning to never act upon my feelings for both Tony and Bruce, it hadn't been as hard as I thought it would be. Especially with me being busy enough to just ignore the feelings.

At some point, I had grown attached to Stephen. Perhaps, if I and Tony hadn't decided to mess around with the sorcerer at the party, my feelings wouldn't have bloomed into anything more than physical attraction. Murphy's law had a particularly strong affinity on me, I noticed, because over and over I found myself falling head over heels for emotionally unavailable men. It worked out with Tony, which wasn't as surprising as one might expect, considering we're two halves of a whole idiot, but then Bruce also decided to pucker up - Stephen was bound to be the rock that I trip on.

Or not? Soft lips pressed against my forehead, beard hair softly tickling the tip of my nose. I was pressed against a solid chest, surrounded by warmth and comfort. "I'm sorry, I'm an idiot," Steph whispered, voice quivering.

"Well, it's not like this... Relationship... I've got going on is something commonplace," My arms wrapped around him, a deep sigh relaxing my body into his. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. It wasn't right."

Stephen chuckled, all but pulling me bodily into his lap. "Don't worry, Princess. I deserved it." As he spoke, the Cloak carefully unwrapped itself from me, drifting away with a parting pat on my back. "Now what happened with your parents?" Large palms pushed the hair out of my face, stormy blue eyes looking at me with worry.

"I should probably assemble all my significant others for this conversation," There was little enthusiasm in discussing the incident. I was an adult and had enough money to get by for a few months, at least until I could patent one of my inventions. I had plenty of knick-knacks that should be able to interest buyers, that much I knew, and while the legal side of the process was a blank slate to me, I knew I could be charismatic enough to have someone work it out for me.

"I don't think I'll be able to take Steve seriously when he says 'assemble', now," My third boyfriend chuckled, which - wow, I didn't have boyfriends and now I had three? Should I be considering opening a factory or something? Stephen adjusted his hold on me. "Let's go, I'll portal us in."

"My car's out there with all my stuff. I'll have to drive," I protested but made no move to get out of his lap.

"Tony is a billionaire, he can pay someone to retrieve it," Shrugging carelessly, he produced a golden circle of magic, the common room couch in plain sight at the other side of it. I heard voices and then Clint's head peaked through, a curiously tilted eyebrow morphing into full fledged face of confusion upon seeing the two of us.

Yikes. I had forgotten about the state of my dress and the bruise on my cheek. "Hey, bird. I need a drink," I said the first thing that popped into my mind, causing both Clint and Steph to laugh as the sorcerer carried me into the tower through the portal.

"I'm starting to think you go out there and look for trouble on purpose," The archer sighed, pulling out his phone and texting rapidly. Mine vibrated, too, once he was done, which meant he'd called for a family meeting. Blergh.

In no time, Tony appeared, dark circles under his eyes and yesterday's shirt on, towing a worried Bruce behind him. One after the other, the Avengers tickled in, looking restless and exhausted. Loki's frown was well on its way to becoming a full sneer.

"Talk, please," He requested, eyeing me with concern.

"Good news is I got our rogue wizard back," I poked Stephen in the chest. He was blushing. "Bad news is my mother threw me out and my father didn't pick up the phone, so technically I'm homeless and parent-less," I decided that spitting out straight facts was the easiest way to go about it. I mean, there was no good way to tell what I just told them.

The storm that I anticipated didn't appear. Just a lot of disappointed sighs all around, especially from Tony, who looked twenty years older after I'd confessed to the current state of my affairs. "You're not homeless, you live here," He pointed out, rubbing his face and muttering some very strong words under his nose. Particularly, the expressions involved my mother and various methods of fornication.

"We got your back, doll," Bucky nodded, coming over to wrap me in a gentle hug. He was like a brother from another mother to me at this point, kind and goofy and sensible. "I would propose to teaching that harpy a lesson but I think she's beyond it."

"Perhaps it's for the best," Loki mused suddenly. "If I recall correctly, your mother was against your career of choice, which is idiotic. Science is a noble and prospective path." The Asgardian, too, gave me a hug.

I wasn't crying! There were ninjas, in the vents, cutting onions! "Stop it guys, I'm gonna cry. I already look like shit!" The protest was silenced by Bruce's lips on mine, his tiny smile briefly covering my mouth with tenderness. After that, everybody somehow decided it was their job to try and make me cry; like a bad bitch, I resisted, but eventually broke and started sniffling when Tony began rambling about building me my own lab and Wanda offered to help me decorate my new apartment.

No matter how much my mind screamed at me to refuse, I forced that noise down. Fighting against myself, accepting help despite feeling unworthy of it - it was probably the hardest thing I've done in my whole life.

Bruce volunteered to carry my prone body to Tony's bedroom which was quickly becoming the master bedroom for the three of us - ever since the incident, both of my scientists stuck close to me whenever possible, aggressively cuddling me whenever they decided it was time to get some sleep. Which wasn't much these days, if I was being honest. Persuading Bruce to stay with me was a novelty - usually he didn't resist, but that time, I had to repeat myself multiple times that the team could handle business even without him being present.

I had my ulterior motives, of course. Tony and Stephen needed to talk. I only hoped their egos wouldn't clash without me to mediate - having two boyfriends start a fight wasn't something I wanted to experience. I had zero experience in those matters and had no idea how to manage all that. Are there handbooks for polyamorous relationships? I stuck a mental post-it note inside my brain to check it out.

I fell asleep with Bruce wrapped around me and woke up in the same position, having been too exhausted to move even in my sleep. Voices, rough and quiet, were the first thing I heard upon syncing my brain into a resemblance of a working order, instantly recognizing Stephen's deep baritone and Tony's teasing drawl.

"Expect either Reindeer Games or Kim Possible to come and terrify you," My engineer didn't sound particularly ecstatic. His voice came from somewhere around my feet; the hand wrapped around my ankle, thumb gently stroking the skin, must've been his.

"Duly noted," Stephen's reply was equally sarcastic, sounding a little closer. The warmth coming from my side was him. I could smell the faint spices that surrounded him, smell that I'd come to associate with the Sanctum.

Bruce snored away, not a care in the world.

My body, on the other hand, felt rested for what felt the first time in years. A pleasant ache in my muscles had me begrudgingly squirm out of Banner'd grasp, shamelessly pushing up into Stephen as I stretched with a juicy yawn. "What's poppin'?" I rubbed my eyes, finding the men awake looking at me with fond amusement.

"Just watching," Tony smiled, causing me to giggle at his accidental meme-ing. Was it even accidental? I refused to believe that a man well versed in IT was oblivious to meme culture.

Stephen, on the other hand... "We've discussed some things, wanted to talk to you too." His hand stroked my hair, face expression soft unlike anything I'd ever seen him have. "But you were sleeping. So cute."

Me, cute? There was a puddle of drool the size of a dollar bill on my pillow, I was pretty sure some of it had even gotten in Bruce's hair. Banner's sleep was quiet except for every five minutes when he'd let out a snore with a force somewhere between a Mack truck and a whale in mating season.

Cute, sure.

Bruce groaned, a tell-tale sign of him waking up. I met his eyes, brown, shiny, a narrow edge of green around his irises. Huh. Do I have three boyfriends or four?

THE TAG LIST IS NOW OPEN! @another-stark-sub ​ @mostly-marvel-musings  @vozit ​ @littlegasps ​ @pilloclock ​ @shereadsinquiet @downeyreads ​ @hermione-grangers-wife ​ @individualistfem ​@sleep-i-ness @capbrie @lillsxd @agustdowney @dee-vn @justanotherblonde23 @fanngirl19 @persephonehemingway @softie-socks @schemefrenzy @letsby @romeo-the-cactus @jelly-fishy-babie @mikariell95 @gladiosamicitias

[chews-erotically]

Waxing Gibbous  Pairing: Ezra + femNurse! Reader Rating: Hard M / 18+ ONLY

    *Note: I dedicate this installment to the beautiful @ifimayhaveaword, who really made my day today with her lovely messages of support. People like you truly mean the world to me. I appreciate you more than you know.

      * Warnings:  Some minor angst/ miscommunication/ SMUT (m/f oral, fingering, hand job, spicy kisses) Can’t stop the smut train baybeeee choo choo motherfuckers       * Summary: You process the events of the night before, and wonder about your place with Ezra and on the Green       * Word Count: 3879 *Part ONE* *Part TWO* *Part THREE* *Part FOUR*

PART FIVE

    You Awoke the next morning feeling as if it were some erotic fever dream. You stretched your arm out across the emptiness of the cot pushed beside yours. It was only when you moved to roll onto your back that the deep pang of soreness between your legs reminded you that, yes, what you’d wanted for months had actually happened, and you did indeed feel ruined.     Ezra appeared to have left the tent in the early morning haze. You gazed upward at the ceiling of the tent, at the support beams that vaulted the cloth walls. Things were going to be different, that you knew. It did not make you any less apprehensive.     He had told you he loved you. Or, more accurately, that he had love for you.

    You could not forget the tenderness he’d shown you after you were attacked, but you were well aware that things said in the heat of passion were often a product of an intense moment and were not necessarily reflective of the truth. You chided yourself for ruminating; he’d been a nanosecond from coming inside of a warm body for the first time in undoubtedly several months. From your admittedly limited sexual experiences, proclamations of love and devotion and promises of ardent follow-through were often expressed in the heat of the moment, never to be mentioned again. You usually never saw them again.

    This was different, of course, as you literally could not leave. You were both stranded, though you still kept up the pretense of harvesting in the event an opportunity to escape should present itself. The chance of this happening had begun to seem less and less likely- the heyday of the aurelac rush had long since come and gone, and the remaining groups of adventurers to the Green operated more or less on whispered rumors and folklore.     The zipper of the tent pulled upward, and Ezra emerged. The flaps were quickly refastened, and he moved to whip his helmet off as you shyly pulled your worn blanket up to your neck. You had been wanton and vocal the night before, but in the light of the morning you felt fragile, unsure. Ezra looked to you, seemingly amused by your sudden modesty. The corner of his mouth tilted up, his warm brown eyes twinkled. The blond patch of hair, a rogue among it’s dark compatriots, stuck out wildly in response to the chaotic divestment of his helmet. He wasn’t even close to you and your heart started pounding.     “Ah, good morning to you, Dove. I was hoping you would continue your slumber a bit longer. I have spent some time in the early light surveying the Green for signs of life and transport, not necessarily in that order, of course.”     In the months since you’d first met him in the clearing on that fateful day, his arm had fully recovered thanks to your ministrations- all that remained was a cratered, puckering pink scar on the skin of his bicep. He wore a threadbare grey tee under his suit and this drew your eye to the wound. If something were to happen to you, if this did not pan out and you either died or escaped, were separated, would he remember you when he saw his scar? Would it be with fondness, or would it only remind him of how traumatic this all was?      Why am I thinking like this?     It was the fact that he had admitted, out loud, that he was looking for a way out, a way off of the Green. You knew that you would both die if you could not find a way to go, it was only logical. So why were you nursing this pang of melancholy that had emerged when you’d awoken to find his cot empty?     You came back to yourself, and noted the concern etched on Ezra’s face as he contemplated you.     “Have I said or done something to upset you, Dove? That has rendered you mute?”     He moved across the floor of the tent with a lithe grace and perched on the edge of your cot, placing a hand on your knee.     “Are you feeling alright?”     You sighed, smiling softly when you felt his touch on you, warm and heavy. “Better than alright, Ez. I….can’t….I guess I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happened last night.”     He creased his brow in contemplation and turned to face you fully.  “I must admit, I myself did not envision such intimacy occurring between us in the manner it did. I…. fear I may have been a fair bit rougher than I meant to be at the outset. I need you to be truthful if I hurt you in any way.”     You bit your lip, and your neck and face felt hot. Flashes of him caging you, filling you, his words, hot breath and hands, the way the cot had creaked like it was pleading for its life…     “I….really loved everything about last night. It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone...like that. So honestly, I’m sore. But in a...good way?”     He surged forward, framing your face with his hands. His voice left his plush lips in a hoarse whisper. His eyes held yours, hypnotic and deep.     “Will you feel me with every step you take today? I’m going to watch you. I have never felt such intensity with anyone the way I felt it when we took our pleasure last night. I don’t want it to stop.”     You were flushed, your ears buzzed. Your mind filled with static. How could he practically dismantle you in this way with only words? You realized your mouth was hanging open. You snapped it shut and swallowed audibly.     Ezra’s clever tongue darted to wet his lips before squeezing your knee and standing.     “Get dressed, Dove. We’ve a day ahead of us.”

    It was another hot day in the Green, and you both resumed your digging, harvesting and cataloguing as if it were any other afternoon. For all intents and purposes, it was. Ezra waxed poetic about the juxtaposition of the beauty surrounding you beside the deadliness of the air, how the regular exchange of oxygen, hydrogen and carbon dioxide were perverted carbon copies of the vegetation you were both used to which processed and sustained an atmosphere more life-sustaining.      You hummed at the appropriate moments, but your mind was on your conversation in the tent. What he had said to you seemed indicative of the fact that he intended to continue a physical relationship. It made you feel equal parts giddy and insecure. You frowned in thought.     Snap the fuck out of it. You’re no delicate, blushing maiden. You know yourself. You’re seriously thinking like some incapable, dependent damsel the second you get some good dick??     Except you moved a certain way while crouching down and you winced, gasping softly. Ezra stopped mid-sentence and turned his gaze toward you, his eyes dark, his tongue once again flicking out to moisten his lips.     “Are you injured, little Dove?” he asked, smiling softly.     “Uh, no, not exactly. You know, what I told you before...I’m fine, really.”     He sauntered over to you and held out his hand. You grasped it, and he pulled you to your feet so that your helmets were touching.     “As cocky as I may have seemed at the outset in regards to the way I left my mark on you, do not think it is no little concern to me to see your movements impaired. My words were not meant to denote any sadistic pleasure taken in regards to your objective discomfort.”     His hands were stroking gently up and down your arms as he spoke.     You shrugged under his hands, a flash of annoyance crossing your features.     “I’m really fine, Ez. I’m not some wilting flower that you’ve irreparably damaged with your Godlike virility. I promise you, my delicate, blushing womanhood will recover.”     Ezra cocked an eyebrow in surprise. His hands stilled as he paused a beat before responding.     “Now that is something I would not anticipate. The thought that for one moment I consider you anything less than an equal, in fact a superior to myself in several ways, not the least of which include cunning and resilience. It saddens me that you think that of me.”     All at once you felt like a jerk. Damn this emotional lability, damn this stubborn pride. Ezra was genuinely concerned that you were in pain, and you were jumping at the opportunity to argue semantics and gender roles. On a toxic planet you were both stranded on, no less.     You reached for his gloved hand, squeezing firmly. His hand squeezed back, equally firm.     “I don’t know why I said that, Ezra. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I sound like an asshole, I’m sorry.”     You’ve gotten into me.

    You were back in the tent after determining that the day's work had finished. It was quiet, Ezra ruminated. The tension had surely rebuilt itself over the course of the day, there was only so much harvesting, so much concentration on work that could be accomplished, before it came to this. The both of you, stripped to your thermals. You lay as you had countless times before, facing one another on your cots. Ezra swept his thumb lazily back and forth across your knuckles. You felt like you could drown in the depths of him.      “I’m sorry again about what I said to you today. I don’t know why I said it. I didn’t mean it.”     “Though you have nothing to apologize for, Dove, I will readily accept if it will still the turbulence within you. I meant what I said, and I have you to thank for every bit of happiness I doubted I’d ever feel in this Kevva-forsaken place. My arm, my livelihood. My life. If not for you I’d have faded forgotten like so many other poor, foolish dupes. My very survival is due to your strength and intellect.”     You felt full to bursting at his words, overwhelmed by his sincerity. You couldn’t respond, so you propelled yourself forward and pressed your lips to his desperately. He stilled only momentarily, startled at your boldness, before he responded hungrily. Lips slid, teeth clashed. His tongue begged entry into your mouth, which you granted with a whimper. He tasted somehow sweet, wild. His breaths gasped into your mouth, you pushed your own back into him. Hands tangled in hair. You had yet to see him unclothed, you reached out and grasped his shirt in your needy fist. Ezra immediately took the hint and stripped it. You removed your own and his hands were at once on your breasts, large warm hands that enveloped each in turn, greedy and restless. He couldn’t touch enough of you at once.     His hands moved to your waist, tearing at your pants. You helped him pull them off and fling them to the ground. You felt like you were radiating heat, you were a thermal detonator. Ezra pinched your nipple, applying slight pressure into the bud with his thumb nail. Your nerves sparked and sang, your ass arching off of your cot like you’d been hit by an electrical current.     You gasped, your trembling hands moving to divest him of his pants.     His hand shot down to still yours. You both paused, the only sound within the confines of your quarters were the loud gasps that echoed between you.     “Is….is something wrong?”     Ezra fought to still his breathing. “Sweet girl, I have not forgotten my rough congress with you the night before. I do not want to risk exacerbating your discomfort. You should recover, first, from our mutual enthusiasm.”     You groaned in frustration. “I’ll be fine. Ezra, I promise you won’t break me.”     You palmed him through his trousers, Kevva he was so hard. So hot. You swore you were salivating. Ezra stilled, breath held in an attempt to maintain his composure.     “Please grant me this, at least for my own peace of mind. Just for tonight. Allow me, if I may, to indulge in an alternate form of intimacy, one which I’ve dreamed of sharing with you since your first trick with the Sater.” The last sentence was gritted out between clenched teeth.     Your eyes wide, you bit your lip and barely finished a frenzied nod before Ezra was pinning your hands above your head and scraping his teeth against the juncture of your neck and shoulder. It was somehow different, more measured, if no less intense. You let a shiver run through your body as Ezra moved down to first one breast, then the other. He opened his mouth wide and covered the entirety of your nipple and sucked. You gasped, already overwhelmed. You felt as if you could lose your mind as he possessed you. Teeth scraped and teased, and he made sure the peak of your breast was properly slicked before repeating the motions on your other breast. You keened out into the cycled air of the tent as the wet surface of your skin cooled, warring with the sinful furnace of Ezra’s mouth on your other breast.     He disengaged, intentions clear as he continued to kiss, lick, and nip down the length of your body. You were struck mute and trembling. You didn’t realize he had let go of your hands, and you were so mesmerized that you kept them stationary above your head. Ezra reached your drenched core and settled between your legs, pressing feather-light kisses to your inner thighs as you whimpered. He was going to kill you. He paused, and as you realized he was beginning to part your inner folds you started and reflexively started to close your legs. Ezra huffed, placing a searing palm against the inside of your knee in protest.     “Don’t be shy, sweet girl. There is no shame here with me. I consider it a compliment of the highest order that you are blooming for me like this.” He moved to lay his head against the side of your thigh. He felt inches away from you. You could feel every warm exhale against your dripping sex, hypersensitive, attuned to every word and movement.     “Look at you,” he crooned reverently. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen arousal so profound. Glistening like a jewel. Every blushing fold spread open and ready. The temple of this divine cunt fluttering and weeping for me.”     You choked out a broken groan at his words and tilted your hips toward him desperately. Impossibly, you felt him closer, his breaths tiny explosions on your swollen core. He groaned back in response and dragged his fingers languidly through your slick.     “.....smell so good…”     Before you could register his words he darted forward and licked from your clenching hole up to your clit, his tongue wide and flat. Ezra ran his tongue back down to your base before repeating the motion twice more.     It was a feeling so intense, sensation so overwhelming to you, that you could not speak, only throw your head back with eyes and mouth wide in a silent scream. Your hands hammered down to your sides and you tore at the sheets beneath you.     “....taste so fucking good.”     You gasped his name like a prayer. You were incapable of speech, your mind blank. Over the din of white noise between your ears, you heard Ezra speaking your name reverently.     You forced your head up to meet his gaze. Your arousal was a wet sheen across his face, his eyes blown wide, hair wild. So beautiful.     “You still with me, Dove?” You could only give him another desperate nod.      You then watched, eyes wide and shocked, as Ezra opened his wicked mouth and let a strand of spittle drip down from his lips and roll down to coat your engorged clit.     “Ezra...oh my fucking God,” You moaned. He could kill you in this moment, snuff your life like a wasted candle and you would thank him.     When he next attached his mouth to you and began to tongue your fluttering cunt, you could not stop the noises that left your gasping mouth. You could not keep track of the groans, whimpers, screams, pleas that left you like an incantation. If you’d been able to form a coherent thought, you may have even supposed (correctly) that Ezra would be cataloguing every single one.     When he moved his mouth back to your aching clit, he replaced his tongue with two thick fingers and entered you easily. He began a slow, deep pace while his tongue danced across and upon your bud. Your legs began to shake of their own accord, muscles jumping and fluttering. Ezra placed a hand across your stomach to steady you, murmuring low praises.     “I’ve got you. I’ve got you. So good. Come for me sweetheart. Let go, release onto my tongue, spill your ecstasy into my mouth.”     He resumed the labor of his fingers within your walls and latched his mouth to your bud and began sucking.     The pressure in your belly, between your legs, through your limbs stretched tight and snapped, and you roared Ezra’s name into the void of the Green. You were shaking, you were flying apart, the world could be crumbling down around you, you did not care.     I’m dying, you thought. You could not think beyond the white-hot, searing pleasure that sparked through and lit up every nerve ending. Ezra worked you through your explosive release, easing you down with slow licks and kisses as he greedily consumed every drop of his victory. He finally relented and crawled back up your shaking body. He kissed you wantonly, gasping into your mouth. You tasted your own arousal and release on his lips and tongue- it was intoxicating. He kissed you as if he would die if he stopped, his hands cradling your face.     “Ezra,” you moaned, your breaths and heart rate finally beginning to slow. “Ezra, that was…..” You felt him smirk against your mouth. You gasped out a laugh and wound your arms around his shoulders.     “Proud of yourself, are you?” You swore on your soul that he giggled.     “While I must admit fault has never been found in my technique, I don’t believe I’ve ever had a response so….intense. You do wonders for my ego, Dovie.” He whispered, tucking his nose into your neck. You stroked his back, your limbs heavy and loose. You could have drifted away like this but for the hardness you felt against your hip.     “Hey, Ez?”     “Mmmfff.”     “What about you?”     To punctuate your point, your hand reached down to palm him through his trousers. Ezra’s demeanor immediately changed, lazy grin stilling as he gasped and groaned against you.     “I believe I told you I wanted you in my mouth last night, Ezra. I still do.”     “You don’t have to, sweet one. I wanted to take care of you tonight,” he gasped, even as he began to rock his hips into your open hand.     “I want to take care of you, too,” You whispered against his mouth. You were startled by the desire flooding into you once again- Ezra had fully wrung you out, you should be exhausted. Instead, the flames of your lust were stoked once again as you rolled him onto his back and began to undo his pants. Ezra stared down at you, his breathing hitched and baited. His hands were fisted on either side of him, he looked almost scared to move.     You revealed his swollen aching cock, red and weeping. He was so aroused the head of him was almost purple. You swore you could see his pronounced veins pulsating. Your felt your cunt clench, further shocking you. You realized your mouth was watering.     “I need this divine cock in my mouth, Ezra. I want to watch you fall apart for me.”     Ezra whined, hands clutching in desperation as yours were only a short time before.     You flashed him a salacious grin and opened your mouth to spew your own string of saliva to cascade down the head of his cock. Ezra gasped, eyes wide.     “Turnabout is fair play, Sir.”      Shudders racked his body as you lowered your head, placing delicate kisses at the base of him before working your way up. Ezra quickly became a panting, groaning mess, knocking his head into the pillow. The cords of his neck stood out in stark relief as his hips canted upward in search of more of your mouth, more of anything.     “Please, sweet girl,” he moaned, is voice thin and reedy, “Please. I need more….”     You glanced up at him as your hand slowly pumped his length, considering, before once again leaning forward. Without preamble you opened your mouth and took him down as far as you could. The cries that erupted from him at your action could have awakened any floater within a 15-mile radius. You wanted to hear it again, so you dislodged him from your mouth before repeating your action. You clasped hour hands around the sizable part of him that did not fit, lacing your fingers together. You pressed your palms against the slick shaft and worked him slowly and steadily while the obscene, wet noises coming from your mouth reverberated throughout your quarters.     Ezra was properly wrecked, sobbing and gasping, pleading for you to continue.     “You're going to kill me,” he whined, and it caused a fresh flood of arousal to run down the insides of your thighs. He was so, so close. You could feel his cock twitch and swell impossibly. You raised your eyes to meet his, mouth popping off of him, strands of spit stretching like cables between your parted lips and his glistening head. Catching your breath, you wiped the back of your hand across your mouth.     “Come in my mouth, Ezra.”     Ezra could only whimper in response, hands buried in your hair as you sank back onto him. You bobbed your head once, twice, three times, and then he was painting your mouth and tongue with his seed. You struggled to swallow it all, it seemed neverending. Ezra sobbed, shouting half-formed words and unintelligible praises into the air. His hips twitched and rolled up rhythmically as you struggled to keep him captured within the confines of your mouth.      You swallowed each spurt eagerly until Ezra tugged at your hair, hypersensitized, to pull you up his chest. His limbs trembled in aftershocks as his arms wrapped around you. His heart continued to hammer in his chest as you lay your head on him. You reached a hand up to cup his face. Ezra leaned into it, turning his head and placing a kiss to the palm of your hand.     “You are magical, Dove. Transcendent. I do not deserve you.”     You yawned and burrowed your head into the crook of his neck. You were suddenly exhausted.      You stayed entwined on your cots, breaths slowing and steadying as you both found your slumber. Inhaling as you exhaled, you dreamed of escape, daring to hope against hope that there was a way to leave and make your way to something better.      Something you both deserved.

[abluescarfonwaston]

Loid opened the door.

“You’re married!?” A female voice screeched.

Loid closed the door. Holding it closed as the person on the other side banged against it frantically.

“Loid?” Yor’s voice was high and concerned. Butter knife clenched in her hand. “Who’s that?”

Anya’s eyes went wide. Loid pressed his forehead against the door as it pounded.

“That.” He lamented. “Is my sister.”

“Stop yelling. The neighbors are staring.” He scolded when he finally opened the door.

She shoved past him. Taking in the apartment. Surveying their domain before her eyes settled on them.

She was all blue eyes and wild blond curls.

His sister.

Yor’s hand stayed tight around the butter knife. Half afraid she attack.

The hand not holding the knife was firmly clasped between both of Loid’s sister’s. Blue eyes drilling into her as she opened her mouth – undoubtedly to comment on how quick it must have been or how she wasn’t good enough or how she didn’t approve- and said,

“You deserve better.”

The door clicked closed behind Loid as he sighed. “Olivia –don’t.” He plead.

“No you seriously do. I once listened to him wax poetic about bumblebees for eight hours straight and I once watched him dive into an empty swimming pool and-“

“Yor, Anya, meet Olivia Stahl. She’s been working abroad the last few years. She was an intern I helped train during residency.”

“You helped train me?” She turned on him. “I’m sorry which one of us drank that spiked cocktail just to prove a point about how strong his liver was? Because I specifically remember telling you not to drink it and then you downing it in one go because-”

He did not make eye contact with her. Eyes train well above her head as he continued on ignoring her. “I didn’t realize she’d come home. Lovely to see you again Olivia but I only made enough for three so you’ll have to be going now-“

“Auntie!” Anya jumped out of her chair and hugged her leg. Halting his shoving her back out the door. “I missed you!”

There existed gratitude and irritation in equal measure in his heart. Gratitude that Anya had decided to play along with the situation. Irritation that her ploy would slow his removal of Olivia.

Olivia smacked his stomach with the back of her hand. “Well your daughter has decided I’m staying so I’m staying! It’s fine I’ll just eat your portion.” She settled herself down in his seat with a smirk. Anya stared up at her expectantly. Olivia smacked her forehead and dug around her bag pulling out a small figurine. “Sorry I didn’t bring your official present Anya. I heard he’d tricked some poor woman into marrying him and I forgot your gift at home.”

She’ll just pick something up later and pretend she got it abroad.

“But maybe you can keep an eye on this little fellow for your Dad until then?”

It was a small figurine of a bumblebee. Incredibly lifelike. Its eyes tiny ordered hexagons. She frowned and shook her head.

He plucked it from her palm and set it on the counter. “A Bombus Fernaldae. Will you drop this joke? It was one time.”

“It was not just one time! And the fact you could identify what kind of bee it is says plenty about how much you secretly like it.” She turned her focus to Yor. Ignoring Loid’s put upon sigh. “So tell me how he managed to trick you into marrying him.”

“I- well I actually asked him?”

Her lips curled with revulsion as she stretched the word “Why?” into an eight syllable groan.

Loid sat down with a new plate serving himself a new meal while Olivia ate the remains of his old one. “Eden requires children who apply to have two married parents. She was helping us out.”

You’re telling her that? I thought we were keeping it quiet.

“Oh I gathered what you got out of it but I was asking what she got out of it.”

“She doesn’t owe you an explanation Olivia.” He scowled. Olivia yipped in pain drawing her legs up onto the chair.

“Don’t kick me!”

“Don’t interrogate my wife.”

“Is it blackmail? If you need me to get rid of him for you I can-“

“I’m not blackmailing her!”

The conversation rapidly dissolved into bickering. Full of stories and inside jokes that were thrown and discarded far too quickly to unravel.

Loid ran his hand through his hair for the fifth time in as many minutes. The floof levels rising higher and higher. His locks growing more and more bedraggled as they continued.

Anya’s wide eyes snapped between the two of them like a riveting tennis match.

“Actually,” She started, interrupting the flow of their verbal sparring. Loid froze mid stab of the steak on Olivia’s plate. Suddenly remembering they weren’t alone. “Loid helped me out. Being single at my age can attract the wrong kind of attention.” Screams of the people the secret police dragged away filled the space between words. “And my brother was worried. I was very lucky to meet Loid when I did.”

Olivia side eyed Loid. “Lucky. Right.” She smiled brightly at Yor. “You have a brother?”

Loid settled back into his chair, the impish grin falling away as the conversation drifted to calmer waters.

“Walk me out?” She requested after the last of the dishes were put away.

He nodded. Anya’s eyes followed them out the door.

“Anya you have to finish this if you don’t want to miss spy wars.”

Her focus turned back to the homework with a groan.

She offered a cigarettes to him.

“I quit.”

“For your fake family up there?”

He shrugged. “We’ve both read the studies. Seemed as good a reason as any.”

She blew out a smoke cloud. “Sure but it’s not like cancer’s going to get a chance to kill us.”

“Was there a point or did you just want to make my laundry more difficult?”

She hummed. “Can’t it be both?” Elbowed him.

He settled against the brick wall with a sigh. “What’s the job?”

“Get a solid night’s sleep? How’s that for a mission.”

His head tapped against the wall. Eyes closed and face turned upward to the hazy sky. It did nothing to hide the lines of deep seated exhaustion.  “They send you to do a psych eval?”

“Should I?”

“I’m fine.”

“Fine like I’m just overworked but am actually fine or fine like you’d get your makeup perfect before going in for an eval?”

“My makeup is always perfect. Yours however-“ He tilted his head to peer down at her. Tossing a cheeky grin her way.

“Is impeccable.”

“Just like I taught you.”

“You did not!” Shoving him. He bobbed to the side dramatically before returning to his position. “They seem nice.”

“They are.” His eyes found the carton in her hand longingly. He tore his eyes away. “Bombus Fernaldae huh.”

“Going to pull a cuckcoo bee on them when the mission is over?”

“The mission comes first.”

“Not going to turn you in for wanting more asshole.”

His eyes dragged up to their window as she took a drag of the cigarette.

“We can’t be more than we are.”

“Did you just make a bee pun? Cause I will tell the entire department. I’ll report you for that. Assault on a coworker.”

“I rented a castle and they barely batted an eye. No one will believe you Nite Lite.”

“I have an actual title these days you know.”

“And I promise I will never use it.” He assured like that was the problem. Which it wasn’t. He pat her head. She considered biting it off. “Just overworked. This has been. Good for me I think.”

“Aside from the potential cleanup?”

“I try not to think about that.”

She snorted. “She deserves better.”

“Of course.”

“Don’t agree with me. It doesn’t make you less of an asshole.”

“She knows it’s fake. It’s not like I’m lying to her about that.”

“Oh so she knows that. Great and I’m sure your brat totally got the memo about how-“

“Stop.” His voice heavy and dark. “I didn’t design the mission.”

The smoke curled in the air. “Yeah I know.”

Cold threaded its ways slowly into their jackets.

“Did she actually propose?”

“She did. I was so shocked I fell flat on my face.”

“Ugh! Don’t tell me shit like that! Literally no one ever believes me when I tell them what a mess you are! It’s Agony! Agony you hear me?”

“So sorry my lying is more effective than your honesty.” He leaned over her. “It’s this handsome face of mine. People instinctively think I’m put together.”

She gripped his smug face. Shoving it away as he pushed against her. “I will break your handsome face and then we’ll see if anyone can put you back together!”

He laughed as she shoved him away. She stopped.

It sounded genuine.

It had been so long since she’d heard him laugh like that. Not since his last partner had been –

Twilight cocked his head at her questioningly.

“She still deserves better than you and your knockoff curries.” She told him one last time. Stamping out the cigarette butt with her shoe.

But it seems like she might be good for you.

[peppersonironi]

Duke Thomas VS The "Good Child" Stereotype Chapter Three

Wooo! Chapter Two (not including the prologue) is up now for my @dukethomasbigbang fic! Today's art is by @a-sketchy-character and you can find the glorious piece HERE

thx again to my betas @queerbutstillhere & @theycallme-ook

Today has a special thanks to @batgirls-appreciation who dropped out as a beta, but this chapter couldn't exist without her!

Summary:

Duke pursed his lips, not quite sure why Cass had come down to the basement, only to look into his soul, shrug, and leave. But that didn’t matter right now. As Bruce would say, “The mission comes first.”

Read on Ao3

Duke frowned down at his empty pad of paper, trying to brainstorm. It had been a mere twelve hours since the failed Rick Roll (though, the Rick Roll itself wasn’t a fail. Duke would be daydreaming about the chaos for years to come), and the day shift bat was itching for a way to make up for it.

Alas, the creative juices were not flowing that day. Duke had tried everything - taking a walk, training, meditation, writer’s sprint, and even resorting to watching prank compilations on YouTube. But nothing worked. So, he found himself watching the target Bat - Bruce - in his “natural habitat.”

Also known as the living room, mid lecture.

“But I don’t know what I did!” Tim pleaded desperately, trying to convey to Bruce his confusion.

Bruce shook his head. “No, you do, Tim. Dick told me you all will appeal to my affection to get out of the consequences for your actions -” wow, Duke remembered Dick using that exact tactic just yesterday, and it worked - “So I will not allow you to shirk the punishment.”

Tim groaned. “This is tyranny! I’m an emancipated minor, I don’t need to deal with this.”

“Actually, yes you do. You will be doing chores for Alfred for the next two weeks, and you aren’t allowed to run off to Mount Justice.”

“Then at least tell me what I did wrong!” Tim cried, throwing his hands up in the air. Bruce rubbed his temples, then glanced briefly at Duke.

“You know what you did, and how it affected those around you. And you’re grounded because of it. No room for arguments. Now go work on the sprinklers, Alfred has mentioned they’ve been finicky.”

Tim scoffed and stalked out, soon after followed by Bruce.

Duke considered relocating as well - he couldn’t very well observe Bruce if said wild furry wasn’t present. But something about that conversation that sent a light shiver up Duke’s spine, some small spark of inspiration.

An idea began to form in his mind, and Duke smiled slowly.

*****

“For all Bruce’s waxing poetic on the merits of high tech stuff, this pipe organization is seriously ancient,” Duke muttered under his breath as he glanced from the blueprints he had secured to the mess of pipes and spigots and nozzles in front of him.

Though to be fair, this wasn’t the Batcave. Duke was in the basement of Wayne Manor - yes, he was just as surprised to find they actually had one of those that wasn’t dedicated to the dark and mystique training of Gotham’s Protectors. And impromptu Mario Kart challenges, because as Tim had once told Duke “We all know that’s the real reason Bruce got a giant computer setup.”

Duke cursed softly under his breath when he dropped a wrench that began to clang around in the messy cage of metal. He set the blueprints aside atop the gallons of paint he had chosen, and reached around and down to get the wrench. When he came back up, he found himself face to face with his sister Cassandra.

Oh shit, Duke thought, as he tried to figure out how to cover for what he was doing in the plumbing of the Manor.

Cass squinted at him and, not for the first time, Duke felt like he was an onion trapped beneath her gaze, slowly being peeled back layer by layer till the young woman before him knew every little detail about him. Every thought or plan he ever had.

Duke began to sweat, unable to keep his panic under wraps. Cass was scarier than Bruce, that was just a fact.

Cass tilted her head a fraction of an inch, and Duke thought he was a dead man. But, much to his relief and confusion, Cass shrugged and turned. She walked lightheartedly out of the basement and to the stairs, whistling tunelessly as she went.

Duke pursed his lips, not quite sure why Cass had come down to the basement, only to look into his soul, shrug, and leave.

But that didn’t matter right now. As Bruce would say, “The mission comes first.”

*****

As all members of the Wayne family knew, the Library was one of the best places, period. Aside from the living room which was always a mess of pillows, bean bags, inflatable dinosaurs, spare semi-automatic weaponry and knives, the Library was the most personal room in the expansive home that was the Manor. Sure, it was cleaner and home to fewer surprise nerf gun fights, but It still had an air of warmth about it. It was the place that they would go to to rest after a difficult patrol. Where you could find Jason reading some book in a corner, Tim busy with WE work at the large table, Damian trying to teach Alfred the Cat and Titus to read picture books, Cass and Steph trying to be subtle about making out (though to be fair that was only half the time, other times Cass was working on reading with Steph helpfully giving her guidance). Dick would always be trying to decide what to read and but he would never actually succeed, Bruce would sit in his tall armchair in the corner overlooking every small detail of his children with a not-quick-smile-but-pretty-darn-close on his face.

Duke himself also had his own spot that he would work on writing poetry, or just surf Tumblr. It was a window seat at the far side of the library which was technically big enough for three people, but Duke had a strict policy that it was his and his alone and no he totally wasn’t bullied by Cass that one time to snuggle. Why on Earth would you ever consider such a thing?

It was in this spot now that Duke was situated, though he was not alone. Titus - yes, Damian’s dog - was draped across his lap. Now, Duke didn’t mean to steal his little brother’s pets, but it just happened. Titus was in need of snuggles or belly rubs when Damian was away with Jon or on patrol at night, and Duke just happened to be the only one that said canine could bully into granting him.

Thankfully, like all bats were, Duke was a multi-tasker. He wasn’t put off by having to scratch a dog behind the ears whilst simultaneously checking the twelve blinking dots on his laptop screen that represented his family members.

Duke stared intensely at the diagram of the Manor as all the dots slowed down and finally stayed in their predetermined positions. Huh, Tim was right. Stalking family members did pay off!

The dots suddenly stopped blinking, and Duke snapped out of his self congratulations. It was go time . He switched windows, then quickly pulled out his phone and pressed a button.

There were several screams that echoed throughout the ancient halls, those screams spoke of terror and surprise, and passed along the message that something was very, very wrong in the world. The status quo had been broken, and there was no returning from this.

Duke smirked down at his computer, where a dozen different squares displayed camera footage of the real time happenings of the Manor. Said footage was showing several members of Duke’s family drenched in paint. The same paint that Duke had meticulously divided and poured into the ceiling sprinkling system that the Manor had for some totally-not-plot-related reason. The same paint which had been primed and ready to be sprayed out of the spigots coating each bat with the perfectly calculated, even layer.

The paint had just finished being deployed, and yet several people were for some reason trying to fight it off like it was an attacker. Duke noticed that the swinging of bo staffs, AK-47’s and katanas were altogether unsuccessful. Honestly, the people who were standing completely still in shock, or who were trying to shake off the paint were having much better luck.

But then everyone finally realised that they weren’t being sprayed anymore, and a collective sigh spread out across the Manor. The onslaught was done, and they could finally gather together and grab the pitchforks to hunt down the responsible party.

It was then that the glitter was deployed.

The chaos immediately multiplied tenfold, and the screams sounded up again. The air was filled with the sparkly dust that was way too thin to swat away. (No, Duke totally didn’t spend extra time researching to find the world’s finest glitter)

Duke was outright laughing at this point, so hard that he almost fell off the window seat. Titus barked suddenly, and Duke sobered enough to get back upright and watch the finishing up of the chaos. He had to admit, this felt wonderful. If he had to describe his current state of thrill in two words, he would have admitted that he felt altogether too close to the Hellmo Meme.

Unfortunately, Duke was not Stephanie, and ran out of glitter eventually. The vents stopped blasting the film of fairy dust, and the bats were given a reprieve.

Though the break was short lived, as just then, Bruce’s loud bellow sounded throughout the giant house.

“ALL OF YOU GET IN HERE!”

Duke chuckled as he scooched Titus over and set his laptop to the side so he could get up. This was all working perfectly! He’d arrive at Bruce's interrogation completely free from all paint or glitter, which would immediately prove his guilt. And if that didn’t work, then he supposed he could outright confess. But that wasn’t the point of this. The point was for Bruce to come to the conclusion on his own.

He walked down the hall, completely carefree. So happy and confident in his own abilities that he never even noticed that Cassandra’s paint or glitter didn’t go off. That she wasn’t even present where the tracker he had subtly placed on her earlier that day said she was.

*****

Duke hummed to himself as he skipped along the carpet, past the antique vases and random finger paintings, past the drawing rooms and bathrooms, and towards Bruce. All was quiet.

Though that began to trouble Duke, as he got closer to one of the rooms which was very special. It was where Cass had been situated, playing with Selina’s cat Isis, for the past hour. Now, Cassandra was quiet, sure. But not that quiet. And besides, wouldn’t the cat be screeching right about now? Cass didn’t seem like the person to give a nerve hit to an animal just because it was being loud ( cough Jason cough ).

He slowly entered the room and looked around, but was surprised to find it completely empty. Not just of girl and cat, but of paint and glitter too.

“You were mistaken.”

Duke whirled around to find Cass sitting in an armchair, wrapped in shadows, and stroking Isis in a manner not altogether different from that of an Evil Mastermind™.

“Uh…” Duke replied, “about what?”

Cass smirked, and Duke felt a shiver run up his spine. “Actions have consequences. ”

Duke frowned. Wait, what? He glanced around again, trying to figure out what Cass meant. On a surface level he understood, but there was something about the way Cass was eyeing him that told him something else was up.

The only thing he could find that was out of the ordinary, however, was the camera he had placed just yesterday. Huh, now that he thought about it, he was at just the right angle to see it. Which meant he was in direct view of the camera itself. Pretty darn to close to where he had been planning Cass would stand, actually.

Then a faint spitting noise came from above him.

Oh.

*****

Duke trudged forlornly into the room where the rest of the bats - except Cassandra, who had disappeared after the glitter had deployed onto Duke - had gathered. He was one of the last to arrive, muttering curses under his breath, so all eyes were on him as he opened the door and joined them.

Though that also meant that Duke could see them. He had to admit, that as disappointed as he was, it was still hard to keep a grin from spreading across his face. Boy, he had done a great job with color coordination, hadn’t he?

Bruce was front and center, covered in a dark gray paint which had the sheen of yellow glitter. Dick had black paint completely covering him (much more than Duke planned. Did Dick roll in the stuff?) along with blue glitter. Jason had both red paint and glitter on him. Tim had started off with a lighter colored paint - this time red - and then the look was finished by black glitter. Damian looked like a small Christmas tree in his green paint and red glitter. Harper had blue paint then covered in purple glitter, both of which were the exact shades of her hair. Duke wasn’t a monster ; he knew how to match colors.

The cousins - both honorary and actually - had also been present. Bette had been appropriately targeted with a flaming orange and gold combination. Kate had black paint and, instead of red, Duke had picked a rainbow glitter for her. From the slight glint in her eye, Duke supposed he had chosen correctly. Jean-Paul had been doused in yellow paint and red glitter, and he honestly looked like a very large and human shaped version of his sword. Luke was covered in silver paint and an electric blue glitter.

Bruce, however, didn’t give Duke a second glance, covered in yellow paint and black glitter (which had been meant for Cass, but honestly, it fit Duke quite well), though he was.

“Good, now we just have to wait for Steph,” Tim remarked, rolling his eyes.

Duke frowned. “What about Cass? She’s here too.”

Everyone gave Duke a weird look. “Uh, no she isn’t. She’s been hanging out with Selina and Babs all weekend.”

“Then your intel is wrong,” Duke countered. “She was just here! I planned on her being here!”

The silence in the room was palpable. Before, where there had been bickering and accusations, the quiet had taken over. Everyone stared at Duke with suspicion in their eyes.

Finally, Duke thought, sighing in relief.

Bruce opened his mouth about to question Duke’s statement when the doors to the room banged open.

“What’s up, Bitches? The Waffle Queen has arrived and looks as fabulous as ever!”

Duke stared, completely amazed that she actually seemed to like the purple on purple combo Duke had picked for her. Oh, yeah, now that he thought about it made perfect sense that Steph was the only one to like this.

“Wow, whoever did this really got my colors right!" Steph continued as she waltzed in and posed in front of everyone, her hip cocked and arm thrown up dramatically.

Bruce’s eyes narrowed, and he began to growl at her. “This is not funny.”

Steph pouted. “What do you mean? I sure think it is!”

Oh boy, she didn’t notice she was digging her own grave, did she? From the looks of the other bats, they shared Duke’s sentiment.

“Stephanie Brown, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

Stephanie smirked. “Yup! I look way better than you, you old fur- hey wait! Are you blaming me ?!”

Bruce glared even harder, and Stephanie started to protest, claiming that she was but an innocent victim of these pain-filled proceedings! It was not her fault! Nor was it her fault that she happened to get colors that she liked better than everyone else.

Bruce refused to hear what she said, and told her to go get changed. “You will be cleaning up this whole mess, and no patrolling until it’s done.”

Bruce turned and stalked out, and Steph was left speechless - for once - in the hall. She backed away, seeing the angry stares from the others. The only one who didn’t seem mad at her, was Duke himself. He opened his eyes wide, conveying pity. “I’m sorry,” he mouthed silently.

Instead of being reassuring, however, Steph squinted in suspicion. Oh shit, that probably hadn’t been the best move.

Just moments after Steph left, Jason threw up his hands. “Okay, who wants to have a water gun fight to clean off?”

There were several cheers of assent, but Duke quickly made his own escape at that time. He honestly wasn’t in the mood to get splashed in the face with water. Now was not the time for fun, as the failed prank still hung over him.

Now was the time for plotting.

*****

“Okay, but why on earth do you have a fully functioning sprinkler system in every room?”

“Yeah, Bruce, even for you that’s paranoid! What caused you to think that was necessary?”

“You.”

[brokenjardaantech]

absorbance of the deep (chapter 4: that’s him?)

written for a mermay prompts challenge. my prompt is ‘monochromatic.’

previous chapter can be found here.

also on ao3

---

The next few hours passed in a confusing blur. When he came to, he was lying on one of the few foldable lounge chairs in the students’ support office. The lights had been turned down but he could still see clearly. There was no one in his direct line of sight, however he could hear the scratch of pen against paper and the low hum of electricity grinding in his ear, so he tried to sit up, not realising how sore his neck was until he attempted to move it and was punished with the greatest pain he had ever felt apart from that time when he had been ripped away from the ocean for a whole week because his father had insisted bringing them inland for a hiking trip. He hissed and lay back down because he didn’t want to aggravate the injury, and a hand snaked itself behind his head to guide him before he could identify who it was.

‘You shouldn’t be moving,’ it was North. ‘Do you remember what happened?’

She handed him a small dictionary. He would’ve preferred a full one under any other circumstances, the weight of the volume grounding him alongside the abundance of words available to him, but with how weak his entire body seemed to be, he was glad that his friend took that into consideration. Either that or she didn’t bother to find a big one, whichever came first. He didn’t have the capacity to care. What he did care about as he flipped the pages to construct his sentence, however, was the absurdity and danger of what he just experienced. [did - they - seriously - try - to - hang - me]

North inhaled deeply. ‘They did,’ she averted her gaze. ‘They’re still discussing the next course of action, I think. Josh is with them. So is your brother.’

The mention of his twin sent him back to the argument he experienced last night. Scrambling at the dictionary without breaking the pages, he asked, [what - did - he - do]

‘What we should’ve expected from an overprotective sibling,’ North shrugged. ‘Do you want to rest more, or do you want to talk to the teachers now?’

[what - for]

‘They tried to kill you, Simon!’ there was a tremble in the girl’s voice. Her eyes glistened in the low light of the office. ‘Do you have any idea how much trouble those bastards got themselves into? Police are involved! You have every right to press charges against them!’

[and - my - brother - question]

‘Oh for fuck’s sake -’

‘North…’

Both of them were so distracted that neither noticed Josh coming in. Simon didn’t quite jump, no, but for a split moment he felt like his heart had burst from shock, and he decided at that exact moment that he shouldn’t have woken up that early. He did not have the strength to deal with two near-death scenarios within a single day. 

‘How are you feeling?’ Josh asked as he inhaled and folded his arms in front of his chest. The gesture made him look even taller, and Simon wondered if it was a new habit developed from talking to adults. 

[tired]

North sighed and tore her gaze from the dictionary just to turn to Josh. ‘How’s it going?’ 

Since he didn’t need them to hear the conversation anyway, Simon closed his eyes so that there wasn’t as much information pouring into his brain, and his friends’ voices became clearer. Almost as clear as when Markus directly spoke in his mind, but he knew that nothing would surpass it. Then he frowned at Josh’s statement.

‘They don’t want anything to do with the students involved. Expulsion is the minimum.’

‘“Minimum?”’

‘Simon?’

He raised his hand and tapped his finger against his ear to indicate that he was listening.

‘The police are involved. Hope you don’t mind that I talked to them on your behalf because they probably don’t know your tells and how you talk anyway and… they said you are well within your rights to press charges against them. Take them to court, let the legal system decide how they should be punished and rehabilitated. It’ll take money and time but… if it makes you feel safer, we’ll help.’

It took more effort than Simon expected to open his eyes so that he could answer his friend. [what - if - i - do - not]

North muttered a ‘typical’ under her breath. Simon caught Josh glaring at her but he didn’t care about what happened next, because Josh was talking again. ‘At the least, they’ll be gone from here and, quite possibly, this village. Not forever for now because we’re still students, but for most of the year, you won’t even be able to see them. If their parents decide to induce more drastic measures… they won’t be our concern.’

‘Yeah, and when they come back for breaks?’ North’s voice was sharp enough to hurt his eardrums but he was too tired to throw the dictionary at her to tell her. ‘Who’s preventing them from getting back at us? At Simon? Who’s making sure that Daniel won’t end up in the same school as them?’

‘Restraining orders exist.’

‘It isn’t -’

Simon lost track of the conversation as soon as he smelt the sea and the earth, a unique mixture that only meant one thing: Markus was here. He then realised that he did not, in fact, lose track of the conversation, more like both his friends had stopped talking as well as a breeze entered the otherwise stale office and seemingly cooled down their wrath and worries, and it was the only thing he could hear and feel for a few long seconds before a familiar hand was holding his on top of the thin blanket covering him from his chest down and a pair of lips was pressing softly on his own. They won’t bother you anymore, Simon wasn’t sure if Markus was talking to him or it was just his imagination, but it didn’t matter to him because Markus was here with him and therefore he must make things better. I made sure of that.

Tell that to my friends.

He made himself comfortable on the lounge chair as the warm weight on top of him disappeared. The hand remained, though, and he was glad that Markus maintained some sort of physical contact; he was already missing the ocean’s attention.

‘Let me guess,’ North said after quite a while, ‘you’re the person Simon always waxed poetic about, aren’t you? Well, he was talking about the sea but he made it sound like it’s a person. Never thought there’s an actual person there though.’

‘North!’ Josh scolded.

‘This is Josh. Don’t mind him.’

‘Excuse me -’

‘How did you even get into the ventilation? I’ve climbed into some of them before and they aren’t big enough for a guy like you.’

Are they always like this? Markus asked through their bond. 

Sometimes. They’re stressed.

Watch this.

Simon opened his eyes just in time to see Markus dissolve into a puddle of water. Then, against all laws of physics, it slid across the floor leaving no trails whatsoever and climbed up Simon’s lounge chair, spreading out behind Simon without staining his clothes or the chair itself and then suddenly puffing up back into a warm, familiar shape. He didn’t deny that it felt good sitting in the space between Markus’ legs, and it only got better when Markus wrapped an arm around his waist and another around his shoulder to pull him close, possessive and protective as usual. Only at that moment did Simon realise that Markus was shirtless. At the display, North threw her hands up and stormed out, and Josh watched her disappear before turning towards the two other boys in the office. ‘You can go now, actually. Back home, I mean,’ he said to Simon, and then to Markus. ‘I would ask you to escort the two of us but… I don’t think a stranger will escape their notice. We aren’t in a brawl anymore.’

A brawl? Did you fight as well, Josh? Simon wanted to ask, but his own bed at home or the soft sand of his cave sounded much better than the lounge chair he was occupying, so with Markus’ help, he managed to stand up and was transferred to Josh’s side before Markus literally dissolved in front of him and vanished into a cloud of steam. His questions could wait.

‘Was he always like this?’ his friend asked as they slowly but surely walked outside. The sunset was bright and stung his eyes which meant he must have slept for quite a long time considering that he was attacked in the morning, which also meant that he didn’t eat lunch, which meant he probably should eat when he got home, but he didn’t exactly feel hungry so maybe that could wait. He tried to shrug because Josh hadn’t specified what ‘this’ meant, but since one of his arms was swung across his friend’s shoulders and he was still disoriented from being thrust to the harsh brightness of the dusk, all it did was nearly causing him to lose his balance and faceplant on the pavement. Luckily Josh was there to hold him, and they stumbled through a nearly-empty campus until they hit the front gate of the school where North was waiting for them leaning against a car with their bags in her arms, the vehicle a big boxy thing that looked like it could carry a big family with no problem. Just one more city thing that North - or at least, North’s family - possessed.

‘Do I even want to know?’ Josh asked as he stopped by the gate. 

‘You,’ she transferred all the bags onto one arm and pointed at Simon, ‘are not walking all the way back to that lighthouse and you,’ the finger was now directed at Josh, ‘are coming with us. I’m driving.’

‘Since when did you learn how to drive?’

‘I didn’t skip classes for fun.’

Josh turned towards Simon. ‘It’s up to you.’

He indicated the car wearily with his chin without any hesitation. He had never seen North drive before and therefore had no idea how skilful she was, but he was so tired and ready to go home that the prospect of just having to… sit there while others bring him home was more attractive than he had ever thought it would be. Car sickness might be a problem, though, because he rarely had to be on a moving vehicle, but Josh was already fastening his seatbelt for him when he came to, so it wasn’t like he could change his mind anymore. North climbed into the front seat and ignited the engine, the rumble reminding him of the argument that would no doubt take place at home, and suddenly he didn’t want to go back at all. There was another place he would much rather be. Blinking his heavy eyelids open, he flipped open his dictionary and told his friends, [do - not - take - me - home]

Josh might have frowned. Simon wasn’t sure. ‘Simon, I don’t think -’

‘Whatever you say,’ he couldn’t decipher the look North gave him before she turned around and placed her hands on the wheel. ‘Want me to take you to the beach?’

Markus?

I’ll be there.

He nodded, and that was the last thing he knew before the car accelerated and he was lulled into a shallow sleep.

o0o0o

When Simon came to, he discovered that he had been laid sideways on the back seat and was covered by a scratchy blanket. Disgusted by the texture, he swatted the thing away from his body and threw it to the front seat to get it away from his body as far as possible without outright abandoning it onto the ground, and then realised that the car doors on both sides were open to let in the soft, cool breeze of the ocean. North seemed to have parked the car on the beach directly, because on one side was a few metres of sand before it gave way to the road, and the other side was also sand, except he could also see the ocean lapping the shore. There were two chairs blocking his way, but when he leant forward to see if they were nailed into the ground or just placed there, North and Josh shifted their seats to give him the space to get out of the car. He carefully stepped out with both hands on the canvas chairs on each side and somehow managed to land on the sand without tripping on the big steps between the ground and the car’s floor. At this side of the beach, he couldn’t see the setting sun because it was in the wrong direction; it also meant that he wasn’t assaulted by the bright light, which he was grateful for after today’s incident. Losing control was the last thing he needed.

He took a few steps towards the sea before remembering Markus’ promise, and when he turned around, he saw Markus lounging with his legs crossed in yet another folding chair next to Josh further away from the car’s door, his upper body now (regretfully) covered by a black tank top, sipping a blue energy drink from a bottle dripping wet with condensation. Then he noticed that all of his friends (and one more than friend) were barefoot, so he took off his shoes and socks as well, glad that the constraints were gone and he could sink his toes into the soft sand. 

‘Want some soup?’ North asked with a tilt of her head. ‘I’ve got some in the trunk. Canned, of course, and room temperature, but we’ve got water and a stove as well.’

In the distance was the lighthouse he called home, and in the dim light of the dusk, he could faintly make out the light spilling out of the windows but not the people living there. His twin brother hadn’t come to find him yet and it was long past the time where people would remain at school - regardless if they had gone into trouble that day - so he must be at home because there was nowhere to go, the meagre and dwindling number of shops in the village having been closed for the night. Josh had said something about how it was getting more and more expensive to operate a store with less and less revenue due to people leaving the village for big cities, but Simon hadn’t exactly been listening, and the fact that he remembered this much surprised him. So he nodded, stole Josh’s chair when he and North stood up to retrieve something from the back of the car, clumsily scooted both his body and the chair closer to Markus so that he could lay his head on his shoulder and force his leg across one of Markus’ so that he could half-sit on his lap. With Markus’ arm around his shoulders, it was surprisingly comfortable. The sea wordlessly held the bottle in front of Simon in an invitation to take a sip himself, but he declined, recalling the overwhelming sweetness of the energy drink and the sleepless night he had had after Daniel had persuaded him to try half a can, and Markus downed the last of the blue drink in a few seconds, the movements of his throat as mesmerising as it was distracting. Sweet, was Markus’ comment after he tossed the bottle to the backseat of the car. It’s not something we have in the ocean, but I don’t dislike it.

You won’t be able to sleep tonight, Simon warned.

I don’t need it.

North and Josh re-emerged from the back of the car with the things they needed for an impromptu dinner, and the latter only spared them a look before shaking his head and squatting a few metres in front of the car so that they had enough space to set up the stove and keep the food they would cook near themselves. Four large cans of ready-to-eat soup of different flavours - just enough for four teenagers’ dinner. 

‘Which one do you want?’ Josh asked as he unpacked the utensils while North started setting up the stove. ‘And you too, uh -’

Markus cleared his throat. ‘Markus,’ he said slowly as if he wasn’t used to speaking. Then, as if finally realising that he could say his own name, he repeated, this time standing up, ‘My name is Markus.’

They tried to stay out of North and Josh’s way as they read the labels on the cans, , but they stopped once they realised that the other two were actually working around them and therefore needed no accommodations. The four soups were BBQ pork, broccoli cheese with potatoes, spicy beef, and chicken and corn. He could go for the broccoli or corn, but since he wanted Markus to have a choice, he turned his attention towards him. Which one would you like?

Markus picked up the can of spicy beef soup. I have little reference on what they taste like, but I would like to try this one. It looks… promising.

Only if you like spicy food. Does it have spicy food where you live?

We have everything.

Simon therefore tapped the top of the broccoli cheese to indicate his preference, knowing that he was the only one among them who actually liked the vegetable, and while he scrambled to return to his chair before his legs fell asleep from squatting, Markus stuck close to the two humans, helping them retrieve a pot of water from the sea before watching North start the fire and Josh open the can of broccoli cheese potato and placing the can into the pot so that they could heat the soup up. Then it was North, Josh, and Simon’s turn to watch in equal measures of horror and fascination as the can of soup nearly toppled over from the boiling water just to be held in place by Markus with his bare hands. 

He didn’t even flinch from the heat.

‘Well that’s handy,’ North commented at last. ‘It isn’t hurting you or anything, is it?’

A shake of his head.

‘Then help me hold it, will you? I’ll stir the soup so that it heats up evenly.’

Markus’ grip on the can was steady as North did exactly as she said she would with a metal spoon with a plastic handle, and not long afterwards the soup was simmering and letting out a steady column of steam. Taking the can out of the pot, Markus placed it in the middle of the towel Josh was holding before the latter wrapped the fabric around it and secured the towel on the can with a rubber band as insulation, and then he handed it to Simon together with the spoon. ‘You first,’ he said. ‘You deserve it after today.’

Simon accepted the canned soup with a nod of thanks but couldn’t bring himself to eat it. With Markus now helping North and Josh heat up the rest of the soup at the same time, he was left alone to his own device, and suddenly the task of bringing the spoon to his mouth seemed too daunting right now, the warmth seeping into his cold palms through the towel not encouraging him to let go by one bit. He watched as Markus dipped both his hands into the boiling water to keep all three cans steady while North and Josh stirred the soup, kept the ones in the pot safe with one hand while taking out the BBQ pork for North, then the chicken and corn for Josh, and at last, the spicy beef for himself. They all picked their seat afterwards: Josh in the chair originally occupied by North, North between Josh and Simon on the step of the car, Markus back to his seat by Simon’s side. There must be something on Simon’s face, because when they turned around and took a look at him, expressions that he had learnt to associate with worry appeared on their faces, and Markus draped his arm around his shoulders once more, kissing his temple lightly and not pulling back. What’s wrong?

The desire to eat was suddenly back, and he raised a spoonful of soup to his mouth and gave it a few blows before putting it into his mouth. Guess I just don’t want to eat alone.

Although it didn’t feel entirely like the truth, he could think of no alternative to what he was feeling and therefore decided to push it aside for now, and for the next few minutes they ate quietly, the air filled with nothing but the clank (but never scrape) of metal spoons against the cans, the wet squelch of the ingredients when they dug their spoon into the soup, and the low but tolerable buzz of the lamp after North brought it out for more light because the sun had finally set. They drank from the same two-litre bottle of store-bought water so that there was a minimal amount of clutter.

Simon was barely through one-fourth of his soup when North was already finished with hers and she dug around the back of the car once more to retrieve a rubbish bag and tossing her can inside, but he was warier of her expression than anything else. He clutched his soup tighter.

‘So…’ North raised an eyebrow, ‘when did you meet?’

Simon shoved a scoop of soup into his mouth so that he didn’t have to respond. And to be fair, he didn’t know how to answer her question either; was she asking about the first time they made contact, which was way back before she even met him, or was it the first time he met Markus in his physical form, which was a few years back, on the day she gave him his first pair of noise-cancelling headphones? He hated unspecific questions because he usually couldn’t. Luckily Markus answered for him.

‘If you’re talking about our souls,’ it was the slow, steady tone again, one that Simon discovered that he could listen to all day and fall asleep to, ‘we have been intertwined since before the beginning; if you’re talking about our minds, it will be more than a decade ago when Simon -’ he gave Simon’s shoulder a squeeze - ‘offered me his first gift.’ He stared at Josh. ‘You were there, remember?’

Josh licked his spoon. Then his eyes widened. ‘That voice was you? You nearly drowned me!’

Markus’ smile was sheepish. ‘I… apologise,’ he placed his soup in the space between his legs and scratched the spot behind his ear. ‘My control on my powers wasn’t as good back then. I was… excited… to greet my other half.’

My other half, these three words echoed in Simon’s mind as he slowly finished the cooling soup, and he snuggled closer to Markus for warmth when the night chill started to pick up. Knowing that they were made for each other was one thing, but hearing him admit it in front of Simon’s best friends… he felt fuzzy despite the day he had had. Are they still interrogating you? he asked through their connection after he finally finished his soup.

They are very curious indeed, so yes, but right now their focus seems to be shifting towards our relationship. North seems to believe that we are married in ‘underwater’ terms even though I told her multiple times that it does not exist, and Josh only seems embarrassed and just wants to leave.

Simon looked at the water bottle laid with its cap hazardously close to the sand, then the stove which fire had been extinguished some time ago, then finally at the cold, empty can he was still holding with both hands and realised that the warmth was from Markus’ hand placed on top of his, and the weight of the day suddenly dropped on top of him, threatening to suffocate him, to drown him. Maybe we should.

Alright. 

They packed up, Josh taking care of the stove, North making sure that they got all the rubbish in the rubbish bag, Simon folding up the cutlery in a towel and fastening it with a rubber band before handing it to North, and Markus folding up the chairs and loading them to the back of the car together with the lamp. And for a moment the four of them stood there unsure what to do next, and Josh realised the problem they had.

‘Are you going home?’ he asked. ‘I mean, we’re probably a few hundred metres away from your house, but it’s nighttime and I don’t think we have a torch to spare.’

Simon thought of the argument that was no doubt going on, of a tense atmosphere that only served to make him feel more trapped in his own home, of big changes and decisions being made without him. He shouldn’t go back, not when his family would only drag him down. 

He shook his head.

‘So you’re going with Markus?’ it was North’s turn to ask.

He tilted his head upwards so that he could gaze at Markus’ face. Please?

Markus kisses his forehead. Of course.

Simon nodded at North, and she climbed into the car after giving his arm a pat that could mean anything from goodbye to good luck. Josh gave him a hug. ‘You know where I live if you need to find me,’ he said. Then he entered the car as well, but it wasn’t until it disappeared into the distance inland that Markus led him into the ocean, into the cave he carved out just for him, laying him on soft, warm sand and holding him from behind while he succumbed to the weight of the day in a dreamless slumber.

Everything else could wait.

[doing-all-write]

act two, scene two

Pairing: College!Joe Mazzello x Fem!Reader

Summary: Joe is in your Acting 101 class and you’re never quite sure if your flirty relationship is just pretend or the real thing. Then, you’re given the scene you’ll have to present during your final...

Word Count: 4K

Warnings: SMUT (don’t interact if you’re under 18 please!), swearing, drinking and me fantasizing about how adorable and dorky college!Joe would be. 

A/N: Between working from home and social distancing myself, your girl has SO MUCH free time so GET READY FOR LOTS OF WRITING!!! I hope everyone is doing okay during these Weird Fucking Times but here’s some soft and smutty Joe to get you through! 

Thanks to @fairestkillerqueenofall​, @mrhoemazzello​, and @diasimar​ for the inspiration and for being the best dang #LizardLadies around 💖

💖💖As always likes, comments and reblogs are always appreciated 💖💖

“Room 102...room 102...room 102...there you are.” Realizing she’d been mumbling to herself underneath her breath, her (Y/E/C) eyes flitted over the hall, making sure no one had heard her talking to herself. 

Heaving a sigh, she gave a little shimmy, shaking off the nervous energy that was buzzing under her skin like bees and opened the door to the classroom. 

Well, not a real classroom. It was a blackbox. When she had chosen her major for college, she couldn’t completely get rid of the dream where she majored in theatre and got to spend her life doing something that she loved. So, when her counselor had asked her, she’d given a double major. Something “practical” and theatre. She knew if she didn’t have that creative outlet, her world would become drab and gray. 

Walking into the room, the sounds of murmured conversations flooded her eardrums, the old wood floors sending shock waves up her calves with every “clunk” of her heeled boots. She knew the next few moments would be crucial. 

Choosing a seat. 

She knew that wherever she sat today would be her seat for the rest of the semester. With the pivotal task hanging over her, she scanned the bodies that were already crammed into seats. The first row was filled with girls with bouncy curls, long legs, cute sundresses, all of them loudly clamoring to get information from the girl in the middle holding court with her story of how she had met the cast of Mean Girls by the stage door over the summer. 

In the last row were a few kids dressed all in black, heads down, beanies firmly planted as they scribbled into moleskine notebooks. 

In the middle, random pockets of students, mostly keeping to themselves, one or two had struck up conversations asking the basic questions, “What’s your major” “What did you do over the summer” “How embarrassing do you think this class will be” etc. 

Her eyes lit upon a boy sitting toward the end of a row in the middle of the desks.  All she could make out was his ginger hair as he rooted around in his backpack. It was sticking up in several directions, like he constantly ran his fingers through it. She couldn’t help thinking she’d like to run her fingers through it one day. Taking a deep breath, she decided the middle, end of the row was the best spot for her. Hitching her backpack higher on her shoulder, she started climbing the stairs, keeping an eye on him as he was now elbow deep in his backpack, muttering to himself. 

Sliding into the seat one down from him, she swung her hair over her shoulder, aiming a small smile at him as he paused in his actions to stare at her with wide eyes. Feeling suddenly self-conscious, she ducked her head to pull out her own notebook, letting her hair fall in front of her face to hide the blush climbing from her neck up into her cheeks. 

Stupid. Joe scolded himself as he shook himself from his dazed state. Why he didn’t just smile back at her was beyond him. He chalked it up to being stunned by her beauty and being slightly confused why someone so beautiful was paying any attention to him. 

That, and he was pretty hungover. 

“Dammit,” he muttered to himself as he realized that he must have forgotten a pencil, the most basic school instrument, in his haste to get out the door and make it to class on time. 

“Do you, um, do you need to borrow a pencil?” His eyes darted up to meet her (Y/E/C) ones and let a smile grow over his face (finally, she thought) as he nodded. Smiling back, she quickly darted a hand into her backpack only to pull out a pencil pouch covered in cacti. He felt his smile grow bigger at how cute it was. 

“Here you go.” She handed him a mechanical pencil and he accepted it with a thanks, “I’ll give it back at the end of class, promise.” 

She waved him off, “No, no. Don’t worry about it, I accidentally bought a pack of 500 pencils so you’re doing me a favor by taking one off my hands.” 

Joe cocked his head, “How do you end up with 500 pencils?” She opened her mouth but before she could defend herself, the door swung open and a woman draped in what looked like the whole curtain section of a home goods store came striding into the room, clapping her hands to get everyone’s attention. 

“Thespians! Thespians! Thespians! Listen up! Your start to a long and lucrative career in the arts begins...immediately.” She proclaimed as she swanned onto the stage in front of them, hands waving, the many rings she wore reflecting the stage lights all over the room, creating a make-shift disco ball. 

“Either she has a lisp and called us all lesbians or I signed up for the wrong class.” Joe whispered as he leaned over to her. Her mouth quirked up in a smirk as she finished dating the page she was writing on in her notebook. Joe glanced down to see she had written the date and the name of the class in pink pen and felt a surge of adoration at her adorable actions. 

As class continued, (Y/N) thanked her lucky stars at her chosen seat. This boy next to her was cute and funny, which was a lethal combination for her, but part of her was worried that she may have something on her face, considering the way he had just stared at her with no reaction for a long time when she initially sat next to him. 

For the rest of class, they kept stealing glances at each other, eyes sometimes meeting, smiles exchanged when it happened, as Professor Lily waxed poetic on the arts and why theatre is the best thing one can do to “expand the mind, the body and most importantly, the heart.” 

She had let her mind wander to what it would be like to run her fingers through her seat mate's hair but was snapped back to the present when Lily started talking about their final. 

“Now. For the final, I will be assigning you and a partner a scene to perform for us at the end of the semester. This will be completely random but I’d like to get it done now so you and your scene partner can start thinking about it and preparing. Acting is all about the nuance, the tiny details you can make a whole meal out of.” She fluttered down from the stage, pairing people at random. 

(Y/N) suddenly found herself desperately wishing that she and the boy next to her would be made partners. 

Joe clenched his hands into fists as he jiggled his leg up and down, hoping beyond hope that he and the girl next to him would be paired up. 

As Professor Lily came to them, her eyes softened, gesturing a hand grandly to Joe she proclaimed, “Mister…” letting it trail off so he could fill in the blank. 

“Mazzello. Joe Mazzello.” she nodded sagely as she gestured to the girl next to him, “and Miss…”

“(Y/N) (Y/L/N)” she promptly filled in. 

“You two shall be working together.” As she floated down the stairs she couldn’t help but indulge a tiny smile as she considered the scene she would give them to perform. 

Turning to Joe, (Y/N) smiled, “Hey partner.” 

“Hey partner.” Joe returned in a bad southern accent as he pretended to hitch up suspenders. 

“I don’t know why you’re in this class, it seems like you don’t need a lot of acting help.” she laughed as she closed her notebook, twisting in her seat to face Joe head on. Smirking, he draped an arm over the back of his chair, “I’m just here to show everyone else how it’s done. I’m very generous like that.” 

“You’re too good to us peons. How can we ever repay you?” 

“By not making me look like an ass during the final.”

“No promises on that front.” she deadpanned as she closed her notebook, tucking it back into her bag that was covered in patches and pins.

“You think you have enough hardware on your bag?” 

Pushing her hair behind her ear, her eyes flicked up to meet his as a smile grew over her face, “Honestly? No. I have a problem.”  She shrugged as she straightened up. 

Joe smiled back as he scooted his chair closer to her, “The first step is admitting you have a problem so I’m proud of you for taking that first step.” 

Rolling her eyes, she contemplated the boy before her. His eyes were bright as he stared boldly back at her. He never sat still, even now, his leg was bouncing up and down like a maniac. It made her want to reach a hand out and settle it on his thigh, hoping to translate some calm from her body to his just through her touch but knew that would be a step too forward at this stage. 

“Well listen, I think this partnership is going to work but like you said, I don’t want to look like an ass, when are you free?”

~~~

Weeks had passed. The glow of those first few easy classes had passed into rigorous studying, hours filled with homework and group projects with everyone trying to figure out when they could fit in sleep and socializing. 

With finals looming closer, the semester had started taking its toll on (Y/N). Her classes all bled together, as did the piles of reading she had every night. But even when she started googling how much people would pay for feet pictures, she never dreaded her acting class. It was her favorite part of the week. For 50 minutes, three times a week, she got to do what she loved most. Even Professor Lily’s eccentricity had become a balm and reminded her to stop taking everything so seriously.

 As Lily had put it once “you all need to stop being so serious, no one likes an actor who takes their work too seriously. Look at Jared Leto!” 

That had snapped them out of their melancholy. 

As (Y/N) walked into the Black Box, fidgeting with the strap of her backpack, she cursed the fact that she had chosen to wear a dress, considering how chilly it was in the classroom but as she climbed the stairs to her seat next to Joe, it was worth it to see his eyes light up when they fell on her form. As the weeks had passed, they had struck up an easy reparatie. A lot of times, (Y/N) had no idea if they were really flirting or just play-flirting. It was easy to get swept up in believing that the sparks between them were real enough to explode into something more but then Joe would look away or she’d get too in her head and the moment would be lost and they’d go back to their usual friendly banter. 

The scene Lily had given them definitely didn’t help her confusion.

~~~

“Act two, scene two.” Joe wiggled his eyebrows at her as she walked down the row of chairs at the start of their third class together. 

Quirking an eyebrow at him, she slowly lowered into her chair, “Okay?” 

Leaning forward, Joe raked his fingers through his hair, making it stand on end, adding an even crazier level of insanity to his look as he strained forward, trying to make her understand, “Act two, scene two.” he hissed again. 

“Mazzello, did you have a stroke? Those words mean nothing to me…” her voice drifted off as Lily’s ethereal form materialized in front of her, “I believe Mr. Mazzello is referring to the scene I assigned you for your final.” Pulling a stack of papers from within the folds of her scarfs, she grandly laid them on (Y/N)’s desk and floated back to the front of the room, where she began lecturing. 

Cutting her eyes over to Joe’s she was surprised to see some hesitancy in them as he nodded at her to flip through their pages. Shrugging, she leaned forward and felt her breath catch in her throat as she recognized the lines. 

But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Her head whipped up and met Joe’s. 

Joe hadn’t realized how nervous he had been to see her reaction to the scene they had been given until he saw a spark in her eyes and her lips curled into a smile as he held her gaze, letting a wink drop at her. Giggling, she turned to rustle through her backpack and Joe almost dropped the highlighter she tossed at his chest.  

“Well? Get highlighting Romeo, we have some romantic tension to work on.” she whispered as she popped the cap off her own highlighter. 

~~~

As Lily dismissed them all for the day, Joe groaned and let his forehead bang on his desk as she calmly continued packing up her things. 

“What’s wrong, Joey?” her only reply as Joe continued to huff out sigh after sigh to get a reaction from her. 

“I can’t do it anymore, (Y/N). The pressure, it’s getting to me. It’s all too much.”

“What? The pressure of being Lily’s favorite student? Or just the weight of having to carry every scene we do in class?”

“Yes.” He moaned as he rolled his head to the side, only one eye visible as he stared at her trying to hold back a smirk at his dramatics. “Don’t laugh at me, I’m distraught.”

“Too distraught to rehearse tonight?” 

“Yes.” came the muffled reply as he buried his head in his arms.

“I have a new bottle of wine, a fresh bag of goldfish and I booked the auditorium.”

“Okay, not as distraught anymore. I think I can make it.” 

“Thought so.” she said as she patted him on the shoulder. 

~~~

“What's in a name? That which we call a rose. By any other name would smell as sweet,” her voice flowed over Joe like the first breeze of spring. He was sure that if anyone was to watch them rehearsing, the only note they’d give Joe was to “tone down” the mooning he felt himself doing as he watched (Y/N) act.  

His eyes couldn’t radiate anymore love than they already were. He almost felt embarrassed for himself but figured if they really wanted to pass this class then, maybe over the top was better. 

As (Y/N) finished up the last part of her lines, she felt her cheeks heat up as Joe locked her in place with his ardent gaze. She felt a smile tug at her lips as his own grew wider as she leaned forward, resting her chin on her crossed arms on the top of the ladder she was standing on. 

Clasping the ladder with both hands, Joe pushed his own body forward as he delivered his next few lines, knowing the smile growing across his face was getting out of hand but not being able to stop it. Her eyes were dancing with mirth as her smile blossomed. 

They had set up their stuff in the middle of the stage, (Y/N) pulling out a bottle of wine with two red solo cups (“You couldn’t find anything classier than Red Solo cups?” “Do you want some cheap wine or not?” “I never said I didn’t want it (Y/N).”) and Joe flinging his body onto the ground, complaining about everything he had due until she’d threatened to spill the whole bottle on his face. With that threat looming large, Joe had scoured backstage to find something they could use as a balcony. 

She’d almost jumped out of her skin when Joe had pulled the ladder to the middle of the stage with enough noise to wake the dead, as was his M.O. 

They’d been rehearsing their scene for the past hour. They had their lines word perfect, they knew their blocking but every time they got to the end, they both felt the urge to kiss each other; but as their characters or as themselves was still up in the air. Each time they spoke their last lines, the silence would hang, the air crackling between them until one, or both of them, would pull away and ask if they should “run it one more time?” 

Their argument being that maybe running it “one more time” would unlock something MORE in their words and their actions. 

They both agreed that Lily would really approve of that decision. 

“Parting is such sweet sorrow! That I shall say good night till it be morrow…” (Y/N) breathed out as their eyes locked together, both of them moving forward infinitesimally.

 It’s finally going to happen. Her heart leaped into her throat as Joe glanced down at her lips but then, he blushed and cleared his throat. Turning away, he asked if there was more wine. 

Blinking herself from the haze, she nodded numbly, stepping down from the ladder only to be stopped by Joe’s hand by her side, “May I help you down from your balcony, fair Juliet?” 

Giggling, she slipped her hand into Joe’s, marveling at how well they fit together as she stepped down from the ladder, turning only to be face to face with Joe again.

Looking down at her, Joe smirked, “Hello there.” 

“Hi” she whispered, looking up at Joe through her eyelashes. It made Joe want to fall to his knees and promise her anything she wanted if she just always looked at him like that. 

This time, she was the one to break away first, grabbing his cup from the ground as she sauntered over to the bottle, sweating underneath the stage lights.  

Handing it back to him they both took a long sip. Bringing his cup down, Joe scrunched his face, “Jesus, this wine is awful.” 

“Grow up Mazzello, it’s good for you. Plus it was only $5, what did you expect?” 

Shrugging his shoulders in defeat, he finished the last gulp of wine, cocking an eyebrow at (Y/N), “Want to run it again?”

Throwing her head back she dramatically finished her wine, Joe taking the opportunity to admire her throat and thinking how it would look covered in hickies he left. Shaking himself, he realized the wine must have loosened him up more than he thought. 

“Let’s do this one more time, I’m going to be the best damn Juliet this school has ever seen.” she proclaimed as she scrambled up the ladder again, looking back over her shoulder at Joe, her cheeks flushed from the alcohol. 

Joe chuckled as he got into place underneath her. By the time he nodded at her to start the scene he felt his heart expand as he looked up at her, her hair glowing underneath the lights, her eyes dreamily looking out over the horizon, talking about how in love she was with him.

Well, not me me, but my character. She’s a good actress, it’s easy to get swept up in the drama of it all, he reasoned with himself. 

As the scene got closer and closer to the end, he made herself promise he wouldn’t wimp out of kissing her. The wine they’d consumed left him feeling a little braver. So, as she breathed out her last line, bidding Joe farewell, and they locked eyes it was the wine that helped push the words past Joe’s lips. 

“We should probably practice kissing, huh?” 

Before the last word had passed his lips, (Y/N) reached out, grasping the collar of the worn gray t-shirt he was wearing and pulled him to her, crashing her lips against his. 

His arms reached up, wrapping around her, pulling her closer to him as their lips fit together perfectly. Winding a hand through her hair, he felt like if he were to be struck dead in the next moment, he would die happy. 

As her hands interlocked behind Joe’s neck, she got the feeling she had done this a million times before and would do it a million more times. 

When they finally pulled away, they both were breathing heavily, her forehead leaning against Joe’s as they looked at each and giggled, “I think if we bring that kind of heat to the performance they’ll fail us for being too graphic.” Joe breathed out as she laughed, planting another quick kiss to his lips. “Yeah but, it’s worth it.” she murmured as she blinked up at Joe through her eyelashes. Joe groaned as he pressed his lips against hers again, “You’re going to be the death of me, you know that right?” Her only response was to deepen the kiss as Joe growled against her mouth. 

“You know, we’re the only ones in this auditorium, and we’ll be the only ones in here for the next three hours…” Joe let his voice trail off as he searched (Y/N)’s face to see if she was into this idea. Her widening eyes and the way she scrambled down the ladder, pulling Joe down with her, was the only indication he needed. 

As she hit the ground, her head swiveled, trying to find the best place for them to have a private moment together. Tugging her towards the other side of the stage, she turned her head, only to be met with a large couch that had been pushed backstage after the last play. It was hidden by the curtains so if someone were to walk in, they wouldn’t immediately be seen but it was still fairly exposed which sent a shiver up her spine. 

As Joe took a seat on the couch, he pulled her down to his lap, shooting a smile at her, “C’mere,” he whispered as he pulled her down to his lips, pushing her hair over her shoulders as he nipped at her earlobe before he pressed a line of kisses down her neck. Moaning softly, she started grinding into Joe’s lap, feeling the outline of his cock through his jeans, causing both of them to moan. 

Joe halfheartedly tried to shush her, “Shhh, we need to be quiet...even though you moaning is probably the hottest thing I’ll ever hear in my whole life.” 

Those words only made her throw her head back and moan louder. Grabbing the back of her neck, Joe craned his neck up to mash his lips against hers in a desperate effort to quiet her. His hands moved from their grip on her waist to travel up to grasp her tits, letting his own moan slip out as he gently rubbed the pads of his thumbs over her nipples. 

“Yeah, baby? You like that?” she whispered as he moaned again, leaning forward to suck on the peak of her nipple through the fabric of her dress. Grinding her hips harder into Joe’s cock practically had her seeing stars, she hadn’t realized how wound up she was or how long she’d wanted this to happen. 

Joe’s mouth continued working on her chest as his hands travelled to her ass, grabbing it, giving it a light smack, then a harder one when she gasped and whispered, “harder” against his lips which almost had Joe cumming in his jeans like a twelve year old. 

Feeling Joe’s hand slip from her ass to her thigh, his fingers dancing up and under the hem of the skirt of her dress, caused her breath to hitch as his fingers ran along the edge of her panties. 

“These feel very hot.” he looked up at her with glazed over eyes. 

Leaning forward, pressing her chest into Joe’s she whispered, “They are, but I was considering not wearing panties at all which I think would have been much hotter.” 

Joe gulped audibly as he bobbed his head up and down, his fingers hooking into her panties, pulling them to the side as he ghosted a knuckle up and down her folds. He stared at her with wide eyes, “Damn, are you really that wet for me, sweetheart?” Nodding, she bit her lip, rocking her hips over Joe’s knuckle, relishing how it produced that familiar tugging sensation in her gut.  

Joe smirked when he saw how much she wanted him. Slowly, he inserted a finger inside her, marveling how easily it slipped in and how it made her fling her head back and groan in a way that would have caused them considerable trouble if anyone was near the auditorium. 

“I’m almost scared to insert another finger just in case you start screaming.” Joe laughed as he made a come hither motion with his finger, causing her body to go limp as she babbled about how badly she needed a second finger to cum. 

“Okay, sweetheart, I’ll give you what you want,” he smirked as he leaned up to whisper in her ear, “besides, I want to see what you look like when you cum for me anyway.” she groaned as Joe slowly slipped a second finger into her folds. 

The heat that was building in her core was licking up her sides, rising through her, causing her hips to jerk over Joe’s fingers as they managed to find every sensitive spot in her cunt, hurling her closer and closer to an orgasm. Joe was still moving his fingers inside her, mouth open as he watched her eyes flutter close, hair falling over her shoulders as she pushed herself to her orgasm. He was in complete awe of her. 

“That’s it baby, let go. Let go for me. Want you to cum all over my fingers, I want to taste you so badly…” he murmured into her ear as she bent forward, resting her hands on the back of the couch as she rode Joe’s fingers into oblivion.

Joe felt her walls clench around his fingers and wished it was his cock they were closing around but damn if this wasn’t still one of the best feelings in the world. Moaning, she choked out, “Joe…’m close.” Bringing his lips to her ear and his other hand to her ass, he gave it a sharp smack, pulling another moan out of her as he growled, “Then cum for me, baby girl.” 

With those last two words and one more stroke of Joe’s fingers, she squeezed her eyes closed as her orgasm pulsed through her body, first in intense waves then a gentle lapping at her consciousness, pulling her back into the present. Feeling Joe’s arms wrapped around her as he whispered how amazing she was in her ear. Pulling back, she felt the dumb smile grow over her face and Joe’s own face lit up with how blissed out she looked. 

“That good, huh?” She could only nod. Laughing, Joe brought up the two fingers that had been inside her. She saw how slick they were and gulped as Joe brought them up to his mouth. Wrapping his perfect lips around them and savoring the taste of her as he brought them out of his mouth with a pop. 

“I can’t wait to do that with your cock.” She found herself blurting out. Joe’s eyes widened as hers lowered into a provocative stare. 

“If you were that loud with just my fingers, I don’t think my cock is going to make you any quieter, want to get out of here?” 

(Y/N) hopped off his lap, practically pulling him out of the auditorium to her apartment. 

~~~

They ended up getting a 95% on their final and would have gotten a 100% but their kiss was “a little too long and lingering. And Mr. Mozzallo, I distinctly saw you slip Ms. (Y/L/N) some tongue. Other than that, wonderful performance. Truly, the sparks were flying!” 

It had a place of honor on their fridge in their shared apartment.

[mightbewriting]

Your writing is superb! Wait and Hope is now an all-time favorite fic of mine! I especially admire your ability to write dialogue. Do you have any tips on how to write distinct character voices?

Oh wow, thank you so much! I’m so happy you enjoyed W&H! Dialogue is actually one of my favorite things about writing so the fact that you liked it makes my heart pitter-patter! 

I apologize for sitting on this ask for a couple of days, but I wanted to actually think about some tips for character voice as it relates to dialogue! I do enjoy occasionally nerding out about writing… so without further ado, I’m about to nerd out A LOT (seriously, A LOT). I got a little carried away, but this was so much fun to think about! So, here are some of my thoughts on writing dialogue and using it to support distinct character voices.

The biggest tip I have on how to improve writing the way people talk is to listen to how people talk. Seems obvious, I know. But I mean how real people talk, not scripted movie and TV…which I think is often what comes to mind. I learned more about how people talk in the couple of months I did freelance transcription work than I did in the entirety of the first twenty-something years of my life. You don’t have to actually do transcription work to practice this, just find unscripted video or audio of people talking (interviews, vlogs, streamers, podcasts, whatever!) and type out it out.

The first thing I noticed when I actually had to transcribe real life conversations is that people often make NO SENSE when they talk. They have false starts, verbal pauses, non verbal pauses, they repeat words, they stop mid sentence to start another thought, they fumble with word choice, and so on. This is why professional transcription services offer VERBATIM transcription and NON VERBATIM transcription (I have a point to this, I swear!). Verbatim transcription is how it sounds, you have to type exactly what you hear:

Speaker A: “As I was— I was saying, ah, um, I think we should do— Mary, did you have thoughts on that? No, um, okay [cough], does anyone have any other thou— opinions before we move on?”

Like, what does that even mean? 

Non verbatim transcription teaches you to edit out the stuff that makes real life speech mostly unintelligible (I’m eternally amazed that we’re able to make sense of stuff like that on the fly! Brains are amazing!) and it turns the sentence above into something more like:

Speaker A: “Mary, did you have thoughts on that? No, okay. Does anyone have any other opinions before we move on?”

This is a pretty heavy handed edit, but I’d argue that the first 13 words of the verbatim sentence is nothing but a false start. I also removed the verbal pauses, the coughing notation, and the switch between words mid-speech. What I’m left with is something that looks and sounds more like what you might see in scripted dialogue. 

All of this is to say; when writing, for coherency’s sake, it’s helpful to write in a non verbatim style so you can be understood. BUT, I love throwing in the occasional false start or thought change mid-sentence, or even a rare verbal pause because I enjoy the bit of realism it adds. I know not everyone will agree with that, but that’s just how I enjoy dialogue.  

Character voice comes into play with dialogue in a lot of ways. If I could boil it down to two things; it’s about WHAT they say and HOW they say it. The WHAT involves things vocabulary: words one character might use that another wouldn’t, or a word they might know that another doesn’t. The HOW involves things like your dialogue tags and the associated actions and narrative surrounding the actual speech.

Rapid fire tips for the WHATs: people speak almost exclusively in contractions, they typically only saying things like “can not” and “do not” etc., for emphasis. Read dialogue out loud; if it sounds weird to hear then it’s probably not right. Character motivation is key; what someone says should make sense for their personality, traits, and history. People don’t always answer questions directly, or say what they mean. Less is usually more, unless someone is especially verbose or engaged in a debate, people don’t tend to wax poetic in long monologues all that often. 

My tips for the HOWs are less rapid fire because I want to talk about dialogue tags and that’s, idk…divisive? Here’s the thing; ‘said’ and ‘asked’ (or their other tense counterparts) are pretty much invisible and are used mostly to indicate who is speaking so a reader doesn’t get lost. Less is more with dialogue tags, too.

Alternative dialogue tags aren’t inherently evil (things like: whispered, shouted, grunted, grumbled, mumbled, growled, exclaimed, ordered, etc. have a place when used judiciously) but they are almost always a stand in for what could be a more interesting use of character voice. It usually ends up being a situation where a writer is telling the reader how to interpret dialogue instead of letting the dialogue speak for itself. So I try to use alternative tags very sparingly; you can actually see my evolution in this throughout W&H and then in S&S and my newer stuff, because I went from being subconsciously aware of it to more consciously practicing.  

Consider this real life example of something I wrote from Ron’s POV:

Malfoy forced them out of his office.

“Now you two figure out the details amongst yourselves; I have work to do,” Malfoy ordered.

I used ‘ordered’ knowing I was using an alternative tag and thinking to myself ‘it’s not so bad here, Ron would think Malfoy is ordering him around.’ Which isn’t necessarily wrong…but it’s not all that interesting. My rewrite, after being rightfully called on my bullshit for being lazy about it, looked like this:

Malfoy forced them out of his office.

“Now you two figure out the details amongst yourselves; I have work to do.” Malfoy waved his hands to dismiss them like they were elves he’d had more than enough of.

This version has a stronger character voice; we get Ron’s interpretation that Malfoy is treating him like an elf and we can imagine a physical movement from Malfoy showing how he’s speaking. I think that’s both more interesting to read and has a stronger sense of voice. When and where possible, I would say that substituting some kind of physical action or observation associated with dialogue usually results in a stronger sense of voice, either from the narrator or the speaker, or both! 

This response has gotten…lengthy. I’m sorry for that (but also, not sorry because writing is so interesting xD). In conclusion, writing is subjective and everyone has their own style. I don’t mean for this to be prescriptive advice, these are simply things that are on my mind when I’m writing dialogue and that I think lead to a stronger result. If nothing else: experiment. Write something exclusively in a verbatim style, write something exclusively with alternative tags, write something with no dialogue tags at all, write an enormous monologue and then figure out how to break it up. Try all sorts of different things to see what doesn’t sound right and what does. Learn the rules and then make your own.

Mostly, have fun. <3

[earlgreytea68]

A Review of the Fall Out Boy Biography Inevitably Colored by Shippiness Oops But Really Mainly By My Love for Pete Wentz

I don’t even know who the audience is for this monstrosity of a review, nor do I know the audience for this biography, though, so, like, it’s fitting lololol: 

I am a new Fall Out Boy fan. I say that because, if anybody was in need of a Fall Out Boy biography, you would think it would be a new fan. AND YET. I’m not entirely sure who the market for this book is, because it isn’t really Fall Out Boy fans of any duration, because not only can everything in the book be easily located with the simplest of Google searches but also there’s so much he leaves out. And what he leaves out is just…so incredibly telling. It’s like, the facts he chooses to highlight are often pointless and random (although thanks for telling me that Pete Wentz’s jeans were so tight he had to perform without underwear, I’m going to think about that a lot now), whereas the facts he leaves out are the ones that lend both complexity and context. Like, this whole book could be Exhibit A in how malleable facts can be. Given the same set of facts, this man and I would tell two very different stories.

At least partly this is because he’s a music critic (I glean from the book) and I’m a creative writer. I believe he is a music critic because he takes care to dedicate a paragraph of musical analysis to every song on their earliest CDs (he loses interest in them over the hiatus, and more on that later). I appreciated this, because I know nothing about music, and I learned a lot about how talented Patrick Stump really is, like, not as a vocalist, because I knew that, or as a musician, because I also knew that, but as a smart, clever songwriter. I don’t know how to critique music, and I was happy this guy was full of praise for what Patrick does. He also pointed out musical hallmarks of theirs – like their tendency to drop the music suddenly for Patrick to sing an a cappella line – and that was the first time I’d ever really thought about them.

He was full of much less praise for Pete’s lyrics, though, and I think that’s because he’s a music person, not a word person. Not that he thought Pete’s lyrics were ever bad but he tended to stay very conventional about them: emo, confessional, dramatic, and ingeniously juxtaposed with Patrick’s clear-as-a-bell voice. He’s kind of obsessed with the contrast between Patrick’s voice and the lyrics he’s singing, whereas I’m much more obsessed with the contrast between Patrick himself in sweater-paws and glasses snarling, “I am your worst nightmare,” like, sweetheart, I doubt it. AND YET HE PULLS IT OFF. Like, that’s so interesting to me, how much Patrick can make himself embody Pete, that act of alchemy where he sings on his behalf, but this book talks less about that than I think it might, mostly because I don’t think this guy really wants to think too hard about how incredibly good Pete’s lyrics actually are. The thing about Pete’s lyrics – he does this, and it’s so clever, it’s killer clever – is you can read them so easily on one very obvious and expected layer, and then there’s always one or two additional meanings tucked underneath them, and you might never stop to think about them, especially if you’ve already written him off, but his lyrics reward careful study and a lot of thought, he specializes in triple entendres, a turn of phrase that spins out into so many meanings, that’s so hard to do and he makes it look so easy that it’s such a simple mistake to dismiss it, to not even see how dense his poetry is. The conventional story on Pete Wentz is he’s good at marketing – marketing the band, marketing himself – and so he spun in circles to keep the spotlight on him and away from Patrick, and that’s definitely one take, and another take would be to point out that the same whirligig sex-symbol tabloid-fodder act also had the side effect of undercutting any tendency to take Pete seriously from a literary point of view, like, so much easier to just say that, in keeping with his goth guyliner, he wept into his inkwell and scrawled messily over parchment. So anyway: criticism #1 of this book is that they should have complemented the music-critic-ness with an English major.

Criticism #2 is that I feel like people always get wrong what appeals to girls, to speak in the massive generalizations of this topic. Like, someone somewhere was like, “Hey, girls like this Fall Out Boy band, it must be because Pete Wentz is hot.” And they’re not wrong about that, exactly, but they always seem to miss how many entangled layers often come with attraction. Like, yeah, sometimes it’s just he’s got nice abs but often there’s a million other things happening there, and one thing I cannot forgive this guy for is not just his failure to engage with Pete’s lyrics on any real level, but how little he also truly examines Pete Wentz’s genuine marketing genius. He’s a music guy: His interest is clearly in Patrick, and also in Joe and Andy, because they’re musicians, and he can wax poetic about them. Pete gets his standard paragraphs: Oh, he chose the right management, the right record label, the right deal. He can pick out a good band, like Panic! or Gym Class Heroes. All of that is true, but none of it really grasps exactly how smart Pete really is. Like, the book hardly mentions at all how much Pete realized immediately the value of internet fandom. When I first fell for Pete Wentz – that first weekend I spent Googling him – what really was the death knell for me was stumbling upon the old FOB Q&As he used to run in the earliest days. And it wasn’t actually his constant leaning into the Peterick shipping with such dead-on unerring understanding of fandom that did it for me (although that was pretty charming, ngl). It was how often teenagers messaged Pete Wentz with their problems, and how patiently he took the time to respond. My boyfriend broke up with me. My grandma just died. I don’t feel like I fit in anywhere. Again and again and again, Pete Wentz took these messages and wrote out detailed, laborious responses. And I know he was a guy angling hard to be famous but not all guys angling hard to be famous realized how important something like this is, this very personal connection, like, above and beyond the bantering and the smirks, and even if you’re doing it entirely for ulterior motives, that’s a ton of emotional labor he was performing. I finished reading those Q&As and thought, God, Pete Wentz must have been exhausted.

And I’m not sure that’s something the bio ever really wrestled with, because it never really talked about that aspect of him. I don’t actually think the bio read anything Pete Wentz has ever posted online, like, not even those basic Q&As that are the easiest thing in the universe to Google, never mind the secret blogs he still has scattered all over the internet with nuggets of lyricism buried in there for Patrick to mine. It’s just so easy to buy into the Peter-Pan, devil-may-care Pete Wentz picture, and for all I know that’s the truest of the pictures, but it’s also undeniable fact that the other side to that was either really cunning and savvy or just a nice guy, and either way it’s another layer to Pete Wentz that gets short shrift in the bio. Which isn’t surprising because although the author clearly appreciates Fall Out Boy the band, the author clearly isn’t fannish at all, whereas it’s pretty abundantly clear Pete Wentz is fannish. He’s unapologetically fannish. He speaks fan language with a fluency that is hard to fake. And he’s astonishingly well-versed in tropes. He’s instinctively good at creating a good story, not just in his lyrics (although he, like Taylor Swift, is adept at tropey lyrics, so it’s no surprise they have a mutual admiration society), but in his life. In addition to the Q&As, that first weekend was full of me being like, …How is this the tropiest thing I’ve ever read??? It’s unsurprising that the bio doesn’t point out all the tropes in the Pete Wentz / Patrick Stump / Fall Out Boy story, because the author isn’t versed in tropes, but Pete Wentz definitely is. He knows how to use words, well. And you wouldn’t necessarily know it to listen to him – he babbles and uses tons of filler phrases and never, ever ask him what his lyrics are about, it’s like trying to have a conversation in Wonderland – but that’s all part of the aw-shucks-sometimes-I-scribble-some-stuff-down-Patrick’s-the-real-genius brand.

Now I am not qualified to write a Fall Out Boy biography and also I don’t know these people and also everything I do know comes from Google but that said, I feel like I do know for a fact some primary source materials that the writer just chose to leave out that really does display how malleable stories can be depending on what you highlight or not. Like, if he didn’t want to draw psychological conclusions based on the facts that’s fair enough. But he also pared back the narrative so drastically that it left off the true meat of it, like, if you read this book you would not necessarily think there was much interesting about these people, whereas if you really dig into everything they’ve got out there, well, you could start to think they’re super-interesting people. But I am a creative writer and this biographer was a music critic. He settles happily into the song analysis but I’m busy connecting dots into a narrative, and life is complicated, it is not a simple narrative, but that impulse underlies most biography, the idea that we can assemble the facts into something that has something to say about a human life. But that act really exists in how you assemble the facts.

 ~~~~~~~~TRIGGER WARNING: SUICIDE DISCUSSION~~~~~~~~~~~

A really good example of this is the way the biography deals with the Best Buy incident. Here are the bare facts: Pete Wentz, in a Best Buy parking lot listening to Jeff Buckley’s “Hallelujah,” took too many Ativan. In a phone call, his manager noticed he was slurring, called his parents, they rushed him to the hospital, he lived. These are the facts that the book gives you, and these are true facts.

If you want to expand slightly upon these bare facts, Pete has given many, many interviews about this incident because he is very open about mental health issues and his bipolar disorder and depressive episodes and anxiety. Pete has said that he’s not sure he was trying to kill himself so much as just make his head quiet for a little while. Pete has said he felt like he was too busy being Pete Wentz for everyone else and he just wanted to rest. These are also facts, although ones I don’t think the biographer truly believes. He does dutifully quote them but he also clearly has his own belief about how much Pete’s telling the truth. Because this is inevitable in any telling of the facts.  

If you want to expand slightly upon these facts, you could point out that Pete’s lyrics reflect how noisy his head is (“when this city goes silent, the ringing in my ears gets violent”), which might color how you understand him when he says he just wanted some peace and quiet. You might also point out that, as the bio has already said, Pete was the driving force behind the band’s strategy and it was about to culminate. You might remind the reader that Pete walked away from other possibly very successful careers to do this band (there is much made in the book of the theoretical ease with which Pete could have achieved a soccer career, which made me raise my eyebrows a bit but, you know, Patrick does say Pete’s really, really good at soccer). You might recall that Pete has these kids relying on him whose parents he literally had to persuade to trust him. You might say that so far everything had gone exactly as he planned and he just needed to stick the landing. You might mention the fact that they kept rewriting songs and rewriting songs and rewriting songs; that Pete was in such utter meltdown mode that he was sliding lyrics under Patrick’s door and then retreating, so that the rest of the band never even saw him; that they had scrapped half the album and were furiously writing new music right up until the deadline – all of which are facts not even mentioned. You might say all of those things, because they are indeed all true facts.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is appropriate at this point to note that many of these things were simply not germane to the story this biographer was telling, which was a music-critic-focused story. But these things are all incredibly germane to the story *I* would tell, about these four people who found each other, lost each other, and found each other again, and the two people at the center whose creative alchemy was by turns either too dazzling or too explosive and in both incarnations needed to find a way to balance to keep the band afloat. This is the story I would tell, but, to be totally honest, Pete and Patrick’s creative partnership doesn’t really seem to interest the writer of this book. He mentions it vaguely, in passing, once or twice, fairly standard surface proclamations about Pete handling lyrics and Patrick handling music, and Pete drawing the spotlight away from Patrick who didn’t want it. Or he’ll say that the true secret to the band’s success is Patrick’s voice and Pete’s lyrics, like Patrick could be any pretty-enough voice, which I think just isn’t true, there’s so much more to the way they clicked together. I read this great New Yorker article once about how, through history, genius exists in pairs, that often two people need to find each other to push each other to be better than they would ever be apart.

It’s fine to not want to get into that too intensely, it’s just that that means that half the story of Folie goes away, if you’re not focused on how the band was creating. Like, there’s so much about the lead-up to Folie to talk about: Patrick’s control over the music to the exclusion of everyone else, Pete’s worsening prescription pill thing, and the way that their creative partnership seemed to disintegrate while simultaneously leaving no room for Joe or Andy in the band. The book mentions really none of this – nothing about the fact that at one point they had descended into physical altercations over chord progressions; nothing about the story the producer tells that Patrick would get so frustrated after phone calls with Pete that he’d throw things around the studio; nothing about the story that Patrick once told Pete, “I don’t care, I’m going to write a song and call it ‘I Don’t Care,’” such a telling little tale when later Patrick comes to hate the song “I Don’t Care” – so the hiatus feels like it descends out of nowhere, with a paragraph about the fans not liking the album. Which, again, is a true fact, but without the other true facts of the way the entire creative process was crumbling around them, around all of them, it sounds less compelling. The bio does get into Joe wanting to flex his creative muscles more but doesn’t connect it back to the Folie era of being shut-out. The hiatus becomes entirely about Patrick not liking being booed.

Even worse to me is the book devotes a lot of time to each of their music videos, which is awesome, because their videos are important and great, but it devotes exactly zero time to the video for “What a Catch, Donnie.” And I’m so bewildered by that, you can have a field day with the symbolism in that video, even if you want to just make a true factual statement about its plot: Patrick collects all of the detritus of Fall Out Boy and all of their friends come and party with him, while Pete goes down with a sinking ship all alone, to a medley of the words he’s leaving behind. Like. That is literally what happens in this video. And then the hiatus starts. To me this is one of the most ridiculously angsty things ever, that they would go out to their own triumphs echoing back at them and the literal death of captain!Pete Wentz. To the story I would tell, this is the most germane. It merits not a single mention in the bio (other than praising the song itself for being one of the strongest on the album, and talking about the Elvis Costello cameo).

Because he’s much more interested in them musically than as people or relationships, he seems to lose interest in them post-hiatus. He details each of their hiatus-era projects with his typical attention to the music criticism side. And then he spends, like, eight pages talking about the guy who wrote the article that triggered Patrick’s “We Liked You Better When You Were Fat” blog post. I’m not even exaggerating. It’s an entire chapter dedicated to the article and the guy who wrote it. Patrick’s response is described and quoted and even praised, but not in nearly as much as detail as the original article, and Pete’s reaction to Patrick’s blog post gets literally zero attention. Which is fascinating since, in some tellings of the story, that’s the entire reason the hiatus ended. Pete has said on multiple occasions that he read the blog post and was upset Patrick was so upset and called him up and asked him to try writing with him again. But if you’re not actually interested in that creative relationship as a relationship, then you don’t see a reason to explain the motivation behind trying again.

You also don’t really see a reason to tackle why they initially struggled to get back into it. Like, truly grappling with the Pete/Patrick relationship leads to more depth than the surface “Patrick doesn’t like the spotlight, so Pete takes it for him.” That’s too simplistic a formulation, as Pete himself has said. It also discounts Patrick’s obvious dedication to Pete, his complete willingness to step in and publicly defend him on many occasions, like, Patrick’s no shy, retiring wallflower when it comes to Pete, Patrick can let loose viciously on behalf of Pete. Their protectiveness is mutual, although the public narrative often glosses over that. (In one of those “why leave that out” details, the biographer notes that Hemingway was Pete and Ashlee’s ring bearer but not that Patrick was Pete’s best man, Idk.) At any rate, I point that out because the struggle they had to find their groove writing together after the hiatus mirrored their initial struggles, to find their way into trusting each other’s strengths, but the book is just kind of like, “The first session wasn’t successful but the next session was. They were out of practice.” They weren’t out of practice with songwriting, not really, especially not Patrick – they were out of practice with each other. And that wasn’t just a hiatus-era souvenir, that went back to Folie, but we didn’t get that part of Folie.  

The biographer also, annoyingly in my view, loses all interest in them at this point. He devotes almost no time to the post-hiatus era, which is fascinating to me, since their ability to launch a comeback as successfully and relevantly as they did is striking, and to do it not by relying on nostalgia but by generating genuinely new hits with a genuinely new audience, and he’s not interested in that at all. Even worse than not being interested in this is the fact that he fails to close the Folie loop, like, he devotes lots of time to Patrick coming to hate Folie because of how much the fans hated it. Then he makes a little note, like, “Maybe someday Patrick will come to love Folie again,” or something, and the thing is, I know the book was written a few years ago now, but there was definitely stuff available about how much Folie had become a fan favorite in the hiatus years. Patrick gave an interview somewhere where he talked about the reunion show and how he read fan reviews of it and the fans were like, “They should have played more songs from Folie!” I always think at that point And then Patrick looked into the camera like he’s on The Office. But, at any rate, Patrick got to see Folie become beloved and that loop could have been closed better and he just leaves it dangling. (I’m almost like, Did he really write most of this book while they were on hiatus and then when they came back he was like, …Goddamn it?)

He doesn’t at all get into the shock of the immediate level of success of their comeback, like, that’s another thing that’s documented, that they were unsure anyone would care and they were so startled by the response that they had to actually add larger venues onto their tour because they’d thought no one would want to come to their shows. He could have talked about how people waited hours outside in the Chicago cold to get into the comeback show, how they started the show with “Thriller” and Patrick says the response was electric and it must have been amazing and he’s just not really interested in it, you can tell that he’s bored. He doesn’t talk about how Patrick hadn’t really thought about having to perform the new songs live because he didn’t think anyone would really care about the new album, so they had to really think about how they were going to make it work, and how he almost permanently damaged his voice having to sing “Alone Together” live and that’s what finally finally drove him to pursue actual voice lessons, like, he mentions none of this, he’s just like, “They wrote Save Rock & Roll, and then they wrote American Beauty / American Pyscho.” He’s just clearly, at that point, bored. Whereas in the story I would tell, that is the most satisfying part, the happy ending beyond their wildest dreams.

Okay, omg, this is SO LONG, but here are some other random thoughts:

·       He never – not once – goes back to source Pete’s lyrics to their original blog entries, which can be very interesting. This is because he’s not interested in the lyrics really, but it’s very frustrating to me because, like, SOMEBODY TAKE THESE LYRICS SERIOUSLY, PLEASE, THEY’RE SO GOOD. It also means that he misses things like “Miss Missing You” and the way it echoes Pete’s poem with the line “I miss you missing me,” like, that’s just a fact ::shrug:: He also says “Hum Hallelujah” is about teenage romance, and that is the most straightforward, surface-level reading, like, “Oh, it says ‘teenage vow in a parking lot,’ that’s what it’s about.” This pains me only because “Hum Hallelujah” might be the most perfect lyrically constructed song Fall Out Boy has, every line is golden and stuffed with meaning and emotion, and he’s just like, “teenage romance,” so dismissively, and I wince, like, “I could write it better than you ever felt it” is a line that deserves more than that. Not to mention “I love you in the same way there’s a chapel in a hospital,” god, or “One day we’ll get nostalgic for disaster,” ugh, do not read this book for lyrical analysis. He also terms the best lyrical line on Cork Tree as “To the ‘love’ I left my conscience pressed / Between the pages of the Bible in the drawer” and, while there’s nothing wrong with that line, I don’t even think that’s the best line in XO (I mean, leaving off the follow-up of “What did it ever do for me? I say” undercuts those lines immediately, imo). (He does at least point out that “Keep quiet, nothing comes as easy as you / Can I lay in your bed all day?” is a devastatingly sexy couplet.)

·       Can I just say, the entire debacle with Hey Chris gets precious little time in this book, which in a way is fine but in a way is like, just by Googling I got way more information on what went down and the weird, weird words that were being flung back and forth (at one point the term “heterolifemates” is used which makes zero sense at all in this context), but this book does spend a lot of time with Chris and Pete pre-Patrick (fascinating, right???) and there’s this weird part where Chris says he hated Pete before he met him and is like, “He should wear pants that fit,” which is just…such an interesting reason to hate Pete Wentz, like, Idk, Chris, coupled with your heterolifemates thing and weird thing about “whose name do you say every night???” which is also weirdly sexual phrasing and also being like “no one knows how to break a heart like he does,” like, everything about this entire situation has so much queer subtext but the book doesn’t touch any of that, ever, in any circumstance, with a ten-foot pole.

·       EVERYONE, THE BORDERS WHERE JOE AND PATRICK MEET IS LOCATED IN EDEN PLAZA AND I AM SO UPSET I DIDN’T KNOW THAT WHEN I WROTE THE DEVIL FIC.

·       I did not know that the producer wanted them to change the “We’re falling apart to halftime” line in Dance, Dance because he thought it was too incomprehensible and I’m just like, That’s the lyric where you thought you were going to lose people??

·       From the bio, describing the Live in Phoenix performance: a strange moment where Wentz inexplicably gets changed onstage. A strange moment? Inexplicably? Okay, like, germane to my telling of the story is how much those dick pics affected Pete Wentz’s public persona, how much he knew exactly what he was there to sell and he sold it with gusto, and how much of a spiral that ultimately sent him on. Instead, this biographer finds it inexplicable that Pete Wentz would take his shirt off onstage, and his analysis of the music video for “This Ain’t a Scene” gives the dick pic storyline only an offhand reference, calling it “making light” of the scandal, instead of really digging into the obvious pain there, like, that’s not a joyful lark there. (Later, much later, years later, Brendon Urie will manage to actually make light of the dick pic saga, both in the Drunk History and also in the joke of the dick pic being the photo that comes up when Pete calls him, as seen in the promos for the tour they did together, and that feels much more genuine. But that bit in “Arms Race” is kind of heartbreaking.)

·       Pete says of their failed attempt to get the Guinness record of the first band to perform on all seven continents that it was the worst feeling he’d ever felt in Fall Out Boy, and the biographer is like, “Really, Pete? Really?” and I kind of want to shake him because Pete Wentz is obviously a dramatic person and he feels disappointments keenly and he made that statement literally just as they were finding out they wouldn’t be able to do it, like, of course it’s just hyperbole! The biographer is weird through that whole section of the book because he never once mentions that, as a consolation to Pete, Patrick stayed up all night with him so they could get the record of most interviews by a duo in a twenty-four-hour period, like, that’s what I would have said about that story instead of trying to get way more out of Pete’s off-the-cuff self-pity (which is just so Pete Wentz, it’s like this writer hasn’t just spend a hundred pages writing about him…).

·       Whenever I read about how many songs Patrick shows up with when it’s time to record an album, I always feel this little twinge of solidarity with him, like, sometimes that’s just how it is in your chosen creative medium, you’re just always endlessly writing.

·       I had never thought before about the fact that Pete says all the time that he was too selfish pre-hiatus, all the time, a lot, that’s how he describes his problem – and the fact that there’s an entire song on Truant Wave called “Love, Selfish Love” with the line “God bless the sad and selfish” and I’m just going to…sit here and think about who in Patrick’s life could be described as sad and selfish.

·       From the bio re: Soul Punk: It’s disarming to hear this garrulous boy-next-door sing so candidly about sex. Yeah, I don’t think you were paying attention to the way Patrick smirks at the camera in the music videos, buddy.

·       Detail I knew but had never really thought about before: that Pete got Patrick to really click into songwriting with him again by giving him a puzzle. Patrick says that sometimes Pete gives him homework assignments, “I want a song that sounds like x, y, and z,” and Patrick will be like, “That’s impossible,” but also so intrigued that he ends up sitting and writing the thing. The fact that Pete knew, after a few mediocre songs neither of them liked, like, “You know how I snag him? This way,” is adorable. Also, the fact that it was Pete who adored the song to come out of it, “Where Did the Party Go?,” and that it was his excitement over the song that made Patrick think, Okay, maybe we can do this, like, it was Pete’s joy that drove Patrick’s optimism, they’re so creatively linked, these two.

·       He does include the detail that Pete was worried he’d fallen behind during the hiatus because he didn’t spend much time playing music and so he committed himself to practicing and improving with metronome work, like, Pete Wentz ugh <3. In a very recent interview that I cannot blame the bio for not including, Pete said that Patrick helps him with the bass because he’s so musically talented and everything about that offhand statement just kills me.

·       I did not know that one of the leaks of their reunion was on a blog that wrote “You can stop refreshing for a journal update,” and I’m in love with that, sorry.  

·       Ugh, can I just say, the fact that Patrick sang all of his vocals for Pax AM Days live with the band is just so unbelievable, he kills me.

·       From the bio: “We were fireworks that went off too soon / And I miss you in the June gloom, too,” Stump sings here, and you can’t help but wonder if the words refer to his public but brief marriage. …I have indeed helped the wondering of that because I have never once thought that about this song lolololol

[renaroo]

That Time Ted Kord and Barbara Gordon Invented Sexting in the DCU

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #25]

There’s a lot of things I would like to end the decade on, and I’ve got a Cassandra Cain post I want to get up, but I am called to talk about one of the most important, most obscure parts of the DC Universe that happened 20 years ago. Also I’m shameless and encouraged by @secretlystephaniebrown​ and @shobogan​ so here we go.

DC, and most comics really, have this bad habit of minimizing or erasing past relationships of characters in order to “simplify” romantic narratives with an endgame pair. 

In some ways, I suppose I get it. There is a certain joy I can take from the notions of pure love and meant to be, and with these two characters in particular -- Ted Kord (Blue Beetle II) and Barbara Gordon (Batgirl I/Oracle) -- I have very passionate feelings toward other pairings with them.

But my god. What is lost in the world and in your perspective on both of these characters if you do not know their history together. No, seriously! It’s great!

Ted and Babs are both well established nerds in the DCU even before the 90s. On every team Ted’s a part of he is one-half prankster and one-half tech support, to his continued chagrin. And Babs’ technical skills and eidetic memory are among her most famous traits, even when she was the Batgirl of the Bronze Age. 

By the 90s both of them had also been through a lot -- Ted had gained and lost a dozen teams it felt like by that point, Barbara had survived her attack by the Joker but had only begun to establish herself more widely in the superhero community as Oracle, and the Birds of Prey were literally just starting out. 

Babs had Dinah, but was still not revealing her identity to Dinah, she needed a friend. And, online in a techie forum, she made one:

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #2] 

This friendship blossoms for a while as purely digital space across quite a few issues -- a lot of good issues of the early Chuck Dixon run which is an under-read treat these days, I feel. It still has its... Dixon on it, but the characters are great and this relationship is just one example of them.

Ted helps Babs out quite a bit and finally, they’re ready to meet in person.

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #15]

They’re honestly adorable, and pretty much instantly know each other’s identities. For one, Babs knows all the identities on the Justice League roster. For two, Ted can put together pretty quickly what tech-related superhero would have access to that kind of information.

For three, they went to a meet up in color coordination with their hero identities. Which of course is protocol in comics but still.

Point stands.

Ted stays in the picture for a long time after this, he’s a good friend and confidante to Babs and they’re genuinely interested in each other’s company. Platonically or romantically? It doesn’t seem to really matter until it’s finally the end of a long and tough arc, and Ted is forced back into wearing his Beetle suit again.

And they have a serious conversation about their relationship that ends like most interactions with Ted do: a good laugh.

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #25]

Ted and Babs actually relied on each other a lot as friends after that. Ted was Beetle on and off again, but Babs could tell that something was up and was firm in pushing Ted to go to a doctor to get himself looked at. 

If she hadn’t, Ted could’ve gone without treatment for a severe heart condition that had already cost him 3 heart attacks without him realizing it. 

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #40]

And, the first person he tells, is Babs.

[Birds of Prey (1999-2009) #41]

Unfortunately, about this time is where comics get. Weird and difficult because as writers move books or even just as storylines naturally shift for bigger parts of the stories, things get dropped unless it’s picked up elsewhere. 

A few comics like Formerly Known as the Justice League (2003-2004) would call back to their relationship and it would be in the pseudoromantic and fun banter that had had for the 90s and early 2000s, but it never picked up as a focus again. 

[Formerly Known as. Justice League (2003-2004) #5]

By 2006, Ted was dead, murdered by Max Lord after he got on the right trail for what was happening with Checkmate and the OMAC Project that Bruce had on the back burner. And he was alone, after almost all of the superhero community ignored or downplayed the importance of what he was finding (except for Booster). 

Unfortunately, that included Barbara.

She’s not outright dismissive and she’s not cruel or condescending to him in the ways other heroes are at the final hour, but her attention is elsewhere. They grew apart from where they were, Ted’s reputation was at an all time low to other heroes while Babs’ and the Birds of Prey were at their height. 

So she gave him the final clues that would lead to the discovery of OMAC. And would send Ted to his death. 

[Countdown to Infinite Crisis (2005) #1]

One thing I do appreciate, though, is that unlike a lot of comic character deaths, Ted’s did actually have impact, and it had it for years. Especially for those closest to him.

I could (and probably should) do an entire history lesson on Booster Gold and the impact their relationship has had over the years, but we’ll stick with Babs here, because Babs was allowed to grieve and honor her friend, too.

Something that wouldn’t happen in the future with other characters important to Babs’ life.

Ted was special, though, and Birds of Prey knew that and had an issue that spent a lot of very good time honoring that and his history with Babs and the rest of the team.

Which is where we get our confirmation that Babs and Ted were Cyber-Doing it before it was ever popular in one of my favorite exchanges of all time

[Birds of Prey (1999-2006) #96]

Now, am I going to wax poetically about the tragedy of Babs and Ted’s forgotten fling to force the diehards into multishipping admittance with my undeniable canon fact?

Yes.

I mean no! Not really -- I’m a diehard Boostle shipper who doesn’t budge for much and my shipping opinions for Babs are pretty firm as well. 

What I’m attempting to get at here is that they have a good history, that their characters and understanding their relationships with others, make them more interesting and complex characters with fun and joy to be explored in multiple angles, even when you have your penned, perfect ending for them.

And I think erasing that in favor of perpetuating this idea that people come out of the womb with this set romantic path that any deterrence there from has to be either meaningless or actively horrible is at best less fun you can be having in these expansive universes, and at worst actively hurtful to people’s world views and expectations. 

But also. 

Babs and Ted were actively sexting in 1999 and that is an important - neigh, historically significant -- event in the wider DCU so. 

Booster Gold has to have a storyline someday where he has to save this moment from never happening. And I will co-write it with you, Dan Jurgens, please. 

[shirtlesssammy]

15x12: Galaxy Brain

Welcome back to the new recaps! We’ll be doing recaps on Thursdays now that the show airs on Mondays. 

Then:

Remember when death was welcome and we had no hope?

Now:

Four Weeks Ago:

Earth 2

At an unassuming Radio Shed, a woman casually strolls around getting creeped on by the store clerk. He’s just an eager salesman, but dude…(Also, I’m a bad fan and had to Shazam the song playing. I thought it was quite on the nose with the whole “I had a dream that I ate your heart” considering Jack’s recent activities. It turns out to be Louden Swain, and all you real fans must have been dying laughing at how perfectly placed the song was.) 

The dude is despondent when the woman leaves, but then a new customer arrives, eyeing up the wall of televisions. It’s Chuck. The guy gives his best spiel, but Chuck isn’t interested. “It’s monologue time,” he states.

Chuck explains his twisted life story. 

And shows us the world:

Anybody else wish we would have had a glimpse of Squirrel World in these television sets? Well, Chuck waxes poetic about all the worlds he’s created and how none of them bring him as much happiness as the world with the real Sam and Dean. “They challenge me. They disappoint me. They surprise me. They’re the ones.” Chuck then decides that it’s time to clear the board and get rid of everything but the world with the real Sam and Dean (WEEPS OVER THE “FAILED SPIN-OFFS” LINE. BOBO WE’RE SO SORRY.) 

Sioux Falls.

Our World.

Now.

We find Jody Mills having too much fun investigating the death of a cow. She gets a call from Alex and we learn that life keeps humming along for our Wayward women.

Once off the phone, Jody sees a flash of motion from a barn and heads to check it out. Someone attacks her from behind. JODY! 

At the bunker, Sam, Dean, and Cas discuss what to do about Jack and his deal with Death. Sam’s concerned because Jack doesn’t have his soul still. We cut to Jack looking at the carvings of DW, SW, AND MW. He lightly grazes the MW. We know exactly where his soulless mind is. 

He heads to his bedroom and he’s surprised when a reaper appears. 

Sam continues to question the plan of Billie’s that Jack will kill God. Cas fully trusts his little nephilim son. Dean’s spent some time with Death and thinks she has it figured out. 

The reaper tries to reassure Jack that Billie’s plan will work as long as he follows the rules --lay low, wait for instructions, don’t use his powers. They need to keep Chuck out of the loop. 

Sam interrupts the conversation and Jack lies about who he was talking to. Sam tries reassuring Jack that they’re very happy to have him home and that they will help him.  

Meanwhile, recently reunited husbands share a celebratory drink now that they’re family is back together. Cas can’t help but gloat over how right he was and celebrate his faith in Jack. Dean wants to celebrate getting revenge. I want to celebrate these two yahoos talking again! 

Dean gets a call from Jody. She’s in trouble. 

Sam and Dean head out and find Jody tied up in the barn. Dark Kaia attacks! She’s seriously badass, but no competition for the Winchesters + one Mills. She wants her spear back --and more to the point, she wants to go home. Sam wants to know why she even wants to go back to that place. She tells them the world is dying. She knows this because she still has a connection to our Kaia. YEP. Kaia is STILL ALIVE PEOPLE. Dark Kaia left her the tools to stay alive, and she has, but Dark Kaia wants to go back. And now the others want to save Kaia. 

At the bunker, Cas and Jack bond over a fun game of Connect Four. 

Sam, Dean, and Jody arrive back at the bunker --with Dark Kaia in tow.

*JODY AND CAS FINALLY MEET ALERT*

They all agree that Jack can’t use his powers to help Dark Kaia get home, but they have to save their Kaia another way. 

While they figure that out, they chain Dark Kaia to the kitchen table and give her a magazine to read. 

Jack thinks he’s found a great spell but John Winchester had to ruin everything and kill off one of the necessary ingredients. How that man is able to ruin things this far in the grave will never cease to amaze me. Dean sends Jack to check in on Jody and Cas. 

Jody and Cas discuss their almost daughter, Claire, and her quest for revenge. Jody tells Cas that Claire loved Kaia, and Jody doesn’t want to tell Claire about this recent development. It would be too much for her to bear if things don’t work out. 


Jack morosely peeks in on the stalled progress of Jody and Cas, then stops to talk to Alt!Kaia. She’s angry, accusing him of encouraging Kaia to make the jump to the other world. It’s his fault that Kaia is in pain and about to die. 

Alt!Kaia wanted to visit Earth Prime because it looked comfortable, but she finds it cold instead and hard to live in. She begs Jack for help in a way that makes you think she’s never begged for a thing in her entire life before. Jack dreamwalks with her and confirms that Kaia is trapped in the Bad Place and an all-swallowing storm is coming for her. 

Jack heads into the library, advertising his intent to the Winchesters that he’ll save Kaia from the Bad Place. Merle, the reaper from earlier, appears. She is…ENTIRELY unimpressed by this plan. Saving Kaia is “Winchester dumb,” Merle insists. 

If Jack tries to save Kaia, Merle is totally running off and tattling on him to Death. Jack reads the room and calls her bluff. “Go,” he tells her. He’ll open a rift with his magic and Merle can just DEAL with Billie’s wrath when she comes running. Merle’s not so hot on that prospect, instead reluctantly coughing up a plan B. The cosmic warding Amara removed from the bunkers is the key!

But FIRST our patron saint of long suffering salt, Merle, insults the Winchesters’ rune repair work. The Winchesters re-warded their walls against demons and monsters, but didn’t come close to the “cosmic grade stuff.” 

She can rattle up the warding temporarily to block Chuck’s perception, but she’ll need to add a little battery power to the attempt. She demands the use of “your angel” to properly run the spell.

Sam, our very best witch, recites the spell. Runes glow along the bunker walls and edges as the shielding spell takes hold. 

Heading out, the Winchesters agree that the plan is reckless, stupid…and it FEELS REALLY GOOD. They’re back to their roots, baby! Give me my dumb, poorly planned, big hearted missions any day.

Cas corners Jody, asking her to stay behind as well. He never bonded with Claire - and couldn’t given their history - but Jody did. He doesn’t want to picture a world where Claire loses both Kaia and Jody. The truth settles over Jody like a thick wool blanket and she agrees to stay behind. 

For Soft Cas Science:

Cas and Merle supercharge the wardings. 

Once the wardings are active, Jack slings out a rift to the Bad Place. Alt!Kaia smiles at last and ducks inside, quickly followed by the Winchesters. The Bad Place is rainy and windy and full of red-eyed monsters LOOK OUT! 

Alt-Kaia realizes that the monsters are just scared of a roiling gray storm and they head off to find Kaia. Dean greets her with a “Hey, kid,” and a hug! KAIA IS SAVED! 

Alt-Kaia, however, decides to stay behind. The Bad Place is her home, its ending be damned. The Winchesters race off with Kaia and Alt!Kaia greet the oncoming nothingness with open arms. 

They make it back through the rift and Jody gives Kaia a great big MOM HUG. Kaia’s eyes slip closed. She’s safe at last. 

A little while later, Kaia has availed herself of the bunker’s excellent water pressure or possibly even that amazing bathtub. She’s now wearing Jack’s spare sweatpants. Bless. 

She tells Jack that she survived by anchoring herself around a children’s rhyme her mother sang to her: Miss Mary Mack. Jack attempts to grasp another tiny sliver of humanity. Good luck, Jack. Many of us work on that to this very day!

Jody invites Kaia to live with her. “Will Claire be there?” Kaia asks and it’s…REAL CUTE GUYS. Wayward Sisters lives on, even if it’s off screen. ALL THE HEARTS

Merle dumps a big soaked blanket over the celebration. “If I cared for a second about saving that girl, I guess I’d say that was a victory,” she says with a weary sigh. I love this GRIM reaper. Sadly, she’s not long for this world. Billie’s scythe jabs through Merle’s throat and tears her into little cosmic pieces. 

Billie CANNOT BELIEVE these Winchesters. “Bending the rules already, Jack.”

“I tried to call you,” Jack all but squeaks out. 

No excuse, bud. She’s not mad, she’s disappointed. Billie explains that she sees the big picture, even if nobody else does. All the worlds except this one are dying. 

“It’s Chuck,” Cas surmises, and Billie rewards him with a no-shit-sherlock look for the ages.

Sam demands answers. “When I became Death,” Billie says, “I inherited Death’s knowledge and Death’s library. And in Death’s library, everyone has a book. Even God.” The books write themselves, in a wonderful bit of LIFE HAPPENS. Billie explains. “After God made the world…he wanted more. But he needed to create a perfect harmony. A swiss watch so this world could keep tick tick ticking in his absence.” Chuck built himself into the framework of reality. The Winchesters and Jack are in Chuck’s book. “This is your destiny. You are the messengers of God’s destruction.” 

Back at Radio Shed, Chuck watches his worlds get torn to shreds by horrible weather events and war. The hapless Radio Shed employee Chuck chained to his service looks exhausted, worn to shreds from serving the capricious god. (Definitely no symbolism HERE, nope.) He’s confident that Chuck will spare his planet. Right? RIGHT? 

“Everything’s just fine,” Chuck reassures him before leaving the Radio Shed. As he strolls from the shop, he tosses his empty cup aside as meteors streak in to destroy the planet.

That’s Win-Quotester Dumb:

It’s monologue time

Sir, this is a Radio Shed

You’ve got four of the same color connected so…given the name of the game I assume that means you won

One little measly life on the line and you’re willing to risk it all? That’s not just dumb. That’s Winchester dumb

Disobeying cosmic entities…doing the dumb, right thing…feels like we’re back

How’s it feel to be back? [silence] Good talk

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