#I have a very clear type when it comes to fictional couples apparently

[sapphosboy]

I don’t think we talk enough about the fact that the tenth Doctor canonically tried to kill himself after losing Rose and he would’ve succeeded if Donna hadn’t stopped him

[alltooreid]

I Think He Knows

Y/N has a huge crush on Spencer Reid, so huge she embarrasses herself every time she tries to talk to him. She is convinced he is aware to all her pathetic attempts at flirting and just chooses to ignore it, but turns out Spencer may be a little more clueless than she thought.

A/N: Hope yall enjoy this cute fluffy fic! I’ve been having a rough couple of days so writing a fun fluff like this was really comforting :) yes it is inspired by the t swift song, but you don’t need to know the song to read and enjoy! also my requests are open so let me know what you want to see! (also sorry if this is kind of short, but i’ve been super busy and wanted to put something out :)))

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Reader

Type: a cute pining fluff fic

Word Count: 2.3K

Content Warnings: mentions of alcohol, otherwise none.

“He got that boyish look that I like in a man I am an architect, I'm drawing up the plans It's like I'm seventeen, nobody understands No one understands”

“He has to know Penelope, I’m not exactly subtle.”

You and Penelope spent the majority of your lunch breaks in her office, discussing anything and everything. Recently however, the point of contention had been a certain young genius. One who you had a huge crush on.

“Spencer Reid may be a genius, and one of the best profilers I have ever seen but he most certainly does not know,” she said, as she drizzled more dressing on her salad.

“He has to, it feels like everyone knows. . . Do you think everyone knows?”

She shrugged, “They might, I know my Chocolate Thunder hasn’t picked up on it yet.”

“You haven’t told him? It’s already been a week since I’ve told you! How did you keep it a secret for so long?”

“You asked me very nicely not to tell anyone! Plus this one seems really important to you. I don’t want to go around telling people and for Reid to hear it in office gossip.”

You smiled, “Well you Penelope Garcia are the best, best friend ever.”

“You know it, now I know you desperately want to repay me for my services, and you can by giving me those exact ranch packets you have in your bag,” she said.

“They’re all yours, now let’s discuss something other than my pathetic schoolgirl crush. Like how stupid Kevin’s sweater was today.”

“Kevin? The other internal affairs technical analyst? Yeah what the heck was he wearing?”

“You know, I’m tired of having to carry the weight of the brains, looks and fashion sense out of the two of us,” you said. “Though, that is a good way to gather attention . . . I wonder if Spencer would actually hold a conversation with me if I wore something as ugly as that.”

She laughed, “You know I think that might send you backwards.”

You stabbed your lettuce, “At this point I’ll try anything.”

Before Penelope could respond, someone interrupted your lunch, your only other friend on the BAU team, Emily Prentiss.

“Oh hi Y/N! How are you!”

“I’m good Emily, what kind of gross things are you here to deliver today?” you and Emily joined the FBI at around the same time, and found comfort in the fact that you were both total try-hards. Emily was going to eat lunch with you and your fast friend Penelope, at least on days when she was in the office for lunch, but you and her both agreed that she should eat lunch with the team so that they can get used to having her around.

“Just some paperwork, no cases yet, knock on wood. Also I just wanted to say hello! What are you guys eating?” she asked, pulling up a chair.

“Some salads from that takeout veggie place PG is always talking about. I told you I was going vegetarian right?” “You did not! That’s great Y/N! We need to talk more, like we used to when we first started here,” she sighed, then perked up, “We should have girls night! Remember how fun it was that night at the bar? With Brad the real FBI agent?”

“Yes! We should! You know, Gideon’s replacement comes tomorrow, we should celebrate!” Garcia said.

“You know, I don’t know if the best way to celebrate a new agent is by drinking without them, but I’m down. We’ll toast our girls night to agent Rossi. Someone ask JJ if she’s busy.”

JJ was not busy, but when you and Emily asked, Morgan overheard.

“So am I not invited to the party?”

“Well it was supposed to be girls night . . . but I think PG would throw a fit if I turned down her 2nd favorite person in this building, so I guess you can come,” you teased. “You should come too Spencer!”

“I don’t know, that’s not really my thing . . “

“Oh come on! I know I would love to see you there,” you then realized that you were embarrassing yourself being so forward. “And I’m sure everyone else would too!”

“Alright, I’ll come, but I’m not drinking.” he said firmly. 

Before you could respond, Penelope magically appeared. “Good, you can be completely sober when Y/N gets wasted and embarrasses herself,” she said.

“PENELOPE! I’m not the light weight here! you’ll see Spencer, she’s actually awful. Two shots in and she’ll be on the floor,” this was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Spencer grimaced. “But it’ll be so much fun! You have to be there! You already said yes!”

“I just don’t know if seeing all of my coworkers get drunk while I watch is my idea of a fun evening. . .”

“Trust me! I’ll even stay sober with you, so we can judge them together. It’ll be a blast.”

“Ok, I’ll be there . . . but for now I need more coffee,” he pulled his chair out and walked towards the office kitchen. You silently cheered, forgetting how people were still standing around you.

“Well,” you awkwardly laughed, “um, I guess I better be getting back to my neck of the woods. I’m not a hot shot profiler like the rest of you guys . . . so see you all later!” You tried to escape before anyone interrogated you about your conversation with Spencer. However, a certain profiler followed quickly behind you. 

“So. . . you and pretty boy huh?”

“Shut it Morgan.”

{⋅. ♪ .⋅}

You stayed true to your word that night, Spencer stuck to water and you enjoyed a diet soda. The bartender, who you had grown fairly used to seeing on your many nights out, was shocked to hear you didn’t want any alcohol in it. 

It’s probably a good thing that you didn’t drink, you already embarrassed yourself enough in front of Spencer fully sober.

“So Spencer, you know that new bookstore you said you were going to go to after work a couple weeks ago?”

“New bookstore . . .? Oh yeah! What about it?”

“Well after I heard you talking about it I decided to check it out . . . It’s really nice there! I go like every other night now! We should totally go together sometime.” Luckily, you were sober enough to keep a secret: the fact you were only going so much in the hopes of running into him.

“Oh really? If I’m being honest I wasn’t super impressed with their selection, it was mostly contemporary fiction. And all in English . . . Not really my thing,” when he saw the way your face dropped he quickly changed his tone, “but it’s great if that’s your thing!”

This. Is. Humiliating. The amount of times you had gone and bought books from the bookstore, you were there almost every night hoping to run into him after work and start a conversation. You felt stupid, of course he wouldn’t want to go on a book store date with you. If Spencer Reid didn’t like you so much that he wouldn’t even go to a bookstore with you, there’s no chance at a relationship.

“Oh haha, yeah you’re right it’s totally lame. . .”

“Didn’t you just say you went there all the time?”

“No! When did I say that? You must be drinking Dr. Reid,” you said, quickly hopping off your bar stool, and running towards Morgan and Garcia, not turning around to see how confused Spencer was, but only being able to imagine him as relieved. Relieved he didn’t have to make conversation with you anymore.

“I’m blowing this PG, he totally hates me.”

Morgan laughed, “Y/N, you’re acting silly, this isn’t high school, we aren’t seventeen, stop dancing around it and just go ask him out.”

“Morgan, he doesn’t want to go to a bookstore with me, no way he’s agreeing to a date.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, maybe he’s just not in the mood to go?”

“You go ask him then, 20 bucks he says yes.”

“You’re on Y/N/N.”

7 minutes later Morgan returned and without a word pulled a twenty dollar bill out of his wallet and deposited it into your hand. “Sorry, Y/N.”

Penelope then piped up, “I’m telling you Y/N, he just doesn’t know. That boy is clueless.”

You scoffed, “I think he knows Penelope. I’ve made it pretty clear.”

“Have you told him?”

You were thrown off, “Um, no but-”

“Well then you haven’t made it clear enough, have you sugar?”

You almost said something, but you couldn’t really think of a good rebuttal for the argument. So instead, you downed Penelope’s half dranken frozen margarita, and headed back over to Spencer.

“Hey!” he said as you made your way back over, “I was wondering where you went, after you left Derek came over and asked to go to that bookstore with me, isn’t that extraordinary. . .”

“Do you wanna go on a date with me?” you blurted out.

“What?”

You sighed, “I’ve had a crush on you since like, forever, and I keep planning all these ways to ask you subtly but it’s just not working so I’m asking now. Do you want to go on a date with me?”

“You like me? I didn’t know that . . .”

“You’re joking.”

“No, I’m not, I thought you were just being nice. You’re nice to everyone and I didn’t want to get my hopes up.”

You smirked, “Get your hopes up? Does that mean you’re obsessed with me too Dr. Reid?”

He laughed in response, “Yeah, you could definitely say that.”

You dug through your purse and pulled out your keys, “Ok, then let’s get out of here.”

He paled, “And do what?”

“We’re going on our first date.”

He smiled, and you both got up off your bar stools and headed out the door, ignoring Morgan’s snide remarks as you passed. 

{⋅. ♪ .⋅}

You couldn’t help but smile as you drove. Every couple of seconds you couldn’t help but look over at Spencer, getting lost in his brownish hazel eyes, which looked indigo in the night. He would smile, the kind of smile people write silly little romance songs about and spend verses to describe, and tell you to pay attention to the road before you run off of it. You would laugh, tell him to calm down. Although originally you had an idea of where you were going, now you just wanted to drive in circles, to bask in this memory. 

“So where are we going?” he asked.

“Think about it Doctor Reid . . .” you replied, teasing him in the way you’ve imagined since you met him. 

You pulled up to that little bookstore on 16th avenue, the one you couldn’t stop going to out of the sheer chance Spencer might be there, the one that was obviously closed this late at night, but was too perfect not to spend your first date at. 

“Although this is beautifully symbolic, it’s almost 2 in the morning, this place closes at 8. We’re 5 hours, 49 minutes and 17 seconds late.”

You smiled and pulled out your ring of keys, “You know, when I spent hours a night hanging around here after work, hoping that you would happen to come shop for books and see me here too, the woman who owns this store got pretty curious. So I told her why I was here, and after she got done laughing at me she offered me a key, so that if I ever had the guts to ask you out, I could take you here no matter what.” You turned the key and swung the door open, gesturing him inside and locking the door behind you, “but we have to keep the lights off, so no one comes by and tries to get in.”

You and Spencer sit in the non-fiction section, and enjoy the silence for a few seconds before you have an idea, “Read me something Reid.”

He reached up, pulling a book off of the shelf without looking, “Are you sure, A Brief History of 1491: Life in America Before Columbus, is first date material?”

“Although that book is anything but brief, anything you read to me will sound stunning coming from your pretty mouth.”

So he begins to read, attempting to slow down to a reasonable pace but still going abnormally fast. You didn’t care though, more than you listened to the history of the late fifteenth century you watched Spencer’s hands. They’re really nice hands.

His right followed the words as he read aloud and his left helped hold the book. He wiggled the fingers on his left hand unconsciously as he spoke, getting into the words of the book. 

After about 25 pages he glanced over at you, and you could almost hear the gears turning in his head. After a second he went back to the page, and continued reading. You didn’t think anything of it until a couple minutes later, when his hand made its way to your left thigh.

He held it and you leaned into him, and you both stayed like that until you fell asleep hours later, with his head resting on top of yours. 

At 8:30 Mrs. Betts, the owner of the bookstore, found you and Spencer, arms around each other, the book thrown aside. She smiled, glad to know you had taken her up on her offer. She went to go wake you up but glanced at her watch. She didn’t have to officially open until 10. 

She could definitely spare a couple of minutes. 

“I want you, bless my soul I ain't gotta tell him I think he knows���

- Thank you for reading! Please reblog and let me know what you think :))

ATR’s tiny taglist: @reidingmelodies​

[justiceraffles]

About the Gosho Boys and literary crime fiction

This is a lengthy text wall in which I ramble about detectives. It started out with me thinking about the Gosho boys and their relationship with classic mystery fiction and literary/fictional detectives and it ended up derailing into a Hakuba rabbit hole in which I overanalyse details pointlessly for hours because I guess that is simply how most of my free time is spent.

(Fair warning that this is probably ridden with mistakes because I am capable of only 1.3 thoughts at a time)

So, when it comes to Shinichi, Heiji and Kaito, they all have a literary character from classic detective fiction that they’re closely associated with. Namely, it’s Sherlock Holmes for Shinichi, Ellery Queen for Heiji, and Arsène Lupin for Kaito. The relationship they hold with each of these figures (and with crime fiction in general) is very different, but it’s quite telling of their personality, character, their relationship with literature, and their respective approach to their profession. I talk about each of them a little bit and then just spend half the time talking about Hakuba. 

Shinichi is born in a household where mystery fiction is extremely important. He is surrounded by this type of story and his parents nurture this interest actively. Detectives and mysteries permeate his life wholly. For Shinichi, Holmes is seen as the maximum exponent of a genre. Holmes is The Great Detective. The archetype, the one that defines what it means to be a detective and the one later writers will seek to emulate one way or another. Detective fiction is what it is today because of Holmes, so it makes complete sense for Shinichi to have him as his idol. Holmes is what he strives to be and it’s what people associate him with. 

Heiji is a lot more subtle than Shinichi is, but he is also very much a lit nerd. Ellery Queen is both a character and a pseudonym for the writers that created him. As a character, Ellery Queen is such a perfect choice for Heiji’s favourite detective. He’s a mystery writer who doubles as a sleuth and helps his father, a police inspector, in solving crimes. Wonder if that sounds familiar, huh. Aside from similarities in the character (I could go on about some passages that have such strong Heiji vibes I’d be here forever) the Queen novels challenge the reader very directly. They tell you to pay attention, that you are presented with the exact same clues as the detective and should therefore be able to solve the mystery as well. The mystery story is a competition and the author issues a challenge by presenting it to the reader. I love this because Heiji has a huge competitive streak, and this is highlighted from his introduction. To find that the stories he’s passionate about also encourage this side of him is just so fitting and appropriate. 

The case where Shinichi and Heiji meet always makes me think of the contrast between reading a Holmes novel and a Queen story. Personally, I feel like the enjoyment of a Holmes story often relies on letting yourself be awed by the deduction. You can follow along with the mystery but a big part of the charm is based on the detective himself and the way he explains the thought process that leads him to his conclusion. You’re meant to sit down and enjoy as Holmes explains himself, and admire his brilliance. There’s a focus on the truth and the way to reach it, which is very, very Shinichi. A Queen novel, on the other hand, invites you to play along as you read. You are on equal standing with the detective, and it’s up to you to reach the same conclusion he does. These are the principles of “fair-play” in mystery fiction. As it implies, it is very much a game! So Heiji challenging Shinichi to a battle of wits and deductions goes perfectly in line with what he’s reading. Holmes is the genius detective you look up to with admiration, Queen is a sleuth that invites you to solve the crime alongside him. These suit the vibes that Shinichi and Heiji give off themselves very well. 

Kaito is much, much different for obvious reasons. He’s not a detective, and he’s not nearly as much of a mystery geek as the others are. The entire KID persona is closely associated with Arséne Lupin because Toichi fashions it accordingly. Even if phantom thieves aren’t quite the same as Leblanc’s original idea for the Gentleman Burglar, they still have a clear origin in Lupin and there’s important similarities to be made between them. Storytelling-wise, KID heists work on the same principles as Lupin stories. You know the criminal is there, hidden amongst the cast presented to you, and you know he will carry out the crime. And, regardless of whether you have an inkling of an idea of how he’s going to pull it off or not, you still allow yourself to be amazed by his methods regardless when the trick is revealed! Even when the schemes are outlandish and border on the fantastical and unbelievable, the stories are best enjoyed when you suspend your disbelief and allow the plots and characters to be over the top. But well, the connection between Lupin and KID is fairly self-explanatory. So, rather than KID, I think it’s more interesting to think about the relationship between Lupin and Kaito himself.  

Kaito doesn’t seek to be seen as a modern day-Lupin in the same way Shinichi wants to be a modern day-Holmes. Unlike Shinichi who becomes a detective in great part because he has Holmes as his idol, Kaito doesn’t become a thief because of his admiration towards a literary character, but because of his love and admiration towards his father. Kaito dons the KID suit with pride because it’s something his father left behind, and he embraces each part of it because it can lead to answers and understanding. But, always cryptic, Lupin doesn’t provide a whole lot of answers and understanding, and neither does Toichi. Lupin admits that he struggles to recognise himself under all the disguises and roles he has played. The truth behind his father’s character seems to become more elusive the more Kaito becomes involved with thievery. The “gentleman thief” persona, despite being charming and theatrical, has consequences on a personal life. 

...And then there’s Hakuba. 

Hakuba is complicated. 

But, Raffles! You say, Saguru is another Sherlock geek!

Well, yes. Of course he is. The deerstalker outfit and him naming his hawk Watson make that clear. Hakuba is an absolute Holmes nerd. 

I’m here to read too deeply into it when it’s most definitely not that deep at all. But, there’s never enough information about Hakuba and I have a blast overthinking stuff. So that’s what we’re gonna do! 

Despite obviously being a big fan, Hakuba’s relationship with Holmes is different from that of Shinichi’s. 

First, we don’t get to see Hakuba nerding out about Holmes novels and stories in the same way Shinichi does. He doesn’t quote Holmes at length or go on about how much he loves the books. Instead, we know Hakuba’s a nerd because he’s apparently passionate enough about this character to include things associated with him into his own personal image and identity.

Second, there’s the way others perceive him. Shinichi and Kaito (as KID) get “Heisei Holmes” and “Reiwa Lupin”. Despite irking a couple officers every now and again, Heiji is held in high regard and considered a great detective by the police force. Hakuba has a considerable amount of fame, but he doesn’t receive the same amount of trust people place on Shinichi and Heiji. It’s easy to forget because Hakuba acts with a lot of confidence and familiarity around crime scenes, but several of his appearances highlight the way his presence is tolerated at heists because of his father’s influence and is generally seen as an outsider. The police take orders from Shinichi and look up to him for advice— it’s not quite the same with Hakuba. More often than not, Nakamori treats Hakuba like a visitor or observer than a consulting detective. All of this rambling to say that even though he presents himself that way, Hakuba isn’t (or, at least, isn’t seen as) the Holmes he admires.  

So, if not Holmes, is there anyone that suits Hakuba better?

I’d say yes and no. 

As far as I can recall, the series never makes any explicit comparisons or references to other detectives when Hakuba is concerned. That said, much like you’d associate the deerstalker and Watson to Holmes, Hakuba has some other quirks and behaviours reminiscent of other detectives. Now, I’m not here to say that Hakuba was made deliberately as a compilation of references to literary detectives. These similarities are admittedly mostly coincidences. That said, deliberate or not, I think an argument can still be made that the connections exist! And well, considering the lack of concrete information about Saguru, thinking about them is fun. So this is what I think: 

One of Hakuba’s most prominent quirks is his fixation with time and exactitude. His pocket watch is a memorable prop and being precise about minutes and seconds is an important part of his character. You can find very similar behaviour in Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, who also carries a pocket watch around and is extremely particular about punctuality and numbers. Another thing interesting about Poirot is that he’s most interested in the psychology behind a crime, in understanding the mindset of the killer. Poirot mysteries have each of the suspects explaining their own version of events, because the detective wants to understand everyone’s version of perceiving the truth. In other words, Poirot mysteries have a focus on the whydunnit. 

You can probably tell that now I’m going to gesture wildly at Hakuba’s “Why did you do it”

Speaking of Hakuba’s signature question, it’s probably also worth mentioning the Father Brown stories by G.K Chesterton. The sleuth is a catholic priest, and after his deduction and identifying the culprit, the stories usually end with the priest spending time with the criminal. Before an arrest is made, Father Brown has a private meeting with the killer (or thief). It’s implied that this is carried out as a personal confession of sins, and expresses a need to seek out an understanding of the motive as perceived by the criminal themselves. 

I say this because the catchphrase does come off as a little strange. It’s curious that Hakuba asks why when we usually expect the detective to be able to sort it out by himself. But, it’s really not that strange to find equivalents to it in stories that focus on the psychological part of the crime and empathy towards them. 

(Also worth mentioning that both Christie and Chesterton were presidents of the Detection Club, a group of writers during the golden age of detective fiction that based their stories around the concept of “fair-play” that I mentioned earlier when I was talking about Heiji.  

Back on track: Hakuba and Poirot share key similarities. 

HOWEVER! There are also differences between them. I’m referring to the fact that Poirot puts the most emphasis on this psychological level of a crime. Poirot says “I am not one to rely upon the expert procedure. It is the psychology I seek, not the fingerprint or the cigarette ash” On the other hand, I’d argue that out of all of the Gosho boys, Hakuba is the most fastidious about procedure. He has some level of knowledge of forensic investigation and places importance upon it.

Sherlock’s methods do draw inspiration from precursors of forensic science, so you could trace it back to that. You could also go to R. Austin Freeman’s Dr. John Thorndyke, who is inspired by Holmes, but places a heavier focus on the scientific method behind deductions. Thorndyke is probably the one to properly kickstart the forensic/medical sleuth subgenre that grows later with the improvement and development of DNA evidence and technology. We have Hakuba being observant enough to find one of KID’s hairs, and then use Hakuba labs to narrow his identity down. It doesn’t resemble Poirot’s methods, it also isn’t quite Sherlockian, but it does resemble other classic british sleuths!

OKAY, COOL. WHERE ARE YOU GOING WITH THIS RAFFLES. 

I’M NOT REALLY SURE! I NEVER KNOW WHAT I’M DOING! I JUST WANTED TO TALK ABOUT HAKUBA AND DETECTIVE STORIES. 

Alright. This is more of a personal interpretation/headcanon than anything else, but unlike the other three Gosho boys, who have one  clear inspiration/basis/model, I like the idea of Hakuba reading a vast array of detective novels and picking up the little habits, methods, that he finds interesting or comforting. The deerstalker, the name for his hawk, his pocketwatch, his signature question, his methods, his knack for competition, all of them handpicked from the things that he enjoys most about detectives. 

It’s also worth mentioning that all of the authors for these stories I’m associating with Hakuba are British. The thought of him being passionate about English authors as a way to understand his English side of the family is a headcanon I quite enjoy. And, technically, the same could apply to his Japanese side as well. I can imagine young Saguru reading Rampo’s Kogoro Akechi stories and also wanting a rival like the Fiend of Twenty Faces and jumping at the chance of chasing KID because how much he resembles the character. Or appreciating Akako’s cryptic clues because Rampo’s fiction also has supernatural edge to it. 

I don’t know. I just like the idea of Saguru learning about the world, his family, and himself through literature? This is pure, unapologetic self-indulgence on my part, I have to admit. 

Though, if I HAD to assign one specific detective to Saguru, I think it would probably be Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin. Poe’s stories with the character as seen as the start of detective fiction, and Dupin serves as the prototype for detectives to come — even Holmes, even if he doesn’t get nearly as much recognition as Conan Doyle’s detective today. Despite the fact that Hakuba is the original teenage detective in the series, and he’s also often forgotten and neglected by both Gosho and a big portion of the fandom. Even so, he paved the way for Shinichi and Heiji, and is very important regardless. 

Anyway! I don’t know why I wrote this and I am now very embarrassed but thanks for reading all the way!

[shesawriter39049]

|Breakdown’s & Bugatti’s| M|

PAIRING: Namjoon x Reader (Ft a hint of Tae & Jin)

About- Namjoon just does what he has to do to keep you ....calm while at a charity gala!  

OR:

CHAPTER 1 : MEET THE KIMS OF NEW YORK 

**WARNINGS: **Semi public sex, Fingering (F receiving), Minimal prep, Light dirty talk, Light spit play, Choking, Spanking, Gags (Makeshift), Non protective sex (Creampie), light overstimulation

WC: 7K (This is a sneak peak so it’s 1.2k)

NON SEXUAL WARNINGS: (Fictional political background)  Hints at recreational drug use (Molly) Brief mentions of death, father issues, and panic attacks/anxiety (All of these topics are super minor but again, out of respect I’m mentioning them) 

The remaining “characters” will be introduced at a later date

This chapter hints at various future plots 

This is almost 2 years old, I reworked it recently 

If you’ve been following me for a while this is the original draft for “Club First Royale” 

FINAL NOTE: I haven’t been active in damn hear a year ( 8 months) So I am posting sneak peeks intentionally! No, not to torture you guys lol but to get my blog flowing again because I’m sure people aren’t really checking in anymore

OT7 ALTERNATING STORYLINES

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

FINALLY, fuck 36737 years later you spot your Kim!

Standing there in all his glory, in a Valentino slim fit navy blue suit, the jacket appearing to have some sort of paisley print, opting against a tie. Leaving his crisp white dress shirt slightly unbuttoned, teasing at his broad carnalized chest as he makes his way from the bar. Heading over to the table, which has an empty seat waiting right beside him with your name written all over it...literally!

Purposely dodging the old lady to your left in a coat that would have PETA ready to throw hands! Gaudy diamonds, terrible Botox, and smelled as if she showered in an entire bottle Chanel No. 5! 

Yeah, no, sorry, not in the mood for another meet and greet right now!

“Joonie” Squeals from your lips once you’re in close enough proximity, his dark piercing eyes cut over to meet yours. A playful smirk tugging on those sinfully thick lips of his, accompanied by those disrespectful ass dimples!

“There she is!” Eyes dripping with warmth, as he ushered you in with open arms ,and in these types of situations, Namjoon felt like home, he was your safe space. “You look fuckin good” The words hushed into your hair in a tenor meant for your ears and your ears only! A hint of something a little more than just friendly playing on his tongue. 

A small little “Thank you” leaves your lips, and if I didn't know any better I’d think the compliment made you a little flustered.

Namjoon was the definition of Ocean arm’s and goddamn if you didn't just love how big this man was! It literally felt like he was hiding you from the entire universe when he has you nuzzled into his frame! The whole interaction couldn't have lasted longer than 20 seconds in all actuality but god you needed it! 

Face flush to his chest, wrapping your arms firm around his waist, letting your eyes flutter shut briefly, a deep slow exhale flooded through your body. Inhaling the musky yet sweet scent of his cologne mixed with his natural aroma, which has grown to become a calming mechanism over the years. 

“You had me worried for a minute…” Placing a quick kiss in your hair, that you would have missed if you blinked but again, your in public soo...

Palms soothing up and down your back gently, as he breathed into your hair , pulling back a little so there was some form of personal space between the two of you.  

“Your late, even for you princess...I know you started early, I got your live(Instagram) notification, so what happened?” Head clocked to the side as he appraises you and fuck, the bass in his voice still has you all types of fucked up! Glancing over your shoulder briefly before leaning up to place a kiss on the hinge of his jaw, that tittered the line of passing as an “innocent” greeting. 

“I’m fine Jonnie it’s nothing, we just got held up in glam.., Ariel was flying in from Miami...we got a late start” Gaze intentionally diverted as you welcomed yourself to his glass of Scotch instead. Damn near inhaling the entire drink as we speak and you hated dark liquor so that alone let him know something was up!  

Merely resisting the urge to smooth out the crease he felt forming between his brows, a dry snort left his lips, rolling his eyes in response to your blatant stubbornness. Nevertheless, always the gentleman, reaching down to pull out your chair so you could take a seat next to him. Mirroring your actions just moments prior, quickly scoping out his surroundings before he brought those plush pillows he calls lips a centimeter away from your ear.

Fuck. 

  “Right, so I'm just going to assume you don’t wanna talk about it right now! Or wait I’m sorry, have you just upgraded to insulting my intelligence straight to my damn face?” 

Brow quirked inquisitively, and you could literally feel every word, tone taking on a hint of seriousness the more he talked. Namjoon licked his lips and the tip skimmed the edge of your ear and I - . 

“For one you smell like an entire bottle of Heidsieck, I can almost taste the nicotine on your tongue and you've been crying I know you. ”  

Pulling back just enough to glare down at you above the brim of his glasses, which he always wore low along his bridge. Eyes daring you to look him in the face a lie again, teasing his fingers through his chocolate locks. Styled in the perfect semi grown out undercut, the top a little on the long side, while the sides tapered into a crisp fade. Sideburns outlining that extremely understated jawline of his! Though you had to admit the yellow gold diamonds dawning his ears were kinda stealing the show right now! 

“So again, do you just not wanna talk about it right now? Or have you forgotten that I have an IQ of 137, and can smell bullshit from here all the way to Gangnam!?” 

You're having very vivid day daydreams of your hand wrapped around this man's windpipe and for once it’s not even remotely sexual! 

Blatantly ignoring the strong twitch within Namjoon’s jaw and simply saying “I’m here, aren’t I!?” Face stoic, tone flat as all hell, in case it wasn’t clear that this conversation was more than over, you opted to eye his bourbon glazed salmon until he got the hint.

 “Oh, for fucks sake! ” Hissed from his lips without a lick of heat behind them, because as quiet as it’s kept ,your lowkey Joon’s baby, which is why he cares to begin with! Picking up a piece on his fork before essentially shoving it into your hand ”Your lucky I can’t have your ass getting sick on me tonight, we still have like, 3 hours left of this bullshit.”

More like he just can’t tell you no, but hey, whatever helps him sleep at night! Sliding his plate in your direction, completely giving up on eating at this point, he knew you needed it more anyway! Finally, starting to feel your mix of poisons hit your system so you knew you needed  to even it out with a little substance. I mean yeah, you could have just ordered your own plate but meh, this was easier! 

Namjoon started busying himself on his phone while you ate, scrolling through a couple contacts until he landed on a contact labeled under “Kookie”.

“Even though you were only late because “Your glam team ran late” There were air bunnies involved, and again you just really wanna choke his ass!  “What are you thinking tonight? He’s actually on his way here right now, but he already has a couple options on him...” 

The question was vague and for damn good reason...considering…

However you knew exactly what he was referring too.., and thank god!

Speaking over a mouth full of salmon, sounding utterly exasperated!  “Honestly, any fucking thing at this point…” 

Namjoon hums thoughtfully, sucking on a Bourbon soaked Ice cube “He’ll be here in 20, I just went with Smartees…always a safe bet...” 

Smartees, candy, Vitamin -E, Molly... Estcasy...it’s all one and the same, just depends on who you ask!

He leans back in, apparently keen on whispering tonight. “Maybe, if your a good girl and eat enough we can split one before we leave...chill you out a little bit. '' Voice thick and heady, lips curling into a grin with a hint of something wicked playing on the ends, as his fingers idly ghost over your forearm. Giving it a light squeeze and regardless of how innocent the skin-ship may seem to the naked eye, you’re well aware of all the underlying innuendos behind it! 

You make a noise of agreement, trying your damnedest to ignore the slight chill coursing up your spine at the pet name. Though before you could even dwell, Namjoon was sliding back in with another update, this one however wasn't as...arousing…to say the least!

“Fox 2’s been waiting for you to get here by the way...since the event was put together by council and all. They've been wanting to talk to us together about the fundraiser, just the same shit as last year.” 

Waving his hand dismissively idly twirling the various pieces of Bvlgari around his fingers, seemingly un-phased while you on the other hand...release the most exasperated huff! Reclining against your seat, eyes rolling to the back of your head in 30 different directions! Yeah, It comes with the territory, you know this, hints Namjoons reaction, or lack thereof!  But fuck you just really weren’t in the mood to do press tonight, It’s literally physically exhausting to pretend that you weren’t just PISSED! 

“Of -fuckin- course they do!” Stabbing your mashed potatoes in a way that's... somewhat concerning… 

“Baby.” It was a warning, though his voice sat barley above a whisper, his tone was crystal! Eyes cutting in your direction briefly before dropping back down to his phone….

You didn't have it in you to argue, there’s no way around this anyway, fuck it!  “What -the-fuck-ever!” Sliding the half empty plate aside “Well, you wanna just get it out of the way now? Because I’m really not in the mood for-”

“Y/n..oh my god! Hi, honey how are you!? You look beautiful as always…” Suddenly there was a human, a human wearing the wrong shade of foundation kissing your cheek. A human by the name of Caroline, one of the local news anchors...clearly her damn ears were ringing.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Hi guys, that’s all she wrote, well kinda, actually she finished it like 16 months ago lol but that’s all she wrote for now I guess....

**_

_****Love you...see ya soon!!**

***SIDE NOTE, MY FRIEND MADE THE TWITTER EDIT SO DON’T ASK LOL IDK ****

UPDATE: HEADCANONS FOR THE KIM BOYS/OC

  HEADCANONS

[rostovs-lover]

roy rogers

brian may x reader | cursing, some suggestive language, a little bit of anxiety, alcohol consumption | she/her pronouns | fluffy? slow-burn?? | wc.3667

i’m low key tempted to make a part two,, 

anon : Can I request a super cute fic where Bri needs more money for uni, so he starts offering guitar lessons and the reader has a little brother who really wants to learn how to play, so she signs him up. Maybe her brother is extremely good with a guitar and he has a lot of lessons with Bri. He also sees the reader a lot and he catches feelings HARD. Maybe the reader’s little brother spills something to both of them with the help of the rest of the band and they end of together. I just need major FLUFF

your younger brother thinks his guitar teacher is perfect for you and he’s adamant about getting you together. requests open!!

     A Roy Roger’s is a nonalcoholic drink made of cola and cherry grenadine and topped with a maraschino cherry.

     Your younger brother, David, practically lived in your apartment. For a fourteen year old he was brilliant and very, very sneaky. Sneaky enough to creep out of your mother’s house in the dead of night and crawl up to the fire escape of your second story apartment.

    When you’d stumbled to the kitchen, half asleep, he’d been at the table thumbing through a cookbook. He’d also had the audacity to laugh when you screamed, thinking he was an intruder. It wasn’t the first time this had happened, and it most definitely wouldn’t be the last either.

    “One of these days something is going to be thrown at your head,” You hissed, setting a bowl of cereal in front of David, who looked at it with the utmost disgust.

    “What is this?”

    “Quisp, either eat it or starve.”

    He glowered at you, “I like Waffelos,”

    “That's so sad, I have no money, its Quisp or nothing.” It was quiet for a while as you both ate, David still looking through your cookbook.

    He closed the book, examining the cover as he spoke, “Mum said you have to sign me up for guitar lessons,”

    “Mum said what?”

    “You have to sign me up for guitar lessons, she’ll pay. I have a well of untapped potential in the musical realm. That's according to her coworker, Deirdre.” He sighed, exasperated, “Mum trusts Deirdre apparently because now I have to learn guitar.”

    “Where on earth does mum expect me to sign you up, I mean did she give you any specifics, like a price range? Do you even have a guitar?”

    “First, I have mum’s old guitar. Second, she just said lessons. I think she trusts your judgment.”

    Despite how much you appreciated your mother trusting your judgment, finding reasonably priced guitar lessons with someone who wasn’t a creep was harder than anticipated. You had collected a handful of flyers and business cards, all offering said lessons. The first call you placed was to a nice old lady looking to take up some spare time by providing lessons but she lived too far away for your mother to drive every week. The next was almost promising until you told Robert MacIntere that the lesson was for your brother, not you and he hung up the phone. One woman had too many cats, another man asked for your shoe size, someone else cursed you out when you said you couldn’t do their outlandish prices. The only promising thing you had gotten was a History professor, a very nice man too. You were thrilled when the lessons had finally been scheduled until he bowed out at the last minute and you were back at square one. 

    You had almost given up when, one rainy Thursday evening, you found an advert pinned outside of the auditorium. Guitar lessons, not too far away, open every Tuesday and Wednesday after three o’clock. The document was typed, all except a phone number scrawled on the bottom, almost as if an afterthought. You scratched the number on the palm of your hand and called straight away when you got home.

    The line wrung for several seconds, “Yo?”

    “Hi. Hi, yes I’m calling about a flyer I saw posted at Imperial College? It was an advert for bi-weekly guitar lessons, and your number was on the paper. I was wondering about booking a couple of weeks?”

    The person on the line snorted, “Sorry dear, that’s not me. I assume you’re looking for my mate, just one moment and I’ll gather him-” You heard his hand cover the receiver as she called for someone, “Just one sec’ lovie,”

    The phone was audibly handed off, “Hello?”

    “Hi, um I’m calling about the guitar lessons?”

    “Oh!” His voice, “Yes, of course! That's me, are you looking to schedule one?”

    You had scheduled for the following Tuesday at four, to meet at his apartment. In the car on the way there, David rambled on about everything he wanted to learn and exactly how ecstatic he was for this. He had named his guitar George, after George Harison, who he admired. On the elevator ride up to Brian’s apartment, David was practically vibrating and he bounced on the balls of his feet as you waited at the door.

    The door was opened by a blond, clad in a bathrobe and flannel pyjama pants who puffed at his cigarette as he stared at you, “What brings you here?”

    Before you could speak David, who the blond hadn’t noticed until just then, piped up, “The guitar lessons. I’m the one being taught, [Name] is just sitting in.”

    “Oh, well come in then, I’ll go and get Brian.” He tucked his cigarette behind him and lead you inside, “Um, make yourselves at home, couch is all yours.” He howled Brian’s name and ducked into the kitchen, snuffing out the smoke in an ashtray.

    David got settled on the couch, tugging out his guitar, and you set into a chair. From around the corner rushed a very frantic body, clutching his own guitar. He was very tall, and the black pants he wore made his legs seem unproportionate to his body. What caught your eye the most though was his hair, he had a thick mane of tightly wound black curls, which also added to his height.

    “Hi, I’m very sorry about this, I got a touch caught up in a bit of school work.” He settled onto the couch next to your brother, “You must be David, I’m Brian.” He gestured a hand to your brother.

    David, ever the charmer, shook firmly as he spoke, “Its pleasure meeting you. I wasn’t quite sure that lessons were even going to happen, no one seemed right, according to mum, but you seem nice! Your guitar is neat. Oh! That's my sister, [Name], I believe you spoke on the phone.”

    “We did,” Brian leaned forwards to shake your hand as well, “Its nice to meet you,”

    A better teacher would have been hard to come by. Brian was patient and soft spoken, he worked at your brother’s pace, never rushing past anything he didn’t fully understand. The lesson was only an hour long but it seemed much shorter, with a book in tow you didn’t pay much mind to anything else. That was until you caught yourself glancing over the cover to watch the lesson. Brian was attractive and he had very nice hands. You were somewhat aghast you’d never seen him on campus, he seemed hard to miss.

    The lessons became weekly, and despite trusting Brian and his roommate, Roger, you still opted to stay for every one. It was always pleasant, the apartment was nice, Brian was nice, and you had begun to get acquainted with his friends. During the third week, Roger had let it slip that they were in a band. Brian’s face had flushed scarlet and he’d played with his fingers as he explained that it wasn’t anything serious. On that same visit, you’d had a conversation with Roger in the kitchen while he got you a glass of water. He was nice, only half awake at the time, but you’d realized you had an evolution class together at school. He had also given you his number, and David would absolutely not let you hear the end of it.

    “Please-” Your brother cried as he threw himself onto your sofa, “You haven’t had a boyfriend in ages. The last one was, what was his name?”

    You rolled your eyes, “Chet?”

    “Chet Robbins! Chet the safe bet!”

    “Chet the safe bet? Did you make that up?”

    David smiled, very proudly, “I did! Just now actually, because it's true! Chet, the business student, trust fund child, frat boy. Why not date a drummer?”

    “Because I like stability David,”

    “[Name] date the drummer. I beg, I plead. He was so into you, he gave you his number!”

    “If you will recall, I have his number. Because his number is the apartment number and that's what I called for the lessons. I also refuse to date your teacher’s best friend. How would I approach that, ‘Hi Brian! You’re teaching my brother an instrument, I did your friend last night. How have you been?’”

    David gasped in mock disgust, “I never said a word about doing him. You foul wench, I simply implied dinner. Maybe seeing one of his shows.”

    “Oh my dear, when you date a drummer it's never just dinner.” You snorted.

    “Well, when I date a drummer it will be. Only dinner, no foul play.”

    “Please, please keep that attitude for the rest of your life.”

    It was quiet as he mulled over your words. You started off, putting away your bag and coat when he abruptly sat up, “You don’t dislike the drummer, in fact, it has nothing to do with him. You don’t like my teacher’s best friend, you like my teacher.” He grinned when your face lit up, “Oh you do, you absolutely do! I’ve never seen you blush that hard.”

    “You little twit,” You hissed, “If you say a word about this I will have your head. This stays between us and us only.”

    David was sneaky, very sneaky. Your conversation had planted an idea in his head like a seed and every brief glance and soft smile you shared with his teacher was water. He was growing a downright devious plan, with you directly at the center of it.

    David, after quietly looking over the house and picking up on Brian’s affinity for science fiction, had been the one to recommend you start reading George Orwell’s 1984. He had also purposely disappeared to the restroom when he caught sight of Brian eyeing the cover.

    Brian carefully cleared his throat, “Do you read much Orwell?”

    “Oh, Orwell? No, not really. I, um- I read The Road to Wigan Pier for a book club a while ago. Are you a fan?”

    “Oh yes,” He smiled, leaning forwards, “I’ve read that, actually. I was in a band a few years back by the same name,”

    You cocked your head, closing the book against your finger, “1984?”

    “Yes, quite silly, I know. Never was much good at naming.”

    “Roger said you’re in a band now, what's that called?”

    His cheeks were beginning to pick up a soft pink again, “Um, Queen. Our singer named it-”

    David sat back down, “Did I miss anything important?”

    Brian looked away and you went back to your book. The only noise became the guitar residing between the two boys on the couch. David had learned enough to start on a song, I Walk the Line by Johnny Cash. It was recognizable enough to draw your attention, and it was lovely at first until it was all David played. When you returned home, when you visited your mother, he played it so much you had memorized the fingering to it.

    It was at another lesson, several weeks later, when you had been left by your lonesome. David had gone to get a drink and Brian had run to retrieve something from his room. All alone and with nothing to tell you not to you settled into the couch with the guitar and tried at the song. It was choppy, a bit off-key, but mostly there.

    “I didn’t know you played?” Brian’s voice was soft but you still jumped, shooting around to find him. Leaned against the back of the sofa he twirled a coin between his fingers, grinning down at you.

    You swallowed, “I don’t, no, not really. Dave’s just played this so much I remembered how it looked.” 

    He propped his chin in his hand, “I think you could be quite good. Just, here-” He slipped the coin between his teeth to reach down, softly grasping your wrist, adjusting your placement on the neck. His hands were warm and it sent a shiver up your spine as he carefully moved your fingers, “That should do nicely, I trust you’ll do well with the right placement.” He was quiet for a moment, silently pondering something, “Friday night we have a show at about ten o’clock, say you come and maybe I could show you something on the guitar afterwards.”

    You considered, “Where is it?”

    “The Cameo, downtown London.”

    “It sounds lovely, very, but I have to admit I’m not big on the downtown London clubs. I actually don’t know where that is. Although I do have a friend whos well versed with the scene, I could ask her to show me there?”

    “Wonderful,” He grinned, “It's a date!” Something else David wouldn’t let go of. Usually, all he talked about was the music he learned but now he was enthralled with the prospect of a new romantic venture. You had been informed on exactly how to dress, what makeup to wear, what drink to order. He also picked the exact shade of blue for you to paint your nails.

    You called Marilla after your mother picked David up and she had agreed, enthusiastically, to show you to the club. When she arrived you had been called ‘prudish’ and were forbidden to dress yourself. In the very back of your closet was a floral dress you’d bought for a wedding reception that never happened. It was supposed to be returned but you just hadn’t gotten around to it.

    “It doesn’t scream rock n’ roll,” She inspected the green fabric under the kitchen light, “But anyone can look like Twiggy with enough eyeshadow so it’ll have to do. You should invest in club clothes, you might have to if anything goes with this guitar player.” Her eyebrows wagged.

    You rolled your eyes, taking the dress from her, “Hush, you’re just as bad as David.”

    “Your brother?” Marilla snorted, “What's he got to do with this?”

    “He's an insufferable little shit, that's what-” You pushed off your top, “At first he tried to get me with the guitar player’s flatmate but when that didn’t work he really pushed Brian and I,”

    Marilla was amused, far more amused than you, “He's a cunning thing, I’ve always liked him. Oh boy, now I really want to see your guitarist, Brian was it?”

    The club pulsed, dull lights glaring down against everything. It was smokey and smelled of weed and whiskey. The band onstage was far too loud and you clung to Marilla’s hand as she pulled you up to the bar.

    “What do you want?” She practically had to yell for you to hear but it went through you, you couldn’t think with all the noise and lights. She sighed and patted your hand, “A Moscow mule and a Roy Roger’s please.” She shouted at the bartender, “It's alright babes, no alcohol, just fancy cherry coke.” You nodded and accepted the drink, taking a tentative sip as you scanned the crowd. The band onstage had seemed to conclude their set but it didn’t make things any quieter. It was overwhelming really, moreso as Marilla started to pull you up to the front.

    “Come on, it's almost ten. Your boy’ll be up next!” She settled in front of the stage, rooting you to the spot next to her.

    Brian’s flatmate came out, twirling a drumstick between his fingers and he was met with loud cheers. Marilla whooped, waving big up at him. He was followed by the bass player, Brian, and the singer. They were all enthralling, and you were enraptured. The boys on stage looked ethereal, in flowy tops and sparkly makeup. The frontman was clad in glittery jewelry and the bass player wore platform boots. Their music drew you in and eased your nerves about how crowded the club was. The last song had a guitar solo and as he played Brian’s eyes met yours. A rose of warmth bloomed into your cheeks and he grinned, fingering at the chords.

    Marilla, immune to none, elbowed you in the ribs, “That's him?!”

    You nodded, “It is,”

    “Damn girlie! Good for you! But for the record, I think I like the drummer,”

    “His name is Roger. If you come backstage with me you can meet him.”

    She grinned, “I’m so proud of you, getting connections!” As they finished Roger flung one of his drumsticks into the crowd. You flinched as Marilla’s hand shot out. She squawked as she caught it, quickly tucking it into her pants and taking your hand, pulling you towards the back lounge. She pushed at the thin curtain to the side, slipping in.

    It was quieter and you watched people in glamorous outfits dally about. A redhead in hot pants dropped onto the shabby leather sofa, passing glass bottles of something to both the drummer and bassist. The singer was swirling what you could only assume to be a cosmopolitan. He looked up, catching sight of you and Marilla, both looking a bit lost.

    “Hello, come come!” The singer waved you over and Marilla practically dragged you.

    “You are spectacular!” She raved, “All of you, magical!” She tugged the stick out of her waistband and made her way to the drummer.

    You cleared your throat, “You really are amazing, you have a lovely voice.”

    The brunette smiled, “Thank you! I’m Freddie by the way, our charming drummer is Roger. The lovely John plays bass and Brian should be around here somewhere, he plays the guitar.”

    “It's nice to meet you, Freddie, I’m [Name]. I was actually looking for Brian,” You twiddled with your fingers, looking down, “He asked to meet here tonight. You wouldn’t happen to know where he is would you?”

    “You know, he may have popped to the kitchen. I’ll show you,” Freddie stood up. He seemed to catch your hesitation, glancing back to Marilla, “I’ll keep an eye on her. Roggie really is no harm, he plays much bigger than he actually is, I don’t think he could hurt a soul. Not an undeserving one at least.” He started towards the kitchen with you in tow.

    Aforementioned kitchen was small and shockingly clean. Your guitarist sat on the counter with a glass of water.

    Brian seemed to be in his own world until Freddie caught his attention, “Someone’s been looking for you, my dear,”

    Brian looked up, “[Name]! Hello, I’m so glad you came!” He slid off the counter setting his drink down, “Did you bring your friend?”

    “I did, she’s become infatuated with Roger though.”

    He grinned, “Oh Rog seems to do that to some people.”

    “Well, I'll leave you to it!” Freddie called, waving and walking back to the lounge.

    When the door shut Brian began to fiddle with the bottom of his shirt, “I left my guitar in the other room, I could go and grab it if you’d still like to learn that song.” He studied your face, “But you don’t look comfortable, are you alright?”

    “Yes, this just isn’t really my scene. I’m not used to the noise and everything, there's a lot of people here.”

    He smiled sympathetically, “I know, it's crowded. There's a nice little diner just down the road, we could walk there and talk if you’d like.”

    You nodded, “Sure, that would be lovely.”

    The air was crisp and it brought you back to reality from the club. Brian had lent you an extra sweater he had brought, it was warm but you had to roll the sleeves a few times. It was quiet as you walked, the occasional car rushing past. The sidewalk narrowed as you got closer to the strip of restaurants and you felt the back of Brian’s hand brush yours. You caught his fingers, lacing yours into them and nervously looking up. His expression mimicked yours, jittery and shy and totally taken.

    “You look very pretty,” He murmured, thumbing over your knuckles, “That green looks very nice on you.”

    You smiled, “Thank you, you look lovely as well.”

    “Oh pish posh, this is just stage wear. But I’m glad you think it looks okay, Rog said I looked frumpy.”

    You giggled, “Marilla, the one who brought me, called me prudish earlier.”

    His laugh was soft, “Well, we can be fashion disappointments to our friends together,” He pulled open the door to MaryAnne’s Diner, holding it for you.

    You were settled in a booth waiting for your order when Brian spoke, “David really has potential,”

    “With the guitar? I’m not surprised, he's always been good at everything he tries. It's really quite annoying, how brilliant he is.”

    “He seems so, a very nice kid. Does he live with you?”

    “No no,” You smiled, “No he lives with our mum, he just sneaks out to see me more than he should. I don’t know if I ever thanked you for letting me sit in, I know it's not common practice. I just worry about him, he seems so much older than he actually is and I’m worried it’ll get him in trouble one day.”

    Brian patted your hand, “Oh darling, I understand. I really don’t mind at all, I’m glad I met you.”

    “I’m glad I’ve met you as well.”

    He had walked you home, contently explaining the story behind one of the constellations he saw.

    He stalled at the door, keeping your hand in his, “So I suppose I’ll see you next week?”

    “Absolutely,”

    He moved one hand to push a piece of hair out of your face, “Well until then I suppose,”

    You leaned up, closing in on him. You felt his hot breath against your cheeks, “Is this okay?”

    He nodded, “More than,” And pulled you into him. 

     He was as gentle in kissing you as he was in everything else, carefully nudging his nose against yours. His mouth was warm and he stroked your mandible, easing deeper into the kiss. He relished in the taste of maraschino cherry from the Roy Roger’s you’d had earlier. You gasped softly as he nipped at your bottom lip, pulling away. The lipgloss he had been wearing was smeared against the corner of your mouth and he carefully wiped at it with his thumb.

    David would never let you hear the end of this either.

[ohhthereuare]

cannot believe we’re back to shipping wars in the year of our lord 2021 but with the overwhelmingly stupid cancel culture and moral police on every corner making it almost impossible to simply enjoy stuff these days I had to chime in my 5 kruge cents or else I’d choke

nobody gives a flying fuck about who you ship and neither should you because this is very rarely up to you. it’s like a god-chosen enlightenment, a sudden rush of serotonin that mysteriously dictates what’s gonna rock your boat from now on. that is great. grab that wheel and get on with it.

you don’t have to justify any of that. and I wish it was clear enough but apparently it still isn’t that villains are called villains for a reason and murder is murder no matter the motive. we know. trust me we do. but I guess that’s half the charm of a work of fiction that a character can be interesting despite its flaws. hell most of the time it’s interesting thanks to its flaws. when you say you like them it doesn’t mean you run to justify their sins and therefor imply these new moral conclusions to your everyday life and real people in it. it just means that this particular fictional creature makes your brain go happy. be them a ball of sunshine or a ball of darkness. you’ll enjoy their actions in a specific media and then get on with your life as an intelligent, morally responsible member of a society that will definitely not go on a killing spree because a fictional guy in a cool cape that doesn’t even exist did so in a story.

now getting that lengthy introduction out of the way I cannot believe that people cannot engage in an intellectually stimulating critical thinking discourse (that back in the day we just called meta) without criticizing every thing or else apparently they’ll go to literal hell. the Darkling is overall a bad guy and Mal is overall a good guy. that’s what the story it built upon. then again both of them are grey to some extent as people are because they are people. they have thoughts and desires and justify themselves because they believe in a greater good that sometimes they personally created. there’s no reason to compare the Darkling who’s straight-up a millenium-old murderer who just happens to be very charismatic and sexy to Mal who’s more human and the mistakes he makes are less of the murderous nature and as it unfortunately happens he’s just more plain. I’d be happy with Alina ending with either of them, knowing full well that there would be good and bad sides to either of the endings. even if the positive outcome of Alina ending up with the bad guy was only a sense of aesthetic fulfillment. that is all. I can say I see and understand the manipulation and the toxicity and still enjoy a power couple dressed in black cloaks the same way I’d enjoy childhood sweethearts leading a safe and quite life. whatever rocks my boat.

if we look at Leigh Bardugo’s work in a simple, quite superficial way then yes it is the question of black and white, good and bad. but it’s more than that and it’s one of the many reasons why it’s one of my favorite books series ever (let’s not go all JKR on her because as I’ve seen some of you do because apart from obvious situations no creator of anything should to held to impossibly pure moral standards making their work morally flawless because it’s based on their own personal experience and it’s impossible to stop some of it from seeping into the work itself even if you personally might find it problematic but they’re human just like you and me and I cannot believe I even have to type this rn). now I’m not wasting my time writing this essay and you reading it to stir up a ship war and I am NOT here as a darklina shipper because in the end I was quite happy with malina getting their happily ever after. but I cannot STAND this sudden wave of frantic justification and of hate towards it because it’s all missing the point.

the Darkling is a villain. the Darkling is a human being (to some extent). the Darkling is the bad character but he’s more grey than black and it’s Alina’s own opinion. THAT’s what’s so interesting about their relationship. he hurt her and the people she loved and hurt people she didn’t even know only to pin the blame on her to guilt trip her to do his bidding. we know it’s toxic and manipulative. Alina knows that too. she hates him and fears him and at times would kill him without hesitation. but she also comes back to him and can’t help but marvel and his beauty and genuinely sheds a tear when he falls. it’s hard to say whether she loves him to some extent, I think even she wasn’t sure and felt quite guilty about it. there’s was a strange pull she couldn’t deny, a wicked sense of understanding that could not be matched by anyone else. despite their chemistry she couldn’t overlook the murder part and that’s who she chose. that’s also who she became because if she had accepted his offer and went down that powerful path we would have been given a completely different story with Alina being a different character. it’s that magic of fiction that lets you explore such extremes but it still is just fiction. it’s okay to type lengthy essays about it to pick it apart and examine with interest but there’s very little point to criticize something so obvious or defend the impossible.

now still on the topic of the Darkling that’s what I love about the show. how Ben Barnes looked for the human parts in him (which is also literally his job as an actor to find parts of the character that he could sympathize with idk why are y’all so surprised and scandalized and y’all better leave my man Ben alone). parts that might have been lonely and misunderstood because that’s how the Darkling saw himself. he had to justify his own actions somehow because he believed he was right. a bad villain is bad by nature. a good villain makes you question whether he’s really bad, makes you justify his villainous actions with him. showing the Darkling express real emotions towards Alina, hope for their shared future, tears in his eyes as she turns her back on him just made him that much more interesting and multidimensional as a great character should be. a great character can still be a murderer. a murderer can still be a great character. it has nothing to do with them being a good person. but it doesn’t erase the toxic behaviors just by being sexy the same way that toxic behaviors have a hard time erasing the sexy part and if you find it sexy in fiction that’s great go on reblogging passionate darklina gifsets and if you can’t stand it even on paper that’s fine too enjoy your heartwarming malina handholding posts. fill in your “rip to alina but I’m different” preferable scenario and let it bring you joy.

Leigh Bardugo is a great author. Ben Barnes is a great actor. actually all the actors are great actors and they did a marvelous job of bringing our beloved characters to life and we cannot even imagine the burden of responsibility they must have felt. let’s try to be less negative and more grateful for a really well-done book adaptation and surround ourselves with people that share our likes and dislikes in a respectful and positive manner and hopefully not foolishly trust that people can tell the good from the bad in real life and still enjoy both in a work of fiction.

[tundrainafrica]

some of the aot fans (probably just casual readers) don't see the parallels between EM and LH???? like the brunettes desire to live with their ackermans together in the woods? they call levihan shippers delusionals. their attacking levihans that they didn't read the manga well and we just want our ship to be canon??? WTH????

I keep wondering if it's just us, levihans, who see these parallels?

im sorry for this rant, it's just soooo frustrating. Basically the reason why i leave twt lol not yet, im still there bcoz of lh filo socmed aus

I have so many things I wanna say about chapter 138 and I am so sorry I only got to it now. I think most Levihan fans already said what I wanted to say but either way, I’ll just give some thoughts I entertained when these came out. 

Coz first of all… 

As a Levihan shipper, I am obviously ecstatic about this but as most people know, I come from a household where everyone is not too enthusiastic about Levihan. They are so very enthusiastic about INVALIDATING LEVIHAN in particular that my sister and my parents who don’t even watch AOT just come up to me while I’m staring at Levihan art on tumblr and go… 

“What are you doing?” 

“Staring at art.”

“Oh, is that the one couple you like who don’t even love each other or smthg.” 

Cause apparently my sisters who watch AOT and my boyfriend have been SO vocal about invalidating Levihan that even my parents now are on ship that they aren’t even a thing and I’m just delusional but yes, since I live in a house where literally ‘shipping Levihan’ is on the same level as ‘the curtains are blue so the narrator is sad’ type of interpretation, I will start by mentioning a more pragmatic argument to this whole Levihan and Eremika parallel. 

While I am one of those who can definitely see that yes those were clear parallels, there are some louder people( mostly Eruri shippers) who think that LH fandom is just grasping on straws and trying to diminish their supposedly canon ship( because EL and EM ackerbonding thing) so I was wondering what is your view on this?

So, to break down the argument...

It’s a war story blah blah blah. And besides Mikasa loved Eren from the start blah blah blah. 

I think this is an argument I see a lot. Because Yams is writing a war story and I think a lot of people are suggesting that it’s a war story here is no way anyone can be canon or anyone can have romantic relationships. 

AND I HATE THIS TAKE. Relationships are human nature. Yes, being arromantic exists but I don’t believe that in a fictional space, romance can ever NOT exist. Because most---or scratch that--- I believe all humans will search for companionship and I do not believe it is ever reaching to jump from whatever companionship exists between people and contemplate the potential of romance, except incest but that’s another story. 

Yeah because if there’s no kiss or sex then it’s not a romance apparently. 

Well guess what, we’re all reaching then, cause only Eren and Mika got the kiss. But lemme drop some social experiment I did. 

I actually showed the Eremika and Levihan ‘Let’s live together scenes’ side by side to a colleague at work who doesn’t watch AOT and she told me, WITHOUT CONTEXT, that she prefers the scene between Levihan more than Eremika and the reason behind that is because there were undertones, specifically in the Korean translation’ that Hange was tired, and there’s this apparent romantic-ness to it when you dream of something when you’re tired and when you dream of a particular someone. 

Because here’s the thing, when you love someone, when you decide to be in a  relationship with someone, that person will be your HOME. And now that I think about it, it definitely hits for me more, because when Hange was tired, when Hange was completely exhausted and spent, she dreamt of a future with Levi. 

And don’t you think that it’s more romantic that ‘despite everything, she thinks of him’ compared to ‘she constantly thinks of him?’ Because I dunno, when someone is constantly thinking of someone, there’s actually no effort really needed for the feeling to grow, but when ‘they think of someone, despite everything.’ There’s this idea that the relationship can withstand more things and that means they thought long and hard about it. 

Their life is so interesting and eventful, yet at the end of the day, there exists someone who still shines brighter than life itself and that’s why ‘Despite everything, she thinks of him’ rings brighter than ‘she constantly thinks of him’ for me at least. 

Probably a personal preference thing but either way… Just my take. 

Western people don’t consider running away ‘romantic?’ 

This is something I’ve discussed with filo moots multiple times and this is something I’ve thought about reading the Japanese and English translations, reading the Filipino Soc Med AUs and having my friend read the Korean ones.  

The Japanese and Koreans are quick to see the romantic undertones, a lot of my Filipino moots are quick to see those romantic undertones too. But we have the western fandom on Reddit going ‘Yo Erehisu foh evah’ and people saying ‘Levihan not canon they didn’t kiss.’ 

But YO both of my parents are ‘tanan’ (runaway in tagalog) babies. My mom actually ran away with a man and wasn’t allowed to talk to her dad until she graduated. My dad disobeyed his parents to marry my mom. They were setting my dad up with another woman and they were going to have a big wedding and everything but my dad was like…

NOPE Imma run away and marry this woman. 

And can I just say, my parents are the MOST unromantic people but they literally disobeyed their parents, ran away together, literally risked their relationships with their parents to make it work. 

And my parents are one of the few people in their family who are still in a happy relationship even after 25 years of marriage. 

Okay, I admit, sometimes running away is a dumb decision and shouldn’t constantly be romanticized. 

But I don’t think a lot of people understand the gravity of what ‘tanan’ entails. Legit, it was emphasized in 138 already, if Eren ran away, Paradis could have been overrun by military soon. And if Hange and Levi ran away to the woods, ‘what would there have been left for them? 

And in real life, my mom literally gave up her relationship with her dad to try to make the relationship work. My dad gave up the comforts of marrying a rich woman in a lavish wedding to marry my mom. 

They literally had a civil wedding, went out to eat Chinese noodles and China town as a post wedding meal and 25 years later, they have one of the strongest relationships I’ve ever seen. 

AND NO ONE RUNS AWAY WITH SOMEONE FOR THE LELZ. So yes, running away with someone will always be romantic for me.

And the Ackerbond?

Something I always find myself asking. Why do people want the Ackerbond to actually be a thing? Because if the Ackerbond were real, then wouldn’t that invalidate all Eruri and Eremika even more since we know they’re just trapped in the relationship like Stockholm syndrome or something? 

And besides didn’t Yams debunk that chapters ago? 

Anyway, onto the next questions

hi sav! i have a question about the recent chapter. do you think the em and lh parellels were done on purpose by isayama? 

And to answer this question… I am not so sure actually. I talked to a Japanese friend who grew up in the same prefecture as Yams, apparently it was her acquaintance from high school who married Yams and they were childhood sweethearts. 

So maybe Yams got it from them?  My memory on that convo is hazy but it’s only possible that he built Eremika from there. And Levi and Hange’s development is just incredibly different that I don’t think Yams thought that far to do it. 

My theory here is that Yams is writing a war story and he only has one way he could have ever shown romance in a war story and that’s through ‘running away’ so I believe the parallels are unintentional but I genuinely believe that this was Yam’s way of showing romantic undertones. 

And I personally do not think that Levi and Hange would have ever kissed in that time in their life, at least intentionally and I hoenstly commend Yams for doing such a good job with the subtlety of the romance because I’ve literally seen so many great characters in other stories completely butchered by a poorly done romantic subplot so I aint complaining about these romantic undertones. 

But either way,

I hang in the Japanese fandom a lot and there have been lots of fandom discussion on Levihan becoming endgame if 132 didn’t happen. And there are actually articles on this putting Levihan as endgame along with Eremika so I’m kinda suspecting that invalidating Levihan is an anime-only fan and reddit fandom type of thing.

But anyway, thank you for reading, sorry for the long rant.

[leefi]

Hi, I noticed you did the MBTI types of the ORV characters, and I was wondering what you think the MBTI types are for the Revue Starlight gals :D

Anon, I want you to know that this google doc is 14 pages single-spaced, and I'm still not done.

WITH THAT BEING SAID, I'm so glad you asked!! I'll be breaking this up into four parts so we don't have to scroll through one massive wall of text. The other schools will take a bit more time to publish as I'm still working on a couple from each (I think I have four girls left!).

But without further ado:

Starira MBTI Part 1 - Seisho

Siegfeld

Frontier

Rinmeikan

I had a lot of help with all of this reading @HalfACape’s wonderful character analyses of so many of the girls on twitter, as well as consulting the Personality Database page for the characters I was less sure about (though there were a few I disagreed with on there - none in Seisho, we'll be discussing the others later). But everyone feel free to discuss if you disagree with anything!

Karen Aijo: ENFP

ENFPs’ dominant function is Ne (extroverted intuition) (that running gag Karen has in the game where she mishears words, spouting off suggestions even if they make absolutely zero sense to the situation at hand - “telescope? telephone? telenovella?” - is such stereotypical Ne). Ne is always running towards any possibility, no matter how unlikely it seems, and I don’t need to spell out for you how much of that we saw from Karen in the anime. Ne-Fi feed each other to create a rebel/free-spirit type of personality (Ne seeks all possibilities, Fi holds strong inner values and selfish desires - what do I want, what do I need? How does this make me feel?). Her Te isn’t too developed yet, which is fine because it’s tertiary and she’s still so young. That tertiary, undeveloped Te shows up in her scatterbrained, lackadaisical, go-with-the-flow attitude (but when dominant Fi gets fired up by something - like an old childhood friend coming home - it kicks Te into high gear). Inferior introverted Sensing shows no respect towards rules or regulations - see her revue with Junna (Si-dominant) and the anger she draws out of Maya for (a child of the system and traditionally hard worker) in their Revue of Pride. Karen is the natural rebel, the forever optimist, the sunshine girl - textbook ENFP.

Mahiru Tsuyuzaki: INFP

If you want to see what leading with an introverted function looks like compared to an extroverted function, compare Mahiru to Karen! They share the exact same functions, just flipped on the I/E axis. So Mahiru is Fi, Ne, Si, Te. Karen is Ne, Fi, Te, Si. And Mahiru is a very clear example of an INFP - such a warm, brilliant, awe-inspiring person, but can also be her own worst enemy and others tend to underestimate her. And it’s hard, I don’t blame her! Leading with Fi and not having that physical/in the moment Se to support it (like ISFPs do, just compare her to Kaoruko--yes--they’re only one letter off from each other) means that it’s extremely hard for INFPs to naturally advocate for themselves...so instead, they retreat into their own imaginations where it’s safer (Ne). BUT THEY’RE SO INCREDIBLE!! THERE’S SO MUCH THERE TO RESPECT AND ADMIRE!! *shakes her like maracas* IF YOU WOULD JUST SHOW US!!!!!!! (and this is her whole arc in the anime i don’t need to tell her lol). It’s actually so interesting how she and Karen’s Fi and Ne escapism manifests in their respective introverted/extroverted personalities. These two really are more similar than most of us think!

I love INFPs so, so much because they’re like sleeping giants. Once they get a hold of and develop that inferior extroverted Thinking it’s over - nobody else can compare. They’re like the characters in video games that start off super weak, and then you blink and suddenly they’ve become the most powerful units near the end of the game.

Kagura Hikari: INTJ

ENFP’s stereotypical partner (I swear every other reserved person A/sunshine person B couple in fiction is this type pairing) and while it’s tropey it works because these two types play off each other so well. I actually originally had her pegged as an ISTJ, but I think that her bullheadedness earlier in the anime is more indicative of Ni being stubborn. Hikari is cagey, reserved (tert Fi/inferior Se), and an incredibly high-achieving individual (dominant Ni sets specific goals, auxiliary Te implements). Her tertiary Fi (which INTJs LOVE to keep locked up, right here, forever, until they die) is so obvious as you slowly learn just how much of a sap/romantic she is. It’s her weaker Fi that holds that sentimentality towards Starlight after all these years, her Fi that struggles to hold on to that childhood promise, her Fi that has her following Karen (and eventually Mahiru as well) around like a duckling (though we initially get the impression that the dynamic is the other way around). She grows to care deeply for all the other girls around her and that’s all her tertiary introverted Feeling getting stronger as the story progresses! Like so many people in the fandom have realized, she isn’t a mean person, she’s just socially awkward. Not too much to say on her inferior Se, that mostly manifests in how she’s a homelier person who would rather stay in than go out, and doesn’t actively try to seek new experiences (this was what had me thinking ISTJ at first).

Junna Hoshimi: ISTJ

Karen’s polar opposite - they actually share the exact same functions, just in reverse! So Junna leads with introverted Sensing where it’s Karen’s weakest, and Karen leads with extroverted Intuition where it’s Junna’s weakest. And we see this play out in their revue!

Junna is one of my favorite characters in the series for a reason and it’s because it’s SO rare to see the ISTJ in a rebellious role. Si is all about following and respecting order, and Junna breaks all of that to create her own! We see that dominant Si show up in literally every other facet of her life, though - from her by-the-book attitude to her stringency with deadlines and tardiness to her respect for the creatives of old - Shakespeare, Nietschze, etc. She’s an incredibly bright and successful student as well (any type can be of course but the “kind of student” she is is very much Te supporting Si - super studious and placing heavy weight on studying and getting straight A’s). And her Fi is SO GOOD. SO SO SO SO GOOD AND SO APPARENT - MUCH stronger than IxTJ’s sibling Hikari’s at the start of the anime. That’s where the rebellious part of her spirit comes from - her values, her strong sense of self and desire for autonomy (EXTREMELY Fi thing - Fi is all about the self, how I feel about something, what I want out of this, not feeling trapped by others’ expectations, etc.). Inferior Ne manifests in how she struggles with improvisation, ends up tunnel visioning (see her revue with Karen), and can sometimes struggle to accept new ideas or ways of doing things (Junna works so hard, but it’s evident in the anime and a lot of her starira bond stories that she can end up getting stuck in her old ways if someone else doesn’t come in to offer a new perspective -- see her Jekyll bond story dialogue with Maya!). Another example we see is when her extroverted xSTJ sibling Akira, who has Ne a step higher than her but understands where she’s coming from with their shared functions, guides her towards using it in the High Priestess bond story!

Nana Daiba: ESFJ

Textbook ESFJ!! Caring, motherly, affable; Fe doms are always looking to appeal to the group and make sure that everybody feels comfortable (and, likewise, are very keen on suppressing their own insecurities/emotions/discomforts). Nana is not ambitious for ambition’s sake, and in fact suppresses her own talents to appeal to the group. As for that Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :) Si aux… :)

Unhealthy Si can manifest as an extreme fixation on past experiences and a fear of moving on (we’re going to see this later with Si-dom Fumi too). Her poor tertiary Ne had gotten absolutely quashed by her stronger auxiliary Si in the anime - it doesn’t want to change anything! Claudine and Maya can be the leads again. We don’t need to modify the script. The first one was already perfect, why are we risking failure by changing things?! Also, holding herself back for the sake of everyones’ happiness is so Fe dom it hurts. If you want to see the difference between ESFJ and ENFJ (the two Fe-doms of MBTI), compare her to Michiru, who also suppresses her talents -- yes to cultivate the other girls’ (specifically Akira’s) brilliance but also for the sake of her ulterior motives to one day create her own troupe (aux Ni at work vs. Nana’s aux Si). Nana’s is more deferrant, but still just as ferocious - she’ll defeat Maya 60 times over to get what she wants. And the craziest thing is that all of this comes out of love and fear - she’s scared, and all of that is coming from her unhealthy Si aux. Junna is a very good example for her to follow for healthier Si.

Claudine Saijo: ENTJ

“DON’T IGNORE MY LINES!!!” ENTJs LOVE being at the top - the leaders of the pride, the people in charge, the ones you have to answer to (AND she’s a Leo too. Jfc girl pick a struggle LMAOOOOO). You get the picture - except Claudine isn’t in that position. Maya is. Claudine doesn’t even get a revue or her own song, because she’s Maya’s eternal second. This is a really, really uncomfortable spot for an ENTJ to be in, and it’s evident in how hard she pushes herself - and how antsy she gets whenever Maya is around. But Claudine never blames an outside system or factors like Karen (inferior Si) does for her situation - she just gets angry and more driven to succeed, bulldozing her way to the finish line (dominant Te-tertiary Se interacting). The tragedy of her character is that she will never surpass Maya, so we see her Ni begin to reframe achieving the very top to becoming the only star in Maya’s eye (little does she know that she’s already succeeded). That ripping off of her cloak at the end of the revue duet - “the only loser here is me” - is her inferior Fi poking its head out. At the end of the day, Claudine is an interesting character because she’s a walking contradiction. She’s a star denied a spotlight, but she isn’t a failure either, so she’s forced to grapple with this ambiguous, there-but-not-quite-there middle ground. It’s one big identity crisis in the making, and it’s clear to see why so many people relate to her and love her as a character - a lot of us can empathize with never quite being satisfied, and looking up towards heights that can appear insurmountable.

Maya Tendo: INFJ

She seems so normal and established and then you look closer and realize there’s something seriously wrong with her and oh my god where did this massive god complex come from. Typical Ni dom

From her detached, more “mature” personality to her altruistic and often surprisingly keen insight towards people, she has so many key makings of an INFJ. That dominant Ni is strong in Maya - everything is poured into theatre. Everything. From her hobbies to her interests to her personality, everything Maya does in her life is deliberate and all of it is for the sake of theatre. Ni bitches LOVE to fixate on just one thing, and for Maya, that is the stage. “I have no need for those who lack willpower...Come climb up here if you have the resolve...A single step forward is a step closer to my dream” is just...yeah I’m being redundant. Dominant introverted intuition. Ni Ni Ni Ni. This girl embodies it - while Hikari is also a Ni-dom, Maya shows a TON more of it than her (can’t say I blame the writers - Ni is probably the most difficult function to write because it requires thinking so many steps ahead for your character). We can see a marked difference between INFJs and INTJs here in how Maya and Hikari practice solitude - Hikari purposely isolates herself from Karen to avoid hurting her, while Maya purposely isolates and crafts herself into an untouchable God to serve as an inspiration to others (auxiliary extroverted Feeling). Want to see how this looks with the INFJ’s extroverted sibling, the ENFJ? Look at how Michiru crafts Akira’s public image. That’s Ni and Fe at work, just in different priority slots (Maya is Ni dominant, Michiru is Fe dominant - they share the same functions, just flipped on the I/E axis). That tertiary Ti is very prevalent too - Maya mostly keeps her thoughts to herself, and loves to mull over things. She definitely isn’t the first one to shout out an answer, she prefers to think things over.

One interesting comment that really stood out to me on her personality database page was how she’s an INFJ with an INTP persona in the anime, and I think I agree (INFJs and INTPs tend to present similarly and can be easily confused with each other anyway)! But I want to add on to that - I think that INTP presentation is her auxiliary Fe at play crafting a persona that better coincides with Claudine’s, as ENTJ/INTP matchups are extremely compatible (not saying Maya was thinking about MBTI LOL but rather she brought out and exemplified aspects of her personality that would better complement Claudine’s - their partnership is not a one-way street at all! Maya does so much for her!!). Just compare anime Maya to stageplay Maya, where she gives no headway and is absolutely brutal to Claudine.

Futaba Isurigi: ISTP

Futaba is such a great example of what a healthy ISTP can look like! Dominant Ti shows up in how she communicates with others - she's honest, direct, and to the point, but it's never utilized in a way that’s mean-spirited (contrary to how her girlfriend often can be) - it’s just how she communicates. Claudine (a Te dom which works SO well with Ti) actually points out in Starira that this is why they get along so well. Aux Se shows up in her physicality - her love and strength is in stage fights, she's into mechanics with her motorcycle and does all the maintenance herself, etc. Funnily enough, I think that tert Ni, while a slot above Fe, is actually Futaba’s least developed trait (or, at least, the one she's most guarded about) - she went into Seisho to follow Kaoruko, and her aux Se dominates that tert slot and gives her a … little bit of a lackadaisical attitude? Obviously not as much as someone like Karen, but in many senses she doesn't outwardly display a strong fear or anxiety towards the future like the other girls (completely understandably) do - and it’s that tert Ni getting angry when she feels as if Kaoruko is stagnating in her plans. There’s some inklings of her own plan for the future, but Futaba’s own individual plans are mostly kept to herself, so we don’t know how much or little she’s done about them. (I have more to add but will not continue as I’m venturing into movie spoilers territory, but for those that have watched/read them, try to draw your own conclusions based on what I’ve said!). I think that having such a close relationship with Kaoruko is what pushed her to develop that inferior Fe so early to support her girlfriend's dominant Fi. I actually originally had her typed as ESTP for how strong her Fe was (ESTPs have it a slot higher than their introverted siblings), but she really doesn’t strike me as an extrovert, and ISTPs with developed Fe can be very warm, affable people too!

Kaoruko Hanayagi: ISFP

“Kaoruko Hanayagi’s dream is world domination.”

Kaoruko is such a great example of what an unhealthy ISFP can look like! LMAOOO but no, I’m dead serious - if you want to know what unhealthy introverted Feeling looks like, look to Kaoruko. Everything is me me me me me me me, to hell with what anyone else wants (if you want to compare unhealthy Fe to unhealthy Fi, compare Nana and Kaoruko). Tertiary Ni shows up to support Fi in how surprisingly sharp she is towards other people - what makes them tick, exactly where to hurt, their inner thoughts and feelings (see her bathtub conversation with Mahiru).

BUT THAT DOMINANT Fi IS ALSO SUCH A POWERFUL THING. That “me me me me me me” is going to turn into “my vision, and what I want to create, and what I’m going to do” (once that inferior Te finally develops - which Kaoruko is going to be forced to put work into eventually). This is why, like Mahiru, I think that Kaoruko is seriously going to blossom later on in life - ISFPs and INFPs, the Pisces of the MBTI, have this weird penchant for going under the rader and then becoming insanely fucking successful OUT OF NOWHERE??? Like, they aren’t super motivated and driven with a specific plan like Ni-strong xNxJs, or disciplined and hardworking like Te-strong xSTJs, but???? You blink and suddenly they’re millionaires with four creative projects going on simultaneously (but if they get bored with any of them they’ll drop them instantly - you could not pay me all the money in the world to be an IxFP’s manager it must be an absolute nightmare <3). Just...legends out of nowhere? Rihanna is an ISFP Pisces so I have real world evidence to back this up.

[songsformonkeys]

Digging Up Bones (whiskey x f!reader) - chapter 3

[Banner by the lovely @yespolkadotkitty ]

Summary: You work for the Statesmen as the head of their medical department. It’s your job to patch up anyone who gets back wounded and to work on ways to prevent them from getting badly wounded in the first place.

Agent Whiskey, in particular, seems to be more accident-prone than the rest and he never passes up a reason to come see you, whether for real injuries or imaginary ones. The two of you form a close friendship, which slowly turns into something more.

Then a British man with a headshot wound and a fascination with butterflies shows up in your emergency room and in the events that follow you’re forced to reevaluate just about everything you thought you knew about your partner.

Warnings: canon typical violence

Masterlist

Chapter 3

The following three days passed in a slow fashion. Not just because Whiskey was gone but the rest of the agents seemed to be staying out of harm's way as well. It was a bit boring, but that was something Tonic had taught you not to complain about out loud since it apparently made it sound like you longed for injuries and carnage.

On the bright side, the slow days gave you, Ginger, and Tonic time to begin interviewing the agents on base for their emergency folders for the Alpha-gel.

The three of you had realized that while the gel and the nanites healed the brain perfectly fine they still needed something to counter the retrograde amnesia, which seemed to be a standard side effect. The sample of agents that had needed to use the gel was still small and so you couldn't draw too many sure conclusions from it, but every single one of them so far had suffered memory loss. It had been Tonic's idea that reminders of a past trauma might jump-start the memory again. The results had been good but guessing and digging up past traumas had been painstakingly difficult and had taken up more time than ideal. So you had collectively decided that each agent should have a file or a folder containing their very worst memory and ways it could be triggered.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 On Wednesday evening, you curled up in your armchair and called Whiskey. He picked up after three rings.

“Moonshine, “ he drawled, voice sounding a little tired.

“Sorry, did I wake you?” you asked, suddenly feeling a little bad. It wasn't that late in the evening but maybe Whiskey had needed to tuck in early.

“No no, I was awake,” Whiskey assured you, “Just got home from a looong day at an art auction. I'm not sure if you've ever been but it is possibly the most boring thing I have ever done.”

“Yeah? What was so bad about it?” you asked, smiling to yourself. You would be caught dead before admitting it out loud but you had actually missed him these past few days.

Whiskey began describing his day. A soon as he began talking, his voice relaxed you. You pictured him walking around in a swanky hotel room, with a view of the big city, probably still wearing his hat. You were half convinced he even slept in that thing.

Whiskey told you about the auction and the few stuck-up people who had pretended not to understand his southern accent just to make him feel less than. Then he told you about the way he'd later wiped the smug smiles off their faces by actually bidding home the small painting they had been ogling.

“Champ might kill me for it, 'cause it cost a small fortune, but it was worth it!”

“What will you do with the painting?” you asked.

“Hm,” Whiskey said and you didn't need to see him to know that he was shrugging, “Dunno. Might hang it in my apartment. It's a beautiful painting, reminded me of someone special... Speaking of my apartment, have you finished the cake yet?”

You nodded, before remembering that he couldn't see you.

“Yes, Ginger and Tonic helped me eat the rest of it.”

You had been over to Whiskey's apartment the day after he'd left. When you'd gotten to work, his key had been in a white envelope on your desk and you hadn't been able to keep your curiosity at bay for longer than a workday.

The apartment hadn't been quite what you thought Whiskey's home would look like. It had been much neater and cleaner than you had expected, for starters. You had expected more of a bachelor pad but Whiskey's apartment was quite nice. It looked lived in but not messy. Each thing seemed to have its own designated spot. As you had walked around the living room towards the kitchen you had taken in the big, comfortable-looking couch and multi-colored knitted blanket that looked like it was homemade.

There had been a couple of books on art history resting on the wooden coffee table. You had stopped, slightly in awe, in front of the big bookshelves that covered a whole wall of the room. You'd never pictured Whiskey to be the reading type, but here was clear proof otherwise. You had scanned the titles of the books and the exceptionally wide array of subjects made you suspect that a lot of these had been read for previous missions. But there had been a whole shelf of fiction too and you smiled a little as you noted that a lot of them seemed to be old western classics.

You had found the cake in the fridge in the equally clean kitchen. The cake had been in a plastic container and Whiskey had stuck a post-it note with a smiley on the lid.

“I liked your bookshelf. And I borrowed a book from you,“ you confessed over the phone and Whiskey chuckled in response.

“Is that so? Which one, if I may ask, was it that caught your fancy?”

“Lonesome Dove.”

“Ah, a classic! Didn't have you pegged as a western girl, Moonshine.”

“I'm not sure if I am, I've never read any. But you had a lot of them and I thought...” You cut yourself off, glancing over at the book on your bed, “You had a book on human anatomy as well that looked interesting and one on make-shift medical treatment when you don't have access to a hospital. I didn't take those, though. It felt wrong to take so many books without asking...”

Whiskey chuckled again and the sound did weird things to your insides, or maybe it was the nerves of having just admitted to raiding his bookshelf.

“Darlin', if it makes you happy, you are more than welcome to help yourself to any book in that apartment”

“Really? But what if it's a book that you suddenly need?”

“Then I'll know perfectly well where to find it.”

You couldn't really argue with that logic, didn't really want to either because the prospect of getting to read all those books almost made you giddy.

“So besides ogling my books, what else have you been up to while I've been gone?” Whiskey asked and you proceeded to tell him about the work with the Trauma Folders, which Tonic so affectionately called them.

“You still haven't submitted yours either, by the way,” you told him. Whiskey didn't immediately answer. The line was dead silent for a few seconds and just when you were about to ask if he was still there, he cleared his throat.

“Yeah, I know. I promise to get right on that as soon as I'm back, okay?” He sounded a little odd and your brow furrowed slightly. Whiskey cleared his throat again.

“Look, darlin', I'm pretty dead on my feet right now and as lovely as your voice is to listen to, I think unfortunately we gotta hang up before I start snoring on you.”

“Oh, of course! Sorry, I've talked too much.”

“Hardly,” Whiskey replied and his voice was warm and soft again, which eased the nervous knots that had begun forming in your stomach at his abrupt attempt to end the call. Usually, that was your role to try and say goodnight and his to try and linger. “I cherish every word, which is why I prefer to be awake for them. Call me tomorrow again?”

“Sure. Good night, Whiskey.”

“Good night, darlin'”

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 If the previous days had been slow, the following day was anything but, at least when the afternoon rolled around.

Ginger had called you about some very strange low-frequency readings coming from a church nearby in Kentucky. She told you that she and Tequila were gonna go check it out but that you should be on standby, just in case.

You told her to be careful. Ginger was excellent at her job but she was also one of your closest friends and you couldn't help but worry.

After you'd ended the call, you immediately set about preparing the emergency room and double-checking to make sure everything was there. Seeing as neither of you knew what the strange readings had been about, it was difficult to prepare for every possible scenario, and while you knew that the health effects of exposure to extremely low frequencies were being discussed in the medical community, no one knew exactly what the effects were.

It seemed like a lifetime had passed before Ginder called you again. You heard the sound of the helicopter in the background. She told you that they'd be there in thirty and that they were bringing someone in with a headshot.

“I'll get the chamber ready for him!” you told her

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Thirty minutes later, on the dot, you watched as the helicopter landed and Tequila emerged, carrying a man in a suit. The man's face was obscured by the balloon containing the Alpha-gel but his clothes looked expensive.

“Entry point?” you yelled, over the sound of the helicopter as you waved for Tequila and Ginger to hurry inside.

“Straight through the left eye,” Ginger replied and you winced. The left temporal lobe would be damaged, for sure, maybe part of the occipital one too. You were confident that the nanites would be able to rebuild the brain matter but with the temporal lobe damaged you worried that the memory loss might be even more extensive than what you'd seen before and you wondered if it would affect his speech.

“Exit point or is the bullet still in there?” you asked.

“The bullet went all the way through as far as I could tell. Not sure what he was shot with though so we'll have to scan to make sure there's nothing left in there.”

Said and done. When you got down to the medical rooms you first put the man through a thorough scan of his skull. Just like Ginger suspected, the bullet had gone straight through and it luckily hadn't left anything but damaged tissue in its wake. Tequila helped move him over to the nanite chamber. Carefully, you removed the Alpha-gel balloon and quickly closed the chamber around his head.

“What happened?” you asked as you sat down in front of the computer and began tapping away at the keyboard, starting the machine and readying it for the healing and rebuilding process.

“We have no idea,” Ginger said. “We found him like this outside the church, no sign of who had shot him. Inside the church, however...”

“What?” you asked.

“Inside was a total fuckin' bloodbath,” Tequila supplied, “Whole congregation just...slaughtered.”

You looked over at the strange man.

“You think he did it?”

Both Ginger and Tequila shrugged.

“We don't know. But he's got blood on him that isn't his own and there was no gun in his hand so he clearly didn't shoot himself, which means someone got away from that Church alive.” Ginger reasoned, “And there's one more thing..”

She pulled a pair of glasses from the pocket of her jacket. The left glass was shattered.

“He was wearing these. These aren't normal glasses, which means he's not a civilian. And his watch... he's some sort of intelligence. I'll dig around and see if I can find out whom he belongs to.”

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 You called Whiskey again that evening. He sounded more awake today but you could practically hear the frown on his face when you told him about your strange new guest. He was not happy.

“He's an agent?” he asked.

“We think so. Ginger is running some tests on his glasses and his watch to see what we can figure out but so far we have no idea whom he's working for. So we just have to wait for him to wake up and see how much he remembers.”

“I don't like this,” Whiskey stated. “Not one bit. If he's intelligence, he's dangerous, Moonshine. You shouldn't be alone with him, not under any circumstances!”

“I won't,” you reassured him while rolling your eyes. “Agent Tequila also has an over-protective streak and has, therefore, put himself on guard duty until further notice. I've had him looking over my shoulder all evening.”

You had found it somewhat annoying but Whiskey had instantly calmed down upon hearing that bit of information. He told you to promise to listen to Tequila on this, which you reluctantly did. You didn't tell Whiskey that if the arrangement continued, you would have to come to some sort of agreement with Tequila on how close was close enough for protection. You couldn't have him reading over your shoulder all day long or you'd go stir crazy.

Whiskey continued to ask you a bunch of questions about the strange man and you couldn't answer a single one. He asked you about the signal too and you couldn't give him any answers to that either. It was all Ginger's area of expertise and you told him as much.

“Sorry, darlin', just wanna make sure my favorite girl is safe until I get back.”

Whiskey's words made you smile stupidly, despite the slightly patronizing undertone of them. You would like to think you knew how to take care of yourself, especially around your patients. But you did enjoy it when Whiskey called you his favorite. No one else had called you their favorite before.

After a few more minutes of chit-chat, you both said good night.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 The next day, your patient woke up.

It had been decided the day before that Tonic and Tequila would be the first ones to greet him. Tequila because of the whole bodyguard business and Tonic because he was by far the one who had the most experience with calming people in shock and panic. You had only sulked a little when you'd sat down the desk on the other side of the one-way mirror showing you the stranger's cell. You turned on the cameras in the other room to record the interaction before leaning forward over the desk to watch.

As anticipated, the man was more than a little freaked out by waking up in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar faces around him.

“Where am I? Who are you?” he immediately asked and you raised your eyebrows as you noted his British accent. The stranger tried to scramble off the bed where he'd been lying. Tequila took a step forward but Tonic quickly held up a hand to stop him.

“You are in a hospital,” Tonic told the frightened man and gave him a calm smile, “My name is To...Tom.”

“A hospital? What happened?” the stranger asked.

“We were hoping you would be able to tell us. You were in some sort of accident and when we found you, you were unconscious.”

Unconscious... that was definitely an understatement to describing having had one's brains blown out through the back of their head.

“Do you remember anything of what happened?” Tonic continued.

The British man looked around the room with wild eyes but he was already calming down a bit. While you were a bit jealous that Tonic, or Tom apparently, was the first one to get to talk to your new patient you had to admit that it was a privilege to get to watch him work. Tonic continued talking to the man and answering his questions by saying just enough to calm him but not enough to confuse him.

You found out that his name was Harry, but he couldn't remember his last name. He was from England and he thought he was 23 years old, which he most definitely was not. You caught Tonic and Tequila exchange a look as Harry told them his age. If Harry couldn't remember anything beyond his 23rd year then you estimated that he had forgotten more than half of his life. And since he wasn't one of your agents, you had no idea how to bring those memories back again...

Tonic and Harry spoke for a while longer and Tonic told him about his injuries. He also told harry about the memory loss. Harry didn't believe him until Tonic guided him over to the one-way mirror separating you from them and let Harry have a look at himself. You stood on the other side of the mirror and could watch as realization dawned on Harry. His breathing immediately sped up again and he was beginning to panic.

“Harry,” Tonic said calmly, “Harry, I'm gonna need you to breathe slower with me, okay? We've seen this kind of memory loss before and we will do our very best to help you recover the memories you can't remember right now”

“Think of it as one hell of a hangover,” Tequila supplied and Harry gave him an incredulous look.

“Hangover?” he asked in a weak voice ���I look old enough to be a grandfather and I don't remember any of it... I don't think anyone has ever been drunk enough for that kind of hangover.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 Tonic and Tequila handled the whole ordeal in a way that made you proud to call yourself their colleague and they stayed with Harry for most of the day, talking and explaining. Harry listened patiently and you had to give him credit for taking the situation a whole lot better than some of the Statesmen who had gone through the same thing. He was scared and worried, sure, but he managed to keep his panic in check and asked Tonic a whole bunch of relevant questions.

You wished you could have stayed and watched all afternoon but eventually you had to go back to your own office and begin typing up your report.

You had barely gotten two paragraphs in when your phone started ringing.

“Moonshine?” Whiskey said as soon as you picked up and you could immediately tell that something was wrong. He sounded scared. There were car horns blaring and loud crashes in the background.

“Yes. Whiskey what's...”

Whiskey cut you off before you could finish your question.

“Where are you?” he asked and when it took you a fraction of a second too long to answer, he repeated the question, “Moonshine! Where are you?”

“I'm in the office. Whiskey what's wrong?”

“Good! Whatever you do, stay where you are! There's something in the air! People are killing each other!”

“What?” Before you could say anything further, your door burst open and you screamed from surprise.

“Moonshine!” Whiskey yelled, panicked, as Ginger stormed into the office and pushed you out of her way to get to the computer. She began tapping on the keyboard and you watched as she pulled up live feeds from several cameras around the country. Your mouth fell open as you watched the chaos that filled the screen.

“MOONSHINE!” Whiskey yelled again and you realized you hadn't answered him.

“I'm fine!” you quickly assured him and you heard him exhale loudly. “Ginger just showed up. What the hell is going on?” The last question was aimed at them both. The quality of the feeds wasn't the best but there was no mistaking what was going on. All over the country, people were killing each other.

“The fuck if I know,” Whiskey said at the same time as Ginger supplied the slightly more helpful “It's the same signal! It's the same low frequency as we picked up from the church. But this is all over...well the world”

She turned and looked at the phone in your hand.

“Is that agent Whiskey?”

You nodded but then froze as you heard a banging noise on the other end of the line, which sounded much closer than the previous ones. You heard Whiskey curse.

“Whiskey?”

There was another crash and he cursed again.

“I'm sorry, darlin', I seem to have a visitor. I gotta go.”

“Whiskey,” you begged and you heard your own voice break as you spoke his name.

“Don't worry, sweetheart. I'll deal with this and then I promise I'll come right home to you. You just promise to stay inside and stay safe, okay?”

What about you? you wanted to ask, but Whiskey had already hung up.

“He'll be fine,” said Ginger, who must have seen the expression change on your face. You nodded. She was right. Whiskey was an excellent agent. He would be fine.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 He would be fine. You managed to convince yourself of that up until about an hour later when the office phone called. You were too busy clutching your own phone, waiting for Whiskey to call back, to pay any attention to the other phone so Ginger picked it up and answered. She exchanged a few cryptic comments with the person on the other line before ending the call by saying:

“We'll be ready for him.”

After she'd hung up the phone she turned towards you.

“Whiskey's on his way back. He's been stabbed but according to the pilot, he's stable. They're flying him back now. “

[moviemunchies]

I’m going to be real, I’m having trouble coming up with a coherent review other than “I had fun watching this movie.” I don’t watch that many comedies, if I’m being honest with you. It’s not that I don’t like things that are funny, it’s that it’s not really my thing? It’s not the type of story I usually go for. But they’re not bad.

I guess that my problem has always been that I need the stories I invest in to have stakes to them, and I’m always afraid that comedies won’t have those. Take Thor: Ragnarok, which doesn’t take anything seriously, so it’s hard to care about any of these characters other than that you know them from other movies. Palm Springs though, does not have this problem. It’s a comedy that does actually care about the situation it sets up and the characters who inhabit it.

It goes like this:

Sarah is at her younger sister’s wedding weekend in Palm Springs California, and it’s not going… great. She’s saved from having to make up a speech by Nyles, another attendant, and they bond and hang out on their own and are about to hook up, when he’s attacked by a mysterious assailant. He crawls into a cave in the desert. Sarah goes after him, only to wake up and find it’s the previous morning. She finds Nyles and demands an answer and that answer is: they’re stuck in a time loop.

Nyles has mostly given up on trying to get out--he’s been in there so long he knows everything about this weekend and the area surrounding it. Sarah, on the other hand, still holds out some hope, at least at first. The two of them end up bonding over their shared experience of course--but does that mean anything when you’re in an endless time loop of a terrible wedding weekend?

I saw a couple of reviews that said something like, “This is an irreverent spin on the ‘time loop’ story!” And, uh… has there been a reverent take on this type of story? Groundhog Day, which is the one everyone thinks of and does homages to, is a comedy that does some whacky things and has a segment where our lead kills himself in darkly ridiculous ways. And while I haven’t seen that many other movies about time loops, I have seen plenty of science-fiction and fantasy television shows that do the premise, and also do a lot of humor, including dark humor. It’s not like this was a serious starting point to begin with.

That’s not to say that this movie’s bad or that it’s too unoriginal. But it’s not unique in that way.

What does make this stick out, to me at least, is that we start the movie with a character already in the loop. Nyles wakes up and you can tell, from his dull delivery of the dialogue to his girlfriend (he’s clearly done this conversation a lot) and how bored he is by the sex it leads to (yes this movie has sex scenes) that he has been here a LONG time, and so our audience surrogate Sarah gets an introduction to the time loop without too much of having to figure things out for herself.

It’s also a bit horrifying? It’s unclear how long they’re in there, and how long Nyles has been in there before the movie starts. TV Tropes tells me the makers of the movie say it’s been 40 YEARS, but it’s not specified. It’s obviously a long time--there’s a conversation in which Sarah asks Nyles what his job was before the time loop, and he admits that he can’t even remember.

The film itself is a very good character movie about Nyles and Sarah and what makes them tick. Spoiler alert (but not really): it’s a romance between them. A very winding one that really doesn’t feel that lovey-dovey, and to be clear it’s not like one of them spends the entire movie trying to get with the other. But we get a good idea of who these broken people are, what made them the way they were, and how they make each other better. And that’s a good story, I think.

If there’s a weakness in that, it’s that there are plenty of other characters that are out of focus for the movie and I don’t feel like I have a good grasp of them. You don’t need to in order to enjoy the movie, but this entire thing is a wedding weekend, and I don’t think I have a solid lead on what makes the bride and groom who they are. It’s not that I don’t know them, but not as well as I thought I would considering I’m watching their wedding weekend on loop. Troy, the groom, makes some decisions apparently every time that I thought required some more explanation but I don’t really get.

Or maybe I just don’t get people that well. [shrugs] I dunno.

Also J.K. Simmons is fantastic in this movie.

I don’t think it’s that deep of a movie, but it’s a fun little film that I think you’ll enjoy if you think the premise sounds interesting. I’d advise checking it out if you have the time.

[faustonastring]

If you don’t mind. Could we have a head cannon for the Arcana finding merperson mc??

Thanks for requesting! I went on a mermaid kick this may, so I know an ungodly amount of information on mermaids and sirens, so I’m gonna try to keep this as basic as possible 🤪

Main six finding a merperson Mc

Asra

Asra was off on one of his travels, this time wandering the sandy shores of Prakra, collecting new shells and other pretty things he can pay rent and buy things with, but then he spots something out of the corner of his eye.

He of course wanders towards it, curious of what he will fine, but he was not expecting to see a merperson washed on shore trapped in fishing wires and fishing nets, struggling to get out. He approaches slowly, not wanting to scare you and asks if you need help, (how you respond depends on your apprentice), but he’s surprisingly causal about everything, trust me, he’s seen weirder, more mythical creatures on his travels.

He does help you out though, and thus the casual conversation begins, talking about how life is as a merperson, what you both do for fun, what’s it like having legs, and to be quite honest, asra never wants to leave. He does eventually, but he visits often. And I’m not saying asra is the type to fall in love with you, and try to find a way to turn you human or himself into a merperson, but he’s definitely the type to fall madly in love with you and try to find a way to turn you human or himself into a merperson.

Nadia

She was visiting her family in prakra, (ah prakra, the home of many mermaids, men, and merpeople apparently) just taking a causal stroll on the beach to clear her head while sipping some wine, (when you have a big family like hers it’s nice to get away) but then she notices a person(?) stranded in the middle of the sea.

So of course she jumps on her sleek yacht so go help the drowning(?) or stranded(?) stranger, only for them to disappear, but very quickly she spots you again, a miracle really, but then she sees you dive under....and you have a tail?

It takes her a second to fully grasp the fact that merpeople are in fact real, her whole life they were just part of fictional stories that came from her and her sisters imagination. But here you are. She turns off her boat for a while, and watches the sea, to see if you approach her(that’s up to your apprentice, but she won’t approach you) and to make sure your out of her path so she can safely get back to shore without hitting you with her boat.

Julian

This takes place back in his pirate days. Him and a couple of ship mates were causally cruising the sea, drinking a couple of beers and singing a couple of old pirate songs, when all the sudden, one of them hears singing? Every one shuts up and then suddenly, they hear it too.

The captain knows this trick, she quickly turns the boat so it goes another direction, but the singing just never leaves julians mind. He couldn’t have just imagined it right? Everyone else heard it, and there’s no way in hell that sirens and merpeople exist, right?

He sneaks off the boat, and into a little raft in the middle of the night to go check it out for himself, and he nearly falls out of the boat when he sees you appear from the water. He’s scared, of course, but that doesn’t mean he’s not willing to engage in a friendly conversation. As he silently prays that your not a siren here to kill him. If you do let him leave, none of his crew mates believe him when he tells the story of how he met a real live merperson.

Portia

This also takes place in her ‘pirate’ days. Right before she left for vesuvia. She was sailing the seas of Nevivon, In a boat that she may or may not have stole borrowed. When she notices a very pretty, tail flickering out of the water.

Her only thought is “what kind of fucking fish-“ so she not so carefully moves her boat closer, anxious too see what kind of weird ass fish was in the water, but she was not expecting to hear the scream of fear, which comes out fo you as she (very quickly) drives he boat in your direction.

She stops her boat the second she hears you looking all over, and when she sees a person, she’s relieved, for a second she thought fish could scream, but then she’s curious of why your all alone? And if you need any help getting back to shore. She screams in excitement when she finds out your a mermaid, and she has a book of questions for you.

Muriel

It happens when he’s a kid, living under the docks with asra. Asra would always run off to go play pranks on people, or try to bargain some pretty shells him and Muriel found for some bread and snacks. Muriel would always stay behind to watch over their little ‘home’ but he spots some one....or something In the water.

At first he thinks his eyes deceive him. No one goes swimming in the dead of winter, even though vesuvia doesn’t get very cold. Plus no one goes swimming at the docks! That’s really dangerous! They could get hit by a boat, or eaten alive by an eel! But despite all of muriels thoughts, you seem to get closer.

Now he’s confused. You look around the same age (your age gap doesn’t exist here alright, let’s just say mermaids age differently) he wants to call out to see if your alright, but it’s none of his business right? Next thing he knows your a foot or so away from him, asking why he’s staying under the docks. And just like that, wether he wanted to or not, Muriel made an unlikely ‘friend’

Lucio

He got bored one day decided to sail one of his many many boats, all across the seas. Only for him to get lost. Alone. In the middle of the ocean. Alone. Good thing there’s a lot of water around to water Skype some one for he- oh wait, my bad. Lucio doesn’t know how to do that either.

He gets angry. Frustrated. So what do you do when your angry. Alone. On a boat. That you don’t know how to drive. Crash it of course. Good thing lucio can swim (surprisingly) bad thing is he has to leave his designer shoes on the boat. His clothes too. (He doesn’t want them ‘weighing him down’

But another good thing is he sees some one coming to rescue him! So he kind of just floats there waiting for them to come to him, and damn! They are a good swimmer. He wraps and arm around you as you drag him to shore, only for his foot to touch something scaley, then he ducks his head under water to find out your a merperson! And ohhhh boy is he gonna brag about this later. Just get ready for the flirting and pick up lines he’s gonna use on you on your way back.

I really like how this came out and I hope you like it too! And You can find my master list here!

Next headcanon: main six with an mc that’s always cold

Request are closed

[amplesalty]

Halloween 2021 - Day 5 - The Invisible Ray (1936)

Doesn’t that just sound like a bad magician? “Ladies and gentlemen, introducing...The Invisible Ray!”

Ah, this takes me back. Back in year 0 of this horror marathon business, before this blog was a thing, it was kinda heavily skewed towards the ‘classic’ period; Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy..all that Universal 1930’s type stuff. Amongst that first run were a pair of films starring both KARLOFF and Bela Lugosi;  The Black Cat and The Raven. I remember them both being quite good, both having this sort of rivalry between their two characters. The Black Cat moreso with a young couple caught in the middle of a heated feud between KARLOFF and Lugosi’s characters. Whereas The Raven has KARLOFF as more of a de-facto good guy as he plays a reluctant henchman to Lugosi’s character. Not that that level of power translated off screen, with Lugosi’s star beginning to fade but I remember reading something about KARLOFF insisting on some parity in pay between the two in one of their movies when the studio tried to lowball Lugosi so good on you, KARLOFF.

Neither have much to do with the Edgar Allan Poe stories they take their names from, outside of Lugosi’s character in The Raven having an obsession with Poe and adapting various means of torture from Poe stories. There have been plenty of Poe adaptations throughout the years but the other big uptick in them was in the 1960’s with a series of films directed by Roger Corman, often starring Vincent Price but with other big names sprinkled in like KARLOFF, Peter Lorre and Lon Chaney Jr. Plus a relatively early Jack Nicholson appearance in The Raven, which was shot at the same time as The Terror. That bloody bird!

So, yeah, it’s good to see one of these KARLOFF/Lugosi films again. Apparently there are eight films that featured both of them so I’ll be halfway there now on them. This also has Carl Laemmle Jr’s name attached, albeit in a minor way as he’s listed as ‘presenting’ the movie. I’m not sure if that ever means anything. It’s like when Tarantino ‘presents’ something, did he have any actual input on the film or was he just shining a light on something he personally liked because he has so much power and influence?

The movie’s foreword is an early indicator of the more science-fiction leaning nature of the movie which catches you off guard a little with the people involved and the timeframe we’re working in. Feels like the 50’s was more when the whole sci-fi thing took off. Also, since when was science a verb?

Certainly has the feel of that classic ‘old, dark house’ horror thing early on as we start with the Rukh household awaiting the arrival of some of Dr Janos Rukh’s (KARLOFF) peers who are to bear witness to his new discovery.

KARLOFF has clearly been eating his crusts to get curls like that, normally he’s a slicked back kind of guy. And it’s kinda weird seeing both of them with facial hair. Oddly though this is one of the rare times that Lugosi plays a good guy, this is a clear violation of the parallel universe protocol:

Normal universe – clean shaven – good guy Parallel universe – goatee – evil

This early version of Dr. Doom is a bit naff. Are you making a great scientific discovery here or doing a spot of welding?

Apparently Dr Rukh’s invention is a telescope that is able to see into the deepest reaches of space, but can also pick up on vibrations left by the events that have taken place and he can then project that as a moving image that shows an asteroid crashing to Earth millions of years ago that can help him pinpoint the crash site and allow him to discover new elements inside the asteroid...wait, what?! Is this like that time on CSI when they solved a murder by getting sound out of something someone made in pottery class because the grooves could be played like a vinyl?

We then pivot sharply into the great plains of Africa where our team have set off in search of what will become known as ‘Radium X’. Oh yes, I think that’s on the periodic table next to Hardtoobtainium. And I’m specifically trying to avoid animal cruelty by not watching Cannibal Holocaust, don’t come around here with your dead leopards and talk of how many rhinos you’ve shot. I must say I’m a little wary of this sudden introduction of all these natives carrying spears and wearing bone necklaces, I just don’t feel like I can trust a movie made in the 1930’s to be sensitive on it’s portrayal of other cultures.

Thought it does present us with the best actor in this picture, look at those bug eyes! He’s like Africa’s answer to Marty Feldman.

And that’s just his reaction to a piece of scanning equipment going off, him and his mates are definitely going to be worried when this white devil makes a demonstration of his new found Radium X and it’s ability to melt pure stone. Looks like a portajohn backing up...

He then promptly turns his cosmic ray gun on all the locals when they tell him they want to go home. Sure, you can leave, you’re not going to get very far though. Dude, there’s like 12 of you and he’s given some of you rifles. Just jump him when he’s asleep.

Dr. Rukh finds that evening that he’s suddenly turned an interesting shade of neon yellow and can be seen by anyone in a three mile radius so either this Radium X is highly poisonous or Rukh has been running in opposition to Vladimir Putin. This poisoning leaves him so irradiated that merely touching another living thing is enough to kill it. Dr. Benet (Lugosi) is able to make a serum for him but can never truly cure him, he must regularly take this serum or otherwise he will revert to this killing machine type state.

But, in his eagerness to not spread this poison to his wife, and his general upholding of the man code to never air ones medical problems, he generally acts a bit surly and tells her to piss off which see views as him not loving her anymore so he promptly shacks up with the young explorer type who came with them to Africa. Worse yet, Benet and crew have taken a sample of Radium X to show at a scientific conference in Paris. Between losing his missus and thinking that other people are taking all the credit for his work, Rukh is just slightly annoyed.

It’s not all bad though, he is able to use this new element to cure his mother’s blindness. I like how his first reaction upon learning that Radium X has irrecoverably changed his life, leaving him one missed injection away from imminent death, is to shoot it directly into his mother’s face.

“Patients won’t like being shot in the face.” “They’ll like what I tell them to like.”

Whilst sulking outside of the church that his ex is getting re-married in, he spots a series of statues of saintly figures and imagines them representing each of the 6 people on the African expedition, vowing to destroy each of them until only he is left. Marvelous invention this Radium X, it can melt statues and cure blindness. Do you have to put special filters on that ray gun of yours depending on the situation? That’s a malpractice suit waiting to happen if you mix those up.

Dr. Benet is a little suspicious when one of their party dies suddenly for no explainable reason so takes a few ultraviolet photos of the victims eyes in order to study. And wouldn’t you know what he finds?

Bullshit! Nevermind the ultraviolet camera, this is more like the dues ex machine camera. I know this is science fiction and all but what is this, 1936 or 2036? Or maybe they’re just able to make the most detailed contact lenses known to man.

Eventually, when Rukh finds himself unable bring himself to kill his former love, he is confronted by his mother who smashes the serum and condemns him to death as, going unchecked, the Radium X within him will destroy his body. Sensing the end coming, Dr. Rukh dives out of the nearest window and promptly erupts bursts into flames, now left as little but a pile of ash on a damp Paris street. It’s a shame really, dozens of people spontaneously combust every year, it’s just not widely reported.”

This one was okay, definitely a different vibe compared to other Universal stuff at the time with all the science fiction and Africa based stuff but it does still travel down that ‘descent into madness’ thing that they often fall back on and it’s always fun to see KARLOFF and Lugosi, especially when they’re together. But, if we’re strictly talking about the KARLOFF/Lugosi pairing, I’m definitely leaning towards one of their other outings like Black Cat, Raven or Son of Frankenstein. There’s just something not right about Lugosi playing some normal, if he’s not being unhinged then you’re not really getting what you came here for.

[illfoandillfie]

5 Simple Rules for a Successful Fake Relationship: One Small Hitch

READ PART 1

Pairing: Ben Hardy x Reader

summery: You and Ben have your first official date and settle into your "relationship". But, with filming coming to a close, you'll need to be more committed to the act than before, especially when Ben's keeping secrets.

Warnings: Again, nothing much. Some language. Drinking. Nothing else I can think of.

Words: 8355

AN: Chapter 2 is finally here! Sorry for the delay but hopefully the next part will be up faster. I'm really really enjoying writing this series and I am so very excited about what's coming! The song mentioned is Reckless Serenade by Arctic Monkeys. Sidenote: Can anyone work out the theme of the chapter titles?

Taglist:  @laedymoon​  @dtfrogertaylor​  @vee-ndetta​​ @atomic-watermelon​ @kellypenac​​ @labessieisallama​​ @deakyclicks​​ @jennyggggrrr​​ @drowseoftaylor​​  @hannafuckingsucks​​  @i-cant-hangout-im-drumming​​ @queenmylovely​​ @supersonicfreddie​

“I’ve got something for you,” you half shouted at Ben when you saw him walking towards you from across the field you were filming in. You shuffled your shitty takeaway coffee into your other hand so you could reach into your bag, pulling out a piece of paper folded in half. He took it and pulled you into a hug, pressing a kiss to the top of your head.  “Funny cause I have something for you too,” Ben said as he let you go, reaching into his backpack and handing you a magazine, “Oh, shit, it’s our rules. You want page 15 by the way.”  “Figured you’d want a record of them. What exactly am I looking f-” you let the word hang as you found the right page. It was decorated with a photo of you and Ben kissing on his doorstep, his hand around your back, the shirt you’d borrowed riding up just enough that it was clear you didn’t have shorts on underneath as you clutched at him. There was some text beside it, mentions of your most notable roles and his, a brief description of the movie you were in the process of making, and some speculatory remarks with a couple of innuendos thrown in. The usual gossip mag fare. On the other side of the paragraph was another photo, both of you leaving set the previous Friday, hand in hand and smiling.  “We look pretty good together,” you laughed, getting only a noncommittal grunt in return. He’d suddenly become very interested in the sheet you’d handed him, staring at it like he hadn’t been there when it was written. You reread the brief article, trying not to gawk at the photographs. It certainly looked believable.   “I’ve had about four people wish us well this morning,” Ben suddenly said, seemingly pulling himself together, folding up the rules and shoving them into his back pocket, “and I’ve not been here long. It’s kinda weird having everyone know we’re together. Or think we’re together,” he quickly corrected himself.  “Yeah, Mel kept asking me questions about it while she was doing my makeup this morning, so I hope she took my awkwardness as me wanting to keep things private and not me not knowing how to answer some of them.”  Ben chuckled, “yeah, Gail gave me a bit of a grilling too. I just told her we’d been sort of seeing each other for a few weeks and had only just like made it official or whatever and she seemed to buy it.”  “Good, I told Mel the same sort of thing. Hopefully that’s enough for them.”  “I’m more concerned with what my friends are going to say. I don’t think any of them read Heat though so hopefully it doesn’t come up any time soon,”  “Lucky. My friend Felicity has the dumb site bookmarked. Checks it religiously. Bloody miracle she hasn’t called yet.”  “Better turn of your phone then,”  “And come back to a full voicemail and about a hundred texts demanding to know why I’m ghosting her?”  “Tell her you were filming. I do it all the time,” he was grinning at you and you couldn’t help but grin back as you pulled your phone out and shut it off, “atta girl,” he pulled you into his side and gave you an affectionate squeeze that you leaned into , fully aware of how many people were around you, potentially watching. It was a feeling that didn’t really let up. You knew, rationally, that everyone there was focused on their jobs, but you couldn’t help feeling like you were constantly being scrutinised, and not just for your acting. It didn’t help when Seth had to stop recording to fix a problem with the boom mic and, good-humouredly, said, “don’t worry lovebirds, we’ll have her running in a second.” Or that one of the ADs delivered your call sheets for the next day with a, “I always thought you’d be cute together.” And it certainly didn’t help when you turned your phone on at the end of the day to find a series of texts from Felicity each with more exclamation points and capital letters than the last, and a missed call from Mary.   “Better call her back,” Ben said, following you towards the carpark.  You rolled your eyes, already holding the phone up to your ear listening to it ring.  “Y/N, I was just about to try you again,”  “Sorry, Mary, I had my phone off while we were recording, what’s the matter?”  “Are you free this weekend?”  “Um yeah, I think so, why?”  “We’d like for you and Ben to go on a date this weekend. Somewhere in London preferably but it’s up to you. You saw the article in Heat? It seems to be going well. The hits your names have got on google have increased and there have been a few tweets about it. Nothing huge, you’re not trending or anything but you’re still relatively unknown so we weren’t expecting that to happen, certainly not overnight. But we think if we get a date story out quickly it’ll really help get people interested.”  You rubbed your temple as you tried to process everything she’d just said, “Okay, I’ll talk to him and we’ll organise something. I’ll text you the details once I have them.”  “Okay, let me know as soon as you can though. And send Peter the info too.”  “Will do. See ya Mary.”  “Was that about me?” Ben asked, smiling as he leaned against your car.  “You up for a date this weekend? Apparently the first story went well and they want a follow up ASAP.”  “Sure, where are we going?”  “I don’t know, somewhere around London would apparently be best, but we get to choose. Any thoughts?”  He thought for a moment, “This isn’t our first date is it? Like, we’ve said we’ve been on others before, right?”  “Yeah, why?”  “Well normally for a first date I take girls out for dinner and then, depending on the girl and how the dinner went, either a quiet drink or like a romantic as fuck walk in the park or something.”  “That’s pretty standard stuff, Ben,”  “Yeah, but in the fiction of us as a couple, this isn’t our first date. This’d be, what?”  “Fifth maybe?”  “Fifth. So I’m still trying to impress you a bit, but it’s like, more relaxed. We’ve done the dinner date, we’ve done coffee and a movie, we’ve even done the Museum. Now we’re getting into the fun shit.”  “Museums don’t count as fun shit?” you chuckled, not sure where his train of thought was taking you.  “It’s a bit overdone is all.”  “What do you have in mind then?”  “There’s this place that runs art classes during the day, right? Life drawing or like painting for beginner's type stuff. But a couple of nights a week they run these art and wine nights. They’ll give you a canvas or a ceramic figure or something like that and some paints and you can have a few drinks and do something arty. I did it with some mates a while ago, had heaps of fun. Seemed like the sort of thing yo- a girl might like to do on a date.”  “That definitely sound fun.”  “Really? You’re into it?”  “Yeah, for sure.”  “Okay,” Ben pulled out his phone and began typing, “shall I book us in for the Saturday night ceramics session?”  “Go ahead. What time was that, so I can let Mary and Peter know.”  “Seven thirty. If we get a cab in a little earlier we can grab something to eat on our way.”  “Cool, okay I’ll text them. Is it BYO?”  “Yeah. They do sell some stuff but it’s a pretty small selection.”  “Okay, well that’s something to look forward to. Anyway, I should be going since I have about a million texts to sort through, I’ll see you tomorrow.”  “Wait, one thing,” Ben said before you could open your car door, “There’s a few people coming off set now so I’m going to kiss you, okay?”  “Thanks for the heads up,”  “No worries,” he stepped closer, his hand rising to cup your cheek as he kissed you softly. He took longer to break away than you’d expected, letting the kiss deepen instead, but you didn’t mind too much. It was a good kiss. And if it hadn’t been for Ben and the movie, you would have been severely lacking them recently. Which explained the vague feeling of disappointment that hit you when he did step back.  

On your way home your phone beeped with another text from Felicity but you ignored it until you were inside and changed into the comfiest clothes you could find, flopping down on your bed to scroll through what she’d written. They varied from, “omg why didn’t you tell me about this Ben guy?” to “Y/N!!! Answer my texts!!!” all the way up to, “BITCH!!! CALL ME!!!!”   She picked up on the first ring.   “Where the fuck have you been all day?”  “Some of us don’t have office jobs we hate,” you laughed, “I actually had to work, funnily enough, and because we were on location I had to keep my phone off while we recorded.”  “Well I’ve been going crazy over here. Imagine my shock when I boot up my computer and open Heat and see your fucking arse being grabbed by your co-star.”  “He was not grabbing my arse.”  “Close enough. You didn’t tell me how fucking gorgeous he is.”  “No, well, I don’t usually think about the people I work with like that, do I?”  “Which is why I was so surprised to see you’ve shacked up with one of them.”  “It’s not quite that serious.”  “One night stands aren’t your usual thing. Definitely not with guys you work with anyway.”  “I never said it was a one night stand, just that it wasn’t super serious!”  “How many times then?”  “We’ve been on like four dates.”  “You fuckhead! You mean to tell me you’re actually dating this guy, who by the way looks like he could be a fucking underwear model, and you didn’t think to tell me? No so much as a I got dicked down by a total babe aren’t you jealous message?”  “I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it if it wasn’t going to go anywhere.”  “But still, I’m your best friend, I tell you about every shag I have.”  “In graphic detail,”  “Exactly.”  “Look it’s just a bit weird still. Neither of us have really hooked up with a co-star before and we didn’t want to say anything until we worked out what was happening.”  “I guess that makes sense,” you could tell she didn’t mean it, “But, now that it’s out you owe me. I want to hear all about it.”  “There’s not much to tell. We became quite good friends during all the pre-production stuff when we were rehearsing and all that. Our director wanted to make sure we clicked and had the right chemistry and stuff, since it’s a romcom and our characters get engaged in the first scene, so we hung out a lot. And then just before filming started he asked me out. Took me to this nice Chinese restaurant. It was fun so we agreed to go out again and it’s sort of just kept going.”  “Those photos, was that the first time you’d stayed over at his?”  “Second. First time was a couple of weeks ago. The night that led to the photos was just a few drinks after work with some of the others and we ended up ducking out a bit early and wound up at his.”  “And?”   “And what?” You had a hard time not laughing when you heard her groan. Her eagerness to know every sordid detail made her easy to fuck with, and that made the whole business of being secretive a lot more fun.  “And, how was he?”  “I mean…y’know,”  “Y/N, I swear to god,”  “He was good, okay? Really good,” you remembered what Ben had told you to say, trying not to laugh too much while you repeated it, “like, three orgasms good.”  “Shit, really?”  “Uhuh. And then another in the morning.”  Felicity replied with a long whistle, “shit, girl, hold onto that one then. That’s definitely worth any trouble working together could cause."  “Believe me, I know. We’re going out again this weekend.” It was surprisingly easy to lie about dating Ben. Though, of course, you weren’t technically lying since you would be going on a date.   “Shit man, date five. That’s serious shit. You better tell me everything, in graphic detail.” 

When you told Ben about the conversation the next day, admitting you’d spent ages praising his sexual prowess, he laughed and then thanked you, pulling you into a tight bear hug. You thought it was a slight overreaction considering he’d been the one to tell you what to say but his happiness was infectious, and you found yourself smiling more than normal as you hung out between scenes. An attitude which could only help your performance, making people more ready to believe you were a couple. His easy laughter and bright smiles continued until the afternoon when you were telling him more about Felicity and what you’d talked about.   “She thinks you’re a keeper and kept telling me not to let you go.”  “Your friend knows what she’s talking about.”  “Lucky for you I can’t let you go since it’s all written up in a contract,”  Ben laughed but when you glanced at him his smile seemed to falter.   “You okay?”  “Brilliant. Just had a bit of a late night and it’s catching up on me. Think I might try to have a quick nap before we’re needed again.”  “I was thinking of grabbing another coffee if you want one?”  “Thanks Y/N but I think the nap will do me more good.”  “Probably better people don’t see us heading off to a trailer together anyway or they’ll suspect we’re getting up to mischief.”  “Very true. I’ll see you a bit later.”  “Sleep well!”  Ben turned to leave, his smile seeming more forced than earlier. You would have worried except he seemed to be back to normal when he was called for your next scene. And it continued on through the week, his happiness only getting more pronounced the closer it got to the weekend.  

You couldn’t quite match his energy on Friday, anxiety over your date getting stronger the closer you got to it. Hanging out at his place had been easy, even if it did include leaving half dressed. All you’d had to do was kiss him which you’d done enough times during filming that it was no longer too odd. But a proper date was something else. It was going to be the first real test you faced, the first time you’d really have to sell yourselves to the public as more than co-stars and more than a hook-up.  “Hey are you okay?”  “Huh?”  “Your jiggling your leg a lot which you only do when something’s worrying you, what is it?”  “Oh,” you forced your leg to stop moving, “nothing,”  “Is it about our date tonight?”  “What if it’s bad? What if we don’t look like we’re actually together and Mary and Pete have to cancel the whole thing?”  “I’d get a decent night sleep not thinking about us,” he muttered.  “What?”  “I’ve been worried about it too,” he said louder, “but I think we’ll be okay. It’s not like we’ll be starved for conversation and we’ll have the paint and the wine and we’ll be fine. Plus, weren’t you the one who said this would be easy?”  “Yeah I was,” you said sheepishly, “but -”  “No buts. It’ll be a piece of cake. We go and have a good time painting a couple of plates or bowls or whatever, and then hold hands while we head home. They’ll get whatever shots they get, and they’ll spin it so we look like a couple.”  “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry,”  “It’s okay,” he reached out to rub the back of your hand, smiling softly at you, “the nerves might actually help you look like you’re legit. And worst comes to worst we can always run lines. I’m honestly so much more nervous about shooting that scene tomorrow.”  “The one where we’re playing matchmaker?”  “Yes! Have you seen how many names are in there?”  “Theres like six, Ben,”  “Yeah but they’re all repeated, and I know I’m going to get the order wrong,”  You giggled and shook your head, “You’re unbelievable,”  “Oh whatever,” he pushed your shoulder almost making you overbalance, “Just cos you know the lines already.” 

Ben’s efforts to calm you down worked and you got through the rest of the workday without a hitch. Though your stomach was once again tight with nerves in the hours before the date. You spent a solid half hour standing in front of your wardrobe, freshly washed hair slowly dripping down the back of the towel you had wrapped around you, trying to settle on what to wear. When you were finally dressed you checked and rechecked the contents of your purse, and, in a moment of panic, you grabbed the heavily highlighted and notated script pages with the matchmaker scene and shoved them in beside your lipstick and bank card. By the time Ben arrived in an Uber to pick you up, ushering you into the backseat with a kiss on the cheek and a complement about how lovely you looked, you felt like you were on the verge of throwing up. But, once again, Ben’s natural charm eased your mind. The way he talked to you and smiled constantly had your heart rate slowing and your stomach settling within minutes. Even the way he squeezed your hand when he helped you out of the car, and the way he laced his fingers with yours as he led you towards your destination were welcome comforts.  “D’you wanna grab something to eat?” Ben asked, stopping on a corner and looking around, annoyed people passing by on both sides.  “Uhh, s’pose so.”  “Has anyone ever told you you’re indecisive?”  “I swear I’m not normally.”  “Oh? Do I make you nervous, snookum?” he asked, playfully.  “No, you git,” you laughed back, though you found it hard to meet his eyes, “I just don’t know I’m that hungry.”  “Well, keep in mind there’ll be wine drinking. Don’t want to do that on an empty stomach.”  “Valid argument. What’s nearby?”  After some wandering you ended up in a McDonalds, Ben wolfing down a burger while you picked at the fries, not quite certain you’d be able to keep your food down. It was when you were coming out of a bottle shop, Ben holding the wine you’d agreed on, that you spotted the photographer. It was the same one who’d been outside Ben’s house when you stayed over, camera aimed at the two of you. Quietly you nudged Ben. He just wrapped an arm around you, pulling you into his side as you walked. You struggled to not watch the photographer as he followed you towards the art studio, having to keep reminding yourself to pretend he wasn’t there.  “Relax,” Ben said softly in your ear, “He’s not important.”  You nodded, afraid if you said anything you’d lose the meagre dinner you’d had. Ben’s thumb rubbing over your own gave you something else to focus on, counting each soft, smooth stroke, until you reached the right place.  

You weren’t the only couple there, far from it. Most of the claimed tables were taken by pairs sitting close together, hands clasped or laying on thighs as they talked. A few tables held larger groups, double dates maybe or perhaps just friends. You felt a few eyes on you as you found a table close to the clear glass of the shopfront, but they turned away again quickly, more interested in their own little bubbles than yours. You glanced outside to check if the photographer was still there but couldn’t see much more than the reflection of you and Ben. His knee bumped yours under the table as he leaned toward you, pressing a finger to your jaw to turn your head towards him.  “Forget the photographer. Forget Mary and Peter. Forget our arrangement. We're just two friends having a fun night out, okay?”  “Okay,”   “Okay. So what are you thinking of painting then?” He unscrewed the bottle of wine and grabbed one of the glasses you’d been handed on arrival.   “Well what are my options?”  “Well there’s your classic teacup, mug or plate options. There’s a couple of different jewellery boxes, I think. And then there are the statues, ummm, fairy, dragon, alien. Maybe a princess one, I can’t remember.”  “More than I thought there’d be. What were you thinking?”  “I did a dragon last time I was here. But I think I’m going to do a mug this time. Need some extras if you’re gonna be staying over more often.”  “Maybe we should both do mugs, then? Something we can use at each other’s places.”  “Alright, deal. But we can’t look at what the other is painting until they’re done.”  “That’s going to be so hard!” you laughed, feeling properly relaxed for the first time all night.  “Yeah but it’ll be fun though. Wait here, I’ll go grab us the mugs.”  You took the opportunity to look around the room, trying to think of what Ben might like on a mug. There was art everywhere – paintings hanging on walls, examples of what the classes could teach you, decorated ceramics lining windowsills and shelves. Judging by the wildly differing levels of talent displayed, you assumed at least some of them were left behind and never claimed. There were plates decorated with fruit trees and ocean scenes, jugs covered in splatters of different colours, aliens in shimmery blue and princesses with green hair and orange dresses. But nothing that sparked your imagination. The noise of the room was steadily growing as everyone got stuck into their creations. Ben sat down, took a drink and got to work mixing colours.  “You know what you’re going to do then?”  “I have an idea. But I will warn you I’m not a particularly good artist so it might not look anything like what it’s meant to.”  You picked up your blank mug and put it down again, tapping the end of a paintbrush against the table as you tried to come up with an idea. What did Ben like? He liked coffee. And dogs. And his guitar. More than once he’d brought it to set, playing it in his downtime. He’d been embarrassed the first time you mentioned overhearing him as you passed by his trailer, but you’d assured him you’d liked listening to him. You’d had the song stuck in your head for a week afterwards.   “Made up your mind, have you?” Ben asked, glancing up from his handiwork as you mixed a pale peach colour.  “No peeking,”  “I wasn’t peeking. If I’d been peeking, I would have done this,” Ben craned his neck, leaning over to where your mug was.   You laughed and pulled the mug closer to you, pushing him away with your other hand.  He caught it in his own, taking the paintbrush from you, “Oi, careful with that.”  “Oops, sorry,”  Ben laughed and kissed your palm before letting you have your hand back, “No harm done. But y’know if you splattered me I’d have no choice but to get payback.”  There was no need to reach for the script you’d brought as you and Ben fell into conversation while you painted. He asked if you’d had any more awkward phone calls with your friends and told you about what had happened when his mates had found out. Nothing like the conversation you’d endured, though there’d been plenty of teasing. You had to admonish him for nearly getting paint on your work when he began using the largest brush he had to artistically spray drops of paint over his mug. And then he’d laughed when you paused, admitting out loud that you weren’t actually sure how to paint the thing you’d planned on painting. He’d promised not to peek while you whipped out your phone to look up a reference image, going to far as to cover his eyes just to make sure. Once you gave him the okay he went back to painting, switching to a thinner brush and shushing you so he could concentrate. It was ridiculous how cute he looked, tongue between his teeth, bent over the mug as he slowly outlined the design. You shook your head to clear the thought and went back to your own work. 

“Okay, I’m done. You wanna see now?”  “Yes, absolutely. Unless you think we should wait until after they’ve been glazed?”  “Fuck that, we can’t pick them up for a couple of days, I wanna show you now.”  “Alright, show me then,” you put down your brush, focusing all your attention onto the mug in Ben’s hands. The base coat was a light purple, with splatters of darker purple over top. Slowly he turned the mug to show you the design on the front. It bore a slightly wonky engagement ring, similar to the one his character gave yours in the movie. On either side of the ring, in thin, not quite straight lettering, was the words we’re really good at this dating thing.   You smiled as soon as you read the quote from the script, “I love it, Ben”  “Thought it was kind of fitting,” he chuckled, “plus it’ll be a nice little souvenir once the movie wraps.”  “That was a fun scene to shoot. Best proposal I’ve ever had.”  Ben smiled and carefully turned his mug back towards him, “Best proposal I’ve ever given,” He seemed to be about to say something but stopped himself, shaking his head.  You lowered your voice, “Promise I’ll get to keep it after we break up?”  “Promise,” Ben said, matching your level and leaning in close, “Until then maybe you can use it as a reminder whenever you feel anxious about this whole dating thing.”  “Thanks, I will.”   You were suddenly very aware of how softly you were speaking, how close you were sitting, leaning in to hear each other over the rest of the room, and for a split second you thought he was going to kiss you again. But then the moment passed, the noise of the room intruding as Ben leaned back in his seat, “So do I get to see mine?”  “Uh, it’s not quite done,” you said, picking up your brush again, the moment gone, “give me another couple of minutes.”  “Masterpieces take time, I get it,”  “This is by no stretch a masterpiece,”  “I’ll be the judge of that thanks very much,”  Ben turned to look out over the room while you tried to finish your painting without smudging anything, occasionally making comments about other people there or the art that decorated the room.  You took one last look at what you’d painted, the guitar with the words stun gun lullaby written in cursive beside it, “Alright, I’m done now, you can look. Careful, some of it’s still wet.”  Ben gently took hold of the handle and turned the mug so the design faced him. He broke out into a grin and you felt relieved that he liked it.   “It’s definitely a masterpiece. For someone who didn’t know how to draw a guitar you’ve done an incredible job. And how did you know that’s one of my favourite songs?”  “Is it? It's just the song I overheard you playing that one time. I thought that line was a good one for a mug. Nice and short so I didn’t have to paint too much.”  “This is definitely my new favourite mug.”  “Oh stop it.”  “And hey, they kind of match.”  You laughed when he pointed out the similarities, “Guess they do. Y’know that’d make a pretty cute Instagram post.”  “You going to tag me as my mug?”  “Of course. You could post a photo and tag me in it too,”  “I don’t know. I don’t really post much personal stuff online.”  “Well at least comment on mine,”  “I can do that.”  

After you’d taken a decent photo and posted it online you cleaned up, handed your mugs over to the woman running the night’s activity and stepped back out into the night. There was no sign of the photographer anywhere and you supposed he’d got what he needed and then left.   Still, Ben grabbed your hand as you walked back up the street, just in case you’d missed the photographer in the crowd.   “Guess that means we don’t have to worry about going home together,” you said, nudging Ben.  “Guess not,” his lips quirked down in a soft frown.”  “What is it?”  “Nothing, nothing, just...feels kind of weird to just end the date here, I guess,” he scratched the back of his head and laughed, “Normally I’d offer to give you a lift home. Or at least give you a good night kiss, but I guess that’s not really needed now.”  “Well, it’s like you said, we’re just friends having a fun night out. We could share a ride home though, if you wanted. You live near enough to mine it wouldn’t matter.”  “Nah, don’t worry about it. I actually might go grab something to eat, don’t think that burger was quite enough. See you on Monday?”  “Oh, yeah, okay, see you Monday.”   There was a pause, both of you hesitating and then Ben gave you a much too quick hug before he walked off, disappearing into the crowd. You sighed and hailed a passing cab, spending the whole ride home wondering what the hell had just happened. But you pushed it from your mind once you were home, going through your usual nightly routine and very deliberately thinking of anything other than Ben. It didn’t help much. You still dreamt about him. Dreamt about the goodnight kiss you’d missed out on.    

When you woke you had to laugh at yourself. You were sure that, had you binged a few episodes of a tv show or read something before you’d gone to bed you would have dreamt about it instead. Brains were suggestable like that. When you felt awake enough you rolled over and grabbed your phone finding a text from Ben and one from Felicity and an email from Mary. You opened Mary’s first, skimming over it and vowing to look at it properly once you had a coffee in your system. Ben’s was much easier to understand, a short message to say he had fun last night and that he’d pick the mugs up on his way to work on Monday. Felicity’s was just a series of question marks. You sent back a short response saying the date had been a lot of fun. It wasn’t enough and she was bound to come back at you asking for more details, but it would have to satisfy her. Slowly you got out of bed and made yourself a coffee, setting your laptop up next to you at the kitchen counter so you could try to read Mary’s email again. There was some information about some scripts she was going to send you, a couple of potential future roles, but the majority of the email was about you and Ben. She’d already seen the photos, apparently, and some of them would be run in the coming week’s magazine while others were being put online. She’d also seen the Instagram post and commended you for thinking of it. Another date would have to be organised, but it was better to wait until the next weekend or even the one after, so as not to fatigue the public.  

So you and Ben fell into the routine of it. An email from one or other of your agents sometimes as vague as just telling you to organise a date, sometimes much more specific in what they wanted you to be doing, then the date itself, and in between work where you played up the romance as much as possible. You got good at pretending to stay over at each other's places, often just hanging out watching TV or running lines until the photographer called it a night and you were free to leave. Once or twice you’d opted to sleep in your own bed but get up early and head over to Ben’s for the required morning after shots but that process got old very quickly so you ended up actually staying over more and more. There was one day when your period came unexpectedly while you were at Ben’s. You were halfway through asking him to take you home when he offered to run to the store for you instead.  “No, no, you don’t have to go out of your way like that, I’ve got plenty at home I just didn’t think I’d need any today.”  “Y/N, I promise, it’s no trouble. I feel bad I don’t have anything here for you already. Been a while since I’ve lived with a girl and it didn’t even cross my mind. Seriously, it’ll take me two minutes.” When you still weren’t convinced he continued, “Plus, if I go we won’t ruin Peter and Mary’s plan for today. And the Paps can get a shot of me staring at boxes of tampons like a good caring boyfriend. It’ll help our image.”  “Oh alright, as long as you don’t mind.”  He was out the door a second later and back within ten minutes, though you did get a call from him at the shop, asking what brand you preferred. Once he was home, he made you a cup of tea, gave you a painkiller and, after checking you didn’t mind, cuddled up with you on the couch, teasingly calling you his cuddle bunny as he pulled you back against his chest. You almost complained, almost cited Rule 5, but it wasn’t so bad. Some might even go so far as to call it cute. It was better than snookum at any rate.  

 The dates themselves got easier after the first. You knew what to expect now so it wasn’t as nerve wracking as before. And Ben was always fun to be around, your list of inside jokes steadily growing as he became the one person you spent the most time with. You let yourselves relax a bit. On your third date Ben’s arm stayed glued around your waist as you walked around the zoo, only losing contact when a lemur jumped on his shoulder and you stepped back to take a photo. It wasn’t low enough to violate the rules you’d put in place but his hand was dangerously close to falling below your belt, and it was definitely something you would have put a stop to when you first started the charade. The Instagram posts had got more frequent too, though Ben still refused to post anything to his own profile. But he commented on everything you posted whether it involved him or not. And people were buying it. You’d been moved from page 15 to page 13 and then to page 10 in the magazines. You both picked up more followers online as your photos were shared across Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr. There were some downsides like rude comments and nasty messages but mostly they were easy to ignore. Worse were the phone calls and messages from family members and friends asking when they’d get to meet Ben. He’d had to fend off his own family as well, but you both stuck to Rule 4, making up excuses and promising it would happen eventually, but it just wasn’t possible right now. But your biggest problem was the issue of intimacy. It wasn’t the lack of sex itself, that was easily managed. It was that Ben had started to intrude on your fantasies. You’d be there with your fingers or your toys and suddenly it was Ben’s voice you were thinking of, Ben’s hands, Ben’s teeth and tongue and chest. Ben’s name falling from your lips. And you knew it was just because you were pretending to date him, on and off set. It was the dumb suggestable brain thing again. The thoughts were only there because you were pretending to be in love with him and usually sex was tied up with love or at least relationships. And really, you hadn’t been attracted to anyone much lately because you hadn’t been looking because you’d been pretending to be attracted to Ben so it’s really no wonder you’re brain got all confused and mixed him into those other thoughts. The first time you saw him after it first happened you wondered if he could tell, a slightly flustered awkwardness hanging over you. But it wasn’t worth mentioning to anyone. You just vowed to push him out of your mind as much as you could.  

Nearly two months later you found yourselves back in the office where the idea of pretending to date was first floated. With filming drawing to a close Mary and Peter were keen to check in with you. The first thing either of them said when you and Ben turned up is how well the story was going.  “Projections have the sales for this movie increased by five percent, just because of your relationship and that number is expected to grow as we get closer to release,” Mary spoke fast though whether that was excitement at the boosted numbers or just a busy schedule rushing her along you weren’t sure.  “What happens now?” Ben asked, “I mean, since we won’t be filming together anymore after this week,”  “That’s exactly why we wanted to talk with you both today,” Peter opened a pocket notebook and thumbed through a couple of pages, “so not much will change but we may occasionally need to balance out the loss of on set photos with shots of you out and about together. Nothing stressful and all very easily staged. You probably wouldn’t even need to be out for more than an hour or so at a time. People have been loving the domestic sort of photos you’ve been putting online, Y/N, that one of you using the coffee mugs you painted was especially good. So we’d like a few more of those sorts of moments. The two of you grocery shopping or walking a dog, do either of you have a dog? No? Hmmm, we could hire a dog and write a story about you sitting for a friend. We’ll put a pin in that for now. But yes, just some candid shots of you walking around London and doing regular everyday things together.”  “We’ll also need to schedule the argument soon. We’re thinking somewhere within the first two weeks of filming being over. It means we can run speculation about whether the relationship is on the rocks now that you aren’t working together anymore. We’ll see how things go this week and make some decisions later, but we’ll give you plenty of warning before you have to perform it. Obviously, it has to be scheduled so we can guarantee someone will get photos but we need it to seem as natual as possible so we’ll leave the specifics of the argument up to you.”  You nodded along but Ben had more questions.  “What does this mean for any jobs we might be looking at taking after this movie wraps?”  “You can still take on whatever roles you want provided they’re filming here. It’s harder to keep you in the public eye if you’re separated and while the drama of a long-distance relationship might be interesting at first, it’s not sustainable.”  “If it was filming somewhere else in the UK we could maybe organise something. We’d have to look into it and see if it was possible to stick to our same plan but just shift the location. Maybe have a weekend visit angle to it, Y/N flies out to see Ben, Ben comes home to see Y/N, that kind of thing.”  “Leave it with us Ben and we’ll get back to you on the logistics of it all.”  “Oh, that’s okay, I don’t have anything set in stone, I was just curious.”  “Is there anything else you have questions about?”  “No, I don’t think so,” He looked towards you.  “No, I’m all good.”  “Okay, well, if you think of anything you can message us any time.”  “Really, though, this is going very well. It’s already paying off but we need to keep the momentum during the post-production phase, so we need you both to be committed to this.”  “We are.”  “Unbelievably committed,” Ben added. 

You and Ben left the meeting joking about potential arguments you could have and for the rest of the day, whenever you passed each other in the halls or had a moment alone you’d try to one up each other's suggestions. It was a good way to keep your spirits up even though the end of filming was fast approaching. One by one each cast member recorded their last scenes, saying an emotional thank you to the crew when the director called cut. You and Ben were the last to finish since you were the leads. A small pillow talk scene that you could do in your sleep. It was a nice way to end it, lying in bed with Ben’s arms around you, even with the heat of the studio lights. While you were waiting for the cameras to be positioned you and Ben joked around with the crew that were flitting around angling mics and adjusting set decorations.   “Hey, Seth,” Ben said suddenly, “can you pass me my phone. I think we need to document this moment. What d’you say, cuddle bunny?”  You laughed and poked him in the side but agreed. Ben stuck his arm straight up into the air, trying to angle the camera just right but he couldn’t quite get the photo to take without blurring. Seth took pity on you and offered to take the photo himself, allowing you and Ben to snuggle in close.  “If you post it on Insta you better credit me,” Set laughed, turning it round to show you.  “I’ll do that,” He said with a smile, “It’s pretty cute, I think I have to post it.”  “Really?” you asked, surprised he’d volunteer to do such a thing.  Ben didn’t have a chance to respond because everything was ready to go. Seth put the phone back away so you could film the scene, laughing in between takes until everyone was satisfied.   “That’s a wrap on Ben Hardy and Y/N Y/L/N everybody,”  A round of applause started as you pushed yourself to sit up, trying to stop yourself from welling up.  “And that’s a wrap on The Perfect Match.”  The applause continued and Ben pulled you into a tight hug, rubbing your back and pressing a kiss to the top of your head. You had to say a few words but you managed to get through it, and Ben’s little speech, without completely losing it. Afterwards, as people packed up the equipment and you headed back to your trailers to change, Ben pulled out his phone again.  “I guess I should post that photo now, how’s this caption,” he said each word slowly as he typed it out, “Thank you Y/N for being the perfect Edith to my Andy. And thank you @theperfectmatchmovie for finding me my perfect match.”   “Did you tag me?”  “Of course,”  “Did you tag Seth?”  “Uhhhh, camera emoji by @seththesoundman. Now I have,”  “Then it’s perfect. Little bit cheesy but I’ll let it slide.”  “I’ll post another lot of photos with everyone else later and write a longer thing about how much fun this movie was and all of that, but I think this’ll do for the minute. Mary and Peter better fucking appreciate it.” 

That evening most of the cast and crew headed out for drinks at the local pub. The official party would come later but everyone needed to get out and celebrate for an evening. You and Ben stayed for a few hours, Ben getting a little more clingy with each drink he finished. You limited yourself to only a couple. Ben wasn’t going to be able to drive so you decided to fall on that sword, switching to water quite early on. When he reached the point of intoxication that had him constantly complementing everyone you decided to call it a night, taking a final lap to say goodnight to everyone. There were a few wolf whistles and slurred comments about getting some as you left, Ben’s arm around your waist and his laugh in your ear, but you waved them off and led Ben out to your car.   “C’mon Benny boy, I’ll drop you home.”  “What about my car?”  “Well you’ll have to come get it in the morning, won’t you.”  He hummed and lay his head against the back of the seat, chatting animatedly as you made the trip to his. You wished him goodnight as he got out of the car and watched him make his way up to his front door. There he paused, patting his pockets.  “Everything alright? You called out to him.  “I don’t have any keys,” he laughed, turning around to come back to the car.  “You fucking goon, did you leave them at the pub?”  “Guess so,” he shrugged, “Can I crash at yours?”  “Get in,”  “Thanks cuddle bunny, you’re the best”  You rolled your eyes, “Guess this means I’ll be your taxi tomorrow, running you around to find your keys and your car,”  “That’s what girlfriends are for,”  “If you say so.”  

Once at yours you headed to the kitchen to make tea, Ben following to grab a glass of water and a snack. He knew where you kept everything by now, making himself a sandwich with whatever he found in your fridge, and then carrying it out to the couch. By the time the teas were made Ben already had Netflix queued up, ready to play the next episode of the series you’d started watching together. Nearly Twenty minutes into the episode Ben’s phone dinged.  “Ah shit,” he said as he glanced at it, “forgot I said I’d call Joe. Do you mind if we pause the ep? We’re trying to organise travel stuff for him and it’s easier if we talk it through rather than texting it all.”  “Sure,”  “I promise I won’t be long.”  “Take your time, it’s fine,” you were already reaching for your laptop.  Ben smiled at you before ducking out of the room. You head him walking down the hall, footsteps fading as he got further away. For a while you just enjoyed the quiet as you checked your emails and social media profiles but after commenting on the photo Ben had posted and replying to a few messages from people you knew there wasn’t really much left to do. You drummed your fingers on your keyboard trying to think of another website you could visit. There was still no sign of Ben and you didn’t want to continue the show without him so you stood up, stretched, and headed back to the kitchen to grab some chocolate from the stash you kept. You were just about to shut the fridge when you heard Ben’s voice coming from the other side of the wall. Your spare room where he’d clearly gone to make his phone call.   “Yeah, Joe, I fucking know. But I don’t have much choice.” He sounded more sober than he had when he’d got up. There was a pause as Joe spoke and then you heard Ben again.  “I don’t know what I was thinking getting into this mess…..Yeah maybe. Doesn’t really matter though now does it…. What’s that supposed to mean? I can’t just call it quits now, the story is doing too well and Peter has assured me that the numbers are promising or whatever I don’t really know how they measure it. All I know is that people are going to see the movie because of us.”  There was a long pause. You quietly shut the fridge and took a step back towards the doorway. This was not a conversation you should be listening in to. But then Ben spoke again, and curiosity got the better of you.  “It doesn’t matter Joe. It doesn’t matter how I feel.” He laughed but it was completely devoid of humour, “Of course it sucks. It’s fucking shit, man. I just keep waiting for her to tell me she feels the same but it’s not happening…... No, I know it’s completely one sided…..No, I don’t think she knows. She wouldn’t have wanted to do it in the first place if she knew…. I just wish things were different. I love being around her and being able to hold her and kiss her but it fucking sucks that it’s only in public….. I don’t know. Maybe not filming together will ma-”  You could feel your cheeks burning as you tiptoed back towards the lounge room, not quite sure what to do with yourself. You paced back and forth for a moment before deciding to go to the bathroom, at least then Ben couldn’t walk in on you as you tried to process it. You let the door shut loudly behind you, hoping that if Ben had heard movement he’d think you’d just got up to use the loo. He couldn’t know you’d overheard him. You leaned against the sink and tried to make sense of what you’d heard. Ben couldn’t have a crush on you, he just couldn’t. But it was the only thing he could have been talking about. What the fuck did that mean for your arrangement? What the fuck were you meant to do now?

[ziracona]

Do you have any tips for people who want to start writing? Specifically dialogue or how to research thoroughly?

Sure! For starting writing in general, the best advice to start with is look at the stories you yourself love, and identify what you love most in them. Relationships of a certain kind, high-stakes fight scenes, murder mysteries and scenes where people have to choose under pressure who they’re going to trust, redemption arcs, someone ending up adopting a child more or less because the kid has no one else to look after them? If there are scenarios you daydream about writing stories in your head, what are the common themes? No matter how oddly specific that gets or how often or scarcely you see it in fiction, I garuntee you you’re not the only one who likes it, and it’s good to base writing ideas around whatever you want to see more of yourself. You’ll be happy writing it, and the other people who yearn for it too, once they find you, will be very happy to see some as well! For me, I’ve always really enjoyed stories where someone who has no connection to the action ends up choosing to do the right thing and gets pulled into dangerous scenarios, found family, hope punk, and scenes where someone is injured/sick/drugged/unconscious/trapped and ends up at the mercy of someone they expect to hurt them, but who chooses to do absolutely nothing bad to them and saves/helps/looks after them instead (to name a few of many, many faves, haha). Some of those are pretty broad and some are wildly specific, but I love writing them all, and I’m not the only person who enjoys reading them either, so it’s a great kind of springboard to work with. : ) —Ok, for the specific questions though—I’ll do them in two parts to go with the two questions.

For writing dialogue, the biggest thing is to establish distinctive voices for all your cast. That sounds a lot harder than it is. The first real step is just to have some idea who they are as a person. Now, I know you probably don’t have time to be Bleach and have a sidebar backstory that goes for eleven pages about every guard who gets knocked out (and tbh I wouldn’t recommend it either haha), but don’t worry—you don’t need to. A lot of the time, I know very little about characters who aren’t primary cast when I write them first, and only during writing really get to know them either. Think of it a little as improv acting. If you ever have like, done bits with your friends, you actually know how to do this whether you’ve acted a day in your life or not. Friend greeting you on the phone with a fake accent & pretending to be an interviewer & you responding in kind & being like “Well yes, in my best selling novel How to Kill your Ex-Boss” and just running with it totally counts. You have no idea who the person you’re pretending to be is. You don’t know their favorite food or where they went to school. But you do know what they’re going to say next, because you’ve tapped into the person you’re running, and that’s the only thing you need to know. Same if you have ever given yourself fake interviews in your head. You’re playing both interviewer, fiction self (for whom you are for SURE making up details on the fly) & anyone else involved in that scene simultaneously. Writing can be pretty similar. Now, I do this to a bigger extent then most people, because I method-write (which uhhhh, I cant completely recommend, as it is devestating on the emotions :’-] ), but it works used less extremely too.

The idea, really, is to give characters a voice in your head, and have that voice not be the same for any two characters. And I mean voice literally. What do they sound like. Do they talk fast, get excited & into topics easily? Always sound mildly done with everyone else? If it helps, pick the voice of an actor or a friend or different tones you can use yourself speaking outloud—just give them voices. A lot of it will start flowing pretty naturally once the character is created. Writing has a lot of overlap with acting, in that you really need to grasp and be able to kind of jump around in a lot of different types of peoples’ heads. Most people have significantly different ways of speaking, even if they don’t have different accents than your other characters. Some people cuss more, some never do, you get varried vocabulary sizes, and just word choice and tone. I’m probably making this sound a little hard and overwhelming, but trust me, it’s not so bad. Mostly it will come naturally once you get a mental idea of what your character is like, sounds like, and the vibes they give off.

From a more technical standpoint, a couple of really good suggestions are to run dialogue in your head before writing it, and to read your written dialogue out loud. No matter how well you write, you will think dialogue better most of the time. This is just how it goes, because writing is a different process. So something that helps is to mentally “play” a scene out, and jot down some of the dialogue as you hear it, or to pause in writing to run some of the scene mentally, then pick back up again. Another big one is that almost all people, when writing dialogue, will start out writing too formally. Now, that’s totally fine if your character actually just speaks very formally, but most people 80% of the time speak using contractions. Like, you’d probably say, “Hey! How’re you doing? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” and not “Hey! How are you doing? It has been a while, has it not?” (And obviously, most people aren’t going to actually write out “has it not,” but simpler ones like “How are” vs “How’re” or “It is” vs “It’s” are super common to write. Try to keep that in mind writing dialogue, and also try reading your dialogue out loud verbatim. A lot of the time, something will read totally normal to you, but the second you hear it out loud, you’ll go “Oh. Oh, no. No one speaks like this.” It is SUPER helpful, and kind of funny too. Also, don’t be afraid to use verbal interrupters like “Uh” or “Uhm” or substitues for them like “Well” and “Like” —people use ‘em when they speak. We also tend to interrupt our friends to agree when talking about stuff, because the way language is set up a lot of the time you know the end of a sentence before it is said.

Other things that govern how characters speak a lot are their comfort level in a scene and what they want, how open or closed off they are about themselves in general, and their personal ways of thinking in general. For example, Joey Harmin and Quentin Smith are extremely fun to write in scenes together for me, because they both follow fairly understandable and clear logical thought paths, but those paths are completely different. Like they could not be operating on less similar wavelengths half the time, which is hilarious. There’s an exchange I haven’t uploaded for New Dawn Fades where they’re talking for the first time, and Joey is operating nearly 100% on small-picture context (But since you woke up, I have been very nice to you. Why don’t you trust me?) and Quentin is operating at nearly 100% big-picture context (You have killed me before—I have literally no reason to think you won’t any second now once again. I have no idea why you have not already). And both thought lines make total sense for the character to be following, but they could not be more confused by each others’ response. People think super weirdly and super different from each other, and that’s amazing, and some times you legit wont totally get what wild shit your own character is on, but that’s fine. You don’t need to—you just need to know it makes sense to them, and be able to understand it on some logic level, even if you could never really get it emotionally or more really than ‘in theory’ on a personal level. Also, side note—sometimes people speak super differently when in a professional setting vs relaxed, or with different friends, and that’s totally fine. Also-also, you might notice that if some characters spend a lot of time together, they start to speak similarly—that’s super normal too—don’t worry. It’s not you doing a bad job. Friends tend to pick up each others’ mannerisms and speech to some extent, and this is wildly more apparent when they hang out together.

This was a very long and in-depth answer to writing dialogue, but really, don’t let it overwhelm you. The TLDR is more or less just give them different voices in your head, and listen to them, then write down what you hear. Read it out loud to make sure it sounds like them if you feel unsure about it. I personally get into character and try to really think as/become them a bit at least when writing, because I approach writing from a very acting-based standpoint becuase that’s just how I am wired, but even if that’s not how you vibe, just know them a little. Know once you’ve talked to someone for like, three minutes, you have some idea how they talk. The synonym they’d chose, if they’d agree, or disagree, or just give a judgy look, or stay quiet. Know them that well, and try to hear them in your head. Read everything you write for them in that voice, thinking that voice well you write, and it’ll do wonders.

Now, for research.

First up, research is FUN! It’s amazing. It’s so wild to learn things and dip into thousands of parts of human existence you had no idea about at all. Try to think of it as a plus, not a pain, because really, it should be. Now, to be fair, I lean heavy into research—I’ll do days of research to try to find something out if I have to, and I have. I’m learning some of how to write and conjugate an extremely dead language right now for a fanfic, I’ve done massive deep dives from everything to ancient cultures and religions, screen shotting films to zoom in on set detail to learn what artist or band a character is into, what they drink, what they own, to the appproximate timing from specific streets in New York I’ve never seen to each other by specific subway line, to a myriad of wounds and diseases, to mental illness, to historical events as insignificant as marsh draining in specific cities. But bro? It was fun. Sometimes it’s a lot, but the thrill of finding what you were looking for? It’s great.

Now, I’m not saying you need to be me if you don’t want to haha. But when it comes to researching whatever you want to research, here’s some tips: First up, if what you are researching has anything to do with a human experience? (Mental illness, physical illness or injury, sex, birthing, death, how it feels to shoot a gun, or fall from a great height, or have a PTSD episode, anything like that?) You really need to hear it from people, if at all possible. The good news? In this day and age? It super is, almost always! Even with death. You can find people describing death (body death, not complete brain death) experiences they went through, and it’s very cool. I definitely recommend discussion threads, like Reddit, and YouTube videos of people giving their personal accounts for this kind of thing. They’re amazing resources, and also usually surprisingly fast! This is especially important for stuff like neurodivergence, disorders, mental illness, drug experiences, or anything else that’s on a cognitive more than physical level, because if you look at just textbook explanations, they’re not only usually very incomplete, but sometimes even inaccurate. Listening to people can give the truth if it’s missing, and the majority of the time while that’s not the biggest issue—especially concerning like, wounds or freezing or a near drowning experience, etc—it gives it a completeness a medical account just can’t. Also, if you have got any personal experience to lean on? Go for it! I’ve never been electrocuted horribly really, but when researching for the torture sequence in Proven, I both looked up a ton of first-hand accounts and some science to better understand what was going on, and took my own experience of the electric shocks I have gotten as the first building block in making a mental picture of what it would feel like to go through that. Obviously, being shocked hard enough to be flung backwards from a cattle fence (my history) is a far cry from being subjected to parrilla torture, but having a small amount of basic knowledge of the kind of pain electricity causes was useful as a first block in translating the information I was reading into something I understood better.

For non human-experience based research, a lot of it is pretty easy to look up, even if you wouldn’t think so. For example, guessing at the time period for cars in Autohaven and searching different years + truck + brand names for American cars was actually a really short process for finding a match—same with the make of the metal gas cans, back when I was trying to determine when, exactly, Philip was from. Visual image searches are great when applicable, especially if you’re trying to figure out what something is, because chances are if you describe a plant you saw once as ‘Tall lake reed plant with hotdog bun looking top,’ someone else will have once used some of those words when searching for a cattail as well. Also, for non-human research, books and academic papers are great, but so are non-academic sources like videos and photos for locations or objects. Sometimes again though, human info will honestly be where it is at, like reading firsthand descriptions of specific places. For most things, just type what you’re looking for into a search engine honestly and start there. You can totally start on the Wikipedia page for a city or a Greek god or a type of bomb, and move on from there—people put references in wiki articles, and you can check the bottom of the page for the specific source too. You can go on from basic knowledge to add or subtract keywords and refine your search. It’s pretty simple once you get going. If you’re getting extraneous results because a film title shares the name of what you are looking for, or a song or whatever, try quotation marks for an exact match, or - and then quotation marks around what you see that you want gone from results. Pretty basic stuff. Tbh, a lot of the time, it’s all you’re gonna need. Want to write a Stranger Things fic, but you have no idea what movies or shows were popular in the US at the time and need to know what they’d be watching in a scene? Honestly, searching “1980s (or 1980whatever-more-specific year) popular shows” will probably get you what you need in like 4 minutes. Also, if you’ve got a parent who was alive at the time and lived in the place, or older friend (or younger, I don’t know you, maybe this one doesn’t apply to you because YOU were there, but you’d have to ask a teenager irl now what the kids are into for a 20teens story, haha), utilize that resource and just ask them. Discussion spaces again, a massively useful resource. You can find people talking about their shared experiences with almost anything, and hear it more or less first-hand.

If you’re trying to learn about culture or history, again, first-person accounts are where it’s at. If you can’t find any, go for the next best thing, which is descendants or historians with a personal connection/interest. If you really, really can’t find much of that (as sadly has been the case for some cultures or religions I’ve researched in past, considering the lack of documentation period and/or intentional culture erasure going on), then read what you do find on it with a grain of salt. Who wrote it, and when? What biases did they bring? Also, often an old document like that might be the only first source you can find, but taking whatever badly documented info they have and trying new searches with the specific language you learned from them can yield new and much better results. Just do your level best. ^u^ Really, that’s all anyone can do. Sometimes there will be things without much out there period, and you don’t have to like, put 97 hours of research in combing your local library for any thing you may have missed for the fic you’re on right now or something. Just do your best, do what you can, and care, and you’ll be okay. It can seem daunting, but doing your sincere best is what anyone who does know the answer—living or dead—would care about, and it’s an important thing /to/ do, and also a pretty informative and fun one. Also, I swear it’s not as intimidating as I might make it seem. Pretty much always you’ll be able to find some decent chunks of solid and very useful information eventually, on anything. And most things actually do not at all take that long to research. I’m a monster, who likes to down research more and more each morning like I’m building up a resistance to iocaine powder to someday win a battle of wits, but you really don’t have to be me, and if you want to be, chances are that means you also just really heckin love learning new facts, so you’re gonna love the wild deep insanity of creating It’s Always Sunny Meme level conspiracy walls trying to track down ancient evil trees in mythology to figure out what in the goddamn the Entity really IS and you’ll adore it all. If you’re not, trust me—that’s completely fine. Most research is gonna take between 20 minutes and a few hours, depending on the level of complexity, and once you learn it, you have all this cool new knowledge! Like that you can fake a death with tetrodotoxin so well someone with a high but not fatal does in them could die undergoing an autopsy! Or how much opium kills someone, how it actually feels to black out, how hard it actually is to chloroform someone, or that wolves have been known to hold funerals for loved ones, or how to stitch a wound. It’s like, amazing. Join me, and become that thing from Adventure Time going “I have approximate knowledge of many things” while rubbing its grimy hands together with glee.

Uhhh haha, I made this one more concise wildly, but the TLDR version is just ask people or read or watch what people who have undergone X thing say it is like (oh, and make sure to read more than one account—big one with accuracy). For non-human research, start with just a basic search. If you’re a student and have access to academic searches more easily, totally use that. If not, don’t worry. Lots of academic search compilation sites are still open to you, and honestly, you’re only going to need to turn academic for highly specific and wildly rare information period. Most of the time, hear it from people who know the answer. Discussion forums and YouTube journal-type videos are fantastic resources. For what living in rural Wisconsin in the early 1980s was like for Philip, I searched about living in the early 1980s in rurual Wisconsin, found specific names in an article for the kinds of cheap apartments common, adjusted my search, and found a ton of good resources by people documenting the struggles and mistreatment of life there at the time, and also found out Milwaukee is surprisingly one of the most dangerous and racist cities in America, then and now, on the way. For Kate experiencing being forced to drink bleach, I watched seven different people on YouTube talk about their experiences drinking bleach, and read up on the medical side to understand the science of what happens to you, plus a few text descriptions as well. But really, both of those were pretty fun and fascinating and quick research stints. Most are. I super recommend trying some deepish dives out, even just for fun and not with writing planned in mind at all!

Anyway, I hope this helps! I wrote it at one in the morning & didn’t proof because I feel very bad and need to pass out to try and heal, so sorry if there are any errors that make this hard to read. Thanks for asking! This was fun to answer. Please feel free to ask any follow-ups if there’s something I didn’t seem to cover, or you want to know more about either of these or something else. I’m certainly not the world’s leading expert or something, but I got some fun methods and tips I’ve developed over the years I’m happy to share with a fellow writer (or bored or curious person just interested in the process, haha). Again, I gave long answers because I wanted to be thorough, but I promise neither dialogue nor research is a difficulty level reflected in the length of those answers—that’s just me being me. Don’t let it intimidate you! They’re both fun and actually not so hard things to do. You just kind of need to learn your starting off points and get your sea legs, and the rest mostly comes naturally and easily and is very fun. It’s super satisfying to read a line and be like “Only you, my dumb child” seeing the stupid crap they say, or “You’ve come so far” watching how they’re choosing to reach out to someone now vs as the story’s start; or to have needed a way to have a character pry open a wedged car door and find just exactly the perfect tool you could even have a logical reason for them to easily find in the scene and be able to sit back down thinking YES!!! I got it!! —it’s a rush, and very, very satisfying. I’m sure you can do it!! And I wish you the best of luck. I sadly made this on mobile because I forgot tumblr sucks and won’t let me retroactively add read mores on mobile now and it’s too late for me to change that, and I’m so sorry this is so long 😭😭😭, but I’m tagging it “long post” so hopefully tag blocks can still save people :’-] — anyway! Hope this helps and best of luck. Night! 💙

[warriorsredux]

Do you still have the raw scraps, the scribbled notes, the heap of text documents, the outlines, the early drafts, the character/setting/narrative/whatever sketches you made when planning the Redux? If you do, can we have a look at them? I wanna see how Master Dullard does it.

Regrettably, all of that is on my old computer, and that bastard is not inclined to charge to let me get a hold of that stuff again. There are a couple sketches in an old sketchbook, but I have no idea which one (I have many old ones hurriedly shoved into a drawer so I can pretend they don’t exist). I faintly remember some things, and I’ll throw them here:

There were SO MANY documents trying to keep track of everyone’s personalities and roles in the story. Somehow I knew which ones were which. This is remarkable solely because I did not name a single document anything useful. 

Seriously, all the documents were random keysmashes, jokes, single words or lyrics, none of which had anything to do with their content. I always do this. I don’t know why. It’s not helpful. 

There were also documents dedicated solely to quotes and snippets of writing I wanted to eventually use in the story. Bluestar snapping at Darkstripe was written and rewritten several times because I wanted to get it just right, but it was in my head since the very first arc. Other ones were the first impressions of Scourge (noting his strange, jerky way of moving and unsettling stare among other things), several jokes and bits of banter between characters, and so on. I like to write down dialog when I have it in my head so I can perfect it over time. As a result, when the time comes to post it in the actual story, it’s as good as it can be. 

One bit of dialog that never got in that I did want to use was something along the lines of “We- we are bound by StarClan to-” “Damn all of StarClan”. This was meant to be with Fireheart and Bluestar, and was inspired by a near identical exchange in Vattu (which you all should read, by the way). I liked the idea of peppering in swears where effective, but I never really went down that road. Which I feel like I should have done? Oh well. Don’t matter now!

I had a sprite sheet of pixelated cats with the names of ThunderClan’s members. This was my initial way of trying to keep track of the bloodlines - the sprites would be connected to each other with lines. It was theoretically easier, but it just got overwhelming, so eventually I just used the sprites for my own reference of color. I did eventually get help with the familial ties, which... thank fucking God for that. Jesus. Those who helped me with genetics, colors and families, you are godsends. You know who you are.

One look through a random plot document would make it very clear that I have a very loose concept of “sticking to the script”. That is, I would write down how something happens, leave it, rewrite it because I forgot that version existed, combine the two or edit them haphazardly, then expand way over what I needed during the actual process of storytelling. For example, say a conversation was supposed to happen that would give plot relevant news, then we would move on to another event. I would end up writing that conversation with so many sidetracks and banter for the sake of it (casual banter is one of my favorite things within a narrative - it’s largely why I love ROTTMNT and Pulp Fiction so much) that the conversation would take over half of the chapter. This happened on so many occasions I cannot possibly list them all. You might as well count every single chapter I ever wrote for this fucking thing!

A lot of the worldbuilding given in response to asks was made up almost entirely on the spot. I had the answers in my head without my knowledge - they’d just come to me naturally when questioned, even though I hadn’t considered that part of the world - but that doesn’t detract from the fact that I was improvising quite a bit with a lot of the Redux. A lot. Most of it was improv. Is that apparent on a lookback?

That’s another thing - I didn’t write down a lot of the worldbuilding. Appearances, cultures, funerals, language stuff, a lot of it I developed it as I wrote the Amendment posts. I had vague ideas and notes in my sketchbook, but the specifics were made as I typed on the keyboard. That’s kind of how I roll with worldbuilding. It’s not a good idea. I’m amazed I didn’t contradict myself too hardcore in this universe.

That’s all I can think of for now. If you have specific questions, it might dredge up the memories and I can give a proper response, haha!

[cherry3point14]

Stranger Than Fanfiction: Ch 3

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Dean x Reader Warnings: Meta baby. Pure meta. Word count: 2,100. Chapter Summary: Your google search turns up something unexpected. A/N: No author in this one for... reasons. Also this one is kind of short and lame. A means to an end if you will, but trust me, Ch 4 is a doozy. P.S it’s nearly 3am so Chapter 4 will be up when I wake up, ya dig.

Ao3 if you prefer

It’s almost funny how dramatic the voice in your head wants to be about those suited criminals and yet it doesn’t care to elaborate on anything important. Like, say, your imminent death. The mention of it was so casual, calm, but a couple of weirdos want to pretend to be insurance adjusters and suddenly it’s all pretty prose and run-on sentences. Flowery language about broad-shouldered men in roaring muscle cars that are going to change your life. She’d kept going while you’d interviewed Maggie Hall. She’d harped on and on about how you couldn’t stop thinking about them.

Of course, you couldn’t stop thinking about them, she wouldn’t shut up about them.

After an entire monologue about the way the paper felt in your hands and could never be replaced by computers—purists are the worst—you finally get to leave. That's when you get some respite. You’re walking out into the late afternoon sun and thanking Maggie for her time and it's bliss. Maggie's story sounds a little off, after years doing this you have this gut instinct for when you should investigate further. Funnily enough, you have drama in your life that you’ll submit a valid claim anyway. Just so you can get this cursed case out of your hair. You might even hurry it through the system before the thing has the chance to kill you.

You’re still not sure how a case could kill you. You’re a pencil pusher at best and the interview with Maggie is an excellent example of the majority of your fieldwork, obviously excluding the criminals at the start. Unless your demise is death by papercut.

For now, you’ve given up trying to fathom out the voice you’re hearing, especially since she's chosen to once again go radio silent. If she won’t say anything useful, like say how not to die, then you were going to have to figure out how to skip ahead on your own. Since she kept talking about the imposters you’d met that day, they seemed to be an excellent place to start.

CNK 80Q3. Ohio plates. That's as much as you know without google.

That evening you set yourself up in the same way you would to work from home. There's a desk in the corner of your dining room with a chair that offers enough lumbar support for the longest of research sessions. Although it’s your personal laptop and there’s not normally a large glass of wine sitting next to you when work.

After it powers on you’re assaulted by the usual pop-ups; windows you forgot to close last time and your emails. Procrastinating is not a new routine, and you’re on a mission, so they all get minimized instead of closed completely. Then you open a new browser window and a stark google homepage stares back at you. A hopeful new beginning.

CNK 80Q3. You’re genuinely surprised that she hasn’t started talking again to describe the change in the air as you type in the plate number. Or some drivel about the way your fingers emphasize each letter and number. It’s all there happening anyway, making the moment foreboding, but your narrator doesn’t seem care.

The first row of results are images. Weirdly its images of the license plate itself. That doesn't strike you as odd at first glance and then you think about it a little more. Why are there so many pictures of this particular license plate? Who is running around taking these pictures? You're pretty sure if you typed in your own plate number there would be no pictures of it. And then you see some shopping results where you can actually buy the plate. While the online shops might explain the images, it only really poses more questions. Why are so many people buying that license plate? What’s so special about it?

You take a sip of your wine before you scroll further, savoring the taste as well as the way it relaxes your shoulders. You don't own any 'fun' novelty coasters that say it but you're inclined to agree with the statement you've heard before. Wine really does make everything better.

You’re not yet into the murky depths of page 2 but you’re far enough down the page now to make it past the sponsored results. These links come thick and fast from websites that all seem to have one word in common. Supernatural.

Then you see your salvation. A page called Supernaturalwiki—the link is simply titled: Impala—and you stop scrolling, a grateful sound slipping past your lips as you do. Wiki, you know that word. Like Wikipedia. Wikipedia has references and moderators', clear and concise explanations. This was the easy way out you were looking for.

That’s what you hope as you click on the link anyway. Your naivety lasts all of twenty seconds before the page loads. With its stock image of a 1967 Chevrolet Impala, and a quote about it being the most important object in the universe.

Or it's the most important object in some books at least.

Further clicking and longer sips of wine reveal it’s a series of books called Supernatural—with the title of the wiki you should have seen that coming. These were story after story of ghosts and demons and angels? There are pages that describe monsters, urban legends, and two men. Sam and Dean Winchester. They each have dedicated pages with their whole lives mapped out.

Sam and Dean are fictional brothers and apparently the heroes. Each of their respective profiles begins with an illustrated image from book covers, and then a series of quotes that contradict those pictures. Then their lives are intricately detailed, or should you say they are chronologically recorded according to each book. You would read their histories in full if it wasn't for how tiny the scroll bar is, indicating that these profile pages are ridiculously long.

You sit back in your chair and take a deep breath in the hopes of it being soothing. Or answering all your questions. It does neither. You have no answers and more stress.

This went beyond two men pretending to do your job now. Those guys were driving around in a car with fictional license plates. What was this? Some weirdly immersive cosplay? Was that something Sam and Dean did in the books?

Even so, those two guys weren’t roleplaying at comic con, they were actually in that woman's home. If you hadn't arrived they could have done anything. They could be doing anything now.

There's a ding from the kitchen which means the frozen meal you’d thrown in the oven is ready. Not that you stop thinking about this while you go and grab it because the more you think the less sense everything makes. Like why is a narrator who, until now, was obsessed with those guys, so very silent all of a sudden?

Back at your desk with hot food, you head back to google to see if you can buy these books anywhere because knowledge is power. Unfortunately, not even Amazon has copies. It’s only when you add the term “ebook” to your search do you find a Tumblr blog with links to download all the files, split into two categories. Published and unpublished. There are a lot of Supernatural books and from the looks of it there’s an equal amount of drama over how the unpublished ones got out.

You start downloading them without consciously making a decision to read them. Downloading kind of happens because your macaroni cheese is too hot for your mouth to handle yet, and your hands still need something to do. Besides you didn’t necessarily need to read all of them, if they were truly terrible you’d delete the files. No harm, no foul. But if this was the only way to get answers then you and your kindle were going to be pretty busy this weekend.

“Morning Laura.” Nobody likes Mondays, yet you have a little bounce in your step having made your usual green tea, got dressed, and driven to work in complete and utter silence. In fact, you’d heard nothing all weekend. The caveat was that, yes, you’d spent all weekend reading those books.

You liked reading and without discrimination. Trashy romance novels at the airport? You betcha. Fantasy books thicker than your mattress? Sure thing, order a pizza. But a mystery? Well, those were your favorite. Of course, the detective needed some sort of sketchy backstory and there had to be a fishy amount of red herrings. Most importantly there had to be something to solve. It was an elevation of your day to day life and you always get sucked in. In your job, you try to solve the most benign mysteries; people faking insurance claims. More often than not there isn’t even a mystery to solve, someone really did slip and break something. So, a mystery that grabs you out of nowhere is like a promotion for you, a challenge.

That had been how those Supernatural books had dragged you in. Ghosts and ghouls you could take or leave, you might have stopped reading if that’s all there was. Then this Carver Edlund went and put in that damn side plot about their missing father. It was too enticing, addicting. From the cryptic disappearance to the indecipherable journal of clues. John Winchester would be the death of you.

Or case 24-01 would be. The jury was still out on that.

And now it’s Monday. You’ve heard nothing more from the voice in your head—it may have been a low-level case of carbon monoxide poisoning—and the boys are so close to figuring everything out you can taste it. Technically they know John is alive by now, you finished Shadow some point yesterday afternoon and felt yourself choke up at the emotional goodbye with a father they just got back. But they still have no clue what he's up to, which is a hideous funhouse mirror reflection of your own life. Hopefully, by the time they figure out John’s game plan, you'll have your life figured out too. And fingers crossed figuring everything out will involve staying alive as well.

“You look like you’re feeling better this morning.” Laura is her perky self, always a little too happy for this side of 9am.

Oh right, you went home sick on Friday. You should remember things like that. “I think it was a bug or something I ate maybe.”

“Sure, sure. One of those convenient Friday bugs.” She winks at you.

If she accused you of that say, last week, you’d have laughed it off given that's a thing everyone has in common; trying to skip out on work. So, that's what you try to do this side of the weekend. You push out something that hopefully resembles a regular person's laugh like you’re in on the joke. You have to fake it because you’re still thinking about Providence. The book you’d finished that morning instead of watching the news. You’re still wondering if Sam is starting to move on after Jessica. 

Needless to say, you understand now. The many fan blogs and the artwork you’d glanced at before you started reading. All those things that you’d disregarded as an unhealthy fascination for a bunch of books. Now you’re one of them, obsessed. Walking into the office with your kindle tucked in your bag and Salvation just begging to be read.

This goes beyond finding John. That plot got its hooks in you but you’ve known John was alive since Home and you’re still reading. You could also blame this on your general love of reading except it goes beyond that too. Honestly, it’s hard to pick one thing. They’re really great books. Sam and Dean have such turbulent lives but they still have each other. They’re snarky, lost, angry, and caring. They’re both so different but the sibling relationship is so real. And the stories go beyond a new monster every book, there are these huge interesting story arcs that you couldn't stop reading if you tried. John Winchester had been the first example of these addictive plot points, but not the only one.

“Y/N?”

You snap your head up, “sorry, sorry.”

“I was only saying you’re going to be here all day then, lunch?”

Even though Laura must see the decision on your face she still pretends to hope until you start speaking. “Actually I have a lot to catch up on so I’ll probably be working through. Tomorrow?”

She smiles brightly and nods, “sure thing.”

As bad as you feel about lying to Laura she has presented you an opportunity. Everyone thinks you were sick on Friday. They even think you're behind on your work and they don’t know you’ve already conducted the initial interview. Which makes your decision to sit at your desk and prop your kindle up next to your screen even easier. Nobody would notice the difference between you concentrating or reading. If you skip lunch you might be able to get to Bloodlust out of the way too.

Continue to Chapter 4.

5eva tags: @divadinag @darthdeziewok @fluentinfiction @witch-of-letters @supernatural-teamfreewillpage @magnitude101999 @alexwinchester23  Dean babes: @thewinchesterchronicles @akshi8278​ @bloodydaydreamer StrangerThanFiction tags: @jaylarkson