#I’m sure whoever runs it is awesome but some of those secrets are just

[fatale-distraction]

I keep seeing dirty BG3 secrets that talk about “pussy conversion therapy” and Barcus or the most recent one about “riding Barcus until he swears off cock” and not to start Discourse™️ but I just want to be clear:

You can be assured that you will NEVER see that on my blog.

It’s not cool, it’s not funny, it’s super gross, and if it crosses my dash, I will be utilizing my block button.

You can interact with this post, but be civil or you’re blocked. I’m too old for flame wars.

[fairycomplex-m]

suicide notes of beautiful girls, rp meme. feel free to change pronouns or anything else to suit your needs <3

“  i’d  forgotten  what  it  would  be  like  to  be  that  alone.  ”

“  oh  my  god.  is  it  possible,  medically,  that  i’m  still  hungover  from  tuesday?  that  was  an  entire  two  days  ago!  ”

“  i  wouldn’t  have  thought  you’d  be  dating  someone  so  …  normal.  ”

“  i  hope  he’s  at  least  secretly  into  something  freaky.  ”

“  my  eyes  are  not  ready  for  winking  yet.  ”

“  oh  my  god,  that  is  so  sad!  ”

“  she  always  seemed  sort  of  off  the  rails,  like  one  of  those  famous  people  who  do  insane  things.  except  not  actually  famous.  well,  maybe  famous  in  her  own  head.  ”

“  stop  talking  about  her  like  that,  just  fucking  stop  it.  ”

“  parents.  fuck  em’.  ”

“  only  boring  people  have  perfect  lives.  ”

“  we’re  not  going  anywhere,  we’re  just  running!  ”

“  shit,  ___.  why  didn’t  you  tell  me  your  love-ah  was  loa-ded?  ”

“  i  really,  i  mean,  i  really,  really  like  these  bunnies.  ”

“  his  friends  have  an  extraordinarily  low  bar  for  what  weird  is.  ”

“  guys  at  ____  are  generally  hotter.  ”

“  well,  you’ll  just  make  out  with  one  of  the  ___  boys  then.  ”

“  i  can’t  remember  any  of  their  names.  it  doesn’t  really  matter.  ”

“  i’m  her  imaginary  friend.  ”

“  we  have  to  go  now.  sorry,  ___,  my  mom  just  realized  we  weren’t  at  home.  she’s  totally  going  to  kill  me.  ”

“  parents,  man.  ”

“  it  makes  me  look  diseased,  please  save  me.  ”

“  fuck  off,  i  was  a  boy  scout,  i  have  skills.  ”

“  who  were  they  to  her?  how  well  did  they  know  her?  how  much  do  they  care?  ”

“  i’m  ___,  a  friend.  ”

“  i  hate  him,  whoever  he  is.  ”

“  i  already  went  to  the  police,  they  wouldn’t  listen.  they  pretended  to  humor  me,  then  gave  me  some  pamphlets  on  grief  and  sent  me  on  my  way.  ”

“  we  have  to  figure  this  one  out  ourselves.  ”

“  this  is  how  they’re  saying  she  did  it,  by  burning  herself  to  death  right  here.  ”

“  if  i  have  a  nightmare  while  you’re  here,  you  must  promise,  promise  you  will  come  and  wake  me  up.  ”

“  there’s  no  way  she  did  this.  ”

“  i  did  something  a  few  weeks  ago  that  i’m  not  very  proud  of.  ”

“  imagine  floating  off  into  that.  if  i  ever  get  the  chance  to  go  to  space,  i’m  definitely  going.  i’m  serious,  i’d  do  it  in  a  second.  everything  down  here  is  meaningless  but  nothing  bad  has  happened  out  there  yet.  it’s  all  brand  new.  and  if  i  go,  you're  coming  with  me.  ”

“  you’re  the  sweetest  little  honey  pie,  until  someone  tells  you  that  you  can’t  do  something.  ”

“  ah,  i’m  only  messing  with  you,  dolly.  it’s  the  suit,  right?  makes  me  look  like  i  make  the  rules.  have  a  big  ol’  blast!  ”

“  and  how  may  i  help  you,  pretty  girl?  ”

“  i’m  looking  for  something  …  fun.  ”

“  i’m  here  because  i  heard  there  was  a  party.  ”

“  i’m  here  because  i  want  to  know  if  you  killed  my  friend.  ”

“  i’m  not  threatening  you,  i’m  just  stating  some  facts.  ”

“  having  secrets  make  you  real  friends,  secrets  tie  you  together.  ”

“  crazy  how  we  have  such  messed-up  families,  and  yet  somehow  we  both  turned  out  so  awesome,  right?  ”

“  i  need  two  glasses  of  water  in  case  i  dream  about  a  fire.  ”

“  friends  aren’t  ‘  just  ’,  dating  is  just.  friends  are  the  very  highest  thing.  ”

“  no  shit?  but  you  two  were  always  …  all  over  each  other.  ”

“  i  don’t  …  i  just  …  this  should  not  have  happened  like  this.  ”

“  ____,  i  was  looking  for  you.  you’re  trashed.  ”

“  you’ve  done  a  lot  of  kissing.  ”

“  i’m  not  your  mother,  ___,  and  you’re  not  mine.  ”

“  say  cheeeese.  ”

“  not  so  fast,  fucko.  ”

“  what  are  you  smiling  about,  smiler?  ”

“  i  didn’t  even  know  i  was  smiling!  ”

“  you  don’t  ever  get  hugged  at  home,  and  when  i  get  hugged  it’s  creepy.  but  there’s  a  chemical  that  has  a  name  i  can’t  remember,  and  it  explains  why  hugging  is  so  good  with  someone  you  love.  ”

“  hey,  i  know  a  better  game  we  could  play.  ”

“  and  then  you  take  a  shot!  you  there!  sir!  take!  a!  shot!  ”

“  i  have  no  idea  where  i’m  going,  but  i  know  i  need  to  get  away  from  here.  ”

“  i  was  trying  to  protect  her,  or  whatever,  which  is  stupid.  ”

“  she  wouldn’t  have  …    she  was  …  she  was  scared  of  fire.  ”

“  she  was  going  to  do  what  she  was  going  to  do,  ____  always  did.  ”

“  come  over,  come  over,  come  over,  you’re  the  only  one  who  loves  me  enough  to  saaaave  meeee.  ”

“  what  the  actual  fuck?  ”

“  just  open  up  the  back  of  your  throat,  anything  will  slide  right  down.  no  gagging,  once  you  really  learn  how  to  do  it.  ”

“  sorry  i  had  to  beat  up  your  boyfriend.  ”

“  i  don’t  know,  i’m  trying  to  think  about  what  the  reasons  would  be  if  this  was  a  movie  or  whatever.  ”

“  it  hurts  a  lot,  i  thought  it  would’ve  stopped  by  now,  but  it  hasn’t,  and  i  don’t  know  what  to  do.  ”

“  you  really  need  to  see  a  doctor  about  this,  when  did  this  happen?  it’s  much  too  severe  to  treat  on  your  own.  ”

“  ____  died  in  a  fire.  and  ____  has  a  burned  hand.    ”

“  you’re  always  jumping  to  the  wrong  conclusions.  ”

“  so  you  can  clearly  see  no  one  has  killed  me,  you  can  go  back  to  your  life.  ”

“  do  you  need  to  be  rescued?  ”

“  seriously,  go  home,  ___,  forget  about  me.  ”

“  once  you  get  involved,  once  you  know  what  happened,  you  won’t  be  able  to  un-know  it,  and  you  won’t  be  able  to  go  back.  ”

“  hey,  lady.  ”

“  lighting  that  match  felt  good.  ”

“  i  can’t  be  the  kid,  because  i’m  the  damn  adult  here.  ”

“  please,  fucking  god,  come  with  us,  come  with  me.  after  all  this.  please.  ”

“  you’re  really  good  at  crying.  ”

“  and  yet  you  fucked  him.  ”

“  i  bit  until  i  tasted  fucking  blood.  ”

“  where  was  your  mom?  ”

“  you  love  omelettes.  ”

“  i  mean,  she’s  my  mother.  she’s  supposed  to  believe  me,  right?  ”

“  ___,  why  would  you  liiiie  like  that?  ”

“  oh  my  god,  i  am  so,  i  am  …  i  wish  …  ”

“  i  thought  about  calling  you.  that  was  the  very  first  thing  i  thought  to  do,  but  then  i  wasn’t  sure  if  …  ”

“  where’s  the  evidence?  and  who  do  you  think  they’d  believe?  ”

“  my  friends  were  …  you  saw  the  kind  of  people  they  are.  they  thought  i  was  fun  to  party  with.  they  liked  how  i  could  drink  and  i  was  fun  and  crazy.  they  didn’t  care  about  me.  you’re  the  only  one  who  ever  really  did.  ”

“  sometimes  i  even  surprise  myself.  ”

[sapphire374]

Soy Sol: Chapter 12 (I'll Be There Through Every Step)

Wattpad Link

Ch.1 / Ch.2 / Ch.3 / Ch.4 / Ch.5 / Ch.6 / Ch.7 / Ch.8 / Ch.9 / Ch.10 / Ch.11 / Ch.13 / Ch.14 / Ch.15 / Ch.16 / Ch.17

Ámbar runs into her apartment with tears falling on her face. She tries to escape into her bedroom, but Simón catches her before she’s able to. “Ámbar, what happened? Why are you crying?” Simón guides her to the couch and she cries on his shoulder in the comfort of his arms. Tears smearing the mascara all over her face. “Remember when I told you I had a meeting with some students from Law school. Well, the truth is I wasn’t going to meet for any school project, I went to go talk to my biological mom,” Ámbar tells Simón. “Look I didn’t mean to lie; I just didn’t feel like hearing anyone tell me how bad of an idea it was. I felt like I owed that moment to myself, to discover more who I am before I married you.”

“Ámbar I would’ve never stopped you and you know I always support you on every decision and step you make. Us getting married means that we have to trust each other. You have to trust me that I’ll always be here for you no matter what. I know it’s tough, to try to discover more who you are. That happened when Luna was trying to discover from who and where she came from.” Ámbar nods and wipes away her tears from the tissue Simón gave her. “It didn’t even matter anyways since part of me doesn’t believe her but then the other part of me wants to. It made sense everything she said but still hurts, a lot,” Simón holds her tight as she tells him everything Sylvania told her.

“Originally I was considering on meeting Sharon as well to have some questions answered but I don’t want to end up feeling hurt again and in tears like today. Maybe I should just leave everything in the past… I don’t know,” Ámbar says. “I know this can be very hard for you but if that’s what you want, I think it’s a good idea, to speak to Sharon even just a little if you’re ready. Maybe it can tie some loose ends, and you can finally have some of those questions answered. That’s the least you deserve.” Ámbar stares to her lap and thinks about it for a second. Simón gently holds her hand and lets her know, “I will always be here, whether you decide to go talk to Sharon or not. I’ll be here every step of the way.” Ámbar holds out her arms and gives Simón a tight hug. She kisses him on the cheek and lays her gentle face on his shoulders again.

Jam and Roller

It’s the next morning and the whole gang is huddled around Delfi as she prepares their skating video. The nerves crowd the air as she finishes the project on her computer. “Done! It’s ready you guys,” she exclaims. Some are anxiously sipping their shakes while others are tightly holding on to their companions. Pedro stares in awe and shows how proud he is of his soulmate and the whole gang. “You guys this is just the first step into making this dream, the Jam and Roller, stay alive and come true. You all should be proud because we have finally came together, worked hard and did an awesome skating routine. We got this,” Luna announces. “On ready, one, two, three… Jam and Roller!!” the gang all chant.

Delfi presses the button on her computer and it’s official, the video has been sent to the competition’s organization. After sharing a group hug with Juliana, they resume to their posts. “Since today is a special day in which we sent the video, I’m willing to give you guys this day off. Enjoy it, you all truly deserve it after how hard you guys have been working,” Juliana lets the team know at the rink. Gastón heads over to where Matteo is at and says, “hmm well someone seems to be saved by the bell.”

“You’re right, speaking of which I’m so excited to finally sing that song, I’ve been working on for Luna. I spent all night practicing it hoping she forgives me, and everything can get back to normal. I hope this plan works,” Matteo chuckles. “Don’t worry amigo, everything will be fine and lately I’ve been seeing her in a much happier mood. I think she even probably forgot about the arguments and such,” Gastón suggests. “Yeah, I hope so.”

Luna rolls by Matteo and he doesn’t help but stare at her. “So, are you going to talk to her, or should I have to do it for you?” Gastón jokes around. Matteo takes his advice and heads to Luna where she is taking off her skates. “Hey Chica Delivery, are you getting ready for the concert I’m having today,” Matteo asks. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Luna giggles. “Glad you said that cause I may or may not have a surprise all planned out,” Matteo comments. Luna gasps and couldn’t help her excitement cloud the air. “Chico Fresa, I didn’t know you were the mysterious type?” Luna and Matteo begin to laugh in synchronicity. “Well, I guess there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me then.” Matteo’s phone begins to buzz. He picks it up and answers the phone call.

Once he has hung up, he lets Luna know he has to leave. “I’m sorry but I have to go now to start preparing for the concert. I would love to continue this conversation, but the surprise won’t reveal itself on its own hmm,” Matteo teases. Nina rushes to Luna after seeing him slip away. “Luna, what was all that giggling?” Nina whispers. “A special moment that truly felt like it hasn’t happened in ages,” Luna responds.

Jazmín and Delfi both sit together on the couch as they discuss their plans on how they’ll find out who the secret admirer is. “So, I was thinking we can look at all the comments of your recent video and maybe find some clues as to who the secret admirer is. I feel like they probably must have known you from your videos I’m assuming,” Delfi states. “Of course, they know me from my videos, I am the most popular on the web. Who honestly wouldn’t want to date me?” Jazmín insists.

A delivery man holding a large bouquet of flowers enters the Jam and Roller and hands them to Jazmín. Delfi stares in shock. Jazmín pulls out the card and reads “Mi amor, I chose these flowers because they represent the beautiful tones of your eyes and bring out your inner sparkle. I hope these make you feel the happiness I feel just seeing you.” Jazmín holds the card close to her chest and doesn’t help but cheer. “Oh my Jazmin, this person is head over heels in love with you,” Delfi says. “I know! Whoever this is, he already sounds so charming.” Delfi is beyond excited for Jazmín but can’t help but feel a little worried for her friend since they still don’t know who this person is. Why are they sending them anonymously? She finds this a little fishy.

Sharon’s Apartment

Ámbar knocks on the door, she shakily turns the knob when she hears the door unlock from the other side. “Come in,” Sharon states while her personal caretaker guides Ámbar to the dining room as Simón follows her in. “Don’t be shy and take a seat.” Ámbar and Simón pull two chairs and sit down in response to Sharon. She slowly takes a sip from her tea as the room fills with silence. Ámbar is beginning to have flashbacks of all the lonely nights she would have being with Sharon.

“It is a pleasure getting to see you again Ámbar, you hadn’t visited in 7 months. I was beginning to worry that maybe you have forgotten about me,” Sharon admitted. “No, it wasn’t like that, I have been just so busy with law school and managing the Jam and Roller. That’s all,” Ámbar replies. “You’ve always been busy, that’s never changed. I suppose that you’re here but not only to just meet me or stop by to say hello because you would’ve done that before. I can sense you’re here for something,” Sharon remarked. Ámbar turns her eyes towards Simón as a sign for help. “Ms. Benson, I don’t mean to intrude but Ámbar has decided to come here to ask about her past,” Simón answers. “I was wondering what made you decide to adopt me?” Ámbar asks.

Sharon takes a deep breath. “In the past, I had always wanted a kid, but it never seemed like the right time. When I heard Sylvania was planning to give her child up for adoption but didn’t know who would be fitting to be the parent of her baby, that’s when I saw it as a sign of fate. It was meant for me to be your mom,” Sharon takes another sip of her tea. “I’m a little surprised since you never seemed like the ‘loving children’ type. No offense or disrespect,” Ámbar comments. “You know I was a lot different before the fire, after that everything felt a lot stressful with life in general.” Sharon reaches out to hold Ámbar’s hand and feels the ring on Ámbar’s finger.

“You’re engaged?” Sharon questions. “Yes,” Ámbar responds. “And you never told me?!” Sharon shows her dismay and stays silent. “Well, it was pretty recent, I was planning to tell you I was just not sure when or how. It’s complicated and you know that plus you never liked Simon anyways,” Ámbar said. “I know we’ve never had such a close relationship but just know I’ll forever regret not being that loving caring parent you deserved to have. I know it’s too late, but I still care about you and love you.” Sharon begins to cry and tries to wipe her tears with her fingers. “I know madrina, I know, and I love you too mom.” Ámbar heads out with Simón since she thinks it’s for the best.

Benson Valente Mansion

Monica is seen gathering some tulle and fabric in the living room. She hears the door unlock and it’s Ámbar and Simón. “Oh, hello guys! I’ve already begun preparing some of the table arrangements for the wedding reception,” Monica states gleefully. Ámbar looks a little flushed and just nods trying to avoid crying. “Mija, what’s the matter? Is everything okay?” Monica seems concerned for Ámbar. When she notices Ámbar doesn’t say anything, she does what she knows best, she hugs her. Ámbar hugs her back.

“Well, I think I should leave you two in private,” Simón whispers to Monica. Simón leaves to the kitchen when they head to the couch as Monica gives Ambar the tissue box. “Have you ever felt empty inside? Feeling as if everyone you knew as a child and grew up lied to you. That your own story held in the hands of someone else. I feel like….. me trying to uncover the pieces are as if their edges are shattered and there’s no way on putting the puzzle together. Nevermind, this all might sound very silly to you,” Ámbar sniffed. Monica thinks for a little bit. “It’s not silly at all Ámbar, it’s normal to feel this way not being able to know your own story of how your life began. But just know it doesn’t make you who you are entirely. For example, when I look at you, I don’t see the girl who was manipulated by her madrina. I see a strong-minded, hardworking, caring young girl beside me who does an excellent job managing the Jam and Roller while attending Law school. Not anyone can pull off all those moves at once, and you do it so effortlessly. You may not know the full story and only some parts of it, but you are not your mother’s mistakes. In fact, I’m proud of you. After everything you went through, you still managed to seek the right path in life, and it worked. You gave it a second chance, you had what’s so important to have, and that is hope. So, when you walk down the aisle wondering ‘who am I,’ you’re Ámbar Smith, the one who overcame it all.”

Ámbar turns to Monica sobbing, but this time with a huge smile on her face, even showing her teeth. “How do you do it?” Ámbar asks. Monica looks at Ámbar with a confused expression. “How do you know exactly what to say at the right time?” Monica smiles back giggling alongside Ámbar. They stay wrapped in each other’s arms on the couch. Ámbar starts glancing at all the beautifully tied table arrangements for her wedding, how you can tell the amount of effort that was put in each one of them. That’s when it hits her.

When they break away from each other’s arms, Ámbar faces Monica. “Can you be the one to walk me down the aisle? You have always been there for me whenever I needed you these past couple of years and…. I don’t know how to say this, but you have showed me how it feels like having a mom. Why wouldn’t I want my mom there?” Ámbar starts tearing up again. “It would be an honor to attend it, and it truly warms my heart hearing you say that. Ever since our family reunited with you and Alfredo, it’s felt much bigger and cozier. I’ve got two daughters, Luna and you. I wouldn’t miss your dress fitting or wedding for the world.” They begin to hug again. Near one of the walls close to the living room, there’s Simón who couldn’t help but smile while spying on them. It makes him feel ecstatic knowing that Ámbar does feel like she has a family now and is not alone, not ever again.

Matteo’s Concert

All of Matteo’s fans begin to huddle up near the pit of the stage. Everyone is beyond excited to hear his collaboration with Viviana on stage for the very first time. Luna enters with Nina. Nina stays holding Luna’s arm, trying not to get dragged away by the crowd of people nearby. “So Luna, how have you been feeling about the whole thing?” Luna turns towards Nina and says, “A little conflicted not going to lie, but I’m here to support Matteo. I’m still a little bit upset at what he did calling me jealous and standing me up on our date, but I think I’ve put it past us. Today is a special day for him and I shall be here for that.” Nina nods in response.

Gastón rushes over to Matteo backstage. “Everything okay amigo?” Matteo picks up his guitar and nervously answers, “Yes. Once Viviana and I stop singing, you turn off the lights and have only the spotlight facing me. Just like old times when I had sang to her Alla Voy. I will sing this song I wrote for her, and it shall feel like we’re the only ones in the room. This night shall be perfect for her.” Gastón approaches him and smiles while patting him on the back. “Don’t worry you got this!”

The crowd starts chanting when the lights turn on as Viviana and Matteo approach the stage. They begin singing into their mics, Viviana doesn’t stop staring at him while Matteo’s eyes are fixated on Luna. He is in awe of how beautiful she looks tonight, even though he feels like Luna looks beautiful all the time.

Luna starts dancing along to the song with Nina, they don’t stop giggling and having a great time. Viviana starts noticing who Matteo can’t keep his eyes off of. She grows green with envy. She never liked Luna and was always hoping he would break up with her. She tries to get really close to him, even at times trying to have a sharing mic moment. Viviana throughout the song doesn’t stop making eye contact with Matteo and keeping him close. When she sees that this doesn’t Luna, or him she reacts quickly. Once the song ends, Viviana standing next to Matteo grabs his neck towards her and kisses him. She has her hand caress his cheek. The fans are screaming with excitement.

As for Luna, she’s speechless. It feels like the world has stopped and she has lost track of her surroundings. When Matteo pushes Viviana off him, he turns and sees Luna running out of the venue crying.

[alynawatchestv]

Alyna watches Xena - 01x02 Chariots of War

Reblogs and comments will make me very happy. :)

 OK, so the story starts with Xena and Gabrielle walking into some tavern. Apparently, it has everything Cyrene’s tavern was lacking which is wine and beautiful women to sleep with, but because Xena is with Gabrielle she only lets herself to drink wine.

Gabrielle is telling Xena a story how Zeus turned two lovers into oak trees while Xena is drinking wine and checking out women.

*old habits die hard*

Gabrielle asks Xena if she knows what happened next and Xena responds in a typical Xena-like fashion “Somebody built the boat out of them?”. This is gold and a reason while I love Xena so much. Unlike spiritual, daydreaming Gabrielle she is more pragmatic and down to earth, just like me.

So Xena slightly irritated asks what the point of the story is and Gabrielle says she believes everyone will find their tree in the forest meaning Gabrielle is unintentionally hitting something our hero doesn’t notice or is really trying not to notice (I mean, “let me be your tree” is a new way of saying wanna go out with me?” I guess). But Xena being a typical drama queen says the strongest trees in the forest are to ones that stand alone. And Gabrielle is trying really hard not to facepalm by saying that Xena doesn’t always have to be strong and can afford to be soft.

Xena is trying to get out of the tavern ASAP and tells Gabrielle she’s gonna check if they can cross some river so they don’t have to lose two days on… Something. And I’m pretty sure it’s not about losing two days. It’s Xena not wanting to talk about her feelings so Gabrielle won’t find out what a big softie she is. After all, a girl doesn’t reveal all of her secrets all at once.

Our Warrior Princess decides they need to find a place for Gabrielle to stay in and when Gabrielle is asking why some drunk dude puts his dirty hands on Gabby’s arms begging to tell him a story. So our little sidekick is all like “Fuuuck. Nuh uh. New place! Now!”

But apparently, Xena couldn’t find a place for Gabrielle to stay in because she leaves her in the middle of the road and rides off on her trusty stallion. I mean… At least you could find some barn or something, Xena. Gods.

Meanwhile, we jump to some village where we can see how child labor looked in ancient Greece. Kids are working hard and one of the boys hits himself with a hammer (not with Draco’s father’s blacksmith’s hammer, mind you). So their father, I presume, teaches the boy how to hold the tool without hurting himself as the build a barn or something like that.

I’m not sure if little kids working in unsafe conditions is ok, but it’s normal, I guess. The kids are afraid they would have to go back to Troy but their dad tells them they won’t, which could be a good decision as we all know what happened to Troy.

The father leaves his sons to keep working while he takes his daughter with him to do something else. When he’s occupied with picking up the most beautiful stick his daughter notices some raiders coming towards them. Being a child of few words she just gives signal to her dad. But when he turns there’s nothing there. The raiders are on the low ground and can’t be seen. But the second time everyone notice them and panic starts.

There is a group of warlords looking like Conan movie rejects closing in on the peasants. The Boss Warlord, with really beautiful eyes, I gotta adit, is riding a chariot and seeing this ”good looking”... I mean, I honestly don’t get it. There’s nothing there but fields and some half-build barn or something like that and a bunch of people doing… There are no houses even. It’s confusing really.

So the Boss Warlord orders the attack and Conan movie warlord rejects run towards the peasants doing “arrrgh, rrra” and other scary and weird noises. The father tell everyone to take cover. So what those peasants do? They fucking start running in all directions. Like look at that! Chickens! Seriously, chickens running everywhere.

*Don’t run towards danger, people! Run away from it, gods damn it!*

The warlords chase after people, make funny noises and even try to destroy the barn or whatever this thing is supposed to be.  But thankfully, Xena is on her horse and seeing what is happening she rushes into the action with her battle cry! The Boss Warlord is watching intrigued while Xena kicks another two guys and then another and then jumps on one end of a table (there are no houses, but there’s a table. Priorities.) and hits the attacker with another and he falls on his end so Xena can flip from her end and... Well, it looks pretty awesome.

So another warlord is still trying to bring down the unfinished building which is weird it takes him so much time, because I’m sure whoever built this… ’building’ needs “Carpentry for Idiots” book. Gods, even me, with minimum knowledge of woodwork can see this building has no right to stand as long as it is. Go back to baking bread and pitch hay peasants!

Xena rushes to save the kid who’s hiding there… In the most visible place… Seriously, these people. So Xena rushes to save the kid and grabs him just in time before the building falls down. The father runs to Xena and thanks her, but the Boss Warlord is giving the order to fire arrows. Xena turns her head, arrows are flying and she catches two! That’s how badass she is! This scene is gold, I tell you.

But! A third arrow was shot and this one wounds our heroine… ok, this sounds really stupid… Our warrior princess! Xena falls down from the horse unconscious.

*And scene. In the times of ancient gods… Blah, blah, blah.*

So the father takes Xena to his house to help her. And here’s my question. Where did the evil warlords go? Did they vanish? Did they decided this joke of a place wasn’t worth of their time? They decided to wait till Xena gets better? Where are they and why didn’t they kill everyone?!

So the father takes Xena to his house to help her. And here’s my question. Where did the evil warlords go? Did they vanish? Did they decided this joke of a place wasn’t worth of their time? They decided to wait till Xena gets better? Where are they and why didn’t they kill everyone?!

So the father puts Xena on bed to take out the arrow, but seeing the wound he slightly panics, but Xena being badass says she’s done it a few times. She tells the father what to do and when he leaves the room his kids show up to look at the guest. And it’s understandable, kids are kids, curiosity is natural. But when the father comes back and tells them to GTFO the oldest son turns out to be a fucking savage!

Father: Everyone. Out.

Savage Son: Do we have to?

Father: Yes.

Savage Son: We always miss everything good.

He’s awesome.

Xena asks if he knows who the warlords was and it turns out they were the men of Sycnus… The men of Sycnes… The men of Sickness… Crap, just a sec, gotta check IMDB. They’re the men of Cycnus.

So the father says Cycnus wants to claim right to the lands while taking Xena’s armor. She instantly checks if her boobs look good in the light, while stating it’s something more than that. When it turns out the arrow didn’t go through the body she makes the father push it.

Xena tells him what to do step by step. He’s a little bit panicked but being a big boy, fortunately he doesn’t faint but Xena does.

Meanwhile we can see Cycnus’ camp and the Boss Warlord is fighting some random dude just like Xena and Draco where fighting in episode 1. But it’s not really that awesome and enthralling to be honest. But the Boss Warlord wins and his father, who’s Cycnus decides to spar with him. The Boss Warlord tells Cycnus he’s ready to take his place, but Cycnus says the Boss Warlord is missing a desire to kill unlike his brother, Stentor killed in Korinth. And frankly, how can you be a warlord without burning villages, enslaving people, killing people, conquering people and all that?

But the Boss Warlord say he killed a warrior woman but doesn’t know the name and the father laughs at him saying killing a woman is not gonna impress Ares. Bitch, if you only knew.

He makes fun of his son telling him Ares won’t even pay attention to him and that he can’t conquer a valley with simple peasants who just wanna live peacefully. And frankly, he’s right. I mean, these are warriors vs peasants. How hard can it be? This dude thinks he killed a warrior and then what? Let go and backed out? This part is really messed up and it’s just a lazy writing.

Oh, and we learned the dead brother’s name, but not the Boss Warlord’s.

We’re back to the house and Xena is sleeping. The two boys come in to check out on her and are wondering if she’s gonna die. The older one being savage himself says if Xena dies he’s taking the horse. He’s super compassionate. Xena wakes up tells the boys one arrow is not enough to kill her and… goes back to sleep I guess. Awesome scene. Really there for a reason.

Meanwhile, Gabrielle is back in the tavern. I think it’s because it got dark and the road isn’t a good place to spend the night. So she’s hopelessly looking at the tavern entrance hoping Xena will walk in so she could jump in her arms and kiss her and… Oh wait, we’re not there yet.

Gabrielle talks to the barkeep just to feel a little bit less nervous and the barkeep says she’s either ordering or GTFO so she takes some water and the barkeep is kinda pissed off, because apparently, the water is free but she’s a client and he can’t kick her out.

And when Gabrielle is there, all alone, scared, wondering if Xena’s ok, if she’s coming back, our warrior princess is chilling out in bed, telling kids a story about a giant and how she jammed her fist in… OK, let’s not dwell on that. And the dad doesn’t want Xena to go graphic too so she says she used a feather and the Savage Kid is all like “what? You used a feather?” and Xena is like “Oh no, I used the whole goose because giants have big feet”.

*Fear me giants for I am your doom!*

The kids laugh, the dad laughs, everything is peaceful and then the little kid asks if Xena travels with her family, but she responds she has no family.

WHAT? Who the fuck wrote this script? One already stupid thing is the Boss Warlord wounding Xena and deciding to bail, because why kill everyone and take the land to yourself? And now Xena, who reconciled with her mom, says she has no family? Instead of saying she has a family and a friend traveling with her whom she left in some village and needs to get back as soon as possible, Xena says she has no family and chills like nothing happens?

*fuck you lazy writers*

Oh, one more thing, we’re almost 14 minutes into the episode and the dad still hasn’t told Xena his name! I hate this episode.

But Xena tells the kids about how hard life on the road is, she smiles at the dad, he smiles at her and we’re supposedly are to believe there is a chance there’ll be something between them. Xena changes the subject, because she, as the viewers, knows how stupid that is. She asks the girl what her name was and she learns she doesn’t talk since their mom died (I’ll bet you, she’ll be talking by the end of this episode).

Suddenly, there’s a knocking on the door and a neighbor comes in asking when will Xena GTFO and… it’s 14:04 minutes and we finally learn the Dad’s name! It’s Darius! Oh, praise Hestia for this reveal! Again, fuck you writers.

Darius tells the neighbor he ain’t gonna tell a wounded person to GTFO, but the neighbor says he gets Darius has been without a woman for a long time, but maybe this isn’t the best way to get another. Because he respects women and doesn’t want Darius to take advantage of a wounded person.

So they talk about Xena for a while and Darius promises that wen Xena gets better, she’ll GTFO. But Xena makes the decision for him and is found in a barn preparing Argo saying she needs to get her friend she left in some other village. So Darius, being a clingy dude says Xena’s friend will take care of herself for a few days. I mean, sure, I guess he knows better. Because apparently he knows Gabrielle. Burn in Tartarus, Darius… And you too writers for giving the characters such stupid lines.

I do get he wants Xena to rest and get really better, but this is another moment of bad writing, imo, and I’m waiting for the Boss Warlord and some fights, because I, frankly, can’t stand Darius and his clinginess. So he’s pining over Xena when, out of fucking nowhere, a whole bunch of warlords show up, burn the food silo… And leave. There are five people in this team. Five warlords against a wounded warrior and a farmer. And they burn a silo? Come on, this is another example of lazy writing you guys!

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a terrible episode, but it’s bad. Like Draco was straight up ruthless. He came to Amphipolis, said he’s gonna kill everyone and had he won, we know he’d have stuck to his promise (I’m pretty sure I messed up this conditional pretty bad). But Cycnus and his warlords are just a bunch of amateurs.  They’re doing this in the name of Ares? Ares stopped paying attention, because I’m sure burning silos made him question if he should still be a god of war having such believers.

So the warlords leave, Darius is trying to put down the flames and Xena is like “fuck it, it’s gonna burn anyway. Let’s look at the dark, empty road instead.”

The next morning Gabrielle, who apparently did sleep in some barn or under a tree, walks into the tavern and orders water… Damn, this girl is cheap. Moment later some pirate is hitting on her and she puts him down using lots of words the pirate doesn’t understand. But the pirate is stupid enough not to get when a girl says no, and when Gabrielle says she’s looking for a friend he says he could be her friend smiling disgustingly. And the dude is dumber than a sack of potatoes, because when Gabrielle tells him Xena is her friend he offers to be friend to both. So when this doesn’t work Gabrielle uses fake boyfriend excuse pointing at… Yes, you guessed it right. The Boss Warlord. He’s there drinking wine, brooding, thinking how lame of a warlord he is by not killing everyone when he got a chance and burning only a food silo and not the whole house.

But the pirate isn’t maybe as stupid as he looks, because he immediately knows Gabrielle is lying so the girl walks over to the Boss Warlord and kisses him telling him to pretend he knows her. Seeing a beautiful, young woman kissing him out of nowhere the Boss Warlord is totally cool with that. Because who wouldn’t be cool with that. I know I wouldn’t complain.

Meanwhile, Xena is looking for her weapons when Darius comes in telling her he doesn’t need to fight as the neighbor is gonna go with a peace offer. Xena says that people like Cycnus don’t deal with peace and he’s the thing I actually liked in Darius. He’s a lot like Gabrielle. He tells Xena that she’s changed for better so maybe those guys can be convinced too. I mean, this is actually cool. I’m still all for killing all those warlords, but I like the parallel here.

In the meantime, Gabrielle is talking to the Boss Warlord. He’s totally into her laughing at that little stunt she pulled, but his mood shifts the moment Gabrielle tells him she’s looking for her friend, Xena. Suddenly, he’s like “oh fuuuuuck”, but he lies saying he hadn’t seen her. And then we get this scene.

*How did the writers put so much subtext without knowing it’s subtext is beyond me.*

So they keep talking and it turns out the Boss Warlord isn’t really a bad guy. He works for his dad, because his bro died and he took his place. But we can see this isn’t something he wants to do. Aww, he’s a big softie. I mean, a softie who will shoot and arrow to a chest but still. Gabrielle understands him perfectly, because her mother also expected her to follow certain path the young girl didn’t want to go. So the Boss Warlord is kinda panicking and decided to leave hoping they’d meet again. He leaves and Gabrielle is sort of swooning over him? Yeah, let’s pretend she does.

Oh, we still have no idea what the Boss Warlord’s name is. Facepalm.

So Darius and Xena are preparing to go and talk peacefully to the warlords, but when Xena comes out in her armor Darius says she can’t go negotiate in this and is trying to give her a dress after her dead wife. Xena doesn’t want to but Darius is pushing and pushing and she finally gives up and when she puts on the dress she realizes she actually looks smoking hot in it. If only Gabrielle could see her now.

Meanwhile the Boss Warlord comes into a tent and here after, 23 minutes, we learn the Boss Warlord’s name. 23 minutes, because someone forgot to introduce characters properly. The Boss Warlord spoke to his dad, no name given. He spoke to Gabrielle no name given, although she gave him hers. Those lazy writers. So Sphaerus, because that’s his name, but I'm gonna stick to Boss Warlord, walks into a tent and his father informs him he will go to this peaceful meeting and kill all the villagers.

And the Boss Warlord is keeping poker face but inside is all like: Fuuuuuck.

So we move back to Darius’ house and in this scene the Savage Kid is winning again. So Darius is preparing kids to go and the younger son asks if the meeting means they’re gonna be friends with the warlords now and Darius says that not really, but maybe they will come up with some sort of relationship. And the Savage Kid is all like

Savage Kid: It might require a sacrifice, so we’ve decided to give them Lykus.

Lykus: What? O_o

Darius: Argolis!  Don’t taunt your brother.

Savage Kid: But, it’s so much fun.

This kid is going places. Some serious psycho ones, but still.

Also, 24 minutes in and we finally learn kids’ names… Except for the Quiet One, because, who cares about her anyway.

Xena comes in wearing that blue dress and the Quiet One grabs her hand smiling, because I bet Xena reminds her of her mom. Darius smiles  also and they all leave for the meeting.

Meanwhile the Boss Warlord is waiting for the villagers to arrive visibly nervous. He starts talking when Xena comes in and he’s like “Fuuuuck, she’s alive”. Darius seeing his neighbors are still alive is “You see? I told you we could trust them” and Xena looks at him like he’s a naive fool that he actually is. So the neighbor, the one that revealed Darius’ name to the viewer, comes to Darius and he says Xena can’t be here and she was supposed to GTFO. Xena says she’ll wait in the back and while The Boss Warlord explains there’s an idea for peace between two groups Xena is observing the surroundings for any sign of danger. She notices someone is trying to open the from the inside so she… jumps out of the window… Yeah, OK, it’s Xena, we all know she’s a show off sometimes and I love her for that.

So she starts beating the…. No wait. She shows attackers to wait for a moment so she can be even more sexy when fighting and she tears off her dress so we all can see those beautiful legs of hers and starts fighting the men.

She kicks them, punches them, hits them with clay pots that are lying all around and tells the villagers to run while she’s waiting for another bunch of attackers. So the Boss Warlord’s father’s lackey (Saxon Genitive strikes again) wants to attack but is stopped by the Boss Warlord who doesn’t really wanna kill those peasants so he lets them escape.

After the escape Darius is packing some old rags and two wine cups into a bag, because he wants to take his kids to safety, which is of course understandable but why pack rags and wine cups? Anyway, Xena comes in and Darius starts blaming her for the fight and that the peace offering didn’t pan out. Xena tells him those men she fought would have killed them all, but he’s still acting like it’s all Xena’s fault. Some men, I tell you. Smh.

Xena tells Darius that he should fight and that those warlords can’t be negotiated with, but Darius tells her he’d been to enough wars to know what it’s like and he’s not going to pick up a sword again.

Personally, I can respect that and I get Darius. He’s got three little kids he needs to take care of and fighting anyone is the simplest way to make those kids orphans. Now Xena is all pissed off at Darius not understanding why would Darius run away instead of fight although he gave her the reason. It’s a scene where we can see Xena is always in battle mode no matter what, and no matter who’s life she risks, because fight is all she knows and it’s the only way she knows how to deal with problems.

At the same time, Cycnus shows up angry and awaiting explanation. First, he accuses his lackey, but the Boss Warlord say it was his fault those peasants are alive, because he didn’t have guts to kill them. So Cycnus is all like “Dishonor! Dishonor on your whole family! Dishonor on you! Dishonor on your cow!” and leaves pissed off.

In the village, Xena is preparing her horse when two little kids come in wondering if Xens is gonna fight Cycnus and his merry band, she says maybe, the little kid hugs her, Darius comes in and tells her she can always change her mind, but she says she wish she could and leaves. And of course the tender music and the way Darius looks at Xena and the way she looks at him is supposed to indicate there might have been something between them if times were different. And Xena decided to live a boring life. And stop being a warrior. And… You get the point.

But while Xena is finally coming back to Gabrielle the leader of villagers is meeting with Cycnus and tells him the person responsible for the whole fight was Xena. Cycnus immediately knows who he’s talking about and tells him to go back to the village and await slaughter. While preparing to go to fight, the Boss Warlord comes in and learns his father is planning to find and kill Xena because she killed the Boss Warlord’s brother. Shocking! So the Boss Warlord gets angry and tells his father he’s going to avenge his brother.

So Xena is slowly riding her horse and stops seeing Gabrielle running her way. How did these two met in the middle of nowhere is a mystery, because I have problems with finding my friends in my town. And it’s a really small town. But anyway, Xena is notably happy to Gabrielle is well and good.

*blink and you’ll miss it*

Xena apologizes to her for leaving her alone for so long, Gabrielle is surprised, because apparently, Xena never apologizes. Anyway, Xena tells her friend to wait for her in a farmhouse down the road because she has something to do. When Gabrielle asks what she gives her the “I’m about to murder people” look and Gabrielle say she’s not gonna wait again while Xena has all the fun and they leave together.

While they walk Gabrielle tells Xena she might have found her “tree in the forest” mentioning the Boss Warlord she met in a tavern. She wonder if she’s ever gonna find him and what if she’s supposed to be his and have kids and… Oh, first season is so cute and naïve this way. And it’s funny how after a few minutes of conversation Gabrielle starts thinking on having family and kids while just an episode earlier she was talking how it’s not a life for her. That she was born to become someone greater.

But at least we have this

*oops*

Xena isn’t listening to Gabrielle noticing warlords in the chariots coming their way. She tells Gabrielle to get on the horse and distract them.

Gabrielle is riding a horse trying not to fall from it while the warlords are chasing her while Xena climbs the tree, ties the rope jumps on a second chariot, ties the two guys who are there and when they fall out of the chariot she takes over and starts chasing the first chariot. Awesome scene.

So they chase for a while and the camera operator did a great job creating such a dynamic scene. Warlords chase Gabrielle while Xena takes a short cut and manages to catch on with her friend telling her to jump from a horse to a chariot. Gabrielle jumps and they Xena give her reigns so she could fight the Boss Warlord and his dad. She quickly realizes she has no chakram, because if you recall, when she was packing to leave, her weapon was covered by the dress and Xena forgot about it.

Cycnus takes out his sword and Xena takes out hers and they start fighting, and at the same time, Gabrielle realizes the Boss Warlord is the dude she met in the tavern and who was supposed to be her future husband or something. Xena manages to cut the reigns and both warlords fall off. Unfortunately, moments later the women hit some grass and fall out too. Xena is surprised to learn the Boss Warlord is the guy Gabrielle wanna have kids with, but this conversation has to wait as both men attack.

The Father Warlord decides to attack Xena and the Boss Warlord attacks Gabrielle. I mean, they don’t really attack, Cycnus tells Xena he’s going to kill her for what she did and she’s like:

Cynus explains Xena killed his son Stentor in Korinth and Xena explains he wanted all Korynthian prostitutes for himself and she wouldn’t let that happen and… nuh, just kidding. I’m sure when Xena was in Korinth all the ladies belonged to her.

Xena explains Stentor came to her with an offer of peace and it was his own men that killed him. Cycnus, of course, doesn’t believe her and orders his son to kill Gabrielle. But Gabrielle tries to convince the Boss Warlord not to do this. Cycnus, apparently bored, attacks Xena. She fights back and this goes on for a while when suddenly the Boss Warlord stops his father. He explains there’s no need for fight and the father is so angry he attacks his own son calling him coward for not wanting war. The Boss Warlord throws away his sword pledging he will never fight again.

Meanwhile, Darius shows up and gives Xena her chakram she forgot and she manages to throw it at Cycnus stopping him from killing his own son. These two continue the fight, but it’s a really short fight as Xena cuts his belly and he falls down bleeding. The Boss Warlord runs to him only to hear his father mocking him one last time. What an asshole.

The Boss Warlord tells Darius to call his people to make real peace this time so the next scene when we’re in the village we can see the Boss Warlord kept his word and everyone is happy.

Gabrielle walks over to him to talk and they have a lovely chat where she tells him he did a good job by saving lives and he tells her he misses his father although he has no regrets things ended up the way they did. Gabrielle says goodbye and leaves while the Boss Warlord longingly watches her.

The villager who was in charge comes over to Xena to apologize for his behavior and the boys tell her she can’t leave. Xena is obviously sad, because these are really cool kids, but she says she has to. So the little girl comes in and says the first word in a long time “Stay” and everyone is like :O

The kids can’t understand why Xena would leave, it’s not like they’ve known her for two days maybe, but ok, I get it, they’re kids, they need mom. Darius takes Xena to the side trying to convince her to stay, but she says she can’t and maybe one day but not today.

So she leaves and Gabrielle is there, waiting. Xena asks if she ever misses her family and Gabrielle says sure, but not as much when she’s with Xena. Awwww, it’s a really sweet moment, because Gabrielle sees Xena as a part of her family and I’m sure Xena thinks the same about Gabrielle, but, unlike Gabrielle, she still isn’t in a place where she can talk about it so easily. They both leave making fun of Gabrielle horse riding.

So… This wasn’t a terrible episode. But it wasn’t good either. The main plot was ok, I mean, I would change warlords to slavers who wanted peasants to work for them, because why kill people who know how to farm land? It’s more efficient to make them work for you, but ok, I guess some people just want to see the world burn.

What I didn’t like was the lazy writing, plot holes and establishing the supporting characters. I can’t really get attached to a person without knowing their names. The Boss Warlord was pretty cool and he and Gabrielle had a chemistry together. Darius was an ok character, a bit boring, but he’s a single father with three kids living in a small village so he’s life isn’t exactly exciting. Overall, it’s a pretty standard filler episode with some good moments like the chariot chase and the fights, but honestly, this is the episode I usually skip as, to me, it doesn’t establish much. But the Savage Kid was awesome. He’s my favorite in this episode.

P.S. I’m sure the Quiet One didn’t say another word after Xena left. Also, IMDB shows her name’s Sarita, but of course, this isn’t something we’ve learned in an episode at all. Go to Tartarus lazy writers.

5/10

[moeruhoshi]

OKAY TELL ME HOW THIS SOUNDS

Lucy was upset, frustrated, truly on the edge of a mental breakdown. She had had enough of her father’s rules and her role as the heir to her father’s company.

Why else would she be running down the financial district in a party dress? Only those who were truly fed up would do such a thing. She was barely eighteen and her father was introducing her to a marriage candidate? At a party for Mavis’ sake?! So many people had overheard!

“No! How dare…! Father! I—I can’t even imagine…! Screw that!” She had finally cracked, thrown her drink and stormed out of the hotel on high heels. “I’m not marrying anyone!”

It was completely unlike her to have made a scene in front of his colleagues like that, but fuck it. She wasn’t going to be that obedient daddy’s girl any longer.

The stress of her situation became adrenaline as she continued to run, tossing her heels and refusing to stop. She didn’t know where she was going, but it felt like nothing could stop her now.

“Taichou?” That caught her attention. Her ragged breath began to slow as she halted, her eyes caught by the stare of an onyx pair.

“Oh...hey, Natsu,” He stood against a storefront beside an alleyway, one foot kicked up on the wall, one hand holding his phone. He was in front of his family’s bar, but everyone knew that it was the front for the mafia. His father ran one of the largest groups in the area, but despite that, Natsu was a good kid. Unless you pissed him the hell off.

He had piercings, tattoos even. His black hair was dyed pink and he always wore a leather jacket outside of school.

“Where the hell are your shoes?” He snickered, shoving his phone into his pocket.

“Oh, I don’t really know,” She shrugged. “I tossed them a while back, they’re not really made for running.”

“You’re not being chased, are ya?” He stood up straight and approached her, calculating eyes staring down the street she came from.

“No, no, nothing like that,” She shook her head. “My, um, my dad kind of...pissed me off, so I was running from a party.”

“Makes sense,” He said, staring down the black cocktail dress she wore. “But I didn’t think you were the type to get pissed off.”

“Not usually...he pushed me too far,” Her lips twisted into a frown. “Geez, I’ll have to see him when I get home...fuck,”

“You can curse?” He laughed loudly with a split grin. “I thought you were too straight-laced to say stuff like that!”

“Well, not anymore...I’m tired of being some stupid, straight-A, follow the rules kinda girl,” She huffed, crossing her arms.

“Then I can hide ya for a couple days,” He suggested. “Since you don’t want to go home,”

“You’d do that for me?” Her eyes twinkled and he laughed again.

“Yeah, ‘course, taichou. Stay right here, I’ll go get my bike,” He said, first taking off his jacket for her to put on.

Lucy watched as he jogged down the alleyway, returning with his motorcycle and an extra helmet.

“You’re gonna want to hold on tight, alright?” He said as she awkwardly positioned herself behind him. Lucy nodded and wrapped her arms securely around his torso before they took off.

She rested her head against his back, eyes watching the lights of the city go rapidly past them. Her body still thrummed with excitement, unable to still as she burned with furious rebellion. Doing new and out of character things was seriously awesome.

“Alright, here we are,” He said, pulling his bike to a stop in front of an amazingly huge apartment complex.

“This is where you live?” Lucy asked as he helped her off.

“Nah, just a place I use every so often,” He said, taking her hand in his as they entered the building. “My dad owns it, so I have a space he let me have. No one else comes here, so you can stay as long as you like.”

“Luckily I chose the week before spring break to run away from home,” She giggled as they entered the elevator.

“You wanna tell me why ya ran off? Though I don’t mind if you keep it a secret.”

“My dad introduced me to someone he wants me to consider marrying,” She groaned, pursing her lips and crossing her arms.

“...yikes…” Natsu let out a long whistle, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Is he old?”

“At least thirty,” She shivered. “I pretty much told him to go screw himself before I took off.”

“I’m really likin’ this side of ya,” Natsu snickered as they stopped on his floor, the pinkette leading her to his door.

“I should have decided to be more rebellious sooner,” She sighed as they stepped foot into his place. “I feel like I could have been having a lot more fun,”

“What kinda fun?” He asked, Lucy’s eyes looking over the luxurious apartment.

“I dunno, going out with my friends instead of studying, normal teenage things,” She shrugged. “This is a really nice place,”

“Thanks,” He chuckled. “C’mon, I’ll give ya some clothes, you go ahead and take a shower. I’ll make some tea to warm ya up, yeah?”

“Sure, that sounds nice.” She nodded with a smile.

Standing in Natsu’s shower, Lucy was surprised to see that he had feminine soap next to his own, as well as shampoo and conditioner.

“Oh yeah...I forgot Cana mentioned he sleeps around,” She hummed to herself, rubbing the peach and white tea scented soap against her scalp. “I guess this is where he entertains.”

Finishing up with her quick routine, Lucy stepped out in a fluffy white towel to look at what she had been given to wear.

It was one of his t-shirts, long enough to reach her knees, and a pair of lace panties she assumed belonged to someone else.

“Do you usually keep the underwear from whoever you sleep with?” Lucy asked as she walked back into the living room, scrunching her hair dry with the towel.

“They seem too expensive to toss out,” He said, pouring her a cup of tea as she sat down. “It works out both ways, I have clothes for guests, and it pisses off the clingy ones,”

“I see,” She said with a light laugh, taking a sip from her cup.

“Why? You interested in who I sleep with?” He asked with a smirk, leaning back against the opposite couch as he drank his own tea.

“Not really, I never thought about it until now,” She hummed, setting down her cup to brush her hair with out with the comb she brought out with her.

“You’re a real interestin’ girl, taichou,”

“We’re not at school, you can call me by my name,”

“How about Luce? I like givin’ out nicknames,”

“Sure, I like the sound of that,” She nodded, his smile contagiously pulling her lips wide.

It was silent for the next few moments, both idly sipping their tea, Natsu watching Lucy as she brushed out her hair.

“Is it too weird if I ask you to sleep with me?” Lucy said suddenly, making Natsu choke a bit on his tea.

“Uh, not weird, more like surprising,” He coughed to clear his throat. “I didn’t think you were the type to want a one-night stand,”

“I just want to do something fun,” She sighed, letting the comb run slowly through her hair. “I’m tired of doing what people expect from me,”

“I’m fine with being a part of your rebellious phase,” He complied, standing up from the couch. “But I have rules,”

“I’m not clingy,” She rolled her eyes with a scoff. “If that’s what you’re worried about,”

“Nah, it’s cuz we go to school together. The clingy ones work for my dad.” He snickered, taking her hand and leading her towards his bedroom. “Ya can flirt with me at school if ya want, but I don’t date,”

“Do you assume that every girl who sleeps with you wants to date you?” Lucy asked with a snort in her voice as he closed the door behind them.

“‘Course I do,” He snorted as well, shaking his head. “You’ll get it once we do it, Luce.”

“That’s pretty cocky of you to say.” Her pulse became quickened as he led her onto his mattress. “How do you know that you won’t want to date me afterwards?”

“If I do,” He said, kissing her cheek as he climbed onto the bed with her. “It’ll be because I decided to keep ya,”

“Girls aren’t pets, Natsu,” Lucy said, beginning to pant as he gingerly kissed the column of her neck.

“Yeah they are, the good ones at least,” He said as he experimentally dragged his tongue against her skin, delighted by the moan she let slip. “Are you a good girl, Luce?”

“Not tonight,” She panted as their eyes met under the moonlight threading in from the window that replaced the east wall.

“Fuck, that’s kinda sexy,” He mumbled, capturing her lips with his. She wasn’t inexperienced like he thought she would be, her kisses matching his fervor and blending well against them.

[chaos-societies]

Episode 7, The Spokes That Keep Turning

[x]

There was little light in the small entrance to a cave hundreds of miles from South Island. Chuck was crawling through the small passageway and already had stains of mud and dirt on both his clothes and his fur. He held upright a torch which limited his progress as he made his way deeper.

“You sure you didn’t want me to go first? I am a bit smaller.” A slightly high pitch voice came from behind him.

A smile arose on Chuck’s face. “Wasn’t it you who said whoever gets here first gets to go in first?”

“WaSn’T iT yOu WhO sAiD…shut up.” The girl answered back snarkily. Chuck just smiled.

He came across a small wall of rocks that seemed lose enough to dislodge. He reached his free arm as to his waist and pulled out a small hammer. He got as much leverage as he could in the tight space and began swinging at the wall. After a few hits the rocks seemed to loosen up and he kept swinging. Lo and behold, the small wall collapsed and he squeezed his way through.

He found himself in a massive cathedral. The sound of running water and the occasional drips of stalactites, giving portions of themselves to the pillars below in hopes that they would eventually meet to join the hanging columns, echoed through the chamber. He stood on a ledge and found he didn’t seem to need his torch as much as he thought as beauteous glowing crystals, larger than the tallest buildings in any village or city he had been to, were scattered all around. He didn’t dare extinguish the torch though as they had only succeeded in finding what the party of two were hoping to find. Only now would the exploring begin.

“By the lords…” He said as he gazed upon the sight.

His follower soon emerged from the tiny entrance and stood up to gaze upon the sight as well. “Whoa. It’s beautiful.” She said. The bluish tint of the natural light of the cave, coming from seemingly unnatural sources, washed away the green color of her fur. “So. I guess we found it.” Her awe was paused as she curled a smile and gave Chuck an elbow to the side. “Guess now that we found this place that means we’re forever cursed like the locals said.”

Chuck gave an ‘oof’ with the hit but had grinned at the joke anyway. “Come on, we only just found the cave. Now we got to find that crown. There may still be many curses that we have to look out for.” His partner rolled her eyes.

The two started making their way down to a ledge where there seemed to be enough footholds to climb down with relative ease. Working their way down, they appeared to be mere ants on a wall compared to the size of the vast open room.

…

[x]

“The cave was far to the northwest of the continent. It was bigger than anything I had seen or explored. I couldn’t imagine making a map of the place. I just made a crude trail on some parchment I had to make sure I got back out.” Chuck spoke to the gang as he dipped a biscuit in some black tea and took a bite. He continued. “There must have been miles of passageways, dozens of rooms and chambers that I was not able to investigate or explore. I ended up finding the crown in a crypt, deep in the cavern. I almost didn’t make it out; it was a very dangerous excursion.” His audience of the usual bunch listened intently. “Not being a greedy man, I had no means to keep the thing.” He let out a sigh and a small smile formed on his face. “Ah, I used to be quite the adventurer back in the day. I gave the crown to the archives in Westport. They have many safeguarded secrets in those archives and I still am confident in its safekeeping there.”

“Wow. Sir Charles, I didn’t know you were a treasure hunter.” Amy stated.

“I wouldn’t call myself a treasure hunter. More of a scholar. There just happens to be many scholarly relics of times of old that may be hidden about.”

“Did you go back into the cave to find anything else?” Sonic asked.

“I would have. Oh the wonders that must have been down there! When I went back, I found that a rockslide must have happened and the entrance, so small and hidden, taking me many hours of research and weeks to find, was covered up. It would take a massive crew to undergo the efforts to clear the rubble. No one other than those at the archives, and now you lot, know of what I found there and I find it best for that information to fade away.” He finished explaining.

“Do you think the other crowns were down there?” Tails asked.

“I don’t know. Possibly. But such things of great historical importance such as that are rarely in the same place. Would have made things much easier back then wouldn’t you say.” He answered with a chuckle to finish.

“So you want us to travel all the way across the continent?” Rouge asked a little unsure about the task if that be the case.

“Heavens no. At least…not quite yet. I hope things won’t come to that. But much of my research to find the crown was done in the library at Smithwick, beyond the Greater Area in the Green Hills. But that journey wouldn’t even make sense for you to go looking in old dusty books and then come back after not even knowing what to look for.” Chuck took off his glasses and looked away knowing what had to be done. “No…this next journey I may ask of you won’t be a simple errand. What I am hesitant to ask of you all, if you shall accept the task, I’m afraid may take you away from South Island for a while.”

“How long is a while?” Rouge asked.

“That depends. Weeks for sure. Maybe months.”

“How would we go about doing that?” Tails began to wonder.

“It won’t be easy. You’d have to do certain jobs here and there for tokens. Beyond Cap, I can’t guarantee a place to stay. And there will surely be many nights where you would have to set up a camp between cities in your travel.”

“You think we could take the Syphon to make things easier Tails?” Sonic turned to him to ask.

“I thought of that but it will surely need a good amount of maintenance on the way which I won’t have a means to do unless I am here usually. It can only do so much, I’d hate for us to come to an impasse and have to leave it somewhere, lose it, or it even break down where we can’t get it back up.” He explained.

“Why do we have to go out and do anything?” Rouge spoke up. “The way I see it, we had some kooks play a grotesque prank at Stark Ruins and now we’re chasing ghost stories. Do we really have to do anything?”

The room was a bit silent as Rouge had brought up a good point. There was no indication of apocalypse, there was no threat that they could tell, and other than some loose connections between pieces of mythology they had no reason to make any further action. But Chuck was smart and he wouldn’t be laying out the framework of such undertaking unless he deemed it necessary, and he definitely wouldn’t be asking them to put themselves in danger and leave South Island out of mere curiosity, despite it being embedded in the Cyan way of thinking. But there was another piece of evidence.

Chuck looked around at the lot and saw Amy shyly staring at the ground. “Amy.” He said warmly. “Do you wish to say something?”

She looked up at Chuck and knew he meant well. She could say no and that would be the end of it. But she felt something was awry. She knew answers needed to be found or else something horrible may come to pass. “I do.” She stood up to speak

“Amy?” Sonic said mostly as a reaction.

“I’ve…been having dreams lately. I know what it sounds like but. They have been…different. They aren’t some surreal haze that you forget about shortly after you wake up or even some fictional scenario or collection of events and memories. They have been clear and almost like a message. All of them foreboding.” She was timid at first but then her confidence overcame her. “They’ve been about the recent events, but because of recent events. In fact lately, they have been about recent events before they’ve transpired. Before we set off for Cap the second time, I dreamt of fire and flood devastating the land. Then we came across those runes about god and giants of fire and water in conflict. The gypsy in the street told me we were special. She knew I was having dreams and I hadn’t said a word to her at that time. I’m think something is about to happen and I think we need to act.”

The room was silent again. Finally Chuck spoke up. “Rouge, you have every right to be skeptical about this. I’m glad you are in fact. So many things can occupy your mind and if you don’t scrutinize them to really determine what they are for, you may succumb to falsehoods. Not at all am I ordering you to undertake this task, by any means. This is your choice.”

“When would you want us to leave?” Sonic asked.

“Not for a while. Before I send you off, I need to do much research and further study the Stair na Seacht to give you all the proper amount of information for your investigations and findings. That will give you time to prepare as well. Overall, so that you are not blind to my goals, I think we need to find the other crowns.”

“Do you expect me to join in on any of this?” Knuckles spoke up for the first time in this meeting.

“I’m afraid this concerns you, as well as anyone. But again, that choice is yours to make. You have your chapter of the Red Society on Angel Island to manage. I would never ask anyone to stray from their duties to their Society.” Chuck answered.

There were many wandering thoughts throughout the room. Yet none of them were spoken. “Can we have some time? Some time to think about it?” Tails asked coyly.

“Of course.” Chuck gave him a warming smile. “I am sorry to have burdened you with this request so suddenly. Go enjoy yourselves. Talk amongst yourself if you so please but rest your thoughts for now.” Slowly, they each got up and made their way out of Chuck’s hut. Once they were all gone, Chuck rubbed his eyes and placed his glasses back on his face. “Chaos have mercy.” He muttered.

…

“Up to the Green Hills. Oh I bet that’d be an awesome sight! Not to mention some great solid ground to stretch my legs. I don’t know about you all but I think I’m decided.” Sonic said enthusiastically as the group walked from Chuck’s hut.

“You won’t even need to do any convincing to give Sonic a chance for adventure.” Amy said almost in a derogatory manner if it wasn’t for the light admiration in her voice.

“Oh you know it!” Sonic responded as he pulled Amy close and gave her a kiss on the top of her head.

“I still don’t know about travelling hundreds of miles away on foot chasing fairy tales.” Rouge spoke up.

“Come on Rouge! Even if it’s for nothing, can you imagine the places and sights we’ll see? Something other than desert and this dusty old town? Don’t get me wrong, I love it here at South Island. But the world is much bigger than this corner of The Greater Area.” Sonic rebuked.

“Would you be joining us Knux if we decide to go?” Tails asked their pseudo-foreign friend.

He gave a huff and crossed his arms. “Why?”

“Why not!” Sonic answered back continuing his enthusiasm.

The echidna let out a sigh. “I have other things to worry about.”

“Oh? Like what.”

“Like my own island. Besides, you all have to learn to take care of yourselves. Can’t rely on me all the time to save your skins.”

“Oh har har har. You say that but we all know you enjoy our little scuffles, let alone our company.”

“Your company? Pfff, I need a break from your company on the regular!” He shouted back annoyed. “And IF I were to come along on your strange trek for some dead guys’ busted up crowns, I’d have to make it back to Angel Island regularly. Its trajectory goes along your path up north, depending on the time of year, and touches the Green Hills. I’d be coming and going often.”

“Sounds like you already thought it through.” Sonic said with a devilish grin. Knuckles looked over at him as Sonic gave a few raises of his eye brows which earned him a heavy shove from the Red.

The group came up to the tavern as Knuckles began to veer toward the road to the main bridge. “Well like Sir Charles said, we have some time to mull it over.” Amy stated. “Oh, are you heading out Knuckles?”

“I am. Someone’s got to make sure my goons up on Angel Island haven’t killed each other.”

“I’m sure Mighty does at good job keeping them in check.” Sonic added.

“Regardless, I’m looking forward to my own home again. I’ll see you in a few passings. Angel Island should be getting close.”

“See you around handsome.” Rouge called out to him. Knuckles threw his hand in the air in somewhat of a wave as he walked on. “I think he has the right idea though. I need my own place for a bit. I’ll see you all tomorrow.” And with that Rouge also departed the group.

…

“What do you mean, your turn? It’s MY hammock! If my ass is planted in it, it’s not leaving until I decide for it to.” Nack the weasel blurted out as he swung lazily in the breeze on a crudely made rope hammock. He flicked his wrist to ‘shoo’ off Bean, closed his eyes and went back to lounging.

“Kinda rude to make the decisions for your ass,” Bean began crawling on his hands and knees around the hammock. “I’m sure if you let it decide,” by now he was underneath Nack, “it’d want to go UP!” At that moment, Bean sprung up and sent Nack flying out of the hammock.

“Bean! I’m gonna kill you!”

Bark was sitting next to one of the trees used by the hammock, relaxing as well. Nack happen to land close to him so Bark quickly grabbed a hold of Nack’s handkerchief to hold him back from charging at Bean.

“Bark resting on bark, holding Nack back from attack!” Bean cheerfully called out as he swung his feet back and forth while sitting upright in the hammock.

Nack, now defeated as he surely wasn’t going to break free from Bark’s grip, crossed his arms to pout. “Bean, at least could you shut that beak of yours?”

“howms mhis?” He answered with a poor attempt at ventriloquism. Nack just sighed.

“Kn-Knuckles is b-b-back!” Ray came into the scene from above as he glided down to the group.

“Geez, it’s about time. The guy should just hand off the island to us with how little he seems to be up here now.” Nack commented.

Mighty strolled up. “Give him a break. He’s been alone up here for over half his life, if the guy wants to see the world and venture out a bit, he is more than deserving to do so.”

“But why the desert though? He always goes down there instead of anywhere else on the globe. He just wants to hang out in the dirt meanwhile it’s paradise up here! And let alone the treasure that’s supposedly up here.”

“Treasure you still haven’t found but are so sure is here?” Mighty taunted.

“Oh there’s treasure here. Heard it many times from people who see this hunk of land floating overhead.”

“And yet none of them have been up here?”

“Irrelevant. Every treasure hunter knows where there’s ruins there’s treasure.” Nack walked over to Bean as he was lying back in the hammock, whistling an odd tune. He flipped Bean out of the rope bed then quickly hopped back into it. “But nothing wrong with living the good life up here in the meantime.”

“Is he still talking about gold and riches?” Knuckles finally made his way up to the group. Bark just silently nodded his head. “I’ve told you, I’ve seen every inch of this island. The only treasure here is solitude and delicious fruit.”

“Maybe that’s the only treasure you care about.” Nack added.

“E-enough for me!” Ray said as he came down from a tree with a pear in his hands, taking a good sized bite from it.

“Ray, sounds like your speech is improving.” Knuckles said warmly as me moved over to another tree and gave it a hard smack with his fists earning a few fruit to fall from the tree. He tossed one to Bark, another to Mighty then took a bite of one for himself.

“I’ve b-b-been p-practicing!” The flying squirrel said excitedly.

Knuckles leaned over to Mighty and whispered. “Still no luck on jogging his memory about your village?”

“No. And at this point I’m starting to think it’s best if he doesn’t remember. He still is the same cheery optimistic guy but that event definitely traumatized him if it’s entirely blocked out from memory. It did something to him, other than give him that stutter that is. I feel for him.”

“Yeah. You’re a good guardian for him you know?”

“He’s like a little brother.” Mighty said with an endearing smile as he watched Ray devour the pear he came across.

“Heh, you two are like some others we know.”

“Sonic and Tails?”

“Yup. Speaking of them, some things went down not too long ago. They’re going to be venturing out up north at least to the Green Hills. I’ll probably be dropping down to join them quite frequently.” Knuckles explained.

“Nack has been getting a little irritant about your absence you know. It might be good to stay for a bit. The gang down there are tough cookies, I’m sure they can handle a lot of the journey themselves you know.” Mighty spoke his two cents.

“I know. But I’m thinking the crazy events that have surrounded their recent ventures are somehow connected to this place too. While I was down there, there were a lot of strange markings in some cavern north of Cap that matched some here in the ruins. Chuck called them runes and some other ancient markings that I have never seen up here before. Can’t remember the name. O-something he called them. I just…really want to know why I was alone up here and what happened to the others of my kind that used to live here.”

Mighty looked at Knuckles for a good bit and saw how him and Ray weren’t the only ones with some deep seeded issues about their past. Though his past was not a particularly great one, he at least knew his past. He decided to verbalize this to him. “I’ll support you buddy. Ray might not remember our village being ransacked, his parents being killed. But I do. It’s not comforting reflecting on it – that village took me in after I escaped that mad man’s experimentation – but I know where I came from and how I got here. I can’t imagine what it’d be like to not even know that.”

“Thanks.” Knuckles rested a hand on Mighty’s should briefly. “Oh, that reminds me. Amy was talking about some dreams she was having again. One of them mentioned a man with a manic laugh. Not going to lie, you don’t hear much about humans anymore. Not much left. But your captivity with that demented fool came to mind.” Knuckles explained.

“It would be horrifying if she’s having premonitions about the same guy. I will say…he did have a strange laugh that would haunt me for the rest of my life…”

[caranfindel]

Initial reaction 15.14: Last Holiday

Well, friends, here we go. Are you ready?

(I'm not. But here we go anyway.)

THEN: Cuthbert Sinclair. (Really? That's a deep cut.) Abbadon. Larry Ganem. (And S8 Sam, who is fucking gorgeous.) Oh, and God and Jack and all that stuff, in case you forgot.

NOW: Sam's in the library, doing research, and is distracted by some ominous noises. Ominous in a machinery-breaking-down kind of way, not in a monstery kind of way. Enter Dean, wearing an apron. "What's with the apron," asks Sam, "because it's only protecting your jeans, not the Red Shirt of Bad Decisions." At least that's how it sounded in my head. I mean, who only gets dirty from the waist down when they're cooking? (Well, that lends itself to all kinds of double entendres, doesn't it?) Or maybe Sam doesn't say that because he hopes the RSoBD will be destroyed in a tragic burger accident.

Seriously, Dean, that shirt is precious and you need to protect it, no matter what Sam thinks.

Dean complains that the pilot light keeps going out, and the hot water is unsatisfactory (and we know how he feels about his showers), and Sam reminds him that if the bunker was ever state-of-the-art, it was in the 50s. They exposition for us that Jack is hiding in his room. "Can you blame him?" Sam says. "His soul is back. Everything is hitting him. Everything he's done..." And Sam continues, but I'm sorry, I'm stuck here, thinking about re-souled Sam with everything hitting him. {sob} However, neither of the Winchesters seem to be thinking about this, so. Carry on.

The guys remind us that if Jack kills God, he'll have to kill Amara as well. Which I assume means Amara isn't going to get killed? Just saying. As much as I talk about foreshadowing (too much, please stop!) this show teases us with anti-foreshadowing with equal fervor. And Cas is apparently looking for Amara? What does he hope to accomplish? "Excuse me, but we're killing your brother, so you have to die too. Condolences. But if we follow canon - not that there's any reason to assume we will - you have to die at about the same time. So I need you to come with me while we figure out where he is and how to kill him."

There's another ominous noise, and Dean says "Oh, come on. Now the air?" I hope he means the air conditioning, and not the air purifying/exchange/whatever that Ketch shut off when he locked them in the bunker back in... whatever the BMoL season was. Hey, remember when the guys were locked in the bunker and they were running out of air and they wore single layers and goggles and got all sweaty and depressed? Because I've kind of never gotten over it. But I digress.

Sam is surprised that Dean expects them to fix it. "We've fought the devil," Dean says. "I've killed Hitler. I think we can handle a few old pipes." Surely this isn't the first time they've had to do some repairs around the place.

Deep within the bowels of the bunker, Sam reads some ancient instructions and complains that they can't just call a plumber. Dean refers to the bunker as the most "secretive, secure supernatural hideout in the world," which makes me laugh, because remember when Larry Ganem told Sam it was secure against all manner of evil? What a joke. Is there anything or anyone evil who hasn't been able to get into the bunker? My house is more secure against evil than the bunker, and all I have for protection is a circle of termite bait and a couple of ancient dogs.

They locate the "bunker grid control center thing thingy" (oh Sam, I adore you), complete with reset and standby buttons. Standby is glowing. Dean hypothesizes that it will work just like his computer, which needs to be shut down when it gets too many popups (I suspect you need some virus protection, dear boy), and slams down the reset button before Sam can stop him. Everything goes dark, but then starts up again, so Dean considers it a success. He calls himself "Meat Man" again and heads upstairs to finish cooking his burgers.

Time jump. Dean goes into his room, carrying a burger and a beer, and is astonished to find a middle-aged woman there. She's wearing a plaid wool skirt I owned in the 80s and is folding his underwear. "Oh, hello dear!" she says cheerfully. Dean yells for Sam.

Gosh, Dean, it's like this place isn't secretive or secure at all.

The horrified Shaggy and Scooby boxers are ~chef's kiss.~ Well done, someone.

Title card!

Library. The woman tuts at dust and wonders how they've lived in "this filth," which reminds me of an awesome Tumblr post which theorizes that faeries actually keep the bunker clean, and only first-born son Dean can see them. "Lady, who the hell are you," Dean demands, and is chastized for his language. He calls for Sam again, and gives him the story of how he walked into his room and found her "folding my underthings."

She explains that her actual name is indecipherable in "your tongue," but "Mr. Ganem called me _Mrs. Butters."_She's a wood nymph. And she's not in the woods, nymphing (thank you Dean) because she has more important things to do - she lives in the bunker and takes care of the Men of Letters. I.e., "my boys. My family."

Dean invites her to leave, but this is her home, and she's been here since "before the war." And she thinks it's 1958. "Well, I hate to tell you," Dean says, "but it's 2020." YES, DEAN, WE ALL FEEL THAT WAY ABOUT 2020. Mrs. Butters is horrified to learn all her boys are dead. And for some reason Dean tells her they were murdered by a demon instead of saying old age, or they went to a farm upstate, or whatever. She spots a photo of the last group of MoL, which we've never noticed before, and realizes that this is why they never came back from that last ceremony. When they didn't return, she decided to put the bunker - and herself - in standby mode.

But she also realizes that if these boys are like those boys, it's been a while since they had a home-cooked meal or celebrated a holiday. Or washed their clothes, as she makes a face. That's uncalled for, lady. We all know that Sam Winchester smells like rosemary and mint no matter how long it's been since he did laundry. Sam explains that they're not really "holiday people," which rings true coming from the guy who didn't want to celebrate Christmas and hates Halloween. (And only had one real Thanksgiving in his life and his brother still holds that against him but NO I'M NOT BITTER.)

Dean is more interested in what "standby mode" is. Mrs. Butters says the MoL used her magic to give the bunker "extra oomph," and snaps her fingers. Voila, extra oomph! There's some humming noises, the telescope alcove lights up (!), and an alarm sounds. Because the map table is actually a monster radar, and it indicates a nest of vampires 50 miles away. And gives the address. WELL.

{Sidebar: Why didn't the BMoL know the AMoL had this capability? Why was their focus on "you're not as good as us" instead of "you used to be as good as us; what happened?" Discuss.}

Do I care? No. Because look at these precious perplexed faces.

Dean's ready to go (and it earns him another stern warning about his language), but Sam wonders if they can trust her. "Look at her," Dean says. And I agree. She's a dumpy middle aged woman in a brown plaid wool skirt. She's basically me. And who could be more trustworthy, more concerned with the Winchesters' health and safety, than me?

Um. Anyway.

Not to change the subject or anything, but the pretty is strong tonight, y'all.

Dean suggests they give her the benefit of the doubt, and if it turns out she's not what she says she is, "then we deal with it." The music turns ominous. "What about Jack?" Sam asks.

Oh, Jack is actually in this episode? I thought maybe they were explaining his absence earlier, like they always do with Cas. (Because I always cover the guest star credits on first watch. Spoilers.) But it turns out Jack is actually with us tonight. Sitting on his bed, looking depressed. Dean knocks on his door and tells him they're going out, and there's a "probably harmless" guest making snickerdoodles. This sparks Jack's interest. It would work on me, too. I love snickerdoodles.

Impala. Sam's not sure it's a good idea to keep Mrs. Butters around, even if she is legit. He's concerned about Jack, but Dean brushes him off.

He'll be fine. I mean, I've been through worse and look at me. I'm the picture of health.

Ignoring your trauma doesn't make you healthy.

Sure it does.

Oh, Sam. Just listen to yourself. No, I mean, please. Listen to yourself.

Sam feels like Jack is hiding something, and I wish there were someone around who had also done awful things while un-souled, and remembered what it felt like to deal with that afterward. Someone sympathetic and empathetic. With soft puppy dog eyes and beautiful hair. Oh well. I guess Jack will just have to go unburden himself onto whoever he comes across.

Bunker. Mrs. Butters brings Jack a sandwich. He doesn't open the door, but she leaves it for him.

Vampire nest. A couple of vampires are watching Dark Shadows (so meta!) and drinking blood stolen from a blood bank. So, are these, like, maybe not bad vampires? Maybe they don't kill people? We'll never know, because Sam and Dean walk in and cut off their heads. And come home to... Christmas. Lights are strung all over, jazzy Christmas music is playing, there's a huge decorated tree and gifts, and Mrs. Butters has a tray of homemade cookies. "We are so keeping her," Dean says. Sam looks unsure.

Kitchen. Mrs. Butters tells Sam that since he and Dean have been so busy killing monsters, they haven't had a chance to celebrate anything. But I can barely pay attention to a single word that comes out of the woman's mouth because LOOK AT SAM IN THIS T-SHIRT. LOOK AT IT.

Single-layer Sam is something to celebrate.

She insists that Sam "enjoy the world you're fighting for" (which is never gonna happen, lady) and excitedly talks about all the holidays she wants to make up for. Then Jack enters, and her mood changes instantly. Even Jack's adorable little dorky wave doesn't melt her. "What are you?" she asks coldly.

Enter Dean, wearing a real-life version of the purple "sleeping robe" and nightcap he wore in "Scoobynatural." OH MY GAWD. I really hope this was a surprise for the rest of the cast.

And I also hope he's not really going commando underneath... or do I?

Mrs. Butters is distracted enough to decide that if the boys vouch for Jack, he must be okay. She hands Jack a smoothie but tells Dean he must have tomato juice due to his cholesterol. And she pronounces it the Patrick Stewart way, not the Mark Hammil way.

Before Dean can drink his to-mah-toh juice, the monster radar alarm goes off, and the guys rush off to prepare for a hunt. For future reference, when you leave the kitchen, Sam's room is to the right and Dean's is to the left. We next see the guys fully dressed, receiving sack lunches from Mrs. Butters. Dean's sandwich has the crusts cut off. {Sidebar: Sam never had someone to cut the crusts off his sandwich. Hold me. And also, how many reminders am I going to have of "Dark Side of the Moon" tonight?} She tells Sam the monster is a lamia, the blessed knives are in the trunk, and she just waxed the car so Dean needs to take it easy.

As the guys rush off, she turns to Jack and his smoothie mustache. "Well. What shall we do with you?"

NOTHING GOOD, I'M SURE.

As Jack helps wash dishes, he fills her in. Lucifer was his father, Mary was his family and his friend but he killed her. Mrs. Butters is very supportive, telling him "life gives us second chances and it's our obligation to hold onto them." And she presents him with another smoothie.

Montage! Thanksgiving dinner. More hunts. More sack lunches. Halloween (and even Sam seems to enjoy it). Fourth of July. (Yet another "Dark Side of the Moon" shoutout). A hunt requiring the grenade launcher and Thor's hammer from that episode whose title I can't remember! Sam's birthday! By the way, none of these holiday celebrations include Cas.

Mmmm. So worthy.

Time jump. Jack catches Mrs. Butters looking at something in a file cabinet and being very sneaky about it. He requests another smoothie to get her out of the room, and then finds what she was looking at. It's her MoL file, including a reel of film. The film shows Cuthbert Sinclar talking about File 5150 (aw, RIP Eddie Van Halen). The subject was actually recovered from the Thule (aw, "Everybody Hates Hitler") and we learn that wood nymphs "react violently when home or family are threatened." Sinclair says he "conducted a series of experiments designed to show this strange and magical being of our mission" and convinced her to join the MoL family. Huh. Wonder how he did that. Then Mrs. Butters demonstrates her devotion by literally ripping the head off a Thule. "Son of a bitch," says Jack, because he's been spending a lot of time with Dean.

Jack runs into the war room looking for Sam (and yes, I'm petty enough to love that he looks to Sam first), who is off getting ready for a "big date." Huh. Okay. Mrs. Butters offers him soup, but then Sam walks in, giving off some pretty strong Hot Professor Sam vibes (hello again, "Everybody Hates Hitler") with a sweater vest and tie, and I am thrilled with this development.

Thrilled, I tell you.

Mrs. Butters tells him he looks wonderful but offers to trim his hair (back off, lady, I will cut you) and Dean enters in time to make a weak Abercrombie and Bitch joke. Sam tells him Eileen's in town, and he's taking her out to dinner and "some privacy, something."

"Heavy on the something," Dean says, and we're going to talk about that later, I promise. But for now, Mrs. Butters tells Sam to take one of the old cars from the garage. Finally. Can we just make this permanent? Can Sam have his own fucking car, please? She produces a bouquet of roses from nowhere and sends him on his adorably anxious way. Then she tells Dean she found a broken TV in one of the rooms and fixed it. "The Dean Cave?" Dean is off like a shot. I wonder if that's the TV he smashed with a hammer, and if so, how did she fix it? (Also, hello again, "Scoobynatural.")

Jack is still unsettled. He follows her into the dungeon and tells her he saw the film. {Sidebar: The film showed her killing one of their enemies because she's protective of the MoL. Is it really that awful? Discuss.} "And how did that make you feel?" she asks. "You relished his pain, didn't you, Jack?" Oh, turns out that was a setup - she wanted Jack to see the video, so she could confirm that he was a bloodthirsty little monster. And do the Winchesters know how powerful he has become?

They should be scared of you!

I would never hurt them.

You have before, haven't you? Have you ever thought that Sam and Dean keep you in here, closed in, secure, because they're scared you'll do to someone else what you did to their mother?

Well, I mean. Now he has. She flings Jack into the wall. He tries to use the glowy eyes on her, but he finds himself powerless. She snaps the magic handcuffs on him. "You didn't think those smoothies were for your health, did you? Oh, I've learned a few things while I was doing the dusting around here. A little yarrow root, some ground jawbone for texture, and voila! You are as weak as a puppy."

Wait. That's all it took? To power down a nephilim, who is canonically more powerful than his archangel parent? So when the Winchesters were trying to take down Lucifer and AU Michael, all they needed was some yarrow root and ground jawbone? And the answers were all right here in the bunker?

(Sigh. Don't think about it. That way lies madness.)

(Also, canon! Ha ha ha ha.)

She tells Jack she's making the bunker safe again and getting rid of all the monsters. Like you, sweetness. Aw. Sad Jack.

Kitchen. Dean comes in looking for a snack and is immediately presented with some kind of grilled sandwich. She tells him to eat it, because he'll need his strength when they go kill Jack. Aw, that's the sound of a heart breaking.

Dean is disappointed that their good thing has gone "full Nurse Ratchet," and glances longingly at the sandwich he has to leave behind. He takes Mrs. B's knife and suggests they let Jack go and pretend this never happened. The only logical conclusion is that Dean is under Jack's spell, so he gets tossed into the dungeon too. Oh, cool. Does that mean Sam gets to be the hero and save them?

Spoiler alert: Ha ha ha ha no.

Hello, Demon Dean. That's the only other time we've seen this expression, isn't it? {Or is it simply the only one branded onto my brain? Discuss.)

Map table room. Sam comes in and is met by Mrs. B. "Bit past your curfew, Samuel," she says curtly. He's no longer wearing his tie. Hmm. So, let's talk about the Eileen situation. Isn't it weird that (1) Dean didn't know she was in town, and (b) she's not spending the night at the bunker? Wouldn't you think she'd be a house guest? I mean, she's not "in town" for the heck of it. The only thing that would bring her to Lebanon would be Sam. So why isn't she here seeing Sam? Is she just driving through on her way somewhere else? She can't even spend one night in the bunker? And the tie? If Sam removed his tie, doesn't that strongly suggest Dean was right about the "something" going on? Did they do it in the back of the old car? At a hotel? I have questions, friends.

Anyway. Sam asks where Jack and Dean are, since it's late and they should be sitting around the map table waiting for him to come home and not, like, in bed or anything. "Well, I have some good news, and some bad news."

HERE IS SOME GOOD NEWS INDEED.

Honestly, I like this look better without the tie.

Time jump.

So, Jack has taken over Dean's mind. And they're both downstairs, right now, ready to be killed by us.

You were always the smart one, yes.

Sam, who is the smart one, says he's going to go to his room and get his gun, and he'll meet her in the dungeon. "And we can... get to the killing." I LOVE HIM. {Sidebar: I have watched his fake relieved sigh several times and it makes me smile every time.} Once he’s safe in his room, Sam calls Dean and starts to tell him about Mrs. Butters.

Went psycho, we know.

Why didn't you call me?

Well, I mean I, you know, I figured you were "practicing your sign language."

And that's more important than coming to save you?

...

Dean?

It's been a while for you, man, you know?

Aw. Always the supportive big brother. {Sidebar: As long as Sam is doing something Dean thinks Sam should be doing. But I digress.}

{Sidebar: I love Dean, y'all know I do. Warts and all. He'd be boring if he were perfect.}

Dean suggests Sam shoot her, although they don't know if a gun will kill her because neither of them got around to researching it because they were distracted by Christmas and Thanksgiving and breakfast on Boxing Day. That's how you get killed, guys. {Sidebar: How much do I love that Sam calls it Boxing Day? For my Brit friends, that's not really a thing in the U.S., although it's gradually starting to become one. And I love it.}

Dean then suggests that putting the bunker in standby mode might put Mrs. B in suspended animation again. Meanwhile, Jack and Dean are stuck in the dungeon. Jack suggests using his power to remove the cuffs, but Dean points out that the power surge would catch Chuck's attention. But what power surge? Jack already tried to use his power against Mrs. B and it turned out he didn't have any.

Jack suspects there are other reasons Dean doesn't want him to use his power, and suddenly decides it's time for a deep conversation.

Do you still think I'm a monster? Okay, I'm just gonna say this, okay? Just get it out there. Jack, I'm trying, okay? I really am. But what you did, that's not easy to forget. Now, I was angry with you. For a while. And maybe I still am a little bit, okay? But I'm not gonna let some evil Mary Poppins take you out. You understand?

Okay. Good talk.

Sam shows up in the library looking for Mrs. B, and trying to hide his gun, as if he hadn't told her he was going to his room specifically to retrieve said gun. But Mrs. B realizes he's trying to kill her, and freezes him. She's not mad, she's just disappointed. She tosses him into a chair and keeps him there with the power of her mind, not with rope or anything, in case you were wondering. {Oh, hello, "Funeralia" and "The Trap."} She tells him that when the MoL first found her, she didn't realize how important they were. But Mr. Cuthbert explained it to her. And since Sam is her favorite, she's not going to give up on him. Yet. She's going help Sam the same way Mr. Cuthbert helped her understand. Well, that doesn't sound ominous at all.

He's my favorite too! And I also think he needs to be hurt! See, she's basically me!

Dungeon. Dean is going to try to chop Jack's handcuffs off.

You're sure this is gonna work?

Let's say yes.

Aw. That was a perfect opportunity to bring back "maybe 90% sure." And it doesn't work - Jack is sent flying into a glassed-in cabinet that I've never seen in the dungeon before. Dean says "dang it" before remembering that he can use his big boy words, which is adorable. And then he gets an idea.

Upstairs. Mrs. B tries to convince Sam that Jack is a monster because he's Lucifer's son. Sam, of course, takes the opposite side of this debate. "Now, Mr. Cuthbert taught me that pain can be a wonderful teacher. Let's see if it can't correct your ways."

I SWEAR, Y'ALL, SHE IS ME.

Sam could sneer at her and say "I've been tortured by the devil himself; what can you do to me?" but we don't have that version of Sam any more. Mrs. B, without tools, yanks off one of his fingernails. {Oh, hello "A Very Supernatural Christmas!"}

Meanwhile, downstairs, Dean has a different theory on pain. It's just "weakness leaving the body," he tells Jack. We get a little "on three" bit, where he actually does the thing on one. And the thing is that he tries to cut Jack's handcuffs again, but this time Jack is strategically placed in front of the dungeon door. So when he's thrown back by the blast, he ends up breaking the door down.

Upstairs. Sam's been relieved of even more fingernails.

Downstairs. Dean takes a hammer (!) and smashes the reset button. Why doesn't he just push it with his hand? I mean, sure, we get the hammer, and the red lights and warning klaxon, and all of that turns me into Pavlov's dog {Hello, "Soul Survivor"}. But still. Seems unnecessary.

Upstairs. Mrs. B seems to be gone, and Dean bends over like he's untying Sam's wrist. But Sam's wrists aren't tied to anything, so. I got nothin'.

Downstairs. The runes that seem to hold Mrs. B in stasis light up, but do not stay lit. Well, that can't be good. And then the bunker grid control center thing thingy starts shaking and springs a leak. Ooops. Here she comes, complete with glowy green eyes.

Upstairs. Dean finishes untying Sam from the chair he wasn't tied to, and remarks on how gross his tortured hand is. Mrs. B shows up, yells that they've all been very bad, and flings them across the room. She's sure Sam will thank her someday for killing Jack, because it's so important to kill monsters and keep the MoL safe. It's why she couldn't go back to her forest. Sam explains to her that Mr. Cuthbert tortured her and used her, and Dean tells her Jack is going to save the world. Oh, okay then. The regular lights turn back on and Mrs. B tearfully says she misses the MoL so much.

Aftermath. Mrs. B heals Sam's hand and apologizes and all is immediately forgotten and once again, Sam gets to forgive his torturer and turn the other cheek. Yay! Sam, what was it you said earlier?

Gif stolen from @michaeldean

The guys send Mrs. B back to the woods, but first they have this conversation:

Sadly, without my magic, the bunker will revert to standby mode, so. Ah well, things were getting too easy anyway, you know? Who needs a monster radar? Or whatever that telescope thing is? It's an interdimensional geoscope. It's a what? I looked in it earlier; I didn't see anything. Oh. Well that's not good.

Holy crap, you guys. Interdimensional. It let the MoL look at the alternate worlds. And now you can't see anything because all of the alternate worlds have been destroyed. Gotta admit, this is an excellent little twist.

Jack presents Mrs. B with the photo of the MoL. "Oh look," she says. "The man who tortured me and kept me from my home, right here, front and center." Well, no, she doesn't. But I do.

Mrs. Butters gives them some last instruction. "Dean, eat your vegetables. And Sam, cut your hair. And Jack, go save the world." Well, I'm in favor of one or two of those things.

Try to tell me I'm wrong. Just try.

After-aftermath. Jack tells Sam that he doesn't know if he can kill God, since he was sidelined by a wood nymph "because I was stupid." He asks if Sam thinks he can do it.

"Jack, you're the only who can." No pressure.

Dean shows up with a truly awful-looking birthday cake for Jack. "I made it myself. Obviously." But Jack is thrilled because it's from Dean, and it means Dean loves him and has forgiven him, until the plot requires otherwise. He makes a wish and blows out his single candle. Fade to black.

So! There were parts of this that were simply marvelous. There were parts that were kind of dumb. There were parts that would have made me very angry if I weren't so tired and jaded. But the good parts were darn good, and the pretty was dialed up to 11, and we all know I'm a sucker for a pretty episode. And there was NO B PLOT. AT ALL. Thank you baby Jesus.

And let’s just refuse to consider the possibility that these were, in fact, their last holidays. Thanks.

Now I get to see what you thought about it. And, as always, please help me stay unspoiled for future episodes, including episode titles and casting info. {smooches}

[useful-wasting-of-ink]

Life Before Death

Part 3 - Luke

Find “Part 1 - Reggie” Here

Find “Part 2 - Alex” Here 

“The last two years of Luke, Reggie, and Alex's life as told through their trauma and their support of one another.”

TRIGGER WARNING: suicide attempt, anxiety, fighting, running away, death, pain, let me know if anything else needs to be mentioned.

Luke rarely fought with his parents, but when he did fight, it lasted a while. They didn’t like him spending so much time on the band. And his grades had never been the best, but they began to drop when they started booking gigs and rehearsals got more serious. They didn’t mind him hanging out with friends, but they liked it when he focused more on school, and when he wasn’t out past midnight every other night. 

Luke was smart. He liked to read, he enjoyed history, but he just didn’t care for school. The only reason he kept going was for his parents. Because he knew how important it was to them that he get an education. 

The fighting got worse as his grades dipped, he spent more and more time at the garage, usually, Reggie or Alex would be there too, avoiding their own homes. 

There were nights he would show up at the garage late at night and find Reggie sleeping on the couch, and others where Alex was playing his drums so loud his ears didn’t stop ringing for an hour. 

Sometimes Bobby would be there, just cause he had nothing better to do, but that was rare. Bobby had a good family, who supported him and didn’t care what he did with his free time. 

When Luke ran away, the others knew immediately. He’d shown up at Alex’s house looking absolutely wrecked. Maddie had opened the door for him, but Alex had been right behind her. 

“Are you okay?” Maddie had asked as Alex rushed towards him. 

Luke had given her a weak smile, “I’ll be alright.”

Reggie had been called over immediately, and the three sat together for as long as they could but Reggie had to go home later that night. Luke had spent the night crying into Alex’s chest. 

He spent most of that year living in the garage. It wasn’t hard, it had a bathroom with a shower, and they had a minifridge in the corner. But there were nights he’d crash at Alex’s or Reggie’s when their parents were out for the night.

Alex’s parent’s still weren’t happy with Alex’s “decision to be gay” as they put it, so the only times Luke or Reggie could spend the night was when they were going to be out all night.

Luke tended to show up at his friend’s houses unannounced in the middle of the night when he was having a bad night. That was always something that he did, though it got more common after he ran away. He never liked being alone, and now he was almost always alone. 

Luke was depressed, he didn’t like to admit it, but it got hard for him sometimes. His parents knew that he wasn’t always feeling the best, but only Alex and Reggie knew the true extent of how bad it got. They were there at his absolute worst times. Alex had done his math homework the night after his attempt in tenth grade (they didn’t get much sleep that night, and Luke didn’t get much support from his parents after getting home from the hospital). Reggie had been the one to pull the blade out of his hand. He’d shown up at Luke’s house to get some help with homework and ended up at the hospital with blood on his hands. 

Luke had been released with stitches five hours later, and no one gave him a second glance (both Reggie and himself had been very insistent that it was merely a cooking accident involving a fallen knife). Alex had been there to pick them up from the hospital because Luke had decided halfway through the panic that he didn’t want his parents there, they tried to argue but he didn’t care. 

Reggie had used the payphone to call Alex and get him to come and pick them up. They’d gone back to Luke’s and didn’t leave his bedroom until lunch the next day when Reggie went to go get pizza for the three of them. Luke had fallen asleep fairly quickly, but Alex and Reggie couldn’t bring themselves to take their eyes off him. Alex was afraid if he stopped looking at him he’d disappear, Reggie was scared that if he closed his eyes he’d be back to holding the blood-soaked cloth over his best friend’s arm, trying to stop the bleeding. 

Around 5 AM Alex finally convinced Reggie to get some sleep, so Reggie fell asleep with his head on Alex’s chest and Luke’s hand in his. He hadn’t let go since they’d gotten back. 

When Luke had woken up the next morning, Alex and Reggie were both asleep next to him, and he realized how lucky he was to have them as his friends. 

Luke sat at the desk in Reggie’s room, he was staring down at his songbook, but he couldn’t figure out the lyrics he wanted to write. Alex and Reggie were sitting on the bed, and Alex was talking Reggie through a math problem he couldn’t figure out. 

Alex was good at that, explaining math to people. He’d helped Luke get his grade up on multiple occasions, and the three of them always studied together before a big test. He had been a math tutor for a couple of months, but it didn’t last long, he just didn’t have the time.

Luke turned around to stare at them, Reggie’s tongue was sticking out in concentration, and Alex was pointing at something on the page before trying to show Reggie how to do the problem on paper. 

Alex looked up and smiled at him before turning back to Reggie, the smile gave Luke butterflies, but he couldn’t explain why. He got the same feeling when Reggie would laugh at one of his jokes, or the three of them were hanging out and one of them touched his hand unexpectedly. It just happens.

Luke got up and went to sit by them, leaning over Reggie’s shoulder to watch what they were doing. Reggie leaned back onto him, letting his head fall back onto his chest. It was obvious to Alex and Luke that he was done with studying for the night. 

“Why do letters have to be in math? It was hard enough when it was just numbers, I don’t even know how to divide!” Reggie was mumbling. 

Luke laughed a little, wrapping his arms around him, “I’m gonna be honest, I’m not entirely sure I know how to divide either.” 

“I can teach you both how to divide if you’d like?” 

“No!” Reggie and Luke answered in unison. 

“Okay, okay, maybe another time,” Alex laughed, grabbing their textbooks and putting them on the floor. 

He laid back on the bed, “Reg, I love ya, but you need to buy new sheets. You’re 17, and your pillows have stormtroopers on them.” 

“My sheets are awesome, thank you very much. But also they’re just the most comfortable sheets I can find…” 

Luke nodded at that, “They are very comfortable. And I mean, the blankets are nice, it’s just plain red. Who cares about pillowcases or anything, I’m pretty sure my pillowcases still have flowers on them…” Luke hadn’t talked about his house in over a month, it wasn’t his favorite topic. 

Neither Alex nor Reggie commented, but Alex saw the way his eyes began to water and how his face scrunched up like he was in pain. Reggie noticed how Luke’s fingers began to tap slightly faster where they rested on his wrist.

Luke was holding Reggie in his arms, and Alex was laying on the bed next to them. Luke felt safer when he was touching someone, especially if it was Alex or Reggie. Even if they were just barely touching hands, it was an instant sense of relief. 

Luke wasn’t a happy person. He had a lot of issues, and he didn’t like talking about them. He wrote a lot of it into music, but he never showed anyone those songs. Sometimes he’d purposely leave his book laying open where one of them would find it, and he would find it again laying on top of his bag later that day. Whoever had found it wouldn’t talk to him about it, they knew that wasn’t what he wanted, but they gave him a hug, and a reassuring smile and they knew that that was what he wanted and that was what he needed. 

After Luke’s attempt, he spent a lot of time sitting at his desk, writing. That had been two years ago, when he was 15. The way he felt that night never really left him, but he fought it off the best he could. He realized the effect his death would have on the people he loved.

There were nights he would struggle and there were nights he’d call Alex in a panic because his head hurt so bad from the racing thoughts. Alex would come over and sit with him for hours, holding his hands so he couldn’t scratch at the skin on his arms. He would come up with strange conversation topics to help get his mind off of whatever was going on. There were also nights where Reggie would be the one to get on his bike at midnight and they would sit on the floor of Luke’s room and talk until they saw the sunrise.

Luke knew how to tell when Alex was having a bad day and when Reggie’s parents were going at it again. Alex knew how to tell when Luke was barely holding his head up, and Reggie was about to pass out from sleep deprivation. Reggie knew how to get Alex out of a situation that gave him anxiety, and how to get Luke to lay down and take a break. The three of them knew each other inside and out.

It was no surprise when Luke confessed to his feelings for the other two, and they reciprocated those feelings. They kept their relationship secret, of course. It was 1995, being gay was one thing, being in a relationship with two people was completely different. And both were frowned upon. 

They had been sitting in the garage, it was late and none of them wanted to go home (Luke couldn’t go home). And in a sleep-deprived state, Luke decided to confess. It had taken a minute for the other two to completely comprehend what he had said, and there had been a lot of asking for clarification (Luke had been trying to get them to understand what he was saying without actually saying it). But at the end of it, after a long conversation about feelings, they decided to try a relationship. 

One night, when the three of them were at Alex’s house (his parents had gone out for the night), Luke woke up to Maddie trying to get Alex awake. She knew that they spent the night, so it didn’t bother her that the three of them were in the bed, but she was crying and Alex wasn’t waking up. He had had a long day, so Luke wasn’t exactly surprised that he wasn’t waking.

“Maddie?” He asked quietly, “Are you okay?” he sat up to look at her, squinting in the dark room. 

“I had a nightmare and I tried not to come bother you guys, but I’m scared and Alex isn’t waking up,” she talked fast, and it was obvious in her voice that she was scared. 

“Do you want me to come downstairs and we can watch some TV?” he asked, knowing that Alex needed to sleep. 

The light from the hall made it easier to  see her nod in the dark room, “okay, I’ll be down in a minute,” he watched as Maddie left the room.

Luke got up and put some clothes on before heading downstairs. Maddie was sitting on the couch rewinding a VHS tape, Beauty and the Beast was her favorite, and Luke didn’t mind sitting through it for the fourth time that month. 

Luke had been around when Maddie took her first steps, he was there for all of her birthdays, and so had Reggie. She looked up to them, and she thought of them as her brothers. 

There was one day Alex couldn’t go pick her up from school, and so Luke went instead, and almost started crying when he heard her tell her friends “I gotta go, my brothers here!” and she ran up and gave him a big hug. 

“Okay, kiddo. It's past midnight, so don’t tell your parents, but do you want some hot chocolate?” 

Maddie grinned, nodding quickly. Luke laughed, going to make two cups of hot chocolate in the kitchen, trying to keep quiet so Alex and Reggie didn’t wake up. They both deserved to get some more sleep. He added extra marshmallows to Maddie’s cup and walked back to the living room a few minutes later to find the movie starting. 

Maddie fell asleep with her head in Luke’s lap, and Luke didn’t have the heart to wake her up to move her back to her own room, so he sat there until morning when Alex came downstairs to find him. 

Alex smiled at the sight of the two of them, but it was nearing seven and his parents would be home soon so they all had to get dressed and at least pretend that they hadn’t spent the night. He leaned down to kiss Luke’s cheek, who had woken up when he heard the stairs creak. 

Alex then shook Maddie’s shoulder softly, “Mads, wake up,” he spoke quietly.

“Alex!” she grinned, jumping up to give him a hug, “we watched Beauty and the Beast and Luke made hot chocolate!” 

“Is that so?” he glanced at Luke, who just smiled innocently in return. 

She nodded quickly, “Yep!”

Maddie was definitely a morning person.

Reggie woke up twenty minutes later when Luke and Alex came back upstairs to get him up, “It’s half past go away,” he mumbled when Luke stole the blankets from him. 

Luke grinned, “It’s actually half-past seven, but I guess that works too.”

Reggie flipped him off before curling into a ball to try to regain some warmth, “Let me sleep,” he mumbled. 

Alex laughed at him, “You gotta get up, Reg. My parents will be home soon so we all gotta get dressed.” 

Reggie groaned, sitting up to stare at them, “Are we going to the garage today?”

“We could, but we probably won’t be rehearsing. Bobby is busy, so we’d probably just hang out,” Luke tossed Reggie’s flannel at him, along with his jeans. He was already wearing his black tank top, which he fell asleep in. 

“I’m down to just hang out if Alex is?” 

Alex shrugged in response, “I don’t see why not, it’s not like any of us had anything better planned. We just gotta wait for my parents so Maddie isn’t alone. I can tell them you came over to pick me up and we didn’t want to leave Maddie by herself.”

The three got dressed, except for Luke who was already mostly dressed. Reggie grabbed his backpack, slinging it over his shoulder before following Alex downstairs. Luke sat on Alex’s bed for a minute, just thinking about life.

The boys broke up a week before they were supposed to perform at the Orpheum. It was a unanimous decision, though that didn’t make it any easier on any of them. They all cried. But their relationship didn’t suffer from it. It took them a few hours, but the next day they were right back to their old selves. They still cuddled, and there were still a lot of hugs and touchy moments, but they were friendly touches. They had decided that it was better for them as a band, and as friends, that they weren’t in a relationship. 

The day they were supposed to perform was one of the craziest days of any of their lives. Bobby was the only one who managed to stay calm throughout the entire day (and Alex was pretty sure that was because he only half cared). Alex had a panic attack in the dressing room, Luke kept tripping everywhere he stepped, and Reggie kept forgetting the words to the songs (he made them up on the spot if he couldn’t remember).

“This is it, boys, we’ve worked so hard to get here and now we’re finally here and soundcheck is in an hour,” Luke was always the one to hype them up before a show, he was good at it, “After tonight, nothing can stop us. The world will know our name, god… tonight defines our future. Even if we mess up, it’s still going to be the best show we’ve ever played.” 

Alex was twirling one of his sticks between his fingers, anxiety present on his face, but it was obvious that he was also more excited than he’d ever been before. 

“I left tickets on the counter of our kitchen, I hope my parents come, I’d love for Maddie to see us play.” Maddie had never been to one of their shows, and neither had Alex’s parents. 

“I left tickets too, but I don’t think my folks are gonna show…” 

“I sent my parents a letter, but I didn’t leave a note, just the tickets… Maybe they’ll come? I should never have left...” Luke looked up towards the ceiling, staring at the lights there. 

All three boys looked at Luke, though Alex and Reggie were the most shocked. He rarely talked about his parents, and the only regret he ever showed was though Unsaid Emily. 

Bobby was sitting on the couch with his feet up on the table, “who cares if our parents show? This is our night, not theirs.” 

Alex rolled his eyes, ignoring him. 

“It’s our night, which means that they should be here supporting us,” Luke was not one to ignore people’s ignorant comments. 

“Whatever, man.”

Soundcheck felt like it passed in seconds, though it was really only about an hour. And now they had another two hours before the actual show. The three boys always spent the last hour before their shows together if there was nothing else they had to do. Usually they’d just sit around until they were called on stage, but today was different. Today they were playing on their own, today they were the center of attention.

Sure, they’d played their own gigs before, but never like this. Never this big. Never this important. 

They were all on edge, and it was understandable. This was the biggest night of their lives. Too bad it was also the last.

They died just like they lived. Together. 

Luke went first, he had been feeling ill since the first bite but thought it was just nerves. It wasn't just nerves. Alex was having a panic attack, which may have been why he was the next to die. His body was fighting too hard for too many things at once. Reggie was last, he had to listen to both his friend's flatline, had to feel Alex's hand go limp in his own, but he was too tired to feel anything other than pain. Luke had died quickly, and Alex soon followed, but Reggie had to be there for all of it. None of them were entirely conscious while in the ambulance, they were in pain, they were tired, and they just wanted to sleep, but Reggie was there the longest, he remembered the most. And it was haunting

The paramedics said there was nothing they could do. But they kept them together in their last moments, and that was the best thing they could have done.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Moriarty 8 - 11 (FINAL) | HypMic 12 - 13 (FINAL) | Taiso Samurai 7 - 9 | Akudama 9 - 12 (FINAL)

Hopefully I’ll be able to get on to all that backlog soon, because...I don’t want it to keep accumulating and Skate-Leading Stars (first winter 2021 anime) already has an advance 1st ep. up...

Moriarty 8

(Moriarty 8 notes deleted accidentally…)

Moriarty 9

If you want a modern equivalent to the Baker Street Irregulars, then I’d suggest you look this way *jabs finger at Odd Jobs Yamada (from HypMic)*.

These CGI background horse and carriages are…kind of distracting…

I’m guessing back in those days, the Irregulars were better than Google at finding info…because Google didn’t exist until the internet did.

Moriarty 10

Just this ep and one more until the end…at least, until spring 2021.

Wow, the use of colour here is really striking!

White lilies mean…purity/chastity…?

I’ve never heard of “bending someone’s ear” until now. It means to talk to someone, especially to ask a favour or to talk at length.

Probatio diabolica: the devil’s proof. I didn’t even know that was a concept until now…(I never once studied law, as you can tell.)

“William” isn’t normally shortened to “Liam”…It’s normally “Will”…also, notice all the footprints on the floor…

Moriarty 11 (FINAL)

Last ep. before spring 2021.

LOL, kabedon.

The fishy thing about Brits is that they’ve named things across the world names from Britain. I know there’s a Doncaster which isn’t anywhere near Britain, for one thing…

Observe the weird finger-like marking made by one of the bloodstains and the scratches on the suitcase. The latter was probably forced open.

Considering the number of signs the killer left, he was clearly in a hurry…

Well, based on that shoeprint we can find the killer if we can find traces of blood on his shoe.

“Duram” (sic).

Ah! If it was raining in Durham, then there would be traces of mud on the killer’s shoes. I remember early on in Detective Conan Shinichi, then newly shrunk, deduced Agasa was running in the rain based on the mud on his pants…this is similar.

Chloral (hydrate…?).

The “washroom” (apparently a Canadian term, the British term is “water closet”) has privacy and a place to get rid of the evidence, to some extent.

What about the rest of Eddie’s clothes?

Considering there are still 5 minutes of the ep. left…there’s going to be some kind of stinger for the next season. I can feel it.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaait…Director Holmes??? Y’mean, Mycroft?! That is a good stinger! See you next time.

HypMic 12

“Ever since I was born, there was never a time I’d felt I’d accomplished something.” – Aw, Doppo, sweetpea (<- this blogger calls people “sweetpea” when they’re feeling lots of moe feels for them). Please don’t say that. You’ve accomplished more than enough in your life!

…Oh, almost didn’t notice it until Hifumi hid behind Doppo and the angle changed to confirm the jacket was on the bed, but Hifumi doesn’t have his jacket on.

I think I saw a tweet that said something about a wall being wrecked (specifically “Wall: Ow…”) but I wasn’t sure of the context, so I saved it in my bookmarks…LOL, so that’s what it means?

Samatoki, I know you don’t like Ichiro…but please stop trying to preach what his 2nd character song says in the title…(i.e. Break the Wall, LOL)

Jyuto’s very much a “I’ll leave this problem to the other guy” guy.

When the Funi subs say “dame”, I think Samatoki is just referring to an “onna” (woman). It’s a bit of an odd choice, really…although I can’t go and interrogate whoever was responsible for it. I don’t have the authority or the contacts that will allow me to.

This is not the time for fighting one another!!!

Notably, in the manga, Jakurai was going to chaffeur Hifumi and Doppo to their place, but then he had to go to work and so they rode the train with their prize money. This “run from Special Forces” ending is better, I think, since people got grumpy at Jakurai for having to abandon them with the money.

“…permission to cover a story.” - Permission from…who?

*screams* I was thinking Tom, Rex and Iris worked for a foreign government! They work for Ichijiku – why didn’t I think of that?!

LOL, I couldn’t even tell what Tom was saying until I played it back���it’s English, just…said in a spot where you don’t expect it.

“…that scares me.” – This may be nitpicky of me, but osoreru is actually a derivative of osore (fear), so “it strikes fear in me”…? “It strikes fear in my heart”? What would sound right…?

Go, host mode Hifumi! (...but does that imply host mode Hifumi is the only “version” of Hifumi able to rap? Certainly, he was able to do Wrap and Rap without his jacket, right…?)

You can tell Tom still respects Jakurai after all this time because he (the former) calls him (the latter) “Sensei”. Also, this’ll be interesting, we haven’t seen many mics and speakers beyond the standard bad guy ones (depicted in both the anime and the manga).

My gosh! All I knew of this song was that m-flo, also responsible for Human Lost’s theme song (and notably they’re a hip hop group with techno influences), was responsible for this song. Man, this s*** slaps! It’s great! (Sorry, I’ve just never really had the chance to capitalise on all the info I gathered on EDM DJs when talking in terms of things from Japan…m-flo is basically the only act I know which does that, so I’m really excited…can’t you tell from how verbose I’m getting in this note?)

That’s interesting that Matenrou won and Tom still took the gold chair symbolism to represent him and the Secret Aliens as the victor instead.

Iris’s parts are awesome. M-flo has a female vocalist and so I’d assume Iris takes on Lisa’s (m-flo’s vocalist’s) parts.

…Hmm, Gentaro’s made a reference to the track “Me Against the World”, has he?...Maybe.

I’m not quite sure, but I think Ramuda said “majo” (witch) when he was referring to Beauty and the Beast in the English subs.

…gosh, what is up with that airhorn…? Still, next time is the last time. See you on Christmas…no, Boxing Day.

HypMic 13 (FINAL)

This is the beginning of the end and the end of the beginning…y’know, considering how stuff trended on Twitter, I’d say this anime’s gonna get a 2nd season, but you can’t really say that until it actually happens. I mean, Boueibu is much less popular than HypMic and that got a 2nd season…

This is the 1st episode where I woke up early enough to watch without spoilers and had no obligations to place over it, so…this is exciting, in its own sense, but in a sense, it could also be called “profoundly disappointing” because this experience is only available to me as of the final episode.

One of the tweets I saw a few weeks back came to mind – someone became interested in sakuga houkai (terrible animation, literally “animation collapse”) because of HypMic…I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing…

…Dude, you probably shouldn’t answer a call from someone who just revealed themselves to be a traitor last episode…*sweatdrops*

(Spoiler for rest of franchise) Hmm…Dice’s face is pretty straight. Assuming at this point we knew Dice was Otome’s son, this is a good poker face from him…!

This thing about gangs was mentioned in their profiles (although the words used implies they “went delinquent”), so it actually doesn’t surprise me.

I wonder if this subway exists in the mainline story…?

According to the next ep. preview I saw on Twitter, TDD will reform to take down the Secret Aliens. I’m not sure if that was a guess or whether that’s true, so I’m waiting for the shoe to drop on it.

Samatoki-san, not -sama. Hmm…

There was definitely the word “team” in Dice’s line, so it’s “what the legendary team was made of”.

…oh gosh…they’re still using that airhorn…?

Again with the play on “lonely thunder”. It’s a really fun pun, but one I’d like to see in the rest of the series more.

Notably, Iris’s rap in English missed the word “charisma” where it could have fit (unless I missed reading it the first time).

Note Samatoki does actually use the word “shinsensa” (freshness), so there’s no lie there.

I still love how much they went in on Rex’s theme, even in his raps.

Huh, that’s new. Never seen a tag team like this before.

It seems Tom’s signature is using a lot of English, which makes it easy for us English/Japanese pair translators.

Saburo didn’t actually say “Ichi-nii”, did he…?

…based on the rock intro, this is Rhyme Anima, the OP, or something that sounds similar. What I’d need to confirm this is the “nautilus” line and the “ends corruption” line, which are the OP’s two biggest tells for AMQ.

“rainmaking” – Hmm, another link from Gentaro to Rei. This might be a different part of Rhyme Anima (OP) that wasn’t used as the OP proper.

“this white light invites and heals” (<- paraphrased) – Sounds like Sensei, alright!

…now that (rainbow bit). That’s sakuga!

*a silhouette appears* - Oh nooooooooooooooo! Now they‘ve done it! They’ve included Rei! That’s more than enough spoilers to last a lifetime for y’all anime-onlys!

I wish someone would work on this collaboration between Saburo and Riou…

Hmm…what is the series endgame? Putting in Dice as the new ruler??? I mean, Dice is the worst possible politician ever. He’s far too lax about things.

*Nemu enters* - No! Nemu!

Not only is Iris a “ramen shop owner”, it’s Tom’s favourite food…No wonder ramen has significance to her.

…ooh! A new song! Update: I don’t know what this song’s name is, although it probably will become clear what its name is on the 13th. I’ll keep my eye on Twitter in case the answer is there.

…I knew it was far too early to say if there was an s2 – the DVD’s live events go until September 5th and the 2nd DRB finishes in March. That almost felt like a stinger right there. Oh well, I’m more than happy to call this anime a success, even if I would call it the worst of the arms of the franchise. All HypMic’s anime had to do was deliver fun, before anything else, and it delivered on that front. See you around!

Taiso Samurai 7

Anime burnout means I’m coming back to the anime after the day it finishes.

This dancing scene is kind of like the one at the start of ep. 2 of IWGP, except it has the owl to represent the setting as well as the dance stage.

Leo doesn’t seem to know kanji or katakana, only hiragana.

Even though this part of the anime is set in London, the characters are still speaking Japanese (lel…?).

LOL, Edward Scissorhands much?

LOL, these background gossips are like the Plastics from Mean Girls…haha.

…LOL, that’s not one of those dismounting moves, is it? It’s just kind of…jumping off the bar.

Lookit how Leo’s sticker is 90 deg. sideways from what it should be, haha.

I don’t think it’s true that Olympic gymnasts have never failed. Like other people at the top of their game, they’re probably failed millions of times, but only outside the view of most of the world. Persistence and passion are what’s key to becoming the best at what you are, no matter what field you’re in.

Now Aragaki’s what I call a “determinator” (see TV Tropes on what that is).

Taiso Samurai 8

Notably, the word used for “clothes” is specifically for Western clothing, like dresses.

Well, now we know why Leo can do those stretches…

They’ve clearly sped up the dance here, but…it’s basically the same sort of movements Yuri on Ice used to suck me in. I’m here for it!

Leo seems to be the type who tries to push away his worries by distracting people (including himself) with other things…I see. I didn’t have much of a grasp of his character beforehand.

Britney! F*** you, Britney!

Ah, that must be the (a?) fabled owl of Ikebukuro. I’ve never actually been to Ikebukuro…the closest I got was Akihabara (to memory) and even then, that was for electronics, not anime…so I’ve never seen the owl statue I’ve been talking about close up.

Rei does kind of look like her mother like this.

Ah! Rei and Kitty have a pair look now! “Twinsies”, they call it.

Amakusa’s head is located right next to Leo’s butt, so I end up staring at it…LOL.

The Hoover mission.

“I <3 Ninja”, LOL.

LOL, “Nyapoo!”

*sighs* The problem with being multi-talented is that you’re going to be told to one day put one passion above the others, even if you don’t want that.

LOL, you can be a ninja with this WikiHow article. (I was looking for Kitty’s quote, but found that instead. It seems to be a quote from one of Tomoyo’s movies.) Update: I was right.

There’s a movie in the back where the title is “Black Rainmaker”. (Tomoyo, I presume) Mifune is the 1st person credited.

Considering this is 2003…you won’t be on Mars in 2013, Kitty.

Wow, a tape! That brings me back to 2003, indeed.

Charlie’s Angels…so that’s what the tape was.

LOL, a shoebill.

“blade in your heart” – That would refer to the character for “ninja”, which has a blade over a heart. Y’know Kiss Shot Acerola Heart-Under-Blade (from Monogatari), yeah? Like that.

…you might think emails were out of place in 2003, but a virus from an email caused me to be an avid reader and that virus was unleashed around the late 90s – early 2000s.

LOL, Kitty’s cat belt buckle.

You said it, Rei. You said it.

Taiso Samurai 9

Lausanne, Switzerland.

I noticed one of the boxes at the start of the OP says “Horizontal Bars”, rather than some random name to make the boxes look like they were discarded.

Someone encoded the video funny…

LOL, BB’s getting possessive of his territory.

Fuku-chan the fukurou (owl) in Ikebukuro…LOL.

LOL, randomly there’s a skeleton with a hat in the background of Britney’s clinic.

Notably, one of the wall hangings says “heart” on it – alternatively, “soul”.

Notably, Atlanta was the 1996 Summer Olympics…there is no 1997 Lausanne Olympics, as far as I know.

Akudama 9

I watched the part where it glitches twice and I can’t quite figure out what that circular symbol is…maybe it’s Hacker’s symbol…?

Ah! Only now they properly confirm Swindler used to work in the Seal centre.

“Life that never dies is defective.” – Doctor

Does that mean Doctor is actually older than she looks, due to plastic surgery…?

Marker? What marker?

Apparently that flower is a cherry blossom…according to Detective Conan.

…I know this anime wasn’t made in America (it wouldn’t be “anime” otherwise), but Anime Feminist is going to have a field day with this one…if they haven’t abandoned it already due to their idea of morals.

…now I can even see parallels between HypMic’s authorities and Akudama’s. Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.

“Why did this have to happen when I’m chief?” – Sounds like…basically every authority during COVID and BLM, to be honest.

See? Akudama likes the S word. I told you.

I haven’t watched The Shining, but reading the synopsis, you can figure out why Cutthroat is the way he is…sort of.

How does the iconic quote go? “Heeeeeeeeeeeere’s Danny!” (or something…?)

They even copied the iconic eye shot! There you go!

Way to take a guy out (with the door, LOL).

…with all this killing, I can see why Akudama Drive was only in one magazine now. (Then again, HypMic was in basically all of them and that also has a tonne of problems…)

Akudama 10

万死 literally means “10000 deaths”.

Babel.

That police chief is such a mood, LOL.

I can see why people didn’t recognise Swindler, but Courier never changes his look, so…uh…

You can’t become a police chief without a sense of justice, no?

“Since when did you know that I’m not-“ - *facepalms*

Is this what they call an “ass-kickin’ Christmas”? (LOL)

Y’know, Sister, you could just do the whole “wherever you are, I’m also seeing the same sky as you” thing some other anime do.

Notably, there are shide (the paper strips) and a rope over the vault…they really do treat the shinkansen and its immortal children as a single god, huh?

Hmm? They don’t care about Sister anymore? Just Brother? (Somewhere along the way, the priorities must have shifted.)

In the end, the best ship is Brawler and Hoodlum (lel).

Akudama 11

One more ep after this. I’m gonna miss this anime, even if it was crazy over-the-top and I didn’t finish it until after the day it ended.

I think the scariest scene in all of Akudama Drive is the one where the “cleaner” tosses the girl aside.

“This nowhere place!” – Around this time, the bunny and shark’s shirts say “morning”/”afternoon” (shark) and “evening” (bunny).

The blue bird of happiness…literally. That character on the birds is the one for “happy”.

…LOL, that one glitched Courier looks more like Cutthroat.

Hacker’s drone matches Courier’s head angles, LOL.

I guess if you think you’re falling in Kanto, you’re falling in Kanto and if you think you’re floating (like Courier did), you float. I always liked that concept.

War Games. Now the title makes sense!

…but they can be together if they stay here in Kanto as vessels for the citizens? (That sounds mighty antagonistic of me, but…that logic does compute.)

Maybe swindlers play games with the truth…? (What an interesting concept.)

“Just fine.” – I think Hacker needs a “This is fine” meme.

“We can hear your heart talking.” – It means something like “We can hear you spouting your true intentions.”

“…worth every last penny…” – That’s a weird thing to say for someone whose life got changed by 500 yen…Just goes to tell you how American the subbers can be sometimes.

Swindler’s smug face is so good, LOL.

Akudama 12 (FINAL)

This episode isn’t named after a movie. It’s named after the anime itself.

The TV says “Please watch away from the TV”, i.e. stand back from the TV while you watch.

“They came and stole the offerings…” – At this point, bunny’s shirt says “freedom” and shark’s says honpou, meaning “wild, uninhibited, rampant, extravagant”.

…where did Shikoku come from? Is that where Swindler and Sister landed after they tried going to the moon?

Ohh! That Christian imagery! That’s scary!

Is Akudama Drive a tragedy? No, I think…on the contrary, it’s a story of hope.

LOL, “s*** guy”.

I thought the girl had a bomb. Turns out she has a gun, which is…far worse, come to think of it.

Instead of red characters which say things about the situation, now Shark and Bunny have Hacker’s symbol on them.

There’s no way anyone who wasn’t immortal would survive the attack Courier took…

…why is it that falling over represents vulnerability in children in all of these stores where a war has happened and/or there’s a chase? Hmm?

Wow, Sister did everything with heels on…?!

Anyways, that was a fun time. See you next time!

[calamitousrpgarchive]

WELCOME TO THE NIGHTKEEPERS BALL

The doors of Halfway to Nowhere open, its usual neon and strobes replaced with something a little more appropriate for a Winter Ball; the décor much more fitting, a little on the cooler side – the weather serving as that inspiration. It’s very clear that there’s been no expense spared, Evanora Bile and Dante Bacchus a team that know how to put on an event. Their staff arriving early, following orders – surprisingly compliant to everyone’s growing amusement, a strange air about the place where it feels like tension coils tight in the walls and emanates a thump of a heart beating. Though, it appears to be the bass of music reverberating around HTN with a vengeance.

As soon as creatures file in, the tension slips into something a little more manageable. It’s almost pleasant, liquor and fine wines for all the guests to enjoy. For a moment, if there’s no secret underlying intentions – or strange gazes exchanged in the oddest of places, it could pass as the most normal and peaceful event that Calamity has ever seen.

Nothing but elegance; suited, booted and everyone in their formal attire with glamour that upstages the person beside them. Skin connects when people dance; a myriad of music tastes for all to appreciate. The bar isn’t running out and the servers are keeping up – performances arranged by collaboration with other bars and clubs have gifted all with something memorable. Clothes aren’t entirely necessary for the ones on podiums in the back room of HTN; where the classiness begins to toll. The front is certainly glitz, lowlights keep the essence of what Halfway’s about; a private ravenous and all consuming club that draws its guests in deeper with every minute that passes.

A table stretches along the rear wall, delicacies to every taste – desire and want line it, plates and glasses with every delight available to all those exclusive enough to gain invitation to the Winter Ball.

What isn’t realised is that nobody’s gone straight for the centre of it.

THE PUNCHBOWL

There’s a large fishbowl, filled to the brim with a paling red liquid – almost pink, soaks fruit and other unidentifiable sweets within its tightly packed glass walls. Nobody wants to be the first to touch it, to consume the liquid that not even the organisers present can admit its ingredients. But everyone understands what it represents, and it’s the most consistently glanced at item in the room – second to one another that there’s a little more than just what everyone’s wearing.

The punchbowl, unbeknownst to everyone besides the Nightkeeper, contains the magical equivalent to paint stripper.

Illegal magic that near borders necromancy – a rumoured impossible for the darkest tomes to ever represent. Whoever the Nightkeeper is has some dangerous access to potions that could ruin and change the balance of the world as it is now. If in the hands of the light, they could purge the darkness in days, if it the grips of the dark, they could remove light from ever being.

The punchbowl is the end of magic as the world knows it; removes it from ever being, rips away anything special from anyone with magical properties; wielders of it; those kept alive by it; those cursed by it; blessed even, those who have only ever known magic.

Gone. Just like that. Consider it dead.

Immortals, impossibly mortal; those created by it, cease to be. Can you be considered dead if you never existed to begin with?

Those who survive the harsh qualities of the magic removal, and the mortals that have never had magic affinity; wiped in another way, memory erased of ever knowing that the impossible existed at all. A clean slate, without burdens of abnormalities, without the knowledge of monsters; without magic at all – never able to be afflicted by it, simply, a new mind.

But nobody knows what the punch is. The punchbowl is the punchline; you’ve always been the joke.

Do you walk the line and take a sip; lose everything about yourself, or do you take it from someone else and complete your task?

Take a drink from the punchbowl, huh? If only you knew.

And you’ll know nothing if you do, that’s the punch. But ‘ you can drink from the punchbowl ‘ never specified completely. 

Who’s taking that risk?

IT’S COOL AT THE BALL

It’s certainly reflecting winter, the windows from the view of inside begin to end up caked in snow from the bottom up, the never-ending stream of flakes that turn Calamity into a Winter Wonderland only serves as an aesthetic; the inside of HTN thrives with warmth and that growing heat begins to remind the room that it’s not all about self-enjoyment. 

There’s things they love on the line. And there’s decisions to make. 

Red and white’s the new colours of winter. 

ADMIN NOTE: Introducing the Nightkeeper’s Winter Ball, Part One! You’ve already got your invitations and instructions creatures, do with them what you will. You’ve got your outs and your ins and all the options in front of you. WHOLESOME I SAID. HERE WE ARE. As always, pepper us with the questions, I know you’ve got them. Give me your speculations, all your loopholes, I love them. 

The Winter Ball as it stands right now, is only two parts. TO ALL YOUR RELIEFS I’M SURE. But it’s very much driven by all of you and your character choices, so, have fun! This will run all week as to have plenty of time to write and plot for you all, and we know this month is a busy one! We’ll also have an vote near the end of the week about whether you want an extension on this due to the potential for plot points in your characters story arch, we’re flexible y’all!

Part one end: 20th December 2020, 22:00GMT/18:00EST

Thank you as always for being so awesome and wonderful guys!

[starside-selfships]

Homecoming

Tonight was certainly not in my favor for the most part. To bring you up to speed, it was homecoming night for my younger brother, along with his friends, and I was an unpaid chauffeur for them. Whether I said yes or no to my mom, which the latter would result in a scolding, I would still be driving, whether I liked it or not. I had plans to meet up with someone tonight and now, unfortunately, I had to cancel those plans. Wonderful. So much for treating myself. Saying yes to avoid any conflict between my mother and I, I was driving my brother and his group of boys and girls, one of them most likely his significant other, to the nearby high school, the same one where I graduated from, but I don’t think any of that really mattered. Sure, there were going to be people there that recognized me, but it’s not like I planned on going inside to dance or mingle. Don’t get me wrong, I was gussied up for the occasion, but with how tonight was already progressing, going inside to try and get into the groove was not on my agenda. Little did I know that I was going to be completely wrong. 

We were nearing the school as I was in the driver’s seat and I focused on the road as best I could, overhearing the conversation in the back amongst the group of seniors about how my brother was probably going to get laid or something, followed by a roar of laughter. While he was of age, as am I, I didn’t think I would be hit with a strong dose of discomfort hearing those words coming out of their mouths. Yeah, they were in high school so it made sense for them to say stuff like that. Already I began to question this night before my thoughts started to shift towards a particular someone that made my smile return after it had been gone for hours. A demon, or imp rather, down in hell that no one knew, except for a few of my closest friends who I knew could definitely keep a secret, had my heart and more. My smile remained small, but it was genuine, a chuckle eliciting from me as I continued to drive and within seconds of starting to think about him, I noticed my phone vibrating in the front passenger seat out of the corner of my eye. Look, I am, and I quote from one of my favorite content creators, a “good fucking citizen” and I would never risk my life or others because of a single text message. However, this wasn’t a single text. Whoever was trying to reach me was literally trying to nuke my phone for I counted the vibrations from listening closely to them. I didn’t bother picking up my phone so I just counted. 1...2...3...4...5...not even five minutes and I’ve somehow counted 23 and rising text messages being sent to my phone. Was it that urgent or was someone just spamming me with nonsense because I can’t remember the last time I was spammed like that and my memory is on point, not to brag or anything.

Upon pulling into one of the many parking lots of the high school, my brother and his friends began unbuckling themselves from their seats and after setting the SUV into “park”, they all got out one by one, on both sides, putting on their masks. I forgot to mention that this homecoming had a theme, which was “Monster Mash”, so zombies, mummies, your usual batch of monsters from all types of media of course, along with the special monsters that only one or two people only knew and were ready to discuss and talk about at a moment’s notice. As much as I wanted to sit in the car, I knew I was going to have to go in at some point, so earlier today, I decided I was going as a werewolf, picking up a fitting mask from the city’s costume store, but instead of just having a mask and calling it a day, it evolved into something more homemade. I spent several extra hours turning my tux into a more fitting and lycanthrope-themed outfit, dark fur lining the edges and front of my suit, outfitting myself with wolf ears and covering my face in blood to represent claw marks. Thankfully, I remembered that I had an old wolf tail, cleaning it up and hoping that the appearance was pleasing to the eye in some way and to my surprise, it certainly was. Not like anyone was going to care honestly, but you know, what’s wrong with a little bit of effort, even if no one’s going to notice?

“You’re not coming?” My brother questioned as he reached for his mask and was about to head inside with the others, earning a shake of my head as a response.

“We’ll see, you go have fun, okay?” I said, seeing him run off back to this squad and closing the car door as I rested my head on the back of my seat and sigh heavily. Finally, no one could hear or see me cry, the lights on the inside roof of the car beginning to slowly dim, shutting off completely and leaving me in darkness. “Fuck.” I whispered, trying not to choke on my tears thanks to the numerous thoughts clouding my head, many of them were memories of my high school days and how they all just generally sucked. I’m going to spare you of the details, but in short, I was a teacher’s pet who did good, had good grades, and tried so hard not to get caught up in a relationship since, well, at the time I wasn’t into anyone and nor was anyone into me. Looking back at it, I’ve never been hit with an intense pain in my life. But then, my thoughts were interrupted by another vibration. “Alright, who’s trying to nuke my phone?” I told myself as I reached over and grabbed my phone in frustration, turning the screen on and discovering that the imp himself had been sending me a flood of messages, alongside his employees, including the hellhound. “Wait, what?” I was stunned, why was I getting all these messages from I.M.P? Unlocking my phone and going through the wave of texts and images, most of them being from Blitzo, I checked the ones belonging to Millie, Loona, and Moxxie first, working my way up from there.

Millie “Hey Eli!” “Just wanted to say that I hope tonight is great for you and Blitzo!” “He has a really big surprise for you!” “Have fun you two!”

Loona “Elijah” “Heard ya weren’t feeling great” “Shit sucks but Blitz has a surprise for you later tonight” “Ain’t saying shit, but I hope you have fun” “You deserve it, alright?”

Moxxie “Dear Elijah, I certainly hope your night is swell. I overheard from my boss that it wasn’t going as planned and not to spoil anything, but he has a surprise for you later tonight. Have fun!” “p. s it’ll be a nice break from him interfering with my relationship with Millie.”

And now, all that there was left to check was Blitzo, I didn’t bother holding back my tears. Who was going to watch? Most of his texts were pictures of him looking for an outfit, getting help from a smiling Millie, annoyed Moxxie, and a Loona who looked like she didn’t really care. That’s what the realization hit me soon after. I didn’t want to believe it, but I looked through every single text again and yeah, sure enough, it was real. The imp was my date. Blitzo was my homecoming date. Another text, the last one from Blitzo for the night it seemed, sounding ominous of course.

“See ya soon, Eli. XOXO”

My smile returned once again as I regained my thoughts, clearing my head and doing my best to ignore all the negative and previous ones that arrived earlier tonight, replacing all of them with one: the fact that the imp that nearly killed me by accident was my homecoming date. The two of us have talked and spent a lot of time together, but who would’ve thought that he would be the one I would fall for and make my better in a way like this? Yeah, I was into him the most out of everyone at I.M.P. Of course, Millie and Moxxie were married and Loona, I’ll be honest, she was someone who appeared that she wasn’t too keen on dating. Blitzo, on the other hand, ever since the two of us met with him pounced over my body with a double barrel shotgun aimed directly at my face, we’re never been closer. That story about how we met is a real doozy, but it’s certainly for another time.

After waiting a little longer, I finally left the vehicle and locked the doors, stuffing the keys in my pocket and trading it for my phone, holding the mask in my other hand, my body on fire at the constant, recurring thought that wasn’t leaving anytime soon, one that pushed all the others away, a splendid thought that was the only thing I could think of. Before I knew it, I was at the front doors of the school and I followed the couples and groups, most likely students, towards the gym, looking at my phone and expecting a text, but instead, just silence. I guess all I needed to do was wait for him, and that’s what I did as I was greeted with the sound of deep bass rumbling through my body thanks to the booming speakers, along with the bright spotlights that moved around at a rapid pace, mixed with multiple multicolored strobe lights. It was a party alright. With the song that was playing as well, it was a fitting one with the theme. And lost in this party, I assumed, was a neatly dressed imp waiting for me. I walked along the edge of the gym, avoiding the growing crowd of dancers and hoping to possibly run into Blitzo at some point, only to be stopped by, unsurprisingly, one of my high school teachers. 

“Elijah, is that you? Hey kid, what brings you here?!” She asked, leaning against the wall with a drink, a red cup, yes a red cup, and wrapped in a mummy outfit, bandages covering her body, along with one eye while the other was perfectly visible.

“Just chaperoning for my brother and his friends.” I answered, which was half the truth, but how could I explain that I was waiting for my demonic plus one?

“For a chaperone, you fit in right with the crowd, nice outfit! Did you make it yourself?”

 “Yeah, I did actually.”

 “I always knew you were one of the more creative ones in the class and it shows, awesome job!” I found myself getting blushy rather quickly at her compliment, rubbing the back of my head as I continued the conversation and it soon turned into one where my heart began to race rapidly. “So, tell me, do you have a date?” I wanted to lie, but then again, I was unsure of Blitzo was my date, or even if I wanted to say he was to others, so I took a deep breath and tried to make up my mind quickly.

“Yeah, I do, he’s a bit late though, it might be a while before he gets here.”

“Who said I was late?” The imp said, grabbing ahold of my shoulder gently and wanting me to turn around so I did, my eyes meeting his and I could see that his were that wickedly bright yellow, with a hint of red in the middle. Sinister, but always a joy to look at. “Hey, cutie.” I was about to open my mouth to compliment his outfit, resembling Jack Skellington from The Nightmare Before Christmas, from top to bottom, only for my teacher to butt in. This was going to be a joy.

“Oooooh, and who might this be, Elijah?! He must learn from the best because his costume’s amazing!” This was going to be a real interesting night. I was already contemplating on going back to the car.

 “The name’s Blitzo, pronounced Blitz and the O is silent, also known as this handsome guy’s boyfriend.” He said, greeting himself to-

...HOLD UP, WAIT A MINUTE. Did he just say boyfriend? Was I hearing that correctly? I wasn’t crazy, right?

“The name’s Blitzo, the O is silent, also known as this handsome guy’s boyfriend.” He said, greeting himself to-wait a minute, did he just say boyfriend? Did I hear that correctly? I wasn’t crazy, right?

“Well, Blitzo, it was really nice to meet you. Elijah was, and still is, one of my best students, creative too, you’re a lucky one.”

“Oh, trust me,” He looked over at me, a look that read ‘I love you’, his eyes appearing as if he was going to cry, but his smile was wide. “I know.” He was being completely truthful with her and myself. Not a single word he said was a lie, at least that’s what I believed. Something told me that it was true, every single word was honest and straight from the heart. “Let’s go dance, yeah?” He said softly towards me, earning a soft nod in reply and so, the two of us made our way to the dance floor. I was so nervous to ask him a single question with a plentiful rushing through my head. “Shocked, huh? Don’t be, Elijah. I know the two of us have been together for some time and I may have heard from a little birdie that you were going to be helping out your brother for some dance.” I reminisced on when I remember talking about the homecoming dance and then it hit me.

“Damn it, Angel.”

“C’mon, you missed me. You’re glad she told me too.”

“Yeah, I did. But, like, didn’t you have some more important stuff, like work? And your horse to take care of?”

“Oh, don’t worry. Work’s slow and boring and Moxxie’s watching over her so, I’m free for the night! What better way to spend my night with my new boyfriend too?” He said, pressing his lips against my cheek and sending my heart sky high, my hand on his beginning to clench. “Easy cowboy, it was just a kiss. We haven’t even gotten to the good stuff, you know.” Okay, now he was just trying to get me flustered really early. We made jokes about that stuff, but was he being serious? About all of this?

“I was actually going to ask about that. Do you, like, you’re actually interested in me, right?” He stopped in his tracks and the two of us were halted together, surrounded by multiple dancing groups and couples, I could sense the music that was once pounding in my ears beginning to die out, soon Blitzo’s voice was the only thing I could hear. “All those times we’ve been together, from the day you were in my bed ready to kill me and only to discover you were in the wrong house to all those times we’ve spent in Hell and on the surface, to that one time you were actually full-on naked in my bed and I was nearly caught, you’re being honest with me, right?”

“Elijah,” Blitzo began, reaching for my other hand to hold it tight, gazing into my eyes and I soon lost myself in them, my focus and attention being grabbed and held by him and him alone. “I’m being one hundred percent honest with you. If I killed you, I would’ve missed a chance like this and, god fucking dammit, I’m trying not to cry here.”

“Trust me, I’ve already done that tonight, you’re good.” I joked, the two of us laughing as his claw-like hands gripped mine.

“But yeah, I’m serious. From the bottom of my heart, Elijah. No bullshit. I love you. Yeah, you’re a human and I nearly killed you, but that night I met you and nearly blew your brains out, was probably the fucking day of my whole eternal suffering, as they usually say. That’s, that’s what they say, right?” Hearing that filled my heart with an intense amount of joy and soon, I felt my worries wash away. Who would’ve thought that I would not only fall in love with a demon below the surface of this Earth, but an imp who was not only charming, but skilled at his profession? A professional that was basically assassination. Then again, he just straight up kills anyone he’s paid to kill alongside the other three. “You can cry all you want, okay?” I didn’t want to, especially in front of Blitzo.

“Oh, shut up. I love you too.” I said, earning a nice laugh from him. Moments later, the music shifted from the usual extremely bumping and loud beat into something more mellow, but you could still dance to. A song that people weren’t really a fan of, but for me, and surprisingly Blitzo, it was perfect. To my surprise, the imp knew the damn lyrics.

Oh, don’t you dare look back Just keep your eyes on me. I said, you’re holding back. He said, shut up and dance with me! This demon is my destiny. He said, ooh-ooh-hoo! Shut up and dance with me!

The two of us followed suit and already had the floor so who was gonna stop us? No one was certainly going to stop Blitzo and for me, I was already lost in the moment, I could only see Blitzo and I losing ourselves in the music together, singing and dancing along. No distractions or disturbances as we let loose. Unbeknownst to me, the crowd around us had cleared and it was just me and Blitzo dancing to the beat with a silent audience cheering on a human and his boyfriend, unaware that he was truly a demon. I didn’t care about any of that mess now, I was overjoyed to be dancing with my imp boyfriend under the moving spotlight, the two of us grabbing the attention of all the other costumed people standing by and watching us. It didn’t even feel like they were there.

Deep in his eyes I think I see the future I realize this is my last chance! He took my arm I don’t know how it happened We took the floor and he said…

Oh, don’t you dare look back Just keep your eyes on me I said, you’re holding back He said, shut up and dance with me This demon is my destiny He said, ooh-ooh-hoo! Shut up and dance!

The final chorus continued to play and the two of us were going at it, I could sense and hear quiet cheers and wolf whistles, yet Blitzo’s voice filled my ears and drowned it all out.

Ooh-hoo, shut up and dance with me!

And just like that, the music halted and the two of us were in a bit of a position, me dipping and holding his body down, our eyes locked onto each other, the crowd coming back to life with a roar of an applause. They witnessed everything and as much as I wanted to look around and see everyone, Blitzo kept my face looking directly at his. “Hey, don’t focus on them. It’s okay.” I smiled down at him and nodded, the music shifting back into something more exciting and full of life and sending the crowd’s back onto the floor.

 “I didn’t know you were so good at dancing, Blitzo.” I said, complimenting him on his dancing and wondering where he picked that up, then again, it hit me that he’s been bugging a married couple for Satan knows how long, and he’s been on the surface a few times.

 “You go around, you know some folks, you pick up some new things, learn a few tricks.” There was a small moment of silence. “Alright, I picked it up from Moxx and Mills.” I had a feeling. Right as I was about to say something while bringing back up onto his feet, I was the one to be dipped this time and caught off guard. “Now pucker up, cutie~” And with that, Blitzo kissed me sweetly and passionately, my vision getting blurry as my eyes fluttered and my heart was more soothed and relaxed. I will admit that Blitzo has kissed me on numerous occasions, but this was something he never pulled or did and it was immensely surprisingly and completely satisfying. I didn’t want to ruin the moment at all. In fact, I wanted to make it even better. So I decided to surprise Blitzo with something up my sleeve, slipping my tongue into his mouth and catching him off guard, only for our tongues to collide and intertwine with each other, his claws yanking and gripping me closer to his body, our lips still locked together for a good couple of seconds and right as we finally pulled away, there was an embarrassing amount of saliva attached to my lips and his, a dark blush hitting both our faces. “Well, that was, I wasn’t expecting you to do that.”

“Yeah, wasn’t expecting that kiss either, heh.” The silence between us was high but was soon broken with Blitzo speaking up again.

“Alright, I’m just gonna say it. I know you’re probably thinking it too, are you going to make love to me already or what?” My eyes widened in surprise, my body heating up in response and while I was expecting a lewd comment or question, he was just completely straightforward with it, no hints, or riddles, just straight from the head.

“C-Can we go to the car now, like, right now?” I asked, hoping he could sense the desperateness in my voice, along with the look of lust in my eyes. Yeah, he definitely saw it, without a doubt. That smile of his, how he licked his lips in front of me, shooting a sexy glare at me, tonight was going to be a ride, in more ways than one as Blitzo swiftly picked me up in his arms and carried me towards the car bridal-style, grabbing a few eyeballs as he did.

“Of course~” We soon made our way outside and Blitzo finally set me down, not even bothering to look around if there were any watchers who were late to the party, as if he were planning something.

“Something wrong?” He didn’t reply with a vocal answer, but instead, what came next was what made this entire night probably the best homecoming ever. I’m going to spare the details, but what came next was pretty saucy.

Sometime Later…

I found myself rising out of bed to the sight of several dimmed lights and within seconds, the awareness hit me hard. I wasn’t at home. I was in Blitzo’s home. “Morning, sleepyhead.” The imp to my side greeted, not wearing anything like me as I hid myself under the sheets. I half-expected him to be dressed in some cute horse-themed pjs, but no, he was full-on naked under the sheets, his legs touching mine.

“Hey, Blitzo. I, umm, should I ask how I got here?” I questioned, preparing myself for the story that Blitzo had to tell, this should be good.

“Before you ask, because I have a feeling that’s the first thing you’re thinking about, your brother and his friends are fine. They got home safely and then I brought you down here to rest!” Blitzo explained, my eyes widening in fear at the idea of what he could’ve possibly done.

“For the love of God, Blitzo, please tell me the car’s in one piece. Please tell me no one got hurt.” I begged, shaking in anticipation, and not even hearing the room door open as I turned to see Moxxie come in.

“Actually, I helped drive,” The other imp claimed. “Not to be rude towards your new boyfriend, Elijah, but I had a very strong feeling that if my boss were to drive, it wouldn’t be pleasant. That and he introduced himself and the rest of us to your brother and friends.” Blitzo, you did not. You did fucking not.

“What, they were nice!”

“Sir, excuse my language, but you fucking scared them!” When Moxxie said those words, I didn’t even want to imagine how he scared and possibly scared them for life.

“Oh my God, Blitzo, why…”

“Don’t worry about it, Eli, you’re lucky I didn’t tell them about our little love-making session.”

“Sir, that’s WAY too much information.”

I didn’t know how to feel exactly with my brother knowing about Blitzo and the others, but as the conversation between him and Moxxie continued, I couldn’t help but think about that night, what I experienced with Blitzo and the things we did together, how he confessed his love and then made love to me. It felt unreal to think about knowing that the imp I spent the most time with actually liked me that way. That’s when I smiled and felt really glad that night ended up being in my favor.

[just-random-obsessions]

Funny Moments In Thor The Dark World

Find Thor 1 here

Find Avengers 1 here

This is the second part of me watching all three thor movies and the avengers movie and comparing the humor pre-ragnarok to the humor in the 3rd Thor movie. And, as before, I’m writing this on my computer where the I and U keys don’t work so sorry for any spelling mistakes.

Tag List: @nikkoliferous @fyrecrafted @lokijiro @miskiett @darthxerik @icyxmischief @iamanartichoke @juliabohemian @official-and-unstable-satan @melodylnoelle @just-another-human-2019 @fandomsfanfiction @mentallydatingahotcelebrity @cateyes315 @burningarbiterheart @imnotacreepijustlikeyou @usedtobegoodfriend96 @alexakeyloveloki

Official-and-unstable-satan and fandomsfanfiction weren’t tagged sry

Anyone who wants to be added/removed to the tag list please let me know! and if I missed someone please also let me know. Sorry this post is so long

~ “Hello Mother. Have I made you proud?”

~ “Please don’t make things worse” “Define worse”

~ “I really don’t see what all the fuss is about”

~ “Just like you”

~ *That smile!!!!*

~ “I’ve got this completely under control!” “Is that why everything’s on fire?”

~ *About the Scary MonsterTM: “All yours”

~ *Thor says hi to the Big Scary MonsterTM*

~ “I accept your surrender”

~ “Anyone else?” *All the people simultaneously: NOPE*

~ “Perhaps next time we should START with the big one”

~ *Odin obviously shipping Thor and Jane* (idk I got a kick out of this)

~ *Jane awkwardly avoiding her date*

~ *Date: hi*

~ *Him awkwardly talking about his ex*

~ “And the fact that she kept sleeping with other men” “NO!”

~ *Darcy being mistaken for a waitress*

~ *Darcy mouthing “Cute” to Jane about Richard*

~ *Darcy embarrassing Jane by talking about Thor*

~ “Is there a point to all of this cause there REALLY needs to be a point to all of this”

~ “That’s what I said!”

~ “That’s what I did!”

~ “He’s not interested” “I’m interested” (Am I the only one who feels like his awkwardness was actually kinda cute?)

~ “He’s my intern.” “You have an intern?”

~ *Intern is fucking adorable like Richard*

~ “I have totally mastered driving in London!” *Has not mastered it at all*

~ *Selvig running around Stonehenge naked*

~ *Darcy keeps calling Ian ‘Intern’*

~ *Darcy calls Jane cause she didn’t wanna shout*

~ God I fucking love Darcy she’s so criminally underrated

~ “I am not getting stabbed in the name of science”

~ “It’s okay, we’re Americans!” “Is that supposed to make them like us?”

~ “We’re scientists-well I am” “Thanks”

~ “That doesn’t seem right”

~ “I wanna throw something! Jane give me your shoe!”

~ *Jane ignores Darcy*

~ “Give me your shoe”

~ “Were those the car keys?”

~ *Ian’s face when he realizes he threw the car keys to another planet*

~ *If you have to bury so many people then you’re doing something wrong you hot dumb fuck* (I mean that’s basically what Heimdall said right?)

~ “Typical” *after being left behind while Jane goes to talk to her boyfriend*

~ *Jane! Love of my life and most talented and beautiful person in the world oh how I love yo-SLAP*

~ “As excuses go, its not terrible”

~ “I know” “You do?” “Do what?”

~ *Darcy interrupts the KissTM*

~ “Um I’m pretty sure we are getting arrested”

~ “How’s space?” “Space is fine”

~ “He’s my intern… My intern’s intern”

~ “Holy shit!” (after Jane went up in the Bifrost)

~ *Heimdall calmly dodges the car*

~ “We have to do that again”

~ “Hello”

~ “What’s that?”

~ “It’s a soul forge” *No I’m pretty sure that’s a quantum field generator*

~ *Jane being ready to fight Odin for comparing her to a goat*

~ “You told your dad about me?”

~ “It must be so inconvenient, them asking about me day and night”

~ “Please meet my mother” *Jane shies away from Thor*

~ Loki casually tossing the thingamajig in the air like the cute little shit he is

~ Lord, he’s so damn pretty

~ *Kurse being like: Lol I ain’t touchin’ that boy with a ten foot pole*

~ “It’s as if they resent being in prison”

~ “There’s no pleasing some creatures”

~ *Loki calmly reading a book while all Hel breaks loose*

~ “You have my word that no harm will come to yo-” nvm bitch die

~ *THAT look between Sif and Jane*

~ *Frigga immediately seeing through Odin’s bs lies*

~ *Heimdall: I have defeated the big space ship!! The bigger one behind him: Bitch you thought*

~ “WITCH!!!!” *Now I know who Loki gets his amazing aforementioned smile from*

~ *Selvig using shoes to explain complicated science*

~ *Selvig then using pencils*

~ “Any questions?” “Yeah, can I have my shoe back?”

~ “What’s SHIELD?” “It’s a secret”

~ *Darcy’s cute af face when she sees that Selvig is in the mental hospital*

~ “Are you sure you wouldn’t just rather punch your way out?”

~ *Loki shapeshifting into the guard*

~ “Mmm Brother, you look ravishing”

~ “Costumes a bit much”

~ “So tight!”

~ “I can FEEL the righteousness surging!!”

~ “HEY wanna have a rousing discussion about truth?”

~ “Honor?”

~ “Patriotism?”

~ “GOD BLESS AMERICA!”

~ “At last. A little common sens-”Bitch are you really fucking kidding me? (What do you mean that’s not what he said?)

~ “I thought you liked tricks”

~ “I’m Loki, you may have heard of-” SLAP

~ “That was for New York”

~ “I like her”

~ *Loki gazing lovingly at Jane in the background*

~ “Betray him, and I’ll kill you.” “It’s good to see you too Sif”

~ “If you even think about betraying him-” “You’ll kill me? Evidently there will be a line”

~ “I thought you said you knew how to fly this thing.” “I said how hard can it be?”

~ “Whatever your doing brother I suggest you do it faster.” “Shut up Loki

~ “You must’ve missed something.” “I didn’t, I’m pressing every button on this thing”

~ “Well don’t hit it. Just press it, gently.” “I aM pReSsInG iT gEnTlY AND ITS NOT WORKING!!!”

~ *Thor starts slamming buttons and it starts working*

~ *Volstagg: Oh fighting is much fun- OH SHIT IM FALLING!! HELP!!!*

~ “I think you missed a column.” “Shut up”

~ “Why don’t you let me take over? I’m clearly the best pilot”

~ *Bitch I’m the one who can actually fly*

~ “Oh dear. Is she dead?”

~ *Thor knocks over a column* “Not a word”

~ “Now they’re following us”

~ “Now they’re firing at us”

~ “Yes thank you for the commentary Loki, it’s not at all distracting”

~ “Well done, you just decapitated your grandfather”

~ *Seriously, whoever wrote the escape scene is a genius!!!*

~ *Loki yelling at Thor about how thIs was a bad idea you dumb fuck- wait wtf are you doing AAAAHHHHH!!!!1*

~ “You lied to me. I’m impressed”

~ *That smile again snfnejaihfeqrqrsbdsalxdjewonjfeq*

~ “For Asgard!” YEET

~ “Nothing personal boys!”

~ “If it were easy, everyone would do it”

~ “Are you mad?” “Possibly”

~ “TADAAA”

~ “Oh yeah, my father. Eric Selvig”

~ “And these” “yeah… those”

~ “How did you find me?” “You were naked on television”

~ “I don’t get paid enough. I don’t get paid at all”

~ “What’s happening? Birds? Birds are happening?”

~ “All right are you ready?” “I am”

~ *phone rings* “It’s not me”

~ “Why are there so many shoes in here?”

~ “I’ll just text her”

~ “So who’s Richard?”

~ *Thor hanging his hammer on a coat hanger*

~ “Where are your pants?” “Oh he says it helps him think”

~ “Loki is dead” “Oh thank God!”

~ “Better get my pants”

~ “Do you even know what these things do?” “No” “…Neither do I”

~ “Ooh get the guy with the sword!”

~ “Oops”

~ *Ian’s high-pitched scream*

~ *Does car insurance cover My Car Was Sucked Into Another Planet Due To A Cosmic Event That Only Occurs Once Every 5000 Years or no?*

~ *Thor and Malekith fighting between worlds and poor little Mjolnir trying to keep up*

~ *The two of them against windows*

~ *AAAHHH*

~ *Awww! Look at the cute little Jotunheim monster! He’s so adorable I wanna pet him so much!’

~ *Darcy and Ian kissing after he saved her life*

~ “Darcy?” “Jane!” “Ian?” “Selvig.”

~ “Myuh Myuh!!”

~ *Thor ends up on the subway*

~ *The girl taking 50 photos*

~ *Thor and the woman colliding into eachother*

~ “I’ve come to accept your surrender”

~ *Malekith gets crushed by his own ship. Now that’s some lovely karma right there*

~ *Darcy and Ian go back to kissing*

~ “He kinda committed treason on our way out” oops

~ Jotunheim Puppy chasing birds

Wow I’m so sorry this was so long. But guess what? It’s gonna get even longer. Sorry, again.

So one of the differences between the first and second Thor movies is that Thor 2 has humor in the climax whereas Thor 1 doesn’t. This is because of the differences with who is the villain. In Thor 1, Thor is having to fight his brother. To quote Avengers, they “played together and fought together” for several millennia. Of course there’s not going to be any humor in it cause there shouldn’t be. The climax at the end of the movie isn’t supposed to be some epic battle between the forces of Good TM and Bad TM. It’s supposed to be tragic that he’s having to fight his own brother because Loki lost his mind due to so many factors. The last joke in the film is “You’re an amazon liar brother, always have been” “It’s good to have you back”. There’s nothing else till the end credit scene. That’s because Kenneth Branagh knew that this was supposed to be viewed at as being sad a hopeless, not some awesome upbeat battle.

Thor 2 on the other hand, is exactly that. Thor has known Malekith for.. what? 2 days? Maybe 3? His relationship and dynamic with Malekith is different than with his brother. To Thor, this is just another enemy attacking Asgard. And I’m not sure whether this was intentional or not (because I remember reading somewhere how Allen Taylor had a bitch of a time in the editing process so I think the movie came out different than he intended) but the lack of any personal relationship will Malekith means the film can make really funny jokes and still have it fit with the film. If anything, I might even argue that the humor helped the film to maintain a very nice positive vibe. Idk I can’t think of the right words to explain it but the jokes actually fit the film very well.

However, then we move on to Ragnarok. With Ragnarok, Thor is fighting his sister. While (just like Malekith) he has only known her for two days, that still doesn’t take away the fact that he is having to fight his sibling. And I’m not a film director but if I had the option of approaching this situation and taking it the Thor 1 route or the the Thor 2 route, I’d go with Thor 1. Because it’s actually incredibly tragic that Hela has been driven to insanity like Loki (though ok a different level) due to Odin’s shitty parenting. She is the horrible way she is because Odin made her that way. And that could’ve been an AMAZINGLY complex story with the audience feeling so much sympathy for Hela like we did with Loki in Thor 1, but the narrative just falls flat for two reasons. 1) Taika admitted he didn’t want the film to be emotionally complex so 2) The humor in the climax completely detracts from the seriousness of the situation.

Also, some side notes: Yes, this is edited from the original. I accidentally deleted everything and then had to go back and add everything back in. So I also had to re-tag people too. And I also added a bit more explanation at the end. I meant to do so when I originally posted but it never got done till now. Sry. Also sry that it’s so long

[hyungbean]

Cast A Spell On You | Jasper Hale x Witch!Reader

Request: Hello, I have a somewhat weird request. Could you do a jasper x reader where the reader is apart of a secret Wizarding Society (kind of like harry potter) that Jasper dosen't know about. He tries to confess to the reader that he's a vampire but the reader already figured that out and admits to him that they are a witch/wizard. Thanks 😚

Genre: Fluff

A/N: WOOHOO getting to all of your awesome requests! I still have like 10 more to do though, I need to stop procrastinating !

The world was full of madness, mystery and endless possibilities, your mother always told you that even though the world was all those things you would always have to be kept a secret. Like a lost whisper in a room of darkness; the world must stay unaware of your kind and the dangers they possessed. 

You were a witch to put it in blunt terms, the female counterpart of a wizard and vice versa. Although the outside world was unaware that such beings existed around them, they still somehow managed to make accurate depictions in their fantasy movies and novels. At one point the wizarding council was thrown into a heated argument because some believed that a wizard or witch was working on these film productions to try and expose the Wizarding Society.

Sure you had wands and private academies to train and enhance your powers but you didn’t have snake loving wizard villains that were trying to take over the world. 

Although a few aspects were correct they didn’t seem to mention that wandless magic was used more often that magic with wands. In your case though, you loved to carry around your wand and perform magic with it. You were trained with wandless magic but you preferred the traditional way of doing things. 

Wanting a quiet life for yourself, you decided to move to Forks, a relatively unknown town which always seemed gloomy. It was in Forks where you met a man unlike any you’ve ever seen. 

Jasper Hale. 

His family was quite known in the small town so it was no big surprise when you learned nearly everything there was to know about them in less than a week from your chatty neighbors. But none of the town talk could ever accurately describe just how ethereal he was. 

His pale skin was porcelain like but he looked far from fragile, you could see the outline of his muscles through his shirt. His wavy blonde hair framed his face almost perfectly, but the most striking thing about him were his golden eyes.

When your eyes connected with his, it was like someone had casted a time-stopping spell. For a few long moments it felt like you two were the only ones in the room, and weirdly enough it just felt right. 

Not long after you both started dating, two youngsters in love in a small town where everybody knew each other. It was perfect. Too perfect.

You knew that it wouldn’t be long before you would have to tell him what you were, what your true nature was. All those worries seemed to pale when you met Jasper’s family and realized that they all had identical porcelain skin and golden eyes. 

This caught you off guard and you almost didn't notice the feeling of someone poking around in your thoughts, almost. With years of experience you seemed to get those thoughts out of your head and think about how nice the family was, knowing that you didn’t want to alert whoever was in your head. 

The night after you met Jasper’s family you decided to go down into your concealed basement, which you charmed to only appear for you. Your basement contained all of your wizarding books and papers, ones that you dug through for the rest of the night to try and find answers. 

Bingo.

After a couple of hours of rummaging and paper cuts you finally found the answer. 

Pale skin, golden or red eyes, shimmering in sunlight..

Vampires.

Your jaw nearly dropped to the floor at the bold words written inside of your book, trying to pry for more information. 

Golden eyes.. golden eyed vampires are vampires who do not traditionally prey on humans but rather wild animals. 

Some vampires are gifted with talents along with their supernatural abilities, throughout history is it said that some vampires have the powers to read minds, inflict excruciating pain and even mimic other vampires’ abilities.

Well that was a huge relief to you, at least now you understood the strange, too-perfect-to-be-true aura that surrounded the family. You decided to clean up and get some rest to let all the information sink in. 

You both had secrets and you realized it was only a matter of time before you would both have to fess up to the other.

In fact, ‘only a matter of time’, came much sooner than you would have predicted as the very next day Jasper had texted you to come over because he had something to tell you.

You were currently sitting on their couch as Jasper held your hands in his cold ones, his family surrounding the both of you. 

“Y/N. I asked you to come here today because my family and I decided that it was finally time that we come clean. So please just hear me out and then you’re free to leave if you want.” He looked at you sadly as if telling you that even though you could leave, he really didn’t want you to. 

You knew exactly what they were trying to tell you but you played dumb, making a confused face and gripping Jasper’s hands tighter, even going as far as being confused inside your head. You had learned that Edward was the mind reader after you made a sarcastic inside your head and he had tried to hide a snicker. 

‘What’s he going to say? Did they kill someone?’

From the corner of your eye you see Edward laughing to himself, causing Emmett to punch him. 

“My family and I.. we’re vampires. But I swear we don’t hurt humans! We’re vegetarians and we only feed on wild animals. Edward even has a human girlfriend and I have you-” He rambles on and stares deeply into your eyes to try and gauge a reaction. 

You hold your hand up, signaling him to stop, “It’s okay Jas. I already knew. Besides it doesn’t matter to me. Also I know that some of you guys have special abilities and Edward can read minds.” 

You smile as the family look between themselves, Edward facepalming himself while Jasper throws him a ‘wtf’ look. 

“But I have a secret too... I’m a witch. I was born into a wizarding family and I’m apart of a wizarding society.” You pull out your wand from your jacket and cast a simple spell to mess up Edward’s hair as evidence. 

They stare at you and you could see all the questions running through their heads. 

Edward is pouting at you while he tries to fix his hair, causing you to laugh.

“That’s what you get for trying to read my mind!” 

Turning around to face your stunned lover, you cup his chin and push his mouth up so his mouth isn't agape. 

“You might catch flies love.”  He seems to snap out of it and pull your hands into his, “so we’re good?” 

Smiling, you nod quickly, before pecking his cold lips. 

“We’re all good dear.”.

[bidnezz]

Fic Meme

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world. tag as many writers/artists/etc as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

--

I’m still fairly new to the fandom, and I haven’t written a ton of fanfics, so I don’t have much to choose from... But thank you @moonlight-breeze-44 and @brightasstars for the tag, you guys are the best! 💕 💕

1. 11:45

who keeps stealing my lunch and leaving apology notes?

Alec (a disaster) gets his lunch stolen by a secret admirer of his food who happens to be Magnus (shocker), his boss! Lots of cameos by an even worse disaster Simon, Lydia, Catarina, etc... I remember so vividly writing the first chapter of this fic (that was only supposed to be a quick one-shot), because I had stayed up for ~7 hours writing it from an inspiring tumblr prompt I saw. I had work that same day, and I went in on no sleep, exhausted, but so excited because I loved what I wrote, so much that it became my first multi-chaptered fic! I also tend to lean towards the angst, so this was really refreshing trying to keep it somewhat light, despite some of the serious topics.  

2. Some Nights

Alec's surprised when he bonds quickly with a cat that sneaks into his apartment one day, that he's affectionately named Meow. But when it runs away and Alec's search for him leads to the devil in an alley claiming it's his cat Chairman, he's lost on what to do and why he's suddenly enamored with the mesmerizing devil from Edom.

This is probably the fic I’m most proud of, so far. When I first started writing again back in March, I didn’t feel very confident in my work, but I still wanted to share my love for shadowhunters with the community. Now, I feel like I can see an improvement, especially in this story! Again, angst is just so much fun to write, and I’m not sure why I enjoy tracking Alec’s solitude in everything. It’s very heavily focused on loneliness, which is my favorite thing to write! I probably shouldn’t sound excited about that...

3. If I Love You Was a Promise

The loss of a friend and a night full of promises that can’t be kept.

Another semi-angsty fic! It’s not what I expected to write when I started it, but I was really happy with the end result. It’s a canon divergent, and it’s got the core concept I love of loneliness. Magnus is still mourning the loss of Ragnor, and Alec stops by to check in on him, and there’s a lot of emotions and a night of just loving each other before he marries Lydia.

4. Nightfall

Magnus is summoned and Alec is more than a little desperate.

A continuation of Some Nights. This fic is my first solo leap into graphic smut, and I was incredibly nervous writing it, because I generally prefer to lean towards the somewhat vague implications of sex. But (I like to think) it came out pretty decent, and at one point I had to stop myself and end it because it just wouldn’t stop! 

5. Days Like This

The warmth of the room that was previously littered with delicate words of compassion now feels hot with mockery, because those words weren’t for him, they were for the cat. Alec isn’t adorable, cute, or handsome, the Chairman is.

This was just a random little short thing that came out one night when I was thinking about Malec being adorable husbands in Alicante, and Chairman Meow being a very real contender for Magnus’ attention, much to Alec’s embarrassment. It’s cute and fluffy, and I don’t write fluff well, so I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed writing this!

---

This was difficult, but it was nice to give a little bit of insight to behind-the-scenes feelings of a few of my favorite works!

I'm pretty sure most of the people I know who are creators have done this already, so whoever wants to do this please do! @incorrect-malec @harkasun

[singeramg]

Midnight: Chapter 8

A/n: I am really kicking these out aren’t I? LOL Hope you enjoy reading

Pairing: Clark Kent/ Metahuman! Black! OFC

Rating: M

Warnings for chapter: ANGST, maybe even some tears idk? 

Catch Up Here!

Midnight: Chapter 8

In the walk to the ship I had fallen asleep fairly quickly, as I was exhausted and against his chest I felt safe, but when I woke up in a bed. I was totally confused as to where I was. Had those men succeeded in getting me back?Had the team, Clark included all been a dream.  I did my best to let energy build on my hands, preparing for a fight. 

     “Whoa there cowgirl. You are safe here.”

I heard Arthur say as I realized I was not alone in the room. I sat up ignoring the pain in my lower abdomen as the recent events came rushing back. I groaned and looked at Arthur and Diana who were in the room with me.

    “Where are we? Where is Kalen? Is he safe?”

    “You are in Bruce’s mansion. You are safe Kalen is safe. Bruce thought it might be better if he and his caretaker were not here.” Diana tells me with a look of concern on her face. 

I looked confused and my senses told me Clark was no longer in my immediate vicinity. 

   “ Wait where did he take my son?”

    “He just had Alfred take them to another part of the property. Gia does he know?”

Diana asks softly, I pretend not to know what she was asking me.

   “Does who know what?”

Diana sits on the edge of my bed as Arthur leans on the wall with his arms crossed against his chest. The frustration is back but it is intertwined with concern and the compassion the rumors said he lacked. 

   “So you are going to sit there and act like you don’t know what we are talking about?” Arthur says.

I huffed in frustration. Ignoring the burning feeling of the raw skin where Clark had used his heat vision on me. I realized I had on some flimsy hospital gown. If I had enough energy I would shift into proper clothes, but I didn’t. 

  “I need some clothes.”

  “I think you are going to have much bigger problems than clothes if you don’t figure out how to tell Supes.” Says Arthur 

   “I’ll send him a thank you card.” The answer was flippant I knew. 

  “Gia!”

Arthur says angrily and I had the forethought not to jump at his voice, but I knew nervousness showed in my face. I lashed back out at him. It was a defense mechanism I was unfortunately good at.

  “Arthur! Now that we are done yelling each other’s names, can someone go get Ms. A and My son.”

 “You think whoever tried to basically kidnap you will stop?”

  “If we get away...”

  “They shot you. Almost killed you. If I hadn’t shown up when I did you would be dead.”

I looked at my hands, unwilling to make eye contact.

  “And I thank you but I can’t stay and put my son at risk.”

  “He will never be more safe than he is right now. Arthur can you please retrieve her son?”

He grunts in confirmation and leaves me alone with Diana. She turns to me with a sincere look on her face.  I took note of her hair pulled back into a bun and she was dressed in a pair of jeans and a yellow top. I was jealous. I wanted clothes really badly. Being this naked left me feeling vulnerable.

    “Gia, I know this must be hard for you. I can hear how your heart is racing. I know we do not know each other well and maybe I am the last person you want to tell your secrets to, but I like you Gia. I want to help you. We all do, we cannot help you if you won’t admit the truth.”

 “Diana I appreciate your offer but I can’t stay here. Everyone has their life and we have ours. I cannot let my past catch up with us.”

  “You know as well as I do that Clark will not let anyone hurt you. Neither will we, you are on the team now. Now I’m going to ask you a very direct question, and while the answer is obvious I need a yes or no.”

I shook my head to let her know I understood the instructions.

 “Is Kalen, Kal- El’s son?”

Before I knew it I was crying again and I hated that I looked and felt so weak. 

  “Diana, he can’t know. He was happy with Lois. He will think I can’t protect him. He is going to take him away. I...I just...”

I broke down sobbing into My hands, Diana moved closer, pulling me into her arms. 

  “I promise you that I won’t let that happen. You protected your son to almost your dying breath. Everyone including Kal saw that, I think you will be able to come to a solution about this. No matter what happens everything will be okay. I know there may be some shame in being with Clark while he was in a relationship, and while it is something I didn’t think he would do, that’s okay too. The past...”

    “Wait stop Diana. Clark is still the same guy you thought of him. He and Lois were not together at the time, I am many things. A home wrecker is not one of them, furthermore the  reason why we need to leave. I can’t impress a child on their relationship. At some point in my life, I considered Lois a friend, I can’t come in and ask her to play Step-mother. This is why I need to go...”

    “I apologize for my assumption.” She says and means it.

   “It’s okay it was a logical assumption but please help me get out of here.”

   “Kal-El will only look for you if you go. He will be back soon I imagine. He and Bruce went to figure out who sent those men to attack you. He was not very happy when he left. He made sure you were safe on the plane and he went home to change. I however will bring you some clothes. Gia he deserves to know.”

She quickly goes out of the room, the clothing must not have been far because she came in with some jeans and a deep purple cap sleeved shirt. I knew my hair had to be a mess of dark curls. The elastic holder had long since disappeared. A quick and hot second shower freed me of any lingering debris and dirt and I dressed in the clothes that Diana provided me. 

I was rubbing a towel on my hair that I was forced to wash when my door opened and a ball of energy came flying into my legs. Followed by Ms. Alphonse. Tears in her eyes she hugs me as well, then pops my arm like my mom used to do when I was a child. While the memories were fond, the pain was not. I rubbed the sore spot and looked at her afraid she would just hit me again.

   “Tiffany or should I say Gia. You have a lot of explaining to do.”

   “I know Ms. A. I promise you at least that much. I will tell you what I can about me and Kalen as soon as we get out of here.”

   “And go where Child? I’ve got a feeling if Kyle’s...sorry I mean Kalen’s father is who I think it is you won’t get very far.”

“Mommy!!!!!” Kalen pulls at the bottom of my shirt until I bend down to pick him up. 

“Should you be doing that?”

I looked at Ms. A and hugged my baby tight to me. I ignored that maybe she was right, I needed to hold him. 

“Mama’ you feel better?”

“Yes mama is okay. Are you hungry? Are you okay?”

“You said we can eat Ice cream!”

I looked at him and he didn’t seem to answer my question, but his mood was fine.

“I am sure my friend has some ice cream here somewhere. Let’s go find Alfred.”

I kissed him on the cheek and sat him down on the ground and he grabbed my hand. I noticed Arthur in the doorway.

“Kalen did my friend introduce himself to you?”

“He looks mean” he says quietly, Arthur hides a smirk.

“He’s a friend of mommy’s. He’s not going to mean to you if you are nice to him.”

I led him forward stopping in front of Arthur.

“Baby, this is Mr. Arthur.”

Arthur’s face softens, and he comes down to my sons level, a smile on his face.

“ I’m usually only mean to the bad guys. Can I get a high five little buddy?”

He holds his hand up and Kalen reluctantly smacks it . Arthur pretends to be hurt, grabbing his hand as if in pain.

“Whoa little man, you are strong! Gia, you are you sure he is only 3!”

He says with dramatics but he also looks at me. The unspoken words being that his obviously abnormal strength was furthermore proof of his paternal parentage. 

“Mommy he doesn’t look like the Arthur on TV.”

I laughed and Arthur looked at me confused.

“Kalen he is not the same Arthur from your TV show.”

I looked at Arthur who had now stood back up and looked confused.

“He thinks you are supposed to be Arthur the Aardvark.”

“Oh, well I think I’m cooler than an aardvark. More like a fish. We will go to the beach one day and I’ll show you a buncha cool stuff that I can only show my friends. You are my friend right?”

My son nods happily.

“Alright my man! Let’s go raid the kitchen. I’m sure Barry is down there somewhere with the good stuff.”

We followed him down the hallway to the large  sitting room where Victor and Diana were chatting with Alfred. Barry was lounging with a large sandwich and his feet up. 

“Hi everyone. I have some very important people I’d like for you to meet if you haven’t already. This is Sarah Alphonse, she has been instrumental in helping me with little man here.”

Ms. A. Smiles at everyone in the room and walks over to have a seat on one of the large couches in the room. 

  “And speaking of the little man, everyone this is my son, Kalen.”

Barry’s eyes got big and I was under the assumption that he hadn’t actually seen my son up close. Diana simply waved at the little boy.

He waved back clearly having remembered her from the plane ride. He took one look at Victor and to his credit he didn’t scream, he only moved behind my legs, peaking from behind them. 

  “Kalen this is Mr. Victor. He helps mommy when she needs to get the bad guys. He’s kinda like a transformer and a computer all in one.”

  “So he a robot?”

 “He’s A PERSON that just can do really awesome stuff with computers and looks really cool too. Mr. Victor is pretty darn awesome himself, Can you say to him for me?”

He comes behind my legs slightly and Victor leans forward but otherwise lets Kalen come to him. He reaches out slowly once Kalen is close enough and Kalen reaches up touches the metal of his hand. Victor makes a fist and they bump in a cool way and Kalen smiles at Victor. 

I could feel Victors relief to be able to interact with a small child and not have him run screaming. 

 “BooYah!” Victor says and my son picks up in that instantly

  “Boo ya! Boo ya!!”

We all laugh at his innocent excitement. I take note his eyes are no longer brown like mine but have reverted back to their natural blue.

 “So guys little bro was promised some ice cream, Alfred my man do you think we could find some for him?”

  “Of course Mr. Curry. Would young Mr. Smith and Ms. Alphonse like to accompany me to pick some out? Mr. Wayne likes to keep a few flavors in the house for his ‘cheat day’”

We all laughed at Alfred’s little reveal about the stoic man that he basically raised. 

 “Come on young man they might have some candy too!”

He cheers and takes off in a run behind her and Alfred.

  “Please Don't let him have too much sugar!”

I yell behind them, but I know it’s a moot point. 

That leaves the team to look at me.

 “So am I crazy or does that kid look like A mini, tan...”

I cut Barry off before he could finish his sentence with a raised hand.

 “He looks like the father that does not know about him Barry. It’s complicated and I’m scared as shit. Diana here has convinced me to come clean. I think this a terrible idea, but I will pull him aside whenever he and Bruce come back. If he doesn’t come back here, I’ll drive out to Smallville. I just want to ease this on him. It’s delicate...”

I am interrupted by a door opening to my left. 

  “Recon proved unsuccessful. I’ll start gathering surveillance.”

Bruce says as he comes into the room, removing his cowl and still frowning. He looks at me standing there and maybe he is even surprised I am up. He doesn’t let in linger however. 

 “Gia. It’s good to find you awake.”

 “Thank you for coming to save me Bruce.”

 “Glad I could be of service. Have they told you where your son is?”

“Yes he is raiding your cheat day ice cream as we speak.”

“Good. I assumed that it was best to keep him away while you healed and had a chance to explain.”

 “Everyone else has had a very brief explanation, one that they can explain to you. I am not fond of repeating myself. Where is Clark?”

I said really hoping Bruce wasn’t about to try and check me about not telling any of them about my dalliance with Clark. It really wasn’t any of their business. He seemed to have enough sense to back off of the subject anyway. 

  “He went to the room you were in to check on  you. I guess since you are here, he will be in, in about...”

At that moment Clark comes back in the room, still in full Superman Regalia. His eyes softened the moment they saw me.

  “Gia I was worried when I couldn’t find you in your room. Why are you up and moving already?”  He furrows his brows (a habit he had developed for his confusion) 

  “I am fine Clark.” 

He comes closer, his arms pulling me into a hug which I resisted. I could feel his disappointment at my lack of interaction. 

  “I don’t know about that. I literally just cauterized an internal bleed less than a few hours ago. I think you ought to come lay back down.”

He keeps one arm wrapped around me, a sort of one armed hug as he tried to usher me out the door. I pulled away.

  “I said I am fine Clark. I don’t want to sit down or lay down. We, however, should talk.”

I motioned between the two of us. 

  “I agree Gia. I need to change out of this but we should talk...without the eyes.”

He motions to the other members on the team, and smirks at me. Innocent enough that I almost tear up. This could be the last time I see this directed toward me, a sort of warm fondness envelops me. 

 “Let’s go back to my room.”

Clark laughs at how I begin to push him toward the door, he moves because he wants to, not because I can move him under any power of my own. 

 “Forever the pushy one now this is the Gia I remember.”

 “Omg just move it Kent.”

We were almost to the door leading to the hallway, when the doors on the opposite side of the room opened and Kalen came running at my legs, full speed, I picked him up despite the burn to my side. I forced a smile on my face while my heartbeat I knew Clark could hear went wild.

 “Momma! Momma! They had the bestest ice cream here! They have the Star Wars kind! I ate’d it and Mr. Alfred let me have some gummy bears too!”

I swung him around noting that the Sugar High he had was just getting started, and kissed his cheek, looking at only his face, because I knew shit was about to hit the fan as soon as I looked up. 

 “That is Good Baby. I told you that you would get your ice cream for being a good boy.”

It was then that Kalen finally looked beyond me and to the two new additions to the room. The excitement mixed with trepidation as they landed on the man closest to me. I finally looked up at Clark, and when I did. It was the first time he made eye contact with his son. The emotions felt like a punch in the gut.

Confusion and fear are the most prominent. The fear from Clark was new to me. He was never scared, I didn’t even feel fear from him when he flew that spear into the Zod-monster.

“Momma is that the man from the tv? Supa’man?”

He points to Clark who I have yet to see breathe. Clark is only staring at him, taking a few steps back from where the two of us stood.

The rest of the room follows the same suit as him, holding their breath as they await something to happen.

I push his hand down.

  “Baby, What did momma say about pointing at people?”

  “It not nice. I rude if I points. But momma that’s Supa’man!”

He starts bouncing in my arms excitedly. 

  “Sorry everyone. You guys know When Superman passed they did and still do a lot of specials about the people he has saved, plus on the kids shows they animated him, talked about him. They even did a whole special about his death and what it means. He became a big fan.”

I looked at my son whose eyes were lit up still their natural blue. He had the biggest smile on his face as he worked around trying to get down. Little did he know I was using him a life jacket. He was the only thing keeping me grounded. 

  “Ummm yeah baby that’s Superman, but you still can’t point at him.”

  “Can’ts I say hi? You put me down momma?”

I kiss his cheek, he wipes it off, not wanting to be seen getting a kiss from his mother in front of Superman.

 “Ummm I can but please be the polite young man I know you can be?”

I let him slide down and I watch as he takes the steps over to Clark, which were a lot calmer than I thought they would be. Clark wastes no time dropping to his knee in front of the little boy.

“Momma says you are Su’paman.”

Clark opens his mouth to speak and at first his voice is only a whisper, as clearly his is clogged. He was choked up and I couldn’t blame him.

“Your mother would be right. I am Superman. What is your name?”

 “My name is Kalen Jo-seph Smith! You have a cool cape Mr. Supa’man! It’s my favorite color!”

 “What color is that Kalen?” I offer trying to smooth the interaction.

 “Red!” I smile at his child's excitement.

 “Wow! I like that color too. How old are you Kalen?” Clark says

  “I’m 3 and a half years old!”

Clark doesn’t look at me, but I know he was confirming the timeline in his mind by Kalen’s age. I had my hand near my mouth already, the other arm wrapped around my torso, trying to disappear. I knew I couldn’t go invisible, not with my son in the room.

 “Wow you are such a big boy! Strong little man too I bet.” Clark says with a wide smile, though his emotions were still a mix of shock, fear, and worry.

 “Yeah man you should feel little dudes high five. Lil man is going to be catching trains just like you someday.”

Arthur says with a joke to soften the tension in the room and my Kalen feels even better. Something I was grateful for. It was short-lived because it triggered my son to inadvertently change his hairstyle to match the short- straight cut and black that Clark currently had. 

Clark jumped slightly along with everyone else in the room, with the exception of Ms. A.I ran over to my son, picking him up again to which he was okay with because he was startled by Clark’s sudden movement. I smiled at the room hoping to show that my child wasn’t dangerous to anyone as everyone’s anxiety and nervousness shot up ten fold.

  “I guess I owe a small explanation to you all. My little Kalen here is special. He can change small things about his appearance. His eye color, his hair. The hair can be kind of funny, one time I came in the room it was long and blue. I imagine it will be bigger things as he grows into his powers. It’s the reason I only have trusted him with Ms. Alphonse. He doesn’t do it knowingly yet, which means he can’t control it.”

  “He has been able to do this since birth?” Bruce asks

  “Not immediately after. They had enough time to note his hair was dark brown and his eyes blue. It honestly didn’t start until he was about 6 months and it was only his eyes. Funny thing was I thought I was going crazy from lack of sleep. I finally broke down one day while trying to get him to stop crying because he had colic and Ms. A came to my door. She helped me so much with him since then. After a good night's rest, I took note that my child’s eyes were no longer like...( I was about to say Clark’s but stopped myself) they weren’t blue but brown. I was staring him in the eyes when they changed back as he lit up upon seeing me. Kalen just has gifts.”

 “Well I guess we should expect nothing less from your child.” Victor offers with a smirk. 

We all watched his hair go back to normal and I looked to Ms. Alphonse who stepped forward then I looked at my baby.

 “Alright little man. It’s getting kind of late, I think someone should start getting ready for bed.”

 “But mommy I don’t wanna. Superman is here! What if I go to sleeps and he goes away?”

      “Umm...”

I start to say, still not sure if Clark will have anything to do with us, but Clark steps forward and holds out his arms to take Kalen, who excitedly reaches for him. My eyes prick as Clark truly holds his son for the first time and I feel the full feeling of completeness and love I felt pouring out of him. My son hugs him back, just happy be hugging Superman. Clark finally pulls back to swing him to his side, Kalen basically sitting on his forearm, with a huge smile on his face.

   “Momma I’m taller than you now!”

“Yep you are! Someday will be that tall without a Superhero holding you, but for now, you are a little mini that needs to get ready for bed.”

   “Can Mr. Superman come with me?”

He asks and Clark who hadn’t stopped looking at his son since he appeared finally looked me in my face, eager as to what I would say.

  “Ummm... how about you get ready for bed with Ms. Alphonse and if he doesn’t get called away to save the world Mr. Superman will come up and read you a story.”

   “Don’t worry Kalen the world will wait when it comes to you. I’ll come read you any story you want.”

Kalen almost squeals he’s so excited and Clark sits him down on the ground excitedly.

Alfred comes over to Ms. A.

  “Let me show you to some guest rooms on this side of the wing.” 

Clark stands back up after sitting Kalen back in his own two feet, we both watch him leave with Ms. A. Once the door closes, he just looks at me. 

 “Ummm...I think I left a tea kettle somewhere in Hong Kong. I better go.” Barry takes off and I feel like I am about to fall apart at the intensity at which Clark stares at me. 

 “ I have to go do...something. Gia remember what I told you.”

Diana offers before leaving the room, Bruce and Victor begins after her.

“Yeah it’s getting pretty damn intense in here. I need a drink.”

Arthur says and follows the rest of the team out.

As soon as the door closes I get the strength to look Clark in his eyes again...

A/n: CLARK KNOWS! Now I can get into the meat of the story!

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Tag list for this is open so just let me know if you want in!

TAGLIST

@bloodyinspiredfuck​ @romyr4​

[kprciffdw]

Kim Possible: The Extremely Secret Files-Part 16

Ratchet and the rest of the group made their way to and arrived at the Planet Boldan. They landed themselves in a large, silver colored metropolis and jumped out of the ship. Kim: "Let's go find Mr. Fizzwidget."

They rushed off as fast as they could. As they made their way to the entrance to the city, they got themselves involved in a fight with the Thugs-4-Less goons. Kim: "Oh, great! More of those boneheads! What could they want from us, this time?" Ratchet: "I'm guessing whoever bought them off also has an agenda with us." Kim: "Well, then, let's see to it that they don't get anything that they need from us."

As they continued further into the city, they fought through more Thugs-4-Less goons. There seemed to be more and more of them coming as they progressed into the city while searching for Mr. Fizzwidget, with no end in sight of the barrage. Many of the Thugs stood in their way, but they were able to manage them, except for Ron who always ran away screaming at the sight of them. Ratchet: "I'm guessing he'll want a special order of those Nacos he keeps asking for." Kim: "Grande size. Absolutely."

They kept on their way, with the path becoming tougher for each step. They were eventually able to find someone that appeared to be Mr. Fizzwidget. Kim: "Look! There he is." Ratchet: "Let's get him."

However, when they got close enough towards him, they found that it wasn't him, but a robotic duplicate. Ratchet: "What the…? This isn't Mr. Fizzwidget!" Fizzwidget bot: "Would you like a free Protopet sample? Available today only…" Ron: "Aw, man! It's just a cheap, broken-down knock off!" Ratchet: "You can say that again." Thug Leader: "Freeze, knuckleheads!" Clank: "Oh, no!" Kim: "What!? You again!?" Thug Leader: "You've got that right, missy redhead! Yous alls are under arrest for attempting to bump off Mr. Fizzwidget!" Ron: "You're kidding, right? This isn't…" Thug Leader: "Save it, blondie boy! You're not fooling anyone!" Kim: "Brainless as always." Thug Leader: "Good thing a loyal employee of Megacorp informs me of your scheme."

Stepping out from behind the Thug Leader was Dr. Drakken. He had an evil grin displayed on his face very vividly. Drakken: "Oh, quite right, my good man." Ratchet: "Drakken!" Ron: "You bought off these Thugs-4-Less guys from that thief girl?" Drakken: "That's right. Megacorp has given me special ties to their corporation so I have been doing some work on the side for them along with my…other obligations." Kim: "Don't think for a minute that you will succeed, Drakken! We're going to stop you!" Thug Leader: "Oh, I wouldn't count on that, missy redhead. All of yous will be sent to our new prison. Check this out."

He pulled out a monitor. Displayed on it was a preview of the new Thugs-4-Less prison and a few things that it provided. Thug Leader: "(laugh) So, what did you guys think of that?" Ron: "Well, that didn't seem so bad. In fact, it sounded really nice." Drakken: "Did I forget to mention that it's full of rabid monkeys and I will destroy Bueno Nacho if you and your friends try to escape?"

Within a split second, Ron went from calm to screaming and running all over the place. Ratchet: "Uh…well…this is awkward." Thug Leader: "You guys, take the girl over to the blue guy. These other 3 are going separate."

A few of the Thugs grabbed Kim and pulled her over to Drakken. Kim: "Ratchet!" Ratchet: "I'll find you, Kimberly. Just don't worry. I will…"

Shortly afterwards, they were flown to the Thugs-4-Less prison on the Planet Aranos. Ratchet was placed in a cell with Clank. Kim and Ron were nowhere to be found. Ratchet lied down on a mattress, then sat up as Clank made a lot of noises. Ratchet: "Hey, keep it down, will ya…!?" Clank: "Sorry, I did not mean to annoy you." Ratchet: "Uh! No, no, you weren't. I…I'm just worried about Kimberly. Who knows what horrible things Drakken could be doing to her right now?" Clank: "Yes, I understand your plight. Just to let you know, I have analyzed our surroundings and I am afraid that there is absolutely no means of escape."

Just then, a female bot broke right through a nearby air vent. Clank: "Except that."

She shushed them then slipped back out. Ratchet: "Someone's got a girlfriend. (giggle)" Clank: "I will be right back." Ratchet: "Don't, uh, stop for anything along the way."

Clank glanced at him in an annoyed manner then walked out.

He made his way through the secluded interiors of the facility. With the help of a few robot companions of his own, he was able to navigate through the small corridors. There were many obstacles in the way, including several guard bots, but it wasn't anything that he and his robot brigade couldn't handle.

He fought his way through chamber after chamber, corridor after corridor until he was able to find a switch and pressed it. Computer voice: "Power failure on decks 4 through 14." Clank: "Hopefully that should be help us out with our situation."

Meanwhile, back where Ratchet was, his cell was deactivated. Computer voice: "Emergency generators online." Ratchet: "Way to go, Clank! Now to find Kimberly."

He rushed out as fast as he possibly could. As he made his way through the corridors of the facility, he fought against many robot guards; a lot of which went berserk from the power failure caused by Clank. Everywhere he looked, robots came at him without hesitation, but he was able to manage and fight through all of them. He made his way to another deck on the prison ship.

Elsewhere, Clank continued through the small corridors of the ship. He was aided by more robot companions that followed his every command. There were a few tough obstacles that kept getting in his way, but he was able to handle them all, with the help of his robot companions, of course. Thankfully, the trek was brief so it didn't take him long to get through. He was eventually able to make his way towards the hanger bay. Clank: "Alright, now I just need to wait here for Ratchet. Hopefully, he is able to find Miss Possible and Ron."

Meanwhile, Ratchet arrived on another deck of the ship. There, he continued fighting his way through more robots, but this time, none of them were going berserk. Ratchet: "Hm, seems as though these robots haven't been affected by that power failure that Clank caused. Perhaps it's because this is one of the decks that didn't experience the power failure at all. I have to keep searching for Kimberly."

He kept rushing through the corridors. He was able to arrive in an area where he could hear voices. Kim: "You so won't get away with this, Drakken." Drakken: "Oh, but I will this time. With those Thug-4-Less goons at my command, my plans will be a sure-fire win and you will witness my greatest triumph." Kim: "Oh, please, those Thugs-4-Less idiots will not guarantee you anything other than a less than average dependency that is probably much less promising than their bonehead leader's IQ points." Ratchet: "Kimberly."

He rushed over towards where the voices were coming from. Drakken: "Well, regardless, my plans will succeed and the Impossible Space Station of the Future will ensure my victory!"

Ratchet managed to find Drakken and Shego in a small room with Kim, who was hooked up to a restraining machine. Kim: "Yeah, sure, I bet you're not even aware of what is contained within that space station you stole." Shego: "Oh, we already know that the ISSF consists partially of alien technology. I've had my suspicions considering that no ordinary Earth spacecraft could reach another galaxy within 2 hours or even at all, for that matter." Drakken: "There are many more secrets that I have yet to discover, but once I unlock them, everyone back on Earth will tremble before the awesome might of Dr. Drakken!" Kim: "Oh? And how do you suppose you'll be able to do that?"

While Kim was still talking to Drakken and Shego, Ratchet crept around nearby. Drakken: "Like I told you before, I have established a special connection with Megacorp. The CEO of the company is providing me with the resources and know-how to unlock the ISSF's secrets, in exchange for the services that I am willing to provide for him and his company." Ratchet: "So Mr. Fizzwidget is working with Dr. Drakken. Just when I thought that geezer couldn't get any worse." Drakken: "And that cat alien boyfriend of yours was far too clueless and naïve to even realize that Mr. Fizzwidget was merely using him to undo one minor set-back on his own schemes and then planned to dispose of him when he was no longer needed."

Ratchet growled angrily. Kim: "We already know that Mr. Fizzwidget is planning to intentionally set off a terrible disaster, but why would he want to do that?" Drakken: "Eh, I don't know, but I don't really care. What happens in this galaxy is none of my concerns. I only care about taking over the Earth."

At that moment, they heard a blast. They looked over towards the nearby door and noticed Ratchet who was greatly angry. Kim: "Ratchet!" Drakken: "What?! How did you get all the way here?!" Ratchet: "I walked! How else did I get here?" Drakken: "That's not what I meant, what I meant was…!" Shego: "He means to ask you how you got out of your cage, but that doesn't matter because I'm going to throw you back in one way or another." Ratchet: "You don't scare me one bit, Shego!"

Ratchet made an advance towards Kim, but Shego jumped in his way. Still greatly angered, he managed to fight her and tossed her directly into a switch that deactivated the shackles holding Kim, releasing her. Kim: "Ratchet!"

She ran towards him at great speed. Ratchet: "Kimberly!"

They embraced each other and had their moment as they reunited. Kim: "You came!" Ratchet: "I told you I would find you. I'm just hoping you didn't expect me here sooner."

She shook her head. Kim: "Forget that. I'm just glad you came at all."

Ratchet smiled. Soon enough, they both noticed Drakken and Shego rushing out. Ratchet: "They're getting away!" Kim: "Don't worry about them, we'll catch up to them later and we will, considering Drakken stole the container with the shuttle pieces we have managed to collect. For now, we just need to look for Ron." Ratchet: "But where could he be? We'll need to search this entire prison ship to find him." Ron: "AAAHHHH! MONKEYS!" Ratchet: "Or we could just follow the sounds of his screaming." Kim: "Yeah, I think that would be a lot more helpful."

They soon ran off.